The Emperor of Austria remained quietly but
sullenly at Vienna; the King of Prussia was at Reichenbach, and was
now the enemy of Napoleon, and all the princes of the German
Confederation of the Rhine, who, but a year before, were humble
courtiers of Napoleon, kept aloof in morose silence, or refused
obedience to their former master, and raised difficulties when
called upon to furnish new troops and open additional resources.
None of them came to offer homage to him whom they had just feared
as the most powerful ruler in the world. Only the old, feeble King
of Saxony (who, at the commencement of the war had fled with his
millions, and the diamonds of the Green Vault, to Plauen, in the
most remote corner of his territories), [Footnote: Lebensbilder,
"vol. iii., p. 466."] returned at the rather imperious request of
Napoleon to Dresden. The emperor dined with him sometimes, but only
in the most intimate family circle, and without any outward
splendor; at night he went to the French theatre, which had been
ordered to Dresden during the armistice. Sometimes, his favorites,
the ladies Mars and Georges, and the great Talma, were allowed to
sup with the emperor after the performance, and the beautiful Mars,
the impassioned fervor of the gifted Georges, and the conversation
of the no less genial than adroit Talma, succeeded in dispelling the
emperor's discontent.
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