Illness of the Prince de Ligne—The Comte de Witt—Ambassador Golowkin—Doctor Malfati—The Prince gets worse—Last Sallies of the Moribund—General Grief—Portrait of the Prince de Ligne—His Funeral.

One of the most painful events of my life, namely, the death of the Prince de Ligne, also damped the gaieties of the Congress. The event affected me so deeply, and it was so unexpected by me, that, after many years, I still vividly remember the particulars. I was on my way to pay my quasi-daily visit when, not far from the prince’s residence, I met the Comte de Witt, who wished to accompany me. The prince was in bed and ailing. He had caught a chill at that ill-fated appointment on the rampart; and on the previous evening at the ball, where he appeared so thoroughly consoled, he had been rash enough to go out without a cloak in the bitter cold in order to take some ladies to their carriage. As yet there were no grave symptoms; he was only feverish, and had passed a very restless night.

Nevertheless, he welcomed us with the cordial grace that never failed him, and we chatted about the crowd of strangers in Vienna and the latest rumours of the Congress; and finally we got to military matters, the favourite subject of the octogenarian marshal and of the young Russian general. To judge by his spirited remarks, there seemed no cause for anxiety, and the Comte de Witt as a parting sentence said how sorry Vienna would feel at the news of its brightest ornament being ill. He answered with a particularly atrocious pun, attributed to the Marquis de BiÈvre, which seemed to afford him great amusement, and expressed the intention of getting well again in a short time if only to spite the gossip-mongers of the capital.

When the Comte de Witt was gone, the prince referred to the comte’s mother, to ‘his exquisitely beautiful mother,’ as he expressed it, ‘whose image rises before me the moment I catch a glimpse of her son and reminds me of the best years of my life. That type of beauty is lost,’ he went on. ‘It was a combination of Eastern loveliness and Western grace. You ought to have seen her, that Comtesse de Witt, when for the first time she appeared at the Court of France. No words of mine can convey an idea of the effect she produced, of the universal enthusiasm she aroused. I remember that, hearing her beautiful eyes—which were, in fact, the most beautiful conceivable—constantly mentioned, she imagined that the adjective and the substantive were inseparable. One day Marie-Antoinette said to her; “What’s the matter, comtesse, you do not appear to be well?” “Madame,” was the answer, “I have got a pain in my beautiful eyes.” As you may imagine, this ingenuous, delightfully naÏve reply went the round, and justly applied to the lovely creature.’

I noticed that talking seemed to tire him, and I left, not without a vague feeling of sadness and anxiety. I felt depressed all day, and in order to verify my apprehensions of the morning I went back at night. Doctor Malfati91 and the Comte Golowkin, known in connection with his unsuccessful mission to China, were with him, and the former was warning him against his want of care, which might be attended with serious consequences. Since the morning violent erysipelas had set in; the patient seemed much weaker. Golowkin, who had no more faith than MoliÈre in doctors and the art of healing, was trying to dispel his uneasiness. ‘With all due deference to the faculty,’ replied the charming old man, ‘I have always belonged to the sect of unbelievers where medicine was concerned. You know the remedies I employed during the famous journey with the great Catherine in Taurida. She was very anxious that I should submit to some of the dictates of Hippocrates. “I have got a peculiar way of treating myself,” I replied. “When I am ill, I send for my two friends, SÉgur and Cobentzel: I purge the one and bleed the other; and that as a rule cures me.”’

‘Times are changed, prince,’ said the doctor, somewhat nettled; ‘and if my memory does not mislead me, six lustres have gone by since then. Just let us count the years a bit. They make, as far as I can reckon——’

‘Stay, stay, doctor,’ exclaimed the patient in a lively tone, ‘don’t let’s count anything; I have never counted my enemies. And you, a clever man, you are telling me “times are changed.” Who in the world could persuade himself that age changes one’s face. Is it not the same in the morning when we get up as it was the previous evening when we went to bed? People here imagine, perhaps, that having exhausted all kinds of pleasure, I am going to relieve their monotony by giving them the spectacle of a field-marshal’s funeral. No, I am not a sufficiently good courtier to be the complacent actor in such an entertainment. I have no wish to divert the royal pit of the Congress Theatre in that way.’

These well-known words of the Prince de Ligne have always been strangely misquoted. Historians have lent to them a kind of philosophy, desirable, no doubt, but altogether unintended by the speaker. All have made him say: ‘I keep for these kings the spectacle of a field-marshal’s funeral.’

Not one of those historians heard him as I did; not one of them knew or even suspected the real character of that illustrious old man.

The prince went on. ‘I do not intend using the epitaph of my friend the Marquis de Bonnay for a long time to come. I’ll defer the business of cutting his clever lines into marble for a while.’92

Malfati, though strongly recommending great care, made it a point to reassure him, and to dismiss all idea of death.

‘It will have to come to that after all, I know. I was seriously thinking of it all night. Death suits many people. I once had the fancy of proving this in several articles I wrote hurriedly. I’ll touch them up and complete them later on. As for you,’ turning to us, ‘listen and look, in order to find out if you happen to belong to these categories; don’t worry about me. As for the doctor, it will serve him as a text when he wishes to preach resignation to his patients.’ Saying which, he took from under his pillow a book and began to read to us. Some of his reflections, apart from their original and piquant style, had also the merit of a comforting and gentle philosophic teaching.

After that short moral lecture, Malfati left us. Golowkin, in order to amuse the invalid, told him some of the incidents of his mission to China; the variety of the pictures seemed to brighten him. Gradually dismissing the possibility of any danger, he began to refer cheerfully to some of the circumstances of his young days.

‘When I was a child,’ he said, ‘the dragoons of the Ligne regiment carried me in turns in their arms. My fondness for soldiers dates from that period. It’s a kind of affection which, contrary to the other, has often been repaid to me in coin of sterling devotion.’

In spite of his cheerfulness, six or eight hours had sufficed to make him look gaunt and wan. He could no longer smile without an effort; there seemed to be a short but terrible struggle going on between him and bodily pain. Finally his courage and energy got the upper hand; pain was for the moment vanquished.

His daughter, the Comtesse Palfi, came in to administer the potions prescribed by Malfati; we left them. When Golowkin and I were outside on the ramparts, we did not pretend to disguise our uneasiness from each other. Golowkin was sincerely attached to the prince.

At eight the next morning I was at the prince’s with Griffiths, who, having all his life made the science of healing a particular study, felt only too pleased to assist one he liked so well. The prince was very depressed; the presentiment of his end made him sad. ‘I know,’ he said, ‘nature will not be balked. We must vacate the space we occupy in this world for some other people. We must make up our minds to it. Nevertheless, I feel this: the greatest sting of death is the fact of leaving those whom we love.’ I felt the tears getting into my eyes. ‘Come, come,’ he said, ‘don’t be afraid, the “camarde” will be mistaken once more.93 To-morrow my pain will be gone like the dream of a night.’

Then he was silent for a few moments, as if pondering. ‘What a sad thing is the past,’ he remarked at last. ‘The recollection of it is horrid; if it has been a happy past, it’s hard to say to oneself, “I have been happy.” When one falls to thinking of one’s moments of glory and of happiness, of one’s first attempts, even of the games of childhood, the thoughts are sufficient to kill one there and then with regret. Nevertheless, if I could have my time over again, or could return on earth after my death, I should do almost everything I have already done. My poetry and my love-affairs are the greatest sins I have committed, and Heaven has never withheld its forgiveness for such errors. The only thing I should endeavour to do would be not to give the same persons a chance of being ungrateful to me. After all, I would only give others a chance....’

Throughout the day the greatest personages of Vienna, all the political and military celebrities and the sovereigns, sent at frequent intervals for news. The report of his illness had spread among all classes; the anxiety was general, and a large crowd gathered before his house, so intense was the interest in the remarkable man about to disappear. During the night, between the second and third day, his condition became rapidly and alarmingly worse. His family, bowed down with grief and dumb with despair, stood around his bed when Malfati came in. ‘I did not think,’ said the patient, ‘that I should make so much fuss at going. Truly, the uncertainty and briefness of our days are not worth the trouble of waiting.’ Then he began to talk with the greatest gaiety about the bequests he had made. ‘The inheritance will not be difficult to divide; yet, it was necessary to proceed in orderly fashion. In accordance with an ancient custom, I must leave something to my company of trabans. Well, I have left them my posthumous works; the gift is worth a hundred thousand florins.’

They tried to change the conversation in order to divert his thoughts from the subject of death, but he constantly returned to it. ‘I have always liked the end of Petronius,’ he said. ‘Bent upon dying as he had lived, in the lap of luxury, he made them play some charming music and recite some beautiful verses. I’ll do better than that: surrounded by those whom I love, I’ll breathe my last in the arms of friendship. Don’t be sad,’ he said a few moments later, ‘perhaps we’ll not part yet. One illness sometimes prevents a more serious one. Take heart; doubt is a most precious gift from nature. Besides, I am by no means convinced that the prophecy of Etrella is to be realised so soon.’

‘What prophecy, prince?’ asked Malfati.

‘It dates from my last journeys to Paris. The Duc d’OrlÉans, to whom I was much attached, for he could be a staunch friend, took me one day on leaving the Palais-Royal to a sorcerer, a fortune-teller, whom they called the “Great Etrella.” This Parisian gipsy was perched in a fifth floor in the Rue de Froid-manteau. He foretold to the Duc d’OrlÉans some surprising things to which my want of faith prevented me from paying much attention. As for me, he told me that I should die seven days after having heard a great noise. Since then I have heard the noise of two sieges, I have heard two powder-magazines blown up; and I did not die of the noise. I fancy that during the present week there has been no great noise, except about small things—rumours, balls, fÊtes, and intrigues. Many people live by them and through them. I have not heard it stated that anybody died of them.’ He tried to smile. Suddenly, there was an access of great weakness, which frightened us. In a short time, though, he rallied once more. ‘I feel it,’ he said, ‘the soul has worn out its dress. The strength to live is gone; the strength to love you all remains.’

At these words, all his children flung themselves on the bed, kissing his hands and bedewing them with tears. ‘What are you doing?’ he said, drawing his hands away. ‘I am not a saint yet, children; or are you mistaking me for a relic?’

The joke produced a more painful sensation than the most agonising cry could have done. The doctor prevailed upon him to take a draught, which gave him some hours of peaceful sleep. When he awoke he had recovered his cheerfulness; the idea of death had vanished. He began even to jest about the terrible prognostics which, in spite of his weakness, he had overheard in the morning. ‘Malfati, the “camarde’s” messenger has given you to understand that she might pay me a visit this evening,’94 he said. ‘A truce to that kind of gallant diversion. I have never broken my appointments, but I mean to break this one. Yes, I have adjourned the writing of the verses which, like Hadrian, I intend to address to my soul about to leave my body.’

There was a lighted candle on a piece of furniture near the window. ‘Blow that candle out,’ he said to his servant: ‘people can see it from the rampart; they’ll mistake it for a wax taper, and they’ll think I am dead.

‘Did not I tell you,’ he said, addressing himself to us, ‘that the verdicts of the faculty are not invariably without appeal. Decidedly, the newsmongers and idlers of the Graben will have to postpone their comments on my demise, at any rate this time. I hear that to keep their tongues and pens going they are spreading the rumour of the Empress of Russia’s pregnancy.’

He went on in the same tone, interrupting himself to discuss the plans of his journeys for the coming spring, and the travels he wished to complete. We, alas, were far from sharing his opinion, the ravages of the disease were too plainly discernible; practically there was no hope. Malfati when leaving had pronounced the situation to be exceedingly grave.

Towards the middle of the night the doctor’s apprehensions were fast being realised. The improvement of a few hours was all at once succeeded by a thorough prostration. Suddenly his strength seemed to revive; he sat up in bed and assumed a fighting attitude; his eyes were wide open, and shone with unusual brilliancy, he gesticulated violently and shouted: ‘Shut the door, put her outside, “la camarde,” the hideous hag.’ He was manifestly struggling with all his might against the ‘hideous hag’s’ grip, and gasping forth incoherent words, while we, standing by terror-stricken and paralysed with grief, could only answer him with sobs. This last effort exhausted him completely; he fell back unconscious. An hour later, God received his soul. It was the 13th December 1814.

His daughter, the Princesse de Clary, bent over him and closed his eyes.95 His face no longer wore the expression of terror and anger that had contracted it a moment before his death. His features had recovered their ordinary and placid expression, and the look of youth which had been theirs so long in virtue of his peace of mind and soul. A smile hovered on his lips, and the man, so extraordinary in everything, even after his death was perhaps handsomer than he had ever been at any period of his life. His noble face might have served as a model to the brush of Lesueur for his sublime heads of Heaven’s elect. In default of the halo which is the pictorial symbol of everlasting happiness, there were the beams of genius and goodness. His immortality had commenced.

At the foot of the bed an old soldier was convulsed with sobs. It was the Major Docteur whom I had often met at the house. His affection for the illustrious old man partook of the nature of fanatical worship. It was said that there were ties of close blood relationship, but whether the tears coursing down that noble, scarred face were due to gratitude or admiration, or kinship, they plainly showed the extent of his loss and the bitterness of his grief.

The princess cut a few locks of her father’s white hair and distributed them among us. We received them silently, bedewing them with our tears. I doubt whether they were ever parted with by any of the recipients.

The Prince de Ligne was in his eightieth year. With him disappeared one of the most brilliant lights of his century.96

He was the veteran of European elegance, and at eighty had preserved the vigour of a man in his prime added to the grace of youth. He also had the tastes of the young without ever becoming ridiculous in the slightest degree in consequence. Animated as he was by the most cordial good-will towards them, young men, whom he treated as ‘chums,’ worshipped him and were never so happy as in his company.

His was a genuine and unostentatious philosophy. The revolution in Belgium deprived him of a great part of his wealth. He bore his losses with the utmost fortitude. Lavish like most men endowed with great imagination, he had left portions of his remaining fortune in every capital of Europe, and, in spite of his extravagance, had scattered even more wit than money.

The idea of death had perhaps never presented itself to him: the extent of his knowledge, the fantasy displayed in his taste, his fondness for the worldly life led by a society of which he might rightly claim to be an ornament—all this had provided him with a freshness of imagination, a vivacity of affection, and a kind of unfailing youth, the source of which resided in his mind and in his heart. He in every respect justified the saying of Maupertuis: ‘The body is a green fruit; it only becomes ripe at the moment of death.’

The Prince de Ligne was a field-marshal, the proprietor of a regiment of infantry (raised and subsequently maintained at his own expense), captain of the trabans and the guards of the Imperial Palace, a member of most of the European Orders, and a Knight of the Golden Fleece. He took a legitimate pride in reminding people that one of his ancestors, Jean de Ligne, Marshal of Hainault, had received that knighthood at the same time as Philip, the father of Charles V.

No official mourning was ordered for the illustrious deceased, nevertheless mourning was general, inasmuch as it was in everybody’s heart. For a great number of years, the Viennese had come to look upon the Prince de Ligne as an object of respect and admiration, a feeling which was, perhaps, still further increased by the reverence shown him by foreigners. The Viennese no doubt also remembered the friendship that had bound him to their Emperor Joseph, and the ‘fraternity of glory’ that had subsisted between the prince and their most famous warriors; they could not forget the familiar footing on which he had lived with them and with all the celebrities of the previous century. To part with the man who spoke so admirably of all these, and reminded them so vividly of their heroes, was like losing them a second time.

The funeral of the Prince de Ligne took place with all the honours due to his rank, and with a pomp hitherto unknown at the burial of a private individual. The procession left his house at midday. It was composed of eight thousand infantry, several squadrons of cavalry, and four batteries of artillery. His company of trabans surrounded the funeral car; its officers carried the insignia of mourning. A herald-of-arms, on horseback, in black armour, wearing a black crape scarf, baldrick-fashion, and holding a drawn sword lowered, followed immediately afterwards; and then came the prince’s own battle-charger, caparisoned in black spangled with silver stars. Behind the charger, and by the side of the family, came a great number of marshals, admirals, generals, belonging to nearly all the armies and navies of Europe. Among them, the Prince EugÈne, Generals Tettenborn, Philippe de Hesse-Hombourg, Walmoden, Ouwaroff, de Witt, Ypsilanti, the Prince de Lorraine, the Duc de Richelieu, and all the notable personages who at that moment had forgathered in Vienna. Some of those captains, who had come expressly to pay their last tribute to the man who had been their model, were on horseback and carried their swords bare.

The procession traversed part of the city on its way to the parish church, called the ‘Scottish Church.’ After the religious ceremony, the funeral continued its route to the Kalemberg, where the prince had requested to be buried.

The funeral procession of the field-marshal passed before the sovereigns, some of whom, like the Emperor of Russia and the King of Prussia, had taken up their position on the site of the ramparts razed by the French. There was unaffected grief on their faces. Alexander, for instance, could not help remembering the admiration of his grandmother for the illustrious dead.

When the coffin was lowered into the vault, the sun shone out at full strength, and ‘it seemed,’ as Gentz said, ‘as though he would salute for the last time the favourite of God and men.’