He suggested that the two should meet to discuss the affairs of Europe as the threat of the avaricious French First Consul, Napoleon Bonaparte, increased. In February 1802, Alexander, in reply to yet another missive from Frederick, agreed that a personal discussion would be of much advantage to them both. Although strangers to each other they already had a common bond in that Alexander’s second eldest sister Helen, married to Frederick Louis, Prince of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, was a great favourite with both King Frederick and his lovely Queen Louise. Alexander, accompanied by a train of courtiers – including his doctor James Wylie – arrived at Memel on 10 June.24 The port, founded by the Knights of the Livonian Order in 1252, defended by a citadel, commands a strong position at the mouth of the River Neman on the shore of the sound of the Memeler Tief, an inlet of the Baltic Sea. Some ninety miles north-east of Königsberg, Memel (now Klaipeda and the most northerly town in Germany) was, then as now, an important port, trading largely in timber, wheat and fish.
