The armistice now afforded an apt occasion for arranging a general peace, or rather (for that was the real purpose) for giving Austria an opportunity of declaring what were her real and definitive intentions in this unexpected crisis, which had rendered her to a great degree arbitress of the fate of Europe. Napoleon, from his first arrival in Saxony, had adopted a belief, that although Austria was likely to use the present crisis as an opportunity of compelling him to restore the Illyrian provinces, and perhaps other territories of which former wars had deprived her, yet that in the end, the family connexion, with the awe entertained for his talents, would prevail to hinder her cabinet from uniting their cause to that of the allies. An expression had dropt from the Austrian minister Metternich, which would have altered this belief, had it been reported to him.
Maret, Duke of Bassano, had pressed the Austrian hard on the ties arising from the marriage, when the Austrian answered emphatically, "The marriage—yes, the marriage—it was a match founded on political considerations; but"——
INTERVIEW WITH METTERNICH.
This single brief word disclosed as much as does the least key when it opens the strongest cabinet—it made it clear that the connexion formed by the marriage would not prevent Austria from taking the line in the present dispute which general policy demanded. And this was soon seen when Count Metternich came to Dresden to have an audience of Napoleon.
This celebrated statesman and accomplished courtier had been very acceptable at the Tuileries, and Napoleon seems to have imagined him one of those persons whose gaiety and good-humour were combined with a flexible character, liable to be mastered and guided by one of power and energy like his own. This was a great mistake. Metternich, a man of liveliness and address when in society, was firm and decisive in business. He saw that the opportunity of controlling the absolute power of France and of Buonaparte had at length arrived, and was determined, so far as Austria was concerned, and under his administration, that no partial views or advantages should prevent its being effectually employed. His interview with Napoleon took place at Dresden on the 28th June, and the following particulars are accredited:—
Napoleon always piqued himself on a plain, down-right style of negotiation, or rather upon his system of at once announcing the only terms on which he would consent to negotiate. He would hear of no counter-project, and admit of no medium betwixt the resumption of hostilities, and acceptance of peace upon the terms which it suited him to dictate. This frank and unanswerable mode of treating greatly tended to abridge the formalities of diplomacy; it had but this single disadvantage, that it was only suitable for the lips of a victor, whose renewal of war was to be, in all human probability, the resuming a career of victory. Such a tone of negotiation became the Roman Prætor, when he environed with a circle the feeble Eastern monarch, and insisted on a categorical answer to the terms he had proposed, ere he should step beyond the line; and perhaps it became Napoleon, when, at Campo Formio, he threw down the piece of porcelain, declaring that the Austrian empire should be destroyed in the same manner, unless they instantly accepted his conditions. But the same abrupt dictatorial manner was less felicitously employed, when the question was to persuade Austria not to throw her force of 200,000 men into the scale of the allies, which already too equally balanced that of France; yet that ill-chosen tone may be observed in the following conference.
Napoleon upbraided Metternich with having favoured his adversaries, by being so tardy in opening the negotiation. He intimated that the Austrian minister perhaps staid away, in order that France might be reduced to a lower state than at the opening of the campaign; while now that he had gained two battles, Austria thrust in her mediation, that he might be prevented from following up his success. In claiming to be a negotiator, Austria, he said, was neither his friend nor his impartial judge—she was his enemy. "You were about to declare yourself," he said, "when the victory at Lutzen rendered it prudent in the first place to collect more forces. Now you have assembled behind the screen of the Bohemian mountains 200,000 men under Schwartzenberg's command. Ah, Metternich! I guess the purpose of your Cabinet. You wish to profit by my embarrassments, and seize on the favourable moment to regain as much as you can of what I have taken from you. The only question with you is, whether you will make most by allowing me to ransom myself, or by going to war with me?—You are uncertain on that point; and perhaps you only come here to ascertain which is your best course. Well, let us drive a bargain—how much is it you want?"
To this insulting commencement Metternich replied, that "the only advantage desired by his master, was to see that moderation and respect for the rights of nations which filled his own bosom, restored to the general councils of Europe, and such a well-balanced system introduced as should place the universal tranquillity under the guarantee of an association of independent states."
It was easy to see which way this pointed, and to anticipate the conclusion. Napoleon affected to treat it as a figure of speech, which was to cloak the private views of Austria. "I speak clearly," he said, "and come to the point. Will it suit you to accept of Illyria, and to remain neuter?—Your neutrality is all I require. I can deal with the Russians and Prussians with my own army."—"Ah, Sire," replied Metternich, "it depends solely on your Majesty to unite all our forces with yours. But the truth must be told. Matters are come to that extremity that Austria cannot remain neutral—We must be with you, or against you."[270]
After this explicit declaration, from which it was to be inferred that Austria would not lay aside her arms, unless Buonaparte would comply with the terms which she had fixed upon as the conditions of a general pacification, and that she was determined to refuse all that might be offered as a bribe for her neutrality, the Emperor of France and the Austrian statesman retired into a cabinet, apart from the secretaries, where it is to be presumed Metternich communicated more specifically the conditions which Austria had to propose. Napoleon's voice was presently heard exclaiming aloud, "What! not only Illyria, but half of Italy, the restoration of the Pope, and the abandoning of Poland, and the resignation of Spain, and Holland, and the confederation of the Rhine, and Switzerland! Is this your moderation? You hawk about your alliance from the one camp to the other, where the greatest partition of territory is to be obtained, and then you talk of the independence of nations! In plain truth, you would have Italy; Sweden demands Norway; Prussia requires Saxony; England would have Holland and Belgium—You would dismember the French empire; and all these changes to be operated by Austria's mere threat of going to war. Can you pretend to win, by a single stroke of the pen, so many of the strongest fortresses in Europe, the keys of which I have gained by battles and victories? And think you that I will be so docile as to march back my soldiers, with their arms reversed, over the Rhine, the Alps, and the Pyrenees, and by subscribing a treaty, which is one vast capitulation, deliver myself, like a fool, into the hands of my enemies, and trust for a doubtful permission to exist, to their generosity? Is it when my army is triumphing at the gates of Berlin and Breslau, that Austria hopes to extort such a cession from me, without striking a blow or drawing a sword? It is an affront to expect it. And is it my father-in-law who entertains such a project? Is it he who sends you to me? In what attitude would he place me before the eyes of the French people! He is in a strange mistake if he supposes that a mutilated throne can, in France, afford shelter to his daughter and his grandson——Ah, Metternich," he concluded, "what has England given you to induce you to make war on me?"