Bold and often rash a diplomatist as Napoleon was, he still felt that at the moment of going to war with Russia he could not entirely disregard the wishes of the United States. In appearance he gave way, and sacrificed the system so long and so tenaciously defended; but in yielding, he chose means that involved the United States government in common responsibility for his previous acts.
Even had the Emperor’s deception stopped there, it would have offered the most interesting example in American experience of one peculiarity of his genius; but this was not all. He seemed to grudge the success which Barlow had wrung from him. One is tempted to think that this victory cost Barlow his life. The decree he had gained was flung at him like a missile. Bassano’s letter was dated May 10; the Emperor already, the day before, had left Paris to take command of his Grand Army on the Russian frontier, and as yet the negotiation had not advanced a step. Meanwhile Barlow took a course of his own. Monroe and Madison cared little for a commercial treaty, but insisted upon indemnities. Barlow, finding that indemnity was for the present out of the question, showed great earnestness to make a commercial treaty, and admitted suggestions altogether displeasing to his Government. Thus June arrived, producing no change in the attitude of France other than the new decree, which was as grave an offence to the President’s dignity as though it had been couched in terms of the lie direct.
Deceived and deserted, Madison was driven without an ally into a war that required the strongest alliances. Mortified at the figure he had been made to present, he wrote to Barlow that the shameful conduct of the French government would be an everlasting reproach to it, and that if peace were made with England, “the full tide of indignation with which the public mind here is boiling” would be directed against France. His anger was the more bitter because of his personal outrage. The repealing Decree of April, 1811, spared no kind of humiliation, for it proved, even to himself, his error in asserting that Napoleon imposed no condition precedent on the original promise to withdraw his decrees.[207] On that point the Federalists were shown to be right, and Madison could offer no defence against their charge that he had made himself a tool of Napoleon.
When Bassano left Paris to follow Napoleon into Russia he intrusted the negotiation with Barlow to the Duc Dalberg, by birth a German, who was in the Imperial service. While Dalberg listened to Barlow and wrote long reports to Bassano, Napoleon, entering Russia June 23, five days after Congress declared war against Great Britain, advanced to Wilna in Poland, where he remained until July 17, and then with five hundred thousand men plunged into the heart of Russia, leaving Bassano at Wilna with general charge of matters of state. These events made Barlow conscious that his negotiation was hopeless. His communications with Dalberg must be sent from Paris to Wilna, and thence to Napoleon on the road to Moscow, with the certainty of receiving no attention during the active campaign; while even if Napoleon had been able to give them ample attention, he would soon have taken offence at the increasing ill-temper of their tone, and would have been more likely to show anger than to grant favors. Under new instructions from Monroe, which were almost a reprimand, Barlow said less and less about a commercial treaty, and pressed harder for indemnities. Under instructions from Bassano, dated August 10,[208] Dalberg was obliged to avoid the discussion of indemnities and to talk only about commerce. Barlow insisted upon explanations in regard to seventeen American vessels recently burned at sea under the Decrees of Berlin and Milan; but no explanation could be obtained from Bassano. When the news arrived that Congress had declared war against England, Bassano, August 10, renewed his instructions to Dalberg without essential change:[209]—
“As for the commercial advantages that his Majesty may be disposed to grant the Americans, particularly since the last measures their Government has taken, communicate to the Minister of Commerce the different demands of Mr. Barlow; consult with him to what points and in what proportion these advantages might be granted, and communicate the result of these interviews to me before concluding anything in that respect with Mr. Barlow. You are to encourage his hopes and his confidence in the benevolent views of his Majesty toward the United States; explain, on the score of his Majesty’s distance and the importance of his actual occupations, the kind of languor of the negotiation which has been begun, and the failure to decide some of the questions proposed by that minister; and you can point him to the American declaration of war against England as a motive the more for removing from their proposed arrangements with France whatever would tend to complicate them and too long delay their adoption.”
These instructions showed no change in the Imperial policy even in consequence of the war declared by the United States against England. The Decrees of Berlin and Milan were no more repealed by the Decree of 1811, so unexpectedly produced by Bassano, than they had been by Champagny’s famous letter of August 5, 1810; no order was ever given to any official of the empire that carried the revocation into effect. While Bassano protested to Barlow against implications of the Emperor’s good faith, Bassano’s colleagues equally protested to Barlow that they had no authority to exempt American ships from the operation of the decrees. Decrès, the Minister of Marine, gave orders to his cruisers to destroy all vessels infringing the decrees, and not even an apology could be wrung from him for the act. If Barlow lost patience at this conduct, the Duc Dalberg, with German simple-mindedness, felt even more acutely the odium of his part, and sent to Bassano remonstrances as strong as those he received from Barlow. August 11, only one day after Bassano wrote from Wilna the instruction just quoted, Dalberg wrote from Paris in language such as had been of late seldom used in the Emperor’s service:[210]—
“If we wish to inspire any confidence in the American government, of what use is an isolated proof of revocation if a little while afterward another proof overthrows it, and if Mr. Barlow, by his means of information at the Department of Commerce, at that of the Marine, at the Council of Prizes, learns that they are ignorant of it; that nothing is changed in that legislation, and that it may at any instant be again enforced? Under such circumstances, I pray you, Monsieur le Duc, to consider what is the good of all the fine phrases and fair words that I may use to Mr. Barlow when he is every moment receiving news that our privateers in the Baltic and on the coast permit themselves the most reckless (les plus fortes) violations against the property of Americans. In such circumstances the art of diplomacy becomes insufficient, a sorry game (triste métier) of which no one is long the dupe.”
Dalberg seemed to suspect that Bassano himself knew little of the true situation:—
“Your Excellency is perhaps not informed of the complaints made by Americans to Mr. Barlow. If you believe that, while nothing is settled in regard to American navigation, the Americans enjoy the favor of navigating freely, of being well treated in our ports, and of being exposed to no annoyance, you deceive yourself. What with the Decrees of Berlin and Milan, whose revocation is not yet known to the authorities; what with our forms of custom-house examinations; what with the multiplied obstacles to all commercial movement,—this is impossible.”
Plain as such language was, it could have no effect; for Bassano could do nothing without Napoleon’s approval, and Napoleon was already beyond reach. September 7 he fought the battle of Borodino; September 15 he entered Moscow.