War and Peace
playing in that monstrous crowd? They compromise him and throw on him
the responsibility for all that happens. A sovereign should not be with
the army unless he is a general!” said Napoleon, evidently uttering
these words as a direct challenge to the Emperor. He knew how Alexander
desired to be a military commander.
“The campaign began only a week ago, and you haven’t even been able to
defend Vílna. You are cut in two and have been driven out of the Polish
provinces. Your army is grumbling.”
“On the contrary, Your Majesty,” said Balashëv, hardly able to remember
what had been said to him and following these verbal fireworks with
difficulty, “the troops are burning with eagerness...”
“I know everything!” Napoleon interrupted him. “I know everything. I
know the number of your battalions as exactly as I know my own. You have
not two hundred thousand men, and I have three times that number. I give
you my word of honor,” said Napoleon, forgetting that his word of honor
could carry no weight—“I give you my word of honor that I have five
hundred and thirty thousand men this side of the Vistula. The Turks will
be of no use to you; they are worth nothing and have shown it by making
peace with you. As for the Swedes—it is their fate to be governed by
mad kings. Their king was insane and they changed him for
another—Bernadotte, who promptly went mad—for no Swede would ally
himself with Russia unless he were mad.”
Napoleon grinned maliciously and again raised his snuffbox to his nose.
Balashëv knew how to reply to each of Napoleon’s remarks, and would
have done so; he continually made the gesture of a man wishing to say
something, but Napoleon always interrupted him. To the alleged insanity
of the Swedes, Balashëv wished to reply that when Russia is on her side
Sweden is practically an island: but Napoleon gave an angry exclamation
to drown his voice. Napoleon was in that state of irritability in which
a man has to talk, talk, and talk, merely to convince himself that he is
in the right. Balashëv began to feel uncomfortable: as envoy he feared
to demean his dignity and felt the necessity of replying; but, as a man,
he shrank before the transport of groundless wrath that had evidently
seized Napoleon. He knew that none of the words now uttered by Napoleon
had any significance, and that Napoleon himself would be ashamed of them
when he came to his senses. Balashëv stood with downcast eyes, looking
at the movements of Napoleon’s stout legs and trying to avoid meeting
his eyes.
“But what do I care about your allies?” said Napoleon. “I have
allies—the Poles. There are eighty thousand of them and they fight like
lions. And there will be two hundred thousand of them.”
And probably still more perturbed by the fact that he had uttered this
obvious falsehood, and that Balashëv still stood silently before him in
the same attitude of submission to fate, Napoleon abruptly turned
round, drew close to Balashëv’s face, and, gesticulating rapidly and
energetically with his white hands, almost shouted:
“Know that if you stir up Prussia against me, I’ll wipe it off the map
of Europe!” he declared, his face pale and distorted by anger, and he
struck one of his small hands energetically with the other. “Yes, I
will throw you back beyond the Dvína and beyond the Dnieper, and will
re-erect against you that barrier which it was criminal and blind of
Europe to allow to be destroyed. Yes, that is what will happen to you.
That is what you have gained by alienating me!” And he walked silently
several times up and down the room, his fat shoulders twitching.
He put his snuffbox into his waistcoat pocket, took it out again, lifted
it several times to his nose, and stopped in front of Balashëv. He
paused, looked ironically straight into Balashëv’s eyes, and said in a
quiet voice:
“And yet what a splendid reign your master might have had!”
Balashëv, feeling it incumbent on him to reply, said that from the
Russian side things did not appear in so gloomy a light. Napoleon was
silent, still looking derisively at him and evidently not listening to
him. Balashëv said that in Russia the best results were expected from
the war. Napoleon nodded condescendingly, as if to say, “I know it’s
your duty to say that, but you don’t believe it yourself. I have
convinced you.”
When Balashëv had ended, Napoleon again took out his snuffbox, sniffed
at it, and stamped his foot twice on the floor as a signal. The door
opened, a gentleman-in-waiting, bending respectfully, handed the Emperor
his hat and gloves; another brought him a pocket handkerchief. Napoleon,
without giving them a glance, turned to Balashëv:
“Assure the Emperor Alexander from me,” said he, taking his hat, “that
I am as devoted to him as before: I know him thoroughly and very highly
esteem his lofty qualities. I will detain you no longer, General; you
shall receive my letter to the Emperor.”
And Napoleon went quickly to the door. Everyone in the reception room
rushed forward and descended the staircase.
CHAPTER VII
After all that Napoleon had said to him—those bursts of anger and the
last dryly spoken words: “I will detain you no longer, General; you
shall receive my letter,” Balashëv felt convinced that Napoleon would
not wish to see him, and would even avoid another meeting with him—an
insulted envoy—especially as he had witnessed his unseemly anger. But,
to his surprise, Balashëv received, through Duroc, an invitation to dine
with the Emperor that day.
Bessières, Caulaincourt, and Berthier were present at that dinner.
Napoleon met Balashëv cheerfully and amiably. He not only showed no sign
of constraint or self-reproach on account of his outburst that morning,
but, on the contrary, tried to reassure Balashëv. It was evident that
he had long been convinced that it was impossible for him to make a
mistake, and that in his perception whatever he did was right, not
because it harmonized with any idea of right and wrong, but because he
did it.
The Emperor was in very good spirits after his ride through Vílna, where
crowds of people had rapturously greeted and followed him. From all
the windows of the streets through which he rode, rugs, flags, and his
monogram were displayed, and the Polish ladies, welcoming him, waved
their handkerchiefs to him.
At dinner, having placed Balashëv beside him, Napoleon not only treated
him amiably but behaved as if Balashëv were one of his own courtiers,
one of those who sympathized with his plans and ought to rejoice at
his success. In the course of conversation he mentioned Moscow and
questioned Balashëv about the Russian capital, not merely as an
interested traveler asks about a new city he intends to visit, but as
if convinced that Balashëv, as a Russian, must be flattered by his
curiosity.
“How many inhabitants are there in Moscow? How many houses? Is it true
that Moscow is called ‘Holy Moscow’? How many churches are there in
Moscow?” he asked.
And receiving the reply that there were more than two hundred churches,
he remarked:
“Why such a quantity of churches?”
“The Russians are very devout,” replied Balashëv.
“But a large number of monasteries and churches is always a sign of the
backwardness of a people,” said Napoleon, turning to Caulaincourt for
appreciation of this remark.
Balashëv respectfully ventured to disagree with the French Emperor.
“Every country has its own character,” said he.
“But nowhere in Europe is there anything like that,” said Napoleon.
“I beg your Majesty’s pardon,” returned Balashëv, “besides Russia there
is Spain, where there are also many churches and monasteries.”
This reply of Balashëv’s, which hinted at the recent defeats of the
French in Spain, was much appreciated when he related it at Alexander’s
court, but it was not much appreciated at Napoleon’s dinner, where it
passed unnoticed.
The uninterested and perplexed faces of the marshals showed that they
were puzzled as to what Balashëv’s tone suggested. “If there is a point
we don’t see it, or it is not at all witty,” their expressions seemed
to say. So little was his rejoinder appreciated that Napoleon did not
notice it at all and naïvely asked Balashëv through what towns the
direct road from there to Moscow passed. Balashëv, who was on the alert
all through the dinner, replied that just as “all roads lead to Rome,”
so all roads lead to Moscow: there were many roads, and “among them the
road through Poltáva, which Charles XII chose.” Balashëv involuntarily
flushed with pleasure at the aptitude of this reply, but hardly had
he uttered the word Poltáva before Caulaincourt began speaking of the
badness of the road from Petersburg to Moscow and of his Petersburg
reminiscences.
After dinner they went to drink coffee in Napoleon’s study, which four
days previously had been that of the Emperor Alexander. Napoleon sat
down, toying with his Sèvres coffee cup, and motioned Balashëv to a
chair beside him.
Napoleon was in that well-known after-dinner mood which, more than
any reasoned cause, makes a man contented with himself and disposed to
consider everyone his friend. It seemed to him that he was surrounded
by men who adored him: and he felt convinced that, after his dinner,
Balashëv too was his friend and worshiper. Napoleon turned to him with a
pleasant, though slightly ironic, smile.
“They tell me this is the room the Emperor Alexander occupied? Strange,
isn’t it, General?” he said, evidently not doubting that this remark
would be agreeable to his hearer since it went to prove his, Napoleon’s,
superiority to Alexander.
Balashëv made no reply and bowed his head in silence.
“Yes. Four days ago in this room, Wintzingerode and Stein were
deliberating,” continued Napoleon with the same derisive and
self-confident smile. “What I can’t understand,” he went on, “is that
the Emperor Alexander has surrounded himself with my personal enemies.
That I do not... understand. Has he not thought that I may do the same?”
and he turned inquiringly to Balashëv, and evidently this thought turned
him back on to the track of his morning’s anger, which was still fresh
in him.
“And let him know that I will do so!” said Napoleon, rising and pushing
his cup away with his hand. “I’ll drive all his Württemberg, Baden, and
Weimar relations out of Germany.... Yes. I’ll drive them out. Let him
prepare an asylum for them in Russia!”
Balashëv bowed his head with an air indicating that he would like to
make his bow and leave, and only listened because he could not help
hearing what was said to him. Napoleon did not notice this expression;
he treated Balashëv not as an envoy from his enemy, but as a man
now fully devoted to him and who must rejoice at his former master’s
humiliation.
“And why has the Emperor Alexander taken command of the armies? What is
the good of that? War is my profession, but his business is to reign
and not to command armies! Why has he taken on himself such a
responsibility?”
Again Napoleon brought out his snuffbox, paced several times up and down
the room in silence, and then, suddenly and unexpectedly, went up to
Balashëv and with a slight smile, as confidently, quickly, and simply
as if he were doing something not merely important but pleasing to
Balashëv, he raised his hand to the forty-year-old Russian general’s
face and, taking him by the ear, pulled it gently, smiling with his lips
only.
To have one’s ear pulled by the Emperor was considered the greatest
honor and mark of favor at the French court.
“Well, adorer and courtier of the Emperor Alexander, why don’t you say
anything?” said he, as if it was ridiculous, in his presence, to be the
adorer and courtier of anyone but himself, Napoleon. “Are the horses
ready for the general?” he added, with a slight inclination of his head