Vienna, 1814: How the Conquerors of Napoleon Made Love, War, and Peace at the Congress of Vienna (31 page)

The British government had learned of their minister’s idiosyncratic, indeed disobedient, behavior from many sources, including both Austria and France. The prime minister, Lord Liverpool, ordered him to adhere strictly to British policy in the future. He had now to turn, volte-face, and support the Kingdom of Saxony.

Frustratingly, too, the English dispatch also ordered Castlereagh, in a sweeping and unqualified declaration, to stop antagonizing Britain’s allies, meaning particularly, of course, Russia. Britain was still fighting a war across the Atlantic with the United States, Castlereagh was reminded, and the government did not want to risk another war in Europe, especially not over these issues deemed tangential to their interests. The letter clearly stated that this went for “any of the objects which have been hitherto under discussion in Vienna.”

With new orders in hand, Castlereagh now faced the unpleasant task of confronting the Prussian chancellor. Uncomfortably yet firmly, Castlereagh stated that Britain’s earlier acceptance of Prussian occupation would have to be withdrawn. Britain was no longer at liberty to condone this act.

Hardenberg, stunned at the abrupt change, protested against this “stab in the back.” At least, the Prussian chancellor consoled himself, he still had Metternich’s assent. But was Hardenberg conveniently forgetting how hedged and tentative this had been, or was he perhaps referring to an oral, off-the-record understanding?

Just a couple of days before, the Prussian chancellor had sent over a message to Metternich, affirming the importance of Prussian-Austrian relations. Hardenberg’s means of communication was unusual for diplomacy, though perhaps not so out of place in this dancing congress. It was a poem, celebrating the benefits of their cooperation:

Away discord, vanish from our folk.

Give way, thou monster with the snaky hair!

A single perch atop a giant oak

The double eagle and the black one share.

From this time forth in all the German Reich

One word, one thought, is uttered by this pair

And where the lutes sound out in German tongue

There blooms one Reich so mighty and so fair.

On Saturday night, December 10, Hardenberg received Metternich’s response: Despite the history of good relations between the two powers, which he recounted in the politest terms, Metternich notified Prussia that his country would join Britain, virtually all of Germany, and other civilized states to resist this seizure of Saxony.

Still claiming to have his friend’s best interests at heart, Metternich enclosed a compromise counteroffer. Instead of granting Prussia all of Saxony, he proposed an alternative plan that involved handing over a small part of Saxony, with a population of about 330,000, and also territories farther west in the Rhineland. Together these lands would bring Prussia back up to its 1805 size, as promised, with a population of 10 million. A table of statistics was included in the proposal.

Hardenberg was outraged. One-fifth of Saxony! Prussia must have the entire region, as he still claimed that Metternich had promised. For the past several months, Hardenberg had been trying to rein in extremist Prussian generals who continually pressed their king to make even more vigorous demands. Now Hardenberg was being rewarded with this insult. Many other Prussians in town were equally angry, pouring wrath on Metternich. As Gentz put it, “All the Prussians and all their supporters cried murder.”

In the meantime, steaming over the Austrian foreign minister’s letter, Hardenberg proceeded to commit an act that Talleyrand would call “a most culpable indiscretion.” If Metternich had decided to abandon previous agreements, then Hardenberg knew how to respond: He took all his confidential correspondence with Metternich, marched over to the Hofburg, and showed everything to the tsar.

Metternich’s propensity for “tacking, hedging and flattery” was frightfully exposed. Worst of all was the letter Metternich had written in early November, defending himself against the tsar’s absurd accusations—which in effect implied that the tsar was a liar. Reading these words, Alexander flew into a rage. He had been personally insulted, and demanded satisfaction. Allegedly, he slammed his sword down on the table and shouted that he would challenge Metternich to a duel.

M
EANWHILE, IN HIS
small flat on the Mölker Bastei, Prince de Ligne lay sick in bed. Having caught a cold in early December, he lay atop his torn mattress, surrounded by his favorite objects: his books, his etchings, and his paintings, most of which no longer had frames, only “fastened with pins to the walls.” His family stayed by his bed, medicine in hand, and guests continued to pay their visits. People looked up to his third-floor window, hoping to see through the light-blue silk curtains for signs of a flickering candle.

“I know it is nature’s way,” the prince said to the people gathered around him. “We must leave our appointed place in the world to make room for others.” After a pause, he continued, “Only leaving all those one loves, oh, this is what makes dying so painful.” He muttered some final bits of gossip, and spoke of his plans to travel here and there. He asked about the affairs of the congress, and drifted off imagining himself leading troops into battle. According to one, the prince sighed from his bed, “Oh I feel it, the soul has worn out its outer garment.” Others said that he promised to give the Vienna Congress the spectacle of a field marshal’s funeral. By the evening, his doctor was admitting that there was nothing more that he could do. The prince died the following morning, December 13, 1814.

Two days later, and on the day he had feared the congress would end, the prince’s funeral took place at the Scottish Church on the Freyung. A large crowd gathered to pay their respects, in the church as well as outside in the square and the streets, while others looked on from balconies and upper-story windows. Marshals, generals, and officers led a long procession through town, past the palace, and out to the Kahlenburg for burial at the edge of the Vienna Woods.

Eight grenadiers pulled the coffin, on top of which were the prince’s sword, his baton, his plumed hat, and an array of military orders. A horse followed, riderless and draped in black cloth “spangled with silver stars.” At the back of the procession was a knight in black armor, his visor lowered, symbolizing the world of chivalry. The march was slow and silent, except for the sound of a beating drum.

I
N
D
ECEMBER,
V
IENNA
was preparing for the Christmas season. The days were shorter, darker, and colder, with snow occasionally falling and whitening the trees. Vienna’s residents, both the older and the newer adopted ones of the congress, strolled by markets, shuffled into boutiques in the inner town, and made plans for the celebration of the first Christmas without war in years.

When Agent ** entered the salon of Fanny von Arnstein, wife of a prominent banker in the firm of Arnstein and Eskeles, he had been surprised by what he found in the room: a tall fir tree, decorated with candles and gifts. This was apparently the first Christmas tree that he had ever seen, and he was not alone. Many historians have pointed out that December 1814 saw the first Christmas trees arrive in Vienna—this was called the “Berlin custom.”

At the French embassy, Dorothée also convinced Talleyrand to celebrate Christmas “Berlin-style.” This meant lots of marzipan, butter cookies, and, in the hallway, a giant fir tree decorated with “colorful garlands and lit candles.” Another, even larger tree was placed near the famous staircase. The French embassy hosted a party on Christmas Eve, and then celebrated afterward, as Dorothée liked, in the German style, exchanging gifts that night, and not, as in Catholic France or Austria, on New Year’s Eve.

Talleyrand gave Dorothée a cashmere shawl and some Meissen porcelain, and she gave him a new Breguet watch, sent over specially from Paris. Inside was a miniature portrait of herself, by the painter Isabey. This watch, she said, would help him make it through the tedious conferences that sometimes seemed like they would never end.

Despite the failure of their liaison, Metternich was still thinking very much of Dorothée’s older sister, Wilhelmine. That Christmas, he sent over a small jar of fancy English lemon salts that, he hoped, would help ease her migraines. “Little gifts preserve friendships,” he added in a letter accompanying the package. “Bon soir, devote a good thought to me, and tell me you are mine!” he added. “I shall see you tomorrow evening.”

On the Mölker Bastei, Ludwig van Beethoven continued his work on some new pieces of music, including the Polonaise in C Major (op. 89) which he dedicated to the empress of Russia and for which he received 50 ducats. Beethoven was also working on setting music for a patriotic tragedy written by the king of Prussia’s private secretary, Johann Friedrich Leopold Duncker, as well as his previously written Three Violin Sonatas (op. 30), to be dedicated to the Russian tsar. Interestingly, too, Beethoven was polishing another piece that he intended to celebrate the Congress of Vienna. The title was going to be “The Choir for the Allied Princes.” The congress, however, would end before he finished; the piece would, in fact, never be completed, and probably never performed—that is, until the 1990s.

On Christmas Day, Vienna’s court composer Antonio Salieri conducted the music at High Mass at the palace chapel. Many Protestant delegations headed to Lutheran and Calvinist churches, and houses of worship all over town were packed. Later, Beethoven’s concert featuring the Seventh Symphony, “The Glorious Moment,” and, most popular of all, “Wellington’s Victory” was repeated at the Redoutensaal, with proceeds benefiting a local hospital. This time, however, Beethoven neither conducted nor performed. Two days before, on the Russian tsar’s birthday, he had given a concert, and, as it turned out, this would be the last time that Beethoven ever played the piano in public.

While Princess Bagration planned to host a Christmas dinner for the tsar and the Festivals Committee prepared a ball that evening in the palace, Castlereagh was entertaining at the British embassy on the Minoritenplatz. Guests included Cardinal Consalvi, Prince Eugène de Beauharnais, and the Crown Prince of Bavaria, who apparently spent the evening trying to speak in ancient Greek. It was only his fourth language, he boasted, and he needed to keep it fresh. It is unknown how many bottles of wine were consumed that night. When a tally was made of the wine stock in January, the British embassy had finished no fewer than ten thousand.

Baron Franz von Hager, meanwhile, was still at his office, reading the intercepted letters and working on his daily reports. It was business as usual. Some seventy pieces had been forwarded to his Cabinet Noir.

Talleyrand’s embassy was no longer an impenetrable fortress. A doorman had been paid to hand over some bits of paper, and chambermaids, securely placed inside, were now roaming the embassy offices. Fortunately for the spies, Dalberg left many papers lying around, and not all of them were love letters or lists of his entertainment expenses, which included some 180 florins he had recently spent on the ballerina Bigottini. Agents also found it worthwhile to search the carriages used by the French. Comte Alexis de Noailles, in particular, was known to leave a letter or two behind.

Baron Hager had also succeeded in placing both a valet and a doorman with Humboldt, and other agents near the Russian advisers, at least those who were staying outside the Hofburg. As for Alexander, one anonymous agent was gaining valuable information from the tsar’s physician, Jacob “James” Wassiliévitch Wylie. The spies even had success with the careful Castlereagh. The key there was finding out the couriers he used in sending his dispatches back to London. From here on in, Britain would be less of a stranger to the Austrian police.

On the day after Christmas, one of the most prominent guests at the congress, the king of Württemberg, left town—or, more accurately, stormed out. Frustrated by the lack of progress, the king had no desire to continue the charade. He had not gotten on well with many of his fellow sovereigns or the Viennese. He refused to tip his hat to crowds and sulked in salons after making only a token appearance. Gossipers called the huge, rude, melancholy king “the Monster,” and indulged in tales of his escapades, including an alleged affair with a handsome young guardsman. Yet, as the king of Württemberg’s carriage pulled out of the Hofburg early in the morning, palace servants soon had something else to talk about. The so-called Monster had dispensed snuffboxes, rings, and tips freely. His doorman received 300 florins, his hunting personnel 500, and another 1,000 went to the staff at his favorite theater, Theater an der Wien, and he did not forget the clerk in the ticket window.

D
URING THE
C
HRISTMAS
season, the humanitarian urge, for a moment, seemed to triumph over the usual squabbles and intrigues. Although it did not as yet lead to any official agreement, many leading sovereigns were coming together for a cause, a pioneering humanitarian fund-raising feast, held in the Augarten, to fight the awful problem of slavery.

The event was arranged by English admiral William Sidney Smith, who had come to the congress to represent the exiled Swedish king Gustav IV Adolf, who had been dethroned in the war, though he remained, Smith argued, the rightful king of Sweden. The English admiral was also hoping to achieve success in another cause dear to his heart: the plight of Europeans kidnapped and sold as slaves in northern Africa. He wanted the congress to abolish, once and for all, the slave trade, a stigma on the civilized world. He had seen the horrible cruelties up close during his time in the Royal Navy, and he would personally lead the crusade against these atrocities as head of a new military order that he proposed, the Knights Liberators of the Slaves in Africa.