STATE PAPERS. 



425 



the accomplishment of this dread- 

 ful usurpation. The boundary, 

 drawn apparently by bhnd caprice, 

 without either rule or plan, with- 

 out any consideration of ancient or 

 more recent political relations, in- 

 tersected rivers and countries, cut off 

 the middle and southern states of 

 Germany from all connection with 

 the German sea, passed the Elbe, 

 separated Denmark from Germany, 

 laid its pretensions even to the 

 Baltic, and seemed to be rapidly 

 approaching the line of Prussian 

 fortresses still occupied on the 

 Oder ; and so little did this act of 

 usurpation (however powerfully it 

 affected all rights and possessions, 

 all geographic, political, and mili- 

 tary lines of demarcation), carry 

 with it a character of determinate 

 and complete accession of territory, 

 that it was impossible to view it in 

 any other light than as a forerun- 

 ner of still greater usurpations, by 

 which one half of Germany was to 

 become a French province, and 

 the emperor Napoleon the absolute 

 ruler of the continent. 



To Russia and Prussia this un- 

 natural extension of the French 

 territory could not fail of producing 

 the most serious alarm. The latter, 

 surrounded on all sides, no longer 

 capable of free action, deprived of 

 every means of obtaining fresh 

 strength, appeared hastening to its 

 dissolution. Russia, already in fear 

 for her western frontier, by the 

 conversion of the city of Dant- 

 zic, declared a free city by the 

 treaty of Tilsit, into a French 

 military port, and of a great part 

 of Poland into a French province, 

 could not but sec, in the advance 

 of the French dominion along the 

 Bca coast, and in the new chains 

 prepared for Prussia, the imminent 



danger of her German and Polish 

 possessions. From this moment, 

 therefore, the rupture between 

 France and Russia was as good as 

 decided. 



Not without deep and just anxie- 

 ty did Austria observe the storm 

 which was gathering. The scene 

 of hostilities would in every case 

 be contiguous to her provinces, 

 which, owing to the necessary re- 

 form in the financial system which 

 had cramped the restoration of her 

 military means, v/ere in a very de- 

 fenceless state. In a higher point 

 of view, the struggle which await- 

 ed Russia appeared still more doubt- 

 ful, as it commenced under the 

 same unfavourable conjuncture of 

 affairs, with the same want of co- 

 operation on the part of other 

 powers, and with the same dispro- 

 portion in their relative means, 

 consequently was just as hopeless 

 as all former struggles of the same 

 nature. His majesty the emperor 

 made every effort in his power by 

 friendly mediation with both par- 

 ties, to avert the impending storm. 

 No human judgment could at that 

 time foresee that the period was so 

 near at hand, when the failure of 

 thesefriendlyattempts should prove 

 more injurious to the emperor Na- 

 poleon than to his opponents. 

 Thus, however, it was resolved by 

 the wisdom of Providence. 



When the commencement of 

 hostiUties was no longer doubtful, 

 his majesty was compelled to have 

 recourse to measures which, in 

 so unnatural and dangerous a 

 conjuncture, might combine his 

 own security with just considera- 

 tions for the real interests of neigh- 

 bouring states. The system of un- 

 armed inaction, the only neutrality 

 which the emperor Napoleon, ac- 



