The General Who Faked Napoleon's Death and Nearly Seized Paris

The General Who Faked Napoleon's Death and Nearly Seized Paris

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Episode description

The General Who Faked Napoleon’s Death and Nearly Seized Paris

On 23 October 1812, General Claude François de Malet walked into the heart of Paris with forged documents claiming Napoleon had died in Russia. For twelve hours, his audacious coup succeeded. Soldiers believed him. Officials obeyed. The Prefect of Police was arrested. The Military Governor was detained. Then someone asked about Napoleon’s heir, and the whole conspiracy unravelled. Clara Vale examines why it worked at all, what it revealed about the fragility of Napoleon’s empire, and why the emperor never forgot it. Also this episode: England’s most violent tornado on record, which struck Lincolnshire in 1666 with F4 intensity. Swatch’s 1998 attempt to abolish time zones with Internet Time, a single global clock measured in beats. And Archbishop James Ussher’s 1654 calculation that the world was created on this exact date in 4004 BC, a figure printed in Bibles for over a century.

Chapters

  • Intro What would you do if someone showed you official documents claiming the most powerful man in the country had died? In 1812, one man tested that exact question in Paris.
  • The Man Who Killed Napoleon (Without a Weapon) General Claude François de Malet, a republican imprisoned in a Parisian nursing home, forged documents claiming Napoleon had died in Russia. On 23 October 1812, he walked into military barracks, arrested senior officials, and nearly seized control of Paris before someone asked about Napoleon’s heir. The coup lasted twelve hours. What haunted Napoleon afterwards was not the attempt, but why so many officials had believed it without questioning the succession.
  • England’s Most Violent Tornado On 23 October 1666, Lincolnshire experienced the most intense tornado in recorded English history. Classified retrospectively as F4 on the Fujita scale and T8 on the TORRO scale, with wind speeds exceeding 213 miles per hour, it struck during an already catastrophic year that included the Great Fire of London and ongoing plague.
  • Swatch and the Dream of Internet Time On 23 October 1998, Swiss watchmaker Swatch launched Internet Time with MIT Media Lab founder Nicholas Negroponte. The system proposed abolishing time zones entirely, dividing the day into 1000 beats with midnight in Biel, Switzerland as zero. Despite real coverage and dedicated watches, the system faded as people preferred time aligned with the sun.
  • The Date the World Began (According to One Very Specific Bishop) Archbishop James Ussher of Armagh calculated through biblical chronology that the world was created on the evening of 23 October 4004 BC. Published in 1654, his date was printed in King James Bible margins for over a century and represented the intellectual consensus of his era, before modern geology and astronomy arrived at rather different figures.
  • Outro Four stories from one date explore human certainty and its limits, from a general who forged his way to the edge of history to a bishop absolutely certain about the universe’s birthday.

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