Transcription
Hello, welcome back to our lecture series for Western Civilization 102. We are discussing the French Revolution, and we've learned about the events leading up to the French Revolution. We've discussed and learned about what happened during the French Revolution and how it will result in this reign of terror and this chaos. It was definitely different from the American Revolution that had taken place previous to this, as we have found out. There was a lot of executions, a lot of people. Even outside of France, a lot of the monarchs in other countries such as Prussia and Austria will enter into French affairs, and we will actually have fighting outside of France and not just within France itself.
So, France toward the end of the French Revolution obviously was in chaos, very, very radical. In fact, we had what's called the Thermidorian Reaction where the Committee of Public Safety was overthrown because it doesn't seem to be helping anything. And of course, Robespierre, which you've learned about, will actually be executed as well, and he, of course, was a very prominent leader during the reign of terror. So all of this chaos that that results, and and we have a new body created called the Directory. Here, when the French Revolution, they were like a Council of Elders, consisted of five men, and and the Directory had executive authority here in France toward the end of the revolution with the rebellions and the uprisings that are kind of breaking out because France is still divided at the end of the revolution. Inflation was high. There was a threat of revolution against the Directory because it doesn't seem like they are managing to create any type of stability or order, which is what a lot of people, you know, longed for.
So the Directory would actually call upon this very brilliant young general by the name of Napoleon Bonaparte. Bonaparte had risen through the ranks of the army, and I want to say he was like 24 years old when he became a brigadier general, so truly brilliant. Obviously, they called upon him to help. In fact, the Directory owed him a debt of gratitude when Napoleon on October 4th, 1795, had delivered what he, Napoleon, called a whiff of grape shot, which meant bullets that had saved, um, saved the Directory, basically saved the Convention, and, uh, and then saved the Constitution of 1795. At the time, France actually had gone through quite a few constitutions during their revolution, unlike the United States. Of course, there were major differences between the two revolutions.
So Napoleon Bonaparte was called upon to help, to help maintain order in France, of course, um, but he will, as you'll find out in this lecture, Napoleon will take over and create a French Empire. He wasn't even, he, he wasn't born in France. Um, and a lot of historians or people who study history have questioned with Napoleon Bonaparte, you've learned about enlightened absolutism. You learned what it means for a ruler to be an enlightened absolutist. Well, there's arguments made on both sides of the coin that Napoleon, of course, wasn't an enlightened absolutist, while others argue that Napoleon was just a dictator. Um, of course, as you learn more about Napoleon, you can make up your own mind about that. Maybe he was a little of both. You'll have to decide that. He eventually becomes a Consul for Life. Consul, of course, the name Consul will hearken back to the Roman early Republican times. He would eventually be able to name his successor at will, and he could amend the Constitution at will. Now, every time he would do something major like this, he would put it before the French people and what's called a plebiscite, which they would vote and say yay or nay, we approve, we don't approve. And quite amazingly, truly amazing, overwhelmingly, I think just about everyone said we approve every time Napoleon had a plebiscite. Isn't wouldn't that be great for a politician if they had that much approval every time they wanted something done?
Now, you also learn, of course, about Napoleon's reforms that he did. He will institute in France things like the Napoleonic Code, which was also very important for Louisiana, of course, and you'll learn about his his dealings with the church, maybe, maybe you'll discuss that as well, his concordat with the Pope in 1801. But you'll also learn about his mistakes. He had created a Continental System in 1806, as it was called, and basically Napoleon wanted to create an integrated economy on the European continent, and he wanted to destroy the British. He wanted to destroy the British economy. And so we will see that France and Britain again will have problems under the leadership of Napoleon. And you'll see that Napoleon will actually place members of his family on the thrones of other countries in Europe, for example, Spain. There's others, but that just comes to mind. Um, and you will, of course, learn that Napoleon will fail and and why he ends up failing with this Continental System. You know, one reason, of course, you'll learn about him sure, is when he invades Russia. Okay, Napoleon invaded Russia in the early 19th century. It was a big mistake for Napoleon. And of course, Hitler invades Russia, of course, in the early 20th century or mid-20th century, and as we know, of course, that was a big mistake for Hitler in Germany. So I guess there's a lesson to be learned from both Hitler and Napoleon. It's not always a good thing to invade Russia.
But eventually, this empire that Napoleon creates will not last. Napoleon will eventually be exiled, not once, but twice, because he comes back and takes over power before he is kicked out yet again. Um, so it, Napoleon's just a very interesting historical figure, um, very complex historical person, most definitely. And so let's learn more about Napoleon Bonaparte.
Well, by the time Napoleon takes over France, the French Revolution is over. Napoleon rises to power and fame during the French Revolution, and to some extent overthrows those who are in charge at the time in the French Revolution. In 1795, he establishes himself as First Consul. That position will eventually become Emperor of France, transforming France from a republic back into a monarchy, essentially. Now, during the French Revolution, Napoleon, who was born on the island of Corsica in 1769, rises to power during the revolution at a very young age. In fact, he becomes a brigadier general at the age of 25 years old. Napoleon is known, uh, as someone that is not only very decisive, very intelligent, excelling at things like mathematics, very hard-working, capable, arrogant, all of those adjectives would fit with Napoleon, very driven man that puts himself in the right spot at the right time. He's on the right side in the French Revolution, and then when things drift to, uh, come apart in the French Revolution, he quickly allies himself with those who establish themselves as being the people in control after the people like the Jacobins are thrown out of power and after Robespierre's death, he establishes his, uh, significance, you might say, with the Directory, which is the group that ends up running France after 1795.
The, the Directory, this group of five men who established this executive control within the French Republic, will be saved by Napoleon in 1795, using his artillery units to save the Directory. That gets him notice and of course gets him into the position of being able to lead a French army into Italy, where he has tremendous success against the Austrians in Italy over a two-year period, basically giving the French control over the Italian Peninsula and taking away Austrian control from there. He's going to go down to Egypt, where things don't go so well for him, even though it's a disaster to some extent with the French wiping out the French Navy, excuse me, with the British knocking out the French Navy at the Battle of the Nile on August 1st, 1798. Napoleon's going to slip back into France to some degree. He's able to control the information coming out of Egypt, which is negative against him in France, and keep his popularity that he had gained during the certain stages of the revolution and then stages of fighting against the Austrians.
Now, um, that will enable him to overthrow eventually the Directory and establish himself as the First Consul. Now, what he does is he writes this new constitution for France. He allows, uh, the plebiscite, the the people of France, this national vote to take place whether they want to accept this new constitution. And when it is accepted, uh, Napoleon pretty much establishes his interpretation over that new constitution, which is a lot more, or I should say, a lot less democratic than the people of France probably thought. What happens when Napoleon takes over as the First Consul, essentially, is the executive and the 83 departments that were set up under the French Republic's Constitution. The departments are the regions of France, these 83 regions that were established after the nobility loses control of, uh, of the French provinces. These directories largely were self-governing units with their own assemblies. And what the French Republic did, they set up a kind of a federalist system that we have in the United States, and Napoleon is going to eliminate the independence, you might say, of these 83 departments by establishing these prefects, these people that are, uh, answerable to Napoleon. He'll put these people in charge, they answer back to Paris. The people in these 83 departments lose their autonomy and really don't really have a democracy anymore like they had had under the Republic.
Now, what's interesting is Napoleon does this, and the people, to a large extent, he's able to keep the people of France on his side because things are suddenly working well in France, something that hadn't happened during the 10 years of the revolution from 1789 to 1799, and something that didn't really happen under Louis XVI's reign as well, where the conditions got so bad that the revolution broke out. So when order is established again in France and the economy begins to grow, people begin to have a degree of of confidence with the economy, knowing where their next meal is coming from. That wasn't always the case when the revolution broke out. Price of bread stabilizes, things ease up a bit in France, and people begin to just simply accept Napoleon as the ruler. Now, he's not saying that he's the king. He's not saying that he's a monarch. He is saying he's part of this system that's, you know, he is saying that the Republic is going forth at this point with he being one of the council members. That they actually had three of these councils, but he puts himself in as the First Consul, and they end up saying the decisions of the first, the decisions of the councils, the three councils will decide on the executive decisions of the state, and then there's this other phrase within it that says if the other two disagree, then it will be up to the First Consul to decide. So the language is going to, the law is going to allow Napoleon as the First Consul to establish his rule in an executive way over France.
Now, he does this, uh, in a way in which all the different groups in France are going to find something to like about Napoleon. For the peasantry of France, the vast majority of people who live in the countryside of France, they're going to accept Napoleon because the old feudal obligations that the peasantry had with the nobility that they got rid of within the French Revolution, Napoleon is going to give his stamp of approval to the elimination of those feudal obligations. So the peasantry has this degree of autonomy and freedom that they didn't have before, so they're happy with Napoleon. Um, the bourgeoisie is happy with Napoleon because the property rights, the the fact that they own, uh, property in France, the property rights will be affirmed by Napoleon. And then you have elites within sort of the enlightened class or the intellectual class that will be happy with Napoleon because he patronizes the arts and sciences and so forth. And of course, science is where reason comes from, and the fact that he leads and sets up scientific institutions, begins to reform the education system in France, connecting secondary schools as prep schools for the university system. These are all going to be things that people like about Napoleon. And his organizational skills at the top will filter down through the French bureaucracy. Things will begin to work. People will be put in positions of power within the French government based on merit, based in other words, based on their ability to do the job. And you have a professional class of bureaucrats that begin to lead the French government forward in a much more effective way than certainly what they had under the, uh, under the monarchy and of course, the chaos and to some degree the anarchy that occurred during the French Revolution. Things seem a whole lot better now under Napoleon.
Now, uh, Napoleon is also going to call religion excellent stuff to keep the common man, uh, in check. The, the French leader Napoleon will realize that many people in France were culturally and socially and emotionally connected to the Catholic Church. And one of the big mistakes in the revolution early on, the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, which stripped away Roman control of the church, forced the clergy to be elected, the bishops to be elected by the people, they're no longer selected by the Roman Catholic Church, they're elected. And the fact that these clergy and bishops had to take this oath of allegiance to the state rather than to Rome, that was something that broke away a lot of people, severed a lot of people's enthusiasm, at least for the revolution early on. And then you have during the reign of terror, during the revolution, a confiscation of Catholic Church property. Many of the clergy who didn't take this oath of allegiance will be guillotined. Church treasures will be melted down. You have this very aggressive attempt to simply de-Christianize France and establish this Cult of Reason. Many people, the vast majority of people in France, do not buy into this. They're going to still have their connection with the Catholic Church.
Now, Napoleon realizes this, and what he does in 1801, he will re-establish France's connection with the Catholic Church, calling it essentially having a most favored church status for the Catholic Church. Most of the people in France were Catholic. There is toleration, and again, this is, uh, something that he gives to those intellectuals who were very enthusiastic about establishing a, uh, or establishing a French Republic instead of a monarchy. He does allow for freedom of religion, toleration of the Protestants, toleration of the Jews that lived in France at the time, but he reconnects himself with the Catholic Church.
Now, um, he also, of course, uh, as Consul, will establish the Napoleonic Code for France, which codifies all of the laws of France. France was a, a patchwork of laws from the different provinces. He brings all those laws together in the Napoleonic Code, which establishes, uh, basically written, a written framework for all the laws going forward. In the Napoleonic Code, he reaffirms the gains that were made with the early revolution, with equality under the law and so forth, and the abolishing of the old regime, the old feudal privileges and and systems. Basically, you know, everybody is equal. There's no special significance given to one group over the other. All of that is established in the Napoleonic Code. But what the Napoleonic Code does is it makes the law common throughout the land, also more efficient throughout France as well.
Uh, he also was, uh, brings efficiency to the financial sector of Rome, of France. One of the problems with France, of course, leading into the revolution, one of the causes of the revolution, or the cause of the revolution, is the money, the financial debt that France had from the wars that they fought in the 18th century. This mounting debt and the royal debt from the royal household ends up sinking France financially, and that's the reason that the revolution breaks out. When Louis XVI is forced to try to raise revenue by calling together the Estates General, what Napoleon does with the financial sector is he will establish the Bank of France, essentially a central bank, a clearing house for money and loans that will establish a consistency in the currency and so forth. So all of these things, reform measures, help France out. And because he's one person making these final decisions, and he's someone who's organized, and someone where that organizational level feeds down to the rest of the French bureaucracy, all of that helps France run more efficiently, and there's a sense of order that France has that they didn't have before. And generally, because of these things and the other things that I mentioned, the French people accept Napoleon.
Now, Napoleon realizes that he has to, you know, not proclaim himself to be the new king of France. That's not going to happen, at least in the first few years. Now, what he's able to do, the wars that were fought against France during the revolution, the different countries that were involved in wars against France, those he'll bring those wars to an end. Some of those wars will be brought to a conclusion by force by Napoleon. He will also include the Peace of Amiens with England in 1802. This pretty much ends the hostilities that France had throughout the period of the revolution. So now you have sort of this tranquility at home, this order at home, and you have peace abroad. Things hadn't been like this for France in quite a while, especially if you go back through the 18th centuries and the wars that they fought, starting in, you know, with the War of the Austrian Succession, the Seven Years' War, the Revolutionary War, and then the wars fought during the revolution. People want it quiet. It's not going to stay quiet for a while, for for long, though.
What Napoleon is doing is he's calming things down, positioning himself to give himself a new title, and that's what he will be able to do. And again, he uses the Catholic Church, that institution that the French people are so familiar with, that are connected, that they're so connected with from an emotional level. He uses that institution to give himself this new, much more impressive title of Emperor, which will happen in 1804. Napoleon will invite the Pope to Paris to the Notre Dame Cathedral, and in a ceremony that to some degree harkens back to Charlemagne being crowned Emperor by the Pope in the year 800, Napoleon uses the Catholic Church and the Pope to make him the new Emperor of France, essentially re-establishing the monarchy that the French had gotten rid of back in 1792 with the establishment of the French Republic.
Now, Napoleon, by the way, doesn't allow the Pope to actually place the crown on his head because, you could say that there's one person that's more important than a king or an emperor, and that's the person who establishes or places the crown on the head of a king or an emperor. So what Napoleon does in this very elaborate ceremony at Notre Dame Cathedral is he himself will place the crown on his head, and then after that, as the Emperor of France, he gets to make the Empress of France his wife, Josephine, who he will crown. And the famous mural, the portrait, the mural of the event of the coronation of Napoleon will include the Pope giving his blessing, sitting right next to the crowning, although the Pope's hand was never raised during that coronation in the painting. It was he also, by the way, his Napoleon's own mother didn't go to the coronation because he was in, she was not happy with Napoleon, mad at Napoleon because of the dispute that Napoleon had with one of his brothers, and so she didn't even attend the coronation. But Napoleon made sure that the big mural that was painted by the famous French painter David included the mother. His mother is in this prime location, overlooking the ceremony at Notre Dame Cathedral, so you could see Napoleon's ability to manipulate the message that that comes out from there.
Now, as the Emperor of Rome, he has absolute power because again, the 83 departments all are answerable to him. The prefects, all are answerable to Napoleon. And even though he, when he takes over, the ideals of the Enlightenment, toleration of religion, things like freedom of vocation, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, some of those things are going to go by the wayside because you will have some newspapers that begin to criticize Napoleon, but he will begin to censor some of those papers, and some of these editors will be tossed in jail. So he's not going to be able to put up the, as time goes by, Napoleon becomes much more like a autocratic, well, a dictator of sorts. You would have a much more firm, him attempting a much more firm control over the population in general.
Now, once he establishes himself as the Emperor, his main goal and really his dream is to become the Emperor of this new empire that is ruled from Paris by Napoleon. He wants to control Europe. And part of the process was, of course, Napoleon was the one who sold the Louisiana Territory. Napoleon is going to get that territory back from Spain in a secret treaty in 1800, and then in 1803, it would be Napoleon who makes the decision, of course, to sell the vast Louisiana Territory. Jefferson, pretty much Thomas Jefferson, the President of the United States, who purchases Louisiana from Napoleon, pretty much wants New Orleans, wants to buy the Isle of Orleans. And because of the slave rebellion in Haiti that eliminated French control of that island, and because he needed money to fight the British in the future, he decides to sell off Louisiana. Napoleon also doesn't want Louisiana to fall into the hands of the French. He would rather it be in the hands of a neutral United States. And so that's the reason that he sells not only New Orleans but Louisiana for $15 million. Jefferson, by the way, was willing to buy New Orleans for $10 million, but he threw in the rest of it for $15 million. Comes out to be about three cents an acre for the vast amount of territory between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains, all the way from the Gulf of Mexico up to Canada.
His next effort is really going to be to control Europe. And he knows that in order to control Europe, Napoleon has to settle the question against, really establish the control of Europe by controlling Britain. He's not going to be able to control Europe if he ultimately doesn't have his dominance over Britain. And of course, Great Britain has the largest navy in the world. They have the largest empire in the world. Even though they lost the American colonies, they still have this enormous empire in the world. And that is not going to be very easy. No matter how good his armies are going to be, they're not going to be able to wade across the English Channel, especially since the British Navy is going to defend the island. And getting across that channel is something no one had been able to do since, I guess, William the Conqueror in 1066.
So what Napoleon does do is he establishes, he re-establishes his army that begins to roll through Europe. And as he rolls through Europe, he gobbles up territory. He takes over the area just to the north of France, of course, this would be the old Austrian Netherlands that become that today is Belgium, that will fall under French control. Holland will fall under French control, and then all the way down the Italian Peninsula to Rome falls under French control as well. And with that area, France from including Holland to the north, Holland and in the Austrian Netherlands to the north, all the way down to Rome in Italy, down the Mediterranean coast from the French Riviera to the Italian Riviera, down the Tuscan coastline to to Rome itself, would fall under French control. And what Napoleon would do is he would just simply say that this is France, that this is, this is the French Empire. So Rome, essentially, is a French city at this point, even though, of course, the people there speak Italian, but Napoleon rules over it.
Now, that's not all what he does to the old Holy Roman Empire. He basically dismantles the old Holy Roman Empire, dismantles the Prussian state. He establishes a new German Confederation of states in the old Holy Roman Empire, where Germany is today. All falls under Napoleon's control as the German Confederation. Prussia, Austria, even as far east as Russia, all fall under Napoleon's control as either an ally, a reluctant ally of Napoleon, or under his direct control. One of the things that he does, he puts French, you know, people under him in control of these areas. He does use the local elite class to help him rule these areas. The people that were basically in charge of running these countries at a secondary level under their king or ruler or prince, they're simply going to be still there, but under Napoleon. He puts his brother as king of Holland, another king, another brother's king of Westphalia. He'll end up gaining control of Spain in putting his brother Joseph in charge as the king of Spain. In the other places like Russia and Austria, Prussia are these reluctant allies of Napoleon, and he has virtual control over the continent of Europe to a large degree. And he begins to put in place the Napoleonic Code, the same governmental systems that are in place in France.
Now, one of, but he still doesn't have Great Britain, and he knows that that's a big problem, and he's going to have to deal with the British. The British, of course, under Admiral Nelson, of course, they defeated the French fleet at the Battle of the Nile back in 1798. And another battle, this time when Napoleon is in charge, Admiral Nelson will destroy a combined French and Spanish fleet at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. This battle pretty much wipes out Napoleon's fleet and ability to do anything on the seas against Great Britain, and Great Britain is without a doubt the master of the seas at this point. And Great Britain being the master of the seas is difficult because there's no way that Napoleon can get across that that body of water, that channel, without controlling the seas. So an invasion of Great Britain is something that Napoleon is going to have to put off, even though he's controlling the continent of Europe. He needs to establish another fleet, at least, or to do something with Great Britain.
Now, what he comes up with against Great Britain to try to weaken Great Britain, he knows that the Royal Navy, the largest navy in the world, is there because the British Empire is there and the British economy is there. That creates this very large, powerful navy. And without that British economy, the British wouldn't have that fleet. And what he does, since he controls the continent of Europe, Napoleon puts in place what he calls his Continental System in 1807. This Continental System is an attempt by Napoleon to cut off British trade with the continent of Europe. And of course, the British, their economy, a large part of their economy depended on this trade with the European continent. Goods would come in from all over the world from the British colonies back into England. The goods would have value added to them, or simply, you know, some things would be held to trade with other European countries in the warehouses along in London and so forth. The trade of all of these goods coming to London and or coming to England and then redis, you know, distributed throughout Europe, that was really the to a large degree that was the economy of the British.
Now, if Napoleon, what he thinks is that if he can destroy that trade, he can destroy the economy, and in the process, destroy the Royal Navy, the power of the Royal Navy. Now, what the British do in response to this Continental System is they will institute a blockade of European ports. And again, Napoleon controls Europe, so it's, you know, you kind of think about what the Germans did in World War II. It's a, it's a different, there's no connection there at this time between Great Britain and Europe. But what the British do is they blockade these ports throughout Europe, which means that the British aren't trading with these ports, but nothing else is getting through. There's no trade going out from Europe. Holland, which is controlled by Napoleon, is not able to send ships out. Other places, I mean, even Russia, in places like Prussia and Italy, they are severely restricted because of this British blockade. So the Continental System, designed to not allow British the Brits to the British to trade with the continent of Europe, the blockade by the British is far more damaging for Napoleon and the Europeans because nothing can get out. The British, by the way, since they do control the seas, will begin actively trading with areas of the world that may have been either neglected or or they had not taken advantage of before. They begin trading more with places like South America and other places in Asia, stepping up their trade with places like India.
Now, this Continental System to try to weaken the British simply isn't going to work. It's going to take a while before Napoleon realizes that, but by the time he realizes it, it will be too late. Now, Napoleon controlling the continent, I say I use the word control, and you know, there's not complete control or complete dominance of the continent. For one thing, some of these countries are actually going against the Continental System and allowing British goods to come in simply because these places are are used to these goods or need these goods, and they're violating the Continental System that Napoleon puts in place. In fact, Russia has this repeated violation of the Continental System, trading back and forth with the British. The Russians try to tell Napoleon that they're not going to do it, and what Napoleon has as his response to this is an invasion of Russia to basically go all the way into Russia to take complete control over it. He had already defeated Russian armies in Europe, but you know, Russia never lost any territory to him. But when the Russians moved into Europe, now now he's going after Russia, and he amasses an army of about 600,000 men, this enormous army. Many of his advisors said, don't do it, don't go into Russia. There's no real, there's, you know, the objective here, the or the reasoning behind this is not strong enough. But Napoleon always needs to keep advancing and conquering. That's to some degree, that's what conquerors do. He needs, in order his power rests in that to some degree. He will lead an invasion of Russia, and what the Russians do is they basically just suck the French army and Napoleon into the vast territory that Russia has, the extremely long front, and the amount of distance between Moscow and even Poland is so great that the Russians can use that geography, that massive land mass, to their advantage in invading armies.
And so when Napoleon comes in, the Russians just simply back up, and Napoleon keeps going after the army. Now, what the Russian army does is they lay waste to their own country. They basically destroy the all of the crops, all the livestock, so Napoleon and the French would not be able to use that as resources. That's what the goal was, and that was the plan, you might say, by Napoleon as they invaded into Russia. He knew it was a far, you know, such a great distance that he would be so far away from his supply lines. In order to feed that many men on a daily basis, he would have to absorb the resources within the territory that he conquered. Well, he absorbed the territory, but without resorting, you know, absorbing the resources, simply because the plan for the Russians was to basically have a slash and burn policy of destroying the resources before the journey, before the French could get to them. And so there's a big problem that Napoleon has. He's further away from his supply lines. He's moving against the army who keeps backing up but destroying everything in its wake. They're not able to use those resources, and there's a problem with the men being malnourished, not having enough to really keep this very large army going. Even when they get to Moscow, you know, the city of Moscow is not going to be a resource for for Napoleon. And when Napoleon gets all the way into Moscow, by by this point, the invasion starts in 1812, and he realizes that, you know, I better turn around, I better go back, I need to go back. And he's already lost lots of men. And by the time he starts to go back, the Russian winter sets in, and that winter comes down on Napoleon's forces. These men are not adequately clothed in order to endure the Russian winter. And what started out as the Grand Army advancing, it turns into the grand retreat or the great retreat. And by the time Napoleon gets all the way back to Prussia or to Poland, he starts off with these 600,000 men when he invades. By the time he gets back, he's only got 100,000 men left. So his army is to a large extent evaporated, at least the size army that he had when he initially invaded.
This invasion of Russia is a big mistake because what it allows is the areas that he conquered previously in Europe begin to rise up against French rule or the rule of Napoleon. And you start having armies that begin to re-establish their presence, like the Austrians and the Prussians. Rebellions breaking out. You have the British seizing the opportunity and seeing in an opportunity to crush Napoleon. And Napoleon will be defeated at the in October of 1813 at the in in Germany at the Battle of Leipzig in October of 1813. Napoleon is defeated, which is a huge deal on the battlefield. He struggles back into into France, but it's not long before so many resources are gone for Napoleon, the rebellions and the outbreaks in the area that he conquered. Now he's being invaded, and this coalition of countries will end up entering Paris. Napoleon himself will be taken into custody, and they're going to place Napoleon on an island in the Mediterranean, the island of Elba.
Now, on this, he's on this island in when when he's there, the European monarchs basically get together in Vienna, Austria, at the Congress of Vienna, as they call it, and they're deciding what to do with Europe now that Napoleon's no longer there. And they're basically deciding how can we put Europe back together again. And what they decide at the Congress of Vienna, since it's a bunch of monarchs running the show, is that we just need to put Europe back together the way it was, including France, putting it back together with the Bourbon dynasty and re-establishing a monarchy in France, re-establishing the monarchies that he destroyed when he conquered Europe. And that's what the Congress of Vienna and these coalition forces of these different countries, they will put on the French throne a Bourbon, Louis XVIII, a member of the Bourbon family, the one that of course was eliminated during the revolution. And Napoleon is put on this island in the Mediterranean in exile. They basically say, okay, you can have this while and you can rule over it if you want, instead of ruling over all of Europe.
Well, it's not long, as months go by, the British Navy is trying to protect or surround the island and make sure that Napoleon is kept there. But as time goes on, the surveillance of the island becomes a little lax. Napoleon's able to slip away and slip back into France for what is called his Hundred Days, where he, he's able to regain control of France. He comes back on the southern shores of France and re-establishes his control of French armies. Louis XVIII, the Bourbon king, is basically off the throne. Louis Napoleon back in charge. And it's not long before Napoleon raises an army, an army that he will establish in order to do battle against those who had defeated him previously. And when this is done, Napoleon will venture out of France, and you have a Prussian force and a British force that will meet Napoleon just outside of of France in modern-day Belgium at the Battle of Waterloo and the Duke of Wellington. So you have the British forces and the Prussian forces that will capitalize on mistakes that are made by Napoleon in this battle to have a final defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo. So when you hear of someone's Waterloo today, that term is usually associated with their final defeat or the nail in the coffin, it's the thing that is the end. When you have your Waterloo, so Napoleon's Waterloo was Waterloo in 1815. This is in June of 1815. His reign at this point over France is completely over.
Now, what the coalition decides to do, the monarchs are a little paranoid to some extent in Europe because of all of this revolutionary activity in in in in Europe that occurred with the French Revolution, and there's other little outbreaks that have occurred as well with these ideas of the Enlightenment, the questioning of the traditional institutions of Europe, which means monarchies. The people who are ruling are monarchs, and they are tuned in to the people's voices to some extent. They don't want to, one monarch has already been killed. They don't want to keep that, you know, they don't want to have a precedent set by by killing Napoleon. So what they do after his escape from Elba, that little island in the Mediterranean, which is not far from the Italian coast, they're going to put him on another island out in the middle, virtually of no one, of the most isolated areas in the world. It's in the South Atlantic, almost in between exactly South America and Africa, a British-controlled island, Saint Helena, is the island that Napoleon would be put on at this point. This island is literally a thousand miles away from the shore, and Napoleon will spend the next six years of his life on that island that is controlled by the British, and there's no way off of this island. Napoleon will end up dying in 1821, supposedly of stomach cancer, and you know, that's still a question mark. Napoleon, some people think that it's possible that the British just simply decided to get rid of him through arsenic or whatever, but stomach cancer is, you know, the British are the ones who basically give that diagnosis. So many people in France aren't going to really take that, but Napoleon is gone, that's for sure. In 1821, he's dead. He's originally buried on the island. He's not going to, the French will finally get the approval from the British to get his remains, his burial site off that island and bring it back to Paris, where it is today, where it's still a tourist attraction today. And that was in 1840, so 20 years after his death, that finally happens.
Now, um, Europe is put back together again. The Congress of Vienna that began meeting when he was on Elba, they have to kind of scatter and go fight Napoleon again after he escapes from Elba, and then they go back to Vienna and they continue to meet, basically establishing these new guidelines for Europe that essentially would balance the power back out. And balancing the power means that you make France, you reduce the power of France by making the neighbors strong, and they re-establish the monarchies, not only in France but throughout Europe as well.
Now, another thing that, uh, the things that are going to do Napoleon in are things like basically policy flaws, like the Continental System, just a bad idea to institute that. The other thing is resistance to his rule. The people in that speak other languages than French are not going to want this French ruler ruling over them. You have this growth of nationalism that begins to spring up. And if you're a German, you don't want someone who speaks another language to be your ruler. If you're any of these languages, Austrian, the fact that he puts his brother on the throne in these places is also a bad idea, especially Spain, where he puts his brother Joseph on the throne. They are going to rebel almost from day one. When he puts his brother in as the king of Spain, the Spanish nobility simply don't accept it, and a general in the Spanish nobility is able to muster up enough force from the peasantry to constantly cause problems for Napoleon. And a lot of resources are used by Napoleon in Spain, just making sure that Joseph stays on the throne of Spain, and that is something that eats up a lot of resources. I mean, Napoleon has to go in with an army himself sometimes, and maybe 200,000 French soldiers would be lost in fighting, simply trying to keep the brother of Napoleon on the throne. And then you have that same sort of dynamic going on in places like Westphalia and places like Holland, where his brother's on the throne, and simply being opposed to Napoleon's rule. This growth of, just like the French were proud, proud nationalists, you have other people in Europe that are proud nationalists as well, proud for their own nationality, and they don't want to be ruled over. And that sense of pride and loyalty toward your country means that you don't want some other country ruling over you. So that plays into the factor of these countries rising up and the people of these countries rising up against Napoleon.
And again, once he is, uh, put on Saint Helena in 1815, Napoleon's days on that island will be pretty desolate for the most part. It's a desolate, windswept island. He does begin the process while he is on Saint Helena to establish his, you might say, his mark on history by making sure that his legacy and his record is carried forward. And when he's on that island, that's what he spends his time doing, establishing his version of events for history.
Well, France is having a very tumultuous year, not to the French Revolution, then we have, of course, the Napoleonic Empire and the wars that were fought during that time period as well. And so when we come back on our next lecture, we'll learn about the aftermath. We'll learn about what happens not only in France but in all of Europe and how a peace will be formed, even though Napoleon is eventually exiled, he is defeated and exiled, there's still a lot of questions that need to be answered and figured out in European politics. And so when we come back, we'll discuss the very important Congress of Vienna and the Concert of Europe that was created after the defeat of Napoleon. Until next time.