16cm (6.2in) x 9.5cm (3.7in) x 7.5cm (3in)
Ormolu mounted black marble base applied with gilt bronze sword laurel branches and a scroll inscribed with Napoleon’s great victories of Marengo, Wagram, Austerlitz; all surmounted by the Emperor’s bicorne hat in patinated bronze.
‘There you sit, infamous hat!’ begins Prince Metternich’s monologue to the dead Emperor in a scene from Edmond Rostand's play L’Aiglon (1900). The line is the opening of a tirade in which one of Napoleon's most implacable enemies expresses his hate for the hat which had become the embodiment of the man himself.
The bicorn worn ‘en bataille’ (ie, in line with the shoulders) was adopted early and identified Napoleon to his troops. Moreover Wellington reportedly said that Napoleon’s hat was worth 40,000 men on the battlefield. One of earliest occasions on which the hat appeared was the Battle of Marengo, where the Premier Consul delivered a crushing victory over the Austrians. The style and size of the bicorn varied little overtime. Four of Napoleon’s famous bicorns were taken to Saint Helena. On Napoleon’s death, one was placed in his coffin, so that they might rest together for eternity.