Joseph Bonaparte, Cryptid Hunter

Napoleon’s lesser-known, older brother Joseph was, at times, the polar opposite of his conqueror sibling. Yet by merely being related to Napoleon, Joseph often found himself embroiled in geopolitical intrigue. In this episode, Ben and Noel explore Joseph’s rollercoaster of a life — along with his later obsession: Hunting down the infamous Jersey Devil.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome

(00:27):
to the show Ridiculous Historians. As always, thank you so
much for tuning in. Shout out to super producer Casey Pegram,
Shout out to our producers Andrew Howard and Max Williams,
and in a really weird way, I guess tangentially, shout
out to Napoleon. Yes, Napoleon, I'm betting Napole. Oh yeah,

(00:51):
I'm no Napoleon. No, that's not worth it. I think
it was. It's always worth It's always worth it. Try.
You know what I always think of whenever we cover Napoleon.
I probably mentioned this before, is it Bill and Ted?
Because I always think about when he was eating ice
cream and trying to take other people's ice cream. That
sounds like something Napoleon would do. Now, there's a really
cool Phoenix song called Napoleon Says, and I don't understand

(01:13):
the reference, but it's Napoleon says, to take off your coat,
take off your long John's too. Napoleon says, to take
off your coat, take off your long John's too, writing
in a trench coat. I don't know what if that means.
I think that's why I love Phoenix because they're clearly,
you know, not English's first language speakers, but they write
all their song lyrics in English, and there's a fun,

(01:34):
charming kind of lost in Translation vibe, not only because
they were also on the Lost in Translations soundtrack, but
it just something that happens in the transition between French
to English that I find very charming. I think they
do it on purpose his people, and I love seeing
them live and uh and uh, you know, I'll admit
I was one of those kids who had some emo

(01:57):
moments to some Phoenix songs, and I greatly, I greatly
appreciate them, but I do wonder like sometimes when you
when you read the structure of the lyrics, you're thinking like,
did they just think, yeah, this will work. You and
I saw Phoenix together many years ago and then before
before times at the Shaking News Music Festival. Um, that

(02:18):
was a lot of fun and we're cheap folks, so
we went because it was free. It was free, free
that one time we got free festival tickets. But today's
episode no is this is funny because this relates. It's
weird how synchronous this became. This relates to a couple
of things they're near and dear to our hearts, and
that we've covered recently, not just in this show, but

(02:38):
in our other companion shows. Stuff they don't want you
to know. We did a whole episode about the Jersey Devil.
No spoilers, but we we had we figured out a
pretty likely explanation for this cryptod and then we also
we had this throwaway fact in that show where like
a lot of people saw the Jersey Devil, one of

(02:59):
them was related to Napoleon Bonaparte, and it was one
of those things like if you listen to that episode,
which I think we didn't, Okay job on, we sort
of like threw that fact out there, like there we go,
and then we just never never talked about it again
because we had a bunch of stuff to do. Yeah,
it's true, And in this episode, I mean, this isn't
about the Jersey Devil, but we're gonna get to that

(03:20):
section of Joseph Napoleon's life when he immigrated to the
United States um after serving as sort of a you know,
reluctant king under his brother's reign, because you know, you
can't be Napoleon's brother and not get some kind of
like juicy post, you know, as a result. Yeah, that's

(03:40):
the thing we're talking about. Napoleon's older brother, Joseph, and
he's uh, He's been described by historians as personality wise,
almost the polar opposite of his buddy Napoleon. Joseph is
like an idealist. He's mild mannered, and he's quote lacking
in vigor. He's what a former president would have called

(04:03):
low energy old low energy yosef. Yes, I don't know
if I'm standing enough. It's yo step for now. I'm
just gonna do it because it seems like, you know,
when French people have names that you would pronounce one
way in English, they are usually pronounced differently, like uh again,
singer of Phoenix. Look at it on paper, it's Thomas,
but he goes by Tomah. Yeah, well that's a good point.

(04:23):
I'm gonna stick with. You know what, I'll alternate between
the My arbitrary defense of that decision is going to
be that he did immigrate to the States. Said there
we go. Yeah, he was like, it's funny because no
matter how intimately aware of Napoleon's reign and rise to
power as you might be, author auns are a little

(04:45):
bit lower that you would have heard too too much
about Joseph. He was a quietude. He liked literature, Gartney
and uh and I love this Rason. He liked entertaining.
I love when people say entertaining. It's such a vague
thing as a verb. Like if you see those house
hunter things and someone's like, my name is Marlon and

(05:06):
I own I own a vantage toenail clipper shop, And
then someone's like, yes, and my name is Sandy. I
admire otters from Afar are bunchet is ten million dollars.
And whenever they go through a living room, you know
they're getting shown around the house. They have to have
problems because it's house hunters. They're like, I don't know
if this is big enough. We love to entertain, or

(05:29):
another another another way you see influencer types talk about
that as their primary occupation is entertaining, you know, or hosting.
I love to host you know. Basically means you have
a fancy house and spend lots of money on fancy
parties that you can then post videos about your fancy
parties and your fancy friends. Uh no, shade, it's it's
it's a way of living. Um, but it is kind

(05:49):
of funny when your whole reason for existing is to
kind of flex on the internet, just sort of kind
of what being an influencers influencers out there, correct me
if I'm wrong, Ben, I think I have a little
bit of a clue as to how you might pronounce
uh the J word as in our our heroes name,
because I was like, no, my house Hunter joke was solid. No,

(06:10):
it's super solid um. And did I not laugh? I'm no, no,
We'll put We'll fix it in post. We fix it.
I laughed inside my heart laughed and smiled at the
same time. She's very difficult to do for a heart,
since it doesn't have a mouth, is it. Well, I
just know that he was born Giuseppe Bonaparte, so I'm

(06:30):
guessing that that Joseph might have been the americanization of Giuseppe.
Oh yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna flip it. I'm gonna
go back to Joseph, all right. Well, and then you know,
maybe his his close friends called him Giuseppe, and he
was like, only you can do that, you and my
little brother. So it's it's funny because it seems like,

(06:53):
if we look at it, it seems like he would
have been happy just living sort of a life of leisure. Right.
He was born again Giuseppi Buenaparte and Courte Corsica on
January seven, seventeen sixty eight, and he was the oldest
sibling of Charles and Letizia Bonaparte's eight children, one of which,

(07:15):
of course, was their second child, Napoleon, or as his
buddies called him, Naps nap Nappy, the original Napster, little Nappy.
No nobody called him that, um, and that wasn't funny.
I appreciate the the lath though, Ben, and I will
return the favor. When you make a joke that doesn't
land at some point later in our career, it's bound
to happen. Then you're usually you're you're batting averages high.

(07:38):
But you never know, you never know. But he and
Joseph were tight, right, Yeah, yeah, yeah, Gusepi and the
Napster were a dynamic duo for sure, because they grew
up together. They spent their early childhood together, and then
they left Corsica in seventeen seventy eight to go to
school and they traveled together. Josep have had been This

(08:01):
happened in a lot of families. He had been like
singled out as the kid who had to be a priest,
so he started study. Always gotta be one, I guess, yeah, often,
so he started classical studies at one college and Napoleon
went to a military school in another city. M and
Joseph didn't want to be a priest. Imagine that. And yeah,

(08:21):
I imagine that happens quite a lot too, where like,
you know, in the pecking order you got your military leader,
maybe there's one that gets to be a doctor, or
like maybe there's one that's like the black sheep, who like,
we're gonna accept the fact that you're going to be
a sculptor or something. And then you know, maybe he
just seemed like the most pious. I don't know what
makes you suited in the eyes of your folks to
be a priest, but they obviously saw the lord in him,

(08:42):
but he didn't see it in himself. He wanted to
join his bro and be a militaryman. Yeah exactly. I
mean it feels like, you know, there's always you and
I are both only children, so I always imagine there's
a little bit of like sibling rivalry. You don't want
your siblings to get like the cool stuff and you
get stuck with the Nazi cool stuff. So maybe he felt,

(09:03):
you know, a version of that, like why does why
does my little brother get to go off on adventures
and I have to be a priest? But that's the thing.
A deathbed promise came into play. Charles Bonaparte was dying,
he was ailing, it was not long for the world,
and he made his son Joseph, promise to give up

(09:25):
any remote, any sliver of a thought or ambition of
following a military career, and he said, instead, you need
to return to Corsica and to vote yourself to the family.
And then when the elder Buonaparte passed away in that's
when Joseph becomes head of the whole operation. He looks
after the farm, the vineyard, he helps his mom support

(09:49):
his younger siblings, and then he's still is able to
continue education, so in seventeen goes to University of Pisa
and and a year later he has a law degree.
So he decided to know he's not a priest at all.
He decided to follow the law instead of the lord,

(10:11):
and he then got a job in the French Corsican
judicial system, and he and his brother continued to kind of,
you know, be there wasn't. I didn't get a real
sense of sibling rivalry here, which is interesting when you
consider the heights to which Napoleon rose. Uh, Joseph seemed
fine with that all throughout this story. I just wanted
to lead with that a little bit because he seemed

(10:32):
like a pretty reasonable guy, and as we get into
his time in America, that reasonable side really shines through. Yeah, yeah,
that's true. So because he can he has a law degree,
he gets a job right working in the judicial system,
and he and his brother do work together, as he said,
and they want to advance the French revolutionary cause in Corsica.

(10:55):
But then they get into a conflict with the leader
of the Corsican nationalist Pascual Paully, and that happened, so
they high tail it to France and now things take
this change. Life has takes us some crazy directions, and
a family friend helps Joseph get a job as a
commissary of the army in the south of France, so

(11:19):
he actually does kind of work with the military etymology
question for you, Ben know, this is a pet project
of yours. Commissary is a position in the military like that.
But it's also like what they call like the canteen
where you eat your food. Any idea why that is?
Those things that related? Yeah, kind of. So it's been
around since thirteen sixty two in English, and it meant

(11:41):
one to whom special duty is entrusted by a higher power.
So technically, you know, if you want to mess with
your kids, if you have kids, then when you're on
a road trip or something, make one of them. Like
you are the commissary of of the ox cord, you
get to decide the music, but be careful because you

(12:01):
can always be overthrown if I don't like baby Shark.
Who doesn't like Baby Shark? I don't know. Man. If
you it's an alright song in small doses, maybe that's
the problem. Maybe it's too much of an ear worm.
But I think you were able to get to avoid
the baby Shark thing, right. It came out after your
daughter's word. For her, it was more of a meme

(12:23):
then something that she was actually into. And she's also
got a baby siss so her her baby sister was
a big fan. And there's actually there's actually this funny
toy that you can get. It's like a baby shark
that sings the song, but it sings it depending on
how fast you pump its mouth. That's not a weird.
What I mean is it's like a hand puppet and

(12:44):
you move its mouth, and as you move it, it
changes the speed of it. So if you move it
really slow, it's like baby, dude. It sounds like a
like a battery dying and a doll or something. You know. Yeah, yeah,
So commissary comes from Latin, and then it eventually evolves

(13:06):
to person in charge. But as far as when it
became specifically related to food and the storage of food,
and that may be a story for another day. But
he's in there right, he's he's in the military now,
he's not a priest. And while he stayed in Marseilles,
he meets a daughter of a wealthy merchant. Her name

(13:30):
is Marie Julie Clarey. And it's funny because there's a
great article from Shannon Sellen dot com that's pretty blunt
and I think a little bit. I don't know if
they're trying to be mean, but they say Julie was
not physically attractive, but she was intelligent and she basically
had a great personality and Joseph's mom liked her and

(13:53):
also thought she would be a good match financially for
a son. So they got married on August one, seventeen four.
Isn't it always the merchant's daughter, you know, as that
seems like such a trope, you know, married the merchant's
daughter because he had to curry favor with the merchant.
They're always a very stern and want the best for
their daughter. Uh. It is pretty funny that shady Shannon

(14:15):
uh sell an article that kind of negs this particular
merchant's daughter. But it's true. They get married on August first,
seventeen ninety four, and that's when Napoleon began to really,
you know, do well for himself. But so did Joseph
in his own way. Yeah. Yeah, they were for a while.
They were in kind of like a rising tide carries

(14:36):
all vessels situations. I believe he went with Napoleon on
the Italian campaign, and then in seventeen ninety seven he
was elected as a Corsican deputy to the Council of
five hundred. The Council of five hundred, as a lower
house legislative body established by the French Constitution, is seventeen

(14:59):
ninety five. It is called that because they have five
hundred delegates and they were charged with initiating legislation for
the upper House. The Council of Ancients would accept or
reject the laws they worked on. So picture a little
bit like a house of representatives. Almost. This is great
for business. Eventually he becomes the French ambassador to the

(15:21):
Court of Parma, and then he becomes the ambassador to Rome.
And now he is wealthy. He is balling. He is
not worried about money, Noel, he is It's good to
be Napoleon's brother at this moment in time, exactly. He's
he I love this brotherly love situation. You know, like
you're used to seeing so much backstabbing and kind of backbiting,

(15:43):
all the back things between brothers as they rise to prominence.
But he seemed perfectly content to seeing his brother achieve
all of this success because you know, frankly, if he
didn't have ambitions to be like the top dog, he
certainly was benefiting from all this right because he was
also becoming incredibly wealthy. He bought a town house on

(16:04):
the Rue de Roche in Paris. Super producer Casey Pegram
would be ashamed of my French pronunciation. But doing the
best I can both, I know, I know, we we
always try. He also bought a chateau. Well, what makes
the chateau is chateau? It is this just a style
of house that must be And that little upside down

(16:27):
little symbol over the a, it's a it's like a
large country house. It's in a state, right, It's exactly.
It's it's basically like a vacation home. And he bought
a lot of lands too. And I'm gonna do my
best here. Let's see. Uh Morte Fontaine. Oh god, that
was bad. Um, I get the gist of it. Let's
just call it. I'm just gonna pronounce it like a
terrible American Morte Fontaine. Um. And that was nineteen miles

(16:50):
north of the city and Bonus nachos to bonus bonus
party nachos there it is at two. Joseph and Julie
had two daughters. They did have a third one, but
unfortunately she passed away shortly after birth. And their daughters

(17:15):
were zen Ed who was born in July one, and Charlotte,
who was known as La Lot La Lot. I guess
that's just removing the shar Oh that's sweet. Yeah, kind of,
it's adding an extra low um, but yeah, you know,
I think they were creative with their nicknames, those French
and she was born on October one of eighteen o two,

(17:37):
and Joseph began to really build out his assets, doing
massive improvements on his estate houses. And he really did
enjoy that that sweet, sweet country living. But he was
also something of a gentleman, of course, and enjoyed the
finer things in life, but also was strangely a simple man.

(17:57):
It's it's interesting, weird dichotomy with this guy, right, And
he was described thus late by one of his biographers,
early twentieth century biographer. He had an element of laziness
in his character, disposition to rest and quietly enjoy the
good things he possessed in a dignified way. So he
was lazy and dignified. In the debates of the five hundred,

(18:18):
which is that Council of five hundred we talked about,
where he was a deputy, he took little part, and
at the end of the term of membership he did
not seek reelection. Yeah, that's the thing. He seemed like
he was absolutely fine to just chill just enjoy a
life of relaxation and uh have have some stress free days.

(18:40):
Napoleon had other plans. Napoleon very much felt that his
brother needed to do more to help support the Bonaparte cause,
so he said, look, initially, I'm gonna use you as
a diplomat, not necessarily because you're a great diplomat, but
because I know you older brother, and you're easier to

(19:02):
control because we go back. So I would also say
there's an element of trust there too, and Joseph wasn't
super happy with this. The friction between the two men
rose as Napoleon first became consul for life in eighteen
o two and then just two years later emperor in
eighteen o four. They clashed over who should be the successor,

(19:25):
because Napoleon at that time to not have children, and
Joseph said, this is weird because it doesn't make a
lot of sense for his character. Joseph said, look, I'm
your older brother. You need to recognize me as your heir,
and Napoleon wanted to recognize the oldest son of the
one of their other siblings, their younger brother Louis, and

(19:46):
so Napoleon started kind of trying to barter with his
elder brother, and he was like, look, Joe, well and
just I'll make you king of something if you just
give up all claims to the French throne. I'll make
you king of Lombardy. How about the Oh yeah, it's weird, Ben,
You're right about that. That's being seeming out of character
for the way his story AND's kind of described this

(20:08):
guy as like being content to like do his thing
out of the public eye, right, But he clearly had
some ambition, But I think maybe it was more he
liked the money side of it, so he wanted to,
you know, have that claim so he would inherit all
of that wealth rather than like be the top dog, right,
or he cared much about governing, because again we know

(20:28):
with his career on the Council the five hundred, he
didn't really care much about politics and he sort of
phoned it in, right. So in eighteen o six, Napoleon
sent Joseph to kick out the dynasty that was in
control of Naples, the Bourbon dynasty, and he became king.
And Joseph was not super into the idea, as we said,

(20:51):
nor was his wife. But in eighteen o eight, when
Napoleon invaded Spain. He succeeded and offered Joseph the Spanish
throne then after his other brother Louis refused it, but
he more specifically told Joseph to give up the throne
of Naples and give it to their sister Caroline and

(21:12):
her husband Joachim Mura, and then go to Spain where
he would take up his throne there. He was not
into the idea, but he ultimately gave in and did
what his brother asked. I mean, you know, when Napoleon
asked me to do something, brother or not, You've got
to give it some serious thought because you don't want
to make an enemy of him, and as we know
in history, brother or no, you can still become blood enemies. True,

(21:37):
the forces that were best suited to tangle with Napoleon
were things like Winter and Russia or rabbits, which is
the true story. It's an earlier episode of Hours. Check
it out. Napoleon did get punked by a horde of rabbits. Yeah,
this is a tough This is not great real estate
for French royalty because the Spanish had some stereotypes the

(22:00):
French at the time. No, they were like the French
are all atheists and their foreigners. They don't deserve a break.
We don't cut them slack. We don't give them a break,
We give them no mercy. And they had a nickname
for Joseph pepe Botteias Joe Bottles, because apparently he really
really liked the sauce that was the propaganda, but in

(22:23):
fact he was he was kind of a light drinker,
sort of like that propaganda about Napoleon being really short.
It's somewhat of a smear campaign. They also had no
problem hacking French soldiers to pieces. Joseph tries to make
peace by having a lot of pretty moderate policies at
the time, often in contradiction of Napoleon's orders from Paris.

(22:47):
Napoleon divided Spain into six military districts. He allowed his
marshals of those districts too. Eggs are pretty pretty independent
authority over the parts of the country they can try rold.
And then that undermined his brother's rule from the Spanish throne.
So Joseph asked, Napoleon is so funny. Joseph as Napoleon like, hey,

(23:09):
can I quit this job? Stinks? And uh, Napoleon responds.
In eighteen twelve, by making Joseph commander in chief of
all the French forces left in Spain. So congratulations, your
face is on the most unpopular thing in the country
right now, asked me, I made you king, I've made
you think the nerve God the absolute goal of it all.

(23:34):
It's true. So on June one, eighteen thirteen, Joseph decided
to pick a fight with the Duke of Wellington Um
and a battle ensued at Victoria and the French lost,
but that didn't stop Joseph entirely. He headed out for
the frontier. So then, after you know, galloping across the frontiers, presumably,

(23:56):
Joseph returned to his estate at Morte Fontaine, and then
Napoleon decided that Ferdinand the Seventh, the Bourbon you will
call dynasty family member who he had had kicked off
of the throne to install Joseph, should return as the
king of Spain, and that they should start to you know,

(24:17):
make nice between the two countries, to help create the
groundwork for a marriage of convenience between Ferdinand and Joseph's
daughter zend who was only thirteen at the time. So
maybe because of that, I know, weird things that happened,
but he had his reasons. Surely Joseph did not like
this idea at all, but was pressured, as he seems

(24:39):
to have been kind of consistently throughout this story, and
decided to give him. Yeah, yeah, he he acquiesced and
agreed for the Spanish crown to be transferred to the
House of Bourbon. With what important caveat, I still get
to be called King Joseph, That's what he said. He

(25:01):
never formally advocated, and luckily the thirteen year old was
spared having to have that child marriage for political purposes.
Fast forward spoiler alert. If you're listening to today's show,
you probably already know what happened to Napoleon. He was defeated,
he was forced into exile. Joseph found himself with a

(25:22):
very unfortunate last name, so he fled. He high tailed
it across the Atlantic to the United States under an
assumed name. And get the hutzpah on this guy. Know
he stole the crown jewels with Spain. Well, he probably
didn't think he was stealing. He thought they were his,
but he put them in a suitcase literally and took

(25:42):
them with him to the States as he sailed aboard
an American break named the Commerce. It was twice inspected
by the British, but his false papers they worked. He
was able to get through on forced papers. He left
his wife and his daughters in pair Us. They moved
to Frankfurt and then later to Brussels. Of course, what

(26:04):
do you do first time, if this is a movie
and you're traveling to the US for the first time,
You go to New York, Right, New York, New York.
That's you know, where so many immigrants to the United States,
you know, found their kind of gateway into this New
World type situation. So he went to New York sort

(26:24):
of in shame a little bit, but once he got
there he kind of realized he liked it. He spent
a little time in New York and then moved to Philadelphia,
where he took up residence at two sixties South ninth Street,
Um which became a very important hub for this huge
influx of French expats coming into Philly. And he then

(26:45):
you know, settled in a larger estate house in Bordentown,
New Jersey, which was just twenty five miles northeast of
Philly on the Delaware River. He called his estate Point
Breeze Point Breeze sounds like an eighties film, or sounds
like a suburban community, right. I bought a time share

(27:06):
in Point Breeze, So he's in suburban exile. He's quiet,
but he likes He got used to the good life.
That's the thing. He may have still been dethroned, but
he considered himself royalty, so he built a home worthy
of MTVS cribs. His vast mansion had a ginormous wine cellar,

(27:28):
Florida celi mirrors, super fancy crystal chandelier's, marble fireplaces, grand staircases,
you name it. Fun fact, with eight thousand books. His
library held the largest collection of Tom's in the country
at the time. The Library of Congress only had sixty hundred.

(27:49):
So he was like bawling, Yeah, he was Tom rich Ben.
I know I've been doing this a lot in this episode,
But what's the difference between a tome and a book?
Tom's got to be a little longer write a book.
It's you got your pamphlet, you got your book, and
then you got your tomb. I don't know. Tome is
usually considered a very heavy book, and there's a little
bit of a a connotation of academic or stilarship to right, Yeah,

(28:17):
unless you get into making it a little bit witchy,
and then it becomes a grimoire. There we are, but
all you know, maybe all grim noise are not tombed,
all tombs are not grim noise. But all grim noise
or tombs, what do you think? I think that's pretty cool.
It just depends on the length of a grimoire. If
you're into a grim wise, then I would I would
hope you get a tome. You know, it gets some

(28:37):
more occults bang for your buck. But you're right, yeah,
and you have to wonder what kind of books were
in there. If you were to go to the mansion
and meet Joseph at this time, you would walk through
an elaborate landscape, ten miles of carriage paths, rare non
native trees and plants, gauzebos, gardens, even an artificial lake

(28:59):
stocked with imported European swans. This guy is not hurting
money and to entertain. He does love to entertain. It
reminds me of like another call back to an early
episode The Menagerie's of what's his name? Pablo Escobar and
the Hippos. The hippos, Yeah, Yeah, it's got that kind

(29:19):
of vibe to it. I don't know, maybe a little
more idyllic and a little less like Safari Park. Less cocaine,
probably too, Probably less cocaine, I would imagine. But thanks
to mental Floss, as always, for a great rundown of
this very interesting man's life. We're about to get to
the super fun part. But his home became this real

(29:40):
kind of home base for a lot of his rich
neighbors who would just come and hang and look through
his vast collection of toms. And these were elites, obviously,
very wealthy folks from Europe and America, and he would
entertain dignitaries, folks like John Quincy Adams would come visit,

(30:01):
Point Breese, Daniel Webster, the Marquis de Lafayette of Hamilton's
the musical fame, Stephen Girard, who was a well known
French banker from Philadelphia and was also apparently at the time,
um the richest man in the United States. Nice hanging
out at the biggest library. That's that's a That's a
great collaboration of superlatives, isn't it. So there were rumors

(30:27):
swirling around that Joseph may have been involved in several
plots to rescue Napoleon from exile, but nothing, none of
the charges ever stuck. He was also staying clear of
other high level intrigues, like the invasion of Texas by
Charles Lalemant. It's weird because Joseph's nephew, Louis Napoleon says

(30:49):
that Joseph was offered the Mexican crown by a group
of Mexican revolutionaries and he turned them down, saying, I've
worn two crowns. I would not take a step to
where a third. Nothing can gratify me more than to
see men who would not recognized my authority when I
was at Madrid now come to seek me in exile.

(31:09):
That I may be at their head. But I do
not think that the throne you wish to raise again
can make your happiness. O o oh. And then the
next part of this quote, bend really speaks to We
talked about at the top of the show how much
he loved the United States and our system of governments. Uh,
you know, as imperfect as it might be, certainly to him,

(31:30):
better than what he had experienced in Europe. Yeah, that's
you know what, that's a really good point because the
last part of the quity. He says, every day that
I passed in the hospitable land of the United States
proves more clearly to me the excellence of Republican institutions
for America. Keep them then as a precious gift from heaven.
So maybe his maybe his house parties had like started

(31:55):
to sway his thinking, because he definitely was a reluctant
king from the jump, right. That's why it's I feel
like it was really in character for him, you know,
and it made sense that he would be super comfortable obviously.
I mean, he's comfortable. He's living in the lap of
luxury and isn't in danger of being like executed, you know,
for like war crimes or whatever, you know, at the

(32:15):
very least for being an enemy combatant. Um. But yeah,
his wife though, didn't come with him to the States.
He didn't see her for twenty five years. Yeah, talking
about a long distance relationship. You know who he did
see though years I can imagine, ye, that's right, his mistress,
Annette Savage. Uh. He met her when she was eighteen

(32:38):
years old. She was, you know, according to the pattern
he was established. He was the daughter of some distinguished merchants.
He ran into her while he was shopping for suspenders.
She spoke French match made in Heaven. He was kind
of known to be a philanthroper, and his wife, Julie,
was aware of this and tolerated his affairs. He had

(33:00):
two children with Annette Savage, and then when one of
them was killed or died tragically in the garden at
a young age, Joseph later dispatched his mistress to Paris
and paid her explicitly to never publish her memoirs. M Okay,
sort of like an n D. A kind of situation,

(33:20):
you know what, Yeah, I think you're right. I think
it was, yeah, or maybe even like part of a
pre nup. But they weren't married, though, were they. You
can't really can't can't be married if you're already married. Yeah, yeah,
so it was harder and it would have been harder
to track that though back then, probably right, Oh surely, yeah,
I think so, it would be harder. I mean, and
how do bigive of laws work at that time on

(33:42):
an international scale. But still wasn't a good look. You know,
a lot of locals were scandalized. So then another tragedy
strikes January twenty. His mansion, which we earlier established is
pretty dope, catches on fire. It burns to the ground.
His neighbors are able to help save some stuff, including

(34:04):
his art collection. Newspapers of the day called the fire accidental,
but there was gossip. There was a very weird rumor
going around, and they said that the fire was actually
the result of arson because there was a local Russian
immigrant who burned down his house because Napoleon invaded Russia.
And like we said, this was the second of a

(34:25):
pair of tragedies. Um you'd mentioned Ben that his daughter
Pauline was killed, and I just want to mention this
because it was a new word that I learned, and
I love sharing new words. She was killed by a
falling ornamental vase which had to have been very very
very large and probably with poured concrete or some other
heavy material. But it's called a jar Jordonnier, which what
you can picture those like a giant planter that you

(34:46):
would see on the grounds of an estate, like so
big you could plant like a small tree in one
of them. Bad way to go. Yeah, an errant Jordonnier.
How does that even happen? Maybe it wasn't loaded down
with something and she pushed to too. I don't know, um,
but yeah, So despite those two tragedies, he was kind
of unperturbed. I'm sure he was bummed, but he decided

(35:09):
to take his neighbors up on their offers to help
him because they loved him right, and you know, because
it made sense. He was such a good host, such
a good entertainer, and was very welcoming and open with
his home and his beautiful library and all his homes.
So they were just really kind of kind to him

(35:29):
and gave him solace. And he actually was so touched
by it that he wrote down his feelings on the
subject in a letter that he wrote to one of
the town's magistrates, and it says, all the furnitures, statues, pictures, money, played, gold, jewels,
linen books and in short, I'm sorry only laughing because
it's just like he's listing, like all the things, uh,

(35:50):
And in short, everything that was not consumed has been
most scrupulously delivered into the hands of the people of
my house in the night of the fire, and during
the next day they were brought to me by laboring men.
Drawers in which I have found the proper quantity of
pieces of money and medals of gold and valuable jewels
which might have been taken with impunity. So just to unpack,

(36:10):
I mean, he's basically saying that, like all of these neighbors,
whatever their class and their staff, they could have looted
the wreckage of his estate, but instead they like gathered
up all this stuff from the wreckage for him and
returned them to which to me, it just speaks to
his character, doesn't it. I mean, they would if they
were just kind of sponging off of him, then you know,

(36:33):
they would think I would think that someone doing that
would see a giant fire, like it's like, oh well
the party's over, better get whatever we can and fist
folds and move on. But instead they obviously cared about
the man and not just the stuff. Yeah, and this
really got to him, and he said something towards the
end where he said that really hits home. He says,
this event has proved to me how much the inhabitants

(36:55):
of Bordin Town appreciate the interest I've always felt for them.
And uh, Max, when we get a little like kind
of inspirational music, there we go and shows that men
in general are good when they have not been perverted
in their youth by bad education. Americans are, without contradiction,

(37:15):
the most happy people I have no still more happy
if they understand well their own happiness. I pray you
not to doubt my sincere regard. And then he signs
it Joseph, Count of Servis. I don't know that superlative, Ben,
do you. I did not before this episode, but I

(37:37):
believe it's a commune in Northern France. Community in northern France. Yeah,
that's one that didn't even come across our radar in
the in the early research for this. But I mean,
I'm surely a guy like that, he probably could have
rattled off, you know. I mean, when people like that,
they always have several titles. That was probably one of many.
But this was printed in Bonapartes Park and the Moras

(37:58):
by Evan Morrison would word from eighteen seventy nine historical account.
And he rebuilt his mansion, and he stayed in New Jersey,
and apparently it was bigger and better than ever. That's right, yes, bigger,
better than ever. He went back to business as usual, entertaining,
please come and see my art gallery. And then uh,

(38:20):
he you know, he had lost a lot of stuff.
But he became known as this font of European culture
and artistic knowledge in early America because you know, the
US had and to a degree still has a bit
of a chip on its shoulder right about European culture
being more sophisticated, being older, being fancier, etcetera. And so

(38:44):
he was for a lot of people a connection point there.
But with one one plots whist a little bit x files,
I almost feel bad for spoiling it at the top,
but it is true. He is one of the people
who is absolutely convinced that he had run into the
Jersey Devil, as you know in our In our other episode,

(39:11):
we talked about the devil's origin story. According to led
Jean's born around seventeen thirty five. He's the thirteen child
of someone named mother Leads and she said some some
sideways stuff for the priest didn't bless the kid, and
the baby was born uh normally, but then morphed, at

(39:32):
least a one part of this story. Morphed and grew
wings and hooves, fur and a tail, and then flew
out the window or up the chimney. And now we
have like and people of the area believed this story.
By the way, So what happened? What happened with Joseph Man. Yeah, well,
so this is an area of New Jersey that fans
of The Sopranos will be intimately familiar with because it's

(39:54):
one of the most beloved episodes of the show called
the Pine Barons, which I've never heard of until I
saw that show, But it is apparently a play that's
infamous because of its remoteness for hiding bodies, right, but
it's also a place it's very easy to get lost in,
as you will see if you watch this episode, Polly
Walnuts and Christopher Multa Senti do to great comedic effect.
It's a standalone episode, and if you haven't seen the show,

(40:16):
you can watch that episode having never seen the entire
show and it will delight you. It's all on its own,
but it's it's crazy. If you look at lower and
accounts of the Jersey Devil, it really kind of looks
like a snaky necked camel horse eagle thing kind of
how would you describe the Jersey Devil? Then yeah, you
can see a great picture of it. It looks like

(40:38):
it looks awkward. It doesn't look flight worthy. Out of
balance right carmor t rex body. It's got these wings,
let's got these hooves. It's got an awkward forward leaning
stance and very top heavy. Yeah, top heavy. And if
you look at the some of the original sketches, does
somebody Susan to come here? The glare and guys a

(40:59):
little bit of a roofball? And I dare I say
not only in Susian, but perhaps Susian, because it really
does look like the kind of like comical chimera, kind
of like you know, mishmash animal that you might see
in a Doctor's Seuss book. But Bonaparte claims to have
been hunting alone, as he often did in in this
these woods near his country estate, when he saw some

(41:20):
really weird looking tracks that he attributed to maybe a
horse or a donkey. We know what those look like,
those kind of heart shaped tracks with like the little
notch at the top. But it appeared to because he
was schooled enough in tracking that he could tell kind
of where the weight would have been to make the
type of tracks that he was seeing, So he believed
that it was a creature that would have walked only

(41:40):
on its hime legs. Well, I mean, obviously there would
only be one set of tracks, right, which is weird.
That's not a thing that we know of tracks that
look like that that only walk on two legs, or
animals that would make tracks like that they only walk
on two legs. And he decided, when he saw them
ending abruptly, that this animal must also be able to
fly or jumped, you know, great heights. So he followed

(42:03):
the tracks until they the trail went cold, and then
he was just fascinated and he was just looking at them.
And then he hears this sound from behind him. When
he whips around, and what does he see. He sees
the devil. He sees this thing he had never witnessed
gazed upon before, with a long neck, wings, legs like

(42:24):
a creating with horses hoofs at the end. He's stumpy,
little arms with paws, and a face that to him
looked like either a horse or a camel. He froze,
he panicked, and for a minute, neither heat nor the
creature moved, and the devil hissed, and according to the story,
just flew away and nobody was harmed. It's funny. It
reminds me of camping. I don't know if I ever

(42:46):
meant told you this. One time when I was camping,
I ran into a brown bear from a distance. What yeah,
I was, I was younger. I was, well, we're all
friends here, I can say it. I walked over to
a creek and I was I was peeing in the creek,
I mean, the middle of nowhere, and I thought, oh,

(43:07):
this guy's like, no one's gonna see me. It's it's fine,
it doesn't matter. I'm this is how life is in
the woods. And while I am in the middle of this,
I see some movement, thankfully, on the other side of
the creek, a little further down from me. I see
this shape. It's moving. I'm thinking, oh no, it's like
did one of the other boy scouts like come out

(43:30):
or whatever. And dude, it was a bear. And you know,
you're not supposed to stop peeing once you start. So
I was just standing there kind of like peeing in
front of this bear and it was just looking at me.
It was one of the most awkward moments of my life,
you know, Like I was so shocked. I wasn't my
brain wasn't able to realize I should be scared, and

(43:52):
I was just like, this is very embarrassing, and then
I walked backwards, presumably with your business. Still I was
freaked out, and so I could I like, although, although
Joseph might sound silly right now, that's a real thing
that happens. You freeze up. It's freaky, it's scary. So

(44:12):
I have his back on that one. But here's the thing.
This is interesting. He was unaware of the legend of
the Jersey Devil. He just thought he solved weird American
animal you'd never seen before. And he told his friends,
you know, like, I saw the honest thing, and then
they said, oh, yeah, we've heard about that. And from

(44:34):
that moment, for the rest of his life, whenever he
was walking around the woods, he was like I would
finding kids. It's jose devon jose Den. You know it's true,
and honestly gives it a little more credence that the
fact that he hadn't heard of the story, I think,
because you know, you if you hear the tale like that,
it would just really feed into your imagination and potentially,

(44:55):
you know, your recollection of what you saw because you're like, oh,
I had to be this thing of of lore, you know.
But still, as there often is with things, like this,
there's a pretty reasonable explanation as to what he might
have saw that would have been very alien to him.
And honestly, if everyone, which I think most of you do,
know my particular phobia, would have scared the ever loving

(45:18):
hell out of me. And that was a great horned owl,
one of the most terrifying of all birds because it's neck,
you know, can spin around like the Exorcist. It just
has these deep, deep, deep, soul crushing eyes and a
wingspan that can be like five feet wide. Uh. And

(45:38):
also they can grow up to ridiculously large sizes. There
are certain ones that have been known to get quite
quite large. Yeah, yeah, and if you see one of
these out in the wild and we're not familiar with
the species, it's legitimately frightening. They also prey on snakes,
so that could account for that hissing noise Joseph heard.

(46:02):
Some of these bigger owls are also strong enough to
pick up puppies and kittens, and they've got a very
characteristic screech that is blood curtly if you're not expecting it.
So that's his moment with the Jersey Devil. He became
a cryptid hunter, didn't we talk about a screech in
the Jersey Devil episode, and we traced it back to
a crane. I believe right that that the particular type

(46:24):
of crane that also has a pretty other worldly screech,
especially if there's like a group of them, right. Yeah,
we had to We had to put ourselves back in
the in the perspective of people who lived at that time,
because it sounded silly when we played the clip, but
then we're like, no, imagine a hundred of them, So
that's cool. He had a lot of careers in his life,

(46:45):
King of Spain, Cryptic Hunter, Society Hub. He eventually went
back to England eighteen thirty six, spent about a year
there eighteen thirty seven, and then he comes back to
the US from one last visits days for a few years,
and then he goes back to England. He rents a
house in Cavendish Square in London. In June of eighteen forty,

(47:08):
he has a stroke paralyzes the right side of his
body and so he moves back to Italy and this
is where he reunites with his wife Julie. That, as
we said, he hadn't seen him more than two decades.
As well as his brother. He has a another stroke
in August of eighteen forty three, and the next year,
July eighteen forty four, he passes away at the age

(47:31):
of seventy seven. His house is sold, you know. And
as as as relatively chill a guy as this story
makes this dude out to be, it's still does really
point out the inequity and the gender systems of the time,
the patriarchal systems of the time. Not to get on

(47:51):
a soapbox, but the fact that he, you know, had
been gone for twenty five years and then just kind
of came back after having a stroke and then I zoom.
His wife just served as his caretaker. You know. It
just seems very dismissive and diminishing of her role as
a human being. Yeah, I think you're right, And and

(48:11):
it's that's a tragedy all its own. His eldest grandson
gets the house, gets point breeze. When Joseph passed his away,
he has these two huge, packed auctions. And that's why
even today you'll find a lot of people in the
US who claim to have items that belonged once upon
a time, did Joseph Buonaparte and a lot of local

(48:32):
museums to certainly possible. I mean definitely in the local museums.
But you know, with a giant a state, can you
imagine how much stuff that mean? We talk, you know,
we go to a state sales for fun. This would
have been absolutely a mammoth the state sale. Probably some good,
good deals to be had. And there's one last note
I think we can end on. It's it's poetic and

(48:54):
it's kind of sweet. It's a movie moment. The brothers
Buonaparte didn't get along all the time, but the love
was for the homies was still there. There are two
pieces of correspondence that really drive this home. And know,
if you're up for it, I can do the first one,
and maybe you can take us, take us to the
end of the episode. The very last word from Napoleon himself.

(49:17):
How's that sound? Sounds good to me? My friends? All right?
So okay. So Joseph is telling Julie after the disaster
in Spain, right when he has to be king and
everybody hates the French and hates a French king even more,
he tells his wife, in spite of the disagreements that
have existed between the emperor and myself. It is true

(49:37):
to say, my dear, that he is still the man
I love most in the world. Yeah, I mean, it
seemed like there was never any falling out between the
two Bonaparte brothers, which is nice to hear. This is
the story ultimately, I mean, aside from the you know, look,
I know so many people give us a hard time
for like criticizing gender roles and things that were Oh

(49:58):
it was just of the time, you know, But I
still I just wanted to point that out because the
guy did seem like a pretty decent person, aside from
the womanizing and you know, abandoning his wife for years.
But this, ye, but it's not like he left her
destitute or anything. She's clearly provided for and lived a
lovely life as well in her own right back there

(50:19):
in Europe. And we're going to give Napoleon the last
word because he said something really sweet. It was a
very nice thing for a despot to say. He said, Joseph,
though he is much talent and genius, is too good
a man and too fond of amusement and literature to
be a king. It is a nice thing, Ben, But
it's also kind of a dig a little bit, oh

(50:41):
very much, very much, but it's still nice. Like you
could tell they like each other, I think, And I
like the idea that maybe someone is just like their
inherent goodness makes them unqualified to be a king, and
you know there might be something to that, but that
is a story for another day. Joseph lived quite a life.

(51:05):
We never caught the Jersey Devil, but he had adventures
that many of us can only dream of. I really
enjoyed the swindle. I know we went long, but it
felt like one continuous narrative. What do you say. I
think it had to be, especially since we teased all
the Jersey Devil stuff up front. It would have been
really annoying, the listening to free right before the payoff. Honestly,

(51:28):
you probably could have made it a two parter, but
then but we would have had to reframe the whole thing,
and I'm completely happy with it as a one partter. Yeah,
I enjoyed this one. To ben um, it's a lesser
known kind of side player in history, and largely you know,
on his own he might have made more waves, but
since he was sort of in the shadow of his brother,

(51:50):
who wasn't exactly as short as people say, he was
kind of average height, isn't that right, Ben? Yeah, yeah,
Like I mentioned earlier with the Um, there was sort
of this smear and pain. Like the Spanish said, Joseph
drank a lot. He didn't really drink that much, and
that's I was talking about. You know, Napoleon's heights was
widely misreported. It was just again pretty average for someone

(52:13):
from where he's from in that time. Well huge thanks
to super producer Casey Pegram, guest producer Max Williams, Alex Williams.
They're they're kind of a Napoleon and Joseph kind of
situation themselves. I'm not sure which is which though, because
they're both equally awesome. Alex Williams, who composed our theme,
Christopher haciotis here in spirit, soon to be here in

(52:34):
the flesh once again. I surely hope um and heaves.
Jeff Coats, Yes, yes, hope everybody enjoyed our recent episode
on Turpentine with one and only Eve's Jeff Cote. We
also want to shout out our own Jersey Devil, Jonathan
Strickland a k. The Quister, and uh, you know the
guys so nice. We get a shadow mout twice the

(52:56):
incomparable Gabe Louisier. No, it's been a long week. Mint.
I don't know about you, but I am looking forward
to kick him back, and maybe I'll go hunt of
KRYPTI maybe there's a Georgia Devil I can find. There
surely must be many of them in the wilds of
the low Country. That's not we're not low country, we're
sort of mid country. I don't know the devil went

(53:16):
down to Georgia. He did do that. He was looking
for a soul to steal. You know what, when I
when I sing that song in my head, I often
mash it up with Jerry was a race car driver
by primus went down to Georgia. He was looking for
us sold to steel. You should I sure did love
that big brown beaver. And no, that's different. That's were
known as big brown beaver. But they all kind of
mashed together. But surely Les Claypool was into devil went

(53:38):
down to Georgia, no question about it. And with that
in mind, folks, we would of course love to hear
your stories about bizarre crossover moments in history. Let us
know what you think. We'll see you next time. Folks.
For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the i

(53:59):
heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.