At the congress Metternich's charm of manner and great social gifts gave him much personal influence; the ease and versatility with which he handled intricate diplomatic questions, too, excited admiration; at the same time he was blamed for his leaning to intrigue and finesse and for a certain calculated disingenuousness which led to an open breach with the Emperor Alexander.
Whatever the real wisdom of the decisions, he reached a settlement in Germany and Italy precisely in accordance with his wishes and emerged from the congress, of which he had been unquestionably the greatest figure, wholly content with his work. He was destined to spend most of the remainder of his life in an attempt to stabilize and make permanent the situation which he had so largely helped to create. The key-note of his policy henceforward was his attempt to use the European concert as an instrument for ensuring the "stability" of Europe by sup pressing any "revolutionary" movements. Both Austria's multi national character, and her central position in Europe caused him to follow a policy that was essentially European. "C'est que depuis longtemps l'Europe a pris pour moi la valeur d'une patrie," he said to the Duke of Wellington in 1824; and to his wife he wrote : "I have become a species of moral power in Germany, and perhaps even in Europe." In part this was due, no doubt, to personal vanity, but he had also arranged his system so that it must feel the shock of any disturbance even in the remote parts of Europe, much more in Germany, Italy or Austria itself. So in his system of diplomacy by congress, Metternich, everywhere the central figure, busied himself in repressing liberty, whether in Germany, Spain or Italy. At first his dominance was unquestioned, especially after he had finally won the Tsar Alexander over to his side; it was weakened first by the ascension to office of Can ning in England, and still further by the revival of the Eastern Question (q.v.) in the shape of the Greek revolution, which left Austria isolated in the Near East. The revolutions of 1830 seemed to threaten Metternich's system, yet gave it, at least, a temporary new lease of life. The Berlin convention of Oct. 15, 1833, which reaffirmed the divine right of intervention was a fresh triumph for Metternich's diplomacy, yet it was his last conspicuous inter vention in the general affairs of Europe. Although he himself hardly realized it, his system had already passed away.
In domekic affairs Metternich was not, indeed, the whole hearted reactionary for which he was often taken. He was too intelligent not to see the abuses inherent in the Austrian govern mental system, and would gladly have remedied some of them. The real author of the incredibly reactionary and aggressive regime in Austria in the opening half of the 19th century was the Emperor Francis I. Metternich declared himself more than once, and possibly believed himself to be a liberal. But in any case, he lacked the moral courage to urge the reforms which he felt to be necessary, and he certainly misjudged the forces of his time. His mind was essentially i8th century, and he thought in terms of the State not the nation. He saw that nationalism was fatal to Austria's position in Germany, Italy and at home, and for this reason struggled against it ; but he totally miscalculated its real strength, and so the work of his later years, and even at the Congress of Vienna, failed completely to secure the stability which he preached. Although for many years chancellor of
Austria, he was not, indeed, primarily interested in internal policy, not mainly responsible for it, and probably could not have re formed it greatly. After the death of Francis I. he was, in any case, too old to change. He was too experienced not to realize the sickness of the State, but he was content to veil it from him self and to attempt to veil it from others. The world was not deceived; but it was not until the Vienna mob, in 1848, was thundering at the door of his cabinet that Metternich himself realized the truth to which he had tried to blind himself. With his fall his system also fell ; and his flight from Vienna was the signal for the revolutions of 1848.
The resignation of Prince Metternich, handed in on March 13, 1848, was accepted by the emperor on the i8th, and the prince and his family at once left for England. Here he lived in great retirement, at Brighton and London, until Oct. 1849, when he went to Brussels. In May 1851 he went to his estate of Johannes berg ; in September he returned to Vienna. The events of 1848 had not shaken his self-complacency; they seemed to him rather to confirm the soundness of his own political principles. He died on June 11, 1859.
Probably no statesman has, in his own day, been more be slavered with praise and bespattered with abuse than Metternich. By one side he was reverenced as the infallible oracle of diplomatic inspiration, by the other he was loathed and despised as the very incarnation of the spirit of obscurantism and oppression. The victories of democracy brought the latter view into fashion, and to the liberal historians of the latter part of the 19th century the name of Metternich was synonymous with that of a system in which they could recognize nothing but a senseless opposition.
The later reaction against this view found its fullest expression in the work of Srbik (see below) ; but Srbik's own estimate has been questioned. Of the "technique" of diplomacy Metternich was a master. His despatches are models of diplomatic style. They, are, indeed, sententious, over-elaborate and excessively lengthy, yet their phrase-making was often the result of astute calculation.
In private life Metternich was a kind, if not always faithful, husband and a good father, devoted to his children, of whom he had the misfortune to lose several before his death. He was three times married. His second wife, Baroness Antonie von Leykam, Countess von Beilstein, died in 1829; his third wife, Melanie, Countess Zichy-Ferraris, died on March 3, 1854. Of his sons three survived him : Richard Clemens Lothar (1829-95), his son by his second marriage, who was Austrian ambassador in Paris from 1859 to 1871; Prince Paul (1834-1906) and Prince Lothar (1837-1904), his sons by his third marriage. His grandson Prince Clemens (b. 1869), son of Prince Paul, married in 1905 Isabella de Silva Carvajal, daughter of the marquis de Santa Cruz.