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Napoleon Bonaparte Was Attacked by Bunnies -- And Lost · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: H B jure, friends and neighbors, ridiculous historians, uh, long
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Speaker 1: time listeners and new listeners alike. Welcome to the show.
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Speaker 1: My name is Ben, my name is Noel. Oh and
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Speaker 1: and we want to, of course give a shout out
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Speaker 1: to our super producer, Casey pegram Only today he has
0:43
Speaker 1: he has but here in spirit. That is true, Noel,
0:46
Speaker 1: that is true. Today is our first episode while our
0:50
Speaker 1: longtime friend is adventuring abroad. It didn't feel right. I
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Speaker 1: think we're in good hands because we're not alone in
1:00
Speaker 1: this endeavor. We are joined by one of Casey's longtime friends,
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Speaker 1: our super producer, Paul Decant. I like to think, you know,
1:11
Speaker 1: we're we're all friends here. We hang out with Paul. Yeah,
1:15
Speaker 1: Paul is solid gold hit. Yes indeed, and uh, listeners,
1:20
Speaker 1: you may recognize him from some other shows we have done,
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Speaker 1: including stuff they don't want you to know where he
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Speaker 1: earned the Moniker mission control only. This is the first
1:30
Speaker 1: time we've personified him with a sound effect, So hopefully
1:34
Speaker 1: we can we can bring that back. Yeah, hopefully so.
1:37
Speaker 1: And you know, Paul, I'm really glad you're here for
1:41
Speaker 1: this one. I think you are going to enjoy this show.
1:47
Speaker 1: Let's let's lay it out very quickly. Maybe we go
1:51
Speaker 1: in with a little bit of biography, because today our
1:56
Speaker 1: episode has a couple of primary character. I'm gonna go
2:00
Speaker 1: ahead and say, the protagonist for today's show is Napoleon Bonaparte.
2:06
Speaker 1: Do you think so? Yeah, Yeah, I guess so. I
2:08
Speaker 1: guess he's the protagonist. Yeah, he's. He's sort of a
2:11
Speaker 1: he's he's a bit of an antagonist in the big
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Speaker 1: picture story. But in today's story, he is the one
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Speaker 1: what gets a thrashing. He's sort of an Elmer fund
2:21
Speaker 1: character in this one, to be honest, really is. He's
2:24
Speaker 1: quite quite cartoonish. Indeed, and we are talking of course
2:28
Speaker 1: about uh that Napoleon. The Napoleon, not Dynamite, but Bonaparte,
2:33
Speaker 1: who was born in August of seventeen sixty nine, the
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Speaker 1: fifteen and passed away in May of eighteen twenty one.
2:41
Speaker 1: I did not know this. He was actually born in
2:43
Speaker 1: corsica Um and you know which which was actually succeeded
2:49
Speaker 1: to France. But he grew up in more of an
2:52
Speaker 1: Italian culture and then moved to mainland France and learned
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Speaker 1: the French language and went to military academy. Me Rose
3:00
Speaker 1: quickly in the ranks, and as we know, uh spoiler alert,
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Speaker 1: became one of the greatest conquerors in military history. And also,
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Speaker 1: you know, one of the shortest guys in military history
3:13
Speaker 1: also always had his hand tucked into his his hoodie. Yeah,
3:17
Speaker 1: We've got a pretty fascinating article from our parent website,
3:22
Speaker 1: how Stuff Works dot com by Lori L. Dove, who
3:25
Speaker 1: recognized from a couple of other shows should give her
3:27
Speaker 1: a sound effect like a like a cooing dove or something.
3:30
Speaker 1: M you know what, I'm gonna write to her, Yeah,
3:32
Speaker 1: see what what kind of because hopefully she doesn't hate doves,
3:36
Speaker 1: that's true. We want to see what kind of what
3:38
Speaker 1: kind of bird she likes? Okay, fair enough? Uh? She
3:41
Speaker 1: wrote this article called was Napoleon really short? And at
3:46
Speaker 1: the time of his death he measured five ft two
3:49
Speaker 1: inches in French units in modern measurement units as the
3:54
Speaker 1: equivalent of five feet six and a half inches or
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Speaker 1: a hundred and you know, it's a below average It's not,
4:02
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's roughly average for person that time.
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Speaker 1: It's definitely on the shorter end of the spectrum. But
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Speaker 1: this played into some propaganda for sure, and people would
4:14
Speaker 1: say you know, that's where the Napoleon complex comes from.
4:18
Speaker 1: It's also one of these things where when you think
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Speaker 1: of a military tough guy, you know, you kind of
4:22
Speaker 1: want to think of like a hulking, big burly dude,
4:25
Speaker 1: and the notion of him being a little more um
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Speaker 1: uh slight is a little bit counterintuitive, right, and it
4:32
Speaker 1: makes people think perhaps he's a bit banned ham or
4:35
Speaker 1: you know, cocky for lack of a better phrase. There's
4:38
Speaker 1: there's a funny thing though, because he did not help
4:41
Speaker 1: his situation in terms of his perceived height. He surrounded
4:47
Speaker 1: himself with very tall soldiers. He exaggerated the effect because
4:53
Speaker 1: when he's around all, like if you were to hang
4:56
Speaker 1: around uh the Chicago Bulls or something, just hang out
5:00
Speaker 1: during the day as you do, you would look short
5:04
Speaker 1: because they're tall giants. So it's a compared to interest.
5:09
Speaker 1: And he also, regardless of his height, he was notorious
5:14
Speaker 1: for having a belligerent means spirited personality. He was that
5:20
Speaker 1: militaristic person you are describing. I mean he he basically
5:24
Speaker 1: was a dictator. Um. He overthrew the French government, which
5:28
Speaker 1: was a revolutionary government that was installed after the end
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Speaker 1: of the French Revolution. That the primary concern was just
5:35
Speaker 1: kind of big upping revolutionary figures and folks that that
5:40
Speaker 1: helped overthrow the Bourbons the monarchy. Um, but they're not
5:45
Speaker 1: such a great um efficient government, a lot of corruption,
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Speaker 1: a lot of problems. And Napoleon was already off winning
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Speaker 1: big military victories during this time and basically set up
5:58
Speaker 1: a coup and knocked those boys right out of the frame. Yes, yeah,
6:03
Speaker 1: he had at a time a a tenuous script on
6:07
Speaker 1: power because, as you said, he was pursuing military goals
6:11
Speaker 1: in Egypt. I believe in Italy he was already traveling abroad.
6:16
Speaker 1: But today we can look back on Napoleon through any
6:21
Speaker 1: number of lenses, and we chose to look at a
6:26
Speaker 1: story that is I would say, well, first off, it's funny. Yeah,
6:32
Speaker 1: it's ridiculous, apocryphal. Perhaps perhaps it it smacks of um
6:38
Speaker 1: legend exaggeration, at least I think so too, um, but
6:42
Speaker 1: it it's it's a lot of fun and it involves
6:44
Speaker 1: Napoleon being swarmed, dare we say, overtaken by a cute
6:51
Speaker 1: little money rabbits, a force of rabbits doing what many
6:56
Speaker 1: armies could not. And as the Internet memes are so
7:00
Speaker 1: fond of telling us. The thing about Napoleon is that
7:03
Speaker 1: he attacked, but he also protect I don't know. I'm
7:09
Speaker 1: gonna send it to you. It's it's don't worry about it.
7:12
Speaker 1: Can we posted on Ridiculous Historians, Yes we can our
7:16
Speaker 1: Facebook community. Yes. Check out our Facebook community page Ridiculous Historians.
7:21
Speaker 1: You'll get to meet your fellow listeners. You can even
7:24
Speaker 1: see kids pictures of the quister himself, which was a
7:28
Speaker 1: bit of a coup for us. Indeed, so we we
7:32
Speaker 1: first need to set the scene for this hilarious misadventure.
7:38
Speaker 1: You see, Napoleon, being a brilliant military mind, understood the
7:43
Speaker 1: importance of not just military conflicts, but of larger diplomatic actions,
7:49
Speaker 1: and he was involved in the negotiations of treaties. One
7:54
Speaker 1: incredibly important one was the series of Agreements to agreements
7:59
Speaker 1: known collect of lee as the Trees of Tilsit. Yeah,
8:02
Speaker 1: he had wiped the floor with Austria, Russia and Prussia,
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Speaker 1: and basically the Russian Czar Alexander the First just tapped
8:12
Speaker 1: out and said, look, this is embarrassing. Um, you have
8:17
Speaker 1: outnumbered us, outgunned us, outmanned us, and outclassed us. He
8:21
Speaker 1: didn't I'm not quoting I paraphrasing here. Um, but he said,
8:24
Speaker 1: let's talk Napoleon. Um. And so he, along with the
8:30
Speaker 1: Prussian King Frederick William UM, got Napoleon to agree to uh, parley, right,
8:38
Speaker 1: is that the right term? Parley? Yeah? Yeah, they held parley.
8:40
Speaker 1: They they met in the town of Tilsit in eighteen
8:46
Speaker 1: oh seven in July, after his victory at Friedland's. Yes,
8:50
Speaker 1: and that would have been modern day Sovetsk, Russia. Um.
8:55
Speaker 1: And what happened was, in order to meet on sort
8:57
Speaker 1: of relatively neutral territory, UM, Napoleon and his crew built
9:03
Speaker 1: a crudely fashioned rafts that they floated up on the
9:09
Speaker 1: banks of the River Niemen, where they met the Prussian
9:15
Speaker 1: and Russian envoys. UM. Well it was actually you know,
9:17
Speaker 1: the king and this are along with their what do
9:20
Speaker 1: you call it a coatry? Yeah, and they decided to
9:24
Speaker 1: negotiate peace. Um. Alexander the First said that this piece
9:28
Speaker 1: would be just good for the world. Is this what
9:32
Speaker 1: everyone wants? So what everyone needs? Although it seemed pretty
9:34
Speaker 1: self serving, right, and there were winners and losers in
9:39
Speaker 1: these negotiations. And sorry, Alexander the First UM was quoted
9:43
Speaker 1: in saying that this piece would quote ensure the happiness
9:47
Speaker 1: and tranquility of the world. It's a bold way of
9:52
Speaker 1: looking at it, although it seemed a little more self
9:54
Speaker 1: serving since they more or less had no choice because
9:57
Speaker 1: Napoleon had taken them to the mattress. Is right, He
10:01
Speaker 1: Alexander at least needed a way to spin it as
10:05
Speaker 1: a win for his government and his people. That happens
10:09
Speaker 1: today with treaties in every situation. Additionally, Napoleon was on
10:14
Speaker 1: the cusp of establishing hegemony, to absolute control of a region,
10:19
Speaker 1: total dominance, and that was his primary concern, was spreading
10:22
Speaker 1: French control across the world. And you know eventually, I
10:26
Speaker 1: mean he would say French, but he was really thinking
10:28
Speaker 1: Napoleonic control exactly. He was a dictator, right. So here's
10:33
Speaker 1: what happened in the treaty. Alexander one accepted the reduction
10:38
Speaker 1: of Prussia from eighty nine thousand, one twenty square miles
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Speaker 1: to forty six thousand and thirty two square miles or
10:48
Speaker 1: one nineteen thousand, two hundred three square kilometers for everybody
10:52
Speaker 1: outside of Namibia, the United States and mem Mark. Well,
10:56
Speaker 1: what did King Frederick William have to say about this?
10:58
Speaker 1: And everything I've read. He sure seemed like he was
11:00
Speaker 1: second banana to to Alexander the first. Was he even there?
11:04
Speaker 1: I think he was there, he was just in the room. Yeah.
11:07
Speaker 1: Here's the thing too, that that barge or raft that
11:10
Speaker 1: we mentioned that Napoleon and his crew floated up to
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Speaker 1: the banks with um had these giant white tents built
11:16
Speaker 1: on top of them where he could kind of have
11:18
Speaker 1: his UM camp. I guess that was sort of a
11:21
Speaker 1: mobile floating camp. And on each side of the tent,
11:24
Speaker 1: where an initial on one side was in for Napoleon,
11:27
Speaker 1: on the other side was a for Alexander. But the
11:30
Speaker 1: Prussians were a little bit salty about the fact that
11:32
Speaker 1: their king didn't get an initial and sort of set
11:35
Speaker 1: the tone. Didn't then, Yeah, but Alexander one was I
11:40
Speaker 1: think the operative force on the other side of the negotiations,
11:43
Speaker 1: so I named the reduction of Prussian land. But that
11:46
Speaker 1: wasn't all, uh. They also had to create a Duchy
11:52
Speaker 1: of Warsaw from Napoleon's ally the King of Saxony, past
11:56
Speaker 1: the Duchy past the Duchy right, and the establishment of
12:01
Speaker 1: the Kingdom of Westphalia in northern Germany. This solidified his
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Speaker 1: hegemony because Westphalia was also harshly composed of former Prussian lands,
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Speaker 1: and Prussia itself was going to be occupied by French
12:16
Speaker 1: troops until the French government had received one hundred and
12:22
Speaker 1: twenty million francs and Um, speaking of keeping it in
12:27
Speaker 1: the family or making it all about Napoleon rather than France.
12:30
Speaker 1: Westphalia was established largely Um to give his brother Jerome
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Speaker 1: something to rule over. Jerome was the Jerome, the first
12:38
Speaker 1: of Westphalia. You might not hear as much about as
12:42
Speaker 1: you would know Jerome Old Jerome also in the story.
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Speaker 1: In addition to these publicly acknowledged aspects of the treaties,
12:52
Speaker 1: there were secret provisions. Oh I don't know about this
12:54
Speaker 1: many Yeah, yeah, yeah, there were secret provisions. Napoleon agreed
12:58
Speaker 1: to help Russia liberal right eastern Turkey. Yeah, if Turkey
13:05
Speaker 1: rejected French mediation in its conflict with Russia. Then secretly
13:10
Speaker 1: the two the two powers agreed that France would say, Okay,
13:14
Speaker 1: you don't want me to make peace with you, guys,
13:17
Speaker 1: I'm going to help Russia eat you eastern half. That
13:21
Speaker 1: sounds intense. And then Alexander in return promised to join
13:25
Speaker 1: the Continental system against British trade. If Britain rejected Russian
13:31
Speaker 1: mediation and its conflict with France. Then I'm glad. I'm
13:37
Speaker 1: glad you mentioned that because they because these two guys
13:43
Speaker 1: got along famously, and you and I found a strange
13:48
Speaker 1: turn that their relationship took, because you see, the public
13:52
Speaker 1: was aware of these negotiations between Alexander the First and Napoleon,
13:58
Speaker 1: and the public really took this in ran with it.
14:02
Speaker 1: They shipped them. Do you guys know about shipping? It's
14:04
Speaker 1: like like uh fan fick right, where somewhere a fan
14:09
Speaker 1: or a community of fans wants two characters to be
14:13
Speaker 1: involved in a specific type of relationship. Yeah, specifically a
14:18
Speaker 1: bit of a steamy relationship. And here's what we do
14:20
Speaker 1: know about the relationship between Alexander and Napoleon. Like you said, Ben,
14:25
Speaker 1: they got along famously. Apparently. Um, they spent a lot
14:28
Speaker 1: of time together dining during these negotiations that lasted for
14:31
Speaker 1: several days. Um, they would be hanging out alone together,
14:36
Speaker 1: uh late into the evening. Um, they were seeing hugging
14:39
Speaker 1: each other and holding hands. They exchanged handkerchiefs, h and
14:43
Speaker 1: even a cravats. What is that like a like a
14:45
Speaker 1: little tie. Yeah, Yeah, it's it's like a kind of
14:48
Speaker 1: decorative neck like an ascot. Yes, similar, the thing that
14:52
Speaker 1: Freddie would wear and Scooby doo ah, Yes similar. Similar.
14:55
Speaker 1: It goes around your debt. So he's the thing. Alexander
14:58
Speaker 1: UM and Napoleon really dug each other. In fact, there's
15:01
Speaker 1: a quote from Napoleon from a letter that he wrote
15:03
Speaker 1: home to his wife Josephine, where he said, if Alexander
15:08
Speaker 1: had been a woman, I would have made him my mistress. Um.
15:12
Speaker 1: So this fan fick thing really started to take off,
15:16
Speaker 1: where you've got all these images of of these two
15:18
Speaker 1: dudes embracing each other. There's even a few of them
15:22
Speaker 1: um kissing, and it really took the public's imagination by storm,
15:28
Speaker 1: right they it did, and this was the letter was
15:31
Speaker 1: written in eighteen o seven, same year of the negotiations,
15:36
Speaker 1: and as far as we can tell, the letters seems sincere. Additionally,
15:41
Speaker 1: Napoleon described Alexander in a quote as especially handsome, like
15:47
Speaker 1: a hero with all the graces of an amiable Parisian.
15:50
Speaker 1: This is awesome, it seems, it seems awesome. And one
15:55
Speaker 1: thing we do know is that Napoleon, at least in
15:58
Speaker 1: this will they won't they relationship Napoleon was in it
16:04
Speaker 1: to win it. He genuinely believed this, but other other
16:09
Speaker 1: experts and historians I think that perhaps this was a
16:13
Speaker 1: misstep on his part. In a PBS examination of this,
16:17
Speaker 1: historians note that this was quote Napoleon's biggest mistake. He
16:22
Speaker 1: thought he actually did charm Alexander. What Napoleon didn't understand
16:26
Speaker 1: was that Alexander would never stick to their agreement. But
16:30
Speaker 1: for Napoleon, the Tilson Peace seemed to be his finest
16:33
Speaker 1: moment for him and his empire. He came back to
16:36
Speaker 1: Paris in eighteen o seven to a huge celebration, and
16:40
Speaker 1: as you mentioned earlier, knowll some very strange and specific art.
16:46
Speaker 1: In a way, this thread or this this thought about
16:51
Speaker 1: Napoleon's relationship to Alexander continues in the modern day, with
16:55
Speaker 1: some historians, such as Frank M. Richardson even syculating that
17:01
Speaker 1: he was what we would consider bisexual. Yeah. I think
17:05
Speaker 1: that's kind of not given a whole lot of sand
17:07
Speaker 1: by the Napoleon historian community at large. But there is
17:11
Speaker 1: a book written by that gentleman called Napoleon the Bisexual Emperor. Yeah,
17:17
Speaker 1: and uh, we we see this because we love this
17:20
Speaker 1: idea of these great state powers becoming buddy buddy, and
17:28
Speaker 1: you know, I hope they at least got along. Even
17:31
Speaker 1: though it sounds like many historians think Alexander the First
17:35
Speaker 1: was playing Napoleon, I hope there was a spark that,
17:39
Speaker 1: oh my god, I'm shipping them right, I'm doing it.
17:42
Speaker 1: I want I want some actual Napoleon Alexander fan fick
17:46
Speaker 1: to surface, ween to look into that and see if
17:49
Speaker 1: any of that exists. But here's the thing. Alexander did
17:56
Speaker 1: give Napoleon something pretty sweet, aside from you know, giving
18:00
Speaker 1: up a whole crap ton of his land. Um. He
18:03
Speaker 1: he had the church, the Russian Orthodox Church withdraw uh
18:08
Speaker 1: this notion of Napoleon as being the Antichrist. In eighteen
18:12
Speaker 1: o six there had been a public um proclamation uh
18:16
Speaker 1: an anathemization of Napoleon as being the Antichrist, And that
18:20
Speaker 1: largely had to do with I didn't know this, ben Um.
18:23
Speaker 1: Napoleon in his earlier years, those of those battles we
18:26
Speaker 1: were talking about in Egypt and Italy, he saw the
18:29
Speaker 1: plight of the Jewish people and was quite a friend
18:34
Speaker 1: to them, and UM it took a lot of steps
18:37
Speaker 1: to essentially um free them from some of the restrictions
18:41
Speaker 1: placed on them in that society, and that did not
18:44
Speaker 1: go over well, uh in in certain parts of Europe,
18:47
Speaker 1: because there was a lot of anti Semitism, Yeah, widespread discrimination,
18:53
Speaker 1: active pogroms in the ghettos. Yeah yeah, yeah, discrimination terms
18:57
Speaker 1: of housing, which jobs you could have, where you would live.
19:01
Speaker 1: And so he got this ranking or he got this
19:05
Speaker 1: opprobrium heaped on him because he was doing a decent things,
19:09
Speaker 1: which again I think of him as being kind of
19:12
Speaker 1: this megalomaniacal dictator dude. Um. And you know, it turns
19:17
Speaker 1: out he did do some pretty forward thinking stuff. Yeah.
19:21
Speaker 1: And he wasn't all uh doom and gloom and blood
19:26
Speaker 1: and treasure. He liked to celebrate, he liked to unwind,
19:30
Speaker 1: He like to have a good time, especially after he
19:31
Speaker 1: felt he had earned some time off. He's a work hard,
19:35
Speaker 1: play hard type of dude. And we finally made it
19:37
Speaker 1: to the subject today's episode. We have finally made it
19:39
Speaker 1: to the summer of eighteen o seven. After signing the
19:43
Speaker 1: Treaties of Tilsa and perhaps having some uh more than
19:49
Speaker 1: friendly feelings towards his buddy Alexander this are, he decided
19:54
Speaker 1: to celebrate the signing by going off and having some
19:58
Speaker 1: rabbit hunting. He said, that's sort of want to do.
20:00
Speaker 1: I want to relax. I want to shoot some rabbits,
20:03
Speaker 1: and he pointed at his chief of staff. I'm speculating
20:07
Speaker 1: a little bit here, but I like to imagine him
20:09
Speaker 1: pointing to his chief of staff. Oh, you know what,
20:12
Speaker 1: let's let's have a Casey on the case here. Hey, Casey,
20:16
Speaker 1: how do you pronounce Alexander Berthier? Oh? Wow, Hey guys,
20:28
Speaker 1: I don't know how you found me. I've got like
20:30
Speaker 1: a different simcard, phone number and stuff over here. Um,
20:34
Speaker 1: not exactly looking to be contacted, but anyway, since you
20:38
Speaker 1: did manage to get a hold of me, uh, you
20:41
Speaker 1: pronounced it as such Alexander Deltier. Now, if you'll excuse me,
20:48
Speaker 1: I'm I'm writing the metro right now, I'm gonna miss
20:50
Speaker 1: my stop. So, um do your favorite loses number? All right?
20:54
Speaker 1: I thought you want to get back? Ah man, I'm sorry.
21:02
Speaker 1: We should have just let let you chill. Sorry, dude,
21:05
Speaker 1: that's been Casey on the case. We're going to be
21:11
Speaker 1: in the doghouse for that one. We should probably let
21:13
Speaker 1: him do his thing. But hopefully he'll still send this
21:15
Speaker 1: one of those sweet audio postcards we keep teasing, so
21:19
Speaker 1: as we were speculating, as as I'm daydreaming this moment.
21:22
Speaker 1: He points at Alexander Birthdier and says, rabbits, get it done.
21:27
Speaker 1: I'm hunting them. Be very very quiet. Perhaps, Yeah, there
21:31
Speaker 1: we go, kind of going back to Elmer Fudd idea.
21:34
Speaker 1: And also for people who want to grasp of Napoleon's
21:39
Speaker 1: personality at this moment, think about those interviews you've read
21:44
Speaker 1: about the way Prince the musician would interact with people.
21:49
Speaker 1: It's like, get me three girafts in a mountain lion
21:51
Speaker 1: stat Yeah, and and it's not malevolent, it's just I
21:55
Speaker 1: asked for it, because therefore it will happen. Have you
21:58
Speaker 1: seen have you seen that bit in the new John
22:00
Speaker 1: Mulaney stand up where he's talking about Mick Jagger and
22:02
Speaker 1: he's like, no, ye, give me a coke, and then
22:06
Speaker 1: the coke just appears in his hand like that funny,
22:09
Speaker 1: not funny, No, that's that. Yeah, that's probably how Napoleon talked.
22:14
Speaker 1: He also said, he's also we're pointing vehemently, so yeah,
22:20
Speaker 1: he gets this guy, his chief of staff, his his
22:22
Speaker 1: major domo, his number one dude to fetch him some
22:26
Speaker 1: rabbits and not being one to half ask anything. I
22:30
Speaker 1: guess this guy reportedly um got quite a lot of
22:35
Speaker 1: these little creatures, didn't he Ben, Yes, Louis Alexander at
22:38
Speaker 1: both Ya. That's not like a dozen rabbits, but somewhere
22:43
Speaker 1: between hundreds and more than a thousand. It's tough to
22:46
Speaker 1: find a specific number, but we do know the ballpark,
22:50
Speaker 1: and the ballpark is at least several hundreds of rabbits.
22:55
Speaker 1: And the reason he did this, this is this is
22:59
Speaker 1: my thinking. Tell me when you think about this. The
23:01
Speaker 1: reason he did this is because he was, as he said,
23:03
Speaker 1: a real go get her. He's chief of staff. The
23:06
Speaker 1: worst thing that could happen is for him to get,
23:08
Speaker 1: you know, a dozen rabbits and for Napoleon not to
23:12
Speaker 1: be able to find any, because they're just gonna let
23:15
Speaker 1: them loose in the woods. They're not going to hold
23:17
Speaker 1: them by the neck and have Napoleon, you know, bop
23:19
Speaker 1: them on the head. There's a pretty fantastic account of
23:22
Speaker 1: what happened next from the Liverpool Harold from April six
23:25
Speaker 1: of nineteen o one, and it references one of Napoleon's
23:28
Speaker 1: general's t ball. Yeah yeah, I'm like in that yeah um.
23:34
Speaker 1: And he did not apparently think too highly of Berthier.
23:37
Speaker 1: He harbored a quote hearty contempt um for Berthier, who
23:41
Speaker 1: he regarded as a toady. I love toady, sort of
23:44
Speaker 1: a kiss ass yeah kiss, and a carpet knight. I
23:48
Speaker 1: don't know that one, but I can picture it. I
23:49
Speaker 1: wonder if it's like paper paper tiger maybe, or maybe
23:52
Speaker 1: it means someone who is a knight entitle but has
23:55
Speaker 1: very little knowledge of actual fighting. I'm like in that one,
23:58
Speaker 1: bad um. So the Marshal, I'm gonna quote from this article.
24:02
Speaker 1: The Marshal, in the early days of the Empire invited
24:04
Speaker 1: his master to a rabbit shoot on his estate and
24:07
Speaker 1: bought a thousand of these animals to furnish sport. But
24:12
Speaker 1: how can I tell it or be believed? Says Baron
24:14
Speaker 1: Thibout in his memoir which have just been published. All
24:16
Speaker 1: those rabbits, which should have tried in vain, even by
24:19
Speaker 1: scattering themselves to escape the shots which the August Hand
24:23
Speaker 1: destined for them, suddenly collected first in knots, then in
24:27
Speaker 1: a body. Instead of having recourse to a useless fight,
24:31
Speaker 1: they all faced about, and in an instant, the whole
24:34
Speaker 1: phalanx flung itself upon Napoleon. Can you translate that nineteen
24:38
Speaker 1: hundreds newspaper speak, ben Sure. The idea was that the
24:43
Speaker 1: rabbits would scatter from a threat in all directions, that's
24:47
Speaker 1: what they were expecting, and that they would be pursued
24:50
Speaker 1: by Napoleon and company and then ultimately either eradicate all
24:54
Speaker 1: the rabbits were enough to satiate Napoleon's recreational blood lust. However,
25:00
Speaker 1: what happened instead was that the rabbits, being tame and
25:04
Speaker 1: farm raised, did not associate humans with predation. They associated
25:09
Speaker 1: humans with food. So how was the fatal flaw? So
25:14
Speaker 1: there's a huge mass of rabbits and they are in
25:19
Speaker 1: a new environment, they see a human being, they assume
25:22
Speaker 1: that human being can only be there to feed them.
25:25
Speaker 1: And I found I found a really interesting look at
25:30
Speaker 1: rabbit aggression. What makes for an aggressive rabbit? And they're
25:35
Speaker 1: there are two tick marks that speak to this situation.
25:40
Speaker 1: One is that a change in rabbit's environment or routine
25:43
Speaker 1: can cause them to display aggression, and they're very routine oriented. Uh.
25:50
Speaker 1: The second is, of course, if they're hungry or if
25:55
Speaker 1: they are unaltered, meaning not spade or neutered. And of
26:00
Speaker 1: course at this time these were unaltered rabbits. Unaltered rabbits
26:06
Speaker 1: unaltered that is the uh, that is the polite term.
26:10
Speaker 1: Here's how, you know how I pictured this whole thing
26:11
Speaker 1: going down like this amazing clip from Monty Python and
26:15
Speaker 1: the Holy Grail. Rabbit's got a Fisher street a mile wide?
26:19
Speaker 1: Is a killer? Do you want to cheat? Mate? Manky
26:25
Speaker 1: Scott's gate. I'm wanting you what's he doing? Ni, he's
26:28
Speaker 1: got heat shop, he can leap about. Look at the bone.
27:03
Speaker 1: Oh man, So I really like to picture, uh, this
27:06
Speaker 1: being at least somewhere in the vein of how things
27:09
Speaker 1: went down, because these rabbits were just swarming Napoleon and
27:12
Speaker 1: his men. They were climbing up Napoleon's legs on his coat,
27:15
Speaker 1: and he had um groups of men who were called beaters,
27:20
Speaker 1: and they were hitting at the rabbits with like writing crops,
27:23
Speaker 1: right right, yeah, as you said. No, the rabbits were
27:26
Speaker 1: all over them, expecting their daily cabbage, which they had
27:30
Speaker 1: not received at the time, and they followed Napoleon and co.
27:36
Speaker 1: And eventually Napoleon ran away to his carriage just like
27:39
Speaker 1: can runaway than the python clip its. It's exactly like that,
27:42
Speaker 1: because you know, they thought they would be safe in
27:44
Speaker 1: the carriage, right, it's got doors, but no, Apparently the
27:47
Speaker 1: rabbits were just like coming at them, trying to like
27:50
Speaker 1: get into the carriage, come hell or high water. They
27:53
Speaker 1: were leaping, flinging themselves into the carriage. So they literally
27:58
Speaker 1: had to drive way escaped this torrent of bunnies. Right,
28:04
Speaker 1: the bullwhips that were cracking didn't stop the rabbits. Getting
28:08
Speaker 1: hit with a crop or riding crop didn't stop them,
28:11
Speaker 1: or sticks from these beaters. And according to his storian
28:14
Speaker 1: David Chandler, with a finer understanding of Napoleonic strategy the
28:19
Speaker 1: most of his generals, the rabbit horde divided into two
28:22
Speaker 1: wings and poured around the flanks of the party heading
28:25
Speaker 1: for the imperial coach. Then some of the reportedly leaped
28:31
Speaker 1: into the carriage, and the attack only stopped as the
28:34
Speaker 1: coach was rolling away. Can you imagine what it was
28:43
Speaker 1: like to be Birthier at this moment. I bet he
28:47
Speaker 1: was feeling pretty silly. The luncheon was ruined, that's for sure,
28:52
Speaker 1: because you know the fatal flaw he talked about he
28:54
Speaker 1: should have gotten wild rabbits. They would have given Chase properly.
28:58
Speaker 1: They would have made or a delightful, uh if bloodthirsty
29:03
Speaker 1: afternoon of you know, organized violence. But instead it was
29:08
Speaker 1: an absolute ship show. Yeah it was. He had, as
29:13
Speaker 1: reports at the time we're describing it, he had purchased
29:16
Speaker 1: rabbits from the hutch rather than the warren, so from
29:20
Speaker 1: from a farm rather than from wild And for all
29:24
Speaker 1: his military acumen, for all his international reputation, to these rabbits,
29:31
Speaker 1: Napoleon was a little more than a reticent purveyor of lettuce.
29:36
Speaker 1: We just wasn't given up the goods. Yeah, not because
29:39
Speaker 1: he had none to give up. They weren't there to
29:40
Speaker 1: feed the bunnies. It wasn't a petting zoo. This was,
29:43
Speaker 1: you know, a murder party. I should correct the slaying
29:47
Speaker 1: there that I fell into. It was actually cabbage that
29:50
Speaker 1: they probably thought he was pervying. Oh yeah, I guess
29:52
Speaker 1: that was the food of choice for domesticated bunnies. For
29:57
Speaker 1: the discerning rabbit. Oh man, you could be a cab
30:00
Speaker 1: but spokesperson. It's the gray papon of It's the equivalent
30:04
Speaker 1: of great papon for rabbits. You know why right, because
30:09
Speaker 1: when you cook it, some people just hate the smell.
30:11
Speaker 1: But the secret is caraway seats. Is that right? Yeah,
30:14
Speaker 1: to give that a shot has nothing to do with Napoleon.
30:17
Speaker 1: I think it's fine. But this, this is so fascinating
30:21
Speaker 1: to us, because you know, the images that we have
30:25
Speaker 1: of Napoleon is not that of someone who would turn
30:31
Speaker 1: tail and run. But maybe maybe it's just so surprising
30:37
Speaker 1: and so unexpected. And there's again so many rabbits that
30:43
Speaker 1: he ran because of the surrealism of it, you know,
30:46
Speaker 1: rather than fearing for his life. I'm surely he didn't
30:49
Speaker 1: fear for his life. It's just really unusual and freakish,
30:52
Speaker 1: and that is pretty cool. The whole Um Treatise of
30:55
Speaker 1: Tilsit thing um allied France with Russia. Uh, But like
31:00
Speaker 1: you mentioned earlier, Um, it was kind of considered to
31:03
Speaker 1: be a bit of a blunder on Napoleon's part because
31:07
Speaker 1: it was not particularly likely that Czar Nicholas the First
31:10
Speaker 1: was going to maintain that peace accord, and and as
31:15
Speaker 1: we know, everything kind of fell apart, and then Napoleon
31:17
Speaker 1: had to try to take back Russia in eighteen twelve
31:21
Speaker 1: in a calamitous invasion where he got his backside handed
31:28
Speaker 1: to him, and writer Nicholas Karamzine wrote of Napoleon that
31:34
Speaker 1: he arrived like a tiger, but bolted like a rabbit. Audh.
31:39
Speaker 1: So now now we can connect the dots, right, ridiculous historians,
31:43
Speaker 1: We can see what they were alluding to. The Napoleonic
31:48
Speaker 1: Empire pretty shortly after that collapsed. In time span from
31:53
Speaker 1: eighteen fourteen to eighteen fifteen, we saw the empire fall
31:57
Speaker 1: and saw Alexander acquired most of the duchy that we mentioned,
32:02
Speaker 1: and it went on to survive for years and years
32:05
Speaker 1: and years under Russian rule as the so called Congress
32:08
Speaker 1: Kingdom of Poland. That's the nature of the duchy man.
32:11
Speaker 1: You could you pass it and then you got to
32:13
Speaker 1: get it passed back eventually. Um. But yeah, like for
32:16
Speaker 1: all of Napoleon's conquests and military um strategies, he kind
32:22
Speaker 1: of ended up right back where he started in terms
32:24
Speaker 1: of dominion, right, And then he actually was ultimately exiled
32:28
Speaker 1: to the island of Elba. And then if he came
32:31
Speaker 1: back briefly and ruled for like this thing called the
32:33
Speaker 1: Hundred Days Campaign and then got kicked out again or
32:36
Speaker 1: he he died in exile on another island and at
32:38
Speaker 1: the age of I mean, yeah, not that old, not
32:43
Speaker 1: that old the guy. The United Kingdom kept him on
32:46
Speaker 1: the island of Saint Helena, That's the one which was
32:50
Speaker 1: a little less than two thousand kilometers from the west
32:53
Speaker 1: coast of Africa. And while he was in exile, he
32:57
Speaker 1: wrote a book about one of his biggest heroes, Julius Caesar.
33:01
Speaker 1: And then he eventually passed away, but he did reconcile
33:07
Speaker 1: with the Catholic Church. Today, people still debate what the
33:11
Speaker 1: cause of his death was a lot of people think
33:16
Speaker 1: it would have been stomach cancer because his father passed
33:18
Speaker 1: away from the same ailment. That's ending it on a
33:21
Speaker 1: little bit of a downer note. But I like to
33:24
Speaker 1: think on the positive side that a lot of those
33:27
Speaker 1: buddies got away and maybe lived happy in full lives. Yeah,
33:30
Speaker 1: but wouldn't they be like an invasive species. Wouldn't they
33:32
Speaker 1: have just totally jacked up the ecosystem. Well, rabbits are
33:35
Speaker 1: naturally occurring part of that ecosystem, but you're right, in
33:38
Speaker 1: that massive number, with the way their reproduction works, then
33:43
Speaker 1: if they were not hunted, they would eventually cause population
33:47
Speaker 1: collapsed by the sure amount of food they consume. Yeah,
33:50
Speaker 1: because like three thousand rabbits. Okay, let's le's be let's
33:52
Speaker 1: be conservative, let's call it one thousand rabbits multiplying. You know,
33:57
Speaker 1: like rabbits could pretty quickly overtake the scene, right, And
34:01
Speaker 1: you know, it didn't sound to me like they had
34:03
Speaker 1: much time to get any shots off at these little
34:05
Speaker 1: guys before they you know, turntail and ducked into their carriage. Yeah. Yeah,
34:10
Speaker 1: but the paraphrase the old, the old saying, every rabbit
34:16
Speaker 1: has their day, and that afternoon, maybe as many as
34:21
Speaker 1: three thousand rabbits had their day in the sun in
34:24
Speaker 1: a very strange way. Perhaps they were speaking truth to power.
34:28
Speaker 1: Probably not, but you know, it's nice to think about.
34:30
Speaker 1: If we write it as a screenplay, clearly we're gonna
34:33
Speaker 1: go a little watership down and the rabbits can talk,
34:36
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, we better get right to work on that.
34:38
Speaker 1: Ben Um. So we will leave you there, Ridiculous Historians,
34:42
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining us for today's episode.
34:44
Speaker 1: We would like to thank uh guest super producer Paul
34:48
Speaker 1: Mission Controlled Decands. We'd also like to thank, of course,
34:52
Speaker 1: uh Casey Pegram and Alexander Williams, who can post our track.
34:57
Speaker 1: We would like to think our researcher Chris for a haciotis,
35:01
Speaker 1: as well as Laurie L. Dove for busting the myth
35:06
Speaker 1: about Napoleon's heights. But most importantly, we would like to
35:11
Speaker 1: thank you for tuning in and stay tuned for next time,
35:15
Speaker 1: because we've got something cool coming up, sure do. It's
35:17
Speaker 1: what they call a tent pole episode. So that's all
35:21
Speaker 1: for today, folks, bonjeou au revoir boni, whatever you got,
35:27
Speaker 1: Thank you, easy guys,