NAPOLEON AND THE BEE

See Apple TV+. After becoming Emperor of France in 1799, Napoleon Bonaparte needed a dynastic symbol that would imply traits of vigilance and zeal which he felt that he possessed.

For insect inspiration, Napoleon looked to the Emperor Charlemagne (who had adopted the cicada as an emblematic device), and selected, another insect, the industrious honeybee. With hubris, Bony reflected that the bee was historically representative of immortality and resurrection traits he intended to emulate. However, his hopes of political immortality were curtailed by defeat by an Anglo/German army at The Battle of Waterloo (in June 1815). He died in British custody in May 1821.

Scholars observe that Napoleon chose the bee as a link between his new dynasty and the origins of French state. In 1653, Golden bees were discovered, in Tournai, in the tomb of Childeric I, founder in 457 of the pivotal Merovingian dynasty, (who Dan Brown readers may have heard of) .