The Life of Napoleon I Part 34

But as the prospects for the campaign improved, Napoleon's tone hardened. On March the 14th he states that he has enough men to keep Austria quiet and to "get rid of the Russians in a month." And now he looks on an alliance with the Hapsburgs merely as giving a short time of quiet, whereas an alliance with Russia would be "very advantageous."[140] He had also felt the value of alliance with Prussia, as his repeated overtures during the campaign testify; but when Frederick William persistently rejected all accommodation with the man who had so deeply outraged his kingly honour, he turned finally to Alexander.

The Czar was made of more pliable stuff. Moreover, he now cherished one sentiment that brought him into sympathy with Napoleon, namely, hatred of England. He certainly had grave cause for complaint. We had done nothing to help the allies in the Polish campaign except to send a few cruisers and 60,000 muskets, which last did not reach the Swedish and Russian ports until the war was over. True, we had gone out of our way to attack Constantinople at his request; but that attack had failed; and our att.i.tude towards his Turkish policy was one of veiled suspicion, varied with moral lectures.[141] As for the loan of five millions sterling which the Czar had asked us to guarantee, we had put him off, our envoy finally reminding him that it had been of the first importance to help Austria to move. Worst of all, our cruisers had seized some Russian merchantmen coming out of French ports, and despite protests from St. Petersburg the legality of that seizure was maintained. Thus, in a war which concerned our very existence we had not rendered him a single practical service, and yet strained the principles of maritime law at the expense of Russian commerce.[142]

Over against our policy of blundering delay there was that of Napoleon, prompt, keen, and ever victorious. The whole war had arisen out of the conflict of these two Powers; and Napoleon had never ceased to declare that it was essentially a struggle between England and the Continent. After Eylau Alexander was proof against these arguments; but now the triumphant energy of Napoleon and the stolid apathy of England brought about a quite bewildering change in Russian policy.

Delicate advances having been made by the two Emperors, an interview was arranged to take place on a raft moored in the middle of the River Niemen (June 25th).

"I hate the English as much as you do, and I will second you in all your actions against them." Such are said to have been the words with which Alexander greeted Napoleon as they stepped on to the raft.

Whereupon the conqueror replied: "In that case all can be arranged and peace is made."[143] As the two Emperors were unaccompanied at that first interview, it is difficult to see on what evidence this story rests. It is most unlikely that either Emperor would divulge the remarks of the other on that occasion; and the words attributed to Alexander seem highly impolitic. For what was his position at this time? He was striving to make the best of a bad case against an opponent whose genius he secretly feared. Besides, we know for certain that he was most anxious to postpone his rupture with England for some months.[144] All desire for an immediate break was on Napoleon's side.

We can therefore only guess at what transpired, from the vague descriptions of the two men themselves. They are characteristic enough: "I never had more prejudices against anyone than against _him_," said Alexander afterwards; "but, after three-quarters of an hour of conversation, they all disappeared like a dream"; and later he exclaimed: "Would that I had seen him sooner: the veil is torn aside and the time of error is past." As for Napoleon, he wrote to Josephine: "I have just seen the Emperor Alexander: I have been very pleased with him: he is a very handsome, good, and young Emperor: he has an intellect above what is commonly attributed to him."[145] The tone of these remarks strikes the keynote of all the conversations that followed. At the next day's conference, also held in the sumptuous pavilion erected on the raft, the King of Prussia was present; but towards him Napoleon's demeanour was cold and threatening. He upbraided him with the war, lectured him on the duty of a king to his people, and bade him dismiss Hardenberg. Frederick William listened for the most part in silence; his nature was too stiff and straightforward to practise any Byzantine arts; but when his trusty Minister was attacked, he protested that he should not know how to replace him. Napoleon had foreseen the plea and at once named three men who would give better advice. Among them was the staunch patriot Stein!

From the ensuing conferences the King was almost wholly excluded. They were held in a part of the town of Tilsit which was neutralized for that purpose, as also for the guards and diplomatists of the three sovereigns. There, too, lived the two Emperors in closest intercourse, while on most days the Prussian King rode over from a neighbouring village to figure as a sad, reproachful guest at the rides, parades, and dinners that cemented the new Franco-Russian alliance. Yet, amid all the melodious raptures of Alexander over Napoleon's newly discovered virtues, it is easy to detect the clinging ground-tone of Muscovite ambition. An event had occurred which excited the hopes of both Emperors. At the close of May, the Sultan Selim was violently deposed by the Janissaries who clamoured for more vigorous measures against the Russians. Never did news come more opportunely for Napoleon than this, which reached him at Tilsit on, or before, June the 24th. He is said to have exclaimed to the Czar with a flash of dramatic fatalism: "It is a decree of Providence which tells me that the Turkish Empire can no longer exist."[146]

Certain it is that the most potent spell exerted by the great conqueror over his rival was a guarded invitation to share in some future part.i.tion of the Turkish Empire. That scheme had fascinated Napoleon ever since the year 1797, when he gazed on the Adriatic.

Though laid aside for a time in 1806, when he roused the Turks against Russia, it was never lost sight of; and now, on the basis of a common hatred of England and a common desire to secure the spoils of the Ottoman Power, the stately fabric of the Franco-Russian alliance was reared.

On his side, Alexander required some a.s.surance that Poland should not be reconst.i.tuted in its integrity--a change that would tear from Russia the huge districts stretching almost up to Riga, Smolensk, and Kiev, which were still Polish in sympathy. Here Napoleon rea.s.sured him, at least in part. He would not re-create the great kingdom of Poland: he would merely carve out from Prussia the greater part of her Polish possessions.

These two important questions being settled, it only remained for the Czar to plead for the King of Prussia, to acknowledge Napoleon's domination as Emperor of the West, while he himself, as autocrat of the East, secured a better western boundary for Russia. At first he strove to gain for Frederick William the restoration of several of his lands west of the Elbe. This championship was not wholly disinterested; for it is now known that the Czar had set his heart on a great part of Prussian Poland.

In truth, he was a sufficiently good disciple of the French revolutionists to plead very cogently his claims to a "natural frontier." He disliked a "dry frontier": he must have a riverine boundary: in fact, he claimed the banks of the Lower Niemen, and, further south, the course of the rivers Wavre, Narew and Bug. To this claim he had perhaps been encouraged by some alluring words of Napoleon that thenceforth the Vistula must be the boundary of their empires. But his ally was now determined to keep Russia away from the old Polish capital; and in strangely prophetic words he pointed out that the Czar's claims would bring the Russian eagles within sight of Warsaw, which would be too clear a sign that that city was destined to pa.s.s under the Russian rule.[147] Divining also that Alexander's plea for the restoration by France of some of Prussia's western lands was linked with a plan which would give Russia some of her eastern districts,[148] Napoleon resolved to press hard on Prussia from the west. While handing over to the Czar only the small district around Bialystock, he remorselessly thrust Prussia to the east of the Elbe.

From this neither the arguments of the Czar nor the entreaties of Queen Louisa availed to move him. And yet, in the fond hope that her tears might win back Magdeburg, that n.o.ble bulwark of North German independence, the forlorn Queen came to Tilsit to crave this boon (July 6th). It was a terrible ordeal to do this from the man who had repeatedly insulted her in his official journals, figuring her, first as a mailed Amazon galloping at the head of her regiment, and finally breathing forth scandals on her spotless reputation.

Yet, for the sake of her husband and her people, she braced herself up to the effort of treating him as a gentleman and appealing to his generosity. If she was able to conceal her loathing, this was scarcely so with her devoted lady in waiting, the Countess von Voss, who has left us an acrid account of Napoleon's visit to the Queen at the miller's house at Tilsit.[149]

"He is excessively ugly, with a fat swollen sallow face, very corpulent, besides short and entirely without figure. His great eyes roll gloomily around; the expression of his features is severe; he looks like the incarnation of fate: only his mouth is well shaped, and his teeth are good. He was extremely polite, talked to the Queen a long time alone.... Again, after dinner, he had a long conversation with the Queen, who also seemed pretty well satisfied with the result."[150]

Queen Louisa's verdict about his appearance was more favourable; she admired his head "as that of a Caesar." With winsome boldness inspired by patriotism, she begged for Magdeburg. Taken aback by her beauty and frankness, Napoleon had recourse to compliments about her dress. "Are we to talk about fashion, at such a time?" was her reply. Again she pleaded, and again he fell back on vapidities. Nevertheless, her appeals to his generosity seemed to be thawing his statecraft, when the entrance of that unlucky man, her husband, gave the conversation a colder tone. The dinner, however, pa.s.sed cheerfully enough; and, according to French accounts, Napoleon graced the conclusion of dessert by offering her a rose. Her woman's wit flew to the utterance: "May I consider it a token of friendship, and that you grant my request for Magdeburg?" But he was on his guard, parried her onset with a general remark as to the way in which such civilities should be taken, and turned the conversation. Then, as if he feared the result of a second interview, he hastened to end matters with the Prussian negotiators.[151]

He thus described the interview in a letter to Josephine:

"I have had to be on my guard against her efforts to oblige me to some concessions for her husband; but I have been gallant, and have held to my policy."

This was only too clear on the following day, when the Queen again dined with the sovereigns.

"Napoleon," says the Countess von Voss, "seemed malicious and spiteful, and the conversation was brief and constrained. After dinner the Queen again conversed apart with him. On taking leave she said to him that she went away feeling it deeply that he should have deceived her. My poor Queen: she is quite in despair."

When conducted to her carriage by Talleyrand and Duroc, she sank down overcome by emotion. Yet, amid her tears and humiliation, the old Prussian pride had flashed forth in one of her replies as the rainbow amidst the rain-storm. When Napoleon expressed his surprise that she should have dared to make war on him with means so utterly inadequate, she at once retorted: "Sire, I must confess to Your Majesty, the glory of Frederick the Great had misled us as to our real strength"--a retort which justly won the praise of that fastidious connoisseur, Talleyrand, for its reminder of Prussia's former greatness and the transitoriness of all human grandeur.[152]

On that same day (July 7th) the Treaty of Tilsit was signed. Its terms may be thus summarized. Out of regard for the Emperor of Russia, Napoleon consented to restore to the King of Prussia the province of Silesia, and the old Prussian lands between the Elbe and Niemen. But the Polish lands seized by Prussia in the second and third part.i.tions were (with the exception of the Bialystock district, now gained by Russia) to form a new State called the Duchy of Warsaw. Of this duchy the King of Saxony was const.i.tuted ruler. Danzig, once a Polish city, was now declared a free city under the protection of the Kings of Prussia and Saxony, but the retention there of a French garrison until the peace made it practically a French fortress. Saxe-Coburg, Oldenburg, and Mecklenburg-Schwerin were restored to their dukes, but the two last were to be held by French troops until England made peace with France. With this aim in view, Napoleon accepted Alexander's mediation for the conclusion of a treaty of peace with England, provided that she accepted that mediation within one month of the ratification of the present treaty.

On his side, the Czar now recognized the recent changes in Naples, Holland, and Germany; among the last of these was the creation of the Kingdom of Westphalia for Jerome Bonaparte out of the Prussian lands west of the Elbe, the Duchy of Brunswick, and the Electorate of Hesse-Ca.s.sel. Holland gained East Frisia at the expense of Prussia. As regards Turkey, the Czar pledged himself to cease hostilities at once, to accept the mediation of Napoleon in the present dispute, and to withdraw Russian troops from the Danubian Provinces as soon as peace was concluded with the Sublime Porte. Finally, the two Emperors mutually guaranteed the integrity of their possessions and placed their ceremonial and diplomatic relations on a footing of complete equality.

Such were the published articles of the Treaty of Tilsit. Even if this had been all, the European system would have sustained the severest blow since the Thirty Years' War. The Prussian monarchy was suddenly bereft of half its population, and now figured on the map as a disjointed land, scarcely larger than the possessions of the King of Saxony, and less defensible than Jerome Bonaparte's Kingdom of Westphalia; while the Confederation of the Rhine, soon to be aggrandized by the accession of Mecklenburg and Oldenburg, seemed to doom the House of Hohenzollern to lasting insignificance.[153]

But the published treaty was by no means all. There were also secret articles, the chief of which were that the Cattaro district--to the west of Montenegro--and the Ionian Islands should go to France, and that the Czar would recognize Joseph Bonaparte as King of Sicily when Ferdinand of Naples should have received "an indemnity such as the Balearic Isles, or Crete, or their equivalent." Also, if Hanover should eventually be annexed to the Kingdom of Westphalia, a Westphalian district with a population of from three to four hundred thousand souls would be retroceded to Prussia. Finally, the chiefs of the Houses of Orange-Na.s.sau, Hesse-Ca.s.sel, and Brunswick were to receive pensions from Murat and Jerome Bonaparte, who dispossessed them.

Most important of all was the secret treaty of alliance with Russia, also signed on July 7th, whereby the two Emperors bound themselves to make common cause in any war that either of them might undertake against any European Power, employing, if need be, the whole of their respective forces. Again, if England did not accept the Czar's mediation, or if she did not, by the 1st of December, 1807, recognize the perfect equality of all flags at sea, and restore her conquests made from France and her allies since 1805, then Russia would make war on her. In that case, the present allies will "summon the three Courts of Copenhagen, Stockholm, and Lisbon to close their ports against the English and declare war against England. If any one of the three Courts refuse, it shall be treated as an enemy by the high contracting parties, and if Sweden refuse, _Denmark shall be compelled to declare war on her_." Pressure would also be put on Austria to follow the same course. But if England made peace betimes, she might recover Hanover, on restoring her conquests in the French, Spanish, and Dutch colonies.

Similarly, if Turkey refused the mediation of Napoleon, he would in that case help Russia to drive the Turks from Europe--"the city of Constantinople and the province of Roumelia alone excepted."[154]

The naming of the city of Constantinople, which is in Roumelia, betokens a superfluity of prudence. But it helps to confirm the statement of Napoleon's secretary, M. Meneval, that the future of that city led to a decided difference of opinion between the Emperors.

After one of their discussions, Napoleon stayed poring over a map, and finally exclaimed, "Constantinople! Never! It is the empire of the world." Doubtless it was on this subject that Alexander cherished some secret annoyance. Certain it is that, despite all his professions of devotion to Napoleon, he went back to St. Petersburg ill at ease and possessed with a certain awe of the conqueror. For what had he gained?

He received a small slice of Prussian Poland, and the prospect of aggrandizement on the side of Turkey and Sweden, Finland being pointed out as an easy prey. For these future gains he was to close his ports to England and see his commerce, his navy, and his seaboard suffer. It is not surprising that before leaving Tilsit he remarked to Frederick William that "the most onerous condition imposed by Napoleon was common to Russia and Prussia."[155]

This refers to the compulsion put upon them to join Napoleon's Continental System. In the treaty signed with Prussia on July 9th, Napoleon not only wrested away half her lands, but required the immediate closing of all her ports to British vessels. We may also note here that, by the extraordinary negligence of the Prussian negotiator, Marshal Kalckreuth, the subsequent convention as to the evacuation of Prussia by the French troops left open a loophole for its indefinite occupation. Each province or district was to be evacuated when the French requisitions had been satisfied.[156] The exaction of impossible sums would therefore enable the conquerors, quite legally, to keep their locust swarms in that miserable land. And that was the policy pursued for sixteen months.

Why this refinement of cruelty to his former ally? Why not have annexed Prussia outright? Probably there were two reasons against annexation: first, that his army could live on her in a way that would not be possible with his own subjects or allies; second, that the army of occupation would serve as a guarantee both for Russia's good faith and for the absolute exclusion of British goods from Prussia.[157]

This had long been his aim. He now attained it, but only by war that bequeathed a legacy of war, and a peace that was no peace.

Napoleon's behaviour at Tilsit has generally been regarded, at least in England, as prompted by an insane l.u.s.t of power; and the treaty has been judged as if its aim was the domination of the Continent. But another explanation, though less sweeping and attractive, seems more consonant with the facts of the case.

He hoped that, before so mighty a confederacy as was framed at Tilsit, England would bend the knee, give up not only her maritime claims but her colonial conquests, and humbly take rank with Powers that had lived their day. The conqueror who had thrice crumpled up the Hapsburg States, and shattered Prussia in a day, might well believe that the men of Downing Street, expert only in missing opportunities and exasperating their friends, would not dare to defy the forces of united Europe, but would bow before his prowess and grant peace to a weary world. In his letter of July 6th, 1807, to the Czar, he advised the postponement of the final summons to the British Government, because it would "give five months in which the first exasperation will die down in England, and she will have time to understand the immense consequences that would result from so imprudent a struggle."

Neither Napoleon nor Alexander was deaf to generous aspirations. They both desired peace, so that their empires might expand and consolidate. Above all, France was weary of war; and by peace the average Frenchman meant, not respite from Continental strifes that yielded a surfeit of barren glories, but peace with England. The words of Lucchesini, the former Prussian amba.s.sador in Paris, on this subject are worth quoting:

"The war with England was at bottom the only one in which the French public took much interest, since the evils it inflicted on France were felt every moment: nothing was spoken of so decidedly among all cla.s.ses of the people as the wish to have done with that war; and when one spoke of peace at Paris, one always meant peace with England: peace with the others was as indifferent to the public as the victories or the conquests of Bonaparte."[158]

If the French middle cla.s.ses longed for a maritime peace so that coffee and sugar might become reasonably cheap, how much more would their ruler, whose heart was set on colonies and a realm in the Orient? In Poland he had cheered his troops with the thought that they were winning back the French colonial empire; and, as we have seen, he was even then preparing the ground in Persia for a future invasion of India. These plans could only be carried out after a time of peace that should rehabilitate the French navy. Humanitarian sentiment, patriotism, and even the promptings of a wider ambition, therefore bade him strive for a general pacification, such as he seemed to have a.s.sured at Tilsit.

But the means which he adopted were just those that were destined to defeat this aim. Where he sought to intimidate, he only aroused a more stubborn resistance: where he should have allayed national fears, he redoubled them. He did not understand our people: he saw not that, behind our official sluggishness and muddling, there was a quenchless national vitality, which, if directed by a genius, could defy a world-wide combination. If, instead of making secret compacts with the Czar and trampling on Prussia; if, instead of intriguing with the Sultan and the Shah, and thus reawakening our fears respecting Egypt and India, he had called a Congress and submitted all the present disputes to general discussion, there is reason to think that Great Britain would have received his overtures. George III.'s Ministers had favoured the proposal of a Congress when put forward by Austria in the spring;[159] and they would doubtless have welcomed it from Napoleon after Friedland, had they not known of far-reaching plans which rendered peace more risky than open war. This great genius had, in fact, one fatal defect; he had little faith except in outward compulsion; and his superabundant energy of menace against England blighted the hopes of peace which he undoubtedly cherished.

Long before Alexander's offer of mediation was forwarded to London, our Ministers had taken a sudden and desperate resolution. They determined to compel Denmark to join England and Sweden, and to hold the fleet at Copenhagen as a gauge of Danish fidelity.

That momentous resolve was formed on or just before July the 16th, in consequence of news that had arrived from Memel and Tilsit. The exact purport of that news, and the manner of its acquisition, have been one of the puzzles of modern history. But the following facts seem to furnish a solution. Our Foreign Office Records show that our agent at Tilsit, Mr. Mackenzie, who was on confidential terms with General Bennigsen, left post haste for England immediately after the first imperial interview; and the news which he brought, together with reports of the threatening moves of the French on Holstein, clinched the determination of our Government to checkmate the Franco-Russian aims by bringing strong pressure to bear on Denmark. To keep open the mouth of the Baltic was an urgent necessity, otherwise we should lose touch with the Anglo-Swedish forces campaigning against the French near Stralsund.[160] Furthermore, it should be noted that Denmark held the balance in naval affairs. France and her allies now had fifty-nine sail of the line ready for sea: the compact with the Czar would give her twenty-four more; and if Napoleon seized the eighteen Danish and nine Portuguese battleships, his fighting strength would be nearly equal to our own.[161] Canning therefore determined, on July 16th, to compel Denmark to side with us, or at least to observe a neutrality favourable to the British cause; and, to save her honour, he proposed to send an irresistible naval force.

"Denmark's safety," he wrote on July 16th, "is to be found, under the present circ.u.mstances of the world, only in a balance of opposite dangers. For it is not to be disguised that the influence which France has acquired from recent events over the North of Europe, might, unless balanced by the naval power of Great Britain, leave to Denmark no other option than that of compliance with the demands of Bonaparte."[162]

_A balance of opposite dangers!_ In this phrase Canning summed up his policy towards Denmark. Threatened by Napoleon on the land, she was to be threatened by us from the sea; and Canning hoped that these opposite forces would, at least, secure Danish neutrality, without which Sweden must succ.u.mb in her struggle against France. That some compulsion would be needed had long been clear. In fact, the use of compulsion had first been recommended by the Russian and Prussian Governments, which had gone so far as to include in the Treaty of Bartenstein a proposal of common action, along with England, Austria and Sweden, _to compel Denmark to side with the allies against Napoleon_.[163] To this resolve England still clung, despite the defection of the Czar. In truth, his present conduct made the case for the coercion of Denmark infinitely more urgent.

As to the reality of Napoleon's designs on Denmark, there can be no doubt. After his return to France, he wrote from St. Cloud, directing Talleyrand to express his displeasure that Denmark had not fulfilled her _promises_: "Whatever my desire to treat Denmark well, I cannot hinder her suffering from having allowed the Baltic to be violated [by the English expedition to Stralsund]; and, if England refuses Russia's mediation, Denmark must choose either to make war against England, or against me."[164] Whence it is clear that Denmark had given Napoleon grounds for hoping that she would declare the Baltic a _mare clausum_.

The British Government had so far fathomed these designs as to see the urgency of the danger. Accordingly it proposed to Denmark a secret defensive alliance, the chief terms of which were the handing over of the Danish fleet, to be kept as a "sacred pledge" by us till the peace, a subsidy of 100,000 paid to Denmark for that fleet, and the offer of armed a.s.sistance in case she should be attacked by France.

This offer of defensive alliance was repulsed, and the Danish Prince Royal determined to resist even the mighty armada which was now nearing his sh.o.r.es. Towards the close of August, eighty-eight British ships were in the Sound and the Belt; and when the transports from Rugen and Stralsund joined those from Yarmouth, as many as 15,400 troops were at hand, under the command of Lord Cathcart. A landing was effected near Copenhagen, and offers of alliance were again made, including the deposit of the Danish fleet; "but if this offer is rejected now, it cannot be repeated. The captured property, public and private, must then belong to the captors: and the city, when taken, must share the fate of conquered places." The Danes stoutly repelled offers and threats alike: the English batteries thereupon bombarded the city until the gallant defenders capitulated (September 7th). The conditions hastily concluded by our commanders were that the British forces should occupy the citadel and dockyard for six weeks, should take possession of the ships and naval stores, and thereupon evacuate Zealand.

These terms were scrupulously carried out; and at the close of six weeks our forces sailed away with the Danish fleet, including fifteen sail of the line, fifteen frigates, and thirty-one small vessels. This end to the expedition was keenly regretted by Canning. In a lengthy Memorandum he left it on record that he desired, not merely Denmark's fleet, but her alliance. In his view nothing could save Europe but a firm Anglo-Scandinavian league, which would keep open the Baltic and set bounds to the designs of the two Emperors. Only by such an alliance could Sweden be saved from Russia and France. Indeed, foreseeing the danger to Sweden from a French army acting from Zealand as a base, Canning proposed to Gustavus that he should occupy that island, or, failing that, receive succour from a British force on his own sh.o.r.e of the Sound. But both offers were declined. The final efforts made to draw Denmark into our alliance were equally futile, and she kept up hostilities against us for nearly seven years. Thus Canning's scheme of alliance with the Scandinavian States failed.

Britain gained, it is true, a further safeguard against invasion; but our statesman, while blaming the precipitate action of our commanders in insisting solely upon the surrender of the fleet, declared that that action, apart from an Anglo-Danish alliance, was "an act of great injustice."[165]

And as such it has been generally regarded, that is, by those who did not, and could not, know the real state of the case. In one respect our action was unpardonable: it was not the last desperate effort of a long period of struggle: it came after a time of selfish torpor fatal alike to our reputation and the interests of our allies. After protesting their inability to help them, Ministers belied their own words by the energy with which they acted against a small State. And the prevalent opinion found expression in the protests uttered in Parliament that it would have been better to face the whole might of the French, Russian, and Danish navies than to emulate the conduct of those who had overrun and despoiled Switzerland.

Moreover, our action did not benefit Sweden, but just the reverse.

Cathcart's force, that had been helping the Swedes in the defence of their Pomeranian province, was withdrawn in order to strengthen our hands against Copenhagen. Thereupon the gallant Gustavus, overborne by the weight of Marshal Brune's corps, sued for an armistice. It was granted only on the condition that Stralsund should pa.s.s into Brune's hands (August 20th); and the Swedes, unable even to hold Rugen, were forced to give up that island also. Sick in health and weary of a world that his chivalrous instincts scorned, Gustavus withdrew his forces into Sweden. Even there he was menaced. The hostilities which Denmark forthwith commenced against England and Sweden exposed his southern coasts; but he now chose to lean on the valour of his own subjects rather than on the broken reed of British a.s.sistance, and awaited the attacks of the Danes on the west and of the Russians on his province of Finland.

The news from Copenhagen also furnished the Czar with a good excuse for hostilities with England. For such an event he had hitherto been by no means desirous. On his return from Tilsit to St. Petersburg he found the n.o.bility and merchants wholly opposed to a rupture with the Sea Power, the former disdaining to clasp the hand of the conqueror of Friedland, the latter foreseeing ruin from the adoption of the Continental System; and when Napoleon sent Savary on a special mission to the Czar's Court, the Empress-Mother and n.o.bles alike showed their abhorrence of "the executioner of the Duc d'Enghien." In vain were imperial favours lavished on this envoy. He confessed to Napoleon that only the Czar and the new Foreign Minister, Romantzoff, were favourable to France; and it was soon obvious that their ardour for a part.i.tion of Turkey must disturb the warily balancing policy which Napoleon adopted as soon as the Czar's friendship seemed a.s.sured.

The dissolution of this artificial alliance was a task far beyond the powers of British statesmanship. To Alexander's offer of mediation between France and England Canning replied that we desired first to know what were "the just and equitable terms on which France intended to negotiate," and secondly what were the secret articles of the Treaty of Tilsit. That there were such was obvious; for the published treaty made no mention of the Kings of Sardinia and of the two Sicilies, in whom Alexander had taken so deep an interest. But the second request annoyed the Czar; and this feeling was intensified by our action at Copenhagen. Yet, though he p.r.o.nounced it an act of "unheard-of violence," the Russian official notes to our Government were so far rea.s.suring that Lord Castlereagh was able to write to Lord Cathcart (September 22nd): "Russia does not show any disposition to resent or to complain of what we have done at Copenhagen.... The tone of the Russian cabinet has become much more conciliatory to us since they heard of your operations at Copenhagen."[166] It would seem, however, that this double-dealing was prompted by naval considerations. The Czar desired to temporize until his Mediterranean squadron should gain a place of safety and his Baltic ports be encased in ice; but on 27th October (8th November, N.S.) he broke off all communications with us, and adopted the Continental System.

Meanwhile, at the other extremity of Europe, events were transpiring that served as the best excuse for our harshness towards Denmark. Even before our fleet sailed for the Sound, Napoleon was weaving his plans for the destruction of Portugal. It is clear that he designed to strike her first before taking any action against Denmark. During his return journey from Tilsit to Paris, he directed Talleyrand to send orders to Lisbon for the closing of all Portuguese ports against British goods by September the 1st--"in default of which I declare war on Portugal." He also ordered the ma.s.sing of 20,000 French troops at Bayonne in readiness to join the Spanish forces that were to threaten the little kingdom.[167]