A Close Call

"I had dismounted, and was assisting at one of the guns to encourage my poor exhausted men, when through the smoke a black speck caught my eye, and I instantly knew what it was. The conviction that one never sees a shot coming towards you unless directly in its line flashed across my mind, together with the certainty that my doom was sealed. I had barely time to exclaim "Here it is then! "--much in that gasping sort of way one does when going into very cold water takes away the breath – "whush" it went past my face, striking the point of my pelisse collar, which was lying open, and smash into a horse close behind me. I breathed freely again.

Under such a fire, one may be said to have had a thousand narrow escapes; and, in good truth, I frequently experienced that displacement of air against my face caused by the passing of shot close to me; but the two above recorded, and a third which I shall mention, were remarkable ones, and made me feel in full force the goodness of Him who protected me among so many dangers. Whilst in position on the right of the second line, I had reproved some of my men for lying down when shells fell near them until they burst. Now my turn came. A shell, with a long fuse, came slop into the mud at my feet, and there lay fizzing and flaring, to my infinite discomfiture. After what I had said on the subject, I felt that I must act up to my own words, and, accordingly, there I stood, endeavoring to look quite composed until the cursed thing burst – and, strange to say, without injuring me, though so near. The effect on my men was good."

As Mercer reveals, soldiers needed faith in divine providence if they were going to survive the rigors and fright in battle.  The above painting by Gros places Napoleon himself in the role of divine savior.  Note how he reaches out and touches the sick as if to impart a Christ-like miracle.  If the French Revolution attempted to eliminate God, they only managed to replace him with another savior.  The Ubermensch is on the horizon.