Vienna, 1814: How the Conquerors of Napoleon Made Love, War, and Peace at the Congress of Vienna (20 page)

After the smoke of cannons and incense cleared, church bells rang and a large choir sang a German “hymn of peace.” The sovereigns moved over to position near the Burg Gate. The soldiers marched past under their view, and afterward received medallions struck from melted-down cannons seized from Napoleon’s Grande Armée.

There was another dinner served on tables arranged together in the shape of a gigantic star. Sergeants carried each soldier a bowl of soup, a plate of pork, another three-quarters of a pound of roast beef, rolls, and doughnuts filled with apricot jam, all washed down by a quart of wine. Despite the tensions behind the scenes, both the emperor of Austria and the Russian tsar toasted the soldiers in a public show of solidarity.

That night, invited guests were treated to a Peace Ball at Metternich’s summer villa on the Rennweg, where the Austrian foreign minister had built an extension to his estate for this occasion. The building itself was shaped like a dome and ringed by classical pillars. It was made of wood, with walnut parquet floors. Everything was adorned with the new “colorful lights of Bengale,” and with many red Turkish tents in the lobby, it seemed like a scene out of
The Book of 1001 Nights
.

As requested, women wore dresses in either blue or white, “the colors of peace,” many embroidered in gold or silver, and adorned with diamonds. Several women also wore flower headdresses or wreaths of olive, oak, or laurel, symbolizing the peace. Other ladies preferred a tiara, which along with diamond earrings, pearl necklaces, and a vast array of jewels adorning the dresses made them sparkle from head to toe. The men glittered and clinked as well, with many medals and medallions.

When deciding on the seating arrangements for the feast, Metternich made sure the Duchess of Sagan had a good table. In fact, he sent her the plan beforehand and let her choose the seat herself. She was well placed for the show that evening. A hot-air balloon drifted overhead, to the delight of the eighteen hundred guests. Ballets were danced in his enormous garden, in and around faux temples in honor of the classical gods Apollo, Mars, and Athena, and orchestras hidden behind hedges serenaded the guests.

The evening concluded with a fireworks display that attempted to paint in the sky the horrors of war and then the pleasures of peace. To one guest, Metternich’s party surpassed every celebration he had experienced in France, including the heyday of Napoleon’s empire. In parties, too, it seemed, Metternich had defeated Napoleon.

T
HE NEXT MORNING
, Gentz had come over to Metternich’s for breakfast and to trade stories about the Peace Ball. But despite the apparent success, he found Metternich depressed. “What a sad morning after a festival,” Gentz confided in his diary. Evidently, there had been a disturbing incident the night before.

The Russian tsar, who had devoured gossip spread by Princess Bagration, had been loudly bad-mouthing Metternich all evening. The atmosphere of the party had been spoiled, the tsar accused, by the presence of “too many diplomats.” They make bad decisions and then “we soldiers,” he said identifying himself with the troops, “have to get ourselves shot into cripples.” Diplomats, he added, were categorically untrustworthy and he could not stand their falseness.

The tsar’s behavior had embarrassed and humiliated Metternich, the host. Along with the tsar’s insults, Metternich had also been upset because he had wanted to talk to the Duchess of Sagan that night, even if only for a moment. He had not succeeded. That morning after the ball, as Gentz noted, it had been a “very black scene.”

Metternich was also disturbed about the lack of success so far in gaining little Vava for the duchess. He had promised not to let up for “all the treasures of the world,” and success had seemed imminent, too, when he had learned that the child’s father, Gustav Armfelt, had suffered a stroke and died the previous month. But, unfortunately, instead of helping, the tsar was proving highly uncooperative. At their last meeting, on October 15, when Metternich raised the question again, the tsar abruptly declared that he knew for a fact that Vava preferred to remain in Finland with the Armfelt family. And, indeed, after the last outburst at the Peace Ball, the tsar seemed even less likely to help.

Metternich hung on to the child case—“our child,” as he called her. Perhaps his adamancy was his last desperate ploy to win the love of the duchess, as one historian wondered. Metternich certainly seemed to be grasping at any opportunity to have contact with his beloved duchess, no matter how businesslike it might be and how unlikely his chances of success now appeared. He swore he would keep his word, and work even harder on the custody case.

With these disturbing failures absorbing his mind, Metternich was not the most receptive when Talleyrand came over to warn him about relying on the Prussians. Metternich had still not answered Hardenberg’s offer of support against Russia in exchange for Prussian gains in Saxony. Talleyrand was determined to prevent Metternich from accepting this proposition, and he thought that he had just the argument to suit the Austrian foreign minister.

If Metternich allowed Prussia to seize Saxony, Talleyrand pointed out, Prussia would surrender its Polish territory to the tsar. Metternich would then end up helping Alexander gain exactly what he wanted. Austria, on the other hand, would be stuck with a much stronger Russia
and
Prussia threatening its borders. Austria simply must resist Prussia, Talleyrand concluded. “Justice, propriety even safety require her to do so.”

But Metternich brushed aside Talleyrand’s arguments, hatching a plot of his own: He was considering accepting Prussian gains in Saxony, but he would attach so many strings to his consent that Prussia would either accept and serve Austrian interests, or decline and not have his approval at all.

One of these conditions would be that not only must Prussia oppose Russia, but it must also
succeed
in preventing the tsar from having his way in Poland. This way, Metternich would leave it to Prussia’s own ministers to convince their king that the dangers of gaining Saxony from the hands of the unpredictable tsar were far greater than any possible benefit.

Metternich did not mention this plan at that time to Talleyrand, who, of course, would have strongly opposed it. After all, as far as the French foreign minister was concerned, it failed to solve the real problem of Prussian aggression, and it might well end by upsetting the fragile equilibrium and endangering the peace of Europe.

T
HE
D
UCHESS OF
Sagan, meanwhile, was discouraged about the slow progress being made on regaining custody of her daughter. As hostess of one of the most informed salons in town, she knew that the peace conference might in fact erupt into war at any time. Something had to be done immediately. If Metternich could not convince the tsar, then perhaps she would have to do so herself.

On October 20, at a ball given by the Russian ambassador, Count Stackelberg, the duchess wore a sleek red dress, designed by the fashionable Paris designer Louis-Hippolite Leroy, and donned a family heir-loom, a “pearl-shaped emerald” that had been set in a “delicate golden circlet” that sparkled from her forehead. She walked up to the tsar and politely requested an audience. The tsar’s response was as cordial to her as it was cruel to Metternich, who was standing within earshot.

“My dear Wilhelmine, there is no question of an audience,” the tsar said, grabbing her hand and raising her up from her curtsy. “Of course I shall come to see you!” he continued. “Only name the day and the hour—shall it be tomorrow at eleven?”

Eleven o’clock! The tsar had deliberately taken what used to be Metternich’s hour with the duchess, and worse, she had allowed it without the slightest hesitation. Metternich’s feelings of betrayal and rejection were immense. First she had gone back to Prince Alfred, and now this. Metternich, deeply wounded, left the ball immediately. It must have been a lonely carriage drive home that night.

When he arrived back at the Chancellery, he could not sleep. He went to his desk and poured out his thoughts in another desperate note to the duchess. It was four in the morning. “A relationship, a dream, the fairest of my life has vanished…I am punished for having entrusted my existence to a charm only too seductive.”

Metternich felt that he was indeed losing the duchess. Heartbroken, the statesman continued:

You have done me greater harm than can ever be compensated by the whole universe—you have broken the springs of my soul. You have endangered my existence at a moment when the fate of my life is bound up with questions that decide the future of whole generations…I have placed everything I have, this life, my trust, my future, all my hope, I have placed everything in the balance.

With this letter, which he did not yet send, Metternich was about to officially end their relationship. Deep down, though, he knew that she had ended it by her own preferences, and he was crushed. “I have lost my last illusion,” he mourned, contemplating the implications of this rupture. Without her love, he was condemned to “a world without color and a life without charm.”

F
ROM THE VERY
beginning, one of the main subjects in the salons was, of course, Napoleon Bonaparte. Many of the delegates in Vienna had known him personally, and others were curious about this ogre who had once terrorized the world.

Napoleon’s successes, failures, and many controversial acts were discussed and debated around town. One delegate, the Duke of Rocca Romana, who represented King Joachim I of Naples (Murat), enlivened the conversations with his rousing tales from the Russian invasion of 1812. At the climax, this “Apollo of a man” would take off his glove and show his hand, where he had lost four fingers from the terrible frost. Listening to the many stories of Napoleon’s accomplishments and shortcomings, some delegates seemed to miss his presence on the world stage, openly admitting that he had many more statesmanlike qualities than the victorious sovereigns who were making a royal mess out of the Vienna Congress.

“It’s scandalous how the congress behaves,” France’s Duke of Dalberg told Agent **, launching into an outspoken critique of how the Great Powers conspired to shut out Talleyrand, the French embassy, and most of the other delegations in town. “We do not understand anything of Metternich’s politics,” he continued.

If he gives the crown of Poland to Russia, then in less than fifteen years Russia will hunt the Turks out of Europe, and Russia will be more dangerous to the liberty of Europe than Napoleon had ever been.

Dalberg, growing more animated as he went along, wanted to sound a general wake-up call. It was essential, he urged, to “oppose the colossus that is going to crush Austria and the other powers.”

The tension between Russia and Austria was certainly one of the main problems of the congress. The two powers had been uneasy allies since the end of the Napoleonic Wars. They had often ended up on opposing sides on questions of strategy and tactics, most notably in early 1814, when the Austrian army invaded Napoleonic France through Switzerland—in direct conflict with the tsar’s wishes and his promises that the Allies would respect Swiss neutrality. The relationship between Austria and Russia had never recovered, Gentz later observed.

Indeed, a vibrant personal rivalry between Metternich and Tsar Alexander had exacerbated the political problems. As Gentz saw it, the tsar had come to regard Metternich as “a sworn enemy” and harbored an intense jealousy of Metternich’s flair in the drawing room. He was witty, mannered, and very popular with women. The tsar had come to Vienna hoping, as Gentz said, “to be admired,” and found it difficult to share the limelight, especially with a man he had come to detest.

Spies had likewise noticed the tsar’s growing interests in Metternich’s private life—his “morbid curiosity” as one agent put it. Alexander was still suspected of prying for information at the Palm Palace, where both the Duchess of Sagan and Princess Bagration, of course, were authorities on their former lover. Princess Bagration, in particular, was glad to comply. She still seemed upset at Metternich for neglecting her in favor of the Duchess of Sagan, and seemed happy to satisfy the tsar’s appetites, spies reported, feeding him the most intimate details of their previous love affair.

It was at the congress, Gentz believed, that the tsar’s resentment of Metternich “reached the point of an implacable hatred,” and this, in turn, fueled the tsar’s “daily explosions of rage and frenzy.” All of this, of course, may have delighted gossipers, but it was causing considerable strain on the negotiations. As Gentz concluded, it was Alexander’s hatred for Metternich that served as “the key to most of the events of the Congress.”

Now, Gentz was often biased in Metternich’s favor, and this assessment certainly seems slanted. But Gentz actually no longer regarded Metternich as an infallible “Delphic Oracle,” as he had earlier dubbed him. Far from it. At times, Gentz was already emerging as an outspoken critic of Metternich—blasting him not only in his diary, but also openly and indiscreetly at salons and dinner parties around town.

Police agents had noticed, too, that by the middle of October, Gentz was making many visits to Kaunitz Palace. Reportedly, he and Talleyrand were getting along well. They were dining together at the embassy, or with mutual acquaintances like the Duchess of Sagan. The French minister had, it seemed, discovered Gentz’s well-known weakness for flattery, perfume, chocolate, and money, and he was increasingly gaining influence over Metternich’s assistant.