marengo rides again

Antoine-Jean Gros [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

He seems such a gentle little grey creature to carry so much history.  This is Marengo, Napoleon's warhorse, captured by the British on the battlefield of Waterloo.  He outlived Napoleon by ten years, and seems to have been very well treated by his captors (is that how to think of it still?) in that time.  Upon his passing his skeleton was placed in the National Army Museum till a recent stay at the Natural History Museum.  You might call it a bit of a spa retreat:  Marengo's bones were in need of cleaning, his stance needing perking up, and his mounting hardware needed updating.
If you'd like to see a bit of how that was done, have a look at this page over at the Natural History Museum in London.  The National Army Museum also has a detailed account of Marengo's conservation adventure here, but just a note - there is a large closeup of his skull at the top of the page, if you need to steel yourself for that.  I found his skull interesting in its delicacy, and could see he must indeed have been a handsome fellow.