From 1st March 1815 onwards, people started hearing that something extraordinary had happened. It was no time before everyone knew that Bonaparte had disembarked in France, at Golfe Juan to be precise; the emperor who had been exiled to the Island of Elba had arrived in France to recover his throne. This was the start of a period of a Hundred Days, in which Napoleon and his guard were to cross Provence and the Alps up to Grenoble, which they reached on 7 March, after a forced march lasting a week.

In memory of this prodigious epic, the paths taken by the Emperor and his faithful men were subsequently called the Route Napoléon. Since the date of its creation in 1969, the Action Nationale des Elus de la Route Napoléon has adopted the task of safeguarding and promoting this prestigious itinerary. So now, thanks to almost 30 years of assiduous effort,

... Tourism can walk in the footprints of history .