The old pensioners of the Invalides manfully did their duty, and bore their part in the defence all day, as well as they were able. All who could carry a musket had gone out to the barriers; others did their best by helping to bring up ammunition. Most of them fought at the Barrière du Trône on the Vincennes road, assisting the brave lads of the Polytechnic School to hold the post and man a battery of eight-and-twenty cannon in front of the barrier; until a headlong charge of Russian cavalry, Pahlen’s dragoons with some Cossacks, swooped down from the flank, annihilating the devoted band of gunners. Those of the boys who were left, however, saved the school flag, presented to the Polytechnic just ten years before by the Emperor with his own hand, on the Day of the Eagles on the Field of Mars. With the Invalides’ veterans and some of the National Guards, the survivors held the barrier throughout the day to the end, beating back repeated attempts of the Russians to storm the gate. The lads, finally, after learning that Marmont had capitulated, made their way back to the school, and there burned their precious standard to save it from falling into the enemy’s hands. Those who were left of the veterans hastened back to the Invalides at the same time, overcome with anxiety to learn what was to happen to their own priceless treasures within the Hospital, the trophy flags. There were at the Invalides at that time, by one account, 1417 trophy flags; according to another account—which included apparently in the total the returned Battalion and Light Infantry and Cavalry Eagles—altogether 1,800 standards.
Within the walls of the Invalides all was deep gloom and hopeless despondency among those in charge. Even at nightfall, as it would appear, the authorities had not made up their minds how the trophies were to be disposed of.
It is a hapless and pitiful story from first to last. Some time previously, while the Allied armies were still being kept at bay on the plains of Champagne, the Governor of the Invalides, old Marshal Serrurier, a distinguished veteran of the Revolutionary Army, had applied to the Minister of War for instructions as to the disposal of the trophies at the Invalides in the event of the enemy advancing on Paris. The only answer he received was a formal letter to the effect that the matter would have to go before the Emperor. At that time Napoleon was in the midst of his last forlorn-hope attempt to stem the tide of invasion; in the midst of a life-and-death struggle, fighting desperately day after day at one place or another. The Ministry of War apparently pigeon-holed the application after that, and forgot all about the trophies at the Invalides until the actual day of the attack on Paris—until that Wednesday forenoon.
FORGOTTEN UNTIL TOO LATE
Then, when already Marmont’s outer line of defence had been forced, and the last fight for the inner heights overlooking the city was raging furiously, almost within sight from the Invalides, a letter from the War Minister was handed to Serrurier. It “trusted that the Marshal had taken steps for the safety of the trophies; especially for the preservation of Frederick the Great’s sword. The flags,” continued the letter, “had best be detached from their staves, and rolled up carefully. The War Minister is sure that your Excellency will do all that is possible. The road to the Loire is open.” Such were the instructions sent to the Invalides after the eleventh hour! Then, during the afternoon, when the enemy’s bombshells, fired from the plateau of Chaumont, were falling in the heart of the city, a single artillery wagon, or fourgon, a vehicle barely large enough to remove a small percentage of what there was to carry away, drew up at the main gates of the Invalides. It brought also ten more trophy flags, collected from somewhere in Paris. In the general confusion nobody, it would seem, even inquired what they were or where they came from. The driver’s instructions were merely that “they were to go away with the Invalides trophies.” The ten flags were taken out and stacked in a corridor for the time being, while the fourgon waited unheeded at the gate until after dark.
What steps Marshal Serrurier took during the afternoon to secure adequate transport is unknown; or, indeed, what he did with himself all that time. The Governor was seen just before the dinner-hour in the Corridor d’Avignon, in an out-of-the-way part of the building, in conference with the Lieutenant-Governor and an adjutant-major. Another officer, Adjutant Vollerand, was with them, holding in his hands Frederick the Great’s sword and sash. Apparently they did not want to be observed, and were discussing how to hide the relics or bury them within the precincts of the Invalides. After that nothing more was seen of Serrurier at the Invalides until between nine and ten at night, some hours after the Capitulation, and when it had become known that the Allies intended to occupy Paris in force, and that their troops would enter and take possession of the city early next morning. Then the Governor reappeared.
A few minutes after nine o’clock the veterans of the Invalides, who had been restlessly pacing about the halls and corridors during the evening, or standing about in dejected groups in the courtyards, not knowing what they were to do, were suddenly summoned to muster at once in the Grand Court, or Cour d’Honneur. All turned out from the wards and paraded, forming up by the light of lanterns. All but those who were bedridden were brought out, the maimed and cripples being led out, or hobbling out on their crutches, together with the survivors of those who had fought so gallantly at the barriers during the day, their faces still begrimed with powder-smoke, their clothes torn and stained, some without their hats, their arms in slings, or with bandages over recent wounds. Then the tall, spare figure of the Governor, a grim, hard-featured old warrior, white-haired, over seventy years of age, was seen emerging from his quarters, with the senior staff-officers of the Hospital following in rear. Serrurier harangued the pensioners briefly. He told them that the enemy would enter the city next day and would present themselves at the Invalides to enforce the giving up of the trophies. What did the men of the Invalides desire should be done?
“LET US BURN THEM HERE!”
There was a pause for a moment; a dead silence, as the old soldiers gazed dumbfoundedly at one another. Then one man stepped out to the front and spoke up for the rest. A battle-scarred old sergeant-pensioner of the Grenadiers of the Old Guard answered the Governor on behalf of his comrades, his reply, greeted as it was by vociferous shouts of approval on every side, voicing the unanimous wish of the veterans. “If they will not let us keep our banners, let us burn them here! We will swallow the ashes!” The order to make a bonfire of the trophies then and there was issued forthwith.
Anything that came to hand for fuel was eagerly seized, and a great pile speedily made of broken-up stools and mess-tables and forms, hauled out from the barrack-rooms withindoors. They were stacked in a heap just in front of the pedestal on which it had been intended to erect an equestrian statue of the heroic Marshal Lannes, who died from his wounds at Aspern in the arms of Napoleon. Meanwhile, parties of men ran inside with ladders, and set to work to strip the dining-halls and the Chapel of the rows of flags hanging up there. They bore them outside, roughly bundled together in their arms; some, silently, with frowning, stern-set faces and set teeth; others beside themselves with rage, and cursing savagely aloud; others sullenly muttering oaths; not a few of the old fellows with tears streaming down their cheeks. They carried the trophies out and heaped them up into an immense funeral pyre. The battalion and other Eagles shared the fate of the captured trophies—standards, some of these, that had been borne under fire in the thick of triumphant battle at Austerlitz, and Jena, at Auerstadt and Friedland—to save them on the morrow from falling into the hands of those in whose defeat and humiliation they had had their part. The fire was lighted and the masses of tattered silk blazed up furiously. When the flames were at their fiercest, Marshal Serrurier stepped forward and with his own hand flung into the midst of the fiery mass the sword of Frederick the Great.