scaped unhurt except Kourakine, the Russian ambassador, who
was so injured that he could no longer perform his official duties. It
appeared to throw a strong light on Napoleon's character as a man that
almost immediately his humor seemed to change; his personal
obligations to the much-abused but well-bred envoy could not now be
wiped out by a gentle reply to the master; hence, apparently, he
curtly dismissed the Russian charge d'affaires, and ended the
negotiation. It was when this news reached St. Petersburg that
Alexander a second time offered Norway to Sweden.

The real cause of Napoleon's abrupt manner was the news communicated
by Metternich that the Russian army had advanced successfully to the
Danube. On July seventeenth Francis despatched an envoy requesting his
new son-in-law to join him in a protest against the aggressions of the
Czar; in other words, to throw the agreements of Tilsit and Erfurt to
the winds. Napoleon returned an unhesitating and honorable refusal,
but said significantly to Metternich: "If Russia quarrels with us she
will lose Finland, Moldavia, and Wallachia," adding that if the Czar,
contrary to his engagement of 1808, should seize anything south of the
Danube, then he himself would intervene on Austria's behalf. But all
Europe seemed convinced that war was inevitable. In all the
watering-places the talk was of nothing else. The Russian party in
Vienna grew bolder; Pozzo di Borgo, Napoleon's life-long foe, who had
been temporarily under a cloud in Russia, appeared in Vienna in his
Russian uniform, courted and oracular. A French interpreter on his way
to Persia was stopped by him, and bribed to enter the Russian service.
In a terse personal note written by his own hand, Napoleon called
Alexander's attention to the facts, but without awaiting the reply he
went further. Kourakine, partly recovered, was leaving Paris for home.
Through him the Emperor poured into his ally's ear a long exposure of
the situation, saying in substance that war was to be avoided, that he
had not the slightest intention of restoring Poland, and that if the
Czar would write what was desired as a guarantee in the form of a
newspaper article, the words should be inserted unchanged in the
"Moniteur." At the same time orders were sent commanding Caulaincourt
to end all negotiation, and the Poles were peremptorily enjoined to
silence. Simultaneously schemes for a new naval campaign were
gradually being perfected, so that they