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But not merely the German diplomatists and the aristocratic young men of Rastadt were waiting here for the arrival of Mme. General Bonaparte; there was also the whole crowd of French singers, actors, and adventurers who had flocked to the Congress of Rastadt for the purpose of amusing the distinguished noblemen and delegates by their vaudevilles, comedies, and gay operas.
His reception from the conquerer of Italy was such as might have been expected by distinguished loyalty from successful rebellion. He was told that the Congress of Rastadt was not his place! and this was true; for what can be common between honour and infamy, between virtue and vice? On his return to Sweden, Count Fersen was rewarded with the dignity of a Grand Officer of State.
During his missions in the departments, wherever he went the guillotine was erected and blood flowed in streams. He was, nevertheless, accused by Robespierre of moderatism. At Lille, in 1797, and at Rastadt, in 1798, he negotiated as a plenipotentiary with the representatives of Princes, and in 1799 corresponded as a director with Emperors and Kings, to whom he wrote as his great and dear friends.
While the republican plenipotentiaries were yet negotiating for peace with the empire at Rastadt, the second coalition began the campaign. The treaty of Campo-Formio had only been for Austria a suspension of arms. England had no difficulty in gaining her to a new coalition; with the exception of Spain and Prussia, most of the European powers formed part of it.
His work in Italy was accomplished; and in Milan, whither Bonaparte had returned with Josephine, they bade each other farewell: they wished to return to Paris by different routes. Bonaparte desired first to go to Rastadt, there to attend the great peace congress of Germany and France. His journey thither was a complete triumph.
But I desired to know if this really was the only object for which Baron Thugut had sent his most beautiful and sagacious agent to Rastadt, or if there were not some secondary objects at the bottom of this mission. I therefore resolved to ascertain this to-day. My astute spy had told me that Madame de Poutet was also anxious to get hold of some other important papers.
No one knew who this strange lady was. and what she wanted at Rastadt; she had paid visits to no one, and left her card nowhere. She had arrived only attended by a footman and a lady's maid; but in advance, a brilliant suite of rooms and a box at the theatre had been retained for her.
The German ambassadors at Rastadt forgot, therefore, the original object of their mission; they had come thither to secure the continued existence of the German empire, and to protect Germany from the encroachments of France, and now they were threatening the German empire themselves.
I rejected the millions because I would not allow myself to be bribed; but I did accept the six horses, and with them made my entry into Germany and came to Rastadt." "It was the first triumphal procession of your majesty in Germany, and, like Julius Gassar you could say, 'I came, saw, and conquered!"
The first plan he now judged to be impracticable; the second, which appears later in its fully matured form as his Continental System, was not for the present feasible, because France was about to settle German affairs at the Congress of Rastadt; to the third he therefore turned the whole force of his genius.
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