ABSTRACT
This essay was the first that Alan Taylor published in a learned journal. It appeared in the English Historial Review, 51, 201 (January 1936) and has not been republished until now. It is based on his archival research in Vienna (1928-30), Paris (summer 1930 and subsequently) and London. In his autobiography, A Personal History (London, Hamish Hamilton, 1983), Taylor observed that it was 'My last fling with material from the Austrian achives ...'. He added that he had never felt it worth republishing: 'I must have had difficulty in writing it or perhaps I had lost interest in the subject'. I suspect the latter, as he moved away from the 1849-60 period.
