NAPOLEON FACTS

Today is the birthday of either one of the most brilliant men in history or one of the worst.  Or both.

1. He was not French, he was from Corsica which belonged to France.
2. He may have looked short when standing next to his Imperial Guardsmen, but he was actually 5’6”. That was average for a Frenchman.
3. Before his reign, travelers moved on the left side of the road. This was mainly because men wanted to be able to use their sword-arm just in case of trouble.  Napoleon switched it to the right side of the road to surprise his enemies.  His empire adopted this.  England, Portugal, and the Austria did not.
4. He was six years younger than Josephine, who was a widow. Napoleon was infatuated with her at first, even though she had a reputation of a loose woman.  When he went to war in Egypt, he wrote here fawning letters and was frustrated that she did not respond.  He was enraged when he learned she was having an affair when he was away.  He had an affair of his own to get revenge.  When he returned, he was determined to divorce her, but her tear-filled pleas convinced him to take her back.  He eventually divorced her for the political reason that she could not give him a male heir.  His last word was supposedly “Josephine”.
5. His famous pose of putting his hand inside his shirt was not due to a stomach ailment or because he was winding his watch. It was a common pose for the nobility.
6. He wrote a novel entitled “Clisson et Eugenie”. Clisson was a brilliant soldier like guess who?  He has a chaotic love affair with Eugenie.
7. When he was exiled to St. Helena, the allies were taking no chances with him escaping again. He was guarded by 2,800 men and 500 cannons.  The Royal Navy kept eleven warships patrolling the island.
8. He died of stomach cancer, but some claimed he was assassinated via arsenic poisoning. Testing of hair samples in 2008 showed that although he did have a high amount of arsenic in his system, this had been true for quite some time.
9. He wanted to be cremated, but was interred in an elaborate tomb in L’Hotel National des Invalides in Paris.

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