reign Office, August 6th,
1813: " ... Your Lordship will collect from these instructions that a
general peace, in order to provide adequately for the tranquillity and
independence of Europe, ought, in the judgment of His Majesty's
Government, to confine France at least within the Pyrenees, the Alps,
and the Rhine: and if the other Great Powers of Europe should feel
themselves enabled to contend for such a Peace, Great Britain is fully
prepared to concur with them in such a line of policy. If, however,
the Powers most immediately concerned should determine, rather than
encounter the risks of a more protracted struggle, to trust for their
own security to a more imperfect arrangement, it never has been the
policy of the British Government to attempt to dictate to other States
a perseverance in war, which they did not themselves recognize to be
essential to their own as well as to the common safety." As regards
details, we desired to see the restoration of Venetia to Austria, of
the Papal States to the Pope, of the north-west of Italy to the King
of Sardinia, but trusted that "a liberal establishment" might be found
for Murat in the centre of Italy. Napoleon knew that we desired to
limit France to the "natural frontiers" and that we were resolved to
insist on our maritime claims. As our Government took this unpopular
line, and went further than Austria in its plans for restricting
French influence, he had an excellent opportunity for separating the
Continental Powers from us. But he gave out that those Powers were
bought by England, and that we were bent on humiliating France.]

[Footnote 342: Boyen, "Erinnerungen," Pt. III., p. 66.]

[Footnote 343: Fain, vol. ii., p. 27. The italicized words are given
thus by him; but they read like a later excuse for Napoleon's
failures.]

[Footnote 344: "Commentaries on the War in Russia and Germany," p.
195.]

[Footnote 345: In his letters of August 16th to Macdonald and Ney he
assumed that the allies might strike at Dresden, or even as far west
as Zwickau: but meanwhile he would march "pour enlever Bluecher."]

[Footnote 346: "Lettres inedites de Napoleon." The Emperor forwarded
this suggestion to Savary (August 11th): it doubtless meant an issue
of false paper notes, such as had been circulated in Russia the year
before.]

[Footnote 347: Cathcart, "Commentaries," p. 206.]

[Footnote 348: "Extrait d'un Memoire sur la Campagne de 1813." With
characteristic inaccuracy Marbot rem