rote, cared little about
interviews or negotiations unless the movements of his 450,000 men
caused serious concern in Russia, recalled her to the Continental
System as settled at Tilsit, and "brought her back to the state of
inferiority in which she was then."[250]

This was, indeed, the gist of the whole question. Napoleon saw that
Alexander was slipping out of the leading strings of Tilsit, and that
he was likely to come off best from that bargain, which was intended
to confirm the supremacy of the Western Empire. For both potentates
that treaty had been, at bottom, nothing more than a truce. Napoleon
saw in it a means of subjecting the Continent to his commercial code,
and of preparing for a Franco-Russian partition of Turkey. The Czar
hailed it as a breathing space wherein he could reorganize his army,
conquer Finland, and stride towards the Balkans. The Erfurt interview
prolonged the truce; for Napoleon felt the supreme need of stamping
out the Spanish Rising and of postponing the partition of Turkey which
his ally was eager to begin. By the close of 1811 both potentates had
exhausted all the benefits likely to accrue from their alliance.[251]
Napoleon flattered himself that the conquest of Spain was wellnigh
assured, and that England was in her last agonies. On the other hand,
Russia had recovered her military strength, had gained Finland and
planted her foot on the Lower Danube, and now sought to shuffle off
Napoleon's commercial decrees. In fine, the monarch, who at Tilsit had
figured as mere clay in the hands of the Corsican potter, had proved
himself to be his equal both in cunning and tenacity. The seeming dupe
of 1807 now promised to be the victor in statecraft.

Then there was the open sore of Poland. The challenge, on this
subject, was flung down by Napoleon at a diplomatic reception on his
birthday, August 15th, 1811. Addressing the Russian envoy, he
exclaimed: "I am not so stupid as to think that it is Oldenburg which
troubles you. I see that Poland is the question: you attribute to me
designs in favour of Poland. I begin to think that you wish to seize
it. No: if your army were encamped on Montmartre, I would not cede an
inch of the Warsaw territory, not a village, not a windmill." His
fears as to Russia's designs were far-fetched. Alexander's sounding of
the Poles was a defensive measure, seriously undertaken only after
Napoleon's refusal to discourage the Polish nationalists. But it
suited the Frenc