The Hundred Days is the nineteenth historical novel in the Aubrey-Maturin sequence by British creator Patrick O’Brian, first revealed in 1998. The story is set throughout the Napoleonic Wars, specifically of their final portion in 1815, the Hundred Days. Napoleon escaped his exile at Elba and gained an enormous military as he marched up from the south coast of France to Paris, unseating Louis XVIII. The allies of 1813 and 1814 are coming together once more to hitch their armies on land to cease Napoleon conserving the France he has retaken. Forces on the north coast of Africa are elevating cash to block the allied armies from becoming a member of, favoring Napoleon. Aubrey and his convoy are given the mission to destroy shipyards supporting Napoleon alongside 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. Many authors write fictional tales set in the dramatic Hundred Days after Napoleon escaped his exile and induced a conclusive finish to the lengthy wars, however “O’Brian has added a clever fictional twist” with the plot bringing the reader to North Africa on a hunt for a galley filled with small gold ingots to launch a big military of mercenaries to extend the percentages of Napoleon’s large and rapidly re-constructed military successful. What makes this novel particular is the “rendering of the interior lives of the characters – his loving and apt portrayal of their wealthy mixture of feelings and experiences”. A key to the success of the novel is O’Brian’s “invention of dual heroes, the bluff and ultracompetent Aubrey being at all times accompanied by his eccentric ship’s surgeon, Stephen Maturin”, and though the Napoleonic Wars have come to an in depth, this time for good, the ending of the novel suggests it’s not the final journey for Aubrey and Maturin. Maturin rejoins the squadron at Funchal after burying his spouse, killed when her carriage overturned. Fitted out, Commodore Aubrey’s squadron meets at Gibraltar with Admiral Lord Keith, who updates him on Napoleon’s success at Paris and the armies gathered on land. He orders Aubrey first to defend a convoy of merchant ships from Moorish xebecs and galleys, and then to proceed to the Adriatic Sea to destroy any new ships being constructed to help Napoleon. The grieving Maturin, in a separate assembly, learns of a plot to send adequate gold by way of Algiers to fund Muslim mercenaries who would block the Russian forces from joining those of the other allies, so Napoleon’s military can assault one military at a time. Aubrey’s squadron is successful in defending the convoy. The captain of the Pomone is haunted by the faces of the galley slaves who died when his ship attacked theirs; Aubrey stories he died cleaning his guns, and a new captain is assigned to Pomone. The convoy proceeds towards the Adriatic, stopping in Mahón. Asea, they encounter Captain Christy-Palliere, of the Royalist Caroline and an old acquaintance, who informs Aubrey in regards to the French scenario in the Adriatic earlier than parting. Amos Jacob is distributed out on Ringle to Kutali and Spalato to achieve extra info. Surprise sinks a French frigate under the command of an Imperialist at Ragusa Vecchia. Jacob rejoins near Porte di Spalato where they meet one other French frigate, whose captain, like so many, does not wish to declare for Napoleon however fears he will win. Maturin and Jacob negotiate an settlement for the French frigate to battle a mock battle towards each Surprise and Pomone; the Frenchman then accompanies Pomone to Malta. Following up the strain put on banks not to mortgage to the small shipyards, they lay out gold to push disgruntled dockworkers to burn new French ships alongside the coast, which is effective. Reaching Algiers, Maturin and Jacob meet the Consul, Sir Peter Clifford, and his wife. They meet with the Dey’s Vizier at Kasbah, the Dey’s palace. They journey to meet the Dey, Omar Pasha, at his looking-lodge at Shatt el Khadna within the Atlas Mountains. The Dey invitations Maturin to hunt lions with him. The Dey kills a big lion while Maturin kills its lioness as it leaps to them, saving the Dey’s life. For this deed, Omar Pasha swears that no gold will sail from Algiers, and provides Maturin one in every of his rifles as a parting reward. Jacob befriends Ahmed Ben Habdal, who reveals that Pasha sent a opposite message to the Sheikh of Azgar, to have the gold carried by a fast-sailing xebec from Arzila, near Tangiers, captained by an Algerian corsair through the Strait of Gibraltar straight to Durazzo. Maturin and Jacob return to Algiers, and wait for Ringle to appear. Maturin buys two Irish youngsters within the slave market. As soon as he sees the Ringle windbound off shore, they interact a neighborhood vessel to put them aboard Ringle. Earlier than leaving, they be taught Pasha is killed, and changed by Ali Bey. Reade relates the harm sustained by Surprise during the fierce storm. They join Aubrey in Port Mahon, narwhal horn for sale and converse with Admiral Fanshawe. Aubrey agrees to pursue the xebec. They encounter Hamadryad underneath old pal Heneage Dundas, who tells them that Lord Barmouth is instead of Lord Keith. In Gibraltar, Maturin tells Aubrey not to fret about Barmouth, because Peter Arden, Barmouth’s political man, respects Lord Keith. Barmouth tells Aubrey to take his broad pennant down, as his squadron is dispersed. Later, Barmouth is joined by his new wife, who he learns is a cousin to Aubrey. On his return, Aubrey finds Barmouth friendly to him, as Barmouth wished his wife with him. Earlier than leaving for this battle, Maturin leaves the twin kids with Lady Keith. Dr Jacob learns the corsair has two galleys to act as decoys while he lies underneath Tarifa before working by the Strait. The Surprise, Ringle and the blue cutter lie in wait within the Strait. The galley sees three armed ships, and Murad Reis, her captain, fires on the frigate, destroying one gun, and killing Bonden, the coxswain, in addition to Hallam, a midshipman. After a protracted pursuit, the galley hides at Cranc (Crab) island, where Shock and Ringle, unable to observe the galley into the shallow lagoon, block the exit. A gun from the Surprise is hoisted up a cliff, the place it may possibly fire unopposed on the galley. The galley’s crew, seeing the scenario is hopeless, behead Murad and surrender. Returning victorious to Gibraltar, the Shock sees the city exploding fireworks, and learns that Napoleon has lost in the Low Nations, fully crushed. Ali Bey sends phrase he wants the gold; he is killed and the new Dey, Hassan, admits the xebec fired first, and asks for a loan to consolidate his place in Algiers. The xebec is cleaned up and sent to Algiers, whereas the gold is shared out in Gibraltar. Barmouth worries that his new spouse is simply too pleasant with Aubrey, so he sends him off to the venture in Chile. bruss trading : Commodore together with his pennant on HMS Pomone, shifted at Gibraltar to HMHV Shock; Captain of His Majesty’s Employed Vessel Shock when the convoy disperses. Stephen Maturin: Ship’s surgeon, physician, friend to Jack and an intelligence officer, recently widowed. Sophia Aubrey: Spouse of Jack Aubrey and mother of their three youngsters, Charlotte, Fanny and George. Diana Villiers: Wife of Stephen Maturin and mother of their daughter Brigid. Diana dies in a carriage accident in England after the households return from Madeira. Brigid Maturin: Young daughter of Stephen and Diana. Mrs Clarissa Oakes: Governess to Brigid Maturin. Launched in Clarissa Oakes / The Truelove. Mrs Williams: Mother of Sophia and aunt to Diana. She also is killed in the carriage accident. Padeen Colman: Irish-talking servant to Stephen Maturin, now a part of his household on land. Lieutenant Edwards and John Arrowsmith: Two retired Lieutenants dwelling in Gibraltar who narrate the arrival of Surprise and discuss recent deaths announced in the Naval Gazette. Admiral Lord Keith: Commander-in-Chief Mediterranean Fleet who referred to as Aubrey back into service at Madeira and offers orders once Aubrey reaches Gibraltar. Launched in Master and Commander. Queeney, Lady Keith: Spouse of Admiral Lord Keith and longtime buddy of Aubrey. Introduced in Grasp and Commander. Campbell: Secretary to Admiral Lord Keith, present on the assembly with Maturin. Sir Joseph Blaine: Chief naval intelligence officer, who sends his information by coded letter to Maturin. Mr William Kent: Whitehall official in Gibraltar to satisfy with Maturin. Mr Dee: Authority on Japanese issues, particularly finance of Muslim states, who is in Gibraltar to satisfy with Maturin. Dr Amos Jacob: Assistant surgeon on the Shock. He assists Maturin in languages of the jap Mediterranean. He was born an Orthodox Spanish Jew, who speaks English, French, Ladino, Hebrew, Arabic and Turkish and he’s a Cainite. He has interest in gems and trained in drugs with Maturin. Colvin: From naval intelligence, he meets Maturin at Mahon to inform him of the agreement with bankers not to make loans to small shipyards along the Adriatic Sea, and that if Maturin is prepared to work with the Carbonari, they are going to finish the duty of stopping shipbuilding when the shipyards do not pay their workers for several weeks, by setting hearth to the yards. Ibn Hazm: Shi’ite Muslim Sheikh of Azgar, at a crossroads in the desert, who is thought by Dee to have sufficient gold to pay the soldiers who would block the Russian army from meeting with the allies, thus favoring Napoleon. Barrett Bonden: Aubrey’s coxswain. He is killed in the action with the xebec. Preserved Killick: Aubrey’s steward who assists Maturin as well. Dr Glover: Surgeon on HMS Pomone. Mr Harding: First Lieutenant on the Surprise, launched within the Commodore. Mr Somers: Second Lieutenant on the Shock, asked by Maturin to act as his second after Hobden insulted Maturin. Launched within the Commodore. Mr Whewell: Third Lieutenant on the Surprise, launched within the Commodore. John Daniel: Master’s Mate on the Shock with a particular love of and skill with numbers, a very good navigator. Hobden: Marine Captain on the Surprise. Mr Woodbine: Grasp on the Surprise. Mrs Poll Skeeping: Loblolly boy on the Shock. McLeod: Joined at Gibraltar, had been on HMS Centaur when Commodore Hood set his pennant on her at Diamond Rock, and in his youth was a Saint Kilda cragsman; he agrees to aid in bringing a gun up Cranc Island. Charles de La Tour: Captain of frigate Ardent, an Imperialist (supporter of Napoleon), met at Ragusa Vecchia on the eastern shore of the Adriatic Sea. Guillaume Christy-Pallière: Captain of the Royalist Caroline and long-time pal to Aubrey and Maturin after he captured them; launched in Master and Commander. Richard: Secretary on the Caroline. Captain Delalande: Captain of the Cerbère, Royalist, who shoots blanks at Spalato, for a dignified show of force to support his stand with the Royalists. Admiral Fanshawe: Port Admiral of Mahon. James Wright: Engineer and Member of the Royal Society with information of structures. Maturin seeks him out to think about the structure of the horn of the narwhal. Omar Pasha: Dey of Algiers with whom Maturin negotiates and hunts lions. He’s a tall man, soldierly. Killed before Maturin leaves Algiers. Ali Bey: Subsequent Dey of Algiers, selected as Maturin leaves Algiers. He favors the British over Napoleon. He insists that the cargo of the xebec below Murad Reis be returned to him. On news of Napoleon’s defeat, he’s killed. Hassan: Succeeds Bey because the Dey of Algiers. He agrees that the British have been attacked by Reis, drops all claims, and asks for a loan. Vizier Hashin: Political agent for the Dey of Algiers who hoped another man would exchange Pasha as Dey. Ahmed Ben Habdal: Assistant to the Vizier, who is a Cainite like Dr Jacob. He shares data with Dr Jacob. Sir Peter Clifford: British consul at Algiers. Lady Isabel Clifford: Spouse of Sir Peter, who’s gracious however she looks down on the Irish children. Kevin and Mona Fitzpatrick: Seven-12 months-outdated twins seized off the Munster coast by Corsairs, who’re on sale in the slave market at Algiers. Maturin purchases them to return them to their household in Eire. Heneage Dundas: Captain of HMS Hamadryad, a new appointment for him. He’s a very long time friend of Aubrey. Admiral Lord Barmouth: In command of the Mediterranean fleet after Lord Keith retires. Isobel Carrington: The new Lady Barmouth and Jack Aubrey’s cousin. Matthew Arden: Political officer for Admiral Barmouth, and long time colleague of Maturin. Murad Reis: Captain of a corsair xebec carrying gold. He goals to sail from Tangiers through the Strait of Gibraltar across the Mediterranean to an Adriatic port to ship it, to pay troopers. In the battle with Shock, his crew kills him. Captain Hugh Pomfret: HMS Pomone who’s haunted by the faces of the men killed in a ship motion. Aubrey studies that he died by accident while cleansing his guns and he’s buried on land. Captain John Vaux: Appointed to exchange Pomfret on Pomone. Captain Ward: HMS Dover. Captain Brawley: HMS Rainbow. Captain Cartwright: HMS Gannymede. Captain Harris: HMS Briseis. William Reade: Master’s mate crusing Aubrey’s tender, Ringle; introduced in the Thirteen Gun Salute. In the Nutmeg of Consolation, he lost one arm in battle. The title refers back to the Hundred Days, a period when Napoleon Bonaparte escaped from Elba and briefly returned to power in France. Kirkus Reviews finds brilliantly rendered clashes at sea, but the robust level of the novel is the “utterly convincing evocation of early nineteenth-century Europe”. Paul Kennedy writing in The new York Instances says O’Brian’s tales differ from others: “However these naval tales are blended into a bigger panorama of Georgian society and politics, science, medicine, botany and the entire conspectus of contemporary Enlightenment knowledge concerning the natural world.” A key to the success of the novel is “his invention of twin heroes, the bluff and ultracompetent Aubrey being always accompanied by his eccentric ship’s surgeon, Stephen Maturin”. As this story brings the collection to the final end of the Napoleonic wars, Kennedy asks, will this be the final novel? Patrick Reardon writing in the Chicago Tribune says this novel is a bit different from the earlier ones in the sequence: “a bit unusual for books within the collection inasmuch because it has extra of a plot”. Like the rest of the series, what gives the novel distinction is the “rendering of the interior lives of the characters–his loving and apt portrayal of their wealthy mixture of feelings and experiences”. This novel begins about six weeks after the end of The Yellow Admiral, after Napoleon arrived in Paris with a large military, the king leaves Paris, and the Allied armies rapidly collect on the continent to interact Napoleon’s army. Dramatic events in England introduced Maturin home; he rejoins the squadron at Funchal. The story concludes with Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo, the ultimate finish of the Napoleonic wars till the treaties were signed in July 1815. Aubrey and Maturin set sail for Chile in the Shock to undermine Spanish colonial rule there, promoting the independence movement, to achieve an ally for Britain. This can be a continuation of the theme began in the Wine-Dark Sea. Aubrey meets Captain Christy-Pallière as an ally, after first assembly him as the lieutenant who took him and his ship prisoner in the first novel, Master and Commander. Diana’s diamond of nice worth, called the Blue Peter, was first talked about within the Fortune of Battle, used to recuperate Maturin from a French prison in the Surgeon’s Mate, pawned within the Yellow Admiral to help their household until Stephen’s fortune is once more available to him to buy it again, and on this novel, the diamond is buried with her. Sailing to the Adriatic Sea, Aubrey sends Jacob to Kutali to talk together with his allies there, to gain the newest information on the rumor from Christy-Palliere, about gold being sent to pay for soldiers who in flip would block the Russian military from becoming a member of the armies of the other allies. Aubrey and Maturin made pals in Kutali in the Ionian Mission. Hyperlinks like this emphasize how Aubrey gained both allies and skills over the course of his naval career that serve him well when the warfare re-starts. Information of several deaths is received by Maturin and Aubrey on this story. Stephen’s spouse Diana dies, as does Aubrey’s mom-in-law, Mrs Williams and her equally unpleasant companion, in a crash when Diana’s daring driving overturns their coach. Diana’s loss of life leaves Stephen utterly shattered, unwilling to eat or communicate for lengthy intervals of time, but he pulls himself collectively to foil Napoleon’s latest plot. Christine Hatherleigh Wood’s husband, Captain Wooden, the colonial governor of Sierra Leone also dies; Dr Glover tells Stephen their marriage was nearly a sham provided that the husband was impotent. Admiral Lord Stranraer’s demise is reported, as he took too much of the remedy on his own alternative, after the doctors properly tapered his dosage down. He was launched in the Yellow Admiral as an influential admiral who unfold in poor health will about Aubrey. Gossip has it the reverse (that the docs elevated the dosage, rather than the patient), seemingly as a result of he was not a properly-appreciated man. As part of the last army motion on this story, the coxswain for Aubrey, and frequent helper to Maturin, Barret Bonden, is killed instantaneously by the one cannon shot from the xebec. Other crew members are killed too, but none who began with Aubrey in Master and Commander, and sailed with him at every likelihood. There is a theme of the seaman’s notion of luck and the curiosity of the scientists. Dr Amos Jacob brings aboard a preserved hand exhibiting what is described as palmar aponeurosis – and now referred to as Dupuytren’s contracture, named for distinguished surgeon and Maturin’s pal Baron Guillaume Dupuytren, a hand with the fingers bent inwards and the fingernails rising by means of the flesh of the palm. It’s saved within the alcoholic spirits of wine to preserve it. Stephen Maturin also brings aboard a narwhal tusk given him by Aubrey from a earlier Baltic voyage. The superstitious seamen settle for one as a Hand of Glory and the other as a unicorn’s horn, and regard them as good luck charms. Seamen drink the spirits, leaving the hand much deteriorated, and put out to dry, to see what may very well be saved. The Marine Captain’s canine, Naseby, eats the hand, and an emetic only recovers the bones. The narwhal tusk is damaged when a drunken Killick and an even more drunken ship’s boy drop and break it – something that makes the domineering Killick immediately very unpopular along with his shipmates. A measure of goodwill and luck are restored on the ship when Maturin wires the bones collectively to make a skeletal hand – even more sinister trying, which pleases the crew. Good luck is restored when a marine engineer, Mr Wright, glues the horn back together after he analyses its construction. The idea and the strategies to haul a gun up Cranc island came from a seaman who had been at Diamond Rock close to Martinique in 1803, when several guns have been brought up to make a safe position. Aubrey sails his convoy to Gibraltar, then to Mahón. In looking for out ports with ships to burn or sink, they attain Ragusa Vecchia and next Porte di Spalato on the coast of the Adriatic Sea. In Algiers, Maturin visits the Kasbah, the palace of the Dey. The two-confronted Dey guarantees no gold will sail from Algiers when Maturin saves his life from the attacking lioness, but at the identical time directs that the gold sail from Arzila, just southwest of Tangiers, via the Strait of Gibraltar to Durazzo, an Adriatic port. The ship is hidden close to Tarifa, the southernmost point of Spain, to the west and south of Gibraltar along the Strait of Gibraltar. Reardon, Patrick (2 November 1998). “19th In Sequence Of Historic Sea Tales Sails Proper Along”. Chicago Tribune Ebook Overview. Day, Anthony (9 October 1998). “Aubrey Sets Sail in Pursuit of Napoleon”. Hardyment, Christina (26 August 1998). “Wednesday E-book: House on the rolling deep”. Kennedy, Paul (18 October 1998). “Naval Gazing: Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin are again in one other tale of derring-do”. The new York Occasions. O’Brian, Patrick (1999). The Hundred Days. W W Norton. p. This page was final edited on 20 March 2024, at 07:25 (UTC). Text is offered beneath the Inventive Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 4.0; additional terms may apply. By utilizing this site, you agree to the Phrases of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-revenue group.