Thread by @ajcdeane

#deanehistory 88 – hat tip @DrBrexit.

Napoleon won the War of the Fourth Coalition, but he lost the celebration after.

Lest this seem obscure, I remind you of the most dangerous enemy faced by Monty Python’s King Arthur, the Legendary Black Beast of Arrrghhh, against which, after heavy losses, the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch had to be deployed.

It was like this. The Treaty had been signed. Success was affirmed. His Chief of Staff, Alexandre Berthier, was confronted with the typical gift challenge – what to get the Emperor who has everything?

Well, he thought, Napoleon does like to hunt.

So Berthier invited the army’s top brass, and bought a ton of target victims for the occasion. What could be more sociable and less risky than armed men blasting thousands of rabbits to smithereens over drinks?

Except it didn’t work out like that.

The guns were handed out. The brandies were passed around. Cigars were lit. The cages were unlocked.

But the rabbits, rather than running away from Napoleon, ran… towards him.

Ha ha, those present must have laughed… the laughter drying up in speechless mouths as the rabbits kept on coming, an enormous swarm soon surrounding them, then climbing… up them.

For it turned out that these rabbits were not wild but domesticated, expected the bipeds present to feed them, and had no fear of them. Never released in one place in such numbers hitherto, they were utterly uncontrollable and all men present were soon, well, covered in rabbits.

Attendants tried to beat them with staffs but it’s hard to do that without whacking the man underneath. The rabbits kept coming. They seemed endless.

RUN AWAY cried Napoleon, in my imagination at least.

Napoleon’s fastest retreat ended in him legging it for his carriage. Even there many rabbits had made it in to the carriage before or whilst boarding, & kept him company as the Emperor sped away from the shortest, worst party in the history of the First French Empire.