kings. Napoleon, the arch-gambler, from that
Southern sea where men, lacking cards or dice and the money to buy
either, will yet play a game of chance with the ten fingers that God
gave them for another purpose--Napoleon had dealt a hand with every
monarch in Europe before he met for the second time that Northern
adversary of cool blood who knew the waiting game.

It is only where the stakes are small that the leisurely players, idly
fingering the fallen cards, return in fancy to certain points--to this
trick trumped or that chance missed, playing the game over again. But
when the result is great it overshadows the game, and all men's thoughts
fly to speculation on the future. How will the loser meet his loss? What
use will the winner make of his gain?

The results of the Russian campaign were so stupendous to history that
the historians of the day, in their bewilderment, sought rather to
preserve these than the details of the war. Thus the student of to-day,
in piecing together an impression of bygone times, will inevitably find
portions of his picture missing. As a matter of fact, no one can say for
certain whether Alexander gently led Napoleon onward to Moscow or was
himself driven thither in confusion by the conqueror.

Perhaps each merely pushed on from day to day, as men who are not
Emperors must needs do in the stress of life. It is only in calm weather
that the eye is able to discern things afar off and make ready; but in
a storm the horizon is dimmed by cloud and spray. All Europe was so
obscured at this time. And even Emperors, being only men, could look no
farther than the immediate and urgent danger of the moment.

Napoleon's generals were scarcely social lights. Ney, the hero of the
retreat, the bravest of the brave, was a rough man who ate horseflesh
without troubling to cook it. Rapp, whose dogged defence of an abandoned
city is without compare in the story of war, had the manners and the
mind of a peasant. These gentlemen dealt more in deeds than in words.
They had not much to say for themselves.

As for the Russians, Russia remains at this time the one European
country unhampered and unharassed by a cheap press--the one country
where prominent men have a quiet tongue. A hundred years ago Russians
did great deeds, and the rest was silence. Neither Kutusoff nor
Alexander ever stated clearly whether the retreat to Moscow was
intentional or unavoidable; and these are the only men who knew. Perhaps
Nap