The reader may have to learn, and not, perhaps, without some surprise, that in the protocol of the sittings of the Congress of Chatillon Napoleon put forward the spoliation of Poland by the three principal powers allied against him as a claim to a more advantageous peace, and to territorial indemnities for France.  In policy he was right, but the report of foreign cannon was already loud enough to drown the best of arguments.

After the ill-timed and useless union of the Hanse Towns to France I returned to Hamburg in the spring of 1811 to convey my family to France.  I then had some conversation with Davoust.  On one occasion I said to him that if his hopes were realised, and my sad predictions respecting the war with Russia overthrown, I hoped to see the restoration of the Kingdom of Poland.  Davoust replied that that event was probable, since he had Napoleon’s promise of the Viceroyalty of that Kingdom, and as several of his comrades had been promised starosties.  Davoust made no secret of this, and it was generally known throughout Hamburg and the north of Germany.

But notwithstanding what Davoust said respecting.  Napoleon’s intentions I considered that these promises had been conditional rather than positive.

On Napoleon’s arrival in Poland the Diet of Warsaw, assured, as there seemed reason to be, of the Emperor’s sentiments, declared the Kingdom free and independent.  The different treaties of dismemberment were pronounced to be null; and certainly the Diet had a right so to act, for it calculated upon his support.  But the address of the Diet to Napoleon, in which these principles were declared, was ill received.  His answer was full of doubt and indecision, the motive of which could not be blamed.  To secure the alliance of Austria against Russia he had just guaranteed to his father-in-law the integrity of his dominions.  Napoleon therefore declared that he could take no part in any movement or resolution which might disturb Austria in the possession of the Polish provinces forming a part of her Empire.  To act otherwise, he said, would be to separate himself from his alliance with Austria, and to throw her into the arms of Russia.  But with regard to the Polish-Russian provinces, Napoleon declared he would see what he could do, should Providence favour the good cause.  These vague and obscure expressions did not define what he intended to do for the Poles in the event of success crowning his vast enterprises.  They excited the distrust of the Poles, and had no other result.  On this subject, however, an observation occurs which is of some force as an apology for Napoleon.  Poland was successively divided between three powers, Russia, Austria, and Prussia, with each of which Napoleon had been at war, but never with all three at once.  He had therefore never been able to take advantage of his victories to re-establish Poland without injuring the interests of neutral powers or of his allies.  Hence it may be concluded not only that he never had the positive will which would have triumphed over all obstacles, but also that there never was a possibility of realising those dreams and projects of revenge in which he had indulged on the banks of the Nile, as it were to console the departed spirit of Sulkowski.