Ridley Scott's film Napoleon will be released on Friday. Even I, who am not at all a lover of period films, will go see it. For its director, of course, but above all for the actor who stars in it, Joaquin Phoenix, who fascinates me. The imminent premiere has caused intense Napoleonitis among the population, including the most illiterate, and curiosity about that choir that turned Europe upside down.
Napoleonitis has reached the point that, as Eusebio Val reported yesterday in these pages, a bicorn of the French emperor, made of black felt and a cockade with the colors of the French flag, has been acquired for almost two million euros at an auction held in Fontainebleau. Little joke with Fontainebleau. Between 1800 and 1812, the emperor had between 120 and 160 hats of this type made, so anyone who wants one knows that, if they have the million in the case, they will be able to get it at the next auction .
The bicorn was born at the end of the 18th century as an evolution of the tricorn. If the tricorn has three beaks, the bicorn has only two and, apparently, is more practical. Throughout Europe, it gradually disappeared in Spain, where it is still used by the Civil Guard in the gala uniform. "Antonio Torres Heredia, / son and grandson of Camborios, / comes without a wicker rod / between the five tricorns". But the bicorn is also on leave. In our house, the only ones that can be seen on a regular basis are the guindolas that, in Menorca, the cashiers wear during the Sant Joan festivities when they walk with horses that rear up politely and delight the tourists. In the midst of the current Bonapartist effervescence, to revive the bicorn it would only be necessary for some influencer to recover it on Instagram. Ca's Seller Bagur in Ciutadella has them. It would be good if, on Friday, at the premiere of Ridley Scott's film, some viewers would take it to heart.
