al feeling of their respective
peoples. They knew that Austria's opportunity to lead a great revolt
against Napoleon was to be found in the support of the powerful
conservatives of Russia, in the enthusiasm of all Prussia, where Arndt
was already crying, "Freedom and Austria!" and in the passionate
loyalty of her own peoples, not excepting the sturdy Tyrolese, who,
chafing under Napoleon's yoke, were ready for insurrection. On March
eighteenth, 1809, the French minister at Vienna wrote to Paris that in
1805 the government, but neither army nor nation, had desired war;
that now the government, the army, and the people all desired it. The
Austrian plenipotentiary was ordered, in requesting a subsidy from
Great Britain, to state that in the event of victory his government
hoped to secure such internal vigor as Austria had enjoyed before the
treaty of Presburg. As to the neighboring states, she desired some
minor rectifications of her own frontier, with indemnifications to the
younger branches of her dynasty for their lost domains. These might be
found either in Germany or in Italy, and if she should succeed in
destroying Napoleon's system of tributary powers, she meant to restore
all their territories to their rightful owners, not excepting those of
the German princes who had been hostile.

To suppose, as many do, that no inkling of all the stupendous schemes
reached Napoleon in Spain is preposterous. Bavaria was his faithful
subordinate, and Poland still hoped everything from his successes.
Both were in the heart of Germany, and through a carefully organized
system of spies, information of the most reliable nature was regularly
received in both countries. The same historians who assert that after
Marengo Bonaparte left Italy for Paris to cloak his defeat, and that
he fled to Malmaison to conceal his direct connection with Enghien's
death, expect us to believe that Napoleon fled from Spain merely to
throw the responsibility of failure on Joseph. Most men in any crisis
act from mixed motives. Such a charge displays skill in combining
facts, but Marengo, whether a defeat or a victory, secured France to
the general who commanded there; the retreat to Malmaison did not
induce the Consul to deny his responsibility for the execution at
Vincennes; and it would have been simply an intervention of the
supernatural if Napoleon, for purely subjective reasons, had left
Spain to return to Paris just at the very instant when his presenc