Napoleon vowed to blow up the Kremlin the day after he ordered his troops out of Moscow
A 200-year-old letter written by Napoleon Bonaparte in which he vows to blow up the Kremlin is due to be sold at auction later.
The letter dates from Napoleon’s ill-fated invasion of Russia in the early 19th century, and is written in code to his foreign minister in Paris.
The first line of the letter reads: “On the 22nd at 3am I will be blowing up the Kremlin”.
It is being sold alongside a deciphered transcript.
The sale is expected to generate significant interest, reports the BBC’s Christian Fraser in Paris.
The letter was written by Napoleon to his foreign minister Hugues-Bernard Maret in 1812, with the transcript written in Paris days later.
In it the French emperor reveals his frustration at the Russian campaign, with his army ravaged by disease, cold and hunger, and already in retreat from Moscow.
“My cavalry is in tatters, a lot of horses are dying. Make sure we buy more as soon as possible,” Napoleon also wrote.
Napoleon kept the promise to blow up the Moscow Kremlin, destroying the Kremlin’s walls and towers before retreating with his army, beginning a decline in his power that would lead to his abdication and exile just two years later.
Jean Christophe Chataignier, director of the Osenat auction house where the letters will go on sale, said the coded letter was “very rare” and was expected to fetch between 10,000 and 15,000 euros.
Napoleon Kremlin letter auctioned http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/64470000/jpg/_64470165_letter.jpg
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