1831.] Personal and Political Portrait of Prince Metternich. 301 



Avith whom he was associated in a private and friendly meeting in 1 

 1823, he dared to express his hopes that the Treaty of Vienna would 

 be loyally and fully executed in favour of Italy, and that the scanty 

 privileges it yet afforded her might not be withholden. Had he 

 presumed, publicly, to have reminded the government of a promise 

 voluntarily proffered in behalf of his country, his imprudence might 

 with difficulty have been pronounced treason, even by Doctor Francia 

 himself: but to the agents of Austria, a comment on ministerial 

 measures was as hateful in itself as perilous in the sight of 

 tyranny. He was seized : and, after lying long in prison, brought 

 before the Tribunal of Milan, on the accusation of being a Carbonaro 

 (the convenient denunciation throughout Italy where crime is wanting, 

 or proof defective), and he was condemned to die. Thrice did his 

 young and lovely wife leave his dungeon, and cross the Tyrolian Alps, 

 to seek mercy at the hands of the Emperor : and, having twice procured 

 a suspension of her husband's execution, returned on the last occasion 

 with the promise of mitigation of punishment, through the organ of 

 the minister. That promise was fulfilled ; if not to the full extent of 

 his partner's hopes, or the prisoner's merit or, if without reference to 

 the nature and extent of the crime, or the evidence by which it w r as sus- 

 tained humanity must have its due, and truth its honour. It was ful- 

 filled. The Conte di Gonfalonieri was placed in the pillory, on the 

 Piazzeta of the Spirito Santo, at Milan. He was thence conducted, in 

 chains, to the Castle of Spielburg, and is there permitted to calculate 

 the term of his imprisonment, by anticipating that hour " when the 

 weary shall be at rest." It so happened that a wretched Frenchman, 

 of the name of Andryane, was discovered, at the same period, with 

 some Masonic emblems in his portmanteau, and a certificate of his being 

 a member of the society " DCS Amis de la Ver'ite :" so the economy of 

 justice suggested that the sentence applied to the unfortunate Conte 

 might be also adapted to the Gaul. It was so done, and he was allowed 

 the full benefit of a share in the former's condemnation. The simple 

 rule of government announced by old Ferdinand of Naples, to the 

 British Ambassador, " Thanks be to God, Sir, here we have no laws/' 

 if it has hitherto tranquillized the vivacious Italians, may be presumed 

 likely to produce ultimate inconveniences to those who dispense too 

 liberally with legislation. 



In the solitude of private life and the grave silence of his home, the 

 proud and potent station of the minister has been greatly contrasted by 

 those misfortunes, which the adulation of flatterers, or the passive 

 obedience of millions, cannot compensate. Married in early life to a 

 lady of the noble family of Kaunitz one who has been described as 

 scarcely more celebrated for beauty and accomplishments than for her 

 many virtues the first appearance of the Countess at the Imperial Court 

 of Napoleon, (whither the Count went as the ambassador of his sove- 

 reign,) produced a sensation on the cercle at the Tuileries, which first 

 attracted the attention of foreigners to the then unrecognized merits of 

 the Prince. With the termination of his embassy, however, the attach- 

 ment he had evinced for one who well deserved his love expired ; and, 

 separating himself from her who was yet in the prime of life and beauty, 

 for fourteen long years he transferred his affections to his daughter, 

 who inherited more than the charms of one and the grace of the other 

 parent ; and during that period he never infringed the distant limits of 



