what a rash and showy
leader would be certain to do on that ground;[42] he tempted him to
it, and the announcement of the enemy's plan to the French soldiery
supplied the touch of good comradeship which insured their utmost
devotion on the morrow. At midnight, as he returned from visiting the
outposts, the soldiers greeted him with a weird illumination: by a
common impulse they tore down the straw from their rude shelters and
held aloft the burning wisps on long poles, dancing the while in
honour of the short gray-coated figure, and shouting, "It is the
anniversary of the coronation. Long live the Emperor." Thus was the
great day ushered in. The welkin glowed with this tribute of an army's
heroworship: the frost-laden clouds echoed back the multitudinous
acclaim; and the Russians, as they swung forward their left, surmised
that, after all, the French would stand their ground and fight, whilst
others saw in the flare a signal that Napoleon was once more about to
retreat.

December the 2nd may well be the most famous day of the Napoleonic
calendar: it was the day of his coronation, it was the day of
Austerlitz, and, a generation later, another Napoleon chose it for his
_coup d'etat_. The "sun of Austerlitz," which the nephew then hailed,
looked down on a spectacle far different from that which he wished to
gild with borrowed splendour. Struggling dimly through dense banks of
mist, it shone on the faces of 73,000 Frenchmen resolved to conquer or
to die: it cast weird shadows before the gray columns of Russia and
the white-coats of Austria as they pressed in serried ranks towards
the frozen swamps of the Goldbach. At first the allies found little
opposition; and Kienmayer's horse cleared the French from Tellnitz and
the level ground beyond. But Friant's division, hurrying up from the
west, restored the fight and drove the first assailants from the
village. Others, however, were pressing on, twenty-nine battalions
strong, and not all the tenacious bravery of Davoust's soldiery
availed to hold that spot. Nor was it necessary. Napoleon's plan was
to let the allied left compromise itself on this side, while he rained
the decisive blows at its joint with the centre on the southern spur
of the Pratzenberg.

For this reason he reduced Davoust to defensive tactics, for which his
stubborn methodical genius eminently fitted him, until the French
centre had forced the Russians from the plateau. Opposite or near that
height he had