Chapter 4
On the 14th of June - at 2am, Tsar Alexander sends Balashev to Napoleon with his letter of peace. He also instructs Balashev to verbally repeat that Tsar Alexander will not give in so long as a single armed enemy stands upon Russian soil, but doesn't commit to writing that down. Balashev reaches the French outpost at dawn. The French army are very rude to a strange Russian soldier strolling past their outpost, and Balashev is quite surprised as he's used to being treated as an honoured friend of Alexander's. There are also cossacks and a bugler with him, but they're not really doing anything. Eventually, a French colonel appears to escort them to Napoleon. Along the way, they run into Joachim Murat, Napoleon's brother-in-law and 'King of Naples'. Tolstoy seems to imply that he has given himself this title, apropos of very little. He's been ordered to return to military service despite being a King. He's very friendly, and observes that it looks like war as if he's saying that it looks like rain.
Balashav calls him "your majesty" a lot, so Murat decides he must help him speak to Napoleon. Then they disagree on who is the aggressor in the conflict. Murat is convinced it's Tsar Alexander, who has offended Napoleon by asking him to remove his soldiers from Russia because obviously Napoleon is not planning war and it's insulting to suggest that he is.
They try to be polite to one another anyway, and Murat is hopeful that he'll soon be in front of Napoleon. He is not.
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