It is all over with the man; he has lost his mind—great Metternich, small Napoleon, and poor Berthier, the Emperor’s assiduous goose!
One other important fact the Metternich Memoirs record: the Archduke Charles needed twenty additional days to bring up the Austrian reserves, and Metternich undertook to decoy Napoleon into an extension of the armistice. The Memoirs record how Napoleon vainly endeavored through the Duke of Bassano to come to terms of peace; how Metternich stubbornly stood his ground, refusing to budge an inch; how Napoleon kept up the contest until the Austrian ordered his carriage and was about to leave Dresden; how Napoleon then yielded, calling Metternich back, and signing an agreement to accept Austrian mediation, to prolong the armistice till August 10, and to submit the issues to a congress of the powers to be assembled at Prague on the 10th of July.
In Thiers’s History of the Consulate and Empire we read that Napoleon by his cleverness and diplomacy lured the Allies into granting him precious delays most necessary to his welfare. In Metternich’s Memoirs we read that the Austrian, by his adroitness and implied threats, led Napoleon to the exact time which the Archduke Charles said was needed to get his forces just where he wanted them. Which of these contradictory stories is the truth? which is history?
The Congress of Prague assembled, and it soon became apparent that peace would not be made. British influence dominated it from the first. By consenting, once for all, to surrender his empire and become King of France,—France with the old boundaries,—Napoleon could doubtless have rid himself of the Allies. But what then? Could he have held the throne in France after so complete a submission to foreign dictation? Could he thus have secured internal peace for France itself? Would not England have pressed home the advantage, restored the Bourbons, and destroyed the work of the Revolution?
When we recall what took place in 1814 and afterward,—the steady progress of reaction and counter-revolution until absolutism and aristocratic privilege had completely triumphed again throughout Europe,—we can but honor the sagacity and the unquailing courage of Napoleon in standing his ground, indomitably, against combinations without and disaffection within, rather than make craven surrender to a coalition which meant nothing less than death to democratic principles and institutions, as well as to his own supremacy.
In Spain the fortunes of war were going heavily against France. King Joseph was in everybody’s way, hampering military movements by his absurdities; the marshals were at odds with each other, and no coöperation could be had. Wellington, whose progress in the peninsula had been slow and fluctuating, now advanced into Spain, and won a decisive battle. Just as the victory of Salamanca had influenced Russian councils in 1812, that of Vittoria bore heavily against Napoleon at the Congress of Prague.
Napoleon himself had no confidence in the negotiations, and was painfully aware of the manifold perils which beset him. He returned to Mayence, and bent all his energies to the improvement of his situation. One day he called upon Beugnot to write at his dictation, and Beugnot, flurried at the unexpected summons, twice took the Emperor’s chair. Napoleon said: “So you are determined to sit in my seat! You have chosen a bad time for it.”
Soult was sent off to Spain to hold Wellington in check, Fouché and Talleyrand were summoned to aid in fathoming the Austrian intrigue, and influences were set to work to bring Murat back to the army.