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There were, however, a number of hidden problems here. Would the presence of Marie-Louise in France really be sufficient to deter Austria from going to war in all circumstances? Equally, what would occur should Napoleon not treat the Austrians with the courtesy and generosity with which Talleyrand, a long-term proponent of an alliance with Vienna, hoped he would respond? To these questions Talleyrand had no answers, but he did have an ingenious theory as to why Austria could be trusted more than Russia. In Vienna, foreign policy was the product of a system rather than an individual: when Francis died, his successors would in reality have little option but to carry on the affairs of the empire much as they had before. In St Petersburg, however, things were very different: ‘In Russia everything revolves around the will of one man: there is no policy but his own. In consequence, the length of a reign is the length of everything else: no sooner does a new ruler come to the throne, than everything takes on a new aspect. Let us suppose, then, that the Emperor Napoleon has married the Grand-Duchess [Anna], and that in a year’s time . . . the door should open and a courier be announced bearing the news that the Emperor Alexander has died. With his death, everything would be different: there would be no guarantee of an alliance with St Petersburg . . . and all the advantages of the marriage would disappear.’7 Yet there are many assumptions here too: in the end it could no more be assumed that Vienna was wedded to continuity than it could that St Petersburg was wedded to caprice. As yet nothing could be certain, but there was definite feeling that French policy had miscarried. As Marshal Murat stated:

A family alliance has never failed to have grievous consequences for France. She will be compelled to endure all the mistakes of that government, and to share its heaviest and most dangerous burdens. The position in which Austria finds herself can be the only reason for her decision to conclude an alliance which, with her proud outlook, she must secretly detest. Austria, more than any other nation, has made a political maxim of the idea that ‘sovereigns have no relatives’. France will be compelled at great cost to support her in her various policies, so often clumsy and treacherous, and in her campaigns, so poorly conducted, and when we need her as an ally we shall not find in her either energy or loyalty. An alliance with Russia is attended with none of these dangers.8

In short, Napoleon’s efforts to pretend he had been free to choose between Anna and Marie-Louise had in the end served only to spread doubt and dismay amongst his own followers. As the former Second Consul, Jean-Jacques de Cambacérès, remarked to Pasquier, ‘At heart, I am certain that within two years we will be at war with whichever of the two powers whose princess Napoleon does not wed. Well, a war with Austria does not cause me any worry, while I tremble at the idea of a war with Russia: the consequences are incalculable.’9

Before moving on to the many other issues that produced the war that Cambacérès so greatly feared, there are a few other matters that we ought to examine. We come here to the issue of Napoleon’s health and attitude to business. One problem that is frequently highlighted is the emperor’s failure to return to Spain in 1810, it being claimed that the arrival of Marie-Louise for a time drove all thoughts of campaigning from his head. However, this is a blind alley: there was no sense that Napoleon was needed in the Peninsula at this time, while the idea of a Napoleon living out a romantic idyll and neglecting all public business is wildly adrift. The French ruler remained firmly in touch with the march of affairs and, to prove the point, had hardly emerged from his wedding before he set off on a month-long tour of inspection of Belgium, Holland and northern France. This was scarcely a honeymoon - Marie-Louise, indeed,