eagles you bore at Ulm, at Austerlitz, at Jena, at Eylau, at Wagram,
at Friedland, at Tudela, at Eckmuhl, at Essling, at Smolensko, at
Moscow, at Lutzen, at Wurtchen, at Montmirail. Think you that handful
of Frenchmen, now so arrogant, can support their sight? They will
return whence they came; and there, if they please, they may reign, as
they pretend to have reigned for nineteen years.

Your property, your rank, your glory--the property, the rank, the
glory of your children--have no greater enemies than those princes,
who have been imposed on us by foreigners. They are the enemies of our
glory; since the recital of so many glorious actions, which have
rendered illustrious the French people, fighting against them to
emancipate themselves from their yoke, is their condemnation.

The veterans of the armies of the Sambre and Meuse, of the Rhine, of
Italy, of Egypt, of the west, of the grand army, are humiliated; their
honourable scars are disgraced; their successes would be crimes, the
valiant would be rebels, if, as the enemies of the people assert,
legitimate sovereigns were among the foreign armies. Their honours,
rewards, affections, are for those who have served them, against us
and against our country.

Soldiers, come and arrange yourselves under the standards of your
chief: his existence consists only of yours; his rights are only those
of the people and of you; his interest, his honour, his glory, are no
other than your glory. Victory will march forward with the charge
step: the eagle, with the national colours, will fly from steeple to
steeple till it reaches the towers of Notre Dame. You may then display
your scars with honour, you may then boast of what you have done: you
will be the deliverers of your country.

In your old age, surrounded and respected by your fellow citizens,
they will listen with veneration to the recital of your noble deeds:
you may proudly say, I too was in that grand army which twice entered
the walls of Vienna, and those of Rome, of Berlin, of Madrid, and of
Moscow, and which cleansed Paris from the stain inflicted on it by
treason and the presence of the enemy. Honour to those brave soldiers,
the glory of their country! and eternal shame to those guilty
Frenchmen, in whatever rank it was their fortune to be born, who
fought for five and twenty years in company with foreigners, to wound
the bosom of their country.

Signed, NAPOLEON.

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