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On returning from a second inspection of the lines, Napoleon
remarked:
"The chessmen are set up, the game will begin tomorrow!"
Having ordered punch and summoned de Beausset, he began to
talk to him about Paris and about some changes he meant to make
the Empress' household, surprising the prefect by his memory of
minute details relating to the court.
He showed an interest in trifles, joked about de Beausset's
love of travel, and chatted carelessly, as a famous, self-confident
surgeon who knows his job does when turning up his sleeves and
putting on his apron while a patient is being strapped to the
operating table. "The matter is in my hands and is clear
and definite in my head. When the times comes to set to work I
shall do it as no one else could, but now I can jest, and the
more I jest and the calmer I am the more tranquil and confident
you ought to be, and the more amazed at my genius."
Having finished his second glass of punch, Napoleon went to
rest before the serious business which, he considered, awaited
him next day. He was so much interested in that task that he was
unable to sleep, and in spite of his cold which had grown worse
from the dampness of the evening, he went into the large division
of the tent at three o'clock in the morning, loudly blowing his
nose. He asked whether the Russians had not withdrawn, and was
told that the enemy's fires were still in the same places. He
nodded approval.
The adjutant in attendance came into the tent.
"Well, Rapp, do you think we shall do good business today?"
Napoleon asked him.
"Without doubt, sire," replied Rapp.
Napoleon looked at him.
"Do you remember, sire, what you did me the honor to
say at Smolensk?" continued Rapp. "The wine is drawn
and must be drunk."
Napoleon frowned and sat silent for a long time leaning his
head on his hand.
"This poor army!" he suddenly remarked. "It
has diminished greatly since Smolensk. Fortune is frankly a courtesan,
Rapp. I have always said so and I am beginning to experience it.
But the Guards, Rapp, the Guards are intact?" he remarked
interrogatively.
"Yes, sire," replied Rapp.
Napoleon took a lozenge, put it in his mouth, and glanced
at his watch. He was not sleepy and it was still not nearly morning.
It was impossible to give further orders for the sake of killing
time, for the orders had all been given and were now being executed.
"Have the biscuits and rice been served out to the regiments
of the Guards?" asked Napoleon sternly.
"Yes, sire."
"The rice too?"
Rapp replied that he had given the Emperor's order about the
rice, but Napoleon shook his head in dissatisfaction as if not
believing that his order had been executed. An attendant came
in with punch. Napoleon ordered another glass to be brought for
Rapp, and silently sipped his own.
"I have neither taste nor smell," he remarked, sniffing
at his glass. "This cold is tiresome. They talk about medicine-
what is the good of medicine when it can't cure a cold! Corvisart
gave me these lozenges but they don't help at all. What can doctors
cure? One can't cure anything. Our body is a machine for living.
It is organized for that, it is its nature. Let life go on in
it unhindered and let it defend itself, it will do more than if
you paralyze it by encumbering it with remedies. Our body is like
a perfect watch that should go for a certain time; watchmaker
cannot open it, he can only adjust it by fumbling, and that blindfold....
Yes, our body is just a machine for living, that is all."
And having entered on the path of definition, of which he
was fond, Napoleon suddenly and unexpectedly gave a new one.
"Do you know, Rapp, what military art is?" asked
he. "It is the art of being stronger than the enemy at a
given moment. That's all."
Rapp made no reply.
"Tomorrow we shall have to deal with Kutuzov!" said
Napoleon. "We shall see! Do you remember at Braunau he commanded
an army for three weeks and did not once mount a horse to inspect
his entrenchments.... We shall see!"
He looked at his watch. It was still only four o'clock. He
did not feel sleepy. The punch was finished and there was still
nothing to do. He rose, walked to and fro, put on a warm overcoat
and a hat, and went out of the tent. The night was dark and damp,
a scarcely perceptible moisture was descending from above. Near
by, the campfires were dimly burning among the French Guards,
and in the distance those of the Russian line shone through the
smoke. The weather was calm, and the rustle and tramp of the French
troops already beginning to move to take up their positions were
clearly audible.
Napoleon walked about in front of his tent, looked at the
fires and listened to these sounds, and as he was passing a tall
guardsman in a shaggy cap, who was standing sentinel before his
tent and had drawn himself up like a black pillar at sight of
the Emperor, Napoleon stopped in front of him.
"What year did you enter the service?" he asked
with that affectation of military bluntness and geniality with
which he always addressed the soldiers.
The man answered the question.
"Ah! One of the old ones! Has your regiment had its rice?"
"It has, Your Majesty."
Napoleon nodded and walked away.
At half-past five Napoleon rode to the village of Shevardino.
It was growing light, the sky was clearing, only a single
cloud lay in the east. The abandoned campfires were burning themselves
out in the faint morning light.
On the right a single deep report of a cannon resounded and
died away in the prevailing silence. Some minutes passed. A second
and a third report shook the air, then a fourth and a fifth boomed
solemnly near by on the right.
The first shots had not yet ceased to reverberate before others
rang out and yet more were heard mingling with and overtaking
one another.
Napoleon with his suite rode up to the Shevardino Redoubt
where he dismounted. The game had begun.
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