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Updated: May 27, 2025
Austria, too, had done her utmost to bring on a conflict, hoping to find her account in the dissensions of the two empires. Her policy demanded her territorial aggrandizement at the expense of Turkey; in a war between France and Russia she was sure to find her account, and there was nothing in Metternich's dealings with Napoleon which tended to preserve the peace of Europe.
There are few houses of rank where strangers are received; the animation of former times is gone. The ambassadors live retired. The monarch's state of health makes him averse to society. Prince Metternich's house is the only one constantly open; "but while he remains at his Garten, to trudge there for a couple of hours' general conversation, is not very alluring."
If we may judge from Metternich's statements in his "Memoirs," written many years later, he was all along in secret sympathy with these views. But his actions and his official despatches during the first six weeks of the armistice bore another complexion; they were almost colourless, or rather, they were chameleonic.
But to return to Prince Metternich's despatch: "Many days passed without incident, when suddenly the Emperor began to share again the Empress's apartment and took a favorable moment to ask why she had been so sad for some days. The Empress then told him of her interview with Fouche. The Emperor confirmed his statement that he had never given him any such orders.
Metternich was now made a prince, with large gifts of land and money, and occupied a superb position, similar to that which Bismarck occupied later on in Prussia, as chancellor of the empire. It was Metternich's policy to avert actual hostilities until Austria could recover from the crushing defeat at Austerlitz, and until Napoleon should make some great mistake.
There was nothing in him that was great. But he was indisputable master of Europe for thirty-three years. Nesselrode, Hardenberg, Talleyrand even whose Memoirs seem the work of genius beside the beaten level of mediocrity of Metternich's found their designs checked whenever they crossed the Austrian's policy.
This combined opposition of sincere reformers and jealous courtiers hindered Metternich's policy; and it was decided that the City Guard should first be called out, and that the dictatorship of Windischgraetz should be kept in reserve as a last resource. In the mean time the struggle on the streets was raging fiercely.
Prussia at that time entirely gave way and left the leadership to Metternich's system of absolutism. By and by, it became obvious that Austria was, on account of her non-German population, internally weak, condemned to constant employment of violence and reaction, and therefore unfit to stand at the head of a strong modern Pan-Germany.
But the question whether it was brought about by Napoleon's obstinacy, or Metternich's perfidy, or the force of circumstances, must be postponed for the present, while we consider events of equal importance and of greater interest. While Austria balanced and Frederick William negotiated, the sterner minds of North Germany rushed in on the once sacred ground of diplomacy and statecraft.
Never fear about your illness; it is merely nervous exhaustion, and you will be well soon; but such evenings must not often be indulged in if you are not desirous of shortening your life. I shall hope to meet you at Mme. de Metternich's on Monday. "Tout
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