After crowning himself emperor of the French in 1804, Napoleon involved Europe in a series of endless wars: the Wars of the Third Coalition, the Fourth Coalition, Fifth Coalition, and Sixth Coalition; the Peninsular War; and the invasion of Russia. Kingdoms were overthrown, ancient dynasties exiled, and new countries established, often with one of Napoleon’s many relatives on the throne. Millions died or were maimed because of his grandiose ambitions.
Finally, in 1814, he overplayed his hand and was driven back into France, at the mercy of the armies of his enemies. Paris was occupied by foreign troops and its inhabitants, tired of the years of warfare, crowded the streets shouting “Down with the Emperor!” and “Death to the Corsican!” They tore down his statues and waved white banners, the symbol of the old Bourbon dynasty. Facing this situation, with his armies melting away and his generals deserting, Napoleon was forced to negotiate a surrender. He was allowed to keep his head—his royal enemies could not bear the thought of an emperor being executed—but he was obliged to step down.
On April 11, 1814, he issued this statement: “The Allied Powers having declared that Emperor Napoleon was the sole obstacle to the restoration of peace in Europe, Emperor Napoleon, faithful to his oath, declares that he renounces, for himself and his heirs, the thrones of France and Italy, and that there is no personal sacrifice, even that of his life, which he is not ready to do in the interests of France. Done in the palace of Fontainebleau.”
Napoleon was exiled to the small island of Elba, 10 kilometres off the west coast of Italy, and given an annual pension. He was allowed to keep his imperial title and retain a toy army of 870 men (largely veterans of his Imperial Guards regiment) and a tiny navy, but British and royalist French warships patrolled the waters off the island to deter any plans of rescue or escape. Depressed by his fall from glory, Napoleon attempted suicide but when that failed he seemed to resign himself to his fate.
For a time, he busied himself with reforming and developing his miniature domain, but ambition got the better of him once more. He secretly corresponded with supporters on the mainland who wished to restore him to his former glory. On Feb. 26, 1815, he slipped off the island and sailed to France to regain the throne on which the Bourbon dynasty in the person of the corpulent Louis XVIII once again sat.
The Bourbon government sent forces under Napoleon’s former marshal Michel Ney to arrest him. Ney vowed to bring back his old comrade in an iron cage, but that was not to be. When Napoleon’s troops encountered the royalist force, he dismounted, approached them, and shouted: “Here I am. Kill your Emperor, if you wish!” This produced cries of “Vive l’Empereur!” and the soldiers quickly went over to his side. As he marched north toward the capital, city after city and regiment after regiment proclaimed their loyalty to him. Louis XVIII fled into his own exile as Napoleon entered Paris in triumph on March 20, to resume his abandoned throne. The allied powers which had defeated him the year before—Britain, Prussia, Austria, and Russia—assembled their forces. Europe was plunged into war once more.
For one hundred days Napoleon attempted to gather the reins of power, refill his treasury, and create new armies to face his combined foes. His plan was to strike at his enemies before they had a chance to come together in one mighty force.
He headed north, hoping to defeat the British army stationed in Belgium, and then turn on the Prussians. Instead, he met disaster on June 18 on the hills outside the village of Waterloo. The British, under the command of the Duke of Wellington, held the French army at bay just long enough for the Prussians to come and finish off the job. The battered French army streamed away in retreat as Napoleon desperately searched for refuge. He found none in France, thought of seeking a home in the Americas, but in the end placed himself at the disposal of the British, who he thought were less likely to kill him than his other enemies.
The British government wisely refused him entry to their country, and instead shipped him to one of the most remote places on the planet—the island of Saint Helena in the far south Atlantic Ocean. There he spent the last years of his life, growing ever more ill until his death in 1821.
