treaty was concluded with Prussia, calculated to relieve, in some degree, that unhappy power from the chains which had fettered it since the battle of Jena. Napoleon, vanquished by necessity, and standing in need of a hundred thousand soldiers of the Grand Army for the Peninsular war, was driven to more moderate sentiments. It was stipulated that, for the space of ten years, the Prussian army should not exceed forty thousand men; that Glogau, Stettin, and Cüstrin should be garrisoned by French troops till the entire payment of arrears of contributions of every description; that their garrisons, each four thousand strong, should be maintained and paid solely at the expense of Prussia; that seven military roads, for the use of France and her allies, should traverse the Prussian dominions; and that the arrears of the war-contributions should be reduced to one hundred and forty million francs, or £5,600,000 sterling; but that, at the expiration of forty days after these sums were provided for, the French troops should, with the exception of these fortresses, evacuate the Prussian dominions. To Prussia this evacuation was a source of unspeakable relief, and notwithstanding that the restriction on the army was both humiliating and hurtful, yet the cabinet of Frederick-William had no alternative but submission. They contrived, however, by the skilful change of the soldiers called out into actual service, to elude the most galling part of the obligation, and prepared the means of political resurrection in future times.

5. Napoleon, however, was well aware that, even after these treaties and precautions, he was still exposed to great danger from the renewed hostility of the German states in his

of the Spanish war had already rendered it necessary to withdraw a large part of the Grand Army from the north of Germany; and before winter, not more than a hundred thousand French soldiers would remain to assert the French supremacy in the centre and north of Europe. Impressed with these ideas, the French Emperor used his utmost efforts to bring Alexander into his views regarding Spain, and for this purpose he held out again the deceitful lure of an entire partition of the Turkish empire. So early as February 1808, he had written to the Czar, expressing his desire to settle now in a definitive manner the questions of the East, to admit Austria into a share of the spoil, and to set on foot in concert a gigantic expedition to India, which might finally destroy the English power in Hindostan. Alexander readily fell into the snare. "Ah! what a great man!" exclaimed he: 66 now I see again the ideas of Tilsit. Tell him that I am devoted to him for life; my armies, my empire, are at his disposal. Your master wishes to interest Austria in the dismemberment of the Turkish empire; he is right: It is a wise thought; I at once agree to it. He wishes an expedition to India; I consent to it. I explained the difficulties with which it was attended during our conferences at Tilsit; but he is accustomed to set physical obstacles at naught. But let him not be uneasy; my preparations shall be proportioned to the difficulty." Not content with this, Napoleon resolved to do his utmost to prevail on the Czar to meet him at a town in the north of Germany, where the destinies of the world might be arranged. Such was the ascendant which he had gained over his mind during the negotiations at Tilsit, and such the attractions of the new objects of ambition in Finland and on the Danube, which he had the address to present to his ambition, that Alexander completely fell into his views. Erfurth was the town selected for this purpose, and there a conference was held between the two potentates, almost rivalling that of Tilsit in interest and impor

7. No adequate idea can be formed of the greatness of Napoleon's power, or the almost irresistible sway which he had acquired in northern and central Europe, but by those who witnessed the pomp and deference with which he was surrounded at Tilsit and Erfurth, and four years afterwards at Dresden. Environed by a brilliant cortège of marshals, generals, diplomatists, and staff-officers, he was at the same time the object of obsequious attention to a crowd of princes and inferior potentates, who depended on his breath for their political existence or nominal independence. All the beauty, rank, and distinction of Germany were assembled. Seventy princes or independent sovereigns were in attendance; and literally it might be said, that the monarchs of Europe watched for a favourable sign from the mighty conqueror's chamberlains.

* The attentions of Alexander and Napoleon to each other at Erfurth, though delicate, were got up with so much anxiety, as to convey to the spectators the impression that the intimacy of Tilsit had somewhat declined, and that a feeling of which they were on every occasion so very solicitous to give public demonstration, could not in reality have a very deep foundation. On one occasion Alexander expressed great admiration of a singularly beautiful dressing-case and breakfast set of porcelain and gold in Napoleon's sleeping apartment: they were sent to him as a present on the same evening. At the representation of Edipe on October 3, when the line was repeated,

"L'amitie d'un grand homme est un bienfait des dieux,"

Alexander turned to Napoleon, and presented to him his hand. A few days after, the Czar, when preparing to go into the salle-àmanger to dinner, perceived that he had forgotten his sword. Napoleon immediately unbuckled his own, and presented it to him. "I accept it as a mark of your friendship," replied Alexander: "your Majesty may be well assured I shall never draw it against you." In the midst of all his grandeur, Napoleon had sufficient greatness of soul and true discernment to attempt no concealment of his origin. At dinner one day the conversation turned on the Golden Bull, and the primate of Germany insisted that it had been published in 1409.-"I beg

however, he did deserved homage to the aristocracy of intellect: in one of the assemblies of all the potentates of Europe, he addressed Wieland and Goethe next after the Emperor Alexander, and before any of the corps of kings and princes who were watching for a look. The two Emperors spent the forenoons together, conversing on the public affairs of Europe and the separate plans of administration for their vast dominions; they then rode out in company to a review or inspection of their respective troops, dined alternately with each other, and in the evening went to the same box at the theatre. A brilliant band of the most distinguished French performers had come from Paris to grace the conference, and during a fortnight the theatre of Erfurth, resplendent with illustrious men and beautiful women, beheld the masterpieces of Racine and Corneille performed by the talents of Talma, Saint Pris, Mademoiselles Duchesnois and Bourgoin, besides a host of inferior performers.*

your pardon," observed Napoleon; "when I was a second lieutenant of artillery, I was three years at Valence, and there I had the good fortune to lodge with a learned person, in whose library I learned that and many other valuable details. Nature has given me a memory singularly tenacious of figures." Mademoiselle Bourgoin, whose personal charms were equal to her talents as an actress, attracted the particular notice of the Emperor Alexander; and he inquired of Napoleon if there would be any inconvenience in his forming her personal acquaintance. "None whatever," replied Napoleon, "except that it would be a certain mode of making you thoroughly known to all Paris. The day after to-morrow, at the post hour, the most minute particulars of your visits to her will be despatched: and soon there will not be a statuary in Paris who will not be in a situation to model your person from head to foot."-This hint had the effect of cooling the rising passion of the Russian Emperor, who, with all his admiration for the fair sex, had an extreme apprehension of such a species of notoriety. It was at Erfurth that Napoleon made the memorable observation to Talma on his erroneous view of the character of Nero, in the Britannicus of Racine; viz., that the poet had not represented him as a tyrant in the commencement of his career; and that it was not till love, his ruling passion at the moment, was thwarted, that he became violent, cruel, and oppressive.-LAS Cases, iv. 232; and THIBAUDEAU, vii. 61, 65, 71.

ions, to hurl back to the Seine the tide of Gallic invasion.*

10. The conferences of Erfurth were reduced, after various proposals on both sides had been considered, to a formal treaty on October 12, which was to be kept secret during ten years. By it France recognised Finland, Wallachia, and Moldavia, as integral parts of the Russian empire, and engaged, if negotiations to that effect should be set on foot with the court of Stockholm and the Divan, to abstain from all mediation or interference. England, also, as the price of any pacification, was to recognise the same acquisitions to Russia, which on its side agreed to the whole changes of dynasty effected by Napoleon in the Spanish peninsula. An invitation to peace was to be sent to England on the same conditions of agreeing to the whole Peninsular changes. In the event of war being continued between Russia and Turkey, France was not to interfere, unless Austria made common cause with the Porte, in which case Napoleon was to make common cause with Russia; and if Austria declared war against France, Russia was to attack that power on the side of Galicia. An indemnity for its losses was to be procured for Denmark, and no further partition permitted of Turkey by any power whatever, without the consent of France and Russia. This was the

* "The Emperor Alexander," says Boutourlin, "felt that the alliance concluded at Tilsit, and cemented at Erfurth, as soon as it ceased to be conformable to the interests of Napoleon, would come to an end; and that the grand crisis was approaching which was destined either to consolidate the universal empire which the French Emperor was endeavouring to establish on the Continent, or to break the chains which retained so many Continental states under his rule. Determined never to submit to any condition inconsistent with the honour of his crown, the Emperor of Russia regarded the rupture as near and unavoidable, and thenceforward applied himself silently to organise the immense resources of his states, to resist the danger which was approaching; a danger which promised to be the more terrible that Russia would have to sustain it to all appearance unsupported, against the accumulated forces of the greater part of Europe."BOUTOURLIN, i. 45.

↑ See the articles of this secret treaty, first given in BIGNON, viii. 5, 11.

whole extent of the formal treaty; but verbal conferences between the two Emperors, of equal moment, and to the same general purport, took place. In these the great object of the two potentates was to obtain the consent of each other to their respective projects of aggrandisement at the expense of the lesser states in their vicinity; and their mutual interests or necessities rendered this an easy task. Alexander gave his sanction to the invasion of Spain and Portugal, and the placing of princes of the Napoleon dynasty on the thrones of the Peninsula, as well as to the establishment of Murat in the kingdom of Naples, and the annexation of Tuscany to the French empire. The effects of this consent soon appeared in the accrediting of Russian ambassadors to the courts of these infant sovereigns. On the other hand, Napoleon consented to the uniting of Finland, Moldavia, and Wallachia to the already vast dominions of the Czar, admitted his relation and future brother-in-law, the Grand-duke of Oldenburg, into the Confederation of the Rhine, gave satisfactory explanation in regard to the grand-duchy of Warsaw, and held out to the Emperor of the East the prospect of obtaining aid from France in the attempt to stretch his mighty arms over the Asiatic Continent, and gave a deadly wound to the power of England on the plains of Hindostan. Two different plans for the partition of the Turkish empire were here brought under discussion, as they had been at the previous conferences between Caulaincourt and Romanzoff. The first was the one previously arranged at Tilsit, whereby Russia was to obtain Wallachia, Moldavia, and Bulgaria, as far as the Balkan; the connivance of Austria was to be procured by the cession of Bosnia to the Imperial crown, and Servia as an appanage for one of the archdukes of the house of Hapsburg. France was to obtain Macedonia, Albania, Greece, and the Isles, with Candia. The second plan was much more extensive, and would, if carried into effect, have made a total change in the world. Russia, according to this