Historically Important and Highly Significant Diamond Brooch/Pendant 歷史性及非常重要 鑽石 胸針/吊墜

Emperor Napoleon I (1769-1821)

King Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia (1770-1840), presented by Lieutenant von Pless

Hohenzollern Family Jewels

Private Collection

Dr. Tatiana Rosenstein, Adornment and Empire: Diamond Brooch and Green Beryl in Napoleonic and Hohenzollern Context – Objects from private ownership, 2025, pp. 38-41 for the booty at Waterloo, pp. 46-48 for Hohenzollern ownership, pp. 73-76 for the jewels Napoleon received from Joseph Bonaparte and Pauline Borghese, pp. 80-81 for the litigation of Major von Keller.

Dr. Paul Seidel, Die Insignien und Juwelen der preussischen Krone in Brandenburg-Preussens Geschichte, Kultur und Kunst in Einzeldarstellungen und Meisterbildern - Hohenzollern Jahrbuch, Berlin – Leipzig, 1913, (pp. 5-69), pp. 49-50 for the hat ornament and plate 12 for the jewels associated with teh Napoleonic loot. 

Two Historically Significant Napoleonic Jewels from the Hohenzollern Treasury

The historical and important diamond brooch/pendant and unmounted green beryl were heirlooms of the Prussian Royal House of Hohenzollern for over two centuries, both having a connection to Emperor Napoleon I. The former can conclusively be identified as a hat ornament left behind by Napoleon in his carriage when retreating from the battlefield at Waterloo. The beryl would have been worn by Napoleon at his coronation in 1804 according to tradition. Both jewels possess an extraordinary historical significance through their provenance of the illustrious House of Hohenzollern.

Napoleon’s Hat Ornament and the Booty of Waterloo

There are several records of the belongings left behind by Emperor Napoleon I following the Battle of Waterloo when he fled in haste from the combined forces of the British army led by the Duke of Wellington and the Prussian army led by Field Marshal von Blücher. As the French retreated, their carriages got held up on the muddy roads near the village of Genappe. During the retreat, the Prussian army captured and seized at least two carriages carrying the personal belongings of the Emperor including medals, weapons, silverware, a hat and a jewellery box containing 22 solitaires and 121 small diamonds. In fact, Napoleon is recorded as having travelled to Waterloo with diamond jewels given to him by his brother Joseph, the former King of Spain, the night before his departure from Paris. Moreover, Napoleon also travelled with a diamond necklace valued at 300,000 Francs given to him by his sister Pauline, Princess Borghese, when he was first exiled to Elba. In his hour of need, Pauline proved to be his most loyal sibling giving her brother this valuable necklace as a sign of her unwavering support.

Field Marshal von Blücher recorded that he sent Napoleon’s captured hat and sword to the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm III because of their symbolic value. As it was custom the jewels and valuable were considered as booty for the troops. In the days after Waterloo, confusion arose regarding the status of these abandoned goods and several Prussian officers took diamonds and valuables as loot which they considered their personal property. One of the abandoned carriages was later seized by Major von Keller and transferred to London to be exhibited. Furthermore, von Keller also sold some of the diamonds in the British capital.

Lieutenant von Pless, another of the men participating in the looting, presented the King of Prussia with this diamond jewel in Hanau on 21 June 1815, only three days after the battle of Waterloo. Von Pless explained his gift to the King as follows: ‘I herewith humbly present, in the name of the 15^th Regiment and particularly the Fusilier Battalion under my command, a brilliant ornament that we captured in pursuit during the glorious battle. This ornament is so rare that it should rightfully belong only to the Crown of Prussia and our revered King.’

In 1819, the Brothers Jourdan, the Royal Prussian court jewellers, described the jewels given to King Friedrich Wilhelm III from the looting at Waterloo as ‘a hat ornament consisting of a button set with a large solitaire within a surround’. Two further items were also listed, namely ‘twenty solitaires mounted in collets’ and ‘a bow set at the centre with a large solitaire’. The latter corresponds to another recorded looted jewel which Major von Keller had given to the Prussian King. At the time Major von Keller was in litigation with the army concerning the ownership of his loot at Waterloo and wished to be compensated for the items he felt he was forced to present to the Prussian Crown. The hat ornament, alternately referred to as brooch or a button in records, remained in the Prussian Royal collection for generations. At some point during the 19^th century, the original hat pin fitting was exchanged for the present fastener, and a pendant loop was added.

In 1913, the Hohenzollern family jewels were photographed, described and extensively researched in Dr. Paul Seidel’s entry into the Hohenzollern Jahrbuch titled ‘Die Insignien und Juwelen der preussischen Krone’. The Hohenzollern Jahrbuch was an annual publication compiling research articles on different historical and art historical topics pertaining to the Prussian Royal family. There the hat ornament is illustrated as part of a suite of jewels related to the diamonds found in Napoleon’s abandoned carriage at Genappe near Waterloo. These include the bow-shaped brooch mentioned above and a necklace which presumably was set with the twenty collet-set diamonds recorded in 1819, together with a pair of earring surmounts, seemingly missing their pendants.

Though the Hohenzollern family jewels are sometimes referred to as the crown jewels, they did not belong to the Prussian state but to the Hohenzollern family fideicommis, a trust-like structure based on Roman law that ensures the undivided transmission of wealth across generations. Following World War I when the German monarchies were abolished in 1919, the property division between the Hohenzollern family and the German Republic was settled only in 1926. This settlement had as its main object the family’s real estate holdings in Berlin, Potsdam and extensive estates in Silesia. The jewels, on the other hand, were considered private property and as such were passed down from Emperor Wilhelm II to his son Crown Prince Wilhelm and his grandson Prince Louis Ferdinand.

Napoleon and the Myth of the Hohenzollern Family

The Napoleonic Wars had an important impact on the development of Europe’s nation states. Especially for Prussia the events of the Napoleonic wars were instrumental in shaping its future. In the late 18^th century, the country was a rising regional power in Central Europe whose standing had been greatly elevated by Frederick the Great’s military successes. The Napoleonic Wars saw Prussia being almost entirely run over by la Grande Armée which ignited an urgent sense of unity amongst the population through a common fight for survival. The end of the Napoleonic wars brought about Prussia’s ascent as one of Europe’s leading Powers, on a par with Great Britain, Russia and the Austrian Empire thanks to its significant military contributions. Over the ensuing decades, Prussia instrumentalised both its international standing and strong newfound sense of national identity to unify the German speaking states into the Second German Empire (1871-1918). All through the 19^th and 20^th centuries, the memories of heroic battles and the brave German people fighting together in the face of a foreign enemy, remained a key pillar of the German national myth.

The Hohenzollern dynasty personified the Prussian state, both in its suffering at the hand of Napoleon, its defiance against the foreign enemy and its eventual glorious victory. No Royal personage embodied this narrative more poignantly than the beautiful and brave Queen Louise. Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (1776-1810) was hailed as the most beautiful Princess in Europe whose angelic features perfectly suited the neoclassical dress styles of the 1790s and early 1800s. She married the future King Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia (1770-1840) in 1793. The couple had a blissfully harmonious marriage and were blessed with nine children. When Napoleon invaded Prussia and occupied Berlin, the Royal family fled to Memel on the kingdom's Eastern borders. Following disastrous losses during the War of the Fourth Coalition (1806-1807), Prussia’s negotiation position at the Peace Treaty of Tilsit was very weak. Queen Louise’s presence at the negotiations was instrumental in averting concessions that would have annihilated the Prussian state. Napoleon was quoted as calling the Queen ‘the only real man in Prussia’. Queen Louise’s bravery, determination and defiance of Napoleon at the Treaty of Tilsit gained her much admiration, which combined with her tragic death at the age of thirty-four, helped cement her image as a national symbol.

Due to the importance of the Napoleonic period in the Hohenzollern legacy, the very fact of owning jewels that were taken from Napoleon following his final defeat takes on an almost talismanic, symbolic connotation, underlining the dynasty’s central role in history.

An Appreciation by Vincent Meylan

During more than 200 years that round piece of diamond jewellery has been kept in the ‘Schatzkammer’ or treasure room of the Kings of Prussia of the Hohenzollern dynasty. And during those two centuries it has always been identified as ‘Emperor Napoleon’s hat button’. It used to be worn as a pendant or a brooch, but the fact that four small holes can still be seen at the back of the setting suggests that there was an ancient mechanism to wear the piece on a hat. In 1815, King Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia was gifted the diamond button a few days after the battle of Waterloo and in a letter of thanks he wrote that he would keep it ‘as a curiosity and a permanent souvenir with the crown jewels’.

Napoleon’s extraordinary military career ended on the evening of June the 18th on the battlefield of Waterloo. After ruling most of Europe during almost 20 years, the French Emperor lost his last battle. He had to escape in a hurry on horseback in order not to be made a prisoner by the Prussian army. He left everything behind him and he was travelling in style. He had two coaches, a big one ‘the dormeuse’ where he could work and sleep and a smaller one ‘a landau in berline’ in which he could travel in speed. The smaller still exists. It was seized by the Prussian and offered to Field Marshall Blücher, commander of the Prussian armies. One of his descendants gave it to the Museum of Malmaison near Paris in 1973. The ‘dormeuse’ which was a really big coach was seized by Major von Keller who sold it in England almost immediately. It was destroyed in a fire about a hundred years ago. 

The ‘dormeuse’ was full of the Emperor’s personal possessions: his silverware, some of his clothes, his numerous decorations and quite a large amount of jewellery. The decoration and military orders were given to the king of Prussia Friedrich Wilhelm III. They were exhibited at the Berlin national armory as soon as 1816. After World War II, they were seized by the Russian armies who took them to Moscow where they have remained to this day. The silverware and clothes were given to officers and soldiers of the Prussian army. Some have been kept by their descendants, others have been sold. By all accounts there were also numerous diamonds in the coach. Some of them mounted and others unmounted. Actually, Napoleon was used to travel with diamonds. He was always giving presents and diamonds were the most appreciated. His court costume which he did not wear often was embroidered with a lot of diamonds. The famous comtesse de Boigne describes it in her memoires: ‘A jacket, a pair of trousers in white satin, white shoes with gold rosettes, a red velvet overcoat inspired from King François I completely embroidered in gold, the sword shinning with diamonds over the costume, military orders and decorations all with diamonds and a hat with feathers and a ganse of diamonds’. 

It is not surprising that Napoleon would have a diamond hat button in his coach to wear on his hat if victory required it. In his last will and testament written on the island of Sainte Hélène, the ex-Emperor mentions 600 000 gold francs worth of personal diamonds which had been taken from him or kept in the imperial treasury which were his personal property. In his book about the history of the French crown jewels published in 1889, Germain Bapst who is very often quoted and never mentioned officially wrote on page 581: ‘In 1805, Napoléon placed many orders (of jewellery) for his personal use. The main one was a ganse and a hat button. The total price was 362 060 francs. The biggest stone on these objects was a diamond of 25 carats. It was paid 180 000 francs. All these jewels were bought at Marguerite’. Many historians have made a simple translation of these words ‘a ganse and a hat button’ as if the button was always part of the ganse. But it could be worn and indeed sold separately. The fact that Napoleon would carry a diamond button in his travelling coach seems highly possible.  

The name of Marguerite mentioned by Bapst is also very interesting, especially in the context of imperial jewellery. In 1804, Bernard Marguerite took over the jewellery business of his father-in-law Edme-Marie Foncier (1760-1826). Foncier had always been the personal jeweller of the Beauharnais family including the future Empress Josephine. He is the one who created the diamond sword mentioned by Madame de Boigne and Empress Josephine’s diamond belt for her coronation. In 1804, Foncier and Marguerite had been entrusted by the French government to estimate some pearl jewels included in the national treasury that Josephine wanted to keep for herself. They gave an estimate of 256 000 francs which Napoleon, who was not Emperor at the time, paid directly to the treasury. The relationship between Josephine and Napoleon and the Foncier and Marguerite families were rather intimate. In 1811, Bernard Marguerite was officially declared ‘Jeweller to the crown’. He kept this title until 1815 when the Bourbon Dynasty came back to power and the new king decided to give it back to Paul Nicolas Menières who had already been in charge between 1788 and 1792. It is very possible that this decision was decisive in the collapse of the Foncier Marguerite firm. Unfortunately, their archives have never been found. They definitely included records of many personal transactions between them and Emperor Napoleon I, but they are still to be discovered.