on July 1, a week after the French crossed the Niemen. The emperor expects an offer of negotiations, but when Balashov insists that Alexander won’t extend one as long as a single French soldier remains on Russian soil, Napoleon’s face starts twitching and his left calf trembling: “[H]e began to speak in a higher and more hurried voice than before.” The more he speaks the less he controls himself, quickly reaching “that state of irritation in which a man has to talk and talk and talk, only
