I remember it clearly, all these years later.
It was back in the days when I was smuggling bootleg rum into the Bahamas for a group of radical Mennonites. There I was, standing on deck, overseeing the men as they unloaded the cases. They were mostly Peace Corps volunteers, skinny college kids in need of a haircut and some spending money to buy weed before they went back to their villages. Usually a willing crew, but in need of a kick in the butt from time to time.
It was the end of a long day. Dark, the deck slippery with brine, a chance the harbor police could show up at any time. (Fat, corrupt, greedy swine with hair in their ears and glazed donuts on their breath, firmly in the pocket of the local politicos.) You could smell a storm on the moist sea wind. I was hurrying the men along.
“Let’s keep moving, mates,” I said. And then I heard it. One saying to the other, “Listen to him orderin’ us around, the frickin’ little Napoleon.”
Napoleon. I hate that guy. And I especially hate that he has become a negative symbol for short men everywhere. So, let’s dispense with this man here and now (the way I did with the loud mouth below deck that night. I won’t go into details. Let’s just say that there were more California rolls for the rest of us for a few days.)
Even though he seems to be an icon for aggressive, overcompensating little men everywhere, Napoleon was not short. Repeat. He was not one of us. And we don’t want him or any of the stereotyped behavior he supposedly represents.
Let’s look at the facts. Despite some minor academic debate that still simmers, most evidence points to one conclusion: le petit caporal was of average height for the time.
In the footnotes to the entry on Napoleon on Wikipedia the editors note that “Napoleon’s height was put at just over 5 pieds 2 pouces by three French sources”—his valet, Louis Constant Wairy; one of his generals, Gaspard Gourgaud; and his personal physician, Francois Carlo Antommarchi, who measured him at the official autopsy. Using the French measurements of the time that equals around 1.69 meters (slightly under 5 feet 7 inches).
Wait, there’s more.
“Two English sources [Andrew Darling, who arranged Napoleon’s funeral, and John Foster] put his height at around 5 feet 7 inches, equivalent, on the Imperial scale, to 1.70 meters. This would have made him around average height for a Frenchman of the time.”
The source? Research collected by The Fondation Napoleon.
Feel free to check out the sources. (Although they are in French.) This guy was one of the most studied people in history.
It is time to jettison Napoleon as an icon for short men with inferiority complexes. Let’s at least find someone who sets a bad example and truly was short. Atilla the Hun? Charles Manson? David Spade?
Illustration Credit: Library of Congress
