On May 5, 1821, Napoleon would die at the age of 51, far from his family and his country, in Saint Helena, a lost island in the South Atlantic where the British sent him into exile after his last defeat, in Waterloo. Two centuries later, Emmanuel Macron will lay a wreath this Wednesday afternoon at the foot of his tomb, under the majestic dome of the Invalides.
Just before, the Head of State will deliver a speech at the Institut de France to “To look in the face” this ” be complexed “ what was Napoleon, by not being “Neither in hagiography, nor in denial, nor in repentance”. While waiting for this speech, West France returns this figure of the history of France by exploring ten received ideas, between myth and reality.
Napoleon is not French: false
All his life, Chateaubriand has never ceased to slay “The fatal foreigner”. All this because we have never found Napoleon Bonaparte’s birth certificate attesting to his birth on August 15, 1769 in Ajaccio, Corsica. But other military documents prove it. And Corsica was indeed French since its cession by the Republic of Genoa on May 15, 1768. The suspicion arises from the fact that Napoleon, to grow old, often borrowed the identity papers of his brother Joseph, born on January 7, 1768. Particularly during his marriage to Joséphine de Beauharnais on March 9, 1796. He could not stand being her junior by six years …
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Memorial to the French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, Place Casone in his hometown of Ajaccio, Corsica. © Pascal POCHAR / AFP
In fact, he was born in Brittany: false
This is what a tenacious local legend claims: Napoleon was actually born in Saint-Sève (Finistère), in the manor of Penanvern, owned by Louis Charles René de Marbeuf, governor of Corsica and alleged lover of Napoleon’s mother , Maria-Letizia Ramolino. Except that at the time, Marbeuf was not the owner. The mansion belonged to the heirs of his first cousin, Louise Josèphe de Marbeuf.
Napoleon was small: false
Many paintings depict him with one head less than his soldiers. It measured very accurately five feet, two inches, and three lines, or 1,686 m. At the time, however, the average height of the French was 1.60 m. His grenadiers, on the other hand, measured at least 1.76 m, not counting feathered hairstyles. Next to him, Napoleon, who wore only an unregulated black beaver hat embellished with a tricolor cockade, looked like a nabot.
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The coronation of Emperor Napoleon 1st and the coronation of Empress Joséphine, December 2, 1804, painted by Jacques Louis David (Louvre museum). © JOEL ROBINE / AFP archives
He never exceeded the rank of “little corporal”: false
During the Italian campaign (1799-1800), General Bonaparte’s soldiers decided to award their leader a rank for each of his victories, starting with the lowest. In twenty-two years of war, Napoleon took part in eighty battles. What to reach at least the rank of marshal … But the affectionate expression of “Little corporal” stayed. And the Emperor never wore his uniform of a general of division, preferring the dress of colonel of hunter on horseback (green) or grenadier on foot (blue).
Napoleon was in fragile health: rrai
Young, he had contracted malaria. Later, he will suffer from scabies, a hemorrhoid attack and epilepsy, dysuria (difficulty in urinating) and a perforated ulcer which will make him suffer excruciatingly from the stomach and from which he will die (the thesis of l arsenic poisoning has been brushed aside by historians). But, for all that, it is not for this reason that he slipped his right hand into his waistcoat, as some historians have written. The gesture was actually very mundane. At that time, the pants had no pockets; the hands were therefore placed behind the back or, alternatively, with one slipped into the waistcoat.
Napoleon was the gravedigger of the Republic: true
But not right now. Certainly, the drafters of the constitution of the year VIII which established the Consulate had this formula: “The Revolution is fixed on the principles which started it. It is over. “ But that’s forgetting that “In the language of the time, ends meant as much finished what perfect », as the notes Thierry Lentz (1), director of the Fondation Napoléon, in his wonderful little book, 100 questions about Napoleon, La Boétie, 215 pages, € 12.50, from which this article borrows a lot.
For the historian, the revolutionary period continues at least until the first years of the Empire. When the Senate granted the title of emperor to Napoleon on May 18, 1804, it also specified “By the grace of God and the Constitutions of the Republic”. The word Republic did not disappear until September 1807.
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Napoleon I on his imperial throne painted by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres in 1806 (detail of the work). © PUBLIC DOMAIN
Napoleon was not crowned emperor: true
He crowned himself! Napoleon had a complex relationship with Pope Pius VII: he would have him arrested and annex the Papal States in 1809. Nevertheless, he knew the value of the papal anointing used by kings to mark their divine power. This is why, after his appointment by the Senate, he wished to be crowned on December 2, 1804 at Notre-Dame. But, after the anointing and blessings, he himself placed the crown on his head, before crowning Josephine.
Beethoven adored Napoleon: true
At least at the beginning… The German composer, born a year before Bonaparte was an admirer of the First Consul, to whom he dedicated his famous third symphony in E-flat major. But, after the capture of Vienna, he considered it more prudent to rename his Bonaparte symphony
on heroic symphony composed in memory of a great man.
Napoleon is buried in Westminster: false
This is the thesis defended in 1969 by Georges Rétif de la Bretonne : the body of the Emperor would have been stolen by the English. Shocking ! However, it was locked four times: in a tin coffin, itself placed in a wooden coffin, placed in a lead coffin, sealed in a mahogany coffin… Problem, Napoleon’s valet, Louis Joseph Narcisse, said to have counted only four body boxes… The package is signed: the English governor of the island, Hudson Lowe, stole the body, then placed a fourth coffin to hide his crime. Nonsense, have since demonstrated many historians. Napoleon has been resting well since April 2, 1861 in his Russian mortuary dolls, under the dome of the Invalides, in Paris. In a strange red quartzite sarcophagus from Finland.
Napoleon had a daughter: true
We know of three sons: Napoleon-François-Joseph Charles, who died in 1832 at the age of 21, the famous Aiglon
, and two bastards, Charles-Léon and Alexandre. But he would also have had a daughter, says historian Bruno Fuligni in a recent book: Charlotte Chappuis, born in 1795, born of a temporary affair with a Burgundian prostitute, Antoinette Cattin, known as Cotain.
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