War and Peace (117 page)

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? Pfhul 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
.”