Vienna, 1814: How the Conquerors of Napoleon Made Love, War, and Peace at the Congress of Vienna (38 page)

That way, the duke could simply be inserted on the far left side of the painting, without any insult to his position. As for the duke’s reluctance to be painted from a side angle (he was self-conscious about his nose), Isabey had overcome that with a well-targeted compliment: Didn’t Wellington look like the handsome and chivalric Henry IV? Pleased with this comparison, Wellington accepted, joking that Isabey was a “good enough diplomat to take part in the Congress.”

The painter also had to apply his finesse to convince Humboldt to enter the studio. The Prussian ambassador hated to have his portrait made, and, sure enough, he first declined, claiming that he had “too ugly a face ever to spend a penny” on a portrait. With this statement, Isabey saw his opportunity and emphasized that he would not “ask the slightest recompense for the pleasant trouble I am going to take.” Isabey only wanted “the favor of a few sittings.”

“Oh, is that all?” Humboldt quickly came around when he realized it would not cost him anything. “You can have as many sittings as you like.”

Later, many congratulated Isabey on his portrait, particularly the fine job with Humboldt. The Prussian did not pay anything, as agreed, and Isabey got his revenge, Humboldt joked, by painting “an excellent likeness of me.”

Few could complain of the treatment received from Isabey’s flattering brush. This famous painting of the Congress of Vienna was pleasing to all, though typical of this peace conference, the scene was purely imaginary. The group of twenty-three delegates had never met in exactly this way before. Isabey had painted the portraits of each figure individually, and then later assembled the whole group together. And so, symbolically, this simulated image would commemorate a congress that never was.

O
VER THE COURSE
of the next few weeks, the foreign ministers of all the Great Powers worked hard to finish the negotiations, and their efforts, in turn, showed how misleading it was to imply that the congress only danced. They danced, of course, but they also carried substantial workloads. In an attempt to reach an agreement in early February, Castlereagh was toiling “day and night.” Prussia’s Hardenberg was working himself to exhaustion, often collapsing in his chair, falling asleep at his desk, and, at times, breaking down into tears. Metternich, too, felt glued to his desk, “like a convict on his chain.” The same, of course, went for their assistants.

That February, the Great Powers had finally reached an agreement on Poland: A kingdom was, in fact, to be established. Its territory was to come mostly from the former Duchy of Warsaw, though Austria kept Galicia, while Prussia retained Posen and Gdánsk, and Russia most of its share of eastern Poland. Kraków was to remain outside as a “free, independent and strictly neutral” city. The new Kingdom of Poland was indeed much smaller than the tsar had promised (only 3.2 million people, instead of 10 or 11 million). Its new constitution, moreover, still made Poland “irrevocably attached to Russia” and its king was to be Tsar Alexander. While this compromise left many unhappy, the discontent was not spread equally, and many Polish patriots felt greatly disillusioned.

On February 11, three days after the condemnation of the slave trade, some real results were finally seen on Saxony as well. Despite all the Prussian claims the last several months, the Kingdom of Saxony would in fact be saved. Frederick Augustus would remain its king, and Dresden its capital. Remarkably, too, Saxony would hang on to the thriving town of Leipzig and retain about three-fifths of its kingdom, including lands in the east and south, which were actually its richest and most populous regions.

Prussia would have to settle for the remaining two-fifths of Saxon territory, and one-third of its population, a far cry from its demands for the entire kingdom, which only months before had looked so certain. Prussia would not gain any of the largest towns, or the strategic mountain passageways into Bohemia, but instead it would receive a string of fortresses commanding the waterways of eastern Germany. (These included Erfurt, Torgau on the upper Elbe, and also the historic fortress town of Wittenberg, birthplace of the Protestant Reformation.)

To help ease the pain of this deal, the Russian tsar offered some additional territory from his share of Poland, including the fortress town of Thorn, straddling the Vistula River. The Great Powers had also awarded Prussia Westphalia, which had recently been ruled by Napoleon’s younger brother Jérôme, and they added Swedish Pomerania, in the north. Former lands of the archbishop of Trier were also transferred to Prussia, as well as areas from neighboring Hanover and the Netherlands ceded in a last-minute offer made on Castlereagh’s initiative. Most important, the Allies handed over a sizable chunk of the Rhineland from the old Holy Roman Empire, including the city of Cologne, with its beautiful soaring medieval cathedral and its prime location on a major central European trade route. Prussia had received its promised 10 million population, and Britain had succeeded in getting a strong Prussia.

Significantly, in one of the most important results of the congress, Prussia had shifted from being a state centered in the east to one pointing to the west—and this, in fact, very much against its own wishes. Significantly, too, Prussia was brought into much closer contact with France. So while the Congress had buried the centuries-old Bourbon-Habsburg rivalry, it had also, by bringing Prussia into the Rhineland, helped create another one that would soon haunt European history.

Few Prussians at the time, however, saw any reason to celebrate. Many were furious. “Where is Germany going to get its security in the future,” Humboldt’s wife asked him pointedly, if they did not gain Saxony? The army had been promised this region, and they had occupied it, only to be turned out without any significant resistance. No true soldier, Field Marshal Gebhard von Blücher had said, could ever again wear the Prussian uniform with any honor. When the news was announced, Hardenberg’s windows back in Berlin were smashed by an angry mob.

Yet while many accused the Prussian delegation of being tricked, corrupted, or simply too weak to resist the “siren charms” of Metternich and the allies, Humboldt realized that there was another side to this story. Despite his formal protests and complaints, he wrote to his wife that Prussia was actually benefiting more by gaining the Rhineland, rather than Saxony. This region was more populous, more productive, and, on the whole, much more valuable. “Prussia is now the greatest German power,” he boasted. He was right about the value of the Rhineland, but no one at that time knew the full extent of the wealth, in iron and coal, that would be found in that territory. Fifty years later, the region that they had accepted so reluctantly would be a powerful engine of Prussian industrial might.

For the moment, there would be “two Prussias,” as Humboldt saw it, the eastern and the western, separated by sharp cultural and historical differences. Geographically, Prussia would not even be linked together, but sprawled out over and around other independent states, such as Hanover. It was an odd-shaped country. But Humboldt was not too concerned. This unnatural state of affairs would not last long. “With the first war that comes,” he added ominously, “Prussia will fill in the gaps.”

A
S DIPLOMATS DISCUSSED
affairs in the middle of a ballroom, or the corner of a salon, conversations often ended abruptly, or quickly shifted onto other subjects when someone approached. Spies were still everywhere, and often ended up observing, reporting on, and even following each other.

In this environment, with work and pleasure intermingling in intrigue-rich salons, many agents were working overtime. The police dossiers give an insight into a day in the life of an agent in early February. After a night at the theater, Agent ** paid a visit to the tsar’s physician, always a good source for understanding the mood of the Russian embassy, and then he topped it off at a palace ball. Afterward, he went from “one salon to another” in search of entertainment and information, arriving back home at five in the morning.

As Agent ** circulated in high society, or tried to catch a carriage ride with someone well placed, other agents were finding valuable information in the taverns and restaurants. The delicatessen Jean de Paris on Herrengasse was one popular place to swap gossip as the guests “titillated their palate and ruined their stomach.” Spies also continued their work posing as servants, or purchasing information from them. Chambermaids, footmen, porters, and coachmen remained the eyes and ears of the Austrian police.

“I am the victim of the lowest kind of espionage,” Marie Louise’s secretary, Baron Méneval, complained. “A swarm of ignoble spies crawl around me and study my gestures, my steps, and my face.” The Prussian adviser General Jomini was still warning of the letter opening and advising his correspondents: “Write only what you would like to see in the newspapers.” Knowledge of this advice, of course, comes from one of his intercepted letters.

By early February, Vienna had moved into the season of Lent and the forty days of reflection and contemplation that culminate in the celebration of Easter. Many delegates and guests lined up to see Zacharias Werner deliver his colorful sermons in his flamboyant style, dropping onto his knees, springing up into the air, shouting, and then falling silent.

Lotteries were another form of entertainment that flourished at the congress, never more than during Lent, when the masquerade balls stopped. At one of these occasions, each invitee would bring a gift and then draw a lot for one of the other presents in the salon. “Everyone contributes and everyone wins” was how Talleyrand described it. Guests might walk home with a jewel case, a mosaic box, a fine Persian rug, a set of porcelain vases, or virtually anything at all.

Castlereagh was probably, at least in part, glad to be leaving this vanity fair behind. He had stalled as long as possible—two grueling weeks that witnessed the resolution of the Poland-Saxony crisis and the condemnation of the slave trade. Before he packed his bags and officially handed over all responsibility to the Duke of Wellington, however, the foreign secretary would make one last initiative. He was working on a plan to resolve the Russian-Turkish conflict that sometimes raged and sometimes smoldered over the Black Sea, the Danube, the Balkans, and virtually anywhere the two empires came into contact.

The British foreign secretary wanted the congress to agree to guarantee peace on the basis of the status quo in this turbulent area that would soon be known as the “powder keg of Europe.” This would in turn keep Turkey alive, and at the same time help constrain the appetites of an expansionist tsar poised to pick up gains from the crumbling empire. But to Castlereagh’s dismay, his plan was being opposed by the sultan of Turkey. Castlereagh spent one of his last meetings in Vienna, literally on his last day in town, pressing unsuccessfully for an agreement. The question was thus left unresolved, and would unfortunately cause a great deal of tension and bloodshed over the next century.

On February 15, after leaving behind parting gifts to his colleagues, among other things a jeweled snuffbox with a handsome miniature portrait of himself on the inside, Castlereagh’s carriage clanked its way out of the Minoritenplatz and headed out of Vienna. He was disappointed with the overall results of the conference and feared that the peace that they had worked so hard to settle would not last more than two years. Moreover, he was returning to London, where he would have to answer for his actions before a hostile Parliament.

W
ITH
P
OLAND AND
Saxony solved at last, the congress would surely now finish “cutting up the cake,” as some had termed the efforts. Decisions were, in fact, soon reached on other pending issues as well. One of the first was the Netherlands. As the deal was worked out, Holland was to be re-created as a kingdom, and given Belgium, Luxembourg, and other nearby territories. It was a larger kingdom than some had expected or wanted.

Many Belgians resented being shuffled around against their wishes, preferring either their own rule, Austrian rule as in the eighteenth century, or the French as during the happier moments of the Revolution. Indeed, many wanted anything except the Dutch, who had a different religion, language, culture, and historical traditions. But Great Britain had pushed for an enlarged Kingdom of the Netherlands to safeguard the territory from a renewed French attack, and to create a buffer for itself. And Britain had succeeded.

At the same time, Metternich was working to resolve a border dispute with Bavaria over Salzburg, the birthplace of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and the home of lucrative salt mines. There was a conflict over the ownership of Berchtesgaden, the mountain resort later notorious as a retreat for Nazi leadership, which had been Austrian before Napoleon took it away and gave it to his ally at the time, Bavaria. The two countries were working on finding some agreement over these territories, a difficult negotiation that showed little sign of progress and would not in fact be completed until after the congress, when Austria gained Salzburg; and Bavaria, Berchtesgaden.