concentration of the Austrian armies. Whether the negotiations were
consistent with good faith on the part of Austria is another matter;
but, one thing seems clear--the Austrian marriage ruined Napoleon.
He found it impossible to believe that the monarch who had given him
his daughter would strike the decisive blow against him. Without
this belief there can be no doubt that he would have attacked
Austria before she could have collected her forces, and Metternich
seems to have dreaded the result. "It was necessary, therefore to
prevent Napoleon from carrying out his usual system of leaving an
army of observation before the Allied armies, and himself turning to
Bohemia to deal a great blow at us, the effect of which it would be
impossible to foresee in the present depressed state of the great
majority of our men" (Metternich, Vol. i, p. 177). With our
knowledge of how Napoleon held his own against the three armies at
Dresden we may safely assume that he would have crushed Austria if
she had not joined him or disarmed. The conduct of Austria was
natural and politic, but it was only successful because Napoleon
believed in the good faith of the Emperor Francis, his father-in-
law. It is to be noted that Austria only succeeded in getting
Alexander to negotiate on the implied condition that the
negotiations were not to end in a peace with France. See
Metternich, Vol. i. p. 181, where, in answer to the Czar's
question as to what would become of their cause if Napoleon accepted
the Austrian mediation, he says that if Napoleon declines Austria
will join the Allies. If Napoleon accepts, "the negotiations will
most certainly show Napoleon to be neither wise nor just, and then
the result will be the same. In any case we shall have gained the
necessary time to bring our armies into such positions that we need
not again fear a separate attack on any one of them, and from which
we may ourselves take the offensive."]--