“Sire, why do you not send Metternich away?” Duroc inquired one day at the Tuileries.
“Ah, well,” answered Napoleon, “if Austria sent me a new minister, I should have him to study; as to Metternich, he can no longer deceive me.”
Summoned to Dresden, the Austrian diplomat went, and on June 27, 1813, held his famous interview with Napoleon. It was not then known to any save the parties to the treaty that Lord Aberdeen, acting for England, had already made his bargain with Austria, whereby the latter power agreed to accept an enormous bribe to enter the coalition against France. On the very day of Metternich’s interview with Napoleon, Austria was actually signing the Reichenbach treaty which, affirmed by the Emperor Francis on August 1, 1813, placed Austria’s two hundred thousand men at the service of “our cause.”
Napoleon knew nothing of this; he suspected it, dreaded it, desperately sought to avert it. Hence his call to Metternich.
In his Memoirs, the Austrian statesman relates that he found the French Emperor at the Marcolini Garden, near the Elster meadows. “The French army sighed for peace. The generals had little confidence in the issue of the war.” “The appearance of the Austrian minister at Napoleon’s headquarters could only be regarded by the French generals as decisive in its results.” Bursting with self-importance was this Metternich, of whom Napoleon said that he was always believing that he controlled everything, whereas he was eternally being controlled by others. In this instance he walked toward Napoleon’s rooms with the majestic port of an arbiter of nations, whereas the whole thing had already been determined by Lord Aberdeen’s negotiations at Vienna, not to mention the masterful influence of Sir Charles Stewart and Lord Cathcart in the counsels of Russia and Prussia.
“It would be difficult to describe,” says Metternich, “the expression of painful anxiety shown on the faces of the crowd of men in uniform who were assembled in the waiting rooms of the Emperor. The Prince of Neufchâtel (Berthier) said to me in a low voice, “Do not forget that Europe requires peace, and especially France, which will have nothing but peace.”
Of Berthier, Napoleon himself said that, in anything outside his specialty of writing despatches, “he was a mere goose.” If Berthier made at this juncture any such remark to Metternich as that important man records, it would be a charity to let Berthier escape with so light a reproach as that of being a mere goose. Such a remark to such a man, by such a man, and at such a time is rankly odorous of disaffection, disloyalty, and the incipient treason which broke out openly a few months later.
Metternich, referring to Berthier’s remark, complacently states, “Not seeing myself called upon to answer this, I at once entered the Emperor’s reception room.” Great was Metternich in this crisis, too great to bandy words with a mere mushroom, Prince de Neufchâtel!
“Napoleon waited for me, standing in the middle of the room with his sword at his side, and his hat under his arm. He came up in a studied manner and inquired after the health of the Emperor Francis. His countenance soon clouded over, and he spoke, standing in front of me, as follows:—
“‘So you too want war; well, you shall have it. Three times have I replaced the Emperor Francis on his throne. I have promised always to live in peace with him. I have married his daughter. To-day I repent of it.’”