The Napoleon of the People | Page 8

too fast for your feet; you will run short of men, and your friends
will play you false."
Thereupon the Emperor proposes a treaty. But before he signs it, he
says to us:
"Let us give these Russians a drubbing!"
"All right!" cried the army.
"Forward!" say the sergeants.
My clothes were all falling to pieces, my shoes were worn out with
trapezing over those roads out there, which are not good going at all.
But it is all one. "Since here is the last of the row," said I to myself, "I
mean to get all I can out of it."
We were posted before the great ravine; we had seats in the front row.
The signal is given, and seven hundred guns begin a conversation fit to
make the blood spirt from your ears. One should give the devil his due,
and the Russians let themselves be cut in pieces just like Frenchmen;
they did not give way, and we made no advance.
"Forward!" is the cry; "here is the Emperor!"
So it was. He rides past us at a gallop, and makes a sign to us that a
great deal depends on our carrying the redoubt. He puts fresh heart into
us; we rush forward, I am the first man to reach the gorge. Ah! /mon
Dieu/! how they fell, colonels, lieutenants, and common soldiers, all
alike! There were shoes to fit up those who had none, and epaulettes for
the knowing fellows that knew how to write. . . . Victory is the cry all
along the line! And, upon my word, there were twenty-five thousand
Frenchmen lying on the field. No more, I assure you! Such a thing was
never seen before, it was just like a field when the corn is cut, with a
man lying there for every ear of corn. That sobered the rest of us. The
Man comes, and we make a circle round about him, and he coaxes us
round (for he could be very nice when he chose), and persuades us to
dine with Duke Humphrey, when we were hungry as hunters. Then our
consoler distributes the Crosses of the Legion of Honor himself, salutes
the dead, and says to us, "On to Moscow!"
"To Moscow, so be it," says the army.
We take Moscow. What do the Russians do but set fire to their city!

There was a blaze, two leagues of bonfire that burned for two days!
The buildings fell about our ears like slates, and molten lead and iron
came down in showers; it was really horrible; it was a light to see our
sorrows by, I can tell you! The Emperor said, "There, that is enough of
this sort of thing; all my men shall stay here."
We amuse ourselves for a bit by recruiting and repairing our frames, for
we really were much fatigued by the campaign. We take away with us a
gold cross from the top of the Kremlin, and every soldier had a little
fortune. But on the way back the winter came down on us a month
earlier than usual, a matter which the learned (like a set of fools) have
never sufficiently explained; and we are nipped with the cold. We were
no longer an army after that, do you understand? There was an end of
generals and even of the sergeants; hunger and misery took the
command instead, and all of us were absolutely equal under their reign.
All we thought of was how to get back to France; no one stooped to
pick up his gun or his money; every one walked straight before him,
and armed himself as he thought fit, and no one cared about glory.
The Emperor saw nothing of his star all the time, for the weather was
so bad. There was some misunderstanding between him and heaven.
Poor man, how bad he felt when he saw his Eagles flying with their
backs turned on victory! That was really too rough! Well, the next
thing is the Beresina. And here and now, my friends, any one can
assure you on his honor, and by all that is sacred, that NEVER, no,
never since there have been men on earth, never in this world has there
been such a fricasse of an army, caissons, transports, artillery and all, in
such snow as that and under such a pitiless sky. It was so cold that you
burned your hand on the barrel of your gun if you happened to touch it.
There it was that the pontooners saved the army, for the pontooners
stood firm at their posts; it was there that Gondrin behaved like a hero,
and he is the sole survivor of all the men who were dogged enough to
stand in the river