The golden visions of Tilsit were thus once more relegated to a distant future, and the keenness of the Czar's disappointment may be measured by his striking statement quoted by Caulaincourt in one of his earlier reports from St.Petersburg: "Let the world be turned upside down provided that Russia gains Constantinople and the Dardanelles."[203] The Erfurt interview left another hidden sore.

It was there that the divorce from Josephine was officially discussed, with a view to a more ambitious alliance.

Persistent as the rumours of a divorce had been for seven years past, they seem to have emanated, not from the husband, but from jealous sisters-in-law, intriguing relatives, and officious Ministers.

To the most meddlesome of these satellites, Fouche, who had ventured to suggest to Josephine the propriety of sacrificing herself for the good of the State, Napoleon had lately administered a severe rebuke.

But now he caused Talleyrand and Caulaincourt to sound the Czar as to the feasibility of an alliance with one of his sisters.