This display was repeated in 1810 on the occasion of his marriage with Marie Louise; this time, however, the topmost feature was the Temple of Hymen, with figures of Napoleon and his bride.
Other displays were given on the bridge of Louis XVI, which appears to have been a popular position for such exhibitions, in 1800, 1804, 1806, 1820, and 1821. Another site frequently used for displays was the garden of the Senate, where Ruggieri fired displays in the years 1801, 1806 (twice), and 1807.
Fireworks continued to be a national institution in France, irrespective of the form of government. Louis Napoleon, like his uncle, being fond of fireworks, or it may be, considering them a good means of gaining popularity, made any public event an excuse for pyrotechnic displays. Notable occasions were the Military Fetes, 1852, the Fete of the Emperor, 1853, the visit of Queen Victoria to the Paris Exhibition of 1855, in honour of which a most elaborate display was given at Versailles, the Baptismal Fetes in 1856, the triumphal entry and the Emperor’s birthday, 1859, and the visit of the King Consort of Spain in 1864.
The Entente Cordiale movement in 1868 was responsible for displays in the Fleets on both sides of the Channel, those in France taking place in Cherbourg, those in England at Spithead.
A previous event which had been celebrated pyrotechnically on a large scale in both countries was the Peace Rejoicing at the conclusion of the Crimean War.
This occasion was marked in London by four displays of fireworks on a scale hitherto unprecedented. The sites chosen were Hyde Park, Green Park, Primrose Hill, and Victoria Park. They were arranged thus with the very sensible idea of splitting the crowds of sightseers into sections and thus preventing dangerous crowding to one spot. The fireworks were prepared for these displays in Woolwich Arsenal, under the direction of Mr. Southby, the pyrotechnist of the Surrey Gardens, who went there for this event.
The programmes of these displays were precisely similar, with the exception of that at Primrose Hill, which consisted mainly of aerial fireworks.
Tyrrell, in his “History of the War with Russia,” gives the following account of the display in Green Park: “At the appointed signal there was a continuous discharge of maroons, accompanied by brilliant illuminations with white, red, green, and yellow fires.... Then for two hours followed every conceivable design of elegant and dazzling pyrotechnic art. Flights of rockets a hundred at a time; revolving wheels, sun star and golden streamers, and fiery serpents chasing each other through the air. Gerbs, Roman candles, tourbillions, shells, and fixed pieces of the most fantastic designs and brilliant hues. The eyes were dazzled by the intensity of the light.... It was strange to believe that so fierce and ungovernable an element as fire could be rendered so delicately obedient to the will of man.... The triumph, however, of the entertainment was reserved for the close of it. This was a tremendous bombardment, during which the air was constantly filled with flights of rockets, and was intended as a representation of the last grand attack upon Sebastopol—the blowing up of the magazines and works, and general conflagration.
“As an introduction to this there were five fixed pieces, all of complicated construction, the centre being an enormous one which, amid all its fantastic blazing and revolving, exhibited the words ‘God Save the Queen.’ Language fails to convey a vivid idea of the deafening, roaring, crashing and grand appearance of the termination, during which the proud fortifications of Sebastopol were supposed to succumb. Then rose up into the blackness, rapidly one after another, six flights of rockets, comprising altogether no less than ten thousand of these beautiful and brilliant instruments.... It was such a spectacle as man could not reasonably expect to witness more than once in a lifetime.”
This account appears to be somewhat highly coloured, as the official programme makes no reference to the fall of Sebastopol, but it is evident from it that the writer was greatly impressed with the display, and contemporary prints indicate that he was voicing popular opinion.