Transcriber’s Note
Hyphenations have been standardised.
Footnotes have been renamed in numeric order.
Changes made are noted at the end of the book.
The advertisement which was at the front of the book has been placed at the end.
THE LIFE OF THE
EMPEROR FRANCIS JOSEPH
[Illustration:_Photo_ _Bieber_ _The Emperor Francis Joseph_]
THE LIFE OF THE
EMPEROR
FRANCIS JOSEPH
BY
FRANCIS GRIBBLE
LONDON
EVELEIGH NASH
1914
PREFACE
There exist plenty of surveys of the modern history and political
conditions of Austria. Mr. Henry Wickham Steed’s “The Habsburg
Monarchy” is the most recent, and probably the best, though Mr. R. P.
Mahaffy’s “Francis Joseph I.: His Life and Times”—a smaller and less
pretentious book—is also very good. One knows equally well where to
turn for gossipy compilations—some of them authoritative, and others
devoid of authority—dealing with the inner life of the Austrian Court.
Sir Horace Rumbold has treated the subject with the dutiful reticence
of a diplomatist in “The Austrian Court of the Nineteenth Century”;
Countess Marie Larisch and Princess Louisa of Tuscany, occupying
positions of greater freedom and less responsibility, have in “My Past”
and “My Own Story” lifted the veil with indignant gestures, and pointed
fingers of scorn at the intimate pictures which they have revealed. M.
H. de Weindel, again, has written of “François-Joseph Intime”; while
the enterprise of an American journalist has contributed “The Keystone
of Empire,” “The Martyrdom of an Empress,” and “The Private Life of
Two Emperors—William II. of Germany and Francis Joseph of Austria.”
This bibliographical list—to which additions could easily be
made—might seem to indicate that the ground has already been well
covered; but that is not the case. There exists no life of Francis
Joseph, and no History of Austria, in which the personal and political
aspects of the subject are considered in their relation to each other.
The assumption of writers who have previously treated the theme has
been that tittle-tattle is tittle-tattle, and that history is history,
and that the two can never meet. The two things, however, are liable to
meet anywhere; and in the country and period here under review they are
continually meeting. Austria is not one of the “inevitable” countries,
like England and Spain, bound to have a separate existence under some
form of government or other because of their geographical situation and
the national characteristics of their inhabitants. There is no Austrian
nation: only a medley of races which detest each other, bound (but by
no means welded) together for the supposed convenience of the rest
of Europe, and unified only by the fact that its component parts all
appertain to the dominions of the House of Habsburg.
It follows that the personality of the Habsburgs matters in a sense in
which the personalities of rulers who are mere figure-heads does not
matter; and that personality—the collective personality as well as the
separate personalities of individual members of the House—can only
be gauged by those who study their private lives in conjunction with
their public performances. The history of the property (seeing that it
comprises peoples as well as lands) includes and implies the history
of the owners of the property. Our spectacle, in so far as one can
sum it up in a sentence, is that of an Empire continually threatened
with dissolution under the control of an historic family continually
displaying all the symptoms of decadence. The political and the
personal factors in the problem are perpetually interacting; and one of
the questions which the political prophet has to consider is: Will not
the decadence of the family hasten the dissolution of the Empire?
Whence it follows, as a secondary sequence, that, in the history of
modern Austria, tittle-tattle matters; for it is only by the careful
study of the tittle-tattle that we can hope to discover whether the
Habsburgs of to-day are true or false to the proud and impressive
traditions of their House. In their case, as in that of any other
House, a stray story of a romantic or scandalous character might
properly be ignored as appertaining to the domain of idle gossip; but
when stories of that kind meet us at every turn—and meet us with
increasing frequency as time proceeds—we are no longer entitled to
dismiss them with superior indifference. They are significant; the
key to the situation is to be found in them. Tittle-tattle, in short,
when one encounters it, not in sample but in bulk, ceases to be
tittle-tattle, but attains to the dignity of history, and furnishes
the raw material for the generalisations of the political philosopher.
The annals of the House of Habsburg furnish a case in point—the best
of all possible cases. There is no House in Europe whose annals are
richer in incident and eccentricity; and the eccentricities, whether
romantic or scandalous, are such as to challenge the scientific
investigator—whether he be a student of eugenics or of politics—to
group them and see what inferences he can draw. The present writer
has decided to take up the challenge; and, in order to take it up, he
will be obliged to deal with a good many matters besides the political
manœuvres of the Emperor and his Ministers. “John Orth” pelting the
Emperor with the insignia of the Order of the Golden Fleece; “Herr
Wulfling” cracking nuts in a tree with Fräulein Adamovics; Princess
Louisa of Tuscany, first bicycling with the dentist in the Dresden
Park, and then appealing to her son’s tutor to come and “compromise”
her in Switzerland—all these are matters which may suggest reflections
quite as far-reaching as anything that we read about Francis Joseph’s
skill in extricating his country from embarrassments with rival
Powers and keeping the peace (in so far as it has been kept) between
Ruthenians and Galicians.
It would be presumption, of course, to represent this biography as
the full and final portrait of Francis Joseph as he really is. The
complete material for such a definite portrait of a sovereign is never
made available during the sovereign’s life-time; and the portraits
drawn by people who have occupied privileged positions at Court are
generally the most colourless of all: misleading—and, as a rule,
designed to mislead—by excess of eulogy. Discretion, in such cases,
takes the place of criticism; the “selection” is not that of the
artist, but of the courtier. The illustrious personage thus officially
or semi-officially portrayed “comes out” not as an individual, but as a
type: as conventional and as unconvincing as the stock “heavy father”
or “gentlemanly villain” of melodrama. Sir Horace Rumbold’s polite
portrait of Francis Joseph is one of many marked by those limitations.
The popular Austrian portraits are still more distinctly marked by them.
One need not wonder, and one must not complain. The path to candour
was blocked by the obligations, in the one case of hospitality, and,
in the other, of loyalty; but there is no reason why the historian who
is not under such obligations should not criticise more freely. His
object is neither depreciation nor flattery, but truth—as much of
the truth as is attainable at the given moment; and he must therefore
resist the common tendency of the biographers of contemporary rulers
to credit their subjects, not only with their own particular virtues,
but with all other people’s virtues as well. The only result, in moral
portraiture, of attributing virtues with too heavy a hand is to produce
a picture in which the wood cannot be seen for the trees.
That error must be avoided, as much in the interest of the subject of
the portrait as in that of the public to which it is to be submitted.
The real virtues will be more conspicuous if no imaginary virtues are
allowed to block our view of them, and if other miscellaneous qualities
which contrast with them are given their due tribute of attention.
Cromwell, it will be remembered, insisted that the artist should paint
him “warts and all,”; and if the Life of an Emperor is not to be
written in that spirit, one might just as well refrain from writing it,
for there would be nothing to be learnt from it when it was written.
FRANCIS GRIBBLE.
CONTENTS
PAGE
CHAPTER I
The collapse of the Holy Roman Empire—The impossibility
of reviving it—The German Federation—The Holy
Alliance—The policy of sitting on the safety valve—The
consequent explosions—The problems consequently prepared
for Francis Joseph—The Head of the House of
Habsburg—Inseparable connection between the events
of his public and private life 1
CHAPTER II
The House of Habsburg from the standpoint of Eugenics—The
“Habsburg jaw”—Degeneracy the consequence of
consanguineous marriages—Sound physiological instinct
of King Cophetua—And of those Habsburgs who have
followed his example—Morganatic marriages—The
family organism fighting for its life—Has Francis Joseph
understood?—Indications that he has understood in part 10
CHAPTER III
Francis Joseph’s ancestors—Francis, Duke of Lorraine—Francis
II.—Leopold II.—Collaterals—The Spanish
marriages of the Habsburgs—Their alliances with Portugal,
the various Bourbons, and the Wittelsbachs of
Bavaria—Moral and mental defects thus perpetuated
and emphasised—Francis Joseph as the sane champion
of a mad family 20
CHAPTER IV
Francis Joseph’s childhood—The severe education which
prepared him for his _rôle_—Difficulties of that _rôle_—The
Liberal revolt against the Metternich system—The idea
of nationality—Hübner’s surprise that anyone should
object to Austrian rule—Every Austrian a policeman
at heart—The Italian rising of 1848—Francis Joseph in
action—Radetzky’s remonstrances—Francis Joseph’s
return to his studies 29
CHAPTER V
The risings of 1848—Princess Mélanie Metternich’s excited
account of it—Disorderly flight of Metternich from
Vienna—The House of Habsburg saved by “three
mutinous soldiers”—Abdication of the Emperor Ferdinand
in favour of his nephew, Francis Joseph—Hübner’s
description of the ceremony 39
CHAPTER VI
Attitude of the Hungarians towards Francis Joseph—They
denounce him as a traitor, and banish him from
Hungary—Contempt of Austrians for Hungarians—The
conquest of Hungary with Russian help—Repression and
atrocities—Women flogged by order of Marshal Haynau—Marshal
Haynau himself flogged by Barclay and
Perkins’ draymen in London, and spat upon by women
in Brussels—Popular song written on that occasion 51
CHAPTER VII
Why Francis Joseph was called “The child of the gallows”—His
affront to Napoleon III., and its consequences—The
Bach system and the objections to it—Francis
Joseph’s _bonhomie_—The attempt on his life—Impressions
formed of him by the King of the Belgians, and Lady
Westmorland—The story of his romantic marriage 64
CHAPTER VIII
The failure of the marriage—Difficulty of explaining it—The
two conflicting personalities—Francis Joseph’s
personality obvious—The Empress Elizabeth’s personality
mysterious—Her sympathy with the Hungarians,
and its political importance—Her confession of melancholy 77
CHAPTER IX
Francis Joseph’s Egeria—Elizabeth’s mother-in-law—Elizabeth’s
quarrels with etiquette—The beginnings of
estrangement—The functions of Countess Marie Larisch
in the imperial household—Captain “Bay” Middleton—Nicholas
Esterhazy—Elizabeth’s fairy story—Her cynical
attitude towards life 86
CHAPTER X
“The Martyrdom of an Empress”—Correction of inaccuracies
contained in that popular work—Francis Joseph’s friends—“A
Polish Countess”—Frau Katti Schratt—Enduring
attachment—Rumour of morganatic marriage—Interview
with Frau Schratt on that subject—“Darby and Joan” 99
CHAPTER XI
Francis Joseph’s passion for field sports—Enthusiasm of a
nation of sportsmen for a sportsman Emperor—Anecdotes
of sport—Estrangement of the Emperor and the
Empress—The Empress’s departure for Madeira—Her
_wanderjahre_—Her attitude towards life—The keeping
up of appearances 113
CHAPTER XII
Francis Joseph’s snub to Napoleon III.—Proposal to address
him as “Sir” instead of “Brother”—The consequences—Napoleon
asks: “What can one do for Italy?”—Austria
at war with France and Italy—The crimes committed
by Austria in Italy—Battles of Magenta and
Solferino—Francis Joseph compelled to surrender Lombardy,
but allowed to retain Venetia 122
CHAPTER XIII
An interval of peace—Beginnings of trouble with Prussia—Habsburg
pride precedes a Habsburg fall—Refusal to
sell Venetia to Italy—Italy joins Prussia—The war of
1866—The disaster of Sadowa—Benedek’s failure—Shameful
treatment of Benedek by the Empire—Vain
attempts to conciliate him—His widow’s comments 132
CHAPTER XIV
Francis Joseph comes to terms with Hungary—His famous
interview with Francis Deák—“Well, Deák, what does
Hungary demand?”—Dualism—The objection of the
Slavs to Dualism—Coronation at Buda—Andrassy,
whom he had hanged in effigy, becomes his Prime
Minister 143
CHAPTER XV
Attitude of Austria in the Franco-German War—Proposed
alliance of France, Italy, and Austria against Prussia—General
Türr’s interview with Francis Joseph—Victor
Emmanuel’s conditions—The bargain concluded—The
French plan of campaign drafted by the Archduke
Albert—Beust’s fetter to Richard Metternich—Reasons
why the Austrian promises were not fulfilled 148
CHAPTER XVI
Austrian expansion in the Balkans—Occupation of Bosnia—Problem
of Servia Irredenta—Postponement of the day
of reckoning—Luck of the Habsburgs in public life—Calamities
dog them in private life—List of Habsburg
fatalities during Francis Joseph’s reign 158
CHAPTER XVII
Francis Joseph’s brother Maximilian—Invited to be Emperor
of Mexico—Hesitates, but consents to please his wife—Resignation
of his rights as a Habsburg—The _Pacte de
Famille_ and the quarrel about it—The compromise—The
last meeting of the brothers—Maximilian’s melancholy—He
composes poetry—He receives the benediction of
the Pope and departs for his Empire 164
CHAPTER XVIII
Vanity and nervousness of the Empress Charlotte—Evil
omens which frightened—Her journey to Europe to seek
help for Maximilian—Her cold reception by Napoleon
III.—Symptoms of approaching insanity—Her madness—Maximilian
abandoned by the French—Attacked by
the Republicans—Captured at Queretaro—Francis
Joseph’s vain attempt to save him—His trial and execution 176
CHAPTER XIX
Habsburgs and Wittelsbachs—Which is the madder House?—Insanity
of the Empress Elizabeth’s cousin, Ludwig II. of Bavaria—His
eccentricities—His tragic death—Grief of the Empress—Suicide of
Elizabeth’s brother-in-law, the Comte de Trani—Tragic death of the
Archduchess Elizabeth 187
CHAPTER XX
The Crown Prince Rudolph—His quarrel with the German
Emperor—His affability and his hauteur—A spoiled
child—His search for a wife—Marriage to Princess
Stéphanie—Disappointment and disillusion—Stéphanie’s
book—“A long, long, terrible night has gone by for me”—Mary
Vetsera and her family—How Mary Vetsera
was taken first to the Hofburg and thence to Meyerling 193
CHAPTER XXI
What the Archduchess Stéphanie knew—What Rudolph
knew that she knew—The search for Mary Vetsera by
her relatives—The news of the Meyerling tragedy—The
two official versions—The many unofficial versions—The
attempt to hush the matter up—Mary Vetsera’s letter
to Countess Marie Larisch 208
CHAPTER XXII
Fantastic legends of the Meyerling tragedy—Talks with the
Crown Prince’s valet—Foolish story given by _Berliner
Lokal Anzeiger_—What the Grand Duke of Tuscany
knew—What Count Nigra knew—What Countess Marie
Larisch tells—Her story confirmed from a contemporary
source—Doubts which remain in spite of it—Was it
suicide or murder? 218
CHAPTER XXIII
The Archduke John Salvator—His many accomplishments—His
criticisms of his superiors—His disgrace at Court—His
love affair with an English lady—“Your darling
Archduckling”—His proposal to abandon his rank and
earn his living as a teacher of languages—His love
affair with Milly Stübel—He quarrels with Francis
Joseph, takes the name of John Orth, and leaves
Austria 232
CHAPTER XXIV
John Orth—Had he been plotting with Rudolph?—Indirect
confirmation of story told by Countess Marie Larisch—Did
John Orth really marry Milly Stübel?—Failure to
find the proofs of the marriage—John Orth’s letters
written on the eve of his departure for America—Disappearance
of his ship off Cape Horn—Is John Orth
really dead?—Examination of the reasons for believing
that he is still alive 244
CHAPTER XXV
The revolt of the Archdukes—Instructive analogies—Later
years of the Empress Elizabeth—Her manner of life
described by M. Paoli, the Corsican detective—Her fearlessness—Her
superstitions—Various evil omens—The
last excursion—Assassination of the Empress at Geneva—How
Francis Joseph received the news 259
CHAPTER XXVI
“Austria’s idiot Archdukes”—A _catalogue raisonné_—The
Emperor’s brothers—The Archduke Rainer—The Archduke
Henry and the actress—The Archduke Louis Salvator,
the Hermit of the Balearic Islands—The Archduke
Charles Salvator—The Archduke Joseph—The Archduke
Eugène and his vow to be “as chaste as possible”—The
Archduke William and his courtship in the _café_—The
Archduke Leopold—The awful Archduke Otto and his
manifold vagaries 272
CHAPTER XXVII
The centrifugal marriages of the Habsburgs—Francis
Joseph’s attitude towards them—His attitude towards
Baron Walburg, the Habsburg who had come down in
the world—Where he draws the line—His refusal to
sanction the marriage of the Archduke Ferdinand
Charles to the daughter of a high-school teacher—The
Archduke resigns his rank and becomes Charles Burg—Marriage
of the daughter of Archduchess Gisela to
Baron Otto von Seefried zu Buttenheim 284
CHAPTER XXVIII
The marriage of Archduchess Stéphanie to Count Lonyay—Attitude
of the King of the Belgians towards that marriage—Attitude
of Francis Joseph—He sanctions the
union, but snubs the bridegroom—Marriage of the
Archduchess Elizabeth to Otto von Windischgraetz—Francis
Joseph’s approval—The Windischgraetzes
raised to the rank of Serene Highnesses 294
CHAPTER XXIX
The Archduke Francis Ferdinand—An invalid who delayed
to marry—Report of his betrothal to the Archduchess
Gabrielle—Announcement of his betrothal to Countess
Sophie Chotek—Anecdotes of the courtship—Indignation
of the Archduchess Gabrielle’s mother—Attitude of
Francis Joseph—He permits the marriage on condition
that it shall be morganatic—Francis Ferdinand compelled
to swear a solemn oath that he is marrying
beneath him, and that his children will be unworthy to
succeed him—Reason for doubting whether he will
eventually be bound by his oath 301
CHAPTER XXX
The “terrible year” of the Habsburg annals—Proceedings of
Princess Louisa of Tuscany—The taint inherited from
the Bourbons of Parma—Princess Louisa’s suitors—Her
marriage to Prince Frederick August of Saxony—She
bicycles with the dentist—She runs away to Switzerland
with her brother, the Archduke Leopold, and her
children’s tutor—Attitude of the Courts towards her
escapade—Official notice on the subject in the _Wiener
Zeitung_ 315
CHAPTER XXXI
The romantic Quadruple Alliance—The jarring notes—Princess
Louisa’s objections to her brother’s companion
Fräulein Adamovics—The sentimental life of the Archduke
Leopold—He becomes “Herr Wulfling,” and
marries Fräulein Adamovics—Herr and Frau Wulfling
run wild in woods—Herr Wulfling divorces his wife and
marries again—His confidences to Signor Toselli—Princess
Louisa’s conception of the Simple Life—Her
manners shock the Swiss—She dismisses M. Giron—Her
marriage to Signor Toselli 326
CHAPTER XXXII
The summing up—The probable future of Austria—The probable
future of the House of Habsburg—Questions both
personal and political which will be raised when Francis
Joseph dies—The extent to which he has been “in the
movement”—The faithful companion of his old age 341
INDEX 353
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
THE EMPEROR FRANCIS JOSEPH (from a recent
portrait by Bieber) _Frontispiece_
THE EMPEROR FRANCIS JOSEPH AT THE TIME
OF HIS ACCESSION IN 1848 _To face page_ 52
THE EMPRESS ELIZABETH OF AUSTRIA 82
THE COUNTESS MARIE LARISCH AT THE TIME
OF HER MARRIAGE 96
THE EMPEROR FRANCIS JOSEPH IN 1866 138
MAXIMILIAN, EMPEROR OF MEXICO 166
CHARLOTTE, WIFE OF MAXIMILIAN, EMPEROR
OF MEXICO 180
KING LUDWIG II. OF BAVARIA 190
THE CROWN PRINCE RUDOLPH 196
THE HOFBURG, VIENNA 204
THE CROWN PRINCESS STÉPHANIE 210
THE BARONESS MARY VETSERA 224
THE ARCHDUKE JOHN OF TUSCANY (John
Orth) 254
THE ARCHDUKE FRANCIS FERDINAND 302
THE DUCHESS OF HOHENBERG (wife of the Archduke
Francis Ferdinand) 312
PRINCESS LOUISA OF TUSCANY (Ex-Crown Princess
of Saxony) 338
FRAU SCHRATT 350
THE LIFE OF
THE EMPEROR FRANCIS JOSEPH
CHAPTER I
The collapse of the Holy Roman Empire—The impossibility of reviving
it—The German Federation—The Holy Alliance—The policy of sitting
on the safety valve—The consequent explosions—The problems
consequently prepared for Francis Joseph—The Head of the House of
Habsburg—Inseparable connection between the events of his public and
private life.
In order to clear the way, and set the stage for the drama of the
Emperor Francis Joseph’s life, we must go back to the dissolution of
that Holy Roman Empire of which the Emperor of Austria was, at the end,
the titular head. Happily, we have not very far to go.
The Holy Roman Empire—in fact, as a cynic has said, neither Holy nor
Roman, and scarcely worthy to be called an Empire—collapsed in the
Napoleonic wars. The Battle of the Nations at Leipzig, the “world’s
earthquake” at Waterloo, the Congress of Vienna: none of these things
availed to set the Holy Roman Empire on its feet again.
Perhaps a really great man might even then have been able to restore
it and make something of it, using it as a decorative setting for
glorious achievements; perhaps not. The experiment was not tried,
because there was no great man available to try it. The sovereigns
of those days, with the sole exception of Alexander of Russia, were
pitifully lacking in personal prestige. Whatever Napoleon had failed
to do, he had at least succeeded in destroying the prestige of the
hereditary representatives of ancient dynasties. The House of Habsburg,
in spite of Napoleon’s marriage to a daughter of the House, had
suffered as much indignity as any other royal family, and more than
most. That marriage, indeed, was itself esteemed an indignity; even
the old friends of the House were doubtful whether it still deserved
respect.
Moreover, while Austria was rather weak, Prussia was very jealous—not
altogether without reason. In the earlier stages of the final
combination against Napoleon, Prussia had borne the burden and heat
of the day, while Austria sat, with a double face, shilly-shallying
on the fence. Now, it might be said, Austria represented the Past and
Prussia the Future of the German world; and the Future was in no mood
to tolerate proud airs or lofty pretensions from the Past. In the
absence, therefore, of a commanding personality among the sovereigns,
the revival of the Holy Roman Empire was impossible; and the centre of
gravity of the German world was shifting.
Still, something had to be done; some organisation had to be contrived
to give cohesion to the medley and provide the Continental Concert
with a reasonable prospect of a quiet life. So there sprang into being
two organisations which concern us:—
1. The German Federation.
2. The Holy Alliance.
Their detailed history need not delay us; but we must pause to see how
they created the difficulties with which Francis Joseph, coming to
throne as a boy of eighteen, had to cope, and posed the problems which
he would have either to solve for himself or to see roughly, and even
violently, solved for him by others.
Just as the Holy Roman Empire was scarcely worthy to be called an
Empire, so the German Federation was scarcely worthy to be called a
Federation. It was loose and cumbrous, inefficient and inert. There was
no Federal Tribunal, no Federal army, no Federal diplomatic machinery;
in all these matters the component States—ruled by thirty-eight
separate sovereigns—retained their independence. The Federal Assembly,
which met at Frankfurt, was, in effect, only a Congress of the
Ambassadors of those States, with the Austrian Ambassador in the chair.
No important step could be taken without the unanimous consent of the
Ambassadors; and there was no important piece of business on which
they were all of one mind. The position of Austria at the head of the
Assembly was one of dignity without authority, conferring little more
actual power than falls to the president of a debating society.
So loose an arrangement obviously could not endure. One of two things
was bound to happen; the bonds of union must, in the course of time,
either be tightened or be broken. The seeds of destruction were present
in the organisation from the first in the shape of Austro-Prussian
jealousy: that jealousy between the Past and the Future to which we
have referred. The interests and aspirations of these two dominant
States conflicted. Neither of them was strong enough to bring the
other to heel; neither of them was weak enough, or humble enough, to
acquiesce in the other’s hegemony. It remained only for one of them to
turn the other out of the Federation, and fashion a real Federation—a
real Empire, perhaps—out of the remaining constituents. That
inevitable process—delayed for more than fifty years, but eventually
altering the whole outlook of Austrian policy—was to provide the
central problem of Francis Joseph’s reign; but many other problems,
hardly of less significance, were first to arise out of the programme
of the Holy Alliance.
The Holy Alliance, of course, was, in fact, no more Holy than the
Holy Roman Empire, and was, perhaps, hardly worthy to be called an
Alliance. It was an agreement, or mutual understanding, rather than an
Alliance, inspired by hatred and terror of the new ideas disseminated
by the French Revolution; and those are hardly unjust who describe it
as a conspiracy, suggested by Metternich, and acquiesced in by the
principal Continental sovereigns, for keeping all subject peoples in
the places which the Congress of Vienna had assigned to them. And that
in a double sense. In the first place, autocratic forms of government
were to be maintained in all countries which the Holy Three regarded
as within their sphere of influence. In the second place, subject
nationalities were to be kept in subjection to the Powers which the
Settlement of 1815 had placed in authority over them.
It follows that the policy of the Holy Alliance was a policy of
sitting on safety valves; and its history is the history of a series
of Conferences and Congresses held to decide who should sit on which
safety valve in the name of all. It was agreed, for instance, that
Austria should sit on the safety valve in Naples, and that France
should sit on it in Spain; and there was much talk—though also much
difference of opinion—about sitting on the safety valves in Portugal
and Greece. The Holy Alliance fell to pieces, after a much shorter life
than that of the Holy Roman Empire, because Russia maintained against
Austria, and England maintained against France, that certain safety
valves should not be sat upon.
Moreover, safety valves were many, and the upward pressure was of a
continually increasing force. If Metternich and Castlereagh, and the
Emperors of Austria and Russia, and the King of Prussia, had, like the
Bourbons, “learnt nothing” from the French Revolution and its sequel,
the common people, from university professors to artisans, had learnt
much. They might desire a breathing-time before committing themselves
to desperate courses. The breathing-time might be protracted because
the despotisms were reasonably benevolent towards people who did not
meddle with politics; because the administration was honest, and the
taxes were not oppressive. Still, sooner or later intelligent men
were bound to tire of submission, and clamour for Parliaments and the
recognition of “nationalities.” Byron—the friend of the Carbonari
before he was the friend of Greece—was hounding them on to do so.
In England Byron was notorious for his indecorum; but, on the
Continent, he was famous for his audacity. The improprieties of “Don
Juan” did not shock Continental Liberals; but its courageous political
criticisms stirred them. The lines over which they gloated—though they
must have had a difficulty in translating them—were such lines as
these:—
Lock up the billy bald-coot, Alexander!
Ship off the Holy Three to Senegal!
Teach them that sauce for goose is sauce for gander,
And ask them how _they_ like to be in thrall!
Such passages—and there are plenty of them—express the temper to
which the Continental Liberals were gradually coming. When they came to
it, and found such men as Metternich, and Bomba of Naples, and Charles
X. of France, sitting on the safety valves, explosions could by no
means be prevented. The political history of the period is the history
of those explosions and their consequences; and we all know that there
were two principal series of such explosions—the explosions of 1830,
and the explosions of 1848. The noise of the first detonations was,
as it were, a salute fired in the year of Francis Joseph’s birth; the
louder roar of the second greeted his accession.
First Italy and then Hungary exploded; and Francis Joseph, as a boy of
eighteen, had to face the confusion and try to calm it. The story of
his bearing in the presence of the turmoil must not be anticipated; but
we may look sufficiently ahead to note that a new Austria, differently
constituted, and looking out of a new window in a new direction, had
gradually to be re-created out of what might very well have been a
wreck. The old Austria over which Francis Joseph began to reign in 1848
was a Teuton Power holding the most prosperous provinces of Italy in
its iron grip. That grip has been reluctantly relaxed until only the
pressure of one little finger remains; and the new Austria over which
Francis Joseph rules to-day has only a small Teuton nucleus, associated
with a Magyar nucleus nearly as large, trying in conjunction with it to
assert predominant partnership in a large and increasing community of
Slavs, and casting envious, but not very hopeful, glances across the
Danube towards the Balkan States and the Ægean harbours.
So great has been the evolution accomplished within the reign of a
single ruler: a ruler who, at the beginning of his reign, did not dare
to set his foot in his own capital, and, long before the end of it, had
come to be regarded as the one indispensable man in the Empire—the one
man whose life must be preserved and prolonged at all hazards, for fear
lest his death should entail the collapse of the edifice which he had
reared—the one man who sometimes appeared to command the affection of
all his subjects. It would be a striking story, even if one related
the Emperor’s political achievements without reference to his personal
life; but the two things, though commonly separated by political
historians, are not really separable.
Certainly they are not so separated by his own subjects. They not
only admire the statesman who has acquired a prestige to which he was
not born, and has used it to recover by diplomacy what he has lost in
war; they also cherish an affectionate sympathy for the man at whom
calamity has dealt blow after blow, whom no blow, however cruel, has
struck down, and who, in spite of innumerable sorrows, has continued
to confront the world with a dignified, if melancholy, composure. He
has had, they perceive, no less trouble with his family than with
his Empire; and they have sometimes thought of him—or at least been
tempted to think of him—as the one splendidly sane member of an
eccentric and decadent House.
It follows that one must write of Francis Joseph, not only as an
Emperor, but also as a Habsburg—the head of the most interesting of
all the royal houses: a House whose members, unpredictable in their
insurgent extravagances, have, again and again, moved the Courts and
Chancelleries of Europe to consternation. Our picture must be, not
only of a great and successful ruler, but also of a brave old man,
tried in the fire but not consumed by it, bowed down by sorrows but not
broken by them, maintaining the mediæval majesty of royal caste in the
presence of his peers, at a time when other Habsburgs—one Habsburg
after another—were flinging the prejudices of royal caste to the winds
and making, as it must have seemed to him, sad messes of their lives,
after the manner of those reprobate relatives who, even in middle-class
families, are spoken of, if at all, with bated breath.
That being our theme—or a portion of it—we may next speak of the
Habsburgs collectively; and we will begin by considering what the
eugenists have to say about them.