Whitchurch: Antiques dealer finds Napoleon Bonaparte papers

Gregory Ebbs, owner of Raven Yard Antiques, Art and Militaria, was taken aback when a sedan he brought at auction contained a bundle of correspondence from two of Napoleon Bonaparte’s generals covering almost a decade.

"I have genuinely no idea how this arrived in the chair, it’s a bit of a surprise," said Mr Ebbs.

"The auction which sold the chair didn’t open the door.

The letters cover a decade of correspondence of high ranking officials in Napoleon Bonaparte's administration (Image: Gregory Ebbs)

"It was quite obvious when you looked in there was all these scrumpled balls of paper.

"You pick it and unravelled it and it was from 200 years ago.

"I was expecting receipts of some kind, I wasn’t expecting pieces of parchment from Napoleon Bonaparte’s time."

The correspondence includes notes from Minister Jean François Aimé Dejean and General Louis-Joseph Elisabeth Cazals.

The Sedan Chair where the letter were found (Image: Gregory Ebbs)

"They were Napoleon’s engineers for the administration of war during the Napoleonic wars," said Mr Ebbs.

"They are talking about a broad range of subject such as military accommodation, one of them is from the ministry of the interior which is taking about the lumber trade on French.

"There is a multitude of documents – one is from 1798, another is dated 1808."

Mr Ebbs admits he has no idea and could only give an educated guess as to how they came to be there.

"I think the previous owner has died, someone has inherited this chair," he said.

"Then when it has been reupholstered they probably found the documents and popped them under the seat, that’s my only guess.

"Oddly this has actually given me a better date with the sedan chair.

"One of the documents has a seal on it which is the Dutch coat of arms.

"I can only conclude that this document was taken from the Dutch when the French had occupied them during the Napoleonic wars."