how precarious was the future. Warsaw, the gem of his crown, was gone, and the Prussian people were in revolt against the Emperor of the French; he turned perforce toward Austria. But Austria also was uneasy; the people were again hostile to Napoleon, and Francis, in an agony of uncertainty, could only temporize. With Saxony in this attitude, Metternich gave full course to his ingenuity. For a year past that minister had been playing a double game. Seeking through his envoy at Stockholm to embroil Bernadotte with the Czar, he told Hardenberg almost simultaneously that it was all up with Russia, that England was worn out, and that Austria was about to assume the role of mediator. It was to his purpose that, on the other hand, he promised to treat Russia as Russia had treated Austria in 1809. When, in his despair, Napoleon wrote to Francis from Dresden demanding an increase of the Austrian contingent to check Kutusoff's advance through Poland, Metternich suffered his master to give no answer, but sent a special peace embassy to London, and despatched Bubna, a favorite with Napoleon, to seek the same end at Paris. The Emperor of the French laid down his old ultimatum, but offered a subsidy to Austria if she would double the number of her auxiliaries. Thereupon Metternich prepared to desert Napoleon, refused to furnish the auxiliaries, ordered Schwarzenberg "to save his troops for the next campaign," and secretly advised Prussia to join her cause with that of Russia. Careful not to formulate any definite terms for the peace he so clamorously invoked, he refused to intervene with Russia for the restoration of Prussian Poland, thus avoiding an open rupture with France, assuring that the seat of war would be in Saxony, and gaining time to secure Austria's dignity as a mediator by the preparation of armaments strong enough to enforce her suggestions.