‘That’s right, those poor kings ought to have a holiday. I am not certain, though, that at the end of all these entertainments any of the monarchs will be able to say to himself what my dear Joseph II. said. When he had worked the whole of the day at the reforms which, while immortalising his name, contributed to the happiness of the empire, he said, lightly tapping his cheek, “And now, go to bed, Joseph, I am pleased with your day’s work.”
‘Amidst this cross-fire of different pretensions, have you heard anything of a claim of another kind? Trifling though it may be, it is calculated to provide some occupation for the archons of the Congress. It is a note presented by Louis Buon-Compagni, Prince of Lucca and Piombino, claiming sovereign rights over the island of Elba. He considers the investment of Napoleon with that sovereignty out of order and out of place. His claim is supported by a document, in which Emperor Ferdinand acknowledges to have received from one of his ancestors, Nicolas Ludovisi, Duc de Venosa, more than a million of florins for the investiture of Elba and Piombino, granted to him and his descendants. Here’s a pretty business—the man who ruled the world threatened with ejectment by another Robinson Crusoe! If Louis [Ludovico] Buon-Compagni would come down to the rôle of Friday, matters might be arranged. But he wants his island, and wants it all to himself. Trifling as the incident may appear, it would lend itself to a very curious chapter. It would be the height of absurdity to see the man who distributed crowns without a stone on which to put his heroic head in an unknown island.’
Coming back to his favourite topic, the prince referred once more to warlike matters, and in a manner as enthusiastic as if he were twenty. At such moments his tall and beautiful figure drew itself up to its full height, his features became animated, his eyes positively brilliant. ‘Don’t imagine, my dear boy, that during two days I have done nothing but concoct rhymes or epigrams on the Congress. You see these two volumes; well, I have spent the night in reading them.’
He pointed to a military work entitled Principes de Stratégie appliqués aux Campagnes de 1796 en Allemagne. Its author, Arch-Duke Charles, had sent them to him.
‘In this book, full of curious details and profound views,’ he said, ‘there is only one mistake as far as I can judge. The author is too severe upon himself. There is not the faintest doubt about the transcendent military worth of Prince Charles, but it is marked by so much modesty and such simplicity of manner as to seem scarcely reconcilable with his reputation. He is not only the greatest captain of Austria, but more than once he has proved himself a counter-balance to the genius of your Napoleon. In his valour, in his faculty of inspiring both respect and obedience in his soldiers, he is like Frederick; in his virtues, his strict integrity, and his unalterable love of duty, he is the living image of the Prince Charles of Lorraine. The frankness of his soul is reflected in his face. Some time ago I attempted to draw his portrait in verse. I sent it to him anonymously, knowing as I did that direct praise was apt to displease him. In some way, I do not know how, he guessed the authorship. No doubt my feelings got the better of my style, and I presume that the books he sent me are intended as a reply. I have just finished reading them. I feel certain of their becoming classical, for admiration instinctively follows a public man admitted, as he is, to be possessed of a grand and noble character.’
Then he drifted to the famous captains of his time and to their notable exploits; and gradually I felt his enthusiasm gaining upon me. His own genius was discernible in his looks, and electrified me. The conversation of such men as he is more apt to enlighten one and to speak louder than their books. Inasmuch as I had made up my mind religiously to garner every literary scrap from the pen of this encyclopedic man, I asked him to give me his verses on Prince Charles, and I added them to my precious collection.
‘We’ll meet at Razumowski’s,’ he said, ‘seeing that, guided by pleasure only, we are evidently advancing towards the great result of this sapient assembly amidst balls, fêtes, carrousels, and games. No doubt the day will come when we shall be allowed to know the fate of Europe. Manifestly, though, experience does not appear to convey any valuable lesson either to men’s passions or to their ambition; and our era seems to have quickly forgotten a very recent past.
‘I must leave you, to preside at a chapter of the Order of Maria-Theresa;[79] the Commandeur-Général, Ouwaroff, is to be invested to-day. From there I am going to dine with your great diplomatist.’
Since the cold weather had set in, making the Prater somewhat too chilly for idlers and loungers on foot, the latter foregathered on the Graben. The newspaper writers thronged the public resort, and, in default of genuine particulars of the Congress, retailed their so-called political information and Court stories, as devoid of probability, not to say of truth, as the rest. Outdoor life had assumed such proportions that one might have safely said to one’s friends in the evening, ‘I looked for you on the Graben to-day. I failed to find you, so I left my card.’ The Graben was to the majority of strangers what the Square of St. Mark is to the Venetians. They spent the greater part of their time there. It was a kind of open-air club; everybody received and returned calls there; the life of the capital was practically regulated on that spot; folk appointed to meet there to discuss their future movements, and to organise pleasure parties for the evening. Hence, it would be no exaggeration to say that people lived in common on the Graben, amidst an immense group of ‘loafers,’ idlers, ‘spouters,’ and disputants.
There was another kind of store-house for news, epigrams, witty sallies, and satirical observation; a kind of ‘lion’s mouth’ à la Vénitienne, less the secret denunciations. Or rather, the place was like the Marforio in Rome, I mean the statue at the foot of which there was a constant flow of criticism both on the governors and on the governed. The second spot was the big room of the ‘Empress of Austria’ tavern, which I have already mentioned. Every day, at the dinner-hour, the place was thronged with illustrious and important personages, anxious to escape from the magnificent but somewhat solemn banquets of the Austrian Court. At a ‘round table’ the occupants vied with each other in challenges—not like those of the ancient knights of King Arthur, but in wit-combats, sarcastic lunges, and epigrams, all of them tempered by the perfect tone of Courts and of the best society.