His efforts were crowned with success; the Crown Prince had already had an interview with Moreau, and Pozzo di Borgo afterwards held a confidential conversation with both those personal enemies of Napoleon, in which they reciprocally exchanged their hopes, their present hatred, and old resentments, Pozzo against the adversary of Paoli, Moreau against the Consul, and Bernadotte against the Emperor. The plan adopted by the allied powers at the military congress of Trachenburg was very simple. Colonel Pozzo di Borgo maintained that they ought to march at once upon Paris, the central point of Napoleon's strength or weakness, where the question would speedily be settled; and this was the opinion entertained by all those military men who mingled any political ideas of the decline of Buonaparte's power and of his personal character with the question of war. Besides, in the opinion of the Russian envoy, Buonaparte and France were not synonymous terms; and it was to save France and her liberty that he so closely pursued the Emperor. At this time the congress of Prague was assembled, which was in reality nothing more than an armistice required by all the forces. Metternich had assumed for Austria a position of armed mediation, being the commencement of a new political system, a wary and provident plan, which, in her state of relative weakness and isolation, gave her a predominant influence over cabinets far more powerful than her own. All the negotiations of this congress tended to one point only; the endeavour to detach Austria from this mediatorial system, and to induce her to decide in favour of one side or the other,--either for the coalition, or for France. In the army of Napoleon, as well as among the allies, a strong desire for peace existed, with this difference, that the victorious soldiers of the Emperor were thoroughly weary of war; for them the illusions of conquest had no longer any charms, and their generals, in the midst of the wonderful success that had crowned their arms, regretted the life of luxury and enjoyment they had been accustomed to lead in Paris. The sons of Germany, ardent in their desire for liberty, flocked to the ranks of the allied armies, under the command of old Blucher, whose mind was also full of enthusiasm for the German unity; while the general officers of the French army indulged in dreams of their hotels, in the Chaussée d'Antin, or the Rue de Bourbon, or their delightful retreats at Malmaison and Grosbois, while their brothers-in-arms were falling under the enemy's fire,--that fire which no longer respected the marshals. An unanimous cry of bitter accusation was heard among the staff, "That man will make an end of us all!" Exaggerated accounts of disaffection were brought to the Emperor. At one time some thousands of conscripts were said to have mutilated their fingers, in order that they might be sent back to their homes; at another they reported the desertion of the brave fellows who had