If the Convention of Cintra gained little glory for England, the tidings of the successful uprising of the Spanish people against Napoleon, and of Dupont's capitulation at Baylen, created the deepest impression in every country of Europe that still entertained the thought of resistance to France. The first great disaster had befallen Napoleon's arms. It had been inflicted by a nation without a government, without a policy, without a plan beyond that of the liberation of its fatherland from the foreigner. What Coalition after Coalition had failed to effect, the patriotism and energy of a single people deserted by its rulers seemed about to accomplish. The victory of the regular troops at Baylen was but a part of that great national movement in which every isolated outbreak had had its share in dividing and paralysing the Emperor's force. The capacity of untrained popular levies to resist practised troops might be exaggerated in the first outburst of wonder and admiration caused by the Spanish rising; but the difference made in the nature of the struggle by the spirit of popular resentment and determination was one upon which mistake was impossible. A sudden light broke in upon the politicians of Austria and Prussia, and explained the powerlessness of those Coalitions in which the wars had always been the affair of the Cabinets, and never the affair of the people. What the Spanish nation had effected for itself against Napoleon was not impossible for the German nation, if once a national movement like that of Spain sprang up among the German race. "I do not see," wrote Blücher some time afterwards, "why we should not think ourselves as good as the Spaniards." The best men in the Austrian and Prussian Governments began to look forward to the kindling of popular spirit as the surest means for combating the tyranny of Napoleon. Military preparations were pushed forward in Austria with unprecedented energy and on a scale rivalling that of France itself. In Prussia the party of Stein determined upon a renewal of the war, and decided to risk the extinction of the Prussian State rather than submit to the extortions by which Napoleon was completing the ruin of their country. It was among the patriots of Northern Germany that the course of the Spanish struggle excited the deepest emotion, and gave rise to the most resolute purpose of striking for European liberty.