The Final Act : The Roads to Waterloo

New York: Henry Holt and Co.. Very Good/Very Good. 1997. First Edition, First Impression. Hard Cover. 8vo 0805031847 Dust jacket complete, unclipped. Black cloth spine over yellow boards. Illustrated end papers. xv, 544 pages clean and tight. 1814-15: Europe embraces an uneasy peace. The fires of revolution have been banked, the ardor of Napoleonic expansion dimmed. But memory keeps fear alive. Despite mutual antagonisms, the ruling powers know they must restore the "natural order" or risk repeating the past. And so they agree to convene a great congress of nations in Vienna. Its goal: to insure the peace of Europe. Its hidden agenda: to secure advantage, fix disputed boundaries, eliminate republicanism. No diplomatic event in history had so stellar a cast as the Congress of Vienna: Tsar Alexander, with his mystical visions, his chimerical moods. Talleyrand, cunning and duplicitous, who would act as a victor though he represented a defeated nation. Castlereagh, alone in His Majesty's government to understand the necessity for a Concert of Europe, who single-handedly built Britain's foreign corps and who would end a suicide. Wellington, the Iron Duke, who would go on to underwrite the diplomatic decisions with military victory. And Meiaernich, the force majeure, seemingly everywhere at once, trading, entreating, finagling in his unremitting attack on the forces of liberalism. Along with a supporting cast of rogues and mistresses, clairvoyants and spies, they turned Vienna into a theater of intrigue that shaped the face of Europe for a century to come. And hovering over it all, the brooding presence of the man who was not there: Napoleon Bonaparte, whose shadow was the force that drove them to find common ground. He would confirm their worst fears, breaking free of exile to challenge them on the plains of Waterloo. .