The relations with Sweden were seriously strained. Since 1810 Bernadotte had been by adoption the crown prince of that country. Although he had emphatically refused, in accepting the position, to agree never to take up arms against France, as Napoleon wished him to do, he had later consented to the continental blockade, and had declared war against England; but this declaration both England and Sweden considered simply as a façon de parler. Napoleon, conscious that Bernadotte was not carrying out the blockade, and irritated by his persistent refusal to enter into French combinations, and pay tribute to carry on French wars, had suppressed his revenues as a French prince—Bernadotte had been created Prince of Ponte-Corvo in 1806—had refused to communicate with him, and when the King of Rome was born had sent back the Swedish decoration offered. Finally, in January, 1812, French troops invaded certain Swedish possessions, and the country concluded an alliance with England and Russia.
“NAPOLEON IN HIS CABINET.” THE CHILD AT HIS SIDE IS HIS SON, THE KING OF ROME.
The manuscript on the floor of the cabinet bears the date “1811.” Engraved by Weber, after Steuben.
With Russia, the “other half” of the machine, the ally upon whom the great plan of Tilsit and Erfurt depended, there was such a bad state of feeling that, in 1811, it became certain that war would result. Causes had been accumulating upon each side since the Erfurt meeting.
The continental system weighed heavily on the interests of Russia. The people constantly rebelled against it and evaded it in every way. The business depressions from which they suffered they charged to Napoleon, and a strong party arose in the empire which used every method of showing the czar that the “unnatural alliance,” as they called the agreement between Alexander and Napoleon, was unpopular. The czar could not refuse to listen to this party. More, he feared that Napoleon was getting ready to restore Poland. He was offended by the haste with which his ally had dismissed the idea of marriage with his sister and had taken up Marie Louise. He complained of the changes of boundaries in Germany. Napoleon, on his part, saw with irritation that English goods were admitted into Russia. He resented the failure of Alexander to join heartily in the wide-sweeping application he had made of the Berlin and Milan Decrees, and to persecute neutral flags of all nations, even of those so far away from the Continent as the United States. He remembered that Russia had not supported him loyally in 1809. He was suspicious, too, of the good understanding which seemed to be growing between Sweden, Russia, and England.
THE DUKE OF REICHSTADT.
Engraved by W. Bromley, after Sir Thomas Lawrence.
During many months the two emperors remained in a half-hostile condition, but the strain finally became too great. War was inevitable, and Napoleon set about preparing for the struggle. During the latter months of 1811 and the first of 1812 his attention was given almost entirely to the military and diplomatic preparations necessary before beginning the Russian campaign. By the 1st of May, 1812, he was ready to join his army, which he had centred at Dresden. Accompanied by Marie Louise he arrived at Dresden on the 16th of May, 1812, where he was greeted by the Emperor of Austria, the King of Prussia, and other sovereigns with whom he had formed alliances.