results of the Peace of Vienna; for this peace is a danger if it is not the foundation of a closer alliance, of a family alliance, and does not finally restore more than its beginning took away; in a word, you are ill advised if you hesitate in your leaning towards France." The next morning the Count of Narbonne was summoned to the Emperor Francis II., and the Austrian monarch indicated the possibility of a marriage between Napoleon and the Archduchess Marie Louise. The Count of Narbonne approved, and eloquently expressed his conviction that such a happy result as confiding once more an Archduchess to France would at last decide Napoleon to remain at peace, instead of forever hazarding his glory, and to work for the welfare of the people in harmony with the wise and virtuous monarch whose adopted son he would become. M. de Narbonne sent a note of this conversation to Fouché, to be shown to the Emperor, who thus had knowledge of the secret plans of the Viennese court six weeks before the meeting over which he presided at the Tuileries, to ask his councillors their opinion on the choice of an Empress. Since the resumption of diplomatic relations between the two powers, the Austrian Ambassador in Paris had been Prince Charles of Schwarzenberg, the warrior and statesman who later, as commander-in-chief of the Austrian forces, was to deal such heavy blows to France. In 1810 he was all for peace, and his sole aim was to undermine, for the good of his country, the influence of his Russian colleague, Prince Kourakine. The Austrian Ambassador was very anxious that the Archduchess Marie Louise should become Empress of the French; for he was convinced that such an event would be of as much benefit to him as to his country. Yet he was still afraid to hope for the realization of his dream, when one of his friends, Count Alexandra de Laborde--who, after serving as an émigré, in the Austrian army, had returned to France and been appointed Master of Requests in the Council of State, encouraged him in his ideas which might at first have seemed fanciful, M. de Laborde, whose father had been court-banker before the Revolution, and had most generously aided Marie Antoinette, was well known and much liked in Vienna. In this matter of the marriage of Marie Louise he was the secret agent between Napoleon's Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Prince of Schwarzenberg, in whom he kindled so much zeal in behalf of the French alliance that the Ambassador, as we shall soon see, signed the marriage contract of the Archduchess with Napoleon, even before he had received the authorization of his government.