Ridley Scott’s new film Napoleon, about the colossus of Europe, is just out. Belvedere and I very much enjoyed Mr Scott’s film Alien, starring the heroic spacecat Jones, and were rather hoping that he might feature an imperial cat in his latest work. However, he didn’t.

https://youtu.be/OAZWXUkrjPc?si=itwL6i3-LQL3shJb

No Respect

This is not Mr Scott’s fault.The Emperor just did not like cats. Preposterous stories claiming that he was terrified of them clog the internet, but they are not true. His nephew Louis,(later Napoleon III), was a bona fide ailurophobe, but the Emperor simply despised them for their lack of subservience. Cats do not give good grovel.

The Empress Disagrees     

The Empress Joséphine, however, ran a small menagerie at the Chateau de Malmaison that included several cats. She described them as  "… good and faithful creatures that purr.” Hardly the most extravagant praise, as Belvedere correctly points out, but an improvement on her husband’s attitude. He considered them idle, insolent, self-serving sycophants with no respect for authority. 

Feles Vincit Omnia 

Catkind won in the end, As if it wouldn’t. When Napoleon was finally exiled on remote island of St Helena in 1815, he established a cautious relationship with a cat he called Ben. Apparently they spent quite a lot of time together. Cats can look at Emperors as well as kings, after all.