Despite such a syllabus of misdeeds, which might see him indicted for crimes against humanity today, Napoleon remained (and, paradoxically, still is) a hero to many in France. After 1815, rumours spread that he would escape St Helena and return once again, as he had from Elba. Some denied that he had died in 1821, reporting later apparitions of Bonaparte wandering around France; others imagined (wrongly) that the British had poisoned him. His reburial in the Invalides in 1840 heralded a posthumous comeback. In the midst of repeated revolution and political chaos, many yearned for a messianic figure who would right wrongs and restore French grandeur, as briefly incarnated in his nephew, Napoleon III. Even in the twentieth century, Marshal Pétain and General de Gaulle both donned a Napoleonic mantle of national salvation.

Napoleon continues to fascinate the public outside of France as well as his partisans inside France, and there is something irresistibly intriguing about the Corsican corporal become imperial master of Europe and then banished to the South Atlantic. The splendid Napoleon: Revolution to Empire at the National Gallery of Victoria provides an opportunity for Australians to indulge in Napoleonophilia. The gallery has scored a coup in borrowing more than three hundred objects – paintings, clothing, jewels, books – from the Fondation Napoléon in Paris, several French military museums, and other establishments. The mood is triumphalist, Napoleon’s cypher and a bust of the emperor greeting visitors to the gallery lobby, the white walls in the first room printed with the Bourbon fleur-de-lis giving way to brilliant imperial mazarine blue and vermilion, and with Napoleon’s coronation music (rediscovered in 1965) playing in the background.

Gondola armchair from Madame Bonaparte’s boudoir at Saint-Cloud Palace, 1802, designed by Charles Percier (Musée national des châteaux de Malmaison). The decorative motif of the swan was closely associated with Joséphine at Malmaison, where black swans brought from Australia were settled in 180

The exhibition displays exquisite objects, from tiaras, bracelets, and rings to beautifully drawn maps and finely carved furniture. There are many pleasures, such as an extraordinary nécessaire de voyage, a chest fitted to hold coffee and tea services, sewing materials, and the other requisites of a grande dame. Few visitors will not feel a frisson seeing Napoleon’s own unexpectedly modest toiletries kit, complete with worn toothbrush and tongue scraper. The porcelain  that Bonaparte took to St Helena, painted with scenes of European cities and his victories, invites reverie about the exiled emperor.

The exhibition follows Napoleon’s career (though there is little on his early life) as he ages from the dashing young officer with a mane of hair blowing in the wind to a chubby general with a comb-over hiding a receding hairline. Then come the general in his famous bicorn and the emperor sporting a golden laurel-leaf crown, and finally the emaciated dictator on his deathbed. Exhibition labels remind visitors that most representations of Napoleon are pure propaganda, but they must consult the catalogue to learn exactly how megalomaniacal Bonaparte was and how obsequious his court artists and artisans became. Jacques-Louis David’s monumental painting of Napoleon crossing the Alps shows him astride a majestic horse; in reality, he rode a mule. There is a sketch for David’s painting of the coronation; the artist sweetly included Napoleon’s mother in the balcony, although ‘Madame Mère’ was not present.

The catalogue provides much insight into the arts and crafts of the Consulate and the Empire, although it is curious that the editors have not included contributions from several distinguished Australian specialists of the Revolution, Napoleon, and French overseas voyages. Baudin’s expedition to the Antipodes was one of the major scientific achievements of Napoleon’s reign and features prominently. On show are Redouté’s wonderful drawings of Australian flora, Lesueur’s and Petit’s images of Aborigines, and even a transcription into musical notation of ‘Cou-hé’, called an Aboriginal cri de ralliement. Joséphine, as well as the emperor, took an interest in Australia, the gardens of her palace being ornamented with gum trees and kangaroos. Indeed, the explorers’ mission statement charged them with collecting specimens for the empress as well as for the natural history museum. ‘Terre Napoléon’ and other names in the Australian landscape remain testimony to French discoveries.

Among the diamonds, sapphires, and gold bling of Napoleon and his kith and kin, and the fanciful portrayals of marsupials at Malmaison, a few less glamorous folk peer out from the exhibition. Soldiers’ uniforms are a reminder of infantrymen and cavalrymen sacrificed on Napoleon’s orders. A black page holding the shako of the pompous king of Naples (husband to one of Napoleon’s sisters) alludes to colonialism and French enslavement of Africans. From the earlier period, there is a touching depiction of women providing food to prisoners, and a haunting portrait of a prison clerk – dressed in grubby clothes, with a five o’clock shadow and a huge hairy mole – who used his wages to provide for the family of a man locked up in a revolutionary jail. Away from Joséphine’s elegant drawing rooms and Napoleon’s coronation pageantry, here appear the faces of another France.

Napoleon: Revolution to Empire is at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, from 2 June to 7 October 2012.