ain ever was.[194]

Despite the blunderings of our War Office, the silly vapourings of the
Spaniards, and the insane quarrels of their provincial juntas about
precedence and the sharing of English subsidies, the summer of 1808
saw Napoleon's power stagger under terrible blows. Not only did he
lose Spain and Portugal and the subsidies which they had meekly paid,
but most of the 15,000 Spanish troops which had served him on the
shores of the Baltic found means to slip away on British ships and put
a backbone into the patriotic movements in the north of Spain. But
worst of all was the loss of that moral strength, which he himself
reckoned as three-fourths of the whole force in war. Hitherto he had
always been able to marshal the popular impulse on his side. As the
heir to the Revolution he had appealed, and not in vain, to the
democratic forces which he had hypnotized in France but sought to stir
up in his favour abroad. Despite the efforts of Czartoryski and Stein
to tear the democratic mask from his face, it imposed on mankind until
the Spanish Revolution laid bare the truth; and at St. Helena the
exile gave his own verdict on the policy of Bayonne: "It was the
Spanish ulcer which ruined me."

NOTE TO THE THIRD EDITION.--For a careful account of the
Convention of Cintra in its military and political aspects, see
Mr. Oman's recently published "History of the Peninsular War,"
vol. i., pp. 268-278, 291-300. I cannot, however, agree with the
learned author that that Convention was justifiable on military
grounds, after so decisive a victory as Vimiero.

* * * * *

CHAPTER XXIX

ERFURT

"At bottom the great question is--who shall have
Constantinople?"--NAPOLEON, May 31st, 1808.

The Spanish Rising made an immense rent in Napoleon's plans. It opened
valuable markets for British goods both in the Peninsula and in South
and Central America, and that too at the very time when the
Continental System was about to enfold us in its deadly grip.[195] And
finally it disarranged schemes that reached far beyond Europe. To
these we must now briefly recur.

Even amidst his greatest military triumphs Napoleon's gaze turned
longingly towards the East; and no sooner did he force peace on the
conquered than his thoughts centred once more on his navy and
colonies, on Egypt and India. The Treaty of Tilsit gave him leisure to
renew these designs. The publication i