Arian’s Reviews > The Idiot > Status Update

At fifteen I’d have been afraid, but at ten I was afraid of nothing and pushed my way through the crowd right up to the front steps of the palace just as Napoleon was getting off his horse.’

The general goes on: ‘Suddenly Napoleon's gaze happened to fall on me, and a strange thought fleeted in his eyes. “Child!” he said to me suddenly. "How do you suppose: if I accept Orthodoxy and free your serfs, will the Russians follow me?" "Never!" I exclaimed in indignation. Napoleon was struck. "In the eyes of this child, shining with patriotism," he said, "I have read the opinion of the entire Russian people. Enough, Davoust! This is all fantasies! Let me hear your other plan.” (…) Of course, it was a Napoleonic idea, an aquiline idea, but the other plan was also an idea... That was the famous "Conseil du lion", as Napoleon himself called Davoust's plan. It consisted in them barricading themselves inside the Kremlin with all the troops, building bar-racks, digging fortifications, positioning cannon, slaughtering as many horses as possible and salting their flesh; obtaining or plundering grain, and holding out all winter until the spring; and in spring, breaking through the Russian lines. This plan strongly attracted Napoleon. Every day we rode round the Kremlin walls, he would indicate where we should demolish, where we should build, where we should construct the lunettes, the ravelins, the blockhouses - one glance, then swiftness and thrust! At last, it was all decided; Davoust pressed for a final decision. Again they were alone together, and I was the third person present. Again Napoleon paced up and down the room, his arms folded. I couldn't take my eyes off his face, and my heart was thumping. "I'm going," said Davoust. "Where to?" asked Napoleon. "To salt the horses," said Davoust. Napoleon shuddered; his fate was being decided. "Child!" he said to me suddenly. "What do you think of our plan?" Of course, he asked the question in the way that, on occasion, a man of the greatest intellect, will at the last moment resort to heads or tails. Instead of Napoleon, I turned to Davoust and spoke like one inspired: "Go home, General!" The plan was ruined.’

‘But I repeat to you, I was a witness of that great man's nocturnal tears and groans; but absolutely no one saw that, except me! Towards the end, it's true, he didn't weep at all, there were no tears, he merely groaned sometimes; but his face seemed more and more clouded by darkness. It was as though eternity were already spreading her dark wing over him. Sometimes, at night, we spent whole hours alone, in silence - the Mameluke Rustan would be snoring in the next room; that man slept awfully soundly. "But he's loyal to me and to the dynasty,” Napoleon would say of him. On one occasion it all became too terribly painful, and he suddenly noticed the tears
in my eyes; he gave me a look of tender emotion
“You feel sorry for me!" he exclaimed. "You, a child, and perhaps there's another child who will feel sorry for me - my son, le roi de Rome; all the others, they all hate me, and my brothers will be the first to sell me into slavery!" I began to sob and rushed to him; at that point he himself broke down; we embraced, and our tears mingled. “Write, write to the Empress Josephine!" I sobbed to him. Napoleon gave a shudder, thought, and said to me: “You have reminded me of another heart that loves me; I thank you, mon ami!" He sat right down and wrote the letter to Josephine with which Constant was dispatched the next day. “You did well,” said the prince. “Amidst cruel thoughts, you led him to kind feeling.”’