FROM THE FESTIVAL OF THE 14TH OF JULY TO THE CLOSE OF THE NATIONAL
ASSEMBLY.
Blesses the standard of France at festival of the 14th of
July.--Increasing financial distress.--M. de Talleyrand’s
views.--Civil constitution of the clergy.--M. de Talleyrand’s
conduct.--Refuses archbishopric of Paris.--Letter to editors
of Chronicle.--Mirabeau’s death.--Sketch of his career,
and relations with M. de Talleyrand, who attends his
death-bed.--Probabilities as to his having initiated M. de
Talleyrand into plots of court.--Leaves M. de Talleyrand his
intended speech on the law of succession, which regulated the
present state of the law in France, and which M. de Talleyrand
read in the National Assembly.--M. de Talleyrand suspended from
his episcopal functions, and quits the Church.--The King’s
flight.--Conduct and views of M. de Talleyrand.--Wishes to
aid the King.--Foolish conduct of court party.--Fatal decree
of National Assembly, forbidding the re-election of its
members.--M. de Talleyrand’s project of education.--Assembly
closes the 13th of September, 1791.--M. de Talleyrand goes to
England, January 1792.
I.
We are arrived at the festival of the 14th of July, held to celebrate
the destruction of the Bastille, and to do honour to the new government
which had risen on its ruins: let us pause for a moment on that day of
joy!
An immense and magnificent amphitheatre is erected on the Champ de
Mars: there the hereditary sovereign of France, and the temporary
president of an elected assembly--the joint symbols of two ideas and
of two epochs--are seated on two equal thrones, resplendent with the
arms which the nation has taken from its ancient kings; and there
is the infant prince, on whom an exulting people look kindly as the
inheritor of his father’s engagements, and who is to perpetuate
the race of Saint Louis: and there is that queen, “decorating and
cheering the sphere she moves in, glittering like the morning star,
full of life, and splendour, and joy;” and there that royal maiden,
beauteous with the charms of the palace, blessed with the virtues of
the cloister--a princess, a saint--destined to be a martyr! And there
is the vain but honest Lafayette, leaning on his citizen sword: and
there the terrible Mirabeau--his long hair streaming to the wind: and
there that well-known and still memorable Assembly, prematurely proud
of its vaunted work, which, alas! like the spectacle we are assisting
at, is to be the mere pageant of a day. And, behold, in yonder balcony,
the most graceful and splendid court in Europe, for such even at that
time was still the court of France; and lo! in the open space, yon
confederated bands, bearing their respective banners, and representing
every portion of that great family which at this moment is rejoicing
over the triumph it has achieved. On a sudden the sky--the light of
which mingles so well with the joy of men, but which had hitherto been
dark and sullen--on a sudden the sky clears up, and the sun blends his
pomp with that of this noble ceremony! And now, robed in his pontifical
garments, and standing on an altar thronged by three hundred priests,
in long white robes and tricoloured girdles, the Bishop of Autun
blesses the great standard, the oriflamme of France, no longer the
ensign of war, but the sign and token of peace between the past and the
future--between the old recollections and the new aspirations of the
French people.
Who, that had been present that day in Paris, could have believed
that those who wept tenderly with the children of Bearne, at the foot
of the statue of Henry IV., would so soon laugh horribly round the
scaffold of his descendant? that the gay multitude, wandering in the
Champs Elysées, amidst garlands of light, and breathing sounds of
gentle happiness and affection, would so soon be the ferocious mob,
massacreing in the prisons, murdering in the public streets, dancing
round the guillotine dripping with innocent blood? that the monarch,
the court, the deputies, every popular and princely image of this
august pageant, the very forms of the religion with which it was
consecrated, would in two or three brief years be scoffingly cast
away: and that even the high priest of that gorgeous solemnity, no
longer attached to his sacred calling, would be wandering a miserable
exile on foreign shores, banished as a traitor to the liberty for which
he had sacrificed the prejudices of his caste, the predilections of his
family, the honours and wealth of his profession?
II.
From the 14th of July, 1789, to the 14th of July, 1790, the scenes
which were comprehended in this, which may be called the first act in
the great drama then agitating France, were upon the whole such as
rather to excite the hopes than the fears of mankind; but from the
latter period the aspect of things greatly changed, and almost each day
became marked by some disappointment as to the success of a favourite
scheme, or the fortune of a popular statesman.
On the 4th of September, 1790, M. Necker left almost unnoticed, and
altogether unregretted, that Paris to which but a year before he had
returned amidst unanimous acclamation. About the same time, Mirabeau
began to be suspected; and the shouts of “Vive Lafayette!” were not
unfrequently changed into “à bas Lafayette!”[15] by the ever fickle
multitude. At this period also it became apparent that the sale of the
church property, which, properly managed, might have restored order
to the finances, was likely, on the contrary, to render the national
bankruptcy more complete.
In order to give a just idea of the conduct of M. de Talleyrand, it is
necessary that I should explain rapidly how this calamity occurred.
The Assembly, desiring to secure the irrevocability of its decrees by
disposing as soon as possible of the vast estate which it had declared
was to be sold, and desiring also to increase its financial resources
without delay, looked out for some means by which this double end could
be accomplished. After two or three projects, for a moment taken up
and then abandoned, the idea finally adopted was that of issuing State
notes, representing a certain value of national property, and giving
them a forced currency, so that they would have an immediate value
independent of that which they acquired as the representatives of
property.
These notes or bonds, in short, thus became money; and they had this
advantage over ordinary paper money, that they represented something
which had a positive value; and as the first issue of four hundred
millions of francs took place at a time when some substitute was
really required for the coin which every one, from alarm and want
of confidence, had then begun to hoard, its effects were rather
beneficial than the reverse. The Assembly instantly thought it had an
inexhaustible fund at its disposal; consequently a new issue of eight
hundred million bonds followed shortly after the first issue of four
hundred millions, as a matter of course; and it became evident that
this mode of meeting the current wants of the State was to be adopted
to a greater and greater extent, thereby increasing the currency in a
manner not in any way called for by the increased wealth or business of
the community, and altering the value of money in all the transactions
of life. M. de Talleyrand at once foresaw the evils to which this
system would naturally lead; and saying, “_Je serais inconsolable si de
la rigueur de nos décrets sur le clergé il ne résultait pas le salut
de la chose publique_,”[16] demonstrated, with a singular clearness
and sagacity, that the course on which the Assembly had entered must
inevitably cause the total disappearance of bullion, an enormous rise
in provisions, a daily depreciation of State paper and of land (such
State paper representing land), a rapid variation of exchanges, an
impossibility of all regular commerce.
But men in desperate times disregard ultimate results. The Assembly
wanted funds at the moment: forced assignats created those funds; and
when Mirabeau shrewdly observed that to multiply assignats was, at all
events, to multiply the opponents to reaction, since no man who had
an assignat could wish the property on which its value depended to be
restored to its former possessors, this political argument settled the
financial one.
III.
The great characteristic of modern legislation is the principle of
representation by election. It by no means follows, however, that
because it has been an invaluable discovery to make a portion of
government depend upon a particular principle, that every portion of
a government should be deduced from that principle. On the contrary,
the mobility given to a government by any system that introduces into
it the popular passions and variations of opinion, requires some
counteracting element of fixity and stability to give permanence to its
duration, and steadiness to its action. But the National Assembly--like
those invalids who, having found a remedy for their disease, fancy
that if a little of such remedy does some good, a great deal must do
much more--made the whole of their institutions, with one exception,
depend upon the same basis; and as their chamber was elective, their
municipalities elective--so their judges were to be elective, and their
clergy and bishops elective also.
Here commenced the first serious schism in the nation, for that which
had hitherto existed had been between the nation and the court. I
have said that the clergy, and more especially the higher clergy, had
not willingly abandoned the property which they had been accustomed
to consider theirs. This loss, however, furnished them with but a
worldly cause of feud; it neither affected their consciences, nor the
consciences of their flocks. But the new regulations, whatever their
intrinsic merits, entirely changed the existing condition of the Roman
church, and struck at the root of its discipline. These regulations,
consequently, were denounced by the Pope, and could not be solemnly
accepted by the more zealous of the priesthood.
In such circumstances it would have been far wiser to have left
the spiritual condition of the clergy untouched. To oblige all
ecclesiastics either to give up their benefices, or to swear to uphold
the “Civil Constitution of the Clergy” (such being the title given to
the new system), was to provoke many who might otherwise have been
silent to declare hostility to the Revolution; and at the same time
gave to the Revolution itself that persecuting bias by which it was
finally disgraced and ruined. Such a measure, besides, divided the
clergy into two classes--one of which excited the veneration of the
people by its sacrifices, and the indignation of the government by its
complaints: the other satisfied the government by its obedience, but
lost the respect of the people by its servility. A Catholic clergy
disowned by the Pope was useless to those professing the Catholic
religion; no clergy at all was wanted for those who professed no
religion whatsoever. The course which M. de Talleyrand observed in this
business was wary and cautious up to the moment at which it was bold
and decided.
The Assembly had determined upon the “Civil Constitution of the
Clergy,” prior to the 14th of July. The King, however, had requested
a delay, with the intention of referring to Rome, and the law did not
finally pass the Legislature till the 27th of November.
The struggle during this period was between the Sovereign and the Pope
on the one side, and the philosophers and the church reformers--for
both took a part in the matter--on the other.
It was disagreeable for a bishop, still looking to ecclesiastical
preferment, to venture to quarrel with one party in the dispute, and
equally disagreeable for a statesman aspiring to popular authority to
separate himself from the other. The result of the contest, also, was
for a while uncertain; and as there was no absolute necessity for the
Bishop of Autun to express any opinion upon its merits, he was silent.
But when the Assembly had pronounced its final decree, and that decree
had received the formal though reluctant assent of the King, the case
was different. A law had been regularly passed, and the question was,
not whether it was a good law, but whether, being a law, it was to be
obeyed. A battle had been fought, and the question was, not whether the
victors were in the right, but whether it was better to join with those
who had conquered, or with those who had been conquered.
In such a condition of things M. de Talleyrand rarely hesitated. He
took his side with the law against the church, and with those who were
daily becoming more powerful, against those who were daily becoming
more feeble; and having once taken a step of this kind, it was never
his custom to do so timidly.
He at once took the required oath, which all his episcopal
brethren--with the notorious and not very creditable exceptions
of the Bishops of Babylon and Lydia, whose titles were purely
honorary--refused to take. He also justified this course in a letter
to the clergy of his own department, and ultimately undertook to
consecrate the new bishops who were elected to supply the place of
those whom the Assembly had deprived of their dioceses.
We shall presently see the results of this conduct. But it may be
as well at once to state, that although M. de Talleyrand accepted
for himself those new regulations for his church which the State, in
spite of the head of his church, had established, and took an oath to
obey them without unwillingness, and although he even maintained that
the State, considering the clergy as public functionaries enjoying
a salary in return for the performance of public duties, might
deprive any members of the clergy of such salary if they would not
submit to the laws of the government which paid and employed them;
he nevertheless contended, boldly and consistently and at all times,
that all ecclesiastics thus dispossessed would have a right to the
pension which, at the time of confiscating the church property, had
been granted to any ecclesiastic whom the suppression of religious
establishments or of useless benefices left without income or
employment; a principle at first accepted as just, but soon condemned
as inexpedient; for there is no compromise between parties when one is
conscientiously disposed to resist what it deems an act of injustice,
and the other resolutely determined to crush what it deems a selfish
opposition.
IV.
Amidst the various vacancies which were occasioned by the refusal
of the high dignitaries of the church to take the oath which the
Constitution now exacted from them, was that of the archbishopric of
Paris; and as it was known that M. de Talleyrand could be elected for
this post if he so desired it, the public imagined that he intended to
take advantage of his popularity and obtain what, up to that period,
had been so honourable and important a position. In consequence of this
belief a portion of the press extolled his virtues; whilst another
painted and, as usual in such cases, exaggerated his vices.
M. de Talleyrand was, up to the last hour of his life, almost
indifferent to praise, but singularly enough (considering his long
and varied career), exquisitely sensitive to censure; and his
susceptibility on this occasion so far got the better of his caution,
as to induce him to write and publish a letter in the _Moniteur_, of
Paris, February 8th, 1791.
_Letter of M. de Talleyrand to the editors of the “Chronicle,”
respecting his candidature for the diocese of Paris._
“GENTLEMEN,
“I have just read in your paper that you have been good enough
to name me as a candidate for the archbishopric of Paris. I
cannot but feel myself highly flattered by this nomination:
some of the electors have in fact given me to understand that
they would be happy to see me occupy the post to which you have
alluded, and I, therefore, consider that I ought to publish my
reply. No, gentlemen, I shall not accept the honour of which my
fellow-citizens are so obliging as to think me worthy.
“Since the existence of the National Assembly, I may have
appeared indifferent to the innumerable calumnies in which
different parties have indulged themselves at my expense.
Never have I made, nor ever shall I make, to my calumniators
the sacrifice of one single opinion or one single action which
seems to me beneficial to the commonwealth: but I can and
will make the sacrifice of my personal advantage, and on this
occasion alone my enemies will have influenced my conduct.
I will not give them the power to say that a secret motive
caused me to take the oath I have recently sworn. I will not
allow them the opportunity of weakening the good which I have
endeavoured to effect.
“That publicity which I give to the determination I now
announce, I gave to my wishes when I stated how much I should
be flattered at becoming one of the administrators of the
department of Paris. In a free state, the people of which
have repossessed themselves of the right of election--_i.e._
the true exercise of their sovereignty--I deem that to
declare openly the post to which we aspire, is to invite our
fellow-citizens to examine our claims before deciding upon
them, and to deprive our pretensions of all possibility of
benefiting by intrigue. We present ourselves in this way to the
observations of the impartial, and give even the prejudiced and
the hostile the opportunity to do their worst.
“I beg then to assure those who, dreading what they term my
ambition, never cease their slanders against my reputation,
that I will never disguise the object to which I have the
ambition to pretend.
“Owing, I presume, to the false alarm caused by my supposed
pretensions to the see of Paris, stories have been circulated
of my having lately won in gambling houses the sum of sixty
or seventy thousand francs. Now that all fear of seeing me
elevated to the dignity in question is at an end, I shall
doubtless be believed in what I am about to say. The truth is,
that, in the course of two months, I gained the sum of about
thirty thousand francs, not at gambling houses, but in private
society, or at the chess-club, which has always been regarded,
from the nature of its institution, as a private house.
“I here state the facts without attempting to justify them.
The passion for play has spread to a troublesome extent. I
never had a taste for it, and reproach myself the more for not
having resisted its allurements. I blame myself as a private
individual, and still more as a legislator who believes that
the virtues of liberty are as severe as her principles: that
a regenerated people ought to regain all the austerity of
morality, and that the National Assembly ought to be directed
towards this vice as one prejudicial to society, inasmuch as
it contributes towards that inequality of fortune which the
laws should endeavour to prevent by every means which do not
interfere with the eternal basis of social justice, viz., the
respect for property.
“You see I condemn myself. I feel a pleasure in confessing it;
for since the reign of truth has arrived, in renouncing the
impossible honour of being faultless, the most noble manner we
can adopt of repairing our errors is to have the courage to
acknowledge them.
“TALLEYRAND A. E. D’AUTUN.”
From this document we learn that the Bishop of Autun, notwithstanding
his labours in the Assembly, was still a gay frequenter of the world:
to be found pretty frequently at the chess-club, as well as in private
society; and, though he lamented over the fact, a winner at such
places of thirty thousand francs within two months. We also learn that
he abandoned at this moment the idea of professional advancement, in
order to maintain unimpeached the motives of his political conduct; and
we may divine that he looked for the future rather to civil than to
ecclesiastical preferment.
The most striking portion of this document, however, is the tone
and style--I may almost say the cant--which prevails towards its
conclusion. But every epoch has its pretensions: and that of the period
which intervened between May, 1789, and August, 1792, was to decorate
the easy life of a dissolute man of fashion with the pure language of
a saint, or the stern precepts of a philosopher. “_Le dire_,” says old
Montaigne, “_est autre chose que le faire: il faut considérer le prêche
à part, et le prêcheur à part_.”[17]
V.
And now, or but a little after this time, might have been seen an
agitated crowd, weeping, questioning, and rushing towards a house in
the Rue de la Chaussée d’Antin. It was in the first days of April,
and in that house--receiving through the open windows the balmy air
which for a moment refreshed his burning forehead, and welcoming yet
more gratefully the anxious voice of the inquiring multitude--lay
the dying Mirabeau, about to carry into the tomb all the remaining
wisdom and moderation of the people; and, as he himself sadly and
proudly added, all the remaining fragments of that monarchy which
he had shown the power to pull down and had flattered himself he
might have the power to reconstruct. By his death-bed stood the
Bishop of Autun. It was a curious combination of circumstances which
thus brought together these two personages, whose characters were
essentially different, but whose position was in some respects the
same. The one was eloquent, passionate, overbearing, imprudent; the
other cool, urbane, logical, and cautious. But both were of illustrious
families, endowed with great abilities, ejected from their legitimate
place in society. Both also were liberal in their politics, and this
from vengeance and ambition, as well as from principle and opinion.
Aristocrats allied with a democratic faction; monarchists in desperate
conflict with those by whom monarchy was most held in reverence; they
had engaged in a battle for moderation with extreme auxiliaries and
extreme opponents. Mirabeau, the fifth child, but who became, by a
brother’s death, the eldest son of the Marquis de Mirabeau (a rich
proprietor of a noble house in Provence), had been, when very young,
married to a wealthy heiress, and intended for the profession of
arms. Nevertheless, quitting his profession, separated from his wife,
constantly involved in scrapes--now for money, now for love--he had
led a bachelor’s life of intrigue, indigence, and adventure, up to the
age of forty, alternately the victim of his own wild nature and of the
unwise and absurd severity of his father, whose two pursuits in life
were persecuting his family and publishing pamphlets for the benefit
of mankind. Thus, frequently in confinement--always in difficulties
(the first and last means of correction with the old marquis being to
procure a “_lettre de cachet_,” and to stop his son’s allowance), the
Comte de Mirabeau had supported himself almost entirely by his talents,
which could apply themselves to letters, though action was their proper
sphere.
During a short interval in his various calamities--an interval
which he had passed at Paris in a desperate effort to better his
condition--he had become acquainted with M. de Talleyrand, who, struck
by his abilities and affected by his misfortunes, recommended him to
M. de Calonne, at whose suggestion he was sent by M. de Vergennes,
then minister of foreign affairs, on a sort of secret mission into
Germany, just prior to the Great Frederick’s death. From this mission
he returned when France was being agitated by the convocation of the
“notables,” speedily succeeded by that of the States-General. He saw
at a glance that an era was now approaching, suited to his eminent
talents, and in which his haughty but flexible character was likely to
force or insinuate its way: his whole soul, therefore, was bent upon
being one of that assembly, which he from the first predicted would
soon command the destinies of his country.
Certain expenses were necessary to obtain this object, and, as usual,
Mirabeau had not a farthing. The means which he adopted for procuring
the money he required were the least creditable he could have devised.
He published a work called “The Secret History of the Court of Berlin,”
a work full of scandal, public and private, and betraying the mission
with which he had recently been intrusted.[18]
The government was naturally indignant; a prosecution was instituted
against him before the Parliament of Paris; M. de Montmorin, and
others, by whom he had previously been patronised, told him plainly
they wished to drop his acquaintance.
Through all these disgraceful difficulties Mirabeau scrambled. He
denied that the work was published by his authority.
Rejected from their sittings by the nobility of Provence, who decreed
that, having no fiefs of his own, and being merely invested with his
father’s voice, he had no right to sit among the nobles, he became the
successful candidate of the tiers-état for Aix; and at the meeting of
the States-General stood before the ministry which had accused, and the
aristocracy which had repudiated him, a daring and formidable enemy.
But, though made a desperate man by circumstances, he was not so either
by inclination or by ideas.
His views for France were limited to the procuring it a representative
government; and his views for himself were those which frequently
lead ambitious men under such a government to adopt opposition as a
road to power. “_Tribun par calcul_,” as was justly said of him by a
contemporary,[19] “_aristocrat par goût_.” He aimed at obtaining for
his country a constitution, and being minister of the crown under that
constitution.
M. de Talleyrand had the same wish, and probably the same ambition.
These two statesmen, therefore, would naturally, at the meeting of the
States-General, have acted together as two private friends who thought
the same on public matters. But the publication of “The Secret History
of the Court of Berlin,” offensive to the minister who had employed
Mirabeau, could not be otherwise than painful and disagreeable to M. de
Talleyrand, at whose intercession Mirabeau had been employed, and to
whom, indeed, Mirabeau’s correspondence had been principally addressed.
This circumstance had, therefore, produced a cessation of all private
intimacy between these two personages who were about to exercise so
great an influence over approaching events. It is difficult, however,
for two men to act a prominent part on the same side for any length
of time in a popular assembly, and this at a great national crisis,
without relapsing into an old acquaintance, or forming a new one. To
what extent the old relations between Mirabeau and M. de Talleyrand
were thus renewed, it is difficult to say, but that on the 21st of
October, 1789, they already talked together with some degree of
intimacy is evident from a letter of Mirabeau to the Comte de la Marck,
in which letter Mirabeau states that he had been told the history of a
secret political intrigue by the Bishop of Autun.[20]
About this time, too, it is now known that Mirabeau projected a
ministry to which I have already alluded, and in which he and M. de
Talleyrand were to be united. Had this ministry been formed, it is very
possible that the history of France during the next sixty years would
have been different.
But the most fatal measure adopted by the Assembly was that (November
9, 1789) which prevented any of its members from being minister during
its continuance, and from entering the service of the crown for two
years after its dissolution. The consequences of this resolution,
aimed at those who, like Mirabeau and Talleyrand, were hoping to erect
a constitutional government, and to have the direction of it, were
incalculable. The persons at that time who had most influence in the
Assembly were men with moderate opinions, great talents, and great
ambition. Had such men been placed as the head of affairs they might
have controlled them and established a government at once popular and
safe. But this new regulation prevented those who were powerful as
representatives of the people from using their influence in supporting
the executive power of the crown. It drove them, moreover, if their
passions were violent and their positions desperate, to seek for power
by means hostile to the constitution which annihilated their hopes.
It had this effect upon Mirabeau; and his sentiments becoming known to
the court, a sort of alliance established itself between them in the
spring of 1790;--an alliance entered into too late (since most of the
great questions on which Mirabeau’s influence might have been useful
were already decided) and most absurdly carried on; for whilst the King
opened to Mirabeau his purse, he shut from him his confidence, and at
first, and for a long time, exacted that the compact he had entered
into with the great orator for the defence of his throne should be kept
altogether secret, even from his own ministers.[21]
Mirabeau was to advise the King in secret, to help him indirectly in
public; but he was not to have the King’s countenance, and he was to be
thwarted and opposed by the King’s friends.
The error which both parties to this arrangement committed was the
result of the feeble and irresolute character of the one, who never did
anything wholly and sincerely, and of the over-bold and over-confident
character of the other, who never doubted that whatever he attempted
must succeed, and who now easily persuaded himself that having
vanquished the difficulty of opening a communication with the court,
he should promptly vanquish that of governing it. Indeed, the desire
of Mirabeau to serve the crown being sincere, and his ability to do so
evident, he (not unnaturally perhaps) felt convinced that his sincerity
would be trusted, and his talents given fair play.
But it is clear that the King thought of buying off a dangerous enemy,
and not of gaining a determined ally. Thus he went on supplying
Mirabeau’s wants, receiving Mirabeau’s reports, attending little
to Mirabeau’s counsels, until matters got so bad that even the
irresolution of Louis XVI. was vanquished (this was about the end of
1790), and then, for the first time, was seriously entertained a plan
which the daring orator had long ago advised, but which the King had
never, up to that period, rejected nor yet sanctioned.
This plan consisted in withdrawing the King from Paris; surrounding
him with troops still faithful, and by the aid of a new assembly,
for which public opinion was to be prepared, reforming the
constitution--now on the point of being completed--a constitution
which, while it pretended to be monarchical, not only prevented the
monarch from practically exercising any power without the express
permission of a popular assembly, but established, as its fundamental
theory, that the King was merely the executor of that assembly’s
sovereign authority: an addition which, at first sight, may seem of
small importance, but which, as it was calculated daily to influence
the spirit of men’s actions, could not but have an immense effect on
the daily working of their institutions. Nor was this all. Nations,
like individuals, have, so to speak, two wills: that of the moment--the
result of passion, caprice, and impulse; and that of leisure and
deliberation--the result of foresight, prudence, and reason. All free
governments possessing any solidity (whatever their appellation) have,
for this reason, contained a power of some kind calculated to represent
the maturer judgment of the people and to check the spontaneous,
violent, and changeful ebullitions of popular excitement. Even this
barrier, however, was not here interposed between a chamber which was
to have all the influence in the State, and a chief magistrate who was
to have none.
The constitution about to be passed was, in short, an impracticable
one, and no person saw this more clearly than Mirabeau; but, whilst
ready and desirous to destroy it, he by no means lent himself to
the ideas, though he was somewhat subjugated by the charms of
Marie-Antoinette.
“Je serai ce que j’ai été toujours,” he says in a letter to the King,
15th December, 1790, “défenseur du pouvoir monarchique réglé par les
lois; apôtre de la liberté garantie par le pouvoir monarchique.”[22]
Thus he undertook the difficult and almost impossible enterprise of
rescuing liberty at the same time from a monarch in the hands of
courtiers enthusiastic for absolute power, and from a mob under the
influence of clubs, which intended to trample constitutional monarchy
under the feet of a democratical despotism.
I have narrated what had undoubtedly been Mirabeau’s projects; for
we have to consider what were probably his thoughts when, in acute
suffering but with an unclouded mind and a clear prescience of his
approaching dissolution, he summoned his former friend, with whom, it
is said, he was never till that instant completely reconciled, to the
couch from which he was no more to rise.
Must we not suppose that Mirabeau in this, his last conversation with
M. de Talleyrand, spoke of the schemes which then filled his mind? And
does it not seem probable that he at that hour conceived the Bishop of
Autun to be the person best fitted to fill the difficult position which
he himself was about to leave vacant, and amidst the various intrigues
and combinations of which it required so much skill to steer?
For this supposition there are many plausible reasons. M. de
Talleyrand, like Mirabeau, was an aristocrat by birth, a liberal by
circumstances and opinion; he was also one of the members of the
Assembly, who possessed the greatest authority over that portion of
it which Mirabeau himself influenced; and likewise one of a very
small number of members upon whom M. de Montmorin, the minister with
whom Louis XVI. at last consented that Mirabeau should confidentially
communicate, had told Mirabeau he most relied. Lastly, he was
acquainted with all the classes and almost all the individuals then
seeking to disturb, or hoping to compose, the disordered elements of
society. He knew the court, the clergy, the Orleanists. He had been
one of the founders of the Jacobins; he was a member of its moderate
rival, the Feuillans; and although, undoubtedly, he wanted the fire and
eloquence necessary to command in great assemblies, he was pre-eminent
in the tact and address which enable a man to manage those by whom such
assemblies are led.
In short, though Mirabeau left no Mirabeau behind him, M. de Talleyrand
was, perhaps, the person best qualified to supply his loss, and the
one whom Mirabeau himself was most likely to have pointed out for a
successor. I have no clue, however, beyond conjecture, to guide me on
this subject, unless the public trust which Mirabeau confided to M.
de Talleyrand in his last hours may be cited as a testimony of his
other and more secret intentions. What this trust was, we may learn
from the statement of M. de Talleyrand himself, who, on the following
day, amidst a silence and a sorrow which pervaded all parties (for a
man of superior genius, whatever his faults, rarely dies unlamented),
ascending the tribune of the National Assembly, said in a voice which
appeared unfeignedly affected:
“I went yesterday to the house of M. de Mirabeau. An immense crowd
filled that mansion, to which I carried a sentiment more sorrowful than
the public grief. The spectacle of woe before me filled the imagination
with the image of death; it was everywhere but in the mind of him
whom the most imminent danger menaced. He had asked to see me. It is
needless to relate the emotion which many things he said caused me. But
M. de Mirabeau was at that time above all things the man of the public;
and in this respect we may regard as a precious relic the last words
which could be saved from that mighty prey, on which death was about to
seize. Concentrating all his interest on the labours that still remain
to this Assembly, he remembered that the law of succession was the
order of the day, and lamented he could not assist at the discussion of
the question, regretting death, because it deprived him of the power of
performing a public duty. But, as his opinion was committed to writing,
he confided the manuscript to me, in order that I might in his name
communicate it to you. I am going to execute this duty. The author
of the manuscript is now no more; and so intimately were his wishes
and thoughts connected with the public weal, that you may imagine
yourselves catching his last breath, as you listen to the sentiments
which I am about to read to you.”
Such were the words with which M. de Talleyrand prefaced the memorable
discourse which, in establishing the principles on which the law of
inheritance has since rested in France, laid the foundations of a new
French society, on a basis which no circumstance that can now happen
seems likely to alter.
“There is as much difference,” said Mirabeau, “between what a man does
during his life, and what he does after his death, as between death
and life. What is a testament? It is the expression of the will of a
man who has no longer any will respecting property which is no longer
his property; it is the action of a man no longer accountable for his
actions to mankind; it is an absurdity, and an absurdity ought not to
have the force of law.”
Such is the argument set forth in this celebrated and singular speech.
Ingenious rather than profound, it does not seem, as we turn to it
coolly now, worthy of the reputation it attained, nor of the effect
which it has undoubtedly produced. But, read in M. de Talleyrand’s deep
voice, and read as the last thoughts upon testamentary dispositions of
a man who was making his own will when he composed it, and who since
then was with his luminous intellect and marvellous eloquence about to
be consigned to the obscure silence of the grave, it could hardly fail
to make a deep impression. It was, moreover, the mantle of the departed
prophet; and the world, whether wrong or right in the supposition,
fancied that it saw in this political legacy the intention to designate
a political successor.
VI.
Thus, M. de Talleyrand, already, as we have seen, a member of the
department of Paris, was immediately chosen to fill the place in the
directorship of that department, an appointment which Mirabeau’s death
left vacant.
In this municipal council, considerable influence still existed; nor
did it want various means for exercising that influence over the middle
classes of the capital; so that a man of resolution and tact could have
made it one of the most useful instruments for restoring the royal
authority and consolidating it on new foundations.
It seems not unlikely, indeed, that M. de Talleyrand had the design
of making it popular as the organ of good advice to the King, and of
making the King popular by engaging him to listen to this advice,
since we find that it drew up an address to him on the 18th April
(about a fortnight after Mirabeau’s death), urging him to put aside
from his councils those whom the nation distrusted, and to confide
frankly in the men who were yet popular: whilst there is reason to
believe, as I shall by-and-by have occasion to show, that M. de
Talleyrand entered about this time into secret negotiations with the
King, or, at least, offered him, through M. de Laporte, his best
assistance.
But Louis XVI. was more likely to trust a bold and passionate man like
Mirabeau, whom, notwithstanding his birth, he looked upon--considering
the situation in which the Revolution had found him--as an adventurer
who had been almost naturally his opponent, until he had purchased his
support, rather than a man like M. de Talleyrand; a philosopher, a wit,
who might be said to have been bred a courtier; and, on the other hand,
M. de Talleyrand himself was too cautious to commit himself boldly
and entirely to the daring and doubtful schemes which Mirabeau had
prepared, until he saw a tolerable chance of their being successful.
Other circumstances, moreover, occurred at this time, which could not
but have an unfavourable influence as to the establishment of any
serious concert between the scrupulous and mistrustful monarch, and the
chess-playing, constitutional bishop.
VII.
When M. de Talleyrand rejected the archbishopric of Paris, it was
clear that he expected nothing further from the church; and he no
doubt from that moment conceived the idea of freeing himself from its
trammels on the first decent opportunity: nor did he long wait for this
opportunity, for, on the 26th of April, one day after his consecration
of the Curé Expelles, the newly-elected Bishop of Finisterre, arrived a
brief thus announced in the _Moniteur_ of the 1st of May, 1791:
“_Le bref du Pape est arrivé jeudi dernier. De Talleyrand-Périgord,
ancien évêque d’Autun, y est suspendu de toutes fonctions
et excommunié, après quarante jours s’il ne revient pas a
résipiscence._”[23]
The moment had now come for that decisive measure which the unwilling
ecclesiastic had for some time contemplated; for he had too much tact
to think of continuing his clerical office under the interdiction of
the head of his church, and was by no means prepared to abandon his
political career, and to reconcile himself with Rome, on the condition
of separating himself from wealth and ambition. But one alternative
remained--that of abandoning the profession into which he had been
forced to enter. This he did at once, and without hesitation; appearing
in the world henceforth (though sometimes styled in public documents
the Abbé de Périgord, or the ancien évêque d’Autun) under the plain
designation of M. de Talleyrand, a designation which I have already
frequently applied to him, and by which, though he was destined to be
raised to far higher titles, he has by universal consent descended
to posterity. The act was a bold one; but, like most bold acts in
difficult circumstances, it was not (I speak of it as a matter of
worldly calculation) an imprudent one: for it released an indifferent
priest from a position which he could only fill with decency by a
constant hypocrisy, for which he was too indolent; and it delivered up
an able statesman to a career for which, by the nature of his talents,
he was peculiarly fitted. Neither was M. de Talleyrand’s withdrawal
from the church so remarkable a fact at that moment as it would have
been at any other; for France, and even Europe, were then overrun
by French ex-ecclesiastics of all grades, who were prohibited from
assuming their rank and unable to fulfil their duties, and who, in many
cases, were obliged to conceal their real calling under that from which
they earned a daily subsistence.
Nevertheless, the Bishop of Autun’s particular case excited and
merited attention. It had been as an organ and representative of
the French church, that this prelate had contributed in no slight
degree to alienate its property and change its constitution; and now,
his brethren in the French clergy being what he had made them, he
voluntarily threw their habit from his shoulders and renounced all
participation in their fate.
It might, it is true, be urged that none had lost more by the
destruction of the ancient church and its institutions than himself,
that he had originally become a priest against his inclinations,
and that he was compelled to decide either against his convictions
as a citizen or against his obligations as a churchman. Still, this
desertion from his order by one who had been so conspicuous a member
of it, was undoubtedly a scandal, and though the world usually pardons
those whom it has an interest to forgive, and though M. de Talleyrand,
if he erred, had the consolation of living to see his errors forgiven
or overlooked by many very rigid Catholics, who enjoyed his society,
by many very pious princes, who wanted his services, and even by the
Pope himself, when his holiness was in a situation to fear his enmity
and require his goodwill--he himself never felt entirely at his ease
as to his early profession, and was so sensitive on the subject that
the surest way to offend him was to allude to it. I was told by a lady,
long intimate with M. de Talleyrand, that even the mention of the word
“lawn” annoyed him.
As to Louis XVI., although making perpetual compromises with his
conscience, he was of all persons the one most likely to be shocked by
a bishop thus coolly converting himself into a layman; whilst it must
be added that M. de Talleyrand was of all persons the one least likely
to respect Louis XVI.’s scruples.
We may, therefore, reasonably suppose that whatever relations
were indirectly kept up between them at this time, such relations
were neither intimate nor cordial, but rather those which men not
unfrequently maintain with persons whom they neither like nor trust,
but are ready to serve under or be served by, should circumstances
arrive to render a closer connection mutually advantageous.
The King, however, had become more and more puzzled by the opposing
advice of his various and never-trusted counsellors, and more and
more dissatisfied with the prospect of having shortly to assent to a
constitution which, in reality, he looked upon as an abdication. It was
not surprising, therefore, that, on the morning of the 21st of June, it
was discovered that he had, with his family, quitted Paris; and it was
shortly afterwards ascertained that the fugitives had directed their
course towards the north of France and the camp of M. de Bouillé.
It will be remembered that, to withdraw from the capital to the camp of
this officer, in whose judgment, ability, and fidelity Louis XVI. most
relied, was part of Mirabeau’s old scheme.
But this was not all: the King, in a paper which he left behind him,
stated that it was his intention to retire to some portion of his
“kingdom where he could freely exercise his judgment, and there to
make such changes in the proposed constitution” (it was on the point
of being terminated) “as were necessary to maintain the sanctity of
religion, to strengthen the royal authority, and to consolidate a
system of true liberty.” A declaration of this kind (though the words I
have cited were rather ambiguous) was also comprised in the scheme of
Mirabeau.
Now, M. de Montmorin, the minister of foreign affairs--with one of
whose passports the King had actually made his escape as a servant of
a Madame de Korff--had been initiated, as we know, into Mirabeau’s
secrets, and M. de Talleyrand was one of M. de Montmorin’s friends,
and had been, as we have recently seen, by Mirabeau’s bedside during
his last hours. Hence it might be inferred, notwithstanding the causes
which prevented any real sympathy or cordial understanding between
the King and the ex-Bishop of Autun, that the latter was privy to the
flight of the former, and prepared to take part in the plans of which
that flight was to be the commencement.
Rumours, indeed, to this effect, concerning both M. de Montmorin and M.
de Talleyrand, were for a moment circulated in Paris.
But M. de Montmorin proved to the satisfaction of the Assembly that
he was innocent of all participation in the King’s evasion; and the
reports respecting M. de Talleyrand never went further than to one or
two of those journals which at that time disgraced the liberty of the
press by their total indifference as to whether they published truth or
falsehood.
It is also to be remarked that M. de Lafayette, whom on that subject
one must accept as a good authority, expressly charges the King with
having left M. de Montmorin and his most intimate friends ignorant of
his intentions.
“Il était ignoré,” says M. de Lafayette, “de ses ministres, des
royalistes de l’Assemblée, tous laissés exposés à un grand peril. Telle
était la situation non seulement des gardes nationaux de service, de
leurs officiers, mais des amis les plus dévoués du roi, du duc de
Brissac, commandant des cent-suisses, et de M. de Montmorin qui avait
très-innocemment donné un passeport sous le nom de la baronne de
Korff.”[24]
It is difficult to account for the inconsistency in Louis XVI.’s
conduct, except by referring to the inconsistency of his character:
I am, however, disposed to surmise that, after Mirabeau’s death, he
considered it would be impossible to unite a considerable portion of
the Assembly and the army in one common plan; and that he then began
carrying on at the same time two plans: the one relative to the policy
he should pursue in the event of his stay in the capital, which he
probably conducted through M. de Montmorin, who was intimate with the
leading members of the constitutional party in the Assembly; the other
relative to his flight, which he only entrusted to the general whose
camp he was about to seek, and to those private friends and adherents
who took little part in public affairs. It is further to be presumed
that, according to his constant incertitude and indolence, never long
or firmly fixed on any one project, he was scared by apprehensions
of the mob at the moment when most disposed to remain quietly in his
palace, and alarmed at the risk and trouble of moving when actually
pressing the preparations for his journey.
In this manner we may best reconcile his writing to M. de Bouillé, to
expect him at Montmedy within a week of his declaring to the sovereigns
of Europe (23rd April) that he was satisfied with his condition at
Paris: in this manner, likewise, we may explain his solemnly assuring
the general of the National Guard that he would not quit the Tuileries,
only two or three days before he actually did so.[25]
He rarely did what he intended to do; and belied himself more
frequently from change of intentions, than from intentional insincerity.
VIII.
At all events, it seems probable (returning to the fact with which we
are in the present instance most concerned) that Louis XVI.’s departure
took place without M. de Talleyrand’s active assistance, but I do not
think it probable that it was altogether without his knowledge.
The ex-Bishop had such a varied and extensive acquaintance that he was
pretty certain to know what he wished to know; and it was according to
his usual practice to contrive that he should not be compromised if the
King’s projects failed, and yet that he should be in a situation to
show that the King was indebted to him if those projects succeeded. It
is useless to speculate on what might have occurred had the unfortunate
monarch reached his destination; for travelling in a carriage
peculiarly heavy and peculiarly conspicuous at the rate of three miles
an hour, walking up the hills, putting his head out of the windows
at the post-houses, Louis XVI. arrived at the place where he was to
have met his escort twenty hours later than the appointed time, and
was finally stopped at the bridge of Varennes by a few resolute men,
and reconducted leisurely to the capital, amidst the insults of the
provinces and the silence of Paris.
The important question then arose, What was to be done respecting him?
Was he to be deposed in favour of a republic? All contemporary writers
agree that, at this moment, the idea of a republic was only in a few
visionary minds. Was he to be deposed in favour of a new monarch,
which, considering the emigration of his brothers and the infancy of
his child, could only be in favour of a new dynasty? or, was he to be
reinstated in the position he had quitted?
IX.
The views and conduct of M. de Talleyrand are at this crisis
interesting. We have been told by contemporaries, that he and Sieyès
were of opinion that there was a better chance of making the Revolution
successful with a limited monarchy under a new chief, elected by the
nation, than under the old one, who claimed his throne in virtue of
hereditary right; and we can easily understand their reasoning.
A king who had succeeded to a throne from which his ancestors had been
accustomed for centuries to dictate absolutely to their people, could
hardly be sincerely satisfied with possessing on sufferance a remnant
of his ancestors’ former authority; nor could a people be ever wholly
without suspicion of a prince who had to forget the ideas with which he
had received the sceptre before he could respect those which restricted
the use of it.
Louis XVI., moreover, had attempted to escape from his palace, as a
prisoner escaping from his gaol, and as a prisoner thus escaping he had
been caught and brought back to his place of confinement.
It was difficult to make anything of a sovereign in this condition
save a puppet, to be for a while the tool, and ere long the victim, of
contending parties.
Now, M. de Talleyrand had always a leaning to the Orleans branch of
the House of Bourbon: neither did he think so ill of the notorious
personage who was then the representative of the Orleans family, as the
contemporaries from whose report posterity has traced his portrait.
Of this prince he once said, in his own pithy manner, “Le duc
d’Orléans est le vase dans lequel on a jeté toutes les ordures de la
Révolution;”[26] and this was not untrue.
Philippe d’Orléans, indeed, who has figured in history under the
nickname or _sobriquet_ of “Egalité,” was neither fitted for the part
of a great sovereign in turbulent times nor for that of a quiet and
obscure citizen at any more tranquil period. Nevertheless, he was not
so bad a man as he has been represented; for both Legitimists and
Republicans have been obliged to blacken his character in order to
excuse their conduct to him.
His character has, furthermore, been mystified and exaggerated, as
we have looked at it by the lurid glare of that unnatural vote which
brings the later period of his life always prominently and horribly
before us. Still, in reality, he was rather a weak man, led into
villainous deeds by want of principle, than a man of a strong and
villainous nature, who did not scruple at crimes when they seemed
likely to advance his ambition. His only one strong passion was a
desire to be talked about.
It is possible that the King, by skilful management, might have turned
this ruling wish of his most powerful subject to the profit of his
monarchy: for the young Duc de Chartres was at one time anxious to
shine as an aspirant to military fame. The government, however, denied
his request to be employed as became his rank; and when, despite of
this denial, he engaged in a naval combat as a volunteer, the court
unjustly and impoliticly spread reports against his courage. To risk
his life in a balloon, to run riot in every extravagance of debauch,
to profess the opinions of a republican though the first prince of the
blood royal, were demonstrations of the same disposition which might
have made him a gallant soldier, a furious bigot, a zealous royalist,
and even a very tolerable constitutional monarch.
As to the various stories of his incessant schemes and complicated
manœuvres for exciting the populace, debauching the soldiery, and
seizing the crown, they are, in my opinion, no more worthy of credit
than the tales which at the same period were equally circulated
of Louis XVI.’s drunkenness, and Marie-Antoinette’s debaucheries.
Belonging to those whom Tacitus has described as “men loving
idleness--though hating quiet,” seeking popularity more than power, and
with a character easily modelled by circumstances, I am by no means
certain, that if M. de Talleyrand did think of bestowing on him what
was afterwards called a “citizen crown,” (it must be remembered that he
had not then been lowered and disgraced by the follies or crimes into
which he was subsequently led), the plan was not the best which could
have been adopted. But there was one great and insurmountable obstacle
to this design.
General Lafayette commanded the National Guard of Paris, and although
his popularity was already on the wane, he was still--Mirabeau being
dead--the most powerful citizen that had been raised up by the
Revolution. He did not want to run new risks, nor to acquire greater
power, nor to have a monarch with more popularity or more authority
than the runaway king.
Courageous rather than audacious, more avid of popularity than of
power, a chivalric knight-errant, an amiable enthusiast, rather than
a great captain, or a practical politician, the part which suited him
was that of parading himself before the people as the guardian of the
constitution, and before the sovereign as the idol of the nation. To
this part he wished to confine himself; and the monarch under whom he
could play it most easily was Louis XVI. Nor was this all.
Ambitious men may agree as to sharing the attributes of office; vain
men will not agree as to sharing the pleasure of applause: and it is
said that Lafayette never forgot that there was another bust, that
of the Duc d’Orléans, carried about the streets of Paris together
with his own, on the memorable day which saw the destruction of the
Bastille. To any idea, therefore, of the Duc d’Orléans as King of
France, he was decidedly opposed.
X.
Thus, after making just that sort of effort in favour of the younger
branch of the Bourbons which left him free to support the elder one,
if such effort proved abortive, M. de Talleyrand finally declared for
Louis XVI., as the only person who could be monarch, if a monarchy
could be preserved; and was also for giving this prince such a position
as he might honourably accept, with functions that he might really
fulfil.
The King himself, it must be added, was now in a better disposition
than he had hitherto been for frankly accepting the conditions of the
new existence proposed to him.
A hero, or rather a saint, when it was required of his fortitude to
meet danger or to undergo suffering, his nature was one of those which
shrink from exertion, and prefer endurance to a struggle for either
victory or escape.
It was with difficulty that he had been so far roused into action as to
attempt his recent expedition; he had been disgusted with its trouble,
more than awed by its peril. Death itself seemed preferable to another
such effort.
He had seen, likewise, from the feeling of the provinces, and even
from the infidelity of the troops, who, sent to escort him, might have
attempted his rescue; but who, when told to cry, “_Vive le Roi!_”
cried, “_Vive la Nation!_” that, even if he had reached M. de Bouillé’s
camp, it would have been difficult for that general, notwithstanding
his firmness of character and military ability, to have placed the
sovereign of France in any position within the French territory from
which he might have dictated to, or even treated with, the French
people. To quit Paris, therefore, a second time was evidently to quit
France and to unite himself with, and to be subordinate to, that party
of _émigrés_ which had always preferred his younger brother, whose
presumption had become insulting to his authority and offensive to
Marie-Antoinette’s pride.
On the other hand, many persons of note in the Assembly who had
hitherto employed their talents and their popularity towards the
weakening of the monarchical power, were at this juncture disposed to
strengthen it.
Amongst the commissioners sent to conduct Louis XVI. from Varennes to
Paris, was Barnave, an eloquent young lawyer, who, from a desire to
distinguish himself in a glorious rivalry with Mirabeau, had adopted
that party in the Assembly which, whilst declaring itself against a
republic, contended in all discussions, and especially in the famous
discussion on the _veto_, for abridging and in fact annihilating the
royal authority. Struck by the misfortunes of Marie-Antoinette,--beauty
never appearing so attractive to a generous heart as in the hour of
distress,--and convinced, perhaps, by his own personal observations
that Louis XVI. had in many respects been grossly calumniated, Barnave
had at last adopted the views which had previously been formed by his
great rival, whose ashes then slept in the Pantheon.
The two Lameths also, officers of noble birth, possessing some talent
and more spirit, perceiving that by the course they had hitherto
pursued they had raised up at each step more formidable rivals amongst
the lower classes of society than any they would otherwise have had to
encounter amongst the leaders of the nobility or the favourites of the
court, were now as anxious to restrain the democracy which they hated,
as Barnave was to assist the queen whom he loved; whilst many of all
ranks, conscientiously in favour of liberty, but as justly alarmed at
anarchy, beginning to consider it more important to curb the license
of the mob and the clubs than that of the King and the government,
were for rallying round the tottering throne and trying to give it a
tolerable foundation of security.
XI.
For these reasons, then, there was a combination of interests, desires,
and abilities, in favour of establishing Louis XVI. at the head of such
a constitution, as, if not the best possible, would have been the best
possible at that time; and, every other rational project seeming out
of the question, M. de Talleyrand entered, as I have said, into this
one, although with less faith in its practicability than some of his
coadjutors.
There were, however, at this moment circumstances which favoured it.
An assemblage, collected together by the influence and exhortations of
the most violent of the Jacobins for the purpose of signing a petition
to the Assembly against the continuance of the monarchy, having given a
sufficient pretext by its tumultuous character and excesses to justify
the act, was dispersed by Lafayette at the head of the National Guard,
and with the authority of Bailly, mayor of Paris;--that is, with the
force and authority of the whole mass of the _bourgeoisie_, or middle
class.
The Republicans were daunted. A revision of the constitution, moreover,
was required; for the desultory and inconsistent manner in which many
of the measures of the Assembly had been voted, rendered it necessary
to distinguish between those which were temporary in their character
and those that were to remain fundamental laws of the State. This
revision offered the opportunity of introducing changes of importance
into the constitution itself, and amongst these a second chamber or
senate.
To this addition even Lafayette consented; although his opinion was
that such second chamber should be elective, as in the United States
(his constant model), and not hereditary as in England, which another
section of public men--anxious to maintain an aristocracy as well as a
monarchy--desired.
The moderate party, still powerful in the departments, in Paris, and
in the National Guard, as well as in the army, had not, nevertheless,
by itself a majority in the Assembly; and a mere majority could not
have undertaken so great a plan as that contemplated. With the aid
of the Royalists, however, the execution of this plan was easy. But
the Royalists, consisting of two hundred and ninety members, with the
Abbé Maury at their head (Cazales, the other leader of the Royalist
party, at this time emigrated), retaining their seats in the Assembly,
declined to take any part in its proceedings;--and in this manner the
only hope of safety for the King was destroyed by the very persons who
arrogated to themselves the title of “the King’s friends;” nor was this
course, though foolish and unpatriotic, altogether unnatural.
What a party can least bear is the triumph of its opponents: the
consolidation of a constitutional government was the triumph of that
party, which from the beginning of the Revolution had advocated such a
government and declared it possible. The triumph of the opposite party,
on the contrary, was, that there should be an absolute monarchy, or
no monarchy; a government of “_lettres de cachet_,” or no government.
This party had to prove that to diminish the sovereign’s power was to
conduct him to the scaffold; that to give the people freedom was to
overthrow society. Thus, if they did not hope for the worst, they would
do nothing to secure the best that was practicable. It is conjunctures
like these which confound the calculations of those who fancy that men
will act according to their interests.
Left to themselves, the Constitutionalists had not sufficient power
to give battle to the democrats in the Assembly and the clubs out
of it. They voted the King a body-guard and a privy purse--measures
better calculated to excite the envy than to curb the license of
the populace; and then, betrayed by the same wish to show their
disinterestedness, which had made them parties, in November, 1789,
to the stupid declaration that no member of the National Assembly
should be the King’s minister, they committed the still greater folly
of declaring that no member of the National Assembly should sit in
the next legislature, nor hold any office under the Crown during its
continuance; a decree decapitating France, and delivering an untried
constitution into the hands of inexperienced legislators.
This decree left the future too obscure for any man of calmness
and judgment to flatter himself that there was more than a faint
probability of fixing its destinies for some years to come; but
whatever these destinies might be, the reputation of the statesman
whose views formed the mind of a rising generation, would survive the
errors and passions of a past one.
It was with this thought before him that M. de Talleyrand, just
previous to the dissolution of the National Assembly, or, as it is
sometimes called, _l’Assemblée constituante_, brought under its
notice a vast project of education, then too late to be decided upon,
but which, printed and recommended to the attention of the coming
legislature, and having at one extremity the communal school and at the
other the Institute, exists with but slight alterations at this very
day.
The Assembly now separated (on the 13th of September) amidst that
usual exhibition of fireworks and fêtes which mark the history of
the animated and variable people, who, never contented and never
despairing, exhibit the same joy when they crown their heroes or break
their idols.
Such was the end of that great Assembly which passed away rapidly from
the face of affairs at the moment, but which left its foot-print on the
world for generations that have not yet effaced it.
In this Assembly, M. de Talleyrand was the most conspicuous figure
after Mirabeau, as he was hereafter in the Empire the most conspicuous
personage after Napoleon; and I have dwelt more on this portion of his
career than I may do upon others, because it is the one least known,
and for which he has been least appreciated.
The reputation, however, which he obtained and justly earned in
those violent and turbulent times, was not of a violent or turbulent
character. A member of the two famous clubs of the day (Jacobins and
Feuillans), he frequented them occasionally, not to take part in their
debates, but to be acquainted with and influence those who did. In the
National Assembly he had always sided with the most moderate who could
hope for power, and who did not abjure the Revolution.
Necker, Mounier, Mirabeau, had successively his support so long as they
took an active part in public affairs. In the same manner he acted,
when they disappeared, with Barnave and the two Lameths; and even with
Lafayette, though he and that personage disliked and despised each
other. No personal feeling altered his course; it was never marked
by personal prejudices, nor can I say that it was ever illumined by
extraordinary eloquence. His influence arose from his proposing great
and reasonable measures at appropriate times, in singularly clear and
elegant language; and this from the height of a great social position.
He did not pretend to be guided by sentiment or emotion; neither
hatred, nor devotion, nor apprehension, ever seemed to affect his
conduct. He avowed that he wished for a constitutional monarchy, and
was willing to do all he could to obtain one. But he never said he
would sacrifice himself to this idea if it proved impossible to make it
successful.
Many have attacked his honour because, being a noble and a churchman,
he sided against the two orders he belonged to; but in reality he
rather wished to make ancient things live amongst new ideas than to
sweep ancient things away. Others have denied his sagacity in promoting
a revolution which drove him from affluence and power into poverty and
exile. But, in spite of what has been said to the contrary, I by no
means believe that the end of the Revolution of 1789 was the natural
consequence of its commencement. The more we examine the history of
that period, the more we are struck by the incessant and unaccountable
follies of those who wished to arrest it. There was no want of
occasions when the most ordinary courage and good sense on the part of
the King and his friends would have given the one all the power it was
advisable he should exercise, and preserved the other in as influential
a position as was compatible with the abolition of intolerable abuses.
No man can calculate with accuracy on all the faults that may be
committed by his opponents. It is probable that M. de Talleyrand did
not calculate on the utter subversion of the society he undertook to
reform; but it appears that at each crisis he foresaw the dangers that
were approaching, and counselled the measures most likely to prevent
their marring his country’s prospects and his own fortunes.
At the actual moment, he perceived that the new legislature would be
a new world, which could neither have the same notions, nor belong to
the same society, nor be subject to the same influences, as the last;
and that the wisest thing to do was to withdraw himself from the Paris
horizon until the clouds that obscured it had, in some direction or
other, passed away.
In England, he was sufficiently near not to be forgotten, and
sufficiently distant not to be compromised. England, moreover, was the
natural field of observation at that moment for a French statesman. To
England, therefore, he went, accompanied by M. de Biron, and arrived in
London on the 25th of January, 1792.