Folk-Tales of Napoleon

om 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!"

So he led his army to the field of Kulikova, and there waited for the miscreant Napoleonder. And soon afterward, Napoleonder, the evil one, sends him an envoy with a paper saying, "Submit, Alexander Blagoslovenni, and I will show you favor above all others."

But Alexander the Blessed was a proud man, who held fast his self-respect. He would not speak to the envoy, but he took the paper that the envoy had brought, and drew on it an insulting picture, with