MARSHAL DAVOUT IN BERLIN
Davout’s corps, as Napoleon had promised, marched through the Prussian capital first of all. The marshal was waited on as he entered by the Burgomeister and civic authorities, humbly bowing before him, and offering in token of submission the keys of Berlin. The offer, however, was declined. “You must present them later,” was the reply; “they belong to a greater than I!” After marching through Berlin, Davout camped a mile beyond the city, posting his artillery “in position as for war, pointed towards the place as in readiness to bombard it.” The soldiers were then allowed to go about Berlin in parties. They behaved very quietly, and made eager sightseers, we are told. The shops, which had been closed during the march through, reopened later, and the people went about the streets as usual, “mortified and subdued in demeanour, but apparently very curious to see what they could of the French officers.”
Augereau’s corps, and then those of Soult, Bernadotte, and Ney made their triumphal entry and march through Berlin in turn, on different days later on, bands playing and Eagles displayed at the head of the regiments—the people turning out on each occasion in crowds to line the streets and gaze at the show, “expressing great surprise at the small size of our men and the youth of most of the officers.” Marshal Ney’s corps brought with them their fifty-nine trophies from Magdeburg, and, after parading them through the streets of Berlin, ceremoniously presented them to Napoleon in public, in front of the statue of Frederick the Great.
Napoleon himself made his triumphal entry into Berlin on October 28, three days after Davout’s march through. He rode from Charlottenburg through the Brandenburg Gate and along Unter-den-Linden to the Royal Palace, at the head of the Old Guard and six thousand cuirassiers in gleaming mail. Squadrons of Gendarmerie d’Elite and Chasseurs of the Guard and the Horse Grenadiers, in their huge bear-skins, led the long procession, all in grande tenue, with their bands playing and the Eagles glittering in the brilliant sunshine of a perfect autumn day.
Napoleon came next, “riding by himself, twenty paces in front of the staff, with impassive face and a stern expression,” passing amid dense silent crowds, “the men all wearing black, as in mourning; the women mostly with handkerchiefs to their eyes.” The people lined both sides of the roadway, and filled the windows of all the houses overlooking the route. All Berlin, young and old, was in the streets that day, staring at the spectacle in mute silence, looking on dumbly, pale-faced and miserable of aspect. Not a mutter of abuse was heard, not the least sign was apparent of the deadly hatred to their conqueror that one and all felt. With rage and despair in their hearts, with compressed lips and clenched fists at their sides, the men watched the splendid array sweep proudly past them in all the insolent pomp of victorious war.
NAPOLEON RIDES THROUGH
For once, on that historic occasion, Napoleon discarded his customary wear of the green undress uniform of his pet corps, the Chasseurs of the Guard. He entered Berlin as the head of a conquering army, wearing the full-dress uniform of a French general, crimson plumed cocked hat with blue and white aigrette, blue coat heavily embroidered with gold, and with glittering bullion epaulettes, and the blue and gold sash of a general round his waist. Four marshals, Berthier, Lannes, Davout, and Augereau, riding abreast, followed Napoleon, immediately in front of the Imperial Staff, a cavalcade of a hundred and more brilliantly decorated officers, all in their most gorgeous parade uniforms, in celebration of the day. The keys of the city were presented to the conqueror, and accepted by him, as Napoleon passed through the Brandenburg Gate. Ten thousand infantry of the Old Guard, in a vast solid column of glistening bayonets, marched, twenty abreast, in rear of the staff. Their famous band playing triumphantly, with the Eagle of the Grenadiers of the Old Guard above its flag of crimson silk and gold, heading the veterans. They also were all in the full-dress uniform they wore on gala-day parades before the Tuileries. By Napoleon’s special order, the Old Guard on all campaigns carried in their knapsacks their full-dress uniform, specially for donning on occasions such as that at Berlin.
But the cup of humiliation for the miserable citizens of the Prussian capital was not yet full. They had yet another military spectacle with a significance of its own to witness; one the deep humiliation of which they felt more bitterly even than Napoleon’s triumphant ride in person through their streets. The citizens of Berlin had to look on their own officers of the Royal Prussian Guard being led in procession through their midst under the armed escort of Napoleon’s grenadiers. That was Napoleon’s way of settling accounts for that August night of wanton insult to France, for the sharpening of the sword-blades on the steps of the French Embassy.
THE PRISONERS FARMED OUT
Nor, too, did Napoleon spare the Prussian prisoners of the rank and file. Writing from Berlin to the Minister of the Interior in Paris, he gave directions that the Prussian captives should be made use of as hewers of wood and drawers of water for their conquerors. They were to be farmed out to municipalities and district councils in the Departments. “Their services should be turned to account at a trifling expense in the way of wages for the benefit of our manufacturers and cultivators and replace our conscripts called to serve in the ranks of the Grand Army.”