“All regiments, further, of whatever denomination, if they did not receive the Eagle they are authorised to possess from the hand of the Emperor in person, either directly on parade, or through a regimental deputation, must return it to the Ministry of War for the will of his Majesty to be declared as to that Eagle.
“All other corps are to carry ‘fanions,’ ordinary flags. Infantry regiments reduced below 1,000 men in strength, and cavalry regiments of less than 500 men, cannot retain their Eagle, and must return it to the dépôt. They will be accorded a standard [drapeau] without the Eagle.
“All the infantry regiments now in possession of an Eagle per battalion, and cavalry with one per squadron, are to send the extra-regulation Eagles at once to Paris, to be kept [déposées] at the Invalides until they can be placed in the ‘Temple of Glory’ [the Church of the Madeleine, then being rebuilt].” “Jusqu’à ce qu’elles puissent être misées dans le Temple de la Gloire,” was what Napoleon wrote.
Three of the British trophy-Eagles now at Chelsea, it may be remarked in passing, bear the number “82.” They came into our hands in February 1809, at the surrender of Martinique to a conjoint British military and naval expedition. The 82nd was one of the regiments referred to as out of the way of direct inspection; in garrison across the Atlantic. It had not obeyed the order of 1808 to return its Second and Third Battalion Eagles to Paris—with the result that three Eagles at Chelsea represent the misfortune of this one regiment.
“The First Battalion,” ordered Napoleon in his decree of 1811, “is to carry the Eagle: the other battalions will have each a fanion, quite plain, as follows: 2nd Battalion, White; 3rd, Red; 4th, Blue. Where certain regiments may possess additional battalions, these are to have, the 5th a Green fanion, the 6th a Yellow fanion.”[21]
In 1813, in Napoleon’s conscript army levied to replace the host destroyed in Russia, the newly raised Line regiments, and “Provisional-Regiments,” made up of the amalgamated dépôt battalions of various corps, had to earn their Eagles on the battlefield. “No newly raised regiment,” ordered Napoleon, “is to receive an Eagle until after his Majesty has been satisfied with its service before the enemy.”
THE ONLY NAMES ALLOWED
The flags issued in 1808, and after that, to go with the Regimental Eagles, were much more elaborate than those of the Champ de Mars. They had white diamond-shaped centre panels, similar to those in the flags presented on the Field of Mars, but with Imperial crowns embroidered in gold on the red and blue upper corners of the flag, and golden Eagles on the lower corners. Gold embroidered wreaths of laurel, encircling the Imperial monogram “N.” divided off the crowns above from the Eagles below. A border of gold fringe round the entire flag, embroidered with bees, was another new enrichment. In these flags the regimental battle-honour inscriptions on the reverse side of the white centre space in the former flags appeared in a revised from. Only victories of importance since the institution of the Empire, and at which Napoleon had commanded in person, were admitted. Ulm, Austerlitz, Jena, Eylau, Friedland, Eckmühl, Essling, Wagram, constituted the full list from which selection was made. One regiment alone was allowed to record an earlier victory:—the Imperial Guard. They preserved their “Marengo” honour. Inscriptions such as “Le 75e arrive et bât l’ennemi,” “J’étais tranquille, le 32e était là,” and the others which had been allowed on the flags of the Field of Mars, recalling deeds of the Army of Italy, disappeared from the revised pattern of 1808. A new inscription was specially authorised for the flag of one regiment, in honour of a feat of great distinction during the Wagram campaign. The 84th of the Line was permitted to inscribe “Un contre dix—Grätz, 1809”—but that only lasted for three years; the inscription was ordered to be taken off in 1811.
The design of the flag introduced in 1808 held until 1814. A less elaborate design was adopted for the Eagle-standards of the “Hundred Days,” two specimens of which are in this country—the Waterloo trophies at Chelsea.
Attractive and handsome as the new flag was, the Army, as before, looked on it as but an appendage, as merely “l’ornement de l’Aigle.” The Eagle at the head of the staff, by itself, was all that nine soldiers out of ten troubled about. Not a few regiments, indeed, when on service, removed the flags altogether from their Eagle-poles and displayed as their standard the Eagle only. Particularly was this the case in Spain, where many regiments were in the field continuously, in some instances, for over six years—from 1808 to 1814. Asked one day after the Peninsular War about the inscription and battle-honours on the flag of his regiment, an infantry chef de bataillon frankly confessed that he had “never set eyes on it!” The silken flag, he explained, “had been removed from the Eagle-pole before he first joined as a lieutenant, and had always, as he understood, been kept at the dépôt of the corps in France, rolled up and locked away in the regimental chest. The Eagle on its bare pole was all he had ever seen.”