In fact, Napoleon was playing his cards at Vienna.  He had sent Count Narbonne thither on a special mission, the purport of which stands revealed in the envoy’s “verbal note” of April 7th.  In that note Austria was pressed to help France with 100,000 men, against Russia and Prussia, in case they should open hostilities; her reward was to be the rich province of Silesia.  As for the rest of Prussia, two millions of that people were to be assigned to Saxony, Frederick William being thrust to the east of the lower Vistula, and left with one million subjects.[290] Such was the glittering prize dangled before Metternich.  But even the prospect of regaining the province torn away by the great Frederick moved him not.  He judged the establishment of equilibrium in Europe to be preferable to a mean triumph over Prussia.  To her and to the Czar he had secretly held out hopes of succour in case Napoleon should prove intractable:  and to this course of action he still clung.  True, he trampled on la petite morale in neglecting to aid his nominal ally, Napoleon.  But to abandon him, if he remained obdurate, was, after all, but an act of treachery to an individual who had slight claims on Austria, and whose present offer was alike immoral and insulting.  Four days later Metternich notified to Russia and Prussia that the Emperor Francis would now proceed with his task of armed mediation.[291]

Austria’s overtures for a general peace met with no encouragement at London.  Her envoy, Count Wessenberg, was now treated with the same cold reserve that had been accorded to Lord Walpole at Vienna early in the year.  On April 9th Castlereagh informed him that all hope of peace had failed since the “Ruler of France” had declared to the Legislative Body that the French Dynasty reigned and would continue to reign in Spain, and that he had already stated all the sacrifices that he could consent to make for peace.

“Whilst he [Napoleon] shall continue to declare that none of the territories arbitrarily incorporated into the French Empire shall become matter of negotiation, it is in vain to hope that His Imperial Majesty’s beneficent intentions can by negotiation be accomplished.  It is for His Imperial Majesty to consider, after a declaration in the nature of a defiance from the Ruler of France, a declaration highly insulting to His Imperial Majesty when his intervention for peace had been previously accepted, whether the moment is not arrived for all the Great Powers of Europe to act in concert for their common interests and honour.  To obtain for their States what may deserve the name of peace they must look again to establish an Equilibrium in Europe.”

Finally, the British Government refused to lend itself to a negotiation which must weaken and distract the efforts of Russia and Prussia.[292]