The congress was the world’s biggest junket, a diplomatic summit, an interminable ball, a social carousel, a feast of gourmandism, a VD-infested super-brothel, attended by Alexander, Wellington, Talleyrand and hundreds of diplomats, spies, bankers, mountebanks and panders, as well as thousands of prostitutes and 18,000 members of the public, with a soundtrack by Beethoven:
