far-reaching importance; for the
eastern power thereby began to exert on the democracy of western
Europe that subtle, semi-Asiatic influence which has so powerfully
warped its original character.

The dawn of the nineteenth century witnessed some startling
rearrangements on the political chess-board.

While Bonaparte brought Russia and France to sudden amity, the
unbending maritime policy of Great Britain leagued the Baltic Powers
against the mistress of the seas. In the autumn of 1800 the Czar Paul,
after hearing of our capture of Malta, forthwith revived the Armed
Neutrality League of 1780 and opposed the forces of Russia, Prussia,
Sweden, and Denmark to the might of England's navy. But Nelson's
brilliant success at Copenhagen and the murder of the Czar by a palace
conspiracy shattered this league only four months after its formation,
and the new Czar, Alexander, reverted for a time to friendship with
England.[148] This sudden ending to the first Franco-Russia alliance
so enraged Bonaparte that he caused a paragraph to be inserted in the
official "Moniteur," charging the British Government with procuring
the assassination of Paul, an insinuation that only proclaimed his
rage at this sudden rebuff to his hitherto successful diplomacy.
Though foiled for a time, he never lost sight of the hoped-for
alliance, which, with a deft commixture of force and persuasion, he
gained seven years later after the crushing blow of Friedland.

Dread of a Franco-Russian alliance undoubtedly helped to compel
Austria to a peace. Humbled by Moreau at the great battle of
Hohenlinden, the Emperor Francis opened negotiations at Luneville in
Lorraine. The subtle obstinacy of Cobenzl there found its match in the
firm yet suave diplomacy of Joseph Bonaparte, who wearied out Cobenzl
himself, until the march of Moreau towards Vienna compelled Francis to
accept the River Adige as his boundary in Italy. The other terms of
the treaty (February 9th, 1801) were practically the same as those of
the treaty of Campo Formio, save that the Hapsburg Grand Duke of
Tuscany was compelled to surrender his State to a son of the Bourbon
Duke of Parma. He himself was to receive "compensation" in Germany,
where also the unfortunate Duke of Modena was to find consolation in
the district of the Breisgau on the Upper Rhine. The helplessness of
the old Holy Roman Empire was, indeed, glaringly displayed; for
Francis now admitted the right of the French to interfere i