poleon's
positions in Saxony from the East. This plan of campaign was an
immense advance on those of the earlier coalitions. There was no
reliance here on lines and camps: the days of Mack and Phull were
past: the allies had at last learnt from Napoleon the need of seeking
out the enemy's chief army, and of flinging at it all the available
forces. Politically, also, the compact deserves notice. In concerting
a plan of offensive operations from Bohemia, the allies were going far
to determine the conduct of Austria.

On that same day the peace Congress was opened at Prague. Its
proceedings were farcical from the outset. Only Anstett and Humboldt,
the Russian and Prussian envoys, were at hand; and at the appointment
of the former, an Alsatian by birth, Napoleon expressed great
annoyance. The difficulties about the armistice also gave him the
opportunity, which he undoubtedly sought, of further delaying
negotiations. In vain did Metternich point out to the French envoy,
Narbonne, at Prague, that these frivolous delays must lead to war if
matters were not amicably settled by August 10th, at midnight.[333] In
vain did Narbonne and Caulaincourt beg their master to seize this
opportunity for concluding a safe and honourable peace. It was not
till the middle of July that he appointed them his plenipotentiaries
at the Congress; and, even then, he retained the latter at Dresden,
while the former fretted in forced inaction at Prague. "I send you
more _powers_ than _power_," wrote Maret to Narbonne with cynical
jauntiness: "you will have your hands tied, but your legs and mouth
free so that you may walk about and dine."[334] At last, on the 26th,
Caulaincourt received his instructions; but what must have been the
anguish of this loyal son of France to see that Napoleon was courting
war with a united Europe. Austria, said his master, was acting as
mediator: and the mediator ought not to look for gains: she had made
no sacrifice and deserved to gain nothing at all: her claims were
limitless; and every concession granted by France would encourage her
to ask for more: he was disposed to make peace with Russia on
satisfactory terms so as to punish Austria for her bad faith in
breaking the alliance of 1812.[335]

Such trifling with the world's peace seems to belong, not to the
sphere of history, but to the sombre domain of Greek tragedy, where
mortals full blown with pride rush blindly on the embossed bucklers of
fate. For what did Aus