Napoleon and the Hundred Days - Hardcover

In Vienna, 1815, as the political aristocrats of Europe assemble to determine the fate of the continent after defeating Napoleon, the news arrived that Napoleon had escaped captivity and was returning to France. Bonaparte-the revolutionary turned emperor and "disturber of the world's peace"-was fast approaching Paris, gathering troops and taking cities without firing a single shot. He had returned, and it would be just one hundred days before he met his enemies in a final, epic battle.In Napoleon and the Hundred Days, Stephen Coote vividly re-creates the rise and fall of Bonaparte's empire, and brings to life the characters who shaped it: Wellington, Britain's Iron Duke; Josephine, Napoleon's great love; Talleyrand, his duplicitous minister; Fouche, the sinister head of the secret police; Blucher, the uncouth yet courageous Prussian commander; and, of course, Napoleon himself. Displaying his customary blend of a historian's eye and a novelist's dramatic style, Stephen Coote describes how the path to war became inevitable and how, at the battle at Waterloo, the fatigued but ever arrogant Napoleon met his match. This is a dazzling portrait of the legendary emperor, whose genius, courage, and tenacity won-and lost-him a vast empire.

Stephen Coote is the author of several much-admired biographies of historical persons, including W.B. Yeats, John Keats, Sir Walter Raleigh, and Francis Drake. He lives in Oxfordshire, England.