The ambassador had recourse to the pleasing species of politics which reaches the secrets of the cabinet--through the heart. His fascinating manners had gained him the good-will of Napoleon, who took pleasure in distinguishing him in the crowd of foreign ministers, and liked to converse with him, though with an occasional observation that he was very young to be the representative of one of the oldest courts of Europe. "At the battle of Austerlitz you were scarcely older than I am now!" was one day the reply of the ambassador. The Emperor was never hasty in his language to Metternich, for he considered him as the means by which an idea of the French system could be conveyed into Austria; and more than once the subject of their debate was the question of the balance of power in Europe, which assumed in the mind of Napoleon such gigantic proportions. Metternich's scheme was to represent the alliance between France and Austria as indispensable; and he spoke of the treaty of 1736, concluded under the influence of the Duc de Choiseul, as the basis of all political grandeur in Europe. The conference of Erfurt was, however, a source of constant uneasiness to him, and Napoleon had just departed for the meeting which was to reconcile the two empires of the North and the South. Promises had been exchanged between the emperors, and in these plans the sacrifice of Austria was determined upon. They were not ignorant of this at Vienna: had, then, all the efforts of Metternich in Paris been in vain? The Spanish war had just broken out, and another sovereign had been hurled from his throne. Was not this a fresh warning to the House of Austria? The alarms it inspired were confessed at the court of London, and England fed their fears in order to induce them to take a vigorous part in the war; for which purpose a report was circulated of a projected change of succession in the Austrian dynasty, favoured by Napoleon.