Observers saw that, after all, the old German feeling was not dead; it was only torpid; and forces were beginning to work which threatened ruin to the Hohenzollerns if they again tarnished the national honour.[77] Meanwhile the first overtures for peace were exchanged between Paris, London, and St.Petersburg.In the spring of 1806 there seemed some ground for hope that Europe might find repose, at least on land, after fourteen years of almost constant war.

France was no longer Jacobinical.

Under Napoleon she had quickly fallen into line with the monarchical States, and the questions now at stake merely related to boundaries and the balance of power.

The bellicose ardour of the Czar had melted away at Austerlitz.

The seizure of Hanover by Prussia moved him but little, and he sought to compose the resulting strife.