t month of his consulate,
notwithstanding his own critical situation, as well as the critical
situation of France; and he has ever since taken care both to attach it
to his triumphal car and to inculpate it indirectly in his outrages and
violations. Convinced, as he thought, of the selfishness which guided
all its resolutions, all his attacks and invasions against the law of
nations, or independence of States, were either preceded or followed with
some offers of aggrandizement, of indemnity, of subsidy, or of alliance.
His political intriguers were generally more successful in Prussia than
his military heroes in crossing the Rhine or the Elbe, in laying the
Hanse Towns under contribution, or in occupying Hanover; or, rather, all
these acts of violence and injustice were merely the effects of his
ascendency in Prussia. When it is, besides, remembered what provinces
Prussia accepted from his bounty, what exchange of presents, of ribands,
of private letters passed between Napoleon the First and Frederick
William III., between the Empress of the French and the Queen of Prussia,
it is not surprising if the Cabinet of St. Cloud thought itself sure of
the submission of the Cabinet of Berlin, and did not esteem it enough to
fear it, or to think that it would have spirit enough to resent, or even
honour to feel, the numerous Provocations offered.

Whatever Bonaparte and Talleyrand write or assert to the contrary, their
gifts are only the wages of their contempt, and they despise more that
State they thus reward than those nations at whose expense they are
liberal, and with whose spoil they delude selfishness or meanness into
their snares. The more legitimate Sovereigns descend from their true
dignity, and a liberal policy, the nearer they approach the baseness of
usurpation and the Machiavellism of rebellion. Like other upstarts, they
never suffer an equal. If you do not keep yourself above them, they will
crush you beneath them. If they have no reason to fear you, they will
create some quarrel to destroy you.

It is said here that Duroc's journey to Berlin was merely to demand a
passage for the French troops through the Prussian territory in
Franconia, and to prevent the Russian troops from passing through the
Prussian territory in Poland. This request is such as might have been
expected from our Emperor and his Minister. Whether, however, the tone
in which this curious negotiation with a neutral power was begun, or
th