The Diplomatists of Europe

by M. Capefigue

At the Congress of Vienna, Metternich exercised a prodigious influence. The Emperor Francis had made a great family sacrifice, by abandoning the cause of Maria Louisa, and, in honour of this conduct, Europe fixed the assemblage of the sovereigns at Vienna. In the midst of balls, elegant amusements, and entertainments, Europe was to be remodelled on a different basis; the long conferences, which were to decide the fate of nations, were intermingled with flowers and pleasure. Prince Metternich, then in his forty-first year, saw the object of his anxieties and wishes fully accomplished; Vienna afforded the most brilliant spectacle; the sovereigns were assembled there, accompanied by a myriad of persons of princely rank, with their families, their courts, and their numerous suites. Love intrigues contended with the more serious business of this Congress, which had become the rendezvous of all the most distinguished characters in Europe. In the evening people assembled at the Royal Theatre, or in the brilliantly illuminated saloons, where, at the gaming-table, Blucher was employed in completing the ruin of his affairs, which he had begun in Paris.

Prince Metternich had the direction of the diplomatic party, while the empress, wife of Francis II., received the august strangers with the grace and dignity she was so well known to possess. The splendours of the Congress of Vienna left a strong impression upon the minds of the diplomatic characters who were present at it; they are associated in their memory with the fresh and pleasing recollection of the days of their youth, and, when you converse upon the subject with those whom death has spared, they speak in enthusiastic terms of the chivalric entertainments, the fancy balls of the empress, and the galanteries of the sovereigns. What brilliant parties were those of Lady Castlereagh, a female diplomatist, as active as the English prime minister in all negotiations relating to the management of the world!

In walking through the streets of Vienna, it was no uncommon sight to meet the three sovereigns of Russia, Prussia, and Austria, shaking hands, and giving each other marks of mutual confidence, and yet the most serious dissensions already prevailed in the Congress concerning the territorial arrangement of Europe. The quadruple alliance, as it had been settled in the treaty of Chaumont, was nothing but a military convention, intended to overturn the power of Napoleon; more a kind of plan of battle, or strategic stipulation, than a regular and political negotiation. After the fall of Napoleon, the allied powers resumed their natural interests. Thus, on the question of German supremacy, Prussia would naturally be inclined to side with Russia, and draw off from Austria; England, to oppose Russia in every thing relating to the sovereignty of Poland, which the Czar had already appropriated to himself; and France, though so terribly shaken by the late invasion, must endeavour to regain some degree of credit in Europe, by keeping on good terms with England and Austria. I must say, to the honour of the eldest branch of the Bourbons, that it always exhibited the most perfect dignity in its foreign relations, and perhaps the critical situation of our internal affairs was only produced by a fatal reaction of foreign dissatisfaction upon ourselves. From the first assembling of the Congress, private conferences had taken place between Lord Castlereagh, Metternich, and Talleyrand, to take into consideration the conditions of a treaty which might afford a counterpoise to the immense ascendancy Russia had obtained during the invasion of France and the events of 1814. By this treaty, which was signed in the month of March 1815, subsidies were agreed upon in the event of certain occurrences, and an engagement was entered into, that a fixed number of troops should always be in readiness for the casus belli, should Russia and Prussia attempt to disturb the equilibrium established among the European powers, and, according to a despatch of M. de Talleyrand, France was to maintain a half war establishment.

Metternich was the principal author of this secret treaty, because, after things had been replaced in their original state by the restoration of Louis XVIII., he began to be afraid of Russia and her immense weight: the question of Poland was the pretext. France manifested particular anxiety for the re-establishment of the King of Saxony, whose territory Prussia was desirous to absorb; while England, on the other hand, but little inclined to favour Russia, considered it indispensably necessary that Prussia should possess very extensive territorial strength, that she might serve as a constant barrier against northern invasion. It was necessary Metternich should combat this opinion for the sake of Saxony, and he did so in a series of papers opposed to those of Prince Hardenberg and Baron Humboldt. On the Polish question he perfectly agreed with England: at the bottom of Alexander's good-will towards the Poles, there lurked an idea of political aggrandisement; for, by making a kingdom of Poland, he well knew that the portion of that country that had accrued to Austria, as well as what had fallen to the share of Prussia, would sooner or later all unite under one sceptre. On no account would Alexander resign his paramount influence[6] over Warsaw. Things reached such a pitch, that Metternich issued orders that the Austrian armies should be maintained upon a war establishment, while Russia kept her troops in readiness, and appealed to the Poles to stand by their country. Whilst Metternich warmly opposed the establishment of Russian Poland as a kingdom under any circumstances, England was desirous it should be placed on so firm a foundation, as to serve as an obstacle to the encroachments of the Russian cabinet.

Serious events already obliged Metternich to turn his attention towards Italy, and here we must look back upon events of a rather earlier date. As far back as the month of February 1813, England had taken advantage of some dissatisfaction entertained by Murat, and still more by Caroline, Napoleon's own sister, to hasten the downfall of the French empire. All the good people of Buonaparte's family appear to have taken their royalty in good earnest, and to have fancied they possessed some consequence of their own, and might remain kings and queens independent of the great emperor. England, clever at taking advantage of these little absurdities, reminded Murat of the example of Bernadotte, and suggested the possibility of his becoming king of all Italy. While Napoleon was abusing his brother-in-law in his haughty and violent letters, reminding him that "the lion was not dead," the English cabinet soothed with the most flattering hopes the imagination of Murat, who had but a poor head for politics, and every thing was brought into play that could flatter the vanity of the most theatrical soldier of the imperial era.

At the close of the year 1813, Murat was already in the occupation of the Roman States, making an appeal to the patriots, for it was the custom of Europe at that time to march forward invoking the liberty of the people. To detach him from a bad cause, Metternich had particularly recourse to a gentle and tender influence, a pleasing reminiscence of his embassy in Paris, and he guaranteed to Murat the peaceable possession of the kingdom of Naples. After the re-establishment of the Bourbons in France gave rise to the strongest uneasiness in his astonished mind, King Joachim deputed the Duke of Serra Capriola to the Congress of Vienna, pleading his treaties with Austria and England; but his envoy was not admitted to the assembly, for a negotiation was on foot to replace the old dynasty of Sicily upon the throne, a negotiation conducted by Prince Talleyrand. Louis XVIII. had recommended the interests of his family to the Congress of Vienna, and M. de Talleyrand was to receive from the Neapolitan branch of the Bourbons a rich equivalent for his sadly compromised principality of Benevento. Austria was a little unmindful of her promises, and defended her engagements with Murat but very feebly; indeed, the general bent towards the restoration of the former order of things was so strong, that he who had usurped the crown of Naples was actually declared guilty of treason. In the English House of Commons, Lord Castlereagh read a private correspondence, carried on with Napoleon at the very moment when Murat was negotiating with the Alliance, which afforded evidence of a double policy having been pursued. Having become uneasy concerning the resolutions of the Congress of Vienna, he made vast military preparations, in concert with the patriots and the secret societies, with the intention of assuming the great crown of Italy. Metternich caused the Austrian armies to assemble en masse in the Lombardo-Venetian kingdom, where they awaited under arms the coming events.

The storm soon burst.

Napoleon then landed in the Gulf of Juan to attempt his heroic exploit of the Hundred Days. Matters were in a strangely complicated state at the Congress of Vienna, and Napoleon, looking at the affairs of Europe under one point of view only, had formed a fair judgment of the condition of the allied powers with regard to each other, without, however, comprehending that his presence on the Continent would unite them all in a terrible coalition. The very name of Buonaparte filled the old European sovereignties with so much alarm, that they recovered themselves with the utmost haste, in order to take measures for the general safety.

They owed to the activity of Talleyrand and Metternich the official declaration of the Congress of Vienna, which placed Buonaparte at the ban of Europe, simultaneously roused against the common enemy. The mystic spirit of Alexander entered willingly into the idea of a Christian alliance and a European crusade, and Metternich, after the system he had adopted ever since the rupture in 1813, could not depart from the military agreement entered into at Chaumont. Napoleon was declared at the ban of the empire by a revived custom of the ancient assemblies of the German Diet.

The pretended agreement between Napoleon, Austria, and England, at the time of his landing in the Gulf of Juan, was a romance invented afterwards by the imperialist party. Napoleon, who was well informed concerning the diplomatic state of things, might imagine a separation of interests among the cabinets a probable thing, but beyond this there was nothing. One of his first steps was to endeavour to place himself in communication with Metternich, and we again find Fouché in correspondence with the chief of the Austrian cabinet: they had never lost sight of each other since their memorable conference in 1809, and their acquaintance was renewed in 1813, when Fouché was appointed Governor-General of Illyria. I have reason to believe, that they had even then spoken to each other in confidence concerning the decline of power of that man, as the disaffected called Napoleon, and of the possibility of a regency under Maria Louisa; in 1813 the subject they would select for their conversation would probably be the abdication of the Emperor, which was one of the favourite ideas of the senatorial party. At the same time Napoleon wrote to Maria Louisa, he despatched, by means of some secret agents, confidential letters from intimate friends of the minister, and even from a princess of the imperial blood, between whom and Prince Metternich a tender feeling had existed: and finally, in order to sow dissension throughout the whole of Europe, he transmitted to the Emperor Alexander a copy of the treaty of the triple alliance, concluded against Russia in the month of March 1815, and signed by Lord Castlereagh, Talleyrand, and Metternich: his primary object was to break the powerful union among the sovereigns.