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Hundred Days

On 1 March 1815, Napoleon and his followers landed on the French mainland at Golfe-Juan and headed for Grenoble through the foothills of the Alps, taking the route now known as Route Napoléon. The 5th Regiment intercepted him just south of Grenoble on 7 March. Napoleon approached the battalion alone and called to them, "Here I am. Kill your Emperor, if you wish!" The soldiers responded with, " Vive l'empereur! " and joined Napoleon's men. Six days later, 5,000 troops under Michel Ney, who had boasted that he would bring Napoleon to Paris in an iron cage, also joined Napoleon.

On 13 March, the powers at the Congress of Vienna declared Napoleon an outlaw. Four days later, Great Britain, Russia, Austria, and Prussia each pledged to put 150,000 men into the field to end his rule. Louis XVIII, however, fled Paris for Belgium in the early hours of 20 March after realizing that he did not have enough reliable troops to oppose Napoleon. Napoleon entered Paris that evening.

Napoleon appointed a government and introduced constitutional changes which were approved by plebiscite in May. A Chamber of Representatives was also indirectly elected that month on a highly restrictive property franchise. Napoleon's priority was to raise an army to face the coalition, but the law did not allow conscription and he was only able to raise about 300,000 men, mostly raw recruits and national guards.

On 12 June, Napoleon led about 124,000 men, known as the Army of the North, into Belgium, aiming to drive a wedge between Wellington's army of 112,000 British, German and Dutch troops and Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher 's force of 130,000 Prussians and Saxons. After engagements at the Battle of Ligny and Battle of Quatre Bras, Napoleon confronted Wellington at the Battle of Waterloo on 18 June. Wellington's army withstood repeated attacks by the French until, late in the afternoon, Blücher's Prussians arrived in force on Napoleon's right flank. The coalition forces broke through Napoleon's lines, inflicting a devastating defeat.

Napoleon returned to Paris and found that the legislature had turned against him. Realizing that his position was untenable, he abdicated on 22 June in favour of his son. He left Paris three days later and settled at Joséphine's former palace in Château de Malmaison. By 28 June, the Prussian army was at Senlis, just north of Paris.

When Napoleon heard that Prussian troops had orders to capture him dead or alive, he fled to Rochefort, Charente-Maritime, considering an escape to the United States. However, when he found that British ships were blockading the port, he surrendered to Frederick Lewis Maitland on HMS Bellerophon on 15 July 1815.