Anecdotal Recollections of the Congress of Vienna

by Comte de Auguste Louis Charles La Garde-Chambonas

A little further on, Talleyrand is calmly conversing with MM. de Wintzingerode and d’Hardemberg. Amidst the noise and the animation of all this pleasure his impassive features preserve the same calm visible thereon in the Congress-room.

Many waltzes and polonaises had been danced when they asked the Princesse B—— to dance the tarantella, that pretty Neapolitan dance which, in her infancy, her young companions of the Parthenope danced with her under the beauteous sky where she was born. Acquiescing in a general wish, she placed herself in the middle of the ball-room, made one or two graceful bows, then seizing a tambourine, gave the signal for the music to begin; and then performed those voluptuous, light, and animated movements so thoroughly in harmony with the air of Naples.

Very often, when my recollections brought me back to those fêtes in which I have seen the Russian nobility at St. Petersburg, Moscow, and Vienna display so much wealth and elegance, I have been reminded of what my friend Count Tolstoy told me about the difficulties of Peter the First to make his Boyards amuse themselves in a European fashion. The opposition was so violent that he could only get the better of it by publishing a long regulation, and whosoever deviated from it exposed himself to the most severe punishments. Although his inflexible will had decided that those fêtes should have a European character, they were too near to barbaric times not to be tainted with their spirit. It was to the sound of the drum that the Court balls were announced in the city. The ladies repaired to them at five o’clock in the evening. They had to be dressed in the fashion prevailing in the Courts of Europe. Only the empress, who was a Narischkine, was exempt from the general law, and permitted to keep to the dress of the Russian ladies. Peter, who never tried to avoid the orders he imposed on others, stood sentry at the door of the palace, a partisan in his hand. Thus did Louis XIV. stand guard at the door of the St. Cyr Theatre on the occasion of the performances of Esther. The grandes-duchesses offered refreshments to the guests: French wines, hydromel, and strong beer. At the entrance door, facing the emperor, stood a chamberlain, holding two urns containing a great many numbered tickets. Each cavalier and each lady, on entering the ball-room, drew one, and willy-nilly found him- or herself associated with the corresponding number, as in days gone by the athletes of the pugilistic exercises in the Olympic Games. The masked balls were still more extraordinary. Disguise was resorted to by way of the most curious costumes, and the rejoicing and the dances were in harmony with the costumes.

Only a very few years went by, and the tactics of the illustrious reformer began to bear ample fruit. Under Catherine I. and under Elizabeth, pleasure followed the same direction as Russian influence and power. The latter princess was especially fond of masked balls. She gave a magnificent one on each New Year’s Day. The ladies were bound to appear as men, and the men as women. The Empress, who looked very well in male attire, was particularly fond of that disguise. Then came the reign of Catherine II. which seemed fated to exhaust all kind of glories and pleasures. Apart from her magnificent carousals, one is reminded of her receptions and balls at Tzarskoë-Selo, and of the fêtes of Potemkin in the Palace of the Taurus. Beyond these, imagination cannot go. Finally, during the first years of this century, and at the period of the Congress of Vienna, there was no nation which understood pleasure better than the Russians, and stamped that pleasure with such extreme politeness and grandeur.

Prince Metternich.

Consequently, each day saw a new fête succeed to that of yesterday, without this continuation appearing to bring satiety. While M. de Stackelberg celebrated the birthday of his sovereign, Emperor Francis invited for the same purpose the crowned heads, the princes, and the other political or military notabilities in one of the great halls of the imperial residence. A splendid dinner had preceded the concert. Two days before, the Prince de Metternich had also given a great ball at which the majority of the guests of the Austrian Court had been present. It has just struck me that I am nearing the end of my course, and that as yet I have not spoken of one of the most conspicuous personages of our epoch. Almost everybody has tried to portray M. de Metternich. Like M. de Talleyrand, he has had all the honours of history bestowed upon him during his lifetime, but although his portrait has been traced more than once by more skilful hands than mine, I cannot resist the desire to show him as I was enabled to judge him—behind the glamour of power and political reserve in which he has lived since his youth. At that period M. de Metternich might still pass muster as a young man. His features were perfectly regular and handsome, his smile was full of graciousness, his face expressed both benevolence and the most delicate intelligence. He was of average height, and of elegant proportions. Both his gait and demeanour were marked by much nobleness. It is, above all, from the handsome design of Isabey, representing the plenipotentiaries at the Congress, that one may gain a more or less exact idea of all those outward advantages of which he himself was by no means insensible. At the first glance, one felt delighted at seeing one of those men to whom nature had vouchsafed her most seductive gifts, and whom nature, as a rule, seems to take a delight in calling only to the frivolous successes of a society life. It was when attentively scanning his physiognomy, at once supple and firm, and carefully scrutinising Metternich’s looks, that the superiority of his political genius at once became manifest to even the superficial observer. ‘The society man’ disappeared, and there remained nothing but the statesman, accustomed to rule men and to decide important affairs. Mixed up for twenty-five years with the gigantic commotions that disturbed Europe, M. de Metternich showed the lofty aptitude of his mind, and that rare penetration and sagacity which can foresee and direct events. His decision, the result of long meditation, was immovable. His words were incisive, as they ought to be from the lips of a statesman sure of the drift of everything he says. I may add to this that M. de Metternich is one of the most charming story-tellers of our epoch. In politics he has been reproached with his subserviency to the Law of Immobility; certainly a lofty mind like his understood well enough that it is impossible for man to remain stationary, and that, in our age, to remain stationary would be tantamount to retrogression. But he also knew that sudden shocks do not constitute progress, and that, in the government of man one ought to take count of their habits and of their real wants. If it be true that the moment has not yet come to judge M. de Metternich definitely, contemporary history will be bound to admit the calm and cloudless happiness which his immobile and silent government has succeeded in imparting to the hereditary states of Austria. That happiness, which seems to suffice them, is already a title of glory one cannot easily deny.

The fêtes of M. de Metternich during the Congress bore a peculiar stamp, altogether in harmony with his personality, if one may express it in that way. To the most thoroughly experienced lavishness, to an extreme minuteness of detail, there was added a grandeur absolutely without embarrassment. It was towards the end of January that this fête took place. The locale chosen was M. de Metternich’s country estate, a short distance from Vienna. Though the cold was excessive, the number of guests was immense, and, as usual, comprised all the illustrious personages of Europe and the handsomest women of the moment. The prince and princess discharged their social duties with a certain coquettish grace—a grace which tends to disappear now that people believe they have done everything by throwing open their drawing-rooms. Truly, watching this illustrious host, and the pains he took to please his guests, one could but remember how, at the beginning of his career in Paris, he had shone by the brilliancy of his manners. And, though his position had become immeasurably greater since then, it had made no difference to a courtesy which must always be a powerful auxiliary in the hands of such a man. A magnificent ball-room had been constructed for that fête in the garden itself, and had been decorated with all the pomp and lavishness that had really become a matter of course. The stands were tenanted by women dazzling in youth and elegance, who vied with the masses of colour supplied by the uniforms, decorations, and embroideries occupying the middle of the floor.

Next morning an alarming rumour spread that this elegant ball-room had been partially ruined during the night by a fire. Vienna is quite as prolific in superstitious people as other places, and the untoward event served as a text for several prophecies. They recalled the accidents that had marked the marriage of Louis XVI.; they recalled the fire at the mansion of the Prince de Schwartzenberg at Paris at the moment of the union of Napoleon with the daughter of the Cæsars—a sad analogy with the fates occasioned by his fall in the capital of his father-in-law, and not far distant from the place of exile of his wife and his son. The high position of M. de Metternich in the debates of Europe; the presidency which his colleagues had spontaneously and simultaneously conferred upon him—all this was calculated to give still greater consistency to all those lugubrious conjectures.

A few days later, without taking the slightest notice of any of the predictions of the Viennese Nostradamuses, the Austrian Court joyfully celebrated the birthday of the King of Denmark, of the Queen of Bavaria, of the Duke of Saxe-Weimar, and of the Grand-Duke of Baden, all happening on the same day. A grand state-fête, to which the public were admitted as spectators, united all the crowned heads. I followed the crowd, anxious to witness a sight which was not likely to renew itself within my days. It was in reality something very important, that banquet, both by the number and rank of its guests.