[Footnote 218: It is impossible to enter into the complicated question of the reconstruction of Germany effected in 1802-3. A general agreement had been made at Rastadt that, as an indemnity for the losses of German States in the conquest of the Rhineland by France, they should receive the ecclesiastical lands of the old Empire. The Imperial Diet appointed a delegation to consider the whole question; but before this body assembled (on August 24th, 1802), a number of treaties had been secretly made at Paris, with the approval of Russia, which favoured Prussia and depressed Austria. Austria received the archbishoprics of Trent and Brixen: while her Archdukes (formerly of Tuscany and Modena) were installed in Salzburg and Breisgau. Prussia, as the protégé of France, gained Hildesheim, Paderborn, Erfurt, the city of Münster, etc. Bavaria received Würzburg, Bamberg, Augsburg, Passau, etc. See Garden, "Traités," vol. vii., ch. xxxii.; "Annual Register" of 1802, pp. 648-665; Oncken, "Consulat und Kaiserthum," vol. ii.; and Beer's "Zehn Jahre Oesterreichischer Politik.">[
[Footnote 219: The British notes of April 28th and May 8th, 1803, again demanded a suitable indemnity for the King of Sardinia.]
[Footnote 220: See his letters of January 28th, 1801, February 27th,
March 10th, March 25th, April 10th, and May 16th, published in a work,
"Bonaparte, Talleyrand et Stapfer" (Zürich, 1869).]
[Footnote 221: Daendliker, "Geschichte der Schweiz," vol. iii., p. 418; Muralt's "Reinhard," p. 55; and Stapfer's letter of April 28th: "Malgré cette apparente neutralité que le gouvernement français déclare vouloir observer pour le moment, différentes circonstances me persuadent qu'il a vu avec plaisir passer la direction des affaires des mains de la majorité du Sénat [helvétique] dans celles de la minorité du Petit Conseil.">[
[Footnote 222: Garden, "Traités," vol. viii., p. 10. Mr. Merry, our chargé d'affaires at Paris, reported July 21st; "M. Stapfer makes a boast of having obtained the First Consul's consent to withdraw the French troops entirely from Switzerland. I learn from some well-disposed Swiss who are here that such a consent has been given; but they consider it only as a measure calculated to increase the disturbances in their country and to furnish a pretext for the French to enter it again.">[
[Footnote 223: Reding, in a pamphlet published shortly after this time, gave full particulars of his interviews with Bonaparte at Paris, and stated that he had fully approved of his (Reding's) federal plans. Neither Bonaparte nor Talleyrand ever denied this.]
[Footnote 224: See "Paget Papers," vol. ii., despatches of October 29th, 1802, and January 28th, 1803.]
[Footnote 225: Napoleon avowed this in his speech to the Swiss deputies at St. Cloud, December 12th, 1802.]
[Footnote 226: Lord Hawkesbury's note of October 10th, 1802, the appeal of the Swiss, and the reply of Mr. Moore from Constance, are printed in full in the papers presented to Parliament, May 18th, 1803.
The Duke of Orleans wrote from Twickenham a remarkable letter to Pitt, dated October 18th, 1802, offering to go as leader to the Swiss in the cause of Swiss and of European independence: "I am a natural enemy to Bonaparte and to all similar Governments….England and Austria can find in me all the advantages of my being a French prince. Dispose of me, Sir, and show me the way. I will follow it." See Stanhope's "Life of Pitt," vol. iii., ch. xxxiii.]