* “Royalty has its obligations.”
Balashëv replied that there was “nothing offensive in the demand, because...” but Murat interrupted him.
“Then you don’t consider the Emperor Alexander the aggressor?” he asked unexpectedly, with a kindly and foolish smile.
Balashëv told him why he considered Napoleon to be the originator of the war.
“Oh, my dear general!” Murat again interrupted him, “with all my heart I wish the Emperors may arrange the affair between them, and that the war begun by no wish of mine may finish as quickly as possible!” said he, in the tone of a servant who wants to remain good friends with another despite a quarrel between their masters.
And he went on to inquiries about the Grand Duke and the state of his health, and to reminiscences of the gay and amusing times he had spent with him in Naples. Then suddenly, as if remembering his royal dignity, Murat solemnly drew himself up, assumed the pose in which he had stood at his coronation, and, waving his right arm, said:
“I won’t detain you longer, General. I wish success to your mission,” and with his embroidered red mantle, his flowing feathers, and his glittering ornaments, he rejoined his suite who were respectfully awaiting him.
Balashëv rode on, supposing from Murat’s words that he would very soon be brought before Napoleon himself. But instead of that, at the next village the sentinels of Davout’s infantry corps detained him as the pickets of the vanguard had done, and an adjutant of the corps commander, who was fetched, conducted him into the village to Marshal Davout.
CHAPTER V
Davout was to Napoleon what Arakchéev was to Alexander—though not a coward like Arakchéev, he was as precise, as cruel, and as unable to express his devotion to his monarch except by cruelty.