The Life of Napoleon I (Volume 2 of 2) eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 736 pages of information about The Life of Napoleon I (Volume 2 of 2).

The Life of Napoleon I (Volume 2 of 2) eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 736 pages of information about The Life of Napoleon I (Volume 2 of 2).

[Footnote 325:  In a secret article of the Treaty we promised to advance to Austria a subsidy of L500,000 as soon as she should join the allies.]

[Footnote 326:  Martens, vol. ix., pp. 568-575.  Our suspicion of Prussia reappears (as was almost inevitable after her seizure of Hanover), not only in the smallness of the sum accorded to her—­for we granted L2,000,000 in all to the Swedish, Hanseatic, and Hanoverian contingents—­but also in the stipulation that she should assent to the eventual annexation of the formerly Prussian districts of East Frisia and Hildesheim to Hanover.  We also refused to sign the Treaty of Reichenbach until she, most unwillingly, assented to this prospective cession.  This has always been thought in Germany a mean transaction; but, as Castlereagh pointed out, those districts were greatly in the way of the development of Hanover.  Prussia was to have an indemnity for the sacrifice; and we bore the chief burden in the issue of “federative paper notes,” which enabled the allies to prepare for the campaign ("Castlereagh Papers,” 2nd series, vol. iv., p. 355; 3rd series, vol. i., pp. 7-17; and “Bath Archives,” vol. ii., p. 86).  Moreover, we were then sending 30,000 muskets to Stralsund and Colberg for the use of Prussian troops (Despatch from “F.O.,” July 28th, to Thornton, “Sweden,” No. 79).  On July 6th we agreed to pay the cost of a German Legion of 10,000 men under the Czar’s orders.  Its Commissary was Colonel Lowe.]

[Footnote 327:  For the official reports see Garden, vol. xiv., pp. 486-499; also Bausset’s account, “Cour de Napoleon.”]

[Footnote 328:  Any account of a private interview between two astute schemers must be accepted with caution; and we may well doubt whether Metternich really was as firm, not to say provocative, as he afterwards represented in his “Memoirs.”  But, on the whole, his account is more trustworthy than that of Fain, Napoleon’s secretary, in his “Manuscrit de 1813,” vol. ii., ch. ii.  Fain places the interview on June 28th; in “Napoleon’s Corresp.” it is reprinted, but assigned to June 23rd.  The correct date is shown by Oncken to have been June 26th.  Bignon’s account of it (vol. xii., ch. iv.) is marked by his usual bias.]

[Footnote 329:  Cathcart reported, on July 8th, that Schwarzenberg had urged an extension of the armistice, so that Austria might meet the “vast and unexpected” preparations of France ("Russia,” No. 86).]

[Footnote 330:  “Russia,” No. 86.]

[Footnote 331:  Thornton’s despatch of July 12th ("Castlereagh Papers,” 2nd Series, vol. iv., ad fin.).]

[Footnote 332:  Ibid., pp. 383 and 405.]

[Footnote 333:  For details see Oncken, Luckwaldt, Thiers, Fain, and the “Mems.” of the Duc de Broglie; also Gentz, “Briefe an Pilat,” of July 16th-22nd, 1813.  Humboldt, the Prussian ambassador, reported on July 13th to Berlin that Metternich looked on war as quite unavoidable, and on the Congress merely as a means of convincing the Emperor Francis of the impossibility of gaining a lasting peace.]

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