The amusement caused by these odd notions was overshadowed by alarm.  Metternich, Castlereagh, and Hardenberg saw in them a ruse for foisting on France either Bernadotte, or an orientalized Republic, or a Muscovite version of the Treaty of Tilsit.  Then again, on February 9th, Alexander sent a mandate to the plenipotentiaries at Chatillon, requesting that their sessions should be suspended, though he had recently agreed at Langres to enter into negotiations with France, provided that the military operations were not suspended.  Evidently, then, he was bent on forcing the hands of his allies, and Austria feared that he might at the end of the war insist on her taking Alsace, as a set-off to the loss of Eastern Galicia which he wished to absorb.  So keen was the jealousy thus aroused, that at Troyes Metternich and Hardenberg signed a secret agreement to prevent the Czar carrying matters with a high hand at Paris (February 14th); and on the same day they sent him a stiff Note requesting the resumption of the negotiations with Napoleon.  Indeed, Austria formally threatened to withdraw her troops from the war, unless he limited his aims to the terms propounded by the allies at Chatillon.  Alexander at first refused; but the news of Bluecher’s disasters shook his determination, and he assented on that day, provided that steps were at once taken to lighten the pressure on the Russian corps serving under Bluecher.  Thus, by February 14th, the crisis was over.[416]

Schwarzenberg cautiously pushed on three columns to attract the thunderbolts that otherwise would have destroyed the Silesian Army root and branch; and he succeeded.  True, his vanguard was beaten at Montereau; but, by drawing Napoleon south and then east of the Seine, he gave time to Bluecher to strengthen his shattered array and resume the offensive.  Meanwhile Buelow, with the northern army, began to draw near to the scene of action, and on the 23rd the allies took the wise step of assigning his corps, along with those of Winzingerode, Woronzoff, and Strogonoff, to the Prussian veteran.  The last three corps were withdrawn from the army of Bernadotte, and that prince was apprized of the fact by the Czar in a rather curt letter.

The diplomatic situation had also cleared up before Napoleon’s letter reached the Emperor Francis.  The negotiations with Caulaincourt were resumed at Chatillon on February the 17th; and there is every reason to think that Austria, England, Prussia, and perhaps even Russia would now gladly have signed peace with Napoleon on the basis of the French frontiers of 1791, provided that he renounced all claims to interference in the affairs of Europe outside those limits.[417]

These demands would certainly have been accepted by the French plenipotentiary had he listened to his own pacific promptings.  But he was now in the most painful position.  Maret had informed him, the day after Montmirail, that Napoleon was set on keeping the Rhenish and Alpine frontiers.[418] He could, therefore, do nothing but temporize.  He knew how precarious was the military supremacy just snatched by his master, and trusted that a few days more would bring wisdom before it was too late.  But his efforts for delay were useless.