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 the house to which Balashëv 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 Balashëv in the very house in Vílna from which Alexander had dispatched him on his mission.