police minister, but both are closely watched by Napoleon's secret
police. Nevertheless, they succeeded in holding a few unobserved
interviews with us. Count Metternich learned also from another very
well-informed quarter many accurate details regarding the plans and
intentions of the Emperor Napoleon."

"What do you mean? What well-informed quarter do you refer to?"
asked the emperor.

"Your majesty," said Hudelist, with a significant grin, "Count
Metternich is a very fine-looking man; now, Queen Caroline of
Naples, Murat's wife, and Napoleon's favorite sister, is by no means
insensible to manly beauty, and she accepted with evident
satisfaction the homage which the count offered to her. For the
rest, Napoleon winked at and encouraged this flirtation; for,
previous to his departure for Spain, he said to his sister loud
enough to be overheard by some of our friends, 'Amusez-nous ce
niais, Monsieur de Metternich. Nous en avons besoin a present!'
[Footnote: Hormayr, "The Emperor Francis and Metternich, a
Fragment," p. 55.] Madame Caroline Murat told Count Metternich, for
instance, that it is the Kings of Bavaria and Wurtemburg that keep
their spies for Napoleon here in Vienna, and that they urged
Napoleon vehemently to return from Spain in order to declare war
against Austria. And Napoleon is determined to comply with their
wishes. He travelled with extraordinary expedition from Madrid to
Paris, stopping only at Valladolid, where he shut himself up for two
days with Maret, his minister of foreign affairs, and dispatched
eighty-four messages in different directions, with orders to
concentrate his forces in Germany, and call out the full contingents
of the Rhenish Confederacy. His own troops and these German