With Austria, Napoleon acted differently. He was aware that no impression could be made on the Emperor Francis, or his minister Metternich, and that it had become impossible, with their consent, that he should fulfil his promise of presenting his wife and son to the people on the Champ de Mai. Stratagem remained the only resource; and some Frenchmen at Vienna, with those in Maria Louisa's train, formed a scheme of carrying off the Empress of France and her child. The plot was discovered and prevented, and the most public steps were immediately taken, to show that Austria considered all ties with Buonaparte as dissolved for ever. Maria Louisa, by her father's commands, laid aside the arms and liveries of her husband, hitherto displayed by her attendants and carriages, and assumed those of the house of Austria. This decisive event put an end to every hope so long cherished by Napoleon, that he might find some means of regaining the friendship of his father-in-law.
Nor did the other powers in Europe show themselves more accessible to his advances. He was, therefore, reduced to his own partisans in the French nation, and those won over from other parties, whom he might be able to add to them.
The army had sufficiently shown themselves to be his own, upon grounds which are easily appreciated. The host of public official persons, to whom the name under which they exercised their offices was indifferent, provided the salary continued to be attached to them, formed a large and influential body. And although we, who have never, by such mutations of our political system, been put to the trial of either abandoning our means of living, or submitting to a change of government, may, on hearing quoted names of respectability and celebrity who adopted the latter alternative, exclaim against French versatility, a glance at Britain during the frequent changes of the 17th century, may induce us to exchange the exclamation of poor France! for that of poor human nature! The professors of Cromwell's days, who piously termed themselves followers of Providence, because they complied with every change that came uppermost; and the sect of time-servers, including the honest patriot, who complained at the Restoration that he had complied with seven forms of government during the year, but lost his office by being too late of adhering to the last--would have made in their day a list equally long, and as entertaining, as the celebrated _Dictionnaire de Girouettes_. In matters dependent upon a sudden breeze of sentiment, the mercurial Frenchman is more apt to tack about than the phlegmatic and slowly-moved native of Britain; but when the steady trade-wind of interest prevails for a long season, men in all nations and countries show the same irresistible disposition to trim their sails by it; and in politics as in morals, it will be well to pray against being led into temptation.