Beacon Lights of History, Vol 9: European Statesmen — Prince Metternich, Part 1

CONSERVATISM.

In the later years of Napoleon's rule, when he had reached the summit of power, and the various German States lay prostrate at his feet, there arose in Austria a great man, on whom the eyes of Europe were speedily fixed, and who gradually became the central figure of Continental politics.

This remarkable man was Count Metternich, who more than any other man set in motion the secret springs which resulted in a general confederation to shake off the degrading fetters imposed by the French conqueror.

In this matter he had a powerful ally in Baron von Stein, who reorganized Prussia, and prepared her for successful resistance, when the time came, against the common enemy.

In another lecture I shall attempt to show the part taken by Von Stein in the regeneration of Germany; but it is my present purpose to confine attention to the Austrian chancellor and diplomatist, his various labors, and the services he rendered, not to the cause of Freedom and Progress, but to that of Absolutism, of which he was in his day the most noted champion.

Metternich, in his character as diplomatist, is to be contemplated in two aspects: first, as aiming to enlist the great powers in armed combination against Napoleon; and secondly, as attempting to unite them and all the German States to suppress revolutionary ideas and popular insurrections, and even constitutional government itself.

Before presenting him in this double light, however, I will briefly sketch the events of his life until he stood out as the leading figure in European politics,--as great a figure as Bismarck later became.

Clemens Wenzel Nepomuk Lothar, Count von Metternich, was born at Coblentz, on the Rhine, May 15, 1773. His father was a nobleman of ancient family.

I will not go into his pedigree, reaching far back in the Middle Ages,--a matter so important in the eyes of German and even English biographers, but to us in America of no more account than the genealogy of the Dukes of Edom.

The count his father was probably of more ability than an ordinary nobleman in a country where nobles are so numerous, since he was then, or soon after, Austrian ambassador to the Netherlands.

Young Metternich was first sent to the University of Strasburg, at the age of fifteen, about the time when Napoleon was completing his studies at a military academy.

In 1790, a youth of seventeen, he took part in the ceremonies attending the coronation of Emperor Leopold at Frankfort, and made the acquaintance of the archduke, who two years later succeeded to the imperial dignity as Francis II.

We next see him a student of law in the University of Mainz, spending his vacations at Brussels, in his father's house.

Even at that time Metternich attracted attention for his elegant manners and lively wit,--a born courtier, a favorite in high society, and so prominent for his intelligence and accomplishments that he was sent to London as an attaché to the Netherlands embassy, where it seems that he became acquainted with the leading statesmen of England.

There must have been something remarkable about him to draw, at the age of twenty, the attention of such men as Burke, Pitt, Fox, and Sheridan.

What interested him most in England were the sittings of the English Parliament and the trial of Warren Hastings.

At the early age of twenty-one he was appointed minister to the Hague, but was prevented going to his post by the war, and retired to Vienna, which he now saw for the first time.

Soon after, he married a daughter of Prince Kaunitz, eldest son of the great chancellor who under three reigns had controlled the foreign policy of the empire.

He thus entered the circle of the highest nobility of Austria,--the proudest and most exclusive on the face of the whole earth.

At first the young count--living with his bride at the house of her father, and occupying the highest social position, with wealth and ease and every luxury at command, fond equally of books, of music, and of art, but still fonder of the distinguished society of Vienna, and above all, enamored of the charms of his beautiful and brilliant wife--wished to spend his life in elegant leisure.

But his remarkable talents and accomplishments were already too well known for the emperor to allow him to remain in his splendid retirement, especially when the empire was beset with dangers of the most critical kind.

His services were required by the State, and he was sent as ambassador to Dresden, after the peace of Luneville, 1801, when his diplomatic career in reality began.

Dresden, where were congregated at this time some of the ablest diplomatists of Europe, was not only an important post of observation for watching the movements of Napoleon, but it was itself a capital of great attractions, both for its works of art and for its society.

Here Count Metternich resided for two years, learning much of politics, of art, and letters,--the most accomplished gentleman among all the distinguished people that he met; not as yet a man of power, but a man of influence, sending home to Count Stadion, minister of foreign affairs, reports and letters of great ability, displaying a sagacity and tact marvellous for a man of twenty-eight.

Napoleon was then engaged in making great preparations for a war with Austria, and it was important for Austria to secure the alliance of Prussia, her great rival, with whom she had never been on truly friendly terms, since both aimed at ascendency in Germany.

Frederick William III.

was then on the throne of Prussia, having two great men among his ministers,--Von Stein and Hardenberg; the former at the head of financial affairs, and the latter at the head of the foreign bureau.

To the more important post of Berlin, Metternich was therefore sent.

He found great difficulty in managing the Prussian king, whose jealousy of Austria balanced his hatred of Napoleon, and who therefore stood aloof and inactive, indisposed for war, in strict alliance with Russia, who also wanted peace.

The Czar Alexander I. , who had just succeeded his murdered father Paul, was a great admirer of Napoleon.

His empire was too remote to fear French encroachments or French ideas.

Indeed, he started with many liberal sentiments.

By nature he was kind and affectionate; he was simple in his tastes, truthful in his character, philanthropic in his views, enthusiastic in his friendships, and refined in his intercourse,--a broad and generous sovereign.

And yet there was something wanting in Alexander which prevented him from being great.

He was vacillating in his policy, and his judgment was easily warped by fanciful ideas.

"His life was worn out between devotion to certain systems and disappointment as to their results.

He was fitful, uncertain, and unpractical.

Hence he made continual mistakes.

He meant well, but did evil, and the discovery of his errors broke his heart.

He died of weariness of life, deceived in all his calculations," in 1825. Metternich spent four years in Berlin, ferreting out the schemes of Napoleon, and striving to make alliances against him; but he found his only sincere and efficient ally to be England, then governed by Pitt.

The king of Prussia was timid, and leaned on Russia; he feared to offend his powerful neighbor on the north and east.

Nor was Prussia then prepared for war.

As for the South German States, they all had their various interests to defend, and had not yet grasped the idea of German unity.

There was not a great statesman or a great general among them all.

They had their petty dynastic prejudices and jealousies, and were absorbed in the routine of court etiquette and pleasures, stagnant and unenlightened.

The only brilliant court life was at Weimar, where Goethe reigned in the circle of his idolaters.

The great men of Germany at that time were in the universities, interested in politics, like the Humboldts at Berlin, but not taking a prominent part.

Generals and diplomatists absorbed the active political field.

As for orators, there were none; for there were no popular assemblies,--no scope for their abilities.

The able men were in the service of their sovereigns as diplomatists in the various courts of Europe, and generally were nobles.

Diplomacy, in fact, was the only field in which great talents were developed and rewarded outside the realm of literature.

In this field Metternich soon became pre-eminently distinguished.

He was at once the prompting genius and the agent of an absolute sovereign who ruled over the most powerful State, next to France, on the continent of Europe, and the most august.

The emperor of Austria was supposed to be the heir of the Caesars and of Charlemagne.

His territories were more extensive than that of France, and his subjects more numerous than those of all the other German States combined, except Prussia.

But the emperor himself was a feeble man, sickly in body, weak in mind, and governed by his ministers, the chief of whom was Count Stadion, minister of foreign affairs.

In Austria the aristocracy was more powerful and wealthy than the nobility of any other European State.

It was also the most exclusive.

No one could rise by any talents into their favored circle.

They were great feudal landlords; and their ranks were not recruited, as in England, by men of genius and wealth.

Hence, they were narrow, bigoted, and arrogant; but they had polished and gracious manners, and shone in the stiff though elegant society of Vienna,--not brilliant as in Paris or London, but exceedingly attractive, and devoted to pleasure, to grand hunting-parties on princely estates, to operas and balls and theatres.

Probably Vienna society was dull, if it was elegant, from the etiquette and ceremonies which marked German courts; for what was called society was not that of distinguished men in letters and art, but almost exclusively that of nobles.

A learned professor or wealthy merchant could no more get access to it than he could climb to the moon.

But as Vienna was a Catholic city, great ecclesiastical dignitaries, not always of noble birth, were on an equality with counts and barons.

It was only in the Church that a man of plebeian origin could rise.

Indeed, there was no field for genius at all.

The musician Haydn was almost the only genius that Austria at that time possessed outside of diplomatic or military ranks.

Napoleon had now been crowned emperor, and his course had been from conquering to conquer.

The great battles of Austerlitz and Jena had been fought, which placed Austria and Prussia at the mercy of the conqueror.

It was necessary that some one should be sent to Paris capable of fathoming the schemes of the French emperor, and in 1806 Count Metternich was transferred from Berlin to the French capital.

No abler diplomatist could be found in Europe.

He was now thirty-three years of age, a nobleman of the highest rank, his father being a prince of the empire.

He had a large private fortune, besides his salary as ambassador.

His manners were perfect, and his accomplishments were great.

He could speak French as well as his native tongue.

His head was clear; his knowledge was accurate and varied.

Calm, cold, astute, adroit, with infinite tact, he was now brought face to face with Talleyrand, Napoleon's minister of foreign affairs, his equal in astuteness and dissimulation, as well as in the charms of conversation and the graces of polished life.

With this statesman Metternich had the pleasantest relations, both social and diplomatic.

Yet there was a marked difference between them.

Talleyrand had accepted the ideas of the Revolution, but had no sympathy with its passions and excesses.

He was the friend of law and order, and in his heart favored constitutional government.

On this ground he supported Napoleon as the defender of civilization, but afterward deserted him when he perceived that the Emperor was resolved to rule without constitutional checks.

His nature was selfish, and he made no scruple of enriching himself, whatever master he served; but he was not indifferent to the welfare and glory of France.

Metternich, on the other hand, abhorred the ideas of the Revolution as much as he did its passions.

He saw in absolutism the only hope of stability, the only reign of law.

He distrusted constitutional government as liable to changes, and as unduly affected by popular ideas and passions.

He served faithfully and devotedly his emperor as a sacred personage, ruling by divine right, to whom were intrusted the interests of the nation.

He was comparatively unselfish, and was prepared for any personal sacrifices for his country and his sovereign.

Metternich was treated with distinguished consideration at Paris, not only because he was the representative of the oldest and proudest sovereignty in Europe,--still powerful in the midst of disasters,--but also on account of his acknowledged abilities, independent attitude, and stainless private character.

All the other ambassadors at Paris were directed to act in accordance with his advice.

In 1807 he concluded the treaty of Fontainebleau, which was most favorable to Austrian interests.

He was the only man at court whom Napoleon could not browbeat or intimidate in his affected bursts of anger.

Personally, Napoleon liked him as an accomplished and agreeable gentleman; as a diplomatist and statesman the Emperor was afraid of him, knowing that the Austrian was at the bottom of all the intrigues and cabals against him.

Yet he dared not give Metternich his passports, nor did he wish to quarrel with so powerful a man, who might defeat his schemes to marry the daughter of the Austrian emperor,--the light-headed and frivolous Marie Louise.

So Metternich remained in honor at Paris for three years, studying the character and aims of Napoleon, watching his military preparations, and preparing his own imperial master for contingencies which would probably arise; for Napoleon was then meditating the conquest of Spain, as well as the invasion of Russia, and Metternich as well as Talleyrand knew that this would be a great political blunder, diverting his armies from the preservation of the conquests he had already made, and giving to the German States the hope of shaking off their fetters at the first misfortune which should overtake him.

No man in Europe so completely fathomed the designs of Napoleon as Metternich, or so profoundly measured and accurately estimated his character.

And I here cannot forbear to quote his own language, both to show his sagacity and to reproduce the portrait he drew of Napoleon.

"He became," says Metternich, "a great legislator and administrator, as he became a great soldier, by following out his instincts.

The turn of his mind always led him toward the positive.

He disliked vague ideas, and hated equally the dreams of visionaries and the abstractions of idealists.

He treated as nonsense everything that was not clearly and practically presented to him.

He valued only those sciences which can be verified by the senses, or which rest on experience and observation.

He had the greatest contempt for the false philosophy and false philanthropy of the eighteenth century.

Among its teachers, Voltaire was the special object of his aversion.

As a Catholic, he recognized in religion alone the right to govern human societies.

Personally indifferent to religious practices, he respected them too much to permit the slightest ridicule of those who followed them; and yet religion with him was the result of an enlightened policy rather than an affair of sentiment.

He was persuaded that no man called to public life could be guided by any other motive than that of interest.

"He was gifted with a particular tact in recognizing those men who could be useful to him.

He had a profound knowledge of the national character of the French.

In history he guessed more than he knew.

As he always made use of the same quotations, he must have drawn from a few books, especially abridgments.

His heroes were Alexander, Caesar, and Charlemagne.

He laid great stress on aristocratic birth and the antiquity of his own family.

He had no other regard for men than a foreman in a manufactory feels for his work-people.

In private, without being amiable, he was good-natured.

His sisters got from him all they wanted.

Simple and easy in private life, he showed himself to little advantage in the great world.

Nothing could be more awkward than he in a drawing-room.

He would have made great sacrifices to have added three inches to his height.

He walked on tiptoe.

His costumes were studied to form a contrast with the circle which surrounded him, by extreme simplicity or extreme elegance.

Talma taught him attitudes.

"Having but one passion,--that of power,--he never lost either his time or his means in those objects which deviated from his aims.

Master of himself, he soon became master of events.

In whatever period he had appeared, he would have played a prominent part.

His prodigious successes blinded him; but up to 1812 he never lost sight of the profound calculations by which he so often conquered.

He never recoiled from fear of the wounds he might cause.

As a war-chariot crushes everything it meets on its way, he thought of nothing but to advance.

He could sympathize with family troubles; he was indifferent to political calamities.

"Disinterested generosity he had none; he only dispensed his favors in proportion to the value he put on the utility of those who received them.

He was never influenced by affection or hatred in his public acts.

He crushed his enemies without thinking of anything but the necessity of getting rid of them.

"In his political combinations he did not fail to reckon largely on the weakness or errors of his adversaries.

The alliance of 1813 crushed him because he was not able to persuade himself that the members of the coalition could remain united, and persevere in a given course of action.

The vast edifice he constructed was exclusively the work of his own hands, and he was the keystone of the arch; but the gigantic construction was essentially wanting in its foundations, the materials of which were nothing but the ruins of other buildings."

Such is the verdict of one of the acutest and most dispassionate men that ever lived.

Napoleon is not painted as a monster, but as a supremely selfish man bent entirely on his own exaltation, making the welfare of France subservient to his own glory, and the interests of humanity itself secondary to his pride and fame.

History can add but little to this graphic sketch, although indignant and passionate enemies may dilate on the Corsican's hard-heartedness, his duplicity, his treachery, his falsehood, his arrogance, and his diabolic egotism.

On the other hand, weak and sentimental idolaters will dwell on his generosity, his courage, his superhuman intellect, and the love and devotion with which he inspired his soldiers,--all which in a sense is true.

The philosophical historian will enumerate the services Napoleon rendered to his country, whatever were his virtues or faults; but of these services the last person to perceive the value was Metternich himself, even as he would be the last to acknowledge the greatness of those revolutionary ideas of which Napoleon was simply the product.

It was the French Revolution which produced Napoleon, and it was the French Revolution which Metternich abhorred, in all its aspects, beyond any other event in the whole history of the world.

But he was not a rhetorician, as Burke was, and hence confined himself to acts, and not to words.

He was one of those cool men who could use decent and temperate language about the Devil himself and the Pandemonium in which he reigns.

On the breaking up of diplomatic relations between Austria and France in 1809, Metternich was recalled to Vienna to take the helm of state in the impending crisis.

Count von Stadion, though an able man, was not great enough for the occasion.

Only such a consummate statesman as Metternich was capable of taking the reins intrusted to him with unbounded confidence by his feeble master, whose general policy and views were similar to those of his trusted minister, but who had not the energy to carry them out.

Metternich was now made a prince, with large gifts of land and money, and occupied a superb position,--similar to that which Bismarck occupied later on in Prussia, as chancellor of the empire.

It was Metternich's policy to avert actual hostilities until Austria could recover from the crushing defeat at Austerlitz, and until Napoleon should make some great mistake.

He succeeded in arranging another treaty with France within the year.

The object which Napoleon had in view at this time was his marriage with Marie Louise, from which he expected an heir to his vast dominions, and a more completely recognized position among the great monarchs of Europe.

He accordingly divorced Josephine,--some historians say with her consent.

Ten years earlier his offers would, of course, have been indignantly rejected, or three years later, after the disasters of the Russian campaign.

But Napoleon was now at the summit of his power,--the arbiter of Europe, the greatest sovereign since Julius Caesar, with a halo of unprecedented glory, a prodigy of genius as well as a recognized monarch.

Nothing was apparently beyond his aspirations, and he wanted the daughter of the successor of Charlemagne in marriage.

And her father, the proud Austrian emperor, was willing to give her up to his conqueror from reasons of state, and from policy and expediency.

To all appearance it was no sacrifice to Marie Louise to be transferred from the dull court of Vienna to the splendid apartments of the Tuileries, to be worshipped by the brilliant marshals and generals who had conquered Europe, and to be crowned as empress of the French by the Pope himself.

Had she been a nobler woman, she might have hesitated and refused; but she was vain and frivolous, and was overwhelmed by the glory with which she was soon to be surrounded.

And yet the marriage was a delicate affair, and difficult to be managed.

It required all the tact of an arch-diplomatist.

So Prince Metternich was sent to Paris to bring it about.

In fact, it was he more than any one else who for political reasons favored this marriage.

Napoleon was exceedingly gracious, while Metternich had his eyes and ears open.

He even dared to tell the Emperor many unpleasant truths.

The affair, however, was concluded; and after Napoleon's divorce from Josephine, in 1810, the Austrian princess became empress of the French.