he had always been able to marshal the popular impulse on his side.  As the heir to the Revolution he had appealed, and not in vain, to the democratic forces which he had hypnotized in France but sought to stir up in his favour abroad.  Despite the efforts of Czartoryski and Stein to tear the democratic mask from his face, it imposed on mankind until the Spanish Revolution laid bare the truth; and at St. Helena the exile gave his own verdict on the policy of Bayonne:  “It was the Spanish ulcer which ruined me.”

NOTE TO THE THIRD EDITION.—­For a careful account of the Convention of Cintra in its military and political aspects, see Mr. Oman’s recently published “History of the Peninsular War,” vol. i., pp. 268-278, 291-300.  I cannot, however, agree with the learned author that that Convention was justifiable on military grounds, after so decisive a victory as Vimiero.

* * * * *

CHAPTER XXIX

ERFURT

    “At bottom the great question is—­who shall have
    Constantinople?”—­NAPOLEON, May 31st, 1808.

The Spanish Rising made an immense rent in Napoleon’s plans.  It opened valuable markets for British goods both in the Peninsula and in South and Central America, and that too at the very time when the Continental System was about to enfold us in its deadly grip.[195] And finally it disarranged schemes that reached far beyond Europe.  To these we must now briefly recur.

Even amidst his greatest military triumphs Napoleon’s gaze turned longingly towards the East; and no sooner did he force peace on the conquered than his thoughts centred once more on his navy and colonies, on Egypt and India.  The Treaty of Tilsit gave him leisure to renew these designs.  The publication in 1807 of his official Atlas of Australia, in which he claimed nearly half that continent for France, proves that he never accepted Trafalgar as a death-blow to his maritime and colonial aspirations.  And the ardour of his desire for the conquest of India is seen in the letter which he wrote to the Czar on February 2nd, 1808.  After expressing his desire for the glory and expansion of Russia, and advising the Czar to conquer Finland, he proceeds: 

“An army of 50,000 men, Russians, French, and perhaps a few Austrians, that penetrated by way of Constantinople into Asia, would not reach the Euphrates before England would tremble and bow the knee before the Continent.  I am ready in Dalmatia.  Your Majesty is ready on the Danube.  A month after we came to an agreement the army could be on the Bosphorus....  By the 1st of May our troops can be in Asia, and at the same time those of Your Majesty, at Stockholm.  Then the English, threatened in the Indies, and chased from the Levant, will be crushed under the weight of events with which the atmosphere will be charged."[196]

There were several reasons why Napoleon should urge