warned Metternich that not till the eleventh hour would he disclose
his real demands. And now was the opportunity of trying the effect of
a final act of intimidation. On August 4th he was back again in
Dresden: on the next day he dictated the secret conditions on which he
would accept Austria's mediation; and, on August 6th, Caulaincourt
paid Metternich a private visit to find out what Austria's terms
really were. After a flying visit to the Emperor Francis at Brandeis,
the Minister brought back as an ultimatum the six terms drawn up on
June 7th (see p. 316); and to these he now added another which
guaranteed the existing possessions of every State, great or small.

Napoleon was taken aback by this boldness, which he attributed to the
influence of Spanish affairs and to English intrigues.[341] On August
9th he summoned Bubna and offered to give up the Duchy of
Warsaw--provided that the King of Saxony gained an indemnity--also the
Illyrian Provinces (but without Istria), as well as Danzig, if its
fortifications were destroyed. As for the Hanse Towns and North
Germany, he would not hear of letting them go. Bubna thought that
Austria would acquiesce. But she had said her last word: she saw that
Napoleon was trifling with her until he had disposed of Russia and
Prussia. And, at midnight of August 10th, beacon fires on the heights
of the Riesengebirge flashed the glad news to the allies in Silesia
that they might begin to march their columns into Bohemia. The second
and vaster Act in the drama of liberation had begun.

Did Napoleon remember, in that crisis of his destiny, that it was
exactly twenty-one years since the downfall of the old French
monarchy, when he looked forth on the collapse of the royalist defence
at the Tuileries and the fruitless bravery of the Swiss Guards?

* * * * *

CHAPTER XXXV

DRESDEN AND LEIPZIG

The militant Revolution had now attained its majority. It had to
confront an embattled Europe. Hitherto the jealousies or fears of the
Eastern Powers had prevented any effective union. The Austro-Prussian
league of 1792 was of the loosest description owing to the astute
neutrality of the Czarina Catherine. In 1798 and 1805 Prussia seemed
to imitate her policy, and only after Austria had been crushed did the
army of Frederick the Great try conclusions with Napoleon. In the Jena
and Friedland campaigns, the Hapsburgs played the part of the sulking
Achilles, and m