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were fused into thirty-six states of varying size, bound together in the Confederation of the Rhine. With them went all the nonsensical borders and petty restrictions that had made life so difficult. In their place came institutions moulded on the French pattern.
    The ending of feudal practices gave agriculture a boost, the abolition of guild and other restrictions encouraged industry and trade, the removal of tolls and frontiers liberated trade. The confiscation of Church property was followed by the building of schools and the development of universities. Not surprisingly, all this made Napoleon popular with the middle classes, with small traders, peasants, artisans and Jews, as well as with progressive intellectuals, students and writers. Johan Wilhelm Gleim, a poet more used to singing the glories of Frederick the Great, wrote an ode to Napoleon, Friedrich Hölderlin also immortalised him in verse, and Beethoven dedicated his ‘Eroica’ symphony to him.
    Although many were put off by his decision to take the imperial crown and some even felt betrayed by the act, German intellectuals continued to be fascinated by Napoleon, whom they saw as a figure in the mould of Alexander the Great. Some hoped he would revive the old German empire like a latter-day Charlemagne. To others, he appeared as some kind of avatar. The young Heinrich Heine imagined Christ riding into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday as he watched Napoleon making his entry into his native Düsseldorf. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel famously identified him as ‘the world-spirit on horseback’.
    But that moment, just after the victories of Jena and Auerstädt, in which Napoleon destroyed the Prussian army and shook the Prussian state to its core, was to be something of a turning point. The Prussians were shocked and insulted by the French victories, but they also saw them as proof of the superiority of France and her political culture. When Napoleon rode into Berlin he was greeted by crowds which, according to one French officer, were as enthusiastic as those that had welcomed him in Paris on his triumphant return from Austerlitz the previous year. ‘An undefinable feeling, a mixture of pain, admiration and curiosity agitated the crowds which pressed forward as he passed,’ in the words of one eyewitness. 1 Napoleon won the hearts of the Berliners as well as their admiration over the next weeks.
    But he treated Prussia and her King worse than he had treated any conquered country before. At Tilsit he publicly humiliated Frederick William by refusing to negotiate with him, and by treating Queen Louise, who had come in person to plead her country’s cause, with insulting gallantry. He did not bother to negotiate, merely summoning the Prussian Minister Count Goltz to let him know his intentions. He told the Minister that he had thought of giving the throne of Prussia to his own brother Jérôme, but out of regard for Tsar Alexander, who had begged him to spare Frederick William, he had graciously decided to leave him in possession of it. But he diminished his realm by taking away most of the territory seized by Prussia from Poland, so that the number of his subjects, which had grown to 9,744,000, was reducedto 4,938,000. Napoleon would brook no discussion, and Frederick William had to submit. 2
    Having done so, he wrote to the Emperor on 3 August 1807 entreating him to accept Prussia as an ally of France, addressing him as ‘the greatest man of our century’. Napoleon ignored the request. The reason he did not wish to encumber himself with such an ally was that he intended to despoil the country. In the treaty he had foisted on Prussia, he had undertaken to evacuate his troops, but only after all the indemnities agreed upon had been paid. But the level of the indemnities was never agreed, and while vast amounts of money did pour out of the Prussian treasury into French coffers, some 150,000 French troops continued to live off the land, happily helping themselves to