In England Butler enjoyed the honours of French prosecution. He was regarded as a victim who deserved all the confidence of the enemies of France. He furnished Fouche with a considerable amount of information, and he was fortunate enough to escape being hanged.
Notwithstanding the pretended necessity of employing secret agents, Bonaparte was unwilling that, even under that pretext, too many communications should be established between France and England: Fouche, nevertheless, actively directed the evolutions of his secret army. Ever ready to seize on anything that could give importance to the police and encourage the suspicions of the Emperor, Fouche wrote to me that the government had received certain--information that many Frenchmen traveling for commercial houses in France were at Manchester purchasing articles of English manufacture. This was true; but how was it to be prevented? These traveling clerks passed through Holland, where they easily procured a passage to England.
Louis Bonaparte, conceiving that the King of Holland ought to sacrifice the interests of his new subjects to the wishes of his brother, was at first very lenient as to the disastrous Continental system. But at this Napoleon soon manifested his displeasure, and about the end of the year 1806 Louis was reduced to the necessity of ordering the strict observance of the blockade. The facility with which the travelers of French commercial houses passed from Holland to England gave rise to other alarms on the part of the French Government. It was said that since Frenchmen could so easily pass from the Continent to Great Britain, the agents of the English Cabinet might, by the same means, find their way to the Continent. Accordingly the consuls were directed to keep a watchful eye, not only upon individuals who evidently came from England, but upon those who might by any possibility come from that country. This plan was all very well, but how was it to be put into execution ? . . . The Continent was, nevertheless, inundated with articles of English manufacture, for this simple reason, that, however powerful may be the will of a sovereign, it is still less powerful and less lasting than the wants of a people. The Continental system reminded me of the law created by an ancient legislator, who, for a crime which he conceived could not possibly be committed, condemned the person who should be guilty of it to throw a bull over Mount Taurus.
It is not my present design to trace a picture of the state of Europe at the close of 1806. I will merely throw together a few facts which came to my knowledge at the time, and which I find in my correspondence. I have already mentioned that the Emperor arrived at Warsaw on the 1st of January. During his stay at Posen he had, by virtue of a treaty concluded with the Elector of Saxony, founded a new kingdom, and consequently extended his power in Germany, by the annexation of the new Kingdom of Saxony to the Confederation of the Rhine. By the terms of this treaty Saxony, so justly famed for her cavalry, was to furnish the Emperor with a contingent of 20,000 men and horses.
It was quite a new spectacle to the Princes of Germany, all accustomed to old habits of etiquette, to see an upstart sovereign treat them as subjects, and even oblige them to consider themselves as such. Those famous Saxons, who had made Charlemagne tremble, threw themselves on the protection of the Emperor; and the alliance of the head of the House of Saxony was not a matter of indifference to Napoleon, for the new King was, on account of his age, his tastes, and his character, more revered than any other German Prince.
From the moment of Napoleon's arrival at Warsaw until the commencement of hostilities against the Russians he was continually solicited to reestablish the throne of Poland, and to restore its chivalrous independence to the ancient empire of the Jagellons. A person who was at that time in Warsaw told me that the Emperor was in the greatest uncertainty as to what he should do respecting Poland. He was entreated to reestablish that ancient and heroic kingdom; but he came to no decision, preferring, according to custom, to submit to events, that he might appear to command them. At Warsaw, indeed, the Emperor passed a great part of his time in fetes and reviews, which, however, did not prevent him from watching, with his eagle eye, every department of the public service, both interior and exterior. He himself was in the capital of Poland, but his vast influence was present everywhere. I heard Duroc say, when we were conversing together about the campaign of Tilsit, that Napoleon's activity and intelligence were never more conspicuously developed.
