Napoleon’s Hundred days reign

After Napoleon reached French soil the 5th Regiment was sent to intercept
him and made contact near Grenoble on the 7 th of March 1815, at the sight
of the Regiment Napoleon dismounted his horse and came to the men and
said to them: "Here I am. Kill your Emperor, if you wish". The soldiers
answered with “Vive L’Empereur”.  Ney, who had boasted to the restored
Bourbon king, Louis XVIII, that he would bring Napoleon to Paris in an iron
cage, affectionately kissed his former emperor and forgot his oath of
allegiance to the Bourbon monarch. The two then marched together
towards Paris with a growing army. The unpopular Louis XVIII fled to
Belgium after realizing he had little political support. On 13 March, the
powers at the Congress of Vienna declared Napoleon an outlaw. Four days
later, Great Britain, Russia, Austria, and Prussia each pledged to put
150,000 men into the field to end his rule.

In an attempt to strengthen the trust of the public disappointed by the

restored royal authority, Napoleon took up a constitutional reform, which
resulted in the Charter of 1815, signed on April 22, 1815 and prepared by
Benjamin Constant. More correctly known as the ” Additional Act to the
Constitutions of the Empire” the document extensively amended (virtually
replacing) the previous Napoleonic Constitutions (Constitution of the Year
VIII, Constitution of the Year X, and Constitution of the Year XII). The
Additional Act reframed the Napoleonic constitution into something more
along the lines of the Bourbon Restoration Charter of 1814 of Louis XVIII,
while otherwise ignoring the Bourbon charter’s existence. It was very liberal
in spirit and gave the French people rights which were previously unknown
to them, such as the right to elect the mayor in communes with population
of less than 5,000. Napoleon treated it as a mere continuation of the
previous constitutions and it therefore took the form of an ordinary
legislative act “additional to the constitutions of the Empire.”

The legislative power was to be exercised by the Emperor together with the
Parliament, composed of two chambers: the Chamber of Peers, hereditary
members appointed by the Emperor, and the Chamber of Representatives,
629 citizens elected for five-year terms by electoral colleges in the
individual départments. The ministers were to be responsible to the
Parliament for their actions. The liberalization dealt both with the
guarantees of rights and the end of censorship. In the end, the two
chambers held sessions for only one month, from June 3 to July 7, 1815.
The Charter was adopted by a plebiscite on June 1, 1815, by an immense
majority of the five million voters, although a great many eligible voters
abstained. The rapid fall of Napoleon prevented it from being fully applied.