What would the old school of Diplomatists have said if they saw their
secret wiles and machinations exposed to publicity, as is now the
fashion? When any “honourable and learned gentleman” can call for
“copies of the correspondence between our Minister at the Court
of-------- and the noble Secretary for the Foreign Department;” and
when the “Times” can, in a leader, rip up all the flaws of a treaty, or
expose all the dark intentions of some special compact? The Diplomatic
“Holy of Holies” is now open to the vulgar gaze, and all the mysteries
of the craft as commonplace as the transactions of a Poor-law Union.
Much of the “prestige” of this secrecy died out on the establishment of
railroads. The Courier who travelled formerly with breathless haste from
Moscow to London, or from the remotest cities of the far East, to our
little Isle of the West, was sure to bring intelligence several days
earlier than it could reach by any other channel. The gold greyhound,
embroidered on his arm, was no exaggerated emblem of his speed; but
now, his prerogative over, he journeys in “a first-class carriage”
with some fifty others, who arrive along with him. Old age and infancy,
sickness and debility, are no disqualifications--the race is open to
all--and the tidings brought by “our messenger” are not a particle
later, and rarely so full, as those given forth in the columns of a
leading journal.
How impossible to affect any mysterious silence before the “House!”--how
vain to attempt any knowledge from exclusive sources! “The ordinary
channels of information,” to use Sir Robert’s periphrasis, are the
extraordinary ones too; and not only do they contain whatever Ministers
know, but very often “something more.”
Time was when the Minister, or even the Secretary at a Foreign Court,
appeared in society as a kind of casquet of state secrets,--when his
mysterious whispers, his very gestures, were things to speculate on, and
a grave motion of his eyebrows could make “Consols” tremble, and throw
the “Threes” into a panic. Now the question is, Have you seen the City
article in the “Times?” What does the “Chronicle” say? No doubt this is
a tremendous power, and very possibly the enjoyment of it, such as
we have it in England, is the highest element of a pure democracy.
Political information of a very high order establishes a species
of education, which is the safest check upon the dangers of private
judgment, and hence it is fair to hope that we possess a sounder and
more healthy public opinion in England than in any of the states of the
Continent. At least it would not be too much to infer, that we would be
less accessible to those sudden convulsions, those violent “_coups de
main_” by which Governments are overturned abroad; and that the general
diffusion of new notions on political subjects, and the daily reference
to such able expositors as our newspaper press contains, are
strong safeguards against the seductive promises of mob-leaders and
liberty-mongers.
In France, a Government is always at the mercy of any one bold enough to
lead the assault. The attempt may seem often a “forlorn hope”--it rarely
is so in reality. The love of vagrancy is not so inherent in the Yankee
as is the destructive passion in the Frenchman’s heart; but it is there,
less from any pleasure in demolition than in the opportunity thus.
offered for reconstruction. Mirabeau, Rousseau, Fournier, La Mennais,
are the social architects of French predilection, and many a clearance
has been made to begin the edifice, and many have perished in laying the
foundations, which never rose above the earth, but which ere long we may
again witness undertaken with new and bolder hands than ever.
Events that once took centuries for their accomplishment, are now the
work of days or weeks. Steam seems to have communicated its impetuosity
to mind as well as matter, and ere many years pass over how few of the
traces of Old Europe will remain, as our fathers knew them?
I have scarcely entered a foreign city, for the last few years, without
detecting the rapid working of those changes. Old families sinking into
decay and neglect--time-honoured titles regarded as things that “once
were.” Their very homes, the palaces, associated with incidents of deep
historic interests, converted into hôtels or “_Pensionnats_.”
The very last time I strolled through Paris, I loitered to the
“_Quartier_” which, in my young ambition, I regarded with all the
reverence the pilgrim yields to Mecca. I remembered the first “_soirée_”
in which I was presented, having dined at the Embassy, and being taken
in the evening, by the Ambassador, that I might be introduced to the
Machiavel of his craft, Prince Talleyrand. Even yet I feel the hot blush
which mantled in my cheek as I was passing, with very scant ceremony,
the round-shouldered little old man who stood in the very doorway,
his wide black coat, far too large for his figure, and his white hair,
trimly brushed back from his massive temples.
It did not need the warning voice of my introducer, hastily calling my
name, to make my sense of shame a perfect agony. “Monsieur Templeton,
Monsieur le Prince,” said the Ambassador; “the young gentleman of whom
I spoke;” and he added, in a tone inaudible to me, something about my
career and some mention of my relatives.
“Oh, yes!” said the Prince, smiling graciously, “I am aware how
‘connexion,’ as you call it, operates in England; but permit me,
Monsieur,” said he, turning towards me, “to give one small piece of
advice. It is this: ‘If you can win by cards never score the honours.’”
The precept had little influence on himself, however. No man ever paid
greater deference to the distinctions of rank, or conceded more to
the prestige of an ancient name. Neither a general, an orator, nor an
author--not even the leader of a faction--this astonishing man stood
alone, in the resources of his fertile intellect, directing events,
which he appeared to follow, and availing himself of resources which he
had stored up for emergency; but so artfully, that they seemed to arise
out of the natural current of events. Never disconcerted or abashed--not
once thrown off his balance--not more calmly dignified when he stood
beside Napoleon at Erfurth, then master of Europe itself, than he was at
the Congress of Vienna, when the defeat of France had placed her at the
mercy of her enemies.
It was in this same house, in the Rue Saint Florentin, that the Emperor
Alexander lived when the Allies entered Paris, on the last day of March,
1814. His Majesty occupied the first floor; M. de Talleyrand, the _rez
de chaussée_. He was then no more than ex-Minister for Foreign Affairs;
neither empowered by the Bourbons to treat for the Restoration, nor by
the nation for the conditions of a government--he was merely “one among
the conquered;” and yet to this man all eyes were turned instinctively,
as to one who possessed the secret of the future. That _rez de chaussée_
was besieged with visitors from morning till night; and even when,
according to the custom of the French, he made his lengthened toilette,
his dressing-room was filled by all the foreign ministers of the
conquering monarchs, and Nesselrode and Metternich waited at these daily
levées. In all these discussions M. de Talleyrand took the lead, with
the same ease and the same “_àplomb_” discussing kings to make and
kingdoms to dismember, as though the clank of the muskets, which now
and then interrupted their colloquy, came from the Imperial Guard of
Napoleon, and not the Cossacks of the Don and the Uhlans of the Danube,
who crowded the stairs and the avenues, and bivouacked in the court.
Here the Restoration was decided upon, and Talleyrand himself it was who
decided it. The Emperor Alexander opposed it strongly at first, alleging
that the old spirit and the old antipathies would all return with the
elder Bourbons, and suggesting the Duc d’Orléans as king. Talleyrand,
however, overruled the objection, asserting that no new agent must
be had recourse to for governing at such a juncture, and that one
usurpation could not be succeeded by another. It is said that when the
news reached Vienna, in 1815, that Napoleon had landed from Elba, the
Emperor Alexander came hurriedly over to where Talleyrand was sitting,
and informing him what had occurred, said, “I told you before your
plan would be a failure!” “_Mais que faire?_” coolly retorted the calm
_diplomate_; “of two evil courses it was the better--I never said
more of it. Had you proclaimed the King of Rome, you had been merely
maintaining the power of Napoleon under another name. You cannot
establish the government of a great nation upon a half-measure. Besides
that, Legitimacy, whatever its faults, was the only Principle that could
prove to Europe at large that France and Napoleon were parted for ever;
and, after so many barterings of crowns and trucklings of kingdoms,
it was a fine opportunity of shewing that there was still
something--whether it be or be not by right divine--which was superior
to sabres and muskets, generals and armies.”
It was the sanctity of right--whether of kings, people, or
individuals--which embodied Talleyrand’s conception of the Restoration;
and this it was which he so admirably expressed when arriving at the
Congress of Vienna, the ambassador of a nation without wealth or army.
“_Je viens_” said he to the assembled Kings and Ministers of conquering
Europe--“_Je viens et je vous apporte plus que vous n’avez,--Je vous
apporte l’idée du droit!_” This was happily expressed; but no one more
than he knew how to epigrammatise a whole volume of thought. In private
life, the charm of his manner was the most perfect thing imaginable: his
consciousness of rank and ancient family divested him of all pretension
whatever, and the idea of entering the lists with any one never occurred
to his mind. Willingly availing himself of the talents of others,
and their pens upon occasion, he never felt any embittering jealousy.
Approachable by all, his unaffected demeanour was as likely to strike
the passing observer as the rich stores of his intellect would have
excited the admiration of a more reflecting one. Such was he who has
passed away from amongst us--perhaps the very last name of the eventful
era he lived in which shall claim a great place in history!
A singular picture of human vicissitude is presented to us in the aspect
of those places, but more particularly of those houses wherein great
events have once occurred, but where times’ change have brought new and
very different associations. A very few years, in this eventful century
we live in, will do this. The wonderful drama of the Empire sufficed to
impress upon every city of Europe some great and imposing reminiscence.
A small, unpretending little house, beside the ducal park at Weimar, was
Napoleon’s resting-place for three days, when the whole world was at his
feet! The little salon where his receptions were held at evening--and
what receptions were they! the greatest Ministers and the most
distinguished Generals of Europe!--scarcely more than an ordinary
dressing-room in size, remains to this hour as he left it. One
arm-chair, a little larger than the others, stands at the window, which
always lay open. A table was placed upon the grass-plot outside, where
several maps were laid. The salon itself was too small to admit it, and
here from time to time the Emperor repaired, while with eagle glance
and abrupt gesture he marked out the future limits of the continental
kingdoms, creating and erasing monarchies, fashioning nations and
people, in all the proud wilfulness of Omnipotence! And now, while
thinking of the Emperor, let me bring to mind another local association.
In the handsomest part of the Chaussée d’Antin, surrounded on every
side by the splendid palaces and gorgeous mansions of the wealthiest
inhabitants of Paris, stands a small, isolated, modest edifice, more
like a Roman villa than the house of some northern capital, in the midst
of a park; one of those pleasure-grounds which the French--Heaven knows
why--designate as “Jardin Anglais.” The outer gate opens on the Rue
Chantereine, and here to this hour you may trace, among the time-worn
and dilapidated ornaments, some remnants of the strange figures which
once decorated the pediment: weapons of various ages and countries,
grouped together with sphinxes and Egyptian emblems; the faint outlines
of pyramids, the peaceful-looking ibis, are there, among the helmets and
cuirasses, the massive swords and the death-dealing arms of our modern
warfare. In the midst of all, the number 52 stands encircled with a
little garland of leaves; but even they are scarce distinguishable now,
and the number itself requires the aid of faith to detect it.
Within, the place speaks of neglect and decay; the shrubs are broken and
uncared-for; the parterres are weed-grown; a few marble pedestals rise
amid the rank grass, to mark where statues once stood, but no other
trace of them remains: the very fountain itself is fissured and broken,
and the water has worn its channel along the herbage, and ripples on its
wayward course unrestrained. The villa is almost a ruin, the sashes have
fallen in in many places; the roof, too, has given way, and fragments
of the mirrors which once decorated the walls lie strewn upon the floor
with pieces of rare marble. Wherever the eye turns, some emblem of the
taste of its former occupant meets you. Some fresco, Stained with damp,
and green with mildew; some rustic bench, beneath a spreading tree,
where the view opens more boldly; but all are decayed. The inlaid floors
are rotting; the stuccoed ceilings, the richly-carved architraves, fall
in fragments as your footsteps move; and the doomed walls themselves
seem scarce able to resist the rude blast whose wailing cadence steals
along them.
Oh, how tenfold more powerfully are the memories of the dead preserved
by the scenes they habited while in life, than by the tombs and epitaphs
that cover their ashes! How do the lessons of one speak home to
the heart, calling up again, before the mind’s eye, the very images
themselves! not investing them with attributes our reason coldly
rejects.
I know not the reason that this villa has been suffered thus to lapse
into utter ruin, in the richest quarter of so splendid a city. I believe
some long-contested litigation had its share in the causes. My present
business is rather with its past fortunes; and to them I will now
return.
It was on a cold dark morning of November, in the year 1799, that the
street we have just mentioned, then called the Rue de la Victoire,
became crowded with equipages and horsemen; cavalcades of generals and
their staffs, in full uniform, arrived and were admitted within the
massive gateway, before which, now, groups of curious and inquiring
gazers were assembled, questioning and guessing as to the unusual
spectacle. The number of led horses that paraded the street, the long
lines of carriages on either side, nearly filled the way; still there
reigned a strange, unaccountable stillness, among the crowd, who, as
if appalled by the very mystery of the scene, repressed their ordinary
tumult, and waited anxiously to watch the result.
Among the most interested spectators were the inhabitants of the
neighbouring houses, who saw, for the first time in their lives, their
quiet quarter the scene of such excitement. Every window was filled with
faces, all turned towards that portal which so seldom was seen to open
in general; for they who dwelt there had been more remarkable for the
retirement and privacy of their habits than for aught else.
At each arrival the crowd separated to permit the equipage to approach
the gate; and then might be heard the low murmur--for it was no
louder--of “Ha! that’s Lasalle. See the mark of the sabre wound on
his cheek!” Or, “Here comes Angereau! You’d never think that handsome
fellow, with the soft eye, could be such a tiger.” “Place there! place
for Colonel Savary!” “Ah, dark Savary! we all know him.”
Stirring as was the scene without, it was far inferior to the excitement
that prevailed within the walls. There, every path and avenue that
led to the villa were thronged with military men, walking or standing
together in groups, conversing eagerly, and with anxious looks, but
cautiously withal, and as though half fearing to be overheard.
Through the windows of the villa might be seen servants passing and
repassing in haste, arranging the preparations for a magnificent
_déjeûné_--for on that morning the generals of division and the
principal military men in Paris were invited to breakfast with one of
their most distinguished companions--General Buonaparte.
Since his return from Egypt, Buonaparte had been living a life
of apparent privacy and estrangement from all public affairs. The
circumstances under which he had quitted the army under his command--the
unauthorised mode of his entry into France, without recall, without
even permission--had caused his friends considerable uneasiness on
his behalf, and nothing short of the unobtrusive and simple habits he
maintained had probably saved him from being called on to account for
his conduct.
They, however, who themselves were pursuing the career of ambition, were
better satisfied to see him thus, than hazard any thing by so bold
an expedient. They believed that he was only great at the head of his
legions; and they felt a triumphant pleasure at the obscurity into
which the victor of Lodi and the Pyramids had fallen when measured with
themselves. They witnessed, then, with sincere satisfaction, the seeming
indolence of his present life. They watched him in those _soirées_ which
Madame Buonaparte gave, enjoying his repose with such thorough
delight--those delightful evenings, the most brilliant for all that wit,
intellect, and beauty can bestow; which Talleyrand and Sieyes, Fouché,
Carnot, Lemercier, and a host of others frequented; and they dreamed
that his hour of ambition was over, and that he had fallen into the
inglorious indolence of the retired soldier.
While the greater number of the guests strolled listlessly through the
little park, a small group sat in the vestibule of the villa, whose
looks of impatience were ever turned towards the door from which their
host was expected to enter. One of those was a tall, slight man, with
a high but narrow forehead, dark eyes, deeply buried in his head, and
overshadowed by long, heavy lashes; his face was pale, and evinced
evident signs of uneasiness, as he listened, without ever speaking, to
those about him. This was General Moreau. He was dressed in the uniform
of a General of the day: the broad-skirted embroidered coat, the
half-boot, the embroidered tricolour scarf, and a chapeau with a deep
feather trimming--a simple, but a handsome costume, and which well
became his well-formed figure. Beside him sat a large, powerfully-built
man, whose long black hair, descending in loose curls on his neck and
back, as well as the jet-black brilliancy of his eye and deep olive
complexion, bespoke a native of the South. Though his dress was like
Moreau’s, there was a careless jauntiness in his air, and a reckless
“_abandon_” in his manner, that gave the costume a character totally
different. The very negligence of his scarf-knot was a type of himself;
and his thickly-uttered French, interspersed here and there with Italian
phrases, shewed that Murat cared little to cull his words. At his
left was a hard-featured, stern-looking man, in the uniform of the
Dragoons--this was Andreossy; and opposite, and leaning on a sofa,
was General Lannes. He was pale and sickly; he had risen from a bed of
illness to be present, and lay with half-closed lids, neither noticing
nor taking interest in what went on about him.
At the window stood Marmont, conversing with a slight but handsome
youth, in the uniform of the Chasseurs. Eugène Beauharnois was then but
twenty-two, but even at that early age displayed the soldier-like ardour
which so eminently distinguished him in after-life.
At length the door of the salon opened, and Buonaparte, dressed in the
style of the period, appeared; his cheeks were sunk and thin; his hair,
long, flat, and silky, hung straight down at either side of his pale
and handsome face, in which now one faint tinge of colour marked either
cheek. He saluted the rest with a warm shake of the hand, and then
stooping down, said to Murat:--
“But Bernadotte--where is he?”
“Yonder,” said Murat, carelessly pointing to a group outside the
terrace, where a tall, fine-looking man, dressed in plain clothes, and
without any indication of the soldier in his costume, stood in the midst
of a knot of officers.
“Ha! General,” said Napoleon, advancing towards him; “you are not in
uniform. How comes this?”
“I am not on service,” was the cold reply.
“No, but you soon shall be,” said Buonaparte, with an effort at
cordiality of manner.
“I do not anticipate it,” rejoined Bernadotte, with an expression at
once firm and menacing.
Buonaparte drew him to one side gently, and while he placed his arm
within his, spoke to him with eagerness and energy for several minutes;
but a cold shake of the head, without one word in reply, was all that he
could obtain.
“What!” exclaimed Buonaparte, aloud, so that even the others heard
him--“what! are you not convinced of it? Will not this Directory
annihilate the Revolution? have we a moment to lose? The Council of
Ancients are met to appoint me Commander-in-chief of the Army;--go, put
on your uniform, and join me at once.”
“I will not join a rebellion,” was the insolent reply.
Buonaparte shrunk back and dropped his arm, then rallying in a moment,
added,--
“‘Tis well; you’ll at least remain here until the decree of the Council
is issued.”
“Am I, then, a prisoner?” said Bernadotte, with a loud voice.
“No, no; there is no question of that kind: but pledge me your honour to
undertake nothing adverse to me in this affair.”
“As a mere citizen, I will not do so,” replied the other; “but if I am
ordered by a sufficient authority, I warn you.”
“What do you mean, then, as a mere citizen!”
“That I will not go forth into the streets, to stir up the populace; nor
into the barracks, to harangue the soldiers.”
“Enough; I am satisfied. As for myself, I only desire to rescue the
Republic; that done, I shall retire to Malmaison, and live peaceably.”
A smile of a doubtful, but sardonic character, passed over Bernadotte’s
features as he heard these words, while he turned coldly away, and
walked towards the gate. “What, Augureau! thou here?” said he, as he
passed along, and with a contemptuous shrug he moved forward, and soon
gained the street. And truly, it seemed strange that he, the fiercest of
the Jacobins, the General who made his army assemble in clubs and knots
to deliberate during the campaign of Italy, that he should now lend
himself to uphold the power of Buonaparte!
Meanwhile, the salons were crowded in every part, party succeeding
party at the tables; where, amid the clattering of the breakfast and the
clinking of glasses, the conversation swelled into a loud and
continued din. Fouché, Berthier, and Talleyrand, were also to be seen,
distinguishable by their dress, among the military uniforms; and here
now might be heard the mingled doubts and fears, the hopes and dreads of
each, as to the coming events; and many watched the pale, care-worn face
of Bourienne, the secretary of Buonaparte, as if to read in his features
the chances of success; while the General himself went from room to
room, chatting confidentially with each in turn, recapitulating as he
went the phrase, “The country is in danger!” and exhorting all to be
patient, and wait calmly for the decision of the Council, which could
not, now, be long of coming.
As they were still at table, M. Carnet, the deputation of the Council,
entered, and delivered into Buonaparte’s hands the sealed packet, from
which he announced to the assembly that the legislative bodies had been
removed to St. Cloud, to avoid the interruption of popular clamour, and
that he, General Buonaparte, was named Commander-in-chief of the Army,
and intrusted with the execution of the decree.
This first step had been effected by the skilful agency of Sieyes and
Roger Ducos, who spent the whole of the preceding night in issuing
the summonses for a meeting of the Council to such as they knew to be
friendly to the cause they advocated. All the others received theirs too
late; forty-two only were present at the meeting, and by that fragment
of the Council the decree was passed.
When Buonaparte had read the document to the end, he looked around
him on the fierce, determined faces, bronzed and seared in many a
battle-field, and said, “My brothers in arms, will you stand by me
here?”
“We will! we will!” shouted they, with one roar of enthusiasm.
“And thou, Lefebvre, did I hear thy voice there?”
“Yes, General; to the death I’m yours.”
Buonaparte unbuckled the sabre he wore at his side, and placing it in
Lefebvre’s hands, said, “I wore this at the Pyramids; it is a fitting
present from one soldier to another. Now, then, to horse!”
The splendid _cortège_ moved along the grassy alleys to the gate,
outside which, now, three regiments of cavalry and three battalions
of the 17th were drawn up. Never was a Sovereign, in all his pride of
power, surrounded with a more gorgeous staff. The conquerors of Italy,
Germany, and Egypt, the greatest warriors of Europe, were there grouped
around him--whose glorious star, even then, shone bright above him.
Scarcely had Buonaparte issued forth into the street than, raising his
hat above his head, he called aloud, “_Vive la République!_” The troops
caught up the cry, and the air rang with the wild cheers.
At the head of this force, surrounded by the Generals, he rode slowly
along towards the Tuileries, at the entrance to the gardens of which
stood Carnet, dressed in his robe of senator-in-waiting, to receive him.
Four Colonels, his aides-de-camp, marched in front of Buonaparte, as he
entered the Hall of the Ancients--his walk was slow and measured, and
his air studiously respectful.
The decree being read, General Buonaparte replied in a few broken
phrases, expressive of his sense of the confidence reposed in him: the
words came with difficulty, and he spoke like one abashed and confused.
He was no longer in front of his armed legions, whose war-worn looks
inspired the burning eloquence of the camp--those flashing images, those
daring flights, suited not the cold assembly, in whose presence he now
stood--and he was ill at ease and disconcerted. It was only, at length,
when turning to the Generals who pressed on after him, he addressed the
following words, that his confidence in himself came back, and that he
felt himself once more,--
“This is the Republic we desire to have--and this we shall have; for it
is the wish of those who now stand around me.”
The cries of “_Vive la République!_” burst from the officers at once,
as they waved their _chapeaux_ in the air, mingled with louder shouts of
“_Vive le Général!_”
If the great events of the day were now over with the Council, they had
only begun with Buonaparte.
“Whither now, General?” said Lefebvre, as he rode to his side.
“To the guillotine, I suppose,” said Andreossy, with a look of sarcasm.
“We shall see that,” was the cold answer of Buonaparte, while he gave
the word to push forward to the Luxembourg.
This was but the prologue, and now began the great drama, the greatest,
whether for its interest or its actors--that ever the world has been
called to witness.
We all know the sequel, if sequel that can be called which our own days
would imply is but the prologue of the piece!