Listening to this, in which Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss The 100 Days. What fun!
Bragg’s guests are: Michael Rowe (Reader in European History at Kings College, London), Katherine Astbury (Professor of French Studies at the University of Warwick) and Zack White (Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellow at the University of Portsmouth).
They give a very good account of the events, from Napoleon’s near miraculous ‘flight of the Eagle’ (not that they refer to his return using that phrase) – his return from Elban exile – through to the four battles of the Waterloo campaign, and the aftermath.
It’s interesting to hear Katherine Astbury describe how Napoleon’s constitutional changes survive his downfall. And the discussion on the legacy of the Napoleonic Wars as a whole is, as ever, endlessly fascinating.
Interestingly, when asked who benefited most from the outcome of Waterloo, our three experts all give different answers. I like Michael Rowe’s best. He says just look in the gift shop at the Waterloo battlefield Visitor Centre, and on that basis: ‘I would choose Napoleon.’
[Pictured above: a very expensive edition of Hardy’s ‘unstageable play’. Asking $1,250! *
This echoes something Thomas Hardy put into the mouth of an unusual character (to us, the modern reader), in his epic poetic-play, The Dynasts:
SPIRIT SINISTER
Well; be it so. My argument is that War makes rattling good history; but Peace is poor reading. So I back Bonaparte for the reason that he will give pleasure to posterity.
*I bought a small hardback edition on our most recent holiday.
An interesting little coda to this podcast is included, as a bonus, when the guests are asked; What did they not get time to mention?