said, and a great political necessity, the government of Vienna has
certainly done for gratitude all that it owed. It lavished warnings,
prayers, good offices, offers of mediation on the Emperor Nicholas.
Austria pardoned Russia more than one want of respect, more than one
action of ill humor; it pardoned her the more than airy tone in which it
had been disposed of in the effusions with Sir Hamilton Seymour,--the
manner in which a certain autograph letter of the Emperor Francis
Joseph had been received at St. Petersburg,--the haughty, almost
insulting attitude of Count Orlof during his mission at Vienna. It did
not cease till the end to calm the irritation of the allies, to modify
and alter their programme, to assert the conciliating disposition of the
czar, to hope against all hope. It pleaded only for the return _in statu
quo_, repudiating any idea of humiliating or weakening Russia; it
demanded nothing from her but the freedom of the Danube, the
renunciation of the protectorate, and refused to follow the allies in
their demands concerning the Black Sea. Unfortunately, as it happens too
often to him who wishes to be equitable and just towards all parties,
the Austrian government, by this conduct, ended by alienating France and
England and exasperating the Russians. In the summer of 1854, at the
very moment when Prince Gortchakof exchanged his post at Frankfort for
that at Vienna, an eminent publicist, who was then, so to speak, the
mouth-piece of the Occident, and of its generous spirits, almost
despaired of Austria, and cried with bitterness that over there, in the
_Burg_, "the Russian alliance was something as sacred as a religion, as
fixed as propriety, and as popular as a fashion!" In the spring of the
following year, the cabinets of Paris and of London resisted, as too
favorable to Russia, a new plan of arrangement presented by Count Buol,
and the French government on this occasion reproached Austria, in the
"Moniteur Officiel," with offering an expedient rather than a solution.
The solution! The Emperor Francis Joseph certainly had it in his hands,
and it perhaps depended only on him to render it as decisive and as
radical as the most mortal enemies of Russia could wish. Why not
confess it? To see the bitter fruit _gathered_ by Austria in consequence
of its honorable efforts during the Oriental crisis, and to see the
implacable hatred and the cruel disasters which fell to its lot because
of its attitude then, one surprises one's self sometimes in regretting
that the cabinet of Vienna had so many scruples at this memorable epoch.
One almost reproaches it for not having given proof of that independence
of heart which seems, alas! the forced, indispensable condition for the
independence of states. If Austria had wished to be a little less
grateful and a little less politic during this war of the Orient, she
would have resolutely joined herself to France and England, she would
have taken part in the struggle, and instead of letting the allies rove
for years around the borders of Russia, in the Black Sea and Baltic, she
would have opened for them the fields of Poland, and have entered there
with them. In place of "tickling the soul of the Colossus or of filing
off a nail,"--as Russian publicists said later, and not without
justice,--they should then have given him a _coup au coeur_,--one of
those blows that the great recluse of Varzin knows how to plan and give.
The cabinet of the Tuileries would not have refused to do this. In his
dispatch of the 26th March, 1855, M. Drouyn de Lhuys laid down very
skillfully the question of Poland; neither would the cabinet of St.
James have raised serious objections. As to the probable success of such
an enterprise, it suffices to remember that Russia was at the end of its
resources, and that Prussia had not yet re-formed its military
organization, was not yet in possession of its "instrument," and lastly
that in place of William the Conqueror, Frederick the Romantic occupied
the throne of the Hohenzollern. The mind is confounded before the
contemplation of the consequences which such a decision on the part of
the Emperor Francis Joseph might have caused. The face of the world
would have been changed; Austria would certainly not have seen Sadowa[9]
in 1866; Europe would not have seen the dismemberment of Denmark, nor
the destruction of the _Bund_, nor the conquest of Alsace and Lorraine.
It was in the summer of 1854, as we have said above, that Prince
Gortchakof was sent to Vienna. He replaced there, first provisionally,
and in the following spring, definitely, Baron de Meyendorf, whose
situation had become unpleasant in consequence of his ties of very near
relationship with the Austrian Minister of Foreign Affairs. Alexander
Mikhailovitch at last held that post at Vienna to which he had so long a
time aspired, the post which, with that of London, was considered, under
the reign of Nicholas, as the highest in Russian diplomacy, like the
_baton_ of a marshal in his career. But now how full this honor was of
bitterness, and what patriotic pangs accompanied a distinction formerly
ardently wished for, to-day accepted through devotion to his sovereign
and his country! On this ground, formerly so pleasant and smiling, the
envoy of the czar could everywhere see nothing but briers and thorns.
In this capital, renowned for its boisterous gayety and too frequent
frivolity, he received nothing but disastrous and distracting news. And
this "Austrian ingratitude," which he had only had glimpses of and
combated from afar during his mission at Frankfort, he could now look in
the face--and smile at it! There is a grief greater than the _ricordare
tempi felici nella miseria_; it is to see a dream of happiness turn into
a reality of misery, and one can easily understand what a treasure of
gall this sojourn at Vienna must have heaped up in the wounded heart of
the Russian patriot.[10]
It is superfluous to lay stress upon the activity which the new envoy of
the czar displayed in this unhappy mission; to mention the infinite
variety of means which he placed at the service of his cause,
especially during the conferences of Vienna, which were opened after
the death of Nicholas and the accession of the Emperor Alexander II.
That was a moving sight and one which was truly not wanting in grandeur,
that of the two Gortchakof, one behind the ramparts of Sebastopol, the
other before the council board of Vienna, both defending their country
with an equal tenacity, only yielding each inch of ground after a
desperate combat, forced into their last intrenchments, but honored even
to the end by loyal and chivalrous adversaries. To-day an epoch "of iron
and of blood" has accustomed us to the summary proceedings--we had
almost said executions--of Nikolsburg, of Ferrieres, of Versailles, and
of Frankfort, and a martial law used by the diplomats in helmets has
replaced that which a former Europe, full of prejudices, loved to call
the right of nations. To-day it is difficult to resist a sentiment of
astonishment, almost of incredulity, in re-reading the protocols of
these conferences of Vienna, where everything breathes decorum,
politeness, urbanity, and mutual respect. One thinks himself carried
back to an idyllic age, one far from us, to a world of ancient
gentlemen. M. Drouyn de Lhuys, Minister of Foreign Affairs in France,
Lord John Russell, until lately President of the Privy Council of
England, did not think it beneath their dignity to go in person to
Vienna to discuss there with Prince Gortchakof the possible conditions
of a peace. Russia had lost several great battles, the allied fleets had
blockaded all its seas and even menaced its capital. That did not
prevent the French and English plenipotentiaries from treating it with
all deference, with all the respect which the diplomacy of this good
old time could employ. They displayed a veritable art in the invention
of euphemisms; they gave themselves pains to find the mildest mediums,
the most acceptable terms for the representative of a vanquished power.
Indeed, that excellent Lord John Russell forced kindness so far as to
recall, and that in the face of M. Drouyn de Lhuys, that England had
made Louis XIV. submit to conditions much harder and more
humiliating.[11] That was, perhaps, the only instance of want of tact
which one can find in the conferences of Vienna, and yet what was it but
a courteousness from an ally to an ally? As for Austria, it exhausted
itself in finding means to spare the susceptibilities of Russia, and
ended by presenting a plan of arrangement which was judged inacceptable
by the cabinets of London and Paris, and drew on it the reproach of the
"Moniteur Officiel," of which we have already spoken.
Negotiations were broken off, and nothing could be done but to await the
issue of the supreme combat under the walls of Sebastopol. The Russian
plenipotentiary awaited it at his post in Vienna in the twofold anguish
of a patriot and a relation. The bulwark of the Crimea fell, and Russia
found itself in the most critical situation. It was exhausted,--indeed
much more exhausted than Europe then thought,--and the prolongation of
the war would have infallibly transported the hostilities to the plains
of Poland. At this moment Austria intervened anew. It agreed to the
demands made by the allies at the conference of Vienna,--even that
clause concerning the neutralization of the Black Sea, which it had
hitherto resisted as too wounding to Russia. It was not possible to
refuse this satisfaction to the allies after the capture of Sebastopol.
In reality, these were the easiest conditions which have ever been
imposed on a power at the close of a war so long, so bloody, and of such
incontestable victories. Austria did more; it sent these conditions
under form of an ultimatum, declaring that it would make common cause
with the allies if they were not accepted; and Russia accepted them. To
look at it plainly, this was a service rendered to a young sovereign,
who, having inherited a disastrous war, thus found the means to spare at
the same time the memory of his predecessor and the pride of his people.
He could say now that he had only made peace because of a new adversary,
who had arisen at the side of the old ones, and whom his father did not
count on. In fact, it was said in Russia,--it was believed, indeed, so
much was it in their interest to believe it. The Russian people were
quickly reconciled with the conquerors of Alma and of Malakof. A single
power remained in their eyes responsible for their disasters,--the power
which during the whole war had rested on its arms. Even at this hour
every Russian heart boils with indignation at the thought of Austria, of
its immense ingratitude and its great treason.
Alexander Mikhailovitch shared these bitternesses, these popular
rancors, and became the most energetic and openly avowed representative
of them. In this respect he allowed his sentiments to burst forth with a
frankness which approached very nearly to ostentation. A remark uttered
by him during the session of the Congress at Paris, is still cited at
Vienna: "Austria is not a state, it is only a government." These words
preceded him to St. Petersburg and made his fortune there. The popular
voice designated him as the future avenger, as the man destined to
prepare for his nation a brilliant revenge; and the acute diplomat did
not trouble himself to controvert such an opinion. Already, however, at
this Congress of Paris certain tendencies, certain desires were
revealed, which gave hope, which even opened horizons entirely new. The
name of Italy was pronounced there. Roumania itself found there an
unexpected support. At this strange Congress, which definitely regulated
the conditions of a peace that France, England, and Austria had imposed
on Russia, Austria appeared gloomy and morose, England irritated and
nervous. France and Russia alone exchanged between one another the most
exquisite politeness and surprising cordialities. The sword of Napoleon
III. became the lance of Achilles, healing where it had just wounded,
wounding where it had healed. "There was balm of Gilead in it," and
support in the sovereign of the Tuileries. The day after the Congress,
in the month of April, 1856, the old Count Nesselrode asked to be
retired on account of his age, and Prince Alexander Gortchakof became
Minister of Foreign Affairs.
II.
During the four years which he had passed at Frankfort as representative
of his government to the German Confederation, Prince Gortchakof, as we
have already seen, had made the acquaintance of, and maintained the
most intimate relations with a colleague, whose rare qualities of mind,
as probably also those of the heart, he appreciated as no one else did.
The two friends were separated in the summer of 1854, when the Russian
plenipotentiary went to fulfill his painful mission at Vienna. But they
did not delay in meeting anew, and found as before that perfect
congeniality of ideas and of sentiments, which, established since their
first meeting in Frankfort, has never been interrupted, and has lasted
for twenty-five years: _grande mortalis aevi spatium_. This friend of
Prince Gortchakof on the smiling banks of the Main, was no other than M.
de Bismarck, the future chancellor of Germany.
Otto-Edward-Leopold de Bismarck-Schoenhausen, born the 1st of April,
1815, at Schoenhausen, hereditary estate of his family in the old Mark
of Brandenburg, could not flatter himself with having, like his friend
Alexander Mikhailovitch, blood of the Saints in his veins. His
biographers even observe with visible satisfaction, that at least two of
his ancestors were excommunicated by the Church and died in final
impenitence. What is more serious is that the most authorized historians
of the Mark of Brandenburg, M. de Riedel among others, call into
question the noble origin of the family. They show that the first of the
line, of whom authentic documents of the fourteenth century speak, Rulo
Bismarck, was a member and on several occasions even provost of "the
guild of master tailors in cloth" at Stendal, a small market town of the
old Mark. The fact does not seem doubtful. But could not the citizens of
Stendal, just as well as those of certain cities in Tuscany, have
forced every country noble, who wished to inhabit the city, to subscribe
himself in one of those guilds? This is the opinion of the tories in
this curious genealogical dispute. To hear them, the good citizens of
Stendal must have been on a par, in the fourteenth century, with the
great citizens of Florence and of Pisa, and Rulo Bismarck must have been
master tailor in cloth about as much as Dante, his contemporary, was an
apothecary. The whigs, on the contrary, the biographers in
national-liberal colors, take their part gayly, and one of them
ingeniously concludes, that in any case the ancestor Rulo ought "to
contemplate with satisfaction and pride from the high heavens the
splendid imperial mantle which his descendant has made for King William
out of the cloth of Europe."
In times relatively more modern, the House of Bismarck presents, like
many a noble country family of Brandenburg, an unbroken succession of
modest and faithful servants of the state, some soldiers, some employed
in civil duties. The eighteenth century offers us two rather more
curious specimens, the grandfather and great uncle of the chancellor.
One was surnamed the _poet_, the other the _adventurer_. The _poet_,
this painful avowal must be made, composed his verses in the French
language. We have notably by him an "_Eloge ou Monument erige
a la Memoire de Christine de Bismarck, nee de Schoenfeld, par
Charles-Alexandre de Bismarck_," Berlin, 1774. It was to his dead wife
that the retired captain of cavalry thought necessary to elevate this
mausoleum of words and of _Welche_ rhymes, full of the insipid
sentimentality of the time. The _adventurer_ (Ludolf-August) is more
deserving of his name. He killed his servant in a fit of anger or
drunkenness, was pardoned, took service in Russia, became involved in
political intrigues in Courland, and was forced to go to Siberia in
exile. Pardoned again, he entered into Russian diplomacy, filled several
missions, and died commanding general at Poltava. Let us say in passing,
that this Ludolf was not the only one of his family to serve under the
Russian flag, and thus the name of Bismarck has long been well known at
St. Petersburg.
The whig biographers lay much stress on the fact, that the mother of the
young Otto, "an intelligent, ambitious, and rather cold woman," was a
_bourgeoise_, a Miss Menken, of a family of _savans_ well known at
Leipsic. They love to prove in this manner that the restorer of the
empire was connected by his mother with the _bourgeoisie_, that studious
and cultivated _bourgeoisie_ which is the great strength of
Germany,--while claiming his right to the nobility and the army by his
father, retired captain of cavalry, and by his grandfather the _poet_.
Those profound Germans have a weakness, it is known, for all symbolism.
They dignify very often with this name that which is nothing but a _jeu
d'esprit_, in reality a play of words, and it is thus that they attach a
certain signification to the futile circumstance that the young Otto was
confirmed[12] at Berlin at the hands of Schleiermacher, the celebrated
Doctor of Divinity, whose learning was much more respectable than his
life; "in a manner and for a fleeting moment, it is true, but solemnly,
the young man called to a life of action _par excellence_, was brought
in contact with our learned theology and our romantic philosophy." Nor
has it been forgotten to exalt the name of the "gray cloister" (_Grauer
Kloster_), which the lyceum at Berlin bore, where the future destroyer
of convents studied, or to note the French origin of one of his
principal professors, Doctor Bonnet, descendant of a Huguenot family
which sought refuge in Brandenburg in consequence of the revocation of
the Edict of Nantes.
After having finished his studies at the lyceum of the gray cloister,
Otto de Bismarck went to the University of Goettingen, to the celebrated
_Georgia Augusta_, in order to study. In reality, he did nothing but
lead the life of the sons of the muse, who have the good or bad fortune
to be at the same time sons of family, _cavalieri_; he cultivated
nothing but hunting, riding, swimming, gymnastic exercises, and fencing.
He had more than twenty duels, and fully justified the glorious name of
_Bursche_, which clung to him for a long time afterwards, even when he
was ambassador and minister. One easily understands that the Institutes
and Pandects cannot be very thoroughly studied in the midst of so many
corporal exercises, and even the attempt to change the noisy _Georgia
Augusta_ for the most quiet and sedate University of Berlin, was a
remedy heroic rather than efficacious. Has M. de Bismarck ever regularly
passed this "state examination" (_Staatsexamen_) which in Prussia is the
indispensable condition for an appointment to any public function? A
grave question, which was discussed for a long time in Germany, and out
of which a weapon has shaped itself for twenty years against the man,
the deputy, the ambassador, the president of the council. A fact worthy
of notice, and one which well characterizes the formal and regulative
mind of the nation: M. de Bismarck had already defied all Europe, and
dismembered the Danish monarchy, when in the opposition journals of
Germany, there appeared from time to time, like belated rockets,
malignant allusions to this problematical state examination! Since the
epoch of Sadowa only have these malicious jibes entirely ceased: Sadowa
caused many other irregularities to pass unnoticed, and assuredly much
graver ones.
It is perhaps proper to inquire here what benefits M. de Bismarck reaped
from his academic life, and to estimate, if but briefly, the cultivation
and the peculiarities of his mind. It seems certain that M. de Bismarck
is not a man of science and study, and that his liberal education shows
more than one gap. A pleasing contrast, the two chancellors, Russian and
German, of whom one knew but a single lyceum and that one of very
doubtful merit, while the other attended the most renowned college
(_gymnasium_) and _alma mater_ of learned Germany. Certainly the pupil
of Zarkoe-Zeloe, as regards classical knowledge and true _humaniora_, is
far in advance of the lucky foster child of _Georgia Augusta_.
Nevertheless it is well to observe that M. de Bismarck fills and more
than fills a certain programme laid down one day by the _spirituel_ and
regretted Saint-Marc Giradin for the well educated men of the world. "I
do not require, said he, that they know Latin; I only ask that they have
forgotten it." From his academic youth, there has always remained to
the chancellor of Germany a fund of culture of which he well knows the
use on occasion, and he understands in a sufficient degree, his Bible,
his Shakspere, his Goethe, and his Schiller, those four elements of all
education, even the most common one, in German countries,--precious and
enviable quadrivium of the children of Arminius! Prince Gortchakof has
the refinements as well as the weaknesses of the man of letters; he
takes care of his "_mot_," he corrects his phrase, he looks at and
admires himself in his compositions; it is known that he was one day
surnamed the _Narcissus of the inkstand_. By his tastes, by his
exquisite sensibility, by his artistic instinct, he has a marked
superiority over his former colleague of Frankfort. But the latter
regains all this advantage as soon as one considers the original and
personal stamp which he knows how to give to his thoughts and to his
speech, as soon as one seeks the individuality, the breathing creator,
the _mens agitans molem_, that something mysterious and powerful which
antique sculpture rendered so ingeniously by placing a flame on the
forehead of certain of its statues.
The chancellor of Germany is not a lettered man in the strict and
somewhat vulgar acceptation of the world. He is, to speak correctly,
neither an orator nor a writer. He does not understand developing a
theme well, graduating its arguments, arranging its transitions. He does
not construct his period and does not trouble himself about it. He has
difficulty in expressing himself, both on the tribune and also with the
pen. His style is harsh, occasionally very incorrect, as unacademical as
possible. It is intricate, embarrassed, even trivial at moments. Every
part guarded, and all reserve made, there is something of Cromwell in
his manner of expressing himself. But in an entirely different manner
than in Cromwell one is forced to admire in him those flashes of
thought, those strong and unforeseen images, those penetrating words
which strike, which impress themselves, and which are not forgotten.
When quite lately in the midst of an argument, disconnected and
embarrassed, concerning his conflict with Rome, he suddenly cried out:
"Be sure of one thing, gentlemen, _we will not go to Canossa_!"[13] one
should remember that he knew how to comprise there, in a sort of
menacing _caeterum censeo_,[14] a whole world of memories and of
passions. In a very different spirit, also in a time already far
distant, it is true, speaking one day--about twenty years have since
flown--of the principles of revolution and contra-revolution, he said
that a parliamentary debate could never decide between these two
principles: "The decision will only come from God, from the God of
battles, _when he lets fall from his hand the iron dice of destiny_!"
One thinks that he hears De Maistre in this last part of the phrase, and
like M. de Maistre the chancellor of Germany has had his passage decried
by the _hangsman_; we wish to speak of this invocation to _iron_ and to
_blood_, which must be replaced in its frame and put in its true
light,--to settle its date,--to appreciate all the relief by the side
of the incontestable brutality. The invocation was made when those
national-liberals, to-day of such great servility towards him and with
the _obedience of a corpse_, wished to prevent him from reforming the
army, at the same time demanding him to complete the unity of Germany.
The man who felt the distant thunder of Sadowa and Sedan rumble in his
soul, launched at this moment to the orators the _defi_ which he has
only too well justified since, saying that it was not by speeches that
Germany could be united: "to consummate this unity, iron and blood are
necessary!" This orator does not breathe at ease in the uniform which
never leaves him, and he advances only by fits and starts. He collects
laboriously the clouds of his rhetoric, but the spark ends by flashing
and by illuminating the whole situation. To make himself understood he
employs the greatest or most familiar images, without choice, just as
they come; he borrows a quotation from Shakspere and from Goethe just as
well as from the Wasps of M. Alphonse Karr, or from a couplet of the
vaudeville. One of his most happy, most memorable inspirations, he
suddenly drew one day from the libretto of the "Freischuetz."