you may know of the famed privateer jean lafitte. jean and his brother peay will join with a french privateer. in 1817, he and his brother create a settlement at galveston and they're having a wonderful time plundering mexican and spanish and american ships, until 1819, the american government says that's enough -- enough's enough. and they send a navy expedition over. they hang about nine pirates. it's amazing. you hang a few pirates and that stopped it. literally all at once. well, at the same time lafitte is there at galveston, there's also a group of french napoleanic officers. they create a settlement and what they envisioned is that they would liberate napoleon from st. helena, and he would have this empire along the gulf coast. well, napoleon dies at st. helena, and the empire, well, there's that here, and if you ever go out east into alabama, there's a place called demopolis, which was founded by the french emigres. that was to be the foundation of napoleon's empire here in north america, and it doesn't play out. in the afterm