He therefore persuaded King William to forego claims that would have embittered the rivalry of Prussia and Austria.
Nay! he recurred to Talleyrand's policy of encouraging the Hapsburgs to seek in the Balkan Peninsula compensation for their losses in the west: and within fifteen years the basis of the Triple Alliance was firmly laid.

Napoleon, on the other hand, for lack of that statesmanlike moderation which consecrates victory and cements the fabric of an enduring Empire, soon saw the political results of Austerlitz swept away by the rising tide of the nations' wrath.

In less than nine years the Austrians and their allies were masters of Paris.
NOTE TO THE THIRD EDITION .-- The account given on p.

41 of the drowning of numbers of Russians at the close of the Battle of Austerlitz was founded upon the testimony of Napoleon and many French generals; the facts, as related by Lejeune, seemed quite convincing; the Czar Alexander also asserted at Vienna in 1815 that 20,000 Russians had been drowned there.

But the local evidence (kindly furnished to me by Professor Fournier of Vienna) seems to prove that the story is a myth.