The Drawing-rooms of the Comtesse de Fuchs—The Prince Philip of Hesse-Homburg—George Sinclair—The Announcement of a Military Tournament—The Comtesse Edmond de PÉrigord—General Comte de Witt—Letters of Recommendation—The Princesse Pauline—The Poet-functionary and FouchÉ.

Among the most distinguished women of Austrian society was the Comtesse Laure de Fuchs, of whom the numerous visitors to Vienna during the Congress have preserved the most delightful recollection. Graceful and witty, she conveyed the highest idea in her own person of the courtesy of her country. Foreigners considered it a signal honour to be admitted to her receptions. In 1808 and 1812, I, and the few Frenchmen who were in Vienna at this period, met with the most cordial welcome on her part. Among those who composed her most intimate circle, all the members of which were friends, special mention ought to be made of the Comtesse Pletemberg, her sister, the wife of the reigning comte of that name; the Duchesses de Sagan and d’Exerenza, and Madame Edmond de PÉrigord,29 a niece, by marriage, of Prince de Talleyrand. They were all three born Princesses de Courlande, and were called the Three Graces. In addition to these, there were the Chanoinesse Kinski, belonging to one of the most illustrious families of Hungary; the Duc de Dalberg, one of the French plenipotentiaries; Marshal Walmoden, the three Comtes de Pahlen,30 the Prince Philip of Hesse-Homburg, the Prince Paul Esterhazy, subsequently Austrian ambassador to the Court of St. James; the Prince EugÈne de Beauharnais, the Russian general Comte de Witt,31 M. de Gentz,32 the secretary of the Congress, and the intimate friend of M. de Metternich; General Nostiltz, the clever man of letters; Varnhagen (von Ense), the poet Carpani, Doctor Koreff, the Baron d’Ompteda, former minister of Westphalia at Vienna, whom the fall of his sovereign had left without an embassy, and who attended this great diplomatic Sanhedrim as a simple amateur.

A sweet and gentle animation pervaded those gatherings, which were never interrupted by irritating political discussions. With her charming grace, the countess imposed on all her friends a law of mutual intimacy; consequently, they unanimously bestowed on her the title of their queen, a title she had accepted, and which she bore with a kind of serious dignity.

Her family as well as the number of her friends had increased during my absence from Vienna. The former were growing into beautiful beings, the latter, of whom she gave me some short biographical sketches, were as devoted as ever. Fortune, thanks to the rapidly succeeding events of the last few years, had forgotten none of them. All had become generals, ambassadors, or ministers.

The one to whom I felt most attracted was the Prince of Hesse-Homburg, then occupying a rank far distant from his exalted position of to-day. Parity of age, of tastes and of ideas drew me towards him. Like many of the princes of German sovereign houses, his fame was solely due to himself.

Having joined the army at fifteen, he became a prisoner of the French in one of the first wars of the Revolution, and was taken to Paris, where he was confined in the Luxembourg. He had the luck to have his life spared. Some time afterwards there was an exchange of prisoners, and he resumed his military career. All his grades were conferred upon him for distinguished services in the field, and at the period of which I am treating he was numbered among the most meritorious generals of the Austrian army.

When, subsequently, he became a field-marshal, he was sent to the Emperor of Russia, during the latter’s campaign against the Turks in 1828. To-day (1820) as Landgrave of Hesse-Homburg, Prince Philip is respected and worshipped by his subjects, whose happiness is his foremost thought.

Mme. de Fuchs asked me if I had seen anything more of George Sinclair, the young Englishman whose adventure with the Emperor Napoleon had at first drawn attention to him in Vienna, a few days before the battle of Jena. Mr. George Sinclair, who was on his way to Austria, was arrested by French scouts, and taken to headquarters on the suspicion of being a spy.

‘Whence came you, and whither are you going?’ asked the Emperor in a tone which foreshadowed a death-sentence. Sinclair, who spoke French with great facility, answered as briefly. ‘I have come from the University of Jena, and am going to Vienna, where letters and orders from my father, Sir John Sinclair, are awaiting me.’

‘Sir John Sinclair who has written frequently on agricultural questions?‘33

‘Yes, sire.’

The Emperor said a few words to Duroc, and continued his interrogatory in a kindlier tone. Mr. Sinclair, who was barely eighteen, was exceedingly well versed in geography and history. His conversation fairly astonished Napoleon, who, after talking with him for a couple of hours, ordered Duroc to give him an escort as far as the outposts, and to let him resume his journey. It was altogether an unexpected favour, and wholly due to his own worth.

I had practically lost sight of him altogether, but I knew that after a journey through Italy he had entered Parliament, where he had become one of the followers of his friend Sir Francis Burdett, and had gained a brilliant reputation as a speaker in the Opposition.

Two events of a wholly different order occupied people’s minds at that moment: the future destiny of the kingdom of Saxony, and the announcement of a musical ride, a fÊte of knightly prowess which was contemplated from the very first days of the Congress, and was to take place in the Imperial Riding-school. Saxony came in for a scant part of the conversation, but the preparations for the tournament were discussed at great length. It was to be one of the most magnificent entertainments hitherto projected, and there were frequent consultations of the printed and engraved descriptions of the famous carrousels of Louis XIV., which were to be eclipsed in splendour.

The Comtesse Edmond de PÉrigord, one of the twenty-four ladies who were to preside at the fÊte, told us that the dresses which were being prepared for it would surpass in richness everything that had been handed down concerning the elegance and the splendour of the Court ladies of the Grand Monarque.

‘I really believe that we shall be able to display all the pearls and diamonds of Hungary, Bohemia, and Austria combined,’ she said. ‘There is not a relative or friend of these ladies whose jewel-case has not been laid under contribution; and this or that heirloom in the way of precious stones, which has not seen the light of day for a century, will glitter on the dress of one of us.’

‘As for the knights,’ said the young Comte de Woyna, ‘in default of gorgeous dresses, they’ll certainly have magnificent horses. You’ll behold them go through evolutions and dance minuets with as much grace as the most nimble gentlemen of the Court.’

After this there was some animated conversation about the colours of the different quadrilles, and the supposed skill of the champions. Mottoes were quoted, and the ladies tried to get at their hidden meaning. The excellent King of Saxony and his states were absolutely forgotten; their cause had to make way for the more important discussion.

On leaving Mme. de Fuchs’s, I caught sight on the Graben of General Comte de Witt—a piece of luck, for the meeting reminded me of those happy and delightful days I had spent in Ukraine, at the hospitable and magnificent domain of Tulczim, the home of the Comtesse Potocka, the comte’s mother.

The only son of the first marriage of his handsome mother with General Comte de Witt, the descendant of the Grand Referendary of Holland, Comte de Witt’s military career was as rapid as it was brilliant. A soldier from his childhood, he was a colonel at sixteen, and at eighteen commanded one of the most splendid regiments in Europe, namely, the cuirassiers of the Empress. The campaigns of the last three years had given him excellent opportunities of distinguishing himself. In six weeks he had raised and equipped at his own cost, and on his mother’s property, four regiments of Cossacks, which he had taken to the Emperor, who made him a lieutenant-general, and entrusted him with the organisation of the military colonies. In 1828, in the war against the Turks, he re-entered the service and commanded the army of reserve. After the Peace of Varna, there was every prospect of his happiness, when death removed him unexpectedly and at an early age.

Comte de Witt had married the Princesse Josephine Lubomirska, one of the most distinguished women of Europe. Charming and graceful, her quick and well-read intellect only equalled by her inexhaustible kindness—such was the portrait of the Comtesse de Witt traced by all those who had the privilege of coming in contact with her.

Mme. de Fuchs had kept up the habit of supping, a habit so dear to our fathers, and the disappearance of which is so much regretted by those who are fond of joyous, frank, and unrestrained conversation, inspired by the gaiety of the moment.

At one of those gatherings I had been placed close to the Comte de Witt.

That same morning I had had a strange visit. I was just stepping out of bed when told that a young Frenchman wished to speak to me. The caller turns out to be a man of good appearance, who presents me with a small parcel he is carrying. ‘This,’ he says, ‘is a letter M. Rey, the advocate with whom you dined at M. de Bondy’s, the Prefect at Lyons, has asked me to hand you.’ While I motion him to be seated I open the epistle, in which M. Rey, after the usual greetings, asks me, supposing I should be in Vienna, to interest myself for the bearer, M. Cast ... in order to get him some employment.

‘By the date of the letter, monsieur, you must have left Lyons some time.’ ‘Yes,’ replies the visitor, ‘having the whole of the world thrown open to me to choose a habitat, I made my way to the present one on foot.’

‘You have no doubt other recommendations?’

‘None whatever.’

‘Allow me to compliment you on your courage. To do three hundred leagues on foot simply on the strength of a letter from a person whom I have only seen once, and without even the certainty of finding me—assuredly you ought to succeed! In spite of this, I can give you but little hope. If you came to the Congress to claim a kingdom, a province, an indemnity, you would probably be listened to, but a post for a Frenchman in the Austrian States—that, I am afraid, will be a difficult thing to get. Nevertheless, I will do all I can for you. What have you done up to the present?’

‘I have served in the Guards of Honour.’

‘What sort of post have you in view?’

‘I am not at all particular. I can be a secretary, or pretty well fill any kind of post, whether it be civil or military.’

‘You are certainly determined to make the best of things,’ I could not help saying, for that particular aptitude for making the foot fit the boot in a cheerful and intelligent way is unquestionably French. I felt decidedly interested in my young compatriot, and I asked him to give me a few days to look round for him. Meanwhile I took his address, though with considerable doubt about the final result of his bold journey.

At supper the conversation happened to turn on the sudden resolutions and the unhoped-for and unexpected bits of daring that often determine a man’s whole existence. As a matter of course, instances were quoted, and notably that of General Tettenborn, who, in something like four months had worked his way from major to general-in-chief.

‘I could mention a trait of courage and a reliance on luck which, save for the favourable results to come, is worth all those we have mentioned.’

On being questioned, I told them all about my visitor of that morning, about his economical journey with nothing at the end of it but a simple letter of introduction, and about the coincidence of his reaching Vienna but a couple of days after my own arrival. The Comte de Witt had listened very attentively.

‘Your young man’s courage is worthy of consideration,’ he said, ‘and inasmuch as he has been in the Guards of Honour, he is probably at home on horseback. Send him to me to-morrow morning; I’ll find him something to do.’

I thanked the comte; then, turning to the other guests: ‘This is my countryman’s second step on the road of chance in one day,’ I said, ‘You’ll admit that if a letter of recommendation is often addressed at random, it now and again happens to get into the hands of Dame Fortune.’

‘Yes,’ remarked the young Comte de Saint-Marsan, ‘a letter of recommendation sometimes constitutes a whole fortune. Would you like to have an instance of this?’

And without further ado he told us with his habitual grace and sprightliness the following anecdote in connection with a period which already seemed far removed from us in the past, although the actors had scarcely left the stage.

‘A young Parisian poet,’ began Marsan, ‘named Dubois, who was probably as poor in wit as he was in money, had exhausted all his faculties in singing the powers that were without getting the smallest favour. As a forlorn hope, he addressed an ode to Princesse Pauline, the favourite sister of Napoleon. In his poetical confusion, and without reflecting upon the fate of Racine when the latter presented to Louis XIV. his Memoir on the Wretched Condition of Peoples, Dubois mingled with his praises of the princess counsels to Mars, embroidered on a philanthropic dream of universal peace. The greatest effects are often due to the most trivial causes. It so happened that one of the princess’s waiting-maids was a distant relative of the poet, and she seized a favourable opportunity of presenting the epistle to her highness, who only read the rhymes of “Pauline” and “divine,” recurring at almost every strophe, and promised her influence to the author of such beautiful and kind sentiments. “But where is he?” asked Princesse Pauline. “There,” said the relative, pointing to the ante-chamber. “In that case let him come in,” remarked the princess, and in less time than it takes to tell, the poet enters the perfumed boudoir of Pauline, and finds himself tÊte-À-tÊte with his future Providence. “Well, what can I do for you?” asked the princess, after having listened to the usual compliments. “If Madame by her influence could get me some small post in this or that government office, I should for ever be grateful to her.” “A letter of recommendation to FouchÉ may do the thing. Not later than yesterday he said that I never asked for any favours. I’ll put him to the test. Do you think that this would suit you?” Naturally the poet replied that such a letter could not fail in its effect, and that it would make him the happiest of mortals. Handsome Pauline Borghese immediately opened her escritoire, and being in one of the happy moods when sentences shape themselves on paper, in her petition to his Grace of Otranto she spoke of M. Dubois as a man of superior gifts, apt at many things, and in whom she took the greatest interest.

‘An hour afterwards the protÉgÉ was at the door of the dispenser of favours, but being unknown to the ushers, and not specially recommended to them, it may easily be imagined that he got no further than the ministerial ante-chamber, and that he was obliged to remit his letter to the hands of those who did not care a jot. As a matter of course, it was flung with many others into the basket set apart for such epistles, which as often as not went straight from the receptacle into the stove of the ante-chamber. Nevertheless, when FouchÉ returned that evening from the Council of Ministers, and the basket was, as usual, set in front of him, by the merest accident his eye fell on the paper displaying the imperial arms. Naturally, he opened it at once, read it from the first line to the last, and immediately ordered four gendarmes to accompany his carriage at nine in the morning. Among his entourage it was taken for granted that he was proceeding to Saint-Cloud for some communication of great importance; hence the surprise of his servants was intense when they were ordered to take him to a mean street in the neighbourhood of the Halles. It was there that our favourite of the Muses had established his aerial quarters on the sixth floor.

‘There was neither porter nor number to the entrance of that residence, and inquiries had to be made of the baker of the quarter as to the domicile of M. Dubois, a man of letters.

‘“There is,” answered the baker’s wife, “a person of that name, very poor, who inhabits an attic in the place. I do not know whether he is a public scribe, but he owes me two quarters’ rent.”

‘And issuing from her shop, she begins to bawl out the name at the top of her voice. The poor poet puts his head out of the window of his garret, and espying below a carriage escorted by gendarmes, comes there and then to the conclusion that the boldness of his remarks with regard to a universal peace has been badly received by Jupiter the Thunderer, and that they have come to arrest him in order to make him expiate his audacity at BicÊtre.

‘Prompted by his fear only, Dubois considers it most prudent to hide under his bed. FouchÉ, receiving no answer to the summons of the baker’s wife, makes up his mind to mount the six flights. A courtier does not stop at that when it becomes a question of proving his zeal to those in power. It would want the facetious genius of Beaumarchais or Lesage, or the comic talent of Potier, to paint the originality of the scene, and of the Minister finally discovering the protÉgÉ under the worm-eaten wooden structure that served him as a couch. Hence I abridge the particulars. FouchÉ reassures Dubois, and induces him to come forth from his improvised hiding-place. Regardless of the poet’s very profound nÉgligÉ, he places him by his side in the carriage, which takes its way to the Ministry, where luncheon is soon served.

‘“What would you like to be, M. Dubois?” asks his Excellency in the interval between a dish of cutlets À la Soubise, made short work of by the famished poet, and a salmis de perdreaux equally appreciated, at any rate ocularly. “Now tell me what can I do for you?”

‘“I’ll be whatever your Excellency likes; and I shall be grateful for any kind of post.”

‘“Well, would you like to go to the island of Elba? I can give you the appointment of commissary general of police.”

‘“I’ll go to the end of the world in order to please your Excellency,” replies the poet, not quite sure whether for the last hour or so he has been awake or dreaming.

‘“Very well then, I’ll go and make out your nomination, and you’ll start to-morrow. On reaching Porto-Ferrajo you’ll find further instructions. Meanwhile take this on account of your stipend.” Saying which, FouchÉ presses a roll of napoleons into the poet’s hand. The latter’s luggage was the reverse of voluminous; it would have filled a big snuff-box, and did not take long to pack. Dubois engaged a place in the diligence, and, in imitation of the awakened sleeper, departed, like Sancho, for his island, which he reached without any further adventures.

‘It so happened that at that identical moment, two competitors were endeavouring to get the concession of the iron-ore mines of the island of Elba, the yield of which is very considerable. The new commissary-general of police seemed to enjoy immense credit in Paris. He was entrusted with an important charge in the administration of the island, and each of the competitors tried to secure his goodwill. One of these offered him an interest in his enterprise in return for his influence. The new functionary, who perceived himself to be on the high road to fortune, took particular care not to refuse the offer. He promised everything, and wrote to Paris whatever the speculator directed. Whether it was sheer accident or his recommendation that finally procured the concession for his partner will, perhaps, never be known, but the merit of it was attributed to the child of the Muses. He was, however, sharp enough to be aware of his utter ignorance with regard to the working of mines in no way connected with those of Parnassus, and sold his interest in them for three hundred thousand francs, which with equal good sense he invested in government securities, thus making his newly acquired wealth safe against all vicissitudes.

‘Meanwhile the Princesse Borghese went to BagnÈres to take the waters, and it was some time before FouchÉ met with her at the Tuileries.

‘“I trust your Highness is pleased with the manner in which I have been able to provide for your protÉgÉ;” said the minister. “What protÉgÉ, M. le Duc?” answered Pauline. “I am afraid I do not understand.” “But, madame, I mean M. Dubois.” “M. Dubois? I don’t think I know any one of that name.” “Does not your Highness recollect a letter sent to me about three months ago, most pressingly recommending a M. Dubois, a man of letters, in whom your Highness took the greatest interest?” “One moment,” said the princess, and then a smile overspread her beautiful features. “My protÉgÉ, M. le Duc, was a poor poet, a relative of one of my maids, who sent me an ode. What have you done with him? Have you given him a stool in one of your departments?”

‘The minister, nettled at having been duped in that way, took particular care to suppress the fact of his having made a grand functionary of Dubois. Unfortunately, FouchÉ’s friends at Court got wind of the thing, and there was an end of the secret. Napoleon himself was vastly amused at it, and bantered his minister, whose habits, as every one knows, were not of the bantering kind.

‘Naturally, Dubois’s order of recall was despatched with the same promptitude as that for his departure. Our poet fell from his commissaryship-general as Sancho had fallen from the governorship of his island, and become a nonentity as before. But the three hundred thousand francs had been paid to him and properly invested, and on his return to Paris, he was enabled to pursue in peace his cultivation of the Muses, and we may be sure did not lack for parasites to applaud his verses and share his dinners, which were amply defrayed by the iron-mines of Elba.’

Thus far the narrative of the Comte de Marsan, to whom I leave the responsibility for the story, although I have no doubt of its veracity, for FouchÉ, the Terrorist of old, was an excellent courtier.

M. Cast***‘s progress on the road to fortune was not as rapid as that, yet sufficiently rapid for him to look back with satisfaction on his pluck, as exemplified in his journey to Vienna. His interview with Comte de Witt resulted in his appointment as his secretary. He came to tell me of his wonderful piece of luck, and that same night went to the Leopoldstadt theatre and was arrested by the police, who in Vienna were very severe with foreigners. He showed fight, received several blows, was bound hand and foot, and flung into a cell pending inquiry. When brought before a magistrate next morning, he referred to his new patron, the Comte de Witt, belonging to the suite of the Emperor of Russia, and on the deposition of the general, was set at liberty. Not being provided with a passport, he would, had this happened one day earlier, have been taken as a vagrant to the Austrian frontier.

Subsequently, I was told by the AbbÉ Chalenton, the tutor of the young Polignacs, that M. Cast***, having accompanied the Comte de Witt to Russia, married at Tulczim a Dutch girl of excellent birth, with an income of two thousand Dutch ducats, and on that occasion the abbÉ, at that time the tutor of Comtesse Potocka’s children, gave the bride away. M. Cast*** returned afterwards to Lyons in a different condition from that in which he had left it three years previously.

The moral of all this is that, thanks to a plucky resolve, he also had his share in the good things which were going at the Congress of Vienna. Who after this shall deny the workings of chance on our destinies and the usefulness of letters of introduction?