The change was marked by the retirement of Stadion, a man whose enterprising character, no less than his enthusiasm for reform, ill fitted him for the time of compromise and subservience now at hand.  He it was who had urged Austria forward in the paths of progress and had sought safety in the people:  he was the Stein of Austria.  But now, on the eve of peace, he earnestly begged to be allowed to resign the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; and the Emperor Francis thereupon summoned to that seemingly thankless office a young diplomatist, who was destined to play a foremost part in the mighty drama of Napoleon’s overthrow, and thereafter to wield by his astute policy almost as great an influence in Central and Southern Europe as the autocrat himself.

Metternich was born at Coblentz in 1773, and was therefore four years the junior of Napoleon.  He came of an old family of the Rhineland, and his father’s position in the service of the old Empire secured him early entrance into the diplomatic circle.  After acting as secretary to the Imperial delegates at the Congress of Rastatt, he occupied the post of Austrian ambassador successively at the Courts of Dresden and Berlin; and in 1806 he was suddenly called to take up the embassy in Paris.  There he displayed charms of courtly tact, and lively and eloquent conversation, which won Napoleon’s admiration and esteem.  He was looked on as a Gallophil; and, like Bismarck at a later crisis, he used his social gifts and powers of cajolery so as to gain a correct estimate of the characters of his future opponents.

Yet, besides these faculties of finesse and intrigue—­and the Miltonic Belial never told lies with more winsome grace—­Metternich showed at times a manly composure and firmness, even when Napoleon unmasked a searching fire of diplomatic questions and taunts.  Of this he had given proof shortly before the outbreak of the late war, and his conduct had earned the thanks of the other ambassadors for giving the French Emperor a lesson in manners, while the autocrat liked him none the less, but rather the more, for standing up to him.  But now, after the war, all was changed; craft was more serviceable than fortitude; and the gay Rhinelander brought to the irksome task of subservience to the conqueror a courtly insouciance under which he nursed the hope of ultimate revenge.—­“From the day when peace is signed,” he wrote to the Emperor Francis on August 10th, 1809, “we must confine our system to tacking and turning, and flattering.  Thus alone may we possibly preserve our existence, till the day of general deliverance."[219] This was to be the general drift of Austrian policy for the next four years; and it may be granted that only by bending before the blast could that sore-stricken monarchy be saved from destruction.  An opportunity soon occurred of carrying the new system into effect.  Metternich offered the conqueror an Austrian Archduchess as a bride.