“My taskmaster has no bowels; it is the nature of things.” This remark, made by Napoleon long prior to the divorce, was now to be verified with results calamitous to Europe and to himself. The war of 1812 was one for which he had no enthusiasm, and into which he was drawn by almost irresistible circumstances. To Metternich he said, “I shall have war with Russia on grounds which lie beyond human possibilities, because they are rooted in the case itself.”

The French Emperor felt himself committed to his Continental system. His pride, his pledge, his self-preservation, were at stake. As long as England could make war upon him, and league against him the kings and cabinets of the Continent, his empire would never be secure. He might weather the storm for his own life; but the same endless antagonism, the same implacable hatred, would pursue his successor. To steady his throne, he must have peace with Great Britain: this peace he could not get till he conquered it; having no navy, he could only “conquer the sea on the land,” and his only hope of doing this was to make good the Continental boycott against English manufactures. If he could close all Continental ports to British goods, he would starve England into peace. But as long as Continental ports were but partially closed, his policy would be a failure. Command of the seaboard was his great aim, hence the invasion of Spain and Portugal, the annexation of Holland, the Illyrian provinces, and the Duchy of Oldenberg.

The motive of Napoleon in granting Alexander such liberal terms at Tilsit was to get another adherent to the Continental system. The Czar took the benefits of the treaty and shirked its burdens. His coÖperation with Napoleon in the war of 1809 was nothing less than a mockery, and when the Russian landlords clamored against the Continental system, Alexander began to relax it. When the Emperor complained of this violation of the treaty, the Czar retorted that Napoleon himself did not enforce his system, that he licensed violations of it—a retort in which there was truth enough to sting.

By a vast system of smuggling, misuse of the neutral flag, and the forging of neutral papers, English goods continued to pour into the Continent. Unless Napoleon could put a stop to this, he might as well give up the contest. In October, 1810, he wrote to the Czar urging him to seize these so-called neutral ships, alleging that they were English. “Whatever papers they carry, your Majesty may be sure they are English.” It is now admitted that this statement of the Emperor was substantially correct. The Czar refused, and, to make his refusal the more galling, he issued a ukase, allowing the admission of colonial goods while it virtually prohibited French wines and silks. A plainer declaration of commercial war he could not have made. That it would lead to a clash of arms, he must have known. At any rate the Czar’s entire line of conduct from 1810 was that of a monarch preparing for a great war. It was in 1810 he sounded the Poles, seeking to know whether they would side with Russia in a contest with Napoleon. His armies were increased, his fortresses strengthened, and he made secret approaches to England and to Austria.

In addition to the Continental system there were other grievances. Napoleon had added Galicia to the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, after the Treaty of Vienna in 1809, in violation of his agreement with the Czar. He had taken possession of Oldenberg, whose Duke had married a sister of the Czar. In each of these cases the Emperor had offered explanations, and he had offered an equivalent in Germany for Oldenberg; but the transactions themselves rankled in the Russian memory—although she had really no right to object to Napoleon’s treatment of Oldenberg which was a member of his Confederation of the Rhine; and although she had accepted at his hands a valuable increase of territory as the price of her lukewarm support in the war of 1809.

In the matter of the marriage, there had been irritation, Napoleon suspecting that Alexander meant to procrastinate and then refuse, while the Czar believed that the Emperor was wooing two princesses at the same time, and coolly balancing the Russian against the Austrian. This was not the truth, but was near it. A Napoleonic family council had debated the two alliances, upon the assumption that the Emperor could choose either, and had decided in favor of the Hapsburg. Alexander, the Romanoff, therefore felt insulted. In fact, after this second marriage of Napoleon, the Czar had believed that war was inevitable. Nevertheless, the fault even here was with the Czar. Napoleon had asked for his sister, and was entitled to a positive answer. Indefinite adjournment, without a promise, was, to a man in Napoleon’s position, a polite way of refusing.

Still there was no rupture. Diplomatic relations were strained, war began to be talked of, preparations got under way, but diplomacy yet hoped to solve the problem. The final quarrel seems to have taken place over the wording of a new treaty. Alexander wanted Napoleon to say that “Poland shall never be restored.” How could the Emperor guarantee such a thing? He was not Destiny. He could not foresee what might be done by others and by Time. He was willing to promise that he would never restore Poland, nor aid in its restoration. He wrote this promise in the strongest terms. The Czar struck out the amendment, rewrote the original, “Poland shall never be restored,” and demanded Napoleon’s signature.

Was this an affront, or not? There the case, so far as the actual rupture goes, rests. Napoleon considered it a humiliation to sign such an indefinite, peremptory guarantee; he thought it an insult for the Czar to show so plainly that he doubted his word.

England, of course, was buzzing at the Russian ear all this while. Her agents moved heaven and earth to make the “two bullies” fight. No matter which was worsted, Great Britain would be the gainer. She feared France on the Continent, Russia on the Indian frontier. A duel between these colossal powers would exhaust both, leaving England all the stronger by comparison.

Russia and Turkey were at war on the Danube. The Christians were doing their utmost to relieve the heathen of several thousand square miles of land. England exerted herself to bring about peace between Turk and Russian, in order that the Czar might not have a war in his rear as Napoleon had in Spain.

It is said that a forged letter, in which Napoleon was made to state that he agreed to a partition of Turkey, was shown at Constantinople. The Turk had his suspicions of this letter; but an Englishman swore that he recognized Napoleon’s writing. By some strange neglect, France had no ambassador in Turkey at this critical moment. AndrÉossy had been appointed, had set out, but had waited at Laybach for his credentials. When they at length arrived, and he proceeded to Constantinople, it was too late.

Before any declaration of war, and while diplomatic relations were still maintained by the two governments, the Czar sent an agent to Paris to pose as envoy and to work as spy. This man, Czernischeff, bribed a clerk in the French war office to steal a complete statement of the French forces, dispositions, equipments, etc. The clerk was shot; the noble Russian escaped by sudden, secret, and rapid flight.

At practically the same time, Napoleon was equally well served at St. Petersburg by a spy who stole the “states” of the Russian armies, and the plates from which the great maps of Russia were printed. From these plates Napoleon furnished his generals with maps for the Russian campaign.

Napoleon fully realized the nature of the task he had before him in a contest with Russia. To defend himself in Italy, Germany, or even Poland against the Czar was one thing; to invade that vast empire with the purpose of seizing its capital and compelling it to sign such treaties as he had imposed upon Austria and Prussia, was another task altogether—a task colossal, if not appalling. No one knew this better than Napoleon, and his preparations were made on a scale such as Europe had never seen.

In advance of the work of the soldier came that of the diplomat. Both Russia and France sought alliances. Great Britain was, of course, heartily with the Czar. Sweden, controlled by Bernadotte, took the same side. He had demanded, as the price of his alliance, that Napoleon give him Norway, thus despoiling the Danes. The Emperor refused, but offered Finland, which Russia had seized. The Czar promised Norway, and thus the Frenchman, Bernadotte, who probably had not yet spent all the money Napoleon had supplied him with when he went to Sweden, pledged his support to the enemies of France. For all practical purposes, Russia likewise made an ally of Turkey. So utterly improbable did it seem that Turkey would make peace with its hereditary enemy at the very moment when it had the best opportunity fate had ever offered in all the long struggle, that Napoleon had not even calculated upon such an event. It took him completely by surprise.

Turkish recollections of Tilsit and Erfurth, Turkish fears of other bargains of the same sort, and Turkish dread of an English bombardment of Constantinople, which was threatened, brought about the unlooked-for treaty which gave Russia an army to throw upon Napoleon’s flank.

In addition to these advantages the Czar had another, and of vast importance—the war in Spain. Three hundred thousand French troops were held in the peninsula, and scores of the best officers the Empire could boast. To Alexander it must have seemed that it would indeed be a miracle if Napoleon could sustain two such immense contests so far apart, one at the extreme south the other in the extreme north. Even Napoleon had appeared to grow weary of his huge tasks, and had been heard to say, “The bow is overbent.”

But in getting ready for the contest he certainly accomplished wonders. So imposing were his armaments that Austria and Prussia both believed he would succeed, and they cast in their lot with the French. Each agreed to furnish contingents: the Emperor Francis assured his son-in-law that he might “fully rely upon Austria for the triumph of the common cause,” and the King of Prussia pledged his “unswerving fidelity.” Upon these broken reeds the astute Emperor did not, in all probability, intend to lean very heavily. Events were soon to prove that they would bear no weight at all.

Before putting himself at the head of his army, Napoleon held a grand assemblage of his allies at Dresden (May, 1812). It was the most imposing, as it was the last, of the Napoleonic pageants, wherein vassal princes gathered about him and did him homage. Accompanied by the Empress Maria Louisa, he left St. Cloud May 9, reached Mayence on the 14th, and from thence made a triumphal progress to the Saxon capital. Princes of the Confederation of the Rhine hastened to receive their suzerain; “many even came to wait for them on the road, amongst others the King of WÜrtemberg and the Grand Duke of Baden.” The King and Queen of Saxony came forth from Dresden to meet them; and a torchlight procession escorted them into the city. On the morrow came the Emperor and Empress of Austria, and the archdukes; following these came the King and Crown Prince of Prussia, the Queen of Westphalia, and scores of princes, noblemen, and dignitaries. “The splendor of the Court,” says an eye-witness, “gave Napoleon the air of some legendary Grand Mogul. As at Tilsit, he showered magnificent presents on all sides. At his levees, reigning princes danced attendance for hours in the hope of being honored with an audience. Every country sent its contingent. There were no eyes but for Napoleon. The populace gathered in crowds outside the palaces, following his every movement, and dogging his progress through the streets, in hourly expectation of some great event.”

The Crown Prince of Prussia begged for the privilege of serving on the Emperor’s staff, and was denied. Napoleon doubtless thought the campaign before him was risky enough without the presence of a possible spy in his military family.

Napoleon was no longer the man he had been in his earlier campaigns. He had grown fat, subject to fits of lassitude, and to a painful disease, dysuria. His plans were as fine as ever, but the execution was nothing like what it had been. He no longer gave such personal attention to detail; irresolution sometimes paralyzed his combinations.

Nor were his generals up to their former standard. He had made them too rich. They had pampered themselves and grown lazy. They had no stomach for the Russian war, joined their commands reluctantly, and worked without zeal. Neither was the army to be compared to those of Austerlitz, Jena, and Wagram. In his host of six hundred thousand, there were but two hundred thousand Frenchmen, the remainder being composed of Germans from the Confederation of the Rhine, Prussians, Austrians, Italians, Poles, Swiss, Dutch, and even Spaniards and Portuguese. In such a motley array there could be no cohesion, no strength of common purpose which could stand a serious strain. Even the French soldiers, splendid as they undoubtedly were, were not animated by the same spirit as formerly. The causes of the war were beyond their grasp, even the generals felt that the Continental system was not worth fighting about. England, on the verge of commercial ruin, might know better: Napoleon certainly knew better; but to the average Frenchman the grievances on both sides were too vague and abstract to justify so huge a conflict.

No declaration of war had been published, neither Czar nor Emperor had yet fully committed himself, and hopes were entertained that even yet terms might be arranged. But when the travel-stained carriage of Count Narbonne rolled into Dresden, and he announced that Alexander had refused to make any change in his attitude, it became with Napoleon a question of back down or fight. The Czar was determined not to begin the war; he was equally determined not to keep the contract made at Tilsit. Just as England had held Malta after pledging herself to give it up, Russia was resolved to repudiate and oppose the Continental system which she had promised to support.

At St. Helena Napoleon said that he and Alexander were like two bullies, each trying to frighten the other, and neither wishing to fight. From the manner in which Napoleon continued to hesitate and to send messengers, after all his preparations were complete, it would seem that he, at least, had hoped to the last that an accommodation might be reached. Narbonne’s report put an end to doubt.

Either Alexander’s breach of the Continental system must be borne, to the ruin of Napoleon’s whole policy, or there must be war. The Emperor had gone too far to stop. What would the world say if, after having made such gigantic preparations, he abandoned the enterprise without having extorted a single concession? The very “nature of things” drove him on, and, dismissing the Dresden conference, he put his host in motion for the Niemen.

Says General Marbot: “When the sun rose on June 24 we witnessed a most imposing spectacle. On the highest point near the left bank were seen the Emperor’s tents. Around them the slopes of every hill, and the valleys between, were gay with men and horses flashing with arms.” Amid strains of music from the military bands, the eagles were borne forward, and, under the eye of the master, a quarter of a million soldiers began to tramp over the bridges, shouting, “Live the Emperor!” Soon Napoleon himself crossed the bridge, and galloped through the forest at full speed on his Arab, as though it exhilarated him to be upon Russian soil.

The Russians made no attempt to check the invaders. Deceived as to Napoleon’s plan of campaign, their armies were scattered, and soon became involved in the gravest peril. Had it not been for the terrible blunders of Jerome Bonaparte and Junot, the Russian force under Barclay de Tolly must have been cut off and destroyed. Had this been done, it might, like Ulm, have proved decisive. But Napoleon found it impossible to perfect his combinations: the Russian armies escaped, united, and the long campaign began. Crops had failed in this part of Russia the year before, and the land was scantily supplied with provisions. The troops of the Czar laid waste the country as they retreated; hence the invaders almost immediately began to suffer, for their commissariat could not sustain so tremendous a burden as the feeding of the half million men and one hundred thousand horses. The summer heat was stifling. Men and horses sank under it. One writer gives us a picture of Napoleon himself, stripped to his shirt and lying across a bed, panting and inert with heat. Torrents of rain followed. The roads were cut up, becoming mere sinks of mud. Desertions, straggling, mortalities, marauding, became frightful, so much so that an officer who came up with reserves stated that the route over which the Grand Army had passed looked like that of a defeated foe. Ten thousand horses died for want of forage between the Niemen and Wilna. After the floods came sultry weather again and the suffocating dust of the roads. The hospitals were crowded with the sick. Discipline was lax, movements slow and uncertain. There was a babel of languages, growing confusion, quarrels among officers, and much vacillation in the Emperor himself.

At Wilna the Polish question faced him again. Once more he temporized. He had mortally offended the Czar by enlarging the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, perpetually menacing Russia with a resurrected and vengeful Poland. He now froze the ardor of the Poles by indefinitely postponing the day of their deliverance. When he afterward realized how tremendously effective a united Poland would have been in the death struggle with the Czar, he must have inwardly cursed the bonds which tied his hands—the alliances with Prussia and Austria. Very frankly, very honorably, he told the Polish delegation that his engagements with these two powers made it impossible for him to reËstablish their national independence.

While at Wilna Napoleon received an envoy from the Czar, who proposed that if the French would recross the Niemen, terms of peace might be agreed on. Such an offer seemed to be altogether one-sided, giving substantial advantages to Alexander, and assuring nothing to Napoleon. Therefore it was rejected.

After having lingered at Wilna from June 28 to July 16, a loss of time which Lord Wolseley thinks “it is impossible to explain away when we remember how late it was in the year when he opened the campaign,” the Emperor marched upon Vitebsk. It was here that he learned that Russia had come to terms with Sweden and Turkey.

It was at this place that, according to SÉgur, the Emperor exclaimed, “Here I am, and here I will stay,” taking off his sword and throwing it upon the table. He had pursued the Russians some distance beyond the town, had failed to force them into a pitched battle, and had now returned to headquarters. “I will stay here for the winter, complete my army, give it a rest, and organize Poland. The campaign of 1812 is at an end.” Turning to the King of Naples, he continued: “Murat, the first Russian campaign is over. We will plant our standards here. We will intrench and quarter the troops. The year 1813 will see us in Moscow; 1814 in St. Petersburg—the war with Russia is one of three years!”

But he soon became irresolute. The thought of eight months of inaction, with the Grand Army on the defensive, became unbearable. What would the world say? “Europe will say, ‘He stayed at Vitebsk because he dared not advance.’ Am I to give Russia time to arm? How can we go into winter quarters in July? Let us forestall the winter! Peace is at Moscow. Why should we remain here eight months, idle and exposed to treacherous intrigues in the rear, when we can reach our goal in twenty days?”

He did not convince his marshals; they opposed the advance; but he angrily swept their objections aside.

To Duroc he said he would go to Smolensk and there winter. Complaining that his generals were sick of war, that he had made them too rich, that they could think of nothing but the pleasures of the chase on their estates, and the display of themselves in fine carriages in Paris, he ordered the advance upon Smolensk. Once more he failed to secure his much-desired pitched battle. The Russians fought his advance guard stubbornly, and inflicted heavy losses, but during the night they continued their retreat. The French found Smolensk a heap of smoking ruins; French shells and Russian patriots had fired it.

Much has been said about the alleged plan of Russia to lure Napoleon into the country and to destroy him by starvation. The fact seems to be that the Russians retreated because they could not help it. They fought often and desperately. The Czar himself came to the army for the express purpose of inspiring it to fight. Outnumbered and beaten, it fell back, desolating the country as it went; but the plain facts show that the Russians did all that was in their power to put a stop to the invasion. The alleged campaign policy of “luring Napoleon to his doom” is fiction. At Smolensk, Napoleon was no more willing to stop than he had been at Vitebsk. Peace was at Moscow; he must press on; he must beat the enemy in a great pitched battle, and give his friend, the Czar, the excuse to his people without which he would not dare to come to terms. Again there were hot words between the Emperor and his marshals. Murat, in great anger, predicted that if the army was forced on to Moscow, it would be lost. But the order was imperative: “On to Moscow!”—and the army marched.

The Czar, or those who controlled him, were dissatisfied with the manner in which their side of the campaign had been conducted. There had been too much retreat, and not enough fight. Kutusoff was put in command with the understanding that he must give battle—a fact which, of itself, would seem to dispose of the theory that Napoleon was “lured” into the interior as a matter of policy.

At Borodino the Russians barred the road to “Mother Moscow”: and here the pitched battle was fought. With a cannonade that was heard for eighty miles, a quarter of a million men here butchered each other all day long on September 7, until seventy thousand lay dead or wounded. Night ended the carnage, and next morning the Russians were again in retreat.

During this famous battle, Napoleon remained sitting, or slowly walking up and down at one place, where he received reports and sent orders. He spoke but little, and seemed ill. In fact, he was a sick man, suffering with a severe cold and with his bladder complaint. He showed no activity, and left the battle to his marshals. At three in the afternoon the Russians had put in their last reserves, and were in distress everywhere—driven from their intrenchment, and threatened with ruin should the French reserves now attack. Ney, Murat, Davoust, all clamored for the Guard, the Emperor’s reserve. He hesitated. They sent again, and still he wavered. “Sire!” said BessiÈres, commander of the Guard, “remember that you are eight hundred leagues from your capital.” Napoleon refused the Guard. Ney was amazed, furious: “What does this mean? What is the Emperor doing in the rear? If he is tired of fighting, let him go back to his d—d Tuileries, and leave us to do what is necessary!”

Thus the Guard never fired a shot, the battle remained unfinished, and the Russians retired in good order, when they might have been destroyed. Military critics say that the Emperor made two capital blunders at Borodino: first, in vetoing Davoust’s offer to turn the Russian flank and come upon their rear; and, second, in not using his reserves.

That night the Emperor tried to dictate orders, but could not. He was too hoarse to talk. He was obliged to write; and he fell to it, writing rapidly, and throwing the scraps of paper on the table. Secretaries deciphered these scrawls slowly, and copied them, as fast as they could. As the papers accumulated, Napoleon would rap on his table for the secretaries to remove them. For twelve hours he labored, not a sound to be heard save the scratching of Napoleon’s pen and the rapping of his hammer.

The French continued their march onward, and at last neared Moscow. Napoleon left his carriage, mounted his horse, and rode forward. “In the distance could be seen the long columns of Russian cavalry retiring in good order before the French troops.” The French marched on, and at last Moscow was in sight. It was a proud moment for Napoleon when he stood on Pilgrim’s Hill, surrounded by a brilliant staff, and gazed upon the towers, the golden domes of the vast city, while his lieutenants and his troops shouted, in wild enthusiasm, “Moscow! Moscow!”

The Emperor was heard to mutter, “It was time.” Apparently his greatest enterprise had been crowned with success. His long triumphant march toward Asia would rank with Alexander’s. Russia would now sue for peace, terms would be easily arranged, Continental unity would follow, and England would find herself an island once more—not an empire.

But it was soon apparent that Moscow was not like Berlin or Vienna. Here were no crowds of spectators to gaze upon the victors. The streets were silent, empty. The houses were deserted. Here was a vast city without citizens. The French were dumfounded. Napoleon refused at first to believe: “the thing was preposterous.” The conquerors marched through the streets, the military bands playing, “To us is the victory,” but the vast solitude awed them as they marched.

The sight of the Kremlin, however, gave the conqueror a thrill of exultation. “Here I am at last! Here I am in Moscow, in the ancient palace of the Czars! in the Kremlin itself!”

Almost immediately, and in spite of all Napoleon could do, commenced the wholesale pillage of the city. Discipline relaxed, and marauders stormed the vacant houses on the hunt for loot. In the middle of the night of the 16th of September, the sleeping Napoleon was roused and brought running to the window of the Kremlin by the cry of “Fire!” The flames, feeding on wooden houses and fanned by high winds, defied control, and struck the conquerors with terror. As described by Napoleon himself, at St. Helena, “It was the spectacle of a sea and billows of fire, a sky and clouds of fire, mountains of red, rolling fire, like immense ocean waves, alternately bursting forth and lifting themselves to skies of fire, and then sinking into an ocean of fire below. Oh, it was the grandest, sublimest, most terrible sight the world ever saw!”

Russians say that the French burnt the city; the French say the Russians did it. French officers allege most positively that Russian incendiaries were caught in the act. It is certain that numbers of persons so taken were shot, as a punishment. On the other hand, so eminent a Russian as TolstoÏ maintains that the carelessness of the French soldiers was the cause of the fires. The Russians who had burned Smolensk to deprive the French of its use, who made the line of their retreat a desert to deprive the French of supplies, were probably the burners of Moscow. They burnt it as they burnt Smolensk and every village on their line of march, as a war measure which would injure the invaders. The fact that Rostopchin, the mayor, had carried away all appliances for putting out fires, would seem to be a conclusive piece of circumstantial evidence.

This awful calamity, unexpected, unexampled, upset Napoleon’s calculations. To destroy a town like Smolensk was one thing, to make of Moscow, one of the great cities of the world, an ocean of flame, a desert of ashes, was quite another. It was appalling: it stupefied, benumbed, bewildered Napoleon as no event in his career had done. He realized the frightful extent of the disaster, and saw himself hurled from the pinnacle to the abyss. Indecision had already made sad havoc in the campaign: indecision now completed the ruin. Napoleon had loitered at Wilna eighteen days; had halted sixteen days at Vitebsk. He had hesitated at Borodino, practically leaving the battle to his marshals, refusing them the reserves. Now at Moscow, he dawdled for five weeks, when every day brought nearer the march of two enemies that hitherto had not hindered him,—the Russian army, from the Danube, and Winter!

At the Kremlin was the most wretched man in existence. The Emperor had reached his Moscow only to find it a prison. Inexorable conditions shut him in with unpitying grip. He could not rest, could not sleep, would not talk, lingered long at table, lolled for hours on a sofa,—in his hand a novel which he did not read. He, the profoundest of calculators, who had from boyhood calculated everything, had for once miscalculated in everything. He had misjudged his friends and his foes; had erred as to the Russian temper; had fatally misconceived the character of the Czar. He knew Alexander to be weak, vain, vacillating; he did not allow for the strength which strong advisers like Stein and Sir Robert Wilson and dozens of others might give to this wavering monarch. He had calculated upon finding peace at Moscow, and had not found it. He had felt assured that, at the worst, Moscow would furnish abundant food and excellent winter quarters. It did neither. At fault in so many matters of vital concern, the Emperor was a prey to the most gloomy reflections. He set up a theatre for his troops, but did not attend it. He rode daily through the streets on his little white Arab, but spoke to no one. Sometimes in the evening he would play a game of cards with Duroc. There were a few concerts at the palace; some singing by Italian artists, some piano music; but the Emperor listened moodily, “with heavy heart.” He held his reviews, distributed rewards, but looked pale and stern, saying almost nothing. He duped himself with hopes of peace. He sent envoys and letters to Alexander—envoys who were not received, letters which were not answered. With an obstinacy which was fatal, he refused to see the truth of his situation. A lethargy, a failure of power to decide, mastered him. Even a light fall of snow was not warning sufficient to rouse him.

“At the Kremlin,” says Constant, “the days were long and tedious.” The Emperor was waiting for the Czar’s answer, which never came. His morbid irritability was stirred by the great flocks of crows and jackdaws that hovered about the city. “My God,” he cried, “do they mean to follow us everywhere!”

On October 3 he summoned a council of his marshals and proposed to march upon St. Petersburg. His officers listened coldly, and opposed him.

In a sort of desperation he then sent Lauriston to Kutusoff to ask for an interview with Alexander, saying to his envoy: “I want peace; you hear me. Get me peace. But save my honor if you can!”

The wily Kutusoff humored Lauriston, and Lauriston, in turn, nursed the infatuation of the Emperor. Thus precious days slipped away, the French were still at Moscow, winter was coming, and two other Russian armies, one from the north and one from the south, were marching steadily on to strike the French line of communication.

Napoleon wished to attack Kutusoff, drive him or destroy him, and then fall back on Smolensk. His officers counselled against this.

“Then what am I to do?”

“Stay here,” advised Count Daru. “Turn Moscow into a fortified camp, and so pass the winter. There is plenty of bread and salt. We can forage, we can salt down the horses which we cannot feed. As for quarters, if there are not houses enough here, there are plenty of cellars. We can hold out till spring, when our reËnforcements, backed by Lithuania in arms, will come to the rescue and complete our success.”

“Counsel of the lion!” exclaimed the Emperor. “But what will Paris say? what will they do? No; France is not accustomed to my absence. Prussia and Austria will take advantage of it.”

At length a rabbit, fleeing for dear life from a Cossack, put an end to hesitation, and put two great armies in motion.

TolstoÏ relates: “On October 14 a Cossack, Shapovalof, while on patrol duty, shot at a rabbit, and, entering the woods in pursuit of the wounded animal, stumbled upon the unguarded left flank of Murat’s army”—Napoleon’s advance guard.

Shapovalof, on his return to camp, told what he had seen, the news reached headquarters, a reconnoissance confirmed the statement, and the Russians, sorely tempted, broke the armistice, fell upon the unwary Murat, and did him immense damage. But for a difference between the Russian generals, it appears that Murat’s entire force might have been captured.

The Emperor was holding a review in the courtyard of the Kremlin when members of his suite began to say to one another that they heard cannon firing in the direction of the advance guard. At first no one dared speak of it to Napoleon. Duroc finally did so, and the Emperor was seen to be seriously disturbed. The review had not been recommenced before an aide-de-camp from Murat came at full speed to report that the truce had been broken, the French taken by surprise, and routed with heavy loss.

This was October 18. At last Napoleon was a soldier again: the news of the battle had roused him to action. His decision was taken, orders flew, and before night the whole army was in motion.