Napoleon Bonaparte wasn't short—he was average height for his era
History remembers Napoleon Bonaparte as a diminutive tyrant, but contemporary records show he stood about 5 feet 6 inches tall, typical for an 18th-century French man. The myth of his extreme shortness arose partly from British wartime propaganda and partly from differences between French and English measurement units. His nickname "Le Petit Caporal" was an affectionate title used by his soldiers, not a literal description.
The Autopsy Record and the Real Measurement
Following his death on the remote South Atlantic island of Saint Helena in May 1821, Napoleon Bonaparte underwent an autopsy conducted by his personal physician, Francesco Antommarchi, alongside several British medical officers. The attending doctors documented his physical condition in detail, recording his height as five feet, two inches, and four lines. To an English-speaking reader accustomed to standard British units, this measurement immediately suggested a man barely over five feet tall—well below the threshold of stature expected for a military conqueror.
That reading, however, relied on a critical misunderstanding of 18th- and early 19th-century metrology. The measurement taken by French medical personnel was recorded in the traditional French system of measurement, the *ancien régime* units of *pieds* (feet), *pouces* (inches), and *lignes* (lines), rather than British imperial units. A French foot was not identical to an English foot; it was longer by approximately three-quarters of an inch.
When translated into modern metric terms or contemporary English units, Napoleon's recorded height of 5 feet 2 inches in French measure actually equates to roughly 5 feet 6.5 inches (approximately 1.68 to 1.69 meters). In the context of early nineteenth-century Europe, this did not make him diminutive. Data on historical human height reveals that the average adult Frenchman of the period stood around 5 feet 4 inches to 5 feet 5 inches tall, meaning Napoleon was slightly above average height for his generation.