And yet, well might the haughty Bourbon prince so express himself. In defence of his house, there died beneath the golden lilies, in camp and breach and field, nearly 500,000 of Ireland’s daring manhood. It is no wonder that with those heroes departed much of her warlike spirit and springing courage. Her “wild geese,” as she fondly called them, will never fly again to her bosom across the waves that aided their flight to exile and to glory. The cannon of all Europe pealed above their gory graves, on many a stricken field, the soldier’s requiem.
“They fought as they reveled, fast, fiery, and true,
And, tho’ victors, they left on the field not a few;
And they who survived fought and drank as of yore,
But the land of their hearts’ hope they saw nevermore:
For, in far foreign fields, from Dunkirk to Belgrade,
Lie the soldiers and chiefs of the Irish Brigade!”
Its successor in the French army was the Irish Legion, composed in the main of refugees who had participated in the “rebellion” of 1798 and the “rising” of 1803. This fine body of soldiers was organized by Napoleon himself, wore a distinctively Irish uniform of green and gold, and carried French and Irish colors. To it, also, was intrusted an eagle—the only foreign force that was so honored by the greatest of generals. The Legion fought for the Emperor, with splendid fidelity, from 1805 to 1815, participating in most of the great battles of that warlike period.
It was naturally expected that Louis XVIII, on his final restoration to the throne, would revive the old Irish Brigade, so highly praised by him, when Comte de Provence, in 1792, but he was under too many obligations to England, and, in fact, his treaty with that power, after the second exile of Napoleon, made it obligatory on him not to accept an Irish military contingent under any consideration. His acquiescence in this ignoble compact makes more emphatic the venerable adage, “Put not your trust in Princes.”