The Hofburg Reception

The morning of 6 August dawned over Palais Kinsky with a brown-coated watcher fixed at the fountain in Am Hof Square, a folded newspaper in his hands and the air of a man who had stood there all night. Over eggs and dark coffee the party laid out a crowded day: a dawn call on the composer Reichenbach, the British and Sardinian delegations for reception invitations, Dorothea’s salon in the afternoon, the Imperial reception at seven — and a note from Baron von Kaunitz requesting Emma at three to…