BOOKS.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF PRINCE METTERNICH.* To those who are interested in modern history, these two volumes will be the book of the season. They contain fewer stories and fewer sketches of society than we had expected ; often, too, there is little explanation of the motives of political acts ; they have few of the charms of style, except simplicity and directness, and they will be read with a certain distrust of their exact 'truthfulness, but they are full of interest, nevertheless. Prince Metternich stood at the very centre of European politics, at a most excited time ; he knew intimately most of the person- ages who were dominating or delivering Europe ; he was aware of, or shared in, some of the wildest plans ; and he was himself a calmly reflective man, very tenacious of opinions once formed, but at the same time very ob- servant of the direction of the currents of his time. He was fairly unprejudiced, though a slight contempt for the great Frenchmen of the day, as new men, peeps out in his writing, and though self-opinionated and even conceited in a high degree, reasoned on all facts and motives justly and coolly. Of his intimate character very little indeed is revealed in these pages, beyond the fact that while theoretically always

• Memoirs of Prince Metternich, 1773-1815. Edited by Prince Richard Metternich. Translated by Mrs. Alexander Napier. 2 vols. London: Richard Bentley and Bon. 1880.

intent on justice, he was, when the interests of the House of Hapsburg required it, politically unscrupulous in the extreme, as ready to obtain any territory by a sudden and unjust seizure, as to purchase an estate. He was, too, both Conservative and Legitimist to the core, taking the greatest part in forcing the Bourbons back on France, in spite of the resistance of Czar Alexander, who intended and pro- posed to raise Bernadotte to the throne ; but this did not stop his.

acceding to the plan for marrying Napoleon to the Archduchess Louise, or from joining directly in a project for the extinction and partition of Turkey. In the former case, he had more jus- tification, perhaps, than is supposed. If Metternich had any religious opinions, they were Catholic, like those of his Court„ and he affirms, as simple matter of fact, that neither the Papacy nor the Austrian Court 'considered Napoleon married, the Pope when he crowned the Empress having been deceived by the Bishops. His union with Josephine had been a civil ceremony, and admitted under the law of being ended, and it was therefore considered by the Catholic Church a nullity, in no way preventing another and religious marriage. The- religious question being thus got rid of—whether honestly or not, rests in Metternich's conscience—he had no other scruple, observing that Princesses of Austria were not accustomed to choose husbands for themselves, and agreeing with his master that the marriage would give Austria a few years of peace. He does not, indeed, seem to have repented,.

even when Napoleon—who, by the way, treated the Arch- duchess very well—said with brutal frankness, that he bitterly repented the marriage, which was an effort to bind together things new and old. As to the other project, it appears certain that Napoleon seriously intended in 1808 to partition Turkey. He had arranged the matter with St. Petersburg, and settled, in his own mind, that France was to have Egypt, the Morea, and some of the islands, as colonies ; Russia, the Crimea and the country south of the Balkans, including Constantinople ; and Austria, the Principalities, Bosnia, and Bulgaria. His leading motive in this dreamy plan, which alarmed Talleyrand, besides his desire for Egypt and for colonies—neither of which he could have got with the British Fleet in the way—was to compel Austria into a permanent alliance with France.. She would, he reasoned and said, be so alarmed by seeing Russia at Constantinople, that she would be always thence- forward compelled to rely on France. Napoleon never could tolerate an ally, but still he wished for this alliance, his idea being in, Prince Metternich's opinion, not to annex Europe, or much of it ; but to obtain a hegemony in it for France, and the- position for himself of European Emperor. M. de Metternich when consulted about this vast project, declared it contrary to Conservative principles and to morality but agreed to assist in, it, and share the spoil. He communicated his opinion to Count Stadion, at Vienna, with the most cynically simple- frankness. "We must sacrifice much for the preservation of the Porte, but our real existence and political credit, the chief elements of the life of a great State, must put limits to our desires. We cannot save Turkey ; therefore, we must help in the partition, and endeavour to get as good a share of it as possible. We cannot resist the destructive and invasive prin- ciples of the Emperor of the French, and we must, therefore, turn them away from ourselves." It is perhaps to be regretted that this extraordinary project fell through, chiefly, it would seem, because Napoleon fancied that Russia and Austria would make a secret league of partition and attack him, as the war would have exhausted him as much as the war with Russia, and have liberated Eastern Europe more than half a century earlier_ The plan, however, dropped, and the Prince had shortly after- wards to report an audience in which Napoleon directly menaced Austria, in the presence of the Russian Ambassador. The book is full of such incidents, related usually in the calmest and most phlegmatic tone, as if a lawyer were writing about estates, and not an ambassador about kingdoms. Perhaps the most striking is the account of the renewal of the war after the return of Napoleon from Elba. Prince Metternich had received the information from the Austrian Consul-General at Genoa, but laid the de- spatch aside (March 6th, 1815), as probably unimportant. Being sleepless, however, he opened it, to occupy himself, at 7.30 in the- m orning :—

" I was dressed in a few minutes, and before eight o'clock I was with the Emperor. He read the despatch, and said to me qietly and calmly, as he always did on great occasions :—' Napoleon seems to wish to play the adventurer ; that is his concern ; oars is to secure to the world that peace which he has disturbed for years. Go without delay to the Emperor of Russia and the King of Prussia, and tell them that I am 'ready to order my army to march back to France. I do not doubt but that both monarchs will agree with me.' At a quarter-past eight I was with the Emperor Alexander, who dismissed ma with the same words as the Emperor Francis had used. At half-past eight I re- ceived a similar declaration from the month of King Frederic William III. At nine o'clock I was at my house again, where I had (Erected Field-Marshal Prince Schwarzenberg to meet me. At ten o'clock the Ministers of the four Powers came at my request. At the same hour adjutants were already on their way, in all directions, to order the armies to halt who were returning home. Thus war was decided on in less than an hoar. When the Ministers assembled at my house, the event was unknown to them. Talleyrand was the first to enter. I gave him the desjiatch from Genoa to read. He remained calm, and the following laconic conversation took place between us :— Talisyrand.--‘ Do you know where Napoleon is going ?' Metternich.—' The despatch does not say anything about it.' Talleyrand.—' He will embark somewhere on the coast of Italy, and throw himself into Switzerland.'

Metternich.—' He will go straight to Paris.'

This is the history, in its full simplicity."

To the general reader, the most attractive portion of these volumes will be the sketches of character. Metternich had studied Napoleon profoundly, and like all who did so, arrived at the conclusion that he was an extraordinary being, but greatly assisted by the immense ruin which before his ascendancy had fallen on all European institutions. He "had confiscated to his own advantage the whole Revolution." He held him to be a man of grand simplicity of mind, while in action he was the most formidable of beings :—

"Whilst in his conceptions all was clear and precise, in what re- quired action he knew neither difficulty nor uncertainty. Ordinary rules did not embarrass him at all. In practice, as in discussion, he went straight to the end in view, without being delayed by considera- tions which he treated as secondary, and of which he perhaps too often disdained the importance. The most direct line to the object he desired to reach was that which he chose by preference, and which he followed to the end, while nothing could entice him to deviate from it ; but then, being no slave to his plans, he knew how to give them up or modify them the moment that his point of view changed, or new combinations gave him the means of attaining it more effect- ually by a different path."

He believed Napoleon to have been a Catholicpat least poli- tically, but to have considered himself a separate being, formed to govern, utterly disdainful of his subjects' lives, and with few affections, except for his relatives, and for Hortense Beau- Itarnais, his step-daughter, whom he really "loved ;"-

"His opinions of men were concentrated in one idea, which, un- happily for him, had in his mind gained the force of an axiom. He 'was persuaded that no man, called to appear in public life, or even only engaged in the active pursuits of life, was guided or could be guided by any other motive than that of interest. He did not deny the existence of virtue and honour ; but he maintained that neither of these sentiments had ever been the chief guide of any but those whom he called dreamers, and to whom, by this title, he, in his own mind, denied the existence of the requisite faculty for taking a suc- cessful part in the affairs of society. I had long arguments with him on an assertion which my conviction repelled, and of which I endeavoured to show him the fallacy, at any rate to the extent to which he applied it, but I never succeeded in moving him on this point."

Of the Emperor Alexander of Russia he draws a very unfavour- able picture, holding him to have been a man with a mind real, indeed, but very shallow, easily mastered by ideas, which, with him, gradually formed themselves into systems :— " A long observation of the moral peculiarities of this monarch and of his political course led me to discover, what I have called above, the periodicity of his thoughts. This periodicity followed a measure of about five years. I do not know how to express this observation more exactly. The Emperor seized an idea, :and followed it out quickly. It grew in his mind for about two years, till it came to be regarded by him as a system. In the course of the third year, he remained faithful to the system he had adopted and learned to love, listened with real fervour to its promoters, and was inaccessible to any calculation as to its worth or dangerous consequences. In the fourth year, the sight of those consequences began to calm down his fervour ; the fifth year showed an unseemly mixture of the old and nearly extinct system with the new idea. This new idea was often -diametrically opposite to the one he had just left."

The effect of this constant alteration was, of course, constant Adis' appointment and a reputation for cunning, and in 1825 Alexander died of thorough weariness of life,—a death he had anticipated, in speaking to the Emperor Francis in 1822. -There were, probably, in him strong traces of the family -disease, hypochondria, amounting almost to madness, for he actually, when annoyed one day, seriously informed the Emperor of Austria that he intended to challenge Prince Metternich, and this not as a/upon de parler, but as a design so serious that the Emperor put his Chancellor on his guard. The challenge was mot sent, but it appears to have been really contemplated, in

spite of the fixed etiquette of Sovereigns, which forbids them to offer or accept challenges, except from persons of royal blood.

Of the other great person in the triad of Emperors, the Prince speaks with genuine, though unenthusiastic respect, representing Francis of Austria as a man of singular impar- tiality, wisdom, and even goodness, the latter a quality not attributed to him by other writers. Francis had the most singular influence over the Czar, perhaps as being the only friendly person who could speak to him on equal terms :—

"The Emperor Francis united in himself the most valuable posi- tive qualities. His calmness, impartiality, soundness of judgment, and unvarying and tranquil temper inspired Alexander with a feeling of devotion which almost resembled the veneration of a child. This feeling was afterwards heightened by a colouring quite peculiar to the mind of this prince. It was religious. The Emperor Alexander considered his friend as a monarch after the will of God, as the re- presentative of God's will, and of godly wisdom, and almost wor- shipped him. On several occasions, when the Emperor Francis directly opposed the personal inclinations of Alexander, the opinion of the wise monarch sufficed to arrest the decisions of Alexander, and to decide him either to relinquish or change them."

Of Talleyrand, Prince Metternich thought but little, except that he was the best man in the world to prevent a decision, and was so used by the Emperor Napoleon; and he re- ports a very singular judgment passed by the Emperor on Bernadotte : —" He has plenty of brains. I have always found this to be the case, but I foresee he will have a good deal of difficulty in maintaining his position. The nation expects everything from him; he is the god from whom they demand bread, but I cannot see that he has any talent for government; he is a good soldier, and that is all. For my part, I am delighted to have got rid of him, and I ask nothing better than his removal from France; he is one of those old Jacobins with his head in the wrong place, as they all have, and that is not the way to keep on a throne." That judgment turned out all wrong, and was probably due to an inner jealousy, which was not without foundation, as Bernadotte, in Prince Metternich's opinion, undoubtedly looked for and in- trigued for the throne of France, an aspiration in which he was strongly supported by the Emperor of Russia.

The future volumes of these memoirs, which will describe the Metternich era in Europe between 1815 and 1848, and contain the Prince's own political opinions, will be eagerly looked for, and the two volumes now offered are choked with matter of the greatest interest to the historical student.