had so lately moved—and after several marches with the marshal’s baggage and the French army, which occupied the whole district, Balashev was brought to Vilna—now occupied by the French—through the very gate by which he had left it four days previously.
Next day the imperial gentleman-in-waiting, the Comte de Turenne, came to Balashev and informed him of the Emperor Napoleon’s wish to honor him with an audience.
Four days before, sentinels of the Preobrazhensk regiment had stood in front of the house to which Balashev was conducted, and now two French grenadiers stood there in blue uniforms unfastened in front and with shaggy caps on their heads, and an escort of hussars and uhlans and a brilliant suite of aides-de-camp, pages, and generals, who were waiting for Napoleon to come out, were standing at the porch, round his saddle horse and his Mameluke, Rustan.1 Napoleon received Balashev in the very house in Vilna from which Alexander had dispatched him on his mission.

The Mamelukes were Turko-Egyptian cavalry. Napoleon defeated them utterly at the battle of the Pyramids in 1798. From Egypt he brought Rustan (a Georgian by birth) back with him as a bodyguard. From that time on Rustan never left his master, and he did not long survive Napoleon’s death.—A.M.

Balashëv’s interview with Napoleon
THOUGH BALASHEV was used to imperial pomp, he was amazed at the luxury and magnificence of Napoleon’s court.
The Comte de Turenne showed him into a big reception room where many generals, gentlemen-in-waiting, and Polish magnates—several of whom Balashev had seen at the court of the Emperor of Russia—were waiting. Duroc said that Napoleon would receive the Russian general before going for his ride.
After some minutes, the gentleman-in-waiting who was on duty came into the great reception room and, bowing politely, asked Balashev to follow him.1
Balashev went into a small reception room, one door of which led into a study, the very one from which the Russian Emperor had dispatched him on his mission. He stood a minute or two, waiting. He heard hurried footsteps beyond the door, both halves of it were opened rapidly; all was silent and then from the study the sound was heard of other steps, firm and resolute—they were those of Napoleon. He had just finished dressing for his ride, and wore a blue uniform, opening in front over a white waistcoat so long that it covered his rotund stomach, white leather breeches tightly fitting the fat thighs of his short legs, and Hessian boots. 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 sharply above the black collar of his uniform, and he smelled of Eau de Cologne. His full face, rather young-looking, with its prominent chin, wore a gracious and majestic expression of imperial welcome.
He entered briskly, with a jerk at every step and his head slightly thrown back. His whole short corpulent figure with broad thick shoulders, and chest and stomach involuntarily protruding, had that imposing and stately appearance one sees in men of forty who live in comfort. It was evident, too, that he was in the best of spirits that day.
He nodded in answer to Balashav’s low and respectful bow, and coming up to him at once began speaking like a man who values every moment of his time and does not condescend to prepare what he has to say but is sure he will always say the right thing and say it well.
“Good day, General!” said he. “I have received the letter you brought from the Emperor Alexander and am very glad to see you.” He glanced with his large eyes into Balashav’s face and immediately looked past him.
It was plain that Balashev’s personality did not interest him at all. Evidently only what took place within his own mind interested him. Nothing outside himself had any significance for him, because everything in the world, it seemed to him, depended entirely on his will.
“I do not, and did not, desire war,” he continued, “but it has been forced on me. Even now” (he emphasized the word) “I am ready to receive any explanations you can give me.”
And he began clearly and concisely to explain his reasons for dissatisfaction with the Russian government. Judging by the calmly moderate and amicable tone in which the French Emperor spoke, Balashev was firmly persuaded that he wished for peace and intended to enter into negotiations.
When Napoleon, having finished speaking, looked inquiringly at the Russian envoy, Balashev began a speech he had prepared long before: “Sire! The Emperor, my master . . .” but the sight of the Emperor’s eyes bent on him confused him. “You are flurried—compose yourself!” Napoleon seemed to say, as with a scarcely perceptible smile he looked at Balashev’s uniform and sword.
Balashev recovered himself and began to speak. He said that the Emperor Alexander did not consider Kurakin’s demand for his passports a sufficient cause for war; that Kurakin had acted on his own initiative and without his sovereign’s assent, that the Emperor Alexander did not desire war, and had no relations with England.
“Not yet!” interposed Napoleon, and, as if fearing to give vent to his feelings, he frowned and nodded slightly as a sign that Balashev might proceed.
After saying all he had been instructed to say, Balashev added that the Emperor Alexander wished for peace, but would not enter into negotiations except on condition that . . . Here Balashev hesitated: he remembered the words the Emperor Alexander had not written in his letter, but had specially inserted in the rescript to Saltykov and had told Balashev to repeat to Napoleon. Balashev remembered these words, “So long as a single armed foe remains on Russian soil,” but some complex feeling restrained him. He could not utter them, though he wished to do so. He grew confused and said: “On condition that the French army retires beyond the Niemen.” 2
Napoleon noticed Balashev’s embarrassment when uttering these last words; his face twitched and the calf of his left leg began to quiver rhythmically. Without moving from where he stood he began speaking in a louder tone and more hurriedly than before. During the speech that followed, Balashev, who more than once lowered his eyes, involuntarily noticed the quivering of Napoleon’s left leg which increased the more Napoleon raised his voice.
“I desire peace, no less than the Emperor Alexander,” he began. “Have I not for eighteen months been doing everything to obtain it? I have waited eighteen months for explanations. But in order to begin negotiations, what is demanded of me?” he said, frowning and making an energetic gesture of inquiry with his small white plump hand.
“The withdrawal of your army beyond the Niemen, sire,” replied Balashev.
“The Niemen?” repeated Napoleon. “So now you want me to retire beyond the Niemen—only the Niemen?” repeated Napoleon, looking straight at Balashev.
The latter bowed his head respectfully.
Instead of the demand of four months earlier to withdraw from Pomerania, only a withdrawal beyond the Niemen was now demanded. Napoleon turned quickly and began to pace the room.
“You say the demand now is that I am to withdraw beyond the Niemen before commencing negotiations, but in just the same way two months ago the demand was that I should withdraw beyond the Vistula and the Oder, and yet you are willing to negotiate.”
He went in silence from one corner of the room to the other and again stopped in front of Balashev. Balashev noticed that his left leg was quivering faster than before and his face seemed petrified in its stern expression. This quivering of his left leg was a thing Napoleon was conscious of. “The vibration of my left calf is a great sign with me,” he remarked at a later date.
“Such demands as to retreat beyond the Vistula and Oder may be made to a Prince of Baden, but not to me!” Napoleon almost screamed, quite to his own surprise. “If you gave me Petersburg and Moscow I could not accept such conditions. You say I have begun this war! But who first joined his army? The Emperor Alexander, not I! And you offer me negotiations when I have expended millions, when you are in alliance with England, and when your position is a bad one. You offer me negotiations! But what is the aim of your alliance with England? What has she given you?” he continued hurriedly, evidently no longer trying to show the advantages of peace and discuss its possibility, but only to prove his own rectitude and power and Alexander’s errors and duplicity.
The commencement of his speech had obviously been made with the intention of demonstrating the advantages of his position and showing that he was nevertheless willing to negotiate. But he had begun talking, and the more he talked the less could he control his words.
The whole purport of his remarks now was evidently to exalt himself and insult Alexander—just what he had least desired at the commencement of the interview.
“I hear you have made peace with Turkey?”
Balashev bowed his head affirmatively.
“Peace has been concluded . . .” he began.
But Napoleon did not let him speak. He evidently wanted to do all the talking himself, and continued to talk with the sort of eloquence and unrestrained irritability to which spoiled people are so prone.
“Yes, I know you have made peace with the Turks without obtaining Moldavia and Wallachia; I would have given your sovereign those provinces as I gave him Finland. Yes,” he went on, “I promised and would have given the Emperor Alexander Moldavia and Wallachia, and now he won’t have those splendid provinces. Yet he