The king, who had gazed after her with a long and tender look, said in a low voice to himself: “Oh, she is the sunshine of my life. How dreary and cold it would be without her! But now I will see the minister.”
He hastened to the opposite door and opened it. “Request Minister von Hardenberg to come in,” he said to the valet de chambre, waiting in the anteroom.
After a few minutes Hardenberg entered. The king went forward to meet him, and looked at him inquiringly.
“Good news?” he asked.
“Your majesty, ‘good’ has a very relative meaning,” replied Hardenberg, shrugging his shoulders. “I believe an open and categorical reply to be good.”
“Then you are the bearer of such a reply,” said the king, quietly; “first tell me the result of your mission. You may afterward add the particulars of the negotiations.”
“I shall comply with your majesty’s order. The result is that Austria wants to remain neutral, and will, for the present, engage in no further wars. Her finances are exhausted, and her many defeats have demoralized and discouraged her armies. Napoleon has vanquished Austria, not only militarily, but also morally. The Austrian soldiers look on the Emperor of the French and his victorious armies with an almost superstitious terror; the emperor is discouraged and downcast, and his ministers long for nothing more ardently than a lasting peace with France. His generals, on the other hand, are filled with so glowing an admiration for Napoleon’s military genius, that the Archduke Charles himself has said: ‘he would deem it a crime to continue the war against Napoleon, instead of courting his friendship.’” [Footnote: Vide “Libensbilder aus dem Befreiungskriege,” vol. iii.]
“He may be right,” said the king, “but he ought to have called it an imprudence instead of a crime. I know very well that we are unable to retrace our steps, and that the logic of events will compel us to draw the sword and risk a war, but I do not close my eyes against the serious dangers and misfortunes in which Prussia might be involved by taking up arms without efficient and active allies. I have taken pains for years to save Prussia from the horrors and evils of war, but circumstances are more powerful than I, and I shall have to submit to them.”
“On the contrary, circumstances will have to submit to your majesty and fate.”
“Fate!” the king interrupted him, hastily. “Fate is no courtier, and never flattered me much.”