"By the eternal, you are a great statesman, a sagacious ruler!" exclaimed Count Saurau, with the gushing enthusiasm of sincere admiration. "Men grow wise by listening to you, and happy and powerful by obeying you! I am entirely devoted to you--full of affection and veneration--and do not want to be any thing but your attentive and grateful pupil."
"Be my friend," said Thugut. "Let us pursue our career hand in hand--let us always keep our common goal in view, and shrink back from no step in order to reach it."
"Tell me what I am to do. I shall follow you as readily as the blind man follows his guide."
"Well, if you desire it, my friend, we will consider a little how we have to steer the ship of state during the next months in order to get her safely through the breakers that are threatening her on all sides. During the few days of your absence from the capital, various events have occurred, materially altering the general state of affairs. When you departed, I advised the emperor not to make peace with France under any circumstances. We counted at that time on the regiments of grenadiers whom we had sent to the seat of war, and who, under the command of Archduke Charles, were to defend the defiles of Neumarkt against the advancing columns of the French army. We knew, besides, that the French troops were worn out, exhausted, and anxious for peace, or that General Bonaparte would not have addressed that letter to the Archduke Charles, in which he requested the latter to induce the Emperor of Austria to conclude peace with France. In accordance with our advice, the archduke had to give Bonaparte an evasive answer, informing him that, in case of further negotiations, he would have to send to Vienna for fresh instructions."
"But, your excellency, you were firmly determined not to make peace with France!"
"So I was, and even now I have not changed my mind; but we are frequently compelled to disguise our real intentions, and events have occurred, which, for the present, render peace desirable. You need not be frightened, my dear count--I merely say, for the present. In my heart I shall never make peace with France, and my purpose remains as fixed as ever--to revenge Austria one day for the humiliations we have suffered at her hands. Never forget that, my friend; and now listen to me. Late dispatches have arrived. Massena, after a bloody struggle with our troops, has taken Friesach, and advanced on the next day to attack the fresh regiments of our grenadiers in the gorges of Neumarkt. Archduke Charles had placed himself at the head of these regiments, firing the courage of the soldiers by his own heroic example. But he was confronted by the united French forces from Italy and Germany, and in the evening of that disastrous day the archduke and his grenadiers were compelled to evacuate Neumarkt, which was occupied by the victorious French.
The archduke now asked the French general for a cessation of hostilities during twenty-four hours in order to gain time, for he was in hopes that this respite would enable him to bring up the corps of General von Kerpen, and then, with his united forces, drive the enemy back again. But this little General Bonaparte seems to possess a great deal of sagacity, for he rejected the request, and sent a detached column against Von Kerpen's corps, which separated the latter still farther from our main army. Bonaparte himself advanced with his forces as far as Fudenberg and Leoben. In order to save Vienna, there was but one course left to the archduke: he had to make proposals of peace."
"Did he really do so?" asked Count Saurau, breathlessly.
"He did. He sent two of our friends--Count Meerveldt, and the Marquis de Gallo--to Bonaparte's headquarters at Leoben, for the purpose of opening negotiations with him."
"Did your excellency authorize the archduke to do so?" asked the count.
"No, I did not, and I might disavow it now if it suited me, but it does not--it would not promote our interests--and I know but one policy, the policy of interest. We should always adopt those measures which afford us a reasonable prospect of gain, and discard those which may involve us in loss. Power alone is infallible, eternal, and divine, and power has now decided in favor of France.
Wherefore we must yield, and don the garb of peace until we secure once more sufficient power to renew hostilities. We must make peace!
Our aim, however, should be to render this peace as advantageous to Austria as possible--"
"You mean at the expense of France?"
"Bah!--at the expense of Germany, my dear little count. Germany is to compensate us for the losses which peace may inflict. If we lose any territory in Italy, why, we shall make it up in Germany, that is all."
"But in that case, there will be another terrible hue and cry about the infringement of the rights of the holy German empire," said Count Saurau, smiling; "Prussia will have a new opportunity of playing the defender of the German fatherland."
"My dear count, never mind the bombastic nonsense in which Prussia is going to indulge--we shall take good care that nothing comes of it. Prussia has no longer a Frederick the Great at her head, but the fat Frederick William the Second--"
"But his life," said the count, interrupting him, "I know for certain, will last but a few days, at best for a few weeks; for his disease, dropsy of the chest, you know, does not even respect kings."