Napoleon I | Letter signed, on the perfidy of Austria, to Cambacérès, Arch-Chancellor of the Empire, 1813

Napoleon I

Letter signed ("Nap"), to Jean-Jacques-Régis de Cambacérès, Arch-Chancellor of the Empire ("Mon Cousin"),

a furious outburst against the perfidy of Austria on the eve of the expiration of the armistice of Plaeschwitz ("...J'espere faire repentir l'Autriche de ses folles prétentions et de son infâme trahison; mais dans tous les cas il ne peut rien arriver de pire que ce qu'elle proposoit..."), 1 page, 4to, integral blank, Dresden, 9 August 1813, with a 19th century note ("743")

NAPOLEON EXPRESSES HIS FURY AT A MAJOR TURNING POINT IN HIS FORTUNES. The Armistice of Pleischwitz of 2 June 1813 had ended the spring campaign in which Napoleon had faced Russian and Prussian forces. Unfortunately for Napoleon the truce gave his enemies to the east time to regroup, saw a major defeat for his forces at the Battle of Vitoria in Spain, and culminated with the Austrian decision to join the Alliance against Napoleon. The previous weeks had seen frenzied diplomatic activities by the French to maintain Austrian neutrality, mediated by Napoleon's empress Marie Louise, who was the daughter of the Austrian emperor, but as the period of the armistice came to an end it was clear that these efforts had failed. The War of the Sixth Coalition which followed saw the end of Napoleonic power in Germany and culminated in the Emperor's abdication the following year.

PROVENANCE

Sotheby's, London, 16 May 1978, lot 307