Bunnies

It was, by every measure, a meticulously planned day.

After months of war, treaties had been signed. A fragile peace now hung over Europe like dew on grass—delicate, hopeful, but still too fresh to trust. To mark the occasion, a victory celebration was arranged just outside Paris. Nothing garish. No parade. Just a refined hunting party for a handful of senior officers and statesmen.

The field was carefully selected—gently sloping, easy for horses. Tables were set with crystal and porcelain. Linen napkins, chilled wine, soft cheeses. Coaches were timed to arrive with clockwork precision. Even the weather cooperated, offering a cloudless July sky. Everything had been accounted for. Every detail managed.

Berthier, the Chief of Staff, had personally overseen the preparations. The rabbits, in particular, were to be the centerpiece of the day. Several hundred—possibly over a thousand—had been sourced. Not wild, unpredictable hares that might bolt into the woods and end the afternoon early, but robust, farm-raised rabbits. Easy to manage. Easy to find. Easy to shoot.

At midday, the guests emerged from their carriages. The man at the center of it all—referred to only as the Commander—wore a dark coat, his gloved hand tucked neatly into his vest. He surveyed the grounds not with curiosity, but with quiet confidence. This was a man used to control. Used to outcomes bending to his will.

When the cages opened, the expectation was simple: the rabbits would scatter. The men would fan out. The guns would fire. Laughter, wine, and stories would follow.

But the rabbits didn’t scatter.

They surged.

It started slowly—a few soft hops toward the men, like pets approaching a familiar hand. But then dozens more followed. Then hundreds. The grass rippled like water. The rabbits were not running from the men. They were running at them.

At first there was confusion. Then a few chuckles. Then silence. Then shouting.

The rabbits reached the hunters with alarming speed. They climbed boots. They leapt into baskets. One officer swatted at a rabbit and lost his footing. Another dropped his rifle and ran. The rabbits showed no fear—only hunger. They tugged at coats, gnawed at satchels, and swarmed the picnic tables. They had come not for battle, but for a buffet.

The Commander tried to retreat, but the tide was too fast. They circled him. Some accounts suggest they climbed into his coat. Aides rushed to intervene, only to be enveloped themselves. The scene dissolved into chaos: overturned carriages, broken wine bottles, powdered wigs askew.

It was a rout. The guests fled to their coaches. The Commander, laughing but visibly shaken, was forced to retreat behind the locked doors of his carriage. The hunt was over. The rabbits had won.

And it was only afterward that the full truth came out.

The rabbits had been farm-raised—animals who associated humans with food. When released, they didn’t see danger. They saw lunch. Every detail had been meticulously planned…except for the one assumption that proved fatal: that the rabbits would behave like rabbits.

The Commander?

Napoleon Bonaparte.

The most feared man in Europe, architect of battlefield brilliance from Austerlitz to Ulm, was undone not by enemy troops, but by a tactical oversight—and a horde of overeager bunnies.

It’s a funny story. And it’s tempting to leave it there, as a delightful historical oddity. But it’s also a perfect metaphor for how risk shows up in real life.

The problem wasn’t that Napoleon failed to plan. It’s that his plan was built on an assumption—one that seemed so reasonable, so obvious, that no one questioned it. But rabbits, like markets, people, and even careers, don’t always behave the way we expect them to.

In personal finance, we pride ourselves on planning. On thinking ahead. We build spreadsheets, project retirement dates, run models with fancy software. And to be clear, that matters. But even the best plan is only as good as the assumptions underneath it.

We expect the market to rebound. We expect the job to last. We expect rates to normalize, inflation to moderate, health to hold.

Until they don’t.

The real risk isn’t what we know is coming. It’s what we’re not even thinking to consider.

That’s why resilience doesn’t come from precision. It comes from flexibility. From building margin. From stress-testing your assumptions and asking uncomfortable what-ifs—not because we expect disaster, but because the world, like those rabbits, has a habit of surprising us.

Napoleon thought he was going on a rabbit hunt. But the rabbits had other plans.

Your financial life will throw you a few bunny moments, too.

Make sure you’re not assuming the world will behave.