Napoleon letter sells for $244,800

FONTAINEBLEAU, France, Dec. 3 (UPI) -- A coded letter from Napoleon Bonaparte threatening to blow up the Kremlin in Moscow sold for $244,800 at a French auction, officials said.

The letter brought more than 10 times its estimated price to the Museum of Letters and Manuscripts in Paris at an auction in the nearby city of Fontainebleau, Radio France Internationale reported Monday.

"I am going to blow up the Kremlin on 22nd at 3 a.m.," Napoleon wrote in the coded letter, which was dated Oct. 20, 1812, and addressed to his foreign minister, Hugues-Bernard Maret.