[Footnote 430: "Castlereagh Papers," vol. ix., pp. 325, 332.]
[Footnote 431: These letters were written in pairs—the one being official, the other confidential. Caulaincourt's replies show that he appreciated them highly (see Fain, Appendix).]
[Footnote 432: From Caulaincourt's letter of March 3rd to Napoleon;
Bignon, vol. xiii., p. 379.]
[Footnote 433: "Castlereagh Papers," vol. ix., p. 555.]
[Footnote 434: "Castlereagh Papers," vol. ix., pp. 335, 559.
Caulaincourt's project of March 15th much resembled that dictated by
Napoleon three days later; Austria was to have Venetia as far as the
Adige, the kingdom of Italy to go to Eugène, and the duchy of Warsaw
to the King of Saxony, etc. The allies rejected it (Fain, p. 388).]
[Footnote 435: Fournier, p. 232, rebuts, and I think successfully, Houssaye's objections (p. 287) to its genuineness. Besides, the letter is on the same moral level with the instructions of January 4th to Caulaincourt, and resembles them in many respects. No forger could have known of those instructions. At Elba, Napoleon admitted that he was wrong in not making peace at this time. "Mais je me croyais assez fort pour ne pas la faire, et je me suis trompé" (Lord Holland's "Foreign Rem.," p. 319). The same writer states (p. 296) that he saw the official correspondence about Châtillon: it gave him the highest opinion of Caulaincourt, but N.'s conduct was "full of subterfuge and artifice.">[
[Footnote 436: Castlereagh to Clancarty, March 18th.]
[Footnote 437: Napier, bk. xxiv., ch. iii. Wellington seems to have thought that the allies would probably make peace with Napoleon.]
[Footnote 438: Broglie, "Mems.," bk. iii., ch. i.]
[Footnote 439: Letter of February 25th to Joseph. Thiébault gives us an odd story that Bernadotte sent an agent, Rainville, to persuade Davoust to join him in attacking the rear of the allies; but that Rainville's nerve so forsook him in Davoust's presence that he turned and bolted for his life!]