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From the Dublin University Magazine. THE BOUNDARY MAP OF EUROPE.

Ir is now close upon forty years since the last complete edition of the Boundary Map of Europe was issued from the imperial and royal press of Vienna. During the eventful period which has since clapsed, many changes of ownership have occurred, and many important alterations have been traced in from time to time; yet the original survey of 1814-15 continues to be held as of authority in the high court of international public opinion, and the ambition of princes and the rights of nationalities are still brought to judgment on a reference to its showing of facts, perhaps no longer in existence.

Paris, concluded on the 23rd of April, 1814, numbered upwards of ninety thousand men, and were armed with twelve thousand pieces of cannon.→→ The territories immediately or mediately connected with his empire, and then severed from it, contained populations amounting to more than thirty millions of souls.

It was truly a great spoil that fell to the disposal of the conquerors, and that was divided by them at the Congress of Vienna. In the distribution, nearly the entire of continental Europe was, directly or indirectly interested. Everywhere the ancient landmarks had been removed; in many instances their place was remembered no more. Simple restoration was found to be impracticable or thought to be inThe memory of mankind is, indeed, short;— expedient. The work in hand necessarily inbut if all experience did not testify to the case volved, at the same time, provisions for remunewith which nations forget, it would be truly sur-rating and gratifying friends, for punishing and prising to find the settlement made at Vienna, restraining enemies or traitors, and for preventin 1815, appealed to and relied upon at the close ing future disruptions of the public peace. of a generation that has witnessed the creation Considering, then, the vast magnitude of inof the kingdoms of Belgium and Greece, the terests to be dealt with, and the extreme little conclusion of the treaty of Adrianople, the abo-ness of many of the dealers, it can be no matter lition of the Duchy of Warsaw, and the extinc- of wonder that this momentous conference was tion of the freedom of Hungary. protracted during nine months; or that it was Nevertheless, that opus magnum of the Holy upon the point of referring the many knotty Alliance fixes landmarks in the annals of Eu-questions before it to the arbitrament of the rope, which the student of philosophic history sword, when, on the 7th of March, 1815, the can never disregard, and whose whereabouts may interest casual readers, at a moment like the present, when it seems so likely that a new edition of the boundary map of this quarter of the world is on the eve of publication. We are therefore induced to hope, that a rapid sketch of the operations of the Congress of Vienna in political geodosy, and of the changes that have since been made in this work, may not be unacceptable to the public.

On the 30th of March, 1814, the united armies of Russia, Austria and Prussia, stormed the heights that command Paris, and, after a battle, in which the loss of the allies amounted to nine thousand and ninety-three men, that celebrated capitulation was agreed to, which resulted in the abdication of Napoleon, and the obliteration of the territorial landmarks of his career from the face of Europe. Upon that very day twelvemonth, (the 30th of March, 1813) that extraordinary man, exasperated but not humbled by the disasters of Moscow, had addressed his senate in these remarkable words-" If the allies were encamped on the heights of Montmartre, I would not surrender one village in the thirty-second military division."

We fell now as if we recalled the creation of a dream rather than an historical fact, when we state, that the 32nd military division of France then embraced the free city of Hamburg. Such nevertheless, was in reality, the vastness of the empire into which France had grown in the few years that had elapsed from the abolition of monarchy, in 1792,

news of the evasion of Bonaparte from Elba quickened the process of deliberation, and the Congress was finally brought to an end upon the 9th of June, just nine days before the battle of Waterloo. In those three months the new boundary lines of Europe were really settled; and under the sanction of the crowning event of the renewed struggle, the map was finally adopted in the second treaty of Paris, concluded in the ensuing November.

The prominent feature in the settlement was the reduction of France to its original limits, as they stood generally on the first of January, 1792; but in the accomplishment of this primary object were involved many novel arrangements of constitutions and States throughout the entire continent, from the North Cape to the Gulf of Tarentum.

The agents who undertook the performance of this task were a motley host of emperors, kings, and princes, such as, perhaps, never before assembled together, and their meeting, a sort of saturnalia of regained kingly liberty, was marked by peculiarities that, no doubt, were not without influence upon passing events. A notion of this grotesque jubilee may be helpful toward an understanding of the various and complicated machinery of vanities, interests and passions that was at work, and it cannot be conveyed in a more lively manner than in the following description of one of the convivial meetings of Congress from the pen of an eye witness:

Never was an assembly less ceremonious; eveFrom the Elbe to the Pyrences; from the ry one wore his hat; many, till the room became straits of Dover to Rome, the modern Charle-heated, their great coats; and no one pretended to magne laid claim to dominion, and asserted it appear in an evening dress, except a few Englishmen, who from the habits of our country and some by arms, even to the hour of his abdication. little vanity, generally attempt to distinguish themHis garrisons in Germany, the low countries, It-selves by an attention to outward appearance. aly, and Spain, surrendered by the convention of Around the whole circumference of the room

were four or five rows of benches, occupied for by a graver dispute as to the method of conduct. the most part, by well-dressed females; while the ing the deliberations. There were present at other parts presented a moving multitude, many Vienna in person, on the 25th of September, the of whom were in masks or in dominos, and were Emperors of, Austria and Russia, the Kings of busily engaged in talking and laughing, or dancing Prussia, Bavaria, Denmark, and Wirtemberg, to the music of a powerful orchestra. My com

panion squeezed my arm, as we passed a thin fig- with a host of lesser princes. England was repure with sallow shrunken features, of mild expres-resented by Lord Castlereagh, France by M. sion, with a neck stiff, bending a little forwards, and walking badly.

That is our Emperor!"

I shook my head and smiled. He was alone, and dressed like the rest. "Pray allow me to doubt a little till I have seen some further proof." "There, do you see that little man, with white hair, a pale face, and aquiline nose?-he was almost pushed down as he passed the corner-that is the king of Demark." Again I shook my head in

disbelief.

"Here the Emperor of Russia approaches." I looked up and found the information true. His fine manly form, his round and smiling countenance, and his neat morning dress, were not to be mistaken; they were the same which some months before, I had seen enter the church at Haarlem, to the thundering peals of the grand organ.

I soon recognized the tall form, the solemn and grave features of the King of Prussia; and afterwards seeing these two in familiar conversation with the two monarchs whose pretensions I had disputed, was satisfied their claims were just.

That short, thick, old gentleman, is the Grand Duke of Saxe Weimar; that young man near him, the Crown Prince of Wirtemberg. Here, turn your eyes to that sent; the large, elderly man, with a full face-he looks like an Englishman-he is the King of Bavaria."

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"That was the Grand Duke of Baden," said my "Pardon!" I exclaimed, stepping quickly aside. monitor, whose toe you trod upon; he was talking to Prince William of Prussia. Here, fall back a little, to let these gentlemen pass; they seem very anxious to go on; one, two, three, four, five, -these are all archdukes of Austria. There seems a little press toward that end of the room. See, three women in masks have beset the King of Prussia; he seems not a little puzzled what he shall do with them. Now a party of waltzers draws the attention of the crowd, and the King is left to dispose of his fair assailants as he thinks fit. Do you see that stout, tall man who looks at the dance? he is the Duke of Saxe Coburg; and by his side, not so stout as himself, is his brother, the Prince Leopold."

"Who is this young man next to us, marked with the small pox, who is speaking broken Eng lish ?" "It is the Crown Prince of Bavaria; he is said to be very fond of your nation. And here," giving me another hearty squeeze with his elbow, "is an English milord." He had upon his head a remarkably flat cocked hat; two ladies in dominos leaned upon his arm; the hat, unique of its kind, rather excited a smile in my companion. After a little more pushing-for the room was now become very full-we encountered a fine, dark, military-looking man, not in uniform, of course, but with mustachios. "This was Beauharnais, Viceroy of Italy." *

It is little to be wondered at that the numbers and density of this distinguished crowd should render dissension a necessity, and the progress of business all but impossible. A preliminary question as to precedence was followed speedily

*Dr. Bright's "Travels from Vienna," etc.

The

Talleyrand, and the Pope by Cardinal Gonsalvi; while Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Murat, King of Naples, Sicily, Holland, Saxony, Switzerland, Genoa, and Venice, each had plenipotentiaries or ministers present to claim their share of spoil, or to resist spoliation. In such an assemblage, the primary obstacle to which we have alluded was sure to present itself; and it was only by acting upon a suggestion of the Emperor of Russia, that the question of precedence was settled upon the principle of the alphabet-the states were to rank pro hac vicê, in the order of the initial letters of their respective names. But was the entire of this mob of purple-born or purple-invested beggars to join in the discussion of their own claims and counter-claims? idea was manifestly absurd; and at length, after much disputation, a committee of business was nominated, to which all questions before the Congress should be submitted. In accordance with this arrangement, the actual work was done by the ministers of England, Russia, Austria, Prussia, France, Spain, Portugal, and Sweeden, with whom was associated, upon the special intercession of the Prince Regent of England, Cardinal Gonsalvi, as the representative influences that converted that grand opportunity of Pope Pius VII. The addition was of evil omen-it foreshadowed the operation of those for the adjustment of the balance of power between the extremes of political principle, into a triumph of absolutism." The elevation of the Popedom into a high, contracting party at the Congress of Vienna, was an indication to the world, that the result of that conference would surely be, not a league of nations, but a conspiracy of despots.

We do not, indeed, mean to intimate that the intrigues of that solitary priest materially af fected the determinations of the Congress; but assuredly his presence was a pledge and a sign of predominance among its leading members of the spirit whose operations led to the revolution in the Netherlands, to the chronic anarchy that has spoiled the fair kingdoms of the Peninsula, which have protracted the misery of Poland and of Italy, and have led to the oppression of Hungary, and to the recent disturbance of the peace of the world by the aggressive ambition of Russia.

It was in this apparently trivial concession, as it seems to us, that the interests of England, considered as the metropolis of constitutional liberty, was really sacrificed by her representatives, in the winding up of the affairs of the world at the close of the war.

Lord Castlereagh has often been blamed for for the softness, or corruption (as it has been vahis easy surrender of conquered colonies, and riously designated) with which he abandoned the pecuniary interests of England to the rapine of her allies; but of his policy in these respects, it

would not, we conceive, be difficult to offer a frontier to the Rhine had previously absorbed valid and satisfactory explanation.

Then or now a donation of five millions sterling the sum to which England was entitled out of the ransom of France, and which was given towards the reconstruction of the barrier fortresses of the Netherlands-could be fairly considered as but a trifling addition to an outlay of seven hundred millions, expended with the same design of securing the peace of Europe.

Now, still less than then, a reflecting mind can see little cause for regret in the abstraction of some two or three West Indian plantations from the vast colonial empire of Britain. The restoration of the secular sovereignty of the Pope was a political anachronism. Forced upon Rome, in contemptuous disregard of the opinion of the nobles and people, who petitioned the allies to incorporate the states of the church with one of the secular powers, its result for Italy has been forty years of smoldering civil war. The simple fact-offspring as it unquestionably was, of the will of the English Government-was the outward and visible sign of the thorough adhesion of England to the holy alliance of princes against peoples, out of which has grown the monstrous power for mischief of Russia, Austria, and Prussia.

one of the ten circles of the empire; and the subsequent incorporation of the coasts of the German Ocean with France had changed the allegiance of more than a million of souls.All this territory was, in 1814-15, taken from the restored French monarchy.

So much had been achieved by the allied arms, the feat having been rendered possible by the mad obstinacy of Bonaparte, in refusing the terms offered to him at Frankfort towards the close of the previous year. The enforcing of that vast disgorgement was a weighty task, and scarcely less so was the distribution of the proceeds among the many importunate_claimants, whose ancient rights but too frequently were opposed to public convenience or justice. But more formidable still was the difficulty created by the necessity, which we now know was strongly felt by the representatives of England, of curbing the ambition and raising a barrier against the power of the Czar.

The game since carried on by Nicholas, was then played with infinitely more discretion, and with very considerable success, by his brother and predecessor. Then, as now, Western Europe was opposed to Russia and Prussia; and Austria, after long faltering between her fears and her interests, was, in 1815 as in 1854, forced to the conclusion of a secret treaty of contingent alliance with France and England.

been brought to light.

The time had long passed away when the moral supremacy of the sovereign Pontiff could control and regulate the ambition of the chiefs It is curious to observe how firmly the purof the family of Christendom. The seal of the pose of Alexander was then held to and workfisherman was no longer the test of internation- ed out, and how it prevailed in the struggle al law; the shadow of that great name, not again with the strength of Castlereagh, the honesty of to be successfuly invoked as the guardian of or- Wellington, the diplomatic craft of Metternich der. became thenceforward but a cover for the and Talleyrand. That the vigilance of the Engdesigns of despots upon the universal happi- lish plenipotentiaries was actively awakened, is ness of mankind. Italy, disintegrated by the manifested in every line of the official corresreconstruction of the Papacy, became a geo-pondence relating to the subject which has since graphical expression; Italy, formed into a fede ration of constitutional states, would have balanced Europe on the south. An Italian confederation would have facilitated, nay, would have necessitated an adjustment of the balance in the north and east, by the preservation of the independence of Poland; and with Poland independent. and Hungary bound to Austria by the firm links of her ancient constitution, who supposes that the nineteenth century would have witnessed a necessity for an armed intervention of England between Russia and the world? But we are perhaps anticipating conclusions to which a narrative of the facts developed at the Congress of Vienna would naturally lead the minds of our readers.

The conduct of Lord Castlereagh throughout these intricate negotiations seems, indeed, to have been in honest accordance with the policy he avowed in Parliament, in a speech upon the question of the annexation of Norway to Sweden, which was strongly opposed by Lord Grey and his friends at the commencement of the session of 1814. "The great evil of modern Europe (he then said), which has hitherto led to such frequent wars of ambition by the greater powers, has been the number of lesser states with which they are surrounded, at once a field for their hostility, and a prey to their cupidity.

It is our wisdom, therefore, so to strengthen the second-rate powers as may render the balAmong the claimants for restitution out of ance more even, and prevent their dominions the spoils of France, the Princes of Germany from becoming, as heretofore, the mere battlewere the most pressing, as their losses had been field in which the greatest powers find an arena the greatest, and were attended with the utmost for their contests, and the prize of their hosdisturbance of social and political relations. By tility." This was the idea constantly present in a succession of acts of pillage, the Holy Roman the minds of the representatives of England Empire had been torn asunder, and its federa- during these transactions; and although impetion of many hundred princes, dukes, counts of rial France was the bete noir of the day, it is every degree, (grafs, ́ mark-grafs, land-grafs, manifest that Russia was the real object of the pfalz-grafs, and burgrafs,) bishops, and abbots, dread of the wisest and most farseeing of these free lords, and free cities, after undergoing va-statesmen.

rious modifications, had, in 1809, ceased even Nor was any very extraordinary degree of nominally, to exist. The advance of the French acuteness necessary to penetrate into the designs

of the Czar of that day, magnanimous and eminence of England, and thus to protect and courteous, and lofty of bearing as he undoubt-rule Europe. Prussia was then, as now, the edly was. He expressed, it is true, his hopes vassal of Russia; Austria was scarcely more that the time was come when it would be found taken into account in the intrigues of the Czar that the power of Russia might be useful to the Alexander, than she has since been in those of rest of Europe, but not dangerous to it," and his autocratic brother. The establishment of a then whispered an aspiration for "a larger sub- superior influence over England and France was sidy; but he appears really to have taken lit- the means mainly trusted to for the attainment tle pains to conceal his design to constitute him- of the great end; but none other was neglected. self the Protector of Europe, and his schemes Even a Spanish marriage was projected, and an for furthering the gratification of his ambition offer was made to purchase the alliance of the were worked openly enough, and in all directions. imbecile bigot, Ferdinand, with the hand of a From the moment of his triumphal entry into Russian archduchess, who should be willing to Paris, after its capitulation, his undisguised ob-qualify for a scat upon the throne of Spain by ject was to establish an influence in France that an outward conformity in religion.* should be predominant over that of England. While Alexander thus, undisguisedly indeed, "Gentlemen, (said he, when the Municipality of but courteously and quietly, approached the Paris waited upon him at four o'clock in the couch of the "sick man" of his day, he too, it evening of the 31st of March, in order to pray would appear, had his Menschikoffs who, whether his clemency towards the capital), gentlemen, I according to cue or not, were at hand to throw am not the enemy of the French nation; I am out intimations plain enough that should it be so only of a single man, whom I once admired and found that fair words would not do, he would, long loved, but who, devoured by ambition and like the old man in the fable, try what virtue filled with bad faith, came into the heart of my there lay in stones. "Oh !"said a Russian offidominions, and left me no alternative but to seek cer of high rank, observing upon diplomatic for my future safety in the liberation of Europe. difficulties supposed to stand in the way of his The allied sovereigns have come here, neither to master's designs-"Oh! pour cela avec 600,000 conquer nor to rule France, but to learn and sup- hommes, on ne négocie beaucoup."† port what France itself deems most suitable for its own welfare; and they only await before undertaking the task, to ascertain, in the declared wish of Paris, the probable wish of France."

Thus, evidence enough was before our ministers of the nature of the designs entertained by the Czar, and we have now before us abundant proof that it was not lost upon them. These letters He followed up this general declaration of are filled with expressions that leave no doubt good-will by a special promise to take under his upon this point. "It is quite astonishing (wrote protection the museums, monuments, and public Lord Liverpool to the Duke of Wellington) how property of all kinds; and, as a pledge of his little interest is taken [in England] in what is sincerity, acceded to the request of the magis- going on at Vienna." Again, warnings are trates that the National Guard should not be given by various ministers and diplomatic agents disbanded. He was received, accordingly, as the not to assist the credit of a Calmuck Prince savior and liberator, rather than as the con- to overrun Europe;" "not to suffer Russia queror, of France. The people kissed his boots; to acquire any establishment in the Ionian ladies entreated the gentlemen of his suite to lift them upon their horses, in order that they might enjoy a glimpse of their deliverer. "I have been (says Sir A. Alison) assured of this fact by both Lord Cathcart and Lord Burghersh, now the Earl of Westmoreland, who took a part in the procession, and themselves had a fair Parisian, sometimes en croupe, at others on the pummel of their saddles, at the Place Louis XV." During these scenes, the King of Prussia was present; but Alexander, by his manner and words, claimed the homage undivided for him

self.

Islands, to the hazard of the internal tranquillity of Greece and Hungary ;" and so on throughout.

It was in the presence of designs, suspicions, and convictions, such as we have indicated, that the business Committee of the Congress set to work at the re-arrangement of the German empire, and at the attempt to carve out of the spoils of France compensations for the territorial losses of a host of princes. There had been certain principles laid down in the treaty of Paris, signed on the 30th of May, 1814, by the plenipotentiaries of Great Britain, Russia, Prussia, and France, which were now reverted to, and which being acknowledged, rendered the first steps of the settlement comparatively easy. The kingdom of the Netherlands was constituted as a barrier state, and its crown conferred upon the House of Orange Nassau, which was at the same At that time he was the Protector of France, time included in the German Bund by virtue of imperial, royal, or republican; a year later his the acquisition of the Grand Duchy of Luxemdesign was to establish himself as the guardian burg. To form that new monarchy, the Low and tutor of the Bourbon dynasty. Under either Countries were yielded by Austria and annexed character, he hoped, through his influence over to Holland; and, in the course of the transthe great nation, to overtop the political pre

"We have been long expecting you," said one. "We should have been here sooner, but for the bravery of your troops," was the happy answer of the Czar. "I come not," he repeatedly said, as your enemy; regard me as your friend." t

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