ARTICLES Questions of Organisation, Portraits and Everyday Life in Vienna, 1814-1815. 8 István MAJOROS La Garde-Chambonas about the Congress of Vienna Questions of Organisation, Portraits and Everyday Life in Vienna, 1814-1815. La Garde-Chambonas about the Congress of Vienna prof. István MAJOROS Bölcsészettudományi Kar, Eötvös Loránd Tudományegyetem Faculty of Humanities, Eötvös Loránd University Múzeum krt. 6-8, 1088 Budapest, Hungary
[email protected] “The Vienna settlement of 1815 has been ranked with the Peace of Westphalia (1648), the Peace of Utrecht (1713), and the Peace of Paris (1919) as one of the four most significant international agreements in the history of modern Europe.” – writes Charles Breunig about the Congress of Vienna.1 The author is right, because the nineteenth century was more peaceful2 than any predecessor in the history of Europe due to the Congress of Vienna. After the Napoleonic Wars, the congressmen re-established the European balance of power for the stability and peace of the continent. By the help of the Holy Alliance and by the Quadruple Alliance3 the great powers guaranteed the measures accepted in Vienna and the political and the territorial status quo in Europe created by the Congress.4 The European balance of power was one of the principles of the settlement in Vienna represented first of all by Metternich.5 In the opinion of the chancellor of Austria, Central Europe represented the main element of the new settlement because he did not want to restore the Holy Roman Empire and he did not want to create a nation state in Germany or 1 BREUNIG, Charles: The Age of Revolution and Reaction 1789–1850, New York – London 1977, 121.