knowledge of these clauses thought a crime. One of the covert agreements was that if England did not 66 'before November 1, 1807, mitigate the severity of her first Orders in Council, and agree to restore to France her maritime conquests effected since the year 1805, . . . the two emperors agreed to summon the three Courts of Copenhagen, Stockholm, and Lisbon to close their ports to the English, and declare war against England. That one of the three Courts which refuses shall be treated as an enemy; and in the case of Sweden refusing, Denmark shall be compelled to declare war against her."'* How Canning got the information about the secret treaty is unknown. Mr. Rose disposes of the idea that a British spy was concealed on the raft, and of the suggestion that Talleyrand gave away his master. As there is no mention of Napoleon's threats to Portugal in our Foreign Office archives, no news could have filtered through Lisbon. Mr. A. Mackenzie, a British agent, a guest at the table of the Russian commander-in-chief, Bennigsen, at Tilsit, may have gleaned information. Mr. Garlike, British ambassador at Copenhagen, is known to have given hints and accounts of Danish fears in a 'most secret' despatch. 'Canning was most careful to conceal the source of his information, and to invest it with a greater importance than it really possessed. Some of his ardent supporters claimed that he knew the tenor of the secret articles of the Treaty of Tilsit before he gave orders for the taking possession of the Danish fleet. This can be refuted from our archives. As late as August 4, 1807-that is, one month after the signature of the treaty he charged Leveson-Gower to seek to discover the terms of the treaty, and whether there were any secret articles. Now it was in the secret articles, or rather in the secret Franco-Russian treaty of alliance of the same date, that the two Emperors finally agreed to summon Denmark and Portugal to declare against England. Thus, at the time when Cathcart and Wellesley were off Elsinore, Canning did not know of the existence of the article which is now seen to be the final justification of his conduct. But if his knowledge was incomplete, it was sufficient to prompt him to vigorous action. He knew through Mackenzie the general purport of the Emperor's plans at Tilsit; and it is clear that our agent drew his information from the quarter whence it was likely to leak out soonest-namely, from the malcontent Russian commander, Bennigsen, and his " entourage."'+ M. Coquelle seems unaware of the information that prompted *Napoleonic Studies,' by J. H. Rose, p. 134. Canning to action," and makes the bombardment of Copenhagen to be the result of the Russian Czar's offer to negotiate (article 13 of treaty) and pique at the defeat of a squadron off Constantinople. He calls it an 'odious expedition,' and seems almost surprised that the Russian offer of intervention did not delay the expedition of the English fleet to Copenhagen. D'Alopéus, Russian Minister in London, on August 1 announced the conclusion of the Treaty of Tilsit to Canning, and offered the mediation of the Czar. Canning's reply on the 5th was to ask for the details of the secret articles of the treaty, which M. Coquelle thinks a 'refusal disguised in a captious way.' It was not the offer of mediation by Russia that caused England to maintain her hostile attitude to France, but the existence of the secret articles planning her future destruction. During the vintage days of 1807, Madame de Staël entertained Prince Augustus of Prussia at Coppet. She found him distinguished in manner and charming in conversation; he was, moreover, patriotic and readily sympathetic with her views about Napoleon. Admiration for Madame de Staël and love for beautiful Madame Récamier, her guest, caused the prince to keep up an active correspondence with both ladies after he had left their neighbourhood. The French Emperor, owing to his splendid system of espionage, read the letters that passed between them, and thereby discovered that Madame de Staël's influence was being exercised to convert the charming prince into a plotter against the existing régime in Prussia. He caused the suspect to be carefully observed, and in the winter received a report from the Governor of Berlin to the effect that Prince Augustus entertained seditious ideas, and was endeavouring to spread them amongst his compatriots. The Journal de l'Empire' (December 1807), commenting on the affair and on the source of the prince's disloyal notions, said he had been at Coppet where 'il faisait de la cour à Madame de Staël, et parait avoir puisé dans cette dernière résidence de 'forts mauvais principes.'† The Emperor's vigilance was as untiring as the enmity of Madame de Staël, and it began to appear as though the one unconquerable thing in Europe was a woman. The rest of Europe appeared supine, and the princes and rulers of its conquered provinces were to all seeming Coquelle, Napoléon et l'Angleterre,' pp. 166-7. + Madame de Staël et Napoléon, p. 212. demoralised; the Congress of Erfurt which followed the Peace of Tilsit was a mournful revelation of their attitude. They bowed their necks to the yoke and suffered themselves to be treated without honour. To us who come after, this congress but proves the unimportance of the things that are seen, and the importance of the things that are not seen. The efforts of the liberators in Europe were having invisible but certain effects, and in 1809 the Archduke Charles gave vent to the suppressed sentiments of the nations, as he addressed the troops he was about to lead into battle against Napoleon, with these words: The liberty of 'Europe has taken refuge beneath your standards; your 'victories will break the chains of your German brethren, who, ' though in the ranks of the alien, still await their deliverance.' With joy and expectation Madame de Staël and many other enthusiasts, like Stein, Fichte, Jahn, and Benjamin Constant, listened to the ominous rattling of the Napoleonic fetters in Europe. The prisoners seemed at last to have realised their desperate case; the silence at last was broken. Madame de Staël's rôle became increasingly important, for the eyes of many a liberator turned to the shores of Lake Leman for encouragement and inspiration. Napoleon was acutely annoyed by her correspondence with Gentz, and by the knowledge of all the influential friends she had made and kept in Germany. By his orders, she was watched even more closely at Coppet; her friends were considered as seditious persons, her very acquaintances became suspects. She said that it seemed as if Napoleon wished to imprison her in her own soul. To superintend the publication of her book on Germany, she moved to Chaumont-sur-Loire. Though the censors had passed the corrected proofs, Napoleon, on reading the book before publication, ordered its instant suppression and her instant exile. Savary told her that it was destroyed because it was not French;' and Goethe thought its destruction a prudent measure, from a French point of view, because it would have increased the confidence of Germans in themselves. The last three chapters in the book were those in which, in the name of enthusiasm, she eloquently protested against the spirit of the Empire. The book appealed too strongly to the passionate though sleeping love of liberty in Europe to make it anything but a firebrand. It was destroyed for its political tendency, but its merit lies in its being an impression of the world of thought in Germany in 1804. * Letters of Goethe to Madame de Grotthus, Feb. 17, 1814. "The "Germany" of Madame de Staël is an ideal picture, and the authoress has been taken to task for the clouds of sentiment and sympathy with which she had enveloped her theme. But it is not thus that we should approach these eloquent discourses. Rather we should see in them the fine protest of a generous French heart against the subjection of a simple and laborious people; an appeal from force to conscience, from the veiled tyranny of the later Empire to the ideals of human brotherhood, which France had once preached, and which a cruel destiny had caused her to forget.' 米 Back again at Coppet in the prison of the soul,' she was visited by the devout and fascinating Madame de Krüdener and her fellow missionary Zacharias Werner, the Rosicrucian. Under their influence, she became extremely religious. Werner read The History of Religion' by Stolberg with her and when he left Coppet not only had Benjamin Constant come under his influence, but so also had William Schlegel: both contemplated writing religious works. Schlegel read Saint-Martin with deep attention. Madame de Staël plunged into the Imitation of Jesus Christ.' At the end of 1810, Coppet might have been the haven of a society of religious. 'On eût dit un congrès des religions: un catholicisme qui était représenté par M. de Montmorency, le quiétisme par M. de Langallerie, l'illuminisme pas M. de Divone, le rationalisme par le baron de Vogt, l'orthodoxie calviniste par le pasteur Moulinie. Benjamin Constant faisait la synthèse.' † As her faith grew, she became calmer and almost thought that God, in sending her so many troubles, intended her to be a noble example to her age. After marrying M. de Rocca, a Spanish officer, she escaped from the Lake of Geneva across Europe. Her adventures were numerous, and in Austria she just missed being arrested by French spies. Then she went on to Moscow and St. Petersburg. Owing to the subjection of Europe, nearly all those persons who were the enemies of Napoleon, French émigrés, Spaniards, Swiss, and Germans like Arndt, Stein, and Dornberg, had gradually been drawn to Russia, in spite of the fact that the Czar was the nominal friend of France. Stein was delighted to hear fragments of 'De l'Allemagne' read aloud by its authoress. She has 'saved a copy from the claws of Savary, and is going to have 'it printed in England,' he wrote in a letter to his wife. H. A. L. Fisher, Napoleonic Statesmanship in Germany,' p. 384. + P. Gautier, Madame de Staël et Napoléon,' p. 283. An eager audience leaned forward in order to lose no word of the last chapter on 'enthusiasm.' They found it intoxicating. She spoke as the conscience of Europe,' as 'the ' representative of humanity.' The Czar flattered her and treated her as an English statesman,' and made himself out to be the dupe of Napoleon. He deplored the immorality of the tyrant, and shared the view of Roumiantsof, his Chancellor, that it was Russia's celestial mission to deliver Europe. He had made up his mind that Bernadotte of Sweden was to be the boutefeu of the defection of the German princes from French allegiance. That prince was deeply interested in his adopted country, and hated the notion that it should enter the Napoleonic confederacy. He made at Abo a secret offensive and defensive alliance with Russia, though without pledging himself to action. Since Madame de Staël had so much influence on Bernadotte, Alexander hoped that her approaching visit to Sweden would persuade him to seal his words by deeds. Madame de Staël urged her friends to recall the exiled General Moreau from America to take command of the allied troops against Napoleon, and both the Czar and Bernadotte agreed with her that it would be well to secure him. Established in Sweden, she began to organise vast conspiracies. Her house became the home of all Napoleon's enemies, and the centre of an organised secret service with the European Courts. Bernadotte was rather frightened by her activity; he did not like being rushed into extremes, and he could get neither money from England nor men from Russia to carry out any scheme. His fears caused him in a little while to send to St. Petersburg to try to undo the newly made treaty. Meanwhile, no stone was left unturned by Madame de Staël that might prove of use to the allies, and in February 1813 a small book appeared at Hamburg Sur le Système continental, et sur ses rapports ' avec la Suède.' It was a fierce pamphlet against Napoleon and his policy, and a direct invitation to Sweden to join Russia, and to England to deliver Europe from tyranny. 'England,' it said, alone remained afloat, like the ark in the midst of the deluge.' The fate of Denmark was 'pitiable-could Sweden submit herself to such indignity?' Happily, though, that was impossible, since Sweden had 'committed her destinies into the hands of the Prince 'Royal.' Who was the anonymous author? The work bore a strange likeness to Madame de Staël's Essay on 'Suicide,' which appeared at Stockholm in 1812; some of 6 |