But this moderation was only apparent. There was a bolt in the forge which, if rightly wielded, would speedily reduce Prussia to vassalage, and eventually bring England herself to terms. When Haugwitz, the Prussian envoy, returned from Schönbrunn to Berlin, the treaty of alliance with France which he had felt bound to make was not welcomed, and with some suggestions for important changes the bearer was despatched to Paris by the King to see whether better terms could not be obtained. The Prussian monarch was, in fact, afraid of the Prussian national temper, and dared not face his people without something more than Hanover to show for his previous losses on the left bank of the Rhine, and the new cessions he had been compelled to make after Austerlitz. The Emperor received the plenipotentiary kindly, and seemed on the point of yielding the modifications, which were that Frederick William should receive along with Hanover the cities of Hamburg, Bremen, and Lübeck. But the advent of Fox to power momentarily turned Napoleon's head. With one great liberal at the helm in England, and another autocratic in France, the two, he felt, could change the face of Europe and the character of the world. This delusion suggested peace with England, and the Emperor thought for an instant of keeping Hanover as a medium of exchange; his second thought, however, was not to buy peace, but to enforce it. Accordingly, even harder conditions than before were laid upon Prussia as to the exchange of territories, and besides she was compelled to enter the continental embargo on English trade. The King was in despair, but he yielded. Hardenberg, the head of his cabinet, was dismissed, at Napoleon's desire, because he represented the national self-respect; and Prussia, lately so proud but now humbled and disgraced, listened, stunned and incredulous, to the insults of the "Moniteur," while her King, on March ninth, 1806, set his hand to a paper which seemed to secure Hanover at the price of Prussian independence. Three months later, on June eleventh, Fox declared war against Prussia. At that very moment Napoleon was negotiating for the return of the electorate to George III of England, its hereditary prince, as the price of a peace with Great Britain.