Whitelaw Reid:
“…in their story of the transactions at Vienna we see for the first time in an adequate light, the great diplomatist at the height of his powers, and winning his worthiest triumphs. He went to Vienna the representative of a prostrate  nation, and of a throne propped up by the bayonets of the army that had conquered it. He found the victors apportioning the spoil without reference to him, and even without admitting him to their conferences. He had neither physical power nor moral prestige behind him; no great army; no established institutions; hardly even a country; and the very instructions he bore he had written himself. He stood alone against Europe. And yet in a few months, by sheer force of intellect and skill. He had divided the allies, had secured the territorial integrity of his country, had negotiated most useful alliances, had greatly strengthened the French throne, had done something toward  preventing the wanton partition of other nationalities, and had put France again in a leading position in Europe.”