“Take especial care,” the Emperor wrote to Junot, “that the ladies of your establishment use Swiss tea. It is as good as that of China. Coffee made from chicory is not at all inferior to that of Arabia. Let them make use of these substitutes in their drawing-rooms, instead of amusing themselves with talking politics like Madame de Staël. Let them take care, also, that no part of their dress is made of English merchandise. If the wives of my chief officers do not set the example, whom can I expect to follow it? It is a contest of life or death between France and England. I must look for the most cordial support in all those by whom I am surrounded.” Napoleon’s tariff reform, instead of materially benefiting the manufacturers, tended to decrease the consumption of raw materials, because they could not be obtained. When uniforms were required for the French troops in the Eylau campaign they had to be purchased in England! Gradually the barriers began to break down, and by the sale of licenses for the bringing in of hitherto forbidden goods with the proviso that French manufactured goods must be taken in exchange, Napoleon replenished his war chests preparatory to the next campaign. It was the Czar’s abandonment of the Continental System which led to the Emperor’s disastrous Russian campaign. After that mammoth catastrophe, the whole scheme gradually fell to pieces, but not before all concerned, including Great Britain, had suffered very considerably. On the Emperor’s return to Paris from Tilsit in July 1807, he gave his attention for a short time to home affairs. He had been away for ten months, and the keenest enthusiasm for him was shown on all sides. The Great Nation was indeed worthy of the name which had been given to the French long before Napoleon and his armies had proved their right to it, and his subjects shared in the glamour of victory if not in the spoil. They furnished him with troops, were the props which supported his throne, and if they gave their sons to be victims of war they did not show on festive occasions that they regarded this as aught but a cruel necessity. The French love glory above everything, and to have a son serving with the eagles was a matter of pride to every true Frenchman. Chancellor Pasquier attended the _Te Deum_ to celebrate Napoleon’s triumphs which was sung at the cathedral of Notre Dame, and he tells us in his “Memoirs” that he sat almost opposite the throne; from which point of vantage he studied the Emperor’s face with quiet persistency. “He was obviously pleased with the religious sanction,” the judge relates, “which, in the eyes of the people, consecrated his glory and omnipotence; he set a price on it, all the greater from the fact that up to the time of his coming it had been absolutely denied to all the works of the Revolution, and that it distinguished him from all that had preceded him.