hereby offended.

* "Royalty has its obligations."

Balashev 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.

Balashev 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.

Balashev 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 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