Emperor Alexander had sent an envoy to seek an armistice with the French on June 19.

Napoleon had assured the envoy that the Vistula River represents the natural borders between French and Russian influence in Europe.

On that basis, the two emperors had begun peace negotiations at the town of Tilsit after meeting on an iconic raft on the River Niemen.

The very first thing Alexander said to Napoleon was probably well-calibrated: "I hate the English as much as you do."

Napoleon had reportedly replied, "Then we have already made peace."

The two emperors spend several days reviewing each other's armies, passing out medals, and frequently talking about non-political subjects.

Although the negotiations at Tilsit feature plenty of pageantry and diplomatic niceties, they are not spared from ruthless politics.

Alexander faces pressure from his brother, Duke Constantine, to make peace with Napoleon.

Given the victory he had just achieved, the French emperor offers the Russians relatively lenient terms–demanding that Russia join the Continental System, withdraw its forces from Wallachia and Moldavia, and hand over the Ionian Islands to France.

By contrast, Napoleon dictates very harsh peace terms for Prussia, despite the ceaseless exhortations of Queen Louise.

Napoleon, wiping out half of Prussian territories from the map, creates a new kingdom of eleven hundred square miles called Westphalia.

He now appoints his young brother Jérôme as the new monarch of this kingdom.

Prussia's humiliating treatment at Tilsit causes a deep and bitter antagonism that will fester as the Napoleonic Era progresses.

Moreover, Alexander's pretensions at friendship with Napoleon lead the latter to seriously misjudge the true intentions of his Russian counterpart, who will violate numerous provisions of the treaty in the next few years.

Despite these problems, Tilsit at last gives Napoleon a respite from war and allows him to return to France, which he has not seen in over three hundred days.

His arrival will be greeted with huge celebrations in Paris.

Napoleon gives to his brother Jérôme the Kingdom of Westphalia, created by merging territories ceded by the Kingdom of Prussia in the Peace of Tilsit, among them the Duchy of Magdeburg, the Brunswick-Luneburgian territories of Hanover and Wolfenbüttel, and the Electorate of Hesse.

The latter's capital Kassel then fulfills the same function for Westphalia, and the king keeps court at the palace of Wilhelmshöhe, renamed Napoleonshöhe.

The state is a member of the Confederation of the Rhine.

Intended as a Napoleonic "model state", a constitution is written and enacted by King Jérôme on December 7, 1807, the day after he had arrived in Kassel, making Westphalia the first monarchy in Germany with a modern-style constitution.

The constitution makes all male residents citizens of equal rights.

Thus serfs are liberated and Jews emancipated, and soccage—one of the feudal duties and hence land tenure forms in the feudal system—is abolished.

The Napoleonic code is enacted, doing away with guilds and providing for the right of free enterprise.

A metric system of weights and measures is introduced.

Just as before the conquest, freedom of expression remains curtailed and censorship is instituted.

Jérôme Bonaparte, made king of Westphalia by his brother Napoleon, grants citizenship to the Jews of his kingdom on December 1, 1808, an example followed by ...

...the Confederation of the Rhine.

Prince Klemens von Metternich, as the Austrian ambassador to the French court, had been arrested in Paris in retaliation for the arrest of two French diplomats in Vienna, but the effects of this were minimal.

He had been allowed to leave France under escort for Austria in late May 1809.

After Napoleon's capture of Vienna, Metternich had been conducted to the Austrian capital and exchange there for the French diplomats.
 
Now back in Austria, Metternich had witnessed first hand the Austrian army's defeat at the Battle of Wagram in 1809.

Johann Philipp Stadion, the Austrian foreign minister, had tendered his resignation as Foreign Minister in the aftermath, and the Emperor had immediately offered the post to Metternich.

Metternich, worried that Napoleon would seize on this to demand harsher peace terms, had instead agreed to become a minister of state (which he did on July 8) and to lead negotiations with the French on the understanding that he would replace Stadion as Foreign Minister at a later date.

During peace talks at Altenburg, Metternich had put forward pro-French proposals to save the Austrian monarchy.

Napoleon, however, dislikes his position on the future of Poland, and Metternich had been gradually displaced from the proceedings by Prince Liechtenstein.

He had soon regained influence, however, on October 8, as Foreign Minister (and additionally that of Minister of the Imperial Household).

France has not completely defeated Austria, but the Treaty of Schönbrunn, signed on October 14, 1809, nevertheless imposes a heavy political toll on the Austrians.

As a result of the treaty, France receives Carinthia, Carniola, and the Adriatic ports, while Galicia is given to the Poles, the Salzburg area of the Tyrol goes to the Bavarians, and Russia is ceded the district of Tarnopol.

Austria loses over three million subjects, about twenty percent of her total population.

Emperor Francis also agrees to pay an indemnity equivalent to almost eighty-five million francs, gives recognition to Napoleon's brother Joseph as the King of Spain, and reaffirms the exclusion of British trade from his remaining dominions

The Austrian defeat paves the way for the marriage of Napoleon to the daughter of Emperor Francis, Marie Louise.

Dangerously, Napoleon assumes that his marriage to Marie Louise will eliminate Austria as a future threat, but the Habsburgs were not as driven by familial ties as Napoleon thought.

The impact of the conflict is not all positive from the French perspective.

The revolts in Tyrol and the Kingdom of Westphalia during the conflict had been an indication that there is much discontent over French rule among the German population.

Just a few days before the conclusion of the Treaty of Schönbrunn, an eighteen-year-old German named Friedrich Staps had approached Napoleon during an army review and attempted to stab the emperor, but he had been intercepted in the nick of time by General Rapp.

The emerging forces of German nationalism are too strongly rooted by this time, and the War of the Fifth Coalition plays an important role in nurturing their development.

By 1813, when the Sixth Coalition will be fighting the French for control of Central Europe, the German population will be fiercely opposed to French rule and will largely support  the Allies.

The war has also undermined French military superiority and the Napoleonic image.

The Battle of Aspern-Essling had been the first major defeat in Napoleon's career and had been warmly greeted by much of Europe.

The Austrians had also shown that strategic insight and tactical ability are no longer a French monopoly.

The French themselves are actually suffering from tactical shortcomings; the decline in tactical skill of the French infantry had led to increasingly heavy columns of foot soldiers eschewing all maneuver and relying on sheer weight of numbers to break through, a development best emphasized by MacDonald's attack at Wagram.

The Grande Armée has lost its qualitative edge partly because raw conscripts have replaced many of the veterans of Austerlitz and Jena, eroding tactical flexibility.

Additionally, Napoleon's armies are more and more composed of non-French contingents, undermining morale.

Although Napoleon had maneuvered with customary brilliance, as evidenced by overturning the awful initial French position, the growing size of his armies had stretched even his impressive mental faculties.

The scale of warfare has grown too large for even Napoleon to fully cope with, a lesson that will be brutally repeated during the invasion of Russia in 1812.