Emperor’s hat carries the rain stains of Waterloo

He wore the Imperial Guard uniform to show his British captors he was Emperor. The Chasseur à Chev­al colonel’s uniform is in the Musée de Sens in Yonne and has been one of its treasures for more than 150 years.

Beside it in the museum is his emblematic bicorne hat. It still bears the rain stains from when he wore it at the Battle of Waterloo – and Victor Hugo says in Les Misérables the rain cost Napoleon the battle.

Both hat and uniform were recently restored in a €20,000, four-month effort by expert Raphaëlle Déjean. The work saw her remove additions from a previous 1980s attempt, clean off dust and dirt and repair holes in the literally moth-eaten jacket.

Despite her work, it was not possible to return them to their former glory and the formerly green hunting dress coat is now blue as the original yellow dye in the green faded first.

The material was too delicate for experts to re-dye it and the exact historic colour was impossible to match.

When Napoleon died in 1821 he left two uniforms and he was buried in one – his tomb is in Les Inval­ides in Paris – and the second was given to his aide, Louis-Etienne Saint-Denis, called Mamelouk Ali, an officer who had followed him to exile in Elba and then St Helena. When Ali died in 1856, he bequeathed it to the museum in Sens, his home town.

In 1920 another donor offered the bicorne to make a special display.

Both uniform and bicorne have been loaned to exhibitions worldwide but the exposures have taken a toll and led to the restoration, which was paid for by the Fondation Napol­éon.

Dorothée Censier, of Sens mus­eum, said they plan a special room for the uniform which needs to be displayed in low-level lighting – the equivalent of dusk – and are seeking funding.

The uniform allows the museum to settle an old question: how tall was ‘the little corporal’?

It turns out he was not particularly short for the time at 1.69m or 5ft7in with a 104cm (41in M/L) chest.