The Coronation, Napoleon first proposed, should take place in the Chapel of the Invalides, on the historic day of the 18th Brumaire (November 9). Directly after it he would proceed in Imperial State, wearing his crown and robes, to the Field of Mars—the Champ de Mars, in front of the Military School, a stone’s-throw away—there to administer the Military Oath of Allegiance to the Army and distribute the Eagles at a grand review to be attended by representative deputations from every regiment of the Army from all over the Empire, assembled in Paris for the occasion. It was found preferable, however, that the Coronation service should take place in the Cathedral of Notre Dame instead of at the Invalides; and at a later date. Still, however, Napoleon held to his first idea of proceeding direct from the Coronation ceremony to the Field of Mars. He insisted that the presentation of the Eagles should follow as a joint ceremony immediately after his own consecration service. But there was Josephine to be considered. She was to accompany Napoleon throughout. The Empress, for her part, on hearing what was intended, declared herself physically incapable of bearing the strain of the double ceremony, and, in the result, Napoleon changed his original purpose at the eleventh hour. He consented to put off the presentation of the Eagles until the following morning. That plan, in turn, had to be altered. On the very afternoon of the Coronation, on his return to the Tuileries from Notre Dame, Napoleon found himself compelled, in consequence of the Empress’s state of nervous prostration after the fatiguing Cathedral service, again to defer the ceremony of the presentation of the Eagles. The Emperor now fixed the following Wednesday, December 5, for the “Fête des Aigles,” as the Army spoke of it—three days from then. There was no further putting off after that.
The plans for the muster were drawn up on a grandiose and elaborate scale. They provided for an immense attendance under arms of, according to one account, eighty thousand men; to comprise the Imperial Guard, and the garrison of Paris, together with special detachments sent to Paris as representative deputations by every regiment and corps of the Army, from all over the Empire. Over a thousand Eagles altogether were to be presented: two hundred and eighty to cavalry regiments; six hundred odd to infantry, artillery, and special corps; between forty and fifty to the Navy (one for the crew of every ship of the Line in commission); besides a hundred and eight to the departmental legions of the National Guard, the constitutional militia of Revolutionary France, which Napoleon, for reasons of policy, could not pass over. Every infantry battalion and cavalry squadron, and brigade (or battery) of artillery was to have its Eagle.
Each infantry deputation, from both the Imperial Guard and the Line, would comprise the colonel or regimental commander, four other officers, and ten sous-officiers and men from each of the three battalions that at that period made up a French regiment of Foot. In all, in addition to the regiments of the Imperial Guard, one hundred and twelve regiments of the Line were to be represented, together with thirty-one of Light Infantry, twelve of Grenadiers, and one of foreign infantry. A deputation of fifteen officers and men was to represent each of the hundred and odd cavalry regiments of the Guard and Line; and smaller individual detachments would represent the various other arms and branches of the service appointed to receive Eagles. They would all pass before the Emperor and receive their Eagles from him personally, on behalf of their absent comrades, the six hundred thousand men who at that moment constituted the active field army of France. From every French ship of the Line in commission there would in like manner attend ten officers and men.
THE WHOLE ARMY REPRESENTED
From far and near the detachments of soldiers and sailors converged on the capital, marching some of them hundreds of miles from the most distant frontier garrisons of the Empire, and being several weeks on the road. The deputations of the First Army Corps, for instance, part of which was stationed in Hanover, set off early in October; some of its soldiers, quartered by the Elbe, and with from four to five hundred miles of road before them, started in the last week of September. The detachments from Italy and the Venetian frontier, for another instance, the deputations from the 1st of the Line, the 10th, the 52nd, and 101st of the Verona garrison, had over eight hundred miles to go, and started early in September. Quite an army, indeed, was on the move along the highways of France during October and November; all heading for Paris, marching by day and being billeted in the towns and villages by night. A huge series of detachments came from the camp of the “Army of the Ocean” at Boulogne assembled for the invasion of England. Marshal Soult, the Commander-in-Chief at Boulogne, with Marshals Davout and Ney, preceded them, Admiral Bruix, in charge of the Boulogne “Invasion Flotilla” of gunboats and transports, accompanying Soult. The troops in Holland; the garrisons of the Rhine fortresses, such as Mayence and Strasburg, and of Metz; that of Bayonne on the Spanish frontier; troops at every place of arms and cantonment and regimental dépôt all over France—all sent their deputations; also every outlying camp, every naval port along the coast, from the Texel and Antwerp, Brest, Rochfort, and L’Orient round to Toulon, in the south.
Orders were given in every case that the detachments were each to bring the existing regimental colours, which, it was understood, were to be given up on parade in exchange for the Eagles.
A roomy expanse of level ground several acres in extent, an oblong-shaped area nearly three-quarters of a mile in length and six hundred yards across, the Field of Mars offered an ideal place for a showy military spectacle. Thousands of people could look on comfortably at the display from the turfed slopes of the twenty-feet-high embankment which skirted the Field of Mars on three sides, and had been fitted up by the municipality with rows of seats in closely set tiers. As many as three hundred thousand spectators, indeed, could on occasion be accommodated there. The fourth side of the Champ de Mars was bounded by the façade of the Ecole Militaire—three great domed blocks of buildings connected together and affording a grand view of the scene for hundreds of privileged guests. The entire frontage of the Military School to the height of the first-floor windows was taken up for the Day of the Eagles parade by an immense grand-stand, constructed to form a series of pavilions for the accommodation of the great official personages invited; with, in the centre, in front of the lofty colonnaded portico, a magnificently decorated Imperial Pavilion, whence Napoleon and Josephine seated on their thrones would look on and receive the homage of the Army.
THE WEATHER ON THAT MORNING
The only thing that was unpropitious was the weather. It proved, as far as the weather went, an unfortunate change of date. The day of the Coronation, December 2—it was, by the way, Advent Sunday—had been cold and trying, with lowering clouds overhead, but dry. On the Monday, Napoleon’s second choice, it was much the same out of doors; and on the Tuesday the weather kept fair. Then, however, it changed. During Tuesday afternoon the glass began to go down ominously and a chilly wind from the south-east set in. Towards ten at night rain and sleet in incessant showers began to fall—typical Frimaire weather, in keeping with the character of the “sleety month.” “When it did not rain,” says somebody, “it snowed, and between whiles it rained and snowed at the same time.” That was what the weather was like when Wednesday morning broke; but in spite of it the Imperial programme was to be carried out in its entirety, and hundreds of thousands of intending spectators braved the discomfort and started early to get a good place for witnessing the historic display.
All Paris turned out early, prepared to sit out the day from eight in the morning until probably after four in the afternoon, packed in dense masses round the Champ de Mars.