Memoirs of Prince Metternich 1815-1829 Vol. IV

By Prince Clemens Wenzel Lothar Metternich

Throughout Prince Metternich's glittering and successful career he sought to free Europe from the forces unleashed by the French Revolution. He was an enemy of change, despised by republicans and feared by radicals. Metternich's acute skill for diplomacy was instrumental in creating alliances to reverse dangerous republicanism and restore Europe's legitimate monarchies to their thrones.-Print ed.

English translation of Aus Metternich's nachgelassenen Papieren

• Language: English
• Publisher: Braunfell Books
• Release date: Aug 31, 2022
• ISBN: 9781839749100

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

TABLE OF CONTENTS 1

1823. 3

1824. 52

1825. 85

1826. 153

1827. 196

1828. 245

1829. 313

MEMOIRS OF PRINCE METTERNICH

1815-1829

EDITED BY

PRINCE RICHARD METTERNICH

THE PAPERS CLASSIFIED AND ARRANGED BY M. A. de KLINKOWSTRÖM

TRANSLATED BY MRS. ALEXANDER NAPIER

VOL. IV.

EVENTS OF THE DAY.

1823.

Extracts from Metternich’s private Letters from January 6 to August 29, 1823.

637. Vienna, January 6, 1823.—I have spent two free days in Munich, which I devoted entirely to work; I set out at four this morning, and here I am once more with my Penates. It was indeed a terrible journey in the ever-increasing cold!

In Munich things fell out as I had foreseen. It was singular to see how my mere appearance there caused the greatest expectation{1} among all the different parties. This again shows what a miserable thing faction is. It is only needed to place four energetic men, who know what they want and are agreed in the manner of carrying out their wishes, in the four corners of Europe, let them raise their voices and their arms at the same moment, and the whole concern vanishes like so much smoke. People are really very foolish. I can find no more power of judgment among them than among children, who if they see a great cloud they want to climb up and walk upon it, as if it were firm ground. When I speak of ‘judgment’ I take the word in its most positive signification and separate it entirely from mind or intellect, for this is generally possessed by the very men who suffer from want of judgment. I much fear that this is the case with Canning also.

638. January 30.—We have sustained an irreparable loss. Count Wrbna (Lord Chamberlain) is dead. All the necessary qualifications which were peculiar to him will not easily be found united in one man. He died after a severe illness contracted in Verona.

This morning I had an interview with the Emperor. He is in great perplexity, and so am I. He asked me whether I was inclined to take the place; a question which I answered very promptly in the negative, for, if I know myself at all, it is not possible for me to take on myself another burden, and most certainly not that of service at Court. Better die naturally than be killed by needle-pricks.

I am just reading Madame Campan’s Memoirs of Marie Antoinette. I have hardly got to the middle of the first volume, but it is quite clear to me that the work will do more harm than good. It represents many things in a ludicrous light which now really appear so. The book will do no good, for the conclusion to which it leads is not much more than that Marie Antoinette was a very good, young, and beautiful woman; but what is called ‘respect’ suffers much thereby. No analysis ought to be attempted, especially of so high a personage, whose traditional claims and position are so important, because the analysis itself destroys that kind of feeling. The spirit of the age is satiated with works like these Memoirs; if as with a sponge on a watercolour drawing you wash away the colours you come to nothing but the bare ground.

This is indeed known well enough, and is no new discovery. The only question is whether the painting is worth the price, and above all whether it is of greater value than the materials out of which it is made.

639. February 2.—Today I have news from Paris to the 28th ult. Some perplexities are preparing in London. I, for my part, am not sorry, for amid the positive evils of the affair I prefer an undecided attitude. What will come out of it all? Heaven alone knows!

The King of Württemberg has allowed himself to be carried away by a folly which he will find very serious.{2} From blind rage against me he now takes counsel only of his passions, which are of all counsellers the worst. If I had prescribed his course to him he could not have carried out more exactly what I have for a long time thought of him. Still it is extraordinary how the anger of senseless people in itself leads to mischief. This truth finds its application in public as well as private life. People of this stamp knock down the whole erection, and that too when it seems to be on the point of completion. The Emperor Alexander will not take the matter lightly; that I think I can answer for.

The news of the 28th will make a great sensation in London; but not much on me, for it is what I expected.{3}

640. March 1.—I have read Las Cases through. It interested me, because I was mixed up in the whole affair. It is the work of a fanatical adherent, who quite forgets that there is no more useless labour than to point out that Bonaparte was an excellent man. I have already often declared that, according to my opinion, Bonaparte was in no wise wicked as this word is understood in common life. He had too much practical understanding for that. He was a very strong man, and in the different setting of another age he would have become a very great man. Las Cases, moreover, experienced from Bonaparte the usual treatment. He made use of his pen to have the romance of his life written. But history is not to be made romantic thus, and the Napoleon of Las Cases bears the same resemblance to the true Napoleon that the Achilles of the opera does to the immortal Achilles himself. I have, moreover, stumbled upon more than one positive he.

641. March 5.—I am busy about a very anxious work. Paris now presents a most peculiar spectacle. I know the ground in Paris very well, and my knowledge of the city in the time of strength enables me to judge of its position in its present time of weakness. In this country everything is unexpected; even what seems reasonable is only so outwardly, not really: commotion is here the consequence of excited passions, and of all these not one springs from true feeling. Never since there was such a thing as business in the world was an affair handled as it is at this moment in France. It really looks as if people in this country were trying to refine upon suicide. They drive forward, but at the same time bring the car so close to the precipice that it must inevitably turn over.

April 4.—I send Brunetti to Paris, and if possible to Spain, where he will fill the office of ambassador to the King, who is once more free. This is the design of Heaven, and if the French do nothing stupid the King will shortly rule once more.

Affairs are now of a very delicate nature, not because they are extremely difficult in themselves, but because it is to the French Government that the conduct of them naturally falls, and that is weak and is itself breaking up. Happily the other great Powers will act with decision. It borders on the miraculous that I have succeeded in bringing about such a harmony of procedure between the Emperor Alexander and ourselves. When it is considered from what opposite points the two Empires have started to arrive at this harmony, it seems like a dream.

The old Furstenbergs celebrated their golden wedding yesterday. It was a touching occasion on account of the number of the present descendants; the third and fourth generations had to be omitted, as no place could be found for them at table. Prince John Liechtenstein gave the banquet.

For the rest there is nothing new, no one dying and no one dead. Melanie is better, but she must (according to my opinion, which is shared by her physician) still take the greatest care. She is the same young girl who some years ago so much resembled my Clementine; she has, however, much altered. She is now tall and very pretty, but in quite another style from Clementine. Laurence has immortalised my Clementine; he painted her just as she took her flight from this world.

The Opera is excellent. They are playing ‘Othello,’ the ‘Barber,’ and ‘Zelmira.’ The Italian company at the Vienna Opera is the best I know. It contains no mediocrities, and the first singers are the best Italians. The Opera affords me great delight, for my life is so monotonous that the sound of something quite different from what I am daily condemned to hear thrills through my whole being.

642. April 30.—Here everyone is occupied only with Spain and the Italian Opera. If the war goes on as well as the Opera, Europe is saved. I do not know whether Victor heard Lablache sing in Milan. He seems to me like the ‘Stephansthurm’ that tried to sing with its great bell, but he also brings out tones that would do honour to a nightingale.

All Vienna is in spirit on the Ebro. The progress of the French war operations makes the same impression here as if it were a victorious Austrian army.

643. May 1.—This day’s date has a pleasant sound, but the weather does not correspond with the time of year. This day is generally an epoch in Vienna life. All walk to the public promenade and surrender themselves to the pleasure of the first signs of spring. Unhappily it has hardly begun to grow green, and the first .shoots are still in bud. My poor garden is much more like the age of infirmity than that of youthful freshness. If it goes on in this way I shall lose the trees which I saved in 1822. It is literally true that it has not rained since April in last year.

What must touch most painfully the feelings of great speakers like the British Ministers is, that while reading the Parliamentary debates Europe shrugs its shoulders! In all the dreary wastes of the daily journals I have not found a word, not one single word, in their praise. It is just the Radical papers that have the sharpest and most vigorous criticisms. What, then, does Canning want? Whose part will he take? What is he about? For, after all, a man must have some object or end in view.{4} I really begin to lose the very small portion of respect I had (not without difficulty, God forgive me) attained for the man. Canning keeping step with the Minister President of His Most Christian Majesty! A fine century for this sort of men—for fools who pass for intellectual but are empty; for moral weaklings, who are always ready to threaten with their fists from a distance when the opportunity is good. When obliged to contemplate all this, as I am, to hear everything and read everything that I must hear and read—this really requires a kind of endurance which almost amounts to virtue. But how fruitless is this virtue and how toilsome its exercise! What a pity it is that Wellington is so timid; a man with so upright a heart and so noble a countenance!

644. May 15.—The anniversary of my birth is dear to me, for but for that event I could neither have loved nor hated. I am busy preparing for the reception of my family; my sad, solitary life comes to an end, and my heart once more awakes. I am not made for loneliness and I need life about me. The absolute stillness around is to me a symbol of death. I like too to see the delight in social life in other men. I do not trust anchorites: they are mostly tiresome or tired out, and, what is worse, they are often wicked men.

645. May 17.—My family arrived this day, I having gone some miles to meet them. They are all in good health; my wife and children look extremely well, and the latter—whom I have not seen for three years—are much grown. I should have known Leontine, but the little one (Princess Hermine) has entirely altered. She is very like my mother, possesses therefore some of my charms. Victor is very well. The children cried with joy to see me again. What comforts me is that long absence has weakened the deep sorrow of my wife on re-entering the house where, as a mother, she suffered so much. I have quite altered the place, and put out of sight everything that would remind her of that sad time. Providence has given to the lapse of time great power over human feeling, and this is not the least of its blessings.

646. May 22.—Spanish affairs go on as they must go now that they have been taken in hand. What a miserable Power is that which is founded on error, is only supported by lies, and has no strength but the weakness of its opponents. This is a portrait of Liberalism. No sooner are its pretensions examined than they are seen to be without foundation; and when its resources are investigated nothing is forthcoming. And yet there are people who claim to be intelligent who hold by Liberal theories and glory in their results.

That which hinders so many persons from obeying truth, from giving themselves up to it entirely, is the utter want of all tinsel peculiar to it. It is the destiny of truth to be developed with ever-increasing power; we grasp it in its early immaturity, and when the day comes that it shines forth in all its innate splendour it makes its way without our help, and all merit seems to belong to it alone. Those who have nourished it in its early beginning, and have watched over its progress to perfection, are quickly wiped out of the memory of men. This is not a result flattering to vanity, and they are few who devote themselves to that which confers so little on their love of self. This is my confession of faith and my judgment on myself.

647. May 27.—I once more live in domestic happiness, as if I had never been without it, and enjoy it with true delight. Victor is much liked here; he is thought extremely well bred, which is a great satisfaction to me. Certainly his good carriage and pleasant manners strike one in comparing him with the other young men here. My wife’s health is apparently much improved, and I put aside my fears for the future. Although I only see my family at breakfast and dinner it is the greatest comfort to me. Man is not intended to be alone, and those who assert the contrary are unhealthy either in mind or heart.

648. July 2.—I have been in bed for ten days in consequence of taking cold. Four days ago I thought myself well enough to be up all day, which had the evil result of sending me to bed again for three days. Today I feel the return of health, but I shall not be quite restored till the twenty-one days are over. I know by experience that so much time is needed when once fever attacks me.

649. July 18.—What a pity it is that the Queen of the Sea and the sometime ruler of the world should lose her salutary influence. What has become of the great and noble British Empire? What has become of its men and its orators, its feeling for right and duty, and its ideas of justice? This is not the work of a single individual, of one weak and feeble man; Canning is but the personification of the symptoms of the terrible malady which runs through every vein of the fatherland—a malady which has destroyed its strength and threatens the weakened body with dissolution.

July 20.—A letter from Palmella{5} informs me that his King is adored by his faithful people, and that he will reward them with a charte à la française. That which Palmella thinks of doing tomorrow, or perhaps even began yesterday, he has already attempted in Brazil. What he desires and is now doing consists simply in making use of the so-called remedies which our clever generation has discovered. His prescription runs thus: You see death before you, take poison; but our fathers said, You are poisoned, take an antidote. This kind of cure seems too simple in our day—that is, to a generation so flooded with light. There are, however, some very practical men, who know very well what our fathers knew—that poison is deadly; but this is the very reason why others recommend it to free from death. And who are these wise men who boldly place themselves on the standpoint of truth? The Radicals! I will do them full justice. I thoroughly understand them, and I much prefer people whom I understand to those who are not to be understood chiefly because they are themselves groping about in darkness.

650. August 9.—In the last few days I have sent off despatches in every direction. Everywhere there is confusion of ideas, weakness in carrying them out, and disgust for those who desire only the good, and for that very reason strive for nothing but the triumph of sound common sense.

The Emperors Francis and Alexander will meet at the beginning of October. The Russian monarch has invited the Austrian, who has accepted the invitation with the greatest pleasure. The Emperor Alexander desired that it should be kept secret for his sake, and for the sake of the cause which both monarchs look upon as their own. Great and extraordinary interests are bound up in this meeting. It will make much noise, like a gunshot, but only as a signal, not as a war cry.

My views regarding Turkey are different from those generally entertained. Turkey does not make me anxious, but France and Spain. Pozzo di Borgo will certainly not rejoice over the meeting. We shall at the most be eight days together, which is time enough for those who understand how to make use of it. It is not yet decided whether the journey to Italy will take place at the beginning or the end of the winter.

651. August 15.—Vienna is empty. Six rational people are not to be brought together. I say rational, not pleasant, people; for six pleasant persons is a number difficult to bring together in any country and at any time whatever.

For some years this day was, to me, always signalised by an effusion of Napoleonic temper: the blows of the great exile of St. Helena either fell on me or were dealt to someone in my presence. Years have passed away since those now famous days, but the power of the date is still so fresh that on each return of it past impressions return so forcibly that I feel as if I were placed once more where I was then so much against my will.

The Bonaparte family are having an answer written to Las Cases. Several of its members accuse him of lying and calumny. The fact is that with regard to the family it was not Las Cases, but Napoleon who lied, or at least said what his brothers and sisters did not like to hear.

August 21.—The meeting of the two monarchs is fixed for October 6. Of course I shall be there. The thing in itself, apart from the importance of what it includes, will have an effect like the firing of a gun of the first calibre. I am far from being a friend of noise, but if it cannot be avoided I endeavour to use it for positive and salutary ends. This is, too, under the given circumstances, part of my plan. My head is at work, and my blood boils. God grant that something may come of it, and that that something may be good.

652. August 29.—The mistaken steps taken by Villèle since Verona are quite explained by what he has done today. The measure is now full, and he will only add to the awkwardness of his position without attaining his object. The French, who are gifted with much imagination, think they can understand the Revolution because they have endured it. This is just as if a woman who has had several children should say she perfectly understands confinements. Both forget that there are two entirely different things—the fact of enduring and the art of assisting. There was but one single man in France who understood how to master the Revolution, and that man was Bonaparte. The King’s Government inherited from him, not the Revolution, but the counter-Revolution, and they have not known how to make use of this inheritance. I judge of the Revolution more truly than most men who have been in the midst of it. It is with me as with those who watch a battle from very high ground. It is only from thence that everything is seen; in the midst of the fray the eye cannot reach beyond a given circle, and that circle is always small. From the mistakes which the French Government have already made in Spain, no one can say what the end will be: if it turns out well (which is possible), then it will be the good bursting forth and triumphing of itself over everything in spite of both friends and foes. This is my view, and experience will confirm it. France is today like a vessel on a stormy sea guided by inexperienced pilots.

I expect to leave Vienna on September 16, stay four or five days at my house in the country, go to Czernowitz on October 3, and return to Vienna about October 25 or 26.

THE JOURNEY TO CZERNOWITZ.

Extracts from Metternich’s Letters to his Wife from September 25 to October 30, 1823.

653. From Rzeszow. 657. Arrival at Lemberg—illness. 658. Fertility of Galicia. 659. Detained in Lemberg. 660. Convalescence. 661. Arrival of Dr. Jäger—Nesselrode sent by the Emperor Alexander to Lemberg. 662. The unhappy situation of the invalid. 683. Nesselrode and Tatistscheff in Lemberg. 664. The town of Lemberg. 665. From Tarnow—Emperor Francis’s regard for Metternich—a letter from Emperor Alexander. 666. From Neutitschein.

Metternich to his Wife.

656. Rzeszow, September 25, 1823.—I have arrived here a few minutes before the post leaves, and I cannot deny myself the pleasure of sending you news of myself and my proceedings. And good news too; I accomplished the journey most happily and quickly. The same day that I started I arrived at Teschen at eleven in the evening. Yesterday at nine I reached Bochnia, and here I am at Rzeszow at five o’clock. I shall leave tomorrow at daybreak, so as to be at Lemberg by eight or nine in the evening.

The country is quite different from what I had imagined. It is very beautiful and highly cultivated. The entrance into Galicia is mountainous, and is like Upper Austria; then comes the plain, enclosed and wooded and very pretty. What spoils the country is that Jews are met at every step; no one is to be seen but Jews: they swarm here. I travel with M. de Tatistscheff; I have taken him into my carriage, which he naturally prefers to his calèche. I hope you have all returned happily to Vienna, and that the cause which deprived me of the pleasure of having Victor with me has disappeared.

654. Lemberg, September 28.—I arrived here a little after midnight, after a very rapid journey. I stopped an hour at Lançut, which I saw thoroughly; then I took luncheon at Przeworsk. Lançut is a very fine country house in the style of Louis XV. Przeworsk is simple but very pretty; it is not a château, but an English house, neat and pretty. Here I awoke with one of those rheumatic feverish attacks which keep me in bed for two or three days without rhyme or reason. The doctor does not think my pulse bad, but I am in a continual perspiration. Today I am better—that is to say, I perspire less. I shall, however, remain in bed for three days, to prevent a return of the malady. I can tell you nothing of Lemberg, for I have seen nothing. My house is very fine and well arranged.

655. September 29.—Yesterday I wrote to you from my bed; my indisposition (it has never been anything more) is passing away. The doctor has not once found me with fever, but merely a slight irritation which disappeared in the evening of the first day. I remain in bed, however, for two days; first to make sure of my recovery, and then to avoid being overdone with audiences, presentations, and fêtes of every kind. Potocka made a point of my passing the Rubicon. I only just escaped having to get up from my bed to be present at the ball, by means of the most vigorous protestations. For the rest, say nothing about it, for the poor people here are excellently disposed, but they are so thoroughly miserable that it would be difficult to know how to preserve them from ruin. This country is exceedingly productive, but it lacks all means of exportation, so that proprietors are literally almost dying of misery although up to the neck in superfluities. There are many parts of Galicia where a pound of beef costs one kreutzer; here it costs three. Two measures of oats cost a florin, Vienna value. One must not laugh at people so unhappy.

656. October 2.—I have not written to you for the last two days, for I have nothing to say but to complain of annoyances here. My health is a little deranged in the same way that has given me so much trouble sometimes in Vienna. Since the departure of the Emperor’s physician I have seen the best doctor here. As my illness is more catarrhal than rheumatic, and as my eyes are also much inflamed, I have sent for a physician, a pupil of Beer and a friend of Jäger, who has done all that was necessary for me. My maladies, too, are all decreasing; you know I must always go through the neuvaine. My doctors declare that, so far as doctors are infallible, there ought to be nothing to prevent my starting on my travels again next Monday. You can understand how this accident annoys me. My illness is nothing, and I must take it patiently, for it seems to be part of my nature periodically to pass through these crises. I only suffer from annoyance, for I have not even any fever; but business weighs upon me, body and mind. No one else can do what has to be done, and this thought is in itself enough to cause fever.

657. October 10.—I am now quite well, my dear, after having passed thirteen days in all kinds of illness. I now feel convalescent, and indeed I feel it so strongly that I must have been really ill. I was fortunate enough to fall into the hands of a straightforward, practical physician. I feel that he at once seized on the peculiarities of my nature, and especially on the singularities and anomalies caused by so trying a life. My illness was partly from cold and partly the consequence of the anxieties of the Congress. Now, to cure the first of these maladies is very possible, but I defy any physician in the world to cure the second; so that my nervous system fell into a state of febrile agitation. God has preserved me and raised me from my bed of suffering, and the interview at Czernowitz has terminated, or will terminate, just as I desired. The Emperor will return here on the 12th. Nesselrode will come to conclude the work with me here. It will be the work of twenty-four hours.

658. October 13.—Jäger arrived here this evening; he will give you an account of the state in which he found me. My health begins to recover from the shock it has sustained, and my recovery will be confirmed by the excellent state of affairs. I shall have some months without severe labour. Nesselrode arrived here last night; he was with me this morning for two hours.. The Emperor Alexander sent him to me to obtain my ‘placet’ to all the despatches. Far from refusing it, I was able to approve with all my heart. All this business, which I may date from my bed at Lemberg, will do honour to the two Emperors.{6}

All that Jäger told me of the family pleased me exceedingly; I assure you that good news will improve my health more than medicine. My malady was complicated by moral anxieties; consequently, moral remedies are the most efficacious, and none are so much so as news of your health.

October 17.—I am most thankful for the oranges you had the happy inspiration to send me; I had tried every possible way to procure them here, but in vain. Hier blühen die Citronen nicht! Jäger found me already getting better. I was delighted to see him, because he knows me so thoroughly, and his approbation of all that had been done by the doctor here reassured me. I am quite myself again now. My illness was one of those tiresome affections, catarrhal or rheumatic, which always send me to bed for ten days or a fortnight. In the usual state of things the inconvenience (for it is not a real illness) would have passed off as on former occasions. But just imagine my situation. Alone—the only man knowing anything of the business in bed at Lemberg, and the two Emperors tête à tête at Czernowitz. Two results only possible, immediate war between Russia and the Porte or immediate peace; and I, holding peace in my hands, and alone knowing the means of securing peace, ill in bed! I swear to you that no common strength of mind and will was needed to keep me from giving way. I did not succumb morally, but my physique received a terrible shock. I was fifteen nights without sleeping, and I was on the brink of a nervous fever. Now I have told you everything. I am still weak, but as my appetite is returning I shall soon regain my strength. Heaven has protected me in the midst of these troubles and anxieties. I had so far advanced matters before the meeting took place that the force of things of itself brought them to a termination without me. Peace is secured; everything is arranged in a marvellous manner, and the triumph is complete. This is a blessing for all Europe, and particularly for me; it gives me some chance of the repose after which I sigh like a bird after the open air, and which has fled from me during twenty years of uninterrupted labour.

659. October 19.—The Emperor left yesterday. I am here with Nesselrode and Tatistscheff, busy with the numerous despatches that we have to send off to all parts of the world, and also with the nomination of a Russian agent at Constantinople. I hope, however, to be able to leave either this week or next. We learned yesterday the deliverance of the King of Spain; I await the particulars with curiosity. If this deliverance is complete—that is to say, if there is no defect in the armour—peace is given to Europe for some time; and the coincidence of peace in the East and in the West is not the least singular of these facts. I beg you, my dear, to arrange everything so that on arriving at Vienna I can at once go to my rooms. If God grant me six months of quiet, and I can pass them in a good climate, away from business, or at any rate not in its very midst, I think I should recover ten years of life and health.

660. October 21.—I seize a few moments before the departure of a courier I am sending to Vienna to tell you, my dear, that I am going on well. My strength begins to return, my appetite is good, and I try to accustom myself to the air by taking a short drive every morning. This is the least I can do when I remember the nice little journey of 200 leagues which I must take as soon as possible. Tomorrow I shall fix the day for my departure: it will probably be Saturday. I have finished my business with Nesselrode, who has gone this morning to rejoin his master. Tatistscheff leaves tomorrow for St. Petersburg, and I should like to rest two or three days longer. I was greatly tempted to leave on Friday, but I have relinquished the idea from respect to human nature. They want me to see the neighbourhood of Lemberg. I have never seen people so in love with their native town as they are here. The road to the right is said to give a view like that of Naples; that to the left is like the Brühl near Vienna. A nearer view shews a town in a hole, and this hole wants both water and trees. The town is half fine and half ugly. There are many houses in it better constructed than those in Vienna, for there is some architectural style about them; then intervals either empty or crowded with barracks. The Eastern aspect begins to make its appearance.

P.S.—I cannot tell you, my dear, how happy I am to leave this place; I am dreadfully weary of it. All my life I shall remember the month of October 1823.

661. Tarnow, October 27.—I left Lemberg the day before yesterday. I slept the first night at Przemysl, the same place where a month ago to a day I had the ill luck to fall ill. Yesterday I slept at Rzeszow. Tomorrow I shall make a very short stay. I shall sleep at Bochnia, the day after at Bielitz, a place on the frontier of Galicia. In all this I follow the Emperor’s directions, for he ‘wishes me everywhere to lodge where he has been. Consequently I am everywhere excellently well accommodated. I have the houses of the captains of the Circles. The courier who precedes me regulates the temperature of the rooms, so that I am everywhere as if at home. In Poland politeness requires that a room should be made excessively hot when prepared for a guest. The temperature was, however, moderated for me, to the great astonishment of the proprietors of the houses, who had been preparing to receive me, as an invalid, with a temperature two or three degrees in excess of what mere politeness required.

For the rest I cannot sufficiently praise the anxious kindness of the Emperor. He did not pass a single day without coming to see me at Lemberg; he sat for hours by the side of my bed, or, after his return to Czernowitz, in my sitting-room, hot to talk business, but to amuse me and chat about trifles. It was he who chose my physician at Lemberg, telling me he would have left me his own, but that he was convinced Dr. Massow was the better man. All along the road I found it was the Emperor who had arranged for my accommodation and given the most exact orders that I should be treated exactly as himself. Well as I had long known the true friendship of the Emperor, I confess that I should not have believed him capable of such delicate attentions. In the midst of all this some very odd things necessarily occurred, which I will tell you, and they will make you laugh.

When it was decided that I could not accompany his Majesty to Czernowitz, and I had chosen Mercy to take my place, I sent the latter to inform the Emperor. The Emperor, with his usual bonhomie, then said to Mercy, ‘We should make a fine embassy of that. I know but little of the affair; you knew nothing till yesterday. Between us we should make a miserable figure. If we cannot get on I will send the Emperor Alexander to Prince Metternich. He will do more with him in half an hour than you and I in eight days.’ Mercy could not help laughing, and the Emperor joined in the chorus. However, everything was arranged, and well arranged too. The Emperor of Russia, when he sent Nesselrode (who remained with me eight days to manage everything), wrote me a letter which was not that of a monarch, but of a friend disappointed of the meeting to which he had looked forward. I beg you to ask an audience of the Emperor, in order to thank him for yourself and for me for all the kindness and attention I have told you he has shown me. You will not mention the story of Mercy. According to my reckoning I shall be at Vienna on November 2 by dinner time.

Neutitschein, October 30.—Here I am in Moravia, my dear—that is to say, in a civilised country, and so near to Vienna that the courier will be there in thirty hours. I have never seen anything more striking than the change from Galicia to Moravia. The country is the same, and is as fine on one side as the other; but the first village on this side is the first which gives the idea of being inhabited by men. No rags; the houses neat and the inhabitants well clothed; no Jews; no squalor, misery, and death. Two days ago, in a very low temperature, I saw peasants working in the fields with no garments but a shirt, and their children from two to four years old sitting naked in the field their parents were tilling. I was inclined to cry out like the French soldier, ‘Ah! les malheureux appellent cela une patrie!’ The first little Silesian I saw had a nice cap and frock, and was carried by his mother, dressed in a good pelisse with thick red worsted stockings and good shoes. I could have wept over the one and embraced the others.

RETURN FROM LEMBERG.

Extracts from Metternich’s private Letters from November 8 to December 20, 1823.

662. Vienna, November 8.—I was very ill; certain external conditions so increased my malady that I should soon have arrived at that bourne from whence no one returns. A merciful God and the Emperor Alexander saved me, and everything went so well that my presence in Czernowitz, anxious as I was to be there, was not necessary. Everything is concluded and peace maintained; for which honour is due to the Russian Emperor, who kept his word to the Austrian minister. He was, moreover, endlessly good to me; he gave me proofs of his sympathy, not of the commonplace kind customary to monarchs, but as from one man bound to another by the same noble aims. For eight days Nesselrode was with me at Lemberg; he could not in everything take the place of his Imperial master, but he strove to carry out his intentions with that hearty loyalty we know in him. I am still weak and thin. My own physician, who has watched me since my return, tells me that the severe attack I have had is a proof that my nature is stronger than I supposed, but advises me to avoid all great efforts of the brain. The counsel is more easily given than followed. Happily the situation in general is such as to assist me.

663. November 18.—I have reassumed my usual habits, but I must still be somewhat careful. It is a real piece of good fortune for me that my convalescence and that of Europe advance with equal steps. I have not had so little work to do for a long time, the whole social body is inclined to improve. Many parts are already healthy; others are becoming so: those that are unhealthy share the fate of withered branches—they break off. The French Radical papers take the greatest pains to avoid the confession that they have been entirely mistaken: they are now trying lies and calumnies and prophecies.

November 25.—My lungs are still very much affected, and if they were not sound it might go badly with me. I still need five or six weeks to make a thorough recovery. I should not require as many days if I could but fly over the Alps. My numerous ties, however, will not allow this, and it is a part of my torture to see the snowy mountain-tops and not to be able to get over them. The only news that reaches me is from London, and it is always the same. English diplomacy at present is careful to spoil whatever lies within its reach. People in London see so wrongly that they will go wrong there again as they have so often gone wrong before. But Canning’s nature is still a very remarkable one. In spite of all his lack of discernment the genius which he undoubtedly has, and which I have never questioned, is never clouded. He is certainly a very awkward opponent; but I have had opponents more dangerous, and it is not he who chiefly compels me to think of him. This says everything. On July 18 Canning thought that the French expedition would miscarry. It has, however, succeeded; and then forthwith he represented the question, which had become a European one, as purely English, and, indeed, as an English triumph. At any rate he should not have allowed his despatch of July 18 to go forth.

December 20.—I daily ask myself wherefore Providence has sent me into the world too soon or too late. It is a sad lot for a statesman to have to fight his way among perpetual storms. The world enjoys a few moments of peace all the more from being exposed to continual storms, and I should have been happy in a time when I could have had an equal amount of both. Had destiny willed it, I could have fulfilled my part as a statesman, and with little trouble made, for myself a name; but the course of my life has been amid gales and storms, and such adverse influences bend the body more than the soul. If I had been fifty years old fifty years ago I should have been a more imposing figure than I am now.

THE WÜRTTEMBERG CABINET AND THE RESULTS OF THE CONFERENCES AT VERONA.

Metternich to Baron Oechsner, January 29, 1823.

670. You are not, perhaps, sir, aware of the existence of a circular despatch which the Cabinet of Württemberg has addressed to its diplomatic agents à propos of that which the ambassadors of the three monarchs have received after the conferences at Verona. This document has only come to our knowledge through a copy sent to us from Frankfurt, since which its existence has been confirmed by the envoy of Württemberg at Berlin. Every courier brings us from different directions extracts from this despatch, and it will very likely appear immediately in some French or English journal, while the Imperial Court itself has never been officially informed of a matter in which it has so direct an interest. The despatch in question (No. 672) contains a serious attack against the three monarchs who signed the despatch of December 14 (No. 632), with a criticism of their transactions and their words; lastly, it contains a formal protest against the consequences which the political procedure of the three allied Courts might have on the independence of those of the second order. It seems to the Emperor that a manifesto so unexpected and so unprovoked cannot be approached except in the system and forms of that solidarity which, happily for the interests of Europe, is established between his Imperial Majesty and his august friends and allies. We shall, then, reserve our reply till we are able to act in concert with the Emperor of all the Russias and his Prussian Majesty.

Meanwhile the Emperor our master cannot hesitate a moment, for his part, to deny any portion ‘of the heritage of influence in Europe arrogated to himself by Napoleon.’ Nothing is further from the Emperor’s thoughts than the claim to exercise any interference whatever with the independent States. Neither the conduct of his Cabinet at Verona nor the terms of the declaration furnish the slightest pretext for such an accusation. All Europe has been a witness of the cares and efforts with which his Imperial Majesty has constantly met the torrent of general disorganisation advancing so rapidly over peoples and empires. The Emperor’s voice has not always been listened to, his advice has not always been followed; but his Majesty never expected that any Cabinet could find in his noble and pure intentions a project for interfering with public rights by disquieting innovations. Firm in principle and conscience, the Emperor is not accessible to injustice. A very different sentiment fills his mind; it is that of the most sincere and profound regret at seeing the finest of causes misunderstood by those whose lasting interest it ought to be to defend it.

You will communicate this despatch to Count Wintzingerode.

CIRCULAR DESPATCH OF THE WÜRTTEMBERG CABINET.

(Extract.)

671. Stuttgart, January 2, 1823.—You are aware no doubt that the Courts which did not take part in the Congress of Verona have just received official information of its existence, its objects, and its results.

It is important that your Excellency should be acquainted with the point of view from which your Court regards this interesting document.

Whatever may be the confidence claimed by the enlightenment and disinterestedness of the Powers who have inherited the influence Napoleon had arrogated to himself in Europe, it is difficult not to fear for the independence of the lesser States if this protection (tutelle) should be exercised by sovereignty less enlightened or less generous.

Certainly nothing could be more foreign to our thoughts than to dispute with the sovereigns who make so many and painful sacrifices to the maintenance of the monarchical principle (that palladium of civilised people) the right of watching over the welfare of Europe; but the means by which this surveillance acts seems to us to introduce principles more or less disquieting. Treaties concluded, congresses assembled in the interest of the whole European family, without the States of the second order being permitted to assert their views and make known their particular interests, the forms even with which they are admitted to the treaties and made acquainted with the decisions of the preponderating Courts, and the expectation of meeting with no difference of opinion in any of their allies—these different innovations in diplomacy certainly justify an express reserve of the inalienable rights of each independent State.

The causes of independence and the monarchical principle are both blended with the causes of Italy and Spain; the causes of humanity and religion with the cause of the Greeks; while the cause of general peace, common to all, does not allow us to consider the objects of the last Congresses, especially that of Verona, as foreign to Powers of the second class: and all these justify our regret that we were excluded, and that the German Confederation was not summoned there, although two of its members were at Verona and the whole can hardly be subordinate to the parts....

Comments on the Circular by Metternich.

1. No act, no word, of the three monarchs has authorised the Württemberg Cabinet to ascribe to them any intention of treating independent States as minors. Far from claiming to exercise any kind of guardianship whatever, these monarchs, even on occasions when their help was implored, have always respected, to the point of scrupulosity, the authority, independence, and rights of the legitimate sovereigns to whom they have granted their aid.

The monarchs have most certainly the right of watching over their own States, and inviting other States to follow their example; but this is a very different thing from a claim to the right of general surveillance—a chimera gratuitously imagined by men who make it their business to calumniate the monarchs. As little have the monarchs introduced disquieting principles. They have introduced nothing, made no innovations; the only object of their efforts is to maintain public rights and individual rights as they at present exist.

2. The allied monarchs are reproached with ‘concluding treaties, assembling congresses, without States of the second class being permitted to make known their views and particular interests,’ &c.

If we go back to 1814, 1815, and 1818, there have doubtless been treaties concluded, accepted, and signed, sometimes directly, sometimes by adhesion, by all the European States. At these epochs the sovereigns, founders of the Great Alliance, were considered by the unanimous desire of the Governments as the interpreters of their common interests, and consequently fully authorised to deliberate and treat in the name of the Governments. It would then be very extraordinary if after their having so many times testified the liveliest gratitude for the manner in which they acquitted themselves of this honourable task, they should be five years afterwards taxed with having done wrong in the services they rendered to Europe. Since the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle no general treaty has been either concluded or proposed....

By what title, under what pretext, can the Württemberg Court claim to be admitted to the conferences at Verona? The affairs of Italy only concern the Powers which have treated with the Courts of Naples and Piedmont concerning the military occupation of part of their territory. France and England, though having plenipotentiaries at Verona, have themselves acknowledged that it was the part of those Cabinets who signed the conventions of 1821 to arrange with the Courts of Naples and Turin the measures which their own safety and the general state of Italy would allow them to adopt for the relief of the country occupied by the auxiliary troops. The questions relating to Spain which were discussed at Verona were entirely within the province of the Powers, who believed it to be for their own dignity and interest, as well as that of social order, to occupy themselves with it. Russia, Austria, and Prussia were obliged to consult other Governments to know whether they ought to break off their diplomatic relations with a country convulsed by factions, or to determine what sort of engagements they were under towards France when France was menaced with war with that same country. What the Cabinet of Stuttgart calls la cause des Grecs was in the eyes of the monarchs who met at Verona reduced to an examination of the most suitable means for preserving peace in the East, a question which requires an exact knowledge, not only of the state of things in those countries, but also of the antecedent negotiations, and in which the ministers of the German States would have probably found considerable difficulty in giving their advice.

The Cabinet of Stuttgart expresses its regret that the Germanic Confederation had not been summoned to the Congress of Verona, ‘two of its members being there, and the whole can hardly be subordinate to the parts.’ It is evident that there was no more reason for the intervention of the Corps Germanique in deliberations on the affairs of Italy, Spain, and the East, than the States of which it is composed. If the monarchs assembled had intended to occupy themselves with the affairs of Germany, they would not have excluded from their councils the princes called by their position to vote in such questions. But this was not the case, and the circular of December 14 makes no allusion to the affairs of