by the loss of their honor; but Austria by a
combination truly remarkable, at once sacrifices in it both her
honor and her interest. The emperor Napoleon wished the archduke
Charles to take the command of these thirty thousand men; but the
archduke fortunately saved himself from this insult; and when I saw
him walking alone in a brown coat, in the alleys of the Prater, I
recovered all my old respect for him.

The same subaltern diplomatist who had so unworthily advised the
abandonment of the Tyrolese, was entrusted, during the absence of
Prince Metternich from Vienna, with the police of foreigners, and he
acquitted himself as you shall see. The first few days he allowed me
to remain undisturbed; I had formerly passed a winter at Vienna, and
been very well received by the emperor and empress, and by the whole
court: it was, therefore, rather awkward to tell me that this time I
would not be received, because I was in disgrace with the emperor
Napoleon; particularly as this disgrace was partly occasioned by the
praises which I had bestowed in my book on the morality and literary
genius of the Germans. But what was much more awkward was to run the
risk of giving the least umbrage to a power, to which it must be
confessed, they might very well sacrifice me, after all they had
already done for it. I suppose, therefore, that after I had been
some days at Vienna, the chief of the police received some more
exact information of the nature of my situation with Bonaparte, and
in consequence thought it necessary to watch me; and this was his
method of inspection. He placed spies at my gate in the street, who
followed me on foot, when my carriage drove slowly, and got into
cabriolets in order not to lose sight of me, when I took an airing
into the country. This method of exercising the police appeared to
me to unite both the French machiavelism, and German clumsiness. The
Austrians have persuaded themselves that they have been beat,
because they had not so much wit as the French, and that the wit of
the French consists In their police system; in consequence they have
set about making a methodical espionage, organizing that ostensibly
which should it all events be concealed; and although destined by
nature to be very honest people, they have made it a kind of duty to
imitate a state which unites the extremes of jacobinism and
despotism.

I could not help, however, being uneasy at this espionnage, when
the least common sense was suf