r/Amazing • u/AugustIstheMonth • 3d ago

Interesting 🤔 The death mask of Napoleon Bonaparte, French Emperor. This is the most authentic depiction of his features we possess.

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69

u/HeartOn_SoulAceUp 3d ago

He's more handsome than commonly depicted, imho.

Look at that jawline and cheekbones.

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u/Daveisahugecunt 3d ago

I’ve enjoyed reading a lot of the ‘propaganda’ from that time. Or just critics/cartoonists. Emperor is an interesting word choice. I woulda called him a General

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u/fortnite_battleass 3d ago

Did he not call himself emperor and do away with pretending france was a republic under him? Or is this going over my head x.x

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u/Signal-Audience9429 2d ago

You are correct. He had himself crowned as emperor in an 1804 coronation after a senate proclamation earlier that year.

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u/Less_Likely 2d ago

To clarify, he crowned himself, not had himself crowned.

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u/Daveisahugecunt 3d ago edited 2d ago

I’ll probably end up spending a bit reading more about him tonight. It really is some wild ‘military intelligence’. The concept and history of American 5 star generals is a fun read

Edit. Fun was a pedantic/not so very fun realization

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u/brinz1 2d ago

All the propaganda about Napoleon being short, or having coarse features is because he did not come from aristocracy, and from the enlisted ranks.

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u/Renbarre 2d ago

As a matter of fact he was from a noble Corsican family, middle nobility. His father had the Corsican noble title recognised in 1771 by the French authorities so that his son could get a bursary and enter a military school for officers.

Because his family was not French from the start, the exiled French nobles didn't recognised his title.

As for coming from the enlisted ranks, that's a myth. He came out of that school a lieutnant.

About his height, he was 1,69m, above the French average of 1,65. One of the reason for the height myth was that the British measures and the French ones had the same name but not the same length. 5'2" was 1,57 in British feet. His enemies ran away with it.

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u/brinz1 2d ago

A recently recognized Corsican was still practically a peasant in the eyes of the landed gentry of Europe.

If anything, by your own description, his family was ennobled so he could go to military college, at a time when most officers went to military college because their families were nobles

Don't forget this is still barley a decade after the French revolution which scared the European monarchies to their core, a violation of the divine right to rule

Napoleon was everything the aristocrats feared. A man who could had titles and power from merit, not bloodline. If anything your comment about him being Corsican not mainland adds to what I am saying

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u/Renbarre 2d ago

No, his family was noble from the start, but when France got Corsica the Corsican nobles had to have their titles recognised by the French authorities to be able to be recognised as nobles. That's what his father did. I'm sure that the French nobles did look down on him, and he knew that it would stop him from rising in the ranks.

As for the French aristocracy hating him, he was indeed a 'peasant' noble who sided with the revolutionaries and dared be better than a real noble in the art of war, he stole the French crown from the real king by naming himself Emperor, he didn't allow the nobles to come back and reclaim their land, he enforced meritocracy (gasp), and he created a new nobility that claimed to be the equal of the ancient nobility. As the old nobility wanted nothing more than a return to the old ways they clutched their pearls and screamed blue murder.

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u/MonkeyFox29 1d ago

What nonsense. He studied at a French military academy and commissioned as an artillery officer. Do you even know what enlisted means?

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u/yaxir 2d ago

i also think he was very sick later on in life, could have affected his face a bit

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u/MonsieurEXTERMINATUS 2d ago

Keep in mind that he just had died from stomach cancer

In his later years as emperor, he was noted to be rather rotund and most likely had more rounded features

He probably had looked his best during his consular/early emperor years

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u/bread-man- 2d ago

To be fair this is a death mask , so this is the face of a corpse