With all his preparations for battle complete, Napoleon passes a sleepless night and waits for the morning and the start of the battle.
With all his preparations for battle complete, Napoleon passes a sleepless night and waits for the morning and the start of the battle.
Book 10, Chapter 29
With all his preparations for battle complete, Napoleon passes a sleepless night and waits for the morning and the start of the battle.
Summary:
Everything Napoleon needed to do to prepare for the next day’s battle is already done. Now it is just a matter of waiting for morning. In the evening, to pass the time, Napoleon chats carelessly with staff members about sundry non-military matters. He goes to bed, but he isn’t sleepy and cannot fall asleep. Around 3:00 AM he gets up, and awaits the morning. He has a cold, and he chats with a staff member about how doctors never really seem to know how to cure anything. He makes some other small talk, takes a walk, confirms a few details related to orders he has given, confirms that the Russians do not seem to have moved during the night, and waits for the morning. At half-past five he rides to the village of Shevárdino. In the distance he can hear canons firing, indicating that the battle is starting.
quote from the chapter:
He was so much interested in that task that he was unable to sleep, and in spite of his cold which had grown worse from the dampness of the evening, he went into the large division of the tent at three o’clock in the morning, loudly blowing his nose. He asked whether the Russians had not withdrawn, and was told that the enemy’s fires were still in the same places. He nodded approval.
The adjutant in attendance came into the tent.
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