Walter Alison Phillips

“ If, however, a prince of Wales and duke of Cornwall should die in the lifetime of the sovereign, leaving a son and heir, both dignities are extinguished, because his son, although he is his heir, is neither a king of England nor the first-begotten son of a king of England. ”

“ But though, in his own opinion, triumphantly vindicated, he did not again take office; he maintained, none the less, as a critic and adviser no mean influence on the counsels of the Austrian court, though it was contrary to his advice that Austria signed the treaty of the 2nd of December 1854 with France and Great Britain. He lived to see the beginning of the struggle of France and Italy against Austria, dying on the 11th of June 1859.
Probably no statesman of all time has, in his own day, been more beslavered with praise and bespattered with abuse than Metternich. ”

“ In all ages the new nobility has been looked down upon by the old; but the ancient titles have always in the end adapted themselves to their new users. Long before the bourgeois age was dreamed of, dukes as such had ceased to “lead” (ducere) , marquesses to guard the “marches,” Ritters to “ride,” and no one marked the incongruity of their styles. The process is but continued if, for instance, in the 20th century the title of baron often suggests, not the feudal power of the sword, but the international power of the purse.
Titles have therefore in themselves a world of historical significance. ”

“ Alone of European Powers Austria still had the possibility of choice; let her work for the preservation of peace and at the same time remain free, should war break out, to make her own terms. It would little serve Austria’s interests to become the ally of Russia, merely to serve as a barrier behind which the emperor Alexander could carry out his designs on Turkey in safety. In an interview with Count Shuvalov, the Russian agent, Metternich roundly declared that the maintenance of the integrity of Turkey was for Austria the question of supreme interest. ”

“ Another element in his character discovered itself when in 1801 he mounted the throne over the body of his murdered father: a mystic melancholy liable at any moment to issue in extravagant action. At first, indeed, this exercised but little influence on the emperor’s life. Young, emotional, impressionable, well-meaning and egotistic, Alexander displayed from the first an intention of playing a great part on the world’s stage, and plunged with all the ardour of youth into the task of realizing his political ideals. ”

“ But when Gentz returned to Vienna as Metternich’s adviser and henchman, he was no longer the fiery patriot who had sympathized and corresponded with Stein in the darkest days of German depression and in fiery periods called upon all Europe to free itself from foreign rule. Disillusioned and cynical, though clear-sighted as ever, he was henceforth before all things an Austrian, more Austrian on occasion even than Metternich ”

“ BIRETTA (Ital. berretta, Med. Lat. biretum, birettum, dim. of birrus, “a hooded cloak”; from the Fr. form barrette is derived the Eng. “barret-cap”) , a cap worn by the Catholic clergy. It is square and stiff, being made of a framework of cardboard covered with cloth or silk; on the top, along the sutures of the stuff, are three or four raised, board-like, arched ridges, at the junction of which in the centre is a knob or tassel (floccus) . Its colour varies with the rank of the wearer, that of the pope being white, of the cardinals red, of bishops purple, and of the lower clergy black. ”

“ The cause of Bernard’s extraordinary popular success as a preacher can only imperfectly be judged by the sermons that survive. These were all delivered in Latin, evidently to congregations more or less on his own intellectual level. Like his letters, they are full of quotations from and reference to the Bible, and they have all the qualities likely to appeal to men of culture at all times. “Bernard,” wrote Erasmus in his Art of Preaching, “is an eloquent preacher, much more by nature than by art; he is full of charm and vivacity and knows how to reach and move the affections.” ”

“ The Reform Bill of 1832 has done its work; the “middle classes” have come into their own; and the word “gentleman” has come in common use to signify not a distinction of blood, but a distinction of position, education and manners. The test is no longer good birth, or the right to bear arms, but the capacity to mingle on equal terms in good society. ”

“ He would rather die, he exclaimed, or become the slave of Russia, than not destroy his rebellious vassal. On his sole initiative, without consulting his ministers or the council of the empire, he sent instructions to Hafiz Pasha, commanding the Ottoman troops concentrated at Bir on the Euphrates, to advance into Syria. The fatal outcome of the campaign that followed he did not live to hear. When the news of Ibrahim’s overwhelming victory at Nessib (June 24, 1839) reached Constantinople, Mahmud lay dying and unconscious. ”

“ The downfall of Prussia left Austria the sole hope of Germany and of Europe. Gentz, who from the winter of 1806 onwards divided his time between Prague and the Bohemian watering-places, seemed to devote himself wholly to the pleasures of society, his fascinating personality gaining him a ready reception in those exalted circles which were to prove of use to him later on in Vienna. ”

“ By an admirably clear exposé of the situation Metternich won over the emperor Francis to that middle course, the policy of armed abstention, which was to be the basic principle of his diplomatic action during the crisis of the coming years. An alliance with Russia, he argued, would be worse than useless; Austria would at any time obtain better terms from the tsar’s growing needs. An alliance with France would be one with “a power whose exclusive object is the destruction of the old order of things, which has hitherto found its defence in Austria.” ”

“ Though on the look-out, however, for any chance of weakening the French emperor’s power, Metternich was not at first sanguine of success, for he believed Napoleon to be invincible. For Austria the best policy seemed to him to be to temporize; he was willing, therefore, to co-operate with France in the agreement made between Napoleon and Alexander I. of Russia at Tilsit for the partition of the Ottoman Empire; failing the success of the efforts of Austrian diplomacy to break the Franco-Russian alliance, this would at least secure for the Habsburg monarchy a share of the spoils. ”

“ Carried away by the enthusiasm of Laharpe, who had returned to Russia from Paris, Alexander began openly to proclaim his admiration for French institutions and for the person of Bonaparte. Soon, however, came a change. Laharpe, after a new visit to Paris, presented to the tsar his Reflexions on the True Nature of the Consulship for Life, which, as Alexander said, tore the veil from his eyes, and revealed Bonaparte “as not a true patriot,” but only as “the most famous tyrant the world has produced.” ”

“ Success only stimulated his insatiable ambition. He earned the confidence of the Porte by the cruel discipline he maintained in his own sanjak, and the regular flow of tribute and bribes which he directed to Constantinople; while he bent all his energies to extending his territories at the expense of his neighbours. The methods he adopted would have done credit to Cesare Borgia; they may be studied in detail in the lurid pages of Pouqueville. Soon, by one means or another, his power was supreme in all central Albania. ”

“ The events of the war that followed belong to the general history of Europe; but the tsar’s attitude throughout is personal to himself, though pregnant with issues momentous for the world. In opposing Napoleon, “the oppressor of Europe and the disturber of the world’s peace,” Alexander in fact already believed himself to be fulfilling a divine mission. In his instructions to Novosiltsov, his special envoy in London, the tsar elaborated the motives of his policy in language which appealed as little to the common sense of Pitt as did later the treaty of the Holy Alliance to that of Castlereagh. ”

“ In vain the French emperor, within eight days of his entry into Moscow, wrote to the tsar a letter, which was one long cry of distress, revealing the desperate straits of the Grand Army, and appealed to “any remnant of his former sentiments.” Alexander returned no answer to these “fanfaronnades.” “No more peace with Napoleon!” he cried, “He or I, I or He: we cannot longer reign together!” [6]
The campaign of 1812 was the turning-point of Alexander’s life; and its horrors, for which his sensitive nature felt much of the responsibility, overset still more a mind never too well balanced. ”

“ Not only the workmen and the large class of idlers attracted to Paris by the system, but rentiers and government officials, whose incomes were paid in assignats on a scale arbitrarily fixed by the government, saw themselves threatened with actual starvation. The government yielded to the outcry that arose; but the expedients by which it sought to mitigate the evil, notably the division of those entitled to relief into classes, only increased the alarm and the discontent. The universal misery gave point to the virulent attacks of Babeuf on the existing order, and at last gained him a hearing. ”

“ The world was not deceived; but it was not until the Vienna mob, in 1848, was thundering at the door of his cabinet that Metternich himself realized the truth to which he had tried to blind himself. With his fall his system also fell; and his flight from Vienna was the signal for the revolutions by which in 1848 all the countries under Habsburg influence were convulsed.
The resignation of Prince Metternich, handed in on the 13th of March 1848, was accepted by the emperor on the 18th, and the prince and his family at once left for England. ”

“ Originally the title of king was superior to that of emperor, and it was to avoid the assumption of the superior title of rex that the chief magistrates of Rome adopted the names of Caesar, imperator and princeps to signalize their authority. But with the development of the Roman imperial idea the title emperor came to mean more than had been involved in that of rex; very early in the history of the Empire there were subject kings; while with the Hellenizing of the East Roman Empire its rulers assumed the style of βασιλεύς, no longer to be translated “king” but “emperor.” ”

“ A monstrous intrigue was suspected for the alliance of the eastern autocrat with the Jacobinism of all Europe, which would have issued in the substitution of an all-powerful Russia for an all-powerful France. At the congress of Vienna Alexander’s attitude accentuated this distrust. Castlereagh, whose single-minded aim was the restoration of “a just equilibrium” in Europe, reproached the tsar to his face for a “conscience” which suffered him to imperil the concert of the powers by keeping his hold on Poland in violation of his treaty obligation. ”

“ By the 13th and 14th centuries the title had become purely territorial, and implied no necessary overlordship over counts and other nobles, who existed side by side with the dukes as tenants-in-chief of the crown. From this time the significance of the ducal title varies widely in different countries. Whenever the crown got the better of the feudal spirit of independence, as in France or Naples, it sank from being a sovereign title to a mere social distinction, implying no political power, and not necessarily any territorial influence. ”

“ It is not uncommon in English society to see, e.g. a Russian prince, who may be only the cadet of a family not included in the Almanach de Gotha, given precedence as such over the untitled members of a great English ducal family, and treated with some of that exaggerated deference paid to “ royalty.” On the other hand, the insular complacency of many Englishmen is apt to regard all German princes with a certain contempt, whereas the title is in Germany sometimes associated with sovereign power, sometimes with vast territorial possessions, and always with high social position. ”

“ The distinction between an ambassador and ministers of the second rank is one rather of rank and dignity than of power or functions. His special immunities he shares with other diplomatic representatives of all classes. The peculiar privilege which he claims of free access to the sovereign has, in common practice, been reduced to the right of being received on presenting his credentials in public or private audience by the sovereign in person, it being obviously against public policy that a foreign representative should negotiate with the ruler otherwise than through his responsible ministers. ”

“ The strange contradictions of his character make Alexander one of the most interesting as he is one of the most important figures in the history of the 19th century. Autocrat and “Jacobin,” man of the world and mystic, he was to his contemporaries a riddle which each read according to his own temperament. Napoleon thought him a “shifty Byzantine,” and called him the Talma of the North, as ready to play any conspicuous part. To Metternich he was a madman to be humoured. ”

“ The ingenuity of some German scholars has made of Brunhild a personification of the day, held prisoner upon the hill-tops till in the morning the sun-god comes to her rescue, then triumphing with him awhile, only to pass once more under the spell of the powers of mist and darkness. ”

“ As the most colourless of all official ecclesiastical titles, it is easy to see how the word minister has come to be applied to the clergy of Protestant denominations. The phrase “minister of religion” is wide enough to embrace any evangelical office, and has about it more of the savour of humility than “pastor.” ”

“ As for the Ottoman sultans, the Oriental imagination of their secretaries was exhausted in adding “exorbitant and swelling attributes” to their styles, which were usually intended to be insulting to those whom they addressed. Thus Ahmed I., writing to Henry IV. of France, describes himself, with very much besides, as “emperor of victorious emperors, distributor of crowns to the greatest princes of the earth, . . . lord of Europe, Asia, and Africa.” ”

“ Europe, in fact, owed much at this time to Alexander’s exalted temper. During the period when his influence was supreme, the fateful years, that is, between the Moscow campaign and the close of the congress of Aix-la-Chapelle, it had been used largely in the interests of moderation and liberty. To him mainly it was due that France was saved from dismemberment, and received a constitution which, to use his own words, “united crown and representatives of the people in a sense of common interests.” ”

“ So far as medieval Europe was concerned, the court of Constantinople, where East and West met, was the forcing-bed of the more extravagant varieties of titles and attributes. Old Rome had granted to its deserving citizens titles of honour, such as felix, pius, pater patriae, besides those which, like patricius, denoted hereditary rank. The first emperors were, in theory, merely citizens who alone and in a supreme degree were entitled to be the recipients of these honours. But the majestas reipublicae Romanae was soon identified with the person of the emperor. ”

“ The codification of the laws initiated in 1801 was never carried out during his reign; nothing was done to improve the intolerable status of the Russian peasantry; the constitution drawn up by Speranski, and passed by the emperor, remained unsigned. Alexander, in fact, who, without being consciously tyrannical, possessed in full measure the tyrant’s characteristic distrust of men of ability and independent judgment, lacked also the first requisite for a reforming sovereign: confidence in his people; and it was this want that vitiated such reforms as were actually realized. ”

“ Russia and France, he urged, were “geographical allies”; there was, and could be, between them no true conflict of interests; together they might rule the world. But Alexander was still determined “to persist in the system of disinterestedness in respect of all the states of Europe which he had thus far followed,” and he again allied himself with Prussia. The campaign of Jena and the battle of Eylau followed; and Napoleon, though still intent on the Russian alliance, stirred up Poles, Turks and Persians to break the obstinacy of the tsar. ”

“ Socially, the position of an ambassador is one of great dignity. The pomp and magnificence which in earlier days characterized his progresses and his “entries” are indeed no longer observed. He is received, however, by the sovereign to whom he is accredited with elaborate state, of which every detail is minutely regulated, and ranks, as representing his own sovereign, next to the princes of the blood in the court where he resides. ”

“ Innocent’s relentless war against Frederick was not supported by the lay opinion of his time. In Germany, where it wrought havoc and misery, it increased the already bitter resentment against the priests. From England the pope’s legate was driven by threats of personal violence. In France not even the saintly King Louis IX., who made several vain attempts to mediate, approved the pope’s attitude; and the failure of the crusade which, in 1248, he led against the Mussulmans in Egypt, was, with reason, ascribed to the deflection of money and arms from this purpose to the war against the emperor. ”