174. Metternich
The young Metternich had never imagined that, three years after leaving France, he would enter “another new France” once more—this time as an adviser serving beside Austria’s plenipotentiary envoy, Prince de Kaunitz-Rietberg. “New France” was Metternich’s own label for Andréan France. Before long, the two terms, “new France” and “Andréan France,” were adopted by the Austrian Foreign Office and introduced into its internal memoranda.
In Vienna’s official documents, the Austrian Netherlands still existed on paper; yet Europe’s diplomats all understood perfectly well that the French commander André Franck had already marked Belgium as a “sacred and indivisible” part of the French Republic. And that “sacred and indivisible” meaning did not stop at the Austrian Netherlands. It also covered vast tracts of the Holy Roman Empire west of the Rhine, including Metternich’s birthplace, Koblenz.
Although the Metternich family had served the Habsburgs—rulers of Austria and the Holy Roman Empire—since the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Metternich in his adolescence always believed that what flowed through his veins was the champagne of the Rhine, not Vienna’s pale beer. Perhaps under the influence of a mother who was gentle, virtuous, and graceful, Metternich, as he grew into manhood, began to show quick intelligence and a handsome appearance. The Archbishop of Trier, too, praised him as refined in speech, sharp in wit, able to read the room and seize the moment—above all, capable of speaking enviably fluent, idiomatic French.
On this basis, Metternich entered the University of Strasbourg at sixteen, one of the institutions widely regarded as a cradle for diplomats. A year later, he wrote to a friend in Koblenz and, for the first time, stated his aspiration plainly: after graduation, he hoped to remain in Paris and serve the French monarch, rather than that empire which was “neither holy, nor Roman.”
Metternich’s distaste for Austria sprang from his deep revulsion toward his own father, François Metternich, Comte de Bayerstein. The elder Metternich, the Holy Roman Empire’s envoy to the two electorates-bishoprics of Trier and Mainz, was a vain court parasite who spent money recklessly and wore a gaudy powdered wig from morning to night. Comte de Bayerstein’s daily work was to obey Vienna’s orders and use interminable lies to flatter the two electors, so that they would forever support Habsburg rule over the German Empire.
In August 1789, at the outset of the French Revolution, the younger Metternich watched and waited, hoping Louis XVI would act decisively and use troops to suppress the mob so that the country’s turmoil might quickly subside. Yet by October, after the Parisian crowd forced Louis XVI and his family from Versailles back to Paris, Metternich decided to leave France. He transferred from Strasbourg to the University of Mainz, forty-nine leagues away, roughly one hundred and ninety kilometres.
In the grand ballroom of the Mainz episcopal palace, the young and handsome Metternich met the exiled Duchesse de La Force, a French grande dame who delighted in displaying her charms. Before long, Metternich quite naturally became the Duchesse’s young lover, and from her learned French flirtation in all its many variations. During that period, he even danced with Princess Louise, the fiancée of the Prussian Crown Prince.
But with the coming of war, those pleasant days grew shorter and shorter.
In April 1792, Louis XVI—now unexpectedly constrained by a mob-dominated Assembly—declared war on Austria. That same month, French forces first invaded the Austrian Netherlands, but were soon driven back within the frontier by the Austrian army; the French suffered heavy losses, yet the Austrians did not press the advantage.
In June, the frontier fighting flared again. The reconstituted French Army of the North annihilated two Austrian cavalry regiments, badly mauled an infantry division, and then seized large swathes of the southern Austrian Netherlands, throwing Vienna into alarm.
In July, the monarchs of Prussia and the Austrian Empire decided to assemble a German intervention army of one hundred and forty thousand men, planning a major offensive from France’s northeast.
During this time, Metternich’s father, as Austria’s envoy, also acted under Vienna’s instructions. Over the objections of his German colleagues, he strove to incite, encourage, and even threaten the Electors-Archbishops of Mainz and Trier and the surrounding minor princes to contribute money and troops, insisting that they cooperate with the Prusso-Austrian Coalition in invading France and rescuing the legitimate French monarch.
In this process, the younger Metternich cautiously offered his own view to his father. He believed this venture was extremely dangerous and that diplomatic agents should first be sent into Champagne to learn the true situation. He had heard a particular piece of news from French émigré nobles: the dictator of the Champagne region was precisely the supreme commander of the French Army of the North, the man who had won the so-called “June great victory,” Lieutenant General André Franck.
At that time, German nobles still did not clearly understand the practical difference between a commander and a plenipotentiary. In any case, the younger Metternich’s quiet words carried little weight, and he received no support from his father.
By late August, the German coalition began to invade France’s northeast from three directions. Yet in less than two months, the victorious French launched a full counteroffensive: the Army of the North and the Army of the Meuse pushed into the Austrian Netherlands, while the Army of the Moselle and the Army of the Rhine advanced into the German lands.
Once the fire reached the German states, the first to suffer were the Electorate of Trier and the Archbishopric of Mainz. Under orders from the Northern Command Headquarters, any Electors and Archbishops west of the Rhine who had financed and manned the invasion of France were to be deposed at once, and their electorates would be annexed into the new French Republic.
By mid-October, before the French Army of the Moselle and the Army of the Rhine could close in on Mainz from south and north, the elder Metternich saw the danger and led his family across the Rhine, fleeing southeast into Austria. In doing so, the Metternich family abandoned nearly three hundred and fifty morgens of land west of the Rhine, about four hundred and twenty hectares; in addition, five thousand serfs or semi-serfs, and numerous servants in their manors and castles. Their annual economic loss reached fifty thousand gold florins, roughly five hundred thousand francs.
By this point, the elder Metternich—who had urged the Electors of Trier and Mainz to join the German intervention—was utterly ruined. His earlier conduct had made him notorious, and upon arriving in Vienna he lived in hardship, relying entirely on assistance from his wife’s family.
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Before long, however, fortune turned again for the Metternich family. The younger Metternich unexpectedly made the acquaintance of Comtesse Eleanore de Kaunitz, the most beloved granddaughter of Prince de Kaunitz-Rietberg. When many believed the former imperial chancellor had already sunk into twilight, Metternich instead judged that Prince de Kaunitz-Rietberg, retired to his country estate, was the first man capable of saving Austria from crisis.
For the family’s interests, with help from his mother’s relatives, Metternich launched a nearly frenzied courtship of Mademoiselle Eleanore. Before long, the Comtesse—who was not, in truth, beautiful—was deeply moved by her suitor’s handsome appearance, elegant speech, exceptional intellect, deep thoughts, and pious faith, and fell into love with a blindness that bordered on self-abandonment.
Just as Metternich had anticipated, once he learned that Prussia and André had concluded a treaty first, Emperor Francis II, now forced onto the defensive, likewise changed course. He warmly invited the elderly Prince de Kaunitz-Rietberg, already more than eighty, to abandon his leisurely rural retirement. At Schönbrunn he granted him plenipotentiary authority, preparing to send him to Brussels in early December to conduct bilateral peace negotiations with the northern French dictator, Marshal André.
Perhaps out of deep disgust for his successor, that foolish and incompetent Minister of Foreign Affairs, the old prince decided to bypass the Austrian Foreign Office and personally select every member of his advisory circle. At last, the opportunity Metternich had waited for so long arrived.
In early winter, Prince de Kaunitz-Rietberg, in the name of his granddaughter Eleanore, sent a banquet invitation to the young German nobles gathered in Vienna, inviting them to a salon reception at the prince’s forest estate. It was also there that Metternich first met Prince de Kaunitz-Rietberg, once a man who had dominated Europe’s diplomatic stage.
In truth, the old prince’s first impression of Metternich was extremely poor. The seasoned diplomat believed Metternich was nothing more than a petty opportunist, who had gone to great lengths to seduce the inexperienced Comtesse Eleanore only to seek a “shortcut” through her. If not for fear of breaking his granddaughter’s heart, the old prince might have ordered his guards at once to throw the scoundrel into the Danube. Yet, unexpectedly, within half an hour Prince de Kaunitz-Rietberg changed his opinion of Metternich.
At that time, in the open-air hall, the young nobles were loudly debating another hot topic: Poland, then being carved up among Russia, Prussia, and the Austrian Empire. Nearly all the youths present agreed that Austria should actively join the partition to compensate for its territorial losses in the Austrian Netherlands.
Only Metternich stepped forward, boldly, to dissent. He insisted that if Poland were to perish, it would in effect remove the buffer between the three great powers of Eastern Europe—Austria, Prussia, and Russia. Such a move, he declared, “violated every principle of wise policy,” and would push Austria to the very edge of instability. The correct course, he argued, was to aid Poland, preserve its sovereignty and independence, and prevent it from being swallowed by Prussia and Russia.
Someone soon rose to rebut him, arguing that if Austria had to face Russia and Prussia alone, it would inevitably be placed in an extremely disadvantageous position. Metternich merely smiled, shrugged, and declared, “The French will not stand aside and watch Poland die.” The implication was clear: Austria could “once again” ally with revolutionary France to counter Prussia and Russia.
A voice then loudly challenged Metternich, mocking him. “Do remember, respected émigré nobleman, the French are now our greatest enemy!”
Metternich ignored the ridicule. He smiled indifferently, and then quoted a sentence that Marshal André had once said in the newspaper Figaro: “Between nations, there are no eternal enemies and no eternal friends—only eternal interests!”
It was precisely this exchange that drew the old prince’s attention as he sat on the terrace in the sun. Minutes later, the estate’s elderly steward personally led the young guest into Prince de Kaunitz-Rietberg’s study. That friendly gesture astonished the other nobles present, and even made Mademoiselle Eleanore jealous, for the old prince had a long-standing habit of refusing everyone entry to his study—his cherished granddaughter included.
Inside the study, the old prince examined the young man carefully: a broad forehead; sharp, bright blue eyes; an aquiline nose; a modest smile; lips touched with a hint of humour; a complexion somewhat pale but clean. Even when others openly opposed Metternich, even mocked him, he remained consistently courteous and composed, never grasping blindly at a momentary triumph. Beneath that surface lay deep calculation, and a decisive will with resilience. In short, Metternich was a born diplomat and conspirator, a steadfast conservative. The next part of their conversation would amply prove Prince de Kaunitz-Rietberg’s judgment.
When Metternich was asked how he viewed revolutionary France, the young man replied with a question of his own, unexpected in its directness: “My lord, do you mean André’s France, or the Jacobins’ France? If it is the latter, I advise abandoning all diplomatic efforts. Support should instead be given to ensuring that German forces retain sufficient strength in Switzerland, along the Alps, and in northern Italy, so that the Jacobins cannot pour down like a flood from the highlands.”
“And if it is André’s France?” the old prince asked with interest.
“Alliance,” Metternich answered bluntly. “I know that even an alliance will not make André relinquish the lands west of the Rhine, nor the Austrian Netherlands. Yet it can certainly divert the storm toward Prussia, and perhaps also toward Britain or Russia. I believe that once the King of Prussia and the Empress of Russia have settled the Polish matter, they will demand that the Duc de Brunswick regroup and secretly plan a second blow against Andréan France, thereby easing Austria’s military pressure in the north. But this will take time—two years, or three, perhaps longer, perhaps shorter.
“Further, if André’s armies continue their advance into the Dutch Republic, Hanover’s security will be threatened, and Britain will be forced to abandon its former neutrality and re-enter the continental war. Yet I believe André will not be so irrational. Otherwise he would not have accepted British mediation—ordering his squadron back to the home port at Dunkirk, and halting the French attack on Antwerp.”
After more than two hours of pleasant conversation, Prince de Kaunitz-Rietberg personally filled a cup of Champagne for the outstanding young man and invited Metternich to join the diplomatic mission that would soon head north.
In early November, the diplomatic mission led by Prince de Kaunitz-Rietberg secretly departed Vienna. Riding in multiple long-distance travel carriages, they passed through Bohemia and drove northwest.
As for the route, Prince de Kaunitz-Rietberg did not go directly to Brussels. Instead, he visited Dresden, capital of the Electorate of Saxony, and Hanover, capital of the Electorate of Hanover, coordinating the stance of the major electorates toward Andréan France. To the south, in Bavaria, the old prince sent his third son, Comte de Rietberg, to Munich. As for the Kingdom of Prussia—whose manoeuvres had already undercut Austria once behind the scenes—the old prince simply chose to ignore it, and did not even send a single diplomatic note to Berlin.
On November twenty-ninth, when the weary Austrian mission reached Amsterdam, capital of the Dutch Republic, they had already detoured through half of Europe, travelling more than one thousand two hundred kilometres. Yet a piece of terrible news also arrived for Prince de Kaunitz-Rietberg: the fortress of Liege had fallen to the French the day before, and the commander of the Bohemian corps, Comte de Latour, had been struck by a bullet and killed. It should be noted that Comte de Latour, aged fifty-six, held another identity as well: he was Prince de Kaunitz-Rietberg’s son-in-law.