, concluded with Alexander of Russia on a raft
upon the River Niemen, Prussia suffered new humiliations. The proud
creation of Frederick's military genius had vanished. There was {179}
even undue haste to give up fortresses to the conqueror. The country
was partitioned between Russia, Saxony, and Westphalia, created for the
rule of Jerome Buonaparte, Napoleon's younger brother. He set up kings
now with the ease of a born autocrat. His brother Joseph became King
of Naples, and his brother Louis King of Holland.

A new nobility sprang up, for honours must be equally showered on the
great generals who had helped to win his victories. The new Emperor
was profuse in favour, not believing in disinterested affection. He
paid handsomely for the exercise of the humours, known as his
"vivacites," entering in a private book such items as "Fifteen
napoleons to Menneval for a box on the ear, a war-horse to my
aide-de-camp Mouton for a kick, fifteen hundred _arpens_ in the
imperial forests to Bassano for having dragged him round my room by the
hair."

These rewards drained the empire and provided a grievance against the
Corsican adventurer who had dared to place all Europe under the rule of
Buonaparte. The family did not bear their elevation humbly, but
demanded ever higher rank and office. Joseph was raised to the exalted
state of King of Spain after the lawful king had been expelled by
violence. The patriotism of the Spanish awoke and found an echo in the
neighbouring kingdom of Portugal. Napoleon was obliged to send his
best armies to the Peninsula where the English hero, Sir Arthur
Wellesley, was pushing his way steadily toward the Pyrenees and the
French frontier.

The expedition to Russia had been partly provoked by the Emperor's
marriage with Marie Louise of Austria. There had been talk of a
marriage between Napoleon and the Tsar's sister. Then the {180}
arrangement of Tilsit had become no longer necessary after the humbling
of Austria. Napoleon wished to throw off his ally, Alexander, and was
ready to use as a pretext for war Russia's refusal to adopt his
"continental system" fully. This system, designed to crush the
commercial supremacy of England by forbidding other countries to trade
with her, was thus, as events were to prove, the cause of Napoleon's
own downfall.

The enormous French army made its way to Russia and entered Moscow, the
ancient capital, which the inhabitants burned and deserted. In the