On the morning of 3 July 1815, the French General Rémi Joseph Isidore
Exelmans, at the head of a brigade of dragoons, fired the last shots in
the defence of Paris until the Franco-Prussian War sixty-five years
later. Why did he do so? Traditional stories of 1815 end with Waterloo,
that fateful day of 18 June, when Napoleon Bonaparte fought and lost his
last battle, abdicating his throne on 22 June.
So why was Exelmans still fighting for Paris? Surely the fighting had
ended on 18 June? Not so. Waterloo was not the end, but the beginning of
a new and untold story.
Seldom studied in French histories and virtually ignored by English
writers, the French Army fought on after Waterloo. At Versailles,
Sevres, Rocquencourt and elsewhere, the French fought off the Prussian
army. In the Alps and along the Rhine other French armies fought the
Allied armies, and General Rapp defeated the Austrians at La Souffel -
the last great battle and the last French victory of the Napoleonic
Wars.
Many other French commanders sought to reverse the defeat of Waterloo.
Bonapartist and irascible, General Vandamme, at the head of 3rd and 4th
Corps, was, for example, champing at the bit to exact revenge on the
Prussians. General Exelmans, ardent Bonapartist and firebrand, likewise
wanted one final, defining battle to turn the war in favour of the
French.
Marshal Grouchy, much maligned, fought his army back to Paris by 29
June, with the Prussians hard on his heels. On 1 July, Vandamme,
Exelmans and Marshal Davout began the defence of Paris. Davout took to
the field in the north-eastern suburbs of Paris along with regiments of
the Imperial Guard and battalions of National Guards.
For the first time ever, using the wealth of archive material held in
the French Army archives in Paris, along with eyewitness testimonies
from those who were there, Paul Dawson brings alive the bitter and
desperate fighting in defence of the French capital. The 100 Days
Campaign did not end at Waterloo, it ended under the walls of Paris
fifteen days later.
