Anglais Rendez-Nous Napoleon...Napoléon n'est pas aux Invalides (1969) By Jerome Martineau
 
On 5 May 1821, Napoleon passed away on St Helena. Inhumed on the island four days later, his body was to remain there until October 1840, when an official French mission arrived to return the emperor to France. His mortal remains landed in Paris on 15 December that year and were laid to rest in Les Invalides.
 
In 1969, a journalist who called himself Georges Rétif de la Bretonne (his real name was Rétif) published a book entitled Anglais ! rendez-nous Napoléon !. In it, he argued that between 1821 and 1840, British authorities had exhumed the emperor and replaced his body with that of his maître d'hôtel, Cipriani, who had himself died on St Helena in February 1818. Rétif went on to say that Napoleon's remains had been transferred to Westminster Abbey, where they are still to be found today, located under an (unsurprisingly) unmarked and unidentified tombstone. This theory was adopted by Bruno Roy-Henri in his book L'énigme de l'exhumé de 1840 (published in 2000), which - through skilful management of the press surrounding its release - was to have such an effect that there are still some today who doubt that it is the emperor's body that rests under the dome.
 
Written in French text. 
 
Inscribed on the front page by an unknown signatory.
 
A very rare account.
 
Hard Cover
276 pages
In Good Condition