LV. 1808. CHAP. paration for it would be found in the augmentation of the strength of the empire in Finland and on the Danube, which was likely to follow an adherence to his present engagements. Thus, while both these great potentates were lavishing professions of friendship and regard on each other, they were in reality nursing the feelings destined to lead to inextinguishable hostility in their hearts. Napoleon returned, almost blinded by Russian flattery, to Paris, to prepare, in the subjugation of the Peninsula, the means of arraying the countless host which he was afterwards to lead to the Kremlin ; and Alexander, loaded with French presents, remeasured his steps to Muscovy to organise the force destined, after adding Finland and the principalities on the Danube to his dominions, to hurl back to the Seine the tide of Gallic invasion.1 1 Thib. vii. 76, 78. Boutour. i. 32, 33, 45. Jom. iii. 86. Thiers, ix. 304, 306. 10. conferences 1* The conferences of Erfurth were reduced, after various Tenor of the proposals on both sides had been considered, to a formal held there. 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 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. LV. 1808. the whole Peninsular changes. In the event of war being CHAP. 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 whole extent of the formal treaty ; but verbal conferences between the two Emperors, of still greater 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 give 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 con * See the articles of this secret treaty, first given in BIGNON, viii. 5, 11. 1808. The CHAP. ferences between Caulaincourt and Romanzoff. LV. 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 scheme, was to cross the Balkan, obtain Roumelia, with Constantinople, the Dardanelles, and portions of Asia Minor, so as to secure to her the command of the Straits. Austria was to be gratified with Macedonia, except Salonica, in addition to Bosnia and Servia; and France, besides Albania, Greece, Cyprus, and the isles of the Archipelago, was to be gifted with Egypt, while the Turks were to be banished to the eastern extremity of their empire on the Euphrates. Las Cas, iv. But these vast projects of spoliation came to nothing, Thiers, viii. from the impossibility of coming to an understanding as to which party was to obtain possession of Constantinople city, as Napoleon justly observed, in the finest position in the world, and itself worth a kingdom.1 1 Bout. ii. 34, 35. Hard. x. 234, 240. 231, 232. 445, 447; and ix. 306, 314, and 340. 11. 1 * In return for so many concessions, he procured from Concessions Alexander a promise to aid France with a considerable Napoleon to force in the event of a war with Austria, and conceded Russia and to his earnest entreaties a considerable relaxation of the made by Prussia. 2 Ante, ch. lv. § 4. oppressive burdens under which Prussia had so long groaned. The arrear of contributions, fixed at 140,000,000 francs, by the treaty of 8th September, was reduced to 125,000,000; and a more important relaxation took "Examinant dans leur detail," says Thiers," les projets qui avaient tant agité l'esprit d'Alexandre et de M. de Romanyoff, Napoleon discuta successivement les divers plans de partage proposés, et pour amener plus facilement l'empereur Alexandre a ses vues, se montra, ce qu'il avait toujours été, péremptoire sur la possession des détroits, et ne laissa pas la moindre espérance d'une concession à ce sujet."-THIERS, ix. 308. LV. 1808. place in the form of payment, by which, in consideration CHAP. of 50,000,000 of francs received by Daru on the 5th November, and 70,000,000 more for which promissory notes were granted, the royal revenues were to be restored to the Prussian authorities; and the French troops, which were urgently required in the Peninsula, were, with the exception of the garrisons of Stettin, Cüstrin, and Glogau, entirely to evacuate the Prussian dominions. Thus had Napoleon the address to make his disasters in Spain, which imperatively required the removal of the French troops from the north of Germany, the means of gratifying Hard, Alexander by an apparent concession to his wishes, and Bout. i. 34, diminishing the irritation of Prussia, which, in the event Cas. iv. 232, of hostilities with Austria, might prove, even after all its ix. 331. disasters, a formidable enemy in his rear.1 1 239, 245. 35. Las 233. Thiers, ences con Napoleon's Two other more delicate subjects of discussion were, 12. after being touched on, averted rather than settled, by the Their differdiplomatic skill of the two Emperors, and left the seeds cerning of inextinguishable future jealousy in their minds. The marriage, first was a proposal by Napoleon, who already had resolved and Turkey. to divorce Josephine, for the hand of the Grand-duchess Catherine Paulowna, the favourite sister of the Emperor : an overture which the astute Russian evaded by referring the matter, not to the reigning Empress, whose ambition its brilliancy might have dazzled, but to the Empressdowager, whose firmness of character was proof against the seduction. She hastened to terminate the dangerous negotiation by alleging religious scruples, and shortly after marrying her daughter to Prince Oldenburg. The second was, an amicable but resolute contest for the possession of Constantinople. Napoleon, as he himself has told us,† * In reply to Napoleon, says Thiers, "Alexandre ajouta que sans doute il parviendrait à bien disposer sa sœur, la grande-duchesse Catherine, mais qu'il ne saurait se flatter d'entraîner sa mère, et que la violenter par le deploiement de son autorité impériale serait toujours au-dessus de ses forces; que tel était l'unique motif pour lequel il avait gardé autant de reserve sur ce sujet : que si, du reste, il pouvait entrer dans les intentions de Napoleon qu'il fit une pareille tentative, il la ferait, mais sans repondre du succès."-THIERS, ix. 338. + “We talked,” says Napoleon," of the affairs of Turkey at Erfurth. Alex LV. 1808. 76, 78. CHAP. could not bring his mind to cede to his rival the Queen of the East Alexander, with justice, regarded it as the outlet to his southern dominions-the back-door of his empire, and was earnest that its key should be placed in his hands. Fearful of interrupting their present harmony by any such irreconcilable theme of discord, the 1Thib. vii. subject was, by common consent, laid aside the City of Constantine was suffered to remain in the hands of the Turks, who, in every other respect, were abandoned to Jom. iii. 86. Muscovite ambition." But the tender point had been Las Cas. iv. touched the chord which jarred in the hearts of each O'Meara, i. struck; and the inestimable prize formed the secret subvii. 425. ject of hostility, which, as much as jealousy of English 332, 339. power, afterwards led the French legions to Borodino and the Kremlin.1 Hard. x. 239, 245. Bout. i. 34, 35. 232, 233. 282. Bign. Thiers, ix. 13. Prussia, and clared King Nov. 5. Dec. 3. Immediately after the conference at Erfurth, a formal Treaty with treaty was concluded with Prussia, by which the alleviMurat de- ations to her miseries provided for by the arbiters of of Naples. Europe were reduced to writing; and in a short time the evacuation of the Prussian states, with the exception of the three retained fortresses, took place. Restored by this removal, and the recovery of the right of collecting his revenue, in a certain degree to his rank of an independent sovereign, Frederick-William, in company with his beautiful Queen, returned to the capital, and made his public entry into Berlin amidst the transports and tears of his subjects. The results of the secret conference at Erfurth soon developed themselves. Murat was declared by Napoleon King of Naples and Sicily; and, leaving the theatre of his sanguinary measures and rash hostility in the Peninsula, hastened to take possession of his newly acquired dominions. He was received with universal joy by the inconstant people, who seemed equally delighted with any sovereign sent to them by the great northern ander was very desirous that I should agree to his obtaining possession of Constantinople, but I could never bring my mind to consent to it. It is the noblest harbour in the world, is placed in the finest situation, and is itself worth a kingdom."-LAS CASES, iv. 231; O'MEARA, i. 362; and THIERS, ix. 308. |