The final act

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 Metternich, the force majeure, seemingly everywhere at once,…