As to Prussia, the ultimate arrangements were held in suspense. Napoleon's first response to a request for peace had been that he would make terms only in Berlin, and shortly after his triumphal entry negotiations were opened. The terms proposed by his ministers at the outset were far in excess of what the Prussian plenipotentiaries thought reasonable; but as one fortress after another opened its gates the demands grew more and more exorbitant. Although other counsels prevailed in the end, there was actually a moment when Napoleon contemplated the extinction of the Hohenzollern power, and the partition among his vassal states of that dynasty's variously acquired and strangely assorted lands, which had so little territorial unity that they extended in two separate parallel lines from northeast to southwest. Voltaire said they stretched over Europe like a pair of garters. The best offer that could be wrung from Napoleon--and, in view of Prussia's absolute prostration, he thought his proposition not ungenerous--was for an armistice, during which the French should occupy all Prussia as far as the Bug; and Frederick William should order the now advancing Russians off his soil. The Prussian minister actually signed this paper, but his sovereign, whose hopes were rising in proportion as the Russian army drew nearer, refused to ratify it. Owing to the general readjustment of the international relations so rudely shattered by the rise of French empire, neither Great Britain nor Russia could settle upon a definite policy, much less Prussia, distracted alike by internal dissensions and the smiting of ruthless foes.