I have just received, my dear Bourrienne, information which leaves no doubt of what has taken place at Cassel with respect to Mr. Taylor.  That Minister has been received in spite of the representations of M. Bignon, which, however, had previously been merely verbal.  I know that the Elector wrote to London to request that Mr. Taylor should not return.  In answer to this the English Government sent him back.  Our Minister has done everything he could to obtain his dismissal; but the pecuniary interests of the Elector have triumphed over every other consideration.  He would not risk quarrelling with the Court from which he expects to receive more than 12,000,000 francs.  The British Government has been written to a second time, but without effect.  The Elector himself, in a private letter, has requested the King of England to recall Mr. Taylor, but it is very probable that the Cabinet of London will evade this request.

Under these circumstances our troops have approached nearer to Cassel.  Hitherto the whole district of Gottingen had been exempt from quartering troops.  New arrangements, tendered necessary by the scarcity of forage, have obliged me to send a squadron of ’chasseurs de cheval’ to Munden, a little town four leagues from Cassel.  This movement excited some alarm in the Elector, who expressed a wish to see things restored to the same footing as before.  He has requested M. Bignon to write to me, and to assure me again that he will be delighted to become acquainted with me at the waters of Nemidorff, where he intends to spend some time.  But on this subject I shall not alter the determination I have already mentioned to you.  —­Yours, etc.,
                    (Signed) Bernadotte. 
Stade, 10th Thermidor (29th July, 1805).

CHAPTER XXXIII.

1805.

Treaty of alliance between England and Russia—­Certainty of an approaching war—­M.  Forshmann, the Russian Minister—­Duroc’s mission to Berlin—­New project of the King of Sweden—­Secret mission to the Baltic—­Animosity against France—­Fall of the exchange between Hamburg and Paris—­Destruction of the first Austrian army—­Taking of Ulm—­The Emperor’s displeasure at the remark of a soldier—­Battle of Trafalgar—­Duroc’s position at the Court of Prussia—­Armaments in Russia—­Libel upon Napoleon in the Hamburg ’Corespondent’—­ Embarrassment of the Syndic and Burgomaster of Hamburg—­The conduct of the Russian Minister censured by the Swedish and English Ministers.

At the beginning of August 1805 a treaty of alliance between Russia and England was spoken of.  Some persons of consequence, who had the means of knowing all that was going on in the political world, had read this treaty, the principal points of which were communicated to me.