Metternich’s genius was to recognize the appropriate target for his strategy: not Napoleon’s armies, which Austria could not hope to defeat—Napoleon was a general for the ages—but Napoleon’s mind. The prince understood that even the most powerful of men remains human and has human weaknesses. By entering Napoleon’s private life, being deferential and subordinate, Metternich could find his weaknesses and hurt him as no army could. By getting closer to him emotionally—through the emperor’s sister Caroline, through the Archduchess Marie Louise, through their convivial meetings—he could choke him
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