In the program Historically yours, the history columnist Clémentine Portier-Kaltenbach tells, on the occasion of the bicentenary of Napoleon's death on May 5, the story of the true story of two objects that keep the emperor among a thousand: his gray frock coat and his legendary bicorn hat.
How would one recognize Napoleon among a thousand?
To his gray frock coat and his legendary hat!
The gray frock coat is one of Napoleon's greatest geniuses.
The historian G. Lenotre writes about him: "He had understood that, winning battles, founding kingdoms, upsetting Europe, that was not all for his glory. He still had to print in the world. spirit of his contemporaries, in the imagination of the centuries to come an image of him which was not banal, a personal silhouette, strange, and yet simple, something which one had never seen and which however did not have nothing theatrical or luxurious ".
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On the uniform of the Grenadiers on foot of the Guard, which he usually wore, he had the idea of putting on a simple gray cloth frock coat of a good, well-to-do bourgeois.
This gray frock coat in fine Louviers cloth had very wide sleeves, so that Napoleon could take it off or put it on without removing the epaulets attached to it.
Gray, green and blue frock coats
This oddity, which in any other would have seemed ridiculous, obtained the success that we know: our collective imagination does not know Napoleon in his pompous coronation costume, of which David had given the sketch. She forgot the First Consul's red velvet costume with diamond buttons. For her, the emperor is not really the emperor with his gray frock coat and his hat. It was she who made the silhouette of the emperor pass to posterity, especially because it was as simple and austere as that of his soldiers. The legend only retained the gray frock coat, while he also wore green and blue ones.
However, it was not Napoleon's favorite coat.
His favorite was a blue cloth coat with an embroidered collar he had worn in Marengo and throughout the Italian campaign.
He carried it to Saint Helena.
His body was covered with this mantle when he died, then his coffin was covered with it at the time of his funeral.
He had bequeathed it to his son, but the coat in question has disappeared.
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But Napoleon really did not care about his toilet.
He wore the same white casimir pants every day.
His jackets and breeches were still in white casimir.
He changed them every morning, but they only had them bleached three or four times.
Two hours after he left his room, his panties would very often be stained with ink, due to his habit of wiping his quill on them and sprinkling ink all around him while shaking. his quill against his table.
12 beaver felt hats
As for Napoleon's famous hat, it was made of beaver felt!
This hat was therefore made of black felt from beaver fur.
The headdress was trimmed with satin, the ornament being a tricolor cockade.
Napoleon had different sizes, because he wadded winter models.
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This is called the famous "French beaver hat". A certain Poupard was the official supplier of the emperor's hats. Its sign "At the temple of taste" was in the galleries of the Royal Palace. Unlike the other soldiers, Napoleon I wore this hat "in battle", that is to say the wings in line with the shoulders. According to the wardrobe regulations of 1811, he had to have twelve of these hats at all times.
Since his death on May 5, 1821, it has circulated false Napoleon hats! Only about twenty of them have been authenticated with certainty. The Army Museum can be proud of having six of its twenty hats, including that of Eylau which had been given by Napoleon himself to the painter Antoine-Jean Gros in 1807. At Saint Helena, the emperor had taken some. only four. One was placed in his coffin, another is in Malmaison, the last two belong to the Army Museum.