Metternich’s very appointment had testified to the cosmopolitan nature of the eighteenth-century society. He was born in the Rhineland, near the border of France, educated in Strasbourg and Mainz. Metternich did not see Austria until his thirteenth year and did not live there until his seventeenth. He was appointed Foreign Minister in 1809 and Chancellor in 1821, serving until 1848. Fate had placed him in the top civilian position in an ancient empire at the beginning of its decline.
