7 things you (probably) didn’t know about the Napoleonic Wars

 

1) The young Napoleon showed little promise

2) The royal navy attacked a city

3) All sides understood the ‘propaganda war

4) The best way to defeat Spain was to invade Argentina

5) Nobody expected the Spanish Inquisition to end

6) The showdown at Waterloo was delayed due to rain

7) Waterloo was not the final battle against France

Read all: historyextra

Napoleon's Catholic marriage certificate to be sold at auction

The certificate from Napoleon Bonaparte's secret religious wedding to Josephine in 1804, eight years after their civil marriage, will go under the hammer in March, the French auction house Osenat said Monday.

The document is signed and sealed by Cardinal Joseph Fesch, who presided over the clandestine wedding that took place at the behest of Pope Pius VII as a condition for his presence at Napoleon's coronation.

It is part of a collection being sold by Christopher Forbes, a US billionaire and francophile, that mainly comprises artefacts from the reign of Napoleon's nephew and heir, Napoleon III.
Read all: telegraph

Note boasts rare signatures of naNapoleon, Josephine

Full signatures from a pair of notorious lovebirds — Napoleon and Josephine — lend an otherwise routine 19th-century French marriage contract a rare prestige among other love notes on display at a high-end jewelry and antique showcase in Florida.

Just weeks after the French Senate declared him emperor, Napoleon and Josephine de Beauharnais were witnesses to the wedding of General Pierre-Augustin Hulin, who took part in the storming of the Bastille, sparking the French Revolution.

The document also is one of the first Napoleon signed with his full name, just as a monarch might today, instead of simply writing "Bonaparte" as he had before, Lowenherz said.
Read all: mysanantonio.