the "Moniteur" of November
26th, have often asserted that the death of Fox and the accession to
power of the warlike faction changed the character of the
negotiations.[89] Nothing can be further from the truth. Not long
before his end, Fox thus expressed to his nephew his despair of peace:

"We can in honour do nothing without the full and _bona fide_
consent of the Queen and Court of Naples; but, even exclusive of
that consideration and of the great importance of Sicily, it is
not so much the value of the point in dispute as the manner in
which the French fly from their word that disheartens me. It is
not Sicily, but the shuffling, insincere way in which they act,
that shows me that they are playing a false game; and in that case
it would be very imprudent to make any concessions, which by any
possibility could be thought inconsistent with our honour, or
could furnish our allies with a plausible pretence for suspecting,
reproaching, or deserting us."

It is further to be noted that Lauderdale stayed on at Paris three
weeks after the death of Fox; that he put forward no new demand, but
required that Talleyrand should revert to his first promise of
renouncing all claim to Sicily, and should treat conjointly with
England and Russia. It was in vain. Napoleon's final concessions were
that the Bourbons, after losing Sicily, should have the Balearic Isles
and be pensioned _by Spain_; that Russia should hold Corfu (as she
already did); and that we should recover Hanover from Prussia, and
keep Malta, the Cape, Tobago, and the three French towns in India;
but, except Hanover, all of these were in our power. On Sicily he
would not bate one jot of his pretensions. The negotiations were
therefore broken off on October 6th, twelve days after Napoleon left
Paris to marshal his troops against Prussia.[90] The whole affair
revealed Napoleon's determination to trick the allies into signing
separate and disadvantageous treaties, and thus to regain by craft the
ground which he had lost in fair fight at Maida.

If Sicily was the rock of stumbling between us and Napoleon, Hanover
was the chief cause of the war between France and Prussia. During the
negotiations at Paris, Lord Yarmouth privately informed Lucchesini,
the Prussian ambassador, that Talleyrand made no difficulty about the
restitution of Hanover to George III. The news, when forwarded to
Berlin at the close of July, caused a nervous