Folk-Tales of Napoleon | Page 9

back, an
ambitious chap in a plumed hat, who was always following him around,
and who bothered him, they said, even at his meals, thought he'd play
smart by going up on the very same hill; but he had hardly taken the
Emperor's place when--batz!--away he went, plume and all!
Now follow me closely, and tell me whether what you are going to hear
was natural.
Napoleon, you know, had promised that he'd keep his agreement with
God to himself. That's the reason why his companions and even his
particular friends--men like Duroc, Bessières, and Lannes, who were
strong as bars of steel, but whom he molded to suit his purposes--all
fell, like nuts from a shaken tree, while he himself was never even hurt.
But that's not the only proof that he was the child of God and was
expressly created to be the father of soldiers. Did anybody ever see him
a lieutenant? Or a captain? Never! He was commander-in-chief from

the start. When he didn't look more than twenty-four years of age he
was already an old general--ever since the taking of Toulon, where he
first began to show the rest of them that they didn't know anything
about the handling of cannon.
Well, soon after that, down comes this stripling to us as
general-in-chief of the Army of Italy--an army that hadn't any
ammunition, or bread, or shoes, or coats; a wretched army--naked as a
worm. "Now, boys!" he said, "here we are, all together. I want you to
get it fixed in your heads that in fifteen days more you 're going to be
conquerors. You're going to have new clothes, good leggings, the best
of shoes, and a warm overcoat for every man; but in order to get these
things you'll have to march to Milan, where they are." So we marched.
We were only thirty thousand bare-footed tramps, and we were going
against eighty thousand crack German soldiers--fine, well equipped
men; but Napoleon, who was only Bonaparte then, breathed a spirit
of--I don't know what--into us, and on we marched, night and day. We
hit the enemy at Montenotte, thrashed 'em at Rivoli, Lodi, Arcola, and
Millesimo, and stuck to 'em wherever they went. A soldier soon gets to
like being a conqueror; and Napoleon wheeled around those German
generals, and pelted away at 'em, until they didn't know where to hide
long enough to get a little rest. With fifteen hundred Frenchmen, whom
he made to appear a great host (that's a way he had), he'd sometimes
surround ten thousand men and gather 'em all in at a single scoop. Then
we'd take their cannon, their money, their ammunition, and everything
they had that was worth carrying away. As for the others, we chucked
'em into the water, walloped 'em on the mountains, snapped 'em up in
the air, devoured 'em on the ground, and beat 'em everywhere. So at last
our troops were in fine feather--especially as Napoleon, who had a
clever wit, made friends with the inhabitants of the country by telling
them that we had come to set them free; and then, of course, they gave
us quarters and took the best of care of us. And it was not only the men:
the women took care of us too, which showed their good judgment!
Well, it finally ended in this way: in Ventose, 1796,--which was the
same time of year that our March is now,--we were penned up in one
corner of the marmot country: but at the end of the first campaign, lo
and behold! we were masters of Italy, just as Napoleon had predicted.
And in the month of March following--that is, in two campaigns, which

we fought in a single year--he brought us in sight of Vienna. It was just
a clean sweep. We had eaten up three different armies in succession,
and had wiped out four Austrian generals; one of them--a white-haired
old chap--was burned alive at Mantua like a rat in a straw mattress. We
had conquered peace, and kings were begging, on their knees, for
mercy. Could a man have done all that alone? Never! He had the help
of God; that's certain! He divided himself up like the five loaves of
bread in the Gospel; he planned battles at night and directed them in the
daytime: he was seen by the sentries going here and there at all hours,
and he never ate or slept. When the soldiers saw all these wonderful
things, they adopted him as their father.
But the people at the head of the government over there in Paris, who
were looking on, said to themselves: "This schemer, who seems to have
the watchword of Heaven, is quite capable of laying his hands on
France. We'd better turn him loose