The war drama of the Eagles _ Napoleon_s standard-bearers on the battlefield in victory and defeat from Austerlitz to Waterloo_ a record of hard fighting_ heroism_ and adventure Ed

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Title: The war drama of the Eagles
Napoleon's standard-bearers on the battlefield in victory and
defeat from Austerlitz to Waterloo, a record of hard fighting,
heroism, and adventure

Author: Edward Fraser

Release date: February 5, 2025 [eBook #75293]

Language: English

Original publication: London: John Murray, 1912

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/75293

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THE WAR DRAMA
OF THE EAGLES

PORTE-AIGLE, IMPERIAL GUARD, AND GRENADIER SERGEANT
IN PARADE UNIFORM.
From St. Hilaire’s Histoire de la Garde Impériale.

THE WAR DRAMA
OF THE EAGLES
NAPOLEON’S STANDARD-BEARERS
ON THE BATTLEFIELD IN
VICTORY AND DEFEAT FROM
AUSTERLITZ TO WATERLOO A
RECORD OF HARD FIGHTING,
HEROISM AND ADVENTURE
BY EDWARD FRASER
AUTHOR OF “THE ENEMY AT TRAFALGAR,” “FAMOUS
FIGHTERS OF THE FLEET,” “THE ‘LONDONS,’” ETC.

“These Eagles to you shall ever be your rallying-point. Swear to
sacrifice your lives in their defence; to maintain them by your courage ever
in the path of victory.”—On the Day of the Presentation on the Field of
Mars.
“The soldier who loses his Eagle loses his Honour and his All!”
Address to the 4th of the Line after Austerlitz.
“The loss of an Eagle is an affront to the reputation of its regiment for
which neither victory nor the glory acquired on a hundred fields can make
amends.”
55th Bulletin of the Grand Army: 1807.
Napoleon.

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS

LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE

STREET, W.
1912

All Rights Reserved

PREFACE
This book breaks fresh ground in a field of romantic and widespread
interest; one that should prove attractive, associated as it is with the ever-
fascinating subject of Napoleon. Incidentally, indeed, it may also help to
throw a new sidelight on certain characteristics of Napoleon as a soldier.
I venture to hope at the same time that it will arouse interest further as
offering independent testimony to the valour of our own soldiers, the Old
British Army which, under Wellington, defeated on the battlefield the
veterans of the Eagles whose feats of heroism and hardihood are described
in the book. Magnificent as were the acts of fine daring and heroic
endurance of the men whom Wellington led to victory, no less stirring and
deserving of admiration were the deeds of chivalrous valour and stern
fortitude done for the honour of Napoleon’s Eagles by the gallant soldiers
who faced them and proved indeed foemen worthy of their steel. All who
hold in regard cool, self-sacrificing bravery and steadfast courage in
adversity and peril will find no lack of instances in the stories of what the
warriors of the Eagles dared and underwent for the name and fame of the
Great Captain.
The record of Napoleon’s Eagles in war has never before been set forth,
and the centenary year of Badajoz and Salamanca and the Moscow
Campaign seems to offer a befitting occasion for its appearance.
The world, indeed, is in the midst of a cycle of Napoleonic centenaries.
Our own centenary memories of Talavera—the victory of which Wellington
said, in later years, that if his Allies had done their part, “it would have been
as great a battle as Waterloo”—of Busaco ridge and Torres Vedras, of heroic
Barrosa and desperate Albuhera,—these are only just behind us.
Immediately ahead lie the centenaries of yet greater events. In less than a
twelvemonth hence England will mark the centenary of Vittoria,
Wellington’s decisive day in Spain, the crowning triumph of the Peninsular
War; and yet more than that in its import and sequel for Europe. It was the
news of Vittoria that, in July 1813, decided Napoleon’s father-in-law to

throw Austria’s sword into the balance against the Man of Destiny,
compelling Napoleon, with what remained of the Grand Army, to stand at
bay for the “Battle of the Nations” on the Marchfeldt before Leipsic. Within
six months from then, the world, in like manner, will recall the Farewell of
Fontainebleau, and Elba; and finally, in the year after that, the British
Empire will commemorate the epoch-making centenary of the greatest of
all British triumphs in arms on land—

“Of that fierce field where last the Eagles swooped,
Where our Great Master wielded Britain’s sword,
And the Dark Soul the world could not subdue,
Bowed to thy fortune, Prince of Waterloo!”

—the triple-event, indeed, of Waterloo, the Bellerophon, St. Helena.
The stories told here exist indeed, even in France, only in more or less
fragmentary form, scattered broadcast amongst the memoirs left by the men
of the Napoleonic time. They have not before been brought together within
the covers of a book.
I have utilised, in addition to the personal memoirs of Napoleon’s
officers, French regimental records, bulletins, and despatches (noted in my
List of Authorities), other official military documents, contemporary
newspapers, both British and foreign, and information kindly placed at my
disposal by the authorities of Chelsea Royal Hospital and the Royal United
Service Institution, and by friends abroad.
Edward Fraser.

CONTENTS
PAGE
List of Authorities xv

CHAPTER I
Napoleon adopts the Eagle of Caesar 1

CHAPTER II
The Day of the Presentation on the Field of Mars 16

CHAPTER III
In the First Campaign:
under fire with marshal ney 60
the midnight battle by the danube 80

CHAPTER IV
On the Field of Austerlitz 96

CHAPTER V
In the Second Campaign:
jena and the triumph of berlin 123
the twelve lost eagles of eylau 150

CHAPTER VI
Preparing for the Future:

the “eagle-guard” 181

CHAPTER VII
Before the Enemy at Aspern and Wagram 197

CHAPTER VIII
“The Eagle with the Golden Wreath” in London 214

CHAPTER IX
Other Eagles in England from Battlefields Of Spain 240

CHAPTER X
In the Hour of Darkest Disaster:
after moscow: how the eagles faced their fate 263
at bay in northern germany—1813 291

CHAPTER XI
That Terrible Midnight at the Invalides 316

CHAPTER XII
The Eagles of the Last Army 345

CHAPTER XIII
At Waterloo:
“ave caesar! morituri te salutant!” 375
how wellington’s trophies were won 388
the last attack and after: the eagles of the guard 405
the eagles announce victory to london 424

CHAPTER XIV
After the Downfall 432

Index 437

ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS

ILLUSTRATIONS

Porte-Aigle, Imperial Guard, and Grenadier
Sergeant in Parade Uniform Frontispiece
From St. Hilaire’s Histoire de la Garde Impériale
FACING PAGE
Marshal Mortier 90
Marshal Soult 104
In the uniform of Colonel-in-Chief of the Chasseurs of the Guard

Marshal Davout 134
Marshal Ney with the Rearguard in the Retreat
from Moscow 282
From a picture by A. Ivon, at Versailles
Photo by Alinari

Napoleon and the “Sacred Squadron” on the way to
the Beresina 288
From the picture by H. Bellangé

Napoleon’s Farewell to the Old Guard at
Fontainebleau 312
From a print after H. Vernet, kindly lent by Messrs. T. H. Parker, 45,
Whitcomb Street

The Fight for the Standard 396
Sergeant Ewart of the Scots Greys taking the Eagle of the 45th at
Waterloo
From the picture by R. Andsell, A.R.A., at Royal Hospital, Chelsea

The Square of the Old Guard at Bay after
Waterloo 412

From the picture by H. Bellangé

La Revue des Morts 434
From a picture by R. Demoraine

MAPS

Outline Map of Napoleon’s Concentration in rear of Ulm,
September 27 to October 18, 1805 82

Sketch Plan of the Positions of the Armies at the opening of
the Battle of Austerlitz 98

Sketch Plan of the Battlefield of Eylau 154

plan of the Battle of Barrosa 222

Waterloo. The Charge of the Union Brigade 394

Waterloo—the Final Phase. Sketch Plan to show the attack
and the defeat of the columns of the Guard 410

General Map 436

LIST OF AUTHORITIES
Alison: History of Europe.
Avrillon, Pion des Loches, Pelet, Combes, Du Roure de Paulin,
Vionnet, Bertin, Thirion, Noel, Dupuy, Blaze, St. Chamans,
Vigée-Lebrun, etc.: Souvenirs.
Barboux, General: War Services.
Bardin: Dictionnaire de l’Armée. Bardin: Memorial de l’Officier.
Beamish: The King’s German Legion.
Beauvais: Victoires des Français, 1792–1815.
Berthezéne, General: Souvenirs Militaires.
Bignon: Memoirs of Napoleon’s Campaigns.
Bouillé: Les Drapeaux Français.
Bourrienne: Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte.
Bugeaud, Marshal: Memoirs.
Byrne, Miles: Memoirs.
Catalogue:—Heeres Museum—Wien.
Catalogue:—Real Armeria—Madrid.
Cathcart, Hon. Sir C.: Commentaries—1812–13.
Caulaincourt: Recollections.
Chambray: History of the Russian Expedition.
Champeaux: Honneur et Patrie.
Charbouclière: Dictionnaire de l’Armée.
Charras: Campagne de 1815.
Chichester and Short: Records and Badges of the British Army.

Colborn: United Service Journal (passim): Regimental Histories
(British and French), etc.
Correspondance Militaire de Napoléon.
Cotton: A Voice from Waterloo.
Dalton: The Waterloo Roll Call.
Das Zeughaus zu Berlin.
Davout, Marshal: Memoirs.
De Gonneville: Souvenirs Militaires.
Demmin: Weapons of War.
Desjardins: Recherches sur les Drapeaux.
De Suzanne, General: L’Infanterie Française.
De Suzanne, General: La Cavalerie Française.
Ducasse: Visite à l’Hôtel des Invalides.
Ducor: Aventures d’un Marin de la Garde.
Dumas, M.: Souvenirs Militaires.
Dumas, M.: Précis des Evènemens Militaires.
Fantin des Odoards, General: Journal.
Fézensac: Journal of the Russian Campaign—1812–13.
Fézensac: Souvenirs Militaires.
Foy, General: History of the War in Spain.
Gardner, Darsey: Quatre Bras, Ligny, Waterloo.
Gleig: Narrative of the Battle of Leipsic.
Gourgaud: Napoleon and the Grand Army in Russia.
Grose: Military Antiquities.
Home: Précis of Modern Tactics.
Hooper: Waterloo: The Downfall of the First Napoleon.

Houssaye: Napoléon, Homme de Guerre.
Houssaye: Waterloo.
Jeanneney: Le Glorieux Passé d’un Régiment.
Jomini: L’Art de Guerre.
Jomini: Life of Napoleon I.
Junot, Marshal: Memoirs.
Jurien de la Gravière: Guerres Maritimes.
Labaume: History of the Campaign in Russia.
Lacroix, D.: Les Maréchaux de Napoléon.
Lacroix, D.: Histoire Anecdotique du Drapeau Français.
Lallemand: Les Drapeaux des Invalides—1814.
Lamartine: History of the Restoration.
Lanfrey: History of Napoleon I.
La Valette: Memoirs.
Lejeune: Memoirs.
Lemonnier-Delafosse: Campagnes de 1810–15.
Lyden: Nos 144 Régiments de Ligne.
Macdonald, Marshal: Recollections.
MacGeorge: Flags and their History.
Marbot: Memoirs.
Marbot et De Noirmont: Costumes Militaires Françaises.
Marmont, Marshal: The Spirit of Military Institutions.
Masson: Cavaliers de Napoléon. Masson: Livre du Sacre de
l’Empereur. Masson: Souvenirs et Recits des Soldats.
Maxwell, Sir H.: Life of Wellington. Maxwell, Sir H.: Victories
of the British Armies.
Maxwell, W. H.: Peninsular War Sketches.

Memoirs of Sergeant Bourgogne.
Menéval: Memoirs.
Military Costumes of Europe—1812.
Milne: Standards and Colours.
Morvan: Le Soldat Impérial.
Napier: History of the Peninsular War.
Narrative of Captain Coignet.
Ney, Marshal: Memoirs.
Niox, General: Drapeaux et Trophées.
Odeleben: Napoleon’s Campaign in Saxony, 1813.
[Officially Published] Historiques des Régiments de l’Armée.
[Officially Published] Publications de la Réunion des Officiers.
Oudinot, Marshal: Memoirs.
Parquin: Campagnes d’un Vieux Soldat.
Pattison: Napoleon’s Marshals.
Penguilly l’Haridon: Catalogue Musée d’Artillerie.
Potsdam und seine Umgebung.
Rapp, General: Memoirs.
Rey: Histoire du Drapeau.
Robert, Colonel: Catalogue, Musée d’Artillerie.
Rose: Life of Napoleon I.
St. Hilaire: Histoire de la Garde Impériale. St. Hilaire: Histoire
Populaire de Napoléon I.
Savary: Memoirs.
Ségur: Au Drapeau. Ségur: History of the Expedition to Russia.
Ségur: Memoirs. Ségur: Procès Verbal de la Couronnement de
Napoléon.

Seruzier: Memoirs.
Shaw Kennedy, Sir John: Notes on Waterloo.
Sherer, Moyle: Tales of the Wars.
Shoberl: Narrative of the Battle of Leipsic.
Siborne: Campaign of Waterloo.
Siborne: Waterloo Letters.
Sloane: Life of Napoleon I.
Soult, Marshal: Memoirs.
Southey: History of the Peninsular War.
Stendhal: Journal and Correspondence.
Stocqueler: The British Soldier.
Taylor, Sir Herbert: Waterloo.
Thiébault, Baron: Memoirs.
Thiers: Consulate and Empire.
Wellington: Despatches.
Wilson, Sir R.: Narrative of Events in Russia, 1812. Wilson, Sir
R.: Private Journal of the Russian Campaign.
Wood, Sir Evelyn: Cavalry in the Waterloo Campaign.

(Note.—This list is approximately complete, representing about 90
per cent. of the total of authorities consulted and laid under
contribution.)

THE WAR DRAMA OF THE
EAGLES

CHAPTER I

NAPOLEON ADOPTS THE EAGLE OF
CAESAR
Napoleon Bonaparte became Emperor, “by Divine Will and the
Constitution of the French Republic”—Imperator and hereditary Caesar of
the Republic—on Friday, May 18, 1804. Three weeks later it was publicly
announced in the Moniteur that the Eagle had been adopted as the heraldic
cognisance of the new régime in France.
Its selection for the State armorial bearing of the Empire was one of
Napoleon’s first acts. That the Roman lictor’s axe and fasces surmounted by
the red Phrygian cap, with its traditions of revolution, which had supplanted
the Fleur-de-Lis of the Monarchy, and had served as the official badge on
the standards of the Republic and the Consulate, should continue under the
Imperial régime, was obviously impossible. But what distinctive emblem
should be adopted in its stead?
Napoleon had the question debated in his presence at the first séance of
the Imperial Council of State. He had, it would seem, not made up his mind
in regard to it. At any rate, a few days before the meeting of the Council, he
had directed a Committee to draw up a statement and offer suggestions.
The matter was brought forward at the first meeting of the Imperial
Council, held at the Château of Saint-Cloud on Tuesday, June 12, 1804,
after a preliminary discussion on the arrangements for the Coronation, when
and where it should be held, and what was to be the form of ceremonial.
The Coronation, all agreed at the outset, must take place in the current year.
Rheims, Aix-la-Chapelle, and Paris, in turn, were suggested as suitable
places for the ceremony, Paris being finally decided on; the scene of the
event to be the Champ de Mars. Napoleon himself proposed the Champs de
Mars, with a threefold ceremony there—the taking of the constitutional
oath, the actual coronation, the presentation of the Emperor to the
assembled people. A brief discussion followed on the form of the

coronation ceremony, whether it should be accompanied by religious rites.
It was put forward that, as Charlemagne had received his authority from the
Pope, might not the Pope now be induced to visit Paris and personally
crown the Emperor? Napoleon, intervening in the discussion, made a strong
point of the necessity of some kind of religious service on the occasion. He
did not care much, he cynically remarked, what religion was selected; only
it must be in accordance with the views of the majority of the nation. It
would be impossible to do without some sort of religious observance. In all
nations, said he, Ceremonies of State were accompanied by religious
services. As to asking the Pope to take part, from his point of view, at the
moment, the attendance of a Papal legate would be preferable. If the Pope
himself came to Paris, his presence would assuredly tend to relegate the
Emperor to a secondary position: “Tout le monde me laisserait pour courir
voir le Pape!” The matter, however, as the discussion proceeded, seemed to
present so many difficulties, that the Council, after declaring themselves
generally against having any religious ceremony at all, decided to leave the
question for further consideration.
On that the Council turned to deal with the selection of the heraldic
insignia and official badge of the Empire.
THE GALLIC Senator Crétet, on behalf of the special Committee
COCK appointed by Napoleon to prepare a statement for the
PROPOSED
Council, presented his report. The Committee, he said,
had decided unanimously to recommend the Cock, the historic national
emblem of Ancient Gaul, as the most fitting cognisance for Imperial France.
Should that not find favour with the Council, either the Eagle, the Lion, or
the Elephant, in the opinion of the Committee, might well be adopted.
Individual members of the Committee, added Crétet, had further suggested
the Aegis of Minerva, or some flower like the Fleur-de-Lis, an Oak-tree, or
an Ear of Corn.
Miot, one of the members of the Council, rose as Crétet sat down, and
protested against the re-introduction of the Fleur-de-Lis. That, he said, was
imbecility. He proposed a figure of the Emperor seated on his throne as the
best possible badge for the French Empire.
He was not seconded, however, and Napoleon interposed abruptly to
set aside the Committee’s suggestion of reviving the Gallic Cock. He

dismissed that notion with a contemptuous sneer. “Bah,” he exclaimed, “the
Cock belongs to the farmyard! It is far too feeble a creature!” (“Le Coq est
de basse cour. C’est un animal trop faible!”) Napoleon spoke rapidly and
vivaciously. He had not yet, in those early days, acquired the impressive
Imperial style that he afterwards affected. “His language at these earlier
Council meetings was still impregnated with his original Jacobin style; he
spoke frequently, spontaneously, familiarly; monologued at the top of his
voice (avec des éclats de voix); apostrophised frequently, appearing at times
as though overcome with nervousness, now almost in tears, now breaking
out in a frenzy of passion, unrestrainedly emphasising his personal likes and
dislikes.”
THE LION—THE Count Ségur, Imperial Grand Master of the
ELEPHANT— Ceremonies, suggested the Lion as the most suitable
THE BEE
emblem: “parcequ’il vaincra le Léopard,” he explained.
Councillor Laumond proposed the adoption of the Elephant instead;
with for a motto “Mole et Mente.” The Elephant had a great vogue at that
day among European heraldic authorities as being pre-eminently a royal
beast. There was a widely prevalent belief, on the authority of old writers
on natural history, that an Elephant could not be made to bow its knees.
Further, too, the elephant typified resistless strength as well as
magnanimity. And had not Caesar himself once placed the effigy of the
Elephant on the Roman coinage? Nobody else at the Council, however,
seemed to care for the Elephant.
Councillor Simon objected to Ségur’s proposition, on the score that the
Lion was essentially an aggressive beast.
Cambacérès, ex-Consul and Arch-Chancellor of the Empire, suggested
a swarm of Bees as the most suitable national emblem. It would represent
the actual situation of France, he explained—a republic with a presiding
chief.
Councillor Lacuèe supported Cambacérès. The Bee, he added, was the
more suitable, in that it possessed a sting as well as being a maker of honey.
Cambacérès remarked that he favoured the idea of the Bee as typifying
peaceful industry rather than offensive power.

The other members took no interest in the idea of the Bee, and after
some discursive talk the Council fell back on the Committee’s original
suggestion of the historic Gallic Cock. The general voice favoured the
adoption of the Cock, and they unanimously voted for it.
That, however, would not do for Napoleon. He sharply refused once
more to hear of the Cock in any circumstances. He had for some minutes sat
silent, listening to the discussion until the vote was taken. On that he rose
and banned the Cock absolutely and finally.
“The Cock is quite too weak a creature,” he exclaimed. “A thing like
that cannot possibly be the cognisance of an Empire such as France. You
must make your choice between the Eagle, the Elephant, and the Lion!”
The Eagle, however, did not commend itself to the Council. That
emblem, it was pointed out by several members, had been already adopted
by other European nations. For France, such being the case, the Eagle
would not be sufficiently distinctive. The German Empire had the Eagle for
its cognisance. So had Austria. So had Prussia. So had Poland even—the
White Eagle of the Jagellons. The Council was plainly not attracted by the
Eagle.
Lebrun, the other ex-Consul, Arch-Treasurer of the Empire, now put in
a word again for the Fleur-de-Lis. It had been, he said, the national emblem
of France under all the previous dynasties. The Fleur-de-Lis, declared
Lebrun, was the real historic emblem of France, and he proposed that it
should be adopted for the Empire.
Nobody, though, supported him, one member, Councillor Regnaud,
condemning the idea of the Fleur-de-Lis as utterly out of date. “The nation,”
added Regnaud, with a sneer, “will neither go back to the cult of the Lilies
nor to the religion of Rome!”
“YOU MUST At that point Napoleon lost patience. Interposing to
CHOOSE THE close the discussion, he curtly bade the Council to cease
LION!”
from wasting time. They must decide on the Lion for the
Imperial Emblem. His preference was for the figure of a Lion, lying over
the map of France, with one paw stretched out across the Rhine: “Il faut
prendre un Lion, s’étendu sur la carte de France, la patte prête à dépasser le

Rhin.” Napoleon proposed in addition, by way of motto, beneath the Lion-
figure, these defiant words: “Malheur à qui me cherche!”
No more was said on the subject after that. The Council submitted
forthwith to Napoleon’s dictation, and, as it would appear, without taking
any formal vote, passed to the remaining business of the day: the inscription
on the new coinage and certain amendments to the Criminal Code.
But even then, as it befell, the decision as to the national emblem was
not conclusive. Napoleon changed his mind about the Lion shortly after the
Council had broken up. The Lion as the designated cognisance of the
French Empire did not last twenty-four hours. Napoleon himself, on the
report of the Council meeting being presented for his signature, definitely
rejected the Lion. He cancelled his own proposition with a stroke of his pen.
With his own hand the Emperor struck out the words “Lion couchant,” with
the reference to the map of France and the Rhine, writing over the erasure,
“Un Aigle éploye”—an Eagle with extended wings. So Napoleon
independently settled the matter.
Napoleon, as it would appear, in making his ultimate choice of the
Eagle, had this in his mind. Charlemagne was ever in his thoughts at that
time as his own destined exemplar. The Eagle of Charlemagne, it was now
borne in upon his mind irresistibly, had a pre-eminent claim to be recalled
and become the national heraldic badge for the new Frankish Empire of the
West, as having been the traditional emblem of Imperial authority in the
ancient Frankish Empire, the prototype and historic predecessor of the
Empire of which he was head. Said Napoleon, indeed, in justifying his final
adoption of the Eagle: “Elle affirme la dignité Impériale et rappelait
Charlemagne.”
WHERE THE A commission to design the new Imperial Eagle
ARTIST GOT HIS “after that of Charlemagne” was forthwith given to
DESIGN
Isabey (the elder Isabey—Jean Baptiste), “Peintre et
Dessinateur du Cabinet de l’Empereur,” whose reputation was at that
moment at its zenith. The artist, however, had no Carlovingian model to
draw from, and nobody, it would appear, could give him any advice. He had
to depict “Un Aigle éployé”—a Spread-Eagle. Discarding heraldic
conventionalism, he produced the Napoleonic Eagle of history; an Eagle au
naturel, shown in the act of taking wing. The idea of it Isabey took from a

sketch he himself had made nine years before, in the Monastery of the
Certosa of Milan, of an eagle sculptured on one of the tombs of the
Visconti.
Following on his adoption of the Eagle for the cognisance of the
Empire at large, Napoleon announced that the Eagle would in future be the
battle-standard of the Army. He had, though, as to that Eagle, yet another
thought in his mind. For his soldiers he desired the French Eagle to
represent the military standard of Ancient Rome, the historic emblem of
Caesar’s legionaries, with its resplendent traditions of world-wide victory.
That intention, furthermore, Napoleon went out of his way to emphasise
significantly through the place and moment that he chose for the
promulgation of the Army Order appointing the Eagle of the Caesars as the
battle-standard of the French Empire. The Imperial rescript was dated from
the Camp of the “Army of the Ocean” at Boulogne; from amidst the vast
array of soldiers mustered there for the threatened invasion of England.
At the same time Isabey’s design for one Eagle would suffice as a
model for the other. It sufficiently suggested the Roman type. Like
Charlemagne, had not Napoleon led his army across the Alps? like Caesar,
was he not about to lead it across the Straits?
“The Eagle with wings outspread, as on the Imperial Seal, will be at the
head of the standard-staves, as was the practice in the Roman army—
(placée au sommet du bâton, telle que la portaient les Romains). The flag
will be attached at the same distance beneath the Eagle, as was the
Labarum.” So Napoleon wrote in his preliminary instructions from
Boulogne to Marshal Berthier, Head of the Etat-Major of the “Army of
England,” at that moment on duty at the War Office in Paris.
The Eagle, Napoleon directed, was of itself to constitute the standard:
“Essentiellement constituer l’étendard,” were Napoleon’s words. He set a
secondary value on the flag which the Eagle surmounted. The flag to
Napoleon was a subsidiary adjunct.
THE FLAG OF Flags, of course, would come and go. They could be
MINOR renewed, he wrote, as might be necessary, at any time;
ACCOUNT
every two years, or oftener. The Eagle, on the other hand,
was to be a permanency. It was to be for all time the standard of its corps:

also, to add still further to its sacrosanct nature and éclat, every Eagle
1
would be received only from the hands of the Emperor.
Every Battalion of Foot and Squadron of Horse was to have its Eagle,
which, on parade and before the enemy under fire, would be in the special
charge of the battalion or squadron sergeant-major, with an escort of picked
veteran soldiers; “men who had distinguished themselves on the battlefield
in at least two combats.”
Exceptional care, Napoleon laid down, was to be taken by regimental
commanders that no harm should befall the Eagle. In the event of accident
happening to it, a special report was to be made direct to the Emperor.
Should it unfortunately happen that the Eagle was lost in battle, the
regiment concerned would have to prove to the Emperor’s satisfaction that
there had been no default. No new Eagle would be granted in place of one
lost until the regiment in question had atoned for the slur on its character by
either achieving “éclatante” distinction in the field, by some exceptionally
brilliant feat of arms, or by presenting the Emperor with an enemy’s
standard “taken by its own valour.”
The silken tricolor flag, as has been said, was in the eyes of Napoleon
of subordinate account. It was to be considered merely as a set-off to the
Eagle, as merely “l’ornement de l’Aigle.” The Eagle, and the Eagle only,
must be the object of the soldier’s devotion. Napoleon paid little regard to
the flag, beyond as being of use for displaying the record of a regiment’s
war career. He would have liked indeed, as it would seem, to substitute
another flag altogether, and went so far as to have designs for a green
2
regimental flag submitted to him. Prudence, however, forbade its
introduction, and directions were issued that the general pattern of tricolor
standard in use under the Consulate should be retained, with minor
alterations of detail in the design rendered necessary in consequence of the
new constitution of the State.
THE LEGEND The regimental flags would consist of a white
ON THE FLAG diamond-shaped centre, with the corners of the flag
alternately red and blue; according to the pattern
authorised two years previously by Napoleon as First Consul. Thus the
national colours would continue to be represented. For the Infantry, in the
centre of each flag would be, on one side, the words “Empire Français,”

with the legend, inscribed in letters of gold, “L’Empereur des Français au
—e Régiment d’Infanterie de Ligne,” which would take the place of the
Republican inscription hitherto borne there; the number of each corps being
inscribed in the blank space and in a laurel chaplet embroidered at each
corner of the flag. For Cavalry the inscription ran: “L’Empereur des
Français au —e Cuirassiers,” or “au —e Chasseurs”; and so on for other
corps, Artillery, Dragoons, and Hussars.
On the reverse, for corps of all arms, with the exception of the Guard,
was emblazoned the motto “Valeur et Discipline,” and beneath it the
number of the battalion or squadron in each regiment.
Below the numbers was added any Inscription of Honour which had
been granted to the corps, such as, in the case of one regiment, “Le 15e est
couvert de la Gloire”; in the case of another, “Le Terrible 57e qui rien
n’arrête”; with others, “Le Bon et Brave 28e”; “Le 75e arrive et bât
l’Ennemi”; “J’étais tranquille, le brave 32e était là”; “Il n’est pas possible
d’être plus brave que le 63e”; “Brave 18e, je vous connais. L’Ennemi ne
tiendra pas devant vous”; and so on. These were mostly quotations from
“mentions in despatches” made by Napoleon in regard to regiments in his
famous “Army of Italy,” authorised by him, at first of his own initiative,
and later as First Consul, to be recorded as Inscriptions of Honour on the
regimental colours. The flags of other corps bore names of victories of note
in which the regiments had taken part; as, for instance, “Rivoli,” “Lodi,”
3
“Marengo.”
PROPOSED FOR Napoleon overlooked nothing that might add to the
CORONATION prestige of his Eagles. Not only would he himself
DAY personally present its Eagle to each regiment, but, further,
there would be at the outset a general presentation of
Eagles in Paris to the whole Army, which would be made a State event of
significance, and form an integral part of the ceremony of his Coronation.
On that Napoleon had insisted, in reply to a technical legal objection raised
at one of the meetings of the Council of State. It was not to be a Parisian
popular show. He was ready, indeed, he said, to transfer the ceremony to
Boulogne. “Je rassemblerais deux cent mille hommes au camp. Là j’aurais
une population couverte des blessures dont je serais sûr!” He gave
directions that the Presentation of the Eagles should take place on the Field

of Mars in front of the Military School, on the same day as the Coronation,
and should follow immediately after the religious service and his actual
4
crowning and consecration by the Pope in Notre Dame.

CHAPTER II

THE DAY OF THE PRESENTATION ON
THE FIELD OF MARS

THE DAY The Coronation, Napoleon first proposed, should take
FINALLY FIXED place in the Chapel of the Invalides, on the historic day of
the 18th Brumaire (November 9). Directly after it he
would proceed in Imperial State, wearing his crown and robes, to the Field
of Mars—the Champ de Mars, in front of the Military School, a stone’s-
throw away—there to administer the Military Oath of Allegiance to the
Army and distribute the Eagles at a grand review to be attended by
representative deputations from every regiment of the Army from all over
the Empire, assembled in Paris for the occasion. It was found preferable,
however, that the Coronation service should take place in the Cathedral of
Notre Dame instead of at the Invalides; and at a later date. Still, however,
Napoleon held to his first idea of proceeding direct from the Coronation
ceremony to the Field of Mars. He insisted that the presentation of the
Eagles should follow as a joint ceremony immediately after his own
consecration service. But there was Josephine to be considered. She was to
accompany Napoleon throughout. The Empress, for her part, on hearing
what was intended, declared herself physically incapable of bearing the
strain of the double ceremony, and, in the result, Napoleon changed his
original purpose at the eleventh hour. He consented to put off the
presentation of the Eagles until the following morning. That plan, in turn,
had to be altered. On the very afternoon of the Coronation, on his return to
the Tuileries from Notre Dame, Napoleon found himself compelled, in
consequence of the Empress’s state of nervous prostration after the
fatiguing Cathedral service, again to defer the ceremony of the presentation
of the Eagles. The Emperor now fixed the following Wednesday, December
5, for the “Fête des Aigles,” as the Army spoke of it—three days from then.
There was no further putting off after that.

The plans for the muster were drawn up on a grandiose and elaborate
scale. They provided for an immense attendance under arms of, according
to one account, eighty thousand men; to comprise the Imperial Guard, and
the garrison of Paris, together with special detachments sent to Paris as
representative deputations by every regiment and corps of the Army, from
all over the Empire. Over a thousand Eagles altogether were to be
presented: two hundred and eighty to cavalry regiments; six hundred odd to
infantry, artillery, and special corps; between forty and fifty to the Navy
(one for the crew of every ship of the Line in commission); besides a
hundred and eight to the departmental legions of the National Guard, the
constitutional militia of Revolutionary France, which Napoleon, for reasons
of policy, could not pass over. Every infantry battalion and cavalry
squadron, and brigade (or battery) of artillery was to have its Eagle.
Each infantry deputation, from both the Imperial Guard and the Line,
would comprise the colonel or regimental commander, four other officers,
and ten sous-officiers and men from each of the three battalions that at that
period made up a French regiment of Foot. In all, in addition to the
regiments of the Imperial Guard, one hundred and twelve regiments of the
Line were to be represented, together with thirty-one of Light Infantry,
twelve of Grenadiers, and one of foreign infantry. A deputation of fifteen
officers and men was to represent each of the hundred and odd cavalry
regiments of the Guard and Line; and smaller individual detachments would
represent the various other arms and branches of the service appointed to
receive Eagles. They would all pass before the Emperor and receive their
Eagles from him personally, on behalf of their absent comrades, the six
hundred thousand men who at that moment constituted the active field army
of France. From every French ship of the Line in commission there would
in like manner attend ten officers and men.
THE WHOLE From far and near the detachments of soldiers and
ARMY sailors converged on the capital, marching some of them
REPRESENTED
hundreds of miles from the most distant frontier garrisons
of the Empire, and being several weeks on the road. The deputations of the
First Army Corps, for instance, part of which was stationed in Hanover, set
off early in October; some of its soldiers, quartered by the Elbe, and with
from four to five hundred miles of road before them, started in the last week
of September. The detachments from Italy and the Venetian frontier, for

another instance, the deputations from the 1st of the Line, the 10th, the
52nd, and 101st of the Verona garrison, had over eight hundred miles to go,
and started early in September. Quite an army, indeed, was on the move
along the highways of France during October and November; all heading
for Paris, marching by day and being billeted in the towns and villages by
night. A huge series of detachments came from the camp of the “Army of
the Ocean” at Boulogne assembled for the invasion of England. Marshal
Soult, the Commander-in-Chief at Boulogne, with Marshals Davout and
Ney, preceded them, Admiral Bruix, in charge of the Boulogne “Invasion
Flotilla” of gunboats and transports, accompanying Soult. The troops in
Holland; the garrisons of the Rhine fortresses, such as Mayence and
Strasburg, and of Metz; that of Bayonne on the Spanish frontier; troops at
every place of arms and cantonment and regimental dépôt all over France—
all sent their deputations; also every outlying camp, every naval port along
the coast, from the Texel and Antwerp, Brest, Rochfort, and L’Orient round
to Toulon, in the south.
Orders were given in every case that the detachments were each to
bring the existing regimental colours, which, it was understood, were to be
given up on parade in exchange for the Eagles.
A roomy expanse of level ground several acres in extent, an oblong-
shaped area nearly three-quarters of a mile in length and six hundred yards
across, the Field of Mars offered an ideal place for a showy military
spectacle. Thousands of people could look on comfortably at the display
from the turfed slopes of the twenty-feet-high embankment which skirted
the Field of Mars on three sides, and had been fitted up by the municipality
with rows of seats in closely set tiers. As many as three hundred thousand
spectators, indeed, could on occasion be accommodated there. The fourth
side of the Champ de Mars was bounded by the façade of the Ecole
Militaire—three great domed blocks of buildings connected together and
affording a grand view of the scene for hundreds of privileged guests. The
entire frontage of the Military School to the height of the first-floor
windows was taken up for the Day of the Eagles parade by an immense
grand-stand, constructed to form a series of pavilions for the
accommodation of the great official personages invited; with, in the centre,
in front of the lofty colonnaded portico, a magnificently decorated Imperial

Pavilion, whence Napoleon and Josephine seated on their thrones would
look on and receive the homage of the Army.
THE WEATHER The only thing that was unpropitious was the
ON THAT weather. It proved, as far as the weather went, an
MORNING
unfortunate change of date. The day of the Coronation,
December 2—it was, by the way, Advent Sunday—had been cold and
trying, with lowering clouds overhead, but dry. On the Monday, Napoleon’s
second choice, it was much the same out of doors; and on the Tuesday the
weather kept fair. Then, however, it changed. During Tuesday afternoon the
glass began to go down ominously and a chilly wind from the south-east set
in. Towards ten at night rain and sleet in incessant showers began to fall—
typical Frimaire weather, in keeping with the character of the “sleety
month.” “When it did not rain,” says somebody, “it snowed, and between
whiles it rained and snowed at the same time.” That was what the weather
was like when Wednesday morning broke; but in spite of it the Imperial
programme was to be carried out in its entirety, and hundreds of thousands
of intending spectators braved the discomfort and started early to get a good
place for witnessing the historic display.
All Paris turned out early, prepared to sit out the day from eight in the
morning until probably after four in the afternoon, packed in dense masses
round the Champ de Mars.
The heavy firing of salvos of artillery soon after dawn, from a dozen
points all over Paris, ushered in the day’s doings. The whole city was
already, as has been said, astir and in the streets, making its way to the
Champ de Mars. Everywhere dark columns of cloaked soldiers, horse and
foot, artillerymen without their guns, were tramping along through the slush
and mud for their posts; some to take part on the route of the procession,
which was to start from the Tuileries; most of them bound for the Field of
Mars. Along the streets to be passed by the Imperial procession the houses
were gaily decked out with festoons and branches of evergreens, or with
coloured hangings and drapings. Oriental rugs of gorgeous hues and
patterns, hired or borrowed for the Coronation week, hung from most of the
windows; they were the favourite form of decoration. Here and there flags
were seen, but it was not the fashion in Paris at that day to fly flags largely
on days of public rejoicing.

At ten o’clock the cannon again thundered out an Imperial salute—a
hundred and one guns. All knew what that was for, and there was a hush of
expectation all over Paris. The guns meant that the Emperor had started;
that the Imperial State procession had left the Tuileries. At that moment the
chilly drizzle of sleet was still coming down, but the universal enthusiasm
rose superior to the wet and cold. No weather could damp the anticipations
of the excited Parisians over the Imperial spectacle.
MURAT On the Champ de Mars, as the guns began to fire, the
COMMANDS soldiers—all long since in their places drawn up in
THE PARADE
closely massed columns, that ranged right round the
parade ground on three sides—stripped off and rolled up their soaked
cloaks, fixed bayonets, and stood to arms. Murat, Governor of Paris,
Commander-in-Chief on the parade, took post in front of the Imperial
Pavilion before the Ecole Militaire: a gorgeous figure in a bright blue velvet
uniform coat, resplendently embroidered with gold, a lilac sash with
crimson stripes round his waist; in scarlet breeches braided with gold,
purple leather Hessians, trimmed and tasselled with gold, with gleaming
gold spurs and sabre-scabbard; wearing a Marshal’s cocked hat with
crimson ostrich-plumes, and mounted on a no less splendidly caparisoned
charger, with leopard-skin and crimson and gold saddle-trappings. A
brilliant entourage of staff officers and dandy aides de camp, daintily attired
in pearl-grey uniforms, with silver lace, or in crimson and green and gold,
clustered in rear of their chief.
Simultaneously, the massed bands of the Imperial Guard, who had been
playing national airs and popular music at times during the past hour,
formed to the front near by.
For the time being, until after the Emperor should arrive and take his
seat on the throne, the troops on parade, comprising the Army deputations
to receive the Eagles, remained as they had been marshalled on arrival;
arranged in a vast fan-shaped formation round three sides of the Champ de
Mars. The entire Imperial Army of Napoleon stood represented within that
space: Imperial Guard, and Line, Cavalry and Artillery; the sailors of the
Navy; the National Guard,—the mise en scène presenting a tremendous
impression of martial power, as all stood formed up in close order, in their
full-dress review-uniforms, muskets held stiffly at the support, bayonets
fixed.

The Imperial procession set off in full State, accompanied by much the
same display of martial pomp that had attended the great Coronation
progress to Notre Dame of three days before. It moved off in a pelting
squall of sleet; but, almost immediately afterwards, as though Heaven
would fain spare the show, within a few minutes of the start, the sleet and
rain ceased and the weather unexpectedly improved.
THE Foremost of all, the mounted Mamelukes of the
MAMELUKES Guard came prancing by, radiant in Oriental garb, their
LEAD THE WAY
curved scimitars drawn and gleaming; a hundred swarthy
figures in scarlet calpacks swathed round with white turbans, garbed in
vivid green burnous-cloaks well thrown back to display gold-embroidered
scarlet jackets, bright straw-coloured sashes, and baggy scarlet trousers.
Their famous Horse-tail Standard headed the squadron. Eight hundred
stalwart troopers of Napoleon’s pet regiment, the corps whose uniform he
always wore in camp, the Chasseurs of the Guard, followed immediately
after the Mamelukes. An ideal corps d’élite they looked as they rode by, in
their bristling busbies of dark fur topped with waving crimson and green
plumes, dark green double-breasted jackets, and crimson breeches; with
crimson pelisses hanging at the shoulder, fur-trimmed and barred with
yellow braid in hussar style. These two corps led the van of the procession.
The first set of Imperial coaches, with six horses each and outriders,
thereupon came by. They carried mostly State magnificos and grandees of
exalted position at Court. Coach after coach went slowly past at a dignified
pace: eight—nine—ten—eleven—conveyances, all spick and span with
new gilding and varnish. The twelfth coach, beside which rode a bevy of
smart equerries, held the Princesses of the Bonaparte family: five grown-up
ladies and the little daughter of Princess Louis. It was rather a tight squeeze,
for the five Imperial Highnesses were plump and bulky persons, and had to
be wedged closely; they brought with them too, each lady, several yards of
train, brocaded stuff with stiff edging of gilt-gimp, and thick purple and
emerald green velvet mantling, which had all to be got in and kept from
crumpling as much as possible! What they said to one another has not been
recorded—they were usually free-spoken women with comments for most
things ready to their tongues, like other daughters of the Revolution. At any
rate this is known. They were in white silk dresses, low necked, and, in
spite of their close packing, shivered with the cold, which they felt bitterly.

“We were all,” related a Lady of Honour elsewhere in the procession,
“thinly dressed, as for a heated ball-room, and had only thin Cashmere
shawls to keep our shoulders warm with.”
Then came more soldiers. The immediate escort of the Emperor now
appeared. Sitting erect and stiff in their saddles, the Carabiniers rode up—
the senior cavalry regiment of France—eight hundred picked horsemen
uniformed in Imperial blue and crimson and gold, with helmets of
burnished brass, over which nodded thick tufted crests of crimson wool.
The officers, superb beings adorned with breastplates of gleaming brass, led
the regiment. The Carabiniers claimed to be the only corps of the
Napoleonic Army which could prove continuity with the Old Royal Army,
if not indeed with the historic “Maison du Roi” itself, the Household
Brigade of the Monarchy, owing to a curious oversight at the Revolution
through which the regiment had escaped dispersal.
Then came the Man of the Hour.
THE IMPERIAL Napoleon now appeared, in his brand-new Imperial
COACH State coach. Eight noble bays drew it—with harness and
APPEARS
trappings of red morocco leather studded with golden
bees. A marvellous vehicle to look at was Napoleon’s coach, gleaming all
over with gilded carved work; its roof topped by a great golden crown,
modelled “after that of Charlemagne,” as people told one another, upheld by
four glistening gilded eagles. The State coach sparkled all over, looking as
if encrusted with gold; a gleaming mass of carved and gilded decorations,
representing allegorical emblems, heraldic designs, and coats of arms in
colour.
Napoleon’s head coachman of the Consulate days, César, sat on the
box, his fat form embedded in the centre of a luxurious hammer-cloth of
scarlet velvet, spangled over with golden bees. Outriders in green and gold
and walking footmen beside the horses added their part; also half a score of
Pages of Honour, hanging on all round at the sides and back of the coach, in
green velvet coats, gold laced down the seams, with green silk shoulder-
knots, scarlet silk breeches and stockings, and white ostrich-plumes in their
jaunty black velvet hats: most of the lads future officers of the Guard. At
either side rode Equerries and Officiers d’Ordonnance, in white and gold or
pale blue and silver.

To the crowds that lined the streets the State coach was a sight of the
day—the coach, for some, as much as the Emperor. All Paris, of course, had
not been able to find room round the Field of Mars, spacious as the
accommodation there was. The pavements all along the streets from the
Tuileries were packed with a dense crowd, which pressed everywhere close
up behind the double rows of Gendarmes and Imperial Guardsmen keeping
the processional route.
They shouted “Vive l’Empereur!” lustily, for all had a good view of
Napoleon through the great glass windows of the coach; seated inside on
the right, wearing his ostrich-feathered cap of semi-State, a gold
embroidered purple velvet mantle, and the Grand Master’s collar of the
Legion of Honour, sparkling with costly gems.
Josephine, a slender figure in ermine cloak and white silk dress, sat on
Napoleon’s left, and on the front seats sat Joseph and Louis, side by side—
the elder brother sleek and smiling, wrapped up in a poppy-red cloak as
Grand Elector of the Empire; Louis Bonaparte wearing his blue velvet
Constable’s mantle over the brass breastplate of the Colonel-in-Chief of the
Carabiniers, to which rank Napoleon had specially promoted Louis, with
the idea of maintaining an old tradition of the Monarchy that the titular
Commander of the Carabiniers should always be a Prince of the Blood,
“Frère du Roi.”
CHIEFS OF THE Napoleon’s Imperial Standard was borne
“MAISON immediately after the State coach; a crowned eagle
MILITAIRE”
heading the staff; the flag a silken tricolor, richly fringed
with gold and bespangled with golden bees.
Four of the Marshals, readily recognised by their scarlet ostrich-plumes
and gold-tipped bâtons of command, attended the Standard, and, as
Colonels-General of the Imperial Guard, led the Imperial Military
Household, the “Maison Militaire de l’Empereur.” The four were: Davout,
titular chief of the Grenadiers of the Guard; Soult, Colonel-General of the
Chasseurs; Bessières, of the Heavy Cavalry; Mortier, of the Guard Artillery.
Close behind them four other gorgeously brilliant officers of rank rode
abreast, the Colonels-General of the Cavalry of the Army: St. Cyr, of the
Cuirassiers, disdainful and sardonic of mien; stern Baraguay d’Hilliers, of
the Dragoons; good-looking Junot, Colonel-General of the Hussars; and

Napoleon’s son-in-law, the chivalrous Eugène Beauharnais, Colonel-
General of Chasseurs. A brilliant cavalcade of little less resplendent
cavaliers, the Emperor’s aides de camp, all of them Generals of Division or
Brigadiers, rounded up the group.
Another eye-surfeit of gleaming varnish, gilded carvings, and green
liveries continued the pageant: twelve other State coaches, six-horsed like
those in advance; carrying the personal suites of Napoleon and Josephine
and the Princesses, Court Chamberlains and similar gold-embroidered
functionaries, Ladies of the Palace and “Officers of the Crown.” The
procession ended after them; the rear being brought up by the Mounted
Grenadiers of the Guard, strapping troopers in huge bear-skins—soldiers
picked for their height and bearing from the Cavalry of the Line—and the
Gendarmerie d’Elite, who formed the Imperial palace-guard.
More than half the Imperial Guard—numbering, in 1804, ten thousand
officers and men—lined the streets under arms; detachments of Grenadiers
and Vélites, Foot-Chasseurs, Veterans of the Guard, Marines of the Guard.
Through double rows of these, all standing with presented arms, the
procession took its way, passing from the Tuileries Gardens, across the
Place de Concorde and over the bridge there, to the Esplanade des
Invalides. Yet another thundering Imperial salute from the twenty old
cannons of the Batterie Triomphale greeted Napoleon at that point; while
rows of old soldiers, the maimed veterans of Arcola and Rivoli and
Marengo, shouted themselves hoarse, standing ranged in front of the Outer
Court beside Napoleon’s Venetian trophy, kept there temporarily, the Lion
of St. Mark.
From the Invalides, by way of the Rue de Grenelle, it was not far to the
Military School.
WITHIN THE Withindoors at the Ecole Militaire a pause was made
MILITARY in the Governor’s apartments, which had been
SCHOOL
sumptuously furnished for the occasion from the Imperial
storerooms of the Garde Meuble. Napoleon here accepted a number of
selected addresses from the military delegations. One of them was brought
by the regimental deputation of the 4th Chasseurs stationed at Boulogne. It
thanked the Emperor in advance for the new standard he was presenting to
the corps, “trusting that the day is at hand when we shall be able to

contribute towards consolidating the splendour of the Empire by planting
our Eagle on the Tower of London.” The Emperor also received the
congratulations of the Ambassadors and Diplomatic Corps. Ten hereditary
German Princes of the Rhineland, visiting Paris for the Coronation,
attended at the Military School to witness the Presentation of the Eagles; at
their head the Prince-Bishop-Elector of Ratisbon, Arch-Chancellor of the
German Empire, the Margrave of Baden, and the Princes of Hesse-
Darmstadt and Hesse-Homburg. Napoleon and Josephine after that
withdrew to assume their crowns and Imperial regalia and pass outside to
the two thrones prepared for them and standing side by side in the grand
central pavilion in front.
The vast array of “guests of the Emperor,” seated outside, had of course
been long since in their places, awaiting the advent of their Majesties amid
surroundings designed on a scale of lavish magnificence regardless of cost.
On either hand pavilions and galleries and platforms, canopied and
carpeted, draped and curtained and hung in crimson and gold, decorated
with festoons and banners, and fenced with gilded balustrading, covered the
whole length of the façade of the Ecole Militaire fronting the parade
ground. In the centre stood the Imperial Pavilion, beneath a canopy of
crimson silk supported by tall gilded columns. Side galleries draped, and
under awnings led from it right and left to two other pavilions, at either end
of the façade, similarly adorned in lavish gorgeousness. Below the galleries
extended long stands, sloping forward to the ground, draped in green and
crimson, and packed with rows of seats five or six deep. Here, partly in the
open, sat the provincial Coronation guests from the Departments: the local
prefects and sub-prefects, procurators, magistrates and syndics, mayors and
councillors, and other municipal functionaries, all in gala-day attire of every
colour, plumes in their hats, and buttons and embroidery all over their coats.
They made a many-hued show in the mass, seen from the parade ground.
The higher State dignitaries had seats under the canopies of the galleries,
and looked yet more decorative. Seated in the pavilions on cushioned chairs
were the Ambassadors and Foreign Princes, the Senate, Corps Legislatif,
and Tribunate, High Court Judges in flowing robes of flame-coloured silk,
and velvet-clad “Grand Officers of the Empire,” in full-dress all. They
looked imposing and magnificent, but most of them were shivering, with
damp bodies and numbed fingers.

IN THE The sleet had stopped for the time, but after the all-
IMPERIAL night’s downpour of rain and snow the seats everywhere
PAVILION were in a sad condition. Canopies and cushions, curtains,
seats, carpets—everything had been drenched through
and swamped during the night. The discomfort, however, was past helping
and had to be borne. The Imperial Pavilion itself indeed had not escaped a
wetting, and in parts it was in little better condition than the other places.
“Only with the greatest diligence,” describes one of the suite, “had it been
possible to keep the thrones dry.”
Napoleon’s throne, with beside it the throne for Josephine, at a slightly
lower elevation, stood at the front of the Imperial Pavilion. A gilt-framed
crimson velvet Chair of State was provided for the Emperor, with a
crowned eagle in gilt stucco perched on the back; made on the model of
Dagobert’s chair on which Napoleon had sat during the ceremony of the
distribution of the Crosses of the Legion of Honour at Boulogne. As on that
day, so now, trophies of captured battle-flags adorned the back of the
Imperial daïs, selected from the two hundred and odd standards taken in
battle by the Armies of Italy and Egypt which Napoleon had led in person:
trophies of Montenotte and Arcola, of Tagliamento and Lodi, of Rivoli and
Castiglione; the red-and-white banner of the Knights of Malta; the green
Horse-tail Standard of the Beys of Egypt; Austrian standards won by
Napoleon at the crowning triumph of Marengo.
To right and left of the Emperor, on richly decorated chairs of
ceremony, Joseph and Louis Bonaparte and the Princesses were seated. The
Imperial suites in attendance were grouped at the back together with a
cluster of court grandees, filling most of the spacious platform behind the
throne.
In the forefront, at the Emperor’s right hand, stood a splendid galaxy of
stalwart figures—the Marshals of the Empire. They stood forward
prominently. For them that was the day of days. All must see on such a day
the champion warriors of France, the renown of whose victories had filled
the world! The whole eighteen were there—all except one. Marshal Brune
alone was absent; on service out of France as Napoleon’s Ambassador at
Constantinople. The group was completed by the four “Honorary
Marshals”—the veteran Kellermann, the victor of Valmy; Perignon;
Serrurier; and Lefebvre.

THE Glance for one moment round the main group of
LIEUTENANTS thirteen, the chosen lieutenants of Napoleon the War
OF THE WAR Lord, as they stand beside their Chief, with, arrayed in
LORD
front, the serried columns of the destined victors of
Austerlitz. Next to the Emperor and the Eagles it is they who on this Day of
the Eagles are the principal objects of interest to the general spectator.
Let the reader for one moment imagine himself on the Imperial
Pavilion, with at his side a convenient friend who knows everybody, to
point the marshals out.
That short, spare, low-browed, swarthy, Italian-faced man, with crafty,
pitiless eyes, is Masséna—“L’Enfant chéri de la Victoire,” as Napoleon
himself hailed him on the battlefield; the very ablest undoubtedly of all the
Marshals. He knows it too. When the list of the Marshals first came out, a
friend called on Masséna to know if it was true that he was one, and to
congratulate him. “Oh yes, thank you,” replied Masséna in an icy tone,
puckering up his dark face with a sour look, “I am one; one of fourteen!”
He’s Italian in blood and breeding, and in his tricky ways; every point about
him: but he’d give his soul to be a Frenchman! “Massène” is what he is
always trying to get people to call him. And the airs and self-importance he
assumes—though only like most of the others in that, indeed—ever since he
became “Monseigneur le Maréchal” and has had the honour of being
addressed as “Mon Cousin” by the Emperor! Just think of it! In the old
days, behind the counter of that little olive-oil and dried-fruit shop up a
narrow, smelly back street at Antibes, plain “Citoyen André” was good
enough! Just look at that thin, pouting chest, gleaming all over with gold
embroidery, with the broad crimson riband of the Legion of Honour
slanting across it, and the aggressive tilt of his ostrich-plumed hat! Imagine
all that being once upon a time just a cabin-boy on a Marseilles to Leghorn
coaster, half-starved and sworn at and cuffed and kicked about by a
curmudgeonly padrone! Then fancy it a sneaking smuggler, chevied about,
and crouching along to keep out of carbine shot of the Nice douaniers!
After that Sergeant Masséna of the late King’s Royal Italien regiment of the
Line! And so to the bâton.
They are most of them rather tête montée just now, with their exaltation
spick and span on them, these demi-gods of war of ours! Just see them in
the field, or on the march; away from the Emperor. They stalk ahead in

solitary grandeur; each with his own pas seul, keeping the lesser creation at
arms’ length, wrapped up in his own dignified importance. Yet only six
months since their lofty Excellencies were mere generals of division,
“Citoyen Général” this or that, each one; just units among a hundred and
twenty odd others! Nowadays, on the march, your Marshal rides by himself,
forty yards ahead of everybody; his staff have to tail off well in rear and
keep back! M. le Maréchal doesn’t deign to open his lips, except to give an
order. He lives by himself: nobody now is good enough to ask to dinner,
except perhaps another marshal! No off-duty pleasantries nowadays; no
more bon camaraderie; no more telling of Palais-Royal stories, as it used to
be; no more cracking of jokes beside the bivouac fire. You might as well
expect a bishop to have a game of marbles! Let a former brother-officer
tutoyer a marshal! Poor fellow! Let him try, if he wants to know what a
paralysing, rasping, cold-blooded snub is, to get a flattening backhander
he’ll remember as long as he wears the uniform.
TWO FAMOUS That tall, bull-necked, heavy-featured man is
HARD Augereau; “gros comme un tambour-major”; absolutely
FIGHTERS
fearless under fire, kind-hearted to those he takes a fancy
to, they say, but ordinarily a coarse-tongued swashbuckler, with barrack-
room manners. There too is Lannes, that keen-eyed, short man, holding his
head as if he had a crick in his neck! He has one, a permanent one, the
result of a bullet under the jaw from a British marine’s musket in the
trenches at Acre. A hot-tempered, fiery, devil-may-care fellow is Lannes;
but as cold as ice on the battlefield when things look like going wrong!
Among friends, chivalrous and generous-hearted to a degree, his men
worship Lannes; “the Roland of the Grand Army,” some call him. That is
Moncey: and that very tall and erect, dry, rather dense-looking, hawk-nosed
marshal with the shaggy eyebrows, Mortier. Mark Bernadotte there, that
shifty-eyed Gascon with a sharp nose and thick hair; of medium height,—
nobody really trusts him. An ingrained Jacobin—strip his arm and you will
find tattooed on it, indelibly, for life, “Mort aux rois”—and a schemer,
Napoleon named him a Marshal for political reasons mainly; although, no
doubt, he has the same soldier-qualifications as the rest; has won a pitched
battle or taken two fortresses. A cunning, plausible fellow is Bernadotte;
with ready smile and a smooth tongue. He calls everybody “Mon ami”
whether he is talking to a brigadier or a bugler. “Que diable fait il dans cette
galère?” say a good many people of the Commander of the First Army

Corps. Over yonder stands Bessières, Murat’s great friend; a gentlemanly
enough fellow, but at times thick-headed, hardly of the mental calibre of his
confrères. Yet Bessières is an ideal leader of Horse on the battlefield; as
reckless as a lion at bay: you should see him head a charge sword in hand!
One of Napoleon’s pets is he and the only man in the Army who sticks to
his queue. Bessières flatly refused to cut it off when the order was given last
June for everybody to copy “Le petit tondu” (“The little shorn one”), as the
men call the Emperor, and it hangs halfway down his back.
That dark, sleek-faced, heavy-eyed man is Jourdan, Commander-in-
Chief once of the Army of the Revolution. “The Anvil,” some call him, he
has been so often soundly beaten. But, all the same, he was too popular with
the Army for Napoleon to pass him over. Jourdan it was who invented the
conscription system. He started in life as a linen-draper at Grenoble. There
is of course, too, Brune, who isn’t here to-day: but he doesn’t count for
much. A minor-poet and a journalist was he once upon a time. He’s another
of the clever-tongued Jacobins the Emperor gave the bâton to as a sop.
NAPOLEON’S Look near the Emperor, at that neat athletic figure, of
RIGHT-HAND middle height: that is “Old Berthier.” He is from ten to
MAN
fifteen years older than most of the other marshals; or, in
fact, than the Emperor himself. Berthier, in fact, is old enough to have been
a captain in the Army of the ancien régime, and can remember how he first
smelt powder fighting under Lafayette and Washington against the British
in America. He was a staff officer when Napoleon first came to the Ecole
Militaire here from Brienne, as a boy gentleman-cadet. A heaven-born
Chief of the Staff is Marshal Berthier, and the Emperor without him in a
campaign would be like a man without his right hand. Every detail goes like
clockwork with Berthier at the head of the Etat-Major.
You should see the two of them on campaign, working together in the
Quartier-Général. Napoleon will be sprawling on his stomach at full length
over a huge set of maps which cover, spread out, nearly the whole floor of
the tent; an open pair of compasses in his hand, a box of pins with little
paper flag-heads, red, blue, yellow, green, at one side, some of them already
stuck over the map marking the positions of the different corps and of the
enemy. He has the compasses set to scale, to mark off some seventeen to
twenty miles, which means from twenty-two to twenty-five miles of road,
taking into account the windings. To and fro he twists and turns the

compasses like lightning and decides in an instant the marches for each
column to arrive at the desired point, all timed exactly to the very day and
hour with an astonishing certainty and precision. He calls out his
instructions in half a dozen words or so, sharply snapped out, for Berthier,
who all the time is standing near, bending down at Napoleon’s shoulder,
notebook and pencil in hand, to take down. Old Berthier has a veritable
instinct for understanding what the Emperor means. He can interpret the
smallest grunt Napoleon makes. He can spin out three or four broken
ejaculations into detailed orders for an Army Corps, all worked out with
absolute clearness, in beautiful language. It is amazing how he does it, but
he does do it. A staff officer, or else Bacler d’Albe, the Imperial Military
Cartographer, the officer in charge of the maps, it may be, is all the while
also kneeling by the pin-box, and has the pins of the right colour out and
stuck in the maps as fast as the Emperor wants them. The instant the
Emperor is satisfied, Berthier is off, and with the secretaries at work in his
own quarters drafting the orders. Then, before you know well where you
are, a dozen estafettes are galloping all over the country with the orders—in
the case of a very important order sometimes three or four staff officers
each take a copy, to ride by different routes so as to minimise the risk of
delay or capture. That is the working of Berthier’s system, and there is not
often a miscarriage or serious hitch in the delivery.
MARSHALL And mark Soult, the coming man of the Marshals
SOULT when he gets his chance; a wary old dog-fox for an
enemy to tackle. A sergeant of infantry in the old “Royal
Regiment” of former days, the old 13th of the Line, then a drill-instructor of
Volunteers, now he is at the head of the Army at Boulogne for the descent
on England. Hardly even the Emperor knows more about tactics than Soult.
Note how self-possessed and masterful he looks, so cold and impassive of
demeanour. Those eyes that seem to pierce through you, those clear-cut
aquiline features, that face like a mask of bronze, show the character of the
man. You wouldn’t think though, to see his fine soldier-like figure as he
stands there, a warrior born to look at, that Soult is not only lame from a fall
from his horse years ago, but has limped from his birth, from a club-foot.
That bald-headed marshal over there is Marshal Davout, a dashing
subaltern of Dragoons once in the Old Royal Army. A fine tactician for a
hot place is Davout; and when the fight has been won, no leader so harsh

and pitiless to the vanquished enemy. He wears spectacles on service: he
can hardly see ten yards in front of his big nose. The ladies are very fond of
Davout; he waltzes so nicely.
And that other there is Marshal Ney; “the Indefatigable” is the Army’s
name for him. He never spares himself, nor the enemy, on the battlefield;
but after the last shot there is no more generous victor than Marshal Ney.
For sheer dogged pluck against odds, for simply marvellous intrepidity, the
world cannot match Ney. Stalwart and square-shouldered, he carries himself
with all the jaunty assurance of manner you would expect in perhaps the
most dashing leader of hussars the Army of France has known. He is an
Alsatian, born by the Rhine; a pleasant-faced man, with frank grey eyes,
curly red hair over a broad open forehead. “Red Michael” is one of the
soldiers’ names for Ney; and there is not one of the Marshals for whom his
men would do more.
THE EAGLES Such, if it may be permitted to describe them in this
AWAIT way, is something of what the Marshals of Napoleon
NAPOLEON
looked like on the day of the Eagle presentation on the
Field of Mars. All eyes were turned on the Marshals as they stood there
beside Napoleon; a brilliant array of soldierly figures in their red ostrich-
plumed cocked hats, richly laced uniforms, gleaming brass-bound sword-
scabbards and high jack-boots with clanking brass spurs.
From the foot of the throne a grand staircase led down to the parade
ground, widening out with a curving sweep to either side at the foot. It
terminated there with, flanking the lower steps, two gilded statues, designed
to represent, the one, “France granting Peace,” the other, “France making
War.” From top to bottom of the stairs and extending at the foot to right and
left along either side, stood in rows the colonels of the regiments on parade,
together with the senior officers of the National Guard, all awaiting the
Emperor’s appearance on the throne. Each bore the new Eagle standard to
be presented to his own corps. All were at their posts as the appointed
moment neared, while at the same time Murat and his attendant cavalcade
of brilliantly bedecked horsemen closed in and formed up in front, so as
immediately to face Napoleon.
On either hand of Murat were ranked the massed bands of the Imperial
Guard, flanked by two solid phalanxes of drummers, each a thousand

strong. Near by these were drawn up on horseback, on one side the officers
of the Head Quarters Staff at the War Office, on the other, the staff officers
of the army corps of the Marshals.
Napoleon and Josephine made their entry into the Grand Pavilion
heralded by a procession, the bands of the Guard playing the Coronation
March. Then, to the accompaniment of three successive shouts of “Vive
l’Empereur!” from the soldiers—the formal greeting to Napoleon on
parade, in accordance with Army regulation—the Emperor seated himself
on the throne. He was in full Imperial garb, wearing his Imperial mantle of
rich crimson velvet studded with golden bees, and the Imperial crown, a
golden laurel chaplet “after Charlemagne.” In his right hand he bore the
Imperial sceptre, a tall silver-gilt wand with an eagle surmounting it, also
designed, as they said, “after Charlemagne.”
Seating himself with Josephine at his side, in her State robes and with a
magnificent crown of diamonds on her head, Napoleon gave the order for
the proceedings to begin.
Murat, as Governor of Paris, in immediate command of the parade,
raised his glittering marshal’s bâton. The bands of the Guard ceased playing
abruptly. The next moment the two thousand infantry drums began to beat.
It was the appointed signal for the detachments to advance and form up in
front of the throne.
At once, at the first roll of the drums, the soldiers ranged round the
ground began to move.
Wheeling some, counter-marching others, here rapidly doubling, there
marking time—looking, indeed, for the moment, at first, in the mass, to the
untrained eye of the non-military spectator like a swarming ant-heap in
motion and inextricably intermingled—like magic all suddenly appeared in
order, a series of columns, the heads of which, arrayed at regular intervals,
were in unison converging concentrically towards the foot of the grand
staircase in front of the throne. A dozen paces in rear of where Murat stood
all halted as one man. There was a quick movement of bayonets as arms
were shouldered; the action making a glint of flashing steel in spite of the
dull grey light overhead.
NAPOLEON
FACES THE

PARADE Every sound was hushed as Napoleon rose to his
feet. He faced the wide-spreading multitude and gazed
silently over them for a moment; standing well forward where all might see
him. Then he addressed the parade in strong vibrant tones which rang out
clear and resonant over the whole assembly like a trumpet-note. In words
that seemed to thrill with intensified energy he called on the soldiers before
him, on behalf of themselves and their absent comrades, to take the oath of
devotion to the Eagles.
“Soldiers!” he began, his right arm outstretched with an impassioned
gesture towards the Eagles, whose bearers held them stiffly erect, all
glancing and gleaming like polished gold, the bright-hued silken flags
unfurled, “behold your standards! These Eagles to you shall ever be your
rallying-point. Wherever your Emperor shall deem it needful for the
defence of his throne and his people, there shall they be seen!”
He paused. Then raising his right hand in the air with a swift strenuous
movement Napoleon pronounced the oath:
“You swear to sacrifice your lives in their defence: to maintain them by
your courage ever in the path of Victory! You swear it?”
The vast gathering stood as though spellbound. For one instant all
remained motionless and silent, held down as it were by overmastering
emotion.
Then, all together, with one accord, the soldiers found their voices.
With a thundering shout that seemed to shake the air, the Army made its
response, answering back in one deep chorus:
“WE SWEAR IT! “Nous le jurons!”—“We swear it!”
WE SWEAR IT!”
One and all enthusiastically re-echoed the words;
while the colonels excitedly brandished and waved aloft the Eagles. In a
frenzy of martial ardour the entire assembly, at the top of their voices, again
and again declaimed, “We swear it! We swear it!” A wild prolonged
outburst of cheering followed, and exuberant shouts of “Vive l’Empereur!”
Before the cheering had abated, the drums broke in again. The sharp
clash and rattle recalled all to order instantly. Again a dead silence fell over
the great host, standing now with recovered arms.

Up once more went Murat’s marshal’s bâton. The next moment the
dense-set columns were standing stock-still like rows of statues, with arms
at the shoulder.
Napoleon resumed his seat on the throne, and as he did so yet once
more a wave of enthusiasm swept over the vast array. Redoubled shouts of
“Vive l’Empereur!” burst wildly forth, the soldiers pulling off their hats or
helmets, and hoisting them on the points of their bayonets, excitedly waving
them, while they shouted themselves breathless.
Again the drums rolled, and again order was restored. And now the
supreme act of the drama opened—the formal presentation of each Eagle to
its own regimental deputation.
Forthwith the wide-fronted columns, breaking swiftly into quarter-
column formation, began to move, section by section, in turn. Rapidly, and,
as it almost seemed, automatically, they resumed their first formation,
extending round the Field of Mars on three sides. From front to rear the
quarter-columns took up a full mile and three-quarters. Ranked in close
order, the long-drawn-out array of troops on that set off, to a stately march
from the bands of the Guard, to pass along the front of the Military School,
before the flanking pavilion, and galleries and stands. So, in due course, all
in turn came opposite to the foot of the great stairway ascending to the
throne.
Each section, as it came in front of the steps, made a pause. The
Colonels at the same moment were passing in file before Napoleon. Each in
turn inclined the Eagle that he bore towards the Emperor. He held the staff
at an angle of forty-five degrees—the regulation method of salute, in
accordance with an Imperial order issued in the previous July, when the
adoption of the Eagle as the Army standard was first announced. Napoleon
on his side, with his ungloved right hand, just touched each Eagle. The
Colonels, then, saluting, turned, one after the other, to descend the stairs. At
the foot of the stairway each delivered over the Eagle to the standard-bearer
of his regiment, who, together with the deputation, was at the spot to
5
receive it.
THE ONLY With the Eagles in their charge the regimental parties
EXISTING moved on. Passing in front of the stands and pavilions
NAVAL EAGLE beyond, all wheeled there, to pass again round the arena

of the Field of Mars, until they had reached their former stations, and
halted, all ranged in the order in which they had taken post at their first
arrival.
THE EAGLE OF There remained after that the grand finale. The
THE IRISH March Past of the Eagle detachments before Napoleon
LEGION
now came on, designed as the consummation of the day’s
doings.
In connection with that, however, there was an unfortunate incident. On
the Field of Mars were displayed also the old Army colours of the
Consulate, which, as has been said, had been brought to Paris at the order of
the War Minister by the regimental deputations. Paraded together with the
new Eagles they helped to render the scene the more striking; but their
presence led to an unforeseen complication, and in the end a deplorable
contretemps.
The standard-bearers who had received the Eagles were each, in
addition, still carrying the old regimental flag. They had to carry both. No
instructions had been given out—by oversight, most probably—as to the
giving up of the old flags, or what was to be done with them.
ALL DID NOT It may have been that Napoleon desired that the
WANT THE standards of the Consulate and the Eagles of the Empire
EAGLES
should be displayed together on that day. None knew
better than he the deep attachment of the older men in the ranks for their
former battle-flags. Some of the old soldiers, indeed, even there on the Field
of Mars, as we are told, were unable to restrain their feelings at the idea of
having to part that day from their old colours. “More than one tear was
shed,” relates an officer, “amidst all the cheering and shouts of ‘Vive
l’Empereur!’” Enthusiastically as most of the soldiers might welcome the
new Eagles in the presence of the Emperor, all did not desire to part with
colours which had led through the battle-smoke on many a victorious field
of the past, even in exchange for the glittering “Cou-cous,” as barrack-room
slang had already dubbed Napoleon’s Eagles, giving them in advance a
soldier’s nickname that stuck to them as long as the Army of the Empire
lasted.
Both sets of standards were carried in the march past, which proceeded
without incident to a certain point.

It was an effective display of the lusty manhood of France, of the pick
of the Grand Army in its prime; not yet made chair au canon to gratify the
ambition of one man. A curious commingling, too, of fighting costumes did
the review present for the general spectators; those of yesterday side by side
with those of the coming time. Three-fourths of the soldiers went by
wearing the stiff Republican garb of the expiring régime, as adopted hastily
at the outset of the Revolution: the long-skirted coat, cut after the old Royal
Army fashion, but blue in colour instead of white, and with white lapels and
turn-backs; long-flapped white waistcoats, white breeches, and high black-
cloth gaiters above the knee, such as their ancestors had worn in the days of
Marshal Saxe; the old-style big cocked hat, worn cross-wise, or “en
bataille,” as the soldiers called it, with a flaunting tricolor cockade in front.
The new Napoleonic style was represented by the Imperial Guard and
Oudinot’s Grenadier Division from Arras and the Light Infantry battalions,
whose turn out in smartly cut coatees faced with red and green, with the tall
broad-topped shakos pictures of the time make us familiar with as the
normal presentment of the soldiers of the Empire, attracted special
6
attention.
During the March Past, Frimaire suddenly reasserted itself, and brought
about the regrettable incident that was to wind up the day.
The parade was three parts through, when, all of a sudden, a
tremendous downpour of cold rain set in, discomfiting and scattering all
who were looking on. With the drenching effect of a shower-bath the rain
commenced to pour down in torrents, causing an immediate stampede
among the general public. The rearmost columns of the soldiers had to pass
before empty benches, tramping along stolidly through the mud, “splashing
ankle-deep through a sea of mud,” as an officer put it.
THE The spectators one and all disappeared. The immense
SPECTATORS crowd of sightseers left the benches on the embankment
DISAPPEAR
round the Champ de Mars, and fled home en masse. The
seat-holders on the open stands in front of the Ecole Militaire scurried off in
like manner. The occupants of the pavilions and galleries, half drowned by
the water that streamed down on them through the awnings, quitted their
places in haste to seek shelter within the building. The downpour saturated
the canopy of the Imperial Pavilion and dripped through. It compelled

Josephine to get up from her throne and hurry indoors. The Princesses
promptly followed the Empress’s example, all except one—Napoleon’s
youngest sister, Caroline Murat. Caroline sat the March Past out to the end,
together, of course, with Napoleon himself and the Marshals, and those
Court officials who had to stay where they were. Soaked through, she
smilingly remarked that she was “accustoming herself to endure the
inconveniences inseparable from a throne!”
Then, at the close of the review, came the contretemps.
After the last Eagle had gone past the throne, when Napoleon had left
on his way back to the Tuileries, as the troops were moving off the ground
to return to their quarters, unanticipated trouble suddenly arose in
connection with the old flags. What happened may best, perhaps, be
described in the words of an eye-witness, a General present on the Field of
Mars, Baron Thiébault:
“Immediately after the Emperor had gone and the seats all round were
empty, finding it tiresome to be loaded with the double set of standards, all
the more so, no doubt, as it was raining, the standard-bearers apparently
could think of nothing better than to rid themselves of the superseded flags.
They began everywhere to throw them down, that is, to drop them where
they stood in the mud. There they were trampled under foot by the soldiers
as they passed along on their way back to quarters.”
The outrage scandalised the older soldiers, and very nearly brought
about a mutiny among some of them.
“Indignant,” to continue in General Thiébault’s words, “at such an
outrage to national emblems which the Army had been honouring and
defending for thirteen years past, many of the men in the regiments began
to grumble and make angry protestations. Presently oaths and violent
imprecations burst out on all sides; and then some of the grenadiers became
mutinous and defiant. They declared that they would go back, regardless of
the consequences, and forcibly recover possession of the old colours.”
THE SITUATION The situation speedily became so threatening that
JUST SAVED General Thiébault hastened off to warn Murat of what
was happening. As he went he came across one of the
adjutants of the Commandant of the Military School. On the spur of the

moment he gave him orders to get together what men he could of the party
who had been keeping the parade ground. Of these Thiébault took personal
charge and sent them round at once to collect the thrown-down colours and
carry them inside the Ecole Militaire.
Apparently that satisfied the soldiers—anxious, most of them, to get
out of the wet as soon as possible.
General Thiébault tried after that to find Murat, intending to report to
him; but Murat had by then left the Field of Mars. In the end the General
decided, as perhaps the wisest course, to refrain from saying anything; not
to take official notice of what had happened. After all he was not on duty at
the parade; he was only in Paris as an invited guest at the Coronation
festivities. Nobody, as a fact, said a word of the affair. By the authorities all
reference to it seems purposely to have been hushed up. Not a hint of
anything of the sort appeared in the Moniteur, which published a fairly full
report of the day’s proceedings; not a word in any of the other Parisian
papers.
For the soldiers a dinner of double rations at the Emperor’s expense
wound up the Day of the Eagles; for the great personages there was “a
banquet at the Tuileries, at which the Pope and the Emperor sat side by side
at the same table, arrayed in their Pontifical and Imperial insignia and
waited upon by the Grand Officers of the Crown.” Afterwards, without
delaying in the capital, the deputations set off on their return to rejoin their
regiments. Their arrival at their various destinations was celebrated
everywhere, by Imperial order, by a full-dress parade and State reception of
the Eagle by each corps; the occasion being further treated as a fête-day and
opportunity for a general carousal in camp or garrison. At Boulogne the
regiments of the “Army of England” took over their Eagles at a grand
review on December 23, Marshal Soult presiding over the ceremony.
THE CLOSE OF The old standards of the Consulate, some bearing on
THE DAY them the battle-scars of Marengo and Hohenlinden,
remained where General Thiébault’s assistants had left
them stacked, leaning up against the wall in one of the corridors of the
Military School, until they were carted off in artillery tumbrils to the central
dépôt at Vincennes. There, on New Year’s Day of 1805, they were officially
made away with; burned to ashes in the presence of an ordnance department

official told off to certify to their complete destruction. That was the
authorised method in France of disposing of the standards of a discredited
régime; but all the same it was a hard fate for national emblems that had
waved victoriously over so many a hard-fought field.
Such were the principal scenes and incidents of the Day of the Field of
Mars when Napoleon presented the Eagles of the Empire to the Soldiers of
the Grand Army.

CHAPTER III

IN THE FIRST CAMPAIGN:—

Under Fire with Marshal Ney

The Eagles made their début on the battlefield amid a blaze of glory. Within
a twelvemonth of the Field of Mars they had swooped irresistibly across
half the Continent, leading forward victoriously through the cannon-smoke
in combat after combat, to achieve the crowning triumphs of Ulm and
Austerlitz. Within the twelvemonth they witnessed the overwhelming defeat
of more than 200,000 foes, the capture of 500 cannon, while 120 standards
had been paraded before them as spoils of victory.
In the first fortnight of September 1805, Austria and Russia, as the
protagonists in Pitt’s great European Coalition against Napoleon, declared
war on France, and an army of 80,000 Austrians traversed Bavaria in hot
haste, to take post at Ulm by the Danube, on the frontiers of Würtemberg.
There they proposed to hold Napoleon in check, until their Russian allies,
whose advance by forced marches through Poland had already begun, could
join hands with them. After that they would press forward in resistless force
to cross the Rhine and invade France.
NAPOLEON’S But Napoleon was beforehand with them from the
OPENING MOVE outset. Within twenty-four hours of the ultimatum
reaching his hands he had made the opening move in the
campaign: the lion, whose skin had been sold, had crouched for the fatal
spring.
General Mack, the Austrian Commander-in-chief, entered Bavaria on
September 8. On September 1 Napoleon’s “Army of the Ocean” had struck
its tents in Boulogne camp and started on its way, with plans laid that
ensured Mack’s overthrow. A hundred and eighty thousand soldiers were

hastening along every high-road through Hanover, Holland, and Flanders,
and in eastern France, towards the great plain of central Bavaria, to deal the
Austrians the heaviest and most resounding blow ever yet dealt to a modern
army.
Napoleon, screening his movement by means of Murat’s cavalry, sent
ahead on a wide front to occupy the attention of the Austrian outposts, made
a bold sweep right round Mack’s right flank. Before the Austrian general
had any suspicion that there was a single Frenchman on that side of him, the
entire French army had passed the Danube in his rear, and had blocked the
great highway from Vienna. Napoleon at the first move had cut the Austrian
line of communication with their base. He had barred the only route by
which the Russians could approach to Mack’s assistance.
That done, swiftly and successfully, while Mack, startled and utterly
staggered at the sudden appearance of the enemy in his rear, was hurriedly
facing about in confusion, to try to hold his ground, Napoleon struck at him
hard. He hurled attack after attack in force on the Austrian flanking
divisions, on both wings of Mack’s army, and broke them up. Taking
thousands of prisoners and many guns, he drove the wreck, a disorganised
mass of scared and helpless battalions, in rout to the walls of Ulm itself.
Penned in there, ringed round by 100,000 French bayonets, with the French
artillery pouring shot and shell into the doomed fortress from commanding
heights within short range, General Mack, left now with barely 30,000 men,
after a despairing interview with Napoleon, was terrorised into immediate
surrender at discretion.
Amid such scenes did the Eagles of the Field of Mars undergo their
baptism of fire. Ever in the forefront under fire, brilliantly, time and again,
did those who bore them do their duty.
It was round the Eagles of Marshal Ney’s corps, “the Fighting Sixth,”
that the fiercest contests of the campaign centred; and on every occasion
they gained honour.
In the sharp brush at the bridge across the Danube at Reisenburg, near
the small town of Günsburg, on October 8, one of the opening encounters of
the campaign, the Eagle of the 59th of the Line showed the way to victory.
The Austrians, whom Ney surprised on the south side or right bank,

retreating as the French approached, had partially broken down the bridge
before Ney’s men could reach the place.
AT THE BRIDGE The Danube flows wide and deep at Reisenburg, and
OF GÜNSBURG there was no other means of getting over.
Ney had explicit orders from Napoleon to cross over and occupy
Günsburg, and to hold the river passage. As the 59th, who led the attack, got
to the bridge, a long and narrow wooden structure, the Austrian sappers
were hard at work destroying it; covered by a rearguard brigade of infantry
and artillery. The planking had been ripped away, but most of the bridge
framework and supporting beams still stood. The 59th came up and opened
fire, compelling the sappers to withdraw. Then a hasty effort was made by
the pioneers of the regiment under fire to repair part of the bridge. They
made a way across with planks wide enough for a few men to scramble
over together. “In places only one man could get across at a time.”
At once the 59th rushed forward cheering, but the concentrated
Austrian fire from the other side was too hot to face. They were beaten back
three times, the dead and wounded falling into the rushing stream below.
But were they not the 59th? No other of the regiments following them in
rear should have the honour of being the first to make the passage! The
Eagle-bearer of the 59th, weaving the Eagle aloft, headed a fourth attack;
with Colonel Gerard Lacuée, the colonel of the regiment, a distinguished
officer and an Honorary A.D.C. to the Emperor, beside him. The two led out
in front, regardless of the storm of bullets round them. Colonel Lacuée fell
mortally wounded. An officer ran forward and carried the Colonel back to
die on the river-bank, but the Eagle-bearer went on. “Soldiers,” the brave
fellow stopped for an instant to turn round and shout back to his comrades,
“your Eagle goes forward! I shall carry it across alone!” The men of the
59th, thrown into a frenzy at the sight of their Eagle’s peril, rallied instantly
to follow. The four leading companies held on bravely and got across. Then
they charged the Austrians at the point of the bayonet and drove them back
into the village. That, though, was not all. Fresh Austrians had turned back
to help their rearguard troops. Firing from the river-bank on either side of
the village, for a time they stopped the other French regiments from
crossing the bridge after the 59th. Austrian dragoons and infantry at the
same time charged the gallant regiment, entirely isolated now on that side
of the river. But they could not break the 59th. Forming square, the two

battalions, with their Eagles held on high as rallying-centres, kept a host of
foes at bay. Three fierce Austrian charges did they beat off—and then help
arrived. A second regiment, the 50th, had by then managed to get across the
bridge. The two regiments maintained themselves there all the afternoon
until nightfall and then bivouacked on the ground they had won until
morning, “passing an anxious time, under arms, unable to light a fire.
Fortunately, in the dark the Austrians did not realise our small numbers.
They were more anxious to cover their own retreat.” Before daylight the
Austrians fell back and the passage of the Danube was won.
There was another morning’s work on October 11.
THE EAGLES AT At Haslach, on the north bank of the Danube, not far
HASLACH from Ulm, a brigade of Dupont’s Division of Ney’s corps,
advancing on that side on its own account, was suddenly
set on by five times its number of Austrians. The brigade was made up of
three regiments: the 9me Légère (or 9th Light Infantry), the 32nd, and the
69th. They stumbled, as it were, suddenly on the Austrians, whereupon
General Dupont, who was riding with the brigade, on the opposite side of
the river from the rest of his troops, “judging that if he fell back it would
betray his weakness,” made a dash at the enemy. His daring deceived the
Austrians, who believed that he was the advanced guard of a large force
close behind. They held back at first and awaited attack. Throwing the 32nd
into Haslach to hold the village, Dupont boldly charged with the two other
regiments, and at the first onset made 1,500 prisoners, numbers equal to a
quarter of his total force. The Austrians, however, rallied and returned to the
fight. They brought up reinforcements and entrenched themselves in the
village of Jüningen, near by, where again Dupont attacked them. Five times
did the 9th Light Infantry take and retake Jüningen at the point of the
bayonet, their two battalion Eagles heading the attack each time. No fewer
than six officers, bearing the Eagles in turn, fell in the fight. “Ces corps ne
devaient étonner de rien,” commented Napoleon in praising Dupont and his
men.
At Elchingen, a village in the immediate neighbourhood of Ulm, the
scene of the brilliant victory by which Marshal Ney won his title of Due
d’Elchingen, the Eagles of two regiments won distinction, through the

individual heroism of the officers who, holding them on high,—“En haut
7
l’Aigle!” was the charging cry—led the onset that stormed the place.
THE EAGLES Ney headed the 6th Light Infantry personally, “in full
STORM uniform and ablaze with decorations, offering a splendid
ELCHINGEN target to the enemy.” Ney led the 6th with the Eagle of
the First Battalion carried close at his side. Fifteen
thousand Austrians with forty guns held Elchingen, and the post is
described as being “one of the strongest positions that could be imagined.”
The village itself, a large place, consisted of “successive piles of stone
houses, intersected at right angles by streets, rising in the form of an
amphitheatre from the banks of the Danube to a large convent which
crowns the summit of the ascent. All the exposed points on heights were
lined with artillery; all the windows filled with musketeers.” The village
was on the north bank, and the river had to be crossed to get to it.
First the gallant 6th Light Infantry stormed the bridge. It had been
partly destroyed by the Austrians on the day before, and its tottering arches
were now swept by cannon-balls, plunging down from batteries on the
heights in rear, and a tornado of bullets from sharpshooters in the houses
near the river-side. Fighting their way forward step by step, the 6me Légère
went on. Their Eagle headed the advance. Its bearer was wounded, but he
proudly brandished on high the standard; its silken flag torn to tatters by
bullets, and with one wing of the Eagle broken by a shot. With the 6th
fought the 69th of the Line. The two regiments forced their way along the
steep crooked main street up hill, fired down on furiously meanwhile from
the windows. Parties of men at times entered the houses at the sides and
fought the enemy inside bayonet to bayonet, from floor to floor. The 6th
and the 69th pressed forward, broke down the enemy’s resistance, and
carried Elchingen. The Austrians finally, after a gallant attempt to hold out
in the convent on the hilltop, abandoned it as fresh French troops came up
from across the river.
On the battlefield, when the fight was over, Napoleon, with the
Imperial staff round him, publicly congratulated Marshal Ney (he named
him later “Duc D’Elchingen”) in the presence of the 6th Light Infantry and
the 69th, specially paraded at the spot for the occasion.

THE EAGLES AT The Eagles of Ney, again, were foremost at the
ULM winning of the final fight at Ulm. They led the furious
onrush that stormed the steep heights of Michelsberg and
Les Tuileries, the key of the last Austrian position. Thence Napoleon looked
down directly into the fortress; and within an hour of Ney’s brilliant final
feat the French shells, from batteries, quickly galloped up to the heights,
were bursting in Ulm, carrying terror and death into every quarter of the
city.
On that came the surrender of General Mack. The curtain next rises on
the intensely dramatic Fifth Act of the tragedy, the march out of the
Austrians to lay down their arms.
In that display the Eagles had their allotted place. Before them, brought
forward and prominently paraded, each Eagle in advance of its own corps in
line, with the whole Grand Army ranged in battle order as spectators of the
scene, the standards of the vanquished foe defiled out of the gates of Ulm,
and were laid down on the ground in formal token of surrender.
Napoleon proved himself at Ulm a born stage-manager.
Hardly ever before, never in modern war, had such a spectacle been
witnessed as that presented on that chill and cheerless October Sunday
forenoon, October 20, 1805, in the heart of central Germany, beside the
banks of the rushing Danube, roaring past, a yellow foaming torrent after
weeks of autumn rain, amid pine-clad summits extending far and wide on
either hand.
Along the lower slopes of the high ground to the north and east of Ulm,
drawn up in lines and columns over a wide semi-circle, stood the victorious
army; massed round, as it were, in a vast amphitheatre. They formed up by
army corps, and took post grim and silent, drawn up in battle array, with
muskets loaded and bayonets fixed. The Cavalry with sabres drawn were on
one side; the Infantry on the other, facing them and leaving a space
between, along which the Austrians were to pass. Fifty loaded cannon, in
line along one ridge, pointed down on the city. In front, towards the river,
there rose a small knoll, an outlying spur of rock. On that Napoleon took his
station beside a blazing watchfire which marked the spot from far.
Accompanying him were most of the marshals and the assembled Etat-

Major of the Grand Army, a numerous and brilliant gathering. Immediately
in rear stood massed the 10,000 men of the Imperial Guard.
Two army corps, a little way from the rest, had a special post of honour.
They were drawn up at the end of the wide semi-circle of the main army
nearest the Augsburg gate of Ulm; immediately where the defilading
column of captives would present themselves before passing Napoleon to
lay down their arms and standards. The two corps were: that on the right,
Ney’s, the Sixth Army Corps, the heroes of the day par excellence; on the
left, the Second Corps, Marmont’s, who had been doing notable work
elsewhere in the neighbourhood of Ulm. Ney, with his personal staff beside
him, was on horseback in front of the centre of his corps; Marmont had his
post in like manner in front of his men. As his personal reward for the
leading part Ney and the Sixth Corps had had in bringing about the triumph,
that marshal had the special honour of being designated to superintend the
surrender.
A few minutes before ten o’clock the French drums began to beat, and
the regimental bands to play. Immediately after that the long-drawn-out
procession of sullen and woebegone-looking Austrian captives began
silently to trail its way out of the Stuttgart gate of the fortress. “Suddenly
we saw an endless column file out of the town and march up in front of the
Emperor, on the plain at the foot of a mountain.”
MACK General Mack himself headed it, wan-faced and pale
SURRENDERS as the white uniform coat he wore, his eyes filled with
HIS SWORD
tears, his head bowed, a pitiful and abject figure to
behold. After him followed eighteen Austrian generals—a surprising
number—most of them as wretched and downcast-looking as their chief.
“Behold, Sire, the unfortunate Mack!” was the ill fated leader’s address to
Napoleon, as he formally presented his sword. Napoleon, in a mood—as
well he might be—in that hour of unparalleled triumph, to show courtesy to
the fallen foe, desired Mack to keep his sword and remain at his side. He
said the same to the eighteen other generals as, one by one, they came up in
turn to tender him their swords. He returned each his sword and bade them
all place themselves near their chief. When all the swords had been
presented and returned, Napoleon made the Austrian generals collectively a
short harangue. “Gentlemen,” he began, “war has its chances! Often
victorious, you must expect sometimes to be vanquished!” He did not really

know, Napoleon went on, why they were fighting. Their master had begun
against him an unjust war. “I want nothing on the Continent,” said
Napoleon in conclusion, “only ships, colonies, and commerce!” It was on
the day before Trafalgar that these memorable words were spoken. The
Austrian generals stared at Napoleon blankly, but not one uttered a word.
“They were all very dull; it was the Emperor alone who kept up the
conversation.” Then they took their stand beside their conqueror and looked
on at the bitterly humiliating scene of the defilade of their fellow soldiers.
THE PARADE OF In an almost incessant throng the columns of the
THE Austrian army streamed by: white-clad cuirassiers;
VANQUISHED
hussars in red and blue and grey; battery after battery of
cocked-hatted, brown-garbed artillerymen, riding with or on their rumbling
dull-yellow wheeled guns; battalion after battalion of white-coated
linesmen; dark-green coated jägers; Hungarian grenadiers, and so on.
Twenty-seven thousand officers and men and sixty field-guns in all defiled
past the Eagles, proudly arrayed there above them, in front of the serried
lines of glittering French bayonets along the hillsides. For five hours on end
the host of captives plodded on before the rocky brow from which
Napoleon surveyed the spectacle; tramping by, their muskets without
bayonets and unloaded, their cartridge-boxes emptied. In several regiments
the men maintained a fair semblance of discipline and military order; but
the ranks of all were sadly bedraggled-looking, the white uniforms torn and
soiled and besmirched with powder-smoke, with many of the men hatless,
or limping from wounds, or with bound-up heads, and their arms in
bloodstained slings. As had been ordered by Napoleon, they carried with
them their standards; no fewer than forty silken battle-flags—for the most
part cased, but here and there was to be seen one not furled, displaying, as
though in futile defiance, its flaunting yellow folds with the double-headed
Black Eagle.
As the Austrian linesmen came abreast of where Napoleon stood, the
pace of the men slackened. Every eye was turned to look at “him”; at the
small grey-coated figure on foot beside the watchfire, standing near the
crestfallen group of their own generals, a few paces from the bright and
brilliant-hued cavalcade of French marshals and the staff. All stared at
Napoleon, gazing as if under a spell. Then, in the midst of it all, this
happened. Suddenly, as they passed Napoleon, a shout rose from among the

ranks of the defeated army: “Es lebe der Kaiser!” (“Long live the
Emperor!”) The cry burst forth with startling effect. It was repeated, and
then several men took it up. But what did it mean? “Es lebe der Kaiser!”
was the national German greeting in salute to their own Austrian sovereign
as Head of the Empire, to the Kaiser at Vienna, the Emperor of Germany.
Did the soldiers who first raised the cry intend it for that, or to hail
Napoleon, as his own men did, with a “Vive l’Empereur!”? The words bore
the same meaning. Or did the men fling the words at Napoleon in a sort of
bravado, as a show of defiance? Some of the Austrians assuredly did mean
them so; to relieve the breaking strain, the terrible tension of the ordeal. At
least some of the French officers near Napoleon took that view of it. “As
they passed by,” describes one, “the prisoners, seized with wonder, with
admiration, slowed down in their march to gaze at their conqueror, and
some cried out ‘Long live the Emperor!’ but no doubt under very different
emotions; some with evident mortification.”
GIVING UP THE From the presence of Napoleon the captive army
GUNS AND passed to the scene of the act of final humiliation: to the
HORSES
place where, midway between the lines of bayonets of the
troops of Ney and Marmont, they were to lay down their colours and
ground their arms.
The colours were first surrendered, a French General, Andréossi,
formerly Napoleon’s Ambassador in London, receiving them, with half a
dozen staff officers and orderlies, who deposited the flags one by one in two
commissariat wagons drawn up close by.
It was a moment of the deepest and keenest anguish for proud and
gallant soldiers. All round them on the hillsides most of the French,
overcome by excitement over the unprecedented and amazing spectacle,
were by that time almost beside themselves, rending the air with exulting
shouts and cheers. Under the cruel stress of the ordeal, as the supreme
moment came on, the self-possession of some of the Austrians, tried beyond
endurance, gave way.
The men of the Cavalry and Artillery bore themselves throughout with
well-disciplined steadiness. As they came to the appointed place where
groups of French cavalry troopers and gunners, told off to take over their
horses and guns, were standing near the roadside awaiting them, they

dismounted at the word of command from their own commanders and stood
back. With hardly a murmur from the ranks the Austrian troopers unbuckled
their swords and carbines and pistols, and dropped them in heaps at the
places pointed out to them. With quiet dignity the officers relinquished their
gold-embroidered banners into the enemy’s hands. In grim silence they saw
the victors—who there at any rate behaved with courtesy and soldierly
consideration for the feeling of the vanquished—step forward to take
possession of their horses and their cannon. Many of the Austrians had tears
running down their cheeks; some stood trembling with suppressed passion;
—but all preserved order and behaved with complete decorum as became
disciplined soldiers.
With others unfortunately, with some of the infantry corps, it was
otherwise. At the very last, before arriving at the place where they were to
give up their weapons, a number of the men in some of the marching
regiments broke down under the fearful strain of the moment and lost their
heads. In many regiments, no doubt, the soldiers obeyed mechanically,
acting like men half stunned after a violent shock; they did as they were
told, and passively grounded their arms to order. But in others the final
scene was attended by acts of wild frenzy, pitiful to behold. In, as it were, a
paroxysm of exasperation at the disgrace that had befallen them, the rank
and file of these broke out recklessly, and got at once beyond all efforts of
their officers to control. With one accord they began smashing the locks and
butts of their muskets on the ground with savage curses, flinging away their
arms all round, and stripping off their accoutrements and stamping on them,
trampling them down in the mud. These, though, as has been said, were
only some of the men; and in certain regiments. The majority of the
Austrians bore themselves with fortitude and calmness.
At the end of the afternoon the Imperial Guard, headed by their Eagle
and band, marched into Ulm and through the city, as we are told, “amid the
shouts of the whole populace.”
So terminated the tragedy of Ulm, in the presence of the Eagles on their
first triumphant battlefield.
THE ULM The spoils of the Eagles at all points, as announced
TROPHIES FOR by Napoleon in the Ulm Bulletin of the Grand Army,
PARIS
were 60,000 prisoners, 200 pieces of cannon, and, in all,

90 flags. The 40 standards surrendered at Ulm itself Napoleon sent to Paris
forthwith—after a grand parade of the trophies at Augsburg, in which ninety
sergeants of the Imperial Guard bore in procession the Austrian flags. The
Ulm trophies were made an Imperial gift for the Senate. “It is a homage,”
wrote Napoleon, “which I and my Army pay to the Sages of the Empire.”
They were the flags, it may be added, which were displayed at the head of
Napoleon’s coffin on the occasion of his State funeral in 1840: they form
four-fifths of the trophies now grouped round Napoleon’s tomb. Alone of
the trophies of the Ulm campaign, and also of the Austerlitz campaign
which followed it, they escaped destruction in the holocaust of Napoleon’s
trophies that took place at the Invalides in March 1814, on the night of the
surrender of Paris to the Allies. How that came to pass will be told later.
There was a very interesting sequel to the Ulm campaign for one of
Ney’s regiments. A brief but brilliant campaign in the Tyrol on their own
account followed for Ney’s men immediately after Ulm.
Entering the Tyrol with two of his divisions, Ney attacked and by
brilliant tactics overthrew the Tyrolese forces and Austrian regulars who
barred his way in a position among the mountains deemed impregnable.
The battalion Eagles of the 69th gave the signal for the frontal attack which
stormed the enemy’s position. Guided by chamois-hunters the soldiers with
the Eagles scaled the face of a precipitous line of crags which overhung in
rear the Austrian centre, by inserting their bayonets into fissures in the rocks
and clinging to shrubs and creepers, their havresacs tied round their heads
as protection from the stones that the Tyrolese above showered down on
them. At the top, driving in the defenders, they held up the gleaming Eagles
in the sunlight on the brink of the precipice to the marshal below, firing
down on the Austrians at the same time to demoralise their resistance and
clear the way for Ney’s main effort: “Les Aigles du 69me plantées sur la
cime des rochers servirent de signal à l’attacque de front que le Maréchal
Ney avait preparé.”
Innsbrück, the capital of the Tyrol, and the head-quarters of the
Austrian army corps garrisoning the country, was the immediate prize of the
victory. It was there that this incident took place.
TWO LOST One of Ney’s regiments, the 76th, had fought in the
FLAGS ARE Tyrol six years before; in Masséna’s campaign of 1799, in
FOUND

one of the battles of which—at Senft in the Grisons, on August 22—two of
its battalions lost their colours. An officer of the regiment, while visiting the
arsenal at Innsbrück after Ney’s capture of the city, came across the two
flags there, in tatters from bullet-holes, hung up as trophies. He made
known his discovery, and the place was quickly filled with the soldiers of
the regiment, eager to see the old flags. “They crowded round them and
kissed the fragments of their old colours, with tears in their eyes.”
Ney had the flags removed at once. He restored them to the custody of
the regiment with his own hand at a grand parade in the presence of the rest
of his army, which the marshal attended with his staff, all in full uniform.
The old colours were received with an elaborate display of military
ceremonial. They were borne along the lines while the regimental band
played a stately march, and the Eagles of both battalions were formally
dipped in salute to them.
On receiving Ney’s report, Napoleon thought fit to give the recovery of
the flags a Bulletin to itself. Relating how they had been lost in battle, and
the “affliction profonde” of the regiment in consequence, he set forth how
they had been found and handed back by Marshal Ney to the regiment
“with an affecting solemnity that drew tears from the eyes of both the old
soldiers and the young conscripts, proud of having had their share in
regaining them!” “Le soldat Français,” concluded the Bulletin, “a pour ses
drapeaux un sentiment qui tient de la tendresse; ils sont l’objet de son culte,
comme un présent reçu des mains d’une mère.” A medal was specially
struck to commemorate the event; and Napoleon, in addition, specially
commissioned an artist, Meynier, to paint a picture for him of Marshal Ney
presenting the recovered colours to the regiment. The painting is now in one
of the galleries of Versailles.

The Midnight Battle by the Danube

TRAPPED BY A startling and dramatic episode of the first
NAPOLEON’S campaign of the Eagles comes next. It took place during
FAULT the second stage of the war; in the midst of Napoleon’s
impetuous advance on Vienna down the Danube valley
after Ulm. Intent on dealing a shattering blow at the advanced army corps

of the Russians, which had reached Lower Austria and was making an effort
to cover the capital, Napoleon made a false move, and left one of the
headmost French divisions in an exposed position, temporarily isolated. It
got trapped by the Russians at Dürrenstein, or Dirnstein, on the north side
of the Danube, to the west of and about seventy miles up the river from
Vienna; and was all but annihilated. There was nearly twenty hours of
continuous fighting, including a night battle of the fiercest and most
desperate character in which three Eagles were temporarily lost; fortunately
8
to be recovered later among the dead on the battlefield.
It was on an extemporised corps, specially placed under the command
of Marshal Mortier, that the blow fell.

NAPOLEON’S CONCENTRATION IN REAR OF ULM

While Napoleon and the Grand Army in force advanced along the
south, or right, bank of the Danube, Mortier had been detached across the
river to hold in check any attempt to interfere with the main operations from
the Bohemian side. A body of Austrian cavalry, under the Archduke
Ferdinand, had managed to cut their way through from Ulm at one point
just before the closing of the net round General Mack. With the aid of the
local militia levies these might prove troublesome on the line of
communications. To deal with them, three divisions, drawn from as many
corps, were amalgamated as Mortier’s special corps, which numbered in all
between twenty and twenty-five thousand men: Gazan’s division, lent by

Marshal Lannes; Dupont’s, lent by Ney; Dumonceau’s, lent by Marmont.
To keep Mortier in touch with the main body of the army, and that he might
be reinforced in emergency, a flotilla of Danube craft was at the same time
improvised, and placed in charge of the Seamen of the Guard, a battalion of
whom had accompanied Napoleon for the campaign. The flotilla was to
keep pace with Mortier and link him with Napoleon. Mortier crossed at
Linz and moved forward; his three divisions each a day’s march apart, for
convenience of provisioning. He marched so fast, however, that he
outstripped the connecting boats.
THE DANUBE At the moment the fighting opened, the flotilla was
FLOTILLA miles in rear. It had been stopped and its progress blocked
STOPPED
near Moelkt, unable in the swollen state of the Danube to
pass the dangerous Strudel, or whirlpool, there, raging just then, after the
heavy autumn rains, with the force of a swirling maelstrom. The flooded
river had made it extremely difficult work all the way, even for the picked
Seamen of the Guard, to navigate with safety the assortment of boats and
timber rafts, clumsy structures of logs and spars lashed together, 160 feet
long each, and planked over, with cabins on the planks, which composed
the flotilla. On them, together with a quantity of spare stores and
ammunition for the army, convalescents and footsore men of various
regiments were being carried, who, it was intended, would thus be on the
spot to reinforce Mortier first of all in case of danger.
Immediately after passing Dürrenstein, the leading division, General
Gazan’s, numbering some 6,000 men, unexpectedly stumbled across part of
the Russian rearguard. All unknown to Mortier, the Russian army corps
which had been entrenched in front of Vienna had abandoned its position
and had hastily withdrawn north of the river, crossing a short distance from
Dürrenstein.
Mortier, after clearing a narrow and difficult pass on the eastern side of
Dürrenstein, with steep and rocky hills on one hand and the Danube on the
other, first learned of the presence of the enemy by catching sight of the
smoke of the burning bridge of Krems, which the Russians had set fire to
after passing over. Then he suddenly found his further advance barred by
troops with guns, who rapidly formed up across his path. The Russians took
up a formidable-looking position, but the marshal decided to attack without
waiting for Dupont to come up with the Second Division, or for the flotilla;

both miles in rear. The sight of the burning bridge and the apparent haste of
the enemy to get across the river, it would seem, misled Mortier into
thinking that the Russians had been in action with Napoleon, and were in
flight, trying to escape. He went at them without pausing to reconnoitre. He
assumed that they were only making a show of defence. The troops before
him he would sweep aside easily. Then he would press on and complete the
rout of the rest of the Russians, whom he took to be retreating in confusion,
screened by the force he saw, across his front. Confident of easy success,
Mortier entered into the fight then and there.
A SURPRISE The sudden rencontre, as has been said, was a
FOR THE surprise for the marshal. Half an hour previously a battle
MARSHAL
had been almost the last thing in Mortier’s thoughts. His
guns were on board a number of river boats which were being drifted
downstream abreast of the troops, the artillery horses being led with the
marching columns along the bank. The boats had been requisitioned a few
miles back, so as to enable the troops to get on faster over the rough stretch
of road through the Pass of Dürrenstein. The guns were hastily disembarked
and raced forward into the firing line in order to stop a forward movement
that the Russians, who promptly took advantage of the opportunity offered
by Mortier being apparently without artillery, began by making.
The Russians came on and quickly increased in numbers, to Marshal
Mortier’s further surprise. Were those beaten troops in full flight? They
began to swarm down to meet the French; heading for the guns as these
were being brought forward. The fight rapidly became general, and charge
after charge was made by the Russians to carry Mortier’s guns. They
captured them, but were then beaten back and the guns recaptured. Twice
were the guns taken and retaken. The two French regiments nearest the
guns, the 100th and 103rd, defended them with brilliant courage, their four
battalion Eagles conspicuous in the forefront and repeatedly the centre of
desperate fighting, as the Russians essayed again and again at the point of
the bayonet to make prize of the gleaming emblems.
But more and more Russians kept joining in, and after four hours of
very severe fighting the marshal began to get anxious. He had gained
ground towards Krems, and had made some 1,500 prisoners; but every foot
of the way had been stubbornly contested, and his losses had been serious.

Mortier after that left the troops, and with an aide de camp galloped
back through the pass in order to hasten up Dupont. But the Second
Division was still at a distance. Dupont’s men were still a long way beyond
Dürrenstein and could not arrive for some time yet. Mortier could only tell
them not to lose a moment, and then retrace his own steps. On his way
back, to his amazement, he came upon a second Russian column in great
strength in the act of debouching from a side pass and entering Dürrenstein.
It had come round by a track among the hills on the north to take Gazan’s
division in rear, and interpose between it and Dupont’s reinforcing troops.
At considerable personal risk the marshal managed to evade discovery by
the Russians. By following a devious by-path he at length got back to where
Gazan’s division was; as before, in hot action and slowly forcing the
Russians back.
TOO LATE TO Mortier stopped the advance at once. He faced his
CLEAR THE troops about, and, while keeping off his original enemy,
PASS
retreated; closing his columns and rushing all back as fast
as possible to repass the defile of Dürrenstein and confront the new enemy
on the further side, in a position he might hold until Dupont could reinforce
him. But it was already too late. The French reached the entrance of the
pass on the near side to find it already occupied by the Russians, who were
pouring through in dense masses. There were nearly 20,000 of them on that
side of him and 15,000 on the other, his former foes now fast closing in
from behind hard on his heels. Mortier’s reduced ranks numbered barely
4,000 all told.
Owing to the high, steep rocks on one hand, and the river on the other,
it was impossible to push past the Russians on either flank. All that could be
done was to attack in front and try to cut a way through. That; or to
surrender! With reckless impetuosity the French attacked, firing furiously
and flinging themselves on the Russian bayonets; while their rearguard,
facing round, kept their first foes back. For two long hours they fought like
that; their ranks swept by the enemy’s cannon on each side. At length they
forced the entrance to the pass: but they could get no farther. They had by
then lost all their guns but two: but they still had all their Eagles. With
bullet-holes through some of them, and their silken flags shot away or torn
to tatters, the Eagles did their part. Now they were rallying-centres; now

they were leading charges. There was hardly a battalion in which the first
standard-bearer had not gone down.
All were fighting almost without hope, holding out in sheer despair as
long as they had cartridges left, when, as that dreadful November afternoon
was drawing to its close, suddenly, from beyond the far end of the pass was
heard the booming of a distant cannonade. The soldiers heard it and hope
revived. It could only be Dupont! Help, then, was coming! The despairing
rank and file took heart again—but the hour of rescue was not yet.
They had four long hours more to go through; every hour making their
terrible situation worse. At nightfall “our cavalry gave way, our firing
slackened, our bayonets, from incessant use, became bent and blunted. The
confusion became terrible. Things, indeed, could hardly have got worse.”
So an officer describes. The enemy, in places, had got right in among them,
but “our soldiers, being the handier and more agile, had an advantage over
the great clumsy Russians.” Here and there “the men were so close, that
they seized each other by the throat.” In the midst of the fiercest of the
fighting the tall figure of the marshal was conspicuous. He was seen amid
the flashes from the muskets “at the head of a party of grenadiers, sword in
hand, laying about him like any trooper.”
“YOUR DUTY IS The Battalion-Eagles of the 100th, with their Porte-
TO SAVE THE Aigles and a handful of soldiers, got cut off together,
EAGLES!”
amid a surging mêlée of Russians. The major of the
regiment, Henriot by name, the senior surviving officer—the colonel of the
100th, as also the colonel of the 103rd, had fallen earlier in the fight—saw
what was happening and the extreme peril of the Eagles. Calling for
volunteers, he got together some of his men, cut his way through to the
Eagles, and rescued them. Major Henriot, after that, having saved the
Eagles for the moment, determined as a last resource to attempt a forlorn-
hope charge; to get beyond the enemy and reach Dupont with them. It might
be possible to save them under the cover of darkness. One of the Porte-
Aigles of the 6th Light Infantry with his Eagle, near by at the moment,
joined the devoted band of men that the intrepid major now managed to
rally round the Eagles of the 100th. With half a dozen stirring words
Henriot called on them to follow him. “Comrades, we must break through!
They are more than we, but you are Frenchmen: you don’t count numbers!

Remember, your duty is to save the Eagles of France!” (“Souvenez vous
qu’il s’agit de sauver les Aigles Françaises!”)
There was a hoarse shout in reply: “We are all Grenadiers! Pas de
charge!”
They dashed at the Russians, Henriot leading, and, after fighting their
way through the pass and nearly to Dürrenstein, fell to a man. Yet the three
Eagles did not fall into Russian hands, thanks to the darkness. They were
found next morning by French search-parties under a heap of dead, where
the last survivors, fighting back to back, had fallen while making their final
stand.
So desperate, indeed, did things look for the French at one time, a little
before midnight, that some of his staff appealed to Mortier to make his
escape and get across to the other side of the Danube in a boat, “so that a
Marshal of France shall not fall into the hands of the enemy!”
But the gallant veteran flatly refused to listen to the proposal.
“No,” was his answer, “certainly not! I will not desert my brave
comrades! I will save them or die with them! Keep the boats for the
wounded,” he went on. “We have still two guns and some case-shot—rally
and make a last effort!”
Almost immediately afterwards an opportunity did offer for the marshal
to save them.

MARSHAL MORTIER.

A DASH IN THE Two of Dupont’s regiments at that moment reached
DARK TO HELP the battle. By persistent exertions, outstripping the rest of
the Second Division, and continuing in the dark, guided
by the flashes of the guns, they had made their way by a goat-path along the
steep rocky slopes at the side of the defile and taken the Russians barring
Mortier’s retreat in rear. Instantly the new arrivals flung themselves hotly
into the fight. They were the 9th Light Infantry and the 32nd of the Line,

that old favourite of Napoleon’s in the days of the Army of Italy, whose flag
on the Eagle-staff bore, as has been said, the golden inscription which
Napoleon had placed there—“J’étais tranquille, le brave 32me était là.”
The golden legend was of good omen for Mortier.
Their interposition put the Russian main force between two fires,
weakening the attack on Mortier and compelling a portion of them to face
about. Its effect was speedily felt, and at once; although a desperate effort
by the two regiments to break through and join hands with Mortier, in
which the Eagles of the 9th and 32nd were “taken and retaken,” was beaten
back under pressure of numbers.
The arrival of the two regiments so opportunely put heart into all:
Dupont’s whole division, declared the marshal, could not be far off. He
himself would make an effort to meet him on the farther side of the pass.
“Then,” as is described by Napoleon’s aide de camp, Count de Sègur,
“rallying and closing up the remaining troops, he brought up the only two
guns left him. One was to point towards Krems and against Kutusoff’s
troops; the other Mortier placed at the head of the column, in the direction
of Dürrenstein. As all the drums had been broken he had the charge sounded
on iron cooking-cans.
“At that moment the Austrian general, Schmidt, who had led the
Russian corps from Dürrenstein, headed a final charge which was to strike a
crushing blow and complete the destruction of our column. But Fabvier (the
colonel in charge of Mortier’s artillery) heard them advance. Concealed by
the darkness, he let Schmidt approach quite near. Then he suddenly fired the
gun on that side, at the shortest range, in among the headmost of the
attacking troops. The discharge threw the enemy into confusion and killed
their leader. Into this bloody opening Mortier and Gazan precipitated
themselves, overthrowing everything before them. Dürrenstein itself was
retaken in the impetuous dash.”
It was indeed a tour de force; a sudden reversal of the fortunes of the
fight. The feat in its complete accomplishment surprised even Mortier’s
expectations. “The Marshal, in fact, could hardly believe his own success.”
So an officer puts it. But he had done more than burst through the toils. As
daylight next morning showed, the Russians, driven headlong, had

abandoned six of their guns, and left in the hands of the French no fewer
than twelve standards. Two of them were taken by the two Dupont
regiments which had so gallantly flung themselves on the Russian rear.
That was as concerned honour and glory. As a set off, barely 2,000
remained of Mortier’s corps of 6,000 men. Two-thirds of the total when the
roll was called next day were found to have fallen on the field.
THEIR FATE Mortier’s men regained Dürrenstein, all in flames;
STILL IN DOUBT set on fire by the Russians as they evacuated the village.
But where was Dupont and his Division? They had heard
Dupont’s distant guns just before dark; but except the two regiments who
had been rushed forward independently, ahead of the main body, starting
immediately after Mortier’s visit in the early afternoon, no help from
Dupont had reached them. Gazan’s wearied survivors of the midnight battle
dared not even yet lay aside their arms. The fight was not all over. The
enemy were still near by; just beyond the outskirts of the village. Both the
Russian divisions that they had been fighting with in front and rear had in
the end united. Outnumbering Mortier’s men as they did by ten to one, the
Russians would certainly turn back and be on them before long with re-
formed ranks, eager to take vengeance for their defeat and the rough
handling they had undergone.
But the end was near.
Suddenly, from the farther side of Dürrenstein, from the direction in
which the enemy had fallen back, there came a violent outburst of firing.
Immediately on that followed sounds of shouting. Then there was the
trampling rush of a great host of men all making for the village. “With
despair in our hearts we were preparing for another battle, when, in answer
to our challenge of ‘Qui vive?’ came back, with electrifying effect, the
answer ‘France!’ It was Dupont. At last he had arrived to the rescue of his
Marshal.
“We recognised each other in the light of the blazing houses, and with
transports of joy and gratitude and cries of ‘Long live our rescuers!’ our
men threw themselves on the necks of their deliverers.”
In that dramatic fashion the battle of Dürrenstein reached its close. The
Russians fell back under cover of the night, retreating up the lateral valley-

pass, by which way at the outset they had worked their way round, guided
by the Austrian general, Schmidt, to surprise and cut off Gazan’s division.
Napoleon, in his great relief at learning that Mortier had come through
without disaster, for once blamed nobody. He knew that he himself was
most of all to blame, for exposing to sudden attack a comparatively weak
detachment of his army in the face of an enemy still full of fight, on the
farther side of a deep and rapid river. “It seemed,” in Marbot’s words, “as if
no explanation of this operation beyond the Danube satisfactory to military
men being possible, there was a desire to hush up its consequences.”
BY WAY OF By way of covering up his own glaring blunder
COVERING THE Napoleon heaped praises on the troops engaged. He
BLUNDER
expressed unbounded admiration at the stand they had
made. In the 22nd “Bulletin of the Grand Army,” issued from Schönbrunn,
near Vienna, two days later, the Emperor declared that “le combat de
Dürrenstein sera à jamais mémorable dans les annales militaires.” Gazan,
he said, had shown “beaucoup de valeur et de conduite.” The 4me and 9me
Légère and the 32nd and 100th of the Line, wrote Napoleon, “se sont
couverts de gloire.”

CHAPTER IV

ON THE FIELD OF AUSTERLITZ
Austerlitz, the crowning triumph of the First War of the Grand Army, set
its cachet to the fame of the Eagles.
Napoleon there lured the enemy on into attacking him at apparent
disadvantage on ground of his own choosing. Then, availing himself to the
fullest extent of the flagrant blundering of his assailants, he struck at them
with a smashing, knock-down blow from the shoulder.
LURED ON TO By making believe that his army was separated in
MEET THEIR detachments, out of touch, and beyond possibility of
FATE
early concentration, and causing it to appear further that
he had become alarmed for his own safety and was on the point of
commencing a retreat, he decoyed them into a false move. He tempted the
Czar Alexander, whose main force had arrived within a few miles of
Vienna, and was confronting him, into making a rash manœuvre designed to
cut his line of communications and defeat him before the second Austrian
army in the field, under the Archduke Charles, hastening from the Italian
frontier to join hands with the Russians, could reach the scene. In the
confident belief that by themselves they outnumbered Napoleon at the
critical point by two to one, with nearly 90,000 men to 40,000, the Russians
made a risky flank march to interpose between Napoleon and his base, and
drive him in rout into the wilds of Bohemia. They began their advance
suddenly, on Thursday, November 2, but immediately afterwards wasted
two days through faulty leadership. Before they could get within striking
distance of Napoleon he had called in his detached corps and had massed
70,000 men at the point of danger. Foreseeing the possibility of the enemy’s
move, his apparent disposal of the various corps had been elaborately
arranged so as to ensure concentration at short notice in case of emergency.

From hour to hour during Sunday, December 1, the Russian army in
dense columns streamed past within six miles of the French position in full
view of Napoleon, all marching forward in stolid silence, intent only on
getting between Napoleon and Vienna. No counter-move meanwhile was
made from the French side. Strict orders were sent to the outposts that not a
shot was to be fired. But by the early afternoon all was ready for action.
Completely seeing through the enemy’s plans, Napoleon exclaimed in a
tone of absolute confidence: “Before to-morrow night that army is mine!”
On Napoleon’s right flank, in a strong defensive position, stood
Marshal Davout’s corps, thrown back at an angle to the main front of the
army, so as to induce the enemy to extend themselves widely on that side
before opening their attack. Marshal Soult’s corps, the most powerful in the
Grand Army, formed the centre; supported by the Imperial Guard,
Oudinot’s Grenadier Division, and two divisions of Mortier’s corps.
Marshal Lannes’ corps, with Bernadotte’s, was on the left, as well as
Murat’s cavalry. Napoleon proposed to allow the Russian leading columns
to circle round his right flank and get into action with Davout. Then, as
soon as they were committed to their attack in that quarter, Soult’s immense
force would hurl itself on the Russian centre and break through it by sheer
weight of numbers. Thus the Allied Army would be cleft in two, after which
Napoleon would only have to fling his weight to either side for the enemy
to be destroyed in detail. During Soult’s move, Lannes on the left flank was
to hold in check by a brisk attack the Russian right wing and reserves,
which would prevent assistance reaching the centre until too late to save the
day. So the battle was planned; so it was fought and won.

Sketch Plan of the Positions of the Armies at the opening of the Battle of AUSTERLITZ

The Allied columns were seen during Sunday afternoon to be steadily
moving southward over a high ridge opposite the French camp, crowned
near the centre by the lofty plateau of Pratzen, the key of the position on the
Russian side. They streamed along from the direction of the village of
Austerlitz, a short distance away to the north-east, from which the battle
took its name. A tract of low marshy country, the valley of the little river
Goldbach, four miles across, with two or three hamlets dotting it here and
there, connected by narrow cart-roads, divided the two armies. The French
position, facing eastwards, was on a range of tableland along the west side
of the valley of the Goldbach.
THE KEY OF Monday morning came, and the “Sun of
THE POSITION Austerlitz”—so often apostrophised by Napoleon in after
days—rose in a cloudless sky above the early mists lying
dense over the marshy ground of the low-lying valley between the armies.
The dominating crest of the Pratzen plateau showed above the mist almost
bare of troops. On the evening before it had bristled with Russian bayonets,
glistening in the rays of the setting sun. Pratzen, the master-key of the
battlefield, had been left unoccupied. The enemy’s corps had taken no

measures to hold it in their haste to get forward to attack the French right
wing, and cut Napoleon off.
Soult’s corps—the entire French army had been under arms since four
o’clock—was ordered to descend into the valley before the morning mist
dissipated as the sun rose. Under cover of the mist Soult was to get as close
as possible to the foot of the Pratzen Hill, so as to be on the spot ready to
seize the height immediately the battle opened on the right.
Napoleon waited, standing among the marshals on foot near the centre
of the position, until between seven and eight o’clock. Then sharp firing
suddenly broke out from the direction of Davout’s corps, and a few minutes
later an aide de camp came galloping up with the news that the enemy were
attacking the right wing in great force. “Now,” said Napoleon, “is the
moment.” The marshals sprang on their horses and spurred off to head their
corps.
So Austerlitz opened.
Its first brunt, as Napoleon had foreseen, fell hard and heavily on the
French right wing; but Davout’s men there proved well able to maintain
their ground. The sturdy linesmen on that side disputed every foot of the
position at the point of the bayonet against four times their numbers.
Right gallantly, time and again, did the Eagles on that part of the field
fulfil their rôle and take their part; now heading charges, now rallying round
them the men who had sworn to die in their defence.
“SOLDIERS, I The 15th Light Infantry—a corps in the ranks of
STAY HERE!” which were many young soldiers, now under fire for the
first time in their lives—stormed the village of Tellnitz,
which the Russians had carried in their first rush on the French outposts.
The leading battalion of the 15th drove the Russians out; and, dashing on
beyond the village, met a reinforcing Russian column hastening to the spot.
They charged it without hesitation, but could not break through, and then
they began to recoil before superior numbers. The Eagle-bearer was shot
down, and fell badly wounded. He had to leave hold of his Eagle, and amid
the surging throng of soldiers in disorder it was in great danger of being
trampled under foot and lost. Fortunately the officer in command, Chef de
Bataillon Dulong, saw what had happened, and sprang from his horse and

seized the Eagle. Holding it on high with one hand, he shouted to his men to
stand fast. “Soldiers, I stay here!” he called. “Let me see if you will
abandon your Eagle and your commander.” The act and words checked the
disorder. The battalion rallied at once, re-formed ranks, and made head
against the enemy until help arrived, when the Russians were driven back.
The Eagle of another battalion in the same division of Davout’s army
corps, General Friant’s, the 111th of the Line, a little time later had its part.
The 111th had suffered heavily in the earlier fighting, but towards eleven
o’clock were called on to lead a counter-attack beyond the line of fortified
hedgerow that the regiment was holding, against a fresh Russian column
which was advancing with loud shouts and bayonets at the charge to storm
their position. Immediately in front was a wide, open stretch of ground,
across which a Russian battery, to cover the attack, was pouring a
tremendous fire of shell, the bursting projectiles tearing up the ground as if
it were being ploughed. Just as the order to advance was given, the Porte-
Aigle fell dead. An old sergeant, Courbet by name, took his place. He
seized the Eagle and looked round, for several of the men were wavering.
They were unwilling to leave cover for certain death, as it looked, on the
shell-swept space of open ground before them. Courbet climbed over the
hedge, and, waving the Eagle and flag with both hands, stood by himself
amid the bursting shells, some twenty yards in front. “Come on, comrades!”
he shouted—“come on!” Then with the words, “A moi, soldats du 111me!”
brandishing the Eagle, he ran straight at the fast-nearing Russians. “The
effect,” says one who saw the brave deed done, “was electric.” The men
streamed over the hedge instantly, re-formed line in spite of the cannon-
balls, and, led by the grenadiers of the battalion, charged the approaching
enemy, broke them, drove them before them, and seized the village in front,
whence the Russians had made their advance.
The Eagle of the 48th, another of Friant’s regiments, in like manner
was rallied in the moment of supreme crisis by the daring of its Eagle-
bearer.
SUDDENLY The Eagle of the 108th, which regiment was fighting
FIRED ON BY near by, all but fell into the enemy’s hands through a
FRIENDS
blunder. It was early in the morning, at the very
beginning of the fight, in crossing a marshy strip under cover of the mist, to
take in flank the Russian attack. In the uncertain light another French

regiment, the 26th Light Infantry, one of Soult’s regiments, moving about a
hundred yards on the left of Davout’s men, mistook the 108th for the
enemy, and fired heavily into it. The Eagle-bearer was among those shot
down, and fell with the Eagle. This sudden blow from an unexpected
quarter staggered the 108th. They fell back hastily to re-form in rear,
leaving their Eagle, whose fall had been unobserved in the mist, lying
beside its dead bearer on the ground. The loss was discovered just as
another force of Russians, who came up in front, reached the place; but
before they could carry off the trophy a charge forward by some hastily
rallied men of the 108th recovered the Eagle and bore it back to safety.
So far then with Davout’s corps.
Soult, meanwhile, in the centre, was striking hard. His attack, in its
effect on the Allied Army, was a complete surprise. Soult’s advance began
the instant that the marshal, riding at full gallop from the presence of
Napoleon, could reach his men. At that moment the third of the Russian
columns in the order of march, pressing ahead to overtake the first and
second, and join in the attack on Davout, had not long descended the
southern slope at the foot of the Pratzen heights; while the fourth Russian
column, a mile or more in rear, was just about to ascend the northern slope
to cross the Pratzen Hill and follow.
Up the steep western hillside face of the Pratzen clambered Soult’s
regiments. Unseen by the enemy at any point, without a shot being fired at
them, or by them, until just as they were nearing the crest-line of the ridge,
they emerged from the mists of the valley and seized the high ground.
They moved on a front of three divisions. Legrand’s was on the right,
echeloned in the direction of Davout’s left flank so as to keep touch with
that marshal. St. Hilaire’s was in the centre, advancing in a long line of
battalions in attack formation. Vandamme’s division was on the left.
The Allied fourth column caught a glimpse of Vandamme’s men as they
were climbing the last ascent, and raced forward to form up and bar their
way. There were 14,000 troops in the column, half Austrians, half Russians;
and the Czar Alexander with the Emperor of Austria rode with them.

MARSHAL SOULT.
In the uniform of Colonel-in-Chief of the Chasseurs of the Guard.

Attacking at once, the French broke through the Allied front line, and,
after a hard fight—for the Austro-Russian regiments, fighting under the two
Sovereigns’ eyes, resisted with desperate valour—forced it back on the
second line with the loss of several guns.
GRAPE-SHOT AT Again there the Eagles took their part. On the right of
THIRTY PACES St. Hilaire’s attack, the brigade of General Thiébault

became separated in the fighting with the Russian foremost line. Its three
regiments—the 10th Light Infantry, the 14th, and the 36th—became
separated, and one of them, the 36th, was for a time in danger of being
overpowered by part of the Russian third column, which had faced about on
hearing the firing in rear and was hastening back up the hill. Two Russian
regiments raced up towards them on that side. Some Austrian infantry of the
fourth column, extending in their direction, were at the same time coming at
them on the left. In front the 36th was faced by two Russian batteries,
which dashed up, unlimbered, and blazed away, firing grape and case shot
at barely thirty paces; as well as by some Russian dragoons, who made as if
about to charge. To keep the dragoons off, the leading battalion attempted to
form square; but the men, breathless after their rush uphill, were in some
disorder and for the moment out of hand. The square, while yet half formed,
was then nearly torn to pieces by a staggering discharge of grape, and
several of the men began to get unsteady. It looked bad for the 36th, when,
of a sudden, Adjutant Labadie, of the First Battalion, snatched the Eagle
from its bearer and ran out in front. He stopped short and held the Eagle-
staff with both hands planted firmly on the ground. Then he called to the
men, in a momentary pause while the Russian gunners were reloading:
“Soldiers of the 36th, rally to the front! Here is your line of battle!” The
men saw him, and obeyed. The disorder ceased. Quickly deploying to right
and left, they dashed at the Russian guns. At the same moment the other
two regiments of the brigade, led by St. Hilaire and the brigadier, sword in
hand, came up at the pas de charge, bayonets levelled. The 10th Light
Infantry brilliantly repulsed the Austrians on one side: the 14th on the other
side drove Kamenskoi’s Russians back down the hill.
Supporting the 10th Light Infantry was the 59th of the Line, one of
Mortier’s corps, of Dupont’s division, which had been sent forward to help
in holding the Pratzen heights. Some of the Russian dragoons dashed in
among them as they deployed to follow the 10th. A Russian officer cut
down the Eagle-bearer and seized the Eagle. Sergeant-Major Gamier, the
“Porte-Aigle,” struggled to his feet in spite of his wounds, wrested the
Eagle back, and with his free hand fought with his sword and killed the
Russian, saving the Eagle.
On St. Hilaire’s left, during this time, Vandamme’s division had had to
fight its way forward against the Russians and Austrians of the fourth

column, several battalions of which, with artillery, had rapidly taken post
along a range of knolls towards the northern edge of the Pratzen plateau.
Driving back at the outset six Russian battalions, which charged forward to
meet them, springing up from the shelter of a dip in the ground,
Vandamme’s men, “without firing a shot, with the bayonet only, advanced
on the main enemy with shouldered arms, not replying to the Russian
musketry.” When within forty yards, they halted, fired a volley, and dashed
in with bayonets lowered. The attack was successful beyond expectation.
The enemy before them were routed, and all their guns taken, with many
prisoners. Then Vandamme received orders to wheel his division to the right
and take in flank the enemy, at that moment in hot fight with St. Hilaire.
THE RUSSIAN Vandamme was in the middle of the move when one
GUARD COME of his brigades met with a sudden and unexpected
UP
disaster. Two battalions belonging to the 24th Light
Infantry and the 4th of the Line, who fought side by side on the extreme left
of Vandamme’s command, were all but annihilated. As they were wheeling
round, the Russian Imperial Guard came up, hurrying forward from the
Reserve, and set on them fiercely. It was just to the left of the village of
Pratzen, as approached from the French side, on the farther side of the
plateau. The Russian Foot Guards forced the 4th and the 24th Light Infantry
back into some vineyards adjoining the village in disorder. The last to retire
was the First Battalion of the 4th. They had hardly gained the edge of the
tract of vineyards, when, without the least warning of their approach,
coming up on their flank and unseen in the smoke and turmoil of the
contest, a more formidable enemy still assailed them. The Russian
Cuirassiers of the Guard, 2,000 horsemen, troopers of the finest cavalry in
the world, came down on them, and charged them at a gallop on the flank.
The Grand Duke Constantine, brother of the Czar, in person led the
Cuirassiers. Disaster, hideous, overwhelming, crushing, for the two hapless
battalions—that of the 24th Light Infantry was, in like manner, caught just
beyond cover exposed in the open—was the instant result. They tried to
form square at the last moment, but the Cuirassiers were on them before
they could begin the evolution. Both battalions were practically hurled out
of existence within three minutes.
They were ridden down, trampled on by the huge Russian horses, and
slashed to pieces mercilessly by the giant Russian troopers with their long

HOW ONE straight swords. Both battalions lost their Eagles. That of
EAGLE MET ITS the 24th Light Infantry was picked up later on the field
FATE and restored to what was left of the ill-fated corps. The
Eagle of the 4th was carried off by the Russians, and is
now in the Kazan Cathedral at St. Petersburg. Yet it was lost with honour;
bravely defended to the last. The Eagle-bearer was cut down. A lieutenant
tried to get hold of the Eagle and save it; he, too, was cut down. A private
then snatched it from the dead officer’s hands, and was in the act of waving
it on high when he in turn was sabred and fell. The Russians made prize of
the trophy at once, and it was carried direct to the Czar Alexander on the
battlefield.
Napoleon, who had moved up near the fighting in the centre, witnessed
the disaster with his own eyes.
The corps, as it happened, too, was one he had taken an interest in. The
4th of the Line had been in favour with him, and he had appointed his
brother Joseph as its colonel when the 4th was at the Camp of Boulogne as
part of the “Army of England.” He had, indeed, specially chosen that
particular corps for its steadiness. He announced Joseph’s appointment to it
in a message to the Senate on April 18, 1804, “in order that he should be
allowed to contribute to the vengeance which the French people propose to
take for the violation of the Treaty [of Amiens] and be afforded an
opportunity of acquiring a fresh title to the esteem of the nation.”
In wild panic the survivors of the disaster fled to the rear, tearing by
close past where Napoleon and the Staff were. “They almost rushed over us
and the Emperor himself,” describes De Ségur, who as an aide de camp was
close to the Emperor at the moment. “Our effort to arrest the rout was in
vain. The unfortunate fellows were quite distracted with fear and would
listen to nothing. In reply to our reproaches for so deserting the field of
battle and their Emperor, they shouted mechanically ‘Vive l’Empereur!’ and
they fled away faster than ever.
“Napoleon smiled pitifully. With a scornful gesture, he said to us: ‘Let
them go!’ Retaining all his calmness in the midst of the confusion he
despatched Rapp to bring up the Cavalry of the Guard.”
Rapp, another of the Imperial aides de camp, was also Colonel of the
Mamelukes of the Guard. He was at the moment riding close behind the

Emperor. Rapp darted off, and, after taking Napoleon’s order to charge the
Russian Cuirassiers to Marshal Bessières, in command of the Cavalry of the
Guard, he himself led their headmost squadrons forward; his own swarthy
Mamelukes with two squadrons of Chasseurs and one of Horse Grenadiers.
Waving his sabre and calling at the top of his voice, “Vengeons les!
Vengeons nos drapeaux!” “Avenge them! Avenge our standards!” he led
them forward at full gallop. “We dashed at full speed on the artillery and
took them,” described Rapp in a letter. The guns were those of a Russian
battery which had just come into action close by where the Guard
Cuirassiers had charged. “The enemy’s horse awaited our attack at the halt.
They were overthrown by the charge and fled in confusion, galloping like
us over the wrecks of our squares.”
“WE FOUGHT But the Russians rallied quickly. Reinforced by the
MAN TO MAN” superb regiment of the Chevalier Guards, a corps in
which all the troopers were men of birth, they came on to
meet the French again. Just at that moment Bessières, with at his back the
magnificent cavalry of Napoleon’s Guard, came up at full speed. Rapp’s
squadrons rejoined, and both Imperial Guards met in full career. “Again we
charged,” says Rapp, “and this charge was terrible. It was one of the most
desperate cavalry combats ever fought, and lasted several minutes. The
brave Morland, Colonel of the mounted Chasseurs of the Guard, fell by my
side. We fought man to man, and so mingled together that the infantry on
neither side dared fire, lest they should kill their own men.” They fought it
out until the Russians gave back and broke and fled—in full sight of the
Czar and the Austrian Emperor, who from some rising ground near by had
been spectators of the desperate affray.
The survivors of the hapless First Battalion of the 4th of the Line had
meanwhile recovered themselves. Rallied by their officers, they had been
brought back into the battle. They returned with their nerve restored, now
only anxious to make amends for the disgrace they had brought on the
Grand Army. They were in time to join in the final advance beyond the
Pratzen heights and cross bayonets with an Austrian regiment, from which
they took its two standards. That feat, as will be seen, was to serve them in
good stead later on.
The charge of the Cavalry of the Guard practically decided the fate of
the day at Austerlitz. Napoleon at once brought up Oudinot’s Grenadiers,

Bernadotte’s battalions, and the regiments of the Old Guard to further
reinforce Soult’s divisions. The Allied centre was shattered and driven in at
all points, and forced back for a mile-and-a-half beyond the field of battle.
It resisted desperately to the last, and several fierce counter-attacks were
made; but in vain.
THE DOG THAT In one of these the Eagle of the Chasseurs à Pied of
SAVED AN the Imperial Guard had a narrow escape. According to the
EAGLE
story it was saved by a dog—“Moustache,” a mongrel
poodle that had attached himself to the corps and become a regimental pet.
The Eagle-bearer of the First Battalion, to whom the dog was much
attached, and whom he was following, was shot, and the Eagle dropped to
the ground beneath the man’s body. An Austrian regiment was making a
counter-attack at that point, and before the Eagle could be picked up, three
Austrian soldiers ran forward to seize it. Two of them attacked the two men
of the Eagle escort. The third was faced by “Moustache,” who kept him off,
growling savagely and snapping at the Austrian from behind the dead body
of the Eagle-bearer. The man dropped his musket, drew his hanger, and cut
at “Moustache,” slicing off a paw. But in spite of that the dog managed to
keep him off until assistance came. Then the three Austrians were
bayoneted and the Eagle was saved. Marshal Lannes, on hearing the story,
had a silver collar made for “Moustache,” with a medal to hang from it,
inscribed on one side, “Il perdit une jambe à la bataille d’Austerlitz, et
sauva le Drapeau de son régiment”; and on the other, “Moustache, chien
Français; qu’il soit partout respecté et cheri comme un Brave.”
“Moustache,” in the end, it may be said, died a soldier’s death. He was
killed by an English cannon-ball at Badajoz, and was buried on the ramparts
there, with a stone over him, inscribed: “Cy git le brave Moustache.”
The Allied centre broken through, the end came on swiftly all over the
field of battle.
On Napoleon’s left wing, Lannes and Murat had engaged the Russian
rear column (or right wing as they fronted to fight) immediately after Soult
opened the main attack. They had done their part by holding in play the
enemy in front, thus preventing the Allied troops on that side from moving
up to reinforce the centre. There, too, as elsewhere, the Eagles of
Napoleon’s battalions fulfilled their rôle; one Eagle in particular, that of the
13me Légère, achieving special distinction. When the Allied centre gave

way, Lannes and Murat pressed forward impetuously, forcing their
antagonists back, and driving them off the field to the north-east, past the
village of Austerlitz.
Davout, on Napoleon’s right, finished his task at the same time; in no
less workmanship fashion. As Soult swung round his victorious divisions to
the right to take the Russian left wing in rear, Davout’s moment came and
he gave the order to advance. Surging forward with exultant shouts the
stout-hearted defenders of that fiercely contested side of the field swept
down on the assailants they had kept at bay for five long hours. The
Russians did their best to make a brave resistance, but the day was lost.
Formed in close-packed columns they fell back, losing guns and colours,
9
and hundreds of prisoners.
VICTORS AND As darkness closed in, the last shots were fired at
VANQUISHED Austerlitz. Crushing and complete had been the
overthrow. The Allied army fled in wild panic. It left on
the field 30,000 men, dead, wounded, or prisoners, 100 guns, and 400
ammunition caissons. Forty-five standards were in the hands of the victors.
Twelve thousand men in killed and wounded was the price Napoleon paid.
It was a big price; but the victory to him was worth the sacrifice. At five
next morning an aide de camp from the Austrian Emperor presented himself
before Napoleon to beg for an immediate suspension of hostilities. The
Emperor Francis himself had an interview with Napoleon during that
afternoon, and, as the result, terms of peace—to include the Austrian
Emperor’s Russian allies—were mutually agreed on; to be formally settled
between the diplomatists as soon as possible, Pressburg in Hungary being
named for the meeting-place.
We come now to the dramatic sequel to Austerlitz which awaited the
ill-fated First Battalion of the 4th of the Line. They had to face Napoleon
and render account to him personally for the loss of their Eagle. The
dreaded interview came some three weeks later; at a grand parade of Soult’s
corps before the Emperor at Schönbrunn—as it befell, on Christmas Day.
Napoleon, attended by the Imperial Staff, most of the marshals, half a
hundred other officers of rank, and nearly as many aides de camp, passed
down the long line of troops, congratulating most of the regiments on the
parts they had individually taken on the different battlefields. In due course

the Emperor came to the regiments of Vandamme’s division, ranged in their
allotted place, the 4th of the Line among them. Its First Battalion, reduced
by the disaster to a quarter of the normal strength, stood at the head of the
regiment, looking gloomy and disconsolate, the only corps on parade
without its Eagle.
Napoleon approached the place with a frown on his face and a look as
black as thunder. He reined up opposite the battalion and addressed it in a
loud angry tone.
“Soldiers,” he began hoarsely. “What have you done with the Eagle
which I entrusted to you?”
The colonel of the regiment replied that the Eagle-bearer had been
killed at Austerlitz in the mêlée when the Russian cuirassiers charged the
regiment, and the Eagle had been lost in the tumult and confusion of the
moment. There was no survivor of those who had seen the Eagle-bearer fall.
The battalion, indeed, did not know of its loss until some time later. One
and all deeply deplored what had happened, but they desired to inform His
Majesty most respectfully that they, single-handed, had captured two
Austrian standards, and implored his consideration on that account, begging
that he would allow them to receive a new Eagle in exchange.
The whole regiment supported the colonel’s request with loud shouts,
“réclama à grands cris.” But Napoleon’s countenance remained unchanged.
SCATHING He replied coldly and contemptuously: “These two
CENSURE AND foreign flags do not return me my Eagle!” Then, after a
BITTER SCORN
pause, he launched out into words of the severest censure
and rebuke, telling the men that he had seen them with his own eyes in
flight at Austerlitz. He poured bitter scorn on their conduct, “in phrases,
stinging, burning, corrosive, which those present remembered long
afterwards—to the end of their lives.”
Again the unhappy colonel pleaded his hardest for his men. He
entreated the Emperor’s clemency, once more beseeching Napoleon to
allow that they had wiped out the slur on their good name, and to grant the
battalion a new Eagle.
Napoleon said nothing for a moment. Then he again addressed them in
an abrupt tone:

“Officers, sub-officers, and soldiers, swear to me here that not one of
you saw your Eagle fall. Assure me that if you had done so you would have
flung yourselves into the midst of the enemy to recover it, or have died in
the attempt. The soldier who loses his Eagle on the field of battle loses his
honour and his all.”
“We swear it!” came the reply at once.
At that there seemed to come a change in the Emperor’s mood. He
paused once more for a few moments, during which there was dead silence.
Then he raised his voice: “I will grant that you have not been cowards; but
you have been imprudent! Again I tell you that these Austrian standards—
even, indeed, were they six—would not compensate me for my Eagle.”
He stopped short. He seemed to be musing for a moment, looking
straight into the eyes of the men. After that, with a curt “Well, I will restore
you yet another Eagle!” Napoleon turned his horse and rode on down the
line of troops.
THEY FOUND It was quite true, as the colonel told Napoleon, that
THE OTHER the regiment was unaware at the time that their Eagle had
EAGLE
been lost. As a fact, search-parties—practically all the
survivors of the First Battalion—were out on the day after Austerlitz
hunting over the battlefield among the dead for their lost Eagle. By the
irony of fate it was they who picked up and restored the Eagle of the 24th
Light Infantry to their fellows in adversity; the Russians, it would seem, had
not marked its fall in the confusion of the fighting. At any rate it was left
where it fell and where it was found.
There was, as it curiously happened, no reference in the Austerlitz
Bulletin published in France—the 30th “Bulletin of the Grand Army”—to
the loss of its Eagle by the 4th of the Line, although the disaster to the
battalion is reported. “Un bataillon du 4me de Ligne fut chargé par la Garde
Impériale Russe à Cheval et culbuté.” That was all that was said on the
subject. Yet, on other occasions later, when Eagles were lost, mention was
made of the misfortune in one or other of the Bulletins, with, generally also,
some remark by way of explaining away the unpleasant fact, and now and
then a caustic comment by Napoleon. A picture connected with the incident
was, however, painted—at whose request is unknown. It is now in the
national collection of military pictures of the campaigns of Napoleon at

Versailles. It shows the First Battalion of the 4th of the Line at the
Schönbrunn review “presenting Napoleon with two Austrian standards
taken by them from the enemy, and claiming in exchange a new Eagle for
10
themselves.”
This closing word may be said of the spoils of the Eagles at Austerlitz.
THE The forty-five flags captured in the battle, with five
RECEPTION IN others selected from those taken at Ulm, making fifty in
NOTRE DAME
all, were presented by Napoleon to the Cathedral of Notre
Dame. With the trophies he sent this message: “Our intention is that every
year on the 2nd of December a Solemn Office shall be sung in the Cathedral
in memory of the brave men who fell on the great day.” The flags were
borne in triumph, together with the trophies of the Ulm campaign,—120
captured standards and colours in all—through the streets of Paris on
January 15, 1806, amid a tremendous demonstration of popular enthusiasm.
“The behaviour of the people,” wrote Cambacérès, “resembled
intoxication.” Four days later the Austerlitz flags were received at Notre
Dame by the assembled Cathedral clergy, Cardinal du Belloy at their head,
with elaborate religious ceremonial.
Said the Cardinal-Archbishop of Paris in his address from the Altar-
steps: “These banners, suspended from the roof of our Cathedral, will attest
to posterity the efforts of Europe in arms against us; the great achievements
of our soldiers; the protection of Heaven over France; the prodigious
successes of our invincible Emperor; and the homage which he pays to God
for his victories.” Not one of the flags exists now. They disappeared
mysteriously, in circumstances to be described later, in the early hours of
March 31, 1814, the day on which the victorious Allies entered Paris, and
Napoleon withdrew to Fontainebleau.
Fifty-four of the other trophies paraded through Paris, flags taken in the
Ulm campaign, were presented by Napoleon, as has been said, to the
Senate. In return a picture of the scene at the reception of the trophy-flags
was ordered to be painted for presentation to the Emperor. It is now at
Versailles.
The remaining sixteen trophies were divided by order of the Emperor.
Eight were sent to the Assembly Hall of the Tribunate; eight to the Hôtel de
Ville as a gift to the city of Paris.

Thus did France receive the first spoils of the Eagles.
“Soldiers,” said Napoleon to the Grand Army, in his Austerlitz
Proclamation; “I am satisfied with you. You have justified my fullest
expectations of your intrepidity. You have decorated your Eagles with
immortal glory!”

CHAPTER V

IN THE SECOND CAMPAIGN

Jena and the Triumph of Berlin

The curtain rises this time on an act in the War Drama of the Eagles unique
in the startling incidents of its historic dénoûment.
Prussia, in September 1806, threw down the gage to Napoleon and
drew the sword for a trial of strength, with the full assurance of victory.
There was no doubt in Germany as to the issue; not the least anxiety was
felt. No troops in the world, declared one and all, could stand up to the
Prussian Army. It was easy, they said at Potsdam and Berlin, to account for
what had happened last year on the Danube. Any sort of army could have
won in that war. Timidity and want of skill in the Austrian generals,
deficient training in the men, had been, beyond dispute, the reason of the
disasters. It would be otherwise now. Napoleon would have to meet this
time the Army of Prussia; the best drilled and smartest soldiers in the world,
organised and trained under the system that the Great Frederick had
originated and himself brought to perfection. “His Majesty the King,” said
one of the Prussian generals, addressing a parade at Potsdam, “has many
generals better than Napoleon!” In the Prussian Army, from veteran field-
marshal to drummer-boy, there were no two opinions as to what must be the
outcome of a clash of arms with France. The wings of Napoleon’s Eagles
would be clipped once for all.
But to hurl defiant words was not enough. Yet further to display
contempt for their French foes, the young officers of the Prussian Guard
marched one night in procession through the streets of Berlin to
demonstrate in front of the French Embassy. Shouting out insults and jeers,
they brandished their swords before the windows of the mansion and made

a show of sharpening the blades on the Ambassador’s doorsteps. The
Prussian King’s ultimatum went forth, couched in language there was no
mistaking, and the Royal Guard Corps set out from the capital for the
frontier with flags displayed and their bands playing triumphal airs,
chanting songs of the victories of the Great Frederick, and shouting
themselves hoarse with cries of “Nach Paris!” All over Prussia it was the
same. The marching regiments tramped through the towns and villages,
their colours decked with flowers, their bands playing, and with the
swaggering gait of victors returning from conquest.

A REPLY The Prussian ultimatum, delivered on September 1,
WITHIN A haughtily demanded a reply from France within a week.
WEEK It was accepted with alacrity. Napoleon had foreseen all
and laid his plans. “Marshal,” he said to Berthier, with a
grim smile, as he read the ultimatum, “they have given us a rendezvous for
the 8th; never did Frenchman refuse such an appeal.”
The Eagles never swooped to more deadly purpose, with results more
amazing and more dramatic, than in that campaign.
Within three days of the firing of the first shot, a Prussian division of
9,000 men had been routed with heavy loss at Schleitz in Thuringia; and
Murat’s cavalry had captured elsewhere great part of the Prussian reserve
baggage-trains and pontoon equipment. On the fourth day of the war, at
Saalfeld in Thuringia, 1,200 Prussian prisoners were taken and 30 guns. In
the battles of Jena and Auerstadt, both fought on the same day, October 14,
20,000 Prussian prisoners, 200 guns, and 25 standards were spoils to the
Eagles. At Erfurth, on the next day, a Prussian field-marshal with 14,000
men, 120 guns and the whole of the grand park of the reserve artillery of the
army were taken. At Halle 4,000 Prussian prisoners were taken, with 30
guns; at Lübeck 8,000 prisoners and 40 guns. Magdeburg, one of the
strongest fortresses in Europe, with immense magazines and 600 guns on
the ramparts garrisoned by 16,000 troops, surrendered after a few hours’
partial bombardment. Stettin, a first-class fortress mounting 150 guns, with
a garrison of 6,000 men, surrendered without firing a shot. The strong
fortress of Cüstrin on the Oder, with 4,000 men in garrison and 90 cannon
on the ramparts, surrendered, also without firing a shot, to a solitary French
infantry regiment with four guns. The fortress of Spandau, garrisoned by
6,000 men, hauled down its flag and opened its gates to a squadron of

French hussars, no other French troops being within many miles, bluffed
into surrender. Within twelve days of Jena, Napoleon had made his entry as
a conqueror into Berlin, and the Prussian Army had ceased to exist. “We
have arrived in Potsdam and Berlin,” announced Napoleon in a Bulletin to
the Grand Army, “sooner than the renown of our victories! We have made
60,000 prisoners, taken 65 standards, including those of the Royal Guard,
600 pieces of cannon, 3 fortresses, 20 generals, half of our army having to
regret that they have not had an opportunity of firing a shot. All the Prussian
provinces from the Elbe to the Oder are in our hands.” Before the end of the
year, in little more than three months from the firing of the first shot, a total
of 100,000 prisoners, 4,000 cannon, 6 first-class fortresses, and many
smaller ones, were in the hands of the victors.

RUIN, SWIFT Never had the world witnessed such an overthrow in
AND war, so complete and appalling a catastrophe. Two battles
IRREPARABLE sufficed to prostrate Prussia and annihilate the model
army of Frederick the Great: the twin battles of Jena and
Auerstadt, both fought, as has been said, on the same day, October 14, and
within ten miles of one another. Jena was fought under Napoleon’s own
eye; Auerstadt by Marshal Davout, practically single-handed, with his one
army corps confronting the King and Blücher with the main Prussian army.
The Prussian generals indeed gave themselves into Napoleon’s hands at the
outset. They separated their main army into two bodies out of touch with
each other, in the immediate presence of the enemy. Ruin, swift and
irreparable, was the penalty. At Jena, Prince Hohenlohe’s army was flung
roughly back and dashed to pieces, its scattered remnants flying in wild
disorder. At Auerstadt, Davout defeated numbers nearly double his own,
through the confused tactics of the Prussian generals. Immediately after that
came on the débâcle. The Prussian Auerstadt army was falling back,
disheartened and demoralised, but still in fair military formation to a large
extent, when, all of a sudden, not having had up to then the least inkling of
what had happened at Jena, the retreating troops came upon the shattered
fragments of Hohenlohe’s battalions, streaming in wild confusion across
their path; masses of fugitives running for their lives in frantic panic before
the sabres of Murat’s pursuing cavalry. That ended everything for the
Prussian army in five minutes. The sight of their fugitive comrades struck
confusion and sheer fright into the retreating columns from Auerstadt. All
order was instantly lost: the soldiers threw away their arms and spread over

the country in headlong rout. And there was no means of stopping it. In
their blind self-confidence the Prussian generals had made no arrangements
in the event of a reverse. No line of retreat had been arranged for, no
rallying-point had been thought of. “The disaster of a single day made an
end of the Prussian army as a force capable of meeting the enemy in the
field.”
For the Eagles it was a day of adventures on both battlefields. Swiftly
alternating rushes forward, the Eagles showing the way at the head of their
regiments at one moment; hasty halts to form in rallying squares, the Eagles
in the midst, the next moment, to check the incessant Prussian cavalry
counter-charges—that was what the fighting on the French side was like, all
through the day, at both Jena and Auerstadt. At one time the Eagles were
leading forward charging lines of exultantly cheering men, firing fast and
racing forward at the pas de charge; immediately afterwards they were
standing fast, each the centre of a mass of breathless and excited soldiers,
surging round and closing up to form square, with bristling bayonets
levelled on every side, to hold the ground they had won against the charging
squadrons of Prussian horsemen that came at them, thundering down
impetuously at the gallop.
“LEAD OUT “I want to see the Eagles well to the front to-day!”
YOUR EAGLE!” said Napoleon to several regiments in turn, as he rode at
early dawn along the lines of Marshal Soult’s two
foremost divisions who were to open the attack at Jena. To them the task
had been appointed to push forward in advance, and hold the exits from the
narrow defiles through which the French troops had to pass, before reaching
the Prussians on the high ground beyond, in order to give time to the main
army, following close in rear, to deploy and form in battle order. “Lead out
your Eagle, Sixty-fourth!” Napoleon said to one of the regiments told off to
go forward in the forefront of all. “I wish to-day to see the Eagle of the
Sixty-fourth lead the battle on the field of honour!” How that Eagle led its
regiment, how those who fought under it did their duty, the prized honour of
special mention in the Jena Bulletin of the Grand Army, and a shower of
crosses of the Legion of Honour, distributed among all ranks, bore
testimony. Five times did the Eagle of the 34th, the regiment fighting next
to the 64th, lead a charge, each charge crossing bayonets with the enemy,

twice in hand-to-hand fight with the picked corps of the Prussian
Grenadiers.
It was on the battlefield of Jena that Marshal Ney won his historic
sobriquet of “The Bravest of the Brave.” He personally led forward his
attack, with, at either side of him, the Eagles of the 18th of the Line, the
32nd, and the 96th. Carried away by his impetuous valour, soon after the
opening of the battle, Ney made his attack with only at hand the three
regiments of his First Division. The other two divisions of Ney’s corps had
not yet reached the field. A regiment of cuirassiers headed the column, and
at their first charge captured 13 Prussian guns; but the Prussian cavalry,
charging back at once to recover the guns, overpowered the cuirassiers.
“The Prussian cavalry broke the French horse, and enveloped the
infantry in such numbers as would inevitably have proved fatal to less
resolute troops; but the brave marshal instantly formed his men into
squares, threw himself into one of them, and there maintained the combat
by a rolling fire on all sides, till Napoleon, who saw his danger, sent several
regiments of horse, under Bertrand, who disengaged him from his perilous
situation.”
Ney’s other troops then joined the marshal, coming up with their Eagles
gleaming through the battle-smoke: the Eagles of the 39th and the 69th, of
the 76th, the 27th, and the 59th. Ney, extricated from his difficulties, went
on again at once. “With intrepid step he ascended the hill, and, after a sharp
conflict, stormed the important village of Vierzehn-Heiligen, in the centre
of the Prussian position. In vain Hohenlohe formed the flower of his troops
to regain the post; in vain these brave men advanced in parade order, and
with unshrinking firmness, through a storm of musketry and grape; the
troops of Lannes came up to Ney’s support, and the French established
themselves in such strength in the village as to render all subsequent
attempts for its recapture abortive.”
LET THEM This was the spirit in which, at Jena, Ney’s men
COME ON! fought under the Eagles. One instance will suffice. The
76th of the Line, after the village of Vierzehn-Heiligen
had been taken, were in the act of advancing across the open to a fresh
attack, when a charge of Prussian cavalry swept fiercely down on them. The
regiment formed in square, each battalion rallying round its Eagle, held up

aloft for all to gather round. The Prussians had come up suddenly. They
were within 150 yards before the 76th were ready. Then the 76th were
ordered to “present” and fire. Instead of doing that, the men, as if moved by
one common impulse, took off their shakos, stuck them on their bayonets,
and waved them in the air, with defiant cheers of “Vive l’Empereur!”
“Donnez feu, mes enfants! Donnez feu!” (“Fire, men, fire!”) shouted out
their colonel, Lannier, anxious lest the enemy should get too near. “We have
time: at fifteen paces, Colonel; wait and see!” came back in answer from
the ranks. They did wait, and, at just fifteen paces, fired a crashing volley
which so staggered the Prussians that, leaving half their men on the ground,
they turned and galloped back.
The regiments of Lannes’ corps, with the fiery marshal cantering at
their head and waving them on, cocked hat in hand, entered the battle with
drums beating and the Eagles proudly displayed in the centre of the leading
lines.
“HERE IS THE One regiment lost 28 officers and 400 men. It had
COU-COU!” made good its first attack and was advancing to a second,
when it was charged in the open by the Prussian cavalry,
while in the act of forming square. It all but lost its Eagle. The Eagle-bearer
was cut down, and the Eagle was broken from its staff in the trampling
tumult of horsemen intermingled with infantry, savagely fighting with their
bayonets. A soldier saved the Eagle, and in the hurry of the moment stuffed
it into the pocket of his long overcoat. Then he went on fighting. Apparently
the man had no time or opportunity to think of the Eagle again. The
regiment was re-forming towards the close of the battle, when Napoleon
himself, riding across the ground near them, with his quick glance, missed
the Eagle. He cantered up to the spot, and, on being told by an officer that
he did not know where it was, angrily accused the men of having lost their
Eagle on the field. He began upbraiding them indignantly: “What is this?
Where is your Eagle? You have brought disgrace on the Army by losing
your Eagle!” Those were his opening words. He was rating the men angrily,
when he was abruptly interrupted by a voice from the ranks. “No, your
Majesty, no! they did not get it: they only got a piece of the bâton! Here is
the Cou-cou! I put it in my pocket!” The soldier drew out the Eagle as he
spoke and held it up. There was a loud outburst of laughter from the

soldiers at the unexpected turn of events, amid which Napoleon, without a
word more, turned and rode off elsewhere.
At Auerstadt, where 30,000 French faced and defeated 60,000
Prussians, the fighting was even fiercer than at Jena. Recklessly the
Prussian horsemen, led in person by the dauntless Blücher, repeatedly
charged down on the French, who formed in square everywhere to beat
them back, They did so at all points, and the Prussians only wrecked
themselves beyond recovery by their efforts. In vain did the Prussian
cavalry, as at Jena, gallop up to the French bayonets again and again. “In
vain these gallant cavaliers, with headlong fury, drove their steeds up to the
very muzzles of the French muskets. In vain they rode round and enveloped
their squares: ceaseless was the rolling fire which issued from those flaming
walls: impenetrable the hedge of bayonets which, the front rank kneeling,
presented to their advances.” Erect in the centre of each French battalion
square glittered its Eagle, raised on high defiantly above the smoke as the
volleys flashed out all round.
Marshal Davout was seen at every point wherever the regiments were
hardest pressed. From square to square the marshal galloped, as opportunity
offered in the intervals of the Prussian attacks, “his face begrimed with
11
sweat and powder-smoke, his spectacles gone, his bald head bleeding
from a wound, his uniform torn, a piece of his cocked hat shot away,” to
exhort the men to stand fast and hold their ground. To one regiment he
called out, as he reined up beside its square: “Their Great Frederick said
that God gave the victory to the big battalions. He lied! It’s the stubborn
soldiers who win battles; that’s you and your general to-day!” Davout
personally brought up support at one point to rescue a sorely pressed
12
division of four regiments, General Gudin’s, holding the village of
Herrenhausen, on the right of the battlefield; a post of vital importance to
the fate of the day. Taken by a brilliant dash forward early in the battle, the
village was held to the last, in spite of the utmost endeavours of the
Prussians to regain it.

MARSHAL DAVOUT.

AT BAY BEHIND The French kept the post at the cost of half their
A BARRICADE numbers. One regiment, the 85th, on the side of the
village fronting the Prussians, lost two-thirds of its men
and was forced back and compelled to abandon the outskirts. It kept the
Prussians at bay, however, within the village, behind a barricade of

overturned carts, farm implements, and cottage furniture heaped together.
Close behind the firing line across the village street the Eagle-bearer took
his stand, amidst a hail of bullets, mounted on a wheelbarrow and
brandishing the Eagle and calling on the men to stand firm and fire low.
Marshal Davout brought up his First Division of five regiments to
rescue Gudin, heading them sword in hand as he galloped forward. In doing
so he received his wound and had a narrow escape of his life. “One bullet
13
went through the marshal’s hat just above the cockade.”
The 111th of the Line, of Davout’s Third Division, had three Eagle-
bearers shot down in succession, a fresh officer coming forward to carry the
Eagle as his predecessor fell. All the drummer-lads of the regiment were
killed, whereupon Drum-Major Mauser, dropping his staff, picked up a
drum and beat it as the regiment advanced in its final charge. He ran
forward close beside the Eagle until he in turn fell shot dead. This was in
storming the village of Spielberg, nearly at the close of the battle.
“The corps of Marshal Davout performed prodigies,” wrote Napoleon
in the Fourth Bulletin of the campaign, commending with warmth “the rare
intrepidity of the brave corps.” He ordered 500 crosses of the Legion of
Honour to be distributed in Davout’s corps, directing that when the army
reached Berlin, Davout and the Third Corps should take precedence, and
their Eagles lead the triumphal entry through the streets of the Prussian
capital. At a special review of Davout’s corps, calling the marshal and his
generals round him, he declared his unbounded admiration of the feat of
arms they had achieved. “Sire,” replied Davout, deeply moved at
Napoleon’s words, “the soldiers of the Third Corps will always be to you
what the Tenth Legion was to Caesar.”
At the attack on Halle, three days after Jena, the 32nd of the Line, near
the Eagle of which regiment Ney had ridden at Jena, distinguished
themselves brilliantly. The Prussian Reserve Army Corps was holding Halle
and making a gallant effort in a rearguard fight to safeguard the passage
there over the river Saale. Led by the commander of Ney’s First Division,
General Dupont, in person, they stormed the bridge in the face of a
tremendous fire of grape and case shot. Then, backed up by their comrades
in Ney’s First Division, the 18th and 96th and 9th Light Infantry, they
fought their way through the city and, breaking open the gates, stormed the

heights beyond, foremost throughout in the attack. Four times the Eagle-
bearer of the 32nd was shot down: each time a fresh officer sprang forward
to lead the regiment on. The 97th of the Line, while fighting their way
through the streets of Halle at another point, found the Prussian cannon
mounted at a barricade too deadly to face in the open, and the regiment
recoiled in confusion. Taking the Eagle from the Eagle-bearer, Colonel
Barrois called forward the grenadier company. Leading them on himself on
horseback, holding up the Eagle with his right hand, he went straight at the
barricade, which was stormed without touching a trigger.
ACROSS A Thenceforward there was only left for the Eagles to
CONQUERED choose the slain; to parade in triumph across a conquered
LAND
land. “Veni, Vidi, Vici,” sums up the story of the after-
events of the war for the Eagles of Napoleon. The army of the great
Frederick committed suicide after Jena. Its resistance collapsed: the army
that had gone forth in September to cross the Rhine and dictate peace at the
gates of Paris had ceased to exist within six weeks. How completely indeed
the moral of the Prussians had been shattered, this story, from a report from
Marshal Lannes to Napoleon, serves to show. “Three hussars,” related
Lannes, “having lost their way towards Grätz, found themselves in the
midst of an enemy’s squadron. They boldly drew their carbines and,
levelling them at the enemy, called out that the Prussians were surrounded,
and must surrender at discretion. The Prussians obeyed. The commander of
the squadron, without apparently a thought of resistance, ordered his men to
dismount, and they surrendered their arms to those three hussars, who
brought them all in prisoners of war.”
General Lassalle, with a handful of hussars, as has been said, captured
the fortress of Stettin, with 150 guns on its walls and a garrison of 6,000
men, by sheer effrontery. He rode up to the main gate and demanded the
surrender within five minutes; and the governor capitulated on the spot. “If
your hussars take strong fortresses like that,” wrote Napoleon to Murat, on
hearing the news, “I have nothing to do but break up my artillery and
discharge my engineers.” Prince Hohenlohe with 14,000 men and 50 guns,
his troops including the Royal Prussian Guard and six regiments of Guard
cavalry, laid down their arms at Prentzlau. A few miles away, 8,000 more
Prussians surrendered on the same day to a French brigade of dragoons. The

unfortunates were remnants of the troops beaten at Jena, and had been
relentlessly pursued for ten days.
The 7th Hussars forwarded to Napoleon as their spoils from a three
days’ chase, 7 Prussian cavalry standards; those of the Anspach and
Bayreuth Dragoons; the Queen of Prussia’s regiment; and 4 standards of the
Light Cavalry of the Guard. Marshal Lannes sent Napoleon 40 Prussian
standards taken between Jena and Berlin. Bernadotte and Soult presented 82
more trophies, the spoils of Blücher’s army, forced to surrender at Lübeck
after a forlorn-hope fight in the course of which the city was stormed.
“THE FINEST Marshal Ney took the fortress of Magdeburg without
FEAT OF ARMS” having a single siege-gun, and with only 11,000 men at
hand to deal with 24,000 in the garrison and 700 guns on
the ramparts, some of these being the heaviest artillery of the time. It was
perhaps the most surprising event of the war. The taking of Magdeburg,
wrote Junot, “is the finest feat of arms that has illustrated this campaign.”
Ney had been ordered to blockade Magdeburg until a sufficient army was
available for the siege of the fortress, which Napoleon expected would be a
long and difficult affair. But so tedious a task as a blockade was not at all to
Ney’s taste. To hasten matters he sent for half a dozen mortars, taken at
Erfurt, and began throwing shells into the suburbs on the side nearest him.
The bombardment caused a scare among the townsfolk. Panic-stricken at
seeing their houses set on fire and destroyed by the bursting shells, they
hastened to General Kleist, the governor of Magdeburg, an elderly and
nervous old gentleman of between seventy and eighty years of age, and
implored him to ask terms of the French marshal. Dismayed himself at the
prospect of a siege, with disorder rampant among the military—nearly half
the garrison was made up of fragments of fugitive regiments from Jena who
had fled to Magdeburg for shelter from the pursuing French—Kleist, losing
his nerve in the face of the alarming situation, agreed to negotiate for terms.
Ney’s reply was a demand for instant surrender, whereupon the wretched
governor, although he had more than enough good troops at disposal,
without counting the Jena fugitives, to have made a stubborn defence,
tamely hoisted the white flag.
The march out of the garrison of Magdeburg was a repetition of the
Austrian humiliation of Ulm on a lesser scale. The standards of the Black

Eagle in their turn had at Magdeburg publicly to acknowledge defeat before
the Eagles of Napoleon.
THE GARRISON Ney drew up his 11,000 men in a great hollow square
LAYS DOWN outside the Ulrich gate of the fortress. His troops were
ARMS
drawn up along three sides of the square; the fourth side,
that nearest the city, being left open. In front of the regiments stood their
Eagles, all paraded as at Ulm, the Eagle-guards beside them, and the
regimental officers standing in line with their swords at the carry. The
Prussians marched out and, to the music of the French bands, passed in
procession along the three inner sides of the square, and in front of Marshal
Ney and his staff. The miserable Kleist led them, and then took his stand
beside Ney, to answer the marshal’s questions as to who and what the
various regiments were, as each set of downcast Prussians trailed past. They
tramped by, with their muskets on their shoulders unloaded and without
bayonets, and with their colours furled. The hapless prisoners, after they
had defiled past, were at once marched away under escort on the road to
Mayence. Twenty generals, 800 other officers, 22,000 infantry, and 2,000
14
artillerymen, with 59 standards, underwent the humiliation of the defilade.
There were several painful scenes at the laying down of the arms. “Their
soldiers openly insulted their officers,” describes one of the French lookers-
on. “Most of them looked terribly ashamed of themselves; the faces of not a
few were streaming with tears.”
At Magdeburg, as in the other surrenders elsewhere, it was not the
personal courage of the officers and soldiers that was wanting—there were
men by thousands in the various garrisons ready to give their lives for the
honour of their country; it was the generals in command whose nerve
lacked. The generals were men past their prime, and mostly physically
incapable of enduring hardships. They had been appointed to their posts, in
accordance with the system in vogue in Prussia, for the sake of the
emoluments.
“The overthrow of Jena,” to use the words of a modern writer, “had
been caused by faults of generalship, and cast no stain upon the courage of
the officers; the surrender of the Prussian fortresses, which began on the
day when the French entered Berlin, attached the utmost personal disgrace
to their commanders. Even after the destruction of the army in the field,

Prussia’s situation would not have been hopeless if the commanders of the
fortresses had acted on the ordinary rules of military duty. Magdeburg and
the strongholds upon the Oder were sufficiently armed and provisioned to
detain the entire French army, and to give time to the King to collect upon
the Vistula a force as numerous as that which he had lost. But whatever is
weakest in human nature—old age, fear, and credulity—seemed to have
been placed at the head of the Prussian defences.” Küstrin on the Oder, “in
full order for a long siege, was surrendered by the older officers, amidst the
curses of the subalterns and the common soldiers: the artillerymen had to be
dragged from their guns by force.”
At Magdeburg, indeed, before the march out, the younger officers of
the garrison mobbed General Kleist, hooting at him and cursing him to his
face; some of them, further, being with difficulty stopped from acts of
personal violence.
There yet remained one day more for the Eagles. The triumphal parade
of the victorious Eagles through Berlin was the crowning humiliation that
Napoleon imposed on vanquished Prussia.
MARSHAL Davout’s corps, as Napoleon had promised, marched
DAVOUT IN through the Prussian capital first of all. The marshal was
BERLIN
waited on as he entered by the Burgomeister and civic
authorities, humbly bowing before him, and offering in token of submission
the keys of Berlin. The offer, however, was declined. “You must present
them later,” was the reply; “they belong to a greater than I!” After marching
through Berlin, Davout camped a mile beyond the city, posting his artillery
“in position as for war, pointed towards the place as in readiness to
bombard it.” The soldiers were then allowed to go about Berlin in parties.
They behaved very quietly, and made eager sightseers, we are told. The
shops, which had been closed during the march through, reopened later, and
the people went about the streets as usual, “mortified and subdued in
demeanour, but apparently very curious to see what they could of the
French officers.”
Augereau’s corps, and then those of Soult, Bernadotte, and Ney made
their triumphal entry and march through Berlin in turn, on different days
later on, bands playing and Eagles displayed at the head of the regiments—
the people turning out on each occasion in crowds to line the streets and

gaze at the show, “expressing great surprise at the small size of our men and
the youth of most of the officers.” Marshal Ney’s corps brought with them
their fifty-nine trophies from Magdeburg, and, after parading them through
the streets of Berlin, ceremoniously presented them to Napoleon in public,
in front of the statue of Frederick the Great.
Napoleon himself made his triumphal entry into Berlin on October 28,
three days after Davout’s march through. He rode from Charlottenburg
through the Brandenburg Gate and along Unter-den-Linden to the Royal
Palace, at the head of the Old Guard and six thousand cuirassiers in
gleaming mail. Squadrons of Gendarmerie d’Elite and Chasseurs of the
Guard and the Horse Grenadiers, in their huge bear-skins, led the long
procession, all in grande tenue, with their bands playing and the Eagles
glittering in the brilliant sunshine of a perfect autumn day.
Napoleon came next, “riding by himself, twenty paces in front of the
staff, with impassive face and a stern expression,” passing amid dense silent
crowds, “the men all wearing black, as in mourning; the women mostly
with handkerchiefs to their eyes.” The people lined both sides of the
roadway, and filled the windows of all the houses overlooking the route. All
Berlin, young and old, was in the streets that day, staring at the spectacle in
mute silence, looking on dumbly, pale-faced and miserable of aspect. Not a
mutter of abuse was heard, not the least sign was apparent of the deadly
hatred to their conqueror that one and all felt. With rage and despair in their
hearts, with compressed lips and clenched fists at their sides, the men
watched the splendid array sweep proudly past them in all the insolent
pomp of victorious war.
NAPOLEON For once, on that historic occasion, Napoleon
RIDES discarded his customary wear of the green undress
THROUGH
uniform of his pet corps, the Chasseurs of the Guard. He
entered Berlin as the head of a conquering army, wearing the full-dress
uniform of a French general, crimson plumed cocked hat with blue and
white aigrette, blue coat heavily embroidered with gold, and with glittering
bullion epaulettes, and the blue and gold sash of a general round his waist.
Four marshals, Berthier, Lannes, Davout, and Augereau, riding abreast,
followed Napoleon, immediately in front of the Imperial Staff, a cavalcade
of a hundred and more brilliantly decorated officers, all in their most
gorgeous parade uniforms, in celebration of the day. The keys of the city

were presented to the conqueror, and accepted by him, as Napoleon passed
through the Brandenburg Gate. Ten thousand infantry of the Old Guard, in a
vast solid column of glistening bayonets, marched, twenty abreast, in rear
of the staff. Their famous band playing triumphantly, with the Eagle of the
Grenadiers of the Old Guard above its flag of crimson silk and gold,
heading the veterans. They also were all in the full-dress uniform they wore
on gala-day parades before the Tuileries. By Napoleon’s special order, the
Old Guard on all campaigns carried in their knapsacks their full-dress
uniform, specially for donning on occasions such as that at Berlin.
But the cup of humiliation for the miserable citizens of the Prussian
capital was not yet full. They had yet another military spectacle with a
significance of its own to witness; one the deep humiliation of which they
felt more bitterly even than Napoleon’s triumphant ride in person through
their streets. The citizens of Berlin had to look on their own officers of the
Royal Prussian Guard being led in procession through their midst under the
armed escort of Napoleon’s grenadiers. That was Napoleon’s way of
settling accounts for that August night of wanton insult to France, for the
sharpening of the sword-blades on the steps of the French Embassy.
THE PRISONERS Nor, too, did Napoleon spare the Prussian prisoners
FARMED OUT of the rank and file. Writing from Berlin to the Minister
of the Interior in Paris, he gave directions that the
Prussian captives should be made use of as hewers of wood and drawers of
water for their conquerors. They were to be farmed out to municipalities
and district councils in the Departments. “Their services should be turned to
account at a trifling expense in the way of wages for the benefit of our
manufacturers and cultivators and replace our conscripts called to serve in
the ranks of the Grand Army.”
Napoleon stayed in Berlin for four weeks, while the marshals were
leading the Eagles through Eastern Prussia towards the Polish frontier.
Russia had taken up the cause of her defeated neighbour, and the armies of
the Czar were on the move to rescue what was left of the Prussian army.
Less than 15,000 men were all that remained in the field to show fight, of
200,000 soldiers who, not two months before, had been on the march
against France in full anticipation of victory.

In the Royal Palace of Berlin Napoleon received with elaborate
ceremony the deputation of the French Senate sent from Paris specially to
congratulate the victor of Jena in the enemy’s capital. He took advantage of
the unique occasion for the formal presentation and handing over to their
charge, for conveyance to Paris, of the trophies of the war—340 Prussian
15
battle-flags and standards. Forty of the trophies presented to the Senate on
that day at Berlin are now among the array of trophies grouped round
Napoleon’s tomb in the Invalides.
Napoleon handed over to the charge of the deputation at the same time,
for transfer to the Invalides, his own personal spoil—the sword of Frederick
the Great. It was removed—all the world knows the story of the
unpardonable outrage—by Napoleon’s own hand from its resting-place on
the royal tomb at Potsdam. “I would rather have this,” he said to the officers
beside him in the royal vault as he took possession of the sword, “than
twenty millions. I shall send it to my old soldiers who fought against
Frederick in the campaign in Hanover. I will present it to the Governor of
the Invalides, who will guard it as a testimonial of the victories of the Grand
Army and the vengeance that it has wreaked for the disaster of Rosbach.
My veterans will be pleased to see the sword of the man who defeated them
at Rosbach!”
FREDERICK The trophies started for France forthwith under
THE GREAT’S military escort, and Paris went mad with exultation at the
SWORD
sight of them. On the day of the State Procession which
escorted the trophies from the Tuileries to the Invalides it proved almost
impossible to keep back the enormous crowds that thronged the streets
along the route, in spite of cordons of gendarmerie and regiments of
dragoons. Deputations of veterans and National Guards, with the Eagles of
the Departmental Legions, led the way. Then came Imperial carriages with
exalted official personages. The trophies had their place next, displayed in
clusters of flags all round a gigantic triumphal car. Marshal Moncey, the
acting Governor of Paris, rode a few paces behind the car of Prussian
standards, holding up the trophy of trophies before the eyes of the wildly
cheering onlookers—Frederick the Great’s sword. A gaily attired train of
generals and staff officers attended the marshal. The rear of the procession
was brought up by the battalions of the Guard of Paris, their Eagles being
borne amid rows of gleaming bayonets. Salvos of artillery from the

Triumphal Battery greeted the arrival of the trophies at the Invalides, where
the veterans awaited them, drawn up on parade before the Gate of Honour.
As Napoleon had specially directed, the Hanoverian War veterans of the
Invalides met and escorted Marshal Moncey to the chapel at the head of
other specially nominated veterans, who bore, marching in procession, the
Prussian trophy-standards. The trophies were deposited with an elaborate
display of ceremonial in front of the High Altar, after which Fontanes, the
Public Orator of the Empire, delivered an address full of glowingly
eloquent passages on the glorious achievements of the Grand Army and the
“resplendent magnificence of the leader who had led the Eagles to
surpassing triumphs!”

The Twelve Lost Eagles of Eylau

Napoleon passed from the victorious fields of Prussia to the rough
experiences of the Eylau and Friedland campaigns, which followed as the
sequel to Jena on the plains of the Polish frontier. The Eagles there had to
undergo under fire vicissitudes of fortune that were a foretaste of the fate in
store for some of them later on, at the hands of the same enemy, in the
Moscow campaign. No fewer than fourteen of the Eagles borne in triumph
through Berlin after Jena were on view within a twelvemonth as spoils of
war in the Kazan Cathedral at St. Petersburg.
The Eagle of Marshal Ney’s favourite regiment in the battle-days of the
Ulm campaign, the 9th Light Infantry, was the first to meet adventures in
the Polish War. It was on the occasion of the surprise of Bernadotte’s army
corps, at Möhringen near the Vistula, in the last week of January 1807. The
Grand Army was lying in winter quarters to the north of Warsaw, awaiting
the reopening of the campaign in the early spring, when the Russian army,
breaking up unexpectedly from its cantonments beyond the Vistula in the
depth of winter, made a dash at Bernadotte’s outlying troops, posted by
themselves at some distance from the main army and scattered in
detachments over a wide tract of country for reasons of food-supply.
Bernadotte only got news of the enemy’s approach just in time; practically
at the eleventh hour. He was rapidly concentrating his corps at Möhringen,
but barely half his troops had been able to reach the point of danger when

the Russians struck their blow. He was able with the troops nearest at hand
to avert destruction, but the escape was a narrow one and his losses were
very heavy, all his baggage falling into the hands of the enemy. Fortunately
for the French the Russian advanced guard attacked prematurely and was
beaten back, after which Bernadotte made good his retreat to a safer
neighbourhood.
FOUR TIMES The 9th Light Infantry were in the forefront of the
TAKEN AND fighting, which was at the closest quarters, the soldiers on
RETAKEN
both sides meeting man to man. Four Eagle-bearers of the
9th fell, one after the other. Four times the Eagle was taken by the Russians
and recaptured at the point of the bayonet. A fifth time the Eagle-bearer
went down, and on his fall this time the Eagle disappeared, while the 9th
were driven back, broken and in disorder. They were quickly rallied again,
however, and led once more to the charge, “going forward to the combat
with the fury of despair.” This time their impetuous onset forced the
Russians to give ground. Advancing with shouts of victory, they stormed
the village of Psarrefelden, immediately in front of them, and there seized
part of a Russian ammunition train. While searching for fresh cartridges in
one of the enemy’s ammunition wagons to replenish their empty cartouche-
boxes an officer, to his surprise, came upon the lost Eagle. It had been
broken from its staff in the last fight round it, and its Russian captor,
probably having enough to do to look after himself without carrying it
about, had apparently thrust it hastily into the ammunition wagon on top of
the cartridges. At any rate there the Eagle of the 9th Light Infantry was
found, and so it was regained. The broken staff and flag were missing and
were never seen again, but the all-important Eagle had been recovered. It
was hurriedly mounted on a hop-pole, found leaning against a peasant’s hut
near by, which was improvised for a staff, and on that the Eagle was carried
to the close of the fighting that day, after which the 9th retreated with the
rest of Bernadotte’s corps.
Napoleon specially decorated the lieutenant who recovered the Eagle,
and who also had led more than one of the charges to rescue it in the earlier
fighting. He gave him the cross of the Legion of Honour with a money
grant. He further recorded the recovery of the Eagle—though without
mentioning how it was got back—in the 55th Bulletin of the Grand Army,
dated Warsaw, January 29, 1807:

“The Eagle of the 9th Light Infantry was taken by the enemy, but,
realising the deep disgrace with which their brave regiment would be
covered for ever, and from which neither victory nor the glory acquired in a
hundred combats could have removed the stigma, the soldiers, animated
with an inconceivable ardour, precipitated themselves on the enemy and
routed them and recovered their Eagle.”
So Napoleon wrote history.
ON THE FIRST Two Eagles met their fate in the first day’s fighting at
DAY AT EYLAU Eylau—in the preliminary combat on February 7, which
formed the opening phase of the terrific encounter next
day. At Eylau—a small township some twenty-two miles to the south of
Königsburg—Napoleon in person commanded with 80,000 men in the field,
and met with his first serious check in a European war. In following up the
Russian rearguard on the afternoon of the 7th, as it fell slowly back to rejoin
its main body, drawn up in position on the farther side of Eylau, on ground
chosen beforehand by the Russian leader for making a stand, two of
Napoleon’s battalions, while pressing hotly forward after the enemy over
the open plain, some two miles from Eylau, were overpowered and cut to
pieces. They had charged and were driving in the nearest Russians to them,
when a Russian cavalry regiment, the St. Petersburg Dragoons,
unexpectedly came on the scene. Sweeping round amidst the tumult of the
fighting, the dragoons rode into them on the flank. The two battalions were
slaughtered almost to a man within five minutes, before help could get to
them, and their Eagles were snatched up and borne away. It was an act of
expiation for the St. Petersburg Dragoons. On the previous day Murat’s
pursuing hussars had charged and broken them, putting them to flight, and
in a wild panic they had ridden over one of their own regiments, trampling
their comrades down, with loss of life. To retrieve their character the St.
Petersburg Dragoons now went savagely at the two French battalions,
riding them down with reckless daring and relentless fury, giving no
quarter. Their capture of two of Napoleon’s Eagles in one charge, the taking
of two Eagles by a single regiment, stands on its own account as a unique
achievement.

Sketch Plan of the Battlefield of EYLAU

Eylau—the historic battle of February 8, 1807—was fought in the
depth of winter; in the midst of a flat expanse of a desolate snow-plain and
ice-bound marshes; under dreary lowering skies of leaden grey; amid
howling gusts of piercing wind, with driving snow-storms sweeping
intermittently across the field of battle. A hundred and fifty thousand men
on both sides faced each other at the break of day, after passing the night
with their outposts within shot of one another, the soldiers all lying in an
open bivouac on the snow, round their watch-fires, wrapped up in their
cloaks, the only shelter from the bitter cold. They fronted each other in the
grey dawn “within half-cannon shot, their immense masses distributed in
dense columns over a space in breadth less than four miles. Between them
lay the field of battle, a wide stretch of unenclosed ground, rising on the
Russian side to a range of small hills. All over the plain, ponds and marshes
intersected the ground, but far and wide all was now covered over with ice
and deep snow.”
Napoleon began the battle with a fierce cannonade, opening a terrific
fire all along the line with no fewer than 350 guns. The Russians replied at

once, firing back even more furiously and with yet more guns. For almost
an hour nearly 800 cannon belched forth shot and shell on either side; an
artillery duel perhaps unparalleled in war. Then, in the midst of the
cannonade, Napoleon launched his first attack. Fifteen thousand men of
Augereau’s corps moved out from the centre of the French line to storm the
Russian position. They went forward, massed in two immense columns,
with, in support, a third column of one of Soult’s divisions.
GOING They went forward to their doom: to meet disaster,
FORWARD TO swift, terrible, overwhelming, and to leave two of their
THEIR DOOM
Eagles in the hands of the enemy as mementos of their
fate. Yet they were not given up; neither of those Eagles was surrendered.
They remained on the field amid the dead; left behind because there was not
a man living of their regiments to defend them. They lay where they fell,
surrounded by the soldiers who had died in their defence; lying on the snow
for the Cossacks to pick up and carry away. They were the Eagles of the
14th and the 24th of the Line.
The Russians turned their guns on Augereau’s corps directly it
commenced its advance; it was sheer massacre for the French, as the fierce
tornado of cannon-balls crashed into the thick of the densely massed
columns. Whole companies were swept away, mowed down, on every side.
“Within a quarter of an hour, half of the corps were struck down.” The rest,
though, with stolid endurance, held firmly on their way. The soldiers went
doggedly on; only halting for a moment now and again to close up their
shattered ranks. At that moment, as they were nearing the Russian position,
a furious snow-storm burst over the battlefield, the snow blowing right in
the faces of the French. “It was impossible,” one of the survivors told, “to
see anything at all in front; we could at times barely see a foot before us.”
All, in spite of that, however, laboured bravely to get forward; without
wavering, and regardless of the merciless fire of the Russian guns, which
never ceased for one moment.
OVERWHELME Then, as the snow-blinded soldiers struggled on,
D IN A when the storm of whirling snow was at its worst, all in
SNOWSTORM an instant the catastrophe happened. Without warning,
coming from nowhere, as it seemed, an enormous mass
of Russian horse, dragoons and Cossacks, charged suddenly, amid an
infernal din of furious shouting, into them. “So thick was the snow-storm,

and so unexpected the onset, that the assailants were only a few feet off, and
the long lances of the Cossacks almost touching the French infantry when
they were first discerned.” The Russians swept down on all sides of the two
divisions; charging them in front and flanks and rear at once, the dragoons
sabring them right and left, the Cossacks stabbing at them with their long
eighteen-foot lances.
“The combat was not of more than a few minutes’ duration; the corps,
charged at once by foot and horse with the utmost vigour, broke and fled in
the wildest disorder back into Eylau, closely pursued by the Russian cavalry
and Cossacks, who made such havoc, that the whole, above 15,000 strong,
were, with the exception of 1,500 men, taken or destroyed; and Augereau
himself, with his two generals of divisions, Desjardins and Heudelet, was
desperately wounded.”
Cut off in one part of the field and hemmed in, the 24th of the Line,
“one of the finest regiments in the Grand Army, and itself almost equal to a
brigade,” as a French officer speaks of it, was destroyed to a man. It refused
to turn its back to the enemy, and stood its ground to face its fate. The 24th
were slaughtered as they stood in their ranks. Colonel Sémelé and a devoted
band of soldiers fought round the Eagle to the last, and fell dead beside it. A
Cossack picked the Eagle up and rode off with it.
The 14th had led the attack. It had lost heavily from the Russian
cannonade, but was still pressing on when the cavalry came charging down.
The regiments next following it, however, had suffered still more heavily
from the artillery fire. They were swept away en masse by the Cossack
rush. Thus the 14th were cut off and left by themselves, barely half a
battalion of men in numbers, in the midst of the raging torrent of Cossacks
and dragoons. The survivors hastily threw themselves into a square on and
round a low elevation or hillock of snow. There, with their Eagle in their
midst, they stood at bay, refusing to retire without direct orders from their
marshal.
ISOLATED AND Marbot, in his memoirs, describes the fate of the
SURROUNDED 14th, to which he was sent with a message from
Napoleon. He was one of Augereau’s aides de camp. It
was just after the wounded marshal had been carried back to the churchyard
of the village of Eylau, the centre of the French position, whence Napoleon,

on horseback, among his personal suite, had witnessed the disaster. All
could see the 14th standing there, isolated and surrounded; “we could see
that the intrepid regiment, surrounded by the enemy, was brandishing the
Eagle in the air, to show that it still held its ground and wanted help.”
Napoleon, “touched by the grand devotion of these brave men, resolved to
try to save them. He gave orders that an officer should be sent to tell them
to try to make their way back towards the army. Cavalry would charge out
to help them. It looked,” says Marbot, “almost impossible to get through the
thronging Cossacks; but Napoleon’s command had to be obeyed.”
“A brave captain of engineers named Froissart, who, though not an aide
de camp, was on Augereau’s staff, happened to be nearest him, and was told
to carry the order to the 14th. Froissart galloped off: we lost sight of him in
the midst of the Cossacks, and never saw him again or heard what became
of him. The marshal, seeing that the 14th did not move, then sent an officer
named David. He had the same fate as Froissart; we never heard of him
again. Probably both were killed and stripped, and could not be recognised
among the many corpses which covered the ground. For the third time the
marshal called, ‘The officer for duty!’ It was my turn.”
Marbot had seen his two predecessors go off with their swords drawn,
as though they intended to defend themselves against attacks on the way.
He had remarked that, and now proposed another method for himself.
“To attempt defence was madness; it meant stopping to fight amidst a
multitude of enemies. I went otherwise to work. Leaving my sword in its
scabbard, I considered myself rather as a rider who is trying to win a
steeple-chase and goes as quickly as possible by the shortest line towards
the appointed goal without troubling about what is to right or left of his
path. My goal was the hillock on which stood the 14th, and I resolved to get
there without taking heed of the Cossacks. I tried to put them out of my
mind entirely. The plan answered to perfection.”
“Lisette [Marbot’s charger], flying rather than galloping, moving more
lightly than a swallow, darted over the intervening space, leaping the heaps
of dead men and horses, the ditches, the broken gun-carriages, the half-
extinguished bivouac fires. Thousands of Cossacks swarmed over the plain.
The first who caught sight of me behaved like sportsmen who, while
beating, start a hare and tell of its whereabouts to each other with shouts of

‘Your side!’ None of the Cossacks tried to stop me. Perhaps it was because
of the amazing speed of my mare; perhaps—probably—because there were
so many of them swarming round that each thought I could not escape from
his comrades farther on. At any rate I got through them all, and without
scratch either to myself or to my mare, and managed to reach where the
14th stood.
“AT LAST I WAS “I found them in square on top of their hillock, but
IN THE the slope all round was very slight, and the Russian
SQUARE!”
cavalry had been able to attack them with several
charges. All, though, had been beaten off, and the regiment stood
surrounded by a circle of dead horses and dragoons. The corpses indeed
formed a kind of rampart round our men, and made by now their position
almost inaccessible to mounted men. So I found, for in spite of the help of
our men, I had much difficulty in getting across this horrible entrenchment.
At last, however, I was in the square.”
The major of the 14th was the senior officer left alive, and to him
Marbot gave Napoleon’s order. But it was absolutely impossible to carry it
out; there were too few men left to make the attempt possible. They would
be overpowered, said the major to Marbot, before they had gone half a
dozen steps. They were past hope now, unless the cavalry could cut their
way to them at once. Marbot must save himself and get back at once. He
must take their Eagle back with him and deliver it into Napoleon’s own
hands. “I see no means left of saving the regiment,” were the major’s
words. “Return to the Emperor, and bid him farewell from the 14th of the
Line. We have faithfully obeyed his orders in defence of the Eagle. Bear
him back his Eagle which he entrusted to us, which now we have no hope
of defending longer. It would add too much to the bitterness of death for us
to see it fall into the hands of the enemy.” The major handed the Eagle to
Marbot and then saluted it, amid shouts of “Vive l’Empereur!” from the
men round.
Marbot took the Eagle, and, as the only means of preserving it during
his ride back, tried to break it off from its stout pole so as to conceal it
under his cloak. He was in the act of leaning forward to get a purchase in
order to break the oaken staff, when he was suddenly rendered powerless by
the wind of a grape-shot. It was a marvellous escape from death. The shot
actually went through his hat, within a quarter of an inch of his head. It

deprived him, as he describes, of all power and sensation, although he still
remained fixed in his saddle, his eyes witnessing the last scene, the fate of
the 14th. The square was finally rushed by a swarm of Russian grenadiers,
as Marbot says, who came charging up to the spot—“big men with mitre-
shaped caps bound in brass.
FIGHTING TO “These men hurled themselves furiously on the
THE LAST MAN feeble remains of the 14th. Our poor fellows had little
strength left for resistance, weakened as they were by
hardships and privations. They had for days been only existing on potatoes
and melted snow, and on that morning had not had time to prepare even that
wretched meal. Yet they made bravely what fight they could with their
bayonets, and when, as too soon happened, the square was broken, they
tried to hold together in groups, fighting back to back and keeping up the
unequal fight to the last man.”
Those nearest Marbot, so as not to be bayoneted from behind, stood all
round him with their backs to the mare, hemmed in by a ring of Russians,
some shooting down the hapless Frenchmen, others killing them with the
bayonet.
Marbot, recovering his senses, got at the last moment an unexpected
chance of escape. His mare, Lisette, he says, “of a notoriously savage
temper,” was pricked by a bayonet apparently, for she suddenly sprang
forward, lashing out and kicking and biting. She crashed through the nearest
Russians and galloped off with Marbot on her back towards Eylau. He was
mistaken by the Cossacks, he thought, for a Russian officer, and rode on
until suddenly Lisette collapsed beneath him, and Marbot rolled off into the
snow, where he lay insensible for some hours. He lay there until a marauder
on the field after the battle tried to strip him of his gold-laced uniform. That
roused him, and he cried for help, which came; but the Eagle of the 14th
had disappeared.
Two Eagles of St. Hilaire’s division of Soult’s corps were taken at
about the same time that the 14th met its fate. One was that of the 10th
Light Infantry, ridden down while hastening forward to support Augereau.
The 10th missed its way in the snow-storm and, blundering close under the
Russian guns, was “decimated by grape.” Immediately after that, while
reeling under the shock, and trying to re-form its ranks, the Russian

dragoons dashed into it. They burst into its midst at full gallop, “unseen
until they were actually among us.” No help was near, and in less than three
minutes the luckless 10th Light Infantry had ceased to exist. The second of
Soult’s Eagles that was lost at Eylau was that of a battalion of the 28th of
the Line, which also perished, victims to the sabres of the Russian
horsemen. It was a little later in the day, just after the 28th had made a
successful bayonet charge on the Russian infantry. They were in the midst
of their combat when the dragoons dashed into them, rode through them,
and scattered them, bearing off the Eagle, snatched from the hands of the
Eagle-bearer, who was cut down in the mêlée.
“THE FIRST The Heart of the “First Grenadier of France” nearly
GRENADIER OF went to St. Petersburg at the same time, The 46th and
FRANCE”
28th together formed General Levasseur’s division in
Soult’s corps, and both were overwhelmed at the same time by the Russian
dragoons. The more fortunate 46th saved both their Eagle and the silver
casket in which the heart of La Tour d’Auvergne was kept enshrined. The
casket was worn, strapped on a velvet shield, on the chest of the senior
grenadier sergeant of the First Battalion, whose station was next the Eagle-
bearer. It was with the 46th, then known as the 46th Demi-Brigade, that the
heroic “Premier Grenadier de France” was serving as a captain when he met
his death in the year of Hohenlinden, while in the act of capturing an
Austrian standard. The 46th of the Line of the modern French Army keeps
up to-day the traditional practice, first ordered by Moreau, the victor of
Hohenlinden, of calling his name first of all at regimental parades. It was
revived some thirty years ago, after being in desuetude since 1809.
“Immediately the Colonel has saluted the flag,” describes one of the officers
of the regiment, “the Captain commanding the colour-company steps
forward and, facing the men, calls in a loud voice ‘La Tour d’Auvergne,’ on
which the senior sergeant of the company steps out two paces and replies, in
a loud voice also, ‘Mort au Champ d’Honneur!’—‘Dead on the Field of
Honour!’”
The heart of La Tour d’Auvergne in its silver casket was ceremoniously
deposited by the regiment at the Invalides in 1904, eight years ago.
The 25th of the Line saved its Eagle, but lost on the field every single
one of its officers. A plainly built obelisk with the brief inscription, “To the

Memory of the Officers of the 25th,” was erected by Napoleon to
commemorate their fate at Eylau.
Two Eagles of Davout’s corps were lost at Eylau. One was that of the
18th—the sole loss of an Eagle in the battle, as it so happens, that it suited
Napoleon’s purpose to admit publicly. This is what he said of it in his Eylau
Bulletin—the 58th Bulletin of the Grand Army:
“The Eagle of one of the battalions of the 18th Regiment is missing. It
has probably fallen into the hands of the enemy, but no reproach can attach
to this regiment in the predicament in which it was placed. It is a mere
accident of war. The Emperor will give the 18th another Eagle when it has
taken a standard from the enemy.”
Comments on this, by the way, a British officer, Colonel Sir Robert
Wilson, who was attached to the Russian army as British military
commissioner:
“Admirable! the accidental loss of one Eagle and only one! Colonel
Beckendorff, then, did not carry twelve Eagles (and, moreover, several
colours from which the Eagles had been unscrewed) to Petersburg, where
they now are for the inspection of the world!”
Napoleon made no other open reference to the loss of Eagles at Eylau;
but, as he showed a little later, he felt what had happened. On the other
hand, outside France, many people disbelieved the Russian official
despatches. “The number of Eagles said to be taken,” wrote the editor of a
London newspaper, “is astounding, indeed incredible.”
TWO MORE The 18th lost their Eagle in the fierce fighting on the
EAGLES LOST extreme right of the battlefield, where, after storming the
village of Serpallen, Morand’s division captured a
Russian battery, bayoneting the gunners. As they took the guns a Russian
cavalry brigade came hastening to the spot to the rescue. Taking the 18th on
the flank, the Russians rode them down, breaking the regiment up and
scattering it. The Eagle disappeared in the midst of the fight. The Eagle of
the 51st of the Line was the other that was lost in Davout’s corps. That was
taken by the Prussian division which fought at Eylau; the last remnant of
the Jena army still combating in the field. The Prussians, some 12,000 in
number, had made good their escape to the Polish frontier and reached the

battlefield of Eylau at the close of the fight, in time to strike in and take
vengeance for their countrymen. They were, however, deprived in the end
of their trophy. The captured Eagle of the 51st was claimed from them by
the Russian general after the battle, and sent with the eleven others to St.
Petersburg, where it now is.
Two others of Davout’s Eagles which came through at Eylau had
narrow escapes. They were those of the 17th and 30th of the Line. The 17th
was one of the regiments ridden down by Towazysky’s dragoons, the
troopers who carried off the Eagle of the 18th. In their charge the dragoons
broke up the 17th as well, and the Eagle was left with only a few men near
by to defend it. They were in the midst of the dragoons as the Russians
galloped through, slashing with their sabres at all within reach. As the only
means of saving the Eagle, Locqueneux, a fourrier, or quartermaster-
sergeant, “thrust the Eagle under the snow and stood on it shouting for help.
Colonel Mallet heard the cry and ran to the rescue. With a few men who
rallied to the spot he succeeded in getting the Eagle away from among the
débris of the 17th.” At roll-call next morning only one man in five
answered to his name. Napoleon, on his ride over the field, happening to
pass by while the muster was being held, the gallant fourrier was brought
before him and presented with a lieutenant’s commission and an annuity of
2,000 francs. The Eagle of the 30th of the Line, another of Morand’s
regiments, was saved from capture in like manner by the personal devotion
of another fourrier, Morin by name. All round him men were falling, and he
himself had been severely wounded, but the brave fellow had just strength
enough to bury the Eagle under the snow. He fainted from loss of blood as
he did it. Morin was found next morning just alive, outstretched over where
the precious Eagle lay concealed. He was able to make signs and indicate
that it was lying underneath the snow, and then he died.
FOUR Four cavalry Eagles, those of cuirassier regiments,
CUIRASSIER made up the tale of twelve lost by Napoleon in the two
EAGLES TAKEN
days at Eylau. Platoff’s Cossacks of the Don captured the
four. They swooped down on Murat’s cavalry, while out of hand and
partially dispersed after breaking through the Russian centre, at the close of
Murat’s desperate charge at the head of seventy squadrons to save the
survivors of the massacre of Augereau’s ill-fated battalions. Of one
cuirassier regiment only 18 men managed to regain their own lines, leaving

530 of their comrades on the field to be stripped of their shining armour by
the Cossacks.
The Eagle of the Old Guard led a charge at Eylau at the head of the
Grenadiers. The Guard came into action to beat back a daring Russian
counter-attack on the centre of Napoleon’s position, which immediately
followed the annihilation of Augereau’s corps. Napoleon himself gave the
order for the Guard to go forward. “The Emperor,” describes Caulaincourt,
who was on Napoleon’s staff, and near him throughout, “standing erect in
the stirrups, his glass at his eye, was the first to realise that the black
shadow steadily drawing near through the veil of the snow-storm must be
16
the columns of the Russian reserve. He immediately sent against them
two battalions of the Grenadiers of the Guard commanded by General
Dorsenne.” It was just after Murat had been ordered to make his charge.
Dorsenne—“Le Beau Dorsenne,” he was universally called; he had the
reputation of being the handsomest man in the whole of the Grand Army—
started off on the instant, rapidly deploying his men into lines as he moved
forward, and with the Eagle of the Grenadiers of the Guard in advance of
the centre of the front line. The Old Guard moved out in stately order,
marching with clockwork precision, muskets at the support—held erect at
the side and steadied and supported with one arm held stiffly across. One of
the officers who rode beside Dorsenne suggested to the general as they were
nearing the Russians to open fire. “Non!” was the haughty answer.
“Grenadiers l’arme à bras! La Vieille Garde ne se bât qu’à la baïonette!”
(“No! Arms at the support! The Old Guard only fights at the point of the
bayonet!”)
They reached the Russians, who, on their side, seemed for the moment
as if spellbound at the sight of them. The nearest Russians stopped short.
They stood stock-still, rooted in the ground as it were, gazing at the sudden
apparition of the solid wall of 2,000 veteran giants in their huge towering
bear-skins. The next instant the battalion guns of the Guard, which
accompanied the advance on either flank, opened with a burst of fire at
short range into the thick of the Russians. At once, down came the gleaming
rows of bayonets, and, like one man, the Old Guard sprang forward and
charged into the enemy. A moment before the bayonets crossed a squadron
of the Chasseurs of the Guard, the men on duty as Napoleon’s own personal

escort, sent forward by the Emperor himself to assist the Grenadiers, dashed
into the rear of the Russian column, and “drove it forward on our
Grenadiers, who received it with fixed bayonets.”
THE EAGLE OF Just before that it was that the Eagle of the Old
THE OLD Guard had its adventure. A shell dropped right in front of
GUARD
it and burst. The fragments smashed the Eagle pole in
two places, just above and below the hands of the Eagle-bearer. The Eagle
fell to the ground at the feet of the Russians. But they had not time to get
hold of it. Instantly Lieutenant Morlay, the Eagle-bearer, sprang forward
and recovered it. Picking the Eagle up, with the flag and fragment of pole
that was left, Morlay snatched hold of a grenadier’s musket and jammed the
piece of the staff into the muzzle beside the bayonet. He carried the Eagle in
17
that manner throughout the rest of the battle.
AT MIDNIGHT A hundred and fifty thousand combatants had faced
AFTER THE one another at daybreak. An hour before midnight, when
BATTLE the last shots were fired, 50,000 men lay dead or
wounded on the field. “Never,” if we may recall the grim
picture of the scene next day that Alison has drawn, “was spectacle so
dreadful as that field presented on the following morning. Above 50,000
men lay in the space of two leagues, weltering in blood. The wounds were,
for the most part, of the severest kind, from the extraordinary quantity of
cannon-balls which had been discharged during the action and the close
proximity of the contending masses to the deadly batteries, which spread
grape at half-musket shot through their ranks. Though stretched on the cold
snow and exposed to the severity of an Arctic winter, the sufferers were
burning with thirst, and piteous cries were heard on all sides for water, or
assistance to extricate the wounded men from beneath the heaps of slain or
load of horses by which they were crushed. Six thousand of these noble
animals encumbered the field, or, maddened with pain, were shrieking
aloud amidst the stifled groans of the wounded. Broken gun-carriages,
dismounted cannon, fragments of blown-up caissons, scattered balls, lay in
wild confusion amidst casques, cuirassiers, and burning hamlets, casting a
livid light over a field of snow. Subdued by loss of blood, tamed by cold,
exhausted by hunger, the foemen lay side by side, amidst the general wreck.
The Cossack was to be seen beside the Italian; the gay vine-dresser from the

banks of the Garonne lay athwart the stern peasant from the plains of the
Ukraine.”
When Napoleon took his ride over the field, “the men exhibited none of
their wonted enthusiasm; no cries of ‘Vive l’Empereur!’ were heard; the
bloody surface echoed only with the cries of suffering or the groans of
woe.”
THE “TEMPLE Sixteen Russian standards were sent to Paris after
OF VICTORY” Eylau; Napoleon’s set-off to the twelve Eagles taken to
St. Petersburg. They were to be hung, he directed,
temporarily at the Invalides, until such time as the conversion of the former
Church of the Madeleine into Napoleon’s grandiose “Temple of Victory”
should be effected—a project that was fated never to be accomplished.
There, designed Napoleon, all the trophies of the Grand Army would find
their final resting-place, in a splendid edifice, designed externally after the
Parthenon at Athens. Within, the trophies would be displayed, amidst
colonnades of Corinthian pillars of marble and granite and a mass of
decorative sculptures, statues of marshals and generals who had met their
death in battle, and bas-reliefs of famous colonels, before a lofty marble
curule chair, which Napoleon would occupy as a throne on great occasions.
“It is a Temple I desire,” he laid down, writing from his camp in Poland,
“not a church; and everything must be made in a chaste, severe, and durable
style, and be suitable for solemnities at all times and all hours.”
Two more Eagles had yet to go to St. Petersburg before the war was
over—the Eagle of the 15th of the Line and another. They were the spoils
that the beaten Russian army carried off from the battle of Friedland, fought
some six months after Eylau, on July 14. Napoleon won one of his most
famous victories at Friedland, and one that he afterwards recorded on the
colours of all the regiments that fought in the battle; but the defeated army
carried back with them two more of his Eagles.
The Eagle of the 15th of the Line, a regiment of Marshal Ney’s corps,
was lost in a bayonet charge while fighting the Russian Imperial Guard. The
second Eagle was left among the dead in the repulse of a column of
Marshal Lannes’ corps in the earlier part of the battle. “A column of 3,000
men advanced straight against Friedland. They were permitted to approach
close to the Russian cannon without a single shot being fired, when

suddenly the whole opened with grape, and with such effect that in a few
minutes a thousand men were struck down, the column routed, and the
Eagle taken.”
One of the regiments of the column saved itself as it fell back by
rallying round its Eagle. As at Eylau, so at Friedland the Russian dragoons
dashed down among the broken battalions while trying to re-form under the
murderous cannonade. The 50th of the Line had been near the head of the
column, and more than half of its men had been shot down. The dragoons
were cutting their way through to the Eagle, when Adjutant Labourie
snatched it from its wounded bearer, and, holding it up, shouted to the men:
“Rally round the Eagle. We must defend it to the death!” A small square
hastily formed round him, and, stubbornly resisting, they kept the Russian
dragoons off and fought their way back to safety with the Eagle.

GOLDEN The Peace of Tilsit closed the war within a month of
WREATHS FOR Friedland.
THE EAGLES
The welcome-home of Paris to the Old Guard, and
public decoration of the Eagles with crowns of gold, was the curtain-scene
and grand finale of the Jena-Friedland drama. To all the regiments of the
Grand Army under fire at Jena, Friedland, and Eylau, wreaths of gold, to be
affixed round the necks of their Eagles, were voted by the Municipality of
Paris. The wreaths were to be publicly presented to each regiment on its
return to France.
The Guard were the first to receive theirs, and their arrival in the capital
was made the occasion of a series of civic fêtes; announced officially as
being “offered in tribute to the Glory of the Grand Army.” Wednesday,
November 25, 1807, was the day on which the Guard were due to reach
Paris. All had been made ready to accord them a magnificent reception.
The Prefect of the Seine, at the head of the City magistrates and the
Municipal Councillors of Paris, all in their robes and chains and glittering
insignia of office, escorted by a mounted cohort of National Guards, met the
returning veterans at the Barrier on the Strasburg road. Marshal Bessières
led the Guard, who marched up with bands playing and resplendent in their
full-dress uniforms, horse and foot and artillery—12,000 men in all. A
gigantic triumphal arch was set up beyond the Barrier, wide enough for
twenty men to march through abreast. It was the approach to a wide arena

on which the troops drew up, massed in front of a lofty platform, decked
out with flags and wreaths of evergreens and bright-coloured hangings.
There the Prefect took his place with his entourage as the soldiers drew
near. Grand-stands to accommodate a crowd of sightseers surrounded the
arena.
The Old Guard marched in and drew up in close order, on which the
proceedings opened with the civic address. “Heroes of Jena, of Eylau, of
Friedland,” began the Prefect, “conquerors of a splendid peace, immortal
thanks are your due from France! We salute you, Eagles of war, the symbols
of the might of our noble-hearted Emperor! You have made known
throughout the world, with his great name, the glory of victorious France!”
So, in grandiloquent style, the address commenced. At its close the
regiments of the Guards defiled past the platform in turn—Carabineers and
Cuirassiers, Chasseurs, Dragoons, and Hussars, and the battalions of
veteran Grenadiers. Round the neck of each Eagle, as its corps came up, the
Prefect hung a wreath of laurel-leaves in gold.
Then came the triumphal march through the streets of Paris to the
Tuileries, amid cheering crowds, nearly beside themselves with excitement
and enthusiasm, and with difficulty kept back from breaking through the
rows of National Guards who lined the pavement, to hug the grim bearskin-
hatted warriors. The Eagles deposited with ceremony in the Imperial
Guardroom of the Palace of the Tuileries, the horsemen dismounted in the
Square of the Carrousel, muskets were piled, and all marched off to the
Champs Elysées. An immense banquet awaited them there, under vast
marquees—shelter that the men appreciated, for it turned out a miserably
wet afternoon.
BANQUETED BY The banquet in the Champs Elysées was the first in
THE CITY OF the round of festivities with which Paris welcomed home
PARIS
the “Victors over Europe.” The fêtes lasted over three
days, and terminated in a grand reception given by the Senate to all ranks of
18
“Our Invincible Guard” in the Gardens of the Luxembourg.

CHAPTER VI

PREPARING FOR THE FUTURE

The “Eagle-Guard”

The loss of twelve Eagles in one battle made a deep and lasting impression
upon Napoleon. That twelve of his cherished emblems, those mementoes of
victorious Caesar, for whose prestige he had advanced such exacting
claims, should have fallen en bloc into the hands of the enemy came as a
galling blow to Napoleon’s military pride. Twelve Eagles reft from amid the
bayonets of the Grand Army on one battlefield: twelve Eagles paraded
together as trophies through the capital of an exulting foe! It was a
poignantly felt humiliation for the mighty Imperator of the Field of Mars.
And yet no default could be charged against the soldiers to whom these
Eagles had been entrusted. All that men might do for their defence they had
done. Most of the luckless battalions, indeed, had fought and fallen directly
under the eyes of the Emperor himself, looking on from his post of vantage
by the wall of Eylau churchyard.
Napoleon, however, had already realised that his distribution of an
emblem to whose preservation he attached such extreme importance had
been made on too lavish a scale. He had been imprudent in distributing such
hostages to fortune broadcast; there were too many Eagles on offer to the
enemy. Napoleon, indeed, had already tacitly admitted that. Within two
months of the opening of the first campaign of the Grand Army—during the
Austerlitz campaign—immediately after Murat’s daring gallop on Vienna,
Napoleon had summarily directed all the light cavalry Eagles to be sent
back from the front. Every Hussar and Chasseur regiment was ordered to
return its three squadron Eagles to head-quarters forthwith, for sending back
to France. In future, a new Army regulation laid down, those corps would
not take their Eagles into the field at all. The regulation after that was

extended to Dragoons; and later to all Light Infantry battalions. No doubt it
was a step dictated by prudence. In these corps particularly, from the nature
of the duties they had normally to perform, the Eagles were peculiarly
exposed to risk of isolation and capture.
What had happened at Eylau, and several narrow escapes in hand-to-
hand combats at Friedland, together with certain other incidents in that
battle which had come under Napoleon’s personal notice, where, through a
nervous anxiety for the safety of their Eagles, some battalion commanders
had kept back round them men whose bayonets were badly wanted
elsewhere, led to a further step. Napoleon took advantage of the general
scheme for the reorganisation of the Grand Army, which he carried out in
1808, to recast entirely his original arrangement as to the Eagles. He
reduced the numbers by two-thirds.
NO MORE Battalion Eagles were to be withdrawn in favour of
BATTALION Regimental Eagles. In the infantry, under the
EAGLES
reorganisation scheme, there were to be five battalions to
each regiment instead of three as heretofore; but there would be only one
Eagle in future for the entire regiment. The existing Second and Third
battalions were ordered to give up the Eagles they had hitherto carried,
which would find a resting-place at the Invalides. The Regimental Eagle
would be borne by the First Battalion. The other battalions would carry only
“fanions,” small pennon-shaped flags. Each would have one “fanion,” a
plain serge flag, of a distinctive colour for each battalion, without any mark
or device on it, beyond the number of the battalion.
The Imperial edict, issued early in 1808, laid down that for the special
protection of the Regimental Eagle in battle a commissioned officer and
two picked veterans were to be appointed as the “Eagle-Guard,” replacing
the sergeant-major and escort of the Battalion Eagles. The three were to be
known as the First, Second, and Third Eagle-Bearers or “Porte-Aigles.” The
officer to whose special charge the Regimental Eagle itself was committed
was to be a senior lieutenant, “a man of proved valour, with not less than
ten years’ Army service, including service on the battlefield in four
campaigns,” specified as those of Ulm, Austerlitz, Jena, and Friedland. He
would receive captain’s pay, and wear a gold-laced cocked hat and gold
epaulettes. The two other Porte-Aigles were to be, in Napoleon’s own
words, “deux braves,” of ten years’ service in the ranks, and “non-lettrés.”

On the last qualification, indeed, Napoleon laid peculiar stress. The two
were to be, as the Emperor himself put it, “men who could neither read nor
write, so that their only hope of promotion should be through acts of special
courage and devotion.” They would receive lieutenants’ pay, have special
privileges, and wear four gold lace chevrons on their arms. Only the
Emperor could nominate or degrade Porte-Aigles.
PENNONS TO The Second and Third Porte-Aigles were to carry no
FRIGHTEN weapons except heavy pistols, “to blow out the brains of
HORSES
an enemy attempting to lay hands on an Eagle.” These
were Napoleon’s own words as to that, in his order of February 18, 1808:
“Pour éviter que l’ardeur dans la mêlée ne les détourne de leur unique objet,
de la garde de l’Aigle, le sabre et l’épée leurs sont interdits. Ils n’auront
d’autres armes que plusieurs paires de pistolets, d’emploi que de veiller
froidement a brûler la cervelle de celui qui avancerait la main pour saisir
l’Aigle.” After the Wagram campaign of 1809 Napoleon substituted a
helmet and defensive brass scale-epaulettes as the First Porte-Aigle’s
equipment. He gave the two soldiers of the Eagle-Guard a halberd each,
with a pennon or banderol attached—Red for the Second Porte-Aigle,
White for the Third—as well as a sword and a pair of large-bore pistols.
The pennons were for use should mounted men attack the Eagle; “for
fluttering in front of the horses in order to make them rear and plunge and
19
upset their riders.”
Two more soldiers were added to the Eagle-Guard in 1813, as the
Fourth and Fifth Porte-Aigles. They were armed with the same weapons as
the others, and had respectively Yellow and Green pennons on their
halberds.
Yet further to add to the prestige of the Eagles, Napoleon, after
Wagram, decreed the institution of a Special Order of Military Merit, which
he called the “Order of the Trois Toisons d’Or”—something on the lines of
our own Victoria Cross—certain of the provisions of which had direct
reference to the Eagles. The decoration was to be conferred on men,
whatever their rank, “distinguished in the defence of the Eagle of their
regiment.” Also, according to the 6th Article of the Constitution of the
Order, “Les Aigles des régiments qui ont assisté avec distinction aux
20
grandes batailles seront décorés de l’Ordre des Trois Toisons d’Or.”

The special distinction of having the badge of the Legion of Honour
affixed to its Eagle as a decoration to the regimental standard was in 1812
granted to one corps, the celebrated 57th. It was as a reward for magnificent
intrepidity displayed under the eyes of Napoleon at the battle of Borodino.
The 57th had at the same time a further and unique mark of Imperial regard
awarded to it. Napoleon ordered that a representation of the badge of the
Legion of Honour should be stamped on the uniform buttons of the
regiment. No corps of the Grand Army, perhaps, had a finer fighting
tradition than this splendid regiment—the same “Terrible 57me qui rien
n’arrête,” of the Army of Italy; which, too, as has been said, Napoleon
singled out for a special word of encouragement on the morning of
Austerlitz; calling to them as he rode past, “You will remember to-day,
Fifty-seventh, how I once named you ‘Le Terrible’!”
But, with regard to the Regimental Eagles of 1808, even for Napoleon
it was one thing to decree the abolition of Battalion Eagles, and another to
obtain compliance with the order that the surplus Eagles should be returned
to the War Minister for laying up at the Invalides.
SOME CORPS A number of second and third battalions of regiments
DID NOT OBEY stationed at places out of the way of direct Imperial
inspection—in garrisons beyond the frontiers, in
subjugated countries, or in the remaining overseas possessions of France—
continued for some time to evade the order recalling their Eagles. No doubt,
too, they were unwilling to part with standards some of which had led the
corps under fire at Austerlitz and Jena.
Napoleon had to repeat his order of recall twice: once during 1809; the
second time in 1811. That second order was the outcome of a discovery
made by the Emperor himself. At an Imperial review of the troops of the
Amsterdam and North Holland garrisons on October 12, 1810, three of the
regiments had the temerity to parade before the Emperor’s eyes with four
Eagles apiece—one to each battalion. Such flagrant disobedience could not
be overlooked; and then subsequent inquiries brought out the fact that
elsewhere there were many Battalion Eagles which had similarly been
retained against orders. An additional discovery was made at the same time,
that the Fourth-Battalion Eagles had been supplied surreptitiously, through
some official at the Ministry of War, entirely without Napoleon’s
knowledge.

It made Napoleon excessively angry. He complained bitterly to Marshal
Berthier at the way in which the department which had to do with the
standards of the Army had been mismanaged. “La partie des drapeaux des
régiments,” he declared, “est aujourd’hui dans un grand chaos.” To the
Minister of War, General Clarke, Duc de Feltre, Napoleon sent a stinging
letter of rebuke.
With the letter went the draft of yet another decree, to be
communicated to every corps in the service.
NAPOLEON’S
FINAL ORDER “I only give,” wrote Napoleon now, “one Eagle per
regiment of infantry, one per regiment of cavalry, one
per regiment of artillery, one per regiment of special gendarmerie.
None to the departmental companies or guards of honour.
“No corps may possess an Eagle which has not been bestowed by
my own hand.
“All regiments, further, of whatever denomination, if they did not
receive the Eagle they are authorised to possess from the hand of the
Emperor in person, either directly on parade, or through a regimental
deputation, must return it to the Ministry of War for the will of his
Majesty to be declared as to that Eagle.
“All other corps are to carry ‘fanions,’ ordinary flags. Infantry
regiments reduced below 1,000 men in strength, and cavalry regiments
of less than 500 men, cannot retain their Eagle, and must return it to the
dépôt. They will be accorded a standard [drapeau] without the Eagle.
“All the infantry regiments now in possession of an Eagle per
battalion, and cavalry with one per squadron, are to send the extra-
regulation Eagles at once to Paris, to be kept [déposées] at the Invalides
until they can be placed in the ‘Temple of Glory’ [the Church of the
Madeleine, then being rebuilt].” “Jusqu’à ce qu’elles puissent être
misées dans le Temple de la Gloire,” was what Napoleon wrote.

Three of the British trophy-Eagles now at Chelsea, it may be remarked
in passing, bear the number “82.” They came into our hands in February
1809, at the surrender of Martinique to a conjoint British military and naval

expedition. The 82nd was one of the regiments referred to as out of the way
of direct inspection; in garrison across the Atlantic. It had not obeyed the
order of 1808 to return its Second and Third Battalion Eagles to Paris—with
the result that three Eagles at Chelsea represent the misfortune of this one
regiment.
“The First Battalion,” ordered Napoleon in his decree of 1811, “is to
carry the Eagle: the other battalions will have each a fanion, quite plain, as
follows: 2nd Battalion, White; 3rd, Red; 4th, Blue. Where certain regiments
may possess additional battalions, these are to have, the 5th a Green fanion,
21
the 6th a Yellow fanion.”
In 1813, in Napoleon’s conscript army levied to replace the host
destroyed in Russia, the newly raised Line regiments, and “Provisional-
Regiments,” made up of the amalgamated dépôt battalions of various corps,
had to earn their Eagles on the battlefield. “No newly raised regiment,”
ordered Napoleon, “is to receive an Eagle until after his Majesty has been
satisfied with its service before the enemy.”
THE ONLY The flags issued in 1808, and after that, to go with
NAMES the Regimental Eagles, were much more elaborate than
ALLOWED
those of the Champ de Mars. They had white diamond-
shaped centre panels, similar to those in the flags presented on the Field of
Mars, but with Imperial crowns embroidered in gold on the red and blue
upper corners of the flag, and golden Eagles on the lower corners. Gold
embroidered wreaths of laurel, encircling the Imperial monogram “N.”
divided off the crowns above from the Eagles below. A border of gold
fringe round the entire flag, embroidered with bees, was another new
enrichment. In these flags the regimental battle-honour inscriptions on the
reverse side of the white centre space in the former flags appeared in a
revised from. Only victories of importance since the institution of the
Empire, and at which Napoleon had commanded in person, were admitted.
Ulm, Austerlitz, Jena, Eylau, Friedland, Eckmühl, Essling, Wagram,
constituted the full list from which selection was made. One regiment alone
was allowed to record an earlier victory:—the Imperial Guard. They
preserved their “Marengo” honour. Inscriptions such as “Le 75e arrive et
bât l’ennemi,” “J’étais tranquille, le 32e était là,” and the others which had
been allowed on the flags of the Field of Mars, recalling deeds of the Army

of Italy, disappeared from the revised pattern of 1808. A new inscription
was specially authorised for the flag of one regiment, in honour of a feat of
great distinction during the Wagram campaign. The 84th of the Line was
permitted to inscribe “Un contre dix—Grätz, 1809”—but that only lasted
for three years; the inscription was ordered to be taken off in 1811.
The design of the flag introduced in 1808 held until 1814. A less
elaborate design was adopted for the Eagle-standards of the “Hundred
Days,” two specimens of which are in this country—the Waterloo trophies
at Chelsea.
Attractive and handsome as the new flag was, the Army, as before,
looked on it as but an appendage, as merely “l’ornement de l’Aigle.” The
Eagle at the head of the staff, by itself, was all that nine soldiers out of ten
troubled about. Not a few regiments, indeed, when on service, removed the
flags altogether from their Eagle-poles and displayed as their standard the
Eagle only. Particularly was this the case in Spain, where many regiments
were in the field continuously, in some instances, for over six years—from
1808 to 1814. Asked one day after the Peninsular War about the inscription
and battle-honours on the flag of his regiment, an infantry chef de bataillon
frankly confessed that he had “never set eyes on it!” The silken flag, he
explained, “had been removed from the Eagle-pole before he first joined as
a lieutenant, and had always, as he understood, been kept at the dépôt of the
corps in France, rolled up and locked away in the regimental chest. The
Eagle on its bare pole was all he had ever seen.”
Said another officer: “We never spoke of the regiment’s ‘colours,’ and
never saw them. We spoke only of ‘the Eagle.’”
WHEN This may be added. Napoleon was scrupulously
NAPOLEON exact in showing respect to the Eagle of a regiment
MET AN EAGLE
whenever he passed one; whether on the line of march, or
in bivouac, under a sentry, with the Eagle-Guard near at hand, resting
horizontally on a support of piled muskets with bayonets fixed. If on
horseback, Napoleon always uncovered and bowed low; if on the line of
march, he sometimes stopped his carriage in passing, and got out, saluted
the Eagle, and said a few words about the regiment’s battle record to the
Eagle-Guard.

Between the review on the Field of Mars in 1804 and the overthrow on
the plains of Leipsic in 1814 the number of regiments in the Grand Army
increased continuously, requiring the presentation of many new Eagles.
Forty-four were presented in the period to the infantry alone; to the
regiments of the Line bearing numbers from the 113th to 156th; besides
others to the regiments of the “Middle Guard” and “Young Guard,” and to
two additional regiments of Cuirassiers. In every case Napoleon, in
accordance with the stipulation that he so insisted on, made the presentation
in person, with his own hand.
In not a few instances, indeed, the ceremony took place on campaign;
and for one of these exceptionally interesting occasions we have available
the notes of an eye-witness. It was at the presentation of the Eagle of the
126th Regiment of the Line, in Germany, in 1813.
Napoleon made his appearance in his campaigning uniform, the dark
green undress of the Chasseurs of the Guard, and mounted as usual on a
grey charger. His staff, all brilliant in full dress, attended him. Approaching
the scene at a canter, they all slowed down to a walk as they neared where
the regiment stood, with its battalions parading every available man, and
drawn up to form three sides of a hollow square. The new Eagle, enveloped
in the leather casing in which it had been brought from France, lay on a pile
of drums on one flank of the First Battalion, and a little in advance. The
fourth, or open, side of the square was for the Imperial staff, who drew up
there, while the Emperor by himself rode into the middle of the square. As
Napoleon reined up, the regimental drums beat the Appel, and the officers
of the regiment stepped to the front, with swords at the carry, and formed in
line before the Emperor.
Marshal Berthier, Chief of the Head-quarter Staff, then rode across to
where the Eagle lay. He dismounted to receive it at the hands of the First
Porte-Aigle, the Eagle being uncased at the same time. Berthier saluted the
Eagle; then, holding it erect with both hands, the marshal bore it
ceremoniously along in front of the row of officers, who saluted with
lowered swords as the Eagle passed, the drums of the regiment now beating
a long roll. Halting close in front of Napoleon, Berthier inclined the Eagle
forward in salute, and the Emperor, on his side, uncovered and bowed in
return. Then, drawing his glove from his left hand, Napoleon raised his
hand and extended it towards the Eagle. He held the reins, according to his

custom, in his right hand. Napoleon began his address to the corps in a
deep, impressive tone:
AT A “Soldiers of the 126th Regiment of the Line, I entrust
PRESENTATION to you the Eagle of France! It is to serve to you ever as
IN THE FIELD
your rallying-point. You swear to me never to abandon it,
but with life! You swear never to suffer an affront to it for the honour of
France! You swear ever to prefer death for it to dishonour! You swear!” The
last words were pronounced with a peculiar stress, in a very solemn tone,
with intense energy.
Instantly the officers of the regiment replied. Holding their swords on
high, with one voice they shouted: “We swear!”
The next moment the words were taken up and repeated
enthusiastically by the men: “We swear!”
Berthier, on that, formally handed the Eagle over to the colonel of the
regiment, and the Emperor, raising his hand to his hat in salute to the Eagle,
turned to rejoin the Staff and ride off elsewhere.
On the afternoon before the three days’ battle of Leipsic opened, on
October 15, 1813, Napoleon, on the Marchfeldt, in the very presence of the
enemy, presented with these formalities new Eagles to three newly raised
regiments.

CHAPTER VII

BEFORE THE ENEMY AT ASPERN AND
WAGRAM
Napoleon’s regimental Eagles made their début on the battlefield in the
Wagram campaign of 1809, when Austria challenged Napoleon to a second
trial of strength in her premature attempt to achieve the liberation of
Germany. The gallant deeds of the regiments that fought round the Eagles
in that war are commemorated on the standards of the French Army to-day
by the legend “Wagram, 1809,” a name and date that stand as the
comprehensive memento of a conflict that lasted four months, and included
no fewer than ten fiercely fought battles. They are superabundant as a fact;
it would almost need a book by itself to tell the full story. It must suffice
therefore to take here only these, picked out at random, as typical of the
rest.
This is the achievement that “Wagram, 1809,” inscribed in golden
letters on the silken tricolor standard of the present-day 65th of the Line,
serves to recall.
Napoleon’s 65th was one of the regiments of Marshal Davout’s corps at
Ratisbon, where Davout had been stationed on the eve of the outbreak of
the war. He was hastily recalled on the Austrians opening hostilities and
advancing in greatly superior force. Davout fell back at once, leaving
behind him the 65th to hold the very important bridge over the Danube at
Ratisbon for forty-eight hours, until the bulk of his corps had gained a
sufficient start on their way.
The 65th had not long to wait for the enemy. Within twelve hours of the
marshal’s retirement the Austrians swooped down on Ratisbon to seize the
bridge. Two of their army corps led the advance. One took possession of the
city, sending troops forward to secure the bridge. Part of the other crossed
the Danube in the neighbourhood of the city in boats, in order to cut off and

capture the French troops left behind. It was expected that in the presence
of so overpowering an enemy the single French regiment holding the bridge
would not venture to make a serious defence. The Austrians did not know
the 65th.
To oppose the first comers three battalions of the 65th barricaded and
loopholed the houses nearest the bridge on that side. The remaining
battalion held a fortified outwork, or bridge-head, across the river.
For a whole day the battalions in the city held the Austrians at bay,
resisting desperately in the streets and from house to house. Four hundred
Austrian prisoners, together with an Austrian regimental standard and three
other flags, testified to the way they did their duty. The battalion holding the
bridge-head on the farther side of the river made meanwhile a no less
stubborn resistance and kept the enemy off until nightfall. Then, however, it
was found that their ammunition was exhausted. The three battalions
fighting the city were by that time in a no less desperate plight. They on
their side had been forced back to their last defences among the houses
immediately surrounding the approach to the bridge. Still, though, they kept
up a fierce resistance, at the last using cartridges taken from the cartouche-
boxes of the Austrian prisoners and their own dead and wounded comrades.
They held out until further defence of the bridge was impossible, until
indeed further resistance at all was hopeless.
HOW WERE But the regimental Eagle? What was to become of
THEY TO SAVE that? The Eagle of the 65th must at all cost be kept from
THE EAGLE?
being surrendered into an enemy’s hands. What was to be
done? At first it was suggested that an officer, known to be a good
swimmer, should try to swim down the river with it in the dark until he
could land safely on the farther bank, after which he should do his best to
make his way to wherever Napoleon might be, there to render personally
into his hands the sacred Eagle. But the other surviving officers were loth to
part with their treasured standard in that way. The risk of a man getting
through the Austrians who were swarming on the other side of the Danube
was considered too great. It was then suggested to sink it in the Danube,
noting the spot, so as to be able to fish it up again on some future day.
Colonel Coutard, in command of the 65th, however, was against that. They
might never be able, or have time, to find it at the bottom of a deep and
swiftly flowing river like the Danube. He proposed to conceal the Eagle in

the ground, burying it in some secret place. There it might without difficulty
be recovered later on and brought back to France. The colonel’s proposal
was assented to, and then a further suggestion was made. Their Eagle
should be given a fitting shroud by wrapping round it the captured Austrian
flags they had taken that afternoon. That would preserve the trophies also
for future days when the fortune of war again favoured the regiment. The
idea was eagerly taken up, and the Eagle was buried in a cellar, wrapped up
in the Austrian flags.
WRAPPED UP IN After that, at the very last, just as the Austrians were
CAPTURED about to launch another attack it was impossible to
FLAGS
withstand, Colonel Coutard had the chamade beaten, and
the 65th surrendered. They were granted, as they well deserved, the honours
of war, and were for the time being confined under guard in the city. Their
captivity, however, was not for long. Their release came about in a very few
days on the Austrian troops hurriedly evacuating Ratisbon before
22
Napoleon’s triumphant advance. The Eagle was now dug up, and Colonel
Coutard, with a deputation from the regiment, waited on Napoleon on his
arrival, to present the Eagle before him, still wrapped up in the three
captured Austrian flags.
In recognition of the endurance that the 65th had shown, the colonel
was created a Baron of the Empire; crosses of the Legion of Honour were
distributed broadcast among all ranks; forty soldiers who had shown
exceptional gallantry in the fighting were, as a reward, specially transferred
to the Old Guard.
Such is the fine story that the battle-honour “Wagram, 1809,” lettered
in gold on the regimental tricolor of the present-day 65th of the Line in the
French Army commemorates, and care is taken that every young soldier on
joining is made acquainted with it.
Equally fine as an exploit, and yet more renowned for the exceptional
honour that Napoleon paid to the Eagle of the regiment, was the splendid
heroism that the 84th of the Line displayed at Grätz in Styria. That episode
of the campaign, indeed, is commemorated by a double battle-honour on the
flag of the 84th of the modern French Army. Both “Wagram, 1809,” and
“Un contre dix—Grätz, 1809” are inscribed in golden letters on its tricolor.
Napoleon himself, as has been said, bestowed the honour of the unique

inscription on the regimental flag. He had also the words “Un contre dix”
incised on the square tablet supporting the Eagle itself. Here is the story of
the exploit as related by one of Napoleon’s staff officers in the campaign,
Colonel Lejeune:
KEPT OFF WITH “Amongst all these battles and victories there was
THE BAYONET one action so remarkable and so brilliant that I feel
impelled to describe it here from the accounts of eye-
witnesses. During the taking of Grätz by General Broussier, and when the
struggle was at its fiercest, Colonel Gambin of the 84th Regiment was
ordered, with two of his battalions, to attack the suburb of St. Leonard,
where he made from four to five hundred prisoners. This vigorous assault
led General Guilay on the enemy’s side to imagine he had to deal with a
whole army, and he hurried to the aid of the suburb with considerable
forces. Gambin did not hesitate to attack them, and he took from them the
cemetery of the Graben suburb, but was in his turn invested by the Austrian
battalions, and found it impossible to rejoin the main body of the French.
He accepted the situation, spent the whole of the night in fortifying the
cemetery and the adjoining houses, and, his ammunition being exhausted,
he actually kept at bay some 10,000 assailants with the bayonet alone, even
making several sorties to carry off the cartouches on the dead bodies with
which his attacks had strewn the ground near the cemetery. General Guilay
now directed the fire of all his guns and five fresh battalions on this handful
of brave men, who had already for nineteen hours withstood a whole army.
General Broussier was at last able to send Colonel Nagle of the 92nd, with
two battalions, to the aid of the 84th. The enemy vainly endeavoured to
prevent the two regiments from meeting. Colonel Nagle overthrew every
obstacle, got into the cemetery, and after embracing each other the two
officers, with their united forces, flung themselves upon the Austrians, took
500 of them prisoners, with two flags, and carried the suburb of Graben by
assault, finding no less than 1,200 Austrian corpses in the streets. When the
Emperor heard of this feat of arms, he was anxious to confer the greatest
distinction he could on the 84th Regiment, and ordered that its banner
should henceforth bear in letters of gold the proud inscription, ‘One against
ten.’”
Seldom indeed did the soldiers of Napoleon encounter a more
determined enemy than the Austrians proved themselves in the war of 1809.

At Aspern, the battle on the Danube near Vienna, where Napoleon
experienced his first defeat on the Continent, more than one Eagle came
within an ace of being taken. The Eagle of the 9th of the Line, for instance,
to save it from what appeared to be imminent capture, was actually buried
on the battlefield in the middle of the fighting. “Our colonel,” wrote one of
the men of the 9th, “took the Eagle of the regiment, pulled it from its staff,
and, after digging a hole in the ground with a pioneer’s tool, buried and
concealed there our rallying signal to prevent it from falling into the
enemy’s hands.” It was, though, after all, an unnecessary precaution. The
hard-pressed 9th were rescued at the last moment, whereupon the Eagle
made its reappearance.
VICTIMS OF A Three other Eagles, less fortunate, are now in the
PANIC IN THE Austrian Army Museum at Vienna; those of the 35th of
DARK
the Line and of the 95th and 106th. The Eagle of the 35th
was taken on the Italian frontier near Lake Garda, in a surprise attack at
daybreak on the camp of the Viceroy, Eugène Beauharnais, by the troops of
the Archduke John. The other two fell into Austrian hands on the night of
the opening attack at Wagram, victims of a panic that suddenly seized one
of the French columns. It had led the attack on the centre of the Austrian
position with brilliant success.
Two thousand prisoners and five standards had been taken, and the
French were advancing exultantly, when the Austrians counter-attacked
with fresh troops, headed by the Archduke Charles in person. The French
resisted stubbornly, and at first successfully. They held their own until, in
the midst of furious hand-to-hand fighting, they were suddenly charged by
cavalry. It was late evening, and in the gathering dusk a sudden panic seized
a regiment on the flank. The panic spread instantly to the whole of the
attacking column. All order was lost forthwith. The soldiers gave way in
confusion, broke up, and went racing back headlong, a mob of fugitives,
down the steep ascent that a few minutes before they had so gallantly won.
As they went back in a tumultuous rush, fresh French troops, coming up to
their support, “in the darkness mistook the retreating host for enemies and
fired upon it; they, in their turn, were overthrown by the torrent of
fugitives.” The Austrian prisoners taken in the advance escaped, the
captured Austrian standards were recaptured, and two Eagles disappeared in
the dark amid the turmoil. Those are the two now at Vienna.

Fortunately for Napoleon the Austrian leaders did not realise the
smashing nature of the blow they had dealt. The fate of Napoleon’s Empire
otherwise might have been decided on that night. Unaware that the panic
had “spread an indescribable alarm through the French centre as far as the
tent of the Emperor, they stopped the advance, sounded the recall, and fell
back to their original positions.”
Of the Eagle-bearers of four regiments at Aspern, the 2nd, 16th, 37th,
and 67th of the Line, not one came through the day alive, but the Eagles
were saved. They were the four regiments that took the village of Aspern
and held it all day and till after dark—12,000 men against 80,000 enemies.
The village was the all-important key of the battlefield. Its defence was of
supreme moment, for only part of Napoleon’s army had been able to get
across the Danube as yet, the main bridge of boats having been broken
down and swept away.
They had seized Aspern at the outset, but had been forced to fall back
before an Austrian counter-attack, returning after that to recapture it, and
hold it until the end.
Marshal Masséna led the onset that retook the village. “The Austrians,”
describes a French officer, “had entered Aspern, and it was absolutely
necessary to dislodge them. Masséna therefore, who had had all his horses
killed, marched on foot with drawn sword at the head of the Grenadiers of
the Molitor division, forced his way into the village, crowded as it was with
Austrians, drove them out, and pursued them for some twelve or fourteen
yards beyond the houses. But here the French troops found themselves face
to face with the strong force under Hiller, Bellegarde, and Hohenzollern,
advancing rapidly in their direction. It was hopeless for the division to
attempt to engage such superior numbers in the open plain, so Masséna
recalled the pursuers, and ordered them to hold Aspern. The enemy,
ashamed apparently of this first defeat, returned to the charge with 80,000
men and more than a hundred pieces of cannon, which were soon pointed
on the village.”
AT BAY IN THE It was impossible to stop the onrush of the Austrians.
BURNING In spite of every effort of Masséna, who with his artillery
VILLAGE
“opened fire upon the densely packed masses of men,
every shot working terrible havoc amongst them,” they swarmed forward to

the outskirts of the village. A life-and-death struggle in defence began. “In a
very few minutes the village was completely surrounded by troops; and
hidden from view in the dense clouds of smoke from the cannon, the
musketry, and the fires which at once broke out, the combatants, almost
suffocated by the smoke, crossed bayonets without being able to see each
other; but neither side gave way a step, and for more than an hour the
terrible attack and desperate defence went on amongst the ruins of the
burning houses.”
It was during the Austrian opening attack on the outskirts of Aspern
that at one point a French regiment—the number of the regiment is not
given in any account—was forced apart from the rest, and driven back in
disorder beyond the village. Its colonel was killed, and, though the Eagle
was kept from falling into the enemy’s hands, the regiment fell back in
confusion. Napoleon witnessed the check and galloped to intercept the
troops as they were retreating. Riding into the midst of the fugitives, he
personally rallied them, and then called angrily for the colonel. There was
no answer from any one, and in high anger Napoleon again called for the
colonel. Then somebody made the reply that the colonel was dead. “I know
that!” answered Napoleon sharply. “I asked where he was!” “We left him in
the village.” “What! you left your colonel’s body in the hands of the
enemy? Go back instantly, find it, and remember that a good regiment
should always be able to produce both its Colonel and its Eagle!”
Napoleon’s stinging rebuke did its work. The men at once re-formed and
turned back. Charging forward with a rush, they forced their way through to
where the colonel had fallen and recovered the body. Then they joined in
with the other defenders at the village, and did their duty to the end. The
colonel’s body was brought back and laid before Napoleon next morning.
MARSHAL The fearful contest in Aspern went on until four in
MASSENA the afternoon, by which time the Austrians had succeeded
UNDER FIRE
in taking half the village. They could not, however, get
beyond that. “Masséna still held the church and cemetery, and was
struggling to regain what he had lost. Five times in less than three hours he
took and retook the cemetery, the church, and the village, without being
able to call to his aid the Legrand division, which he was obliged to hold in
reserve to cover Aspern on the right and keep the enemy from getting in on
that side. Throughout this awful struggle Masséna stood beneath the great

elms on the green opposite the church, calmly indifferent to the fall of the
branches brought down upon his head by the showers of grape-shot and
bullets, keenly alive to all that was going on, his look and voice, stern as the
quos ego of Virgil’s angry Neptune, inspiring all who surrounded him with
irresistible strength.”
Even when the sun went down “the struggle was far from being over,
and the awful battle was still raging in the streets and behind the walls of
the village of Aspern. The enemy, irritated at the stubborn resistance of so
small a body of troops, redoubled their efforts to dislodge them before
nightfall, and went on fighting by the light of the conflagrations alone. The
history of our wars relates no more thrilling incident than this long and
obstinate struggle, in which our troops, disheartened by the ever-fresh
difficulties with which they had to contend, worn out by fatigue, and
horrified by the carnage round them, were kept at their posts by the
example and exhortations of Masséna and his officers alone. General
Molitor had lost some half of his men, and the enemy were hurrying up
from every side. The struggle was maintained under these terrible
conditions until eleven o’clock, when we remained masters of Aspern and
of the whole line between it and Essling.”
Five regiments of the French Army of to-day commemorate a splendid
Eagle-incident in the name “Wagram, 1809,” on their colours; the final
charge of Macdonald’s column which saved and decided the battle for
Napoleon, besides gaining a marshal’s bâton for the Scottish officer who
achieved the feat. That was on the final battlefield of Wagram itself, the
outcome of which tremendous encounter settled the fate of the war. It was
the culminating event of the battle. The crisis was at hand for both armies
when the order was given to Macdonald to go forward. On the Austrian side
the powerful and fresh corps of the Archduke John was rapidly nearing the
scene, and the fortune of the day yet wavered in the balance. Napoleon, as
his last hope and final effort to break the stubborn Austrian array of the
Archduke Charles’ host which still confronted him, defiant still after ten
hours of charges and counter-charges, holding out tenaciously in a strong
position, massed his reserves and sent them at the centre of the Austrians, to
press forward in a vast column of closely formed battalions. They went at
the enemy with all the daring of a forlorn hope.

MACDONALDS’ “Moving steadily forward through the wreck of guns,
S COLUMN the dead, and the dying, this undaunted column, preceded
ADVANCES by its terrific battery incessantly firing, pushed on half a
league beyond the front at other points of the enemy’s
line. In proportion as it advanced, however, it became enveloped in fire; the
guns were gradually dismounted or silenced, and the infantry emerged
through their wreck to the front. The Austrians drew off their front line
upon their second, and both, falling back, formed a sort of wall on each side
of the French column, from whence issued a dreadful fire of grape and
musketry on either flank of the assailants. Still Macdonald pushed on with
unconquerable resolution: in the midst of a frightful storm of bullets his
ranks were unshaken; the destiny of Europe was in his hands, and he was
worthy of the mission. The loss he experienced, however, was enormous; at
every step huge chasms were made in his ranks, whole files were struck
down by cannon-shot, and at length his eight dense battalions were reduced
to 1,500 men. Isolated in the midst of enemies, this band of heroes was
compelled to halt. The Empire rocked to its foundations: it was the rout of a

similar body of the Guard at Waterloo that hurled Napoleon to the rock of
St. Helena.”
THE BATTLE The five regiments which formed the spear-point of
WON AT LAST the attack had paraded that morning 6,000 strong. They
numbered now, the survivors, less than 300. They were at
the extreme point of the advance, but were held fast and unable to go
farther. The enemy were on every side of them, for in the last moments they
had pressed on beyond touch of the troops that were following next. The
Austrians saw their chance to charge them and annihilate them before the
approach of French supports to the main column could get near. But
General Broussier, the Brigadier in command of the leading troops, knew
his work and his men. As they halted he rapidly rallied the fragments of the
nearest regiments and formed them in a single square. They drew up under
the feu d’enfer of cannon and musketry, three deep in front, with, in the
centre, held up on high, the five Eagles of the regiments; so as not to
weaken the front, the firing line, “the Eagles were held up only by men who
had been wounded.” Broussier marked the massing of the Eagles in the
midst; and, as the firing round them for one moment seemed to lull, raising
his voice, he called out for all to hear: “Soldiers, swear to die here to the
last man round your Eagles!” “Jurez moi, soldats, de mourir tous, jusqu’au
dernier, autour de vos Aigles!” were the Brigadier’s words. But there was
fortunately no need for all to die. At that moment reinforcing troops came
up, with the Young Guard at their head. The column, on that, moved
forward again with a steady front, “and the Archduke, despairing now of
maintaining his position, when assailed at the crisis of the day by such a
formidable accession of force in the now broken part of his line, gave
directions for a general retreat.” The Eagles had done their part and the
battle of Wagram was won.

CHAPTER VIII

“THE EAGLE WITH THE GOLDEN
WREATH” IN LONDON
There are thirteen of Napoleon’s Eagles in England, among the trophies of
the British Army at Chelsea Royal Hospital; or, to speak strictly, twelve
Eagles and a “dummy” Eagle, the later reproduction of a very famous
trophy, gone now, unfortunately, to the melting-pot of a thieves’ kitchen. It
is with the dummy Eagle, as it may be called for short, without disrespect to
its gallant custodians, and five of the twelve Eagles at Chelsea, that we are
for the immediate moment concerned. That represents the first of
Napoleon’s trophies won by British soldiers in hand-to-hand fight—the
once celebrated “Eagle with the Golden Wreath.”
The story opens on Saturday morning, May 18, 1811, a day that was a
great occasion for Londoners. For the first time, on that Saturday, trophies
taken from Napoleon were publicly displayed in the British Capital, and no
pains were spared to make the most of the event. An elaborate and dramatic
ceremonial was ordained for the occasion by the authorities at the instance
of the Prince Regent. It was like nothing else of the kind ever witnessed or
heard of in England before.
WHAT LONDON On many another day in bygone times London had
HAD SEEN been the scene of stately martial pageants in which the
BEFORE
victor’s spoils from many battlefields were borne in
triumph, amid blare of trumpets and clash of drums, to be deposited with
due ceremony in their allotted resting-places. So had it been when the
Marlborough trophies from Blenheim and Ramillies, the captured flags
from Dettingen, Louisburg, and Minden, were borne along the crowded
streets, preceded by bands playing triumphant music and accompanied by
armed escorts of Foot and Horse. Another Saturday, seventeen years before,
May 17, 1794, had been the last occasion of trophy-flags being displayed in

London, when the captured French Republican standards of the garrison of
Martinique were publicly carried through the streets by Life Guards and
Grenadiers, with the band of the First Guards leading the way and the
Tower guns booming out an artillery feu de joie, from St. James’s Palace to
St. Paul’s, to be received at the great west doors of the Cathedral by the
Dean and Chapter, and laid up “as a lasting memorial of the success of his
Majesty’s Arms.” Some of the flags then displayed hang in the Hall of
Chelsea Hospital to-day.
So, too, had it been in London in yet earlier times, in the far off,
unhappy days of Civil War in England, when the citizens of those periods,
in turn, saw the spoils of Bosworth, and of Marston Moor and Naseby, of
Worcester, Preston, and Dunbar, paraded through their midst, escorted by
mail-clad men-at-arms, on the way to be hung up exultingly in St. Paul’s
Cathedral or in Westminster Hall. With his own Royal banners from
Marston Moor and Naseby drooping down overhead from the roof of
Westminster Hall, Charles the First faced his judges and heard his fate. But
never before in London had so elaborately designed a ceremony attended
the display of trophies taken from any enemy, as that planned for the Royal
Depositum, as it was officially styled, of the first of the captured Eagles of
Napoleon to be received in England.
There was to be a special display of trophies the London newspapers
announced some days beforehand. The newspapers had not spared
themselves in working up public interest. At the outset they had told how,
on the night of March 24, Captain Hope, First A.D.C. to General Graham,
had arrived in London with the Barrosa despatches and a “French Eagle
with a wreath of gold,” which, it was stated, “the general trusted his aide de
camp might be permitted to lay at his Majesty’s feet.” Then Londoners were
informed that the Barrosa Eagle was a trophy of unusual importance, and
was being kept at the War Office, to be presented to the Prince Regent at the
next levée. It was announced a week later that his Royal Highness had been
so desirous of seeing it at once, that the War Minister, the Earl of Liverpool,
instead of waiting five weeks for the levée, had already presented it to the
Prince at Carlton House. On that came the official notification that “the
Eagle with the Golden Wreath,” as the trophy was everywhere styled,
together with a number of other French trophies, which had been previously
received and had been some time stored away at the War Office pending

instructions as to their disposal, would be deposited in the Chapel Royal,
Whitehall, (now the Museum of the Royal United Service Institution). “The
Royal Depositum ceremony will be very grand, and the martial music
appropriate to the occasion, and as the orders have been issued by direction
of his Royal Highness the Prince Regent, the Chapel will be thronged with
nobility.” So one journal notified; another remarking that “in addition to the
great religious and military ceremony, an anthem is to be performed after
the manner of the Te Deum.”
A GRAND Thus popular interest was aroused and kept alive in
MARTIAL advance, and the selected Saturday morning proving fine
CEREMONY
and pleasant, with the prospect of a genial and sunny
forenoon, Londoners turned out in large numbers to see the show.
To the Brigade of Guards it fell to carry out the ceremony of the
military reception of the Eagles.
The “Parade in St. James’s Park,” which we know now as the Horse
Guards Parade, was the appointed place for the display, and as the clock
struck nine the preliminaries opened with the arrival of a large body of
Guards’ recruits who were to keep the ground. From quite an early hour a
crowd had been gathering there and along the side of the Park. Soon
afterwards the first of the troops designated to attend the ceremony began to
arrive. These were several companies of the First Guards and Coldstreamers
“in undress, with side arms.” They formed line along either side of the
parade-ground; on one side “extending from the corner of the Chancellor of
the Exchequer’s garden to the Egyptian gun”; on the opposite side, “from
the Admiralty towards the Park.” To right and left of the archway under the
Horse Guards leading to Whitehall were drawn up the “recruiting parties
stationed in the Home District.”
At a quarter to ten came on the scene the first of the actors in the day’s
proceedings, the “King’s Guard” of the day, “in their best uniforms, and
with sprigs of oak and laurel in their hats.” Marching up, headed by the
combined bands of the First Guards and the Coldstreamers, with the
regimental colour of the First Guards, they formed on the right, along the
open side of the square, facing towards the Horse Guards. Following them,
a few moments later, came the picked detachment appointed as the “trophy-
escort,” furnished jointly by the grenadier companies of the First Guards

and the Coldstreamers. All were in review-order full dress, “wearing long
white gaiters, with oak and laurel leaves in their hats.” A captain of the First
Guards was in command; and the detachment was made up of two
subalterns, four sergeants, and ninety-six rank and file. They took post on
the left of the King’s Guard. As the trophy-escort halted, up came another
detachment of Guards, a hundred strong, with the Life Guards; marching
across the square and through the Horse Guards archway to line the way
thence to the doors of the Chapel Royal.
GETTING Towards ten o’clock privileged spectators were
READY FOR admitted within the square, “to stand at an appointed
THE PRINCES
spot”: several veteran generals, “in their best uniforms
and powdered,” as a newspaper reporter remarks; Lord Liverpool the War
Minister; the Earl Marshal; the Speaker; the Spanish and Portuguese
Ambassadors, both gorgeously attired; and “a number of beautiful and
elegant ladies of distinction.”
The Horse Guards clock struck ten, and as the last clanging stroke died
away “the authorities” came clattering on to the ground on horseback: Sir
David Dundas, Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Governor of Chelsea
Hospital, at the head of a number of other plumed and cocked-hatted
generals in full uniform, together with the Head-quarters Staff at the Horse
Guards. Prominent in the glittering array of gold-laced red coats, “mounted
on a cream-coloured Arab,” was General Sir John Doyle, Colonel of the
87th Royal Irish Fusiliers; the regiment whose prowess at Barrosa had won
the great trophy of the day—“the Eagle with the Golden Wreath.”
With Royal punctuality, as the clock chimed the half-hour, amid cheers
from the crowd and the spectators filling the windows of the Horse Guards
and Admiralty and other Government offices overlooking the ground, came
riding up the three Princes who were to preside at the ceremony—the
Dukes of York, Cambridge, and Gloucester.
The display began forthwith.
Preceded by the two Guards’ bands playing the “Grenadiers’ March,”
the trophy-escort of grenadiers crossed the Parade at a slow step, and
marched in four divisions, or “platoons,” to the old Tilt Yard orderly-room
under the Horse Guards. There the trophies had been taken beforehand to be
in readiness for the ceremony. The grenadiers halted before the doors, and

the trophies, twelve in number, were brought out by Lifeguardsmen from
the Tilt Yard Guard and committed to the charge of twelve picked sergeants
—six of the First Guards, six of the Coldstreamers—selected to bear them
to the Chapel Royal.
THE CAPTURED The trophy-bearers carrying the Eagles then took
EAGLES TAKE post according to the date of the capture of each trophy;
POST
the earliest taken of the Eagles leading. In advance of all,
immediately after the band, marched the three officers with swords drawn;
the captain and the two subalterns. Then, with their flanking grenadiers as
escort, a file to each trophy, came, one after the other, three Battalion Eagles
of Napoleon’s 82nd of the Line, surrendered at the capitulation of
Martinique in 1809. Immediately in rear marched No. 1 platoon of
grenadiers; in the interval between the first trophy-group and the second.
That consisted of the Regimental Eagle of the French 26th of the Line,
surrendered at Martinique at the same time as the Eagles of the 82nd, and
then that of the 66th of the Line, surrendered at the capitulation of
Guadaloupe in 1810, with, just behind them, the all-important trophy of the
day, the first Napoleonic Eagle captured—or, at any rate, taken possession
of—by British soldiers on the battlefield: “the Eagle with the Golden
Wreath”—that Eagle of Napoleon’s 8th Regiment of the Line, won in hand-
to-hand fight by the 87th Royal Irish Fusiliers at Barrosa.
Five of the Eagles had their silken tricolor flags still attached to the
poles. The Barrosa Eagle had none: it showed simply a bare pole topped by
the wreathed Eagle. The wreath, according to a newspaper reporter present,
was “an honour conferred on the regiment for fine conduct at the battle of
Talavera, where they were opposed to the 87th; and, by a singular
coincidence of circumstances, these regiments met in conflict at Barrosa
and recognised each other.” As we shall see, the statement was a freak of
journalistic imagination, without a scrap of fact behind the story, although,
strangely, the legend holds to this day and reappears periodically in print.
Adds the reporter, as to the appearance of the Eagle, recording this time
what he actually saw: “The Eagle is fixed on a square pedestal, and
standing erect on one foot; the other raised as if grasping something; its
wings expanded. It is about the size of a small pigeon, and appears to be
made of bronze, or of some composition like pinchbeck, gold-gilt.” The
“something” which the talons of the Eagle appeared to be grasping was the

“thunderbolt,” which was missing, having been either knocked out of its
place in the scuffle on the battlefield, or stolen later by somebody for a
relic. The wreath was really of gold. A couple of its leaves picked up on the
field after the battle and given to Major Hugh Gough, the gallant
commander of the 87th at Barrosa, are now in possession of one of that
officer’s descendants.

Plan of the Battle of BARROSA

The second grenadier platoon divided the Eagles from the first three of
the flag-trophies, borne in file, one by one, in the same way as the Eagles.
The first in date of capture led; a French Republican standard taken in fight
at Sir Ralph Abercombie’s victory at Alexandria, ten years before, and kept
ever since at the War Office: “the Invincible’s standard.” “As it is falsely
called,” adds the reporter; right for once. “So tattered is it,” he continues,
“that the mottoes are not legible; a bugle in the centre was the only figure

we could distinguish.” Two flags taken by Wellington’s men in the
Peninsula accompanied the Alexandria flag: “a Fort Standard,” as it is
described, and the battalion colour, or “fanion,” of the Second Battalion of
23
Napoleon’s 5th of the Line.
THE TROPHY In rear of the colour of the 5th marched the third
FLAGS grenadier platoon, and the last three trophies sent to
PARADED England by Wellington. Two were a pair of tattered
German standards, the flags of the two battalions of a
Prussian regiment in Napoleon’s service, composed of unfortunate soldiers
levied compulsorily during the French occupation of their country, and
tramped off to Spain to meet their fate under British bullets. Each flag bore
the legend “L’Empereur des Français au Régiment Prussien” on one side,
and “Valeur et Discipline” on the other, and was mounted on a staff with a
steel pike-head instead of an Eagle. They were silken flags of the ordinary
Napoleonic pattern. The third flag of the group was that of a “provisional
regiment”; also with a steel pike-head to its staff.
From the Tilt Yard orderly-room the trophies and their escort-guard set
off, as before, in slow time, the bands playing “God save the King!” The
sergeants, carrying the Eagles and Flags between the files of grenadiers,
marched in the intervals between the four divisions “in double open-order
with arms advanced.” Right round the square they now passed, close along
the lines of the troops drawn up, “the immense multitude rending the air
with huzzas.” In front of the First Guards, in front of the recruiting parties,
in front of the long line of Coldstreamers, along each of the three sides of
the square, paced the procession with martial pomp to the stately music of
the two bands as they led the way. Then it proceeded along the fourth side
of the square until it came face to face with the King’s Guard, all standing
with ordered arms, not at the present.
There was a brief pause in front of the Colour of the King’s Guard.
That was the supreme moment of the display. Now took place the
formal act of obeisance to the victors; the formal act of abasement and
humiliation for the vanquished. Amid redoubled cheering from all sides, the
Eagles and the other flags were, one and all, formally dipped and prostrated.
“The captured standards saluted and were lowered to the ground in token of
submission.”

PROSTRATED IN The procession turned away in front of the King’s
THE DUST Guard and led round in front of the three Royal Dukes,
seated on their chargers, a little in advance of the
Commander-in-Chief and Horse Guards Staff, at the centre of the parade-
ground. Again, as they now passed before the Royal trio, the hapless Eagles
of Napoleon and the other French flags in turn were one by one made to pay
homage, bowed grovelling to the dust; the crowd of onlookers shouting
themselves hoarse “with,” as we are told, “truly British huzzas.”
After that the trophy procession marched across to the Horse Guards
archway, and through to Whitehall and the Chapel Royal; between Life
Guards on one side and more Foot Guards on the other, drawn up to keep a
lane open through the immense crowd of people who had gathered there,
and thronged the wide roadway. “The procession,” says our reporter,
“moved off the Parade amid the acclamations of many thousand spectators
and entered the Chapel as the clock was striking eleven, which [sic] was
crowded by all the beauty and fashion in Town.” Another reporter speaks of
the Chapel Royal as being “exceedingly crowded in all parts with nobility
and gentlemen and ladies of distinction.”
“The religious part of the ceremony,” we are told, “was solemn and
impressive.” It comprised Morning Prayer and a sermon by the Sub-Dean.
“Previous to the commencement of the Te Deum, a pause was made, when
three grenadier sergeants entered at each door by the sides of the Altar with
the Eagles on black poles about 8 feet high. They took their stations in front
of the Altar. Each party was guarded by a file of grenadiers, commanded by
two officers; the whole of them with laurel-leaves in their caps as emblems
of Victory. At the same instant the five French flags and Bonaparte’s
honourable standard entered the upper gallery at the back of the Altar, all
carried by grenadier sergeants.
“The whole remained presented for some time for the gratification of
the beholders, after which the Eagles were placed in brass sockets on each
side of the Altar, suspended by brass chains. The five flags were suspended
from the front of the second gallery, and Bonaparte’s honourable standard
placed over the door of the second gallery, behind the others.”
The trophies, with others won at Salamanca and Waterloo, and
subsequently laid up in the Chapel Royal, were removed later to Chelsea

Royal Hospital, where all, except “the Eagle with the Golden Wreath,” are
now kept treasured amid befitting surroundings.
STOLEN FROM “The Eagle with the Golden Wreath” disappeared
CHELSEA AT from Chelsea Hospital in broad daylight. It was displayed
MIDDAY
in the Chapel, affixed in front of the organ-loft over the
doorway, until it suddenly vanished from there a little after midday on
Friday, April 16, 1852, in the absence of the pensioner-custodian of the
Chapel during the Hospital dinner-hour. How it was stolen was apparent;
but the thief was never traced. The thief, attracted undoubtedly by the
widely told story that the wreath was of gold, made his way into the Chapel
by the roof, which was undergoing repairs at the time, to which he got
access by a workman’s ladder. He got inside by the trap-door on the leads
above the organ-loft. There, with a saw, he cut through the Eagle-pole near
where it was fastened to the organ-loft, and, secreting it under his coat,
made his escape by the way he had come, unseen by anybody. The Eagle-
pole was found outside, in front of the building, with the Eagle and wreath
wrenched off. For some reason the Royal Hospital authorities of the day
offered a reward of only a sovereign, and though the London police did
24
their best, the malefactor was never discovered.
At Barrosa Napoleon’s 8th of the Line was in the French column that
made its attack on the right. It was one of the regiments that charged
forward across the plain at the foot of Barrosa ridge, to break through
General Graham’s second brigade and drive it back to the edge of the cliffs
by the seashore, while the French left attack seized the ridge itself, and beat
back the British first brigade in the act of hastening to regain that unwisely
abandoned position. The Eagle went down in the fierce counter-attack with
which Graham’s men on the plain, the 87th Royal Irish Fusiliers in the front
line, met the French onset.
“IMPOSSIBLE What befell the 8th of the Line is told by one of their
TO STOP THEM” own officers in his Journal de Guerre—Lieutenant-
Colonel Vigo-Roussillon, in command of the First
Battalion, with which was the Eagle.
Just before the critical moment, says Colonel Roussillon, the 8th, who
were on the flank of the French second line, lost touch with the regiment
next them, and had in consequence to meet the 87th by themselves. They

fired their hardest as the British troops came on, “but could not stop them,
ever advancing to a bayonet attack.”
They came on silently, steadily, irresistibly. “Their officers,” adds one
of Victor’s staff, “kept up all the time the old custom of striking with their
canes those of the men who fell out of the ranks. Our own non-
commissioned officers,” he adds, “placed as a supernumerary rank, crossed
their muskets behind the squads, thus forming buttresses which kept the
ranks from giving way. Several of the French officers, also, picked up the
muskets of the wounded, and flung themselves into the gaps made in the
ranks of the men.”
“I saw the English line,” describes Colonel Roussillon again, “at sixty
paces continuing to advance at a slow step without firing. It seemed
impossible to stop them; we had not sufficient men.”
Apparently he then caught sight of General Graham, leading the British
line.
“Under the influence of a sort of despair, I urged forward my charger, a
strong Polish horse, against an English mounted officer who seemed to be
the colonel of the nearest regiment coming on at us. I got up to him, and
was about to run him through with my sword, when I was held back by a
sense of compassion and abandoned the murderous thought. He was an
officer with white hair and a fine figure, and had his hat in his hand, and
was cheering on his men. His calmness and noble air of dignity irresistibly
arrested my arm.”
Such is the lieutenant-colonel’s own account. But did he really get quite
close to the general? Graham was the last man in the world to let him get
back unfought!
“I then,” as Vigo-Roussillon continues, “quickly galloped back to my
own men, and was riding along the line, telling them to meet the enemy
with our bayonets, and drive them back, when a bullet from an English
marksman broke my right leg.
“I managed to dismount and tried to pass through in rear of the line, but
it was impossible to walk. The ground was covered with thick bushes, and I
was crippled and in great pain. All I could do was to sit down where I was,

calling on the men to fire again. A moment later I was enveloped in smoke;
and at the same instant the English charged in among us.
“I called out my loudest, cheering on my men; and now two soldiers
tried to lift me up and carry me. But both were shot down.
“For the time we held our own, and kept the enemy back; but some of
the English got round us. Seeing themselves outflanked, the battalion began
to give ground. Then came a second furious charge from the English, and
that broke us.”
“FIGHTING The fight, man to man, went on desperately for
WITH THEIR several minutes—some of the British soldiers, as yet
FISTS”
another French officers relates, fighting with their fists.
“Many of the Englishmen broke their weapons in striking with the butts or
bayonets; but they never seemed to think of using the swords they wore at
their sides. They went on fighting with their fists.”
It was in the final mêlée that “the Eagle with the Golden Wreath” was
taken; after a sharp and fierce hand-to-hand fight round it.
Colonel Roussillon himself was at almost the same moment struck
down, and lay insensible for a space among the dead near by. He was
recovering his senses and trying to stand up, when, as he tells, a British
sergeant saw him and ran at him with his halberd. He parried the thrust, and
kept the sergeant off, and then a British officer came up. To him the
Commandant of the First Battalion of the 8th surrendered his sword.
The fight for the Eagle—on one hand to take it, on the other to keep it
—was furious; desperately and heroically contested by both sides.
First, a gallant Irish boy, from Kilkenny, Ensign Edward Keogh of the
87th, caught sight of it, borne on high above the fray. There had been no
unscrewing of the Eagle of the 8th, no trying to break it from its pole. “See
that Eagle, sergeant!” called Keogh to Sergeant Masterton, among the
foremost, close by his officer; and then he dashed straight into the thick of
the party round the Eagle, sword in hand. The brave lad cut his way
through, with Masterton and four or five privates close behind him. He got
close up to the “Porte-Aigle,” crossed swords with him, and got a grip of
the Eagle-pole. But he could not wrench it from the no less brave

Frenchman’s hands before he went down with half a dozen musket bullets
and bayonet stabs in his body.
Porte-Aigle Guillemin, as the gallant French Eagle-bearer of the 8th
was named, fell dead at the same moment, shot through the head by one of
the British privates.
HOW THE Instantly other Frenchmen rushed up to save the
TUSSLE ENDED Eagle, and formed round it hastily. One of the British
privates who seized hold of the staff was slashed to death,
and the French recovered it. The fight round the Eagle went on for some
minutes. In that time no fewer than seven French officers and sub-officers
fell dead in defence of the Eagle. An eighth officer, Lieutenant Gazan, clung
to the pole to the last, regardless of wounds that nearly hacked him to
pieces. Finally the Eagle was torn from his grasp by Sergeant Masterton, at
the end the sole unwounded survivor of the attacking British party. Gazan
“survived miraculously,” and lived to be decorated by Napoleon for his
devoted courage. Masterton seized the Eagle and kept it. So “the Eagle with
the Golden Wreath” became a British trophy.
From the crossing of the bayonets in the final charge to the taking of
the Eagle, the mêlée lasted about fifteen minutes.
The remnant of the 8th were saved by a rally to the spot by the French
54th, after another regiment, the 47th, had attempted its rescue in vain. The
47th lost their Eagle in the mêlée, but recovered it. “The man who had
charge of it was obliged to throw it away, from excessive fatigue and a
wound,” explains a British officer. The 8th lost at Barrosa their Colonel
(Autié) and the Lieutenant-Colonel of the Second Battalion, killed; Vigo-
Roussillon, of the First Battalion, wounded; and 17 other officers and 934
of the rank and file killed or wounded. The Moniteur, the official Paris
newspaper under the Napoleonic régime, in reporting the battle of April 5,
referred to the loss of the Eagle in these terms: “A battalion of the 8th,
having been charged in wood-covered ground, and the Eagle-bearer being
killed, his Eagle has not been found since.”
The battalion that fared so hardly had to pay the regulation penalty.
Napoleon gave the 8th no other Eagle. He held rigidly to his rule, and set
his face relentlessly against a second presentation. They must present him
first with a standard taken on the battlefield from the enemy. But with

Wellington’s men opposed to them to the end, the 8th got few chances in
that direction. They had to fight without an Eagle to the close of the
Peninsular War.
Two days after Barrosa, when General Graham re-entered Cadiz with
the Spanish army, “the Eagle with the Golden Wreath” was publicly
paraded through the crowded streets, “between the regimental colours,” as
the 87th marched to barracks, the church bells ringing triumphantly, and
amid exultant shouts and cheers of the populace, and cries of “Long live
Spain! Death to our oppressors!” At the barracks “we presented the Eagle to
our gallant commander,” says one of the officers.
The Eagle was then sent to England in the custody of the officer
carrying General Graham’s despatch. Its capture is commemorated to this
day by the Royal Irish Fusiliers, who wear “an Eagle with a Wreath of
Laurel” as a regimental badge, while a similar Eagle is embroidered in gold
on the regimental colour. Also, a representation of the wreathed Barrosa
Eagle was granted later on as a special augmentation to the family arms of
the officer who commanded the 87th in the battle, Major Hugh Gough, on
his being raised to the Peerage while Commander-in-Chief in India after the
first Sikh War. “The Aiglers” was always the regiment’s sobriquet after
Barrosa among their comrades in Wellington’s army; a sobriquet that has
endured since then in the form of “the Aigle-Takers,” although our modern
25
recruits are said to prefer calling themselves “the Bird-Catchers.”
ONE OF THE It was in this way that the Barrosa trophy Eagle came
PARIS by its golden wreath. The decoration, as has been said,
WREATHS
had nothing to do with Talavera.
The wreath was one of those voted by the City of Paris to the regiments
that had gone through the Jena and Polish frontier campaigns, the first of
which was presented to the Imperial Guard. First of all, in the outburst of
patriotic enthusiasm in France at the news of Jena, wreaths had been voted
as decorations for the Eagles, by way of popular tribute to the regiments
which had helped in dealing that staggering blow to the famous Prussian
Army. After the crowning victory of Friedland which ended the war, in a
fresh outburst of enthusiasm, golden wreaths were voted wholesale for the
Eagles of all the corps that had taken part in the fighting that followed Jena,
during the nine months of war, down to the final day of Friedland. It was a

costly guerdon, and their proposed generosity staggered the Paris
municipality when the estimate was presented. No fewer than 378 wreaths
—according to the official return—had to be provided. But the vote had
been carried by acclamation on its first proposal, and trumpeted all over
France. Also, the Emperor had taken up with the idea warmly. The Paris
authorities dared not back out, and had to go on with it in spite of the cost.
They carried it out with so good a grace that, as the sequel, a suggestion
came from the Tuileries that the Austerlitz battalions of the Grand Army
which had not had the fortune to be in the Jena-Friedland campaign should
receive wreaths as well, an Imperial hint that the authorities, shrinking from
the extra expense, were so slow to fall in with, that in the end it had to be
forced on them, by means of a bluntly worded letter through the Ministry of
War. “Tell the Prefect of the Seine,” wrote Napoleon to the War Minister,
“that I expect wreaths of gold, similar to those given for Jena and Friedland,
to be provided on behalf of the City of Paris for all the regiments at
Austerlitz!”
ACROSS The 8th was presented with its wreath in Paris, while
GERMANY IN on the way to take part in the Peninsular War. It was one
CARTS
of the regiments of the First Corps of the Grand Army,
which Napoleon hastily recalled from Germany in the spring of 1808, and
hurried across Europe to reinforce the troops in Spain on the first news of
serious trouble being on foot in that quarter. The whole First Army Corps
was recalled; starting from Berlin, where it had been quartered, and
journeying by Magdeburg and Coblentz. Along the route the unfortunate
German burgomasters and village authorities had to provide, not only
provisions day by day, but transport vehicles for 30,000 soldiers; mostly
farm-carts and wagons, each taking from four to sixteen men. The troops
travelled by night and day, with only two stoppages of fifty minutes each in
the twenty-four hours, for meals, and the authorities of the villages and
towns named as halting-places were compelled to have hot food kept ready
so that the men might fall to instantly on arrival. It was a journey the
soldiers never forgot. The weather was rough and wet, the roads in places
were almost impassable, and the carts continually broke down, in addition
to which the peasant-drivers requisitioned for the conveyances deserted at
every opportunity, usually going off at night with the horses after cutting
the traces, leaving their wagon-loads of sleeping soldiers stranded by the
roadside.

The 8th received its wreath at the Barrier of Pantin, on the outskirts of
Paris. It arrived with the Second Division of the corps, and the troops were
met by the Prefect of the Seine and the Municipal Council in State, while
Marshal Victor, the commander of the Army Corps, attended the ceremony
in full-dress uniform. He replied to the Prefect’s complimentary address by
declaring that “these golden crowns henceforward decorating the Eagles of
the First Corps will to them ever be additional incentives to victory.” One
by one the regiments passed before the Prefect, who hung round each
Eagle’s neck “a wreath of gold, shaped as two branches of laurel.” A
triumphal march into Paris and an open-air banquet to all ranks in the Tivoli
Gardens, with free tickets to the theatres after it, wound up the day.
All along the line of march through France to the Spanish frontier,
banquets and elaborate festivities welcomed the regiments—and at the same
time, it would appear, gave some of their entertainers more than they
bargained for. The triumphal progress, from all accounts, proved such hard
work for the ladies in the country towns, where public balls were in the
programme every night, that at some places for the later comers—the 8th
and other regiments in the Second Division of Marshal Victor’s corps—the
balls had to be abandoned, “because the ladies were too tired to dance any
more.” It was explained, with apologies, that they had practically been
danced off their feet by the regiments of the First Division, which had
preceded the Second, incessantly passing through during the previous three
weeks, and that “most of the ladies, through sheer fatigue, had taken to their
beds!”
THEY DID NOT At Talavera, the 8th, as part of a brigade of three
MEET AT regiments, had a passage of arms on the battlefield, first
TALAVERA
with the British 83rd; and then with the Guards; lastly
with the 48th, before whose magnificent charge in the final phase of the
fight they had to give ground. They did not meet the 87th Royal Irish
26
Fusiliers at all in the battle.

CHAPTER IX

OTHER EAGLES IN ENGLAND FROM
BATTLEFIELDS OF SPAIN
Napoleon’s Eagles made a second appearance before the London populace
in the following year. That was on September 30, 1812, and the Horse
Guards Parade was again the scene of the display—this time with more
elaborate ceremonial, and with the added presence of yet greater
personages. Queen Charlotte herself this time witnessed the reception
ceremony, with four of the Princesses; and the Prince Regent in person,
“mounted on a white charger,” attended, to be publicly done obeisance to
by the humbled standards of the enemy. Four of his Royal brothers, the
Dukes of Clarence, York, Cambridge, and Sussex, accompanied the Prince
Regent. Only the poor old King, blind and insane, was absent of the Royal
family, remaining in his seclusion at Windsor Castle.
The Queen and Princesses watched the scene from the windows of the
Levée Room at the Horse Guards, looking down over the Parade; the Prince
Regent was on the ground and took the salute. The Eagles this time were
five in number; and four French flags, one of exceptional interest, the
garrison-standard of Badajoz, were with them in the procession.
The military display was on the grandest scale possible; the ensemble
making up, as we are told, “a spectacle grand and impressive beyond
anything ever beheld.” The First and Second Life Guards were present,
“drawn up in a line reaching from the Foreign Office nearly to Carlton
House,” with their bands in State dress and their standards. All three
regiments of Foot Guards took part, with the State Colour of the First
Guards, and three bands. Horse and Foot Artillery from Woolwich were also
there; forming by themselves one side of the great hollow square which
occupied the wide space of the ground, the scene of the reception of “the
Eagle with the Golden Wreath.” Ninety grenadiers, drawn from the three

regiments of Foot Guards, thirty from each, formed the trophy-escort,
which, as before, accompanied the Eagles and captured standards round the
square at a slow march—the five Eagles in advance by themselves, borne
by as many Guards’ sergeants between files of grenadiers with fixed
bayonets.
THE EAGLES Again the trophies of Napoleon were spared nothing
ARE HUMBLED in the humiliation that they had to undergo. Twice were
AGAIN
they lowered to the dust before the Queen; twice to the
Prince Regent; eight times before the standards of the Life Guards; three
times before the standards of the Guards and the King’s Colour of the First
Guards, “the immense concourse of spectators rending the air with their
huzzas” every time the trophies went down. Then, as before, the trophies
were paraded across Whitehall to the Chapel Royal, and solemnly
“churched” and hung up there, before the Royal family and “all the Cabinet
Ministers and the leading members of the nobility in London.”
They were this time all Wellington’s trophies. Two of the Eagles were
spoils from the battle of Salamanca—“dreadfully mutilated and disfigured
in the conflict,” according to a newspaper reporter’s account, “one of them
having lost its head, part of the neck, one leg, half the thunderbolt, and the
distinctive number; the other without one leg and the thunderbolt.” Two had
been taken in Madrid “in more perfect state and without their flags.” The
last of the five had been “found on the way to Ciudad Rodrigo, in the bed of
a river, dried up in summer, having been thrown away some months before
during Masséna’s retreat.” The four Eagles which still bore distinctive
numbers were, we are told, “those of the 22nd, 13th, and 51st and the 39th.”
Of the standards, the garrison flag of Badajoz looked “like a sieve, a great
part of it quite red with human blood”; the four other colours “were so
mutilated that not a letter or device was legible.”
How we came by the trophies so displayed in London on that
Wednesday forenoon is our story.
The two Salamanca Eagles were—and are, for they have a place to-day
among our Chelsea Hospital trophies—mementoes of one of the most
dramatic episodes of a battle in which there were many.
WELLINGTON Salamanca, it may be said incidentally—the battle,
AND like Waterloo, was fought on a Sunday, on July 22, 1812

SALAMANCA —was, in Wellington’s own eyes, his chef d’œuvre, his
masterpiece, although it may be rather overlooked now
perhaps by most of us and the world at large, eclipsed in the dazzling
splendour of the last crowning victory of Waterloo. It was at Salamanca that
Wellington, in the words of a French officer, speaking, of course, in general
terms, “defeated 40,000 men in forty minutes.” The victory was held in
such estimation by Wellington himself that he selected it in preference to all
his other victories to be displayed over again in a sham fight on the Plain of
Saint-Denis in the presence of the three Allied Sovereigns during the
occupation of Paris in 1815 after Waterloo. Of it he wrote at the time: “I
never saw an army receive such a beating.”
Upwards of 6,000 prisoners were taken, including one general and 136
other officers. Six thousand of the enemy, at the lowest computation, were
left dead or wounded on the field of battle. Three French generals were
killed and three wounded. Marshal Marmont himself, the enemy’s
commander-in-chief, was among the wounded; grievously maimed by a
bursting shell as he galloped to rally one of his broken columns. “Spurring
furiously to the point of danger, he was struck by the fragment of a shell,
which shattered his left arm and tore open his side.” Marmont bore the arm
in a sling for the rest of his life. He was carried off the field under fire, on a
stretcher made of a soldier’s great-coat with a couple of muskets thrust
through the armholes to give it shape, under the escort of a squad of
grenadiers. Eleven cannon—melted down at Woolwich Arsenal in 1820 as a
cheap way of making new field-guns for the British Army—with the two
Eagles and six stand of colours, were the trophies of the day.
The two Salamanca trophy Eagles at Chelsea Hospital are the spoils of
the fiercest cavalry charge that British horsemen ever delivered on a
battlefield; the death-ride—for 1,200 of Napoleon’s infantry—of the Heavy
Brigade, which annihilated an entire French division in less than a quarter
of an hour. It came about as one of the results of that opening false move on
the part of the French commander which cost France in the end the loss of
the battle.
MARMONT’S Marmont, after a series of ably conducted
FATAL manœuvres in the neighbourhood of Salamanca, had
BLUNDER
forced Wellington, on July 22, into a position so
unfavourable that the British commander decided to retire towards the

Portuguese frontier under cover of darkness during the following night. But
at the last moment the French marshal overreached himself. Taking in the
difficulties that confronted his opponent he attempted to anticipate him and
cut him off from his base by barring the one line of retreat that was open to
Wellington. In doing that, Marmont gave his game away. He rashly divided
his force in the presence of the enemy, separating his left wing to a distance
from the main body and marching off a whole division of infantry, cavalry,
and artillery to occupy the road to Ciudad Rodrigo.
The fault was flagrant, and Wellington seized eagerly at the chance all
unexpectedly offered him. He was at breakfast when Marmont’s troops
began their false move and the aide de camp whom he had posted on the
look-out hurriedly came to him with the news. “I think they are extending
to the left——” the young officer began. He did not finish the sentence.
“The devil they are!” interposed Wellington hastily, with his mouth full.
“Give me the glass!”
He took it, and for nearly a minute scanned the movements of the
enemy with fixed attention.
“By God!” he ejaculated abruptly as he lowered the glass. “That’ll do!”
He turned to another aide de camp.
“Ride off and tell Clinton and Leith to return to their former ground.”
These were the generals commanding the Fifth and Sixth Divisions, on the
right and right-centre of the British position. Then Wellington ordered up
his horse. Closing his spy-glass with a snap, he turned with these words to
his Spanish attaché, Colonel Alava: “Mon cher Alava, Marmont est perdu!”
A moment later Wellington was on horseback and his staff also, all
galloping off.
Wellington grasped the meaning of Marmont’s move. He saw his
chance of falling on in force and overpowering the detached French wing
before help could reach it.
He made his way as fast as his charger could carry him to the British
Third Division—Picton’s men, temporarily commanded by Wellington’s
brother-in-law, General Sir Edward Pakenham.

“As he rode up to Pakenham,” says an officer whose regiment was
close by, “every eye was turned on him. He looked paler than usual, but was
quite unruffled in his manner, and as calm as if the battle to be fought was
nothing more than an ordinary assemblage of troops for a field-day.”
“Ned,” said Wellington, as he drew rein beside Pakenham, tapping him
on the shoulder and pointing in the direction of the separated French
column as its leading troops were beginning to move towards their distant
position, “Ned, d’ye see those fellows on the hill? Throw your division in
column, and at ’em and drive ’em to the Devil!”
“I will, my lord, by God!” was Pakenham’s laconic reply, and he turned
away to give the necessary orders.
A FURIOUS The two Eagles were taken in the course of
COUNTER- Pakenham’s attack, when the Third Division, with the
ATTACK
Fifth advancing on one flank, was moving forward to
meet the fierce counter-attack with which the enemy, after the first
collision, attempted to make amends for their commander’s blunder.
“We were assailed,” describes a British officer in the Third Division,
“by a multitude who, reinforced, again rallied and turned upon us with fury.
The peals of musketry along the centre continued without intermission, the
smoke was so thick that nothing to our left was distinguishable; some men
of the Fifth Division got intermingled with ours; the dry grass was set on
fire by the numerous cartridge-papers that strewed the battlefield; the air
was scorching; and the smoke rolling onwards in huge volumes, nearly
suffocated us.”
In the midst of the din and turmoil the Heavy Cavalry came suddenly
on the scene. “A loud cheering was heard in our rear; the Brigade half
turned round, supposing themselves about to be attacked by the French
cavalry. A few seconds passed, the trampling of horses was heard, the
smoke cleared away, and the Heavy Brigade of Le Marchant was seen
coming forward in line at a canter. ‘Open right and left!’ was an order
quickly obeyed; the line opened, and the cavalry passed through the
intervals, and, forming rapidly in our front, prepared for their work.”
Catastrophe for the French assailants followed at once; swift,
overwhelming, irremediable. The enemy in front had practically ceased to

exist within the next twelve minutes. The entire French division and its
supporting troops were struck down and shattered; broken to fragments and
annihilated.
There was a “whirling cloud of dust, moving swiftly forward and
carrying within its womb the trampling sound of a charging multitude. As it
passed the left of the Third Division, Le Marchant’s heavy horsemen,
flanked by Anson’s Light Cavalry, broke out at full speed, and the next
instant 1,200 French infantry, formed in several lines, were trampled down
with terrible clangour and tumult. Bewildered and blinded they cast away
their arms and ran through the openings of the British squadron, stooping
and demanding quarter, while the dragoons, big men on big horses, rode on
hard, smiting with their long, glittering swords in uncontrollable power, and
the Third Division, following at speed, shouted as the French masses fell in
succession before this dreadful charge.”
So Napier describes the onset.
CHARGING Startled and aghast at what they saw coming at them,
DOWN AT FULL the French attempted hastily to form squares. But Le
GALLOP
Marchant’s impetuous squadrons were too quick for
them. They came swooping down, the troopers galloping their hardest, with
loosened reins, all racing forward, charging down with the irresistible
sweep of an avalanche, and crashed into the midst of the ill-fated
infantrymen before the squares could be formed.
Down on the enemy the cavalry thundered, 1,200 flashing British
sabres. Three of the finest regiments of the British Army formed the brigade
—the 3rd Dragoons, the “King’s Own”; the 4th, “Queen’s Own”; the 5th
Dragoon Guards—strong and burly men on big-boned horses, and with
sharp-edged swords. “Nec aspera terrent” was—and is—the fearless motto
of the gallant “King’s Own,” who showed the way; and they flinched at
nothing that day. “Vestigia nulla retrorsum” was—and is—the motto of the
5th, who closed the column; and dead and wounded and prisoners were the
vestiges they left in rear on that stricken field.
General Edward Le Marchant, a daring and capable soldier—“a most
noble officer,” was what Wellington called him—led them.
FOUR
REGIMENTS

CUT TO PIECES A French regiment a little in advance, the ill-fated
62nd of the Line, was the first to face the British, and to
go down. They did not attempt to form square. They had, indeed, no time to
do so. Yet they were in a formation sufficiently formidable. The 62nd was a
regiment of three battalions, and stood formed up in a column of half-
battalions, presenting six successive lines closely massed one behind the
other. Their front ranks opened fire just before the leading horsemen
reached them, but it did not check the British onset even for a moment. The
cavalry bore vigorously forward at a gallop and burst into and through their
column, riding it down on the spot. Nearly the whole regiment was killed,
wounded, or taken; leaving the broken remnants to be carried off as
prisoners by the infantry of the Third Division as these raced up in rear,
clearing the ground before them.
The 62nd were disposed of by the cavalry in less than two minutes.
According to French official returns, the unlucky regiment, out of a total
strength that morning of 2,800 of all ranks in its three battalions, lost 20
officers and 1,100 men in killed alone; the survivors who escaped capture
not being sufficient to form half a battalion.
Cheering triumphantly, the charging squadrons dashed on. They came
full tilt on a second French regiment, the 22nd, catching it in the act of
forming square. The front face of the square was already drawn up and met
the troopers with a hasty volley which brought down some of the men and
horses. But that made little difference. The next moment the cavalry were
on them. The mass of the square in rear made but a weak effort at
resistance. They swayed back, broke their ranks, and fell apart in utter
confusion. Slashed down right and left, as had been the case with the 62nd,
in little more than a minute only groups of fugitives were left, to be made
prisoners by the British infantry, following in rear of the horsemen.
The cavalry raced on then to attack a third French regiment. In turn it
attempted to make a stand, but only to be dealt with in like manner. It, too,
was caught before its square could be formed, and was ridden down.
Yet another French battalion confronted the British troopers after that.
It had had time to take advantage of a small copse, an open wood of
evergreen oaks, where it formed its ranks in colonne serrée, to await attack,
and make a stand. “The men reserved their fire with much coolness, until

the cavalry came within twenty yards. Then they poured it in on the
concentrated mass of men and horses with deadly effect. Nearly a third of
the dragoons came to the ground, but the remainder had sufficient command
of their horses to dash forward. They succeeded in breaking the French
ranks and dispersing them in utter confusion over the field.”
All the time the infantry in rear were racing on with exultant cheers,
finishing off the horsemen’s work as fast as they came up. It was an easy
task. Further fight had been scared out of the French under the stress of the
fearful experience they had gone through. “Such as got away from the
sabres of the horsemen,” says one of the British officers, “sought safety
amongst the ranks of our infantry; and, scrambling under their horses, ran to
us for protection, like men who, having escaped the first shock of a wreck,
will cling to any broken spar, no matter how little to be depended on.
Hundreds of beings, frightfully disfigured, in whom the human face and
form were almost obliterated—black with dust, worn down with fatigue,
and covered with sabre-cuts and blood—threw themselves among us for
safety. Not a man was bayoneted—not one even molested or plundered. The
invincible old Third on this day surpassed themselves; for they not only
defeated their terrible enemies in a fair stand-up fight, but saved them when
total annihilation seemed the only thing.”
The two Salamanca Eagles were taken now. They fell to two infantry
officers as their actual captors: one to an officer of a regiment of the Third
Division, and the other to an officer of the Fifth Division, which had come
into the fight, and were following the cavalry, partly mingled with
Pakenham’s men.
TAKEN IN The first Eagle—that of the hapless French 62nd,
HAND-TO-HAND whose fate has been told—fell to Lieutenant Pierce of the
FIGHT
44th, a regiment in the Fifth Division. He came on the
Eagle-bearer while in the act of unscrewing the Eagle from its pole in order
to hide it under his long overcoat and get away with it. Pierce sprang on the
Frenchman, and tussled with him for the Eagle. The second Porte-Aigle
joined in the fight, whereupon three men of the 44th ran to their officer’s
assistance. A third Frenchman, a private, added himself to the combatants,
and was in the act of bayoneting the British lieutenant, when one of the men
of the 44th, Private Finlay, shot him through the head and saved the
officer’s life. Both the Porte-Aigles were killed a moment later—one by

Lieutenant Pierce, who snatched the Eagle from its dead bearer’s hands. In
his excitement over the prize Pierce rewarded the privates who had helped
him by emptying his pockets on the spot, and dividing what money he had
on him amongst them—twenty dollars. A sergeant’s halberd was then
procured, on which the Eagle was stuck and carried triumphantly through
the remainder of the battle. Lieutenant Pierce presented it next morning to
General Leith, the Commander of the Fifth Division, who directed him to
carry it to Wellington. In honour of the exploit the 44th, now the Essex
Regiment, bear the badge of a Napoleonic Eagle on the regimental colour,
and the officers wear a similar badge on their mess-jackets.
The second Eagle taken was that of the 22nd of the Line. It was
captured by a British officer of the 30th, Ensign Pratt, attached for duty to
Major Cruikshank’s 7th Portuguese, a Light Infantry (or Caçadores)
battalion, serving with the Third Division. He took it to General Pakenham,
whose mounted orderly displayed the Eagle of the 22nd publicly after the
battle, “carrying it about wherever the general went for the next two days.”
Two more Eagles, it was widely reported in the Army, came into the
possession of other regiments of the Third and Fifth Divisions. One of them
is said to have “wanted its head and number”; but what became of them is
unknown. Possibly the existence of these particular trophies was merely
camp gossip. According to one story, an officer picked up one of the Eagles
during the battle and “carried it about in his cap for some days.” No Eagles,
however, reached head-quarters after Salamanca except those of the 62nd
27
and 22nd, which in due course were sent to England.
ONE THAT JUST One Eagle narrowly evaded capture at the hands of
ESCAPED the Hanoverian Dragoons of the King’s German Legion
in the pursuit after Salamanca. It escaped—to find its
way to Chelsea Hospital on a later day, as the famous trophy of our own 1st
Dragoons, the “Royals,” at Waterloo. What took place when the Eagle of
the 105th of the Line so nearly fell into the enemy’s hands after Salamanca
is a story that in its incidents stands by itself.
General Anson’s cavalry brigade, made up of British Light Dragoons
and the Hanoverians, was sent in chase to follow and break up the wreck of
the defeated army. It came upon the French rearguard in the act of taking
post at a place called Garcia Hernandez. In front were several squadrons of

cavalry; in rear the 105th of the Line. The three battalions of the regiment
were moving in column, with guns in the intervals. Not seeing the French
infantry and guns at first, owing to an intervening ridge, Anson rode for the
cavalry and drove them in. “Their squadrons fled from Anson’s troopers,
abandoning three battalions of infantry, who in separate columns were
making up a hollow slope, hoping to gain the crest of some heights before
the pursuing cavalry could fall on, and the two foremost did reach higher
ground, and there formed in squares.” The squares at once opened fire on
the horsemen, and for a moment checked them.
A SQUARE The Hanoverian Dragoons were the nearest of the
CHARGED AND pursuers to the rearmost of the French squares, and there
BROKEN
was no way to ride past without exposing their flank at
close range. Captain Von Decken, who was leading the dragoons, on the
spur of the moment took the daring decision to attack the square with the
single squadron he had with him, then and there. Without an instant’s
hesitation the gallant captain charged, regardless of the fierce fusillade that
met him at once, from which his men went down all round. They dropped
fast under fire. By twos, by threes, by tens, all round they fell; yet the rest
of them, surmounting the difficulties of the ground, hurled themselves in a
mass on the column and went clean through it.
The gallant Von Decken was among the first to go down, shot dead a
hundred yards from the square. But a leader no less heroic was at hand.
Instantly Captain Von Uslar Gleichen, in charge of the left troop, dashed to
the front. He rode out to the head of the squadron, inciting his men by voice
and gesture and example. Another French volley smote hard on the
squadron, but the intrepid troopers galloped through it, and, bringing up
their right flank, swept on towards the enemy’s bayonets, making to attack
the square on two sides. The two foremost ranks of the French were on the
knee with bayonets to the front, presenting a deadly double row of steel. In
rear the steady muskets of four standing ranks were levelled at the
horsemen. The dragoons pressed on close up, and some were trying, in vain,
to beat aside the bayonets before them, and make a gap through, when an
accident at the critical moment gave the opportunity. A shot from the
kneeling ranks, apparently fired unintentionally, as it is said, killed a horse,
and caused it with its rider to fall forward, right across and on top of the
bayonets. Thus a lane was unexpectedly laid open to the cavalry. They

seized the chance instantly and crowded in through. The square was broken.
It was cleft apart: its ranks were scattered and dispersed. All was over in a
few moments. Within three minutes the entire battalion had been either cut
down under the slaughtering swords of the dragoons or had been made
prisoners.
Immediately on that another Hanoverian captain, Von Reitzenstein,
came sweeping by with the second squadron, riding for the second French
square. These met the charge with a bold front and rapid volley, but their
moral had been shaken by the startling and horrible scene they had just
beheld. The front face of the second square gave way as the horsemen got
close, and four-fifths of that battalion were either sabred on the spot or
made prisoners.
There was yet, near by, the third battalion in its square. Its numbers had
been added to by such fugitive survivors from the first and second squares
as had been able to reach the place and get inside. The third squadron of the
Dragoons dealt with the third square in the same way, riding boldly at it,
and breaking in with deadly results, as before.
How the Eagle of the 105th was saved—it was with the first battalion
in the square first broken—is not on record. It did, however, somehow,
evade capture—hidden hastily perhaps beneath the coat of somebody in the
handful of men who got away in the mêlée. Only the broken Eagle-pole was
left, to be picked up among the dead after the fight:
Described a British officer who went over the ground after the fight:
“The contest ended in a dreadful massacre of the French infantry. The
105th bravely stood their ground, but the ponderous weight of the heavy
cavalry broke down all resistance; and arms lopped off, heads cloven to the
spine, or gashes across the breast and shoulders showed the fearful
encounter that had taken place.”
SPOILS TAKEN The third of the trophy Eagles paraded in London
IN ANOTHER before the Prince Regent was that of Napoleon’s 39th of
WAY
the Line. It had been picked up in the dried-up bed of the
river Ceira, one of the tributaries of the Douro. Apparently the Eagle had
been dropped, owing to the fall of its bearer during the night action of Foz
d’Aronce on June 15, 1811, when Ney’s corps of Masséna’s army, then

retreating from Torres Vedras, was roughly handled and driven across the
river by Wellington’s Third and Light Divisions.
The fourth and fifth of the Eagles were found at Madrid on
Wellington’s occupation of the city after Salamanca—stored away in the
French arsenal and army dépôt there, to which uses the ancient Royal
Palace of the Buen Retiro, just outside the walls of Madrid, had been
28
converted. Seventeen hundred men held the Retiro, and the approaches to
the arsenal had been fortified by order of Napoleon, but the garrison
surrendered without firing a shot. They gave up to the victors 180 brass
cannon, 900 barrels of powder, 20,000 stand of arms, muskets and
bayonets, together with the Eagles of the 13th and 51st of the Line, which
had been laid up at the Retiro for safe custody while the two regiments were
29
operating in a wild part of the country against the Spanish guerrillas.
The last Eagles taken by Wellington in the Peninsular War came into
30
our hands in the battles of the Pyrenees. Neither of them is now in
existence. One was taken by our 28th in the combat of the Pass of Maya.
The 28th, supporting the 92nd Highlanders in the fighting, overwhelmed
with a series of fierce volleys an unfortunate French regiment, which was
afterwards discovered to be the French 28th—a curious coincidence. The
Eagle of the 28th, the senior corps of its brigade, was found on the
battlefield, and was brought to England and hung in the Chapel Royal,
Whitehall. It disappeared from there in circumstances already related. The
second French Eagle was that of the 52nd of the Line, presented by
Wellington, as has been told, to the Spanish Cortes. That also has since been
entirely lost sight of.
NAPOLEON’S This also may be added. Early in 1813 a special
ORDER OF order was issued by Napoleon to the army in Spain
RECALL
requiring the Eagles of most of the regiments to be sent
back to France. Napoleon at that time was in Paris, engaged in getting
together a new Grand Army to replace that destroyed in Russia. The
regiments in Spain, he said, would be so weakened by the intended
withdrawal of their third, fourth, and fifth battalions (which he was
recalling in order to send them to Germany for the coming campaign there),
that the Eagles—in charge of the first battalions which were remaining in
Spain—would be exposed to undue risk. “In future,” he wrote, “there will

in Spain be only one Eagle to each brigade, that of the senior regiment of
the brigade.” The Eagles withdrawn from Spain, added the order, would “in
the end rejoin the battalions with the Grand Army in Germany, as soon as
these had been reconstituted afresh as regiments, with a sufficient force of
men to ensure the safety of the Eagles.” All the cavalry Eagles were
recalled: “No regiment of Cavalry in Spain is to retain its Eagle. Those who
have not done so are immediately to send theirs to the dépôt.”
It was due to this order mainly that at Vittoria, after the overwhelming
rout of the French army, only one Eagle-pole—with its Eagle gone—fell
into British hands, although there had been on the field upwards of 70,000
French soldiers (of whom 55,000 were infantry), and the French lost
everything—in the words of one of their own generals (Gazan), “all their
equipages, all their guns, all their treasure, all their stores, all their
31
papers.”

CHAPTER X

IN THE HOUR OF DARKEST DISASTER

After Moscow: How the Eagles faced their Fate

There are seventy-five standards of Napoleon’s Grand Army of 1812 now
in Russia, trophies of the Moscow disaster. Rather more than half of the
number are Eagles. The remainder of the trophies are battalion and cavalry
flags; some French, some the ensigns of allied contingents and the troops of
vassal states of the Napoleonic Empire, compelled to take a part in the
campaign. All the European armies of the period are represented among the
trophies: green and white Saxon flags; blue and white Bavarian flags; violet
and white Polish ensigns; Spanish, Dutch, and Portuguese colours; Swiss
flags; Westphalian and Baden flags of the Confederation of the Rhine; the
red and black of Würtemburg; the yellow and black of Austria; the white
and black of Prussia; the green, white, and red tricolor of Italy.
They are preserved at St. Petersburg, in the Kazan Cathedral and in the
Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul. Those in the Kazan Cathedral are
grouped over and round the tomb of the septuagenarian hero, Kutusoff, who
lies buried on the spot where he knelt in prayer before setting out to take
command as generalissimo of the national army. Near by, suspended against
the pillars, are the marshal’s bâton of Davout, and the keys of Hamburg,
Leipsic, Dresden, Rheims, Breda, and Utrecht, similarly spoils of the
32
Napoleonic war.
MOST OF THE The actual Eagle trophies number all told between
EAGLES GOT forty and fifty: less than a third of the total array of
THROUGH Eagles that crossed the Niemen at the head of their
regiments on the outbreak of the war. The majority of the
Eagles of the Grand Army were saved from falling into the hands of the

Russians through the devoted heroism of those responsible for their safe-
keeping amid the horrors of the retreat. Of those at St. Petersburg, not more
than half at most were taken in actual combat, and they were only yielded
up by their bearers with life, being picked up from among the dead bodies,
and carried off by the Russians on going over the field after the fight was
over. Five Eagles only were surrendered by capitulation. The others were
brought in by the Cossacks, who came upon them while prowling in rear of
the retreating army. They were found, some in hollow trees, where their
despairing bearers had tried to conceal them; some in holes dug with
bayonets in the frozen ground underneath the snow. Others were dragged to
light, broken from their staves, from beneath the coats or from the
knapsacks of officers and men, who had fallen by the way at night and been
frozen to death, during the final stage of the retreat between Wilna and the
Niemen. It is in remembrance of how, to the last, during the Moscow
retreat, in many a dark and hopeless hour, there yet remained detachments
of devoted men, the last remnants of regiments, at all times ready to stand at
bay and sacrifice themselves for the honour of their Eagles, amidst hordes
of disorganised fugitives all round—in remembrance of that, the army of
modern France commemorates on the colours of certain regiments, as
representing corps that bore the same numbers in Napoleon’s Grand Army
in Russia, the names, among others, of “Marojaroslav,” “Polotz,”
“Wiasma,” “Krasnoi,” “La Berezène,” defeats and disasters though these
were.
WHAT FRANCE The Eagles were under fire for the first time in
REMEMBERS Russia on July 17, in the attack on Smolensk on the
TO-DAY
Dnieper, the ancient Lithuanian capital, where took place
the first important battle of the war. There the Eagles of Ney’s and Davout’s
corps did their part in inciting the men to add fresh laurels to the fame of
their regiments; ever prominent in the attack, leading charge after charge as
the columns made repeated efforts to storm the fortified suburbs and lofty
ramparts of the citadel. The soldiers did all that intrepidity and desperate
valour might attempt, but in vain. No valour could prevail against the
stubborn endurance of the Russians, who also occupied a strongly walled
position that was practically impregnable. The fierce contest went on all
through a whole day, until nightfall, and then, under cover of darkness, the
defenders silently drew off and retreated beyond the city, leaving Smolensk

in flames. No fewer than 15,000 French and 10,000 Russians fell in the
merciless encounter.
Next morning there followed a spectacle hardly ever perhaps
paralleled: the march of the Grand Army through the streets between the
still blazing houses, “the martial columns advancing in the finest order to
the sound of military music.” “We traversed between furnaces,” as an
officer puts it, “tramping over the hot and smouldering ashes, in all the
pomp of military splendour, bands playing and each Eagle leading its men.”
WON ON THE At Smolensk one regiment won its Eagle, which
BATTLEFIELD Napoleon presented at five o’clock in the morning on
July 19, before the paraded battalions of Davout’s corps.
It was the 127th of the Line; a regiment, it is curious to note, enrolled a few
months before, from former Hanoverian subjects of our own King George
the Third, and commanded by French officers as a regular corps of the
French Line. By Napoleon’s latest ordinance, issued just before the
Emperor quitted Paris in May, the regiments newly raised for the Russian
War, of which there were several, were in each case to win their Eagles on
the battlefield. The Eagle for each regiment was to be provided in advance,
but would be held back, locked up in the regimental chest, until it “should
be won by distinguished conduct.” The 127th won their Eagle at Smolensk,
their brilliant service being specially brought before Napoleon by Marshal
Davout, who, of his own initiative, claimed the Eagle for them from
Napoleon. The regiment bore it with distinction through the hottest of the
fighting at Borodino, carried it all through the disastrous retreat from
Moscow, and preserved it to the end to go through the later campaign in
Germany, and face the enemy after that in the last stand before Paris in
1814. The Eagle was eventually destroyed by order of the restored Bourbon
Government.
The second great battle-day of the Eagles in the Russian War was at
Borodino, on September 7. There a quarter of a million and more
combatants faced each other: on one side, 132,000 Russians with 640 guns;
on the other, 133,000 French with 590 guns. The battle of Borodino was
perhaps the most sanguinary and the most obstinately contested in history.
The opening shots were fired at sunrise. When at sunset both sides drew
sullenly apart, exhausted after twelve hours of carnage, neither army was
victorious. Each held the ground on which it had begun the battle; 25,000

men lay dead on the field, and 68,000 more lay wounded, an appalling
massacre that staggered even Napoleon.
Amidst the ferocious savagery of the hand-to-hand fighting that
characterised Borodino all over the field, many of the Eagles were in
desperate peril. Several were cut off in the terrible havoc that the ferocious
Russian counter-charges wrought in the French ranks, and were only saved
by the stern fortitude of the soldiers, fighting at times back to back round
the Eagles, keeping off the enemy with bayonet thrusts till help should
come. In one part of the field the 9th of the Line was isolated and for a time
broken up and scattered. The Eagle-bearer was cut off by himself and
surrounded. He saved the Eagle, as he fell wounded. “Amidst the confusion,
wounded by two bayonet thrusts, I fell, but I was able to make an effort to
prevent the Eagle falling into the hands of the enemy. Some of them rushed
at me and closed round, but, getting to my feet, I managed to fling the
Eagle, staff and all, over their heads towards some of our men, whom I had
caught sight of, fortunately near by, trying to charge through and rescue the
Eagle. This was all I could do before I fell again and was made prisoner.”
The brave fellow returned to France two years later, at the Peace of 1814,
and made his way to the regimental dépôt, where he found barely twenty of
his comrades at Borodino left. The rest had succumbed during the retreat
from Moscow. The survivors had brought back the Eagle to France; only,
however, to have to give it up to the new Minister of War for destruction.
TWO EAGLES The 18th of the Line, broken in a Russian counter-
JUST SAVED attack, after storming one of the Russian redoubts erected
to defend part of the position, rallied with their Eagle in
their midst and held their ground in spite of repeated attacks until help
could get through to them. At the roll-call next morning, 40 officers out of
50, and 800 men out of 2,000 were reported as missing; left dead or
wounded on the field. Another regiment lost its colonel and half one
battalion dead on the field; the Eagle-Guard were all shot down or
bayoneted round the Eagle, which in the end was saved and brought out of
the battle by a corporal, who was awarded a commission by Napoleon in
the presence of the remains of the regiment next day. The Eagle of the 61st
of the Line again was only kept out of Russian hands by the devotion of the
men round it. Napoleon rode past the regiment next day while being
paraded for the roll to be called. Only two battalions were there, and he

asked the colonel where the third battalion was. “It is in the redoubt, Sire!”
was the officer’s reply, pointing in the direction of the Great Redoubt, round
which some of the hardest fighting of the day had taken place. The battalion
had literally been annihilated: not an officer or a man of the 1,100 in the
third battalion of the 61st had returned from the fight.
A regiment of Cuirassiers lost its Eagle at Borodino: the Eagle had
disappeared in the midst of a fierce mêlée, in which the Eagle-bearer had
gone down. The loss was not discovered till later. All, however, refused to
believe that it had been captured: that was incredible. The dead Eagle-
bearer’s body was found after the battle, but no Eagle was there.
Overwhelmed with shame, the regiment had to admit that the impossible
had happened, and during the weeks that they were at Moscow “they
remained plunged in a profound dolour.” The Eagle reappeared in an
extraordinary way. In the retreat, when passing the scene of the battle, a
ghastly and horrible spectacle with its unburied corpses and the carcasses of
horses strewn thickly and heaped up all over the field, a sudden thought
struck one of the officers. Late that night, he and a brother officer, taking
the risk of capture by Cossacks on the prowl in rear of the retreating army,
rode back and found their way by moonlight to where the Cuirassiers had
had their fight and the Eagle-bearer had fallen. They found the Eagle inside
the carcass of the Eagle-bearer’s horse. It had been thrust in there by the
dying Eagle-bearer through the gaping wound that had killed the horse, as
the only means to conceal it in the midst of the enemy.

HOW THE The Eagles made their last triumphant entry into a
EAGLES conquered capital at Moscow on September 14, the Eagle
ENTERED of the Old Guard leading the way at the head of the
MOSCOW
grenadiers of the Guard, all wearing for the day their full-
dress parade uniform. As has been said, every officer and soldier of the
Guard, by Napoleon’s standing order, carried a suit of full-dress uniform in
his kit or knapsack on campaign in readiness for such occasions—“en tenue
de parade comme si elle eut défiler au Carrousel.” They had marched like
that with music and full military pomp twice through Vienna, and through
the streets of Berlin and Madrid; but there was at Moscow a disconcerting
and ominous difference, both in their surroundings and in the reception that
they met. Elsewhere, alike in Vienna, Berlin, and Madrid, the parade march
of the victorious Eagles passed through densely crowded streets of

onlookers, silently gazing with dejected mien at the scene. At Moscow not a
soul was in the streets, at the windows, anywhere; on every side were
emptiness and desolation. The inhabitants had fled the city, and only
deserted houses remained. The first incendiary fires at Moscow broke out at
midnight, within twelve hours of Napoleon taking up his residence in the
Kremlin.
The spell after that was broken. Henceforward victory deserted the
Eagles; the hour of fate was at hand for Napoleon and the Grand Army. The
Fortune of War, indeed, turned against the Eagles even before Napoleon had
quitted Moscow.
Early on October 18, Napoleon, while at breakfast in the Kremlin,
suddenly heard distant cannonading away to the south. He learned what had
happened that afternoon while holding a review of the Italian Royal Guard.
“We hastily regained our quarters, packed up our parade-uniforms, put on
our service kit ... and to the sound of our drums and bands threaded our way
through the streets of Moscow at five in the afternoon.” During the past five
weeks, while all had been outwardly quiet, the Russian armies had been
manœvring to close in along the only road of retreat open to Napoleon.
THE FIRST The nearest of the Russian armies, concentrated to
SENT TO THE the south-west of Moscow, struck the first blow on
CZAR
October 18 at daybreak, by surprising Murat’s cavalry
camp near Vinkovo. The results to the French were disastrous. Two
thousand of Murat’s men were killed and as many more were taken
prisoners. Between thirty and forty guns were lost, and Murat’s personal
camp-baggage train, which included “his silver canteens and cooking
utensils, in which cats’ and horse flesh were found prepared for food”—a
discovery that opened the eyes of the Russians to the precarious position of
affairs in Napoleon’s army. Murat himself, according to one story, “rode off
on the first alarm in his shirt.” He only got away, according to another, by
cutting his way through the Russians sword in hand, at the head of his
personal escort of carabineers. Two Eagles were spoils of the surprise; the
first to fall into Russian hands in the war. They were lost in the general
scrimmage, their bearers being sabred at the outset of the Russian
onslaught. The Eagles were at once sent off to St. Petersburg to be
presented to the Czar Alexander.

On the other hand nine Eagles were saved, their escorts fighting their
way successfully through the Russians.
Many stories are recorded in memoirs of survivors of the Grand Army
of heroic endeavours made repeatedly by officers and men to save their
Eagles from the enemy amid the disasters and horrors of the retreat. Their
devotion and self-sacrifice had their reward in the preservation of seven
Eagles in every ten.
Two Eagles were lost fourteen days after leaving Moscow, in the
disastrous battle at Wiasma on November 2, halfway on the road back to
Smolensk, where the advanced columns of the pursuing Russians attacked
and all but cut the retreating French army in two. The rearguard of the
Grand Army, Marshal Davout’s corps, with the Italian corps of the Viceroy
Eugène Beauharnais, was overpowered and driven in and broken up;
crushed under the overpowering artillery fire of the Russians. They left
behind 6,000 dead, 2,000 prisoners, and 27 guns. Two Eagles were taken,
their regiments being virtually annihilated, but twenty-one were saved.
They were safeguarded through the rout by groups of brave-hearted officers
and men, who beat off the rushes made at them by the Russian cavalry and
the Cossacks. They fought their way through until they met Ney’s troops,
who had heard the firing and turned back, arriving in time to stem and
check the Russian pursuit and enable what was left of the two shattered
army corps to rally under their protection.
“WE HAVE One infantry regiment at Wiasma perished on the
DONE OUR battlefield to a man, but saved its Eagle. It was the
DUTY!”
rearmost of all, and was isolated and surrounded beyond
reach of help. In vain its men formed square and tried to fight their way
after the rest through the surging masses of the Russians. They made their
way for a time until the enemy brought up artillery. A Russian battery
galloped up, unlimbered close to them, and opened fire with murderous
effect. The Frenchmen tried desperately to charge the guns, but were beaten
back by a rush of cavalry. At last, in despair, they formed square and faced
the cruel slaughter that the guns made in their ranks, in the hope that help
might reach them. Terms were offered them and refused. They would not
surrender, and fought on till dusk, when their ammunition gave out. The
Russians were closing round for a final decisive charge on the small handful
of survivors, when the wounded colonel, seeing all was over, made the

attempt that saved the Eagle. The scanty remnant of what had that morning
been a regiment of 3,000 men formed round in a ring, facing towards the
enemy with bayonets levelled. The Eagle-staff was broken up and the
fragments thrust under the ground. With flint and steel a match was lighted
and the silken tricolor consumed. The Eagle was then tied up in a havresac
and entrusted to an old soldier who was known to be a good rider. The
colonel, giving up his own charger to the man, bade him watch his chance
and, as the enemy came on in the dark, dash through them and ride his
hardest. “Carry the Eagle to his Majesty,” were the colonel’s words.
“Deliver it to him, and tell him that we have done our duty!” The man rode
off. He was able to get through the nearest Russians under cover of the
darkness, having to fight his way before he got clear, and receiving several
wounds. Then his horse fell dead from its injuries. On foot he stumbled on,
and before midnight reached, not Napoleon, but Marshal Ney, to whom he
gave up his precious charge. No officer or man of the others of the luckless
regiment was ever heard of in France again. No prisoners from it ever
returned—only the Eagle survived.
Three days after Wiasma the Russian winter suddenly set in on the
doomed host. It brought about at once the disintegration and disorganisation
of the Grand Army. Already, demoralised by their privation, hundreds of
men had fallen out of the ranks, flinging away their muskets and knapsacks,
and straggling along in disorderly groups. A third practically of the Army
ceased to exist as a fighting force within the first fortnight of the retreat,
before the first snows fell. The others, though, still kept to their duty.
Marching in the ranks day after day, they strove their hardest to beat back
the incessant attacks of the swarms of Cossacks, hovering round on the
watch to raid the baggage-convoys at every block or stoppage on the road.
With the coming of the snow the doom of the Grand Army was sealed. It
was impossible to maintain discipline with the thermometer at twenty
degrees below zero. Men dropped dead from cold by the score every half-
mile.
On November 6 the sun disappeared; a grey fog enshrouded
everything; the frost set in; and a bitter north wind in howling gusts swept
over the face of the land; with it came down the snow, falling hour after
hour by day and night without ceasing.

“From that day the Army lost its courage and its military instinct. The
soldier no longer obeyed his officer. The officer separated himself from his
general. The disbanded regiments marched in disorder. In their frantic
search for food they spread themselves over the plain, pillaging and
destroying whatever fell in their way.” So a survivor wrote.
The snow came down “in large broad flakes, which at once chilled and
blinded the soldiers: the marchers, however, stumbled forward, men often
struggling and at last sinking in holes and ravines that were concealed from
them by the new and disguised appearance of the country. Those who yet
retained discipline and kept their ranks stood some chance of receiving
assistance; but amid the mass of stragglers, the men’s hearts, intent only on
self-preservation, became hardened and closed against every feeling of
sympathy and compassion. The storm-wind lifted the snow from the earth,
as well as that steadily pelting down from above, into dizzy eddies round
the soldiers. Many were hurled to the ground in this manner, while the same
snow furnished them with an instant grave, under which they were
concealed until the next summer came, to display their ghastly remains in
the open air.”
WHEN THE The Cossacks redoubled their attacks on the
COSSACKS GOT retreating army after Wiasma. They had harassed the
TO WORK
French incessantly from the day after Napoleon passed
Mojaisk, but after Wiasma their audacity increased a hundredfold. They
captured prisoners hourly, from among the stragglers mostly; in droves, by
fifties and hundreds at a time. Day after day they hung on the flanks,
swooping down with loud shouts on the unfortunate wretches, rounding
them up like sheep, and driving them before them towards their own camps
at the points of their long lances. Many they killed on the spot, or stripped
naked to perish in the snow. Others they drove along to the nearest camp of
Kutusoff’s regulars for the sake of the money reward offered for prisoners
brought in alive. Others again, to save themselves the trouble of driving
them all the way to the army camp, they handed over to peasants in the
villages, selling them at a rouble a head, for the peasants to make sport of
and maltreat or kill. The brutalities and ruthless devastations that the French
army had committed in its advance to Moscow had infuriated the Russian
peasantry. Intent on vengeance they now made use of their opportunity to
the full. They burned alive some of their captives, by tossing them into pits

half filled with blazing pine-logs. Seventy were done to death in this
horrible way in one village. Others they buried up to their necks in the
ground and left to die; or else tied them to trees for the wolves to tear to
33
pieces. Others they clubbed or flogged to death, tying down the wretched
Frenchmen to logs on the ground, hounding on the women and children to
hammer their heads to pieces with thick sticks. A common method of
Cossacks and peasants alike for making prisoners was to light great watch-
fires at night, a little way off from the retreating column, and as the frozen
and starving stragglers came crowding up to the blaze they surrounded them
and carried them off wholesale.
After the snow set in, guns and baggage-wagons were abandoned to the
Cossacks at almost every hundred yards. It was impossible for the
weakened and dying horses to drag them along; even to keep their footing
on the frozen ground. Within the first week after Wiasma the appalling
number of 30,000 horses either died of starvation, there being no way of
getting fodder for them because of the snow, or were frozen to death.
THE EAGLES OF In spite of everything, some of the regiments still
NEY’S CORPS kept together and marched in military formation, with
their Eagles at their head; those in particular of Marshal
Ney’s corps. They formed the rearguard and chief protection to the army
from Wiasma onwards; held together by the heroic example and personality
of their indefatigable leader, ever present where there was fighting, ever
calm and confident, and ready with words of encouragement. Not an Eagle
was lost along the line of march between Moscow and Smolensk by Ney’s
men; rallying round them to beat off the Cossack attacks time and again
with the cry, “Aux Aigles! Voici les Cosaques!”
This incident, not unlike the cuirassier ride to recover the Eagle left on
the field at Borodino, is said to have taken place between Wiasma and
Smolensk. One regiment of Ney’s cavalry missed its Eagle after a sharp
fight on the road, the Eagle-bearer having apparently fallen during the
encounter, unseen by the survivors. That night round the bivouac fire lots
were drawn, and two officers rode back amid blinding snow squalls to try to
find the Eagle. They successfully evaded the Cossacks and made their way
ten miles back to the scene of the combat, where, after scaring off some
wolves, they searched in the snow and found the dead officer’s body with

the Eagle by its side. They brought it back safely to the regiment and
restored it to their comrades. Their limbs were frost-bitten and rigid from
cold, so that they had to be lifted off their horses, but the brave men were
content—they had saved their Eagle.

Photo Alinari.
MARSHAL NEY WITH THE REARGUARD IN THE RETREAT FROM MOSCOW.
From a picture by A. Ivon, at Versailles.

SO FAR TEN At Krasnoi, on November 19, between Smolensk and
EAGLES LOST the Beresina, Napoleon underwent another severe defeat
from the pursuing Russians, 10,000 prisoners and 70
guns falling into the victors’ hands. Two Eagles were carried off from the
battlefield and despatched to St. Petersburg by special courier, together with
Kutusoff’s report to the Czar. Twenty-seven Eagles, however, got past the
Russians, fighting their way through, thanks to the endurance of brave men
who rallied round them. Krasnoi it was that gave the death-blow to

Napoleon’s last hope of rallying the Grand Army. After it less than 30,000
men remained under arms with the main column, including the 8,000
survivors of the Imperial Guard. Up to then, according to the Russian
official returns, 80,000 prisoners, 500 guns, and “40 standards and flags of
all kinds” had fallen into the hands of the pursuers. Not more than ten,
however, of the forty standards taken were Eagles: the two taken at Murat’s
surprise at Vinkovo; the two taken at Wiasma; the two taken at Krasnoi;
also two taken before Napoleon reached Smolensk, from a brigade sent
from Smolensk to help him on the road, which blundered into the middle of
the Russian army and had to surrender; and two captured elsewhere, from
the French flanking armies of Marshal Macdonald and Marshal St. Cyr. An
eleventh Eagle was taken in the second battle at Krasnoi, from Ney’s
rearguard; the only Eagle that Ney actually lost in fight throughout the 600
miles’ march between Moscow and the frontier.
At Krasnoi, Ney’s rearguard, following at a day’s march behind the rest
of the army, found its way barred. The Russians, after defeating Napoleon’s
main column, a day’s march in advance, had waited on the scene of the
former fighting for Ney. They held a position that it was practically
impossible for Ney’s comparatively small force to get past. After vainly
attempting to break through, Ney had to draw back, and make a forlorn-
hope effort to avoid destruction by a long détour, in the course of which he
had to abandon guns, baggage, and horses, and cross the Dnieper on ice
hardly thick enough to bear the weight of a man.
On the eve of Krasnoi, indeed, the rearguard found itself in so
desperate a position, that Ney ordered all its Eagles to be destroyed. His
regiments had suffered so severely in their continuous fighting, that it was
impossible adequately to safeguard the Eagles. Every musket and bayonet
was wanted in the fighting line. It was impossible to supply sufficient
Eagle-escorts. So far, in spite of the dreadful straits to which some of the
regiments had been reduced, all had marched openly with their Eagles, and
fought round them, guarding them sedulously by night and day. “When
excess of fatigue constrained us to take a few moments of repose,”
describes Colonel De Fesenzac of the 4th of the Line, “we (what was left of
the regiment able to carry arms—not 100 men) assembled together in any
place where we could find shelter, a few of the men standing by to mount
guard for the protection of the regimental Eagle.”

“Then,” describes the colonel, “came the order that all the Eagles
should be broken up and buried. As I could not make up my mind to this, I
directed that the staff should be burned, and that the Eagle of the 4th
Regiment should be stowed in the knapsack of one of the Eagle-bearers, by
whose side I kept my post on the march.” The Eagle of the 4th, it may be
added by the way, was the identical Eagle that Napoleon had presented to
the regiment in place of that lost at Austerlitz, in exchange for, as has been
told, two captured Austrian flags.
“THEY OUGHT Other officers did the same as Colonel De Fesenzac.
TO PERISH One officer, however, the colonel of the 18th of the Line,
WITH US”
flatly refused to have his regimental Eagle either broken
up or hidden away. “The Eagle,” he says in his journal, which still exists,
“had throughout, until then, been carried at the head of the regiment, and I
declined to obey the order on behalf of the 18th. It seemed to us a
monstrous ignominy. Our Eagles were not given us to be made away with
or hidden: they ought to perish with us.” The Eagle of the 18th did actually
perish with the regiment. In the rearguard repulse at Krasnoi the entire
regiment was destroyed, except for some twenty survivors, including the
colonel, severely wounded. “Our Eagle,” says the gallant colonel, proudly
recording its fate, “remained among our dead on the field of battle.”
That Eagle of the 18th was the only one of Marshal Ney’s Eagles to fall
into the hands of the Russians in battle. Some ten of the Eagles now at St.
Petersburg were found on the bodies of officers and men who had been
either frozen to death or had fallen dead on the march during Ney’s retreat
after Krasnoi; they were not taken in fight.
Ney rejoined Napoleon with only 1,500 men left out of 12,000, of
which the rearguard had consisted when it left Smolensk. It was while
making his last effort to get past the Russians after his attempt to break
through at Krasnoi had failed, that Ney, overtaken on the banks of the half-
frozen Dnieper on the evening before he risked his perilous crossing, and
summoned by the Russians to surrender, made that proudly defiant reply
which has ever since been a treasured memory to the French Army: “A
Marshal of France never surrenders!” Six hours later he had evaded capture
and, with the remnant of his corps, was across the river. All the world has
heard how Napoleon, hopeless of seeing him again, welcomed Ney with the

words: “I have three hundred millions of francs in the vaults of the
Tuileries; I would have given them all for Marshal Ney!”
ALL KEPT The remaining Eagles had by now been assembled
TOGETHER FOR for preservation under the protection of what troops of
SAFETY
the main column, which Napoleon accompanied, still
continued under arms. Further effort to rally the shattered host was beyond
possibility. Only portions of the two army corps of Marshals Victor and
Oudinot, called in from holding the line of communications, still retained
military formation, together with the reduced battalions of the Old Guard
which had kept near Napoleon throughout. To save the remaining Eagles,
the officers of broken-up and disbanded regiments, with some devoted
soldiers who stood by them, took personal charge of the Eagles, and carried
them with their own hands. Banding together and marching in company
side by side, they tramped on, plodding through the snow day and night for
200 miles; the collected Eagles all massed in the centre. They attached
themselves to the column of the Old Guard, and kept their way close by
Napoleon.
A survivor of the retreat from Moscow, in his memoirs, describes how
he saw Napoleon and the Eagles pass by him on the way to the Beresina on
the morning of November 25:
“Those in advance seemed to be generals, a few on horseback, but the
greater part on foot. There was also a great number of other officers, the
remnant of the Doomed Squadron and Battalion, formed on the 22nd and
barely existing at the end of three days. Those on foot dragged themselves
painfully along, almost all of them having their feet frozen and wrapped in
rags or in bits of sheep’s-skin, and all nearly dying of hunger. Afterwards
came the small remains of the Cavalry of the Guard. The Emperor came
next, on foot, and carrying a staff. He wore a large cloak lined with fur, and
had a red velvet cap with black-fox fur on his head. Murat walked on foot at
his right, and on his left the Prince Eugène, Viceroy of Italy. Next came the
Marshals Berthier—Prince of Neufchatel—Ney, Mortier, Lefebvre, with
other marshals and generals whose corps had been annihilated.
“The Emperor mounted a horse as soon as he had passed; so did a few
of those with him: the greater part of them had no horses to ride. Seven or
eight hundred officers and non-commissioned officers followed, walking in

order and perfect silence, and carrying the Eagles of their different
regiments, which had so often led them to victory. This was all that
remained of 60,000 men.
“After them came the Imperial Guard on foot, marching also in order.”
Four Eagles were lost in the fighting at the passage of the Beresina,
where a whole division of Marshal Victor’s corps (General Partonneaux’s)
was cut off and compelled to surrender. On the last night, when either
massacre under the Russian guns or laying down their arms was all that was
left to them, they broke up and buried their Eagles in the ground underneath
the snow. The officers of one regiment, it is told, broke up their Eagle
before burying it, burned the flag at their last bivouac fire, mixed the ashes
with thawed snow, and swallowed the concoction.

NAPOLEON AND THE “SACRED SQUADRON” ON THE WAY TO THE BERESINA.
From the picture by H. Bellangé.

WHEN THE The little column of officers with their Eagles passed
LAST HOPE WAS the Beresina with the Guard, and thus escaped that last
GONE catastrophe, the crowning horror of the bridge disaster,
when 24,000 ill-fated human beings were sent to their
account; either killed in the fighting with the Russians, or drowned in the
river, jammed together on the burning bridge, while the Russian guns from
the rear thundered on them with shot and shell.
The officer-escort with the Eagles tramped on until Wilna was reached;
until after Napoleon had left the army and set off for Paris. Then, on the
final falling apart of the remnants of the stricken host, the officers
themselves dispersed, to escape as best they could individually and get to
the Niemen; breaking up the Eagle-poles and concealing the Eagles and
flags in knapsacks or under their uniforms. The dispersal, says one officer,
was at Napoleon’s own instance. “He ordered all the officers who had no
troops to make the best of their way at once to the Niemen, considering that
their services had best be saved for the future army he was going to Paris to
raise and organise.” That is one story. According to another officer, utter
despair at their frightful position, abandoned by their chief, was the cause of
the break-up at Wilna and the final débâcle. “Until then a few armed
soldiers, led by their officers, had still rallied round the Eagles. Now,
however, the officers began to break away, and the soldiers became fewer
and fewer, and those left were finally reduced, of necessity, some to conceal
the Eagles in knapsacks, others to make away with them.” Some of the
officers fell dead on the way to the Niemen, struck down suddenly by the
cold, and their Eagles remained with them. Others who died, with their last
strength tried to put their charges beyond reach of the enemy by scraping or
34
digging holes in the frozen ground, and burying the Eagles.
THE EAGLE OF The Eagle of the Old Guard recrossed the Niemen at
THE OLD Kovno, while Ney was making his final stand, defending
GUARD the gate of the town; the marshal fighting musket in hand
at the last, with less than twenty soldiers. That Eagle was
still carried openly—the only one still so displayed—carried defiantly aloft
on its staff, borne to the last with its escort in military formation, in the
midst of the ranks of the 400 men of the Old Guard who were all that were
able to reach the frontier.

At Bay in Northern Germany—1813

There were yet dark days in store for the Eagles after the retreat from
Moscow was over. The tale of their misfortunes was not yet ended. There
was yet to be the sequel to the great catastrophe; further humiliations in the
War in Germany of 1813, and the Winter Campaign of 1814 in Eastern
France, which followed as the consequence and result of the overthrow in
Russia.
No fewer than fifteen of the Eagles that the devotion of their officers
brought through the retreat from Moscow are now—making allowance for
difficulties of identification, owing to defective records—among the
trophies of victory to be seen at Berlin and Potsdam, in Vienna, and also at
St. Petersburg. Those in Germany are mostly kept in the Garrison Church of
Potsdam, suspended triumphantly above the vault in which lies the
sarcophagus of Frederick the Great. They were placed there of set purpose
as an act of retribution, as a votive offering to the manes of the Great
Frederick; as a Prussian rejoinder to Napoleon’s act of wanton desecration
after Jena. The four trophy Eagles at Vienna are in the Imperial Arsenal
Museum there. Two of them are the spoils of Kulm; displayed together with
the keys of Lyons, Langres, Troyes, and the fortress of Mayence, which
were surrendered during the march of the Allies on Paris. The Russian
trophy Eagles of 1813 are at St. Petersburg, displayed with the Eagles
which fell into Russian hands in the retreat from Moscow.
What the annihilation of the Grand Army in Russia meant for Europe,
with what dramatic rapidity its import for the vassal states of Napoleon was
realised and turned to account, is a familiar story. Prussia led the revolt at
once, and all Northern Germany rose in arms en masse to commence the
“War of Liberation,” joining hands with Russia as the pursuing armies of
the Czar crossed the frontier. Then Austria, after negotiations rendered
abortive at the last by Napoleon’s infatuated pride and overweening self-
confidence, threw her sword into the balance and turned the scale decisively
against France. Napoleon’s hastily raised conscript levies, outnumbered and
outmanœuvred, were defeated on battlefield after battlefield, and driven in
rout across the Rhine to their final surrender at the gates of Paris; and then
came the abdication of Fontainebleau.

THE EAGLES Yet, with all that, in those dark hours of their fate the
DIED HARD Eagles died hard. The trophy-collections of Berlin,
Vienna, and St. Petersburg testify to that. Only a
percentage of the Eagles which faced their fate on the battlefield became
spoils to the victors. Marshal Macdonald’s army, routed by Blücher on the
Katzbach, thanks to the devotion of the regimental officers and some of
their men, saved all its Eagles from the enemy except three. Ney’s army, no
less roughly handled at Dennewitz, managed to retain in like manner all its
Eagles except three. Vandamme’s army, annihilated and dispersed at Kulm,
saved its Eagles all but two. Oudinot was routed at Gross Beeren, with the
loss of guns and many prisoners; Gérard underwent the same fate near
Magdeburg; Bertrand was surprised and defeated with heavier losses still;
but not one Eagle was left as spoil of these disasters in the hands of the
victorious foe.
In one battle the Eagle of Napoleon’s Irish Legion was only just kept
from being to-day among the trophies displayed in the Garrison Church of
Potsdam over the tomb of Frederick the Great. It was immediately after
Macdonald’s defeat on the Katzbach. The Irish Legion was one of the
regiments in one of Macdonald’s divisions, that of General Puthod. They
had had a hard fight of it, and their retreat was barred by the river Bober in
flood. Under stress of the continuous attacks of the Prussians in ever-
increasing force, the 12,000 men of Puthod’s Division had been reduced to
barely 5,000. They had used up their last cartridges, and had been driven
back to the river-bank, where the Prussian army closed in on them “in a
half-moon.” The Prussians halted for one moment until they realised that
the troops before them had no more ammunition. Then, aware that they had
their foe at their mercy, they rushed forward, cheering exultantly, to deliver
the coup de grâce. “All of a sudden,” describes an Irish officer, “30,000
men ran forward on their prey, of whom none but those who knew how to
swim could attempt to escape.” The greater number of the French, all the
same, jumped into the river, and took the risk of drowning rather than
surrender. Less than five hundred got across the stream, and after that they
had to wade waist-deep for half a mile over flooded marshes under a pitiless
fire from the Prussian batteries. In the end only 150 men reached dry
ground alive. Among the survivors were just 40 men of the Irish Legion,
with their Eagle—Colonel Ware, eight officers, the Eagle-bearer, and thirty

privates. The Irish remnant made their way eventually to Dresden, and
reported themselves to Napoleon.
THE IRISH That adventure, by the way, was the Irish Eagle’s
EAGLE’S FIRST second escape from falling into an enemy’s hands since
ESCAPE
Napoleon presented it to the Legion on the Field of Mars.
On the first occasion it came within an ace of being now among our British
trophy Eagles at Chelsea; of, indeed, being the first Napoleonic Eagle to be
brought as spoil of war to England. The Irish Legion was in garrison at
Flushing in 1809, when the fortress surrendered to the British Walcheren
Expedition. On the night before the final capitulation, Major Lawless of the
Irish Legion took charge of the Eagle, and in a rowing-boat made a risky
passage among the British ships of war in front of the batteries. He escaped
up the Scheldt to Antwerp, where he delivered the Eagle personally to
Marshal Bernadotte. Napoleon sent for the major to Paris, decorated him for
saving the Eagle, with the Cross of the Legion of Honour, and promoted
him lieutenant-colonel.
In the disaster on the Bober also, a soldier of the 134th of the Line
saved the Eagle of another regiment, the 147th. The two regiments, as the
Prussians charged down on them after their cartridges gave out, in
desperation rushed to meet their assailants with the bayonet. They were
overpowered and hurled back in confusion to the bank of the river, all
intermingled in the mêlée. The Eagle-bearer of the 147th fell dead, shot
down, and a Prussian officer made for the Eagle. A soldier of the 134th
bayoneted the officer as he got to it, picked up the Eagle, and, seeing only
more Prussians round him, flung himself, still holding on to the Eagle, into
the river. The man could not swim, and was fired at as he floundered in the
water, but he was not hit. Unable to reach the other side, he somehow got
on to a shallow patch, and, still holding fast to the Eagle, kept his footing
there, until, to get away from the hail of bullets all round him, he again
risked drowning by trying to drift downstream. He managed to keep his
head above water, and got over to a bed of rushes, fringing the farther bank.
Creeping in there, still holding on closely to the Eagle, the brave fellow hid
for six hours until dark, embedded in mud to his armpits most of the time.
After nightfall he worked his way through and crawled ashore. Finally, after
wandering across country for eight days, feeding on berries and what he
could pick up, in constant peril of discovery among the hostile peasants and

parties of Prussian dragoons scouring the district, the heroic soldier at
length found his way to Dresden. There he was brought before Marshal
Berthier, to whom he delivered the Eagle.
AT THE COST At the battle of the Katzbach the colonel of the
OF HIS LIFE 132nd of the Line threw away his life under the mistaken
impression that he saw the Eagle of his regiment captured
by the enemy. He was short-sighted, and suddenly missed it in the middle of
a charge. Thinking he saw the Eagle being carried off by a party of
Prussians he rode straight through the enemy at them, to fall mortally
wounded halfway, with his horse shot beneath him. Some of the men saw
the colonel fall, and charged after him. They got to him and carried him off
the field, and in the retreat until a place of safety was reached, where the
survivors of the regiment had rallied. There the officers came round to bid
farewell to their dying chief. The Eagle-bearer of the regiment was among
them, and he, to the amazement of all, produced the Eagle from his
havresac, broken from its staff, and held it up before the eyes of the dying
colonel. No enemy’s hand, he declared, had contaminated it. Finding
himself and the Eagle, he explained, in imminent danger of capture, he had
wrenched the Eagle off the staff and hidden it—his act causing the
disappearance which the colonel had marked, and which had resulted in his
fatal dash among the enemy.
The 17th of the Line saved their Eagle and themselves after
Vandamme’s defeat at Kulm, and made their way to safety, as one of the
officers relates, after an extraordinary series of adventures. They had joined
Vandamme’s army at the beginning of the first day’s fighting—the battle
lasted three days—coming in after a week’s march from Dresden, through
pouring rain most of the time. They numbered four battalions, 4,000 men in
all. Vandamme was successful on the first two days and the 17th by
themselves routed an Austrian regiment and captured a gun. On the evening
of the second day the French advanced again, driving the enemy before
them into the valley of Kulm. They bivouacked on the ground they had
won, anticipating a final triumph on the morrow. But during that night two
Russian and Prussian army corps reinforced the Austrian columns unknown
to the French.
One of the officers of the 17th, Major Fantin des Odoards, during the
night had his suspicions aroused about the enemy, and made a discovery;

but Vandamme would not listen to him.
He was unable to sleep, says Major Fantin, and, learning from a patrol
that mysterious sounds were being heard in the direction in which the
Austrians had retreated, he left the bivouac and went out alone beyond the
outposts, to creep in the dark towards the Austrian watch-fires. At times, as
he crawled forward, describes the major, he lay flat and listened with his ear
to the ground. In the end he felt certain that he heard the tramp and stir of a
vast number of men, and also the rumble of artillery wheels moving across
the front. Apparently, from the direction the unseen troops were taking, they
were marching to cut off the retreat of the army from Dresden, Napoleon’s
base of operations throughout the campaign.
Major Fantin returned to the bivouac and went at once to report to the
general, finding him asleep. He aroused Vandamme and told what he had
heard and suspected; only, however, to be rebuffed and rudely answered
that he was quite mistaken. Vandamme, a surly and ill-conditioned boor to
deal with at all times, awoke in a vile temper. “You are a fool!” was what he
said in reply. “If the enemy are on the move at all, they are in retreat, trying
to escape me. To-morrow will see them flying, or my prisoners.” With that
Vandamme terminated the interview, and turned over and went to sleep
again.
HEMMED IN ON He found out his mistake all too soon. Daylight
EVERY SIDE disclosed dense swarms of Austrians, Prussians, and
Russians in front of Vandamme, on his flanks, and
closing on his rear; outnumbering him nearly four to one. It was a desperate
position, for the only road by which Vandamme might retreat was held by
the enemy. Little time was left to him to deliberate what to do. He was in
the act of forming up his columns in a mass to try to fight his way through,
when the enemy attacked in overpowering force. Before noon that day, out
of 30,000 men, 10,000 had fallen. Seven thousand more were wounded or
prisoners. The rest were fugitives, flying for shelter and hiding-places in the
woods round the battlefield. All the French guns and baggage had been
taken, and Vandamme himself was a prisoner, together with many officers
of rank. The “annals of modern warfare record few instances of defeat more
complete than that of Vandamme at Kulm.”

The only regiment that kept its order was the 17th, and it before the
crisis had lost heavily. Its colonel and two of the chefs de bataillon had been
killed; the two others were wounded. Only some 1,700 of the 4,000 men
remained. It rested with Major Fantin, as senior officer, to save those that
were left and the Eagle.
The 17th were on the extreme right of the battle, where they had been
posted as support to Vandamme’s artillery. They held their ground as long
as possible, but the enemy closed in on them, overlapping them on both
flanks, and then stormed and captured the guns. The 17th were isolated and
in imminent peril—surrender or destruction were the only alternatives
before them.
“EN HAUT Looking round, the major, as he describes, marked a
L’AIGLE!” wooded hill some little way off, and decided to make for
that. There was just time to get away before the enemy
closed in on them. He sent off all his tirailleurs, about 400 men, to skirmish
and hold in check the advancing Austrians. As they went off he shouted to
the rest: “En haut l’Aigle! Ralliement au drapeau!” (“Display the Eagle! All
rally to the standard!”) The men of the regiment formed round him quickly,
and the major pointed out the wooded hill to them with his sword. “All of
you disperse at once,” he told them, “and make your way there as quickly
as you can. You will find the Eagle of the regiment there, and me with it!”
The 17th broke up and scattered, and, under the protection of the
skirmishers, aided by the opportune mist which hung low over the ground
after the heavy rains of the past week, they made off in groups in the
direction pointed out. All just got past the enemy in time, Major Fantin and
two officers accompanying the Eagle.
An hour later, “nos débris,” as the major puts it, were straggling up the
hill, where they again rallied round the Eagle. The skirmishers, cleverly
withdrawn at the right moment, evaded the enemy also, and most of them
joined their comrades on the hill, where all silently drew together. They
then moved off, to halt for concealment in a wooded glade behind. They
stayed there, keeping quiet and lying down beside their arms, for several
hours; off the track of the pursuit, and undiscovered by the enemy. “We
were all very hungry and without anything but what cartridges we had still
left.”

At nightfall they moved away in the direction in which Dresden was
judged to be, without having a single map or anything to guide them. They
marched all night, mostly by a forest road, and keeping their direction by
means of occasional glimpses of the stars seen through rifts in the cloudy
sky overhead. More than once they had to halt as the enemy were heard on
the move not far off. They groped their way forward with extreme caution,
not a light being struck, and the necessary words of command being spoken
in an undertone, until after midnight. Then they suddenly came into the
open round a bend of the road, and discovered, not half a mile off in front,
the numerous watch-fires of a large body of troops. “The column halted at
the sight like one man and stood in absolute silence. Who were those in
front of us? Friends or the enemy?”
Two scouts were sent forward to try to find out. They were away for
half an hour; an interval of intense suspense and anxiety to the others. At
the end of the time the two scouts came rushing back. They brought
unexpectedly good news. It was a French bivouac: that of the 14th Army
Corps—Marshal St. Cyr’s. So the 17th and their Eagle were saved.
Other Eagles that got away from the rout at Kulm and rejoined the
army owed their safety to the determination of small groups of officers and
men who cut their way through the enemy. “Officers fought with their
swords, privates with their bayonets and the butts of their muskets: and as
the struggle was to escape and not to destroy, a push and wrestle, or a blow,
which might suffice to throw the individual struck out of the way of the
striker, prevented in many instances the more deadly thrust.” Finally, as the
17th had done, they found shelter among the woods and ravines of the
neighbourhood, and lay low there until the enemy had moved off towards
Töplitz, whereupon they made their way to Dresden. The cavalry saved
their Eagles by cutting their way through the enemy. They suffered heavy
losses, but succeeded in their effort. Their commander, General Corbineau,
“presented himself, wounded and covered with blood, before Napoleon”; it
was his arrival that announced the disaster. The Eagles of the 33rd and the
106th of the Line taken at Kulm are at Vienna.
THE EAGLE- The three days of battle at Leipsic, between October
TROPHIES OF 16 and 19, 1813, cost Napoleon 60,000 men in killed,
LEIPSIC
wounded, and prisoners, and 300 guns; but not more than

6 Eagles were among the trophies of battalion-flags and squadron-colours
taken or found on the field, now at Berlin, Vienna, and St. Petersburg.
One Eagle was lost during the first day’s fighting at Leipsic—taken on
the 16th by Blücher from Ney’s corps; but no others were lost until the end.
The 80,000 men who were able to make good their retreat with Napoleon
across the bridge over the Elster before it was prematurely blown up,
through a non-commissioned officer’s blunder, carried their Eagles with
them. What colour-trophies came into the possession of the Allies were
taken amid the final scenes of carnage; from cut-off battalions of the three
divisions left behind on the right bank of the river, victims of the
destruction of the bridge. They were mostly captured in the ferocious hand-
to-hand fighting which marked the closing phase of the battle in the suburbs
of Leipsic. The French defended themselves there to the last with the
courage of despair among the fortified villas and loopholed garden walls.
“Pressed upon by superior numbers, and fighting, now in the streets, now in
the houses, now through gardens or other enclosures, the single end which
they could accomplish or which in point of fact they seemed to desire, was
that they might sell their lives at the dearest rate possible.” Two at least of
the Eagles now at Berlin were hastily buried in gardens during the last
stand, and were dug up there later when the ground was being turned over.
AMIDST THE Forced to give back before their ever-increasing
ROUT AT enemies, not a few of the French “preferred death to
LEIPSIC
captivity, and fought to the last. These, retiring through
by-lanes and covered passages, made their way to the river, some where the
ruins of the bridge covered its banks, some above and others below that
point, and, plunging into the deep water, endeavoured to gain the opposite
shore by swimming, an attempt in which comparatively few succeeded.”
The three doomed divisions of Lauriston, Regnier, and Poniatowski,
who were cut off by the blowing up of the bridge, had, as it happened, not
many Eagles among them to lose. They were largely made up of newly
raised conscript regiments to whom Napoleon had not yet awarded Eagles;
regiments not yet entitled to carry Eagles, according to the later regulations
that Napoleon had laid down. Only four of the newly raised regiments
altogether, so far during the campaign in Germany, had qualified for the
honour. They had received their Eagles with the customary ceremony at the
hands of Napoleon: three of them on October 15, the day before the battle

of Leipsic opened. The fourth had received its Eagle at Dresden a month
earlier. Two of these four Eagles only were lost to the enemy at Leipsic.
The Eagle-bearers of four or five other regiments among those cut off
by the bridge disaster tried to swim across the Elster with their Eagles.
Their fate is unknown; probably they were drowned in the attempt. Other
Eagle-bearers, before surrendering, were seen to fling their Eagles into the
river to sink there.
How one Eagle, during the battle on the 18th, was momentarily lost,
and then regained by a splendid act of valour, is told by Caulaincourt, who
was on Napoleon’s staff, and witnessed the gallant deed that won the Eagle
back. In the midst of the fighting, a number of Saxon regiments abandoned
Napoleon’s cause and went over en masse to the enemy. To signalise their
defection they turned on the nearest French regiment and mobbed it;
attacking it at close quarters with the bayonet. Thrown into confusion by the
unexpected onslaught, the French were for the moment broken and forced
back, whereupon the Saxons, making for the Eagle, got possession of it. “A
young officer of Hussars,” relates Caulaincourt, “whose name I forget,
rushed headlong into the enemies’ ranks. In the charge some of the
miserable renegades had carried off one of our Eagles. The gallant young
officer rescued it, but at the cost of his life. He threw the Eagle at the
Emperor’s feet, and then he himself fell, mortally wounded and bathed in
blood. The Emperor was deeply moved. ‘With such men,’ he exclaimed,
‘what resources does not France possess!’”
The regiments left by Napoleon to garrison the fortresses in Germany,
at Stettin, at Magdeburg, Torgau, Dantzic, and elsewhere, previous to
surrendering took steps to prevent their Eagles falling into the hands of their
adversaries. In every case they destroyed them, smashing the Eagles into
small fragments, which were either distributed among officers and men, or
else thrown into the ditch of the fortress. In more than one case they melted
the Eagles down, and broke up and buried the metal, while the flags were
burned.
KEPT FROM At Dresden, where Marshal St. Cyr had to surrender,
THE HANDS OF a month after Leipsic, the terms granted by the Austrian
THE FOE
general conducting the siege allowed the troops to return
to France with their arms, their baggage, and their Eagles, seven in number.

Superior authority, however, cancelled the privilege. The garrison had
already started on their march when, to their utter consternation, the
capitulation was abruptly annulled by the Austrian Generalissimo,
Schwartzenberg, with the result that the hapless troops were compelled to
yield themselves prisoners at discretion. The soldiers were defenceless and
could only submit to their hard fate. They did not, however, let their seven
Eagles pass into the enemy’s hands. Five of the seven were broken up, and
the flags torn to pieces and divided among the regiments. Two of the
Eagles, those of the 25th of the Line and the 85th, were concealed intact by
two officers, who kept them from discovery for months, while they were
prisoners in Hungary. After the Peace, in the following year, they brought
them back to France—to meet there the doom that awaited all the Eagles of
Napoleon of which the officials of the Bourbon régime got possession.
One memento of the Winter Campaign in Eastern France is now at the
Invalides—the Eagle of the 5th of the Line. It was found in the river Aube
at Arcis after the battle there, which, in its result, decided the fate of
Napoleon; its outcome being the immediate march of the Allied armies on
Paris. The 5th was one of the regiments of the rearguard column, under
Oudinot, half of which was drowned in the river in trying to get across at
night, after stubbornly holding out in the town all the afternoon in order to
enable Napoleon to cross the river in safety. The 5th was one of the
regiments that sacrificed themselves. Its Eagle-bearer was among the
drowned, and his Eagle sank with him. It remained in the bed of the stream
until long afterwards, when it was accidentally discovered, and fished up.
The 132nd of the Line of the modern army of France commemorates on
its flag a feat of arms done under the Eagle of the old 132nd of Napoleon’s
Army, after having been saved from the Prussians at the Katzbach, and
again at Leipsic. It was in one of the fights in the closing campaign in
Eastern France. The proud legend inscribed in golden letters, “Rosny, 1814:
Un contre huit,” commemorates how the regiment, single-handed, held at
bay and beat off an enemy eight times its force, saving itself for the third
time, and its Eagle.
THE GRAND The surviving Eagles of the war, the last to face the
ARMY’S LAST enemy in the north of those presented on the Field of
PARADE
Mars, paid their last salute to the War Lord at Napoleon’s

final review of the remnants of the Grand Army at Rheims on March 15,
1814.
A pitiful, a moving, sight was that hapless military spectacle: the
closing parade before Napoleon of his last remaining soldiers.
This is how Alison describes it: “How different from the splendid
military spectacles of the Tuileres or Chammartin, which had so often
dazzled his sight with the pomp of apparently irresistible power! Wasted
away to half the numbers which they possessed when they crossed the
Marne a fortnight before, the greater part of the regiments exhibited only
the skeletons of military array. In some, more officers than privates were to
be seen in the ranks; in all, the appearance of the troops, the haggard air of
the men, their worn-out uniforms, and the strange motley of which they
were composed, bespoke the total exhaustion of the Empire. It was evident
to all that Napoleon was expending his last resources. Besides the veterans
of the Guard—the iron men whom nothing could daunt, but whose tattered
garments and soiled accoutrements bespoke the dreadful fatigue to which
they had been subjected—were to be seen young conscripts, but recently
torn from the embraces of maternal love, and whose wan visages and
faltering steps told but too clearly that they were unequal to the weight of
the arms they bore. The gaunt figures and woeful aspect of the horses, the
broken carriages and blackened mouths of the guns, the crazy and fractured
artillery wagons which defiled past, the general confusion of arms,
battalions, and uniforms, even in the best appointed corps, spoke of the
mere remains of the vast military army which had so long stood triumphant
against the world in arms. The soldiers exhibited none of their ancient
enthusiasm as they defiled past the Emperor; silent and sad they took their
way before him: the stern realities of war had chased away its enthusiastic
ardour. All felt that in this dreadful contest they themselves would perish,
35
happy if they had not previously witnessed the degradation of France!”
What is indeed the most interesting of all the Eagles, the most famous
battle-standard in the world, which for a time was at the Invalides, is at
present preserved in private hands in Paris—the Eagle of Napoleon’s Old
Guard, the Eagle of the “Adieu of Fontainebleau.” It is treasured with
devoted care in the family of the officer who commanded the Grenadiers of
the Guard in the retreat from Moscow, at Fontainebleau, and at Waterloo—

General Petit. It is kept in the house, in Paris, in which the old general died,
in the room he used as his salon. General Petit refused to be parted from the
Eagle of his regiment during his lifetime; he kept it with him wherever he
went, always in his personal care. It was at the Invalides while General Petit
was in residence there as Governor of the Hospital.
THE OLD On that never-to-be-forgotten April forenoon of
GUARD AT 1814, in the Court of the White Horse of the Château of
FONTAINEBLEA
U Fontainebleau, Napoleon embraced the standard, and
taking the Eagle in his hands, kissed it in front of the
veteran Grenadiers of the Old Guard. His travelling carriage, to convey the
fallen Emperor on the first stage of his journey to Elba, was in waiting,
close by, ready to start. Twelve hundred Grenadiers of the Guard stood with
presented arms all round the courtyard; drawn up in a great hollow square
as a guard of honour to render to the master they adored the parting salute.
Napoleon passed slowly round the square and inspected the ranks, man
by man, looking intently into the scarred and war-worn, weather-beaten old
faces, each one of which was familiar to him. Their station on every
battlefield had been close at hand to where he took up his post. Night after
night, in every campaign from Austerlitz to those last dreadful weeks, he
had slept in their midst; his tent always pitched in the centre of the camp of
the Imperial Guard. That had been Napoleon’s invariable custom in war.
They had shared with him that last forlorn-hope march to save Paris, until,
completely worn out and footsore, exhausted nature forbade their
attempting to go farther. With tears streaming from their eyes the old
soldiers, before whose bayonets in the charge no Continental foe had ever
stood, mutely returned Napoleon’s last wistful, pathetic look of farewell.
He addressed a few touching words to them, standing in the centre of
the square. Next he turned to General Petit, near at hand, and before them
he took the general in his arms, as representing all, and kissed him on the
cheek. “I cannot embrace you all,” exclaimed Napoleon in a voice broken
with emotion, yet which all could hear distinctly, “so I embrace your
General!” Then he motioned to the Porte-Aigle, standing all the while
before him, with the Eagle held in the attitude of salute.
“Bring me the Eagle,” he said, “that I may embrace it also!” “Que
m’apporte l’Aigle, que je l’embrasse aussi!” were Napoleon’s words.

The Porte-Aigle advanced and again inclined the Eagle forward to the
Emperor. Napoleon took hold of it, embraced and kissed it three times, tears
in his eyes, and displaying the deepest emotion.

NAPOLEON’S FAREWELL TO THE OLD GUARD AT FONTAINEBLEAU.
From a print after H. Vernet, kindly lent by Messrs. T. H. Parker, 45, Whitcomb Street.

“Ah, chère Aigle,” he exclaimed, “que les baisers que je te donne
retentissent dans la postérité.”
The Eagle-bearer then stepped back a pace.
“Adieu, mes enfants! Adieu, mes braves! Entourez moi encore une
fois!” were Napoleon’s closing words as the historic scene terminated.

The old soldiers all stood utterly broken down, weeping bitter tears,
overcome with grief, as Napoleon made his way to the carriage; the
members of the Household bowing low as he passed, and kissing his hand,
were all also in tears.
Finally, amid a mournful cry of “Vive l’Empereur!” Napoleon drove
away.
ASHES As soon as Napoleon’s carriage was beyond the
MINGLED WITH precincts, the Grenadiers of the Guard solemnly lowered
WINE
the Imperial Standard, flying above the Château. There,
in the courtyard, they burned it. Then, mixing the ashes in a barrel of wine
that was brought out, they handed round the liquor in bowls and drank off
the draught, pledging Napoleon with cries of “Vive l’Empereur!” So it is
related by one who was an eye-witness and a partaker; one of the officers of
the Old Guard.
Kept safely in concealment for ten months by General Petit, during the
Bourbon Restoration period in 1814, the Eagle of the Old Guard appeared
once more after the return from Elba. It faced the enemy for the last time at
Waterloo. Something of that will be said further on. General Petit kept close
beside it all through the retreat, during that night of horror after Waterloo; a
faithful band of devoted veterans accompanying him and surrounding the
Eagle. So it made its final return to France, to be preserved for the rest of
his life by the man who, above all others, had most right to be custodian of
the Eagle of the Old Guard.
The Bourbon War Minister ordered it to be given up, to be burned at
the artillery dépôt at Vincennes with the other Eagles that the Restoration
officials were able to get hold of. General Petit flatly and indignantly
refused to part with the Eagle of the Old Guard. He was able, as before, to
conceal it successfully, in spite of every effort to discover its whereabouts,
until after the Revolution of 1830. Then, at the last, it was safe.
THE FLAG OF Faded and frayed away in parts, the gold embroidery
THE OLD on it dulled and tarnished from the lapse of years, and
GUARD
torn here and there round the jagged bullet-holes in the
silk, is now, in its old age, the Flag of the Old Guard. As it was at first—as
it was when it made its débût at the opening of its career, on that December
afternoon on the Field of Mars—the flag is of rich crimson silk, fringed

with gold, sprinkled over on both sides with golden bees, and with, at the
corners, encircled in golden laurel-wreaths, the Imperial cypher, the letter
“N.” In shape it was—and of course is still—almost a square: a metre deep,
vertically, on the staff, and some half-dozen inches more than that
lengthwise, horizontally, in the fly. On one side, in the centre, the
Napoleonic Eagle is displayed, a gold embroidered Eagle poised on a
thunderbolt. Inscribed round the Eagle in letters of gold is the legend:
“GARDE IMPÉRIALE

L’Empereur Napoléon
au 1 Régiment des
er

Grenadiers à Pied.”
On the other side are inscribed these fifteen names of Napoleon’s great
days in war, also in golden letters: “Marengo; Ulm; Austerlitz; Jéna; Berlin;
Eylau; Friedland; Madrid; Eckmühl; Essling; Wagram; Vienna; Smolensk;
Moskowa; Moscow.”

CHAPTER XI

THAT TERRIBLE MIDNIGHT AT THE
INVALIDES
The Battalion Eagles of 1804, those of the second and third battalions
withdrawn by the decree of 1808, together with the Light Cavalry (Hussar,
Chasseur, and Dragoon) Eagles recalled in the autumn of 1805, and a
number of Light Infantry Eagles returned to the Ministry of War at the end
of 1807, perished in the flames of the great holocaust of trophy-flags at the
Invalides on the night of March 30, 1814, the night of the surrender of Paris
to the Allies.
It was on that tragic Wednesday night that the great sacrifice was made,
amid the bowed and weeping old soldiers of France, the veterans of a
hundred battlefields, on the most terrible and mournful occasion in the
wide-ranging annals of the great institution which the Grand Monarque, in
the full pride of his power, at the topmost pinnacle of his renown, founded
and opened in person with grandiose martial pomp and State display. All
was over for France on that night—

“Around a slaughtered army lay,
No more to conquer and to bleed:
The power and glory of the war
Had passed to the victorious Czar.”

The two marshals charged with the defence of Paris, Marmont and
Mortier, had on that afternoon placed the submission of the capital in the
hands of Alexander of Russia on the heights of Montmartre, whence, and
from the Buttes Chaumont and the other northern heights from right to left,
300 loaded cannon pointed threateningly down over the vanquished and

panic-stricken city, supported by the bayonets and sabres of 120,000 men,
Russians and Prussians, Bavarians, Würtemburgers, and Austrians, flushed
and exultant in their hour of supreme triumph, the soldiers of all the nations
of the Continent at war with Napoleon.
NAPOLEON It was at ten o’clock on that fateful night for France
WITHIN that the great destruction of trophies at the Invalides took
TWELVE MILES
place. Napoleon had set his last stake, had attempted his
desperate last manœuvre, and had failed. He had been foiled and baffled
when within reach almost of his goal. At that very hour indeed, only twelve
miles away, he had just been stopped in his wild midnight gallop, his final
forlorn-hope effort to reach the capital, by the news that all hope was past,
that the worst had happened, that Paris had fallen.
Only forty-eight hours before, on Monday night, at Saint-Dizier, a
small town 170 miles away, had Napoleon suddenly realised the gravity of
the catastrophe impending over Paris. He was at that moment in the act of
dealing the Allies a counter-stroke which he confidently believed would
save the situation and bring the enemy’s advance to a general stand. Just a
week before, he had abruptly turned back in his retreat towards the capital
and had boldly started to march across the rear of the Allies in the direction
of the Rhine. He would sever their communications; he would cut the
enemy off from their base. Calling out the levée en masse of the peasantry
all over Eastern France, and at the same time rallying to him the garrisons
of the French fortresses in Alsace and Lorraine, with 100,000 men at his
disposal, led by Ney, Macdonald, Victor, and Oudinot, while two other
marshals, Marmont and Mortier, held the enemy at bay in front of Paris, he
was looking forward to checkmate the Allies at the last moment and
paralyse their advance on the capital. It was a daring and masterly project;
but the Fortune of War was against Napoleon. He had sent word of his plans
to Marie Louise at the Tuileries, together with instructions to his brother
Joseph, Governor of Paris, but on the way a Cossack patrol captured the
bearer of the vitally important documents. Napoleon’s despatch for once
was not in cypher, and its full import was apparent instantly. It was carried
to the Czar Alexander, and forthwith laid before a hastily convened Russian
council of war. Another letter, taken at the same time, laid bare the critical
condition of affairs inside Paris itself; describing how all was in confusion
there, and that treachery to the cause of the Empire was at work within the

city. The council of war decided to pay no heed to Napoleon’s counter-
stroke, and, instead, to march at once on Paris in full force. Marmont and
Mortier, it was known, could barely muster 6,000 regulars. With Blücher’s
Prussians, at that moment on the point of joining them, the Allies could
bring into line not far short of 150,000 men. This final plan was agreed to
on the afternoon of Friday, March 24, and the general advance began at
once.
NAPOLEON’S Napoleon knew nothing of what was happening until
BLANK DISMAY late on the night of the 27th, the following Monday. Then
he was suddenly made aware of the full position.
“Nothing,” exclaimed the doomed Emperor in blank dismay, “but a
thunderbolt can save us now.” The Allies then had not turned back! The
enemy nearest him, whom he had planned to attack next day, believing
them to be the Russian main army, was only—he discovered at the last
moment—a cavalry division, sent back to delude him and prevent his
finding out what was really going on. And the troops advancing on Paris
were already three clear days ahead of him! Napoleon counter-marched his
whole force at once to hasten to the rescue of the capital. They would take
the route by Sens, Troyes, and Fontainebleau, making a sweep to keep clear
of the enemy’s columns, and approach Paris by the south bank of the Seine.
It was a long march of fully 180 miles, but there was no other way open.
Marmont and Mortier, to whom the news of Napoleon’s intended approach
was sent off immediately, must manage to hold out in front of the city on
the north bank until the Emperor arrived.
Fresh news, however, and yet more serious, as to the imminence of the
grave peril threatening Paris, reached Napoleon during Tuesday night.
Leaving the army to follow, he pressed forward ahead of the troops by
himself in his travelling-carriage, escorted only by the Old Guard. They
hurried forward with feverish eagerness all that night and the next day, the
men of the Guard panting along at the double in their effort to keep up.
With hardly a halt, they struggled along, famishing—most of the men had
tasted no cooked food for the past five days—shoeless most of them,
plodding and splashing barefoot through the mud, ankle deep; under a
pitiless downpour of rain all the time. By Wednesday evening, the 30th,
they had reached Troyes, after a forty miles march without a stop. There,
still worse news reached Napoleon. Marmont and Mortier had been

disastrously defeated at Meaux, and in consequence their defence of the
northern heights outside the city was all but hopeless.
AT FULL Napoleon, on that, abandoned his travelling-carriage
GALLOP FOR for a light post-chaise, which set off at a gallop. He must
PARIS
now risk a ride practically unattended, in the desperate
hope of being able to evade hostile patrols and get by stealth into the city.
Once there, he would himself take charge of the defence. The men of the
Old Guard were left behind at Troyes. They were worn out and unable,
from sheer exhaustion, to go a step farther. Only a troop of Cuirassiers rode
with the post-chaise, and most of these had to give up and drop back as the
chaise raced forward, Napoleon himself from time to time calling from the
windows to the postillions to keep on flogging the horses and go faster and
faster. At every stopping-place to change horses the Emperor sent off a
courier to tell Paris to hold out; and at each post-house he received still
more alarming messages from the city. Now he heard that the Empress and
his little son had had to fly from Paris. Then he learned that the whole city
was in a state of complete panic, with affrighted peasants from all round
crowding in; the shops and banks all shut; the theatres closed, a thing that
had not happened even at the height of the Reign of Terror; everywhere
chaos and hopeless despair. After that came the news that the enemy were
advancing so fast that they were expected at any moment before the City
barriers.
At ten o’clock Napoleon arrived at the village of Fromenteau, near the
Fountains of Juvisy, twelve and a half miles from Paris. The post-chaise had
to stop there again for a relay of fresh horses. As it drew up, a party of
soldiers passed by, coming from the direction of the capital. Not knowing
who was in the chaise, some of them shouted out to the occupants,
Napoleon, and Caulaincourt, who had been riding with the Emperor: “Paris
has surrendered!”
The dread news struck Napoleon like a bullet between the eyes. “It is
impossible! The men are mad!” he hissed out, gripping at the cushions of
his seat. Then he turned to his companion: “Find an officer and bring him to
me!”
One rode up, as it happened, at that moment, a General Belliard.
Napoleon questioned him eagerly, and he gave the Emperor sufficient

details to leave no doubt of what had befallen. Great drops of sweat stood
on Napoleon’s forehead. He turned, quivering with excitement, to
Caulaincourt. “Do you hear that?” he ejaculated hoarsely, fixing a gaze on
his companion under the light of the lamps, the bare memory of which
made Caulaincourt shudder ever after to his dying day.
They left the chaise, and looking across the Seine Napoleon saw to the
north and east, in the direction of Villeneuve Saint-Georges, the glare of the
enemy’s watch-fires. Marshal Berthier now came up in a second post-chaise
which had been following the Emperor’s. Speaking excitedly, Napoleon
declared that he would go on to Paris. He set off walking rapidly along the
road in the dark, leaving the horses to be put to and the post-chaise to pick
him up. Berthier and Caulaincourt attended him, and General Belliard and
some dragoons followed at a few paces behind. Napoleon rejected every
remonstrance and refused to turn back. “I asked them,” exclaimed
Napoleon, talking half to himself, half to his companions, “to hold out for
only twenty-four hours! Miserable wretches! Marmont swore that he would
be cut to pieces rather than yield! And Joseph ran away: my own brother!
To surrender the capital to the enemy: what poltroons!” So he went on in a
breathless torrent of words. He added finally: “They have capitulated:
betrayed their country; betrayed their Emperor; degraded France! It is too
terrible! Every one has lost his head! When I am not there they do nothing
but add blunder to blunder.”
“MISERABLE But to go on, with Paris in the hands of an army of
WRETCHES!” 150,000 men, was out of the question. Napoleon had to
bow to the inevitable. He at length yielded to the protests
of the others. He stopped beside the Fountains of Juvisy. “He sat down on
the parapet of one of the fountains,” described Labédoyère, an eye-witness,
“and remained above a quarter of an hour with his head resting on his
hands, lost in the most painful reflections.” Then he rose, went back to the
post-chaise, and, telling General Belliard to rally all the men he could at
Essonne, set off to drive to Fontainebleau. He reached there at six next
morning.
Between ten o’clock on Wednesday night and six o’clock on Thursday
morning the tragedy at the Invalides was enacted. Its opening scene took
place just as Napoleon’s post-chaise was drawing up in the village of

Fromenteau. Its final scene took place just as the post-chaise was entering
the courtyard of Fontainebleau.
The Capitulation of Paris was signed before the Barrier of La Villette at
five in the afternoon. Its first article laid down that the French army must
evacuate Paris within twelve hours: before five o’clock next morning. The
last clause recommended the city to the mercy of the Allied Sovereigns, and
of the Czar Alexander in particular.
All day long the booming of cannon and rattle of musketry had dinned
in the ears of the trembling and terrified Parisians, ever steadily drawing
nearer. The marshals, Marmont and Mortier, had made their last stand, and,
resisting desperately to the last, in a struggle in which the Allies lost two to
every one of the defenders, so ferocious was the contest, had been beaten
back into the city. They carried back with them, so gallantly had they
counter-attacked at one point, the standard of the Second Squadron of the
Russian Garde du Corps—now a trophy in the present collection at the
Invalides.
BEYOND ALL The outnumbered and exhausted troops could make
HOPE NOW no further fight, although, to the end, many of the soldiers
were for holding out to the last cartridge. The Générale
had beaten to arms at two in the morning; at six, with sunrise, the enemy’s
guns opened fire; from then until late in the afternoon the fighting had gone
on incessantly.
All was over by four o’clock. From east to west, from Charenton and
Belleville, right round to Neuilly, the Allies, the Russians, Blücher’s
Prussians, and the Austrians, had captured every position capable of
defence, one after the other, by sheer weight of numbers, and had carried at
the point of the bayonet every place of vantage held by the French.
Woronzeff and the Prince of Würtemburg had stormed Romainville, La
Villette, and La Chapelle. Langeron and the Russian Imperial Guard were
masters of the heights of Montmartre and the Buttes Chaumont, looking
down directly on Paris. Eighty-six guns had been taken from the marshals
since the morning; nearly six thousand soldiers and National Guards had
fallen, killed or wounded, facing the foe. A six-miles long line of batteries
and battalions on the side of the Allies had closed in to within short musket
range of the Paris barriers. Already the Russian cannon were opening fire

on the city, and their shells were bursting over the central streets of Paris;
falling, some in the Chaussée d’Antin and on the Boulevard des Italiens.
At four o’clock Marmont, who had been the soul of the defence,
fighting, now on horseback, now on foot, using his sword at times—“the
marshal was seen everywhere in the thickest of the fight, a dozen or more
soldiers were bayoneted at his side, and his hat was riddled with bullets”—
at four o’clock Marmont repassed within the barriers to announce that
further defence was impossible. He was scarcely recognisable, we are told
—“he had a beard of eight days’ growth; the great-coat which covered his
uniform was in tatters; from head to foot he was blackened with powder-
smoke.” Then had to be done the only thing that was left to do. Marmont
and Mortier held a hasty conference, and after it a trumpeter and an aide de
camp carrying a white flag rode out through the firing line to the nearest
advanced post of the Allies. The officer was taken before the Czar
Alexander on the plateau of Chaumont, and Paris surrendered. The last
sounds that were heard on the French side as the firing ceased came from a
battalion of the Imperial Guard which had been serving under Marmont,
from a scanty remnant of veterans stubbornly resisting at bay to the last—
shouts of “Vive l’Empereur!”
THE FLAG OF The old pensioners of the Invalides manfully did
THE their duty, and bore their part in the defence all day, as
POLYTECHNIC
well as they were able. All who could carry a musket had
gone out to the barriers; others did their best by helping to bring up
ammunition. Most of them fought at the Barrière du Trône on the Vincennes
road, assisting the brave lads of the Polytechnic School to hold the post and
man a battery of eight-and-twenty cannon in front of the barrier; until a
headlong charge of Russian cavalry, Pahlen’s dragoons with some
Cossacks, swooped down from the flank, annihilating the devoted band of
gunners. Those of the boys who were left, however, saved the school flag,
presented to the Polytechnic just ten years before by the Emperor with his
own hand, on the Day of the Eagles on the Field of Mars. With the
Invalides’ veterans and some of the National Guards, the survivors held the
barrier throughout the day to the end, beating back repeated attempts of the
Russians to storm the gate. The lads, finally, after learning that Marmont
had capitulated, made their way back to the school, and there burned their
precious standard to save it from falling into the enemy’s hands. Those who

were left of the veterans hastened back to the Invalides at the same time,
overcome with anxiety to learn what was to happen to their own priceless
treasures within the Hospital, the trophy flags. There were at the Invalides
at that time, by one account, 1417 trophy flags; according to another
account—which included apparently in the total the returned Battalion and
Light Infantry and Cavalry Eagles—altogether 1,800 standards.
Within the walls of the Invalides all was deep gloom and hopeless
despondency among those in charge. Even at nightfall, as it would appear,
the authorities had not made up their minds how the trophies were to be
disposed of.
It is a hapless and pitiful story from first to last. Some time previously,
while the Allied armies were still being kept at bay on the plains of
Champagne, the Governor of the Invalides, old Marshal Serrurier, a
distinguished veteran of the Revolutionary Army, had applied to the
Minister of War for instructions as to the disposal of the trophies at the
Invalides in the event of the enemy advancing on Paris. The only answer he
received was a formal letter to the effect that the matter would have to go
before the Emperor. At that time Napoleon was in the midst of his last
forlorn-hope attempt to stem the tide of invasion; in the midst of a life-and-
death struggle, fighting desperately day after day at one place or another.
The Ministry of War apparently pigeon-holed the application after that, and
forgot all about the trophies at the Invalides until the actual day of the attack
on Paris—until that Wednesday forenoon.
FORGOTTEN Then, when already Marmont’s outer line of defence
UNTIL TOO had been forced, and the last fight for the inner heights
LATE
overlooking the city was raging furiously, almost within
sight from the Invalides, a letter from the War Minister was handed to
Serrurier. It “trusted that the Marshal had taken steps for the safety of the
trophies; especially for the preservation of Frederick the Great’s sword. The
flags,” continued the letter, “had best be detached from their staves, and
rolled up carefully. The War Minister is sure that your Excellency will do all
that is possible. The road to the Loire is open.” Such were the instructions
sent to the Invalides after the eleventh hour! Then, during the afternoon,
when the enemy’s bombshells, fired from the plateau of Chaumont, were
falling in the heart of the city, a single artillery wagon, or fourgon, a vehicle
barely large enough to remove a small percentage of what there was to

carry away, drew up at the main gates of the Invalides. It brought also ten
more trophy flags, collected from somewhere in Paris. In the general
confusion nobody, it would seem, even inquired what they were or where
they came from. The driver’s instructions were merely that “they were to go
away with the Invalides trophies.” The ten flags were taken out and stacked
in a corridor for the time being, while the fourgon waited unheeded at the
gate until after dark.
What steps Marshal Serrurier took during the afternoon to secure
adequate transport is unknown; or, indeed, what he did with himself all that
time. The Governor was seen just before the dinner-hour in the Corridor
d’Avignon, in an out-of-the-way part of the building, in conference with the
Lieutenant-Governor and an adjutant-major. Another officer, Adjutant
Vollerand, was with them, holding in his hands Frederick the Great’s sword
and sash. Apparently they did not want to be observed, and were discussing
how to hide the relics or bury them within the precincts of the Invalides.
After that nothing more was seen of Serrurier at the Invalides until between
nine and ten at night, some hours after the Capitulation, and when it had
become known that the Allies intended to occupy Paris in force, and that
their troops would enter and take possession of the city early next morning.
Then the Governor reappeared.
A few minutes after nine o’clock the veterans of the Invalides, who had
been restlessly pacing about the halls and corridors during the evening, or
standing about in dejected groups in the courtyards, not knowing what they
were to do, were suddenly summoned to muster at once in the Grand Court,
or Cour d’Honneur. All turned out from the wards and paraded, forming up
by the light of lanterns. All but those who were bedridden were brought out,
the maimed and cripples being led out, or hobbling out on their crutches,
together with the survivors of those who had fought so gallantly at the
barriers during the day, their faces still begrimed with powder-smoke, their
clothes torn and stained, some without their hats, their arms in slings, or
with bandages over recent wounds. Then the tall, spare figure of the
Governor, a grim, hard-featured old warrior, white-haired, over seventy
years of age, was seen emerging from his quarters, with the senior staff-
officers of the Hospital following in rear. Serrurier harangued the
pensioners briefly. He told them that the enemy would enter the city next

day and would present themselves at the Invalides to enforce the giving up
of the trophies. What did the men of the Invalides desire should be done?
“LET US BURN There was a pause for a moment; a dead silence, as
THEM HERE!” the old soldiers gazed dumbfoundedly at one another.
Then one man stepped out to the front and spoke up for
the rest. A battle-scarred old sergeant-pensioner of the Grenadiers of the Old
Guard answered the Governor on behalf of his comrades, his reply, greeted
as it was by vociferous shouts of approval on every side, voicing the
unanimous wish of the veterans. “If they will not let us keep our banners,
let us burn them here! We will swallow the ashes!” The order to make a
bonfire of the trophies then and there was issued forthwith.
Anything that came to hand for fuel was eagerly seized, and a great pile
speedily made of broken-up stools and mess-tables and forms, hauled out
from the barrack-rooms withindoors. They were stacked in a heap just in
front of the pedestal on which it had been intended to erect an equestrian
statue of the heroic Marshal Lannes, who died from his wounds at Aspern
in the arms of Napoleon. Meanwhile, parties of men ran inside with ladders,
and set to work to strip the dining-halls and the Chapel of the rows of flags
hanging up there. They bore them outside, roughly bundled together in their
arms; some, silently, with frowning, stern-set faces and set teeth; others
beside themselves with rage, and cursing savagely aloud; others sullenly
muttering oaths; not a few of the old fellows with tears streaming down
their cheeks. They carried the trophies out and heaped them up into an
immense funeral pyre. The battalion and other Eagles shared the fate of the
captured trophies—standards, some of these, that had been borne under fire
in the thick of triumphant battle at Austerlitz, and Jena, at Auerstadt and
Friedland—to save them on the morrow from falling into the hands of those
in whose defeat and humiliation they had had their part. The fire was
lighted and the masses of tattered silk blazed up furiously. When the flames
were at their fiercest, Marshal Serrurier stepped forward and with his own
hand flung into the midst of the fiery mass the sword of Frederick the Great.
For half the night the veterans stood round and watched the flames
complete the work of destruction. They stood massed round in a densely
packed throng of sullen, gloomy, brokenhearted men. They stayed there
until long after midnight, gazing, in a state of dull despair, at the fire; while
some now and again stirred up the glowing fuel and made the flames leap

up afresh, roaring and crackling and casting a dull red throbbing glare over
the old walls and rows of windows all round, and gleaming on the lofty
gilded dome of the Invalides, in itself an intended memento of victory. On
first seeing the golden domes of the Kremlin as he approached Moscow,
Napoleon had sent orders to Paris to have the dome of the Invalides gilded
as a memorial of his achievement of the goal of the campaign! Most of the
veterans stood there throughout the greater part of that cold March night,
watching until the fire had died down and only a great heap of smouldering
cinders remained; all that was left of the trophies of victorious France.
THE TROPHIES Among the vast array of foreign trophies at the
OF TWO Invalides that perished on that night were English flags
CENTURIES
nearly two centuries old, the remains of the spoil of some
forty-four English banners of Charles the First’s soldiers, triumphantly
carried to Paris from the Ile de Rhé in November 1627 and hung in Notre
Dame. Others flags destroyed there, too, dated from the wars of the Grand
Monarque; spoils won on the battlefield by the famous Condé and Turenne;
also trophies taken from William the Third at Steenkirk and Landen and
elsewhere; the British and Dutch and Danish and Bavarian ensigns won by
Turenne’s great successor, Marshal Luxembourg, “le Tapissier de Notre
Dame,” as they dubbed him at Versailles, for the almost innumerable
trophies sent by Luxembourg to be hung up in the Cathedral of Paris, with
State processions and Te Deums in the presence of the King. Other British
battle-spoils, the trophies of France, which passed out of existence at the
Invalides on that night were these: a flag taken at Fontenoy by the Irish
Brigade; the regimental colours surrendered by the garrison of Minorca
which Admiral Byng failed to rescue; those of another British garrison of
Minorca of the time of the Great Siege of Gibraltar, when France, for the
second time, wrested the island from England; four British and Hessian
regimental flags surrendered to Washington at Yorktown and sent by
Congress as a gift to the King of France; flags taken by the French from
British West India garrisons in the same war; besides British naval ensigns
also taken during the American War, with other British ship-flags, some of
which indeed dated from the earlier battle times of Duguay Trouin and Jean
Bart. Destroyed at the Invalides also on that Wednesday night was a British
naval ensign from Trafalgar. It had been hoisted on board one of Nelson’s
prizes, the Algéciras. In the storm after the battle the ship was in imminent
peril of wreck, and the French prisoners on board were liberated in order to

help to save her. They used their freedom to overpower the small British
prize-crew and carried the vessel off into Cadiz, whence the British ensign,
hoisted originally in triumph over the French tricolor during the battle of
two days before, on the Algéciras being captured, was sent as a trophy to
Paris. There were also destroyed at the Invalides at the same time the ensign
of Lord Cochrane’s famous brig-of-war, the Speedy, captured in the
Mediterranean in 1801, and those of three British line-of-battle ships, the
Berwick, the Swiftsure, and the Hannibal, taken within the previous twenty
years.
SPOILS TAKEN Most of the trophies won by Napoleon and the Grand
IN NAVAL Army all over Europe, and by the Armies of the Republic
FIGHTS
and Consulate before that, perished in the holocaust: the
spoils of Valmy and Fleurus and Jemmapes; of Hohenlinden; of Dego and
Mondovi; of Rivoli and Montenotte; of Castiglione, Lodi, and Arcola; of
Zurich and Marengo, and other victories. On that night, too, passed out of
existence the famous flag of the Army of Italy presented by Napoleon, and
bearing inscribed on it the names of eighty triumphs on the battlefield and
the detailed record of the taking of 150,000 prisoners, 170 standards, 550
siege-guns, and 600 pieces of field artillery; the Horse-tail banners of the
Mamelukes, taken by Napoleon at the battle of the Pyramids; the historic
standard of the Knights of St. John, won in hand-to-hand fight outside the
main gate of Valetta. Most of the 340 Prussian standards Napoleon sent to
Paris after the Jena campaign, together with the sword and Black Eagle sash
of Frederick the Great, as well as the recovered French trophies of the
Seven Years’ War, originally won by Frederick at Rosbach, the standards of
Frederick the Great’s Guards, and Austrian spoils taken by the Prussians at
Leuthen, Kolin, and Hohenfriedburg, all of which had been carried off to
Paris by Napoleon—these were among the war-treasures destroyed at the
Invalides on that night. With them went into the flames the Grand Army’s
Russian trophies from Eylau and Friedland, the Austrian trophies from
Eckmühl and Wagram, besides many Spanish and Portuguese trophies taken
before Wellington landed in the Peninsula to turn the tide of war.
AFTER One French Eagle which perished on that night was
DUPONT’S the survivor of a disaster: Dupont’s surrender at Bailen in
SURRENDER 36
Andalusia in 1808, at the outset of the Spanish
insurrection; that cruel humiliation for the arms of France, the news of

which came on Europe with all the startling effect of a thunderclap, and
drove Napoleon nearly frantic in his furious indignation. It had been one of
three Eagles taken by the Spaniards, that of the 24me Légère, and had been
recovered by the daring of an officer of the regiment, one of the prisoners,
Captain Lanusse. Confined in a prison-hulk at Cadiz, he escaped to shore
one night, managed to find out where his regiment’s flag was kept,
displayed as a Spanish trophy, got hold of it, and then made his way outside
the city into the lines of the besieging French army. There he presented the
Eagle to Marshal Soult, who forwarded it direct to Napoleon. Lanusse, as
his reward, was promoted a chef de bataillon of the 8th of the Line, and fell
to the bayonet of a British soldier of the 87th Royal Irish Fusiliers at
Barrosa. The recovered Eagle Napoleon sent to the Invalides.
By morning all that remained of the proud trophies of France at the
Invalides was a heap of grey ashes, fragments of charred flag-poles, and
scraps of partly molten metal. The débris was raked up at daylight, and
shovelled into the artillery fourgon of the previous afternoon, which had
been standing all night outside the main gate of the Invalides. The artillery
wagon drove off with it to the Seine near by and emptied the heap into the
river. That was the end of the night’s destruction.
ALL THAT WAS Some portion of the débris was recovered from the
DREDGED UP Seine a year afterwards, and is preserved in the Chapel of
the Invalides now. In June 1815 a workman, doing some
repairs by the riverside, discovered a portion of a flag under water, and on
hearing of that, two patriotic young Frenchmen, an engineer and a
journalist, privately set to work soon afterwards to see if they could fish up
anything that might be worth preserving. At the time the Allies were in
possession of Paris, during the second occupation, after Waterloo, and the
two young men had to proceed cautiously. They were successful in the end
in recovering portions of 183 trophies, metal spear-head ornaments, from
ensign-staves mostly. Seventy-eight were later identified as of Austrian
origin; one as part of a British flag; two as having belonged to Russian
standards; various fragments as the remains of thirty-nine Prussian
standards; four from Spanish flags with Bourbon fleurs-de-lis; and two
fragments of Turkish standards from Egypt. The remainder of the salvage it
was impossible to identify.

That the great sacrifice had not been made in vain, was speedily
apparent. In the course of the morning after the bonfire, a little before noon
on Thursday, March 31, within two hours of the entry into Paris of the
vanguard of the Allied armies, a Russian aide de camp presented himself at
the Invalides, and, in the name of the Allied sovereigns, demanded a
statement of the trophies kept there. The officer came up on horseback,
accompanied by a mounted man of the National Guard, and an armed escort
of Russian dragoons. The main gate was open as usual, and the Russian
officer rode through without taking notice of the gate-sentry’s challenge. He
was only stopped by a rush of the pensioners’ day-guard, called out by the
sentry’s shout of alarm—“Aux armes!” The guard turned out and faced the
aide de camp with lowered halberds. The Russian colonel protested, but the
officer on duty refused to let him pass without orders from his own chief,
and General Darnaud, the Lieutenant-Governor, was sent for. That officer
came, and the Russian dismounted and explained his mission. He had
orders, he said, to “take cognisance” of the trophies of the Invalides.
General Darnaud replied bluntly: “Very good, I will permit you to visit the
Hôtel. Come with me!” The general added: “As to the trophies, sir, we have
dealt with them according to the laws of war!” “On en avait agi suivant les
lois de guerre!” were his words. The Russian did not seem to grasp the
general’s meaning, and stood still for a moment, staring blankly at him. On
that, Madame Darnaud, the Lieutenant-Governor’s wife, who had followed
into the courtyard immediately after her husband, interposed. She addressed
the officer, speaking volubly and angrily, but only to draw down on herself
from the Russian the uncivil rejoinder that he had not come there to talk to a
woman! After that, the general, accompanied by some of the men of the
main guard with shouldered halberds, formally conducted the officer inside
the Invalides, the party taking their way along the colonnade round the
Court of Honour, in the midst of which could be seen the wide burnt-out
space where the fire had been, the pungent smell of the fumes from which
still hung about the place, and so into the Chapel of St. Louis. There the
scene that met the Russian aide de camp’s eyes seemed to stagger him: bare
blank walls, the gallery stripped and defaced; with empty and broken metal
sockets here and there to show where the flags had been fastened up. The
interior had been entirely cleared from end to end along the sides. It was
absolutely unrecognisable to any who had seen it before. The Russian
officer, who had visited the Invalides six or seven years previously, after

Tilsit, could only gaze round dumbly, utterly taken aback. He muttered
something, but did not speak aloud. Then, glaring round savagely into the
eyes of those about him, he turned away abruptly, and was conducted to the
Outer Court, where he remounted his horse, and rode off hastily in the
direction whence he had come.
THE WALLS All Napoleon’s trophies, however, did not perish at
STRIPPED AND the Invalides. Some of the Grand Army’s captured flags,
BARE
as it so chanced, escaped destruction on that night, and
are at the Invalides now. They are in the Chapel and in the Salle Turenne,
besides half a hundred in the Crypt, grouped round Napoleon’s tomb. The
forty-five Austrian flags taken at Ulm are beside Napoleon’s tomb, with
nine other flags. Presented by the Emperor to the Senate, as has been told,
the Ulm trophies, during the night of March 30, were hastily taken down
from where they had been hung in the Grand Salon for the past nine years,
and hidden in a vault below. They made a second public appearance on the
occasion of Napoleon’s funeral at the Invalides in 1840, when they were
placed at the head of the coffin. They have ever since been kept beside the
tomb.
The Austerlitz trophies met another fate. Kept at Notre Dame, they
disappeared mysteriously from there in the early morning of the day of the
entry of the Allies into Paris. At three in the morning of March 31 an urgent
message from the Prefect of the Seine was delivered at Notre Dame, calling
on the Cathedral authorities to take down and conceal the Austerlitz
trophies at once. The Chapter met hastily in the Archbishop’s room, and the
flags were all down within half an hour. They have never been seen since,
nor was their fate ever accounted for.
HOW FIFTY- At the Luxembourg Palace were displayed 110
ONE FLAGS trophies, the spoils of the Eagles, won from all the
WERE SAVED
nations of Europe and presented to the Corps Legislatif
by Napoleon. They were safely removed on the night of March 30, and
were hidden securely. Brought out and set up again a year later, on
Napoleon’s return from Elba, the authorities forgot about hiding them again
in the confusion after Waterloo. As the result more than half of them are
now in Berlin. Blücher sent a party of staff officers to seize the entire
collection, but a sharp-witted functionary hoodwinked the Prussians on
their arrival. They went back to get written orders, and before they returned,

as many as possible of the trophies had been pulled down and got out of the
way. One of the attendants managed the affair on his own initiative, a hall-
porter named Mathieu. He was able to save and hide as many as fifty-one of
the flags, and they have since been forwarded to the Invalides. The other
fifty-nine trophies the Prussians seized and carried off. Two Austrian
standards taken by Napoleon at Marengo escaped destruction by having
been previously lent from the Invalides to an artist, Charles Vernet, for a
battle-picture he had been commissioned to paint for Napoleon. They were
in Vernet’s studio in March 1814. His son, Horace Vernet, returned them in
later days to the Invalides, where they now are.
In addition, it would seem, at least a moiety of the Invalides trophies
were kept back at the last moment by some of the veterans themselves.
Several of the old soldiers, it would appear, after stripping down the flags
from the walls, instead of carrying all out into the courtyard to the bonfire,
retained and hid a few of them on their own account, to smuggle them
37
outside afterwards and keep them in concealment.

CHAPTER XII

THE EAGLES OF THE LAST ARMY
The Eagles came back to France with the return of Napoleon from Elba; to
lead the last Army to the campaign of the Hundred Days.
They “flew from steeple to steeple across France,” in Napoleon’s
expressive phrase, “from the shores of Fréjus until they alighted on the
towers of Notre Dame.” The enthusiasm that greeted their reappearance
spread like wild-fire; it blazed up like an exploding magazine. The
rapturous acclamation and enthusiasm with which the Eagles were
welcomed back was the measure of the prevailing discontent and
resentment among the soldiers at the harsh and unworthy treatment they had
received during the ten months of the restored régime.
The Army had come off badly by its change of masters. The Bourbons
had done all in their power to alienate its regard; as much through malice in
not a few cases, as through downright stupidity.
“Of all the institutions of France the most thoroughly national and the
most thoroughly democratic was the Army; it was accordingly against the
Army that the noblesse directed its first efforts. Financial difficulties made a
large reduction in the forces necessary. Fourteen thousand officers and
sergeants were accordingly dismissed on half-pay; but no sooner had this
measure of economy been effected than a multitude of emigrants who had
served against the Republic in the army of the Prince of Condé or in La
Vendée were rewarded with all degrees of military rank.... The tricolor,
under which every battle of France had been fought from Jemmapes to
Montmartre, was superseded by the white flag of the House of Bourbon,
under which no living soldier had marched to victory.... The Imperial Guard
was removed from service at the Palace, and the so-called Military
Household of the old Bourbon monarchy revived, with the privileges and
the insignia belonging to the period before 1775.”

The abolition of the Eagles was the preliminary step of all. A justifiable
measure, no doubt, from a political point of view, it touched to the quick the
military instinct of the nation. And on that followed the abolition of the
national tricolor in favour of the old Bourbon white flag.
EVERY ONE TO Within three weeks of the Farewell of Fontainebleau
BE DESTROYED the Eagles of the Army, with the tricolor standards, were
officially proscribed; the order went forth to send them to
Paris forthwith for destruction in the furnaces of the artillery dépôt at
Vincennes. On May 12 it was notified that the white Bourbon flag was
again to be the standard of the Army, with a brass fleur-de-lis at the head of
the colour-staff in place of the Eagle.
Every regiment was required to send its Eagle to the Ministry of War in
Paris on receipt of the order. No allowances or exceptions were made;
although in several instances officers urgently petitioned to be allowed to
retain their Eagles with the corps, if only as mementoes of feats of arms
achieved by the regiments in battle. Every request was rejected, whatever
the circumstances. There were reasons of State policy no doubt, as has been
said, against the general retention as regimental standards of military
insignia so intimately associated with Napoleon; but in certain instances, at
least, indulgence might reasonably have been extended to the applications.
There were personal and romantic associations connected with some of the
Eagles, specially endearing them to the soldiers, for which privilege might
well have been accorded. One very hard case may be cited as typical of
others: that of the Eagle of the 25th of the Line.
The Eagle of the 25th had been carried under fire in some twenty
battles and all through the Moscow campaign; and had notable battle-scars
to show for its distinguished services. One leg and one wing of the Eagle
had been shot away in action, and there were five bullet-holes in its metal
body. Its maimed appearance, indeed, had attracted Napoleon’s attention at
a review, and he had stopped while riding past the regiment and taken the
Eagle into his hands, examining it with extreme interest and putting his
fingers into the bullet-holes, finally returning it to the Porte-Aigle with a
deep bow of respect. The regiment almost worshipped their Eagle on its
own account, for what it had gone through; but it had further undergone yet
more surprising adventures. The 25th had been in the garrison of Dresden in
1813 when Marshal St. Cyr had to capitulate to the Austrians. On the night

before the surrender the Eagle-staff was broken up and burned, and the few
strips of ragged silk that remained of the shot-torn regimental tricolor flag
were tied under an officer’s uniform for secret conveyance out of the city.
The shattered Eagle broke in two while being removed from its staff, and its
two fragments were concealed under the petticoats of two vivandières who
were to convey it in that manner to the regimental dépôt in France. Under
the capitulation the garrison was granted the honours of war and a safe-
conduct back to France. The terms, however, were annulled by the Allied
Sovereigns then advancing, after Leipsic, to invade France, and in the
outcome all the regiments, after they had started for France, were made
prisoners and marched away to be interned in Hungary. The major of the
25th got back the two fragments of the Eagle, stowed them away under his
uniform, and kept them about him by day and night for five months; until
finally, on his release after Napoleon’s abdication, he brought the Eagle
back across the Rhine, “wrapped up like contraband.”
“SEND IT TO On the 25th receiving the order to send in its Eagle
PARIS for destruction, he wrote personally to the Minister of
FORTHWITH!”
War—General Dupont, of Bailen notoriety, as has been
said—who had never forgiven Napoleon’s harsh usage of him, and now
took every opportunity of paying back old scores on the heads of his former
comrades in arms. The major wrote setting forth in detail the story of the
regimental Eagle, relating its exceptionally interesting career and its battle
damages, also how he had preserved it after Dresden, and implored the War
Minister, in the name of the regiment, that they might retain the two
fragments to be kept in the regimental “Salle d’Honneur” as an honoured
relic. The reply was a peremptorily worded command to send the Eagle to
Paris forthwith for destruction with the other Eagles of the Army. The
major, in the circumstances, considered himself compelled to comply. He
summoned the officers to his quarters, where they “paid their last adieux to
the object of veneration, and then, in their presence, the Eagle fragments
were packed in a box, and despatched to the Ministry of War.”
The story, with others to the same effect, went the round of every
barrack-room in France, and wherever it was told, there were angry
murmurings and increased discontent.
By no means all the Eagles of the Army, it would appear, were given up
to the authorities in Paris. Not a few colonels flatly refused to comply with

Dupont’s order, taking the risk of prosecution or of being turned out of the
service summarily—a certainty in any event under the new régime, as the
majority of the senior regimental officers anticipated, and as actually came
to pass. General Petit of the Grenadiers of the Old Guard, as has already
been said, refused to give up that famous Eagle, and concealed it
successfully; and not a few other officers did the same with the Eagles of
their corps. Others destroyed their regimental Eagles and either burned the
silken tricolor flags, or cut them up; dividing the ashes or fragments among
their comrades.
Their Eagles taken away, it was next made known to the Army, that the
“battle honours” and war distinctions of the various corps, won under
Napoleon, would not appear on the new regimental flags when issued.
“Austerlitz,” “Jena,” “Friedland,” and the other names of pride to the Grand
Army, were henceforward to be erased from military recognition. The new
flags, when publicly distributed in September 1814, showed each a blank
white field, with on it only an oval shield, bearing the three fleurs-de-lis, the
Royal Bourbon cognisance, and the name of the corps—its new name,
revived from Army Lists of the Old Monarchy, a name long since forgotten
and totally unfamiliar.
NO MORE The regimental numbers of the Grand Army,
REGIMENTAL ennobled by glorious campaigns, immortalised by their
NUMBERS
associations of victory and brilliant feats of arms, instinct
with a renown acquired on a hundred battlefields all over Europe, were at
the same time done away with by a stroke of the War Minister’s pen. That
proved the most unpopular measure of all; the cruellest of blows to the
esprit de corps and pride of the former soldiers of Napoleon. It was felt as a
gratuitous insult; it was perhaps the most deeply resented injury of all. In
future, in place of their treasured regimental numbers, the various corps of
the Army, horse and foot, were to be known by departmental or territorial
names—meaningless to nine soldiers out of ten, and without traditions—or
else by the names of royal princes and princesses, and titled personages,
remembered only, some of them, as having fled on the battlefield before the
national armies. Bercheney and Chamborant Hussars, Orléans Dragoons
and Chasseurs, Regiments d’Artois, de Berri, d’Armagnac, d’Angoulême,
de Monsieur, d’Anjou, and so forth—what traditions had designations such
as these to compare with, to mention in the same breath with, the traditions

immortally associated with the numbers, familiar as household words
wherever French soldiers met together, of the dragoon and chasseur
regiments which Murat had led at Austerlitz, of the dashing hussars of
Lassalle, of the cuirassiers whose resistless onset had swept the field at
Jena, of the horsemen at the sight of whose sabres before their gates
Prussian fortresses had surrendered at discretion? It came with a sense of
personal degradation, as a sort of desecration on the men of regiments like
the 75th of the Line, or the 32nd, the 9th Light Infantry or the 84th, or the
35th, or “Le terrible 57me”—to be labelled and hear themselves officially
addressed on parade as “Beauvoisis” or “Auxerre” or “Nivernais,” by the
name of some prosaic locality, or the style of some ancient aristocrat, their
38
titular colonel.
AT THE HEAD Napoleon announced the return of the Eagle in his
OF THE “ELBA first address to the Army, sent off on his landing to be
GUARD” distributed broadcast among the soldiers. “Come and
range yourselves under the banners of your chief....
Victory shall march at the pas de charge: the Eagle with the national
colours shall fly from steeple to steeple to the towers of Notre Dame!”
The first of the regimental Eagles to make its appearance in France
accompanied Napoleon from Elba and landed with him. It was the Eagle of
the six hundred veterans of the Old Guard who, as the “Elba Guard,” had
volunteered to share Napoleon’s exile, and had formed his personal escort.
It figured in the historic scene at Grenoble a week after the landing, where
Napoleon, on meeting the first soldiers sent to arrest his advance, by the
magic of his presence and the sight of the Eagle borne behind him, so
dramatically won over to his side the former 5th of the Line, the first
regiment of the Army to throw in its lot with Napoleon after Elba. The
Eagle that had its part on the historic occasion—with its silken tricolor flag,
embroidered with silver wreaths and scrollery, and golden bees, crowns and
Imperial cyphers, and inscribed “L’Empereur Napoléon à la Garde
Nationale de l’Ile Elba”—is now in private possession in England. It fell by
some means into the hands of a Prussian soldier at the occupation of Paris
after Waterloo and was sold a few weeks later to a visitor to Paris. In the
dramatic scene of the meeting of Napoleon with the 5th of the Line,
General Cambronne, Commander of the Elba Guard, bore the Eagle a few
paces behind Napoleon and held it up appealingly to the regiment.

“LET ANY WHO The 5th of the Line, says one story, vouched for by
WISHES— an eye-witness, was marching out to block a narrow
FIRE!” gorge through which ran the road Napoleon was known
to be taking. At some little way off, his party was seen
approaching, he himself being readily recognised by his small cocked hat
and redingote gris. Immediately the men were formed up across the road,
and, as Napoleon came nearer, they were ordered to make ready and
present. They did so: the muskets came up and were levelled. Then came a
pause; dead silence; an interval of breathless suspense. Napoleon’s own
action decided the issue. Stepping rapidly forward, opening and throwing
back his great-coat as he did so, he called aloud to the regiment: “Soldats,
voilà votre Empereur! Que celui d’entre vous qui voudra le tuer, faire feu
sur lui!” (“Soldiers, here is your Emperor! Let any one who wishes to kill
him fire on him!”) A Royalist officer hastily called out the order: “Le voilà!
donnez feu, soldats!” But not a shot came. The next instant, with shouts of
“Vive l’Empereur!” the soldiers lowered their muskets, broke their ranks,
and rushed forward to surround Napoleon and welcome him in a frenzy of
enthusiasm.
According to another story, this is what took place. Before the word
“Fire!” could be given, Napoleon had stepped forward, close up to the
muzzles of the levelled muskets. With a smile on his face he began in his
usual colloquial, familiar way when talking to the men: “Well, soldiers of
the 5th, how are you all? I am come to see you again: is there any one of
you who wishes to kill me?” Shouts came in reply of “No, no, Sire!
certainly not!” The muskets went down; Napoleon passed along the ranks,
inspecting the men just as of old; after that the regiment faced about, took
the lead of the party, and, with Napoleon in the middle and the “Elba
Guard” bringing up the rear, all marched on towards Grenoble.
MARSHAL There, meanwhile, events had been moving rapidly.
NEY’S The commandant of the garrison was an émigré officer,
DILEMMA
but most of the troops had been won over for Napoleon
by Colonel Labédoyère, at the head of the 7th of the Line. The commandant
ordered the gates to be closed, which was done; also the cannon on the
ramparts to be loaded. That order was duly obeyed; “but the men rammed
home the cannon-balls first, before putting in the powder, so that the guns
were useless.” Labédoyère marched out with his regiment to meet

Napoleon, the band playing, “and carrying the Eagle of the regiment, which
had been concealed and preserved.” They met Napoleon a short distance
from Grenoble and, with the 5th, led the way in, arriving after dark. “On
Napoleon’s approach, the populace thronged the ramparts with torches; the
gates were burst open; Napoleon was borne through the town in triumph by
39
a wild and intermingled crowd of soldiers and workpeople.”
Napoleon entered Paris on the night of March 20. The Eagles made
their first appearance in the capital next day. They had been officially
restored as the standards of the Army by an Imperial decree issued on
March 13 from Lyons.
AT THE FIRST Paris saw them again first at the review of the
REVIEW IN garrison of the capital which Napoleon held within
PARIS
twenty-four hours of his arrival; on the Place du
Carrousel, in front of the Tuileries. There too the Imperial Guard,
reconstituted that same morning, made their public reappearance. In the
midst of the brilliant scene, as Napoleon was ending the address of personal
thanks for their loyalty that he made to the assembled troops in dramatic
style, suddenly General Cambronne marched on to the parade at the head of
the Elba Six Hundred, with drums beating and escorting the former Eagles
of the Guard. Drawing up in line ceremoniously, the “Elba Guard” halted
before Napoleon, saluting and dipping the Eagles forward. A frantic roar of
enthusiastic cheering greeted the salute of the Eagles.
Napoleon took instant advantage of the first pause as the cheering
subsided. Pointing to the veterans just arrived, and standing with the Eagles
ranged in front of them, held on high at arm’s-length by their bearers, he
again addressed the assembled troops. “They bring back to you the Eagles
which are to serve as your rallying-point. In giving them to the Guard, I
give them to the whole Army. Treason and misfortune have cast over them a
veil of mourning; but they now reappear resplendent in their old glory.
Swear to me, soldiers, that these Eagles shall always be found where the
welfare of the nation calls them, and those who would invade our land
again shall not be able to endure their glance!” “We swear it! We swear it!”
was the answer that came back amid tumultuous shouts from every side.
ONCE MORE The Eagles restored by proclamation as the standards
THE FIELD OF of the Army, and the regiments reconstituted by their old

MARS numbers, to the unbounded gratification of the soldiers
everywhere, another Imperial proclamation announced
that Napoleon would once again personally distribute new Eagles to the
regiments. The ceremony of the Field of Mars of ten years before would be
repeated. The Emperor, with his own hand, would present each Eagle to a
regimental deputation, which would specially attend in Paris to receive it.
To give the utmost possible éclat also to the proceedings on the occasion,
just as the former presentation of the Eagles had been made an integral
feature of the Coronation celebration, so now the forthcoming distribution
would take place at the same time that Napoleon renewed his Imperial oath
of fidelity to the Constitution, as reshaped by the “Acte Additionel,” which
had been drafted to comply with the political exigencies of the moment.
The date provisionally fixed was towards the end of May. By that time
the returns of the Plébiscite voting, to authorise the re-establishment of the
Empire, would be known. The historic event takes its name of the “Champ
de Mai” from the date proposed for it, although, in actual fact, the
ceremony took place on June 1. The place appointed was where the former
distribution of the Eagles had been made, the Field of Mars, the wide open
space in front of the Military School, and the display was to be on no less
grandiose scale than its predecessor.
Immense wooden stands were erected all round the Field of Mars, with
tiers of benches, to seat, it was calculated, as many as two hundred
thousand people. In front of the Military School was set up an Imperial
throne, under a canopy of crimson silk, and elevated on a gorgeously
decorated platform. Napoleon was to take his new Imperial oath from the
throne, and thereupon formally attach his signature to the “Acte Additionel.”
There was to be a religious service also, and for that an altar was erected at
one side of the throne, raised on steps and draped in red damask, picked out
with gold. The balconies and stands all round were draped and hung with
tricolor flags, festooned amid gilded Eagles, and heraldic insignia, and
emblematic figures meant to typify the prosperity and glory awaiting
France under the returned Imperial régime. As on the previous occasion, all
the celebrities of France were invited, and had their allotted places on the
stands nearest the throne. As before, too, the central arena was packed with
a dense array of troops; the deputations called up to receive the Eagles, the
massed battalions of the Imperial Guard, and detachments of all the

regiments of the garrison of Paris. It was a radiantly fine summer’s day, and
the display offered a spectacle of surpassing brilliance. Says one of the
officers: “The sun flashing on 50,000 bayonets seemed to make the vast
space sparkle!”
A hundred cannon fired from the Esplanade of the Invalides ushered in
the day of the “Champ de Mai.” Again, at ten o’clock, the artillery
thundered forth as Napoleon quitted the Tuileries in State to take his way to
the Field of Mars, “amid prodigious crowds of spectators applauding
enthusiastically,” along the Champs Elysées and across the Pont d’Jéna.
NINE Nine of the marshals who had cast in their lot with
MARSHALS the returned Emperor rode on either side of Napoleon’s
TAKE PART
coach: Davout, Minister of War, who had not yet sworn
allegiance to the Bourbons; Soult, the newly appointed Chief of the Staff of
the Army; Serrurier, Governor of the Invalides; Brune and Jourdan; Moncey
and Mortier; Suchet and Grouchy. Ney was absent; Napoleon had refused to
see him. Ney’s widely reported speech to Louis XVIII., that he would
“bring the bandit to Paris in an iron cage,” had not been forgiven. Murat
was in disgrace for his recent blundering move in Northern Italy, which had
vitally affected Napoleon’s plans. His desertion during the closing
campaign, when Napoleon was at bay after Leipsic, moreover, was beyond
condonation. Of others who had been at Napoleon’s side on the Field of
Mars ten years before, Lefebvre and Masséna professed to be too old and
infirm for service in the field, although Masséna was still nominally on the
Active List, and had been in command for King Louis at Toulon. He was
due in Paris to meet Napoleon, but his fidelity was more than doubtful:
“gorged with wealth, Masséna thought only of preserving it.” Augereau
kept in the background, Napoleon refusing to have more to do with him.
Berthier, on that very morning, was lying dead at Bamberg in Bavaria;
whether victim of an accident or suicide has never been made clear. Lannes
and Bessières were in their graves, fallen on the field of battle. Bernadotte,
King of Sweden, was actively on the side of the enemy. Marmont, Oudinot,
Macdonald, and Victor, marshals of later creation, had left France in
company with the Bourbon princes. Old Kellerman and Perignon,
“Honorary Marshals” of 1804, had not come forward again, remaining in
seclusion; nor had St. Cyr, “the man of ice,” another marshal since the Field

of Mars, who was staying at home with studied indifference, “occupying
himself on his estate with his hay crops and playing the fiddle.”
THE “MAN OF Napoleon was accompanied in the State coach by
SEDAN” WAS three of his brothers—Lucien, Joseph, and Jerome. This
THERE
time there was of course no Empress present. Josephine
was dead: Marie Louise was holding back elsewhere. None of the
Bonaparte princesses appeared in the procession. The only one attending
the “Champ de Mai” came as a spectator: Hortense Beauharnais, the
daughter of Josephine and wife of Louis Bonaparte. She had gone on in
advance to the Military School and was seated among the exalted
personages awaiting Napoleon there; accompanied by her two boys (one the
future Third Napoleon, the “Man of Sedan”). She seemed most interested,
as we are told, in the sketch-book she brought with her to draw a picture of
the scene.
Napoleon alighted in the First Court of the Military School, being
acclaimed on all sides as he made his appearance with vociferous shouts of
“Vive l’Empereur!” Preceded by palace grandees and Court officials, who
had alighted from their carriages in advance and formed up to receive him,
he entered the building and passed on through to take his seat on the throne.
“He had the air of being in pain and anxious,” describes an onlooker. “He
descended slowly from his carriage while a hundred drums beat ‘Au
Champ.’ Then, advancing quickly, returning the salutes of the assemblage at
either side with bows, he proceeded to the throne, and sat down, gazing
round at the people in their dense masses as he did so. Jerome and Joseph
seated themselves on the right; Lucien on the left; all three clad in white
satin with black velvet hats with white plumes. Napoleon himself had on his
Imperial mantle of ermine and purple velvet embroidered with golden
bees.”
For a time the thundering cannon salutes and acclamations of the
people that hailed Napoleon’s appearance on the daïs were deafening.
Bowing repeatedly on every side, he took his seat on the throne, while all
present stood and remained uncovered. The guns then ceased, the music of
the bands and the drummings and trumpetings of the battalions died away
into silence. On that the ceremony of the day opened with the celebration of
High Mass by the Archbishop of Tours.

The religious portion of the pageant, we are told, “seemed to arouse no
interest in Napoleon. His opera-glass wandered all the time over the
immense multitude before him.” His attention was not recalled until the
Mass was over, when the delegates from the Electoral College, marshalled
by the Master of the Ceremonies, ascended the platform, and ranged
themselves before the throne. A Deputy stepped forward, and after deep
obeisance, in a loud resonant voice read an address teeming with sentiments
of patriotic attachment and expressing inviolable fidelity towards the
Emperor personally. Napoleon seemed to listen with interest, “marking his
approbation with nods and smiles.” The Deputy ceased speaking amidst
rapturous applause, and then Arch-Chancellor Cambacérès, resplendent in a
gorgeous orange-yellow robe, stood forward in front of Napoleon to notify
officially the popular acceptance of the new national Constitution. He
declared the total of the votes given in the Plébiscite to show a clear million
in favour of the restoration of the Empire. There was a flourish of trumpets,
and forthwith the chief herald proclaimed that the “Additional Act to the
Constitution of the Empire” had been agreed to by the French people.
NAPOLEON Again from all round thundered out an artillery
SIGNS THE ACT salute, and the whole assembly rose to their feet and
cheered. A small gilded table was brought forward and
placed before Napoleon, who, the Arch-Chancellor holding the parchment
open, and Joseph Bonaparte presenting the pen, publicly ratified the Act
with his formal signature. The air resounded once more with the cannon
firing and noisy acclamations on all sides.
Napoleon rose, when at length the cheering ceased, to address the
assembly with one of his most impassioned dramatic harangues. “Emperor,
Consul, Soldier, I hold everything from the people! In prosperity and in
adversity; in the field, in the council; in power, in exile, France has been the
sole and constant object of my thoughts and actions!” So he began. He
closed in the same vein: “Frenchmen! my will is that of my people; my
rights are theirs; my honour, my glory, my happiness, can never be
separated from the honour, glory, and happiness of France!”
Again came the outburst of rapturous applause. It subsided, and the
Archbishop of Bourges, as Grand Almoner of the Empire, came forward.
Kneeling before Napoleon he presented the Book of the Gospels, on which
Napoleon solemnly took the Imperial Oath to observe the new Constitution.

There only remained for Arch-Chancellor Cambacérès and the principal
officers of State to take their oaths of allegiance to the Constitution and the
Emperor, and after that a solemn Te Deum closed the political ceremony.
It was now the turn of the Eagles and the Army. The civilian
personages withdrew from the steps of the throne; the electoral deputations
fell back; leaving a clear open space in front. Immediately, as if by magic,
the Eagles suddenly appeared; long rows of them flashing and glittering in
the brilliant sunshine. They were brought forward in procession, advancing
in massed rows “resplendent and dazzling like gold.” Carnot, Minister of
the Interior, the “Organiser of Victory” of the Armies of the Revolution,
headed the procession, “clad in a Spanish white dress of great
magnificence,” carrying the First Eagle of the National Guard of Paris. Next
him came Marshal Davout, Minister of War, carrying the Eagle of the 1st
Regiment of the Line, and then Admiral Decrès, Minister of Marine (as
representing the French Navy), carrying the Eagle of Napoleon’s 1st
Regiment of Marines. General Count Friant (he fell at Waterloo), as
Colonel-in-Chief, bore the Eagle of the Imperial Guard. Other officers of
exalted rank bore other Eagles.
SPRINGING Napoleon’s demeanour, hitherto, for most of the
FORWARD TO time, formal and apathetic, altered instantaneously at the
MEET THEM
appearance of the Eagles. “He sprang from the throne,
and, casting aside his purple mantle, rushed forward to meet his Eagles”;
amid a sudden hush that seemed to fall over the whole assembly at the
sight. Then the momentary silence was broken. An enthusiastic shout went
up as the Emperor, pressing forward impetuously, as though electrified with
sudden energy, took up his station immediately in front of the array of
soldiers, the élite of the veterans of the old Grand Army left alive, as they
stood there formed up in an immense phalanx. To the sound of martial
music the regimental deputations forthwith moved up and advanced to pass
before him. Napoleon, with a gesture of deep reverence, took each Eagle
into his own hands from the officer who had been carrying it, and then
delivered it with stately formality to its future regimental bearer as the
deputations in turn filed past him.
He had a word for the men of every corps as each set of ten officers and
men drew up before him. To some he said, glancing at the number of their
regiment on their shakos, “I remember you well. You are my old

companions of Italy!” or, “You are my comrades of Egypt!” and so on.
Others he reminded of past days of distinction. “You were with me at
Arcola!” he said to one group, or “at Rivoli!” “at Austerlitz!” “at
Friedland!” to others, as might be—his words, we are told, “inspiring the
men with deep emotion.” For each of the National Guard deputations he
had also their little speech. To one detachment for instance, as it came up,
he said: “You are my old companions from the Rhine; you have been the
foremost, the most courageous, the most unfortunate in our disasters; but I
remember all!”
The last Eagle presented, Napoleon called on the soldiers to take the
Army Oath of fidelity to the Standard, using his customary Eagle oration
formula.
“Soldiers of the National Guard of the Empire!” he began, “Soldiers of
my Imperial Guard! Soldiers of the Line on land and sea! I entrust to your
hands the Imperial Eagle! You swear here to defend it at the cost of your
life’s blood against the enemies of the nation. You swear that it will always
be your guiding sign, your rallying point!”
AMIDST A Some of those nearest interrupted Napoleon with
TUMULT OF shouts of “We swear!” He went on: “You swear never to
ENTHUSIASM
acknowledge any other standard!” The shouts of “We
swear!” again broke in vociferously.
Napoleon again went on: “You, Soldiers of the National Guard of Paris,
swear never to permit the foreigner to desecrate again the capital of the
Great Nation! To your courage I commit it!” Cries of “We swear!” repeated
continuously amidst a tumult of clamour, once more burst forth.
Napoleon continued and concluded, turning to his favourite Pretorians:
“Soldiers of the Imperial Guard, swear to surpass yourselves in the
campaign which is now about to open, to die round your Eagles rather than
permit foreigners to dictate terms to your country!” He ceased after that,
and once again the air vibrated with shouts of “We swear! We swear!” and
ejaculations of “Vive l’Empereur!” from the soldiers and the throng of
40
onlookers cramming the stands around.
The military finale of the day was the march past of the assembled
troops before the Emperor, in slow time, headed by the Eagles. “Nothing

could have been more imposing,” says one of the spectators, “than this
concluding display in the magnificent pageant. Amid the crash of military
music, the blaze of martial decoration, the glitter of innumerable arms,
50,000 men passed by. The immense concourse of beholders, their
prolonged shouts and cheers, the occasion, the Man, the mighty events
which hung in suspense, all concurred to excite feelings and reflections
which only such a scene could have produced.” On the other hand, we have
this from a colder critic of the scene: “The display was without heart, and
theatrical; the vows of the soldiers were made without warmth. There was
but little real enthusiasm: the shouts were not those of future victors of
another Austerlitz and Wagram, and the Emperor knew it!” Which are we to
believe?
According to Savary, who was close beside him, Napoleon, for his part,
was satisfied with the enthusiasm of the soldiers. “The Emperor left the
Field of Mars confident that he might rely on the sentiments then
manifested towards him, and from that moment his only care was to meet
the storm that was forming in Belgium.”
ON THE The new Eagles left Paris that night with their
REGIMENTAL escorts. Each, on its arrival where its regiment was
PARADES
stationed, was received with elaborate ceremony, and
formally presented on parade to the assembled officers and men; a religious
service being held in addition in some cases, at which all were sworn
individually to give their lives in its defence. This, for instance, is what took
place with one regiment, the 22nd of the Line, stationed with the advanced
division of Grouchy’s Army Corps on the Belgian frontier at Couvins, near
Rocroy, in the Ardennes. “The new Eagle,” describes one of the officers,
“all fresh from the gilder’s shop, was solemnly blessed in the church of
Couvins; then each soldier, touching it with his hand, swore individually to
defend it to the death. After the religious service the regiment formed in
square, and the colonel delivered an address, in which he recalled the old
glories of the 22nd of the Line, and expressed his conviction that the
regiment would worthily uphold the old-time fame of the corps in the
coming campaign. The glowing language was received with great emotion,
41
and as of happy augury for the future.”

CHAPTER XIII

AT WATERLOO

“Ave Caesar! Morituri te Salutant!”

The Eagles figure in four episodes in the story of Waterloo.
They had their part at the outset in that intensely dramatic display on the
morning of the battle, when, before the eyes of Wellington’s soldiers, drawn
up with muskets loaded and bayonets fixed, and guns in position ready to
open fire, Napoleon passed his army in review; the last parade of the Last
Army on the day of its last battle. Said Napoleon himself afterwards, in words
that are in keeping with the resplendent spectacle: “The earth seemed proud to
bear so many brave men!” (“La terre paraissait orgueilleuse de porter tant de
braves!”)
It was a little after nine in the morning that the Last Army of Napoleon
moved out from its bivouacs of the night before to take up its station for the
battle. This is how a British hussar, who was looking on, describes the
opening of the wonderful show: “Marching in eleven columns they came up
to the front and deployed with rapidity, precision, and fine scenic effect. The
drums beat, the bands played, the trumpets sounded. The light troops in front
pressed forward, and the rattle of musketry was followed by the retreat of our
horsemen and foot soldiers. Light wreaths of smoke curled upwards into the
misty air, and through this thin veil the dense dark columns of the French
infantry and the gay and gleaming squadrons of French horse were seen
moving into their positions. Before them was the open valley, yet green with
the heavy crops; behind them dark fringes of wood, and a thick curtain of
dreary cloud.
“The French bands struck up so that we could distinctly hear them. Not
long after, the enemy’s skirmishers, backed by their supports, were thrown
out; extending as they advanced, they spread over the whole space before