the 11th March, "I have read an article in the _Madrid Gazette_, giving an account of the taking of Saragossa, in which they eulogize those who defended that town--no doubt to encourage those of Valencia and Seville. That is certainly a strange policy. I am sure there is not a Frenchman who has not the greatest scorn for those who defended Saragossa. Those who allow such vagaries are more dangerous for us than the insurgents. In a proclamation, mention is already made of Saguntum: that, in my opinion, is most imprudent." Many things at this juncture chafed the mind of the imperious master of the world. He had left Spain immediately after a series of successes, without deceiving himself as to their importance and decisive value with reference to the permanent establishment of the French monarchy in Madrid. He foresaw the difficulties and perpetually recurring embarrassments of a command being divided, when the nominal authority of King Joseph was unable to govern lieutenants who were powerful, distinguished, and jealous. To obviate this inconvenience, and maintain that unity of action which he considered an indispensable element of success, he had kept to himself the supreme direction of the military operations, and attempted to govern the war in Spain from a distance, at the moment when he was organizing and recruiting his armies to support in Germany a determined struggle against all the forces of the Austrian empire. Italy, Holland, the Rhenish Confederation, all the states which he had founded or subdued, claimed his support or vigilance. Russia remained quiet because she was powerless and disarmed, but a serious check would have speedily thrown her with ardor on the side of his enemies. Russia, compelled by recent treaties and pressing interests, concealed under friendly phrases a secret indifference, and the beginning of her enmity: being, moreover, occupied by her own conquests, by the uncompleted subjugation of Finland, and a renewal of her struggle with Turkey. England, irritated and humiliated by the check undergone by her attempts at intervention in Spain, was energetically preparing new and more successful efforts. In presence of so many enemies, concealed or declared--compelled to regulate so many affairs, the government, oppression, and conquest of so many races-- Napoleon, on returning to Paris after his Spanish campaign, had found men's dispositions changed, and precursory signs of an open discontent which he was not accustomed to meet or to suffer.