So you think Napoleon was short? Well, it’s a myth. Britain’s great satirist James Gillray didn’t just caricature the French leader relentlessly, he also pulled off arguably the greatest cartoon coup of all time, convincing the world even to this day that he was pint-sized. It was all based on a mistranslation (and no doubt a little mischief). Since French inches were bigger than British ones, Napoleon’s recorded height of 5ft 2in would have worked out at around 5ft 7in on the other side of the Channel. Not a giant, but taller than the average Frenchman of the time.
