Carrying his sword at his side and his hat under his arm, he received Metternich in state.  After a few studied phrases about the health of the Emperor Francis, his brow clouded and he plunged in medias res:  “So you too want war:  well, you shall have it.  I have beaten the Russians at Bautzen:  now you wish your turn to come.  Be it so, the rendezvous shall be in Vienna.  Men are incorrigible:  experience is lost upon you.  Three times I have replaced the Emperor Francis on his throne.  I have promised always to live at peace with him:  I have married his daughter.  At the time I said to myself—­you are perpetrating a folly; but it was done, and now I repent of it.”

Metternich saw his advantage:  his adversary had lost his temper and forgotten his dignity.  He calmly reminded Napoleon that peace depended on him; that his power must be reduced within reasonable limits, or he would fall in the ensuing struggle.  No matador fluttered the cloak more dextrously.  Napoleon rushed on.  No coalition should daunt him:  he could overpower any number of men—­everything except the cold of Russia—­and the losses of that campaign had been made good.  He then diverged into stories about that war, varied by digressions as to his exact knowledge of Austria’s armaments, details of which were sent to him daily.  To end this wandering talk, Metternich reminded him that his troops now were not men but boys.  Whereupon the Emperor passionately replied:  “You do not know what goes on in the mind of a soldier; a man such as I does not take much heed of the lives of a million of men,”—­and he threw aside his hat.  Metternich did not pick it up.

Napoleon noticed the unspoken defiance, and wound up by saying:  “When I married an Archduchess I tried to weld the new with the old, Gothic prejudices with the institutions of my century:  I deceived myself, and this day I see the whole extent of my error.  It may cost me my throne, but I will bury the world beneath its ruins.”  In dismissing Metternich, the Emperor used the device which, shortly before the rupture with England in 1803, he had recommended Talleyrand to employ upon Whitworth, namely, after trying intimidation to resort to cajolery.  Touching the Minister on the shoulder, he said quietly:  “Well, now, do you know what will happen?  You will not make war on me?” To which came the quick reply:  “You are lost, Sire; I had the presentiment of it when I came:  now, in going, I have the certainty.”  In the anteroom the generals crowded around the illustrious visitor.  Berthier had previously begged him to remember that Europe, and France, urgently needed peace; and now, on conducting him to his carriage, he asked him whether he was satisfied with Napoleon.  “Yes,” was the answer, “he has explained everything to me:  it is all over with the man."[328]