The Retreat Read Free

wars followed one after the other, Paulin’s savings were growing; he hoped to buy a tailor’s shop, that was his father’s trade. If the captain was wounded, he pitied him – whilst discreetly rubbing his hands together, quarters nearer the ambulances were always better – but the respite never lasted. D’Herbigny had the constitution of an ox; even when he lost a hand or took a bullet in the calf, he quickly recovered and his spirits never wavered, since his devotion to the Emperor was bordering on the religious.
    â€˜Still,’ grumbled the manservant, ‘why come such a long way …’
    â€˜It’s because of the English.’
    â€˜Are we going to fight the English in Moscow?’
    â€˜I’ve told you a hundred thousand times!’
    The captain launched into his habitual lesson. ‘The Russians have been trading with the English for a century, and the English want our downfall.’ Then, more heatedly, he continued, ‘The Russians are hoping to get money from London to improve their ships and dominate the Baltic and the Black Sea. And the English are having a whale of a time, naturally! They’re turning the Tsar against Napoleon. They want an end to the cursed blockade that’s stopping them flooding the Continent with their goods and so driving them to ruin. As for the Tsar, he takes a dim view of Napoleon extending his conquests. The Empire is pressing on his borders; the English point out the danger in that; he’s swayed by their arguments, seeks some incident, provokes us and the next thing you know, here we are, outside Moscow.’
    Will all this ever end? Paulin thought about his shop and the London cloth he’d like to cut.
    A squadron of Polish lancers charged past, roaringorders which they had no need to translate; flourishing their lances adorned with multicoloured pennons, they moved the inquisitive crowd back to clear a sort of terreplein. Recognizing the white greatcoats and the funnel-shaped black-felt shakos of the Imperial escort, the regiments covering the hillside raised their hats on the points of their bayonets, saluting His Majesty’s arrival with wild cheers; d’Herbigny shouted himself hoarse in unison. Napoleon rode by at a fast trot, his left arm hanging slackly at his side, a beaver-fur bicorne pulled down over his forehead, followed by his general staff in full uniform – plumes, gold lace, broad fringed belts, spotless boots – riding well-fed chestnuts.
    The cheers redoubled when the group halted on the brow of the hill to study Moscow. The Emperor’s blue eyes lit up fleetingly. He summed up the situation in four words: ‘It was high time.’
    â€˜Ah yes, sire,’ murmured the grand equerry, Caulain-court, jumping down from his horse to help the Emperor dismount. Napoleon’s mount, Tauris, a silver-grey Persian Arab that was shaking its white mane, had been a present from the Tsar, when the two sovereigns held each other in high regard, intermingled with curiosity on the part of the Russian, and pride on that of the Corsican. In the first rank behind the lancers, d’Herbigny stared at his hero: with his hands behind his back, grey and puffy-faced, the Emperor seemed as broad as he was tall because of the very full sleeves of his grey overcoat which allowed him to put it on over his colonel’s uniform without first taking off the epaulettes. Napoleon sneezed, sniffed, wiped his nose and then took from his pocket the pair of theatre glasses that never left his side now his sight was beginning to deteriorate.Several of the generals and his Mamelukes had dismounted and were standing around him. Outspread map in hand, Caulaincourt was describing Moscow; he indicated the triangle of the Kremlin’s citadel on a rise, its winding walls flanked by towers following the line of the river; he pointed out the walls that bounded the five districts, named the churches, listed the