The Treaty of Tilsit, to which, as the document itself bore testimony, the King of Prussia was admitted as a party solely by reason of Napoleon's "esteem for the Emperor of Russia," was ratified on the 7th July. Napoleon restored, by this act, to Frederick William, Ancient Prussia, and the French conquests in Upper Saxony—the King agreeing to adopt "the continental system," in other words, to be henceforth the vassal of the conqueror. The Polish provinces of Prussia were erected into a separate principality, styled "the Grand Duchy of Warsaw," and bestowed on the Elector of Saxony; with the exception, however, of some territories assigned to Russia, and of Dantzick, which was declared a free city, to be garrisoned by French troops until the ratification of a maritime peace. The Prussian dominions in Lower Saxony and on the Rhine, with Hanover, Hesse-Cassel, and various other small states, formed a new kingdom of Westphalia, of which Jerome Buonaparte, Napoleon's youngest brother, was recognised as King; Jerome having at length made his peace with his brother by repudiating his wife, an American lady of the name of Patterson, and consenting to a new alliance, more consonant with the views of the Emperor, with a daughter of the King of Wirtemberg. The Elector of Saxony was recognised as another King of Napoleon's creation; Joseph Buonaparte as King of Naples; and Louis, of Holland. Finally, Russia accepted the mediation of France for a peace with Turkey, and France that of Russia for a peace with England.
Such were the public articles of the peace of Tilsit; but it contained secret articles besides; and of these the English government were, ere long, fortunate enough to ascertain the import.
The British cabinet had undergone a complete change in March, 1807—the management of affairs passing from the friends and heirs of Mr. Fox into the hands of Mr. Perceval and other statesmen of the school of Pitt. The unhappy conduct of the war had rendered the preceding government eminently unpopular; and the measures of the new one assumed from the beginning a character of greater energy. But the orders which had been given must be fulfilled; and the councils of 1806 bequeathed a fatal legacy in the disastrous expeditions of 1807. Lord Granville Leveson Gower[57] (the minister at St. Petersburg) was ere this time prepared to offer to the Czar such subsidies as he had in vain expected when preparing for the campaign of Poland; but it was too late to retrieve the error of the preceding cabinet; and the English ambassador, being unable to break off the negotiations at Tilsit, was compelled to bestow all his efforts on penetrating the secrets of the compact wherein they ended.
The result of his exertions was the complete assurance of the government of St. James's, that the Emperor of Russia had adopted the alliance of Napoleon to an extent far beyond what appeared on the face of the treaty of the 7th July; that he had agreed not only to lay English commerce, in case his mediation for a peace should fail, under the same ban with that of the decrees of Berlin, but to place himself at the head of a general confederation of the Northern Maritime Powers against the naval supremacy of England—in other words, resign his own fleets, with those of Denmark, to the service of Napoleon. In requital of this obligation the French Emperor unquestionably agreed to permit the Czar to conquer Finland from Sweden—thereby adding immeasurably to the security of St. Petersburg. On the other hand it is almost as impossible to doubt that Alexander pledged himself not to interfere with those ambitious designs as to the Spanish Peninsula, which Napoleon was ere long to develop, and which were destined ultimately to work his ruin.
In a word, there seems to be little doubt that Napoleon broached at Tilsit the dazzling scheme of dividing the European world virtually between the two great monarchs of France and Russia: and that the Czar, provided he were willing to look on, while his Imperial brother of the West subjected Spain, Portugal and England to his yoke, was induced to count on equal forbearance, whatever schemes he might venture on for his own aggrandisement, at the expense of the smaller states of the North of Europe, and, above all, of the Ottoman Porte.
CHAPTER XXII
British Expedition to Copenhagen—Coalition of France, Austria, Prussia, and Russia, against English Commerce—Internal affairs of France—The Administration of Napoleon—his Council of State—Court—Code—Public Works—Manufactures—Taxes—Military Organisation—The Conscription.
Napoleon, having left strong garrisons in the maritime cities of Poland and Northern Germany, returned to Paris in August, and was received by the Senate and other public bodies with all the triumph and excess of adulation. The Swedish King abandoned Pomerania immediately on hearing of the treaty of Tilsit. In effect the authority of the Emperor appeared now to be consolidated over the whole continent of Europe. He had reached indeed the pinnacle of his power and pride;—henceforth he was to descend; urged downwards, step by step, by the reckless audacity of ambition and the gathering weight of guilt.