The Austrian court at length sent a formal document, containing its ultimatum:  the tenor of which Metternich had sufficiently indicated in this conversation.  Talleyrand and Fouche, who had now arrived from Paris, urged the Emperor to accede to the proffered terms.  They represented to him the madness of rousing all Europe to conspire for his destruction, and insinuated that the progress of discontent was rapid in France itself.  Their arguments were backed by intelligence of the most disastrous character from Spain.  Wellington, on perceiving that Napoleon had somewhat weakened his armies in that country, when preparing for his Saxon campaign, had once more advanced from the Portuguese frontier.  He was now in possession of the supreme authority over the Spanish armies, as well as the Portuguese and English, and had appeared in greater force than ever.  The French line of defences on the Douro had been turned and abandoned:  their armies had concentrated to withstand him at Vittoria, and there, on the 21st of June, Joseph and Marshal Jourdan had sustained a total defeat.  The “Intrusive King” was now retreating towards the Pyrenees, chased from post to post by an enemy who, as it seemed, bade fair to terminate his campaign by an invasion of the south-western provinces of France.  Napoleon was urged by his military, as well as political advisers, to appreciate duly the crisis which his affairs had reached.  Berthier, and indeed almost all the generals on whose opinions he had been accustomed to place reliance, concurred in pressing him either to make peace on the terms proposed, or to draw in his garrisons on the Oder and Elbe, whereby he would strengthen his army with 50,000 veterans, and retire to the Rhine.  There, they said, with such a force assembled on such a river, and with all the resources of France behind him, he might bid defiance to the united armies of Europe, and, at worst, obtain a peace that would leave him in secure tenure of a nobler dominion than any of the kings, his predecessors, had ever hoped to possess. Ten battles lost, said he, would not sink me lower than you would have me to place myself by my own voluntary act; but one battle gained enables me to seize Berlin and Breslau, and make peace on terms compatible with my glory. He proceeded to insult both ministers and generals by insinuations that they were actuated by selfish motives; complained haughtily that they seemed disposed to draw distinctions between the country and the sovereign; and ended by announcing that he did not wish for any plans of theirs, but their service in the execution of his.