History Highlight: The Napoleonic Bee

Emperor Napoleon, unintentional design icon.

This history highlight inspiration comes from attending one lecture of a history of design class when I was in high school. Interior Design is definitely not my forte, but the history was definitely something I could dig into. That class was dedicated to French design and there I heard a fascinating history about how the revolution changed French design.

The French Revolution had its beginning in 1889 and ended in 1899. However, despite the resolution of the revolution, France would continue to see rampant violence across the nation. Napoleon Bonaparte rose up the political ladder through his service during the Revolution and eventually made his way (very violent and manipulative way) to becoming Emperor of France. One of his many actions while Emperor was to change many of the symbols of France including the long standing Fleur-de-lis, a stylized lily. A common symbol in European royalty, it was especially beloved by the French Royal family. Its resemblance to the symbolism of the Catholic Holy Trinity made it commonly used by the French elite, up to the French flag. However, the Fluer-de-lis would not remain on the flag for much longer.

Notice the crown that is on the industrious, non-royal, and non-elitist bee.

With Emperor Napoleon in control and his seemingly rejection of royalty (while at the same time claiming his own royal status) meant that Napoleon would find a problem with the common and popular usage of the lily design. The flag would be replaced with the now well known tricolor. However, the fluer-de-lis would suffer another great blow. Napoleon found the design too royal and elitist for his national symbol. Instead, Napoleon offered the bee as the symbol of the nation. But why the bee? In terms of national symbols this is one of the less weird proposed national symbols of history. For example, in the United States Benjamin Franklin offered the turkey as a potential symbol. So the bee is not that strange. Napoleon chose the bee because of its behavior. Bees are industrious, hard working, and community oriented. The Emperor found these traits to be similar to those of the French people or at least something they should idealize. The bee also had meaning throughout France as a sign of immortality and resurrection, which appealed to Napoleon. As one of the major industries of France was textiles, this change in royal symbol made a large impact. Fabric makers would not produce fabrics and textiles with the newly minted Napoleonic bee making it instantly recognizable across Europe as the symbol of French Empire (which would eventually become a republic again, but that's for another day).