When the Emperor of Russia was informed of Buonaparte’s approaching nuptials with the Austrian princess, his first exclamation was, “Then the next thing will be to drive us back into our forests.”  In truth the conferences of Erfurt had but skinned over a wound, which nothing could have cured but a total alteration of Napoleon’s policy.  The Russian nation suffered so much from the “continental system,” that the sovereign soon found himself compelled to relax the decrees drawn up at Tilsit in the spirit of those of Berlin and Milan.  Certain harbours were opened partially for the admission of colonial produce, and the export of native productions; and there ensued a series of indignant reclamations on the part of Napoleon, and haughty evasions on that of the Czar, which, ere long, satisfied all near observers that Russia would not be slow to avail herself of any favourable opportunity of once more appealing to arms.  The Spanish insurrection, backed by the victories of Lord Wellington, must have roused alike the hope and the pride of a young and ambitious prince, placed at the head of so great a nation; the inference naturally drawn from Napoleon’s marriage into the house of Austria was, that the whole power of that monarchy would, henceforth, act in unison with his views—­in other words, that were the Peninsula once thoroughly subdued, the whole of Western Europe would be at his command, for any service he might please to dictate.  It would have been astonishing if, under such circumstances, the ministers of Alexander had not desired to bring their disputes with Paris to a close, before Napoleon should have leisure to consummate the conquest of Spain.

During the summer of 1811, then, the relations of these two governments were becoming every day more dubious; and when, towards the close of it, the Emperor of Austria published a rescript, granting a free passage through his territories to the troops of his son-in-law, England, ever watchful of the movements of her great enemy, perceived clearly that she was about to have an ally.

From the moment in which the Russian government began to reclaim seriously against certain parts of his conduct, Buonaparte increased by degrees his military force in the north of Germany and the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, and advanced considerable bodies of troops nearer and nearer to the Czar’s Polish frontier.  These preparations were met by some similar movements on the other side; yet, during many months, the hope of terminating the differences by negotiation was not abandoned.  The Russian complaints, at length, assumed a regular shape, and embraced three distinct heads, viz.:—­

First, the extension of the territories of the Duchy of Warsaw, under the treaty of Schoenbrunn.  This alarmed the court of St. Petersburg, by reviving the notion of Polish independence, and Buonaparte was in vain urged to give his public guarantee that no national government should be re-established in the dismembered kingdom: