Lately the very tolls had been collected by a French
customs service, and the wholesale smuggling, to which even Governor
Rapp--that long-headed Alsatian--had closed his eyes, was at an end.
Again, the Poles who looked on Dantzig as the seaport of that great
kingdom of Eastern Europe which was and is no more, had been assured
that France would set up again the throne of the Jagellons and the
Sobieskis. There was a Poniatowski high in the Emperor's service
and esteem. The Poles were for France.
The Jew, hurrying along close by the wall--always in the shadow--
traded with all and trusted none. Who could tell what thoughts were
hidden beneath the ragged fur cap--what revenge awaited its
consummation in the heart crushed by oppression and contempt?
Besides these civilians there were many who had a military air
within their civil garb. For the pendulum of war had swung right
across from Cadiz to Dantzig, and swept northwards in its wake the
merchants of death, the men who live by feeding soldiers and rifling
the dead.
All these were in the streets, rubbing shoulders with the gay
epaulettes of the Saxons, the Badeners, the Wurtembergers, the
Westphalians, and the Hessians, who had been poured into Dantzig by
Napoleon during the months when he had continued to exchange
courteous and affectionate letters with Alexander of Russia. For
more than a year the broad-faced Bavarians (who have borne the brunt
of every war in Central Europe) had been peaceably quartered in the
town.
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