108 Fun Facts About Napoleon Bonaparte

Napoleon was born in 1769 on which Mediterranean island?

Genoa had ceded the island to France only a year earlier; his first languages were Corsican and Italian.

What was Napoleon's family name at birth, before it was Frenchified?

Born Napoleone di Buonaparte, the future Emperor of the French was sent to the mainland at nine to learn the language and long saw himself as a foreigner there.

In which Corsican town was Napoleon born, at the Maison Bonaparte?

Ajaccio's Maison Bonaparte was looted after the family, at odds with Pasquale Paoli, fled the island in 1793; it became a national museum in 1967.

Napoleon stood about 5 ft 6 in, average for his day, but looked small beside the tall soldiers of which elite corps?

The Imperial Guard took the army's tallest veterans, and British cartoonist James Gillray's 'Little Boney' did the rest; his recorded 5 ft 2 was in longer French inches.

The term 'Napoleon complex' for aggressive short men was inspired by which psychologist's writing?

Adler used Napoleon to illustrate the inferiority complex; the joke is that the man himself was of average height.

The 1793 siege of which French port made Napoleon's name and won him promotion to brigadier general at 24?

Toulon had been handed to an Anglo-Spanish fleet by royalists; his plan to take the forts commanding the harbour forced the ships to sail away.

Who became Napoleon's first wife in a civil ceremony in March 1796?

Joséphine de Beauharnais was a widow whose first husband had been guillotined during the Terror; two days after the wedding Napoleon left to command an army.

Which find did a French officer make in 1799 while rebuilding a fort during Napoleon's Egyptian expedition?

The Rosetta Stone was handed to the British with the expedition's other finds when the French surrendered in 1801, and has been in the British Museum since 1802.

Which British admiral destroyed Napoleon's fleet at the Battle of the Nile in 1798?

Horatio Nelson caught the French fleet at anchor near Alexandria and all but wiped it out, leaving Napoleon's army trapped in Egypt.

The coup of November 1799 that made Napoleon First Consul is known by which French Republican calendar date?

18 Brumaire is 9 November 1799 on the Revolution's own calendar; a day later grenadiers cleared the legislature and the Directory gave way to a Consulate under Napoleon.

David painted Napoleon crossing the Alps on a rearing horse, but which animal actually carried him over in 1800?

A mule led by a guide carried him over in fine weather; Napoleon had asked David to show him 'calm, mounted on a fiery steed'.

Chicken Marengo is named after Napoleon's 1800 victory in which country?

Italy's Marengo gave the dish its name; Napoleon's chef is said to have improvised it from whatever he could find on the day of the battle, though food historians doubt the tale.

In 1803 Napoleon sold which North American territory for $15 million?

Louisiana nearly doubled the size of the young republic that bought it; Napoleon sold after his army failed to crush the revolt in Saint-Domingue, with war against Britain looming.

Napoleon reportedly said Waterloo would erase his forty victories, but which achievement of his would 'live forever'?

His Civil Code of 1804 is still in force in France, heavily amended; he did not write it himself but had it drafted by a commission of four jurists.

At his coronation in Notre-Dame in December 1804, what did Napoleon do with the crown?

Napoleon crowned himself with a replica of Charlemagne's crown once he had been anointed, then crowned his kneeling wife as empress.

Which Beethoven symphony was first dedicated to Napoleon, until the composer struck out his name in 1804?

Eroica means 'heroic'; told that Napoleon had made himself emperor, Beethoven is said to have raged that he was now a tyrant and torn the title page in two.

Napoleon's greatest victory, on 2 December 1805, was fought against Russia and Austria at which battle?

Austerlitz was a trap: Napoleon feigned weakness and gave up the Pratzen Heights to lure the allies onto his right, then broke their weakened centre.

Which centuries-old European institution was dissolved in 1806 after Napoleon's 1805 victory over Austria and Russia?

The Holy Roman Empire ended when its last emperor, Francis II, laid down the crown under pressure from Napoleon, whose Confederation of the Rhine had drawn away many German princes.

At which 1805 battle did the Royal Navy smash the French and Spanish fleets, ending Napoleon's invasion hopes?

Trafalgar was won by sailing straight at the enemy line to cut it apart; the British admiral was shot down at the height of the battle and died as it was won.

Napoleon's Continental System, launched with the Berlin Decree of 1806, was an attempt to do what?

The bid to blockade British trade with Europe leaked through smugglers, and enforcing it drew Napoleon into Spain and Russia, the wars that broke his empire.

Which brother did Napoleon make King of Spain in 1808, provoking the Peninsular War?

Joseph was mocked by Spaniards as 'Pepe Botella' (Joe Bottle), a jab at heavy drinking that the abstemious king was merely alleged to indulge in.

Whom did Napoleon marry in 1810 as his second wife, hoping for an heir?

Marie Louise of Austria, daughter of the Austrian emperor, was first married to him by proxy in Vienna, with her own uncle standing in for the groom.

What title did Napoleon give his son, born in 1811?

King of Rome was his title from the cradle, but after his father's fall he grew up in Vienna under an Austrian title and died of tuberculosis at 21.

Roughly what fraction of Napoleon's 450,000-strong 1812 Grande Armée were native French speakers?

Germans, Poles, Italians and others filled the ranks; most never came home.

Which battle in September 1812 forced the Russians to abandon Moscow to Napoleon?

Borodino mauled both armies without destroying either; the Russians pulled back, and Napoleon entered a Moscow that was deserted and soon in flames.

Which Russian novel follows aristocratic families through Napoleon's 1812 invasion and its aftermath?

War and Peace came out in 1869; Tolstoy, born after the invasion, questioned people who had lived through 1812 and read every history of it he could find.

Where was the October 1813 Battle of the Nations, Napoleon's decisive defeat, fought?

Leipzig pitted Napoleon against the armies of Russia, Prussia, Austria and Sweden at once; after four days he was beaten and lost his hold on Germany.

After his first abdication in April 1814, Napoleon was exiled as sovereign of which island?

Elba left him the title of emperor and a small guard; after ten months of reforming the island he slipped away to France with about a thousand men.

When the 5th Regiment blocked his road near Grenoble in March 1815, what is Napoleon said to have done?

He dared them to shoot him, by the famous account walking up alone; the soldiers shouted 'Vive l'empereur!' and marched with him toward Paris.

Napoleon's 1815 return from exile to his final defeat is known as what?

The Hundred Days was coined by the prefect of Paris as he welcomed Louis XVIII home; he was counting the king's absence, and the period really runs to about 110 days.

Who led the Prussians who arrived late on Napoleon's flank at Waterloo on 18 June 1815?

Blücher had been pinned under his dead horse and ridden over by cavalry at Ligny two days earlier, yet drove his men on to keep his promise to his British ally.

Waterloo, the site of Napoleon's final defeat, lies in which modern country?

Belgium was not yet a country: in 1815 the field lay in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, and the French knew the battle as Mont-Saint-Jean.

After Waterloo, the Royal Navy stopped Napoleon sailing to which country?

The United States was his goal, but HMS Bellerophon barred the way out of Rochefort, so he surrendered to her captain; she had fought his fleet at the Nile seventeen years before.

Napoleon spent his final exile on Saint Helena, a remote island in which waters?

The South Atlantic island lies more than 1,800 km off Africa; told he could roam it only with a British officer at his side, he refused and shut himself away at home.

Napoleon died on 5 May 1821 at what age?

Both the French and British autopsies blamed stomach cancer, the disease that had killed his father; the arsenic-poisoning theory came later.

A theory that Napoleon was poisoned rested on high levels of which element in his hair?

Arsenic turned up at similar levels in hair cut when he was a boy and in his family's hair too, so it built up over a lifetime rather than from a late dose.

Napoleon's well-preserved body, exhumed in 1840, had been sealed in how many coffins?

Two were metal and two mahogany, all inside a masonry tomb in the Valley of the Geraniums.

Which French monarch allowed the return of Napoleon's remains to Paris in 1840?

Louis Philippe I, prodded by his minister Thiers, sent his own son, the Prince de Joinville, to Saint Helena in a warship to bring the coffin home.

Which order of merit did Napoleon create in 1802?

The Legion of Honour was open to merit regardless of birth; when critics called its crosses baubles, Napoleon is quoted replying that it is with baubles that men are led.

Which institution, founded at Napoleon's instigation in 1800, began as a private company?

The Banque de France later became the country's central bank, winning the sole right to issue banknotes nationwide in 1848, and was nationalised only in 1945.

What is Napoleon's 1801 agreement with the pope called?

The Concordat called Catholicism only 'the religion of the great majority' of the French, and the church never got back the lands seized in the Revolution.

At which subject did the young Napoleon excel at the military academy at Brienne?

Mathematics stayed his strong suit: his examiner at the Paris military school was the scientist Laplace, whom he later made a minister and replaced after six weeks.

Napoleon's brother Louis was made king of which country in 1806?

Holland's new king sided with his subjects, even declaring himself Dutch rather than French, so Napoleon annexed the country in 1810 and Louis went into exile.

Which British commander's allied army held the ridge at Waterloo against Napoleon until the Prussians arrived?

The Duke of Wellington had, by coincidence, lodged in 1805 at the Briars on Saint Helena, the very house where Napoleon first stayed in his final exile.

Napoleon is quoted as saying 'The future destiny of the child is always the work of' whom?

The mother in his own case was Letizia, who mistrusted the family's sudden fortune: her famous remark, perhaps apocryphal, was 'Let's hope it lasts!'

Shortly after abdicating in April 1814, what did Napoleon attempt?

His suicide by poison failed because the dose, carried since his near capture on the retreat from Moscow, had weakened with age; he survived to go into exile.

Which way of preserving food did Nicolas Appert pioneer, earning 12,000 francs from Napoleon's government in 1810?

Canning began with Appert sealing food in champagne bottles and boiling them, long before anyone could explain why it worked; the award obliged him to publish his method.

Which institution, abolished by the Revolution in 1794, did Napoleon restore in 1802?

Slavery came back to France's colonies on his orders in 1802, but the army he sent to retake Saint-Domingue was broken by yellow fever and revolt, and the colony became Haiti.

Which marshal vowed to bring Napoleon back to Paris in an iron cage in 1815, then joined him?

Michel Ney, hailed by Napoleon as 'the bravest of the brave', was tried for treason by the restored monarchy and shot by firing squad that December.

Which republic ceded Corsica to France a year before Napoleon was born?

Genoa had already lost the island to Pasquale Paoli's independent republic, so it pledged to France a possession it could not hold, to cover its debts.

Which group won the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest with a song named after Napoleon's final defeat?

ABBA's 'Waterloo' gave Sweden its first Eurovision win, in Brighton; the orchestra's conductor, Sven-Olof Walldoff, took the podium dressed as Napoleon.

At the École militaire in Paris, Napoleon trained to become an officer in which branch?

Artillery was his arm from the start: when his father's death cut the family income, he crammed the two-year course into one and was commissioned at 16.

Which fortress did Napoleon fail to capture in 1799, forcing his army to march back to Egypt?

Acre held out because a Royal Navy flotilla captured his siege guns at sea and reinforced the Ottoman garrison; after two months he had to lift the siege.

Where did Napoleon and Tsar Alexander first meet at Tilsit in 1807?

On a river raft moored midstream in the Niemen, between their two armies; the talks begun there turned the two emperors from enemies into allies against Britain.

When Napoleon's army invaded Portugal in 1807, the royal family escaped by sea to which colony?

Brazil's Rio de Janeiro became the seat of the Portuguese court for thirteen years; the fleet had sailed just a day before Junot's troops entered Lisbon.

In which damp, rat-infested house on Saint Helena did Napoleon spend his final years?

Longwood House fell into neglect after his death until Napoleon III bought it for France in 1858; it has been French government property ever since.

Both autopsy reports concluded Napoleon died of which disease, the same one that killed his father?

Stomach cancer killed his father in 1785; Napoleon, a cadet of 15 and not even the eldest son, took over as head of the family.

Which question is Napoleon said to have asked about any general proposed to him?

'Is he lucky?' suits a man who believed in omens and lucky stars, but the line is older: it was Cardinal Mazarin's first question about anyone entering his service.

Which US agency was founded in 1908 by Charles Bonaparte, grandson of Napoleon's brother Jérôme?

The FBI began as the Bureau of Investigation, which Charles Bonaparte set up as US attorney general. He belonged to the family's American line and was born in Baltimore.

Which medieval embroidery was shown in Paris in 1803 to sell Napoleon's planned invasion of Britain?

The Bayeux Tapestry shows William of Normandy conquering England in 1066, a handy precedent. Once the invasion was abandoned its propaganda value was gone, and it was sent home to Normandy.

At Schönbrunn Palace in 1809, Napoleon lost to 'the Turk', a fake automaton that played which game?

Chess was the Turk's trick: a master hid inside its cabinet. When Napoleon reportedly tried the same illegal move three times, the machine swept every piece off the board.

Which dictator had the remains of Napoleon's son moved from a Habsburg crypt to Paris in 1940?

Adolf Hitler ordered the transfer during the occupation of France, though the young man's heart and intestines stayed behind, as Habsburg burial custom required.

A popular myth wrongly blames Napoleon's gunners for shooting off which part of the Sphinx at Giza?

The nose was already missing in drawings made in 1737, six decades before the French reached Egypt, and marks on the face show it was pried off with rods or chisels.

What devastated Moscow just as Napoleon's army marched into the city in September 1812?

A citywide fire burned from 14 to 18 September and consumed most of Moscow. The governor had already had the fire brigade's equipment removed or destroyed.

In portraits such as David's Napoleon in His Study, where does the emperor famously rest one hand?

In his waistcoat: the pose was already a portrait convention by the 1750s, meant to signal calm, firm leadership. Portrait painters across the continent and in America copied it.

Which Paris monument did Napoleon commission in 1806, though it took thirty years to finish?

Arc de Triomphe work halted for years and was completed only in 1836. The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier from World War I was later placed beneath its vault.

Napoleon's tomb lies under the dome of which Paris complex, also home to France's army museum?

Les Invalides received his body in 1840, but the crypt and its massive sarcophagus took twenty years to complete and were finished only in 1861.

Which actor played the emperor opposite Vanessa Kirby in Ridley Scott's 2023 film Napoleon?

Joaquin Phoenix was reunited with the director of Gladiator, made 23 years earlier, for a film built around the emperor's rise to power and his first marriage.

Which insect replaced the fleur-de-lis as an emblem on Napoleon's imperial coronation robes?

The bee was copied from golden ornaments found in the tomb of Childeric I, a Merovingian monarch, linking the new dynasty to France's most ancient rulers.

Which composer's overture, complete with cannon shots, marks Russia's defeat of Napoleon's invasion?

Pyotr Tchaikovsky wrote the 1812 Overture in 1880, and since a Boston Pops concert in 1974 its cannon and bells have been a fixture of American Fourth of July celebrations.

Which painter's The Third of May 1808 shows Napoleon's soldiers executing civilians in Madrid?

Francisco Goya completed it in 1814, once the French had been driven out, and it later inspired a series by Manet and Picasso's Guernica.

Which word for irregular warfare entered English from Spain's resistance to Napoleon's armies?

Guerrilla is the Spanish diminutive of guerra, literally 'little war', and English picked it up while bands of Spanish peasants and shepherds harried the occupying French.

Napoleon III, emperor of France from 1852 to 1870, was which relative of Napoleon Bonaparte?

His nephew took a different road to the throne: he was France's first elected president, serving from 1848, before he took the imperial title for himself.

Napoleon's second wife, married in 1810, was the great-niece of which earlier queen of France?

Marie Antoinette was the favourite sister of the bride's grandmother, and Napoleon had the wedding follow the protocol used for hers forty years earlier.

Napoleon's first wife was baptised and raised on a sugar plantation on which Caribbean island?

Martinique was home to her family's estate near Les Trois-Îlets, which survives as a museum, though Saint Lucia also claims to be her actual birthplace.

Which bird, copied from Caesar's legions, topped the standards Napoleon gave his regiments?

An eagle cast in bronze went to each regiment in December 1804, and losing one in battle brought shame on men pledged to defend it to the death.

Which Paris museum was renamed for Napoleon in 1803 and filled with art seized by his armies?

The Louvre became the Musée Napoléon at the suggestion of its director, Vivant Denon, but after the emperor's abdication many of the seized works went back to their owners.

Napoleon's marshal Bernadotte was unexpectedly elected crown prince of which kingdom in 1810?

Sweden chose him to succeed a childless monarch, though the courtier who first proposed his name was arrested for his effrontery on returning home.

Which cavalry marshal married Napoleon's sister Caroline and took the throne of Naples in 1808?

Joachim Murat, an innkeeper's son, was rated the foremost cavalry commander of the age, but he ended in front of a firing squad at Pizzo in 1815.

Which relative of Napoleon reclines semi-nude as Venus in Antonio Canova's famous marble?

Pauline had married into the Borghese family, and her husband commissioned the statue. Whether she really posed unclothed remains a matter of debate.

Countess Walewska used her place at Napoleon's court to press for which country's independence?

Poland had been erased as a state in 1795, when Russia, Prussia and Austria divided what was left of it in the last of three partitions.

Which Italian physicist did Napoleon make a count after a demonstration at the Institute of France?

Alessandro Volta had invented the voltaic pile, the first electric battery, in 1799, proving that electricity could be generated chemically.

Which American engineer built the submarine Nautilus in France in 1800 and pitched it to Napoleon?

Robert Fulton built Nautilus years before the steamboats that made his name, and he went on to devise early naval torpedoes for France's enemy, the Royal Navy.

At which Channel port did Napoleon mass barges from 1803 for an invasion that never sailed?

Boulogne was the base of a 200,000-strong Army of England, and Napoleon kept its bored troops busy with constant training and his own ceremonial visits.

Which island did Napoleon seize from the Knights Hospitaller in 1798 on his way to Egypt?

Malta's knights capitulated almost at once, ending 268 years of their rule. Within months the islanders rebelled, and the besieged French garrison gave up to the British in 1800.

Which maritime republic, independent for some 1,100 years, did Napoleon bring to an end in May 1797?

Venice's last doge, Ludovico Manin, abolished the republic as French pressure mounted, and under a secret deal the city was then handed to Austria.

Which Saint-Domingue leader did Napoleon's troops arrest at a parley and ship to a French fortress?

Toussaint Louverture died at the Fort de Joux in 1803, yet his lieutenant fought on and led the Haitian forces to victory over a French army ravaged by yellow fever.

Which Russian marshal, twice shot through the head in earlier wars, abandoned Moscow to Napoleon?

Mikhail Kutuzov survived bullets through the temple in 1774 and 1788. After a war council in the village of Fili, he chose to give up the city and save his army.

Which warrior caste broke against Napoleon's infantry squares at the Battle of the Pyramids?

The Mamluks charged the French squares again and again, losing thousands of men against about 300 French casualties, and the defeat began the decline of their rule.

Antoine-Jean Gros painted Napoleon visiting soldiers stricken by which disease at Jaffa?

Plague victims fill the canvas, which Napoleon commissioned partly to quell reports that he had ordered fifty of his sick men given fatal doses of opium.

Which limping ex-bishop was Napoleon's foreign minister, then secretly dealt with his enemies?

Talleyrand resigned the ministry in 1807 yet kept the emperor's trust, all while dealing secretly with the tsar and Austria's Metternich to undermine his plans.

Which novelist, daughter of the banker Necker, spent years in exile for opposing Napoleon?

Germaine de Staël turned her banishment into the Coppet group, a circle of writers spanning the continent, and claimed to have seen his tyrannical ambitions before most others.

Which exiled royal did Napoleon have seized in Baden and shot at Vincennes in March 1804?

The Duke of Enghien was snatched from his home by French dragoons and shot after a hasty military trial, though there was no proof he had joined any plot.

A bomb missed Napoleon on Christmas Eve 1800 as he drove to the Opéra to hear which Haydn work?

The Creation was being performed in France for the first time that night. The blast in the rue Saint-Nicaise killed several bystanders, yet Napoleon drove on and the audience cheered him.

Which general did Napoleon leave in command in Egypt, only to be assassinated in Cairo?

Kléber took over all French forces there when Napoleon sailed home, and in 1800 he was killed by Suleiman al-Halabi, a Syrian theology student.

At which château did Napoleon abdicate in April 1814 and bid farewell to his Old Guard?

Fontainebleau was where his own marshals pressed him to step down. He signed at a small table that is kept on display, then addressed the Guard in the Court of Honor.

Which château did Napoleon's first wife buy in 1799 while he was away campaigning in Egypt?

Malmaison made him furious at first because of its cost, but she kept it after their divorce and stocked its park with kangaroos, emus, black swans and zebras.

Which of these steps in Napoleon's rise to power came first, when he was only 26?

Crushing a Paris revolt came first, in October 1795: his troops scattered a royalist rising in the streets, the feat that set off his rapid advancement.

What became of the French throne between Napoleon's 1814 abdication and his return a year later?

A Bourbon king took it: the allied armies installed the brother and heir of the monarch executed in 1793, and he granted a constitution known as the Charter of 1814.

Which battle against the Prussians on 16 June 1815 was the last victory of Napoleon's career?

Ligny was only a tactical win: the bulk of the beaten army got away in good order, was reinforced, and fought again at Waterloo.

What did Napoleon do just two days after his wedding in Paris in March 1796?

He left to command an army facing the Sardinians and Austrians, and within weeks a run of victories was turning him into a national hero.

Napoleon was a 19-year-old lieutenant when crowds stormed which Paris fortress in July 1789?

The Bastille fell while he was a garrison officer far away in the provinces, and he spent long stretches of the revolutionary years on leave on his home island.

How did Napoleon's second reign end on 22 June 1815, in the week after his defeat at Waterloo?

He abdicated for his son after the chambers turned on him and demanded that he go. He briefly weighed a coup against them, then dropped the idea.

Which of these capitals did Napoleon's army occupy first, weeks before his greatest victory?

Vienna fell in November 1805 after two French marshals seized a Danube bridge by falsely claiming an armistice. Berlin followed in 1806, Madrid in 1808 and Moscow in 1812.

Which five-man government ruled France from 1795 until Napoleon's coup swept it away in 1799?

The Directory had lost the support of every political faction, some of its own members included, and it was one of them, the Abbé Sieyès, who recruited the general for the coup.

Which future foe of Napoleon was born in the same year, 1769, and outlived him by three decades?

Wellington was born in Dublin in May 1769, three months before his rival, and went on to serve as Britain's prime minister before his death in 1852.

Napoleon was briefly arrested in August 1794 for his ties to the brother of which fallen leader?

Maximilien Robespierre had been overthrown the month before, and his younger brother Augustin had been the young general's patron. Napoleon was freed within weeks.

Why did Napoleon delay the start of the Battle of Waterloo on the morning of 18 June 1815?

The ground was sodden after a night of rain and would have bogged down his cavalry and guns. The hours he lost gave the Prussians time to reach the field.