y conversations [with
him]. I expect nothing from them, but I shall have done my duty.
France will never sign a more fortunate peace than that which the
Powers will make to-day, and tomorrow if they have reverses. New
successes may extend their views.... I do not doubt that the
approach of the allied armies to the frontiers of France may
facilitate the formation of great armaments by her Government. The
questions will become problematical for the civilized world; but
the Emperor Napoleon will not make peace. There is my profession
of faith, and I shall never be happier than if I am wrong."

The letter rings true in every part. Metternich made no secret of
sending it, but allowed Lord Aberdeen to see it.[393] And by good
fortune it reached Caulaincourt about the time when he assumed the
portfolio of Foreign Affairs. Its substance must therefore have been
known to Napoleon; and the tone of the Frankfurt proposals ought to
have convinced him of the need of speedily making peace while Austria
held out the olive branch from across the Rhine. But Metternich's
gloomy forecast was only too true. During his sojourn at Paris he had
tested the rigidity of that cast-iron will.

In fact, no one who knew the Emperor's devotion to Italy could believe
that he would give up Piedmont and Liguria. His own despatches show
that he never contemplated such a surrender. On November 20th he gave
orders for the enrolling of 46,000 Frenchmen _of mature age_--"not
Italians or Belgians"--who were to reinforce Eugene and help him to
defend Italy; that, too, at a time when the defence of Champagne and
Languedoc was about to devolve on lads of eighteen.

He was equally determined not to give up Holland. On the possession of
this maritime and industrious community he had always laid great
stress. He once remarked to Roederer that the ruin of the French
Bourbons was due to three events--the Battle of Rossbach, the affair
of the diamond necklace, and the victory of Anglo-Prussian influence
over that of France in Dutch affairs (1787). He even appealed to
Nature to prove that that land must form part of the French Empire.
"Holland," said one of his Ministers in 1809, "is the alluvium of the
Rhine, Meuse, and Scheldt--in other words, one of the great arteries
of the Empire." Before the last battle at Leipzig he told Merveldt
that he could not grant Holland its independence, for it would fall
under the tutelage of Engla