The Revolution had destroyed one monarchy; now it had created another.
Yet the rulers of the other great powers of Europe, all monarchs, did not recognize this "elected emperor" as a true monarch. From the first years of the Revolution, the other great powers had plotted to invade France and restore the family of Louis XVI. All failed; but the continuing attacks on revolutionary France gave Napoleon a justification to invade much of the rest of Europe. Between 1804 and 1807, he defeated Spain, Austria, and Prussia (a large state in northern Germany); he also pressured Russian tsar Alexander I into signing a nonaggression treaty. Napoleon portrayed such military campaigns as purely defensive--necessary to protect the French Revolution.
Metternich's family was directly affected by both the Revolution and the fighting. His father, a count who held hereditary lands in western Germany near France, was main minister in the Netherlands--which at that time was an Austrian possession. Metternich's childhood in the western German city of Koblenz, a quiet town of about 12,000, brought him into contact with French culture. His mother saw that he was fluent in both German and French; as an adult, he was often happier expressing himself in French.
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