hour later he rode off with
Prince Dolgorukov to the advanced post of the French army.

It was rumored that Savary had been sent to propose to Alexander
a meeting with Napoleon. To the joy and pride of the whole army, a
personal interview was refused, and instead of the Sovereign, Prince
Dolgorukov, the victor at Wischau, was sent with Savary to negotiate
with Napoleon if, contrary to expectations, these negotiations were
actuated by a real desire for peace.

Toward evening Dolgorukov came back, went straight to the Tsar, and
remained alone with him for a long time.

On the eighteenth and nineteenth of November, the army advanced two
days' march and the enemy's outposts after a brief interchange of shots
retreated. In the highest army circles from midday on the nineteenth, a
great, excitedly bustling activity began which lasted till the morning
of the twentieth, when the memorable battle of Austerlitz was fought.

Till midday on the nineteenth, the activity--the eager talk, running
to and fro, and dispatching of adjutants--was confined to the Emperor's
headquarters. But on the afternoon of that day, this activity reached
Kutuzov's headquarters and the staffs of the commanders of columns. By
evening, the adjutants had spread it to all ends and parts of the army,
and in the night from the nineteenth to the twentieth, the whole eighty
thousand allied troops rose from their bivouacs to the hum of voices,
and the army swayed and started in one enormous mass six miles long.

The concentrated activity which had begun at the Emperor's headquarters
in the morning and had started the whole movement that followed was like
the first movement of the main wheel of a large tower clock. One wheel
slowly moved, another was set in motion, and a third, and wheels began
to revolve faster and faster, levers and cogwheels to work, chimes to
play, figures to pop out, and the hands to advance with regular motion
as a result of all that activity.

Just as in the mechanism of a clock, so in the mechanism of the military
machine, an impulse once given leads to the final result; and just as
indifferently quiescent till the moment when motion is transmitted
to them are the parts of the mechanism which the impulse has not yet
reached. Wheels creak on their axles as the cogs engage one another and
the revolving pulleys whirr with the rapidity of their movement, but a
neighboring wheel is as quiet and motionless as though it were prepared
to re