Napoleon's iconic bicorne hat and personal treasures expected to fetch millions in Paris
After Hollywood's Napoleon exposed the legendary emperor to a new generation, more than 100 relics – which shaped empires, broke hearts and spawned centuries of fascination – are on display in Paris ahead of what experts call one of the most important Napoleonic auctions ever staged.
His battered military hat. A sleeve from his red velvet coat. Even the divorce papers that ended one of history's most tormented romances – with Josephine, the empress who haunted him to the end.
Two centuries after his downfall, Napoleon remains both revered and controversial in France – but above all, unavoidable. Polls have shown that many admire his vision and achievements, while others condemn his wars and authoritarian rule. Nearly all agree his legacy still shapes the nation.
'These are not just museum pieces. They're fragments of a life that changed history,' said Louis-Xavier Joseph, Sotheby's head of European furniture, who helped assemble the trove. 'You can literally hold a piece of Napoleon's world in your hand.'
The auction – aiming to make in excess of €7-million (roughly $11-million) – is a biography in objects. The centrepiece is Napoleon's iconic bicorne hat, the black felt chapeau he wore in battle – with wings parallel to his shoulders – so soldiers and enemies could spot him instantly through the gunpowder haze.
'Put a bicorne on a table, and people think of Napoleon immediately,' Mr. Joseph said. 'It's like the laurel crown of Julius Caesar.'
The hat is estimated to sell for more than half a million dollars.
For all the pageantry – throne, swords, the Grand Eagle of the Legion of Honor – the auction's true power comes from its intimacy. It includes the handwritten codicil of Napoleon's final will, composed in paranoia and illness on St. Helena.
There is the heartbreakingly personal: the red portfolio that once contained his divorce decree from Josephine, the religious marriage certificate that formalized their love and a dressing table designed for the empress. Her famed mirror reflects the ambition and tragedy of their alliance.
'Napoleon was a great lover; his letters that he wrote are full of fervour, of love, of passion,' Mr. Joseph said. 'It was also a man who paid attention to his image. Maybe one of the first to be so careful of his image, both public and private.'
The auction's timing is cinematic. The 2023 biopic grossed more than US$220-million worldwide and reanimated Napoleon's myth for a TikTok generation hungry for stories of ambition, downfall and doomed romance.
The auction preview is open to the public, running through June 24, with the auction set for June 25.
Not far from the Arc de Triomphe monument dedicated to the general's victories, Djamal Oussedik, 22, shrugged: 'Everyone grows up with Napoleon, for better or worse. Some people admire him, others blame him for everything. But to see his hat and his bed, you remember he was a real man, not just a legend.'
'You can't escape him, even if you wanted to. He's part of being French,' said teacher Laure Mallet, 51.
The exhibition is a spectacle crafted by celebrity designer Jean-Charles de Castelbajac, famed for dressing Lady Gaga and Pope John Paul II.
'I wanted to electrify history,' Mr. Castelbajac said. 'This isn't a mausoleum, it's a pop-culture installation. Today's collectors buy a Napoleon artifact the way they'd buy a guitar from Jimi Hendrix. They want a cabinet of curiosities.'
He's filled the show with fog, hypnotic music and immersive rooms. One is inspired by the camouflage colours of Fontainebleau. Another is anchored by Napoleon's legendary folding bed. 'I create the fog in the entrance of the Sotheby's building because the elements of nature were an accomplice to Napoleon's strategy,' the designer said.
Mr. Castelbajac, who said his ancestor fought in Napoleon's Russian campaign, brought a personal touch. 'I covered the emperor's bed in original canvas. You can feel he was just alone, facing all he had built. There's a ghostly presence.'
He even created something Napoleon only dreamed of. 'Napoleon always wanted a green flag instead of the blue, white, red Tricolour of the revolution,' he said, smiling. 'He never got one. So I made it for Sotheby's.'
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Catherine and Fausto early years Catherine's mother, Mary Lee (left), was very encouraging of Catherine and Fausto's relationship. (Courtesy Catherine Tondelli via CNN Newsource) A tour of Rome at night Like Catherine, Fausto Mezzana wasn't sure if he'd ever find love, back in 1999. He was 45. He'd had a few relationships, but none had lasted long. He enjoyed his airline job and moonlighting as an actor working in television commercials. But he wanted someone to share his life with. 'I said, 'My God, I think in my life something must change, because I can't continue like that,'' he tells CNN Travel today. When he met Catherine at the fountain, Fausto felt like she was a 'present from the sky.' He liked her mother, too. 'He was so sweet to her,' says Catherine. 'They were both airline people. So airline people sort of find each other. They always have this common bond.' Looking back, Fausto jokes it's the 'best strategy to attack the mother to conquer the daughter.' 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Maybe he's a fountain hanger. Maybe just hangs around fountains picking up women,'' recalls Catherine. Her mother dismissed this suggestion. 'She goes, 'Oh, no, honey, I can tell. Mothers can tell.' She was convinced that he was this great guy,' recalls Catherine. So Catherine and her mother reunited with Fausto at the Piazza Navona later that night. 'When they arrived, I was in a big Audi,' Fausto says. 'They were both surprised. The mother said, 'Oh my God, a four-door car.' So maybe she was thinking I'd arrive like Gregory Peck, you remember, with a little motorbike …' Despite her initial disappointment at the lack of 'Roman Holiday' vibes, Catherine's mother was glad to see the car — they'd been walking around all day. She happily got inside. Catherine and Fausto Catherine and Fausto enjoy looking back on their fateful meeting. (Courtesy Catherine Tondelli via CNN Newsource) Catherine was still more hesitant. But her nerves soon dissipated as Fausto drove around Rome, pointing out everything from the Coliseum — illuminated under that blue moon — to his favorite jazz bar. She was charmed by the attention Fausto showed Mary Lee. And found herself fascinated by his stories of his life in Rome. 'Thank God I listened to my mother,' Catherine says today. 'He took us on this whole trip and showed us everything.' Later, when Catherine's mother retreated to the hotel to sleep, Catherine and Fausto stayed out for several more hours. They bar hopped, talking and laughing into the next morning. Already, 'something had happened so fast,' as Fausto puts it. Catherine felt the same way, especially when Fausto took her to his house and played his piano. 'Oh my God, it was so beautiful,' says Catherine. 'I'm a musician too. I play trumpet. So it was like, 'Oh my God. We both love music. We both love the arts. We both love the culture.'' 'It was a very magic night,' says Fausto. 'We just had so much fun,' adds Catherine. 'I didn't want the night to end … It was a night you remember forever.' The next day, Fausto invited Catherine and her mother out for dinner. Catherine enthusiastically agreed, but her mother declined, with a knowing glance between Catherine and Fausto. 'She said, 'I can see that you have a connection with each other, and I really would love to give you guys the night together to get to know each other better,'' recalls Catherine. When Catherine protested — sure, she wanted time with Fausto, but she also wanted to spend the vacation time with her mother — her mom feigned tiredness. 'She was completely lying,' says Fausto today, laughing. But Catherine and Fausto were grateful for more time together. That evening they stayed up late again, talked about their past relationships, their passions, their family, their hopes for the future. And then, when it came time for Catherine to travel home to the U.S. the next day, she gave Fausto her business card. 'I knew that I wanted to be in touch with him. I knew that I was going to be more than this, and I wanted it to be,' she says. 'We kissed under the hotel window.' A surprise plane ticket Catherine reluctantly returned to California, hopeful she'd hear from Fausto but unsure what the future held. 'The whole flight back home I was very sad and didn't talk much to my mom,' she recalls. But she'd barely been back in the U.S. a few days when Fausto got in touch. 'He sent me a ticket and asked me to come back for four days — to see if our chance encounter was real or if it was just that I was on holiday,' recalls Catherine. 'He told me he had never felt this way before and wanted to know if I felt the same.' Catherine had to negotiate extra vacation time with her boss. She was honest with her manager: 'If I don't go,' she said, 'I'll always regret it.' He reluctantly agreed to four days off, warning Catherine any more vacation and she'd lose the job. 'So I went, I took the risk, and it was great. It was four beautiful days,' says Catherine. Over those extra days in Italy, Catherine and Fausto became more and more sure they wanted to be together. 'I finally found somebody that I was really attracted to — not just physically, but also mentally. And for me, someone who can make me laugh is so important, and he was really entertaining and charming,' says Catherine. Though, there was a catch: 'I'm like, 'Finally, I meet someone I really, really want to be with and he lives, you know, 14 hours away on a plane,'' says Catherine, laughing. But Catherine was determined to 'fight for this one,' as she puts it, and Fausto was too. The two committed to a long-distance, cross-continental relationship. 'Every month commuting from Rome to California. California to Rome, Rome, California…' recalls Fausto. This mammoth journey was made a little easier by Fausto's job offering complimentary airline tickets. 'Thank God, that helped us keep the relationship going,' says Catherine. Nevertheless, 'the first year was very hard,' says Fausto. He really struggled with the regular farewells. In the end, they stopped using the word 'goodbye.' Catherine and Fausto first meeting Catherine's mother took this photo of Catherine and Fausto on the night they met in 1999, in front of the Trevi Fountain in Rome. (Courtesy Catherine Tondelli via CNN Newsource) 'I would say, 'I'll go left,'' he recalls. 'She said, 'I go right.'' Then, after about a year of long distance, Catherine found herself at a work conference. She was speaking to a guy in her industry, who mentioned he was looking for a marketing executive willing to relocate to London. Catherine's ears perked up — the U.K. was one step closer to Italy. But it also wasn't as intense as moving to Rome. She put herself forward for the London role. 'I was not lucky in love — lucky in my job, but not in love. And I didn't want to make another mistake,' says Catherine today. 'So I said, 'I really want to take this one slower, and I'm going to move to London … Every weekend, we will be together.'' 'You're thinking about moving for this man you met at a fountain?' While Catherine thought moving to the U.K. over Italy was the pragmatic choice, her California friends and loved ones still raised an eyebrow at the decision. 'My girlfriends were like, 'You are crazy. What are you doing? You're thinking about moving for this man you met at a fountain, throwing your coins?'' she recalls. Catherine's twin sister was especially dubious. She'd never met Fausto, and wasn't sure what to make of him. 'She was mad at him,' says Catherine. 'She's like, 'You can't take my twin away from me.' Because twins are sort of like one unit. And so when he came in, it was very hard for her. It took her a long time to really start to love him and get to know him, and she finally did, but I had a lot of resistance from a lot of people.' The night before Catherine was due to leave California, she woke up in a sweat, these voices of resistance reverberating around her head. 'It's a major step in your life,' she says today. 'You're leaving your family, you're leaving your career, you're leaving your country that you've lived in … It wasn't just moving to another state, it was moving to another country.' But Catherine's mother Mary Lee encouraged the move — even as she feared the distance. She'd seen how Fausto made her daughter light up. How the two of them worked as a team. She knew leaving California was the right step for Catherine. Catherine moved to London on August 10, 2000. Compared to the trek across the Atlantic, Catherine and Fausto found navigating the distance between London and Rome easy. Due to differences in pet quarantine laws in the U.K. and Italy, Catherine's beloved cats settled in Rome with Fausto. Every other weekend, she'd visit Rome to see Fausto — and the cats. 'He started feeding them prosciutto and mortadella, and of course, he fell in love with them,' Catherine says. As the couple became more and more committed, Catherine and Fausto started talking through what their future could look like. Catherine had always wanted children and Fausto also loved the idea of being a father. 'But, by the time we met, I was almost 40, so then we tried … but at that point, as a woman, you have this clock,' says Catherine. Catherine says the couple's view on kids became: 'If we have them, great. If we don't, it's okay too. We have a great life.' A new chapter in Rome One evening, while visiting Catherine in London, Fausto broached the idea of Catherine moving to Rome, permanently. 'He said 'I would like to spend the rest of my life with you,'' recalls Catherine. ''You are a lioness and I am a lion … we need to be together. Neither one of us could be with a sheep.' He said, 'I love that you are a lion. I have been waiting for my lioness my whole life.'' Catherine was touched. And she felt seen. 'I loved that because I always seemed to be with men that were intimidated of me or my career and he fully embraced my independence, strength, career, etc.,' she reflects. And in another twist of fate, that same weekend, Catherine saw a listing for a hotel company in Rome looking for a marketing director. 'I went to Rome the next week and interviewed and got the job,' she says. In fall 2002, Catherine moved to Rome. She and Fausto bought a house together. It was an exciting step, but adapting to life in Italy was also a 'long learning curve' for Catherine, who by then had spent a lot of time in Rome, but had still to master the Italian language. Catherine and Fausto adopted a system: they'd spend one month speaking to one another exclusively in Italian and then one month in English, switching it up each month. This method seemed to work. Soon, Catherine became more confident speaking Italian. Adjusting to Italian life was also made easier by Fausto's family and friends embracing her with open arms. 'It was a warm welcome that I had here, a beautiful welcome,' says Catherine. 'It would have been much more difficult had they not been so accepting of me.' If language was Catherine's biggest struggle when she moved to Rome, for Fausto, living with a romantic partner for the first time was his biggest adjustment. On top of cohabitation being a new experience for Fausto, his relationship with Catherine was the 'merge of two different cultures, two different traditions, two different feelings,' as he puts it. Their differences led to occasional clashes. But the foundation of love never wavered. The relationship grew stronger as they settled into Roman life. In September 2004, Catherine and Fausto decided to get married in Vitorchiano, which Catherine describes as a 'breathtaking medieval town' in Viterbo, central Italy. 'We took over the entire place — a 14th-century church for the ceremony, and the reception in a former convent that had been converted into a hotel,' she recalls. Catherine's family — including her twin sister and beloved mother — all gathered in Vitorchiano for the ceremony. Catherine loved having them all there to celebrate with her. As for Fausto, he always loved spending time with Catherine's family, especially her mother Mary Lee. Their early bond over their love of aviation in front of the Trevi Fountain blossomed into a great relationship. Mary Lee often visited Italy, and Catherine and Fausto made regular trips to California. 'Sometimes wishes come true' Today, over 25 years since Catherine and Fausto crossed paths at the Trevi Fountain, they still live together in Rome. The couple never had children. 'I wish we could have, but it didn't happen in the end,' says Catherine. Fausto reflects that had he and Catherine met earlier, they may have had kids. But he also thinks their relationship thrived because they met a little later in life, when they knew exactly what they wanted. 'Sometimes there is the destiny to life,' he says. 'If this story happened when we were 25, 30 years old, I think we wouldn't be here now.' Catherine and Fausto Tondelli Today, Catherine and Fausto are happily married and still living in Italy. (Courtesy Catherine Tondelli via CNN Newsource) 'Maybe not,' agrees Catherine. 'I think we had to get to a point where we really knew what we wanted.' Both Catherine and Fausto remain passionate about work, and encourage each other in their professional pursuits. Catherine has her own meeting and event agency and serves as the president of the Professional Women's Association in Rome, while Fausto works as an actor and musician. The couple are primarily based in the Italian capital, but they've also been busy renovating a home in green, hilly Umbria over the past few years. 'It is finally finished,' says Catherine. 'We love our home, just outside of Orvieto.' Fausto still plays piano and Catherine still plays the trumpet. They enjoy playing together — usually for fun, just the two of them, but occasionally for an audience. 'We open up our house in Umbria for summer concerts where the village bring their chairs and sit in our backyard to hear our music,' says Catherine. 'We project images of the songs on our house, so it's kind of like 'Cinema Paradiso' but with our own music and film.' In between work and concerts, the couple can also be found biking together, cooking, playing tennis, working on house projects and doting on their cats. These shared interests are a big part of their relationship, says Catherine, but what's even more important is their shared value system. 'We generally have similar morals, and make each other laugh,' she says. 'We respect each other, we give each other independence, he is good to my family, I am to his.' Fausto and Catherine always enjoy recalling Catherine's fateful 1999 trip to Italy and the moment the couple met for the first time, after Catherine threw the coins in the Trevi Fountain. 'I can remember every detail about that night,' says Catherine. 'I look back … and I still get excited. The first night being with him. Even today, 25 years later, I go, 'Wow.' It brings up a lot of emotion for me, and happiness. I never looked back.' As for Fausto, he remembers the night just as vividly, especially the moment he first saw Catherine and thought she was 'a present from the sky.' 'It's a moment that remains in my mind like yesterday,' he says. On that first night, Mary Lee took a photo of Catherine and Fausto in front of the Trevi Fountain. They'd only just met. But Mary Lee had a feeling this was going to be a moment they'd want captured for posterity. She was right. And almost every year since, on the anniversary of their meeting, Catherine and Fausto have returned to the fountain and recreated the picture, arm in arm in front of the stone statues. 'I would never in a million years think one day I would be marrying the man I met at a fountain and moving to Rome and living here. But it happened,' says Catherine. 'Sometimes wishes come true.' By Francesca Street, CNN
