Part Two: Napoleon III: The Worst Bonaparte

Robert is joined again by Matt Lieb to continue to discuss Napoleon III.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:12):
It really is funny every time, like genuine incredible opening
the Bastards of Policy, in which I try to keep
the names of all the Bonaparte straight and I'm gonna,
be honest largely fail at it. It's bad. It's bad.
I'm gonna get a lot easier soon. Eventually. Louis Napoleon

(00:33):
is the only one we have to care about in
this story. But we are, we are still, We're at
the last stage of their being multiple Louis, this is
not your fault, and anybody who blames you, this is
this is this is the concept of hereditary nobility's fault.
This is why whenever Edward Hapsburg, the heir to the

(00:56):
Hapsburg dynasty and a big anime fan, po on Twitter,
I sent him a picture of his dead relative Maximilian,
the first former Emperor of Mexico. Um, it's because of
ship like this, and because he's a weird trad cat fascist.
But I didn't know that there wasn't a live Habsburg.

(01:16):
That's incredible, there is. He loves. He loves Catholic fascism
and Miyazaki films. Oh my god, it's it's incredible. He's
an amazing poster. He's like he's like an anime avatar type.
It's it's fucking phenomenal. I love it. He's just like
I mean, at the end of the day, you do
enough inbreeding, you're gonna just breed four Chan posters. That's

(01:40):
what you're gonna do. He's a wild character. He's on
the edge of groper dum. He's not quite online enough
to be one, really, but he spends all of his
time traveling around the world giving lectures on Blessed Carl,
who was the last emperor of the Australian gary An Empire. God,

(02:04):
let me talk about my homie, Blessed Carl. Dude, your
fucking family helped a night a conflagration that killed tens
of millions of people. Like, maybe maybe shut the funk up,
Shut the funk up and change your name. Change your name.
It's like, you know what I like about the Hitler's
I'll say this for him, not the main one, right,
but he had family and stuff who weren't Hitler who

(02:24):
didn't like do the bad Hitler stuff. All of the
branches of his family after his death independently decided to
stop having kids, and they were all like, you know what, Hitlers,
we roll. We rolled the dice on this family enough.
I love it. Yeah, it's a nice way of just
going like, hey, you know, you know, maybe this whole genome.

(02:46):
You know, my my mom was his aunt, not her fault.
She didn't do anything right. But I just don't think
we need to have any more hitlers. Yeah, we're gonna
limit the hitlers. I think we're good. Yeah, I love Yeah,
you gotta give it to the Hitlers and the other hitlers.
Thank you. I'm sorry. So there's a there's a segment

(03:10):
of your listenership who hates the soundboard for them, And
there's no one I hate more than those people hate
the sound board, also hate that I have a microphone,
and also hate that Roberts pronounces things. And so we
just have the trifecta for help for them this episode.
They keep listening. They're like a heroin addict who would

(03:31):
would shoot his dealer if he could work up the courage.
So suck it, he Barrell, he's the deputys. Anyways, listen
upon yourself the water, I have a family. It is

(03:54):
the world's only the Wire podcast. I'm Atlee. Hell yeah,
maybe so. By the summer of eighteen thirty five, Louis
Napoleon had met a man who finally set his life
on a purposeful track. And this is again Gilbert Persigny,
who is the ass kisser who convinces him, Hey, man,
people don't like the current king that much, but they
love the ship out of the memory of your uncle.

(04:16):
You could work this into something. You can make some
ship out of this, And Persigny convinces him that the
Bonapartist cause is still so popular in France that this
would be an easy task for Louis himself to accomplish.
Within weeks, Louis was stating this opinion as his own,
saying quote, if the Napoleon at cause has left fond
memories in the hearts of the French people, then all

(04:37):
I should have to do is present myself, standing quite alone,
without even troops at my side, before the people, and
remind them of their recent grievances and past glory, and
they will rally to my flag. Believe me, I know
my France. He has barely spent any time in his
life and part time in Italy. He's he has a
German ass accent. I know, I know my France. It's

(05:02):
this one thing. I know. It's France. I was born
in St. Louis and have like vague memories of my
time there before we moved to Oklahoma, and maybe be like,
I know the people of St. Louis. Don't tell me
about South St. Louis. I know them. I listened to
the song Meet Louis. Yes, don't worry, I will. I

(05:23):
know about Ted Drew's That's the only thing I remember
about St. Louis. Dope ass frozen yogurt um or maybe
it sucks. I don't remember. I was like nine the
last time I ate there. Like, here's this thing I
can't verify is cool from a very long time ago
podcast podcasts, That's right. Louis Napoleon sets upon a cunning plan,

(05:48):
which is that he's just gonna like march his way
into France to this garrison at Strasbourg where there's like
ten thousand soldiers. And he likes that because if he assumes,
I just gotta say hi to those soldiers and they'll
be like Linborough and then we can all march to Paris.
And this is he thinks that this will work for
him because this is kind of how Napoleon had retaken power,

(06:09):
that is how he did it essentially, that is how
he did it. However, he did that because he had
won dozens of battles against long odds and conquered all
of Western Europe for for France. Right yeah, yeah, he
had like a track record. Yeah yeah. Whereas Louis Napoleon
is most famous for getting his older brother killed in Italy,

(06:32):
so before he does, to his credit, he does try
to do a little bit of groundwork before he just
walks off to Strasbourg. He you know, from from his
base of operations in London, reaches out to the commanding
general of the garrison, like sends him a letter being like,
I want to come and take your garrison to retake France.
This guy, being not a complete idiot, sends the letter

(06:53):
to his bosses and it's like, hey, the they aired
a Napoleon bonapartum might be tried. It's over the country
in a little while. Guy. It's I was thinking of
just letting him do it because it would be funny,
but I thought i'd let you guys know check in.
I will just check in on this, like it's not
in the manual. It's gonna fails. Could be pretty funny. Um,

(07:17):
Louis Napoleon is not able to convince this guy or
any like generals. But there's a couple of colonels and
majors who had like fought in Napoleon Bonaparte's army and
are like, I guess unhappy enough with the regime that
they're like, yeah, man, we'll fight. So he gets some
people to agree to back him in the French military.
Here's how the Shadow Emperor describes what happened next. At

(07:41):
six o'clock on Monday the thirty October eighteen thirty six,
Swiss Army Captain Lewis Napoleon Bonaparte, now disguised in the
uniform of a French colonel, attended by French General Vaudre
and ten officers including Gilbert Persigny, marched into the Strasburg
Garrison to the barracks of the forty six Infantry Regiment,
where Colon Old Bonaparte appealed to the men to join him. Unfortunately,

(08:03):
they completely rejected the young man and the name of Bonaparte,
much to the astonishment of the Prince, and from then
on it turned into a shambles. Although they managed to
seize the commanding general thea Pilavoiril in his office. He
then escaped through a back door and was saved by
his staff officers, joined by Barrillo's Barrillo's hysterical mother in
law and wife, who then pummeled the bewildered Swiss captain

(08:25):
with the barrage of fists. By eight o'clock, the coup
was over and the invaders were behind locked doors. Louis
Napoleon loses his coup because the mom and daughter Mom,
the mother and wife of the guy he tries to kidnap,
beat him up. It was wonderful. I love it. Doesn't
even get stopped by the army guys. Mom starting and

(08:49):
we almost won. Uh and sends a muzzle came out
and started punching me, and I was like, wow, I
was not ready for this. I was not ready. It
was this my vachalo. By the way, I do love
that he mostly as a German accent because it means
I can start doing my German accent. We can't. That
is why I picked this. I was I was planning

(09:10):
this for another guest, and then I was like, spoke
French with a German accent. Get mad on the phone.
That's me, baby, Sophie. Turn on the matt lead signal.
When you can't do accents, all accents are correct. So
the same people that hate your soundboard also hate and

(09:31):
you know what, fuck m fuck them. So a lot
of people are very amused by this coup attempt. The
London Times sums it up as ridiculous. The Frankfurters tone
calls him an unbalanced young man and asks, what on
earth did he possibly expect to achieve? Um? Now, glory?

(09:56):
I think, yes, yeah, it seems like it was the plan.
I think it was going for like glory and something
something chill. At least some girls comes up a little short.
So since the good news is that nobody gets hurt
in this attempt, right, the most injuries anyone suffers is
Louis Napoleon getting beaten up by two ladies. Incredible. So

(10:23):
Charles the Tenth is looking at this situation is like, well,
nobody's dead. This is pretty comical, and like if I
try to execute him or like put him up, that's
just gonna be more visibility. And he is a bonaparte, right, Like,
I don't want to fuck that much with a bonaparte
because things are not things are not great for Charles
the Tenth right, he is not on a super solid

(10:45):
and he just kind of he kind of just wants
this to go away, right, hoping that like he's not
going to try a second time to overthrow the government.
Um So, let's just, you know, let's just try and
deal with this amiably. So he he gives Louis Napoleon
two thousand dollars in a bag and takes him to
a harbor where he's put on a boat for New
York City. Um So, Louis Philip is like, yeah, just

(11:07):
take this bag of cash and get the funk out
of here. Here's two hundred thousand dollars, and has his
soldiers take Louis uh Napoleon to a harbor and he
sails to New York City to have a vacation. I
do love that. Like, if you want to know why
uh fail suns continually get chances over, it's because when
they do something really stupid that any other person would

(11:30):
be executed over, you give them two hundred dollars in
a free vacation. I agree with you. You know, it's
fair to say this was a complicated problem for the
to deal with, because but yeah, I think I think
you gotta hang him right, that just that should be
the rule. With Goose, I think that's a regular rule.
I think we've all agreed to this rule. Well, I

(11:50):
mean we're having this problem now and I kind of
think we should have hung anyway. Whatever. You know, you
know my feelings on on the former president. Yeah, if
they say it, but uh, the lesson with Louis Napoleon
and the lesson with Hitler, and maybe the lesson with
the Trump is that, like, if people keep trying to

(12:10):
take over the government, you have to you have to
stop them permanently. They won't give up just because it
doesn't work. Once. Have you guys watched a single episode
of Pinky in the Brain? You think he stops every
time he fails to take over the world, the brain
keeps going. You gotta hang the brain. As embarrassing as

(12:33):
the first coup attempt goes, Louis Napoleon isn't that put
out by it. He is a good vacation. He gets
to go to the US. He loves the United States,
finds it fascinating. He's especially this is a very exciting
mid eighteen hundreds. A lot of technology is getting off
the ground for the first time. He gets to see
in person, some of the first American experiments with electricity.

(12:53):
He gets to watch like very early trains, which France
doesn't really have yet. Like France is still in a
lot of ways and at evil economy, like all transit
is like carriages and ship like they are not there's
not they're not industrializing. Um. So while he's away, he
does have a trial in absentia in France and it
results surprisingly in him being acquitted. Um and this is

(13:15):
for it doesn't like again, the Bonapartes have a lot
of sympathy and there's a lot of things that get
sucked up in this trial. It's not really worth getting
that into, but he gets acquitted. Um. Lewis enjoys the
United States. He finds a soothing break from his failed
attempt to take the French throne. He does if you
want to know what he thinks about America, he notes
in his diary that American slavery seems to be quote

(13:37):
a bad thing. Um, so I'll give him that. I'll
give him that again when when people talk about well,
you know, it was just the times, like this guy
sucks ass and he looks at Americans like, oh no,
this is shitty. COO's getting beat up by a couple
sucks and he's like, like, slavery is bad. This is

(14:00):
uh yeah, this is this is this is really this
is really unpleasant. Co attempt was ridiculous, but this owning people.
He finds himself really admiring technology, how how how how
enterprising Americans are with technology, how much they embrace like
new things, how modern they are. But he also decides

(14:21):
and concludes and letters back to his friends and family
that the country, the new nation, is deficient in what
he calls moral force, and he lays this at the
United States as immaturity. Quote. In principle, every American colony
is a real republic. It is an association of men who,
with equal rights, have agreed together to develop the products
of their country. It matters little whether they have a

(14:42):
governor or president for their chief. They require only a
few police regulations. Here. There is freedom to acquire, but
not freedom to enjoy. There is the right to act,
but not to think, which I actually find surprisingly act. Yeah,
that's kind of hit the nail on head there. That's
not a bad summarado for us now, Yeah, yeah, no,

(15:04):
that's that has remained true. Yeah, credit where it's due.
He kind of had our number. Um, so he had
to cut his trip to the United States short after
about six months. I think he wanted to spend more
time seem more of a continent. But then his mom
gets sick, um, and you know, he's a mom's boy.
He returns home to be with her while she died.
She dies in his arms, YadA, YadA, YadA. Sad stuff. Look,

(15:26):
they've all been dead for two hundred years. Don't think
too much about it. Once he's done grieving, it's time
to get right back to his ultimate goal, which is
still to become the Emperor of France, he goes plotting.
He goes back to England um with a kotterie of backers.
He does decide to like, Yeah, he goes back to
England with this kotterie of backers, a Mitch of a
mix of bankers, financiers, former French military officers, and kanmen

(15:49):
pretending to be former French military officers, and he decides
to put together a more ambitious plan to seize the throne.
And we're gonna talk about all of that and his
flight from Switzerland. But first, Matt, how do you how
do you how do you feel about the concept that
out there the largest freshwater bodies are just sitting around

(16:11):
our border with Canada, fucking fat and lazy. We know,
goddamn well, they're not, you know, be any natural borders
to Canada. Socialist Lakes, Socialist lakes. This has been a

(16:32):
paid advertisement for the campaign to fucking nuke the goddamn
ship out of the Great Lakes the lakes, turn it
into steam, use that steam to power engines lakes. That's right,
that's right. We could be nuking all the lakes by
this time. We create by blowing up the lakes, and

(16:53):
we'll get water in southern California. Again, no one's proven
it wouldn't work that way. Yeah, science, get ahead of it.
A lake nuke a couple of lakes anyway, Speaking of
nuking lakes, Yeah, okay, you were about to take a

(17:19):
commercial break. Yeah, this is a break. We've we've got
a we've got a minute. Let's take it. Oh my god,
we're back from outer space. I just walked in to
find Matt leeb here with that face. Oh wow, okay, sorry, no, no,

(17:44):
that's the way you do it. Yes, and you know
you just just building baby I do yes, and my
version is yes, And was that okay? I always like
to ask that after yes? And was I allowed to
ad like that? That's how I go? Was that accept
to you? Yes? This is why I failed at the Groundlings. God,

(18:05):
I just kidding. I never did the Groundlings. I've never
taken an improv class and neither of I. I knew
too many people who were into improv and decided absolutely
not ever never ever. Yeah, it is weird because like
one out of a hundred of the like improvisers that
I know or that I've seen, I'm like, that's the

(18:25):
funniest person I've ever seen. But then that means nine
nine are just terrible. Look, every terrible improv person we've
ever needed. Was was was was just the price we
all paid as a society to get Tim Robinson exactly exactly,
and you know what, it's still not worth it. And

(18:47):
a lot of people want to say, like, oh, well,
you know, stand up comedy is also bad. Yeah, but
at least stand up comics are sad and bad, you know,
it is improvisers they're just like happy and bad and
that's not fair. Is it is very funny that like
anyway that would be getting too far off topic. Let's
talk more about Louis motherfucking Napoleon. So, by eighteen thirty seven,

(19:10):
when Louis Napoleon tried his ill fated attempt to coup
the French government, the first first one, he had already
been let himself become completely obsessed with the idea of
taking back the crown of his uncle from King Louis Philippe.
The fact that his punishment for that coup had not
even amounted to a slap on the wrist putting back
they in fact, they've paid vacation meant that he had
not been incentivized against trying again. But if if you

(19:32):
spent a day failing to take over France and got
like lightly beaten up, and then was given two d
thousand dollars, do you think you might try to take
over France again? Matt, I mean, I would just assume
that that's how I get more money. Yeah, I would
do it. A second. Absolutely, I'd be like, well, that's
a job. Apparently my job is trying to take over

(19:53):
France every once in a while to America have fun.
Behavioral psychology is a complex field. People will agree when
you give someone two hundred thousand dollars. That's an incentive. Yeah. Um, no,
you really don't. This is very simple economics. Yeah, this

(20:14):
is human behavior, even for To his credit, former King
Louis Bonaparte tries desperately to stop his son from continuing
this course of action. He begs Louis Napoleon to take
his gifts and his talents and pursue a worthy life
somewhere fall far outside of politics. An improv please, Napoleon. Yeah,

(20:35):
He begs him to to avoid quote what are referred
to as the great affairs of the world. He's basically, look, man,
I know you want to be in power. You like
the idea of like being this huge historical figure. I
was a big historical figure, and it actually sucks. Don't
do it. He is desperately trying to give his son
the best advice possible. His kid does not listen. Um,

(20:58):
he is he urged. Again. To his credit, he's like, quote,
enjoy some real pleasure during this brief existence of ours, Like,
don't why do you want this job? Just like you're
you're a rich kid. You you hit the like inheritance jackpot.
Just live your life and enjoy it, Like make some art,
or something. Um, Louis Napoleon is not going to take
this advice. So the fridge guy that keeps buying me

(21:21):
guitars and telling me to start a band, and he's
really pissing me off. I don't want to be in
a band. I want to control an army and invade arbitrarily.
Louis Napoleon like sits down at the end of his
son's bed, like, hey, there, Champ, how you doing. I
just wanted to you. Ever tried you, ever tried cocaine?
You might really like it. Actually, you know what, started

(21:42):
trying to get me to do coke? Paying these hookers
to come over in party with you. We got a
rave rooms set up in the in the feast home.
Why don't you just do that the rest of your life?
You want to take some e with me? Oh? I
love it. I love that He's just doing anything possible
to get him to not be into doing war. He's
just like, no, Daddy, I do not want to fox

(22:04):
these ladies anymore. It is so funny trying to so
the French. The French government keeps heavy like police, secret
police surveillance on the entire Bonaparte family. Now, um, and
this is again. Louis's family are never happy with him.
He gets his brother killed, he gets them forced out

(22:26):
of Italy, and now there's like spooks watching their every move.
So it's this is not pleasant for anybody. When the
French government realizes that he's going to try again, they
start pushing on Switzerland to eject Louis from the country again.
They don't really want to kill him or anything. They
just like Switzerland's right on the border of France, so
they're like, let's try to force him to get further away. Um.

(22:47):
This goes so far as King Louis Philippe sends an
army of twenty thousand men to the border of Switzerland.
Like Switzerland and France are kind of on the edge
of a major war for a little while. Um. But
and in this causes problems for Louis Napoleon in Switzerland,
but it does not have the effect that Louis Philippe
wants it to have because war tensions between the two

(23:08):
countries are high for months, which means the news is
constantly reporting on this, which means Louis Napoleon's name is
constantly in the French papers. Um. If you remember Donald Trump, UM,
publicity is good publicity for guys like this, and it
keeps him, It keeps him popular, keeps his name alive,
it keeps people talking about him. Um and and kind

(23:29):
of even being vaguely near to an attempt on power
is worth it because it again, it keeps his name
out in front of people. He's learning through this, Louis Napoleon,
the same lesson that like Trump and a lot of
other authoritarians, like populist authoritarians, are gonna learn a long
time later. One French minister wisely noted at the time, quote,
no one in France can ever again forget Louis Napoleon's name,

(23:51):
and soon he will be even more dangerous than he
was before the Strasbourg affair. He's kind of the first.
And again he to his credit, he's not unaware of this.
He realizes, like, even though this doesn't work, it's just
kind of worth it to keep trying, because people, you know,
if you keep people talking about you, that's part of
what you need to do in order to succeed at
this thing, especially if you're like you know, um letting

(24:15):
people think you're just ridiculous the whole time. Yeah, yeah,
and at this point he is, and to his credit,
he does care about his adopted home of Switzerland enough
that he leaves forever to spare it, you know, the
trouble of being invaded by France possibly Uh, he goes
to London, um, which is you know number one, the
Brits are happy to have him because even though they

(24:36):
didn't have a good relationship with the Bonapartes, the British
are kind of always quarreling with France. So now that
he's contra to the people ruling in France, it's like, yeah,
we want a bat like anything that fox with France
a little bit enemy dog exactly. Um. And also like
France can't threaten England. Nobody nobody can threaten English right now?

(24:58):
Like yeah, um, we got called the boat ship in boats,
yeah you've got you old people, but yeahin't got no boat.
What are you gonna do? You just effortlessly summed up
three hundred and fifty years of British foreign You have

(25:23):
to take a boat. Waters are cold enough to be
frozen so you can walk over you. So it is
funny to think if there had been like one cold
snap in like the period from sixteen hundred to nineteen
forty where people could have walked across the England would

(25:44):
have been got nothing, absolutely gone, So that would have
been awesome. Yeah, so um yeah. He goes to London
and he takes with him Gilbert per Sydney and around
like twenty other of his big supporters, including an Italian
banker named Giuseppe or C who's going to be funding
his next attempt to take power. I'm gonna give you

(26:07):
the money, you know, I'm just doing all accents, you're Pinio.
So gives them all trampled documents, mostly because again they
figure he's gonna funk with France again, which is correct.
So he spends the next little bit a couple of
years living in England, in London, specifically, he goes to

(26:28):
all these high society parties. He's very he's very in demand.
You know, he's Napoleon's nephew, he's Prince Bonaparte um. And
he makes a lot of connections with powerful backers in
other parts of Europe who want to funk with France
for some reason or another. Um, and he starts plotting
his next coup attempt. He also, you know, to his credit,
he's not he's done in a lot of ways. He's

(26:50):
not a complete moron either. He pays attention very successfully
to the way the British Empire does things. One biographer
describes him as being quote greatly impressed by the English
obsession with foreign travel and exotic places. And when they
say travel here, they are not talking about tourists, they're
nots Yeah. In eighteen thirty nine, while he's in London,

(27:13):
the British Empire takes possession of Hong Kong and the
East India Company occupies Adden. Um. So that's what he
means by travel. So as his plans for imperial glory solidify,
so too does his political understanding of what has gone
wrong in his home country. France, again in this period,
is basically medieval in a lot of respects. Their economy

(27:33):
is ancient, it is, it is decrepit. Again. There's fucking
trains in the in the UK, in the UK and
in the United States and a number of other places.
Everything in France is still done by like horses driving
around wagons, like percent of transit, praying to God that
the harvest comes in and yeah, says, they don't got

(27:54):
much in the way of technology. It's bad. Um. Social
life has also stagnated again. But as King Louis Philippe
as as a kind of avanchist. You know, he's trying
to take things back to the absolute monarchy days, not
with a ton of success um. And yeah, the the
emperor or the king's hold on power is just is
not great. Alan Strausschaum sums up with Louis Napoleon took

(28:18):
from this in his writings from eighteen forty. The fundamental
vice which is eating away at France today is the
exaggerated interpretation of the rights of the individual of his
scorn for authority. Now this is the real Louis Napoleon speaking.
The people were already to independent. Now, yes, there should
be popular elections, but the people must vote as they
were directed. And that is precisely how he intended to

(28:40):
run his future empire. Give the masses the vote, but
all voting would be dictated by the leader of the
country a la Bonaparte. Napoleon the First had, of course,
completely manipulated his national plebiscites without apologies. That system worked,
so it did. That's that's his thinking. Later that year,
still convinced that the people of France would him and

(29:00):
Moss if he just presented himself to them in the
right way. Napoleon attempted a second coup. By this point,
he fully believed that he was meant by God to
take up his uncle's legacy and lead France into a
second empire. He wrote to his followers, from time to time,
men are created whom I call volunteers of Providence, in
whose hands are placed the destiny of their countries. I

(29:22):
believe I am one of those men. If I am wrong,
I can perish uselessly. If I am right, then Providence
will put me into a position to fulfill my mission. Again,
how about both? When when people say I believe I'm
a volunteer of Providence and the destiny of nations is
in my hands, I believe I have been chosen by
God to do this, you have a moral responsibility to

(29:44):
hit them with a brick, right anyone who says that,
give him a bricking. That is that is fascism, one
on one ship right now, in a lot of ways.
Part of way I picked him Louis Napoleon. He's not
a fascist. Fascist does not exist yet. But he is
the most direct precursor to twentieth century fascism that you
get prior to that period. He is in a lot

(30:06):
and we're building to like a lot of why that
becomes the case. But you can see it here this
idea that I saw, his idea that is very hilarian
and Mussolinian. However, you say that I somehow, I as
an individual embody the national will and have been kind
of chosen by provenance to to take this country in
a direction like away from to steer it and where

(30:28):
it needs to go right, Like that is very much
a fascist attitude. It's it's it's not again. Fascism owes
a lot of its DNA to feudalism and you and
that's kind of why I find Napoleon the third interesting
is he sort of represents because he's also kind of
a republican, but in the way that the republic should
exist to justify my reign um. Interesting guy, interesting period. Yeah,

(30:53):
it's the proto fascism in that it's like the esthetics
of the past in his street is what he's driving on.
Like that's it's not just the feudalism, you know, totalitarian authoritarianism.
It's also remember the glorious past, and I represent it
in blood. That is proto fascism to a t. It

(31:16):
sure is my friend. It shure is so our man
charters a steamboat with fifty six men. Um. Some of
them are former military officers and a few others are
guys who have been like leading hunts and stuff. They're
like the kind of servants who take rich guys on hunts.
But most of them are like bankers, political functionaries, journalists,
guys who are not going to be useful in a fight. Right, Um,

(31:39):
this is his This is his coup attempt squad, and
this is I gotta tell you. We talk about coups
quite often on on this show. We've talked about the
Wonga coup, which is a very funny failed coup. There's
elements of humor and Hitler's failed coup and a number
of other failed cues. This is the funniest coup failure
I have ever heard of. This is this is a mazing.

(32:01):
So the whole attempt has been funded by Count Giuseppe Orsi.
Was this banker. He secured like two point two million
ish modern equivalent dollars. When I say a number of
like how much money ship's worth, I'm always speaking like
the equivalent modern term like this many francs, because what
a sixteen thousand francs mean to anybody listening to like whatever?

(32:22):
Um about two point two million modern dollars in funding
from a variety of backers. So this boat with these
fifty six dudes on it nears the French coast and
Louis Napoleon orders everybody, most of whom don't know what
they're doing entirely. They've been following Louis Napoleon, but like
he only keeps a couple of people in the loop
is to the plan. So once they get off the
French coast, he tells everybody get into these French army uniforms.

(32:44):
We're all gonna dress like French regular French soldiers. Where's
the hat? Put the hat on? I gets a big one.
The biggest hat is mind, The biggest hat is mine.
I gets a good soul. But you guys get so
they all are armed with copy is a French army
guns that they've purchased in Birmingham. Again, the gun industry,

(33:04):
there's not really any gun control in most of you know,
the European states at a lot at least a number
of them at this point. So like in England, you
could just kind of easily pick up copies of the
kinds of guns, the French hues and vice versa. So
they have like copies of French army guns, and they
have French uniforms that this banker has bought, and they're
kind of dressing as regular soldiers now, and the most

(33:26):
of them are. In the Strasbourg attempt, Louis Napoleon had
worn the uniform of a colonel. He had never been
a colonel anywhere, but certainly not in the French army.
For this next attempt, he promoted himself to major general. Figurings,
maybe the issue when I got beat up by those
two ladies was that I have enough. Yeah, if I

(33:48):
had the stars, if I had the stars and all
the stripes, and people would be like, oh wait, we
can't hit him. Well, no, don't hit him. Look at
all the ranks on his shoulders. He's a major general,
not just a colonel. So once everyone is equipped, he
delivers a stirring speech, friends, companions of my destiny, I
have drawn up a plan. We are going to France.

(34:11):
There we will find powerful, devoted friends vaiting on us.
The soul of Jack Obstacle is bolown, but once it
is removed, final success is certain. And if I am
supported and reinforced there, which is as certain as the
sun in the sky, we will be in Paris within
a matter of days. I've slipped out of the accent. No,
you went into French, which was impressive. Yeah, then history

(34:35):
will say that with just a handful of such brave
men as you, I shall have achieved this grand and
glorious undertaking. So he gives a speech, now, the chief
military advisor on this coup attempt, Right, the man who
is supposed to because they're supposed to be building an
army as they walk along these areas to eventually confront
the king in battle. Right, that's the idea. So he

(34:57):
has a general with him, right, you know, because he's
he's humble enough to know I've never commanded an army
in the field. I should probably have somebody who has.
And the general that he has to run the military
side of this coup attempt is Major General Tristan d
Month alone. Now, impressive name. Right, Here's how the book
The Shadow Emperor describes this guy. Just About everything about

(35:20):
him was either phony or bizarre, beginning with the title
he used of Marquis he was only account and quite
a new one at that, allegedly wounded and having served
with Napoleon from a hohen Linden to Waterloo. It was
all lies. Indeed, he not only had never served on
a single battlefield, but he had refused to do so
when so ordered. Not content with that, he had renewed,
reneged on gambling debts, and topped that off by stealing

(35:42):
the regimental pay of his own officers. Despite all he
had somehow hoodwinked Napoleon and accompanied him to Saint Helena,
where he became his final confidante. Promised a major legacy
from Napoleon's will. Month Alon had, on at least two
occasions administered arsenic and Napoleon's wine, greatly weakening him in
leading to his death. And it was the charlatan, coward,

(36:03):
thief and murderer whom Louis Napoleon had unwittingly appointed to
his campaign. That is beautiful, That is beautiful. I love it.
He was just like, yeah, you know, this guy is
wearing all the right clothes. He knows my dad, he
knows my uncle. Yeah, yeh knows my uncle. And uh,

(36:23):
you know he said he was in Saint Helena used
to give him lots of drinks. It was fun. Yeah,
he'll take Come on, he's been a general, so of
course I trust him. Look at that's my It's great.
He gives me such confidence. He's a true confidence man.
Now I will give Louis Napoleon some credit. The boat
guys he hired do their job competently. They get everyone

(36:46):
to shore, everyone gets to France and his on France,
which has given how the rest of this goes kind
of amazing. I gotta say, you know it's gonna go
bad when you're giving credit to the guys who made
the boat go. Yeah, they did. They did succeed in
reaching land from the sea away. That is the last success,

(37:07):
and in fact, the landing is not a huge success.
They do get to shore, but they're not great at it,
and so they make a lot of noise. Job he
told us it was quiet, right, I just don't different
guy's job. No one ever said I was quiet boat.
So I take boat from point a point bust a

(37:29):
customs agent. Here's them coming to shore like a like
a customs guy, guy whose job is to make sure
boats don't land in France without like paying taxes and
he like walks up to them and it's like, so,
what's a what's going on here? And they lie, they
say they're soldiers from the nearby regiment and they tell
them like, we're from this regiment. That's the regiment billeted

(37:50):
in the city. But they get the name of the
regiment wrong, which this guy knows because he lives here.
So he's like, that's kind of suspicious. Soldiers usually know
what regiment they're in. Also, the guy in charge speaks
in a German accent that's peculiar French and six Airborne.

(38:16):
This is one thing we know. It's we are definitely
not invading. This customs agent gets further suspicious because when
he asks questions of the group, they there's not like,
you know, normally you have a military unit and you,
as another member of the military and an official capacity,
ask questions of that unit. Normally, like one person is

(38:40):
going to reply right because there's a chain of command,
and like someone is going to be in charge of
that unit and he will answer for them, which is
generally how things work in armies. Instead, every time he
asks a question, like people will be quiet and then
like replies will come at random from different members of
the group, most Napoleon, the guy dressed as a general,

(39:01):
Louis Napoleon is too anxious, he gets like stage fright,
so he can't say anything. Meanwhile, the other general, month Alon,
basically hides because he's never been a general and does
not know how to actually respond and his number one
thing is hiding when yes, that is kind of what's
That's what I'm known for in real life. None of

(39:22):
these guys know what they're doing, and the customs agent
like confused, but like, well, they all do look like
French soldiers, is like, why don't I escort you guys
to the local military base and they can figure out
where you're supposed to be. So they all start marching together.
And they've been like marching a little while when one
of the colonel's former French army colonels that Louis Napoleon

(39:42):
has gathered to his coup attempt, suddenly shouts, do you
know who you're escorting? It's Prince Napoleon himself, And then
and then another man cries out, Belogne is ours and
France will soon proclaim the Prince Emperor of France. Now
customs agent whose name is Lieutenant Bally gets kind of

(40:05):
suspicious at this, so he's like, all right, everybody stop
a second, stop talking. What are you talking about? Now?
I should probably have mentioned this or earlier, but it
makes the the outburst that just happened make a little
more sense. I should note, everyone, including Louis Napoleon, is
ship house drunk. They were they were to get their

(40:26):
courage up on the boat. They're pounding brandy, which is
probably why they make so much noise and probably why
they don't know how to respond when this guy starts
asking really basic questions, because they are all they are
all wasted, and the drunkest of all of them is
General du Mont the lawn Bally Lieutenant Bally is like,
all right, everybody, fucking halt, what is going on here?

(40:47):
When he does that, General month Lawon staggers forward, slurring
his words, and tries to bribe the officer with a pension.
She's like, may, man, we'll give you like a fifteen
thousand francs the year, buddy, Why don't you just chill out? Man? Uh?
Can you come over here real quick? She's real quick?
All right, buddy, We're right now, bro, bro, we are wasted,

(41:11):
We are true wasted. And I know this pretty little
French girl, she's right around corner. She'll she'll fucking do it.
But you just gotta shut the funk up. Just be chill, bro.
Can you point us to belogn Yeah, like where the
army guys is and that. Yeah, just let us know

(41:34):
where they're they're at an all fun dude, I'm gonna puke.
So Lieutenant Belogne, being the most competent person this situation,
just bounces. He just takes his guys. He's like, you
know what, I don't know what's going on here. This
is not worth my continued involvement right now. I'm gonna
go and try to find someone who's a higher rank
than me to figure out how to deal with this.

(41:56):
So for him. Now, the former emperor's nephew and a
bunch of retired officers, some random bankers and functionaries all
dressed as soldiers and ship house drunk decide like, well,
I guess we continue with our plan to take over
the country. One of Bonaparte's most loyal men then shouts
forward march and the group continues to head to Boulogne.

(42:17):
They enter the city proper and around five am, and
they start putting up flyers, telling everyone that the king
no longer rules France. Now this was not strictly true. Yeah,
well you know, you take it till you make it, bro,
I get it. Things start moving very quickly. At this point,
the troop advances towards the barracks, where a regiment of
infantry protected the city. Their goal was to take back

(42:39):
the barracks and its arsenal and convince the soldiers there
to join them, right. Um, So they get stopped by
a group of five soldiers on the way there, um
who are like, hey, guys, we're in charge running where
the guarding this base? What do you but what are you? Yea?
What is all seem very drunk in German? What's happening?

(43:00):
I aim my gun at you? But they don't even
have guns. They're not armed, right, But most military you
don't just like give people guns out of sort, Like
they don't even have weapons. They're just kind of like
hanging out to like, you know, keep an eye on stuff.
So you guys doing theater, Yeah, what's going on here?

(43:20):
Is this an improv troupe? So the guy carrying the
Emperor's standard, you know, the big flag with his logo
and ship on it um. When they get stopped. This
guy park when steps forward drunkenly and he threatens them.
Another of Napoleon's men grabs one of the soldier's arms
when he won't listen to orders from the emperor. So
the soldiers they're they're still they're too weirded out to

(43:43):
like get weapons or anything like. They again, they have
no idea what's happening. So after a brief mild altercation,
Napoleon's mid advance again. Alan Strass Shoran describes what happens
next to advanced by the way is a very funny way.
Drunkenly staggers agger towards a door, quote events, and matt

(44:05):
brace yourself for this part. Inside the barracks parade ground,
Aldin is ordered to arms here is the Prince, which
was repeated by a soldier on guard duty. Some of
the men of the forty two fell in and presented arms,
shouting Vivina Emperor. When an older sergeant arrived to see
what was happening, Louis Napoleon blurted out, I shall make
you a captain of the grenadiers. Order and commonsense had

(44:27):
already been replaced by a carnival of hysterics and absurdities.
Louis Napoleon then harangued the troops, offering commissions, medals, and money. Clearly,
Captain Bonaparte, late of the Swiss Army, was no more
fit to command to garrison than a squad. Captain Colonel Poulgier,
who is like in charge of the actual garrison, arrived and,
drawing his sword, demanded to know what was happening and

(44:48):
where his company was. Some of Parkman's men tried to
grab him. Captain, I am Prince Louis Napoleon. Come join
us and you will be rewarded with whatever you desire.
But I don't know you, the captain replied, you are
a traitor. He all about, Then, turning around to his company,
he said, soldiers, this is a trick. Viv leroy falling
behind me, Buonapartes men tried to seize him again. When

(45:09):
two more officers of the forty second arrived, Freeing himself,
Colonel Poulgier managed to notify the garrison commander, Colonel San
Soul and to rally some of his men. Panicking, Napoleon
took out his pistol and shot an unarmed grenadier in
the mouth. What the just like it gets chaotic and
they start like yelling at him, and he just shoots

(45:30):
an unarmed man in the face for no reason. In
the mouth. Yeah, this guy is just like this is
just like a random rancor who's standing and be like,
I don't know what's happening. This guy is a bonaparte.
Everyone else, like my boss is saying no, do it, Like, dude,
I'm just like here and shoots him in the face.
Jesus Christ, I love, but I don't know you, doll. Yeah,

(45:55):
but I'm like, I have no idea who you are, man, Like,
what are you doing? I don't know? We met, bro,
we're not friends. Yeah, we're friends, dog, Can you stop
telling people we know each other? So this leaves everybody
very surprised. Yeah, he shot someone in the mouth. When
he just shoot a guy in the mouth for no reason,

(46:17):
and we're going to talk about what comes next. But
you know who will never shoot an unarmed French grenadier
in the mouth. Me, that's right, you would not do that.
I mean, I'm not I'm not gonna say never, right,
I'm not gonna say never. Never say never. We're back

(46:39):
and we're thinking about shooting an armed French grenadiers, a
thing I haven't done, but could see myself doing it
if I had to. You know, depends on the situation.
Context is everything. Yeah, Like what if what if I
get teleported back in time to like eighteen twelve and
the Russian steps and there's like a French grenadier and

(46:59):
he drops his gun because like, you know, he's scared
because I just teleported through time. But I know we
might go for it, and then I have to shoot
him to save the time stream. Something that sounds right,
That sounds right, That could happen. You never know. You
don't want to fun with spacetime. So they got to
shoot him in the mouth. I have. I have one
piece of advice for people, one piece of it for advice,
and it's never promised not to shoot a French grenadier

(47:22):
without a weapon under any circumstances. You never know. Yeah,
that's what That's what Louis Napoleon understood that. He knew that.
He said, listen, I will do this ship out of
an unarmed French grenadier. Is I just love that it's mouth.
It's not ahead. The guy lives too, by the way, Yeah,

(47:45):
you don't describe it as shooting someone in the mouth
if they die, and man, and what a what a
thing every day that guys that like the the village
pub and they're like, so why don't you why don't
you get to talk Gilbert and he's like, well, I
got shutting the mouth by you. I was chill I

(48:08):
would so this leaves. Yeah, everyone panics, right, there has
now been gunfire. Napoleon's soldiers are not in fact soldiers
there again like bankers and like, yeah, yeah, Giuseppe is
in fact they're like this Italian banker pressed as a

(48:32):
French soldier. And then the Emperor, panicking totally silent through
this affair up to this point, makes his first action
shooting a random dude in the face. Everybody fucking panics.
At this point, most of Napoleon's men take cover, even
though the French soldiers confronting them still aren't armed, right,
they have rifles, but no ammo like because again they

(48:52):
don't really know what's happening. So now they get pissed
because Lewis Napoleon has just shot their friend in the face,
so they charged with bayonets um Louis's party foul, just
fucking classic party foul. Look. I will agree there are
relatively few situations in which you should charge someone with bayonets,
but this is a good one, fine time to use

(49:14):
a bat. So again, Louis Napoleon's men, being mostly con
artists and bean counters, run like fun even though they
they have loaded guns. They actually have loaded firearms. If
they run like ship, mommy, I am that is wonderful.

(49:40):
So they rally in the center of town. Because the
garrisons in like this fortress kind of on a hill
in town. So they run a few hundred yards away
into the center of town where they've been putting up signs,
and they rally there. Meanwhile, the garrison is like, I
guess we should give guys bullets. That seems like we
might need to shoot some people. Like again, no one
really knows what's happening, but by this point it's clear

(50:00):
we're probably going to have to shoot some fools. The
craziest thing about all this is it seems like the
coup could have worked if he hadn't shot the dude
in the mouth. And they kind of seemed like a
cohesive if they hadn't been drunk. Because so again, as
soon as they get in there and say like, this
is Prince Bonaparte. Some soldiers immediate reactions have been like

(50:22):
Viva empero, because again, Bonaparte still powerful legacy, like the
flag tri color way better than the flag. Louis won't
say ship because he's like panicking and anxious and also
kind of wasted. Nobody knows what they're doing, and then
he just shoots a man. He shoots their friend in
the face, and they're like, well, I guess not Viva
la Emperor. Yeah, boy, So you guys grab some of

(50:49):
Louis Napoleon's men while the while the garrison soldiers are
loading their guns, Louis Napoleon and his men are like
in the middle of town trying to regroup. They don't
have a plan B, so they attempt to take the
imperial flag and like run it up the flagpole of
like the big government building in the center of town.
But they can't get into it, right, They like knock
on the door, but it's like five in the morning,

(51:11):
nobody's there, so they can't get inside. So because at
this point they're like, all right, Prince Bonaparte, what do
we do now? Like you brought us here? Plan A
didn't work. We tried another thing that didn't work either.
He throw it, just throw it onto the pole. So

(51:33):
he freezes up in panics. And then the garrison troops
start to march on them, and all of his men
like break and run like a motherfucker. So some of
them get caught fleeing Um, some of them get shot.
Most of them wind up retreating with the want to
be emperor to the beach Louis Napoleon. As soon as
they get to the beach, the first thing he does,

(51:54):
when his men are like what now is he tries
to blow his brains out with his Handgum death for
an attempt. He is less capable of shooting himself than
he was that one random French soldier, though, so it
fails and he runs away. Um. A bunch of his
men flee into the water. When the French soldiers get there,

(52:16):
a lot of these guys drown UM. Several more gets
shot to death in a hal of French gunfire. One
of the guardsmen calls it quote a regular duck shoot. Um.
The prince is hit by a bullet but survives because
his uniform is like thick and wet and it stops
the bullet bullets. We're not as good back then you
could exactly. So Louis Napoleon was rescued by from drowning

(52:41):
by National guardsmen who like save his life and then
take him into custody. Um. He spends most of the
first minutes he's captured talking about how much he wants
to kill himself, but otherwise he's bleeding. Here. Put put
some money on it, put some money on the dollar,
Shove some money in his mouth. Um. So that's that's

(53:02):
not a great coup. That does not work out. Well, Like,
that's about as about as unsuccessful a coup as I've
ever heard about. Yeah, that is egg on his face,
um and uh in that one guy's mouth. Yeah, you
really couldn't fail much worse at trying to take over
France than it's an incredible failure. And you got to

(53:23):
give it to him because like he had the vision,
you know, and he said, well, you know what if
we go there? Yeah, and he didn't he didn't think
about beyond that. He just was like, no, then we advance,
which is walk, that's just walking, and they will. Yeah.
He just kind of like if you've ever i don't know,

(53:45):
a suit like been in a situation where you try
to do something and just assume you'll know how to
do it, but you've never done it before. Like yeah,
you know, you go off roading for the first time
and like figure you know how to handle you know,
a real muddy path or something, shift shift right, trying
to can it be? And they might lie on a

(54:05):
job interview to try to like get a gig. Yeah,
he just um, he just uh, he just he just
does that with trying to be the emperor of France. Yeah,
and he you know, like, honestly, I think he could
have done it in that attempt if he had just
not shot that guy in the mouth and got too drunk,

(54:29):
if he hadn't been drunk, if he had again, you
should probably like train for a little bit being a
coup like this if you've never done anything again. Bonaparte
was able to easily coup the country because by that
point he was pretty he was pretty good at commanding Frenchman. Yeah,
he had like practice and stuff and people. This guy's

(54:50):
primary life experience is getting his brother killed in Italy.
You might want other training. O Gene Napoleon didn't have
a current all going, But I don't know you like that.
Nobody would have ever said that to him. Nobody would
ever said, oh boy, yeah, you know who does know you, Matt.

(55:11):
Who the production services that support our podcast. They've known
you since before you were born, when you when you
quickened in your mother's womb, Blue Apron and uh and
all of the other Casper Mattress. They knew you. They
saw you, they loved you, Lily Company, They wrapped you

(55:32):
in its in its spiritual embrace, when before you were
even a fetus. They knew your soul when it was
still part of the firmament of heaven. The least you
can do, the least you can do. Spend some money.
I love spending money. Why why are we what? What
are you doing? You're trying to get mat plug is pluggable?

(55:53):
This is that? What's happening? No? I was doing ads.
You've done all your ads? Oh have I? Well, I
guess the fucking episode is over, Sophie, yes to some ads. Anyways,
though you were promoting Matt, I was like, Okay, I
also love that. Matt got a Yeah, I'm here to

(56:13):
promote my new podcast pod yourself and insulin and yeah
and uh where we charge Astronomical amounts for To be
honest with you, I have an ethical problem with insulin
um Yeah. Yeah, hormone therapy is is the devil's plaything.
That's right. Absolutely, you know you gotta If you Walsh

(56:36):
convinced me of this, that's right. If you got again,
you know, if you got diabetes, that's God's way of saying, hey, yeah,
you're allergic to living. Look, God said it. Called it
diabetes because you're not supposed to survive it. Exactly. It's
not libetes, it's not life beats. Oh boy. W Anyways,

(56:59):
you give Mats pod five stars because he has a baby, baby,
give it five stars five stars in review? You know,
pot yourself the wire or if you like the Sopranos
pod yourself a gun. We covered all of the Sopranos.
I'm gonna try. I'm gonna try something, Matt, I'm gonna
try something for your baby. We have you know, somewhere

(57:19):
around like a million is people listening, you know, as
to an episode or so in general, I'm gonna I'm
gonna try. I'm gonna try because who knows who's listening. Look,
if you're out there and you're a crazy rich person
with a bunch of golden abasement. Send all that gold
to Matt Lead happen right on. Send it on somebody
out there. It's got golden abasement. You don't need it.

(57:40):
Give it to Matt Lee. But what do you need
it for? You don't need it. I have a baby.
I have missed God. Send me that gold www dot
send Matt Lead gold dot com, slash I have a baby,
dot h t M. That's your sub stack, right, that's
my substation. Dot vodka, Yeah, dot vodka. And if you

(58:01):
can't remember all that Patreon dot com slash frodcast. That
is the That is the umbrella podcast of all the pod.
Yourself a gun, but yourself the wire. That is the
o G where me and Vince Mancini, who you should
have on here. He's a wonderful film critic and uh
beautiful little Italian man. Now what are the odds? Do

(58:21):
you know if he might be related to Boom Boom Mancini,
the boxer who killed Duck Ku Kim. I don't know
if he is related to any notable Mancini's. I think
there's like him. Ask him, ask him? Are you are
you kin to Boom Boom Mancini. There's a pretty pretty
good warren Zevon song about his relative in that case, Okay,

(58:42):
well I'm gonna ask him about it, but I definitely
asked him if he was related to Mancini of Mancini
sleep World, which is a great matchress store in the
San Francisco Bay area. And he is not. He's not. Uh,
he's not related to Henry Mancini, the guy who wrote
moon River, which great song. So if what if Boom

(59:02):
boom Mancini fought the Mancini who wrote moon River? Do
you think he would also kill that guy? Probably? I
think you could kill whatever Mancini even wanted to. I'm
trying to kill Vince. Well there you go. Anyway, We
at Behind the Bastards will check out to see if
Vince Mancini wants to do a podcast and is related
to the guy from the warren Zevon song. Check out

(59:24):
pod yourself a gun Um, check out Matt Leeve on
the internet and send him your gold. Please find my
novel After the Revolution wherever books are sold and live stream,
Oh Ship, Sophie, do the live stream at please God,
you know I knew it. We Behind the Bastards are
doing a live stream virtual show on December eight with

(59:49):
Margaret Killjoy. Thank you. You can find tickets, uh, the
link to tickets in the description. You can find the
link to tickets on our socials and uh it's moment
House dot co slash bTB. Yeah, check it out. Signing
to watch? So am I? Well you're gonna have to?

(01:00:12):
Oh well, yes, that's true, all right, go with christ
my children. Babe. Behind the Bastards is a production of
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our website cool zone media dot com, or check us
out on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you get your podcasts.