We come now to the dramatic sequel to Austerlitz which awaited the ill-fated First Battalion of the 4th of the Line. They had to face Napoleon and render account to him personally for the loss of their Eagle. The dreaded interview came some three weeks later; at a grand parade of Soult’s corps before the Emperor at Schönbrunn—as it befell, on Christmas Day.
Napoleon, attended by the Imperial Staff, most of the marshals, half a hundred other officers of rank, and nearly as many aides de camp, passed down the long line of troops, congratulating most of the regiments on the parts they had individually taken on the different battlefields. In due course the Emperor came to the regiments of Vandamme’s division, ranged in their allotted place, the 4th of the Line among them. Its First Battalion, reduced by the disaster to a quarter of the normal strength, stood at the head of the regiment, looking gloomy and disconsolate, the only corps on parade without its Eagle.
Napoleon approached the place with a frown on his face and a look as black as thunder. He reined up opposite the battalion and addressed it in a loud angry tone.
“Soldiers,” he began hoarsely. “What have you done with the Eagle which I entrusted to you?”
The colonel of the regiment replied that the Eagle-bearer had been killed at Austerlitz in the mêlée when the Russian cuirassiers charged the regiment, and the Eagle had been lost in the tumult and confusion of the moment. There was no survivor of those who had seen the Eagle-bearer fall. The battalion, indeed, did not know of its loss until some time later. One and all deeply deplored what had happened, but they desired to inform His Majesty most respectfully that they, single-handed, had captured two Austrian standards, and implored his consideration on that account, begging that he would allow them to receive a new Eagle in exchange.
The whole regiment supported the colonel’s request with loud shouts, “réclama à grands cris.” But Napoleon’s countenance remained unchanged.
SCATHING CENSURE AND BITTER SCORN
He replied coldly and contemptuously: “These two foreign flags do not return me my Eagle!” Then, after a pause, he launched out into words of the severest censure and rebuke, telling the men that he had seen them with his own eyes in flight at Austerlitz. He poured bitter scorn on their conduct, “in phrases, stinging, burning, corrosive, which those present remembered long afterwards—to the end of their lives.”
Again the unhappy colonel pleaded his hardest for his men. He entreated the Emperor’s clemency, once more beseeching Napoleon to allow that they had wiped out the slur on their good name, and to grant the battalion a new Eagle.
Napoleon said nothing for a moment. Then he again addressed them in an abrupt tone: