THE REGENERATED PARIS
The ship in which Talleyrand had sailed from America was bound for
Hamburg, which it reached in January, 1796. The prudent diplomatist
wanted to take a nearer look at the regenerated capital of his country
before re-entering it. His discretion was timely. In October the mob
had risen for a third time against the new authority, and Citizen
Buonaparte had swept it back definitively into powerlessness in the
space of two hours. But the new rulers had a strong family resemblance
to the old. The five Directors had to be regicides; Sieyès, who had
voted for “death without any fuss” on poor Louis, had made this new
constitution. In the two new Chambers, the Council of the Five Hundred
and the Council of Ancients, a two-thirds majority was to be taken over
from the dissolving Convention. One-third had to be elected by the
country, now returning to sobriety; but until the old majority should
be broken by the retirement and re-election of a fresh third in May the
situation was not reassuring. There remained a good deal of bitterness
against emigrant aristocrats and their friends. Mme. de Staël was
herself attacked with some virulence, and had to leave the country.
Talleyrand decided to remain for the present at Hamburg.
There was a lively and interesting company at that time at Hamburg, and
Talleyrand met many old friends. He tells us in the memoirs, with that
tinge of malice that at times borders on ill-nature, that Madame de
Flahaut, who was there, sent out a note to the ship before he landed,
asking him to return to America. Her husband, Count Flahaut, had been
guillotined during the Revolution, and his widow had met at Hamburg,
and was about to marry, the Portuguese Minister, the Marquis de Souza.
She felt that the presence of Talleyrand might lead to embarrassment.
But Talleyrand was not heroic enough to face the ocean and America
again in her matrimonial service. Another interesting friend he found
at Hamburg was Mme. de Genlis. He found so little change in her that,
unconscious of its application to others, he is tempted to pen an
aphorism: “The fixity of compound natures is due to their suppleness.”
His former Secretary of Embassy at London, and later friend and
colleague, Reinhard, was there, and they increased their attachment
during those months of waiting. His former chief, General Dumouriez,
had fled there. Besides the French emigrants of all parties, there was
also a group of Irish rebels, led by Lord Edward Fitzgerald. Apart from
the anxiety and inactivity, the time would pass pleasantly.
In May the elections for the Chambers strengthened the moderate element
at Paris, and it became once more habitable. But Talleyrand took his
time in returning. From Hamburg he went in the summer to Amsterdam, and
in a fortnight passed on to Brussels, where he remained for a month
or two. The story of his going to Berlin for three months on a secret
mission seems to be apocryphal. In September he re-entered Paris.
We are left to imagine the feelings with which he contemplated the
regenerated capital of the Republic. He had last lived there in 1792,
when equality and fraternity were expressing themselves with such
ungraceful logic. The Revolution was now spent. Equality and fraternity
were forgotten; liberty was construed in a sense that made even the
liberal shudder. The Paris that had issued from the womb of the
Revolution, with such fangs as of a giant offspring, was a grotesque
abortion. The poor were as poor as ever, as despised as ever, as
much preyed on by parasites as ever. But the new class that filled
the theatres and the larger houses was insufferable. An epidemic of
speculation had set in. Brokers and bankers met you at every corner,
and shrill females assailed you in the streets with bundles of notes.
The paper-money of the successive authorities and the confiscation of
ecclesiastical and emigrant property had led to these spectacles. Some
won the prizes, and, if they succeeded in carrying their money beyond
the “camp of Tartars” at the Palais Egalité, bought emigrant hotels
and entered “Society”—a society such as the world has rarely seen. The
frequent mention of freedom during the last few years had led to a
study of the life of the “free peoples of antiquity,” which rested on
slavery. Sonorous Greek and Latin names decorated the new generation.
Greek and Roman garments hung about their slim Parisian persons. The
men got the idea that the _hetairæ_ were the chief feature of classic
life: and the women thought it was the use of transparent dress—though
it is gratifying to learn that some of them were hooted when they
attempted to walk the Bois in this costume. Wealthy brokers built Roman
homes, not forgetting the fish ponds, for their _amies_. The journals
announced as many divorces as marriages. What with war and guillotine
and pike the multiplication of patriots had become urgently necessary,
and the only qualification for fraternity was patriotism; they had long
before anticipated Mr. G. Bernard Shaw, and proposed to supply such as
the Abbé Fauchet with a harem of twenty healthy _citoyennes_. Actresses
and adventuresses and ex-nuns were fought for by men who had made
fortunes on flour or paper-money, or emigrant property, and clothed
with the wardrobes of dead princesses, and reopened the salons of the
old regime; the furniture, decorations, and social forms not a little
confused. At table they ate and drank much, and talked little. Balls,
especially fancy dress balls, were held daily, transparent trousers and
the light costume of heathen goddesses not being prohibited in an age
of liberty. Churches and convents had been turned into restaurants and
dancing-rooms for the most part.
When Chateaubriand returned to Paris a few years later (and it had
improved a little), he said that he felt as if he was going into the
mouth of hell. On different grounds Talleyrand may have said much the
same. His moral ideal was taste. License without refinement he felt
to be immoral. He had, too, a deep sense of humour and of humanity.
The one was inflamed at every turn; the other was afflicted at the
spectacle of this pitiful issue of all the sacrifices of the last six
years. As usual, he looked about for stray consolations, and awaited
developments. At the “Constitutional Club” he met whatever liberal,
decent men there were left in Paris. He was, indeed, welcomed by the
new queens of the salons, as Lytton assures us. In the revenge of
time a “grand seigneur” of the old regime had come to be regarded as
a superior being once more. A few with titles and empty purses in
their pockets, were still living at, or had returned to Paris; they
made excellent _maitres d’hotel_. Talleyrand, with his high reputation
for wit, culture and laxity, was regarded as a _ci-devant_ worth
cultivating. Only occasionally, if reports may be trusted, did he
express himself. One story goes that a lady of the transparent trousers
order once invited him to her house, and donned her classic garments
for the occasion. On the following day, when she had a numerous
company, a box arrived from Talleyrand, containing “a costume for
Madame.” She opened it before her jealous friends with great eagerness.
It contained a fig-leaf. On the other hand Talleyrand was made a
member of the Institut, the founding of which he had advocated in
1791. He read two papers there with his usual success. The first dealt
with the commercial relations of England with the United States; the
second pointed out the advantages to be derived from the new colonies.
Talleyrand believed in the virtue of colonial work for the regeneration
of an enfeebled or overcrowded nation. He was, he says, preparing a
third paper on the influence of society in France, but was dissuaded
from giving it. He would hardly venture to touch such a subject at that
time, but it is a pity he has not left us the paper.
With that disregard for mere truthfulness in small matters which we
notice throughout the memoirs (when there is a motive), he tells us
that he kept aloof from politics, and only yielded after some refusals
to the solicitations of Mme. de Staël. We know perfectly well that he
was at the end of his purse, and was, if for no other reason, compelled
to seek public service. He wrote to Mme. de Staël that he had only
the means of subsistence for another month, and he would “blow his
brains out if she did not find him a place.” He had then been in Paris
more than six months, and saw no opening. Michaud says that he had
left what little money remained to him (50,000 francs) in a bank at
Hamburg. Castellane tells a curious story of his having left his silver
in charge of a number of market-women when he left France, and says
that he collected every bit of it when he returned in 1796. But he
had now an establishment to keep up. The diplomatist had been smitten
at last by an unexpected type of woman. When Madame Grand first met
him, or first lived with him, it is quite impossible to determine. The
more plausible authorities are contradictory, and the lady’s career
has been as thickly encrusted with romance as that of Talleyrand. Her
nationality is doubtful. Her father is generally believed to have
been an Englishman, though some speak of him as a Dutch sailor, and
others as a Breton. She was born in India, and her mother is said to
have been a native. She was married, when young, to a Swiss, M. Grand,
but he had divorced her when she had captivated no less a person than
Sir Philip Francis. When Sir Philip returned to England, she came to
Paris, and for some years we trace her indistinctly flitting between
Paris, London and Hamburg. It may have been at Hamburg, but her German
biographer thinks it was more probably at Paris, in 1797, that she met
and captured Talleyrand.
Three points about her are clearly established. She was very
beautiful—“the beauty of two centuries,” one enthusiast says—not at
all cultured, and very far from puritanical. Her lithe, graceful
figure, pure white forehead, wide-opened, tender blue eyes, with long,
dark lashes, and especially her long, soft, golden-brown hair —“the
most wonderful hair in Europe”—are described by contemporaries with
some warmth. The obvious strain of Indian blood in her complexion
and bearing increased the charm, and her intellectual deficiency was
not accentuated by any attempt to conceal it. She seems to have been
devoted to her distinguished protector, and although she later admitted
a Spanish prince to a share in her affection, she always spoke of
him with great admiration. Talleyrand must have loved her in return.
It is true that he only married her under compulsion from Napoleon,
but most of his biographers quite wrongly suppose that he was, from
the ecclesiastical point of view, _ever_ free to marry. They lived
together, affectionately and faithfully, as far as one can tell,
until—twelve years later—the Princess Talleyrand was infatuated by the
Prince of Spain. Talleyrand explains his choice of a woman without
culture on the ground that “a woman of intelligence often compromises
her husband; without it, she can only compromise herself.” The truth
seems to be that there was no calculation whatever in the match. The
plain phrase, he fell in love with her, accurately describes what
happened. A man of exceptional mental power often finds the ablest
of his female contemporaries, with their strain and effort to reach
his level, impossible companions; moreover, Talleyrand was a deeply
amorous and uxorious man. When friends had pointed out to him that his
actress-friend at Saint Sulpice was without mental gifts, he said he
had not noticed it. Mme. de Flahaut—for whom, however, one can only
admit a qualified attachment—had kept almost the only non-political
house in Paris before the Revolution.
[Illustration: _From an engraving, after a picture by F. Gérard._
MADAME TALLEYRAND.]
It was now more needful than ever to secure an appointment.[27] Mme. de
Staël lent Talleyrand 24,000 francs, and promised to use her influence
on the Directorate. Lytton connects Talleyrand’s appointment with the
reading of his papers at the Institut. Two of the Directors, Rewbell
and Reveillère belonged to it, and possibly heard his second paper on
July 13th. These were the most decent members of the group of five
which then ruled France, and it is natural that they should appreciate
Talleyrand’s worth to the country. But Mme. de Staël won over the most
important of the five, Barras, and induced him to invite Talleyrand
to dine at his house at Suresnes. The other four lived with their
families in a modest and respectable fashion under the eyes of the
people at the Luxembourg. Barras, an aristocrat by birth, but coarse,
violent, and sensual, made a good deal of money by secret commissions,
and kept a lively establishment at Suresnes, besides the apartments
at the Luxembourg where Mme. Tallien presided. An accident afforded
a good opportunity to Talleyrand. Whilst he waited at Barras’ house
the latter’s aide-de-camp, a youth to whom he was greatly attached,
was drowned in the river, and it fell to Talleyrand to console the
very distressed Director. He made a useful impression on Barras; in
fact that functionary some time later paid him the awkward compliment
of saying that his ways “would sweeten a dung-hill.” There was a
change in the Ministry soon afterwards, and Barras warmly presented
Talleyrand for foreign affairs. Rewbell and Reveillère supported him.
Carnot opposed everything that Barras proposed, and Barthélemy followed
Carnot. But the three carried the nomination. That night at ten o’clock
Talleyrand was called out of the Salon des Étrangers by a gens-d’arme.
He brought an official notification signed by Carnot. Talleyrand
foolishly wastes a paragraph or two in explaining several reasons why
he felt bound to accept. One would like him better it he had devoted
them to a grateful acknowledgment of the help given him by Mme. de
Staël. But she seems to have bored him a good deal, and in any case
they had separated before these pages were written. “She has only one
defect,” he once said: “She is insufferable.”
Thus did Talleyrand enter upon the second stage of his diplomatic
career. From his professional point of view the situation was superb.
France was still at war with the world, but the success of Napoleon
was gradually bringing matters to the point where diplomacy begins.
There was the prospect of a long series of treaties. Talleyrand was,
as ever, ardently desirous of peace; he wrote to Madame de Staël with
that assurance.[28] Unfortunately, his chiefs were very meddlesome,
very quarrelsome, and not very competent. They “had been chosen in
anger, and had not transcendent ability,” says Mme. de Staël. Barras,
a violent ex-soldier, with a good judgment and some penetration, was a
Dantonist, and of loose and luxurious life. Carnot, the second strong
man, detested Barras on both counts. He was a Robespierrean, a man
of strict conduct, shrewd but narrow. Rewbell, a moderate, a lawyer
of ability and integrity, but rather gruff, detested both Carnot and
Barras and their traditions. Reveillère, honest and peaceful, tried to
mediate. Barthélemy, ex-abbé, supported Carnot. Their deliberations
were lively. At the first meeting of the Directorate that Talleyrand
attended Carnot, raising his hand, swore that some accusation of
Barras’ was untrue. “Don’t raise your hand,” shouted Barras; “it would
drip with blood.” “These are the men,” says Talleyrand, “with whom I
was to work to reintroduce France into European society.” He would not
even see the good points of his colleagues of the Institut. Reveillère
was a supporter of the new “Theophilanthropists”—“a gang of thieves,”
says Talleyrand, with bitter levity. The Theophilanthropists correspond
to what are now called “Ethical Societies.” They hired halls, in which
they had moral discourses and lectures on philosophy, with singing of
undogmatic hymns.
With the very few churches left active in Paris, they formed the only
sobering influence. But Talleyrand had, by the time he wrote his
memoirs, lost all admiration of the philosophic morality he had so much
appreciated in his speech on education.
Moreover, the Directors left their Ministers no initiative. Talleyrand
says he had little to do except sign documents drawn up by them and
give passports. On one occasion Rewbell compelled him to re-write
the instructions he was sending to envoys. The romantic biographers
describe another occasion when, they say, Barras threw an ink-pot at
him. Representatives abroad complained that France had no policy. The
Directors were too slavishly influenced by their emissaries, and each
of them had his own plan. There was, too, the eternal scarcity of
money. At the Department the salaries of most of the officials were in
arrears. At his official residence he would have us believe that the
servants were dining off Sèvres dishes because they could not afford to
buy earthenware.
The difficulty increased rapidly. There was still great distress in the
country, and plots against the Directory were continual; one writer
says there was an average of one per day. Six weeks after Talleyrand’s
nomination a crisis occurred, and his conduct during it has been
severely censured. The relaxation of the more violent measures had
encouraged the royalists and other malcontents to act more vigorously.
Evidence reached the Directors (partly from Napoleon) of a powerful
and far-reaching conspiracy against them. At the head of it was the
royalist General Pichegru, who was believed to have a following
of 180 deputies. The Clichy Club at Paris had become a notorious
rallying-place for malcontents, and Director Carnot was patronising
it in a very compromising way. On the other hand, the Constitutional
Club—with Talleyrand and Constant and Mme. de Staël—could naturally be
relied on to oppose a counter-revolution, little as it respected the
Directorate. Napoleon, too, made it clear that his assistance could be
had.
It is, however, in complete opposition to the evidence, that Lytton
accuses Talleyrand of taking the initiative; and still worse is
Michaud’s reckless statement that Talleyrand “arranged everything.”
A sober inquiry into the _coup d’état_ of Fructidor only discovers
that Talleyrand supported it in advance, but was not implicated in the
violent manner of its execution, which, indeed, he used his influence
to moderate. On the information supplied to the Directors no legal
action could be taken. Reveillère, whose life was threatened, then
conceived the idea of acting by force, though without unnecessary
severity. He approached Rewbell, who consented, and the two easily
induced Barras to join. It is absurd to suppose that these officials,
who hampered Talleyrand in his own department and kept him in habitual
ignorance of other affairs, should do more than secure his support
as a Constitutionalist. Napoleon was requested to send troops, and
to these he added as general the excitable and meddlesome Augereau,
who soon had his men quartered within striking distance. The Clichy
Clubbites meantime grew more audacious, and on September 3rd they
warmly cheered a proposal in the Chamber to destroy the executive.
That night the streets of Paris rang with the unfamiliar tread of an
army, a token to all that an unconstitutional act was afoot. The next
morning the two Councils found themselves surrounded by 10,000 troops.
Pichegru and 42 of his followers in the Five Hundred, Barbé-Mabois and
eleven of the Ancients, and 148 other alleged conspirators, especially
journalists, were arrested. The Directors had warned Carnot and
Barthélemy, whom they had no wish to injure personally. Carnot, who
had long toyed with the Opposition, and had resisted every friendly
overture, now fled. Barthélemy was arrested. Merlin de Douai, a lawyer,
and Francois de Neufchateau, a literary man, took the places of Carnot
and Barthélemy. The new Directorate obtained extensive powers from the
newly-constituted Councils, revived the old stringent decrees against
emigrants and priests, and initiated a long series of deportations.
They sent 65 of the worst conspirators to Guiana—the guillotine would
have been more merciful—and the rest to the Isle of Oléron. In all some
10,000 Nonconformist priests and returned royalists were prescribed,
but only a proportion of these were actually banished. There was
another general flight to the frontier.
[Illustration: CARNOT.]
As I said, it is absurd to ascribe to Talleyrand a very active share
in these proceedings. The charge seems to rest chiefly on the authority
of Miot de Melito and Pasquier; both are deeply prejudiced against
Talleyrand (Miot de Melito had just been deposed from his embassy at
Turin by the Foreign Minister), and both were hundreds of miles away
from Paris at the time. It is a good instance of the levity with which
the case against Talleyrand is conducted. Talleyrand was at Barras’
house the night before the _coup d’état_; so were Constant and Mme. de
Staël, who, Pasquier admits, “wished the day but not the morrow.” It is
admitted, moreover, that Talleyrand used every effort to moderate the
execution of the laws, and saved several individuals from banishment.
As to the defence of the proceedings in his letter to Napoleon and his
circular letter to the government agents abroad, no one will be so
foolish as to seek in these an expression of his judgment. Officially
he had to present the case in optimistic language or resign. The only
ground for a censure is, in fact, that he did not resign; and it would
be to ascribe to Talleyrand a quite heroic degree of sensitiveness to
expect him to resign on account of a procedure which Thiers soberly
regards as having “prevented civil war, and substituted in its stead a
stroke of policy executed with energy, but with all the calmness and
moderation possible in times of revolution.”
Probably one of the clearest proofs that the Directors were not
much indebted to Talleyrand for their successful extinction of the
conspiracy lies in the fact that his relations with them became
more strained than ever. In October the Prussian envoy wrote to his
Government that Talleyrand could only retain his position “by a
miracle of intelligence and conduct.” Four of the Directors would
not speak to him, and he was reduced almost to the position of a
clerk in his department. It suits Michaud to imagine that Talleyrand
took the initiative in important matters like the revolutionising of
Switzerland, where there was money to be had. It is certain, however,
that Talleyrand had no responsible part in forming the Roman and
Helvetian Republics. In his _Éclaircissements_ (July, 1799) he says he
was not even present at a single discussion on the matter. On the other
hand, he must have felt some satisfaction when he saw how Napoleon was
ignoring the Directors. In October Napoleon concluded the treaty of
Campo Formio with Austria, in complete opposition to the instructions
Talleyrand had been sending him to the end of September. Talleyrand
wrote him a letter of warm congratulation, which I give later. He
secured the nomination of Napoleon as plenipotentiary at the subsequent
Congress of Rastadt, but the instructions sent to him were always
drawn up by the Directors. Talleyrand had been similarly slighted in
the negotiations for peace with England. He had come into office at
the time when Lord Malmesbury was conferring with the French envoys
at Lille. Malmesbury was sincerely anxious to effect peace, though
Talleyrand believes Pitt had merely sent him as a blind. Talleyrand
wrote a memorandum on the situation soon after his appointment, in
which he pleaded for a real effort to secure peace, and suggested a
tactical procedure in view of the embarrassed position of the English
Government. He was called “an ass” for his pains, and was directed
to replace Maret by two new envoys with inflated statements of the
position and claim of France. On September 18th Malmesbury sadly
recognised that peace was impossible, and returned to London. The truth
was that the Directors now relied on the operations of Napoleon to fill
their empty coffers and sustain their prestige.
In October of the same year (1797) occurred an event which Talleyrand’s
critics contemplate in a perfect luxury of moral indignation.
Vice, venality, and treachery are said to be the capital offences
of his career. The first charge we have considered; the third can
be appreciated only at a later stage; the second now calls for
examination. Let me indicate at once my reply to it. Talleyrand was
not “venal” in the more offensive sense of the word. He never sold
the interest of his country, or any humane cause. He _did_ endeavour
to make as much money as possible out of the Governments and princes
which benefitted, or escaped injury, by his diplomatic arrangements;
but these were always in the interest of France. Further, whatever be
said of diplomatic arrangements in our time, the secret transfer of
money was a common association of them in Talleyrand’s day; and the
transaction, being secret, was commonly exaggerated. At the signing of
the Treaty of Paris in 1815, Metternich and Nesselrode were accused
of taking a million each from Louis XVIII. M. de Bacourt, who was
in a position to know, says they “only took the _usual_ diplomatic
present” (boxes worth 18,000 francs each). Hangwitz is accused of
being still more venal. Mirabeau and Danton had been in the secret pay
of the Court. Mirabeau is even said to have taken a thousand _louis
d’or_ from Spain for his diplomatic recommendation in 1790. Sieyès
took 400,000 francs from Napoleon for his share in making him First
Consul—when, in fact, Napoleon distributed a respectable fortune.
Barras was notoriously corrupt. Rewbell was implicated. Roger Ducos
was bought. Pitt had been quite willing to make the Directors a secret
present of ten and a half million francs (while loftily refusing to pay
two million sterling) during the negotiations, and Malmesbury had on
his own account tried to buy the vote of one of the Directors. Fifty
blacks do not make one white. I am only pointing out that Talleyrand’s
conduct was not distinctive. He had far more opportunities than any
other man of his time; and the actual charges against him are generally
frivolous. The American “scandal” is one of the most authentic.
Adams had sent envoys to Paris in 1797 to settle the differences
outstanding between the United States and France. Instead of being
invited at once to meet Talleyrand, they were visited by secret
agents who hinted that they came from the Foreign Minister, and said
the Directors were too angry to negotiate, but might be induced to
do so. The means they indicated were, firstly, a private payment of
1,200,000 livres (£50,000) “to the Directors,” and secondly, a loan
from America to France[29] of 32,000,000 on Dutch securities that were
only worth half that sum. After a number of interviews the envoys were
recalled by their President, and a full account of the negotiations
(without the names of the agents) was published by the United States.
Talleyrand disowned his agents, but there can be no reasonable doubt
that they acted on his instructions. His action provoked a widespread
and deserved censure, but certain features of the transaction need to
be emphasised. Talleyrand was certainly acting for Barras, though he
would assuredly share the spoil. Further, the American envoys never
professed the least moral resentment of the suggestion of a commission
until all was over. During the negotiations they wrote home of it as
being “according to diplomatic usage,” and said they “might not so
much regard a little money, such as he stated to be useful.” No stress
whatever is laid on it, “that being completely understood on all sides
to be required for the officers of Government, and therefore needing
no further explanation.” Their objection was solely raised against the
loan, which they regarded as a kind of tribute wrung from the States.
It was also this second proposal that led to the dangerous outbreak
of anger and war-like preparations in the States, as the Cambridge
text-book shows. It is quite clear that the suggestion of a commission
alone would have done no harm, and would not have been considered
unusual, except in amount, which was possibly determined by Barras.
Thus an examination of the documents published by the American
Government greatly reduces the gravity of the matter. Had there been
no suggestion of a loan we should never have heard of it; and even in
France the cry of “scandal” was very much confused with a perception
of the very evil result of pressing the loan, which was an honest,
if impolitic, attempt to trade in the interest of the nation. Sieyès
wrote from Berlin to reproach Talleyrand with “trafficking in his
honour.” There are so many who make amends to the moral ideal by their
generosity in condemning others. Mme. de Staël implored Talleyrand to
exculpate himself, but he smiled. His habitual critics were, of course,
delighted at so well authenticated an exposure, and to the Michauds
and Sainte-Beuves of a later date this one exact documentary proof has
seemed providential. So little serious notice was taken of it (apart
from the loan) by sober men at the time that, when Talleyrand resigns
on other grounds, in the following year, and writes the only apologia
of his life, he dismisses this in two lines.[30]
This American affair, of which we have such accurate information,
affords a firm footing in the controversy about Talleyrand’s
“venality.” The rest is mainly hearsay and wild conjecture, resting
largely on the authority of discarded subordinates (like Miot de
Melito), political opponents (like Pasquier), foreign rivals (like
Roux, or Palmerston), or other people with grievances (like Napoleon
in his later years). It is not usual to take such evidence at its face
value. Sainte-Beuve makes a most bitter attack on Talleyrand under
this head, but has little to say in detail beyond a vague statement
that Talleyrand at some time or other calculated he had made sixty
millions by commissions. Sainte-Beuve’s reputation for scholarship and
discrimination happily does not rest on his “Talleyrand.” Bastide makes
a more honest attempt to support his own statement that Talleyrand
gained thirty millions during three years. He can, however, only swell
his list of gains in detail to 14,650,000 livres, and many of the
larger items are quite out of place, or wholly ridiculous.[31]
He solemnly tells us he thinks it is a sufficient guarantee for the
accuracy of his items that they are found in publications of the
time, and were not contradicted by Talleyrand! The biographer who
takes literally every charge he finds in the pamphlets of 1789-1799,
or expects to find them seriously met by men like Talleyrand, has a
curious idea of his work. And the historians of our day who rely on
such biographers deserve little sympathy. Michaud is more reckless than
Bastide. Lady Blennerhassett has taken up his specific allegation that
Talleyrand defrauded Spain of 24,000,000 livres (by concealing the
reduction of its subsidy and pocketing the difference), and shown it to
be impossible. The treaty with Portugal is said by some writers to have
yielded Talleyrand 3,000,000; Bastide puts his profit at 1,200,000;
and Michaud merely “feels sure” Talleyrand made _something_ out of it.
Roux declares he made 5,000,000 out of the treaty with Switzerland, and
Napoleon was very liberal in his later estimates of Talleyrand’s greed.
Quite certainly Talleyrand’s commissions have been grossly exaggerated.
The flimsiest charges and the wildest conjectures have been eagerly
used against him. But he did probably make a large sum in this way
whilst he was Foreign Minister. He let it be known amongst the
foreign ambassadors that he expected money. Mme. Grand occasionally
facilitated an understanding in this sense; Napoleon accused her of
operations on her own account at times. Talleyrand despised his chiefs,
and saw a very misty prospect for the future. He resolved to use his
position to make some provision. However, he never sold the interest
of his country, and he was, as Senfft says, “never induced to favour
plans which he regarded as dangerous to the peace of Europe.” Senfft
tells how, on a later occasion, the Poles put 4,000,000 florins in
the hands of his agent, but Talleyrand returned them when he found it
impossible to do what they desired. I am not trying to show that his
conduct was consistent with a strong and high character, but rebutting
the exaggerated charges which lead sober historians to say, as Sloane
does, that “there was never greed more dishonest than his.”
This is almost the sole aspect of Talleyrand’s diplomatic work under
the Directory that we need consider. His splendid gifts were never
utilised, the Directors employing him as little more than chief clerk
of the Foreign Office. In July, 1798, he presented to them a long and
very able memorandum on the situation abroad, and about that time
there was some talk of his entrance into the Directorate. The Prussian
ambassador wrote home that such an event would almost put an end to
the convulsions of Europe. But the Directors were fixed in their fine
contempt for his views, and they made diplomacy impossible. Talleyrand
suffered himself to remain the organ of their absurd conceptions until
the middle of 1799. A man of his temper could tolerate the position at
such a price. Meantime he lived pleasantly at the Hotel Galiffet. The
authoress of the _Mémoires d’une Contemporaine_ describes how he spent
hours in idle talk with her at the office, and curled her hair with
thousand-franc notes. But one eye was fixed all the time on a strenuous
figure that was leading the armies in the south—the figure of Napoleon
Buonaparte. In that direction lay the only hope for the restoration of
France and of diplomacy.