No common man could have entertained the projects
that crowded his teeming mind, and which came to little in most
instances because they were in advance of the time.
During the tremendous struggle that proceeded from the French
Revolution, Austria was almost always in the foreground, and next to
England showed greatest powers of endurance in combating the new order
of things. Six times she made war on France, and though in four of these
wars she was beaten, she had the fortune to decide the event of the
fifth,--that of 1814-15; and in 1815 she was as active against Napoleon
as circumstances permitted any of the Allies to be, except England and
Prussia. The effect of this pertinacity, and of her decisive part in
1813, was to secure for her a degree of consideration altogether
disproportioned to her real power. Men took her for what she appeared to
be, not as she was. In truth, very little was known of her condition,
and the few who were aware of her weakness were interested in keeping
their knowledge to themselves. The grand effort which she made in 1809,
single-handed almost, to break the power of Napoleon, was everywhere
looked upon as something alike herculean and heroical, and as such it is
spoken of in all those historical works from which most readers obtain
knowledge of the early years of this century; but now we know from other
sources, and particularly from the Diary of Gentz, that she never was in
a worse state than she knew in the days of Eckmuehl, Essling, and Wagram.
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