And his choice was deliberate.  Two months earlier, Talleyrand had sent him a memorandum on the subject of a Franco-Austrian alliance, which is instinct with statesmanlike foresight.  He stated that there were four Great Powers—­France, Great Britain, Russia, and Austria:  he excluded Prussia, whose rise to greatness under Frederick the Great was but temporary.  Austria, he claimed, must remain a Great Power.  She had opposed revolutionary France; but with Imperial France she had no lasting quarrel.  Rather did her manifest destiny clash with that of Russia on the lower Danube, where the approaching break-up of the Ottoman Power must bring those States into conflict.  It was good policy, then, to give a decided but friendly turn of Hapsburg policy towards the east.  Let Napoleon frankly approach the Emperor Francis and say in effect:  “I never sought this war with you, but I have conquered:  I wish to restore complete harmony between us:  and, in order to remove all causes of dispute, you must give up your Swabian, Tyrolese, and Venetian lands:  of these Tyrol shall fall to a prince of your choice, and Venice (along with Trieste and Istria) shall form an aristocratic Republic under a magistrate nominated in the first instance by me.  As a set-off to these losses, you shall receive Moldavia, Wallachia, and northern Bulgaria.  If the Russians object to this and attack you, I will be your ally.”  Such was Talleyrand’s proposal.[51]

It is easy to criticise it in many details; but there can be little doubt that its adoption by Napoleon would have laid a firmer foundation for French supremacy than was afforded by the Treaties of Pressburg and Tilsit.  Austria would not have been deeply wounded, as she now was by the transfer of her faithful Tyrolese to the detested rule of Bavaria, and by the undisguised triumph of Napoleon in Italy and along the Adriatic.  Moreover, the erection of Tyrol and Venetia into separate States would have been a wise concession to those clannish societies; and Austria could not have taken up the championship of outraged Tyrolese sentiment, which she assumed four years later.  Instead of figuring as the leader of German nationality, she would have been on the worst of terms with the Czar over the Eastern Question; and their discord would have enabled France to dictate her own terms as to the partition of the Sultan’s dominions.  Talleyrand had no specific for dissolving the traditional friendship of England and Austria, and we may imagine the joy with which he heard from the Hapsburg envoys the demand for Hanover, at a time when English gold was pouring into the empty coffers at Vienna.  Here was the sure means of embroiling England and Austria for a generation at least.  But this further chance of preventing future coalitions was likewise rejected by Napoleon, who deliberately chose to make Austria a deadly foe, and to aggrandize her rival Prussia.[52]