War and Peace

n the twenty-ninth of May Napoleon left Dresden, where he had spent
three weeks surrounded by a court that included princes, dukes, kings,
and even an emperor. Before leaving, Napoleon showed favor to the
emperor, kings, and princes who had deserved it, reprimanded the kings
and princes with whom he was dissatisfied, presented pearls and diamonds
of his own—that is, which he had taken from other kings—to the Empress
of Austria, and having, as his historian tells us, tenderly embraced the
Empress Marie Louise—who regarded him as her husband, though he had left
another wife in Paris—left her grieved by the parting which she seemed
hardly able to bear. Though the diplomatists still firmly believed in
the possibility of peace and worked zealously to that end, and though
the Emperor Napoleon himself wrote a letter to Alexander, calling him
Monsieur mon frère, and sincerely assured him that he did not want war
and would always love and honor him—yet he set off to join his army,
and at every station gave fresh orders to accelerate the movement of his
troops from west to east. He went in a traveling coach with six horses,
surrounded by pages, aides-de-camp, and an escort, along the road to
Posen, Thorn, Danzig, and Königsberg. At each of these towns thousands
of people met him with excitement and enthusiasm.

The army was moving from west to east, and relays of six horses carried
him in the same direction. On the tenth of June, * coming up with the
army, he spent the night in apartments prepared for him on the estate of
a Polish count in the Vilkavisski forest.

* Old style.

Next day, overtaking the army, he went in a carriage to the Niemen, and,
changing into a Polish uniform, he drove to the riverbank in order to
select a place for the crossing.

Seeing, on the other side, some Cossacks (les Cosaques) and the
wide-spreading steppes in the midst of which lay the holy city of Moscow
(Moscou, la ville sainte), the capital of a realm such as the Scythia
into which Alexander the Great had marched—Napoleon unexpectedly, and
contrary alike to strategic and diplomatic considerations, ordered an
advance, and the next day his army began to cross the Niemen.

Early in the morning of the twelfth of June he came out of his tent,
which was pitched that day on the steep left bank of the Niemen, and
looked through a spyglass at the streams of his troops pouring out of
the Vilkavisski forest and flowing over the three bridges thrown across
the river. The troops, knowing of the Emperor’s presence, were on the
lookout for him, and when they caught sight of a figure in an overcoat
and a cocked hat standing apart from his suite in front of his tent on
the hill, they threw up their caps and shouted: “Vive l’Empereur!” and
one after another poured in a ceaseless stream out of the vast forest
that had concealed them and, separating, flowed on and on by the three
bridges to the other side.

“Now we’ll go into action. Oh, when he takes it in hand himself, things
get hot... by heaven!... There he is!... Vive l’Empereur! So these
are the steppes of Asia! It’s a nasty country all the same. Au revoir,
Beauché; I’ll keep the best palace in Moscow for you! Au revoir. Good
luck!... Did you see the Emperor? Vive l’Empereur!... preur!—If
they make me Governor of India, Gérard, I’ll make you Minister of
Kashmir—that’s settled. Vive l’Empereur! Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah! The
Cossacks—those rascals—see how they run! Vive l’Empereur! There he
is, do you see him? I’ve seen him twice, as I see you now. The little
corporal... I saw him give the cross to one of the veterans.... Vive
l’Empereur!” came the voices of men, old and young, of most diverse
characters and social positions. On the faces of all was one common
expression of joy at the commencement of the long-expected campaign and
of rapture and devotion to the man in the gray coat who was standing on
the hill.

On the thirteenth of June a rather small, thoroughbred Arab horse was
brought to Napoleon. He mounted it and rode at a gallop to one of the
bridges over the Niemen, deafened continually by incessant and rapturous
acclamations which he evidently endured only because it was impossible
to forbid the soldiers to express their love of him by such shouting,
but the shouting which accompanied him everywhere disturbed him and
distracted him from the military cares that had occupied him from the
time he joined the army. He rode across one of the swaying pontoon
bridges to the farther side, turned sharply to the left, and galloped in
the direction of Kóvno, preceded by enraptured, mounted chasseurs of the
Guard who, breathless with delight, galloped ahead to clear a path for
him through the troops. On reaching the broad river Víliya, he stopped
near a regiment of Polish Uhlans stationed by the river.

“Vivat!” shouted the Poles, ecstatically, breaking their ranks and
pressing against one another to see him.

Napoleon looked up and down the river, dismounted, and sat down on a log
that lay on the bank. At a mute sign from him, a telescope was handed
him which he rested on the back of a happy page who had run up to him,
and he gazed at the opposite bank. Then he became absorbed in a map laid
out on the logs. Without lifting his head he said something, and two of
his aides-de-camp galloped off to the Polish Uhlans.

“What? What did he say?” was heard in the ranks of the Polish Uhlans
when one of the aides-de-camp rode up to them.

The order was to find a ford and to cross the river. The colonel of the
Polish Uhlans, a handsome old man, flushed and, fumbling in his speech
from excitement, asked the aide-de-camp whether he would be permitted
to swim the river with his Uhlans instead of seeking a ford. In evident
fear of refusal, like a boy asking for permission to get on a horse, he
begged to be allowed to swim across the river before the Emperor’s
eyes. The aide-de-camp replied that probably the Emperor would not be
displeased at this excess of zeal.

As soon as the aide-de-camp had said this, the old mustached officer,
with happy face and sparkling eyes, raised his saber, shouted “Vivat!”
and, commanding the Uhlans to follow him, spurred his horse and galloped
into the river. He gave an angry thrust to his horse, which had grown
restive under him, and plunged into the water, heading for the deepest
part where the current was swift. Hundreds of Uhlans galloped in after
him. It was cold and uncanny in the rapid current in the middle of the
stream, and the Uhlans caught hold of one another as they fell off their
horses. Some of the horses were drowned and some of the men; the others
tried to swim on, some in the saddle and some clinging to their horses’
manes. They tried to make their way forward to the opposite bank and,
though there was a ford one third of a mile away, were proud that they
were swimming and drowning in this river under the eyes of the man who
sat on the log and was not even looking at what they were doing. When
the aide-de-camp, having returned and choosing an opportune moment,
ventured to draw the Emperor’s attention to the devotion of the Poles
to his person, the little man in the gray overcoat got up and, having
summoned Berthier, began pacing up and down the bank with him, giving
him instructions and occasionally glancing disapprovingly at the
drowning Uhlans who distracted his attention.

For him it was no new conviction that his presence in any part of
the world, from Africa to the steppes of Muscovy alike, was enough to
dumfound people and impel them to insane self-oblivion. He called for
his horse and rode to his quarters.

Some forty Uhlans were drowned in the river, though boats were sent to
their assistance. The majority struggled back to the bank from which
they had started. The colonel and some of his men got across and with
difficulty clambered out on the further bank. And as soon as they had
got out, in their soaked and streaming clothes, they shouted “Vivat!”
and looked ecstatically at the spot where Napoleon had been but where he
no longer was and at that moment considered themselves happy.

That evening, between issuing one order that the forged Russian paper
money prepared for use in Russia should be delivered as quickly as
possible and another that a Saxon should be shot, on whom a letter
containing information about the orders to the French army had been
found, Napoleon also gave instructions that the Polish colonel who
had needlessly plunged into the river should be enrolled in the Légion
d’honneur of which Napoleon was himself the head.

Quos vult perdere dementat. *

* Those whom (God) wishes to destroy he drives mad.