With regard both to the uniforms favoured by Napoleon, and to his visiting the tomb of Frederick at Potsdam (following the defeat of the Prusso-Saxon Army at the twin battles of Jena and Auerstadt; Marshal Davout's III Corps won the latter against odds of about three to one)----

While there are pictures of Buonaparte in the uniform of an Artilleur, these are in the main from later in the century; by the time he came to prominence he was a General, and would therefore have worn the regulation uniform for that rank, a dark blue coat with gold embroidery for all arms of the service (and different sashes, weight of embroidery, patterns of plumes and edging to hats, and so on). The familiar image of Bonaparte crossing the Alps by J-L David, or a painting by J-A Gros of him leading the assault on the Pont d'Arcole, show this uniform.

When on campaign, however, Napoleon habitually wore the uniform of a light Cavalry regiment, the Guard Chasseurs, originally the Consular Guard; the full title, and a slight indication of the uniform's appearance, may be seen in the posting of 9th June above (time given as 7.57AM). A portrait by Francois Gerard, now in the Chateau of Chantilly, shows this "petit tenue"; the lapels, the "revers", are of the same dark green as the body of the tunic, piped with scarlet. I should think this preference for plainness served a number of functions ( not the least being its convenience in the field ), including the visual reminders that Le Petit Caporal was "one of the boys" and that he cared nothing for the display of sumptuous uniforms ( or, by implication, for the "tinsel show" of Crowns, and Robes of vermine ). Alte Fritz himself had done the same thing, funnily enough - and had said a crown was just a hat that let in the rain.

With regard to the "charming print" above, the uniform worn by Napoleon would not be accurate even if the green colour were much faded, since not only is that green too light, the revers are white. It seems like a conflation of the Chasseur uniform and the other uniform Napoleon sometimes wore, that of a Grenadier a Pied de la Garde Imperiale; another portrait by J-L David, of Napoleon in his Study, 1812, shows this uniform, dark blue habit with white revers and red, squared cuffs piped white. This will be the uniform worn by Napoleon in a rather muted representation of that same visit to Frederick's tomb, painted by Nicolas Ponce-Camus and exhibited at the Salon of 1810.


Finally, and not to dispute anything about the origin of the informal title "Green Linnet" being found in Napoleon's habitual campaigning uniform (albeit mostly hidden under the even more famous "redingote gris" or greatcoat), do remember that just as the colour of the Bourbons was white, that of Napoleon and his dynasty was green.

Some may be interested in this wee snippet of related "tradition": an example of coded words and passwords can be found in this Green/White, Bonapartist/Bourbonniste division. Briefly, in order to establish the sympathies of a stranger, or confirm what side a suspected agent supported, the question, "do you like beans?" would be asked, and soon enough it would then be asked which kind someone preferred....
If the situation involved anything conspiratorial, it was not enough to say "green" or "white"; the next stage was to offer a handful of beans of the appropriate colour, the expected response being for someone to take just three, saying as he did so, "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit". The pattern had also been used during the Revolution itself, only then the question itself had been much less surprising, since it was concerned with White wine and Red, the colour of the Phrygian Cap of Liberty.

Good Luck.