had promised that he'd keep his agreement with God
to himself. That's the reason why his companions and even his particular
friends--men like Duroc, Bessieres, and Lannes, who were strong as bars
of steel, but whom he molded to suit his purposes--all fell, like nuts
from a shaken tree, while he himself was never even hurt.

But that's not the only proof that he was the child of God and was
expressly created to be the father of soldiers. Did anybody ever see him
a lieutenant? Or a captain? Never! He was commander-in-chief from the
start. When he didn't look more than twenty-four years of age he was
already an old general--ever since the taking of Toulon, where he first
began to show the rest of them that they didn't know anything about the
handling of cannon.

Well, soon after that, down comes this stripling to us as
general-in-chief of the Army of Italy--an army that hadn't any
ammunition, or bread, or shoes, or coats; a wretched army--naked as a
worm. "Now, boys!" he said, "here we are, all together. I want you to
get it fixed in your heads that in fifteen days more you 're going to be
conquerors. You're going to have new clothes, good leggings, the best of
shoes, and a warm overcoat for every man; but in order to get these
things you'll have to march to Milan, where they are." So we marched. We
were only thirty thousand bare-footed tramps, and we were going against
eighty thousand crack German soldiers--fine, well equipped men; but
Napoleon, who was only Bonaparte then, breathed a spirit of--I don't
know what--into us, and on we marched, night and day. We hit the enemy
at Montenotte, thrashed 'em at Rivoli, Lodi, Arcola, and Millesimo, and
stuck to 'em wherever they went. A soldier soon gets to like being a
conqueror; and Napoleon wheeled around those German generals, and pelted
away at 'em, until they didn't know where to hide long enough to get a
little rest. With fifteen hundred Frenchmen, whom he made to appear a
great host (that's a way he had), he'd sometimes surround ten thousand
men and gather 'em all in at a single scoop. Then we'd take their
cannon, their money, their ammunition, and everything they had that was
worth carrying away. As for the others, we chucked 'em into the water,
walloped 'em on the mountains, snapped 'em up in the air, devoured 'em
on the ground, and beat 'em everywhere. So at last our troops were in
fine feather--especially as Napoleon, who had a clever wit, made friends
with the inhab