Paris (AFP)

Two collectors, a French and a European, have expressed interest in the manuscript dictated and annotated by Napoleon relating the battle of Austerlitz (1805), but the negotiations have not yet been concluded and no museum has come forward. we learned Monday from the Arts and Autographs gallery.

74 densely written pages long, this unique notebook, dictated by Napoleon in exile in Saint Helena to General Henri-Gatien Bertrand, is on sale at a fixed price of one million euros.

This is not an auction.

The object was on display during the five days of the BRAFA art and antiques fair at the Parisian gallery Arts et autographes.

During the weekend, a hundred people discovered the Napoleonic manuscript in the Parisian gallery.

The website of the fair (brafa.art) which offers it in digital form, was consulted late Monday morning by some 1,100 visitors.

"The museums have absolutely not come forward: either because they are closed, or for lack of financial means, or because their appreciation is still 30 years behind on the market", told AFP the gallery owner Jean -Emmanuel Raux, judging that this manuscript "covers all European history".

It is corrected eleven times by Napoleon, who crosses out words or inscribes his remarks in tiny writing in the margins, and is accompanied by a plan of the battle on tracing paper.

If there are many writings on Austerlitz, the greatest victory of the emperor, December 2, 1805, this text is very detailed and precise and shows a Napoleon extremely concerned about his posterity.

The coalition of Francis I of Austria and Tsar Alexander I, funded by England, dissolved after the failure of Austerlitz.

© 2021 AFP