f boots on the twenty-fourth would have been
the savior of Russia. Along that line of thought such a deduction is
indubitable, as indubitable as the deduction Voltaire made in jest
(without knowing what he was jesting at) when he saw that the Massacre
of St. Bartholomew was due to Charles IX's stomach being deranged. But
to men who do not admit that Russia was formed by the will of one man,
Peter I, or that the French Empire was formed and the war with Russia
begun by the will of one man, Napoleon, that argument seems not merely
untrue and irrational, but contrary to all human reality. To the
question of what causes historic events another answer presents itself,
namely, that the course of human events is predetermined from on
high--depends on the coincidence of the wills of all who take part
in the events, and that a Napoleon's influence on the course of these
events is purely external and fictitious.

Strange as at first glance it may seem to suppose that the Massacre of
St. Bartholomew was not due to Charles IX's will, though he gave the
order for it and thought it was done as a result of that order; and
strange as it may seem to suppose that the slaughter of eighty thousand
men at Borodino was not due to Napoleon's will, though he ordered the
commencement and conduct of the battle and thought it was done
because he ordered it; strange as these suppositions appear, yet human
dignity--which tells me that each of us is, if not more at least not
less a man than the great Napoleon--demands the acceptance of that
solution of the question, and historic investigation abundantly confirms
it.

At the battle of Borodino Napoleon shot at no one and killed no one.
That was all done by the soldiers. Therefore it was not he who killed
people.

The French soldiers went to kill and be killed at the battle of Borodino
not because of Napoleon's orders but by their own volition. The whole
army--French, Italian, German, Polish, and Dutch--hungry, ragged, and
weary of the campaign, felt at the sight of an army blocking their road
to Moscow that the wine was drawn and must be drunk. Had Napoleon then
forbidden them to fight the Russians, they would have killed him and
have proceeded to fight the Russians because it was inevitable.

When they heard Napoleon's proclamation offering them, as compensation
for mutilation and death, the words of posterity about their having been
in the battle before Moscow, they cried "Vive l'Empereur!" jus