by Louis
XIV.: but his pre-eminence was at best precarious. When by moderate
terms he might have secured the alliance of Austria and severed her
friendship with England, he chose to place his heel on her neck and
drive her to secret but irreconcilable hatred.

And his choice was deliberate. Two months earlier, Talleyrand had sent
him a memorandum on the subject of a Franco-Austrian alliance, which
is instinct with statesmanlike foresight. He stated that there were
four Great Powers--France, Great Britain, Russia, and Austria: he
excluded Prussia, whose rise to greatness under Frederick the Great
was but temporary. Austria, he claimed, must remain a Great Power. She
had opposed revolutionary France; but with Imperial France she had no
lasting quarrel. Rather did her manifest destiny clash with that of
Russia on the lower Danube, where the approaching break-up of the
Ottoman Power must bring those States into conflict. It was good
policy, then, to give a decided but friendly turn of Hapsburg policy
towards the east. Let Napoleon frankly approach the Emperor Francis
and say in effect: "I never sought this war with you, but I have
conquered: I wish to restore complete harmony between us: and, in
order to remove all causes of dispute, you must give up your Swabian,
Tyrolese, and Venetian lands: of these Tyrol shall fall to a prince of
your choice, and Venice (along with Trieste and Istria) shall form an
aristocratic Republic under a magistrate nominated in the first
instance by me. As a set-off to these losses, you shall receive
Moldavia, Wallachia, and northern Bulgaria. If the Russians object to
this and attack you, I will be your ally." Such was Talleyrand's
proposal.[51]

It is easy to criticise it in many details; but there can be little
doubt that its adoption by Napoleon would have laid a firmer
foundation for French supremacy than was afforded by the Treaties of
Pressburg and Tilsit. Austria would not have been deeply wounded, as
she now was by the transfer of her faithful Tyrolese to the detested
rule of Bavaria, and by the undisguised triumph of Napoleon in Italy
and along the Adriatic. Moreover, the erection of Tyrol and Venetia
into separate States would have been a wise concession to those
clannish societies; and Austria could not have taken up the
championship of outraged Tyrolese sentiment, which she assumed four
years later. Instead of figuring as the leader of German nationality,
she would have been on th