NAPOLEON'S FORTUNE.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 1776, 25 February 1888, Page 3

NAPOLEON'S FORTUNE.

Ono of th« aiv.a'o remarkable histo - io*l tneidantes of Wiia cmtury was the disappearance of tho First Nap iloon'a enormous fortune. In 1810 he vma fa 1 ' r.u>l avsy the tiolii-Bfc individual m tho worlO. He came out of tho Italian campaign endod Id 1800 worth 4,000,000d01, according to hie own aiuouut. This ho maintained was his. own privato property. Taking the statements ho mi do to hia friendi and othors at St Helen», ho must have hidden away when he kfs France the last time the enormous snin of 40 000 ; 000dol or 200,000,000 franco! This would make him very much the wealthiest man m the world, for thut Burn than was equal m influence to 200,000,00030 l now. No

[sovereign of his time could approach him m personal fortune. Maahall Sonlt, the last of the Imperial Marshals (if ho died m November, 1851, just about a year before his great antagoniut, the Dnke of Wellington), told a venerable French nflioor, who repeated it to the writer, th»t when the Emperor wont to Klba ho had 60, '0,C30 franca covered up m Paris alone. Of the 12,00D,000d0l hard oaah paid ovor at one timo by tbo United States to Napsloon aa First Cbneul In 1803, It was common rumor — not vory eenernl, you may be sure, however — that 7,500,000 francß of the sum was never accounted for m vouchers. This might easily have beeu. Napoleon was then Firßt Consul for life. He could do just what ho chose, and nobody dared call him to account. It is not very difficult to hide money m large sums, too, so it cannot bo found, be tho search sver ao careful. Ferdinand Ward haß some millions thus covered up, and no human being has over yet found a cluo to ihe stolen treasure. It was said and believed by many people, too, that Stephen Girara, of Philadelphia, had a large sum m his hands belonging to Napoleon 1., which he would have handed over to him had he (succeeded ia getting .away to the United States after Waterloo, as he tried to do Louis XVIII., through hia Minister of Finance, did all. m his power to discover this hidden treasure, but thoae who know would never tell. Thuy probably took it thomselvos^ when tho Emperor died m 1831. But it is a very interesting and romantic story, the disappearance absolutely of the greatest fortune m the world's history »p to that timo, leaviug not a trace behind. — • Washington Herald."