was--peace.

It was now the close of January; Tolstoi was invited to join a
hunting-party, and in the heart of the forest Napoleon found means to
be alone with him. After a long, vague, contradictory, but dramatic
conversation setting forth the same three alternatives,--peace between
Russia and Turkey without the principalities, or the principalities in
exchange for Silesia, or the ultimate but not immediate partition of
Turkey,--the great actor suddenly paused as if in an ecstasy of
sincerity, and snatching his hat off his head with both hands, flung
it on the ground as he said: "Hark you, M. Tolstoi; it is not the
Emperor of the French, but an old general of division that is now
talking to another. May I be thought the vilest of men if I do not
scrupulously fulfil the contract I made at Tilsit, and if I do not
evacuate both Prussia and the duchy of Warsaw as soon as you have
withdrawn your troops from Moldavia and Wallachia! I am neither a fool
nor a child, not to know what I stipulate, and what I stipulate I
always fulfil." Leaving this objurgation time to work its effect, the
Emperor of the French a few days later--on February second--wrote with
his own hand to the Emperor of all the Russias. It was an innocent and
kindly epistle, advising his friend to strengthen his army, and
promising all aid possible in case he should feel that the border-line
of Sweden was too near St. Petersburg. An army of fifty thousand men,
Russian, French, perhaps a "little Austrian," marching into Asia by
way of Constantinople, would not reach the Euphrates before England
would begin to tremble. "I am strong in Dalmatia, you on the Danube.
One month after an agreement we could be on the Bosporus. But our
mutual interests require to be combined and equalized in a personal
conference. Tolstoi is not built on the proportions of Tilsit. We
could have everything ready, you and I, or perhaps Caulaincourt and
Rumianzoff, before March fifteenth, and by May first our troops could
be in Asia at the moment when those of your Majesty were in Stockholm.
We would have preferred peace, you and I, but we must do what is
predestined, and follow whither the irresistible march of events
conducts us."

This letter was a masterpiece. It meant, first, a little European
war, short and sharp, whereby Russia would get Finland as a sop and
have her attention drawn off from Prussia and Spain; secondly, a
menace which would bring England to terms and produce a pea