The great military tactician did not have any royal blood — and wasn’t even born in France. He was of Italian descent, growing up with a thick Corsican accent that made him an object of mockery by other children. But Napoleon Bonaparte’s military genius could not be denied: he was the one of the first to effectively use artillery, in Vendémiaire, and saved Paris from a royalist coup. His swift ascent through the military ranks created the hubris that would be his downfall, and — for a short while — his saving grace.

On this day, April 11, in 1814, Napoleon, his army defeated, was exiled to the island of Elba, off the Northern Italian coast. Napoleon gambled everything on his invasion of Russia, going in with 600,000 troops. By the time he retreated back to France, that number was 40,000.

The great respect Napoleon earned among the European powers, as well as his people, likely saved him from execution. But even so, he had no intentions of remaining in Elba: taking advantage of the Allies’ infighting on divvying up Napoleon’s booty, he landed back in France, rallied the troops and citizens and marched on Paris to begin his Hundred Days’ Rule.