Napoleon wasn’t only a man of war; he was also a man of letters. The public is now invited to discover this more unusual aspect of the French Emperor through an exhibition currently showing at the Invalides Museum in Paris.

”L’Aigle et la Plume” -- ”the Eagle and the Feather” – presents 500 different documents written or dictated by Napoleon. Most of them, formerly owned by an American collector, have never been shown in public. Exhibition curator Pascal Fulacher says: “This collection is the work of a life-time: 40 years of passionate research. This American collector has put in so much time finding, buying and reuniting these letters.”

Gérard Lhéritier, president of Aristophil, the company that bought the manuscripts, adds: “In fact Napoleon rarely wrote his letters himself: his hand-writing was so bad he had a hard-time reading what he wrote! He took the habit of dictating his letters to an army of secretaries. The fact that 500 of those documents have been reunited in one place is simply exceptional.”

Napoleon would keep meticulous paper records of his orders, both political and military. Written documents were central to his governance and grip on power.  “He created a communication and high speed mail-delivery service – very fast for that time. The many innovations he helped implement in this area have played a great role in some of his military victories,” says Furacher:

The exhibition also presents very rare items such as this diplomatic briefcase.“Correspondence with the “Black Cabinet” – the ancestor of the French Intelligence Service - "would transit through this briefcase: highly confidential documents destined for Napoleon,” explains Furacher:

Writing was the pillar of Napoleon's military and administrative work. But the manuscripts also reveal the man’s more intimate and sensitive dimensions. “There’s that other man, beyond the financial aspect," says Lhéritier. "Beyond the diplomat there's the father and of course the man in love ..."

Impetuous and fiery but also lucid and considerate: this collection depicts Napoleon not as a legend but as a complex individual who left his mark on the history of Europe. The show runs until March 1, 2009.