FROM THE RETIREMENT OF M. DE TALLEYRAND TO THE REVOLUTION OF 1830.
M. de Talleyrand’s retirement from public affairs during
the period which closed with the dethronement of Charles
X.--Appearance in the House of Peers on two occasions, to
protest against the Spanish war and to defend the liberty
of the press.--Reasons for the course he pursued.--Share
in the advent of Louis Philippe.--Accepts the embassy to
London.--Conduct and policy when there.--Retires after
the Quadruple Alliance.--Discourse in the Institute on M.
Reinhard.--Death.--Summary of character.
I.
M. de Talleyrand gave a proof of his sagacity when he foresaw that,
with the violent Royalists entering into power under a minister
named by the Autocrat of the North, a state of things was preparing
that would lead to a war of opinion throughout Europe, and unite the
governments that could not support liberal institutions with that party
in the French nation which repudiated them. He was equally sagacious
in retiring voluntarily from affairs, and doing so on national and not
on party grounds. But at the same time he could not long have remained
at the head of a parliamentary government, even had he been free from
the peculiar difficulty which then surrounded him. To direct affairs
with such a government, in critical times, one must have some of the
passions of those times. M. de Talleyrand, as I have said at the
beginning of this sketch, had no passions.
He represented the power of reason; but that power, which predominates
at the end of every crisis, has its voice drowned at the commencement.
His administration then was necessarily doomed: but he had at least the
credit of having endeavoured, first to prevent and then to moderate
those acts of vengeance which a minority that obtains the supremacy
always wishes to inflict on an adverse majority: for he furnished
passports and even money (the budget of foreign affairs was charged
with four hundred and fifty-nine thousand francs for this purpose) to
all who felt desirous to quit France--Ney, though he did not profit by
the indulgence, might have done so. The list of proscriptions at first
contained one hundred persons, M. de Talleyrand reduced that number
to fifty-seven.[74] Labédoyère--and this owing entirely to his own
imprudence, in obliging the government either to release him publicly
or to bring him to trial--was the only victim of an administration
which wished to be moderate when every one was violent.
A most memorable epoch in French history now commenced--the
constitutional education of the French nation. It went through a
variety of vicissitudes. For a time the Royalist reaction, headed by
the Comte d’Artois, prevailed. It was then for a moment stopped by
the jealousy of Louis XVIII., who felt that France was in reality
being governed by his brother, who could ride on horseback. After a
short struggle the conflict between the two princes ceased, and M. de
Villelle with more or less adroitness governed them both. The elder
at last was deprived by death of the sceptre he had ceased to wield
independently, and with the ardent desire he had ever felt to be loved
by his countrymen, Charles X. legitimately commenced his right of
ruling them. But a hesitating policy of conciliation producing after a
short effort but a doubtful result, another policy was resolved upon.
The King would show that he was king, and he selected a ministry ready
to be his soldiers in a battle against popular ideas. The battle was
fought: the King was vanquished. So passed the time from 1815 to 1830.
Within this epoch of fifteen years, during which it must be said that
France, however agitated and divided, made an immense progress under
the institutions that she owed in no small degree to M. de Talleyrand,
that statesman was little more than a spectator of passing events.
The new patriots, orators, journalists, generals of the day, occupied
public attention, and he ceased to be considered except as one of those
characters of history that have been too interesting in their day to be
consigned quietly to posterity. Moreover, the judgment passed on him
from time to time by contemporaneous writers was usually superficial
and sometimes supercilious.
As to the deputies whom local influence and the zeal of parties
returned to the lower chamber, they were for the most part unknown to
him by their antecedents, and not worth knowing for their merits.
In the upper chamber, where men of high rank and intellectual eminence
were certainly to be found, his personal influence was not great; the
sympathies and recollections of that chamber, whether amongst the old
Royalists or most distinguished Bonapartists, were against him. There
was no one consequently to press him to take part in its debates,
nor were there many subjects of discussion sufficiently important to
arouse his indolence, and call forth with dignity the exertions of a
statesman who had played so great a part amidst the great events of
that marvellous period through which his career had run.
On one memorable occasion, however, he stepped boldly forward to
claim--if affairs took the course which many thought most probable--the
first place in a new system: this was when war, in 1823, was declared
against Spain.
II.
That war was commenced by M. de Châteaubriand, who had always been M.
de Talleyrand’s antipathy, not merely as a war against the Spanish
people, or in support of the Spanish monarch, but as a war which was
to be considered an armed declaration in favour of ultra-monarchical
principles, thus justifying all the previsions with which M. de
Talleyrand had quitted office. A victory was certain to deliver France
into the hands of the ultra-Royalist party; defeat or difficulty
was as certain to give power to more moderate men and more moderate
opinions. In the one case, M. de Talleyrand had nothing to hope; in
the other, it was necessary to fix attention on the fact that he had
predicated misfortune. The struggle in Spain, moreover, depended
greatly on the state of public opinion; and this alone made it
advisable to endeavour to create as strong a belief as possible that
men of weight and consideration looked upon it with apprehension and
disfavour. It was under these circumstances that M. de Talleyrand
expressed the following opinion:[75]
“Messieurs,” this impressive discourse commences, “il y a aujourd’hui
seize ans qu’appellé par celui qui gouvernait alors le monde à lui
dire mon avis sur une lutte à engager avec le peuple espagnol, j’eus
le malheur de lui déplaire, en lui dévoilant l’avenir, en révélant
tous les dangers qui allaient naître en foule d’une aggression non
moins injuste que téméraire. La disgrâce fut le prix de ma sincérité.
Etrange destinée, que celle qui me ramène après ce long espace de temps
à renouveler auprès du souverain légitime les mêmes efforts, les mêmes
conseils. Le discours de la couronne a fait disparaître les dernières
espérances de amis de la paix, et, menaçant pour l’Espagne, il est,
je dois le dire, alarmant pour la France.… Oui, j’aurai le courage de
dire toute la vérité. Ces mêmes sentiments chevaleresques qui, en 1789,
entraînaient les cœurs généreux, n’ont pu sauver la monarchie légitime,
ils peuvent encore la perdre en 1823.”
The Spanish war, in spite of these alarming prognostications, was
successful; and courtiers sneered not unnaturally at the statesman
who had denounced it. But if M. de Talleyrand had not shown his usual
foresight, he had not acted contrary to his usual prudence. People,
in deciding on the conduct they should adopt, can only calculate upon
probabilities, and must, after all, as Machiavelli with his worldly
experience observes, “leave much to chance.” This sort of prophecy,
contained in the speech I have just quoted from, had a good deal in its
favour; M. de Châteaubriand himself had, as I once heard from the lips
of a person to whom he spoke confidentially, the most serious doubts
as to the issue of the approaching campaign; though he considered
that its happy termination would firmly establish the Bourbons as
sovereigns in France, and himself as their prime minister: in both of
which conclusions he was wrong, though it seemed likely he would be
right. The contemplated enterprise was, in fact, unpopular; the prince
at its head was without capacity, the generals around him were on ill
terms with each other, the soldiers themselves of doubtful allegiance.
A considerable body of Frenchmen and some French soldiers were in the
enemies’ ranks, and were about, in the name of liberty and Napoleon
II., to make an appeal, from the opposite shore of the Bidassoa, to
their advancing comrades.
The courage of the nation now attacked had on many occasions been
remarkable; the discipline of its armies had been lately improved;
the policy of England was uncertain; the credit of France was far
from good. These were all fair elements out of which it was by no
means unreasonable to concoct a disastrous presage, which, like many
presages, had a tendency to realise itself. But more especially it
should be observed that the predictions of M. de Talleyrand, if
unfortunate, would do him no harm, and if fortunate, would replace him
on the pinnacle of power.
III.
The ex-minister of Louis XVIII. thus revived the recollections of the
ex-minister of Napoleon le Grand; as already the member of the Chamber
of Peers had vindicated the principles of the veteran of the National
Assembly; for on the 24th of July, 1821, we find him expressing the
same sentiments in favour of the liberty of the press after practical
experience, which at the commencement of his career he had proclaimed
with theoretical anticipations.
As the question at issue is not yet solved in the country he was
addressing, it may not be without interest to hear what he says:[76]
“Without the liberty of the press there can be no representative
government; it is one of its essential instruments--its chief
instrument, in fact: every government has its principles, and we cannot
remember too often that frequently those principles which are excellent
for one government are detestable for another. It has been abundantly
demonstrated by several members of this House, both in this and the
preceding session, that without the liberty of the press representative
government does not exist. I will not, then, repeat what you have
already heard or read, and which is no doubt the frequent subject of
your reflections.
“But there are two points of view in which it appears to me the
question has not been sufficiently treated, and which I resolve into
two propositions:
“1st. The liberty of the press is a necessity of the time.
“2nd. A government exposes itself when it obstinately refuses, and that
for a lengthened period, what the time proclaims as necessary.
“The _mind is never completely stationary_. The discovery of
yesterday is only a means to arrive at a fresh discovery to-morrow.
One is nevertheless justified in affirming that it _appears to act
by impulses, because there are moments when it appears particularly
desirous of bringing forth--of producing; at others, on the contrary,
when, satisfied by its conquests, it appears to rest itself, and is
occupied in putting the treasures it has acquired in order, rather than
in seeking after new ones_. The seventeenth century was one of these
fortunate epochs. The human intellect, dazzled by the immense riches
which the art of printing had put at its disposal, paused to gaze in
admiration on the wondrous sight. Giving itself up entirely to the
enjoyment of letters, science, and art, its glory and happiness became
concentrated in the production of masterpieces. All the great men of
the time of Louis XIV. vied with each other in embellishing a social
order, beyond which they saw nothing, and desired nothing, and which
appeared to them made to last as long as the glory of the great king,
the object alike of their respect and of their enthusiasm. But when
they had exhausted the fertile mine of antiquity, their intelligent
activity found itself almost compelled to search elsewhere, and
discovered nothing new, except in speculative studies that embrace all
the future, and of which the limits are unknown. It was amidst these
dispositions that the eighteenth century dawned--a century so little
resembling the preceding one. To the poetical lessons of Telemachus
succeeded the theories of ‘the _Esprit des Lois_,’ and Port Royal was
replaced by the Encyclopædia.
“I pray you to observe, gentlemen, that I neither censure nor approve:
I simply relate.
“In calling to mind all the calamities poured out upon France during
the Revolution, we must not be altogether unjust towards those superior
men that brought it about; and we ought not to forget, that if in
their writings they have not always been able to avoid falling into
error, we owe to them the revelation of some great truths. Above all,
let us not forget that we ought not to make them responsible for the
precipitation with which France rushed practically into a career which
her philosophers merely indicated. Thoughts were turned at once into
action, and one might well say, ‘Woe to him who in his foolish pride
would go beyond the necessities of his epoch! Some abyss or revolution
awaits him.’ But when we simply follow the necessity of an epoch, we
are certain not to go astray.
“Now, gentlemen, do you wish to know what were in 1789 the real
necessities of that epoch? Turn to the mandates of the different orders
represented in the National Assembly. _All that were then the reflected
wishes of enlightened men are what I call necessities._ The Constituent
Assembly was only their interpreter when it proclaimed liberty of
worship, equality before the law, individual liberty, the right of
jurisdiction (that no one should be deprived of his natural judges),
_the liberty of the press_.
“It was little in accordance with its epoch when it instituted a single
chamber, when it destroyed the royal sanction, when it tortured the
conscience, &c. &c. And, nevertheless, in spite of its faults, of
which I have only cited a small number--faults followed by such great
calamities--posterity which has begun for it accords to it the glory of
establishing the foundation of our new public rights.
“_Let us hold, then, for certain, that all that is desired, that
all that is proclaimed good and useful by all the enlightened men
of a country, without variation, during a series of years diversely
occupied, is a necessity of the times._ Such, gentlemen, is the liberty
of the press. I address myself to all those amongst you who are more
particularly my contemporaries--was it not the dear object and wish
of all those excellent men whom we so admired in our youth--the
Malesherbes, the Trudaines--who surely were well worth the statesmen
we have had since? The place which the men I have named occupy in
our memories amply proves that the liberty of the press consolidates
legitimate renown; and if it destroys usurped reputations, where is the
harm?
“Having proved my first proposition, that the liberty of the press is
in France the necessary result of the state of its society, it remains
for me to establish my second proposition--that a government is in
danger when it obstinately refuses what the state or spirit of its
society requires.
“The most tranquil societies, and those which ought to be the most
happy, always number amongst them a certain class of men who hope
to acquire by the means of disorder those riches which they do not
possess, and that importance which they ought never to have. Is
it prudent to furnish the enemies of social order with pretexts
for discontent, without which their individual efforts to promote
disturbance would be impotent?
“Society in its progressive march is destined to experience new wants.
_I can perfectly understand that governments ought not to be in any
hurry to recognise them; but when it has once recognised them_, to take
back what it has given, or, what comes to the same thing, to be always
suspending its exercise, is a temerity of which I more than any one
desire that those who conceived _the convenient_ and _fatal thought_
may not have to repent. The good faith of a government should never be
compromised. _Now-a-days, it is not easy to deceive for long. There is
some one who has more intelligence than Voltaire; more intelligence
than Bonaparte; more intelligence than each of the Directors--than
each of the ministers, past, present, and to come. That some one is
everybody._ To engage in, or at least to persist in, a struggle against
what according to general belief is a public interest, is a political
fault,--and at this day all political faults are dangerous.
“When the press is free--when each one knows that his interests are or
will be defended--all wait with patience a justice more or less tardy.
Hope supports, and with reason, for this hope cannot be deceived for
long; but when the press is enslaved, when no voice can be raised,
discontent will soon exact, on the part of the government, either too
much concession or too much repression.”
On the 26th of February, 1822, M. de Talleyrand spoke on the same
subject, commenting on the rights accorded by, and the intentions which
had presided over, the charter. Such efforts on such subjects preserved
for his name a national character, and connected the most memorable
acts of his own career with the most ardent aspirations of his country.
IV.
Still, notwithstanding these occasional appearances on the public
stage, it is certain that the easy though momentary triumph of a cause
of which he had somewhat solemnly announced the almost certain defeat,
disgusted him from further meddling in affairs, and much of his time
was afterwards passed out of Paris, at Valençay, the estate which he
meant should be ancestral, in Touraine. His fortune, moreover, was
much affected by the bankruptcy of a commercial house in which he had
engaged himself as what we call a “sleeping partner.” Nevertheless
he held, when in the capital, a great existence:--his drawing-room
becoming to the Restoration what it had been to the best days of the
Empire--a rival court, and a court which gathered to itself all the
eminences of the old times, and all the rising young men of the new.
There, from his easy-chair, drawn up to the window which looks upon the
Tuileries, and surrounded by those who had acted in the past with him,
or who might make a future for him, he read with pleased composure the
fall of ministry after ministry on the flushed countenance of the eager
deputy rushing to or from the fatal vote; until, at the nomination
of M. de Polignac, he repeated calmly to those about him, the phrase
he is said to have pronounced after the Russian campaign: “_C’est
le commencement de la fin_.” Indeed, ever since the dismissal of the
National Guard, and the failure of M. de Martignac’s ministry, which,
tried as it was and at the time it was, could not but fail, he spoke
without reserve, though always with expressions of regret, to those in
his intimacy, of the extreme peril to which the legitimate monarchy
was hurrying; and he could do this with the more certainty, from the
knowledge he possessed of Charles X.’s character, the good and bad
qualities of which he considered equally dangerous.
V.
The following account of the share which M. de Talleyrand took in the
new Revolution, that, after many ominous preludes, at last took place,
was given me by an actor in the history he relates.
For the first two days of the insurrection, viz., the 27th and 28th
of July, M. de Talleyrand said little or nothing, remaining quietly
at home and refusing himself to all inquirers. On the third day he
called to him his private secretary, and with that winning manner he
knew so well how to adopt when he had any object to gain, said to him:
“M. C----, I have a favour to request of you; go for me to St. Cloud”
(the service was one of some danger and difficulty), “see if the royal
family are still there, or what they are doing.” The secretary went and
found Charles X. just departing for Rambouillet. M. de Talleyrand, who
had during his messenger’s absence seen General Sebastiani, General
Gerard, and two or three other influential persons of the same party
and opinions, on hearing that the King had quitted St. Cloud, retired
to his room and remained there alone for about two hours, when he
again sent for the same gentleman, and this time his manners were, if
possible, more persuasive than before. “I have yet another and greater
favour to ask, M. C----. Go for me to Neuilly; get by some means or
other to Madame Adelaide;[77] give her this piece of paper, and when
she has read it, either see it burnt or bring it back to me.” The
piece of paper contained merely these words: “Madame peut avoir toute
confiance dans le porteur, qui est mon secrétaire.” “When madame has
read this, you will tell her that there is not a moment to lose. The
Duc d’Orléans must be here to-morrow; he must take no other title than
that of Lieutenant-general of the Kingdom, which has been accorded to
him--‘_le reste viendra_.’”
With this confidential message, M. C---- started. With great
difficulty--for the gates of Neuilly were closed to every one--he got
to the château and to Madame. On saying that he brought a message
from M. de Talleyrand, “Ah, ce bon prince, j’étais sûre qu’il ne nous
oublierait pas!”[78] The messenger then delivered his credentials
and his message. “Tell the prince that I will pledge my word for my
brother’s following his advice. He shall be in Paris to-morrow,”
was the reply; after which M. C---- had the courage to ask, though
with some hesitation, that the piece of paper should be destroyed
or returned. It was given back to him, and he restored it to M. de
Talleyrand, who did not, by the way, forget to ask for it. It only
remains to say that the Duc d’Orléans did come to Paris the following
day; did only take the title of Lieutenant-general; and that the rest
did, as M. de Talleyrand had predicted, follow. Thus ended the last
Revolution with which this singular man was blended.
When the message he sent arrived, the future king of the French was
concealed, the conduct he seemed likely to pursue uncertain; and those
who know anything of revolutions will be aware of the value of a day
and an hour. Moreover, this prince got to the throne by the very door
which M. de Talleyrand had warned Louis XVIII. to close, viz., a
constitution proceeding _from_ the people.
Nor is this all: the knowledge that M. de Talleyrand had recognised,
and even been concerned in establishing, the new dynasty, had no slight
influence on the opinion formed of it in other courts, and might be
said more especially to have decided our own important and immediate
recognition of it. He himself was then offered the post of minister of
foreign affairs, but he saw it was more difficult and less important
than that of ambassador to St. James’, and while he refused the first
position he accepted the last.
VI.
The choice was a fortunate one. No one else could have supplied the
place of M. de Talleyrand in England at that juncture; he knew well and
personally both the Duke of Wellington and Lord Grey, the chiefs of the
opposing parties, and it was perhaps his presence at the British court,
more than any other circumstance of the time, which preserved, in a
crisis when all the elements of war were struggling to get loose, that
universal peace which for so many years remained unbroken.
With a firm conviction, indeed, of the necessity of this peace, he took
the best and only course for maintaining it. An ordinary diplomatist
is occupied with the thousand small affairs passing through his hands,
and the thousand ideas of more or less importance connected with them.
M. de Talleyrand’s great talent, as I have more than once said, was
in selecting at once in every affair the most _important question_ of
the moment, and in sacrificing, without delay or scruple, whatever was
necessary to attain his object with respect to that question.
He saw that the peaceful acceptance of the Orleans’ dynasty could be
obtained, and could only be obtained, by being on good terms with
England. A quarrel with us was an European war; a good understanding
with us rendered such a war unlikely, almost impossible. Belgium was
the especial question on which all earlier negotiations turned, and
on which the amity of our government depended. That country, smarting
under many real, and irritated by the thought of many fancied,
grievances, had thrown off the Dutch yoke. The Dutch troops, who
with a little more vigour might have been victorious, had retreated,
beaten, from Brussels; the frontier fortresses were in the hands of
the insurgents, and it is no use disguising the fact that there was,
is, and ever will be, a considerable party in France in favour of
extending the French frontier, and comprising Antwerp within the
French dominions. England, however, was not then disposed, and probably
will not at any time be disposed, with statesmen caring for the safety
of their country, to submit to this. She had, in fact, as I have said
at the peace of 1814, provided especially, as she thought, for the
safety of the Netherlands, by the amalgamation of the Belgian and Dutch
provinces into one kingdom, and by the fortresses which she had built
or repaired for protecting that kingdom.
This policy was now overthrown, and could not be reconstructed without
exciting the warlike and excited spirit of the French people. On
the other hand, we could only make a limited sacrifice to French
susceptibility and ambition. Much skill then was necessary on the
part of all persons, but more especially on the part of the French
negotiator, to avoid any serious wound to the interests of the one
nation, or to the feelings of the other. There was a call, in short,
for the steadiest discretion without any change of purpose; and all
through the various phases of those long negotiations, by which jarring
questions were finally composed, M. de Talleyrand warily persevered
in his plan of planting the new government of France amongst the
established governments of Europe through its alliance with Great
Britain.
The establishment of conferences in London was one of the most
artful of the measures adopted with this end. Here the ambassador
of Louis Philippe was brought at once, and in union with the
Cabinet of St. James’, into almost daily and intimate communication
with the representatives of the other great powers. A variety of
misrepresentations were removed, and a variety of statements made, not
merely useful for the questions which were especially under discussion,
but for the general position and policy of the State which the veteran
diplomatist represented.
The quadruple alliance--an alliance of the western and constitutional
governments of Europe--was, in fact, a mere extension of the alliance
between France and England, and a great moral exhibition of the
trust placed by the parties themselves in that alliance. With this
remarkable and popular compact--a compact which embodied the best
principles on which an Anglo-French alliance can be formed--the
diplomatic career of M. de Talleyrand closed. He felt, as he himself
said, that there “is a sort of space between death and life, which
should be employed in dying decently.”
The retirement of Lord Grey removed from the scene of public affairs in
England that generation which, long accustomed to the reputation of a
man who had filled half a century with his name, treated both himself
and his opinions with the flattering respect due to old remembrances.
To the men of the new government he was, comparatively speaking, a
stranger. The busy time of their career he had passed in seclusion from
affairs. They considered him, in a certain degree, as antiquated and
gone by: a sentiment which he was keen enough to detect, and sensitive
enough to feel deeply.
His opinions, indeed, became somewhat embittered by certain affronts
or negligences of which, during the latter part of his embassy, he
thought he had to complain; and, after his retirement, it is said that
he rather counselled his royal master to consider that the advantages
sought for in an alliance with England were obtained, and that the
future policy of France should be to conciliate other powers.
VII.
At all events M. de Talleyrand, during his mission in England, not only
sustained his previous reputation, but added very considerably to it.
What struck the vulgar, and many, indeed, above the vulgar, who did
not remember that the really crafty man disguises his craft, was the
plain, open, and straightforward way in which he spoke of and dealt
with all public matters, without any of those mysterious devices which
distinguish the simpleton in the diplomacy from the statesman who is a
diplomatist. In fact, having made up his mind to consider the English
alliance at this time essential to his country, he was well aware that
the best and only way of obtaining it was by such frank and fair
dealing as would win the confidence of British statesmen.
Lord Palmerston told me that his manner in diplomatic conferences
was remarkable for its extreme absence of pretension, without any
derogation of authority. He sat, for the most part, quiet, as if
approving: sometimes, however, stating his opinion, but never arguing
or discussing;--a habit foreign to the natural indolence which
accompanied him throughout his active career, and which he also
condemned on such occasions, as fruitless and impolitic: “I argue
before a public assembly,” he used to say, “not because I hope to
convince any one there, but because I wish my opinions to be known to
the world. But, in a room beyond which my voice is not to extend, the
attempt to enforce my opinion against that which another is engaged to
adopt, obliges him to be more formal and positive in expressing his
hostility, and often leads him, from a desire to shine in the sense of
his instructions, to go beyond them.”
Whatever M. de Talleyrand did, therefore, in the way of argument,
he usually did beforehand, and alone, with the parties whom he was
afterwards to encounter, and here he tried to avoid controversy. His
manner was to bring out the principal point in his own opinion, and
present it to the best advantage in every possible position.
Napoleon complained of this, saying, he could not conceive how people
found M. de Talleyrand eloquent. “Il tournait toujours sur la même
idée.”[79] But this was a system with him, as with Fox, who laid it
down as the great principle for an orator who wished to leave an
impression.
He was apt, however, to ask to have a particular word or sentence, of
which he had generally studied the bearing and calculated the effect,
introduced into a paper under discussion, and from the carelessness
with which he made the request it was usually complied with. There was
something in this silent way of doing business, which disappointed
those who expected a more frequent use of the brilliant weapons which
it was well known that the great wit of the day had at his command.
But in the social circle which he wished to charm, or with the single
individual whom he wished to gain, the effect of his peculiar eloquence
generally overran the expectation.
M. de Bacourt, who was secretary to his embassy in London, informed
me “that M. de Talleyrand rarely wrote a whole despatch,” but that a
variety of little notes and phrases were usually to be found in his
portfolio. When the question which these notes referred to had to be
treated, they were produced, and confided to him (M. de Bacourt), who
was told the general sense of the document he was to write, and how
such memoranda were to be introduced. Finally, a revisal took place,
and the general colouring, which proved that the despatch came from the
ambassador, and not from his chancery, was fused over the composition.
As a general rule in business, M. de Talleyrand held to the rule, that
a chief should never do anything that a subaltern could do for him.
“You should always,” he used to say, “have time to spare, and rather
put off till to-morrow what you cannot do well and easily to-day, than
get into that hurry and flurry which is the necessary consequence of
feeling one has too much to do.”
I have painted the subject of this sketch personally in his early
life. Towards the close of his existence, the likenesses of him that
are common are sufficiently resembling. His head, with a superfluity
of hair, looked large, and was sunk deep into an expanded chest. His
countenance was pale and grave, with a mouth, the under-lip rather
protruding, which formed itself instantly and almost instinctively into
a smile that was sarcastic without being ill-natured. He talked little
in general society, merely expressing at intervals some opinion that
had the air of an epigram, and which produced its effect as much from
the manner with which it was brought out, as from its intrinsic merit.
He was, in fact, an actor, but an actor with such ease and nonchalance
that he never seemed more natural than when he was acting.
His recorded _bon mots_, of which I have given some, have become
hackneyed, especially the best. But I will venture to mention a
few that occur to me, as I am writing, and which are remarkable as
expressing an opinion concerning an individual or a situation.
When the Comte d’Artois wished to be present at the councils of Louis
XVIII., M. de Talleyrand opposed the project. The Comte d’Artois
was offended, and reproached the minister. “Un jour,” said M. de
Talleyrand, “Votre Majesté me remerciera pour ce qui déplaît a Votre
Altesse Royale.”
M. de Châteaubriand was no favourite with M. de Talleyrand. He
condemned him as an affected writer, and an impossible politician. When
the “Martyrs” first appeared, and was run after by the public with an
appetite that the booksellers could not satisfy, M. de Fontanes, after
speaking of it with an exaggerated eulogium, finished his explanation
of the narrative by saying that Eudore and Cymodocée were thrown into
the circus and devoured “par les bêtes.” “Comme l’ouvrage,” said M. de
Talleyrand.
Some person saying that Fouché had a great contempt for mankind, “C’est
vrai,” said M. de Talleyrand, “cet homme s’est beaucoup étudié.”
There is a certain instinct which most persons have as to their
successor; and when some one asked M. de Talleyrand a little before
the Duc de Richelieu, governor of Odessa, was appointed prime minister
in his own country, whether he, M. de Talleyrand, really thought that
the Duc was fit to govern France, he replied, to the surprise of the
questioner, “Most assuredly;” adding, after a slight pause, “No one
knows the Crimea better.”
A lady, using the privilege of her sex, was speaking with violence of
the defection of the Duc de Raguse. “Mon Dieu, madame,” said M. de
Talleyrand, “tout cela ne prouve qu’une chose. C’est que sa montre
avançait et tout le monde était à l’heure.”
A strong supporter of the chamber of peers, when there was much
question as to its merits, said, “At least you there find consciences.”
“Ah, oui,” said M. de Talleyrand, “beaucoup, beaucoup de consciences.
Semonville, par exemple, en a au moins deux.”
Louis XVIII., speaking of M. de Blacas before M. de Talleyrand had
expressed any opinion concerning him, said, “Ce pauvre Blacas, il aime
la France, il m’aime, mais on dit qu’il est suffisant.” “Ah oui, Sire,
suffisant et insuffisant.”
As Madame de Staël was praising the British Constitution, M. de
Talleyrand, turning round, said in a low, explanatory tone, “_Elle
admire surtout l’habeas corpus_.”
One evening at Holland House the company had got into groups, talking
over some question of the moment in the House of Commons; and thus M.
de Talleyrand, left alone, got up to go away, when Lord Holland, with
his usual urbanity, following him to the door, asked where he was going
so early. “Je vais aux _Travellers_, pour entendre ce que vous dites
ici.”
We could prolong almost indefinitely this record of sayings from
which M. de Talleyrand, notwithstanding his many services and great
abilities, derives his popular and traditional reputation: but, in
reality, they belong as much to the conversational epoch at which he
entered the world, as to himself.
VIII.
On quitting England, he quitted not only diplomacy, as I have said, but
public life, and passed the remainder of his days in the enjoyment of
the highest situation, and the most agreeable and cultivated society,
that his country could afford.
His fortune and ability might now, according to the Grecian sage, be
estimated; for his career was closed; and, as the old sought his saloon
as the hearth on which their brighter recollections could be revived,
so the young were glad to test their opinions by the experience of “the
politic man,” who had passed through so many vicissitudes, and walked
with a careless and haughty ease over the ruins of so many governments,
at the fall of which he had assisted. He himself, with that cool
presence of mind for which he was so remarkable, aware that he had but
a few years between the grave and himself, employed them in one of his
great and constant objects, that of prepossessing the age about to
succeed him in his favour, and explaining to those whom he thought
likely to influence the coming generation, the darker passages of his
brilliant career. To one distinguished person, M. Montalivet, who
related to me the fact, he once said: “You have a prejudice against me,
because your father was an Imperialist, and you think I deserted the
Emperor. I have never kept fealty to any one longer than he has himself
been obedient to common sense. But, if you judge all my actions by this
rule, you will find that I have been eminently consistent; and where
is there so degraded a human being, or so bad a citizen, as to submit
his intelligence, or sacrifice his country, to any individual, however
born, or however endowed?”
This, indeed, in a few words, was M. de Talleyrand’s theory; a theory
which has formed the school, that without strictly adhering to the
principle that common sense should be the test of obedience, bows
to every authority with a smile and shrug of the shoulders, and the
well-known phrase of “_La France avant tout_.”
Shortly previous to his last illness he appeared (evidently with the
intention of bidding the world a sort of dignified adieu) in the
tribune of the Institute. The subject which he chose for his essay
was M. Reinhard, who had long served under him, and was just dead,
and between whom and himself, even in the circumstance of their both
having received an ecclesiastical education, there was some sort of
resemblance. The discourse is interesting on this ground, and also as
a review of the different branches of the diplomatic service, and the
duties attached to each--forming a kind of legacy to that profession of
which the speaker had so long been the ornament.
IX.
“GENTLEMEN,--[80]
“I was in America when I was named a member of the Institute, and
placed in the department of moral and political sciences, to which
I have had the honour of being attached ever since it was first
established.
“On my return to France, I made it my principal object to attend
its meetings, and to express to my new colleagues, many of whom we
now so justly regret, the pleasure it gave me to find myself one
of their number. At the first sitting I attended, the _bureau_ was
being renewed, and I had the honour of being named secretary. During
six months, I drew up, to the best of my ability, the minutes of the
proceedings, but my labours betrayed perhaps a little too plainly my
diffidence, for I had to report on a work, the subject of which was new
to me. That work, which had cost one of our most learned colleagues
many researches, many sleepless nights, was ‘A Dissertation on the
Riparian Laws.’ It was about the same period that I read at our public
meetings several papers, which were received with such indulgence as to
be thought worthy of being inserted in the memoirs of the Institute.
But forty years have now elapsed, during which I have been a stranger
to this tribune; first, in consequence of frequent absence; then from
duties, to which I felt bound to devote my whole time and attention; I
must also add, from that discretion, which, in times of difficulty,
is required of a man employed in public affairs; and finally, at a
later period, from the infirmities, usually brought on, or at least
aggravated, by age.
“At the present moment, I feel myself called upon to perform a duty,
and to make a last appearance before this Assembly, in order that
the memory of a man, known to the whole of Europe;--of a man whom I
loved, and who, from the very foundation of the Institute, has been
our colleague, should receive here a public testimony of our esteem
and regret. His position with respect to my own furnishes me with
the means of speaking with authority of several of his merits. His
principal, but I do not say his only, claim to distinction, consists of
a correspondence of forty years, necessarily unknown to the public, and
likely to remain so for ever. I asked myself, ‘Who will mention this
fact within these walls? who, especially, will consider himself under
the obligation of directing your attention to it, if the task be not
undertaken by me, to whom the greater part of this correspondence was
addressed, to whom it always gave so much pleasure, and often so much
assistance in those ministerial duties, which I had to perform during
three reigns … so very different in character?’
“The first time I saw M. Reinhard, he was thirty, and I thirty-seven,
years of age. He entered public life with the advantage of a large
stock of acquired knowledge. He knew thoroughly five or six languages,
and was familiar with their literature. He could have made himself
remarkable as an historian, as a poet, or as a geographer; and it was
in this last capacity that he became a member of the Institute, from
the day it was founded.
“Already at this time he was a member of the Academy of Sciences of
Göttingen. Born and educated in Germany, he had published in his youth
several pieces of poetry, which had brought him under the notice of
Gesner, Wieland, and Schiller. He was obliged at a later period to take
the waters of Carlsbad, where he was so fortunate as to find himself
frequently in the society of the celebrated Goethe, who appreciated
his taste and acquirements sufficiently to request to be informed by
him of everything that was creating a sensation in the French literary
world. M. Reinhard promised to do so; engagements of this kind between
men of a superior order are always reciprocal, and soon become ties of
friendship; those formed between M. Reinhard and Goethe gave rise to a
correspondence, which is now published in Germany.
“We learn from these letters that when he had arrived at that time of
life, when it is necessary to select definitively the profession for
which one feels most aptitude, M. Reinhard, before making his final
decision, reflected seriously upon his natural disposition, his tastes,
his own circumstances and those of his family; and then made a choice
singular at that time, for instead of choosing a career that promised
independence, he gave the preference to one in which it is impossible
to secure it. The diplomatic career was selected by him, nor is it
possible to blame him; qualified for all the duties of this profession,
he has successively fulfilled them all, and each with distinction.
“And I would here venture to assert that he had been successfully
prepared for the course he adopted by his early studies. He had been
remarked as a proficient in theology at the Seminary of Denkendorf,
and at that of the Protestant faculty of Tübingen, and it was to
this science especially that he owed the power, and at the same
time the subtlety, of reasoning, that abounds in all his writings.
And to divest myself of the fear of yielding to an idea which might
appear paradoxical, I feel obliged to bring before you the names of
several of our greatest diplomatists, who were at once theologians and
celebrated in history for having conducted the most important political
negotiations of their day. There was the chancellor, Cardinal Duprat,
equally skilled in canon and civil law, who established with Leo X. the
basis of the Concordat, of which several articles are still retained.
Cardinal d’Ossat, who, in spite of the efforts made by several great
powers, succeeded in effecting a reconciliation between Henry IV. and
the Court of Rome. The study of his letters is still recommended at the
present day to young men who are destined for political life. Cardinal
de Polignac, a theologian, poet and diplomatist, who, after so many
disastrous campaigns, was able to preserve, by the treaty of Utrecht,
the conquests of Louis XIV. for France.
“The names I have just mentioned appear to me sufficient to justify
my opinion that M. Reinhard’s habits of thought were considerably
influenced by the early studies to which his education had been
directed by his father.
“On account of his solid, and, at the same time, various acquirements,
he was called to Bordeaux, in order to discharge the honourable but
modest duties of a tutor in a Protestant family of that city. There he
naturally became acquainted with several of those men whose talents,
errors, and death have given so much celebrity to our first legislative
assembly. M. Reinhard was easily persuaded by them to devote himself to
the service of France.
“It is not necessary to follow him step by step through all the
vicissitudes of his long career. In the succession of offices confided
to him, now of a higher, now of a lower order, there seems to be a sort
of inconsistency and absence of regularity, which, at the present day,
we should have some difficulty in conceiving. But, at that time, people
were as free from prejudice with respect to places as to persons.
At other periods, favour, and sometimes discernment, used to confer
situations of importance. But, in the days of which I speak, every
place had to be won. Such a state of things very quickly leads to
confusion.
“Thus, we find M. Reinhard first secretary of legation at London;
occupying the same post at Naples; minister plenipotentiary to the
Hanseatic towns of Hamburg, Bremen, and Lübeck; chief clerk of
the third division in the department of foreign affairs; minister
plenipotentiary at Florence; minister of foreign affairs; minister
plenipotentiary to the Helvetian Republic; consul-general at Milan;
minister plenipotentiary to the Circle of Lower Saxony; president in
the Turkish provinces beyond the Danube, and commissary-general of
commercial relations in Moldavia; minister plenipotentiary to the
King of Westphalia; director of the _Chancellerie_ in the department
of foreign affairs; minister plenipotentiary to the Germanic Diet and
the free city of Frankfort; and, finally, minister plenipotentiary at
Dresden.
“What a number of places, of charges, and of interests, all confided
to one man, and this at a time when it seemed likely that his civil
talents would be less justly appreciated, inasmuch as that war appeared
to decide every question.
“You do not expect me, gentlemen, to give here a detailed account of
all M. Reinhard’s labours in the various employments, which I have just
enumerated. This would require a volume.
“I have only to call your attention to the manner in which he regarded
the duties he had to perform, whether as chief clerk, minister, or
consul.
“Although M. Reinhard did not possess at that time the advantage which
he might have had a few years later of being able to study excellent
examples, he was already perfectly aware of the numerous and various
qualities that ought to distinguish a chief clerk in the foreign
office. A delicate tact had made him feel that the habits of a chief
clerk ought to be simple, regular, and retired; that, a stranger to
the bustle of the world, he ought to live solely for his duty, and
devote to it an impenetrable secrecy; that, always prepared to give
an answer respecting facts or men, he must have every treaty fresh in
his memory, know its historical date, appreciate its strong and weak
points, its antecedents and consequences, and finally be acquainted
with the names of its principal negotiators, and even with their family
connections; that, in making use of this knowledge, he ought, at the
same time, to be cautious not to offend a minister’s self-esteem,
always so sensitive, and, even when he should have influenced the
opinion of his chief, to leave his success in the shade; for he knew
that he was to shine only by a reflected light. Still, he was aware
that much consideration would be the reward of so pure and modest a
life.
“M. Reinhard’s power of observation did not stop here; it had taught
him to understand how rare is the union of qualities necessary to
make a minister of foreign affairs. Indeed, a minister of foreign
affairs ought to be gifted with a sort of instinct, which should be
always prompting him, and thus guarding him, when entering into any
discussion, from the danger of committing himself. It is requisite
that he should possess the faculty of appearing open, while remaining
impenetrable; of masking reserve with the manner of frankness; of
showing talent even in the choice of his amusements. His conversation
should be simple, varied, unexpected, always natural, and at times
_naïve_; in a word, he should never cease for an instant during the
twenty-four hours to be a minister of foreign affairs.
“Yet all these qualities, however rare, might not suffice, if they did
not find in sincerity a guarantee which they almost always require.
I must not omit to notice here this fact, in order to destroy a
prejudice, into which people are very apt to fall. No! diplomacy is not
a science of craft and duplicity. If sincerity be anywhere requisite,
it is especially so in political transactions; for it is that which
makes them solid and durable. It has pleased people to confound reserve
with cunning. Sincerity never authorizes cunning, but it admits of
reserve; and reserve has this peculiarity, that it increases confidence.
“If he be governed by the honour and interests of his country, by the
honour and interests of his sovereign, by the love of a liberty based
upon order and the rights of all men, a minister of foreign affairs,
who knows how to fill his post, finds himself thus in the noblest
position to which a superior mind can aspire.
“After having been a distinguished minister, how many things more must
be known to make a good consul! For there is no end to the variety of
a consul’s attributions; and they are perfectly distinct from those
of the other persons employed in foreign affairs. They demand a vast
amount of practical knowledge which can only be acquired by a peculiar
education. Consuls are called upon to discharge, for the advantage
of their countrymen, and over the extent of their jurisdiction, the
functions of judges, arbitrators, and promoters of reconciliation; it
frequently happens that they are employed in other civil capacities;
they perform the duties of notaries, sometimes those of naval
administrators; they examine and pronounce upon sanitary questions; it
is they who are enabled, by their numerous professional connections,
to give correct and perfect notions respecting the state of commerce
or navigation, or of the manufactures peculiar to the country where
they reside. Accordingly, as M. Reinhard never neglected anything
which might confirm the accuracy of the information required by his
government, or the justice of the decisions which he had to pronounce
as a political agent, as a consular agent, or as a naval administrator,
he made a profound study of international and maritime law. It was
owing to this study, that he became persuaded that the day would come
when, by skilful political combinations, a universal system of commerce
and navigation would be inaugurated, which would respect the interests
of all nations, and be established on such foundations that war itself
would be powerless to assail its principles, even were it able to
suspend some of its effects.
“He had also learned to resolve, with accuracy and promptitude, every
question connected with exchange, arbitration, valuation of money,
weights and measures; and all this without a single dispute ever having
arisen from the information he had supplied, or the judgments he had
pronounced. But it is also true that the personal consideration,
which accompanied him during his whole career, gave a weight to his
interference, in every question that required his assistance, and in
all arbitrations where he had to give a decision.
“But, however extensive may be a man’s information, however vast his
capacity, there is nothing so rare as a complete diplomatist. We should
perhaps have found one in M. Reinhard if he had possessed but one
qualification more. He observed well, and understood well; when he took
up his pen, he could give an admirable account of what he had seen and
heard. His written language was ready, abundant, witty, and pointed.
Thus we find that, of all the diplomatic correspondence of my time,
none was preferred to that of Count Reinhard by the Emperor Napoleon,
who had the right, and was under the necessity, of being difficult to
please. But this eloquent writer was embarrassed when he had to speak.
To carry out his intentions, his mind required more time than ordinary
conversation affords. To express his thoughts with facility, it was
necessary for him to be alone, and not interfered with.
“In spite of this serious difficulty, M. Reinhard always succeeded in
doing, and doing well, whatever was intrusted to him. How, then, did he
find the means of succeeding? whence did he derive his inspirations?
“He received them, gentlemen, from a deep and true feeling, which
guided all his actions--from the sense of duty. People are not
sufficiently aware of the power derived from this feeling. A life
wholly devoted to duty is very easily diverted from ambition; and that
of M. Reinhard was entirely taken up by his professional avocations,
while he never was influenced in the slightest degree by an interested
motive or a pretension to premature advancement.
“This worship of duty, to which M. Reinhard continued faithful to the
end of his days, comprised entire acquiescence in the orders of his
superiors--indefatigable vigilance, which, joined to much penetration,
never suffered them to remain ignorant of anything which it was
expedient for them to know--strict truthfulness in all his reports,
however unpleasing their contents--impenetrable discretion--regular
habits, which inspired esteem and confidence--a style of living suited
to his position--and finally, constant attention in giving to the
acts of his government the colour and lucidity which their importance
demanded.
“Although age seemed to invite M. Reinhard to seek the repose of
private life, he would never have asked permission to retire from
active employment, so much did he fear to be thought lukewarm in the
duties of a profession which had occupied the greater part of his days.
“It was necessary that his Majesty’s ever-thoughtful benevolence should
have providently intervened to place this great servant of France in a
most honourable position, by calling him to the Chamber of Peers.
“Count Reinhard enjoyed this honour during too short a time. He died
suddenly on the 25th of December, 1837.
“M. Reinhard was twice married. By his first wife he has left a son who
is now following a political career. For the son of such a man the
best wish that we can form is that he may resemble his father.”
* * * * *
The force of nature, which a long life had exhausted in a variety of
ways, seemed now unequal to any further struggle.
A disease, which at Prince Talleyrand’s age was almost certain to
be fatal, and which had already made its appearance, assumed a more
formidable character.
An operation was advised. The prince submitted to it, and bore it with
a fortitude that surprised even those who most knew the stoicism which
he on all occasions affected and usually practised. Dangerous symptoms,
however, soon followed, and his physician judged it an act of duty to
warn him that his disorder might be fatal.
He was urged indeed to do so by the noble patient’s relations, who were
especially anxious that he should die in peace with the church; and
when convinced that he could not recover, he assented to all that was
asked of him, in this respect, as a favour that could not hurt himself,
and was agreeable to those about him.
The following account of his last moments is given by a person who
was present at them: “When I entered the chamber where reposed the
veteran statesman, he had fallen into a profound slumber, from which
some amendment was augured by his physicians. The slumber, or rather
lethargy, had continued for about an hour after my arrival, when it
became curious to observe the uneasiness which was manifested, as time
drew on, even by those dearest and nearest, lest this repose, however
salutary, should endure beyond the hour fixed for the King’s visit, for
the sovereign intended to pay M. de Talleyrand this last homage.
“With some difficulty he was at last aroused and made to comprehend
the approaching ceremony, and hardly was he lifted from his reclining
position and placed at the edge of the bed, when Louis Philippe,
accompanied by Madame Adelaide, entered the apartment. ‘I am sorry,
Prince, to see you suffering so much,’ said the King, in a low
tremulous voice, rendered almost inaudible by apparent emotion. ‘Sire,
you have come to witness the sufferings of a dying man; and those who
love him can have but one wish, that of seeing them shortly at an end.’
This was uttered by M. de Talleyrand in that deep strong voice so
peculiar to himself, and which the approach of death had not the power
to weaken.
“The royal visit, like all royal visits of a disagreeable nature, was
of the shortest duration possible. Indeed, the position was to all
parties embarrassing and painful. Louis Philippe rose, after an effort
and some few words of consolation, to take his leave; and not even at
this last moment did the old prince lose his wonted presence of mind,
or forget a duty which the etiquette he had been bred in dictated--that
of introducing those formally to the sovereign who found themselves
in his presence. Slightly raising himself, then, he mentioned by name
his physician, his secretary, his principal valet, and his own private
doctor, and then observed slowly: ‘Sire, our house has received this
day an honour worthy to be inscribed in our annals, and which my
successors will remember with pride and gratitude.’ It was shortly
afterwards that the first symptoms of dissolution were observed, and a
few persons were then admitted to his chamber; but the adjoining room
was crowded, and exhibited a strange scene for a room so near the bed
of death.
“The flower of the society of Paris was there. On one side old and
young politicians, grey-headed statesmen, were gathered round the
blazing fire, and engaged in eager conversation; on another was to be
seen a coterie of younger gentlemen and ladies, whose sidelong looks
and low pleasant whispers formed a sad contrast to the dying groans of
the neighbouring sufferer.
“Presently, the conversation stopped; the hum of voices was at an end.
There was a solemn pause, and every eye turned towards the slowly
opening door of the prince’s chamber. A domestic entered, with downcast
looks and swollen eyes, and advancing towards Dr. C----, who like
myself had just then sought an instant’s relief in the drawing-room,
whispered a few words in his ear. He arose instantly, and entered
the prince’s chamber. The natural precipitation with which this
movement was executed but too plainly revealed its cause. There was
an instantaneous rush to the door of the apartment within which M. de
Talleyrand was seated on the side of his bed, supported in the arms of
his secretary. It was evident that Death had set his seal upon that
marble brow; yet I was struck with the still existing vigour of the
countenance. It seemed as if all the life which had once sufficed to
furnish the whole being was now contained in the brain. From time to
time he raised up his head, throwing back with a sudden movement the
long grey locks which impeded his sight, and gazed around; and then,
as if satisfied with the result of his examination, a smile would pass
across his features, and his head would again fall upon his bosom. He
saw the approach of death without shrinking or fear, and also without
any affectation of scorn or defiance.
“If there be truth in the assertion, that it is a satisfaction to die
amidst friends and relations, then, indeed, must his last feeling
towards the world he was for ever quitting have been one of entire
approbation and content, for he expired (on the 17th of May, 1838)
amidst regal pomp and reverence; and of all those whom he, perhaps,
would have himself called together, none were wanting.
“The friend of his maturity, the fair young idol of his age, were
gathered on bended knee beside his bed, and if the words of comfort
whispered by the murmuring priest failed to reach his ear, it was
because the sound was stifled by the wailings of those he had loved so
well. Scarcely, however, had those eyes, whose every glance had been
watched so long, and with such deep interest, for ever closed, when a
sudden change came over the scene.
“One would have thought that a flight of crows had suddenly taken
wing, so great was the precipitation with which each one hurried from
the hotel, in the hope of being first to spread the news amongst
the particular set or coterie of which he or she happened to be the
oracle. Ere nightfall, that chamber, which all the day had been
crowded to excess, was abandoned to the servants of the tomb; and when
I entered in the evening, I found the very arm-chair, whence I had so
often heard the prince launch the courtly jest or stinging epigram,
occupied by a hired priest, whispering prayers for the repose of the
departed soul.”
X.
M. de Talleyrand was buried at Valençay, in the chapel of the Sisters
of St. André, which he had founded, and in which he had expressed a
desire that the family vault should be placed.
* * * * *
His career and character have been gradually developed in this sketch,
so that there remains little to say of them here. They were both,
as I have elsewhere observed, coloured by their times, and must be
regarded in connection with an epoch of social immorality and constant
political change. Many of his faults were so inherent in that epoch,
that, although they justly merit blame (for vice and virtue should be
independent of custom and example), they also admit of excuse.
As to the variety of political parts which he played in the different
scenes of the great drama which lasted half a century, one is daily
seeing changes so extraordinary and so rapid amongst the most
respectable public men of our own day, and even of our own country,
that it would be absurd not to acknowledge that, when years run rapidly
through changeful events, we must expect to find those whose career
is embarked on so unsteady a current, uncertain and variable in their
opinions. The stiff consistent character is of the middle ages.
At the commencement of the great Revolution of 1789, M. de Talleyrand
took the liberal side in politics; a strong party of his own rank and
profession did not do so, but many of the most illustrious did; and
with the best motives. A certain interval elapsed; the monarchy was
overthrown; a reign of madness and terror succeeded it; and, emerging
from this sanguinary obscurity, men were just beginning to adopt some
principles of order, which they brought together under the name of a
Republic.
It is hardly for us (who have with our own eyes seen Frenchmen of high
rank and generally acknowledged honour, even the personal friends
of a deposed sovereign, become, within a few days after his fall,
Republicans; and within a few years the confidential leaders of
another dynasty)--it is hardly for us, I say, to judge with any great
severity a Frenchman, who, returning to France at the time at which M.
de Talleyrand revisited it, consented to serve the Directory. Neither
can we be surprised, when it appeared evident that under the Directory
things were again approaching the state of terror and confusion, of
which so horrible a recollection still existed, that M. de Talleyrand
preferred the government of one man to the want of any government
at all--the organization of society under a temporary despotism, to
its utter and radical decomposition. By and by, license and disorder
being vanquished, moderate and regular notions as to liberty grew up;
the dictator then appeared the tyrant,--and the fortunate soldier,
the military gambler after fortune. This soldier converted the nation
into an army, and his army was beaten: and M. de Talleyrand aided in
reviving that nation, and giving it the framework of a constitutional
system, under a legitimate monarchy;--almost, in fact, that very system
which thirty-five years before he had wished to see established. Years
rolled on and seemed to bring with them the renewal of the old maxim,
that “Restorations are impossible.” The royal _émigré_, pointedly
described as having forgotten nothing and learned nothing during his
misfortunes, had not sufficiently imbibed the spirit of a new society
which had risen up since his youth--a society which had neither the
customs nor inclinations on which he considered that a monarchy should
be maintained.
Charles X.’s views created suspicions which his acts, greatly
exaggerated by those suspicions, hardly justified. But the knowledge
that he thought that public liberty depended solely on his will, made
the slightest movement towards controlling that liberty--dangerous.
The crown fell into the gutters of Paris. The government which most
resembled the one which was overturned was still a monarchy with a
monarch taken from the same family as the one deposed, but who was
willing to accept his throne as a gift of the French nation and could
not pretend to it as a legitimate right. M. de Talleyrand helped to
form such a government.
It cannot be said that he departed in this case from his principles,
though he changed his allegiance.
In fact, I hardly think, looking calmly and dispassionately at each
of the epochs I have thus rapidly passed over, that any sensible and
moderate man will deny that the side taken by M. de Talleyrand was the
one on which, in every instance, lay good sense and moderation. It
cannot be said that in the various changes that marked his career, he
ever acted disinterestedly; but at the same time it may be urged that
every time he accepted office he did thereby a real service to the
cause he espoused, and even to the country to which he belonged.
There can be no doubt that at the first establishment of something
like order and government under the Republic, the relations of France
with foreign powers were considerably strengthened by a man of M. de
Talleyrand’s birth and well-known acquirements and abilities being
selected as minister of foreign affairs. It is also undeniable that,
during the Consulate and early part of the Empire, the experience,
sagacity, and tact of the accomplished diplomatist were eminently
useful to the young, half-educated, and impetuous warrior whose fiery
genius had placed him at the head of the State. To Louis XVIII. M. de
Talleyrand’s assistance, when that sovereign recovered his throne, was
invaluable, and Louis Philippe derived in no small degree, as I have
already noticed, the respect which foreign governments paid so promptly
to his suddenly-acquired authority from the fact that M. de Talleyrand
had consented to undertake the embassy to London. I must likewise
here repeat that to which I have already called attention. No party
had to complain of treachery or ingratitude from this statesman so
frequently stigmatised as fickle. The course he took at the different
periods of his eventful life was that which seemed natural to the
position in which he found himself, and the course which both friend
and foe expected from him. His defections were from those whose policy
he had been previously opposing, and whose views the higher order of
intellects in his country condemned at the time that his own hostility
commenced. Indeed, the rule of his conduct and the cause of his success
may be pretty generally found in his well-known and wise maxim, that
“The thoughts of the greatest number of intelligent persons in any
country, are sure, with a few more or less fluctuations to become in
the end that public opinion which influences the State.”
It must, however, be confessed that there is something to an honest
nature displeasing in the history of a statesman who has served various
masters and various systems, and appeared as the champion of each cause
at the moment of its triumph. Reason may excuse, explain, or defend
such versatility, but no generous sympathy calls upon us to applaud or
recommend it.
The particular and especial talent of M. de Talleyrand was, as I have
more than once exemplified, his tact; the art of seizing the important
point in an affair--the peculiar characteristic of an individual, the
genius and tendency of an epoch! His other qualities were accessories
to this dominant quality, but of an inferior order and in an inferior
degree.
His great good fortune was to have been absent from France during the
horrors of the Committee of Public Safety; his great merit, to have
served governments when in serving them he served the public interests.
His great defect, a love of money, or rather a want of scruple as
to how he obtained it. I never heard any clear justification of his
great wealth, though that which, it is said, he gave to Bonaparte, “I
bought stock before the 18th Brumaire, and sold it the day afterwards,”
has wit and _à propos_ to recommend it. His great calamity was to
have been minister of foreign affairs at the moment of the execution
of the Duc d’Enghien; and the part of his conduct most difficult to
explain justifiably, is to be found in the contradiction between his
declaration to Lord Grenville, when he came over to England after the
10th of August in 1792, that he had nothing to do with the provisional
government then established in France, and the declaration of M. de
Chénier to the convention in 1795--a declaration which he himself
subsequently repeated--that he went to England at the time alluded to
as Danton’s agent.
An extract from the _Moniteur_, the 27th of May, 1838, page 1412,
quoting from the _Gazette des Tribunaux_, is worth preserving:[81]
“We have already said that in the sequel to the will of
Prince Talleyrand was found a sort of manifesto, in which the
celebrated diplomatist asserted the principles which had guided
him in his political life, and explained his way of looking at
certain events.
“According to various facts we have collected, the following is
the substance of that declaration, which is dated in 1836, and
which, in accordance with the wish of the testator, has been
read to the family and assembled friends.
“The prince declares that before all things, and to all things,
he had preferred the true interests of France.
“Explaining himself on the part he had taken in the return
of the Bourbons in 1814, he says that, in his opinion,
the Bourbons did not re-ascend the throne in virtue of a
pre-existing and hereditary right; and he gives us, moreover,
to understand that his counsels and advice were never wanting
to enlighten them on their true position, and on the conduct
which they ought to have followed in consequence.
“He repels the reproach of having betrayed Napoleon; if he
abandoned him, it was when he discovered that he could no
longer blend, as he had up to that time done, France and
the Emperor in the same affection. _This was not without a
lively feeling of sorrow, for he owed to Napoleon nearly
all his fortune. He enjoins his heirs never to forget these
obligations, to tell them to their children, and to instruct
these, again, to tell them to their offspring; so that if
some day a man of the name of Bonaparte should be found in
want of assistance, he should always find it in the family of
Talleyrand._
“Replying to those who reproached him for having served
successively all governments, he observes that he had done so
without the least scruple, guided by the idea that, in whatever
situation the country might be, there were always means of
doing it some good, and that to do this good was the business
of a statesman.”
Supposing the testament thus spoken of to exist, it is curious; and the
expression of gratitude to the Bonaparte family is the more creditable
from the fact that it could not have been made with any idea that it
would be rewarded.
As to the defence set up for serving all dynasties and all causes, it
cannot apply to any country where public men have the power, out of
office, to put down a bad government, as they have in office the power
to uphold a good one.
I will conclude with the appreciation of a French friend, who thus
summed up many of my own remarks:--
“Enfin, chez M. de Talleyrand, l’aménité et la raison remplaçaient
le cœur, et la conscience. Avec bien des défauts qui ont terni sa
réputation, il avait toutes les qualités qui devaient faire prospérer
son ambition. Ses talents qu’il a employés constamment pour son propre
avantage, il les a employés presque aussi constamment pour le bien
public. Beaucoup attaqué et peu défendu par ses contemporains, il n’en
restera pas moins pour la postérité un des hommes les plus aimables de
son temps et un des citoyens les plus illustres de son pays.”
MACKINTOSH, THE MAN OF PROMISE.
PART I.
FROM HIS YOUTH TO HIS APPOINTMENT IN INDIA.
Mackintosh’s character.--Character of men of his type.--Birth
and parentage.--Starts as a physician, fails, and becomes a
newspaper writer, and author of a celebrated pamphlet in answer
to Burke’s “Thoughts on the French Revolution.”--Studies for
the bar.--Becomes noted as a public character, violent on the
Liberal side.--Becomes acquainted with Mr. Burke.--Modifies
his opinions.--Gives lectures on public law, remarkable for
their eloquence and their Conservative opinions.--Becomes
the advocate of Peltier; makes a great speech, and shortly
afterwards accepts an appointment in India.
I.
I still remember, amongst the memorable events of my early youth, an
invitation to meet Sir James Mackintosh at dinner; and the eager and
respectful attention with which this honoured guest was received.
I still remember also my anxiety to learn the especial talents, or
remarkable works, for which Sir James was distinguished, and the
unsatisfactory replies which all my questions elicited. He was a
writer, but many had written better; he was a speaker, but many had
spoken better; he was a philosopher, but many had done far more for
philosophy; and yet, though it was difficult to fix on any one thing
in which he was first-rate, it was generally maintained that he was
a first-rate man. There is, indeed, a class amongst mankind, a body
numerous in all literary societies, who are far less valued for any
precise thing they have done than according to a vague notion of what
they are capable of doing. Mackintosh may be taken as a type of this
class; not that he passed his life in the learned inactivity to which
the resident members of our own universities sometimes consign their
intellectual powers, but which more frequently characterizes the
tranquil scholars, whose erudition is the boast of some small German or
Italian city.
But though mixing in the action of a great and stirring community, a
lawyer, an author, a member of parliament, Mackintosh never arrived at
the eminence in law, in letters, or in politics, that satisfied the
expectations of those who, living in his society, were impressed by his
intellect and astonished at his acquirements.
If I were to sum up in a few words the characteristics of the persons
who thus promise more than they ever perform, I should say that their
powers of comprehension are greater than their powers either of
creation or exposition; and that their energy, though capable of being
roused occasionally to great exertions, can rarely be relied on for any
continued effort.
They collect, sometimes in rather a sauntering manner, an immense store
of varied information. But it is only by fits and starts that they are
able to use it with effect, and at their happiest moments they rarely
attain the simple grace and the natural vigour which give beauty and
life to composition. Their deficiencies are inherent in their nature,
and are never therefore entirely overcome. They have not in their minds
the immortal spark of genius, but the faculty of comprehending genius
may give them, in a certain degree, the power of imitating it; whilst
ambition, interest, and necessity, will at times stimulate them to
extraordinary exertions. As writers, they usually want originality,
ease, and power; as men of action, tact, firmness, and decision. The
works in which they most succeed are usually short, and written under
temporary excitement; as statesmen, they at times attract attention
and win applause, but rarely obtain authority or take and keep the
lead in public affairs. In society, however, the mere faculty of
remembering and comprehending a variety of things is quite sufficient
to obtain a considerable reputation; whilst the world, when indulgent,
often estimates the power of a man’s abilities by some transient and
ephemeral display of them.
I will now turn from these general observations to see how far they
are exemplified in the history of the person whose name is before me;
a person who advanced to the very frontier of those lands which it was
not given to him to enter; and who is not only a favourable specimen
of his class, but who, as belonging to that class, represents in many
respects a great portion of the public during that memorable period of
our annals, which extends from the French Revolution of 1789 to the
English Reform Bill in 1830.
II.
The father of Sir James was a Scotch country gentleman, who, having a
small hereditary property, which he could neither part with nor live
upon, entered the army early, and passed his life almost entirely
with his regiment. Young Mackintosh was born on the 24th of October,
1765, in the county of Inverness, and was sent as soon as he could be
to a school at Fortrose; where he fell in with two books which had a
permanent influence on his future career. These books were “Plutarch’s
Lives” and the “Roman History,” books which, by making him ambitious
of public honours, rendered his existence a perpetual struggle between
that which he desired to be and that for which he was best suited. At
Aberdeen, then, where he was sent on quitting Fortrose, he was alike
remarkable for his zeal in politics, and his love for metaphysics--that
is, for his alternate coquetry between an active and a meditative life.
At Edinburgh, also, where he subsequently went to study medicine,
it was the same thing. In the evening he would go now and then to
a “spouting” club and make speeches, while the greater part of his
mornings was spent in poetical lucubrations. To the medical profession
he paid little attention, till all of a sudden necessity aroused him.
He then applied himself, with a start, to that which he was obliged to
know; but his diligence was not of that resolute and steady kind which
insures success as the consequence of a certain period of application;
and after rushing into the novelties of the Brunonian System,[82] which
promised knowledge with little labour, and then, rushing back again, he
resolved on taking his countrymen’s short road to fortune, and set out
for England. His journey, however, did not answer. He got a wife, but
no patients; and on the failure of his attempts to establish himself
at Salisbury and at Weymouth, retired to Brussels--ill, wearied,
and disgusted. The Low Countries were at that time the theatre of a
struggle between the Emperor Joseph and his subjects; the general
convulsion which shortly afterwards took place throughout Europe was
preparing, and the agitation of men’s minds was excessive. These
exciting scenes called the disappointed physician back to the more
alluring study of politics; and to this short visit to the Continent
he owed a knowledge of its opinions and its public men, which first
served him as the correspondent of a newspaper, _The Oracle_; and,
subsequently, furnished him with materials for a pamphlet which in an
instant placed him in the situation he so long occupied as one of _the
most promising men of his day_. This celebrated pamphlet, published
in 1791, and known under the name of “Vindiciæ Gallicæ,” whether we
consider the circumstances under which it appeared, the opponent whom
it combated, or the ability of the composition itself, merited all the
attention it received, and was the more successful because it gave just
the answer to Burke which Burke himself would have given to his own
Reflections.
Thus, the club of Saint James’, the cloister of Trinity College, had a
writer to quote, whose sentiments were in favour of liberty, and whose
language, agreeable to the ear of the gentleman and the scholar, did
not, in defending the patriots of France, advise their imitation or
approve their excesses.
“Burke,” he says, “admires the Revolution of 1688; but we, who conceive
that we pay the purest homage to the authors of that Revolution, not in
contending for what they then did, but for what they would now do, can
feel no inconsistency in looking on France--not to model our conduct,
but to invigorate the spirit of freedom. We permit ourselves to imagine
how Lord Somers, in the light and knowledge of the eighteenth century,
how the patriots of France, in the tranquillity and opulence of
England, would have acted.
“We are not bound to copy the conduct to which the last were driven
by a bankrupt exchequer, and a dissolved government; nor to maintain
the establishments which were spared by the first in a prejudiced and
benighted age.
“Exact imitation is not necessary to reverence. We venerate the
principles which presided in both, and we adapt to political
admiration a maxim which has long been received in polite letters,
that the only manly and liberal imitation is to speak as a great man
would have spoken, had he lived in our times, and been placed in our
circumstances.”
There is much even in this passage to show that the adversary was
still the imitator, imbued with the spirit and under the influence
of the genius of the very writer whom he was bold enough to attack.
Many, nevertheless, who, taken by surprise, had surrendered to the
magisterial eloquence of the master, were rescued by the elegant
pleading of the scholar. Everywhere, then, might be heard the loudest
applause, and an applause well merited. On the greatest question of
the times, the first man of the times had been answered by a young
gentleman aged twenty-six, and who, hitherto unknown, was appreciated
by his first success.
The leaders of the Whig party sought him out; they paid him every
attention. His opinions went further than theirs; for he was an
advocate of universal suffrage, an abolitionist of all titles, an
enemy to a senate or second assembly. No persons practically contending
for power could say they exactly sanctioned such notions as these;
but all praised the style in which they were put forth, and, allowing
for the youth, lauded the talent, of the author. Indeed, “the love
to hatred turned” ever repudiates moderation, and the antagonist of
Burke was certain of the rapturous cheers of those whom that great
but passionate man had deserted. In this manner Mackintosh (who was
now preparing for the bar) became necessarily a party man, and a
violent party man. Mr. Fox praised his abilities in Parliament; the
famous Reform Association called the “Friends of the People” chose
him for their honorary secretary. A great portion of the well-known
declaration of this society was his composition; and in a letter to the
Prime Minister of the day (Mr. Pitt), he abused that statesman with a
fierceness and boldness of invective which even political controversy
scarcely allowed.
Here was the great misfortune of his life. This fierceness and boldness
were not in his nature; in becoming a man of action, he entered upon a
part which was not suited to his character, and which it was certain
therefore he would not sustain. The reaction soon followed. Amongst its
first symptoms was a review of Mr. Burke’s “Regicide Peace.” The author
of the review became known to the person whose writing was criticised:
a correspondence ensued, very flattering to Mr. Mackintosh, who shortly
afterwards spent a few days at Beaconsfield (1796).
It was usual for him to say, referring to this visit, that in half an
hour Mr. Burke overturned the previous reflections of his whole life.
There was some exaggeration, doubtless, in this assertion, but it is
also likely that there was some truth in it. His opinions had begun
to waver, and at that critical moment he came into personal contact
with, and was flattered by, a man whom every one praised, and who
praised few. At all events, he was converted, and not ashamed of his
conversion, but, on the contrary, mounted with confidence a stage on
which his change might be boldly justified.
The faults as well as the excellences of the English character arise
from that great dislike to generalise which has made us the practical,
and in many instances the prejudiced, people that we are. Abroad,
a knowledge of general or natural law, of the foundations on which
all laws are or ought to be based, enters as a matter of course into
a liberal education. In England lawyers themselves disregard this
study as useless or worse than useless.[83] They look, and they look
diligently, into English law, such as it is, established by custom,
precedent, or act of Parliament. They know all the nice points and
proud formalities on which legal justice rests, or by which it may
be eluded. The conflicting cases and opposing opinions, which may be
brought to bear on an unsound horse, or a contested footpath, are
deeply pondered over, carefully investigated. But the great edifice
of general jurisprudence, though standing on his wayside, is usually
passed by the legal traveller with averted eyes: the antiquary and the
philosopher, indeed, may linger there; but the plodding man of business
scorns to arrest his steps.
When, however, amidst the mighty crash of states and doctrines that
followed the storm of 1791--when, amidst the birth of new empires
and new legislatures, custom lost its sanctity, precedent its
authority, and statute was made referable to common justice and common
sense,--then, indeed, there uprose a strong and earnest desire to
become acquainted with those general principles so often cited by the
opponents of the past; to visit that armoury in which such terrible
weapons had been found, and to see whether it could not afford means as
powerful for defending what remained as it had furnished for destroying
what had already been swept away.
III.
A course of Lectures on Public Law--about which the public knew so
little, and were yet so curious--offered a road to distinction, which
the young lawyer, confident in his own abilities and researches, had
every temptation to tread. Private interest procured him the Hall at
Lincoln’s Inn; but this was not sufficient; it was necessary that
he should make the world aware of the talent, the knowledge, and the
sentiments with which he undertook so great a task. He published his
introductory essay--the only memorable record of the Lectures to which
we are referring that now remains. The views contained in this essay
may in many instances be erroneous; but its merits as a composition
are of no common kind. Learned, eloquent, it excited nearly as much
enthusiasm as the “Vindiciæ Gallicæ,” and deserved, upon the whole, a
higher order of admiration.
But praise came this time from a different quarter. A few years before,
and Mackintosh had spoken of Mr. Pitt as cold, stern, crafty, and
ambitious; possessing “the parade without the restraint of morals;”
the “most profound dissimulation with the utmost ardour of enterprise;
prepared by one part of his character for the violence of a multitude,
by another for the duplicity of a court.”[84]
It was under the patronage of this same Mr. Pitt that the hardy
innovator now turned back to “the old ways,” proclaiming that “history
was a vast museum, in which specimens of every variety of human nature
might be studied. From these great occasions to knowledge,” he said,
“lawgivers and statesmen, but more especially moralists and political
philosophers, may reap the most important instruction. There, they
may plainly discover, amid all the useful and beautiful variety of
governments and institutions, and under all the fantastic multitude of
usages and rites which ever prevailed among men, the same fundamental,
comprehensive truths--truths which have ever been the guardians of
society, recognised and revered (with very few and slight exceptions)
by every nation upon earth, and uniformly taught, with still fewer
exceptions, by a succession of wise men, from the first dawn of
speculation down to the latest times.”
“See,” he continued, “whether from the remotest periods any
improvement, or even any change, has been made in the practical rules
of human conduct. Look at the code of Moses. I speak of it now as
a mere human composition, without considering its sacred origin.
Considering it merely in that light, it is the most ancient and the
most curious memorial of the early history of mankind. More than 3000
years have elapsed since the composition of the Pentateuch; and let
any man, if he is able, tell me in what important respects the rule of
life has varied since that distant period. Let the institutes of Menu
be explored with the same view; we shall arrive at the same conclusion.
Let the books of false religion be opened; it will be found that their
moral system is, in all its good features, the same. The impostors who
composed them were compelled to pay this homage to the uniform moral
sentiments of the world. Examine the codes of nations, those authentic
depositories of the moral judgments of men: you everywhere find the
same rules prescribed, the same duties imposed. Even the boldest of
these ingenious sceptics who have attacked every other opinion, have
spared the sacred and immortal simplicity of the rules of life. In our
common duties, Bayle and Hume agree with Bossuet and Barrow. Such as
the rule was at the first dawn of history, such it continues at the
present day. Ages roll over mankind; mighty nations pass away like a
shadow; virtue alone remains the same, immutable and unchangeable.”
The object of Mackintosh was to show that the instinct of man was
towards society; that society could not be kept together except on
certain principles; that these principles, therefore, from the nature
of man--a nature predestined and fashioned by God--were at once
universal and divine, and that societies would perish that ignored
them;--a true and sublime theory; but with respect to which we must, if
we desire to be practical, admit that variety of qualifications which
different civilizations, different climates, accidental interests, and
religious prescriptions interpose.
It may be said, for instance, that no society could exist if its
institutions honoured theft as a virtue, and instructed parents to
murder their children; but a great and celebrated society did exist in
ancient Greece,--a society which outlived its brilliant contemporaries,
and which sanctioned robbery, if not detected; and allowed parents
to kill their children, if sickly. It is perfectly true that the ten
commandments of the Jewish legislator are applicable to all mankind,
and are as much revered by the people of the civilized world at the
present day, as by the semi-barbarous people of Israel 3000 years ago.
They are admitted as integrally into the religion taught by Christ,
as they were into the religion taught by Moses. But how different the
morality founded on them! How different the doctrine of charity and
forgiveness from the retributive prescription of vindicative justice!
Nay, how different the precepts taught by the various followers of
Christ themselves, who draw those precepts from the same book!
If there is anything on which it is necessary for the interest and
happiness of mankind to constitute a fixed principle of custom or of
law, it is the position of woman. The social relationship of man with
woman rules the destiny of both from the cradle to the grave; and yet,
on this same relationship, what various notions, customs, and laws!
I make these observations, because it is well that we should see how
much is left to the liberty of man, whilst we recognise the certain
rules by which his caprice is limited: how much is to be learned from
the past--how much is left open to the future!
But all argument at the time that Mackintosh opened his lectures
consisted in the opposition of extremes. As the one party decried
history altogether, so the other referred everything to history; as the
former sect declared that no reverence was due to custom, so the latter
announced that all upon which we valued ourselves most was traditional.
Because those fanatics scoffed at the ideas and manners of the century
that had just elapsed, these referred with exultation to the manners
and ideas that prevailed some thousands of years before.
Mackintosh stood forth, confessedly, as History’s champion; and with
the beautiful candour, which marked his modest and elevated frame of
mind, confessed that the sight of those who surrounded his chair--the
opinions he knew them to entertain--the longing after applause, for
which every public speaker, whatever his theme, naturally thirsts--and
also, he adds, “a proper repentance for former errors”--might all
have heightened the qualities of the orator to the detriment of the
lecturer, and carried him, “in the rebound from his original opinions,
too far towards the opposite extreme.”[85]
IV.
We shall soon have to inquire what were the real nature and character
of the change which he confessed that his language at this time
exaggerated. Suffice it here to say that, amidst the sighs of his
old friends, the applauses of his new, and the sneering murmurs and
scornful remarks of the stupid and the envious of all parties, his
eloquence (for he was eloquent as a professor) produced generally the
most flattering effects. Statesmen, lawyers, men of letters, idlers,
crowded with equal admiration round the amusing moralist, whose
glittering store of knowledge was collected from the philosopher, the
poet, the writer of romance and history.
“In mixing up the sparking julep,” says an eloquent though somewhat
affected writer, “that by its potent application was to scour away
the drugs and feculence and peccant humours of the body politic,
he (Mackintosh) seemed to stand with his back to the drawers in a
metaphysical dispensary, and to take out of them whatever ingredients
suited his purpose.”[86]
In the meanwhile (having lost his first wife and married again) he
pursued his professional course, though without doing anything as an
advocate equal to his success as a professor.
M. Peltier’s trial, however, now took place. M. Peltier was an
_émigré_, whom the neighbouring revolution had driven to our shores; a
gentleman possessing some ability, and ardently attached to the royal
cause.
He had not profited by the permission to return to France, which had
been given to all French exiles, but carried on a French journal,
which, finding its way to the Continent, excited the remarkable
susceptibility of the first consul. This was just after the peace
of Amiens. Urged by the French government, our own undertook the
prosecution of M. Peltier’s paper. The occasion was an ode, in which
the apotheosis of Bonaparte was referred to, and his assassination
pretty plainly advocated. So atrocious a suggestion, however veiled, or
however provoked, merited, no doubt, the reprobation of all worthy and
high-minded men; but party spirit and national rancour ran high, and
the defender of the prosecuted journalist was sure to stand before his
country as the enemy of France and the advocate of freedom.
A variety of circumstances pointed out Mr. Mackintosh as the proper
counsel to place in this position; and here, by a singular fortune, he
was enabled to combine a hatred to revolutionary principles with an
ardent admiration of that ancient spirit of liberty, which is embodied
in the most popular institutions of England.
“Circumstanced as my client is,” he exclaimed, in his rather studied
but yet powerful declamation, “the most refreshing object his eye can
rest upon is an English jury; and he feels with me gratitude to the
Ruler of empires, that after the wreck of everything else ancient
and venerable in Europe, of all established forms and acknowledged
principles, of all long-subsisting laws and sacred institutions, we are
met here, administering justice after the manner of our forefathers in
this her ancient sanctuary. Here these parties come to judgment; one,
the master of the greatest empire on the earth; the other, a weak,
defenceless fugitive, who waives his privilege of having half his jury
composed of foreigners, and puts himself with confidence on a jury
entirely English. Gentlemen, there is another view in which this case
is highly interesting, important, and momentous, and I confess I am
animated to every exertion that I can make, not more by a sense of my
duty to my client, than by a persuasion that this cause is the first
of a series of contests with the ‘freedom of the press.’ My learned
friend, Mr. Perceval, I am sure, will never disgrace his magistracy
by being instrumental to a measure so calamitous. But viewing this as
I do, as the first of a series of contests between the greatest power
on earth and the only press that is now free, I cannot help calling
upon him and you to pause, before the great earthquake swallows up
all the freedom that remains among men; for though no indication has
yet been made to attack the freedom of the press in this country,
yet the many other countries that have been deprived of this benefit
must forcibly impress us with the propriety of looking vigilantly to
ourselves. Holland and Switzerland are now no more, and near fifty of
the imperial crowns in Germany have vanished since the commencement
of this prosecution. All these being gone, there is no longer any
control but what this country affords. Every press on the Continent,
from Palermo to Hamburg, is enslaved; one place alone remains where the
press is free, protected by our government and our patriotism. It is
an awfully proud consideration that that venerable fabric, raised by
our ancestors, still stands unshaken amidst the ruins that surround us.
_You are the advanced guard of liberty_,” &c.
After the delivery of this speech, which, after being translated by
Madame de Staël, was read with admiration not only in England, but
also on the Continent, Mr. Mackintosh, though he lost his cause, was
considered no less promising as a pleader, than after the publication
of the “Vindiciæ Gallicæ” he had been considered as a pamphleteer.
In both instances, however, the sort of effort he had made seemed to
have exhausted him, and three months had not elapsed, when, with the
plaudits of the public, and the praise of Erskine, still ringing in his
ears, he accepted the Recordership of Bombay from Mr. Addington, and
retired with satisfaction to the well-paid and knighted indolence of
India. His objects in so doing were, he said, to make a fortune, and to
write a work.
We shall thoroughly understand the man when we see what he achieved
towards the attainment of these two objects. He did not make a fortune;
he did not write a work. The greater part of his time seems to have
been employed in a restless longing after society, and a perpetual
dawdling over books; during the seven years he was absent, he speaks
continually of his projected work as “always to be projected.” “I
observe” he says, in one of his letters to Mr. Sharpe, “that you touch
me once or twice with the spur about my books on Morals. I felt it gall
me, for I have not begun.”
PART II.
HIS STAY IN INDIA AND HIS CAREER IN PARLIAMENT.
Goes to India.--Pursuits there.--Returns home dissatisfied
with himself.--Enters Parliament on the Liberal side.--Reasons
why he took it.--Fails in first speech.--Merits as an
orator.--Extracts from his speeches.--Modern ideas.--Excessive
punishments.--Mackintosh’s success as a law reformer.--General
parliamentary career.
I.
Sir James Mackintosh, in accepting a place in India, abdicated the
chances of a brilliant and useful career in England; still his presence
in one of our great dependencies was not without its use--for his
literary reputation offered him facilities in the encouragement of
learned and scientific pursuits--which, when they tend to explore and
illustrate the history and resources of a new empire, are, in fact,
political ones; while his attempts to obtain a statistical survey, as
well as to form different societies, the objects of which were the
acquirement and communication of knowledge, though not immediately
successful, did not fail to arouse in Bombay, and to spread much
farther, a different and a far more enlightened spirit than that which
had hitherto prevailed amongst our speculating settlers, or rather
sojourners in the East. The mildness of his judicial sway, moreover,
and a wish to return to Europe with, if possible, a “bloodless
ermine,”[87] contributed not only to extend the views, but to soften
the manners of the merchant conquerors, and to lay thereby something
like a practical foundation for subsequent legislative improvement.
To himself, however, this distant scene seems to have possessed no
interest, to have procured no advantage. Worn by the climate, wearied
by a series of those small duties and trifling exertions which,
unattended by fame, offer none of that moral excitement which overcomes
physical fatigue; but little wealthier than when he undertook his
voyage, having accomplished none of those works, and enjoyed little of
that ease, the visions of which cheered him in undertaking it; a sick,
a sad, and, so far as the acceptance of his judgeship was concerned, a
repentant man, he (in 1810) took his way homewards.
“It has happened,” he observes in one of his letters--“it has happened
by the merest accident that the ‘trial of Peltier’ is among the books
in the cabin; and when I recollect the way in which you saw me opposed
to Perceval on the 21st of February, 1803 (the day of the trial),
and that I compare his present situation--whether at the head of an
administration or an opposition--with mine, scanty as my stock is of
fortune, health, and spirits, in a cabin nine feet square, on the
Indian Ocean, I think it enough that I am free from the soreness of
disappointment.”
There is, indeed, something melancholy in the contrast thus offered
between a man still young, hopeful, rising high in the most exciting
profession, just crowned with the honours of forensic triumph, and
the man prematurely old, who in seven short years had become broken,
dispirited, and was now under the necessity of beginning life anew,
with wasted energies and baffled aspirations.
But Sir James Mackintosh deceived himself in thinking that if the
seven years to which he alludes had been passed in England, they would
have placed him in the same position as that to which Mr. Perceval
had ascended within the same period. Had he remained at the bar, or
entered Parliament instead of going to India, he might, indeed, have
made several better speeches than Mr. Perceval, as he had already
made one; but he would not always have been speaking well, like Mr.
Perceval, nor have pushed himself forward in those situations, and at
those opportunities, when a good speech would have been most wanted or
most effective. At all events, his talents for active life were about
to have a tardy trial; the object of his early dreams and hopes was
about to be attained--a seat in the House of Commons. He took his place
amongst the members of the Liberal opposition; and many who remembered
the auspices under which he left England, were somewhat surprised at
the banner under which he now enlisted.
II.
Here is the place at which it may be most convenient to consider Sir
James Mackintosh’s former change; as well as the circumstances which
led him back to his old connections. He had entered life violently
democratical,--a strong upholder of the French Revolution; he became,
so to speak, violently moderate, and a strong opponent of this same
Revolution. He altered his politics, and this alteration was followed
by his receiving an appointment.
Such is the outline which malignity might fill up with the darkest
colours; but it would be unjustly. The machinery of human conduct is
complex; and it would be absurd to say that a man’s interests are not
likely to have an influence on his actions. But they who see more
of our nature than the surface, know that our interests are quite
as frequently governed by our character as our character is by our
interests. The true explanation, then, of Mackintosh’s conduct is to
be found in his order of intellect. His mind was not a mind led by its
own inspirations, but rather a mind reflecting the ideas of other men,
and of that class of men more especially to which he, as studious and
speculative, belonged. The commencement of the French Revolution, the
long-prepared work of the Encyclopedists, was hailed by such persons
(we speak generally) as a sort of individual success. Burke did much to
check this feeling; and subsequent events favoured Burke. But by far
the greater number of those addicted to literary pursuits sympathized
with the popular party in the States-General. Under this impulse the
“Vindiciæ Gallicæ” was written. The exclusion of the eminent men of the
National Assembly from power modified, the execution of the Girondists
subdued, this impulse. At the fall of those eloquent Republicans
the lettered usurpation ceased; and now literature, instead of
being opposed to royalty, owed, like it, a debt of vengeance to that
inexorable mob which had spared neither.
It was at the time, then, when everybody was recanting that Mackintosh
made _his_ recantation. Most men of his class and nature took the same
part in the same events; for such men were delighted with the theories
of freedom, but shocked at its excesses; and, indeed, it is difficult
to conceive anything more abhorrent to the gentle dreams of a civilised
philosophy than that wild hurricane of liberty which carried ruin and
desolation over France in the same blast that spread the seeds of
future prosperity.
We find, it is true, this beautiful passage in the “Vindiciæ Gallicæ:”
“The soil of Attica was remarked by antiquity as producing at once the
most delicious fruits and the most violent poisons. It is thus with the
human mind; and to the frequency of convulsions in the commonwealths
we owe those examples of sanguinary tumult and virtuous heroism which
distinguish their history from the monotonous tranquillity of modern
states.” But though these words were used by Mackintosh, they were
merely transcribed by him; they belong to a deeper and more daring
genius--they are almost literally the words of Machiavel, and were
furnished by the reading, and not by the genuine reflections, of the
youthful pamphleteer. He had not in rejoicing over the work of the
Constituante anticipated the horrors of the Convention; the regret,
therefore, that he expressed for what he condemned as his early want of
judgment, was undoubtedly sincere; and no one can fairly blame him for
accepting, under such circumstances, a post which was not political,
and which removed him from the angry arena in which he would have had
to combat with former friends, whose rancour may be appreciated by Dr.
Parr’s brutal reply--when Mackintosh asked him, how Quigley, an Irish
priest, executed for treason, could have been worse. “I’ll tell you,
Jemmy--Quigley was an Irishman, he might have been a Scotchman; he was
a priest, he might have been a lawyer; he was a traitor, he might have
been an apostate.”
Thus much for the Bombay Recordership. But the feverish panic which the
sanguinary government of Robespierre had produced--calmed by his fall,
soothed by the feeble government which succeeded him, and replaced at
last by the stern domination of a warrior who had at least the merit of
restoring order and tranquillity to his country--died away.
A variety of circumstances--including the publication of the “Edinburgh
Review,” which, conducted in a liberal and moderate spirit, made upon
the better educated class of the British population a considerable
impression--favoured and aided the reaction towards a more temperate
state of thought. A new era began, in which the timid lost their
fears, the factious their hopes. All question of the overthrow of the
constitution and of the confiscation of property was at an end; and as
politics thus fell back into more quiet channels, parties adopted new
watchwords and new devices. The cry was no longer, “Shall there be a
Monarchy or a Republic?” but, “Shall the Catholics continue proscribed
as helots, or shall they be treated as free men?”
During the seven years which Sir James had passed in India, this was
the turn that had been taking place in affairs and opinions. It is
hardly possible to conceive any change more calculated to carry along
with it a mild and intelligent philosopher, to whom fanaticism of all
kinds was hateful.
Those whom he had left, under the standard of Mr. Pitt, contending
against anarchical doctrines and universal conquest, were now for
disputing one of Mr. Pitt’s most sacred promises, and refusing to
secure peace to an empire, at the very crisis of its fortunes, by
the establishment of a system of civil equality between citizens
who thought differently on the somewhat abstruse subject of
transubstantiation. Mr. Perceval, at the head of this section of
politicians, was separated from almost every statesman who possessed
any reputation as a scholar. Mr. Canning did not belong to his
administration; Lord Wellesley was on the point of quitting it. There
never was a government to which what may be called the thinking
class of the country stood so opposed. Thus, the very same sort of
disposition which had detached Sir James Mackintosh, some years ago,
from his early friends, was now disposing him to rejoin them; and he
moved backwards and forwards, I must repeat, in both instances--when he
went to India a Tory,[88] and when he entered Parliament a Whig--with
a considerable body of persons, who, though less remarked because less
distinguished, honestly pursued the same conduct.
All the circumstances, indeed, which marked his conduct at this time
do him honour. Almost immediately on his return to England, the
premier offered him a seat in Parliament, and held out to him the
hopes of the high and lucrative situation of President of the Board of
Control. A poor man, and an ambitious man, equally anxious for place
and distinction, he refused both; and this refusal, of which we have
now the surest proof, was a worthy answer to the imputations which had
attended the acceptance of his former appointment. Lord Abinger, who
has since recorded the refusal of a seat from Mr. Perceval, was himself
the bearer of a similar offer from Lord Cawdor;[89] and under the
patronage of this latter nobleman Sir James Mackintosh first entered
Parliament (1813) as the Member for Nairnshire, a representation the
more agreeable, since it was that of his ancestral county, wherein he
had inherited the small property which some years before he had been
compelled to part with.[90]
III.
Any man entering the House of Commons for the first time late in life
possesses but a small chance of attaining considerable parliamentary
eminence. It requires some time to seize the spirit of that singular
assembly, of which most novices are at first inclined to over-rate and
then to under-rate the judgment.
A learned man is more likely to be wrong than any other. He fancies
himself amidst an assembly of meditative and philosophic statesmen;
he calls up all his deepest thoughts and most refined speculations;
he is anxious to astonish by the profundity and extent of his views,
the novelty and sublimity of his conceptions; as he commences, the
listeners are convinced he is a bore, and before he concludes, he is
satisfied that they are blockheads.
The orator, however, is far more out in his conjectures than the
audience. The House of Commons consists of a mob of gentlemen, the
greater part of whom are neither without talent nor information. But
a mob of well-informed gentlemen is still a mob, requiring to be
amused rather than instructed, and only touched by those reasons and
expressions which, clear to the dullest as to the quickest intellect,
vibrate through an assembly as if it had but one ear and one mind.
Besides, the House of Commons is a mob divided beneficially, though it
requires some knowledge of the general genius and practical bearings
of a representative government to see all the advantages of such a
division, into parties. What such parties value is that which is done
in their ranks, that which is useful to themselves, of advantage to
a common cause; any mere personal exhibition is almost certain to
be regarded by them with contempt or displeasure. Differing amongst
themselves, indeed, in almost everything else--some being silent and
fastidious, some bustling and loquacious, some indolent and looking
after amusement, some incapable of being and yet desiring to appear to
be men of business, some active, public-spirited, and ambitious--all
agree in detecting the philosophic rhetorician. Anything in the shape
of subtle refinement,--anything that borders on learned generalities,
is sure to be out of place. Even supposing that the new member, already
distinguished elsewhere although now at his maiden essay in this
strange arena, has sufficient tact to see the errors into which he is
likely to fall, he is still a suspected person, and will be narrowly
watched as to any design of parading his own acquirements at the
expense of other people’s patience.
How did Sir J. Mackintosh first appear amongst auditors thus disposed?
Lord Castlereagh moved, on the 20th of December, 1814, for an
adjournment to the 1st of March. At that moment the whole of Europe was
pouring, in the full tide of victory, into France. Every heart thrilled
with recent triumph and the anticipation of more complete success. The
ministry had acquired popularity as the reflection of the talents of
their general and the tardy good fortune of their allies. The demand
for adjournment was the demand for a confidence which they had a
right to expect, and which Mr. Whitbread and the leading Whigs saw it
would be ungenerous and impolitic to refuse. They granted then what
was asked; Mackintosh alone opposed it. His opposition was isolated,
certain to be without any practical result, and could only be accounted
for by the desire to make a speech!
Lord Castlereagh, who was by nature the man of action which Mackintosh
was not, saw at once the error which the new Whig member had committed,
and determined to add as much as possible to his difficulties. Instead,
therefore, of making the statement which he knew was expected from him,
and to which he presumed the orator opposite would affect to reply, he
merely moved for the adjournment as a matter of course, which needed
no justification. By this simple manœuvre all the formidable artillery
which the profound reflector on foreign politics and the eloquent
lecturer on the law of nations had brought into the field, was rendered
useless. A fire against objects which were not in view, an answer to
arguments which had never been employed, was necessarily a very tame
exhibition, and indeed the new member was hardly able to get through
the oration to which it was evident he had given no common care. In
slang phrase, he “broke down.” Why was this? Sir James Mackintosh was
not ignorant of the nature of the assembly he addressed; he could have
explained to another all that was necessary to catch its ear; but, as
I have said a few pages back, the character of a person governs his
interests far more frequently than his interests govern his character;
and the man I am speaking of was not the man whom a sort of instinct
hurries into the heat and fervour of a real contest. To brandish his
glittering arms was to him the battle. He therefore persuaded himself
that what he did with satisfaction he should do with success. It was
just this which made his failure serious to him.
The runner who trips in a race and loses it may win races for the rest
of his life; but if he stops in the middle of his course, because he
is asthmatic and cannot keep his breath, few persons would bet on
him again. Now, the failure of Mackintosh was of this kind; it was
not an accidental, but a constitutional one, arising from defects or
peculiarities that were part of himself. He never, then, recovered from
it. And yet it could not be said that he spoke ill; on the contrary,
notwithstanding certain defects in manner, he spoke, after a little
practice, well, and far above the ordinary speaking of learned men and
lawyers. Some of his orations may be read with admiration, and were
even received with applause.
IV.
Where shall we find a nobler tone of statesmanlike philosophy than
in the following condemnation of that policy which attached Genoa to
Piedmont[91]--a condemnation not the less remarkable for the orator’s
not unskilful attempt to connect his former opposition to the French
Revolution with the war he was then waging against the Holy Alliance?
“One of the grand and patent errors of the French Revolution was
the fatal opinion, that it was possible for human skill to make
a government. It was an error too generally prevalent not to be
excusable. The American Revolution had given it a fallacious semblance
of support, though no event in history more clearly showed its
falsehood. The system of laws and the frame of society in North America
remained after the Revolution, and remain to this day, fundamentally
the same as they ever were.[92] The change in America, like the change
in 1688, was made in defence of legal right, not in pursuit of
political improvement; and it was limited by the necessity of defence
which produced it. The whole internal order remained, which had always
been Republican. The somewhat slender tie which loosely joined these
Republics to a monarchy, was easily and without violence divided. But
the error of the French Revolutionists was, in 1789, the error of
Europe. From that error we have been long reclaimed by fatal experience.
“We now see, or rather we have seen and felt, that a government is not
like a machine or a building, the work of man; that it is the work of
nature, like the nobler productions of the vegetable or animal world,
which man may improve and corrupt, and even destroy, but which he
cannot create. We have long learned to despise the ignorance or the
hypocrisy of those who speak of giving a free constitution to a people,
and to exclaim, with a great living poet:
‘A gift of that which never can be given
By all the blended powers of earth and heaven!’
“Indeed, we have gone, perhaps as usual, too near to the opposite
error, and not made sufficient allowances for those dreadful cases,
which I must call desperate, where, in long-enslaved countries, it is
necessary either humbly and cautiously to lay foundations from which
liberty may slowly rise, or acquiesce in the doom of perpetual bondage
on ourselves and our children.