Page:Napoleon (O'Connor 1896).djvu/368

352 the chief manager of the marriage, was especially popular. To his wife, who had remained in Paris, the diplomatist wrote:

"All Vienna is interested in nothing but this marriage. It would be difficult to form an idea of the public feeling about it and its extreme popularity. If I had saved the world I could not receive more homage for the part which I am supposed to have played in the matter. In the promotions that are sure to follow I shall have the Golden Fleece."

The Archduchess herself, too, soon became an object of intense popular interest. Count Otto de Mesloy, the French representative at Vienna, was especially rapturous over the marriage; for to his eyes it meant that the alliance would "ensure lasting tranquillity to Europe, compel England to make peace, and give the Emperor the necessary leisure for organising the vast empire he has created in accordance with his lofty conceptions. . . . All humanity will repose beneath the shadow of the laurels of our august Emperor; and after having conquered half Europe he will add to his numerous victories the most difficult and most consolatory of all—the conquest of a general peace."

It is from his dithyrambic pages that we get the most glowing descriptions of the effect of the prospect on the Viennese.

"Every morning," writes this enthusiastic