Two centuries ago this week, a coalition of European forces defeated Napoleon in an epic battle outside the city of Brussels. The continent is united these days. But the Battle of Waterloo still has the power to divide.

Napoleon Bonaparte was first defeated and sent into exile in 1814. But he didn't stay there.

In a period known as the 100 days, Napoleon regrouped his loyal army and marched into Belgium. There, he was met by a coalition led by the English and the Prussians. Only by combining forces were Napoleon's enemies finally able to beat him.
It was a battle of massive proportions, says Howard Brown, Napoleonic historian at Binghamton University in New York.

"Waterloo is fought in a small space of time, in a small space of space," he says. "And the concentration of death is staggering."

Millions died in a decade of Napoleonic wars. After crowning himself emperor in 1804, Napoleon conquered much of Europe. Some were happy to see him come, says Steven Englund, historian and author of Napoleon: A Political Life.

"If you were a Jew, a Protestant, a capitalist, you were delighted when the French came because you had a chance to express your opinions, to do your business," he says.

But 200 years later, even as tens of thousands of people are gathering in the fields outside Brussels to re-enact the Battle of Waterloo, Napoleon is not fully embraced in his own country. 

Napoleon once awarded his Legion of Honor medal to soldiers who gathered in the cobblestone courtyard at Les Invalides, a 400-year-old military hospital in Paris that's now a museum. Napoleon is also buried there under a gold-domed cupola.

But it's about the only place you can find a trace of him in the French capital. There's not even a Napoleon street in the entire city.

"Napoleon has a light side and a dark side," says Gregory Spourdos, a curator at Les Invalides. "He promoted French revolutionary values like equality and secularism. But then he betrayed the revolution and became a military aggressor and a dictator." - Read More at NPR

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