Napoleon had already divined their secret. In his order of battle he
took his troops into his confidence, telling them that, while the
enemy marched to turn his right, they would expose their flank to his
blows. To announce this beforehand was strangely bold, and it has been
thought that he had the plan from some traitor on the enemy's staff.
No proof of this has been given; and such an explanation seems
superfluous to those who have observed Napoleon's uncanny power of
fathoming his adversary's designs. The idea of withdrawing one wing in
order to tempt the foe unduly to prolong his line on that side, and
then to crush it at the centre, or sever it from the centre, is common
both to Castiglione and Austerlitz. It is true, the peculiarities of
the ground, the ardour of the Russian attack, and the vastness of the
operations lent to the present conflict a splendour and a horror which
Castiglione lacked. But the tactics which won both battles were
fundamentally the same.

He had studied the ground in front of Austerlitz; and the priceless
gift of strategic imagination revealed to him what a rash and showy
leader would be certain to do on that ground;[42] he tempted him to
it, and the announcement of the enemy's plan to the French soldiery
supplied the touch of good comradeship which insured their utmost
devotion on the morrow. At midnight, as he returned from visiting the
outposts, the soldiers greeted him with a weird illumination: by a
common impulse they tore down the straw from their rude shelters and
held aloft the burning wisps on long poles, dancing the while in
honour of the short gray-coated figure, and shouting, "It is the
anniversary of the coronation. Long live the Emperor." Thus was the
great day ushered in. The welkin glowed with this tribute of an army's
heroworship: the frost-laden clouds echoed back the multitudinous
acclaim; and the Russians, as they swung forward their left, surmised