"I was a drummer there. I remember there were but two thousand of the six thousand in the division that answered roll call that day."
"I carried that Eagle into Moscow," said a scarred, one-armed veteran. "I would have carried it back, but I was wounded at Malojaroslavets and would have died but for you, my friend."
"And I carried it across the Niemen after that retreat was over," returned the other, acknowledging the generous tribute of his old fellow soldier.
"Sacre-bleu! How cold it was. Not many of you can remember that march because so few survived it. The battalions in Spain can thank God they escaped it," said another.
"It was hot enough there, and those English gave us plenty of fighting," added one of the veterans who had fought against Wellington.
"Aye, that they did, I'll warrant," continued the veteran of Russia. "The Emperor who marched on foot with the rest of us. Before crossing the Beresina—I shudder to think of the thousands drowned then. I dream about it sometimes at night—we were ordered to break up the Eagles and throw them into the river."
"And did you?"
"Not I. That is the only order I disobeyed. I carried it with me, wrapped in my own clothes. One night my fingers froze to it. See!" He lifted his maimed hands. "But I held on. I crossed the Nieman before Marshal Ney. He threw away his musket, but I kept the Eagle. He was the last man, I was just before him," said the man proudly.
"It was Marteau who saved it at Leipsic," said Lestoype, "and again after he had hurled it into the Aube at Arcis he found it and brought it back. And it is here."
Tears glistened in the eyes of the veterans and the youth alike. Hearts beat more rapidly, breaths came quicker, as these brave and fragmentary reminiscences of the part the Eagle had played in past glories were recited.