Vienna, 1814: How the Conquerors of Napoleon Made Love, War, and Peace at the Congress of Vienna (35 page)

T
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IDE

One must keep an eye on his allies, no less than on his enemy.

—M
ETTERNICH

O
n the morning of January 22, Vienna’s cold weather had finally created that magical combination of “heavy snowfall” and hard, “biting frost” necessary for the long-awaited sleigh ride. Thirtysome large sleighs were pulled into the Hofburg courtyard, Josefsplatz, each as gilded and grand as any Habsburg carriage. Congress dignitaries were scheduled to arrive in the early afternoon for a ride through the streets of Vienna, the cobblestones covered in snow. They would continue out to Schönbrunn Palace for a gigantic winter party.

The crowds had come to the central square, early in the morning, to take a look at the spectacular sleighs, shining with a bright gold set off by emerald-green velvet upholstery and fine silver bells. Each sleigh was pulled by a team of horses, “caparisoned in tiger skins and rich furs,” and each sleigh spared nothing that “taste could imagine and money buy.” “Silk, velvet, gold everywhere” was how one observer summed up these veritable winter chariots.

As in many other functions at the congress, the Festivals Committee had struggled with a way to solve the complicated protocol for a sleigh ride that included an emperor, an empress, a tsar, a tsarina, and many kings, princes, and other dignitaries. Who, for instance, would ride first? Who would share sleighs, and how could they allot partners and positions in the procession without offending tender sensibilities? In the end, the Festivals Committee had struck upon a simple solution to the intricate problems: lottery. Let fate decide.

Looking at the results of the draw, however, it seems that the mandate of fate had been tweaked by a committee eager to avoid diplomatic pitfalls. The tsar, who had expressed his displeasure with this sumptuous expedition, had miraculously drawn his current love interest, the salon celebrity Princess Gabrielle Auersperg. The king of Prussia, equally sour at the event, was paired with his favorite, Countess Julie Zichy.

A special cavalry squadron marched in front of the procession, followed by a “leviathan of a sled” containing a small band blasting trumpets and banging on kettledrums. The first of the congress dignitaries were the emperor of Austria and the empress of Russia, dressed in a fur “trimmed in ermine and green silk,” a matching plumed green cap, and diamonds once worn by Catherine the Great. Purple, rose, and amaranth-blue fur coats were also all the rage at the sleigh ride; the gentlemen preferred warm Polish long coats also edged with “expensive furs.”

Given the biting cold wind that day, some dignitaries had traded their place in the sleigh procession for a seat in a closed carriage. Empress Maria Ludovika, who had fallen ill again recently, opted for the carriage ride to the palace, as did the king and queen of Bavaria. That was fine, and actually probably a good thing, the Festivals Committee knew. A few sleighs should be pulled empty as reserves, in case a sleigh broke down out in the countryside. In the back of the procession was another monstrous sleigh, carrying a second band playing “war-like tunes.”

About two o’clock, the emperors, kings, queens, musicians, and other guests climbed into the sleighs. After a grand trumpet fanfare, the Great Sleigh Ride was ready to begin.

Before the sleighs swished out of Josefsplatz, however, there was an unexpected delay. A carriage had slammed into the square and blocked the designated route. When the driver was politely asked to make way for the royal procession, he refused. Another request for the coachman to move his carriage was rebuffed. The court chamberlain then sent one of his trusted officials over to investigate. It turns out that the mysterious haughty coachman was none other than Britain’s ambassador, Lord Stewart, and he was apparently drunk.

An order from the emperor did the trick, and off the royal sleighs went, gliding on the packed snow at a stately walking pace, which would allow the curious crowds to watch the parade of sovereigns and sleighs. Once the expedition passed out of the inner town, the drivers turned the horses loose and they galloped, at top speed, to Schönbrunn Palace for the banquet and the ball.

About halfway out of town, the procession stopped at a monument to the Polish king Jon III Sobieski, whose heroic ride with an army of reinforcements in September of 1683 had saved Vienna from the famous siege by the Turks. This was a good opportunity to repair some of the sleighs, whose delicate frames with golden sphinxes on their axles had suffered on the roads, and it was also, undoubtedly, a good opportunity for some subtle diplomacy. The Sobieski monument called to mind the many sacrifices and services that Poland had rendered Europe—a timely advertisement, no doubt, given that Vienna’s dignitaries were then weighing the future of Poland.

When they arrived and parked their sleighs, the summer palace seemed a winter wonderland. The lake lay frozen like a “polished mirror.” Some skaters entertained with acrobatic jumps, others performed dances on the ice, and one group, dressed as Venetian gondoliers, steered sleighs decked out as gondolas. Others pulled imaginative constructions, such as the “make-believe sleigh” in the form of a swan with silver wings. Enterprising merchants skated out onto the lake, hoping to sell some “fortifying refreshments.”

While the guards at the palace tried to prevent the curious crowds from disturbing the festivities, a certain member of the British embassy stole the show with his flashy gliding and twirling, “whirls, loops, and figure-eights.” Apparently he was a member of a London skating club, and he really drew admiration when he skated the initials of ladies on the ice. Particularly popular, too, were the women dressed as Dutch milkmaids who gracefully waltzed on the frozen lake.

The party continued at the palace theater with a performance of the opera
Cinderella,
complete with special ballets written for the occasion. Marie Louise and her son were believed to have left the palace earlier that morning, not wanting to witness the elaborate celebration. Another rumor was that she was there the whole time, peering through a specially cut “peephole.” After all, some members of the sleigh party swore that they had seen her son, the little prince, on his sled, flying down the palace hillside. The party concluded in the drawing rooms, decorated with orange trees, myrtles, and plants from the emperor’s greenhouse.

It was an extraordinary spectacle—surely the most grandiose sleigh ride in history. Count August de La Garde-Chambonas was, as usual, highly impressed, noting that “it was, indeed, a picture which for many centuries will not be repeated.” His friend Comte de Witt agreed that it was a “beautiful, marvelous and elegant affair.” His only complaint was that the Festivals Committee should have also built an ice palace on top of the lake.

After the “intoxicating pleasures” of Schönbrunn, the revelers returned to central Vienna in a jingling torchlit sleigh ride, racing to make it back for yet another masked ball at the Hofburg. There “they ride with our fifty percent and we must pay more each day,” one Vienna resident was overheard complaining, referring to a controversial new tax levied earlier that month, a 50 percent increase needed to pay for this congress, which many thought should have been wrapped up by now.

I
NDEED, WITH A
secret treaty, a more cooperative tsar, and a new majority on the expanded Directing Committee, it seemed that the congress could now finish its pressing business. Few things, however, were easy or simple at the Congress of Vienna.

Britain, Austria, and France had pledged to resist aggression with one voice, but admittedly that left a considerable amount of discretion in interpreting what was considered aggression and how much they should resist. Talleyrand was, of course, urging that they take a firm approach and force Prussia to back down from its demands, even it if meant war. Law, justice, and public opinion were on their side, Talleyrand argued, and a showdown would only rally the rest of Europe to their cause.

Castlereagh disagreed. He did not wish to provoke Prussia, and preferred instead to forge a compromise that he believed would produce a better peace for Britain and Europe. As he saw it, if Prussia wanted a big chunk of Saxony, including the town of Leipzig and the key fortresses of Erfurt and Torgau, why not give it to them? Why risk war over something that he called, at one point, “a mere question of details”? The British government had ordered him to preserve the Kingdom of Saxony, or, more precisely “a kernel of Saxony.” He was planning to do just that, though if he had his way, that kernel would be small indeed.

Metternich was stuck in the middle, though now leaning toward Talleyrand. The disputes among the secret allies were growing increasingly acrimonious, and Castlereagh was again finding himself isolated among his partners. On January 24, as the debate about the size of Prussian gains raged, Castlereagh made another desperate gesture and told his allies that they would either have to accept his proposal for a small Saxony or England would leave the peace conference at once.

Actually, Castlereagh was not bluffing, no matter how far-fetched the threat might sound. Under great pressure from London, Castlereagh had just learned that he would soon be leaving Vienna anyway. British policy at the congress was proving highly unpopular, and the opposition party back home, the Whigs, was criticizing them more and more. Castlereagh would have to return to London to defend himself. A government order for his recall, he knew, would arrive at any time.

Desperate to accomplish something before he left, and feeling close to a breakthrough, Castlereagh had backed himself into a corner. If he could just solve the Poland-Saxony crisis, many of the other complicated negotiations would very likely fall into place. He could not imagine returning to London and a hostile House of Commons without anything tangible to show.

So while working frantically in a final diplomatic blitz, and once again finding himself outvoted in the alliance, Castlereagh was ready to make another unexpected move: He swallowed his pride and asked for help from the Russian tsar. Perhaps he could have a word with the king of Prussia and convince him to accept a compromise. So, ironically, the Russian colossus that he feared and worked so energetically to resist would now be his best hope for success.

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one year before the congress, Madame de Staël complained about all the time lost in Vienna’s fashionable salons:

Time is wasted on getting dressed for these parties, it’s wasted on traveling to them, on the staircases waiting for one’s carriage, on spending three hours at table; and in these innumerable gatherings one hears nothing beyond conventional phrases.

The whole experience, which could be repeated three, four, or even more times a week, simply devoured time, not to mention dulling the mind in an endless round of superficiality. The salon, Madame de Staël suspected, was “a clever invention by mediocrity to annul spiritual faculties.”

By January 1815, Friedrich von Gentz was another who shared the disillusionment about the tedious follies that sometimes had to be endured in a salon or drawing room. At first, he had been captivated by the environment. He was overjoyed to be in the midst of the beautiful young people who, as he put it, “hold the world in their hands.” He later paused and pondered, “Good God, how did I ever get in with this crowd?”

Four months into the Vienna Congress, however, his enthusiasm had begun to fade. Gentz had started to resent the talk about peace, legitimacy, and rule of law, which often seemed to ring hollow. It was all “fine-sounding nonsense,” he concluded. The real purpose of the peace conference was only to divide the spoils. Hardened by the revelation, Gentz now laughed at the foibles of this diplomatic farce: “I enjoy the whole spectacle as though it were given for my own private entertainment.”

Not all salons were simply glamorous and fashionable centers of intrigue. On Tuesday evenings, Fanny von Arnstein hosted a salon on the second floor of her mansion on the Hoher Markt, overlooking the stands of the fish, crab, herring and geese sellers below. Arnstein was a fifty-six-year-old Jewish woman who had settled in Vienna in the reign of Joseph II. As her friend Karl August Varnhagen, an assistant with the Prussian delegation, described her, she was “a tall, slim figure, radiant with beauty and grace.” Her husband, Nathan, was a partner in the prominent firm Arnstein and Eskeles, which managed the accounts for several embassies during the congress; her father had been banker to the previous king of Prussia, Frederick William II.

The Arnstein salon enjoyed a reputation of being the most intellectually stimulating of the major salons. On any given night, guests might encounter the Prussian ambassador, Wilhelm von Humboldt, the pope’s delegate, Cardinal Consalvi, or the young poet Friedrich von Schlegel, soon to be famous in Romantic circles and then serving in a minor capacity with the Austrian delegation. Famous physicians also made appearances, such as the opinionated magnetist David Koreff, and an early champion of the smallpox vaccine, Jean Carro, who was then known more for his chest of powders and perfumes as the “doctor of beauty.”