THE “FOREIGNERS OF THE INTERIOR”
On July 9th, the day after the re-entering of Paris, Talleyrand
was appointed Foreign Minister and President of the Council. His
difficulties began with the new Ministry. He had in June drawn up a
list of ministers, and had carefully excluded Fouché and included two
men with a view to conciliating the Tsar. But Fouché was intrigueing
most assiduously for a place in the Ministry. The contrast between the
two men is instructive. Both have the remarkable history of taking
service under the successive governments of the country; both were
experts of the highest ability in their respective departments. Yet
while later writers have expended a vast amount of moral indignation
over the “knight of the order of the weathercock” (as they called
Talleyrand) there has been comparatively little concern about Fouché.
While Talleyrand has been at times buried beneath a mass of such
epithets as corruption, treachery, venality, and unscrupulousness,
Fouché has been passed by with a smile at his knavery. Nevertheless,
while Talleyrand takes his place with some dignity in the eyes of
contemporary statesmen in the successive administrations, Fouché has to
resort to the most unblushing jobbery, and is only admitted under the
heavy pressure of practical exigencies. Nothing could better illustrate
the effort and prejudice that have been thrown into the hostile
interpretation of Talleyrand’s career.
Fouché had been at work since April, when, while serving under
Napoleon, he had offered the King to get rid of him on condition of
receiving the Ministry of Police. After Waterloo he flew from place
to place, and statesman to statesman, offering to surrender Napoleon,
obtain the capitulation of Paris—anything in order to get his coveted
place in the Ministry. He persuaded Monsieur that he was necessary for
crushing the remainder of the rebellion, and at last imposed that view
on Wellington. Talleyrand resisted the tendency to purchase his useful
qualities, but was overruled and had to admit him as a colleague. He
is often blamed for not resigning at once. No doubt he tested that
suggestion by his usual question: “What good would it do?” It is
difficult to see any real ground for censuring him. He strongly blames
Wellington for admitting Fouché, and suggests that he was too eager “to
be the first to enter Paris.” Chateaubriand was in attendance on the
King at St. Denis, and saw Talleyrand come from his chamber leaning on
Fouché—“vice leaning on the arm of crime,” he bitterly says. It was
Chateaubriand above all who had implored Talleyrand to come from Vienna
to the assistance of the King.
Talleyrand was further disappointed in forming the new Ministry by
being unable to include the two friends of the Tsar. Pozzo di Borgo
preferred to remain in the service of Russia. The Duc de Richelieu
replied that he had been twenty years out of France, and was quite
incompetent to take a responsible position in the conduct of the
affairs of the country. Talleyrand seems to have known that the Tsar
was pressing for Richelieu to replace himself, and he sent a rather
sarcastic reply. When Richelieu did actually replace him at the head
of the Ministry two months afterwards, he took the mild revenge of
inserting a copy of his letter (pleading incompetence for a minor
position) in his memoirs, and issuing a _mot_ on the subject. Someone
asked him if he really thought Richelieu capable of taking the head of
French affairs. “Of course;” he said, “no one in France knows so much
about the Crimea as he does.”
The next step was to nominate the prefects of departments. The most
competent men were Napoleonists, and could not be reinstated. On the
other hand the Court party were pressing upon the King a host of
totally incompetent men on the plea that they were faithful Royalists.
To have been in Ghent became the first qualification for office.
When one man urged his claim on Talleyrand in this way he asked:
“Are you sure you _went_ to Ghent, and have not merely returned from
there.” The man was naturally puzzled. “Because, you see,” Talleyrand
continued, “there were only seven or eight hundred of us there, and
to my knowledge seventy or eighty thousand have _come_ from there.”
But he had to witness the appointment of hundreds of these incapable
Royalists, while the state of the provinces demanded firm and
competent administrators. Between the excesses of the allied troops
and the conflicts of Royalists and Bonapartists there were sanguinary
disturbances. One advantage was gained indirectly. Fouché had to draw
up a report on the troubles for the King, and he published this before
submitting it to his colleagues. He pretended it had been stolen from
him, but Talleyrand demanded his expulsion from the Ministry, and the
King assented (September 19th). The mythologists give this as the
last dialogue of the two ministers. “So you are dismissing me, you
scoundrel.” “Yes, you imbecile.”
Meantime there were a score of other distractions. The conduct of the
allied troops was so exasperating and oppressive that the King directed
him to make a formal protest. The Allies demanded guarantees of peace,
and a long and irritating correspondence ensued. On the other hand the
ultras were making every effort to restore the vicious features of
the old regime, in absolute blindness to the history of the Hundred
Days; or, indeed, on the plea that greater “firmness” in 1814 would
have prevented Napoleon’s raid. Talleyrand was sorely tried. “With
infinite trouble,” he says, he succeeded in maintaining a certain
degree of liberty for the Press. He had then to combat the demand for
the punishment of those who had sided with Napoleon. He pleaded that
it was enough to depose the senators who had offended, but a list of
a hundred names for proscription had been prepared by the obsequious
Fouché. After a struggle of several days Talleyrand got the list
reduced to fifty-seven names. He also warned a large number of those
who were to be brought to trial, and gave passports and money freely
so that they might leave the country. He dispensed 459,000 francs in
this way. Moreover, when the King went on to create the new peers, he
prevailed on him to include a few of the names of those who had joined
Napoleon.
Nor were Talleyrand’s difficulties with the Allies themselves less
considerable. Immediately after the entry into Paris Blücher had
promised himself the pleasure of blowing up the Pont Jena, a fine
new bridge over the river. His whole conduct was vindictive. He had
quartered his troops in the Place de Carrousel, with the guns pointing
on the gates of the Tuileries. He had already mined two arches of the
bridge when the King heard, and wrote to Talleyrand that if the threat
were carried out he would have himself taken to the bridge and blown up
with it. Talleyrand at once dispatched Beugnot to “use the strongest
language at his command” to Blücher. Beugnot wanted to quote the King’s
letter, but Talleyrand said the Prussians “would not believe we are
so heroic as that.” Blücher was quickly discovered at his favourite
gaming-room (No. 113, Palais Royal), and was pacified with a promise
that the name of the bridge would be changed.
Talleyrand was less successful in his resistance to the Allies when
they claimed the statues and pictures and other works of art that had
been brought to Paris. On September 11th Castlereagh wrote him that
the Pope, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, the King of the Netherlands,
King of Prussia, and others demanded the return of their treasures,
and the Allies had decided to comply. Talleyrand at once protested in
the sacred name of morality against such a spoliation of the Parisian
museums. At least, he concluded, this should have been done in 1814
or not at all. Wellington now took up the argument, and cut him short
“with the brutality of a soldier.” The phrase is scarcely too strong.
The Duke’s letter terminated: “The sovereigns were unable to wrong
their subjects in order to satisfy the pride of the French army and
nation, who must be made to feel that, in spite of a few temporary
and partial advantages in various States, the day of restitution had
come, and the allied monarchs could not neglect this opportunity of
giving the French a great lesson in morality!” Talleyrand observes in
the memoirs that no doubt Wellington had equally espoused the cause of
morality when he had been on service in India.
And through all these troubles and distractions there was the grave
anxiety about the new terms to be offered to France by the Allies.
Pasquier would have us believe that during these busy months Talleyrand
was peculiarly indolent, and that his whole energy was absorbed in
fretting over a certain lady who seemed inclined to desert him.[56]
But the whole of Pasquier’s narrative at this period is tinged with
bitterness against Talleyrand, and must not lightly be followed. He
is too obviously trying to justify the change from Talleyrand to his
friend Richelieu. However much he may have betrayed his concern at
the obstinate absence from Paris of his friend, it is, on the face of
it, absurd to say that he could think of nothing else. We have seen
that he had plenty to do, and did it. If it is true that there was a
notable lack of the intense energy he usually displayed at critical
periods (as Casimir Périer says), it is surely possible to trace this
to the profound weariness and disgust that the whole situation would
inspire. Feebly supported by the King, hated and maligned by the
courtiers, surrounded by the intrigues of the Richelieus and Pasquiers
and Fouchés, confronted with the hostility of Prussia and Russia and
annoyed by the blunders of Wellington, conscious of the wretched
state of the country and of the determination of the Allies to undo
their generosity of 1814 and avenge Vienna, convinced that he himself
would soon be cast aside as a worn-out tool, he had cause enough for
weariness.
During the whole of August and the early part of September the Allies
had succeeded in wrapping their deliberations in a secrecy which
he could not penetrate. About the middle of September he learned
their terms, and they were presented a few days later in “a sort of
ultimatum.” They themselves summarised their intentions pointedly
enough in the clause: “Two-thirds of the territory added to the France
of former days by the Treaty of Paris will now be detached from it.” In
addition, France was to pay an indemnity of 600,000,000 francs, provide
200,000,000 to build fortresses against herself in the provinces
adjoining her frontiers, and maintain a foreign army of 150,000 men
along her frontiers for seven years as a guarantee of peace. Prussia
had triumphed. The English Ministers had wished to moderate the terms,
but even they were shaken when it was pointed out that the Netherlands
must be strengthened against France. Talleyrand, who rightly or wrongly
believed that the whole of these harsh proceedings of the Allies would
have been prevented if Louis had followed his advice at Mons, made a
last effort to resist. The Council agreed with him in rejecting the
terms, and he wrote a long and very able statement of his objections.
He fell back on the bases of his policy as laid at Vienna. Conquest
did not, in modern life, constitute a moral right to confiscation;
moreover, Louis had been expressly admitted as one of the Allies
against Napoleon. France was prepared to make sacrifices in return
for the sacrifices of the other Powers, but he would not continue the
negotiations if these exorbitant demands were pressed.
Castlereagh, who is severely censured by Lytton for joining in these
harsh claims, replied that the Allies made no pretence whatever to
a right given by conquest. The whole base of their claims was the
right to indemnity and to a territorial settlement that gave Europe
some guarantee of stability. Some of the foreign representatives were
pressing for a special notice of the defiant conclusion of Talleyrand’s
letter, but he decided to resign. Louis was prepared to yield; he
had no army with which to threaten resistance, and it was clear that
Talleyrand’s diplomatic talent would now avail him nothing. Talleyrand
explains that his position was weakened by the fact that some of the
King’s entourage were all along in favour of a cession of territory,
and that during the Hundred Days the Chamber of Representatives had
already made the offer. He was, therefore, unable to press his last
plea that the country would not endure such terms. He resigned his post
on September 23rd, rather than sign the treaty. Metternich, Castlereagh
and Stewart begged him to continue to be “a statesman of Europe,” and
Pasquier admits that almost all the Foreign Ministers deeply regretted
his retirement, though he confesses that he himself did not share that
feeling. The Tsar was pleased. His favourite, the Duc de Richelieu,
was substituted for Talleyrand. Louis accepted his resignation with
a mingled feeling of apprehension and relief. “I thank you for your
zeal,” he said to Talleyrand before the whole Cabinet; “you are without
reproach, and nothing prevents you from living peacefully at Paris.”
Talleyrand replied: “I have had the pleasure of rendering to the King
services enough to believe that they have not been forgotten. I am
unable to see how anything could force me to leave Paris. I shall stay
here; and I shall be happy to learn that the King will not be induced
to follow a line that may compromise his dynasty and France.”
Napoleon had not been very wide of the mark when he said in 1814 that
the Bourbons would avenge him by throwing over Talleyrand within six
months. It did not, however, require any great penetration to foresee
such an issue. The personality of the King and of his entourage
furnished solid ground for prophecy. The curious evolution of the Tsar
into a friend of Louis and enemy of Talleyrand, and his resumption of
a great influence on French affairs, made further for estrangement;
and when the first elections under the Restoration gave the power to
the ultra-royalist faction in the country, the situation was complete.
Talleyrand retired to write his impressions of men and events. Louis
provided for him the sinecure of High Chamberlain at 100,000 francs a
year, and a further pension of 16,000 francs. He did not foresee that
Talleyrand would take a conscientious view of his new duties, and would
haunt his chair, a silent, smiling Mephistopheles, for years to come.
Talleyrand probably felt that the King would be forced to recall him
in time. For the moment he betook himself to the writing of the famous
memoirs which were to sustain the legend of his inscrutability until
the close of the nineteenth century. It is probable that he had
written the material for the first volume (up to 1809) already. In
this he gives a prosaic and brief account of his first fifty years,
with lively and artistic pictures of some of his great fellow actors
(especially the Duc d’Orléans), and with a very discreet and unboastful
account of his share in the Revolution. The second volume and half of
the third carry the story up to the middle of 1814. The rest of the
work consists almost entirely of his correspondence from Vienna, during
the second Restoration, and from London under Louis Philippe; the
letters being scantily threaded on a brief and common-place narrative.
The close of the narrative at his retirement from the Ministry is dated
“Valençay, 1816.” The rest was compiled in the last three years of his
life. He took stringent precautions that they should not be published
until thirty years after his death, and not even then if those to whom
they were entrusted thought fit to postpone the publication. It was,
in fact, decided in 1868 to refrain from issuing them for another
generation, and they only appeared in 1891. From one end of Europe to
the other there was an expression of profound disappointment when they
appeared. Such stringent measures had promised stirring revelations,
but the volumes contained absolutely no sensational matter and very
little that was new to historians.
There is very little of the “apologia” in the memoirs, and not much
of the impulse that urged most of his contemporaries to cover reams
of paper with their contradictory versions of history. He is usually
content to let documents tell the story. But, though Talleyrand
ignores most of the charges that were made against him, he naturally
reviews history in a light that sets his own career in harmony. Lady
Blennerhassett surmises that his chief object when he wrote in 1816
was to conciliate Louis XVIII, and prepare the way for a return to
power. Lord Acton has expressed the same opinion. It is based on the
dexterous presentation of the way in which he was forced into the
Revolution, the brevity with which he dismisses the more offensive
parts of his share in it, his explanation of Napoleon as a step towards
the Restoration, and the fulness of his account of his share in the
Restoration and the work at Vienna. But this theory has to struggle
desperately with the fact that his precautions against the publications
of the memoirs before the appointed time were absolute, and must have
been sincere. Nothing would have been easier for a man like Talleyrand
than to have secured an accidental disclosure or theft of his papers;
and the fact that he used to read passages from them to a few of his
friends does not further his supposed plan in the slightest degree.
Ordinary conversation with them would do just as well. On the other
hand, we can quite understand the air of progressive policy he gives
to his career by merely assuming that he wished to make it appear
consistent. A statesman who was convinced that monarchy was the best
form of government for France, and who, nevertheless, took a purely
rationalist and utilitarian view of monarchy, would deal just in that
way with his share in the Revolution and the Napoleonic era. It was a
minor comfort to the epicurean to leave a rounded version of his life
to posterity.
The literary aspect of the memoirs may be briefly dismissed. Their
authenticity is now beyond dispute, but it is acknowledged that
Talleyrand did not write the connected narrative. He had the habit
of jotting down his ideas on scraps of paper, and leaving it to his
secretaries to weave them together. This was done by M. Bacourt with
the memoirs. M. Pierre Bertrand has, in his preface to the “Lettres
inédites de Talleyrand à Napoleon,” sufficiently disposed of the
insinuation that Talleyrand could not write. By comparison of the
Prince’s notes with the secretary’s drafts and the finished letters he
has shown that Talleyrand counted for far more than was supposed in
the composition. He might have shown, by internal evidence, that many
of the letters were wholly written by Talleyrand. However, we know
that Talleyrand dictated letters, or left it to his secretaries to
compose them, whenever it was safe to do so. It was a sound economy;
and it was not unconnected with his heavy foot-gear, which led him to
prefer the couch to sitting at a table. Of the literary quality of his
writing there is not much to be said. He could do “fine writing” at
times, as Sainte-Beuve said; and Lord Acton admits that much of the
characterisation in the memoirs is very clever. But the bulk of the
work is without distinction.
Talleyrand’s position in Paris during the year after his resignation
was a curious one. The Hotel St. Florentin continued to be a resort
of the most distinguished foreigners and many of the ablest French
politicians, but the strange conflicts of the time put the Prince
(Benevento had returned to the Papacy, but he had now a French title)
in a peculiar attitude. The King and the Cabinet were now engaged in a
struggle to defend constitutional monarchy against the excesses of the
extreme Royalists. Talleyrand claimed to be at once “constitutional and
anti-ministerial.” The positive ground for this attitude was that the
King had annulled the elections and ordered fresh ones, to give the
Liberals the chance of undoing the triumph of the reactionaries. As a
result of this novel situation Talleyrand found himself using almost
the same language as his bitterest Royalist enemies, and declaiming
against “a Cabinet that enslaved and degraded France.” It is quite
clear that there was an element of calculation and of prejudice in his
position. His opposition became so exasperating that the King forbade
him to come to the Court for some months.
After this we have a period of four years of political silence.
Indeed, only three incidents call for our notice during the next
fourteen years. He resigned himself once more to the position of a
mere spectator, and was content to throw a light jet of sarcasm on the
panorama that passed before him. English visitors to Paris, who eagerly
sought to enter the Hotel St. Florentin, describe him sitting in his
favourite chair by the open window in the summer, looking across to
the Tuileries. The long and luxuriant hair now bore the snow of more
than sixty winters, but was curled and perfumed every morning with no
less care than when he was the Abbé de Périgord. The bluish shade had
passed from his grey eyes, and as age wore on his eyelids drooped more
and more, so that he seemed at times to sleep during conversation.
But when the moment came the old fire would flash from under his
shaggy eye-brows, and his sepulchral voice would give forth a phrase
that would reverberate through all the salons of Paris. The freshness
and transparency of his younger complexion gave place in time to a
death-like greyness. Lady Morgan, who saw him at this period, said his
face was like that of a sleeping child. It was a superficial tribute
to the art of the two valets who spent hours in preparing it every
day. Most visitors who visited him at his hotel, or met him in the
picture galleries, leaning heavily on his long stick, dressed in his
long blue overcoat, and with his chin sunk in his large muslin cravat,
thought they saw the face of a dead or dying man, or a piece of yellow
wax-work—until his eye pierced them.
[Illustration: _From a mezzotint, after the picture by Scheffer._
TALLEYRAND
(Under Louis XVIII.).]
His temperate habits had spared his health and energy. In the later
years he would rise about eleven, spend two or three hours in leisurely
dressing and chatting to privileged visitors, take only one meal a day,
and spend the evening—and far into the morning—in whist or billiards
or conversation or writing. He had four head cooks, each the best
in his department, but most observers agree that he ate sparingly, and
at no time of his career sinned against his epicureanism by excessive
drinking. A few glasses of choice Madeira sufficed him. He drank, or
rather enjoyed, exquisite coffee, and loved to have sweet and subtle
odours about him, and to move or sit amongst rare china or books and
fine inlaid furniture. He never slept much. He maintained to the end of
his days that his constitution took its rest while he was awake. His
heart used to stand still, as it were, after every few beats, and he
formed the theory that this was as beneficial as sleep.
Mme. Talleyrand had separated from him in 1815. The new regime would
have points enough in his person to fix upon without being constantly
reminded that he was that unutterable thing, “a married priest.” He
made an arrangement by which she was to remain in England, and receive
from him a pension of 60,000 francs a year. He corresponded with her
for some time, but she gradually dropped out of his life. Once it was
being laughingly told in Paris how she had come back in spite of her
arrangement with him, and Louis incautiously asked him if this was
true. “Yes, Sire,” he replied. “I also have had to have my 20th of
March” (the date of the King’s flight from Napoleon). She died in Paris
in 1835. Talleyrand made constant inquiries of her in the last illness.
The Duchess of Courland seems to pass out of his life after 1815. But
her daughter, Dorothy, now Duchess of Dino, took her place, and they
remained strongly attached until his death. She separated from her
husband (his nephew), and lived with or near Talleyrand. As beautiful,
charming, and accomplished as her mother, she brought great comfort
to his later years. Her little daughter Pauline was another ray of
sunshine in the last grey winter days.
Most of his time during the fourteen years of waiting for his next
piece of work was spent at Valençay. Visitors from England were
familiar with the large mansion with the broad Moorish towers, the
round domes, and the gilt weathercocks, that broke on one at the head
of the long chestnut avenue. Here, with a large park in which he could
take his drives, he would retire for months together, and entertain
large numbers of visitors from Paris or from England. It is worth
noting that he was an exceptionally kind and generous master. A fine
lady who saw a servant accidentally upset him in his bath-chair one
day expressed a hope to a higher domestic that the Prince would get
rid of him. “Monsieur is not a Russian prince,” was the reply. A good
servant was well cared for by him long after his power of service was
exhausted. It is necessary to urge these small points. So many people
still fail to understand what epicureanism is.
In 1821 Royer-Collard the Puritan philosopher and Liberal statesman
came to live within a few leagues of Valençay. Talleyrand at once
decided to lay diplomatic siege to Chateaux Vieux and secure an
interesting neighbour. The moralist is said to have been uneasy at
Talleyrand’s proposal to visit him, and pleaded his wife’s illness and
other excuses. Talleyrand drove over, nevertheless, with his graceful
auxiliary, the Duchess. Chateaux Vieux was built on the summit of a
slight hill, and was approached through a wild and rough country. “My
dear sir,” said Talleyrand when he reached the house, “you present a
rather austere aspect to visitors.” The Stoic was, however, disabused
of his hearsay notion of Talleyrand, and became an intimate and cordial
friend. Sainte-Beuve says that as Talleyrand was now in his eightieth
year (he should have said seventieth), and virtue was still his _côté
faible_, he wanted to strengthen it with the moralist and prepare for
the later confessor. If we suppose that Talleyrand desired to avail
himself for ordinary social purposes of a cultured neighbour it seems
to meet the case.
He built a second country-house, at Rochecotte, on the Loire, about
seven leagues from Saumur. Though he gave this mansion to the Duchess,
it was his favourite residence. It was built on a verdant hill by the
river, and the road led up through a fine garden, cut in the side of
the hill, to the creeper-covered house. He had a large and rich library
here also, and a beautiful collection of the art-treasures he loved
to see about him. Japanese porcelain, Medici vases, Buhl cabinets,
and other costly objects filled the rooms. Here, in later years, he
often entertained the rising young men of France—Thiers, Villemain, De
Broglie, &c.—as well as his older friends. But he saw the latter pass
one by one into the silence, and he marked off their ages with a smile
of satisfaction at his own health and vigour.
Paris was growing accustomed to regard him as a picturesque survival of
the wonderful past. He has very little share in its active life during
those long years. At first he persisted in discharging his nominal
duties as Chamberlain, standing in silence behind the King’s chair
at dinner, and so on. This was a dignity that Louis did not entirely
appreciate. There is a story that he made many efforts to get rid of
Talleyrand without success. After asking Talleyrand several times
whether it was not true that he contemplated retiring to Valençay, and
receiving bland assurances that it was not, he at last ventured to ask
how far it was to Valençay. “I am not sure,” Talleyrand is described as
saying; “but I should think it is as far again as from here to Ghent.”
The story-teller says that Louis dropped no more hints on that subject.
There is another Ghent story that is said to have annoyed Louis. A lady
was complaining to Talleyrand that the King was not Royalist enough.
“Why,” he said, “he was at Ghent, and is ready to go again.”
There are, as I said, only two interventions in public affairs during
these fourteen years. In 1820 the Prince thought he was on the point
of re-entering politics, and he projected a Ministry, but he was not
invited to form one. The new Ministry introduced in the following year
a law for the censorship of the press, and Talleyrand rose to oppose
it in the House of Peers. He made a long and stirring appeal for the
liberty of the press, which he described as “one of the essential
instruments of representative government.” Boldly defending the better
elements of the Revolution and the philosophers who prepared the way
for it, he threatened the reactionaries with the force of public
opinion. “To-day,” he said, “it is not easy to deceive for long. There
is someone who has more intelligence than Voltaire, more intelligence
than Bonaparte, more than the Directors or any Minister, past,
present, or to come—that is, everybody.” The feeling is unmistakeably
sincere. Through the Napoleonic and Bourbonien phases he has returned
substantially to the position of 1789. In 1800 he had smiled at
Napoleon’s treatment of the press. Experience had brought him back to
moderate democracy.
Two years later he again protested against the action of the
Government. When the Revolution had swept away the throne in Spain, the
Royalist interest in France determined to intervene and restore it.
Talleyrand had not an opportunity of delivering his speech, but he had
it published and made some impression. He recalled Napoleon’s unhappy
intervention, and predicted that the present raid, which he described
as equally immoral, would end as disastrously. He was wrong in his
prophecy, but undoubtedly right in his protest. His manifesto reveals
on another side the maturing of his liberal and humanitarian views.
In 1829 an incident occurred that has furnished his critics with the
last of their graver charges against him—if we except his “desertion”
of Charles X. On January 21st he was present at the mass in Notre Dame
in commemoration of the death of Louis XVI. Suddenly a man sprang from
the crowd, and felled the aged prince to the ground with a heavy blow
on the face. This man was that famous Marquis de Maubreuil, whose
adventures have lately been presented by Mr. Vizetelly. He had adopted
this brutal means of bringing a grievance before the public. His story
was that Talleyrand had engaged him in 1814 to assassinate Napoleon,
and had afterwards disowned the contract. For serious and impartial
readers it is enough to learn the character of this unprincipled
adventurer. It is clear that he did in 1814 obtain some kind of secret
mission, money, and a passport from the provisional government.
Talleyrand says that a large number of men were needed for missions in
the provinces, and in the stress and confusion of the time there was
not a strict discrimination. At all events Maubreuil left Paris with an
armed company and regular passports. In the forest of Fontainebleau he
overtook the Queen of Westphalia, who was flying from France. Maubreuil
stopped her equipage, ransacked her luggage, and made off with her
jewellery and a considerable sum of money. He was caught and sentenced
to five years’ imprisonment in 1818, but escaped to England, where he
had a fine market for his stories. He returned to France in 1827,
and drew public attention by his attack on Talleyrand, then in his
seventy-third year. I will only add that, after serving five years for
the assault, he, at the age of eighty-three, married a prostitute (the
daughter of his former coachman) for the sake of her money.
[Illustration: CHARLES X.]
Serious history would not listen for a second to the unsupported word
of such a man. The life of Talleyrand lies on a peculiar plane, and
Maubreuil’s accusation, that he engaged him to murder Napoleon, has
been treated with the usual hypocritical gravity. The only attempt
at confirmation is found by the diligent Sainte-Beuve in a floating
rumour that one of Talleyrand’s confidants was heard to ask: “How many
millions do you ask?” As Maubreuil did not pretend to have treated with
either Louis or De Pradt, and as the likelihood of such a contract
being heard by others is inconceivable, the rumour would be worth
little even if it were better grounded. The only other attempt at
confirmation is made by the amiable Pasquier, who says that Dalberg
told him men had been found who would get access to the Emperor in the
uniform of chasseurs of the guard and do away with him. As Maubreuil
spoke of a design of using this uniform, Pasquier concluded he was
the proposed leader of the band, and Talleyrand the instigator. On
this kind of evidence Sainte-Beuve is vaguely sure that we may connect
Talleyrand with the idea of assassination, just as he has a “terrible
doubt” whether we may not connect him with the death of Mirabeau. Thus
has the mythical Talleyrand been put together. There are those who, in
such a case, would take the word of Maubreuil himself, quite apart from
the thin rumour that Sainte-Beuve has captured after it has floated
about Paris for half a century, and the strained recollections of
Pasquier.
“I am,” said Talleyrand, “an old umbrella on which the rain has beaten
for forty years: a drop more or less makes no difference.” He continued
to watch from his long chair at the window over the Tuileries, and
smile at the blunders that were hurrying the Bourbons off the stage
once more. Napoleon had gone in 1821. “It is not an event,” he said;
“only a piece of news.” Louis died in 1824. The pious and narrow-minded
Charles X was in the hands of the Clerical party. They readmitted the
Jesuits in thin disguise. “M. Cuvier,” asked Talleyrand of the great
zoologist, “which are the most grateful animals?” Cuvier was puzzled.
“The turkeys, of course,” said the Prince, “because the Jesuits
introduced the turkeys, and now the turkeys (_Anglice_, geese) are
re-introducing the Jesuits.” Someone told him that Chateaubriand was
getting deaf. “He fancies he’s deaf,” said Talleyrand, “because he does
not hear people talking about him any longer.” At last the crisis came,
and the king-maker stepped into public life once more.