Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 10.djvu/174

Rh 162. dire.-torship at Berlin and consequent removal to the capital, l he was sent to a gymnasium there, and in due course com- pleted his education at the university of F1'ankfo1't—o11-the- Oder. He is said to have shown neither liking nor aptitude for intellectual pursuits till after his attendance on the lectures of Kant at l{'onigsberg, in his twentieth or twenty- first year, when, suddenly lighted up as by inspiration, he set to work in right earnest, mastered the Greek and Latin languages, acquired as perfect a knowledge of French as could well be attained by one who was not a F renclnnan, and a sufﬁcient familiarity with English to enable him to translate from it with clcarness and ﬂuency. He also managed to gain an intimate acquaintance with English commerce and finance, which he afterwards turned to good account. The extent of his acquirements was rendered more remarkable by his conﬁrmed habits of dissipation; for from the commencement to the conclusion of his career he was remarkable for the manner in which, in the midst of the gravest occupations, he indulged his fondness for female society and a ruinous passion for play. In 1780 he was appointed private secretary to the royal general directory, and was soon afterwards promoted to the rank of Ii’:-z'qr/.-2-(1!/L (war-councillor). Like Mackintosh, he was fascinated by the French Revolution at its dawn, and, like lI-ackintosh, was converted to a sounder estimate of its then pending results by Burke. He broke ground in literature in 1794-, by a translation of the celebrated 1:'s.sn_z/ on the ]"renc/2 Revolution, followed in 1794 and 1795 by translations from .Iallet du Pan and '_Iounier. In 1795 he founded and edited a. monthly journal which soon came to an untimely end. In November 1797 he published a pamphlet under the title of 'a Semlsc/zreiben or J1 issi ve addressed to Frederick William III. of Prussia on his accession, pointing out the duties of the new sovereign and especially recommending the complete freedom of the press. In the course of the next three years he contributed to the II istorisclzcs Journal a series of articles “On the Origin and Character of the 'ar against the French Revolution,” with express reference to Great Britain. These led to his visiting England, where he formed intimate relations with Mackintosh, Lord Gren- ville, Pitt, and other eminent men, which proved lasting, ﬂattering, and remunerative. The ﬁrst entries in his pub- lished diary, beginning April 14, 1800, and continued (with breaks) to the end of 1828, run thus :— “On the 14th of April, an agreeable surprise. The Jew elder, Hirsch, brought me 50 thalers for drawing up I know not what representation (Vorstcllzmg). III!/y 28.——l{eceived through Baron Kriidcner a watch set with (small) brilliants, a present from the emperor of Russia. J unc 1.—1{cceived through Garlic-kc a letter t'rorp_Lord Grenville, together with a donation of £500, the first of its '1m.” ' The last entry for this year, 1800, is :—“ At the eml of the year great pecuniary embarrassment. Received £100 from Garlicke and negotiated with Carysfort.” The diary for 1801 begins :—“ Fcbrurzry.—Very remarkable that on the one side Lord Carysfort charged me with the translation into French of the English Notes against Prussia, and shortly after- wards Count Haugwitz with the translation into German of the Prussian Notes against England.” Frequently recurring entries of this kind illustrate his position through life. He was to all intents and purposes a mercenary of the pen, but he was so openly and avowedly, and he was never so much as suspected by those who knew him best of writing contrary to his own convictions at the time. This is why he never lost the esteem or conﬁdence of his employers,—-of Prince lfetternich, for example, who, when he was officially attached to the Austrian Government, was kept regularly informed of the sources from which the greater part of his income was derived. Embarrassments of all sorts, ties and temptations from which he was irre- sistiblyimpelled to tear himself, led to his change of country; and an entry for May 180:? runs :—“ On the 15th I take leave of my wife, and at three in the morning of the '20th , the design was perforce abandoned. G E N T Z I leave Berlin with Adam Miiller, never to see it again.” It does not appear that he ever saw his wife again either; and his intimaeies with other women, mostly of the highest rank, are puzzling from their multiplicity. He professes himself unable to explain the precise history of his settle- ment in Vienna. All he remembers is that he was received with signs of jealousy and distrust, and that the emperor, to whom he was presented by Count Colloredo, showed no desire to secure his services. .lany years were to elapse before the formation of the connexion with Metternich, the most prominent feature and crowning point of his career. Before entering into any kind of engagements with the Austrian Govermnent he applied to the king of Prussia for a formal discharge, which was granted with an assurance that his Majesty, “in reference to his merits as a writer, coincided in the general approbation which he had so honourably acquired.” A decisive proof of the conﬁdence placed in him was his being invited by Count Ilaugwitz to the Prussian headquarters shortly before the battle of Jena, and commissioned to draw up the Prussian manifesto and the king’s letter to Xapolcon. It was in noticing this letter that Napoleon spoke of the known and avowed writer as “ a wretched scribe named Gentz, one of those men without. honour who sell themselves for money.” In the course of 1806, he published War between. Spain and ];')z_r/lmzd, and I")-a_«/nmzts upon 1716 Balance of Power in Europe, on receiv- ing which (at Bombay) Mackintosh wrote :—“ I assent to all you say, sympathize with all you feel, and admire equally your reason and your eloquence throughout your masterly fragment.” The boml of union between him and .Ietter- nich was formed in 1810. This was one reason, joined to his general reputation, for his being named ﬁrst secretary to the congress of Vienna in 1814, where, besides his regular duties, he seems to have made himself useful to several of the plenipotentiaries, as he notes in his diary that he re- ceived 22,000 florins in the name of Louis XVIII. from Talleyrand, and £600 from Lord Castlereagh, accompanied by “lcs pl-us fullcs promesses.” He acted in the same capacity at the congress or conference of Paris in 181.3, of Aix in 1818, Karlsbad and Vienna in 1819, Troppau and Laybach in 1820 and 1821, and Verona in 1822. The following entry in his diary for December 14, 1819, has ex~ posed him to much obloquy as the interested advocate of reactionary doctrines :—“About eleven, at Prince Blotter- nich’s: attended the last and most important sitting of the commission to settle the 13th article of the Bundes-Akt, and had my share in one of the greatest and worthiest results of the transactions of our time. A day more. important than that of Leipsic.” The 13th article provides that in all states of the Band the constitutional government shall be byestates instead of by a representative body in 9. single chamber: “in allcn Bundestaaten wird eine landstiindische Verfassung stattfinden.” Remembering what ensued in Fr_-auce from the absorption of the other estates in the Tiers Etat, it would have been strange if Gentz had not supported this 13th article. He was far from a consistent politician, but he "1s always a sound Conservative at heart; and his reputation rests on his foreign policy, especially on the courage, elo- quence, and efficiency with which he made head against the Napoleonic system till it was struck down. The most remarkable phase of Gentz's declining years was his passion, in his sixty-seventh year, for Fanny Elssler, the celebrated Jansezzse, which forms the subject of some very remarkable letters to his attached friend ltahcl (the wife of Varnhagen von Ense) in 1830 and 1831. He (lied June 9, 1832?. There is no complete edition of his works. The late Baron von Prokesch was engaged in pre- paring one when the Austrian Government interfered, and (A. U1