Thugut was leaning back comfortably on the cushions of his carriage. He seemed not to hear the shouts of the people, and not to deem them worthy of the slightest notice. Only when the tumult increased in violence, and when the incensed people commenced hurling stones and mud at his carriage, the minister rose for a moment in order to look out with an air of profound disdain. He then leaned back on his seat, and muttered, with a glance of indescribable contempt:
“Canaille!” [Footnote: Hormayer’s “Lebensbilder,” vol. i., p. 230.]
CHAPTER XXXVI. THUGUT’S FALL.
Tidings of fresh defeats had reached Vienna; more disasters had befallen the army, and the great victory of Marengo had been followed, on the 3rd of December, 1800, by the battle of Hohenlinden, in which Moreau defeated the Austrians under Archduke John. Even Thugut, the immovable and constant prime minister, felt alarmed at so many calamities, and he was generally in a gloomy and spiteful humor.
He felt that there was a power stronger than his will, and this feeling maddened him with anger. He was sitting at his desk, with a clouded brow and closely compressed lips, his sullen eyes fixed on the papers before him, which a courier, just arrived from the headquarters of the army, had delivered to him. They contained evil tidings; they informed him of the immense losses of the Austrians, and of the insolence of the victorious French general, who had only granted the Austrian application for an armistice on condition that the fortresses of Ulm, Ingolstadt and Philipsburg be surrendered to him; and these humiliating terms had been complied with in order to gain time and to concentrate a new army. For Thugut’s stubbornness had not been broken yet, and he still obstinately refused to conclude the peace so urgently desired by the whole Austrian people, nay, by the emperor himself.
“No, no, no peace!” he muttered, when he had perused the dispatches. “We will fight on, even though we should be buried under the ruins of Austria! I hate that revolutionary France, and I shall never condescend to extend my hand to it for the purpose of making peace. We will fight on, and no one shall dare to talk to me about peace!”
A low rap at the door leading to the reception-room interrupted his soliloquy, and when he had harshly called out, “Come in,” his valet de chambre appeared in the door.
“Your excellency,” he said, timidly, “Counts Colloredo, Saurau, and Lehrbach have just arrived, and desire to obtain an interview with your excellency.”