The Twin Lieutenants | Page 6

have no need to say that, sir, I see it! and it is as much to combat that spirit as to contest the Austrians that I came here."
"So, for instance, sire," resumed Cambaceres, "the legislative body--"
"The legislative body," repeated Napoleon, accenting the two words and shrugging his shoulders.
"The legislative body," continued Cambaceres, like a man determined to finish his thought, "the legislative body, where the rare opposers never can unite more than twelve or fifteen votes against the projects that we submit, the legislative body still resist us, and twice put eighty black balls, once one hundred."
"Well, I will overturn the legislative body!"
"No, sire, you will select a moment when it will be more disposed for approbation. Remain in Paris--when your Majesty is at Paris, all goes swimmingly."
"I know that; but, unfortunately. I cannot stay."
"So much the worse !"
"Yes, so much the worse! Just now I recollected the word, and it reminds me of a certain Malet."
"Does your Majesty say that he cannot remain in Paris?"
"Do yon think that it was to remain in Paris that I came in four days from Valladolid? No; in three months I must be in Vienna."
"Oh, sire !" said Cambaceres, with a sigh, "still war."
"You, also, Cambaceres? But it is I who has made this war?"
"Sire, Spain," ventured the Archchancellor.
"Yes, that was, perhaps; but why have I undertaken it? Because I believe myself sure of the peace with the North. Can I doubt that with Russia for ally, Westphalia and Holland for sisters, Bavaria for friend, Prussia reduced to an army of forty thousand men, can I doubt that from Austria I will cut one of her two heads--Italy? Can I doubt that Austria will find means to raise and arm five hundred thousand men against me? But they are in the waters of the Lethe, and not in those of the Danube, which runs to Vienna. They have forgotten even the lessons of experience! They must learn new ones ! They shall, and, this time, terrible ones, I answer for it !
"I do not wish war--I have no interest in it--and the whole of Europe is witness that all my efforts, all my attentions, were directed toward that field of battle which England has chosen, namely, Spain. Austria, who has once already saved the English, in 1805, at the moment when I was about to cross the Straits of Dover, saves them again today, at the moment when I was about to drive them, from the first to the last, into the sea ! I know quite well that, disappearing in one place, they would re-appear in another; but England is not, like France, a warlike nation: it is a commercial nation, it is Carthage, without Hannibal. I shall have finished by exhausting its soldiers, or by forcing it to leave India; and, if the Emperor Alexander is true to his word, it is there that I expect--Oh, Austria ! Austria ! She shall pay dearly for this diversion ! She shall instantly disarm, or she shall be made to sustain a war of destruction. If she disarms in a manner that will leave me no doubts of her future intentions, I will myself replace the sword in the sheath, for I am not desirous to draw it save in Spain and against the English. Otherwise I will throw four hundred thousand men upon Vienna, and, for the future, England will have no more allies on the Continent."
"Four hundred thousand men, sire," repeated Cambaceres.
"You ask me where they are, do you not?"
"Yes, sire: I can scarce see a hundred thousand disposable."
"Ah! they commence to count my soldiers, and you are one of first, the Archchancellor !"
"Sire--"
"They say; 'He has no more than two hundred thousand men: but a hundred and fifty thousand, but a hundred thousand!' They say; 'We may escape the master enfeebled, the master is no more than two armies !' They are wrong--"
Napoleon struck his forehead.
"My strength is here !"
Then, extending both his arena, he added:
"And here are my armies. You would like to know how I can get together four hundred thousand men? I will tell you."
"Sire--"
"I will tell you--not for you, Cambaceres, who may perhaps yet have faith in my fortune--I will tell you that you may repeat it to others. My army of the Rhine counts one-and-twenty regiments of infantry, which are four battalions each; they ought to have five; but in face of reality, not illusion ! that will make me eighty-four battalions strong; that is to say, seventy thousand infantry. I have, over that, my four divisions, Carra, St. Cyr, Legrand, Boudet and Molltor; they are only three battalions, say thirty thousand men; that makes a hundred thousand, without reckoning the five thousand men of the division Dupas. I have fourteen regiments of cuirassiers, which