Speaker 1: It really is funny every time, like genuine incredible opening
Speaker 1: the Bastards of Policy, in which I try to keep
Speaker 1: the names of all the Bonaparte straight and I'm gonna,
Speaker 1: be honest largely fail at it. It's bad. It's bad.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get a lot easier soon. Eventually. Louis Napoleon
Speaker 1: is the only one we have to care about in
Speaker 1: this story. But we are, we are still, We're at
Speaker 1: the last stage of their being multiple Louis, this is
Speaker 1: not your fault, and anybody who blames you, this is
Speaker 1: this is this is the concept of hereditary nobility's fault.
Speaker 1: This is why whenever Edward Hapsburg, the heir to the
Speaker 1: Hapsburg dynasty and a big anime fan, po on Twitter,
Speaker 1: I sent him a picture of his dead relative Maximilian,
Speaker 1: the first former Emperor of Mexico. Um, it's because of
Speaker 1: ship like this, and because he's a weird trad cat fascist.
Speaker 1: But I didn't know that there wasn't a live Habsburg.
Speaker 1: That's incredible, there is. He loves. He loves Catholic fascism
Speaker 1: and Miyazaki films. Oh my god, it's it's incredible. He's
Speaker 1: an amazing poster. He's like he's like an anime avatar type.
Speaker 1: It's it's fucking phenomenal. I love it. He's just like
Speaker 1: I mean, at the end of the day, you do
Speaker 1: enough inbreeding, you're gonna just breed four Chan posters. That's
Speaker 1: what you're gonna do. He's a wild character. He's on
Speaker 1: the edge of groper dum. He's not quite online enough
Speaker 1: to be one, really, but he spends all of his
Speaker 1: time traveling around the world giving lectures on Blessed Carl,
Speaker 1: who was the last emperor of the Australian gary An Empire. God,
Speaker 1: let me talk about my homie, Blessed Carl. Dude, your
Speaker 1: fucking family helped a night a conflagration that killed tens
Speaker 1: of millions of people. Like, maybe maybe shut the funk up,
Speaker 1: Shut the funk up and change your name. Change your name.
Speaker 1: It's like, you know what I like about the Hitler's
Speaker 1: I'll say this for him, not the main one, right,
Speaker 1: but he had family and stuff who weren't Hitler who
Speaker 1: didn't like do the bad Hitler stuff. All of the
Speaker 1: branches of his family after his death independently decided to
Speaker 1: stop having kids, and they were all like, you know what, Hitlers,
Speaker 1: we roll. We rolled the dice on this family enough.
Speaker 1: I love it. Yeah, it's a nice way of just
Speaker 1: going like, hey, you know, you know, maybe this whole genome.
Speaker 1: You know, my my mom was his aunt, not her fault.
Speaker 1: She didn't do anything right. But I just don't think
Speaker 1: we need to have any more hitlers. Yeah, we're gonna
Speaker 1: limit the hitlers. I think we're good. Yeah, I love Yeah,
Speaker 1: you gotta give it to the Hitlers and the other hitlers.
Speaker 1: Thank you. I'm sorry. So there's a there's a segment
Speaker 1: of your listenership who hates the soundboard for them, And
Speaker 1: there's no one I hate more than those people hate
Speaker 1: the sound board, also hate that I have a microphone,
Speaker 1: and also hate that Roberts pronounces things. And so we
Speaker 1: just have the trifecta for help for them this episode.
Speaker 1: They keep listening. They're like a heroin addict who would
Speaker 1: would shoot his dealer if he could work up the courage.
Speaker 1: So suck it, he Barrell, he's the deputys. Anyways, listen
Speaker 1: upon yourself the water, I have a family. It is
Speaker 1: the world's only the Wire podcast. I'm Atlee. Hell yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe so. By the summer of eighteen thirty five, Louis
Speaker 1: Napoleon had met a man who finally set his life
Speaker 1: on a purposeful track. And this is again Gilbert Persigny,
Speaker 1: who is the ass kisser who convinces him, Hey, man,
Speaker 1: people don't like the current king that much, but they
Speaker 1: love the ship out of the memory of your uncle.
Speaker 1: You could work this into something. You can make some
Speaker 1: ship out of this, And Persigny convinces him that the
Speaker 1: Bonapartist cause is still so popular in France that this
Speaker 1: would be an easy task for Louis himself to accomplish.
Speaker 1: Within weeks, Louis was stating this opinion as his own,
Speaker 1: saying quote, if the Napoleon at cause has left fond
Speaker 1: memories in the hearts of the French people, then all
Speaker 1: I should have to do is present myself, standing quite alone,
Speaker 1: without even troops at my side, before the people, and
Speaker 1: remind them of their recent grievances and past glory, and
Speaker 1: they will rally to my flag. Believe me, I know
Speaker 1: my France. He has barely spent any time in his
Speaker 1: life and part time in Italy. He's he has a
Speaker 1: German ass accent. I know, I know my France. It's
Speaker 1: this one thing. I know. It's France. I was born
Speaker 1: in St. Louis and have like vague memories of my
Speaker 1: time there before we moved to Oklahoma, and maybe be like,
Speaker 1: I know the people of St. Louis. Don't tell me
Speaker 1: about South St. Louis. I know them. I listened to
Speaker 1: the song Meet Louis. Yes, don't worry, I will. I
Speaker 1: know about Ted Drew's That's the only thing I remember
Speaker 1: about St. Louis. Dope ass frozen yogurt um or maybe
Speaker 1: it sucks. I don't remember. I was like nine the
Speaker 1: last time I ate there. Like, here's this thing I
Speaker 1: can't verify is cool from a very long time ago
Speaker 1: podcast podcasts, That's right. Louis Napoleon sets upon a cunning plan,
Speaker 1: which is that he's just gonna like march his way
Speaker 1: into France to this garrison at Strasbourg where there's like
Speaker 1: ten thousand soldiers. And he likes that because if he assumes,
Speaker 1: I just gotta say hi to those soldiers and they'll
Speaker 1: be like Linborough and then we can all march to Paris.
Speaker 1: And this is he thinks that this will work for
Speaker 1: him because this is kind of how Napoleon had retaken power,
Speaker 1: that is how he did it essentially, that is how
Speaker 1: he did it. However, he did that because he had
Speaker 1: won dozens of battles against long odds and conquered all
Speaker 1: of Western Europe for for France. Right yeah, yeah, he
Speaker 1: had like a track record. Yeah yeah. Whereas Louis Napoleon
Speaker 1: is most famous for getting his older brother killed in Italy,
Speaker 1: so before he does, to his credit, he does try
Speaker 1: to do a little bit of groundwork before he just
Speaker 1: walks off to Strasbourg. He you know, from from his
Speaker 1: base of operations in London, reaches out to the commanding
Speaker 1: general of the garrison, like sends him a letter being like,
Speaker 1: I want to come and take your garrison to retake France.
Speaker 1: This guy, being not a complete idiot, sends the letter
Speaker 1: to his bosses and it's like, hey, the they aired
Speaker 1: a Napoleon bonapartum might be tried. It's over the country
Speaker 1: in a little while. Guy. It's I was thinking of
Speaker 1: just letting him do it because it would be funny,
Speaker 1: but I thought i'd let you guys know check in.
Speaker 1: I will just check in on this, like it's not
Speaker 1: in the manual. It's gonna fails. Could be pretty funny. Um,
Speaker 1: Louis Napoleon is not able to convince this guy or
Speaker 1: any like generals. But there's a couple of colonels and
Speaker 1: majors who had like fought in Napoleon Bonaparte's army and
Speaker 1: are like, I guess unhappy enough with the regime that
Speaker 1: they're like, yeah, man, we'll fight. So he gets some
Speaker 1: people to agree to back him in the French military.
Speaker 1: Here's how the Shadow Emperor describes what happened next. At
Speaker 1: six o'clock on Monday the thirty October eighteen thirty six,
Speaker 1: Swiss Army Captain Lewis Napoleon Bonaparte, now disguised in the
Speaker 1: uniform of a French colonel, attended by French General Vaudre
Speaker 1: and ten officers including Gilbert Persigny, marched into the Strasburg
Speaker 1: Garrison to the barracks of the forty six Infantry Regiment,
Speaker 1: where Colon Old Bonaparte appealed to the men to join him. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: they completely rejected the young man and the name of Bonaparte,
Speaker 1: much to the astonishment of the Prince, and from then
Speaker 1: on it turned into a shambles. Although they managed to
Speaker 1: seize the commanding general thea Pilavoiril in his office. He
Speaker 1: then escaped through a back door and was saved by
Speaker 1: his staff officers, joined by Barrillo's Barrillo's hysterical mother in
Speaker 1: law and wife, who then pummeled the bewildered Swiss captain
Speaker 1: with the barrage of fists. By eight o'clock, the coup
Speaker 1: was over and the invaders were behind locked doors. Louis
Speaker 1: Napoleon loses his coup because the mom and daughter Mom,
Speaker 1: the mother and wife of the guy he tries to kidnap,
Speaker 1: beat him up. It was wonderful. I love it. Doesn't
Speaker 1: even get stopped by the army guys. Mom starting and
Speaker 1: we almost won. Uh and sends a muzzle came out
Speaker 1: and started punching me, and I was like, wow, I
Speaker 1: was not ready for this. I was not ready. It
Speaker 1: was this my vachalo. By the way, I do love
Speaker 1: that he mostly as a German accent because it means
Speaker 1: I can start doing my German accent. We can't. That
Speaker 1: is why I picked this. I was I was planning
Speaker 1: this for another guest, and then I was like, spoke
Speaker 1: French with a German accent. Get mad on the phone.
Speaker 1: That's me, baby, Sophie. Turn on the matt lead signal.
Speaker 1: When you can't do accents, all accents are correct. So
Speaker 1: the same people that hate your soundboard also hate and
Speaker 1: you know what, fuck m fuck them. So a lot
Speaker 1: of people are very amused by this coup attempt. The
Speaker 1: London Times sums it up as ridiculous. The Frankfurters tone
Speaker 1: calls him an unbalanced young man and asks, what on
Speaker 1: earth did he possibly expect to achieve? Um? Now, glory?
Speaker 1: I think, yes, yeah, it seems like it was the plan.
Speaker 1: I think it was going for like glory and something
Speaker 1: something chill. At least some girls comes up a little short.
Speaker 1: So since the good news is that nobody gets hurt
Speaker 1: in this attempt, right, the most injuries anyone suffers is
Speaker 1: Louis Napoleon getting beaten up by two ladies. Incredible. So
Speaker 1: Charles the Tenth is looking at this situation is like, well,
Speaker 1: nobody's dead. This is pretty comical, and like if I
Speaker 1: try to execute him or like put him up, that's
Speaker 1: just gonna be more visibility. And he is a bonaparte, right, Like,
Speaker 1: I don't want to fuck that much with a bonaparte
Speaker 1: because things are not things are not great for Charles
Speaker 1: the Tenth right, he is not on a super solid
Speaker 1: and he just kind of he kind of just wants
Speaker 1: this to go away, right, hoping that like he's not
Speaker 1: going to try a second time to overthrow the government.
Speaker 1: Um So, let's just, you know, let's just try and
Speaker 1: deal with this amiably. So he he gives Louis Napoleon
Speaker 1: two thousand dollars in a bag and takes him to
Speaker 1: a harbor where he's put on a boat for New
Speaker 1: York City. Um So, Louis Philip is like, yeah, just
Speaker 1: take this bag of cash and get the funk out
Speaker 1: of here. Here's two hundred thousand dollars, and has his
Speaker 1: soldiers take Louis uh Napoleon to a harbor and he
Speaker 1: sails to New York City to have a vacation. I
Speaker 1: do love that. Like, if you want to know why
Speaker 1: uh fail suns continually get chances over, it's because when
Speaker 1: they do something really stupid that any other person would
Speaker 1: be executed over, you give them two hundred dollars in
Speaker 1: a free vacation. I agree with you. You know, it's
Speaker 1: fair to say this was a complicated problem for the
Speaker 1: to deal with, because but yeah, I think I think
Speaker 1: you gotta hang him right, that just that should be
Speaker 1: the rule. With Goose, I think that's a regular rule.
Speaker 1: I think we've all agreed to this rule. Well, I
Speaker 1: mean we're having this problem now and I kind of
Speaker 1: think we should have hung anyway. Whatever. You know, you
Speaker 1: know my feelings on on the former president. Yeah, if
Speaker 1: they say it, but uh, the lesson with Louis Napoleon
Speaker 1: and the lesson with Hitler, and maybe the lesson with
Speaker 1: the Trump is that, like, if people keep trying to
Speaker 1: take over the government, you have to you have to
Speaker 1: stop them permanently. They won't give up just because it
Speaker 1: doesn't work. Once. Have you guys watched a single episode
Speaker 1: of Pinky in the Brain? You think he stops every
Speaker 1: time he fails to take over the world, the brain
Speaker 1: keeps going. You gotta hang the brain. As embarrassing as
Speaker 1: the first coup attempt goes, Louis Napoleon isn't that put
Speaker 1: out by it. He is a good vacation. He gets
Speaker 1: to go to the US. He loves the United States,
Speaker 1: finds it fascinating. He's especially this is a very exciting
Speaker 1: mid eighteen hundreds. A lot of technology is getting off
Speaker 1: the ground for the first time. He gets to see
Speaker 1: in person, some of the first American experiments with electricity.
Speaker 1: He gets to watch like very early trains, which France
Speaker 1: doesn't really have yet. Like France is still in a
Speaker 1: lot of ways and at evil economy, like all transit
Speaker 1: is like carriages and ship like they are not there's
Speaker 1: not they're not industrializing. Um. So while he's away, he
Speaker 1: does have a trial in absentia in France and it
Speaker 1: results surprisingly in him being acquitted. Um and this is
Speaker 1: for it doesn't like again, the Bonapartes have a lot
Speaker 1: of sympathy and there's a lot of things that get
Speaker 1: sucked up in this trial. It's not really worth getting
Speaker 1: that into, but he gets acquitted. Um. Lewis enjoys the
Speaker 1: United States. He finds a soothing break from his failed
Speaker 1: attempt to take the French throne. He does if you
Speaker 1: want to know what he thinks about America, he notes
Speaker 1: in his diary that American slavery seems to be quote
Speaker 1: a bad thing. Um, so I'll give him that. I'll
Speaker 1: give him that again when when people talk about well,
Speaker 1: you know, it was just the times, like this guy
Speaker 1: sucks ass and he looks at Americans like, oh no,
Speaker 1: this is shitty. COO's getting beat up by a couple
Speaker 1: sucks and he's like, like, slavery is bad. This is
Speaker 1: uh yeah, this is this is this is really this
Speaker 1: is really unpleasant. Co attempt was ridiculous, but this owning people.
Speaker 1: He finds himself really admiring technology, how how how how
Speaker 1: enterprising Americans are with technology, how much they embrace like
Speaker 1: new things, how modern they are. But he also decides
Speaker 1: and concludes and letters back to his friends and family
Speaker 1: that the country, the new nation, is deficient in what
Speaker 1: he calls moral force, and he lays this at the
Speaker 1: United States as immaturity. Quote. In principle, every American colony
Speaker 1: is a real republic. It is an association of men who,
Speaker 1: with equal rights, have agreed together to develop the products
Speaker 1: of their country. It matters little whether they have a
Speaker 1: governor or president for their chief. They require only a
Speaker 1: few police regulations. Here. There is freedom to acquire, but
Speaker 1: not freedom to enjoy. There is the right to act,
Speaker 1: but not to think, which I actually find surprisingly act. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's kind of hit the nail on head there. That's
Speaker 1: not a bad summarado for us now, Yeah, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: that's that has remained true. Yeah, credit where it's due.
Speaker 1: He kind of had our number. Um, so he had
Speaker 1: to cut his trip to the United States short after
Speaker 1: about six months. I think he wanted to spend more
Speaker 1: time seem more of a continent. But then his mom
Speaker 1: gets sick, um, and you know, he's a mom's boy.
Speaker 1: He returns home to be with her while she died.
Speaker 1: She dies in his arms, YadA, YadA, YadA. Sad stuff. Look,
Speaker 1: they've all been dead for two hundred years. Don't think
Speaker 1: too much about it. Once he's done grieving, it's time
Speaker 1: to get right back to his ultimate goal, which is
Speaker 1: still to become the Emperor of France, he goes plotting.
Speaker 1: He goes back to England um with a kotterie of backers.
Speaker 1: He does decide to like, Yeah, he goes back to
Speaker 1: England with this kotterie of backers, a Mitch of a
Speaker 1: mix of bankers, financiers, former French military officers, and kanmen
Speaker 1: pretending to be former French military officers, and he decides
Speaker 1: to put together a more ambitious plan to seize the throne.
Speaker 1: And we're gonna talk about all of that and his
Speaker 1: flight from Switzerland. But first, Matt, how do you how
Speaker 1: do you how do you feel about the concept that
Speaker 1: out there the largest freshwater bodies are just sitting around
Speaker 1: our border with Canada, fucking fat and lazy. We know,
Speaker 1: goddamn well, they're not, you know, be any natural borders
Speaker 1: to Canada. Socialist Lakes, Socialist lakes. This has been a
Speaker 1: paid advertisement for the campaign to fucking nuke the goddamn
Speaker 1: ship out of the Great Lakes the lakes, turn it
Speaker 1: into steam, use that steam to power engines lakes. That's right,
Speaker 1: that's right. We could be nuking all the lakes by
Speaker 1: this time. We create by blowing up the lakes, and
Speaker 1: we'll get water in southern California. Again, no one's proven
Speaker 1: it wouldn't work that way. Yeah, science, get ahead of it.
Speaker 1: A lake nuke a couple of lakes anyway, Speaking of
Speaker 1: nuking lakes, Yeah, okay, you were about to take a
Speaker 1: commercial break. Yeah, this is a break. We've we've got
Speaker 1: a we've got a minute. Let's take it. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: we're back from outer space. I just walked in to
Speaker 1: find Matt leeb here with that face. Oh wow, okay, sorry, no, no,
Speaker 1: that's the way you do it. Yes, and you know
Speaker 1: you just just building baby I do yes, and my
Speaker 1: version is yes, And was that okay? I always like
Speaker 1: to ask that after yes? And was I allowed to
Speaker 1: ad like that? That's how I go? Was that accept
Speaker 1: to you? Yes? This is why I failed at the Groundlings. God,
Speaker 1: I just kidding. I never did the Groundlings. I've never
Speaker 1: taken an improv class and neither of I. I knew
Speaker 1: too many people who were into improv and decided absolutely
Speaker 1: not ever never ever. Yeah, it is weird because like
Speaker 1: one out of a hundred of the like improvisers that
Speaker 1: I know or that I've seen, I'm like, that's the
Speaker 1: funniest person I've ever seen. But then that means nine
Speaker 1: nine are just terrible. Look, every terrible improv person we've
Speaker 1: ever needed. Was was was was just the price we
Speaker 1: all paid as a society to get Tim Robinson exactly exactly,
Speaker 1: and you know what, it's still not worth it. And
Speaker 1: a lot of people want to say, like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: you know, stand up comedy is also bad. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: at least stand up comics are sad and bad, you know,
Speaker 1: it is improvisers they're just like happy and bad and
Speaker 1: that's not fair. Is it is very funny that like
Speaker 1: anyway that would be getting too far off topic. Let's
Speaker 1: talk more about Louis motherfucking Napoleon. So, by eighteen thirty seven,
Speaker 1: when Louis Napoleon tried his ill fated attempt to coup
Speaker 1: the French government, the first first one, he had already
Speaker 1: been let himself become completely obsessed with the idea of
Speaker 1: taking back the crown of his uncle from King Louis Philippe.
Speaker 1: The fact that his punishment for that coup had not
Speaker 1: even amounted to a slap on the wrist putting back
Speaker 1: they in fact, they've paid vacation meant that he had
Speaker 1: not been incentivized against trying again. But if if you
Speaker 1: spent a day failing to take over France and got
Speaker 1: like lightly beaten up, and then was given two d
Speaker 1: thousand dollars, do you think you might try to take
Speaker 1: over France again? Matt, I mean, I would just assume
Speaker 1: that that's how I get more money. Yeah, I would
Speaker 1: do it. A second. Absolutely, I'd be like, well, that's
Speaker 1: a job. Apparently my job is trying to take over
Speaker 1: France every once in a while to America have fun.
Speaker 1: Behavioral psychology is a complex field. People will agree when
Speaker 1: you give someone two hundred thousand dollars. That's an incentive. Yeah. Um, no,
Speaker 1: you really don't. This is very simple economics. Yeah, this
Speaker 1: is human behavior, even for To his credit, former King
Speaker 1: Louis Bonaparte tries desperately to stop his son from continuing
Speaker 1: this course of action. He begs Louis Napoleon to take
Speaker 1: his gifts and his talents and pursue a worthy life
Speaker 1: somewhere fall far outside of politics. An improv please, Napoleon. Yeah,
Speaker 1: He begs him to to avoid quote what are referred
Speaker 1: to as the great affairs of the world. He's basically, look, man,
Speaker 1: I know you want to be in power. You like
Speaker 1: the idea of like being this huge historical figure. I
Speaker 1: was a big historical figure, and it actually sucks. Don't
Speaker 1: do it. He is desperately trying to give his son
Speaker 1: the best advice possible. His kid does not listen. Um,
Speaker 1: he is he urged. Again. To his credit, he's like, quote,
Speaker 1: enjoy some real pleasure during this brief existence of ours, Like,
Speaker 1: don't why do you want this job? Just like you're
Speaker 1: you're a rich kid. You you hit the like inheritance jackpot.
Speaker 1: Just live your life and enjoy it, Like make some art,
Speaker 1: or something. Um, Louis Napoleon is not going to take
Speaker 1: this advice. So the fridge guy that keeps buying me
Speaker 1: guitars and telling me to start a band, and he's
Speaker 1: really pissing me off. I don't want to be in
Speaker 1: a band. I want to control an army and invade arbitrarily.
Speaker 1: Louis Napoleon like sits down at the end of his
Speaker 1: son's bed, like, hey, there, Champ, how you doing. I
Speaker 1: just wanted to you. Ever tried you, ever tried cocaine?
Speaker 1: You might really like it. Actually, you know what, started
Speaker 1: trying to get me to do coke? Paying these hookers
Speaker 1: to come over in party with you. We got a
Speaker 1: rave rooms set up in the in the feast home.
Speaker 1: Why don't you just do that the rest of your life?
Speaker 1: You want to take some e with me? Oh? I
Speaker 1: love it. I love that He's just doing anything possible
Speaker 1: to get him to not be into doing war. He's
Speaker 1: just like, no, Daddy, I do not want to fox
Speaker 1: these ladies anymore. It is so funny trying to so
Speaker 1: the French. The French government keeps heavy like police, secret
Speaker 1: police surveillance on the entire Bonaparte family. Now, um, and
Speaker 1: this is again. Louis's family are never happy with him.
Speaker 1: He gets his brother killed, he gets them forced out
Speaker 1: of Italy, and now there's like spooks watching their every move.
Speaker 1: So it's this is not pleasant for anybody. When the
Speaker 1: French government realizes that he's going to try again, they
Speaker 1: start pushing on Switzerland to eject Louis from the country again.
Speaker 1: They don't really want to kill him or anything. They
Speaker 1: just like Switzerland's right on the border of France, so
Speaker 1: they're like, let's try to force him to get further away. Um.
Speaker 1: This goes so far as King Louis Philippe sends an
Speaker 1: army of twenty thousand men to the border of Switzerland.
Speaker 1: Like Switzerland and France are kind of on the edge
Speaker 1: of a major war for a little while. Um. But
Speaker 1: and in this causes problems for Louis Napoleon in Switzerland,
Speaker 1: but it does not have the effect that Louis Philippe
Speaker 1: wants it to have because war tensions between the two
Speaker 1: countries are high for months, which means the news is
Speaker 1: constantly reporting on this, which means Louis Napoleon's name is
Speaker 1: constantly in the French papers. Um. If you remember Donald Trump, UM,
Speaker 1: publicity is good publicity for guys like this, and it
Speaker 1: keeps him, It keeps him popular, keeps his name alive,
Speaker 1: it keeps people talking about him. Um and and kind
Speaker 1: of even being vaguely near to an attempt on power
Speaker 1: is worth it because it again, it keeps his name
Speaker 1: out in front of people. He's learning through this, Louis Napoleon,
Speaker 1: the same lesson that like Trump and a lot of
Speaker 1: other authoritarians, like populist authoritarians, are gonna learn a long
Speaker 1: time later. One French minister wisely noted at the time, quote,
Speaker 1: no one in France can ever again forget Louis Napoleon's name,
Speaker 1: and soon he will be even more dangerous than he
Speaker 1: was before the Strasbourg affair. He's kind of the first.
Speaker 1: And again he to his credit, he's not unaware of this.
Speaker 1: He realizes, like, even though this doesn't work, it's just
Speaker 1: kind of worth it to keep trying, because people, you know,
Speaker 1: if you keep people talking about you, that's part of
Speaker 1: what you need to do in order to succeed at
Speaker 1: this thing, especially if you're like you know, um letting
Speaker 1: people think you're just ridiculous the whole time. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and at this point he is, and to his credit,
Speaker 1: he does care about his adopted home of Switzerland enough
Speaker 1: that he leaves forever to spare it, you know, the
Speaker 1: trouble of being invaded by France possibly Uh, he goes
Speaker 1: to London, um, which is you know number one, the
Speaker 1: Brits are happy to have him because even though they
Speaker 1: didn't have a good relationship with the Bonapartes, the British
Speaker 1: are kind of always quarreling with France. So now that
Speaker 1: he's contra to the people ruling in France, it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: we want a bat like anything that fox with France
Speaker 1: a little bit enemy dog exactly. Um. And also like
Speaker 1: France can't threaten England. Nobody nobody can threaten English right now?
Speaker 1: Like yeah, um, we got called the boat ship in boats,
Speaker 1: yeah you've got you old people, but yeahin't got no boat.
Speaker 1: What are you gonna do? You just effortlessly summed up
Speaker 1: three hundred and fifty years of British foreign You have
Speaker 1: to take a boat. Waters are cold enough to be
Speaker 1: frozen so you can walk over you. So it is
Speaker 1: funny to think if there had been like one cold
Speaker 1: snap in like the period from sixteen hundred to nineteen
Speaker 1: forty where people could have walked across the England would
Speaker 1: have been got nothing, absolutely gone, So that would have
Speaker 1: been awesome. Yeah, so um yeah. He goes to London
Speaker 1: and he takes with him Gilbert per Sydney and around
Speaker 1: like twenty other of his big supporters, including an Italian
Speaker 1: banker named Giuseppe or C who's going to be funding
Speaker 1: his next attempt to take power. I'm gonna give you
Speaker 1: the money, you know, I'm just doing all accents, you're Pinio.
Speaker 1: So gives them all trampled documents, mostly because again they
Speaker 1: figure he's gonna funk with France again, which is correct.
Speaker 1: So he spends the next little bit a couple of
Speaker 1: years living in England, in London, specifically, he goes to
Speaker 1: all these high society parties. He's very he's very in demand.
Speaker 1: You know, he's Napoleon's nephew, he's Prince Bonaparte um. And
Speaker 1: he makes a lot of connections with powerful backers in
Speaker 1: other parts of Europe who want to funk with France
Speaker 1: for some reason or another. Um, and he starts plotting
Speaker 1: his next coup attempt. He also, you know, to his credit,
Speaker 1: he's not he's done in a lot of ways. He's
Speaker 1: not a complete moron either. He pays attention very successfully
Speaker 1: to the way the British Empire does things. One biographer
Speaker 1: describes him as being quote greatly impressed by the English
Speaker 1: obsession with foreign travel and exotic places. And when they
Speaker 1: say travel here, they are not talking about tourists, they're
Speaker 1: nots Yeah. In eighteen thirty nine, while he's in London,
Speaker 1: the British Empire takes possession of Hong Kong and the
Speaker 1: East India Company occupies Adden. Um. So that's what he
Speaker 1: means by travel. So as his plans for imperial glory solidify,
Speaker 1: so too does his political understanding of what has gone
Speaker 1: wrong in his home country. France, again in this period,
Speaker 1: is basically medieval in a lot of respects. Their economy
Speaker 1: is ancient, it is, it is decrepit. Again. There's fucking
Speaker 1: trains in the in the UK, in the UK and
Speaker 1: in the United States and a number of other places.
Speaker 1: Everything in France is still done by like horses driving
Speaker 1: around wagons, like percent of transit, praying to God that
Speaker 1: the harvest comes in and yeah, says, they don't got
Speaker 1: much in the way of technology. It's bad. Um. Social
Speaker 1: life has also stagnated again. But as King Louis Philippe
Speaker 1: as as a kind of avanchist. You know, he's trying
Speaker 1: to take things back to the absolute monarchy days, not
Speaker 1: with a ton of success um. And yeah, the the
Speaker 1: emperor or the king's hold on power is just is
Speaker 1: not great. Alan Strausschaum sums up with Louis Napoleon took
Speaker 1: from this in his writings from eighteen forty. The fundamental
Speaker 1: vice which is eating away at France today is the
Speaker 1: exaggerated interpretation of the rights of the individual of his
Speaker 1: scorn for authority. Now this is the real Louis Napoleon speaking.
Speaker 1: The people were already to independent. Now, yes, there should
Speaker 1: be popular elections, but the people must vote as they
Speaker 1: were directed. And that is precisely how he intended to
Speaker 1: run his future empire. Give the masses the vote, but
Speaker 1: all voting would be dictated by the leader of the
Speaker 1: country a la Bonaparte. Napoleon the First had, of course,
Speaker 1: completely manipulated his national plebiscites without apologies. That system worked,
Speaker 1: so it did. That's that's his thinking. Later that year,
Speaker 1: still convinced that the people of France would him and
Speaker 1: Moss if he just presented himself to them in the
Speaker 1: right way. Napoleon attempted a second coup. By this point,
Speaker 1: he fully believed that he was meant by God to
Speaker 1: take up his uncle's legacy and lead France into a
Speaker 1: second empire. He wrote to his followers, from time to time,
Speaker 1: men are created whom I call volunteers of Providence, in
Speaker 1: whose hands are placed the destiny of their countries. I
Speaker 1: believe I am one of those men. If I am wrong,
Speaker 1: I can perish uselessly. If I am right, then Providence
Speaker 1: will put me into a position to fulfill my mission. Again,
Speaker 1: how about both? When when people say I believe I'm
Speaker 1: a volunteer of Providence and the destiny of nations is
Speaker 1: in my hands, I believe I have been chosen by
Speaker 1: God to do this, you have a moral responsibility to
Speaker 1: hit them with a brick, right anyone who says that,
Speaker 1: give him a bricking. That is that is fascism, one
Speaker 1: on one ship right now, in a lot of ways.
Speaker 1: Part of way I picked him Louis Napoleon. He's not
Speaker 1: a fascist. Fascist does not exist yet. But he is
Speaker 1: the most direct precursor to twentieth century fascism that you
Speaker 1: get prior to that period. He is in a lot
Speaker 1: and we're building to like a lot of why that
Speaker 1: becomes the case. But you can see it here this
Speaker 1: idea that I saw, his idea that is very hilarian
Speaker 1: and Mussolinian. However, you say that I somehow, I as
Speaker 1: an individual embody the national will and have been kind
Speaker 1: of chosen by provenance to to take this country in
Speaker 1: a direction like away from to steer it and where
Speaker 1: it needs to go right, Like that is very much
Speaker 1: a fascist attitude. It's it's it's not again. Fascism owes
Speaker 1: a lot of its DNA to feudalism and you and
Speaker 1: that's kind of why I find Napoleon the third interesting
Speaker 1: is he sort of represents because he's also kind of
Speaker 1: a republican, but in the way that the republic should
Speaker 1: exist to justify my reign um. Interesting guy, interesting period. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's the proto fascism in that it's like the esthetics
Speaker 1: of the past in his street is what he's driving on.
Speaker 1: Like that's it's not just the feudalism, you know, totalitarian authoritarianism.
Speaker 1: It's also remember the glorious past, and I represent it
Speaker 1: in blood. That is proto fascism to a t. It
Speaker 1: sure is my friend. It shure is so our man
Speaker 1: charters a steamboat with fifty six men. Um. Some of
Speaker 1: them are former military officers and a few others are
Speaker 1: guys who have been like leading hunts and stuff. They're
Speaker 1: like the kind of servants who take rich guys on hunts.
Speaker 1: But most of them are like bankers, political functionaries, journalists,
Speaker 1: guys who are not going to be useful in a fight. Right, Um,
Speaker 1: this is his This is his coup attempt squad, and
Speaker 1: this is I gotta tell you. We talk about coups
Speaker 1: quite often on on this show. We've talked about the
Speaker 1: Wonga coup, which is a very funny failed coup. There's
Speaker 1: elements of humor and Hitler's failed coup and a number
Speaker 1: of other failed cues. This is the funniest coup failure
Speaker 1: I have ever heard of. This is this is a mazing.
Speaker 1: So the whole attempt has been funded by Count Giuseppe Orsi.
Speaker 1: Was this banker. He secured like two point two million
Speaker 1: ish modern equivalent dollars. When I say a number of
Speaker 1: like how much money ship's worth, I'm always speaking like
Speaker 1: the equivalent modern term like this many francs, because what
Speaker 1: a sixteen thousand francs mean to anybody listening to like whatever?
Speaker 1: Um about two point two million modern dollars in funding
Speaker 1: from a variety of backers. So this boat with these
Speaker 1: fifty six dudes on it nears the French coast and
Speaker 1: Louis Napoleon orders everybody, most of whom don't know what
Speaker 1: they're doing entirely. They've been following Louis Napoleon, but like
Speaker 1: he only keeps a couple of people in the loop
Speaker 1: is to the plan. So once they get off the
Speaker 1: French coast, he tells everybody get into these French army uniforms.
Speaker 1: We're all gonna dress like French regular French soldiers. Where's
Speaker 1: the hat? Put the hat on? I gets a big one.
Speaker 1: The biggest hat is mind, The biggest hat is mine.
Speaker 1: I gets a good soul. But you guys get so
Speaker 1: they all are armed with copy is a French army
Speaker 1: guns that they've purchased in Birmingham. Again, the gun industry,
Speaker 1: there's not really any gun control in most of you know,
Speaker 1: the European states at a lot at least a number
Speaker 1: of them at this point. So like in England, you
Speaker 1: could just kind of easily pick up copies of the
Speaker 1: kinds of guns, the French hues and vice versa. So
Speaker 1: they have like copies of French army guns, and they
Speaker 1: have French uniforms that this banker has bought, and they're
Speaker 1: kind of dressing as regular soldiers now, and the most
Speaker 1: of them are. In the Strasbourg attempt, Louis Napoleon had
Speaker 1: worn the uniform of a colonel. He had never been
Speaker 1: a colonel anywhere, but certainly not in the French army.
Speaker 1: For this next attempt, he promoted himself to major general. Figurings,
Speaker 1: maybe the issue when I got beat up by those
Speaker 1: two ladies was that I have enough. Yeah, if I
Speaker 1: had the stars, if I had the stars and all
Speaker 1: the stripes, and people would be like, oh wait, we
Speaker 1: can't hit him. Well, no, don't hit him. Look at
Speaker 1: all the ranks on his shoulders. He's a major general,
Speaker 1: not just a colonel. So once everyone is equipped, he
Speaker 1: delivers a stirring speech, friends, companions of my destiny, I
Speaker 1: have drawn up a plan. We are going to France.
Speaker 1: There we will find powerful, devoted friends vaiting on us.
Speaker 1: The soul of Jack Obstacle is bolown, but once it
Speaker 1: is removed, final success is certain. And if I am
Speaker 1: supported and reinforced there, which is as certain as the
Speaker 1: sun in the sky, we will be in Paris within
Speaker 1: a matter of days. I've slipped out of the accent. No,
Speaker 1: you went into French, which was impressive. Yeah, then history
Speaker 1: will say that with just a handful of such brave
Speaker 1: men as you, I shall have achieved this grand and
Speaker 1: glorious undertaking. So he gives a speech, now, the chief
Speaker 1: military advisor on this coup attempt, Right, the man who
Speaker 1: is supposed to because they're supposed to be building an
Speaker 1: army as they walk along these areas to eventually confront
Speaker 1: the king in battle. Right, that's the idea. So he
Speaker 1: has a general with him, right, you know, because he's
Speaker 1: he's humble enough to know I've never commanded an army
Speaker 1: in the field. I should probably have somebody who has.
Speaker 1: And the general that he has to run the military
Speaker 1: side of this coup attempt is Major General Tristan d
Speaker 1: Month alone. Now, impressive name. Right, Here's how the book
Speaker 1: The Shadow Emperor describes this guy. Just About everything about
Speaker 1: him was either phony or bizarre, beginning with the title
Speaker 1: he used of Marquis he was only account and quite
Speaker 1: a new one at that, allegedly wounded and having served
Speaker 1: with Napoleon from a hohen Linden to Waterloo. It was
Speaker 1: all lies. Indeed, he not only had never served on
Speaker 1: a single battlefield, but he had refused to do so
Speaker 1: when so ordered. Not content with that, he had renewed,
Speaker 1: reneged on gambling debts, and topped that off by stealing
Speaker 1: the regimental pay of his own officers. Despite all he
Speaker 1: had somehow hoodwinked Napoleon and accompanied him to Saint Helena,
Speaker 1: where he became his final confidante. Promised a major legacy
Speaker 1: from Napoleon's will. Month Alon had, on at least two
Speaker 1: occasions administered arsenic and Napoleon's wine, greatly weakening him in
Speaker 1: leading to his death. And it was the charlatan, coward,
Speaker 1: thief and murderer whom Louis Napoleon had unwittingly appointed to
Speaker 1: his campaign. That is beautiful, That is beautiful. I love it.
Speaker 1: He was just like, yeah, you know, this guy is
Speaker 1: wearing all the right clothes. He knows my dad, he
Speaker 1: knows my uncle. Yeah, yeh knows my uncle. And uh,
Speaker 1: you know he said he was in Saint Helena used
Speaker 1: to give him lots of drinks. It was fun. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he'll take Come on, he's been a general, so of
Speaker 1: course I trust him. Look at that's my It's great.
Speaker 1: He gives me such confidence. He's a true confidence man.
Speaker 1: Now I will give Louis Napoleon some credit. The boat
Speaker 1: guys he hired do their job competently. They get everyone
Speaker 1: to shore, everyone gets to France and his on France,
Speaker 1: which has given how the rest of this goes kind
Speaker 1: of amazing. I gotta say, you know it's gonna go
Speaker 1: bad when you're giving credit to the guys who made
Speaker 1: the boat go. Yeah, they did. They did succeed in
Speaker 1: reaching land from the sea away. That is the last success,
Speaker 1: and in fact, the landing is not a huge success.
Speaker 1: They do get to shore, but they're not great at it,
Speaker 1: and so they make a lot of noise. Job he
Speaker 1: told us it was quiet, right, I just don't different
Speaker 1: guy's job. No one ever said I was quiet boat.
Speaker 1: So I take boat from point a point bust a
Speaker 1: customs agent. Here's them coming to shore like a like
Speaker 1: a customs guy, guy whose job is to make sure
Speaker 1: boats don't land in France without like paying taxes and
Speaker 1: he like walks up to them and it's like, so,
Speaker 1: what's a what's going on here? And they lie, they
Speaker 1: say they're soldiers from the nearby regiment and they tell
Speaker 1: them like, we're from this regiment. That's the regiment billeted
Speaker 1: in the city. But they get the name of the
Speaker 1: regiment wrong, which this guy knows because he lives here.
Speaker 1: So he's like, that's kind of suspicious. Soldiers usually know
Speaker 1: what regiment they're in. Also, the guy in charge speaks
Speaker 1: in a German accent that's peculiar French and six Airborne.
Speaker 1: This is one thing we know. It's we are definitely
Speaker 1: not invading. This customs agent gets further suspicious because when
Speaker 1: he asks questions of the group, they there's not like,
Speaker 1: you know, normally you have a military unit and you,
Speaker 1: as another member of the military and an official capacity,
Speaker 1: ask questions of that unit. Normally, like one person is
Speaker 1: going to reply right because there's a chain of command,
Speaker 1: and like someone is going to be in charge of
Speaker 1: that unit and he will answer for them, which is
Speaker 1: generally how things work in armies. Instead, every time he
Speaker 1: asks a question, like people will be quiet and then
Speaker 1: like replies will come at random from different members of
Speaker 1: the group, most Napoleon, the guy dressed as a general,
Speaker 1: Louis Napoleon is too anxious, he gets like stage fright,
Speaker 1: so he can't say anything. Meanwhile, the other general, month Alon,
Speaker 1: basically hides because he's never been a general and does
Speaker 1: not know how to actually respond and his number one
Speaker 1: thing is hiding when yes, that is kind of what's
Speaker 1: That's what I'm known for in real life. None of
Speaker 1: these guys know what they're doing, and the customs agent
Speaker 1: like confused, but like, well, they all do look like
Speaker 1: French soldiers, is like, why don't I escort you guys
Speaker 1: to the local military base and they can figure out
Speaker 1: where you're supposed to be. So they all start marching together.
Speaker 1: And they've been like marching a little while when one
Speaker 1: of the colonel's former French army colonels that Louis Napoleon
Speaker 1: has gathered to his coup attempt, suddenly shouts, do you
Speaker 1: know who you're escorting? It's Prince Napoleon himself, And then
Speaker 1: and then another man cries out, Belogne is ours and
Speaker 1: France will soon proclaim the Prince Emperor of France. Now
Speaker 1: customs agent whose name is Lieutenant Bally gets kind of
Speaker 1: suspicious at this, so he's like, all right, everybody stop
Speaker 1: a second, stop talking. What are you talking about? Now?
Speaker 1: I should probably have mentioned this or earlier, but it
Speaker 1: makes the the outburst that just happened make a little
Speaker 1: more sense. I should note, everyone, including Louis Napoleon, is
Speaker 1: ship house drunk. They were they were to get their
Speaker 1: courage up on the boat. They're pounding brandy, which is
Speaker 1: probably why they make so much noise and probably why
Speaker 1: they don't know how to respond when this guy starts
Speaker 1: asking really basic questions, because they are all they are
Speaker 1: all wasted, and the drunkest of all of them is
Speaker 1: General du Mont the lawn Bally Lieutenant Bally is like,
Speaker 1: all right, everybody, fucking halt, what is going on here?
Speaker 1: When he does that, General month Lawon staggers forward, slurring
Speaker 1: his words, and tries to bribe the officer with a pension.
Speaker 1: She's like, may, man, we'll give you like a fifteen
Speaker 1: thousand francs the year, buddy, Why don't you just chill out? Man? Uh?
Speaker 1: Can you come over here real quick? She's real quick?
Speaker 1: All right, buddy, We're right now, bro, bro, we are wasted,
Speaker 1: We are true wasted. And I know this pretty little
Speaker 1: French girl, she's right around corner. She'll she'll fucking do it.
Speaker 1: But you just gotta shut the funk up. Just be chill, bro.
Speaker 1: Can you point us to belogn Yeah, like where the
Speaker 1: army guys is and that. Yeah, just let us know
Speaker 1: where they're they're at an all fun dude, I'm gonna puke.
Speaker 1: So Lieutenant Belogne, being the most competent person this situation,
Speaker 1: just bounces. He just takes his guys. He's like, you
Speaker 1: know what, I don't know what's going on here. This
Speaker 1: is not worth my continued involvement right now. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: go and try to find someone who's a higher rank
Speaker 1: than me to figure out how to deal with this.
Speaker 1: So for him. Now, the former emperor's nephew and a
Speaker 1: bunch of retired officers, some random bankers and functionaries all
Speaker 1: dressed as soldiers and ship house drunk decide like, well,
Speaker 1: I guess we continue with our plan to take over
Speaker 1: the country. One of Bonaparte's most loyal men then shouts
Speaker 1: forward march and the group continues to head to Boulogne.
Speaker 1: They enter the city proper and around five am, and
Speaker 1: they start putting up flyers, telling everyone that the king
Speaker 1: no longer rules France. Now this was not strictly true. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well you know, you take it till you make it, bro,
Speaker 1: I get it. Things start moving very quickly. At this point,
Speaker 1: the troop advances towards the barracks, where a regiment of
Speaker 1: infantry protected the city. Their goal was to take back
Speaker 1: the barracks and its arsenal and convince the soldiers there
Speaker 1: to join them, right. Um, So they get stopped by
Speaker 1: a group of five soldiers on the way there, um
Speaker 1: who are like, hey, guys, we're in charge running where
Speaker 1: the guarding this base? What do you but what are you? Yea?
Speaker 1: What is all seem very drunk in German? What's happening?
Speaker 1: I aim my gun at you? But they don't even
Speaker 1: have guns. They're not armed, right, But most military you
Speaker 1: don't just like give people guns out of sort, Like
Speaker 1: they don't even have weapons. They're just kind of like
Speaker 1: hanging out to like, you know, keep an eye on stuff.
Speaker 1: So you guys doing theater, Yeah, what's going on here?
Speaker 1: Is this an improv troupe? So the guy carrying the
Speaker 1: Emperor's standard, you know, the big flag with his logo
Speaker 1: and ship on it um. When they get stopped. This
Speaker 1: guy park when steps forward drunkenly and he threatens them.
Speaker 1: Another of Napoleon's men grabs one of the soldier's arms
Speaker 1: when he won't listen to orders from the emperor. So
Speaker 1: the soldiers they're they're still they're too weirded out to
Speaker 1: like get weapons or anything like. They again, they have
Speaker 1: no idea what's happening. So after a brief mild altercation,
Speaker 1: Napoleon's mid advance again. Alan Strass Shoran describes what happens
Speaker 1: next to advanced by the way is a very funny way.
Speaker 1: Drunkenly staggers agger towards a door, quote events, and matt
Speaker 1: brace yourself for this part. Inside the barracks parade ground,
Speaker 1: Aldin is ordered to arms here is the Prince, which
Speaker 1: was repeated by a soldier on guard duty. Some of
Speaker 1: the men of the forty two fell in and presented arms,
Speaker 1: shouting Vivina Emperor. When an older sergeant arrived to see
Speaker 1: what was happening, Louis Napoleon blurted out, I shall make
Speaker 1: you a captain of the grenadiers. Order and commonsense had
Speaker 1: already been replaced by a carnival of hysterics and absurdities.
Speaker 1: Louis Napoleon then harangued the troops, offering commissions, medals, and money. Clearly,
Speaker 1: Captain Bonaparte, late of the Swiss Army, was no more
Speaker 1: fit to command to garrison than a squad. Captain Colonel Poulgier,
Speaker 1: who is like in charge of the actual garrison, arrived and,
Speaker 1: drawing his sword, demanded to know what was happening and
Speaker 1: where his company was. Some of Parkman's men tried to
Speaker 1: grab him. Captain, I am Prince Louis Napoleon. Come join
Speaker 1: us and you will be rewarded with whatever you desire.
Speaker 1: But I don't know you, the captain replied, you are
Speaker 1: a traitor. He all about, Then, turning around to his company,
Speaker 1: he said, soldiers, this is a trick. Viv leroy falling
Speaker 1: behind me, Buonapartes men tried to seize him again. When
Speaker 1: two more officers of the forty second arrived, Freeing himself,
Speaker 1: Colonel Poulgier managed to notify the garrison commander, Colonel San
Speaker 1: Soul and to rally some of his men. Panicking, Napoleon
Speaker 1: took out his pistol and shot an unarmed grenadier in
Speaker 1: the mouth. What the just like it gets chaotic and
Speaker 1: they start like yelling at him, and he just shoots
Speaker 1: an unarmed man in the face for no reason. In
Speaker 1: the mouth. Yeah, this guy is just like this is
Speaker 1: just like a random rancor who's standing and be like,
Speaker 1: I don't know what's happening. This guy is a bonaparte.
Speaker 1: Everyone else, like my boss is saying no, do it, Like, dude,
Speaker 1: I'm just like here and shoots him in the face.
Speaker 1: Jesus Christ, I love, but I don't know you, doll. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I'm like, I have no idea who you are, man, Like,
Speaker 1: what are you doing? I don't know? We met, bro,
Speaker 1: we're not friends. Yeah, we're friends, dog, Can you stop
Speaker 1: telling people we know each other? So this leaves everybody
Speaker 1: very surprised. Yeah, he shot someone in the mouth. When
Speaker 1: he just shoot a guy in the mouth for no reason,
Speaker 1: and we're going to talk about what comes next. But
Speaker 1: you know who will never shoot an unarmed French grenadier
Speaker 1: in the mouth. Me, that's right, you would not do that.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm not I'm not gonna say never, right,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna say never. Never say never. We're back
Speaker 1: and we're thinking about shooting an armed French grenadiers, a
Speaker 1: thing I haven't done, but could see myself doing it
Speaker 1: if I had to. You know, depends on the situation.
Speaker 1: Context is everything. Yeah, Like what if what if I
Speaker 1: get teleported back in time to like eighteen twelve and
Speaker 1: the Russian steps and there's like a French grenadier and
Speaker 1: he drops his gun because like, you know, he's scared
Speaker 1: because I just teleported through time. But I know we
Speaker 1: might go for it, and then I have to shoot
Speaker 1: him to save the time stream. Something that sounds right,
Speaker 1: That sounds right, That could happen. You never know. You
Speaker 1: don't want to fun with spacetime. So they got to
Speaker 1: shoot him in the mouth. I have. I have one
Speaker 1: piece of advice for people, one piece of it for advice,
Speaker 1: and it's never promised not to shoot a French grenadier
Speaker 1: without a weapon under any circumstances. You never know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what That's what Louis Napoleon understood that. He knew that.
Speaker 1: He said, listen, I will do this ship out of
Speaker 1: an unarmed French grenadier. Is I just love that it's mouth.
Speaker 1: It's not ahead. The guy lives too, by the way, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you don't describe it as shooting someone in the mouth
Speaker 1: if they die, and man, and what a what a
Speaker 1: thing every day that guys that like the the village
Speaker 1: pub and they're like, so why don't you why don't
Speaker 1: you get to talk Gilbert and he's like, well, I
Speaker 1: got shutting the mouth by you. I was chill I
Speaker 1: would so this leaves. Yeah, everyone panics, right, there has
Speaker 1: now been gunfire. Napoleon's soldiers are not in fact soldiers
Speaker 1: there again like bankers and like, yeah, yeah, Giuseppe is
Speaker 1: in fact they're like this Italian banker pressed as a
Speaker 1: French soldier. And then the Emperor, panicking totally silent through
Speaker 1: this affair up to this point, makes his first action
Speaker 1: shooting a random dude in the face. Everybody fucking panics.
Speaker 1: At this point, most of Napoleon's men take cover, even
Speaker 1: though the French soldiers confronting them still aren't armed, right,
Speaker 1: they have rifles, but no ammo like because again they
Speaker 1: don't really know what's happening. So now they get pissed
Speaker 1: because Lewis Napoleon has just shot their friend in the face,
Speaker 1: so they charged with bayonets um Louis's party foul, just
Speaker 1: fucking classic party foul. Look. I will agree there are
Speaker 1: relatively few situations in which you should charge someone with bayonets,
Speaker 1: but this is a good one, fine time to use
Speaker 1: a bat. So again, Louis Napoleon's men, being mostly con
Speaker 1: artists and bean counters, run like fun even though they
Speaker 1: they have loaded guns. They actually have loaded firearms. If
Speaker 1: they run like ship, mommy, I am that is wonderful.
Speaker 1: So they rally in the center of town. Because the
Speaker 1: garrisons in like this fortress kind of on a hill
Speaker 1: in town. So they run a few hundred yards away
Speaker 1: into the center of town where they've been putting up signs,
Speaker 1: and they rally there. Meanwhile, the garrison is like, I
Speaker 1: guess we should give guys bullets. That seems like we
Speaker 1: might need to shoot some people. Like again, no one
Speaker 1: really knows what's happening, but by this point it's clear
Speaker 1: we're probably going to have to shoot some fools. The
Speaker 1: craziest thing about all this is it seems like the
Speaker 1: coup could have worked if he hadn't shot the dude
Speaker 1: in the mouth. And they kind of seemed like a
Speaker 1: cohesive if they hadn't been drunk. Because so again, as
Speaker 1: soon as they get in there and say like, this
Speaker 1: is Prince Bonaparte. Some soldiers immediate reactions have been like
Speaker 1: Viva empero, because again, Bonaparte still powerful legacy, like the
Speaker 1: flag tri color way better than the flag. Louis won't
Speaker 1: say ship because he's like panicking and anxious and also
Speaker 1: kind of wasted. Nobody knows what they're doing, and then
Speaker 1: he just shoots a man. He shoots their friend in
Speaker 1: the face, and they're like, well, I guess not Viva
Speaker 1: la Emperor. Yeah, boy, So you guys grab some of
Speaker 1: Louis Napoleon's men while the while the garrison soldiers are
Speaker 1: loading their guns, Louis Napoleon and his men are like
Speaker 1: in the middle of town trying to regroup. They don't
Speaker 1: have a plan B, so they attempt to take the
Speaker 1: imperial flag and like run it up the flagpole of
Speaker 1: like the big government building in the center of town.
Speaker 1: But they can't get into it, right, They like knock
Speaker 1: on the door, but it's like five in the morning,
Speaker 1: nobody's there, so they can't get inside. So because at
Speaker 1: this point they're like, all right, Prince Bonaparte, what do
Speaker 1: we do now? Like you brought us here? Plan A
Speaker 1: didn't work. We tried another thing that didn't work either.
Speaker 1: He throw it, just throw it onto the pole. So
Speaker 1: he freezes up in panics. And then the garrison troops
Speaker 1: start to march on them, and all of his men
Speaker 1: like break and run like a motherfucker. So some of
Speaker 1: them get caught fleeing Um, some of them get shot.
Speaker 1: Most of them wind up retreating with the want to
Speaker 1: be emperor to the beach Louis Napoleon. As soon as
Speaker 1: they get to the beach, the first thing he does,
Speaker 1: when his men are like what now is he tries
Speaker 1: to blow his brains out with his Handgum death for
Speaker 1: an attempt. He is less capable of shooting himself than
Speaker 1: he was that one random French soldier, though, so it
Speaker 1: fails and he runs away. Um. A bunch of his
Speaker 1: men flee into the water. When the French soldiers get there,
Speaker 1: a lot of these guys drown UM. Several more gets
Speaker 1: shot to death in a hal of French gunfire. One
Speaker 1: of the guardsmen calls it quote a regular duck shoot. Um.
Speaker 1: The prince is hit by a bullet but survives because
Speaker 1: his uniform is like thick and wet and it stops
Speaker 1: the bullet bullets. We're not as good back then you
Speaker 1: could exactly. So Louis Napoleon was rescued by from drowning
Speaker 1: by National guardsmen who like save his life and then
Speaker 1: take him into custody. Um. He spends most of the
Speaker 1: first minutes he's captured talking about how much he wants
Speaker 1: to kill himself, but otherwise he's bleeding. Here. Put put
Speaker 1: some money on it, put some money on the dollar,
Speaker 1: Shove some money in his mouth. Um. So that's that's
Speaker 1: not a great coup. That does not work out. Well, Like,
Speaker 1: that's about as about as unsuccessful a coup as I've
Speaker 1: ever heard about. Yeah, that is egg on his face,
Speaker 1: um and uh in that one guy's mouth. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: really couldn't fail much worse at trying to take over
Speaker 1: France than it's an incredible failure. And you got to
Speaker 1: give it to him because like he had the vision,
Speaker 1: you know, and he said, well, you know what if
Speaker 1: we go there? Yeah, and he didn't he didn't think
Speaker 1: about beyond that. He just was like, no, then we advance,
Speaker 1: which is walk, that's just walking, and they will. Yeah.
Speaker 1: He just kind of like if you've ever i don't know,
Speaker 1: a suit like been in a situation where you try
Speaker 1: to do something and just assume you'll know how to
Speaker 1: do it, but you've never done it before. Like yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, you go off roading for the first time
Speaker 1: and like figure you know how to handle you know,
Speaker 1: a real muddy path or something, shift shift right, trying
Speaker 1: to can it be? And they might lie on a
Speaker 1: job interview to try to like get a gig. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he just um, he just uh, he just he just
Speaker 1: does that with trying to be the emperor of France. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and he you know, like, honestly, I think he could
Speaker 1: have done it in that attempt if he had just
Speaker 1: not shot that guy in the mouth and got too drunk,
Speaker 1: if he hadn't been drunk, if he had again, you
Speaker 1: should probably like train for a little bit being a
Speaker 1: coup like this if you've never done anything again. Bonaparte
Speaker 1: was able to easily coup the country because by that
Speaker 1: point he was pretty he was pretty good at commanding Frenchman. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he had like practice and stuff and people. This guy's
Speaker 1: primary life experience is getting his brother killed in Italy.
Speaker 1: You might want other training. O Gene Napoleon didn't have
Speaker 1: a current all going, But I don't know you like that.
Speaker 1: Nobody would have ever said that to him. Nobody would
Speaker 1: ever said, oh boy, yeah, you know who does know you, Matt.
Speaker 1: Who the production services that support our podcast. They've known
Speaker 1: you since before you were born, when you when you
Speaker 1: quickened in your mother's womb, Blue Apron and uh and
Speaker 1: all of the other Casper Mattress. They knew you. They
Speaker 1: saw you, they loved you, Lily Company, They wrapped you
Speaker 1: in its in its spiritual embrace, when before you were
Speaker 1: even a fetus. They knew your soul when it was
Speaker 1: still part of the firmament of heaven. The least you
Speaker 1: can do, the least you can do. Spend some money.
Speaker 1: I love spending money. Why why are we what? What
Speaker 1: are you doing? You're trying to get mat plug is pluggable?
Speaker 1: This is that? What's happening? No? I was doing ads.
Speaker 1: You've done all your ads? Oh have I? Well, I
Speaker 1: guess the fucking episode is over, Sophie, yes to some ads. Anyways,
Speaker 1: though you were promoting Matt, I was like, Okay, I
Speaker 1: also love that. Matt got a Yeah, I'm here to
Speaker 1: promote my new podcast pod yourself and insulin and yeah
Speaker 1: and uh where we charge Astronomical amounts for To be
Speaker 1: honest with you, I have an ethical problem with insulin
Speaker 1: um Yeah. Yeah, hormone therapy is is the devil's plaything.
Speaker 1: That's right. Absolutely, you know you gotta If you Walsh
Speaker 1: convinced me of this, that's right. If you got again,
Speaker 1: you know, if you got diabetes, that's God's way of saying, hey, yeah,
Speaker 1: you're allergic to living. Look, God said it. Called it
Speaker 1: diabetes because you're not supposed to survive it. Exactly. It's
Speaker 1: not libetes, it's not life beats. Oh boy. W Anyways,
Speaker 1: you give Mats pod five stars because he has a baby, baby,
Speaker 1: give it five stars five stars in review? You know,
Speaker 1: pot yourself the wire or if you like the Sopranos
Speaker 1: pod yourself a gun. We covered all of the Sopranos.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna try. I'm gonna try something, Matt, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: try something for your baby. We have you know, somewhere
Speaker 1: around like a million is people listening, you know, as
Speaker 1: to an episode or so in general, I'm gonna I'm
Speaker 1: gonna try. I'm gonna try because who knows who's listening. Look,
Speaker 1: if you're out there and you're a crazy rich person
Speaker 1: with a bunch of golden abasement. Send all that gold
Speaker 1: to Matt Lead happen right on. Send it on somebody
Speaker 1: out there. It's got golden abasement. You don't need it.
Speaker 1: Give it to Matt Lee. But what do you need
Speaker 1: it for? You don't need it. I have a baby.
Speaker 1: I have missed God. Send me that gold www dot
Speaker 1: send Matt Lead gold dot com, slash I have a baby,
Speaker 1: dot h t M. That's your sub stack, right, that's
Speaker 1: my substation. Dot vodka, Yeah, dot vodka. And if you
Speaker 1: can't remember all that Patreon dot com slash frodcast. That
Speaker 1: is the That is the umbrella podcast of all the pod.
Speaker 1: Yourself a gun, but yourself the wire. That is the
Speaker 1: o G where me and Vince Mancini, who you should
Speaker 1: have on here. He's a wonderful film critic and uh
Speaker 1: beautiful little Italian man. Now what are the odds? Do
Speaker 1: you know if he might be related to Boom Boom Mancini,
Speaker 1: the boxer who killed Duck Ku Kim. I don't know
Speaker 1: if he is related to any notable Mancini's. I think
Speaker 1: there's like him. Ask him, ask him? Are you are
Speaker 1: you kin to Boom Boom Mancini. There's a pretty pretty
Speaker 1: good warren Zevon song about his relative in that case, Okay,
Speaker 1: well I'm gonna ask him about it, but I definitely
Speaker 1: asked him if he was related to Mancini of Mancini
Speaker 1: sleep World, which is a great matchress store in the
Speaker 1: San Francisco Bay area. And he is not. He's not. Uh,
Speaker 1: he's not related to Henry Mancini, the guy who wrote
Speaker 1: moon River, which great song. So if what if Boom
Speaker 1: boom Mancini fought the Mancini who wrote moon River? Do
Speaker 1: you think he would also kill that guy? Probably? I
Speaker 1: think you could kill whatever Mancini even wanted to. I'm
Speaker 1: trying to kill Vince. Well there you go. Anyway, We
Speaker 1: at Behind the Bastards will check out to see if
Speaker 1: Vince Mancini wants to do a podcast and is related
Speaker 1: to the guy from the warren Zevon song. Check out
Speaker 1: pod yourself a gun Um, check out Matt Leeve on
Speaker 1: the internet and send him your gold. Please find my
Speaker 1: novel After the Revolution wherever books are sold and live stream,
Speaker 1: Oh Ship, Sophie, do the live stream at please God,
Speaker 1: you know I knew it. We Behind the Bastards are
Speaker 1: doing a live stream virtual show on December eight with
Speaker 1: Margaret Killjoy. Thank you. You can find tickets, uh, the
Speaker 1: link to tickets in the description. You can find the
Speaker 1: link to tickets on our socials and uh it's moment
Speaker 1: House dot co slash bTB. Yeah, check it out. Signing
Speaker 1: to watch? So am I? Well you're gonna have to?
Speaker 1: Oh well, yes, that's true, all right, go with christ
Speaker 1: my children. Babe. Behind the Bastards is a production of
Speaker 1: cool Zone Media. For more from cool Zone Media, visit
Speaker 1: our website cool zone media dot com, or check us
Speaker 1: out on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts.