cries.

After breakfast Napoleon in de Beausset's presence dictated his order of
the day to the army.

"Short and energetic!" he remarked when he had read over the
proclamation which he had dictated straight off without corrections. It
ran:

Soldiers! This is the battle you have so longed for. Victory depends on
you. It is essential for us; it will give us all we need: comfortable
quarters and a speedy return to our country. Behave as you did at
Austerlitz, Friedland, Vitebsk, and Smolensk. Let our remotest posterity
recall your achievements this day with pride. Let it be said of each of
you: "He was in the great battle before Moscow!"

"Before Moscow!" repeated Napoleon, and inviting M. de Beausset, who was
so fond of travel, to accompany him on his ride, he went out of the tent
to where the horses stood saddled.

"Your Majesty is too kind!" replied de Beausset to the invitation to
accompany the Emperor; he wanted to sleep, did not know how to ride and
was afraid of doing so.

But Napoleon nodded to the traveler, and de Beausset had to mount. When
Napoleon came out of the tent the shouting of the Guards before his
son's portrait grew still louder. Napoleon frowned.

"Take him away!" he said, pointing with a gracefully majestic gesture to
the portrait. "It is too soon for him to see a field of battle."

De Beausset closed his eyes, bowed his head, and sighed deeply, to
indicate how profoundly he valued and comprehended the Emperor's words.

CHAPTER XXVII

On the twenty-fifth of August, so his historians tell us, Napoleon spent
the whole day on horseback inspecting the locality, considering plans
submitted to him by his marshals, and personally giving commands to his
generals.

The original line of the Russian forces along the river Kolocha had
been dislocated by the capture of the Shevardino Redoubt on the
twenty-fourth, and part of the line--the left flank--had been drawn
back. That part of the line was not entrenched and in front of it the
ground was more open and level than elsewhere. It was evident to anyone,
military or not, that it was here the French should attack. It would
seem that not much consideration was needed to reach this conclusion,
nor any particular care or trouble on the part of the Emperor and his
marshals, nor was there any need of that special and supreme quality
called genius that people are so apt to ascribe to Napoleon; yet the
historians who described the event late