FFT. From The Contemporary Review. 323 in the events that is really important and needs explanation. We get judgments -flattering judgments of himself especially-explanations of "principles," but we learn nothing new about the occurrences themselves. At most, the preliminary history of the Potsdam Treaty, which was already so fully made known through Hardenberg's "Memoir," is completed a little. THE publication of the papers which Metternich left behind him has now been begun, and has recalled the attention of Europe to the somewhat forgotten personality of the man who for forty years guided Austrian politics, and exercised an apparently profound influence on the whole of Europe. The weighty events and the important men of the second half The book falls into two, happily unof this century have naturally cast the equal, halves, of which the recording comparatively small men and things of its statesman fills the one, and the acting second, third, and fourth decade into the statesman the other. There is in the first shade. But here we are carried back once place an Autobiographical Memoir," more to the beginning of the century, written in 1844, supplemented by a "Key when men and things were not, indeed, to the Explanation of my Way of Thinkwanting in the greatness of their propor- ing and Acting," written in 1852, and tions, although it might be said that they interpolated with a "History of the Allicannot compete with those of our day in ances of 1813 and 1814," written in 1829.* lasting historical importance. In fact, Then there is a character of Napoleon, the present two volumes, which are all written in French in 1820, and a characthat have as yet appeared, bring before ter of the emperor Alexander, written in eens one of the principal agents in the German in 1829; between these are reevents of that period to speak of them in marks by the editor, which might have person, and they remind us, in the most been fitly given under the text, while the impressive way, that the old chancellor, highly interesting quotations from unwho is to our generation nothing more edited letters which they contain would than an embodiment of that long period have been better left to the second part. of dull silence, was also once young, bold, This second and much more comprehenactive, animated, and that he played a sive and interesting part brings together leading part in the most stirring of all letters, despatches, reports, instructions, historical dramas. It is in this, and not proposals, etc., of the years 1793-1815, n any unexpected disclosures, that the and mostly in the French language. It interest of the book lies. The autobio- is there that the main interest of the graphic fragments, as well as the other book centres. True, the original docuessays of the prince, certainly show the ments from Metternich's official work double nature of the man in a clearer which are here given to the public are light than it has hitherto appeared in; only to a small extent unprinted before, but that was by no means the purpose of but they, of course, contain much that is the author. It is his vanity which has of importance, especially from the period played him the trick of making him betray of his Paris ambassadorship (1806-1809), himself, as vanity at times will do. For and from the first period of his ministry the rest, these memorabilia, if we may (1809-1812), though even these are excall them so, are all very general, and except for indirect psychological sidelights such as this, they offer little to interest us, either anecdotal or historical. et The writer glides rapidly over everything • Selection from Metternich's Papers. Edited by the Chancellor's son, Prince RICHARD METTERNICHWINNEBURG. Arranged by ALFONS VON KLINKOWSTROM. Authorized Original German Edition Vienna. Wilhelm Braumüller, 1880. First Part. Two volumes. tremely fragmentary and full of gaps. However, these despatches, published here for the first time, even when they offer nothing new to the historian, are always entertaining and stimulating to the often noteworthy to the psychologist, and The tone in which the emperor Francis is spoken of in this paper, as one who belonged to the past, leads me to surmise that the paper was either written for the first time, or at any rate was rewritten, after 1835. general reader. Of course, most of the re- | rand," and of whom Th. von Bernhardi ports and decrees which are given in this has already made excellent use, as well work are already published either in ex- as through Villemain, to whom Count tracts or in extenso in Oncken's massive Narbonne gave extensive communicaHistory of Austria and Prussia during tions; and again more recently through the War of Liberation," while many others, Hardenberg, Ranke, Gentz, Klinkowoften much more important, which are ström, and J. A. von Helfert, who have contained in the later work, are entirely gone profoundly though not so prowanting in "Metternich's Papers." Nay, foundly as Oncken into the Austrian we seek in vain in it for even those docu- State archives; we are already, I say, far ments by whose publication Oncken has better informed on many matters, through set the Metternichian politics of the year various important publications of the last 1812 in a quite new and, on the whole, twenty years, than through what these favorable light. Much also-as, for ex- new volumes give us, which, for example, ample, the famous nine hours' interview pass over the history of the treaty of between Napoleon and Metternich in the January 3rd, 1815, and, in fact, do not so Marcolini Palace at Dresden, during the much as mention the existence of such a armistice of 1813-we have known al- treaty at all. A. Beer's biography of ready as existing for more than twenty the chancellor (in the fifth volume of years through Thiers, to whom Metter-"Der Neue Plutarch"), which is founded nich communicated an outline of it.* throughout on MS. materials, is in no We are, moreover, already long since in- wise superseded by this new publication, structed concerning his ambassadorship at Vienna, through D'Haussonville, who had the opportunity of seeing the MS. "Memoirs and Correspondence of Talley * This has since been more exactly imparted to us by Helfert, in his "Marie Louise." I intentionally abstain in this review from all learned critical detail, but should like to find place here for a single observation to show a little proof of Metternich's trustworthiness. The chancellor wrote in 1857, after reading the fifteenth volume of Thiers' "Consulate and Empire," an account of his relations with the French statesman in the tone of a very great and mighty lord, who had condescended, perhaps once or twice, to receive the little ex-journalist, but had no further dealings with him. Thiers had put twelve questions to him in Brussels, in 1850, which he had answered, but their conversation was confined to the years 1809, 1810. (See this account in the "Papers," vol. i., pp. 254, 255.) Now that famous Dresden interview of the year 1813 is contained in the sixteenth volume of the "Consulate and Empire," which appeared simultaneously with the fifteenth in the year 1857. In it Thiers states, in the most distinct manner, that Metternich had communicated to him an outline of that interview. This statement, Metternich, who was then still alive, and indeed writing the account mentioned at that very time, has not publicly denied; That Thiers received other communications from Met- justify certain severities in our judgment of the chan cellor. and I refer to this book once for all, as also to A. Springer's much older character of Metternich, although I cannot agree with all judgments of either historian, especially not, as will appear, with Springer's. As far as things personal are concerned, regarding which both the author and the editor of the work before us are very reserved, the inadvertent expressions of Talleyrand, Marmont, Hum boldt, and other contemporaries, and above all, Gentz's "Diary," Hormayr's 'Lebensbilder," and Varnhagen's "Me morabilia," must be consulted, if we are to form a correct idea of the chancellor's figure. Notwithstanding all this, the presen publication is very valuable. For a his tory of the time it can only be used unde condition of careful comparison with othe sources. For the character of the man i is invaluable, because it gives him to u speaking without interruption for nin hundred pages long. And although th whole book as yet treats only of th period up to the year 1815, we get to hea him in the most various ages of life, no as a stripling of twenty, now as a youn man in the thick of affairs and just o of the stir' of battle, and now as a discree self-satisfied old man, who sets out th history of his life and paints himself rso th mp ty ot : ch in ! ation all, a chat are we ic Dan pr ria the figure of the Austrian statesman moves. I. the way he would like posterity to see | fence, summings up, perhaps even, if we him. A foolish and vain undertaking, we have the turn and gift for it, a work of Du may say at the outset: foolish, because literary art. I may assume that these Metternich as he was is much more inter- impressions are still uneffaced from the esting than Metternich as he would like mind of the reader, and may therefore to be; vain, because with all his trouble dispense on this occasion, with picturing he has entirely failed to present himself the dark background of the time on which otherwise than as he was. If the first half of the book gives us the opportunity of learning to know the old author, the second puts the means in our hand of el making the acquaintance of the young the diplomatist, and all will believe my word when I say that the diplomatist was in Metternich more important than the author, the youth more interesting than the old man. But since the prince chancellor, in a dilettante way, laid so much stress on his literary talent, let us devote a little attention to the author before we speak of the statesman; all the more because the author oftentimes, and certainly without meaning it, explains the statesman, but especially because he betrays the man who has given himself such bis unspeakable trouble to dress himself before the eyes of posterity. The most comprehensive of his literary essays -- the "Autobiographical Memoir" - furnishes the most natural occasion and instrument for describing, in a few lines, the political Hactivity of the man till his forty-second year. The stirring history of that period may be read in Treitschke's unmatched description; the secret political games of the years 1812-1813, in particular, have now been for the first time completely unfolded to us by Oncken. But while the former, by his own warm partialities, carries us into the midst of the hot atmosphere of conflicting passions, and compels us, so to say, to feel them after him, the latter has the rare coolness of blood to be able to place himself and us outside the range of fire at a point where we can follow equally well the movements of both armies without being ourselves drawn into the disturbing fever of the fight; or, to speak more plainly, he collects, examines, and compares all statements and testimonies, like a conscientious, indefatigable, and acute investigator, and leaves it to ourselves to construct out of these materials bills of indictment, pleas of de bef No one possessed in a higher degree than Prince Metternich the first and supremest virtue of the statesman, that of identifying himself with the State he served. This, however, was somewhat at the expense of the writer. The young Count Clement, born in Coblenz in 1773, educated in Strasburg and Mayence, wrote his German mother tongue almost as well as French before he settled on the Danube. The rhetorical proofs which are afforded us of that show him to be by no means an important master of style, and who would require style from a youth of twenty if this youth was not named Goethe?-but his language is German in expression, in turning, in accentuation, as might be expected of a Rhinelander. For fifteen years obliged almost exclusively to the use of French, then from his thirty-sixth year living exclusively in Austria, he appears by-and-by to have quite lost the feeling for the German idiom. It was at that time only that Austria began again to participate in the intellectual life of Germany. But the chancellor appears to have had little intercourse with the men to whom the credit must be given of having prepared the way for this intellectual reunion. His German is not the German of Grillparzer or of Halm, it is the German of the I.R. bureaux. Regulations are made "über seinen Vorschlag;" certain things exist in the fullest "Ausmasse;" he speaks with people about the "Tagesbelange; he permits himself in certain things "einzurathen," he speaks of the " ΤΟΥ Kurzem bestandenen Herzogthum Warschau;" he mentions a "besonders bei der Vertheidigung eines Platzes sich ausgezeichneten" young man; and uses many other Austricisms. But still more strik ing and offensive is the French style of soon as Metternich took the French his German writings; they all sound like tongue in his mouth, it was as if he translations. Of French the chancellor mounted his war-horse, which of itself is, of course, completely master. Com- bore him back neighing into the lines of pare his portrait of Napoleon, written in the combatants. How flat and abstract, French, with his sketch of Alexander, in on the other hand, is the whole autobiog German, in which the only good thing is raphy; how indefinite and general the a saying of Napoleon's, which the author expression; how completely the contrary takes for the theme of his variations. of the language of really important men, That study of the character of Napoleon of Napoleon's, for example, who so dates from the year 1820, when the author often speaks in these volumes, and whose still stood nearer the events and persons, words always let us see the thing itself when his "system," and the pedantic tone or the growth of the thought, as if the allin which he liked to discourse, had not yet encompassing veil of things were torn ripened into their full growth; whereas suddenly away. And then what repeti the character of Alexander was not writ-tions, what commonplaces, what stereoten till 1829, when the prince had already | typed phrases! He does not even blush adopted the custom of regarding himself to sleep beside a volcano, without think as the incarnation of political wisdom. ing of the outpouring of lava." Oh, Serene But the chief reason of the superiority of Highness, if you had used such language the one writing over the other lies in the to the fair Frenchwomen whom you more perfect command of the instrument buzzed about in the Tuileries, you had lost yourself forever with them! which it reveals. Not that Metternich's French has the And as with the individual expressions, merit of a specially individual and decided so with the whole work; no situation style, but it is simple, correct, without stands out thoroughly, no figure rises in pretension, and it is living. French relief from the monotonous grey back was the language, if I may say so, in ground of his narrative. If conversations which he acted, German the language in occur, they are given quite conventionally which he philosophized upon his actions; Never did the emperor Francis, never and Metternich's action was worth more did the archduchess Marie Louise, speak than his philosophy. His despatches in such neatly-set phrases, the one to offer and they are almost all in French are him the ministry, and the other to sacri written on the spur of the moment; they fice herself, like a second Iphigenia, for are deeds; their aim is to report to us the welfare of her fatherland. How com what has been done, what has been heard, pletely different a ring is there in the to indicate what is to be done, what is to despatches which he writes from Paris. be said; they have no intention of speak-with reports of his conversations with ing about it. Metternich boasts with much self-satisfaction, and with a disdainful side-glance at professors of history, that he has "made history," and has consequently a special call to write it. Nothing can be more warranted; only in writing history one must not forget in what spirit one has made it. A scholar who has never left his study cannot see things and show them as Cæsar and Frederick could. They had everything still present to their mind; they lived through it once again. But the Metternich who writes the history lives in a quite different atmosphere, sees things through quite different spectacles and finds himself in a quite different temper from the Metternich who made the history. This is indeed not yet so much the case in the very successful, though too long, portrait | of Napoleon already mentioned. As we have said, five years had hardly passed when he wrote since his last meeting with the mighty man; but more especially, as Napoleon or Champagny on the same evening on which he held them. So mer speak. There is body and life in them but the Franzerl that speaks like a lead ing article of the Austrian Observer has never lived. There are many happy words in his French despatches; his con fessions affect one like a broken stream o tepid water. And if the contemporary let ters and reports furnish the historian with little new, they certainly supply the gen eral public with stimulating reading whic makes up for the tedium of the "Auto biographical Memoir." For example, i you wish to form an idea of how the youn count "of pleasant exterior, very polit and never loud" (Ritter Lang) made hi appearance in Rastadt, read his charmin natural French letters to his young wif Kaunitz's niece. We think we see th young lord, fresh from the society of Co lentz emigrants, in the extemporized the tre at the court of the margrave, or at th plebeian table of the envoy of the Dire 327 of the personality it describes; it passes by in complete silence Napoleon's legislative genius, which was, perhaps, greater than his military; it always strives to explain his achievements through the littleness of his contemporaries, the incapacity of his opponents, the favor of circumstances. We find nothing of all this in his Paris reports. They are cast in a quite objective style. The emperor stands before us as he lived in the flesh. One could swear about every word that he really spoke it, one could guess the gestures of the hand with which he accompanied it. And there is in all a freshness and a life which the author of these despatches never had at command again. One is almost led to believe that the old prince himself felt dimly that his box of colors contained no longer anything but grey, for he wished the manuscript of his autobiography "to remain forever, in so far as human care can so provide, in the archives of his house." But he permitted it "to be used according to time and circumstances, in order to complete defective historical works, or to correct erroneous ones." I do not know whether a service has been done to the chancellor's memory by the padding which has been contributed to the selection from his despatches; it certainly gains nothing by the comparison. tory. No trace of all this is to be seen in the memoir. Nor does the little bit of attache's talk about his Dresden period (1801-1805), which the old man warms up for us, give us any insight into the circumstances of the electoral court of Saxony, and still less a picture of the harmlessly merry young man who there won his spurs and represented his adopted country, Austria, with grace, with modesty, with perfect form, and with open eyes. The same is true of the short description of his residence in Berlin. In the despatches belonging to that memorable period, when he was enjoined to persuade Prussia to join in the third coalition, there is a warmth of emotion, often an outburst of hatred and contempt, towards the hereditary enemy, Prussia, and its worthy representatives, Haugwitz, Lombard, Lucchesini, but at times also a natural nobility of language, which has left no echo in this retrospective view of his life. This be said in a still higher degree of the may lively reports from Paris in the year 1808, when the cloud threatened to burst on Austria every minute; as also of those of the year 1810, when it had burst, and a deceitful sunshine smiled over the young alliance of the two empires. Indeed, these reports, in which he so often brings in the great potentate himself speaking, are much more interesting than even his portrait of Napoleon, which is yet the Prince Metternich was seventy-one best, because the most youthful, of his years old when he undertook, in 1844, to literary works. The narrator, it is true, write a history of his life, or, rather, a comes out rather small by the side of history of his public work; he was almost his mighty interlocutor, whom one hears an octogenarian when he wrote the "Key speaking as if in the body in every one of to the Explanation of my Way of Thinkhis self-forged sentences. Only in one ing and Acting." Nothing is more natuthing has Metternich the advantage of the ral than that he should not have given to great man; he is no upstart. In that his narrative the fresh tone which his respect exactly like Madame de Rémusat youthful activity had breathed. It was and all Talleyrand's friends, he is unable to natural, also, that he should attribute to express too strongly how badly bred, how his public life a conscious plan, which, in awkward, how negligent in his dress, how reality, it had hardly the repose and freepretentious in his manner, was the soldier- dom to pursue, and that he should ascribe emperor. Only the prolonged dwelling to himself principles on which, as a young on such defects comes better from a lady man of thirty, he had never thought. It than from a statesman, and the French- is equally natural, too, that his memory woman is a far greater adept in the art of portraiture than the German diplomatist. On the other hand, we cannot wonder that the chancellor excels the lady in the psychological analysis of Napoleon's character. Women generally see through men faster and surer than we do, but they find it harder to give a methodical account of their impressions. Metternich's delineation bears, however, the characteristic mark of minds of his stamp; it would fain seek to detract from the greatness P the a le hat eam should, in spite of all printed and unprinted helps, play him little tricks, which do not, indeed, come up to the hardly credible errors and contradictions of Odillon Barrot in his autobiography, but which would yet be enough, if the prince had lived in Dino Compagni's times, instead of in ours, to serve as the basis of an explanation of the "Autobiographical Memoir," as the forgery of a later century. But there are also in these memoirs reticences which cannot be ascribed to bad |