sea down
below, but higher up at the village of Schlappanitz where Napoleon stood
with his marshals around him, it was quite light. Above him was a clear
blue sky, and the sun's vast orb quivered like a huge hollow, crimson
float on the surface of that milky sea of mist. The whole French army,
and even Napoleon himself with his staff, were not on the far side of
the streams and hollows of Sokolnitz and Schlappanitz beyond which we
intended to take up our position and begin the action, but were on this
side, so close to our own forces that Napoleon with the naked eye could
distinguish a mounted man from one on foot. Napoleon, in the blue cloak
which he had worn on his Italian campaign, sat on his small gray Arab
horse a little in front of his marshals. He gazed silently at the hills
which seemed to rise out of the sea of mist and on which the Russian
troops were moving in the distance, and he listened to the sounds of
firing in the valley. Not a single muscle of his face--which in those
days was still thin--moved. His gleaming eyes were fixed intently on one
spot. His predictions were being justified. Part of the Russian force
had already descended into the valley toward the ponds and lakes and
part were leaving these Pratzen Heights which he intended to attack
and regarded as the key to the position. He saw over the mist that in
a hollow between two hills near the village of Pratzen, the Russian
columns, their bayonets glittering, were moving continuously in one
direction toward the valley and disappearing one after another into
the mist. From information he had received the evening before, from the
sound of wheels and footsteps heard by the outposts during the night,
by the disorderly movement of the Russian columns, and from all
indications, he saw clearly that the allies believed him to be far away
in front of them, and that the columns moving near Pratzen constituted
the center of the Russian army, and that that center was already
sufficiently weakened to be successfully attacked. But still he did not
begin the engagement.

Today was a great day for him--the anniversary of his coronation. Before
dawn he had slept for a few hours, and refreshed, vigorous, and in good
spirits, he mounted his horse and rode out into the field in that happy
mood in which everything seems possible and everything succeeds. He sat
motionless, looking at the heights visible above the mist, and his cold
face wore that special look of confid