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 The tricolor, under which every battle of France had been fought from Jemmapes to Montmartre, was superseded by the white flag of the House of Bourbon, under which no living soldier had marched to victory....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.

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.”

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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.

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!”

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.”

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