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