Les cosaques aux Champs-Elysées: L'occupation de la France après la chute de Napoléon

If the epic of Napoleon I is in all memories, the occupation which accompanied the fall of the emperor in France in 1814 and 1815 is nearly forgotten today. It is little known that two thirds of the French departments were occupied after Waterloo by the united European armies. Apart from the border sectors, such an event had not occurred for several centuries. Based on numerous French and foreign sources, this book mentions a few famous people, but above all, it evokes the mass of the humble, whose attitudes it analyzes in the face of the conflict. It presents the French at the start of the 19th century responding to the violence and the demands of the enemy with energy and inventiveness. The complex relations with the adversary constitute an astonishing experience of confrontation with otherness. The culmination of twenty years of war between France and the European powers, the occupations of 1814-1815 constitute an important milestone for understanding and placing in their context the great conflicts of the contemporary era in Western Europe. [translated and modified from Amazon]