Another Frenchman in this far-sighted list was the Comte de Stainville,
afterwards Duc de Choiseul, born 28th June, 1719, and died 8th May,
1785. His brilliant career as diplomatist and statesman was preceded
by a career of arms with rapid promotion, so that at the age of forty
he became lieutenant-general. Meanwhile he was ambassador at Rome and
then at Vienna, the two pinnacles of diplomatic life. In 1758 he became
Minister of Foreign Affairs, also duke and peer; then Minister of War,
and of the Marine; but in 1766 he resumed the Foreign Office, which
he held till 1770, when he was disgraced. The King could not pardon
the contempt with which, although happy in the smiles of Madame de
Pompadour, the Prime-Minister rejected the advances of her successor,
the ignoble Du Barry; and he was exiled from court to live in his
château of Chanteloup, in the valley of the Loire, where, dispensing a
magnificent hospitality, he was consoled by a loving wife and devoted
friends.
He had charm of manner rather than person, with a genius for
statesmanship recognized and commemorated in contemporary writings.
Madame du Deffant speaks of him often in her correspondence, and
depicts him in her circle when Franklin was first presented there.
Horace Walpole returns to him in letters and in his memoirs,
attributing to him “great parts,” calling him “very daring, dashing,
and whose good-nature would not have checked his ambition from doing
any splendid mischief.”[398] The Abbé Barthélemy, in his “Travels of
Anacharsis,” portrays him under the character of Arsame. Frederick of
Prussia, so often called the Great, hailed him “Coachman of Europe.”
And our own historian Bancroft, following Chatham, does not hesitate
to call him “the greatest minister of France since Richelieu.”
The two volumes of Memoirs purporting to be written by himself, and
printed under his eyes in his cabinet in 1778, were accidental pieces,
written, but never collected by him, nor intended as memoirs.[399]
In the French treasure-house of these productions they are of little
value, if not unworthy of his fame.
Besides a brilliant and famous administration of affairs, are several
acts not to be forgotten. At Rome his skill was shown in bringing
Benedict the Fourteenth to a common understanding on the bull
_Unigenitus_. Through him in 1764 the Jesuits were suppressed in
France, or were permitted only on condition of fusing with the secular
clergy. But nothing in his career was more memorable than his foresight
and courage with regard to the English Colonies. American Independence
was foreseen and helped by him.
The Memoirs of Choiseul have little of the elevation recognized in his
statesmanship, nor are they anywhere prophetic. Elsewhere his better
genius was manifest, especially in his diplomacy. This was recognized
by Talleyrand, who, in a paper on the “Advantages to be derived from
New Colonies,” read before the Institute toward the close of the last
century, characterized him as “one of the men of our age who had the
most forecast of mind,--_who already in 1769 foresaw the separation
of America from England_, and feared the partition of Poland”; and he
adds that “from this epoch he sought to prepare by negotiations the
cession of Egypt to France, that on the day our American colonies
should escape from us, he might be ready to replace them with the same
productions and a more extended commerce.”[400]
Bancroft, whose work shows unprecedented access to original documents,
recognizes the prevision of the French minister at an earlier
date, as attested by the archives of the French Foreign Office.
In 1766 he received the report of a special agent who had visited
America. In 1767 he sent Baron de Kalb, afterwards an officer in our
Revolution,--sparing no means to obtain information, and drawing even
from New England sermons, of which curious extracts are preserved
among the State Papers of France.[401] In August of this year, writing
to his plenipotentiary at London, the Minister says with regard to
England and her Colonies: “Let her but attempt to establish taxes in
them, and those countries, greater than England in extent, and perhaps
becoming more populous, having fisheries, forests, shipping, corn,
iron, and the like, will easily and fearlessly separate themselves
from the mother country.”[402] In the next year Du Châtelet, son
of her who was the companion of Voltaire and the French translator
of Newton, becomes his most sympathetic representative. To him the
Minister wrote, 15th July, 1768: “According to the prognostications of
sensible men, who have had opportunity to study the character of the
Americans, and to measure their progress from day to day in the spirit
of independence, this separation of the American Colonies from the
metropolis sooner or later must come.… I see all these difficulties,
and do not dissemble their extent; but I see also the controlling
interest of the Americans to profit by the opportunity of a rupture
to establish their independence.”[403] Again he wrote, 22d November,
1768: “The Americans will not lose out of their view their rights and
their privileges; and next to fanaticism for religion, the fanaticism
for liberty is the most daring in its measures and the most dangerous
in its consequences.”[404] That the plenipotentiary was not less
prompt in forecast appears in a letter of 9th November, 1768: “Without
exaggerating the projects or the union of the Colonies, the time of
their independence is very near.… Three years ago the separation of
the English Colonies was looked upon as an object of attention for the
next generation; the germs were observed, but no one could foresee that
they would be so speedily developed. This new order of things, this
event which will necessarily have the greatest influence on the whole
political system of Europe, will probably be brought about within a
very few years.”[405] The Minister replied, 20th December, 1768: “Your
views are as subtle as they are comprehensive and well-considered. The
King is perfectly aware of their sagacity and solidity, and I will
communicate them to the Court of Madrid.”[406]
These passages show a persistency of view, which became the foundation
of French policy; so that the Duke was not merely a prophet, but a
practical statesman, guided by remarkable foresight. He lived long
enough to witness the National Independence he had foretold, and to
meet Franklin at Paris, while saved from witnessing the overthrow of
the monarchy he had served, and the bloody harvest of the executioner,
where a beloved sister was among the victims.