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The English painter could not have given a more apt or dramatic depiction of Napoleon's fall from power than in this psychological image of his tragic fate. Marengo was Napoleon's horse. We see it fretting to and fro, trembling on the brink, as it looks out over the see for its lost rider. The animal's emotional state mirrors the catastrophic events. Lonely, riderless, and unsaddled, the stallion's fear is visible in its eyes, the restless unease expressed in every muscle of its body. The distant horizon present under the darkening evening sky, into which the former wold conqueror has had to flee, leaving his faithful steed behind, is the metaphor in the painting for the historic event.
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