At the ungodly hour of 6 o’clock on that same morning, 7 March 1815, Metternich was shaken awake by his valet Giroux. A courier had arrived at the door with a despatch marked ‘urgent’, so Giroux had decided to wake his master, in spite of having been told to let him sleep late. Metternich took one look at the envelope, which was marked: ‘From the I[mperial] & R[oyal] Consulate General in Genoa’. He laid it on his bedside table and turned over to go back to sleep. But, having been disturbed, he slept fitfully, and at 7.30 he reached over and opened the envelope. It contained the briefest of
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