The Thirty-sixth subsequently received the Royal Authority to bear the word “Toulouse” on the regimental colour and appointments, in commemoration of the distinguished gallantry of the first battalion in that battle; also the word “Peninsula” in testimony of its services in Spain and Portugal.
During the night of the 11th of April the French troops evacuated Toulouse, and a white flag was hoisted. On the following day the Marquis of Wellington entered the city, amidst the acclamations of the inhabitants. In the course of the afternoon of the 12th of April intelligence was received of the abdication of Napoleon, and had not the express been delayed on the journey by the French police, the sacrifice of many valuable lives would have been prevented.
A disbelief in the truth of this intelligence occasioned much unnecessary bloodshed at Bayonne, the garrison of which made a desperate sortie on the 14th of April, and Lieut.-General Sir John Hope (afterwards Earl of Hopetoun) was taken prisoner, Major-General Andrew Hay was killed, and Major-General Stopford was wounded. This was the last action of the Peninsular war.
A Treaty of Peace was established between Great Britain and France; Louis XVIII. was restored to the throne of his ancestors; and Napoleon Bonaparte was permitted to reside at Elba, the sovereignty of that island having been conceded to him by the allied powers.
The first battalion of the Thirty-sixth regiment embarked at Pouillac on the 22d of June 1814, and arrived at the Cove of Cork on the 11th of the following month, and subsequently proceeded to Kilkenny.
The second battalion of the Thirty-sixth, which had been employed on home duty during the Peninsular War, was disbanded at Plymouth on the 24th of October 1814, and the men fit for service were transferred to the first battalion:—the detachment accordingly embarked for Ireland on the 30th of October.
1815.
The tranquillity which Europe appeared to have gained by the splendid successes over the French in the Peninsula, was again to be disturbed. Napoleon, who had been accustomed to imperial sway, was naturally discontented with his small sovereignty of Elba. Besides, the correspondence kept up by him with his adherents in France gave him hopes of regaining his former power, which were, for a short time, fully realized. Napoleon Bonaparte landed at Cannes, in Provence, on the 1st of March 1815, with a small body of men, and on the 20th of that month entered Paris at the head of an army, which had joined him on the road. This could not be matter of wonder, for the officers and soldiers had won their fame under his command, and gladly welcomed their former leader, under whom they probably expected to acquire fresh honours, which might cancel the memory of the defeats sustained in the Peninsula and south of France.
Louis XVIII., unable to stem the torrent, withdrew from Paris to Ghent, and Napoleon resumed his former dignity of Emperor of the French. This assumption the allied powers determined not to acknowledge, and resolved to deprive him of his sovereignty, by again restoring the ancient dynasty.
Napoleon was finally defeated on the plains of Waterloo on the 18th of June 1815, and the allies advanced on Paris. The first battalion of the Thirty-sixth regiment embarked at Cork on the 3d of July, and landed at Ostend on the 11th of that month. The battalion marched from thence to Paris.