A description of the costly and curious military carriage of the late Emperor of France: taken on the evening of the battle of Waterloo; with its superb and curious contents, as purchased by government, and now exhibiting at the London Museum, Piccadilly; with the circumstances of the capture, accurately described, by Major Baron von Keller, by whom it was taken and brought to England
London: printed for William Bullock, 1816
8460.d.123(2), title page

The exhibition of the carriage in the London Museum in 1816 is a salient example of the commodification of Waterloo as an entertainment in the years immediately following the battle. The pamphlet issued by William Bullock to publicize the display laid great store by the associative power of the vehicle, which had been built ‘to convey the Ruler of France from his capital, through countries which lay prostrate before his power; and to bear him into the very heart of an empire, the expansive dimensions of which include a mighty portion of Europe and of Asia. Within this carriage were to be adjusted all the ulterior operations, by which so large a portion of the habitable globe was to be placed in the vassalage of France.’ Since the ‘interest which the human mind takes in any subject, is proportioned to the varieties of thought to which it gives rise’, it followed that ‘the energy of those feelings that must be involved in regarding this object, surpass those which could be excited by almost any other upon earth.’

The carriage was exhibited together with the four surviving horses which drew it (‘stout Normans, dark brown colour, and are very fleet and hardy’), and a selection of the vehicle’s contents, including a lavish toilette, or dressing box, the front of which bore ‘the marks of violence by which it was opened with an axe by the Prussian soldiers’; Napoleon’s own cross of the Legion of Honour, which had been found in a gold tea caddie in the toilette; and a ‘sandwich service’ with ‘the remains of the breakfast of which the Ex-Emperor partook on the morning of the battle… exactly as left by him.’ Even the coachman was exhibited, the twenty-eight year old Jean Hornn, originally from Bergen-op-Zoom in Holland, ‘a young man of interesting appearance, and unassuming manners’, who, the pamphlet said, ‘attends with the carriage every day.’ The pamphlet printed an affidavit sworn by Hornn before the Lord Mayor of London in March 1816, giving an account of his career in Napoleon’s service, his wounding by the Prussians, and the subsequent amputation of his arm, and authenticating the exhibits displayed in the museum as being ‘the same Carriage, Horses, Necessaire, and other Articles which belonged to the late Emperor of France, and were personally used by him’.

Bullock’s pamphlet claimed that Hornn’s account of the capture of the carriage ‘concurs so nearly with that which is given in the preceding part of this Publication’ (i.e., von Keller’s narrative involving the narrow escape of Napoleon), ‘that it appears unnecessary to transcribe it here.’ There is, however, an interesting discrepancy between von Keller’s version and the story told by Hornn as it is reported in volume II of The autobiography of William Jerdan (1852): ‘His master, he stated, had not been in the carriage for some hours before it was taken; but had passed it on horseback about ten minutes before, giving orders that it should follow him—Sauve qui peut’.