There was stir and excitement at the Embassies. Kurakin, the Ambassador in Paris, and Demidof, Vera's father, his principal secretary, were busy from morning to night, interviewing, explaining, bargaining, smoothing and glossing the sturdy obstinacy of their own sovereign, which, while they pretended professionally to deplore it, they secretly admired and applauded.
Tchernishef, the Ambassador Extraordinary of the Tsar, arrived and was received in private audience by Napoleon. He brought with him the offer of certain concessions with regard to Oldenburg in exchange for counter-concessions in Poland. But the Dictator was obdurate; he would have surrender, not traffic.
"Not a mill, not a village of Poland will I give your master," said he; "tell him so; it is my last word."
It was Alexander's last word also, and seeing that his great opponent intended war, the Tsar began to make his preparations for defence.
The ambassadors in Paris and their secretaries and attachés packed up their traps and held themselves ready for departure.
To Vera the whole matter was a source of unmitigated grief. In common with every patriotic Russian of the day, her soul revolted against the wanton injustice of Napoleon, and swelled in a suddenly awakened passion of patriotic love and enthusiasm for her own country. Napoleon and his Grand Army were of course invincible; Russia must suffer defeat, ruin maybe; the lives of her sons must go out in rivers of innocent blood.
"It is cruel and horrible," Vera cried, speaking of all this with her cousins the D'Estrevilles; "horrible because utterly useless and unjust. Does your Emperor think he will reach Moscow?"
"Our Emperor goes just as far as his word, Vera," said Henri. "Do not deceive yourself. If Napoleon has said that he will march to Moscow, to Moscow he will march, and neither man nor devil shall prevent him."
"You leave God out of the question," Vera raved; "but He, too, must be reckoned with, even by a Napoleon. Be sure, Henri, that this wicked campaign will not be permitted to prosper. You shall see."
"_Au revoir, ma belle_," laughed Henri. "We shall meet in Moscow."
"I would rather never see you again, cousin, than meet you there," cried Vera; "and that is truth!"