I would have myself plumped for a masterful inactivity, with plenty of leisure time set aside for music, mistresses, big jewels, a private library with a very comfortable chair and lots of talented painters to chat to about the iconography to be used for triumphant ceiling-paintings featuring me. Some of this worthwhile programme would undoubtedly have appealed to Leopold, but his key decisions were taken for him: by his belligerent neighbours to the east (the Ottomans) and to the west (the French).
