"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 Contingents are to form an array--to which he intends to give the name of 'the German Army of the Emperor Napoleon.' Although Count Metternich was aware of all this, he hastened to attend the great reception which took place at the Tuileries after Napoleon's return, in order to assure him again of the friendly dispositions of the imperial court of Austria. But Napoleon gave hire no time for that. He came to meet him with a furious gesture, and shouted to him in a thundering voice: 'Well, M. de Metternich! here is fine news from Vienna. What does all this mean? Have they been stung by scorpions? Who threatens you? What would you be at? Do you intend again to disturb the peace of the world and plunge Europe into numberless calamities? As long as I had my army in Germany, you conceived no disquietude for your existence; but the moment it is transferred to Spain, you consider yourselves endangered! What can be the end of these things? What, but that I must arm as you arm, for at length I am seriously menaces; I am rightly for my former caution.'" [Footnote: Napoleon's own words.--See Schlosser, vol. vii., p. 480.] "What an impudent fellow!" murmured the Emperor Francis to himself. "And Metternich? What did he reply?"