about the defeat that fortifies you
I haven’t found out yet
the use
of victories,
I haven’t beheld yet
the winners
my eyes glide
with devotion
only towards
the smile
of the defeated
only the defeated
can be the elect
only the defeated
can sound the reveille
only from the defeated
can you expect
the real victories?
there is so much sadness around
and so much virgin joy
that I have the time to measure
at length
my whole futile
unrest
Napoleon's Surrender -- Robert Gibb
When the French Revolution began in 1798, Napoleone di Buonaparte of Corsica was an artillery officer in the French army. Changing his name to Napoleon Bonaparte, he rapidly rose through the ranks of the military, becoming a general at age 24. After he suppressed a royalist revolt against the ruling five=man Directoire exécutif, at 26 he was given command of the Armée d'Italie against the Austrians and their Italian allies, conquering the Italian peninsula in a year and becoming a national hero. In 1798, he led a military expedition to Egypt that served as a springboard to seizing power in November 1799 and became the head of the new three-man Consulat français; the other two members wer appointed by him and had consultative powers only. After being elected emperor by referendum, he began his official reign as Napoleon I on 2 December 1804; he entered the coronation ceremony wearing a golden laurel wreath recalling the Roman Empire and kept it on his head throughout the proceedings, placing a replica of Charlemagne's crown on his wife's head. In Milano on 25 May 1805 he had himself crowned with the Corona Ferrea Langobardiae (the Iron Crown of Lombardy), the traditional Carolingian emblem of the king of Italia (a circlet of gold fitted around a central silver band, according to legend it was made of iron beaten out of a nail of the dross on which Jesus had been crucified.) Throughout his period of rule he was nealy continually at war, winning nearly all his battles and building an empire that domnated nearly all of Europe. Regarded as a military genius, he is studied at military schools worldwide. Eventually, however, his opponents, outnumbering him three to one, invaded France. While Napoleon advanced toard Paris, the civilian leaders surrendered and, on 2 April 1814 the Sénat conservateur deposed him by issuing the Acte de déchéance de l'Empereur ("Emperor's Demise Act"). Two days later his senior officers mutinied, and he abdicated on 6 April. After a suicide attempt failed, he was given sovereignty over Elba, an island of 12,000 inhabitants in the Mediterranean sea, 20 km (12 mi) off the Tuscan coast, and allowed to retain his imperial title. On 26 February 1815, with 700 men, he escaped from Elba and landed on the French mainland two days later. Just south of Grenoble on 7 March, the regiment that newly installed Louis XVIII had sent to intercept him instead defected to his side, and he continued his march toward Paris, which he reached on 20 March and restored himself to power. By June he had 200,000 troops available and marched into the newly-created Verenigd Koninkrijk der Nederlanden (United Kingdom of the Netherlands) to drive a wedge between the oncoming British and Prussian armies. On 18 June he was defeated at Waterloo (in modern Belgique) by Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, and Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher. Napoleon withdrew to Paris and abdicated again on 22 June and fled to Rochefort, hoping to flee to the US. On 15 July he requested asylum from the British captain Frederick Maitland on "HMS Bellerophon." In December the British sent him to Saint Helena island in the Atlantic ocean, 1,870 km (1,162 mi) off the west coast of Africa. In February 1821, his health deteriorated, and he died on 5 May. The British allowed his body to be returned to France in 1840, and in 1861 it was entombed in a porphyry stone sarcophagus in the crypt under the dome at Les Invalides, designed for the purpose by Louis Visconti.
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