disposed Napoleon to an armistice were
plain enough; those which determined his later conduct can only be
divined. Prussia had seemed to the French liberals of the Revolution
to belong by nature to their system: they were quite as angry with her
persistent neutrality as was either Austria or England, both of whom
thought she should adhere to them, if only for self-preservation.
Napoleon's repeated but vain attempts to secure a Prussian alliance
before Jena, or a separate negotiation afterward, rooted this
traditional bitterness in his mind. To secure the prize for which he
was fighting he had only two courses open: either to restore Poland as
the frontier state between the civilization of his empire and the
semi-barbarism and ambitions of Russia, or else to negotiate with
Russia herself.

The former course meant an interminable warfare with Russia, Austria,
and Prussia, at a distance of fifteen hundred miles from Paris; for
Russia would fight to the death rather than lose the only possessions
which put her into the heart of Europe, and thus be relegated to the
character of an Asiatic power. The Emperor of the French had already
seen after Eylau how untrustworthy the grand army was, even in Poland;
if dejected and insubordinate there, as he may well have recalled was
actually the case, what would it be on the banks of the Dnieper, in
the plains of Lithuania? Such considerations probably determined not
only the fact of peace, but its character. In order to secure what he
had gained in western, southern, and central Europe, England must be
brought to terms. Russia must therefore not only be an ally, but a
hearty ally: as the price of her subscription to the Berlin Decree,
and the consequent closing of her harbors to English shipping, she
could gratify any reasonable ambition, and might virtually dictate her
own terms. With an engine in his hands as formidable as Russia's
adhesion to his commercial policy, he could act at the nick of
time,--which, as he declared at this very season to Joseph, was the
highest art of which man is capable,--could destroy England's
commerce, and in a long peace could consolidate the empire he had
already won. His empire thus consolidated, he would be virtual master
of half the solid earth in the Eastern hemisphere. If ambition should
still beckon him on, he would still be young; he could then consider
the next step to universal empire.

It may safely be said that Great Britain was never more