It is not easy to estimate Napoleon's responsibility for what had happened and was about to happen. He was persistently domineering, contemptuous of national feeling and dynastic politics, over-confident in the unswerving devotion of France, inflexible in his policy of territorial aggrandizement, ruthless in applying his peculiar conceptions of finance and political economy, and pitiless in his own self-seeking. On the other hand, Alexander, having received Prussia's autonomy as his part, had proved an untrustworthy ally from the outset. Having seized Finland, he would not pay the price, but first evaded the Continental System, then rejected it, and finally declared commercial war on France; in the latest conflict between France and Austria he had actually wooed the latter's favor. Procrastinating in the marriage affair, he was furious when the suppliant turned elsewhere, and at once displayed an insulting mistrust concerning Poland; finally, he declared diplomatic war by his overtures to England and his secret machinations in Vienna; there was but a final step in the evolution of complete hostility, the declaration of military war. Austria, too, had done her utmost to bring on a conflict, hoping to find her account in the dissensions of the two empires. Her policy demanded her territorial aggrandizement at the expense of Turkey; in a war between France and Russia she was sure to find her account, and there was nothing in Metternich's dealings with Napoleon which tended to preserve the peace of Europe.
Sweden, under Bernadotte, was manifestly anxious to find a cause of offense, being defiant in temper, and ready to do anything for the purpose of strengthening the hands of Alexander and escaping from French protection. So feeble was the titular King of Sweden that the adoptive crown prince speedily became the real ruler, and his personal desires were soon the public policy. It was a strange transformation which took place in the man. He had been generous and kindly in the difficult positions he held as a French general. Avowedly a revolutionary democrat of the most radical stripe, he was nevertheless a true Gascon and failed to display his great abilities wherever his heart was not engaged. He had, moreover, basked in the sunshine of imperial favor, and in an age of atheism had remained in the fold of the Roman Church. Having himself schemed against Napoleon under the promptings of personal ambition, he often gave aid and comfort to the Emperor's enemies. When adopted into the royal family of Sweden it cost him little effort to profess Lutheranism; his republican sympathies were quenched, and he developed into a beneficent despot anxious to put Sweden in line with Russia. He never was able to win the affections of his people, and when before the close of his life they demanded a liberal constitution, this democratic sovereign, brought up under the illumination of French revolutionary doctrines, held back until the paper had to be wrung from him. The phases of Napoleon's life are scarcely more startling than those of this rather commonplace actor on a stage which was provincial when compared with the cosmopolitan scene of the Emperor's life-drama.