War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [395]
Their every action, which to them seems willed by themselves, in the historical sense is not willed, but happens in connection with the whole course of history and has been destined from before all ages.
II
On the twenty-ninth of May, Napoleon left Dresden, where he had spent three weeks surrounded by a court composed of princes, dukes, kings, and even one emperor. Before his departure, Napoleon showed kindness to the princes, kings, and emperor who deserved it, and scolded the princes and kings with whom he was not entirely pleased, made a gift of his own—that is, taken from other kings—pearls and diamonds to the Austrian empress, and, tenderly embracing the empress Marie-Louise, as his historian says, left her upset by this separation, which she—this Marie-Louise who was considered his wife, though another wife had been left in Paris7—seemed unable to endure. Though the diplomats still firmly believed in the possibility of peace and were working hard towards that end, though the emperor Napoleon himself wrote a letter to the emperor Alexander calling him Monsieur mon frère and sincerely assuring him that he did not want war and would always love and respect him—he drove off to the army and gave new orders at every station, having the aim of hastening the movement of the army from west to east. He drove in a traveling coach-and-six, surrounded by pages, adjutants, and an escort, down the high road to Posen, Thorn, Danzig, and Königsberg. In each of these towns, thousands of people met him with trembling and ecstasy.
The army moved from west to east, and six-horse relays carried him there as well. On the tenth of June, he caught up with the army and spent the night in the Wilkowiski forest, in quarters prepared for him on the estate of a Polish count.
The next day Napoleon, going ahead of his army, drove to the Niemen in his carriage and, to look for a crossing place, changed into a Polish uniform and drove out on the bank.
Seeing Cossacks (les Cosaques) on the other side and the spreading steppe (les Steppes), in the middle of which lay Moscou la ville sainte,*393 capital of that state, similar to the Scythian state to which Alexander the Great had marched—Napoleon, unexpectedly for everyone, and contrary to both strategic and diplomatic considerations, ordered an advance, and the next day his troops started crossing the Niemen.
Early in the morning of the twelfth, he came out of the tent, pitched that day on the steep left bank of the Niemen, and watched through a field glass the streams of his troops flowing out of the Wilkowiski forest and pouring over the three bridges thrown across the Niemen. The troops knew of the emperor’s presence, sought him with their eyes, and when they found a figure in a frock coat and hat, standing apart from his suite on a hill in front of a tent, they threw their hats in the air, shouted “Vive l’Empereur!” and one after another, inexhaustibly, kept pouring, pouring from the huge forest that had concealed them till then and, dividing up, crossed over the three bridges to the other side.
“On fera du chemin cette fois-ci. Oh! quand il s’en mêle lui-même ça chauffe…Nom de Dieu…Le voilà!…Vive l’Empereur! Les voilà donc les Steppes de l’Asie! Vilain pays tout de même. Au revoir, Beauché je te réserve le plus beau palais de Moscou. Au revoir! Bonne chance…L’as-tu vu, l’Empereur? Vive l’Empereur!…preur! Si on me fait gouverneur aux Indes, Gérard, je te fais ministre du Cachemire, c’est arrêté. Vive l’Empereur! Vive! vive! vive! Les gredins de Cosaques, comme ils filent. Vive l’Empereur! Le voilà! Le vois-tu? Je l’ai vu deux fois comme je te vois.
Le petit caporal…Je l’ai vue donner la croix à l’un des vieux…Vive l’Empereur!…”*394 said the voices of old and young men of the most diverse characters and social positions. The faces of all these men had one common expression of joy at the beginning of the