Why did Napoleon reject Talleyrand’s plan?  Unquestionably, I think, because he had resolved to build up a Continental System, which should “hermetically seal” the coasts of Europe against English commerce.  If he was to realize those golden visions of his youth, ships, colonies, and an Eastern empire, which, even amidst the glories of Austerlitz, he placed far above any European triumph, he must extend his coast system and subject or conciliate the maritime States.  Of these the most important were Prussia and Russia.  The seaborne commerce of Austria was insignificant, and could easily be controlled from his vassal lands of Venetia and Dalmatia.  To the would-be conqueror of England the friendship or hatred of Austria seemed unimportant:  he preferred to depress this now almost land-locked Power, and to draw tight the bonds of union with Prussia, always provided that she excluded British goods.[53]

The same reason led him to hope for a Russian alliance.  Only by the help of Russia and Prussia could he shut England out from the Baltic; and, to win that help, he destined Hanover for Prussia and the Danubian States for the Czar.  For the founder of the Continental System such a choice was natural; but, viewed from the standpoint of Continental politics, his treatment of Austria was a serious blunder.  His frightful pressure on her motley lands endowed them with a solidity which they had never known before; and in less than four years, the conqueror had cause to regret having driven the Hapsburgs to desperation.  It may even be questioned whether Austerlitz itself was not a misfortune to him.  Just before that battle he thought of treating Austria leniently, taking only Verona and Legnago, and exchanging Venetia against Salzburg.  This would have detached her from the Coalition, and made a friend of a Power that is naturally inclined to be conservative.

After Austerlitz, he rushed to the other extreme and forced the Hapsburgs to a hostility in which the Marie Louise marriage was only a forced and uneasy truce.  His motives are not, in my judgment, to be assigned to mere lust of domination, but rather to a reasoned though exaggerated conviction of the need of Prussia and Russia to his Continental System.  Above all things, he now sought to humble England, so that finally he might be free for his long-deferred Oriental enterprise.  This is the irony of his career, that, though he preferred the career of Alexander the Great to that of Caesar; though he placed his victory at Austerlitz far below the triumph of the great Macedonian at Issus which assured the conquest of the Orient, yet he felt himself driven to the very measures which tethered him to cette vieille Europe and which finally roused the Continent against him.