August 18, 2025 • 16 mins
FOREWORD In the popular imagination, Empress Josephine wears a halo of goodness, making her biographers task particularly challenging. The disdain many hold for Napoleon is often linked to the perceived cruelty he showed towards the woman who stood by him for fourteen years. This biography seeks not to judge but to paint a vivid portrait of Josephine as she truly was, allowing readers to form their own opinions about her character. Join Walter Geer and Celine Major in exploring this complex figure of history.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter sixteen of Napoleon, A short biography. This is a
LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
Recording by Russell Newton. Napoleon, A short biography by R. M. Johnson.
(00:21):
Chapter sixteen, Elba, Return of the Bourbons, Congress of Vienna,
French dissatisfaction. Napoleon leaves Elba. His progress to Paris changed situation,
attitude of the powers. Champ de Mai. The return of
the Bourbons, which few men thought possible a month before
(00:44):
it happened, changed the whole aspect of the events that
had brought it about. It was now clearly perceived that
the triumph of the Allies meant more than the fall
of Napoleon, and that the autocratic system challenged by the
Revolution modified by the Empire, was to be re asserted.
The powers were now intent on readjusting the territorial divisions
(01:05):
of Europe on such a footing as the old order
of things and their recent successes appeared to make suitable.
But it was soon found, not unnaturally, that it would
be a difficult matter to settle satisfactorily the numerous points
at issue. It was therefore decided to call a Congress
of the Great Powers, at which every outstanding European question
(01:26):
should be determined. This Congress eventually assembled at Vienna, its
first meeting taking place on the twentieth of September. Of
the different questions discussed by the powers, too appeared likely
to lead to difficulties. The first of these concerned the
parceling out of northeastern Germany, especially Saxony and Poland. This
(01:49):
question created such antagonism that Austria, opposing Russia and Prussia,
finally entered into a secret treaty of alliance with France
and Great Britain. There seemed, in fact a strong prospect
of a new European war. The question of Naples also
gave rise to much difficulty. Marat's course of action during
(02:09):
the campaign of eighteen fourteen on the po had been
nearly as unsatisfactory to the Allies as to Napoleon, and
now the two restored Bourbon kings of France and of
Spain were making every effort to get their kinsman Ferdinand
reinstated at Naples. Murat, prepared for war, hoped to take
advantage of the apparently approaching conflict between Austria and Russia,
(02:32):
and towards the end of February eighteen fifteen, chose the
bold course of directly challenging the recognition of France. Meanwhile,
what had become of Napoleon. The island of Elba in
which he was cooped up was far too small to
hold so great a man. This sign had been generally
(02:52):
felt immediately after the signing of the treaty that sent
him there, and proposals had been put forward by Bourbon
partisans for his removal to the Azores and even more
distant points. It is not credible that Napoleon would have
ever become reconciled to his diminutive domain. It is not
credible that, even without provocation, he would have abstained from
(03:14):
once more taking part in that great game of politics
that every instinct prompted him to. Yet he did receive
direct provocations that partly excused the course he eventually adopted.
He had heavy expenses to meet in Elba, for no
sooner there than he began to improve roads and ports,
to develop minds to infuse such animation in the island
(03:37):
as it had never known. He had a thousand veterans
in his service, whom he had been allowed to keep
for his personal protection, and these had to be maintained.
Yet he could get no payment of the revenue secured
to him by the Treaty of Fountain Bleu. There was
even a worse grievance than this. His wife and his
son were denied him. Maria Luisa had left heiress with
(04:00):
the King of Rome at the approach of the Allies.
She had retired to Blois and had thought of joining
Napoleon at Fountain Bleue, but she hesitated, and presently Menerinich
persuaded her into various steps that gradually drew her under
her father's influence, keeping her away from Fountain Blue. Meninech
eventually persuaded her to Vienna. He placed as special diplomatic
(04:25):
representative near her a dashing, amiable and skillful negotiator, General
Count Neiberg, who was destined never to leave her and
eventually to marry her. In the first few weeks after
the abdication of the Emperor, correspondence passed between him and
the Empress, and she showed some sign of attempting to
join him at Elba as he desired. Later As Medernich's
(04:48):
hold tightened, the correspondence was intercepted and at last dropped.
As Napoleon brooded over his disasters, his mistakes, and his wrongs,
he was silently but intently watching the proceedings of the
Congress of Vienna on the one hand, the state of
public opinion in France on the other. In France, the
all important factor was the army, as it had been
(05:11):
for twenty years past. The peace had set free thousands
of seasoned soldiers who returned from every part of Europe
to find their old flag hauled down and a new
government in power little inclined to give them employment or help.
It was inevitable that Louis the eighteenth should reduce the
strength of the army. It was equally inevitable that such
(05:34):
a step should lead to discontent. Thousands of officers were
placed on half pay. In eighteen sixteen, they numbered over
sixteen thousand, which meant a trifling allowance, rising from forty
four francs a year for lieutenants. Among these old soldiers,
the feeling against the Bourbons was doubly bitter, and not
(05:55):
a few openly declared their hope that one whom from
his favorite flower they called La pel l'a volette would
soon come to their rescue. There was another active section
of the population, militant ex Jacobins, politicians republicans, also actively
opposed to the Bourbons and pushing eagerly towards a change
of government. Probably the great mass of the people was
(06:19):
content to be at peace once more, and was, if
not loyal to the new monarch at all events, opposed
to change. Yet it is the active section, and not
the great mass, that generally effects a revolution. Towards the
close of February, then it was confidently expected in high
political quarters that a war was about to break out
(06:39):
in northeastern Europe, and Napoleon judge that France was ripe
to revolt against the Bourbons. He determined to risk all
and turned that revolt to his profit. On the twenty
fifth of February, he embarked his handful of soldiers in
several small vessels, set sail, happily escaped the observation of
(06:59):
the British cruisers, and on the first of March disembarked
at Khan, turning away from the royalist towns of the
coast of province. Napoleon at once marched north at the
head of his little column into the mountains towards Savoy.
On the fifth, nearing Grenoble, the result of his adventure
was settled. Troops had been sent to arrest him and
(07:20):
were discovered in position barring the road. Napoleon took with
him forty grenadiers their muskets, reversed and advanced on foot.
When near the opposing line, he threw open his long
gray coat, showing his well known uniform and the red
ribbon of the Legion of Honor. When the soldiers saw
once more that little stout man with the square head
(07:42):
and piercing eye, their companion, their leader, who had planted
the glorious flag that was carried behind him in every
capital of Europe, they could resist no longer. Someone in
the ranks shouted, Viva l'empiller. The line broke out into
vehement cheers, and the soldiers crowded around Napoleon, tearing the
(08:03):
hated white cockades from their shackos. That scene was repeated,
with variations at every point at which the Emperor met
his old soldiers. Between Grenoble and Paris, Colonel Lebedoere, his
former aide de camp, ordered the drums of his regiment
to be broken open, and drew from that receptacle where
they had been sacredly treasured. The old flag and the
(08:27):
tri color cockades at lyon, a large army under MacDonald's orders,
melted away at the first distant glimpse of the magician
attired in the gray coat and little cocked hat. Louis
the eighteenth, in despair, entrusted the guard to Ney, and
that marshal declared he would cage the usurper. But long
(08:47):
before Napoleon arrived, the contagion had outstripped him, and Ney
and the guard were his long before they met him.
The Emperor accomplished the last stages of his journey in
a carriage attended by nothing more more than half a
dozen Polish lancers. Louis the eighteenth fled from Paris on
the twentieth of March, and a few hours later Napoleon
(09:08):
entered the capitol unescorted and as secure as though he
had never left it. His arrival at the Palace of
the Tu Lalise occasioned a remarkable scene. It will serve
to explain the peculiar quality of that demonstration. If the
experience of one of the eye witnesses be recalled. General Thibaud,
who had fought through all the wars of the Republican Empire,
(09:30):
had never been as zealous Bonapartist. Rather the reverse, He
had accepted the return Bourbons and carried out his duty
in opposing Napoleon's return. Deserted by his troops, he had
quietly returned to his house in Paris with the firm
intention of taking no further active share in the events
of the day. But the arrival the personality of Napoleon
(09:53):
was in the air. Thibaud was restless and decided, after
dining that he would go out and indulge in a
short walk. At first, he resolutely turned his steps in
the opposite direction to the tulrees, but presently the irresistible
magnet began to draw. Soon he found himself one of
a great throng of old soldiers and citizens hurrying to
(10:14):
the palace gates. Presently, a traveling carriage drove up in
the midst of a hurricane of cheers. A wild dash
was made for it, and from the midst of the turmoil,
Napoleon appeared. Was hoisted in strong arms from one step
to another, up to his old apartments on the first
floor of the Tulares, and Thibaut was one of the
(10:35):
crowd and cheering as wildly as the others. That night,
a volunteer guard of general officers did sentry duty at
the Emperor's door. But within a day or two everything
had fallen back into the old imperial routine. Superficially, all
was the same. In reality, Napoleon's position was vastly changed.
(10:57):
Even about his person, many familiar faces were missing. Berthier,
who as chief of staff had never left his side
since seventeen ninety six, did not choose to join him now,
and Soul was appointed to that arduous post. Prince Eugene,
who had taken up his residence in the dominions of
his father in law, the King of Bavaria, showed no
(11:19):
desire to return to Paris. Josephine, the wife the friend
of early and of late Days, whom he frequently visited
since the divorce and still preferred to all others, had
died at the Malmaison shortly after the abdication, and the
old home of consular days was deserted. Talleyrand was in
Vienna upholding the Bourbon interests, and there helped to define
(11:42):
the position of Napoleon. In a proclamation that was less
to the credit of the powers than a confession of
the genius of their opponent, the assembled monarchs and diplomatists
of Europe solemnly proclaimed that Napoleon was an outlaw, outside
the pale of social and civil relationships, and liable to
public vengeance. It was, in plain words, an incitement to assassination,
(12:06):
and showed that the struggle was to be of a
new character, that negotiation was out of the question, and
that war must be to the death. Napoleon, on his side,
declared with more or less sincerity, that he was anxious
for peace, that he intended to abide by the treaties
that had closed the War of eighteen fourteen, and that
his return to the throne was merely an incident of
(12:29):
internal policy that concerned the French people and himself. At
the same time, he lost not an hour in preparing
for hostilities. But the greatest change in the position of
Napoleon was that in his relation to French liberalism. Before
his landing at Cohn, a republican revolution was thought to
be imminent by many, and if he had profited by
(12:52):
the agitation and converted it to his own uses. He
was nonetheless bound to base his position on popular support
and to reckon with the leaders of the Liberal party.
He was repeating Brumer, but with the weaker case. How
far the internal necessities of his position carried him may
be judged from the fact that one of his earliest
(13:13):
measures March twenty fourth was to remove the restrictions on
the press. This was followed by the selection of two
pronounced liberals, Carnot and Constant, as ministers, and by the
announcement that the constitution would be amended in a particular direction.
On the twenty second of April, the constitutional changes were announced.
(13:35):
The most important was that the legislative body or Lower House,
was to be elected by the direct vote of the people.
In the meanwhile, matters looked daily more like war, and
the stability of the remarkable evolution of French political institutions
marked by the return of Napoleon, was felt to be
really dependent on the event of the approaching military operations.
(13:58):
If there was one sovereign whom Napoleon might hope to
detach from the European Alliance, it was his father in law,
the Emperor of Austria, but as it happened, his were
the first troops engaged. Marot had closed his wranglings with
the powers by a stroke of despair, and immediately after
Napoleon's departure from Elba, had ordered his army into northern Italy.
(14:22):
He was opposed by Austria. After a short campaign, he
was completely defeated at Tolentino, his army disbanded, and the
Austrians occupied Naples, proclaiming Ferdinand. Marat escaped to the south
of France, where he arrived just as Napoleon was on
the point of leaving Paris to assume command of the
(14:42):
French army for the last time. On the first of June,
there was held a great ceremony known in defiance of
all chronological considerations, as the Champ de Mai. Detachments from
every corps of the army paraded and received new flags.
Napoleon solemnly pronounced an oath to maintain the new constitution.
(15:05):
Attired in a theatrical and unbecoming costume, he delivered a
speech in which he appealed strongly to national and liberal sentiment,
and declared that as Emperor, as counsul and as soldier.
His every act had been dictated by his devotion to France.
But these Napoleonic apologetics were not of vital importance. An
(15:27):
Anglo Prussian army under Wellington and Blucher were assembled close
to Brussels. A large Austrian army under Schwarzenburg was nearing
the Rhine. All Russia and Germany were alive, with columns
marching towards the French frontier. Here was the all important
problem to be solved. Could Napoleon reassert his military superiority?
(15:49):
Were the French soldiers and generals the equals of those
of a few years before? Were the soldiers and generals
of the Allies no better than their predecessors? Chronology twentieth
September eighteen fourteen, Congress of Vienna, third January eighteen fifteen.
(16:09):
Treaty of Alliance Austria, France and Great Britain twenty five
February eighteen fifteen. Napoleon leaves Elba one March eighteen fifteen,
disembarks at Cannes twenty March eighteen fifteen, arrives in Paris
three May eighteen fifteen. Marat defeated Alettnentino one June eighteen
(16:34):
fifteen Champ des Mai, end of chapter sixteen
Chapter sixteen of Napoleon, A short biography. This is a
LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
Recording by Russell Newton. Napoleon, A short biography by R. M. Johnson.
(00:21):
Chapter sixteen, Elba, Return of the Bourbons, Congress of Vienna,
French dissatisfaction. Napoleon leaves Elba. His progress to Paris changed situation,
attitude of the powers. Champ de Mai. The return of
the Bourbons, which few men thought possible a month before
(00:44):
it happened, changed the whole aspect of the events that
had brought it about. It was now clearly perceived that
the triumph of the Allies meant more than the fall
of Napoleon, and that the autocratic system challenged by the
Revolution modified by the Empire, was to be re asserted.
The powers were now intent on readjusting the territorial divisions
(01:05):
of Europe on such a footing as the old order
of things and their recent successes appeared to make suitable.
But it was soon found, not unnaturally, that it would
be a difficult matter to settle satisfactorily the numerous points
at issue. It was therefore decided to call a Congress
of the Great Powers, at which every outstanding European question
(01:26):
should be determined. This Congress eventually assembled at Vienna, its
first meeting taking place on the twentieth of September. Of
the different questions discussed by the powers, too appeared likely
to lead to difficulties. The first of these concerned the
parceling out of northeastern Germany, especially Saxony and Poland. This
(01:49):
question created such antagonism that Austria, opposing Russia and Prussia,
finally entered into a secret treaty of alliance with France
and Great Britain. There seemed, in fact a strong prospect
of a new European war. The question of Naples also
gave rise to much difficulty. Marat's course of action during
(02:09):
the campaign of eighteen fourteen on the po had been
nearly as unsatisfactory to the Allies as to Napoleon, and
now the two restored Bourbon kings of France and of
Spain were making every effort to get their kinsman Ferdinand
reinstated at Naples. Murat, prepared for war, hoped to take
advantage of the apparently approaching conflict between Austria and Russia,
(02:32):
and towards the end of February eighteen fifteen, chose the
bold course of directly challenging the recognition of France. Meanwhile,
what had become of Napoleon. The island of Elba in
which he was cooped up was far too small to
hold so great a man. This sign had been generally
(02:52):
felt immediately after the signing of the treaty that sent
him there, and proposals had been put forward by Bourbon
partisans for his removal to the Azores and even more
distant points. It is not credible that Napoleon would have
ever become reconciled to his diminutive domain. It is not
credible that, even without provocation, he would have abstained from
(03:14):
once more taking part in that great game of politics
that every instinct prompted him to. Yet he did receive
direct provocations that partly excused the course he eventually adopted.
He had heavy expenses to meet in Elba, for no
sooner there than he began to improve roads and ports,
to develop minds to infuse such animation in the island
(03:37):
as it had never known. He had a thousand veterans
in his service, whom he had been allowed to keep
for his personal protection, and these had to be maintained.
Yet he could get no payment of the revenue secured
to him by the Treaty of Fountain Bleu. There was
even a worse grievance than this. His wife and his
son were denied him. Maria Luisa had left heiress with
(04:00):
the King of Rome at the approach of the Allies.
She had retired to Blois and had thought of joining
Napoleon at Fountain Bleue, but she hesitated, and presently Menerinich
persuaded her into various steps that gradually drew her under
her father's influence, keeping her away from Fountain Blue. Meninech
eventually persuaded her to Vienna. He placed as special diplomatic
(04:25):
representative near her a dashing, amiable and skillful negotiator, General
Count Neiberg, who was destined never to leave her and
eventually to marry her. In the first few weeks after
the abdication of the Emperor, correspondence passed between him and
the Empress, and she showed some sign of attempting to
join him at Elba as he desired. Later As Medernich's
(04:48):
hold tightened, the correspondence was intercepted and at last dropped.
As Napoleon brooded over his disasters, his mistakes, and his wrongs,
he was silently but intently watching the proceedings of the
Congress of Vienna on the one hand, the state of
public opinion in France on the other. In France, the
all important factor was the army, as it had been
(05:11):
for twenty years past. The peace had set free thousands
of seasoned soldiers who returned from every part of Europe
to find their old flag hauled down and a new
government in power little inclined to give them employment or help.
It was inevitable that Louis the eighteenth should reduce the
strength of the army. It was equally inevitable that such
(05:34):
a step should lead to discontent. Thousands of officers were
placed on half pay. In eighteen sixteen, they numbered over
sixteen thousand, which meant a trifling allowance, rising from forty
four francs a year for lieutenants. Among these old soldiers,
the feeling against the Bourbons was doubly bitter, and not
(05:55):
a few openly declared their hope that one whom from
his favorite flower they called La pel l'a volette would
soon come to their rescue. There was another active section
of the population, militant ex Jacobins, politicians republicans, also actively
opposed to the Bourbons and pushing eagerly towards a change
of government. Probably the great mass of the people was
(06:19):
content to be at peace once more, and was, if
not loyal to the new monarch at all events, opposed
to change. Yet it is the active section, and not
the great mass, that generally effects a revolution. Towards the
close of February, then it was confidently expected in high
political quarters that a war was about to break out
(06:39):
in northeastern Europe, and Napoleon judge that France was ripe
to revolt against the Bourbons. He determined to risk all
and turned that revolt to his profit. On the twenty
fifth of February, he embarked his handful of soldiers in
several small vessels, set sail, happily escaped the observation of
(06:59):
the British cruisers, and on the first of March disembarked
at Khan, turning away from the royalist towns of the
coast of province. Napoleon at once marched north at the
head of his little column into the mountains towards Savoy.
On the fifth, nearing Grenoble, the result of his adventure
was settled. Troops had been sent to arrest him and
(07:20):
were discovered in position barring the road. Napoleon took with
him forty grenadiers their muskets, reversed and advanced on foot.
When near the opposing line, he threw open his long
gray coat, showing his well known uniform and the red
ribbon of the Legion of Honor. When the soldiers saw
once more that little stout man with the square head
(07:42):
and piercing eye, their companion, their leader, who had planted
the glorious flag that was carried behind him in every
capital of Europe, they could resist no longer. Someone in
the ranks shouted, Viva l'empiller. The line broke out into
vehement cheers, and the soldiers crowded around Napoleon, tearing the
(08:03):
hated white cockades from their shackos. That scene was repeated,
with variations at every point at which the Emperor met
his old soldiers. Between Grenoble and Paris, Colonel Lebedoere, his
former aide de camp, ordered the drums of his regiment
to be broken open, and drew from that receptacle where
they had been sacredly treasured. The old flag and the
(08:27):
tri color cockades at lyon, a large army under MacDonald's orders,
melted away at the first distant glimpse of the magician
attired in the gray coat and little cocked hat. Louis
the eighteenth, in despair, entrusted the guard to Ney, and
that marshal declared he would cage the usurper. But long
(08:47):
before Napoleon arrived, the contagion had outstripped him, and Ney
and the guard were his long before they met him.
The Emperor accomplished the last stages of his journey in
a carriage attended by nothing more more than half a
dozen Polish lancers. Louis the eighteenth fled from Paris on
the twentieth of March, and a few hours later Napoleon
(09:08):
entered the capitol unescorted and as secure as though he
had never left it. His arrival at the Palace of
the Tu Lalise occasioned a remarkable scene. It will serve
to explain the peculiar quality of that demonstration. If the
experience of one of the eye witnesses be recalled. General Thibaud,
who had fought through all the wars of the Republican Empire,
(09:30):
had never been as zealous Bonapartist. Rather the reverse, He
had accepted the return Bourbons and carried out his duty
in opposing Napoleon's return. Deserted by his troops, he had
quietly returned to his house in Paris with the firm
intention of taking no further active share in the events
of the day. But the arrival the personality of Napoleon
(09:53):
was in the air. Thibaud was restless and decided, after
dining that he would go out and indulge in a
short walk. At first, he resolutely turned his steps in
the opposite direction to the tulrees, but presently the irresistible
magnet began to draw. Soon he found himself one of
a great throng of old soldiers and citizens hurrying to
(10:14):
the palace gates. Presently, a traveling carriage drove up in
the midst of a hurricane of cheers. A wild dash
was made for it, and from the midst of the turmoil,
Napoleon appeared. Was hoisted in strong arms from one step
to another, up to his old apartments on the first
floor of the Tulares, and Thibaut was one of the
(10:35):
crowd and cheering as wildly as the others. That night,
a volunteer guard of general officers did sentry duty at
the Emperor's door. But within a day or two everything
had fallen back into the old imperial routine. Superficially, all
was the same. In reality, Napoleon's position was vastly changed.
(10:57):
Even about his person, many familiar faces were missing. Berthier,
who as chief of staff had never left his side
since seventeen ninety six, did not choose to join him now,
and Soul was appointed to that arduous post. Prince Eugene,
who had taken up his residence in the dominions of
his father in law, the King of Bavaria, showed no
(11:19):
desire to return to Paris. Josephine, the wife the friend
of early and of late Days, whom he frequently visited
since the divorce and still preferred to all others, had
died at the Malmaison shortly after the abdication, and the
old home of consular days was deserted. Talleyrand was in
Vienna upholding the Bourbon interests, and there helped to define
(11:42):
the position of Napoleon. In a proclamation that was less
to the credit of the powers than a confession of
the genius of their opponent, the assembled monarchs and diplomatists
of Europe solemnly proclaimed that Napoleon was an outlaw, outside
the pale of social and civil relationships, and liable to
public vengeance. It was, in plain words, an incitement to assassination,
(12:06):
and showed that the struggle was to be of a
new character, that negotiation was out of the question, and
that war must be to the death. Napoleon, on his side,
declared with more or less sincerity, that he was anxious
for peace, that he intended to abide by the treaties
that had closed the War of eighteen fourteen, and that
his return to the throne was merely an incident of
(12:29):
internal policy that concerned the French people and himself. At
the same time, he lost not an hour in preparing
for hostilities. But the greatest change in the position of
Napoleon was that in his relation to French liberalism. Before
his landing at Cohn, a republican revolution was thought to
be imminent by many, and if he had profited by
(12:52):
the agitation and converted it to his own uses. He
was nonetheless bound to base his position on popular support
and to reckon with the leaders of the Liberal party.
He was repeating Brumer, but with the weaker case. How
far the internal necessities of his position carried him may
be judged from the fact that one of his earliest
(13:13):
measures March twenty fourth was to remove the restrictions on
the press. This was followed by the selection of two
pronounced liberals, Carnot and Constant, as ministers, and by the
announcement that the constitution would be amended in a particular direction.
On the twenty second of April, the constitutional changes were announced.
(13:35):
The most important was that the legislative body or Lower House,
was to be elected by the direct vote of the people.
In the meanwhile, matters looked daily more like war, and
the stability of the remarkable evolution of French political institutions
marked by the return of Napoleon, was felt to be
really dependent on the event of the approaching military operations.
(13:58):
If there was one sovereign whom Napoleon might hope to
detach from the European Alliance, it was his father in law,
the Emperor of Austria, but as it happened, his were
the first troops engaged. Marot had closed his wranglings with
the powers by a stroke of despair, and immediately after
Napoleon's departure from Elba, had ordered his army into northern Italy.
(14:22):
He was opposed by Austria. After a short campaign, he
was completely defeated at Tolentino, his army disbanded, and the
Austrians occupied Naples, proclaiming Ferdinand. Marat escaped to the south
of France, where he arrived just as Napoleon was on
the point of leaving Paris to assume command of the
(14:42):
French army for the last time. On the first of June,
there was held a great ceremony known in defiance of
all chronological considerations, as the Champ de Mai. Detachments from
every corps of the army paraded and received new flags.
Napoleon solemnly pronounced an oath to maintain the new constitution.
(15:05):
Attired in a theatrical and unbecoming costume, he delivered a
speech in which he appealed strongly to national and liberal sentiment,
and declared that as Emperor, as counsul and as soldier.
His every act had been dictated by his devotion to France.
But these Napoleonic apologetics were not of vital importance. An
(15:27):
Anglo Prussian army under Wellington and Blucher were assembled close
to Brussels. A large Austrian army under Schwarzenburg was nearing
the Rhine. All Russia and Germany were alive, with columns
marching towards the French frontier. Here was the all important
problem to be solved. Could Napoleon reassert his military superiority?
(15:49):
Were the French soldiers and generals the equals of those
of a few years before? Were the soldiers and generals
of the Allies no better than their predecessors? Chronology twentieth
September eighteen fourteen, Congress of Vienna, third January eighteen fifteen.
(16:09):
Treaty of Alliance Austria, France and Great Britain twenty five
February eighteen fifteen. Napoleon leaves Elba one March eighteen fifteen,
disembarks at Cannes twenty March eighteen fifteen, arrives in Paris
three May eighteen fifteen. Marat defeated Alettnentino one June eighteen
(16:34):
fifteen Champ des Mai, end of chapter sixteen
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Season Two Out Now! Law & Order: Criminal Justice System tells the real stories behind the landmark cases that have shaped how the most dangerous and influential criminals in America are prosecuted. In its second season, the series tackles the threat of terrorism in the United States. From the rise of extremist political groups in the 60s to domestic lone wolves in the modern day, we explore how organizations like the FBI and Joint Terrorism Take Force have evolved to fight back against a multitude of terrorist threats.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal
Gregg Rosenthal and a rotating crew of elite NFL Media co-hosts, including Patrick Claybon, Colleen Wolfe, Steve Wyche, Nick Shook and Jourdan Rodrigue of The Athletic get you caught up daily on all the NFL news and analysis you need to be smarter and funnier than your friends.