In spite of all my efforts, I was never able to bring about, I will not

say a good understanding, but even a polite understanding between

Falloux and Dufaure. It must be admitted that these two men had

precisely the opposite qualities and defects. Dufaure, who in the bottom

of his heart had remained a good west-country bourgeois, hostile to the

nobles and the priests, was unable to put up with either Falloux's

principles or his charming, refined manners, however agreeable they

might seem to me. I succeeded, however, with great difficulty, in

persuading him that he must not interfere with him in his own

department; but as to allowing him to exercise the smallest influence

upon what went on at the Ministry of the Interior (even within the

limits where this was permissible and necessary), he would never hear

speak of it. Falloux had in Anjou, where he came from, a prefect with

whom he had reason to find fault. He did not ask that he should be

dismissed, or even refused promotion; all he wanted was that he should

be transferred, as he thought his own position compromised so long as no

change took place, a change which was, moreover, demanded by the

majority of the deputies for Maine-et-Loire. Unfortunately, this prefect

was a declared friend to the Republic; and this was enough to fill

Dufaure with distrust, and to persuade him that Falloux's only object

was to compromise him by making use of him to strike at those of the

Republicans whom he had not been able to reach till then. He refused,

therefore; the other insisted; Dufaure grew still more obstinate. It was

very amusing to watch Falloux spinning round Dufaure, pirouetting

cleverly and gracefully, without finding a single opening by which to

penetrate into his mind.

Dufaure let him have his say, and then confined himself to laconically

replying, without looking at him, or only turning a dull, wry glance in

his direction:

"I should like to know why you did not take advantage of your friend M.

Faucher's period at the Home Office to rid yourself of your prefect."

Falloux contained himself, although he was naturally, I believe, of a

very hasty temper; he came and told me his troubles, and I saw the

bitterest spleen trickling through the honey of his speech. I thereupon

intervened, and tried to make Dufaure understand that this was one of

those demands which one cannot refuse a colleague unless one wishes to

quarrel with him. I spent a month in this way, acting as a daily

intermediary between the two, and expending more effort and diplomacy

than I had employed, during the same period, in treating the great

affairs of Europe. The Cabinet was more than once on the verge of

breaking up over this puny incident. Dufaure gave way at last, but with

such bad grace that it was impossible to thank him for it; so that he

gave up his prefect without getting Falloux in exchange.

But the most difficult portion of our role was the conduct which we had

to display towards the old Conservatives, who formed the bulk of the

majority, as I have already said.

These had at one and the same time general opinions which they wished to

force through and a number of private passions which they desired to

satisfy. They wanted us to re-establish order energetically: in this we

were their men; we wanted it as much as they did, and we did it as well

as they could wish, and better than they could have done. We had

proclaimed the state of siege in Lyons and several of the neighbouring

departments, and by virtue of the state of siege we had suspended six

Paris revolutionary papers, cashiered the three regiments of the Paris

National Guard which had displayed indecision on the 13th of June,

arrested seven representatives on the spot, and applied for warrants

against thirty others. Analogous measures were taken all over France.

Circulars addressed to all the agents showed them that they had to do

with a Government which knew how to make itself obeyed, and which was

determined that everything should give way before the law. Whenever

Dufaure was attacked on account of these different acts by the

Montagnards remaining in the Assembly, he replied with that masculine,

nervous, and sharp-edged eloquence of which he was so great a master,

and in the tone of a man who fights after burning his boats.

The Conservatives not only wanted us to administrate with vigour; they

wished us to take advantage of our victory to pass preventive and

repressive laws. We ourselves felt the necessity of moving in this

direction, although we were not willing to go as far as they.

For my part, I was convinced that it was both wise and necessary to make

great concessions in this respect to the fears and the legitimate

resentment of the nation, and that the only means which remained, after

so violent a revolution, of saving liberty was to restrict it. My

colleagues were of the same opinion: we therefore brought in

successively a law to suspend the clubs; another to suppress, with even

more energy than had been done under the Monarchy, the vagaries of the

press; and a third to regulate the state of siege.

"You are establishing a military dictatorship," they cried.

"Yes," replied Dufaure, "it is a dictatorship, but a parliamentary

dictatorship. There are no individual rights which can prevail against

the inalienable right of Society to protect itself. There are imperious

necessities which are the same for all governments, whether monarchies

or republics; and who has given rise to these necessities? To whom do we

owe the cruel experience which has given us eighteen months of violent

agitations, incessant conspiracies, formidable insurrections? Yes, no

doubt you are quite right when you say that, after so many revolutions

undertaken in the name of liberty, it is deplorable that we should be

once again compelled to veil her statue and to place terrible weapons in

the hands of the public powers. But whose fault is it, if not yours,

and who is it that serves the Republic best, those who favour

insurrections, or those who, like ourselves, apply themselves to

suppressing them?"

These measures, these laws and this language pleased the Conservatives

without satisfying them; and to tell the truth, nothing would have

contented them short of the destruction of the Republic. Their instinct

constantly impelled them in that direction, although their prudence and

their reason restrained them on the road.

But what they desired above all things was to oust their enemies from

place and to instal in their stead their partisans or their private

friends. We were again brought face to face with all the passions which

had brought about the fall of the Monarchy of July. The Revolution had

not destroyed them, but only made them the more greedy; this was our

great and permanent danger. Here again, I considered that we ought to

make concessions. There were still in the public offices a very large

number of those Republicans of indifferent capacity or bad character

whom the chances of the Revolution had driven into power. My advice was

to get rid of these at once, without waiting to be asked for their

dismissal, in such a way as to inspire confidence in our intentions and

to acquire the right to defend all the honest and capable Republicans;

but I could never induce Dufaure to consent to this. He had already held

the Ministry of the Interior under Cavaignac. Many of the public

servants whom it would be necessary to dismiss had been either appointed

or supported by him. His vanity was involved in the question of

maintaining them in their positions, and his mistrust of their

detractors would in any event have sufficed to persuade him to oppose

their representations. He accordingly resisted. It was, therefore, not

long before he himself became the object of all their attacks. No one

dared tackle him in the tribune, for he was too sturdy a swordsman

there; but he was constantly struck at from a distance and in the shade

of the lobbies, and I soon saw a great storm gathering against him.

"What is it we have undertaken to do?" I often asked him. "To save the

Republic with the assistance of the Republicans? No, for the majority of

those who bear that name would assuredly kill us together with it; and

those who deserve to bear the name do not number one hundred in the

Assembly. We have undertaken to save the Republic with the assistance of

parties which do not love it. We can only, therefore, govern with the

aid of concessions; only, we must never yield anything substantial. In

this matter, everything depends upon the degree. The best, and perhaps

the only guarantee which the Republic at this moment possesses lies in

our continuance in power. Every honourable means should therefore be

taken to keep us there."

To this he replied that fighting, as he did every day, with the greatest

energy, against socialism and anarchy, he must satisfy the majority; as

though one could ever satisfy men by thinking only of their general

welfare, without taking into account their vanity and their private

interests. If even, while refusing, he had been able to do so

gracefully: but the form of his refusal was still more disobliging than

the matter of it. I could never conceive how a man who was so much the

master of his words in the tribune, so clever in the art of selecting

his arguments and the words best calculated to please, so certain of

always keeping to the expressions which would compel most agreement with

his thought, could be so embarrassed, so sullen, and so awkward in

conversation. This came, I believe, from his original education. He was

a man of much intelligence, or rather talent--for of intelligence

properly so-called he had hardly any--but of no knowledge of the world.

In his youth he had led a laborious, concentrated, and almost savage

life. His entrance into political life had not to any extent changed his

habits. He had held aloof not only from intrigues, but from the contact

of parties, assiduously occupying himself with affairs, but avoiding

men, detesting the movement of assemblies, and dreading the tribune,

which was his only strength. Nevertheless, he was ambitious after his

fashion, but with a measured and somewhat inferior ambition, which aimed

at the management rather than at the domination of affairs. His manner,

as a minister, of treating people was sometimes very strange. One day,

General Castellane, who was then in great credit, asked for an

audience. He was received, and explained at length his pretensions and

what he called his rights. Dufaure listened to him long and attentively;

and then rose, led the general with many bows to the door, and left him

standing aghast, without having answered a single word. When I

reproached him with this conduct:

"I should only have had to say disagreeable things to him," he replied;

"it was more reasonable to say nothing at all!"

It is easy to believe that one rarely left a man of this kind except in

a very bad temper.

Unfortunately, he had as a sort of double a permanent secretary who was

as uncouth as himself, and very stupid besides; so that when the

solicitants passed from the Minister's office into the secretary's, in

the hope of meeting with a little comfort, they found the same

unpleasantness, minus the intelligence. It was like falling from a

quickset hedge on to a bundle of thorns.

In spite of these disadvantages, Dufaure obtained the support of the

Conservatives; but he was never able to win over their leaders.

The latter, as I had indeed foreseen, would neither undertake the

government themselves nor allow any one else to govern with a free hand.

They were unable to see without jealousy ministers at the head of

affairs who were not their creatures, and who refused to be their

instruments. I do not believe that, between the 13th of June and the

last debates on the Roman question, in other words, during almost the

whole life of the Cabinet, a single day passed without some ambush being

laid for us. They did not fight us in the tribune, I admit; but they

incessantly excited the majority secretly against us, blamed our

decisions, criticized our measures, put unfavourable interpretations

upon our speeches; unable to make up their minds to overthrow us, they

arranged in such a way that, finding us wholly unsupported, they were

always in a position, with the smallest effort, to hurl us from power.

After all, Dufaure's mistrust was not always without grounds. The

leaders of the majority wanted to make use of us in order to take

rigorous measures, and to obtain repressive laws which would make the

task of government easy to our successors, and our Republican opinions

made us fitter for this, at that moment, than the Conservatives. They

did not fail to count on soon bowing us out, and on bringing their

substitutes upon the scene. Not only did they wish us not to impress our

influence upon the Assembly, but they laboured unceasingly to prevent us

from establishing it in the mind of the President. They persisted in the

delusion that Louis Napoleon was still happy in their leading-strings.

They continued to beset him, therefore. We were informed by our agents

that most of them, but especially M. Thiers and M. Mole, were constantly

seeing him in private, and urging him with all their might to overthrow,

in concert with them, and at their common expense and to their common

profit, the Republic. They formed, as it were, a secret ministry at the

side of the responsible Cabinet. Commencing with the 13th of June, I

lived in a state of continuous alarm, fearing every day that they would

take advantage of our victory to drive Louis Napoleon to commit some

violent usurpation, and that one fine morning, as I said to Barrot, the

Empire should slip in between his legs. I have since learnt that my

fears were even better founded than I at that time believed. Since

leaving the ministry, I have learnt from an undoubted source that a plot

was formed towards the month of July 1849 to alter the Constitution by

force by the combined enterprise of the President and the Assembly. The

leaders of the majority and Louis Napoleon had come to an agreement, and

the blow only failed because Berryer, who no doubt feared lest he should

be making a fool's bargain, refused his support and that of his

followers. Nevertheless, the idea was not renounced, but only adjourned;

and when I think that at the time when I am writing these lines, that is

to say, two years only after the period of which I speak, the majority

of these same men are growing indignant at seeing the people violate the

Constitution by doing for Louis Napoleon precisely what they themselves

at that time proposed to him to do, I find it difficult to imagine a

more noteworthy example of the versatility of men and of the vanity of

the great words "Patriotism" and "Right" beneath which petty passions

are apt to cloak themselves.

We were no more certain, as has been seen, of the President than of the

majority. In fact, Louis Napoleon was, for ourselves as well as for the

Republic, the greatest and the most permanent danger.

I was convinced of this; and yet, when I had very attentively studied

him, I did not despair of the possibility of establishing ourselves in

his mind, for a time at least, in a fairly solid fashion. I soon

discovered that, although he never refused to admit the majority leaders

to his presence and to receive their advice, which he sometimes

followed, and although he plotted with them when it suited his purpose,

he nevertheless endured their yoke with great impatience; that he felt

humiliated at seeming to walk in their leading-strings; and that he

secretly burned to be free of them. This gave us a point of contact with

him and a hold upon his mind; for we ourselves were quite resolved to

remain independent of these great wire-pullers, and to uphold the

Executive Power against their attacks.

It did not seem impossible to me, moreover, for us to enter partly into

Louis Napoleon's designs without emerging from our own. What had always

struck me, when I reflected upon the situation of that extraordinary man

(extraordinary, not through his genius, but through the circumstances

which had combined to raise his mediocrity to so high a level), was the

need which existed to feed his mind with hope of some kind if we wished

to keep him quiet. That a man of this stamp could, after governing

France for four years, be dismissed into private life, seemed very

doubtful to me; that he would consent to withdraw into private life,

seemed very chimerical; that he could even be prevented, during the

length of his term of office, from plunging into some dangerous

enterprise seemed very difficult, unless, indeed, one were able to place

before his ambition some point of view which might, if not charm, at

least restrain him. This is to what I, for my part, applied myself from

the beginning.

"I will never serve you," I said to him, "in overthrowing the Republic;

but I will gladly strive to assure you a great position in it, and I

believe that all my friends will end by entering into my plan. The

Constitution can be revised; Article 45, which prohibits re-election,

can be changed. This is an object which we will gladly help you to

attain."

And as the chances of revision were doubtful, I went further, and I

hinted to him as to the future that, if he governed France peacefully,

wisely, modestly, not aiming at more than being the first magistrate of

the nation, and not its corrupter or its master, he might possibly be

re-elected at the end of his term of office, in spite of Article 45, by

an almost unanimous vote, since the Monarchical parties did not see the

ruin of their hopes in the limited prolongation of his power, and the

Republican party itself looked upon a government such as his as the

best means of accustoming the country to the Republic and giving it a

taste for it.

I told him all this in a tone of sincerity, because I was sincere in

saying it. What I advised him seemed to me, in fact, and still seems to

me, the best thing to be done in the interest of the country, and

perhaps in his own. He readily listened to me, without giving a glimpse

of the impression my language made upon him: this was his habit. The

words one addressed to him were like stones thrown down a well; their

sound was heard, but one never knew what became of them. I believe,

however, that they were not entirely lost; for there were two distinct

men in him, as I was not long in discovering. The first was the

ex-conspirator, the fatalistic dreamer, who thought himself called to

govern France, and through it to dominate Europe. The other was the

epicurean, who luxuriously made the most of his new state of well-being

and of the facile pleasures which his present position gave him, and who

did not dream of risking it in order to ascend still higher. In any

case, he seemed to like me better and better. I admit that, in all that

was compatible with the good of the public service, I made great efforts

to please him. Whenever, by chance, he recommended for a diplomatic

appointment a capable and honest man, I showed great alacrity in placing

him. Even when his _protege_ was not very capable, if the post was an

unimportant one, I generally arranged to give it him; but most often

the President honoured with his recommendations a set of gaol-birds, who

had formerly thrown themselves in desperation into his party, not

knowing where else to betake themselves, and to whom he thought himself

to be under obligations; or else he attempted to place at the principal

embassies those whom he called "his own men," which most frequently

meant intriguers and rascals. In that case I went and saw him, I

explained to him the regulations, which were opposed to his wish, and

the political reasons which prevented me from complying with it. I

sometimes even went so far as to let him see that I would rather resign

than retain office by doing as he wished. As he was not able to see any

private reasons for my refusal, nor any systematic desire to oppose him,

he either yielded without complaining or postponed the business.

I did not get off as cheaply with his friends. These were unspeakably

eager in their rush for the spoil. They incessantly assailed me with

their demands, with so much importunity, and often impertinence, that I

frequently felt inclined to have them thrown out of the window. I

strove, nevertheless, to restrain myself. On one occasion, however, when

one of them, a real gallows-bird, haughtily insisted, and said that it

was very strange that the Prince should not have the power of rewarding

those who had suffered for his cause, I replied:

"Sir, the best thing for the President to do is to forget that he was

ever a pretender, and to remember that he is here to attend to the

affairs of France and not to yours."

The Roman affair, in which, as I shall explain later, I firmly supported

his policy, until the moment when it became extravagant and

unreasonable, ended by putting me entirely into his good graces: of this

he one day gave me a great proof. Beaumont, during his short embassy in

England at the end of 1848, had spoken very strongly about Louis

Napoleon, who was at that time a candidate for the Presidency. These

remarks, when repeated to the latter, had caused him extreme irritation.

I had several times endeavoured, since I had become a minister, to

re-establish Beaumont in the President's mind; but I should never have

ventured to propose to employ him, capable as he was, and anxious though

I was to do so. The Vienna embassy was to be vacated in September 1849.

It was at that time one of the most important posts in our diplomatic

service, because of the affairs of Italy and Hungary. The President said

to me of his own accord:

"I suggest that you should give the Vienna embassy to M. de Beaumont.

True, I have had great reason to complain of him; but I know that he is

your best friend, and that is enough to decide me."

I was delighted. No one was better suited than Beaumont for the place

which had to be filled, and nothing could be more agreeable to me than

to offer it him.

All my colleagues did not imitate me in the care which I took to gain

the President's good-will without doing violence to my opinions and my

wishes. Dufaure, however, against every expectation, was always just

what he should be in his relations towards him. I believe the

President's simplicity of manners had half won him over. But Passy

seemed to take pleasure in being disagreeable to him. I believe that he

considered that he had degraded himself by becoming the minister of a

man whom he looked upon as an adventurer, and that he endeavoured to

regain his level by impertinence. He annoyed him every day

unnecessarily, rejecting all his candidates, ill-treating his friends,

and contradicting his opinions with ill-concealed disdain. No wonder

that the President cordially detested him.

Of all the ministers, the one who was most in his confidence was

Falloux. I have always believed that the latter had gained him by means

of something more substantial than that which any of us were able or

willing to offer him. Falloux, who was a Legitimist by birth, by

training, by society, and by taste, if you like, belonged at bottom to

none but the Church. He did not believe in the triumph of the Legitimism

which he served, and he only sought, amid all our revolutions, to find a

road by which he could bring back the Catholic religion to power. He had

only remained in office so that he might watch over its interests, and,

as he said to me on the first day with well-calculated frankness, by the

advice of his confessor. I am convinced that from the beginning Falloux

had suspected the advantages to be gained from Louis Napoleon towards

the accomplishment of this design, and that, familiarizing himself at an

early date with the idea of seeing the President become the heir of the

Republic and the master of France, he had only thought of utilizing this

inevitable event in the interest of the clergy. He had offered the

support of his party without, however, compromising himself.

From the time of our entrance into affairs until the prorogation of the

Assembly, which took place on the 13th of August, we did not cease to

gain ground with the majority, in spite of their leaders. They saw us

every day struggling with their enemies before their eyes; and the

furious attacks which the latter at every moment directed against us

advanced us gradually in their good graces. But, on the other hand,

during all that time we made no progress in the mind of the President,

who used to suffer our presence in his counsels rather than to admit us

to them.

Six weeks later it was just the opposite. The representatives had

returned from the provinces incensed by the clamour of their friends, to

whom we had refused to hand over the control of local affairs; and on

the other hand, the President of the Republic had drawn closer to us; I

shall show later why. One would have said that we had advanced on that

side in the exact proportion to that in which we had gone back on the

other.

Thus placed between two props badly joined together and always

tottering, the Cabinet leant now upon one, now upon the other, and was

always liable to tumble between the two. It was the Roman affair which

brought about the fall.

Such was the state of things when the parliamentary session was resumed

on the 1st of October 1849, and when the Roman affair was handled for

the second and last time.

CHAPTER IV

FOREIGN AFFAIRS

I did not wish to interrupt the story of our home misfortunes to speak

of the difficulties which we encountered abroad, and of which I had to

bear the brunt more than any other. I shall now retrace my steps and

return to that part of my subject.

When I found myself installed at the Foreign Office, and when the state

of affairs had been placed before my eyes, I was alarmed at the number

and extent of the difficulties which I perceived. But what caused me

more anxiety than anything else was myself.

I possess a great natural distrust of self. The nine years which I had

spent rather wretchedly in the last Assemblies of the Monarchy had

tended greatly to increase this natural infirmity, and although the

manner in which I had just undergone the trial of the Revolution of

February had helped to raise me a little in my own opinion, I

nevertheless accepted this great task, at a time like the present, only

after much hesitation, and I did not enter into it without great fear.

Before long, I was able to make a certain number of observations which

tranquillized if they did not entirely reassure me. I began by

perceiving that affairs did not always increase in difficulty as they

increased in size, as would naturally appear at a cursory glance: the

contrary is rather the truth. Their complications do not grow with their

importance; it even often happens that they assume a simpler aspect in

the measure that their consequences become wider and more serious.

Besides, a man whose will influences the destiny of a whole people

always finds ready to hand more men willing to enlighten him, to assist

him, to relieve him of details, more prepared to encourage, to defend

him, than would be met with in second-rate affairs or inferior

positions. And lastly, the size itself of the object pursued stimulates

all the mental forces to such an extent, that though the task may be a

little harder, the workman becomes much more expert.

I should have felt perplexed, full of care, discouragement and

disordered excitement, in presence of petty responsibilities. I felt a

peace of mind and a singular feeling of calm when brought face to face

with larger ones. The sentiment of importance attached to the things I

then did at once raised me to their level and kept me there. The idea of

a rebuff had until then seemed insupportable to me; the prospect of a

dazzling fall upon one of the greatest stages in the world, on which I

was mounted, did not disconcert me; which showed that my weakness was

not timidity but pride. I also was not long before perceiving that in

politics, as in so many other matters--perhaps in all--the vivacity of

impressions received was not in a ratio with the importance of the fact

which produced it, but with the more or less frequent repetition of the

latter. One who grows troubled and excited about the handling of a

trifling piece of business, the only one which he happens to have taken

in hand, ends by recovering his self-possession among greater ones, if

they are repeated every day. Their frequency renders their effect, as it

were, insensible. I have related how many enemies I used formerly to

make by holding aloof from people who did not attract my attention by

any merit; and as people had often taken for haughtiness the boredom

they caused me, I strongly dreaded this reef in the great journey I was

about to undertake. But I soon observed that, although insolence

increases with certain persons in the exact proportion of the progress

of their fortunes, it was different with me, and that it was much easier

for me to display affability and even cordiality when I felt myself

above, than when I was one of, the common herd. This comes from the fact

that, being a minister, I no longer had the trouble of running after

people, nor to fear lest I should be coldly received by them, men making

it a necessity themselves to approach those who occupy posts of that

sort, and being simple enough to attach great importance to their most

trivial words. It comes also from this that, as a minister, I no longer

had to do only with the ideas of fools, but also with their interests,

which always supply a ready-made and easy subject of conversation.

I saw, therefore, that I was not so ill fitted as I had feared for the

part I had undertaken to play. This discovery encouraged me, not only

for the present, but for the rest of my life; and should I be asked what

I gained in this Ministry, so troubled, so thwarted, and so short that I

was only able to commence affairs in it and to finish none, I would

answer that I gained one great advantage, perhaps the greatest advantage

in the world--confidence in myself.

At home and abroad, our greatest obstacles came less from the difficulty

of business than from those who had to conduct it with us. I saw this

from the first. Most of our agents were creatures of the Monarchy, who,

at the bottom of their hearts, furiously detested the Government they

served; and in the name of democratic and republican France, they

extolled the restoration of the old aristocracies and secretly worked

for the re-establishment of all the absolute monarchies of Europe.

Others, on the contrary, whom the Revolution of February had dragged

from an obscurity in which they should have always remained,

clandestinely supported the demagogic parties which the French

Government was combating. But the chief fault of most of them was

timidity. The greater number of our ambassadors were afraid to attach

themselves to any particular policy in the countries in which they

represented us, and even feared to display to their own Government

opinions which might sooner or later have been counted as a crime

against them. They therefore took care to keep themselves covertly

concealed beneath a heap of little facts with which they crammed their

correspondence (for in diplomacy you must always write, even when you

know nothing and wish to say nothing), and they were very careful not to

show what they thought of the events they chronicled, and still less to

give us any indication as to what we were to conclude from them.

This condition of nullity to which our agents voluntarily reduced

themselves, and which, to tell the truth, was in the case of most of

them no more than an artificial perfectioning of nature, induced me, so

soon as I had realized it, to employ new men at the great Courts.

I should have liked in the same way to be able to get rid of the leaders

of the majority; but not being able to do this, I endeavoured to live on

good terms with them, and I did not even despair of pleasing them, while

at the same time remaining independent of their influence: a difficult

undertaking in which I nevertheless succeeded; for, of all the Cabinet,

I was the minister who most strongly opposed their policy and yet the

only one who retained their good graces. My secret, if I must confess

it, lay in flattering their self-conceit while neglecting their advice.

I had made an observation in small affairs which I deemed very

applicable to greater ones: I had found that the most advantageous

negociations are those conducted with human vanity; for one often

obtains very substantial things from it, while giving very little

substance in return. One never does so well when treating with ambition

or cupidity. At the same time, it is a fact that in order to deal

advantageously with the vanity of others, one must put his own entirely

on one side and think of nothing but the success of his plans, an

essential which will always prove a difficulty in the way of this sort

of commerce. I practised it very happily at this time and to my great

advantage. Three men thought themselves specially entitled to direct our

foreign policy, owing to the position they had formerly occupied: these

were M. de Broglie, M. Mole and M. Thiers. I overwhelmed all three of

them with deference; I often sent for them to see me, and sometimes

called upon them to consult them and to ask them, with a sort of

modesty, for advice which I hardly ever followed. But this did not

prevent these great men from displaying every satisfaction. I pleased

them more by asking their opinion without following it than if I had

followed it without asking it. Especially in the case of M. Thiers, this

manoeuvre of mine succeeded admirably. Remusat, who, although without

any personal pretensions, sincerely wished the Cabinet to last, and who

had become familiarized through an intercourse extending over

twenty-five years with all M. Thiers' weaknesses, said to me one day:

"The world does not know M. Thiers well; he has much more vanity than

ambition; and he prefers consideration to obedience, and the appearance

of power to power itself. Consult him constantly, and then do just as

you please. He will take more notice of your deference to him than of

your actions."

This is what I did, and with great success. In the two principal affairs

that I had to conduct during my time of office, those of Piedmont and

Turkey, I did precisely the opposite to what M. Thiers wished, and,

nevertheless, we remained excellent friends till the end.

As to the President, it was especially in the conduct of foreign affairs

that he showed how badly prepared he still was for the great part to

which blind fortune had called him. I was not slow in perceiving that

this man, whose pride aimed at leading everything, had not yet taken the

smallest steps to inform himself of anything. I proposed to have an

analysis drawn up every day of all the despatches and to submit it to

his inspection. Before this, he knew what happened in the world only by

hearsay, and only knew what the Minister for Foreign Affairs had thought

fit to tell him. The solid basis of facts was always lacking to the

operations of his mind, and this was easily seen in all the dreams with

which the latter was filled. I was sometimes frightened at perceiving

how much there was in his plans that was vast, chimerical, unscrupulous,

and confused; although it is true that, when explaining the real state

of things to him, I easily made him recognize the difficulties which

they presented, for discussion was not his strong point. He was silent,

but never yielded.

One of his myths was an alliance with one of the two great powers of

Germany, of which he proposed to make use to alter the map of Europe and

erase the limits which the treaties of 1815 had traced for France. As he

saw that I did not believe it possible to find either of these powers

inclined for an alliance of this sort, and with such an object, he

undertook himself to sound their ambassadors in Paris. One of them came

to me one day in a state of great excitement to tell me that the

President of the Republic had asked him if, in consideration of an

equivalent, his Court would not consent to allow France to seize Savoy.

On another occasion, he conceived the idea of sending a private agent,

one of his own men,[18] as he called them, to come to a direct

understanding with the German Princes. He chose Persigny, and asked me

to give him his credentials; and I consented, knowing well that nothing

could come of a negociation of this sort. I believe that Persigny had a

two-fold mission: it was a question of facilitating the usurpation at

home and an extension of territory abroad. He went first to Berlin and

then to Vienna; as I expected, he was very well received, handsomely

entertained, and politely bowed out.

[18: "_Un homme a lui._"--A.T. de M.]

But I have spoken enough of individuals; let us come to politics.

At the time when I took up office, Europe was, as it were, on fire,

although the conflagration was already extinguished in certain

countries. Sicily was conquered and subdued; the Neapolitans had

returned to their obedience and even to their servitude; the battle of

Novara had been fought and lost; the victorious Austrians were

negociating with the son of Charles Albert, who had become King of

Piedmont by his father's abdication; their armies, issuing from the

confines of Lombardy, occupied Parma, a portion of the Papal States,

Placentia, and Tuscany, which they had entered unasked, and in spite of

the fact that the Grand Duke had been restored by his subjects, who have

been but ill rewarded since for their zeal and fidelity. But Venice

still resisted, and Rome, after repelling our first attack, was calling

all the demagogues of Italy to its assistance and exciting all Europe

with its clamour. Never, perhaps, since February, had Germany seemed

more divided or disturbed. Although the dream of German unity had been

dispelled, the reality of the old Teutonic organization had not yet

resumed its place. Reduced to a small number of members, the National

Assembly, which had till then endeavoured to promote this unity, fled

from Frankfort and hawked round the spectacle of its impotence and its

ridiculous fury. But its fall did not restore order; on the contrary, it

left a freer field for anarchy.

The moderate, one may say the innocent, revolutionaries, who had

cherished the belief that they would be able, peacefully, and by means

of arguments and decrees, to persuade the peoples and princes of Germany

to submit to a single government, made way for the violent

revolutionaries, who had always maintained that Germany could only be

brought to a state of unity by the complete ruin of its old systems of

government, and the entire abolition of the existing social order. Riots

therefore followed on every hand upon parliamentary discussion.

Political rivalries turned into a war of classes; the natural hatred and

jealousy entertained by the poor for the rich developed into socialistic

theories in many quarters, but especially in the small states of Central

Germany and in the great Rhine Valley. Wurtemberg was in a state of

agitation; Saxony had just experienced a terrible insurrection, which

had only been crushed with the assistance of Prussia; insurrections had

also occurred in Westphalia; the Palatinate was in open revolt; and

Baden had expelled its Grand Duke, and appointed a Provisional

Government. And yet the final victory of the Princes, which I had

foreseen when travelling through Germany, a month before, was no longer

in doubt; the very violence of the insurrections hastened it. The

larger monarchies had recaptured their capitals and their armies. Their

heads had still difficulties to conquer, but no more dangers; and

themselves masters, or on the point of becoming so, at home, they could

not fail soon to triumph in the second-rate States. By thus violently

disturbing public order, the insurgents gave them the wish, the

opportunity and the right to intervene.

Prussia had already commenced to do so. The Prussians had just

suppressed the Saxon insurrection by force of arms; they now entered the

Rhine Palatinate, offered their intervention to Wurtemberg, and prepared

to invade the Grand-Duchy of Baden, thus occupying almost the whole of

Germany with their soldiers or their influence.

Austria had emerged from the terrible crisis which had threatened its

existence, but it was still in great travail. Its armies, after

conquering in Italy, were being defeated in Hungary. Despairing of

mastering its subjects unaided, it had called Russia to its assistance,

and the Tsar, in a manifesto dated 13 May, had announced to Europe that

he was marching against the Hungarians. The Emperor Nicholas had till

then remained at rest amid his uncontested might. He had viewed the

agitation of the nations from afar in safety, but not with indifference.

Thenceforward, he alone among the great powers of Europe represented the

old state of society and the old traditional principle of authority. He

was not only its representative: he considered himself its champion.

His political theories, his religious belief, his ambition and his

conscience, all urged him to adopt this part. He had, therefore, made

for himself out of the cause of authority throughout the world a second

empire yet vaster than the first. He encouraged with his letters and

rewarded with his honours all those who, in whatever corner of Europe,

gained victories over anarchy and even over liberty, as though they were

his subjects and had contributed to strengthening his own power. He had

thus sent, to the extreme South of Europe, one of his orders to

Filangieri, the conqueror of the Sicilians, and had written that general

an autograph letter to show to him that he was satisfied with his

conduct. From the lofty position which he occupied, and whence he

peacefully watched the various incidents of the struggle which shook

Europe, the Emperor judged freely, and followed with a certain tranquil

disdain, not only the follies of the revolutionaries whom he pursued,

but also the vices and the faults of the parties and princes whom he

assisted. He expressed himself on this subject simply and as the

occasion required, without showing any eagerness to disclose his

thoughts or taking any pains to conceal them.

Lamoriciere wrote to me on the 11th of August 1849, in a secret

despatch:

"The Tsar said to me this morning, 'You believe, general, that your

dynastic parties would be capable of uniting with the Radicals to

overthrow a dynasty which they disliked, in the hope of setting

their own in its place; and I am certain of it. Your Legitimist

Party especially would not hesitate to do so. I have long since

thought that it is the Legitimists who make the Elder Branch of the

Bourbons impossible. This is one of the reasons why I recognized

the Republic; and also because I perceive in your nation a certain

common sense which is wanting in the Germans.'

"Later, the Emperor also said, 'The King of Prussia, my

brother-in-law, with whom I was on very close terms of friendship,

has not taken the slightest heed of my advice. The result is that

our political relations have become remarkably cool, to such an

extent that they have affected even our family relations. Look at

the things he has done: did he not put himself at the head of those

fools who dream of an United Germany, and now that he has broken

with the Frankfort Parliament, has he not brought himself to the

necessity of fighting the troops of the Schleswig-Holstein Duchies,

which were levied under his patronage! Is it possible to imagine

anything more disgraceful? And now, who knows how far he will go

with his constitutional proposals?' He added, 'Do not think that,

because I intervene in Hungary, I wish to justify the conduct of

Austria in this affair. She has heaped up, one on the other, the

most serious faults and the greatest follies; but when all is said

and done, it had allowed the country to be invaded by subversive

doctrines, and the government had fallen into the hands of

disorderly persons. This was not to be endured.'

"Speaking of the affairs of Italy, 'We others,' he said, 'see

nothing in those temporal functions fulfilled in Rome by

ecclesiastics; but it matters little to us how those priests

arrange things among themselves, provided that something is set up

which will last and that you constitute the power in such a way

that it can stand.'"

Hereupon Lamoriciere, wounded by this supercilious tone, which smelt

somewhat of the autocrat and betrayed a sort of rivalry as between pope

and pope, began to defend Catholic institutions.

"'Very well, very well,' said the Emperor, ending the conversation,

'let France be as Catholic as she pleases, only let her protect

herself against the insane theories and passions of innovators.'"

Though hard and austere in the exercise of his power, the Tsar was

simple and almost _bourgeois_ in his habits, keeping only the substance

of sovereign power and rejecting its pomp and worries. On the 17th of

July, the French Ambassador at St Petersburg wrote to me:

"The Emperor is here; he arrived from Warsaw without suite of any

kind, in an ordinary post-cart--his carriage had broke down sixty

leagues from here--so as to be in time for the Empress's

saint's-day, which has just taken place. He did the journey with

extraordinary rapidity, in two days and a half, and he leaves again

to-morrow. Every one here is touched with this contrast of power

and simplicity, with the sight of this Sovereign who, after hurling

one hundred and twenty thousand men on to the battle-field, races

along the roads like a _feld-jaeger_, so as not to miss his wife's

saint's-day. Nothing is more in keeping with the spirit of the

Slavs, among whom one might say that the principal element of

civilization is the spirit of family."

It would, in fact, be a great mistake to think that the Tsar's immense

power was only based upon force. It was founded, above all, on the

wishes and the ardent sympathies of the Russians. For the principle of

the sovereignty of the people lies at the root of all government,

whatever may be said to the contrary, and lurks beneath the least

independent institutions. The Russian nobles had adopted the principles

and still more the vices of Europe; but the people were not in touch

with our West and with the new spirit which animated it. They saw in the

Emperor not only their lawful Prince, but the envoy of God, and almost

God Himself.

In the midst of this Europe which I have depicted, the position of

France was one of weakness and embarrassment. Nowhere had the

Revolution succeeded in establishing a regular and stable system of

liberty. On every side, the old powers were rising up again from amid

the ruins which it had made--not, it is true, the same as when they

fell, but very similar. We could not assist the latter in establishing

themselves nor ensure their victory, for the system which they were

setting up was antipathetic, I will say not only to the institutions

created by the Revolution of February, but, at the root of our ideas, to

all that was most permanent and unconquerable in our new habits. They,

on their side, distrusted us, and rightly. The great part of restorers

of the general order in Europe was therefore forbidden us. This part,

moreover, was already played by another: it belonged by right to Russia,

and only the second remained for us. As to placing France at the head of

the innovators, this was to be still less thought of, for two reasons:

first, that it would have been absolutely impossible to advise these

latter or to hope to lead them, because of their extravagance and their

detestable incapacity; secondly, that it was not possible to support

them abroad without falling beneath their blows at home. The contact of

their passions and doctrines would have put all France in flame,

revolutionary doctrines at that time dominating all others. Thus we were

neither able to unite with the nations, who accused us of urging them on

and then betraying them, nor with the princes, who reproached us with

shaking their thrones. We were reduced to accepting the sterile

good-will of the English: it was the same isolation as before February,

with the Continent more hostile to us and England more lukewarm. It was

therefore necessary, as it had been then, to reduce ourselves to leading

a small life, from day to day; but even this was difficult. The French

Nation, which had made and, in a certain way, still made so great a

figure in the world, kicked against this necessity of the time: it had

remained haughty while it ceased to be preponderant; it feared to act

and tried to talk loudly; and it also expected its Government to be

proud, without, however, permitting it to run the risks which such

conduct entailed.

Never had France been looked upon with more anxiety than at the moment

when the Cabinet had just been formed. The easy and complete victory

which we had won in Paris on the 13th of June had extraordinary rebounds

throughout Europe. A new insurrection in France was generally expected.

The revolutionaries, half destroyed, relied only upon this occurrence to

recover themselves, and they redoubled their efforts in order to be able

to take advantage of it. The governments, half victorious, fearing to be

surprised by this crisis, stopped before striking their final blow. The

day of the 13th of June gave rise to cries of pain and joy from one end

of the Continent to the other. It decided fortune suddenly, and

precipitated it towards the Rhine.

The Prussian army, already master of the Palatinate, at once burst into

the Grand-Duchy of Baden, dispersed the insurgents, and occupied the

whole country, with the exception of Rastadt, which held out for a few

weeks.[19]

[19: Nothing was ever more despicable than the conduct of those

revolutionaries. The soldiers who, at the commencement of the

insurrection, had put to flight or killed their officers, turned

tail before the Prussians. The ringleaders did nothing but dispute

among themselves and defame one another instead of defending

themselves, and took refuge in Switzerland after pillaging the

public treasury and levying contributions upon their own country.

While the struggle lasted, we took strong measures to prevent the

insurgents from receiving any assistance from France. Those among

them who crossed the Rhine, in great numbers, received asylum from

us, but were disarmed and placed in confinement. The victors, as it

was easy to foresee, at once abused their victory. Many prisoners

were put to death, all liberty was indefinitely suspended, and even

the government which had been restored was kept in very close

tutelage. I soon perceived that the French representative in the

Grand-Duchy of Baden not only did not strive to moderate these

violences, but thoroughly approved of them. I at once wrote to him

as follows:

"Sir,

"I am informed that a number of military executions have taken

place, and that many more are announced. I do not understand

why these facts have not been reported by you, nor why you

have not sought to prevent them, without even waiting for

instructions. We have assisted as much as we could, without

taking up arms, in suppressing the rebellion; all the more

reason for desiring that the victory to which we have given

our aid should not be sullied by acts of violence of which

France disapproves, and which we regard as both odious and

impolitic. There is another point which causes us much

anxiety, and which does not seem to excite your solicitude to

the same degree: I refer to the political institutions of the

Grand-Duchy. Do not forget that the object of the Government

of the Republic in that country has been to assist in putting

down anarchy, but not in destroying liberty. We can in no way

lend our hand to an anti-liberal restoration. The

Constitutional Monarchy felt the need to create or maintain

free States around France. The Republic is still more obliged

to do so. The Government therefore asks and imperiously

insists that each of its agents shall faithfully conform to

these necessities of our situation. See the Grand Duke, and

give him to understand what are the wishes of France. We shall

certainly never allow either a Prussian province or an

absolute government to be established on our frontier in the

stead of an independent and constitutional monarchy?"

* * * * *

After some time, the executions ceased. The Grand Duke protested

his attachment to constitutional forms, and his resolution to

maintain them. This was for the moment all he was able to do, for

he reigned only in name. The Prussians were the real masters.]

The Baden revolutionaries took refuge in Switzerland. Refugees were then

arriving in that country from Italy, France, and to tell the truth, from

every corner of Europe, for all Europe, with the exception of Russia,

had undergone or was undergoing a revolution. Their number soon amounted

to ten or twelve thousand. It was an army always ready to fall upon the

neighbouring States. All the Cabinets were alarmed at it.

Austria and especially Prussia, which had already had reason to complain

of the Confederation, and even Russia, which was in no way concerned,

spoke of invading Swiss territory with armed forces and acting as a

police in the name of all the governments threatened. This we could not

allow.

I first endeavoured to make the Swiss listen to reason, and to persuade

them not to wait till they were threatened, but themselves to expel from

their territory, as the Law of Nations required them to do, all the

principal ringleaders who openly threatened neighbouring nations.

"If you in this way anticipate what they have the right to ask of you,"

I incessantly repeated to the representative in Paris of the Swiss

Confederation, "you can rely upon France to defend you against any

unjust or exaggerated pretensions put forward by the Courts. We will

rather risk war than permit them to oppress or humiliate you. But if you

refuse to bring reason on your side, you must only rely upon yourselves,

and you will have to defend yourselves against all Europe."

This language had little effect, for there is nothing to equal the pride

and conceit of the Swiss. Not one of those peasants but believes that

his country is able to defy all the princes and all the nations of the

earth. I then set to work in another way, which was more successful.

This was to advise the foreign Governments (who were only too disposed

to agree) to refuse for a certain period all amnesty to such of their

subjects as had taken refuge in Switzerland, and to deny all of them,

whatever their degree of guilt, the right to return to their country. On

our side, we closed our frontiers to all those who, after taking refuge

in Switzerland, wished to cross France in order to go to England or

America, including the inoffensive refugees as well as the ringleaders.

Every outlet being thus closed, Switzerland remained encumbered with

those ten or twelve thousand adventurers, the most turbulent and

disorderly people in all Europe. It was necessary to feed, lodge, and

even pay them, lest they should levy contributions on the country. This

suddenly enlightened the Swiss as to the drawbacks attendant upon the

right of asylum. They could have made arrangements to have kept the

illustrious chiefs for an indefinite period, in spite of the danger with

which these menaced their neighbours; but the revolutionary army was a

great nuisance to them. The more radical cantons were the first to raise

a loud clamour and to ask to be rid of these inconvenient and expensive

visitors. And as it was impossible to persuade the foreign Governments

to open their territory to the crowd of inoffensive refugees who were

able and willing to leave Switzerland, without first driving out the

leaders who would have liked to stay, they ended by expelling these.

After almost bringing all Europe down upon them rather than remove these

men from their territory, the Swiss ended by driving them out of their

own accord in order to avoid a temporary inconvenience and a trifling

expense. No better example was ever given of the nature of democracies,

which, as a rule, have only very confused or very erroneous ideas on

external affairs, and generally solve outside questions only by internal

reasons.

While these things were happening in Switzerland, the general aspect of

affairs in Germany underwent a change. The struggles of the nations

against the Governments were followed by quarrels of the Princes among

themselves. I followed this new phase of the Revolution with a very

attentive gaze and a very perplexed mind.

The Revolution in Germany had not proceeded from a simple cause, as in

the rest of Europe. It was produced at once by the general spirit of the

time and by the unitarian ideas peculiar to the Germans. The democracy

was now beaten, but the idea of German unity was not destroyed; the

needs, the memories, the passions that had inspired it survived. The

King of Prussia had undertaken to appropriate it and make use of it.

This Prince, a man of intelligence but of very little sense, had been

wavering for a year between his fear of the Revolution and his desire to

turn it to account. He struggled as much as he could against the liberal

and democratic spirit of the age; yet he favoured the German unitarian

spirit, a blundering game in which, if he had dared to go to the length

of his desires, he would have risked his Crown and his life. For, in

order to overcome the resistance which existing institutions and the

interests of the Princes were bound to oppose to the establishment of a

central power, he would have had to summon the revolutionary passions of

the peoples to his aid, and of these Frederic William could not have

made use without soon being destroyed by them himself.

So long as the Frankfort Parliament retained its _prestige_ and its

power, the King of Prussia entreated it kindly and strove to get himself

placed by it at the head of the new Empire. When the Parliament fell

into discredit and powerlessness, the King changed his behaviour

without changing his plans. He endeavoured to obtain the legacy of this

assembly and to combat the Revolution by realizing the chimera of German

unity, of which the democrats had made use to shake every throne. With

this intention, he invited all the German Princes to come to an

understanding with him to form a new Confederation, which should be

closer than that of 1815, and to give him the government of it. In

return he undertook to establish and strengthen them in their States.

These Princes, who detested Prussia, but who trembled before the

Revolution, for the most part accepted the usurious bargain proposed to

them. Austria, which the success of this proposal would have driven out

of Germany, protested, being not yet in a position to do more. The two

principal monarchies of the South, Bavaria and Wurtemberg, followed its

example, but all North and Central Germany entered into this ephemeral

Confederation, which was concluded on the 26th of May 1849 and is known

in history by the name of the Union of the Three Kings.[20]

[20: Of Prussia, Saxony and Hanover.--A.T. de M.]

Prussia then suddenly became the dominating power in a vast stretch of

country, reaching from Memel to Basle, and at one time saw twenty-six or

twenty-seven million Germans marching under its orders. All this was

completed shortly after my arrival in office.

I confess that, at the sight of this singular spectacle, my mind was

crossed with strange ideas, and I was for a moment tempted to believe

that the President was not so mad in his foreign policy as I had at

first thought him. That union of the great Courts of the North, which

had so long weighed heavily upon us, was broken. Two of the great

Continental monarchies, Prussia and Austria, were quarrelling and almost

at war. Had not the moment come for us to contract one of those intimate

and powerful alliances which we have been compelled to forego for sixty

years, and perhaps in a measure to repair our losses of 1815? France, by

platonically assisting Frederic William in his enterprises, which

England did not oppose, could divide Europe and bring on one of those

great crises which entail a redistribution of territory.

The time seemed so well to lend itself to these ideas that they filled

the imagination of many of the German Princes themselves. The more

powerful among them dreamt of nothing but changes of frontier and

accessions of power at the expense of their neighbours. The

revolutionary malady of the nations seemed to have attacked the

governments.

"There is no Confederation possible with eight and thirty States," said

the Bavarian Foreign Minister, Baron von der Pfordten, to our Envoy. "It

will be necessary to mediatize a large number of them. How, for

instance, can we ever hope to re-establish order in a country like

Baden, unless we divide it among sovereigns strong enough to make

themselves obeyed? In that case," he added, "the Neckar Valley would

naturally fall to our share."[21]

[21: Despatch of the 7th of September 1849.]

For my part, I soon dispelled from my mind, as mere visions, all

thoughts of this kind. I quickly realized that Prussia was neither able

nor willing to give us anything worth having in exchange for our good

offices; that its power over the other German States was very

precarious, and was likely to be ephemeral; that no reliance was to be

placed in its King, who at the first obstacle would have failed us and

failed himself; and, above all, that such extensive and ambitious

designs were not suited to so ill-established a state of society and to

such troubled and dangerous times as ours, nor to transient powers such

as that which chance had placed in my hands.

I put a more serious question to myself, and it was this--I recall it

here because it is bound constantly to crop up again: Is it to the

interest of France that the bonds which hold together the German

Confederation should be strengthened or relaxed? In other words, ought

we to desire that Germany should in a certain sense become a single

nation, or that it should remain an ill-joined conglomeration of

disunited peoples and princes? There is an old tradition in our

diplomacy that we should strive to keep Germany divided among a large

number of independent powers; and this, in fact, was self-evident at the

time when there was nothing behind Germany except Poland and a

semi-savage Russia; but is the case the same in our days? The reply to

this question depends upon the reply to another: What is really the

peril with which in our days Russia threatens the independence of

Europe? For my part, believing as I do that our West is threatened

sooner or later to fall under the yoke, or at least under the direct and

irresistible influence of the Tsars, I think that our first object

should be to favour the union of all the German races in order to oppose

it to that influence. The conditions of the world are new; we must

change our old maxims and not fear to strengthen our neighbours, so that

they may one day be in a condition with us to repel the common enemy.

The Emperor of Russia, on his side, saw how great an obstacle an United

Germany would prove in his way. Lamoriciere, in one of his private

letters, informed me that the Emperor had said to him with his ordinary

candour and arrogance:

"If the unity of Germany, which doubtless you wish for no more than I

do, ever becomes a fact, there will be needed, in order to manage it, a

man capable of what Napoleon himself was not able to do; and if this man

were found, if that armed mass developed into a menace, it would then

become your affair and mine."

But when I put these questions to myself, the time had not come to solve

them nor even to discuss them, for Germany was of its own accord

irresistibly returning to its old constitution and to the old anarchy

of its powers. The Frankfort Parliament's attempt in favour of unity had

fallen through. That made by the King of Prussia was destined to meet

with the same fate.

It was the dread of the Revolution which alone had driven the German

Princes into Frederic William's arms. In the measure that, thanks to the

efforts of the Prussians, the Revolution was on all sides suppressed and

ceased to make itself feared, the allies (one might almost say the new

subjects) of Prussia aimed at recovering their independence. The King of

Prussia's enterprise was of that unfortunate kind in which success

itself interferes with triumph, and to compare large things with

smaller, I would say that his history was not unlike ours, and that,

like ourselves, he was doomed to strike upon a rock so soon as, and for

the reason that, he had re-established order. The princes who had

adhered to what was known as the Prussian hegemony seized the first

opportunity to renounce it. Austria supplied this opportunity, when,

after defeating the Hungarians, she was able to re-appear upon the scene

of German affairs with her material power and that of the memories which

attached to her name. This is what happened in the course of September

1849. When the King of Prussia found himself face to face with that

powerful rival, behind whom he caught sight of Russia, his courage

suddenly failed him, as I expected, and he returned to his old part.

The German Constitution of 1815 resumed its empire, the Diet its

sittings; and soon, of all that great movement of 1848, there remained

but two traces visible in Germany: a greater dependence of the small

States upon the great monarchies, and an irreparable blow struck at all

that remains of feudal institutions: their ruin, consummated by the

nations, was sanctioned by the Princes. From one end of Germany to the

other, the perpetuity of ground-rents, baronial tithes, forced labour,

rights of mutation, of hunting, of justice, which constituted a great

part of the riches of the nobility, remained abolished.[22] The Kings

were restored, but the aristocracies did not recover from the blow that

had been struck them.[23]

[22: Private letter from Beaumont at Vienna, 10 October

1849.--Despatch from M. Lefebre at Munich, 23 July 1849.]

[23: I had foreseen from the commencement that Austria and Prussia

would soon return to their former sphere and fall back in each case

within the influence of Russia. I find this provision set forth in

the instructions which I gave to one of our ambassadors to Germany

on the 24th of July, before the events which I have described had

taken place. These instructions are drawn up in my own hand, as

were all my more important despatches. I read as follows:

"I know that the malady which is ravaging all the old

European society is incurable, that in changing its symptoms

it does not change in character, and that all the old powers

are, to a greater or lesser extent, threatened with

modification or destruction. But I am inclined to believe

that the next event will be the strengthening of authority

throughout Europe. It would not be impossible that, under the

pressure of a common instinct of defence or under the common

influence of recent occurrences, Russia should be willing and

able to bring about harmony between North and South Germany

and to reconcile Austria and Prussia, and that all this great

movement should merely resolve itself into a new alliance of

principles between the three monarchies at the expense of the

secondary governments and the liberty of the citizens.

Consider the situation from this point of view, and give me

an account of your observations."]

Convinced at an early date that we had no part to play in this internal

crisis in Germany, I only applied myself to living on good terms with

the several contending parties. I especially kept up friendly relations

with Austria, whose concurrence was necessary to us, as I will explain

later, in the Roman business. I first strove to bring to a happy

conclusion the negociations which had long been pending between Austria

and Piedmont; I put the more care into this because I was persuaded

that, so long as no lasting peace was established on that side, Europe

would remain unsettled and liable at any moment to be thrown into great

danger.

Piedmont had been negociating to no purpose since the battle of Novara.

Austria at first tried to lay down unacceptable conditions. Piedmont, on

her side, kept up pretensions which the state of her fortunes did not

authorize. The negociations, several times interrupted, had been resumed

before I took office. We had many very strong reasons to desire that

this peace should be concluded without delay. At any moment, a general

war might break out in this little corner of the Continent. Piedmont,

moreover, was too near to us to permit us to allow that she should lose

either her independence, which separated her from Austria, or her

newly-acquired constitutional institutions, which brought her closer to

us: two advantages which would be seriously jeopardized if recourse were

had to arms.

I therefore interposed very eagerly, in the name of France, between the

two parties, addressing to both of them the language which I thought

most likely to convince them. I observed to Austria how urgent it was

that the general peace of Europe should be assured by this particular

peace, and I exerted myself to point out to her what was excessive in

her demands. To Piedmont I indicated the points on which it seemed to me

that honour and interest would permit her to give way. I applied myself

especially to giving her Government in advance clear and precise ideas

as to what it might expect from us, so that it should have no excuse to

entertain, or to pretend to have entertained, any dangerous

illusions[24]. I will not go into details of the conditions under

discussion, which are without interest to-day; I will content myself

with saying that at the end they seemed prepared to come to an

understanding, and that any further delay was due merely to a question

of money. This was the condition of affairs, and Austria assured us

through her Ambassador in Paris of her conciliatory dispositions; I

already looked upon peace as concluded, when I unexpectedly learned that

the Austrian Plenipotentiary had suddenly changed his attitude and his

language, had delivered on the 19th of July a very serious ultimatum,

couched in exceedingly harsh terms, and had only given four days in

which to reply to it. At the end of these four days the armistice was to

be raised and the war resumed. Already Marshal Radetzky was

concentrating his army and preparing to enter upon a fresh campaign.

This news, so contrary to the pacific assurances which we had received,

was to me a great source of surprise and indignation. Demands so

exorbitant, delivered in such arrogant and violent terms, seemed to

announce that peace was not Austria's only object, but that she aimed

rather at the independence of Piedmont and perhaps at her representative

institutions; for so long as liberty shows itself in the smallest

fraction of Italy, Austria feels ill at ease in all the rest.

[24: Despatch of the 4th of July 1849 to M. de Boislecomte:

"The conditions laid down for Piedmont by His Majesty the

Emperor of Austria are no doubt severe; but, nevertheless,

they do not affect the integrity of the territory of the

Kingdom nor her honour. They neither take away the strength

which she should preserve, nor the just influence which she

is called upon to exercise over the general policy of Europe

and in particular over the affairs of Italy. The treaty which

she is asked to sign is a vexatious one, no doubt; but it is

not a disastrous one; and, after the fate of arms has been

decided, it does not exceed what was naturally to be feared.

"France has not neglected, and will not neglect, any effort to

obtain a mitigation of this proposal; she will persist in her

endeavours to obtain from the Austrian Government the

modifications which she considers in keeping not only with the

interests of Piedmont but with the easy and lasting

maintenance of the general peace; and to attain this result,

she will employ all the means supplied to diplomacy: but she

will not go beyond this. She does not think that, within the

limits of the question and the degree to which the interests

of Piedmont are involved, it would be opportune to do more.

Holding this firm and deliberate opinion, she does not

hesitate to give utterance to it. To allow, even by her

silence, a belief to gain ground in extreme resolutions that

have not been taken; to suggest hopes that we are not certain

of wishing to realize; to urge indirectly by words to a line

of action which we should not think ourselves justified in

supporting by our acts; in a word, to engage others without

engaging ourselves, or unconsciously to engage ourselves more

deeply than we think or than we mean: that would be, on the

part of either the Government or of private individuals, a

line of conduct which seems to me neither prudent nor

honourable.

"You can rely, Sir, that so long as I occupy the post in which

the President's confidence has placed me, the Government of

the Republic shall incur no such reproach; it will announce

nothing that it will not be prepared to carry out; it will

make no promises that it is not resolved to keep; and it will

consider it as much a point of honour to declare beforehand

what it is not ready to do as to execute promptly and with

vigour that which it has said it would do.

"You will be good enough to read this despatch to M.

d'Azeglio."]

I at once came to the conclusion that we must at no price allow so near

a neighbour to be oppressed, deliver a territory which touched our

frontiers to the Austrian armies, or permit political liberty to be

abolished in the only country in which, since 1848, it had showed itself

moderate. I thought, moreover, that Austria's mode of procedure towards

us showed either an intention to deceive us or else a desire to try how

far our toleration would go, or, as is commonly said, to sound us.

I saw that this was one of those extreme circumstances, which I had

faced beforehand, where it became my duty to risk not only my portfolio

(which, to tell the truth, was not risking much) but the fortunes of

France. I proceeded to the Council and explained the state of affairs.

The President and all my colleagues were unanimous in thinking that I

ought to act. Orders were immediately telegraphed to concentrate the

Army of Lyons at the foot of the Alps, and so soon as I returned home, I

myself wrote (for the flaccid style of diplomacy was not suited to the

circumstances) the following letter:[25]

"Should the Austrian Government persist in the unreasonable demands

mentioned in your telegram of yesterday, and, abandoning the limits

of diplomatic discussion, throw up the armistice and undertake, as

it says it will, to go and dictate peace at Turin, Piedmont can be

assured that we should not desert her. The situation would no

longer be the same as that in which she placed itself before the

battle of Novara, when she spontaneously resumed her arms and

renewed the war against our advice. This time it would be Austria

which would herself take the initiative unprovoked; the nature of

her demands and the violence of her proceedings would give us

reason to believe that she is not acting solely with a view to

peace, but that she is threatening the integrity of Piedmontese

territory or, at the very least, the independence of the Sardinian

Government.

"We will not allow such designs as these to be accomplished at our

gates. If, under these conditions, Piedmont is attacked, we will

defend her."

[25: Letter to M. de Boislecomte, 25 July 1849.]

I moreover thought it my duty to send for the Austrian representative (a

little diplomatist very like a fox in appearance as well as in nature),

and, convinced that, in the attitude we were taking up, hastiness was

identical with prudence, I took advantage of the fact that I could not

as yet be expected to have become familiar with habits of diplomatic

reserve, to express to him our surprise and our dissatisfaction in

terms so rude that he since admitted to me that he had never been so

received in his life.

Before the despatch of which I have quoted a few lines had reached

Turin, the two Powers had come to an agreement. They had come to terms

on the question of money, which was arranged practically on the

conditions that had been previously suggested by ourselves. The Austrian

Government had only desired to precipitate the negociations by

frightening the other side; it made very little difficulty about the

conditions.

Prince Schwarzenberg sent me all sorts of explanations and excuses, and

peace was definitely signed on the 6th of August, a peace hardly hoped

for by Piedmont after so many mistakes and misfortunes, since it assured

her more advantages than she had at first ventured to demand.

This affair threw into great relief the habits of English, and

particularly of Palmerstonian, diplomacy: the feature is worth quoting.

Since the commencement of the negociation, the British Government had

never ceased to show great animosity against Austria, and loudly to

encourage the Piedmontese not to submit to the conditions which she

sought to force upon them. My first care, after taking the resolutions I

have described, was to communicate them to England, and to endeavour to

persuade her to take up the same line of conduct. I therefore sent a

copy of my despatch to Drouyn de Lhuys, who was then Ambassador in

London, and instructed him to show it to Lord Palmerston, and to

discover that minister's intentions. Drouyn de Lhuys replied:[26]

"While I was informing Lord Palmerston of your resolutions and of

the instructions you had sent M. de Boislecomte, he listened with

every sign of eager assent; but when I said, 'You see, my lord, how

far we wish to go; can you tell me how far you will go yourself?'

Lord Palmerston at once replied, 'The British Government, whose

interest in this business is not equal to yours, will not lend the

Piedmontese Government more than a diplomatic assistance and a

moral support."

[26: Despatches of the 25th and 26th of June 1849.]

Is not this characteristic? England, protected against the revolutionary

sickness of nations by the wisdom of her laws and the strength of her

ancient customs, and against the anger of princes by her power and her

isolation in the midst of us, is always pleased to play the part of the

advocate of liberty and justice in the internal affairs of the

Continent. She likes to censure and even to insult the strong, to

justify and encourage the weak; but it seems that she does not care to

go further than to assume virtuous airs and discuss honourable theories.

Should her _proteges_ come to need her, she offers her moral support.

I add, in order to finish the subject, that these tactics succeeded

remarkably well. The Piedmontese remained convinced that England alone

had defended them, and that we had very nearly abandoned them. She

remained very popular in Turin, and France very much suspected. For

nations are like men, they love still more that which flatters their

passions than that which serves their interests.

Hardly had we emerged from this bad pass, before we fell into a worse

one. We had witnessed with fear and regret what was happening in

Hungary. The misfortunes of this unlucky people excited our sympathies.

The intervention of the Russians, which for a time subordinated Austria

to the Tsar, and caused the hand of the latter to be more and more

active in the management of the general affairs of Europe, was not

calculated to please us. But all these events happened beyond our reach,

and we were helpless.

"I need not tell you," I wrote in the instructions I sent

Lamoriciere, "with what keen and melancholy interest we follow

events in Hungary. Unfortunately, for the present, we can only take

a passive part in this question. The letter and spirit of the

treaties open out to us no right of intervention. Besides, our

distance from the seat of war must impose upon us, in the present

state of our affairs and of those of Europe, a certain reserve.

Since we are not able to speak or act to good purpose, it is due to

our dignity not to display, in respect to this question, any

sterile excitement or impotent good-feeling. Our duty with regard

to Hungarian events is to limit ourselves to carefully observing

what happens and seeking to discover what is likely to take place."

Overwhelmed by numbers, the Hungarians were either conquered or

surrendering, and their principal leaders, as well as a certain number

of Polish generals who had joined their cause, crossed the Danube at the

end of August, and threw themselves into the arms of the Turks at

Widdin. From there, the two principal ones, Dembinski and Kossuth, wrote

to our Ambassador in Constantinople.[27] The habits and peculiarities of

mind of these two men were betrayed in their letters. The soldier's was

short and simple; the lawyer-orator's long and ornate. I remember one of

his phrases, among others, in which he said, "As a good Christian, I

have chosen the unspeakable sorrow of exile rather than the peacefulness

of death." Both ended by asking for the protection of France.

[27: Letters of the 22nd and 24th of August 1849.]

While the outlaws were imploring our aid, the Austrian and Russian

Ambassadors appeared before the Divan and asked that they might be given

up. Austria based her demand upon the treaty of Belgrade, which in no

way established her right; and Russia hers upon the treaty of Kainardji

(10 July 1774), of which the meaning, to say the least of it, was very

obscure. But at bottom they neither of them appealed to an international

right, but to a better known and more practical right, that of the

strongest. This was made clear by their acts and their language. The two

embassies declared from the commencement that it was a question of peace

or war. Without consenting to discuss the matter, they insisted upon a

reply of yes or no, and declared that if this reply was in the negative,

they would at once cease all diplomatic relations with Turkey.

To this exhibition of violence, the Turkish ministers replied, with

gentleness, that Turkey was a neutral country; that the law of nations

forbade them to hand over outlaws who had taken refuge on their

territory; and that the Austrians and Russians had often quoted the same

law against them when Mussulman rebels had sought an asylum in Hungary,

Transylvania or Bessarabia. They modestly submitted that what was

permitted on the left bank of the Danube seemed as though it should also

be permitted on the right bank. They ended by protesting that what they

were asked to do was opposed to their honour and their religion, that

they would gladly undertake to keep the refugees under restraint and

place them where they could do no mischief, but that they could never

consent to deliver them to the executioner.

"The young Sultan," our ambassador wrote to me, "replied yesterday

to the Austrian Envoy that, while denouncing what the Hungarian

rebels had done, he could now only regard them as unhappy men

seeking to escape death, and that humanity forbade him to surrender

them. Rechid Pasha, on his part, the Grand Vizier," added our

Minister, "said to me, 'I shall be proud if I am driven from power

for this;' and he added, with an air of deep concern, 'In our

religion, every man who asks for mercy is bound to obtain it.'"

This was talking like civilized people and Christians. The Ambassadors

were content to reply like real Turks, saying that they must give up the

fugitives or undergo the consequences of a rupture which would probably

lead to war. The Mussulman population itself took fire; it approved of

and supported its Government; and the Mufti came to thank our Ambassador

for the support he had given to the cause of humanity and good law.

From the commencement of the discussion, the Divan had addressed itself

to the Ambassadors of France and England. It appealed to public opinion

in the two great countries which they represented, asked their advice,

and besought their help in the event of the Northern Powers executing

their threats. The Ambassadors at once replied that in their opinion

Austria and Russia were exceeding their rights; and they encouraged the

Turkish Government in its resistance.

In the meanwhile, arrived at Constantinople an aide-de-camp of the

Tsar. He brought a letter which that Prince had taken the pains to write

to the Sultan with his own hand, asking for the extradition of the Poles

who had served six months before in the Hungarian war against the

Russian army. This step seems a very strange one when one does not see

through the particular reasons which influenced the Tsar under the

circumstance. The following extract from a letter of Lamoriciere's

describes them with great sagacity, and shows to what extent public

opinion is dreaded at that end of Europe, where one would think that it

was neither an organ nor a power:

"The Hungarian war, as you know," he wrote,[28] "was embarked upon

to sustain Austria, who is hated as a people and not respected as a

government; and it was very unpopular. It brought in nothing, and

cost eighty-four millions of francs. The Russians hoped to bring

back Bem, Dembinski, and the other Poles to Poland, as the price of

the sacrifices of the campaign. Especially in the army, there

reigned a veritable fury against these men. The people and soldiers

were mad with longing for this satisfaction of their somewhat

barbaric national pride. The Emperor, in spite of his omnipotence,

is obliged to attach great value to the spirit of the masses upon

whom he leans, and who constitute his real force. It is not simply

a question of individual self-love: the national sentiment of the

country and the army is at stake."

[28: Despatches of the 11th and 25th of October 1849.]

These were, no doubt, the considerations which prompted the Tsar to take

the dangerous step I have mentioned. Prince Radziwill presented his

letter, but obtained nothing. He left forthwith, haughtily refusing a

second audience, which was offered him to take his leave; and the

Russian and Austrian Ambassadors officially declared that all diplomatic

relations had ceased between their masters and the Divan.

The latter acted, in these critical circumstances, with a firmness and

propriety of bearing which would have done honour to the most

experienced cabinets of Europe. At the same time that the Sultan refused

to comply with the demands, or rather the orders, of the two Emperors,

he wrote to the Tsar to tell him that he would not discuss with him the

question of right raised by the interpretation of the treaties, but that

he appealed to his friendship and to his honour, begging him to take it

in good part that the Turkish Government refused to take a measure which

would ruin it in the eyes of the world. He offered, moreover, once more,

himself to place the refugees in a position in which they should be

harmless. Abdul Medjid sent one of the wisest and cleverest men in his

Empire, Fuad Effendi, to take this letter to St Petersburg. A similar

letter was written to Vienna, but this was to be handed to the Emperor

of Austria by the Turkish Envoy at that Court, thus very visibly marking

the difference in the value attached to the consent of the two

Sovereigns. This news reached me at the end of September. My first care

was to communicate it to England. At the same time[29] I wrote a private

letter to our Ambassador, in which I said:

"The conduct of England, who is more interested in this affair than

we are, and less exposed in the conflict that may arise from it,

must needs have a great influence upon our own. The English Cabinet

must be asked clearly and categorically to state _how far_ it is

prepared to go. I have not forgotten the Piedmont affair. If they

want us to assist them, they must dot their i's. It is possible

that, in that case, we shall be found to be very determined;

otherwise, not. It is also very important that you should ascertain

the opinions produced by these events upon the Tories of all

shades; for with a government conducted on the parliamentary

system, and consequently variable, the support of the party in

power is not always a sufficient guarantee."

[29: Private letter, 1 October 1849.]

In spite of the gravity of the circumstances, the English ministers, who

were at that moment dispersed on account of the parliamentary holidays,

took a long time before meeting; for in that country, the only country

in the world where the aristocracy still carries on the government, the

majority of the ministers are both great landed proprietors and, as a

rule, great noblemen. They were at that time on their estates,

recruiting from the fatigue and _ennui_ of business; and they showed no

undue hurry to return to Town. During this interval, all the English

press, without distinction of party, took fire. It raged against the two

Emperors, and inflamed public opinion in favour of Turkey. The British

Government, thus stimulated, at once took up its position. This time it

did not hesitate, for it was a question, as it said itself, not only of

the Sultan, but of England's influence in the world.[30] It therefore

decided, first, that representations should be made to Russia and

Austria; secondly, that the British Mediterranean Squadron should

proceed to the Dardanelles, to give confidence to the Sultan and, if

necessary, defend Constantinople. We were invited to do the same, and to

act in common. The same evening, the order was despatched to the British

Fleet to sail.

[30: Private letter from M. Drouyn de Lhuys, 2 October 1849.]

The news of these decisive resolutions threw me into great perplexity. I

did not hesitate to think that we should approve the generous conduct of

our Ambassador, and come to the aid of the Sultan;[31] but as to a

warlike attitude, I did not believe that it would as yet be wise to

adopt it. The English invited us to do as they did; but our position was

very different from theirs. In defending Turkey, sword in hand, England

risked her fleet; we, our very existence. The English Ministers could

rely that, in that extremity, Parliament and the nation would support

them; whereas we were almost certain to be abandoned by the Assembly,

and even by the country, if things came so far as war. For our

wretchedness and danger at home made people's minds at that moment

insensible to all beside. I was convinced, moreover, that in this case

threats, instead of serving to forward our designs, were calculated to

frustrate them. If Russia, for it was really with her alone that we had

to do, should chance to be disposed to open the question of the

partition of the East by invading Turkey--a contingency that I found it

difficult to believe in--the sending of our fleets would not prevent the

crisis; and if it was really only a question (as was probably the case)

of taking revenge upon the Poles, it would aggravate it, by making it

difficult for the Tsar to retract, and causing his vanity to join forces

with his resentment.

[31: Private letters to Lamoriciere and Beaumont, 5 and 9 October

1849.]

I went to the meeting of the Council with these reflections. I at once

saw that the President was already decided and even pledged, as he

himself declared to us. This resolve on his part had been inspired by

Lord Normanby, the British Ambassador, an eighteenth-century

diplomatist, who had worked himself into a strong position in Louis

Napoleon's good graces.... The majority of my colleagues thought as he

did, that we should without hesitation adopt the line of joint action to

which the English invited us, and like them send our fleet to the

Dardanelles.

Failing in my endeavour to have a measure which I considered premature

postponed, I asked that at least, before it was carried out, they should

consult Falloux, whose state of health had compelled him to leave Paris

for a time and go to the country. Lanjuinais went down to him for this

purpose, reported the affair to him, and came back and reported to us

that Falloux had without hesitation given his opinion in favour of the

despatch of the fleet. The order was sent off at once. However, Falloux

had acted without consulting the leaders of the majority or his friends,

and even without due reflection as to the consequences of his action; he

had yielded to a movement of impulse, as sometimes happened to him, for

nature had made him frivolous and light-headed before education and

habit had rendered him calculating to the pitch of duplicity. It is

probable that, after his conversation with Lanjuinais, he received

advice, or himself made certain reflections, opposed to the opinion he

had given. He therefore wrote me a very long and very involved

letter,[32] in which he pretended to have misunderstood Lanjuinais

(this was impossible, for Lanjuinais was the clearest and most lucid of

men both in speech and action). He revoked his opinion and sought to

evade his responsibility; and I replied at once with this note:

"My dear Colleague,

"The Council has taken its resolution, and at this late hour there

is nothing to be done but await events; moreover, in this matter

the responsibility of the whole Council is the same. There is no

individual responsibility. I was not in favour of the measure; but

now that the measure is taken, I am prepared to defend it against

all comers."[33]

[32: Letter from Falloux, 11 October 1849.]

[33: Letter to Falloux, 12 October 1849.]

While giving a lesson to Falloux, I was none the less anxious and

embarrassed as to the part I was called upon to play. I cared little for

what would happen at Vienna; for in this business I credited Austria

merely with the position of a satellite. But what would the Tsar do, who

had involved himself so rashly and, apparently, so irrevocably in his

relations towards the Sultan, and whose pride had been put to so severe

a test by our threats? Fortunately I had two able agents at St

Petersburg and Vienna, to whom I could explain myself without reserve.

"Take up the business very gently," I recommended them,[34] "be

careful not to set our adversaries' self-esteem against us, avoid

too great and too ostensible an intimacy with the English

Ambassadors, whose Government is detested by the Court at which you

are, although nevertheless maintaining good relations with those

ambassadors. In order to attain success, adopt a friendly tone, and

do not try to frighten people. Show our position as it is; we do

not want war; we detest it; we dread it; but we cannot act

dishonourably. We cannot advise the Porte, when it comes to us for

our opinion, to commit an act of cowardice; and should the courage

which it has displayed, and which we have approved of, bring it

into danger, we cannot, either, refuse it the assistance it asks of

us. A way must therefore be found out of the difficulty. Is

Kossuth's skin worth a general war? Is it to the interest of the

Powers that the Eastern Question should be opened at this moment

and in this fashion? Cannot a way be found by which everybody's

honour will be saved? What do they want, after all? Do they only

want to have a few poor devils handed over to them? That is

assuredly not worth so great a quarrel; but if it were a pretext,

if at the bottom of this business lurked the desire, as a matter of

fact, to lay hands upon the Ottoman Empire, then it would certainly

be a general war that they wanted; for ultra-pacific though we are,

we should never allow Constantinople to fall without striking a

blow."

[34: Private letters to Lamoriciere and Beaumont, 5 and 9 October

1849.]

The affair was happily over by the time these instructions reached St

Petersburg. Lamoriciere had conformed to them before he received them.

He had acted in this circumstance with an amount of prudence and

discretion which surprised those who did not know him, but which did not

astonish me in the least. I knew that he was impetuous by temperament,

but that his mind, formed in the school of Arabian diplomacy, the wisest

of all diplomacies, was circumspect and acute to the pitch of artifice.

Lamoriciere, so soon as he had heard rumours of the quarrel direct from

Russia, hastened to express, very vividly, though in an amicable tone,

that he disapproved of what had happened at Constantinople; but he took

care to make no official, and, above all, no threatening,

representations. Although acting in concert with the British Minister,

he carefully avoided compromising himself with him in any joint steps;

and when Fuad Effendi, bearing Abdul Medjid's letter, arrived, he let

him know secretly that he would not go to see him, in order not to

imperil the success of the negociation, but that Turkey could rely upon

France.

He was admirably assisted by this envoy from the Grand Seignior, who

concealed a very quick and cunning intelligence beneath his Turkish

skin. Although the Sultan had appealed for the support of France and

England, Fuad, on arriving at St. Petersburg, showed no inclination even

to call upon the representatives of these two Powers. He refused to see

anybody before his audience of the Tsar, to whose free will alone, he

said, he looked for the success of his mission.

The Emperor must have experienced a feeling of bitter displeasure on

beholding the want of success attending his threats, and the unexpected

turn that things had taken; but he had the strength to restrain himself.

In his heart he was not desirous to open the Eastern Question, even

though, not long before, he had gone so far as to say, "The Ottoman

Empire is dead; we have only to arrange for its funeral."

To go to war in order to force the Sultan to violate the Law of Nations

was a very difficult matter. He would have been aided in this by the

barbaric passions of his people, but reproved by the opinion of the

whole civilized world. He knew what was happening in England and France.

He resolved to yield before he was threatened. The great Emperor

therefore drew back, to the immeasurable surprise of his subjects and

even of foreigners. He received Fuad in audience, and withdrew the

demand he had made upon the Sultan. Austria hastened to follow his

example. When Lord Palmerston's note arrived at St Petersburg, all was

over. The best would have been to say nothing; but while we, in this

business, had only aimed at success, the British Cabinet had also sought

for noise. It required it to make a response to the irritation of the

country. Lord Bloomfield, the British Minister, presented himself at

Count Nesselrode's the day after the Emperor's decision became known;

and was very coldly received.[35] He read him the note in which Lord

Palmerston asked, in polite but peremptory phrases, that the Sultan

should not be forced to hand over the refugees. The Russian replied that

he neither understood the aim nor the object of this demand; that the

affair to which he doubtless referred was arranged; and that, in any

case, England had nothing to say in the matter. Lord Bloomfield asked

how things stood. Count Nesselrode haughtily refused to give him any

explanation; it would be equivalent, he said, to recognizing England's

right to interfere in an affair that did not concern it. And when the

British Envoy insisted upon at any rate leaving a copy of the note in

Count Nesselrode's hands, the latter, after first refusing, at last

accepted the document with an ill grace and dismissed his visitor,

saying carelessly that he would reply to the note, that it was a

terribly long one, and that it would be very tiresome. "France," added

the Chancellor, "has already made me say the same thing; but she made me

say it earlier and better."

[35: Letter from Lamoriciere, 19 October 1849.]

At this moment when we learnt the end of the dangerous quarrel, the

Cabinet, after thus witnessing a happy conclusion to the two great

pieces of foreign business that still kept the peace of the world in

suspense, the Piedmont War and the Hungarian War--at that moment, the

Cabinet fell.

APPENDIX

I have recently discovered these four notes in the charter-room at

Tocqueville, where my grandfather had carefully deposited, by the

side of our most precious family archives, all the manuscripts of

his brother that came into his possession. They seemed to me to

throw some light upon the Revolution of February and the question

of the revision of the Constitution in 1851, and to merit

publication together with the Recollections.

Comte de Tocqueville.