Photo 1/1 du lot
Premium OSENAT

174 - GENNASI (GIULIO CESARE). Autograph letter signed, in French,…
See original version (French)

Estimate €500 - €600
Sale commission
Description
GENNASI (GIULIO CESARE). Autograph letter signed, in French, addressed to William Jerdan, editor of the London newspaper The Sun. Paris, 8 December 1815. 2 pp. in-4, address on spine; small corner missing. Count Giulio Cesare Ginnasi, who in 1814 had negotiated France's debt to the Roman States, was then papal commissioner in Paris to return to Rome the goods confiscated by the French between 1809 and 1812. Here he offers an article recounting the execution of Joachim Murat, based on an account given to him by a courier from the Neapolitan Cabinet who was visiting Paris and who had been present at Pizzo during the events: "Murat disembarked at noon on 8 October with thirty men. He was armed with a sabre and two pistols in his belt. When he arrived in the Piazza di Pizzo, he found the militia assembled and being reviewed. Then those who accompanied him began to shout "Long live Joachim". The people showed nothing but astonishment. Murat spotted a veteran named Trenta Capelli and called out to him, but the veteran did not respond. Someone from Murat's retinue ran after the veteran, telling him: "The king is calling you". "My king is in Naples", said the veteran, and immediately invited the people to seize Murat and his retinue. They were indeed pursued. Murat's men defended themselves, and Murat himself discharged his pistols several times; but finding himself in a hurry, he fled towards the coast, where, no longer finding the two boats which had brought him, he threw himself into a small fisherman's boat, until, seeing that he could not escape the multitude around him, he surrendered himself and his retinue. They tore off his epaulettes and took off his uniform. A woman of the people ... tore off one of his favourites, of which we know he was very fond. The militia seized him and rescued him from the fury of the people. They put him in the fort. News of this event reached Naples on the morning of the 10th, and that same evening a courier from the Cabinet was sent to General Nunziante. This courier arrived at Pizzo at noon on the 12th. On the 13th, at nine o'clock in the morning, the Council of War met, and the session ended at four o'clock with Murat's condemnation. They offered to send him a priest, with whom he spoke for an hour. He then left the prison, the door of which opened onto the small courtyard of the fort, and there he was shot by eight grenadiers, veterans of the division which had accompanied Ferdinand to Sicily. When the people heard the shooting, they shouted "Long live King Ferdinand! The body was then taken to the church and prayers were said for the dead...". ATTACHED: - The issue of the Journal des débats dated 17 September 1815, including information on Joachim's passage to Corsica (4 pp. folio). - The issue of the Journal des débats dated 16 November 1815, including a translation of a decree issued by Ferdinand IV of the Two Sicilies on the subject of Joachim Murat's landing: "[...the landing carried out by Joachim Murat with an armed force on the coast of later Calabria had no other purpose, as his operations and those of the men who followed him proved, than to incite our peoples to revolt against our royal authority, and to ignite civil war in our States ; considering that the people of the commune of Pizzo, in whose roadstead the landing was carried out, were not only able to resist the seduction, the audacity, the threats and the weapons used in this unforeseen incursion, but that moreover, animated by that inviolable fidelity which we expect, in similar circumstances, from all our faithful and loyal subjects, and full of a generous zeal against the disrupter of public peace, they promptly arrested and imprisoned Joachim Murat and his accomplices [....]" (4 pp. folio).
See original version (French)
Auto-translation. Refer to original language for legal validity.
About the sale The Empire at Fontainebleau - Second day
Auction location
Auction time 06/21/2026 at 10:30 AM
Pictures credits:
Michel Bury and Henri du Cray
See original version (French)
You may also like