![]() ![]() The episode is faintly ridiculous and does not make Metternich seem loveable. While the authorities scrambled to lay hands on him, the wily Hofmann fled the concert and went into hiding before he could be arrested. ![]() He had become a spy for the French government and was busily gathering information on British military strength. But Metternich made such a fuss about his discovery, gesticulating and pointing, that Hofmann realized he was in danger. Hofmann had been a raging radical and supporter of the French Revolution at the University of Mainz, where he had taught the young Metternich philosophy and natural law a couple of years earlier. As it happened (though Metternich did not know this), Hofmann was by 1794 a genuine danger to his host country. The charge was true, though by itself it hardly seems a sufficient reason for spoiling a perfectly good musical evening. Rather than renewing old acquaintance, the future Prince of Diplomats immediately denounced Hofmann to the authorities as a dangerous subversive. ![]() In the midst of a Haydn concert in London in June 1794, the young Clemens von Metternich spotted his one-time teacher, Andreas Hofmann, in the audience. ![]()
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