rose in her hand, which the Emperor asked her to give him.  The Queen hesitated for a few moments, and then presented it to him, saying, ’Why should I so readily grant what you request, while you remain deaf to all my entreaties?’ (She alluded to the fortress of Magdeburg, which she had earnestly solicited).” (Memorial de St. Helene).]—­

The treaty of peace concluded at Tilsit between France and Russia, on the 7th of July, and ratified two days after, produced no less striking a change in the geographical division of Europe than had been effected the year preceding by the Treaty of Presburg.  The treaty contained no stipulation dishonourable to Russia, whose territory was preserved inviolate; but how was Prussia treated?  Some historians, for the vain pleasure of flattering by posthumous praises the pretended moderation of Napoleon, have almost reproached him for having suffered some remnants of the monarchy of the great Frederick to survive.  There is, nevertheless, a point on which Napoleon has been wrongfully condemned, at least with reference to the campaign of 1807.  It has been said that he should at that period have re-established the kingdom of Poland; and certainly there is every reason to regret, for the interests of France and Europe, that it was not re-established.  But when a desire, even founded on reason, is not carried into effect, should we conclude that the wished-for object ought to be achieved in defiance of all obstacles?  At that time, that is to say, during the campaign of Tilsit, insurmountable obstacles existed.

If, however, by the Treaty of Tilsit, the throne of Poland was not restored to serve as a barrier between old Europe and the Empire of the Czars, Napoleon founded a Kingdom of Westphalia, which he gave to the young ‘ensigne de vaisseau’ whom he had scolded as a schoolboy, and whom he now made a King, that he might have another crowned prefect under his control.  The Kingdom of Westphalia was composed of the States of Hesse-Cassel, of a part of the provinces taken from Prussia by the moderation of the Emperor, and of the States of Paderborn, Fulda, Brunswick, and a part of the Electorate of Hanover.  Napoleon, at the same time, though he did not like to do things by halves, to avoid touching the Russian and Austrian provinces of old Poland, planted on the banks of the Vistula the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, which he gave to the King of Saxony, with the intention of increasing or destroying it afterwards as he might find convenient.  Thus he allowed the Poles to hope better things for the future, and ensured to himself partisans in the north should the chances of fortune call him thither.  Alexander, who was cajoled even more than his father had been by what I may call the political coquetry of Napoleon, consented to all these arrangements, acknowledged ‘in globo’ all the kings crowned by the Emperor, and accepted some provinces which had belonged to his despoiled ally, the King of Prussia, doubtless by way of consolation for not having been able to get more restored to Prussia.  The two Emperors parted the best friends in the world; but the Continental system was still in existence.