Journal of Napoleon Bonaparte

France, Belgium — 1815

March 1, 1815 – Gulf of Juan

I have returned.

I left Elba with a handful of men, a few cannon, and the will of a hundred lions. As we landed, I felt the wind shift — not just in the sails, but in destiny.

They sent royal troops to stop me. I walked alone toward their muskets and said only:

"Soldiers of the 5th Regiment, if there is one among you who wishes to kill his Emperor, here I am."

Not a shot was fired.

They wept. Then they shouted. And marched with me toward Paris.

March 20, 1815 – Tuileries Palace

Paris opened its gates like a lover who never truly shut them.

The Bourbons fled without honor, without fight. Louis XVIII had restored boredom and shame — I restored energy, movement, pride. The people filled the streets as in a dream. For a moment, I was once more the center of gravity.

But I knew this would not last. Europe would never accept me again. They fear not who I am — but what I awaken.

I have a hundred days, no more.

June 14, 1815 – Near Charleroi

I move fast again.

I have crossed into Belgium before they could unite. Wellington to the north, Blücher to the east. If I can break them separately, France may yet be saved.

My men are old and young, battered and proud. The veterans know what is at stake. The new recruits look at me as if I were a myth.

In their eyes, I see myself — not the man I am, but the man I once was.

June 18, 1815 – Waterloo

The ground was wet.

I delayed the attack, hoping the sun would dry the mud. It never fully did. Cannonballs sank rather than rolled. But I gave the order. I had no choice. We struck at Wellington’s center, at Hougoumont, at La Haye Sainte.

We nearly broke them.

Then came the Prussians.

Blücher arrived like a storm behind our flank. I threw in the Guard — my final reserve, the sacred battalion. They marched into smoke, into fire, into history.

They did not return.

Cries of “La Garde recule!” — the Guard retreats — shattered what remained.

Waterloo is not merely a battlefield.

It is a sentence.

June 22, 1815 – Paris, again

I have abdicated, again.

This time, no one wept. No one begged me to stay. The city was quieter than I remembered, as if history were ashamed of itself. I offered to fight on. No one listened.

They will say I gambled and lost. But I did not gamble.

I hoped — and hope is always the most dangerous weapon.

July 15, 1815 – On board the HMS Bellerophon

I have surrendered to the British.

There was no escape. No miracle. I boarded their ship and offered myself as a guest — a suppliant to the nation that hated me most. I trusted they would treat me as a general, as a sovereign.

They smiled.

But I see it in their eyes: they mean to bury me, not physically, but historically.

And yet, the sea carries my name still. I feel it in the spray, in the gulls, in the silence of the horizon.

They will send me far.

But they will not silence me.

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