[20] I have seen the rough copy of this proclamation written in pencil by Count Pozzo and corrected by Alexander himself. General Pozzo di Borgo had kept up his acquaintance with all the patriots of 1789, whose noble and generous principles of independence met with a sympathetic feeling in the breast of Alexander. Napoleon, the representative of a powerful and united system of government, would only be overcome by the principle of liberty. "Europe," said Talleyrand, "was then on the highroad to emancipation; it was with the name of Fatherland, with the enthusiasm for free institutions, that the people had been excited to rise against him, who was termed by the Germans _the oppressor of mankind_." These ideas prevailed, and Count Pozzo di Borgo was appointed commissioner from the Emperor Alexander to the provisional government. That government certainly stood in need of the support of the friend of Paoli, who pursued with relentless perseverance the last glimmering ray of Napoleon's fortune. Some of the marshals had just made an attempt to induce the Emperor Alexander to treat with the regency, and, moved by the recollection of his ancient friendship, and by the influence which the noble countenance of Napoleon exercised over his mind, the Czar would, perhaps, have agreed to the proposal, when Pozzo di Borgo was despatched in haste by the provisional government to Alexander, to put a stop to the treaty, and he worked on the mind of the Czar by means of the same considerations he had formerly presented to his view, and of which he had acknowledged the justice. "The regency was still Napoleon, and France no longer desired his rule; to sign a peace with him was merely to expose themselves to a repetition of hostilities; if Europe was desirous of rest, they must have done with the imperial system altogether." The commissioner spent two hours in this conversation, and, by his perseverance, he obtained the important declaration of the allied sovereigns, that they would enter into no treaty with the emperor or his family. Having gained this point, he returned with speed to the provisional government, and gave vent to the picturesque expression of his triumph in his communication to Talleyrand. "My dear prince," said he, "I certainly cannot be said single-handed to have politically killed Buonaparte, but I have cast the last clod of earth upon his head."