Two Chancellors Part 1

Two Chancellors.

by Julian Klaczko.

PREFACE.

In the year 1866 Carlyle said: "The only man appointed by G.o.d to be His viceregent here on earth in these days, and knowing he was so appointed and bent with his whole soul on doing, and able to do G.o.d's work," is M.

de Bismarck. If this be true, then M. de Bismarck has found a most valuable ally and colleague in the present Premier of Russia. It is of these two men, Prince Bismarck, and Prince Gortchakof, the Chancellor of Germany, and the Chancellor of all the Russias, that this book treats.

The author is M. Julian Klaczko, a Polish refugee, a man of cosmopolitan habits, an accomplished and able writer, thoroughly acquainted with the contemporaneous history of Europe, prejudiced against Prussia, an ardent friend of Austria, and devoted to a conservative and monarchical form of government. He was always the friend of Poland. In 1863 he defended Denmark in a series of able papers, which came out in the "Revue des deux Mondes," under the t.i.tle of "Studies of Contemporaneous Diplomacy."

After the battle of Sadowa, he appeared as the friend of Austria in a work ent.i.tled, "The Preliminaries of Sadowa." Count de Beust summoned him to Vienna, and attached him to the Foreign Office. Klaczko was then elected Deputy in the Polish province of Galicia. After 1870 he resigned his posts and returned to France.

In the "Two Chancellors" he has given a condensed but graphic review of the diplomatic history of Europe from 1855 to 1871, and a sketch of the lives of Prince Bismarck and Prince Gortchakof, the two most eminent men of the day. He also seeks to prove that the "disaster" of Sadowa, followed by the still greater one of Sedan, was brought about by the blind devotion of Prince Gortchakof to Prince Bismarck, aided largely, it is true, by the "inconceivable vacillations and hallucinations of Napoleon III., the Dreamer of Ham." In a word, he seeks to establish that the prodigious events of the last ten years are due to a conspiracy between Russia and Prussia. This is a one-sided, partial view, but is presented with such power as will almost persuade the reader that such may have been the case. According to Klaczko's theories, Prussia has grasped the substance and Russia the shadow, and the old chancellor of the great empire of the North has been the dupe of his pupil of Berlin.

The great changes which will undoubtedly soon take place in the East, make M. Klaczko's views as to the past and present relations between Germany and Russia of marked interest, and the student of contemporaneous history will find in the "Two Chancellors,"

notwithstanding the peculiar views and strong prejudices of the writer, one of the most instructive as well as interesting works that have appeared for many years. It has been issued in book form in Paris, and widely circulated in Russia, where it has caused a profound sensation.

In the translation I have endeavored to reproduce as justly as possible the words of M. Klaczko, whose style, though strong and forcible, is at times somewhat involved. With these few words in regard to the importance of the subject and the character of the author, I leave to the judgment of the reader the account of the momentous events which may be truly said to have changed the political face of Europe.

I.

THE MISSIONS OF PRINCE GORTCHAKOF AND THE DeBUTS OF M. DE BISMARCK.

The good old Plutarch, in commencing his long and charming series of Parallels with the account of the lives of Theseus and Romulus, experiences some difficulty in justifying such an a.s.sociation of the two heroes; he can find in them only very vague traits of resemblance, and these by no means striking. "To strength they both joined great powers of mind, both carried off women by violence, and the one as well as the other was not exempted from domestic miseries; indeed, toward the end of their lives they both aroused the hatred of their fellow-citizens."[1]

Without doubt a writer of our day, wis.h.i.+ng to give a comparative study of the two most prominent figures of contemporaneous politics, the chancellors of Russia and Germany, would only mislead in giving prominence to such points of resemblance. The a.s.sociation in this case is justifiable, for it suggests itself to every contemplative mind, to whoever has meditated on the events of the last fifteen or twenty years.

The modern Plutarch who would undertake to write the lives of these two ill.u.s.trious men, could, as it seems to us, easily resist the temptation of searching too deeply for, or forcing a.n.a.logies in a subject where similarities abound and are so striking. Perhaps he would rather have to guard against necessary and tiresome repet.i.tions in presence of a commonalty of ideas and of a harmony of action such as history has rarely known in two ministers guiding two different empires.

It is not, the reader may be well a.s.sured, a work of this sort which the author has undertaken in the following pages. We have only given the mere sketch of a picture which, to be even in a slight degree full and satisfactory, would have required much larger proportions, and above all a much more skillful hand. Without pretending to present here new and unpublished materials, or indeed to reunite all those which are already known, we have simply chosen a few, and tried to a.s.sort and arrange them so as to afford a better perspective. We have been obliged to renounce the wish to give to the different parts an equality of design and depth of coloring, and we have not even bound ourselves to follow a very regular and methodical course in this narration. Before a subject so vast and presenting so many shades and shadows, we have thought that it was permissible, that it was indeed occasionally useful, to vary the points of observation and to present it in different aspects.

I.

Like the Odoefski, the Obolenski, the Dolgorouki, and many aristocratic families on the banks of the Moscova and the Neva, the Gortchakof also pride themselves on their descent from the Rourik; to speak more plainly, they claim to trace their origin from one of the sons of Michael, Grand Duke of Tchernigof, put to death towards the middle of the thirteenth century by the Mongolians of Batou Khan, since proclaimed martyr of the faith, exalted, indeed, among the saints of the Orthodox Church. One meets, nevertheless, with but few ill.u.s.trious bearers of the name of Gortchakof in the gloomy and exciting annals of old Russia. In the epoch which preceded the accession of the Romanof, there lived a certain Peter Ivanovitch Gortchakof, the unfortunate commander of Smolenski, who surrendered this celebrated place to the Poles after two years of energetic and desperate resistance. He was taken to Warsaw, and there, in 1611, with the Czar Va.s.sili, the two princes Schouyski, Sehine, and a number of powerful _boiars_, he was forced to take part in the famous "_cortege_ of captives" which the grand constable Zolkiweski presented one day--_honorificentissime_, says the chronicle of the times--to the king and the senate of the most serene republic. It was only in the second half of the last century, under the reign of Catherine II., that a Prince Ivan Gortchakof succeeded (thanks especially to his marriage with a sister of the opulent and courageous Souvorof) in again raising the glory of his old house, which has never since ceased to distinguish itself in the different branches of state service, princ.i.p.ally in the career of arms. The France of to-day has preserved the memory of two Princes Gortchakof, two old soldiers of Borodino who distinguished themselves during the war of the Orient. The one commanded the left wing of the Russian troops at the battles of Alma and Inkermann; the other, Prince Michael, was the generalissimo of the armies of the czar in the Crimea, and rendered his name imperishable by the heroic defense of Sebastopol. Afterwards he governed the Kingdom of Poland as lieutenant of the emperor, and became therefore (strange example of the vicissitudes of history!) the supreme representative of a harsh, foreign government in this same city of Warsaw, where one of his ancestors had formerly figured in a memorable procession of the vanquished. However, if this circ.u.mstance ever occurred to Prince Michael, he drew therefrom none but suggestions worthy of his character; he governed the conquered country with moderation and benevolence, and left behind him the fame of a man as just in civil administration as he was intrepid in war.

The cousin of Prince Michael and present chancellor of the empire, Alexander Mikhalovitch Gortchakof, was born in 1798, and was educated in that lyceum of Zarkoe-Zeloe which has its distinct place in the pedagogic history of Russia. Founded by Catherine II. as a model educational establishment for the aristocratic youth of the empire, the lyceum shone with great _eclat_ under the reign of Alexander I., although the Rollin and the Pestalozzi would certainly have had more than one reservation to make with respect to a college which only moulded its scholars for the world, and thought the vigorous cla.s.sical studies a burden too heavy to carry into the ethereal spheres of pleasures and elegance. Almost all the professors of the establishment were foreigners, men marked with the stamp of the eighteenth century, acute minds, slightly frivolous, and above all disciples of Voltaire.

The most eminent among them, the professor of French literature, he who initiated the future chancellor into the language of Voltaire, of which he so well knew the subtleties, was a Genevese, who, under the inoffensive name of M. de Boudry, concealed another of a terrible significance. M. de Boudry was the brother of Marat, that "_sinistre conventionnel_."[2] The Empress Catherine, in order "to end a scandal,"

had forced this patronymic change on M. Marat, without, however, succeeding in making him change his opinions, which always remained "Jacobin." He died in final impenitence, cheris.h.i.+ng an openly avowed admiration for _the friend of the people_, unjustly calumniated. From this education of very doubtful value, the young Gortchakof succeeded in extracting a strong and useful substance. He left Zarkoe-Zeloe with various and solid acquirements; a surprising matter, he was even a good Latinist, and this last fact has remained a cause of amazement to his fellow-scholars as well as to the generations who followed. It is certain, however, that the chancellor could quote Horace with about the same appropriateness as Louis XVIII. of sainted memory. One of his best known dispatches ingeniously borrows from Suetonius an eloquent pa.s.sage on the distinction to be established between liberty and anarchy.

Next to his cla.s.sical attainments, that part of his youth which the chancellor loves especially to recall is that he was the fellow-scholar, and that he remained the friend, of the great national poet, Pouchkine, a fact more to his honor inasmuch as this friends.h.i.+p has brought with it embarra.s.sments at certain times. When, by the order of the Emperor Alexander I., in consequence of an offensive ode, which one is not now known, the young singer of "Rouslan" and "Loudmila" was confined in an obscure village in the far interior of Russia, only two of his former comrades at the lyceum had the courage to go to see and offer him their condolence, and one of these intrepid youths was Prince Gortchakof. One finds in the work of Pouchkine some verses written in a lively and playful style, and which only derive their interest from the name of Alexander Mikhalovitch, to whom they are addressed. In one of these juvenile pieces, Pouchkine wishes his friend "to have Cupid as an inseparable companion as far as the banks of the Styx, and to go to sleep on the bosom of Helen in the very boat of Charon." Thoughtless wishes, which human malignity would surely not have failed to carry out in the end, if very fortunately the chancellor had not been able to preserve his old days from every deceitful seduction, and to avoid even the appearance of an arctic Ruy Gomez. The inspiration of the poet was happier another time, when, speaking of their different vocations, he predicts for Alexander Mikhalovitch a splendid destiny, and calls him "the beloved child of fortune."

Fortune was nevertheless slow to recognize its child, and to give him the lot which he merited. Having early entered the department of foreign affairs, being attached to the _suite_ of M. de Nesselrode at the time of the Congresses of Laybach and Verona, Prince Gortchakof had already long pa.s.sed that period which Dante calls the _mezzo del cammin di vita_; and even when very near his fiftieth year, was still only a minister plenipotentiary at a little court in Germany. A fortunate event at last came to commend him to the kindness of his master, and to render him distinguished in those diplomatic circles, in those regions "free from tears, but filled with sighs," which in the language of diplomacy are called the secondary posts.

In a moment of paternal weakness, the Emperor Nicholas had one day consented to the union of his daughter, the Grand d.u.c.h.ess Marie, with the Duke of Leuchtenberg, "the son of a Beauharnais, a Catholic officer in the service of the King of Bavaria," as was whispered with sadness in the intimate circles of the winter palace. Nicholas was not the man to retract his given word, but not the less did he feel the sting of what his surrounding court did not cease to call a _mesalliance_; and the bitterness increased when none of the foreign members of the imperial family came to take part in the brilliant festivities which preceded or followed the nuptial ceremony. Ill-luck would have it that soon afterwards a first cousin of the new imperial son-in-law and daughter of the ex-King Jerome married a Russian grown rich in trade, a prince in the valley of the Arno but scarcely a gentleman on the banks of the Neva,--a disagreeable accident, and which, according to the amazed courtiers, made the autocrat of all the Russias _the relation of one of his subjects_! It became necessary to efface all these unpleasant impressions, and to take, by a brilliant alliance, an incontestable revenge for so many vexations. It was hoped for a moment to be able to marry the Grand d.u.c.h.ess Alexandra to an arch-duke of Austria, but it was necessary to fall back on a prince of Darmstadt; for the Grand d.u.c.h.ess Olga, the most beautiful and the most beloved of the emperor's daughters, had been chosen by the only prince royal then unengaged, the presumptive heir to the throne of Wurtemberg, of the old and ill.u.s.trious house of Suabia.

The plan was not easily executed. The good Suabian people had little liking for it. A Russian marriage made it tremble for its const.i.tutional liberties; and what was a graver matter, the old King William of Wurtemberg, a good, liberal sovereign, but obstinate in all things, showed himself rather reluctant, and at his own pleasure r.e.t.a.r.ded the negotiation. Other objections came from other sides still; but the Russian minister plenipotentiary at Stuttgart, the old fellow-scholar of Pouchkine, knew how to overcome them all with consummate skill. By aid of art and address, he was able to establish the Grand d.u.c.h.ess Olga in the royal family of Wurtemberg. The joy of the Emperor Nicholas was great and unreserved, and the winter palace sang the panegyrics of the wonderful diplomat. After such a success, Prince Gortchakof could well demand to be promoted in his career, having approached nearer by several strides towards that emba.s.sy of Vienna which was considered as the supreme goal of ambition. He did nothing of this sort, however, and showed an admirable patience,--the patience of the patriarch Jacob with Laban, son of Nahor. To the four years which he had already pa.s.sed at Stuttgart, Alexander Mikhalovitch declared himself ready to add another term more prolonged if it were necessary. He promised the empress-mother to remain indefinitely by the side of the Grand d.u.c.h.ess Olga, to aid her as a guide and counselor in a foreign country and in the midst of surroundings entirely new to her. Barren as the soil might be, he did not despair of growing there under this ray of beauty and of grace, which came directly from the great boreal sun; and in truth he kept this post at Stuttgart for eight more long years. _Tenues grandia conamur!_

However, any point of observation is good for one who understands how to adjust his gla.s.s and question the stars. The resident minister at Stuttgart had extensive information and found means of informing his government of many things quite outside the limits of the horizon of the little kingdom of Wurtemberg. Soon the year 1848 came with its terrible catastrophes, with its great revolutionary earthquakes which added to the experience of the most experienced, which lightened with a sudden glimmer the ignorant depths of human nature, and, in the words of Milton, lightened the darkness. Such a lesson of history was not without profit, one can well believe, to the former scholar of Zarkoe-Zeloe. The _salons_ and the cabinets for a long time had had no secrets from him; he now knew those of the forum and of the cross-roads. The vicinity of Frankfort, seat of the famous parliament, permitted him to study closely and fully the German agitation of this memorable epoch; he understood beforehand the phases, by turns _nave_, burlesque, and odious, and was able to predict in good time the unfailing miscarriage of a revolution, the subdued billows of which foamed for a day even in the streets of Stuttgart, ordinarily so peaceful.

It was in the month of April, 1849. Preceding by twenty years the great work of 1870, the parliament of Frankfort had just formed a German Empire to the exclusion of Austria, and offered the crown to the King of Prussia, Frederick William IV. The King of Prussia hesitated, and ended by declining; the other German princes were still less willing to a.s.sent to a decree which implied their abdication; but this was by no means the plan of the German demagogy. It suddenly fell enthusiastically in love with this const.i.tution, which on the very eve before it had denounced as reactionary, fatal to the liberties of the people, and designed to impose by force the Prussian va.s.salage decreed at Frankfort on different sovereigns of Germany. In Wurtemberg, the chamber of deputies voted a pressing, imperious address in order to draw from the king the recognition of the Emperor Frederick William IV. The monarch replied by a refusal. The riot thundered on the public square, and the members of the court were forced to seek refuge at Ludwigsburg, fleeing from an enraged capital. "I will not submit to the House of Hohenzollern," the old King William of Wurtemberg had said to the deputation of the chamber. "I owe it to my people and to myself. It is not for myself that I speak thus; I have but very few years to live. My duty to my country, my House, my family, forces this course of action on me." Alexander Mikhalovitch, touched by these agitating scenes, by this pathetic protestation of the father-in-law of Olga, "for the House, for the family of Wurtemberg," a.s.suredly had then but little expectation that one day, as Chancellor of the Russian Empire, he would become the most useful auxiliary, the firmest aid of an aggressive, audacious policy, destined to realize in every particular the plan of the rioters of Stuttgart, and to make Queen Olga the va.s.sal of Hohenzollern.

This was, however, nothing but the noisy prologue of a drama yet far distant, and the year 1850 could indeed rejoice at seeing disappear in Germany the very last traces of an agitation which had done nothing but astonish Europe, instead of illuminating and warning it. Towards the end of this year, 1850, the German Confederacy was established anew under the terms of the ancient treaty of Vienna. The _Bundestag_ again commenced its peaceable deliberations, and Prince Gortchakof was quite naturally appointed to represent the Russian Government at the Diet of Frankfort. Alexander Mikhalovitch henceforth had his marked place in a great centre of political affairs, where the personal merit of the minister borrowed a peculiar _eclat_ from the extraordinary fortune which the latest events had created for his august master. Russian influence, at all times very considerable with the ruling houses of Germany, had grown prodigiously, having reached its zenith, one will remember, after the disorders of February. Alone remaining sheltered from the revolutionary tempest which had swept over almost all the States of the Continent, the empire of the czars appeared to be at that time the firmest stronghold of the principles of order and conservatism.

"Humiliate yourselves, nations, G.o.d is with us!" said the Emperor Nicholas in a celebrated proclamation; and without being too much offended at language which made G.o.d in a manner the accessory to a great human boast, monarchical Europe had only acclamations for a prince who, after all, worked with a remarkable disinterestedness for the reestablishment of the legitimate authorities, and for the maintenance of the equilibrium of the world.

In fact, it is just to acknowledge that in these troubled years of 1848-50, the autocrat of the North used his influence, as also his sword, only to strengthen the tottering thrones and to enforce respect for the treaties. He effectively protected Denmark, towards which from this epoch the rapacious hand of Germany was stretched, and he was the most ardent in calling a meeting of the Powers, which ended by s.n.a.t.c.hing from the Germans the coveted prey. He interposed directly in Hungary, and with his military forces helped put down a formidable insurrection there, which had shaken to its foundations the ancient empire of Hapsburg, undermined at the same time by intestine troubles and an aggressive war which the kingdom of Piedmont had twice stirred up against it. Little favoring by his principles and interests this united Germany, "of which the first thought was a thought of unjust extension, the first cry a cry of war,"[3] he later used all his power in bringing about the reestablishment pure and simple, of the German Confederation on the same basis as prior to 1848. The bonds of relations.h.i.+p and of friends.h.i.+p which united him to the court of Berlin were never strong enough to make him abandon for a single instant the cause of the sovereignty of princes, and of the independence of the States; and in spite of the sincere affection which he bore "his brother-in-law, the poet," he neither spared the King of Prussia, Frederick William IV., the evacuation of the Duchies, nor the hard conditions of Olmutz. Defender of European right on the Eider and the Main, of monarchical right on the Theiss and Danube, peacemaker for Germany, and, so to say, wholesale dealer in justice for Europe, Nicholas had at this moment a true greatness, an immense _prestige_, well merited on the whole, and which allowed no reflection on the agents charged with representing away from home a policy of which no one dared contest the immovable firmness and the perfect justice.

The Emperor Nicholas, in accrediting Prince Gortchakof to the German Confederation, in an autograph letter dated 11th November, 1850, recognized in the reunion of the Diet of Frankfort "a pledge for the maintenance of the general peace," and thus characterized by an able and judicious act, the honorable and salutary mission of this Diet in ordering matters created by the treaties of 1815. However legitimate the grievances of the liberal Germans were against the internal policy of the _Bund_[4] and its tendencies, little favorable to the development of the const.i.tutional _regime_, yet one cannot deny that, according to the European point of view, and with regard to the equilibrium and the general peace of the world, this was a marvelous conception, well fitted to preserve the independence of the States and to hinder any deep perturbation in the bosom of the Christian family. The chimerical and mercantile minds of the times, the leading men of Manchester and the rich publicists, with at least "one idea a day," imagined that this was the moment to declare "war to war," to force a universal disarmament, to abolish military slavery; and to this effect they convoked noisy congresses of peace in different parts of the world. They had, indeed, in a day of _navete_, convoked one at Frankfort, without suspecting that by their side, and in this very _Bundestag_ of such modest appearance, had sat for a long time a true and permanent congress of peace,--a congress which would do as much good as possible, and which, moreover, would have the advantage of not being ridiculous.

Placed in the very centre of Europe, separating by its large and immovable body the great military powers which form the border, so to speak, of our old continent,--a power neutral by necessity and almost by law over those great plains, where in former times the destinies of empires were decided,--the German Confederation formed an _ensemble_ of States sufficiently coherent and compact to repulse any shock from abroad, yet not strong enough to become aggressive itself and to menace the security of its neighbors. Many years later, and when chancellor of the empire, Prince Gortchakof, in a celebrated circular, rendered homage to this beneficial combination of the _Bund_, "a combination purely and exclusively defensive," which permitted the localization of a war, become inevitable, "instead of generalizing it and of giving to the struggle a character and proportions beyond all human calculation, and which in any case would pile up ruins and cause torrents of blood to flow."[5]

In truth, if in this long half century which intervened between the Congress of Vienna and the ill-omened battle of Sadowa, the frontiers of the States have changed so little in spite of so many and so great changes in their political complexion; if the revolution of July, the campaign of Belgium, and even the wars of the Crimea and Italy have been carried on without noticeably disturbing the balance of the nations, or injuring them in their independence, we are specially indebted to this _Bundestag_ so unappreciated, which by its very existence, by its position, and the wheelwork of its completed mechanism, prevented any conflict from becoming a general conflagration. It is doubtful whether the cause of humanity and civilization, or the very cause which the chancellor of Russia more specially represents with such facility and _eclat_, have gained in any considerable degree in seeing this old "combination" replaced in our time by another, more simple, it is true, but, perhaps, also much less calculated to restore confidence.

While acquitting himself zealously of the duties of his office in connection with the Germanic Confederation, Alexander Mikhalovitch continued to occupy the post of minister plenipotentiary at Stuttgart.

He held it to be a matter of honor to fulfill to the end his confidential and intimate mission by the side of the Grand d.u.c.h.ess Olga.

He divided his time between the free city on the Main, the seat of the _Bund_, and the little capital on the banks of the Neckar, where a warm and kind interest always greeted him. At Frankfort he took especial pleasure in the society of his Prussian colleague, a young lieutenant in the _Landwehr_,[6] an entire novice in the diplomatic career, although marked out for such a prodigious destiny. There had been settled here for many years a great Russian celebrity, a poet, who was at the same time an influential courtier, and who could not be overlooked by a diplomat with a love for intellectual enjoyments, and who had been a school-fellow of Pouchkine. The good and mild Va.s.sili Joukofski had certainly none of the genius of Pouchkine, nor his independent and ardent character. More properly a facile versifier and an ingenious translator than a creative and original mind, with a nature rather effeminate and contemplative, the formerly renowned author of "Ondine"

had early made his peace with the official society which the despotic will of Nicholas had created, and had always sunned himself in the rays of imperial favor.

During his long and pleasant career as poet at the court, he had not been without dignities and honors. He, however, had a mission much more important and honorable; he was charged with directing the education of the heir-presumptive, Alexander, the present emperor, and of his brother the Grand Duke Constantine. Joukofski devoted himself to this task with intelligence and ardor, and retained the affection of his two august pupils to the end of his life. A proof of this fact is the correspondence which ensued and which he still maintained with them while at Frankfort. These letters were published quite recently. After having finished the education of the grand dukes, he made a voyage of pleasure in Germany. At Dusseldorf he found a companion for life, much younger than himself, but sharing all his tastes, even his charming weaknesses. He finally selected a home on the banks of the Main, at Frankfort.

Thus, as it happens to more than one of his compatriots, Joukofski, living entirely in a foreign country, and being indeed manifestly unwilling to return to his native land, considered the Occident miserably sunken and corrupted, and hoped only in "holy Russia" for the renovation and safety of a world overrun and possessed by the demon of revolution. The events of February only served to confirm him in these gloomy visions and to plunge him more and more into an uneasy mysticism, at times even irritating, but more often inoffensive and not devoid of a certain unhealthy charm. The campaign of Hungary caused a momentary diversion in his sad thoughts, and filled him with joy. It was not so much the glory with which the Russian army covered itself which pleased his mind; it was not even the triumph attained by the Russian sword, the sword of St. Michael, over "the impure beast:" his prayers, his hopes went far beyond. He hoped--thus he wrote to his imperial pupil that the great czar would profit by the power which G.o.d had given him and would "solve a problem on which the crusades had stranded;" that is to say, that he should drive the infidel from Byzantium, and liberate the holy land. Mme. Joukofski, although born a Protestant, felt in unison with her melancholy husband. Her soul had need of a "principle of authority,"

which failed her in the reformed confession, and which she sought one day in the Orthodox Church, to the great joy of the poet, without, however, being able to find there perfect rest.

Sometimes in the _salon_ of the Joukofski the conversations were strangely varied and _bizarre_, on literature, politics, the glorious destinies of holy Russia, the inanity of modern civilization, the necessity of "a new eruption of Christianity," and on many matters invisible and "ineffable." Occasionally there fell into the midst of this _salon_, like a fantastic apparition, like a ghost from the world of spirits, a genius original and powerful in a very different way, but also tormented and troubled differently from the good court poet and former preceptor of the grand dukes. After having unveiled the hideous sores of Russian society with a vigorous, implacable hand, after having presented to his nation, in "Les Ames Mortes" and in "L'Inspecteur," a picture whose vices were appalling with truth and life, Nicholas Gogol suddenly gave up in despair civilization, progress, and liberty, and betaking himself to adore that which he had burned, valued nothing but barbarian Muscovy, saw no salvation but in despotism, thought himself in a state of "unpardonable" sin, and went in search of divine pity which always fled from him. Shortly afterwards he went from St. Petersburg to Rome, then to Jerusalem, then to Paris, everywhere seeking appeas.e.m.e.nt for his lacerated soul. Then he came from time to time to Joukofski, and pa.s.sed whole weeks in his house, exhorting his friends to prayer, to repentance, and to contemplation of the divine mysteries. There were discussions without end, without a truce, on the "heathens of the Occident," on "a crusade," which was drawing near, on the redemption of sinful humanity by a race not yet defiled, and which had kept its faith.

At several revivals the physicians were forced to interfere to put an end to a connection not without peril. One day Gogol was found, having died of inanition, prostrate before the holy images, in the adoration of which he had lost all thought of himself.... May we be pardoned for this short digression. It makes us acquainted with the state of the minds of a certain Russian society towards the end of the reign of Nicholas, and adds a curious stroke to the picture of the origins of the war in the Orient. One delights, however, to think of Alexander Mikhalovitch in this _salon_ of the Joukofski, on an evening for instance, during such an intellectual conflict with the poor Gogol. The diplomat, equally cultivated and skeptical, was certainly made to recognize the bright and brilliant flashes which furrowed those driving clouds in a great, disordered mind; and he was made to unravel more than one strong and thrilling thought from the midst of those strange ramblings concerning an imminent crusade and the near deliverance of Zion.

Who would have thought it? It was these mystics, these men laboring under hallucinations, who had the true presentiment and saw the signs of the times! While Joukofski composed his "Commentary on Holy Russia," and Gogol mortified himself before the _icones_, the Emperor Nicholas revolved in his mind the great thought of a crusade, and prepared in the most profound secrecy the mission of Prince Menchikof. The fact that the monarch who had done so much for preserving the peace and equilibrium of Europe had suddenly decided to throw such a fire-brand of war in the midst of the continent scarcely consolidated, while on the other hand the autocrat had awaited precisely this epoch of relative calm and of the reestablishment of general order to announce his designs, in place of executing them boldly some years before during the revolutionary tempest which paralyzed almost all the Powers, his armies being already in the very heart of Hungary and commanding the banks of the Danube,--these facts will be for the impartial historian an evident proof of the good faith with which the czar undertook his fatal campaign, of the mystical blindness which guided his spirit at this time, and of the profound conviction which he had of the justice of his cause. Did Prince Gortchakof partake in the same measure of the illusions of his master? We doubt whether he did. We believe that, like the Kisselef, the Meyendorf, the Brunnow, and all the distinguished diplomats of Russia, without excepting the chancellor of the empire, the old Count Nesselrode, he was conscious of the great error toward which a proud prince, who allowed no objections and understood being "his own minister of foreign affairs," was tending. That naturally did not prevent the Russian representative to the German Confederation from fulfilling his duty with all the zeal which circ.u.mstances so critical made necessary, and from placing the various resources of his mind at the service of his country in the sphere of action which was reserved for him.

Events did not make it of much importance. In the _Bundestag_ were concentrated not only all the efforts of the secondary States of the confederation, but there also were formed or conceived the projects, the preparations, and even the desires of the two princ.i.p.al German powers, the a.s.sistance of which Russia on the one side and France and England on the other, were equally concerned in obtaining. Prince Gortchakof could not complain of the turn affairs took in Germany.

Frederick William IV. was faithful against every temptation. The czar could count in any case on "his brother-in-law, the poet;" and Alexander Mikhalovitch found an equally firm support in his colleague of Prussia, the young officer of the _Landwehr_. The cabinet of Berlin consented from time to time to join in the representations which the allies sent to St. Petersburg, to sign in concert with them the same note, or one a.n.a.logous or concordant. But it did not take long to see that it only did this to r.e.t.a.r.d their movements, and to deter them from any energetic resolution. At decisive moments it stopped short, hesitated, and pretended to preserve "_la main libre_" (_free Hand_). The other members of the _Bund_ were much more sympathetic and more frankly won over to the Russian policy. They did not think the demands of the czar against Turkey at all exorbitant, and troubled themselves very little about the preservation of the "sick man." They likewise desired to preserve "_la main libre_," closed their ranks in the famous conferences of Bamberg, and were at times all ready to draw their swords. In truth, Alexander Mikhalovitch showed in the sequel, in the fatal year 1866, very little grat.i.tude, very little distributive justice, for these poor secondary States, so devoted, so serviceable, so immovably attached at the time of the Oriental crisis.

While at London and at Paris vehement comments were made in the celebrated dispatches of Sir Hamilton Seymour, and the ambitious projects of Russia were denounced there, at Hanover, at Dresden, at Munich, at Stuttgart, at Ca.s.sel, nothing but censure was heard against the proceedings of the allies and their "usurpations." At Berlin they groaned all the more at seeing Christian monarchies undertake so ardently the defense of the Crescent. A single Germanic power, however, at that time the largest it is true, maintained a different att.i.tude; a single one thought the cause of the allies just, seemed, indeed, at moments to be inclined to make common cause with them; and that power was Austria,--Austria, but lately succored by the Russian arms; saved by the strong and generous hand of the czar on the very brink of the abyss; "saved" by him from sudden dissolution. The astonishment, the stupefaction, the exasperation of the Emperor Nicholas knew no bounds.

The entire Russian nation shared his sentiments,--Alexander Mikhalovitch like every patriotic Muscovite. "The immense ingrat.i.tude of Austria" became even then the unanimous cry,--the _siboleth_ of every political faith in the vast empire of the North; and so it has remained even to our days.

It is necessary to lay stress upon this sentiment born in Russia in consequence of the Oriental conflict, and to discuss the real causes for it; for this sentiment has produced incalculable effects. It has contributed largely to the recent catastrophes; it has dictated more than one extreme resolution to the cabinet of St. Petersburg; it has made it abandon its venerable traditions,--its principles, consecrated by the experience of generations and seemingly immovable, having become, in a certain sense, the _arcana imperii_ of the descendants of Peter the Great. To sum up, it has governed the general policy of the successor of Nesselrode during the last twenty years.

a.s.suredly Russia had the right to count on the recognition of Austria after the signal and incontestable service which it had rendered her in 1849. The armies which the czar then sent to the succor of the tottering empire of Hapsburg contributed powerfully to suppress a fatal, menacing insurrection there; and if it is true that in order to obtain this succor it was sufficient to recall to the Czar Nicholas a word given long before in a moment of confidential intimacy, the action does not become the less meritorious, and does so much the more honor to the heart of the autocrat.[7] It would be difficult to deny that this intervention in Hungary had not a generous and chivalric character which astonished the contemporaries and the clever. The clever ones, the statesmen, who, at this troubled epoch of Europe, had still preserved enough liberal spirit to cast their eyes toward the Danube,--Lord Palmerston among others,--remained for a long time incredulous, and endeavored to divine the reward paid for the aid that was lent. Should not the czar retain Galicia as a recompense for his a.s.sistance? Would he not procure some positive a.s.surance from the side of the Princ.i.p.alities?

was asked in the offices of Downing Street. Nothing of the sort happened, however. The Russians left Austria without a reward, as they had entered it without an _arriere-pensee_, and the troops of Paskevitch evacuated the country of the Carpathians unladen with booty. A young and ardent orator in the Prussian chambers, with the name (as yet but little known) de Bismarck,--the same who fifteen years later was to project striking a _coup au coeur_ and arming the legions of Klapka,--admired at this moment the brilliant action of the czar, and only expressed the patriotic regret that this magnanimous _role_ had not fallen to his own country, to Prussia. It was for Prussia to bring a.s.sistance to its elder brother in Germany, to "its former comrade in arms."[8] But it is allowable to suppose that, even with a king as loyal and poetic as Frederick William IV., affairs would have been conducted much less handsomely than with the barbarian of the North, and that similar aid from Prussia would have cost the empire of Hapsburg a part of Silesia or a part of its influence on the Main.

Shall we say, then, that in intervening in Hungary the Emperor of Russia acted from pure chivalry and platonic friends.h.i.+p, that he had no thought of personal interest and the good of his empire? Certainly not; and the czar had too much loyalty not to avow it frankly. He intervened in Hungary, not only as the friend of the Hapsburg, not only as the defender of the cause of order against cosmopolitan revolution; the most powerful motive in deciding him was the presence in the Hungarian army of Polish generals and officers, who intended to carry the war into the countries subjected to Russian rule. In his manifest of the 8th May, 1849, Nicholas expressed himself as follows: "The insurrection sustained by the influence of _our traitors from Poland_, of the year 1831, has given to the Hungarian revolt an extension more and more _menacing_....

His majesty, the Emperor of Austria, has invited us to a.s.sist against _the common enemy_.... We have ordered our army under way to quell the revolt, and to destroy the audacious anarchists, _who equally menace the tranquillity of our provinces_." The language was clear and frank, as was fitting for a sovereign preserving the consciousness of his dignity.

This sovereign intended to render himself a service as well as his ally.

He was going to stifle in his neighbors' territory an incendiary fire which threatened to harm his own domains; and in the act of intervening, let it be well understood, he at the same time acted in self-preservation.

Well! it seems according to all justice that the grat.i.tude should correspond to the service rendered, and that the law of preservation, the supreme law of nature, should have equal force for the party under obligations as for the benefactor. There is no policy in the world, were it even taken from Holy Writ which could advise voluntary servitude; there is no doctrine, however sublime one wishes to imagine it, which, among the duties of the confession, recommends suicide. Now, it was nothing less than absolute subjection, the ruin of its personality as a great European State, which the Russians demanded of Austria in demanding its a.s.sent to their pretensions against the Orient. By geography, by the spirit of races, by religion, the Russian enterprises would strike a mortal blow at the empire of the Hapsburg, if this empire allowed them to triumph. A Danubian power, Austria should take care that the Lower Danube remained neutral, and that it should not fall into the hands of a powerful neighbor, who would then become master of this great river. A Sclavic power in its Oriental provinces, it ought to guard against being placed in immediate contact with an empire pan-Sclavic by tradition and by fatality, and it could not wish it to be planted in the Princ.i.p.alities, in Bosnia and Herzegovania. A Catholic power, it was forbidden to recognize the influence and the protectorate which the orthodox czar claimed over the Christians of the Grecian rite, of whom it counted several millions among its subjects. "My conduct in the question of the Orient! Why it is written on a map?" said Count Buol, to his brother-in-law, M. de Meyendorf, the Russian amba.s.sador. He added that it was also written in history. "I have made no innovation. I have only inherited the political legacy of M. de Metternich."