The Napoleon of the People | Page 9

so as to build the bridges on which the army crossed
over, and so escaped the Russians, who still respected the Grand Army
on account of its past victories. And Gondrin is an accomplished
soldier, [pointing at Gondrin, who was gazing at him with the rapt
attention peculiar to deaf people] a distinguished soldier who deserves
to have your very highest esteem.
I saw the Emperor standing by the bridge, and never feeling the cold at

all. Was that, again, a natural thing? He was looking on at the loss of
his treasures, of his friends, and those who had fought with him in
Egypt. Bah! there was an end of everything. Women and wagons and
guns were all engulfed and swallowed up, everything went to wreck
and ruin. A few of the bravest among us saved the Eagles, for the
Eagles, look you, meant France, and all the rest of you; it was the civil
and military honor of France that was in our keeping, there must be no
spot on the honor of France, and the cold could never make her bow her
head. There was no getting warm except in the neighborhood of the
Emperor; for whenever he was in danger we hurried up, all frozen as
we were--we who would not stop to hold out a hand to a fallen friend.
They say, too, that he shed tears of a night over his poor family of
soldiers. Only he and Frenchmen could have pulled themselves out of
such a plight; but we did pull ourselves out, though, as I am telling you,
it was with loss, ay, and heavy loss. The Allies had eaten up all our
provisions; everybody began to betray him, just as the Red Man had
foretold. The rattle-pates in Paris, who had kept quiet ever since the
Imperial Guard had been established, think that HE is dead, and hatch a
conspiracy. They set to work in the Home Office to overturn the
Emperor. These things come to his knowledge and worry him; he says
to us at parting, "Good-bye, children; keep to your posts, I will come
back again."
Bah! Those generals of his lose their heads at once; for when he was
away, it was not like the same thing. The marshals fall out among
themselves, and make blunders, as was only natural, for Napoleon in
his kindness had fed them on gold till they had grown as fat as butter,
and they had no mind to march. Troubles came of this, for many of
them stayed inactive in garrison towns in the rear, without attempting
to tickle up the backs of the enemy behind us, and we were being
driven back on France. But Napoleon comes back among us with fresh
troops; conscripts they were, and famous conscripts too; he had put
some thorough notions of discipline into them--the whelps were good
to set their teeth in anybody. He had a bourgeois guard of honor too,
and fine troops they were! They melted away like butter on a gridiron.
We may put a bold front on it, but everything is against us, although the
army still performs prodigies of valor. Whole nations fought against
nations in tremendous battles, at Dresden, Lutzen, and Bautzen, and

then it was that France showed extraordinary heroism, for you must all
of you bear in mind that in those times a stout grenadier only lasted six
months.
We always won the day, but the English were always on our track,
putting nonsense into other nations' heads, and stirring them up to
revolt. In short, we cleared a way through all these mobs of nations; for
wherever the Emperor appeared, we made a passage for him; for on the
land as on the sea, whenever he said, "I wish to go forward," we made
the way.
There comes a final end to it at last. We are back in France; and in spite
of the bitter weather, it did one's heart good to breathe one's native air
again, it set up many a poor fellow; and as for me, it put new life into
me, I can tell you. But it was a question all at once of defending France,
our fair land of France. All Europe was up in arms against us; they took
it in bad part that we had tried to keep the Russians in order by driving
them back within their own borders, so that they should not gobble us
up, for those Northern folk have a strong liking for eating up the men
of the South, it is a habit they have; I have heard the same thing of
them from several generals.
So the Emperor finds his own father-in-law, his friends whom he had
made crowned kings, and the rabble of princes