Byron, Napoleon, J.C. Hobhouse, and the Hundred Days

Napoleon was, after his defeat at Leipzig, “granted” the island of Elba to rule. He soon found this unsatisfactory, and, early in 1815, left for the south of France, and marched on Paris to some acclamation. He was, all too quickly, defeated at Waterloo.

Observing all this was Byron’s friend J.C. Hobhouse, an ardent Bonapartist. Byron, who posed as one, never answered his letters from the thick of things in Paris.

This book is structured in four layers, and begins with an essay about Byron and Napoleon, which is then followed by Byron’s poems about Napoleon and Hobhouse’s diary. Hobhouse’s letters conclude the volume. Most of Hobhouse’s diary has never been published.

The book is published, aptly, on the bicentenary of The Hundred Days.