In France itself the change was one more of the name than of the substance of power. Napoleon could not be vested with a more absolute authority than he already possessed; but the forms of republican equality vanished; and although the real social equality given to France by the Revolution was beyond reach of change, the nation had to put up with a bastard Court and a fictitious aristocracy of Corsican princes, Terrorist excellencies, and Jacobin dukes. The new dynasty was recognised at Vienna and Berlin: on the part of Austria it received the compliment of an imitation. Three months after the assumption of the Imperial title by Napoleon, the Emperor Francis (Emperor in Germany, but King in Hungary and Bohemia) assumed the title of Emperor of all his Austrian dominions. The true reason for this act was the virtual dissolution of the Germanic system by the Peace of Lunéville, and the probability that the old Imperial dignity, if preserved in name, would soon be transferred to some client of Napoleon or to Napoleon himself. Such an apprehension was, however, not one that could be confessed to Europe. Instead of the ruin of Germany, the grandeur of Austria was made the ostensible ground of change. In language which seemed to be borrowed from the scriptural history of Nebuchadnezzar, the Emperor Francis declared that, although no possible addition could be made to his own personal dignity, as Roman Emperor, yet the ancient glory of the Austrian House, the grandeur of the principalities and kingdoms which were united under its dominion, required that the Sovereigns of Austria should hold a title equal to that of the greatest European throne. A general war against Napoleon was already being proposed by the Court of St. Petersburg; but for the present the Corsican and the Hapsburg Cæsar exchanged their hypocritical congratulations. [106] [Pitt again Minister, May, 1804.] [Coalition of 1805.]