Vienna,
March 16, 1864.
My Dearest Mother:
I hardly know what to say likely to amuse you. Vienna has been dull this winter
to an unexampled extent, and the spring is still duller, parties and dinners
being reduced to a minimum. Week before last Mary and I had the honor of being
bidden to dine with the emperor and empress. Perhaps it may amuse you to hear
how a dinner at court is managed, although it is much like any other dinner party.
The gentlemen go in uniform, of course (military or diplomatic), the ladies in
full dress, but fortunately not in trains. We were received in one of
the apartments of the palace called the Alexander Rooms, because once inhabited
by the Czar Alexander I. There were three other members of the diplomatic corps
present, the Portuguese minister and his wife, and the minister of one of the
lesser German courts. There were some guests from the Vienna aristocracy,
besides some of the high palace functionaries, ladies and gentlemen, in
attendance. After the company, about twenty-eight in all, had been a little
while assembled, the emperor and empress came in together, and, after
exchanging a few words with one or two of the guests, proceeded to the
dining-room, followed by the rest of the company. Each of us before reaching
the reception-room had received a card from an usher signifying exactly where
we were to place ourselves at table. Thus on my card I was told to sit on the
left of Viscountess Santa Quiteria, the wife of my Portuguese colleague as
aforesaid. Mary was directed to be seated on the right of the Grand Duke of
Tuscany. So everybody was enabled to march to their places without any
difficulty or embarrassment. The emperor and empress sat side by side in the
middle of a long table. On his left was the Portuguese lady; on the empress's
right was the Grand Duke of Tuscany.
During dinner the emperor conversed very agreeably with the
lady next him and with me on topics such as generally come up at a
dinner-table, and he asked many questions about manners and customs in America.
He has rather a grave face, but his smile is frank and pleasant, and his manner
has much dignity; his figure is uncommonly good, tall, slender, and stately.
Mary had much conversation about Florence, the Pitti Palace, and the Gardens of
Boboli with the deposed potentate her neighbor. The lady on my left, Countess
Konigsegg, the principal mistress of the robes, was very agreeable and is one
of the handsomest persons in Vienna; and altogether the dinner passed off very
pleasantly. After we had returned to the drawing-room the circle was formed,
and the emperor and empress, as usual, went round separately, entering into
conversation with each of their guests. He talked a good while with me, and
asked many questions about the war with much interest and earnestness, and
expressed his admiration at the resources of a country which could sustain for
so long a time so vast and energetic a conflict. I replied that we had been
very economical for a century, and we were now the better able to pay for a war
which had been forced upon us, and which if we had declined we must have ceased
to exist as a nation. I ventured to predict, however, that this current year
would be the last of the war on any considerable scale.
The empress, as I have often told you before, is a wonder of
beauty—tall, beautifully formed, with a profusion of bright brown hair, a low
Greek forehead, gentle eyes, very red lips, a sweet smile, a low musical voice,
and a manner partly timid, partly gracious. She certainly deserves a better
court poet than I am ever likely to become. Both the emperor and empress asked very
kindly about the health of the girls, who, as they knew, had been seriously
ill. The party lasted about two hours. We arrived at the palace a little before
half-past five and were at home again soon after half-past seven. I have
written this thinking it might interest you more than if I went into the
regions of high politics. Next Sunday (Easter Sunday) the Archduke Maximilian
accepts the imperial crown of Mexico, and within two or three months he will
have arrived in that country. Then our difficulties in this most unfortunate
matter will begin. Thus far the Austrian government on the one side, and the
United States government on the other, have agreed to wash their hands of it
entirely. But when the new “emperor” shall notify his accession to the Washington
government, we shall perhaps be put into an embarrassing position.
I remain ever your
affectionate son,
J. L. M.
SOURCE: George William Curtis, editor, The
Correspondence of John Lothrop Motley, Volume III, p. 6-9
