Next day Davout rode out early and, after asking Balashëv 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 Castrès.
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, Balashëv was brought to Vílna—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 Balashëv and informed him of the Emperor Napoleon’s wish to honor him with an audience.
Four days before, sentinels of the Preobrazhénsk regiment had stood in front of