As long as a person became addicted to something, it was very hard to quit.
Ask any smoker. They all knew smoking was harmful to their health, yet they still could not resist lighting up.
Because tobacco from the American colonies could not be transported to France and had to be shipped through neutral countries such as Britain, cigarette prices had risen.
It would actually have been a good time to quit, but when the craving hit, one would think about taking a couple of puffs now and then. In the end, the habit remained unbroken, and they relapsed.
In men's social circles, cigarettes were a necessity. Those who did not smoke were instead regarded differently.
When people smoked, they could not help but chat, and men's conversations inevitably touched on politics and military affairs. Had the Americans really kidnapped the papal envoy to prevent peace negotiations?
America was not a neutral country like Norway or Denmark. It had severed diplomatic ties with France, while its relationship with Britain remained tenuously connected. What benefit could continued war in Europe bring it?
No one explicitly identified America as the true culprit behind Caprara's kidnapping, but everyone tacitly accepted it.
A good diplomat could escape a deadlock with the right response. American diplomats excelled at handling commercial interests, using neutrality and expansionism to serve their country's economic development. When Napoleon's amnesty decree came down, they had no time to react. Like the Jacobins, they bore the blame for an assassination they had not taken part in.
Montesquieu had once said: what form of government was best suited to overseas colonization? A republic. Such states had large populations, and losing some people was not easily noticed. Poor citizens were very dangerous, so sending them abroad to colonize allowed impoverished citizens to emigrate and