It is winter on the barren, windswept plains of Russia. Napoleon and his army, retreating from Moscow, are in camp for the night. Weary, half frozen soldiers, lie in troubled sleep, while the Emperor and his Marshal, Joachim Murat, huddle close to the fire. Holding his sword before him, the firelight flickers over his careworn, haggard face, as he stares at the diamond that glitters in the hilt of his sword...