Metternich and the Duchess: The Public and Private Lives at the Congress of Vienna

by Dorothy Gies McGuigan

The public and private lives at the Congress of Vienna. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 038502827X
• ISBN13: 9780385028271
• Release Date: January 1975
• Publisher: Doubleday
• Length: 578 Pages
• Weight: 2.20 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Brian Wells, Esquire, reviews "Metternich and the Duchess"

This was a delightful book on the great early nineteenth century stateman and minister of the Austrian Empire. The book is not so much a biography of Metternich or Wilhemine, Duchess of Sagan, as it is a chronicle of their roles at the Congress of Vienna September of 1814--June of 1815). The Congress of Vienna was not so much a multi-party coference as a series of bilateral arrangements worked out by the ministers of the various of the Empires of Russia, Austria, Britain, the Kingdom of Prussia and the other countries that made up the victorious coalition that had just defeated Napoleon. These arranges were concluded at dancing balls which were held in the great palaces in and around Vienna. One such palace hall was the home of the Wilhelmine, Duchess of Sagan. Because of her close friendship with Metternich who would come to dominate the "congress," Wilhelmine's palace home would become an major location where many of the agreements would be reached. Likewise her salon in Vienna itself would become the Austrian diplomatic headquarters of the Congress and Ratiborzitz, her manor in Bohemia would become a place for secret meetings between ministers of the various states. Wilhemine was an intelligent and ambicious woman who trapped in the mores and customs of her time and prevented from exercising directly any influence on the political events of her time. However, she was not unaware of the resources that she had, the great palaces and manors and her close platonic relationship to Metternich. She became aware that what she could not do directly she could do indirectly. Metternich appears of have appreciated her intelligence and the hre view of how the "congress" should be conducted. As a consequence, she became the "hostess" of the Congress of Vienna she had an influence on the new order that was being inposed on Europe in 1815 which went far beyond what people expected of a woman of her day. One interesting sidelight in the book was how into this world of Straus waltzes, one dancing ball introduced a "polka." The new dance from the east had never been heard before in respectible society and, consequently, it created a scandal. Dire consequences to the sexual mores of young people were predicted if the polka dance were allow to become common practice!!