He had acted thus, not only in his choice of measures, but in his selection of men.  He had sent to Napoleon’s headquarters at Dresden Count Bubna, whose sincere and resolute striving for peace served to lull animosity and suspicions in that place.  But to the allied headquarters, now at Reichenbach, he had despatched Count Stadion, who worked no less earnestly for war.  While therefore the Courts of St. Petersburg, Berlin, and London hoped, from Stadion’s language, that Austria meant to draw the sword, Napoleon inclined to the belief that she would never do more than rattle her scabbard, and would finally yield to his demands.

Stadion’s letters to Metternich show that he feared this result.  He pressed him to end the seesaw policy of the last six months.  “These people are beaten owing to our faults, our half wishes, our half measures, and presently they will get out of the scrape and leave us to pay the price.”  As for Austria’s forthcoming demand of Illyria, who would guarantee that the French Emperor would let her keep it six months, if he remained master of Germany and Italy?  Only by a close union with the allies could she be screened from Napoleon’s vengeance, which must otherwise lead to her utter destruction.  Let, then, all timid counsellors be removed from the side of the Emperor Francis.  “I cling to my oft-expressed conviction that we are no longer masters of our own affairs, and that the tide of events will carry us along."[323] If we may judge from Metternich’s statements in his “Memoirs,” written many years later, he was all along in secret sympathy with these views.  But his actions and his official despatches during the first six weeks of the armistice bore another complexion; they were almost colourless, or rather, they were chameleonic.  At Dresden they seemed, on the whole, to be favourable to France:  at Reichenbach, when coloured by Stadion, they were thought to hold out the prospect of another European coalition.

A new and important development was given to Austrian policy when, on June 7th, Metternich drew up the conditions on which Austria would insist as the basis of her armed mediation.  They were as follows:  (1) Dissolution of the Duchy of Warsaw; (2) A consequent reconstruction of Prussia, with the certainty of recovering Danzig; (3) Restitution of the Illyrian provinces, including Dalmatia, to Austria; (4) Re-establishment of the Hanse Towns, and an eventual arrangement as to the cession of the other parts of the 32nd military division [the part of North Germany annexed by Napoleon in 1810].  To these were added two other conditions on which Austria would lay great stress, namely:  (5) Dissolution of the Confederation of the Rhine; (6) Reconstruction of Prussia conformably with her territorial extent previous to 1805.

At first sight these terms seem favourable to the allied cause; but they were much less extensive than the proposals submitted by Alexander in the middle of May.  Therefore, when they were set forth to the allies at Reichenbach, they were unfavourably received, and for some days suspicion of Austria overclouded the previous goodwill.  It was removed only by the labours of Stadion and by the tact which Metternich displayed during an interview with the Czar at Opotschna (June 17th).