The Hundred Days

The Hundred Days is the nineteenth historical novel in the Aubrey-Maturin series by British author Patrick O'Brian, first published in 1998. The story is set during the Napoleonic Wars, specifically in their last portion in 1815, the Hundred Days. Napoleon escaped his exile at Elba and gained a huge army as he marched up from the south coast of France to Paris, unseating Louis XVIII. The allies of 1813 and 1814 are coming together again to join their armies on land to stop Napoleon keeping the France he has retaken. Forces on the north coast of Africa are raising money to block the allied armies from joining, favoring Napoleon. Aubrey and his convoy are given the mission to destroy shipyards supporting Napoleon along the Adriatic Coast and to stop that money, if it indeed has been raised, from reaching its destination. Maturin and Dr Amos Jacob negotiate in Algiers, where, among other accomplishments, Maturin shoots a lioness leaping at him and the Dey of Algiers. Reviewers enjoyed this novel, especially that it has all they expect of a novel in this series, plus more of a plot, and one goes so far as to say "This is strictly an adventure tale." Many authors write fictional tales set in the dramatic Hundred Days after Napoleon escaped his exile and induced a conclusive end to the long wars, but "O'Brian has added a clever fictional twist" with the plot bringing the reader to North Africa on a hunt for a galley full of small gold ingots to release a large army of mercenaries to increase the odds of Napoleon's large and rapidly re-built army winning. There is another aspect to the novel, as it starts with deaths, leaving Maturin a widower, so that "its recurring leitmotif is one of the subtlest sketchings of deep, deep grief in literature." What makes this novel special is the "rendering of the internal lives of the characters--his loving and apt portrayal of their rich mix of feelings and experiences". Others note that over the long years of writing this series, the powers of the author have not diminished, yet the characters are "realistically aging" and "their victory is not without cost." The novel's "prose moves between the maritime sublime and the Austenish bon mot, "a man generally disliked is hardly apt to lavish good food and wine on those who despise him, and Ward's dinners were execrable"." Again, the author's staying power as a writer is commended: "O'Brian continues to unroll a splendid Turkish rug of a saga" A key to the success of the novel is O'Brian's "invention of dual heroes, the bluff and ultracompetent Aubrey being always accompanied by his eccentric ship's surgeon, Stephen Maturin", and although the Napoleonic Wars have come to a close, this time for good, the ending of the novel suggests it is not the last adventure for Aubrey and Maturin.