What I've Learned

I've always prided myself on being taller than Napoleon.

I'm five foot five, and a half. Bonaparte was five foot two. Or so I was led to believe.

It turns out that he was five foot six. Sad news for me.

Where did the idea come from that Napoleon was only five foot two? From perception and from measurement.

The eye is easily fooled. We have seen the optical illusion in which two lines of equal length are placed in different settings. One is surrounded by longer lines, the other, by shorter. To the eye, the first line looks short because its neighbors are long. The second looks long because its neighbors are short. Only by measuring can we confirm that the two lines are equal.

And so it was with Emperor Napoleon. He looked short because his royal guards were big, strapping fellows, all six foot or more. Their tallness made him look short; shorter than he was.

Also, his nickname, The Little Corporal — a name of affection, not a comment on his height — added to the perception of him being vertically challenged.

Just as the optical illusion is solved by measuring the two lines, the question of Napoleon's height can be solved by simply measuring the man— not while he's wearing boots or his grand hat, but from the soles of his bare feet to the top of his balding pate.

But who would have risked such a thing? Would it not have been like a mouse putting a bell around the neck of a cat?

A Frenchman, Francesco Antommarchi, took the measurement. But to liken his action to belling a cat is not accurate, for in this case the cat was dead. Antommarchi was the doctor who performed the autopsy on Napoleon.

One of the first steps in an autopsy, even then, is to measure the corpse. Antommarchi measured Napoleon and found him to be five foot two inches.

Who can dispute that?

For a long time, no one. Then it was discovered, or remembered, that— wait for it — it was necessary to convert French measurements into English.

At the time, the French measurement of a foot was longer than the English.

The old French foot equals about 1.066 modern American feet. If we change five foot two into inches, we get 62 inches. If we multiply 62 inches by 1.066, we get 66.09 inches. In other words, Napoleon was, according to our measurements, a shade over five foot six.

Some historians put the old French foot at 1.09 modern feet, making Napoleon a bit over five foot seven.

Much has been made concerning the so-called Napoleon Syndrome, which says that some short people, men mostly, tend to be over-aggressive to make up for their size. While the idea of the Napoleon Syndrome may have some validity, it is doubtful that Napoleon himself suffered from it. He was taller than the average Frenchman of his day.

As for me, I've decided my five foot,  five and a half is measured in old French. This means that I am actually five foot ten.

Say differently and I'll punch your lights out.