These are the items within the exhibition that are available from the launch date (23rd February 2015) until today. A new item is released each day for the duration of the exhibition..
Heugh Parry sent this image of Napoleon to William Wordsworth in a letter on 29 July 1815. Parry, like Wordsworth, was an Inspector of Stamps and had stayed with the poet at his home Rydal Mount. The drawing was made while the defeated French Emperor was a prisoner on board HMS Bellerophon at…
On July 15, 1815, Napoleon left Rochefort, the French Atlantic port where he had taken refuge after Waterloo, and surrendered to Captain Frederick Lewis Maitland of the 74-gun HMS Bellerophon. The vessel then sailed to Britain. It anchored off Brixham and Torbay (Devon) on July 24, and reached…
This document, dated 10 August 1815 marks the end of the Napoleonic adventure in the French West Indies. The forces which had opposed the British (who were aided by 3 French ships sent from Martinique, the Actéon, the Messager and the Diligent) were defeated.
In the course of July 1815, news of…
In 1857, the monthly newspaper Willis’s Current Notes dedicated an article to ‘the most curious’ journey of one of Napoleon’s chairs to the parish of Crail in Fifeshire, Scotland. This seat was said to have accompanied the Emperor in his exiles, and to have been ‘commonly used’ by him in…
In the euphoria that followed Waterloo the British government was initially enthusiastic about memorialising the nation’s fallen soldiers. However, concerns with costs and growing popular unrest in the post-war period meant that its plans for commemorating the battle failed to eventuate. The first…
This letter was sent from the HMS Bellerophon’s assistant surgeon Ephraim Graebke to his mother and recounts in detail Napoleon’s arrival on board, and his daily routine on the crossing to Britain. Although the Bellerophon had arrived in Plymouth 26th July, it was kept isolated, with the crew…
On the 18th of July 1815, two plays, The Poor Gentleman by George Colman the Younger (1802) and Raising the Wind by James Kenney (1803), were performed before Napoleon Buonaparte on board HMS Bellerophon.
After his defeat at Waterloo, the former Emperor had decided that his best course of…
This model was built by John Boon of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Its size is 100 inches x 31 inches (scale: 1 inch = 1 foot). The model took more than 10,400 hours to build over the course of eight years.
The Bellerophon model is housed in the Naval Museum of Alberta, a component of the…
On July 15th, Napoleon surrendered on board HMS Bellerophon just off Rochefort, bringing the Hundred Days to an end. Two vestiges of that historic ship survive. The first is a fragment of the masthead depicting the Greek hero Bellerophon, nicknamed by the crew ‘Billy Ruffian’; the second is a…
By the middle of July, 1815, a flotilla of Royal Navy warships were blockading the ports along French Atlantic coastline with firm orders to prevent Napoleon making his escape. A point came in negotiations with the Royal Navy when Napoleon realised that he could neither remain any longer in France…
These pages come from the Midshipman’s Log of Francis Wall Justice who served aboard HMS Bellerophon, also known as the “Billy Ruffian”, a 74-gun ship of the line on blockade duty off the coast of France. Midshipmens’ logs were journals of quotidian events and could be compared to the black…
In his ‘Narrative of the Surrender of Buonaparte and His Residence on board H.M.S. Bellerophon; with a detail of the principal events that occurred in that ship between the 24th May and the 8th of August, 1815’, the captain of the Bellerophon, Frederick Maitland, details how he had received…
Charles Angélique François Huchet de la Bédoyère, an officer of the Légion d’Honneur (1786-1815), was a young military man who quickly rose through the ranks.
During the 100 days, La Bédoyère brought an entire regiment over to Napoleon's cause as the Emperor made his way up through…
Game of a Traveller in Europe (Jeu du voyageur en Europe), 1813 [nd], c. 1820 [later additions] published by Paul André Basset (active 1785-1815), Paris etching and engraving on paper, hand-coloured in watercolour and bodycolour Waddesdon, The Rothschild Collection (The National Trust) Accession…
Current affairs were generally subject to musical satire (as in the French vaudevilles shown on 12 April and 13 May) and Waterloo, even with its tragic loss of life, was no different. One light-hearted South German response to the battle was simply titled a 'Komisches Jubellied', a comic celebration…
Henry William Paget, Earl of Uxbridge, was made Marquess of Anglesey following his distinguished role at Waterloo. On the morning of the battle he declared, ‘We shall have sharp work today’. They did indeed. As commander of the heavy cavalry at a key point in the battle he led a successful…
In April 1815, a young Englishman, John Cam Hobhouse, later to become the politician, the 1st Baron Broughton (1786 – 1869), travelled to Paris where he became an eyewitness to the historic series of events unfolding in the French capital. The young Hobhouse was besotted with the ideal of…
The Fort de l’Ecluse controls the pass through which the Rhone passes as it leaves Switzerland. This route thus links the Genevan basin to the plains of Lyon and was regularly the scene of skirmishes between the Austrians and the French. In March 1814 the General Bardet, devoid of his artillery,…
Today’s object is an article from the Official Gazette of Guadeloupe, dated 5th July 1815: a proclamation of the Governor of Martinique to the people of Guadeloupe
On learning of Napoleon’s return to power, Martinique had decided to stay faithful to the King, although many of the army there…
Captain George Holmes was the senior officer in His Majesty’s 27th (Inniskilling) Regiment of Foot (3rd Battalion), killed on the afternoon of June 18 1815, at the Battle of Waterloo. The regiment had marched hard for two days and taken up position at the left centre of Wellington’s line.…
Napoleon attempted to put some distance between himself and the advancing allies by leaving for the port of Rochefort on 30 June. It was there, he hoped, that two frigates would be waiting to whisk him away to America.
A second group of followers, made up of General Montholon and the Count de…
The ‘Antipodes de Paris’
On 3 July 1815, the French defence of Paris was overcome by the Prussians at the Battle of Issy, leading the Conseil de Défense to surrender. As the forces of the Seventh Coalition prepared to reconquer the capital, Louis XVIII gathered a Cabinet topographique du…
This is an allegory of Napoleon’s radiance by Adam Victor (1801-1866), dated to the July Monarchy. The statue in the middle represents Napoleon Bonaparte, standing on the top of the Vendôme Column. On a rainbow we can recognize the main topics which make up the Napoleonic legend, with…
Lancashire weaver boy Samuel Bamford, later famed as a social reformer, was just seventeen when he heard the news of Waterloo – but already a seasoned poet. This song, ‘The Patriot’s Hymn’, was perhaps his most influential composition: his comrades sung it at meetings, in prison, and on the…
The Earl of Uxbridge was hit in the knee by a grape shot in one of the last French attacks. In the film Waterloo (1970) his leg is shot off, but in fact the grape shot made a neat hole in his Colpacks: when Lady Charlotte, his wife (who had been married to Wellington's brother before running off…
The registers of the Comédie-Française do not just record which plays are performed each night but also provide snippets of information about the political context in which those plays were put on. This page from the registers for the end of June 1815 is a good example of that.
Napoleon’s…
After a swift campaign lasting only ten days, General Lamarque defeated the royalist troops at the battle of Rocheservière on 20 June 1815. While the future of France was being played out on the international scene, Lamarque was tirelessly attempting – on behalf of Napoleon – to end the civil…
News of Waterloo led to the writing of a whole regiment of songs, of varying quality: this, with words by J Thompson, and to the tune of the ‘Roast Beef of Old England’, is one of the best.
Its first line presupposes knowledge of the event – ‘You’ve heard of a battle that’s lately…
Just over a week after Waterloo, Daniel Sykes, a Yorkshire lawyer, businessman and MP for Kingston-upon-Hull, wrote to his sister, Marianne Thornton. Recent events perplexed him: ‘I cannot help … lamenting that thousands upon thousands of human beings should be slaughtered to settle the…
Marengo’s skeleton is on display at the National Army Museum in London, adding to the ‘cult of Napoleon’ that was created after his defeat at Waterloo: people want to memorialise the great horse that carried one of the greatest military leaders through many of his campaigns.
Another piece…
With his armies defeated at Waterloo, Napoleon fled on the road towards Charleroi. Hot in pursuit were the Prussian cavalry, led by Marshal Blücher. When the Prussians seized hold of the Emperor’s campaign baggage they paraded the Emperor’s dress around on a pole in triumph. Alongside the…
Like so many ballads of the period, this ‘object’ exists in different forms in different places. Composed by an unknown soldier in the wake of the battle, learnt from him by an injured Scot, Jim Shoubridge, and taken back to Falkirk, the song was immediately printed in a chapbook as ‘The…
This ‘second abdication’ [the first was in 1814] of 22 June 1815 echoes the letter Napoleon had written the day before to the President of the Chamber of Representatives, Lanjuinais (see the object for 21 June).
The martial rhetoric and his disappointment with the Chamber of Representatives…
This letter to the President of the Chamber of Representatives represents one of the stages in the 2nd downfall of the Emperor and in Napoleon’s coming to terms with his situation after Waterloo (or the Battle of Mont-Saint-Jean as Napoleon refers to it).
He avoids the word ‘defeat’ and…
When Napoleon fled the battlefield on 18 June 1815, he left behind his campaign baggage and travelling carriage. The contents were seized upon by the Allies and many of the objects still adorn museums today. The Deutsches Historisches Museum in Berlin has Napoleon's hat.
Few items of clothing…
This telescope is believed to be the one passed to Napoleon during the battle of Waterloo and that made him aware of the imminent arrival of the Prussian army.
The late start to the battle, at around midday, and the inability of the French army to break Wellington's combined British, Dutch and…
The Hundred Days ended with Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo. His army was routed and dispersed in panic as he himself rushed to Paris to save his throne. It was a military disaster that left France once again at the mercy of the Allies. Yet the battle lived on in French national memory as a moment…
The Battle of Waterloo, which ended Napoleon’s ‘Hundred Days’, has generally been commemorated in this country as a great British victory. Yet Wellington himself admitted to Thomas Creevey on 18 June 1815 that the battle had been ‘a damned nice thing – the nearest run thing you ever saw in…
The British Baker Rifle has been immortalised in the novels and TV-adaptations of Bernard Cornwell’s creation Rifleman Sharpe. Although Sharpe himself is robustly English, his world is peopled with friendly foreigners, such as the unforgettable Westphalian Captain Frederickson, reflecting the…
On 16th June 1815, Claire de Duras wrote to Germaine de Staël from the royal camp in Ghent. The letter – translated in 'Further Information' – continually oscillates between the personal and the political, and offers a unique perspective on current events and the figure of Napoleon.
From…
Today’s object is a letter dated 13 June 1815 written by François de Jaucourt, Louis XVIII’s acting foreign minister while Talleyrand was away at the Congress of Vienna. His correspondent was Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne, whom Louis XVIII had sent on mission to Hamburg during the 100…
On 13 June the Duke of Wellington accompanied the young Lady Jane Lennox to a cricket match at in the park of the duke of Arenberg near Enghien, where the Guards regiments were based. There had been earlier games and, from diary entries, we know that Lord Hill's aide-de-camp Digby Mackworth played…
The correspondence between the Duke of Wellington and Lord Lynedoch in June vividly depicts the Duke’s confidence and decisive attitude as the inevitable clash of armies approached. On 13th June 1815, he wrote:
‘There is nothing new here. We have reports of Bonaparte’s joining the army and…
The British novelist and poet Helen Maria Williams (1759–1827) was an astute social commentator and historian. Having created a stir with her pro-Revolutionary 'Letters written in France in the summer 1790', she returned to commenting on events taking place in France during the 100 days. Her 'A…
In this pamphlet from 1815, bishop of Barcelona directed his parishioners to support the king, Ferdinand VII, in his new war against Napoleon. The city of Barcelona had had considerable exposure to Napoleonic ideas having been in French hands during the six years of the Peninsular War (1808-14). It…
The Congress of Vienna met not to make peace but to extend an existing one. Delegates, lobbyists and spectators from across Europe assembled in Vienna from September 1814 through June 1815 to redraw Europe’s borders and political rules at a moment when a majority of Europeans faced changes of…
Seren Gomer (‘Star of Gomer’) was the first Welsh-language weekly newspaper, launched in Swansea by the Baptist minister Joseph Harris, and catering to a lively, highly literate community of readers across Wales.
Its 86 issues ran from January 1814 to August 1815. Four densely-packed pages…
For Romantic poet and novelist Alfred de Vigny, the first Restoration was a personal as well as a political milestone: in July 1814, he was commissioned in one of the four corps of the royal household. Though nursing a broken leg, he hastened to Versailles on Napoleon’s return and escorted Louis…
Bored British officers with the army in Belgium sometimes got themselves into trouble. Sergeant Wheeler, who was stationed in Grammont (Geraardsbergen) wrote home about an incident in early June:
In the great square, opposite the Guildhall, there is a fountain, in the middle stands a naked boy,…
Louis XVIII had theoretically reigned since the death of his nephew, the nominal Louis XVII, who died in atrocious conditions the Temple prison in June 1795.
In this anonymous engraving from 1815, 'Glorieux règne de 19 ans – Comme il gouverne depuis 15 ans' ('The glorious reign of nineteen…
On 4 June 1815 the Chamber of representatives chose Jean-Denis Lanjuinais (1753-1827) as its president. Lanjuinais represented the liberal tradition of the French Revolution and had been a constant opponent of the Bonapartist regime. As member of the Senate, he had been one of the few to protest…
The silver medal shown here was produced for members of the Chamber of representatives to use for the 1815 session. The medal bears the profile of a helmeted Pallas Athena and the signature of the engraver on one side, and the inscriptions « Chambre des Représentans », and « session de…
After the 1809 campaign patriotic literature extolling the virility and martial attributes of German manhood circulated among the Prussian elite. Until 1813 this literature circulated in a largely clandestine manner, but was allowed full expression following Prussia’s declaration of war on France…
Fast to print, and simple to read, this is an entry ticket for the grand ceremony to celebrate Napoleon’s return, which took place before a huge altar. It is now part of the 'Tableaux de la Revolution' collected by Ferdinand de Rothschild (1839-1898). A rare survival, the ticket evokes the majesty…
Journalistic comment during the 100 days on the production of novels is heavily reminiscent of discussions during the French Revolution 25 years earlier. Commentators in both instances felt that it was wrong to be devoting attention to something as trivial as novels at a time of such political…
This German print depicts Napoleon dragging a set of conscripts towards the slaughterhouse – from which the blood of earlier victims is streaming, with the carcasses of earlier victims hung as in a butcher’s, beneath signs indicating the death tolls of those conscripted: Spanish 350,000, German…
Hortense (1783-1837) was the daughter of Napoleon’s first wife Josephine. She married Napoleon's brother Louis Bonaparte, making Napoleon both her stepfather and brother-in-law. Hortense was at the Tuileries to greet the Emperor on 20th March 1815 on his return to Paris, and she wrote on his…
Mounted as a king in a royal equestrian portrait, this tobacco label shows Napoleon in his Imperial regalia. Now part of a collection of trade cards at Waddesdon Manor, the label demonstrates how Napoleon’s image played into the creation of what we could describe as a ‘brand’ identity: he also…
Popular reactions in the Hispanic world were conditioned by an information black out imposed by the Bourbon king Ferdinand VII, who only ten months earlier had been restored to his throne in Madrid after spending six years as an involuntary guest of Napoleon in France.
The images show a copy of…
Klemens von Metternich (1773-1859) was an Austrian diplomat of Rhenish origins who rose to become one of the most significant statesmen of the nineteenth century. Following Austria’s multiple defeats at the hands of Napoleonic France and the subsequent enforced alliance, Metternich guided…
In Britain, the public mood towards Napoleon had dramatically changed since his abdication at the beginning of April 1814. The figure of the defeated despot who had oppressed Europe was giving way to that of the hero who had been unjustly detained on a small Mediterranean island and had boldly…
The political philosopher and novelist William Godwin (1756-1836), whose Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793) forecast the elimination of government and the triumph of reason, is not the likeliest supporter of Napoleon. Yet his sparsely annotated Diary reveals a fascination with Napoleon.…
John Hampdon’s History of the Northern War covers the period from 1812 until the Vienna Congress of 1815. The book is obscure and scarce, printed and published provincially, in Newcastle upon Tyne), by an otherwise unknown writer. It was originally intended for publication in 1814, a chronology of…
News of Napoleon’s return put the Spanish Monarchy on global alert. These are two letters of the viceroy of Peru, José Fernando de Abascal, Marquis de la Concordia, to the Secretary of Indies in Madrid, Miguel de Lardizábal y Uribe dispatched from Lima on 12 October 1815.
The text in the…
Maximien Lamarque (1770-1832) supported the return of Napoléon with enthusiasm and was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the army of the Loire, with full powers over the western regions: this is the uniform he would have worn (although the buttons were replaced during the Restoration).
As Napoleon…
'Le Censeur des censeurs ou Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire de la révolution du 20 mars' was a weekly newspaper which benefited from the short moment of (supposed) freedom of press during the 100 Days: Napoleon had abolished censorship in March. Its publication life was brief – the first…
On 29 March 1815, Nikolai Turgenev (1789-1871), a key figure of Russian liberal thought, wrote in his diary: 'Today [we] found out here that N[apoleon] entered into Paris as if he was back from a journey. He plays his role in a masterly fashion among a people made up of actors. What is going to…
As secretary to Baron vom Stein (a Prussian statesman at the head of reform and war efforts), Ernst Moritz Arndt was able to avoid serious censorship and make the most of communication networks facilitating publication on a grand scale: during the period 1812-1815, he would become one of the most…
In the middle of May 1815, Parisians were gripped not by the legislative elections or by the preparations for war but by a murder trial. Antoine Serres de Saint-Clair faced a retrial in front of a military tribunal for murdering the prostitute Cornelia Kersemacker, known as ‘La Belle…
On 30 April, Napoleon took the surprising and unprecedented step of calling on all male citizens in villages and towns of under 5000 to elect their mayors and adjoints (deputies). This risked not only disrupting war preparations but also seeing numerous communes falling into royalist hands.
Over…
The writer François-René de Chateaubriand had initially supported Napoleon Bonaparte but he became much more critical once Napoleon crowned himself Emperor. By 1814 Chateaubriand held an openly hostile position. He published a scathing essay De Buonaparte et des Bourbons in 1814, attacking the…
On Sunday, 14 May 1815, in the Place du Carousel outside the Tuileries Palace, Napoleon reviewed twelve thousand men from Paris’s working-class districts who had banded together as a volunteer militia of fédérés (federates). In their address to Napoleon, they hailed him as “the representative…
Like the vaudeville featured on 12 April, 'Cadet Buteux législateur ou la constitution en vaudevilles' sets new words to pre-existing melodies to create a narrative. Published anonymously in May 1815, we have no record of its performance, though it may have been put on in one on Paris's private…
The Allies who had gathered in Vienna to thrash out a plan for peace found themselves having to address questions of political legitimacy in the spring of 1815, given that the people of France had welcomed Napoleon’s return. They issued a new protocol on 12 May 1815, reaffirming their opposition…
Censorship was a sensitive matter in 1815. Although it was supposedly abolished on 24th March by Napoleon, this censorship report for a historical drama entitled Le Triomphe de Léon proves the contrary.
The young author of this play, intended for performance in Toulouse, had transposed the…
The revolutionary origins of the 'Marseillaise' are well known. Originally the ‘War Song of the Army of the Rhine’, it was written in 1792 by a constitutional monarchist in Strasbourg, Rouget de Lisle, to inspire troops to protect France against its enemies. Quickly adopted and adapted by the…
On 25 April 1815, whilst visiting Paris on diplomatic duties, the American politician John Quincy Adams attended ‘the Spectacle Instructif and Phantasmagoria of Robertson on the boulevards’. There, he saw various optical illusions and automata, through which he had a glimpse into the state of…
The ‘Journal’ of Charles Weiss (1779-1866), Besançon’s librarian, chronicles the effect of Napoleon’s return to power on the town, from the first rumours that Napoleon had landed (news reaches them on 8 March) to the report of Louis XVIII’s entry into Paris in July. Besançon is a key…
When he returned to power in 1815, Napoleon made some liberal concessions in the Acte additionnel (see entry for 22 April). Like previous constitutional changes, it was submitted to a plebiscite. All adult males were invited to sign registers, opened in their communities for several days at the end…
This excerpt from a Prussian police proceeding from 6 May 1815 is indicative of the reaction of Prussian authorities to Napoleon’s return from exile. Here, a judge named Kleemann from the Saxonian town of Cönnern is being placed under investigation for supposed Francophilia…
In 1815 the Egyptian ruler Muhammad Ali returned abruptly to Cairo from his campaign against the Wahhabis in the Arabian Peninsula. Historians have suggested that his return was the result of the news of Napoleon’s escape from Elba: well aware of Bonaparte’s reputation, Muhammad Ali wanted to…
Prince Adam Jerzy Czartoryski (1770-1861), seen here in an 1810 portrait by Józef Oleszkiewicz, was a descendant of a Polish aristocratic family who supported the Polish national cause. Because of this, after the Third Partition of Poland (1795), he was called by Catherine the Great to the court of…
On 2-3 May 1815, the battle of Tolentino, fought between the Austrian army and that of the King of Naples Joachim Murat, put an end to Napoleon's domination over Italy.
In the days immediately following, the seventeen-year-old philologist and poet Giacomo Leopardi (1798-1837) wrote an 'oration'…
G.S. Faber, Remarks on the effusion of the fifth apocalyptic vial, and the late extraordinary restoration of the imperial revolutionary government of France (F.C. and J. Rivington: London, 1815)
Bonaparte’s escape from Elba, as for many, caught George Stanley Faber (1773-1854) on the hop. By no…
Anne Seymour Damer’s visit to the Emperor on 1 May 1815, to present a bust of one of Napoleon’s most high profile British admirers, draws attention to the continued esteem he enjoyed within certain circles in Britain in 1815.
Diplomatic gifts were as important for Napoleon as any other ruler…
While Napoleon did have supporters in German lands, over the years he had caused great suffering to those living there: from the financial burden of occupation and annexation to the conscription of Germans for his campaigns, not to mention the battles fought on German soil. The Wars of Liberation…
The image shows a shako, pelisse and dolman of the 7th hussar regiment that belonged to Colonel Jean-Baptiste Antione Marcellin de Marbot (1782 - 1854).
Colonel Marbot had been put in charge of the 7th hussar regiment during the Bourbon restoration in 1814. However his support for the King, like…
The École Polytechnique was established in Paris in 1794 as the École Centrale des Travaux Publics (Central School of Public Works) to train engineers. In 1804 the school became a military academy and its purpose was to provide the French Empire with military officers. Education was a means…
In March 1815, a group of wealthy liberal philanthropists established the Société pour l'instruction élémentaire (SIE) [Society for Elementary Instruction] for the purpose of introducing new English methods of elementary mutual teaching into France.
The Reverend Andrew Bell in Madras and the…
Napoleon knew that his best strategy on returning from Elba was to exploit the unpopularity of restored Bourbon rule. This meant parading his own revolutionary credentials. He immediately raised the tricolour flag under which he had always marched, and which Louis XVIII had abandoned. He proclaimed…
This embroidered white uniform was crafted in 1815 in Vienna for Napoleon’s four-year old son, François Joseph Charles Bonaparte, also known as l’Aiglon (The Eaglet), who emigrated to Austria with his mother, Empress Marie Louise, following his father’s first abdication. Delicately adorned…
Joseph Fouché (1759-1820) first rose to prominence in revolutionary France in year II for his leading role in the mitraillades (or mass executions) of over fifteen hundred citizens in Lyons. Fouché planned and led these brutal killings using grapeshot, earning himself the title of ‘The…
Napoleon attended the performance of Jean-Charles-Julien Luce de Lancival’s tragedy 'Hector' (1809) on the 21st April 1815, and the event was reviewed in the Feuilleton of the Journal de l’Empire on 23rd April 1815.
The article describes how the audience instinctively knew that Napoleon…
In early 1814, as the First Empire, was crumbling, Benjamin Constant published a stinging attack on Napoleon as a despot besotted by anachronistic visions of conquest. A year later, however, Constant could not resist the Emperor’s invitation to draw up a new French constitution. Napoleon knew that…
These three folios held by the Curzon Collection (dated April 1815) contain the notes of Lazare Carnot, Interior Minister during the 100 Days, who sat on the special commission for the creation of a new French constitution. Given the three weeks or so between the creation of the constitutional…
'Exercice du royal Eteignoir' listed in the Bibliographie de la France for 29 April 1815 as published by Lacroix, rue Ste-Croix, chaussée d’Antin, no. 15.
The print seller Lacroix published a lot of caricatures in 1815, veering from denunciation of royalists to support for Napoleon and back to…
For a man famously hailed by Stendhal in 1824 as the new Napoleon, conquering the world with his music, Gioachino Rossini was notably unwilling to engage with the grand political struggles of his day. But in a letter written in 1864, just a few years before his death, and in the midst of the final…
C.F. Lawler, Bonaparte in Paris! Or, The Flight of the Bourbons! A Poem, by Peter Pindar, esq. (London, 1815)
‘Peter Pindar’ was the pseudonym of several of London’s satirical poets, in this case C.F. Lawler, especially prolific in 1814-15 and known for his tirades against the Prince…
On 17 April 1815 Napoleon moved his residence from the Tuileries. This palace had been built as a domestic residence under the orders of Catherine De’ Medici in the 1570s and connected by a gallery to the Louvre under Henri IV. The Louvre subsequently acted as the formal office of the state with…
William Dickinson was one of the foremost English engravers in mezzotint and during the 1780s had established a substantial business in London as a print seller and publisher with a shop in Bond Street. He had suffered in the harsh economic climate of the late 1790s, however, and went bankrupt: his…
In April 1815 Petronella Moens (1762-1843), one of the best known Dutch women writers of the time, published a poem entitled ‘Bij het intrekken van Napoleon Buonaparte in Parijs’ (‘On Napoleon Bonaparte’s entering of Paris’). This poem is of particular interest because of the female…
Le double serment; ou, fidélité constante à tout le monde
On 14 April 1815, Napoleon summoned Benjamin Constant to deliberate with him on a revised constitution for the Empire, so heralding his much-debated liberal turn. There followed a week of intense debate, culminating in the publication…
Title of Print: ‘Scene in a new pantomime to be performed at the Theatre Royal Paris’ (London: Ackermann, published 12 April 1815)
In this lively and irreverent image, Thomas Rowlandson draws on the frequent use of theatre in satirical cartoons, and capitalizes on the function of the…
Housed in a former theatre, the Café Montansier had by mid-March become the place to gather to sing pro-Napoleonic songs, and according to some accounts, it was at this café that the first bouquets of violets were handed out as a Bonapartist badge (see entries for 3 and 20 March). As befitted the…
On 5 April 1815, a truly seismic event sent shock waves around the world: not a returning emperor, but the eruption of Mount Tambora on island of Sumbawa, in modern-day Indonesia. One of the best English-language accounts comes from the memoirs of Sir Stamford Raffles (1781-1826) who was stationed…
This complex print by Charles Williams depicts Samuel Whitbread’s (verbal) attack on Lord Castlereagh in the House of Commons on 10 April for his part in the negotiations at the Congress of Vienna, and for the declaration of hostilities against Napoleon. Whitbread (1764-1815) had long been an…
A typically dynamic Cruikshank print, accompanying song lyrics to an unknown tune, paints a vivid scene from left to right. Soldiers sporting Phrygian caps and bearing Napoleonic eagles cheer ‘Vive l’Empereur’; a winged black demon pitches a virile Napoleon onto the French throne. As he swaps…
Fanny Burney was an extremely successful novelist in the 18th century. Her writing career began with 'Evelina', published in 1778, and her last novel, 'The Wanderer' was published in 1814. During the French Revolution she married Alexandre d’Arblay, a French émigré who had taken refuge in…
The Congress of Vienna had been convened in September 1814 to restore European order after the Napoleonic Wars. By April 1815, the participating powers had only just committed their armies to upholding the boundaries of the one-year old Treaty of Paris, by which time Napoleon had returned to Paris…
Theatre-going remained a popular activity during the Napoleonic Wars. On any given night, audiences were presented with a variety of entertainments, as illustrated by this playbill for Covent Garden Theatre, which advertises William Dimond’s comic opera, 'Brother & Sister'; James Kenney’s farce,…
In this pamphlet, penned in September 1815, counter-revolutionary conspirator Louis Fauche-Borel (1762-1829) railed against those opportunists and hypocrites who had nearly cost Louis XVIII his throne. He narrated the complacency and factionalism he had witnessed during the Hundred…
The woodcut, a mirrored copy of George Cruikshank’s March 1815 print ‘Hell Broke Loose’ (see bottom left of the page for a link to the Cruikshank print), is a Saturnalian riot of fleeing Britons and imposing martial French soldiers; Napoleon himself towers over the scene, leading his men to…
The images here from the periodical 'Diario Balear' illustrate how news of Napoleon’s return from Elba arrived in the Balearic islands through private correspondence. An extract from a letter sent by an anonymous correspondent, and published by the 'Diario Balear' on 31 March, offered a detailed…
Eldest daughter and only surviving child of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, Marie-Thérèse, duchesse d’Angoulême, led a spirited opposition to Napoleon during the 100 Days. She had gone to Bordeaux at the start of March expecting to celebrate the first anniversary of Wellington’s capture of…
On 1 April 1815, despite orders from Général Clauzel, the 8th Line Infantry Regiment entered Bordeaux. While Louis XVIII fled towards Ghent, the Duchess of Angoulême had been trying to organize resistance to Napoleon in the city, and had established herself there on 5 March. Bordeaux was…
Louis first headed for Lille when he left Paris on 19 March. It was conveniently located - within reach of the Channel ports or the Belgian border should it be necessary to go into exile once more. He reached Lille on 22 March, having been well received in Beauvais and Abbeville en route. But the…
Cobbett’s Political Register, 1 April 1815William Cobbett argued throughout the Hundred Days that the French people should be allowed to choose their own government and that Britain should not begin another war with Napoleon unprovoked. In this article, styled as an open letter to the British…
The appointment of a former Jacobin radical revolutionary, Lazare Carnot, as Minister of the interior on 20 March, and Napoleon's abolition of the slave trade on 29 March 1815 were just two of the 'liberal' measures the Emperor undertook during the 100 Days. Not everyone interpreted them favourably,…
Shown here in an early nineteenth-century portrait by an unknown artist, the Irish poet and songwriter Thomas Moore trod a fine line during the Napoleonic Wars: society darling, yet unabashed Bonapartist. Napoleon’s dramatic return in 1815 won round numerous severe critics: Moore needed no such…
Lord Byron (1788-1824) had been an ardent admirer of Napoleon since boyhood. Thus upon hearing of the Emperor’s abdication in April 1814, the poet wrote: ‘Out of town six days. On my return, found my poor little pagod, Napoleon, pushed off his pedestal;—the thieves are in Paris. It is his own…
For Charles Dibdin, the savvy manager of Sadler’s Wells Theatre, Britain’s war with Napoleonic France was big box office. Sadler’s Wells was one of London’s many 'illegitimate' theatres in that it did not possess a licence to perform spoken-word drama: on Monday 27th March 1815, the season…
With news of Napoleon's return from Elba having reached Vienna, on 25th March 1815 the allies reaffirmed the treaty of Chaumont (a pact signed by Britain, Russia, Austria and Prussia on 1 March 1814) by which they had promised to support each other if any one of them was threatened by the 'enemy'…
This hand-coloured print also belongs to the collection at Eton College. It was made in Germany soon after Napoleon’s defeat in 1815. At the foot of the print the caption declares:
‘Bonaparte landed on the 1st March 1815 at Cannes in France to wave the torch of war once more around the…
Pub. John Fairburn, 2, Broadway, Ludgate-Hill, London
Tune: unknown
In Fairburn’s broadside-cum-caricature, the great diplomats assembled at the Congress of Vienna hammer cracks in the iron pot of Europe; Napoleon emerges from a hole in the bottom. This scatological note is no reflection on…
Jack Hutchinson and his cousin Tom Monkhouse had run their farm at Hindwell in Radnorshire since 1809, together with their sisters Joanna Hutchinson and Mary Monkhouse. In March 1815, rumours were flying around, even in the countryside.
With Tom away, Mary wrote on 20 March to tell him that…
Cruikshank’s ‘Escape of Buonaparte From Elba’
When Napoleon made his remarkable return from Elba, British caricaturists responded with an outpouring of prints noticeable for their vibrancy.
Far from embodying straightforward anti-Napoleonic propaganda, the numerous prints that George…
'Violettes du 20 Mars 1815'
This small and unassuming print – a hand-coloured etching – is perhaps one of the most laconic yet enigmatic objects to mark Napoleon’s return to Paris and the start of the 100 Days. Referring to the precise date of that event, 20 March 1815, in its title, it…
Ironically entitled ‘Französiche Treue’ (‘French loyalty’), Johann Michael Volz’s ink-drawn cartoon comprises two halves showing Paris on consecutive days marking the start of the ‘Hundred Days’.
On 19 March French soldiers swear unswerving allegiance to King Louis XVIII,…
Louis XVIII’s Letter to Raguse
Once an aide-de-camp to General Bonaparte in Italy and in Egypt, and later made a Marshall by the Emperor, Auguste de Marmont, Maréchal Duc de Raguse changed sides in 1814 and became loyal to King Louis XVIII: he would later vote in favour of executing Marshal…
The 'Journal des Débats', a Parisian literary and political journal, displays two conflicting ideological positions in the run up to, and immediate aftermath of, Napoleon’s Hundred Days. Its abiding aim during the first Restoration of 1814 was to safeguard social and political order, and…
The lid of this circular box, possibly a snuff box, shows Louis XVIII's attempt to rally public opinion against Napoleon I as the latter advanced on Paris at the beginning of the Hundred Days.
Made in 1820, it depicts the King, the Princes, Peers and Deputies swearing to maintain the Charte…
Unlike his brother Louis XVI in 1791, Louis XVIII did not attempt to sneak out of Paris silently. However, as Napoleon advanced on Paris, there was one item which Louis did desire to transport without the knowledge of others, namely the Crown Jewels, a collection of mounted and loose precious…
Marshal Ney’s Oath
The work of one of the most prolific satirists of the period, Lacroix, this scathing portrayal of the Emperor is typical of the satirical images that flooded the Parisian print market in the weeks following Waterloo. While this portrait of a portly Napoleon bearing the…
Upon leaving Lyon for Paris on the 13th of March, Napoleon used once again a printed declaration as a way to thank the population for their support. He had already done so in the Hautes-Alpes and in Grenoble. This time, by emphasising how special the relationship between himself and Lyon was, he…
This silk bag belonged to Kitty, Wellington’s much-maligned wife, and the great-great-great- grandmother of the writer of this text. It is likely that she kept keys in it, but the contents could have included miniature portraits of her husband and two sons, whom she doted on.
As the wife of…
In 'Cobbett’s Weekly Register' for Saturday 11 March, in an open letter on popular opinion, the author, ‘Amicus Britanniæ’, pondered that ‘although there no longer exists a Napoleon, to direct the terrifying energies of once all powerful France, yet the sufferings of this feeling is…
Le Retournement de Veste du Comte de Fargues
‘Retourner sa veste’ (literally ‘to flip one's coat over’) is a French idiom which depicts someone swiftly changing opinions to take advantage of a situation. This is what happened so elegantly to the Mayor of Lyon - the Comte de Fargues -…
This idealised depiction of Napoleon’s progress through the French countryside in March highlights one of the most striking themes of the Hundred Days, the bitter religious antagonisms that accompanied the Emperor’s return.
In placing a band of sinister-looking, and clearly armed, Jesuits,…
The various celebrations marking the return of the Bourbons to the throne in the spring of 1814 and the return of Napoleon during the 100 Days a year later were an opportunity for individuals to confirm their loyalties, some to the royalist cause, others to Napoleon. The cries of ‘Long live the…
The hostility of the people of Provence in 1814 (see Munro Price’s entry for 26 February) had forced Napoleon to find an alternative route to Paris. The route he took became France’s first official tourist route in 1932 but long before then, from as early as May 1815, locations of significance…
“Alte Liebe rostet nicht” (an old flame never dies)
Print-makers and cartoonists were on the front-line of the propaganda war sparked by Napoleon's escape from Elba. With Napoleon back in power, the Allies began to worry that the German states in the Confederation of the Rhine (who had thrown…
After Napoleon’s abdication (6 April 1814), several thousands of Polish soldiers who had fought alongside Napoleon returned to the Duchy of Warsaw. However on Napoleon’s request, Major Paweł Jerzmanowski chose from the chevau-légers 125 volunteers who decided to follow the Emperor into his…
By 4th March 1815, news of Napoleon’s escape from Elba had not yet reached Paris. Today’s entry is a reminder that while Napoleon was adding a new chapter to the history books, Parisian cultural life was still being influenced by the influx of British visitors who had arrived on the Continent…
1815 Hand-coloured etching 19.2 x 28.6 cm Napoleon’s return to France and the collapse of the first Bourbon Restoration is played out in this print by a cast of floral and animal symbols drawn from heraldry, insignia and popular culture. The perspective is east-facing; the rising sun in the…
The print 'L'enjambée impériale' (the imperial stride) depicts Napoleon making an easy stride from Elba to France, watched by the disconcerted Bourbon family. Two of the figures on the balcony wear extinguishers as hats, marking them out as members of the Order of the Extinguishers (for more on…
Napoleon landed on the South French coast at the small fishing port of Golfe-Juan during the afternoon of 1 March 1815. His propaganda machine sprang into action immediately.
Napoleon had always been a master of spin. The numerous proclamations and declarations issued throughout the Empire…
In the months that preceded Napoleon’s return to power in March 1815, a small number of newspapers evaded the relatively indulgent Bourbon censorship and indirectly prepared the terrain for the 100 Days by adopting a deliberately liberal stance. They attacked royalists by portraying them as…
Napoleon’s departure from Portoferraio after nightfall on 26th February became part of the legend of the Emperor, inspiring later in the 19th century prints such as this one entitled simply ‘L’Ile d’Elbe (26 février 1815) [The Island of Elba (26 February 1815)]. At the time, however, the…
Vantini’s Watch
This watch was a gift from Napoleon on the day of his departure from Elba. The recipient, Vincenzo Vantini, a member of the Elban nobility, had been one of Napoleon’s Chamberlains during his 10-month reign over the island. The records of the Muncipality of Portoferraio provide…
During the Empire very few satirical prints of Napoleon appeared in France but print makers took full advantage of the First Restoration to depict the former Emperor in exile.
This anonymous graphic satire, entitled ‘Nicolas Philoctète dans l’Ile d’Elbe (n’a jamais passé la Manche’)…
Coloured etching, 160 x 200 mm/copper
below centre: caption in Italian; below right: Milano 1814
New tuna soldiers draw your number
Bonaparte says in a loud voice,
You will get for me new conquests
Transmitting the lightning bolts of my avenging sword
The Magistrate presents himself at the…
On the 25th April 1814, Napoleon came very close to death – not on the battlefield, but at the hands of his own compatriots. Three weeks previously, after a desperate struggle against the Allied forces invading France, he had abdicated the throne at Fontainebleau, and been given in exchange the…
With the allied forces invading France from both the East and the South-West, Napoleon was forced to abdicate by the Senate in the spring of 1814. He signed his act of abdication 11 April 1814. Under the treaty of Fontainebleau, he was given sovereignty over the island of Elba and arrived there 3…
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