The Hundred Days, also known as the War of the Seventh Coalition, marked the period between Napoleon's return from eleven months of exile on the island of Elba to Paris on 20 March 1815 and the second restoration of King Louis XVIII on 8 July 1815. This period saw the War of the Seventh Coalition, and includes the Waterloo Campaign and the Neapolitan War as well as several other minor campaigns. The phrase les Cent Jours was first used by the prefect of Paris, Gaspard, comte de Chabrol, in his speech welcoming the king back to Paris on 8 July.
Hundred Days
The journey of a modern hero, to the island of Elba. Print shows Napoleon seated backwards on a donkey on the road "to Elba" from Fontainebleau; he holds a broken sword in one hand and the donkey's tail in the other while two drummers follow him playing a farewell(?) march.
Napoleon leaving Elba, painted by Joseph Beaume
The brig Inconstant, under Captain Taillade and ferrying Napoleon to France, crosses the path of the brig Zéphir, under Captain Andrieux. Inconstant flies the tricolour of the Empire, while Zéphir flies the white ensign of the House of Bourbon.
Napoleon Bonaparte, later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French emperor and military commander who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led successful campaigns during the Revolutionary Wars. He was the leader of the French Republic as First Consul from 1799 to 1804, then of the French Empire as Emperor of the French from 1804 until 1814, and briefly again in 1815. His political and cultural legacy endures as a celebrated and controversial leader. He is considered one of the greatest military commanders in history and his wars and campaigns are still studied at military schools worldwide. However, historians still debate the degree to which he was responsible for the Napoleonic Wars, in which between three and six million people died. Napoleon brought modernizing reforms to France and Western Europe and stimulating the development of nation states. He also sold the Louisiana Territory to the United States in 1803, doubling the latter's size. However, his mixed record on civil rights and exploitation of conquered territories adversely affect his reputation.
The Emperor Napoleon in His Study at the Tuileries, 1812
Napoleon's father, Carlo Buonaparte, fought for Corsican independence under Pasquale Paoli. After their defeat, he eventually became the island's representative to Louis XVI's court.
Statue of Bonaparte as a schoolboy in Brienne, aged 15, by Louis Rochet [fr] (1853)
Bonaparte, aged 23, as lieutenant-colonel of a battalion of Corsican Republican volunteers. Portrait made in 1835 by Henri Félix Emmanuel Philippoteaux