Dresden our envoy was again
assured (May 7th) that the allies would not give in, but that "Austria
will wear the cloak of mediation till the time her immense force is
ready to act, the 24th instant. Count Stadion is hourly expected here:
he will bring proposals of terms of peace and similar ones will be
sent to the French headquarters. Receiving and refusing these
proposals will occupy most of the time." In fact, Metternich was on
the point of despatching from Vienna two envoys, Stadion to the
allies, Count Bubna to Napoleon, with the offer of Austria's armed
mediation.

It found him in no complaisant mood. He had entered Dresden as a
conqueror: he had bitterly chidden the citizens for their support of
the Prussian volunteers, and ordered them to beg their own King to
return from Bohemia. To that hapless monarch he had sent an imperious
mandate to come back and order the Saxon troops, who obstinately held
Torgau, forthwith to hand it over to the French. On all sides his
behests were obeyed, the Saxon troops grudgingly ranging themselves
under the French eagles. And while he was tearing Saxony away from the
national cause, he was summoned by Austria to halt. The victor met the
request with a flash of defiance. After a reproachful talk with Bubna,
on May 17th, he wrote two letters to the Emperor Francis. In the more
official note he assured him that he desired peace, and that he
assented to the opening of a Congress with that aim in view, in which
England, Russia, Prussia, and even the Spanish insurgents might take
part. He therefore proposed that an armistice should be concluded for
the needful preparations. But in the other letter he assured his
father-in-law that he was ready to die at the head of all the generous
men of France rather than become the sport of England. His resentment
against Austria finds utterance in his despatch of the same day, in
which he bids Caulaincourt seek an interview at once with the Czar:
"The essential thing is to have a talk with him.... My intention is to
build him a golden bridge so as to deliver him from the intrigues of
Metternich. If I must make sacrifices, I prefer to make them to a
straightforward enemy, rather than to the profit of Austria, which
Power has betrayed my alliance, and, under the guise of mediator,
means to claim the right of arranging everything." Caulaincourt is to
remind Alexander how badly Austria behaved to him in 1812, and to
suggest that if he treats at once be