No. 3
I am pleased with Alexander.—For the time being Josephine had most reason to be pleased with Alexander, who failed to secure his sister’s hand for Napoleon.
He ought to be with me.—He might have been, had not Napoleon purposely evaded the Eastern Question. On this subject Savary writes (vol. ii. 297):—“Since Tilsit, Napoleon had sounded the personal views of his ambassador at Constantinople, General Sebastiani, as to this proposition of the Emperor of Russia (i.e. the partition of Turkey). This ambassador was utterly opposed to this project, and in a long report that he sent to the Emperor on his return from Constantinople, he demonstrated to him that it was absolutely necessary for France never to consent to the dismemberment of the Turkish Empire; the Emperor Napoleon adopted his views.” And these Talleyrand knew. The whirligig of time brings about its revenges, and in less than fifty years Lord Palmerston had to seek an alliance with France and the house of Napoleon in order to maintain the fixed policy that sent Napoleon I. to Moscow and to St. Helena. “Alexander, with justice,” says Alison, “looked upon Constantinople as the back-door of his empire, and was earnest that its key should be placed in his hands.” “Alexander,” Napoleon told O’Meara, “wanted to get Constantinople, which I would not allow, as it would have destroyed the equilibrium of power in Europe. I reflected that France would gain Egypt, Syria, and the islands, which would have been nothing in comparison with what Russia would have obtained. I considered that the barbarians of the north were already too powerful, and probably in the course of time would overwhelm all Europe, as I now think they will. Austria already trembles: Russia and Prussia united, Austria falls, and England cannot prevent it.”
Erfurt is the meridian of Napoleon’s first thirteen years (1796-1808)—each more glorious; henceforward (1809-1821) ever faster he “rolls, darkling, down the torrent of his fate.”