It seemed, then, that the Polish Question would once more exert on the European concert that dissolving influence which had weakened the Central Powers ever since the days of Valmy.  Had Napoleon now sent to Breslau a subtle schemer like Savary, the apple of discord might have been thrown in with fatal results.  But the fortunes of his Empire then rested on a Piedmontese nobleman, St. Marsan, who showed a singular credulity as to Prussia’s subservience.  He accepted all Hardenberg’s explanations (including a thin official reproof to Steffens), and did little or nothing to countermine the diplomatic approaches of Russia.  The ground being thus left clear, it was possible for the Czar to speak straight to the heart of Frederick William.  This he now did.  Knesebeck was set aside; and Alexander, meeting the Prussian demands halfway, promised in a treaty, signed at Kalisch on February 27th, to leave Prussia all her present territories, and to secure for her the equivalent, in a “statistical, financial, and geographical sense,” of the lands which she had lost since 1806, along with a territory adapted to connect Prussia Proper with the province of Silesia.[285]

It seems certain that Stein’s influence weighed much with Alexander in this final compromise, which postponed the irritating question of the eastern frontier and bent all the energies of two great States to the War of Liberation.  Stein was sent to Frederick William at Breslau; but the King hardly deigned to see him, and the greatest of German patriots was suffered to remain in a garret of that city during a wearisome attack of fever.  But he lived through disease and official neglect as he triumphed over Slavonic intrigues; and he had at hand that salve of many an able man—­the knowledge that, even while he himself was slighted, his plans were adopted with beneficent and far-reaching results.

The Russo-Prussian alliance was firmly upheld by Lord Cathcart, the British ambassador to Russia, who reached headquarters on March the 2nd.  For the present, Great Britain did not definitely join the allies; but the discussions on the Hanoverian Question, which had previously sundered us from Prussia, soon proved that wisdom had been learnt in the school of adversity.  The Hohenzollerns now renounced all claims to Hanover, though they showed some repugnance to our Prince-Regent’s demand that the Electorate should receive some territorial gain.

Thus the two questions on which Napoleon had counted as certain to clog the wheels of the Coalition, as they had done in the past, were removed, and the way was cleared for a compact firmer than any which Europe had hitherto known.  On March 17th a Russo-Prussian Convention was concluded at Breslau whereby those Powers agreed to deliver Germany from France, to dissolve the Confederation of the Rhine, and to summon the German princes and people to help them; every prince that refused would suffer the loss of his States; and arrangements were made for the provisional administration of the lands which the allies should occupy.  Frederick William also appealed to his people and to his army, and instituted that coveted order of merit, the Iron Cross.