THE HUNDRED DAYS
Then came the famous Hundred Days, in which Napoleon showed much of his old ability, rapidly organizing a new army, with which in June he marched into Belgium, where the British under Wellington and the Prussians under Blucher had gathered to meet him.
On the 16rh he defeated Blucher at Ligny. On the 18th he met Wellington at Waterloo, and after a desperate struggle went down in utter defeat. All day long the French and British had fought without victory for either, but the arrival of Blucher with his Prussians turned the scale. The French army broke and fled in disastrous rout, three-fourths of its force being left on the field, dead, wounded, or prisoners. It was the great soldier’s last fight. He was forced to surrender the throne, and was again exiled, this time to the island of St. Helena, in the south Atlantic. No such mistake as that of Elba was safe to make again. Here ended the days of Napoleon Bonaparte, the greatest soldier the world had ever known. His final hour of glory came in 1842, when his remains were brought in pomp to Paris, there to find a final resting place in the Hotel des Invalides.