"
"Do you wish also to join in the nonsense asserted by the fools?"
asked Napoleon, sharply. "Always the same air--the same strain! You
at least, Maret, ought not to sing it, for you alone are aware of
the proposals and negotiations between me and my enemies, and should
know that it does not depend on me alone to restore peace, but that
I shall, perhaps, only be he who must receive it."
"Still, sire, a few concessions on the part of your majesty would be
sufficient to bring about peace," Maret ventured to say.
"What do you mean?" inquired Napoleon, whose voice now assumed an
angry tone. "Do you intend to intimate, by your longing for
concessions, that I should submit to the disgraceful and humiliating
terms on which Austria gives me hopes of her further friendship and
alliance? She dares ask of me the restoration of Illyria and the
territory annexed to the grand-duchy of Warsaw; she demands for
Prussia the evacuation of her fortresses, the restitution of
Dantzic, and the restoration of the whole sea-shore of Northern
Germany. And Austria, in making these proposals to me, in her
equivocal part as mediator, does not do so with the friendliness of
an ally, but she dares to threaten me, to say to me, 'If France does
not accept, Austria will be obliged to side with the enemies of
France, and make common cause with them.
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