saw; although the new Poland was fortified for defense, yet it
might be overwhelmed before assistance could reach the garrisons.
Moreover, there were ominous signs in France at the opening of 1812.
Food supplies were scarce, and speculators were buying such as there
were. Napoleon felt he must remain yet a little while to check such an
outrage and to strengthen public confidence. Ostensibly to avoid a
final rupture, but really to prevent the premature opening of war, he
therefore summoned Czernicheff, the Czar's aide-de-camp, who, as a
kind of licensed spy, had been hovering near him for three years past,
and offered to accept every item of the Russian ultimatum, if only an
equitable treaty of commerce could be substituted for the ukase of
December, 1810; in other words, if Alexander would agree to observe
the letter and spirit of the Continental System. During the two months
intervening before the Czar's reply not a Cossack set foot on Polish
soil, while day by day Napoleon's armies flowed onward across Europe
toward the plains of Russia, and a temporary remedy for the economic
troubles of France was found. When, late in April, the answer came, it
was, as expected, a declaration that without the neutral trade Russia
could not live; she would modify the ukase somewhat, but, as a
condition antecedent to peace, France must evacuate Prussia and make
better terms with Sweden. On May first the French army reached the
Vistula; on May ninth Napoleon and his consort started for Dresden,
whither all the allied sovereigns had been summoned to pay their court
as vassals to the second Charles the Great.

The surge of German patriotism had nearly drowned Napoleon in 1809,
but for manifest reasons it had again receded. The Austrian marriage
had withdrawn the house of Hapsburg from the leadership of Germany;
the imperial progress to Dresden and the high imperial court held
there were intended to dazzle the masses of Europe, possibly to
intimidate the Czar. The French were genuinely enthusiastic; the
Germans displayed no spite; princes, potentates, and powers swelled
the train; all the monarchs of the coalition, under Francis as dean of
the corps, stood in array to receive the august Emperor. From the
spectacular standpoint Dresden is the climax of the Napoleonic drama.
Surrounded by men who at least bore the style of sovereigns, the
Corsican victor stood alone in the focus of monarchical splendor. At
his side, and resplendent, not in