A notification from the court of Vienna announced to Count Nesselrode and Prince Hardenberg, that, for the future, Austria, as a member of the coalition, would locate 200,000 men, in large bodies, behind the mountains of Bohemia. The joy of the Allies was not to be expressed; one should have heard Count Pozzo di Borgo recount the magical effect produced by this letter of Metternich; it arrived in the middle of the night at a barn, in which were reposing the Emperor Alexander, the King of Prussia, Count Nesselrode, Prince Hardenberg, and all the staff of the allied troops. They arose and embraced each other, as if the salvation of Europe were achieved, and Napoleon tumbled from his throne. The manifesto of Austria, which was the work of Metternich, appeared ten days later. In spite, however, of this rupture, Caulaincourt remained at Prague, and the chancellor of state still assured him he was ready to proceed with the negotiation if France would agree to the independence of the Germanic Confederation and of Switzerland, and to the reconstruction of the dominions of Prussia on a scale of greater importance. Napoleon, still unwilling to give in, applied to Count Bubna, in the persuasion that he would be able to exercise a favourable influence over his father-in-law, the emperor; at last, on the 14th of August, he gave his consent to the proposals of the Austrian cabinet, and his answer was despatched to Prague; but it was too late. Metternich declared the impossibility of entering into a separate treaty, and said it would be necessary to refer simultaneously to the three courts whose political interests were henceforth inseparable. Still Napoleon did not abandon all hope of drawing Austria over to his interests, and he proposed entering into a negotiation, even after the commencement of hostilities, when the Austrian army was actually in motion. 200,000 Austrians came forth from the mountains of Bohemia, and turned the flank of the French army. Then the general rising in Germany took place; a transitory lustre was conferred by the admirable battle of Dresden, but Leipsic witnessed the last expiring gleam of the French glory. By the end of 1813, the line of the Elbe was lost, and even that of the Rhine was compromised. All Germany was in arms, and the whole of Europe had assumed a threatening posture.