Doomed to Fail - Ep 67 - Epic Ambitions: The Story of Napoleon Bonaparte

Episode Date: November 21, 2023

C'est l'heure! It is time! Napoleon, the world-changing film comes out this week, and we are here to get you prepped! Join Taylor as we go through the basics, like, Napolean was not from France, he was from Corsica (which was taken over by France the year he was born, but still). He was also anywhere from 5'2 - 5'7 when the average French dude was 5'4 -- but like, at the same time George Washington was 6'2... Anyway, height doesn't matter (cough, cough, looking at you current Republican candidates for president)!It's so fun! HE CROWNS HIMSELF IN NOTRE DAME IN FRONT OF THE POPE - literally puts the crown on his own head! And he's 35!!! Many people died.Join us & Let us know what you think about the movie!Avec waterslide!!PBS 4 part docNapolean - J christopher Herold Dan Carlin - History under the InfluenceInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/doomedtofailpod/  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/doomedtofailpod  Youtube:  https://www.youtube.com/@doomedtofailpod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@doomed.to.fail.pod Email: [e-mail]  Join our Founders Club on Patreon to get ad-free episodes for life! patreon.com/DoomedtoFailPodWe would love to hear from you! Please follow along! Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/doomedtofailpod/  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/doomedtofailpod  Youtube:  https://www.youtube.com/@doomedtofailpod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@doomed.to.fail.pod Email: [e-mail] 

In a matter of the people of the state of California, first is Hortonthal James Simpson. Case number B.A.019. And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for you. Record to this computer. Okay. We are recording. We are live.

It is a rainy Sunday in Austin. It is a sunny Thursday in Palm Springs. Taylor, how are you doing today? It's not Thursday. Right. time zones do not change the days of the week. Is that correct? Not by like

four days. No, it is a very it is sunny, but it is very windy. My husband and his dad just went to Home Depot to get some boards because we're like building this big shed in the backyard that's like 12 feet tall and it

is not done and it is not standing up straight. Y'all are doing this yourself? No, we have a contractor, but he's a maniac, so he hasn't been here in like a month. He is essentially, he's allegedly on his way, but he's a crazy person, so who knows? Taylor. Contractor is a loose term. Everything.

I am, yeah, it's a guy who for some reason always has like chickens and chicken wired fence in his truck, back of his truck. But I will say that a secret skill of mine is I am a master concrete pourer. So, if y'all need to just knock this thing down and pour a new foundation, all I ask is that you pay for my plane ticket, book me in a four-star hotel. We don't have any. For a weekend and offer me a $200 per diem. And I'll be there. And I'll pour the concrete for you. Let me consider that.

General offers of yours. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Run it by one. Let me know what you think. Thank you.

So we are, sorry, we're doomed to fail. Intro. This is what I'm going to do to fail. I'm Fars, joined here by Taylor. We are covering two stories, one historic, one true crime that has to do with two things that came together that were given to fail, or anything else, actually, at all, because we have no premise that is consistent within this shows theme. That's, I love it. Great. No, but.

Perfect. Today, for usual, we are going to split this episode up, and Taylor's going to go first. And Taylor, give me a hint of what you're going to cover. I want to play a game. You want to play a game? Yes. You're going to hint at what you're going to cover, and I'm going to do my guesses. Oh, sure, sure, sure, sure.

I am covering something that is mainly one person who is very, very famous, who has a, very very big movie coming out on wednesday you can't see my face we turn off our cameras but i'm saying are you making a contemplated face okay you are good thank you okay so the very very famous okay very very famous my my drink my themed drink is champagne but not like prosceco like champagne because it has to come from france okay so we're dealing with

with a very famous french person we um okay he it's a he oh oh he is a a general napoleon turned and yes fucking nailed it so easy yes um i was like doing something else and then i was like holy shit when does napoleon the movie come out and then i was like holy shit it comes out on 22nd, so I got to ride this bandwagon, and I shifted, and I learned a shit-tend about Napoleon in the past four days. That sounds like a lot to do in four days. It is, and I definitely don't know everything, and I have yelled, A Vec, what's her side? A thousand times at my family this week.

Do you remember that from Bill and Ted's? Excellent Adventure. Definitely not. So they go, Bill and Ted's, you saw that, right, from the 90s. What? Okay. And Bill and Ted's excellent adventure, they go back in time and meet a bunch of famous people, Lagerty's, and Abraham Blinken, and they call Saccharges Socrates, it's the best. But they meet Napoleon, and Napoleon comes back to their, to like the 80s in California.

And they have a water park called Waterloo, and he, like, loves it. And it's like, there's a scene of him, like, in his hat, like, just going out of these water slides and just having a great time. and then he goes back in time to his time period and he is like showing people of battlefield and he's like Avec waterslide which means with waterslides because he loves water slides now.

It's hilarious. Yeah. Super fun. So yeah, so let's talk about Napoleon. How much do you know about Napoleon? I know we named a complex after him. I know that he really didn't like America.

uh um didn't he isn't he the general that fought us or fought no he's the one no he's the one who supported us against the english uh that was a little bit before him but um let's get into yeah are you done asking questions i am i am so in the past four days i read a book called Napoleon by J. Christopher Harold. And I watched a four-part documentary on PBS about Napoleon. It's from like the early, I don't know, it's from like the 90s. It's terrible. It's like you're just like really poorly produced, but like it has a lot of information. So there's that. And then also there's a Dan Carlin. I'm going to reference later because I have some interesting things to discuss with you about Napoleon. I'll put that in there. We could if we were really talking about our premise, say we're doing Napoleon and Josephine since they're one of the like doomed to fail couples that come. up when you Google that. So we will talk about them a little bit. But a couple of things just to tell you about Napoleon before we get started. He obviously there were tons of wars in Europe because of Napoleon. The total deaths from the Napoleonic wars, which is not even it's like two decades of war, ran for people who were like in the army and in the different

armies of the different countries that he was fighting, 2.5 to 3.5 million people die. And then civilian deaths were anywhere from, you know, a million to three million as well. So a shit ton of people died because of Napoleon. Yeah. Another thing about him is he was not French. He was born in Corsica, which is not France. I'll tell you what that means later. Yeah, it is now, but it's like kind of an independent island.

I'll tell you about it in a second. And then the last thing is about his shortness. So some parts of the Internet tell me he was 5'2. some parts of the internet tell me when he died he was five seven which i like don't believe and they also tell me the average french man was five four which seems wild i didn't look this up like how tall french guys are now but like george washington has a very similar timeline as napoleon he's a little bit older but he was six too you know so like it's a huge difference but i would I would guess that being Americans, like, we give top billing to people, you know?

It's like the wrestling thing where it's like, you know, Stone Cold Steve Austin is six, nine, and four hundred thirty pounds. Yeah. No, he's actually like 220 and like six. You know what I mean? Like maybe it was one of those things. That's fair. That's fair. So my father-in-law was talking about it, but we were laughing about DeSantis in his heels.

Oh my God, it was so cute. Doesn't Trump say six four? six four exactly that man is like obviously not he's the shortest six four person i've ever seen in my life he's not six four he's also he's got the same uh shoe manufacturer as the santis oh my gosh it's so funny yeah so like you know exactly exactly that point we're still trying to make ourselves taller right no matter for like no reason what um how tall are you uh i'm at least six one but sometimes when i wear my boots i'm like six three nice yeah yeah i'll I'm going to bring the boots to the wedding in North Carolina so that I'm like towering over one.

Nice. I love it. Thank you. So, okay, so here we go. So this teeny tiny Corsican thought he was a Roman emperor and he was power hungry. And I also wrote, he was also waterslide hungry. Anyway, if you get it, you'll get it. And I'm going to say it a hundred times. And let's learn about him before we watch Joaquin Phoenix's world-changing performance.

months starting Wednesday. So Napoleon was born in Corsica. Where is Corsica? What are you? It's an island. You're right. It's next to Italy. It's between France and Italy.

So if you imagine the Italian boot, it kicks Sicily, then Sardinia, then Corsica. So Corsica is really kind of high up there between France and Italy. But it was its own, like, little thing when Napoleon was born. And there were about 120,000 shepherds. living on Corsica, not really a warlike people in France was kind of coming for them because it was a good strategic spot between, you know, Italy and France. When Napoleon's mom was pregnant with him, the family had to like hide in the mountains of Corsica because the French were coming in and like attacking and taking over, which is kind of crazy. She did that while she was

pregnant with him. And he was born on August 15th, 1769, Napoleoni Bonaparte. day. And they called him, I'm petite boy, you know, little. That's damn French. Yeah. But they kind of, this didn't speak French. She spoke Corsican, which is kind of like, like you said, a little bit Italian and French, but eventually, obviously, he speaks French. So France is now in charge of Corsica. He's living there with his family. He's a child, obviously. His mom had eight kids. She was pregnant 16 times, but had eight children kind of lived to adulthood. And he loved his mom a lot. He was definitely a mama's boy, which is how you make either serial killers or precedents.

That's it. There's no in between for a mama's boy, you know. Interesting. And his dad was like, I fucking love this. I love the French. I'm in. So the French took over Corsica and his dad was super into it. He loved it.

He started wearing French clothes. Speaking French, he was like, let's do it. Let's be French now. So we sent Napoleon at the age of nine to France on a scholarship to a military school. which is very young to leave your family and go to a different country where you don't speak the language, you know? And he was bored in military school, but he moved up pretty quickly. You know, he was able to like do his work and all the things. And so he's around 20 during the revolution. Do you remember the revolution in Paris that we talked about? Who was in charge then

and who died? That was Henry. They, nope, he's British. This was Marie Antoinette. Give it. Yes. And Louis the 16th. But close. We had to talk about that too. But he was in Paris the day that he wasn't there.

I don't think when Maria Antoinette and King Louis were actually killed. But he was there the day that was that riot. I don't know if you remember where they cut off the Princess Dalyam Ball's head, who was Maria Antoinette's friend and like ran around the city with her head on a stick and like left her naked body in the street to be like kicked. Do you remember that? I mean, they had to be kind of fun. if you're like a if you're growing up in like a small town island day yeah like if you're like a little island kid

you know like that'll be a fun day i literally i wrote yes i wrote how fucking exciting super exciting to be there that day we're so gross so he's in the middle of it he's young but the revolution is happening napoleon goes back to corsica and he gets kicked out because they're trying to be independent again and he was pretty much french now you know they're like we don't really feel like your Corsican anymore. We feel like you're French. So he said, you know what? It's better to eat than to starve.

Better to choose the side that's going to win. So now he's French. And he went back to France and stayed there. In 1793, his mom and his siblings, they're all banished from Corsica because he's French. So he has to take care of his family now. I think his dad might be dead by this point or he's going to die soon. So he really has like all the siblings and his mom to take care of in France. So he needs to, you know, get a job and do that.

So he's in the army during the French Revolution. He sent to Toulon to fight the British. He won a bunch of things and started to get promoted and started to move up really fast, which is like weird because people were, even at this time, like, he's a little weird. You know, he's like kind of small. And in all the paintings, there's so many paintings of him. When all the paintings of him from this time, he has like this weird long hair and these like weird bangs, kind of like a mullet, which is, I don't know, maybe that was the style of them.

But everybody else around him seems to be. to be wearing, like, powdered wigs. I was going to say, that might have been the style. Yeah, but I feel like it doesn't look like everybody else has that style, but I think it might be like a youthful style, you know? I mean, he definitely stood out in history, so that makes sense. Yeah, totally. And maybe they, I mean, there's a bunch of paintings of him.

Who knows who actually painted them or how far away they were from the thing that actually happened? But he just cut his hair eventually, but in this point, like, he's this like kind of like long hair. And he looks like a boy, basically, which he is. He's like 22, you know? like moving up in the army. Yeah. So he continues to be French.

The revolution is over. Robes Pierre is dead. Blah, blah, blah. He's 26, and he gets another promotion to Commander General of the Interior. And he lives in Paris, and he's like very fancy. Now he has this fancy-ass life in Paris. You know, the revolution is over. They're trying to figure out the government.

And he has, you know, money now. He can take care of his family in Paris. Well, how did he earn his way into that? He's hardly to do a bunch of. talented and good yes yes the impression that i got from reading really fast and watching a documentary really fast is that he did things that other people wouldn't necessarily do he would like run into battle he was always with his troops in battle he would surprise people in a way that they'd never been surprised before and this is also like an interesting time in military history again me

knowing very little about military history, but like this is happening at the same time as the American Revolution. And do you remember learning about the American Revolution how like George Washington would like sneak up on people in the middle of the night that had never been done before? It was like Napoleon is like kind of the last wars that are like these formal wars where you have the fancy hat and you have like a guy with a drum, you know, all those, all those things. And you like announce that you're coming. And in a lot of spaces, you were supposed to just like my army and your army would walk towards you yeah yeah and then sometimes you would and sometimes you would stop and you'd be like okay cool I see that you have like you know

10,000 more men than me why don't we call it and you can have this this part of my country you know but Napoleon like wouldn't stop he would keep going okay so his talent kind of fearless recklessness and okay fearlessness got it yeah exactly he would like be persistent he would go places where bully didn't go. So now he wants to have a family. He's 26. He definitely is like, you know, messing around with like, you know, sex workers and all the things that you would do. But he, his first love is Josephine. So that's his big love that, you know, would be the doom to fail relationship if that's what we were talking about. Josephine is actually from Martinique, which is the island of the Caribbean that we have talked about before. And she's a widow. She's

two kids. She's 32. He's, you know, in his late 20s. She's deep in debt. So she needs to get married and have someone to help pay off all of her debt. She also is like a mistress to a couple really high up people. And it sounds like maybe they wanted to kind of get rid of her or, you know, have her take her off of their hands. So they get married. In the beginning, it's like about money. He doesn't have as much money. She thought that he did. But they end up like they end up being pretty happy together. And it sounds like at some point they love each other. which is the best you can hope for really these days in any day

almost kind of sort of liking your partner is like the best anybody can have 100% yeah you win so Napoleon gets sent to the Alps to command the French army in Italy and this is exciting because he is going to walk over the Alps

like Hannibal did you know a thousand years ago he's going to get to Austria and people are kind of making fun of him at this point because they think that he got the job because kind of a trade-off for taking Josephine off of her ex's hands, but he does a good job. He's good at being in charge somehow. Wait, hold on. I don't know who, but. So the gift to, like, remove Josephine from, like, being a pain in the ass everybody else was you get to walk across the Alps?

Yep. Congratulations. But he wanted to do that, obviously. the rest of us would be like no thank you can I say in Paris please that'd be great it'd be awesome

but he someone said another one of the general said that little bastard scares me you know because he was so aggressive even at this time he wrote letters to Josephine just telling her that he loved her

you know all those things he won a bunch of battles there and he was also really nice to the men at least at this point like he would talk to everybody he would say like who's the bravest man here and he would like shake his hand you know things like that so the actual people doing the fighting you know they liked him and they respected him because he respected them they saw that he was like someone who came from nothing and like worked his way up you know doesn't it blow you away like how incredibly little it would take at certain junctures in history to like stand out for anybody else like he was he was just he didn't cut your hands off if you looked in the wrong way and they're like this guy's a saint like we're going to die for this guy it's kind of wild exactly and it's wild and you know he his actions have consequences they're obviously like around the world but so many millions of people died because

of this you know and even toward the end there's people who are loyal to him and just like we don't know anything about them you know all these people kind of lost in this story but he stood out Do you remember how Joan of Arc became Joan of Arc? I can't remember. Tell me again. She was like in a room in the castle. And she was like, I'm God's servant. I'm here like ordained by God.

And the way I'm going to prove it to you is I'm going to tell you who in this room is the king. And she picked the king out in the room. And they're like, oh my God, you are here from God. Like it was like, really? Like, that's all it took. I imagine him like Exactly that's what I was thinking I was like I imagine a guy in the corner being like

She'll never guess it's She'll never guess at his eye And he's like where your crown She'll never guess the guy with the velvet Fucking droops on Yeah So little He's like eating a turkey leg

And like Yeah he's like He's like sitting on a chair made up slaves Who could it be? I don't know Oh, my God. That's so funny. Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, this little dude stands out.

And, you know, things that he did for his people in the army, like in, they were living in the Alps, which is phrasing, beautiful, but cold. And they hadn't been paid in years, so he would pay them. Things like that, you know, that made people really loyal to him, like, immediately. And also, this is where he's really doing that new, that new fighting style, where he keeps fighting past the game of check. chicken and he's like chasing the austrians across the alps in a way that they did not expect this guy's nuts you know he really wants to hurt us he's not joking exactly like exactly he's coming at you he's on his like little horse and also oh yeah actually remind that reminded me that this is where the famous painting of him like on the horse and the horse is like bucking up and he has

his hat there like this is from this area but in real life he rode like a little donkey over the alps Aw. That's so much cuter. So much cuter. So much cuter. Oh, my goodness. So eventually, Josephine goes to Italy. She doesn't really want to, but she does. She gets a palace, and it's filled with flowers for her when she gets there.

So then she's like, okay, like, I'll spend more time with you, Napoleon, blah, blah, blah. He stole a lot of art from Italy and brought it back to Paris. And it's a, he put it in a museum that was called, like, Museum Napoleon for, a long time and now it's called the Louvre. So he stole a bunch of stuff and put it there. And now he's part of the French government. Things are not going really well because

they're trying to figure out their government now that they had like gotten rid of the monarchy. And the French government is called the directory. They're trying to just figure out what's next. But they're, but Napoleon and Josephine are in Italy and they are trying to move east towards Austria kind of into that area.

But first, in 1798, they go to Egypt to start taking over in the top of Africa. So France is still at war with Britain. He's trying to disrupt their, like the British cargo ships. He just is trying to, like, you know, cause a lot of trouble down in Egypt. He captured Alexandria, then towards Cairo, which did you ever see? I hate to ask you questions about movies, but have you seen Patton with George and Scott? No. You haven't. Okay, it's great. There's a part in Patton where they're in North Africa and Patton and Rommel are going up against each other and they like, George C. Scott, who I also just adore, he's reading Patton's book like, you know, no, I'm sorry, he's reading Rommel's book about tanks and he's in a tank and he's, so the first thing you see is that you see Patton, the American General, reading Rommel, the Nazi general's book about tanks.

tanks. And then the next scene is he's in a tank going towards Rommel and he's yelling, damn it, Ramal, I read your book. That's amazing. That's fun. And so whatever I think of fighting in North Africa, I think of that, which is simplifying it, but I always think of that. But they're in Egypt

and the Egyptians have been part of the Turkish Empire and they had these and this is actually something that I want, maybe should talk about later, but they had these these mamelukes, Mamluk warriors, who were these incredible warriors, but they couldn't keep up with Napoleon and his stuff. So there was a big battle in Cairo called the Battle of the Pyramids, and Napoleon

won it in an hour. So he was here during like a super exciting time in Egypt, because when they got there, the Sphinx was buried up to its nose. So they were doing a lot of stuff like figuring out ancient Egyptian stuff and like bringing that information west for the first time. Obviously, there was looting and stealing and all those things but still like what an exciting time to be learning about egypt also think about like how much cool shit like someone's great great great ancestor like some guy probably lived in arkansas right now might have like the foot of the sphinx like as a bar totally someone just like brought home and they just like had in their family yeah yeah lots of looting um do have you heard that joke why are the great pyramids in in egypt

It's because they were too big to fit in the British Museum. Yeah, make sense. I get that. Okay. So Napoleon gets stuck in Egypt. So there's a great British general called Horatio Nelson, who I feel like is very famous at his own right. And he destroyed a lot of the French ships. So Napoleon got stuck in Egypt.

So that's where they were just like check out Egyptian stuff, you know, colonialism, all of that. Guess what else is people found in Egypt at this time? Oh, mummies. Probably, but they found the Rosetta Stone. Wait, that's a real thing. That's a big deal. The Rosetta Stone, yeah, it's the stone that translates Egyptian hieroglyphics into, like, other languages. So we finally knew what hieroglyphics meant.

I've seen it. It's in the, I think it's in the British Museum, honestly. I've seen it there. Wow, you're right. I thought this was like one of those, like the shroud of Turin, like a, kind of historical artifact, but it could also be fake. No, I mean, it's not magical, but it's real. Oh, my God, it is in the British Museum of London.

I have seen it then. I have seen it there. That's so funny. Funny, funny, ha ha, you know, you know. So I also want to mention right now that I don't know Walking Phoenix personally, but can you just imagine how insufferable he must have been on the side of this movie? I think he's insufferable normally. exactly i just like can't wait i think he's like constantly method acting i think it's supposed to been like i just can't imagine and i'm very excited to see this film that comes he looks like it does fit his personality i will say like you couldn't really cast a better napoleon

totally totally so yeah if you've seen it anyone let us know what you think about the movie we'll see i'll see it eventually but i'm excited about it so okay so eventually he gets out of egypt and now he's going into Turkey. And he's kind of failing as he tries to go up the Middle East. And also then the plague comes. And a lot of his people die of the plague. And so he ends up going back through Egypt. And on October 9th, 1799, he gets back into France. And the propaganda in France is great for him. They're like, you know, he's done all this cool shit in Egypt. He's fought the British. Like people really like him. And they're really excited about having him back in France. And Josephine is like, I love this.

You know, like, I love this powerful little man now. He came back and, you know, we did all this cool shit in Egypt. And now I'm really seeing the esteem that I feel like we deserve. And so they had a talk that was like, we should stop having other lovers. And Josephine never had another lover, but Napoleon definitely did, like a lot. He had a couple children by women. How very noble of her to wait until he was. was a huge success.

100%. So, but now, now they're like together together, I guess. And it is November 9th, 1799, and now it's time for a coup. So he wants to, you know, be in charge now. So he goes into Paris. He has a sword and he's trying to take over parliament and there's chaos. So he comes into the French parliament with his sword. Everybody has a sword, which is where I want to pause and talk about, have you seen all the people physically fighting in Congress these days as far as?

I saw the senator from Oklahoma try to fight the UAW chair or CEO. Oh my God. And Bernie Sanders. Kevin McCarthy punch. Wait, what did he do? Bernie Sanders is a reason, like Bernie Sanders. So apparently like the senator from Oklahoma like actually was like a former professional fighter and the UAW president was like talking shit. about him and saying, next time I see,

I'm going to bust your nose and all that. And so this guy takes his jacket off, stands up. And I was like, let's do it right here right now. And then Bernie Sanders is like, no, no, no, you are a senator. Sit down. Awesome. I feel like if anyone can have a sword, it's going to be Bernie Sanders. Let's give him a sword and nobody else.

I don't know. I'm going to be OK with that. You're like a droopy sword. Maybe it's a butter knife. We should give them all better knives. Did Kevin McCarthy punch someone in the kidney? Seriously? Like in the hallway, like, sucker punched him in the kidney.

So funny. I mean, these guys. Love it. These dick wads. So, but now, but imagine that, but like more fun because everyone's dressed like Napoleon and everyone has a sword. And Napoleon's brother, Lucian, is like, he's not going to do anything. He doesn't have a sword, but that was not true because he is.

And a whole bunch of stuff happens. And then when the coup is over, there's a new triumvirate in France. And Napoleon is one of them, obviously. And obviously, the triumvirate is like a Roman thing where three people are in charge. Yeah, that makes sense. Triumbrant. Yeah. So now he is, I guess he's backed across in the Alps.

He's still in the military kind of going around. Technically Europe is in peace. He's attacking Austria, still trying to get that land. He's 33 years old. And he makes himself first counsel for life, which is like, of course, why wouldn't you just make that your job. And so he is kind of like the king. He doesn't try him for it, but he's in charge. He's now in charge of France. And it looks like he finally cuts his hair off around this time, which is for the best. Wait, he shades his hair or cut it off? He cuts it. Like,

after in the paintings of him, he doesn't have that long weird hair anymore. Got it. So he does a lot of like, trust me, trust me. I'm good at this. Like, come on during this time. He does some stuff in France. There is. you know, like liberty, equality, the things that the revolution was, was yelling. And he believes in equality, but not really in liberty. You know, he wants it to be a meritocracy. Meritocracies are bullshit, of course. But he thinks he wants it to be a meritocracy. He's like, you know, we all can be equal, but also I'm in charge. You know? Right. It's like, you're not free, but you can do whatever you want. And he puts together a Napoleonic civil code, which is actually still in use in France,

which is like about equality as on its own thing he's not very religious he made catholicism the main religion but he didn't really care he said religion is excellent stuff for keeping the common people quiet he also said that religion is um you know britt this is not a direct quote but religion you know makes people think of heaven and ideas of equality which saves the rich from being massacred by the poor, which is fair. Yeah, that's a good point. So liberty was not something he wanted, but quality, yes. And he's 34 now, but he wants to be a king.

He wants to be more than just this, you know, first counsel for life. So on May 18th, 1804, Napoleon is crowned emperor of France at the age of 35. He is crowned in Notre Dame. and he invited the Pope but he didn't have the Pope crowned him he literally crowned himself it's like a big ceremony and he walks down the aisle

picks up the crown and puts it on his own head which I love 35 is like I mean I know that people age faster back then but that's kind of impressive. It's young man no yeah they didn't age that much faster you know and have gotten there at nine

you know and then like you know he's you know a little bit later he's you know the emperor of France which wasn't even a job until like he created it you know and then he

yeah and so he made Josephine Empress and all of his brothers and sisters got jobs and also do you remember

when Notre Dame caught on fire a couple years ago yeah it was really sad and I remember yeah and I remember

talking to someone who was like it's just a building but I'm like it's not just a building you know it's a big fucking deal I think you were talking to me

was it you I mean I just, I remember, I know you didn't see this, but the movie Monuments Men from a long time ago with like, you know what? Taylor, I actually did see that movie. Damn it. Did you really? I did. Unbelievable. So I, I watched it on my way home from Italy when I was pregnant and I cried the entire time because like that stuff is important. You know, art is important. Buildings are important. This is how we can visualize and see our history and the fact that Napoleon crowned himself emperor in Notre Dame is a big fucking deal. And I'd be sad of it. was gone. Yeah. Well, it's back. I think it's here. I mean, it's fine.

Right. So anyway, I just wanted to say after that, that I cannot express enough that he crowned himself. It's unbelievable. Wait, so he literally picked the crown up and put it on his own head? Yes. Well, I mean, it's amazing. If you're the emperor, do what the fuck do you want.

Exactly. So he's the emperor, Josephine's empress, they're in charge. in charge and he's doing a ton of stuff with his with his army he calls it the grand army the grand army and the army is going everywhere so austria and russia have headed towards france to back up britain so he's fighting austria russia prussia britain and he's trying to move out from france his army is you know dressed really nice and they walk 30 miles a day to like get to where they go to be able to expand their you know where they their rule And, you know, nothing that Napoleon does is not on purpose.

So he wears his hat so he stands out, but he wears the same outfits as everybody else to be like, I am still one of you. He's still there riding with them. He would go to sleep at 8 o'clock at night, sleep for a few hours, and then wake up and start working like in the middle of the night. So he was like constantly like just like he didn't sleep a lot. He treated himself the way that he treated them a lot of the time. I'm going to ask something that's probably going to sound really dumb. Let's see if I know the answer. I'm going to try.

what was going on in world history like is this just one of those things where like britain and france from time immemorial until the end of civilization are always going to just hate each other and be a war or was this in terms of like expansion of the empire or were they being like what what was he doing that's a good question so it is yes britain and france are always going to hate each other i don't think they do right now but like given the opportunity they would definitely fight it is the enlightenment. I actually drew a timeline on my mirror in my office so I could like try

to look at it. It's the enlightenment and it's also the revolution. So Napoleon lives at the same time as Catherine the Great, Marie Antoinette, George Washington. You know, this is the time and other episodes that we've done. It's the time of the Acadian. Acadians. It's time that, you know, America starts

and we have our first vice president. It's the time of mutiny and the bounty. It's the very end of this time is like when Tambora erupts and the Shelley is all this like art is happening but it's a revolutionary time this is when you know the united states has just been formed they're trying to figure out what to do with the rest of america and we're going to kind of talk about that a little bit later but you know there's westward expansion in america so that revolution has inspired revolutions across europe including the french revolution

like lafayette's around during this time he's still around so that's that's what's happening it's people being like we want to have our own like republics we want to be more in charge but by that i mean like rich people want to be more in charge they don't want to have a king anymore so it's interesting that somehow napoleon kind of makes himself a king pretty fucking quickly you know but it's like that it's that's what's happening okay i would assume that people are like like who's going to get in your way when you're like the most fearless like warrior and you're actually doing the fighting yeah it's like caldro you're not going to like run at him with a sword yeah absolutely So he is moving towards Vienna that's in Austria.

There's some battles. Incidentally, Beethoven hates him. And he had dedicated a symphony to him and then crossed his name out because he did want to undedicated to him, which is funny. It's funny. I have another joke. Do you want to hear a funny joke? Yes. Yes.

So I was actually in Austria recently and I was helping a team. zoom the body of Beethoven. And as we dug up the, we dug up his grave and opened up his casket, and he was in there. And he was just like a skeleton. And he had all of this, all of these papers, all this composition around him. And he was erasing it and erasing it and erasing it. And we said, Beethoven, what are you doing? And he said, I'm decomposing. That's pretty good. That's pretty good. Did you come up with that yourself, Taylor? No, I feel like my dad told me that when I was very young, but it's still funny. It works. It'll work forever.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So there's a whole bunch of battles that are going to happen in Napoleon's lifetime that you could write. I'm sure there's books about all of these, you know, individually, but it's 1805. It's cold. It's always, it's going to be cold from now on in this story. There's a big battle, there's a battle of Austerlitz, which is, you know, a huge famous, battle that I will not get into. But he has, he's victorious. And in this battle, you know, 20,000 people died. It was pretty, it was terrible. And he wrote a letter at Josephine and was like, I'm a little tired. You know, he's kind of getting, his head's getting bigger and bigger and bigger. I would. So he's, yeah, so he's in Berlin. He goes through Prussia. And all this time, he's saying,

like, liberty, equality is for everyone, but liberty is for the upper class, for the smart people. You know, so he has, he's in charge of who's in charge. And he still wants this like spirit of revolution. Like you just ask that question, like, you know, a revolutionary spirit, but he's still in charge. He makes his family, you know, have these roles that they're not qualified for. His brother, Louis, is a king of Holland. His brother Joseph is the king of Naples. His brother Jerome is a king of Westphalia, which is part of Prussia. And his sister Caroline is a queen. She's the one who discovered Pompeii, not. I've discovered it, but did a lot of the excavations in Pompeii that we talked about. Oh, yeah. I remember this. His sister, remember? She, like, had them, she had them dig the outer wall of Pompeii to figure out how big it was before she was out of power, which is pretty cool. Yeah.

His sister Pauline was a princess. His sister Alicia was a duchess. And he called his mom, Madame Mare and kind of gave her whatever she wanted. There's a great painting of her with him as, like, a classical bust with, like, a laurel wreath on his head behind her. it's a lot so you know she's proud of him so meanwhile he's you know sleeping around he has some mistresses just you know whatever he's still married to josephine but josephine is 46 and you know what she can't do babies babies and you know what kind is particularly that he wants probably a lot of a lot of girls right mm-hmm no he needs a boy that's it that's the thing

it was because now he knows i know he wants it to be you know now he wants his son to be the next emperor duh of course that was going to happen so he is so this is kind of like a meanwhile section that is you know several two paragraphs that you know millions of people die during the two paragraphs but he goes to russia you know you know what i mean and he meets um the czar alexander who's the grandson of Catherine the Great, and he, like, loves him. He's like, let's be friends. Let's fight the English. There's, like, a painting of them, like, hugging. He wrote to someone, if Alexander were a woman, I'd make him my mistress, which I think is also, like, that's weird. People, yeah, but I think he might have also meant, like, I could control this guy in two seconds, you know? Like, he's not someone that I'm really worried about. Oh, interesting. Okay. That's not how I interpreted it, but. well yeah other people also drawing of them like saying which they didn't like make out but you know

right right so he's you know he's trying to get parts of Russia get Russia to be on his side he definitely wants to fight Britain and meanwhile there's stuff happening in other parts of the world like I just said in the US there's westward expansion there's a Louisiana purchase there's stuff happening with Spain

and Mexico and parts of California there's stuff happening in New Zealand New Zealand is worried that Napoleon's coming for them but he's like, I literally don't care. I'm not coming there. But there's a lot of, like, British thing happening. Yeah. But in New Zealand at this time is also the Rum Rebellion,

which is when, where Captain Bly from the Mutiny on the Boutenny had his second mutiny. Wow. And he had to go back to England because he was a terrible leader. There's also Spain. So he imagines he's going to go into Spain and be like, Liberty, woohoo. Free us from superstition. Let's go. And the Spanish were like, no, we don't want any of that. And so the Spanish people, along with the army, really fought Napoleon's army. There's a really famous painting by Goya called the 3rd of May 1808 that has Napoleon's troops killing a man, just like a farmer. And it really shows the, you know, kind of like the terror of regular people getting killed by these troops. So that was a big deal. During this time, the Spanish, what they were doing, doing was the first time anyone was doing guerrilla warfare against a big army.

Taylor. This is when where that term started. I'm going to cut you off for a second. There's going to be some synchronicities in our stories. And the more you talk, the more I'm like, damn, we have like we're getting like a little bit overlapy, but we'll we'll get to it. I was a smidge worried that you were going to do Napoleon because I was like, we have to do Napoleon this week because of the movie coming out. But at least you didn't do that. I didn't do that, but there's some synchronicity. Okay, so anyway, guerrilla war, Spain, Napoleon's like, fuck you guys, I'm going to do it myself. He thinks he can do no wrong at this point.

Like, imagine now he's, now he's a little tiny body with a huge head, the crown on it. Aw. And he divorces Josephine at this time because he needs to have that son. One of the ways that she found out that they were divorced is they had, you know how like in this time you have like your rooms and your wife has her rooms. you see each other once in a while at night. He bricked up the door between their rooms. And she's like, I guess he doesn't let me anymore.

I guess we're divorced. God, that's awesome. That's like when people find out they got fired because they can't log into their email. Exactly. It's exactly like that. And it's so terrible, but I'm imagining like, in the middle of the night, he opens the door and like bangs into the brick and it's like, fuck. Shit, it finally happened.

But he loved her. And he's like, Yeah, he has to have a boy at this time. It sounds like they love each other. And, I mean, he didn't kill her. That's good. You know, at least he didn't kill her. You didn't kill any of his partners? No.

Mm-mm. He visited her at like a palace and they held hands. They told her how much he cared for her. And then they never saw each other again. So it was like, she was sad. He ended up marrying a woman named Marie Louise. She was the daughter of the emperor of Austria. she didn't really want to marry him

but her dad was like come on like this guy's in charge of France now you should marry him there were Habsbergs which is like you know obviously a big deal and honestly like I feel like marrying Napoleon is pretty great because at least you get some new blood in that line probably yeah less than breeding

at least they're not related as far as as Habsburgs go but eventually she actually does really like him and they have a baby it's like Napoleon calls him the King of Rome he will have like a painting of the baby with him in battles and show people and be like look at look at how exciting this is and they're kind of like we're in the middle of something boss but he's still just very excited so a lot of stuff happening in europe i wrote lots of economy stuff so you're welcome for that lots of lots of other shit's happening but in the meantime it's 1812 and napoleon wants to go to russia and what's of one main thing we know about Russia.

Can't be defeated. You can't invade Russia. Yeah. No, because it's fucking cold. Shit. And you cannot get there. You cannot walk into Russia. It's impossible. And the people, the people they fight back

more than the Spanish, more than he ever imagined they would. People in Russia, like, they leave Moscow. When he gets to Moscow finally, after fighting peasants and people who have burned down their own farms and killed their own animals so the French can't have them. He gets to Moscow and it's like weirdly quiet and he's like, what's going on? And someone

goes in and they're like, it's empty. There's no one here. People just abandoned Moscow and they started burning it down on their way out. It was made of wood. You know, like, you know, this is part, this happens in war and peace where, you know, they just let Moscow burn. And so they get there and they're like, well, we have to leave because the city's on fire. And they probably could have stayed actually and they've been okay but they leave because they're afraid because it's on fire so first though they plunder every fucking thing they can so there's these people who have these stories of like you know going to a square in moscow and there's a fire but in the fire are these like beautiful russian sofas and doors and statues and carvings and the men are

covered in like beautiful draperies that are like you know hundreds of years old and all these things because they're just like pillaging and trying to bring home as much as they can as well. So they're like, you know, trading for gold for jackets and they're drinking all the good liquor and like, you know, all the things that you do when you like plunder a town. Of course. And yeah, of course they do. And they're starting to. So they have to leave though because it's on fire.

So they start walking home. Winter arrives early. It gets to like 22 degrees below zero. Just like. unbelievable colds and they're walking and they're like you know kind of covered in tapestries but like walking and as you walked you would see like mounds of snow where people had just fallen and died and just been buried by the snow and they're eating their horses and in both the book in the documentary I watched they call horse meat horse flesh which like feels worse yeah

I don't know why they're still being attacked by like peasants and people on their way out and he on December 5th Napoleon has to go back faster to France so he kind of abandons his troops and goes back on like a sled to get there faster he told someone at all times he's one step between the sublime

and the ridiculous so this didn't work he took 600,000 men to Russia and 93,000 came back so a lot of people died also there's a Dan Carlin called Ghost to the Ose front about when the Nazis tried to do this you can't do it I mean I will give Hitler some I mean the

guy had balls he was fighting a two front war and one of those fronts was to invade Russia which is insane yeah which is what Napoleon was trying to do and you just like can't do it so even Austria is mad at Napoleon everyone's mad because you know a lot of people are dying And it's just been a war for like 20 years. And his Austria fights in, which he's surprised by because the Austrian king is his father-in-law, you know, but still Austria is like, no, you can't keep doing this. He says goodbye to his family. And he says, don't worry. Like, everything's going to be okay.

Grandpa's going to get over this, you know, to his son. And he's everaged from his family. And he goes back into Paris on March 22nd, 1814. and Paris is actually taken back by a new group of revolutionaries and they want Napoleon gone and he renounces his throne on April 12, 1814.

His wife wanted to see him, but she never would see him again. They took, I think she went back to Austria. They don't see each other again. They say that he tried to die by suicide but it didn't work. He poured powder into his mouth, but whatever that was, it didn't kill him. And he

still has, like, some loyal soldiers with their white pants and their big hats. And they go with him to Elba, where he's exiled. Remember this? No. So, I remember how Nero's mom was exiled? Oh. Just the whole point is like, being exiled is, sounds really nice for these guys.

It's not like he was put in a prison. There was a beautiful villa on this beautiful island that is between Corsica and Italy. So it's in this beautiful part of the world. And there's 13. thousand peasants who live on the island i feel like when i heard he was exiled to an island i imagined him like napoleon and palm tree i always picture i always pictures like um that movie papillon you know where the excelling is like a crazy mountainous region that is impossible to escape and has no resources i don't think i've seen that but that's what i picture as well

is see mcqueen see mcqueen and dustin hoffin are in it oh interesting a very very young duster hopin yeah I bet but yeah exactly you imagine exile is rough but this doesn't sound rough he still has supporters he still has some like army guys there's 13,000 people living there so he makes himself the emperor of the Isle of Elba and kind of takes charge of people living there

of course he does he actually does some good stuff he builds roads he schedules garbage pickup around the island kind of cleans it up gives the people some structure he tells them that they have to stop sleeping more than five people in a bed because they're like peasants, they're poor. It's like a particular place. And he just like tries to modernize it a little bit. And while he's there, Josephine dies. So he mourns her. He hears that she dies. I don't even know how she dies, but she dies.

And meanwhile, in France, King Louis the 18th is the king again. He's the brother of the dead one. And also, I know I told you this, but a reminder that Alexander and Russia was Katham McGrath's grandson. And so a lot of people that we know who are related to other people we've talked about about this time. But in 1818, Napoleon sneaks out of Elba. He's bored. He has a lot of people with him. And so they just like get a boat somehow. And by the time they get to Paris, like they don't even have any, they don't know that he's there.

They're like, hear that he left Elba. By the time they hear that, he's already in Paris, you know. And he comes back. And Louis XIII flees Paris because he's like, oh shit, I got to get out of here. because this little guy's coming for me. And it's easy, you know, relatively easy for Napoleon to come back and be in charge again because things are crazy. You know, Britain, Russia, and Prussia are fighting the French.

Louis XIV is not a very strong monarch. So he's doing all of these. So he's, it's easy for him to come back and be like, I'm in charge again now. Taylor, have you seen pictures of Elba? Yes. Isn't it beautiful? It is gorgeous. Put me there.

Lock me up. Like, just give me a knife and like some, like, like matches and leave me there. I'll be fine. Yeah, 100%. It's so nice. So, but he is back in Paris, back in charge. Now he has more armies. And then he does one of his big, in 1818, one of his big famous battles is a battle of Waterloo.

And that's the waterslide one for Bill and Ted. right the duke of wellington is waiting for him so the duke of wellington it's against france and prussia and russia the duke of wellington is waiting for napoleon in the pbs documentary a very very british man like one of the most british people you could possibly imagine says the duke of wellington is like impossibly british it's pretty funny he's like boring and pompous and tall and like so imagine an impossibly british calling someone and possibly British. That's how British the Duke of Wellington is. And the Battle of Waterloo is on June 18th, 1818. It's sunny, but it rained all day of the day before.

So it's like wet. There's like puddles and everyone everyone is wet. Napoleon didn't attack in the morning. He waited until the afternoon. And there's a bunch of people trying to figure out why. You know, like what was his strategy? Was he waiting for it to get dry? Like, the British troops and all these other troops are waiting for him to attack, they're expecting him to, and he doesn't for a while. And so this is where I want to mention my friend Dan Carlin.

He has an episode that is History Under the Influence, which is times when world leaders were probably really fucked up on like drugs and or alcohol. Wait, this is a podcast? Yeah. It's like a, it's called History Under the Influence. You can buy it

on his website and then like download it. It's not like available. It's like $2. You have to buy it on his website. But he talks about things like, you know, how Hitler was on meth the whole time, which explains a lot of his super erratic behavior, how JFK was on so many pain pills, also on amphetamines, that, you know, sometimes JFK would work from bed all day because he'd even so much pain. And how like during the Cuban missile crisis, he was pretty fucked up. And we're pretty lucky that we're not all dead, you know? And so the big one in that podcast is Alexander the Great does a bunch of crazy things. But he probably because he was like a raging alcoholic, it was probably drunk a lot of the time.

Same with Winston Churchill. But in this, in Dan's research for this, he read something that suggests that the night before the Battle of Waterloo, Napoleon took a dose of opium to be able to fall asleep. And he wasn't able to wake up. And he was still like really foggy in the morning. so he potentially could have won this battle if he had been sharper and been like up earlier but he wasn't maybe because he took some drugs the night before well which is interesting so Napoleon had his like Napoleonic guard who were like the people who were like the strongest and the bravest of all of his men and they went out and fought against the Russians and

the Prussians and the British and they ended up getting all they ended up retreating in the guards which made everybody scared because they're like we can't believe that the guards were treating so everybody kind of ran away and they lost that battle but it was by a hair the duke of wellington was like i cannot believe that we that we won so if napoleon had been sharper he definitely would have won you know you're really fucked up so now he abdicates his throne again he's like okay how about i go to london and they're like absolutely not are you out of your mind like why on earth would britain take you so they send him to another island called St. Helena, which is like a fortress with very few people. And he, that's where he ends up being.

He was only 46 the second time he was exiled. I mean, on the second time you had exiled, like, you should have stayed in Elba. I know. It would have been nice. He could have lived to me like really old. But he, one question that I have that I put to the internet that I didn't really get a satisfying answer for is like, why didn't they just kill him? You know? Usually in those situations, it's because the support of the lower classes of the person is so high that killing him would cause either an uprising or martyr him or some one of those lines. That's true. I think I would have martyred him. That makes sense because I'm like, they just killed King Louis the 16th, but I guess that was the lower class.

Right, the lower classes were like, we also want him dead. Yeah, fuck this guy. That makes sense. Yeah. So while he was on St. Helena, he wrote his autobiography. He wrote a book about Julius Caesar, of course. He just like hung out. He died the age of 51 and 1821. He died of probably like stomach cancer. When they opened him up to do an autopsy, his stomach was full of like tumors and things. So they think that that is what ended up killing him. He whispered as he was dying, he whispered France Army, Joe. a fiend on his deathbed where's last words and he said there's no immortality but the memory that is left in the minds of men which is true because we were talking about him and this big movies about to come out you know so his body was brought back to Paris and taken through the streets and it said that even then people were yelling viva la emperor as he his body got taken through the streets so he still had people who were loyal to him yeah that's where

through the end. Yeah, totally makes sense. And so, yeah, so I'm, that's it. I, you know, did the smallest amount of research humanly possible to do this. And that was still a lot of research and people dedicate lives to this. So I'm looking forward to seeing the movie to, you know, learning a little bit more because I want to learn more about like the person that he was. And a lot of the why, like he was very motivated, but like, ultra motivated. You know what I mean?

Not like a normal person like crazy, which is why we know about. him and why i'd be talking about him so yeah could have taken a chill pill could have taken a chill pill um that's interesting i'm yeah i'm definitely to see the movie it is one of those i love those period pieces it's like gladiator and all them which also have walking phoenix yeah yeah um but those are always really fascinating what is hard to kind of decipher though is like the editing part of it of like how do you choose the section of someone's life to cover because like yeah yeah good question cover the whole thing thing. If you're like, here's Napoleon's biography. It's like, okay, well, we don't have 37

hours to watch a biopic like that. So how do you take someone who's done so many crazy things and condense their life in like two hours? You know? Absolutely. And you know what? Actually, that reminds me. I didn't watch this, but my friend Karen recommended our friend Wes found on the internet this, a movie from the 1920s, a silent film about Napoleon that's seven hours long. Yeah, tracks. I mean, it's supposed to be amazing. Like, I don't have seven hours to watch it, but I definitely want to watch some of it. But Karen said, she was like, I was enthralled in like the seven hours of the silent movie. So like, like, to your point, like, we need more time to talk about this person. There's more in there. It feels like a do nothing Sunday activity.

Absolutely. I don't know. That's not so nice. I wish I had one of those. Yeah. Yeah, I feel you. Sweet. Well, thanks for sharing Taylor. We are going to wait with bated breath. The release the Napoleon movie. And that's a perfect thing to do. If you want to get away from your family during the Thanksgiving holidays, Napoleon comes out on Wednesday, on Thursday afternoon, be like, I'm done. I'm done with socializing. I'm done with hearing Uncle Bill's theories on politics. Let's go see a movie. That's a great idea. There's a great thanksgiving activity i love it yes yes uh sweet is there anything else we need to discuss before we close this out and rejoin on wednesday yeah i actually i put all of our merch on sale

it's 25% off to now through november 28th so FYI now's the time if you want to buy someone a doomed to film mug or a t-shirt for the holidays let's do it we are going to be millionaires I can't wait. I can't wait either. Please go buy something or you know what, even if you don't buy something, just tell someone to listen to this podcast.

Like grab their phone, if you have a significant other, grab their phone, subscribe them to the podcast and we would just as much appreciate that. Please do. We would love it. Find us on the internet at Doom to Fill Pod on all of the social medias and send us an email, Dunevillepod at gmail.com, which reminds me, Fars. I found a volcanologist to talk to.

No. So I was like, okay, who do I know? So I went on LinkedIn, and I know someone who worked with my brother-in-law, and he's like, we're actually really close, and he went to school for being a volcanologist. And also, my brother-in-law does not listen to this, which is why he doesn't know I was looking for a vulcanologist, but I'm going to ask him some questions, and I'm really excited. So I have that coming to. That is incredible.

So if you have a question for volcanologists, everyone, send us an email and we'll relay it to the one that we meet. How do volcano this work? No, we already learned that. That's that our question. Yeah, right, right. It'd be hilarious. Tell me what is a volcano. What is a volcano?

Oh, my God, so funny. Looking forward to that, Taylor. Thanks for sharing this one. And yeah, I'll go ahead and cut this off and read. join everyone on wednesday also wait let me yell one more thing a veck wester slide triumph napoleon okay thank you bye all