“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 man？uvres. 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.
