Wellington crosses the Bidassoa river in the north of Spain, bringing an enemy army on to French soil for the first time in twenty years

Napoleon's first empress, Josephine, dies near Paris

The Russian emperor and the Prussian king take a salute in the Champs Elysées after the allies capture Paris

Napoleon abdicates at Fontainebleau and the French senate invites Louis XVIII to return to reclaim his throne

Napoleon goes into exile on the island of Elba, which he immediately treats as a miniature state in need of improvement

Napoleon slips away from Elba with a fleet of small vessels and lands on the coast of France

Napoleon reaches Paris, already accompanied by an enthusiastic regiment that has joined him on his journey north

Napoleon, held on a British warship off Torquay and hoping now to live in Britain, becomes an instant tourist attraction

Jacques-Louis David, unmistakably identified as Napoleon's painter, is banished from France after the fall of the emperor and moves to Brussels

René Laënnec, reluctant to press his ear to the chest of a young female patient, finds a solution in the stethoscope

French physicist André Marie Ampère begins his researches into the links between electricity and magnetism

French painter Théodore Géricault begins a two-year visit to Britain

French physicist Augustin Jean Fresnel publishes the theory that light is a transverse wave, thus explaining polarization effects

Egyptian hieroglyphs are deciphered by French Egyptologist Jean François Champollion, using the Rosetta stone

French physicist Augustin Jean Fresnel develops a more efficient form of lens for use in lighthouses

With the help of an army from France, the Spanish king Ferdinand VII is freed from confinement and restored to his throne

Italian composer Gioacchino Rossini moves to Paris, where he becomes director of the Théatre Italien

The reactionary Charles X succeeds to the throne of France on the death of his brother Louis XVIII

Britain, France and Russia, supporting Greek independence, defeat the Turkish and Egyptian fleets at Navarino

Gioacchino Rossini's opera William Tell has its premiere in Paris

Victor Hugo's romantic drama Hernani provokes a riot in the Paris audience on the first night

A revolution erupts in Paris in July and sweeps Charles X from the throne

Louis-Philippe, the Citizen King, is welcomed in Paris in a new role – as 'king of the French, by the will of the people'

French author Stendhal publishes his novel Le Rouge et Le Noir ('The Red and the Black')

The Symphonie fantastique by French composer Hector Berlioz has its premiere in Paris