Books: Divine Rights Defender

METTERMCH—H. du Coudray—Yale University. Press ($4.00).

In the period after the Napoleonic Wars, Prince Metternich of Austria became an almost legendary figure as the great defender of absolute monarchy, the subtle, far-reaching, implacable enemy of revolutions wherever they appeared in Europe. Traveling about the continent, he advised the dissolution of athletic societies in Germany as potential revolutionary groups, the suppression of the Carbonari in Italy for the same reason, while his counsel was sought when students rioted, soldiers mutinied, princes conspired. To conservative historians he has been known as the most...