The Sun.
London, England, 1856-12-06 00:00:00

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A CHAPTER OP CONTEMPORARY HISTORY.

THE BOULOGNII EAGLE;
There is good reason for sufipecting that Sir Ar-
chibald Alison) etiould the Fates spare him long
enough, is minded to bring down the history of Eu-
rope even to our own days and as he hes chronicled
the deeds of the first Napoleon with a longwinded-
ness which will be the terror of all posterity, lie is
doubtless collecting materials for the history of the
nephew, at least tip to the tiine of the coup c/ etat
of 1859. Now, it behoves all men to do whatever
in them lies to facilitate the work of the historian,
and to prevent him from falling into even minor
errors respecting, facts which, if incorrectly set
forth, damage the character for truth and impar-
tiality which ought to be considered by every his-
toriographer as the chief glory of his work, and of
which the interminable volumes of the illustrious
Sheriff offer so striking au example. These minutiae
are to the narrative of great events what correct
detail of costume is to an historical picture ; a
blunder destroys the charm. Not even a Rem-
brandt can make one feel interested in the sacrifice
of Isaac when he portrays Abraham as making
ready to slay his son with a pistol. With this ex-
planatory preface, the following true account of
the eagle which figured so conspicuously (in carica-
tures at least) connected with Louis Napoleon's
descent on Boulogne is offered as a contribution to
the future historian of that event.
Who does not remember the Colosseum in its
palmy days, when the view of Mont Blanc had not
yet been converted into a Mont Aoir by the soot ;
when the cascade of real water came tumbling down
from a mysterious height, and the Swiss chalet was
in all its glory, with its gallery overhanging the very
lake itself? Who does not remember the mysterious
" native " supposed to dwell in that chalet, clad in
a highly picturesque costume, partaking of the
character of the dustman out for a holiday and the
Tyrolese Peasant ? Was there not, moreover, the
garden seat used by Napoleon at Longwood—the
authenticity of which it was heresy to doubt, for the
" native" aforesaid vouched for it, to the perfect
conviction of enterprising travellers, who sat down
reverently upon it to consume ginger beer and stale
pastry, supplied from the interior of the chalet? To
attentive listeners the Tyrolean dustman was wont
to indulge in wsthetic descriptions of the scenery
before their eyes, winding up a discourse, in which
an heroic contempt for the ordinary employment
of v's, w's, and h's, marked the speaker's foreign
extraction and mountaineer independence—winding
up, as many readers will doubtless remember, by
pointing out a miserable eagle perched upon an
artificial rock on the opposite side of the lake, as
an emblem of the hero of Austerlitz wasting his life
on what the orator used to call " the hoshun rock
of Senterleener." The comparison was not flat-
tering to Napoleon, for a more wretched looking
individual than that same eagle was not easily to
be met with. There he sat on his brown paper
and canvas Alp, goggling, blinking, but otherwise
motionless, save when the flies in the summer, or
the rain at any season trickling along his back,
reminded him of his miserable captivity. At such
a time he looked the veriest scarecrow of an eagle
that could be devised. His tail, grown ragged by
constant friction on the artificial granite .surface
around him, was matted together with the wet and
dirt ; his head, become prematurely bald, shrunk
into his body ; and visitors of a sceptical turn of
mind drove the "hardy Switzer" wild by opinions,
openly expressed, that the bird of Jove, the living
allegory of Napoleon the Great, was only a stuffed
specimen. And yet, like men who have "bad
greatness thrust upon them," this miserable hermit
has achieved an historical status in the popular
mind, and nine persons out of ten will tell you
that Louis Napoleon carried the Colosseum eagle
with him, and used it as a sort of Palladium in his
expedition to Boulogne. Being in a position to
state the facts from the lips of one of the partici-
pators in that madcap exploit, it is a duty to the
public to depose the Colosseum eagle from his post
of honour, and to tell how much eagle there really
was in the Boulogne echaufoure, how it got there,
and what part it played.
On the sth August, 1840, the City of Edinburgh
steamer, having on board some fifty or sixty friends
of Prince Louis Napoleon, for whom it was char-
tered, dropped down the river and anchored off
Gravesend, where the Prince was to join. He was
to reach Gravesend by land, to avoid suspicion,
and to go on board in the dusk of the evening.
While the vessel was lying • off Gravesend waiting
for the Prince, Colonel Parquin, one of the party,
remembered that he had brought no cigars with
him, and proposed going .on shore to purchase
some. Theliu, the Prince's valet, being in want of
snuff, proposed to accompany him, and, taking one
of the ship's boats, they rowed on shore. On reach-
ing the lauding they found a boy standing there,
with an eagle attached to a chain, and Parquin,
like a poetic Frenchman, at once hailed the spec-
, tacle as of good omen, and forthwith offered to buy
the bird. After some haggling, the eagle, chain
and all, was purchased for ten shillings ; the chain
was wound round the bird to keep it still, and it
was laid in the boat. The cigars and snuff were
bought ; the boat returned to the steamer, from
which the whole scene was witnessed by the nar-
rator, and the trophy was exhibited. sow, the
bird was almost as wretched an animal as his brother
at the Colosseum—an eagle which did not look
as if be could stare at a candle, much less the sun,
without blinking. Some laughed, and some thought
with Col.Parquin that, after all, it was an eagle,and
therefore of good omen ' • and then, when each had
said his say, one of the sailors chained it to the
mast. By and by the Prince came on board ; more
serious matters occupied their minds ; and the eagle
was so utterly forgotten that no one even thought
of giving it food. The landing near Wimereux was
effected during the night, or rather in the grey of
the morning ; the whole affair was over in a few
hours, and the poor eagle was still chained to the
mast, where it was found Iby the authorities of
Boulogne, who seized the City of Edinburgh ; and
it was duly included in the proces verbal along with
the two carriages, ten horses, some twenty thou-
sand pOunds in money, and about a thousand mus-
kets. As the eagle had taken no part in the plot
his life was spared, and he was retained by the citi-
zens of Boulogne as their share of the spolia opima,
put at free quarters in the public abattoir, where,
until within the last few years, ho might have been
seen gorgin himself, like the most vulgar eagles,
with the refuse of slain cattle. What became of the
Colosseum eagle who has usurped in the popular
mind the honours of the real Simon Pure is not
accurately known. Some say he became reduced
to a state of perfect idiocy, an end to which
he appeared rapidly approaching long ago, and
that he was last heard of in Hering's Menagerie.
Others affirm that he gradually established a
chronic indigestion brought on by eating pieces of
his pasteboard rock, and so came to a miserable
death. But whatever may have been his fate, this
much is certain, that the apocryphal honours of the
Benlogne expedition are wrongly attributed to
him ; and that the presence of an eagle on hoard
the City of Edinburgh was probably oven unknown
to Louis Napoleon, and was due solely to the cir-
cumstance of Colonel Parquin having forgotten to
bring a supply of cigars from London. The other
version has had its day quite long enough. Cari-
catures and writers of political squibs have had
sixteen years' license, and it is therefore almost
time that the true story should be told, and that
Sir A. Alison, or the Stnollett who will " begin to
continue" hint, should have the facts from an au-
Ithentic source.—Daily News.