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France had been fought from Jemmapes to Montmartre, was superseded by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.
[Sidenote: EVERY ONE TO BE DESTROYED]
Within three weeks of the Farewell of Fontainebleau 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.”
[Sidenote: “SEND IT TO PARIS FORTHWITH!”]
On the 25th receiving the order to send in its Eagle for destruction,
he wrote personally to the Minister of 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.
[Sidenote: NO MORE REGIMENTAL NUMBERS]
The regimental numbers of the Grand Army, ennobled by glorious
campaigns, immortalised by their 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 titular colonel.[38]
[Sidenote: AT THE HEAD OF THE “ELBA GUARD”]
Napoleon announced the return of the Eagle in his first address to
the Army, sent off on his landing to be 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.
[Sidenote: “LET ANY WHO WISHES--FIRE!”]
The 5th of the Line, says one story, vouched for by an eye-witness,
was marching out to block a narrow 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.
[Sidenote: MARSHAL NEY’S DILEMMA]
There, meanwhile, events had been moving rapidly. The commandant of
the garrison was an _émigré_ officer, 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 a wild and intermingled crowd
of soldiers and workpeople.”[39]
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.
[Sidenote: AT THE FIRST REVIEW IN PARIS]
Paris saw them again first at the review of the garrison of the capital
which Napoleon held within 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.
[Sidenote: ONCE MORE THE FIELD OF MARS]
The Eagles restored by proclamation as the standards of the Army, and
the regiments reconstituted by their old 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.
[Sidenote: NINE MARSHALS TAKE PART]
Nine of the marshals who had cast in their lot with the returned
Emperor rode on either side of Napoleon’s 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.”
[Sidenote: THE “MAN OF SEDAN” WAS THERE]
Napoleon was accompanied in the State coach by three of his
brothers--Lucien, Joseph, and Jerome. This 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.
[Sidenote: NAPOLEON SIGNS THE ACT]
Again from all round thundered out an artillery 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.
[Sidenote: SPRINGING FORWARD TO MEET THEM]
Napoleon’s demeanour, hitherto, for most of the time, formal and
apathetic, altered instantaneously at the 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!”
[Sidenote: AMIDST A TUMULT OF ENTHUSIASM]
Some of those nearest interrupted Napoleon with shouts of “We swear!”
He went on: “You swear never to 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 onlookers cramming the stands around.[40]
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.”
[Sidenote: ON THE REGIMENTAL PARADES]
The new Eagles left Paris that night with their escorts. Each, on its
arrival where its regiment was 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, and as
of happy augury for the future.”[41]