The idea that Osama bin Laden may have profited from the 9/11 attacks through short selling stocks has, for years, been postulated by conspiratorialists. There was actually an American investigation, and the French article mentioned in chapter 52 was published, but no short selling was ever substantiated.
The idea that profit can be made through chaos (chapter 52) is not new. What’s described in chapter 24 about Yugoslavia occurred. The political wisdom contained within the four papyri (chapters 27, 29, and 40) were adapted from The Report from Iron Mountain. According to that document, a 15-member panel, called the Special Study Group, was set up in 1963 to examine what problems would occur if the United States entered a state of lasting peace. They met at an underground nuclear bunker called Iron Mountain and worked in secret for two years. One member of the panel, an anonymous professor at a college in the Midwest, decided to release the report to the public and Dial Press published it in 1967.
Of course, only the part about Dial Press is true. The book was published and became a bestseller. The general consensus is that the entire report was a hoax. In fact, The Guinness Book of World Records eventually labeled The Report from Iron Mountain as its Most Successful Literary Hoax. Still, the ideas presented within the “report” about war, peace, and maintaining political stability are, if nothing else, intriguing. The idea that society will allow in a time of threat that which it would never tolerate in peace is particularly relevant today.
The oracle relied on by Eliza Larocque is real. The Book of Fate, Formerly in the Possession of and Used by Napoleon is still in print. All of the questions and answers quoted in chapters 8, 10, 29, and 67 are taken from the actual oracle. The oracle’s dubious history (chapter 8) is one of contradiction. Napoleon was highly superstitious and fate played a role in his decisions (chapter 10), but did he consult an oracle every day? No one knows. The idea, though, is captivating.
It is true, as Eliza Larocque noted, that save for Jesus Christ, more books have been written about Napoleon than any other historical figure, yet he remains enigmatic. He was, on the one hand, a capable and competent administrator, and on the other (as Eliza Larocque laments in chapter 35) a man with no loyalty, who consistently turned on his family, friends, and country. His hatred of financiers, and of incurring debt, is a historical fact (chapter 16). He also believed in plunder. In that regard, he was truly a modern Merovingian. Of course, he would say that his plundered loot was simply the spoils of war, and perhaps he’s right. Whether he actually hoarded away some of those spoils for himself—Napoleon’s cache, which plays such a central role in this story—remains a matter of debate.
No one knows. Nor will we ever.
Instead, Napoleon will continue to be studied and debated. Every volume that proclaims him a saint will be followed by another that decries him as a devil.
Perhaps, in the end, he said it best.
For all the attempts to restrict, suppress, and muffle me, it will be difficult to make me disappear from the public memory completely.