December 10 Armstrong wrote to Decrès, the Minister of Marine, to ask of him, in Talleyrand’s absence, an explanation of the decree. For some days no answer was received. “Much is said here,” he wrote to Madison, “of qualifications which are to be given to the _arrêté_ of November 20 [21], and which would indeed make it very harmless; but these are rather to be hoped for than believed in.” When Decrès’ reply arrived, dated December 24, it went far to confirm Armstrong’s fears, by avoiding decisive and official explanation.[279] “I consider the imperial decree of the 21st of November last,” wrote Decrès, “as thus far conveying no modification of the regulations at present observed in France with regard to neutral navigators, nor consequently of the convention of Sept. 30, 1800, with the United States of America; ... but it will be proper that your Excellency should communicate with the Minister of Exterior Relations as to what concerns the correspondence of citizens of the United States with England.... It will not escape General Armstrong that my answers cannot have the development which they would receive from the Minister of Exterior Relations, and that it is naturally to him that he ought to address himself for these explanations, which I am very happy to give him, because he wishes them, but upon which I have much less positive information than the Prince of Benevento.” With this explanation, such as it was, Armstrong was obliged to content himself; and the year 1806 closed, leaving President Jefferson at the mercy of battles soon to be fought in the most distant corner of Germany, where the Emperor Alexander of Russia was gathering his forces for a conflict more terrible than Europe had yet seen. CHAPTER XVII. WHILE Armstrong coped with Napoleon in Paris, Monroe enjoyed a brief moment of sunshine on the other side of the Channel. After his diplomatic disasters he might think himself happy, though he only threw from his own shoulders upon those of Armstrong and Bowdoin the Florida negotiation which had thus far injured the reputation of every man connected with it; but he had double cause of rejoicing. He not only escaped from Talleyrand and Godoy, but also from William Pitt, whose body he saw carried amidst the pompous mournings of London in funeral state to Westminster Abbey, and left in solemn grandeur by the side of his great father. Pitt died Jan. 23, 1806, exhausted by the anxieties of office.