balzac -- the peasant story of napoleon

7/30/2019 Balzac -- The Peasant Story of Napoleon

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byHonore de balzac

Goguelet, an old soldier who fought under

Napoleon, tells the story of his wonderful Gen-eral and Emperor to a group of eager listeners in the country doctor’s barn.

You see, my riends, Napoleon was bornin Corsica, a French island, warmed by thesun o Italy, where it is like a urnace, andwhere the people kill each other, rom a-ther to son, all about nothing: that’s a way

they have. o begin with the marvel o thething—his mother, who was the handsomestwoman o her time, and a knowing one, be-thought hersel o dedicating him to God, sothat he might escape the dangers o his child-hood and uture lie; or she had dreamedthat the world was set on re the day he wasborn. And, indeed, it was a prophecy! So sheasked God to protect him, on condition that

Napoleon should restore His holy religion,which was then cast to the ground. Well,that was agreed upon, and we shall see whatcame o it.

“Follow me closely, and tell me i whatyou hear is in the nature o man.

“Sure and certain it is that none buta man who conceived the idea o making a compact with God could have passed unhurt

through the enemy’s lines, through can-non-balls, and discharges o grape-shot thatswept the rest o us o like ies, and always

respected his head. I had proo o that—I

mysel—at Eylau. I see him now, as he rodeup a height, took his eld-glass, looked at thebattle, and said, ‘All goes well.’ One o thoseplumed busybodies, who plagued him con-siderably and ollowed him everywhere, evento his meals, so they said, thought to play thewag, and took the Emperor’s place as he rodeaway. Ho! In a twinkling, head and plumewere o! You must understand that Napo-

leon had promised to keep the secret o hiscompact all to himsel. Tat’s why all thosewho ollowed him, even his nearest riends,ell like nuts—Duroc, Bessires, Lannes—allstrong as steel bars, though he could bendthem as he pleased. Besides—to prove hewas the child o God, and made to be theather o soldiers—was he ever known to belieutenant or captain? No, no; commander-

in-chie rom the start. He didn’t look to bemore than twenty-our years o age when hewas an old general at the taking o oulon,where he rst began to show the others thatthey knew nothing about manoeuvring can-non.

“Ater that, down came our slip o a general to command the grand army o Italy,which hadn’t bread, nor munitions, nor

shoes, nor coats—a poor army, as naked asa worm. ‘My riends,’ said he, ‘here we aretogether. Get it into your pates that teen

THe PeasanT s Tory of naPoleon




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Te Peasant Story of Napoleon by Honore de Balzac


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days rom now you will be conquerors—new clothes, good gaiters, amous shoes, and every man with a great-coat; but, my children, to

get these things you must march to Milan,where they are.’ And we marched. France,crushed as at as a bed-bug, straightened up.

We were thirty thousand bare-eet againsteighty thousand Austrian bullies, all nemen, well set-up. I see ‘em now! But Napo-leon—he was then only Bonaparte—he knew how to put the courage into us! We marchedby night, and we marched by day; we slapped

their aces at Montenotte, we thrashed themat Rivoli, Lodi, Arcole, Millesimo, and wenever let ‘em up. A soldier gets the taste o conquest. So Napoleon whirled round those

Austrian generals, who didn’t know where topoke themselves to get out o his way, andhe pelted ‘em well—nipped o ten thousandmen at a blow sometimes, by getting roundthem with teen hundred Frenchmen, and

then he gleaned as he pleased. He took theircannon, their supplies, their money, theirmunitions, in short, all they had that wasgood to take. He ought them and beat themon the mountains, he drove them into therivers and seas, he bit ‘em in the air, he de-voured ‘em on the ground, and he lashed ‘emeverywhere. Hey! Te grand army eathereditsel well; or, d’ye see the Emperor, who

was a wit, called up the inhabitants and toldthem he was there to deliver them. So aterthat the natives lodged and cherished us; thewomen too, and very judicious they were.

Now here’s the end o it. In Ventose, ‘96—inthose times that was the month o Marcho to-day—we lay cuddled in a corner o

Savoie with the marmots; and yet, beore thatcampaign was over, we were masters o Italy,

just as Napoleon had predicted; and by theollowing March—in a single year and twocampaigns—he had brought us within sighto Vienna. ‘was a clean sweep. We devouredtheir armies, one ater the other, and madean end o our Austrian generals. One old el-low, with white hair, was roasted like a rat in

the straw at Mantua. Kings begged or mercy on their knees! Peace was won.“Could a man have done that? No; God

helped him, to a certainty!“He divided himsel up like the loaves

in the Gospel, commanded the battle by day,planned it by night; going and coming, orthe sentinels saw him—never eating, neversleeping. So, seeing these prodigies, the sol-

diers adopted him or their ather. Forward,march! Ten those others, the rulers in Paris,seeing this, said to themselves: ‘Here’s a boldone that seems to get his orders rom theskies; he’s likely to put his paw on France. Wemust let him loose on Asia; we will send himto America, perhaps that will satisy him.’But ‘t was written above or him, as it was or

Jesus Christ. Te command went orth that

he should go to Egypt. See, again, his resem-blance to the Son o God. But that’s not all.He called together his best veterans, his re-eaters, the ones he had particularly put the




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devil into, and he said to them like this: ‘My riends, they have given us Egypt to chew up, just to keep us busy, but we’ll swallow it

whole in a couple o campaigns, as we didItaly. Te common soldiers shall be princesand have the land or their own. Forward,march!’ ‘Forward, march!’ cried the sergeants,and there we were at oulon, road to Egypt.

At that time the English had all their ships inthe sea; but when we embarked, Napoleonsaid: ‘Tey won’t see us. It is just as well thatyou should know rom this time orth that

your general has got his star in the sky, whichguides and protects us.’ What was said wasdone. Passing over the sea, we took Malta likean orange, just to quench his thirst or vic-tory; or he was a man who couldn’t live anddo nothing.

“So here we are in Egypt. Good. Oncehere, other orders. Te Egyptians, d’ye see,are men who, ever since the earth was, have

had giants or sovereigns, and armies asnumerous as ants; or, you must understand,that’s the land o genii and crocodiles, wherethey’ve built pyramids as big as our moun-tains, and buried their kings under them tokeep them resh—an idea that pleased ‘emmightily. So then, ater we disembarked, theLittle Corporal said to us: ‘My children, thecountry you are going to conquer has a lot o

gods that you must respect; because French-men ought to be riends with everybody,and ght the nations without vexing theinhabitants. Get it into your skulls that you

are not to touch anything at rst, or it is allgoing to be yours soon. Forward, march!’ Soar, so good. But all those people o Arica,

to whom Napoleon was oretold under thename o Kébir-Bonaberdis—a word o theirlingo that means ‘the sultan res’—werearaid as the devil o him. So the Grand urk,and Asia, and Arica had recourse to magic.Tey sent us a demon, named the Mahdi,supposed to have descended rom heavenon a white horse, which, like its master, wasbullet-proo; and both o them lived on air,

without ood to support them. Tere aresome that say they saw them; but I can’t giveyou any reasons to make you certain aboutthat. Te rulers o Arabia and the Mamelukestried to make their troopers believe that theMahdi could keep them rom perishing inbattle; and they pretended he was an angelsent rom heaven to ght Napoleon and getback Solomon’s seal. Solomon’s seal was part

o their paraphernalia which they vowed ourgeneral had stolen. You must understand thatwe’d given ‘em a good many wry aces, inspite o what he had said to us.

“Now, tell me how they knew that Na-poleon had a pact with God? Was that natu-ral, d’ye think?

“Tey held to it in their minds that Na-poleon commanded the genii, and could pass

hither and thither in the twinkling o an eye,like a bird. Te act is, he was everywhere. At last, it came to his carrying o a queenbeautiul as the dawn, or whom he had o-




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ered all his treasure, and diamonds as big aspigeon’s eggs—a bargain which the Mam-eluke to whom she particularly belonged

positively reused, although he had severalothers. Such matters when they come to thatpass, can’t be settled without a great many battles; and, indeed, there was no scarcity o battles; there was ghting enough to pleaseeverybody. We were in line at Alexandria, atGizeh, and beore the Pyramids; we marchedin the sun and through the sand, wheresome, who had the dazzles, saw water that

they couldn’t drink, and shade where theiresh was roasted. But we made short work o the Mamelukes; and everybody else yieldedat the voice o Napoleon, who took posses-sion o Upper and Lower Egypt, Arabia, andeven the capitals o kingdoms that were nomore, where there were thousands o statuesand all the plagues o Egypt, more particu-larly lizards—a mammoth o a country where

everybody could take his acres o land or aslittle as he pleased. Well, while Napoleon wasbusy with his aairs inland—where he hadit in his head to do ne things—the Englishburned his eet at Aboukir; or they werealways looking about them to annoy us. ButNapoleon, who had the respect o the Eastand o the West, whom the Pope called hisson, and the cousin o Mohammed called

‘his dear ather,’ resolved to punish England,and get hold o India in exchange or hiseet. He was just about to take us across theRed Sea into Asia, a country where there are

diamonds and gold to pay the soldiers andpalaces or bivouacs, when the Mahdi madea treaty with the plague, and sent it down

to hinder our victories. Halt! Te army to a man deled at that parade; and ew they werewho came back on their eet. Dying soldierscouldn’t take Saint-Jean d’Acre, though they rushed at it three times with generous andmartial obstinacy. Te Plague was the stron-gest. No saying to that enemy, ‘My goodriend.’ Every soldier lay ill. Napoleon alonewas resh as a rose, and the whole army saw

him drinking in pestilence without its doing him a bit o harm.“Ha! My riends! Will you tell me that

that’s in the nature o a mere man?“Te Mamelukes, knowing we were all

in the ambulances, thought they could stopthe way; but that sort o joke wouldn’t dowith Napoleon. So he said to his demons, hisveterans, those that had the toughest hide,

‘Go, clear me the way.’ Junot, a sabre o therst cut, and his particular riend, took a thousand men, no more, and ripped up thearmy o the pacha who had had the presump-tion to put himsel in the way. Ater that, wecame back to headquarters at Cairo. Now,here’s another side o the story. Napoleonabsent, France was letting hersel be ruinedby the rulers in Paris, who kept back the pay

o the soldiers o the other armies, and theirclothing, and their rations; let them to dieo hunger, and expected them to lay downthe law to the universe without taking any




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trouble to help them. Idiots who amusedthemselves by chattering, instead o putting their own hands in the dough. Well, that’s

how it happened that our armies were beaten,and the rontiers o France were encroachedupon: the man was nor there. Now observe, Isay man because that’s what they called him;but ‘twas nonsense, or he had a star and allits belongings; it was we who were only men.He taught history to France ater his amousbattle o Aboukir, where, without losing morethan three hundred men, and with a single

division, he vanquished the grand army o the urk, seventy-ve thousand strong, andhustled more than hal o it into the sea, r-r-rah!

“Tat was his last thunder-clap in Egypt.He said to himsel, seeing the way thingswere going in Paris, ‘I am the saviour o France; I know it, and I must go.’ But, un-derstand me, the army didn’t know he was

going, or they’d have kept him by orce andmade him Emperor o the East. So now wewere sad; or He was gone who was all our

joy. He let the command to Kléber, a big masti, who came o duty at Cairo, assas-sinated by an Egyptian, whom they put todeath by empaling him on a bayonet; that’sthe way they guillotine people down there.But it makes ‘em suer so much that a soldier

had pity on the criminal and gave him hiscanteen; and then, as soon as the Egyptianhad drunk his ll, he gave up the ghost withall the pleasure in lie. But that’s a trie we

couldn’t laugh at then. Napoleon embarkedin a cockleshell, a little ski that was nothing at all, though ‘twas called ‘Fortune;’ and in a

twinkling, under the nose o England, whowas blockading him with ships o the line,rigates, and anything that could hoist a sail,he crossed over, and there he was in France.For he always had the power, mind you, o crossing the seas at one straddle.

“Was that a human man? Bah!“So, one minute he is at Fréjus, the

next in Paris. Tere, they all adore him; but

he summons the government. ‘What haveyou done with my children, the soldiers?’ hesays to the lawyers. ‘You’re a mob o rascally scribblers; you are making France a mess o pottage, and snapping your ngers at whatpeople think o you. It won’t do; and I speak the opinion o everybody.’ So, on that, they wanted to battle with him and kill him—click! He had ‘em locked up in barracks, or

ying out o windows, or drated among hisollowers, where they were as mute as shesand as pliable as a quid o tobacco. Ater thatstroke—consul! And then, as it was not orhim to doubt the Supreme Being, he ullledhis promise to the good God, who, you see,had kept His word to him. He gave Himback His churches, and reestablished Hisreligion; the bells rang or God and or him:

and lo! Everybody was pleased; primo, thepriests, whom he saved rom being harassed;secundo, the bourgeois, who thought only o their trade, and no longer had to ear the




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rapiamus o the law, which had got to beunjust; tertio, the nobles, or he orbade they should be killed, as, unortunately, the people

had got the habit o doing.“But he still had the Enemy to wipe out;

and he wasn’t the man to go to sleep at a mess-table, because, d’ye see, his eye lookedover the whole earth as i it were no big-ger than a man’s head. So then he appearedin Italy, like as though he had stuck hishead through the window. One glance wasenough. Te Austrians were swallowed up at

Marengo like so many gudgeons by a whale!Ou! Te French eagles sang their pæans soloud that all the world heard them—and itsufced! ‘We won’t play that game any more,’said the German. ‘Enough, enough!’ said allthe rest. o sum up: Europe backed down,England knocked under. General peace; andthe kings and the peoples made believe kisseach other. Tat’s the time when the Emperor

invented the Legion o Honour—and a nething, too. ‘In France’—this is what he saidat Boulogne beore the whole army—’every man is brave. So the citizen who does a neaction shall be sister to the soldier, and thesoldier shall be his brother, and the two shallbe one under the ag o honour.’

“We, who were down in Egypt, now came home. All was changed! He let us

general, and hey! In a twinkling we oundhim emperor. France gave hersel to him, likea ne girl to a lancer. When it was done—tothe satisaction o all, as you may say—a

sacred ceremony took place, the like o whichwas never seen under the canopy o the skies.Te Pope and the cardinals, in their red and

gold vestments, crossed the Alps expressly tocrown him beore the army and the people,who clapped their hands. Tere is one thing that I should do very wrong not to tell you.In Egypt, in the desert close to Syria, theRED MAN came to him on the Mount o Moses, and said, ‘All is well.’ Ten, at Maren-go, the night beore the victory, the sameRed Man appeared beore him or the sec-

ond time, standing erect and saying: ‘Toushalt see the world at thy eet; thou shalt beEmperor o France, King o Italy, master o Holland, sovereign o Spain, Portugal, andthe Illyrian provinces, protector o Germany,saviour o Poland, rst eagle o the Legiono Honour—all.’ Tis Red Man, you under-stand, was his genius, his spirit—a sort o sat-ellite who served him, as some say, to com-

municate with his star. I never really believedthat. But the Red Man himsel is a true act.Napoleon spoke o him, and said he came tohim in troubled moments, and lived in thepalace o the uileries under the roo. So, onthe day o the coronation, Napoleon saw himor the third time; and they were in consulta-tion over many things.

“Ater that, Napoleon went to Milan tobe crowned king o Italy, and there the grandtriumph o the soldier began. Every man whocould write was made an ofcer. Down camepensions; it rained duchies; treasures poured




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in or the sta which didn’t cost France a penny; and the Legion o Honour providedincomes or the private soldiers—o which

I receive mine to this day. So here were thearmies maintained as never beore on thisearth. But besides that, the Emperor, know-ing that he was to be theemperor o the wholeworld, bethought himo the bourgeois, and toplease them he built airy monuments, ater their

own ideas, in places whereyou’d never think to ndany. For instance, supposeyou were coming back rom Spain and going toBerlin—well, you’d ndtriumphal arches along the way, with commonsoldiers sculptured on the

stone, every bit the sameas generals. In two orthree years, and withoutimposing taxes on any o you, Napoleon lled hisvaults with gold, built palaces, made bridges,roads, scholars, fêtes , laws, vessels, harbours,and spent millions upon millions—suchenormous sums that he could, so they tell

me, have paved France rom end to end withve-ranc pieces, i he had had a mind to.“Now, when he sat at ease on his throne,

and was master o all, so that Europe waited

his permission to do his bidding, he remem-bered his our brothers and his three sisters,and he said to us, as it might be in conversa-

tion, in an order o the day, ‘My children,is it right that the blood relations o yourEmperor should be begging their bread?

No. I wish to see themin splendour like mysel.It becomes, thereore,absolutely necessary toconquer a kingdom oreach o them—to the end

that Frenchmen may bemasters over all lands, thatthe soldiers o the Guardshall make the whole earthtremble, that France may spit where she likes, andthat all the nations shallsay to her, as it is writtenon my copper coins, ‘God

protects you! ’ ‘Agreed!’cried the army. ‘We’ll gosh or thy kingdoms withour bayonets.’ Ha! Terewas no backing down,

don’t you see! I he had taken it into his headto conquer the moon, we should have madeready, packed knapsacks, and clambered up;happily, he didn’t think o it. Te kings o

the countries, who liked their comortablethrones, were, naturally, loath to budge, andhad to have their ears pulled; so then—For-ward, march! We did march; we got there;




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and the earth once more trembled to itscentre. Hey! Te men and the shoes he usedup in those days! Te enemy dealt us such

blows that none but the grand army couldhave borne the atigue o it. But you are notignorant that a Frenchman is born a philoso-pher, and knows that a little sooner, or a littlelater, he has got to die. So we were ready todie without a word, or we liked to see theEmperor doing that on the geographies.”

Here the narrator nimbly described a circle with his oot on the oor o the barn.

“And Napoleon said, ‘Tere, that’s to bea kingdom.’ And a kingdom it was. Ha! Tegood times! Te colonels were generals; thegenerals, marshals; and the marshals, kings.Tere’s one o ‘em still on his throne, to proveit to Europe; but he’s a Gascon and a trai-tor to France or keeping that crown; and hedoesn’t blush or shame as he ought to do, be-cause crowns, don’t you see, are made o gold.

I who am speaking to you, I have seen, inParis, eleven kings and a mob o princes sur-rounding Napoleon like the rays o the sun.

You understand, o course, that every soldierhad the chance to mount a throne, providedalways he had the merit; so a corporal o the Guard was a sight to be looked at as hewalked along, or each man had his share inthe victory, and ‘twas plainly set orth in the

bulletin. What victories they were! Austerlitz,where the army manoeuvred as i on parade;Eylau, where we drowned the Russians in a lake, as though Napoleon had blown them

into it with the breath o his mouth; Wa-gram, where the army ought or three dayswithout grumbling. We won as many battles

as there are saints in the calendar. It wasproved then, beyond a doubt, that Napoleonhad the sword o God in his scabbard. Tesoldiers were his riends; he made them hischildren; he looked ater us, he saw that wehad shoes, and shirts, and great-coats, andbread, and cartridges; but he always kept uphis majesty; or, don’t you see, ‘twas his busi-ness to reign. No matter or that, however; a

sergeant, and even a common soldier, couldsay to him, ‘my Emperor,’ just as you say tome sometimes, ‘my good riend.’ He gave usan answer i we appealed to him; he slept inthe snow like the rest o us; and, indeed, hehad almost the air o a human man. I whospeak to you, I have seen him with his eetamong the grape-shot, and no more uneasy than you are now—standing steady, looking

through his eld-glass, and minding his busi-ness. ‘was that kept the rest o us quiet. Idon’t know how he did it, but when he spokehe made our hearts burn within us; and toshow him we were his children, incapable o balking, didn’t we rush at the mouths o therascally cannon, that belched and vomitedshot and shell, without so much as saying,‘Look out!’ Why the dying must need raise

their heads to salute him and cry, ‘LONGLIVE HE EMPEROR!’“I ask you, was that natural? Would they

have done that or a human man?




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“Well, ater he had settled the world, theEmpress Josephine, his wie, a good womanall the same, managed matters so that she

did not bear him any children, and he wasobliged to give her up, though he loved herconsiderably. But, you see, he had to have lit-tle ones or reasons o state. Hearing o this,all the sovereigns o Europe quarrelled as towhich o them should give him a wie. Andhe married, so they told us, an Austrian arch-duchess, daughter o Caesar, an ancient manabout whom people talk a good deal, and not

in France only—where any one will tell youwhat he did—but in Europe. It is all true,or I mysel who address you at this moment,I have been on the Danube, and have seenthe remains o a bridge built by that man,who, it seems, was a relation o Napoleon inRome, and that’s how the Emperor got theinheritance o that city or his son. So aterthe marriage, which was a fête or the whole

world, and in honour o which he releasedthe people o ten years’ taxes—which they had to pay all the same, however, becausethe assessors didn’t take account o what hesaid—his wie had a little one, who was King o Rome. Now, there’s a thing that had neverbeen seen on this earth; never beore was a child born a king with his ather living. Onthat day a balloon went up in Paris to tell the

news to Rome, and that balloon made the journey in one day.“Now, is there any man among you who

will stand up here and declare to me that all

that was human? No; it was written above;and may the scurvy seize ‘em who deny thathe was sent by God himsel or the triumph

o France!“Well, here’s the Emperor o Russia, thatused to be his riend, he gets angry becauseNapoleon didn’t marry a Russian; so he joinswith the English, our enemies—to whom ourEmperor always wanted to say a couple o words in their burrows, only he was prevent-ed. Napoleon gets angry too; an end had tobe put to such doings; so he says to us: ‘Sol-

diers! You have been masters o every capitalin Europe, except Moscow, which is now theally o England. o conquer England, and In-dia which belongs to the English, it becomesour peremptory duty to go to Moscow,’Ten he assembled the greatest army thatever trailed its gaiters over the globe; and somarvellously in hand it was that he revieweda million o men in one day. ‘Hourra!’ cried

the Russians. Down came all Russia andthose animals o Cossacks in a ock. ‘wasnation against nation, a general hurly-burly,and beware who could; ‘Asia against Europe,’as the Red Man had oretold to Napoleon.‘Enough,’ cried the Emperor, ‘I’ll be ready.’

“So now, sure enough, came all thekings, as the Red Man had said, to lick Napoleon’s hand! Austria, Prussia, Bavaria,

Saxony, Poland, Italy, every one o themwere with us, attering us; ah, it was ne!Te eagles never cawed so loud as at thoseparades, perched high above the banners




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o all Europe. Te Poles were bursting with joy, because Napoleon was going to releasethem; and that’s why France and Poland are

brothers to this day. ‘Russia is ours,’ cried thearmy. We plunged into it well-supplied; wemarched and we marched—no Russians. Atlast we ound the brutes entrenched on thebanks o the Moskva. Tat’s where I won my cross, and I’ve got the right to say it was a damnable battle. Tis was how it came about.Te Emperor was anxious. He had seen theRed Man, who said to him ‘My son, you

are going too ast or your eet; you will lack men; riends will betray you.’ So the Emperoroered peace. But beore signing, ‘Let usdrub those Russians!’ he said to us. ‘Done!’cried the army. ‘Forward, march!’ said thesergeants. My clothes were in rags, my shoesworn out, rom trudging along those roads,which are very uncomortable ones; but nomatter! I said to mysel, ‘As it’s the last o our

earthquakings, I’ll go into it, tooth and nail!’ We were drawn up in line beore the great ra-vine—ront seats, as ‘twere. Signal given; andseven hundred pieces o artillery began a con-versation that would bring the blood romyour ears. Ten—must do justice to one’s en-emies—the Russians let themselves be killedlike Frenchmen; they wouldn’t give way; wecouldn’t advance. ‘Forward!’ some one cried,

‘here comes the Emperor!’ rue enough; hepassed at a gallop, waving his hand to let usknow we must take the redoubt. He inspiredus; on we ran; I was the rst in the ravine.

Ha! My God! How the lieutenants ell, andthe colonels, and the soldiers! No matter! Allthe more shoes or those that had none, and

epaulets or the clever ones who knew how to read. ‘Victory!’ cried the whole line; ‘Vic-tory!’—and, would you believe it? A thing never seen beore, there lay twenty-ve thou-sand Frenchmen on the ground. ‘was likemowing down a wheat-eld; only in placeo the ears o wheat put the heads o men!

We were sobered by this time—those whowere let alive. Te man rode up; we made

the circle round him. Ha! He knew how tocajole his children; he could be amiable whenhe liked, and eed ‘em with words when theirstomachs were ravenous with the hunger o wolves. Flatterer! He distributed the crosseshimsel, he uncovered to the dead, and thenhe cried to us, ‘On to Moscow!’ ‘o Mos-cow!’ answered the army.

“We took Moscow. Would you believe

it? the Russians burned their own city! ‘wasa haystack six miles square, and it blazed ortwo days. Te buildings crashed like slates,and showers o melted iron and lead raineddown upon us, which was naturally horrible.I may say to you plainly, it was like a ash o lightning on our disasters. Te Emperor said,‘We have done enough; my soldiers shallrest here.’ So we rested awhile, just to get

the breath into our bodies and the esh onour bones, or we were really tired. We took possession o the golden cross that was onthe Kremlin; and every soldier brought away




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with him a small ortune. But out there thewinter sets in a month earlier—a thing thoseools o science didn’t properly explain. So,

coming back, the cold nipped us. No longeran army—do you hear me?—no longer any generals, no longer any sergeants even. ‘wasthe reign o wretchedness and hunger—a reign o equality at last. No one thought o anything but to see France once more; noone stooped to pick up his gun or his money i he dropped them; each man ollowed hisnose, and went as he pleased without caring

or glory. Te weather was so bad the Em-peror couldn’t see his star; there was some-thing between him and the skies. Poor man!It made him ill to see his eagles ying away rom victory. Ah! ‘was a mortal blow, youmay believe me.

“Well, we got to the Beresina, My riends, I can afrm to you by all that is mostsacred, by my honour, that since mankind

came into the world, never, never was thereseen such a ricassee o any army—guns,carriages, artillery-wagons—in the midst o such snows, under such relentless skies! Temuzzles o the muskets burned our handsi we touched them, the iron was so cold.It was there that the army was saved by thepontoniers, who were rm at their post; andthere that Gondrin—sole survivor o the men

who were bold enough to go into the waterand build the bridges by which the army crossed—that Gondrin, here present, admira-bly conducted himsel, and saved us rom the

Russians, who, I must tell you, still respectedthe grand army, remembering its victories.

And,” he added, pointing to Gondrin, who

was gazing at him with the peculiar attentiono a dea man, “Gondrin is a nished soldier,a soldier who is honour itsel, and he meritsyour highest esteem.

“I saw the Emperor,” he resumed,“standing by the bridge, motionless, not eel-ing the cold—was that human? He lookedat the destruction o his treasure, his riends,his old Egyptians. Bah! All that passed him,

women, army-waggons, artillery, all wereshattered, destroyed, ruined. Te bravestcarried the eagles; or the eagles, d’ye see,were France, the nation, all o you! Tey werethe civil and the military honour that mustbe kept pure; could their heads be loweredbecause o the cold? It was only near theEmperor that we warmed ourselves, becausewhen he was in danger we ran, rozen as we

were—we, who wouldn’t have stretched a hand to save a riend. Tey told us he weptat night over his poor amily o soldiers. Ah!None but he and Frenchmen could havegot themselves out o that business. We didget out, but with losses, great losses, as Itell you. Te Allies captured our provisions.Men began to betray him, as the Red Manpredicted. Tose chatterers in Paris, who had

held their tongues ater the Imperial Guardwas ormed, now thought he was dead; sothey hoodwinked the preect o police, andhatched a conspiracy to overthrow the em-




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pire. He heard o it; it worried him. He letus, saying: ‘Adieu, my children; guard theoutposts; I shall return to you,’ Bah! With-

out him nothing went right; the generals losttheir heads, the marshals talked nonsense andcommitted ollies; but that was not surpris-ing, or Napoleon, who was kind, had ed‘em on gold; they had got as at as lard, andwouldn’t stir; some stayed in camp when they ought to have been warming the backs o theenemy who was between us and France.

“But the Emperor came back, and he

brought recruits, amous recruits; he changedtheir backbone and made ‘em dogs o war,t to set their teeth into anything; and hebrought a guard o honour, a ne body in-deed!—all bourgeois, who melted away likebutter on a gridiron.

“Well, spite o our stern bearing, here’severything going against us; and yet thearmy did prodigies o valour. Ten came

battles on the mountains, nations againstnations—Dresden, LŸtzen, Bautzen. Re-member these days, all o you, or ‘twas thenthat Frenchmen were so particularly heroicthat a good grenadier only lasted six months.

We triumphed always; yet there were thoseEnglish, in our rear, rousing revolts againstus with their lies! No matter, we cut our way home through the whole pack o the nations.

Wherever the Emperor showed himsel weollowed him; or i, by sea or land, he gaveus the word ‘Go!’ we went. At last, we werein France; and many a poor oot-soldier elt

the air o his own country restore his soul tosatisaction, spite o the wintry weather. I cansay or mysel that it rereshed my lie. Well,

next, our business was to deend France, ourcountry, our beautiul France, against, allEurope, which resented our having laid downthe law to the Russians, and pushed themback into their dens so that they couldn’teat us up alive, as northern nations, who aredainty and like southern esh, have a habit o doing—at least, so I’ve heard some generalssay. Ten the Emperor saw his own ather-

in-law, his riends whom he had made kings,and the scoundrels to whom he had givenback their thrones, all against him. EvenFrenchmen, and allies in our own ranks,turned against us under secret orders, as atthe battle o Leipsic. Would common soldiershave been capable o such wickedness? Treetimes a day men were alse to their word—and they called themselves princes!

“So, then, France was invaded. Wher-ever the Emperor showed his lion ace, theenemy retreated; and he did more prodigiesin deending France than ever he had donein conquering Italy, the East, Spain, Europe,and Russia. He meant to bury every invaderunder the sod, and teach ‘em to respect thesoil o France. So he let them get to Paris,that he might swallow them at a mouthul,

and rise to the height o his genius in a battlegreater than all the rest—a mother-battle, as‘twere. But there, there! Te Parisians werearaid or their twopenny skins, and their




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trumpery shops; they opened the gates. Tenthe Ragusades began, and happiness ended.Te Empress was ooled, and the white ban-

ner aunted rom the windows. Te generalswhom he had made his nearest riends aban-doned him or the Bourbons—a set o peopleno one had heard tell o. Te Emperor badeus arewell at Fontainebleau: ‘Soldiers!’—Ican hear him now; we wept like children;the ags and the eagles were lowered as i ora uneral: it was, I may well say it to you, itwas the uneral o the Empire; her dapper

armies were nothing now but skeletons. Sohe said to us, standing there on the portico o his palace: ‘My soldiers! We are vanquishedby treachery; but we shall meet in heaven,the country o the brave. Deend my child,whom I commit to you. Long live NapoleonII!’ He meant to die, that no man shouldlook upon Napoleon vanquished; he took poison, enough to have killed a regiment, be-

cause, like Jesus Christ beore his Passion, hethought himsel abandoned o God and histalisman. But the poison did not hurt him.

“See again! He ound he was immortal.“Sure o himsel, knowing he must ever

be Te Emperor, he went or a while to anisland to study out the nature o these oth-ers, who, you may be sure, committed ollieswithout end. Whilst he bided his time down

there, the Chinese, and the wild men onthe coast o Arica, and the Barbary States,and others who are not at all accommodat-ing, know so well he was more than man

that they respected his tent, saying to touchit would be to oend God. Tus, d’ye see,when these others turned him rom the doors

o his own France, he still reigned over thewhole world. Beore long he embarked in thesame little cockleshell o a boat he had had inEgypt, sailed round the beard o the English,set oot in France, and France acclaimed him.Te sacred cuckoo ew rom spire to spire;all France cried out with one voice, ‘LONGLIVE HE EMPEROR!’ In this region, here,the enthusiasm or that wonder o the ages

was, I may say, solid. Dauphine behaved well;and I am particularly pleased to know thather people wept when they saw, once more,the gray top-coat. March rst it was, whenNapoleon landed with two hundred mento conquer that kingdom o France and o Navarre, which, on the twentieth o the samemonth was again the French Empire. Onthat day our man was in Paris; he had made

a clean sweep, recovered his dear France, andgathered his veterans together by saying nomore than three words, ‘I am here.’

“‘was the greatest miracle God had yetdone! Beore him , did ever man recover anempire by showing his hat? And these oth-ers, who thought they had subdued France!Not they! At sight o the eagles, a nationalarmy sprang up, and we marched to Wa-

terloo. Tere, the Guard died at one blow.Napoleon, in despair, threw himsel threetimes beore the cannon o the enemy with-out obtaining death. We saw that. Te battle




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was lost. Tat night the Emperor called hisold soldiers to him; on the eld soaked withour blood he burned his banners and his

eagles—his poor eagles, ever victorious, whocried ‘Forward’ in the battles, and had ownthe length and breadth o Europe, they weresaved the inamy o belonging to the enemy:all the treasures o England couldn’t get hera tail-eather o them. No more eagles—therest is well known. Te Red Man went overto the Bourbons, like the scoundrel that he is.France is crushed; the soldier is nothing; they

deprive him o his dues; they discharge himto make room or broken-down nobles—ah,‘tis pitiable! Tey seized Napoleon by treach-ery; the English nailed him on a desert islandin mid-ocean on a rock raised ten thousandeet above the earth; and there he is, and willbe, till the Red Man gives him back his pow-er or the happiness o France. Tese otherssay he’s dead. Ha, dead! ‘is easy to see they

don’t know Him. Tey tell that b to catchthe people, and eel sae in their hovel o a government. Listen! Te truth at the bottomo it all is that his riends have let him aloneon the desert isle to ull a prophecy, or Iorgot to say that his name, Napoleon, means‘lion o the desert.’ Now this that I tell youis true as the Gospel. All other tales that youhear about the Emperor are ollies without

common-sense; because, d’ye see, God nevergave to child o woman born the right tostamp his name in red as he did, on the earth,which orever shall remember him! Long live

Napoleon, the ather o his people and o thesoldier!”

balzac -- the peasant story of napoleon

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