Did Napoleon take a nap before battles?
Executive summary
Napoleon did take naps and rested in short bursts even during campaigns, a habit reported by multiple biographical and popular sources [1] [2] [3]. At the same time, his sleep was irregular—sometimes restful, sometimes fragmented—and there are credible accounts that fatigue and insomnia affected him before critical battles such as Waterloo [4] [5].
1. Documentary traces: contemporaries who said he slept when he wanted
Primary accounts from those around Napoleon indicate he “slept when he wanted” and could be difficult to rouse, with aides reporting he often asked to “lie a little longer,” which supports the idea that he routinely took rest during the day as well as at night [3]. Napoleon’s private secretaries and aides described him as someone who could and did sleep well at times, contradicting the popular myth that he was uniformly a short-sleeper [3].
2. Campaign patterns: discontinuous sleep rather than strict polyphasic rule
Historians and biographers note that Napoleon’s sleep was irregular and discontinuous on campaign—he sometimes worked through the night and at other times compensated with daytime sleep—so his pattern appears to be opportunistic napping rather than a rigid, scheduled siesta system [4]. Modern profiles of his habits emphasize short nighttime sleep mixed with daytime naps during intense periods of campaign activity [2] [6].
3. Battlefield naps: anecdote, capability and spectacle
Multiple popular accounts claim he could fall asleep quickly even with cannon fire nearby and that he sometimes cat-napped on campaign or briefly between engagements, suggesting a capacity to nap under stress that became part of his legend [1] [2]. Commentators who study sleep and leadership have used Napoleon’s reported ability to “simply…be—asleep” as an example of perceived volitional control over rest, even while cautioning that such self-portrayal can be misleading [7].
4. The strategic angle and the myth-making around sleepless genius
Napoleon himself and his propagandists cultivated an image of tireless industry, but contemporaries and later analysts have argued that claims of extreme sleeplessness were exaggerated by both enemies and flatterers; aides insisted he did sleep and that tales of a “genius short sleeper” should be treated skeptically [3]. Sleep researchers cited in journalistic interviews warn that narratives of willful control over sleep are often illusions of executive function and that chronic sleep loss degrades decision-making—even if a leader believes he can power through [7].
5. When naps weren’t enough: fatigue and the Waterloo story
There are credible reports linking poor sleep and insomnia to Napoleon’s lapses in the days before Waterloo; some analyses argue his severe lack of sleep in that campaign impaired judgment and contributed to mistakes on the battlefield [5]. This counterpoint underlines that while Napoleon could and did nap, such naps did not immunize him or his command from the cognitive costs of prolonged sleep deprivation [5] [4].
6. Verdict: yes—with important qualifiers
The evidence supports a clear answer: Napoleon did take naps, sometimes brief and sometimes substantial, and was noted for being able to sleep amid noise and stress [1] [3] [2], but his sleep was highly variable—discontinuous on campaign and subject to the limits of fatigue and insomnia—so the image of a single, reliable “pre-battle nap” ritual is an oversimplification not fully supported by surviving accounts [4] [5].