“Thun in his outward appearance has something of a hearty good fellow mixed with a touch of the Vienna roue.  Underneath this he hides, I will not say great political power and intellectual gifts, but an uncommon cleverness and cunning, which with great presence of mind appears from underneath the mask of harmless good-humour as soon as politics are concerned.  I consider him as an opponent who is dangerous to anyone who honestly trusts him, instead of paying back in his own coin.”

His judgment on his other colleagues is equally decisive; of the Austrian diplomatists he writes: 

“one must never expect that they will make what is right the foundation of their policy for the simple reason that it is the right.  Cautious dishonesty is the characteristic of their association with us.  They have nothing which awakens confidence.  They intrigue under the mask of good-fellowship.”

It was impossible to look for open co-operation from them;

“their mouths are full of the necessity for common action, but when it is a question of furthering our wishes, then officially it is, ‘We will not oppose,’ and a secret pleasure in preparing obstacles.”

It was just the same with the envoys of the other countries:  with few exceptions there is none for whom right has any value in itself.

“They are caricatures of diplomatists who put on their official physiognomy if I ask them for a light, and select gestures and words with a truly Regensburg caution, if they ask for the key of the water-closet.”  Writing to Gerlach he speaks of “the lying, double-tongued policy of the Austrians.  Of all the lies and intrigues that go on up and down the Rhine an honest man from the old Mark has no conception.  These South German children of nature are very corrupt.”

His opinion of the diplomatists does not seem to have improved as he knew them better.  Years later he wrote: 

“There are few diplomatists who in the long run do not prefer to capitulate with their conscience and their patriotism, and to guard the interests of their country and their sovereign with somewhat less decision, rather than, incessantly and with danger to their personal position, to contend with the difficulties which are prepared for them by a powerful and unscrupulous enemy.”

He does not think much better of his own Prussian colleagues; he often complains of the want of support which he received.  “With us the official diplomacy,” he writes, “is capable of playing under the same roof with strangers against their own countrymen.”

These letters are chiefly interesting because of the light they throw on his own character at the beginning of his diplomatic career; we must not take them all too seriously.  He was too good a raconteur not to make a good story better, and too good a letter-writer not to add something to the effect of his descriptions; besides, as he says elsewhere, he did not easily see the good side of people; his eyes were sharper for their faults than their good qualities.[4] After the first few passages of arms he got on well enough with Thun; when he was recalled two years later Bismarck spoke of him with much warmth.  “I like him personally, and should be glad to have him for a neighbour at Schoenhausen.”