As for Hanover, he had intended sending some one to Berlin to propose an equivalent for it in case England still made its restitution a sine qua non of peace.  “But,” he added, “if your young officers and your women at Berlin want war, I am preparing to satisfy them.  Yet my ambition turns wholly to Italy.  She is a mistress whose favours I will share with no one.  I will have all the Adriatic.  The Pope shall be my vassal, and I will conquer Sicily.  On North Germany I have no claims:  I do not object to the Hanse towns entering your confederation.  As to the inclusion of Saxony in it, my mind is not yet made up."[98]

Indeed, the tenor of his private correspondence proves that before the first week of September he did not expect a new Coalition.  He believed that England and Russia would give way before him, and that Prussia would never dare to stir.  For the Court of Berlin he had a sovereign contempt, as for the “old coalition machines” in general.  His conduct of affairs at this time betokens, not so much desire for war as lack of imagination where other persons’ susceptibilities are concerned.  It is probable that he then wanted peace with England and peace on the Continent; for his diplomacy won conquests fully as valuable as the booty of his sword, and only in a naval peace could he lay the foundations of that oriental empire which, he assured O’Meara at St. Helena, held the first place in his thoughts after the overthrow of Austria.  But it was not in his nature to make the needful concessions. “I must follow my policy in a geometrical line” he said to Lucchesini.  England might have Hanover and a few colonies if she would let Sicily go to a Bonaparte:  as for Prussia, she might absorb half-a-dozen neighbouring princelings.

That is the gist of Napoleon’s European policy in the summer of 1806; and the surprise which he expressed to Mollien at the rejection of his offers is probably genuine.  Sensitive to the least insult himself, his bluntness of perception respecting the honour of others might almost qualify him to rank with Aristotle’s man devoid of feeling.  It is perfectly true that he did not make war on Prussia in 1806 any more than on England in 1803.  He only made peace impossible.[99]

The condition on which Prussia now urgently insisted was the entire evacuation of Germany by French troops.  This Napoleon refused to concede until Frederick William demobilized his army, a step that would have once more humbled him in the eyes of this people.  It might even have led to his dethronement.  For an incident had just occurred in Bavaria that fanned German sentiment to a flame.  A bookseller of Nuremberg, named Palm, was proved by French officers to have sold an anonymous pamphlet entitled “Germany in her deep Humiliation.”  It was by no means of a revolutionary type, and the worthy man believed it to be a mistake when he was arrested by the military authorities.  He was wrong.  Napoleon had