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THOUGH BALASHOV was accustomed to the pomp of courts, he was impressed by the
splendour and luxury of Napoleon's court.
Count de Turenne led him into the great reception-room, where a number of
generals, gentlemen-in-waiting, and Polish magnates were waiting to see the
Emperor. Many of them Balashov had seen at the court of the Russian Emperor.
Duroc told him that the Emperor Napoleon would receive the Russian general
before going out for his ride.
After a delay of several moments, a gentleman-in-waiting came into the great
reception-room, and bowing courteously to Balashov, invited him to follow
him.
Balashov went into the little reception-room, from which one door led to the
study, the room where he had received the Russian Emperor's last charges before
setting off. Balashov stood for a couple of minutes waiting. Hurried steps were
audible through the door. Both halves of the door were swiftly thrown open, and
in the complete stillness that followed other firm and resolute steps could be
heard from the study: it was Napoleon. He had only just finished dressing for
his ride. He was wearing a blue uniform, open over a white waistcoat, that came
low down over his round belly, riding-boots, and white doeskin breeches, fitting
tightly over his fat, short legs. His short hair had evidently just been
brushed, but one lock hung down in the middle of his broad forehead. His plump,
white neck stood out in sharp contrast to the black collar of his uniform; he
smelt of eau-de-cologne. His still young-looking, full face, with its prominent
chin, wore an expression of imperial graciousness and majestically condescending
welcome.
He walked out with a quivering strut, his head thrown a little back. His
whole stout, short figure, with his broad, fat shoulders and his prominent
stomach and chest, had that imposing air of dignity common in men of forty who
live in comfort. It was evident, too, that he happened that day to be in a
particularly good humour.
He nodded in acknowledgment of Balashov's low and respectful bow, and going
up to him, began to talk at once like a man who values every minute of his time,
and will not deign to preface what he is going to say, as he is sure of always
speaking well and saying the right thing.
“Good-day, general!” said he. “I have received the Emperor Alexander's letter
that you brought, and I am very glad to see you.” He glanced at Balashov's face
with his large eyes, and immediately looked past him.
It was obvious that he took no interest in Balashov's personality. It was
plain that only what was passing in his soul had for him any interest.
All that was outside him had no significance for him, because everything in the
world depended, as he fancied, on his will.
“I do not, and did not, desire war,” he said, “but you have forced me to it.
Even now” (he threw emphasis on the word) “I am ready to receive any
explanations you can give me.” And he began briefly and clearly explaining the
grounds of his displeasure with the Russian government.
Judging from the studiously composed and amicable tone of the French Emperor,
Balashov was thoroughly persuaded that he was desirous of peace, and intended to
enter into negotiations.
“Sire! The Emperor, my sovereign,” Balashov began, meaning to utter the
speech he had prepared long before as soon as Napoleon had finished speaking,
and looked inquiringly at him. But the look the Emperor turned upon him
disconcerted him. “You are embarrassed; recover yourself,” Napoleon seemed to
say, as with a hardly perceptible smile he scanned Balashov's sword and uniform.
Balashov regained his composure, and began to speak. He said that the Emperor
Alexander did not regard Kurakin's asking for his passport a sufficient cause
for war; that Kurakin had acted on his own initiative without the Tsar's
consent; that the Tsar did not desire war, and that he had no relations with
England.
“Not as yet,” Napoleon put in, and as though afraid to abandon himself
to his feelings, he frowned and nodded slightly as a sign to Balashov that he
might continue.
After saying all he had been instructed to say, Balashov wound up by saying
that the Emperor Alexander was desirous of peace, but that he would not enter
into negotiations except upon condition that… At that point Balashov hesitated;
he recollected words the Emperor Alexander had not written in his letter, but
had insisted on inserting in the rescript to Saltykov, and had commanded
Balashov to repeat to Napoleon. Balashov remembered those words: “As long as a
single enemy under arms remains on Russian soil,” but some complicated feeling
checked his utterance of them. He could not utter those words, though he tried
to do so. He stammered, and said: “On condition the French troops retreat beyond
the Niemen.”
Napoleon observed Balashov's embarrassment in the utterance of those last
words: his face quivered, and the calf of his left leg began twitching
rhythmically. Not moving from where he stood, he began speaking in a louder and
more hurried voice than before. During the speech that followed Balashov could
not help staring at the twitching of Napoleon's left leg, which grew more marked
as his voice grew louder.
“I am no less desirous of peace than the Emperor Alexander,” he began.
“Haven't I been doing everything for the last eighteen months to obtain it? For
eighteen months I have been waiting for an explanation, but before opening
negotiations, what is it that's required of me?” he said, frowning and making a
vigorous gesticulation with his fat, little white hand.
“The withdrawal of the forces beyond the Niemen, sire,” said Balashov.
“Beyond the Niemen?” repeated Napoleon. “So now you want me to retreat beyond
the Niemen—only beyond the Niemen?” repeated Napoleon, looking straight at
Balashov.
Balashov bowed his head respectfully.
Four months before he had been asked to withdraw from Pomerania; now
withdrawal beyond the Niemen was all that was required. Napoleon turned quickly
away, and began walking up and down the room.
“You say that I am required to withdraw beyond the Niemen before opening
negotiations; but two months ago I was required in the same way to withdraw
beyond the Oder and the Vistula, and in spite of that you agree to enter into
negotiations.”
He strode in silence from one corner of the room to the other and stopped
again, facing Balashov. Balashov noticed that his left leg was twitching more
rapidly than ever, and his face looked as though petrified in its stern
expression. Napoleon was aware of this twitching. “The vibration of my left calf
is a great sign with me,” he said in later days.
“Such demands as to retire beyond the Oder and the Vistula may be made to a
prince of Baden, but not to me,” Napoleon almost screamed, quite to his own
surprise. “If you were to give me Petersburg and Moscow I wouldn't accept such
conditions. You say: I began the war. But who was the first to join his army?
The Emperor Alexander, and not I. And you offer me negotiations when I have
spent millions, when you are in alliance with England, and when your position is
weak—you offer me negotiations! What is the object of your alliance with
England? What has it given you?” he asked hurriedly. The motive of his words was
obviously now not to enlarge on the benefits of peace and to consider its
possibility, but simply to prove his own rectitude, and his own power, and point
out the duplicity and the errors of Alexander.
He had plainly intended in entering on this conversation to point out the
advantages of his own position, and to signify that in spite of them he would
entertain the proposal of negotiations. But he had begun talking, and the more
he talked the less able was he to control the tenor of his words.
The whole gist of his words now was obviously to glorify himself and to
insult Alexander, precisely what he had least intended doing at the beginning of
the interview.
“I am told you have concluded a peace with the Turks?”
Balashov bent his head affirmatively. “Peace has been concluded…” he began.
But Napoleon did not allow him to speak. He clearly did not wish any one to
speak but himself, and he went on with the unrestrained volubility and
irritability to which people spoilt by success are so prone. “Yes, I know you
have made peace with the Turks without gaining Moldavia and Wallachia. I would
have given your Emperor those provinces just as I gave him Finland. Yes,” he
went on, “I promised, and would have given the Emperor Alexander Moldavia and
Wallachia, but now he will not possess those fair provinces. He might have
united them to his empire, however, and he would have enlarged the frontiers of
Russia from the Gulf of Bothnia to the mouth of the Danube. Catherine the Great
could have done no more,” Napoleon declared, growing hotter and hotter as he
walked up and down the room, and repeated to Balashov almost the words he had
used to Alexander himself at Tilsit. “All that he would have owed to my
friendship. Ah, what a fine reign! what a fine reign might have been that
of the Emperor Alexander. Oh, what a grand reign,” he repeated several times. He
stopped, took a gold snuffbox out of his pocket, and greedily put it to his
nose.
He turned a commiserating glance on Balashov, and as soon as he would have
made some observation, he hurriedly interrupted him again.
“What could he desire and look for that he would not have gained from my
friendship?…” said Napoleon, shrugging his shoulders with an air of perplexity.
“No, he has thought better to surround himself with my enemies. And with whom?”
he went on. “He has gathered round him the Steins, the Armfeldts, the
Bennigsens, the Wintzengerodes. Stein is a traitor, driven out of his own
country; Armfeldt an intriguing debauchee; Wintzengerode a renegade French
subject; Bennigsen is, indeed, rather more of a soldier than the rest, but still
he's incompetent; he could do nothing in 1807, and I should have thought he must
recall painful memories to the Emperor Alexander.… Even supposing he might make
use of them if they were competent,” Napoleon went on, his words hardly able to
keep pace with the rush of ideas that proved to him his right or his might
(which to his mind meant the same), “but they are not even that! They are no use
for war or for peace! Barclay, I'm told, is more capable than all of them, but I
shouldn't say so, judging from his first manœuvres. And what are they doing,
what are all these courtiers doing? Pfuhl is making propositions, Armfeldt is
quarrelling, Bennigsen is considering, while Barclay, who has been sent for to
act, can come to no decision, and is wasting time and doing nothing. Bagration
is the only one that is a real general. He is stupid, but he has experience,
judgment, and determination.… And what part does your young Emperor play in this
unseemly crowd? They compromise him and throw upon him the responsibility of all
that happens. A sovereign ought not to be with the army except when he is a
general,” he said, obviously uttering these words as a direct challenge to the
Tsar. Napoleon knew how greatly Alexander desired to be a great general. “It's a
week now since the campaign commenced, and you haven't even succeeded in
defending Vilna. You have been divided in two and driven out of the Polish
provinces. Your army is discontented…”
“On the contrary, your majesty,” said Balashov, who scarcely had time to
recollect what had been said to him, and had difficulty in following these
verbal fireworks, “the troops are burning with eagerness…”
“I know all that,” Napoleon cut him short; “I know all that, and I know the
number of your battalions as exactly as I know my own. You have not two hundred
thousand troops, while I have three times as many. I give you my word of
honour,” said Napoleon, forgetting that his word of honour could carry no
weight—“my word of honour that I have five hundred and thirty thousand men this
side of the Vistula. The Turks will be no help to you; they are good for
nothing, and have proved it by making peace with you. As for the Swedes, it's
their destiny to be governed by mad kings. Their king was mad. They changed him
for another, Bernadotte, who promptly went mad; for no one not a madman could,
being a Swede, ally himself with Russia.”
Napoleon laughed malignantly, and again put his snuff-box to his nose.
To each of Napoleon's phrases Balashov had a reply ready, and tried to utter
it. He was continually making gestures indicative of a desire to speak, but
Napoleon always interrupted him. To his remarks on the insanity of the Swedes,
Balashov would have replied that Sweden was as good as an island with Russia to
back her. But Napoleon shouted angrily to drown his voice. Napoleon was in that
state of exasperation when a man wants to go on talking and talking simply to
prove to himself that he is right. Balashov began to feel uncomfortable. As an
envoy, he was anxious to keep up his dignity, and felt it essential to make some
reply. But as a man he felt numb, repelled by the uncontrolled, irrational fury
to which Napoleon abandoned himself. He knew that nothing Napoleon might say now
had any significance and believed that he would himself on regaining his
composure be ashamed of his words. Balashov remained standing, looking with
downcast eyes at Napoleon's fat legs as they moved to and fro. He tried to avoid
his eyes.
“And what are your allies to me?” said Napoleon. “I have allies too—the
Poles. There are eighty thousand of them and they fight like lions. And there
will be two hundred thousand.”
He was probably still more exasperated at having told this obvious falsehood
and at Balashov's standing mutely before him in that pose of resignation to his
fate. He turned sharply round and going right up to Balashov, gesticulating
rapidly and vigorously with his white hands close to his face, he almost
shouted: “Let me tell you, if you stir Russia up against me, let me tell you,
I'll wipe her off the map of Europe,” he said, his face pale and distorted with
anger, as he smote one little hand vigorously against the other. “Yes, I'll
thrust you beyond the Dwina, beyond the Dnieper, and I'll restore the frontier
that Europe was criminal and blind to let you overstep. Yes, that's what's in
store for you, that's what you will gain by alienating me,” he said, and he
walked in silence several times up and down the room, his thick shoulders
twitching. He put the snuff-box in his waistcoat pocket, pulled it out again,
held it several times to his nose, and stood still facing Balashov. He paused,
looked sarcastically straight into Balashov's face and said in a low voice: “And
yet what a fine reign your master might have had.”
Balashov, feeling it incumbent upon him to reply, said Russia did not look at
things in such a gloomy light. Napoleon was silent, still looking ironically at
him and obviously not listening to him. Balashov said that in Russia the best
results were hoped for from the war. Napoleon nodded condescendingly, as though
to say, “I know it's your duty to say that, but you don't believe in it
yourself; you are convinced by me.” Towards the end of Balashov's speech,
Napoleon pulled out his snuff-box again, took a sniff from it and tapped twice
with his foot on the ground as a signal. The door opened, a
gentleman-in-waiting, threading his way in respectfully, handed the Emperor his
hat and gloves, another handed him a pocket-handkerchief. Napoleon, without
bestowing a glance upon them, turned to Balashov.
“Assure the Emperor Alexander from me,” he said, taking his hat, “that I am
devoted to him as before; I know him thoroughly, and I prize very highly his
noble qualities. I detain you no longer, general; you shall receive my letter to
the Emperor.” And Napoleon walked rapidly to the door. There was a general
stampede from the great reception-room down the staircase.
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