"The positions that we occupy are formidable, and whilst they march to turn my right they will present me their flank. "Soldiers, I will myself direct your battalions. I will keep myself away from the firing if, with your accustomed bravery, you carry disorder and confusion into the enemy's ranks. But if the victory were for a moment uncertain you would see your emperor expose himself to the brunt of the attack; for this victory will finish the campaign, and we shall be able to resume our winter quarters, where we shall be joined by new armies which are forming in France. Then the peace I shall make will be worthy of my people, of you, and of me." It was late, and the emperor had just dismissed Haugwitz, whom he had sent back to Vienna. "I shall see you again if I am not carried off to-morrow by a cannon-ball. It will be time then to understand each other." Napoleon went out to visit the soldiers at the bivouac. A great ardor animated the troops; it was remembered that the 2nd December was the anniversary of the coronation of the emperor. The soldiers gathered up the straw upon which they were stretched, making it into bundles, which they lit at the end of poles; a sudden illumination lit up the camp. "Be assured," said an old grenadier, advancing towards the chief who had so many times led his comrades to victory, "I promise thee that we will bring thee to-morrow the flags and the cannon of the Russian army to signalize the anniversary of the 2nd December." The fires were extinguished, and the enemies thought they saw in it the indication of a nocturnal retreat. Gathered around a map, the allied generals listened to Weirother, who developed his plan of battle "with a boasting air, which displayed in him a clear persuasion of his own merit and of our incapacity," says General Langeron, a French emigrant officer in the Russian army. Old Kutuzof slept. "If Bonaparte had been able to attack us, he would have done it to-day," was the assurance of Weirother. "You do not then think him strong?" "If he has 40,000 men, it is all." "He has extinguished his fires; a good deal of noise comes from his camp." "He is either retreating or else he is changing his position; if he takes that of Turas, he will spare us a good deal of trouble, and the dispositions of the troops will remain the same." The day was scarcely begun (2nd December, 1805) when the allied army was on the march. The noise of the preparations in the camps had reassured Napoleon as to the direction the enemy would take. On the previous evening, whilst listening to the learned lecture of Weirother, Prince Bagration, formerly the heroic defender of the positions of Hollabrunn, had uttered under his long moustache, "The battle is lost!" In seeing his enemies advance towards the right, as he had himself announced to his soldiers, Napoleon could not withhold the signs of his joy. He held the victory in his own hands. He waited patiently until his enemies had deployed their line.