glorious mêlée—the grandest I have ever seen. Think of Pacthod giving his sword into the Czar's own hand, and not dreaming until afterwards that the gallant cavalry officer whose courage and promptitude averted a massacre was the Emperor himself!"[1]
"Ach, wunderschön!" cried Schubart. "Herr Tolstoi, I would take your wound twice over to have been in the midst of it."
"Look!" Ivan suddenly exclaimed, pointing to the scene before them. While absorbed in their eager talk, they had been ascending an eminence, from the top of which they now caught their first sight of the magnificent capital of France. The sun had just set, but its parting beams still lingered upon the gilded dome of the Hôtel des Invalides and the stately summit of the Pantheon. "Paris! Paris!" was the exclamation that broke from every lip, and resounded far and wide in lengthened cries of fierce joy and exultation. "Paris! Paris!" was shouted again and yet again, as rank after rank of that gallant army beheld the goal of all their aspirations, the end of all their toils.
After the first involuntary cry Ivan was silent. At length he said quietly to his friend Tolstoi, "When I think of that terrible September, the last but one, and of the flames of Moscow, the wonder and the gladness seem too great, too awful for words."
"Those flames are burning in many a heart now," Tolstoi answered.—"I suppose they will hardly let us in yonder without a struggle," he added in an altered tone. "What will to-morrow bring?"
- ↑ A distinguished English officer, who was present, says this was the only occasion on which he ever saw Alexander put himself personally forward; he was usually, though only too ready to share the perils of war, careful to leave its glories to his generals. But this was to save life.
