uch as France, owing
to constantly renewed wars, as well as her allies, Spain and Holland,
had lost their most flourishing colonies in Asia and in the West Indies,
and were compelled, for the fourth time, to fight in their own defence,
justice and reason authorized the emperor to seek compensations on this
side of the seas for the losses he and his allies had suffered, and to
look for these compensations in those countries which, by virtue of his
victories, he had the power to dispose of in such a manner as he deemed
best. The greatest evil which Prussia had brought about by the last war,
for which she alone was responsible, was the fact that the Ottoman Porte
had been deprived thereby of its independence; for, owing to the
insulting and threatening demands of the Emperor of Russia, two princes,
who had been justly banished from the possessions of the Sultan, had
been placed at the head of the government of the Danubian
principalities, so that Moldavia and Wallachia were at present nothing
else than Russian provinces. 'Accordingly,' concludes Talleyrand's note,
'so long as the Sultan should not have recovered the legitimate
sovereignty over these provinces, the emperor would not consent to give
up any countries which the fortune of war had placed in his hands, or
which he might conquer hereafter.'"[27]

[Footnote 27: "Memoires d'un Homme d'Etat," vol. ix., p. 341.]

"That is to say," exclaimed the queen, passionately, "that Napoleon
declares war against Russia, and, if we make peace with him, we must
take up arms against that empire."

"That will be inevitable," said the king, composedly. "Besides this
note, Talleyrand communicated some important information to our
ambassadors. He told them that Napoleon, before setting out from Berlin,
would issue a decree, absolutely prohibiting all commerce with England,
and ordering, further, that all letters coming from or going to that
country, addressed to an Englishman, or written in English, were to be
stopped at the post-office; that all goods, the produce of English
manufactures, or of English colonies, were to be confiscated, not only
on the coast, but in the interior, in the houses of the merchants by
whom they should be retained; that every vessel, having only touched at
the English colonies, or at any of the ports of the three kingdoms,
should be forbidden to enter French ports, or ports under subjection to
France, and that every Englishman whatsoever, seized in France,