Napoleon Bonaparte’s personal civil code sold 395,000 euros at auction

The volume of the civil code that belonged to Napoleon, who insisted to provide France with this set of laws uniforming the rules of life, was awarded 395,000 euros at auction Thursday in Paris, according to the Tajan house. This volume, estimated between 100,000 and 200,000 euros, returned to Frojal, the majority shareholder family of Lefebvre Dalloz, specializing in publishing, training, software and services for law professionals in particular. “This copy on large woven paper with the figure of the first consul is the only one in private hands. He has been since the fall of the Empire who has remained within the same family ”said Tajan in a press release.

These are the descendants of a faithful of Napoleon, Étienne Charvet, manager of the Château de Saint-Cloud, near Paris, where Napoleon left this copy when he had to go exile for the island of Elba in 1814. An autograph letter from his son Jean-Pierre Charvet, sold with volume, attests to authenticity.

Napoleon Bonaparte, when he took power in 1799, made the development of a single civil code one of his priorities. He appointed lawyers in 1800 to tackle the task. All of the laws it contains will be promulgated in March 1804. “What nothing will erase, what will live forever is my civil code”said Napoleon to one of his last companions, General Montholon, on the island of Sainte-Hélène in 1815, exiled after being defeated by a coalition led by the United Kingdom.