ate called the Duchy of Warsaw. Of this duchy
the King of Saxony was constituted ruler. Danzig, once a Polish city,
was now declared a free city under the protection of the Kings of
Prussia and Saxony, but the retention there of a French garrison until
the peace made it practically a French fortress. Saxe-Coburg,
Oldenburg, and Mecklenburg-Schwerin were restored to their dukes, but
the two last were to be held by French troops until England made peace
with France. With this aim in view, Napoleon accepted Alexander's
mediation for the conclusion of a treaty of peace with England,
provided that she accepted that mediation within one month of the
ratification of the present treaty.

On his side, the Czar now recognized the recent changes in Naples,
Holland, and Germany; among the last of these was the creation of the
Kingdom of Westphalia for Jerome Bonaparte out of the Prussian lands
west of the Elbe, the Duchy of Brunswick, and the Electorate of
Hesse-Cassel. Holland gained East Frisia at the expense of Prussia. As
regards Turkey, the Czar pledged himself to cease hostilities at once,
to accept the mediation of Napoleon in the present dispute, and to
withdraw Russian troops from the Danubian Provinces as soon as peace
was concluded with the Sublime Porte. Finally, the two Emperors
mutually guaranteed the integrity of their possessions and placed
their ceremonial and diplomatic relations on a footing of complete
equality.

Such were the published articles of the Treaty of Tilsit. Even if this
had been all, the European system would have sustained the severest
blow since the Thirty Years' War. The Prussian monarchy was suddenly
bereft of half its population, and now figured on the map as a
disjointed land, scarcely larger than the possessions of the King of
Saxony, and less defensible than Jerome Bonaparte's Kingdom of
Westphalia; while the Confederation of the Rhine, soon to be
aggrandized by the accession of Mecklenburg and Oldenburg, seemed to
doom the House of Hohenzollern to lasting insignificance.[153]

But the published treaty was by no means all. There were also secret
articles, the chief of which were that the Cattaro district--to the
west of Montenegro--and the Ionian Islands should go to France, and
that the Czar would recognize Joseph Bonaparte as King of Sicily when
Ferdinand of Naples should have received "an indemnity such as the
Balearic Isles, or Crete, or their equivalent." Also, if Hanover
should eve