‘Go to the . . .’ Napoleon jerked out gloomily, and he turned his back on him. A saintly smile of sympathy, regret, and ecstasy beamed on M. de Beausset’s face as he moved with his swinging step back to the Ther generals.
Napoleon was experiencing the bitter feeling of a lucky gambler, who, ifter recklessly staking his money and always winning, suddenly finds, precisely when he has carefully reckoned up all contingencies, that the nore he considers his course, the more certain he is of losing.
The soldiers were the same, the generals the same, there had been the same preparations, the same disposition, the same proclamation, ‘court it encrgique.’ He was himself the same,—he knew that; he knew that he was more experienced and skilful indeed now than he had been of old. The enemy even was the same as at Austerlitz and Friedland. But the rresistible wave of his hand seemed robbed of its might by magic.
All the old manoeuvres that had invariably been crowned with success:’ the concentration of the battery on one point, and the advance of the reserves to break the line, and the cavalry attack of ‘men of iron,’ all these: resources had been employed; and far from victory being secure, from all sides the same tidings kept pouring in of killed or wounded generals, of reinforcements needed, of the troops being in disorder, and the Russians impossible to move.
Hitherto, after two or three orders being given, two or three phrases delivered, marshals and adjutants had galloped up with radiant faces and congratulations, announcing the capture as trophies of whole corps of prisoners, of bundles of flags and eagles, of cannons and stores, and Murat had asked leave to let the cavalry go to capture the baggage. So it hadi been at Lodi, Marengo, Arcole, Jena, Austerlitz, Wagram, and so on, and so on. But now something strange was coming over his men.
In spite of the news of the capture of the fleches, Napoleon saw that things were not the same, not at all the same as at previous battles. He saw that what he was feeling, all the men round him, experienced in military matters, were feeling too. All their faces were gloomy ; all avoided each others’ eyes. It was only a Beausset who could fail to grasp the import of what was happening. Napoleon after his long experience of wai knew very well all that was meant by an unsuccessful attack after eighl hours’ straining every possible effort. He knew that this was almost equivalent to a defeat, and that the merest chance might now, in the critical point the battle was in, be the overthrow of himself and hi; troops.
When he went over in his own mind all this strange Russian campaign in which not a single victory had been gained, in which not a flag, nor z cannon, nor a corps had been taken in two months, when he looked at the concealed gloom in the faces round him, and heard reports that the Russians still held their ground—a terrible feeling, such as is experiencec in a nightmare, came over him, and all the unlucky contingencies oc curred to him that might be his ruin. The Russians might fall upon hi; left wing, might break through his centre; a stray ball might even kil l himself. All that was possible. In his former battles he had only consideree the possibilities of success, now an immense number of unlucky chance presented themselves, and he expected them all. Yes, it was like a night mare, when a man dreams that an assailant is attacking him, and in hi: dream he lifts up his arm and deals a blow with a force at his assailant tha I he knows must crush him, and feels that his arm falls limp and powerless I as a rag, and the horror of inevitable death comes upon him in his help lessness.
The news that the Russians were attacking the left flank of the Frencl army aroused that horror in Napoleon. He sat in silence on a camp-stoo under the redoubt, his elbows on his knees, and his head sunk in his hands Berthier came up to him and suggested that they should inspect the line to ascertain the position of affairs.
‘What? What do you say?’ said Napoleon. ‘Yes, tell them to bring my horse.’ He mounted a horse and rode to Semyonovskoye.
In the slowly parting smoke, over the whole plain through which Napoleon rode, men and horses, singly and in heaps, were lying in pools of blood. Such a fearful spectacle, so great a mass of killed in so small a space, had never been seen by Napoleon nor any of his generals. The roar of the cannon that had not ceased for ten hours, exhausted the ear and gave a peculiar character to the spectacle (like music accompanying living pictures). Napoleon rode up to the height of Semyonovskoye, and through the smoke he saw ranks of soldiers in uniforms of unfamiliar hues. They were the Russians.
