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

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