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Why did Napoleon I escape from Elba and return to France in 1815?

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Jacques-Louis David: The Emperor Napoleon in His Study at the Tuileries — Napoleon I *The Emperor Napoleon in His Study at the Tuileries*, oil on canvas by Jacques-Louis David, 1812; in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Napoleon I’s return from Elba in 1815 was driven by a combination of personal ambition, dissatisfaction with the Bourbon Restoration, and political instability in France.12

Though Napoleon initially claimed he wished to live quietly, his energetic nature made him restless in exile. Simultaneously, the French public grew increasingly disillusioned with Louis XVIII, whose government alienated the military by retiring officers at half pay and sparked fears that the achievements of the French Revolution—such as property rights and civil equality—would be dismantled by returning émigrés.23

Napoleon also monitored the Congress of Vienna, where he feared diplomats would banish him to a more remote location. Furthermore, the French government’s refusal to pay his promised allowance left him in financial jeopardy. Believing he could reach Paris without resistance, he escaped to France, where he was welcomed by peasants and soldiers who viewed him as a defender of revolutionary principles against the restored monarchy. This return initiated the period known as the Hundred Days.231