Two months earlier, Talleyrand had sent him a memorandum on the subject of a Franco-Austrian alliance, which is instinct with statesmanlike foresight.

He stated that there were four Great Powers--France, Great Britain, Russia, and Austria: he excluded Prussia, whose rise to greatness under Frederick the Great was but temporary.

Austria, he claimed, must remain a Great Power.

She had opposed revolutionary France; but with Imperial France she had no lasting quarrel.

Rather did her manifest destiny clash with that of Russia on the lower Danube, where the approaching break-up of the Ottoman Power must bring those States into conflict.