Napoleon wasn't short for his time?

One of the disc jockeys on the radio today made an off-handed comment that while we think of Napoleon as short, in his own time, he wouldn’t have been considered so. This is the first time I’ve heard this. And while I wouldn’t expect 18th century Frenchmen to be as tall as modern-day people, 5’2 or so still seems awfully short.

According to History channel, Napoleon was actually 5’6’’. Average height, almost even for today’s standards.

IIRC, the reason Napoleon got tagged as “short” was more because Wellington was so tall, 6’3" or thereabouts. It made for funny Punch cartoons.

Yahoo answers seems to have an explanation for the various heights given.

It further says he was slightly taller than the average Frenchman of his day, but he may have looked short compared to members of his Imperial Guard. Imperial Guardsmen in several countries in the 19th century were picked for their exceptional height.

Other sites suggest that the measurement was done by the English who would not have used the French inch. That seems unlikely but I don’t have a reference book on Napoleon handy.

I believe the shortness of Napoleon is a canard. My guess would be that it was probably started by the English to mock him after his defeat.

I’ve seen so many conflicting answers to this question that I no longer believe anything. I’m not sure that anybody knows exactly how tall Napoleon was, or how tall the average male Frenchman was in 1800. One factor to consider is that height correlated more closely with class in 1800 than it does today, so people would tend to compare Napoleon with his peers–generals, aristocrats, and other rulers, who were somewhat taller–rather than with the mythical “average Frenchman”, who was an under-nourished peasant.

Napoleon looks fairly short–to me, anyway–in most of his portraits, possibly because he had a squat build. He gained weight as he got older, which didn’t help.

He was known as “le petit carporal” (the little corporal) due to his camaraderie with soldiers under his command. Many people wrongly thought that “petit” referred to his stature.

Going from the following picture (and dragging a rectangle the same height as Napolean about to compare with people the same distance away as him), he seems to be about the height of the women more than the other men.

http://www.napoleonbonaparte.nl/plaatjes/consecration_of_napoleon.jpg

In another picture:

http://web2.airmail.net/napoleon/napoleon_farewell.gif

He’s in the foreground so there’s no one else to compare to laterally, but the guy standing just behind him on the left’s head is higher than Napoleon’s in the picture even though he’s in the background, so he is at least taller than Napoleon.