History of mining Shoksha quartzite for Napoleon's sarcophagus

The article studies the history of mining Shoksha quartzite sandstone (quartzite) for the tomb of Napoleon Bonaparte in Paris. The authors compare the memoirs of a French writer Louis-Antoine Leuzon Le Duc, which are widely used as the main source of information on this topic, with the information from archival documents and a number of other published materials of the XVIII and the XIX centuries. A number of previously unpublished documents are introduced into scientific circulation, including the text of the Highest Permission for Extraction of Red Porphyry, fragments of correspondence dealing with the preparation for obtaining a permit for the quarrying, reports on allocating a site for a quarry, on violations during the quarrying, and on examining the porphyry blocks prepared for shipment, fragments of correspondence dealing with the issuance of a foreign passport to Ivan Buyatti, etc. The analysis of information known to the authors enables them to reconstruct, with high certainty, the history mining quartzite for Napoleon’s sarcophagus, which turns out to be very different from previously published versions. Therefore, the authors draw a conclusion that there are many inaccuracies, distortions and errors in Leuson Le Duc’s memoirs, which makes them a piece of literary fiction, rather than a source of documentary information. The authors also offer an explanation of the discrepancies between the amounts of Shoksha porphyry exported from Russia given in different sources.