Relics taken from Napoleon Bonaparte in his final days — including a lock of his hair and the sweat-stained shirt he died in — will go up for auction in France later this month.
The items — which also include the French emperor’s ivory cane, bandages and handkerchiefs and a bottle with dirt from his tomb — had been stored in a case in a small Corsican village and barely touched since Napoleon’s death in 1821 on the Atlantic island of St. Helena.
A 90-year-old haberdasher who inherited the relics from the family of Napoleon’s horseman gave them to Osenat auction house. They’ll go on the block March 23 in Fontainebleau.
Auctioneer Jean-Pierre Osenat told Reuters TV that DNA from the hair could solve a long-standing debate about Napoleon’s death.
“We can effectively know whether or not there was arsenic in the hair of the emperor at the moment of his death,” he said. “Personally, I am convinced he died from a natural death, a cancer of the stomach like his father, but I know there are people who think he was poisoned.”
