Vienna, 1815: as the political giants of Europe assemble to determine the fate of the continent after the wars of the last twenty years, the news arrives that Napoleon has returned to France. Bonaparte - the revolutionary turned emperor and 'disturber of the world's peace' - had been defeated and exiled, but now he is fast advancing on Paris, gathering troops and taking cities without firing a single shot. Europe's peace is not to last.
As Stephen Coote brilliantly recreates the action sweeping across France, culminating at the epic Battle of Waterloo, he looks back on the rapid expansion of Napoleon's empire, where time and again he floored the allied armies with his sudden attacks. And we meet, too, Napoleon's fellow players: Josephine, his great love; Talleyrand, his duplicitous erstwhile foreign secretary; Fouche, the sinister head of the secret police; Blucher, the uncouth yet courageous Prussian commander; and Wellington, the Iron Duke.
In 'Napoleon And The Hundred Days', Stephen Coote paints a vivid portrait of the legendary emperor and military genius, whose immense ambition, courage and tenacity won - and lost - him a vast empire.
