Bold and often rash a diplomatist as Napoleon was, he still felt that at the moment of going to war with Russia he could not entirely disregard the wishes of the United States. In appearance he gave way, and sacrificed the system so long and so tenaciously defended; but in yielding, he chose means that involved the United States government in common responsibility for his previous acts. Even had the Emperor’s deception stopped there, it would have offered the most interesting example in American experience of one peculiarity of his genius; but this was not all. He seemed to grudge the success which Barlow had wrung from him. One is tempted to think that this victory cost Barlow his life. The decree he had gained was flung at him like a missile. Bassano’s letter was dated May 10; the Emperor already, the day before, had left Paris to take command of his Grand Army on the Russian frontier, and as yet the negotiation had not advanced a step. Meanwhile Barlow took a course of his own. Monroe and Madison cared little for a commercial treaty, but insisted upon indemnities. Barlow, finding that indemnity was for the present out of the question, showed great earnestness to make a commercial treaty, and admitted suggestions altogether displeasing to his Government. Thus June arrived, producing no change in the attitude of France other than the new decree, which was as grave an offence to the President’s dignity as though it had been couched in terms of the lie direct. Deceived and deserted, Madison was driven without an ally into a war that required the strongest alliances. Mortified at the figure he had been made to present, he wrote to Barlow that the shameful conduct of the French government would be an everlasting reproach to it, and that if peace were made with England, “the full tide of indignation with which the public mind here is boiling” would be directed against France. His anger was the more bitter because of his personal outrage. The repealing Decree of April, 1811, spared no kind of humiliation, for it proved, even to himself, his error in asserting that Napoleon imposed no condition precedent on the original promise to withdraw his decrees.[207] On that point the Federalists were shown to be right, and Madison could offer no defence against their charge that he had made himself a tool of Napoleon.