It was arranged that the Emperor and the Czar should meet at the little town of Erfurt towards the end of September 1808. No fewer than seventy sovereigns and princes came to the meeting, including the Kings of Saxony, Bavaria, Würtemberg, and Westphalia, the Grand Duke Constantine of Russia, Prince William of Prussia, the Dukes of Saxe-Weimar, Saxe-Gotha, and Holstein-Oldenburg, together with distinguished marshals and courtiers. There were reviews, plays in the theatre acted by the most talented artists in France--Talma having been promised “a parterre full of kings”--and a stag-hunt on the battle-field of Jena. Costly presents were exchanged, one of the Czar’s gifts being a magnificent Persian horse, silvery grey in colour, which Napoleon afterwards used by a strange coincidence in the battles of Vitebsk, Smolensk, and Borodino during the Russian campaign. The animal also accompanied him to Elba. This great diplomatic performance was magnificently staged. If less dramatic than Tilsit, it was no less important. The festivities and conferences between the Emperor and Alexander lasted seventeen days. They parted on the 14th October, the anniversary of the great fight which did so much to make Napoleon master of Prussia. The terms of the Peace of Tilsit had not been kept too scrupulously by either monarch, and when one is uncertain as to one’s own morality, a strong suspicion is usually entertained as to that of others. Alexander had not withdrawn his troops from the Danubian Provinces, which suggested that he still had in view the partition of the Ottoman Empire, while Napoleon, until his misfortunes in the Peninsula, had seen fit to keep a large number of troops in Silesia. Spain and Portugal were stepping-stones to the East as well as necessary acquisitions for the enforcement of his Continental System, facts quite well comprehended by the Czar of all the Russias. Napoleon, who was as well informed concerning his ally’s weak spot, threw out suggestions for an expedition to India, and consented to Finland, Moldavia, and Wallachia being added to the Russian Empire. Alexander returned these courtesies by approving of Napoleon’s recent moves regarding Naples, Tuscany, and the Peninsula, and promised to lend his aid should Austria come to blows with France. “We talked of the affairs of Turkey at Erfurt,” the Emperor told Las Cases at St Helena. “Alexander was very desirous that I should consent to his obtaining possession of Constantinople, but I could never bring my mind to consent to it. It is the finest harbour in the world, is placed in the finest situation, and is itself worth a kingdom.” As a concession to Prussia, probably because of the Czar’s wish, Silesia was to be returned to her former possessor.