A piece of French history was acquired by Paris’s Musée des Lettres et Manuscrits this weekend. On Sunday, 21 September, the museum bought Napoleon Bonaparte and Josephine Beauharnais’s marriage contract for €437,500 at auction, including buyer’s premium. The sale was held by Osenat, the Fontainebleau-based specialist in Napoleonic memorabilia, in the grounds of the Chateau de Malmaison, Josephine’s favourite retreat a few miles west of Paris.

Dated 9 March 1796, the four-page document was signed by the couple the day before their nuptials.