The Congress of Vienna 65
were made in these devious and undemocratic ways were
finally gathered together into what was called the final act
of the Congress of Vienna and signed just a few days before
the battle of Waterloo.
Outwardly the congress seemed an assembly of notables
bent on pleasure alone. Vienna spent a sum equivalent to at
least fifty thousand dollars a day on the entertainment of its
guests. One who was there tells us: “The emperors dance,
Metternich dances, Castlereagh dances. Only the Prince de
Talleyrand does not dance,” having a club-foot. “He plays
whist.” It seemed to the Prince de Ligne, as it must also
have seemed to an eagerly waiting world, so soon to be
disillusioned when it found back, of the mask of fine phrases
the same old selfishness and greed, that “the congress danced
but did not advance.” This same prince found himself about
to die in the midst of the celebrations, and as he died he
said: “I am preparing for the members of this congress a
new amusement, the obsequies of a field marshal, a cavalier
of the Golden Fleece.”
Under all this appearance of gaiety there was enough of
bitterness and of hatred. This was directed especially
against Prussia and Russia, which had agreed, under the
influence of Stein, that one was to receive Saxony and the
other Poland. To these arrangements Austria was bitterly
opposed, and Talleyrand made skilful use of the occasion to
make himself leader of the opposition. England at first had
her hands tied on account of the war against the United
States. Her veteran soldiers had burned Washington in
August and were soon to meet the sharpshooters of Andrew
Jackson at New Orleans. On December 24 the peace of
Ghent was signed with the United States, not so much, as
Clay fondly believed, on account of his skill as a diplomat,
but because there was every likelihood of even more stirring