Adolphe Thiers wraps up his twenty-volume epic on Napoleon Bonaparte in these final installments. We pick up the story in 1815, with Napoleon's dramatic escape from exile on the island of Elba. He returns to France to reclaim his throne, a period known as the Hundred Days. The book follows his frantic efforts to rebuild his army and secure his position, leading directly to the legendary, and final, showdown at the Battle of Waterloo. Thiers doesn't stop at the battle's end; he takes us through Napoleon's second abdication, his surrender to the British, and his final exile to the remote island of Saint Helena, where the story closes.

Why You Should Read It

This isn't a distant, academic history. Thiers was a politician who understood power, and he writes about Napoleon's last gamble with a novelist's sense of drama. You feel the urgency of those Hundred Days—the hope, the political maneuvering, and the sheer exhaustion of a nation thrown back into war. He presents Napoleon not just as a brilliant general making a fatal mistake, but as a leader desperately trying to control a narrative that's already slipping away. It’s about the end of an era, told with a mix of admiration and clear-eyed criticism.

Final Verdict

This is for the reader who has already been hooked on Napoleon's story and needs to see it through to the bitter end. It's perfect for history buffs who want a detailed, moment-by-moment account of the fall, written by someone who had access to people who actually lived through it. Be warned, it's dense and part of a much larger series, so it's not the place to start. But as a finale, it delivers a powerful, poignant conclusion to one of history's most dramatic lives.