At last, in August, Napoleon, who had looked and listened with deep interest, read with his own eyes in one of Stein's intercepted letters that the minister and his colleagues were aiming at a national uprising, not of Prussia alone, but of all Germany. The illustrious statesman, having emancipated the Prussian people, and having seen the reform of the whole political organism in that great land, was proceeding to extend his beneficent influence throughout all Germany. In September Napoleon demanded Stein's dismissal, and enforced the demand by sequestrating Frederick William's Westphalian estates, threatening at the same time to continue the French occupation of Prussia indefinitely. There was apparently no alternative, for the country, although rejuvenated, had no allies, and could not fight alone. Stein, therefore, resigned after an eventful ministry of about a year, in which he had prepared the way for every one of the changes which ultimately reconstructed Prussia.
The two movements which in Spain and Germany menaced Napoleon's prestige were national; there were two others, which, if not that, may, by a stretch of definition, be called at least dynastic. The first was a revolution in Constantinople. The Sultan Mustapha IV had been from the beginning a feeble creature of the soldiers, who, after overthrowing Selim, had set him on the throne. Before long he became the contemptible tool of an irresponsible robber gang known as the "yamacks," who, under the guise of militia, held the Turkish capital in terror. The situation in Constantinople had finally grown unendurable even to the Turks, and the Pasha of Rustchuk appeared at the gates of the city to restore Selim III, who was still a captive in the Seraglio. When the doors of that sacred inclosure were forced open, the first object seen was the body of the murdered sovereign, killed by Mustapha in the belief that he himself was now the sole available survivor of Othman's line. But the soldiers ransacked the palace, and dragged from his concealment the young prince Mahmud, second of the name, and destined to be a great reformer. Him they proclaimed Sultan and set upon the throne, appointing their leader grand vizir. The new government was devoted to reform, contemptuous of French influence, and determined to repress the evils which seemed to have ruined its predecessor. This severity was more than the licentious capital would endure. At once every element of discontent burst forth again,--the janizaries, the Ulema, or doctors of the sacred law, and the people,--some mistrusting one thing, others another, all alike unwilling to obey any master but their own will. Disintegration of what little administrative organization there still was, seemed imminent. The Turkish generals on the Danube began to make light of the armistice or truce of Slobozia, Napoleon's one reliance in his Eastern designs; they actually set in motion their troops, and prepared to take the offensive against Russia. This was in the hope that, before asking a separate peace from the Czar or returning to seize the leadership at Constantinople, they might secure some military prestige as a working capital. The whole outlook seemed to foretell the extinction of French influence with the Porte and a crash in the Orient before Napoleon was ready to take advantage of it.