of it
without alarm. If Napoleon prove victorious, it is possible, that
success may turn our brains, and inspire us anew with the desire of
revisiting Vienna and Berlin. If he be unsuccessful, it is to be
feared, that our defeats will animate the people with rage and
despair, and that the nobles and royalists will be massacred."--"The
prospect is no doubt extremely distressing; but I have already told
you, and I repeat it, nothing will alter the determination of the
allied monarchs: they have learned to know the Emperor, and will not
leave him the means of disturbing the world. Even would the sovereigns
consent, to lay down their arms, their people would oppose it: they
consider Bonaparte as the scourge of the human race, and would all
shed their blood to the last drop, to tear from him the sceptre, and
perhaps his life."--

[Footnote 3: The greater part of the deputies were not
yet named; but there was no harm in anticipating
events.]

"I know, that the Prussians have sworn him implacable animosity: but
the Russians and Austrians surely are not so exasperated as the
Prussians."--

"On the contrary, the Emperor Alexander was the first, to declare
against Napoleon."--

"Be it so: but the Emperor of Austria is too virtuous, and too
politic, to sacrifice his son-in-law, and his natural ally, a second
time to vain considerations."--

"The Emperor is not guided by vain considerations: he had to choose
between his affections as a father, and his duties as a sovereign; he
had to decide between the fate of a wife and child, and the fate of
Europe: the choice he would make could not be doubted, and the
magnanimous resolution taken by the Emperor is incontestably a noble
title to the gratitude of his contemporaries, and the admiration of
posterity."--

"I am fully aware, how much it must have cost him, to overturn the
throne of his daughter, and of his grandson; and condemn them to lead
a painful life on the face of the earth, without father, without
husband, without a country. Though a Frenchman, I do justice to the
strength of mind, that the Emperor has shown on this memorable
occasion: but if the part he then took were proper, it appears to me,
that the path he now seems inclined to pursue will be as dangerous, as
it is impolitic. Austria, in the critical situation in which it is
placed by the vicinity, ambition, and alliance of Prussia and Russia,
has need of being protecte