After less than a year on Elba, Napoleon escaped from the island in February 1815 and appeared in Paris on the first of March, embracing power in France for 100 days.

Napoleon's famous 100 days ended with his defeat on June 18, 1815, at the Battle of Waterloo in Belgian territory. France declared surrender, and the deposed Napoleon was interned on Saint Helena Island, in the South Atlantic. The defeat at Waterloo is largely blamed on the French themselves, the treachery of the officers and soldiers whom Napoleon elevated by giving them titles and honors, and the secret collaboration of Prince Charles Talleyrand, a former Napoleonic minister of diplomacy, with Tsar Alexander I of Russia.