{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/568",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
  },
  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 568,
    "subject": "_Peace_: Napoleon's Hand - Update",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1998-05-07T10:05:56+00:00",
    "last": "1998-05-07T10:05:56+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0010-0102@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "David_Lebling",
        "address": "david_lebling at avid.com"
      },
      "date": "1998-05-07T10:05:56+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) _Peace_: Napoleon's Hand - Update",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I've just finished reading Emil Ludwig's _Napoleon_, which my local\nlibrary actually has. It's not bad, a very novelistic sort of biography.\nThere's a lot in it about how Napoleon invented himself, reinvented his\npast, and other bits that make an interesting counterpoint to _Peace_.\n\nThere is _nothing_ about why he stuck his hand in his coat all the time.\n\nThe closest we come is the continuing motif of Napoleon's stomach cramps\n(which helped decide Waterloo), his father's early death from liver\ndisease, and N's eventual death on St. Helena from (likely) stomach or\nliver cancer.\n\nIn the edition I found, there are plenty of plates reproducing portraits\nwhich show him in the characteristic pose. In the text, he is _never_\ndescribed as having his hand in his waistcoat: his hands are clenched,\nor behind his back (most common), or he's pounding a table, or whatever.\n\nIf Weer (or Wolfe) read this book, my guess is that his explanation of\nNapoleon's pose was \"He had a stomachache.\"\n\n     --viz\n     (david_lebling at avid.com)"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}