This painting was produced in July 1838 at the request of Emperor Nicholas I who suggested the subject and asked that the composition includes the episode with the invalid presenting a petition to Napoleon. "This paining will stay in my study. I want to have the imperial guard always before my eyes, because it could have smashed us," said Nicholas I, giving instructions on where the new painting was to hang in the Winter Palace. In all likelihood, the canvas depicts one of the parades of 1808 or 1809. It presents famous Napoleonic generals including Duroc and Lasalle, Lannes and Murat, Ney and Brune, Bessières and Berthier, Andoche Junot and Eugène Beauharnais, Mortier and Dorsenne, Combes and Lefevre.

A parade at the Tuileries was a subject that attracted French artists. Carle Vernet, Horace's father and teacher, tackled it, as did Thomas-Charles(?) Nodet, and later Hippolyte Bellangé. But Horace Vernet managed to outdo all his precursors and successors. His canvas spent many long years in the Hermitage's stores and some researchers even believed it lost. In the Realms of the Eagle. The Art of Empire exhibition it is effectively being presented to the public for the first time.