ghter, and one may
conjecture that it was not very easy, as he loves etiquette almost
as much from suspicion as from vanity, in other words, as a means of
isolating individuals among themselves, under the pretence of
marking the distinction of their ranks.

The first ten days, which I passed at Vienna, passed unclouded, and
I was delighted at thus finding myself again in a pleasing society,
whose manner of thinking corresponded with my own; for the public
opinion was unfavorable to the alliance with Napoleon, and the
government had concluded it without being supported by the national
assent. In fact, how could a war, the ostensible object of which was
the re-establishment of Poland, be undertaken by the power which had
contributed to the partition, and which still retained in its hands
with greater obstinacy than ever the third of that same Poland?
Thirty thousand men were sent by the Austrian government to restore
the confederation of Poland at Warsaw, and nearly as many spies were
attached to the movements of the Poles in Gallicia, who wished to
have deputies at this confederation. The Austrian government was
therefore obliged to speak against the Poles, at the very time that
it was acting in their cause, and to say to her subjects of
Gallicia: "I forbid you to be of the opinion which I support." What
metaphysics! they would be found very intricate, if fear did not
explain every thing.

The Poles are the only nation, of those which Bonaparte drags after
him, that create any interest. I believe they know as well as we do,
that they are only the pretence for the war, and that the emperor
does not care a fig for their independence. He has not even been
able to refrain from expressing several times to the emperor
Alexander his disdain for Poland, solely because she wishes to be
free: but it suits his purposes to put her in the van against
Russia, and the Poles avail themselves of that circumstance to
restore their national independence. I know not if they will
succeed, for it is with difficulty that despotism ever gives
liberty, and what they will regain in their own cause, if
successful, they will lose in the cause of Europe. They will be
Poles, but Poles as much enslaved as the three nations upon whom
they will no longer depend. Be that as it may, the Poles are the
only Europeans who can serve under the banners of Napoleon without
blushing. The princes of the Rhenish Confederation think to find
their interest in it