Boney meets his Waterloo in type

Michael Joseph, #20 (pp 321).

THOMAS Hardy said, ''War makes rattling good history, but peace is

poor reading.'' His backing of Bonaparte to ''give pleasure to

posterity'' has proved predictably accurate.

Alan Schom, who has skirmished with Napoleon before in his book on

Trafalgar, now turns his full attention to the Corsican general,

specifically his return from exile in Elba, his reclamation of the

Empire, and his road to Waterloo. Popularly known as the 100 Days, this

period actually stretched from Louis XVIII's departure from Paris on

March 20, 1815, until July 8 when he returned to the capital after

Napoleon's defeat at the hands of Allies led by Wellington.

So where stands Schom on the great man? An understandably huge volume

of work has argued the pros and cons of the man who was a subaltern at

25 and Emperor of a vast chunk of Europe just 10 years later. Wisely

Schom has steered a steady course, avoiding the hyperbolic praise of a

Thiers and the bitter condemnation of Lanfrey's writings.

He does, however, decry Napoleon as despotic and for the purposes of

this volume this is an assessment that can be easily defended. But it

ignores the extraordinary civil code, the concordat with the Roman

Catholic Church, and the innovations in education and sciences which

Napoleon promoted before his exile to Elba. But Schom is simply writing

about the 100 Days.

Schom's picture of Napoleon, therefore, remains one-dimensional. His

portrait of the other characters in the final curtain of the great drama

are simply superb. He writes in his preface:

''A mere chronicle of historical facts and events, without providing

the elementary human perspective responsible for shaping them, is in

itself relatively meaningless and. . . a distortion of history.''

His essays on the supporting players ensure this is no mere chronicle.

On Talleyrand, survivor of the Revolution, leading light of the

Consulate, major player under Napoleon, and a restorer of the Bourbons,

Schom is even-handed given the weight of French historians who have

pilloried the one-time Bishop of Autun. He condemns Talleyrand's

duplicity but does give him some credit for his desire for peace.

However, it seems Duff Cooper's 1932 biography of Talleyrand will remain

for some time the only document in the statesman's defence.

On the subject of the other great survivor, Police Minister Joseph

Fouche, Schom draws heavily on Madelin's writings to investigate the

strange morality of a devoted father and husband who nevertheless was

responsible for some of the worst excesses of the revolutionary period.

Fouche's background, career, and motivation are described in convincing

fashion.

His triumph, however, is the sniping account of the brothers

Bonaparte. His clinical dissection of the morally and financially

bankrupt Jerome is performed with wit and style.

Bainville wrote in 1924 that ''the events of the 100 Days had the

colour of a novel and their character is that of the passions. They do

not belong to the domain of reason.'' Schom draws sense from the period

but also maintains a narrative flow. His succinct account of the carnage

at Waterloo is comprehensible, as far as that error-ridden encounter

ever could be, yet evokes the bravery, the blood, and the butchery of

that great struggle.

Marshal Ney's mistakes in that encounter which helped turn the tide

against Napoleon are dealt with with sympathy for a battle-weary

veteran. His account of the marshal's subsequent execution by the

restored Bourbons provides a poignant postscript.

On his ill-fated venture to Egypt, 17 years before the events

described in this book, Napoleon saw his officers were reading novels.

He told his librarian: ''Give them history. Men should read nothing

else.'' Schom has franked this judgment in a virile and vital testament.