Prince Klemens von Metternich, Results of the Congress at Laybach (1821)
Upon Napoleon’s defeat in 1813, the allied powers met at the Congress of Vienna in 1814–1815 to establish the political landscape of post-Napoleonic Europe. Here they adopted a two-pronged strategy firmly rooted in conservative doctrine. First, they determined the boundaries of European states and restored as many nations as possible to their former rulers; then they agreed to convene periodic meetings, or congresses, to confront any future threats to order. Austria’s chief negotiator, Prince Klemens von Metternich (1773–1859), was the mastermind of the congress system and a chief spokesperson for conservatism. In the excerpt that follows, Metternich assumes both roles as he writes to Tsar Alexander I of Russia about the results of the Congress at Laybach in 1821. The major powers had assembled at Laybach to discuss an uprising to secure a constitution in the kingdom of Naples. Along with Alexander, the Austrian emperor and the king of Naples also agreed to armed intervention to suppress the revolt. Metternich praises Alexander for his decision while clearly enumerating his own political principles, which favored monarchies over republics, tradition over revolution.
From Klemens von Metternich, Memoirs of Prince Metternich, vol. 3, 1815–1829, ed. Richard Metternich, trans. Mrs. Alexander Napier (New York: Howard Fertig, 1970; reprint of 1881 edition), 535–39.
Before the separation of the monarchs and their Cabinets, may I be permitted to place in the hands of your Imperial Majesty one word of gratitude and homage? Of gratitude, Sire, for you deserve it, not on my part, nor on that of Austria, but from society at large.
You must do me the justice to admit that I discerned long ago the evil which has been lately unmasked with such awful intensity. You must also remember, Sire, that, although I knew the evil, I did not despair of the remedy. This remedy has begun to take effect; it is the intimate moral union between your Imperial Majesty and your august allies, each being free in his actions. The merit, Sire, belongs to you: for your situation was the most free, and certainly not so near to the danger as that of the other monarchs. Your Imperial Majesty has done an immense good; your conscience must tell you so; and that is the only recompense which a good man earnestly seeks after; it is the only one which can reach the man placed by providence above other men.
There is but one act of homage which I consider worthy of your Imperial Majesty. Placed as I am between the Emperor, my master, and your Imperial Majesty, grave duties rest upon me. The first is perhaps the most difficult—that of seeking and finding the truth. The day when I lose confidence in my own calculations I shall regard myself as guilty in the eyes of my master and those of your Imperial Majesty. My homage, Sire, must simply be to tell you all my thoughts.
Society would have been irretrievably lost but for the measures which have been taken during the last few months. These measures could not have arrested its fall unless they had rested on the most correct principles. Such being the case, the dawn of a better future begins to appear: the day will succeed if we continue to walk on in the path in which we have placed ourselves. One single false principle, and the night will be upon us, and chaos will succeed that night.
There are two means of enabling us to continue in this path:—Reciprocal and unrestrained confidence, and a frank understanding of the principles on which our conduct must be grounded.
This confidence, Sire, is what the mind has most difficulty in seizing. It has been, and would for ever have been, an insurmountable difficulty, if Providence had not created two sovereigns such as your Imperial Majesty and the Emperor Francis. You know each other perfectly, and this is ever necessary to a good understanding.
To establish for the future that perfect agreement of conduct so decisive for the fate of Europe, it is necessary to lay the foundation as simply as possible on clear, precise principles, and to secure their application by reciprocal engagements no less clear and precise. A great distance separates us, and this inconvenience we must remedy.
I will now state the principles, and point out the engagements to be made.
It is demonstrated that a vast and dangerous conspiracy has since 1814 acquired sufficient strength and means of action to enable it to seize upon a number of places in the public administration. This conspiracy was less evident to the eyes of the world as long as it did not court discovery, and contented itself with the domain of theory. In that domain nothing is surprising: discussions, pretensions, contradictions belong to it by full right. From the day that I saw sound doctrines attacked with impunity, and observed that they ran the risk of being suppressed altogether, I recognized revolution, with its inevitable consequences, disorder, anarchy, and death, where others saw only light fighting with prejudice. Up to that time the conspiracy had only reconnoitered its ground and prepared it. It has grown, and it must grow, thanks to the instruments which a too deplorable folly has allowed it to create for itself.
It has not been slow in descending from the intellectual sphere into that of material facts. One word was sufficient to gain public favor. That word was Constitution, of all words the least precise, the most open to variety of interpretation, and the easiest to make popular, for it acts on the mass of the people through their hopes. Tell men that by means of a single word you will ensure them their rights, a liberty which the mass always confound with license, a career for their ambition, and success in all their enterprises, and you will have no trouble in making them listen to you. The mass once agitated, they give up everything: they listen, but do not care to comprehend. When the people do really comprehend, they are the first to re-establish order.
This ground taken, as the last resource, authority has been attacked. The factious have had recourse to arms; triumph seemed to them quite certain.
The clear and precise aim of the factious is one and uniform. It is the overthrow of everything legally existing. The ambitious and successful are always impatient and ardent in their demands. Every day in a revolution is equivalent to the career of a man. The day past is nothing, the present day is everything, and that will be nothing tomorrow. Influence, place, fortune, all that human passions most covet, are suspended and attached to the tree of liberty like prizes on the pole at a fair. The people do not want urging to flock to it in crowds. Go to the fair they must, and to get there everything must be overturned.
The principle which the monarchs must oppose to this plan of universal destruction is the preservation of everything legally existing. The only way to arrive at this end is by allowing no innovations.
Your Imperial Majesty knows me well enough to be assured that no person is farther removed than I am from any narrow views of administration. It is simply the attainment of real good that I desire, and on every occasion consider my duty to maintain. But the more positive I am of this the more I am convinced that it is impossible at the same time to preserve and to reform with any justice or reason when the mass of the people is in agitation; it is then like an individual in a state of irritation, threatened with fever, or already yielding to its ravages.
Let the Governments govern, and authority be something more than a name, for it is nothing without power.
By ruling, it really ameliorates the situation, but let authority remove nothing from the foundations on which it rests; let it act, but not concede. It should exercise its rights, but not discuss them. It should be just (and to be so it must be strong), and should respect all rights as it would have its own respected.
In one word, Sire, let us be conservative; let us walk steadily and firmly on well-known paths; let us not deviate from those lines in word or deed: we shall thus be strong, and shall come at last to a time when improvements may be made with as much chance of success as there is now certainty of failure.
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