chief of the peace armies resided in sumptuous hotels, furnished luxuriously in dubious taste, flooded after sundown with dazzling light, and filled by day with the buzz of idle chatter, the shuffling of feet, the banging of doors, and the ringing of bells. Music and dancing enlivened the inmates when their day's toil was over and time had to be killed. Thus, within, one could find anxious deliberation and warm debate; without, noisy revel and vulgar brawl. "Fate's a fiddler; life's a dance."

To few of those visitors did Paris seem what it really was—a nest of golden dreams, a mist of memories, a seed-plot of hopes, a storehouse of time's menaces.

THE PARIS CONFERENCE AND THE CONGRESS OF VIENNA

There were no solemn pageants, no impressive ceremonies, such as those that rejoiced the hearts of the Viennese in 1814-15 until the triumphal march of the Allied troops.

The Vienna of Congress days was transformed into a paradise of delights by a brilliant court which pushed hospitality to the point of lavishness. In the burg alone were two emperors, two empresses, four kings, one queen, two crown-princes, two archduchesses, and three princes. Every day the Emperor's table cost fifty thousand gulden—every Congress day cost him ten times that sum. Galaxies of Europe's eminent personages flocked to the Austrian capital, taking with them their ministers, secretaries, favorites, and "confidential agents." So eager were these world-reformers to enjoy themselves that the court did not go into mourning for Queen Marie Caroline of Naples, the last of Marie Theresa's daughters. Her death was not even announced officially lest it should trouble the festivities of the jovial peace-makers!

The Paris of the Conference, on the other hand, was democratic, with a strong infusion of plutocracy. It attempted no such brilliant display as that which flattered the senses or fired the imagination of the Viennese. In 1919 mankind was simpler in its tastes and perhaps less esthetic. It is certain that the froth of contemporary frivolity had lost its sparkling whiteness and was grown turbid. In Vienna, balls, banquets, theatricals, military reviews, followed one another in dizzy succession and enabled politicians and adventurers to carry on their intrigues and machinations unnoticed by all except the secret police. And, as the Congress marked the close of one bloody campaign and ushered in another, one might aptly term it the interval between two tragedies. For a time it seemed as though this part of the likeness might become applicable to the Conference of Paris.

Moving from pleasure to politics, one found strong contrasts as well as surprising resemblances between the two peace-making assemblies, and, it was assumed, to the advantage of the Paris Conference. Thus, at the Austrian Congress, the members, while seemingly united, were pulling hard against one another, each individual or group tugging in a different direction. The Powers had been compelled by necessity to unite against a common enemy and, having worsted him on the battlefield, fell to squabbling among themselves in the Council Chamber as soon as they set about dividing the booty. In this respect the Paris Conference—the world was assured in the beginning—towered aloft above its historic predecessor. Men who knew the facts declared repeatedly that the delegates to the Quai d'Orsay were just as unanimous, disinterested, and single-minded during the armistice as they were through the war. Probably they were.

Another interesting point of comparison was supplied by the dramatis personæ? of both illustrious companies. They were nearly all representatives of old states, but there was one exception.

THE CONGRESS CHIEF

Mistrusted, Feared, Humored, and Obeyed

A relatively new Power took part in the deliberations of the Vienna Congress, and, perhaps, because of its loftier intentions, introduced a jarring note into the concert of nations. Russia was then a newcomer into the European councils; indeed she was hardly yet recognized as European. Her gifted Tsar, Alexander I, was an idealist who wanted, not so much peace with the vanquished enemy as a complete reform of the ordering of the whole world, so that wars should thenceforward be abolished and the welfare of mankind be set developing like a sort of pacific perpetuum mobile. This blessed change, however, was to be compassed, not by the peoples or their representatives, but by the governments, led by himself and deliberating in secret. At the Paris Conference it was even so.

This curious type of public worker—a mixture of the mystical and the practical—was the terror of the Vienna delegates. He put spokes in everybody's wheel, behaved as the autocrat of the Congress and felt as self-complacent as a saint. Countess von Thurheim wrote of him: "He mistrusted his environment and let himself be led by others. But he was thoroughly good and high-minded and sought after the weal, not merely of his own country, but of the whole world. Son coeur eût embrassé le bonheur du monde." He realized in himself the dreams of the philosophers about love for mankind, but their Utopias of human happiness were based upon the perfection both of subjects and of princes, and, as Alexander could fulfil only one-half of these conditions, his work remained unfinished and the poor Emperor died, a victim of his high-minded illusions.[5]

The other personages, Metternich in particular, were greatly put out by Alexander's presence. They labeled him a marplot who could not and would not enter into the spirit of their game, but they dared not offend him. Without his brave troops they could not have been victorious and they did not know how soon they might need him again, for he represented a numerous and powerful people whose economic and military resources promised it in time the hegemony of the world. So, while they heartily disliked the chief of this new great country, they also feared and, therefore, humored him. They all felt that the enemy, although defeated and humbled, was not, perhaps, permanently disabled, and might, at any moment, rise, phoenix-like and soar aloft again. The great visionary was therefore fêted and lauded and raised to a dizzy pedestal by men who, in their hearts, set him down as a crank. His words were reverently repeated and his smiles recorded and remembered. Hardly any one had the bad taste to remark that even this millennial philosopher in the statesman's armchair left unsightly flaws in his system for the welfare of man. Thus, while favoring equality generally, he obstinately refused to concede it to one race, in fact, he would not hear of common fairness being meted out to that race. It was the Polish people which was treated thus at the Vienna Congress, and, owing to him, Poland's just claims were ignored, her indefeasible rights were violated, and the work of the peace-makers was botched....

Happily, optimists said, the Paris Conference was organized on a wholly different basis. Its members considered themselves mere servants of the public—stewards, who had to render an account of their stewardship and who therefore went in salutary fear of the electorate at home. This check was not felt by the plenipotentiaries in Vienna. Again, everything the Paris delegates did was for the benefit of the masses, although most of it was done by stealth and unappreciated by them.

The remarkable document which will forever be associated with the name of President Wilson was the clou of the Conference. The League of Nations scheme seemed destined to change fundamentally the relations of peoples toward one another, and the change was expected to begin immediately after the Covenant had been voted, signed, and ratified. But it was not relished by any government except that of the United States, and it was in order to enable