tria demand of him? She proposed to leave him
master of all the lands from the swamps of the Ems down to the Roman
Campagna: Italy was to be his, along with as much of the Iberian
Peninsula as he could hold. His control of Illyria, North Germany, and
the Rhenish Confederation he must give up. But France, Belgium,
Holland, and Italy would surely form a noble realm for a man who had
lost half a million of men, and was even now losing Spain. Yet his
correspondence proves that, even so, he thought little of his foes,
and, least of all, of the Congress at Prague.

Leaving his plenipotentiaries tied down to the discussion of matters
of form, he set out from Dresden on July 24th for a visit to Mainz,
where he met the Empress and reviewed his reserves. Every item of news
fed his warlike resolve. Soult, with nearly 100,000 men, was about to
relieve Pamplona (so he wrote to Caulaincourt): the English were
retiring in confusion: 12,000 veteran horsemen from his armies in
Spain would soon be on the Rhine; but they could not be on the Elbe
before September. If the allies wanted a longer armistice, he
(Napoleon) would agree to it: if they wished to fight, he was equally
ready, even against the Austrians as well.[336]

To Davoust, at Hamburg, he expressed himself as if war was certain;
and he ordered Clarke, at Paris, to have 110,000 muskets made by the
end of the year, so that, in all, 400,000 would be ready. Letters
about the Congress are conspicuous by their absence; and everything
proves that, as he wrote to Clarke at the beginning of the armistice,
he purposed striking his great blows in September. Little by little we
see the emergence of his final plan--_to overthrow Russia and Prussia,
while, for a week or two, he amused Austria with separate overtures at
Prague_.

But, during eight years of adversity, European statesmen had learnt
that disunion spelt disaster; and it was evident that Napoleon's
delays were prompted solely by the need of equipping and training his
new cavalry brigades. As for the Congress, no one took it seriously.
Gentz, who was then in close contact with Metternich, saw how this
tragi-comedy would end. "We believe that on his return to Dresden,
Napoleon will address to this Court a solemn Note in which he will
accuse everybody of the delays which he himself has caused, and will
end up by proclaiming a sort of ultimatum. Our reply will be a
declaration of war."[337]

This was what happened. As July wore o