FIRST CONSULATE.
Talleyrand supports the extension of the First Consul’s
power, based on a principle of toleration and oblivion of the
past.--Napoleon attempts peace with England; fails.--Battle of
Marengo.--Treaty of Lunéville and peace of Amiens.--Society at
Paris during the peace.--Rupture.--M. de Talleyrand supports
Consulate for life, Legion of Honour, and Concordat.--Gets
permission from the Pope to wear the secular costume and
to administer civil affairs.--Marries.--Execution of Duc
d’Enghien.--New coalition.--Battle of Austerlitz.--Treaty
of Presburg.--Fox comes into power; attempts a peace
unsuccessfully.--Prussia declares against France, and is
vanquished at Jena.--Peace of Tilsit.--M. de Talleyrand
resigns Ministry of Foreign Affairs.--Differences about
policy in Spain.--Talleyrand and Fouché now at the head of
a quiet opposition.--Russian campaign; idea of employing
M. de Talleyrand.--Napoleon’s defeats commence.--Offers M.
de Talleyrand the Ministry of Foreign Affairs after the
battle of Leipsic, but on unacceptable conditions.--In
the continued series of disasters that ensue, Talleyrand
always advises peace.--Tries to persuade Marie-Louise not
to quit Paris.--Doubtful then between a regency with her
and the Bourbons.--When, however, her departure suspends
the constituted authority, and the Emperor of Russia takes
up his residence at the Hôtel Talleyrand, and asks M. de
Talleyrand what government should be established, he says that
of the Bourbons.--Efforts to obtain a Constitution with the
Restoration.--Napoleon arrives at Fontainebleau.--Negotiates,
but finally abandons the French throne, and accepts the island
of Elba, under the title of Emperor, as a retreat.
I.
One of M. de Talleyrand’s striking phrases (a phrase I have already
quoted) was that the great Revolution “_avait désossé la France_”--“had
disboned France!” There had ceased, in fact, to be any great principles
in that country, holding affairs together, and keeping them in form
and order. He said, then, “What principles cannot do, a man must. When
society cannot create a government, a government must create society.”
It was with this idea that he was willing to centre in Napoleon all
the power which that wonderful man’s commanding genius required. But
he wanted, in return, two things: one, that he should himself profit
by the power he aided in establishing; the other, that that power
should be exercised, on the whole, for the benefit of the French
nation. Relying, for the moment, on the fulfilment of these conditions,
he delivered himself up to a dictatorship which should quietly and
gradually absorb all the used-up opinions and institutions.
Sieyès, who, with a more profound, had a less sagacious intellect,
imagined that after he, a man of letters, had handed over the State to
a daring, unscrupulous man of the world, he could govern that man. But
M. de Talleyrand rather despised and underrated Sieyès, whom he looked
on as a tailor who was always making coats that never fitted--a skilful
combiner of theories, but without any tact as to their application;
and when some one, _à propos_ of the new constitution, which Sieyès
had undertaken to frame, said, “Après tout ce Sieyès a un esprit _bien
profond_,” he replied, “Profond! Hem! Vous voulez dire peut-être
_creux_.”[38]
Bonaparte’s conduct justified this witticism; for when the first
project of the constitution alluded to was presented to him, he treated
it with ridicule, in the well-known phrase: “A man must have little
honour or intellect who would consent to be a pig, put up in a stye to
fatten on so many millions a year.”
The hero of the 18th Brumaire was not, in truth, a man who would accept
the robes without the reality of power; and having taken out of the
plan proposed for his acceptance what suited his views, and discarded
the rest, he endowed himself with as much authority as he thought would
be tolerated; for though France was wearied with perpetual changes and
convulsions, she was not at that time prepared to end them by a new
sovereignty.
One of the causes, indeed, which facilitated Napoleon’s early steps
towards the great object of his ambition, was the general incredulity
as to the possibility of his attaining it.
M. de Talleyrand himself did not, in all probability, imagine that
he was making a military empire, when he was aiming at concentrating
authority in the hands of the chief of the Republic; but he thought
that the first care was to steady a community which had so long lost
its balance; and on one occasion, shortly after the formation of the
new government, and when the part which the first consul was to play
was not yet altogether decided, he is said by a contemporary[39] to
have held, at a private interview with the first consul, the following
language:[40]--
“Citizen consul, you have entrusted to me the ministry of foreign
affairs, and I will justify your confidence; but I think I must declare
to you that henceforth I will communicate with you alone. This is no
vain presumption on my part. I say that, in the interest of France--in
order that it may be well governed--in order that there may be unity
of action in its conduct--you must be the first consul; and the first
consul must have in his hands all the political part of the government;
_i.e._, the ministry of the interior and of the police, for internal
affairs; and my ministry for foreign; and also the two great ministries
of execution, the war and the marine. It would be proper that these
five departments should communicate with you alone. The administrations
of justice and finance are, no doubt, connected with the policy of
the State by many ties, but these ties are less inseparable from that
policy than the departments I have mentioned. If you will allow me
to say so, then, general, I would add that it would be convenient to
give to the second consul, a very clever jurisconsult, the department
of justice; and to the third consul, also very able as a financier,
the direction of the finances. These matters will occupy and amuse
them. And you, general, having at your disposal all the mainsprings of
government, will be able to give it that fitting direction for arriving
at the noble aim which you have in view--the regeneration of France.”
II.
The minister of foreign affairs, in advising a willing listener thus
to take possession of all important affairs, merely echoed, it must be
allowed, a general sentiment; for all the different parties then in
presence saw the new dictator through glasses coloured by their own
particular illusions. The Royalists imagined that General Bonaparte
would turn out a General Monk; the moderate Republicans, a General
Washington! M. de Talleyrand knew that Bonaparte was neither a Monk
nor a Washington; and that he would neither hand over the power he
had acquired to the exiled dynasty, nor lay it down at the feet of
the French people. He was aware, on the contrary, that he would keep
it as long as he could keep it; and he wished him to keep it with
a system which should have at its head the men of the Revolution,
without excluding men of the ancient _régime_ who would accept the
principles that the Revolution had founded. This was precisely, at that
moment, the view of Napoleon himself; and the appointment of Fouché, a
regicide, as minister of police, and the permission for the Royalist
_émigrés_ and the proscribed priests to return to France, gave the
exact expression of the policy that was thenceforth to be pursued.
But none knew better than the first consul that it was necessary,
having gained power by war, to show that he wished to consolidate it by
peace. He addressed, therefore, his famous letter to George III.,[41]
on the effect of which he counted little, and his minister of foreign
affairs less. But it was always something in the eyes of his nation
to have evinced his own inclination for an interval of repose, and to
have placed himself on a level with kings when he spoke to them as the
popular chief of the French people.
The refusal of England to treat was the signal of a new coalition, and
the renewal of a general war; at the commencement of which Bonaparte,
by a stroke of genius, defeated the Austrians in Italy when they were
marching as they conceived without opposition into France.
But although the hopes of the cabinet of Vienna were struck down at
the battle of Marengo, it did not yet submit to despair, even when the
Emperor Paul, flattered by the attentions of the first consul (who
had returned him his prisoners newly clothed), had withdrawn from the
coalition. The policy of France, under these circumstances, was to
create divisions amongst the remaining allies (Austria and England)
by opening negotiations with each. This was tried by M. de Talleyrand
with the cabinet of Vienna, through the means of the Comte St. Julien,
who (sent to settle some particulars relative to the convention which
took place after the Italian war) actually signed a treaty which his
government disowned; and with that of St. James, through the means of
an agent employed in the exchange of prisoners, but whose attempts as a
negotiator also failed. The success of Moreau, in Germany, however, at
last obtained the treaty of Lunéville; and shortly afterwards M. Otto
concluded in London the preliminaries of a similar treaty, which was
received with equal joy by the French and English nations.
The skill with which these affairs were conducted was generally
acknowledged; but M. de Talleyrand had nevertheless to undergo the
mortification of seeing Joseph Bonaparte named the negotiator with Lord
Cornwallis instead of himself. He accepted, however, this arrangement
with a good grace, for he had this great advantage over most men,--his
vanity submitted itself easily to his interest or his ambition; and
seeing the impolicy of a rivalry with the first consul’s eldest
brother, he saw also that, having already obtained the signature of
the preliminaries of a treaty, he should have with the public all the
merits of that treaty if it took place, and Joseph Bonaparte all the
blame, if any failure in the further negotiations occurred.
In the meantime, the seas were opened at once to France, and the
English government, having made this immediate concession, was almost
bound to give way in any subsequent discussions; for to have yielded
what France most desired in order to obtain peace, and then not to have
obtained it, would have been ridiculous. Thus, a definitive treaty was
shortly afterwards signed at Amiens, and Paris re-opened its gates to
the excited curiosity of the English traveller.
III.
During this period M. de Talleyrand’s house became necessarily one of
the great resorts of foreign visitors. He lived in the Hôtel Galifet,
then the official residence of the minister of foreign affairs, a
large hotel in the Rue St. Dominique (Faubourg St. Germain), which had
been built by a rich colonist of St. Domingo, who gave no other order
to his architect than to erect an hotel with ninety-nine columns--a
monument of the skill of the builder, and of the singularity of the
proprietor--which yet remains.
The principal _habitués_ of the ministry were M. de Montrond, Duc de
Laval, M. de Saint-Foix, General Duroc, Colonel Beauharnais, afterwards
Prince Eugène, Fox, Erskine, &c., &c.
Some few yet remember the easy nonchalance with which, reclining on his
sofa by the side of the fire, the minister of foreign affairs welcomed
those whom he wished to make at home, the extreme and formal civility
which marked his reception of his colleagues and the senators with whom
he was not intimate, and the careless and pleasing familiarity that he
used towards the favourite officers of the first consul, and the ladies
and diplomatists to whom he was partial.
The enmity which for the last few years had been so violent between
the French and English people was beginning to subside amidst their
intercourse; but, unhappily for them and for the world, the peace, or
rather truce, which they had concluded could only be maintained by
acknowledging a galling inferiority to the French ruler, who, it was
evident, regarded our retirement from the contest we had long waged
without dishonour as a means for relieving St. Domingo, confirming his
dominion over Italy, and invading Switzerland, circumstances which
rendered it justifiable for England to retain Malta, even though she
had foolishly and inconsiderately engaged to resign it.
I need hardly observe that the conduct of Napoleon throughout the whole
of this affair was overbearing; but that of his minister of foreign
affairs was the reverse; and I should add that that minister had the
credit of having obtained, just as Lord Whitworth was departing, the
first consul’s permission to propose an arrangement which would have
left us Malta for such a compensation as, under all the circumstances,
might perhaps have been accepted. But this compromise being haughtily
rejected, war somewhat abruptly recommenced.
The respite, however, thus secured, had served Napoleon’s purposes, and
enabled him, by the popularity it brought, to lay the first stones of
the Empire,--in the Legion of Honour, out of which grew the nobility of
the Empire;--in the consulship for life, which was a step towards the
hereditary rank he soon assumed; and in the Concordat, which preluded
his coronation by the Pope.
It is not to be presumed that these great innovations on the
principles which had so long been dominant took place without a
struggle. All the ardent republicans combated them as a matter of
course, designating the tyrant who proposed them as a second Cæsar, who
evoked the patriotism of a second Brutus. But a more serious party also
attacked them in the legislative bodies, nor was it without an illegal
act of authority that this party was vanquished.
The measures in question were not in fact popular, and the Concordat at
one time seemed not unlikely to provoke an insurrection in the army.
M. de Talleyrand, nevertheless, supported these measures warmly; and,
with the aid of Cambacérès, softened and conciliated many of their
opponents.
“We have,” he constantly repeated, “to consolidate a government and
reorganize a society. Governments are only consolidated by a continued
policy, and it is not only necessary that this policy should be
continued,--people should have the conviction that it will be so.
“I look upon the consulship for life as the only means of inspiring
this conviction.”
So again, he said, with respect to the Legion of Honour and the
Concordat, “In reorganizing any human society, you must give it those
elements which you find in every human society.
“Where did you ever see one flourish without honours or religion? The
present age has created a great many new things, but it has not created
a new mankind; and if you mean to legislate practically for men, you
must treat men as what they always have been and always are.”
For the Concordat he had a peculiar reason to plead; no one gained so
much by it: for he now legitimately entered into civil life on the
authority of his spiritual master, and by a brief which I here cite:--
“_To our very dear son, Charles Maurice Talleyrand._[42]
“We were touched with joy at learning your ardent desire
to be reconciled with us and the Catholic Church: loosening
then on your account the bowels of our fatherly charity, we
discharge you by the plenitude of our power from the effect of
all excommunications. We impose on you, as the consequence of
your reconciliation with us and the Church, the distribution
of alms, more especially for the poor of the church of Autun,
which you formerly governed: we grant you, moreover, the
liberty to wear the secular costume and to administer all civil
affairs, whether in the office you now fill, or in others to
which your government may call you.”
This brief was taken by M. de Talleyrand as a permission to
become a layman, and even to take a wife. The lady he married,
born in the East Indies, divorced from a M. Grand, and
mentioned, in connection with a scandalous story, in the life
of Sir Philip Francis, was as remarkable for being a beauty as
for not being a wit. Every one has heard the story (whether
true or invented) of her asking Sir George Robinson after his
man “Friday.” But M. de Talleyrand vindicated his choice,
saying, “A clever wife often compromises her husband; a stupid
one only compromises herself.”
IV.
It was shortly after the renewal of hostilities that the event occurred
which has given rise to the most controversy concerning Napoleon,
and to the bitterest attacks upon M. de Talleyrand. I speak of the
execution of the Duc d’Enghien. Many details attending this transaction
are still in dispute; but the broad outline of it is as follows:--
The pure Republicans (as they were then called) had, on the one hand,
at this period become desperate; on the other hand, the latitude that
had for a time been allowed to the Royalists, had given that party
courage. The renewal of an European war increased this courage. The
power and prestige of the marvellous person at the head of the consular
government had made both parties consider that nothing was possible to
them as long as he lived.
A variety of attempts had consequently been made against his life. The
popular belief--that of Bonaparte himself--was that these attempts
proceeded mainly from the _émigrés_, aided by the money of England,
a belief which the foolish correspondence of the British minister at
Munich, Mr. Drake, with a pretended _émigré_--in fact, however, an
agent of the French government (Mahée),--might unfortunately have
encouraged.
George Cadoudal, the daring leader of the Chouans, who had already
been implicated in plots of this kind, was known to be in Paris and
engaged in some new enterprise, with which Pichegru, certainly--Moreau,
apparently--was connected. But in the reports of the police it was also
stated that the conspirators awaited the arrival at Paris of a prince
of the house of Bourbon.
The Duc d’Enghien, then residing at Ettenheim, in the Duchy of Baden,
seemed the most likely of the Bourbon princes to be the one alluded to:
and spies were sent to watch his movements.
The reports of such agents are rarely correct in the really important
particulars. But they were particularly unfortunate in this instance,
for they mistook, owing to the German pronunciation, a Marquis de
Thumery, staying with the Bourbon Prince, for Dumouriez: and the
presence of that general on the Rhenan frontier, and with a Condé,
strongly corroborated all other suspicions.
A council was summoned, composed of the three consuls,--Bonaparte,
Cambacérès, Lebrun,--the minister of justice and police, Régnier,--and
Talleyrand, minister of foreign affairs.[43]
At this council (10th March 1804) it was discussed whether it would
not be advisable to seize the Duc d’Enghien, though out of France,
and bring him to Paris; and the result was the immediate expedition of
a small force, under Colonel Caulaincourt, which seized the prince on
the Baden territory (15th March); M. de Talleyrand, in a letter to the
Grand Duke, explaining and justifying the outrage. Having been kept two
days at Strasburg, the royal victim was sent from that city, on the
18th, in a post chariot, arrived on the 20th at the gates of Paris at
eleven in the morning; was kept there till four in the afternoon; was
then conducted by the boulevards to Vincennes, which he reached at nine
o’clock in the evening; and was shot at six o’clock on the following
morning, having been condemned by a military commission--composed
of a general of brigade (General Hullin), six colonels, and two
captains--according to a decree of the governor of Paris (Murat) of
that day (20th March), which decree (dictated by Napoleon) ordered the
unfortunate captive to be tried on the charge of having borne arms
against the Republic: of having been and being in the pay of England,
and of having been engaged in plots, conducted by the English in and
out of France, against the French government. The concluding order was,
that, if found guilty, he should be at once executed.
The whole of this proceeding is atrocious. A prince of the
dethroned family is arrested in a neutral state, without a shadow
of legality;[44] he is brought to Paris and tried for his life on
accusations which, considering his birth and position, no generous
enemy could have considered crimes; he is found guilty without a
witness being called, without a proof of the charges against him being
adduced, and without a person to defend him being allowed.[45]
This trial takes place at midnight, in a dungeon; and the prisoner is
shot, before the break of day, in a ditch!
It is natural enough that all persons connected with such a transaction
should have endeavoured to escape from its ignominy. General Hullin
has charged Savary (afterwards Duc de Rovigo), who, as commander of
the gendarmerie, was present at the execution, with having hurried
the trial, and prevented an appeal to Napoleon, which the condemned
prince demanded. The Duc de Rovigo denies with much plausibility these
particulars, and indeed, all concern in the affair beyond his mere
presence, and the strict fulfilment of the orders he had received;
and accuses M. de Talleyrand--against whom it must be observed
he had on other accounts a special grudge--of having led to the
prince’s seizure by a report read at the Council on the 10th March;
of having intercepted a letter written to the first consul by the
illustrious captive at Strasburg, and of having hastened and provoked
the execution, of which he offers no other proof than that he met
Talleyrand, at five o’clock, coming out of Murat’s, who was then, as
I have said, governor of Paris, and who had just given orders for the
formation of the military commission. It must be observed also, that,
for the report of what passed in the council, M. de Rovigo only quotes
a conversation which he had some years afterwards with Cambacérès, who
was anxious to prove that he himself had opposed the violation of the
German territory.
As to the supposed letter written by the Duc d’Enghien, the persons
about the Duc declared that he never wrote a letter at Strasburg;
and in the prince’s diary, which speaks of a letter to the Princesse
de Rohan, there is no mention of a letter to the first consul. With
respect to another letter, written, the Duc de Rovigo seems to suppose,
by M. Massias, French minister at Baden, there is no trace of it in
the French archives; whilst the mere fact of M. de Talleyrand having
been at Murat’s proves nothing (if it be true that he was there) beyond
the visit. Indeed, as Murat himself blamed the execution, and did what
he could to avert it (see Thiers’ _Consulate and Empire_, vol. v. p.
4), there is some probability that, if M. de Talleyrand sought Murat,
it was with a view of seeing what could be done to save the prince, and
not with the view of destroying him. On the other hand, Bourrienne, who
had opportunities of knowing the truth, asserts that M. de Talleyrand,
so far from favouring this murder, warned the Duc d’Enghien, through
the Princesse de Rohan, of the danger in which he stood.
The Duc Dalberg, minister of Baden at Paris in 1804, also speaks of M.
de Talleyrand as opposed to all that was done in this affair.[46]
Louis XVIII., to whom M. de Talleyrand wrote when the Duc de Rovigo’s
statement appeared, ordered that personage to appear no more at his
court. Fouché declared the act to be entirely that of the first consul;
and lastly, Napoleon himself always maintained that the act was his
own, and justified it.
For myself, after weighing all the evidence that has come before me
(none of it, I must admit, quite conclusive), my persuasion is that the
first consul had determined either to put the prince in his power to
death, or to humiliate him by a pardon granted at his request; and it
seems to me not improbable that he hesitated, though rather disposed,
perhaps, to punish than to spare, till all was over.
For this supposition there is the declaration of his brother Joseph,
who says that a pardon had been promised to Josephine; of Madame de
Rémusat, who, playing at chess that evening with Napoleon, states that
he was muttering all the night to himself lines from the great French
poets in favour of clemency; and, lastly, there is an order given to
M. Real, minister of police, who was charged to see the Duc d’Enghien,
and to report to Bonaparte the result of the interview, which evidently
implied that no execution was intended till the minister’s report had
reached the terrible disposer of life or death, who might then finally
take his resolve.
But the opportunity of coming to a decision, after receiving the report
of the minister of police, never occurred. By one of those unforeseen
accidents which sometimes frustrate intentions, M. Real, to whose house
the written instructions I have been speaking of were carried by Savary
himself, had gone to bed with the injunction not to be disturbed,
and did not wake till the prince was no more:--so that Napoleon had
not the chance of clemency, which he undoubtedly expected, presented
to him. At all events, whatever may have been the intentions of this
extraordinary man, whose policy was generally guided by calculations
in which human life was considered of small importance, I believe,
as far as regards the person I am principally occupied with: first,
that M. de Talleyrand did read at the Council on the 10th of March a
memoir containing the information that had reached his office, and
which he was naturally obliged to report; secondly, that when M. de
Cambacérès spoke against the original arrest, M. de Talleyrand remained
silent, which may be accounted for either by a wish not to compromise
himself, or, as persons well acquainted with Napoleon have assured me,
by a knowledge that this was the best way to give efficacy to M. de
Cambacérès’ arguments; thirdly, that when M. de Talleyrand wrote to the
Grand Duke of Baden, excusing the intended violation of his territory,
he did endeavour to convey such a warning to the Duc d’Enghien as would
prevent his being captured; finally, that when the Duc was brought up
to Vincennes he gave no advice (which he thought would be useless) to
Bonaparte, but approved of the efforts made by Josephine and Joseph,
who were the best mediators in the prince’s behalf, and that, being
also aware of the instructions sent to M. Real, he did not think the
execution probable.
As to taking an active part in this tragedy, such conduct would not be
in harmony with his character; nor have the accusations, to which his
position not unnaturally exposed him, been supported by any trustworthy
testimony. To have lent himself, however, even in appearance, to so
dark a deed, and to have remained an instrument in Napoleon’s hands
after its committal, evinces a far stronger sense of the benefits
attached to office, than of the obloquy attached to injustice.
This, it is said, he did not deny; and, when a friend advised him to
resign, is reported to have replied: “If Bonaparte has been guilty,
as you say, of a crime, that is no reason why I should be guilty of a
folly.”
The execution of the Duc d’Enghien took place during the night of the
20th March. On the 7th of April, Pichegru, who had been arrested,
was found strangled in his room, as some thought, by the police--as
the government declared, by his own hands; George Cadoudal, who had
also been captured, suffered on the scaffold; and Moreau, after
being brought before a tribunal which condemned him to two years’
imprisonment, had this absurd sentence commuted into exile. Bonaparte
having thus struck terror into the partisans of the ancient dynasty,
and having rid himself of his most powerful military rival, placed
on his head, amidst the servile approbation of the Legislature and
the apparent acquiescence of the nation, a crown which was solemnly
consecrated by Pius VII. (2nd December, 1804).
V.
The assumption of the imperial title was an epoch in the struggle
which had for some time been going on between the two statesmen who
contributed the most, first, to raise the power of Napoleon, and
finally to overthrow it. Talleyrand and Fouché are these two statesmen;
and they may be taken as the representatives of the classes whose
adhesion marked Bonaparte’s force, and whose defection marked his
decline. The one, a great nobleman, an enlightened member of the
Constituent Assembly, a liberal, such as the fashion, the theories,
and the abuses of the old _régime_ had created him. The other a
plebeian and conventionalist of the mountain, a democrat and regicide
by circumstances, position, and the fury of the time. From the 18th
Brumaire they both attached themselves to the first consul’s fortunes.
Cool, unprejudiced, without hatred, without partialities, each,
notwithstanding, had the feelings of his _caste_; and, in moderating
the passion and influencing the views of Napoleon, the one never
forgot that he was born in the aristocracy, the other that he was the
offspring of the people.
Fouché, then, was for employing the republican forms, and entrusting
authority exclusively to what may be called new men. Talleyrand was
rather for returning to the fashions of a monarchy, ridiculed, to
use his own expression, the “_parvenus_” who had never walked on a
“parquet,”[47] and endeavoured to introduce into the employment of the
State the aspirants whose principles were liberal, but whose names were
ancient and historical.
The Empire which was the natural consequence of the tendency which
Talleyrand had favoured and Fouché opposed, nevertheless united and
wanted these two politicians; for while it sanctioned the advantages
and titles of the old nobility, it established on a firm and equal
basis a new nobility, and brought both to a central point, under the
rule of a man of genius.
Fouché, once the Empire decided upon, renounced all further attempts to
limit Napoleon’s will, and only sought to regain his favour.
Talleyrand, conceiving that all the hopes of the enlightened men of
his youth who had sought to obtain a constitutional monarchy were
at that moment visionary, abandoned them for a new order of things,
which, while it pressed upon the energy and intellect of the individual
Frenchman, gave a concentrated expression to the energy and intellect
of the French nation, and made it ready to accept a glorious tyranny
without enthusiasm, but without dissatisfaction. Nor was the French
nation wholly wrong.
A great deluge had swept just recently over all that previous centuries
had established; society was still on a narrow and shaking plank which
required widening, strengthening, but, above all, fixing over the
still turbulent and agitated waters. Everything of ancient manners,
of those habits of thought, without which no community of men can
march long or steadily together, was gone. No received notions on
essential subjects anywhere existed; and a nation which has no such
notions cannot have that sort of public morality which is, to the
position and respectability of a state, what private morality is to
the respectability and position of an individual. The first essential
to a community is order, for under order received notions establish
themselves. Order combined with liberty is the highest degree of
order. But order without liberty is preferable to disorder and
license. Now, Napoleon’s internal government, with all its faults,
was the personification of order, as that of the convention had been
of disorder; and what was the consequence? a spirit of freedom grew
up amidst the despotism of the latter, as a submission to tyranny had
been engendered under the wild violence of the former. The phrase, that
Bonaparte “_refaisait le lit des Bourbons_,”[48] was a criticism on his
own policy, but it might be an eulogium on that of his followers.
VI.
In the meantime a change of forms and titles at Paris was the sign of
a similar change throughout Europe. Republics became kingdoms: the
Emperor’s family, sovereigns: his marshals and favourites, princes and
grand dignitaries of the Empire. Those who had shared the conqueror’s
fortunes had a share allotted to them in his conquests, and for a
moment the theory of the nineteenth century brought back the realities
of the middle ages. Yet, and notwithstanding these signs and tokens
of ambition, had it not been for the rupture with England and the
cruel deed at Vincennes, Napoleon’s new dignity, that gave a splendid
decoration to his new power and an apparent close to his adventurous
career, would probably have induced the continent, without absolutely
prostrating itself at his feet, to have acknowledged and submitted
to his superiority. But the fortitude with which England had braved
his menaces, and the act which had sullied his renown, produced a new
coalition, and led to a treaty between England and Russia and Austria,
the one signed on 11th of April, and the other the 9th of August,
1805. So formidable a combination served to disturb Bonaparte from the
project of an invasion, with which he was then threatening our shores.
But his star, though somewhat clouded, was still in the ascendant. The
battle of Austerlitz sanctioned the title of Imperator, as the battle
of Marengo had done that of Consul.
M. Mignet has given us a curious instance, extracted from the French
archives, of the comprehensive views of the minister of foreign affairs
at this period.[49] Immediately after the victory of Ulm, M. de
Talleyrand wrote to Napoleon in something like these terms:
“While your Majesty is gaining the victories which will lead to
a glorious peace, I am considering how that peace can best be
established. There are four great States in Europe--France, Russia,
England, and Austria. England and France, from their juxtaposition,
their spirit, and consequent rivality, may be considered natural
enemies; that is to say, no great war will take place in Europe
without these powers coming into collision. In such case, Russia
cannot cordially be with France as long as she retains her projects
over the Ottoman empire, which it would be madness in us to encourage.
Austria, on the other hand, is sure to side with England as long as
her frontiers join ours, and her natural objects of ambition are the
same. A great policy, therefore, would be to deprive Russia of her
Turkish dreams, and Austria of the possessions neighbouring to those
states which we protect, and which, in fact, are ours. I would take
from Austria, then, Suabia, in Southern Germany, the Tyrol, adjoining
Switzerland; and I would make Venice an independent Republic, and thus
a barrier to both parties in Italy. To this plan, however, Austria
herself must consent with satisfaction, or it cannot be permanent;
and I would obtain that consent by giving her, in exchange for what
we take, Wallachia, Moldavia, Bessarabia, and the northern portion of
Bulgaria. By this plan, your Majesty will remark, the Germans are for
ever shut out of Italy, Austria made the rival of Russia and guardian
of the Ottoman empire, and the Russians excluded from Europe, and thus
directed upon the kingdoms of Central Asia, where they will naturally
come into conflict with the rulers of Hindostan.”
“This project,” says M. Mignet, “being conceived at a time when nothing
was impossible, might, after the battle of Austerlitz, have been
accomplished, and would doubtless have given another destiny to Europe,
and established the grandeur of France on solid foundations.”
Napoleon, however, was not inclined to adopt so great a plan on the
suggestion of another; nor, indeed, is it impossible but that the
secret instinct of his peculiar genius, which was for war, opposed
itself to a permanent system of tranquillity. He advanced, then, in
the false policy which ultimately proved his ruin; neither gaining the
affection nor utterly destroying the power of the vanquished: and the
cabinet of Vienna, subdued in Italy, humbled, by the confederation
of the Rhine and the elevation of the secondary states, in Germany,
but with its power not annihilated, and its goodwill not conciliated,
signed the treaty of Presburg. This treaty, which severed the relations
between the Russian and Austrian empires, and a change which now took
place in the British councils, afforded another chance of giving to the
new empire a peaceful and durable existence.
VII.
Mr. Fox had succeeded to Mr. Pitt, and Mr. Fox was an advocate of peace
and an admirer of the warrior who guided the destinies of France. He
was also a personal friend of M. de Talleyrand. The Emperor Alexander
shared in some degree Mr. Fox’s admiration. The hopes which he had
founded on an alliance with Austria were now, moreover, at an end, and
no one at that time relied on the shuffling, grasping, and timid policy
of Prussia. Both the Russian and English cabinets were willing then to
treat. M. d’Oubril was sent to Paris by the cabinet of St. Petersburg,
and negotiations begun through Lord Yarmouth, the late Marquis of
Hertford (then a “_détenu_”[50]), between the cabinets of St. James and
the Tuileries.
M. de Talleyrand, in these double negotiations, succeeded in getting
the Russian negotiator to sign a separate treaty, which, however, the
Russian government disavowed; and acquired such an influence over Lord
Yarmouth, that the English government deemed it necessary to replace
him by Lord Lauderdale, who was empowered to negotiate for the two
allied governments. It is but just to observe that M. de Talleyrand,
though thwarted by a variety of intrigues, laboured with the utmost
assiduity in favour of a peaceful termination of this negotiation; for
he already saw, and at this time almost alone saw, that without peace
all was yet a problem, and that, to use the words of a contemporary, “a
succession of battles was a series of figures, of which the first might
be ‘A,’ and the last ‘zero.’”[51]
The position of Malta and Sicily, both at this time in our hands,
the natural reluctance that we felt at resigning them without solid
guarantees for European tranquillity; and the impossibility of getting
such guarantees from the pride and ambition of an aspirant to universal
empire, were nevertheless difficulties too great for diplomacy to
overcome; and when Prussia, which had lost the golden opportunity
of fighting France with Austria by her side, had become so involved
by secret engagements with Russia and by public engagements with
France--and so restless in the dishonourable and dangerous position
in which she found herself, as to be determined on the desperate
experiment of escaping from her diplomacy by her arms, another great
European struggle commenced.
Throughout the new campaigns to which this new coalition led--campaigns
beginning with the victory of Jena and closing with the peace of
Tilsit--M. de Talleyrand accompanied his imperial master; and though
he could hardly be said to exercise a predominant influence over those
events, which a more violent character and a more military genius
decided, his calmness and good sense (qualities rarely, if ever,
abdicated by him) produced a moderating effect upon the imperious
warrior, that tended generally to consolidate his successes. The sort
of cool way in which he brought to ground many of this extraordinary
man’s flights, testing them by their practical results, is well enough
displayed in a reply which he made to Savary, who, after the battle of
Friedland, said, “If peace is not signed in a fortnight, Napoleon will
cross the Niemen.”
“Et à quoi bon,” replied M. de Talleyrand, “passer le Niemen?”[52] “Why
pass the Niemen?”
The Niemen, then, partly owing to M. de Talleyrand’s counsels, was for
this once not passed; and, at last, France, pretending to sacrifice
Turkey, and Russia abandoning England, the two combatants signed a
treaty, which anticipated that the domination of Europe was for the
future to be shared between them.
VIII.
At this period M. de Talleyrand, who had been more struck in the
recent war by the temerity than by the triumph of the conqueror,
thought that Napoleon’s military and his own diplomatic career should
cease. Fortune, indeed, had carried both the one and the other to the
highest point, which, according to their separate characters and the
circumstances of the times, they were likely to attain. To Napoleon’s
marvellous successes seemed now to belong a supernatural prestige,
which the slightest misfortune was capable of destroying, and which
a new victory could hardly augment. So also the reputation of M. de
Talleyrand was at its height, and many were disposed to consider him
as great a master in the science of politics as his sovereign was in
that of war. He had acquired, moreover, immense wealth, as it is said,
by extorted gifts from the Powers with which he had been treating,
and more especially from the small princes of Germany, whom in the
general division of their territory he could either save or destroy,
and also by successful speculations on the stock exchange:[53]--means
of acquiring riches highly discreditable to his character, but thought
lightly of in a country that teaches the philosophy of indulgence,
and had recently seen wealth so rudely scrambled for, that the “_Res
si possis recte_” had become as much a French as ever it was a
Roman proverb. His health, moreover, was broken, and unequal to the
constant attendance on the Emperor’s person, which had become almost
inseparable from his office; while the elevation of Berthier to the
rank of vice-constable established a precedency exceedingly galling
to his pride. Under these circumstances, he solicited and obtained
permission to retire, and already Prince de Benevent received the title
of “vice-grand electeur,” raising him to the rank of one of the great
dignitaries of the Empire; a position which it appears--so small are
even the greatest of us--he desired.
This change in his situation, however, was by no means as yet what it
has sometimes been represented--a “disgrace.” He still retained great
influence in the Emperor’s councils, was consulted on all matters
relative to foreign affairs, and even appointed with M. de Champagny,
his successor, to conduct the negotiations with the court of Spain,
which, owing to the invasion of Portugal and the quarrels which had
already broken out in the family of Charles IV., were beginning to
assume a peculiar character.[54]
It has been said, indeed, on the one side, that M. de Talleyrand was
opposed to any interference with Spain; and, on the other, that it
was actually he who first counselled Bonaparte’s proceedings in that
country. It is probable that he did so far compromise himself in this
matter as to advise an arrangement which would have given the territory
north of the Ebro to France, and yielded Portugal as a compensation to
the Spanish monarch. It is not impossible, moreover, that he knew as
early as 1805--for Joseph Bonaparte was then told to learn the Spanish
language--that Napoleon had vague dreams of replacing the Bourbon by
the Bonaparte dynasty in the Peninsula. But when the French armies,
without notice, took possession of Burgos and Barcelona; when an
insurrection deposed Charles IV., and the Emperor was about to adopt
the policy, not of peaceably aggrandizing France and strengthening
Spain against Great Britain, but of kidnapping the Spanish princes and
obtaining by a sort of trick the Spanish crown, he was resolutely and
bitterly opposed to it, saying: “_On s’empare des couronnes, mais on
ne les escamote pas_” (“one takes a crown from a sovereign’s head, but
one does not pick his pocket of it”). “Besides, Spain is a farm which
it is better to allow another to cultivate for you, than to cultivate
yourself.”
Comte de Beugnot, in his memoirs recently published, speaks thus of
these transactions:[55]
“The Prince de Benevent was acquainted, in all its details, with what
had passed (at Bayonne). He appeared indignant. ‘Victories,’ he said,
‘do not suffice to efface such things as these, because there is
something in them which it is impossible to describe, that is vile,
deceitful, cheating! I cannot tell what will happen, but you will see
that no one will pardon him (the Emperor) for this.’ The Duc Decrès,
indeed,” M. de Beugnot continues, “has told me more than once that the
Emperor had in his presence reproached M. de Talleyrand for having
counselled what took place at Bayonne, without M. de Talleyrand
seeking to excuse himself. This has always astonished me. It is
sufficient to have known M. de Talleyrand to be sure that, if he had
been favourable to dispossessing the princes of the House of Bourbon of
the Spanish throne, he would not have resorted to the means that were
employed. Besides, when he spoke to me, it was with a sort of passion
that he never displayed but on subjects which strongly excited him.”
There can be no doubt, indeed, that what took place as to Spain was a
subject of great difference between M. de Talleyrand and Napoleon. M.
de Talleyrand would never afterwards during the reign of Louis XVIII.
have publicly affirmed this, surrounded as he was by contemporaries and
enemies, if it had not been true. Moreover, the general voice of the
time, which is more in such cases to be trusted than any individual
testimony, loudly proclaimed it; and as to not answering Napoleon when
he was pouring forth in violent and insulting language the accusations
which he sometimes levelled at those who displeased him, it is well
known that M. de Talleyrand never replied to such attacks but by an
impassible face and a dignified silence.
IX.
Nor were the affairs of the Peninsula the only ones on which M. de
Talleyrand and the Emperor at this time disagreed. The French troops
entered Rome and Spain (for Napoleon was now for despoiling the Pope as
a prince, after courting him as a Pontiff) about the same epoch; and
the Prince of Benevent was as opposed to one violence as to the other.
It was not, however, out of this affair, or that affair in particular,
that the enmity between the emperor and his former minister--an enmity
so important in the history of both--took its rise.
M. de Talleyrand, the Empire once established and fortunate, had
attached himself to it with a sort of enthusiasm. The poesy of victory,
and the eloquence of an exalted imagination, subdued for a time the
usual nonchalance and moderation of his character. He entered into all
Napoleon’s plans for reconstituting “An Empire of the Francs,” and
reviving the system of fiefs and feudal dignitaries; by which it is,
however, true, that the followers and favourites of the conqueror had
nothing to lose. “Any other system,” he said, “but a military one, is
in our circumstances at present impossible. I am, then, for making
that system splendid, and compensating France for her liberty by her
grandeur.”
The principality he enjoyed, though it by no means satisfied him, was
a link between him and the policy under which he held it. He wished
to keep it, and to safeguard the prosperity of a man, whose adversity
would cause him to lose it. But he had a strong instinct for the
practical; all governments, according to his theory, might be made
good, except an impossible one. A government depending on constant
success in difficult undertakings, at home and abroad, was, according
to his notions, impossible. This idea, after the Peace of Tilsit, more
or less haunted him. It made him, in spite of himself, bitter against
his chief--bitter at first, more because he liked him than because he
disliked him. He would still have aided to save the Empire, but he was
irritated because he thought he saw the Empire drifting into a system
which would not admit of its being saved. A sentiment of this kind,
however, is as little likely to be pardoned by one who is accustomed to
consider that his will must be law, as a sentiment of a more hostile
nature.
Napoleon began little by little to hate the man for whom he had felt
at one time a predilection, and if he disliked any one, he did that
which it is most dangerous to do, and most useless; that is, he
wounded his pride without diminishing his importance. It is true that
M. de Talleyrand never gave any visible sign of being irritated.
But few, whatever the philosophy with which they forgive an injury,
pardon a humiliation; and thus, stronger and stronger grew by degrees
that mutual dissatisfaction which the one vented at times in furious
reproaches, and the other disguised under a studiously respectful
indifference.
X.
This carelessness as to the feelings of those whom it would have been
wiser not to offend, was one of the most fatal errors of the conqueror,
who could not learn to subdue his own passions: but he had become
at this time equally indifferent to the hatred and affection of his
adherents; and, under the ordinary conviction of persons over-satisfied
with themselves, fancied that everything depended on his own merits,
and nothing on the merits of his agents. The victory of Wagram, and
the marriage with Marie Louise, commenced, indeed, a new era in his
history. Fouché was dismissed, though not without meriting a reprimand
for his intrigues; and Talleyrand fell into unequivocal disgrace, in
some degree provoked by his witticisms; whilst round these two men
gathered a quiet and observant opposition, descending with the clever
adventurer to the lowest classes, and ascending with the dissatisfied
noble to the highest.
The scion of the princely house of Périgord was, indeed, from his
birth, quite as much as from his position in the Empire, at the head
of the discontented of the aristocracy; M. de Talleyrand’s house then
(the only place, perhaps, open to all persons, where the government
of the day was treated without reserve) became a sort of “rendezvous”
for a circle which replied to a victory by a _bon mot_, and confronted
the borrowed ceremonies of a new court by the natural graces and
acknowledged fashions of an old one. All who remember society at this
time, will remember that the ex-minister was the sole person who had a
sort of existence and reputation, separate and distinct from the chief
of the State, whose policy he now affected to consider, and probably
did consider, as verging towards the passion of a desperate gambler,
who would continue to tempt Fortune until she grew wearied and deserted
him.
Nor did the Austrian alliance, which the Emperor had lately formed,
meet with M. de Talleyrand’s approval, although he had at one period
advised it, and been also mixed up in the question of a marriage with
the imperial family of Russia. This change might have proceeded from
his now seeing that such an union as he had at one time favoured, in
the hope that it would calm the restless energy of Napoleon, would
only stimulate his ambition: or it might have been because, having had
nothing to do with the resolutions adopted at Vienna, he had gained
nothing by them. At all events, what he said with apparent sincerity,
was--“Nothing is ever got by a policy which you merely carry out by
halves.” “If the Emperor wants an alliance with Austria, he should
satisfy Austria: does he think that the House of Hapsburg considers it
an honour to ally itself with the House of Bonaparte? What the Emperor
of Austria desires, is to have his provinces restored, and his empire
raised and revived: if the government of France does not do this,
it disappoints him; and the worst enemies we can have are those we
disappoint.”
These sentiments, however, found as yet no echo out of the circle of a
few independent and enlightened politicians.
I remember two of these--both high in the service of the Empire--M. de
Barante and M. Molé, referring in my hearing to a conversation they had
had at the period I am speaking of, and one saying to the other, “Do
you call to mind how we both regarded what was passing before us as a
magnificent scene in an opera, which, whilst it satisfied the eye with
its splendour, did not fill the mind with a sense of its reality?”
But the masses were still dazzled by the splendid achievements of a
man who, of all others, in ancient or modern history, would have been
the greatest if he had joined the instincts of humanity with those of
genius: but now each day that passed added to the fatal disposition
which separated his future from his past; each hour he became more
haughty and self-confident, and more inclined to an isolated career,
which neither tolerated counsel nor clung to affection. Josephine, the
wife of his youth--Pauline, his favourite sister--Louis, his youngest
brother--Massena, his ablest general--were added to the list on which
his two ablest ministers were inscribed. He had no longer even the
idea of conciliating mankind to his arbitrary authority. His mighty
intellect, subdued by his still mightier ambition, submitted itself
to adopt a system of despotism and oppression which interfered not
only with the political opinions, but with the daily wants, of all his
subjects and all his allies.
War with him had become an effort to exterminate those who still
opposed him, by oppressing those who had hitherto aided him. Thus,
he had seized the Roman pontiff, kidnapped the Spanish king, taken
violent possession of the Hanseatic towns and the North of Germany; and
even those countries which were free from his armies, were bound, as
he contended, to obey his decrees. In this state of things commenced
the last and fatal struggle between the two potentates, who a short
time before had projected partitioning the empire of the world as
friendly confederates, and were now prepared to contend for it as
deadly foes. Nor was the justice of M. de Talleyrand’s views ever more
conspicuous! The destruction of Prussia, by making Russia and France
neighbours, had in itself tended to make them enemies. Moreover, the
proud and offended, but dissimulating Czar, though redoubling his
courtesy towards the court of France after the choice of an Austrian
archduchess, lest he might be supposed hurt by the rejection of a
marriage with a princess of his own family, had begun to feel that,
with the rest of continental Europe subdued and Austria apparently
gained, he was alone in his independence; and to fret under the rein,
which his imperious rider pulled, with superb indifference, somewhat
too tightly.
Besides, though invested with unbounded authority over his people by
law and custom, there was the example of his father to teach him that
he could not wholly disregard their interests or wishes; yet this was
what the Emperor of the French exacted from him. His subjects were not
to sell their produce to the only purchaser who was ready and desirous
to buy it;--and being thus harshly and foolishly placed between
revolution and war, Alexander chose the latter.
XI.
On the other hand, Napoleon, in determining on a conflict of which
he did not disguise from himself the importance, awoke for a moment
to his former sense of the necessity of using able men in great
affairs, and was disposed, notwithstanding his disagreements with M.
de Talleyrand, to send him to Warsaw to organise a kingdom of Poland;
nor was it surprising that, confident in the sagacity and tact of the
agent he thought of employing, he was also satisfied that, in the
event of that agent’s accepting employment, he might count perfectly
on his fidelity; for throughout M. de Talleyrand’s long career and
frequent changes there is not any instance of his having betrayed
any one from whom he accepted a trust. The difficulty of reconciling
the Prince de Benevent’s position with that of the Duc de Bassano,
who accompanied the Emperor on this campaign as minister of foreign
affairs, prevented, it is said, the projected arrangement. But neither
during this transient gleam of returning favour, nor after it, did
M. de Talleyrand’s opinion against the chances which Napoleon was
unnecessarily (as he thought) running, ever vary; neither were they
disguised. He insisted principally on the chance of war, which often
decides against the ablest general and the most skilful combinations;
on the great loss which would result from a defeat, and the small gain
that would follow a victory. The whole of Europe that the reckless
general left behind him was, he knew, kept down merely by fear and
constraint, and though ready to assist an advancing army, certain
to fall on a retreating one. Besides, supposing defeat was almost
impossible, what had France to gain by success?
Alexander might reiterate his promise of preventing all commercial
interchange between Great Britain and his dominions; but would he be
able to keep that promise? He could not. The mind of Napoleon, however,
had now been trained by Fortune to consider wars mere military parades,
shortly after the commencement of which he entered the capital of his
conquered enemy and returned to Paris to be greeted by enthusiastic
acclamations at the theatre. He required this sort of excitement, and
like most men similarly influenced, convinced himself that what was
pleasing to his vanity was demanded by his interests.
There were three epochs, indeed, in Napoleon’s career: the first, when
he fought for glory abroad to gain empire at home; the second, when,
being master of the government of France, he fought to extend the
limits of France, and to make himself the most powerful individual in
his nation, and his nation the most powerful nation in the world; the
third, when France being but a secondary consideration, his ambition
was bent on becoming master of the universe, and acquiring a dominion
of which France would be almost an insignificant portion.
It is necessary to bear this in mind, since it explains Napoleon’s
Russian campaign; it explains the difficulties he raised against
withdrawing his troops from Germany after that campaign had ended in
defeat; and his constant dislike to accept any conditions that put a
positive extinguisher on his gigantic projects. To support his own
confidence in such projects he persuaded himself that a charm attached
to his existence, that supernatural means would arrive to him when
natural means failed. He did not, however, neglect on this occasion the
natural means.
When Fouché expressed his apprehensions at so vast an enterprise, the
soldier’s answer is said to have been, “I wanted 800,000 men, and I
have them.”[56] But France had begun to be at this period wearied even
with his successes; and the affair of Mallet, which happened just
previously to the arrival of the bad intelligence from Russia, showed
pretty clearly that her Emperor’s fall or defeat left an open space for
any new system that circumstances might favour or impose.
No sooner, then, had the news that Moscow was burnt reached Paris than
M. de Talleyrand considered the Bonapartist cause as lost. Not that
Bonaparte might not yet have saved himself by prudence, but he was not
prudent; not but that the French government might not yet have brought
as many men in uniform into the field as the allies, but that nations
fought on one side, and merely soldiers on the other.
The sagacious statesman, therefore, who now began again to be
consulted, advised a conclusion of the war, promptly, at once, and on
almost all conditions. So, again, when the defection of the Prussians
was known, and Napoleon summoned a council to determine what should be
done under such circumstances, he said: “Negotiate: you have now in
your hands effects which you can give away; to-morrow they may be gone,
and then the power to negotiate advantageously will be gone also.”[57]
During the armistice at Prague (June, 1813), when the prestige of two
or three recent victories coloured the negotiations, and France might
have had Holland, Italy, and her natural frontiers, both Talleyrand and
Fouché, who was also asked for his advice, repeated constantly, “The
Emperor has but one thing to do--to make peace; and the more quickly he
makes it, the better he will make it.” So also, when M. de St. Aignan,
after the battle of Leipsic, brought propositions from Frankfort, which
might even yet have given France her frontier of the Rhine (November),
M. de Talleyrand urged their acceptance with the least delay, and told
the Emperor that a bad peace was better than the continuation of a war
that could not end favourably.[58]
Napoleon himself at this time wavered, and with a momentary doubt as
to his own judgment, and a remembrance very possibly of happier times,
offered the portfolio of foreign affairs to his ancient minister, but
on the condition that he should lay down the rank and emoluments of
vice-grand-elector.
The object of the Emperor was thus to make M. de Talleyrand entirely
dependent on his place; but M. de Talleyrand, who would have accepted
the office, refused the condition, saying, “If the Emperor trusts me,
he should not degrade me; and if he does not trust me, he should not
employ me; the times are too difficult for half measures.”
XII.
The state of affairs at this period was assuredly most critical. In
looking towards Spain, there was to be seen an English army, crowned
by victory, and about to descend from the Pyrenees. In looking
towards Germany, there was a whole population, whom former defeat had
exasperated, and recent success encouraged, burning to cross the Rhine
in search of the trophies of which an enemy still boasted. In Italy, a
defection in the Emperor’s family was about to display the full extent
of his misfortunes. In Holland, the colours of the exiled family (the
House of Orange) were displayed with rapture amidst shouts for national
independence; even the King of Denmark had left the French alliance;
while in France a people unanimated by liberty, an army decimated by
defeat, generals that had lost their hopes, and arsenals which were
empty, were the sole resources with which its ruler had to encounter
all Europe in arms.
The refusal of M. de Talleyrand, then, to accept office at such a
time, unless with all the confidence and splendour that could give
it authority, was natural enough; but it is also not surprising that
the sovereign who had made that offer should have been irritated by
its rejection, whilst many urged that the vice-grand-elector, if
not employed, should be arrested. All proof, however, of treason
was wanting; and the chief of the Empire justly dreaded the effect
which, both at home and abroad, any violent act might produce; for it
was far more difficult, than many have supposed, for him to strike,
when his power was once on the decline, any strong blow against an
eminent functionary. His government was a government of functionaries,
throughout whom there reigned a sort of fraternity that could not
safely be braved.
This stern man had, moreover,--and this was one of the most remarkable
and amiable portions of his character--a sort of tenderness, which he
never overcame, for those who had once been attached to his person, or
had done eminent service to his authority.[59] He resolved, then, not
to take any violent measure against M. de Talleyrand; but though he
could restrain his anger from acts, he could not from expressions.
A variety of scenes was the consequence. Savary relates one which
happened in his presence and that of the arch-chancellor. I have also
read of one in which Napoleon, having said that if he thought his own
death likely he would take care that the vice-grand-elector should
not survive him, was answered by M. de Talleyrand rejoining, quietly
and respectfully, that he did not require that reason for desiring
that his Majesty’s life might be long preserved. M. Molé recounted
to me another, in the following terms: “At the end of the Council
of State, which took place just before the Emperor started for the
campaign of 1814, he burst out into some violent exclamations of his
being surrounded by treachery and traitors; and then turning to M.
de Talleyrand, abused him for ten minutes in the most violent and
outrageous manner. Talleyrand was standing by the fire all this time,
guarding himself from the heat of the flame by his hat; he never moved
a limb or a feature; any one who had seen him would have supposed that
he was the last man in the room to whom the Emperor could be speaking;
and finally, when Napoleon, slamming the door violently, departed,
Talleyrand quietly took the arm of M. Mollien, and limped with apparent
unconsciousness downstairs. But on getting home, he wrote a dignified
letter to the Emperor, saying, that if he retained his present dignity,
he should be by right one of the regency, and that as he could not
think of holding such a charge after the opinion his Majesty had
expressed of him, he begged to resign his post, and to be allowed to
retire into the country. He was informed, however, that his resignation
would not be accepted, and that he might stay where he was.”
It is to be presumed that insults like that I have been relating went
a great way towards alienating and disgusting the person they were
meant to humiliate; but though at the head of a considerable party
which were dissatisfied, M. de Talleyrand did little more than watch
the proceedings of 1814, and endeavour to make the fall of Napoleon,
should it take place, as little injurious to France and to himself as
possible.[60]
During the conferences at Chatillon, he told those whom the Emperor
most trusted, that he would be lost if he did not take peace on any
terms; when, however, towards the end of these conferences, peace
seemed impossible with Napoleon, he permitted the Duc Dalberg to send
M. de Vitrolles to the allied camp with the information, that, if
the allies did not make war against France, but simply against its
present ruler, they would find friends in Paris ready to help them.
M. de Vitrolles carried a slip of paper from the Duc in his boot as
his credentials, and was allowed to name M. de Talleyrand; but he
had nothing from that personage himself which could compromise him
irrevocably with this mission.
M. de Talleyrand saw, nevertheless, at that moment, that a new chief
must, as a matter of course, be given to France, and he wished to be
the person to decide who that chief should be, and under what sort of
institutions the government should be assigned to him.
Still, his communications with the Bourbons were, I believe, merely
indirect. Many of their partisans were his relatives and friends. He
said obliging things of Louis XVIII. to them, and he received obliging
messages in return: but he did not positively adopt their cause; in
fact, it seems doubtful whether he did not for a certain time hesitate
between the ancient race, and the King of Rome with a council of
regency, in which he was to have had a place. At all events, he kept
the minister of police, according to Savary’s own account, alive to
the Royalist movements in the south. It may even be said that he did
not desert the Bonaparte dynasty till it deserted itself: for at the
Council, assembled when the allies were approaching Paris to determine
whether the Empress should remain in the capital or quit it, he advised
her stay in the strongest manner, saying it was the best, if not the
only, means of preserving the dynasty, and he did not cease urging this
opinion until Joseph Bonaparte produced a letter from his brother,
stating that in such a case as that under consideration Marie-Louise
should retire into the provinces. It was then that, on leaving the
council chamber, he said to Savary:[61]
“Here, then, is the end of all this. Is not that also your opinion? we
lose the rubber with a fair game. Just see where the stupidity of a few
ignorant men, who perseveringly work on the influence acquired by daily
intercourse, ends by carrying one. In truth, the Emperor is much to be
pitied, and yet nobody will pity him; for his obstinacy in holding to
those who surround him, has no reasonable motive; it is only a weakness
which cannot be conceived in such a man. What a fall in history! To
give his name to adventures, instead of giving it to his age! When I
think of this I cannot help being grieved. And now what is to be done?
It does not suit every one to be crushed under the ruins of the edifice
that is to be overthrown. Well, we shall see what will happen!
“The Emperor, instead of abusing me, would have done better in
estimating at their first value those who set him against me. He
should have seen that friends of that kind are to be more dreaded than
enemies. What would he say to another who let himself be reduced to the
state in which he is now?”
XIII.
The observation that it did not suit every one to be overwhelmed under
the ruins of the government about to fall, applied, as it was intended
to do by M. de Talleyrand, to himself. The part, however, he had to
play was still a difficult one; desirous to remain in Paris in order
to treat with the allies, he was ordered, as a member of the regency,
to Blois. Nor was it merely because he feared that Napoleon might yet
conquer, and punish his disobedience, that he disliked to resist his
command; there is a sense of decency in public men which sometimes
supplies the place of principle, and the vice-grand-elector wished to
avoid the appearance of deserting the cause which notwithstanding he
had resolved to abandon.
The expedient he adopted was a singular and characteristic one. His
state carriage was ordered and packed for the journey: he set out in it
with great pomp and ceremony, and found, according to an arrangement
previously made with Madame de Rémusat, her husband at the head of
a body of the National Guard at the barrier, who stopped him, and,
declaring he should remain in the capital, conducted him back to his
hotel, in the Rue St. Florentin, in which he had soon the honour of
receiving the Emperor Alexander.
The success of the campaign had been so rapid, the march to Paris so
bold, the name of Napoleon and the valour of the French army were still
so formidable, that the Emperor of the Russias was almost surprised at
the situation in which he found himself, and desirous to escape from it
by any peace that could be made safely, quickly, and with some chance
of duration. Beyond this, he had no fixed idea. The re-establishment
of the Bourbons, to which the English Government inclined, seemed to
him in some respects dangerous, as well on account of the long absence
of these princes from France, as from their individual character and
the prejudices of their personal adherents. To a treaty with Napoleon
he had also reasonable objection. Some intermediate plan was the one
perhaps most present to his mind; a regency with Marie-Louise,--a
substitution of Bernadotte for Bonaparte; but all plans of this sort
were vague, and to be tested by the principle of establishing things in
the manner most satisfactory to Europe, and least hateful to France.
Universal opinion pointed out M. de Talleyrand as the person not only
most able to form, but most able to carry out at once whatever plan
was best suited to the emergency. This is why, on arriving at Paris,
the Emperor took up his abode at M. de Talleyrand’s house, Rue St.
Florentin, where he held, under the auspices of his host, a sort of
meeting or council which determined the destiny of France.
XIV.
Among various relations concerning this council is that of M.
Bourrienne, and if we are to believe this witness of the proceedings he
recounts, M. de Talleyrand thus answered the Emperor’s suggestion as to
the crown prince of Sweden, and pronounced on the various pretensions
that had been successively brought forward:
“Sire, you may depend upon it, there are but two things possible,
Bonaparte or Louis XVIII. I say Bonaparte; but here the choice will not
depend wholly on your Majesty, for you are not alone. If we are to have
a soldier, however, let it be Napoleon; he is the first in the world.
I repeat it, sire: Bonaparte or Louis XVIII.; each represents a party,
any other merely an intrigue.”
It was a positive opinion thus forcibly expressed that, according to
all accounts, decided the conqueror, who is said to have declared
subsequently:
“When I arrived at Paris, I had no plan. I referred everything to
Talleyrand; he had the family of Napoleon in one hand, and that of the
Bourbons in the other; I took what he gave me.”
The resolution not to treat with Napoleon or his family being thus
taken, M. de Talleyrand engaged the Emperor of Russia to make it known
by a proclamation placarded on the walls of Paris, and the public read
in every street that “Les souverains alliés ne traiteront plus ni avec
Napoléon Bonaparte ni avec aucun membre de sa famille.”
But this was not all. M. de Talleyrand did not wish to escape from
the despotism of Napoleon to fall under that of Louis XVIII. He
counted little on royal gratitude, and it was as necessary for his
own security, as for that of his country, that the passions of the
emigration and the pride of the House of Bourbon should be kept
in check by a constitution. Hence, at his instigation, the famous
proclamation I refer to contained the following sentence: “Ils
reconnaîtront et garantiront la constitution que la nation française se
donnera, et invitent par conséquent le Sénat à désigner un gouvernement
provisoire qui puisse pourvoir aux besoins de l’administration; il
préparera la constitution qui conviendra au peuple français. Alexandre.
31 mars 1814.”
In this manner the allies recognised the Senate as the representative
of the French nation, and, as M. de Talleyrand had a predominant
influence with the Senate, his victory seemed secure.
This was on the 31st March. But on the 30th, late towards the night,
and as Marmont and Mortier, having defended the heights of Paris
valiantly during the day, were quitting that city in virtue of a
capitulation they had been compelled by the circumstances in which
they found themselves to sign, Napoleon, who had taken the advance
of his army, arrived at the environs of his capital, and learnt from
General Belliard, who was leaving it, what had occurred. With the view
of collecting his troops, still on their march, at Fontainebleau, and
gaining time for this purpose, he sent Caulincourt, who had represented
him at Chatillon, to the sovereigns, who were then masters of the
situation, with orders to enter into feigned negotiations with them, on
almost any terms.
Now, though the Czar and the King of Prussia had pretty well resolved
to have nothing further to do with Napoleon, and had stated that
resolution in a pretty decided manner, there was disquietude in the
neighbourhood of the great captain, who could rely on a military
force, amounting, it was said, to 50,000, exclusive of the forces
of Marmont and Mortier. The armies of Augereau and Soult also still
existed at no immense distance. The lower class in Paris, who had more
national sentiments and less personal interests in jeopardy than the
upper, were, as it had been remarked in the passage of the Russian and
Prussian troops through Paris, moody and discontented; a shadow of
the former terror of Napoleon’s power still remained on the minds of
many who had so long bowed to his will, and were only half disposed to
overthrow his authority. Negotiations, as Caulincourt’s presence at
Paris proved, would be attempted.
There was no time, then, to be lost. On the 1st April, M. de Talleyrand
assembled the Senate under his presidence (for, as vice-president and
grand dignitary of the Empire, this function legitimately belonged to
him). That body, surprised at its own power, and placing it readily
in its president’s hands, who (alluding to Marie-Louise’s retreat)
called on them to come to the aid of a state without any constituted
authority, named, “_séance tenante_,” “a provisional government,”
consisting, with M. de Talleyrand at its head, of five members. These
persons had all played an honourable and distinguished part under the
Empire or in the National Assembly, but the only one representing
Legitimist opinions was the Abbé Montesquieu.
At the same time the Senate, entirely partaking M. de Talleyrand’s
ideas as to a constitution, engaged itself to form one within a few
days.
Nothing, however, was as yet said of the intended exclusion of Napoleon
and his family, nor of the approaching reign of the Bourbons.
Many of the partisans of the latter were as much astonished as vexed at
this omission.
Still entertaining ideas which they had carried into a long exile,
they could not even conceive what France, or the French Senate, or the
allies, had to do with the disposal of the French government. Was not
Louis XVIII. the next in blood to Louis XVI.? Could there be a doubt
that he was the only possible king, the unholy and audacious usurper
having been defeated?
Did not the Comte d’Artois, said the ladies of the Faubourg St.
Germain, long to embrace his early associate, the Bishop of Autun?
M. de Talleyrand, with a smile slightly cynical, acknowledged the
extreme happiness that this embrace would give him; but begged, half
mysteriously, that it might be deferred for the present. He did not,
however, think it expedient that the Senate should delay any longer
confirming the act of the coalition as to Napoleon’s deposition; and
that assembly (exposing, as the motives of its conduct, a thousand
grievances which it had been its previous duty to prevent), declared,
as the Emperor Alexander had already declared, that neither Napoleon
nor his family should reign in France, and relieved the nation from its
oath of allegiance.
It named also a ministry composed of men suited for the occasion, and
thus assumed provisionally all the attributes of government.
In the meantime the deposed Emperor, still at Fontainebleau, with an
energy which misfortune had not abated, was counting his gathering
forces, studying the position of his foes, and forming the plan for a
final and desperate effort, which consisted in defeating one of the
three divisions of the enemy, which was on the left bank of the Seine,
and following it in its flight into the streets of Paris, where, amidst
the general confusion, he felt certain of an easy victory, even if
amongst the blazing ruins of the imperial city.
With him losses that led to success were not calculated: and though
he would have preferred victory on other terms, he was perfectly
willing to take it as he could get it. At least, this was said; and the
intention attributed to him, and which he did not deny, having being
promulgated before it was executed, shattered the remaining fidelity
of his superior officers. He could not understand their timorous
scruples; nor they his desperate resolves. An altercation ensued, and,
rendered bold by despair, the marshals ventured to urge his abdication
in favour of his son. He foresaw the futility of this proposition,
but was nevertheless induced to accede to it, partly in order to show
the idleness of the hopes which his unwelcome counsellors affected to
cherish, partly in order to get rid of their presence, and thus to find
himself free, as he thought, to execute his original projects, should
he determine on doing so.
Ney, Macdonald, together with Caulincourt, who had rejoined the
Emperor on the 2nd of April, and communicated the inefficacy of his
previous mission, were sent then to the allied sovereigns; they were
to enumerate their remaining forces, protest as to their unwavering
fidelity to that family, the fortunes of which they had so long
followed--declare resolutely against the legitimate princes, whom they
considered strangers to their epoch; and state, with firmness, their
resolve to conquer or perish by the side of their ancient master, if
this, the last proposal they could make in his name, were rejected.
They carried with them Marmont, at the head of the important division
of Bonaparte’s army stationed on the Essonne, and commanding the
position of Fontainebleau. This general, though the one most favoured
by Napoleon, had nevertheless already entered into a capitulation with
the Austrian general; but, urged by his brother marshals, to whom he
confessed his treason, to retract his engagements, he did so; and
ordering those officers under his command, and who had been acquainted
with his designs, to remain quiet till his return, accompanied Ney
and Macdonald to Paris. The haughty hearing, the bold and vehement
language, of men accustomed to command and conquer, and representing
an army which had marched victoriously from Paris to Moscow, made an
impression on the somewhat flexible Alexander. He did not accord nor
deny their petition, and granted them another interview on the morrow,
at which the King of Prussia was to be present. This one took place on
the 5th of April, at two in the morning, with himself alone.
The struggle was yet undecided; for the Emperor of Russia was never
very favourable, as I have said, to the Legitimists, and quite alive to
the consideration of settling matters quietly with Bonaparte, who had
arms in his hands, rather than with the Bourbons, who had not. M. de
Talleyrand had again to exert himself, and with his easy, respectful,
but self-confident manner, to point out the feebleness and dishonour
of which (though acting under feelings of the noblest generosity) the
Czar would be accused, if, after having compromised himself and his
allies by what he had been doing during the last few days, he was at
last to undo it. He added, as it is said, that he did not, in holding
this language, consult his own interests, for it was probable that he
should have a more durable position under the regency of Marie-Louise,
if such a regency could be durable, than under that of the emigration,
which, it was much to be feared, from what was then passing (he wished
to call the Emperor’s attention to the efforts which this party was at
that very moment making against the publication of a constitution),
would, ere long, become more powerful and more forgetful than could
be desired. “Pardon my observations, sire,” he continued--“others are
uneasy, but I am not--for I know full well that a sovereign at the
head of a valorous army is not likely to admit the dictation of a few
officers of a hostile force, more particularly when they represent the
very principle of constant war which the French nation repudiates, and
which has armed the allies.”
Both the Emperor Alexander (whose transitory emotion soon passed away)
and the King of Prussia received the marshals on the following day,
under the impressions that M. de Talleyrand’s remarks and their own
considerate judgment produced; and the refusal to treat on any basis
that gave the government of France to Napoleon or his family, was
clearly but courteously pronounced. The marshals were persisting in
their representations, when a Russian officer, who had just entered the
room, whispered something into Alexander’s ear: it was the intelligence
that the division of Marshal Marmont had quitted its post; an accident
produced by the officers, to whom he had confided his troops, having
fancied that their intended treachery was discovered, and would be
punished, unless immediately consummated. After such a defection, the
moral power of the deputation, which could no longer speak in the
name of the army, was gone; and all it attempted to procure was an
honourable provision for the Emperor and the Empress, if the former
tendered an immediate abdication. The advice of his generals, who
accepted these poor conditions, left their commander no alternative but
submission, for his government was a military machine, of which the
main instrument now broke in his hands.
On the 6th, the Senate framed a constitution, which, on the 8th, was
published, creating a constitutional monarchy, with two chambers, and
conferring the throne of France on Louis XVIII. if he accepted that
constitution. On the 11th was signed a treaty by which Marie-Louise
and her son received the principality of Parma, and Napoleon the
sovereignty of Elba, a small island on the coast of Italy, where it
was presumed that a man, still in the prime of life, and with the most
restless spirit that ever beat in human bosom, would remain quiet and
contented in the sight of empires he had won and lost.