When Napoleon, having finished speaking, looked inquiringly at the Russian envoy, Balashëv began a speech he had prepared long before: “Sire! The Emperor, my master⁠ ⁠…” but the sight of the Emperor’s eyes bent on him confused him. “You are flurried⁠—compose yourself!” Napoleon seemed to say, as with a scarcely perceptible smile he looked at Balashëv’s uniform and sword.

Balashëv recovered himself and began to speak. He said that the Emperor Alexander did not consider Kurákin’s demand for his passports a sufficient cause for war; that Kurákin had acted on his own initiative and without his sovereign’s assent, that the Emperor Alexander did not desire war, and had no relations with England.

“Not yet !” interposed Napoleon, and, as if fearing to give vent to his feelings, he frowned and nodded slightly as a sign that Balashëv might proceed.