# Proof Narrative: Napoleon Bonaparte stood shorter than the average Frenchman of his era.

## Verdict

**Verdict: DISPROVED**

One of history's most enduring myths turns out to rest on a simple unit conversion error — and some very effective British propaganda.

## What was claimed?

The popular belief that Napoleon Bonaparte was unusually short for his time is so widespread it gave rise to a psychological term: the "Napoleon complex." It's one of those facts everyone "knows" — Napoleon was a little man with big ambitions. But was he actually shorter than the men around him?

## What did we find?

Three independent reference sources — Encyclopaedia Britannica, HowStuffWorks, and History.com — all agree on Napoleon's actual height, placing it between 1.67 and 1.69 meters (about 5 feet 6 inches to 5 feet 7 inches) in modern measurements. The sources converge within a remarkably narrow 2-centimeter range.

The root of the myth is a measurement mix-up. When Napoleon died in 1821, his height was recorded as "5 pieds 2 pouces" — which looks like 5 feet 2 inches. But the French pouce of that era was 2.71 centimeters, larger than the English inch at 2.54 centimeters. English speakers read his French measurements as English ones and concluded he was tiny. He wasn't.

So how did he compare to his countrymen? Britannica reports that most Frenchmen of the 19th century stood between 1.58 and 1.68 meters tall. Academic anthropometric data from military conscription records confirms average French male height at roughly 162 to 165 centimeters during Napoleon's lifetime. Even using the most conservative estimate of Napoleon's height against the most generous estimate of the French average, Napoleon was not shorter — he was at worst the same height and, by most estimates, 4 to 6 centimeters taller than the typical Frenchman.

British cartoonist James Gillray deserves much of the credit for cementing the myth. His satirical depictions of a tiny, raging "Little Boney" were so popular that Napoleon himself reportedly said Gillray "did more than all the armies of Europe to bring me down." The visual stuck — and two centuries later, we're still repeating it.

## What should you keep in mind?

Historical height measurements carry inherent uncertainty. The exact conversion from French to modern units depends on which version of the French foot was in use, and sources differ by a few centimeters. Additionally, "average height" data for 18th-century France comes primarily from military conscription records, which may not perfectly represent the general male population. The conclusion is robust across all reasonable estimates, however — no credible interpretation of the data makes Napoleon shorter than average.

## How was this verified?

This claim was tested by extracting height measurements from verified source citations, converting units using documented historical conversion factors, and comparing across three independent publishers. All quotes were machine-verified against their source pages. For the full evidence breakdown, see [the structured proof report](proof.md), [the full verification audit](proof_audit.md), or [re-run the proof yourself](proof.py).
