Naples
Naples is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest municipality in Italy after Rome and Milan. In 2017, around 967,069 people lived within the city's administrative limits while its province-level municipality has a population of 3,115,320 residents, its continuously built-up metropolitan area is the second or third largest metropolitan area in Italy and one of the most densely populated cities in Europe. First settled by Greeks in the second millennium BC, Naples is one of the oldest continuously inhabited urban areas in the world. In the ninth century BC, a colony known as Parthenope or Παρθενόπη was established on the Island of Megaride refounded as Neápolis in the sixth century BC; the city was an important part of Magna Graecia, played a major role in the merging of Greek and Roman society and a significant cultural centre under the Romans. It served as the capital of the Duchy of Naples of the Kingdom of Naples and of the Two Sicilies until the unification of Italy in 1861.
Between 1925 and 1936, Naples was expanded and upgraded by Benito Mussolini's government but subsequently sustained severe damage from Allied bombing during World War II, which led to extensive post-1945 reconstruction work. Naples has experienced significant economic growth in recent decades, helped by the construction of the Centro Direzionale business district and an advanced transportation network, which includes the Alta Velocità high-speed rail link to Rome and Salerno and an expanded subway network. Naples is the third-largest urban economy in Italy, after Rome; the Port of Naples is one of the most important in Europe and home of the Allied Joint Force Command Naples, the NATO body that oversees North Africa, the Sahel and Middle East. Naples' historic city centre is the largest in Europe and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, with a wide range of culturally and significant sites nearby, including the Palace of Caserta and the Roman ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Naples is known for its natural beauties such as Posillipo, Phlegraean Fields and Vesuvius.
Neapolitan cuisine is synonymous with pizza – which originated in the city – but it includes many lesser-known dishes. The best-known sports team in Naples is the Serie A club S. S. C. Napoli, two-time Italian champions who play at the San Paolo Stadium in the southwest of the city, in the Fuorigrotta quarter. Naples has been inhabited since the Neolithic period; the earliest Greek settlements were established in the Naples area in the second millennium BC. Sailors from the Greek island of Rhodes established a small commercial port called Parthenope on the island of Megaride in the ninth century BC. By the eighth century BC, the settlement had expanded to include Monte Echia. In the sixth century BC the new urban zone of Neápolis was founded on the plain becoming one of the foremost cities of Magna Graecia; the city grew due to the influence of the powerful Greek city-state of Syracuse, became an ally of the Roman Republic against Carthage. During the Samnite Wars, the city, now a bustling centre of trade, was captured by the Samnites.
During the Punic Wars, the strong walls surrounding Neápolis repelled the invading forces of the Carthaginian general Hannibal. Naples was respected by the Romans as a paragon of Hellenistic culture. During the Roman era, the people of Naples maintained their Greek language and customs, while the city was expanded with elegant Roman villas and public baths. Landmarks such as the Temple of Dioscures were built, many emperors chose to holiday in the city, including Claudius and Tiberius. Virgil, the author of Rome's national epic, the Aeneid, received part of his education in the city, resided in its environs, it was during this period. Januarius, who would become Naples' patron saint, was martyred there in the fourth century AD; the last emperor of the Western Roman Empire, Romulus Augustulus, was exiled to Naples by the Germanic king Odoacer in the fifth century AD. Following the decline of the Western Roman Empire, Naples was captured by the Ostrogoths, a Germanic people, incorporated into the Ostrogothic Kingdom.
However, Belisarius of the Byzantine Empire recaptured Naples in 536, after entering the city via an aqueduct. In 543, during the Gothic Wars, Totila took the city for the Ostrogoths, but the Byzantines seized control of the area following the Battle of Mons Lactarius on the slopes of Vesuvius. Naples was expected to keep in contact with the Exarchate of Ravenna, the centre of Byzantine power on the Italian Peninsula. After the exarchate fell, a Duchy of Naples was created. Although Naples' Greco-Roman culture endured, it switched allegiance from Constantinople to Rome under Duke Stephen II, putting it under papal suzerainty by 763; the years between 818 and 832 were tumultuous in regard to Naples' relations with the Byzantine Emperor, with numerous local pretenders feuding for possession of the ducal throne. Theoctistus was appointed without imperial approval. However, the disgruntled general populace chased him from the city, instead elected Stephen III, a man who minted coins with his own initials, r
Battle of Waterloo
The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday, 18 June 1815 near Waterloo in Belgium, part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands at the time. A French army under the command of Napoleon Bonaparte was defeated by two of the armies of the Seventh Coalition: a British-led allied army under the command of the Duke of Wellington, a Prussian army under the command of Field Marshal Blücher; the battle marked the end of the Napoleonic Wars. Upon Napoleon's return to power in March 1815, many states that had opposed him formed the Seventh Coalition and began to mobilise armies. Wellington and Blücher's armies were cantoned close to the northeastern border of France. Napoleon chose to attack them separately in the hope of destroying them before they could join in a coordinated invasion of France with other members of the coalition. On 16 June, he attacked the bulk of the Prussian army at the Battle of Ligny with his main force, while a portion of the French army attacked an Anglo-allied army at the Battle of Quatre Bras.
Despite holding his ground at Quatre Bras, the defeat of the Prussians forced Wellington to withdraw north to Waterloo on the 17th. Napoleon sent a third of his forces to pursue the Prussians, who had withdrawn parallel to Wellington in good order; this resulted in the simultaneous Battle of Wavre with the Prussian rear-guard. Upon learning that the Prussian army was able to support him, Wellington decided to offer battle on the Mont-Saint-Jean escarpment across the Brussels road. Here he withstood repeated attacks by the French throughout the afternoon of the 18th, aided by the progressively arriving Prussians. In the evening, Napoleon committed his last reserves, the senior battalions of the French Imperial Guard infantry; the desperate final attack of the Guard was narrowly beaten back. With the Prussians breaking through on the French right flank, Wellington's Anglo-allied army counter-attacked in the centre, the French army was routed. Waterloo was Napoleon's last. According to Wellington, the battle was "the nearest-run thing you saw in your life."
Napoleon abdicated four days and coalition forces entered Paris on 7 July. The defeat at Waterloo ended Napoleon's rule as Emperor of the French and marked the end of his Hundred Days return from exile; this ended the First French Empire and set a chronological milestone between serial European wars and decades of relative peace. The battlefield is located in the municipalities of Braine-l'Alleud and Lasne, about 15 kilometres south of Brussels, about 2 kilometres from the town of Waterloo; the site of the battlefield today is dominated by the monument of the Lion's Mound, constructed from earth taken from the battlefield itself. On 13 March 1815, six days before Napoleon reached Paris, the powers at the Congress of Vienna declared him an outlaw. Four days the United Kingdom, Russia and Prussia mobilised armies to defeat Napoleon. Critically outnumbered, Napoleon knew that once his attempts at dissuading one or more members of the Seventh Coalition from invading France had failed, his only chance of remaining in power was to attack before the coalition mobilised.
Had Napoleon succeeded in destroying the existing coalition forces south of Brussels before they were reinforced, he might have been able to drive the British back to the sea and knock the Prussians out of the war. Crucially, this would have bought him time to recruit and train more men before turning his armies against the Austrians and Russians. An additional consideration for Napoleon was that a French victory might cause French-speaking sympathisers in Belgium to launch a friendly revolution. Coalition troops in Belgium were second-line, as many units were of dubious quality and loyalty, most of the British veterans of the Peninsular War had been sent to North America to fight in the War of 1812; the initial dispositions of British commander Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, were intended to counter the threat of Napoleon enveloping the Coalition armies by moving through Mons to the south-west of Brussels. This would have pushed Wellington closer to the Prussian forces, led by Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher, but may have cut Wellington's communications with his base at Ostend.
In order to delay Wellington's deployment, Napoleon spread false intelligence which suggested that Wellington's supply chain from the channel ports would be cut. By June, Napoleon had raised a total army strength of about 300,000 men; the force at his disposal at Waterloo was less than one third that size, but the rank and file were nearly all loyal and experienced soldiers. Napoleon divided his army into a left wing commanded by Marshal Ney, a right wing commanded by Marshal Grouchy and a reserve under his command. Crossing the frontier near Charleroi before dawn on 15 June, the French overran Coalition outposts, securing Napoleon's "central position" between Wellington's and Blücher's armies, he hoped this would prevent them from combining, he would be able to destroy first the Prussian's army Wellington's. Only late on the night of 15 June was Wellington certain that the Charleroi attack was the main French thrust. In the early hours of 16 June, at the Duchess of Richmond's ball in Brussels, he received a dispatch from the Prince of Orange and was shocked by the speed of Napoleon's advance.
He hastily ordered his army to concentrate on Quatre Bras, where the Prince of Orange, with the brigade of Prince Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar, was holding a tenuous position against the soldiers of Ney's left wing. Ney's orders were to secure the crossroads of Quatre Br
Francis I of France
Francis I was King of France from 1515 until his death in 1547. He was the son of Charles, Count of Angoulême, Louise of Savoy, he succeeded his father-in-law Louis XII, who died without a son. Francis was the ninth king from the House of Valois, the second from the Valois-Orléans branch, the first from the Valois-Orléans-Angoulême branch. A prodigious patron of the arts, he initiated the French Renaissance by attracting many Italian artists to work on the Château de Chambord, including Leonardo da Vinci, who brought the Mona Lisa with him, which Francis had acquired. Francis' reign saw important cultural changes with the rise of absolute monarchy in France, the spread of humanism and Protestantism, the beginning of French exploration of the New World. Jacques Cartier and others claimed lands in the Americas for France and paved the way for the expansion of the first French colonial empire. For his role in the development and promotion of a standardized French language, he became known as le Père et Restaurateur des Lettres.
He was known as François du Grand Nez, the Grand Colas, the Roi-Chevalier for his personal involvement in the wars against his great rival the Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain Charles V. Following the policy of his predecessors, Francis continued the Italian Wars; the succession of Charles V to the Burgundian Netherlands, the throne of Spain, his subsequent election as Holy Roman Emperor, meant that France was geographically encircled by the Habsburg monarchy. In his struggle against Imperial hegemony, he sought the support of Henry VIII of England at the Field of the Cloth of Gold; when this was unsuccessful, he formed a Franco-Ottoman alliance with the Muslim sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, a controversial move for a Christian king at the time. Francis d'Orléans was born on 12 September 1494 at the Château de Cognac in the town of Cognac, which at that time lay in the province of Saintonge, a part of the Duchy of Aquitaine. Today the town lies in the department of Charente. Francis was the only son of Charles d'Orléans, Count of Angoulême, Louise of Savoy and a great-great-grandson of King Charles V of France.
His family was not expected to inherit the throne, as his third cousin King Charles VIII was still young at the time of his birth, as was his father's cousin the Duke of Orléans King Louis XII. However, Charles VIII died childless in 1498 and was succeeded by Louis XII, who himself had no male heir; the Salic Law prevailed in France, thus females were ineligible to inherit the throne. Therefore, the four-year-old Francis became the heir presumptive to the throne of France in 1498 and was vested with the title of Duke of Valois. In 1505, Louis XII, having fallen ill, ordered that his daughter Claude and Francis be married but only through an assembly of nobles were the two engaged. Claude was heiress to the Duchy of Brittany through Anne of Brittany. Following Anne's death, the marriage took place on 18 May 1514. On 1 January 1515, Louis died, Francis inherited the throne, he was crowned King of France in the Cathedral of Reims on 25 January 1515, with Claude as his queen consort. As Francis was receiving his education, ideas emerging from the Italian Renaissance were influential in France.
Some of his tutors, such as François Desmoulins de Rochefort and Christophe de Longueil, were attracted by these new ways of thinking and attempted to influence Francis. His academic education had been in arithmetic, grammar, reading and writing and he became proficient in Hebrew, Italian and Spanish. Francis came to learn chivalry and music and he loved archery, horseback riding, jousting, real tennis and wrestling, he ended up reading philosophy and theology and he was fascinated with art, literature and science. His mother, who had a high admiration for Italian Renaissance art, passed this interest on to her son. Although Francis did not receive a humanist education, he was more influenced by humanism than any previous French king. By the time he ascended the throne in 1515, the Renaissance had arrived in France, Francis became an enthusiastic patron of the arts. At the time of his accession, the royal palaces of France were ornamented with only a scattering of great paintings, not a single sculpture, either ancient or modern.
During Francis' reign, the magnificent art collection of the French kings, which can still be seen at the Louvre Palace, was begun. Francis patronized many great artists of his time, including Leonardo da Vinci. While da Vinci painted little during his years in France, he brought with him many of his greatest works, including the Mona Lisa, these remained in France after his death. Other major artists to receive Francis' patronage included the goldsmith Benvenuto Cellini and the painters Rosso Fiorentino, Giulio Romano, Primaticcio, all of whom were employed in decorating Francis' various palaces, he invited the noted architect Sebastiano Serlio, who enjoyed a fruitful late career in France. Francis commissioned a number of agents in Italy to procure notable works of art and ship them to France. Francis was renowned as a man of letters; when Francis comes up in a conversation among characters in Baldassare Castiglione's Book of the Courtie
Battle of Pavia
The Battle of Pavia, fought on the morning of 24 February 1525, was the decisive engagement of the Italian War of 1521–26. An Imperial–Spanish army under the nominal command of Charles de Lannoy attacked the French army under the personal command of Francis I of France in the great hunting preserve of Mirabello outside the city walls. In the four-hour battle, the French army was defeated in detail; the French suffered massive casualties, including many of the chief nobles of France. Francis himself was captured by Habsburg troops and imprisoned by Charles V and forced to sign the humiliating Treaty of Madrid, surrendering significant territory to his captor; the outcome of the battle cemented Habsburg ascendancy in Italy. The French, in possession of Lombardy at the start of the Italian War of 1521–26, had been forced to abandon it after their defeat at the Battle of Bicocca in 1522. Determined to regain it, Francis ordered an invasion of the region in late 1523, under the command of Guillaume Gouffier, Seigneur de Bonnivet.
Charles de Lannoy now launched an invasion of Provence under the command of Fernando d'Avalos, Marquess of Pescara, Charles III, Duke of Bourbon. While successful, the Imperial offensive lost valuable time during the Siege of Marseille and was forced to withdraw back to Italy by the arrival of Francis and the main French army at Avignon. In mid-October 1524, Francis himself crossed the Alps and advanced on Milan at the head of an army numbering more than 40,000. Bourbon and Pescara, their troops not yet recovered from the campaign in Provence, were in no position to offer serious resistance; the French army moved in several columns, brushing aside Imperial attempts to hold its advance, but failed to bring the main body of Imperial troops to battle. Charles de Lannoy, who had concentrated some 16,000 men to resist the 33,000 French troops closing on Milan, decided that the city could not be defended and withdrew to Lodi on 26 October. Having entered Milan and installed Louis II de la Trémoille as the governor, Francis advanced on Pavia, where Antonio de Leyva remained with a sizable Imperial garrison of about 9000.
The main mass of French troops arrived at Pavia in the last days of October. By 2 November, Anne de Montmorency had crossed the Ticino River and invested the city from the south, completing its encirclement. Inside were about 9,000 men mercenaries whom Antonio de Leyva was able to pay only by melting the church plate. A period of skirmishing and artillery bombardments followed, several breaches had been made in the walls by mid-November. On 21 November, Francis attempted an assault on the city through two of the breaches, but was beaten back with heavy casualties. In early December, a Spanish force commanded by Ugo de Moncada landed near Genoa, intending to interfere in a conflict between pro-Valois and pro-Habsburg factions in the city. Francis dispatched a larger force under the Marquis of Saluzzo to intercept them. Confronted by the more numerous French and left without naval support by the arrival of a pro-Valois fleet commanded by Andrea Doria, the Spanish troops surrendered. Francis signed a secret agreement with Pope Clement VII, who pledged not to assist Charles in exchange for Francis's assistance with the conquest of Naples.
Against the advice of his senior commanders, Francis detached a portion of his forces under the Duke of Albany and sent them south to aid the Pope. Lannoy attempted to intercept the expedition near Fiorenzuola, but suffered heavy casualties and was forced to return to Lodi by the intervention of the infamous Black Bands of Giovanni de' Medici, Italian mercenaries which had just entered French service. Medici returned to Pavia with a supply train of gunpowder and shot gathered by the Duke of Ferrara. In January 1525, Lannoy was reinforced by the arrival of Georg Frundsberg with 15,000 fresh landsknechts from Germany and renewed the offensive. Pescara captured the French outpost at Sant'Angelo Lomellina, cutting the lines of communication between Pavia and Milan, while a separate column of landsknechts advanced on Belgiojoso and, despite being pushed back by a raid led by Medici and Bonnivet, occupied the town. By 2 February, Lannoy was only a few miles from Pavia. Francis had encamped the majority of his forces in the great walled park of Mirabello outside the city walls, placing them between Leyva's garrison and the approaching relief army.
Skirmishing and sallies by the garrison continued through the month of February. Medici was wounded and withdrew to Piacenza to recuperate, forcing Francis to recall much of the Milan garrison to offset the departure of the Black Band. On 21 February, the Imperial commanders, running low on supplies and mistakenly believing that the French forces were more numerous than their own, decided to launch an attack on Mirabello Castle in order to save face and demoralize the French sufficiently to ensure a safe withdrawal; the times given here are taken from Konstam's reconstruction of the battle. On the evening of 23 February, Lannoy's imperial troops, who had be
Bourbon Restoration
The Bourbon Restoration was the period of French history following the first fall of Napoleon in 1814, his final defeat in the Hundred Days in 1815, until the July Revolution of 1830. The brothers of the executed Louis XVI came to power, reigned in conservative fashion, they were nonetheless unable to reverse most of the changes made by the French Revolution and Napoleon. At the Congress of Vienna they were treated respectfully, but had to give up nearly all the territorial gains made since 1789. Following the French Revolution, Napoleon became ruler of France. After years of expansion of his French Empire by successive military victories, a coalition of European powers defeated him in the War of the Sixth Coalition, ended the First Empire in 1814, restored the monarchy to the brothers of Louis XVI; the Bourbon Restoration lasted from 6 April 1814 until the popular uprisings of the July Revolution of 1830. There was an interlude in spring 1815—the "Hundred Days"—when the return of Napoleon forced the Bourbons to flee France.
When Napoleon was again defeated by the Seventh Coalition, they returned to power in July. During the Restoration, the new Bourbon regime was a constitutional monarchy, unlike the absolutist Ancien Régime, so it had some limits on its power; the new king, Louis XVIII, accepted the vast majority of reforms instituted from 1792 to 1814. Continuity was his basic policy, he did not try to recover property taken from the royalist exiles. He continued in peaceful fashion the main objectives of Napoleon's foreign policy, such as the limitation of Austrian influence, he reversed Napoleon regarding Spain and the Ottoman Empire, in order to restore the friendship that had prevailed until 1792. The period was characterized by a sharp conservative reaction, consequent minor but consistent occurrences of civil unrest and disturbances. Otherwise, the political establishment was stable until the late reign of Charles X, it saw the reestablishment of the Catholic Church as a major power in French politics. Throughout the Bourbon Restoration, France experienced a period of stable economic prosperity and the preliminaries of industrialization.
The eras of the French Revolution and Napoleon brought a series of major changes to France which the Bourbon Restoration did not reverse. First of all, France became centralized, with all important decisions made in Paris; the political geography was reorganized and made uniform. France was divided into more than 80 departments; each department had an identical administrative structure, was controlled by a prefect appointed by Paris. The complex multiple overlapping legal jurisdictions of the old regime had all been abolished, there was now one standardized legal code, administered by judges appointed by Paris, supported by police under national control; the Catholic Church lost all its lands and buildings during the Revolution, these were sold off or came under the control of local governments. The bishop still ruled his diocese, communicated with the pope through the government in Paris. Bishops, priests and other religious people were paid salaries by the state. All the old religious rites and ceremonies were retained, the government maintained the religious buildings.
The Church was allowed to operate its own seminaries and to some extent local schools as well, although this became a central political issue into the 20th century. Bishops were much less powerful than before, had no political voice. However, the Catholic Church reinvented itself and put a new emphasis on personal religiosity that gave it a hold on the psychology of the faithful. Public education was centralized, with the Grand Master of the University of France controlling every element of the national educational system from Paris. New technical universities were opened in Paris which to this day have a critical role in training the elite. Conservatism was bitterly split into the returning old aristocracy and the new elites arising after 1796; the old aristocracy felt no loyalty to the new regime. The new elite, the "noblesse d'empire," ridiculed the older group as an outdated remnant of a discredited regime that had led the nation to disaster. Both groups shared a fear of social disorder, but the level of distrust as well as the cultural differences were too great, the monarchy too inconsistent in its policies, for political cooperation to be possible.
The old aristocracy recovered much of the land they had owned directly. However, they lost all their old seigneurial rights to the rest of the farmland, the peasants were no longer under their control; the old aristocracy had dallied with the ideas of the rationalism. Now the aristocracy was supportive of the Catholic Church. For the best jobs, meritocracy was the new policy, aristocrats had to compete directly with the growing business and professional class. Public anti-clerical sentiment became stronger than before, but was now based in certain elements of the middle class and the peasantry; the great masses of French people were peasants in the countryside or impoverished workers in the cities. They gained a new sense of possibilities. Although relieved of many of the old burdens and taxes, the peasantry was still traditional in its social and economic behavior. Many eagerly took on mortgages to buy as much land as possible for their children, so debt was an important factor in their calculations.
The working class in the cities was a small element, had been freed of many restrictions imposed
Napoleon
Napoléon Bonaparte was a French statesman and military leader who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led several successful campaigns during the French Revolutionary Wars. He was Emperor of the French as Napoleon I from 1804 until 1814 and again in 1815 during the Hundred Days. Napoleon dominated European and global affairs for more than a decade while leading France against a series of coalitions in the Napoleonic Wars, he won most of these wars and the vast majority of his battles, building a large empire that ruled over much of continental Europe before its final collapse in 1815. He is considered one of the greatest commanders in history, his wars and campaigns are studied at military schools worldwide. Napoleon's political and cultural legacy has endured as one of the most celebrated and controversial leaders in human history, he was born in Corsica to a modest family of Italian origin from minor nobility. He was serving as an artillery officer in the French army when the French Revolution erupted in 1789.
He rose through the ranks of the military, seizing the new opportunities presented by the Revolution and becoming a general at age 24. The French Directory gave him command of the Army of Italy after he suppressed a revolt against the government from royalist insurgents. At age 26, he began his first military campaign against the Austrians and the Italian monarchs aligned with the Habsburgs—winning every battle, conquering the Italian Peninsula in a year while establishing "sister republics" with local support, becoming a war hero in France. In 1798, he led a military expedition to Egypt, he became First Consul of the Republic. Napoleon's ambition and public approval inspired him to go further, he became the first Emperor of the French in 1804. Intractable differences with the British meant that the French were facing a Third Coalition by 1805. Napoleon shattered this coalition with decisive victories in the Ulm Campaign and a historic triumph over the Russian Empire and Austrian Empire at the Battle of Austerlitz which led to the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire.
In 1806, the Fourth Coalition took up arms against him because Prussia became worried about growing French influence on the continent. Napoleon defeated Prussia at the battles of Jena and Auerstedt marched his Grande Armée deep into Eastern Europe and annihilated the Russians in June 1807 at the Battle of Friedland. France forced the defeated nations of the Fourth Coalition to sign the Treaties of Tilsit in July 1807, bringing an uneasy peace to the continent. Tilsit signified the high-water mark of the French Empire. In 1809, the Austrians and the British challenged the French again during the War of the Fifth Coalition, but Napoleon solidified his grip over Europe after triumphing at the Battle of Wagram in July. Napoleon invaded the Iberian Peninsula, hoping to extend the Continental System and choke off British trade with the European mainland, declared his brother Joseph Bonaparte the King of Spain in 1808; the Spanish and the Portuguese revolted with British support. The Peninsular War lasted six years, featured extensive guerrilla warfare, ended in victory for the Allies against Napoleon.
The Continental System caused recurring diplomatic conflicts between France and its client states Russia. The Russians were unwilling to bear the economic consequences of reduced trade and violated the Continental System, enticing Napoleon into another war; the French launched a major invasion of Russia in the summer of 1812. The campaign did not yield the decisive victory Napoleon wanted, it resulted in the collapse of the Grande Armée and inspired a renewed push against Napoleon by his enemies. In 1813, Prussia and Austria joined Russian forces in the War of the Sixth Coalition against France. A lengthy military campaign culminated in a large Allied army defeating Napoleon at the Battle of Leipzig in October 1813, but his tactical victory at the minor Battle of Hanau allowed retreat onto French soil; the Allies invaded France and captured Paris in the spring of 1814, forcing Napoleon to abdicate in April. He was exiled to the island of Elba off the coast of Tuscany, the Bourbon dynasty was restored to power.
Napoleon took control of France once again. The Allies responded by forming a Seventh Coalition which defeated him at the Battle of Waterloo in June; the British exiled him to the remote island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic, where he died six years at the age of 51. Napoleon's influence on the modern world brought liberal reforms to the numerous territories that he conquered and controlled, such as the Low Countries and large parts of modern Italy and Germany, he implemented fundamental liberal policies throughout Western Europe. His Napoleonic Code has influenced the legal systems of more than 70 nations around the world. British historian Andrew Roberts states: "The ideas that underpin our modern world—meritocracy, equality before the law, property rights, religious toleration, modern secular education, sound finances, so on—were championed, consolidated and geographically extended by Napoleon. To them he added a rational and efficient local administration, an end to rural banditry, the encouragement of science and the arts, the abolition of feudalism and the greatest codification of laws since the fall of the Roman Empire".
The ancestors of Napoleon descended from minor Italian nobility of Tuscan origin who had come to Corsica fr
Garde du Corps (France)
The Gardes-du-Corps was the senior formation of the King of France's Household Cavalry within the Maison militaire du roi de France. The oldest unit in the Garde du Corps was the Company of Scottish Archers just the 1st Scottish Company or Garde Écossaise, formed in 1419 from Scots that fought for the French during Hundred Years' War; this unit was created at an uncertain date between 1423 and 1448. Subsequently, two further French companies were raised. A final company was established on 17 March 1515; each of the four companies numbered less than a hundred men. In the Battle of Fornovo during the Italian Wars the Garde du Corps saved king Charles VIII from being captured by enemy forces. In the Italian Wars they failed to save Francis I from being captured in the Battle of Pavia; the last time the Garde du Corps campaigned was during the War of the Austrian Succession because it only went on campaign when the king was present. The last battle in which the Garde du Corps was present was Lauffeld on 1 July 1747.
In contrast to other units of the Royal Household such as the French Guards and the Swiss Guards, the Garde du Corps was an aristocratic corps. The rank and file were drawn from families with appropriate social backgrounds; as such they were noted for their courtly manners but less so for their professionalism and military skills. Individual courtier guardsmen stationed at Versailles were not subject to regular training beyond ceremonial drill, extended periods of leave from duty were common. A critical report, dated 1775, concluded that the Body Guard and other "distinguished units with their own privileges are always expensive - fight less than line troops, are badly disciplined and badly trained, are always embarrassing on campaign". Officers of the Garde du Corps resented having to wear uniforms when on duty at Versailles and won the concession of appearing in civilian court dress with their military belts and swords, except when on parade; the Garde du Corps featured conspicuously in several incidents in the opening stages of the French Revolution.
On 1 October 1789 the officers of the Garde' hosted a banquet to welcome their colleagues of a line infantry regiment of the Royal Army, brought to Versailles to replace the disbanded French Guards. The latter regiment had joined in the attack on the Bastille six weeks before; the banquet was reported in Paris as a royalist provocation and an angry crowd of thousands marched on Versailles. During the night of 5 October about 500 members of the crowd broke into the Palace, killing several of the Gardes du Corps on duty. Other Gardes du Corps held the doors to the royal apartments until grenadiers of the National Guard – former Gardes Francais – restored order; the Garde du Corps narrowly escaped massacre and, was obliged to accompany the Royal Family to Paris. Most of this aristocratic regiment dispersed to their estates or into exile; the Garde du Corps was formally dissolved in 1791 along with all of the Maison du Roi, except for the ill-fated Swiss Guard. After the abdication of Napoleon I in April 1814 and the Bourbon Restoration, Louis XVIII recreated the Garde du Corps with the rest of the Maison du Roi.
These units disappeared at the start of the Hundred Days. After Waterloo and the return of the Bourbons the Garde du Corps was recreated again the only unit of the old Maison du Roi to be given a further chance after the disappointing performance of these expensive and militarily obsolete regiments in 1815; the Garde du Corps was however reorganised, reduced in numbers to about 1,500 and integrated more with the regular army. The reconstituted Garde du Corps served the returned Bourbons loyally until being abolished, along with all Guard units, by Louis-Philippe in 1830 after the July Revolution; the original motto of the Garde du Corps was Erit haec quoque cognita monstris, but during the reign of Louis XIV it changed to Nec pluribus impar, Louis XIV's personal motto. The swords of the guardsmen were inscribed with Vive le Roi; the number of guardsmen increased between the reign of Francis I and that of Louis XIV from 400 to 1,600 men. In the eighteenth century, the numbers stabilized at around 1,500 men.
In 1737, each company had 320 men, organized into six brigades. Despite the name, by the 16th century the company had ceased to be purely Scottish. Little by little the Scottish Company became Scottish in name only. Captains/Chefs de corps: 1440: Robert Patilloch 1449: Mathieu d'Harcourt, Lord of Rugny 1455: Claude de Châteauneuf, Garde-du-Corps of Charles VII of France 1456: Michel de Beauvilliers, seigneur de La Ferte-Hubert, du Lude et de Thoury 1462: William Stuyers 1466: Thomas Stuyers 1471: Geffrey Coowran 1473: Robert Coningham 1480: Jean Coningham 1495-1508: Bernard Stewart, Duke of Aubigny 1508-1512: John Stewart, seigneur d'Henrichemont 1512: Robert Stewart, Duke of Aubigny, Maréchal de France 1514-1544: Jean Stuart, sieur de Vézinnes et de Fontaine 1544: Jacques I de Montgomery, seigneur de Lorges 1557: Gabriel I de Montgommery, seigneur de Lorges 1559: Jacques II de Montgommery, seigneur de Lorges 1562-1563: Jean d'O, seigneur de Maillebois 1563-1569: Jean de Losse, écuyer, seigneur de Bannes 1569-1599: Joachim de Châteauvieux, Governor of the Bastille 1599-1605: Jean-Paul d'Esparbès de Lussan, seigneur de La Serre
