Did you know…Napoleon Was Once Defeated by Rabbits???
I thought it only happened in cartoons, but my oh my!
Yes, world-renowned, history-celebrated, Emperor of France was defeated by a bunch of rabbits.
And I’ll tell you all about it.
It was the year 1807. Napoleon, back from a conquest, was invited to a hunting party by his chief of staff, Alexandre Berthier. Berthier, trying to impress the emperor, went out of his way to make it the event of the year. If it was in our time, I could imagine the news on Vogue and Entertainment Tonight.
He probably wanted to make history as the man who made the emperor happy. He eventually did — made history, I mean — not just in the way he expected.
He arranged for a thousand rabbits to be herded into his park. Then the most unexpected thing happened. When Napoleon entered the park with his men, the rabbits charged at them in an ‘attack’. Unable to fight them off, Napoleon took to his heels, running for his life. Probably the most humiliating moment of his life. Social media would have been in a stampede if it was in today’s news! I can see the hashtags, #hunteristhehunted, #cancelBerthier, #animalfarm, etc.
But the real story was the rabbits were farm-tamed rabbits instead of the wild ones Berthier requested for. The difference between these species was that the wild rabbits would have hopped to safety at the sight of Napoleon, but the farm-tamed species were used to humans bringing them food. And having been starved for 24hrs before the show, saw Napoleon as their dinner bearer and hopped towards him.
Berthier must have prayed for the ground to swallow him whole. Well, next time you try to impress someone, make sure you’re on the same page with your vendor.
Have you been a Berthier before? 😃
