all these things have seen him myself with the grape-shot whizzing about his ears, no more put out by it than you are at this moment; never moving a limb, watching through his field-glass, always looking after his business; so we stood our ground likewise, as cool and calm as John the Baptist.  I do not know how he did it; but whenever he spoke, a something in his words made our hearts burn within us; and just to let him see that we were his children, and that it was not in us to shirk or flinch, we used to walk just as usual right up to the sluts of cannon that were belching smoke and vomiting battalions of balls, and never a man would so much as say, ‘Look out!’ It was a something that made dying men raise their heads to salute him and cry, ’Long live the Emperor!’

“Was that natural?  Would you have done this for a mere man?

“Thereupon, having fitted up all his family, and things having so turned out that the Empress Josephine (a good woman for all that) had no children, he was obliged to part company with her, although he loved her not a little.  But he must have children, for reasons of State.  All the crowned heads of Europe, when they heard of his difficulty, squabbled among themselves as to who should find him a wife.  He married an Austrian princess, so they say, who was the daughter of the Caesars, a man of antiquity whom everybody talks about, not only in our country, where it is said that most things were his doing, but also all over Europe.  And so certain sure is that, that I who am talking to you have been myself across the Danube, where I saw the ruins of a bridge built by that man; and it appeared that he was some connection of Napoleon’s at Rome, for the Emperor claimed succession there for his son.

“So, after his wedding, which was a holiday for the whole world, and when they let the people off their taxes for ten years to come (though they had to pay them just the same after all, because the excisemen took no notice of the proclamation)—­after his wedding, I say, his wife had a child who was King of Rome; a child was born a King while his father was alive, a thing that had never been seen in the world before!  That day a balloon set out from Paris to carry the news to Rome, and went all the way in one day.  There, now!  Is there one of you who will stand me out that there was nothing supernatural in that?  No, it was decreed on high.  And the mischief take those who will not allow that it was wafted over by God Himself, so as to add to the honor and glory of France!

“But there was the Emperor of Russia, a friend of our Emperor’s, who was put out because he had not married a Russian lady.  So the Russian backs up our enemies the English; for there had always been something to prevent Napoleon from putting a spoke in their wheel.  Clearly an end must be made of fowl of that feather.  Napoleon is vexed, and he says to us: 

“’Soldiers!  You have been the masters of every capital in Europe, except Moscow, which is allied to England.  So, in order to conquer London and India, which belongs to them in London, I find it absolutely necessary that we go to Moscow.’