eying his
behests without a question: for their degradation there was no plea
either of expediency or of a right secured by conquest. The extinction
of what still ranked as a great royal house was accomplished by
chicane, was due to a boundless ambition, and was rendered utterly
abhorrent to all divine-right dynasties by the specious pretext of
reform under which it was accomplished. This gave Francis food for
reflection.

In the territorial expansion of Rome her victims were first conquered,
then made dependent allies, then at last destroyed, and their lands
turned into Roman provinces. It appeared as if this, too, were, in
general, Napoleon's policy; but in some cases he showed himself quite
willing to dispense with any intermediary stage and marched direct to
his goal. Austria, already irritated by the disposition made of
Etruria and by the treatment of the Pope, could endure the suspense as
to her own fate no longer. Her new military system was complete, her
armies were reorganized and reequipped, her administration was well
ordered, her generals and statesmen were alike confident. The Emperor
of the French had shown quite the same impatience with Austria in
July as with Prussia in September, admonishing both to observe the
Continental System with strictness; but his warning produced no effect
at Vienna. On the contrary, the Viennese newspapers took a belligerent
tone, and called for war; English goods poured in through the harbor
of Triest; communications between the ministry at London and the
cabinet at Vienna became more frequent and regular; the nation
supported its monarch and assumed a warlike attitude. The disasters in
Spain tied Napoleon's hands, and he did nothing in a military way
except to call Davout from Poland into Silesia, and to strengthen
Mortier in Franconia.

With the inconsistency of the highest greatness, Napoleon changed his
whole political campaign in the twinkling of an eye, as he so often
did his military ones. During the long months since the interview at
Tilsit, Alexander had been kept in an agony of uncertainty, deprived
of real French cooeperation in regard either to Sweden or to Turkey,
and actually menaced by the continued occupation of Prussia and the
fortification of the strategic points in the duchy of Warsaw.
Caulaincourt had found his mission of dissimulation and
procrastination most difficult, partly by reason of Pozzo di Borgo's
influence, partly because the conquest of Musco