THE TREATY OF TILSIT[11]
[Footnote 11: References as before. Further: Lefebvre:
Histoire des cabinets de l'Europe. Tatistcheff: Alexandre Ier
et Napoleon. Ranke: Hardenberg und die Geschichte des
Preussischen Staates von 1793-1813. Pingaud: Les Francais en
Russie et les Russes en France.]
Two Equal Empires -- Central Europe and the Orient -- Prussia as
a Second-rate Power -- The Grand Duchy of Warsaw and the Kingdom
of Westphalia -- Napoleon and Frederick William -- Queen Louisa
of Prussia -- The Meeting of Napoleon and Louisa -- Courtesy and
Diplomacy -- The Bitterness of Disappointment -- The Last Plea --
Prussia's Humiliation -- The Parting of the Emperors --
Alexander's Disenchantment -- Napoleon's Gains and Losses.
By such hitherto unknown simplicity and address diplomacy at Tilsit
was rendered most expeditious. The negotiations were complete, the
treaties drawn up, and the signatures affixed on July seventh. There
were three different documents: a treaty of peace, a series of seven
separate and secret articles, and a treaty of alliance. The first
point gained by Napoleon was the recognition of all his conquests
before 1805. The Czar admitted for the first time absolute equality
between the two empires, and recognized the limits of the French
system as it then existed: first, the Confederation of the Rhine, with
any additions yet to be made; second, the kingdom of Italy, including
Dalmatia; third, the vassalage of Holland, Berg, Naples, and
Switzerland. There was a verbal understanding, it is said, that
Napoleon might do as he liked in Spain and the Papal States, while
the Czar should have the same liberty in regard to Finland. Subsequent
events attested the probability of this statement. To illustrate
Napoleon's attitude toward the recent, but now dissolved alliance,
Prussia was given to understand that she owed to Russia what remnants
of territory she retained; the stipulations with regard to her were
therefore included in the treaty with Russia.
Still, there was to be a Prussia. Between the two great empires was to
lie, in realization of a long-cherished plan, a girdle of neutral
states like the "marches" established by Charles the Great. In this
line Silesia was the only break. Prussia and Austria, one on each side
of this mark, shorn of their strength and prestige, might await their
destiny. France was to mediate for peace between Russia and Turkey,
Russia between England and France. In case Great Britain should not
prove tractable,--that is, admit the sanctity of all flags on the high
seas, and restore all the colonies of France and her allies captured
since 1805,--then Russia, in common with France, Denmark, Sweden,
Portugal, and Austria, would declare commercial war on England, and
complete the continental embargo on British trade. Should Turkey
refuse favorable terms, the two empires would divide between them all
her European lands except Rumelia and the district of Constantinople.
Alexander afterward declared that Napoleon gave a verbal promise that
Russia should have a substantial increment on the Danube. The rumor
was that Bessarabia, Moldavia, Wallachia, and Bulgaria were indicated
to the Czar as his share.
No mention was made of Austria, which the treaty of Presburg had
sufficiently dismembered. But Prussia? In order to complete the great
"march" between east and west, Silesia was essential. At first
Napoleon thought of combining it with Prussian Poland to form a
kingdom. This would not restore the real Poland, but it would create a
Poland, and give him a Polish army. It was already decided that the
Elbe should form Frederick William's western frontier; to weaken his
strength still further would destroy all balance between Prussia and
Austria. Moreover, Alexander made a tender appeal, and adroitly
suggested a distasteful counter-proposition. Accordingly it was
settled that the great province should remain Prussian. This was a
large concession to the Czar.
To make some pretense of fulfilling the lavish but indefinite promises
made to the Poles, the lands of Warsaw and the province of Posen, with
a considerable tract not now contained in it, were erected into the
grand duchy of Warsaw. Under the influence of historical reminiscence
this was given, not as a province but as a separate sovereignty to the
Elector of Saxony, who was simultaneously made king and a member of
the Rhine Confederation. The Czar, in return for his cessions to the
grand duchy of Warsaw, received the Prussian district of Bielostok. As
a compensation for the Bocche di Cattaro and the Ionian Islands,
Dantzic was restored to its position of a free city. The Prussian
lands of the Elbe, together with Hesse-Cassel and many minor domains,
were erected into the kingdom of Westphalia for the Emperor's brother
Jerome. We have almost forgotten in our day how, less than a century
ago, Germany was divided into insignificant fragments. It is
instructive to recall that the formation of this new kingdom
beneficently ended the separate existence of no fewer than twenty-four
more or less autonomous powers--electorates, duchies, counties,
bishoprics, and cities. It contained the all-important fortress of
Magdeburg, the possession of whose frowning walls carried with it the
command of the Elbe, and virtually made Prussia a conquered and
tributary state.
This seemed to Frederick William the climax of his misfortunes. He had
daily information from the Czar of what was under consideration, and
the rescue of Silesia by his mediator gave him high hopes for the
preservation of Magdeburg. But his poor-spirited behavior wearied even
Alexander, who, willing at the outset to atone for desertion by
intervention, became toward the end very cold. When the King desired
permission to plead in person for Magdeburg, Napoleon refused. The
Prussian case might be presented by counsel. Goltz was speedily
summoned to the task, but though he was always about to have an
interview with the French emperor, he never secured it.
It was at this crisis of Prussia's affairs that the King, after much
urging, consented to summon his Queen. The rumors and insinuations
concerning the Czar's undue admiration of her, so industriously spread
by Napoleon, had made him over-sensitive; but as a last resort he felt
the need of her presence. She came with a single idea--to make the
cause of Magdeburg her own. She had suffered under the malicious
innuendos of Napoleon regarding her character; she had shared the
disgrace of the Berlin war party in the crushing defeat at Jena and
Auerstaedt; she had been a wayfarer among a disgraced and helpless
people; but her spirit was not broken, and she announced her visit
with all the dignity of her station. The court carriage in which she
drove, accompanied by her ladies in waiting, reached Tilsit on July
sixth, and drew up before the door of the humble miller under whose
roof were the rooms of her husband. Officers and statesmen were
gathered to receive and encourage her with good advice; but she waved
them away with an earnest call for quiet, so that she might collect
her ideas.
In a moment Napoleon was announced. As he climbed the narrow stairway
she rose to meet him. Friend and foe agree as to her beauty, her
taste, and her manners; her presence, in a white dress embroidered
with silver, and with a pearl diadem on her brow, was queenly. In her
husband's apartments she was the hostess, and as such she apologized
for the stair. "What would one not do for such an end!" gallantly
replied the somewhat dazzled conqueror. The suppliant, after making a
few respectful inquiries as to her visitor's welfare, and the effect
of the Northern climate on his health, at once announced the object of
her visit. Her manner was full of pathos and there were tears in her
eyes as she recalled how her country had been punished for its appeal
to arms, and for its mistaken confidence in the traditions of the
great Frederick and his glory. The Emperor was abashed by the lofty
strain of her address. So elevated was her mien that she overpowered
him; for the instant his self-assurance fled, and he felt himself but
a man of the people. He felt also the humiliation of the contrast, and
was angry. Long afterward he confessed that she was mistress of the
conversation, adding that she stood with her head thrown back like
Mlle. Duchesnois in the character of Chimene, meaning by this
comparison to stigmatize her attitude and language as theatrical. So
effective was her appeal that he felt the need of something to save
his own role, and accordingly he bowed her to a chair, and in the
moment thus gained determined to strike the key of high comedy. Taking
up the conversation in turn, he scrutinized the beauties of her
person, and, complimenting her dress, asked whether the material was
crape or India gauze. "Shall we talk of rags at such a solemn moment?"
she retorted; and then proceeded with her direct plea for Magdeburg.
In the midst of her eloquence, when the Emperor seemed almost
overcome by her importunity, her meddling husband most inopportunely
entered the room. He began to argue and reason, citing his threadbare
grievance, the violation of Ansbach territory, and endeavoring to
prove himself to be right. Napoleon at once turned the conversation to
indifferent themes, and in a few moments took his leave. "You ask
much," he said to the Queen on parting; "but I promise to think it
over." The courageous woman had done her best, but her cause--if,
indeed, it was ever in the balance--was lost from the moment she put
her judge in an inferior position. Her majestic bearing was fine, but
it was not diplomacy. She might, nevertheless, have succeeded had she
been the wife of a wiser man. Long afterward Napoleon thought her
influence on the negotiations would have been considerable if she had
appeared in their earlier stages, and congratulated himself that she
came too late, inasmuch as they were already virtually closed when she
arrived.
The remainder of the day passed for the Queen in a whirl of
excitement, receiving messengers from Napoleon with the pardons of
Prussian prisoners and accepting polite attentions from his adjutants.
She gladly consented to dine with Napoleon, and Berthier was chosen to
escort her to his Emperor's lodging. On arrival she was received with
distinction, and assigned at table to the seat of honor between the
host and the Czar. The Emperor was all politeness, offering unwelcome
consolations to Frederick William, and expressing astonishment at the
Queen's courage. "Did you know my hussars nearly captured you?" he
said to her. "I can scarcely believe it, sire," was the reply; "I did
not see a single Frenchman." "But why expose yourself thus? Why did
you not wait for me at Weimar?" "Indeed, sire, I was not eager."
There is a tradition that Talleyrand, whose work the treaty really
was, grew anxious and whispered to Napoleon later in the evening that
surely he would not surrender the benefits of his greatest conquest
for the sake of a pretty woman. Whether this admonition was given or
not, the Emperor was respectful and polite, but non-committal. After
dinner he conversed long with his fair guest. To her lady in waiting,
the Countess Voss, he offered snuff--a singular mark of condescension.
Next day, in a note to Josephine, he said that he had been compelled
continually to stand on his guard; and the day following, July eighth,
he again wrote to his Empress: "The Queen is really charming, using
every art to please me; but be not jealous: I am like a waxed cloth
from which all that glides off. It would cost me too much to play the
gallant." The Emperor's courtesy had deceived the poor Queen entirely,
and she is said to have returned to her husband's lodgings at
Piktupoenen in the highest spirits.
On that very night, immediately after the dinner, the step she so much
dreaded was taken, and orders were given to conclude the treaty as it
stood. At the last hour Goltz secured his interview to plead the
expectations awakened in the Queen, but the Emperor coldly explained
that his conduct had been politeness, and nothing more; the house of
Prussia might be glad to recover a crown at all. Talleyrand showed a
completed and final draft of the treaty ready for signature, and said
that his master was in haste, that in two days the documents would be
signed. This was the news which greeted Louisa next morning. She
returned at once to Tilsit, her eyes swollen with weeping; but she
appeared in a stately dress, and with a smile on her lips. Again she
was the object of the most distinguished courtesy from Napoleon's
adjutants, but the expected visit from himself was not made. However,
she was again the Emperor's honored guest at dinner. The host at once
began to speak of her costume. "What, the Queen of Prussia with a
turban! Surely not to gratify the Emperor of Russia, who is at war
with the Turks!" "Rather, I think," replied the Queen, "to propitiate
Rustan," rolling her large, full eyes toward the swarthy Mameluke
behind his master's chair. She had the air, according to Napoleon's
account, of an offended coquette. After the meal it was Murat who took
the part filled the previous evening by the Emperor. "How does your
Majesty pass the time at Memel?" "In reading." "What does your Majesty
read?" "The history of the past." "But our own times afford actions
worthy of commemoration." "It is already more than I can endure to
live in them."
Before parting, Napoleon spent a few moments at her side, and at the
end, turning, pulled from a bunch a beautiful rose, which he offered
with gestures of gallantry and homage. Hesitating a moment, the Queen
at last put out her hand, and said as she accepted it, "At least with
Magdeburg." "Madame," came the frigid reply, "it is mine to give and
yours to accept." But he gave his arm to conduct her to the carriage,
and as they descended the stair together the disappointed guest said,
in a sentimental and emotional voice, "Is it possible that, having had
the happiness to see so near the man of the century and of all
history, he will not afford me the possibility and the satisfaction of
being able to assure him that he has put me under obligations for
life?" With solemn tones Napoleon replied, "Madame, I am to be pitied;
it is a fault of my unlucky star." Queen Louisa's own lady in waiting
related that her sovereign's bitterness overcame her at the last, and
as she stepped into the carriage she said, "Sire, you have cruelly
deceived me." It is certain that next day she overwhelmed Duroc with
reproaches; but she afterward frankly confessed that she could recall
no definite promise made by Napoleon. To Talleyrand she said, with
fine sarcasm, that only two persons regretted her having come to
Tilsit--he and she. Her duty, she believed, as a loving wife, as a
tender mother, as the queen of her people, was fulfilled; but her
heart was broken. Queen Mary of England said of the loss of Calais,
"Should they open my heart, they will find the name of Calais
inscribed in bloody letters within." Queen Louisa pathetically
recalled this moan; she could say the same of Magdeburg.
The treaty with Prussia, signed two days later, did not modify in the
least the terms arranged with Alexander, and for six years that
country remained in a mutilated and conquered condition, compelled to
obey with outward respect the behests of Napoleon. Every domain she
had owned west of the Elbe went to the kingdom of Westphalia, the
circle of Kottbus went to Saxony, the Polish provinces of south
Prussia and new east Prussia to the grand duchy of Warsaw, the circle
of Bielostok to Russia. Napoleon is said to have urged the Czar to
seize Memel and the strip of Prussian land east of the Niemen; but
this is denied, and in any case, Alexander, desiring to be at peace
with his neighbor, firmly refused; moreover, he verbally stipulated
for the evacuation of the Hohenzollern lands by French troops at an
early date. Nominally, therefore, the King of Prussia regained
sovereignty over less than half of his former territory. For this
consideration he was to pay an indefinite but enormous and almost
impossible indemnity, which was to cover the total cost of the war. To
guarantee this a large portion of the French army was, in spite of
Alexander's demand, still left quartered in the Hohenzollern lands, so
that the Prussian people were daily reminded of their disgrace, as
well as irritated by extortionate taxation. First and last, the war
cost Prussia, in the support of the French army and in actual
contributions to France, over a billion of francs--about the gross
national income of thirteen years. The process of Prussian
consolidation begun three years before was thus hastened. What Pozzo
di Borgo called a masterpiece of destruction turned out in the end to
be the beginning of a new birth for the nation. But the royal pair
were stricken down: the high-souled Queen died, three years later, of
chagrin; the King lived to see his people strong once more, but in a
sort of obstructing stupor, being always an uncompromising
conservative. When he died, in 1840, he left to his successor a legacy
of smothered popular discontent.
The treaties of Tilsit between France and Russia were signed, as was
said, on July seventh. The principal personages engaged on both sides
in this grand scene of reconciliation were on that day reciprocally
decorated with the orders of the respective courts, while the imperial
guards of both emperors received food and drink for a great festivity.
Next day Napoleon paid his farewell visit. At his morning toilet he
had his valet loosen the threads which fastened the cross of the
Legion of Honor to his coat, and as the Czar advanced to meet him he
asked in audible tones permission to decorate the first grenadier of
Russia. A veteran named Lazaref was summoned from the ranks, and with
a wrench the Emperor tore off his cross, and fastened it on the breast
of the peasant. The welkin rang with applause, while Lazaref kissed
his benefactor's hands and the hem of his coat. Next day Alexander
crossed the Niemen. Savary went with him as a French envoy, partly to
keep up the Czar's courage and spirits, which would be endangered by
the sullen humor of the court circles in St. Petersburg, partly to
study the temper of the Russian people.
To the last moment of their intercourse the Czar appeared to be under
the spell of Napoleon's seductive powers. He came as a conquered
prince; he left with an honorable peace, with the friendship of his
magnanimous conqueror, and with an unsmirched imperial dignity. He had
saved his recent ally from destruction, and had secured a small
increase of territory for himself; for the future there were Finland
and the fairest portion of Turkey. But in a few days the magic began
to pass. He had not secured Constantinople, and he had promised to
evacuate Wallachia and Moldavia; he had not secured the complete
evacuation of Prussia; he had risked a rupture with England; he had,
above all, submitted to the creation of a state which, under the thin
disguise of another name, was but the germ of a reconstructed Poland.
It began to appear as if he had been wheedled. There is sufficient
evidence that such bitter reflections made their appearance very soon;
but they were repressed, at first from pure shame, and afterward from
stern necessity, when England began to vent her anger. But the
Russians themselves could not be repressed. Before long Savary was
hated and abused by the public, the more because he maintained his
ascendancy over the Czar. The reports sent home by the former police
agent were clever and instructive, but their pictures of factional
disputes and Oriental plots at court, of aristocratic luxury and
general poverty, of popular superstition and barbarous manners, were
not reassuring, and confirmed in his Emperor's mind doubts felt from
the beginning as to the stability of the alliance consummated at
Tilsit, an alliance outwardly fair, but, like all Talleyrand's
diplomacy, more showy than substantial.[12]
[Footnote 12: For an interesting comment on Talleyrand's
diplomacy, see Sorel: L'Europe et la Revolution Francaise,
Vol. VI, pp. 23-25.]
Napoleon left for Koenigsberg the same day on which he bade adieu to
Alexander. His route was by way of Dresden. He was not in the
slightest degree deceived. The peace of Europe, he said, was in St.
Petersburg; the affairs of the world were there. But he had gained
much. The outposts of his empire were established, and from one of
them he could touch with his hand the enchanted East. He had secured
the temporary cooeperation of Russia, and with that as a beginning he
might consolidate the Continent against England, and complete the
stage in his progress now gained. Above all, he could at once restore
the confidence of France by the proclamation of peace and the
upbuilding of her prosperity. To be sure, he had forecast a division
of his prospective Eastern empire with Russia, he had left Prussia
outraged and bleeding, and Austria was uneasy and suspiciously
reserved; but he had checkmated them all in the menace of a restored
Poland, while their financial weakness and military exhaustion,
combined with the reciprocal jealousies of their dynasties, might be
relied on to prevent their immediate hostility. Besides, while he had
sung a certain tune at Tilsit, in the future he would, as he
sarcastically said somewhat later, have to sing it only according to
the written score.