Meanwhile, on August 18, Charles X. and the members of his family had arrived at Spithead on board _The Great Britain_, the American vessel chartered by the French government to convey them to England. The state of public feeling made it inadvisable that they should proceed to London or even land at Portsmouth, and they were, in consequence, taken, a few days later, by steamer to Lulworth Castle, in Dorsetshire, which had been prepared for their reception. The mob which had cheered exultingly as Castlereagh's body was borne through the streets to its last resting-place at Westminster Abbey, which, two years later, was to threaten Wellington with violence on the anniversary of Waterloo, would have shown scant respect for the misfortunes of the fallen King. Ever since the days of her crowning disaster at Wagram, Metternich had directed the foreign policy of Austria. Clement Wenceslas von Metternich, Chancellor of the Court and of the State, was descended from a family of counts of the empire and was born at Coblentz in 1773. His predecessors in office, old Kaunitz, the minister of Maria Theresa, Thugut, Cobenyl, and Stadion, had in vain attempted to cope with republican and imperial France. Without doubt, Metternich in the final struggle with Bonaparte was assisted by circumstances not of his own creation, nevertheless he unquestionably proved himself, on many occasions, a crafty, wary adversary, who could await his opportunity patiently. The flattery which was lavished upon him at the peace and the prominent part which he was enabled to play in the great territorial settlement at Vienna stimulated greatly his natural vanity and presumption. In addition, as he grew older, he began to indulge more and more in long philosophical disquisitions upon every kind of political subject. But under his pedantic manner, he retained always his alert resourcefulness and shrewd common sense. In the words of Sir Frederick Lamb, who had transacted much business with him, "he was far too practical a man to regulate his conduct by his doctrines, and far too ingenious a one to be at a loss for a doctrine to cover his conduct."[15]