You're Dead to Me - Young Napoleon (Radio Edit)

Episode Date: November 21, 2020

Never mind the famous battles, who was the real Napoleon and what events turned him from a young Corsican officer to one of history’s greatest figures? Greg Jenner is joined by comedian Dan Schreiber and historian Dr Laura O’Brien.Produced by Dan Morelle Script and research by Emma Nagouse Radio edit by Cornelius MendezA Muddy Knees Media production for BBC Radio 4.

This is the BBC. This podcast is supported by advertising outside the UK. Hiya, Greg here. Hope you're doing alright. We are making Series 3 right now. In the meantime, we've been making these Radio 4 versions of the previous episodes. We are putting them in the feed here permanently. They will be alongside the long versions. So make sure you scroll down and choose which version you want.

So you can have the shorter, punchier, swear-free versions or the long, rambling, sweary versions. Up to you. Thanks very much for listening. Take care. Bye. BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello and welcome to You're Dead to Me, the history podcast for everyone.

For people who don't like history, people who do like history and people who forgot to learn any at school. My name is Greg Jenner. I'm a public historian, author and broadcaster, and I'm the chief nerd on the BBC comedy show Horrible Histories. You might also have heard my Radio 4 series, Homeschool History, although that one's mostly for the kids. In this show, everything's a little bit different. Every episode, I'm joined by an expert historian who is book smart and a comedian who is joke smart. And today we are donning our bicorn hats, having a paddle across the English Channel and spending some quality time with young Napoleon Bonaparte, looking at how he went from random Corsican teenager to top dog in Republican France. And to help me do that, I'm joined by two very special guests.

In History Corner, having swum all the way from Dublin, she's a lecturer in modern European history at Northumbria University and is an expert on political cartoons in 19th century France. It's Dr Laura O'Brien. Hi, Laura, how are you? Hello. And in Comedy Corner, he is a renaissance man. He's a stand-up comedian, a writer, a radio producer,

former QI elf, no pressure, and co-host of the international mega smash hit podcast, No Such Thing As A Fish, it is Dan Schreiber. Hey. Dan, thank you for joining us. You've just been on a ludicrous European tour with the podcast. Did you feel that Napoleon? Well, I fortunately for this format know nothing about him. So I might have, but I didn't know it. Dan, you basically don't know anything about Napoleon? I've got the basics. I know, yeah, Waterloo.

I know a few details about his life, Josephine, all that sort of stuff. But his early life, I know absolutely nothing about. Well, that's today's episode. We are looking at the young Napoleon, up to about the age of 30 or so, when he becomes a very senior politician in France, but before he's the emperor. So, what do you know? a very senior politician in France, but before he's the emperor. So, what do you know?

We begin, as ever, with the so what do you know? This is the segment where I have a little guess on what you at home might think you know about Napoleon. And because we're looking at his youth, it's maybe not so much. So, in pop culture, we think of Napoleon as a short man with a short temper. Depending on who you ask, he's either a hero or a tyrant. Either way, he's one of the most famous people in history and certainly one of the most famous military commanders, a battlefield genius. Famous, of course, for losing at Trafalgar, losing at Waterloo, losing in Russia. Actually, I'm being a bit unfair, aren't I? Because he did win like 50 battles. His skill at war meant that he went from being the little corporal

to Emperor of France in 1804. Oh, and yes, as Dan has mentioned, he had a wife called Josephine. Although, was she called Josephine? These are the things we might know about Napoleon. But is it true? Dr. Laura, as we've mentioned, Napoleon is a Corsican. At the point that he's born, is it Italian? Is it French? Is it independent?

It's kind of a mix of everything. Technically, under the point that he's born, is it Italian? Is it French? Is it independent? It's kind of a mix of everything. Technically, under the time of Napoleon's birth, technically under the control of the Republic of Genoa, or they call it the Republic of St. George, which is quite a formal name. But it is politically a very unstable place. When Napoleon is born, his father has just come out of supporting

an attempted uprising, led by a guy called Pasquale Paoli. The Paolis are this dynasty of rebel leaders. But Carlo rapidly attaches himself to the French who have taken over Corsica in 1768. OK, so he grows up Corsican, but there is a sort of French influence there. And his father is Carlo.

His mother is Maria? Maria Letizia, we usually call her Letizia. OK. And they're not called Bonaparte at this point, they're Bonaparte. His uncle is Napoleone. Napoleone Bonaparte? Napoleone Bonaparte. That's like an ice cream manufacturer.

It does. Oh, this is awful. I'm just going to sound like Super Mario. So anyway, there's Giuseppe, there's Napoleone, and there's Maria Letizia. Letizia, who is a formidable woman, supposedly the most beautiful woman on Corsica, has Napoleon when she's 19.

They get married, I think, when she's about 16. He's gone to school in France, and this is military school, isn't it? He's not doing colouring in. He's presumably learning war. How to be a soldier man. He's sent to a military academy at Brienne, which is not a cuddly environment. They're learning about the art of war. They're learning how to be men. But they're're learning about the art of war. They're learning how to be men.

But they're also learning about the heroes of the past. They're studying the great strategies of Alexander the Great and Hannibal and Julius Caesar. Is he a nice guy, age nine? He's a bit of a lonely boy. Is he? So he's a bit sad. It's a bit sad. He probably did have a couple of little pals.

But he kind of gets a bit bullied because people think Corsica is this crazy place where everyone's a bandit and a bit backwards. He feels a bit isolated. People took the mick out of his accent. And he probably was lonely. Can you sympathise, Dan? Because you were born in Hong Kong.

Yeah, yeah. And then moved to Australia. Yeah. And then you came to Britain where we all mock your accent. Yeah, well, no one where I come from thinks I'm from there or believes that I'm from there. So if I say I'm Australianralians say you're not and if i say i'm english they say you're not so i'm left with saying i'm chinese which i'm blatantly not so it's yeah i was actually more relating to that sort of in between of not being the upper crust and not being lower

no but in a weird way i was buying a belt the other day and i've discovered that i'm in between a large and an extra large. There's just one hole on the belt buckle that's missing that fits my size. You need a Schreiber hole. I need a sort of middle of large and extra large. I'm this weird gap in the shop. And I felt like, what am I? Who else has got this frame that they haven't made holes for?

So he graduates in 1785. He's done pretty well, but he's not like a sort of brilliant genius, is he? No, you wouldn't have seen this guy coming out and being like a super starter in the making. How do you prove that you're the top of the war chain when you're studying? Is it playing a lot of board games and winning risks a lot? I think they have sort of strategy tests and things like

that. And physical exercises. But in war you don't go, send the A pluses first. There's no... No, no, I mean he proves himself with skill. He goes to become an artillery officer. He also fancies himself a bit of a writer. He writes a little bit of a novel. Oh, he writes more than a little bit of a novel.

Well, he has a go at a Gothic novel, doesn't he? He has a go at a Gothic novel. Does he? He wrote a lot. He read a lot. This is not a sort of gun-toting, macho idiot. This is someone who's an intellectual figure as much as he is. He's a nerd.

He is a nerd. He is a nerd. Yeah. He's a complete nerd. So the French Revolution starts 1789. But obviously, the French Revolution takes quite a long time to really produce what we all famously think of, which is the execution of the king, Louis XVI. So how does Napoleon get sucked into this revolutionary fervor? I mean, is it a really slow burn where he very, very gradually rises up the ladder

or is there a moment where he suddenly, you know, he's in there? Well, firstly, I think it's important to note that he likes the revolution. He is based in France in the summer of 1789. He does have to put down kind of popular uprisings, but he writes letters to his brothers where he talks about that the enemies, what he calls the enemies of liberty and the nation are getting their comeuppance. He really comes to prominence between September

and December 1793 at the siege of Toulon. Toulon has risen up against the Republic based in Paris. And the British who are fighting against France have popped along to Toulon because of course they have superior naval force and destroyed quite a lot of the French fleet. The French put Toulon under siege. Napoleon is dispatched there. He goes above the heads of the other commanders and says to the convention in Paris,

these guys don't know what they're doing. Their tactics are terrible. Let me be in charge of the artillery. I'm going to move some light guns around and we're going to blow these Brits away. So he's sitting on the subs bench and he's saying, put me in the game, boss. I've got this. Or he's going to a network party where it's just a book launch and he's saying put me in the game boss i've got this you know i've got this yeah or he's going to like a network party where it's just everyone's it's a book launch and he's just sidled up to the publisher going you know i've written the real account of this you

need to you need to drop this kid um it's interesting isn't it hearing the trajectory of these big characters because in my head it must have been some sort of connection through wealth or whatever but he's literally rising through the ranks. And Toulon is a great victory for him. Yeah. The dispatchers mention Dugommier quite a lot, who becomes a key general of the Revolutionary Wars. They mention him quite a lot, probably more than Napoleon. But the important point is that Napoleon is the one who makes the most of the opportunity. Toulon is seen as his victory.

What was he bad at? It sounds really incompetent at everything. Are there accounts of him being like, oh, after the victory, he pulled out the banjo and, oh, mate, put it away? He's not saying. Yeah. Do we know much about his flaws?

He's socially a bit awkward. You know, it's not like he goes into a room and opens the doors and everyone's like, hey, Napoleon's here. It's kind of, do we really want to talk to this weirdo? He's described as being quite shabbily dressed. You get sort of reports in Paris about his hair being a bit straggly and not very well powdered. And he's very intense.

He has these kind of rapid infatuations with loads of women. And he sends them these kind of quite sad love letters where it's like, I love you. Please pay attention to me. And they're like, please don't talk to me anymore. It's emo. Gothic novels. Yogi Napoleon is well emo. So you've mentioned the ladies.

He's a sort of desperate romantic. He's not particularly charismatic. But there is one woman who he meets in 1795 and immediately he's like, oh, this is the one. I love her. I love her so much. And she is called, Dan? Josephine?

Yeah, she's not actually called Josephine. Is she not? So this is where it gets quite weird. Yeah. She's called Rose. OK. So she's called So this is where it gets quite weird. Yeah. She's called Rose. Okay. So she's called Rose de Beauharnais. Laura, why does he call her Josephine?

This is a thing Napoleon does. It's really weird. So Josephine is Marie-Rose Joseph Taché de la Pagerie. Joseph is her dad. And he calls her Josephine. He loves giving people these little names. I relate to that. It's very Australian.

Is it? Yeah, you meet someone, you just give them a new name. There's not many Aussies you'll meet who won't call you by something else. What would you call me, Dan? I mean, we've known each other for years, but what's... Ah, the Gen Dog. The Gen Dog. Yeah.

The Gregonator. You know, there's a number of things I would have used before actually saying Greg. I'm just being formal on this podcast by calling you by your name, but yeah. Napoleon is giving other people nicknames. He's also got his own little nickname. He's known as the little corporal. Le petit caporal, yeah. That sounds like a slight insult.

Sometimes. I mean, there is this thing in French, you know, as you know, there's a lot of, you know, mon petit chou, mon petit, ma petite, and it's kind of an affectionate thing. But sometimes they are trying to make him diminutive. He's trying to be a sort of big, tough soldier. And people are going, oh, you're adorable. By the time he's met Josephine,

he's even more of a star than he'd been before because he's put down a royalist rebellion in Paris and everyone's calling him General Vendemier, which is the month of the revolutionary calendar. He's a bit more in Parisian society and that's how he meets her because she's, I don't know how to put this politely,

a bit of a sort would be the politest way I can put this. She has a good time. Napoleon said she had, and again I quote, the prettiest little backside possible. Yeah, her husband got executed in the Terror. She's a survivor as well. She was in prison in the Terror

and her kids were taken away from her. But she gets them back when she's released. So there's Eugène and Hortense. Hortense is not only the daughter-in-law or the stepdaughter of a French emperor, she also becomes the mother of a French emperor because she marries Napoleon's brother, I know, Luigi, Louis.

They have a kid called Louis-Napoleon. It's very Mario Kart, isn't it? Luigi is terrible. It'd be great if in Mario Kart there's a code where you can unlock the entire... The Bonaparte clan. Who races, Napoleone or Luigi or Mario? It's a me, Gerolamo.

That's Jerome. So he's a little corporal. How little are we talking? Well, he's probably about 5'6", 7-ish. Which is sort of average height. For the time, it's average height. How tall are you, Dan? I'm 6'1".

I've hung out with Brian Blessed a few times, and he is surprisingly smaller than what you would expect. Yeah, I think he's about five nine maybe i'm five nine five nine but brian blessed you get the impression of this ginormous character because of his personality but it's only when you sort of look at him and you go hang on you're actually not six foot three yeah but he exudes the personality of a giant yeah which i imagine napoleon would have yeah i took so napoleon he never had a box that he stood on when he was... I don't know, is that Tom Cruise? I'm confused. That's Tom Cruise.

The stack heels is probably a Tom Cruise thing or a Bono thing. But that was never a thing that he did himself. Not to my knowledge, no. I don't think he needed chew lifts. So let's talk a little bit about a couple of his big military victories. He gets given the Army of Italy, which is a huge deal, and that goes very well for him. And then he's also given this power to invade Austria, essentially. Yeah.

So these are two big enemies gone great for him. Militarily, he's proving himself. Yeah. But there's also, he's starting to use propaganda, isn't he? Yeah. Dan, if you were Napoleon at this point, late in the 1790s, what are you going to do to try and big up your brand? I'm going to say I'm six foot one.

You are six foot one. Oh, if I was playing myself, I'd come up with a logo. I'd come up with my Dan Schreiber logo. I would arrange a merchandise. Nice. I'd seed a lot of godlike truths about myself that were blatant lies.

I would just hire people just to be like, God, that guy's cool. Just that, nothing more. You just want your own hype man be like, God, that guy's cool. Just that. Nothing more. You just want your own hype man. Yeah, exactly. Dan's not far off the truth there. No, he's not far off it at all.

He plays with news and he plays with the image really effectively. So off he pops to Italy. The army of Italy is in a bad way when he takes over, but he does really well. He is rapidly starting to commission paintings of himself. Selfies. Selfies. Selfies.

Do me a painting, please. He doesn't like posing for them. That painting, him on the Bridge of Arcol, and it's this painting by a guy called Antoine Jean Gros, and it's a famous one. My husband always says he looks like Rod Stewart. And then he pays Gros, the artist, to get engravings made so that obviously now everyone's going to have the painting,

but you can buy a print. Cool. You can put it on your wall. He has newspapers, some of which are for the army, some of which are for France, for his audience in Paris. There's a really clever thing, which is to put stories in about ordinary heroism. So reports about ordinary soldiers doing really good things.

And also little stories about how ordinary soldiers think he is the business. So he's both playing on their support for him but also hyping himself up. So I think we would often assume he can only do this when he's the emperor, when he's in power. Really he does this from the very beginning of his career. Certainly we see it in Toulon but Italy is where he really gets good at this. How many examples do we have of someone turning themselves into a poster for the bedroom walls of kids? It's quite a common thing in the 18th century. So I'm writing a book at the moment on history kids. It's quite a common thing in the 18th century. So I'm writing a book at the moment on history of celebrity.

A lot of actors like David Garrick did exactly that. He's a superstar. And I think he, and it's not just for France. This is the point where we start to see the reputation of General Bonaparte spreading across Europe as this liberating force. He becomes this kind of cultural figure of liberation. There's songs about him,

but we also see that in other parts of Europe as well. And so much of that is his own making. If you were in charge of a bunch of soldiers how are you going to get them on side what would be your technique for winning over your men um holiday yeah good clothes yes good food good uh sleeping arrangements toilets yeah gym membership gym membership yeah netflix accounts sure and pay i guess, I guess, is a massive thing. Well, that's a huge thing, isn't it, really? He rewards talent. Yeah.

And he invests in people that he trusts, doesn't he? He cares. He instigates a policy of paying them up front. He also says, lads, you go over those Alps, what's over there, a load of riches and art and stuff you can have. It's not just promising stuff, though. He's also promising glory. You can be the son of a farmer from provincial France and you can have. It's not just promising stuff, though. He's also promising glory.

You can be the son of a farmer from provincial France and you can rise up through the ranks and you can become a marshal of France. European campaigns go really, really well. And then he's like, OK, North Africa, let's do this. And this is where he gets to sort of fanboy his own childhood loves because Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great

had both conquered Egypt. And he is now leading this invasion force across the Mediterranean. He arrives, troops get off the ship, and then the British Navy turns up and destroys the French fleet. So it's got a bit wrong. That's called the Battle of the Nile, and that's Lord Nelson, isn't it? Yeah, that's the first time they have their sort of encounter. It's the first head-to-head.

Because the idea is that they've given up on the idea of an invasion of Britain at this point. They decide what we'll do is we'll try to cut off their route to India. Because if we cut off that, then the British won't be able to get their money coming in from the Indian territories. So Nelson is following him around, essentially. And that's how they know where they're going to be. Nelson wins a huge victory at the

Battle of the Nile, which is when Nelson becomes famous the first time. So Napoleon has had his fleet basically knackered behind him. Fleet knackered. I mean, he has had some success. He took Alexandria. Yeah, so he's invaded Egypt fine. Yeah, he's got there.

But he can't get home. He's gone to Egypt. They've all thought this is going to be super cool and amazing. They get there and they defeat the Mamelukes at the pyramids, the Battle of the Pyramids. But they also have to deal with heat stroke, a lack of food, a lack of water, copious amounts of diarrhoea.

Copious. You never want to hear that word, preceding diarrhoea. Not some diarrhoea, Dan. Copious. Because they thought, you know, we'll live off the land. You get to Egypt, there is nothing to live off.

So some of them went mad with heat stroke and killed themselves. It's terrible. The ones that did find food found fruit, which they loaded up on. But of course, if you're not used to a fruity diet, you will get severe diarrhea. And that's what happened. One of the things that's most extraordinary about Napoleon, apart from all the military stuff,

is that he brings across this hand-picked team of scientists and archaeologists and artists and engineers and people who are going to go and they're going to study Egyptology for the first time. And they find the Rosetta Stone. That's one of the things they do.ology for the first time. And they find the Rosetta Stone. That's one of the things they do. Napoleon found the Rosetta Stone? They find the Rosetta Stone. But really, without them, there wouldn't have been the foundation

of the modern study of Egyptology without Napoleon doing that. So again, this is a sign of a man with considerable intellectual interests as well as military expertise. Sounding more and more like an Indiana Jones movie. It's awesome. It's a Frenchman who deciphers the Rosetta Stone later on as well.

Is it? Champollion. So Napoleon goes in, gets the Rosetta Stone. Indy gets the golden skull. And then Meloc takes it. Bloody Nelson's out there. It's amazing, yeah. But he's not just...

I mean, he's out there as a military commander and he's doing some nasty stuff too. He can be ruthless. If a city doesn't surrender straight away, he doesn't show much forgiveness, does he? No. The famous one is Jaffa, a town that surrenders, that they conquer and then they go in

and two of the French representatives go to negotiate with the garrison at Jaffa to negotiate surrender. One of these is Eugène de Beauharnais, who's Josephine's son from her first marriage. And they negotiate with the Jaffa garrison about surrender, several thousand men, and they surrender. And they've been told, we're just going to keep you as prisoners of war.

When Napoleon sees the sight of thousands of prisoners coming towards him, now remember, it's not like they've got loads of supplies or the capacity necessarily to have to look after prisoners of war. And that's the point where he just goes into a rage and he says, what are you doing? What are you doing? How could you take these men? We can't keep them. You have further massacres when they are slaughtered. Unusual in the time because there's, you know, there's examples of Frederick the Great in Moravia. There's atrocities in the Seven Years' War. Everyone's at them. You know, there's examples of Frederick the Great in Moravia. There's atrocities in the Seven Years' War.

Everyone's at them. British East India Company conducts massacres in India in the 1790s and in Spain during the Peninsular Wars. But it's the fact that it's happening after surrender is seen as really problematic. Some of his biographers would argue this is a really rare loss of self-control on his part, that he loses it and just says, well, kill them all. So interesting for me, who's not a historian, to see where the line is drawn on someone

who's following the rules of war. Now, Napoleon, I can't like him as much as I did because it's so weird. The problem is, of course, that he had kind of presented himself as this great liberator figure. He had also made lots of speeches about, you know, oh, it was terrible how people repressed uprisings in other parts of Europe and so on. And then, of course, he goes in and does something similar. Some more sympathetic biographers point out that he had just found out that Josephine was at it with someone else.

Cheating on him. In France. OK. But, I mean, that's not an excuse, right? That's not, that doesn't mean, that's a bit of an overreaction. So he goes full Daenerys Targaryen. He does, sort of he goes from being the kind of hero everyone's like oh yeah we love daenerys like oh my god you just said fight for city he emerges out of this largely unscathed yeah he's lost his fleet that's been a disaster not that anyone in france knows that

sure well there are people in france who are like yeah guys where are the boats yeah i'm sure we sent you with 20 boats and now there are four boats. But he now returns to France, leaving his army out there. I mean, you know, he's sort of leaving the French Egyptologists still digging away. But he returns to France and this is where he suddenly sees his power. So the coup is bloodless, but it is still a coup. Yeah, I love Brumaire because it's campy and ridiculous in a lot of ways. The Directory is a five-man team that runs France. There's a feeling that the government

is fundamentally unstable, which it is, because they have royalists on one side and Jacobins on the other, and they don't know how to necessarily steer a course of moderation and order between these two extremes. So there are conspiracies going on. And some of the people who are thinking about this kind of need to stabilise power

are people like Abbé Sieyès, who's a veteran revolutionary, Fouché, who becomes Napoleon's chief of police and has quite a brutal reputation as well. Napoleon has missed out on all the kind of down and dirties of directory politics. So in a way, as you said, Greg, him being in Egypt is good, because while it's a total mess, at the same time, at least he's not associated with political factions in France so when these boys are plotting to put someone in they decide well we want a military figure because then we can get

the army on side. The plan is we'll get someone in, we'll have a bit of a transition period but then we'll be in charge. Obviously that's not what Napoleon did. So he's meant to be a puppet? Yeah he's meant to be essentially a puppet. So Napoleon returns in October 1799 to mega parties, there's meant to be essentially a puppet. So Napoleon returns in October 1799 to mega parties.

There's lots of people throwing parties in his honour, celebrations, acclaim. So when the plot gets going, Napoleon starts to outmanoeuvre the civilian plotters. So we can start to see him making a move. 18th and 19th Brumaire, which is the 9th and 10th of November 1799. Napoleon's brother, Lucian, Luciano, Lucian, who is now the head of the Council of 500 which is like the House of Commons, the lower house of Parliament

starts spreading a rumour and telling the Council of 500 that there's a Jacobin plot against them so he says we all need to get out of Paris we're going to go to Saint-Cloud where it will be safe now this was kind of standard fodder of conspiracies at the time so they all went off to St. Cloud and people

probably had some inkling that something was going on. The person they put in charge of the Parisian army is Napoleon, because we need stability and he's a hero. So anyway, when they get to St. Cloud, very theatrical situation, and Lucien Bonaparte trying to tell them, you know, right, we need to restore

order, and who do we need to do that? Guess who? This lad. My brother conveniently enough. So Napoleon goes into the room. Lucien cannot control this at all shouting, screaming, people saying down with the Caesar, down with Cromwell interesting. But they make a really big mistake because they say we're all going to talk about this

but we're all going to take some time now and individually swear allegiance to the constitution of France so that's 500 people having to say, I swear. And that is going to take hours. Lucien has been lucky. So Napoleon and all the other plotters are a bit anxious about this. Napoleon is not a patient man.

He pounces off to the Council of Elders, who are the upper house, where he says, remember, I march accompanied by the God of War and the God of Fortune. He'd wheel that out in Cairo, which is fine on your troops. But the Council of Elders are sort of sitting there going, what is this? Who are you?

So Napoleon's back to the Council of 500. It's mental in there. Still chaos. Lucien in the middle going, I don't know what I'm doing. They still start yelling about Caesar and tyrants. Some people try to physically attack him.

Napoleon gets out. Lucien goes out and tries to get a bit of time. Another debate. Let's have another debate. They do this ridiculously theatrical scene where Lucien says, if my brother were to attack the constitution of France, I would, and he takes out a sword to prove this, I would drive a dagger through his heart.

And at this point they're like, seems all right. And at this point Napoleon then has military support to dissolve the chamber. They then institute the consulate with three consuls and Napoleon is, surprise surprise, first consul. The idea was that they would change around. Nah. Then he becomes first consul for life in 1802. And then last of that,

emperor. Last of that, emperor. So France has gone from having a king to ending up with an emperor. The nuance window! This is where we allow our expert historian to have two minutes to launch into their own thesis about what we should really think about and care about in this subject.

Without much further ado, you have two minutes starting now. Okay, so many Napoleonic biographies profess to bring us closer to the real Napoleon can read every one of his surviving letters. But I sometimes wonder about the futility of looking for the real Napoleon. After all, from the very beginning of his career, as we've heard, he consciously sought to create his own myth.

So where then does the myth end and the real man begin? Napoleon should be seen as a kind of modern celebrity figure, one who actively sought to shape his own image, persona and reputation. And we can see this in, for example, the story of the Battle of Arcole in 1796 during the Italian campaign, which we have heard about. It's at this point that we start to see the emergence of what Jean Toulard, French historian, one of the sort of great writers on Napoleon, has called the myth of the saviour figure that Napoleon used throughout his career. But what's interesting when we look at Arcol

is how he altered the narrative a little bit. So there's a bridge, the Austrians are on one side, the French are on the other, and a soldier called Augereau, a general called Augereau, tries to cross the bridge waving one of the French standards. He is repelled and Napoleon takes up the flag and repeated the action. Victory at Arcole was only secured a couple of days later by doing a sort of through-the-back-door attack on the Austrians.

But the popular image of Arcole is all about Napoleon. But the other side of that is the British take on it, which is the creation of what we would call the Black Legend, the character assassination that the British tried to conduct immediately as soon as Napoleon became a prominent figure. This was an incredibly personalised series of attacks, unprecedented in terms of

British criticism of the French. And this, I think, has created the lasting popular image of Napoleon in Britain. A small man with a big ego, a Corsican ogre by turns monstrous and ridiculous. Fake biographies accused him of nailing a dog to a door when he was a child, of poisoning some girlfriends. They even tried to kill him through some bombs in 1800.

These were French bombs, but funded by Britain. And I would argue that this black myth still shapes the kind of professed revulsion, but simultaneous fascination towards Napoleon in this country. And I think he's an extremely important example of how the legacies of historical figures, whether we view them positively or negatively, are shaped by ideological forces. Lovely. Thank you. He's a pretty extraordinary character, isn't he? And we've only really done the first 30 years of his life. Yeah, that's amazing. The thing that fascinates me,

fanboying that he did, following in the footsteps of, because I've been thinking about that a lot recently, you hear about people who want to become unique individuals, do their own thing. So if you take the Beatles, for example, and you look at the blatant obsession that the Gallagher brothers of Oasis had, they rose to the top by just trying to emulate the greatest formula of pop music, unashamedly, following in the footsteps completely. I never knew that he would be, you know, I'm going to the places that Alexander went or Julius Caesar went. And that's a side of him that I'd never thought about before. It seems fascinating. So that's what we need to do.

All of us just copy the greats. Well, that was fantastic. I've had such a lovely time. And I have to say a big thank you to my guests. In History Corner, Dr. Laura O'Brien from the University of Northumbria. And in Comedy Corner, Dan Schreiber from No Such Thing as a Fish. This is how the Oh, never mind. This is how the pandemic ends. Not with a bang, but with a shot.

Or rather, billions of shots. I'm Tim Harford, the presenter of More or Less and 50 Things That Made the Modern Economy. And in a new podcast series from the BBC, we'll be covering the defining story of the crisis, the search for a vaccine. We look at the cutting-edge biotechnology behind these vaccines and the underrated business of fridges and vials and porter cabins that will be essential in a huge public health campaign.

And of course, there are the other questions. Who's going to pay for this? How will we persuade people to take the vaccine? And who gets to go to the front of the queue of several billion people? That's how to vaccinate the world. Available now on BBC Sounds.