Talleyrand, who arrived at Vienna with his colleagues on the 24th, and was on the following day admitted, with the faithful Labrador, to a sitting of the European Committee, at once took his stand. As to the distribution of the reconquered territories, he simply disputed the assumption that, since the conclusion of peace, there still existed any alliance against France, or that she could be excluded from a concert of European Powers. He had no objection to the plan of a committee for the preparatory treatment of general European affairs (in those specifically German he disclaimed any desire of intervening), and agreed that it would appropriately consist of plenipotentiaries of the Powers which had signed tbe Peace of Paris, viz. France, Great Britain, Russia, Austria, Prussia, with Sweden, Spain, and Portugal. But this committee, he argued, ought to be appointed by the Congress in pleno. Pertz is clearly justified in saying that this contention inverted the system of procedure established at Chaumont; moreover, it involved obvious risks, and was naturally enough regarded as deeply insidious. After it had been re­jected, the only practical question for the plenipotentiaries was the actual constitution of the Directing European Committee; and this was dis­cussed at their meeting on September 30, which ended in a set battle of two hours’ duration and a scene which, as Gentz wrote, would never be effaced from his memory. Portugal and Sweden having hereupon claimed admission to the Directing Committee, two further stormy sittings ensued on October 5 and 8; and at the latter the plenipotentiaries of the Eight Powers formally constituted themselves the Preliminary Committee of the Congress—to be generally known as the “ Committee of the Eight.” The declaration published by them on October 12 forms the first official manifestation issued on behalf of the Congress, though still only in the name of the Powers that had signed the Peace of Paris. It postponed the forma] opening of the Congress to November 1, by which time it was hoped that the questions at issue might by free and confidential discussion have matured in harmony with the principles of “ public law,” the provisions of the recent Peace, and the expectations of the age. Though Talleyrand was said to have called this declaration “ du manuals papier," it was condescendingly approved by the Paris Moniteur (October 22). In Germany, where the first anniversary of the battle of Leipzig had been just celebrated amidst much popular excitement, Arndt’s and other popular expostulations displayed a less contented temper.

No formal opening of the Congress, however, took place either on the appointed or on any subsequent day. Tire Committee of the Eight issued on November 1 a declaration to the effect that a Committee of three, appointed by them for the verification of the powers of the plenipotentiaries of the several States, would enter upon its labours on November 3; and that, after the completion of these, the Committee of the Eight would formulate proposals for the regulation of the further progress of the Congress. Thus it may be said, in Gentz’ paradoxical phrase, that the Congress, as such, only came into existence by means of its Final Act; and even this was only the act of the Eight Powers, to which the rest were invited to adhere.

The working organ, then, which had assumed the responsibilities of the general body, was the Committee of the Eight, although on certain occasions the plenipotentiaries of the Five Great Powers took it upon themselves to meet without the rest. But even the Committee of the Eight, which on October 30 unanimously elected Metternich as President and Gentz as Secretary, of the Congress, held only infrequent meetings, especially in the earlier months of the session, its principal task being to formulate and place on record the decisions arrived at by the special Committees appointed by it. The Committee for the settlement of the Germanic Constitution had, as has been seen, been separately constituted from the outset; and its broken course will be most conveniently summarised apart, while the composition of some of the other Committees will be noticed in connexion with their proceedings.

Throughout the earlier period of the Congress, the statesmen assembled there were, in the main, though not as we shall see entirely, engaged on the permanent rearrangement of the political map of Europe. This task, as well as the work of the Congress in general, depended for its successful accomplishment on the removal of certain difficulties which had from the outset obstructed its labours; and among these difficulties, as will speedily appear, two, so closely interwoven with one another as in reality to form a single problem, dominated, and for a brief critical period seemed destined to swallow up, all the rest.

In the matter of the restitutions, compensations, and satisfactions to be arranged, it was of course necessary in the first instance to consider the interests of the Great Allied Powers; the smaller members of the recent Coalition came next. France stood in a position of isolation; though Talleyrand might continue to maintain at Vienna the pretension which he had set up at Paris, and to act as if the legitimate Government of France, having taken part with the Allies in overthrowing the usurper, had a just claim to share in the decision of any proposal as to the territorial reconstruction of Europe. But the question of the French frontier had been settled at Paris, so far as its main issues were con­cerned ; nor could there be any thought of reopening it now. France could not at Vienna seek to obtain more than certain small rectifications of frontier; on the other hand, she ran no present danger of a renewal of the proposal which Austria had brought forward in December, 1813, of restoring Alsace to Germany. As to the other Four Great Powers, nothing seemed simpler to the Emperor Alexander than that Russia should find her compensation in Poland, and Austria and Prussia theirs in Italy and northern Germany. This division implied that, in the Tsar’s opinion, Great Britain would find her account, or rather had already found it, in retaining most of her conquests beyond the seas, together with the important positions held by her in the Mediterranean. In regard to these conquests, she had at Paris shown a moderation which now stood her in good stead. For the Dutch, at whose expense the most considerable of her colonial acquisitions had been made, she exerted herself to obtain a compensation at home; but her own gains were not submitted to the approval of the Congress, which showed no disposition to touch her tenure of Malta, or to hand over the Ionian Islands to any of the claimants who would have anticipated the subsequent establish­ment of her protectorate. To Napoleon’s characteristic remark, that the British Government was to blame for neglecting its opportunities at Vienna, it may be replied that the moderation shown by Great Britain enhanced her influence in respect of territorial settlements in which she had no direct interest.

Austria advanced no new claims except in Italy. By the Treaty of Reichenbach (June, 1813) she had secured the recovery of her dominions on the eastern shore of the Adriatic, and by that of Ried (October, 1813) the retrocession of most of her former losses to Bavaria; she looked for a still more favourable adjustment of her claims in southern Germany, and also aimed at aggrandisement in Poland. On the other hand, she was rid for ever of those Austrian Netherlands which Thugut had described as a millstone hanging round her neck, and she could not expect in the long run to retain those Swabian possessions which had ceased to be of value to the House of Habsburg. But the rulers of Austria had firmly resolved on permanently re-establishing her sway over all the Italian territories which she had forfeited in a long series of disastrous pacifications (1797-1809), and on extending that sway over the whole of Lombardy and Venetia.

Russia entered the Congress in a position of great strength. Her recent successes in the war with Turkey had placed her in an advantageous position towards Austria, whose foreign policy had of late years shown want of decision in this direction ; while, in the north, Sweden, so long Russia’s bitterest foe, had, by renouncing Finland in order to acquire Norway, become a close ally. No opportunity, as it seemed, could have been more propitious for the accomplishment of Russia’s design of appropriating the whole grand-duchy of Warsaw, and thus, by a material advance of her western frontier, becoming at last, as one of her statesmen phrased it to Talleyrand at Vienna, a European Power. Now, although even before the collapse of Napoleon’s Russian expedition Alexander had become possessed with the idea of a restoration of Poland under Russian supremacy, he could not expect that Austria would give up Galicia, as at one time she might perhaps have done in order to bring about the establishment of an independent Poland; and after Reichenbach (June, 1813) he had agreed that the grand-duchy of Warsaw, which must form the nucleus of the intended dependent kingdom, should be divided among the three partitioning Powers. As a matter of course, he meant to secure the lion’s share; and the question of Russia’s Polish satisfaction thus came more and more to turn upon the compensation to be assigned to Prussia. The counsels of Stein and Gneisenau were mingled in Alexander’s mind with the promptings of Czartoryski; and, as it became patent that Prussia would seek her compensation in Saxony, the Kalisch compact lay like an incubus upon the deliberations of the Congress, where the Russo-Polish and Prusso-Saxon questions were soon inextricably interlaced.

The position of Prussia herself at the Congress was beset by many peculiar difficulties. In order that she should secure in the future the position as a Great Power which she had so rapidly reached and so precipitately forfeited, it was not enough for the Prussian monarchy to be restored to a territorial dominion equalling that possessed by it before the catastrophe of 1806. Moreover, in the distribution of the German territory recovered from France or taken over from her allies, Prussia was entitled to a recognition of the leading part she had played in the liberation of Germany. The negotiations on this head were complicated by many considerations. No great difficulty attended the transfer to Prussia of a stretch of territory on the left bank of the Rhine, with considerable accessions in Westphalia and on the right bank of the river, including the grand-duchy of Berg and some of the German dominions of the House of Nassau. On the other hand, Prussia could not hope to recover her hold on any part of the electorate of Hanover, towards which she had proved so unkind a neighbour from the Peace of Basel (1795) onward to the second French occupation of the electorate after Jena (1806). The claims of Hanover, after its many tribulations, were further commended by its dynastic connexion with Great Britain. Prussia could not expect successfully to resist the Hanoverian claim for the restoration of East Frisia, which implied the loss to her of an important coast-line; and she could not even carry Hardenberg’s modest plan of a Gottingen “ isthmus,” to connect the western and eastern moieties of her dominions. In lieu of the lost North Sea province, she contrived, by means of a complicated series of transactions, to add Swedish Pomerania (Vorpommern) to her possessions on the Baltic coast. At the same time, she had to negotiate with a number of German States as to cessions, compensations, and exchanges necessitated by her require­ments or imposed on her by considerations of all kinds.

In the south, Bavaria remained in possession of the Franconian duchies formerly owned by the House of Brandenburg. But she was in search of further compensation than she had already secured for her re­trocessions to Austria; and Stein and those who thought with him were on the alert to anticipate Bavarian attempts to appropriate Mainz, the key of Germany’s western frontier. The fact that the area of a recon­structed Prussia was thus practically limited to northern Germany whetted the desire of her statesmen to annex Saxony. That the kingdom of Frederick Augustus I was both technically, and as a matter of fact, entirely at their disposal, was not to be disputed, although his culpability consisted not in having supported Napoleon, but in having adhered to him too long. His kingdom had been conquered; and he was himself in fact a prisoner of war. But his real danger lay in the palpable gain which the annexation of his kingdom would bring to Prussia from every point of view—economical, military, and political; and in the further fact, that the traditions of Prussia’s rise to the position of a Great Power coincided with aspirations as to the future awaiting her in northern Germany.

Had it been left to the Four Allied Powers to settle the Polish-Saxon difficulty among themselves, they might very probably have arrived at an early agreement. At the outset of the Congress, Austria, remembering what important interests of her own were at stake, made no sign of being prepared to carry out Metternich’s earlier threat: that she would perish rather than allow the establishment of a Russian Poland. The secret correspondence carried on by Castlereagh with the Tsar in the early part of October shows that the former had already abandoned any attempt at carrying out the first idea of the British Government—that of re-establishing Polish independence—and merely insisted on a partition of the grand-duchy of Warsaw which should leave to Austria and Prussia their military frontiers. Thus there seemed every prospect that this part of the problem would resolve itself into a question of boundaries, as to which Alexander appeared quite prepared to listen to reason.

Again, in the earliest weeks of the Congress it seemed as if the absorption of Saxony in the Prussian monarchy would be accomplished without serious hindrance. The echeance of the rule of King Frederick Augustus and his dynasty had not indeed as yet been pronounced; but in two memoranda addressed to the Russian and Prussian sovereigns by Prince Repnin, the Governor of Saxony, the proposed annexation was treated as a settled affair. Before taking the preliminary step of trans­ferring the administration of the kingdom to Prussia, it was thought desirable to obtain the concurrence of Great Britain and Austria. That of the former Power was readily signified by Castlereagh (October 11), who informed Hardenberg that Great Britain was prepared to acquiesce in the incorporation of the whole of Saxony in the Prussian monarchy, provided that it was not intended thereby to indemnify her for sacrifices which would make her dependent upon Russia. Metternich gave no assent, but implied (October 22) that this might be forthcoming, and that even to a permanent annexation of Saxony Austria might, under certain conditions, be found willing to agree. Thus no arguments either of principle or of policy seemed likely to prevail in favour of the un­fortunate King Frederick Augustus. On November 8 Prince Repnin handed over the supreme administration of Saxony to the Prussians; proclaiming (on his own authority) the King of Prussia as the future sovereign of Saxony; and Alexander promised his support to Stein’s proposal, that Prince William of Prussia should be sent to Dresden as Governor of Saxony. It was not only Frederick William’s natural repugnance to ungenerous haste which rendered this proposal abortive; a new element had been introduced into the situation.

This was the influence of France. No sooner had Talleyrand made his way into the European Committee, than, as represented by him, the France of Louis XVIII once more began to pose before the smaller States of Europe, and those of Germany in particular, as the natural protectress of their interests. It would in any case have been in the regular order of things that France should espouse the cause of the King of Saxony, whose House, though he had lately been the faithful ally of Napoleon, had of old been so closely connected with the Bourbons. But his cause was also the cause of legitimacy, of whose rights, which conquest could not invalidate and no punitive process could extinguish, the first plenipotentiary of Bourbon France now stood forth as the consistent champion. King Frederick Augustus’ privy purse accounts relating to this critical period were afterwards judiciously destroyed; but Talleyrand needed no incentive to stir up a conflict which might have results advantageous to France.

At first his manoeuvres had no effect but that of impelling Stein, the real author of the annexation project, to pursue it with increased determination; and Alexander proposed the removal of the King of Saxony from his libera custodia at Friedrichsfelde to the safe distance of Riga. But it soon became apparent that one of those vehement outbursts of popular sentiment had been evoked, with which, however mixed their origin, it is always necessary to reckon. On November 4 the King of Saxony issued, from Friedrichsfelde, a formal protest against the Prussian occupation of his kingdom, in which he declared that never and under no conditions would he consent either to renounce the dominions inherited by him or to accept an equivalent in their stead. In Saxony itself, a few of the nobility and higher officials had so far supported the temporary administration; and there was a small pro-Russian faction among the well-to-do members of the higher middle class. But among the Saxon population at large, notwithstanding the many tribulations through which it had passed under the House of Wettin, there was still much loyal attachment to the dynasty and no desire whatever for annexation to Prussia, while the bulk of the nobility and of the officials were bitterly anti-Prussian. The sympathies of the German Governments which had escaped the fate of Saxony—the Bavarian in particular—were assured to her from the outset; and, among the Saxon Princes of the Ernestine line who rallied round the head of the Albertine, even Karl August of Weimar at first upheld the claims of his unfortunate kinsman against the interests of his Prussian ally. With the aid of a free expenditure of money, every exertion was used to influence public opinion in Saxony, in Germany, and elsewhere. Devoted officialism found a mouthpiece in Kohlschütter; historic in­dignation in Sartorius; Bavarian envy in Arctin. On the other side an artillery of great guns and small—Niebuhr, Eichhorn, Arndt, J. G. Hoffmann, Karl Muller—discharged itself in support of the Prussian policy; while Gorres in the Rheinische Moniteur denounced the interference of France in an essentially German question. In Saxony the feeling of alarm and indignation soon became intense, and communicated itself to the Saxon troops serving in the Rhinelands. These manifestations soon began to exercise an effect upon public opinion both in France and in England; strong journalistic comments made their appearance; Ministers were pressed on the subject in the British Parliament; the Prince Regent was known to be personally anxious to serve the interests of King Frederick Augustus. So far, however, as can be discovered, Castlereagh’s change of attitude in the Saxon question was due to the failure of his endeavours, which had at one time seemed promising, to mediate in regard to the Polish branch of the problem.

When Castlereagh agreed to the transfer of the Saxon administra­tion to Prussian hands, he intended (as he afterwards explained to Wellington) by satisfying Prussia to unite her with Austria in moderating Russian demands in Poland. The British mediation, which continued during all the latter part of October and far into November, was designed to induce the Tsar, instead of falling back upon his cherished scheme of reviving a kingdom of Poland under Russian supremacy, to consent to a partition of the grand-duchy of Warsaw, which would leave both Austria and Prussia in possession of a frontier and of frontier ­fortresses, necessary to their security and to that of Germany as the central Power of Europe. The success of this scheme was thwarted by Alexander’s pronounced dislike of Metternich, and by the close attach­ment between the Russian and the Prussian sovereigns. Nor was Castlereagh possessed of the tact needed in circumstances so exceptional. In reply to his memorandum of October 12, the Tsar, on October 30, insisted on the equity of the Russian requirements, which with a frontier­line running from Thom to Cracow and including both fortresses, amounted to nearly three-quarters of the grand-duchy (reckoned by population) and two-thirds of its revenues. The struggle now became more acute. Early in November Metternich made an attempt to induce Prussian diplomacy to unite with him at all events in pressing upon Russia the line of the Vistula. But on the 6th of the month an end was put to Castlereagh’s mediation, and to the endeavour to confront Russia with united action on the part of the Three Powers. In an interview with Frederick William and Hardcnberg, Alexander revealed or proposed to reveal to them an offer of concessions in Poland, which he declared to have been made to him by Metternich, on condition that he would in return cooperate in keeping Prussia out of Saxony. Frederick William thereupon indignantly bade Hardenberg cease from any further negotiations with the Austrian and British plenipotentiaries.

Metternich lost no time in denying the charge; nor is there any evidence that it was he who had in this instance swerved from the truth. But the Tsar was now virtually certain of his ally, and in consequence more determined to persist in his demands. In this spirit he sent a final note to Castlereagh (November 21). For a time, indeed, Hardenberg behaved as if the task of inducing Alexander to concede more satis­factory terms had passed from Castlereagh to himself. On November 27 he obtained from the Tsar a declaration expressing his willingness to consent to the two fortified cities of Cracow and Thorn, with a certain district around each, being declared independent and neutral. But this concession was to be conditional on the annexation of the whole of Saxony to Prussia, and on the garrison of Mainz, whose future had become a burning question between the German Powers, being furnished conjointly by Prussia and Austria. Hardenberg passed on these proposals to Metternich on December 2, adding a suggestion that King Frederick Augustus should be compensated with a desirable little territory in Catholic Westphalia, and pathetically entreating the Austrian statesman to save Prussia from her present position. He was well aware that the design of incorporating Saxony in the Prussian monarchy was in the most serious danger. Metternich’s answer (December 10), while making direct reference to the opposition offered by France to the annexation of the whole of Saxony, suggested that Prussia should annex a small portion of it, without coming into contact with the Austrian frontier; as to Poland, he declared himself ready to fall in with the last Russian proposals, provided, however, that Thorn and Cracow passed to Prussia and Austria respectively. The only result of this note was to draw the Kalisch allies still more closely together; and when Metternich, who at this point seems to have overreached himself, sought to sow discord between them by further manoeuvres, the Tsar declined any further personal transaction with him, and re­quested Hardenberg to draw up a final memorandum as the basis of direct discussion with the Emperor Francis. This memorandum (dated December 15) argued strenuously against the dismemberment of Saxony, and proposed that, since no other satisfaction but the whole of that kingdom could be found for Prussia, King Frederick Augustus should be compensated for the loss of it by territories, with a population of nearly 700,000, on the left bank of the Rhine.

While this unedifying wrangle was in progress at Vienna, the news arrived that Grand Duke Constantine, who had been sent to Warsaw to organise a Polish army, had on December 11 issued a proclamation calling upon the Poles to unite for the defence of their common country and for the preservation of their political independence. This manifesto not being disavowed by the Tsar, he was judged to have taken his final stand in the Polish question. A movement of Austrian troops towards the Galician frontier and a partial mobilisation of the French army ensued. Both Metternich and Castlereagh—the latter probably stimu­lated by parliamentary intelligence from home—became more and more disposed to listen to the Saxon plea. Talleyrand now came to the front. In two rhetorical notes of December 19 and 26, he insisted on the restoration of Frederick Augustus; a cession of part of his dominions might be a politic act, but the principle of legitimacy must be upheld. He also nearly succeeded in uniting the whole body of representatives of the minor German States in a collective note against the absorption of Saxony by Prussia, whose administrative amenities were exercising their usual effect.

When, therefore, on December 29, a last attempt was made to lay down the basis of an understanding in a special conference between representatives of the Four Allied Powers, Metternich at once proposed the admission of Talleyrand to the discussion; and, taking a leaf out of his book, urged that no final decision as to Saxony could be taken without the approval of its legitimate King. Castlereagh supported the proposal; but nothing came of it. The conference met again on January 3, when Metternich appeared to be well disposed towards the Russian basis of agreement drafted by Nesselrode. But in the midst of these amicable proceedings the rupture took place; and for a week, or thereabouts, Europe was in imminent peril of a general war. Metternich had, not unnaturally, been irritated by the personal insults of the Tsar; while it would seem as if a menacing phrase of Hardenberg’s, ordinarily very little disposed to dwell in extremes, had provoked Castlereagh, who with all his shortcomings had the peace of Europe at heart. Thus the wiles of Talleyrand, encouraged by the bluster of Wrede and the buzz of the smaller folk, prevailed ; and, in a moment of what might almost be called infatuation, the Defensive Triple Alliance of January 3, 1815, was concluded between Great Britain, Austria, and France. It bound the three Powers to mutual support in the event of any one of them being attacked on account of the proposals on which they had jointly agreed for the completion of the arrangements of the Peace of Paris—Austria and France each providing an army of 150,000 men, while Great Britain (which on December 27 had concluded peace with the United States at Ghent) was to furnish equivalent aid either by subsidies or by mercenary troops. An attack upon Hanover or the Netherlands was to be treated as one upon Great Britain. The accession to the treaty of the sovereigns of these two countries, and of Bavaria, was to be invited; Sardinia and Hesse-Darmstadt also afterwards acceded. A military commission was appointed to draw up a plan of operations, in the event of an advance of the Russian armies in the direction of Vienna. To the treaty itself a special article was added, providing for absolute secrecy; and this was rigorously observed, though Stein seems to have had a shrewd notion of what was in progress. It was only by accident that, during the Hundred Days, Louis XVIII’s copy of the treaty fell into the hands of Napoleon, by whom it was made known to Alexander before he left Vienna.

To whatever speculations and hopes this secret treaty might give rise, and however brilliant a diplomatic stroke its conclusion might seem on the part of Talleyrand, none of the Powers that were parties to it could on reflexion fail to perceive its precipitancy. At Paris the Ministry of War could not undertake to place more than half the promised French force in the field within six weeks. Austria was unwilling to withdraw troops from Italy, where Murat needed careful watching. Europe in general was exhausted in men and money; the British Parliament could not be depended upon for an endless flow of subsidies; and a European war could not be waged by means of undertakings on paper. And, if war actually broke out, nothing had been done to prevent the Emperor in Elba from having a hand in it.

In a word, no sooner was the controversy on the point of becoming an open quarrel than both sides began to recede in order to avoid such a catastrophe. Fortunately, as has been seen, the negotiations had never been broken off; on January 9, 1815, the plenipotentiaries of the Four Powers resolved that their decision should be binding upon the King of Saxony; and on the 11th Talleyrand was admitted to their conference. The supreme tribunal of the Four Powers was thus incidentally changed into that of the Five; and henceforth nothing further was heard from the astute representative of France about an appeal to the Congress at large. For a time the prospects of peace remained clouded; and Alexander’s wrath against Metternich seemed to wax hotter than ever. But, after a slight effort on the part of Castlereagh, Metternich, in the conference of January 28, at last took a decisive step towards conciliation. He made it clear that Austria was prepared both to concur with Prussia in accepting an unsatisfactory military frontier in Poland, and, on condition that the greater portion of Saxony should be left to its King, to consent to the annexation of the rest of it by Prussia. Hardenberg’s reception of these offers showed that Prussia was willing to compromise; and Castlereagh, whose presence was required at home, wished if possible to return with the credit of success. Bargaining began; and, after at least one stormy passage, a settlement was reached which, on February 8, a sub-committee was appointed to reduce to the form of a preliminary convention.

Austria recovered all her Polish possessions ; but Cracow was declared a free city. The Prussian share covered the larger part of her former Polish dominions, and comprised the fortress of Thorn, which Alexander at the last moment consented to yield. In return, Prussia contented herself with rather less than two-fifths of Saxony, including the fortress of Torgau, but not the important city of Leipzig. On February 11 these arrangements were approved by the Committee of the Five Powers; and, so far as they were concerned, the Polish-Saxon difficulty was at an end. The aspirations of Alexander, and the hopes cherished by his Polish counsellor, were curtailed; and the three Powers, between whom Poland, with the exception of the fragment called the Republic of Cracow, had been as it were once more partitioned, were left to deal each on its own account with the national claims of its Polish subjects. On the other hand, the King of Saxony, who had so strenuously exerted himself against the absorption of the -whole of his kingdom by Prussia, still had to be persuaded to accept the compromise by which he was left in possession of a part of it. In order to bring him for this purpose within easier reach of the Congress, he was invited to take up his residence at Pressburg, where he arrived on March 4, 1815. Here, a few days afterwards, he was waited on by a deputation from the Com­mittee of the Five Powers, consisting of Metternich, Talleyrand, and Wellington, Castlereagh’s successor. The King refused to accept the conditions offered, and proposed to open a negotiation with them on his own account under the mediation of Austria. The deputation having returned to Vienna, the Committee on March 12 retorted by empowering the Prussian Government to take immediate permanent possession of the part of Saxony assigned to it, while continuing provisionally to occupy the remainder. In the House of Commons, on March 20, Castlereagh resolutely upheld the agreement of the Powers; and on April 6 King Frederick Augustus at last gave a preliminary assent to the cession imposed upon him. But it was not till May 18 that Saxony signed the definitive treaty.

This delay apart, the reaction which had ensued upon the crisis into which jealousy, suspicion, and design had precipitated the Great Powers had resulted in an amicable settlement before the tidings of Napoleon’s return warned the Congress to hasten its deliberations. But in other directions, too, not a little had been accomplished by the early part of February, 1815; and the Filial Declaration drafted about this time by Gentz, probably at the instigation of the British Government, was not wholly unwarranted in its tone of self-satisfaction.

The first actual decision arrived at on behalf of the Congress was the incorporation of Genoa and her territory in the kingdom of Sardinia, on which the Committee of the Eight agreed on November 13 and 17. In April, 1814, Lord William Bentinck had sanctioned the establishment of a Provisional Government under British protection. But Austria, mindful of her own dominion over Venice, well disposed towards King Victor Emmanuel, and possibly not unwilling to augment what might ultimately prove an Austrian inheritance, would not listen to tire pro­posal of restoring Genoese autonomy. France and Spain raised a feeble protest against the annexation; and the efforts of the plenipotentiary of the Provisional Government of Genoa at Vienna, Marquis de Brignole, found an echo in both Houses of the British Parliament. But the good fortune of the House of Savoy prevailed; and the fate of the proud and wealthy city was sealed.

The Swiss question, complicated in itself and envenomed by ancient antipathies and jealousies, as well as by mischievous foreign intrigue, was likewise carried to a conclusion within the earlier period of the Congress, though nothing short of the apprehensions of immediate war excited by Napoleon’s return could have brought it to so speedy an issue. After the overthrow of the “Mediator of Switzerland”, her future had depended upon the preservation of her neutrality, and upon her adherence in principle to the provisions of the Act of Mediation (1803), which had united an augmented number of cantons under a real though far from stringent Federal Constitution. But although, under the influence of La Harpe, Alexander was prepared to respect Swiss neutrality, Austria insisted on her troops entering the territory of the Confederation; and Bern, instigated by the same Power, summoned Vaud and Aargau to acknowledge their relation of dependence towards herself. Fortunately, Zurich was at the time the directing canton (Forort); and the Landammann, Hans von Reinhard, was a statesman who combined patriotic feeling with diplomatic sagacity. The extra­ordinary Diet summoned by him at Zurich, where it sat from December 1813 to August 1815, began by declaring the Act of Mediation abolished; but on the same day (December 29) the deputies of the old cantons (except Bern) laid the foundations of a fresh federal union, recognising the existence of the new cantons, and excluding dependent or subject territories from the Confederation. In March, 1814, Bern retorted by convoking a “legitimate Diet” of the old cantons, among whom, following her example, first Solothurn and Fribourg, then Zug, Uri, and Unterwalden, and finally (by means of a coup d’état) Luzern, restored their old Constitutions. After Napoleon’s first abdication, disturbances broke out in many parts of Switzerland, which had in some instances to be suppressed by force of arms; and so late as February, 1815, Bern, together with Fribourg and Solothurn, was arming in order to force back Vaud and Aargau into their former condition of dependency.

Thus the task of the special Committee appointed at Vienna for dealing with Swiss affairs was a thorny one—the more so that at the Congress not only the plenipotentiaries of the Zurich Diet, headed by Reinhard, made their appearance, but every one of the nineteen cantons, old and new, was likewise represented. While La Harpe, through the Tsar, exercised a continuous influence upon Capodistrias, the ordinary Russian member of the Committee, Zurleder, the able deputy of the aggrieved “city and republic” of Bern, was strenuously supported by Stratford Canning. Numerous other claims were urged for restorations and reunions; and much time was spent on the conditions under which Geneva, whose deputy Pictet displayed great activity, should be included in the Confederation so as to strengthen it against France. Ultimately, King Victor Emmanuel of Sardinia was bv divers concessions induced to give up the requisite territory. It was further resolved to erect into cantons Wallis (Valais), recently a French department, and Neuchatel, which the King of Prussia had recovered out of the hands of Marshal Berthier, and which was thus placed in a peculiar political condition. The Russian proposal to include in the Confederation the Valtelline, formerly incorporated in the Cisalpine Republic in order to provide France with an easy entrance into Germany, was approved by the Committee. But the Valtelline deputies having pressed for reunion with Lombardy, this valuable territory, at all times coveted by the possessor of the Milanese, was after some skilful management finally secured by Austria.

Dalberg having been admitted on November 30, 1814, to the sittings of the Swiss Committee as French plenipotentiary, the influence of France was generally thrown with that of Austria on the side of Bern and the ancien régime against that of Russia, on whose behalf Stein and Capodistrias advocated liberal views. Thus it gradually became possible for Great Britain to hold the balance between the other Powers with more success than in the Saxo-Polish controversy. In the crucial question of the independence of Vaud and Aargau, Bern was not allowed to reverse the provisions of the Act of Mediation, but was compensated for her losses by the greater part of the bishopric of Basel, with the town and district of Biel. Nevertheless, the general issue of the Committee’s labours was not a vigorous federal State, but a loose union between twenty-two more or less sovereign cantons. The directorate was to rotate in biennial periods between Bern, Zurich, and Luzern. When, on March 29, the proposed settlement was approved by the Committee of the Eight, it was still resisted in principle by certain of the cantons (Schwyz, Unterwalden, Appenzell), while others (including Bern) were still completing the reconstruction of their cantonal consti­tutions. Two months intervened before the Declaration recognising the twenty-two cantons was accepted by the Diet at Zurich; and more than two further months passed before the new constitution became law. But the guarantee of Swiss neutrality, which was accorded by the Five Great Powers on November 20, 1815, had been practically assured bv the result of their preliminary deliberations. That such a result, in­complete and defective as it was, had been reached, was obviously due to the fact that, though each of the Powers was desirous of shaping the new Swiss Confederation in accordance with its own preferences, none of them in this instance sought any direct advantage for itself.

The case was very different with regard to Italy. Here it was understood that Austria was to find her main satisfaction; and her interests therefore dominated all territorial arrangements. The question of an Italian Confederation was not so much as raised at the Congress of Vienna; and Labrador’s proposal, on November 15, to appoint a committee for the affairs of Italy in general, was successfully opposed by Metternich, who urged that each Italian question should be dealt with separately. A beginning was, as we have seen, made with Genoa. Next, a small committee (consisting of Wessenberg and Labrador, with Noailles, Nesselrode, and Clancarty) was charged with the affairs of Tuscany and those of Parma and the sister-duchies; but it does not seem to have been regularly summoned, and had to deal with accom­plished facts. In Tuscany, the Grand Duke Ferdinand III, who was also an Austrian Archduke, and whose rights rested on the Treaty of Vienna (1735), had been recognised by the Allied Powers; but against him Labrador urged the claims of the Bourbon Charles-Louis, son of the Prince of Parma and Marie-Louise, who as “ King ” and “ Queen of Etruria” had misgoverned the country till, in 1807, it was incorporated in the French Empire. In putting forward the claims of the Infante Charles-Louis, and basing them on the Treaty of Madrid between France and Spain (1801), which had been undone by that of Fontaine­bleau (1807), the plenipotentiary of the Spanish Bourbons took up an untenable position, which his intemperate advocacy failed to improve. Metternich having brusquely refused negotiation, Labrador, by Talley­rand’s advice, desisted from any further challenge of Ferdinand’s rights.

Parma had probably been the real object of Labrador’s efforts ; but at this point the “ Don Quixote ” of Bourbon diplomacy was in conflict with the personal sentiments of the Emperor Francis I as well as with the policy of Austria. By the Treaty of Fontainebleau of April 11, 1814, the duchies of Parma, Piacenza, and Guastalla were assigned to the Empress Marie-Louise, with remainder to her son. Her claim was opposed by Labrador on behalf of the Infante Charles-Louis ; but, though his title was good in itself, Talleyrand used his influence in favour of a compromise which would at once diminish the number of small Italian principalities and keep the son of Napoleon out of the peninsula. While the three duchies were to be allotted to the Bourbon claimant or to his mother, the Queen of Etruria, and Lucca with part of Elba to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, the Empress Marie-Louise was to be compensated by a pension on the revenues of the grand-duchy, and by certain “Bohemian fiefs” now owned by the Grand Duke, of which Reichstadt, in the Circle of Buntzlau, was one. The Emperor Francis I hereupon declared his willingness to consent to the abandonment by his daughter of her lawful claims, in return for fit compensation. But Metternich seems to have made it clear that Austria would insist on retaining a hold on Piacenza, the military importance of which was considerable; and Labrador lost his opportunity by demanding the three duchies or an Italian equivalent. Such an equivalent was only to be found in Lucca and the Legations; and of the latter the Queen’s conscience forbade her to despoil the Holy See. Such was the situation when the return of Napoleon made it necessary for Austria to hold fast to the duchies, but to exclude his son from the succession. Lucca remained the only possible compensation for the Queen of Etruria; and the conflict of money claims between the Lucchese and their former “ Semiramis,” Elise Bacciochi, had to stand over.

The duchies of Modena, Reggio, and Mirandola were claimed by Duke Francis IV, the son of Archduke Ferdinand and the grandson of Ercole III, the last Duke of the House of Este, from whom they had been wrested with more than the usual effrontery. His rights were assured of acceptance by the Powers, and in return he proved a faithful adherent of the Austrian regime. The duchy of Massa, with the princi­pality of Carrara and certain Imperial fiefs in the Lunigiana, were not reunited with Modena till after the death (in 1829) of Duke Francis’ mother, Archduchess Marie-Beatrix of Este, to whom the Congress had assigned them in her own right.

So early as August, 1814, Cardinal Ercole Consalvi had called upon France, Great Britain, and Austria to reinstate the Holy See in its dominions, though the Legations (Ferrara, Bologna, and Ravenna) were actually occupied by Austrian troops. At the Congress, Consalvi was instructed to demand the restitution of all territories in possession of the Holy See before 1791, when the National Assembly had decreed the incorporation of Avignon and the Venaissin. Accordingly, in the note which in October he addressed to the Committee of the Eight, he con­tended that the Treaty of Tolentino (1797), in which the Pope had ceded these territories to France, was null and void. Having not the slightest intention of relinquishing Avignon and the Venaissin, France could afford to favour the restoration of the Legations to the Holy See. Such a restoration had been deprecated by Metternich just before the con­clusion of the Peace of Paris. The balance of opinion at the Congress was in favour of treating the Legations as conquered territory and therefore at the disposal of the Powers; and at one time they were thought of as a suitable compensation for the King of Saxony. In the end, however, Consalvi’s exertions proved so far successful that the Legations (excepting the Ferrarese districts on the left bank of the Po) were recovered by the Pope.

Finally, the affairs of the Two Sicilies were, when the Congress opened, in a condition full of difficulty for the Powers in general, and specially embarrassing for Austria. At Naples King Joachim Napoleon (Murat), although his rule had never taken root in popular feeling, still main­tained himself upon the throne. Notwithstanding that he had actually been a combatant at Leipzig, the Allies might even after that date have condoned his past, had he entirely severed his fortunes from those of Napoleon ; indeed, towards the end of 1813 they might possibly even have put him in possession of Sicily. As it was, Metternich made the mistake of concluding with Murat, on January 11,1814, a treaty of peace and alliance, which guaranteed to him the throne of Naples, in return for Murat’s guarantee of that of Sicily to Ferdinand IV. This treaty, with certain modifications suggested by Castlereagh, had received the approval of Russia, Prussia, and Great Britain ; so that, at the opening of the Congress, most of the Allied Powers were pledged to leave Murat in possession of Naples, and find a compensation elsewhere for the legitimate claimant. In September, 1814, Queen Maria Carolina had died at Schonbrunn but her efforts were, with considerable prospect of success, continued by King Ferdinand’s plenipotentiaries, who were warmly supported by both Spain and France. Indeed, Talleyrand used his best endeavours to make this question a second touchstone of his dogma of legitimacy; and this time the Tsar seemed to lend a willing ear. But the obligations incurred by Austria could not be ignored ; and Castlereagh finally agreed with Metternich that the settlement of the Neapolitan question should be deferred to the close of the Congress. Intentionally or otherwise, they thus (as will be presently seen) enabled Murat to ruin his own chances.

The Order of St John of Jerusalem (the Order of Malta), while wholly or in part despoiled of its estates and revenues in France, Italy, Spain, and Germany, had in 1788 been driven from Malta itself. Though the Peace of Amiens had stipulated for its restoration to the Order, the island had by the Peace of Paris, without so much as the suggestion of an indemnity, been assigned to its actual ruler, Great Britain. In consequence of the refusal of Pope Pius VII, in deference to the wishes of Napoleon, to confirm the last election of Grand Master, this office was at present held vicariously; but the organisation of the Order, which had temporarily established itself at Catania in Sicily, remained intact. Its plenipotentiaries at the Congress, Bailiff Miari and Commander Berlinghieri, both of the Italian “ language,” were duly recognised by the Committee for the verification of powers; but they demurred to the association with them of a deputy representing the “language” of France. Several of the Great Powers were favourably disposed towards the Order, though the Emperor of Austria was thought to have designs upon its estates in Lombardy in the interests of the Order of Maria Theresa. Louis XVIII was under a special obligation to the Order of St John, dating from the calamitous days of his elder brother, and had instructed his plenipotentiary to ask for Corfu as a compensation to it for the loss of Malta. Great Britain, though she had no intention of relinquishing Malta, could not in principle have opposed the grant of a compensation; but, as to this, the agents of the Order appear to have been without definite instructions, and their plea for an indemnity came in any case too late (February 24,1815). The renewed outbreak of war entailed fresh services on the part of Great Britain, of so much importance to the interests of Europe, that, instead of Corfu being assigned to the Order of Malta, or to any other claimant or expectant, the Ionian Islands were ultimately placed under British protection.

Spain, notwithstanding the unreasonable self-confidence of her Court and Government, due to the facile accomplishment of their restoration in the midst of a people exhausted by its self-sacrificing efforts, had in the earlier months of the Congress accomplished very little by her advocacy of Bourbon pretensions in Italy. Where her own immediate interests were concerned, Spain showed the utmost reserve, not only in all matters of colonial policy but, as will be seen, in that of the slave­trade in particular. In a minor question affecting her relations with Portugal she obeyed the dictates of a perennial jealousy and ill-will. After the attack which France had compelled Spain to make upon Portugal, the Peace of Badajoz (June 6, 1801) had conceded to Spain the fortress of Olivena with the surrounding district, and certain strong­holds on the Guadiana. The Prince Regent of Portugal (Don John of Brazil) now demanded its retrocession. This had been already pressed upon King Ferdinand; and the Powers were agreed in regarding it as equitable. Portugal however, still rather a dependency than mistress of her great American colony and confiding in the goodwill of Great Britain, showed herself unwilling to restore French Guiana to France, from which her arms had acquired it in 1809; consequently Spain, trusting to her entente with France, continued to resist the demand.

Among the territorial settlements forwarded by the Congress in its earlier months, one of the most important was that of the Netherlands. After December 2 the Prince of Orange had held his entry into Amsterdam as Sovereign Prince of the Netherlands. The southern (formerly Austrian) Provinces had speedily followed the example of the northern; and the plan of a political reunion of the entire Nether­lands, which had already been considered at Chaumont (February, 1814), and of which the preliminaries had been arranged during the visit of the allied sovereigns to London (June), seemed now likely to be carried into execution. Undoubtedly, it accorded with British interests ; while its success would, after a fashion, compensate Holland for her colonial losses to Great Britain, as recently settled by treaty (August 13). Moreover, to many vigorous political thinkers nothing seemed in itself more likely to assure the peace of Europe than the creation of a strong State between northern Germany and France. The racial difference between the northern and southern Provinces seemed no insuperable obstacle; the difference in religion might be constitutionally met. The union between a mainly mercantile or maritime, and a mainly industrial or agricultural population, depending respectively on English and on French markets, ought in the end to redound to advantage; and the opening of the Scheldt, to which Holland would be obliged to assent, would remove one of the chief hardships hitherto inflicted upon the southern Provinces for the benefit of the northern. By the Peace of Paris the House of Orange had been assured a considerable increase of territory; but its nature and extent had not been fixed. Castlereagh, therefore, in a memorandum transmitted to the Committee of the Five Powers on January 28, 1815, recalled the Chaumont stipulation, that the boundary of the new State should be carried at least as far as the line of the Meuse; while the extent of further additions on the left bank of the Rhine was to be determined by the interests of both the Netherlands and Germany. The line of the Meuse was steadily upheld by the British plenipotentiaries throughout the negotiations. They kept a consistent middle course between Gagern, who as representing the House of Orange asked too much, and Munster, who in the interests of Hanover sought to reduce the Dutch demands; while Metternich and Stein also showed themselves jealous of an excessive extension of the Netherlands frontier in the direction of Cologne. Towards the end of January, 1815, the Netherlands problem was approaching solution. The new State was to include, with the duchy of Limburg and the wealthy and industrious dominions of the Prince-Bishop of Liege, whose former subjects desired this incorporation, the duchy (henceforth to be called the grand-duchy) of Luxemburg in exchange for certain German possessions of the House of Nassau. To the provision that the capital should become a federal fortress of the Germanic Con­federation, the Sovereign Prince was only with difficulty induced to assent through the exertions of Lord Clancarty.

A separate committee or sub-committee was appointed to dispose of the sovereignty over so much of the duchy of Bouillon as had in the Peace of Paris not been transferred to France. Gagern, as repre­senting Great Britain, worked hard to obtain the annexation of the sovereignty over Bouillon to that over Luxemburg.

The relatively slight attention paid by the Congress to the affairs of the Scandinavian North was primarily due to the fact that Russia had definitively become the chief Baltic Power, and that neither Sweden nor Denmark could any longer aspire to play a prominent part in the politics of Europe. When King Frederick VI of Denmark, towards the end of 1813, joined the Allies, he made his peace with Great Britain by relinquishing Heligoland, and at the same time accommodated himself to the understanding between Sweden and Russia by consenting to cede to the former the kingdom of Norway, tied as it was to Denmark by historical association, by community of language, and by enduring fidelity. In return he looked for a fulfilment of the promises held out to him in the Peace of Kiel (January 14, 1814), and confirmed by the so-called “Family Peace” of Berlin (August 25, 1814). His com­pensations were to be Swedish Pomerania and Rügen, with perhaps a further indemnity. Although the brief insurrection, by which, under the leadership of the Danish Prince Christian, the Norwegians had attested their repugnance to the personal union with Sweden, and in the repression of which British and Russian ships had cooperated, was ended on August 14 by the Convention of Moss, it was not till November 4 that King Charles XIII of Sweden, after accepting the new democratic constitution of Norway, was duly elected to its throne by the Storthing. These delays provided the Crown Prince Bernadotte with a pretext for declining to hand over Western Pomerania to Sweden’s hereditary foe. When the Danish plenipoten­tiaries at Vienna, on November 19, 1814, presented a note calling upon the Powers to secure to King Frederick VI the promised indemnity for Norway, they were not invited to specify the quarter whence it was to be derived; nor was it till after Napoleon's return that a final arrangement, very unsatisfactory to Denmark, was made.

Sweden had chosen her part in the European political system by successively sacrificing Finland and Pomerania in return for Norway. She had thus, while entering into a union of scant intrinsic value, which brought with it no promise of a future headship of the Scandinavian North, deliberately excluded herself from the political life of central Europe. This change was readily accepted by the Powers, whom the military prowess of the House of Vasa had so often forced to reckon with Sweden as a dominant factor in European affairs; and the protest addressed to the Congress in November, 1814, by the ex-King Gustavus IV on behalf of the rights of his son, which he asserted to be unimpaired by his own forced abdication in 1809, fell upon deaf ears.

The Powers charged by the Peace of Paris with the responsibility of completing the territorial resettlement of Europe had, as has been seen, specially undertaken to establish a permanent system of consti­tutional relations among the States which had formed part of the Germanic Empire before its dissolution. The recognition of this responsibility is, at all events primarily, not attributable to the wide­spread demand for constitutional charters, which Napoleon’s own action in Poland, as well as that of his brother Joseph in Spain and that of the protecting British Power in Sicily, had helped to excite, and to which the Charter granted to France by her Bourbon King and the democratic Constitution by which Bernadotte purchased the submission of the Norwegians, alike bore testimony. In several of the principal German States, notably in Prussia and in the two kingdoms of the south-west, this demand was not to be left without a response; and the promise of a Constitution to each State included in the Confederation was inserted in its Fundamental Act. But the sole point of view from which the Congress, or its leading Powers, could take up the problem of the future constitutional system of the Germanic body, as a whole, was the security to be derived from such a system for Europe at large. On the delegation of this subject to a German committee, it speedily became manifest that neither the two great German Powers, nor the rest of the German Governments, nor anything that deserved to be called public opinion or national feeling, had as yet resolved upon even the leading principles of a settlement. Thus the saying on which Frederick William IV of Prussia ventured in 1850, that the time had come for Germany to be as free from the control of Europe as were Great Britain or France, would in 1814-5 have seemed strangely premature to Germany herself.

For many years during the course of the Revolutionary Wai’s, and more especially since the ill-omened Peace of Basel (1795), jealousy and distrust had prevailed between the two great German Powers; while the political conduct of the other German States, either openly dependent upon a foreign protector or retaining the pretence of a sovereignty of their own, had been dictated by the instinct of self-preservation or by the cognate impulse towards self-aggrandisement. When, after the collapse of the Russian expedition, Frederick William Ill’s proclamation (March, 1813) called the Prussian people to arms, it was but gradually that the resolve to liberate Germany at large from the dominion of the alien overspread the whole of “the German’s Fatherland”; and still more slowly that attention began to be given to the constitutional methods and forms that were to regulate the national life of emancipated Germany. As was inevitable, the first ideas on this subject were vague and indefinite; nor could it in any case be expected that hopes and aspirations for a new era of the national life should move in the same plane as the claims and designs of the chief German Governments and dynasties. In the negotiations which combined Austria and Prussia against the falling conqueror, those Powers publicly guaranteed to each other their restoration to a territorial dominion such as they had possessed before the wars of 1805 and 1806 respectively. But the two Governments made no attempt to discuss, in the interests of the nation as a whole, either the future constitutional settlement of Germany or the particular question of headship; and, instead of asserting themselves as the natural guardians of those interests, they merely concurred in the undertaking as to independence and federation, agreed upon at Chaumont and inserted in the Peace of Paris.

Thus, whatever Germany might think or say on the subject, the political axiom had been laid down that the future bond between the German States must be a federal bond; and, having accepted this conclusion, each of the two great German Powers was intent upon safe­guarding itself against any attempt on the part of the other to establish an ascendancy which might develop into a hegemony over the Con­federation. At the same time both had resolved to defeat any attempt on the part of the other German States to form by combination a third Power capable of holding the balance between the two great Powers; and thus the claim of Austria and Prussia to represent Germany as a whole was about to be definitely asserted in the eyes of Europe. The earliest draft of a Germanic Constitution, submitted by Stein to Alexander, Hardenberg, and Munster on March 10, 1814, and probably in its composition largely due to Humboldt, who had induced Stein to relinquish for the present his dream of reviving the Empire, proposed a Confederation under the joint directorship of Austria, Prussia, Bavaria, and Hanover. In July, however, Stein and Hardenberg prepared at Frankfort a second draft, which on September 13 was, apparently with some modifications, communicated by the latter to Metternich. From this document, consisting of forty-one articles, the deliberations of the Congress took their start. It proposed that Austria and Prussia should enter into the new Confederation in respect to part of their dominions only; but that the directorship was to belong to the two Powers in common, the presidency over the Diet being assigned to Austria. This Diet was to consist of the Directory, the Council of the Heads of the Circles (with eleven votes distributed among the two great Powers and the secondary States), and the Council of the Princes and Estates (com­prising the remaining Governments). Of representative assemblies in the several States, or of a popular representation at the Diet, the draft made no mention.

The Allied Powers addressed themselves with unmistakable goodwill to the task imposed upon them. The Tsar had with the aid of Capodistrias familiarised himself with the ideas of Stein, and was as a rule prepared to follow his advice as to the internal affairs of Germany; while on this head the British Government implicitly trusted Munster, whose Germanic patriotism was as sincere as Stein’s, however much they might differ as to the part to be played in Germany by Prussia. Both Powers at once assented to the sensible proposal that the preliminary discussions on German affairs at the Congress should be carried on by the plenipotentiaries of German States only—a concession which effect­ually deprived France of any opportunity of intervening. The Committee formed for the preparation of a Germanic Federal Constitution consisted of representatives of the two great Powers—Metternich and Wessenberg for Austria, Hardenberg and Humboldt for Prussia; while Wrede sat for Bavaria, Winzingerode and Linden for Würtemberg, and Munster for Hanover. Saxony remained unrepresented. Baron Martens acted as secretary to the Committee, which held its first sitting on October 14. At the second, held on the 16th, Metternich submitted as the basis of discussion twelve articles, as to which the Austrian, Prussian, and Hanoverian Governments had arrived at a preliminary agreement, and which, with certain modifications, reproduced the proposals of Harden- berg’s draft. Bavaria, however, seconded by Würtemberg, not only took exception to the proposed distribution of voting power among the Heads of Circles, as securing a preponderance to Austria and Prussia, but raised a fundamental objection to the subordination of sovereign Princes to a federal authority. The Bavarian protest stood in sharp contrast with the ready acceptance of the principle of the draft by Hanover, notwithstanding her intimate connexion with Great Britain; albeit at the fourth sitting of the Committee (October 24) Wrede stated that Bavaria, though she might have with slighter sacrifices secured the same advan­tages by allying herself with other Powers of her own choosing, was on the whole inclined to enter the proposed Germanic Confederation.

Thus the discussion proceeded during a series of sittings (from October 26 to November 11) in which Austria and Prussia, supported by Hanover, adhered to the substance of their original proposals, but sought to amend them in respect of rights of peace and war, alliances, diplo­matic representation, federal legislation, and judicial procedure. It was sought to advance the work of the Committee by appointing a separate Military Committee consisting of experts, with the patriotic Crown Prince of Würtemberg at their head, who it was hoped would make definite recommendations, inter alia, as to the future federal fortress of Mainz. On November 11a secret Russian note, drawn up by Nesselrode, but no doubt inspired by Stein, expressed the Tsar’s approval of the Twelve Articles, in favour of which he declared himself if necessary prepared to intervene. But even this stimulus failed materially to advance the work of the German Committee, hampered and discouraged as it was by the Saxo-Polish embroglio and by the more or less obstructive attitude of Würtemberg and Bavaria.

In the meantime a feeling had gained ground among the smaller Princes and the free cities, alike unrepresented on the Committee, that their rights, though guaranteed to them by the Allied Powers, were in imminent peril. Gagern, who had been mistrustful from the first, took the initiative by assembling in his place of residence at Vienna the plenipotentiaries of nineteen petty States. The movement was gradually joined by all the Governments unrepresented on the German Committee as first constituted, including the Grand Duke of Baden and the Grand Duke of Hesse. The associated minor potentates agreed to confine themselves to seeking admission for their body, which soon grew to a total of thirty-one members. The joint manifesto of the minor States, which was brought before the German Committee on November 16, after asserting that as recognised sovereign Governments they were entitled to take part in discussing the future institutions of the nation, proceeded to declare that a federal head with executive authority was needed to give coherence to these institutions; and that the establishment of an effective judicial authority for the whole Confederation and of representa­tive Constitutions in its several States was likewise indispensable.

This manifesto, which revealed the inspiration of Stein, reached the Committee at an unpropitious moment. For at the same sitting of November 16 the Würtembergers presented a note, declaring the in­ability of their Government, with its present information, to cooperate further in the task of elaborating a Germanic Constitution; and on the same day a protest was read from the Grand Duke of Baden, reserving to himself the rights of full sovereignty. He was very speedily, in a note drafted by Munster, answered according to his deserts; and, on November 22, Metternich, after previous consultation with the Prussian Government, remindeel the Würtembergers that it was preposterous for a single State to controvert the principle of a Germanic federal union laid down in the name of Europe. Würtemberg, however, remained obdurate; and the effects of her recalcitrance were only too palpable. The sittings of the German Committee were suspended (November 24) for more than five months; and, just when the general prospects as to the success of the Congress were darkening, the first series of systematic efforts towards the drafting of a Germanic Constitution was superseded by a series of projects more or less irresponsible and visionary.

Stein’s original scheme of uniting Germany under the supremacy of a single Power—whether this were Austria or Prussia, he declared to be indifferent to him—had long since vanished into limbo. But even the dualistic scheme worked out in the Stein-Hardenberg draft, which in the reduced and modified form approved by Metternich and Munster had served as the basis of the deliberations of the German Committee, and which accorded a direct share in the control of the proposed seven Circles of the Empire to the three kingdoms of Hanover, Bavaria, and Würtemberg, had been opposed by the two latter Governments as going far beyond the one legitimate object in view, viz., combination for external defence. In the meantime, as has been seen, the Governments not included in the “ Pentarchy ” had shown themselves prepared for a considerable restriction of their respective sovereign rights, and inclined to listen favourably to proposals for resuscitating the worn-out machinery of the Empire. They were in their turn influenced, on the one hand, by fears of absorption by the larger States, and on the other by the action of the Standesherren, who had already lost their sovereignty and are usually, though not correctly, called the “ Mediatised.”

These Princes and Counts regarding the interests of the petty potentates as adverse to their own, had in fact been first in the field, and so early as October 22, in an audience granted to their deputies by the Emperor Francis I, had besought him to resume the German Imperial dignity. On December 16 they attempted to safeguard their rights, as against the Würtemberg and Baden notes of November 16, by an appeal, in which, while declaring that they represented the claims of a million of former subjects, they claimed a restoration of their sovereign authority. When Munster, on whose support the petty Governments had reckoned, sought to disabuse them of the belief that there was any alternative to a federation, they retorted that the German nation, having the right to determine its own Constitution, was entitled to decide as to the head­ship over it. Stein, doubtless gratified by this revival of his own ideas, had probably begun to hope that the declared headship, which Austria was loath to resume, might devolve on Prussia. But at the Congress very few shared this hope; there is no sign that it was cherished by Humboldt; and, while no plans based upon it had been formed by King, Court, or Government at Berlin, it had not even become familiar as a speculation or aspiration either to the Prussians in particular or to the German nation at large. The solution could hardly lie in ingenious compromises—such as that Austria should hold the Imperial dignity for renewable terms of five years, while to Prussia should be assigned a hereditary vicariate in northern Germany; that the King of Prussia should be Imperial commander-in-chief under an Austrian Emperor; or that Francis should be crowned Emperor, and Frederick William King of Germany. It was also proposed, in order that the ambition of Bavaria might not be denied its chance, that a couple of vicariates should be set up, of which that on the Danube should be held by the “Prussia of the south.” The impracticable idea of a very little Germany found embodiment in the suggestion of the Gottingen historian Sartorius, that a Confederation should be formed from which both Austria and Prussia were excluded. We pass by other schemes and fantasies. A more practical instinct led Arndt and those who shared his views, without demanding the restoration of the Empire, to insist on the annual convocation of an Assembly, freely elected by the nation at large, side by side with a permanent Diet of representatives of the Governments, as well as on the establishment of a national judicial tribunal and foreign office, and the creation of a national army. This, it may be remarked, is practically the present Constitution of the German Empire. Unhappily all this planning and scheming was per­vaded by diffidence and mutual suspicion. Jacob Grimm, writing from Vienna to Gorres, lamented a state of things in which little hope of patriotic action remained, and Heaven alone could unite Germany and avert the consequences of weakness and treachery in the counsels of her Governments.

Thus, during the gloom of December, when the two chief German Powers were becoming involved in serious antagonism on other subjects, the question of the Germanic Constitution, which could not be settled without an agreement between them, seemed breaking up into a chaos of conflicting schemes. As a matter of fact, however, the working members of the German Committee were far from idle. Before the year had ended or the Saxo-Polish difficulty reached its height, Wessenberg prepared a draft entrusting the conduct of German affairs to a Federal Council or Diet, at which Austria was to preside and all the other Governments were to have either individual or collective votes. This draft, ultimately adopted as the main basis of the deliberations which led to the passing of the Federal Act, at first served no purpose but that of marking time. Early in February, 1815, when the Saxo-Polish crisis had passed, Austria and Prussia took serious counsel with one another as to the resumption of the constitutional task. Metternich agreed with Hardenherg and Humboldt to admit to the renewed deliberations on the Germanic Constitution all the “ Princes and Estates ” of Germany ; and on February 10 two new and in the main identical drafts, professedly tentative, were laid before him by the Prussian plenipotentiaries, which represent the furthest advance proposed at the Congress. These drafts insisted on the necessity of securing to Germany a strong military power and an effective judicial tribunal, with guaranteed Constitutions for the several States, and for all Germans a definite measure of fundamental rights (Grundrechte). They also proposed two distinct Councils—the smaller and executive to be composed of representatives of the five larger States, the other, with purely legislative functions, to include representatives of all the Governments. In the draft preferred by Humboldt, the division into Circles, as an intermediary link between the central power and the particular States, was retained. So matters stood until, when Napoleon's return had made a prompt solution indis­pensable, Metternich was, as will be seen, at last moved to action.

Among the miscellaneous subjects assigned for treatment to separate Committees was the business of the so-called Statistical Committee, composed of representatives of the Five Great Powers. France, if Talley­rand is to be believed, had been admitted to a share in its deliberations only after a threat that, if excluded, she would withdraw altogether from the Congress. Its task, which it carried through in six sittings, extending from December 24, 1814, to January 19, 1815, was merely preparatory to the final adjustment of the territorial restorations, acquisitions, cessions, and exchanges. Instead of calculating, by area and by wealth as well as by population, the statistical value of each of the territories concerned, the Committee applied the last-named standard only, which from the military point of view was no doubt the most important. The total of “souls” at the disposal of the Congress, as representing the population of the territories, exclusive of France itself, reconquered from Napoleon and his allies, amounted to nearly thirty-two millions. It is stated that the only serious difference as to the calcula­tion occurred in the case of the grand-duchy of Warsaw; and that this was settled by the Committee taking the mean between two estimates differing from one another to the extent of about half-a-million.

Of a very different nature was the work of the Committee on the abolition of the slave-trade. Fox’s famous resolution (June, 1806), followed by the Act of 1807, which Denmark had anticipated in 1803, had extinguished the slave-trade in all the British dominions. The example of Great Britain had been followed in the next year by the United States of North America; and, stimulated by Canning, the British navy had lost no time in operating against the slave-trade, to which the very imminence of its abolition had imparted an un­precedented activity. Previously to 1803, as Castlereagh afterwards declared, Spain had been without any slave-trade of her own; and only a small proportion of the negroes imported by her after this date were intended for use in her own colonies. In the course of the war, during which Great Britain had become the mistress of the seas, the slave-trade had almost dwindled into a hazardous smuggling traffic from the Portu­guese settlements; but the approach of peace threatened to revive it. Its entire extinction had, however, now become a matter in which the honour and conscience of Great Britain seemed alike engaged; and in the First Peace of Paris she persuaded France to promise to unite with her at the coming Congress in seeming the abolition of the trade by all the European Powers, and to put a stop to it in her own dominions within the next five years. The pressure exerted by Wilber­force and his friends was not relaxed; and there was no object which the British plenipotentiaries, and Castlereagh in particular, pushed with so persevering a determination.

On December 10, 1814, Talleyrand proposed the appointment of a committee of plenipotentiaries of the Eight Powers, to prepare the final abolition. Since this object commended itself to the humanitarian aspirations of the Tsar, while Austria and Prussia could have no con­ceivable reason for resistance, British efforts seemed to be assured of success. Unfortunately, Spain and Portugal, unwilling to pledge them­selves to immediate action in a matter directly affecting their own colonies in the New World, proposed that the committee should be limited to representatives of the colonial Powers, viz., Great Britain, France, and themselves; and, on Castlereagh’s retorting that the subject was one of interest to humanity at large, Labrador declared that at least eight years would be required before Spain could join in putting an end to the obnoxious trade. Finally, on Castlereagh’s suggestion, it was agreed that, instead of a special committee being appointed on this subject, special sittings should be held of plenipotentiaries named for the purpose, one for each of the Powers represented on the Committee of the Eight. Five such sittings having been held, that committee was enabled on February 8, before Castlereagh’s departure, to adopt a Declaration which, without prejudice to the date at which each Power might judge it most convenient to declare for itself the definitive abolition of the slave-trade, united all the Powers in the full moral responsibility of its condemnation, and thus practically assured its eventual extinction.

The Committee on the Navigation of Rivers, which was appointed by the Committee of the Eight on December 14, 1814, and held twelve sittings from February 2 to March 27, 1815, was designed for carrying out the provisions of the Peace of Paris as to the free navigation of the Rhine and the Scheldt, and for applying the same treatment to the navigable portions of other rivers bounding or intersecting European States. The historic importance of the Rhine as a trade-route, and the difficulties which previously to 1792 had obstructed the opening of the Scheldt, stimulated the exertions of this Committee, which, composed of representatives of Great Britain, France, Prussia, and Austria, admitted to its deliberations representatives of other States, as well as of important commercial towns. The very complicated business was managed with much address; and the report of the Committee, besides proposing an elaborate code for the navigation of the Rhine and briefer regulations for that of the Main, Neckar, Moselle, Meuse, and Scheldt, suggested a series of provisions for river navigation in general, which made an important advance towards its ultimate enfranchisement.

We can but briefly refer to the labours of the Committee appointed on December 10 for settling the rank or order of precedence, with the various consequences dependent thereon, among the European Powers. At some previous European Congresses no subject had been discussed at greater length or with more vehemence; but at Vienna the presence of so many sovereigns and members of sovereign families contributed to repress the self-assertion of plenipotentiaries ; and Metternich, like his master, was careless of formality for its own sake. In practice, the order of signatures to the various protocols was decided partly by the alpha­betical sequence of the names of States, and partly by accident; and henceforth there was to be a precise distinction between three classes of diplomatic agents, within which there was to be no precedence in the signature of treaties except one determined by lot.

Thus, by the end of February, 1815, or thereabouts, considerable progress had been made with the business of the Congress. Russia had reduced her Polish pretensions; the new dominion of Prussia (including her share of Saxony) had been settled; Austria was established in the control of northern Italy; Great Britain had virtually secured satisfactory boundaries for the Netherlands, while those of Hanover had likewise been enlarged; a broad basis for the Swiss Confederation had been preserved; the kingdom of Sardinia had been materially strengthened; and the final abolition of the slave-trade had been brought within sight. When, on January 4, Castlereagh had requested that, as a matter of convenience, his recall to England might be postponed a little longer, he had expressed the opinion that “ in the course of four or five weeks he would be enabled to bring all the territorial arrangements of Europe to a close.¹¹ But on March 4 the news arrived at Vienna that Napoleon had quitted Elba on February 25; and on March 8 he landed at Cannes. His first words on landing—so it was afterwards said—were “Le Congres eat dissous."

 

 

CHAPTER XX.

THE HUNDRED DAYS (1815).