Vienna, January 4, 1844.—I am packing up, saying goodbye and making the thousand little arrangements which precede departure. I shall leave Vienna very well satisfied with my stay and very grateful for the extreme kindness and courtesy that every one has shown me.
Sagan, January 24, 1844.—The day before yesterday I went out in a sledge to a shooting-party; two hundred and eighty head of game were killed. Yesterday I visited a very fine reformatory which is the chief house of its kind for this part of Silesia. It is in Sagan itself, in a house which was formerly a Jesuit convent. It is a well-arranged establishment conducted upon Christian principles by Baron von Stanger. He is a widower; in grief at the loss of a wife whom he adored, he was impelled by his religious feelings to devote himself to this work of redemption. The clergyman subordinate to him is a converted Jew, a kind of Abbé of Ratisbon, most zealous and conscientious and imbued with the missionary spirit. The results so far obtained are most satisfactory.
My life here is simple, quiet and I trust useful. I have also good news of all to whom I am sincerely attached, and no more physical trouble than I can well bear. To feel oneself entirely useless, to have no serious object in life, or to be paralysed by excessive physical suffering, are I think, the only conditions under which complaints to God are justifiable. I do not mention the pain of surviving those whom one loves whole-heartedly, for that is above all thingsa matter of feeling, to use the admirable expression of Madame de Maintenon. Besides, the continuous exercise of one's whole energies in relieving others or helping one's kith and kin is a great means of consolation.
Berlin, February 23, 1844.—The sect of the Pietists which is the scourge of Prussia, is doing more harm here than even atheists could produce. There is no doubt that Prussia, like the rest of Europe, is agitated by revolutionary feeling and that Silesia is in particular disturbed by these movements, the consequence of a mixture of populations. These hostilities and rivalries are fomented by the Pietists in a most unchristian way.
I have seen Princess Albert of Prussia again. She looks better since her tour in Italy. I was surprised to see her sprightly and cheerful air, as her position is the more difficult, since her father's death has deprived her of her strongest support.
I hear from Vienna that Madame de Flahaut is patronising the young Hungarians who are causing trouble at the Diet of Pressburg; that she praises their opposition speeches and encourages them to come to her house. At Vienna the authorities are surprised, but their feeling will soon pass that stage. Really, this woman has not a single diplomatic fibre in the whole of her dry anatomy.
Berlin, March 19, 1844.—In honour of the Mecklenburg and Nassau families and of the Hereditary Grand Duke of Russia, we have had some carnival festivities upon a small scale which have caused me a certain amount of trouble and weariness and left me rather tired. The Duke of Nassau is a most dismal looking person and I think an unpleasant person in every respect; he looks like a regimental surgeon. The young Duchess has an admirable figure and beautiful arms and complexion, but she has red hair, with the coarse chubby face of a doll; she is simple and very kind. The Hereditary Grand Duke of Russia is better in health but by no means improved in looks. Princess Augustus of Cambridge, who married the Crown Prince of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, exactly resembles what her aunt the Landgravine of Hesse-Homburgmust have been at her age. In a few days we shall assume mourning here for the King of Sweden who is certainly dead.
Berlin, March 24, 1844.—I was in possession of the information which you have sent me[113]with regard to the fact that Charles X. always did justice to M. de Talleyrand in reference to the interview between them during the night of the 16th and 17th of July, 1789. The King had said as much to the old Duchesse de Luynes, and I was with my uncle when she came to repeat the words of Charles X. to him. Since 1830 M. de Vitrolles has become so entirely a stranger to me that I do not quite see how I could ask him to testify to the nature of this interview, though he repeats his facts as he had them from the mouth of Charles X. himself.[114]
Berlin, March 30, 1844.—I am busy with farewell visits and the usual preparations and troubles of departure. I shall spend the greater part of April at Sagan, and shall start for Paris about the 20th, as I wish to be there for my daughter's confinement. I shall then spend a few days at Rochecotte and return to Germany about the end of June.
I have been very busy of late and have been obliged to leave several letters unanswered. Wide separation enables action to be taken which close neighbourhood would make difficult. The late M. de Talleyrand used to think a great deal of this system, and with every reason. He used to reproach me for the want of skill which I displayed in referring and replying to every statement, in my extreme fondness for argument and discussion, my inability to pass over difficult points, and my excessive insight into indiscretions and requirements. I used to tell him that in his position and at his age silence in certain respects was taken as a hint or a warning, and therefore permissible, but that I was too young and by no means sufficiently independent to adopt such habits. At that time I was right, but as youth is a faultwhich can be cured every day, in spite of itself, I have found for some time that the moment has come when I may treat as non-existent that which troubles or wearies me.
Here the memoirs are interrupted for three consecutive years. The Duchesse de Talleyrand started for France in the month of April 1844, to be with the Marquise de Castellane when she was confined of her son. The journey did not prove satisfactory, as she encountered difficulties with her French relations when she wished to secure their consent to the establishment of the fief of Sagan in favour of her eldest son. M. de Bacourt also disapproved of her proposal to settle in Germany, and the correspondence which has provided material for these chronicles became much less frequent. It was not resumed with any regularity until the end of 1847, after Rochecotte had been given to the Marquise de Castellane, and the Marquis de Castellane, the Duchesse de Talleyrand's son-in-law, had died. In consequence of this event the Duchesse de Talleyrand returned once more to France.