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Davout was to Napoleon what Arakcheev was to Alexander- though
not a coward like Arakcheev, he was as precise, as cruel, and
as unable to express his devotion to his monarch except by cruelty.
In the organism of states such men are necessary, as wolves
are necessary in the organism of nature, and they always exist,
always appear and hold their own, however incongruous their presence
and their proximity to the head of the government may be. This
inevitability alone can explain how the cruel Arakcheev, who tore
out a grenadier's mustache with his own hands, whose weak nerves
rendered him unable to face danger, and who was neither an educated
man nor a courtier, was able to maintain his powerful position
with Alexander, whose own character was chivalrous, noble, and
gentle.
Balashev found Davout seated on a barrel in the shed of a
peasant's hut, writing- he was auditing accounts. Better quarters
could have been found him, but Marshal Davout was one of those
men who purposely put themselves in most depressing conditions
to have a justification for being gloomy. For the same reason
they are always hard at work and in a hurry. "How can I think
of the bright side of life when, as you see, I am sitting on a
barrel and working in a dirty shed?" the expression of his
face seemed to say. The chief pleasure and necessity of such men,
when they encounter anyone who shows animation, is to flaunt their
own dreary, persistent activity. Davout allowed himself that pleasure
when Balashev was brought in. He became still more absorbed in
his task when the Russian general entered, and after glancing
over his spectacles at Balashev's face, which was animated by
the beauty of the morning and by his talk with Murat, he did not
rise or even stir, but scowled still more and sneered malevolently.
When he noticed in Balashev's face the disagreeable impression
this reception produced, Davout raised his head and coldly asked
what he wanted.
Thinking he could have been received in such a manner only
because Davout did not know that he was adjutant general to the
Emperor Alexander and even his envoy to Napoleon, Balashev hastened
to inform him of his rank and mission. Contrary to his expectation,
Davout, after hearing him, became still surlier and ruder.
"Where is your dispatch?" he inquired. "Give
it to me. I will send it to the Emperor."
Balashev replied that he had been ordered to hand it personally
to the Emperor.
"Your Emperor's orders are obeyed in your army, but here,"
said Davout, "you must do as you're told."
And, as if to make the Russian general still more conscious
of his dependence on brute force, Davout sent an adjutant to call
the officer on duty.
Balashev took out the packet containing the Emperor's letter
and laid it on the table (made of a door with its hinges still
hanging on it, laid across two barrels). Davout took the packet
and read the inscription.
"You are perfectly at liberty to treat me with respect
or not," protested Balashev, "but permit me to observe
that I have the honor to be adjutant general to His Majesty...."
Davout glanced at him silently and plainly derived pleasure
from the signs of agitation and confusion which appeared on Balashev's
face.
"You will be treated as is fitting," said he and,
putting the packet in his pocket, left the shed.
A minute later the marshal's adjutant, de Castres, came in
and conducted Balashev to the quarters assigned him.
That day he dined with the marshal, at the same board on the
barrels.
Next day Davout rode out early and, after asking Balashev
to come to him, peremptorily requested him to remain there, to
move on with the baggage train should orders come for it to move,
and to talk to no one except Monsieur de Castres.
After four days of solitude, ennui, and consciousness of his
impotence and insignificance- particularly acute by contrast with
the sphere of power in which he 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. Napoleon received Balashev in the very house in Vilna
from which Alexander had dispatched him on his mission.
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