might be realized the
following year.

Something of Alexander's secret diplomacy must have leaked out, but he
appeared unmoved. He was steadily preparing for war, strengthening his
fortresses, and locating fortified camps in the district between the
Dwina and the Dnieper. But his chief concern was with Poland. Relying
on the Jesuit influence at Warsaw for support against the jailer of
the Pope, he again took up his old scheme of restoring the country as
an appanage of the Russian crown, and wrote to Czartoryski. The plan
was dazzling: a national army, a national administration, and a
liberal constitution. But that nobleman, after a long residence in his
native land, had learned how strong was the conviction of his
countrymen that Napoleon would give them a more complete autonomy than
the Czar, and sent back what must have been a discouraging reply,
although it has never been found. Alexander on its receipt determined
that the coming war should be defensive on his part, and immediately
opened communications with England and Sweden concerning the
Continental System. Finally, in the closing days of the year, he
issued a ukase excluding wines, silks, and similar luxuries from
France, but facilitating the entry of the colonial wares in which
England dealt. This was an act of open hostility to his old ally, a
declaration of commercial war. Prussia immediately made semi-official
advances to the Czar, but they were repelled.

It is not easy to estimate Napoleon's responsibility for what had
happened and was about to happen. He was persistently domineering,
contemptuous of national feeling and dynastic politics, over-confident
in the unswerving devotion of France, inflexible in his policy of
territorial aggrandizement, ruthless in applying his peculiar
conceptions of finance and political economy, and pitiless in his own
self-seeking. On the other hand, Alexander, having received Prussia's
autonomy as his part, had proved an untrustworthy ally from the
outset. Having seized Finland, he would not pay the price, but first
evaded the Continental System, then rejected it, and finally declared
commercial war on France; in the latest conflict between France and
Austria he had actually wooed the latter's favor. Procrastinating in
the marriage affair, he was furious when the suppliant turned
elsewhere, and at once displayed an insulting mistrust concerning
Poland; finally, he declared diplomatic war by his overtures to
England and h