Metternich- The First European Read online

  Meanwhile the young Metternichs were given tutors. Religion was unfashionable but the Abbé Bertrand, a member of the Piarist Order which specialised in education, instilled a basic Catholicism even if the young Clemens was scarcely fervent. The other tutor, Jean-François Simon, who joined the family in 1785, was an Alsatian, a Lutheran schoolmaster from Strasbourg whose academy for girls at Dessau had failed. A kindly soul, he got on well with his pupils. As an intellectual, a follower of Johann-Bernhard Basedow—the 'German Rousseau'—and the philosophaillerie, he found the household congenial, since Count Franz-Georg was vaguely Voltairean and a discreet freemason. However the only taste which this keen peruser of the Encyclopédie communicated to Clemens was a lifelong interest in medicine. While the boy's mother insisted on his speaking and writing French to her, his father made him polish his German.

  In the summer of 1788 they were sent to the university of Strasbourg, accompanied by Simon. It was always full of young German noblemen trying to improve their French, though the Strasbourgeois spoke German and seemingly the students talked nothing else. Moreover, the city contained many gaming houses and brothels, if good company was to be found among the officers of the garrison. (A Lieutenant Buonaparte had left just before the Metternichs arrived and they employed his fencing master.) They stayed with a family friend, Prince Maximilian of Zweibrücken, the future King of Bavaria, who was then in the French army as Colonel of the Royal Regiment of Alsace. Among the lectures attended by the boys were those of the famous Christoph-Wilhelm Koch, a specialist in international law.

  The French Revolution began and in July 1789 Metternich watched a rabble storm the town hall. As he puts it, 'I had been present at the plundering of the Stadthaus at Strasbourg, perpetrated by a drunken mob which considered itself the people.' It was his first contact with the movement he would fight for the rest of his life—'The doctrines of the Jacobins and their appeal to the passions of the people excited in me an aversion which age and experience have only strengthened.' He said goodbye to Simon, who went to Paris, where he became a notorious Jacobin and president of a revolutionary tribunal during the Terror; his former pupil ascribed his career to bad judgement rather than innate evil. But from the start Metternich never doubted the wickedness of the Revolution.

  He left Strasbourg to study law at Mainz university, lodging with a new tutor. Here he came into contact with professors and students in whom 'the spirit of innovation' was making fast progress; lecturers alluded to 'the emancipation of the human race, so well begun by Robespierre and Marat'. He met the historian Nicolas Vogt, who told him, 'However long your career may be, it won't let you see the end of the explosion which is destroying the great neighbour kingdom.' There were many French refugees:

  Meeting the élite of this society, I learnt to see the defects of the ancien régime; what was happening every day [in France] showed me too the crimes and absurdities into which a nation inevitably falls when it undermines the foundations of the social structure. I learnt to appreciate the difficulty of establishing a society on new foundations when the old ones have been destroyed. This was also how I came to know the French; I learnt to understand them and be understood by them.

  Ironically, if he was to outwit them on more than one occasion, the French were the one race which he would never really succeed in understanding.

  One reason why he thought that he had fathomed the French was his romance with the beautiful Duchesse de Caumont la Force. Only nineteen, she was living off her jewels. Later he seems to have seen a good deal of her at Brussels. Apparently she spent the nights with her husband while sharing the days between Metternich and a Marquis de Bouillé, a threefold division of favours which in no way diminished his affection. Long after, he described her as 'a delightful creature, full of charm, sound sense and wit', writing, 'I loved her as only a young man can.' Undoubtedly he always thought of her as his first love, continuing to write to her for over three decades.

  In the meantime the Revolution was beginning to threaten all Europe, together with the entire world of Clemens von Metternich.

  2

  From Attaché to Ambassador

  It appears to me as if I were in a great crisis, not of the affairs of France alone, but of all Europe, perhaps of more than Europe.

  EDMUND BURKE,

  Reflections on the Revolution in France

  England . . . a part of Europe cut off not just by sea but by language and peculiar manners . . .

  METTERNICH, Memoirs

  Far too little attention has been paid to Metternich's time in Brussels between 1790 and 1794. Yet it was here that he received his training in diplomacy. It was from the Austrian Netherlands too that he first visited England, a visit of which little has been known until recently.

  Joseph II had died in February 1790, not yet fifty, aware that he had failed in his self-imposed mission to unite the Habsburg lands in a centralised German state, an Einheitstaat. 'Since I am Emperor of the German Reich, all other states which I possess must be part of it,' he had declared. Hungarians, Slavs and Italians must become Germans, any barriers of language, race or creed be removed. Class distinction before the law was ended. Serfdom was abolished together with compulsory labour service on manorial land (the robot). The civil disabilities of Jews and Protestants were removed. Welfare services were introduced, including lunatic asylums, homes for the aged, blind and deaf and dumb, maternity hospitals, and a medical service for the poor. (By 1785 the Vienna General Hospital had 2,500 beds and was admitting paupers free of charge.) Many of the reforms were excellent, but they were implemented by a new and heartily disliked bureaucracy with a total disregard for custom, tradition or nationality. By the time Joseph died, Hungary was in open revolt while the Austrian Netherlands had already seceded.

  Joseph's successor, Leopold II, was no less progressive. He had abolished the death penalty when Grand Duke of Tuscany and admired the American Constitution. But he had been horrified by his brother's 'arbitrary and brutal principles, his most severe, brutal and violent despotism'. He turned for advice to Prince Kaunitz.

  Wenzel Anton von Kaunitz was nearly eighty, notorious for his use of cosmetics and fear of open windows, yet still possessed a mind of great flexibility. He had created the famous 'diplomatic revolution' during the Seven Years' War, Austria fighting by the side of her traditional enemy France—a realignment which prevented confrontation between Austria and France for over thirty years. He had also secured Galicia during the first partition of Poland. Deeply alarmed by the way Joseph had made enemies at home and abroad, Kaunitz advised Leopold to restore representative institutions throughout his lands. 'You must try to regain the friendship and affection of all your subjects of every nationality,' he told Leopold. The Emperor must also convince every foreign government of his friendly intentions.

  Leopold took the advice and was astonishingly successful. He soon regained the loyalty of landowners by restoring the robot, though not serfdom, while keeping the best of Joseph's other social reforms. He placated Hungary by calculated concessions, soothed Austria and Bohemia by cancelling new taxes. His conciliatory attitude persuaded Prussia to withdraw her agents from Hungary. He welcomed the Polish constitution of 1791, believing that it would prevent revolution in Central Europe. He was even inclined to welcome the French Constitution of the following year and did his best to avoid any worsening of relations with France, to such an extent that Edmund Burke accused him of 'folly and perfidy'.

  However, the Belgians proved intractable. Joseph had alienated them by suppressing the three councils by which they were governed. The States of Brabant refused to register the edict, so in January 1789 the Austrian Minister told them that if they would not obey, his orders were to 'turn Brussels into a desert and let grass grow in the streets'; in June the States were abolished. Two main opposition parties emerged: a group of liberals led by François Vonck and a conservative group under Henri van der Noot. An armed revolt in November made Noot dictator of the 'United States of Bel
gium', whereupon he outlawed the Vonckists.

  Leopold offered an amnesty, but Noot refused it, recruiting 20,000 volunteers. When Leopold renewed his offer, Noot directed the States to elect the Emperor's younger son Charles 'Grand Duke of Belgium'. In December 1790 Austrian troops crossed the Meuse and occupied the entire country. The Archduchess Maria Christina was reinstated as Governor-General while Count Mercy-Argenteau was appointed Minister, with orders to show scrupulous respect for the Belgians and their institutions. However, Mercy soon resigned in disgust, reporting to Vienna that there seemed to be 'no Belgian nation as such, each of the ten provinces being totally different'. He was replaced by Franz-Georg von Metternich.

  Clemens Metternich recalls, 'Following the advice of Prince Kaunitz, who knew his calm wisdom and conciliatory character, my father had been chosen by the Emperor to pacify the Provinces, which he managed to do, helped by the repeal of the reforms so unwisely introduced by the Emperor Joseph II.' The new Minister arrived in 1792 and tried to play one party against another, making what concessions he could. His task was made nearly impossible by the Archduchess opposing all progress towards self-government and by the States refusing to grant subsidies.

  The younger Metternich spent his university vacations working in Franz-Georg's office at Brussels, reading dispatches, and learning to draft them. He tells us that his father's post required grinding hard work:

  The Minister united in one man the direction of every government department. There was full-scale diplomatic representation at Brussels and the Minister headed a political cabinet . . . I watched and studied two countries at the same time, one undergoing the horrors of a revolution, the other showing the scars of what it had just been through. I have never forgotten the experience nor its lessons.

  The premature death of Leopold II in March 1792 was a tragedy. He had dismantled Joseph II's centralised machinery because he believed in representative institutions, and not because of pressure by the nobility. He might well have averted war with France. His son Francis II listened to new advisers, hypnotised by French émigrés, who urged him to invade France and crush the Revolution. Kaunitz resigned when he heard of the plan; in his view France would stay weak and divided if left alone.

  In July the Metternichs attended Francis's coronation. At Prince Esterházy's ball after the ceremony the younger Metternich opened the dancing with a childhood friend, Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz—the future Queen of Prussia. He remembered that 'the contrast between what was taking place at Frankfurt and what was happening in the neighbouring realm was too shocking to go unremarked, and everyone was painfully aware of it.'

  Shortly after, an Austro-Prussian army marched out from Coblenz under the Duke of Brunswick. Most observers expected the French to bolt at the first shot, but in September they halted the invasion during the 'Cannonade of Valmy'. In Metternich's opinion, even had Brunswick occupied Paris he could not have crushed the Revolution—'the evil had spread to such an extent that it could not be halted by a mere military operation.'

  In October the French occupied Mainz, in November Brussels. The Metternichs took refuge at Coblenz. At first the Belgians welcomed their new masters but soon came to regret the old. The French imported the Terror, erecting a guillotine in the Grande Place; thirty commissioners arrived to hunt down aristocrats, priests and those insufficiently committed to the Revolution, while chateaux and abbeys were sacked, churches closed and young men conscripted.

  However, in March the French were routed at Neerwinden and the Austrians returned to Belgium. Franz-Georg now saw excellent prospects of winning over the Belgians. He secured the replacement of Archduchess Maria Christina by Archduke Charles and summoned the States of Brabant, who willingly voted subsidies to pay for the war. He then persuaded the Emperor to visit Brussels in the spring of 1794, to be invested as Duke of Brabant. The welcome was so enthusiastic that Francis stayed there for two months.

  'I spent the winter of 1793-94 in the Netherlands, continuing to study for the service I would enter, working on Cabinet affairs,' Metternich tells us. 'Brussels was packed with foreigners, émigrés still dreaming of an end to exile with a confidence I could not share.' When the French General Dumouriez defected in April 1793 he interrogated the Jacobin commissaries handed over by Dumouriez. 'Outside France, and especially among our troops, the execution of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette aroused a horror which swiftly turned into implacable hatred,' he recalls. 'In spite of everything their officers could do, for some weeks our soldiers gave no quarter.' He drafted an Appeal to the Imperial Army which, as he admits, shows 'youthful zeal' in such phrases as 'The blood of Austria herself, spilled upon a scaffold . . . summons you to vengeance.'

  Having heard how the Catholic peasants of the Vendée had struck terror into the French Republic, Franz-Georg decided to arm 20,000 Belgian peasants. His Treasurer-General, Vicomte Desandrouin, was highly critical: 'Each time M de Metternich spoke to me about it I attempted the impossible in arguing against this disastrous idea and his deplorable resolution to persuade the Emperor to agree to it.' The younger Metternich wrote a pamphlet, On the Need for a general Arming of the People on the French Frontier, the 'people' being yeomen-farmers as opposed to city rabble.

  The pamphlet foreshadows many dispatches of later years:

  The French Revolution has reached a stage when it threatens to ruin every European state. It plans to create universal anarchy and is immensely strong. Four years of internal chaos and three of war against the great powers have not weakened it. Without money, without stable government, without a disciplined army, without even unity, the Revolution is supported by no class inside France but simply threatens other countries . . . from the start even the most obtuse could see consequences lasting for centuries.

  The Revolution's armies were planning 'to destroy the social framework, obliterate principle and steal everyone's property'.

  In the spring of 1794 Metternich went on his first diplomatic mission, accompanying Desandrouin to England to negotiate a loan. (And to sell Mme de Caumont's last remaining jewels for her.) Until recently, knowledge of the visit had been restricted to Metternich's memoir, written thirty years after. However, the journal of Desandrouin's son-in-law, Hilarion de Liedekerke Beaufort, who was among the party, has become available. It reveals that Metternich's brother Josef came too.

  They sailed from Ostend on 27 March, on board a little vessel about sixty feet long and twelve in the beam, which mounted six cannon. 'We left at half-past five in the evening,' Liedekerke Beaufort tells us. 'Next day, at half-past seven in the morning we could already see Albion's cliffs emerging, growing white. My three companions were much sicker than I during the night.' Two hours later they landed at Dover.

  At London they took lodgings in Panton Square near Coventry Street, not far from Covent Garden, in a house kept by a Swiss called Danthan. Their bedrooms were small but clean and cost three shillings a day; there was a common table at which one paid half a crown for a lavish dinner said to be among the best that could be bought. They were given cards of introduction to various important personages, 'notably to Mr Pitt, the real ruler of proud Albion'.

  Soon after their arrival they were presented at St James's Palace to George III, who said a few amiable words to each in turn. The following day they were presented to Queen Charlotte and the Princesses, the King being again very pleasant. At a masked ball they saw the Prince of Wales and Mrs Fitzherbert—without their masks. Metternich thought that the Prince in those days was 'one of the handsomest men I ever saw, and to an agreeable exterior he added the most charming manners'. 'Mme Fitzherbert is a little plump though with a very good figure,' says Liedekerke Beaufort. 'She has a superb face but is already a ripe beauty of thirty-four.'

  On 7 April the party had dinner with Messrs Boyd and Benfield, the bankers with whom Desandrouin was to do business, a colourful pair. Walter Boyd had owned a banking house in Paris but its assets were confiscated when he fled for his life. He had set up the London firm o
f Boyd, Benfield & Co. and, as Mr Pitt's trusted friend, was engaged in government loans of up to £30 million. Paul Benfield, an East India 'nabob', had amassed a fortune estimated at half a million in sterling by shady dealings with the Nawab of the Carnatic—Edmund Burke called him 'a criminal who long since ought to have fattened the region's kites with his offal'.

  After the bankers' dinner, the young men went to the Hanover Square Rooms to hear Salomon, 'one of the best violinists in London'. There was a large orchestra which he led. There were also some songs, sung perfectly by Mme Mara. Then Haydn appeared, 'conducting himself a symphony for full orchestra which he had composed expressly and performed on that evening so that his Austrian fellow countrymen should be the first to hear it'. Clearly the great composer was not above a little flattery; this was not quite the first performance of symphony no. 100, the 'Military'. According to the Morning Chronicle of 9 April 1794:

  Another new Symphony, by Haydn, was performed for the second time; and the middle movement was again received with absolute shouts of applause; Encore! encore! encore! resounded from every seat: the Ladies themselves could not forebear.

  Liedekerke Beaufort adds that Haydn 'as a Viennese often came to see us and sometimes dined with us, the simplest, most modest and best man in the world'.

  The young men had humbler pleasures. Sometimes, after leaving the theatre at midnight, they would go to a tavern for a glass of punch, walking back to Panton Square at two in the morning. They had a few grumbles, notably the terrible food, the contempt for foreigners, the frumpish way in which ladies dressed, and English Sundays. They were unimpressed by 10 Downing Street. Liedekerke Beaufort recorded that 'the famous Pitt . . . is lodged in a scurvy house in a cul de sac, with only three windows facing onto the street, which looks just like the abode of some lawyer in a little provincial town.'