Although Prussia and Austria had been, since the times of Frederic the Great, in perpetual rivalry, the greatness of the common danger from such a warlike neighbor now induced Metternich to make every overture to Prussia to prevent a possible calamity to Germany; but Frederick William was obstinate, and his league with Alexander could not be broken.  It appears, from the memoirs of Metternich, that it had been for a long time his desire to unite Prussia and Austria in a firm alliance, in order to protect Germany in case of future wars.  That was undoubtedly his true policy.  It was the policy fifty years later of Bismarck, although he was obliged to fight and humble Austria before he could consummate it.  With Russia on one side and France on the other, the only hope of Germany is in union.  But this aim of the great Austrian statesman was defeated by the stupidity and greed of the Prussian king, and by his interested friendship with “the autocrat of all the Russias.”  Alexander got Poland, with an addition of about four million subjects to his empire.

A greater resistance was made to the outrageous claims of Prussia.  She wanted to annex the whole of Saxony and important provinces on the Rhine, which would have made her more powerful than Austria.  Neither Metternich nor Talleyrand nor Castlereagh would hear of this crime; and so angry and threatening were the disputes in the Congress that a treaty was signed by England, France, and Austria for an offensive and defensive alliance against Prussia and Russia, in case the claims of Prussia were persisted in.  After the combination of Russia, Prussia, Austria, and England against Napoleon, there was imminent danger of war breaking out between these great Powers in the matter of a division of spoils.  In rapacity and greed they showed themselves as bad as Napoleon himself.

Prussia, however, was the most greedy and insatiable of all the contracting parties.  She always has been so since she was erected into a kingdom.  The cruel terms exacted by Bismarck and Moltke in their late contest with France indicate the real animus of Prussia.  The conquerors would have exacted ten milliards instead of five, as a war indemnity, if they had thought that France could pay it.  They did not dare to carry away the pictures of the Louvre, nor perhaps did those iron warriors care much for them; but they did want money and territory, and were determined to get all they could.  Prussia was a poor country, and must be enriched any way by the unexpected spoils which the fortune of war threw into her hands.

This same rapacity was seen at the Congress of Vienna; but the opposition to it was too great to risk another war, and Prussia, at the entreaty of Alexander, abated some of her demands, as did also Russia her own.  The result was that only half of Saxony was ceded to Prussia, raising the subjects of Prussia to ten millions.  The tact and firmness of Talleyrand and Castlereagh had prevented the utter absorption of Saxony in the