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

Episode Date: December 1, 2022

Robert is joined again by Matt Lieb to continue to discuss Napoleon III.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. Wow. It really is funny every time. Like genuinely. Incredible opening. We really nailed it. This is behind the bastards, a policy in which I try to keep the names of all the Bonaparte straight, and I'm going to be honest, largely fail at it. No, it's going bad. It's going bad. It's going to get a lot easier soon. Eventually, Louis Napoleon is the only one

we have to care about in this story, but we are at the last stage of there being multiple Louis in this that are Bonaparte. Listen, this is not your fault, and anybody who blames you. No, no. Fuck off. This is not his fault. This is the concept of hereditary nobility's fault. This is why whenever Edward Hapsburg, the heir to the Hapsburg dynasty and a big anime fan, posts on Twitter, I send him a picture of his dead relative Maximilian, the first former emperor of Mexico. It's because of shit like this. And because he's a weird trad cat fascist, but I didn't know that there was an alive Hapsburg. That's incredible. There is. He loves he loves Catholic fascism and Miyazaki films. Oh, my God. It's incredible. He's an amazing poster.

He's like he's like an anime avatar type guy. Is that? Oh, my God. It's fucking phenomenal. I love it. It's just like, I mean, at the end of the day, you do enough inbreeding. You're going to just breed for Chan posters. That's what you're going to do. He's a wild character. Is he a griper? He's kind of on the edge of griper dump. He's not quite online enough to be one, really. That's incredible. But he spends all of his time traveling around the world, giving lectures on Blessed Carl, who was the last emperor of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. God. Let me talk about my homey Blessed Carl. Yeah. Dude, your fucking family helped ignite a conflagration that killed tens of millions of people. Maybe shut the fuck up. Shut the fuck

up and change your name. Change your name. It's like, you know what? I like about the Hitlers. I'll say this for him. Go on. Not the main one, right? But he had family and stuff who weren't Hitler who didn't like do the bad Hitler stuff. All of the branches of his family after his death independently decided to stop having kids. We're all like, you know what? But enough Hitlers. We rolled the dice on this family enough. I love it. It's a nice way of just going like, hey, you know, maybe this whole genome is trash. You know, 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 going to limit the Hitlers. I think we're good. Yeah. I love that.

Yeah. You got to give it to the Hitlers. The other Hitlers. I'm sorry. There's a segment of your listenership who hates the soundboard. I know. I know. There's no one I hate more than those people. It's okay. The people that hate the soundboard also hate that I have a microphone and also hate that Robert mispronounces things. And so we just have the trifecta for help for them this episode. And yet they keep listening. They're like a heroin addict who would shoot his dealer if he could work up the courage. So, so suck it. You should all over yourself. Pharrell. He's the deputy ops. Anyways, listen to pot yourself the water. I have a family.

It is the world's only the wire podcast. I'm madly. Hell yeah, baby. So, by the summer of 1835, Louis Napoleon had met a man who finally set his life on a purposeful track. And this is again, Gilbert Persigne, who's the the ass kisser who convinces him, hey man, people don't like the current king that much, but they love the shit out of the memory of your uncle. Yeah. You could work this into something. You can make some shit out of this. And Persigne 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 Napoleonic cause has left fond memories in the hearts of the French people, then all 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 in France. He's never lived there, really. More time in Italy. He has a German ass accent. I know, I know my France. If there's one thing I know, it's France, okay? I was born in St. Louis and have like vague memories of my time there before we moved to Oklahoma and 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 Me in St. Louis. Yes, don't worry. I will, I know about Ted Drew's. That's the only thing I remember about St. Louis. Dope ass frozen

yogurt. Fuck yeah. Or maybe it sucks. I don't remember. I was like nine the last time I ate there. Yeah. Well, like, here's the thing I can't verify is cool from a very long time ago. Podcast. Podcasts. That's right. Fuck yeah. Love podcast. Louis Napoleon sets upon a cunning plan, which is that he's just going to like march his way into France to this garrison at Strasbourg, where there's like 10,000 soldiers. And he likes that because he assumes it's I just got to say hi to those soldiers and they'll be like, 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. 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 France, right? Yeah. Yeah. No, he had like a track record. He's a famous guy. People know him. Yeah. Whereas Louis Napoleon is most famous for getting his older brother killed in Italy. So before he does to his credit, he does try to do a little bit of groundwork before he just walks off to Strasbourg. Yeah. 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 to his bosses and is like, Hey, the the heir to Napoleon Bonaparte

might be trying to take over the country in a little while, guys. I was thinking of just letting them do it because it'd be funny, but I thought I'd let you guys know. I figured I should check in. I would just check in on this. Like it's not in the manual. See it happen because it's gonna fail. It could be pretty funny. 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 six o'clock on Monday, the 30th of October, 1836, Swiss army

captain Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, now disguised in the uniform of a French colonel, attended by French general Vaudré and 10 officers, including Gilbert Persignee, marched into the Strasbourg garrison to the barracks of the 46th Infantry Regiment, where Colonel Bonaparte appealed to the men to join him. Unfortunately, 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, Theophil of Waril, in his office, he then escaped through a back door and was saved by his staff officers, joined by Waril's hysterical mother-in-law and wife, who then pummeled the bewildered Swiss captain with a 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 mother and wife of the guy he tries to kidnap beat him up. That is wonderful. I love it. He doesn't even get stopped by the army? Me? The guy's mom starts hitting him? We almost did it. We almost won, and then the mother came out to start punching me, and I was like, wow. I was not ready for this. I was not ready. Anyway. This is my vatelou. By the way, I do love that he mostly has a German accent, because it means I can start doing my German accent again. We can. That is why I picked this. I was, I was planning 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 Leem signal. When you can't do accents, all accents are correct. And the same people that hate your soundboard also hate this part too, and you know what? Fuck him. Fuck him. He did. Happy now, bitch. So a lot of people are very amused by this coup attempt. The London Times sums it up as ridiculous. The Frankfurter Zeitung calls him an unbalanced young man and asks, what on earth did he possibly expect to achieve?

Glory, I think. Yes. Yeah, that seems like it was the plan. I think it was going for like glory and, you know, something, something chill at least. At least, you know, some girls comes up a little short. So yeah, since the good news is that nobody gets hurt in this attempt, right? The most injuries anyone suffers is Lewis Napoli and getting beaten up by two ladies. Incredible. So Charles the Tenth is looking at the 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 going to be more visibility. And he is a bonapart, right? Like, I don't want to fuck that much with a bonapart because things are not things are not great for Charles the Tenth, right? He is not

on a super solid. 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. So let's just, you know, let's just try and deal with this amiably. So he gives Lewis Napoleon $200,000 in a bag and takes him to a harbor where he's put on a boat for New York City. So Louis Philippe is like, yeah, take this bag of cash and get the fuck out of here. Here's $200,000 and has his soldiers take Louis 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 fail sons continually get chances over, it's because when they do something really stupid that any other person would be executed over, you give them $200,000

in a free vacation. I agree with you. You know, it's fair to say this was a complicated problem for the king to deal with because, but yeah, I think I think you got to hang them, right? That should be the rule with Coose. I think that's a regular rule. I think we've all agreed to this rule. Well, I 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 the former president. Yes. Yeah. No, we can't say it, but you know, I mean, there's 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 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 and the Brain? You think he stops every time he fails to take over the world? No, the brain keeps going. Exactly. You got to hang the brain. I didn't brain all the time. As embarrassing as the first coup attempt goes, Louis Napoleon, isn't that put out by it? He has a good vacation. He gets to go to the U.S. He loves the United States finds it fascinating. Yeah, he's especially this is a very exciting mid 1800s. 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. He gets to watch like very early trains, which France doesn't really have yet. France is still in a lot of ways a medieval

economy. Like all transit is like carriages and shit. They're not industrializing. So while he's away, he does have a trial in absentia in France and it results surprisingly in him being acquitted. Again, the Bonaparte's have a lot of sympathy and there's a lot of things that get fucked up in this trial. It's not really worth getting that into, but he gets acquitted. Louis enjoys the United States. He finds it 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 a bad thing. Nice. So I'll give him that. I'll give him that. You gotta give credit where credit is due. Again, where people talk about, well,

you know, it was just the times like this guy sucks ass and he looks at America is like, oh, no, this is a really bad fucking shitty coups getting beat up by a couple. This guy sucks and he's like, yeah, it seems like slavery is bad. Hey, this is this fucked up guys. Yeah, this is this is this is really, this is really unpleasant. I thought my coup attempt was ridiculous, but yeah, owning people. He finds himself really admiring technology, how how how at enterprising Americans are with technology, how much they embrace like new things, how modern they are. But he also decides and concludes in 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 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 apt. Yeah, that's kind of hit the nail on the head there. That's not a bad summary to for us now. Yeah, yeah, no, that's that is remained true. Yeah, credit where it's due. He kind of had our number. So he had to cut his trip to the United States short. After about six months, I think he wanted to spend

more time, see more of a continent. But then his mom gets sick. And you know, he's a mama's boy. He returns home to be with her. Well, she died. She dies in his arms, yada, yada, yada, sad stuff. Look, they've all been dead for 200 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. Yeah. Plotting. Plotting. He goes back to England with a coterie of backers. He does decide to like, yeah, he goes back to England with this coterie of backers, a mix of bankers, financiers, former French military officers and conmen pretending to be former French military officers. And he decides to put together a more ambitious plan to seize the throne. And we're going to talk about

all of that and his flight from Switzerland. But first, Matt, what do you, how do you, how do you feel about the concept that out there, the largest freshwater bodies are just sitting around our border with Canada, fucking fat and lazy. Yeah, pretend to be oceans full of fish. We know damn well they're not. We know goddamn well they're not, you know, being natural borders to Canada. Socialist Lakes. Socialist Lakes. This has been a paid advertisement for the campaign to fucking nuke the goddamn shit out of the Great Lakes. Nuke the Lakes. Turn it into steam. Use that steam to power engines, to blow up more lakes. That's right. That's right. We could be nuking all the lakes by this time 2025. Think of all the lowland we could create by blowing up the

lakes. And we'll get water in Southern California again. I assume. Exactly. No one's proven it wouldn't work that way. Yeah. Science. Yeah. Get ahead of it. Get ahead of it. Blow up a lake. Nuke a couple of lakes. Anyway. And speaking of nuking lakes. Yeah. I got a pee. Oh, okay. Can I run and pee? You were about to take a commercial break. This is a break. We've got a minute. 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 with like a lot of guns. He's a shark and not in the good and bad ass way. And nasty sharks. He was just waiting for me to set the date, the time, and then for sure he was trying to get it to heaven. 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 podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Oh, my God, we're back from outer space. I just walked in to find Matt Leib here with that. Come all over my face. Oh, wow. Okay. Oh, sorry. Did I go too fast? No,

no, that's the way you do a yes and, you know, you just keep building, baby. I do a yes and. My version is yes and was that okay? I always like to ask that after. Yes and was I allowed to and like that? That's how I go. Was that acceptable to you? Yes. This is why I failed at the groundlings. Oh, gosh, I never did the groundlings. I've never taken an improv class. And it shows. Neither have I. Neither have I. I knew too many people who were into improv and decided absolutely not. Same. Never, never. Hard same. Yeah. It is weird because like one out of 100 of the like improvisers that I know or that I've seen, I'm like, that's the funniest person I've ever seen. Yes. But then that means 99% are just terrible. Well, every terrible improv person we've

ever needed was just the price we all paid as a society to get Tim Robinson. Exactly. Exactly. And you know what? Still not worth it. And a lot of people want to say like, oh, well, you know, stand up comedy is also a bit, yeah, but at least stand up comics are sad and bad. Yeah. You know, the improvisers, they're just like happy and bad and that's not fair. It 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 1837, when Louis Napoleon tried his ill-fated attempt to coup the French government, the first one, he had already 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, in fact, a paid vacation meant that he had not been incentivized against trying again. Look, if if you spent a day failing to take over France and got like lightly beaten up and then was given $200,000, do you think you might try to take over France again? 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, oh, that's a job. Apparently my job is trying to go over France every once in a while. Go to America, have fun. Behavioral psychology is a complex field.

But most people will agree, when you give someone $200,000, that's an incentive. Yeah, yeah. You don't have to be Adam Smith to know that. No, you really don't. This is very simple economics. Yeah, this is human behavior even. 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 far outside of politics. Take an improv class, please, Louis Napoleon.

Yeah, he begs him to avoid, quote, what I referred to as the great affairs of the world. He's basically like, 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. Yeah, it sucks. Not fun. He is desperately trying to give his son the best advice possible. His kid does not listen.

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 a rich kid. You hit the like inheritance jackpot. Just live your life and enjoy it. Like make some art or something. Louis Napoleon is not going to take this advice.

So the French government. My dad keeps buying me guitars and telling me to start a band and is 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've betrayed, you've betrayed cocaine.

You might really like it actually. You know what? Don't stop trying to get me to do coke. Paid these hookers to come over and party with you. We got a rave room set up in the in the feast hall. 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 it. He's just doing anything possible to get him to not be into doing war. He's just like, no, dad. Yeah, I do not want to fuck these ladies anymore. Please. It is so funny. Stop trying to get my dick wet. Okay.

So the French, the French government keeps heavy like police, secret police surveillance on the entire Bonaparte family now. And this is again, Lewis's family are never happy with him. He gets his brother killed. He gets them forced out 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 Lewis 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. This goes so far as King Louis Philippe sends an army of 20,000 men to the border of Switzerland. Like Switzerland and France are kind of on the edge of a major war for a little while. But, and this causes problems for Lewis, Napoleon and Switzerland,

but it does not have the effect that Lewis Philippe wants it to have. Because war tensions between the two countries are high for months, which means the news is constantly reporting on this, which means Lewis Napoleon's name is constantly in the French paper. If you remember Donald Trump, all 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. And kind 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 Lewis Napoleon, the same lesson that like Trump and a lot of other authoritarians, like populist authoritarians are going to learn a long time later. One French minister wisely noted at the time, quote, no one in France can ever again forget Lewis Napoleon's name. And soon he will be even more dangerous than he was before the Strasbourg affair. He's kind of the first and again, 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. Yeah, especially if you're like, you know, letting 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. He goes to London, which is, you know, number one, the Brits are happy to have him. Because even though they didn't have a good relationship with the Bonaparts,

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 to bat like anything that fucks with France a little bit. Enemy of my enemy, dog. Exactly. And also like, France can't threaten England. Nobody can threaten England right now, right? Like, yeah. We got all the boats and you ain't got no boats here. You ain't got shit in boats. Yeah, you got all the boats here.

In boats. Yeah. You got all the people, but you ain't got no boats. The Queen's got all the boats. What are you going to do? You just effortlessly summed up 350 years of British foreign policy. That's what it is. Plains ain't been invented yet, innit? You've got to have to take a boat here. And the waters are cold enough to be frozen so you can walk over here. Oh, that's funny to think.

If there had been like one cold snap in like the period from 1600 to 1940, where people could have walked across that England would have been gone. Nothing gone. Absolutely gone. Gone. Oh, so that would have been awesome. Yeah. So, um, yeah, he goes to London and he takes with him Gilbert Persigny and around like 20 other of his big supporters, including an Italian banker named Giuseppe Orsi, who's going to be funding his next attempt to take power.

I'm Napoleon. I'm going to give you the money. No, I'm just doing all accents. I'm losing my mind. You are my Pinocchio. Yeah, Giuseppe. So Great Britain gives them all trampled documents, mostly because, again, they figure he's going to fuck with France again, which is correct.

So he spends the next little bit, a couple of years living in England, living in London specifically. He goes to all these high society parties. He's very, he's very in demand. You know, he's Napoleon's nephew. He's Prince Bonaparte. And he makes a lot of connections with powerful backers in other parts of Europe who want to fuck with France for some reason or another. And he starts plotting his next coup attempt. He also, you know, to his credit, he's not,

he's dumb in a lot of ways. He's 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 tourism. They're not talking about going to a sandals. Yeah, yeah.

In 1839, while he's in London, the British Empire takes possession of Hong Kong and the East India Company occupies Aden. 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 is ancient. It is decrepit. Again, there's fucking trains 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 that's a hundred percent of transit. Praying to God that the harvest comes in. They don't got much in the way of technology. It's bad. Social life has also stagnated again because King Louis Philippe is kind of a revanchist. He's trying to take things back to the absolute monarchy days,

not with a ton of success. And yeah, the emperor or the king's hold on power is just not great. Alan Strauss Schoem sums up what Louis Napoleon took from this in his writings from 1840. 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 too 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 run his future empire, give the masses the vote. But all voting would be dictated by the leader of the country, Alla Bonaparte. Napoleon I had, of course, completely manipulated his national plebiscites without apologies.

That system worked. It did. So it did. That's that's his thinking. Later that year, still convinced that the people of France would back him and 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 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 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 hit them with a brick, right in the face. A hundred percent.

A hundred percent. Brick them. Anyone who says that, give them a bricking. That is fascism 101 shit right now. And in a lot of ways, part of why I picked him, Louis Napoleon, he's not a fascist. Fascism does not exist yet.

But he is the most direct precursor to 20th century fascism that you get prior to that period. He is in a lot 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 Hitlerian and Mussolini and whoever you say that I somehow, I as an individual embody the national will

and have been kind of chosen by Providence to take this country in a direction like away from this to steer it in where it needs to go. Right. Like that is very much a fascist attitude. And it's not, again, fascism owes a lot of its DNA to feudalism 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. Interesting guy, interesting period in history. He's got, yeah, it's the proto-fascism in that it's like the aesthetics of the past in history 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 sure is, my friend. It sure is. So our man charters a steamboat with 56 men. 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? This is his coup attempt squad. And this is, I got to tell you,

we talk about coups quite often on this show. We've talked about the Wanga coup, which is a very funny failed coup. There's elements of humor in Hitler's failed coup and a number of other failed coups. This is the funniest coup failure I have ever heard of. This is amazing. So the whole attempt has been funded

by Count Giuseppe Orsi, who's this banker. He secured like 2.2 millionish modern equivalent dollars. When I say a number of like how much money is shits worth, I'm always speaking like the equivalent modern term. I'm not like this many fronks, because what does 16,000 fronks mean to anybody listening to this?

Like whatever. About 2.2 million modern dollars in funding from a variety of backers. So this boat with these 56 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 as to the plan. So once they get off the French coast, he tells everybody, get into these French army uniforms. We're all going to dress like regular French soldiers. Where's the hat? Please.

Put the hat on. No, I get the big one. I get the big one. The biggest hat is mine. The biggest hat is mine. I get the good sword, but you guys get the other ones. So they all are armed with copies of French army guns that they've purchased in Birmingham.

Again, the gun industry, there's not really any gun control in most of the European states. 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 use 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, in most of them are. In the Strasburg 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. Figures, maybe the issue when I got beat up by those two ladies was that I didn't have enough rank. Yeah, I knew more stripes on my shoulders. So people would have never seen me. She wouldn't have hit me if I had the stars. If I had all the stars and all the stripes

and people would be like, oh, 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. There we will find powerful, devoted friends waiting on us. The soul of Jack Obstacle is blown, 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, yeah. Then history 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 be, 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. Yeah, it's the whole thing.

So he has a general with him, right? You know? Because 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 de Monthalon.

Now, impressive name, right? Here's how the book The Shadow Emperor describes this guy. Just about everything about him was either phony or bizarre, beginning with the title he used of Marquis. He was only a count and quite a new one at that. Allegedly wounded and having served with Napoleon from Holland Linden to Waterloo, it was all lies. Indeed, he not only had never served in a single battlefield,

but he had refused to do so when so ordered. Not content with that, he had reneged on gambling debts and topped that off by stealing 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 confidant. Promised a major legacy from Napoleon's will,

Monthalon had on at least two occasions administered arsenic in Napoleon's wine, greatly weakening him and leading to his death. And it was this charlatan, coward, thief and murderer, whom Louis Napoleon had unwittingly appointed to head his campaign. That is beautiful, that is beautiful. I love it.

He was just like, no, no, this guy is wearing all his right clothes. He knows my dad. He knows my uncle, yeah. Yeah, knows my uncle. And, you know, he said he was there in Saint Helena. They used to give him lots of drinks. It was fun.

Yeah, he'll take command. He's been a general. Yeah, of course I trust him. Look at that smile. It's great. He gives me such confidence. He is a true confidence man. Now, I will give Louis Napoleon some credit.

The boat guys he hired do their job competently. They get everyone to shore. Everyone gets to France and is on France, which is, given how the rest of this goes, kind of amazing. I got to say, you know it's going to go bad when you're giving credit to the guys who made the boat go. Yeah, they did succeed in reaching land from the sea. They succeeded in the boat going to where the boats go.

That is the last success. 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. That's a different guy's job. Getting the captain of the ship. No, nobody told us it was quiet, right? That's a different guy's job.

No one ever said it was a quiet boat. I take boat from point A, point B. You guys do rest. A customs agent hears them coming to shore. Like a customs guy. A guy whose job is to make sure boats don't land in France without paying taxes. And he walks up to them and is like,

so what's going on here? 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 belittled 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. Via French, serving 106th Airborne. Yeah, this airborne exists. Via Zeperas Rupas. Oh, it's just one thing we know. It's we are definitely not invading.

This is not a coup. This customs agent gets further suspicious because when he asks questions of the group, there's not like, normally when you have a military unit and you as another member of the military in an official capacity ask questions of that unit. Normally like one person is going to reply, right?

Because there's a chain of command. 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. The guy dressed as a general, Lewis Napoleon,

is too anxious. He gets like stage fright, so he can't say anything. Meanwhile, the other general, Montvalan, basically hides because he's never been a general and does not know how to actually respond. Yeah, and his number one thing is hiding when war comes. Yes, that is kind of what he's best at. That's what I'm known for in real life.

None of these guys know what they're doing and the customs agent like confused, but like, well, they all do look like French soldiers. It's 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 colonels, former French army colonels that Lewis Napoleon has gathered to his coup attempt suddenly shouts, do you know who you're escorting? It's Prince Napoleon himself. What the fuck? And then another man cries out, Bologna's ours and France will soon proclaim the Prince Emperor of France.

Now, the customs agent, whose name is Lieutenant Bolly, gets kind of suspicious at this. So he's like, all right, everybody stop a second. Stop, stop, stop. What are you talking about? Now, I should probably have mentioned this earlier, but it makes the outburst just happen, make a little more sense.

I should note, everyone including Lewis Napoleon is shithouse drunk. Yes, they were to get their courage up on the boat. They are 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 wasted

and the drunkest of all of them is General de Montelon. Hell yeah. Bolly, Lieutenant Bolly is like, all right, everybody fucking halt. What is going on here? When he does that, General Montelon staggers forward, slurring his words and tries to bribe the officer

with a pension. She's like, wait a minute, we'll give you like 15,000 francs a year, buddy. Why don't you just chill out, man? I could, can you just come over here real quick? Just real quick. All right, buddy, we're fucked up right now. Okay, bro, bro, we are wasted.

We are too wasted. And I know this pretty little French girl. She's right around corners. She'll fuck your dick, dude. She'll fucking do it. But you just got to shut the fuck up. Just be chill, bro. Can you point us to a balloon?

Yeah, like where the army guys is. And just let us know that. Yeah, just let us know where they're at and all. Fuck, dude, I'm gonna puke. So Lieutenant Balone, being the most competent person in the 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 going to go and try to find someone who's a higher rank than me to figure out how to deal with this. Good for him. Now the former Emperor's nephew

and a bunch of retired officers, some random bankers and functionaries, all dressed as soldiers and shit 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 Balone.

They enter the city proper at around 5 a.m. 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 fake 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 the barracks and its arsenal and convince the soldiers there to join them, right? So they get stopped by a group of five soldiers on the way there who are like, hey, guys, we're in chart, we're guarding this base.

What are you? What are you? Yeah, what is this? You all seem very drunk in German. What's happening? Yeah, I aim my gun at you, but I... They don't even have guns, they're not armed, right? Like most militaries,

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. Hey, are you guys doing theater? Yeah, what's going on here? Is this an improv troop? So the guy carrying the emperor's standard,

you know, the big flag with his logo and shit on it. When they get stopped, this guy Parkwin 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 still, they're too weirded out to like get weapons or anything.

Like they, again, they have no idea what's happening. So after a brief mild altercation, Napoleon's men advance again. Alan Strauss-Schorn describes what happens next. Advance, by the way, is a very funny way of put drunkenly staggers forward. Stagger towards a door. Yeah, quote.

Advance. Matt, brace yourself for this part. Inside the barracks' parade ground, Alden is ordered to arms. Here is the prince, which was repeated by a soldier on guard duty. Some of the men of the 42nd fell in and presented arms, shouting,

Vivian the 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 in common sense had 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 a garrison than a squad. Captain Colonel Pugier, who is like in charge of the actual garrison, arrived and, drawing his sword, demanded to know what was happening and where his company was. Some of Parkwin'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 called out. Then turning around to his company, he said, soldiers, this is a trick. Viva le Roy, fallen behind me.

Bonaparte's men tried to seize him again when two more officers of the 42nd arrived. Freeing himself, Colonel Pugier managed to notify the garrison commander, Colonel Sansot, and to rally some of his men. Panicking, Napoleon took out his pistol and shot an unarmed grenadier in the mouth. What the fuck?

So he just, like, it all gets chaotic and they start like yelling at him and he just shoots an unarmed man in the face for no reason. In the mouth specifically. In the mouth, yeah. This guy is just like, again, this is just like a random ranker who's standing over here

like, I don't know what's happening. This guy is a Bonaparte. Everyone else, like, my boss is saying, don't do it, like, dude, I'm just like here and he just shoots him in the face. Jesus Christ. I love, I don't, but I don't know you, dog. Yeah, but I like, I have no idea who you are, man.

Like, what are you doing? This is in, I don't know who, have we met? I don't know. Bro, we're not friends. Yeah, we're not friends, dog. Can you stop telling people we know each other? So this leaves everybody very surprised. Yeah, you shot someone in the mouth

when everything was just drunk and fun. He just shoot a guy in the mouth for no reason. And we're gonna 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, I mean, I'm not, I'm not gonna say never, right?

I'm not gonna say never, never say never. 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 this hearse was like a lot of goods. He's a shark and not in the good and bad ass way. He's in the nasty sharks. He was just waiting for me to set the date, the time, and then for sure he was trying to get it to heaven. Listen to Alphabet Boys on the iHeartRadio 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 offending 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 iHeartRadio 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 iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. We're back and we're thinking about shooting unarmed French grenadiers. A thing I haven't done but could see myself doing.

Yet. If I had to, you know. It depends on the situation. Context is everything. Yeah, like what if, what if I get teleported back in time to like 1812 and the Russian steps and there's like a French grenadier and he drops his gun because like, you know, he's scared

because I just teleported through time, but I know he might go for it. And then I have to shoot him to save the time stream. Something like that. That sounds right. That sounds right. That could happen. You never know.

You don't want to fuck with space times. So you 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 promise not to shoot a French grenadier without a weapon under any circumstances. Absolutely. You never know.

Yeah. That's what, that's what Louis Napoleon understood. He knew that. He said, listen, I will do this. I will shoot the shit out of an unarmed French grenadier his mouth. I just love that it's mouth. It's not the head.

The guy lives too, by the way. Right, of course. Like he survives. Yeah. 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 guy's at 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 shot in the mouth. By a fucking movie. You remember when Napoleon's nephew, he a fucking dick, man. He a fucking dick. I was chill.

I was even trying to fuck him up. So this leaves. Yeah. Everyone panics, right? There has now been gunfire. Right. Napoleon's soldiers are not in fact soldiers. They are again like bankers and like

propaganda, right? Newspain. Yeah. Giuseppe there. Yeah. Yeah. Giuseppe is in fact there. Like this Italian banker dressed as a 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.

Right. Like cause again, they don't really know what's happening. So now they get pissed because Louis Napoleon has just shot their friend in the face. So they charge with bayonets. Yeah. Louis's men. Cause that's a party foul.

She's in some of the most. Cause that's a 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. Oh yeah.

This is a fine time to use a bayonet. So again, Louis Napoleon's men being mostly con artists and bean counters run like fuck even though they, they have loaded guns. They actually have loaded firearms and they run like shit. Mamma mia. Mamma mia.

I am a banker. I am here for the money. Oh my God. That is wonderful. That is so great. So they rally in the center of town cause the garrisons and like this fortress kind of on a hill in town.

So they, they run a few hundred yards away into the center of town where they've been putting up signs and they rally there. Yeah. Meanwhile, the garrison is like, I guess we should give guys bullets. This 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 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 military unit. Yeah, if they hadn't been drunk. Cause again, as soon as they get in there

and say like this is Prince Bonaparte, some soldiers immediate reactions have been like, Viva Le Emperor, you know? Oh yeah, I'm sick. Cause again, Bonaparte's still a powerful legacy. Right, like that flag, tricolor way better than that flag. Lewis won't say shit cause 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 Le Emperor. Yeah, yeah. Viva Le, ooh. Ooh, boy.

Can you guys grab some bayonets? Some of Lewis Napoleon's men, while the garrison soldiers are loading their guns, Lewis 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. Nobody's there. So they can't get inside. They don't have this.

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 and that didn't work either. He freezes up. Throw it, just throw it onto the pole. So 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. Some of them get shot. Most of them wind up retreating with the wannabe emperor to the beach. Louis Napoleon, as soon as they get to the beach, the first thing he does when his men are like,

what now is he tries to blow his brains out with his handgun? An honorable death for an honorable attempt. He is less capable of shooting himself than he was that one random French soldier though. So it fails and he runs away. A bunch of his men flee into the water when the French soldiers get there.

A lot of these guys drown. Several more get shot to death in a hail of French gunfire. One of the guardsmen calls it, quote, a regular duck shoot. The prince is hit by a bullet but survives because his uniform is like thick and wet and it stops the bullet. Bullets were not as good back then. No, you could shoot people in mouths

and they'd believe in stuff. Yeah, exactly. So Louis Napoleon was rescued from drowning by National Guardsmen who like save his life and then take him into custody. He spends most of the first minutes he's captured talking about how much he wants to kill himself. Otherwise he doesn't...

Otherwise he's bleeding. Here, put some money on it. Put some money on the bleeding wound. Put some dollars, shove some money in his mouth. So that's not a great coup. That does not work out well. That's about as unsuccessful a coup as I've ever heard about. Yeah, that is egg on his face and in that one guy's mouth.

Yeah, you really couldn't fail much worse at trying to take over France than he does the other. It's an incredible failure and you've got to give it to him because like he had the vision, you know? He said, well, you know, what if we go there? Yeah. Yeah, and he didn't think about beyond that. He just was like, nah, then we advance.

We just walk. That's just walking. He just kind of like, if you've ever, I don't know, 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. Yeah, you know, you go off-roading for the first time and figure you know how to handle a real muddy path or something.

Or drive a stick shift. Drive a stick shift, right? Yeah, you think how hard can it be? And then you like lie on a job interview to try to like get a gig. Right. Yeah, he just, he just, he just does that with trying to be the emperor of France.

Yeah, 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 fucking got too drunk. If he hadn't been drunk, if he had, again, you should probably like train for doing 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 French. Yeah, he had like practice and stuff and people knew him. This guy's primary life experience is getting his brother killed in Italy. Right. You might want other training.

O.G. Napoleon didn't have a colonel going, but I don't know you. Yeah, nobody would have ever said that to him. Nobody would have ever said that. No. Oh, boy. Yeah. You know who does know you, Matt?

Who? The production services that support our podcast. They've known you since before you were born. Yeah, they know me very well. When you quickened in your mother's womb, Blue Apron and all of the other Casper mattress, they knew you, they saw you, they loved you. Eli Lilly Company.

Eli Lilly wrapped you in its spiritual embrace when before you were even a fetus. Exactly. They knew your soul when it was still part of the firmament of heaven. They are my soul. So the least you can do, the least you can do, spend some money. I love spending money. Why are we, what are you doing?

I'm doing ads. You're trying to get Matt to plug his plugables? Is that what's happening? No, I was doing ads. You've done all your ads. Oh, have I? Well, then I guess the fucking episode is over, Sophie. Yes.

That was my point. Let's do some ads anyways, though, dawg. I thought you were promoting Matt. I was like, okay. I also love that Matt got an Eli Lilly reference. Yeah, no, I'm here to promote my new podcast, Pod Yourself and Insulin. There you go.

Pod Yourself and Insulin. Yeah, and where we charge astronomical amounts for insulin. I'm going to be honest with you. I have an ethical problem with insulin. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Hormone therapy is the devil's play thing. That's right.

Absolutely. That's right. You know, you got to, if you... Matt Walsh convinced me of this. That's right. If you got fucking, you know, if you got diabetes, that's God's way of saying, hey, you're allergic to living. Look, God said it called it diabetes

because you're not supposed to survive it. Exactly. It's not live-a-beadies. It's not life-a-beadies. Oh, boy. Wow, friends. Anyways. Friends, you should give Matt's Pod five stars

because he is a baby. Is that what I did? I have a baby. Yeah. Give it five stars. Five stars in a review. Well, you know, pod yourself the wire. Or if you like the Sopranos, pod yourself a gun.

We covered all of the Sopranos. I'm going to try something, Matt. I'm going to try something for your baby. Oh, please. You know, somewhere around like a million-ish people listening, you know, to an episode or so in general. What? I'm going to try.

I'm going to try because who knows who's listening. Look, if you're out there and you're a crazy rich person with a bunch of gold in a basement, send all that gold to Matt Leib. Absolutely. Send it right on. Send it on. Somebody out there's got gold in the basement.

You don't need it. Give it to Matt Leib and his baby. What do you need it for? You don't need it. I have a baby. I have mouth to feed. He's got a baby. Send him that gold.

Send me that gold www.sendmattleibgold.com slash I have a baby.htm. That's your sub-stack, right? That's my sub-stack. htm.vodka. Yeah,.vodka. And if you can't remember all that, patreon.com slash broadcast. That is the umbrella podcast of all the pod yourself a gun, pod yourself the wire.

That is the OG where me and Vince Mancini, who you should have on here. He's a wonderful film critic and beautiful little Italian man. Now, what are the odds? Do you know if he might be related to Boom Boom Mancini, the boxer who killed Duck Koo Kim? I don't know if he is related to any notable Mancini's. I think there's like one...

Ask him. Ask him. Ask him. Are you are you kin to Boom Boom Mancini? I'll ask him. There's a pretty good Warren Zevon song about his relative in that case. Okay. Well, I'm gonna ask him about it,

but I definitely asked him if he was related to Mancini of Mancini's sleep world, which is a great mattress store in the San Francisco Bay Area. Oh. And he is not. Haven't seen it. He's not related to Henry Mancini, the guy who wrote Moon River, which great song.

What if Boom Boom Mancini fought the Mancini who wrote Moon River? Do you think he would also kill that guy? Probably. I think he could kill whatever Mancini 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 Pod Yourself a Gun. Check out Matt Leib on the Internet and Send Him Your Gold. And find my novel after the revolution wherever books are sold. And? Livestream. Oh, shit. Sophie, do the Livestream ad, please.

Oh, God. Well, look how I knew it. We at Behind the Bastards are doing a Livestream virtual show on December 8th with Margaret Kiljoy. You can find tickets, the link to tickets in the description. You can find the link to tickets on our socials. And it's momenthouse.co slash btb. Yeah, check it out.

I'm going to watch. So am I. Hi. Well, you're going to have to. Oh, well, yeah, that's true. All right. Go with Christ, my children. Bye. Behind the Bastards is a production of CoolZone Media.

For more from CoolZone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com. Or check us out on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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.