Never did Frederick William stoop to flatter his enemy--never did he bow
to him in hypocritical submission. He could not help treating him as the
conqueror of his states, but he refused to degrade himself by base
servility. His first interview with Napoleon was short, and not very
pleasant. Frederick William tried to prove to his adversary that it was
he who had brought about the war by invading the territory of Anspach,
and thereby compelling Prussia to declare war. Napoleon listened to this
charge, shrugged his shoulders, and merely replied that the cabinet of
Berlin, often warned to beware of the intrigues of England, had
committed the fault of not listening to his friendly counsel, and that
to this cause alone were to be ascribed the disasters of Prussia. Since
then, Frederick William, like Alexander, was a daily guest at Napoleon's
table, but he sat there in silence, sad, and absorbed in his
reflections, taking but little part in the conversation, and, when he
did so, assuming a cold, formal manner, while Alexander and Napoleon
chatted unreservedly and pleasantly.
The king had also been constantly at the side of the two emperors in
their long rides, and at the reviews, but always as an ominous shadow in
the light of their new friendship--always as the mournful and warning
spirit of memories which Alexander would have forgotten, because now
they were a reproach and an accusation against him.
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