a proud nature to receive money which prompted his refusal; for
Gustavus, while in Germany, hinted to Drake that he desired to have
pecuniary help from England for the defence of his province of
Pomerania.[2]

But a doughtier champion of European independence was soon to enter
the field. The earlier feelings of respect and admiration which the
young Czar had cherished towards Napoleon were already overclouded,
when the news of the execution of the Duc d'Enghien at once roused a
storm of passion in his breast. The chivalrous protection which he
loved to extend to smaller States, the guarantee of the Germanic
system which the Treaty of Teschen had vested in him, above all, his
horror at the crime, led him to offer an emphatic protest. The Russian
Court at once went into mourning, and Alexander expressed both to the
German Diet and to the French Government his indignation at the
outrage. It was ever Napoleon's habit to return blow with blow; and he
now instructed Talleyrand to reply that in the D'Enghien affair he had
acted solely on the defensive, and that Russia's complaint "led him to
ask if, at the time when England was compassing the assassination of
Paul I., the authors of the plot had been known to be one league
beyond the [Russian] frontiers, every effort would not have been made
to have them seized?" Never has a poisoned dart been more deftly sped
at the weak spot of an enemy's armour. The Czar, ever haunted by the
thought of his complicity in a parricidal plot, was deeply wounded by
this malicious taunt, and all the more so because, as the death of
Paul had been officially ascribed to a fit, the insult could not be
flung back.[3] The only reply was to break off all diplomatic
relations with Napoleon; and this took place in the summer of 1804.[4]

Yet war was not to break out for more than a year. This delay was due
to several causes. Austria could not be moved from her posture of
timid neutrality. In fact, Francis II. and Cobenzl saw in Napoleon's
need of a recognition of his new imperial title a means of assuring a
corresponding change of title for the Hapsburg Dominions. Francis had
long been weary of the hollow dignity of Elective Emperor of the Holy
Roman Empire. The faded pageantry of Ratisbone and Frankfurt was all
that remained of the glories of the realm of Charlemagne: the medley
of States which owned him as elected lord cared not for the decrees of
this ghostly realm; and Goethe might well place in t