Prince Metternich had the direction of the diplomatic party, while the empress, wife of Francis II., received the august strangers with the grace and dignity she was so well known to possess. The splendours of the Congress of Vienna left a strong impression upon the minds of the diplomatic characters who were present at it; they are associated in their memory with the fresh and pleasing recollection of the days of their youth, and, when you converse upon the subject with those whom death has spared, they speak in enthusiastic terms of the chivalric entertainments, the fancy balls of the empress, and the _galanteries_ of the sovereigns. What brilliant parties were those of Lady Castlereagh, a female diplomatist, as active as the English prime minister in all negotiations relating to the management of the world! In walking through the streets of Vienna, it was no uncommon sight to meet the three sovereigns of Russia, Prussia, and Austria, shaking hands, and giving each other marks of mutual confidence, and yet the most serious dissensions already prevailed in the Congress concerning the territorial arrangement of Europe. The quadruple alliance, as it had been settled in the treaty of Chaumont, was nothing but a military convention, intended to overturn the power of Napoleon; more a kind of plan of battle, or strategic stipulation, than a regular and political negotiation. After the fall of Napoleon, the allied powers resumed their natural interests. Thus, on the question of German supremacy, Prussia would naturally be inclined to side with Russia, and draw off from Austria; England, to oppose Russia in every thing relating to the sovereignty of Poland, which the Czar had already appropriated to himself; and France, though so terribly shaken by the late invasion, must endeavour to regain some degree of credit in Europe, by keeping on good terms with England and Austria. I must say, to the honour of the eldest branch of the Bourbons, that it always exhibited the most perfect dignity in its foreign relations, and perhaps the critical situation of our internal affairs was only produced by a fatal reaction of foreign dissatisfaction upon ourselves. From the first assembling of the Congress, private conferences had taken place between Lord Castlereagh, Metternich, and Talleyrand, to take into consideration the conditions of a treaty which might afford a counterpoise to the immense ascendancy Russia had obtained during the invasion of France and the events of 1814. By this treaty, which was signed in the month of March 1815, subsidies were agreed upon in the event of certain occurrences, and an engagement was entered into, that a fixed number of troops should always be in readiness for the _casus belli_, should Russia and Prussia attempt to disturb the equilibrium established among the European powers, and, according to a despatch of M. de Talleyrand, France was to maintain a half war establishment.