It was when attentively scanning his physiognomy, at once supple and firm, and carefully scrutinising Metternich’s looks, that the superiority of his political genius at once became manifest to even the superficial observer. ‘The society man’ disappeared, and there remained nothing but the statesman, accustomed to rule men and to decide important affairs. Mixed up for twenty-five years with the gigantic commotions that disturbed Europe, M. de Metternich showed the lofty aptitude of his mind, and that rare penetration and sagacity which can foresee and direct events. His decision, the result of long meditation, was immovable. His words were incisive, as they ought to be from the lips of a statesman sure of the drift of everything he says. I may add to this that M. de Metternich is one of the most charming story-tellers of our epoch. In politics he has been reproached with his subserviency to the Law of Immobility; certainly a lofty mind like his understood well enough that it is impossible for man to remain stationary, and that, in our age, to remain stationary would be tantamount to retrogression. But he also knew that sudden shocks do not constitute progress, and that, in the government of man one ought to take count of their habits and of their real wants. If it be true that the moment has not yet come to judge M. de Metternich definitely, contemporary history will be bound to admit the calm and cloudless happiness which his immobile and silent government has succeeded in imparting to the hereditary states of Austria. That happiness, which seems to suffice them, is already a title of glory one cannot easily deny.