102. TESTAMENT OF NAPOLEON. - BERTRAND (Henri-Gatien),... Lot 102

102. TESTAMENT OF NAPOLEON. - BERTRAND (Henri-Gatien), Charles-Tristan de MONTHOLON and Louis MARCHAND. Jointly signed document, with autograph apostilles (for each, "approved writing"), at the bottom of the front of the 3rd sheet, also bearing their joint initials at the bottom of the front of the first 2 sheets, as executors of Napoleon I's will. Copy under private signature. Paris, March 9, 1822. 5 pp. in-folio on 2 bifolios stapled THE MOST IMPORTANT SUCCESSORAL DOCUMENT, AFTER THE TESTAMENT OF NAPOLEON HIMSELF, LAYING THE BASIS FOR ALL FUTURE NEGOTIATIONS. A long conflict arose between Jacques Laffitte and the three executors of the will as soon as the latter returned to France, concerning the payment of the estate as it had been fixed by Napoleon I in his testamentary texts of 1821. The legacies that could be honoured with the emperor's fortune handed over to the bank Perregaux, Laffitte et Compagnie in June 1815, were however considerably reduced by a last agreement signed in 1826, and only partially paid out by Jacques Laffitte. It was not until the Second Empire that, by decision of Napoleon III, all the bequests were discharged - the liquidation of the estate, using public funds, was then completed in 1859. « ... In the month of June 1815, the firm of Perrégaux, Laffitte et compagnie received or was charged with receiving various sums belonging to Napoleon, for which it provided him with two separate acknowledgements, each in duplicate. By one, it acknowledged an effective payment of three million four hundred thousand francs, to which was to be added that of two other sums of one million eighty thousand francs, to be made by various, total, four million four hundred and eighty thousand francs, on which it declared to hold immediately at the disposal of Napoleon the three million four hundred thousand francs actually paid, and, as the receipts of them were made, the complement of one million eighty thousand francs. By the other, she acknowledged an actual payment of eight hundred and twenty thousand francs, which she likewise declared to have at her disposal. To these two acknowledgments was attached, under the date of the twenty-seventh of June, eighteen hundred and fifteen, a letter of credit on six banking houses of New York, Boston, Baltimore, and Philadelphia, authorizing these banking houses to make, on his exhibition, to Napoleon, and against his receipts, the payments which he would require, and to reimburse themselves for two or three months' sight by bills of exchange on Paris, London, and Amsterdam, according as they might find it convenient and advantageous. These two sums of one million eighty thousand francs, to be paid by various parties, under the terms of one of the acknowledgements, did not arrive in the hands of Perrégaux, Laffitte and Company, so that the receipts were limited to four million two hundred and twenty thousand francs, out of which various payments were made by them. Napoleon died on the island of St. Helena on the fifth of May, one thousand eight hundred and twenty-one...". The agreement then presents the reasoned request of the executors, the argued refusal of the banker Laffitte to comply with it, and then, in five articles, it recognizes a common base on which all agree, mentioning moreover the procedure in progress before the court of first instance.