[Footnote 246:  Letters of October 23rd and December 2nd, 1810.]

[Footnote 247:  Vandal, vol. ii., p. 529.]

[Footnote 248:  Tatischeff, p. 555.]

[Footnote 249:  Vandal, vol. ii., p. 535, admits that we had no hand in it.  But the Czar naturally became more favourable to us, and at the close of 1811 secretly gave entry to our goods.]

[Footnote 250:  Quoted by Garden, vol. xiii., p. 171.]

[Footnote 251:  Bernhardi’s “Denkwuerdigkeiten des Grafen von Toll,” vol. i. p. 223.]

[Footnote 252:  Czartoryski, vol. ii., ch. xvii.  At Dresden, in May, 1812, Napoleon admitted to De Pradt, his envoy at Warsaw that Russia’s lapse from the Continental System was the chief cause of war; “Without Russia, the Continental System is absurdity.”]

[Footnote 253:  For the overtures of Russia and Sweden to us and their exorbitant requests for loans, see Mr. Hereford George’s account in his careful and systematic study, “Napoleon’s Invasion of Russia,” ch. iv.  It was not till July, 1812, that we formally made peace with Russia and Sweden, and sent them pecuniary aid.  We may note here that Napoleon, in April, 1812, sent us overtures for peace, if we would acknowledge Joseph as King of Spain and Murat as King of Naples, and withdraw our troops from the Peninsula and Sicily:  Napoleon would then evacuate Spain.  Castlereagh at once refused an offer which would have left Napoleon free to throw his whole strength against Russia (Garden, vol. xiii., pp. 215, 254).]

[Footnote 254:  Garden, vol. xiii., p. 329.]

[Footnote 255:  Hereford George, op. cit., pp. 34-37.  Metternich ("Memoirs,” vol. ii., p. 517, Eng. ed.) shows that Napoleon had also been holding out to Austria the hope of gaining Servia, Wallachia and Moldavia (the latter of which were then overrun by Russian troops), if she would furnish 60,000 troops:  but Metternich resisted successfully.]

[Footnote 256:  See his words to Metternich at Dresden, Metternich’s “Mems.,” vol. i., p. 152; as also that he would not advance beyond Smolensk in 1812.]

[Footnote 257:  Bernhardi’s “Toll,” vol. i., p. 226; Stern, “Abhandlungen,” pp. 350-366; Mueffling, “Aus meinem Leben”; L’Abbe de Pradt, “L’histoire de l’Ambassade de Varsovie.”]

[Footnote 258:  “Erinnerungen des Gen. von Boyen,” vol. ii., p. 254.  This, and other facts that will later be set forth, explode the story foisted by the Prussian General von dem Knesebeck in his old age on Mueffling.  Knesebeck declared that his mission early in 1812 to the Czar, which was to persuade him to a peaceful compromise with Napoleon, was directly controverted by the secret instructions which he bore from Frederick William to Alexander.  He described several midnight interviews with the Czar at the Winter Palace, in which he convinced him that by war with Napoleon, and by enticing him into the heart of Russia, Europe would be saved.  Lehmann has shown ("Knesebeck und Schoen”) that this story is contradicted by all the documentary evidence.  It may be dismissed as the offspring of senile vanity.]