How earnestly Napoleon desired peace appears from his spontaneous concessions. He would agree to the evacuation of Breslau for the sake of harmony, and would consent to such a truce as the majesty of a ruler and the rights of a successful general might alike exact; but he would not be treated like a besieged commander. Hamburg should remain as it was at the conclusion of negotiations, and the duration of the armistice must be longer than the term proposed--six weeks at the least. On these two points he took his stand. The fatal armistice of Poischwitz was signed at that village on June fourth by three commissioners, Shuvaloff for Russia, Kleist for Prussia, and Caulaincourt for France. It was a compromise providing for a neutral zone, stretching from the mouth of the Elbe southeastward to Bohemia, which was to separate the combatants until July twentieth. Hostilities might not be renewed until August first. Breslau was to be evacuated; Hamburg was to remain as the truce found it. These terms were reached only after much bluster, the allies, weak and disorganized as they were, demanding at first the evacuation of both Breslau and Hamburg, with a cessation of arms for a month. This stand they took in reliance partly on England, partly on Austria. The compromise, as mutually accepted, was reached in spite of British influence when Francis, apparently nervous and anxious, arrived at Gitschin, near the Bohemian frontier, and opened a conference with Nesselrode. At Vienna men had said, when the news of Bautzen came, that the conqueror was perhaps an angel, perhaps a devil--certainly not a man. The cabinet had seen with alarm his attempt to negotiate directly with the Czar. Success in winning Russia would put Austria again at Napoleon's mercy; Alexander must be kept in warlike humor at all hazards. Nesselrode demanded nothing less than Austria's adherence to the coalition; Francis was still unready to fight; and Metternich, displaying all his adroitness, finally wrung from Nesselrode a basis for mediation comprising six articles: the extinction of Warsaw, the enlargement of Prussia by her Polish provinces and Dantzic, the restoration of Illyria to Austria, the independence of the Hanseatic towns, the dissolution of the Rhenish Confederacy, and the restoration of Prussia's western boundaries to the lines of 1806. This was a "minimum" considerably smaller than that proposed before Bautzen; but the allies could well accept it if Austria would promise never to take sides with France, as Metternich is said to have verbally assured the Czar in a secret meeting would be the case. On June twenty-seventh it was formally arranged that a congress to pacify the Continent on this basis should be held preliminary to a general peace including England; and the treaty binding Russia, Prussia, and Austria to alliance in case of Napoleon's refusal was signed that day in secret at Reichenbach. Should Napoleon reject Austria's articles of mediation,