break up of
the Coalition. For the political situation of the allies had been even
more precarious than that of their armies. The pretensions of the Czar
had excited indignation and alarm. Swayed to and fro between the
counsels of his old tutor, Laharpe, now again at his side, and his own
autocratic instincts, he declared that he would push on to Paris,
consult the will of the French people by a plebiscite, and abide by
its decision, even if it gave a new lease of power to Napoleon. But
side by side with this democratic proposal came another of a more
despotic type, that the military Governor of Paris must be a Russian
officer.

The amusement caused by these odd notions was overshadowed by alarm.
Metternich, Castlereagh, and Hardenberg saw in them a ruse for
foisting on France either Bernadotte, or an orientalized Republic, or
a Muscovite version of the Treaty of Tilsit. Then again, on February
9th, Alexander sent a mandate to the plenipotentiaries at Chatillon,
requesting that their sessions should be suspended, though he had
recently agreed at Langres to enter into negotiations with France,
provided that the military operations were not suspended. Evidently,
then, he was bent on forcing the hands of his allies, and Austria
feared that he might at the end of the war insist on her taking
Alsace, as a set-off to the loss of Eastern Galicia which he wished to
absorb. So keen was the jealousy thus aroused, that at Troyes
Metternich and Hardenberg signed a secret agreement to prevent the
Czar carrying matters with a high hand at Paris (February 14th); and
on the same day they sent him a stiff Note requesting the resumption
of the negotiations with Napoleon. Indeed, Austria formally threatened
to withdraw her troops from the war, unless he limited his aims to the
terms propounded by the allies at Chatillon. Alexander at first
refused; but the news of Bluecher's disasters shook his determination,
and he assented on that day, provided that steps were at once taken to
lighten the pressure on the Russian corps serving under Bluecher. Thus,
by February 14th, the crisis was over.[416]

Schwarzenberg cautiously pushed on three columns to attract the
thunderbolts that otherwise would have destroyed the Silesian Army
root and branch; and he succeeded. True, his vanguard was beaten at
Montereau; but, by drawing Napoleon south and then east of the Seine,
he gave time to Bluecher to strengthen his shattered array and resume
the offen