ide
with the matrimonial overtures; and, after their collapse, Napoleon
finally declined to give this assurance which Alexander felt needful
for checking the rising hopes of Poles and Lithuanians. The utmost the
French Emperor would do was to promise, _in a secret clause_, that he
would never aid any other Power or any popular movement that aimed at
the re-establishment of that kingdom.[245] In fact, as the Muscovite
alliance was on the wane, he judged it bad policy to discourage the
Poles, who might do so much for him in case of a Franco-Russian war.
He soon begins to face seriously the prospect of such an event. At the
close of 1810 he writes that the Russians are intrenching themselves
on the Dwina and Dniester, which "shows a bad spirit."

But the great difficulty is Russia's imperfect observation of the
Continental System. He begs the Czar to close his ports against
English ships: 600 of them are wandering about the Baltic, after being
repulsed from its southern shores, in the hope of getting into Russian
harbours. Let Alexander seize their cargoes, and England, now at her
last gasp, must give in. Five weeks later he returns to the charge. It
is not enough to seize British ships; the hated wares get in under
American, Swedish, Spanish, and Portuguese, _even under French flags_.
Of the 2,000 ships that entered the Baltic in 1810, not one was really
a neutral: they were all charged with English goods, with false papers
and _forged certificates of origin manufactured in London_.[246] Any
other unit among earth's millions would have been convinced of the
futility of the whole enterprise, now that his own special devices
were being turned against him. It was not enough to conquer and
enchain the Continent. Every customs officer must be an expert in
manufactures, groceries, documents, and the water-marks of paper, if
he was to detect the new "frauds of the neutral flags."

But Napoleon knew not the word impossible--"a word that exists only in
the dictionary of fools." In fact, his mind, naturally unbending, was
now working more and more in self-made grooves. Of these the deepest
was his commercial warfare; and he pushed on, reckless of Europe and
reckless of the Czar. In the middle of December he annexed the North
Sea coast of Germany, including Oldenburg. The heir to this duchy had
married Alexander's sister, whose hand Napoleon had claimed at Erfurt.
The duke, it is true, was offered the district of Erfurt as an
inde