Sunday 5 February 2023

Was Napoleon Really Defeated By Rabbits?

the amazing story of a hunt that went wrong,


Jacques-Louis David's "Napoleon Crossing the Alps," 1802 image credit from RMN (Château de Versailles), the hunt started like this, the event was organized by the Prince of Neuchâtel, Alexandre Berthier, to make sure the hunt was a success, Berthier arranged for around a thousand rabbits to be brought to the hunt on that day, well he did not want a rabbit hunt with no rabbits! when the rabbits were released, they didn't scatter to avoid the party of men shooting at them, instead, they charged, the men went into battle mode to protect Napoleon and rebuffed the rabbits, but after a while, the rabbits regrouped and charged a second time! and swarmed onto the emperor himself, Napoleon escaped with his life, as well as the rest of the hunting party, but embarrassingly they lost the battle, the embarrassed Berthier was the subject of an investigation over the incident, which yielded a perfectly logical explanation for the rabbits' behaviour, you can read the whole story plus the aftermath at Just History Posts, it is a pretty good story, and there is even a chance that it might be true. 


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