Soon followed the news of Beresina—a poor
little river of Lithuania—where the history
of the world hung for a day as on a thread.
But a flash of the dying genius surmounted superhuman
difficulties, and the catastrophe was turned into a
disaster. The divisions of Victor and Oudinot—the
last to preserve any semblance of military discipline—were
almost annihilated. The French lost twelve thousand
killed or drowned in the river, sixteen thousand prisoners,
twelve of the remaining guns. But they were across
the Beresina. There was no longer a Grand Army,
however. There was no army at all—only
a starving, struggling trail of men stumbling through
the snow, without organization or discipline or hope.
It was a disaster on the same gigantic scale as the
past victories— a disaster worthy of such
a conqueror. Even his enemies forgot to rejoice.
They caught their breath and waited.
And suddenly came the news that Napoleon was in Paris.
The
fire i’ the flint
Shows not, till it be
struck.
“It is time to do something,” said Papa
Barlasch on the December morning when the news reached
Dantzig that Napoleon was no longer with the army—that
he had made over the parody of command of the phantom
army to Murat, King of Naples—that he had
passed like an evil spirit unknown through Poland,
Prussia, Germany, travelling twelve hundred miles
night and day at breakneck speed, alone, racing to
Paris to save his throne.
“It is time to do something,” said all
Europe, when it was too late. For Napoleon was
himself again—alert, indomitable, raising
a new army, calling on France to rise to such heights
of energy and vitality as only France can compass;
for the colder nations of the North lack the imagination
that enables men to pit themselves against the gods
at the bidding of some stupendous will, only second
to the will of God Himself.
“Go to Dantzig, and hold it till I come,”
Napoleon had said to Rapp. “Retreat to
Poland, and hold on to anything you can till I come
back with a new army,” he had commanded Murat
and Prince Eugene.
“It is time to do something,” said all
the conquered nations, looking at each other for initiation.
And lo! the Master of Surprises struck them dumb
by his sudden apparition in his own capital, with
all the strings of the European net gathered as if
by magic into his own hands again.
While everybody told his neighbour that it was time
to do something, no one knew what to do. For
it has pleased the Creator to put a great many talkers
into this world and only a few men of action to make
its history.
Papa Barlasch knew what to do, however.
“Where is that sailor?” he asked Desiree,
when she had told him the news which Mathilde brought
in from the streets. “He who took the
patron’s valise that night—the cousin
of your husband.”
