Napoleon Bonaparte: A Biography

Chapter 4.

Napoleon divorced Josephine, his first wife, and then, in March 1810, he married Marie Louise, the daughter of Emperor Francis II of Austria. Despite this, Austria declared war on him in 1813. In March 1814 Paris fell to a Britain, Prussia, Sweden, and Austria. Napoleon stepped down in April. Louis XVIII, the brother of Louis XVI, was placed on the French throne. Napoleon was exiled to the island of Elba, but after ten months he made plans to return to power. He landed in southern France in February 1815 with over a thousand soldiers and marched to Paris, where he reinstated himself to power. Louis XVIII fled, and Napoleon's new reign began. The other European powers gathered to oppose him, and Napoleon was forced to return to war.

The Battle of Waterloo was over within a week. On June 18, 1815, the combined British and Prussian armies defeated Napoleon. He returned to Paris and stepped down for a second time on June 22. He had held power for exactly one hundred days. Napoleon at first planned to go to America, but he surrendered to the British on July 3. He was sent into exile on the island of St. Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean. There he spent his remaining years until he died of cancer on May 5, 1821.