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 rear, while engaged with the armies of England and Spain in front in the Peninsula, if he was not well established in the alliance with Russia. It was in the breast of Alexander that the true security for the peace of the Continent beyond the Rhine was to be found. This was more especially the case, as the losses and serious aspect

Im

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. pressed 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: 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

tance. On his route for Germany, the Emperor met large bodies of the Grand Army on their road from the Rhine to the Pyrenean frontier; he addressed them in one of those nervous proclamations which ever bear so strong an impress of his genius, but which, long the heralds of his victories, began now to afford a curious contrast to the disasters he was destined to undergo.* The troops traversed France in the highest spirits, animated by the Emperor's address, magnificently fêted by the municipalities, beneath triumphal arches, and amidst songs of congratulation from their fellow-citizens. Vain illusion! They were marching only to the scene of protracted agony, to whiten with their bones the fields of Spain; to a lengthened conflict, which, ushered in at first by brilliant victories, was destined in the end to thin their ranks by its carnage, and overwhelm their honour by its disasters.

6. The Emperor Alexander set out before Napoleon, and on his way paid a melancholy visit to the King and Queen of Prussia at Königsberg. Proceeding on his route, he rapidly traversed the Prussian states, received with marked gratification the honours paid to him by the French troops; took Marshal Lannes with him in his own carriage, and expressed publicly to the French officers the satisfaction

"Soldiers! after having triumphed on the banks of the Danube and the Vistula, you have traversed Germany by forced marches. I now make you traverse France without giving you a moment's repose. Soldiers! I have need of you. The hideous presence of the leopard [the arms of England] defiles the continent of Spain and Portugal. Let it fly dismayed at your appearance! Let us carry our arms to the columns of Hercules; there also we have outrages to avenge. Soldiers! you have surpassed the renown of all modern armies; but have you yet equalled the glory of the Roman legions, which in the same campaign frequently triumphed on the Rhine and the Euphrates, in Illyria and on the Tagus? A long peace, enduring prosperity, shall be the reward of your labours. A true Frenchman should never taste of repose till the seas are enfranchised from their oppressors. Soldiers all that you have already done, all that you will yet do for the happiness of the French people, will be eternally engraved in my heart."THIBAUDEAU, vii. 50.

which he felt "at finding himself among such brave men, such renowned warriors." Proceeding in this manner, and received, wherever he passed, with the utmost distinction by the French authorities, he arrived at Weimar late on the evening of the 26th September, and found everything prepared for his reception by his brother the Grandduke Constantine, and the French ambassador Caulaincourt, who had arrived two days before. Meanwhile Napoleon, in more than regal state, was leisurely advancing from Paris, surrounded by the sovereigns, princes, and ministers of Germany, enjoying the secret satisfaction of exhibiting the Russian Autocrat awaiting his arrival in an inconsiderable town of Germany, above five hundred miles distant from the nearest point of his dominions. At ten o'clock on the morning of the 27th, he made his public entry into Erfurth, and, after reviewing the troops, proceeded on horseback to meet Alexander, who had left Weimar at the same hour to approach his august ally. The two sovereigns met on the highway, between the villages of Ottsted and Nora, near a remarkable pear-tree, which is still to be seen on the road-side.† Alexander immediately descended from his carriage; Napoleon alighted from his horse, and the two monarchs embraced with the strongest marks of mutual esteem. The French Emperor was decorated with the order of St Andrew of Russia, the Russian bore the grand badge of the Legion of Honour on his bosom. Magnificent presents were interchanged on both parts; side by side the two Emperors rode into Erfurth, amidst the roar of artillery, the cheers of multitudes, and the thundering acclamations of ten thousand soldiers. When they arrived at the hotel prepared for the Czar, the monarchs again embraced, and ascended the stairs armin -arm. Napoleon requested Alexander to give the watchword of the day; he complied, and it was

"Er

The place between Ottsted and Nora, where this remarkable meeting took place, is still shown to travellers.-Personal Observation.

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. Deter

mined 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.

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 obtain. ing 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