The sword was ordered in 1802 by France's Emperor Napoleon, who then kept it for the remainder of his reign.
In 1815 – the year of Napoleon's final defeat at the Battle of Waterloo – he gave it away to his close ally, Marquis Emmanuel de Grouchy. Since then, the de Grouchy family has had the sword in their possession.
Now it has gone under the hammer. The bidding in Paris was expected to end between 700,000 and one million euros, equivalent to between 7.6 and 11 million kronor, but the sword exceeded all expectations.
The new owner had to fork out a total of 4.66 million euros – almost 50.5 million Swedish kronor. It almost reaches the previous record for a Napoleon artifact: 4.8 million euros for a sword sold in 2007.
"It joins an extremely exclusive club of the most valuable Napoleon artifacts ever sold at auction," says the auction house Drouot after Thursday's sale.
Earlier this year, a handwritten letter from Napoleon was sold at auction. The letter, in which the emperor claims his innocence for the kidnapping of Pope Pius VII in 1809, went under the hammer for approximately 285,000 kronor.
