264 POLITICAL AUTOBIOGRAPHY

When Beust's career in Saxony was terminated by the war
of 1866 he accepted a flattering invitation to enter the Austrian
service. His first task was to carry to Paris an appeal from
Francis Joseph, for help. Napoleon HI was in the middle of
one of his periods of intense physical pain, and he could only
mutter " Je ne suis pas pret a la guerre." " I do not ask you to
fight," replied Beust, " but merely to send troops to the
frontier. Then you would be accepted as a mediator. If you
do not, perhaps you yourself will have a war with Prussia in
five or six years, and I promise you that in that case all Germany
will march against you." The prophecy, was fulfilled, and
Austria stood aloof in 1870 as France had stood aloof in 1866.
Beust assures his readers that Austria had no commitments to
France and -no thought of intervention, not on account of
Russian threats if she did, but because Francis Joseph accepted
the new order in Central Europe, and Beust realised that all
Germany would fight. The common belief that he was and
always remained anti-Prussian and dreamed of revenge for the
events of 1866 is dismissed as a legend. He was eager to work
for the internal consolidation of the Hapsburg Empire, be-
lieving that the bitter lesson of Sadowa could be turned to good
account. The first task was to make the Ausgleich with Hun-
gary, and he quotes Andrassy's compliment: " Without you
it would not have been completed." The second was to
modernise the institutions of the state. Beust, like Kaunitz
and Metternich, was appointed Chancellor, or President of the
Ministry, as well as Foreign Minister, so great was the Emper-
or's confidence; but in domestic affairs his power was limited.
The two chief obstacles to the removal of hampering abuses,
in his opinion, were reactionary Clericalism and the feudal
aristocracy. " I will never be the mouthpiece of a purely des-
potic government," he announced,- and he kept his word. He
succeeded in abolishing the Concordat and he advised the
adoption of the Constitution of 1867. Yet he was detested
by the aristocracy and Society as a revolutionist, and in 1871
his enemies brought him down. Though a loyal servant
of Francis Joseph, to whom he was sincerely attached, he
retained his German sympathies, and he wished to increase
the power of the German element in Austria as a bridge
between Vienna and Berlin. The detailed narrative ends id
1871, but there are some pleasant snapshots of the years in
England, where he had served as a young man and of which he
spoke affectionately as his second home.