ountenances expressed nothing but astonishment.

Then exalting himself in order to rouse them--"What!" said he, "and are
_you_ not inflamed by this idea? Was there ever so great a military
achievement? Henceforth this conquest is the only one that is worthy of
us! With what glory we shall be covered, and what will the whole world
say, when it learns that in three months we have conquered the two great
capitals of the North!"

But Davoust, as well as Daru, objected to him, "the season, the want of
supplies, a sterile desert and artificial road, that from Twer to
Petersburg, running for a hundred leagues through morasses, and which
three hundred peasants might in one day render impassable. Why keep
proceeding northward? why go to meet winter, to provoke and to defy
it?--it was already too near; and what was to become of the six thousand
wounded still in Moscow? were they then to be left to the mercy of
Kutusoff? That general would not fail to follow close at our heels. We
should have at once to attack and to defend ourselves, and to march, as
though we were fleeing to a conquest."

These officers have declared that they then proposed various plans; a
useless trouble with a prince whose genius outstripped all other
imaginations, and whom their objections would not have stopped, had he
been really determined to march to Petersburg. But that idea was in him
only a sally of anger, an inspiration of despair, on finding himself
obliged in the face of Europe to give way, to relinquish a conquest, and
to retreat.

It was more especially a threat to frighten his officers as well as the
enemy, and to bring about and promote a negotiation which Caulaincourt
was to open. That officer had pleased Alexander; he was the only one of
the grandees of Napoleon's court who had acquired any influence over his
rival; but for some months past, Napoleon had kept him at a distance,
because he had not been able to persuade him to approve his expedition.

It was nevertheless to this very man that he was that day obliged to
have recourse, and to disclose his anxiety. He sent for him; but when
alone with him, he hesitated. Taking him by the arm, he walked to and
fro a long time in great agitation, while his pride prevented him from
breaking so painful a silence: at length it yielded, but in a
threatening manner. He was to beg the enemy to solicit peace, as if he
deigned to grant it.

After a few words, which were scarcely articulate, he said, t