If I mistake as to the means I think best adapted to terminate the calamities which for along time have desolated Europe, I shall at least have the consolation of reflecting that I have done all that depended on me.

With the consequences which may result I can never be reproached.
I have been particularly determined to the course I now take by the opinion I entertain of your upright character, and by the personal esteem I have conceived towards you, of which I am very happy, M.le General Bonaparte, to give you here an assurance.
(Signed) FRANCIS.
In fact, it was only on the arrival of the Comte de Cobentzel that the negotiations were seriously set on foot.

Bonaparte had all along clearly perceived that Gallo and Meerweldt were not furnished with adequate powers.

He saw also clearly enough that if the month of September were, to be trifled away in unsatisfactory negotiations, as the month which preceded it had been, it would be difficult in October to strike a blow at the house of Austria on the side of Carinthia.

The Austrian Cabinet perceived with satisfaction the approach of the bad weather, and insisted more strongly on its ultimatum, which was the Adige, with Venice.
Before the 18th Fructidor the Emperor of Austria hoped that the movement which was preparing in Paris would operate badly for France and favourably to the European cause.