During the first part of the repast, the music played the national airs of the different countries. At the second course, the admiral, like the good Englishman he was, and faithful to the traditions of his country, got on his legs, and spared neither the toasts nor the speeches. The subject of his own was, naturally, in connection with the object of the gathering; and though it dragged, no member of the ‘Order of Mercy’ could have preached with greater unction the redemption of the slaves. The result of his eloquence was calculated to flatter him, for it amounted to several thousands of ducats. The emperors had each subscribed a thousand, and the others according to their fortunes or their philanthropy.
Sidney Smith had concluded his speech, the dishes had run their course, the wines of Hungary, the Rhine, and Italy had been tasted, sipped, and lauded, according to their merit, and we were about to rise from the table, when suddenly there appeared the manager of Yan, who, between two symphonies of Haydn, claims of each of the guests the sum of three golden ducats, the price fixed for the banquet, the music, and the lights, the total amounting to about five thousand four hundred francs.
Some months later, I happened to be in London at the dinner offered to the sovereigns by the City. The number of guests, truth to tell, was somewhat more considerable; the ball may also have been somewhat more numerously attended. The expense, though the fête was in nearly every respect similar, came to twenty thousand pounds. A different spot, a different total.
A trivial circumstance which lent some gaiety to the banquet in the Augarten was entirely lacking in London. It was an episode which, in itself, was worth a whole book, and recalls that so facetiously told by Voltaire. Not that it deals with a king tracked by bailiffs like the poor, ill-fated Theodore of Corsica, but with that most charming and most delightful of reigning kings, Maximilian Joseph of Bavaria.
Yan’s manager had begun his collection, and had put the money of the Emperor Alexander and the King of Denmark in the silver dish he was carrying. When he got to his Bavarian majesty, Boniface’s representative boldly presented the dish, already ornamented with the six ducats in question. The excellent Maximilian carried his hand to one waistcoat pocket, then to the other, then to the pocket of his coat. The search is absolutely fruitless—pockets, fobs, receptacles are as completely empty of money as in the days when joyous Prince Max failed to find any money-lender in Paris to line those pockets with gold. It is more than probable that this king, this very model king, had emptied the contents of his purse into some hand stretched out to him, as invariably happened at Munich, where some unhappy wretches always posted themselves on his route. At any rate, a second examination of the pockets brought the unalterable conviction that his majesty of Bavaria had not a red cent upon him.
Rather embarrassed by the situation, the king began to scan the whole length of the board, and caught sight of his chamberlain, the Comte Charles de Rechberg, at the very end of it. He felt sure that his embarrassment was at an end. Rechberg, who was there on his own account and for his own money, had not the remotest intention of attending upon his royal master in this kind of ‘Liberty Hall,’ and was, moreover, deeply engaged in conversation with M. de Humboldt. Rechberg had just published an important book upon Russia, which publication, he fain hoped, would give him a foremost rank among distinguished littérateurs, and, naturally, he was talking enthusiastically about it to the great savant. Consequently, he did not see the signals of distress from his sovereign, and equally, as a matter of course, failed to answer them. The head-waiter, meanwhile, did not budge, holding out the silver dish for the money due to him. The king kept one eye on the collector, the other on Rechberg, and his confusion gradually became such as to attract the notice of those around him. In a little while a kind of titter was running round the table like an electric spark. To give the scene a somewhat complete likeness to the royal banquet at Venice, it only wanted a few bailiff’s officers at the door, watching King Theodore. How King Maximilian would have got out of his quandary without the help of his neighbours, it would be difficult to say, for the stolid head-waiter refused to budge. A far better money-collector than courtier, he kept jingling his money against the dish, till Prince Eugène, who had been the last to get an inkling of the situation, was about to satisfy his claim. He was, however, forestalled by Alexander, who, recalling the inexorable creditor, about to move at a sign from the prince, emptied his purse into the dish, shaking, meanwhile, with uncontrollable laughter, in which the others joined. Good King Maximilian continued to look confused for a few moments, but, finally, was as amused as the others at an episode which perhaps reminded him of his youth.
At the conclusion of the dinner, and the subscriptions having been settled, we passed into the ball-room. It was a real pell-mell, less animated than a rout, less solemn than a Court ball, but infinitely more curious to the ordinary observer. There were few ladies of high degree; they were already satiated with fêtes; on the other hand, there were a great many dames of the bourgeoisie who counted upon nothing less than a highness or an ambassador for a minuet or a waltz. Unfortunately, nearly all had spoilt their fresh and charming looks by ornaments the reverse of tasteful. Though, unquestionably, bought at a high price, these ornaments suited their charming figures far less than the classic golden cap of Phrygian shape. The sovereigns retired almost immediately after the ball opened, and the most illustrious guests followed their example very shortly. As a consequence, the young bourgeoises waited in vain for the hoped-for aristocratic partners, and they had to be content with the new arrivals in that capacity. They did not seem to mind it, for they had the full value of their ticket: daylight was streaming in before they made up their minds to leave. The whole expense of the dinner and ball combined was reported not to have exceeded fifteen thousand florins. Eight months later, the fête given by the London merchants to the sovereigns, to which I have already referred, cost twenty thousand pounds. And yet people complained about the excessive dearness of everything in Vienna! What would it have been if the Congress had been held in London? This was the fête which enabled Sidney Smith to make a long speech and to add to his titles, already more or less showy, that of President of the Noble Knights. In reality, it was a pity to see a man with real claims to distinction constantly seeking opportunities of no value as far as he was concerned and often altogether insignificant.[97] It was said that, as an auxiliary to the pursuit of his humanitarian object, he had solicited and obtained a brief from the Pope authorising him to found a society for the purpose of abolishing slavery for evermore. What was something more practical was the aid of the Powers and their money. All the sovereigns had promptly proclaimed their adhesion to these philanthropic projects by their subscriptions and their presence at his picnic; all but two, the Emperor Francis and the King of Würtemberg. The first, confined to his room by a somewhat serious indisposition, had sent a donation of a thousand ducats; the second had, two days previously, left Vienna, and his abrupt departure formed the subject of every conversation.
Naturally imperious and irascible, the very corpulent King Frederick chafed and fretted against the slowness of the diplomatic discussions. In the state-gatherings, he always seemed to be grumbling or devoured with care. He was not the only one, for it was generally felt that the ordinary passions were pursuing their course under all those floral ornaments and decorations. There came an opportunity, however, for his impetuous character to show itself in all its violence. Among the many conflicting claims submitted to the Congress, the landed nobility of Germany herself had deemed it advisable to join the petitioners, and it had sent its deputies entrusted with the claim for recovering its ancient position and rights. During a conference attended by his majesty of Würtemberg, that claim was discussed, and there was also a good deal of desultory talk about the restoration of the Holy Roman Empire. The king was scarcely able to contain himself, and when it became a question of measures that might restrict the prerogatives of sovereigns, he rose in great anger. Before him there was a table which, unlike the boards at the imperial banquets, had not been scooped out to accommodate his majesty’s enormous corpulence. In his sudden movement the abdominal prominence of the king lifted the table off its legs and it fell with a crash. The mishap naturally aggravated the temper of the king, who quickly regained his own apartments, and in the evening left the capital of Austria, after having strenuously recommended his plenipotentiaries systematically to reject every demand on the part of the nobles. As for his son Wilhelm, he remained much more concerned with the handsome eyes of the Grande-Duchesse d’Oldenbourg than with the questions of the Congress.
This overbearing character the King of Würtemberg showed just as much in his relations with his family as in the exercise of his royal power. There was an instance of it when he forced his son into a marriage against his will. He acted in a similar manner with regard to his daughter when he made her marry Jérôme, King of Westphalia, the brother of Napoleon. No sooner had the latter fallen than Frederick wished the marriage to be dissolved. Attached by a sincere affection to her husband, and at any rate to her child, the Queen of Westphalia opposed a stubborn refusal to her father’s demands. ‘United by bonds due to politics,’ she wrote to him, ‘I am not going to recount the happiness of seven years; but if he had been the worst of husbands, you, my dear father, by consulting the real principles of honour, could only command me not to leave him now that misfortune has overtaken him, and considering that this misfortune is not of his own making. My first idea, my first impulse, was to go and fling myself into your arms, but accompanied by him, the father of my child. Where, in fact, would be my tranquillity if I did not share it now with him to whom are due more than ever all my powers of consolation?’ In another letter, she expressed herself as follows: ‘Though I married for political reasons, it seemed ordained that I should become the happiest woman in existence. I bear my husband three feelings combined, love, tenderness, and esteem. A time will come, I trust, when you will be convinced of having judged him wrongly; and when that time arrives you shall find in him and in me the most respectful and affectionate children.’ Such a noble resistance ended by disarming the father, whose children had both been forced by him into unions which were in the end to prove happy in the case of his daughter, the reverse in the case of his son.
This departure of the King of Würtemberg put an end to all the hopes of the German noblesse. A few days afterwards, the deputies, tired of being deluded with promises that had no prospect of realisation, did not wait until they were positively bowed out, but left the Austrian capital of their own accord. As a matter of course, the epigrams which generally accompany failure were not spared to them; their going was attributed to their exhausted finances, and the next morning they were forgotten.