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 napoleons penis more




Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
From: rkleitma@neumann.uwaterloo.ca (Rob Leitman)
Subject: Penis Peregrination
Date: Tue, 8 Mar 1994 22:07:54 GMT

I just ran across an article in The Journal of Sex Research (I only read it for the articles, honest). It gives more details about Napoleon's penis. Perhaps this information should go into the archive.

The article is from volume 29, number 4, (Nov. 1992) pages 579-580. The author is Stanley M. Bierman, M.D., University of California, Los Angeles.

Apparently, the short guy's valet, Ali, published his memoirs in 1852 (in _Revue des Mondes_), claiming that Abbe' Vignali, who gave last rites, surreptitiously cut off the member in question. Vignali apparently brought to Corsica, and died in a vendetta in 1828. He passed on the momento to his sister, who at her death passed it on to her son.

In 1916, Vignali's descendants sold [the organ] to Maggs and Co., a British rare book firm. In 1924, Dr. A. S. Rosenbach, [... bought] the mummified penis.

The good doctor proceeded to present the item in a tasteful case of blue morocco and velvet. In 1927, it was exhibited at the Museum of French Art. An anonymous New York newspaper said:

Maudlin sentimentalizers sniffled; shallow women giggled and pointed. In a glass case they saw something looking like a maltreated strip of buckskin shoelace or shriveled eel.

Two decades later, Rosenbach sold "the shriveled short-arm" to Donald Hyde. His wife disposed of it promptly after Hyde died, selling it to John Fleming. The privates were later sold to Bruce Gimelson, an autograph dealer. He attempted to auction it off at Christie's, but it didn't meet its reserve price. Apparently, a British tabloid reported this with the headline:

NOT TONIGHT, JOSEPHINE!

Eight years later, the penis was sold for $3000 to Dr. Lattimer, whose story is already to be found in the afu archives.

References: _Auction Madness_ by Charles Hamilton, Everest House, 1981.

Correspondence with Dr. Lattimer, 12/16/87.

So what do you think, do we move this from 'U' to 'Tb'?

Rob "no bobbit jokes, please" Leitman


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