No More Learning

“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
.


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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.


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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.


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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.


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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


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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!


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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.


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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


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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


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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.


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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


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HONORÉ DE BALZAC
1425
had to be put to such doings; so he says to us: - 'Soldiers!
you
have been masters of every capital in Europe, except Moscow,
which is now the ally of England. To conquer England, and
India which belongs to the English, it becomes our peremptory
duty to go to Moscow. Then he assembled the greatest army
that ever trailed its gaiters over the globe; and so marvelously
in hand it was that he reviewed a million of men in one day.
Hourra! ' cried the Russians. Down came all Russia and those
animals of Cossacks in a flock. 'Twas nation against nation,
a general hurly-burly, and beware who could; Asia against
Europe, as the Red Man had foretold to Napoleon. "Enough,
cried the Emperor, I'll be ready. '
“So now, sure enough, came all the kings, as the Red Man
had said, to lick Napoleon's hand! Austria, Prussia, Bavaria,
Saxony, Poland, Italy, every one of them were with us, flatter-
ing us; ah, it was fine! The eagles never cawed so loud as at
those parades, perched high above the banners of all Europe.
The Poles were bursting with joy, because Napoleon was going
to release them; and that's why France and Poland are brothers →
to this day. (Russia is ours,' cried the army. We plunged into
it well supplied; we marched and we marched, - no Russians.
At last we found the brutes entrenched on the banks of the
Moskova. That's where I won my cross, and I've got the right
to say it was a damnable battle. This was how it came about.
The Emperor was anxious. He had seen the Red Man, who
said to him, My son, you are going too fast for your feet; you
will lack men; friends will betray you. ' So the Emperor offered
peace. But before signing, Let us drub those Russians! ' he
said to us. Done! ' cried the army. Forward, march! said
the sergeants. My clothes were in rags, my shoes worn out,
from trudging along those roads, which are very uncomfortable
ones; but no matter! I said to myself, As it's the last of our
earthquakings, I'll go into it, tooth and nail! We were drawn
up in line before the great ravine, - front seats, as 'twere.
Signal given; and seven hundred pieces of artillery began a con-
versation that would bring the blood from your ears. Then
must do justice to one's enemies — the Russians let themselves
be killed like Frenchmen; they wouldn't give way; we couldn't
advance. Forward,' some one cried, here comes the Emperor! '
True enough; he passed at a gallop, waving his hand to let us
know we must take the redoubt. He inspired us; on we ran, I
III-90


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1426
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
was the first in the ravine. Ha! my God! how the lieutenants
fell, and the colonels, and the soldiers! No matter! all the more
shoes for those that had none, and epaulets for the clever ones
who knew how to read. Victory! ) cried the whole line; Vic-
tory! '- and, would you believe it? a thing never seen before,
there lay twenty-five thousand Frenchmen on the ground. 'Twas
like mowing down a wheat-field; only in place of the ears of
wheat put the heads of men! We were sobered by this time,-
those who were left alive. The Man rode up; we made a circle
round him. Ha! he knew how to cajole his children; he could
be amiable when he liked, and feed 'em with words when their
stomachs were ravenous with the hunger of wolves. Flatterer!
he distributed the crosses himself, he uncovered to the dead, and
then he cried to us, On! to Moscow! To Moscow! ' answered
the army.
“We took Moscow. Would you believe it ? the Russians
burned their own city! 'Twas a haystack six miles square, and
it blazed for two days. The buildings crashed like slates, and
showers of melted iron and lead rained down upon us, which was
naturally horrible. I may say to you plainly, it was like a flash
of lightning on our disasters. The Emperor said, 'We have
done enough; my soldiers shall rest here. So we rested awhile,
just to get the breath into our bodies and the flesh on our bones,
for we were really tired. We took possession of the golden cross
that was on the Kremlin; and every soldier brought away with
him a small fortune. But out there the winter sets in a month
earlier,-a thing those fools of science didn't properly explain.
So, coming back, the cold nipped us. No longer an army — do
you hear me ? - no longer any generals, no longer any sergeants
even.
'Twas the reign of wretchedness and hunger,-a reign of
equality at last. No one thought of anything but to see France
once more; no one stooped to pick up his gun or his money if
he dropped them; each man followed his nose, and went as he
pleased without caring for glory. The weather was so bad the
Emperor couldn't see his star; there was something between him
and the skies. Poor man! it made him ill to see his eagles fly-
ing away from victory. Ah! 'twas a mortal blow, you may
believe me.
“Well, we got to the Beresina. My friends, I can affirm to
you by all that is most sacred, by my honor, that since mankind
came into the world, never, never, was there seen such a


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HONORÉ DE BALZAC
1427
fricassee of an army- guns, carriages, artillery wagons — in the
midst of such snows, under such relentless skies! The muzzles
of the muskets burned our hands if we touched them, the iron
was so cold. It was there that the army was saved by the pon-
toniers, who were firm at their post; and there that Gondrin —
sole survivor of the men who were bold enough to go into the
water and build the bridges by which the army crossed — that
Gondrin, here present, admirably conducted himself, and saved
us from the Russians, who, I must tell you, still respected the
grand army, remembering its victories. And,” he added, pointing
to Gondrin, who was gazing at him with the peculiar attention
of a deaf man, Gondrin is a finished soldier, a soldier who is
honor itself, and he merits your highest esteem. ”
“I saw the Emperor,” he resumed, “standing by the bridge,
motionless, not feeling the cold -- was that human ? He looked
at the destruction of his treasure, his friends, his old Egyptians.
Bah! all that passed him, women, army wagons, artillery, all
were shattered, destroyed, ruined. The bravest carried the
eagles; for the eagles, d'ye see, were France, the nation, all of
you! they were the civil and the military honor that must be
kept pure; could their heads be lowered because of the cold ? It
was only near the Emperor that we warmed ourselves, because
when he was in danger we ran, frozen as we were-
wouldn't have stretched a hand to save a friend. They told us
he wept at night over his poor family of soldiers. Ah! none but
he and Frenchmen could have got themselves out of that busi-
we, who
ness.
"We did get out, but with losses, great losses, as I tell
you. The Allies captured our provisions. Men began to betray
him, as the Red Man predicted. Those chatterers in Paris, who
had held their tongues after the Imperial Guard was formed,
now thought he was dead; so they hoodwinked the prefect of
police, and hatched a conspiracy to overthrow the empire. He
heard of it; it worried him. He left us, saying: Adieu, my
children; guard the outposts; I shall return to you. ' Bah! with-
out him nothing went right; the generals lost their heads; the
marshals talked nonsense and committed follies; but that was
not surprising, for Napoleon, who was kind, had fed 'em on gold;
they had got as fat as lard, and wouldn't stir; some stayed in
camp when they ought to have been warming the backs of the
enemy who was between us and France.


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HONORÉ DE BALZAC
But the Emperor came back, and he brought recruits, famous
recruits; he changed their backbone and made 'em dogs of war,
fit to set their teeth into anything; and he brought a guard of
honor, a fine body indeed! - all bourgeois, who melted away like
butter on a gridiron.
“Well, spite of our stern bearing, here's everything going
against us; and yet the army did prodigies of valor. Then
came battles on the mountains, nations against nations, — Dres-
den, Lutzen, Bautzen. Remember these days, all of you, for
'twas then that Frenchmen were so particularly heroic that a
good grenadier only lasted six months. We triumphed always;
yet there were those English, in our rear, rousing revolts against
us with their lies! No matter, we cut our way home through
the whole pack of the nations, Wherever the Emperor showed
himself we followed him; for if, by sea or land, he gave us the
word 'Go! ' we went. At last, we were in France; and many a
poor foot-soldier felt the air of his own country restore his soul
to satisfaction, spite of the wintry weather. I can say for myself
that it refreshed my life. Well, next, our business was to defend
France, our country, our beautiful France, against all Europe,
which resented our having laid down the law to the Russians,
and pushed them back into their dens, so that they couldn't eat
us up alive, as northern nations, who are dainty and like southern
flesh, have a habit of doing, - at least, so I've heard some gen-
Then the Emperor saw his own father-in-law, his
friends whom he had made kings, and the scoundrels to whom
he had given back their thrones, all against him. Even French-
men, and allies in our own ranks, turned against us under secret
orders, as at the battle of Leipsic. Would common soldiers have
been capable of such wickedness? Three times a day men were
false to their word, - and they called themselves princes !
So, then, France was invaded. Wherever the Emperor
showed his lion face, the enemy retreated; and he did more
prodigies in defending France than ever he had done in conquer-
ing Italy, the East, Spain, Europe, and Russia. He meant to
bury every invader under the sod, and teach 'em to respect the
soil of France. So he let them get to Paris, that he might swal-
low them at a mouthful, and rise to the height of his genius in
a battle greater than all the rest, - a mother-battle, as 'twere.
But there, there! the Parisians were afraid for their twopenny
skins, and their trumpery shops; they opened the gates. Then
erals say:


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HONORÉ DE BALZAC
1429
the Ragusades began, and happiness ended. The Empress was
fooled, and the white banner flaunted from the windows. The
generals whom he had made his nearest friends abandoned him
for the Bourbons,-a set of people no one had heard tell of.
The Emperor bade us farewell at Fontainebleau:-'Soldiers! '-
I can hear him now; we wept like children; the flags and the
eagles were lowered as if for a funeral: it was, I may well say
it to you, it was the funeral of the Empire; her dapper armies
were nothing now but skeletons. So he said to us, standing
there on the portico of his palace:- My soldiers! we are van-
quished by treachery; but we shall meet in heaven, the country
of the brave. Defend my child, whom I commit to you. Long
live Napoleon II. ! ' He meant to die, that no man should look
upon Napoleon vanquished; he took poison, enough to have
killed a regiment, because, like Jesus Christ before his Passion,
he thought himself abandoned of God and his talisman. But the
poison did not hurt him.
“See again! he found he was immortal.
“Sure of himself, knowing he must ever be THE EMPEROR, he
went for a while to an island to study out the nature of these
others, who, you may be sure, committed follies without end.
Whilst he bided his time down there, the Chinese, and the wild
men on the coast of Africa, and the Barbary States, and others
who are not at all accommodating, knew so well he was more
than man that they respected his tent, saying to touch it would
be to offend God. Thus, d'ye see, when these others turned him
from the doors of his own France, he still reigned over the whole
world. Before long he embarked in the same little cockleshell
of a boat he had had in Egypt, sailed round the beard of the
English, set foot in France, and France acclaimed him. The
sacred cuckoo flew from spire to spire; all France cried out with
one voice, LONG LIVE THE EMPEROR! In this region, here, the
enthusiasm for that wonder of the ages was, I may say, solid.
Dauphiné behaved well; and I am particularly pleased to know
that her people wept when they saw, once more, the gray over-
coat. March first it was, when Napoleon landed with two hun-
dred men to conquer that kingdom of France and of Navarre,
which on the twentieth of the same month was again the French
Empire. On that day our MAN was in Paris; he had made a
clean sweep, recovered his dear France, and gathered his veterans
together by saying no more than three words, I am here. '


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HONORÉ DE BALZAC
« 'Twas the greatest miracle God had yet done! Before him,
did ever man recover an empire by showing his hat ? And these
others, who thought they had subdued France! Not they! At
sight of the eagles, a national army sprang up, and we marched
to Waterloo. There, the Guard died at one blow. Napoleon,
in despair, threw himself three times before the cannon of the
enemy without obtaining death. We saw that. The battle was
lost. That night the Emperor called his old soldiers to him; on
the field soaked with our blood he burned his banner and his
eagles, - his poor eagles, ever victorious, who cried Forward
in the battles, and had flown the length and breadth of Europe,
they were saved the infamy of belonging to the enemy: all the
treasures of England couldn't get her a tail-feather of them. No
more eagles !