From his boyhood Napoleon was fond of reading the history of the great men of antiquity; and what he chiefly sought to discover was the means by which those men had become great.  He remarked that military glory secures more extended fame than the arts of peace and the noble efforts which contribute to the happiness of mankind.  History informs us that great military talent and victory often give the power, which, in its tern, procures the means of gratifying ambition.  Napoleon was always persuaded that that power was essential to him, in order to bend men to his will, and to stifle all discussions on his conduct.  It was his established principle never to sign a disadvantageous peace.  To him a tarnished crown was no longer a crown.  He said one day to M. de Caulaincourt, who was pressing him to consent to sacrifices, “Courage may defend a crown, but infamy never.”  In all the last acts of Napoleon’s career I can retrace the impress of his character, as I had often recognised in the great actions of the Emperor the execution of a thought conceived by the General-in-Chief of the Army of Italy.

On the opening of the Congress the Duke of Vicenza, convinced that he could no longer count on the natural limits of France promised at Frankfort by the Allies, demanded new powers.  Those limits were doubtless the result of reasonable concessions, and they had been granted even after the battle of Leipsic; but it was now necessary that Napoleon’s Minister should show himself ready to make further concessions if he wished to be allowed to negotiate.  The Congress was opened on the 5th of February, and on the 7th the Plenipotentiaries of the Allied powers declared themselves categorically.  They inserted in the protocol that after the successes which had favoured their armies they insisted on France being restored to her old limits, such as they were during the monarchy before the Revolution; and that she should renounce all direct influence beyond her future limits.

This proposition appeared so extraordinary to M. de Caulaincourt that he requested the sitting might be suspended, since the conditions departed too far from his instructions to enable him to give an immediate answer.  The Plenipotentiaries of the Allied powers acceded to his request, and the continuation of the sitting was postponed till eight in the evening.  When it was resumed the Duke of Vicenza renewed his promise to make the greatest sacrifices for the attainment of peace.  He added that the amount of the sacrifices necessarily depended on the amount of the compensations, and that he could not determine on any concession or compensation without being made acquainted with the whole.  He wished to have a general plan of the views of the Allies, and he requested that their Plenipotentiaries would explain themselves decidedly respecting the number and description of the sacrifices and compensations to be demanded.  It must be acknowledged that the Duke of Vicenza perfectly fulfilled the views of the Emperor in thus protracting and gaining time by subtle subterfuges, for all that he suggested had already been done.