The decree was published on July twelfth, 1806; on August first the Diet at Regensburg was informed that the Germanic Empire had ceased to exist: on August sixth the Emperor Francis, who had declared himself hereditary Emperor of Austria in 1804, now declared under compulsion that he laid down his Germanic crown. The way to true German national union was opened by Napoleon's contempt for local prejudice together with his wholesale and ruthless violation of dynastic ties. It was ostensibly to perfect his communications with this new ally that the Emperor now for the first time established a permanent garrison on the right bank of the Rhine. The spot he chose was Wesel, in the grand duchy of Cleves and Berg. To be sure, he gave a formal assurance that he did not intend to expand the borders of France beyond the Rhine. This doubtless was literally true; but the French Empire was another thing than France. The attitude of the Emperor was perfectly illustrated in his continued negotiations with Yarmouth, whose easy compliance had to be neutralized by a new commissioner, Lord Lauderdale, specially instructed by Fox to be peremptory about preserving the existing conditions of sovereignty on the Continent. Napoleon did not hesitate to offer England, as a substitute for Sicily, either Albania or Ragusa, or the Balearic Isles. In other words, the whole idea of territorial sanctity was in his opinion antiquated except when so-called sovereigns could make good their claim. Hanover had passed to Prussia by French conquest and treaty agreement, the Hanseatic towns were free cities, Albania belonged to Turkey, Ragusa was nominally independent under Austria's protection, and the Balearic Isles acknowledged the sovereignty of Spain; but he offered any one or all of them as if they were his own.