Desecration and theft of historic objects of religious significance
There has been a serious burglary at St Michael's Abbey Farnborough. Thieves broke into the Abbey Crypt and stole historic framed prayers in French and Latin from the Napoleon Prince Imperials tomb.
The Items stolen are easily identified as coming from the Abbey.
The prayers are specific to the Prince Louis, who whilst acting with a forward scouting party was attacked and overwhelmed by a group of forty Zulu warriors. The Prince was speared in the thigh but pulled the assegai from his wound. As he turned and fired on his pursuers another assegai struck his left shoulder. The Prince tried to fight on using the assegai he had pulled from his leg, but , weakened by his wounds he sank to the ground and was overwhelmed. When recovered it was found his body had eighteen assegai wounds. He was 23 years of age, serving in South Africa with the British army under Lord Chelmsford.
Given the international significance of the Abbey and its artefacts as the burial place of a foreign head of state, together with the forensic and other evidence already gained since the crime, the perpetrators of this theft are urged to return these objects at the earliest opportunity.
If anyone is offered, or comes across these items, please contact Hampshire Police via 101.
Napoléon Eugène Louis Jean Joseph Bonaparte,
16 March 1856 – 1 June 1879
only child of Emperor Napoleon III of France
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