The Imperial Council perceived that further resistance was useless and an armistice was agreed to at Znaim. Napoleon, on returning to Vienna, continued occupied until October. For the third time he found himself master of the destinies of the House of Lorraine, which he had accused of ingratitude and perjury before Europe and in the face of history; for the third time this conqueror, so violent in his menaces, so overwhelming in his reproaches, eagerly received the proposals of those who had provoked the war, whose hopes had been overthrown, and whose resources were destroyed on the day of Wagram. The results of the battle, without being as extraordinary as those of Austerlitz, Jena or Friedland, were great nevertheless.
The announcement of the armistice with Austria put an end, in effect, to all hostile demonstrations on the Continent, except in the Peninsula, and Germany in apparent tranquility awaited the result of the negotiations of Vienna.
A few days after Napoleon had returned to Schoenbrunn from Moravia he narrowly escaped the dagger of a young man who rushed upon him at a grand review of the Imperial Guard, and while in the midst of all his staff. Berthier and Rapp threw themselves upon the would-be assassin and disarmed him at the moment when his knife was about to enter the Emperor's body.
Napoleon demanded to know what motive had actuated the assassin. "What injury," said he, "have I done to you?"
"To me personally, none," answered the youth, "but you are the oppressor of my country; the tyrant of the world; and to have put you to death would have been the highest glory of a man of honor."
The youth, a son of a clergyman of Erfurt named Staaps, was condemned to death. It is said Napoleon wished to pardon Staaps, whose frankness and courage had struck him, and in whom, besides, he saw but a blind instrument of the passions incited by the monarchy; but his orders arrived too late. The young German met his death with the greatest coolness, exclaiming: "Hail, Liberty! Germany forever! Death to the tyrant!"
The length to which the negotiations with Austria were protracted excited much wonder, but Napoleon, who was occupied incessantly with his ministers and generals, and seldom showed himself in public, had other business on hand besides his treaty with the Emperor Francis. His long-standing quarrel with the Pope now reached its crisis, growing out of the Concordat, involving affairs in Spain and Portugal, and finally by a refusal of the pontiff to acquiesce in the Berlin and Milan decrees against England's commerce. On the 17th of May Napoleon had issued from Vienna his final decree declaring the temporal sovereignty of the Pope to be wholly at an end, incorporating Rome with the French Empire, and declaring it to be his second city, settling a handsome pension on the holy father in his spiritual capacity, and appointing a committee of administration for the civil government of Rome. The Pope replied with a bull of excommunication against Napoleon which finally resulted in the removal of His Holiness to Fontainebleau where he continued a prisoner, though treated personally with respect and magnificence, during more than three years.
The treaty with Austria was at last signed at Schoenbrunn on the 14th of October, Austria giving up territory to the amount of 45,000 square miles, with a population of four millions, and depriving her of her last seaport. Yet, when compared with the signal triumphs of the campaign at Wagram, the terms on which the conqueror signed the peace were universally looked upon as remarkable for moderation. Napoleon afterwards expressed himself as highly culpable in having left Austria too powerful after the affair at Wagram, using the following words on that occasion: "The day after the battle I ought to have published in the order of the day that I would ratify no treaty with Austria, until after a previous separation of the crown of Austria, Hungary, and Bohemia; to be placed on three different heads."
Napoleon quitted Vienna on the 16th of October, and was congratulated by the public bodies of Paris at Fontainebleau on the 14th of November as "the greatest of heroes, who never achieved victories but for the happiness of the world." When he reappeared at the palace at Fontainebleau on Oct. 26th 1809, crowned with the victory of Wagram, there was one to whom dark forebodings came—Josephine felt that her fate was sealed. In fact, as a modern writer has said, the immediate result of Wagram was the divorce from the Empress.