lavets, when the
generals pretending to confer together expressed various opinions, all
mouths were closed by the opinion uttered by the simple-minded soldier
Mouton who, speaking last, said what they all felt: that the one thing
needful was to get away as quickly as possible; and no one, not
even Napoleon, could say anything against that truth which they all
recognized.

But though they all realized that it was necessary to get away, there
still remained a feeling of shame at admitting that they must flee. An
external shock was needed to overcome that shame, and this shock came in
due time. It was what the French called "le hourra de l'Empereur."

The day after the council at Malo-Yaroslavets Napoleon rode out early in
the morning amid the lines of his army with his suite of marshals and
an escort, on the pretext of inspecting the army and the scene of the
previous and of the impending battle. Some Cossacks on the prowl for
booty fell in with the Emperor and very nearly captured him. If the
Cossacks did not capture Napoleon then, what saved him was the very
thing that was destroying the French army, the booty on which the
Cossacks fell. Here as at Tarutino they went after plunder, leaving the
men. Disregarding Napoleon they rushed after the plunder and Napoleon
managed to escape.

When les enfants du Don might so easily have taken the Emperor himself
in the midst of his army, it was clear that there was nothing for it but
to fly as fast as possible along the nearest, familiar road. Napoleon
with his forty-year-old stomach understood that hint, not feeling his
former agility and boldness, and under the influence of the fright
the Cossacks had given him he at once agreed with Mouton and issued
orders--as the historians tell us--to retreat by the Smolensk road.

That Napoleon agreed with Mouton, and that the army retreated, does
not prove that Napoleon caused it to retreat, but that the forces which
influenced the whole army and directed it along the Mozhaysk (that is,
the Smolensk) road acted simultaneously on him also.

CHAPTER XIX

A man in motion always devises an aim for that motion. To be able to go
a thousand miles he must imagine that something good awaits him at the
end of those thousand miles. One must have the prospect of a promised
land to have the strength to move.

The promised land for the French during their advance had been Moscow,
during their retreat it was their native land. But that