{"id":73898,"date":"2018-09-27T09:08:38","date_gmt":"2018-09-27T07:08:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.napoleon-cologne.fr\/napoleon-and-his-use-of-the-cologne\/"},"modified":"2019-11-27T10:18:44","modified_gmt":"2019-11-27T09:18:44","slug":"napoleon-and-his-use-of-the-cologne","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.napoleon-cologne.fr\/en\/napoleon-and-his-use-of-the-cologne\/","title":{"rendered":"Napoleon and his use of the Cologne"},"content":{"rendered":"

[vc_row row_height_percent=”0″ override_padding=”yes” h_padding=”3″ top_padding=”2″ bottom_padding=”1″ overlay_alpha=”50″ gutter_size=”3″ column_width_percent=”100″ shift_y=”0″ z_index=”0″][vc_column column_width_use_pixel=”yes” gutter_size=”3″ overlay_alpha=”50″ shift_x=”0″ shift_y=”0″ shift_y_down=”0″ z_index=”0″ medium_width=”0″ mobile_width=”0″ width=”1\/1″ column_width_pixel=”900″][vc_custom_heading text_size=”h1″ text_weight=”300″ text_height=”fontheight-1-6″ text_color=”color-150243″ sub_reduced=”yes”]Napoleon Bonaparte always paid a real attention to his personal hygiene, preferring the ablutions with water to the coquetry of dandies and aristocrats. Disturbed by the overpowering perfumes, the Emperor never perfumed himself but made a particularly abundant consumption of Cologne.[\/vc_custom_heading][vc_column_text]If the Emperor’s toilet was centered around his superb Athenian, it also consisted of daily baths whose hot water filled with steam, in the manner of the Arab baths, the rooms devolved for this purpose. Madame de R\u00e9musat (1780 – 1821), lady attached to Josephine de Beauharnais (1763 – 1814), tells in her Memoirs that the Emperor, once washed, “made such floods [of Eau de Cologne] on himself that he used up to 60 rolls per month “(the “rolls” being the name given to the flasks of Farina’s Eau Admirable).[\/vc_column_text][vc_single_image media=”73818″ caption=”yes” media_lightbox=”yes” media_width_percent=”100″ alignment=”center” lbox_title=”yes” lbox_caption=”yes”][vc_column_text]The French National Archives have thus found an invoice indicating that for the month of October 1808, 72 bottles of Eau de Cologne were ordered! Napoleon was indeed generously sprayed with Cologne after his ablutions and rubbed vigorously his whole body with a brush. He attributed to this habit – which he claimed to have brought back from the Orient (as perhaps his long hot baths) – his health and considered it to be most important. The story tells that on the eve of each decisive battle, he held at his desk one of the green flasks of Farina house. He attributed to the Cologne the same qualities usually given to coffee, and used to pour a few drops of Cologne on a handkerchief and then push it against his lips, then on his foreheads and temples.[\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]