ibute to me
designs in favour of Poland. I begin to think that you wish to seize
it. No: if your army were encamped on Montmartre, I would not cede an
inch of the Warsaw territory, not a village, not a windmill." His
fears as to Russia's designs were far-fetched. Alexander's sounding of
the Poles was a defensive measure, seriously undertaken only after
Napoleon's refusal to discourage the Polish nationalists. But it
suited the French Emperor to aver that the quarrel was about Poland
rather than the Continental System, and the scene just described is a
good specimen of his habit of cool calculation even in seemingly
chance outbursts of temper. His rhapsody gained him the ardent support
of the Poles, and was vague enough to cause no great alarm to Austria
and Prussia.[252]

On the next day Napoleon sketched to his Ministers the general plan of
campaign against Russia. The whole of the Continent was to be
embattled against her. On the Hapsburg alliance he might well rely.
But the conduct of Prussia gave him some concern. For a time she
seemed about to risk a war _a outrance_, such as Stein, Fichte, and
the staunch patriots of the Tugendbund ardently craved. Indeed,
Napoleon's threats to this hapless realm seemed for a time to portend
its annihilation. The King, therefore, sent Scharnhorst first to St.
Petersburg and then to Vienna with secret overtures for an alliance.
They were virtually refused. Prudence was in the ascendant at both
capitals; and, as will presently appear, the more sagacious Prussians
soon came to see that a war, in which Napoleon could be enticed into
the heart of Russia, might deal a mortal blow at his overgrown Empire.
Certainly it was quite impossible for Prussia to stay the French
advance. A guerilla warfare, such as throve in Spain, must surely be
crushed in her open plains; and the diffident King returned
Gneisenau's plan of a rising of the Prussian people against Napoleon
with the chilling comment, "Very good as poetry."

Thus, when Napoleon wound up his diplomatic threats by an imperious
summons to side with him or against him, Frederick William was fain to
abide by his terms, sending 20,000 troops against Russia, granting
free passage to Napoleon's army, and furnishing immense supplies of
food and forage, the payment of which was to be settled by some future
arrangement (February, 1812). These conditions seemed to thrust
Prussia down to the lowest circle of the Napoleonic Inferno; and great