Balashev bowed his head respectfully.
Four months before he had been told to withdraw from Pomerania; now they wanted no more than withdrawal beyond the Niemen. Napoleon spun on his heel and started pacing up and down the room.
'You tell me I am required to withdraw beyond the Niemen before negotiations can begin. But you made the same demand two months ago for me to withdraw beyond the Oder and the Vistula, and yet you are still willing to negotiate.'
Silently he paced the floor from one corner of the room to the other and then came to a halt right in front of Balashev. His face seemed to have set hard and his left leg was twitching faster than ever. Napoleon was well aware of his twitch. 'The pulsation in my left calf is a great sign with me,' he would say in days to come.
'Demands like these - for me to abandon the Oder and the Vistula - can be made to a prince of Baden, but not to me!' Napoleon almost shrieked, taking himself by surprise. 'If you gave me Petersburg and Moscow I wouldn't accept conditions like that. Are you saying I started this war? Well, who was the first to go out and join his army? The Emperor Alexander, not me. And here you are offering to negotiate when I have spent millions, when you are an ally of England, and when you're in a weak position - now you offer me negotiations! What's the purpose of your alliance with England? What has she given you?' he snapped. He was obviously no longer concerned with the benefits of a peaceful settlement and the discussion of any such possibility; his sole intention was to demonstrate his own righteousness, his own power, and to demonstrate Alexander's wrongness and error.
His opening words had clearly been intended as an indication of his own advantageous position, and his willingness to negotiate despite it. But here he was in full flow, and the more he talked the less capable he became of controlling what he was saying.
His whole purpose was now clearly centred on the need to exalt himself and insult Alexander, precisely what he had had the least intention of doing at the outset of the interview.
'They tell me you have made peace with the Turks.'
Balashev bent his head in token of affirmation.
'Yes, we have . . .' he began. But Napoleon wouldn't let him go on. He himself was clearly the only person who needed to speak, and on he went with all the volubility and uncontrolled testiness characteristic of spoilt people.
'Yes, I know you've made peace with the Turks without gaining Moldavia or Wallachia. And I would have given your Emperor those provinces just as I gave him Finland. Oh yes,' he went on, 'I gave my promise, and I would have given the Emperor Alexander Moldavia and Wallachia, but now he'll have to do without those fair provinces. He could have joined them on to his empire, and in one reign he would have extended the frontiers of Russia from the Gulf of Bothnia to the Danube delta. Catherine the Great couldn't have done better,' Napoleon declared, getting more and more worked up as he paced the room, and repeating for Balashev's benefit more or less the same words he had used to Alexander himself at Tilsit. 'All of that he would have owed to my friendship. Oh, what a splendid reign! What a splendid reign! . . .' he kept on repeating. He stopped, pulled a gold snuff-box out of his pocket and took a greedy sniff from it. 'What a splendid reign Emperor Alexander's might have been!'
He glanced with some pity at Balashev, and since Balashev showed signs of making some comment he hastened to interrupt him again.
'What could he have wanted or looked for that he wouldn't have got from my friendship? . . .' said Napoleon, with a shrug of bemusement. 'But no, he has preferred to surround himself with my enemies. And who precisely?' he went on. 'He has recruited the Steins, Armfeldts, Wintzengerodes and Bennigsens! Stein - a traitor, driven out of his own country; Armfeldt a lecher and conspirator; Wintzengerode a renegade French subject. Bennigsen may be a bit more of a soldier than the rest of them, but he's still useless; he couldn't do anything in 1807, and he must have given your Emperor nothing but terrible memories . . . Granted, if they had the slightest ability they might have been put to some use,' Napoleon went on, his words barely keeping up with the ceaseless torrent of ideas proving his right or his might (the same thing, in his mind), 'but even that's too much to ask! They're useless for war or peace! I hear that Barclay is more capable than the lot of them, but I wouldn't be too sure about that, judging by his first efforts. And what are they doing, what are all these courtiers doing? Pfuel makes propositions, Armfeldt argues, Bennigsen ponders, and when Barclay is brought in to take some action, he can't decide what to do - and time is slipping away. Bagration is the only real soldier. He's a stupid man, but he does have experience, a good eye and some backbone . . . And what part does your young Emperor play in this unseemly mob? They compromise him and make him responsible for everything that happens. A monarch ought not to be with the army unless he's a general,' he said, obviously launching these words as a bare-faced challenge to the Tsar. Napoleon was well aware of Alexander's longing to be a military commander.
'It's a week since hostilities began and you haven't even managed to defend Vilna. You've been split in two and driven out of the Polish provinces. Your troops are complaining . . .'
'No, sir, quite the opposite,' said Balashev, who was having difficulty in assimilating all that was coming at him and keeping up with the verbal pyrotechnics, 'the troops are full of enthusiasm . . .'
'I know all there is to know,' Napoleon cut him short. 'There's nothing I don't know, and I know the number of your battalions as well as I know my own. You have less than two hundred thousand men, and I have three times as many. I give you my word of honour,' said Napoleon, oblivious to the fact that his word of honour carried no weight, 'I give you my word of honour 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 good for nothing, which they have proved by making peace with you. The Swedes? They're destined to be ruled by mad kings. They had one king who was mad, and they replaced him with another, Bernadotte,7 who soon went mad; being a Swede, you would have to be mad to form alliances with Russia.'
Napoleon gave a nasty laugh, and took another sniff from his snuff-box.
Balashev was waiting with a ready response to every one of Napoleon's phrases. Many times he made as if to reply, but Napoleon always cut him short. For instance, on the subject of Swedish insanity Balashev wanted to say that, with Russia behind her, Sweden was effectively an island, but Napoleon drowned him out with an angry outburst. Napoleon was in such a state of high indignation that he needed to talk, talk, talk in order to prove to himself that he was in the right. Balashev was making heavy weather of it. As an envoy he was anxious not to lose face, and he felt duty-bound to raise objections, but as a man he cringed before the numbing onslaught of mindless fury which had Napoleon in its grip. He was now aware that anything said by Napoleon would be meaningless and an embarrassment to the speaker himself when he eventually pulled himself together. Balashev stood there looking down at Napoleon's fat legs working away, and did all he could to avoid his eyes.
'And what are your allies to me?' said Napoleon. 'I have allies of my own, the Poles, eighty thousand of them and they fight like lions. And soon there'll be two hundred thousand.'
Probably even more annoyed with himself at stretching the truth in such an obvious way and at Balashev standing there before him meekly resigned to his fate and saying nothing, he turned on his heel, strode over to Balashev, gesticulating wildly with his white hands, and almost shouted straight in his face, 'I tell you this - you turn Prussia against me . . . and . . . I tell you this - I'll wipe her off the map of Europe!' he said, his face contorted and white with fury, as he punched one little hand sharply with the other. 'Oh yes, I'll shove you back across the Dvina and the Dnieper, and I'll put back the frontier that Europe was criminal and blind to let you come across. Yes, that's what you've got coming to you. That's what you've gained by alienating me,' he said, and he paced the room in silence several times, his podgy shoulders heaving. He put the snuff-box back into his waistcoat pocket, took it out ag
ain, held it to his nose several times, and came to a halt facing Balashev. He paused, stared Balashev straight in the face with a look of mockery and said in a soft voice, 'And to think what a fine reign your master might have had.'
Balashev, feeling obliged to respond, told him that from Russia's point of view things did not look so bleak. Napoleon made no comment; he was still sneering and obviously not listening. Balashev said that in Russia they were expecting the war to end well. Napoleon gave a patronizing nod of the head as if to say, 'I know it's your duty to say that, but you don't believe it. My arguments have won you over.'
When Balashev had said his piece Napoleon took out his snuff-box once again, had a good sniff and gave a signal by stamping his foot twice on the floor. The door opened and a gentleman-in-waiting weaved his way in deferentially and handed the Emperor his hat and gloves, while another handed him a pocket-handkerchief. Napoleon ignored them and turned to Balashev.
'Please assure the Emperor Alexander from me,' he said, taking his hat, 'that I am devoted to him as before. I know him thoroughly, and have the highest opinion of his noble qualities. I shall detain you no longer, General. You will receive my letter to the Emperor.' And Napoleon walked rapidly over to the door. Everyone in the outer reception-room rushed forward and down the stairs.
CHAPTER 7
After everything Napoleon had said to him, after those furious outbursts, and after those acidic last words, 'I shall detain you no longer, General. You will receive my letter,' Balashev felt certain that from now on not only would Napoleon not want to see him again, he would go out of his way to avoid seeing him, an envoy who had been so badly treated, and, more to the point, someone who had witnessed such degrading and intemperate behaviour on his part. But, much to his surprise, Balashev received through Duroc an invitation to dinner that evening with the Emperor.
Bessieres, Caulaincourt and Berthier were present at the dinner.
Napoleon welcomed Balashev with a display of good humour and friendliness. Far from showing any signs of embarrassment or self-reproach for his tantrum that morning, he did all he could to put Balashev at his ease. It was clear that Napoleon had convinced himself long before this that he was incapable of error and that everything he did was good, not because it conformed with any general concept of right or wrong, but simply because he was the one who did it.
The Emperor was in buoyant mood after his ride through Vilna, where he had been hailed and pursued by cheering crowds. Every window in every street he drove down was hung with rugs and banners displaying his monogram, and welcoming Polish ladies had waved their handkerchiefs at him.
At dinner he placed Balashev at his side and treated him well - treated him in fact like one of his own courtiers, like someone who could be counted on to sympathize with his plans and celebrate his successes. Amongst other things he talked about Moscow, and asked Balashev many questions about the Russian capital, speaking not just out of curiosity like a traveller wanting to know about a new place he intends to visit, but with the certain knowledge that since Balashev was Russian he must be flattered that anyone should be so interested.
'How many people are there in Moscow? How many houses? Is it really known as "Holy Moscow"? Are there many churches in Moscow?' he asked.
And when told there were over two hundred he said, 'Why do you need so many churches?'
'Russians are very religious people,' replied Balashev.
'And yet a large number of monasteries and churches is always a sign of backwardness in a people,' said Napoleon, glancing at Caulaincourt to see what he made of this remark.
With great respect Balashev begged to differ from the French Emperor.
'All countries have their own customs,' he observed.
'But there's nothing like that anywhere else in Europe,' said Napoleon.
'Begging your Majesty's pardon,' said Balashev, 'it's not only Russia. Spain has a large number of churches and monasteries too.' Balashev's reply, a veiled reference to recent French defeats in Spain, proved very popular when Balashev came to repeat it back at the court of the Emperor Alexander, though at the time it was little appreciated at Napoleon's dinner-table, where it passed unnoticed.
From the looks of indifference and bemusement on the faces of the marshals it was clear that they couldn't make head or tail of the witticism implied by Balashev's intonation. 'If this is a joke we don't get the point, or else it's just not very funny,' their expressions seemed to say. The impact of his response was so small that Napoleon did not notice, and he went on naively to ask Balashev which cities lay along the most direct road from there to Moscow. Balashev, always on the qui vive, said that just as all roads lead to Rome, all roads lead to Moscow - there were a lot of roads, including the road to Poltava chosen by Charles XII.8 Balashev felt an instinctive surge of pleasure at the sharpness of this reply, but the word 'Poltava' was scarcely out of his mouth when Caulaincourt launched forth on the awful state of the road from Petersburg to Moscow and his personal memories of Petersburg.
After dinner they withdrew for coffee into Napoleon's study, which had been Emperor Alexander's study only four days before. Napoleon sat down, toying with his Sevres coffee cup, and motioned for Balashev to sit down beside him.
There is a well-known after-dinner state of mind which is more effective than the dictates of reason in making a man feel at peace with himself and well disposed to everyone else. Napoleon was now in this state. He felt surrounded by worshipping admirers. He was convinced that after his dinner even Balashev was a friend and admirer. Napoleon turned to him with a benevolent smile which had only a touch of mockery.
'They say this is the room that belonged to the Emperor Alexander. Strange, isn't it, General?' he said, obviously taking it for granted that this comment could not be other than acceptable to the Russian, demonstrating as it did the superiority which he, Napoleon, enjoyed over Alexander.
Balashev, incapable of any response, bowed his head in silence.
'Yes, this is the room where Wintzengerode and Stein were conferring four days ago,' Napoleon went on, smiling the same confident and ironic smile. 'What I can't understand,' he said, 'is why the Emperor Alexander had to surround himself with all my personal enemies. That's something . . . I simply don't understand. Did it never occur to him that I might do the same thing?' he asked Balashev, and this reversion clearly set him off again on the trail of that morning's furious outburst, still fresh in his memory. 'And I want him to know I shall do just that,' said Napoleon, getting to his feet and pushing away his cup with one hand. 'I'll drive every last relative of his out of Germany - all those Wurttembergs, Badens and Weimars . . . Oh yes, I'll drive them all out. Let him get a bolt hole ready for them in Russia.'
Balashev bowed his head in an effort to imply that he would be glad to take his leave of them, and if he was listening it was only because he had no alternative but to hear what was being said. Napoleon didn't notice his expression. As he spoke to Balashev, he saw him not as an enemy envoy but as one of his devoted admirers who must surely rejoice at the humiliation of his former master.
'And why has the Emperor Alexander taken personal command of his troops? What's all this about? War is my business, but his job is to reign as a monarch, not command armies. What can have induced him to take charge like that?'
Once again Napoleon took out his snuff-box and paced the room several times in silence, only to surprise Balashev by walking rapidly over to him. With the ghost of a smile on his face and in one easy, firm, quick movement, as if he was doing something not merely momentous but also pleasurable to Balashev, he reached up to the forty-year-old Russian general's face, took hold of one ear and tweaked it with a smile on his lips that wasn't in his eyes.
To have your ear tweaked by the Emperor was regarded as the greatest honour and the highest mark of favour at the French court.
'So, you have nothing to say, admirer and courtier of the Emperor Alexander?' he said, as if it was amusing for someone in his company to be a cou
rtier and admirer of anyone who was not Napoleon. 'Are the horses ready for the general?' he added, with a slight nod in acknowledgement of Balashev's bow. 'Give him mine. He has a long way to go . . .'
The letter brought back by Balashev was Napoleon's last letter to Alexander. Every last detail of the conversation was communicated to the Russian Emperor, and they were at war.
CHAPTER 8
After his meeting with Pierre in Moscow Prince Andrey went up to Petersburg, telling his family it was a business trip, though in fact he was going there to meet Anatole Kuragin, something that he felt simply had to be done. But when he got to Petersburg and asked after him, Kuragin was gone. Pierre had let his brother-in-law know that Prince Andrey was after him. Anatole Kuragin had lost no time in obtaining a commission from the war minister, and he'd gone off to join the army in Moldavia. But while he was in Petersburg Prince Andrey came across Kutuzov, his old general, who had always had a soft spot for him, and Kutuzov invited him to go with him to Moldavia, where the old general had been placed in command of the army. Once Prince Andrey had received an appointment on the commander's staff he travelled down to Turkey.
Prince Andrey did not think it was right for him to get in touch with Kuragin and challenge him formally. He thought that any challenge from him, without some new pretext for a duel, might compromise young Countess Rostov; so he wanted to meet Kuragin face to face in order to fabricate a different excuse for a duel. But even down in the Turkish army Prince Andrey missed Kuragin, who had gone back to Russia soon after Prince Andrey's arrival. There, in a new country and new surroundings, Prince Andrey found life easier. After his fiancee's unfaithfulness, which hurt him more and more as he strove to conceal the effect it was having on him, the very circumstances that had recently made him so happy now became unbearable, especially the freedom and independence he had come to value so much. He had abandoned those ideas that had first come to him on the battlefield at Austerlitz, the thoughts he had enjoyed discussing with Pierre and had relied on to fill his empty hours first at Bogucharovo, then in Switzerland and Rome, and in fact he now dreaded them and the boundless vistas of light they had once opened up. Now, all he had time for were matters of immediate and practical relevance, quite different from his former interests, and he seized on these with an eagerness that grew in proportion to his success in suppressing the earlier ones. It was as if the infinitely receding firmament that had once arched above him had suddenly turned into a low, fixed vault bearing down on him, perfectly clear but containing nothing eternal or mysterious.