The Coronation, Napoleon first proposed, should take 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.
From far and near the detachments of soldiers and sailors converged on the capital, marching some of them 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 only thing that was unpropitious was the weather. It proved, as far as the weather went, an 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.
On the Champ de Mars, as the guns began to fire, the soldiers—all long since in their places drawn up in 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.
Foremost of all, the mounted Mamelukes of the Guard came prancing by, radiant in Oriental garb, their 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.
Napoleon now appeared, in his brand-new Imperial State coach. Eight noble bays drew it—with harness and 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.”
Napoleon’s Imperial Standard was borne immediately after the State coach; a crowned eagle 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.
Withindoors at the Ecole Militaire a pause was made in the Governor’s apartments, which had been 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.
The sleet had stopped for the time, but after the all-night’s downpour of rain and snow the seats everywhere 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.
Glance for one moment round the main group of thirteen, the chosen lieutenants of Napoleon the War Lord, as they stand beside their Chief, with, arrayed in 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.
That tall, bull-necked, heavy-featured man is Augereau; “gros comme un tambour-major”; absolutely 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.
Look near the Emperor, at that neat athletic figure, of middle height: that is “Old Berthier.” He is from ten to 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.
And mark Soult, the coming man of the Marshals 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.
Such, if it may be permitted to describe them in this way, is something of what the Marshals of 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.
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:
“Nous le jurons!”—“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 receive it.5