The Fire at the Razumowski Palace—The Prince’s Great Wealth—The Vicissitudes of Court Favour in Russia—Prince Koslowski—A Reminiscence of the Duc d’OrlÉans—A Remark of Talleyrand—FÊte at the Comtesse Zichy’s—Emperor Alexander and his Ardent Wishes for Peace—New Year’s Day, 1815—Grand Ball and Rout—Sir Sidney Smith’s Dinner-Party at the Augarten—His Chequered Life, his Missions and his Projects at the Congress—The King of Bavaria without Money—Departure and Anger of the King of WÜrtemberg—The Queen of Westphalia—The Announcement of a Sleighing-Party—A Ball at Lord Castlereagh’s.

It seemed as if every species of amusement had been exhausted for the gratification of the illustrious gathering at Vienna. Balls, hunts, banquets, carrousels were only a few of the forms pleasure had adopted in its pursuit. The new year was drawing near, and in order to inaugurate it under similar auspices of gaiety and happy freedom from care, the Austrian Court had announced sixteen grand fÊtes or new assemblies for the forthcoming month of January. Suddenly, on a moonless night, the palace of Prince Razumowski caught fire, and in consequence of a rather stiff breeze the mischief spread rapidly, and in a short time looked like Vesuvius in full blast. The excitement spread in due proportion, and everybody wished to catch a glimpse of the spectacle, worthy of the brush of a great artist. In a short time the roads leading to the structure were simply black with people.

At daybreak I also repaired to the spot. The Emperor of Austria had gone thither at the first news of the disaster. Several battalions of infantry, animated by his presence, preserved order, and did all they could to check the progress of the flames, without much apparent success. From amidst the snow-covered roofs arose dense clouds of smoke, which in turns hid and lighted up the burning building itself. Every now and again an explosion more violent than the rest literally caused burning beams to drop from on high. A shower of smaller flames threatened the various parts of the pile with total destruction. The yawning walls suddenly disclosed vast rooms, superb galleries crammed with precious furniture and art-treasures, which almost immediately became a prey to the fast-advancing monster. The pictures and the statues were flung headlong into the gardens and into the courts. If they escaped destruction by fire, they were shattered to pieces on the flagstones or saturated with the jets of water and the molten snow, which had converted the ground into a kind of quagmire. One magnificent gallery, decorated with a number of statues by Canova, could not be saved. Its floor had given way; and at that moment a feeling of profound consternation seemed to have taken possession of the enormous crowd. It was not surprising, for the Razumowski Palace constituted one of the sights of Vienna. It had taken twenty years to build it. Several times since the opening of the Congress, Emperor Alexander had borrowed it of his ambassador. It was in these vast apartments that he had given some of the fÊtes rivalling in pomp and splendour those of the Austrian Court; it was at the Razumowski Palace that he had gathered around a table of seven hundred covers all the political celebrities of Europe; it was at the Razumowski Palace that, but three weeks previously, he had so fitly celebrated the birthday of his sister, the Grand-Duchess of Oldenburg. Such, in short, were the splendour and charm of this magnificent palace that Empress Elizabeth had, it was said, seriously thought of renting it during the spring as her private residence.

For many, many years Razumowski had made a point of embellishing the place with every art-treasure that wealth could buy. The rooms themselves were decorated with as much taste as sumptuousness. Side by side with galleries containing masterpieces of pictorial and statuary art, there was a library, perhaps matchless anywhere, inasmuch as the rarest manuscripts and books were collected there. In short, the building was a unique specimen of Asiatic magnificence, carefully toned down by European taste.

In the costly ornamentation of that palace, Razumowski had spent a considerable part of his fortune: it was even said that his fortune had been impaired by it. That wealth, which was enormous, came to him from his father, Cyril Razumowski, the field-marshal, and the brother of that famous Alexis who was the favourite and subsequently the husband of Empress Elizabeth, who secretly married him at Perowo, near Moscow. The vagaries of luck, which has played so important a part in the history of Russia, were for Cyril what they were for the brother of Catherine I. When the erewhile chorister-lad of the imperial chapel, Alexis Razumowski, had sprouted into the lover and minister of Empress Elizabeth, it all at once recurred to him that he had a brother. Alexis decided upon having him sent for, in order to give him a share of some of the good things that had come to himself. The brother herded flocks somewhere in Little Russia, and had no presentiment of the marvellous destiny in store for him. On the contrary, he was inclined to look upon the imperial emissaries who had come in search of him as so many recruiting-sergeants bent on converting him into a soldier. In his opinion, the wallet in which he carried his bread while tending his flock was a thousand times preferable to the grenadier’s knapsack; hence, at the approach of the men in quest of him, he escaped, and hid himself in the woods. As a matter of course, they were on his track in a few days, and after a most obstinate resistance, he was bound and laden with fetters, and in that condition he made his first appearance at the Imperial Palace, whence he issued very soon, laden with wealth and favours, a field-marshal, and invested with the restored commandership of the Cossacks, a rank abolished by Peter the Great in consequence of the Mazeppa conspiracy. In addition to the most extensive powers, the latter office conferred upon him the right of levying tithes upon all the revenues of the provinces of his government; and this naturally became the source of one of the most enormous fortunes of Europe.

Exceedingly tactful and devoid of prejudice, Cyril Razumowski succeeded in maintaining himself in his great position during the reign of Catherine II., to whose elevation he was supposed to have contributed in no mean degree. The pomp and splendour with which he surrounded himself, as well as his personal kindness of heart, seemed to have rendered him fully worthy of such unprecedented favours. Many traits are recorded of him proving his generosity as well as his nobleness of character. He had a steward, who for many years had managed his affairs, and who had acquired great influence over him. A poor gentleman of Little Russia, a neighbour of the marshal, was at loggerheads with the business man about some land, which, though of little or no importance to the wealthy Court dignitary, practically constituted the whole of the other’s patrimony. The steward insisted upon the surrender of the property. The gentleman was thoroughly aware of Razumowski’s inherent sense of right and justice, and, instead of trusting his all to the chances of a lawsuit—always uncertain in Russia, and notably where one’s opponent happens to be very powerful—he made up his mind to go and find the marshal at St. Petersburg, and to plead his cause with him. The steward, having got wind of the affair, is beforehand, and on his arrival in the capital stigmatises the claim of the gentleman as an utterly unfounded pretension, and extracts from his master a promise to yield neither to solicitations nor prayers, but to remain firm. A short time afterwards the poor gentleman arrives upon the scene and explains his case, and succeeds in convincing the marshal so completely of the justice of his claim as thoroughly to move him. The picture of the other’s total ruin is by no means to his taste; the promise to his steward is forgotten, and without saying a syllable he leaves the room for a small one adjoining it, and there in a few lines he draws up a document granting the contested land to his adversary. At the sight of the paper, the latter drops on his knees, where the steward, entering at the same moment by another door, finds him. ‘You see,’ said Razumowski smiling, ‘where I have brought him to.’ The scene is worthy to figure by the side of that of Sully and Henri IV. at Fontainebleau, when the king said to his friend the minister, ‘Rise, Rosny, these people might imagine that I was granting you a pardon for something.’

AndrÉ Razumowski, his son, who had only received his princely title some short time before from Alexander as a reward for important services, had inherited several of those qualities which seem such dignified accompaniments to great wealth. He also had a remarkable and enlightened taste for art. The genuine type of the grand seigneur, he was at the same time wholly familiar with the less redundant graces of diplomatic courtesy. Most expensive in his taste and grandiose in his projects, he noticed one day that he might shorten the distance separating him from the Prater, and had a bridge thrown over an arm of the Danube. As the ambassador to the Austrian Court, he was on the most confidential footing with Prince de Metternich, the presiding spirit; and more than once, Razumowski, by his cleverness, had dissipated the clouds gathering over the discussions of the Congress. The fire had meanwhile been got under, but that part of the palace looking out upon the gardens was irrevocably gone. Among the crowd of lookers-on, I noticed the Prince Koslowski. After the death of the Prince de Ligne, an instinctive feeling of friendship, and perhaps sympathy also, seemed to draw me nearer to that other friend. If, in the case of the old marshal, I had admired the treasures of experience and reason and that subtle and delicate appreciation of society, in the case of the Russian prince I found a loftiness of views, an entire independence of judgment and expression about men and political events, too rare, perhaps, among diplomatists. His sprightly conversation bound many people to him, while at the same time his frankness commanded affection.

‘This,’ he said, when I got up to him, ‘is a chapter to add to the vicissitudes of courtly favour and disgrace in Russia. Razumowski may consider himself fortunate to be quits at the cost of a palace half burnt down. He also has known the ups and downs of favour and disgrace; he also has known the sweets of power and the bitterness of exile. The history of my country could indeed be made into a most philosophical novel; it would, above all, provide a series of excellent moral lectures on the danger of vainglory and the frequency of revolutions. The last century has offered any number of examples. There is Menschikoff, a pastry cook’s lad, who becomes a prince and a general, and is suddenly exiled, dying a couple of years after, without individually recovering his position. Biren, a servant, is raised to sovereign rank, and is practically master of the empire for nine years, until the day that MÜnnich, his rival, claps the fetters on him in the presence of his own guards, petrified with fear. Biren, however, regains favour, while MÜnnich himself expiates his sudden rise with twenty years’ banishment to Siberia. Surgeon Lestocq, after having overthrown the Regent Anne, practically puts the crown on Elizabeth’s head, and remains one of her principal advisers during her reign. He is, nevertheless, flung into prison, then set free, and finally almost entirely forgotten. The Princesse Daschkoff, the supposed soul of the plot that dragged Peter III. from his throne to place his wife there, is soon misjudged by her whose plans she imprudently boasted to have inspired, and to whose grandeur she professed to have contributed. Finally, the plotters who took Paul I.‘s life and crown are treated with the utmost harshness by him who owes his present power to them.

‘Well,’ he went on, after we had left the scene of the fire, ‘the elevations are often as strange in their causes as the catastrophes are terrible in their effects. Judge for yourself. In consequence of my relationship to Prince Kourakine, I began my career in the secretarial department of the great chancellor Romanzoff. One day the latter was dictating an important despatch to me. I do not know how I managed it, but in my hurry, instead of emptying the pounce over the document, I emptied the inkstand over the beautiful white kerseymeres of the chief. That inkpot, so indiscriminately emptied, decided my fate. Romanzoff, as you may imagine, did not care to keep near him a secretary with such a distinct tendency to spoil his clothes, so he gave him a position as a state-councillor, where there was a good deal to control, but little to write. But for this trifling circumstance, I’d probably be vegetating now among the subalterns.’

Few men combined like the Prince Koslowski the liking for work, and the intelligent appreciation of it, joined to a remarkable and fiery eloquence. His learning was very varied and extensive, his memory most admirable. History had no secrets for him; he had mastered all the diplomatic transactions which for many centuries had regulated the fate of Europe. His manner of judging men was that of a philosophic statesman. All the political questions so often twisted out of their natural shape by private interest he regarded in the light of a friend of humanity. A staunch partisan of all progress, he was fond of telling how he, like another illustrious personage already mentioned, had received equally deserved chastisement at the hands of an Austrian postillion. While travelling, when very young, on the frontiers of Prussia, he had struck the driver, whose horses did not keep pace with the traveller’s impatience. The driver vigorously applied his whip to the back of the ’prentice diplomatist. ‘Well, it was that Austrian who gave me my first lesson in liberalism,’ said the prince, laughing, a decade later.

Koslowski quickly climbed the first rungs of the diplomatic ladder. Minister-plenipotentiary to the King of Sardinia, he had the good fortune to save the lives of several shipwrecked Frenchmen who had been made prisoners. Napoleon immediately sent the Legion of Honour to the representative of a sovereign with whom at that very moment he happened to be at war. The reward redounded as much to the honour of the Russian ambassador as to that of the French Emperor. It was at Cagliari, about the same period, that the Prince Koslowski became acquainted with the Duc d’OrlÉans, afterwards the King of the French. A similar love of knowledge, a similar desire for fathoming most things, drew these two together. Both had spent their earlier years in serious and assiduous studies. The chequered and adventurous life of the French prince had strengthened the studies with the experience derived from misfortune. These two took long walks by the sea-shore, and passed in review the gigantic events of which practically they were the eye-witnesses. Sometimes they read Shakespeare, whose language and whose beauties were equally familiar to them; and those readings were rarely interrupted except by the cries of admiration of the Russian diplomatist or the subtle and learned comments of the French exile.

Very often during the Congress I heard Koslowski refer to the particulars of that familiar intercourse, of which, despite the difference in their years—for that difference consisted of a decade—he cherished a lively recollection. ‘The learning of the Duc d’OrlÉans surprises and confounds me; on no matter what subject, whether it be a scientific, an historical, or a politico-economical one, he not only holds his own with me, but beats me. What, however, I admire most in him is his courage in misfortune, and his profound knowledge of men. He sees them as they are; nevertheless, he judges them without the slightest bitterness. Proscribed from his country, he constantly has his eyes turned towards it, and has steadfastly refused to join those who would reconquer it by force of arms. The saying: “They have learnt nothing; they have forgotten nothing,” does not apply to him. Both as a man and as a prince, he belongs to his time.’

The Comtesse Zichy gave a grand ball, which was to be honoured by the presence of the sovereigns. The sole topic of conversation in the capital was the fire of the previous night, which had robbed the city of one of its handsomest ornaments. The damage, estimated at several millions, was absolutely irreparable from the point of view of art. But oblivion came quickly in those days, and by evening the excitement had largely subsided, and the courtiers’ greatest interest seemed to be the study of the sovereigns’ faces, inasmuch as the rumour ran that the most important questions had been settled, that the sweetest accord reigned between those rulers of the world, and that the opening of the new year would be signalised by the proclamation of some great decisions and the declaration of a general peace.

Among the crowd of notabilities grouped around the celebrities, such as M. de Metternich and the Field-Marshal Prince de Schwartzenberg, was the young Prince C—— de F——, the son of a king, the brother of a king to-be, yet who, nevertheless, was as simple and unaffected as he was handsome and clever. A circumstance most trifling in appearance had made him for the last few days the subject of all comments and the object of all observation. In the shape of a floral decoration, he wore simply a daisy in his buttonhole and nothing else. Of course, renewed each day, the modest village flower was a proof of careful search at a season when the snow-covered fields had none to offer to the rustic swain. No doubt some tender recollection, some thought proceeding direct from the heart, was hidden under this humble emblem. It was one of the many love-stories enacted while the Congress was supposed to be unravelling the tangled skein of Europe’s diplomacy. The air of Vienna seemed positively teeming with them, and their secrets were not difficult to read. The latest was no exception to the others. It was soon known that the modest flower of the field reminded the young prince of a cherished name, that of the Comtesse de ——. One day these two were strolling through the imperial hot-houses, and, love being superstitious, they hit upon the idea of consulting the future with regard to the duration and the depth of a feeling constituting their happiness. The comtesse plucked a daisy, interrogated it according to usage, and the last petal brings the ardently wished-for word ‘passionately.’ Naturally the word is welcomed by a mutual smile, there is an exchange of significant glances—of those glances that say as plainly as words, ‘You’re understood.’ The prince plucks another flower and fastens it into his buttonhole. The matter, however, did not end there; the oracle had been believed; heaven had received the pledges, while the head-gardener at SchÖnbrunn had received something more substantial in the shape of a hundred florins for the fortunate pot of daisies. A flower placed each morning near his heart reminded the lover of a pledge which, as a rule, is kept more faithfully in cottages than in Courts.

The band had struck up the usual polonaise, and Alexander, as was his habit, marched at the head of the line of dancers. His partner was the Comtesse de Paar, as distinguished by the graces of her person as by the accomplishments of her mind. Midnight struck and the new year had commenced. In Austria, as is well known, the delightful custom of our fathers of celebrating the first hour of January amidst mutual good wishes had been piously preserved. At the sound of the clock, the comtesse stopped, and, turning towards the emperor, said, ‘I am very happy, sire, to be the first to offer such a great sovereign the good wishes for the new year. Allow me also to be with your majesty the spokeswoman of all Europe for the maintenance of the peace and the union of peoples.’

Such wishes, expressed by such lips, could not fail to meet with an enthusiastic welcome. Alexander, then, accepted with much grace both the compliment and the request. He replied that all his hopes, and all his wishes tended in the direction of that much desired aim, and that no sacrifice would be considered too great by him to consolidate a peace which was the first need of humanity.

The guests had formed themselves into a large circle, and at the last words of the imperial reply, there were slight feminine cheers from all parts; a kind of ovation which did not seem to displease Alexander. For to some of the great qualities of the Grand Louis, he made it his constant study to add nobleness of manner and ever-watchful courtesy to the fair sex. The interlude being over, the orchestra took up the interrupted strain, and the polonaise was concluded amidst joyous murmurs and mild applause.

It was thus that commenced under the most happy auspices that year 1815 which a few months later was to witness a struggle more relentless than ever, terminating in the catastrophe of Waterloo. From early morn, and in spite of the biting cold, a considerable crowd had gathered on the Graben and on other public places. Every one seemed to be waiting for the announcement of that general peace, of that general reconciliation, which, according to certain newsmongers, was to mark the advent of the new year. People kept interrogating each other with an anxiety mixed with a constantly growing incredulity. All that could be gathered was the decision of the Austrian Court, which had suppressed the customary official receptions in order to save its guests the worry of new year’s compliments and the embarrassment of mendacious gratulations. As for the decisions of the Congress, they continued to be enveloped in as much secrecy as ever, and people remained free to pursue the daily comment on the dissensions of the Powers and the lukewarmness they were likely to impart to the fÊtes announced for the month of January.

A great number of carriages traversed the city in all directions, and that of Lord Stewart, the English ambassador, eclipsed all the others in virtue of its elegance and its appointments. At an early hour Empress Marie-Louise had come from SchÖnbrunn to offer her good wishes to her august father. Standing aloof from everything that happened at Vienna, she never attended any entertainment, Court fÊte, or public ceremony. Nevertheless, the greatest deference was shown her everywhere. During the first months after her arrival at SchÖnbrunn, she had kept the imperial arms of France on the panels of her carriage, on the scutcheons of her harness, and on the buttons of her liveries. On the occasion of a famous visit to her father, some people in the street had loudly expressed themselves on what they chose to regard as a blunder in the matter of etiquette. Marie-Louise had heard the words, and from that day she had been careful to efface the last traces of her presence on the throne of France; and when we caught a glimpse of the conveyance we noticed a new monogram instead of the Napoleonic one, and a livery not only brand-new, but altogether different in colour from the old.

Nevertheless, in spite of the unfavourable predictions current on the Graben with regard to the turn of the discussions of the Congress, the Imperial Palace from nine that evening was scarcely able to hold the enormous crowd seeking admittance. The sovereigns, the political and diplomatic notabilities, had forgathered in what was called the Hall of the Ceremonies, where the Austrian Court was giving a state ball. Not far from there the big hall usually set apart for the large routs was filled with masks and dominos. Griffiths and I had repaired thither. It presented, as always, the most animated picture of all, and only one purpose seemed paramount, the pursuit of pleasure. After a few turns Griffiths and I left, surprised at such a total absence of care so rapidly succeeding and ousting most important preoccupations.

One of the most curious gatherings of the Congress and of Vienna was no doubt the ‘pic-nic dinner’ to which Admiral Sidney Smith invited the sovereigns and the political and other celebrities then within the walls of the capital. The idea of bringing together so many eminent personages, and of making each pay his share of the entertainment, could not fail to please them by its very sincerity amidst the constant gaiety which was gratuitously offered to them. Consequently, a great many had responded to the appeal.

Sir Sidney Smith had not been attracted to the Congress from simple motives of curiosity. His aim was political as well as philanthropic. And though not invested with any official mission, he had created for himself as many occupations as had the representative of the most influential Power. His projects in no way belied his adventurous life, the episodes of which savoured as much of a novel as of history.

A sailor from his boyhood, and without occupation after the American War, he passed into the service of Sweden, In consequence of the glorious naval engagement of 1791, he got the Grand Cross of the Order of the Sword, and shortly afterwards he offered his services to Turkey. Recalled after a few months by a proclamation of the King of England, he found himself, together with Lord Hood, at the siege of Toulon. In the course of 1796, while lying before Havre, he boarded a French corsair, which only a dead calm prevented him from taking in his wake. A sailor having secretly cut the cable of the craft, manned by English sailors in replacement of the French, the rising tide drove it into the Seine, where it was attacked by superior forces and was obliged to surrender. Taken to Paris, Smith was at first confined in the prison of l’Abbaye, then in that of the Temple. It was from the latter that his friends, by means of a forged order of the minister of the police, managed to effect his escape, a circumstance apparently very simple in itself, but which later on, under the walls of St. Jean d’Acre, contributed to frustrate most gigantic projects, and perhaps effectually prevented the revolution of the East. After that it becomes rather difficult to assign great causes to great events.

On his return to England, Sidney Smith got the command of the Tiger, four-and-twenty guns, and was instructed to watch the coast of Egypt. After having bombarded Alexandria, he set sail for Syria, where his presence and his advice induced the pasha to defend St. Jean d’Acre. It was owing to his aid and obstinate resistance that the siege had to be raised. It was on that occasion that he was presented by the sultan with an aigrette of great price, and received from Napoleon the not less flattering remark: ‘This devil of a Sidney Smith has made me miss my fortune.’ On his return to London he received the freedom of the City, in addition to a magnificent sword of honour. Elected to the Commons, he kept his seat up to the Peace of Amiens, when he obtained a new command, and in 1805 took Capri after a siege of a few hours. When, in 1807, Napoleon had deposed the House of Braganza, he took the Prince Regent of Portugal and his family to the Brazils. Since then he had remained inactive, though, as may be easily imagined, inactivity did not suit his temperament. The Congress of Vienna offered him a magnificent opportunity for displaying his mental energy, and, as a consequence, he was one of the first to arrive. He represented himself as being vested with full powers by the former King of Sweden, Gustavus IV., who, under the title of the Duc de Holstein, had entrusted him with a claim relative to the throne he had lost. That very honourable mission had been bestowed upon him in virtue of his being a former Swedish naval officer and a knight of the ‘Order of the Sword.’

At the very opening of the conferences, Sir Sidney Smith had submitted to the supreme tribunal of Europe the declaration of his august client. The moment seemed well chosen. Justice, reparation, legitimacy, were religiously invoked watchwords in Vienna. In appealing to the conscience of sovereigns, the deposed monarch brought their own arguments to bear upon them. In his note, Gustavus-Adolphus reminded them that he had been deposed only by the influence of Napoleon, with whom he had declined all relationship, especially since the death of the Duc d’Enghien. He furthermore pointed out that the Swedish nation, in excluding him from the throne, had only yielded to a political necessity and to the threats of the great Powers; that at the moment of his abdication he was a prisoner; that since then he had always refused to renounce the rights of his son; that he felt confident of this prince, when he arrived at his majority, proving himself worthy of his birth, of the Swedish nation, and of his illustrious forefathers; and that, finally, he did not claim the throne on his own account.

In politics, however, the most logical arguments are not always the most valid ones. The days and months went by without there being the slightest question of restoring his sceptre to the deposed monarch. Practically sent away without having produced the least impression as far as his embassy was concerned, Sidney Smith was, however, not at all discouraged. ‘If, contrary to all possibility, I fail with this august tribunal,’ he said, ‘I’ll bring it without the slightest fear before the tribunal of my own country. As long as we have a Parliament in England, there will be a court of justice for the whole of Europe. I’ll ask why a legitimate king comes to be deprived of his rights; I’ll ask to know the reason of the most relentless enemy of Bonaparte falling a victim to his intrigues; of the abandoning to misfortune of the man who was the first to attack the Colossus with all the ardour of a knight of olden times. Do not people know that Napoleon never forgave Gustavus for having reproached him with the murder of the Duc d’Enghien, and for having sent back to the King of Prussia the Order of the Black Eagle, which he, Gustavus, declined to wear in common with Bonaparte?

‘If it be objected that Gustavus signed his abdication, I’ll answer that he was not a free man, that a father cannot sign away the rights of his son, that a sovereign cannot depose his dynasty. Ought not this descendant of the great Gustavus, of Charles XII., to inspire in this spot the interest inseparable from such magnificent memories? When on every side the principles of equity are loudly evoked, will they dare by the strangest contradiction to reject the most sacred, those of an inheritance founded on glory and hallowed by ages? In fine, if history is henceforth to be the sole judge of arbitrary acts, it is to history that Gustavus-Adolphus shall appeal. Posterity, more equitable than this Congress of kings, shall say of the prince that if certain brilliant peculiarities made him, perhaps, an object of envy and enmity, it is very rarely that vice does not avenge itself upon a brilliant destiny with calumny. As for myself,’ added the admiral, ‘a constant courtier to fallen grandeur, I shall remain true to my affections and to my principles, and defend until the end the rights of legitimacy and evil fortune.’

In vain they told him that the interest of the nations themselves, the pledges given, and the need for peace, had also to be considered; that Europe could not annul solemn acts, and perhaps least of all those secret treaties that assured to Bernadotte and his dynasty the peaceful possession of the throne of Sweden; that Europe would never reward the eminent services he had rendered to the common cause by a spoliation; that Europe would not expel him from the prominent place of honour to which the general wish of the Swedes had lifted him in order to impose upon them the monarch they had rejected; that the sad position of Gustavus-Adolphus rendered it imperative in him to bear his misfortunes with dignity; and that, finally, when a monarch is deposed, he could only arouse compassion by avoiding to draw attention to his case. In spite of the indifference of the Congress and of the public, Sidney Smith, nevertheless, did not leave a stone unturned in favour of a cause henceforth lost.

The negotiations with regard to his pic-nic dinner had met with fewer obstacles. In Vienna, it was easier to organise a pleasure-party than to obtain the restitution of a throne in an assembly which had seemingly taken it as a principle to despoil the feeble in favour of the strong. The aim of this general convocation was a subscription, at the head of which the admiral had placed his name. The proceeds, it was said, were to be devoted to the purchase of an immense silver lamp for the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem. But it was also soon known that the sums Sidney Smith hoped to collect would be used for the repurchase of the Christians kept prisoners in Barbary. He had already proposed to the Congress a naval expedition for the purpose of annihilating those Barbary powers, of putting an end to their brigandage, and of destroying the disgraceful white-slave traffic in Africa for ever. Naturally, he was to take the command of this anti-piratic army. The Congress had, however, other things to think about than the organisation of a crusade, and this new Peter the Hermit had fain to be content with the simpler means of redeeming the slaves with the gold taken from the purses of the votaries of pleasure. Transplanting English usages into Austria, a dinner seemed to him the suitable bond for this humanitarian work.

A great number of tickets were sold and the day was fixed. The Augarten, eminently suited for such a function, had been chosen. Yan, the restaurateur par excellence, had undertaken all the culinary details of that philanthropic gala fÊte. The price of the tickets had been fixed at three Dutch ducats, that for the ball to follow at ten florins. The dinner was to be on the table at five o’clock in the beautiful hall so often used by Maria-Theresa and Joseph II. The table itself was in the shape of an elongated horse-shoe; the walls of the apartments had practically disappeared under the standards of all nations. An orchestra had been erected at each end. The sovereigns had not only approved, but approved with great alacrity. The grand personages of the Congress, ministers, generals, and ambassadors, had been equally eager to contribute their ducats. Among the hundred and fifty guests there were as many highnesses as semi-sovereigns, great captains, and illustrious statesmen. Trumpeters on horseback, posted at intervals, announced the monarchs’ arrival by loud blasts. Those ‘glorious entrances’ as they are practised on the English stage proved that the admiral had not forgotten the theatre of Shakespeare.

Yan had done his best, and though that best was good, and Bohemia, Hungary, and the Hereditary States had provided their most delicate edibles, a dinner at the Court would no doubt have been more perfect in every respect. It was, however, a tavern repast, where every one paid his own share; and that novelty had seemed so strange to the crowned heads, or to the heads fated to wear a crown, that no one was absent. It was, indeed, a strange and curious spectacle.

Every one remembers the banquet where Voltaire made Candide dine with seven deposed kings at Venice. Since then, no one had ever seen so many forgathered in a tavern or restaurant. If the number of those who sat down at the Augarten was not absolutely the same, at least they were not deposed, but crowned in real earnest, and very resplendent. The inverse comparison, in fact, presented itself to everybody’s mind. Involuntarily also, the mind reverted to some of those functions where the kings pressed around Napoleon the victorious; a few spoke about it, but in nothing louder than a whisper.

During the first part of the repast, the music played the national airs of the different countries. At the second course, the admiral, like the good Englishman he was, and faithful to the traditions of his country, got on his legs, and spared neither the toasts nor the speeches. The subject of his own was, naturally, in connection with the object of the gathering; and though it dragged, no member of the ‘Order of Mercy’ could have preached with greater unction the redemption of the slaves. The result of his eloquence was calculated to flatter him, for it amounted to several thousands of ducats. The emperors had each subscribed a thousand, and the others according to their fortunes or their philanthropy. Sidney Smith had concluded his speech, the dishes had run their course, the wines of Hungary, the Rhine, and Italy had been tasted, sipped, and lauded, according to their merit, and we were about to rise from the table, when suddenly there appeared the manager of Yan, who, between two symphonies of Haydn, claims of each of the guests the sum of three golden ducats, the price fixed for the banquet, the music, and the lights, the total amounting to about five thousand four hundred francs.

Some months later, I happened to be in London at the dinner offered to the sovereigns by the City. The number of guests, truth to tell, was somewhat more considerable; the ball may also have been somewhat more numerously attended. The expense, though the fÊte was in nearly every respect similar, came to twenty thousand pounds. A different spot, a different total.

A trivial circumstance which lent some gaiety to the banquet in the Augarten was entirely lacking in London. It was an episode which, in itself, was worth a whole book, and recalls that so facetiously told by Voltaire. Not that it deals with a king tracked by bailiffs like the poor, ill-fated Theodore of Corsica, but with that most charming and most delightful of reigning kings, Maximilian Joseph of Bavaria.

Yan’s manager had begun his collection, and had put the money of the Emperor Alexander and the King of Denmark in the silver dish he was carrying. When he got to his Bavarian majesty, Boniface’s representative boldly presented the dish, already ornamented with the six ducats in question. The excellent Maximilian carried his hand to one waistcoat pocket, then to the other, then to the pocket of his coat. The search is absolutely fruitless—pockets, fobs, receptacles are as completely empty of money as in the days when joyous Prince Max failed to find any money-lender in Paris to line those pockets with gold. It is more than probable that this king, this very model king, had emptied the contents of his purse into some hand stretched out to him, as invariably happened at Munich, where some unhappy wretches always posted themselves on his route. At any rate, a second examination of the pockets brought the unalterable conviction that his majesty of Bavaria had not a red cent upon him.

Rather embarrassed by the situation, the king began to scan the whole length of the board, and caught sight of his chamberlain, the Comte Charles de Rechberg, at the very end of it. He felt sure that his embarrassment was at an end. Rechberg, who was there on his own account and for his own money, had not the remotest intention of attending upon his royal master in this kind of ‘Liberty Hall,’ and was, moreover, deeply engaged in conversation with M. de Humboldt. Rechberg had just published an important book upon Russia, which publication, he fain hoped, would give him a foremost rank among distinguished littÉrateurs, and, naturally, he was talking enthusiastically about it to the great savant. Consequently, he did not see the signals of distress from his sovereign, and equally, as a matter of course, failed to answer them. The head-waiter, meanwhile, did not budge, holding out the silver dish for the money due to him. The king kept one eye on the collector, the other on Rechberg, and his confusion gradually became such as to attract the notice of those around him. In a little while a kind of titter was running round the table like an electric spark. To give the scene a somewhat complete likeness to the royal banquet at Venice, it only wanted a few bailiff’s officers at the door, watching King Theodore. How King Maximilian would have got out of his quandary without the help of his neighbours, it would be difficult to say, for the stolid head-waiter refused to budge. A far better money-collector than courtier, he kept jingling his money against the dish, till Prince EugÈne, who had been the last to get an inkling of the situation, was about to satisfy his claim. He was, however, forestalled by Alexander, who, recalling the inexorable creditor, about to move at a sign from the prince, emptied his purse into the dish, shaking, meanwhile, with uncontrollable laughter, in which the others joined. Good King Maximilian continued to look confused for a few moments, but, finally, was as amused as the others at an episode which perhaps reminded him of his youth.

At the conclusion of the dinner, and the subscriptions having been settled, we passed into the ball-room. It was a real pell-mell, less animated than a rout, less solemn than a Court ball, but infinitely more curious to the ordinary observer. There were few ladies of high degree; they were already satiated with fÊtes; on the other hand, there were a great many dames of the bourgeoisie who counted upon nothing less than a highness or an ambassador for a minuet or a waltz. Unfortunately, nearly all had spoilt their fresh and charming looks by ornaments the reverse of tasteful. Though, unquestionably, bought at a high price, these ornaments suited their charming figures far less than the classic golden cap of Phrygian shape. The sovereigns retired almost immediately after the ball opened, and the most illustrious guests followed their example very shortly. As a consequence, the young bourgeoises waited in vain for the hoped-for aristocratic partners, and they had to be content with the new arrivals in that capacity. They did not seem to mind it, for they had the full value of their ticket: daylight was streaming in before they made up their minds to leave. The whole expense of the dinner and ball combined was reported not to have exceeded fifteen thousand florins. Eight months later, the fÊte given by the London merchants to the sovereigns, to which I have already referred, cost twenty thousand pounds. And yet people complained about the excessive dearness of everything in Vienna! What would it have been if the Congress had been held in London? This was the fÊte which enabled Sidney Smith to make a long speech and to add to his titles, already more or less showy, that of President of the Noble Knights. In reality, it was a pity to see a man with real claims to distinction constantly seeking opportunities of no value as far as he was concerned and often altogether insignificant.97 It was said that, as an auxiliary to the pursuit of his humanitarian object, he had solicited and obtained a brief from the Pope authorising him to found a society for the purpose of abolishing slavery for evermore. What was something more practical was the aid of the Powers and their money. All the sovereigns had promptly proclaimed their adhesion to these philanthropic projects by their subscriptions and their presence at his picnic; all but two, the Emperor Francis and the King of WÜrtemberg. The first, confined to his room by a somewhat serious indisposition, had sent a donation of a thousand ducats; the second had, two days previously, left Vienna, and his abrupt departure formed the subject of every conversation.

Naturally imperious and irascible, the very corpulent King Frederick chafed and fretted against the slowness of the diplomatic discussions. In the state-gatherings, he always seemed to be grumbling or devoured with care. He was not the only one, for it was generally felt that the ordinary passions were pursuing their course under all those floral ornaments and decorations. There came an opportunity, however, for his impetuous character to show itself in all its violence. Among the many conflicting claims submitted to the Congress, the landed nobility of Germany herself had deemed it advisable to join the petitioners, and it had sent its deputies entrusted with the claim for recovering its ancient position and rights. During a conference attended by his majesty of WÜrtemberg, that claim was discussed, and there was also a good deal of desultory talk about the restoration of the Holy Roman Empire. The king was scarcely able to contain himself, and when it became a question of measures that might restrict the prerogatives of sovereigns, he rose in great anger. Before him there was a table which, unlike the boards at the imperial banquets, had not been scooped out to accommodate his majesty’s enormous corpulence. In his sudden movement the abdominal prominence of the king lifted the table off its legs and it fell with a crash. The mishap naturally aggravated the temper of the king, who quickly regained his own apartments, and in the evening left the capital of Austria, after having strenuously recommended his plenipotentiaries systematically to reject every demand on the part of the nobles. As for his son Wilhelm, he remained much more concerned with the handsome eyes of the Grande-Duchesse d’Oldenbourg than with the questions of the Congress.

This overbearing character the King of WÜrtemberg showed just as much in his relations with his family as in the exercise of his royal power. There was an instance of it when he forced his son into a marriage against his will. He acted in a similar manner with regard to his daughter when he made her marry JÉrÔme, King of Westphalia, the brother of Napoleon. No sooner had the latter fallen than Frederick wished the marriage to be dissolved. Attached by a sincere affection to her husband, and at any rate to her child, the Queen of Westphalia opposed a stubborn refusal to her father’s demands. ‘United by bonds due to politics,’ she wrote to him, ‘I am not going to recount the happiness of seven years; but if he had been the worst of husbands, you, my dear father, by consulting the real principles of honour, could only command me not to leave him now that misfortune has overtaken him, and considering that this misfortune is not of his own making. My first idea, my first impulse, was to go and fling myself into your arms, but accompanied by him, the father of my child. Where, in fact, would be my tranquillity if I did not share it now with him to whom are due more than ever all my powers of consolation?’ In another letter, she expressed herself as follows: ‘Though I married for political reasons, it seemed ordained that I should become the happiest woman in existence. I bear my husband three feelings combined, love, tenderness, and esteem. A time will come, I trust, when you will be convinced of having judged him wrongly; and when that time arrives you shall find in him and in me the most respectful and affectionate children.’ Such a noble resistance ended by disarming the father, whose children had both been forced by him into unions which were in the end to prove happy in the case of his daughter, the reverse in the case of his son.

This departure of the King of WÜrtemberg put an end to all the hopes of the German noblesse. A few days afterwards, the deputies, tired of being deluded with promises that had no prospect of realisation, did not wait until they were positively bowed out, but left the Austrian capital of their own accord. As a matter of course, the epigrams which generally accompany failure were not spared to them; their going was attributed to their exhausted finances, and the next morning they were forgotten.

People were merely talking about a new entertainment, namely, a sleighing party. The snow, which lay thick, and the sharp frost, which seemed to have set in for good during the last few days, favoured that kind of amusement, borrowed from the stern climate of St. Petersburg and Moscow. The Austrian Court made immense preparations, and the magnificence to be displayed was to rival that of the imperial carrousel.

Pending those preparations, the fÊtes and amusements announced for the month of January suffered no interruption. The fÊtes which, on account of the serious turns of the discussions, were to languish, seemed, on the contrary, to be more brilliant than ever. At that period Lord Castlereagh gave a great gala-ball. At Vienna, all the entertainments bore their particular stamp. Generally the private balls given by the illustrious diplomatic personages, though apparently modelled on the same pattern, were dissimilar in their general physiognomy or in their minute details. One might have called Lord Castlereagh’s a ‘vanity ball,’ for if on the one hand it was very sumptuous, on the other it was serious, like pride itself, and cold, like overweening pretension. Yes, one really felt inclined to say that the pride and the pretension which Lady Castlereagh had displayed in attaching to her brow the Garter of her husband had followed her into the gilded and brilliant halls of her residence, redolent with the scent of many flowers. The sumptuousness of the supper failed to thaw the iciness of the affair. As for the host, according to his habit amidst all those animated fÊtes where everything was given over to pleasure, he seemed pre-occupied and smitten with care. Even when his lordship danced, he seemed to be bent upon giving his serious thoughts the slip by the accelerated movement of his legs, disporting himself in an Irish jig or a Scotch reel. Did Lord Castlereagh really endeavour to get away from the disappointments of an insidious and miscarried policy? Did he already ponder the last scene of the political drama of his life, when the stoicism of Cato, added to the sombre results of his spleen, made him escape by suicide from tardy and by then useless regrets? History has as yet not given the key to that enigma.