Nancy is ours! The enemy is incapable of resistance. His defensive system is worm-ridden. The inhabitants have greeted our troops with joy. Rebellion en masse, National Guards, and cohorts! Napoleon's misfortunes have made him hated by the same people who earlier had been blinded by his good fortune. We can reach Paris without great danger or exertions. Such a battle will be neither bloody nor dangerous. As true companions in arms we are ready to cooperate with anything that the Prince [Schwarzenberg] desires. You can count on everything that lies in our power. You know the principles of the art of war better than I, and I also know full-well that it often brings advantages to deviate from such. The time for this appears to have arrived. We have troops standing on the Rhine whose number taken together would make a formidable army. And for what purpose? In order to observe Mainz and Strasbourg? We have fourteen marches to Paris, eighteen days will suffice to complete these marches, deliver a battle, and dictate an armistice. In order to secure victory, why should we not move concentrically on Paris with everything that we have on the Rhine? I subject my ideas to your enlightened insight and long military experience. Many who are well-trained in the art of war will want to systematically conduct the war with orthodox sieges from the Rhine into the French interior, prolonging the war and thus increasing the chances of a setback; these people will pass the most condemning judgement over my audacity and view my ideas as eccentric.