John L. Motley to Ann Lothrop Motley, March 16, 1864

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

John L. Motley to the Duchess of Argyll, February 7, 1864

Vienna,

February 7, 1864.

Dear Duchess Of Argyll: We get on very well in Vienna. We have an extremely pleasant house with a large garden. Many of our colleagues are very kind and agreeable; your ambassador most especially so — high-minded, honorable, sympathetic, good-tempered, amiable. Everybody respects and loves him for his fine qualities of mind and character. Lady Bloomfield is very charming and accomplished, and has but one fault in the world: she has been away from us three or four months, and we all miss her very much.

I have purposely avoided speaking of the one topic of which my mind is always full, because when I once begin I can never stop, and I become an intolerable bore.

I am glad you spoke of Colonel Shaw. His father and mother are intimate friends of ours, and I have had a touching letter from Mr. Shaw since his son's death. I knew the son, too, a beautiful, fair-haired youth, with everything surrounding him to make life easy and gay. When I was at home in 1861 I saw him in camp. He was in the same tent with one of my own nephews, both being lieutenants in what has since become a very famous regiment — the Massachusetts Second. I had the honor of presenting their colors to that regiment, and saw them march out of Boston 1040 strong. Since that day they have been in countless actions, some of the bloodiest of the war. A large proportion of its officers, all of them young men of well-known Boston families, have been killed or severely wounded; and in the last papers received I read that the regiment, reduced to about two hundred, has returned on a few weeks' furlough and to recruit its numbers, having reenlisted — like most of the other regiments whose term expires this year — for three years longer, or for the duration of the war. I believe that they would serve for twenty years rather than that our glorious Republic should be destroyed. But be assured that the government of the United States is firm as the mountains.

Young Robert Shaw is a noble type of the young American. Did you see the poem to his memory in the January number of the "Atlantic"? It is called "Memorise Positum," and is, I think, very beautiful. The last verse is especially touching. It is by Russell Lowell, one of our first poets, as you know. The allusion is to his two nephews who were killed in Virginia. A third nephew (he has no sons), Colonel Lowell of the Second Massachusetts Cavalry, is in active service in Meade's army. He lately married a sister of Colonel Shaw, and she is with him now. Shaw fought all through the campaigns of Virginia, in the Massachusetts Second, until he took the command of the Massachusetts Fifty-fourth (colored). His was a beautiful life and a beautiful death.

I shall say no more. My wife and daughters join me in sincerest remembrances and best wishes for the duke and yourself and all your household. I beg to remain, dear Duchess of Argyll,

Most truly yours,

J. L. M.

I wish you would whisper to the duke that he owes me a letter, and that if he should ever find time to write I will write a short letter in return.

SOURCE: George William Curtis, editor, The Correspondence of John Lothrop Motley, Volume III, p. 4-6

John L. Motley to Anna Lothrop Motley, January 27, 1864

January 27, 1864.

My Dearest Mother: Since I last wrote I have had the pleasure of receiving your kind letter of 28th December. Although I regret to find that you are still so much a sufferer from neuralgia and rheumatism, it is a great satisfaction that your eyesight is so much improved, and that you are able to read as much as you like.

Fortunately you have it in your power to see all the new books, whereas we are obliged very much to do without them. Vienna is probably the city in the world where the least reading is done in proportion to the population, and the most dancing. Yet, strange to say, in the upper society there are but very few balls this carnival. Lily wrote you an account of ours, and on the following week there was a ball at the French ambassador's, the Duc de Gramont.

The society is so small that this seems to suffice. I shall add but little concerning our festivity. It was a tremendous undertaking in the prospect, and Mary excited my special wonder by the energy and completeness with which she superintended the arrangements. Our head servant, being an incapable donkey, was an obstruction rather than a help, and the only real lieutenant that she had was ———, who was all energy and intelligence. Lily, who thoroughly understands the society of Vienna, was, of course, all in all in regard to the actual business of the ball, and we had an excellent and amiable ally in young Prince Metternich, who was the managing director. Well, at least we are rewarded for the trouble and expense by success, for I cannot doubt, so much we have heard about it, that it gave very great satisfaction to the said upper three hundred, that noble Spartan band who so heroically defend the sacred precincts of fashion against the million outsiders who in vail assail it. I have said more about this trifling matter than you may think interesting. But to say the truth, I preferred that exactly in this state of our affairs the house of the American minister should be one whose doors were occasionally open, rather than to be known as a transatlantic family who went everywhere but who were never known to invite a soul within their walls. For me personally it is harder work than writing a dozen despatches.

There is, I think, but little of stirring intelligence to be expected from the United States before March or April, but I have settled down into a comfortable faith that this current year 1864 is to be the last of military operations on a large scale. To judge from the history of the past two and a half years, it will not take another twelvemonth for our forces to get possession of what remains of rebel cities and territory, or, at any rate, to vanquish the armed resistance to such an extent that what remains of the insurrection will be reduced to narrow and manageable compass. In another year or two, I am now convinced, there will be neither slaveholders nor rebels — which terms are synonymous. The future will be more really prosperous than the past has ever been, for the volcano above which we have been living in a fool's paradise of forty years, dancing and singing, and imagining ourselves going ahead, will have done its worst, and spent itself, I trust forever. In Europe affairs are looking very squally. The war has almost begun, and the first can non-shot, I suppose, will be heard on the Eider before the middle of February. At least, from the best information I can gather from German, Danish, and other sources, the conflict has become inevitable. If diplomacy does succeed in patching up matters in the next fortnight, it will show better skill in joiner's work than it has manifested of late years on any other occasion. We have at least the advantage of being comparatively secure from interference.

SOURCE: George William Curtis, editor, The Correspondence of John Lothrop Motley, Volume III, p. 2-4 

John L. Motley to Lady William Russell, May 31, 1863

Vienna,

May 31, 1863.

Dear Lady william: If I have not written of late, it is simply and purely because I am so very stupid. I don't know whether you ever read a very favorite author of mine — Charles Lamb. He says somewhere, “I have lived to find myself a disreputable character.”' Now, I don't know (nor very much care) whether I am disreputable or not, but I am conscious of being a bore, both to myself and others. It has been growing steadily upon me. I always had a natural tendency that way, and the development in the Vienna atmosphere has been rapid. As I know you hate bores worse than anything else human (if they are human), I have been disposed to suppress myself. What can I say to you about Vienna? I don't wish to say anything against people who have civilly entreated me, who are kindly in manner, and are certainly as well dressed, as well bred, as good-looking as could be desired. A Vienna salon, with its Comtessen Zimmer adjoining, full of young beauties, with their worshipers buzzing about them like great golden humblebees, is as good a specimen of the human tropical-conservatory sort of thing as exists. But I must look at it all objectively, not subjectively. The society is very small in number. As you know, one soon gets to know every one — gets a radiant smile from the fair women and a pressure of the hand from the brave men; exchanges a heartfelt word or two about the Prater, or the last piece at the Burg; groans aloud over the badness of the opera and the prevalence of the dust, und damit Punktum.

Your friend Prince Paul is better of late. But he has been shut up all the winter. A few nights ago we saw him at the Opera. You are at the headquarters of intelligence, so you know better than I do whether you are going to war about Poland. I take it for granted that no sharper instrument than the pen will be used by the two “great powers,” and that they will shed nothing more precious than ink this year, which can be manufactured very cheap in all countries. At any rate, people talk very pacifically here, except in the newspapers. The Duc de Gramont has gone to Karlsbad to drink the waters for six weeks; the first secretary of his embassy is absent; Lord Bloomfield has gone into the country; Count Rechberg has been ailing for some weeks; and meantime we are informed this morning by telegraph that engineer officers in London and Paris have arranged the plan of the campaign. Finland is at once to be occupied, a great battle is to be fought, in which the Allies are to be victorious, after which St. Petersburg is to be immediately captured — simple comme bonjour. The newspapers give you this telegram, all of them exactly as I state it. Ah, if campaigning in the field were only as easy and bloodless as in the newspapers! But the poor Poles are shedding something warmer than ink, and I can't say it seems very fair to encourage them to go on, if you are going to help them with nothing harder than fine phrases, which have small effect on Cossacks; for what is called in the jargon of the day “moral influence” (whatever it may be) is no doubt a very valuable dispensation, but gunpowder carries nearer to the mark.

There seems something very grand in this occult power, called the Committee of Public Safety, at Warsaw, a new vehmgericht. I am told that General Berg, on being asked the other day by Grand Duke Constantine if he had made any discoveries yet as to the people who composed the Committee, replied in the affirmative. “Who are they?” said the grand duke. “Let me first tell you who don't belong to it,” said the general. “I don't, for one; your Imperial Highness does not, I think, for another; but for all the rest of Warsaw I can't say.” A comfortable situation for a grand duke! This invisible Committee send as far as Vienna for recruits, and men start off without a murmur, go and get themselves shot, or come back again, as the case may be, and nobody knows who sent for them or how. I have heard of several instances of this occurring in high and well-known families. I am just now much interested in watching the set-to between crown and Parliament in Berlin. By the way, Bismarck-Schonhausen is one of my oldest and most intimate friends.

We lived together almost in the same rooms for two years, — some ages ago, when we were both juvenes imberbes, — and have renewed our friendship since. He is a man of great talent and most undaunted courage. We have got a little parliament here, which we call the Beichsrath, and are as proud as Punch of it. It has worked two years admirably well, only the opposition members, who make up two thirds of it, never come, which makes it easier for the administration. My wife and daughters join me in warmest regards and most fervent wishes for your happiness and restoration to health, and I remain

Most sincerely and devotedly yours,

Varius Variorum.

SOURCE: George William Curtis, editor, The Correspondence of John Lothrop Motley in Two Volumes, Library Edition, Volume 2, p. 332-5

John M. Forbes to Moses H. Grinnell, July 6, 1861

Boston, July 6,1861.

Thank you for your telegram. I wrote you last Sunday in substance as follows: —

We are obliterating party lines, which is all the fashion, especially with the Outs. Why not do so with state lines? Of all the men who should go abroad, Lothrop Motley would do most credit to the administration. He was shut off by Adams and Burlingame, much to our regret, and to the loss of the country. He is a Republican from the start, a linguist, and the historian of the day. Now that Burlingame has been banished to China, why not send Motley to Vienna? It would be a delicate matter for Massachusetts to press, as she has two foreign missions, but if the suggestion came from you, upon considerations of public interest, I should think Mr. Seward would not hesitate to appoint him. We have not, outside of London and Sardinia, a very strong representation in Europe, and it does strike me this would strengthen the administration.

If you agree with me, and will push it, you can do it, and I know it will be applauded, as Mr. Irving's appointment, you remember, was universally. It would be a compliment to literature rather than to our State. . . .

I hope to see Congress organize a mercantile navy, and put you at the head of a commission to sit in New York, and see to it. Buy clipper ships, and commission the captains with good rank for the war!

SOURCE: Sarah Forbes Hughes, Letters and Recollections of John Murray Forbes, Volume 1, p. 225