Folk-Tales of Napoleon | Page 4

and so long as you are merciless you shall never be defeated in
battle; but remember that the moment you begin to feel sorry for the
shedding of blood--of your own people or of others--that moment your
power will end. From that moment your enemies will defeat you, and
you shall finally be made a prisoner, be put into chains, and be sent
back to Buan Island to watch geese. Do you understand?"
"Exactly so," says Napoleonder. "I understand, and I will obey. I shall

never feel pity."
Then the angels and the archangels began to say to God: "Lord, why
have you laid upon him such a frightful command? If he goes forth so,
without mercy, he will kill every living soul on earth--he will leave
none for seed!"
"Be silent!" replied the Lord God. "He will not conquer long. He is
altogether too brave; because he fears neither others nor himself. He
thinks he will keep from pity, and does not know that pity, in the
human heart, is stronger than all else, and that not a man living is
wholly without it."
"But," the archangels say, "he is not a man; he is made of sand."
The Lord God replies: "Then you think he didn't receive a soul when
my water of life fell on his head?"
Napoleonder at once gathered together a great army speaking twelve
languages, and went forth to war. He conquered the Germans, he
conquered the Turks, he subdued the Swedes and the Poles. He reaped
as he marched, and left bare the country through which he passed. And
all the time he remembers the condition of success--pity for none. He
cuts off heads, burns villages, outrages women, and tramples children
under his horses' hoofs. He desolates the whole Mohammedan
kingdom--and still he is not sated. Finally he marches on a Christian
country--on Holy Russia.
In Russia then the Tsar was Alexander the Blessed--the same Tsar who
stands now on the top of the column in Petersburg-town and blesses the
people with a cross, and that's why he is called "the Blessed."
When he saw Napoleonder marching against him with twelve
languages, Alexander the Blessed felt that the end of Russia was near.
He called together his generals and field-marshals, and said to them:
"Messrs. Generals and Field-marshals, how can I check this
Napoleonder? He is pressing us terribly hard."
The generals and field-marshals reply: "We can't do anything, your
Majesty, to stop Napoleonder, because God has given him a word."
"What kind of a word?"
"This kind: 'Bonaparty.'"
"But what does 'Bonaparty' mean, and why is a single word so
terrible?"
"It means, your Majesty, six hundred and sixty-six--the number of the

Beast [Footnote 3: A reference to the Beast of the Apocalypse. "The
number of the beast is the number of a man: and his number is Six
hundred threescore and six" (Rev. xiii. 18).]; and it is terrible because
when Napoleonder sees, in a battle, that the enemy is very brave, that
his own strength is not enough, and that his own men are falling fast
[Footnote 4: Literally, "lying down with their bones."], he immediately
conjures with this same word, 'Bonaparty,' and at that instant--as soon
as the word is pronounced--all the soldiers that have ever served under
him and have died for him on the field of battle come back from
beyond the grave. He leads them afresh against the enemy, as if they
were alive, and nothing can stand against them, because they are a
ghostly force, not an army of this world."
Alexander the Blessed grew sad; but, after thinking a moment, he said:
"Messrs. Generals and Field-marshals, we Russians are a people of
more than ordinary courage. We have fought with all nations, and never
yet before any of them have we laid our faces in the dust. If God has
brought us, at last, to fight with corpses--his holy will be done! We will
go against the dead!"
So he led his army to the field of Kulikova, and there waited for the
miscreant Napoleonder. And soon afterward, Napoleonder, the evil one,
sends him an envoy with a paper saying, "Submit, Alexander
Blagoslovenni, and I will show you favor above all others."
But Alexander the Blessed was a proud man, who held fast his
self-respect. He would not speak to the envoy, but he took the paper
that the envoy had brought, and drew on it an insulting picture, with the
words, "Is this what you want?" and sent it back to Napoleonder.
Then they fought and slashed one another on the field of Kulikova, and
in a short time or a long time our men began to overcome the forces of
the enemy. One by one they shot or cut down all of Napoleonder's
field-marshals,