With her will or against it, by the impulse of enthusiasm still left or under the law of good pleasure, France followed her insatiable master upon the ever open battle-fields. Napoleon was not deceived as to his arbitrary measures. "I wish to call out 30,000 men by the conscription of 1810," he wrote on the 21st March to General Lacuée, director-general of the reviews and conscription; "I am obliged to delay the publication of the 'Senatus- consulte,' which can only be done when all the documents are published. Let the good departments be preferred in choosing. The levy for France generally will only be one fourth of this year's conscription. The prefects might manage it without letting the public know, since there is no occasion for their assembling or drawing lots." Financial difficulties also began to be felt. For a long time, by war contributions and exactions of every kind imposed upon the conquered countries, Napoleon had formed a military treasury, which he alone managed, and without any check. This resource allowed him to do without increasing taxes or imposing additional burdens. The funds, however, became exhausted, and war alone could renew them. "Reply to Sieur Otto," he wrote on the 1st April, 1809, to Champagny, "that I will have nothing said about subsidies. It is not at all the principle of France. It was well enough under the ancient government, because they had few troops, but at the present day the power of France, and the energy impressed upon my peoples, will produce as many soldiers as I wish, and my money is employed in equipping them and putting them on the field." Negotiations were still being carried on. The fifth coalition was secretly formed, and diplomatic plots were everywhere joining their threads. Napoleon strove to engage Russia in a common declaration against Austria; England enrolled against France the new government just established at Constantinople by revolution. On both sides the preparations for war became more patent and hurried. Metternich complained at Paris of the hostile attitude of France, and announced the reciprocity imposed upon his master. On the 1st April, Napoleon wrote, "Get articles put in all the journals upon all that is provoking or offensive for the French nation in everything done at Vienna. You can go as far back as the first arming. There must be an article of this tendency every day in the _Journal de l'Empire_, or the _Publiciste_, or the _Gazette de France_. The aim of these articles is to prove that they wish us to make war."