For a week or two I wondered why Napoleon wore that peculiar hat? My daughter was folding paper hats during the Christmas break after I showed her how to do it. The first time she managed to fold one, she came to me to show it and then she made another one: “Look daddy, look daddy.”. And another one, … For a moment I wanted to be left alone but she didn’t stop showing me her creations. I told her that Napoleon wore that hat and that many people in psychiatric hospitals used to immitate Napoleon wearing paper folded hats and walking like him with a hand-in-waistcoat gesture.
Anyway today I found out that the hat is called bicorne (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicorne) and there are still many notables wearing those bicornes today.
Though, it is interesting that hatters often became crazy, cfr. as mad as a hatter. According to a friend of mine, because those craftsmen used lead or other heavy metals to craft the hats and that led to lead poisoning also known as plumbism and saturnism. cfr https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_poisoning cfr. Erethism, also known as erethismus mercurialis, mad hatter disease https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erethism
As well as Lewis Caroll’s character in Alice in Wonderland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatter_(Alice%27s_Adventures_in_Wonderland)
And that leads me in the train of thought to the madness of heavy metal music.
So that is my kick off, my first post ever on this.
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