Vienna, 1814: How the Conquerors of Napoleon Made Love, War, and Peace at the Congress of Vienna (30 page)

At one such party, there were many distinguished guests huddled around Gentz’s table. During the course of the meal, one of the guests, a German-born American citizen, Dr. Justus Bollmann, started a discourse on the merits of the United States. In particular, he raved about the virtues of a republican form of government—all this to a table of ministers who represented emperors, kings, and princes. Gentz, clearly troubled with the uncomfortable choice of subjects, was said to look “as though murder had been attempted in his presence.”

Dr. Bollmann had arrived in Vienna that autumn, hoping to convince some rich patron to invest in his many projects. Among other things, he had drawn up a plan for creating an Austrian national bank and another one for putting a new coin, minted in platinum, into circulation. He also wanted to start a steamship company on the Danube, and increase trade links between Austria and the New World, particularly in quicksilver, linen, watches, and musical instruments. Dinners such as this one were among the best places to make contacts and informally pitch his ideas. So far, though, he was not having any luck.

At another dinner party, hosted by Count Zichy, guests traded ghost stories, very much in vogue in the flourishing Romanticism of the day. Sitting on the floor of a drawing room in the large mansion, to the light of a single candle, Prince Radziwill was telling of a haunted castle back in Poland. Then, all of a sudden, the salon door “creaked slowly open” and then slammed shut again. As one guest in attendance described it, “ladies screamed, gentlemen leapt to their feet,” and then Count Zichy, smiling, confessed that he had tied a string to the door. Everyone laughed, particularly the king of Denmark.

It was at the Zichys’ where the search for new and exciting ways to pass the time already took on innovative forms. Among other things, there were games of chess in which creatures of the salon, wearing the costumes of kings, queens, bishops, knights, and pawns, moved at command on the large black-and-white squared floor.

Dorothée, too, was relishing the many opportunities for enjoyment, and a new man was often at her side, a young Austro-Bohemian aristocrat and army officer, Count Karl Clam-Martinitz. He was only twenty-two years old and already a reputed favorite of the former Allied commander, Prince Schwarzenberg. It was this same Count Clam who had had the unusual experience of having saved Napoleon’s life (eight months before, in April 1814, when he had helped escort the emperor to Elba, and then rescued him from some hostile crowds of southern France).

Dorothée had caught his eye at last month’s Carousel, and it was their mutual acquaintance, Gentz, who had introduced them. Count Clam was soon paying visits to the French embassy; the two were seen riding together in the Prater, and dining in restaurants, such as the fashionable Roman Empress. In honor of Dorothée’s new beau, Talleyrand’s chef had created a new dessert, the divine “Clam-Martinitz Torte.”

Talleyrand’s chef had actually served several new dishes in honor of the delegates. There was, for instance, “Bombe à la Metternich” and “Nesselrode Pudding.” The latter, named after the Russian foreign minister, was a feast of chestnuts, currants, raisins, and whipped cream—and if that weren’t sweet enough, it was soaked overnight in Maraschino, and served in a pineapple-sized dome.

No wonder French embassy dinners were becoming increasingly popular and well attended. All the chef’s meals—those towering culinary creations, fantastic cream sauces, and rich, sweet desserts—were doing wonders for French diplomacy. “I don’t need secretaries, as much as saucepans,” Talleyrand was said to have quipped when asked what he required in Vienna.

Someone else helping the French image in town was the ballerina Emilia Bigottini, whose breathtaking performances on stage did not hurt the popularity of the French. This was also true for the French painter Jean-Baptiste Isabey, who had set up his studio near Café Jungling in the Leopoldstadt, where he was busy painting the portraits of congress dignitaries.

Every Monday, when the painter opened the doors to his studio, guests flocked there to see and be seen amid the half-finished and barely started oils of leading lights that crammed the room. Carriages were parked outside the entrance and lined the street, a testament to the popularity of his studio, “the rendezvous of crowned heads,” as Isabey boasted. The painter, with his wit and delightful tales of the foibles of Napoleonic Paris, was a hit.

It was, of course, Talleyrand’s idea to invite the cook, the ballerina, and the painter to Vienna—and each one, in his or her own way, was reminding the Vienna Congress that the real France was the civilized champion of sweetness and light, not the Bonapartes and their gang of usurpers.

A
LONG WITH THE
intimate dinners and the formal feasts, other forms of entertainment were in vogue during Advent, such as the
tableaux vivants,
or “living pictures,” which consisted of actors appearing on stage frozen in certain poses that depicted a well-known painting or image. La Garde-Chambonas and Prince de Ligne attended one of these tableaux in December in the grand ballroom of the imperial palace.

Arriving early to an already packed auditorium, the two were taken to their reserved seats next to Princess Marie Esterházy. When everyone was seated, an orchestra of “horns and harps” began playing, and the sovereigns made their entrance. Candles in the white and gold rococo ballroom were extinguished, so as to better focus attention onto the stage.

Scenes of history and mythology were then performed by amateur actors at the congress. There was “Louis XIV kneeling at Madame de la Vallière’s feet,” and then the ill-starred “Hippolytus refuting Phaedra’s accusation before Theseus.” The orchestra helped set the atmosphere with the works of Mozart, Haydn, and others, including Napoleon’s step-daughter Hortense, who had briefly, under the empire, been queen of Holland.

The highlight of this particular show was the depiction of the classical gods atop Mount Olympus. Parts were assigned for Jupiter, Juno, Mars, Minerva, Mercury, and the other deities. The person most suited to play Apollo, famous for his beauty, was the Comte de Wrbna. He was a good match, except for one small thing: his mustache.

The managers tried to convince him to shave in time for the performance—no one had ever seen “the god of light wearing a distinctive hallmark of a hussar.” It was a patent absurdity, the stage manager tried to argue; the whiskers had to go. Yet he was having no success, and eventually the empress of Austria intervened, persuading Count Wrbna to remove his “inconvenient ornament.” At least diplomacy was making progress somewhere in Vienna, even if it was only on the illusory Mount Olympus of the Hofburg stage.

After the final “loud bravos,” the sovereigns and guests went back to the palace for a ball, the actors still in costume. Guests mingled in a crowd that included the tsar, the emperor, and several kings and queens, along with the god of war, the goddess of love, and Louis XIV. The tsar, as usual, opened with a polonaise around the ballrooms, and his train of dancers marched up and down and through nearby rooms of the palace.

They passed Talleyrand, lounging in an armchair, discussing the future of Naples. Spain’s Labrador and Cardinal Consalvi, along with a number of other delegates, were standing together deep in conversation. Castlereagh, leaning against a mantelpiece, was talking to an unnamed king. His brother, Lord Stewart, was roaming the rooms aimlessly, like some “golden peacock.” Off in a side drawing room, the tsar and his train of dancers marched past some other diplomats locked in silent battles at the whist table.

After another “magnificent supper” at midnight, the ball ended, and the emperor’s guests sauntered off “to recruit their strength for the next day by much-needed sleep.”

E
VENINGS CONTINUED TO
be full of opportunities for entertainment, but the excitement did not end, of course, in the early morning hours when the sovereigns went to bed. Often, in fact, it was just beginning.

One night that December, for example, when La Garde-Chambonas was walking home, he took his usual route along the city walls. There on the bastions, much to his surprise, he met his good friend, the aged Prince de Ligne.

“What in Heaven’s name are you doing here, Prince, at this hour of the night and in the biting cold?” La Garde-Chambonas asked with concern.

The prince, however, was not his usual self. He muttered something about love affairs, their delightful beginnings, and, afterward, their many painful moments. He was waiting for a rendezvous that apparently was not going to happen. “At your age, though,” the prince said, “it was I who kept them waiting; at mine they keep me waiting; and, what’s worse, they don’t come.”

Shaken by his wounded pride, Prince de Ligne showed a new unexpected “tinge of melancholy,” noting how all things, at the end, “flee as age approaches.” He was, at his advanced age, about to lose his illusions.

At the dawn of life…one carries the cup of pleasure to one’s lips; one imagines it’s going to last for ever, but years come, time flies, and delivers its Parthian darts.

“From that moment,” he added, “disenchantment attends everything, the colors fade out of one’s existence. Ah me, I must get used to the idea.”

The prince went on about how he was no longer “good for anything.” It was all a painful contrast to the days he was welcomed by Marie-Antoinette, celebrated by Catherine the Great, and sought after by Casanova. “My time is past, my world is dead.”

After bidding good night to the melancholy prince, with assurances that they would meet again soon, La Garde-Chambonas walked home. On the way, he encountered another old friend, a certain “Count Z,” who was just returning to his temporary residence at the hotel called the Roman Emperor.

Count Z was a young man about twenty-one years old and rich. His father, who had been a favorite of Catherine the Great, had recently died and left him a fortune. (Was this Count Zavadovsky?) La Garde-Chambonas joined him in his room and, over a few glasses, the two discussed the evening and decided to meet again the next morning, at noon, for a ride in the Prater. But when La Garde-Chambonas returned at the appointed time, he got a surprise.

With curtains drawn, the room was dark and Count Z was still in bed asleep. “Up, up! The horses are waiting for us! Or are you ill?” The count sat up and, holding back tears, said, “I lost two million roubles last night!”

“Are you mad or joking? You are in bed as I left you when I put out the lights.”

The count explained that some of his friends had come by shortly afterward, relit the candles, and challenged him to a game. They had played all night.

When La Garde-Chambonas pulled back the curtains, he could see that the floor was still “littered with cards.” He was determined to set things right, and went to have a word with the gamblers. No avail. Then he tried the Russian delegation, which might put some pressure on the cardsharps who had despoiled his friend of his inheritance.

He encountered more resistance than he had expected. “Is it worthwhile to make so much ado about the loss of a few boumashkisboumashkis?” the unnamed diplomat said, referring to the money.

“Europe in Vienna sits round a table covered with a green cloth; she is gambling for states and a cast of the diplomatic dice involves the loss or gain of a hundred thousand, nay, of a million of heads. Why should not I win a few bits of paper when luck favors me?”

Count Z, it seemed, would just be another person that autumn who had lost out in the high-stakes gambling in Vienna.

Chapter 19

I
NDISCRETION

It is rumored that the congress will terminate on the 15th December. Let the thought of the closing of the Congress be with you every moment, as it is with me.

—P
RINCE DE
L
IGNE ON HOW TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE LAST DAYS OF THE FESTIVE PEACE CONFERENCE

A
s the peacemakers struggled over Prussia’s seizure of Saxony, Castlereagh was disillusioned with the apparent collapse of his strategy, stumbling around like “a traveler who has lost his way.” On December 6, a dispatch from the prime minister’s office in London arrived at his headquarters, and it only added to his discomfort.