The principal topic of conversation was the imperial carrousel which was to take place the next day. The young Comte de Woyna, who was to be one of the twenty-four knights, gave us all the particulars of the preparations, and was eagerly listened to, for the interest and curiosity of the moment centred there. Even business and pleasure paled before that memorable fête, which in itself was to condense all the splendour of the Congress.
The day so much longed for broke at last. The preparations had occupied so many weeks as to leave no doubt about the intentions of the Court to display all the marvels of its pomp and the resources of its wealth. The fête was to conjure up all the brilliant and poetical traditions of the past. The last traces of the recreations of ancient chivalry were effaced before the last vestiges of feudalism. Our age, wholly practical in war as in love, no longer lends itself to those ingenious and delightful theories of mediævalism. The enthusiasm of the heart, the elevation of thought, and the abnegation of passion have disappeared from our manners and customs, and been replaced by a serious and polished selfishness. One is no longer the chosen knight of this or that fair one. One no longer maintains, lance in hand, the superiority of her charms against all comers; one no longer risks one’s life for a scarf embroidered by her fingers. Love nowadays avoids attracting attention; it is only an accessory of life, and its first care is to wrap itself round as if with some mysterious veil.
The manners and customs of ancient chivalry are, nevertheless, deserving of regret. Love, thus understood and openly professed, was not only the life of the heart but the source of great thoughts and noble passions. It must have been grand to proclaim one’s disinterested courage, one’s contempt of danger, when the sole recompense hoped for was a word or a smile from the woman beloved.
The fair sex especially must regret those changes in our social habits. Ever since the levelling tendency of general civilisation lowered the standard of our feelings, women have lost that ideal empire in which they reigned as sovereigns; they have descended from a throne to be confounded with the crowd. It is not difficult, then, to imagine their interest in the preparations for a fête the object of which was to bring back to the mind, and to revive, as it were, the forms and spirit of the age of chivalry.
The Prince de Ligne had presented me with one of the tickets sent to him by the great Marshal Trauttmansdorff. At seven we were on our way together to the Burg.
‘Do not imagine,’ said the prince while we were trundling along, ‘that you are going to witness a combat to the death. It will be neither a pas d’armes [the disputing of a passage by one or several knights], nor, least of all, an appeal to “the judgment of God,” in which the vanquished could only redeem his life by entering a monastery. Those serious contests have been replaced by more graceful and less violent exercises. Our modern redressers of wrongs in their tournaments uphold the incomparable beauty of their lady by the power of their lances in as peaceable a manner as the champions of old defended a thesis at the “Courts of Love.” Hence, we need apprehend no fatal accident like that which put an end to the life of Henri II., and caused the abolition of the lists of the Middle Ages.’
Several officers, under the orders of the grand-master of the ceremonies, the Comte de Wurmbrandt, were ready at the doors to conduct the guests to their seats. General curiosity had reached so high as to lead, it was said, to the forging of tickets, which were sold at an enormous price. In consequence of this the police of Vienna had been compelled to institute the most minute researches. The imperial riding-school, constructed by Charles V., and ever since called the ‘Hall of the Carrousel,’ had been set apart for the function. The structure, the vast interior of which is as spacious as an ordinary church, has the form of a long parallelogram. All around it there runs a circular gallery communicating with the apartments of the palace. Seats for twelve hundred spectators rose in a magnificent sweep of tiers. The gallery was divided into four-and-twenty sections by as many Corinthian columns, against which were hung the scutcheons of the knights with their arms and mottoes.
At each end of the vast arena two stands, occupying the whole length of the building, had been erected. They were draped with the most gorgeous textile stuffs; the one set apart for the sovereigns, empresses, queens, and reigning princes; the other, exactly facing it, intended for the ladies of the twenty-four paladins about to prove that they were the fairest among the fair. Above these stands were the orchestras, in which forgathered all that Vienna could boast in the way of distinguished musicians.
One of the lateral galleries was reserved for the ambassadors, the ministers, and the plenipotentiaries of Europe, for the military celebrities, and for the illustrious foreign families. The Austrian, Hungarian, and Polish nobles occupied the other gallery. Immediately under the imperial stand was the row of rings to be carried away by the competitors at full tilt. Ranged round the arena on pillars were Turkish and Moorish heads with the traditional turban, equally intended to serve as targets for the combatants. No doubt the hatred of the Teuton warriors for their invaders and implacable foes was kept up in days of yore by similar devices. Finally, in order to prevent accidents, the floor of the riding-school was hidden beneath a layer of fine sand, half-a-foot deep. At the door of the hall there was a barrier, marking the entrance to the lists. Behind that door were posted the heralds-of-arms with their trumpets and in gorgeous costumes. Numberless lustres and candelabra holding wax candles shed through this huge interior a light scarcely inferior to that of day.
We were seated between Field-marshal Walmoden and the Prince Philippe de Hesse-Hombourg. Near us was the Prince Nicolas Esterhazy in his uniform of the Hungarian hussars, the magnificent embroidery of which was in itself sufficient to excite the greatest curiosity. The first row of our gallery was occupied by the handsomest and most eminent women of Viennese society: the Princesses Marie Esterhazy, de Wallstein, Jean de Lichtenstein, de Stahremberg, de Colloredo, de Metternich, de Schwartzenberg, the Comtesses Batthyani, de Durkeim, etc. The opposite gallery held the foreign ladies. In the back rows, the ‘highnesses,’ the diplomatic ‘excellencies’ of every country, of every degree of importance, constituted an almost unbroken line of glittering gold and diamonds in their Court dresses and uniforms disappearing beneath their orders and embroideries. A relief was afforded by the red of Cardinal Gonzalvi’s dress; and a little further on by the turban of the Pasha of Widdin, the caftan of Mauroyeny[68] and the colpack of Prince Manug, Bey of Murza. These seemed to supply a kind of variant to this incomparable splendour.