"Sire, we are joyously ready to shed ours for the sacred cause of the fatherland," exclaimed Count Raczinsky. "We wish to know only, or at least hope, that it will not be in vain. Sire, Poland is extending her arms toward you; she is beckoning you with a passionate love; she is longingly calling to you, 'Great Cæsar, come to my aid, that the sun may once more beam upon me—that you may disperse the long night of my torture, and that a happy day may again dawn for me!' Oh, sire, will you listen to the supplications of Poland?—will you come to her and break her chains?"
"No," said Napoleon, "I will not go to weeping Poland, shaking her chains, and only wailing and complaining instead of acting, but I will go to the men and heroes of Poland, who have thrown off their fetters, and shed their blood for their country! Go home and tell this to your countrymen, and ask them when I shall come!"
"Sire, they will say as we say now, 'God save Cæsar! We clash our swords, and dance the sacred war-dance, that he may come and let us see his face!'"
"As soon as it is time," said Napoleon, significantly. "Go, my friends, and tell your countrymen so. The time for weeping is past—that for action has come. Improve it, and be wise. Return home as fast as you can, for I should like to be with you before the present year has expired. Farewell!"
He greeted them in so winning a manner that, charmed with his affability, they again enthusiastically shouted, "Long live Napoleon the Great, the liberator of nations!" Amid the cheers of the sanguine Poles, Napoleon returned to the small reception-room, accompanied by Talleyrand, whom he had beckoned to follow.
"Well," asked he when they were alone, "what do you think of it? Will the Poles rise?"
"I am convinced of it, sire! Your words were like the steel striking the flint, and kindling the tinder of their national ardor. It will burn, sire—burn so brightly that Russia, Austria, and Prussia, may be badly injured in their Polish provinces."
"Certainly not Austria," said Napoleon, quickly; "for the rest, we shall know how to extinguish the fire as soon as it burns too extensively. Forward your dispatch to our ambassador in Vienna to-day. He is to assure the Emperor of Austria in the most emphatic manner that I do not intend permitting the Polish insurrection to spread too far, and that his Galician provinces, at all events, shall not be endangered.—Well, Duroc, what do you bring?" continued he, when the door opened, and the grand marshal entered with a letter in his hand.
"Sire, I bring two messages at the same time. In the first place, a new envoy of the King of Prussia has just arrived; he is the bearer of this letter which the king, who is now at Graudenz, has addressed to your majesty."
"Ah," exclaimed Napoleon, "he is at Graudenz, which is still closer to the boundary of his states. But I will drive him to the last town on the frontier. The queen must learn what it is to provoke a war!" He took the letter, which Duroc handed to him, and opened it hastily.