Lyon had two different values of pound in general use, one of 14 ounces, and another of 15 ounces, the latter only being used for measuring silk.

The traditional French measuring system was chaotic, with size of units differing in each small town, and often even within towns. Interestingly, considering it was the birthplace of the metric system, France experienced a particularly rough journey to metrication. Is it the case that Napoleon introduced the metric system? I thought that was a revolutionary (pre-Napoleonic) innovation, and that Napoleon himself suspended its enforcement, saying something to the effect that it was not the business of government to torture the populace with trifles. A French inch was 2.71 centimetres while an Imperial inch is 2.54 centimetres. The wiki has a slightly different explanation, involving a kind of super-inch:Īfter his death in 1821, the French emperor's height was recorded as 5 ft 2 in French units, corresponding to 1.68 meter or 5 ft 6 in using Imperial units. *curiously, the old Irish shilling had thirteen pence, not twelve. I doubt if the EU has had much effect on French stallholders. Remnants of the old French measures can still be seen today, in markets, where fruit and vegetables are sold by kilogrammes or 'livres' (pounds). The French at that time used a foot/pound system similar to the British imperial system until Napoleon himself changed France to the metric system.īut the French foot had thirteen inches *, not twelve, so that Napoleon's height was in fact 67 inches, or 5 feet 7 inches, quite normal.

Napoleon Bonaparte is often depicted as being a person of small stature, because contemporary accounts state that his height was 5 feet 2 inches. View previous topic | View next topic Height of Napoleon Bonaparte

How tall was napoleon bonaparte