Karl von Metternich

“ The people of Vienna, in industry and manufactures, second to none perhaps in Germany; in spirit, courage, and revolutionary energy, proving themselves far superior to all, were yet more ignorant as to their real interests, and committed more blunders during the Revolution than any others, and this was due in a very great measure to the almost absolute ignorance with regard to the very commonest political subjects in which Metternich’s Government had succeeded in keeping them. ”

“ The landed nobility, whose entire income consisted in feudal revenues of all sorts, could not but support a Government which proved their only protection against that down-trodden class of serfs upon whose spoils they lived; and whenever the less wealthy portion of them, as in Galicia, in 1846, rose in opposition against the Government, Metternich in an instant let loose upon them these very serfs, who at any rate profited by the occasion to wreak a terrible vengeance upon their more immediate oppressors. ”

“ In spite of this intense activity, Hügel cultivated society, and, owing to his large experience, his gracious manners, and his lovable personality, was beloved and respected in all circles. He was as faithful as his brother Clemens to the powerful Chancellor of State, Prince Metternich, though he did not yield to him so blind a devotion. On Metternich's fall, Charles took him, at the peril of his own life, through Vienna, across the Austrian frontier, and accompanied him to England. ”

“ The liberal views of the English Canning gave Metternich both solicitude and disgust; and he did all he could to undermine the influence of Capo D'Istrias, the Greek diplomatist, with his imperial master the Czar. He hated any man who was politically enlightened, and destroyed him if he could. The event in his long reign which most perplexed him and gave him the greatest solicitude was the revolution in France in 1830, which unseated the Bourbons, and established the constitutional government of Louis Philippe ”

“ Thus Metternich was sure of the support of the two most powerful and influential classes of the empire, ahd he possessed besides an army and a bureaucracy, which for all purposes of absolutism could not be better constituted. The civil and military officers in the Austrian service form a race of their own ”

“ In November, 1819, he convened a council of German ministers at Vienna, when, under the pretext of defining the functions of the Diet, sixty-five new articles of a repressive character were introduced into the Federal Act. The general effect of the Vienna resolutions, as these measures were termed, was to impose upon the Federation the duty of defending absolutism by force of arms in small States in which the sovereigns [Pg 25] might prove incapable themselves of maintaining a despotic form of government.
Metternich’s manipulation of the Diet was the great triumph of his home policy. ”

“ He cares very little about earthly affairs. It seems immaterial to him whether Louis Philippe’s death causes a crisis; what may happen after Metternich’s death, or how Russia behaves with us. To all this he is indifferent; he scarcely thinks of it. Whoever has secured his favor and nourishes his fancies plays a sure game. Bunsen, Radowitz, and Canitz stand highest in his favor. ”

“ The victories of democracy brought the latter view into fashion, and to the Liberal historians of the latter part of the 19th century the name of Metternich was synonymous with that of a system in which they could recognize nothing but a senseless opposition to the forces of enlightenment. A juster estimate of the man and his work has, however, become possible as the age has moved farther away from the smoke of controversy. On the whole, history has tended to endorse the sane judgment on Metternich pronounced by Castlereagh when he was first brought into diplomatic contact with him. ”

“ At the conference of ministers which met at Vienna, on the 20th of November, for the purpose of “developing and completing the Federal Act of the congress of Vienna,” Metternich found himself face to face with a more formidable opposition than at Carlsbad. The “middle” states, headed by Württemberg, had drawn together, to form the nucleus of an inner league of “pure German States” against Austria and Prussia, and of “Liberal particularism” against the encroachments of the diet. With Russia and, to a certain extent, Great Britain sympathetic, it was impossible to ignore their opposition. ”

“ All was managed by the King in his own way. Arago was originally placed on the list by the King. He insisted upon Metternich as his particular choice. Rumohr was abandoned. Steffens was, in the opinion of the King, not deserving ‘enough—neither as philosopher nor as a naturalist.’ Liszt was decidedly favored by the King, and no objections could prevail. Spontini was thought of, but Savigny and the cabinet counsellor, Mueller, succeeded in displacing him. ”

“ He had heard of the letter from Wittgenstein, who had spoken of it to 86Count Orloff and others, as a most remarkable production. Humboldt also was astonished and delighted. He showed me a letter which Prince Metternich had addressed him, as to the position of several naturalists at Vienna, and the presidency of the Archæological Society at Rome. Humboldt tells me of dark tendencies of the Westphalian nobility, which the Crown-Prince favors. They think of establishing a great Catholic seminary for young noblemen—a proper nursery for Jesuits. ”

“ This did not mean, of course, that no progress was made during this long period in realizing the ideals of the liberal party in the various European states, or that one man can block the advance of nations for a generation. The very fact that Austria had, after the Congress of Vienna, assumed the leading rôle in Europe that France had played during the period following the Revolution of 1789, is a sufficient indication that Metternich's aversion to change corresponded to a general conviction that it was best, for the time being, to let well enough alone. ”

“ Hence, the policy of Metternich's home rule was fatal to all expansion, to all emancipating movements, to all progress, to everything which looked like popular liberty. Men might smoke, drink beer, attend concerts and theatres, amuse themselves in any way they pleased, but they should not congregate together to discuss political questions; they should not form clubs or societies with political intent of any kind; they should not even read agitating tracts and books. He could not help their thinking, but they should not criticise his government. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The famous manifesto of Frankfort, issued on behalf of the Allies (Dec. 4, 1813) , contained no such offer of acceptable terms; but Metternich’s object was attained; for Napoleon refused to be drawn into the trap, and the French people cursed the emperor’s infatuation in refusing a settlement which, from what had leaked out of Saint-Aignan’s mission, they believed would have satisfied the legitimate ambitions of France. On the other hand, Metternich did his best to oppose a too rapid advance of the allied forces on Paris, which would have played into the hands of Russia and Prussia ”

“ He is too enlightened not to perceive its most palpable defect . . . He might have courage to sacrifice himself for the institution of effective remedies, but he fears that the confiding benignity of his Sovereign might afterwards be dissuaded from the just and vigorous application of them.” (F.O. Austria. Gordon. Jan.–Dec., 1819.) Metternich’s power, after all, was limited by the goodwill of his master, the emperor Francis, and Francis trusted him precisely because he seemed to share his own fanatical hatred of all change. ”

“ He knew the discontent of Italy and Poland because of unfulfilled promises. He knew the intense hatred of Prussia because of the humiliations and injuries Napoleon had inflicted on her. Metternich was equally aware of the hostility of England, although Pitt had passed away; and he despised the arrogance of a man who looked upon himself as greater than destiny. "It is an evidence of the weakness of the human understanding," said the infatuated conqueror, "for any one to dream of resisting me." ”

“ Therefore, when they were set forth to the allies at Reichenbach, they were unfavourably received, and for some days suspicion of Austria overclouded the previous goodwill. It was removed only by the labours of Stadion and by the tact which Metternich displayed during an interview with the Czar at Opotschna (June 17th) .
Alexander came there prejudiced against Metternich as a past master in the arts of double-dealing: he went away convinced that he meant well for the allies. "What will become of us," asked the Czar, "if Napoleon accepts your mediation?" ”

“ The person so severely handled in two places of these letters where he is not named, is plainly enough Prince Metternich; a statesman who, whatever may be his abilities, and whatever may have been his merits—and merits in the management of German affairs—from the peace of Vienna in 1809, to that of Paris in [Pg 338] 1815, (and it were out of place to attempt discussing these points here,) was plainly in every respect the antipodes of Stein; and a man whom the hot Prussian baron could no more form a just judgment of, than Martin Luther could of Erasmus. ”

“ He never was popular until he had made Prussia the most powerful military State in Europe. He never sought to be loved so much as to be feared; he never allowed himself to be approached without politeness and deference. He seemed to care more for dogs than men. Nor was he endowed with those graces of manner which marked Metternich. He remained harsh, severe, grave, proud through his whole career, from first to last, except in congenial company. What is called society he despised, with all his aristocratic tendencies and high social rank. ”

“ Metternich persisted in believing that the whole affair was moved by foreign influence, and particularly by Italians and Swiss; and he desired that the soldiers should gather in the Castle, and that Prince Windischgraetz should be appointed commandant of the city. Alfred Windischgraetz was a Bohemian nobleman who had previously been known chiefly for his strong aristocratic feeling, which he was said to have embodied in the expression "Human beings begin at barons." But he had been marked out by Metternich as a man of vigor and decision who might be trusted to act in an emergency. ”

“ This unity, so loudly appealed to by the young generation, was in reality only a sort of federative republic, in which all the states, while enjoying their individual freedom, were to be united by the practice of virtue, and would thus tend to the general happiness of mankind. The old German sovereignties were obliged to curb these associations, which burst forth in the assassination of Kotzebue.
Metternich had just been travelling in Italy when the universities distinguished themselves by this sanguinary crime. He was loaded with the benefits of his sovereign ”

“ M. Metternich, whose talent has since been so conspicuously displayed, had been for upwards of a year Ambassador from Austria to Paris. Even then he excelled in the art of guiding men's minds, and of turning to the advantage of his policy his external graces and the favour he acquired in the drawing-room. His father, a clever man, brought up in the old diplomatic school of Thugut and Kaunitz, had early accustomed him to the task of making other Governments believe, by means of agents, what might lead them into error and tend to the advantage of his own Government. ”

“ If a wary reactionary of the tradition of Metternich had wished in the nineteenth century to reverse the democratic tendency, he would naturally have begun by depriving the democracy of its margin of more dubious powers over more distant things. He might well begin, for instance, by removing the control of foreign affairs from popular assemblies; and there is a case for saying that a people may understand its own affairs, without knowing anything whatever about foreign affairs. ”

“ Does he think to make people believe this, I ask? With Metternich one always ought to examine first, how far an opinion adapts itself to the position of the moment.
Under date of April 9th, 1839, Varnhagen wrote in his Diary: “Humboldt called quite unexpectedly and made the greatest excuses for not having called on me before. And then he opened his newsbag and recited a thousand stories from Paris and Berlin—at least for two hours. Things in France bear a very gloomy aspect, he thinks ”

“ In politics it is often better to do well than to do a great deal, to act after due deliberation than to act hastily, and then return to deliberate. Prince Metternich is not an enemy to any form of government that has order for its basis; and this offers an explanation of his conduct since the revolution. When the Propaganda was heard every where, he decided strongly in favour of war, and his expression to the French ambassador at Vienna is well known: "If we must perish, it is just as well to die of apoplexy as to be suffocated with a slow fire; we will declare for war." ”