Free Vienna, 1814: How the Conquerors of Napoleon Made Love, War, and Peace at the Congress of Vienna by David King Page A

the peace conference. It was imperative, they argued, to keep a close eye on the activities of everyone and provide real security for their many royal guests. The emperor agreed.
    The official instructions, promulgated at the end of August 1814, suggest the growing ambitions of this revamped espionage network:
     
Since a certain number of representatives of the different powers attending the Congress have already arrived in Vienna and the rest will be following them in a steady stream, you should not only keep me informed of the arrival and address of each one, but by virtue of a secret watch intelligently maintained you should also make it your business neither to lose track of their whereabouts nor of the company they keep.
     
    Daily reports, it was added, were to be written and delivered to the emperor’s office. Francis would read them closely every morning.
    Baron Franz von Hager had entered police administration after his promising career as a cavalry officer, leading a regiment of dragoons, had been cut short by a riding injury. He had been president of the Ministry of Police and Censorship since 1812, and he had hounded rebels, radicals, secret societies, and many other threats to the government, real or suspected. But he would now face a series of challenges in providing security and intelligence that would enervate the most intrepid and dedicated spymaster.
    How was he, for instance, to infiltrate the many foreign delegations—French, British, Russian, Prussian, and probably about two hundred sizable others—with all their exotic languages and customs? Even before he could deal with this issue, which he would soon do with zeal, there was another concern. All of Baron Hager’s tireless efforts would further be complicated by the fact that the emperor sometimes issued orders and made decisions that quite frankly obstructed the tasks already assigned.
    The Austrian emperor had opened up his palace to many sovereigns, a hospitable gesture that brought many guests into close proximity, but it also created a number of problems for the spy baron. For one thing, the royal palaces were technically off limits to his team’s prying activities. For another, even assuming that they could overcome this situation with some creative infiltration, there were still serious problems posed by the palace itself.
    The Hofburg was a meandering, labyrinthine structure with many back doors, side entrances, and secret passageways—a nightmare situation for even the most skilled surveillance team. Worse still for the information-hungry agents, much of the action at the Congress of Vienna would take place in just these locations—that is, sealed off in the bedrooms where the young delegates would soon, as some grumbled, turn Emperor Venus’s palace into a gilded brothel.
     
     
     
    A S V IENNA PREPARED to stage an unprecedented house party for the royal mob, Talleyrand found the lack of discussion frustrating and disturbing. He had good reason to worry.
    Talleyrand had arrived a week before the congress was scheduled to open, but he discovered, just as he had feared, that Prince Metternich had already been busy arranging secret meetings around the green-baize-covered table in his office at the Chancellery. Only a few countries had been invited. “The Big Four,” as they were called, were Austria and its major allies at the end of the war: Great Britain, Prussia, and Russia.
    In these meetings, Metternich represented Austria and Castlereagh Great Britain. Russia sent Count Karl Nesselrode, a German by birth who had risen spectacularly from a sailor in the Russian navy to the tsar’s trusted adviser. Representing Prussia was the state chancellor, Prince Karl von Hardenberg, a sixty-four-year-old who had a head of white hair and was nearly completely deaf. He was joined by the Prussian ambassador to Vienna, Wilhelm von Humboldt, an exemplary classical scholar and linguist who had previously redesigned the Prussian educational system