The unmatched power of Napoleon’s genius was now being displayed in a wonderful manner. His interest, his inclination, and his expectation were alike opposed to a war with Russia, but Alexander and himself, each hoping that a menacing display of strength would reduce the other to negotiation, advanced, step by step, until blows could no longer be avoided. Napoleon, a man capable of sincere friendship, had relied too much and too long on the existence of a like feeling in the Russian emperor; and misled, perhaps, by the sentiment of his own energy, did not sufficiently allow for the daring intrigues of a court, where secret combinations of the nobles formed the real governing power. That the cabinet of Petersburgh should be, more than ordinarily subject to such combinations at this period, was the necessary consequence of the greatness of the interests involved in the treaties of Tilsit and Erfurth; the continental system had so deeply injured the fortunes of the Russian noblemen, that their sovereign’s authority in support of it was as nothing. During the Austrian war of 1809, when Alexander was yet warm from Napoleon’s society at Erfurth, the aid given to France was a mockery, and a desire to join a northern confederation against Napoleon was even then scarcely concealed at St. Petersburgh, where the French ambassador was coldly treated. The royal family of Prussia were, it is true, at the same time, mortified by a reception which inclined them to side with France, against the wishes of their people and their ministers, but in Russia, Romanzow alone was averse to choose that moment to declare against Napoleon. And this was so certain that Austria, anticipating the explosion, was only undecided whether the king of Prussia should be punished or the people rewarded, whether she herself should befriend or plunder the Prussian monarchy. At that time also, the Russian naval commander, in the Adriatic, being ordered to sail to Ancona for the purpose of convoying Marmont’s troops from Dalmatia to Italy, refused, on the plea that his ships were not sea-worthy; yet secretly he informed the governor of Trieste that they would be in excellent order to assist an Austrian corps against the French! Admiral Tchtchagoff’s strange project of marching upon Italy from Bucharest has been already noticed, and it is remarkable that this expedition was to be conducted upon popular principles, the interests of the Sicilian court being to be made subservient to the wishes of the people. At a later period, in 1812, admiral Grieg proposed to place an auxiliary Russian army under either Wellington or lord William Bentinck, and it was accepted; but when the Russian ambassador in London was applied to upon the subject, he unequivocally declared that the emperor knew nothing of the matter!