Then Captain Raoul, own aide-de-camp to Napoleon, comes up at full gallop: nor does he draw rein till he is up with the entire front of Delessart's battalion.
"Your Emperor is coming," he shouts to the soldiers, "if you fire, the first shot will reach him: and France will make you answerable for this outrage!"
While he shouts and harangues the men are still sullen and silent. And in the distance the lances of the Polish cavalry gleam in the sun, and the shaggy bear-skins of the Old Guard are seen to move forward up the pass. Delessart casts a rapid piercing glance over his men. Sullenness had given place to obvious terror.
"Right about turn! . . . Quick! . . . March!" he commands.
Resistance obviously would be useless with these men, who are on the verge of laying down their arms. He forces on a quick march, but the Polish Lancers are already gaining ground: the sound of their horses' hoofs stamping the frozen ground, the snorting, the clanging of arms is distinctly heard. Delessart now has no option. He must make his men turn once more and face the ogre and his battalion before they are attacked in the rear.
As soon as the order is given and the two little armies stand face to face the Polish Lancers halt and the Old Guard stand still.
And it almost seems for the moment as if Nature herself stood still and listened, and looked on. The genial midday sun is slowly melting the snow on pine trees and rocks; one by one the glistening tiny crystals blink and vanish under the warmth of the kiss; the hard, white road darkens under the thaw and slowly a thin covering of water spreads over the icy crust of the lakes.
Napoleon tells Colonel Mallet to order the men to lower their arms. Mallet protests, but Napoleon reiterates the command, more peremptorily this time, and Mallet must obey. Then at the head of his old chasseurs, thus practically disarmed, the Emperor—and he is every inch an Emperor now—walks straight up to Delessart's opposing troops.
Hot-headed St. Genis cries: "Here he is!—Fire, in Heaven's name!"
But the sapeurs—the old regiment in which Napoleon had served as a young lieutenant in those glorious olden days—are now as pale as death, their knees shake under them, their arms tremble in their hands.