prevent Prussia from joining the alliance of Russia and Great
Britain against the French Republic and to make himself
agreeable to the representative of France; but shortly afterwards
his part was exactly reversed, owing to the shifting of political
forces which led to the war of the third coalition, and he laboured
to secure the adhesion of Prussia to the alliance of Austria,
Russia and Great Britain against Napoleon. His diplomacy was
not successful; for though Prussia ultimately signed the treaty
of the 5th of November 1805 with Austria and Russia, the
influence of the emperor Alexander and the wound given to
her pride by Napoleon’s contemptuous violation of her territory
had more to do with Prussia’s decision than Metternich’s veiled
threats. His reward was the grand cross of the order of St
Stephen and the appointment of ambassador at St Petersburg;
but his commission to make himself agreeable to the French
ambassador at Berlin was carried out to such excellent effect
that, as a result of M. Laforest’s reports, Napoleon requested
that he might be appointed to represent Austria at the
Tuileries, and in August 1806 Metternich took up his residence
as ambassador in Paris.
This was the beginning of his ever growing influence in European affairs. Established in the diplomatic character of an “honourable spy” in the very centre of Napoleon’s power, he used his exceptional gifts of fascination not only to become a persona grata at the Tuileries, but to establish relations with those elements in the society of the empire which were already intriguing against Napoleon’s power. His intimacy with Talleyrand and with Caroline Murat, Napoleon’s sister, was destined to produce notable results later. Though on the look-out, however, for any chance of weakening the French emperor’s power, Metternich was not at first sanguine of success, for he believed Napoleon to be invincible. For Austria the best policy seemed to him to be to temporize; he was willing, therefore, to co-operate with France in the agreement made between Napoleon and Alexander I. of Russia at Tilsit for the partition of the Ottoman Empire; failing the success of the efforts of Austrian diplomacy to break the Franco-Russian alliance, this would at least secure for the Habsburg monarchy a share of the spoils. With the postponement of Napoleon’s Oriental schemes, however, the situation was once more changed. During the summer of 1808 Metternich had reason to suspect fresh designs of the French emperor against Austria, and his suspicions appeared to be confirmed when, during an interview on the 15th of August, Napoleon indulged in one of his violent tirades, denouncing Count Stadion’s action in strengthening the Austrian armaments. In November Metternich was at Vienna, urging the Austrian government to an early declaration of war—for which the moment seemed to him opportune owing to the French losses in Spain, of which he had received exaggerated reports. On the 1st of January 1809 he was back in Paris, but no longer as a persona grata. At the outbreak of the war he was placed under arrest, in retaliation for the action of the Austrian government in interning two members of the French embassy in Hungary; and in June, on Napoleon’s capture of Vienna, he was conducted there under military guard. In July he was exchanged at Komárom for the French diplomatists, and he was present with the emperor Francis at the battle of Wagram. At a council held on the 7th of July it was decided, on Metternich’s initiative, to open negotiations for peace; next day Stadion tendered his resignation, which was provisionally accepted. Stadion was sent as diplomatic adviser to the headquarters of the archduke Charles, while Metternich took his place at the emperor’s side. On the 4th of August Metternich was named minister of state, and soon afterwards was sent with Count Nugent to the peace conference at Altenburg, where Chamagny attended as Napoleon’s representative. The conference, however, dragged on without result, and the emperor Francis decided to open negotiations with Napoleon direct. Count Bubna was accordingly sent to Schönbrunn; the result was the French ultimatum which issued in the treaty of Schönbrunn (Vienna), signed by Prince Liechtenstein on behalf of the emperor Francis on the 14th of October 1809. With the negotiation and signature of this humiliating instrument Metternich therefore had nothing to do, though on the 8th of October he had been definitely appointed minister for foreign affairs, an office he was destined to hold for nearly forty years.
The position of the new minister was no easy one. By the treaty of Schönbrunn Austria was reduced to the position of a second-rate power, and by secret articles undertook during the continuance of the maritime war to limit her force of all arms to 150,000 men, and to dismiss from her service all officers or civil officers born in the territories of ancient France, Piedmont or the former Venetian republic. Weak as she had become, the menace of the future seemed even more disquieting. To the south she was divided from the French dominions by the Save; to the west and north the vassal states of France, traditionally her enemies, lay along the frontier; to the east was Russia, which as the reward for her alliance with Napoleon had received a portion of East Galicia as her share of the spoils, and to all appearance was firmly established in the Danubian principalities. Austria seemed hopelessly cut off by Napoleon from any chance of re-asserting her traditional preponderance in Germany, by Russia from any prospect of obtaining compensation at the expense of the Ottoman Empire. One false move on the part of those who guided its destinies, and the Habsburg monarchy might easily have ceased to exist altogether.
The saving factor in the situation was the improbability of the alliance between Napoleon and Alexander continuing, and the immediate task of Metternich was to hasten its dissolution, while securing Austria’s safety in the East by bringing about the end of the Russo-Turkish War. It was a task of extreme delicacy; for any revelation of its true tendency might have thrown the emperor Alexander into the arms of France and plunged Austria into an unequal struggle for life and death with Russia on the banks of the Danube. Metternich was helped by the rapid development of the causes of disagreement between the French and Russian emperors. Early in 1810 Europe was full of contradictory rumours of war between France and Russia, of a marriage of Napoleon with a Russian grand duchess. Then suddenly came Napoleon’s formal request for the hand of the Austrian archduchess Marie Louise. A proposal so nicely calculated to forward Metternich’s plans was suspected of being due to his inspiration; certainly it was his influence that decided the emperor Francis to agree to an alliance which could not but be distasteful to him and was resented as a crowning humiliation by the proud aristocrats of Vienna.
On the 13th of March 1810 Metternich left Vienna for Paris in company with the archduchess. His object was to use so favourable an occasion for obtaining the abrogation of some of the more onerous articles of the treaty of Schönbrunn, and for coming to some arrangement whereby the serious inconvenience caused in Austria by Napoleon’s coercion of the pope might be obviated. His diplomacy, however, met with but slight success. His efforts to persuade Pius VII. to purchase a measure of liberty of action by concessions to Napoleon broke down on the gentle old man’s refusal to traffic with his principles. From Napoleon he extracted a lame apology for the execution of Andreas Hofer, the reversal of a few sequestrations and, as a crowning grace, the abrogation of the article of the Schönbrunn treaty limiting Austrian armaments. In the matter of restoring the access of Austria to the Adriatic, Napoleon would make no concession; his answer to Metternich’s representations was only a commercial treaty which failed to obtain ratification at Vienna. Anything further, e.g. an exchange of the Illyrian provinces for Galicia, must depend on the attitude of Austria in the forthcoming Russian war which, in an interview of the 20th of September, Napoleon declared to be now inevitable.
On the 10th of October Metternich was back in Vienna, where his presence was urgently needed. The policy of a Franco-Austrian entente was popular with the public and the army, resentful of the treacherous attitude of Russia in the late war, but in the powerful circles of the court it had scarce an adherent. Prince Metternich himself, who had acted as foreign secretary during his son’s absence, favoured an understanding with Russia,
