Napoleon's chief of staff, Louis-Alexander Berthier, tasked with organizing a hunt for his boss, got a thousand rabbits to the Tuileries. Unfortunately, he bought tame rabbits instead of wild ones. According to historian A.G. Macdonell, when the emperor took his gun and advanced into the park, the bunnies, "all thousand of them, mistook him for the man who provided their daily lettuce and leapt to their feet and charged towards him." Napoleon's marshals beat them off with whips, but some rabbits, being skilled in Napoleonic warfare, wheeled around on both flanks and reached the carriage of the escaping Bonaparte.
--Barbara Amiel
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