Talk:Gaspard Gourgaud

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Missing body part?[edit]

Was Gaspard one-armed at the time he followed Napoléon I Bonaparte to Saint Helena? There is a famous paining showing Napoléon on board the British ship Bellerophon. A few metres behind him is a group of seven male persons all bur one wearing uniforms. I have found out that they most likely are the medical doctor Louis Pierre Maingaud, Gaspard Gourgaud, Henri Gratien Bertrand, Charles Tristan de Montholon, Emmanuel Joseph de Las Cases, his teenage son Emmanuel, and Napoléon's best friend Cipriani Franceschi. The person wearing civilian clothes must be Louis. One out of the six uniformed persons is one-armed. Henri and Charles were both two-armed and Emmanuel Joseph also seem to have been so. An one-armed person would not have been very useful as a servant or bodyguard, so Emmanuel and Cipriani are highly unlikely. That leaves Gaspard as the most likely person to be the one-armed man. There is also a painting showing Napoléon dictating to Gaspard who writes with his left hand. I consider it very unlikely that he would have learned to write with his left hand unless he lacked the right hand. However, he is showed in such a pose and angle that you can't see his right arm even if he had one. I have seen three portraits of him but they only show his head, neck and a part of his chest. So they are not useful to tell if he was one-armed.

2008-06-05 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden.

I might be wrong about Gaspard writing with his left hand. In the painting I thought of the guy is in fact holding his arms close to each other. However, the version found in Wikimedia Commons has no caption. So I am not sure if it is really Gaspard who is writing. Anyone who can tell?

2009-01-02 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden.