al questions without number. These, in most cases,
were terminated at Paris, with summary injustice, and the provocations
and reclamations of Bernadotte multiplied daily. Amazed that one who had
served under his banners should dare to dispute his will, Napoleon
suffered himself to speak openly of causing Bernadotte to finish his
Swedish studies in Vincennes. Nay, he condescended to organise a
conspiracy for the purpose of putting this threat into execution. The
Crown Prince escaped, through the zeal of a private friend at Paris, the
imminent danger of being carried off after the fashion of the D'Enghiens
and the Rumbolds: and thenceforth his part was fixed.

On the other flank of the Czar's dominion--his hereditary enemy, the
Grand Seignior, was at this time actually at war with him. Napoleon had
neglected his relations with Constantinople for some years past; but he
now perceived the importance of keeping this quarrel alive, and
employed his agents to stimulate the Grand Seignior to take the field
in person at the head of 100,000 men, for the purpose of co-operating
with himself in a general invasion of the Russian empire. But here he
encountered a new and an unforeseen difficulty. Lord Castlereagh, the
English minister for foreign affairs, succeeded in convincing the Porte,
that, if Russia were once subdued, there would remain no power in Europe
capable of shielding her against the universal ambition of Napoleon. And
wisely considering this prospective danger as immeasurably more
important than any immediate advantage which she could possibly reap
from the humiliation of her old rival, the Porte commenced a
negotiation, which, exactly at the most critical moment (as we shall see
hereafter) ended in a peace with Russia.

The whole forces of Italy--Switzerland, Bavaria, and the princes of the
Rhenish League,--including the Elector of Saxony,--were at Napoleon's
disposal. Denmark hated England too much to have leisure for fear of
him. Prussia, surrounded and studded with French garrisons, was more
than ever hostile to France; and the king was willing, in spite of all
that he had suffered, to throw himself at once into the arms of Russia.
But this must have inferred his immediate and total ruin, unless the
Czar chose to march at once into Germany. Such a movement was wholly
inconsistent with the plan of operations contemplated, in case of a war
with Buonaparte, by the military advisers of Alexander; and Frederick
William