It may have been that Napoleon desired that the standards of the Consulate and the Eagles of the Empire should be displayed together on that day. None knew better than he the deep attachment of the older men in the ranks for their former battle-flags. Some of the old soldiers, indeed, even there on the Field of Mars, as we are told, were unable to restrain their feelings at the idea of having to part that day from their old colours. “More than one tear was shed,” relates an officer, “amidst all the cheering and shouts of ‘Vive l’Empereur!’” Enthusiastically as most of the soldiers might welcome the new Eagles in the presence of the Emperor, all did not desire to part with colours which had led through the battle-smoke on many a victorious field of the past, even in exchange for the glittering “Cou-cous,” as barrack-room slang had already dubbed Napoleon’s Eagles, giving them in advance a soldier’s nickname that stuck to them as long as the Army of the Empire lasted.
Both sets of standards were carried in the march past, which proceeded without incident to a certain point.
It was an effective display of the lusty manhood of France, of the pick of the Grand Army in its prime; not yet made chair au canon to gratify the ambition of one man. A curious commingling, too, of fighting costumes did the review present for the general spectators; those of yesterday side by side with those of the coming time. Three-fourths of the soldiers went by wearing the stiff Republican garb of the expiring régime, as adopted hastily at the outset of the Revolution: the long-skirted coat, cut after the old Royal Army fashion, but blue in colour instead of white, and with white lapels and turn-backs; long-flapped white waistcoats, white breeches, and high black-cloth gaiters above the knee, such as their ancestors had worn in the days of Marshal Saxe; the old-style big cocked hat, worn cross-wise, or “en bataille,” as the soldiers called it, with a flaunting tricolor cockade in front. The new Napoleonic style was represented by the Imperial Guard and Oudinot’s Grenadier Division from Arras and the Light Infantry battalions, whose turn out in smartly cut coatees faced with red and green, with the tall broad-topped shakos pictures of the time make us familiar with as the normal presentment of the soldiers of the Empire, attracted special attention.[6]
During the March Past, Frimaire suddenly reasserted itself, and brought about the regrettable incident that was to wind up the day.
The parade was three parts through, when, all of a sudden, a tremendous downpour of cold rain set in, discomfiting and scattering all who were looking on. With the drenching effect of a shower-bath the rain commenced to pour down in torrents, causing an immediate stampede among the general public. The rearmost columns of the soldiers had to pass before empty benches, tramping along stolidly through the mud, “splashing ankle-deep through a sea of mud,” as an officer put it.
THE SPECTATORS DISAPPEAR
The spectators one and all disappeared. The immense crowd of sightseers left the benches on the embankment round the Champ de Mars, and fled home en masse. The seat-holders on the open stands in front of the Ecole Militaire scurried off in like manner. The occupants of the pavilions and galleries, half drowned by the water that streamed down on them through the awnings, quitted their places in haste to seek shelter within the building. The downpour saturated the canopy of the Imperial Pavilion and dripped through. It compelled Josephine to get up from her throne and hurry indoors. The Princesses promptly followed the Empress’s example, all except one—Napoleon’s youngest sister, Caroline Murat. Caroline sat the March Past out to the end, together, of course, with Napoleon himself and the Marshals, and those Court officials who had to stay where they were. Soaked through, she smilingly remarked that she was “accustoming herself to endure the inconveniences inseparable from a throne!”
Then, at the close of the review, came the contretemps.
After the last Eagle had gone past the throne, when Napoleon had left on his way back to the Tuileries, as the troops were moving off the ground to return to their quarters, unanticipated trouble suddenly arose in connection with the old flags. What happened may best, perhaps, be described in the words of an eye-witness, a General present on the Field of Mars, Baron Thiébault:
“Immediately after the Emperor had gone and the seats all round were empty, finding it tiresome to be loaded with the double set of standards, all the more so, no doubt, as it was raining, the standard-bearers apparently could think of nothing better than to rid themselves of the superseded flags. They began everywhere to throw them down, that is, to drop them where they stood in the mud. There they were trampled under foot by the soldiers as they passed along on their way back to quarters.”