"The historical figures Conrad Black was said to admire were even more important than the people [among them Margaret Thatcher, David Brinkley, Katherine Graham, Henry Kissinger, and Aga Khan] he entertained at dinner, and the impression he gave of identifying with them hinted at what one British journalist called 'a prodigious sense of his own destiny.'
"Black's wife once told a reporter that he liked to ponder important decisions while sitting in a chair that Napoleon Bonaparte had occupied when signing treaties. His reputation for both acquisitiveness and devotion to great historical figures has been such that his assistant in London once had to state formally, in response to press inquiries, 'The proprietor of the Daily Telegraph would like to go on record to say that he does certainly not own Napoleon's penis.'"
[In November 1944, Napoleon's penis -- which then resembled "a maltreated strip of buckskin shoelace or a shriveled eel" -- was sold to Philadelphia autograph dealer Bruce Gimelson. In 1972, he tried to auction it at Christie's but withdrew it when it failed to attract a $40,000 minimum bid. Seven years later, he sold it to a urologist for $3,000.]
Sources
"Paper Baron" in The New Yorker, p 65. Dec 17, 2001; The Book of Lists, p. 291
