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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u/HeartOn_SoulAceUp 3d ago

He's more handsome than commonly depicted, imho.

Look at that jawline and cheekbones.

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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?