On the 9th of May, Napoleon left Paris with his Empress, and arrived on
the 16th at Dresden, where the Emperor of Austria, the Kings of Prussia,
Naples, Wirtemberg, and Westphalia, and almost every German sovereign of
inferior rank, had been invited, or commanded, to met him. He had sent
to request the Czar also to appear in this brilliant assemblage, as
affording a last chance of an amicable arrangement; but the messenger
could not obtain admission to Alexander's presence.

Buonaparte continued for some days to play the part of undisputed master
amidst this congregation of royalties. He at once assumed for himself
and his wife precedence over the Emperor and Empress of Austria; and, in
the blaze of successive festivals, the King of Saxony appeared but as
some chamberlain, or master of the ceremonies, to his imperious guest.

Having sufficiently indicated to his allies and vassals the conduct
which they were respectively to adopt, in case the war should break out,
Napoleon, already weary of his splendid idleness, sent on the Abbe de
Pradt to Warsaw, to prepare for his reception among the Poles, dismissed
Maria Louisa on her return to Paris, and broke up the Court in which he
had, for the last time, figured as "the King of Kings." Marshal Ney,
with one great division of the army, had already passed the Vistula;
Junot, with another, occupied both sides of the Oder. The Czar was known
to be at Wilna, his Lithuanian capital, there collecting the forces of
his immense empire, and entrusting the general arrangements of the
approaching campaign to Marshal Barclay de Tolly.[61] The season was
advancing; and it was time that the question of peace or war should be
forced to a decision.

Napoleon arrived at Dantzick on the 7th of June; and during the
fortnight which ensued, it was known that the final communications
between him and Alexander were taking place. The attention of mankind
was never more entirely fixed on one spot than it was, during these
fourteen days, upon Dantzick. On the 22nd, Buonaparte broke silence in a
bulletin. "Soldiers," said he, "Russia is dragged on by her fate: her
destiny must be accomplished. Let us march! let us cross the Niemen: let
us carry war into her territories. Our second campaign of Poland will be
as glorious as our first: but our second peace shall carry with it its
own guarantee: it shall put an end for ever to that haughty influence
which Russia has exercised for fifty years on the affa