CARNOT.
CARNOT.
As I said, it is absurd to ascribe to Talleyrand a very active share in these proceedings. The charge seems to rest chiefly on the authority of Miot de Melito and Pasquier; both are deeply prejudiced against Talleyrand (Miot de Melito had just been deposed from his embassy at Turin by the Foreign Minister), and both were hundreds of miles away from Paris at the time. It is a good instance of the levity with which the case against Talleyrand is conducted. Talleyrand was at Barras’ house the night before thecoup d’état; so were Constant and Mme. de Staël, who, Pasquier admits, “wished the day but not the morrow.” It is admitted, moreover, that Talleyrand used every effort to moderate the execution of the laws, and saved several individuals from banishment. As to the defence of the proceedings in his letter to Napoleon and his circular letter to the government agents abroad, no one will be so foolish as to seek in these an expression of his judgment. Officially he had to present the case in optimistic language or resign. The only ground for a censure is, in fact, that he did not resign; and it would be to ascribe to Talleyrand a quite heroic degree of sensitiveness to expect him to resign on account of a procedure which Thiers soberly regards as having “prevented civil war, and substituted in its stead a stroke of policy executed with energy, but with all the calmness and moderation possible in times of revolution.”
Probably one of the clearest proofs that the Directors were not much indebted to Talleyrand for their successfulextinction of the conspiracy lies in the fact that his relations with them became more strained than ever. In October the Prussian envoy wrote to his Government that Talleyrand could only retain his position “by a miracle of intelligence and conduct.” Four of the Directors would not speak to him, and he was reduced almost to the position of a clerk in his department. It suits Michaud to imagine that Talleyrand took the initiative in important matters like the revolutionising of Switzerland, where there was money to be had. It is certain, however, that Talleyrand had no responsible part in forming the Roman and Helvetian Republics. In hisÉclaircissements(July, 1799) he says he was not even present at a single discussion on the matter. On the other hand, he must have felt some satisfaction when he saw how Napoleon was ignoring the Directors. In October Napoleon concluded the treaty of Campo Formio with Austria, in complete opposition to the instructions Talleyrand had been sending him to the end of September. Talleyrand wrote him a letter of warm congratulation, which I give later. He secured the nomination of Napoleon as plenipotentiary at the subsequent Congress of Rastadt, but the instructions sent to him were always drawn up by the Directors. Talleyrand had been similarly slighted in the negotiations for peace with England. He had come into office at the time when Lord Malmesbury was conferring with the French envoys at Lille. Malmesbury was sincerely anxious to effect peace, though Talleyrand believesPitt had merely sent him as a blind. Talleyrand wrote a memorandum on the situation soon after his appointment, in which he pleaded for a real effort to secure peace, and suggested a tactical procedure in view of the embarrassed position of the English Government. He was called “an ass” for his pains, and was directed to replace Maret by two new envoys with inflated statements of the position and claim of France. On September 18th Malmesbury sadly recognised that peace was impossible, and returned to London. The truth was that the Directors now relied on the operations of Napoleon to fill their empty coffers and sustain their prestige.
In October of the same year (1797) occurred an event which Talleyrand’s critics contemplate in a perfect luxury of moral indignation. Vice, venality, and treachery are said to be the capital offences of his career. The first charge we have considered; the third can be appreciated only at a later stage; the second now calls for examination. Let me indicate at once my reply to it. Talleyrand was not “venal” in the more offensive sense of the word. He never sold the interest of his country, or any humane cause. Hedidendeavour to make as much money as possible out of the Governments and princes which benefitted, or escaped injury, by his diplomatic arrangements; but these were always in the interest of France. Further, whatever be said of diplomatic arrangements in our time, the secret transfer of money was a common association of them inTalleyrand’s day; and the transaction, being secret, was commonly exaggerated. At the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1815, Metternich and Nesselrode were accused of taking a million each from Louis XVIII. M. de Bacourt, who was in a position to know, says they “only took theusualdiplomatic present” (boxes worth 18,000 francs each). Hangwitz is accused of being still more venal. Mirabeau and Danton had been in the secret pay of the Court. Mirabeau is even said to have taken a thousandlouis d’orfrom Spain for his diplomatic recommendation in 1790. Sieyès took 400,000 francs from Napoleon for his share in making him First Consul—when, in fact, Napoleon distributed a respectable fortune. Barras was notoriously corrupt. Rewbell was implicated. Roger Ducos was bought. Pitt had been quite willing to make the Directors a secret present of ten and a half million francs (while loftily refusing to pay two million sterling) during the negotiations, and Malmesbury had on his own account tried to buy the vote of one of the Directors. Fifty blacks do not make one white. I am only pointing out that Talleyrand’s conduct was not distinctive. He had far more opportunities than any other man of his time; and the actual charges against him are generally frivolous. The American “scandal” is one of the most authentic.
Adams had sent envoys to Paris in 1797 to settle the differences outstanding between the United Statesand France. Instead of being invited at once to meet Talleyrand, they were visited by secret agents who hinted that they came from the Foreign Minister, and said the Directors were too angry to negotiate, but might be induced to do so. The means they indicated were, firstly, a private payment of 1,200,000 livres (£50,000) “to the Directors,” and secondly, a loan from America to France29of 32,000,000 on Dutch securities that were only worth half that sum. After a number of interviews the envoys were recalled by their President, and a full account of the negotiations (without the names of the agents) was published by the United States. Talleyrand disowned his agents, but there can be no reasonable doubt that they acted on his instructions. His action provoked a widespread and deserved censure, but certain features of the transaction need to be emphasised. Talleyrand was certainly acting for Barras, though he would assuredly share the spoil. Further, the American envoys never professed the least moral resentment of the suggestion of a commission until all was over. During the negotiations they wrote home of it as being “according to diplomatic usage,” and said they “might not so much regard a little money, such as he stated to be useful.” No stress whatever is laid on it, “that being completely understood on all sides to be required for the officers of Government, andtherefore needing no further explanation.” Their objection was solely raised against the loan, which they regarded as a kind of tribute wrung from the States. It was also this second proposal that led to the dangerous outbreak of anger and war-like preparations in the States, as the Cambridge text-book shows. It is quite clear that the suggestion of a commission alone would have done no harm, and would not have been considered unusual, except in amount, which was possibly determined by Barras.
Thus an examination of the documents published by the American Government greatly reduces the gravity of the matter. Had there been no suggestion of a loan we should never have heard of it; and even in France the cry of “scandal” was very much confused with a perception of the very evil result of pressing the loan, which was an honest, if impolitic, attempt to trade in the interest of the nation. Sieyès wrote from Berlin to reproach Talleyrand with “trafficking in his honour.” There are so many who make amends to the moral ideal by their generosity in condemning others. Mme. de Staël implored Talleyrand to exculpate himself, but he smiled. His habitual critics were, of course, delighted at so well authenticated an exposure, and to the Michauds and Sainte-Beuves of a later date this one exact documentary proof has seemed providential. So little serious notice was taken of it (apart from the loan) by sober men at the time that, when Talleyrand resigns on other grounds, in the following year, andwrites the only apologia of his life, he dismisses this in two lines.30
This American affair, of which we have such accurate information, affords a firm footing in the controversy about Talleyrand’s “venality.” The rest is mainly hear-say and wild conjecture, resting largely on the authority of discarded subordinates (like Miot de Melito), political opponents (like Pasquier), foreign rivals (like Roux, or Palmerston), or other people with grievances (like Napoleon in his later years). It is not usual to take such evidence at its face value. Sainte-Beuve makes a most bitter attack on Talleyrand under this head, but has little to say in detail beyond a vague statement that Talleyrand at some time or other calculated he had made sixty millions by commissions. Sainte-Beuve’s reputation for scholarship and discrimination happily does not rest on his “Talleyrand.” Bastide makes a more honest attempt to support his own statement that Talleyrand gained thirty millions during three years. He can, however, only swell his list of gains in detail to 14,650,000 livres, and many of the larger items are quite out of place, or wholly ridiculous.31
He solemnly tells us he thinks it is a sufficient guarantee for the accuracy of his items that they are found in publications of the time, and were not contradicted by Talleyrand! The biographer who takes literally every charge he finds in the pamphlets of 1789-1799, or expects to find them seriously met by men like Talleyrand, has a curious idea of his work. And the historians of our day who rely on such biographers deserve little sympathy. Michaud is more reckless than Bastide. Lady Blennerhassett has taken up his specific allegation that Talleyrand defrauded Spain of 24,000,000 livres (by concealing the reduction of its subsidy and pocketing the difference), and shown it to be impossible. The treaty with Portugal is said by some writers to have yielded Talleyrand 3,000,000; Bastide puts his profit at 1,200,000; and Michaud merely “feels sure” Talleyrand madesomethingout of it. Roux declares he made 5,000,000 out of the treaty with Switzerland, and Napoleon was very liberal in his later estimates of Talleyrand’s greed.
Quite certainly Talleyrand’s commissions have been grossly exaggerated. The flimsiest charges and the wildest conjectures have been eagerly used against him. But he did probably make a large sum in this way whilst he was Foreign Minister. He let it be known amongst the foreign ambassadors that he expectedmoney. Mme. Grand occasionally facilitated an understanding in this sense; Napoleon accused her of operations on her own account at times. Talleyrand despised his chiefs, and saw a very misty prospect for the future. He resolved to use his position to make some provision. However, he never sold the interest of his country, and he was, as Senfft says, “never induced to favour plans which he regarded as dangerous to the peace of Europe.” Senfft tells how, on a later occasion, the Poles put 4,000,000 florins in the hands of his agent, but Talleyrand returned them when he found it impossible to do what they desired. I am not trying to show that his conduct was consistent with a strong and high character, but rebutting the exaggerated charges which lead sober historians to say, as Sloane does, that “there was never greed more dishonest than his.”
This is almost the sole aspect of Talleyrand’s diplomatic work under the Directory that we need consider. His splendid gifts were never utilised, the Directors employing him as little more than chief clerk of the Foreign Office. In July, 1798, he presented to them a long and very able memorandum on the situation abroad, and about that time there was some talk of his entrance into the Directorate. The Prussian ambassador wrote home that such an event would almost put an end to the convulsions of Europe. But the Directors were fixed in their fine contempt for his views, and they made diplomacy impossible. Talleyrand suffered himselfto remain the organ of their absurd conceptions until the middle of 1799. A man of his temper could tolerate the position at such a price. Meantime he lived pleasantly at the Hotel Galiffet. The authoress of theMémoires d’une Contemporainedescribes how he spent hours in idle talk with her at the office, and curled her hair with thousand-franc notes. But one eye was fixed all the time on a strenuous figure that was leading the armies in the south—the figure of Napoleon Buonaparte. In that direction lay the only hope for the restoration of France and of diplomacy.
ENTER NAPOLEON
Talleyrand had written at once in 1797 to inform the commander of the army of Italy of his nomination to the Foreign Ministry. “Justly apprehensive,” he said, “of functions of which I feel the fateful importance, I need to reassure myself by the consciousness of how much the negotiations will be facilitated by your glory. The very name of Buonaparte is an auxiliary that will remove all difficulties.” He had already a dim prevision of the day when the princes of Europe would gather timidly about the dreaded figure of the Corsican and his Foreign Minister. He says that Napoleon had written to him first. This is probably untrue; but Napoleon at once replied, and the two men immediately appreciated each other. Within a few weeks Napoleon sent him a long and curious letter containing his views on constitutional questions and popular representation. About the same time he spoke to Miot de Melito about Talleyrand in terms of high appreciation. When Napoleon closed the Austrian campaign and signed the Treaty of Campo Formio, in opposition to the instructions from Paris, Talleyrand wrote him a private letter of extravagant congratulation. “So we have peace made—and peaceà la Buonaparte. Accept my hearty compliments, General. Words could not convey all I feel just now. The Directors are satisfied, the public delighted. All is for the best. There may be some muttering from Italy, but it does not matter. Good-bye, peace-making General. Friendship, admiration, respect, gratitude—one does not know where to end.” The feeling was sincere, and Talleyrand had a way of conveying high compliments without incongruity. These early letters, Sainte-Beuve says, remind one of Voltaire’s honeymoon with Frederic.
In December Napoleon arrived at Paris, and the two men met for the first time. Each, of course, now says that the other sought the interview. Napoleon had changed his route as he approached Paris, and was at his house in the Rue Chantereine before his arrival was known. He says that Talleyrand called at once; but as even Josephine found his door barred and Napoleon mad with angry suspicion of her, he could not be seen that night. On the following morning Talleyrand and Mme. de Staël and a few friends waited in the Hotel Galiffet, when Napoleon, quietly dressed, pale, very silent, entered the salon. He took Talleyrand into his private room, and had a long conversation with him, and then Talleyrand introduced him to the Directors at the Luxembourg. Napoleon puzzled in a charming way the citizens of Paris. He dressed with ostentatious plainness, spoke little, and avoided public meetings and demonstrations. At the Luxembourg a splendid receptionceremony had been prepared. The Directors sat on a dais in the court in their stagey satin clothes, lawyers and parliamentarians filled the amphitheatre, and a great orchestra and choir rendered an ode written for the occasion. Talleyrand said in his introductory speech: “When I observe all that he does to cover his glory, this classic taste for simplicity that distinguishes him, his love of abstract science, his favourite books, that sublimeOssianwhich seems to detach him from earth; when I see his disdain for show, for luxury, for pomp, those petty ambitions of common souls—then, far from dreading what some would call his ambition, I feel that some day you may have to drag him forth from his studious retreat.” Napoleon probably thanked him for keeping up the show, but may have feared he was overdoing it. They understood each other, yet really liked each other.
Talleyrand gave a magnificent festival in honour of the conqueror; though he confesses some difficulty in finding ladies amongst the women of Paris! As it was, the wife of one of the Directors openly observed to him: “What a lot it must have cost you, citizen-minister!” He also induced Napoleon, though with great difficulty, to attend the anniversary of the King’s execution. Napoleon did not wait long to abolish that suggestive commemoration. But the jealousy and uneasiness of the Directors made Napoleon’s position uncomfortable. He began immediately to look for another field for military action. The Directors thought of Ireland as asufficiently remote locality, but Napoleon was better informed as to the possibility of a direct attack on England. He then unfolded to Talleyrand the plan for an invasion of Egypt, and it was laid before the Directors. The idea had occurred to one or two earlier dreamers in France, but, in spite of what Napoleon afterwards said, it is incredible that Talleyrand should have really approved it. It was certainly Talleyrand’s idea that France should extend along the whole shore of the Mediterranean, and leave the high seas to England, but a leap from Marseilles to Alexandria was a different matter. However, he lent Napoleon the collection of Egyptian documents in the Foreign Office, and clearly did not oppose his plan. Miot de Melito, who was in close communication with Napoleon, and who would not lose an opportunity of blaming Talleyrand, says that Napoleon acted entirely on his own view and dragged everybody with him. Within twelve months we find Talleyrand (in hisÉclaircissements) openly denying that he had approved the expedition.
However, the Directors yielded, and the famous fleet of 500 vessels sailed from Toulon on May 19th, 1798. Talleyrand had apparently promised to follow within twenty-four hours, to arrange matters with the Sultan at Constantinople. He was, however, ill at the time, and it is doubtful whether he ever intended to do so. If we may trust the memoirs, he saw only a personal design in the expedition at the time. Napoleon had spoken to him of founding a rich colonyin Egypt, and going on to attack England in India, but he had dropped a word about returning by way of Constantinople. That was “not the way to India,” nor would he be likely to leave the Sultan’s throne standing, or set up a Turkish Republic, says Talleyrand. In other words he professes that he thought Napoleon wanted to found an empire in the East. All this was written, we must remember, after Napoleon’s imagination had fully revealed its possibilities. The most probable reading of the situation is that Talleyrand felt, like Napoleon, that “the pear was not ripe yet;” that Napoleon had better keep out of the way for a year or two; and that somethingmightcome of this imposing military and scientific expedition.
BARRAS.
BARRAS.
In the twelve months that followed the pear ripened fast. To the chronic financial malady and political discontent was now added the news of the civil war in La Vendée and of the disastrous opening of the war against the second coalition. This was far more formidable than the first. Austria was encouraged by the absence of its conqueror, and the support of both Russia and Turkey. England was fired by the announcement of Nelson’s victory at Aboukir and the apparent isolation of Napoleon. Portugal and Naples were drawn in. The first battles went badly for the French, and the Directors and Talleyrand were furiously assailed. Talleyrand thought it wise to withdraw from the Directors, and they accepted his resignation on July 20th, with some show of regret. How far he wasthen informed of Napoleon’s position and plans it is impossible to determine; but it is believed that the Bonapartes at Paris succeeded in communicating with Egypt. However, Talleyrand, in September, handed over hisportefeuilleto his friend, Reinhard. For the first and only time in his career (if we except his brief letter in 1791 to theMoniteur) he answered his critics. His “Explanations to his fellow citizens” fully destroy the frivolous charges brought against him as a minister and republican, especially by his interested predecessor, Lacroix, and the members of the Société du Manège—whom Napoleon describes as “a gang of bloodthirsty ruffians.” In the end Talleyrand turns on his opponents with some dignity. “What have I done,” he asks, “that such suspicions should fall on me? Is there anything in my whole life to justify such a supposition? Have I ever persecuted or been vindictive? Can any one reproach me with a single act of severity in the whole course of my ministry? Have I ever injured anyone, even by accident?” It was a just rebuke and just defence. Few of the hands raised against him were free from blood. It is also notable that the charge of corruption is not pressed. He then retired to his country house at Auteuil, to resume his familiar attitude of awaiting events.
“Those who did not live in those times,” says de Broglie, “can have no idea how deep was the despondency prevailing in France between the 18th Fructidor (September 4th, 1797) and the 18th Brumaire(November 9th, 1799).” The Directory had proved wholly unfitted to govern France. The only question in the summer of 1799 was: What shall be the next page in the constitutional history of the country? In May, Rewbell had had to retire from the Directorate, and the victorious Jacobins had replaced him by Sieyès, to whom all now turned for a lead. Sieyès found his colleagues in the way, and three of them were at once replaced by two mediocrities, Gohier and Moulin, and an active supporter, Roger-Ducos. Barras alone remained of the whole group, and he was now compromised by dallying with royalist agents. It was clear to Sieyès that the reins of Government must be put in the strong hands of a soldier, and he thought of one general after another. He was not well disposed to Napoleon, but Talleyrand made it his task to effect a reconciliation. The Buonaparte family was also very busy at Paris, preparing a reception for the General who, they said, had been sent by the Directors on this hopeless campaign in Egypt. On the 8th of October the agitation was doubled when a message was received, telling that Napoleon had landed at Frejus. He had left his army and his difficulties in charge of Kléber, had evaded the British vessels, and landed with a few of his generals on the south coast. On October 18th he arrived at Paris.
The menace of the second coalition had by this time been arrested by the victories of Masséna and the withdrawal of the Russians, but the Directorate was thoroughly discredited, and its enemies were alertand vigorous. All parties now turned towards Napoleon with intense interest. Royalists hoped he would make himself the instrument of a restoration. The Jacobins, who had become strong again, watched such a possibility with concern. The moderates felt that it would lead to civil war. Every malcontent in Paris knew that Napoleon held the key of the situation. The only one who seemed to be unconscious of his importance was Napoleon himself. After the inevitable round of fêtes was over—and it was remarked how he drank his wine from a private bottle at the public dinner—he seemed to forget that he was a soldier. He spent most of his time at the Institut, discussing questions of science and philosophy; and when visitors to Paris sought the great general, they had pointed out to them a quiet, pale little man in the dress of a scholar of the Institut. But his little house in the Rue de Victoire soon became the political centre of Paris. Talleyrand and Bruix (the Ex-Minister of Marine) were daily bringing members of the Councils to visit him. Presently Talleyrand reconciled him with Sieyès to a practicable extent—“you have to fill this priest to the neck with money to get anything out of him,” Napoleon said afterwards—and the definite intrigue began. Napoleon would accept Sieyès’ new constitution. The five Directors were to be replaced by three Consuls elected for ten years—but if he thinks I am going to be a “fatted pig” he is mistaken, said Napoleon. The Councils would be suspended for three months, andthen replaced by a Senate (with life-membership), and an elective Chamber of Deputies.
The next point was to determine the date and manner of the Revolution. The generals whom Napoleon had brought were winning over the officers, but they felt some anxiety about the soldiers, who were apprehensive of reactionary change. Talleyrand had rallied the moderates, such as Regnault de Saint-Jean d’Angély, Roederer, Constant, Cambacérès, Daunou, and Sémonville.32They could count on a majority in the Ancients, and Lucien Buonaparte was President of the Five Hundred. Fouché, the accommodating Minister of Police, carefully abstained from reporting to the Directors what he saw. Barras had, in fact, completely compromised himself by openly suggesting a royalist plot to Napoleon. Roger-Ducos was with Sieyès. Gohier and Moulin stupidly refused to see anything until the very last moment. The only difficulty was with the Five Hundred and the soldiers, and Napoleon could be trusted to win the latter and so crush the Council. Still it was a time of great anxiety. Talleyrand tells how Napoleon and he were discussing plans in his house in the Rue Taitbout at one o’clock in the morning, when suddenly they heard a company of cavalry gallop down the street, and halt oppositeTallyrand’s door. They put out the light in some concern, and crept on to the balcony to observe. It was the carriage of the manager of one of the gaming houses, returning home with the profits and an escort of gens d’armes, and it had met with an accident just before Talleyrand’s door.
On the morning of November 9th (18th Brumaire) Paris awoke once more to find a revolution afoot. Great masses of troops were distributed about the streets, and a crowd of officers was gathered, by invitation, before Napoleon’s house—Napoleon telling them from the balcony he was going to save the Republic. The Ancients were to meet at seven o’clock, the Five Hundred at eleven, and in fact a number of the notices to patriotic members of the latter Council had prudently gone astray in the post. Under the plea of some vague conspiracy being abroad the complaisant Ancients decreed that the legislative bodies be transferred to Saint Cloud (which was in form constitutional), that Napoleon be given command of all the troops at Paris, and that three Consuls be appointed. Napoleon and his generals (who were going to “pitch the lawyers in the river,” as some of them said) at one proceeded to the Chamber and took the oath. The alarmed patriots of the Five Hundred now met, but were immediately closured by Lucien on the ground that they had been constitutionally removed to Saint Cloud. Meantime Barras was in the hands of Talleyrand, who very soon extorted his resignation. Sieyès and Ducos resigned. Gohier and Moulinwere shut up in the Luxembourg. Fouché suspended the municipalities—it being a time of trouble. Napoleon established himself at the Tuileries. His careful and elaborate plan had so far succeeded.
SIEYÈS.
SIEYÈS.
On the morrow the Councils were to appoint the Consuls at Saint Cloud, and meantime a strong opposition was forming. Three of the generals were not in the plot, and one of them, Bernadotte, was an active member of the JacobinSociété du Manège, which at once attempted to organise a counter-revolution. The 19th Brumaire opened with not a little anxiety. Sieyès and Ducos had a coach and six at one of the gates of Saint-Cloud. Talleyrand and a few other “amateurs” (as he says) had taken a house at Saint Cloud—with two alternatives: a dinner was ordered for the evening, but a coach waited at the door. Napoleon did in fact make a terrible muddle when it came to his turn to speak. In the hall where the Ancients met he made a violent, disjointed, most imprudent speech, answering questions with the most clumsy fabrications, until Bourrienne had to drag him away with the remark: “You don’t know what you are saying.” The Ancients, however, gave the required vote. But no sooner did Napoleon enter the hall of the Five Hundred than the deputies raged about him in crowds. He nearly fainted and had to be carried out. But his military instinct at once revived. Mounting his horse he complained to the troops that his life had been attempted; and when Lucien came out with the news that they were outlawing him, and Sieyèshad drily answered: “Well, as they are putting you out of the law, put them out of the room,” he cast off all hesitation. On the previous day when he had attempted to explain matters to Sebastiani’s dragoons, who formed his escort, they curtly replied: “We don’t want any explanations: black or white, we’re with you.” And every musket was loaded with ball. Napoleon now turned to the captain of the grenadiers and told him to “go and disperse this assembly of busy-bodies.” The drums beat the charge, the grenadiers swept up the grand staircase at the double, turned into the orangery on the left with bayonets levelled, and the patriotic Five Hundred fled by the other doors, or dropped from the windows into the garden. Talleyrand and his fellow amateurs went to dinner.
That night Lucien gathered together a score or so of the more reliable elements of the Council, and passed the new Constitution. Lucien harangued his little group on the great theme of liberty and the splendid example of Rome. They declared the Directorate extinct, and borrowing again from “the free peoples of antiquity,” appointed a provisional Consulate, consisting of Napoleon Bonaparte (the Italian “u” had disappeared by this time), Sieyès, and the faithful Roger-Ducos. They also proscribed 57 obnoxious deputies, and voted the thanks of the country to Napoleon for his action. So ended the French Revolution. An act of despotism, rendered possible by widespread intrigue and corruption, rang down the curtain on the ten-year drama of blind, bloody, Titanic struggles. Yet it was the best thing for France.
WAR AND DIPLOMACY
On the morning of December 11th, 1799, Napoleon installed himself at the Luxembourg, and began at once the stupendous activity with which he was to raise France to the position of first Power in Europe. Within a fortnight Talleyrand was back at the Foreign Office, with a prospect at last of using in his correspondence that “noble language” which the Revolution and Directorate had disdained to use. Of the civilians in France, two men alone were necessary to Napoleon—Fouché and Talleyrand. Fouché was useful. Talleyrand had the additional advantage of making Napoleon bow in secret to his superior culture and finesse. In the work of the next seven years, which was to raise France higher than she had ever been in the course of her history, the soldier and the diplomatist were intimately joined. For some years it is often impossible, apart from military operations, to distinguish the action of the one from that of the other.
In the earlier years of the nineteenth century, in which the glory of Napoleon and the greatness of France generally coincide, Talleyrand had an unmistakeable regard and affection for his chief. No one more fullyappreciated the genius of Napoleon, in peace or war, and no one appraised more highly its advantage to France. He had, too, a sufficient sense of amiable cynicism to think lightly of the irony with which Napoleon brushed aside the pretentious forms of liberty and fraternity, and set up a solid but despotic system of government. With a smile he saw the country accept with an overwhelming majority the new scheme of universal suffrage. The voters of each district were to choose ten of their number; these tens were to unite in each Department and choose ten “Notabilities of the Department;” these were in turn to choose their tens; and then the governing powers would select the members of the legislative bodies and the chief officials of the State. The Council (chosen by the executive) would initiate measures; the Tribunate, the really popular and able body, could discuss them (within limits), but not vote on them; the Legislative Body could vote, but not discuss them; and the ornate and equally silent Senate had a right of Veto. Talleyrand gave no support to Benjamin Constant when he opposed, in the name of liberty, the almost immediate introduction of the closure in the Tribunate. Like most of his friends, he at once deserted Mme. de Staël’s salon, because she impelled Constant to this course. Nor did he demur when Bonaparte very quickly reduced the number of journals from 73 to 13, observing (among other things) that they were making remarks that insulted “the sovereignty of the people.” They had been unable to restrain theirwit over the new democracy. Talleyrand had never been a “polygarchist,” to use a word which he himself calls barbarous but inevitable. In his opinion the people had proved their incompetence to rule. It was not time-serving, but real conviction, that made him encourage Napoleon’s monarchical tendency.
So he passed with good spirit through the few ironic months before Napoleon departed for Italy. He was present at the first meeting of Sieyès and Napoleon. Sieyès saw clearly enough the direction of Napoleon’s policy; Napoleon told him his “Grand Elector” was aroi fainéant, and “the time of do-nothing kings was past.” They quarrelled violently and parted. At the second meeting Sieyès was more amiable. “The pike is making short work of the other fishes,” said a shrewd lady to Mme. Bonaparte. By February the constitutional difficulty was over. Sieyès had disappeared, with a rich sinecure and a large estate. Ducos was submerged in the Senate. The “Grand Elector” had become “First Consul,” with almost unlimited power over the military, naval, civic and foreign administration. The amiable Second and Third Consuls, Cambacérès and Lebrun, were willing to act as little more than background to Napoleon. The more heated Jacobins were banished (Talleyrand striking one of his bitterest enemies, Jarry, off the list of the proscribed). The more serious members of the old legislation were distributed over Europe in foreign embassies and consulships. The Senate was installed at the Luxembourg;the virtuous Tribunate at the Palais Egalité (a hotbed of prostitutes and gamblers); and the Consuls (though Cambacérès prudently declined the honour) at the Tuileries. Napoleon issued a proclamation to the nation, which ended: “Citizens, the Revolution is now sealed with the principles that first set it afoot. It is over.” On the last day of the national mourning he had directed on account of the death of Washington, Napoleon and his colleagues drove in royal state, in a splendid carriage drawn by six white horses, to the Tuileries. They had to pass under a gate over which still lingered the inscription: “Royalty is abolished for ever in France.” Talleyrand drove under it with the other ministers in advance of Napoleon. On the following day Napoleon went over his new home with his friends. “Well, Bourrienne,” he said, “here we are at the Tuileries. The next thing is to see that we stop here.” But he had it immediately decorated with the statues or busts of great generals and great democrats of all nations. Demosthenes, Scipio, Brutus and Mirabeau smiled or frowned on the visitor amidst a crowd of warriors and kings.
Talleyrand, who rightly believed that these changes were for the real good of France, would not be insensible to the humour of the situation or the diplomatic genius of the new head of the State. It had been decreed that ministers should discuss their portfolios every day before the three Consuls, but Talleyrand had pointed out to Napoleon on the day of his installation at the ForeignOffice (Nov. 21st, 1799) that its affairs were of a peculiarly private nature, and had proposed that he should confer with the First Consul alone. Napoleon was more than willing, and the long, close, and most fruitful co-operation of the two began. Napoleonist writers are apt to imagine that Talleyrand was little more than a clerk, as most of the other ministers were, but we shall see as we proceed that Napoleon often left even the initiative to him. Thiers observes that Fouché and Talleyrand were the only ministers who were not effaced by the phenomenal activity of Napoleon. His vast intelligence was already at work on plans for beautifying Paris, improving the roads of the country, restoring financial soundness, creating a system of education, reviving industry, formulating a code of laws, and effecting a hundred other improvements. A royalist visitor who saw Napoleon at the time said that he looked like a well-dressed lackey—until you met his eye. That eye was now searching Paris through and through for means of consolidating his position; it was sweeping over the broad provinces of France in search of disorders to remedy and dangers to crush: it was following royalists and Jacobins into exile, scanning the countenances of kings and statesmen abroad, counting their ships and forces, turning from East Indies to West Indies, from St. Petersburg to Cairo and Persia. In Fouché he had a political detective, unhampered by the faintest sense of moral principle, who could answer for Paris. Gradually relaxing the laws against the emigrants, hethrew open the career to all talent, excepting only the militant royalists and the most violent Jacobins. Priests were now only required to promise, not to swear allegiance; large numbers of emigrants were struck off the list on one pretext or other, though the peasants were at the same time assured that not a franc’s worth of emigrant or ecclesiastical property would be restored; and all were promptly put under the searchlight of the Ministry of Police. Even Jacobins were in time absorbed. Talleyrand saw one leave Napoleon’s room one day, and expressed surprise at it. “You don’t know the Jacobins,” said Napoleon. “There are the salty Jacobins and the sugary Jacobins. That one is a salty Jacobin. I do what I like with those. They have to be arrested sometimes, but a little money soon manages that. But the sugary Jacobins! They would destroy twenty governments with their metaphysics.”
From an engraving, after the picture by Delaroche.NAPOLEON.
From an engraving, after the picture by Delaroche.
NAPOLEON.
As long as such a man would leave the choice of language to Talleyrand the diplomatic combination would be superb. They got quickly to work. The year 1799 had hardly closed, London was still wondering what this new phase of French politics portended, when George III. received an edifying invitation from the First Consul to entertain a project of peace. In flawless and dignified language he was urged to reflect before plunging Europe once more into the horrors of war. “The fate of all civilised nations,” the letter concluded, “cries for the termination of a war that embraces the whole world.” Pitt replied—or, rather,sent a note to Talleyrand at the Foreign Office—that England saw no guarantee of stability in French policy until the legitimate ruler of the country was restored. It is generally agreed that this was an egregious blunder, an arrogant and tactless attempt to dictate to the French nation. It was, at all events, immediately recognised as such in France, and the people were more than reconciled to a continuation of the war with England. Talleyrand gravely enquired of Lord Grenville what England would say to a proposal to restore the Stuarts. Napoleon had written at the same time and in the same vein to the Emperor of Austria. “A stranger to every sentiment of vain glory, my first desire is to arrest the shedding of blood.” Austria replied to Talleyrand, as England had done, though less offensively, asking for guarantees of stability. The reply to Austria indicates clearly enough that, as Talleyrand writes, Napoleon did not want peace. They were asked to take the Treaty of Campo Formio (framed when Austria was in a much worse position) as the base of negotiation.
In both cases the correspondence soon came to a futile close. Napoleon had reached the steps of the throne as a military commander, and new victories would at least sustain his prestige. Moreover, the financial condition of France was very low, and Napoleon had had experience of the pecuniary value of victorious warfare. His letters and the first replies (ignoring his official position) strengthened his support in the country, and in fact, as Talleyrand observes, made him out to be“something of a statesman.” He turned cheerfully to the rest of his diplomatic task before proceeding to face Austria. By tactful action in the western provinces he put an end to the civil war there, induced the Vendean leaders to come to Paris, and actually attached some of them to his service. The next important step was to detach Russia from Austria, secure the neutrality of, if not an alliance with, Prussia, and have a good understanding with Spain. The King of Prussia was not unwilling to see France and Austria exhaust themselves in a long conflict, while he himself could continue in peace to strengthen his finances and his army. Duroc was sent to inform him of the change of Government in France, and soon afterwards Talleyrand sent his friend General Beurnonville, an enemy of Austria, to fill the embassy at Berlin. Through Prussia an attempt was to be made to reach the Tsar. Very soon Prussia ceased to talk of the Rhine provinces, and reported that the opposition to France at St. Petersburg was relaxing. Napoleon suspected that Prussia was maintaining too long the profitable rôle of mediator, and urged a direct appeal to Russia. Hearing that the Tsar had seriously quarrelled with Austria, and was not well disposed towards England, he collected all the Russian prisoners he had, re-clothed them, and sent them home with military honours. When he further sent the sword of La Valette to the Tsar (who had been appointed Grand Master of the Order of St. John, and had an enthusiasm for his charge) and invited him to take possession ofMalta (then very precariously held by the French against the English), the Tsar was won.
In the meantime the French Minister at Madrid had reported on the situation in Spain. A boorish, thoughtless king, who gave the slightest possible attention to public affairs: a spirited, hard-working queen, with an eye for Parisian millinery: a conceited and incompetent paramour of the queen, Godoy, who was in reality the first minister of the country. In a few weeks cases of valuable French arms were on their way to Godoy. The king, innocent of the vaguest suspicion of political machinery, desired some for himself. A splendid assortment was at once dispatched; and Citoyenne Minette was sent to the queen, with boxes of exquisite Parisian costumes, chosen by Josephine, and with diplomatic instructions from Talleyrand in her pocket.
By the beginning of May Napoleon was ready to open the campaign against Austria. He had set in motion his vast plans for the improvement of Paris and the country, and the restoration of commerce, education, justice, and order. He had pacified la Vendée, and set free the troops for the campaign in Italy. Russia was detached from the coalition, and had sent an ambassador to Paris—a man with whom it would be easy to deal, said Talleyrand, because he had no instructions, and was incensed against his own government. Prussia was most benevolently neutral. Spain seemed to have entirely forgotten Louis XVI. Leaving Talleyrand to sustainthe good disposition of these Powers, Napoleon set out on May 6th for Italy. “What we want now,” said Talleyrand to him, “is for success in war to put new life into the department of peace.”
Within six weeks came the news of the victory at Marengo. By July 3rd Napoleon was back in the capital. Austria was crushed, Italy won, and England isolated. A new phase of diplomatic work had now to begin. From the battle-field Napoleon had written to the Austrian Emperor. The Emperor injudiciously sent his reply by the same messenger, a very undiplomatic Austrian soldier, the Count St. Julien, who followed Napoleon to Paris, and was entrusted to Talleyrand to deal with. He had, of course, no power whatever to negotiate, but was instructed to sound the French, and only say sufficient for that purpose about Austria’s disposition. Within a week St. Julien signed the preliminaries of a treaty with France that bound Austria to close her ports against England (with whom she had signed an agreement one month before). The inexperienced soldier had asked Talleyrand’s advice as to the extent of his powers, and Talleyrand gravely replied that if he were in St. Julien’s place he would sign. When Napoleon heard that St. Julien was disavowed and sent to a fortress, and the negotiations were annulled, he said that he rather expected it, but merely “wanted to put the Emperor in the wrong in the eyes of Europe.” He talked of renewing hostilities, but Talleyrand dissuaded him, and in October Count Cobentzl reached Paris forthe serious work of negotiation. In the meantime the effect of Marengo was visible on all sides. A succession of fêtes brought Paris and France to the feet of the First Consul. Millions were sent to the Treasury from the seat of war.
Cobentzl was to treat with Joseph Bonaparte at Lunéville, but Napoleon invited him to pay a visit to Paris first. On the evening of his arrival Talleyrand took him to the Tuileries. Napoleon had prepared the very furniture of the room to receive him. Cobentzl, with distinct recollection of the violent little man who had smashed his porcelain to illustrate how he would break Austria, found himself admitted into the large room on the ground floor where Napoleon worked. The lustre was unlit. One small lamp shone on the desk in the far corner where Napoleon sat, and Cobentzl found, after crossing the long dark room, that all the chairs had been removed except the one that Napoleon used. He was nervous and uncomfortable, while Napoleon conducted his well-rehearsed part with the ease of a conqueror. The few days in Paris were not pleasant to the Austrian envoy. He gladly moved to Lunéville to treat with the less dramatic and less violent Joseph. Napoleon’s brother had already been used in the conclusion of a treaty with the United States. It is absurd to say that Talleyrand was passed over in these matters for personal reasons. Napoleon’s employment of his elder brother, who had no mean ability, in these high affairs of State requires no explanation. OnFebruary 9th, 1801, the new treaty was signed at Lunéville. Austria was restricted to Venice in Italy, and lost the Rhine provinces and the Netherlands. Talleyrand did little more than conduct the correspondence between the two brothers. Count Cobentzl had made every effort to escape a rupture with England by signing a separate peace, but the supervention of the victory of Hohenlinden in December had too utterly enfeebled his country.
An event had occurred in December in connection with which Talleyrand is often severely censured. An attempt had been made by certainchouansto blow up the First Consul as he went to the opera. Napoleon at once called a Council of State, and declared it was the work of the Jacobins. Whatever the suspicions of the Councillors were, they knew that Napoleon was bent on making this a pretext for a severe blow at the Terrorists, and they said nothing when a number of the more truculent were executed and deported for a crime that was afterwards found to be the work of Royalists. There was much indignation against Fouché for the negligence of the police. Mr. Holland Rose says that “if we may credit theon ditof Pasquier, Talleyrand urged the execution of Fouché.” We maynotcredit theon ditsof Pasquier when they reflect on Talleyrand; and such a suggestion is entirely inconsistent with Talleyrand’s character. It seems to be stated with more authority (though the reports are not consistent) that Talleyrand—probably at the instigationof Napoleon—advocated taking action on asenatus-consultum, which would dispense with the need of passing measures through the less complaisant bodies. Talleyrand said at the time that it was necessary to give foreign governments one of those guarantees of stability about which they were so anxious. There were few tears shed over the brutal and hasty treatment of the remnant of the Terrorists.
In those early years Talleyrand felt a lively personal attachment to Napoleon. “The sentiment that attaches me to you,” he writes, “my conviction that the devotion of my life to your destiny and to the grand views that inspire you is not without effect in their realisation, have made me take more care of my health than I have ever done before.” Later, when Napoleon had rendered some service to his family: “I am with you in life or death.” His letters up to 1804 frequently exhale an odour that the British perception would class as that of rank flattery. Making due allowance for the exaggerated manners of the day, the sentiment seems to be sincere. The allusions of Napoleonists in later years to “an Auteuil conspiracy” (where Talleyrand had a house) early in the nineteenth century are frivolous. Talleyrand would, no doubt, shudder at the coarseness of Napoleon’s language at times and cannot have been blind to his ambition. But the latter coincided as yet with the interest of France, and the former was almost obliterated in the glare of his genius. When we consider the vast work that Napoleon was doingfor France, and the very probable effect a restoration of the King at that period would have had, we feel that Talleyrand must have clung to him with real anxiety.
On the other hand, Napoleon would take care to attach to his person and cause a minister of the ability of Talleyrand. To the end of his career he acknowledged that Talleyrand had no equal in his work, and their letters show that “foreign ministry” was taken in a wide sense. Talleyrand could entertain returned nobles who despised the thin polish of the Tuileries, as well as play with a St. Julien, or conciliate Swiss and Italian patriots. To one letter Talleyrand appends a list of the ladies at his last soirée who did not dance. When the Spanish princes came to Paris, it was Talleyrand’s fête at Neuilly that remained in their memories; it was at Neuilly they met the old nobility and culture of France, and enjoyed the most brilliant display of Parisian decorative art. When Napoleon wanted to have himself appointed President of the Italian Republic it was Talleyrand he sent to meet the 450 stern Italian patriots at Lyons, who would not venture nearer into the mesmeric circle of the Tuileries. Talleyrand describes the state of the roads, the price of bread and the feeling of the provincials, as he travels; selects his friend Melzi among the deputies to “open his heart to”; puts before them in his grave, sententious way “not what Napoleon desired, but what it was expedient for the CisalpineRepublic to ask.”33When Napoleon and Josephine arrived, it was almost superfluous to awe the Italians with reviews and parades. The Constitution was accepted, and the Italian branch of Napoleon’s empire created. When, in the summer of 1801, Spain made its “orange-war” on Portugal, instead of subjugating it as Napoleon had demanded, the First Consul sent the whole of the papers to Talleyrand who was at the baths of Bourbon l’Archambault. “I fear my advice has a smack of the douche and cold bath about it,” says Talleyrand in reply; but his moderate and judicious scheme saved the angry Napoleon from a serious blunder. The news of Spain’s interested failure to close Portugal against England had come to Napoleon in the midst of his negotiation for peace with London, and he talked of making war on Spain. Talleyrand urged the more refined punishment of disposing of Trinidad to England, sending Lucien (the Madrid ambassador) on a long visit to Cadiz, and of generally “wasting time at Madrid and pushing things on at London.”