THE RESTORATION OF RELIGION
Napoleon’s imperial vision included in its first vague outline
the restoration of the Church in France and the establishment of
good relations with Rome. The sharpness of his earlier antagonism
to religion was worn down by his experience and his political
requirements. Let the old clergy overrun the provinces of France again,
and they would soon exorcise them of their superficial Jacobinism. He
had seen in the East how despotism throve where it had the support
of religion. The new Pope, Pius VII, should be disposed to make a
bargain with the new Charlemagne. Not only did France seem still to
drift away from Catholicism, but the spirit of Gallicanism had passed
over the Rhine and the Pyrenees. Alarming rumours of the founding of
“national” churches came to the Vatican from Spain and South Germany;
while Catholic Austria held aloof with an open cupidity for the Pope’s
temporal dominions. So the Corsican free-thinker converted himself into
“Charlemagne.” The Pope might be reminded of the spiritual desolation
that cried for his spiritual intervention in France; ultramontanism
could be made innocuous by the simple expedient of abolishing the
mountains, and making a Catholic Constantinople of Paris; the police
would be seconded by the subtler gendarmery of the clergy, the heads of
which would be ingeniously fitted into the political machinery of the
country. Before Napoleon left Italy (after Marengo) he sent the Bishop
of Vercelli to the Pope with a message of peace.
Talleyrand had already written to the Vatican in the same feeling, at
the direction of the First Consul. Mr. Holland Rose and many other
writers entirely misunderstand Talleyrand’s share in the work of
religious pacification, because they have a quite false idea of his
attitude towards the Church. I interpret the negative evidence to
mean that Talleyrand was agnostic rather than deistic, in spite of
his admiration for Voltaire and his dislike of Diderot and d’Holbach.
But he was an agnostic Liberal statesman of a type familiar in France
(and many other countries) down to our own time. He never attacked or
ridiculed religion. He believed the Church to be a useful agency among
the mass of the people, provided it was earnest and spiritual, and did
not meddle with politics beyond promising eternal torment to the more
violent radicals. Of this we have evidence enough even in his speeches
of 1790-1792. He would not at all resent Napoleon’s proposals, if
Napoleon would firmly maintain the rights of the constitutional clergy.
There is not a particle of evidence that raises any difficulty as to
Talleyrand’s attitude.[35]
He is nowhere found with the angry soldiers and politicians who thought
the revolution had made a French Church an anachronism, and who filled
Paris with fresh murmurs at the idea of a Concordat.
Towards the end of 1800, Paris had a new fact to proceed on in its
cafés. The Vatican had sent Mgr. Spina, the Papal Nuncio at Florence,
to confer with Talleyrand and Napoleon. The sagacious priest did not
flaunt his purple, merely announcing that the Archbishop of Corinth had
come to treat with Napoleon on matters concerning the administration
of Rome. But the religious controversy had revived in France, and
the appearance of a papal envoy fanned the flame. The relaxation of
the laws had introduced a large number of the emigrant clergy, and
these contended everywhere with the Constitutionalists for the care
of souls and of presbyteries. The confusion was increased by the
Theophilanthropists, who claimed the sacred edifices of the country
in the superior name of virtue, and asked the people to bow to their
august abstractions. After a mass they would decorate Catholic altars
with flowers in honour of morality, and they showed no lack of courage
in defending their fair ideals. Philosophic deists and quick-witted
atheists smiled on the confusion. But all eyes were now centred on the
pale and portly prelate who sat in long conference with the ex-bishop
at the Foreign Office.
Mgr. Spina had been generally directed to avoid the excommunicated
apostates, but to moderate the rigour of the Canon Law when
“urbanity” demanded. “Urbanity” clearly involved amiable relations
with Talleyrand, and the suave, serious tone of the diplomatist at
once disarmed the Italian. Talleyrand would “very soon return to the
Church,” Spina wrote to Rome. Napoleon, however, had another agent at
hand for this negotiation. He had retained the Breton priest, Bernier,
at Paris, and now used him as a foil against the astute Italian. The
Pope’s temporal possessions, the Legations, were the central difficulty
in the negotiations that followed. Pius VII was pledged to work for
their restoration; Napoleon had no intention whatever of restoring
them. Talleyrand clearly stated this position, and then allowed the
abbé and the archbishop to expend their diplomatic talent over the
_impasse_ for a month or two. At last a draft of a Concordat was
submitted to Rome, the First Consul sending with it the unexacting but
precious present of the wooden statue of Our Lady of Loretto, which
the revolutionary troops had brought from Italy, and telling his envoy
to “treat the Pope as if he had 200,000 soldiers.” It was an original
standard of spiritual respect.
But Talleyrand’s interest in the constitutional clergy of
France—Napoleon is reported to have called them “a pack of
dishonourable brigands”—found expression in the Concordat. The Pope was
requested to secure the resignation of the orthodox emigrant bishops,
so as to begin the foundation of the new church on a clear ground. The
unhappy Pope was forced at length to ask this resignation, and the
emigrant clergy cast off all restraint, and a good deal of theology,
when the invitation reached them. While forty-five of them agreed
to do so a large number sent a fiery and defiant reply to the Pope.
Pamphlets circulated at London and at Rome in which priests described
Pius VII as a Jew, or Judas, and declared it to be blasphemy to mention
his name in the mass. The prospects of Catholicism in England had to
be reassured by a counter fulmination from twenty-nine Irish Catholic
Bishops and English Vicars Apostolic. At the same time the Pope was
told that he must sanction the national appropriation of the estates of
the Church in France. “The difficulties you raise,” Talleyrand wrote to
Rome, “are imaginary. The Church has been stripped of her possessions
in every age, and the despoilers have never been touched—unless weak.”
And as the Vatican still lingered over these formidable demands
Napoleon angrily summoned Talleyrand, Bernier, and Spina to Malmaison,
formulated his ultimatum, and declared that if Rome did not comply
within five days he would throw it over and erect a national Church.
On the fifth day the Pope’s Secretary of State, Cardinal Consalvi, was
in Paris. He had left Rome placarded with the florid denunciations of
the Pope by the emigrant bishops; he found Paris holding a congress of
the constitutional bishops, who denounced the Concordat with equally
lively rhetoric from their own point of view. The Pope was profoundly
dejected and miserable; the First Consul was radiantly surveying the
universe from the height of success; Talleyrand was wearying of the
futile resistance of the Romans. Consalvi brought every weapon from the
diplomatic arsenal of the Vatican. Thinking he understood Talleyrand,
he said to him: “People make me out to be a pietist. I’m nothing of the
kind. I like pleasure as well as anyone.” But Talleyrand did not admire
Consalvi’s diplomacy. After a few days he sent him a final draft of a
Concordat, and left Paris to take the waters at Bourbon l’Archambault.
Mr. Holland Rose puts it that “the polite scoffer, the bitter foe of
all clerical claims, found it desirable to take the baths at a distant
place, and left the threads of the negotiation in the hands of two men
who were equally determined to prevent its signature.” I have already
pointed out that Talleyrand never scoffed at religion, and was not at
all a foe, “bitter” or otherwise, of clerical claims of a non-political
character. Further, Talleyrand left Paris, firstly, because it was
his custom to go to the baths about this time, and secondly because
he _wanted_ the Concordat signed without further palaver. As a fact,
Consalvi expressed satisfaction that Talleyrand was out of the way
at the moment of signing. Talleyrand, again, was bound to leave his
functions in the charge of d’Hauterive, his second in command, and the
belief that d’Hauterive was “equally determined to prevent signature”
is an equally unjust inference from the mere fact of his being an
ex-cleric. In fine, the story that the chiefs of the Foreign Office
tried to trick Consalvi into signing a draft materially differing from
the one they had given him, is only mentioned by Consalvi, and has been
gravely questioned by some writers.[36]
The Concordat was signed by Consalvi and Joseph Bonaparte on the
night of July 15-16. Consalvi admitted to his friends that he had
been empowered to make even greater concessions than he had been
forced to do, and attributed his comparative success to the absence
of Talleyrand. But before he left Paris Talleyrand returned from
the south, and at once pointed out to Napoleon the unsatisfactory
features of the Concordat. The chief of these was that it contained
no recognition of the constitutional clergy or of the married and
secularised ex-priests. Rome was just as eager to ignore or punish
these as Talleyrand was to defend them; and the First Consul was
inclined to sacrifice them to the general agreement. But Talleyrand
insisted on a recognition of their status; it is in this connection
that Consalvi describes him as a “powerful opponent,” not with the
implication that he is a “bitter foe” of clerical claims generally.
Consalvi again fruitlessly struggled against the Foreign Minister. On
August 29th Talleyrand was able to report to Napoleon that “the Holy
See had sanctioned, without any material reserve, the results of the
negotiations of its ministers—had, in fact, done more, as it had given
the name of bishops and archbishops to the titular prelates of the
constitutional clergy.” He had threatened that France would not ratify
the convention if the Vatican attempted to stigmatise in any way the
clergy or ex-clergy of the country, but he permitted it the luxury
of referring to their wives as “corrupt women,” and was content to
suppress, as far as possible, the Brief containing the phrase.
The Concordat became law in April, 1802. The only people who murmured
against it were, says Talleyrand, “a few soldiers—very brave fellows,
but with minds too narrow to admit a conception of that kind.” The
phrase clearly indicates his view of it. Broad-mindedness and a desire
for peaceful social advance recommended the measure. It put an end to
the unseemly squabble over churches and presbyteries, and ended the
ridiculous confusion of the Republican day of rest (_décadi_—every ten
days) and the Sabbath. It reconciled the Catholic feeling that still
existed in the country (though this is sometimes grossly exaggerated)
with the Napoleonic regime. Talleyrand would be the last to wish to
sacrifice these solid advantages to a sentimental rationalism. He is
one of the chief architects and builders of the Concordat.
A few months after the ratification of the Concordat Talleyrand was
“secularised” by the Pope. This procedure has somewhat mystified his
biographers, and as a fact it was a mere empty form, another concession
of the Vatican to the perversity of the age. On Catholic principles
the Pope _cannot_ annul the priestly character; he _may_ release
the priest from his vow of celibacy. Pius VII affected to do the
former, but cleverly refrained from doing the latter, for Talleyrand.
His letter, dated June 29th, 1802, and addressed to “our very dear
son,” ran: “We were overjoyed at learning of your ardent desire to
be reconciled with us and the Catholic Church. Hence, extending our
fatherly love to you, we relieve you, in the fulness of our power,
from the bond of all the excommunications, and grant you liberty to
wear secular costume and to administer all civil affairs, whether in
the office you now fill or in others to which your Government may
call you.” The statement that Talleyrand thought this secularisation
would leave him free to marry, and had asked for it, is ridiculous.
The Vatican has only annulled the priestly vow of celibacy twice in
the course of its history, though it professes to have full power to
do so in any case. It was Napoleon who asked the Pope to secularise
Talleyrand. Excommunications sat lightly enough on the ex-bishop; and
he would, no doubt, keenly appreciate the “paternal charity” of the
Pope in “reconciling” him by removing his excommunication and gravely
admitting him to secular employment, while carefully refraining from
noticing his notorious domestic relations and his infidelity.
Napoleon, apparently, had a large idea of the privileges he had secured
for Talleyrand, and he presently put great pressure on him to marry
Mme. Grand. Talleyrand does not seem to have cared at all for going
through the meaningless ceremony. He knew he was not free to marry
from the ecclesiastical point of view, and a civil contract would not
in any case alter his relations to the lady of his choice. However,
Mme. Grand felt that the form of marriage would improve her position.
The etiquette of the Tuileries was developing once more. There was,
one observer says, “not exactly a Court, but no longer a camp.” She
appealed to Napoleon through Josephine, and Talleyrand was forced to go
through the ceremony of marriage. The civil function was performed on
September 10th, 1803, and the Church graciously blessed the diplomatic
marriage on the following day. In the spiteful mood of later years
Napoleon spoke of the marriage he had himself brought about as a “a
triumph of immorality.” He seems to have discovered at St. Helena that
in Catholic eyes a priest is “a priest for ever”; and he contrives to
forget that Mme. Grand was not a “married woman” but a _divorcée_.[37]
The story runs that the first time she appeared at a levee after the
marriage the Emperor thought fit to express a hope that “the good
conduct of Citoyenne Talleyrand would help them to forget the escapades
of Mme. Grand.” She replied that, with the example of Citoyenne
Bonaparte before her, she would do her best.
By this time the heavy diplomatic work that followed the treaties of
Lunéville and Amiens was over, and the German princes had ceased
(for the time) to struggle for the debris of the Holy Roman Empire.
Talleyrand found himself in a position of great wealth, and with one
or two years of comparative leisure. His official residence, a large
mansion built under the old regime by a rich colonist, was the Hotel
Galiffet in the Rue St. Dominique. He had wandered far since the day
when he began his public life in a small house of the same street in
1778, but the tense experiences of those fifteen years had made little
change in him. The Revolution and the exile might never have occurred.
His principles were unchanged, his wit as keen as ever, his light
cynicism not a shade less amiable, his fine taste for books, for food,
or for society unimpaired. Lytton describes him at this time reclining,
day by day, on a couch near the fire in his salon[38] and entertaining
a brilliant circle of visitors. His chief Parisian friends at this
time were Montrond, the Duc de Laval, Sainte-Foix, General Duroc,
Colonel Beauharnais, Louis, Dalberg, and others of the wittier and more
cultured men of the time. The dress and manners of the Revolution were
now never seen in polite society. The artificial fraternity of the
past, with its “thou” and “citizen,” was abandoned. Men ceased to be
brothers and became friends once more. The long military coat and
high boots and the tricolor were kept in the camp. The old life was
being silently restored. Supple, graceful figures in Bourbon coats,
with light rapiers dangling, and long silk hose and buckled shoes, trod
the polished floors with confidence. Nature had been thrust out with a
fork.
[Illustration: TALLEYRAND
(Under Napoleon).]
Talleyrand’s hotel was the chief centre of the revival. People of taste
went to the Tuileries as they went to church or to business. There
was little gaiety there. Napoleon, who certainly could talk well, was
habitually gloomy and retired; and one had an uneasy consciousness
of his temper and his command of language that is not found in the
dictionary. His family and the family of his wife were already in
bitter antagonism around him as to the succession to the coming empire.
Josephine had displayed, possibly even felt, a tardy devotion to him
as his genius fully revealed itself, but she had now herself to bemoan
an infidelity which she conceived in the most sombre colours; and
Napoleon, with proof about him of his own fertility, bitterly dwelt on
her barrenness. His brothers did not tend to relieve his depression.
He could not fondle the pretty son of Louis but the latter would flash
forth an angry suspicion of an incestuous relation to Hortense. Lucien
and Jerome would not be content to seduce, but must disgrace the
family by marrying, two charming nobodies. It is a well known story
how on one occasion, when Napoleon was giving a sedate family party,
from which Mme. Tallien and other lively friends of Josephine were
excluded, a message was handed to the First Consul, and he burst forth
with a violent and inelegant complaint that “Lucien had married his
mistress”—to give a polite turn to the phrase.
At Talleyrand’s house there was neither restraint nor affectation. Lord
Brougham tells us that “nothing could be more perfect than Talleyrand’s
temper and disposition in private life.” Mme. Rémusat affirms that
Talleyrand had quickly regretted his choice, but that talkative lady
did not love Mme. Talleyrand. The malicious biographers are generally
content to give us piquant stories of her lack of culture. One of the
chief of these—the protean story of her taking Sir George Robinson
for Robinson Crusoe, or Denou for the author of Defoe’s work—has been
completely discredited by Pichot, an authority on legends. There are
more authentic, but less interesting, stories of her ignorance, which
must certainly have bored Talleyrand at times. On the whole, the
evidence seems to indicate—especially on its negative side—that they
lived pleasantly and faithfully together for many years. The wife
was, unfortunately, childless. As Talleyrand deeply loved children
this must have been a source of great disappointment. He alleviated
it by adopting the daughter of a friend who had died in England, and
children’s balls were frequently given at his hotel.
It was not unnatural that as soon as Napoleon felt his conduct and
person to be secretly assailed with witticisms and criticisms he should
look to Talleyrand’s hotel for the chief source. There was so much in
his melodramatic poses to make the hated Faubourg St. Germain smile.
Baron von Gagern tells us of the keen rivalry to enter Talleyrand’s
circle. Those who had the _entrée_ went there after the opera at night,
and played whist or billiards until two or three in the morning. “It
was,” says Lord Brougham, “a lesson and a study, as well as a marvel,
to see him disconcert with a look of his keen eyes, or a motion of his
chin, a whole piece of wordy talk.” When a rumour spread of the death
of George III, a Parisian banker came rather impertinently to ask his
opinion. “Well,” said Talleyrand, gravely, “some say he is dead and
some say he is not. I may tell you in confidence that I don’t believe
either.” On another occasion a general of no great culture turned
up late for dinner, and began to explain that a “maudit pékin” had
detained him. Talleyrand asked him what a _pékin_ was. He replied that
it was a camp-phrase for “all that isn’t military.” “Oh! I see,” said
Talleyrand. “Just as we call military all that is not civil.”
Dulness was the deadly sin at the Hotel Galiffet. When a not very
handsome Englishman was boring the company one day with a long
description of the charms of his mother, Talleyrand broke in at the
first gap: “It must have been your father, then, who was not very
good-looking.” He talked little, as a rule. Sometimes he would sit for
an hour without speaking, then make a short and brilliant shot, in his
sepulchral voice, at something that had been said. When Chateaubriand,
whom he very much despised, had published his “Les Martyrs,” a friend
gave Talleyrand a very long account of the plot of the work, concluding
with the remark that the heroes were “thrown to the beasts.” “Like
the book,” said Talleyrand, bitterly. When another man observed to
him that Fouché had a great contempt for humanity, he said: “Yes, he
had studied himself very carefully.” Another had the imprudence to
ask him what had passed at a Council he had attended. “Three hours,”
said Talleyrand. When he heard that Sémonville, for whom he had little
respect, was getting fat, he pretended to be mystified, and explained
that he “did not see how it was to Sémonville’s interest to get stout.”
It was of the same man that he afterwards said, when Sémonville had
become a senator, and someone was urging that “there were at all events
consciences in the Senate”; “Oh! yes. Sémonville alone has at least
two.” There was hardly a prominent person in Paris who did not go about
with one or two of these barbs in him. It is well to remember them when
we read their comments on him in their memoirs. Sometimes the quips
actually came to be applied to himself. A friend, rather a _roué_, met
him one day, and complained that he felt “infernal pains” (_douleurs
d’enfer_). “Already?” said Talleyrand. It was pretended in later years
that this pretty dialogue passed between himself and Louis Philippe,
when he was dying. But Talleyrand could say sweet things as well as
bitter on the spur of the moment. It is well known how, when he was
challenged to say which of two ladies at table (Mme. de Staël and Mme.
Grand or another) he would rescue from the water first, he turned to
one and said: “You are able to swim.” So when Napoleon asked him very
pointedly how he became rich: “I bought stock on the 18th Brumaire,
and sold it the next day.” On another occasion, when Napoleon told
him he was removing his study to a higher storey, he at once replied:
“Naturally, you are bound to live high up.”
His attitude towards the First Consul remained loyal and cordial in
spite of the occasional strain put on it. I will resume in the next
chapter the thread of his official duties, and will deal here with two
important events that occurred before war again broke out. The first is
the murder of the Duc d’Enghien, in connection with which Talleyrand
has been judged so severely.
There is at this hour of the day, and in default of fresh discoveries
of documents, nothing new to be said about the pitiful tragedy of 1804.
Happily, the progress of research on the matter has tended to exculpate
Talleyrand. Writers so wholly devoid of sympathy with him as Mr.
Holland Rose now say that the allegations against him are “sufficiently
disposed of by the ex-Emperor’s will.” Napoleon with his last words
took full responsibility for the tragedy, and declared he would do it
again in similar circumstances. The only question is how far Talleyrand
lent assistance in the execution of Napoleon’s purpose.
By the end of 1803 the First Consul was driven by his dread of plots
into a condition that excited the horror of beholders. Spies and guards
constantly surrounded him. Paroxysms of rage by day and sleepless
nights wore his nerves and embittered his spirit. The failure of the
plot of Georges and Pichegru only served to exasperate him against the
Royalist plotters, and he swore to execute the first Bourbon that fell
into his hands. When, therefore, a rumour spread that a Bourbon prince
had been in Paris in connection with the plot to assassinate him, and
the Duc d’Enghien, living only a few miles beyond the frontier, was
the only one to whom the rumour could possibly apply, Napoleon turned
his thoughts vindictively towards the young prince. The suspicion was
increased by positive information received that the Duke had applied
for service against France in the English army. A little later a secret
agent reported that d’Enghien was conferring with Royalist officers
with a view to invading France if the assassination of Napoleon was
effected; and when application was made to the Prefect of Strassburg he
forwarded a report that the ex-General Dumouriez was with the Duke at
Ettenheim. A simple confusion of the names Thumery and Dumouriez thus
offered a strong confirmation of the suspicion.
All that Talleyrand had done so far was to write a protest to the
Elector of Baden against the use of his territory for conspiracy.
The critical moment came when Napoleon summoned him and the other
ministers, the two Consuls, and Fouché, to a council on the matter.
At that council it was decided to violate the territory of Baden, and
arrest the Duke; the rest was inevitable. What was the attitude of
Talleyrand? His accuser is Savary, a bitter enemy, and a writer who
is found time after time to distort his narrative in the interest of
his prejudices. Savary says that Talleyrand urged that the duke “be
arrested and settled with.” He gives this on the authority of two
documents. The first is the memoirs of Cambacérès (one of the Consuls
present, also an enemy of Talleyrand), which have never seen the light,
and which, in fact, Savary did not care to invoke till Cambacérès
was dead, as he “did not like to mention his name while he was still
alive.” The other document purports to be an abstract of the speech
that Talleyrand delivered on the occasion. All Talleyrand’s enemies
have built their charge against him on this document. It is a forged
document. In this case we have the confession of the forger himself,
Talleyrand’s mischievous ex-secretary, Perrey. Thus there is not a
particle of serious evidence that Talleyrand urged either the arrest
or the execution. Such an act would be violently inconsistent with
his character. We should require the most positive evidence before
admitting it. As a fact, we are invited to believe it on the ground of
an acknowledged fabrication and a reference by a malignant enemy to
another document which no one else has ever seen.
Talleyrand told Mme. Rémusat that he knew Napoleon was absolutely bent
on destroying the Duke and striking terror into the Bourbons, and so
he said nothing. The careful student of his character must feel that
that is just what he would do. “The best principle is not to have any
at all,” he once said with a laugh. He meant that in such cases as this
a virtuous protest would do no good whatever, and did not seem worth
the torrent of anger it would provoke. We may not admire such prudence,
but we must be just to it. Talleyrand could and did protest, before and
after this date, when he believed something might be done.
Talleyrand admits that after the Council he wrote three letters at
the direction of Napoleon, giving instructions for the arrest, or in
connection with it. He says that this was a “painful necessity.” The
critic could only suggest here that he ought to have resigned, which no
one seems to have thought of doing at the time. Another memoir writer
of the time, Pasquier, who is hostile to Talleyrand, says that “a lady”
heard the Foreign Minister reply to a question about the Duke: “He
will be shot.” It is a mere _on dit_, but it would not be strange for
Talleyrand to have predicted that issue. Savary builds a good deal on
a visit that Talleyrand paid to the Governor of Paris after the duke
had been brought there. But the object of this is clear. The carriage
containing the unfortunate prisoner had been driven by mistake to
Talleyrand’s hotel, and he had to see the governor about its further
direction. It left immediately for Vincennes, and the tragedy was
carried to its close. Talleyrand has nothing to do with the last and
darkest scenes, but Savary is deeply implicated. The statement that
Talleyrand detained, until it was too late, the Duke’s request for an
interview has been refuted long ago. On the other hand, Napoleon’s
statement that he was unaware of the Duke’s existence until Talleyrand
began to suggest the crime has been proved to be untrue, and is
virtually retracted by Napoleon’s later and bolder expressions.
Thus when we bring the charge against Talleyrand down to its real
proportions, it means that he did not protest against the execution in
advance, and did not resign when it was accomplished. It seems clear
that he did not regard the event with any horror at the time, and that
he really did to some undefined extent regard it as, if not a political
necessity, at least an effective political measure. Resignation on
account of it was out of the question. He said to someone who suggested
it: “If Bonaparte has committed a crime, that is no reason I should
make a mistake.” We who judge these things dissect them out of their
living texture, and set them under our ethical glasses in placid
studies. It would be well, perhaps, to put ourselves in the place of a
statesman who was a daily witness of the frightful condition into which
plotters had thrown Napoleon, and who felt how much the peace of the
country was overclouded by Bourbon and English conspirators.[39]
It would be ingenuous to trace any feeling or lack of feeling in
Talleyrand’s conduct after the execution. It was his diplomatic duty
to kill the feeling of disgust in others, whatever he felt himself.
He had not a difficult task. The ball he gave immediately afterwards
was well attended; amongst others the envoy of the Neapolitan Bourbons
was there. The Spanish Bourbons shrugged their shoulders, and said it
was a pity the Duke had drawn it on himself. Prussia and Austria were
without difficulty persuaded to take no notice of the affair. The King
of Sweden was disposed to interfere, but Talleyrand sent word to him
that “as France did not meddle with Swedish affairs, perhaps Sweden
would leave French matters to France.” When the Czar sent his Court
into mourning, and raised difficulties, Talleyrand met him with the
enquiry whether “at the time when England was compassing the death
of Paul I every effort would not have been made to have the plotters
seized if they were known to be only a league beyond the frontiers.” As
the murderers of Paul I were the intimate friends of his son and were
retained in honour by him, the inquiry sufficiently spoiled the dignity
of the Russian protest.
One more great event of the year 1804 must be noticed before we return
to foreign affairs. On May 18 Napoleon was declared Emperor. Talleyrand
had no repugnance whatever to the re-introduction of the hereditary
principle or the formal declaration of the autocracy of Napoleon. He
would have preferred the title of king, but Napoleon had a larger
prospect. The change took place with the full wish of the country, and
seemed to be in its interest. Talleyrand was entrusted with the task
of forming the new Court. From the frame of the old German Empire he
borrowed half-a-dozen high-sounding dignities, and he is said to have
been much mortified when Napoleon failed to bestow one of those on
himself. It is explained that Napoleon did not care to put any minister
in an “immovable” position. He was, however, made Grand Chamberlain
to the new Emperor, receiving nearly 500,000 francs a year and a much
closer association with Napoleon’s monarchical ways than he cared for.
As Foreign Minister he had the difficult task of inducing Pius VII to
come for the coronation—“a miracle of Napoleon’s destiny,” he calls it.
In July he accompanied Napoleon and Josephine to the camp at Boulogne,
and then to Aix la Chapelle, where Napoleon posed as the modern
Charlemagne to a crowd of small German princes. In November the Pope
arrived. The suspicious pontiff did not feel his apprehensions allayed
when, at their first meeting, Napoleon deliberately tricked him into
taking the second seat in the carriage. Nor was Napoleon too pleased
when Josephine appealed to the Pope to have her marriage made secure by
a religious ceremony. Cardinal Fesch married them, but the Bonapartists
always held that it was invalid as the parish priest was not present.
When Rogers asked Talleyrand afterwards whether Napoleon had really
married Josephine, he answered: “Not altogether.”
Talleyrand witnessed the last act in the drama of the Revolution when,
on December 2nd (1804), the three Bonapartes and Josephine, preceded by
Murat and twenty brilliant squadrons of cavalry, drove in a gorgeous
chariot to the door of Notre Dame. Where reason and humanity had
been enthroned a few years before, a glittering pageantry of Church
and State now gathered about the altar for the coronation of a more
absolute autocrat than Louis XVI. A Pope, convinced in his conscience
of the utter impiety and immorality of Napoleon, solemnly intoned the
“Veni, Creator Spiritus,” and received Napoleon’s profession of faith.
In the interest of peace and of the Church, Pius VII stooped to acts
that nearly broke his heart. And when the supreme moment came in which
he was to crown Napoleon, and thus assert at length and for ever his
own ascendancy, Napoleon snatched the crown from its cushion and put
it on his own head. For several months the Pope and his ministers
remained at Paris. Talleyrand speaks in the memoirs with great respect
and sympathy of the Pope, and says that he refused any presents for
his family and asked no advantage of a material kind for the Church.
We know that he did press for the restoration of the temporal power,
and was met with the mocking assurance that “Napoleon must keep what
God has given him.” So Pius VII returned to Rome empty-handed, with a
bitter consciousness of his futile sacrifices and compromises.