e subterranean fires of liberty would burst forth
when least expected, and overthrow the strongest thrones.

But amid all the reforms which took place in England, in France, in
Belgium, in Piedmont, Austria remained stationary, so cemented was the
power of Metternich, so overwhelming was his influence,--the one central
figure in Germany for eighteen years longer. In 1835 the Emperor Francis
died, recommending to his son and successor Ferdinand to lean on the
powerful arm of the chancellor, and continue him in great offices. Nor
was it until the outbreak in Vienna in 1848, when emperor and minister
alike fled from the capital, that the official career of Metternich
closed, and he finally retired to his estates at Johannisberg to spend
his few declining years in leisure and peace.

For forty years Metternich had borne the chief burdens of the State. For
forty years his word was the law of Germany. For forty years all the
cabinets of continental Europe were guided more or less by his advice;
and his advice, from first to last, was uniform,--to put down popular
movements and uphold absolutism at any cost, and severely punish all
people, of whatever rank or character, who tempted the oppressed to
shake off their fetters, or who dared to give expression to emancipating
ideas, even in the halls of universities.

In view of the execrable tyranny, both political and religious, which
Metternich succeeded in establishing for thirty years, it is natural for
an ordinary person to look upon him as a monster,--hard, cruel,
unscrupulous, haughty, gloomy; a sort of Wallenstein or Strafford, to be
held in abhorrence; a man to be assassinated as the enemy of mankind.

But Metternich was nothing of the sort. As a man, in all his private
relations he was amiable, gentle, and kind to everybody, and greatly
revered by domestic servants and public functionaries. By his imperial
master he was treated as a brother or friend, rather than as a minister;
while on his part he never presumed on any liberties, and seemed simply
to obey the orders of his sovereign,--orders which he himself suggested,
with infinite tact and politeness; unlike Stein and Bismarck, who were
overbearing and rude even in the presence of the sovereign and court.
Metternich had better manners and more self-control. Indeed, he was the
model of a gentleman wherever he went. He was the hardest worked man in
the empire; and he worked from the stimulus of what he conceived to be