But France, Belgium, Holland, and Italy would surely form a noble realm for a man who had lost half a million of men, and was even now losing Spain.

Yet his correspondence proves that, even so, he thought little of his foes, and, least of all, of the Congress at Prague.
Leaving his plenipotentiaries tied down to the discussion of matters of form, he set out from Dresden on July 24th for a visit to Mainz, where he met the Empress and reviewed his reserves.

Every item of news fed his warlike resolve.

Soult, with nearly 100,000 men, was about to relieve Pamplona (so he wrote to Caulaincourt): the English were retiring in confusion: 12,000 veteran horsemen from his armies in Spain would soon be on the Rhine; but they could not be on the Elbe before September.

If the allies wanted a longer armistice, he (Napoleon) would agree to it: if they wished to fight, he was equally ready, even against the Austrians as well.[336] To Davoust, at Hamburg, he expressed himself as if war was certain; and he ordered Clarke, at Paris, to have 110,000 muskets made by the end of the year, so that, in all, 400,000 would be ready.