‘Courte et energique!’ Napoleon pronounced it, when he had read over the proclamation that he had dictated straight off without corrections. It was as follows:
‘Soldiers! This is the battle you have so greatly desired. Victory is in your hands. It is essential for us; it will give us everything we need: comfortable quarters and a speedy return to our own country. Behave as you behaved at Austerlitz, Friedland, Vitebsk, and Smolensk. May posterity recall with pride your achievement on this day! And may they say of each of you: he was at the great battle before Moscow! ’
‘Before Moscow,’ repeated Napoleon, and inviting M. de Beausset, so fond of travel, to accompany him on his ride, he went out of the tent to the saddled horses awaiting them outside.
‘Your majesty is too kind,’ said Beausset, in response to the invitation to accompany the Emperor. He" was very sleepy. He could not ride well, and was afraid of horses.
But Napoleon nodded to the traveller, and Beausset had to mount. When Napoleon came out of the tent the shouts of the Guards before his son’s portrait were redoubled. Napoleon frowned.
‘Take him away,’ he said, with a gracefully majestic gesture, pointing to the portrait. ‘It is too early yet for him to look upon the field of battle.’
Beausset, dropping his eyelids, and bowing his head, heaved a deep sigh, to testify how well he was able to appreciate and comprehend the Emperor’s words.
XXVII
The whole of that day, the 25th of August, Napoleon spent, so his historians relate, on horseback, inspecting the locality, criticising the plans submitted to him by his marshals, and giving commands in person to his generals.
The original line of the Russian disposition, along the Kolotcha, had been broken through, and, in consequence of the taking of the Shevardino redoubt on the previous day, part of that line—the left flank—had been
drawn further back. That part of the line had not been strengthened, was no longer protected by the river, and more open and level ground lay before it. It was obvious to any man, military or non-military, that it was that part of the line that the French should attack. One would have thought that no great deliberation would be necessary to reach this conclusion ; tha< all the care and anxiety of the Emperor and his marshals were unnecessary, and that there was absolutely no need of that peculiar high degree of talent called genius, which they are so fond of ascribing to Napoleon. But the historians, who described the battle afterwards, and the men surrounding Napoleon at the time, and he himself, thought otherwise.
Napoleon rode about the field, gazing with a profound air at the country, wagging his head approvingly or dubiously to himself, and without communicating to the generals around him the profound chain of reasoning that guided him in his decisions, conveyed to them merely the final conclusions in the form of commands. Upon the suggestion being made by Davoust, now styled Duke of Eckmiihl, for turning the Russian left flank, Napoleon said there was no need to do this, without explaining why there was no need. But to the proposal of General Compans (who was to attack the advanced earthworks), to lead his division through the forest, Napoleon signified his assent, although the so-called Duke of Elchingen, that is, Ney, ventured to observe that to move troops through woodland is risky, and might break up the formation of the division.
After examining the nature of the country opposite the Shevardino redoubt, Napoleon pondered a little while in silence and pointed to the spots where two batteries were to be placed by the morrow for action against the Russian fortifications, and the spots where, in a line with them, the field artillery was to be arranged.
After giving these and other commands, he went back to his quarters, and the disposition of the troops was written down from his dictation.
This disposition, of which the French speak with enthusiasm, and other historians with profound respect, consisted of the following instructions:
‘Two new batteries, to be placed during the night on the plain occupied by the Duke of Eckmiihl, will open fire at dawn on the two opposite batteries of the enemy.
‘At the same time General Pernetti, in command of the artillery of the ist corps, with thirty cannon of Compans’s division, and all the howitzers of Desaix and Friant’s division, will move forwards, open fire, and shower shells on the enemy’s battery, against which there will be at once in action:
24 cannons of the artillery of the Guards,
30 cannons of Compans’s division, and 8 cannons of Friant and Desaix’s division
In all 62 cannons.
“General Fouche, in command of the artillery of the 3rd corps, will
738 WAR AND PEACE
place all the sixteen howitzers of the 3rd and 8th corps at the flanks of the batter}^, told off to bombard the left fortification, making forty guns in all aimed against it.
