The first ten days, which I passed at Vienna, passed unclouded, and
I was delighted at thus finding myself again in a pleasing society,
whose manner of thinking corresponded with my own; for the public
opinion was unfavorable to the alliance with Napoleon, and the
government had concluded it without being supported by the national
assent. In fact, how could a war, the ostensible object of which was
the re-establishment of Poland, be undertaken by the power which had
contributed to the partition, and which still retained in its hands
with greater obstinacy than ever the third of that same Poland?
Thirty thousand men were sent by the Austrian government to restore
the confederation of Poland at Warsaw, and nearly as many spies were
attached to the movements of the Poles in Gallicia, who wished to
have deputies at this confederation. The Austrian government was
therefore obliged to speak against the Poles, at the very time that
it was acting in their cause, and to say to her subjects of
Gallicia: "I forbid you to be of the opinion which I support." What
metaphysics! they would be found very intricate, if fear did not
explain every thing.
The Poles are the only nation, of those which Bonaparte drags after
him, that create any interest. I believe they know as well as we do,
that they are only the pretence for the war, and that the emperor
does not care a fig for their independence.
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