Images of Napoleonic veterans

[William]

Anyone interested in the Napoleonic wars might like to have a squint at these images...

http://mashable.com/2014/10/27/napol.../#xxvqHwb8ukq9

William

[Neibelungen]

A number of people have done some extensive archive research on these images and they are quite a mixed bunch.
While some are actual veterans a number of them were not at all, or else didn't have the role described on the images.

Most of the uniforms are later (2nd or 3rd empire) with some high quality theatrical costume bits added. That wasn't an uncommon feature of that period and many French (and English) museum collections have items of dubious or very uncertain origin or else were manufactured copies of a high quality. It's often very difficult to tell the difference between something 150 years old compared to 200 years as the methods and materials would still have been almost identical.