Showing posts with label Diplomacy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Diplomacy. Show all posts

Thursday, March 7, 2019

John L. Motley to Anna Lothrop Motley, July 27, 1863

Vienna, July 7, 1863.

My Dearest Mother: . . . Lily is my assistant secretary of legation, and does an immense deal for me, being able, by her thorough knowledge of languages, to accomplish more work than most young gentlemen of her age would be competent to. The daughter of the French ambassador is about Susie's age, and the two daughters of the Spanish minister are also her contemporaries, and the four are very intimate and see each other perpetually. Not a week passes but Susie passes the day with the Gramonts, or they come and play in our garden. The little D'Ayllons have now gone to Voslau (where we were last year),but I think that Susie will soon make them a visit. Meantime they exchange letters, I should think, every day. What they find to put in them is difficult to imagine. . . . Everything is calm just now. Almost all Vienna has turned itself out of town, and we are left blooming alone.

To-day we all four go out to dine with the Bloomfields, who have a pleasant villa for the summer about an hour's drive from here. It is very pleasant for us, when the relations between our government and those of England and France are so threatening and disagreeable, that our personal intercourse with the English and French ambassadors and their families can be so agreeably maintained. Nothing can be more amiable and genial than both Lord Bloomfield and the Duc de Gramont, and nothing but kind words and offices have ever passed between us.

Your affectionate son,
J. L. M.

SOURCE: George William Curtis, editor, The Correspondence of John Lothrop Motley in Two Volumes, Library Edition, Volume 2, p. 337

Diary of William Howard Russell: July 11, 1861

The diplomatic circle is so totus teres atque rotundus, that few particles of dirt stick on its periphery from the road over which it travels. The radii are worked from different centres, often far apart, and the tires and naves often fly out in wide divergence; but for all social purposes is a circle, and a very pleasant one. When one sees M. de Stoeckle speaking to M. Mercier, or joining in with Baron Gerolt and M. de Lisboa, it is safer to infer that a little social reunion is at hand for a pleasant civilized discussion of ordinary topics, some music, a rubber, and a dinner, than to resolve with the New York Correspondent, “that there is reason to believe that a diplomatic movement of no ordinary significance is on foot, and that the Ministers of Russia, France, and Prussia have concerted a plan of action with the representative of Brazil, which must lead to extraordinary complications, in view of the temporary embarrassments which distract our beloved country. The Minister of England has held aloof from these reunions for a sinister purpose no doubt, and we have not failed to discover that the emissary of Austria, and the representative of Guatemala have abstained from taking part in these significant demonstrations. We tell the haughty nobleman who represents Queen Victoria, on whose son we so lately lavished the most liberal manifestations of our good will, to beware. The motives of the Court of Vienna, and of the Republic of Guatemala, in ordering their representatives not to join in the reunion which we observed at three o'clock to-day, at the corner of Seventeenth Street and One, are perfectly transparent; but we call on Mr. Seward instantly to demand of Lord Lyons a full and ample explanation of his conduct on the occasion, or the transmission of his papers. There is no harm in adding, that we have every reason to think our good ally of Russia, and the minister of the astute monarch, who is only watching an opportunity of leading a Franco-American army to the Tower of London and Dublin Castle, have already moved their respective Governments to act in the premises.”

That paragraph, with a good heading, would sell several thousands of the “New York Stabber” to-morrow.

SOURCE: William Howard Russell, My Diary North and South, Vol. 1, p. 401-2

Thursday, January 10, 2019

John L. Motley to Anna Lothrop Motley, March 28, 1863

Vienna,
March 28, 1863.

My Dearest Mother: . . . As to your making yourself out so very old, I can't admit that when I see, for example, Lord Palmerston, who is ever so many years older than you, in his eightieth year in fact, shouldering the whole British Empire, and making a joke of it. Our climate, too, so trying to the young, I believe to be exceedingly beneficial to those more advanced in years. Only do go to Nahant next summer; I am sure that the air and sight of that sea-beaten promontory is to you an elixir of youth.

I have little to say of our goings-on here. Lent, which has succeeded a dancing carnival, has been pretty well filled up every evening with soirees. Baron Sina, the minister of the defunct kingdom of Greece, an enormously wealthy man, has given a series of evening parties, in which there was always music by the Italian operatic artists now performing in Vienna. We had Patti last week, who sang delightfully. She has made quite a furore in this place. We have only heard her at the theater once. She is not at the Imperial Opera, where we have a box, but at a smaller one, and the price is altogether too large, as one is obliged to subscribe for the whole engagement. I hope to get a box, however, for next Saturday night, when she is to play Lucia; and this will be sufficient for us. We dined with a large party three days ago at the same Baron Sina's expressly to meet Patti. We had previously dined with her at Baron Rothschild's. She is a dear little unsophisticated thing, very good, and very pretty and innocent. She considers herself as an American, and sang “Home, Sweet Home,” after dinner the other day, because she said she was sure we should like to hear it, and she sang it most delightfully.

Last Wednesday night we gave a great squash of our own. It was our first attempt in the evening-party line, and we were a little nervous about it. You know you don't send out written invitations and receive answers. You merely send a couple of days before a verbal invitation through a servant, without any chance of a reply. At a quarter before ten there were not a dozen people in our rooms, and we began to feel a little fidgety, although we knew the regular habits of the people. But in ten minutes the house was crowded. It was considered a most successful squeeze. All the Liechtensteins, Esterhazys, Trauttmansdorffs, and the other great families of Vienna, together with nearly the whole diplomatic corps, were present, and seemed to amuse themselves as well as at other parties. Talking the same talk with the same people, drinking the same tea and lemonade, and eating the same ices as at other houses, there is no reason why they should not have amused themselves as well. The young ladies are a power in Vienna. At every “rout,” or evening reception, they always have one of the rooms to themselves, which is called the Comtessen Zimmer (no young lady in this society being supposed to be capable of a lower rank than countess), and where they chatter away with their beaus, and sometimes arrange their quadrilles and waltzes for the balls of a year ahead.

Nothing can be more charming than the manners of the Austrian aristocracy, both male and female. It is perfect nature combined with high breeding. A characteristic of it is the absence of that insolence on the one side and of snobbishness on the other which are to be found in nearly all other societies. This arises from the fact that the only passport to the upper society is pedigree, an unquestionable descent on both sides of the house from nobility of many generations. Without this passport a native might as well think of getting into the moon as getting into society. Therefore the society is very small, not more than three hundred or so, all very much intermarried and related; everybody knows everybody, so that pushing is impossible, and fending off unnecessary. The diplomatic corps move among it, of course, officially. They are civil to us, and invite us to their great parties, and come to our houses. As a spectacle of men and women, and how they play their parts, as Washington Irving used to say, I have no objection to spending my evenings thus for a small portion of the year. It does not interfere with my solid work during the daytime. English society is very interesting, because anybody who has done anything noteworthy may be seen in it. But if an Austrian should be Shakspere, Galileo, Nelson, and Raphael all in one, he couldn't be admitted into good society in Vienna unless he had the sixteen quarterings of nobility which birth alone could give him. Naturally it is not likely to excite one's vanity that one goes as a minister where as an individual he would find every door shut against him. But in the way of duty it is important to cultivate social relations where one is placed, and in these times I am desirous that the American legation should be in a line with other missions. Fortunately, evening entertainments only cost the wax candles and the lemonade.

There is not much in this letter, my dear mother, to interest you. But I thought it better to talk of things around me instead of sending my disquisitions about American affairs, in regard to which I am so unfortunate as to differ from those whom you are in the habit of talking with. Best love to my father and all at home.

Ever your most affectionate son,
J. L. M.

SOURCE: George William Curtis, editor, The Correspondence of John Lothrop Motley in Two Volumes, Library Edition, Volume 2, p. 322-5

Sunday, July 23, 2017

John L. Motley to Mary Lothrop Motley, February 17, 1863

Vienna, February 17, 1863.

My Dearest Little Mary: I hope that you will accept this note from me as the family contribution for to-day.

I assure you, when you know Vienna as well as we do, you will agree that to screw out a letter once a week is a KunststΓΌck to be proud of. I can't very well write to you, as I write to the State Department, about the movements in Montenegro, the Polish insurrection, or the Prussian-French treaty of commerce, although I dare say these things would amuse you about as much as they do the people at Washington just now, where they have so much other fish to fry. To-day is the last day of the carnival, which we celebrate by remaining calmly within doors in the bosom of our respected family. The great ball at Prince Schwarzenberg's took place last Sunday, so that we were obliged respectfully but firmly to decline. Soon begins the season of “salons.” Now, if there is one thing more distasteful to me than a ball, it is a salon. Of course I don't object to young people liking to dance, and the few balls in the great houses here are as magnificent festivals as could be got up anywhere, and Lily had always plenty of partners and danced to her heart's content, notwithstanding that nearly all the nice youths of the French and English embassies have been transplanted to other realms. But I think that no reasonable being ought to like a salon. There are three topics — the Opera, the Prater, the Burg Theater; when these are exhausted, you are floored. Conversazioni where the one thing that does not exist is conversation are not the most cheerful of institutions.

The truth is that our hostile friends the English spoil me for other society. There is nothing like London or England in the social line on the Continent. The Duke of Argyll writes to me pretty constantly, and remains a believer in the justice of our cause, although rather desponding as to the issue; and Mr. John Stuart Mill, who corresponds with me regularly and is as enthusiastic as I am, tells me that the number of men who agree with him in wishing us success is daily increasing. Among others he mentioned our old friend the distinguished Dr. Whewell, Master of Trinity (with whom we stayed three days at Cambridge when I received my degree there), who, he says, is positively rude to those who talk against the North. He won't allow the “Times” to come into the house. Well, I hope the recent and remarkable demonstrations in England will convince the true lovers of union and liberty in America where our true strength lies, and who our true lovers are.

We have given four diplomatic dinners. The last was five days ago. Sixteen guests, beginning with Count Rechberg and the Prince and Princess Callimaki (Turkish ambassador), and ending with a French and Belgian attache or two. The French and English ambassadors and secretaries dined with us the week before. I think we shall give no more at present, unless we have a smaller one, to which we shall invite the Rothschild of the period, as we have had several good dinners at his house. I am very glad that you are to dine with Mrs. Amory to meet General McClellan. We feel very grateful to Mr. and Mrs. Amory and S—— for their kindness to you. Pray never forget to give all our loves to them. Did Mrs. Amory ever get a letter I wrote her? Its date was May 12. Pray remember us most kindly to Mr. and Mrs. Ritchie. I am so glad that you have been seeing so much of them lately. It is impossible for you not to be fond of them when you know them. Give my love also to Miss “Pussie,” and to my Nahant contemporary, who I hope continues on the rampage as delightfully as ever. You will tell us, of course, what impression General McClellan makes upon you. Personally there seems much that is agreeable, almost fascinating, about him. I only saw him for a single moment, but was much impressed by his manner. I wish it had been his destiny to lead our armies to victory, for I don't see that we have any better man. But no one man will ever end this war except he be an abolitionist heart and soul, and a man of military genius besides.

Things have gone a million miles beyond compromise. Pray tell me what you learn of Hooker.

We all join in kindest love to you, my darling, and to your grandmama and grandpapa, and all at home.

Your ever-affectionate
P. G.

SOURCE: George William Curtis, editor, The Correspondence of John Lothrop Motley in Two Volumes, Library Edition, Volume 2, p. 314-6