On February 26, 1815 Napoleon Bonaparte, some generals and about a thousand soldiers of his personal guard boarded ship for their voyage from the island of Elba back to France. On this little island not very far from Corsica, the Emperor had stayed since his abdication. Napoleon Bonaparte considered it was time for his return. He was ready to put everything on the line in one last, big gamble.
The situation in France
The French were very displeased with the political leadership of King Louis XVIII. Although the King meant well, he proved to be incompetent.
In the King's wake the "émigrés" had returned to France: nobles and members of the clergy that had fled the country during the French revolution. Now they where back and they claimed, with a loud voice, their former privileges and the lands the owned before the revolution. The peasants who bought these lands for very low prices where of course very suspicious of a possible division of the lands amongst these "émigrés". France was mainly an agrarian nation in those day's and the mistrust of the largest part of the population undermined the King's position.
The mediocre attempts of the Bourbons to revive the unstable economy had no effects. The situation was far from good; the prices of food were sky-high because of a hard winter and a dry and very hot summer. The middle-class, that did so well under Napoleon's rule, was complaining about the bad economic situation and the poor and the needy had to live trough some very rough times.
