But, that Frederick William, from whom he had hoped so much, to whom he was on the point of advancing a great subsidy, should now fall away, should talk of peace with Napoleon and claim Hanover, should forbid an invasion of Holland and request the British forces to evacuate North Germany--this was a blow to George III., to our military prestige, and to the now tottering Ministry. How could he face the Opposition, already wellnigh triumphant in the sad Melville business, with a King"s Speech in which this was the chief news?
Losing hope, he lost all hold on life: he sank rapidly: in the last hours his thoughts wandered away to Berlin and Lord Harrowby. "What is the wind?" he asked. "East; that will do; that will bring him fast,"
he murmured. And, on January 23rd, about half an hour before he breathed his last, the servant heard him say: "My country: oh my country."[61]
Thus sank to rest, amidst a horror of great darkness, the statesman whose noon had been calm and glorious. Only a superficial reading of his career can represent him as eager for war and a foe to popular progress. His best friends knew full well his pride in the great financial achievements of 1784-6, his resolute clinging to peace in 1792, and his longing for a pacification in 1796, 1797, and 1800, provided it could be gained without detriment to our allies and to the vital interests of Britain. His defence lies buried amidst the doc.u.ments of our Record Office, and has not yet fully seen the light.
For he was a reserved man, the warmth of whose nature blossomed forth only to a few friends, or on such occasions as his inspired speech on the emanc.i.p.ation of slaves. To outsiders he had more than the usual fund of English coldness: he wrote no memoirs, he left few letters, he had scant means of influencing public opinion; and he viewed with lofty disdain the French clamour that it was he who made and kept up the war. "I know it," he said; "the Jacobins cry louder than we can, and make themselves heard."[62] He was, in fact, a typical champion of our rather dumb and stolid race, that plods along to the end of the appointed stage, scarcely heeding the cloud of stinging flies. Both the people and its champion were ill fitted to cope with Napoleon.
None of our statesmen had the Latin tact and the histrionic gifts needful to fathom his guile, to arouse the public opinion of Europe against him, or to expose his double-dealing.
But Pitt was unfortunate above all of them. It was his fate to begin his career in an age of mediocrities and to finish it in an almost single combat with the giant. He was no match for Napoleon. The Coalition, which the Czar and he did so much to form, was a house of cards that fell at the conqueror"s first touch; and the Prussian alliance now proved to be a broken reed. His notions of strategy were puerile. The French Emperor was not to be beaten by small forces tapping at his outworks; and Austria might reasonably complain that our neglect to attack the rear of the Grand Army in Flanders exposed her to the full force of its onset on the Danube. But though his genius pales before the fiery comet of Napoleon, it shines with a clear and steady radiance when viewed beside that of the Continental statesmen of his age. They flickered for a brief s.p.a.ce and set. His was the rare virtue of dauntless courage and unswerving constancy. By the side of their wavering groups he stands forth like an Abdiel:
"Unshaken, unseduced, unterrified, His loyalty he kept, his love, his zeal: Nor number nor example with him wrought To swerve from truth or change his constant mind, Though single."
While English statesmanship was essaying the task of forming a Coalition Ministry under Fox and Grenville, Napoleon with untiring activity was consolidating his position in Germany, Italy, and France.
In Germany he allied his family by marriage with the now royal Houses of Bavaria and Wurtemberg. He chased the Bourbons of Naples from their Continental domains. In France he found means to mitigate a severe financial crisis, and to strengthen his throne by a new order of hereditary n.o.bility. In a word, he became the new Charlemagne.
The exaltation of the South German dynasties had long been a favourite project with Napoleon, who saw in the hatred of the House of Bavaria for Austria a sure basis for spreading French influence into the heart of Germany. Not long after the battle of Austerlitz, the Elector of Bavaria, while out shooting, received from a French courier a letter directed to "Sa Majeste _le Roi_ de Baviere et de Suabe."[63] This letter was despatched six days after a formal request was sent through Duroc, that the Elector would give his daughter Augusta in marriage to Eugene Beauharnais. The affair had been mooted in October: it was clinched by the victory of Austerlitz; and after Napoleon"s arrival at Munich on the last day of the year, the final details were arranged.
The bridegroom was informed of it in the following laconic style: "I have arrived at Munich. I have arranged your marriage with the Princess Augusta. It has been announced. This morning the princess visited me, and I spoke with her for a long time. She is very pretty.
You will find herewith her portrait on a cup; but she is much better looking." The wedding took place at Munich as soon as the bridegroom could cross the Alps; and Napoleon delayed his departure for France in order to witness the ceremony which linked him with an old reigning family. At the same time he arranged a match between Jerome Bonaparte and Princess Catherine of Wurtemberg. This was less expeditious, partly because, in the case of a Bonaparte, Napoleon judged it needful to sound the measure of his obedience. But Jerome had been broken in: he had thrown over Miss Paterson, and, after a delay of a year and a half, obeyed his brother"s behests, and strengthened the ties connecting Swabia with France. A third alliance was cemented by the marriage of the heir to the Grand Duchy of Baden with Stephanie de Beauharnais, niece of Josephine.
In the early part of 1806 Napoleon might flatter himself with his brilliant success as a match-maker. Yet, after all, he was less concerned with the affairs of Hymen than with those of Mars and Mercury. He longed to be at Paris for the settlement of finances; and he burned to hear of the expulsion of the Bourbons from Naples. For this last he had already sent forth his imperious mandates from Vienna; and, after a brief sojourn at the Swabian capitals, he set out for Paris, where he arrived incognito at midnight of January 26th.
During his absence of one hundred and twenty-five days he had captured or destroyed two armies, stricken a mighty coalition to the heart, shattered the Hapsburg Power, and revolutionized the Germanic system by establishing two Napoleonic kingdoms in its midst.
Yet, as if nothing had been done, and all his hopes and thoughts lay in the future, he summoned his financial advisers to a council for eight o"clock in the morning. Scarcely did he deign to notice their congratulations on his triumphs. "We have," he said, "to deal with more serious questions: it seems that the greatest dangers of the State were not in Austria: let us hear the report of the Minister of the Treasury." It then appeared that Barbe-Marbois had been concerned in risky financial concerns with the Court of Spain, through a man named Ouvrard. The Minister therefore was promptly dismissed, and Mollien then and there received his post. The new Minister states in his memoirs that the money, which had sufficed to carry the French armies from the English Channel to the Rhine, had been raised on extravagant terms, largely on loans on the national domains. In fact, it had been an open question whether victory would come promptly enough to avert a wholesale crash at Paris.
So bad were the finances that, though 40,000,000 francs were poured every year into France as subsidies from Italy and Spain, yet loans of 120,000,000 francs had been incurred in order to meet current expenses.[64] It would exceed the limits of our s.p.a.ce to describe by what forceful means Napoleon restored the financial equilibrium and a.s.suaged the commercial crisis resulting from the war with England.
Mollien soon had reason to know that, so far from avoiding Continental wars, the Emperor thenceforth seemed almost to provoke them, and that the motto--_War must support war_--fell far short of the truth.
Napoleon"s wars, always excepting his war with England, supported the burdens of an armed peace. In this respect his easy and gainful triumph over Austria was a disaster for France and Europe. It beckoned him on to Jena and Tilsit.
While reducing his finances to order and newspaper editors to servility, the conqueror received news of the triumph of his arms in Southern Italy. There the Bourbons of Naples had mortally offended him. After concluding a convention for the peaceable withdrawal of St.
Cyr"s corps and the strict observance of neutrality by the kingdom of Naples, Ferdinand IV. and his Queen Caroline welcomed the arrival at their capital of an Anglo-Russian force of 20,000 men, and intrusted the command of these and of the Neapolitan troops to General Lacy.[65]
This force, it is true, did little except weaken the northward march of Ma.s.sena; but the violation of neutrality by the Bourbons galled Napoleon. At Vienna he refused to listen to the timid pleading of the Hapsburgs on their behalf, and as soon as peace was signed at Pressburg he put forth a bulletin stating that St. Cyr was marching on Naples to hurl from the throne that guilty woman who had so flagrantly violated all that is sacred among men. France would fight for thirty years rather than pardon her atrocious act of perfidy: the Queen of Naples had ceased to reign: let her go to London and form a committee of sympathetic ink with Drake, Spencer-Smith, Taylor, and Wickham.
This diatribe was not the first occasion on which the conqueror had proved that he was no gentleman. In his brutal letter of January 2nd, 1805, to Queen Caroline, he told her that, if she was the cause of another war, she and her children would beg their bread all through Europe. That and similar outbursts afford some excuse for the conduct of the Bourbons in the autumn of 1805. They infringed the neutrality which their amba.s.sador had engaged to observe: but it is to be remembered that Napoleon"s invasion of the Neapolitan States in 1803 was a gross violation of international law, which the French Foreign Office sought to cloak by fabricating two secret articles of the Treaty of Amiens.[66] And though troth should doubtless be kept, even with a law-breaker, yet its violation becomes venial when the latter adopts the tone of a bully. For the present he triumphed. Joseph Bonaparte invaded Naples in force, and on January 13th the King, Queen, and Court set sail for Palermo. The Anglo-Russian divisions re-embarked and sailed away for Malta and Corfu. One of the Neapolitan strongholds, Gaeta, held out till the middle of July. Elsewhere the Bourbon troops gave little trouble.
The conquest of Naples enabled Napoleon to extend his experiment of a federation of Bonapartist Kings. He announced to Miot de Melito, now appointed one of Joseph"s administrators, his intentions in an interview at the Tuileries on January 28th. Joseph was to be King of Naples, if he accepted the honour quickly. If not, the Emperor would adopt a son, as in the case of Eugene, and make him King.--"I don"t need a wife to have an heir. It is by my pen that I get children."--But Joseph must also show himself worthy of the honour.
Let him despise fatigue, get wounded, break a leg.
"Look at me. The recent campaign, agitation, and movement have made me fat. I believe that if all the kings coalesced against me, I should get a quite ridiculous stomach.... You have heard my words. I can no longer have relatives in obscurity. Those who will not rise with me, shall no longer be of my family. I am making a family of kings attached to my federative system."[67]
The threat having had its effect, Joseph was proclaimed King of Naples by a decree of Napoleon. "Keep a firm hand: I only ask one thing of you: be entirely the master there."[68] Such was the advice given to his amiable brother, who after enjoying a military promenade southwards was charged to undertake the conquest of Sicily. It mattered little that the overthrow of the Neapolitan Bourbons offended the Czar, who had undertaken the protection of that House.
As though intent on browbeating Alexander by an exhibition of his power, Napoleon lavished Italian t.i.tles on his Marshals and statesmen.
Talleyrand became Prince of Benevento; and Bernadotte, Prince of Ponte-Corvo (two Papal enclaves in Neapolitan soil). To these and other t.i.tles were attached large domains (not divisible at death), which enabled his paladins and their successors to support their new dignities with pomp and splendour; especially was this so with the two t.i.tles which his bargains with Prussia and Bavaria enabled him to bestow. Thanks to the complaisance of their Kings, the Grand Duchy of Berg and Cleves was granted to Murat, while the energetic and trusty Berthier was rewarded with the Princ.i.p.ality of Neufchatel and a truly princely fortune.[69]
Thus was founded the Napoleonic n.o.bility; and thus was fulfilled Mme.
de Stael"s prophecy that the priests and n.o.bles would be the _caryatides_ of the future throne. The change was brought about skilfully. It took place when pride in Napoleon"s exploits was at its height, and when the "Gazette de France" a.s.serted:
"France is henceforth the arbitress of Europe.... Civilization would have perished in Europe, if forth from the ruins there had not arisen one of these men before whom the world keeps silence, and to whom Providence seems to intrust its destinies."[70]
This adulation, which recalls that of the Court of Augustus or Tiberius, gives the measure of French thought. In truth, Napoleon showed profound insight into human nature when he judged the hatred of an order of n.o.bility to be a mere pa.s.sing spasm of revolutionary fever; and he evinced equal good sense in restoring that order through the chiefs of the one truly popular inst.i.tution in France, the army.
Besides, the new t.i.tles were not taken from French domains, which would have revived the idea of feudal dependence in France: they were the fruit of Napoleon"s great victory; and the sound of distant names like Benevento, Berg, and Dalmatia skilfully flattered the pride of _la grande nation_.
It is now time to return to the affairs of Prussia and to point out the chief stages in her downward course. On January 3rd, 1806, an important State Council was held at Berlin in order to decide on certain modifications to the Schonbrunn Treaty with Napoleon. The chief change resolved on was as follows: Instead of the cessions of territory being immediate and absolute, as proposed by Napoleon, they were not to take effect before the general peace. Until that took place, Frederick William resolved to occupy Hanover provisionally, meanwhile answering to France for the tranquillity of the north of Germany.[71] The Prussian Government therefore gave strong hints that the presence of a British force there was objectionable, and the troops were withdrawn.[72]
Napoleon was to be less pliable. And yet Haugwitz a.s.sured the Prussian King and council that he had looked Napoleon through and through, and had discerned an unexpressed wish to deal easily with Prussia. As to his acceptance of these changes in the Schonbrunn Treaty, Haugwitz felt no doubt whatever, at least so his foe, Hardenberg, states. But the Prussian Ministers were now proposing, not the offensive and defensive treaty of alliance that Napoleon required, but rather a mediation for peace between France and England. They were, in fact, striving to steer halfway between Napoleon and George III.--and gain Hanover. Verily, here was a belief in half measures pa.s.sing that of women.
The envoy despatched to a.s.sure Napoleon"s a.s.sent to these new conditions was the very man who had quailed before the Emperor at Schonbrunn. Count Haugwitz set out on January 14th for Munich and thence for Paris; but long before any definite news was received from him, the Court of Berlin decided, on the strength of a few oily compliments from the French amba.s.sador, Laforest, to regard the acceptance of Napoleon as fully a.s.sured. Accordingly, on January 24th, the Government resolved to place the Prussian army on a peace-footing and recall the troops from Franconia, as a daily saving of 100,000 thalers might thereby be effected. Never was there a greater act of extravagance. As soon as the retreat and demobilizing of the Prussian forces was announced, the French troops in Bavaria and Franconia began to press forward, while others poured across the Rhine. Affecting to ignore these threatening moves, the Prussian Court strove peaceably to acquire Hanover by secretly offering George III. a re-arrangement of territories, whereby the Hanoverian lands east of the Weser, along with a few districts west of Hameln and Nienburg, should pa.s.s to Prussia. Frederick William proposed to keep Minden and Ravensburg, but to cede East Frisia and all the rest of his Westphalian possessions to King George, who would retain the electoral dignity for these new lands.[73] The only reply that our ruler deigned to this offer was that he trusted:
"His Prussian Majesty will follow the honourable dictates of his own heart, and will demonstrate to the world that he will not set the dreadful example of indemnifying himself at the expense of a third party, whose sentiments and conduct towards him and his subjects have been uniformly friendly and pacifick."[74]
But by the close of February this appeal fell on deaf ears. Frederick William had decided to comply with Napoleon"s terms and was about to take formal possession of Hanover.
The conqueror was far from taking that easy view of the changes made in the Schonbrunn Treaty which the discerning Haugwitz had trustfully expected. At first, every effort was made by Talleyrand to delay his interview with the Emperor, evidently in the hope that the subtle flattery of Laforest at Berlin would lead to the demobilization of the Prussian forces. This fatal step was known at Paris before February 6th, when Haugwitz was received by the Emperor; and the knowledge that Prussia was at his mercy decided the conqueror"s tone. He began by some wheedling words as to the ability shown by Haugwitz in the Schonbrunn negotiation:
"If anyone but myself had treated with you I should have thought him bought over by you; but, let me confess to you, the treaty was due to your talents and merit. You were in my eyes the first statesman in Europe, and covered yourself with immortal glory."
Before that interview, forsooth, he had decided to make war on Prussia; and only Haugwitz had induced him to offer her peace and the gift of Hanover. Why, then, had that treaty been so criticised at Berlin? Why had the French amba.s.sador been slighted? Why was Hardenberg high in favour? Why had not the King dismissed that tool of England? Here the envoy strove to stem the rising torrent of the Emperor"s wrath; his words were at once swept aside; and the deluge flowed on. As Prussia had not ratified the treaty pure and simple, she was in a state of war with France; for she still had Russian and English troops on her soil. Here again Haugwitz observed that those forces were withdrawing, and that the Prussians were entering Hanover in force. The storm burst forth anew. What right had Prussia thus to carry into effect a treaty which she had not ratified? If her forces entered Hanover, his troops should forthwith occupy Ansbach, Cleves, and Neufchatel: if Frederick William meant to have Hanover, he should pay dearly for it. But he would allow Haugwitz to see Talleyrand, so as to prevent an immediate war.[75]
The calm of the Foreign Minister was as dangerous as the bl.u.s.ter of the Emperor. Talleyrand was no friend to Prussia. He had long known Napoleon"s determination to press on a war between England and Prussia, and he lent himself to the plan of undermining the Hohenzollerns. The scales now fell from the envoy"s eyes. He saw that his country stood friendless before an exacting creditor, who now claimed further sacrifices--or Prussia"s life-blood. The Emperor"s threats were partly fict.i.tious; and when Haugwitz was thoroughly frightened and ready to concede almost anything, Napoleon came to the real point at issue, and demanded that the whole of the German coast-line on the North Sea should be closed to English commerce. With this stringent clause superadded, Hanover was now handed over to Prussia. Never was a Greek gift more skilfully offered. The present of Hanover on those terms implied for the recipient Russia"s disapproval and the hostility of England.[76]
This was the news brought by Haugwitz to Berlin. Frederick William was now on the horns of the very dilemma which he had sought to avoid.
Either he must accept Napoleon"s terms, or defy the conqueror to almost single combat. The irony of his position was now painfully apparent. In his longing for peace and retrenchment he had dismissed his would-be allies, and had sent his own soldiers grumbling to their homes. Moreover, he was tied by his previous action. If he accepted peace from Napoleon at Christmas, when 300,000 men could have disputed the victor"s laurels, how much more must he accept it now! He not only gave way on this point: he even complied with Napoleon"s wishes by keeping Hardenberg at a distance. He did not dismiss him--the friendship of the spirited Queen Louisa forbade that: but Hardenberg yielded up to Haugwitz the guidance of foreign affairs, and was granted unlimited leave of absence.
Popular feeling was deeply moved by this craven compliance with French behests. The officers of the Berlin garrison serenaded the patriotic statesman, while Haugwitz twice had his windows smashed. Public opinion, it is true, counted for little in Prussia. The rigorous separation of cla.s.ses, the absence of popular education, the complete subjection of the journals to Government, and the mutual jealousy of soldiers and civilians, prevented any general expression of opinion in that almost feudal society.
But when the people of Ansbach piteously begged not to be handed over to Bavaria, and forthwith saw their land occupied by the French before Prussia had ratified the cession of that princ.i.p.ality; when the North Germans found that the gain of Hanover by Prussia was at the price of war with England and the ruin of their commerce; when it was seen that Frederick William and Haugwitz had clipped the wings of the Prussian eagle till it shunned a fight with the Gallic c.o.c.k, a feeling of shame and indignation arose which proved that the limits of endurance had been reached. Observers saw that, after all, the old German feeling was not dead; it was only torpid; and forces were beginning to work which threatened ruin to the Hohenzollerns if they again tarnished the national honour.[77]
Meanwhile the first overtures for peace were exchanged between Paris, London, and St. Petersburg. In the spring of 1806 there seemed some ground for hope that Europe might find repose, at least on land, after fourteen years of almost constant war. France was no longer Jacobinical. Under Napoleon she had quickly fallen into line with the monarchical States, and the questions now at stake merely related to boundaries and the balance of power. The bellicose ardour of the Czar had melted away at Austerlitz. The seizure of Hanover by Prussia moved him but little, and he sought to compose the resulting strife. As for the other Powers, they were either helpless or torpid. The King of Sweden was venting his spleen upon Prussia. Italy, South Germany, Holland, and Spain were at Napoleon"s beck; and the policy of England under the new Grenville-Fox Ministry inclined strongly towards peace.
There seemed, then, every chance of founding the supremacy of France upon lasting foundations, if the claims of Britain and Austria received reasonable satisfaction. Napoleon also seems to have wanted peace for the consolidation of his power in Europe and the extension of his colonies and commerce. As at the close of all his land campaigns, his thoughts turned to the East, and on January 31st, 1806, he issued orders to Decres which, far from showing any despair as to the French navy, foreshadowed a vigorous naval and colonial policy; while his moves on the Dalmatian coast, and the despatch of Sebastiani on a mission to the Porte, revealed the magnetic attraction which the Levant still had for him.
A peculiar interest therefore attaches to the negotiations for peace in 1806, especially as they were pushed on by that generous orator, Fox, who had so long pleaded for a good understanding with France. On February 20th, 1806, he disclosed to Talleyrand the details of a supposed plot for the murder of the French Emperor, which some person had proposed to him, an offer which he rejected with horror, at the same time ordering the man to be expelled from the kingdom. It is more than probable that the whole thing was got up by the French police as a test of the esteem which Fox had always expressed for Bonaparte.
The experiment having turned out well, Talleyrand a.s.sured Fox of the pacific desires of the French Emperor as recently stated to the Corps Legislatif, namely, that peace could be had on the terms of the Treaty of Amiens. Fox at once clasped the outstretched hand, but stated that the negotiations must be in concert with Russia, and the treaty such as our allies could honourably accept. To this Talleyrand, on April 1st, gave a partial a.s.sent, adding that Napoleon was convinced that the rupture of the Peace of Amiens was due solely to the refusal of France to grant a treaty of commerce. France and England could now come to satisfactory terms, if England would be content with the sovereignty of the seas, and not interfere with Continental affairs.[78] France desired, not a truce, but a durable peace.
To this Fox a.s.sented, but traversed the French claim that Russia"s partic.i.p.ation would imply her mediation. Peace could only come from an honourable understanding between all the Powers actually at war.
Talleyrand denied that Russia was at war with France, as the Third Coalition had lapsed; but Fox held his ground, and declared there must be peace with England _and Russia_, or not at all: otherwise France would be seen to aim at "excluding us from any connection with the Continental Powers of Europe."[79]
Such a beginning was disappointing: it showed that Napoleon and Talleyrand were intent on sowing distrust between England and Russia, who were mutually pledged not to make peace separately; and for a time all overtures ceased between London and Paris, until it was known that a Russian envoy was going to Paris. Hitherto the French Foreign Office had won brilliant successes by skilfully separating and embittering allies. But now it seemed that their tactics were foiled. Two firm and trusty allies yet remained, Britain and Russia. To Czartoryski our Foreign Minister had expressed his desire that the former offensive alliance should now take a solely defensive character: "If we cannot reduce the enormous power of France, it will always be something to stop its progress." To these opinions the Russian Minister gave a cordial a.s.sent, and despatched a special envoy to London to concert terms of peace along with the British Ministry, while Oubril, "a safe man on whose prudence and principles the two allied Courts may safely rely," was despatched to Vienna and Paris.[80]
Oubril proceeded to Vienna, where he had long discussions with the British and French amba.s.sadors: Fox also requested that Lord Yarmouth, one of the many hundreds of Englishmen still kept under restraint in France, might have his freedom and repair at once to Paris for a preliminary discussion with Talleyrand. The request being granted, the prisoner left the depot at Verdun, and, early in June, saw that Minister in his first flush of pride at the new t.i.tle of Prince of Benevento. At that time Paris was intoxicated with Napoleon"s glory.
The French were lords of Franconia, whence they levied heavy exactions: in Italy they defied the Pope"s authority.[81] They were firmly installed at Ancona, despite repeated protests of Pius VII.
King Joseph with an army of 45,000 men was planning the expulsion of the Bourbons from Sicily. And in these early days of June, Louis Bonaparte was declared King of Holland.
Yet Talleyrand was not so dazzled by this splendour as to slight the idea of peace with England; and when Lord Yarmouth stated that George III. would above all things require the restoration of Hanover, the Minister, after a delay in which he consulted his master, stated that that would make no difficulty. As to the other questions, namely, Sicily and the maintenance of the Turkish Empire, he replied: "You hold Sicily, we do not ask it of you: if we possessed it, it might much increase our difficulties"; and as regards Turkey he advised that England should speedily gain the guarantee of its integrity from France--"for much is being prepared, but nothing is yet done." After reporting these views at Downing Street, Lord Yarmouth returned to Paris for further discussions, with the general understanding that the principle of _uti possidetis_ should form their basis--except as regards Hanover. He now was informed by Talleyrand that the negotiations with Russia were to be kept separate, and that Napoleon had other views about Sicily, as he looked on its conquest as necessary for Joseph"s security on the mainland.
Surprised at this change, our envoy stated that he could not discuss any terms of peace in which Sicily was not kept for the Bourbons; whereupon Talleyrand replied that things were altered, and that we ought to be content with regaining Hanover from Prussia and keeping Malta and the Cape of Good Hope. On Lord Yarmouth declining to proceed further until the French claims to Sicily were renounced, the offer of the Hanse Towns (Lubeck, Hamburg, and Bremen) was made for his Sicilian Majesty; and on the refusal of that bait, Dalmatia, Ragusa, and Albania were proposed.
As Napoleon had offered to guarantee the integrity of the Turkish Empire, Lord Yarmouth showed some indignation at a proposal which would have begun its part.i.tion; and, but for the expected arrival of Oubril, would have broken off the negotiation. On July 8th he saw the Russian envoy and found him a man of straw. Oubril approved everything. He was glad that France would give back Hanover to England, because that would sever the Franco-Prussian union and make the Court of Berlin dependent on Russia. He even thought it might be well for the Hanse Towns to go to the Neapolitan Bourbons, provided those towns were placed under the Czar"s protection. But even better was the proposal that those Bourbons should have Dalmatia and neighbouring lands; for that would drive a wedge between Napoleon and Turkey. Such was the gist of this curious interview. Desirous of testing the accuracy of his account of it, Lord Yarmouth read it over to Oubril at their next interview, when the Russian envoy added the following written corrections: