This was, however, nothing but the noisy prologue of a drama yet far distant, and the year 1850 could indeed rejoice at seeing disappear in Germany the very last traces of an agitation which had done nothing but astonish Europe, instead of illuminating and warning it. Towards the end of this year, 1850, the German Confederacy was established anew under the terms of the ancient treaty of Vienna. The Bundestag again commenced its peaceable deliberations, and Prince Gortchakof was quite naturally appointed to represent the Russian Government at the Diet of Frankfort. Alexander Mikhaïlovitch henceforth had his marked place in a great centre of political affairs, where the personal merit of the minister borrowed a peculiar éclat from the extraordinary fortune which the latest events had created for his august master. Russian influence, at all times very considerable with the ruling houses of Germany, had grown prodigiously, having reached its zenith, one will remember, after the disorders of February. Alone remaining sheltered from the revolutionary tempest which had swept over almost all the States of the Continent, the empire of the czars appeared to be at that time the firmest stronghold of the principles of order and conservatism. "Humiliate yourselves, nations, God is with us!" said the Emperor Nicholas in a celebrated proclamation; and without being too much offended at language which made God in a manner the accessory to a great human boast, monarchical Europe had only acclamations for a prince who, after all, worked with a remarkable disinterestedness for the reëstablishment of the legitimate authorities, and for the maintenance of the equilibrium of the world.
In fact, it is just to acknowledge that in these troubled years of 1848-50, the autocrat of the North used his influence, as also his sword, only to strengthen the tottering thrones and to enforce respect for the treaties. He effectively protected Denmark, towards which from this epoch the rapacious hand of Germany was stretched, and he was the most ardent in calling a meeting of the Powers, which ended by snatching from the Germans the coveted prey. He interposed directly in Hungary, and with his military forces helped put down a formidable insurrection there, which had shaken to its foundations the ancient empire of Hapsburg, undermined at the same time by intestine troubles and an aggressive war which the kingdom of Piedmont had twice stirred up against it. Little favoring by his principles and interests this united Germany, "of which the first thought was a thought of unjust extension, the first cry a cry of war,"[3] he later used all his power in bringing about the reëstablishment pure and simple, of the German Confederation on the same basis as prior to 1848. The bonds of relationship and of friendship which united him to the court of Berlin were never strong enough to make him abandon for a single instant the cause of the sovereignty of princes, and of the independence of the States; and in spite of the sincere affection which he bore "his brother-in-law, the poet," he neither spared the King of Prussia, Frederick William IV., the evacuation of the Duchies, nor the hard conditions of Olmütz. Defender of European right on the Eider and the Main, of monarchical right on the Theiss and Danube, peacemaker for Germany, and, so to say, wholesale dealer in justice for Europe, Nicholas had at this moment a true greatness, an immense prestige, well merited on the whole, and which allowed no reflection on the agents charged with representing away from home a policy of which no one dared contest the immovable firmness and the perfect justice.
The Emperor Nicholas, in accrediting Prince Gortchakof to the German Confederation, in an autograph letter dated 11th November, 1850, recognized in the reunion of the Diet of Frankfort "a pledge for the maintenance of the general peace," and thus characterized by an able and judicious act, the honorable and salutary mission of this Diet in ordering matters created by the treaties of 1815. However legitimate the grievances of the liberal Germans were against the internal policy of the Bund[4] and its tendencies, little favorable to the development of the constitutional régime, yet one cannot deny that, according to the European point of view, and with regard to the equilibrium and the general peace of the world, this was a marvelous conception, well fitted to preserve the independence of the States and to hinder any deep perturbation in the bosom of the Christian family. The chimerical and mercantile minds of the times, the leading men of Manchester and the rich publicists, with at least "one idea a day," imagined that this was the moment to declare "war to war," to force a universal disarmament, to abolish military slavery; and to this effect they convoked noisy congresses of peace in different parts of the world. They had, indeed, in a day of naïveté, convoked one at Frankfort, without suspecting that by their side, and in this very Bundestag of such modest appearance, had sat for a long time a true and permanent congress of peace,—a congress which would do as much good as possible, and which, moreover, would have the advantage of not being ridiculous.
Placed in the very centre of Europe, separating by its large and immovable body the great military powers which form the border, so to speak, of our old continent,—a power neutral by necessity and almost by law over those great plains, where in former times the destinies of empires were decided,—the German Confederation formed an ensemble of States sufficiently coherent and compact to repulse any shock from abroad, yet not strong enough to become aggressive itself and to menace the security of its neighbors. Many years later, and when chancellor of the empire, Prince Gortchakof, in a celebrated circular, rendered homage to this beneficial combination of the Bund, "a combination purely and exclusively defensive," which permitted the localization of a war, become inevitable, "instead of generalizing it and of giving to the struggle a character and proportions beyond all human calculation, and which in any case would pile up ruins and cause torrents of blood to flow."[5]
In truth, if in this long half century which intervened between the Congress of Vienna and the ill-omened battle of Sadowa, the frontiers of the States have changed so little in spite of so many and so great changes in their political complexion; if the revolution of July, the campaign of Belgium, and even the wars of the Crimea and Italy have been carried on without noticeably disturbing the balance of the nations, or injuring them in their independence, we are specially indebted to this Bundestag so unappreciated, which by its very existence, by its position, and the wheelwork of its completed mechanism, prevented any conflict from becoming a general conflagration. It is doubtful whether the cause of humanity and civilization, or the very cause which the chancellor of Russia more specially represents with such facility and éclat, have gained in any considerable degree in seeing this old "combination" replaced in our time by another, more simple, it is true, but, perhaps, also much less calculated to restore confidence.
While acquitting himself zealously of the duties of his office in connection with the Germanic Confederation, Alexander Mikhaïlovitch continued to occupy the post of minister plenipotentiary at Stuttgart. He held it to be a matter of honor to fulfill to the end his confidential and intimate mission by the side of the Grand Duchess Olga. He divided his time between the free city on the Main, the seat of the Bund, and the little capital on the banks of the Neckar, where a warm and kind interest always greeted him. At Frankfort he took especial pleasure in the society of his Prussian colleague, a young lieutenant in the Landwehr,[6] an entire novice in the diplomatic career, although marked out for such a prodigious destiny. There had been settled here for many years a great Russian celebrity, a poet, who was at the same time an influential courtier, and who could not be overlooked by a diplomat with a love for intellectual enjoyments, and who had been a school-fellow of Pouchkine. The good and mild Vassili Joukofski had certainly none of the genius of Pouchkine, nor his independent and ardent character. More properly a facile versifier and an ingenious translator than a creative and original mind, with a nature rather effeminate and contemplative, the formerly renowned author of "Ondine" had early made his peace with the official society which the despotic will of Nicholas had created, and had always sunned himself in th e rays of imperial favor.
During his long and pleasant career as poet at the court, he had not been without dignities and honors. He, however, had a mission much more important and honorable; he was charged with directing the education of the heir-presumptive, Alexander, the present emperor, and of his brother the Grand Duke Constantine. Joukofski devoted himself to this task with intelligence and ardor, and retained the affection of his two august pupils to the end of his life. A proof of this fact is the correspondence which ensued and which he still maintained with them while at Frankfort. These letters were published quite recently. After having finished the education of the grand dukes, he made a voyage of pleasure in Germany. At Düsseldorf he found a companion for life, much younger than himself, but sharing all his tastes, even his charming weaknesses. He finally selected a home on the banks of the Main, at Frankfort.
Thus, as it happens to more than one of his compatriots, Joukofski, living entirely in a foreign country, and being indeed manifestly unwilling to return to his native land, considered the Occident miserably sunken and corrupted, and hoped only in "holy Russia" for the renovation and safety of a world overrun and possessed by the demon of revolution. The events of February only served to confirm him in these gloomy visions and to plunge him more and more into an uneasy mysticism, at times even irritating, but more often inoffensive and not devoid of a certain unhealthy charm. The campaign of Hungary caused a momentary diversion in his sad thoughts, and filled him with joy. It was not so much the glory with which the Russian army covered itself which pleased his mind; it was not even the triumph attained by the Russian sword, the sword of St. Michael, over "the impure beast:" his prayers, his hopes went far beyond. He hoped—thus he wrote to his imperial pupil that the great czar would profit by the power which God had given him and would "solve a problem on which the crusades had stranded;" that is to say, that he should drive the infidel from Byzantium, and liberate the holy land. Mme. Joukofski, although born a Protestant, felt in unison with her melancholy husband. Her soul had need of a "principle of authority," which failed her in the reformed confession, and which she sought one day in the Orthodox Church, to the great joy of the poet, without, however, being able to find there perfect rest.
Sometimes in the salon of the Joukofski the conversations were strangely varied and bizarre, on literature, politics, the glorious destinies of holy Russia, the inanity of modern civilization, the necessity of "a new eruption of Christianity," and on many matters invisible and "ineffable." Occasionally there fell into the midst of this salon, like a fantastic apparition, like a ghost from the world of spirits, a genius original and powerful in a very different way, but also tormented and troubled differently from the good court poet and former preceptor of the grand dukes. After having unveiled the hideous sores of Russian society with a vigorous, implacable hand, after having presented to his nation, in "Les Ames Mortes" and in "L'Inspecteur," a picture whose vices were appalling with truth and life, Nicholas Gogol suddenly gave up in despair civilization, progress, and liberty, and betaking himself to adore that which he had burned, valued nothing but barbarian Muscovy, saw no salvation but in despotism, thought himself in a state of "unpardonable" sin, and went in search of divine pity which always fled from him. Shortly afterwards he went from St. Petersburg to Rome, then to Jerusalem, then to Paris, everywhere seeking appeasement for his lacerated soul. Then he came from time to time to Joukofski, and passed whole weeks in his house, exhorting his friends to prayer, to repentance, and to contemplation of the divine mysteries. There were discussions without end, without a truce, on the "heathens of the Occident," on "a crusade," which was drawing near, on the redemption of sinful humanity by a race not yet defiled, and which had kept its faith. At several revivals the physicians were forced to interfere to put an end to a connection not without peril. One day Gogol was found, having died of inanition, prostrate before the holy images, in the adoration of which he had lost all thought of himself.... May we be pardoned for this short digression. It makes us acquainted with the state of the minds of a certain Russian society towards the end of the reign of Nicholas, and adds a curious stroke to the picture of the origins of the war in the Orient. One delights, however, to think of Alexander Mikhaïlovitch in this salon of the Joukofski, on an evening for instance, during such an intellectual conflict with the poor Gogol. The diplomat, equally cultivated and skeptical, was certainly made to recognize the bright and brilliant flashes which furrowed those driving clouds in a great, disordered mind; and he was made to unravel more than one strong and thrilling thought from the midst of those strange ramblings concerning an imminent crusade and the near deliverance of Zion.
Who would have thought it? It was these mystics, these men laboring under hallucinations, who had the true presentiment and saw the signs of the times! While Joukofski composed his "Commentary on Holy Russia," and Gogol mortified himself before the icônes, the Emperor Nicholas revolved in his mind the great thought of a crusade, and prepared in the most profound secrecy the mission of Prince Menchikof. The fact that the monarch who had done so much for preserving the peace and equilibrium of Europe had suddenly decided to throw such a fire-brand of war in the midst of the continent scarcely consolidated, while on the other hand the autocrat had awaited precisely this epoch of relative calm and of the reëstablishment of general order to announce his designs, in place of executing them boldly some years before during the revolutionary tempest which paralyzed almost all the Powers, his armies being already in the very heart of Hungary and commanding the banks of the Danube,—these facts will be for the impartial historian an evident proof of the good faith with which the czar undertook his fatal campaign, of the mystical blindness which guided his spirit at this time, and of the profound conviction which he had of the justice of his cause. Did Prince Gortchakof partake in the same measure of the illusions of his master? We doubt whether he did. We believe that, like the Kisselef, the Meyendorf, the Brunnow, and all the distinguished diplomats of Russia, without excepting the chancellor of the empire, the old Count Nesselrode, he was conscious of the great error toward which a proud prince, who allowed no objections and understood being "his own minister of foreign affairs," was tending. That naturally did not prevent the Russian representative to the German Confederation from fulfilling his duty with all the zeal which circumstances so critical made necessary, and from placing the various resources of his mind at the service of his country in the sphere of action which was reserved for him.