Hundred Days in the context of "Benjamin Constant"

Hugh Capet (/ˈkæpeɪ/; French: Hugues Capet [yɡ kapɛ]; c. 941 – 24 October 996) was the King of the Franks from 987 to 996. He is the founder of and first king from the House of Capet. The son of the powerful duke Hugh the Great and his wife Hedwige of Saxony, he was elected as the successor of the last Carolingian king, Louis V. Hugh was descended from Charlemagne's son Pepin of Italy through his paternal grandmother Béatrice of Vermandois, and was also a nephew of Otto the Great.

The dynasty he founded ruled France for nearly nine centuries: from 987 to 1328 in the senior line, and until 1848 via cadet branches (with an interruption from 1792 to 1814 and briefly in 1815).

The French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (sometimes called the Great French War or the Wars of the Revolution and the Empire) were a series of conflicts between the French and several European monarchies between 1792 and 1815. They encompass first the French Revolutionary Wars against the newly declared French Republic and from 1803 onwards, the Napoleonic Wars against First Consul and later Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. They include the Coalition Wars as a subset: seven wars waged by various military alliances of great European powers, known as Coalitions, against Revolutionary France – later the First French Empire – and its allies between 1792 and 1815:

• War of the First Coalition (April 1792 – October 1797)
• War of the Second Coalition (November 1798 – March 1802)
• War of the Third Coalition (April 1805 – July 1806)
• War of the Fourth Coalition (October 1806 – July 1807)
• War of the Fifth Coalition (April – October 1809)
• War of the Sixth Coalition (March 1813 – May 1814)
• War of the Seventh Coalition, also known as the Hundred Days (March – July 1815)

Although the Coalition Wars are the most prominent subset of conflicts of this era, some French Revolutionary Wars such as the French invasion of Switzerland, and some Napoleonic Wars such as the French invasion of Russia and the Peninsular War, are not counted amongst the "Coalition Wars" proper.

The French Royal Army (French: Armée Royale Française) was the principal land force of the Kingdom of France. It served the Bourbon dynasty from the reign of Louis XIV in the mid-17th century to that of Charles X in the 19th, with an interlude from 1792 to 1814 and another during the Hundred Days in 1815. It was permanently dissolved following the July Revolution in 1830. The French Royal Army became a model for the new regimental system that was to be imitated throughout Europe from the mid-17th century onward. It was regarded as Europe's greatest military force for much of its existence.

The Grande Armée (pronounced [ɡʁɑ̃d aʁme]; French for 'Grand Army') was the primary field army of the French Imperial Army during the Napoleonic Wars. Commanded by Napoleon, from 1804 to 1808 it won a series of military victories that allowed the First French Empire to exercise unprecedented control over most of Europe. Widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest fighting forces ever assembled, it suffered catastrophic losses during the disastrous French invasion of Russia, after which it never recovered its strategic superiority and ended its military career with a total defeat during the Hundred Days in 1815.

The Grande Armée was formed in 1804 from the Armée des côtes de l'Océan (Army of the Ocean Coasts) more commonly referred to as the Armée d'Angleterre (Army of England), a field army of over 100,000 men assembled for Napoleon's planned invasion of the United Kingdom. He subsequently led the field army to Central Europe and defeated Austrian and Russian forces as part of the War of the Third Coalition. Thereafter, the Grande Armée was the principal field army deployed in the War of the Fourth Coalition, Peninsular War and War of the Fifth Coalition, where the French army slowly lost a large portion of its veteran soldiers, strength and prestige, and in the invasion of Russia, War of the Sixth Coalition and Hundred Days. The term Grande Armée is often used to refer to multinational armies led by Napoleon in his campaigns; however, during the War of the Fifth Coalition and the Waterloo campaign (part of the Hundred Days), other formations were led by him de facto, namely the Army of Germany and the Army of the North, respectively.

The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday 18 June 1815, near Waterloo (then in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, now in Belgium), marking the end of the Napoleonic Wars. The French Imperial Army under the command of Napoleon I was defeated by two armies of the Seventh Coalition. One was a British-led force with units from the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Hanover, Brunswick, and Nassau, under the command of field marshal Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington. The other comprised three corps of the Prussian army under Field Marshal Blücher. The battle was known contemporaneously as the Battle of Mont Saint-Jean in France (after the hamlet of Mont-Saint-Jean) and La Belle Alliance in Prussia ("the Beautiful Alliance"; after the inn of La Belle Alliance).

Upon Napoleon's return to power in March 1815, the beginning of the Hundred Days, many states that had previously opposed him formed the Seventh Coalition to oppose him again, and hurriedly mobilised their armies. Wellington's and Blücher's armies were cantoned close to the northeastern border of France. Napoleon planned to attack them separately, before they could link up and invade France with other members of the coalition. On 16 June, Napoleon successfully attacked the bulk of the Prussian Army at the Battle of Ligny with his main force, while a small portion of the French Imperial Army contested the Battle of Quatre Bras to prevent the Anglo-allied army from reinforcing the Prussians. The Anglo-allied army held their ground at Quatre Bras but were prevented from reinforcing the Prussians, and on the 17th, the Prussians withdrew from Ligny in good order, while Wellington then withdrew in parallel with the Prussians northward to Waterloo on 17 June. Napoleon sent a third of his forces to pursue the Prussians, which resulted in the separate Battle of Wavre with the Prussian rear-guard on 18–19 June and prevented that French force from participating at Waterloo.

Louis XVIII (Louis Stanislas Xavier; 17 November 1755 – 16 September 1824), known as the Desired (French: le Désiré), was King of France from 1814 to 1824, except for a brief interruption during the Hundred Days in 1815. Before his reign, he spent 23 years in exile from France beginning in 1791, during the French Revolution and the First French Empire.

Until his accession to the throne of France, he held the title of Count of Provence as brother of King Louis XVI, the last king of the Ancien Régime. On 21 September 1792, the National Convention abolished the monarchy and deposed Louis XVI, who was later executed by guillotine. When his young nephew Louis XVII died in prison in June 1795, the Count of Provence claimed the throne as Louis XVIII.

The Napoleonic era is a period in the history of France and Europe. It is generally classified as including the fourth and final stage of the French Revolution, the first being the National Assembly, the second being the Legislative Assembly, and the third being the French Directory. The Napoleonic era begins roughly with Napoleon Bonaparte's coup d'état on 18 Brumaire, overthrowing the Directory (9 November 1799), establishing the French Consulate, and ends during the Hundred Days and his defeat at the Battle of Waterloo (18 June 1815).

The Congress of Vienna soon set out to restore Europe to pre-French Revolution days. Napoleon brought political stability to a land torn by revolution and war. He made peace with the Catholic Church (Concordat of 1801) and reversed the most radical religious policies of the National Convention. In 1804, Napoleon promulgated the Civil Code, a revised body of civil law, which also helped stabilize French society. The Civil Code affirmed the political and legal equality of all adult men and established a merit-based society in which individuals advanced in education and employment because of talent rather than birth or social standing. The Civil Code confirmed many of the moderate revolutionary policies of the National Assembly but retracted measures passed by the more radical Convention. The Civil Code restored patriarchal authority in the family, for example by making women and children subservient to male heads of households.

The Treaty of Paris of 1815, also known as the Second Treaty of Paris, was signed on 20 November 1815, after the defeat and the second abdication of Napoleon Bonaparte. In February, Napoleon had escaped from his exile on Elba, entered Paris on 20 March and began the Hundred Days of his restored rule. After France's defeat at the hands of the Seventh Coalition at the Battle of Waterloo, In defeat, Napoleon was forced to abdicate again, on 22 June. King Louis XVIII, who had fled the country when Napoleon arrived in Paris, took the throne for a second time on 8 July.

The 1815 treaty had more punitive terms than the treaty of the previous year. France was ordered to pay 700 million francs in indemnities, and its borders were reduced to those that had existed on 1 January 1790. France was to pay additional money to cover the cost of providing additional defensive fortifications to be built by neighbouring Coalition countries. Under the terms of the treaty, parts of France were to be occupied by up to 150,000 soldiers for five years, with France covering the cost. However, the Coalition occupation under the command of the Duke of Wellington was deemed necessary for only three years; the foreign troops withdrew from France in 1818 (Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle).