Thanks to his system of delay, Count Haugwitz had succeeded in obtaining a first interview with Napoleon on the day before the battle of Austerlitz. But instead of presenting the ominous note to the emperor, he had contented himself, after the fashion of a genuine courtier, with offering incense to the great conqueror, and Napoleon had prevented him from transacting any business by putting off all negotiations with him until after the great battle.
After the battle of Austerlitz, the emperor had received the envoy of the King of Prussia at Schonbrunn, and granted him the longed-for audience. Napoleon greeted him in an angry voice, and reproached him violently for having affixed his name to the treaty of Potsdam. But Haugwitz had managed, by his skilful politeness, to appease the emperor’s wrath, and to regain his favor. Since then Count Haugwitz had been at Schonbrunn every day, and Napoleon had always received him with especial kindness and affability. For the emperor, who knew very well that Austria was still hoping for an armed intervention by Prussia, wished to delay his decision, as to the fate of Prussia at least, until he had made peace with Austria. Only when he had trampled Austria under foot, he would think of chastising Prussia for her recent arrogance, and to humiliate her as he had hitherto humiliated all his enemies. Hence he had received Count Haugwitz every day, and succeeded gradually and insensibly in winning him for his plans. Today, on the 13th of December, Count Haugwitz had repaired to Schonbrunn to negotiate with Napoleon. He wore his full court-costume, and was adorned with the grand cordon of the Legion of Honor, which he had received a year ago, and which the Prussian minister seemed to wear with especial predilection.
Napoleon received the count in the former drawing-room of Maria Theresa, which had now become Napoleon’s study. On a large round table in the centre of the room, there lay maps, dotted with variously colored pins; the green pins designated the route fixed by Napoleon for the retreat of the Russian army; the dark-yellow pins surrounded the extreme boundaries of Austria, and according to the news which Napoleon received from Presburg, and which informed him of constantly new concessions made by the Austrian plenipotentiaries, who declared their willingness to cede several provinces, he changed the position of these pins, which embraced every day a more contracted space; while the blue pins, designating the boundaries of Bavaria, advanced farther and farther, and the red pins, representing the armies of France, seemed to multiply on the map.
Napoleon, however, was not engaged in studying his maps when Count Haugwitz entered his room, but he was seated at the desk placed close to the table with the maps, and seemed to write assiduously. On the raised back part of this desk the busts of Frederick the Great and Maria Theresa had been placed. Napoleon sometimes, when he ceased writing, raised his gloomy eyes to them, and then it seemed as though these three heads, the two marble busts and the marble head of Napoleon, bent threateningly toward each other, as though the flashes bursting from Napoleon’s eyes kindled the fire of life and anger in the marble eyes of the empress and the great king; their frowning brows seemed to ask him then, by virtue of what right the son of the Corsican lawyer had taken a seat between their two crowned heads, and driven the legitimate Emperor of Austria from the house of his fathers.
When Count Haugwitz entered, Napoleon cast the pen impetuously aside and rose. He saluted the count, who bowed to him deeply and respectfully, with a pleasant nod.
“You are there,” said the emperor, kindly, “and it is very lucky. I was extremely impatient to see you.”
“Lucky?” asked Count Haugwitz, with the inimitable smile of a well-bred courtier. “Lucky, sire? It seems to me as though there were neither luck nor ill-luck in the world, nay; I am now more than ever convinced of it. Have not I heard men say more than a hundred times, ‘He is lucky! he is lucky!’ Since I have made the acquaintance of the great man who owes every thing to himself, I have become convinced that luck should not be taken into consideration, and that it is of no consequence.”
Napoleon smiled. “You are a most adroit and well-bred cavalier and courtier,” he said, “but it is a rule of wisdom for princes not to repose any confidence in the words of courtiers and flatterers, but always to translate them into the opposite sense. Therefore, I translate your words, too, into the contrary, and then they signify, ‘It seems, unfortunately, as though luck had deserted us, and particularly the third coalition, forever, but still sticks to the colors of France.’”
“Oh, sire,” exclaimed Count Haugwitz, in a tone of grievous reproach, “can your majesty really doubt my devotion and admiration? Was I not the first man to congratulate your majesty, the indomitable chieftain, on the fresh laurels with which you had wreathed your heroic brow, even in the cold days of winter?”
“It is true,” said Napoleon, “you did so, but your compliment was intended for others; fate, however, had changed its address. [Footnote: The whole conversation is strictly in accordance with history.—Vide “Memoires in edits du Comte de Haugwitz,” 1837.] Of your sincerity I have hitherto had no proofs whatever, but a great many of your duplicity; for, at all events, you have affixed your name to the treaty of Potsdam?”