But there was method in his madness.  In the Dresden interview he had warned Metternich that not till the eleventh hour would he disclose his real demands.  And now was the opportunity of trying the effect of a final act of intimidation.  On August 4th he was back again in Dresden:  on the next day he dictated the secret conditions on which he would accept Austria’s mediation; and, on August 6th, Caulaincourt paid Metternich a private visit to find out what Austria’s terms really were.  After a flying visit to the Emperor Francis at Brandeis, the Minister brought back as an ultimatum the six terms drawn up on June 7th (see p. 316); and to these he now added another which guaranteed the existing possessions of every State, great or small.

Napoleon was taken aback by this boldness, which he attributed to the influence of Spanish affairs and to English intrigues.[341] On August 9th he summoned Bubna and offered to give up the Duchy of Warsaw—­provided that the King of Saxony gained an indemnity—­also the Illyrian Provinces (but without Istria), as well as Danzig, if its fortifications were destroyed.  As for the Hanse Towns and North Germany, he would not hear of letting them go.  Bubna thought that Austria would acquiesce.  But she had said her last word:  she saw that Napoleon was trifling with her until he had disposed of Russia and Prussia.  And, at midnight of August 10th, beacon fires on the heights of the Riesengebirge flashed the glad news to the allies in Silesia that they might begin to march their columns into Bohemia.  The second and vaster Act in the drama of liberation had begun.

Did Napoleon remember, in that crisis of his destiny, that it was exactly twenty-one years since the downfall of the old French monarchy, when he looked forth on the collapse of the royalist defence at the Tuileries and the fruitless bravery of the Swiss Guards?

* * * * *

CHAPTER XXXV

DRESDEN AND LEIPZIG

The militant Revolution had now attained its majority.  It had to confront an embattled Europe.  Hitherto the jealousies or fears of the Eastern Powers had prevented any effective union.  The Austro-Prussian league of 1792 was of the loosest description owing to the astute neutrality of the Czarina Catherine.  In 1798 and 1805 Prussia seemed to imitate her policy, and only after Austria had been crushed did the army of Frederick the Great try conclusions with Napoleon.  In the Jena and Friedland campaigns, the Hapsburgs played the part of the sulking Achilles, and met their natural reward in 1809.  The war of 1812 marshalled both Austria and Prussia as vassal States in Napoleon’s crusade against Russia.  But it also brought salvation, and Napoleon’s fateful obstinacy during the negotiations at Prague virtually compelled his own father-in-law to draw the sword against him.  Ostensibly, the points at issue were finally narrowed down to the control of the Confederation of the Rhine, the ownership of North Germany, and a few smaller points.  But really there was a deeper cause, the character of Napoleon.