Some French armorers who received commissions from Napoleon’s War Department resumed their duties in Belgium after the fall of the Empire. The early Belgian cavalry re-used First Empire equipment and its facsimiles, and it is often difficult to distinguish late First Empire from early Belgian pieces. Doctored Belgian Model 1832 ensembles have been passed off as First Empire pieces, and only collectors who are familiar with the heavy gauge, armorer’s marks and chain-leather fastenings distinctive of Belgian armor would be able to tell pieces apart.

A new cuirass pattern (extremely similar to the Model 1812) without multiple brass rivets on the border went into production 10 years after Napoleon’s fall (the Model 1825 pattern). The Model 1825 was subsequently brought into use by the cavalry of Napoleon III and was successfully used in the Crimean War (1853–56).

By that time, Napoleon III was already experiencing folies de grandeur. He decreed a new set up of cuirass patterns, the “heroic” patterns of 1854 and 1855. The ensembles, which were introduced in 1854 and 1855, had a conspicuous “waspish” appearance. This was when the sought-after ensemble of the Cuirassiers de la Garde Imperiale came into being (a fine example sold for $5,575 on eBay in September 2007).

Model 1854 and Model 1855 ensembles were worn in the war that brought Imperial France to grief, the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71. The Franco-Prussian War signaled the death knell of all Bonapartist and Imperial aspirations, but the French Armored Cavalry managed to distinguish itself even in such adverse circumstances. Napoleon III’s Cuirassiers and his Cuirassiers de La Garde Imperiale were mercilessly mowed down by Prussian mitraileusse at the Battle of Woerth in 1871, but their courage moved their Prussian enemies to tears.

All that remains today of the legendary Napoleonic “wall of steel” are the spoils of the armor worn by the emperor’s bravest of the brave and their tales of vainglory.

Robert Attard is the author of Collecting Military Headgear: A Guide to 5,000 years of Helmet History (Schiffer Books, 2004).