Napoleon oder Die hundert Tage

Napoleon oder Die hundert Tage, a play by C. D. Grabbe, written in 1830, published in 1831, and first performed in Frankfurt/Main in 1895. Divided into five acts, it is essentially an epic drama reflecting the period of the French Revolution and Restoration. The brilliantly conceived first act revives the memory of history through the eyes of the people, old Bonapartists, survivors of the Russian campaign (Vitry and Chassecœur), returned émigrés, the Duke and Duchess of Angoulême, and Louis XVIII, and before it closes Napoleon decides to leave the shores of Elba for his renewed bid for power. The flight of the King and Napoleon's return to the empty throne in the Tuileries, the revival of the Paris mob (headed by Jouve, a fictitious figure), and the frustration of the plans of the Liberals Fouché and Carnot are among the events preceding Napoleon's victory at Ligny. The last act (complete in itself and often referred to as a Schlachtendrama) portrays Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo, which ends his hundred-day rule.

Grabbe made use of a variety of sources as well as of his experience of the contemporary scene, culminating in the July revolution of 1830 (see Julirevolution), to air his views on the subject of revolution and the reactionary regimes of his day. The kaleidoscopic presentation, by juxtaposition rather than integration, frequently achieves masterly characterization; it is serious, satirical, and grotesque by turns, and conveys a mood of all-pervading disillusionment. Such glimpses as the play offers of Napoleon himself reveal him as an individual possessed by a sense of personal achievement and destiny rather than patriotism. Grabbe portrays Napoleon as the child of the Revolution, and above all as a chosen tool of the ‘universal spirit’ (Weltgeist, a concept derived from Hegel), which deserts him. On the other hand, pointed critical comments prevent Napoleon from becoming the subject of hero worship. Blücher represents true patriotism and popular leadership. His final comments, closing the play, inspire little confidence in a future worthy of those who fought the great battle; they are an echo of Napoleon's conviction that the forthcoming period of peace will be ineffective and insignificant, with many petty states in the hands of as many petty tyrants, all aiming at the oblivion of the political consciousness of the people.