Page "War of the Fifth Coalition" Paragraph 14

At Tilsit Napoleon had made Tsar Alexander of Russia an admirer, but by the time of the Erfurt Congress from September to October 1808 anti-French sentiment at the Russian court was beginning to threaten the newly forged alliance.

Napoleon and his foreign minister Jean-Baptiste Nompère de Champagny sought to reaffirm the alliance once more in order to allow Napoleon to settle affairs in Spain, as well as prepare for the looming war with Austria.

Working at cross-purposes to Napoleon was his former foreign minister Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord who had by this time come to the conclusion that Napoleon and his war policies were leading France to destruction, and who secretly advised Alexander to resist Napoleon's demands.