#bicorne hat

The most part of all princes have more delight in warlike manners and feats of chivalry than in the good feats of peace.

- Sir Thomas More

Two French SAS officers receive the hats of Napoleon and Wellington on behalf of their regiments (1945).

The hats were officially presented by Brigadier "Mad Mike" Calvert, commander of the SAS Brigade, to the two French SAS regiments.

The historic hats arrived in France in October 1945 on a Halifax bomber, as a gift from Nancy Astor, the first woman to take a seat in Parliament. They were given by Lady Astor in the name of the British nation in recognition of Anglo-French comradeship and the valiant services rendered by the French SAS.

It is not known when the two hats were worn. The suggestion they were both worn at Waterloo has not been proved, nor is it known when they were acquired by Lady Astor. The gift to the French SAS was deliberately discreet and not given publicity.

The two bicornes (‘two-horned’ hats) currently reside in the Citadel at Bayonne, south-west France. The hats are now in the safekeeping of the successor regiment, the 1er Régiment de Parachutistes d’Infanterie de Marine, who guard the traditions of the French SAS.

The Spanish uprising against Napoleons invasion of Spain forced Napoleon to deal with a new kind of enemy "the Guerrilla".

These armed men were a constant source of drain and harassment to the French army, as described by a Prussian officer fighting for the French: "Wherever we arrived, they disappeared, whenever we left, they arrived....they were everywhere and nowhere, they had no tangible centre which could be attacked."

Napoleon did have a hat maker named Poupard. From the years of 1800 through 1815 he supplied Napoleon with 170 bicornes at 48 Francs a piece. Napoleon’s hat, though it’s obviously a symbol associated with him, wasn’t unique to that time and era. He wore it in a side-to-side style called en bataille in French and also called “Atwarts” style.

These hats, contrary maybe to belief, were rather fragile articles. Napoleon ordered them unadorned and sometimes he would affix a tricolor cockade to the hat, or a black ribbon as some sort of decoration. But if he threw the hat or tossed it around, it would get worn out and he would give them to his groomers to cut up to use in blacksmith duties. Hence, a lot of Napoleon’s hats were destroyed. He also had a sensitive head, so his hats were said to be worn by a young boy, maybe a hat maker’s apprentice or a stable hand, to break them in.

Some of Napoleon’s hats that didn’t get cut up: