We marched by night,
and we marched by day; we slapped their faces at Montenotte,
we thrashed 'em at Rivoli, Lodi, Arcole, Millesimo, and we
never let 'em up.
and we marched by day; we slapped their faces at Montenotte,
we thrashed 'em at Rivoli, Lodi, Arcole, Millesimo, and we
never let 'em up.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v03 - Bag to Ber
The examination, however, seemed
favorable, for when the man had finished his meagre meal she
licked his shoes and wiped off the dust, which was caked into
the folds of the leather, with her rough and powerful tongue.
How will it be when she is hungry? ” thought the Proven-
çal. In spite of the shudder which this reflection cost him, his
attention was attracted by the symmetrical proportions of the
animal, and he began to measure them with his eye.
three feet in height to the shoulder, and four feet long, not in-
cluding the tail. That powerful weapon, which was round as a
club, measured three feet. The head, as large as that of a lion-
ess, was remarkable for an expression of crafty intelligence; the
cold cruelty of a tiger was its ruling trait, and yet it bore a
vague resemblance to the face of an artful woman. As the
(
She was
## p. 1408 (#202) ###########################################
1408
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
H
1
1
.
soldier watched her, the countenance of this solitary queen shone
with savage gayety like that of Nero in his cups: she had slaked
her thirst for blood, and now wished for play. The Frenchman
tried to come and go, and accustomed her to his movements.
The panther left him free, as if contented to follow him with
her eyes, seeming, however, less like a faithful dog watching his
master's movements with affection, than a huge Angora cat un-
easy and suspicious of them. A few steps brought him to the
spring, where he saw the carcass of his horse, which the panther
had evidently carried there. Only two-thirds was eaten. The
sight reassured the Frenchman; for it explained the absence of
his terrible companion and the forbearance which she had shown
to him while asleep.
This first good luck encouraged the reckless soldier as he
thought of the future. The wild idea of making a home with
the panther until some chance of escape occurred entered his
mind, and he resolved to try every means of taming her and
of turning her good will to account. With these thoughts he
returned to her side, and noticed joyfully that she moved her tail
with an almost imperceptible motion. He sat down beside her
fearlessly, and they began to play with each other. He held
and her muzzle, twisted her ears, threw her over on
her back, and stroked her soft warm flanks. She allowed him
to do so; and when he began to smooth the fur of her paws,
she carefully drew in her murderous claws, which were sharp and
curved like a Damascus blade. The Frenchman kept one hand
on his dagger, again watching his opportunity to plunge it into
the belly of the too-confiding beast; but the fear that she might
strangle him in her last convulsions once more stayed his hand.
Moreover, he felt in his heart a foreboding of a remorse which
warned him not to destroy a hitherto inoffensive creature. He
even fancied that he had found a friend in the limitless desert.
His mind turned back, involuntarily, to his first mistress, whom
he had named in derision Mignonne,” because her jealousy was
so furious that throughout the whole period of their intercourse
he lived in dread of the knife with which she threatened him.
This recollection of his youth suggested the idea of teaching the
young panther, whose soft agility and grace he now admired
with less terror, to answer to the caressing name. Towards
evening he had grown so familiar with his perilous position that
he was half in love with its dangers, and his companion was so
1
her paws
1
1
1
## p. 1409 (#203) ###########################################
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
1409
“She
far tamed that she had caught the habit of turning to him when
he called, in falsetto tones, "Mignonne! ”
As the sun went down Mignonne uttered at intervals a pro-
longed, deep, melancholy cry.
«She is well brought up,” thought the gay soldier.
says her prayers. ” But the jest only came into his mind as he
watched the peaceful attitude of his comrade.
«Come, my pretty blonde, I will let you go to bed first,”
he said, relying on the activity of his legs to get away as soon
as she fell asleep, and trusting to find some other resting-place
for the night. He waited anxiously for the right moment, and
when it came he started vigorously in the direction of the Nile.
But he had scarcely marched for half an hour through the sand
before he heard the panther bounding after him, giving at inter-
vals the saw-like cry which was more terrible to hear than the
thud of her bounds.
«Well, well! ” he cried, “she must have fallen in love with
me! Perhaps she has never met any one else. It is flattering
to be her first love. "
So thinking, he fell into one of the treacherous quicksands
which deceive the inexperienced traveler in the desert, and from
which there is seldom any escape. He felt he was sinking, and
he uttered a cry of despair. The panther seized him by the
collar with her teeth, and sprang vigorously backward, drawing
him, like magic, from the sucking sand.
« Ah, Mignonne ! ” cried the soldier, kissing her with enthu-
siasm, we belong to each other now,- for life, for death! But
play me no tricks,” he added, as he turned back the way he
came.
From that moment the desert was, as it were, peopled for
him. It held a being to whom he could talk, and whose ferocity
was now lulled into gentleness, although he could scarcely ex-
plain to himself the reasons for this extraordinary friendship.
His anxiety to keep awake and on his guard succumbed to ex-
cessive weariness both of body and mind, and throwing himself
down on the floor of the grotto he slept soundly. At his
waking Mignonne was gone. He mounted the little hill to
scan the horizon, and perceived her in the far distance return-
ing with the long bounds peculiar to these animals, who are
prevented from running by the extreme flexibility of their spinal
column.
11–89
## p. 1410 (#204) ###########################################
1410
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Mignonne came home with bloody jaws, and received the
tribute of caresses which her slave hastened to pay, all the while
manifesting her pleasure by reiterated purring.
Her eyes, now soft and gentle, rested kindly on the Proven-
çal, who spoke to her lovingly as he would to a domestic animal.
“Ah! Mademoiselle,- for you are an honest girl, are you not ?
You like to be petted, don't you? Are you not ashamed of
yourself? You have been eating a Maugrabin. Well, well! they
are animals like the rest of you. But you are not to craunch up
a Frenchman; remember that! If you do, I will not love you. "
She played like a young dog with her master, and let him
roll her over and pat and stroke her, and sometimes she would
coax him to play by laying a paw upon his knee with a pretty
soliciting gesture.
Several days passed rapidly. This strange companionship
revealed to the Provençal the sublime beauties of the desert.
The alternations of hope and fear, the sufficiency of food, the
presence of a creature who occupied his thoughts,- all this kept
his mind alert, yet free: it was a life full of strange contrasts.
Solitude revealed to him her secrets, and wrapped him with her
charm. In the rising and the setting of the sun he saw splendors
unknown to the world of men. He quivered as he listened to
the soft whirring of the wings of a bird, -rare visitant! -or
watched the blending of the fleeting clouds, - those changeful
and many-tinted voyagers. In the waking hours of the night
he studied the play of the moon upon the sandy ocean, where
the strong simoom had rippled the surface into waves and ever-
varying undulations. He lived in the Eastern day; he worshiped
its marvelous glory. He rejoiced in the grandeur of the storms
when they rolled across the vast plain, and tossed the sand
upward till it looked like a dry red fog or a solid death-dealing
vapor; and as the night came on he welcomed it with ecstasy,
grateful for the blessed coolness of the light of the stars. His
ears listened to the music of the skies. Solitude taught him the
treasures of meditation. He spent hours in recalling trifles, and
in comparing his past life with the weird present.
He grew fondly attached to his panther; for he was a man
who needed an affection. Whether it were that his own will,
magnetically strong, had modified the nature of his savage princess,
or that the wars then raging in the desert had provided her with
an ample supply of food, it is certain that she showed no sign of
## p. 1411 (#205) ###########################################
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
1411
attacking him, and became so tame that he soon felt no fear of
her. He spent much of his time in sleeping; though with his
mind awake, like a spider in its web, lest he should miss some
deliverance that might chance to cross the sandy sphere marked
out by the horizon. He had made his shirt into a banner and
tied it to the top of a palm-tree which he had stripped of its
leafage. Taking counsel of necessity, he kept the flag extended
by fastening the corners with twigs and wedges; for the fitful
wind might have failed to wave it at the moment when the
longed-for succor came in sight.
Nevertheless, there were long hours of gloom when hope for-
sook him; and then he played with his panther. He learned to
know the different inflections of her voice and the meanings of
her expressive glance; he studied the variegation of the spots
which shaded the dead gold of her robe. Mignonne no longer
growled when he caught the tuft of her dangerous tail and
counted the black and white rings which glittered in the sunlight
like a cluster of precious stones. He delighted in the soft lines
of her lithe body, the whiteness of her belly, the grace of her
charming head: but above all he loved to watch her as she
gamboled at play. The agility and youthfulness of her move-
ments were a constantly fresh surprise to him. He admired the
suppleness of the flexible body as she bounded, crept, and glided,
or clung to the trunk of palm-trees, or rolled over and over,
crouching sometimes to the ground, and gathering herself together
as she made ready for her vigorous spring. Yet, however vig-
orous the bound, however slippery the granite block on which
she landed, she would stop short, motionless, at the one word
« Mignonne. ”
One day, under a dazzling sun, a large bird hovered in the
sky. The Provençal left his panther to watch the new guest.
After a moment's pause the neglected sultana uttered a low growl.
«The devil take me! I believe she is jealous! ” exclaimed the
soldier, observing the rigid look which once more appeared in her
metallic eyes.
“The soul of Sophronie has got into her body! »
The eagle disappeared in ether, and the Frenchman, recalled
by the panther's displeasure, admired afresh her rounded flanks
and the perfect grace of her attitude. She was as pretty as a
woman. The blonde brightness of her robe shaded, with delicate
gradations, to the dead-white tones of her furry thighs; the vivid
sunshine brought out the brilliancy of this living gold and its
## p. 1412 (#206) ###########################################
1412
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
variegated brown spots with indescribable lustre. The panther
and the Provençal gazed at each other with human comprehen-
sion. She trembled with delight — the coquettish creature! - as
she felt the nails of her friend scratching the strong bones of her
skull. Her eyes glittered like flashes of lightning, and then she
closed them tightly.
«She has a soul! ” cried the soldier, watching the tranquil repose
of this sovereign of the desert, golden as the sands, white as their
pulsing light, solitary and burning as they.
“WELL,” she said, “I have read your defense of the beasts. But
tell me what was the end of this friendship between two beings
so formed to understand each other? ”
“Ah, exactly," I replied. “It ended as all great passions end,
— by a misunderstanding. Both sides imagine treachery, pride
prevents an explanation, and the rupture comes about through
obstinacy. ”
“Yes,” she said, “and sometimes a word, a look, an exclama-
tion suffices. But tell me the end of the story. ”
« That is difficult," I answered. « But I will give it to you in
the words of the old veteran, as he finished the bottle of cham-
pagne and exclaimed:-
«I don't know how I could have hurt her, but she suddenly
turned upon me as if in fury, and seized my thigh with her
sharp teeth; and yet (as I afterwards remembered) not cruelly.
I thought she meant to devour me, and I plunged my dagger
into her throat. She rolled over with a cry that froze my soul;
she looked at me in her death struggle, but without anger.
I would have given all the world — my cross, which I had
not then gained, all, everything — to have brought her back
to life. It was as if I had murdered a friend, a human being.
When the soldiers who saw my flag came to my rescue they
found me weeping. Monsieur,' he resumed, after a moment's
silence, I went through the wars in Germany, Spain, Russia,
France; I have marched my carcass well-nigh over all the world;
but I have seen nothing comparable to the desert. Ah, it is
grand! glorious!
What were your feelings there? I asked.
They cannot be told, young man. Besides, I do not always
regret my panther and my palm-tree oasis: I must be very sad
## p. 1413 (#207) ###########################################
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
1413
for that. But I will tell you this: in the desert there is all —
and yet nothing. '
« (Stay! - explain that. '
« Well, then,' he said, with a gesture of impatience, God is
there, and man is not. ) »
FROM THE COUNTRY DOCTOR)
THE NAPOLEON OF THE PEOPLE
“L
ET us go to my barn,” said the doctor, taking Genestas by
the arm, after saying good-night to the curate and his
other guests.
And there, Captain Bluteau, you will hear
about Napoleon. We shall find a few old cronies who will set
Goguelat, the postman, to declaiming about the people's god.
Nicolle, my stable-man, was to put a ladder by which we can get
into the hay-loft through a window, and find a place where we
can see and hear all that goes on. A veillée is worth the trouble,
believe me. Come, it isn't the first time I've hidden in the hay
to hear the tale of a soldier or some peasant yarn.
But we must
hide; if these poor people see a stranger they are constrained at
once, and are no longer their natural selves. ”
"Eh! my dear host,” said Genestas, “haven't I often pre-
tended to sleep, that I might listen to my troopers round a biv-
ouac? I never laughed more heartily in the Paris theatres than
I did at an account of the retreat from Moscow, told in fun, by
an old sergeant to a lot of recruits who were afraid of war.
He
declared the French army slept in sheets, and drank its wine
well-iced; that the dead stood still in the roads; Russia was
white, they curried the horses with their teeth; those who liked
to skate had lots of fun, and those who fancied frozen puddings
ate their fill; the women were usually cold, and the only thing
that was really disagreeable was the want of hot water to shave
with: in short, he recounted such absurdities that an old quarter-
master, who had had his nose frozen off and was known by the
name Nez-restant, laughed himself. ”
“Hush,” said Benassis, “here we are: I'll go first; follow me. ”
The pair mounted the ladder and crouched in the hay,
without being seen or heard by the people below, and placed
themselves at ease, so that they could see and hear all that
went on. The women were sitting in groups round the three or
## p. 1414 (#208) ###########################################
1414
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
four candles that stood on the tables. Some were sewing, some
knitting; several sat idle, their necks stretched out and their
heads and eyes turned to an old peasant who was telling a story.
Most of the men were standing, or lying on bales of hay.
These groups, all perfectly silent, were scarcely visible in the
flickering glimmer of the tallow-candles encircled by glass bowls
full of water, which concentrated the light in rays upon the
women at work about the tables. The size of the barn, whose
roof was dark and sombre, still further obscured the rays of
light, which touched the heads with unequal color, and brought
out picturesque effects of light and shade. Here, the brown
forehead and the clear eyes of an eager little peasant-girl shone
forth; there, the rough brows of a few old men were sharply
defined by a luminous band, which made fantastic shapes of
their worn and discolored garments. These various listeners, so
diverse in their attitudes, all expressed on their motionless feat-
ures the absolute abandonment of their intelligence to the narra-
tor. It was a curious picture, illustrating the enormous influence
exercised over every class of mind by poetry. In exacting from
a story-teller the marvelous that must still be simple, or the
impossible that is almost believable, the peasant proves himself
to be a true lover of the purest poetry.
“Come, Monsieur Goguelat,” said the game-keeper, “tell us
about the Emperor. ”
«The evening is half over,” said the postman, and I don't
like to shorten the victories. ”
«Never mind; go on! You've told them so many times we
know them all by heart; but it is always a pleasure to hear
them again. ”
« Yes! tell us about the Emperor,” cried many voices together.
« Since you wish it,” replied Goguelat. “But you'll see it isn't
worth much when I have to tell it on the double-quick, charge!
I'd rather tell about a battle. Shall I tell about Champ-Aubert,
where we used up all the cartridges and spitted the enemy on
our bayonets ? »
“No! no! the Emperor! the Emperor! ”
The veteran rose from his bale of hay and cast upon the
assemblage that black look laden with miseries, emergencies, and
sufferings, which distinguishes the faces of old soldiers. He seized
his jacket by the two front flaps, raised them as if about to pack
the knapsack which formerly held his clothes, his shoes, and all
.
## p. 1415 (#209) ###########################################
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
1415
his fortune; then he threw the weight of his body on his left
leg, advanced the right, and yielded with a good grace to the
demands of the company. After pushing his gray hair to one
side to show his forehead, he raised his head towards heaven
that he might, as it were, put himself on the level of the gigantic
history he was about to relate.
“You see, my friends, Napoleon was born in Corsica, a French
island, warmed by the sun of Italy, where it is like a furnace,
and where the people kill each other, from father to son, all
about nothing: that's a way they have. To begin with the mar-
vel of the thing, — his mother, who was the handsomest woman
of her time, and a knowing one, bethought herself of dedicating
him to God, so that he might escape the dangers of his child-
hood and future life; for she had dreamed that the world was
set on fire the day he was born. And indeed it was a prophecy!
So she asked 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 what
came of it.
“Follow me closely, and tell me if what you hear is in the
nature of man.
« Sure and certain it is that none but a man who conceived
the idea of making a compact with God could have passed
unhurt through the enemy's lines, through cannon-balls, and dis-
charges of grape-shot that swept the rest of us off like flies, and
always respected his head. I had a proof of that I myself -
at Eylau. I see him now, as he rode up a height, took his
field glass, looked at the battle, and said, All goes well. ' One
of those plumed busy-bodies, who plagued him considerably and
followed him everywhere, even to his meals, so they said,
thought to play the wag, and took the Emperor's place as he
Ho! in a twinkling, head and plume were off! You
must understand that Napoleon had promised to keep the secret
of his compact all to himself. That's why all those who followed
him, even his nearest friends, fell like nuts, - Duroc, Bessières,
Lannes, -all strong as steel bars, though he could bend them as
he pleased. Besides, — to prove he was the child of God, and
made to be the father of soldiers, was he ever known to be
lieutenant or captain ? no, no; commander-in-chief from the
start. He didn't look to be more than twenty-four years of age
when he was an old general at the taking of Toulon, where he
rode away.
## p. 1416 (#210) ###########################################
1416
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
a
first began to show the others that they knew nothing about
manoeuvring cannon.
"After that, down came our slip of a general to command
the grand army of Italy, which hadn't bread nor munitions, nor
shoes, nor coats, -a poor army,
as naked as worm. My
friends,' said he, here we are together. Get it into your pates
that fifteen days from now you will be conquerors, new clothes,
good gaiters, famous 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 flat as
a bedbug, straightened up. We were thirty thousand barefeet
against eighty thousand Austrian bullies, all fine men, well set up.
I see 'em now! But Napoleon - he was then only Bonaparte -
he knew how to put the courage into us!
We marched by night,
and we marched by day; we slapped their faces at Montenotte,
we thrashed 'em at Rivoli, Lodi, Arcole, Millesimo, and we
never let 'em up. A soldier gets the taste of conquest. So
Napoleon whirled round those Austrian generals, who didn't
know where to poke themselves to get out of his way, and he
pelted 'em well, -- nipped off ten thousand men at a blow some-
times, by getting round them with fifteen hundred Frenchmen,
and then he gleaned as he pleased. He took their cannon, their
supplies, their money, their munitions, in short, all they had
that was good to take. He fought them and beat them on the
mountains, he drove them into the rivers and seas, he bit 'em
in the air, he devoured 'em on the ground, and he lashed 'em
everywhere. Hey! , the grand army feathered itself well; for,
d'ye see, the Emperor, who was also a wit, called up the inhab-
itants and told them he was there to deliver them. So after
that the natives lodged and cherished us; the women too, and
very judicious they were. Now here's the end of it. In Ven-
tose, '96, — in those times that was the month of March of to-day,
- we lay cuddled in a corner of Savoy with the marmots; and
yet, before that campaign was over, we were masters of Italy,
just as Napoleon had predicted; and by the following March —
in a single year and two campaigns — he had brought us within
sight of Vienna.
'Twas a clean sweep.
We devoured their
armies, one after the other, and made an end of four Austrian
generals. One old fellow, with white hair, was roasted like a rat
in the straw at Mantua. Kings begged for mercy on their
knees! Peace was won.
## p. 1417 (#211) ###########################################
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
1417
« Could a man have done that ? No; God helped him, to a
certainty!
“He divided himself up like the loaves in the Gospel, com-
manded the battle by day, planned it by night; going and com-
ing, for the sentinels saw him, — never eating, never sleeping.
So, seeing these prodigies, the soldiers adopted him for their
father. Forward, march! Then those others, the rulers in Paris,
seeing this, said to themselves:– Here's a bold one that seems
to get his orders from the skies; he's likely to put his paw on
France. We must let him loose on Asia; we will send him to
America, perhaps that will satisfy him. ' But 'twas written
above for him, as it was for Jesus Christ. The command went
forth that he should go to Egypt. See again his resemblance
to the Son of God. But that's not all. He called together his
best veterans, his fire-eaters, the ones he had particularly put
the devil into, and he said to them like this:- My friends,
they have given us Egypt to chew up, just to keep us busy, but
we'll swallow it whole in a couple of campaigns, as we did Italy.
The common soldiers shall be princes and have the land for
their own. Forward, march! ' Forward, march! cried the
sergeants, and there we were at Toulon, road to Egypt. At
that time the English had all their ships in the sea; but when
we embarked Napoleon said, “They won't see us.
It is just as
well that you should know from this time forth that your gen-
eral has got his star in the sky, which guides and protects us. '
What was said was done. Passing over the sea, we took Malta
like an orange, just to quench his thirst for victory; for he was
a man who couldn't live and do nothing.
“So here we are in Egypt. Good. Once here, other orders.
The Egyptians, d'ye see, are men who, ever since the earth
was, have had giants for sovereigns, and armies as numerous
as ants; for, you must understand, that's the land of genii and
crocodiles, where they've built pyramids as big as our mountains,
and buried their kings under them to keep them fresh, - an idea
that pleased 'em mightily. So then, after we disembarked, the
Little Corporal said to us, My children, the country you are
going to conquer has a lot of gods that you must respect;
because Frenchmen ought to be friends with everybody, and
fight the nations without vexing the inhabitants. Get it into
your skulls that you are not to touch anything at first, for it is
all going to be yours soon.
Forward, march! So far, so good.
## p. 1418 (#212) ###########################################
1418
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
But all those people of Africa, to whom Napoleon was foretold
under the name of Kébir-Bonaberdis,- a word of their lingo
that means “the sultan fires,' – were afraid as the devil of him.
So the Grand Turk, and Asia, and Africa, had recourse to
magic. They sent us a demon, named the Mahdi, supposed to
have descended from heaven on a white horse, which, like its
master, was bullet-proof; and both of them lived on air, without
food to support them. There are some that say they saw them;
but I can't give you any reasons to make you certain about
that. The rulers of Arabia and the Mamelukes tried to make
their troopers believe that the Mahdi could keep them from
perishing in battle; and they pretended he was an angel sent
from heaven to fight Napoleon and get back Solomon's seal.
Solomon's seal was part of their paraphernalia which they vowed
our General had stolen. You must understand that we'd given
'em a good many wry faces, in spite of what he had said to us.
“Now, tell me how they knew that Napoleon had a pact with
God? Was that natural, d'ye think?
«They held to it in their minds that Napoleon commanded
the genii, and could pass hither and thither in the twinkling of
an eye, like a bird. The fact is, he was everywhere. At last, it
came to his carrying off a queen, beautiful as the dawn, for
whom he had offered all his treasure, and diamonds as big as
pigeons' eggs, -a bargain which the Mameluke to whom she par-
ticularly belonged positively refused, although he had several
others. Such matters, when they come to that pass, can't be
settled without a great many battles; and, indeed, there was no
scarcity of battles; there was fighting enough to please every-
body. We were in line at Alexandria, at Gizeh, and before the
Pyramids; we marched in the sun and through the sand, where
some, who had the dazzles, saw water that they couldn't drink,
and shade where their fesh was roasted. But we made short
work of the Mamelukes; and everybody else yielded at the voice
of Napoleon, who took possession of Upper and Lower Egypt,
Arabia, and even the capitals of kingdoms that were no more,
where there were thousand of statues and all the plagues of
Egypt, more particularly lizards, -a mammoth of a country
where everybody could take his acres of land for as little as he
pleased. Well, while Napoleon was busy with his affairs inland,
– where he had it in his head to do fine things, - the English
burned his fleet at Aboukir; for they were always looking about
## p. 1419 (#213) ###########################################
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
1419
them to annoy us. But Napoleon, who had the respect of the
East and of the West, whom the Pope called his son, and the
cousin of Mohammed called “his dear father,' resolved to punish
England, and get hold of India in exchange for his fleet. He
was just about to take us across the Red Sea into Asia, a coun-
try where there are diamonds and gold to pay the soldiers and
palaces for bivouacs, when the Mahdi made a treaty with the
Plague, and sent it down to hinder our victories. Halt! The
army to a man defiled at that parade; and few there were who
came back on their feet. Dying soldiers couldn't take Saint-Jean
d'Acre, though they rushed at it three times with generous and
martial obstinacy. The Plague was the strongest. No saying to
that enemy, My good friend. ' Every soldier lay ill. Napoleon
alone was fresh as a rose, and the whole army saw him drinking
in pestilence without its doing him a bit of harm.
“Ha! my friends! will you tell me that that's in the nature
of a mere man ?
«The Mamelukes knowing we were all in the ambulances,
thought they could stop the way; but that sort of joke wouldn't
do with Napoleon. So he said to his demons, his veterans, those
that had the toughest hide, 'Go, clear me the way. Junot, a
sabre of the first cut, and his particular friend, took a thousand
men, no more, and ripped up the army of the pacha who had
had the presumption to put himself in the way. After that, we
came back to headquarters at Cairo. Now, here's another side
of the story.
Napoleon absent, France was letting herself be
ruined by the rulers in Paris, who kept back the pay of the
soldiers of the other armies, and their clothing, and their rations;
left them to die of hunger, and expected them to lay down the
law to the universe without taking any trouble to help them.
Idiots! who amused themselves by chattering, instead of putting
their own hands in the dough. Well, that's how it happened
that our armies were beaten, and the frontiers of France were
encroached upon: THE MAN was not there. Now observe, I say
man because that's what they called him; but 'twas nonsense,
for he had a star and all its belongings; it was we who were
only men. He taught history to France after his famous battle
of Aboukir, where, without losing more than three hundred men,
and with a single division, he vanquished the grand army of the
Turk, seventy-five thousand strong, and hustled more than half
of it into the sea, r-r-rah!
## p. 1420 (#214) ###########################################
1420
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
were
“That was his last thunder-clap in Egypt. He said to him-
self, seeing the way things were going in Paris, I am the savior
of France. I know it, and I must go. But, understand me, the
army didn't know he was going, or they'd have kept him by
force and made him Emperor of the East. So now we
sad; for He was gone who was all our joy. He left the com-
mand to Kléber, a big mastiff, who came off duty at Cairo,
assassinated by an Egyptian, whom they put to death by impaling
him on a bayonet; that's the way they guillotine people down
there. But it makes 'em suffer so much that a soldier had pity
on the criminal and gave him his canteen; and then, as soon as
the Egyptian had drunk his fill, he gave up the ghost with all
the pleasure in life. But that's a trifle we couldn't laugh at
then. Napoleon embarked in a cockleshell, a little skiff that
was nothing at all, though 'twas called Fortune); and in a
twinkling, under the nose of England, who was blockading him
with ships of the line, frigates, and anything that could hoist
a sail, he crossed over, and there he was in France. For he
always had the power, mind you, of crossing the seas at one
straddle.
«Was that a human man ? Bah!
“So, one minute he is at Fréjus, the next in Paris.
There,
they all adore him; but he summons the government. (What
have you done with my children, the soldiers ? ' he says to the
lawyers.
(You're a mob of rascally scribblers; you are making
France a mess of pottage, and snapping your fingers at what
people think of you. It won't do; and I speak the opinion of
everybody. ' So, on that, they wanted to battle with him and kill
him-click! he had 'em locked up in barracks, or flying out of
windows, or drafted among his followers, where they were as
mute as fishes, and as pliable as a quid of tobacco. After that
stroke- consul! And then, as it was not for him to doubt the
Supreme Being, he fulfilled his promise to the good God, who, you
see, had kept His word to him. He gave Him back his churches,
and re-established His religion; the bells rang for God and for
him: and lo! everybody was pleased: primo, the priests, whom he
saved from being harassed; secundo, the bourgeois, who thought
only of their trade, and no longer had to fear the rapiamus
of the law, which had got to be unjust; tertio, the nobles, for he
forbade they should be killed, as, unfortunately, the people had
got the habit of doing.
## p. 1421 (#215) ###########################################
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
1421
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
looked over the whole earth as if it were no bigger than a man's
So then he appeared in Italy, like as though he had stuck
his head through the window. One glance was enough. The
Austrians were swallowed up at Marengo like so many gudgeons
by a whale! Ouf! The French eagles sang their pæans so loud
that all the world heard them — and it sufficed! 'We won't play
that game any more,' said the German. Enough, enough! ' said
all the rest.
« To sum up: Europe backed down, England knocked under.
General peace; and the kings and the people made believe kiss
each other. That's the time when the Emperor invented the
Legion of Honor – and a fine thing, too. In France -- this
is what he said at Boulogne before the whole army - every
man is brave. So the citizen who does a fine action shall be
sister to the soldier, and the soldier shall be his brother, and the
two shall be one under the flag of honor. '
“We, who were down in Egypt, now came home.
All was
changed! He left us general, and hey! in a twinkling we found
him EMPEROR. France gave herself to him, like a fine girl to
a lancer. When it was done — to the satisfaction of all, as you
may say — a sacred ceremony took place, the like of which was
never seen under the canopy of the skies. The Pope and the
cardinals, in their red and gold vestments, crossed the Alps
expressly to crown him before the army and the people, who
clapped their hands. There is one thing that I should do very
wrong not to tell you. In Egypt, in the desert close to Syria,
the RED MAN came to him on the Mount of Moses, and said,
All is well. Then, at Marengo, the night before the victory,
the same Red Man appeared before him for the second time,
standing erect and saying, Thou shalt see the world at thy feet;
thou shalt be Emperor of France, King of Italy, master of Hol-
land, sovereign of Spain, Portugal, and the Illyrian provinces,
protector of Germany, savior of Poland, first eagle of the Legion
of Honor - all. ' This Red Man, you understand, was his genius,
his spirit, - a sort of satellite who served him, as some say, to
communicate with his star. I never really believed that. But
the Red Man himself is a true fact. Napoleon spoke of him,
and said he came to him in troubled moments, and lived in the
palace of the Tuileries under the roof. So, on the day of the
## p. 1422 (#216) ###########################################
1422
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
sums
coronation, Napoleon saw him for the third time; and they were
in consultation over many things.
“After that, Napoleon went to Milan to be crowned king of
Italy, and there the grand triumph of the soldier began. Every
man who could write was made an officer. Down came pensions;
it rained duchies; treasures poured in for the staff which didn't cost
France a penny; and the Legion of Honor provided incomes for
the private soldiers, — of which I receive mine to this day. So
here were the armies maintained as never before on this earth.
But besides that, the Emperor, knowing that he was to be the
emperor of the whole world, bethought him of the bourgeois,
and to please them he built fairy monuments, after their own
ideas, in places where you'd never think to find any. For
instance, suppose you were coming back from Spain and going
to Berlin — well, you'd find triumphal arches along the way, with
common soldiers sculptured on the stone, every bit the same as
generals.
In two or three years, and without imposing taxes on
any of you, Napoleon filled his vaults with gold, built palaces,
made bridges, roads, scholars, fêtes, laws, vessels, harbors, and
spent millions upon millions, such enormous
that he
could, so they tell me, have paved France from end to end with
five-franc pieces, if he had had a mind to.
“Now, when he sat at ease on his throne, and was master of
all, so that Europe waited his permission to do his bidding, he
remembered his four brothers and his three sisters, and he said
to us, as it might be in conversation, in an order of the day,
My children, is it right that the blood relations of your Emperor
should be begging their bread? No. I wish to see them in
splendor like myself. It becomes, therefore, absolutely necessary
to conquer a kingdom for each of them, — to the end that French-
men may be masters over all lands, that the soldiers of the
Guard shall make the whole earth tremble, that France may spit
where she likes, and that all the nations shall say to her, as it
is written on my copper coins, “God protects you! ” “Agreed,'
cried the army.
We'll go fish for thy kingdoms with our bay-
onets. Ha! there was no backing down, don't you see!
, If he
had taken it into his head to conquer the moon, we should have
made ready, packed knapsacks, and clambered up; happily, he
didn't think of it. The kings of the countries, who liked their
comfortable thrones, were naturally loathe to budge, and had to
have their ears pulled; so then — Forward, march! We did
## p. 1423 (#217) ###########################################
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
1423
march; we got there; and the earth once more trembled to its
centre. Hey! the men and the shoes he used up in those days!
The enemy dealt us such blows that none but the grand army
could have stood the fatigue of it. But you are not ignorant
that a Frenchman is born a philosopher, and knows that a little
sooner, or a little later, he has got to die. So we were ready to
die without a word, for we liked to see the Emperor doing that
on the geographies. ”
Here the narrator nimbly described a circle with his foot on
the floor of the barn.
“And Napoleon said, “There, that's to be a kingdom. And
a kingdom it was. Ha! the good times! The colonels were gen-
erals; the generals, marshals; and the marshals, kings. There's
one of 'em still on his throne, to prove it to Europe; but he's a
Gascon and a traitor to France for keeping that crown; and he
doesn't blush for shame as he ought to do, because crowns, don't
you see, are made of gold. I who am speaking to you, I have
seen, in Paris, eleven kings and a mob of princes surrounding
Napoleon like the rays of the sun. You understand, of course,
that every soldier had the chance to mount a throne, provided
always he had the merit; so a corporal of the Guard was a sight
to be looked at as he walked along, for each man had his share
in the victory, and 'twas plainly set forth in the bulletin. What
victories they were! Austerlitz, where the army manæuvred as if
on parade; Eylau, where we drowned the Russians in a lake, as
though Napoleon had blown them into it with the breath of his
mouth; Wagram, where the army fought for three days without
grumbling.
We won as many battles as there are saints in the
calendar. It was proved then beyond a doubt, that Napoleon had
the sword of God in his scabbard. The soldiers were his friends;
he made them his children; he looked after us; he saw that we
had shoes, and shirts, and great-coats, and bread, and cartridges;
but he always kept up his majesty; for, don't you see, 'twas his
business to reign. No matter for that, however; a sergeant, and
even a common soldier could say to him, My Emperor, just as
you say to me sometimes, My good friend. ' He gave us an
answer if we appealed to him; he slept in the snow like the
rest of us; and indeed, he had almost the air of a human man.
I who speak to you, I have seen him with his feet among the
grapeshot, and no more uneasy than you are now,- standing
steady, looking through his field glass, and minding his business.
## p. 1424 (#218) ###########################################
1424
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
'Twas that kept the rest of us quiet. I don't know how he did
it, but when he spoke he made our hearts burn within us; and
to show him we were his children, incapable of balking, didn't
we rush at the mouths of the rascally cannon, that belched and
vomited shot and shell without so much as saying, Look out! '
Why! the dying must needs raise their heads to salute him and
cry, LONG LIVE THE EMPEROR! '
“I ask you, was that natural ? would they have done that for
a human man ?
“Well, after he had settled the world, the Empress Josephine,
his wife, a good woman all the same, managed matters so that
she did not bear him any children, and he was obliged to give
her up, though he loved her considerably. But, you see, he had
to have little ones for reasons of state. Hearing of this, all the
sovereigns of Europe quarreled as to which of them should give
him a wife. And he married, so they told us, an Austrian arch-
duchess, daughter of Cæsar, an ancient man about whom people
talk a good deal, and not in France only, — where any one will
tell you what he did, — but in Europe. It is all true, for I myself
who address you at this moment, I have been on the Danube,
and have seen the remains of a bridge built by that man, who,
it seems, was a relation of Napoleon in Rome, and that's how
the Emperor got the inheritance of that city for his son. So
after the marriage, which was a fête for the whole world, and in
honor of which he released the people of ten years' taxes, - which
they had to pay all the same, however, because the assessors
didn't take account of what he said, - his wife had a little one,
who was King of Rome. Now, there's a thing that had never
been seen on this earth; never before was a child born a king
with his father living. On that 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 and
declare to me that all that was human ? No; it was written
above; and may the scurvy seize them who deny that he was
sent by God himself for the triumph of France !
"Well, here's the Emperor of Russia, that used to be his
friend, he gets angry because Napoleon didn't marry a Russian;
so he joins with the English, our enemies, - to whom our
Emperor always wanted to say a couple of words in their bur-
rows, only he was prevented. Napoleon gets angry too; an end
## p. 1425 (#219) ###########################################
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
1425
had to be put to such doings; so he says to us: - 'Soldiers!
favorable, for when the man had finished his meagre meal she
licked his shoes and wiped off the dust, which was caked into
the folds of the leather, with her rough and powerful tongue.
How will it be when she is hungry? ” thought the Proven-
çal. In spite of the shudder which this reflection cost him, his
attention was attracted by the symmetrical proportions of the
animal, and he began to measure them with his eye.
three feet in height to the shoulder, and four feet long, not in-
cluding the tail. That powerful weapon, which was round as a
club, measured three feet. The head, as large as that of a lion-
ess, was remarkable for an expression of crafty intelligence; the
cold cruelty of a tiger was its ruling trait, and yet it bore a
vague resemblance to the face of an artful woman. As the
(
She was
## p. 1408 (#202) ###########################################
1408
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
H
1
1
.
soldier watched her, the countenance of this solitary queen shone
with savage gayety like that of Nero in his cups: she had slaked
her thirst for blood, and now wished for play. The Frenchman
tried to come and go, and accustomed her to his movements.
The panther left him free, as if contented to follow him with
her eyes, seeming, however, less like a faithful dog watching his
master's movements with affection, than a huge Angora cat un-
easy and suspicious of them. A few steps brought him to the
spring, where he saw the carcass of his horse, which the panther
had evidently carried there. Only two-thirds was eaten. The
sight reassured the Frenchman; for it explained the absence of
his terrible companion and the forbearance which she had shown
to him while asleep.
This first good luck encouraged the reckless soldier as he
thought of the future. The wild idea of making a home with
the panther until some chance of escape occurred entered his
mind, and he resolved to try every means of taming her and
of turning her good will to account. With these thoughts he
returned to her side, and noticed joyfully that she moved her tail
with an almost imperceptible motion. He sat down beside her
fearlessly, and they began to play with each other. He held
and her muzzle, twisted her ears, threw her over on
her back, and stroked her soft warm flanks. She allowed him
to do so; and when he began to smooth the fur of her paws,
she carefully drew in her murderous claws, which were sharp and
curved like a Damascus blade. The Frenchman kept one hand
on his dagger, again watching his opportunity to plunge it into
the belly of the too-confiding beast; but the fear that she might
strangle him in her last convulsions once more stayed his hand.
Moreover, he felt in his heart a foreboding of a remorse which
warned him not to destroy a hitherto inoffensive creature. He
even fancied that he had found a friend in the limitless desert.
His mind turned back, involuntarily, to his first mistress, whom
he had named in derision Mignonne,” because her jealousy was
so furious that throughout the whole period of their intercourse
he lived in dread of the knife with which she threatened him.
This recollection of his youth suggested the idea of teaching the
young panther, whose soft agility and grace he now admired
with less terror, to answer to the caressing name. Towards
evening he had grown so familiar with his perilous position that
he was half in love with its dangers, and his companion was so
1
her paws
1
1
1
## p. 1409 (#203) ###########################################
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
1409
“She
far tamed that she had caught the habit of turning to him when
he called, in falsetto tones, "Mignonne! ”
As the sun went down Mignonne uttered at intervals a pro-
longed, deep, melancholy cry.
«She is well brought up,” thought the gay soldier.
says her prayers. ” But the jest only came into his mind as he
watched the peaceful attitude of his comrade.
«Come, my pretty blonde, I will let you go to bed first,”
he said, relying on the activity of his legs to get away as soon
as she fell asleep, and trusting to find some other resting-place
for the night. He waited anxiously for the right moment, and
when it came he started vigorously in the direction of the Nile.
But he had scarcely marched for half an hour through the sand
before he heard the panther bounding after him, giving at inter-
vals the saw-like cry which was more terrible to hear than the
thud of her bounds.
«Well, well! ” he cried, “she must have fallen in love with
me! Perhaps she has never met any one else. It is flattering
to be her first love. "
So thinking, he fell into one of the treacherous quicksands
which deceive the inexperienced traveler in the desert, and from
which there is seldom any escape. He felt he was sinking, and
he uttered a cry of despair. The panther seized him by the
collar with her teeth, and sprang vigorously backward, drawing
him, like magic, from the sucking sand.
« Ah, Mignonne ! ” cried the soldier, kissing her with enthu-
siasm, we belong to each other now,- for life, for death! But
play me no tricks,” he added, as he turned back the way he
came.
From that moment the desert was, as it were, peopled for
him. It held a being to whom he could talk, and whose ferocity
was now lulled into gentleness, although he could scarcely ex-
plain to himself the reasons for this extraordinary friendship.
His anxiety to keep awake and on his guard succumbed to ex-
cessive weariness both of body and mind, and throwing himself
down on the floor of the grotto he slept soundly. At his
waking Mignonne was gone. He mounted the little hill to
scan the horizon, and perceived her in the far distance return-
ing with the long bounds peculiar to these animals, who are
prevented from running by the extreme flexibility of their spinal
column.
11–89
## p. 1410 (#204) ###########################################
1410
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Mignonne came home with bloody jaws, and received the
tribute of caresses which her slave hastened to pay, all the while
manifesting her pleasure by reiterated purring.
Her eyes, now soft and gentle, rested kindly on the Proven-
çal, who spoke to her lovingly as he would to a domestic animal.
“Ah! Mademoiselle,- for you are an honest girl, are you not ?
You like to be petted, don't you? Are you not ashamed of
yourself? You have been eating a Maugrabin. Well, well! they
are animals like the rest of you. But you are not to craunch up
a Frenchman; remember that! If you do, I will not love you. "
She played like a young dog with her master, and let him
roll her over and pat and stroke her, and sometimes she would
coax him to play by laying a paw upon his knee with a pretty
soliciting gesture.
Several days passed rapidly. This strange companionship
revealed to the Provençal the sublime beauties of the desert.
The alternations of hope and fear, the sufficiency of food, the
presence of a creature who occupied his thoughts,- all this kept
his mind alert, yet free: it was a life full of strange contrasts.
Solitude revealed to him her secrets, and wrapped him with her
charm. In the rising and the setting of the sun he saw splendors
unknown to the world of men. He quivered as he listened to
the soft whirring of the wings of a bird, -rare visitant! -or
watched the blending of the fleeting clouds, - those changeful
and many-tinted voyagers. In the waking hours of the night
he studied the play of the moon upon the sandy ocean, where
the strong simoom had rippled the surface into waves and ever-
varying undulations. He lived in the Eastern day; he worshiped
its marvelous glory. He rejoiced in the grandeur of the storms
when they rolled across the vast plain, and tossed the sand
upward till it looked like a dry red fog or a solid death-dealing
vapor; and as the night came on he welcomed it with ecstasy,
grateful for the blessed coolness of the light of the stars. His
ears listened to the music of the skies. Solitude taught him the
treasures of meditation. He spent hours in recalling trifles, and
in comparing his past life with the weird present.
He grew fondly attached to his panther; for he was a man
who needed an affection. Whether it were that his own will,
magnetically strong, had modified the nature of his savage princess,
or that the wars then raging in the desert had provided her with
an ample supply of food, it is certain that she showed no sign of
## p. 1411 (#205) ###########################################
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
1411
attacking him, and became so tame that he soon felt no fear of
her. He spent much of his time in sleeping; though with his
mind awake, like a spider in its web, lest he should miss some
deliverance that might chance to cross the sandy sphere marked
out by the horizon. He had made his shirt into a banner and
tied it to the top of a palm-tree which he had stripped of its
leafage. Taking counsel of necessity, he kept the flag extended
by fastening the corners with twigs and wedges; for the fitful
wind might have failed to wave it at the moment when the
longed-for succor came in sight.
Nevertheless, there were long hours of gloom when hope for-
sook him; and then he played with his panther. He learned to
know the different inflections of her voice and the meanings of
her expressive glance; he studied the variegation of the spots
which shaded the dead gold of her robe. Mignonne no longer
growled when he caught the tuft of her dangerous tail and
counted the black and white rings which glittered in the sunlight
like a cluster of precious stones. He delighted in the soft lines
of her lithe body, the whiteness of her belly, the grace of her
charming head: but above all he loved to watch her as she
gamboled at play. The agility and youthfulness of her move-
ments were a constantly fresh surprise to him. He admired the
suppleness of the flexible body as she bounded, crept, and glided,
or clung to the trunk of palm-trees, or rolled over and over,
crouching sometimes to the ground, and gathering herself together
as she made ready for her vigorous spring. Yet, however vig-
orous the bound, however slippery the granite block on which
she landed, she would stop short, motionless, at the one word
« Mignonne. ”
One day, under a dazzling sun, a large bird hovered in the
sky. The Provençal left his panther to watch the new guest.
After a moment's pause the neglected sultana uttered a low growl.
«The devil take me! I believe she is jealous! ” exclaimed the
soldier, observing the rigid look which once more appeared in her
metallic eyes.
“The soul of Sophronie has got into her body! »
The eagle disappeared in ether, and the Frenchman, recalled
by the panther's displeasure, admired afresh her rounded flanks
and the perfect grace of her attitude. She was as pretty as a
woman. The blonde brightness of her robe shaded, with delicate
gradations, to the dead-white tones of her furry thighs; the vivid
sunshine brought out the brilliancy of this living gold and its
## p. 1412 (#206) ###########################################
1412
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
variegated brown spots with indescribable lustre. The panther
and the Provençal gazed at each other with human comprehen-
sion. She trembled with delight — the coquettish creature! - as
she felt the nails of her friend scratching the strong bones of her
skull. Her eyes glittered like flashes of lightning, and then she
closed them tightly.
«She has a soul! ” cried the soldier, watching the tranquil repose
of this sovereign of the desert, golden as the sands, white as their
pulsing light, solitary and burning as they.
“WELL,” she said, “I have read your defense of the beasts. But
tell me what was the end of this friendship between two beings
so formed to understand each other? ”
“Ah, exactly," I replied. “It ended as all great passions end,
— by a misunderstanding. Both sides imagine treachery, pride
prevents an explanation, and the rupture comes about through
obstinacy. ”
“Yes,” she said, “and sometimes a word, a look, an exclama-
tion suffices. But tell me the end of the story. ”
« That is difficult," I answered. « But I will give it to you in
the words of the old veteran, as he finished the bottle of cham-
pagne and exclaimed:-
«I don't know how I could have hurt her, but she suddenly
turned upon me as if in fury, and seized my thigh with her
sharp teeth; and yet (as I afterwards remembered) not cruelly.
I thought she meant to devour me, and I plunged my dagger
into her throat. She rolled over with a cry that froze my soul;
she looked at me in her death struggle, but without anger.
I would have given all the world — my cross, which I had
not then gained, all, everything — to have brought her back
to life. It was as if I had murdered a friend, a human being.
When the soldiers who saw my flag came to my rescue they
found me weeping. Monsieur,' he resumed, after a moment's
silence, I went through the wars in Germany, Spain, Russia,
France; I have marched my carcass well-nigh over all the world;
but I have seen nothing comparable to the desert. Ah, it is
grand! glorious!
What were your feelings there? I asked.
They cannot be told, young man. Besides, I do not always
regret my panther and my palm-tree oasis: I must be very sad
## p. 1413 (#207) ###########################################
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
1413
for that. But I will tell you this: in the desert there is all —
and yet nothing. '
« (Stay! - explain that. '
« Well, then,' he said, with a gesture of impatience, God is
there, and man is not. ) »
FROM THE COUNTRY DOCTOR)
THE NAPOLEON OF THE PEOPLE
“L
ET us go to my barn,” said the doctor, taking Genestas by
the arm, after saying good-night to the curate and his
other guests.
And there, Captain Bluteau, you will hear
about Napoleon. We shall find a few old cronies who will set
Goguelat, the postman, to declaiming about the people's god.
Nicolle, my stable-man, was to put a ladder by which we can get
into the hay-loft through a window, and find a place where we
can see and hear all that goes on. A veillée is worth the trouble,
believe me. Come, it isn't the first time I've hidden in the hay
to hear the tale of a soldier or some peasant yarn.
But we must
hide; if these poor people see a stranger they are constrained at
once, and are no longer their natural selves. ”
"Eh! my dear host,” said Genestas, “haven't I often pre-
tended to sleep, that I might listen to my troopers round a biv-
ouac? I never laughed more heartily in the Paris theatres than
I did at an account of the retreat from Moscow, told in fun, by
an old sergeant to a lot of recruits who were afraid of war.
He
declared the French army slept in sheets, and drank its wine
well-iced; that the dead stood still in the roads; Russia was
white, they curried the horses with their teeth; those who liked
to skate had lots of fun, and those who fancied frozen puddings
ate their fill; the women were usually cold, and the only thing
that was really disagreeable was the want of hot water to shave
with: in short, he recounted such absurdities that an old quarter-
master, who had had his nose frozen off and was known by the
name Nez-restant, laughed himself. ”
“Hush,” said Benassis, “here we are: I'll go first; follow me. ”
The pair mounted the ladder and crouched in the hay,
without being seen or heard by the people below, and placed
themselves at ease, so that they could see and hear all that
went on. The women were sitting in groups round the three or
## p. 1414 (#208) ###########################################
1414
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
four candles that stood on the tables. Some were sewing, some
knitting; several sat idle, their necks stretched out and their
heads and eyes turned to an old peasant who was telling a story.
Most of the men were standing, or lying on bales of hay.
These groups, all perfectly silent, were scarcely visible in the
flickering glimmer of the tallow-candles encircled by glass bowls
full of water, which concentrated the light in rays upon the
women at work about the tables. The size of the barn, whose
roof was dark and sombre, still further obscured the rays of
light, which touched the heads with unequal color, and brought
out picturesque effects of light and shade. Here, the brown
forehead and the clear eyes of an eager little peasant-girl shone
forth; there, the rough brows of a few old men were sharply
defined by a luminous band, which made fantastic shapes of
their worn and discolored garments. These various listeners, so
diverse in their attitudes, all expressed on their motionless feat-
ures the absolute abandonment of their intelligence to the narra-
tor. It was a curious picture, illustrating the enormous influence
exercised over every class of mind by poetry. In exacting from
a story-teller the marvelous that must still be simple, or the
impossible that is almost believable, the peasant proves himself
to be a true lover of the purest poetry.
“Come, Monsieur Goguelat,” said the game-keeper, “tell us
about the Emperor. ”
«The evening is half over,” said the postman, and I don't
like to shorten the victories. ”
«Never mind; go on! You've told them so many times we
know them all by heart; but it is always a pleasure to hear
them again. ”
« Yes! tell us about the Emperor,” cried many voices together.
« Since you wish it,” replied Goguelat. “But you'll see it isn't
worth much when I have to tell it on the double-quick, charge!
I'd rather tell about a battle. Shall I tell about Champ-Aubert,
where we used up all the cartridges and spitted the enemy on
our bayonets ? »
“No! no! the Emperor! the Emperor! ”
The veteran rose from his bale of hay and cast upon the
assemblage that black look laden with miseries, emergencies, and
sufferings, which distinguishes the faces of old soldiers. He seized
his jacket by the two front flaps, raised them as if about to pack
the knapsack which formerly held his clothes, his shoes, and all
.
## p. 1415 (#209) ###########################################
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
1415
his fortune; then he threw the weight of his body on his left
leg, advanced the right, and yielded with a good grace to the
demands of the company. After pushing his gray hair to one
side to show his forehead, he raised his head towards heaven
that he might, as it were, put himself on the level of the gigantic
history he was about to relate.
“You see, my friends, Napoleon was born in Corsica, a French
island, warmed by the sun of Italy, where it is like a furnace,
and where the people kill each other, from father to son, all
about nothing: that's a way they have. To begin with the mar-
vel of the thing, — his mother, who was the handsomest woman
of her time, and a knowing one, bethought herself of dedicating
him to God, so that he might escape the dangers of his child-
hood and future life; for she had dreamed that the world was
set on fire the day he was born. And indeed it was a prophecy!
So she asked 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 what
came of it.
“Follow me closely, and tell me if what you hear is in the
nature of man.
« Sure and certain it is that none but a man who conceived
the idea of making a compact with God could have passed
unhurt through the enemy's lines, through cannon-balls, and dis-
charges of grape-shot that swept the rest of us off like flies, and
always respected his head. I had a proof of that I myself -
at Eylau. I see him now, as he rode up a height, took his
field glass, looked at the battle, and said, All goes well. ' One
of those plumed busy-bodies, who plagued him considerably and
followed him everywhere, even to his meals, so they said,
thought to play the wag, and took the Emperor's place as he
Ho! in a twinkling, head and plume were off! You
must understand that Napoleon had promised to keep the secret
of his compact all to himself. That's why all those who followed
him, even his nearest friends, fell like nuts, - Duroc, Bessières,
Lannes, -all strong as steel bars, though he could bend them as
he pleased. Besides, — to prove he was the child of God, and
made to be the father of soldiers, was he ever known to be
lieutenant or captain ? no, no; commander-in-chief from the
start. He didn't look to be more than twenty-four years of age
when he was an old general at the taking of Toulon, where he
rode away.
## p. 1416 (#210) ###########################################
1416
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
a
first began to show the others that they knew nothing about
manoeuvring cannon.
"After that, down came our slip of a general to command
the grand army of Italy, which hadn't bread nor munitions, nor
shoes, nor coats, -a poor army,
as naked as worm. My
friends,' said he, here we are together. Get it into your pates
that fifteen days from now you will be conquerors, new clothes,
good gaiters, famous 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 flat as
a bedbug, straightened up. We were thirty thousand barefeet
against eighty thousand Austrian bullies, all fine men, well set up.
I see 'em now! But Napoleon - he was then only Bonaparte -
he knew how to put the courage into us!
We marched by night,
and we marched by day; we slapped their faces at Montenotte,
we thrashed 'em at Rivoli, Lodi, Arcole, Millesimo, and we
never let 'em up. A soldier gets the taste of conquest. So
Napoleon whirled round those Austrian generals, who didn't
know where to poke themselves to get out of his way, and he
pelted 'em well, -- nipped off ten thousand men at a blow some-
times, by getting round them with fifteen hundred Frenchmen,
and then he gleaned as he pleased. He took their cannon, their
supplies, their money, their munitions, in short, all they had
that was good to take. He fought them and beat them on the
mountains, he drove them into the rivers and seas, he bit 'em
in the air, he devoured 'em on the ground, and he lashed 'em
everywhere. Hey! , the grand army feathered itself well; for,
d'ye see, the Emperor, who was also a wit, called up the inhab-
itants and told them he was there to deliver them. So after
that the natives lodged and cherished us; the women too, and
very judicious they were. Now here's the end of it. In Ven-
tose, '96, — in those times that was the month of March of to-day,
- we lay cuddled in a corner of Savoy with the marmots; and
yet, before that campaign was over, we were masters of Italy,
just as Napoleon had predicted; and by the following March —
in a single year and two campaigns — he had brought us within
sight of Vienna.
'Twas a clean sweep.
We devoured their
armies, one after the other, and made an end of four Austrian
generals. One old fellow, with white hair, was roasted like a rat
in the straw at Mantua. Kings begged for mercy on their
knees! Peace was won.
## p. 1417 (#211) ###########################################
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
1417
« Could a man have done that ? No; God helped him, to a
certainty!
“He divided himself up like the loaves in the Gospel, com-
manded the battle by day, planned it by night; going and com-
ing, for the sentinels saw him, — never eating, never sleeping.
So, seeing these prodigies, the soldiers adopted him for their
father. Forward, march! Then those others, the rulers in Paris,
seeing this, said to themselves:– Here's a bold one that seems
to get his orders from the skies; he's likely to put his paw on
France. We must let him loose on Asia; we will send him to
America, perhaps that will satisfy him. ' But 'twas written
above for him, as it was for Jesus Christ. The command went
forth that he should go to Egypt. See again his resemblance
to the Son of God. But that's not all. He called together his
best veterans, his fire-eaters, the ones he had particularly put
the devil into, and he said to them like this:- My friends,
they have given us Egypt to chew up, just to keep us busy, but
we'll swallow it whole in a couple of campaigns, as we did Italy.
The common soldiers shall be princes and have the land for
their own. Forward, march! ' Forward, march! cried the
sergeants, and there we were at Toulon, road to Egypt. At
that time the English had all their ships in the sea; but when
we embarked Napoleon said, “They won't see us.
It is just as
well that you should know from this time forth that your gen-
eral has got his star in the sky, which guides and protects us. '
What was said was done. Passing over the sea, we took Malta
like an orange, just to quench his thirst for victory; for he was
a man who couldn't live and do nothing.
“So here we are in Egypt. Good. Once here, other orders.
The Egyptians, d'ye see, are men who, ever since the earth
was, have had giants for sovereigns, and armies as numerous
as ants; for, you must understand, that's the land of genii and
crocodiles, where they've built pyramids as big as our mountains,
and buried their kings under them to keep them fresh, - an idea
that pleased 'em mightily. So then, after we disembarked, the
Little Corporal said to us, My children, the country you are
going to conquer has a lot of gods that you must respect;
because Frenchmen ought to be friends with everybody, and
fight the nations without vexing the inhabitants. Get it into
your skulls that you are not to touch anything at first, for it is
all going to be yours soon.
Forward, march! So far, so good.
## p. 1418 (#212) ###########################################
1418
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
But all those people of Africa, to whom Napoleon was foretold
under the name of Kébir-Bonaberdis,- a word of their lingo
that means “the sultan fires,' – were afraid as the devil of him.
So the Grand Turk, and Asia, and Africa, had recourse to
magic. They sent us a demon, named the Mahdi, supposed to
have descended from heaven on a white horse, which, like its
master, was bullet-proof; and both of them lived on air, without
food to support them. There are some that say they saw them;
but I can't give you any reasons to make you certain about
that. The rulers of Arabia and the Mamelukes tried to make
their troopers believe that the Mahdi could keep them from
perishing in battle; and they pretended he was an angel sent
from heaven to fight Napoleon and get back Solomon's seal.
Solomon's seal was part of their paraphernalia which they vowed
our General had stolen. You must understand that we'd given
'em a good many wry faces, in spite of what he had said to us.
“Now, tell me how they knew that Napoleon had a pact with
God? Was that natural, d'ye think?
«They held to it in their minds that Napoleon commanded
the genii, and could pass hither and thither in the twinkling of
an eye, like a bird. The fact is, he was everywhere. At last, it
came to his carrying off a queen, beautiful as the dawn, for
whom he had offered all his treasure, and diamonds as big as
pigeons' eggs, -a bargain which the Mameluke to whom she par-
ticularly belonged positively refused, although he had several
others. Such matters, when they come to that pass, can't be
settled without a great many battles; and, indeed, there was no
scarcity of battles; there was fighting enough to please every-
body. We were in line at Alexandria, at Gizeh, and before the
Pyramids; we marched in the sun and through the sand, where
some, who had the dazzles, saw water that they couldn't drink,
and shade where their fesh was roasted. But we made short
work of the Mamelukes; and everybody else yielded at the voice
of Napoleon, who took possession of Upper and Lower Egypt,
Arabia, and even the capitals of kingdoms that were no more,
where there were thousand of statues and all the plagues of
Egypt, more particularly lizards, -a mammoth of a country
where everybody could take his acres of land for as little as he
pleased. Well, while Napoleon was busy with his affairs inland,
– where he had it in his head to do fine things, - the English
burned his fleet at Aboukir; for they were always looking about
## p. 1419 (#213) ###########################################
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
1419
them to annoy us. But Napoleon, who had the respect of the
East and of the West, whom the Pope called his son, and the
cousin of Mohammed called “his dear father,' resolved to punish
England, and get hold of India in exchange for his fleet. He
was just about to take us across the Red Sea into Asia, a coun-
try where there are diamonds and gold to pay the soldiers and
palaces for bivouacs, when the Mahdi made a treaty with the
Plague, and sent it down to hinder our victories. Halt! The
army to a man defiled at that parade; and few there were who
came back on their feet. Dying soldiers couldn't take Saint-Jean
d'Acre, though they rushed at it three times with generous and
martial obstinacy. The Plague was the strongest. No saying to
that enemy, My good friend. ' Every soldier lay ill. Napoleon
alone was fresh as a rose, and the whole army saw him drinking
in pestilence without its doing him a bit of harm.
“Ha! my friends! will you tell me that that's in the nature
of a mere man ?
«The Mamelukes knowing we were all in the ambulances,
thought they could stop the way; but that sort of joke wouldn't
do with Napoleon. So he said to his demons, his veterans, those
that had the toughest hide, 'Go, clear me the way. Junot, a
sabre of the first cut, and his particular friend, took a thousand
men, no more, and ripped up the army of the pacha who had
had the presumption to put himself in the way. After that, we
came back to headquarters at Cairo. Now, here's another side
of the story.
Napoleon absent, France was letting herself be
ruined by the rulers in Paris, who kept back the pay of the
soldiers of the other armies, and their clothing, and their rations;
left them to die of hunger, and expected them to lay down the
law to the universe without taking any trouble to help them.
Idiots! who amused themselves by chattering, instead of putting
their own hands in the dough. Well, that's how it happened
that our armies were beaten, and the frontiers of France were
encroached upon: THE MAN was not there. Now observe, I say
man because that's what they called him; but 'twas nonsense,
for he had a star and all its belongings; it was we who were
only men. He taught history to France after his famous battle
of Aboukir, where, without losing more than three hundred men,
and with a single division, he vanquished the grand army of the
Turk, seventy-five thousand strong, and hustled more than half
of it into the sea, r-r-rah!
## p. 1420 (#214) ###########################################
1420
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
were
“That was his last thunder-clap in Egypt. He said to him-
self, seeing the way things were going in Paris, I am the savior
of France. I know it, and I must go. But, understand me, the
army didn't know he was going, or they'd have kept him by
force and made him Emperor of the East. So now we
sad; for He was gone who was all our joy. He left the com-
mand to Kléber, a big mastiff, who came off duty at Cairo,
assassinated by an Egyptian, whom they put to death by impaling
him on a bayonet; that's the way they guillotine people down
there. But it makes 'em suffer so much that a soldier had pity
on the criminal and gave him his canteen; and then, as soon as
the Egyptian had drunk his fill, he gave up the ghost with all
the pleasure in life. But that's a trifle we couldn't laugh at
then. Napoleon embarked in a cockleshell, a little skiff that
was nothing at all, though 'twas called Fortune); and in a
twinkling, under the nose of England, who was blockading him
with ships of the line, frigates, and anything that could hoist
a sail, he crossed over, and there he was in France. For he
always had the power, mind you, of crossing the seas at one
straddle.
«Was that a human man ? Bah!
“So, one minute he is at Fréjus, the next in Paris.
There,
they all adore him; but he summons the government. (What
have you done with my children, the soldiers ? ' he says to the
lawyers.
(You're a mob of rascally scribblers; you are making
France a mess of pottage, and snapping your fingers at what
people think of you. It won't do; and I speak the opinion of
everybody. ' So, on that, they wanted to battle with him and kill
him-click! he had 'em locked up in barracks, or flying out of
windows, or drafted among his followers, where they were as
mute as fishes, and as pliable as a quid of tobacco. After that
stroke- consul! And then, as it was not for him to doubt the
Supreme Being, he fulfilled his promise to the good God, who, you
see, had kept His word to him. He gave Him back his churches,
and re-established His religion; the bells rang for God and for
him: and lo! everybody was pleased: primo, the priests, whom he
saved from being harassed; secundo, the bourgeois, who thought
only of their trade, and no longer had to fear the rapiamus
of the law, which had got to be unjust; tertio, the nobles, for he
forbade they should be killed, as, unfortunately, the people had
got the habit of doing.
## p. 1421 (#215) ###########################################
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
1421
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
looked over the whole earth as if it were no bigger than a man's
So then he appeared in Italy, like as though he had stuck
his head through the window. One glance was enough. The
Austrians were swallowed up at Marengo like so many gudgeons
by a whale! Ouf! The French eagles sang their pæans so loud
that all the world heard them — and it sufficed! 'We won't play
that game any more,' said the German. Enough, enough! ' said
all the rest.
« To sum up: Europe backed down, England knocked under.
General peace; and the kings and the people made believe kiss
each other. That's the time when the Emperor invented the
Legion of Honor – and a fine thing, too. In France -- this
is what he said at Boulogne before the whole army - every
man is brave. So the citizen who does a fine action shall be
sister to the soldier, and the soldier shall be his brother, and the
two shall be one under the flag of honor. '
“We, who were down in Egypt, now came home.
All was
changed! He left us general, and hey! in a twinkling we found
him EMPEROR. France gave herself to him, like a fine girl to
a lancer. When it was done — to the satisfaction of all, as you
may say — a sacred ceremony took place, the like of which was
never seen under the canopy of the skies. The Pope and the
cardinals, in their red and gold vestments, crossed the Alps
expressly to crown him before the army and the people, who
clapped their hands. There is one thing that I should do very
wrong not to tell you. In Egypt, in the desert close to Syria,
the RED MAN came to him on the Mount of Moses, and said,
All is well. Then, at Marengo, the night before the victory,
the same Red Man appeared before him for the second time,
standing erect and saying, Thou shalt see the world at thy feet;
thou shalt be Emperor of France, King of Italy, master of Hol-
land, sovereign of Spain, Portugal, and the Illyrian provinces,
protector of Germany, savior of Poland, first eagle of the Legion
of Honor - all. ' This Red Man, you understand, was his genius,
his spirit, - a sort of satellite who served him, as some say, to
communicate with his star. I never really believed that. But
the Red Man himself is a true fact. Napoleon spoke of him,
and said he came to him in troubled moments, and lived in the
palace of the Tuileries under the roof. So, on the day of the
## p. 1422 (#216) ###########################################
1422
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
sums
coronation, Napoleon saw him for the third time; and they were
in consultation over many things.
“After that, Napoleon went to Milan to be crowned king of
Italy, and there the grand triumph of the soldier began. Every
man who could write was made an officer. Down came pensions;
it rained duchies; treasures poured in for the staff which didn't cost
France a penny; and the Legion of Honor provided incomes for
the private soldiers, — of which I receive mine to this day. So
here were the armies maintained as never before on this earth.
But besides that, the Emperor, knowing that he was to be the
emperor of the whole world, bethought him of the bourgeois,
and to please them he built fairy monuments, after their own
ideas, in places where you'd never think to find any. For
instance, suppose you were coming back from Spain and going
to Berlin — well, you'd find triumphal arches along the way, with
common soldiers sculptured on the stone, every bit the same as
generals.
In two or three years, and without imposing taxes on
any of you, Napoleon filled his vaults with gold, built palaces,
made bridges, roads, scholars, fêtes, laws, vessels, harbors, and
spent millions upon millions, such enormous
that he
could, so they tell me, have paved France from end to end with
five-franc pieces, if he had had a mind to.
“Now, when he sat at ease on his throne, and was master of
all, so that Europe waited his permission to do his bidding, he
remembered his four brothers and his three sisters, and he said
to us, as it might be in conversation, in an order of the day,
My children, is it right that the blood relations of your Emperor
should be begging their bread? No. I wish to see them in
splendor like myself. It becomes, therefore, absolutely necessary
to conquer a kingdom for each of them, — to the end that French-
men may be masters over all lands, that the soldiers of the
Guard shall make the whole earth tremble, that France may spit
where she likes, and that all the nations shall say to her, as it
is written on my copper coins, “God protects you! ” “Agreed,'
cried the army.
We'll go fish for thy kingdoms with our bay-
onets. Ha! there was no backing down, don't you see!
, If he
had taken it into his head to conquer the moon, we should have
made ready, packed knapsacks, and clambered up; happily, he
didn't think of it. The kings of the countries, who liked their
comfortable thrones, were naturally loathe to budge, and had to
have their ears pulled; so then — Forward, march! We did
## p. 1423 (#217) ###########################################
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
1423
march; we got there; and the earth once more trembled to its
centre. Hey! the men and the shoes he used up in those days!
The enemy dealt us such blows that none but the grand army
could have stood the fatigue of it. But you are not ignorant
that a Frenchman is born a philosopher, and knows that a little
sooner, or a little later, he has got to die. So we were ready to
die without a word, for we liked to see the Emperor doing that
on the geographies. ”
Here the narrator nimbly described a circle with his foot on
the floor of the barn.
“And Napoleon said, “There, that's to be a kingdom. And
a kingdom it was. Ha! the good times! The colonels were gen-
erals; the generals, marshals; and the marshals, kings. There's
one of 'em still on his throne, to prove it to Europe; but he's a
Gascon and a traitor to France for keeping that crown; and he
doesn't blush for shame as he ought to do, because crowns, don't
you see, are made of gold. I who am speaking to you, I have
seen, in Paris, eleven kings and a mob of princes surrounding
Napoleon like the rays of the sun. You understand, of course,
that every soldier had the chance to mount a throne, provided
always he had the merit; so a corporal of the Guard was a sight
to be looked at as he walked along, for each man had his share
in the victory, and 'twas plainly set forth in the bulletin. What
victories they were! Austerlitz, where the army manæuvred as if
on parade; Eylau, where we drowned the Russians in a lake, as
though Napoleon had blown them into it with the breath of his
mouth; Wagram, where the army fought for three days without
grumbling.
We won as many battles as there are saints in the
calendar. It was proved then beyond a doubt, that Napoleon had
the sword of God in his scabbard. The soldiers were his friends;
he made them his children; he looked after us; he saw that we
had shoes, and shirts, and great-coats, and bread, and cartridges;
but he always kept up his majesty; for, don't you see, 'twas his
business to reign. No matter for that, however; a sergeant, and
even a common soldier could say to him, My Emperor, just as
you say to me sometimes, My good friend. ' He gave us an
answer if we appealed to him; he slept in the snow like the
rest of us; and indeed, he had almost the air of a human man.
I who speak to you, I have seen him with his feet among the
grapeshot, and no more uneasy than you are now,- standing
steady, looking through his field glass, and minding his business.
## p. 1424 (#218) ###########################################
1424
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
'Twas that kept the rest of us quiet. I don't know how he did
it, but when he spoke he made our hearts burn within us; and
to show him we were his children, incapable of balking, didn't
we rush at the mouths of the rascally cannon, that belched and
vomited shot and shell without so much as saying, Look out! '
Why! the dying must needs raise their heads to salute him and
cry, LONG LIVE THE EMPEROR! '
“I ask you, was that natural ? would they have done that for
a human man ?
“Well, after he had settled the world, the Empress Josephine,
his wife, a good woman all the same, managed matters so that
she did not bear him any children, and he was obliged to give
her up, though he loved her considerably. But, you see, he had
to have little ones for reasons of state. Hearing of this, all the
sovereigns of Europe quarreled as to which of them should give
him a wife. And he married, so they told us, an Austrian arch-
duchess, daughter of Cæsar, an ancient man about whom people
talk a good deal, and not in France only, — where any one will
tell you what he did, — but in Europe. It is all true, for I myself
who address you at this moment, I have been on the Danube,
and have seen the remains of a bridge built by that man, who,
it seems, was a relation of Napoleon in Rome, and that's how
the Emperor got the inheritance of that city for his son. So
after the marriage, which was a fête for the whole world, and in
honor of which he released the people of ten years' taxes, - which
they had to pay all the same, however, because the assessors
didn't take account of what he said, - his wife had a little one,
who was King of Rome. Now, there's a thing that had never
been seen on this earth; never before was a child born a king
with his father living. On that 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 and
declare to me that all that was human ? No; it was written
above; and may the scurvy seize them who deny that he was
sent by God himself for the triumph of France !
"Well, here's the Emperor of Russia, that used to be his
friend, he gets angry because Napoleon didn't marry a Russian;
so he joins with the English, our enemies, - to whom our
Emperor always wanted to say a couple of words in their bur-
rows, only he was prevented. Napoleon gets angry too; an end
## p. 1425 (#219) ###########################################
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
1425
had to be put to such doings; so he says to us: - 'Soldiers!
