THE GENTZ MEMOIRS.*
THAT Friedrich von Gentz was a genius who for clearness of thought and quite Demosthenic powers of writing deserves to rank amongst the greatest stars of the German firmament, is a fact that has been getting less and less visible for the existing generation. The cause of this dropping out of sight is neither difficult to explain, nor was it unforeseen by Gentz himself. His literary activity was that of a journalist and brilliant political essayist. The productions of such writers have a keen interest for the moment, but they always purchase this burst of instan- taneous popularity at the expense of perennial fame. The source of their inspiration is some subject of the hour, and with that sub- ject almost necessarily passes away also the zest of the literature it produces. Gentz, speaking of the fate that awaited his fame, sets the lot reserved to writers of his class on the same footing with that befalling distinguished men of business, whose names, he said, never survive fifty years. The assertion is true, as a rule, though it promises to be falsified in Gentz's own case, whose memory would seem to be about to be revived in Germany by publications, of a biographical nature, the materials whereof are of more lasting interest than the pamphlets that constitute the bulk of his prevOus literary achievements. The revival of this interest dates from the publication of a " Diary " by Gentz some years ago out of Varnhagen's collections. The revelations in these pages 'of the secret thoughts of a man who was known but as one of the most devoted agents of Prince Metternich's policy, and the extra- • Atli dem Nachlasse Friedrich son Gents. Erster Band. Wien. 1867. Friedrich ron Oents. Bin Beitmg zur Oeschichte Oesterreichs, von Dr. Karl Men- delesohn-Bartholdy. Leipzig. 1867. ordinary criticisms on men which were there given to the world, excited equal attention and pain. Gentz appeared before the public in a new light. The two books now before us will con- firm the interest then awakened. They are in some sense rival publications. The one is the first of three volumes of unpublished papers and correspondence. They are printel at Vienna, and are understood to be edited by an Austrian diplomatist of high posi- tion, who, in a short preface indicates the contents of the coming volumes. Here he makes the admission that what he has got to give the world are but fragment; of Gentz's papers. Happily we now know that although he was in possession only of fragments, the correspondence from which these are taken is preserved and about to be printed. Dr. Mendelasohn-Bartholdy, the author of the second book in our heading, immediately on the pub- lication of the Vienna volume, declared in the leading jour- nals of Germany that he has been engaged for some time on a complete collection of Gentz's papers, and that the letters as given in this volwne are not only fragmentary, but seriously muti- lated. As in Vienna it is perfectly well known that he has been employing himself on this labour, it is difficult to understand the object of publishing at this moment a garbled edition of this nature, which cannot pass muster, or produce any real impression in behalf of Gentz. Meanwhile, Dr. Mendelssohu has given us an instalment of his greater work in an admirable biographical sketch of Gentz, which, together with the letters in the Vienna volume, form a valuable addition to our knowledge, though, as a whole, the contents of the Vienna instalment must be called meagre. Still there are choice bits to be gleaned from it.
The career and the character of Gentz constitute a subject most worthy of study. His life was itself a successful enterprise, and in some sense the greatest homage ever paid in the aristocratically pre- judiced Court of Austria to the power of genius. The Emperor Francis himself, indeed, ever retained against Gentz the dislike his nature always entertained against the flash of true genius, but with this exception, the Vienna world, in its highest regions, which is so exclusive and so proud of blood, naturalized as one of its own this incisive, profligate, brilliant adventurer, who had nothing to help him on but his brains. Probably no one ever had the kind of hold over Metternich which Gentz acquired, and it was not that of merely servile and handy sycophancy. It was the hold of superior over inferior ability. Gentz the scribe, without parentage or for- tune, taking money for services, treated the Prince Chancellor as his equal, and even ventured to browbeat him. In 1815, at the Vienna Congress, it was Gentz who actually bullied Metternich into coalescing with Talleyrand in the matter of the fate of Saxony. The genius of the man cowed the Prince Minister. Mr. Disraeli's career has some similarity in this respect to that of Gent; but there is this difference, that in his case the supremacy is grudgingly acquiesced in, while between the genius of the two men there is the difference between the force of a farthing candle and of an electric light. It is not, however, our intention here to enter into the consideration of Geutz's character, and the nature of the influence which it was possible for a man of this stamp to exercise so long over the policy of the leading Cabinets during the Holy Alliance period. The subject is one full of interest, but we post- pone dwelling thereon until the promised publication of Dr. Men- delssohn, which cannot but pour a flood of new light on Gentz's most intimate doings. To-day we wish but to point out a few interesting data furnished by the pages of the Vienna volume.
T h e contents comprise two seta of letters of considerable import- ance; the one written to Pilat, one of Metternich's agents, and editor of the official paper ; the other in French, written in 1830- 31, to Baron Rothschild, with the view of being communicated to the Ministers of Louis Philippe. The correspondence with Pilat as here given is fulk of gaps, but runs from 1813-30, that is, it extends over the-Congresses in which Gentz took so prominent a part, and frem which he writes to his friend some precious and characteristic communications. In '1818 the Sovereigns met at Aix-la-Chapelle, and we find Gentz in a paroxysm of agitation at the effect produced by the signature of the Treaty in a fall of six per cent. in the French funds. It is as if the world was coming down about his ears. Equally characteristic of his way of looking at things is his assertion "that the Emperor Alexander is the one really important figure in the whole panorama of the Congress.. . He deserves to be the first man in Europe." Three years later the same Sovereigns held at Troppau a conference preliminary to the Congress of Laibach, in consequence of the Neapolitan movement. On this occasion, the Russian Minister, Capodistrias, was disposed to mitigate the thorough-going reactionary policy of Austria, and it was only by inspiring the Emperor Alexander with alarm at the revolutionary spirit in his own dominions, where there had been
some disturbances, that this obstacle was got over. Gentz accord- ingly desired Pilat to cause articles to be published against " Lan- castrian schools, Bible societies, and all similar undertakings," as so many schools of sedition. In fact, we have here the system of what in Germany went by the name of Demokraten Riecherei. It is only natural that Gentz should not blush to call De Maistre's arch-sophistical book Du Pape " the most elevated and important that has appeared for half a century." In spite of Alexander's conversion to the spirit of ultra-Conservatism, Capodistrias still en- tertained views of his own at Laibach on which Gentz gives vent to much invective. The letters from Laibach are the most valuable in the volume ; and they confirm the fact that the Papal Court under Consalvi's statesmanship was not at all friendly to Austrian intervention. "Cardinal S. . . . [Spina] spoke like a night- cap," writes Gentz, " and so also, sad it is to say, has the Court of Rome behaved." The conferences were by no means harmonious, and business threatened a standstill. "The Prince [Metternich] sat two hours long without saying a word, and drawing landscapes. I urged him privately as much as I could, but it was impossible to get anything out of him." The point at issue was how to formulate an intervention in Naples, whose King was in attendance. Capodistrias bad drawn up a declaration without mention of an army of occupation, while Metternich insisted thereon. Finally, by common consent, Gentz was deputed to draw up the final act, which he did, Is he says, of his own inspiration, without guiding instructions, and the document was then solemnly read to the Duke Gallo, who was, by way of being the diplomatic Agent, not of his King, but of his Constitutional Government, to prevent intervention. The scene is a piquant one, and shows but too clearly how the Neapolitan Liberals were betrayed all through. " At eight in the evening the Congress met, including all the Italian Ministers. Gallo came in the greatest gala at nine, while we all were as usual. The Prince made him a short address, that had been before arranged and written. Then I read to him all the acts in which the strong phrases regime monstrueux, &c., were interspersed." It was expected that Gallo would go through a form of protest. " Nothing of the kind. He listened the whole time with even. a smiling face. When it was over he thanked with the greatest courtesy for the communications made to him de la part de l'auguste Conyrs, and declared he would not only take charge of the letter for Naples, but do all in his power pour repondre aux vceux du Rai. We were all thunderstruck without exception A diplomatic self-possession of this nature I never saw." And yet it is established by this correspondence that while lending his powerful hand to the promotion of extreme reaction, Gentz's intellect was not dimmed to the ephemeral nature of the work he was engaged in—to the power residing in the ideas he was striving to crush for the season of his own life- time. This contrast between his intellectual greatness and moral subserviency is painful throughout. He was not blinded to truth ; he felt it, and would have none of it, because it discomforted his ease.
The correspondence with Baron Rothschild does not contain piquant traits, but it is, in our opinion, a memorable revelation of the collusion between Vienna and Paris, at the time when the public was humbugged into fancying Louis Philippe to be the representative of Liberal principles against the arch-Conservative Metternich. The whole drift of this correspondence is to furnish the French Minister with the views of Metternich, to the end that the two Governments may go virtually hand in hand in the Italian, Belgian, and Polish questions. The spirit of Gentz's letters towards the representatives of the Monarchy of 1830 is divested of all his former militant Holy Alliance dispositions. Peace and compromise are his running texts. Legitimacy seems to have quite dropped out of sight; and of the two, the Austrian shows himself more open to Liberal feelings than the French Minister. Here, again, it is the intelligence of Gentz which comes out. For instance, he who had thundered against freedom of the press, and written against Chateaubriand's demonstration in 1824 in its favour, now that it had been conceded, thought it impolitic for. the French Government to institute the press prosecutions it did against journals for special articles. So, also, Gentz distinctly expresses his individual sympathies with the Poles, as also, on several occasions, he records his different appreciation of events from Prince Metternich in a sense that shows him to have been less easily flurried than the Minister,—which is all the more remarkable, that Gentz's nervousness is notorious.
We have no space left to notice Dr. Mendelssohn's publication as it deserves ; but as he will soon afford us an ample opportunity for doing so, we have confined ourselves on this occasion to the correspondence. The reputation which the author has acquired by his Life of Capodistrias is fully sustained by this really admir- able monograph on Gents ; and we hail his promise to continue his labours on the statesmen of the Restoration period by a work on Talleyrand. It is a true and suggestive remark of Dr. Mendelssohn that there is an analogy between these two Sybaritic and in a worldly sense successful statesmen, and that the study of their success is a key to the understanding of the times.
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