War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [510]
Having sat for a while and touched with his hand, not knowing why himself, the roughness of a highlight on the portrait, he stood up and called back Beausset and the officer on duty. He ordered the portrait taken out in front of the tent, so as not to deprive the old guards standing near his tent of the happiness of seeing the king of Rome, the son and heir of their adored sovereign.
As he expected, while he was having breakfast with Mr. Beausset, who was deemed worthy of that honor, he heard in front of the tent the rapturous cries of the officers and soldiers of the old guard, who came running to the portrait.
“Vive l’Empereur! Vive le Roi de Rome! Vive l’Empereur!” came the rapturous voices.
After breakfast, Napoleon, in the presence of Beausset, dictated his order for the army.
“Courte et énergique!”*477 said Napoleon, when he had personally read over the proclamation, written straight off without corrections. The order ran:
Warriors! Here is the battle which you wanted so much. Victory depends on you. It is necessary for us; it will provide us with all that is needed: comfortable quarters and a speedy return to our fatherland. Act as you acted at Austerlitz, Friedland, Vitebsk, and Smolensk. Let posterity later remember with pride your exploits on this day. Let them say of each of you: he was in the great battle of Moscow.
“De la Moskowa!” Napoleon repeated and, having invited Mr. Beausset, the lover of travel, for a promenade, he came out of the tent to the saddled horses.
“Votre Majesté a trop de bonté,”†478 Beausset replied to the invitation to accompany the emperor: he wanted to sleep, and he did not know how and was afraid to ride on horseback.
But Napoleon nodded to the traveler, and Beausset had to go. When Napoleon came out of the tent, the cries of the guards before his son’s portrait became louder still. Napoleon frowned.
“Take him away,” he said, pointing to the portrait with a gracefully majestic gesture. “It is still too early for him to look upon a field of battle.”
Beausset, closing his eyes and inclining his head, sighed deeply, showing thereby how he was able to appreciate and understand his emperor’s words.
XXVII
The whole of that day of the twenty-fifth of August, as his historians say, Napoleon spent on horseback, studying the terrain, discussing plans presented to him by his marshals, and personally giving orders to his generals.
The original line of disposition of the Russian troops along the Kolocha had been broken, and part of that line—namely, the Russian left flank—owing to the taking of the Shevardino redoubt on the twenty-fourth, had moved further back. That part of the line was no longer fortified, no longer protected by the river, and before it there was only a more open and level space. It was obvious to everyone, military and nonmilitary, that this part of the line ought to be attacked by the French. It seemed that for that there was no need for much reflection, no need for such consideration and botheration on the part of the emperor and his marshals, and no need at all for that especially superior quality known as genius, which people like so much to ascribe to Napoleon; but the historians who later described the event, and the people who then surrounded Napoleon, and he himself thought otherwise.
Napoleon rode over the field, profoundly studying the terrain, nodding approvingly to himself or shaking his head mistrustfully, and, without informing the generals who surrounded him of that profound course of thought which guided his decisions, told them only his final conclusions in the form of orders. Having listened to a suggestion of Davout, known as the duke of Eckmühl, about turning the Russian left flank, Napoleon said that there was no need to do that, without explaining why there was no need. To the suggestion of General Compans (who was to attack the flèches) that he lead his division through the woods, Napoleon gave his consent, though the so-called duke of Elchingen—that is, Ney—allowed himself to