The life of a war horse in Napoleon’s Grande Armée was hard, dangerous, and usually short. Nearly a quarter of a million French cavalry horses died on campaign between 1805 and 1815. Most of these were killed during his disastrous invasion of Russia in 1812.
Tens of thousands were shot directly by the enemy, as they were easier targets than riders. Others died through the absence of proper food, shoeing and veterinary care while on campaign. The Registry of Horses, kept by the Imperial Stables, Versailles, suggests that horses lasted only an average of four years in the general cavalry.
However, one of these horses has lived on in legend since the 1830’s – Napoleon’s favourite charger, ‘Marengo’.
A small, grey Egyptian Arabian stallion, Marengo was believed to have carried the Emperor Napoleon through every campaign, up to the Battle of Waterloo. In June 1815, the brave little stallion was captured alive by the English and put on display in Pall Mall, London.
But, there is one problem with the myth, since no ‘Marengo’ is listed in the meticulously kept French Registry. Jill, Duchess of Hamilton, suggests ‘Marengo’ was actually probably a stallion called L’Ayley or ‘Ali’. Napoleon gave favourite horses the pet names of successful past battles, such as ‘Marengo’, ‘Jaffa’, ‘Austerlitz’, ‘Wagram’, and so on. His own battle horses were also nearly all Arabs or Barbs, in shades of trout, slate, dark, dirty, pale, blotchy, dappled, spotted, light, dark grey with white spots, mouse, ash, mirror, mixed, white-grey and clear grey – nearly, but not quite, ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’!
On the left, Gericault depicts L’Ayley standing proudly, showing off his excellent conformation, tense nostrils, alert ears, bright expression in the eyes and strongly muscled loins. This is a horse brave enough to have survived five battle wounds, and who got to England still with a bullet in his tail.
On the right, in ‘Head of a White Horse’, a work of the imagination, but based on a little known print of L’Ayley by Vernet, he looks right into our eyes. Gericault even capturing the slight wrinkling of his nostrils as he makes a little breathy snort, as if to welcome us.
All his chargers were carefully trained, due to Napoleon’s riding style, which would have tested any sensitive horse to the limit. Unlike his fellow mounted officers, Napoleon only had a year of dressage lessons at the Military School in Paris from 1784 to 1785, and it was not enough to give him an independent seat. He rode by instinct, banging his bottom on the saddle and dangling his legs, wearing out his breeches and the backs of his horses.
As Phillipe Osche has written: “It is impossible to say that Napoleon loved his horses. He was interested in them, he liked to have good horses, but he seemed to have little feelings toward his comrades”.
In honesty, we may never know who the real Marengo was but, with L’Ayley, we are certain he belonged to Napoleon. He was beautiful enough to be painted by Gericault, France’s greatest artist of the Romantic period and the shadowy backgrounds in both works are consistent with the period 1812-15, when Gericault spent time drawing and painting the horses of the Imperial Stables, Versailles.
Incredibly, while Gericault died in 1824 from a riding accident, L’Ayley or ‘Marengo’ outlived his portraitist, surviving in retirement in England to a great age (38) and, after his death, his skeleton was donated to the state and is now at the National Army Museum in Chelsea, where it is one of the most loved objects on display.
Image credits:
Image 1: Theodore Gericault, Cheval Arab Gris-blanc, c. 1812 private collection. Image source: www.wikimedia.org.
Image 2: Theodore Gericault, Head of a White Horse, c. 1812-15. Image source: www.wikimedia.org.