is in the last
interviews this minister had at Dresden with his Majesty; but the Emperor
had been entirely unable to bring himself to the belief that the Emperor
of Austria would make common cause with the coalition of the north
against his own daughter and grandson. Finally all doubts were solved by
the arrival of Count Louis de Narbonne, who was returning from Prague to
Dresden, as bearer of a declaration of war from Austria. Every one
foresaw that France must soon count among its enemies all the countries
no longer occupied by its troops, and results justified this prediction
only too well. Nevertheless, everything was not lost, for we had not yet
been compelled to take the defensive.

CHAPTER XIV.

War recommenced before negotiations were finally broken, for the Duke of
Vicenza was still in communication with M. de Metternich. The Emperor,
as he mounted his horse, said to the numerous generals surrounding him
that he now marched to conquer a peace. But what hope could remain after
the declaration of war by Austria, and above all, when it was known that
the allied sovereigns had incessantly increased their pretensions in
proportion as the Emperor granted the concessions demanded? The Emperor
left Dresden at five o'clock in the afternoon, advancing on the road to
Koenigstein, and passed the next day at Bautzen, where he revisited the
battlefield, the scene of his last victory. There the king of Naples,
who did not wish royal honors to be rendered himself, came to rejoin the
Emperor at the head of the Imperial Guard, who presented as imposing an
appearance as in its pristine days.

We arrived at Gorlitz on the 18th, where the Emperor found the Duke of
Vicenza, who was returning from Bohemia. He confirmed the truth of the
report his Majesty had already received at Dresden, that the Emperor of
Austria had already decided to make common cause with the Emperor of
Russia and the Kings of Prussia and Sweden against the husband of his
daughter, the princess whom he had given to the Emperor as a pledge of
peace. It was also through the Duke of Vicenza that the Emperor learned
that General Blucher had just entered Silesia at the head of an army of
one hundred thousand men, and, in violation of most sacred promises, had
seized on Breslau the evening before the day fixed for the rupture of the
armistice. This same day General Jomini, Swiss by birth, but until
recently in the service of France, chief of staff to Marshal Ne