The Peasant Story of Napoleon

by Honore de Balzac

Goguelet, an old soldier who fought under respected his head. I had proof of that—I Napoleon, tells the story of his wonderful Gen- myself—at Eylau. I see him now, as he rode eral and Emperor to a group of eager listeners up a height, took his field-glass, looked at the in the country doctor’s barn. battle, and said, ‘All goes well.’ One of those plumed busybodies, who plagued him con- You see, my friends, Napoleon was born siderably and followed him everywhere, even in Corsica, a French island, warmed by the to his meals, so they said, thought to play the sun of Italy, where it is like a furnace, and wag, and took the Emperor’s place as he rode where the people kill each other, from fa- away. Ho! In a twinkling, head and plume ther to son, all about nothing: that’s a way were off! You must understand that Napo- they have. To begin with the marvel of the leon had promised to keep the secret of his thing—his mother, who was the handsomest compact all to himself. That’s why all those woman of her time, and a knowing one, be- who followed him, even his nearest friends, thought herself of dedicating him to God, so fell like nuts—Duroc, Bessires, Lannes—all that he might escape the dangers of his child- strong as steel bars, though he could bend hood and future life; for she had dreamed them as he pleased. Besides—to prove he that the world was set on fire the day he was was the child of God, and made to be the born. And, indeed, it was a prophecy! So she father of soldiers—was he ever known to be asked God to protect him, on condition that lieutenant or captain? No, no; commander- Napoleon should restore His holy religion, in-chief from the start. He didn’t look to be which was then cast to the ground. Well, more than twenty-four years of age when he that was agreed upon, and we shall see what was an old general at the taking of Toulon, came of it. where he first began to show the others that “Follow me closely, and tell me if what they knew nothing about manoeuvring can- you hear is in the nature of man. non. “Sure and certain it is that none but “After that, down came our slip of a a man who conceived the idea of making a general to command the grand army of Italy, compact with God could have passed unhurt which hadn’t bread, nor munitions, nor through the enemy’s lines, through can- shoes, nor coats—a poor army, as naked as non-balls, and discharges of grape-shot that a worm. ‘My friends,’ said he, ‘here we are swept the rest of us off like flies, and always together. Get it into your pates that fifteen

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Created for Lit2Go on the web at fcit.usf.edu The Peasant Story of Napoleon by Honore de Balzac days from now you will be conquerors—new Now here’s the end of it. In Ventose, ‘96—in clothes, good gaiters, famous shoes, and every those times that was the month of March man with a great-coat; but, my children, to of to-day—we lay cuddled in a corner of get these things you must march to Milan, Savoie with the marmots; and yet, before that where they are.’ And we marched. France, campaign was over, we were masters of Italy, crushed as flat as a bed-bug, straightened up. just as Napoleon had predicted; and by the We were thirty thousand bare-feet against following March—in a single year and two eighty thousand Austrian bullies, all fine campaigns—he had brought us within sight men, well set-up. I see ‘em now! But Napo- of Vienna. ‘Twas a clean sweep. We devoured leon—he was then only Bonaparte—he knew their armies, one after the other, and made how to put the courage into us! We marched an end of four Austrian generals. One old fel- by night, and we marched by day; we slapped low, with white hair, was roasted like a rat in their faces at Montenotte, we thrashed them the straw at Mantua. Kings begged for mercy at Rivoli, Lodi, Arcole, Millesimo, and we on their knees! Peace was won. never let ‘em up. A soldier gets the taste of “Could a man have done that? No; God conquest. So Napoleon whirled round those helped him, to a certainty! Austrian generals, who didn’t know where to “He divided himself up like the loaves poke themselves to get out of his way, and in the Gospel, commanded the battle by day, he pelted ‘em well—nipped off ten thousand planned it by night; going and coming, for men at a blow sometimes, by getting round the sentinels saw him—never eating, never them with fifteen hundred Frenchmen, and sleeping. So, seeing these prodigies, the sol- then he gleaned as he pleased. He took their diers adopted him for their father. Forward, cannon, their supplies, their money, their march! Then those others, the rulers in Paris, munitions, in short, all they had that was seeing this, said to themselves: ‘Here’s a bold good to take. He fought them and beat them one that seems to get his orders from the on the mountains, he drove them into the skies; he’s likely to put his paw on France. We rivers and seas, he bit ‘em in the air, he de- must let him loose on Asia; we will send him voured ‘em on the ground, and he lashed ‘em to America, perhaps that will satisfy him.’ everywhere. Hey! The grand army feathered But ‘t was written above for him, as it was for itself well; for, d’ye see the Emperor, who Jesus Christ. The command went forth that was a wit, called up the inhabitants and told he should go to Egypt. See, again, his resem- them he was there to deliver them. So after blance to the Son of God. But that’s not all. that the natives lodged and cherished us; the He called together his best veterans, his fire- women too, and very judicious they were. eaters, the ones he had particularly put the

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Created for Lit2Go on the web at fcit.usf.edu The Peasant Story of Napoleon by Honore de Balzac devil into, and he said to them like this: ‘My are not to touch anything at first, for it is all friends, they have given us Egypt to chew going to be yours soon. Forward, march!’ So up, just to keep us busy, but we’ll swallow it far, so good. But all those people of Africa, whole in a couple of campaigns, as we did to whom Napoleon was foretold under the Italy. The common soldiers shall be princes name of Kébir-Bonaberdis—a word of their and have the land for their own. Forward, lingo that means ‘the sultan fires’—were march!’ ‘Forward, march!’ cried the sergeants, afraid as the devil of him. So the Grand Turk, and there we were at Toulon, road to Egypt. and Asia, and Africa had recourse to magic. At that time the English had all their ships in They sent us a demon, named the Mahdi, the sea; but when we embarked, Napoleon supposed to have descended from heaven said: ‘They won’t see us. It is just as well that on a white horse, which, like its master, was you should know from this time forth that bullet-proof; and both of them lived on air, your general has got his star in the sky, which without food to support them. There are guides and protects us.’ What was said was some that say they saw them; but I can’t give done. Passing over the sea, we took Malta like you any reasons to make you certain about an orange, just to quench his thirst for vic- that. The rulers of Arabia and the Mamelukes tory; for he was a man who couldn’t live and tried to make their troopers believe that the do nothing. Mahdi could keep them from perishing in “So here we are in Egypt. Good. Once battle; and they pretended he was an angel here, other orders. The Egyptians, d’ye see, sent from heaven to fight Napoleon and get are men who, ever since the earth was, have back Solomon’s seal. Solomon’s seal was part had giants for sovereigns, and armies as of their paraphernalia which they vowed our numerous as ants; for, you must understand, general had stolen. You must understand that that’s the land of genii and crocodiles, where we’d given ‘em a good many wry faces, in they’ve built pyramids as big as our moun- spite of what he had said to us. tains, and buried their kings under them to “Now, tell me how they knew that Na- keep them fresh—an idea that pleased ‘em poleon had a pact with God? Was that natu- mightily. So then, after we disembarked, the ral, d’ye think? Little Corporal said to us: ‘My children, the “They held to it in their minds that Na- country you are going to conquer has a lot of poleon commanded the genii, and could pass gods that you must respect; because French- hither and thither in the twinkling of an eye, men ought to be friends with everybody, like a bird. The fact is, he was everywhere. and fight the nations without vexing the At last, it came to his carrying off a queen inhabitants. Get it into your skulls that you beautiful as the dawn, for whom he had of-

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Created for Lit2Go on the web at fcit.usf.edu The Peasant Story of Napoleon by Honore de Balzac fered all his treasure, and diamonds as big as diamonds and gold to pay the soldiers and pigeon’s eggs—a bargain which the Mam- palaces for bivouacs, when the Mahdi made eluke to whom she particularly belonged a treaty with the plague, and sent it down positively refused, although he had several to hinder our victories. Halt! The army to a others. Such matters when they come to that man defiled at that parade; and few they were pass, can’t be settled without a great many who came back on their feet. Dying soldiers battles; and, indeed, there was no scarcity of couldn’t take Saint-Jean d’Acre, though they battles; there was fighting enough to please rushed at it three times with generous and everybody. We were in line at Alexandria, at martial obstinacy. The Plague was the stron- Gizeh, and before the Pyramids; we marched gest. No saying to that enemy, ‘My good in the sun and through the sand, where friend.’ Every soldier lay ill. Napoleon alone some, who had the dazzles, saw water that was fresh as a rose, and the whole army saw they couldn’t drink, and shade where their him drinking in pestilence without its doing flesh was roasted. But we made short work of him a bit of harm. the Mamelukes; and everybody else yielded “Ha! My friends! Will you tell me that at the voice of Napoleon, who took posses- that’s in the nature of a mere man? sion of Upper and Lower Egypt, Arabia, and “The Mamelukes, knowing we were all even the capitals of kingdoms that were no in the ambulances, thought they could stop more, where there were thousands of statues the way; but that sort of joke wouldn’t do and all the plagues of Egypt, more particu- with Napoleon. So he said to his demons, his larly lizards—a mammoth of a country where veterans, those that had the toughest hide, everybody could take his acres of land for as ‘Go, clear me the way.’ Junot, a sabre of the little as he pleased. Well, while Napoleon was first cut, and his particular friend, took a busy with his affairs inland—where he had thousand men, no more, and ripped up the it in his head to do fine things—the English army of the pacha who had had the presump- burned his fleet at Aboukir; for they were tion to put himself in the way. After that, we always looking about them to annoy us. But came back to headquarters at Cairo. Now, Napoleon, who had the respect of the East here’s another side of the story. Napoleon and of the West, whom the Pope called his absent, France was letting herself be ruined son, and the cousin of Mohammed called by the rulers in Paris, who kept back the pay ‘his dear father,’ resolved to punish England, of the soldiers of the other armies, and their and get hold of India in exchange for his clothing, and their rations; left them to die fleet. He was just about to take us across the of hunger, and expected them to lay down Red Sea into Asia, a country where there are the law to the universe without taking any

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Created for Lit2Go on the web at fcit.usf.edu The Peasant Story of Napoleon by Honore de Balzac trouble to help them. Idiots who amused couldn’t laugh at then. Napoleon embarked themselves by chattering, instead of putting in a cockleshell, a little skiff that was nothing their own hands in the dough. Well, that’s at all, though ‘twas called ‘Fortune;’ and in a how it happened that our armies were beaten, twinkling, under the nose of England, who and the frontiers of France were encroached was blockading him with ships of the line, upon: the man was nor there. Now observe, I frigates, and anything that could hoist a sail, say man because that’s what they called him; he crossed over, and there he was in France. but ‘twas nonsense, for he had a star and all For he always had the power, mind you, of its belongings; it was we who were only men. crossing the seas at one straddle. He taught history to France after his famous “Was that a human man? Bah! battle of Aboukir, where, without losing more “So, one minute he is at Fréjus, the than three hundred men, and with a single next in Paris. There, they all adore him; but division, he vanquished the grand army of he summons the government. ‘What have the Turk, seventy-five thousand strong, and you done with my children, the soldiers?’ he hustled more than half of it into the sea, r-r- says to the lawyers. ‘You’re a mob of rascally rah! scribblers; you are making France a mess of “That was his last thunder-clap in Egypt. pottage, and snapping your fingers at what He said to himself, seeing the way things people think of you. It won’t do; and I speak were going in Paris, ‘I am the saviour of the opinion of everybody.’ So, on that, they France; I know it, and I must go.’ But, un- wanted to battle with him and kill him— derstand me, the army didn’t know he was click! He had ‘em locked up in barracks, or going, or they’d have kept him by force and flying out of windows, or drafted among his made him Emperor of the East. So now we followers, where they were as mute as fishes were sad; for He was gone who was all our and as pliable as a quid of tobacco. After that joy. He left the command to Kléber, a big stroke—consul! And then, as it was not for mastiff, who came off duty at Cairo, assas- him to doubt the Supreme Being, he fulfilled sinated by an Egyptian, whom they put to his promise to the good God, who, you see, death by empaling him on a bayonet; that’s had kept His word to him. He gave Him the way they guillotine people down there. back His churches, and reestablished His But it makes ‘em suffer so much that a soldier religion; the bells rang for God and for him: had pity on the criminal and gave him his and lo! Everybody was pleased; primo, the canteen; and then, as soon as the Egyptian priests, whom he saved from being harassed; had drunk his fill, he gave up the ghost with secundo, the bourgeois, who thought only all the pleasure in life. But that’s a trifle we of their trade, and no longer had to fear the

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Created for Lit2Go on the web at fcit.usf.edu The Peasant Story of Napoleon by Honore de Balzac rapiamus of the law, which had got to be sacred ceremony took place, the like of which unjust; tertio, the nobles, for he forbade they was never seen under the canopy of the skies. should be killed, as, unfortunately, the people The Pope and the cardinals, in their red and had got the habit of doing. gold vestments, crossed the Alps expressly to “But he still had the Enemy to wipe out; crown him before the army and the people, and he wasn’t the man to go to sleep at a who clapped their hands. There is one thing mess-table, because, d’ye see, his eye looked that I should do very wrong not to tell you. over the whole earth as if it were no big- In Egypt, in the desert close to Syria, the ger than a man’s head. So then he appeared RED MAN came to him on the Mount of in Italy, like as though he had stuck his Moses, and said, ‘All is well.’ Then, at Maren- head through the window. One glance was go, the night before the victory, the same enough. The Austrians were swallowed up at Red Man appeared before him for the sec- Marengo like so many gudgeons by a whale! ond time, standing erect and saying: ‘Thou Ouf! The French eagles sang their pæans so shalt see the world at thy feet; thou shalt be loud that all the world heard them—and it Emperor of France, King of Italy, master of sufficed! ‘We won’t play that game any more,’ Holland, sovereign of Spain, Portugal, and said the German. ‘Enough, enough!’ said all the Illyrian provinces, protector of Germany, the rest. To sum up: Europe backed down, saviour of Poland, first eagle of the Legion England knocked under. General peace; and of Honour—all.’ This Red Man, you under- the kings and the peoples made believe kiss stand, was his genius, his spirit—a sort of sat- each other. That’s the time when the Emperor ellite who served him, as some say, to com- invented the Legion of Honour—and a fine municate with his star. I never really believed thing, too. ‘In France’—this is what he said that. But the Red Man himself is a true fact. at Boulogne before the whole army—’every Napoleon spoke of him, and said he came to man is brave. So the citizen who does a fine him in troubled moments, and lived in the action shall be sister to the soldier, and the palace of the Tuileries under the roof. So, on soldier shall be his brother, and the two shall the day of the coronation, Napoleon saw him be one under the flag of honour.’ for the third time; and they were in consulta- “We, who were down in Egypt, now tion over many things. came home. All was changed! He left us “After that, Napoleon went to Milan to general, and hey! In a twinkling we found be crowned king of Italy, and there the grand him emperor. France gave herself to him, like triumph of the soldier began. Every man who a fine girl to a lancer. When it was done—to could write was made an officer. Down came the satisfaction of all, as you may say—a pensions; it rained duchies; treasures poured

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Created for Lit2Go on the web at fcit.usf.edu The Peasant Story of Napoleon by Honore de Balzac in for the staff which didn’t cost France a his permission to do his bidding, he remem- penny; and the Legion of Honour provided bered his four brothers and his three sisters, incomes for the private soldiers—of which and he said to us, as it might be in conversa- I receive mine to this day. So here were the tion, in an order of the day, ‘My children, armies maintained as never before on this is it right that the blood relations of your earth. But besides that, the Emperor, know- Emperor should be begging their bread? ing that he was to be the No. I wish to see them emperor of the whole in splendour like myself. world, bethought him It becomes, therefore, of the bourgeois, and to absolutely necessary to please them he built fairy conquer a kingdom for monuments, after their each of them—to the end own ideas, in places where that Frenchmen may be you’d never think to find masters over all lands, that any. For instance, suppose the soldiers of the Guard you were coming back shall make the whole earth from Spain and going to tremble, that France may Berlin—well, you’d find spit where she likes, and triumphal arches along that all the nations shall the way, with common say to her, as it is written soldiers sculptured on the on my copper coins, ‘God stone, every bit the same protects you! ’ ‘Agreed!’ as generals. In two or cried the army. ‘We’ll go three years, and without fish for thy kingdoms with imposing taxes on any of our bayonets.’ Ha! There you, Napoleon filled his was no backing down, vaults with gold, built palaces, made bridges, don’t you see! If he had taken it into his head roads, scholars, fêtes, laws, vessels, harbours, to conquer the moon, we should have made and spent millions upon millions—such ready, packed knapsacks, and clambered up; enormous sums that he could, so they tell happily, he didn’t think of it. The kings of me, have paved France from end to end with the countries, who liked their comfortable five-franc pieces, if he had had a mind to. thrones, were, naturally, loath to budge, and “Now, when he sat at ease on his throne, had to have their ears pulled; so then—For- and was master of all, so that Europe waited ward, march! We did march; we got there;

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Created for Lit2Go on the web at fcit.usf.edu The Peasant Story of Napoleon by Honore de Balzac and the earth once more trembled to its into it with the breath of his mouth; Wa- centre. Hey! The men and the shoes he used gram, where the army fought for three days up in those days! The enemy dealt us such without grumbling. We won as many battles blows that none but the grand army could as there are saints in the calendar. It was have borne the fatigue of it. But you are not proved then, beyond a doubt, that Napoleon ignorant that a Frenchman is born a philoso- had the sword of God in his scabbard. The pher, and knows that a little sooner, or a little soldiers were his friends; he made them his later, he has got to die. So we were ready to children; he looked after us, he saw that we die without a word, for we liked to see the had shoes, and shirts, and great-coats, and Emperor doing that on the geographies.” bread, and cartridges; but he always kept up Here the narrator nimbly described a his majesty; for, don’t you see, ‘twas his busi- circle with his foot on the floor of the barn. ness to reign. No matter for that, however; a “And Napoleon said, ‘There, that’s to be sergeant, and even a common soldier, could a kingdom.’ And a kingdom it was. Ha! The say to him, ‘my Emperor,’ just as you say to good times! The colonels were generals; the me sometimes, ‘my good friend.’ He gave us generals, marshals; and the marshals, kings. an answer if we appealed to him; he slept in There’s one of ‘em still on his throne, to prove the snow like the rest of us; and, indeed, he it to Europe; but he’s a Gascon and a trai- had almost the air of a human man. I who tor to France for keeping that crown; and he speak to you, I have seen him with his feet doesn’t blush for shame as he ought to do, be- among the grape-shot, and no more uneasy cause crowns, don’t you see, are made of gold. than you are now—standing steady, looking I who am speaking to you, I have seen, in through his field-glass, and minding his busi- Paris, eleven kings and a mob of princes sur- ness. ‘Twas that kept the rest of us quiet. I rounding Napoleon like the rays of the sun. don’t know how he did it, but when he spoke You understand, of course, that every soldier he made our hearts burn within us; and to had the chance to mount a throne, provided show him we were his children, incapable of always he had the merit; so a corporal of balking, didn’t we rush at the mouths of the the Guard was a sight to be looked at as he rascally cannon, that belched and vomited walked along, for each man had his share in shot and shell, without so much as saying, the victory, and ‘twas plainly set forth in the ‘Look out!’ Why the dying must need raise bulletin. What victories they were! Austerlitz, their heads to salute him and cry, ‘LONG where the army manoeuvred as if on parade; LIVE THE EMPEROR!’ Eylau, where we drowned the Russians in a “I ask you, was that natural? Would they lake, as though Napoleon had blown them have done that for a human man?

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Created for Lit2Go on the web at fcit.usf.edu The Peasant Story of Napoleon by Honore de Balzac

“Well, after he had settled the world, the that was human? No; it was written above; Empress Josephine, his wife, a good woman and may the scurvy seize ‘em who deny that all the same, managed matters so that she he was sent by God himself for the triumph did not bear him any children, and he was of France! obliged to give her up, though he loved her “Well, here’s the Emperor of Russia, that considerably. But, you see, he had to have lit- used to be his friend, he gets angry because tle ones for reasons of state. Hearing of this, Napoleon didn’t marry a Russian; so he joins all the sovereigns of Europe quarrelled as to with the English, our enemies—to whom our which of them should give him a wife. And Emperor always wanted to say a couple of he married, so they told us, an Austrian arch- words in their burrows, only he was prevent- duchess, daughter of Caesar, an ancient man ed. Napoleon gets angry too; an end had to about whom people talk a good deal, and not be put to such doings; so he says to us: ‘Sol- in France only—where any one will tell you diers! You have been masters of every capital what he did—but in Europe. It is all true, in Europe, except Moscow, which is now the for I myself who address you at this moment, ally of England. To conquer England, and In- I have been on the Danube, and have seen dia which belongs to the English, it becomes the remains of a bridge built by that man, our peremptory duty to go to Moscow,’ who, it seems, was a relation of Napoleon in Then he assembled the greatest army that Rome, and that’s how the Emperor got the ever trailed its gaiters over the globe; and so inheritance of that city for his son. So after marvellously in hand it was that he reviewed the marriage, which was a fête for the whole a million of men in one day. ‘Hourra!’ cried world, and in honour of which he released the Russians. Down came all Russia and the people of ten years’ taxes—which they those animals of Cossacks in a flock. ‘Twas had to pay all the same, however, because nation against nation, a general hurly-burly, the assessors didn’t take account of what he and beware who could; ‘Asia against Europe,’ said—his wife had a little one, who was King as the Red Man had foretold to Napoleon. of Rome. Now, there’s a thing that had never ‘Enough,’ cried the Emperor, ‘I’ll be ready.’ been seen on this earth; never before was a “So now, sure enough, came all the child born a king with his father living. On kings, as the Red Man had said, to lick that day a balloon went up in Paris to tell the Napoleon’s hand! Austria, Prussia, Bavaria, news to Rome, and that balloon made the Saxony, Poland, Italy, every one of them journey in one day. were with us, flattering us; ah, it was fine! “Now, is there any man among you who The eagles never cawed so loud as at those will stand up here and declare to me that all parades, perched high above the banners

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Created for Lit2Go on the web at fcit.usf.edu The Peasant Story of Napoleon by Honore de Balzac of all Europe. The Poles were bursting with Ha! My God! How the lieutenants fell, and joy, because Napoleon was going to release the colonels, and the soldiers! No matter! All them; and that’s why France and Poland are the more shoes for those that had none, and brothers to this day. ‘Russia is ours,’ cried the epaulets for the clever ones who knew how army. We plunged into it well-supplied; we to read. ‘Victory!’ cried the whole line; ‘Vic- marched and we marched—no Russians. At tory!’—and, would you believe it? A thing last we found the brutes entrenched on the never seen before, there lay twenty-five thou- banks of the Moskva. That’s where I won my sand Frenchmen on the ground. ‘Twas like cross, and I’ve got the right to say it was a mowing down a wheat-field; only in place damnable battle. This was how it came about. of the ears of wheat put the heads of men! The Emperor was anxious. He had seen the We were sobered by this time—those who Red Man, who said to him ‘My son, you were left alive. The man rode up; we made are going too fast for your feet; you will lack the circle round him. Ha! He knew how to men; friends will betray you.’ So the Emperor cajole his children; he could be amiable when offered peace. But before signing, ‘Let us he liked, and feed ‘em with words when their drub those Russians!’ he said to us. ‘Done!’ stomachs were ravenous with the hunger of cried the army. ‘Forward, march!’ said the wolves. Flatterer! He distributed the crosses sergeants. My clothes were in rags, my shoes himself, he uncovered to the dead, and then worn out, from trudging along those roads, he cried to us, ‘On to Moscow!’ ‘To Mos- which are very uncomfortable ones; but no cow!’ answered the army. matter! I said to myself, ‘As it’s the last of our “We took Moscow. Would you believe earthquakings, I’ll go into it, tooth and nail!’ it? the Russians burned their own city! ‘Twas We were drawn up in line before the great ra- a haystack six miles square, and it blazed for vine—front seats, as ‘twere. Signal given; and two days. The buildings crashed like slates, seven hundred pieces of artillery began a con- and showers of melted iron and lead rained versation that would bring the blood from down upon us, which was naturally horrible. your ears. Then—must do justice to one’s en- I may say to you plainly, it was like a flash of emies—the Russians let themselves be killed lightning on our disasters. The Emperor said, like Frenchmen; they wouldn’t give way; we ‘We have done enough; my soldiers shall couldn’t advance. ‘Forward!’ some one cried, rest here.’ So we rested awhile, just to get ‘here comes the Emperor!’ True enough; he the breath into our bodies and the flesh on passed at a gallop, waving his hand to let us our bones, for we were really tired. We took know we must take the redoubt. He inspired possession of the golden cross that was on us; on we ran; I was the first in the ravine. the Kremlin; and every soldier brought away

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Created for Lit2Go on the web at fcit.usf.edu The Peasant Story of Napoleon by Honore de Balzac with him a small fortune. But out there the Russians, who, I must tell you, still respected winter sets in a month earlier—a thing those the grand army, remembering its victories. fools of science didn’t properly explain. So, And,” he added, pointing to Gondrin, who coming back, the cold nipped us. No longer was gazing at him with the peculiar attention an army—do you hear me?—no longer any of a deaf man, “Gondrin is a finished soldier, generals, no longer any sergeants even. ‘Twas a soldier who is honour itself, and he merits the reign of wretchedness and hunger—a your highest esteem. reign of equality at last. No one thought of “I saw the Emperor,” he resumed, anything but to see France once more; no “standing by the bridge, motionless, not feel- one stooped to pick up his gun or his money ing the cold—was that human? He looked if he dropped them; each man followed his at the destruction of his treasure, his friends, nose, and went as he pleased without caring his old Egyptians. Bah! All that passed him, for glory. The weather was so bad the Em- women, army-waggons, artillery, all were peror couldn’t see his star; there was some- shattered, destroyed, ruined. The bravest thing between him and the skies. Poor man! carried the eagles; for the eagles, d’ye see, It made him ill to see his eagles flying away were France, the nation, all of you! They were from victory. Ah! ‘Twas a mortal blow, you the civil and the military honour that must may believe me. be kept pure; could their heads be lowered “Well, we got to the Beresina, My because of the cold? It was only near the friends, I can affirm to you by all that is most Emperor that we warmed ourselves, because sacred, by my honour, that since mankind when he was in danger we ran, frozen as we came into the world, never, never was there were—we, who wouldn’t have stretched a seen such a fricassee of any army—guns, hand to save a friend. They told us he wept carriages, artillery-wagons—in the midst of at night over his poor family of soldiers. Ah! such snows, under such relentless skies! The None but he and Frenchmen could have muzzles of the muskets burned our hands got themselves out of that business. We did if we touched them, the iron was so cold. get out, but with losses, great losses, as I It was there that the army was saved by the tell you. The Allies captured our provisions. pontoniers, who were firm at their post; and Men began to betray him, as the Red Man there that Gondrin—sole survivor of the men predicted. Those chatterers in Paris, who had who were bold enough to go into the water held their tongues after the Imperial Guard and build the bridges by which the army was formed, now thought he was dead; so crossed—that Gondrin, here present, admira- they hoodwinked the prefect of police, and bly conducted himself, and saved us from the hatched a conspiracy to overthrow the em-

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Created for Lit2Go on the web at fcit.usf.edu The Peasant Story of Napoleon by Honore de Balzac pire. He heard of it; it worried him. He left the air of his own country restore his soul to us, saying: ‘Adieu, my children; guard the satisfaction, spite of the wintry weather. I can outposts; I shall return to you,’ Bah! With- say for myself that it refreshed my life. Well, out him nothing went right; the generals lost next, our business was to defend France, our their heads, the marshals talked nonsense and country, our beautiful France, against, all committed follies; but that was not surpris- Europe, which resented our having laid down ing, for Napoleon, who was kind, had fed the law to the Russians, and pushed them ‘em on gold; they had got as fat as lard, and back into their dens so that they couldn’t wouldn’t stir; some stayed in camp when they eat us up alive, as northern nations, who are ought to have been warming the backs of the dainty and like southern flesh, have a habit of enemy who was between us and France. doing—at least, so I’ve heard some generals “But the Emperor came back, and he say. Then the Emperor saw his own father- brought recruits, famous recruits; he changed in-law, his friends whom he had made kings, their backbone and made ‘em dogs of war, and the scoundrels to whom he had given fit to set their teeth into anything; and he back their thrones, all against him. Even brought a guard of honour, a fine body in- Frenchmen, and allies in our own ranks, deed!—all bourgeois, who melted away like turned against us under secret orders, as at butter on a gridiron. the battle of Leipsic. Would common soldiers “Well, spite of our stern bearing, here’s have been capable of such wickedness? Three everything going against us; and yet the times a day men were false to their word— army did prodigies of valour. Then came and they called themselves princes! battles on the mountains, nations against “So, then, France was invaded. Wher- nations—Dresden, LŸtzen, Bautzen. Re- ever the Emperor showed his lion face, the member these days, all of you, for ‘twas then enemy retreated; and he did more prodigies that Frenchmen were so particularly heroic in defending France than ever he had done that a good grenadier only lasted six months. in conquering Italy, the East, Spain, Europe, We triumphed always; yet there were those and Russia. He meant to bury every invader English, in our rear, rousing revolts against under the sod, and teach ‘em to respect the us with their lies! No matter, we cut our way soil of France. So he let them get to Paris, home through the whole pack of the nations. that he might swallow them at a mouthful, Wherever the Emperor showed himself we and rise to the height of his genius in a battle followed him; for if, by sea or land, he gave greater than all the rest—a mother-battle, as us the word ‘Go!’ we went. At last, we were ‘twere. But there, there! The Parisians were in France; and many a poor foot-soldier felt afraid for their twopenny skins, and their

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Created for Lit2Go on the web at fcit.usf.edu The Peasant Story of Napoleon by Honore de Balzac trumpery shops; they opened the gates. Then that they respected his tent, saying to touch the Ragusades began, and happiness ended. it would be to offend God. Thus, d’ye see, The Empress was fooled, and the white ban- when these others turned him from the doors ner flaunted from the windows. The generals of his own France, he still reigned over the whom he had made his nearest friends aban- whole world. Before long he embarked in the doned him for the Bourbons—a set of people same little cockleshell of a boat he had had in no one had heard tell of. The Emperor bade Egypt, sailed round the beard of the English, us farewell at Fontainebleau: ‘Soldiers!’—I set foot in France, and France acclaimed him. can hear him now; we wept like children; The sacred cuckoo flew from spire to spire; the flags and the eagles were lowered as if for all France cried out with one voice, ‘LONG a funeral: it was, I may well say it to you, it LIVE THE EMPEROR!’ In this region, here, was the funeral of the Empire; her dapper the enthusiasm for that wonder of the ages armies were nothing now but skeletons. So was, I may say, solid. Dauphine behaved well; he said to us, standing there on the portico of and I am particularly pleased to know that his palace: ‘My soldiers! We are vanquished her people wept when they saw, once more, by treachery; but we shall meet in heaven, the gray top-coat. March first it was, when the country of the brave. Defend my child, Napoleon landed with two hundred men whom I commit to you. Long live Napoleon to conquer that kingdom of France and of II!’ He meant to die, that no man should Navarre, which, on the twentieth of the same look upon Napoleon vanquished; he took month was again the French Empire. On poison, enough to have killed a regiment, be- that day our man was in Paris; he had made cause, like Jesus Christ before his Passion, he a clean sweep, recovered his dear France, and thought himself abandoned of God and his gathered his veterans together by saying no talisman. But the poison did not hurt him. more than three words, ‘I am here.’ “See again! He found he was immortal. “‘Twas the greatest miracle God had yet “Sure of himself, knowing he must ever done! Before him , did ever man recover an be The Emperor, he went for a while to an empire by showing his hat? And these oth- island to study out the nature of these oth- ers, who thought they had subdued France! ers, who, you may be sure, committed follies Not they! At sight of the eagles, a national without end. Whilst he bided his time down army sprang up, and we marched to Wa- there, the Chinese, and the wild men on terloo. There, the Guard died at one blow. the coast of Africa, and the Barbary States, Napoleon, in despair, threw himself three and others who are not at all accommodat- times before the cannon of the enemy with- ing, know so well he was more than man out obtaining death. We saw that. The battle

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Created for Lit2Go on the web at fcit.usf.edu The Peasant Story of Napoleon by Honore de Balzac was lost. That night the Emperor called his Napoleon, the father of his people and of the old soldiers to him; on the field soaked with soldier!” our blood he burned his banners and his eagles—his poor eagles, ever victorious, who cried ‘Forward’ in the battles, and had flown the length and breadth of Europe, they were saved the infamy of belonging to the enemy: all the treasures of England couldn’t get her a tail-feather of them. No more eagles—the rest is well known. The Red Man went over to the Bourbons, like the scoundrel that he is. France is crushed; the soldier is nothing; they deprive him of his dues; they discharge him to make room for broken-down nobles—ah, ‘tis pitiable! They seized Napoleon by treach- ery; the English nailed him on a desert island in mid-ocean on a rock raised ten thousand feet above the earth; and there he is, and will be, till the Red Man gives him back his pow- er for the happiness of France. These others say he’s dead. Ha, dead! ‘Tis easy to see they don’t know Him. They tell that fib to catch the people, and feel safe in their hovel of a government. Listen! The truth at the bottom of it all is that his friends have left him alone on the desert isle to fulfil a prophecy, for I forgot to say that his name, Napoleon, means ‘lion of the desert.’ Now this that I tell you is true as the Gospel. All other tales that you hear about the Emperor are follies without common-sense; because, d’ye see, God never gave to child of woman born the right to stamp his name in red as he did, on the earth, which forever shall remember him! Long live

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