Was Napoleon actually short?

No. He was around 1.68 to 1.69 metres, or roughly five feet six inches — about average for a Frenchman of his era, and possibly slightly above it. The idea that he was unusually small is a measurement error compounded by decades of enemy propaganda.

The confusion starts with units. His height was recorded after his death as five feet two inches, but in pre-metric French measure. The French inch, the pouce, was about 2.71 centimetres, noticeably longer than the English inch of 2.54. Converted correctly, five French feet two inches comes out at roughly 1.69 metres. Read as English measure, it becomes an implausible 1.57 metres, and that is the figure that entered popular belief.

Several other factors reinforced it. His nickname among his troops, le petit caporal, was a term of affection rather than a description of his stature. He was habitually surrounded by the grenadiers of the Imperial Guard, who were selected partly for height and wore tall bearskin caps, making him look small in company. And British caricaturists, above all James Gillray, spent years drawing him as a tiny, raging figure — an image so effective that it outlived the wars, the regime and the man.

The association became so fixed that psychology adopted the term "Napoleon complex" for aggression supposedly compensating for short stature, a concept named after someone who was not short.

It is a useful case study in how historical reputation forms. A unit conversion error, a wartime cartoonist and a memorable phrase together produced a fact that almost everyone knows and that is simply not true.