Behind the Bastards - Part One: Napoleon III: The Worst Bonaparte

Episode Date: November 29, 2022

Robert is joined by Matt Lieb to discuss Napoleon III. (4 Part Series)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What would you do if a secret cabal of the most powerful folks in the United States told you, hey, let's start a coup? Back in the 1930s, a Marine named Smedley Butler was all that stood between the U.S. and fascism. I'm Ben Bullitt. I'm Alex French. And I'm Smedley Butler. Join us for this sordid tale of ambition, treason, and what happens when evil tycoons have too much time on their hands. Listen to Let's Start a Coup on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you find your favorite shows. What if I told you that much of the forensic science you see on shows like CSI isn't based on actual science, and the wrongly convicted pay a horrific price? Two death sentences in a life without parole. My youngest, I was incarcerated

two days after her first birthday. Listen to CSI on trial on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. With the Soviet Union collapsing around him, he orbited the earth for 313 days that changed the world. Listen to The Last Soviet on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Oh, yeah. Damn, it's behind the bastards. The only podcast on the internet, if you have ever listened to another podcast, know you have not. That's schizophrenia. Sorry, sorry to tell you this way. That's a radio show. Eat it. This is a podcast about the worst people in all of history. And to help me talk about a real son of a bitch, I have Matt Leib, one of the

best people in all of history. That's right. I'm back, baby. So happy to be here. I am now a dad. I am just so tired. Your official legal nickname is now Matt Daddy Leib. I am. So if you could just call me Daddy on the internet, I'd appreciate it. Stuck to be back, guys. Just a reminder, I am part of the creator of the World's Only the Wire podcast. Pod yourself the wire. That's right. So listen to that. Give us five stars in review and you'll enjoy it. Who the fuck did I do? That's my soundboard. I won't do that too much, I promise. Goddamn right. Oh, I forgot we have a soundboard when you're here. Incredible, incredible. It's all the wire drops, baby. It's the wire. Amazing. I was just talking about McNulty and how I'm outraged that he is

Prince Charles in the crown because he's way too handsome. He's way too handsome. But I am kind of enjoying watching McNulty in his natural accent. Oh, it's weird. I haven't heard him do his actual ever. No, that's what he sounds like. I know. He's a British guy. Yeah. And on the wire, you're just like, oh, God. You're just like, sometimes you're like, he's crushing it. And sometimes he is just like way off with the Baltimore accent. So it's nice to see him being like, oh, that's what he's supposed to sound like. Now, you know, speaking of the wire, which is set in Baltimore, Baltimore, compared to where we are, not very far from the Great Lakes. And you know what today is? You know what this week is, Mat Leib? What? It is the 47th anniversary

of the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald, which took 26 brave men to their deaths at the bottom of the world's primary foe, Lake Superior. Yeah. I remember that. I know that because there's a song about it. Well, the legend lives on from the Chippewa on down. That's right. Yeah, exactly. And I think, Mat, I don't know if we've talked about this, but do you remember in the mid-1980s when the United States retired our Titan missile arsenal? I don't remember that specifically. That's not my number one thought about the 80s, but sounds right. The Titan was the largest ICBM ever used or ever deployed. It had a nine megaton nuclear warhead. It was the most single, most powerful nuclear weapon in US history. And we got rid of them because, number one,

they were expensive. And number two, a bunch of them wound up in accidents that almost killed millions of people and some bullshit. Anyway, yeah, my proposal, Mat, we built a shitload more Titans and we fire all those sons of bitches off at Lake Superior until that's, until it's a goddamn canyon, until that whole fucking lake is a skate park. Yeah, who's superior now, bitch? That's right, motherfucker. Come on. You think you're so great? Well, how do you like having no water? That's right. We boiled it out. Yeah, we boil it out through the bombs. Also, I assume if we use a nuke to boil all of the water out of Lake Superior,

the Southwest will get more rain, probably, right? That seems like it should solve the problems with the Colorado River. We can keep making almonds for a couple years. It would solve climate change. Yeah. It's worth a shot, right? Why not? That's, why not? That's, that's gonna be my campaign slogan when I won for president. Just, just a nuke detonating above Lake Superior. Why not? Why not? What do we got to lose? Honestly, if the world's ending anyways, we might as well try a nuke Lake Superior, you know, model of strategy. Okay. Listeners, this has absolutely nothing to do with what we're talking about. It has a little bit to do with what we're talking about

today, Sophie. Please explain, please explain how Lake Superior. Well, Sophie, Lake Superior, by taking the name Superior, is putting on airs that it's better than the rest of us. And you know who else thinks they're better than the rest of us? You did it. Nazis? Hereditary nobility. Oh, yeah, that's true. That's true. Matt, what do you know about Napoleon? Wait, wait, wait. The third. Love, love Napoleon the third. Napoleon the third, I'm a huge Napoleon the third stand. Are you? Are you? Are you? I am. I mean, you know, maybe I'm not pro Napoleon the third, but I'm a big fan. I like that he's the actual small Napoleon.

I like- He was, he was a lot smaller than Napoleon Bonaparte, who was slightly above average size for the time. O.G. Napoleon was like a regular guy, like regular size guy, just with a funny accent, whereas like Napoleon the third is the one who was actually small, and he's also the one who was like, you know, he was what, the first president of France, and then immediately became the second emperor of France. He's a fascinating guy. He's a fascinating guy. His facial hair was a mess, was a huge mess. Wonderful facial hair. One of the most influential dudes who ever lived. Most people, including like when I started this, I knew some about him. I did not realize how much of the modern world was built because

of this guy's fumbling. Like he created modernity mainly through fucking up and not thinking things through. It's kind of incredible. So there's two big books that I got through for this, one of which sucked and one of which was pretty good. It's the case with nobility. The fun thing about writing about hereditary European nobility is that basically every second of their lives is documented, right? Like you're never wondering, I wonder what was happening in their childhood. It's like, no man, we've got like 40 different letters from like people who worked in the house and like we know everything about their lives. The downside is that we know everything about their lives. So this is going to be a four-parter. Hell yeah. Oh, that's exciting. Exciting times

here. So before we get into Napoleon, I'm gonna just give a bunch of Benadryl to my baby so it sleeps for 12 hours. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know what? Let's both take some Benadryl. I'll do it. Let's take some Benadryl and hear noises that aren't there. As an aside, we were hanging out recently with Dr. Kava Hoda of the House of Pod, a friend of the show. And it was him and another doctor friend of his who was in from out of state and we were all drinking together. And I realized they hadn't heard about the Benadryl subreddit where teenagers take insane doses of Benadryl in order to hallucinate. And I put it, they were distraught. Kava was trying to log in through my friend's Reddit account to warn people to stop doing what they were. I was like,

no, no, no, Kava, they already took the 600 milligrams of Benadryl. They've done what they're doing. I'm so sorry. That was me. It's too late. Yeah. You can't stop this. I didn't know that there was a subreddit about it. A subreddit about it. I actually, that was when I was really, really into drugs at one point, I was just like, looking up what kind of adverse effects can happen if you take too much of whatever drug and there's stuff you want to avoid, obviously, like any, you know, non-steroidal anti-inflammatories will really fuck you up. But you want to avoid most of the drugs that are medicine for something else unless you take a pile of them. Right. Right. Yeah. 100%. 100%. But I did read, you know, back in those days that,

yeah, if you take a bunch of Benadryl, you'll have auditory hallucinations. And I took a bunch and I played a whole symphony in my head. It was incredible. Oh, wow. You had a good, okay. Well, you know, then my back, though, my spine felt like it was vibrating out of my body. It was very painful. It wasn't fun. And I think I almost died. But music. But music. Yeah. So, you know, speaking of music, there's an overture about Napoleon, right? Like the 1812 overture. So anyway, let's talk about Napoleon Bonaparte. One day we'll do episodes on Napoleon. Obviously, he's a fascinating bastard. But oh, yeah. We just need to go into a little bit of history, kind of about the later period of his reign, because that's where the life of Napoleon III

starts. Absolutely. So in 1808, Napoleon Bonaparte was the master of Europe. He had been born in Corsica, which was on the periphery of French power to a fairly minor noble family. He was actually more Italian than French, like the way that we would talk about it now. But Italy was not its own thing, right? It was kind of being consistently fought over by the Austrians and the French and yadda yadda. In 1789, when we have ourselves a French Revolution, Napoleon Bonaparte was a fervent supporter of the revolution. He was a Republican for a while. And I mean that in like the literal, he supported a Republican. A Republican, yes. Yeah. He was a Jacobin. Or at least he publicly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And obviously, like you could say like, oh, he was,

you know, lying the whole time, waiting to get power. But I don't know. I think people changed their opinion on stuff over time. And when I don't know, whatever, I don't know. I'm not an expert on Napoleon Bonaparte. Yeah. So he did lament the execution of the king and queen of France. But he broadly speaking, thought that the Republic was a good idea. And he served it exceptionally well in it as an officer in the military, despite the fact that he was at one point briefly imprisoned during the reign of terror. Eventually, the post-revolutionary government spoiler proved kind of dysfunctional, partly due to the fact that they kept murdering each other and a bunch of other people. Yeah. Different factions kept getting in power and

beheading the other factions. Yeah. And you know, there's a shitload of wars, which is how Napoleon Bonaparte winds up fighting in Egypt, which you might recognize as pretty fucking far from France. They had to get it before the British got it. I understand the entire, you know, like, why they did it because they're like, no, dude, if we don't do this fucking Britain is going to do it. Yeah. But it was a terrible idea. And his experience in Egypt is it's a little bit kind of like Erwin Rommel's going to be a couple of hundred years later, where he doesn't win, but everyone's very impressed with how well he does. And he kind of nearly pulls it off. So he's a war hero when he comes back to France, overthrows the government and establishes himself as first

council. We're skimming over a lot of stuff here. But yeah. Yeah. So this and a number of other things pisses off the other powers of Europe who were already not thrilled about the French Revolution. And one by one, they start coming after him. And Napoleon beats them all. He is, it is, you know, talking when you talk about like what make ranking like the quality of military commanders, you kind of have to do everyone before about World War One and then everyone after because the nature of war changes so so so drastically. But Napoleon up the first, like several thousand years of human war, being a good general pretty much always means the same thing, which is right. You have this set piece military and you were able to like you were able

to command it in a war of maneuver until bringing the other enemy to battle and defeating them, right? Like that's what makes you a good military commander. And it is it is arguable that Napoleon was the best at that that any human being has ever been. He has a military record in terms of numbers of victories in terms of number of times he was outnumbered that eclipses Alexander the Great and basically everybody else. He is he is unstoppable right up until the end when he is stopped. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, to put it in modern warfare terms, like his death to kill ratio was like amazing. And he could do like 360 no scopes all day long. That's right. He is no he no scopes the shit out of everyone in Europe for a while. Obviously, he's going to

overreach here in a little bit. But that hasn't happened in 1808. Things are doing great there. His armies dominate most of Europe. He's declared emperor in 1804. And as soon as that happens, the Bonaparts, who again had been kind of a minor noble family, are suddenly like one of the great families of Europe. They're equal to the Habsburgs and the House of fucking Windsor, right? Because all of fucking Europe is their domain. Now, Napoleon being the head of the family, because he has effectively conquered Western Europe, starts to turn the Bonaparts into the regents of territories he's conquered, right? Like they're my my brothers and cousins and shit, like I can trust them the best. So I'm going to make them kings of these areas I've captured. All right. So this whole thing,

we're just going to call it like the North Italy. Yeah. Yeah. Just rule all that shit. Okay. One of y'all bitches takes Spain and the fucking whatever, dude. This is it. Because it's so modern, like people look at this and are like, wow, this is really like gangster shit. But that's the only way that feudalism has ever worked. No, it's all just gangster shit. Gangster shit is based off of feudalism. That's that. That was your original gangster shit. So Joseph is the becomes the king of Naples and also the king of Spain. Jerome is made the king of Westphalia. And I never remember where Westphalia is, but it's somewhere in somewhere West, west of Westphalia, you would assume. You'd assume his sisters, Alisa and Pauline become princesses. His sister, Carolyn,

is made a queen of somewhere. Lucian, actually you bring up Lucian, refuses his brother. He will not bow to his like his kin. But Louis Napoleon, who is also almost as strong headed as Lucian, does reluctantly agree to serve as king of Denmark. Right. Now, it will not surprise you to learn that Napoleon Bonaparte rules his family with the same kind of iron fist as he rules every he is literally Napoleon. Right. Yeah. So he commands them to marry who he wants them to marry. He orders them to get divorced just as easily. He names their children for them. No, no Bonaparte, who accepts a royal gift is allowed to travel without his permission. He keeps them on a tight leash. But as long as their brother remains emperor, they've also got all of the wealth and influence that, you know,

they could have only dreamed of before. So it's kind of a mixed bag. As some people know, the great love of Napoleon's life is the Empress Josephine. She had two children already when they got married. And Napoleon is going to have a bunch of children with his mistresses. But for unknown reasons, she and Napoleon are unable to conceive children together. Right. They both do have kids with other people, but they just can't together. There's theories about why that I think she was too old or something. Yeah, I think the leading theory is that after she has her first two kids, something happens and she's infertile. Yeah. But obviously, we're not going to know exactly why because this is 1806 or whatever. I say zoom the body and check on those. Yeah. Get in there. Get in there.

Open it up. See what's going on. Maybe there's a little, you know, egg topic Napoleon baby in there. Do the do the do the Jurassic Park thing suck out a little bit of Napoleon Josephine DNA. And finally make that baby put him in a raptor cage have fucking Muldoon with a shotgun sitting outside feed him goats. I don't know what we're doing here. They remember. Yeah. They should all be destroyed. It would be funny to be like a Nick U doctor and do that. Like I'll dress up as both dude putting bottles in their mouths spaz 12 by your side anyway. So yeah, they are unable to have a kid together, which is a problem because Napoleon is the emperor of France and, you know, having an heir is kind of important. Yeah. So he's got some kids with his side chick Elinor,

but, you know, they're not legal kids. So eventually Napoleon is going to divorce Josephine, although he remains in love with her for the rest of his life. It's a complicated story, but he divorces her to marry a teenage girl named Mary Louise. She is 18, which is I got to say from by the standards of European royalty in the 1800s. He likes some old. Yeah. Yeah. That's true. That's true. Like that is basically like 10 years from death at this point. So yeah. Yeah, you are made. That was legally 55 years old back then. So he marries Marie Louise, who's the daughter of the emperor of Austria to try to get himself a baby that it can be his heir. But in the meantime, you know, anything could happen. You've got to he's constantly going to war and

shit. So you've got to take actions to ensure that the burgeoning house of Bonaparte has an actual line of succession. For reasons that make sense to royalists, Napoleon Bonaparte decides the best thing he can do is marry Josephine's daughter Hortense off to his younger brother, Louis, to connect the families by blood. Their children would be Bonaparte's and thus eligible to inherit the empire. Now. And again, that's actually shows kind of even though he does divorce her in this way, that's kind of fucked up that he loves Josephine because he's like, well, I'm going to make sure my heir is a mix of her blood and my blood, even though we can't see the child together, which is fascinating. I actually can't really think of another case

of something like that. It's a very interesting story. No, it's a simp. I mean, like he's the biggest Josephine simp of all time, you know, like he's he was a simp and we have all of his letters to prove it. And listen, I I am also a simp. So I just want to say a simp pride. And I don't think we should use it as a slur about that. Hey, you know what, Matt? We could call him the Simper Napoleon. Oh, here we go. All right. We got puns. All right. So as with most royal marriages, no consideration was given as to whether or not Louis and Hortense actually wanted to be in a relationship. That was not at all important to Napoleon Bonaparte. I'm going to quote now from Louis Napoleon and the Second Empire, a book by J.M. Thompson. And

this is the biography that I did not like as much. Quote, she was not in love with Louis, and he did not want to marry, but they could not withstand the emperor's will and were made man and wife by the papal legate Cardinal Caprara on January 4th, 1802. On October 10th, the same year, their first son was born, named Napoleon Charles. On October 11th, 1804, a second son named Napoleon Louis. By this time, everyone knew that the marriage was a failure. Louis neglected his wife, disliked her girlish tastes, suspected her friendships and spied on her at every turn. She pined for Paris and Malmeson and resented his puritanical discipline. So it's not a love marriage. It's not going great. She wants to have a life and he is angry

whenever she does anything but like sit like a nun in her house. Also, as a heads up, his first two kids are Napoleon Charles and Napoleon Louis. He is Louis Napoleon. Hey, everybody, Robert here. Sorry, I make a number of mistakes about royalty early on. I am trying to correct them now. He's not Louis Napoleon. He is Louis Bonaparte. Now, keep that in mind because I'm about to call him Louis Napoleon a bunch of times. It is very frustrating, but no, the brother of Napoleon Bonaparte is Louis Bonaparte. His sons are Louis Napoleon and Napoleon Louis, but they are also Bonaparte's. I'm sorry. This is very frustrating. I made some mistakes here. Their uncle is Napoleon Bonaparte. The names are going to be frustrating in the first episode or so of this. Yeah, it's going to be

difficult to tell them all apart. Yeah. So Louis Napoleon, again, the dad, Napoleon Bonaparte's brother is also one of Napoleon's best generals, right? Like this is not a case where he just like makes his brother a general and he's like Napoleon's. Louis Napoleon is a very capable field commander and he runs his house like a household of soldiers. Nothing Hortense did was ever good enough for him. It was a sad marriage and her only comfort was her confusingly named sons, Napoleon Charles and Napoleon Louis. Like all tales of European nobility, this again has about 100 people with the same name and we'll do the best here. So Napoleon Bonaparte is an interesting guy. He's a monster and I mean, he kills millions of people or gets them killed,

but he also is like a weirdly understanding dude in some ways. And he saw the way that his brother Louis was acting in the marriage and from a castle in Poland where he was with the time living with his mistress, he sends his brother a letter, quote, your quarrels with the Queen are becoming public property. If only you would keep for family life, the fatherly and effeminate disposition you exhibit in the sphere of sphere of government and apply to public affairs, the severity that you display at home, your young wife, like a regiment of soldiers, you have the best and worthiest wife in the world and yet you are making her unhappy. Let her dance as much as she likes. She is just the age for it. Do you expect a wife of 20 who

sees her life slipping away and dreams of all she is missing to live in a nunnery or a nursery with nothing to do but bathe her baby. Make Hortense happy. She is the mother of your children. The only way to treat her with all the only way to treat her is with all possible trust and respect. It's a pity she is so virtuous. If you were married to a flirt, she would lead you by the nose but she is proud to be your wife and is pained and repelled by the mere idea that you may be thinking poorly of her. That's like pretty good actually. He's 100% right and it's also coming from a place of like, do you know how lucky you are to have a lady who's not cheating on you all the time? Yeah. All Josephine did was cheat on me and I love her still. You know how lucky you are.

Yeah, I do. It does kind of make me like him more to hear him be like, dude, let her dance. She's a kid. What do you want? Chill out. Stop being a dick. It is funny that Louis Napoleon was basically like, you know, all she wants to do all day is dance and other girl stuff and it's like, can we ride a fucking horse, please? It's interesting too. The Bonaparts are fascinating because Louis Napoleon is a dick at this point. He's going to evolve into like the only correct person in the entire story. This Louis Napoleon, not his son, also Louis Napoleon. Well, this is Louis Bonapart. Sorry, not Louis Bonapart. His son is Louis Napoleon. I hate the fucking names. Yeah. Yeah. So shortly after sending this letter, Louis Napoleon's son,

young Napoleon Louis, or sorry, Louis Bonapart's son, young Napoleon Louis. I'm having a stroke, dude. It's horrible. He gets one of the infinite number of sicknesses that little kids get back then and he's soon dead as hell. Very sad. Yeah. This tragedy shocks Louis Bonapart into acting less like a piece of shit for a little while, like he tries to be chill with his wife because their kid just died. He's doing his best. He's not like a goblin. For his part, Napoleon Bonapart is concerned about the fact that he's down in air, right? But to his credit, he doesn't focus primarily on that. He focuses his attention on Hortense. Again, he really loves her like a daughter and he writes to her that he's worried because, quote, you have lost interest in life and are

indifferent to everything. So, which is also an understanding way to feel in that situation. But it's also interesting that he recognizes that. This makes Charles Napoleon the heir to the Empire, which is quite a lot of pressure. That pressure gets eased a little bit on April 20th, 1808, when Louis Bonapart and Hortense have their third son, who they named Louis Napoleon Bonapart. So, we just lost Napoleon Louis. Now we've got Louis Napoleon, who's the focus of the episode, son of Louis Bonapart. So, Louis Bonapart is the king of Holland, brother of Napoleon Bonapart. His sons, Charles Napoleon and Louis Napoleon are now the kids that are alive. I hate this too. It's very frustrating. You would think you would have learned from this by now, but I was just

reading that 10 percent of the U.S. Senate is now made up of Johns. Unbelievable. Should be illegal. Should be a crime. Like, did we not learn from Napoleon? Get a new name. You know what else should be a crime, fellas? Allowing the Great Lakes to exist unmolested. Absolutely. That's the real sedition. Fuck this January 6th shit. We need to investigate sympathizers with the Great Lakes. Speaking of the Great Lakes, have you heard the viral song about Michigan's governor, Gretchen

Whitmer, called Big Gretch? Because it's a vibe. Is it like a pro Gretch song? Like fuck with us. We got Big Gretch. It made me, as a person with relatives from Michigan, it made me laugh. It's only Michigan. Yeah, only Michigan would think. Can we keep the Great Lakes in Michigan and just get rid of the ones that aren't in Michigan? Which is like Michigan, the one that's in Michigan? You know, do you guys remember when we did debathification in Iraq?

That's what we need to do with the Great Lakes. Yeah, we need to debath it, make it not a giant bath no more. I don't know what I'm saying. I'm losing my mind. I haven't slept in eight days. Yeah, we should do that with the Lake Superior and all the lakes, dude. Destroy them. The Great Lakes are the real cabal, you know? I agree. I agree 100%. 100%. Anyway, do you hear that, Kanye? It's not the people who you think are Let's go death con three. Let's go death con three on the Great Lakes. Death con three. Napoleon's going to be like fucking Cyrus the Great, or fucking Kanye is going to be like Cyrus the Great ordering them in to whip the lake. Yes, yes. That's the shit we

need, baby. I love a good Cyrus the Great reference on you. Oh man, he was pretty good. He was pretty good. Here's some ads. During the summer of 2020, some Americans suspected that the FBI had secretly infiltrated the racial justice demonstrations. And you know what? They were right. I'm Trevor Aronson, and I'm hosting a new podcast series, Alphabet Boys. As the FBI sometimes, you gotta grab the little guy to go after the big guy. Each season will take you inside an undercover investigation. In the first season of Alphabet Boys, we're revealing how the FBI spied on protesters in Denver. At the center of this story is a raspy voiced, cigar-smoking man who drives a silver

hearse. And inside his hearse was like a lot of guns. He's a shark, and not in the good and bad ass way. He's a nasty shark. He was just waiting for me to set the date, the time, and then for sure he was trying to get it to happen. Listen to Alphabet Boys on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Lance Bass, and you may know me from a little band called NSYNC. What you may not know is that when I was 23, I traveled to Moscow to train to become the youngest person to go to space. And when I was there, as you can imagine, I heard some pretty wild stories. But there was this one that really stuck with me about a Soviet astronaut who found himself stuck in space with no country to bring him down. It's 1991, and that man,

Sergei Krekalev, is floating in orbit when he gets a message that down on earth, his beloved country, the Soviet Union, is falling apart. And now he's left defending the Union's last outpost. This is the crazy story of the 313 days he spent in space, 313 days that changed the world. Listen to The Last Soviet on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. What if I told you that much of the forensic science you see on shows like CSI isn't based on actual science? The problem with forensic science in the criminal legal system today is that it's an awful lot of forensic and not an awful lot of science. And the wrongly

convicted pay a horrific price. Two death sentences and a life without parole. My youngest, I was incarcerated two days after her first birthday. I'm Molly Herman. Join me as we put forensic science on trial to discover what happens when a match isn't a match and when there's no science in CSI. How many people have to be wrongly convicted before they realize that this stuff's all bogus. It's all made up. Listen to CSI on trial on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. We're back. I've just been ogling pictures of Cyrus, the great incredible calves. Oh, yeah. I have a time machine. I only use it to get photos of the calves of historical hotties.

Could a stop 9-11 shows not to? Just let that one happen. I went back to 9-10 just to be like, I ain't stopping this. I ain't nothing. Anyway, let's talk about all of the different people named Louis Napoleon. That's so annoying. His father, who is Louis Bonaparte, not Louis Napoleon, but who I will probably mistakenly call Louis Napoleon another couple of times in this story. 100%. Yeah. Periodically is going to be a dick, but pretty much after this point, he gets increasingly chill. So, you know, people grow over time. The marriage, though, between Louis Bonaparte and Hortense is unhappy enough that Louis asks his brother, Napoleon Bonaparte, for permission to have a divorce soon after the birth of Louis Napoleon, the focus of our episode.

But since Napoleon had just divorced Josephine so he could marry a teenager to have babies, felt that imperial prestige had taken enough of a hit from the divorce already, and so he told his brother no. So the earliest years of Louis Napoleon's life included frequent fights between his mother and father and long periods of separation where he generally spent time with his mom. He does not really have a relationship with his dad for most of the first, like, 14 years of his life. That's why he's so tiny. It's stunted his growth. It's stunted his growth. That's right. That's right. Dads are how you get tall. Now, it is unlikely that he had much memory of the period in which his father was king of

Holland because in 1810, when he's two, Louis Bonaparte has a series of fights with his brother. And it all came down to Napoleon Bonaparte's controlling nature. He wanted his brothers to act as regents only if he do what they said, acting as his proxies. And Louis Bonaparte is a guy with some integrity. He's like, well, if I'm the king, then I should be like making my own decisions. And when he realizes that that's not OK, he's like, well, fuck it, I abdicate. I don't. Right. Yeah. What's the point of me being a king if my stupid brother is just going to tell me how to do kinship? Yeah. So he quits. He flees to Bohemia, leaving his wife in charge of the kid. And now that his brother isn't king anymore, Napoleon doesn't care if

they stay together. And he gives Hortense a pile of money to live peacefully in Paris with her sons, his who are still his heirs, right? Right. Their kids are still his heirs to the throne. Yeah. Now, as is sometimes the case, things between Louis Bonaparte and Hortense get better after they split up. They just are not people who should have ever been married. Right. And the two remain married, but separated the rest of Hortense's life. This is probably best for everyone involved. But it means that as little Louis grows up, his father is this distant seldom seen seen figure. He deeply admires his dad because his dad's a war hero and a former king, but he doesn't know him well. And as Hortense had found, it was very

difficult for him to be good enough for Louis Bonaparte. One biography writes that during this time he, quote, knew of his father only as an enemy. Some sources have claimed that Emperor Napoleon himself kind of sailed into the gap to act as the main male role model for Louis during this period. This is sort of true, but not in a way that means he was like there regularly. It's still probably means the young Louis Louis has like five memories of ever meeting the guy. Biographer J.M. Thompson writes, quote, Louis Napoleon would be too young to remember more perhaps than the impression of a sleek, tubby, talkative little man who took him on his knee, lifting him alarmingly by his head, a man with a menacing eye and a habit of shouting behind

closed doors at ministers or ambassadors. It was the rule that Hortense and her children should dine once a week at the Tullaris, where the Emperor would make them sit at the table and tell them stories from La Fontaine between conversations with the actors, architects, or officials who might have business to do with him. Now, La Fontaine, and that's who Napoleon Bonaparte, these kids who are his heirs, he's reading them stories from this French author who writes fables, right? La Fontaine is a French author who wrote fables in the late 1600s. And I wanted to know like, what kind of bedtime stories did Napoleon Bonaparte think were like valuable to give his heirs? Because you have to assume he was a pretty intentional guy,

like he picked them for a reason. I found a write up by Russell Gannum that explains why Napoleon likely thought these stories in particular were good to raise his young heirs with, quote, quote, for the most part, the discourse on authority communicated in the illustrated fables portrays a kind of enlightened despotism that advocates centralized authority, but one that protects those who do not wield influence and affirms their right to respect grievance or express grievances, which is kind of the way the Napoleon runs things. Like, you're not, it's not totalitarian. You're allowed to like make fun of him and stuff. It's just like, kind of liberal because he knows it doesn't matter. He was an enlightened despot. That's

exactly right. Yeah, he's like, listen, I have all the power. I have the best army in the world. You guys can talk a little bit of shit. That's yeah, you can talk some shit. Yeah, that's fine. As master of Europe, Napoleon is like traveling a lot. He spends less than 150 days in Paris during the time that he was emperor and Louis is a human being. So again, not around a lot. By the time Louis was four, Napoleon had gone off to fight in Russia, which goes as well, goes as well as fighting for Russia usually goes for everyone, including Russia. It is doesn't end well. Yeah. He loses his empire. This leads to a brief period where the Bonaparte family are still in position across Europe, but the allies have like forced Napoleon into exile.

They send troops into Paris. And oddly enough, this is not a bad memory for young Louis, Napoleon. So Alexander, the it's the second or the third, he's the Alexander who's going to become czar. He's he's he's Nikki's dad, right? So hey, Robert here, I fucked up again. So again, royalty, very frustrating. Alexander the first was already czar when he entered Paris in 1814. He is going to be he's the brother of czar Nicholas the first, who is the father of czar Alexander the second, who is the father of Nicholas the second, who is the Nikki that we covered in our four parter. He's the one with Rasputin and the getting murdered and all that stuff. Again, royalty, very frustrating, very complicated. Too many names that are the same.

And he's not the czar yet. He's the czar of it, right? He's new. But he winds up with his army in the French capital in 1814. And he actually becomes really close with Hortense and Louis Napoleon and his brother, Napoleon Charles or whatever. Despite having watched like, again, Alexander helps wage one of those devastating wars in history against her father in law. But despite all this, he's extremely kind to Hortense and becomes a close friend, often showing up to check in on her. He just kind of recognizes, well, her, you know, her, her, her, her dad and her, or sorry, her mom and her father in law, basically, have been like forced out. This is scary. You know, I'm gonna I'll check in on her. She's a young mom and six.

I just want to make sure you're doing OK. I've been killing all your peoples. Yeah, this this is the guy who will have a who will who will force a train conductor to crash a train drunkenly and then blame it on the Jews. So not shouldn't be mistaken about how quality a man this is. So he's like he's he's he's becomes close to the family. Six year old Louis Napoleon is so grateful to the future czar for comforting his mother that during one visit, quote, the little fellow sidled up to him and quietly placed one of the czar's upon one of the czar's fingers a ring in which his his uncle Prince Eugene, the vice-roy of Italy, had given him the boy on being asked by his mother what he meant by this

said, I have only this ring, which my uncle gave me, but I have given it to the emperor Alexander because he has been so kind to you, dear mama. Oh, and czar Alexander keeps the ring for the rest of his life. So that's cool. That's really sweet. That is sweet. Yeah, he's a sweet kid. Like again, he's like six at this point. He hasn't done anything wrong. This is just like a guy who's nice to his mom in a difficult time. Now, if you know the Napoleon story, you know, he's back from exile pretty quick. He just kind of sails to France. They send the army to stop and he's like, Hey, army, you remember that? Like, we used to be cool. What have we did it again? And they're like, Absolutely, Napoleon. Let's fucking do it.

My favorite part about it is that like the the Bourbons were back for like six months. They have like a couple of months. Yeah. And then people were just like, Oh, this fucking sucks. And Napoleon just walks over like, Can I be emperor again? And all the army's like, Yep. Well, let's do it. Yep. He is hard to overstate how popular Napoleon Bonaparte is. Very popular. Very popular. Yeah. So for a little bit, the Bonaparte's are the first family in Paris again. This does not last very long. The last time Louis Napoleon will ever see his uncle is the night before Napoleon departs to march with his army for Waterloo. As he says goodbye to his heir, Louis Napoleon tells tells Napoleon Bonaparte, quote, Sire, I don't want you to go

to the war. Those wicked allies will kill you. The emperor was standing next to his number one military commander, Marshall suit. So I don't know how to pronounce that fucking name. Napoleon could not bring himself to hug his heir because, you know, it's 1812. So he tells suit, embrace the child, Marshall. He has a good heart. Perhaps one day he will be the hope of my race. I could not hug the child. I will have my chief military commander. Shake my child's hand. He's just weeping. Shake his hand. Shake his hand. Don't wipe his tears. That's too kind. Yeah. So after this, Napoleon marches off to Waterloo. Doesn't go well for him. He gets exiled for the final time somewhere in that period. Bill and Ted take him into the 1980s.

I forget exactly when his family never sees him again, though. After this point, the Bonaparte's are pariahs in Europe, right? They lose their kingdoms. They are for it is illegal to exist in France as a Bonaparte after this period. They are banned from the country. Yeah. Some of that is because the the Bourbon family takes over and they're like, we can't let these people ever exist in France again. And another part of it is that like all of Europe is frightened of Napoleon in a way that like there's really not a guy like that. It's like if yeah, I don't know. I don't know that there's ever been like Hitler's the closest, but it's kind of like we hate Hitler because he was just like this monstrous engine of evil. Napoleon is like just feared because of how quick he like

he was just very competent, right? Yeah. And he was yeah. He was doing all of the things that like really like were a threat to I think royal royalism in general. Like not only was he like had the best army in the world was super super popular, you know, like Royals don't need to be popular. They just need to be more powerful. He is. He's popular and he's liberalizing. So he's doing everything wrong. It's like he represents probably the biggest threat to royalism in Europe ever at this time. If you if you read the way they talked about him, like the the crown other crown heads of Europe, they talk about him like an alien or a plague like a monster like like like something supernatural. That's that's the way. So anyway, they are on the run basically, like his family is

on the run in Europe for a while because nobody will fucking take them. Louis the 18th is installed as king of France. I'm going to veer between using Louis and Louis a number of times as I'm going to mispronounce most of the French things in this episode. You can you can deal with it. Look, if you want someone who can pronounce things and is competent, listen to Mike Duncan, you know, exactly. I love Mike Duncan. I love Mike Duncan, but he can't pronounce things. He tries real hard, though. He's better than me. Oh, yeah, 100 percent. He's better than most. I like that he tries. Yeah, he tries. We are not going to try all that. No. So that's what this podcast is about. Not your god. You're goddamn right. It is madly. So he agrees to preserve.

He had agreed when he had taken power the first time before Napoleon came back to preserve all of the liberties granted by the Revolutionary Constitution. He doesn't do this when he comes back the second time. He cracks down a lot more that time. They're like, we're doing the white terror. How about that? He also he doesn't get to make it an absolute monarchy again, because like the Republicans are still very powerful in France. We're like, all right, well, if you push too far, we did murder all of you once. Like this could happen again. Let's not be too fucking cocky, right? Yeah, you know, we'll do it. So under Louis the 18th, France returns to being kind of a mid level power in Europe, right? They are certainly nowhere near the heights they had

experienced under Napoleon, which they don't love. He intervenes after a few years in a Spanish Civil War, taking Madrid from rebels who had deposed the king. But he removes his troops once the fighting is done, which kind of proves to the British that France is no longer like trying to take over Europe. Louis the 18th dies in September 1824, when Louis Napoleon is 16 years old. Now, his father had finally become a more regular force in his life two years earlier. Again, Louis Bonaparte, his chunk of the family had spent the intervening years after Napoleon's defeat living kind of as nomads, sometimes hounded by the authorities. It was not until 1817 that Hortense received permission to settle in Bavaria with her son. Soon after,

she was allowed to settle in Switzerland to where she moved on to a fancy estate and her oldest son goes off to live with it. So Napoleon Charles goes off to live with Louis Bonaparte. But Prince Louis Napoleon, who is still technically Napoleon Bonaparte's heir or second heir after his older brother, lives in Switzerland with his mom, right? That's where he grows up. And he's, yeah, I'm going to quote now from the book, The Shadow Emperor by Alan Strauss Schoem, which is the book about Napoleon III that I enjoyed, quote, the past couple of years of continuous personal upheaval and uncertainty had taken a permanent toll on both Hortense and her son, Louis Napoleon. Always at the back of her mind was the anxiety that soldiers would once again appear on her doorstep

with signed orders from the British Foreign Office and the other four members of the Allied Coalition to expel her and her young family from yet another country. That young Prince Louis Napoleon had become as cautious and wary as his mother of people and of the preferred friendship of newcomers was hardly surprising. For the first time in his life, the young nine-year-old Prince Louis Napoleon had a permanent roof over his head in 1817, his first home in Augsburg, where he soon attended regular classes at the gymnasium or high school with other members of the aristocracy and haute bourgeoisie. He was cautiously happy. Gradually, the anxiety of the volcanic events of the last three years following the fall of Napoleon now eased his new daily route. His

classes were in German, of course, and he quickly became fluent in that language, gradually coming to the point where he spoke French at home with a German accent, which remained with him for the rest of his life. And sorry, his older brother is 16. He's nine when they get a permanent home. So it's worth noting that even at the worst points in their flight, the Bonaparte's were never anything but very wealthy and comfortable. The other crowned heads of Europe may have hated and feared Napoleon, but they hated the idea that high royalty could ever become poor or destitute even more, right? It's kind of more frightening for them to think that someone could fall that far. So as a result, the Bonaparte's keep their fortunes and continue. When I say

they're like living as nomads, they're like traveling between mansions and estates and castles, right? Often living at someone else's castle for a while, but still a castle. None of them are ever living in shacks and wearing like a burlap sack for clothes. They're doing rich people's shit, but they're like, you know, they don't have the deed to the property maybe. Yeah. It's like when a billionaire goes to prison and his prison is nicer than like anyone you know. Any of my any of my L.A. U.S.D. schools that I went to for 12 years. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. You're just like, why is this nice? You guys have faster internet than my high school. So as a result of all this, Lewis Napoleon grows up fearing not the allied nations who had broken

his uncle, but his own father, right? And it's not the fear. He's not afraid that his dad's going to hit him. His dad, as far as I know, is never physically abusive. And I don't even think he's mentally abusive. Really? He's instead just intensely, constantly critical of everything his son tries to do. And normally, I'd say that's not good. But his son is a giant shithead. Lewis Napoleon is a huge shithead. So Lewis Bonaparte is right to be constantly critical of him. Biographer Alan Strauss Schoem writes, quote, no one can begin to understand Napoleon III without fully comprehending the significance of that negative father-son relationship, leaving a much battered ego and sense of self-esteem helplessly suppressed and humiliated by a twisted,

unstable father. I give you my heartfelt blessings, his father wrote following a son's first communion in April 9th, 1821. I pray that God gives you a pure and grateful heart towards him, he who was author of all that is good and he sheds his light on you, even that you may fulfill your duties to your country and your parents, and that you may understand the differences between right and wrong. This was probably the most benevolent letter his father ever wrote. It was to prove as rare as snows of the Sahara. So a particularly fascinating example of the relationship between these two guys comes in January of 1829, when at age 21, Lewis Napoleon, who, you know, he's done a mandatory period of service in the Swiss military at this point,

he's gonna become an officer there eventually, he decides he might want to take up a military career as a more permanent thing. Now this is obviously the Bonaparte family business, his father's a very good general, his uncle's the best of all time, and you might think Lewis Bonaparte would have approved this son joining the military. But Lewis has just fought through the worst war, maybe in human history up to that point, and he's kind of been like traumatized by it, he's affected by it. Yeah, he's sour on war at this point. Yeah, but yeah. So his son, Lewis Napoleon, wants to join the Russian army. And this has opened him because the Tsar, you know, is close with his mom, right? This is a thing that he can work out. Yeah,

he's got the ring. He's like, hey, I give him my ring. Yeah. No, I just want to serve. At the moment, the Russians are kind of fighting one of their brutal grinding wars against the Turks and the Balkans in the Black Sea area. And Lewis Bonaparte writes back to Lewis Napoleon that while fighting Muslim barbarians is an honorable task, it's not honorable the way his son plans to do it. He writes, quote, to be sure nothing is finer than military glory, to know that everyone is talking about you, to command armies, and to be in a position to change the destinies of people and nations. All of that, of course, is fine and attractive and cannot but excite a young gentleman's imagination. Unfortunately, one must also face a very real truth, one quite

contrary to that noble view. And that is that all war, apart from that of legitimate self-defense of one's home and nation, is in fact nothing but the act of a barbarian, which is only distinguished from that of savages and wild beasts by more satisfactory lies regarding its alleged necessity. His father continues that he should never forget, quote, one must only go to war and fight for his own country and for no others. Anyone who acts otherwise is just a mercenary, acting on contrived motives or else is simply bloody-minded, which is like the most reasonable thing anyone's ever going to say to this kid. Yeah, yeah, 100%. It's like, and bro, you, of all the countries to join, you're going to join Russia to fight in the Balkans, it just seems like.

Yeah, brah. You know what they do to soldiers in Russia? They're not even people, they just end up going like. Do you know what they do in the Balkans? Like, good God. Just like, it's nothing but like, hey, just throw people at the other people. They literally are ammo. I like that, and I find it interesting that because Lewis Napoleon is like, he starts this, but like, hey, man, I have been a famous general in the command of the most famous military leader in history. I know it's addictive. It's incredible to feel that kind of power and to feel like you're the center of the world's attention. But it's also evil. And at the end of the day, anyone who says that what we were doing, anyone who says that what anyone's doing in that is anything but like,

butchery is a liar. It's kind of cool that he not only recognizes that, but finds it so important to try to get this across to his son. Yeah, yeah. And he does it, you know, in sort of a secure, circuitous way where he's just like, no, don't you don't want to fight for some other country? Yeah. Yeah. If you have to do barbarism, you got to do it for for France. I mean, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, and Lewis Napoleon, he listens for now. He does not join the Russian army, but he's got to be too much of a bone apart to stay away from the action and the pages of history for very long. So while he's muttering about his uncle's successor on the French throne, decides to set up a military adventure of his own. And this is, I think, Charles the 10th,

is the French king at this point. He invades Algeria on the advice of his prime minister. Now, look at a map of Algeria in relation to France. There's no reason for France. France is not threatened by Algeria, right? This is not this is not like a France in Germany going to war, because they're afraid one is going to like this is pure colonial adventurism, right? Yeah. It is. Algeria at this point is an Ottoman province and the Ottomans leave it be like it's part of the Ottoman Empire. They don't govern it in a meaningful way. There's like a city there that they control and some trade routes. But mostly it's just people living in Algeria who are like, we're part of a country. What do you mean? Like, yeah. Yeah. Why are you trying to set up all

these DMVs everywhere? We're just living our lives. So the French people are, yeah. This is a complicated thing in France, right? Because there's still a lot of desire to be an imperial power like all these other countries they see around them. But also this seems like an expensive and dangerous gamble. And they're also the French people are kind of pissed at Charles the Tenth because he is kind of a revanchist, right? He's on the side of the divine right of Kings folks. One of the first things he does is he reduces the size of the eligible French electorate, the number of French people who get to vote for parliament from five million men to just 25,000. So he effectively turns it into only the very wealthiest people have any kind of a vote. And

he's hoping the part of why he invades Algeria is he's hoping it's going to distract from this. But the war does not does not go well. It turns into I mean, we all know this, right? It's like an Afghanistan kind of situation. It's it's the kind of thing that like US citizens and Russian citizens now are very familiar with, right? He invades the country and realizes this is going to be a continuing problem. Yeah, they take algae. They literally stay there till the 60s is the fucking craziest thing. They are they are there more than 100 years. And they never have a great handle on the country. No, it never goes well. But they're just like, I don't know, dude, one of them Kings fucking, you know, did it like an order a win on election or something? Anyway, it's very

important that we be here to show you how bad the shit goes for Charles the 10th. He declares victory. I think when his troops take Algiers on like July 5th and on August the second he abdicates and flees the country ahead of an angry mob. So not a great time. Again, if you're if you if you're like watching videos ever of like people rioting in Paris and like beating the shit out of cops and being like, how did France get so good at rioting? Oh, they've been doing it. They have they have been doing it. They have they have kicked a lot of governments out of the country. That is their thing. Like they got like just they they have years and years of barricade building experience, centuries of institutional knowledge of how to fuck up troops in the city.

It rules. Although I think it was Louis Napoleon, the Napoleon III, who kind of fucked it up. He does. He does. This is part of the story. Yeah. Yeah. So things being what they were, France gets a new king. This one is a member of the Orleans family. Orléans. Orléans, which means they are related to King Leopold. Leopold II and the first book. How? Look, there's a lot of fat, a lot of names I got to keep track of right now. I remember I was like Belgium, Belgium. And I was like, oh, yeah, yeah, African Congo and shit. Yeah, Leopold. I think you were just assuming he was named Louis or he is. He is. He's King Louis Philippe. The king who takes over France is Louis Philippe. Yeah. Yeah. Related to King Leopold. Leopold. Yeah. So I need

some more original names, people. He does not end the occupation of Algeria. The well to do assholes who'd urged the invasion insisted that the only thing France could not do was retreat. Everyone else kind of assumed that eventually shit would get worked out. But 100 years later, France is still fighting in Algeria, which goes to show you how wise that logic usually is. Yeah. The occupation would cost hundreds of thousands of people their lives and nearly destroy France as a political entity. They basically have a revolution over this at one point. Yeah. After like Louis Napoleon, obviously does not know any of that's going to happen. It's well in the future. And he is focused on northern Italy. So northern Italy, when Napoleon Bonaparte is running around, gets liberated

from Austrian domination. But it gets returned to Austrian domination by the Allies after Bonaparte loses. And a lot of Italians are not happy with this. They there's a dream of making Italy be its own kind of independent political entity, which it had not been for quite a long time. Right. So some of these guys form an insurgent army in northern Italy called the carbonari and Louis Napoleon and his older brother, Napoleon Louis, both moved to Rome. God, I hate the names. I'm sorry. That sucks so much. They probably got confused themselves. Which one am I? Am I Tia or Tamara? Louis Napoleon is our guy. His older brother is Napoleon Louis. They both moved to Rome and become active in the carbonari cause. Their cell gets found out and busted. They're not great

at being stealthy, right? They are. They are the heirs to Napoleon Bonaparte. It's hard for them to just kind of move around, not attract attention. Again, everyone kind of keeps an eye on what Bonaparte's are doing. Yeah. Yeah. You know, you're wearing a full on like, like in Napoleonic military garb right now. This is like a secret sec. It's like if a Hitler moved into your neighborhood, right? Like obviously a Hitler today. There's nothing. They're not responsible for anything, but you would keep an eye on who your local hitlers are. Yeah. Yeah. No, you keep an eye on your local hitlers. I'm not. I'm not going to not pay attention to what the hitlers are doing in my neighborhood peripheral view. Just look to the side of my eye, make sure they're not doing

anything weird. That's all. Yeah. Yeah. Just keep a goddamn eye on them. So anyway, the cell gets found out busted and the Napoleon's the Napoleon, the brothers Napoleon and their friends were forced out of Italy, barely ahead of the Austrian secret police because nobody trusts the Bonaparte's. The entirety of his family because a lot of his families moved to Italy at this point, including his mother and his uncle Jerome. They left to flee as well because the Napoleon boys get caught trying to overthrow the Austrian government. So none of them are thrilled with this because they're all old. They don't want to deal with this shit. They don't want to overthrow the Austrian regime in Italy. Their lives get upended. And Louis and his brother,

Napoleon Louis, Louis Napoleon and Napoleon Louis join larger groups of carbonari who are like trying to execute a march on Rome. Basically, when this purge happens, a bunch of them arm up and they try to like do they're kind of before Mussolini trying to do the march on Rome kind of thing. And Louis Napoleon sends a letter back to his father saying, quote, the enthusiasm one finds here is simply grand. The army of this army of patriots is now marching on Rome. Now, obviously, Louis Bonaparte does not approve of this. Again, he's like, don't fight anything but a defensive war and don't leave your country to fight for somewhere else. That's his opinion. He condemns the measure and he is absolutely right. This is a terrible idea. So the carbonari,

it doesn't things do not go well for them. And after all, the fucking shit is done. Louis Napoleon and his brother, Napoleon Louis, wind up in a city called Fort Lee kind of hiding out there while it has a horrific measles epidemic probably brought on in part by all of the people moving around and, you know, revolutionaries and shit. So his older brother gets sick on March 11, 1831 and is dead on by March 17, 1831. Damn, he dies of measles. He dies of measles after trying to free Italy from Austrian domination. Fuck. This now makes Louis Napoleon technically the heir to Napoleon Bonaparte emperor. Now, this is obviously very sad for the whole Bonaparte family. Louis's first grand attempt at being a hero has got has gotten his older brother killed,

but it also leads him to return to French territory for the first time in his adult life, because he and his mother have to flee the shed out of Italy. And despite the fact that King Louis Philippe has banned all Bonaparte's from France, he allows Louis Napoleon and his mother to stay basically just kind of out of sympathy like, well, your brother's dead, like you guys got kicked out of and like Louis Philippe is kind of sympathetic to the Italian national cause as most French people are, right? Because the Austrians are their big enemies. So he's like, you guys can crash or just keep quiet. Don't tell anybody that you're here and I'm not going to try to overthrow me or some shit. Just like chill. All right. And briefly, Louis Napoleon is like overwhelmed with gratitude

for this. And so he asks for permission to join the French military. And the king is like, yeah, you can join the French military. But we kind of have an issue with Bonaparte's being in the French military. So you can do it as long as you don't use your real name. And he agrees to like make him a count of something under a different name. But Louis Napoleon takes this as an insult. And he tells the king, quote, I should prefer to be laid out with my brother in his coffin first. And he proceeds to like insult the king enough that he has to flee the country. Such a bitch. Such a little ass. No matter where he goes, he's like, I will flee. I don't give a fuck. I'll

say whatever I need to say. I don't give a shit, bro. I don't give a shit. I got so many castles to crash in. So he winds up in fucking London. And for the next few years, Louis bounces around London and Switzerland. He publishes a couple of books, one on the use of artillery and another on the history of his father's rule in France and his uncle's rule in Holland or his father's rule in Holland and his uncle's rule in France. Yeah, he sends his dad Louis Bonaparte copies of this book about like Louis and Napoleon Bonaparte. And his dad is furious about this, right? And quote, ought the political policies of the head of your family of a man such as the emperor, be superficially judged by a mere young man of 24. Who are you to fucking write about what I did?

I fuck you, kid. You don't know shit. You're too young. Oh, yeah, I love it. It's basically very funny. It is. It's very funny. So Louis is heartbroken, but the Swiss army promotes him to captain over his books about artillery. So maybe his dad was being a dick here, or maybe the Swiss army doesn't know anything about artillery. You know who does know a lot about artillery? Oh, is it the Lakes Superior? It's about to. It's fucking about to, Matt. Hell yeah. Let's blow it up. During the summer of 2020, some Americans suspected that the FBI had secretly infiltrated the racial justice demonstrations. And you know what? They were right. I'm Trevor Aronson, and I'm hosting a

new podcast series, Alphabet Boys. As the FBI sometimes you got to grab the little guy to go after the big guy. Each season will take you inside an undercover investigation. In the first season of Alphabet Boys, we're revealing how the FBI spied on protesters in Denver. At the center of this story is a raspy voiced cigar smoking man who drives a silver hearse. And inside his hearse were like a lot of guns. He's a shark, and not in the gun badass way. He's a nasty shark. He was just waiting for me to set the date, the time, and then for sure he was trying to get it to happen. Listen to Alphabet Boys on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. I'm Lance Bass, and you may know me from a little band called NSYNC. What you may not know is that

when I was 23, I traveled to Moscow to train to become the youngest person to go to space. And when I was there, as you can imagine, I heard some pretty wild stories. But there was this one that really stuck with me about a Soviet astronaut who found himself stuck in space with no country to bring him down. It's 1991, and that man Sergei Krekalev is floating in orbit when he gets a message that down on earth, his beloved country, the Soviet Union, is falling apart. And now he's left defending the Union's last outpost. This is the crazy story of the 313 days he spent in space, 313 days that changed the world. Listen to The Last Soviet on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.

What if I told you that much of the forensic science you see on shows like CSI isn't based on actual science? The problem with forensic science in the criminal legal system today is that it's an awful lot of forensic and not an awful lot of science. And the wrongly convicted pay a horrific price. Two death sentences and a life without parole. My youngest, I was incarcerated two days after her first birthday. I'm Molly Herman. Join me as we put forensic science on trial to discover what happens when a match isn't a match and when there's no science in CSI. How many people have to be wrongly convicted before they realize that this stuff's all bogus? It's all made up. Listen to CSI on trial on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you

get your podcasts. We're back. And we're talking about the Davy Crockett, which was a handheld nuclear rocket that a guy could just shoot at a thing. And it'll kill you, right? You shoot, you shoot a Davy Crockett. You're probably not making it. I think the plan was for them to rear up in a motorcycle, fire it, and then fucking book it back as fast as possible. Had to be a really fast motorcycle. What a funny thing. Like when people are just like, they're just spitballing how nuclear war is going to work. What do we do to have guys in motorcycles and nuke in folks? Like let's give it a shot. Little bitty ones. We'll put a little raccoon hat on top of it. It'll be sweet. It is so goddamn funny. Anyway, we should do that to, I don't know,

what's the smallest of the Great Lakes, Sophie? You're the expert. Erie. That's my girl. Erie. Yeah, that's how we'll drop Lake Erie. Why am I the expert on the Great Lakes? Because you're near, you've lived in Michigan. I've never lived in Michigan. I have family time around there. Why do I think that? Because I have family from Michigan. Okay, that's the same. Yeah, exactly. And it's not Lake Erie because it's Lake Ontario. There's an Ontario lake? Lake Ontario is the smallest. There's too many of them too. 7,340 square miles. Do you know that off the top of your head or did you just do a quick move? You'll never fucking know,

Matt. Because that was incredible. Wow. I'm going to assume you knew it off the top of your head. Yeah, I'm that good. I'm that good. Isn't that right, Snoop from the wire? There we go. She says Europe. She might have said Europe. Anyways, back to the war in Europe. Little bay. Yeah, anyway. Yeah, back to the war in Europe. So things are rough for Lewis Napoleon. His dad has just rejected him. And in fact, when his dad writes back that he doesn't like his kid's book, Lewis Napoleon stops responding to his father's letters for six months. He finally does reply to one in 1835 that says, Mon cher papa, I receive your harsh words so very often that

I should be quite used to them by now. Regardless, every new reproach by you does indeed wound me and as painfully as on the very first occasion. Maybe his dad's a dick for not praising the book or whatever. He probably should have encouraged that. But most of what his dad's saying is, don't just join the army to go fucking fight in a war. It's bad. Don't just like fuck around with other people's lives and guns because it looks cool. Yeah, I think his dad could tell that his son was like the biggest poser. Yeah, yeah, we're going to have a problem with this kid. Yeah, this kid is a fucking poser, but like just all of our worst instincts, he thinks are cool. And we've got he's got the bone apart blood and boy, we can be problems. I know it. I can admit

that now. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we have some issues. And we really don't want this guy being encouraged. Let's just say that much. So in the summer of that year, Louis Napoleon meets a man who would set his life on a purposeful track. And this guy's name is Jean Gilbert Victor Fialen, better known as Gilbert Percigny. Can I just say brave new name? I know, I know. Gilbert Percigny. Anyway, he's the son of a tax collector and a former in CEO in the French army who had been forced out of the army because he was a Republican, right? He'd taken to work as a journalist where he had become kind of a propagandist for the Bonapartist cause. He befriends Louis largely because he's really good at kissing Louis's ass and shutting up when his social

betters start talking. He basically only speaks up to tell Louis how cool the Bonaparts are and how they definitely should become the emperors of France again. Oh, I love it. He's like the turtle from entourage of like the Bonaparts. Yeah. And he also he kind of convinces Louis Napoleon that like the king of France is misruling the country and the French people are hungry for a Bonapart to take power again. And he's not wrong. And he is not going to be wrong. So we will be talking about everything that happens after that in part due. That's the French, right? That's how the French that's French for two assholes. What a bunch of assholes. Meanwhile, the word two means you. It's like, come on guys. Nonsense. Nonsense language. It just makes no sense. Isn't that

right? Bunk. That's what French sounds like. Oh, you love to see it. Somebody fucked up when they gave you that power, Matt. They did. And they fucked up hardcore. No, that's actually what Kanye was talking about when he said no one man should have all that power. Yes, he was talking about Jewish people. Oh, shit. I just love that. It's just like he went full anti-Semite and I'm like, oh, boy, you know, I gotta have him on the soundboard. Mm hmm. God, what time it's been for Kanye for Elon. Oh, I know. For Donald Trump quite a month or two. Yeah, it's been an interesting time for neo fascists all around. Yeah, it's gonna be interesting to see where this all goes. Yep. Speaking of where this all goes, you should go watch the wire. And then you should go watch

the wire and check it out. Yeah. Listen to my podcast, pod yourself the wire, the greatest, the wire pot, the only the wire podcast ever. And I just had a baby and all I want is for you to give us five stars in a review and listen to it. Listen, if you thought Prince Charles in the latest season of The Crown was too hot, watch the wire and give Matt five stars. That's right. He's even more hot in the wire and he plays a Baltimore Irishman with a weird accent. Very weird accent. Yeah. He should have just gone with, oh, it's me, McNulty. Isn't he, he's, he's motherfucking playing Prince Charles in some show. Thank you for joining the chat. We've had this conversation twice on this episode. We've also had this chat in the, in the Amazon media

group text when I said multiple articles being like, this is not right. He looks great. Yes. It's McNulty. Prince McNulty, I'm for it. I'm for it. At first I was against it because it's too hot and then I watched and I was like, yeah, I like it. I can, I can handle it. I can hang. I do, I do like that they, they make sure to let you know that Prince Charles is much shorter than Diana. There's like, they were like, no, no, no, we're not Hollywoodizing this, this height change. Yes. We got to make him a little less man. Yeah. That's what he is. Yeah, Robert, something I do. Robert, anything, anything you want to play at the end of the year. All right, everybody. Uh, we are doing a behind the bastards live stream virtual

Wow, brave, courageous, myself and the one and only, erotic killjoy. This will be happening December 8th. You can get your tickets at momenthouse.co slash BTB and we will link and all the appropriate places. It'll be a hoot. We're going to do an episode. We're going to do a Q&A. Anything you'd like to add, Robert? Uh, never. No. Also, buy my book after the revolution, wherever the fuck you find books or on the AK press website. But you know, it's on everything. It's on all the book buying sites. Great. We'll be back. We sure will, Sophistapolis. What would you do if a secret cabal of the most powerful folks in the United States told you,

hey, let's start a coup? Back in the 1930s, a marine named Smedley Butler was all that stood between the US and fascism. I'm Ben Bullitt. I'm Alex French. And I'm Smedley Butler. Join us for this sordid tale of ambition, treason, and what happens when evil tycoons have too much time on their hands. Listen to Let's Start a Coup on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you find your favorite shows. What if I told you that much of the forensic science you see on shows like CSI isn't based on actual science and the wrongly convicted pay a horrific price? Two death sentences and a life without parole. My youngest, I was incarcerated two days after her first birthday. Listen to CSI on trial on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your

podcasts. Did you know Lance Bass is a Russian trained astronaut? That he went through training in a secret facility outside Moscow, hoping to become the youngest person to go to space? Well, I ought to know because I'm Lance Bass. And I'm hosting a new podcast that tells my crazy story and an even crazier story about a Russian astronaut who found himself stuck in space with no country to bring him down. With the Soviet Union collapsing around him, he orbited the earth for 313 days that changed the world. Listen to The Last Soviet on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.