North German States, and made overtures to the two most important States, Saxony and Hesse-Cassel.  During a few halcyon days the King even proposed to assume the title Emperor of Prussia, from which, however, the Elector of Saxony ironically dissuaded him.  This castle in the air faded away when news reached Berlin at the beginning of August that Napoleon was seeking to bring the Elector of Hesse-Cassel into the Rhenish Confederation, and was offering as a bait the domains of some Imperial Knights and the principality of Fulda, now held by the Prince of Orange, a relative of Frederick William.  Moreover, the moves of the French troops in Thuringia were so threatening to Saxony that the Court of Dresden began to scout the project of a North German Confederation.

Still, the King and Haugwitz tried to persuade themselves that Napoleon meant well for Prussia, that England had been doing her utmost to make bad blood between the two allies, and that “great results could not be attained without some friction.”  In this hope they were encouraged by the French ambassador, the man who had enticed Prussia to her demobilization.  He was charged by Talleyrand to report at Berlin that “peace with England would be made, as well as with Russia, if France had consented to the restitution of Hanover.—­I have renewed,” added Laforest, “the assurance that the Emperor [Napoleon] would never yield on this point.”

And yet at that very time the French Foreign Office was at work upon a Project of a Treaty in which the restitution of Hanover to George III. was expressly named and received the assent of Napoleon.[93] The Prussian ambassador, Lucchesini, had some inkling of this from French sources,[94] as well as from Lord Yarmouth, and on July 28th penned a despatch which fell like a thunderbolt on the optimists of Berlin.  It crossed on the way—­such is the irony of diplomacy—­a despatch from Berlin that required him to show unlimited confidence in Napoleon.  From confidence the King now rushed to the opposite extreme, and saw Napoleon’s hand in all the friction of the last few weeks.

Here again he was wrong; for the French Emperor had held back Murat and the other hot-bloods of the army who were longing to measure swords with Prussia.[95] His correspondence proves that his first thoughts were always in the Mediterranean.  For one page that he wrote about German affairs he wrote twenty to Joseph or Eugene on the need of keeping a firm hand and punishing Calabrian rebels—­“shoot three men in every village”—­above all, on the plans for conquering Sicily.  It was therefore with real surprise that on August 16th-18th he learnt from a purloined despatch of Lucchesini that the latter suspected him of planning with the Czar the partition of Prussian Poland.  He treated the matter with contempt, and seems to have thought that Prussia would meekly accept the morsels which he proposed to throw to her in place of Hanover.  But he misread the character of Frederick William, if he thought so grievous an insult would be passed over, and he knew not the power of the Prussian Queen to kindle the fire of patriotism.