s division, sire," replied Berthier, who knew all the
divisions regiments, and battalions by heart.

Napoleon nodded assent.

The adjutant galloped to Claparede's division and a few minutes later
the Young Guards stationed behind the knoll moved forward. Napoleon
gazed silently in that direction.

"No!" he suddenly said to Berthier. "I can't send Claparede. Send
Friant's division."

Though there was no advantage in sending Friant's division instead of
Claparede's, and even in obvious inconvenience and delay in stopping
Claparede and sending Friant now, the order was carried out exactly.
Napoleon did not notice that in regard to his army he was playing the
part of a doctor who hinders by his medicines--a role he so justly
understood and condemned.

Friant's division disappeared as the others had done into the smoke
of the battlefield. From all sides adjutants continued to arrive at a
gallop and as if by agreement all said the same thing. They all asked
for reinforcements and all said that the Russians were holding their
positions and maintaining a hellish fire under which the French army was
melting away.

Napoleon sat on a campstool, wrapped in thought.

M. de Beausset, the man so fond of travel, having fasted since morning,
came up to the Emperor and ventured respectfully to suggest lunch to His
Majesty.

"I hope I may now congratulate Your Majesty on a victory?" said he.

Napoleon silently shook his head in negation. Assuming the negation to
refer only to the victory and not to the lunch, M. de Beausset ventured
with respectful jocularity to remark that there is no reason for not
having lunch when one can get it.

"Go away..." exclaimed Napoleon suddenly and morosely, and turned aside.

A beatific smile of regret, repentance, and ecstasy beamed on M. de
Beausset's face and he glided away to the other generals.

Napoleon was experiencing a feeling of depression like that of an
ever-lucky gambler who, after recklessly flinging money about and always
winning, suddenly just when he has calculated all the chances of the
game, finds that the more he considers his play the more surely he
loses.

His troops were the same, his generals the same, the same preparations
had been made, the same dispositions, and the same proclamation courte
et energique, he himself was still the same: he knew that and knew that
he was now even more experienced and skillful than before. Even the
enemy was the same as at Austerlitz