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.
NO MORE REGIMENTAL NUMBERS
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]
AT THE HEAD OF THE “ELBA GUARD”
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.
“LET ANY WHO WISHES—FIRE!”
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.