The Changing of the Guard: A Young Disraeli, A Giant of Victorian England, Bids Farewell to the Austrian Metternich, Who Helped Define the Napoleonic Era

Prince Klemens von Metternich was a dominating figure at the Congress of Vienna, the international peace conference convened in 1814 near the close of the Napoleonic wars. The peace settlement, reached at Vienna in 1815 was based on conservative principles shared by the Austrian delegate, Metternich; the British delegate, Viscount Castlereagh; the French delegate, Talleyrand; and the formerly liberal Russian Tsar Alexander I. These principles were traditionalism, in reaction to 25 years of rapid change; legitimism, and restoration of monarchs ousted after 1789. He presided over what many call the “Age of Metternich” when international diplomacy helped prevent major wars in Europe. He went on to serve as long-time Chancellor of the Austrian Empire.

The Revolutions of 1848 were a counter reaction to that Convservatism and resulted in the exile of Metternich and of King Louis-Philippe of France. Metternich eventually found his new home in exile in England, where Benjamin Disraeli was a frequent visitor. It is thrilling to think of one of the giants of the Napoleonic era meeting with a giant of the Victorian era, and one wishes one could have been in the room. In late 1849, Metternich left for Brussels because of its proximity to some of his allies and also because it was less expensive.

In the election in July 1837, at the age of 33, Disraeli ] won a seat in the House of Commons. Destined to preside over his own era as the Prime Minister of Great Britain, he was in 1849 still a fairly back bench member of Parliament. In a way, this was a transition period. The diplomats of the prior generation, like Metternich, were aging or dead. Queen Victoria had taken over only in 1837, and the governments on the Continent were rapidly changing.

Autograph letter signed, Disraeli’s home at Hughenden Manor, October 18, 1849, to Henry Coburn. Disraeli was widely-read author and Coburn his publisher. “My dear sir, I found upon my table your letter and a farewell one from Prince Metternich, who passes the winter at Brussels and will not in all probability ever return to ‘ce bon et beau pays,’ as he calls our country.

“I could therefore do nothing for you. When I called on the Prince he had quit his hotel for the Austrian Embassy, where he lunched and his carriages were at the door.

“I had the satisfaction of embracing him ten minutes before he left London. He was much affected, for one so dignified and serene.”

“Mrs. Disraeli speaks very highly to me of ‘The Fortunes of Woman,’ which she tells me is a capital performance and very original and excellently written. And from some extracts which she has read to me, I am agree with her.”

A remarkable letter linking two of the great figures of Europe of the 19th century.