Page:The Czar, A Tale of the Time of the First Napleon.djvu/184

 CHAPTER XVIII.

TWO IMPORTANT INTERVIEWS.

"Nous verrons ce qui réussira le mieux, de se faire aimer ou de se faire craindre."

Words of the Emperor Alexander.

HEN Ivan waited upon Count Rostopchine that morning, he found his excellency in a very bad humour. The destruction of the Kremlin was perhaps enough to account for this; but there may have been in addition an altercation with Marshal Kutusov—not a very rare occurrence, for between the general-in-chief of the army and the governor of Moscow there was no friendship. Ivan found the count surrounded by the members of his suite, to whom he was giving directions in preparation for an immediate return to the city.

"Do you come with us, Ivan Ivanovitch?" he asked abruptly, and of course in Russian, the only language he would tolerate in his presence, although he himself spoke and wrote French with elegance and precision.

Ivan saluted him with due respect, but answered in the negative.

"Ah! then I shall have the trouble of speaking to the marshal about you," returned the count, with an air of annoyance, at which Ivan was scarcely surprised, for Rostopchine's manner on the preceding evening had made him fully aware that he desired to retain him in his own service. So he answered deferentially, "Instead of imposing that trouble upon