I begin to think that you wish to seize it.

No: if your army were encamped on Montmartre, I would not cede an inch of the Warsaw territory, not a village, not a windmill." His fears as to Russia's designs were far-fetched.

Alexander's sounding of the Poles was a defensive measure, seriously undertaken only after Napoleon's refusal to discourage the Polish nationalists.

But it suited the French Emperor to aver that the quarrel was about Poland rather than the Continental System, and the scene just described is a good specimen of his habit of cool calculation even in seemingly chance outbursts of temper.

His rhapsody gained him the ardent support of the Poles, and was vague enough to cause no great alarm to Austria and Prussia.[252] On the next day Napoleon sketched to his Ministers the general plan of campaign against Russia.