Latest / Ridiculous History / Joseph Bonaparte, Cryptid Hunter

Transcript

Joseph Bonaparte, Cryptid Hunter · Ridiculous History

0:00
Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
0:27
Speaker 1: to the show Ridiculous Historians. As always, thank you so
0:31
Speaker 1: much for tuning in. Shout out to super producer Casey Pegram,
0:36
Speaker 1: Shout out to our producers Andrew Howard and Max Williams,
0:42
Speaker 1: and in a really weird way, I guess tangentially, shout
0:46
Speaker 1: out to Napoleon. Yes, Napoleon, I'm betting Napole. Oh yeah,
0:51
Speaker 1: I'm no Napoleon. No, that's not worth it. I think
0:55
Speaker 1: it was. It's always worth It's always worth it. Try.
0:57
Speaker 1: You know what I always think of whenever we cover Napoleon.
0:59
Speaker 1: I probably mentioned this before, is it Bill and Ted?
1:02
Speaker 1: Because I always think about when he was eating ice
1:04
Speaker 1: cream and trying to take other people's ice cream. That
1:07
Speaker 1: sounds like something Napoleon would do. Now, there's a really
1:09
Speaker 1: cool Phoenix song called Napoleon Says, and I don't understand
1:13
Speaker 1: the reference, but it's Napoleon says, to take off your coat,
1:16
Speaker 1: take off your long John's too. Napoleon says, to take
1:20
Speaker 1: off your coat, take off your long John's too, writing
1:22
Speaker 1: in a trench coat. I don't know what if that means.
1:26
Speaker 1: I think that's why I love Phoenix because they're clearly,
1:28
Speaker 1: you know, not English's first language speakers, but they write
1:32
Speaker 1: all their song lyrics in English, and there's a fun,
1:34
Speaker 1: charming kind of lost in Translation vibe, not only because
1:38
Speaker 1: they were also on the Lost in Translations soundtrack, but
1:40
Speaker 1: it just something that happens in the transition between French
1:43
Speaker 1: to English that I find very charming. I think they
1:45
Speaker 1: do it on purpose his people, and I love seeing
1:50
Speaker 1: them live and uh and uh, you know, I'll admit
1:54
Speaker 1: I was one of those kids who had some emo
1:57
Speaker 1: moments to some Phoenix songs, and I greatly, I greatly
2:00
Speaker 1: appreciate them, but I do wonder like sometimes when you
2:03
Speaker 1: when you read the structure of the lyrics, you're thinking like,
2:06
Speaker 1: did they just think, yeah, this will work. You and
2:10
Speaker 1: I saw Phoenix together many years ago and then before
2:13
Speaker 1: before times at the Shaking News Music Festival. Um, that
2:18
Speaker 1: was a lot of fun and we're cheap folks, so
2:20
Speaker 1: we went because it was free. It was free, free
2:23
Speaker 1: that one time we got free festival tickets. But today's
2:26
Speaker 1: episode no is this is funny because this relates. It's
2:30
Speaker 1: weird how synchronous this became. This relates to a couple
2:33
Speaker 1: of things they're near and dear to our hearts, and
2:36
Speaker 1: that we've covered recently, not just in this show, but
2:38
Speaker 1: in our other companion shows. Stuff they don't want you
2:41
Speaker 1: to know. We did a whole episode about the Jersey Devil.
2:45
Speaker 1: No spoilers, but we we had we figured out a
2:48
Speaker 1: pretty likely explanation for this cryptod and then we also
2:52
Speaker 1: we had this throwaway fact in that show where like
2:56
Speaker 1: a lot of people saw the Jersey Devil, one of
2:59
Speaker 1: them was related to Napoleon Bonaparte, and it was one
3:04
Speaker 1: of those things like if you listen to that episode,
3:06
Speaker 1: which I think we didn't, Okay job on, we sort
3:09
Speaker 1: of like threw that fact out there, like there we go,
3:12
Speaker 1: and then we just never never talked about it again
3:14
Speaker 1: because we had a bunch of stuff to do. Yeah,
3:16
Speaker 1: it's true, And in this episode, I mean, this isn't
3:18
Speaker 1: about the Jersey Devil, but we're gonna get to that
3:20
Speaker 1: section of Joseph Napoleon's life when he immigrated to the
3:25
Speaker 1: United States um after serving as sort of a you know,
3:30
Speaker 1: reluctant king under his brother's reign, because you know, you
3:33
Speaker 1: can't be Napoleon's brother and not get some kind of
3:36
Speaker 1: like juicy post, you know, as a result. Yeah, that's
3:40
Speaker 1: the thing we're talking about. Napoleon's older brother, Joseph, and
3:45
Speaker 1: he's uh, He's been described by historians as personality wise,
3:51
Speaker 1: almost the polar opposite of his buddy Napoleon. Joseph is
3:55
Speaker 1: like an idealist. He's mild mannered, and he's quote lacking
4:00
Speaker 1: in vigor. He's what a former president would have called
4:03
Speaker 1: low energy old low energy yosef. Yes, I don't know
4:08
Speaker 1: if I'm standing enough. It's yo step for now. I'm
4:09
Speaker 1: just gonna do it because it seems like, you know,
4:12
Speaker 1: when French people have names that you would pronounce one
4:14
Speaker 1: way in English, they are usually pronounced differently, like uh again,
4:17
Speaker 1: singer of Phoenix. Look at it on paper, it's Thomas,
4:20
Speaker 1: but he goes by Tomah. Yeah, well that's a good point.
4:23
Speaker 1: I'm gonna stick with. You know what, I'll alternate between
4:26
Speaker 1: the My arbitrary defense of that decision is going to
4:30
Speaker 1: be that he did immigrate to the States. Said there
4:33
Speaker 1: we go. Yeah, he was like, it's funny because no
4:37
Speaker 1: matter how intimately aware of Napoleon's reign and rise to
4:42
Speaker 1: power as you might be, author auns are a little
4:45
Speaker 1: bit lower that you would have heard too too much
4:48
Speaker 1: about Joseph. He was a quietude. He liked literature, Gartney
4:52
Speaker 1: and uh and I love this Rason. He liked entertaining.
4:56
Speaker 1: I love when people say entertaining. It's such a vague
4:59
Speaker 1: thing as a verb. Like if you see those house
5:02
Speaker 1: hunter things and someone's like, my name is Marlon and
5:06
Speaker 1: I own I own a vantage toenail clipper shop, And
5:10
Speaker 1: then someone's like, yes, and my name is Sandy. I
5:13
Speaker 1: admire otters from Afar are bunchet is ten million dollars.
5:17
Speaker 1: And whenever they go through a living room, you know
5:20
Speaker 1: they're getting shown around the house. They have to have
5:21
Speaker 1: problems because it's house hunters. They're like, I don't know
5:24
Speaker 1: if this is big enough. We love to entertain, or
5:29
Speaker 1: another another another way you see influencer types talk about
5:33
Speaker 1: that as their primary occupation is entertaining, you know, or hosting.
5:37
Speaker 1: I love to host you know. Basically means you have
5:39
Speaker 1: a fancy house and spend lots of money on fancy
5:41
Speaker 1: parties that you can then post videos about your fancy
5:44
Speaker 1: parties and your fancy friends. Uh no, shade, it's it's
5:47
Speaker 1: it's a way of living. Um, but it is kind
5:49
Speaker 1: of funny when your whole reason for existing is to
5:52
Speaker 1: kind of flex on the internet, just sort of kind
5:55
Speaker 1: of what being an influencers influencers out there, correct me
5:58
Speaker 1: if I'm wrong, Ben, I think I have a little
6:00
Speaker 1: bit of a clue as to how you might pronounce
6:02
Speaker 1: uh the J word as in our our heroes name,
6:07
Speaker 1: because I was like, no, my house Hunter joke was solid. No,
6:10
Speaker 1: it's super solid um. And did I not laugh? I'm no, no,
6:13
Speaker 1: We'll put We'll fix it in post. We fix it.
6:16
Speaker 1: I laughed inside my heart laughed and smiled at the
6:19
Speaker 1: same time. She's very difficult to do for a heart,
6:22
Speaker 1: since it doesn't have a mouth, is it. Well, I
6:26
Speaker 1: just know that he was born Giuseppe Bonaparte, so I'm
6:30
Speaker 1: guessing that that Joseph might have been the americanization of Giuseppe.
6:35
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna flip it. I'm gonna
6:38
Speaker 1: go back to Joseph, all right. Well, and then you know,
6:41
Speaker 1: maybe his his close friends called him Giuseppe, and he
6:44
Speaker 1: was like, only you can do that, you and my
6:47
Speaker 1: little brother. So it's it's funny because it seems like,
6:53
Speaker 1: if we look at it, it seems like he would
6:55
Speaker 1: have been happy just living sort of a life of leisure. Right.
6:58
Speaker 1: He was born again Giuseppi Buenaparte and Courte Corsica on
7:04
Speaker 1: January seven, seventeen sixty eight, and he was the oldest
7:08
Speaker 1: sibling of Charles and Letizia Bonaparte's eight children, one of which,
7:15
Speaker 1: of course, was their second child, Napoleon, or as his
7:18
Speaker 1: buddies called him, Naps nap Nappy, the original Napster, little Nappy.
7:24
Speaker 1: No nobody called him that, um, and that wasn't funny.
7:26
Speaker 1: I appreciate the the lath though, Ben, and I will
7:29
Speaker 1: return the favor. When you make a joke that doesn't
7:31
Speaker 1: land at some point later in our career, it's bound
7:35
Speaker 1: to happen. Then you're usually you're you're batting averages high.
7:38
Speaker 1: But you never know, you never know. But he and
7:42
Speaker 1: Joseph were tight, right, Yeah, yeah, yeah, Gusepi and the
7:46
Speaker 1: Napster were a dynamic duo for sure, because they grew
7:50
Speaker 1: up together. They spent their early childhood together, and then
7:53
Speaker 1: they left Corsica in seventeen seventy eight to go to
7:56
Speaker 1: school and they traveled together. Josep have had been This
8:01
Speaker 1: happened in a lot of families. He had been like
8:02
Speaker 1: singled out as the kid who had to be a priest,
8:05
Speaker 1: so he started study. Always gotta be one, I guess, yeah, often,
8:09
Speaker 1: so he started classical studies at one college and Napoleon
8:13
Speaker 1: went to a military school in another city. M and
8:17
Speaker 1: Joseph didn't want to be a priest. Imagine that. And yeah,
8:21
Speaker 1: I imagine that happens quite a lot too, where like,
8:23
Speaker 1: you know, in the pecking order you got your military leader,
8:26
Speaker 1: maybe there's one that gets to be a doctor, or
8:29
Speaker 1: like maybe there's one that's like the black sheep, who like,
8:31
Speaker 1: we're gonna accept the fact that you're going to be
8:33
Speaker 1: a sculptor or something. And then you know, maybe he
8:35
Speaker 1: just seemed like the most pious. I don't know what
8:37
Speaker 1: makes you suited in the eyes of your folks to
8:39
Speaker 1: be a priest, but they obviously saw the lord in him,
8:42
Speaker 1: but he didn't see it in himself. He wanted to
8:44
Speaker 1: join his bro and be a militaryman. Yeah exactly. I
8:49
Speaker 1: mean it feels like, you know, there's always you and
8:51
Speaker 1: I are both only children, so I always imagine there's
8:54
Speaker 1: a little bit of like sibling rivalry. You don't want
8:57
Speaker 1: your siblings to get like the cool stuff and you
9:00
Speaker 1: get stuck with the Nazi cool stuff. So maybe he felt,
9:03
Speaker 1: you know, a version of that, like why does why
9:06
Speaker 1: does my little brother get to go off on adventures
9:09
Speaker 1: and I have to be a priest? But that's the thing.
9:13
Speaker 1: A deathbed promise came into play. Charles Bonaparte was dying,
9:19
Speaker 1: he was ailing, it was not long for the world,
9:21
Speaker 1: and he made his son Joseph, promise to give up
9:25
Speaker 1: any remote, any sliver of a thought or ambition of
9:29
Speaker 1: following a military career, and he said, instead, you need
9:32
Speaker 1: to return to Corsica and to vote yourself to the family.
9:36
Speaker 1: And then when the elder Buonaparte passed away in that's
9:41
Speaker 1: when Joseph becomes head of the whole operation. He looks
9:45
Speaker 1: after the farm, the vineyard, he helps his mom support
9:49
Speaker 1: his younger siblings, and then he's still is able to
9:53
Speaker 1: continue education, so in seventeen goes to University of Pisa
9:59
Speaker 1: and and a year later he has a law degree.
10:03
Speaker 1: So he decided to know he's not a priest at all.
10:06
Speaker 1: He decided to follow the law instead of the lord,
10:11
Speaker 1: and he then got a job in the French Corsican
10:15
Speaker 1: judicial system, and he and his brother continued to kind of,
10:19
Speaker 1: you know, be there wasn't. I didn't get a real
10:22
Speaker 1: sense of sibling rivalry here, which is interesting when you
10:24
Speaker 1: consider the heights to which Napoleon rose. Uh, Joseph seemed
10:28
Speaker 1: fine with that all throughout this story. I just wanted
10:30
Speaker 1: to lead with that a little bit because he seemed
10:32
Speaker 1: like a pretty reasonable guy, and as we get into
10:34
Speaker 1: his time in America, that reasonable side really shines through. Yeah, yeah,
10:39
Speaker 1: that's true. So because he can he has a law degree,
10:43
Speaker 1: he gets a job right working in the judicial system,
10:47
Speaker 1: and he and his brother do work together, as he said,
10:51
Speaker 1: and they want to advance the French revolutionary cause in Corsica.
10:55
Speaker 1: But then they get into a conflict with the leader
10:57
Speaker 1: of the Corsican nationalist Pascual Paully, and that happened, so
11:03
Speaker 1: they high tail it to France and now things take
11:06
Speaker 1: this change. Life has takes us some crazy directions, and
11:10
Speaker 1: a family friend helps Joseph get a job as a
11:14
Speaker 1: commissary of the army in the south of France, so
11:19
Speaker 1: he actually does kind of work with the military etymology
11:22
Speaker 1: question for you, Ben know, this is a pet project
11:25
Speaker 1: of yours. Commissary is a position in the military like that.
11:28
Speaker 1: But it's also like what they call like the canteen
11:31
Speaker 1: where you eat your food. Any idea why that is?
11:34
Speaker 1: Those things that related? Yeah, kind of. So it's been
11:38
Speaker 1: around since thirteen sixty two in English, and it meant
11:41
Speaker 1: one to whom special duty is entrusted by a higher power.
11:47
Speaker 1: So technically, you know, if you want to mess with
11:50
Speaker 1: your kids, if you have kids, then when you're on
11:53
Speaker 1: a road trip or something, make one of them. Like
11:55
Speaker 1: you are the commissary of of the ox cord, you
11:58
Speaker 1: get to decide the music, but be careful because you
12:01
Speaker 1: can always be overthrown if I don't like baby Shark.
12:05
Speaker 1: Who doesn't like Baby Shark? I don't know. Man. If
12:07
Speaker 1: you it's an alright song in small doses, maybe that's
12:11
Speaker 1: the problem. Maybe it's too much of an ear worm.
12:13
Speaker 1: But I think you were able to get to avoid
12:15
Speaker 1: the baby Shark thing, right. It came out after your
12:19
Speaker 1: daughter's word. For her, it was more of a meme
12:23
Speaker 1: then something that she was actually into. And she's also
12:26
Speaker 1: got a baby siss so her her baby sister was
12:29
Speaker 1: a big fan. And there's actually there's actually this funny
12:34
Speaker 1: toy that you can get. It's like a baby shark
12:36
Speaker 1: that sings the song, but it sings it depending on
12:39
Speaker 1: how fast you pump its mouth. That's not a weird.
12:42
Speaker 1: What I mean is it's like a hand puppet and
12:44
Speaker 1: you move its mouth, and as you move it, it
12:46
Speaker 1: changes the speed of it. So if you move it
12:48
Speaker 1: really slow, it's like baby, dude. It sounds like a
12:56
Speaker 1: like a battery dying and a doll or something. You know. Yeah, yeah,
13:01
Speaker 1: So commissary comes from Latin, and then it eventually evolves
13:06
Speaker 1: to person in charge. But as far as when it
13:10
Speaker 1: became specifically related to food and the storage of food,
13:16
Speaker 1: and that may be a story for another day. But
13:20
Speaker 1: he's in there right, he's he's in the military now,
13:23
Speaker 1: he's not a priest. And while he stayed in Marseilles,
13:26
Speaker 1: he meets a daughter of a wealthy merchant. Her name
13:30
Speaker 1: is Marie Julie Clarey. And it's funny because there's a
13:34
Speaker 1: great article from Shannon Sellen dot com that's pretty blunt
13:40
Speaker 1: and I think a little bit. I don't know if
13:42
Speaker 1: they're trying to be mean, but they say Julie was
13:45
Speaker 1: not physically attractive, but she was intelligent and she basically
13:49
Speaker 1: had a great personality and Joseph's mom liked her and
13:53
Speaker 1: also thought she would be a good match financially for
13:56
Speaker 1: a son. So they got married on August one, seventeen four.
14:01
Speaker 1: Isn't it always the merchant's daughter, you know, as that
14:04
Speaker 1: seems like such a trope, you know, married the merchant's
14:06
Speaker 1: daughter because he had to curry favor with the merchant.
14:09
Speaker 1: They're always a very stern and want the best for
14:11
Speaker 1: their daughter. Uh. It is pretty funny that shady Shannon
14:15
Speaker 1: uh sell an article that kind of negs this particular
14:19
Speaker 1: merchant's daughter. But it's true. They get married on August first,
14:22
Speaker 1: seventeen ninety four, and that's when Napoleon began to really,
14:27
Speaker 1: you know, do well for himself. But so did Joseph
14:30
Speaker 1: in his own way. Yeah. Yeah, they were for a while.
14:34
Speaker 1: They were in kind of like a rising tide carries
14:36
Speaker 1: all vessels situations. I believe he went with Napoleon on
14:40
Speaker 1: the Italian campaign, and then in seventeen ninety seven he
14:44
Speaker 1: was elected as a Corsican deputy to the Council of
14:49
Speaker 1: five hundred. The Council of five hundred, as a lower
14:54
Speaker 1: house legislative body established by the French Constitution, is seventeen
14:59
Speaker 1: ninety five. It is called that because they have five
15:01
Speaker 1: hundred delegates and they were charged with initiating legislation for
15:06
Speaker 1: the upper House. The Council of Ancients would accept or
15:11
Speaker 1: reject the laws they worked on. So picture a little
15:13
Speaker 1: bit like a house of representatives. Almost. This is great
15:17
Speaker 1: for business. Eventually he becomes the French ambassador to the
15:21
Speaker 1: Court of Parma, and then he becomes the ambassador to Rome.
15:24
Speaker 1: And now he is wealthy. He is balling. He is
15:28
Speaker 1: not worried about money, Noel, he is It's good to
15:32
Speaker 1: be Napoleon's brother at this moment in time, exactly. He's
15:37
Speaker 1: he I love this brotherly love situation. You know, like
15:40
Speaker 1: you're used to seeing so much backstabbing and kind of backbiting,
15:43
Speaker 1: all the back things between brothers as they rise to prominence.
15:46
Speaker 1: But he seemed perfectly content to seeing his brother achieve
15:50
Speaker 1: all of this success because you know, frankly, if he
15:53
Speaker 1: didn't have ambitions to be like the top dog, he
15:56
Speaker 1: certainly was benefiting from all this right because he was
16:00
Speaker 1: also becoming incredibly wealthy. He bought a town house on
16:04
Speaker 1: the Rue de Roche in Paris. Super producer Casey Pegram
16:09
Speaker 1: would be ashamed of my French pronunciation. But doing the
16:12
Speaker 1: best I can both, I know, I know, we we
16:15
Speaker 1: always try. He also bought a chateau. Well, what makes
16:19
Speaker 1: the chateau is chateau? It is this just a style
16:22
Speaker 1: of house that must be And that little upside down
16:27
Speaker 1: little symbol over the a, it's a it's like a
16:30
Speaker 1: large country house. It's in a state, right, It's exactly.
16:34
Speaker 1: It's it's basically like a vacation home. And he bought
16:37
Speaker 1: a lot of lands too. And I'm gonna do my
16:38
Speaker 1: best here. Let's see. Uh Morte Fontaine. Oh god, that
16:42
Speaker 1: was bad. Um, I get the gist of it. Let's
16:44
Speaker 1: just call it. I'm just gonna pronounce it like a
16:46
Speaker 1: terrible American Morte Fontaine. Um. And that was nineteen miles
16:50
Speaker 1: north of the city and Bonus nachos to bonus bonus
16:55
Speaker 1: party nachos there it is at two. Joseph and Julie
17:07
Speaker 1: had two daughters. They did have a third one, but
17:09
Speaker 1: unfortunately she passed away shortly after birth. And their daughters
17:15
Speaker 1: were zen Ed who was born in July one, and Charlotte,
17:20
Speaker 1: who was known as La Lot La Lot. I guess
17:23
Speaker 1: that's just removing the shar Oh that's sweet. Yeah, kind of,
17:28
Speaker 1: it's adding an extra low um, but yeah, you know,
17:31
Speaker 1: I think they were creative with their nicknames, those French
17:33
Speaker 1: and she was born on October one of eighteen o two,
17:37
Speaker 1: and Joseph began to really build out his assets, doing
17:42
Speaker 1: massive improvements on his estate houses. And he really did
17:47
Speaker 1: enjoy that that sweet, sweet country living. But he was
17:50
Speaker 1: also something of a gentleman, of course, and enjoyed the
17:53
Speaker 1: finer things in life, but also was strangely a simple man.
17:57
Speaker 1: It's it's interesting, weird dichotomy with this guy, right, And
18:00
Speaker 1: he was described thus late by one of his biographers,
18:04
Speaker 1: early twentieth century biographer. He had an element of laziness
18:07
Speaker 1: in his character, disposition to rest and quietly enjoy the
18:10
Speaker 1: good things he possessed in a dignified way. So he
18:14
Speaker 1: was lazy and dignified. In the debates of the five hundred,
18:18
Speaker 1: which is that Council of five hundred we talked about,
18:20
Speaker 1: where he was a deputy, he took little part, and
18:24
Speaker 1: at the end of the term of membership he did
18:26
Speaker 1: not seek reelection. Yeah, that's the thing. He seemed like
18:29
Speaker 1: he was absolutely fine to just chill just enjoy a
18:34
Speaker 1: life of relaxation and uh have have some stress free days.
18:40
Speaker 1: Napoleon had other plans. Napoleon very much felt that his
18:46
Speaker 1: brother needed to do more to help support the Bonaparte cause,
18:50
Speaker 1: so he said, look, initially, I'm gonna use you as
18:53
Speaker 1: a diplomat, not necessarily because you're a great diplomat, but
18:58
Speaker 1: because I know you older brother, and you're easier to
19:02
Speaker 1: control because we go back. So I would also say
19:05
Speaker 1: there's an element of trust there too, and Joseph wasn't
19:09
Speaker 1: super happy with this. The friction between the two men
19:13
Speaker 1: rose as Napoleon first became consul for life in eighteen
19:17
Speaker 1: o two and then just two years later emperor in
19:19
Speaker 1: eighteen o four. They clashed over who should be the successor,
19:25
Speaker 1: because Napoleon at that time to not have children, and
19:28
Speaker 1: Joseph said, this is weird because it doesn't make a
19:31
Speaker 1: lot of sense for his character. Joseph said, look, I'm
19:34
Speaker 1: your older brother. You need to recognize me as your heir,
19:38
Speaker 1: and Napoleon wanted to recognize the oldest son of the
19:43
Speaker 1: one of their other siblings, their younger brother Louis, and
19:46
Speaker 1: so Napoleon started kind of trying to barter with his
19:49
Speaker 1: elder brother, and he was like, look, Joe, well and
19:52
Speaker 1: just I'll make you king of something if you just
19:55
Speaker 1: give up all claims to the French throne. I'll make
19:58
Speaker 1: you king of Lombardy. How about the Oh yeah, it's weird, Ben,
20:02
Speaker 1: You're right about that. That's being seeming out of character
20:04
Speaker 1: for the way his story AND's kind of described this
20:08
Speaker 1: guy as like being content to like do his thing
20:10
Speaker 1: out of the public eye, right, But he clearly had
20:14
Speaker 1: some ambition, But I think maybe it was more he
20:17
Speaker 1: liked the money side of it, so he wanted to,
20:20
Speaker 1: you know, have that claim so he would inherit all
20:22
Speaker 1: of that wealth rather than like be the top dog, right,
20:26
Speaker 1: or he cared much about governing, because again we know
20:28
Speaker 1: with his career on the Council the five hundred, he
20:32
Speaker 1: didn't really care much about politics and he sort of
20:34
Speaker 1: phoned it in, right. So in eighteen o six, Napoleon
20:37
Speaker 1: sent Joseph to kick out the dynasty that was in
20:42
Speaker 1: control of Naples, the Bourbon dynasty, and he became king.
20:46
Speaker 1: And Joseph was not super into the idea, as we said,
20:51
Speaker 1: nor was his wife. But in eighteen o eight, when
20:53
Speaker 1: Napoleon invaded Spain. He succeeded and offered Joseph the Spanish
20:58
Speaker 1: throne then after his other brother Louis refused it, but
21:03
Speaker 1: he more specifically told Joseph to give up the throne
21:08
Speaker 1: of Naples and give it to their sister Caroline and
21:12
Speaker 1: her husband Joachim Mura, and then go to Spain where
21:16
Speaker 1: he would take up his throne there. He was not
21:19
Speaker 1: into the idea, but he ultimately gave in and did
21:22
Speaker 1: what his brother asked. I mean, you know, when Napoleon
21:24
Speaker 1: asked me to do something, brother or not, You've got
21:27
Speaker 1: to give it some serious thought because you don't want
21:29
Speaker 1: to make an enemy of him, and as we know
21:31
Speaker 1: in history, brother or no, you can still become blood enemies. True,
21:37
Speaker 1: the forces that were best suited to tangle with Napoleon
21:40
Speaker 1: were things like Winter and Russia or rabbits, which is
21:44
Speaker 1: the true story. It's an earlier episode of Hours. Check
21:47
Speaker 1: it out. Napoleon did get punked by a horde of rabbits. Yeah,
21:52
Speaker 1: this is a tough This is not great real estate
21:56
Speaker 1: for French royalty because the Spanish had some stereotypes the
22:00
Speaker 1: French at the time. No, they were like the French
22:02
Speaker 1: are all atheists and their foreigners. They don't deserve a break.
22:07
Speaker 1: We don't cut them slack. We don't give them a break,
22:09
Speaker 1: We give them no mercy. And they had a nickname
22:13
Speaker 1: for Joseph pepe Botteias Joe Bottles, because apparently he really
22:19
Speaker 1: really liked the sauce that was the propaganda, but in
22:23
Speaker 1: fact he was he was kind of a light drinker,
22:25
Speaker 1: sort of like that propaganda about Napoleon being really short.
22:29
Speaker 1: It's somewhat of a smear campaign. They also had no
22:32
Speaker 1: problem hacking French soldiers to pieces. Joseph tries to make
22:36
Speaker 1: peace by having a lot of pretty moderate policies at
22:40
Speaker 1: the time, often in contradiction of Napoleon's orders from Paris.
22:47
Speaker 1: Napoleon divided Spain into six military districts. He allowed his
22:52
Speaker 1: marshals of those districts too. Eggs are pretty pretty independent
22:56
Speaker 1: authority over the parts of the country they can try rold.
23:00
Speaker 1: And then that undermined his brother's rule from the Spanish throne.
23:04
Speaker 1: So Joseph asked, Napoleon is so funny. Joseph as Napoleon like, hey,
23:09
Speaker 1: can I quit this job? Stinks? And uh, Napoleon responds.
23:14
Speaker 1: In eighteen twelve, by making Joseph commander in chief of
23:18
Speaker 1: all the French forces left in Spain. So congratulations, your
23:21
Speaker 1: face is on the most unpopular thing in the country
23:24
Speaker 1: right now, asked me, I made you king, I've made
23:27
Speaker 1: you think the nerve God the absolute goal of it all.
23:34
Speaker 1: It's true. So on June one, eighteen thirteen, Joseph decided
23:40
Speaker 1: to pick a fight with the Duke of Wellington Um
23:42
Speaker 1: and a battle ensued at Victoria and the French lost,
23:47
Speaker 1: but that didn't stop Joseph entirely. He headed out for
23:50
Speaker 1: the frontier. So then, after you know, galloping across the frontiers, presumably,
23:56
Speaker 1: Joseph returned to his estate at Morte Fontaine, and then
24:01
Speaker 1: Napoleon decided that Ferdinand the Seventh, the Bourbon you will
24:05
Speaker 1: call dynasty family member who he had had kicked off
24:09
Speaker 1: of the throne to install Joseph, should return as the
24:14
Speaker 1: king of Spain, and that they should start to you know,
24:17
Speaker 1: make nice between the two countries, to help create the
24:21
Speaker 1: groundwork for a marriage of convenience between Ferdinand and Joseph's
24:27
Speaker 1: daughter zend who was only thirteen at the time. So
24:30
Speaker 1: maybe because of that, I know, weird things that happened,
24:32
Speaker 1: but he had his reasons. Surely Joseph did not like
24:36
Speaker 1: this idea at all, but was pressured, as he seems
24:39
Speaker 1: to have been kind of consistently throughout this story, and
24:42
Speaker 1: decided to give him. Yeah, yeah, he he acquiesced and
24:50
Speaker 1: agreed for the Spanish crown to be transferred to the
24:54
Speaker 1: House of Bourbon. With what important caveat, I still get
24:58
Speaker 1: to be called King Joseph, That's what he said. He
25:01
Speaker 1: never formally advocated, and luckily the thirteen year old was
25:06
Speaker 1: spared having to have that child marriage for political purposes.
25:12
Speaker 1: Fast forward spoiler alert. If you're listening to today's show,
25:15
Speaker 1: you probably already know what happened to Napoleon. He was defeated,
25:19
Speaker 1: he was forced into exile. Joseph found himself with a
25:22
Speaker 1: very unfortunate last name, so he fled. He high tailed
25:26
Speaker 1: it across the Atlantic to the United States under an
25:29
Speaker 1: assumed name. And get the hutzpah on this guy. Know
25:34
Speaker 1: he stole the crown jewels with Spain. Well, he probably
25:38
Speaker 1: didn't think he was stealing. He thought they were his,
25:39
Speaker 1: but he put them in a suitcase literally and took
25:42
Speaker 1: them with him to the States as he sailed aboard
25:46
Speaker 1: an American break named the Commerce. It was twice inspected
25:51
Speaker 1: by the British, but his false papers they worked. He
25:55
Speaker 1: was able to get through on forced papers. He left
25:57
Speaker 1: his wife and his daughters in pair Us. They moved
26:00
Speaker 1: to Frankfurt and then later to Brussels. Of course, what
26:04
Speaker 1: do you do first time, if this is a movie
26:07
Speaker 1: and you're traveling to the US for the first time,
26:10
Speaker 1: You go to New York, Right, New York, New York.
26:13
Speaker 1: That's you know, where so many immigrants to the United States,
26:16
Speaker 1: you know, found their kind of gateway into this New
26:20
Speaker 1: World type situation. So he went to New York sort
26:24
Speaker 1: of in shame a little bit, but once he got
26:27
Speaker 1: there he kind of realized he liked it. He spent
26:30
Speaker 1: a little time in New York and then moved to Philadelphia,
26:33
Speaker 1: where he took up residence at two sixties South ninth Street,
26:37
Speaker 1: Um which became a very important hub for this huge
26:41
Speaker 1: influx of French expats coming into Philly. And he then
26:45
Speaker 1: you know, settled in a larger estate house in Bordentown,
26:50
Speaker 1: New Jersey, which was just twenty five miles northeast of
26:53
Speaker 1: Philly on the Delaware River. He called his estate Point
26:57
Speaker 1: Breeze Point Breeze sounds like an eighties film, or sounds
27:02
Speaker 1: like a suburban community, right. I bought a time share
27:06
Speaker 1: in Point Breeze, So he's in suburban exile. He's quiet,
27:11
Speaker 1: but he likes He got used to the good life.
27:14
Speaker 1: That's the thing. He may have still been dethroned, but
27:17
Speaker 1: he considered himself royalty, so he built a home worthy
27:22
Speaker 1: of MTVS cribs. His vast mansion had a ginormous wine cellar,
27:28
Speaker 1: Florida celi mirrors, super fancy crystal chandelier's, marble fireplaces, grand staircases,
27:35
Speaker 1: you name it. Fun fact, with eight thousand books. His
27:41
Speaker 1: library held the largest collection of Tom's in the country
27:45
Speaker 1: at the time. The Library of Congress only had sixty hundred.
27:49
Speaker 1: So he was like bawling, Yeah, he was Tom rich Ben.
27:53
Speaker 1: I know I've been doing this a lot in this episode,
27:55
Speaker 1: But what's the difference between a tome and a book?
27:57
Speaker 1: Tom's got to be a little longer write a book.
27:59
Speaker 1: It's you got your pamphlet, you got your book, and
28:02
Speaker 1: then you got your tomb. I don't know. Tome is
28:05
Speaker 1: usually considered a very heavy book, and there's a little
28:08
Speaker 1: bit of a a connotation of academic or stilarship to right, Yeah,
28:17
Speaker 1: unless you get into making it a little bit witchy,
28:20
Speaker 1: and then it becomes a grimoire. There we are, but
28:23
Speaker 1: all you know, maybe all grim noise are not tombed,
28:26
Speaker 1: all tombs are not grim noise. But all grim noise
28:29
Speaker 1: or tombs, what do you think? I think that's pretty cool.
28:31
Speaker 1: It just depends on the length of a grimoire. If
28:33
Speaker 1: you're into a grim wise, then I would I would
28:36
Speaker 1: hope you get a tome. You know, it gets some
28:37
Speaker 1: more occults bang for your buck. But you're right, yeah,
28:40
Speaker 1: and you have to wonder what kind of books were
28:42
Speaker 1: in there. If you were to go to the mansion
28:46
Speaker 1: and meet Joseph at this time, you would walk through
28:49
Speaker 1: an elaborate landscape, ten miles of carriage paths, rare non
28:54
Speaker 1: native trees and plants, gauzebos, gardens, even an artificial lake
28:59
Speaker 1: stocked with imported European swans. This guy is not hurting
29:04
Speaker 1: money and to entertain. He does love to entertain. It
29:08
Speaker 1: reminds me of like another call back to an early
29:11
Speaker 1: episode The Menagerie's of what's his name? Pablo Escobar and
29:15
Speaker 1: the Hippos. The hippos, Yeah, Yeah, it's got that kind
29:19
Speaker 1: of vibe to it. I don't know, maybe a little
29:21
Speaker 1: more idyllic and a little less like Safari Park. Less cocaine,
29:25
Speaker 1: probably too, Probably less cocaine, I would imagine. But thanks
29:29
Speaker 1: to mental Floss, as always, for a great rundown of
29:33
Speaker 1: this very interesting man's life. We're about to get to
29:36
Speaker 1: the super fun part. But his home became this real
29:40
Speaker 1: kind of home base for a lot of his rich
29:44
Speaker 1: neighbors who would just come and hang and look through
29:47
Speaker 1: his vast collection of toms. And these were elites, obviously,
29:52
Speaker 1: very wealthy folks from Europe and America, and he would
29:56
Speaker 1: entertain dignitaries, folks like John Quincy Adams would come visit,
30:01
Speaker 1: Point Breese, Daniel Webster, the Marquis de Lafayette of Hamilton's
30:05
Speaker 1: the musical fame, Stephen Girard, who was a well known
30:09
Speaker 1: French banker from Philadelphia and was also apparently at the time,
30:13
Speaker 1: um the richest man in the United States. Nice hanging
30:17
Speaker 1: out at the biggest library. That's that's a That's a
30:21
Speaker 1: great collaboration of superlatives, isn't it. So there were rumors
30:27
Speaker 1: swirling around that Joseph may have been involved in several
30:31
Speaker 1: plots to rescue Napoleon from exile, but nothing, none of
30:35
Speaker 1: the charges ever stuck. He was also staying clear of
30:39
Speaker 1: other high level intrigues, like the invasion of Texas by
30:42
Speaker 1: Charles Lalemant. It's weird because Joseph's nephew, Louis Napoleon says
30:49
Speaker 1: that Joseph was offered the Mexican crown by a group
30:53
Speaker 1: of Mexican revolutionaries and he turned them down, saying, I've
30:58
Speaker 1: worn two crowns. I would not take a step to
31:00
Speaker 1: where a third. Nothing can gratify me more than to
31:03
Speaker 1: see men who would not recognized my authority when I
31:06
Speaker 1: was at Madrid now come to seek me in exile.
31:09
Speaker 1: That I may be at their head. But I do
31:12
Speaker 1: not think that the throne you wish to raise again
31:14
Speaker 1: can make your happiness. O o oh. And then the
31:17
Speaker 1: next part of this quote, bend really speaks to We
31:19
Speaker 1: talked about at the top of the show how much
31:22
Speaker 1: he loved the United States and our system of governments. Uh,
31:27
Speaker 1: you know, as imperfect as it might be, certainly to him,
31:30
Speaker 1: better than what he had experienced in Europe. Yeah, that's
31:35
Speaker 1: you know what, that's a really good point because the
31:37
Speaker 1: last part of the quity. He says, every day that
31:39
Speaker 1: I passed in the hospitable land of the United States
31:43
Speaker 1: proves more clearly to me the excellence of Republican institutions
31:46
Speaker 1: for America. Keep them then as a precious gift from heaven.
31:50
Speaker 1: So maybe his maybe his house parties had like started
31:55
Speaker 1: to sway his thinking, because he definitely was a reluctant
31:58
Speaker 1: king from the jump, right. That's why it's I feel
32:01
Speaker 1: like it was really in character for him, you know,
32:03
Speaker 1: and it made sense that he would be super comfortable obviously.
32:06
Speaker 1: I mean, he's comfortable. He's living in the lap of
32:08
Speaker 1: luxury and isn't in danger of being like executed, you know,
32:12
Speaker 1: for like war crimes or whatever, you know, at the
32:15
Speaker 1: very least for being an enemy combatant. Um. But yeah,
32:19
Speaker 1: his wife though, didn't come with him to the States.
32:23
Speaker 1: He didn't see her for twenty five years. Yeah, talking
32:26
Speaker 1: about a long distance relationship. You know who he did
32:29
Speaker 1: see though years I can imagine, ye, that's right, his mistress,
32:34
Speaker 1: Annette Savage. Uh. He met her when she was eighteen
32:38
Speaker 1: years old. She was, you know, according to the pattern
32:41
Speaker 1: he was established. He was the daughter of some distinguished merchants.
32:45
Speaker 1: He ran into her while he was shopping for suspenders.
32:49
Speaker 1: She spoke French match made in Heaven. He was kind
32:53
Speaker 1: of known to be a philanthroper, and his wife, Julie,
32:56
Speaker 1: was aware of this and tolerated his affairs. He had
33:00
Speaker 1: two children with Annette Savage, and then when one of
33:03
Speaker 1: them was killed or died tragically in the garden at
33:08
Speaker 1: a young age, Joseph later dispatched his mistress to Paris
33:13
Speaker 1: and paid her explicitly to never publish her memoirs. M Okay,
33:18
Speaker 1: sort of like an n D. A kind of situation,
33:20
Speaker 1: you know what, Yeah, I think you're right. I think
33:23
Speaker 1: it was, yeah, or maybe even like part of a
33:25
Speaker 1: pre nup. But they weren't married, though, were they. You
33:27
Speaker 1: can't really can't can't be married if you're already married. Yeah, yeah,
33:32
Speaker 1: so it was harder and it would have been harder
33:33
Speaker 1: to track that though back then, probably right, Oh surely, yeah,
33:37
Speaker 1: I think so, it would be harder. I mean, and
33:39
Speaker 1: how do bigive of laws work at that time on
33:42
Speaker 1: an international scale. But still wasn't a good look. You know,
33:45
Speaker 1: a lot of locals were scandalized. So then another tragedy
33:51
Speaker 1: strikes January twenty. His mansion, which we earlier established is
33:56
Speaker 1: pretty dope, catches on fire. It burns to the ground.
34:00
Speaker 1: His neighbors are able to help save some stuff, including
34:04
Speaker 1: his art collection. Newspapers of the day called the fire accidental,
34:09
Speaker 1: but there was gossip. There was a very weird rumor
34:12
Speaker 1: going around, and they said that the fire was actually
34:16
Speaker 1: the result of arson because there was a local Russian
34:19
Speaker 1: immigrant who burned down his house because Napoleon invaded Russia.
34:23
Speaker 1: And like we said, this was the second of a
34:25
Speaker 1: pair of tragedies. Um you'd mentioned Ben that his daughter
34:28
Speaker 1: Pauline was killed, and I just want to mention this
34:29
Speaker 1: because it was a new word that I learned, and
34:31
Speaker 1: I love sharing new words. She was killed by a
34:34
Speaker 1: falling ornamental vase which had to have been very very
34:37
Speaker 1: very large and probably with poured concrete or some other
34:40
Speaker 1: heavy material. But it's called a jar Jordonnier, which what
34:44
Speaker 1: you can picture those like a giant planter that you
34:46
Speaker 1: would see on the grounds of an estate, like so
34:49
Speaker 1: big you could plant like a small tree in one
34:51
Speaker 1: of them. Bad way to go. Yeah, an errant Jordonnier.
34:56
Speaker 1: How does that even happen? Maybe it wasn't loaded down
34:58
Speaker 1: with something and she pushed to too. I don't know, um,
35:02
Speaker 1: but yeah, So despite those two tragedies, he was kind
35:05
Speaker 1: of unperturbed. I'm sure he was bummed, but he decided
35:09
Speaker 1: to take his neighbors up on their offers to help
35:13
Speaker 1: him because they loved him right, and you know, because
35:16
Speaker 1: it made sense. He was such a good host, such
35:19
Speaker 1: a good entertainer, and was very welcoming and open with
35:22
Speaker 1: his home and his beautiful library and all his homes.
35:26
Speaker 1: So they were just really kind of kind to him
35:29
Speaker 1: and gave him solace. And he actually was so touched
35:32
Speaker 1: by it that he wrote down his feelings on the
35:35
Speaker 1: subject in a letter that he wrote to one of
35:38
Speaker 1: the town's magistrates, and it says, all the furnitures, statues, pictures, money, played, gold, jewels,
35:44
Speaker 1: linen books and in short, I'm sorry only laughing because
35:47
Speaker 1: it's just like he's listing, like all the things, uh,
35:50
Speaker 1: And in short, everything that was not consumed has been
35:52
Speaker 1: most scrupulously delivered into the hands of the people of
35:55
Speaker 1: my house in the night of the fire, and during
35:58
Speaker 1: the next day they were brought to me by laboring men.
36:01
Speaker 1: Drawers in which I have found the proper quantity of
36:04
Speaker 1: pieces of money and medals of gold and valuable jewels
36:07
Speaker 1: which might have been taken with impunity. So just to unpack,
36:10
Speaker 1: I mean, he's basically saying that, like all of these neighbors,
36:13
Speaker 1: whatever their class and their staff, they could have looted
36:17
Speaker 1: the wreckage of his estate, but instead they like gathered
36:20
Speaker 1: up all this stuff from the wreckage for him and
36:24
Speaker 1: returned them to which to me, it just speaks to
36:27
Speaker 1: his character, doesn't it. I mean, they would if they
36:29
Speaker 1: were just kind of sponging off of him, then you know,
36:33
Speaker 1: they would think I would think that someone doing that
36:35
Speaker 1: would see a giant fire, like it's like, oh well
36:37
Speaker 1: the party's over, better get whatever we can and fist
36:41
Speaker 1: folds and move on. But instead they obviously cared about
36:43
Speaker 1: the man and not just the stuff. Yeah, and this
36:46
Speaker 1: really got to him, and he said something towards the
36:49
Speaker 1: end where he said that really hits home. He says,
36:52
Speaker 1: this event has proved to me how much the inhabitants
36:55
Speaker 1: of Bordin Town appreciate the interest I've always felt for them.
36:58
Speaker 1: And uh, Max, when we get a little like kind
37:01
Speaker 1: of inspirational music, there we go and shows that men
37:06
Speaker 1: in general are good when they have not been perverted
37:10
Speaker 1: in their youth by bad education. Americans are, without contradiction,
37:15
Speaker 1: the most happy people I have no still more happy
37:20
Speaker 1: if they understand well their own happiness. I pray you
37:25
Speaker 1: not to doubt my sincere regard. And then he signs
37:28
Speaker 1: it Joseph, Count of Servis. I don't know that superlative, Ben,
37:34
Speaker 1: do you. I did not before this episode, but I
37:37
Speaker 1: believe it's a commune in Northern France. Community in northern France. Yeah,
37:42
Speaker 1: that's one that didn't even come across our radar in
37:45
Speaker 1: the in the early research for this. But I mean,
37:47
Speaker 1: I'm surely a guy like that, he probably could have
37:49
Speaker 1: rattled off, you know. I mean, when people like that,
37:51
Speaker 1: they always have several titles. That was probably one of many.
37:54
Speaker 1: But this was printed in Bonapartes Park and the Moras
37:58
Speaker 1: by Evan Morrison would word from eighteen seventy nine historical account.
38:03
Speaker 1: And he rebuilt his mansion, and he stayed in New Jersey,
38:08
Speaker 1: and apparently it was bigger and better than ever. That's right, yes, bigger,
38:12
Speaker 1: better than ever. He went back to business as usual, entertaining,
38:16
Speaker 1: please come and see my art gallery. And then uh,
38:20
Speaker 1: he you know, he had lost a lot of stuff.
38:23
Speaker 1: But he became known as this font of European culture
38:29
Speaker 1: and artistic knowledge in early America because you know, the
38:34
Speaker 1: US had and to a degree still has a bit
38:36
Speaker 1: of a chip on its shoulder right about European culture
38:39
Speaker 1: being more sophisticated, being older, being fancier, etcetera. And so
38:44
Speaker 1: he was for a lot of people a connection point there.
38:47
Speaker 1: But with one one plots whist a little bit x files,
38:51
Speaker 1: I almost feel bad for spoiling it at the top,
38:54
Speaker 1: but it is true. He is one of the people
38:56
Speaker 1: who is absolutely convinced that he had run into the
39:01
Speaker 1: Jersey Devil, as you know in our In our other episode,
39:11
Speaker 1: we talked about the devil's origin story. According to led
39:15
Speaker 1: Jean's born around seventeen thirty five. He's the thirteen child
39:19
Speaker 1: of someone named mother Leads and she said some some
39:23
Speaker 1: sideways stuff for the priest didn't bless the kid, and
39:27
Speaker 1: the baby was born uh normally, but then morphed, at
39:32
Speaker 1: least a one part of this story. Morphed and grew
39:35
Speaker 1: wings and hooves, fur and a tail, and then flew
39:38
Speaker 1: out the window or up the chimney. And now we
39:41
Speaker 1: have like and people of the area believed this story.
39:44
Speaker 1: By the way, So what happened? What happened with Joseph Man. Yeah, well,
39:48
Speaker 1: so this is an area of New Jersey that fans
39:51
Speaker 1: of The Sopranos will be intimately familiar with because it's
39:54
Speaker 1: one of the most beloved episodes of the show called
39:55
Speaker 1: the Pine Barons, which I've never heard of until I
39:58
Speaker 1: saw that show, But it is apparently a play that's
40:00
Speaker 1: infamous because of its remoteness for hiding bodies, right, but
40:04
Speaker 1: it's also a place it's very easy to get lost in,
40:06
Speaker 1: as you will see if you watch this episode, Polly
40:09
Speaker 1: Walnuts and Christopher Multa Senti do to great comedic effect.
40:13
Speaker 1: It's a standalone episode, and if you haven't seen the show,
40:16
Speaker 1: you can watch that episode having never seen the entire
40:18
Speaker 1: show and it will delight you. It's all on its own,
40:21
Speaker 1: but it's it's crazy. If you look at lower and
40:24
Speaker 1: accounts of the Jersey Devil, it really kind of looks
40:27
Speaker 1: like a snaky necked camel horse eagle thing kind of
40:32
Speaker 1: how would you describe the Jersey Devil? Then yeah, you
40:35
Speaker 1: can see a great picture of it. It looks like
40:38
Speaker 1: it looks awkward. It doesn't look flight worthy. Out of
40:41
Speaker 1: balance right carmor t rex body. It's got these wings,
40:46
Speaker 1: let's got these hooves. It's got an awkward forward leaning
40:49
Speaker 1: stance and very top heavy. Yeah, top heavy. And if
40:52
Speaker 1: you look at the some of the original sketches, does
40:55
Speaker 1: somebody Susan to come here? The glare and guys a
40:59
Speaker 1: little bit of a roofball? And I dare I say
41:01
Speaker 1: not only in Susian, but perhaps Susian, because it really
41:05
Speaker 1: does look like the kind of like comical chimera, kind
41:08
Speaker 1: of like you know, mishmash animal that you might see
41:10
Speaker 1: in a Doctor's Seuss book. But Bonaparte claims to have
41:13
Speaker 1: been hunting alone, as he often did in in this
41:16
Speaker 1: these woods near his country estate, when he saw some
41:20
Speaker 1: really weird looking tracks that he attributed to maybe a
41:23
Speaker 1: horse or a donkey. We know what those look like,
41:25
Speaker 1: those kind of heart shaped tracks with like the little
41:28
Speaker 1: notch at the top. But it appeared to because he
41:30
Speaker 1: was schooled enough in tracking that he could tell kind
41:34
Speaker 1: of where the weight would have been to make the
41:36
Speaker 1: type of tracks that he was seeing, So he believed
41:38
Speaker 1: that it was a creature that would have walked only
41:40
Speaker 1: on its hime legs. Well, I mean, obviously there would
41:43
Speaker 1: only be one set of tracks, right, which is weird.
41:45
Speaker 1: That's not a thing that we know of tracks that
41:47
Speaker 1: look like that that only walk on two legs, or
41:49
Speaker 1: animals that would make tracks like that they only walk
41:51
Speaker 1: on two legs. And he decided, when he saw them
41:55
Speaker 1: ending abruptly, that this animal must also be able to
41:59
Speaker 1: fly or jumped, you know, great heights. So he followed
42:03
Speaker 1: the tracks until they the trail went cold, and then
42:06
Speaker 1: he was just fascinated and he was just looking at them.
42:09
Speaker 1: And then he hears this sound from behind him. When
42:12
Speaker 1: he whips around, and what does he see. He sees
42:15
Speaker 1: the devil. He sees this thing he had never witnessed
42:20
Speaker 1: gazed upon before, with a long neck, wings, legs like
42:24
Speaker 1: a creating with horses hoofs at the end. He's stumpy,
42:27
Speaker 1: little arms with paws, and a face that to him
42:29
Speaker 1: looked like either a horse or a camel. He froze,
42:33
Speaker 1: he panicked, and for a minute, neither heat nor the
42:36
Speaker 1: creature moved, and the devil hissed, and according to the story,
42:40
Speaker 1: just flew away and nobody was harmed. It's funny. It
42:43
Speaker 1: reminds me of camping. I don't know if I ever
42:46
Speaker 1: meant told you this. One time when I was camping,
42:49
Speaker 1: I ran into a brown bear from a distance. What yeah,
42:55
Speaker 1: I was, I was younger. I was, well, we're all
42:58
Speaker 1: friends here, I can say it. I walked over to
43:00
Speaker 1: a creek and I was I was peeing in the creek,
43:04
Speaker 1: I mean, the middle of nowhere, and I thought, oh,
43:07
Speaker 1: this guy's like, no one's gonna see me. It's it's fine,
43:10
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter. I'm this is how life is in
43:13
Speaker 1: the woods. And while I am in the middle of this,
43:17
Speaker 1: I see some movement, thankfully, on the other side of
43:20
Speaker 1: the creek, a little further down from me. I see
43:23
Speaker 1: this shape. It's moving. I'm thinking, oh no, it's like
43:27
Speaker 1: did one of the other boy scouts like come out
43:30
Speaker 1: or whatever. And dude, it was a bear. And you know,
43:33
Speaker 1: you're not supposed to stop peeing once you start. So
43:36
Speaker 1: I was just standing there kind of like peeing in
43:39
Speaker 1: front of this bear and it was just looking at me.
43:43
Speaker 1: It was one of the most awkward moments of my life,
43:46
Speaker 1: you know, Like I was so shocked. I wasn't my
43:49
Speaker 1: brain wasn't able to realize I should be scared, and
43:52
Speaker 1: I was just like, this is very embarrassing, and then
43:54
Speaker 1: I walked backwards, presumably with your business. Still I was
44:00
Speaker 1: freaked out, and so I could I like, although, although
44:05
Speaker 1: Joseph might sound silly right now, that's a real thing
44:09
Speaker 1: that happens. You freeze up. It's freaky, it's scary. So
44:12
Speaker 1: I have his back on that one. But here's the thing.
44:16
Speaker 1: This is interesting. He was unaware of the legend of
44:20
Speaker 1: the Jersey Devil. He just thought he solved weird American
44:24
Speaker 1: animal you'd never seen before. And he told his friends,
44:27
Speaker 1: you know, like, I saw the honest thing, and then
44:30
Speaker 1: they said, oh, yeah, we've heard about that. And from
44:34
Speaker 1: that moment, for the rest of his life, whenever he
44:37
Speaker 1: was walking around the woods, he was like I would
44:40
Speaker 1: finding kids. It's jose devon jose Den. You know it's true,
44:44
Speaker 1: and honestly gives it a little more credence that the
44:47
Speaker 1: fact that he hadn't heard of the story, I think,
44:50
Speaker 1: because you know, you if you hear the tale like that,
44:52
Speaker 1: it would just really feed into your imagination and potentially,
44:55
Speaker 1: you know, your recollection of what you saw because you're like, oh,
44:59
Speaker 1: I had to be this thing of of lore, you know.
45:02
Speaker 1: But still, as there often is with things, like this,
45:04
Speaker 1: there's a pretty reasonable explanation as to what he might
45:08
Speaker 1: have saw that would have been very alien to him.
45:11
Speaker 1: And honestly, if everyone, which I think most of you do,
45:14
Speaker 1: know my particular phobia, would have scared the ever loving
45:18
Speaker 1: hell out of me. And that was a great horned owl,
45:22
Speaker 1: one of the most terrifying of all birds because it's neck,
45:26
Speaker 1: you know, can spin around like the Exorcist. It just
45:29
Speaker 1: has these deep, deep, deep, soul crushing eyes and a
45:34
Speaker 1: wingspan that can be like five feet wide. Uh. And
45:38
Speaker 1: also they can grow up to ridiculously large sizes. There
45:43
Speaker 1: are certain ones that have been known to get quite
45:45
Speaker 1: quite large. Yeah, yeah, and if you see one of
45:49
Speaker 1: these out in the wild and we're not familiar with
45:52
Speaker 1: the species, it's legitimately frightening. They also prey on snakes,
45:58
Speaker 1: so that could account for that hissing noise Joseph heard.
46:02
Speaker 1: Some of these bigger owls are also strong enough to
46:04
Speaker 1: pick up puppies and kittens, and they've got a very
46:07
Speaker 1: characteristic screech that is blood curtly if you're not expecting it.
46:13
Speaker 1: So that's his moment with the Jersey Devil. He became
46:16
Speaker 1: a cryptid hunter, didn't we talk about a screech in
46:19
Speaker 1: the Jersey Devil episode, and we traced it back to
46:21
Speaker 1: a crane. I believe right that that the particular type
46:24
Speaker 1: of crane that also has a pretty other worldly screech,
46:28
Speaker 1: especially if there's like a group of them, right. Yeah,
46:31
Speaker 1: we had to We had to put ourselves back in
46:33
Speaker 1: the in the perspective of people who lived at that time,
46:36
Speaker 1: because it sounded silly when we played the clip, but
46:38
Speaker 1: then we're like, no, imagine a hundred of them, So
46:42
Speaker 1: that's cool. He had a lot of careers in his life,
46:45
Speaker 1: King of Spain, Cryptic Hunter, Society Hub. He eventually went
46:51
Speaker 1: back to England eighteen thirty six, spent about a year
46:55
Speaker 1: there eighteen thirty seven, and then he comes back to
46:58
Speaker 1: the US from one last visits days for a few years,
47:01
Speaker 1: and then he goes back to England. He rents a
47:03
Speaker 1: house in Cavendish Square in London. In June of eighteen forty,
47:08
Speaker 1: he has a stroke paralyzes the right side of his
47:11
Speaker 1: body and so he moves back to Italy and this
47:14
Speaker 1: is where he reunites with his wife Julie. That, as
47:16
Speaker 1: we said, he hadn't seen him more than two decades.
47:18
Speaker 1: As well as his brother. He has a another stroke
47:22
Speaker 1: in August of eighteen forty three, and the next year,
47:26
Speaker 1: July eighteen forty four, he passes away at the age
47:31
Speaker 1: of seventy seven. His house is sold, you know. And
47:35
Speaker 1: as as as relatively chill a guy as this story
47:39
Speaker 1: makes this dude out to be, it's still does really
47:43
Speaker 1: point out the inequity and the gender systems of the time,
47:48
Speaker 1: the patriarchal systems of the time. Not to get on
47:51
Speaker 1: a soapbox, but the fact that he, you know, had
47:54
Speaker 1: been gone for twenty five years and then just kind
47:57
Speaker 1: of came back after having a stroke and then I zoom.
48:00
Speaker 1: His wife just served as his caretaker. You know. It
48:04
Speaker 1: just seems very dismissive and diminishing of her role as
48:07
Speaker 1: a human being. Yeah, I think you're right, And and
48:11
Speaker 1: it's that's a tragedy all its own. His eldest grandson
48:16
Speaker 1: gets the house, gets point breeze. When Joseph passed his away,
48:20
Speaker 1: he has these two huge, packed auctions. And that's why
48:24
Speaker 1: even today you'll find a lot of people in the
48:27
Speaker 1: US who claim to have items that belonged once upon
48:30
Speaker 1: a time, did Joseph Buonaparte and a lot of local
48:32
Speaker 1: museums to certainly possible. I mean definitely in the local museums.
48:36
Speaker 1: But you know, with a giant a state, can you
48:38
Speaker 1: imagine how much stuff that mean? We talk, you know,
48:40
Speaker 1: we go to a state sales for fun. This would
48:42
Speaker 1: have been absolutely a mammoth the state sale. Probably some good,
48:48
Speaker 1: good deals to be had. And there's one last note
48:52
Speaker 1: I think we can end on. It's it's poetic and
48:54
Speaker 1: it's kind of sweet. It's a movie moment. The brothers
48:58
Speaker 1: Buonaparte didn't get along all the time, but the love
49:01
Speaker 1: was for the homies was still there. There are two
49:05
Speaker 1: pieces of correspondence that really drive this home. And know,
49:08
Speaker 1: if you're up for it, I can do the first one,
49:11
Speaker 1: and maybe you can take us, take us to the
49:14
Speaker 1: end of the episode. The very last word from Napoleon himself.
49:17
Speaker 1: How's that sound? Sounds good to me? My friends? All right?
49:20
Speaker 1: So okay. So Joseph is telling Julie after the disaster
49:25
Speaker 1: in Spain, right when he has to be king and
49:27
Speaker 1: everybody hates the French and hates a French king even more,
49:31
Speaker 1: he tells his wife, in spite of the disagreements that
49:34
Speaker 1: have existed between the emperor and myself. It is true
49:37
Speaker 1: to say, my dear, that he is still the man
49:40
Speaker 1: I love most in the world. Yeah, I mean, it
49:43
Speaker 1: seemed like there was never any falling out between the
49:46
Speaker 1: two Bonaparte brothers, which is nice to hear. This is
49:49
Speaker 1: the story ultimately, I mean, aside from the you know, look,
49:52
Speaker 1: I know so many people give us a hard time
49:54
Speaker 1: for like criticizing gender roles and things that were Oh
49:58
Speaker 1: it was just of the time, you know, But I
49:59
Speaker 1: still I just wanted to point that out because the
50:01
Speaker 1: guy did seem like a pretty decent person, aside from
50:04
Speaker 1: the womanizing and you know, abandoning his wife for years.
50:08
Speaker 1: But this, ye, but it's not like he left her
50:13
Speaker 1: destitute or anything. She's clearly provided for and lived a
50:16
Speaker 1: lovely life as well in her own right back there
50:19
Speaker 1: in Europe. And we're going to give Napoleon the last
50:22
Speaker 1: word because he said something really sweet. It was a
50:26
Speaker 1: very nice thing for a despot to say. He said, Joseph,
50:29
Speaker 1: though he is much talent and genius, is too good
50:32
Speaker 1: a man and too fond of amusement and literature to
50:36
Speaker 1: be a king. It is a nice thing, Ben, But
50:38
Speaker 1: it's also kind of a dig a little bit, oh
50:41
Speaker 1: very much, very much, but it's still nice. Like you
50:45
Speaker 1: could tell they like each other, I think, And I
50:48
Speaker 1: like the idea that maybe someone is just like their
50:52
Speaker 1: inherent goodness makes them unqualified to be a king, and
50:58
Speaker 1: you know there might be something to that, but that
51:00
Speaker 1: is a story for another day. Joseph lived quite a life.
51:05
Speaker 1: We never caught the Jersey Devil, but he had adventures
51:10
Speaker 1: that many of us can only dream of. I really
51:13
Speaker 1: enjoyed the swindle. I know we went long, but it
51:16
Speaker 1: felt like one continuous narrative. What do you say. I
51:19
Speaker 1: think it had to be, especially since we teased all
51:22
Speaker 1: the Jersey Devil stuff up front. It would have been
51:23
Speaker 1: really annoying, the listening to free right before the payoff. Honestly,
51:28
Speaker 1: you probably could have made it a two parter, but
51:30
Speaker 1: then but we would have had to reframe the whole thing,
51:32
Speaker 1: and I'm completely happy with it as a one partter. Yeah,
51:35
Speaker 1: I enjoyed this one. To ben um, it's a lesser
51:39
Speaker 1: known kind of side player in history, and largely you know,
51:44
Speaker 1: on his own he might have made more waves, but
51:47
Speaker 1: since he was sort of in the shadow of his brother,
51:50
Speaker 1: who wasn't exactly as short as people say, he was
51:52
Speaker 1: kind of average height, isn't that right, Ben? Yeah, yeah,
51:55
Speaker 1: Like I mentioned earlier with the Um, there was sort
51:58
Speaker 1: of this smear and pain. Like the Spanish said, Joseph
52:02
Speaker 1: drank a lot. He didn't really drink that much, and
52:03
Speaker 1: that's I was talking about. You know, Napoleon's heights was
52:08
Speaker 1: widely misreported. It was just again pretty average for someone
52:13
Speaker 1: from where he's from in that time. Well huge thanks
52:16
Speaker 1: to super producer Casey Pegram, guest producer Max Williams, Alex Williams.
52:21
Speaker 1: They're they're kind of a Napoleon and Joseph kind of
52:24
Speaker 1: situation themselves. I'm not sure which is which though, because
52:27
Speaker 1: they're both equally awesome. Alex Williams, who composed our theme,
52:31
Speaker 1: Christopher haciotis here in spirit, soon to be here in
52:34
Speaker 1: the flesh once again. I surely hope um and heaves.
52:37
Speaker 1: Jeff Coats, Yes, yes, hope everybody enjoyed our recent episode
52:42
Speaker 1: on Turpentine with one and only Eve's Jeff Cote. We
52:45
Speaker 1: also want to shout out our own Jersey Devil, Jonathan
52:49
Speaker 1: Strickland a k. The Quister, and uh, you know the
52:53
Speaker 1: guys so nice. We get a shadow mout twice the
52:56
Speaker 1: incomparable Gabe Louisier. No, it's been a long week. Mint.
53:01
Speaker 1: I don't know about you, but I am looking forward
53:03
Speaker 1: to kick him back, and maybe I'll go hunt of
53:06
Speaker 1: KRYPTI maybe there's a Georgia Devil I can find. There
53:09
Speaker 1: surely must be many of them in the wilds of
53:12
Speaker 1: the low Country. That's not we're not low country, we're
53:14
Speaker 1: sort of mid country. I don't know the devil went
53:16
Speaker 1: down to Georgia. He did do that. He was looking
53:19
Speaker 1: for a soul to steal. You know what, when I
53:20
Speaker 1: when I sing that song in my head, I often
53:22
Speaker 1: mash it up with Jerry was a race car driver
53:25
Speaker 1: by primus went down to Georgia. He was looking for
53:28
Speaker 1: us sold to steel. You should I sure did love
53:30
Speaker 1: that big brown beaver. And no, that's different. That's were
53:32
Speaker 1: known as big brown beaver. But they all kind of
53:34
Speaker 1: mashed together. But surely Les Claypool was into devil went
53:38
Speaker 1: down to Georgia, no question about it. And with that
53:41
Speaker 1: in mind, folks, we would of course love to hear
53:43
Speaker 1: your stories about bizarre crossover moments in history. Let us
53:47
Speaker 1: know what you think. We'll see you next time. Folks.
53:57
Speaker 1: For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the i
53:59
Speaker 1: heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to
54:02
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.