The remnant of the Waterloo army, as mustered and officially reported to Paris on July 1, 1815, after it had been withdrawn by convention with the Allies beyond the Loire, numbered some 23,000 of all arms.46 The soldiers had their Eagles with them. The Eagles were still the standards of the army, although all was over with Napoleon, and he had set out on his flight from Malmaison to the coast near Rochfort—to find the Bellerophon awaiting him there.

The last occasion on which an Eagle of Napoleon’s Army had its part on parade was one day, near the Loire, with a regiment not at Waterloo. It was when the news of Napoleon’s abdication reached its colonel. He was Colonel Bugeaud of the 14th of the Line, in after years the famous Marshal who gained Algeria for France. As it happened, the 14th had not long received their Eagle from the “Champ de Mai.” It had been brought by the deputation of the regiment sent to Paris to receive it at the hands of the Emperor, but had not yet been formally presented on parade, owing to the regiment being on the march from the south-eastern frontier of France. The 14th joined the rallied remnants of the Waterloo army to the south of the Loire, and there Colonel Bugeaud made the presentation of the Eagle. For the occasion he made use of the Napoleonic formula of address at such ceremonies, but with a variation to suit the altered situation. He took the opportunity to remind the regiment that, if the Chief had fallen, they yet owed allegiance to their country. “Soldiers of the 14th,” began the colonel, “here is your Eagle. It is in the name of the nation that I present it to you. If the Emperor, as it is stated, is no longer our Sovereign, France remains. It is France who confides this Eagle to you as your standard; it is ever to be your talisman of victory. Swear that as long as a soldier of the 14th exists no enemy’s hand shall touch it!” “We swear it!” responded the soldiers all together, and then the officers stepped forward in front of the ranks, waving their swords and again shouting, “We swear it!”

The end for the Eagles of Napoleon came on August 3, 1815. On that day the Ministerial decree was promulgated, abolishing them and the tricolor flag, and disbanding the entire Army. The white Bourbon flag was restored once more, with a new form of Army organisation, which substituted “Departmental Legions” in the place of regiments. As in the year before, it was notified that all Eagles were to be sent to the Artillery dépôt at Vincennes for destruction there, according to law—the metal of the Eagles to be melted down, their silken tricolor flags to be burned.

The date of the final disbandment was fixed for September 30, and in almost every case there was a pathetic scene when the hour came for the soldiers to take their last farewell of their Eagles. “On the day of the disbandment,” describes one officer, speaking of his own regiment, “we all paraded, and the roll was called for the last time. Then the Eagle was passed solemnly down along the line, the band playing a funeral march. The officers and soldiers, all in tears, after saluting it, embraced and kissed the Eagle. It was then escorted back to the colonel’s quarters to be packed up in a box and forwarded, according to the official instructions, by carrier to the Ministry of War, thence to go to Vincennes.”

In a few cases, where the senior officers knew that they had nothing to hope for in the way of consideration from the new régime, the Eagles were publicly broken up at the last parade by the colonels themselves, with a blacksmith’s hammer or pioneer’s hatchet, and the silken tricolor flags cut to pieces, after which the metal fragments, together with the shreds of the flags, were distributed as keepsakes among officers and men. That being done, all silently dispersed, never to reassemble. In some other cases, as had happened a twelvemonth previously, the Eagles disappeared before the last parade—the officers in the various regiments having arranged for one of themselves to retain the Eagle of the corps privately, either by agreement or after drawing lots.

It was in this way that what Napoleonic Eagles and flags are now at the Invalides came to be there. They were kept hidden by their possessors until after the Revolution of July, 1830, and then, on the formation of the present collection of standards and trophies being officially sanctioned, most of those at present exhibited were brought to light and presented, either by those who had been treasuring them in secret, or by their heirs and families.

Three Waterloo Eagles are at the Invalides: those of the 2nd Grenadiers of the Guard, and of the 25th and 26th of the Line; these last two of the regiments in the columns charged by the Scots Greys and the Royals. In addition to the Eagles, there are at the Invalides several standards that saw service on the battlefield under Napoleon and survived the vicissitudes of war: seven flags of infantry, and as many of artillery, one cuirassier standard, and five other cavalry standards. Most of these originally bore Eagles on their staves, but those Eagles are now wanting.47