60 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?

His paternal ancestors were minor Tuscan nobles who moved to Corsica in the 16th century.

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

He was baptised Napoleone di Buonaparte; the house is now a museum.

Napoleon was famously mocked by the British as short. What was his height, according to modern estimates?

British cartoonists called him 'Little Boney', and a nursery rhyme warned children he ate naughty people.

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?

It brought him to the attention of Augustin Robespierre, brother of Maximilien.

Whom did Napoleon marry in a civil ceremony on 9 March 1796?

She was the former mistress of Paul Barras and had been born in the French Caribbean; the marriage produced no children.

Napoleon's 1798 expedition to Egypt took along 167 scholars whose discoveries included what?

Their work was published in the Description de l'Égypte; the stone itself ended up in the British Museum after the French surrendered.

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

All but two French vessels were captured or destroyed.

The Battle of the Pyramids in July 1798 was actually fought roughly how far from the pyramids?

The name was good propaganda; the French square formations held off the Mamluk cavalry.

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

It overthrew the Directory; 13 Vendémiaire was his earlier crushing of royalist rebels in Paris.

David's portrait shows Napoleon crossing the Alps on a rearing horse. How did he really cross in 1800?

The weather was fine; Napoleon asked to be shown 'calm, mounted on a fiery steed', and Paul Delaroche later painted the mule version.

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

The story that his chef improvised it after the battle is probably myth; tomatoes would not have been available.

In 1803 Napoleon sold which territory to the United States for $15 million?

The purchase doubled the size of the United States; Napoleon needed cash for the coming war with Britain.

The civil code Napoleon promulgated in 1804 is still what?

Napoleon did not draft it himself, but chaired many sessions of the four-jurist commission that did.

At his coronation in Notre-Dame on 2 December 1804, what did Napoleon do that surprised observers?

Pope Pius VII had anointed him; Napoleon then placed a replica of Charlemagne's crown on his own head and crowned Joséphine.

Which pope travelled to Paris for Napoleon's coronation?

The same pope later excommunicated Napoleon in 1809.

Beethoven dedicated his Third Symphony to Napoleon but withdrew it in 1804. What is the symphony called?

Beethoven had admired him as First Consul; the withdrawal was partly to protect a noble patron's fee, but he still titled the work 'Bonaparte'.

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

The 'Battle of the Three Emperors' was fought exactly one year after his coronation.

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

Napoleon replaced it with the Confederation of the Rhine, a group of German client states.

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

Nelson died in the action on 21 October 1805.

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

Enforcing it drew him into Spain and Russia, the two campaigns that broke his empire.

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

Louis got Holland and Jérôme Westphalia; Joseph had first been given Naples.

Napoleon divorced Joséphine in 1810 because she had not given him an heir. Whom did he marry that April?

The Habsburg princess bore him a son the following year, styled the King of Rome.

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

The boy briefly became Napoleon II when his father abdicated in 1815, though he never ruled.

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?

The occupation lasted weeks before the catastrophic winter retreat began.

The Grande Armée crossed the Berezina in November 1812 in temperatures reaching what?

Minus 40 is the one temperature where Celsius and Fahrenheit agree.

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

It was the largest battle of the Napoleonic Wars, and it opened the road to Paris.

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

It had 12,000 inhabitants and lay just 10 km off the Tuscan coast, which made escape easy.

When a regiment sent to stop him blocked his road near Grenoble in March 1815, what did Napoleon do?

The soldiers shouted 'Vive l'empereur!' and joined him; Marshal Ney, who had promised to bring him back in an iron cage, defected a week later.

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

He landed at Golfe-Juan on 1 March and abdicated again on 22 June.

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

Wellington's line held off repeated French attacks until the Prussians arrived in force.

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

In 1815 it was part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands.

After Waterloo, Napoleon surrendered on 15 July 1815 aboard which British warship?

He had hoped to sail for America but found the port blockaded.

Napoleon spent his final exile on Saint Helena, an island in which ocean?

His home there, Longwood House, was a damp, rat-infested 40-room bungalow.

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?

The official cause remains stomach cancer; arsenic was common in wallpaper dyes and hair tonics of the era.

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 king allowed the return of Napoleon's remains to Paris in 1840?

The remains now lie under the dome of Les Invalides.

The Legion of Honour, the nation's highest order of merit, was created by Napoleon in which year?

Republicans disliked it, and it squeaked through the Council of State by 14 votes to 10.

Napoleon founded which institution as the country's first central bank?

It was part of a wave of reforms that also codified law and built a public education system.

Napoleon's Concordat of 1801 was an agreement with whom?

Pius VII recognised the regime, and France recognised Catholicism as the majority religion.

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

He arrived in France at nine speaking little French and always kept a Corsican accent and poor spelling.

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

Louis's son would later reign as Napoleon III.

Napoleon had how many siblings who survived to adulthood, from an elder brother down to young Jérôme?

Five more were stillborn or died in infancy; several of the survivors were given thrones.

Napoleon said 'The future destiny of the child is always the work of' whom?

His mother Letizia's firm discipline was the dominant influence of his childhood.

The night after his 1814 abdication, what did Napoleon attempt?

The poison he had carried since the Russian campaign had lost its potency and he survived.

How much was the 1795 French food-preservation prize, later won by Nicolas Appert, worth?

Appert finally got the money in 1810 on condition he publish his method, laying the ground for canning.

Napoleon reintroduced which institution in the French colonies, one of the darkest marks on his record?

He also banned the entry of black people into France, even as he emancipated Jews and abolished the Spanish Inquisition.

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

Ney was shot for treason after the Bourbon restoration.

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

His father had supported Pasquale Paoli in the Corsican war of independence against France.

Aged nine, Napoleon was sent to a religious school in which French town to improve his French?

His mother tongues were Corsican and Italian; he kept a Corsican accent and poor French spelling all his life.

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

He excelled at mathematics but was poor at French and German, and was commissioned into the La Fère artillery regiment in 1785.

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

He began with 13,000 men; thousands died of disease, mostly bubonic plague, and he allegedly had plague victims poisoned with opium.

The 1807 Tilsit peace talks between Napoleon and Tsar Alexander began on a raft on which river?

The meeting followed Napoleon's crushing victory at Friedland, which cost the Russians up to 30 percent of their army.

Which general led 24,000 French troops across the Pyrenees toward Portugal in October 1807?

Portugal had been reluctant to enforce the blockade against its traditional ally Britain.

What was the name of the damp, rat-infested 40-room bungalow where Napoleon lived on Saint Helena?

He first spent two months at a pavilion at the Briars before the move; he insisted on imperial formality at dinner.

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

The reports attributed death to internal bleeding caused by the cancer; a later arsenic-poisoning theory followed.

What question did the superstitious Napoleon always ask about his generals?

He believed in omens, numerology, fate and lucky stars.