At the same time the farmers were suddenly awakened to the fact that in the end they suffered as much under the prohibition as the traders. In the resulting agitations Jefferson closed his public career without éclat. Madison wisely secured a modification of the embargo by the Non-intervention Act, which opened all foreign commerce except that with England and France. But the merchants of New England were rebellious and dissatisfied even with this. The Federalists wanted a navy and a place in the European system; in other words, a fair share in the world's carrying-trade for the seafarers of the Atlantic coast. Matters drifted on in general discontent and mutual recrimination until 1810. Napoleon in that year shrewdly announced that he had abandoned his policy, but for all that he actually continued to enforce it. This empty pretense of friendship embroiled the United States still further with England, and in the end led to a second war for independence.
The Czar had no sooner taken the decisive step of finally declaring war on England than the Napoleonic policy began further to unfold. Prussia was at once compelled to follow her protector's example, and before the ensuing season all her harbors were fortified and closed. In spite of the French occupation, a national reform movement had begun in this land. In Königsberg was formed the League of Virtue, which focused the new morality and patriotism of the masses. The pens of Fichte, Schleiermacher, and other great writers continued to build up public spirit. Stein accepted office, stipulating that the privy council should be abolished, and then freed the serfs. Among other important reforms he destroyed the old distinction between land tenures, and made transfers simple. Self-government was granted to the cities. The schools were entirely reconstructed under the direction of William von Humboldt, and the University of Berlin was founded as a nursery for the new national spirit.
Under these influences the monarchy of Frederick the Great ceased to exist; the authority of the "yunker" class which supported it and had rashly brought on the war with France was temporarily eclipsed by a wholesome expression of national vigor, and the enlightened liberalism of Prussia became the stimulus for a similar movement in all Germany. As to the army, Gneisenau and Scharnhorst entered with zeal upon the task of reorganization, and the latter was a very genius of reform. Napoleon at length showed his true colors, forbade his victim to maintain more than forty-two thousand troops, and declared to the face of Frederick William's brother in Paris that the occupation of the fortresses had passed from the narrow domain of particular politics into the great field of general policy. He meant, of course, that he was thereby virtually holding in check not merely Prussia, but Russia and Austria as well. The limitation set by him to the active military force of the captive state was easily evaded by the subterfuge of substituting new recruits for those who had completed their training in the ranks; but the French occupation seemed to be virtually permanent.
The military reorganization of Austria was already complete, and Metternich wrote on July twenty-sixth, 1807, to Stadion, the minister of state, that as the peace of Tilsit had sown broadcast the germs of its own destruction, the wisdom of his correspondent's administration would one day bring Austria to the point where three hundred thousand men united under one will and directed to one goal would play the first rôle in Europe, "in a moment of universal anarchy, at one of those epochs which always follow great usurpations, and wipe out the traces of the conquerors; an epoch of which no one can foretell the date, but which nothing postpones except the life of a single man, and which all the genius of that man can so much the less postpone as he has not yet taken the first step to preclude its certain results." This reference to Napoleon's childlessness and the dependence of his system on his single life is clear enough. The Emperor of the French was himself thoroughly aware of the influence exerted by such a consideration upon the course of affairs, and in consequence his dealing with Francis was somewhat less peremptory than that with Frederick William. Nevertheless, the results were exceedingly humiliating to Austria's pride. In a treaty concluded at Fontainebleau on October tenth, 1807, with reference to the Italian frontier, her dominions were shorn to the quick. At Napoleon's suggestion, Count Starhemberg, her ambassador in London, intimated that England, in the interest of peace, ought to restore the Danish fleet and make terms with France. On the prompt refusal of Great Britain to listen, the envoy withdrew from London; but he did not leave the English cabinet in doubt as to the cause. He knew and broadly hinted that though his master dared not trifle with a Franco-Russian alliance, his heart was with the English cause. To all outward appearance, therefore, Austria was quite as subservient as Prussia to the mighty coalition of France and Russia.
Almost immediately after the rupture with England, Alexander had the mortification of seeing his worst fears realized. Napoleon had opened to him at Tilsit a dazzling vista of territorial aggrandizement. Slowly but surely the desired effect was produced. Aware of all the dangers he ran, the Czar nevertheless sacrificed every other consideration, even that of his people's material comfort, in order to demonstrate his good faith. By declaring war he likewise paid in advance. But at the earliest possible moment, on November seventh, his ambassador to France, sent for the purpose, demanded the return—to wit, the two principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia. Simultaneously and in another quarter this same demand was made emphatic. Immediately after the meeting at Tilsit, Guilleminot, a French general, had been sent as mediator between Russia and Turkey to the seat of war on the Danube. An armistice was concluded under his direction at Slobozia, in which were two or three compensatory clauses promising that Russia would make restitution to Turkey of certain vessels and munitions of war which had been captured. The Czar professed to take great umbrage at these stipulations. Shortly afterward he rejected the whole paper, and the Russian troops remained in Wallachia. This conduct was intended to indicate his obstinate determination to have the vague promises of Napoleon defined, and then to secure their performance.
The Emperor of the French had been kept well informed by Savary, and knew that the Tilsit alliance, being distasteful to the Russian people, hung on the personal good will of their sovereign. He would have been glad to put Alexander off with some slight rectification of the border-line between Russia and Turkey and with further indefinite promises, but he dared not. Accordingly he devised the plea that the aggrandizement of the Eastern and Western empires must keep equal pace, not in the West, for that was his by right, but in those debatable lands wherewith Russia hoped to secure a permanent seat in the councils of Europe. He was confirmed in his desire to postpone the partition of Turkey by finding that Mustapha, the Sultan who had overthrown Selim in defiance of France, was now ready in turn to make friends with her and perform her behests. The hope of getting Egypt was again awakened, but the times were not ripe and delay must be secured.
In addition to these considerations there was that of immediate safety. The last two campaigns had seen Napoleon a victor, once over Austria and Russia combined, again over Prussia and Russia combined; but in each there had been moments when the coalition of the three would have overwhelmed him. For this reason he would gladly have declared at Tilsit that the house of Hohenzollern had ceased to reign, in order thereby to preclude any future danger from a triple alliance. This idea he had abandoned for the time in order to gratify Alexander. His ally secure, he now returned or pretended to return to it. Prussia was regaining her strength too rapidly; her embittered hostility was an ever-increasing menace. On the plea that she could never pay the promised indemnity, and was therefore to be treated as a bankrupt, Napoleon declared at last that Russia could have the Danube provinces if France could take Silesia for the grand duchy of Warsaw. "Prussia," ran Napoleon's despatch on this subject—"Prussia would have but two millions of inhabitants; but would not that be enough for the welfare of the royal family, and is it not in their interest to place her without delay and with perfect resignation among the inferior powers, since all their efforts to restore the position she has lost merely serve to distress their subjects and cherish idle regrets?" "What the Emperor would prefer," said this same memorandum, "is that the Turks should remain in peaceable possession of Wallachia and Moldavia; still he would hand over these provinces to the Czar in return for a just compensation from Prussian lands; and finally, though far from wishing a complete partition of Turkey, he desires you not to condemn utterly the plan, but rather to dwell on the motives for postponing it. This ancient project of Russian ambition is a tie which can bind Russia to France."
For the purposes of this difficult negotiation Napoleon had chosen Caulaincourt, his devoted servant and most adroit diplomat. Having been concerned in the expeditions to Strasburg and Ettenheim which captured Enghien, the ambassador had been deeply, though unjustly, involved in the disrepute of the execution, and that fact was a tie which bound him to his master. The two seemed thoroughly to understand each other. Alexander had chosen an envoy who was the very antipodes of the adroit and elegant Caulaincourt. Count Tolstoi was a bluff soldier, selected in the belief that he would be uninfluenced by the intrigues of Paris society, and could secure the utmost return for the agreement of Tilsit by direct negotiation with the Emperor himself, as one old soldier talking with another. This officer was instructed to lay great stress on the liberation of Prussia, but to remember that the object of his mission was to cement harmony and confidence. On the journey to Paris he paused at Memel to pay his respects to Frederick William and his Queen. He found them, considering their station, actually in want, dependent on the Czar's gifts of clothes and other necessaries for the little personal comfort they enjoyed. This made a deep impression on Tolstoi's heart, and though received at Paris with such distinction as had never been accorded to any other ambassador, he was cold and distant with both the Emperor and the court. At last there was positive disagreement between him and the great personages of the capital; there was even a rumor that Ney and he would fight a duel. The offensive remarks which led to such tension were due to a statement by Tolstoi that Russia had been beaten by accident, that Russian soldiers were invincible, and might one day take their revenge.
Moreover, the ambassador could not even get on with Napoleon. Both he and his staff avoided the splendors of Fontainebleau, preferring to frequent the drawing-rooms of a notorious actress whose name had often been linked with that of the Emperor. Under such circumstances diplomacy gathered but little fruit. Napoleon offered both the Danubian provinces for Silesia, or else the evacuation of Prussia proper for that of Wallachia; he even mentioned the magic word "Constantinople" as part of Russia's share in an eventual partition of the whole Turkish empire. Tolstoi wrote to St. Petersburg that France was postponing the evacuation of Prussia for selfish purposes, meaning to dismember her; and from that starting-point depicted the horrors of a Napoleonic Europe. Such opinions dismayed Alexander, and although he received Caulaincourt with distinction equal to that which had been accorded to Tolstoi, he firmly refused the bargain offered by him. He would not consent to a further dismemberment of Prussia, partly for sentimental reasons, chiefly because he could not endure the strengthening of the grand duchy of Warsaw, the new political organism which suggested the restoration of Poland. As to the principalities, these he would have. Russian society had for the moment repressed its hostility to the Czar and his treaty of Tilsit, and was quietly waiting to see what would be the substantial results. No gain less than the acquisition of Wallachia and Moldavia would reinstate Alexander in their good will or make the French alliance endurable. This was of course a serious crisis; but Caulaincourt, nothing dismayed, set himself, by the exercise of all those social arts of which he had such a mastery, to win the aristocratic circles of St. Petersburg.
In the month of December, 1807, Napoleon was on a royal progress through his kingdom of Italy, and the news of the diplomatic crisis in Russia reached him at Venice, which had become his as a result of Austerlitz and by the treaty of Presburg. Although he had gone thither for a serious consultation with Joseph, its fascinations were already weaving curious plans in the Emperor's mind. His rapid journey through Lombardy and a short visit to Milan, whence he fulminated his reply to the English admiralty, had convinced him of the firm sovereignty he exercised throughout these splendid realms. In the few days of his presence he had further strengthened his power by many generous and beneficent decrees. It was with a sense of security that he came to Venice; at once he yielded to her spell, realizing that at last his control of the Adriatic was complete, inasmuch as now he held both shores and commanded the entrance by the possession of Corfu. Just beyond was the brilliant East, ripe for conquest. Could he or should he lose the opportunity to use such a superb base of operations, win the gratitude of all Venetia by restoring the ancient glories of her capital, and thereby lay his hand at last on the bauble which had once before so dazzled him? Besides, Great Britain, his hated rival, scorning the terms he had offered, disdaining the continental blockade, anchored in her strength by the control of Western seas, was vulnerable in India, and there alone. These considerations returned with overpowering allurement to his imagination, and four millions of francs were appropriated to improve the harbor and restore somewhat the splendors of Venice.