After the conquest of Malta on June 12, 1798, the French fleet and army departed from the island but certainly not empty-handed. During his week’s sojourn here, General Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) ensured that the army pay-chest would not remain empty but would be filled up to provide one of those two items needed to keep soldiers happy and contented: their pay.

Bonaparte’s armies had won great victories in Italy where the French army had lived off the land it occupied. Malta was not an exception. The French government, chronically short of the funds needed to pay its armies, acquired the needed money from the occupied lands. Some refer to it as booty, or prizes of war, or legalised theft; others brand such actions as plain robbery. Irrespective by which name such actions are known, the fact remains that, on most occasions, a number of countries lost their dearest treasures forever. And this is what happened at Malta.

Bonaparte lost no time in this regard because, on his very first full day at Malta, June 13, he issued the following order, divided in six articles:

1) The comptroller of the army and a member of the treasury had to collect all the gold, silver and precious stones extant in the conventual church of St John and other churches belonging to the Order of St John, together with the silver in the auberges and the grand master’s palace.

General Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) at the Pont d’Arcole in 1801 by Antoine-Jean Gros (1771-1835) at the Louvre Museum, Paris. Source: en-wikipedia.org

2)  On June 14, all the gold was to be melted and made into ingots to be deposited in the treasurer’s army chest.

3) An inventory had to be drawn up of all the precious stones to be deposited, sealed in the army chest.

4) Silver objects, totally valued between 250,000 and 300,000 francs, to be sold in Malta and deposited in the army chest.

5) After this exercise, the rest was to be deposited in the treasurer’s chest for minting into specie at Malta to enable the payment of wages to the French garrison to be left on the island.

6) All those objects necessary for cultic purposes to be left at St John’s and the other churches.

It has been calculated that the total value of the confiscated objects, including items taken from the Gozo Banca Giuratale, amounted to 489,659 scudi.

Facts and official sources demonstrate there were no treasures on the warships in that battle

In compliance with Bonaparte’s orders, not all the confiscated treasures were taken aboard the ships. According to the treasurer of the army chest, Esteve, the treasures were distributed thus, with their value given in French livres:

General Louis Baraguey-d’Hilliers (1764-1813), a bust by Joseph Chinard (1756-1813) at the National Galleries, Scotland. Source: nationalgalleries.org

Value of 135,592 livres – items sold in Malta;

Value of 401,492 livres – items left to be minted into specie in the Maltese mint;

Value of 176,171 livres – items sold at Alexandria, Egypt;

Value of 24,681 livres – items sold at auction in Cairo, Egypt;

Value of 2,502 livres – items that were minted into specie at Cairo, Egypt.

Value of 232,402 livres – 77 gold ingots that were minted into specie at Cairo, Egypt.

It has been held, and still popularly repeated nowadays (vide letter in Sunday Times of Malta, May 9, 2021, p. 22) that the confiscated Maltese treasure was on board l’Orient and was completely lost when this flagship literally exploded at the Battle of Aboukir Bay, also known as the Battle of the Nile.

However, the figures just quoted, based on facts and official sources, demonstrate quite clearly that there were no treasures on the warships in that battle. Moreover, the army used to take its pay chest with it and never left it in the hands of the navy that, after all, belonged to another department.

In 1983, 1984, 1996 and 1998, underwater surveys were undertaken to locate l’Orient and other warships, and a number of objects were actually located, including gold coins. These coins had originated from a number of countries, including Malta, but did not constitute the treasures that had been taken from Malta. In fact, Franck Goddio – who was the leader of the surveys – concluded that there was little by way of money, gold, silver and similar objects on the French warships that had been sunk at Aboukir Bay.

One may here add that Bonaparte had sent General Louis Baraguey d’Hilliers back to Paris, on board the frigate La Sensible, to present to the French government the standards of the Order that had been captured in the seizure of Malta together with an artillery piece that he deemed worthy of conservation. On the voyage to France, La Sensible was involved in a naval engagement with the British frigate HMS Seahorse. The French lost the engagement and all the items on board the La Sensible became British prizes of war with the general being taken prisoner to England.

The French ship had been ferrying a number of valuable objects, including paintings, a silver model of the first galley the Order had at Rhodes and a Chinese surtout de table. Just like the so-called ‘sword of de Valette’ that ended up in The Louvre Museum at Paris after Bonaparte had taken it with him to Egypt, so did other Maltese objects end up in a number of other places.

The fate of the valuable objects that remained in Malta is known through the detailed inventory that the manager of the Maltese mint, Giuseppe Lebrun (or Le Brun), drew up of all the items he received for conversion into specie. On July 19, 1798, he was given 13 boxes full of silver objects that produced 6,750 pounds of pure silver that were minted into specie.

Worth repeating is the argument that, once the Order of St John had surrendered, its pro­perty was forfeited and passed into the hands of the victorious French, though there had also been cases of looting from private and ecclesiastical property by the French army. But confiscations of treasures from churches did not end when Bonaparte left Malta: the same policy was carried out during the summer, partly due to the anti-clerical measures imposed by the French authorities.

Dr J. F. Grima is the author of Malta u Franza 1798-1800 (Malta, 2006)