Author Topic: How tall was Napoleon  (Read 22132 times)

Indirik

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Re: How tall was Napoleon
« Reply #15: March 18, 2014, 04:58:15 PM »
The exact length of any individual unit was also arbitrary, as well. Everyone used their own standard, not just from country to country, but from person to person. Napoleon's time was during the time when the French were experimenting with various units of measure, including things like decimal-based time systems. IIRC, they completely redefined their entire system of measure on a regular basis.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_units_of_measurement

"The names of a many pre-metric units were reintroduced, but were redefined in terms of metric units. Thus the toise (fathom) was defined as being two metres with six pied (feet) making up one toise, twelve pouce (inches) making up one pied and twelve lignes making up one pouce. Likewise, the livre (pound) was defined as being 500 g, each livre comprising sixteen once and each once eight gros and the aune as 120 centimetres."

So, two meters was six feet, and one kilogram was two pounds. :P
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