Fifty-three years after Malta’s independence, 2017 seems to be highlighting an important chapter in Maltese-French friendly diplomatic overtures. It is not only a pleasure to see ‘de Valette’s dagger’ (as le poignard has been known for four and a half centuries) back in Malta after 219 years for an exhibition to celebrate the island’s first EU presidency, but also to see on February 6 President François Hollande leisurely touring Valletta’s historical memorials, especially those related to General Bonaparte’s interlude in 1798.
Moreover, four days before, a plaque was installed on the last arch of Old Treasury Street in Valletta to commemorate Rue de l’Egalité as it was known between 1798 and 1800.
Coming close to another loan, this time of a golden galleon of the Order of St John, known as the Rhodes galleon, which Heritage Malta succeeded to obtain from private British hands in order to exhibit at the Bozar in Brussels marking the same presidency, the return of the dagger triggered some local users of the social media and the press to get into nationalistic gear and ask the Malta government to request its permanent return.
Given the apprehensive relationship that existed at the start of the 19th century between England and France during the Napoleonic Wars, when Malta became a British dependency, this new interest in acquiring ‘seized’ objects seems to revive the manipulated histories that often helped form a thwarted collective memory built on lack of clarity and omissions in order to inculcate colonialist loyalty in the Maltese. Hence the revival of the traditional call for the return of de Valette’s sword.
While the Maltese would be as happy as the Greeks if the latter were to receive from the British Museum the 2,500-year-old ‘Elgin marbles’ after 200 years, the probability of such iconic items to be returned is as rare as the return of the 1,700-year-old granite funeral obelisk that Ethiopia obtained from Italy in 2005, 68 years after it was looted by fascist troops. However the story of how the sword and dagger given to the victorious grandmaster after the siege of 1565 by a Spanish king was taken from Malta is somewhat different.
On his death the grandmaster left the sword and dagger to the Order. The June 12, 1798 convention between France and Malta clearly stipulated (and the Order agreed) that all the Order’s possessions were to pass to the French Republic. All this was done with the willing signature of four Maltese representatives who earlier on, on behalf of some 4,000 literati gathered in Valletta the night before urging grandmaster Hompesch to cede the Maltese islands to the French. This agreement was also signed by the Spanish ambassador as witness.
This new interest in acquiring ‘seized’ objects seems to revive the manipulated histories that often helped form a thwarted collective memory
It was a military custom of the day to give or receive ornamental swords and daggers following a victory or conquest or even as a gift of alliance or loyalty. In fact in the vein of the 1565 gesture the Order had sent another ornamental historical sword to the Tsar of Russia as a sign of friendship only a few years before and the Maltese, early in the 19th century presented a golden sword to first British commissioner Alexander Ball.
Moreover when the Louvre was set up, the sword and dagger found their place for public admiration rightfully crediting their provenance. After Malta’s visit Bonaparte is believed to have regarded the dagger as a talisman and carried it in all his military campaigns thus creating another nationalistic attachment to the emperor of the French.
In the aftermath of Waterloo, in November 1815 at the second Treaty of Paris, France bound itself to pay 700 million francs to the victorious allies in indemnity for war damages and return artistic objects ‘plundered’ from Europe during the Napoleonic Wars. Great Britain’s share of compensation funds amounted to 100 million francs. Although about 15 European countries qualified for this compensation, British diplomats advised that Malta did not meet the criteria as it had just been absorbed by the British Empire.
No payments from these funds seem to have ever reached the island and as far as we know no claims were presented on Malta’s behalf to return any treasures. There may be a reason for this reluctance. Had Britain asked for de Valette’s sword and dagger to be returned to Malta, the Maltese would have, most probably, also asked Britain to return several iconic items, like the Ximenes canon now in the UK, which the British seized from La Sensible on its way to France in July 1798 while the French were in Malta.
It will not be amiss if one were to join Sandro Debono, a senior curator with Heritage Malta to acknowledge that the French government should be commended for the gesture of lending the dagger for this exhibition. This is not the first time. In 2008 the iconic sword and dagger were also on loan from the Louvre when Heritage Malta, the Malta Tourism Authority and the Maltese embassy in Paris organised Entre le Glaive et la Croix: Chefs-d’Oeuvres de l’Armurerie de Malte, a Maltese exhibition at Les Invalides showing pieces of chivalric armoury.
While wishing the Minister of Culture the best of luck in his diplomatic quest to permanently obtain such an icon, it is certainly the wish of all Maltese to encourage other countries who took precious historical items from this island to follow this example and lend us such items for similar events. A few years ago while the Ximenes canon was on show in Rome, a Maltese now-retired curator asked for the loan to be extended to Malta. After making an official request, as he was asked to do, the response was in the negative.
Malta today enjoys friendly ties with practically all the countries of the world especially those EU members who one way or another enjoyed historical relationships with the island.
The international rules and ethics regarding displaced historical objects from the past offer very little hope for legal recovery. On the other hand if one were to consider such objects as ‘stolen’ then one would also be asking for the return of works of art sold to Maltese and other collectors by the British colonial authorities in Malta as the latter had no right to do so.
Finally it is also opportune at this juncture to encourage Maltese and foreigners to visit La Valette’s authentic fighting sword and hat housed at the Vittoriosa parish museum, where it has been lying serenely for the past 450 years.
Charles Xuereb is author of France in the Maltese Collective Memory, Perceptions, Perspectives, Identities after Bonaparte in British Malta.