They owed to the activity of Talleyrand and Metternich the official declaration of the Congress of Vienna, which placed Buonaparte at the ban of Europe, simultaneously roused against the common enemy. The mystic spirit of Alexander entered willingly into the idea of a Christian alliance and a European crusade, and Metternich, after the system he had adopted ever since the rupture in 1813, could not depart from the military agreement entered into at Chaumont. Napoleon was declared at the ban of the empire by a revived custom of the ancient assemblies of the German Diet. The pretended agreement between Napoleon, Austria, and England, at the time of his landing in the Gulf of Juan, was a romance invented afterwards by the imperialist party. Napoleon, who was well informed concerning the diplomatic state of things, might imagine a separation of interests among the cabinets a probable thing, but beyond this there was nothing. One of his first steps was to endeavour to place himself in communication with Metternich, and we again find Fouché in correspondence with the chief of the Austrian cabinet: they had never lost sight of each other since their memorable conference in 1809, and their acquaintance was renewed in 1813, when Fouché was appointed Governor-General of Illyria. I have reason to believe, that they had even then spoken to each other in confidence concerning the decline of power of _that man_, as the disaffected called Napoleon, and of the possibility of a regency under Maria Louisa; in 1813 the subject they would select for their conversation would probably be the abdication of the Emperor, which was one of the favourite ideas of the senatorial party. At the same time Napoleon wrote to Maria Louisa, he despatched, by means of some secret agents, confidential letters from intimate friends of the minister, and even from a princess of the imperial blood, between whom and Prince Metternich a tender feeling had existed: and finally, in order to sow dissension throughout the whole of Europe, he transmitted to the Emperor Alexander a copy of the treaty of the triple alliance, concluded against Russia in the month of March 1815, and signed by Lord Castlereagh, Talleyrand, and Metternich: his primary object was to break the powerful union among the sovereigns. At this period, the Austrian armies had marched into Italy against Murat and the Neapolitans, and General Bianchi had obtained the most brilliant victories over the wavering and ill-organised troops of Joachim. Metternich caused all the fortresses of the kingdom of Naples and the Roman States to be garrisoned by Austrian troops; for he had decided, in concert with the French legation, upon the re-establishment of the House of Bourbon at Naples as completing the scheme of the government of Europe.