flutter in ministerial
circles, where every effort was being made to keep on good terms with
France.

Even before this news arrived, the task was far from easy. Murat, when
occupying his new Duchy of Berg, pushed on his troops into the old
Church lands of Essen and Werden. Prussia looked on these districts as
her own, and the sturdy patriot Bluecher at once marched in his
soldiers, tore down Murat's proclamations, and restored the Prussian
eagle with blare of trumpet and beat of drum.[91] A collision was with
difficulty averted by the complaisance of Frederick William, who
called back his troops and referred the question to lawyers; but even
the King was piqued when the Grand-Duke of Berg sent him a letter of
remonstrance on Bluecher's conduct, commencing with the familiar
address, _Mon frere_.

Bluecher meanwhile and the soldiery were eating out their hearts with
rage, as they saw the French pouring across the Rhine, and
constructing a bridge of boats at Wesel; and had they known that that
important stronghold, the key of North Germany, was quietly declared
to be a French garrison town, they would probably have forced the
hands of the King.[92] For at this time Frederick William and Haugwitz
were alarmed by the formation of the Rhenish Confederation, and were
not wholly reassured by Napoleon's suggestion that the abolition of
the old Empire must be an advantage to Prussia. They clutched eagerly,
however, at his proposal that Prussia should form a league of the
North German States, and made overtures to the two most important
States, Saxony and Hesse-Cassel. During a few halcyon days the King
even proposed to assume the title _Emperor of Prussia_, from which,
however, the Elector of Saxony ironically dissuaded him. This castle
in the air faded away when news reached Berlin at the beginning of
August that Napoleon was seeking to bring the Elector of Hesse-Cassel
into the Rhenish Confederation, and was offering as a bait the domains
of some Imperial Knights and the principality of Fulda, now held by
the Prince of Orange, a relative of Frederick William. Moreover, the
moves of the French troops in Thuringia were so threatening to Saxony
that the Court of Dresden began to scout the project of a North German
Confederation.

Still, the King and Haugwitz tried to persuade themselves that
Napoleon meant well for Prussia, that England had been doing her
utmost to make bad blood between the two allies, and that "great
resul