Slippers worn by Napoleon’s scandalous sister found at museum

A young museum worker struck gold when she stumbled upon a pair of tiny slippers worn by Napoleon’s scandalous sister which had been gathering dust for more than 140 years.

Louise Wilkie was working on her first major assignment as a curatorial assistant at Aberdeen University when she found the delicately embroidered shoes among the belongings of 19th- century traveller Robert Wilson.

The child-sized footwear was so out of keeping with the men’s clothes in the chest that she decided to investigate further – and uncovered a previously unknown connection between the Banff-born ship’s surgeon and Napoleon’s party-loving sister, Princess Pauline Borghese.

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