At Vilna the Grand Army met with a more cheering reception than heretofore. Deftly placing his Polish regiments in front and chasing the retiring Russians beyond the town, Napoleon then returned to find a welcome in the old Lithuanian capital. The old men came forth clad in the national garb, and it seemed that that province, once a part of the great Polish monarchy, would break away from the empire of the Czars and extend Napoleon's influence to within a few miles of Smolensk.[261] The newly-formed Diet at Warsaw also favoured this project: it constituted itself into a general confederation, declared the Kingdom of Poland to be restored, and sent a deputation to Napoleon at Vilna begging him to utter the creative words: "Let the Kingdom of Poland exist." The Emperor gave a guarded answer. He declared that he loved the Poles, he commended them for their patriotism, which was "the first duty of civilized man," but added that only by a unanimous effort could they now compel their enemies to recognize their rights; and that, having guaranteed the integrity of the Austrian Empire, he could not sanction any movement which would disturb its remaining Polish provinces. This diplomatic reply chilled his auditors. But what would have been their feelings had they known that the calling of the Diet at Warsaw, and the tone of its address to Napoleon; had all been sketched out five weeks before by the imperial stage manager himself? Yet such was the case. The scene-shifter was the Abbé de Pradt, Archbishop of Malines, whom Napoleon sent as ambassador to Warsaw, with elaborate instructions as to the summoning of the Diet, the whipping-up of Polish enthusiasm, the revolutionizing of Russian Poland, and the style of the address to him. Nay, his passion for the regulation of details even led him to inform the ambassador that the imperial reply would be one of praise of Polish patriotism and of warning that Polish liberty could only be won by their "zeal and their efforts." The trickery was like that which he had played upon the Poles shortly before Eylau. In effect, he said now, as then: "Pour out your blood for me first, and I will do something for you." But on this occasion the scenic setting was more impressive, the rush of the Poles to arms more ardent, the diplomatic reply more astutely postponed, and the finale more awful.[262] Still, the Poles marched on; but their devotion became more questioning. The feelings of the Lithuanians were also ruffled by Napoleon's reply to the Polish deputies: nor were they consoled by his appointment of seven magnates to regulate the affairs of the districts of Lithuania, under the ægis of French commissioners, who proved to be the real governors. Worst of all was the marauding of Napoleon's troops, who, after their long habituation to the imperial maxim that "war must support war," could not now see the need of enduring the pangs of hunger in order that Lithuanian enthusiasm might not cool.