These rewards drained the empire and provided a grievance against the Corsican adventurer who had dared to place all Europe under the rule of Buonaparte. The family did not bear their elevation humbly, but demanded ever higher rank and office. Joseph was raised to the exalted state of King of Spain after the lawful king had been expelled by violence. The patriotism of the Spanish awoke and found an echo in the neighbouring kingdom of Portugal. Napoleon was obliged to send his best armies to the Peninsula where the English hero, Sir Arthur Wellesley, was pushing his way steadily toward the Pyrenees and the French frontier. The expedition to Russia had been partly provoked by the Emperor's marriage with Marie Louise of Austria. There had been talk of a marriage between Napoleon and the Tsar's sister. Then the {180} arrangement of Tilsit had become no longer necessary after the humbling of Austria. Napoleon wished to throw off his ally, Alexander, and was ready to use as a pretext for war Russia's refusal to adopt his "continental system" fully. This system, designed to crush the commercial supremacy of England by forbidding other countries to trade with her, was thus, as events were to prove, the cause of Napoleon's own downfall. The enormous French army made its way to Russia and entered Moscow, the ancient capital, which the inhabitants burned and deserted. In the army's retreat from the city in the depth of winter, thousands died of cold and hunger, and 30,000 men had already fallen in the fruitless victory at Borodino. Napoleon was nearing his downfall as he struggled across the continent in the dreadful march which reduced an army of a quarter of a million men to not more than twelve thousand. He had to meet another failure and the results of a destructive imperial policy in 1814, when he was defeated at Leipzig by Austria, Russia, and Prussia, who combined most desperately against him. The Allies issued at Frankfort their famous manifesto "Peace with France but war against the Empire." They compelled Napoleon to abdicate, and restored the Bourbon line. A court was formed for Louis XVIII at the Tuileries, while Napoleon was sent to Elba. Louis XVI's brother, the Count of Artois, came back, still admired by the faded beauties of the Restoration. The pathetic figure of Louis XVI's daughter, the Duchess of Angouleme, was seen amid the forced gaieties of the new regime, and Madame de Staeel haunted the court of Louis XVIII, forgetting her late revolutionary sentiments. {181} Napoleon grew very weary of his inaction on the isle of Elba. He had spent all his life in military pursuits and missed the companionship of soldiers. He thought with regret of his old veterans when he welcomed the guards sent to him. Perhaps he hoped for the arrival of his wife, too, as he paced up and down the narrow walk by the sea where he took exercise daily. But Marie Louise returned to her own country.