The Lord God replies: "Then you think he didn't receive a soul when my water of life fell on his head?"
Napoleonder at once gathered together a great army speaking twelve languages, and went forth to war. He conquered the Germans, he conquered the Turks, he subdued the Swedes and the Poles. He reaped as he marched, and left bare the country through which he passed. And all the time he remembers the condition of success—pity for none. He cuts off heads, burns villages, outrages women, and tramples children under his horses' hoofs. He desolates the whole Mohammedan kingdom—and still he is not sated. Finally he marches on a Christian country—on Holy Russia.
In Russia then the Tsar was Alexander the Blessed—the same Tsar who stands now on the top of the column in Petersburg-town and blesses the people with a cross, and that's why he is called "the Blessed."
When he saw Napoleonder marching against him with twelve languages, Alexander the Blessed felt that the end of Russia was near. He called together his generals and field-marshals, and said to them: "Messrs. Generals and Field-marshals, how can I check this Napoleonder? He is pressing us terribly hard."
The generals and field-marshals reply: "We can't do anything, your
Majesty, to stop Napoleonder, because God has given him a word."
"What kind of a word?"
"This kind: 'Bonaparty.'"
"But what does 'Bonaparty' mean, and why is a single word so terrible?"
"It means, your Majesty, six hundred and sixty-six—the number of the Beast [Footnote 3: A reference to the Beast of the Apocalypse. "The number of the beast is the number of a man: and his number is Six hundred threescore and six" (Rev. xiii. 18).]; and it is terrible because when Napoleonder sees, in a battle, that the enemy is very brave, that his own strength is not enough, and that his own men are falling fast [Footnote 4: Literally, "lying down with their bones.">[, he immediately conjures with this same word, 'Bonaparty,' and at that instant—as soon as the word is pronounced—all the soldiers that have ever served under him and have died for him on the field of battle come back from beyond the grave. He leads them afresh against the enemy, as if they were alive, and nothing can stand against them, because they are a ghostly force, not an army of this world."
Alexander the Blessed grew sad; but, after thinking a moment, he said: "Messrs. Generals and Field-marshals, we Russians are a people of more than ordinary courage. We have fought with all nations, and never yet before any of them have we laid our faces in the dust. If God has brought us, at last, to fight with corpses—his holy will be done! We will go against the dead!"