Full of these sentiments, he dictated a proclamation, simple, grave, and frank, as befitted such circumstances, and men who were not just commencing their career, and whom, after so many sufferings, it would have been idle to pretend to exalt.

Accordingly he addressed himself solely to the reason of all, or what is the same thing, to the real interest of each; he finished with glory, the only passion to which he could appeal in these deserts, the last of the noble motives by which it was possible to act upon soldiers always victorious, enlightened by an advanced civilization and long experience; in short, of all the generous illusions, the only one that could have carried them so far.  This harangue will some day be deemed admirable:  it was worthy of the commander and of the army; it did honour to both.

“Soldiers!” said he, “here is the battle which you have so ardently desired.  Victory will now depend upon yourselves; it is necessary for us; it will give us abundance, good winter-quarters, and a speedy return home!  Behave as you did at Austerlitz, at Friedland, at Witepsk, and at Smolensk, and afford to remotest posterity occasion to cite your conduct on that day:  let it be said of you, ’He was in that great battle under the walls of Moscow.’”

CHAP.  VIII.

About the middle of the day, Napoleon remarked an extraordinary movement in the enemy’s camp; in fact, the whole Russian army was drawn up and under arms, and Kutusof, surrounded with every species of religious and military pomp, took his station in the middle of it.  He had made his popes and his archimandrites dress themselves in those splendid and majestic insignia, which they have inherited from the Greeks.  They marched before him, carrying the venerated symbols of their religion, and particularly that divine image, formerly the protectress of Smolensk, which, by their account, had been miraculously saved from the profanation of the sacrilegious French.

When the Russian saw that his soldiers were sufficiently excited by this extraordinary spectacle, he raised his voice, and began by putting them in mind of heaven, the only country which remains to the slave.  In the name of the religion of equality, he endeavoured to animate these serfs to defend the property of their masters; but it was principally by exhibiting to them that holy image which had taken refuge in their ranks, that he appealed to their courage, and raised their indignation.

Napoleon, in his mouth, “was a universal despot! the tyrannical disturber of the world! a poor worm! an arch-rebel, who had overturned their altars, and polluted them with blood; who had exposed the true ark of the Lord, represented by the holy image, to the profanation of men, and the inclemency of the seasons.”  He then told them of their cities reduced to ashes; reminded them that they were about to fight for their wives and children; added a few