Petersburg "Gazette" of December 13, 1901. As a characteristic specimen
of Russian peasant folk-lore, it seems to me to have more than ordinary
interest and value. The treatment of the supernatural may seem, to
Occidental readers, rather daring and irreverent, but it is perfectly in
harmony with the Russian peasant's anthropomorphic conception of Deity,
and should be taken with due allowance for the educational limitations
of the story-teller and his auditors. The Russian muzhik often brings
God and the angels into his folk-tales, and does so without the least
idea of treating them disrespectfully. He makes them talk in his own
language because he has no other language; and if the talk seems a
little grotesque and irreverent, it is due to the low level of the
narrator's literary culture, and not to any intention, on his part, of
treating God and the angels with levity. The whole aim of the story is a
moral and religious one. The narrator is trying to show that sympathy
and mercy are better than selfish ambition, and that war is not only
immoral but irrational. The conversation between God, the angels, and
the Devil is a mere prologue, intended to bring Napoleon and Ivan-angel
on the stage and lay the foundation of the plot. The story-teller's keen
sense of fun and humor is shown in many little touches, but he never
means to be irreverent. The whole legend is set forth in the racy,
idiomatic, highly elliptical language of the common Russian muzhik, and
is therefore extremely difficult of translation; but I have tried to
preserve, as far as possible, the spirit and flavor of the original.

The French story was first reduced to writing--or at least put into
literary form--by Honoré de Balzac, and appeared under the title of "The
Napoleon of the People" in the third chapter of Balzac's "Country
Doctor." It purports to be the story of Napoleon's life and career as
related to a group of French peasants by one of his old soldiers--a man
named Goguelat. It covers more time chronologically than the Russian