CHANTILLY, France: A newly discovered hat believed to have been worn by Napoleon Bonaparte during his exile on the island of Saint Helena is set to go on display outside Paris later this year, historians said on Thursday.
The black felt bicorne was presented to the media on Thursday and will be exhibited at the Chateau de Chantilly, north of Paris, later in the year.
Mathieu Deldicque, director of the Conde Museum, where the headdress will go on display, said the find was a “true miracle”, stressing that all of its parts were well preserved.
“This hat is a revelation,” he said. “We know every stage of its history, from Napoleon´s exile on Saint Helena right up to the present day.”
Jean Guillaume Parich of the Army Museum, who confirmed the beaver felt hat´s authenticity, said it was one of the four headpieces taken by the deposed emperor into his final exile on the island of Saint Helena in the Atlantic Ocean.
“There are even some rather moving, rather touching details -- namely, its silk lining shows clear signs of perspiration,” he said.
“One can really picture the emperor in his final years.”
In his will, written shortly before his death in 1821, Napoleon left several imperial keepsakes -- including two of his last hats -- to his son, the King of Rome.
But the gifts never reached Napoleon II, who died of a lung infection in 1832.
The imperial estate, brought back from Saint Helena, was awarded in 1836 to Napoleon´s sister Caroline Murat.
The hat eventually entered the Conde Museum collections in 1904.
But it was quickly placed in the storeroom and was for a long time “unknown to all specialists and enthusiasts of the Napoleonic era,” said Deldicque.
