His victories were only so many doors, and he never for
a moment lost sight of his way onward, in the dazzle and uproar of the
present circumstance. He knew what to do, and he flew to his mark. He
would shorten a straight line to come at his object. Horrible anecdotes
may, no doubt, be collected from his history, of the price at which
he bought his successes; but he must not therefore be set down as
cruel; but only as one who knew no impediment to his will; not
bloodthirsty, not cruel,--but woe to what thing or person stood in his
way! Not bloodthirsty, but not sparing of blood,--and pitiless. He saw
only the object: the obstacle must give way. "Sire, General Clarke
cannot combine with General Junot, for the dreadful fire of the Austrian
battery."--"Let him carry the battery."--"Sire, every regiment that
approaches the heavy artillery is sacrified: Sire, what orders?"--
"Forward, forward!" Seruzier, a colonel of artillery, gives, in his
"Military Memoirs," the following sketch of a scene after the battle
of Austerlitz.--"At the moment in which the Russian army was making
its retreat, painfully, but in good order, on the ice of the lake, the
Emperor Napoleon came riding at full speed toward the artillery.
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