CITIZEN TALLEYRAND
Talleyrand explains in the Memoirs that, after resigning his bishopric,
he “put himself at the disposal of events.” “Provided I remained
a Frenchman” he says, “I was prepared for anything.” The outlook
must have been blank and perplexing. His ecclesiastical income was
entirely stopped, and he was prevented by the vote of the Assembly
from accepting a place in the Ministry, or any paid office under
Government, for two years. He had, however, been appointed member of
the newly-formed and important Department of Paris on January 18th. He
retained this municipal office for eighteen months, and there and on
the Assembly did some good work during the course of the year 1791.
Sieyès and Mirabeau were elected with him: Danton followed on January
31st. Within six months two events of great importance occurred—the
death of Mirabeau and the flight of the King. Each event left the
outlook darker for constitutionalists like Talleyrand.
Mirabeau had realised at length that France was travelling _downwards_,
and had secretly rallied to the Court. Talleyrand was accused later
of having done the same; but he denied it, and there was no solid
proof, as we shall see. It is by no means unlikely that Mirabeau
would tell the King of Talleyrand’s disposition as a monarchist and
constitutionalist. On the extreme left in the Assembly a menacing
group was forming, and was gaining favour in Paris and the provinces.
It was also dominating the club at the Jacobins and extending its
influence over France through the affiliated clubs. Mirabeau roared
down the violent suggestions of these Marats and Robespierres for a
time, but his constitution was shattered[18] by excess and work. He
died on April 2nd, taking with him, he said, “the doom of monarchy.”
Talleyrand was with him for a couple of hours before he died, and the
interview is generally described as the bequeathing of Mirabeau’s
plans to him. Lamartine says he left Talleyrand “all his grand views
in his grand speech;” another writer says he left him his idea of an
alliance between England and France. Talleyrand read Mirabeau’s last
words at the Assembly. The notion of a bequeathing and inheriting of
views is exaggerated. Talleyrand had been friendly with Mirabeau in
the intervals of their numerous quarrels, but he was not likely to be
influenced by him—if by anybody. Mirabeau’s violence and intemperance
imposed restraint on him. Their views largely coincided, and, just as
Talleyrand’s few and wise proposals in the Assembly had almost always
had Mirabeau’s support, so, now that Mirabeau was gone, Talleyrand
seemed to be continuing his views in the Assembly. The idea of drawing
towards England had been expressed by him twelve months before, in his
letter to Sir J. R. Miller. As Talleyrand was nominated to the place
left vacant by Mirabeau on the diplomatic committee he would naturally
begin to give greater prominence to this idea.
[Illustration: MIRABEAU.]
A week later Talleyrand gave a proof of the moderation and splendid
balance of his character. At Paris the priests who would not take
the oath according to the new civil constitution of the clergy were
being roughly handled by the “patriots.” Talleyrand induced the
Department to pass a measure for their protection. Six weeks earlier
his life had been threatened by these “Nonconformists,” as he called
them. Now he endangered his popularity in securing for them complete
liberty to follow their cult in their own way, in churches specially
assigned to them. It is not scholarship, but partisanship, to ignore
the traits of character—the unchanging concern for justice, humanity
and moderation—which inspire these interventions on behalf of his
bitter enemies, and in antagonism to the dominant feeling, and then
pronounce Talleyrand a “sphinx.” A little later (May 7th) he repeated
his plea to the Assembly. He had to report the discussion of the
constitution-committee on a decree of the Department of Paris in
reference to deserted religious edifices. He upheld the right of the
municipality to dispose of these, and went on to plead again for
liberty for the “Nonconformists.” “Let us not speak of tolerance,” he
finely says; “such a domineering expression is an insult, and should
no longer be found in the language of a free and enlightened people.”
The king himself, “the first functionary of the nation,” shall be free
“like other functionaries” to worship as a Nonconformist if he wishes:
only not in his character of State-official. On the other hand, these
Nonconformists must drop their ridiculous talk of “schism.” A nation
cannot be schismatic until it declares itself in rebellion against
the Church. He politely invites the Pope to mind his own business. I
repeat that there is nothing mysterious about these actions except
to men whose personal experience disables them from understanding a
passionless moral and intellectual consistency.
The reference to the King reminds us of the other great event of 1791
that prepared the way for the Terror. With religious conscientiousness,
but political folly, the King had tried to leave the Tuileries for the
purpose of making his Pâques at Saint-Cloud. Lafayette was willing;
but the Jacobins saw, in long perspective, a flight over the frontier
and an Austrian invasion. There was another fatal conflict of mob and
authority, and victory for the mob. On the following day the Department
of Paris sent a letter of censure to the King for his impolitic
attempt. M. Belloc says the letter has been imputed to Danton, but was
really written by Talleyrand. He is quite right, as Talleyrand says in
his letter to the Convention from London (December 12th, 1792), that
he “redacted this famous address of the Department,” and, in fact,
took it himself to the King: not impossibly using the opportunity to
gild the pill. But the brain of Louis XVI was not likely to be the
only one to remain unintoxicated in such times. Indeed, calm political
wisdom, looking back now from placid studies, is at a loss to determine
the move he ought to have taken. A royalist plot, an unguarded door,
and he was off on the night of June 20th for Metz.[19] On the evening
of the 26th Talleyrand saw the sad return again through the lane of
some hundred thousand faces, not now cheering, not frigidly silent,
but surly and menacing. For a time the increased danger rallied the
constitutionalists. They had left the Jacobin club, and met at the
Feuillants, where all that was left of moderation and constitutionalism
now gathered. But the ancient homes of the Dominicans (Jacobins) and
the Franciscans (Cordeliers) had become furnaces, heating Paris.
The party on the extreme Left had found a “new fact” to proceed
on. Talleyrand’s speech of May 7th had been loudly applauded and
placarded[20] over Paris and the provinces. Evidently the situation
was then far from hopeless. But this pardonable madness—unpardonable
only in its stupid details and blunders—of the King had wrought
terrible mischief. Paris rose, and Lafayette crushed it, and made it a
more bitter enemy than ever of constitutionalism, more accessible to
the new Dominicans and Franciscans—Danton, Marat, Desmoulins, Pétion,
Robespierre, and the rest.
One other day does Talleyrand fill the Salle de Manège with ringing
applause before the Constituent Assembly breaks up. We rarely catch
sight of him in these long and angry debates that fill whole sessions,
when the victory is to the strong-lunged. But nearly on every single
occasion when his low-pitched, deliberate voice is heard, putting
judicious views in temperate, lucid, convincing language, he obtains
his point. On September 10th he has his last declaration to make in
the name of the constitution-committee, a report of their views on
education. It is, of course, disputed whether Talleyrand wrote the
speech. Some attribute it to Chamfort, others to Condorcet, others
to des Renaudes. Talleyrand distinctly claims it, acknowledging his
debt to the chief savants of the time—Lagrange, Lavoisier, Laplace,
Monge, Condorcet, Vicq d’Azir, la Harpe, and others. It is, in fact, a
most remarkable presentation of the best opinions of the time, united
in a brilliant scheme of national education. We know that Talleyrand
had a habit of writing a heap of scrappy notes and leaving it to his
secretary to unite them: just as M. de Bacourt has done with the
memoirs. In this sense the finished manuscript is possibly the work of
des Renaudes, but the vast and striking scheme is a construction of
Talleyrand’s. Long before, Morris had said that education was “the bee
in Talleyrand’s bonnet.”
He begins with a ruthless account of the pre-Revolutionary education,
and makes an appeal to the Assembly to complete its work with a worthy
system of national instruction. Education must be universal, free,
the same for both sexes (this he modifies presently), and must regard
adults as well as children. It must include lessons on religion, but
its lessons in morality and civism must be completely separated from
these, and purely humanitarian. Thinkers must be invited to draw up
manuals for this most important section of the code. The organisation
must correspond to the civic organisation. The primary schools must
be under the control of the elementary political division. Secondary
schools must be set up by the District, technical schools by the
Department, and there must be a great central Institute at Paris. The
State must provide all primary education, and it must found and assist
higher schools, but in these the pupil must contribute; though the
State will see that poverty does not exclude able youths. Girls will
have equal instruction with boys in the primary schools, and a few
higher schools will be provided for them, but the home must be their
chief school (this is put in rather awkwardly towards the close). The
construction of the scheme must proceed slowly and cautiously. No
children under seven shall attend school. The work of the technical
or special schools is very fully discussed. First amongst them he
puts “schools of theology,” and in these the subtleties of the older
theology shall be avoided, and a solid, rational Christian doctrine
expounded. There is not a shade of offence to old ideas or colleagues
in the phrasing. The work of the medical, legal, and military
schools is similarly analysed. The Institute, for which he makes a
stirring appeal, is to have the first professors in France and the
best laboratories and equipment; it shall have branches all over the
country. Public libraries must be built in connection with all higher
schools. The French language is to be purified and strengthened.
National fêtes shall be designed by artists and scientists, and form
part of the great scheme of uplifting the people.
Jules Simon has described this speech as “at once a law and a book,”
and Renan says it is “the most remarkable theory of public instruction
that has ever been propounded in France.” It is certainly a wonderful
vision, in its general outline, of the education of the future. No
doubt thinkers and reformers of all schools were working for a reform
of education. The clergy themselves were prepared on the eve of the
States-General to respond to the demand for progress. But only a
few in France were fully acquainted with the views of the expert
thinkers, and Talleyrand did a fine piece of work in thus presenting
them. Unfortunately, a firework of applause was all that he could
obtain. The subject was deferred—for ten years, as it turned out. The
sadly imperfect education of the earlier regime was succeeded by the
complete absence of it during the Revolution. Talleyrand had to wait
for the genius of Napoleon to make a beginning with his scheme. It is
growing near to realization in the twentieth century.
On the 30th of September the Constituent Assembly broke up. It had
at length completed the constitution. Those who think lightly of
its work, who see only its constitution-committee, and that on its
vulnerable side, may be asked to conceive France without it during
those two years and a half; as well try to conceive Paris in some
order without Lafayette and his National Guard. But what it did, and
what its constitution was worth, and how anarchy had grown too strong
before it was given—all these things are told in the larger story of
the Revolution. One thing it did that affected Talleyrand. It bound
its members to refrain from taking office or commission or gift or
pension for two years. “Greenish” Robespierre had proposed this. As
a consequence the nation was deprived of the service of its most
trained and expert governors and administrators. A special gallery was
appointed from which they might witness the proceedings of the new
Legislative Assembly, and be able to afford friendly hints in private;
but a vast amount of talent was wasted at a critical period. So slow
and delicate had been the transfer of executive power, so dazzling
the new ideal of liberty to the emancipated, so strong and daring the
self-assertion of mobs, so skilled the art of the demagogue, that
the air was thick with dangers. It would need all the sound heads and
steady arms in France to launch that new Constitution safely on such
waters; and they began by turning the majority of the soundest and
steadiest away.
Talleyrand, with ever mistier prospect in front, did what he could in
the next three months. The Girondists had quickly come to power in the
new Assembly, decreed death and confiscation against emigrants, and
pronounced expulsion against all priests who would not take the oath.
They then asked the Department of Paris to furnish a list of suspected
priests, but it refused to do so. Talleyrand and several other of
its members even went on to beg the King not to sanction the decree
of November 29th against the non-swearing priests. The sections at
Paris unsuccessfully demanded their impeachment for the letter. Later,
in December, we find him prevailing upon the Department to pay the
salaries of the non-juring priests. It is his last official act before
he leaves France. But the significance of these two acts should not
be neglected. At a time when the more violent are seizing power, our
excommunicated bishop—our “Judas,” and all the rest—with no position,
exerts himself to rescue from them his most bitter opponents.
But Talleyrand had now completed the first part of his career, and was
about to enter the path of diplomacy. Paris became less attractive
every month. He began to think of foreign embassies. No doubt these
also were forbidden by the September decree, but in regard to these at
least it was possible to evade the measure. Moreover, war had at length
been decided on, and Talleyrand would be of use in keeping England
neutral. Early in December we find an active correspondence going
on between Talleyrand, Narbonne (now Minister of War) and de Biron
(formally Lauzun). Talleyrand, in the capital, is evidently in close
touch with the new Ministry, and not without influence over de Lessart.
De Biron is pressed to take up military command; he in turn suggests
that an ambassador should be sent to London. Talleyrand proposes De
Biron himself, who knows London well. De Biron cannot be spared from
the army, and suggests Talleyrand. De Lessart, the Minister, presses
him to accept, and in January he starts for England, with an informal
diplomatic mission.
Talleyrand left his country, but not Paris, with reluctance. The Paris
he had so much enjoyed up to 1789 was changed, desecrated, beyond
endurance. Closed now were most of the fine salons where he had played
and talked. Hardly could a Mme. de Staël and a few survivors restore
some faint gleam of the faded brilliance. Even her, with all her
devotion to him and her great helpfulness, he never loved. “I believe
we are both in it, disguised as women,” he said, with piercing cruelty,
of the novel in which she afterwards depicted their relations.[21]
Apart from one or two houses, Paris was getting insufferable. Ugliness,
vulgarity, strident pedantry of the ignorant sort, followed one
everywhere. Your servant, sweeping the salon while you spoke to
your visitor, could join in the conversation. “Who? Montmorin? He’s
a scoundrel,” interrupted one, while his mistress and visitor were
discussing the late minister. The drawing-rooms of new Paris were hung
with blatant caricatures. Ladies wore the tricolour even in the shape
of boots. Jewellery had been replaced by bits of Bastille stone. Some
wore red dresses, of the shade “Foulon’s blood.” The graceful furniture
of the preceding generation was replaced by pseudo-classic of the
crudest sort.
Abroad there was no chance of eluding the growing coarseness without
hearing the word “aristocroc,” if not “lanterne.” Old titles had been
abolished, as well as armorial bearings. Now “thou” and “thee” were
being thought patriotic; the fashion would presently be enforced by
law. Patriots of the more thorough kind were discovering that it was
beneath the dignity of a man to raise his hat, or bow, or be polite
in the old fashion. From equality they were passing on to that idea
of fraternity which Chamfort—who was venting lurid phrases in the
middle of it all—described as: “Be my brother, or I’ll kill thee.”
Solicitation on the streets or at the Palais became disgusting.
_Coureur des filles_ had been a term of reproach in the day of
_liaisons_. Now 60,000 of them, most of them about 14 or 15 years old,
calculated to be making an income of 143,000,000 a year, held the city.
Caricatures and pamphlets became grosser every week, the press more
strident and hysterical. Every wall was covered with gaudy placards.
Even classic dramas were altered to suit the patriotic taste.
From such a picture the refined noble, to whom the supreme virtue was
taste, turned wearily away. At the same time it did seem probable that
he could be very useful at London. Pitt’s bias for peace was known,
as well as the sympathy of Fox and the Opposition. But the emigrants
were employing every fair and foul means in their power to alarm and
alienate England. For France its neutrality, at least, was supremely
important in face of the inevitable war on the continent. Pitt,
Grenville and Dundas, were known to be favourable; but Camden, Thurlow,
and especially the King, were very unfavourably disposed. So, urging de
Lessart to fix up the fleet—“one must talk to the northern powers with
an army, and to England with a fleet”—Talleyrand departed for London,
which he reached on January 24th.
His difficulties began before he arrived. He was delayed at the coast
for a day, and so did not reach London at the appointed time. But
the London press had announced his arrival, all the same, and added
that he had been badly received by Pitt. It was the opening of the
subterranean campaign of his former friends, now needy and embittered
emigrants, at London. Pitt, as a matter of fact, received him with the
utmost politeness, but nothing more. He reminded Talleyrand of their
earlier meeting at Rheims, and declared his satisfaction at being able
to discuss the situation in France with one so well informed, but
said that Talleyrand’s unofficial character prevented him from going
any further. Talleyrand was, of course, really holding an official and
salaried appointment, but no action could be taken that might expose
this to the keen scent of the patriots at home. He had to pursue his
task with double diplomacy, and he succeeded very well until the Terror
made England recoil. He saw the King on February 1st, and was received
with frigid correctness; the Queen would not speak to him. He then
saw Lord Grenville. For three-quarters of an hour he held Grenville
listening to an explanation of the situation, politely suppressing all
his attempts to speak, and postponing his answer. But Grenville could
only follow Pitt’s example. He intimated plainly enough to Citizen
Talleyrand in his private capacity that England strongly desired
peace, but he could make no official communication to him. Beyond this
Talleyrand could do nothing with the Government. It seemed to have a
surprising respect for the decree of the Constituent Assembly which
said that Talleyrand _must_ be a private individual. Talleyrand did
not appreciate such virtue. However, he really did a good deal with
Grenville in the way of arranging the details of the understanding
between the two countries.
On the other hand Talleyrand neglected no opportunity of cultivating
English society. When we find him in 1802 instructing the French
representative at London to accept all invitations and make frequent
attendance at the Exchange (“there is nearly always a Minister about”)
we can see his own conduct of 1792. He became very friendly with Lord
Lansdowne, and was, naturally, warmly welcomed by Fox, Sheridan, and
their party. His chief first impression of England was its slowness; it
is more curious to find that this was the chief impression he himself
made on his hosts. This was owing to the reputation of his gay life in
the eighties, which had preceded him, and partly to the ineradicable
English idea of the French character. No doubt there was some excuse
for it in those days. England had listened with open mouth to the news
of the grand pyrotechnic displays of French emotion in 1790 and 1791.
The reports had not lost colour in crossing the Channel. Journalism
and caricature and Burke-oratory had effectively conveyed them to
the British imagination. Emigrant conduct during the same period
would doubtless confirm the idea that the Frenchman was a bundle of
doubly-charged nerves. To these stolid fathers of ours with such an
expectation the person of Talleyrand was a mystery. One of the gayest
figures of pre-Revolutionary days, with a reputation for keenest wit
and brilliant _mots_, and now hot from the crater of the volcano,
he was expected to dance and gesticulate and emit electric phrases.
Instead they were introduced to a pale, sedate, stolid-looking man, who
hardly opened his mouth after the first quiet and brief courtesies were
over. With closer friends Talleyrand enjoyed himself in the old way.
But he wore a diplomatic sedateness on ordinary occasions; and his
puffy, rounded face and full figure, his perfect ease and quietness of
bearing, and his deep, slow, sententious speech, disconcerted people.
In his letters to de Lessart he shows that his feelings were lively
enough beneath this exterior. What with provincial risings and foreign
threats and Jacobin violence, poor de Lessart was too distracted to
pay adequate attention to Talleyrand’s mission, and the letters to him
are impatient. “Kill each other or embrace,” urged Talleyrand, when
he heard of the quarrels at Paris. Moreover, his companion in London
had gravely compromised him. Narbonne had given de Biron a commission
to buy horses in England for the army, and he accompanied Talleyrand
in January. His real purpose was to introduce Talleyrand in London
society, with which he was familiar—unfortunately, too familiar; he was
arrested for debt shortly after they landed. De Biron swears the bills
were forged, and others talk of emigrant plots. The truth seems to be
that he gambled very heavily at the London clubs. At these places the
stewards obliged the players with loans, at a good discount. De Biron,
dreaming of easy-going Paris, where there were no debtors’ prisons,
was a good customer. Between former visits and the present one he owed
about £16,000. Some of his creditors closed, and the Colonel found
himself in the King’s Bench. French visitors often failed to realise
the new conditions. The Count d’Artois had only escaped imprisonment
by seeking sanctuary at Holyrood. Talleyrand, greatly annoyed, employed
Erskine to dispute the bills or raise the plea of “privilege,” but he
failed on both counts. Lauzun was eventually bought out by Lord Rawdon
and a French admirer, and retired in a violent passion to France.
The episode was not lost on the emigrants and French libellists,
whose spicy contributions to the London press were appreciated. A
further source of annoyance was that the _Times_ made a violent attack
on Talleyrand, on the ground of his constant intercourse with the
Opposition and, it alleged, with such men as Tooke and Paine. There is
a letter from one of their secret agents to the French Government which
says that the English Ministers were annoyed at Talleyrand’s relations
with the Opposition, but it adds that his culture and dignity have made
a good impression in England.
Talleyrand now thought it would be better to have a nominal ambassador
at the Court, through whom he could act with greater effect, and he
crossed over to Paris in March to persuade de Lessart. That Minister
had disappeared when he arrived (March 10th), but he convinced his
successor, Dumouriez, of the importance of the matter, and returned
to London (April 29th) with three companions (besides des Renaudes,
who had been with him all along). Talleyrand had asked for the young
Marquis de Chauvelin as ambassador. Duroveray, who knew England, was
appointed in much the same position as Talleyrand, and Reinhard was
secretary. The long instructions which were given them, directing
them to press for an alliance, or at least for perfect neutrality,
and to negotiate a loan with England’s credit, and in return for
the island of Tobago, were either written by Talleyrand or from
his notes. He intended to leave very little to his _prête-nom_;
who, unfortunately, intended to do very much. The idea had been to
appoint a competent nonentity. Chauvelin proved both incompetent and
self-assertive enough to harass Talleyrand. His luggage was opened at
the custom-house and found to contain contraband goods. The hostile
press was not impressed by the new embassy. Tory shops in Piccadilly
exhibited strong caricatures of Talleyrand. But such insinuations
as this were grossly misplaced. Talleyrand had, as a member of the
diplomatic committee at Paris, fought successfully against the demand
for a revolutionary propaganda abroad, and he censured very severely
the conduct of one or two ambassadors who obtruded their republicanism
at Foreign Courts. But, besides the incompetence of Chauvelin—who was
once sharply pulled up by Lord Grenville for his language, when he had
boldly acted without Talleyrand—a great deal of mischief was done by
the press on both sides. This letter of Lord Grenville’s was published
in the emigrant papers, and the King’s private letter to George III was
published almost before it was delivered. The Parisian journals, on
the other hand, were full of tactless and irritating announcements of
an impending revolution in England, and attacks on the King and his
Ministers. Few but members of the Opposition would now entertain the
French envoys. On one occasion, when they went in a body to Ranelagh,
they were most ostentatiously shunned by the whole crowd. English
spies were constantly at their heels. Exaggerated reports of events in
France were circulated, and Talleyrand was left without any official
information. He complained bitterly to Dumouriez of their “painful and
embarrassing situation.”[22]
But, in spite of all the difficulties, Talleyrand succeeded very well.
If an alliance was concluded with England, Austria would reflect a
little longer before interfering in French affairs; hence the desperate
intrigues of the royalists to prevent such alliance. On the other
hand, the continental coalition against France was strengthening the
anti-French elements in England. At the beginning of May Prussia
made overtures to England. Pitt rejected them, and stood firm for
neutrality. On May 25th he was induced to have a public declaration
made of neutrality, and Talleyrand scored his first diplomatic
triumph. He does not forget to tell Dumouriez that it would be well
if his (Talleyrand’s) name were mentioned in the Paris journals. But
Dumouriez was exacting. He pressed for an alliance, and for explicit
statements as to England’s position if the war in Belgium led to a
conflict with Holland. Talleyrand kept his position skilfully between
the two Governments, each now impelled by a heated nation, but, in June
the French Ministry was again broken up and Dumouriez dismissed. A few
days later came the news of the invasion of the Tuileries. A private
letter from the Duke de la Rochefoucauld warned Talleyrand of the grave
development in Paris, and appealed to him to come over and strengthen
the Department of Paris, of which he was still a member.
On July 5th Talleyrand again set out for Paris. He had immediately
(June 22nd) applied to the Foreign Minister for leave of absence for
a fortnight, in order to come and confer with him at Paris. His real
purpose was to study the latest development of the situation. The King
was now a mere puppet in the hands of the people; and, without army,
France had declared war on Europe. Talleyrand, with a sigh, went over
to study this latest phase, and wonder what the abyss would produce
next. It proved to be the close of his first diplomatic mission.