The second of these two Eagles is said to have been captured by the Blues, the Royal Horse Guards, and then lost in much the same way. “A private in the Blues,” records Wellington’s Supplemental Despatches, “killed a French officer and took an Eagle; but his own horse being killed, he could not keep it.” A French officer also mentions the taking of the Eagle by the Blues and its recovery.
About the time that the ill-fated 45th of the Line and the 105th lost their Eagles in front of Picton’s Division, another Eagle elsewhere had a narrow escape from capture, being saved by its colonel’s personal act. That took place in front of Hougoumont, with the Eagle of the 1st of the Line. The regiment was in Jerome Bonaparte’s Division in front of Hougoumont, and had made an attack on the outbuildings of the château, which the defenders had beaten off. At the last moment, as the French assault recoiled, the Eagle-bearer and his two fellows were shot down together. The battalion fell back, leaving the Eagle lying on the ground in the open, beside its dead guardians. For the moment, apparently, the British defenders did not see the trophy thus left within their reach. Before they did so Colonel Cubières, of the 1st of the Line, discovered its loss and saw where it had fallen. He ran out by himself, picked up the Eagle, and, escaping harm of any kind, carried it back to the regiment. According to M. Thiers, “the English officers checked the fire of their men while the deed was being performed, in admiration of his courage”—an interesting detail in the story if true!
The Last Attack and After: The Eagles of the Guard
THE EAGLES OF THE GUARD
In the third episode in the story of Waterloo we strike another note. How the Eagles of the Guard fared in the closing hour of the battle, when Napoleon staked his last desperate throw and lost—that final phase remains to tell.
Fourteen Eagles of the Guard were on the field. All came safely through the battle and survived the risks and perils of the night retreat that followed, to recross the frontier with the rallied remnants of the stricken host. Only three, however, are now in existence: one at the Invalides; the other two in private keeping in France. The remaining eleven were, some of them at any rate, destroyed by the officers on the final disbanding of the Grand Army, refusing to give them up to the emissaries of the Bourbon régime sent to receive them for conveyance to Vincennes, where as many as could be got hold of among the regimental Eagles underwent their fate by fire.
Five Eagles went forward in the great last-hope attack of the Guard against the centre of Wellington’s position, the overthrow of which cost Napoleon the battle. They were the Eagles of the 3rd and 4th Grenadiers of the Guard, and of three regiments of the Chasseurs of the Guard, the 1st, 3rd, and 4th. All five are among those that have disappeared since Waterloo.
Close beside the Eagle of the 3rd Grenadiers it was that Marshal Ney fought so heroically, as he led in person the historic grand attack of the Imperial Guard. His fifth horse was shot under Ney in the advance, and he then drew his sword and strode forward on foot alongside the Eagle-bearer. So he led until the column reeled back and broke under the sudden attack of the British Guards across the crest-line of the slope. At that moment Ney lost his footing, and fell in the confusion. “He disappeared,” says a French officer, “just at the moment that the Guard gave way. But he was up again in a moment, and with voice and gesture strove his hardest to rally them.” It was to no purpose. The great column wavered, swayed, and then fell apart in disorder. “Mitraillée, fusillée, reduit à quinze ou seize cent hommes, la Garde recule!” Ney was swept off his feet in the retreat, and borne backwards; carried away in the rush of the fugitives, struggling helplessly in the crowd. “Bathed in perspiration, his eyes blazing with indignation, foaming at the mouth, his uniform torn open, one of his epaulets cut away by a sabre-slash, his star of the Legion of Honour dented by a bullet, bleeding, muddy, heroic, holding a broken sword in his hand, he shouted to the men, ‘See how a Marshal of France dies on the battlefield!’ But it was in vain: he did not die.”
NEY’S LAST HEROIC EFFORT
Then Ney, mounting a trooper’s horse, made for a regiment near, whose men were falling back in fair order, with their Eagle borne defiantly in their midst—the 8th of the Line. With them was a battalion of the 95th, also displaying their Eagle gallantly as they, too, tried to withdraw in regular formation. Ney made them face about, and put himself at their head. He appealed to them in the words he had used just before, when trying to rally the Guard: “Suivez moi, camarades. Je vais vous montrer comment meurt un Maréchal de France sur le champ de bataille!” The men turned to face the enemy, with a shout of “Vive le Maréchal Ney!” They charged forward towards where some of the red-coats of Kempt’s and Pack’s infantry showed themselves in the van of the pursuers. But at the same instant some horsemen of a Prussian hussar regiment dashed at them at a gallop. The sight of the horsemen was too much for their shattered nerves. They turned their backs and ran off panic-stricken. Ney’s last rallied band broke and fled, with cries of “Sauve qui peut!”