When Napoleon's remains were returned to France in 1840, no fewer than fourteen bogus emperors were admitted into care

It is perhaps difficult now to understand the posthumous impact of the French Emperor - what Chateaubriand called the 'despotism of his memory' - or how far and for how long his shadow stretched across Europe. Sightings of him were reported, supposedly accompanied by an astonishing array of troops, across much of Europe for years after. A recent history of French psychiatric institutions reveals that when Napoleon's remains were returned to France in 1840, no fewer than fourteen bogus emperors were admitted into care; there had been others before that and would be more in the following decade.  

M. Mazower, The Greek Revolution (2021), 222-3