But the tide of Napoleonic worship ran too high not to carry all before it. Kościuszko's was the one dissentient voice. Before the interview with Fouché had taken place, Wybicki and Dombrowski, unable to conceive that Kościuszko would take a different line, had given their swords to the Emperor. Józef Poniatowski did likewise. In November, 1808, Napoleon entered Poznań (Posen). In the same month the French armies were in Warsaw, and the Poles, in raptures of rejoicing, were hailing Napoleon as the liberator of their nation. Fouché, already cognizant of Kościuszko's attitude, issued a bogus manifesto, purporting to be from Kościuszko, summoning his countrymen to Napoleon's flag. But Kościuszko himself only consented to repair to Warsaw, and throw his weight into the balance for Napoleon, if the Emperor would sign in writing and publicly proclaim his promise to restore Poland under the following three conditions:-- (1) That the form of Poland's government should be that of the English constitution; (2) That the peasants should be liberated and possess their own land; and (3) That the old boundaries of Poland should be reinstated. He wrote to this effect to Fouché, and privately told a Polish friend that if the Emperor consented to these conditions he would fall at his feet and swear to the gratitude of the whole nation.[1] The reply given by Napoleon to Fouché was that he attached "no importance to Kościuszko. His conduct proves that he is only a fool."[2] [Footnote 1: General Paszkowski, _History of Tadeusz Kościuszko_. Cracow, 1872 (Polish).] [Footnote 2: Napoleon I, _Correspondance_. Paris, 1863.] Active service for Poland was thus closed to Kościuszko. Anxious to leave a Napoleon-ridden France, he requested permission to retire to Switzerland. It was refused, and he had nothing for it but to remain in his French country retreat, under police supervision. He stayed there for the five years that Napoleon's conquests shook the world, condemning with his whole soul the spread of an empire on ruin and bloodshed, occupying himself with his favourite hobbies of gardening and handicrafts, working at his turning and making wooden clogs. The family with whom he lived was as his own. His name was given to the three children who were born since his residence under its roof: the only one of them who survived infancy--Taddea Emilia--became the beloved child of Kościuszko's old age. The eldest son learnt from him love for Poland and fought in the Polish Rising of 1830. The story of the Russian campaign of 1812, with the passion of hope that it evoked in the Polish nation and its extinction in the steppes of Russia, need not be repeated here. In March, 1814, the allied armies and the monarchs of Russia and Prussia entered Paris.