“Did he really do so?” asked Count Saurau, breathlessly.
“He did. He sent two of our friends—Count Meerveldt, and the Marquis de Gallo—to Bonaparte’s headquarters at Leoben, for the purpose of opening negotiations with him.”
“Did your excellency authorize the archduke to do so?” asked the count.
“No, I did not, and I might disavow it now if it suited me, but it does not—it would not promote our interests—and I know but one policy, the policy of interest. We should always adopt those measures which afford us a reasonable prospect of gain, and discard those which may involve us in loss. Power alone is infallible, eternal, and divine, and power has now decided in favor of France. Wherefore we must yield, and don the garb of peace until we secure once more sufficient power to renew hostilities. We must make peace! Our aim, however, should be to render this peace as advantageous to Austria as possible—”
“You mean at the expense of France?”
“Bah!—at the expense of Germany, my dear little count. Germany is to compensate us for the losses which peace may inflict. If we lose any territory in Italy, why, we shall make it up in Germany, that is all.”
“But in that case, there will be another terrible hue and cry about the infringement of the rights of the holy German empire,” said Count Saurau, smiling; “Prussia will have a new opportunity of playing the defender of the German fatherland.”
“My dear count, never mind the bombastic nonsense in which Prussia is going to indulge—we shall take good care that nothing comes of it. Prussia has no longer a Frederick the Great at her head, but the fat Frederick William the Second—”
“But his life,” said the count, interrupting him, “I know for certain, will last but a few days, at best for a few weeks; for his disease, dropsy of the chest, you know, does not even respect kings.”
“And when Prussia has lost her present fat king, she will have another, Frederick William—a young man twenty-seven years of age, volia tout! He is just as old as General Bonaparte, and was born in the same year as this general whose glory already fills the whole world; but of the young heir of the Prussian throne the world has heard nothing as yet, except that he has a most beautiful wife. He is not dangerous, therefore, and I hope and believe that Austria never will lack the power to humiliate and check this Prussian kingdom—this revolutionary element in the heart of the German empire. The danger, however, that threatens us now, does not come from Prussia, but from France, and especially from this General Bonaparte, who, by his glory and his wonderful battles, excites the wildest enthusiasm for the cause of the revolution, and delights the stupid masses so much that they hail him as a new messiah of liberty. Liberty, detestable word! that, like the fatal bite of the tarantula, renders men furious, and causes them to rave about in frantic dances until death strikes them down.”