“I beg your Majesty’s pardon,” returned Balashëv, “besides Russia there is Spain, where there are also many churches and monasteries.”
This reply of Balashëv’s, which hinted at the recent defeats of the French in Spain, was much appreciated when he related it at Alexander’s court, but it was not much appreciated at Napoleon’s dinner, where it passed unnoticed.
The uninterested and perplexed faces of the marshals showed that they were puzzled as to what Balashëv’s tone suggested. “If there is a point we don’t see it, or it is not at all witty,” their expressions seemed to say. So little was his rejoinder appreciated that Napoleon did not notice it at all and naïvely asked Balashëv through what towns the direct road from there to Moscow passed. Balashëv, who was on the alert all through the dinner, replied that just as “all roads lead to Rome,” so all roads lead to Moscow: there were many roads, and “among them the road through Poltáva, which Charles XII chose.” Balashëv involuntarily flushed with pleasure at the aptitude of this reply, but hardly had he uttered the word Poltáva before Caulaincourt began speaking of the badness of the road from Petersburg to Moscow and of his Petersburg reminiscences.
After dinner they went to drink coffee in Napoleon’s study, which four days previously had been that of the Emperor Alexander. Napoleon sat down, toying with his Sèvres coffee cup, and motioned Balashëv to a chair beside him.
Napoleon was in that well-known after-dinner mood which, more than any reasoned cause, makes a man contented with himself and disposed to consider everyone his friend. It seemed to him that he was surrounded by men who adored him: and he felt convinced that, after his dinner, Balashëv too was his friend and worshiper. Napoleon turned to him with a pleasant, though slightly ironic, smile.
“They tell me this is the room the Emperor Alexander occupied? Strange, isn’t it, General?” he said, evidently not doubting that this remark would be agreeable to his hearer since it went to prove his, Napoleon’s, superiority to Alexander.
Balashëv made no reply and bowed his head in silence.
“Yes. Four days ago in this room, Wintzingerode and Stein were deliberating,” continued Napoleon with the same derisive and self-confident smile. “What I can’t understand,” he went on, “is that the Emperor Alexander has surrounded himself with my personal enemies. That I do not... understand. Has he not thought that I may do the same?” and he turned inquiringly to Balashëv, and evidently this thought turned him back on to the track of his morning’s anger, which was still fresh in him.
“And let him know that I will do so!” said Napoleon, rising and pushing his cup away with his hand. “I’ll drive all his Württemberg, Baden, and Weimar relations out of Germany.... Yes. I’ll drive them out. Let him prepare an asylum for them in Russia!”
Balashëv bowed his head with an air indicating that he would like to make his bow and leave, and only listened because he could not help hearing what was said to him. Napoleon did not notice this expression; he treated Balashëv not as an envoy from his enemy, but as a man now fully devoted to him and who must rejoice at his former master’s humiliation.