Poor Britannic Majesty: Archduke Joseph came to be King of the Romans, in due course; right enough. And long before that event (almost before George had ended his vain effort to hasten it), Austria turned on its pivot; and had clasped, not England to its bosom, but France (thanks to that exquisite Kaunitz); and was in arms AGAINST England, dear Hanover, and the Cause of Liberty!
Vain to look too far ahead,--especially with those fish-eyes.
Smelfungus has a Note on Kaunitz; readable, though far too irreverent of that superlative Diplomatist, and unjust to the real human merits he had.
"The struggles of Britannic George to get a King of the Romans elected were many. Friedrich never would bite at this salutary scheme for strengthening the House of Austria: 'A bad man, is not he?' And all the while, the Court of Austria seemed indifferent, in comparison;--and Graf von Kaunitz-Rietberg, Ambassador at Paris, was secretly busy, wheeling Austria round on its axis, France round on its; and bringing them to embrace in political wedlock!
Feat accomplished by his Excellency Kaunitz (Paris, 1752-1753);--accomplished, not consummated; left ready for consummating when he, Kaunitz, now home as Prime Minister, or helmsman on the new tack, should give signal. Thought to be one of the cleverest feats ever done by Diplomatic art.
"Admirable feat, for the Diplomatic art which it needed; not, that I can see, for any other property it had. Feat which brought, as it was intended to do, a Third Silesian War; death of about a million fighting men, and endless woes to France and Austria in particular.
An exquisite Diplomatist this Kaunitz; came to be Prince, almost to be God-Brahma in Austria, and to rule the Heavens and Earth (having skill with his Sovereign Lady, too), in an exquisite and truly surprising manner. Sits there sublime, like a gilt crockery Idol, supreme over the populations, for near forty years.
"One reads all Biographies and Histories of Kaunitz: [Hormayr's (in OEsterreichischer Plutarch, iv. 3tes, 231-283); &c. &c.] one catches evidence of his well knowing his Diplomatic element, and how to rule it and impose on it.
Traits there are of human cunning, shrewdness of eye;--of the loftiest silent human pride, stoicism, perseverance of determination,--but not, to my remembrance, of any conspicuous human wisdom whatever, One asks, Where is his wisdom? Enumerate, then, do me the pleasure of enumerating, What he contrived that the Heavens answered Yes to, and not No to? All silent! A man to give one thoughts. Sits like a God-Brahma, human idol of gilt crockery, with nothing in the belly of it (but a portion of boiled chicken daily, very ill-digested); and such a prostrate worship, from those around him, as was hardly seen elsewhere. Grave, inwardly unhappy-looking; but impenetrable, uncomplaining. Seems to have passed privately an Act of Parliament: 'Kaunitz-Rietberg here, as you see him, is the greatest now alive; he, I privately assure you!'--and, by continued private determination, to have got all men about him to ratify the same, and accept it as valid. Much can be done in that way with stupidish populations; nor is Beau Brummel the only instance of it, among ourselves, in the later epochs.
"Kaunitz is a man of long hollow face, nose naturally rather turned into the air, till artificially it got altogether turned thither.
Rode beautifully; but always under cover; day by day, under glass roof in the riding-school, so many hours or minutes, watch in hand.
Hated, or dreaded, fresh air above everything: so that the Kaiserinn, a noble lover of it, would always good-humoredly hasten to shut her windows when he made her a visit. Sumptuous suppers, soirees, he had; the pink of Nature assembling in his house;galaxy, domestic and foreign, of all the Vienna Stars. Through which he would walk one turn; glancing stoically, over his nose, at the circumambient whirlpool of nothings,--happy the nothing to whom he would deign a word, and make him something. O my friends!--In short, it was he who turned Austria on its axis, and France on its, and brought them to the kissing pitch. Pompadour and Maria Theresa kissing mutually, like Righteousness and--not PEACE, at any rate!
'MA CHERE COUSINE,' could I have believed it, at one time?"A SECOND Prussian-English cause of offence had arisen, years ago, and was not yet settled; nay is now (Spring, 1753) at its height or crisis: Offence in regard to English Privateering.
Friedrich, ever since Ost-Friesland was his, has a considerable Foreign Trade,--not as formerly from Stettin alone, into the Baltic Russian ports; but from Embden now, which looks out into the Atlantic and the general waters of Europe and the World.