TALLEYRAND(Under Napoleon).
TALLEYRAND(Under Napoleon).
Peace with England was, in fact, the next measure that the interest of France demanded. In March, 1801,overtures were made from England. Pitt had fallen over the Catholic Emancipation proposals, and the new ministry under Addington desired to close the war. Now that Napoleon had crushed Austria, cajoled Spain, and conciliated Russia, he would prefer to attempt a blow at his great enemy, but the news from abroad moderated his ambition. From St. Petersburg came the announcement that the Tsar had “died of apoplexy.” He had been murdered in a palace-conspiracy on March 23rd. Napoleon vented his feelings in the customary rhetoric. Talleyrand lifted his eyebrows and said, “Apoplexy again? It is time they invented a new disease in Russia.” Immediately afterwards came the report of the English victory at Copenhagen, and the detachment of Denmark; and about the same time bad news reached Paris from Egypt. Shortly afterwards Bonaparte is described by Stapfer as saying to the British Ambassador at Paris: “There are only two nations in the world, England and France. Civilisation would perish without them. They must be united.”
One cannot claim that Talleyrand did much more than clerical work in the negotiations that led to the Peace of Amiens, though he entered into it with more than usual ardour. Napoleon’s temporary and insincere cry for a peaceful co-operation of the Mistress of the Sea and the Mistress of the Land expressed Talleyrand’s habitual feeling34. He did desire to see a navalsupremacy of France in the Mediterranean, but he would leave the high seas to England, with a hope that free trade would still favour France’s commerce and colonising adventures. It was, therefore, with a real sense of triumph that he saw France conclude a most advantageous peace at a moment when a change of policy seemed possible in Russia. Joseph Bonaparte again conducted the negotiations. The preliminaries were signed on October 1st, 1801, and the Treaty of Amiens was ratified on March 27th. England had imprudently relied on certain verbal promises of Otto in signing the preliminaries, and these were, of course, disavowed by Talleyrand. “Make plenty of promises but put nothing on paper,” is a very frequent charge from him and Napoleon to envoys. The integrity of of Portugal was guaranteed. Egypt was assigned to the Turks, and Malta to the Knights of St. John. France gave to England the islands of Trinidad and Ceylon (which did not belong to her), and obtained recognition of her extension into Italy and Germany. The diplomatic reputation of the Bonapartes and Talleyrand rose to a great height at Paris, where the advantages gained were discussed with astonishment. As Mr. Rose puts it: “With three exceptions England had given way on every point of importance since the first declaration of her claims.”
Towards the close of March Talleyrand presented himself to Napoleon one morning for the usual discussion of business. When it was all over he calmlyproduced the Treaty of Amiens! But he was far from insensible of the height to which France had risen since the end of 1799. The flood of allied armies that had dashed against her frontiers for seven or eight years had now ebbed impotently away. Her territory reached to more natural boundaries, and her influence was felt far beyond them—in Holland, Germany, Switzerland, Italy and Spain. There seemed some hope at last of that internal organisation which France so sorely needed. And Bonaparte’s ideal went very largely on the lines of Talleyrand’s own schemes. His great address on education was exhumed; his financial proposals were followed more than once in the restoration of fiscal health to the country. Nor would Talleyrand have any sympathy with the opposition to Napoleon’s creation of the Legion of Honour. “Toys!” said Napoleon, when someone spoke lightly of his distribution of ribands: “Well, you keep men in order with toys.” It was a not unhappy mean between the old hereditary gradation of society, with its demoralising and irritating narrowness, and the crude “equality” of the Revolution.
When, therefore, the proposal of a life Consulship was put before Paris by Napoleon’s instruments, Talleyrand had no reason to demur to it. The benevolent despot was his ideal of government for France. Besides, whocouldsucceed Napoleon? Who else could give form and substance to the fair vision of France that had arisen before the minds of thoughtful men? To talkof Talleyrand “deserting” the principles of the Revolution which he had embraced is mere verbiage. He had never believed that pure democracy would be permanent or practicable in an uneducated nation. There did not seem to him on that account any reason why he should sit idly beyond the frontiers, living on an English pension, until others would lead France again into the paths of destiny. So when Cambacérès hinted that the work of the First Consul merited a peculiar recognition, he felt no repugnance. The obsequious Senate proposed a Consulship for ten years, and Napoleon disdainfully ignored it. Then the idea of a life-Consulship was put to the country in a plebiscite, and carried by an imposing majority.
In the long and complete negotiations that followed the peace Talleyrand was very active. His detractors had the alternative of ignoring his action altogether, and reducing him to the inglorious rank of first clerk of the Foreign Office, or of assigning to him a very considerable activity with a proportionate “corruption.” The truth is that during 1802-3 Talleyrand was very busy, and his work was lucrative. Once more, however, there is no charge that he sold the interest of France or of peace. In those last days of the buccaneering period the great Powers regarded helpless little States as a providential means of compensating each other. Poland had been coldly dismembered. Turkey in Europe was freely subjected to plans, as it still is. Holland, Hanover, and a score of other places were pawns on the board. Itwas understood that after the peace the possesssions of the ecclesiastical princes on the Rhine should be put on the market. The hotel of the Foreign Minister at Paris was besieged with princes and their envoys. Baron von Gagern tells how he saw Luchesini, Cobentzl, and others playing with Talleyrand’s adopted daughter, Charlotte, and her lap-dog.
Prussia was the first to be rewarded for her benevolent neutrality and her silence in view of the invasion of Italy. Bavaria, Wurtemberg, Hesse, Baden, and the House of Orange were indemnified out of ecclesiastical property. Vienna saw its legendary “empire” break up without the power of murmuring. Austria itself and the Grand Duke of Tuscany absorbed more of the ecclesiastical domains. The cession of the left bank of the Rhine to France had created the need for indemnities. France, with the ready consent of Europe, covered her aggression by dividing the right bank among the dispossessed princes and the Powers. At the Hotel Galiffet and at St. Cloud the map of Europe was assiduously used. Little squares of territory with few guns and troops changed colour rapidly. There were believed to be men and women in them.
Then there were the southern odd parts of the map to be settled. Switzerland had invited the interference of a strong hand by her constant anarchy. Napoleon was not unwilling to play the part of mediator, and clip off the province containing the road to Italy. The sturdy Swiss patriot, Stapfer, has left us the longcorrespondence with which he reported to his authorities the dreary two years he spent at Paris. In one of his letters he says to Talleyrand: “I shall feel gratified and honoured throughout life that I have been in touch with you who have brought the light and the urbanity of the old regime into the new, and who have proved that all the results of social advance and of the culture of the first ranks of society may be completely reconciled with democratic principles.” It is just to add that this is a prelude to a very solid “but.” However, Stapfer acknowledged in the end that Napoleon’s mediation in Switzerland had done good. Luchesini tells us that when Napoleon asked Talleyrand to secure his nomination to the presidency of the Swiss Republic, as he had done with the Italians at Lyons, the Foreign Minister at once threatened to resign. Piedmont had been incorporated as a French province by asenatus consultumin September. Genoa and Lucca had been granted “constitutions.” Elba had sent three deputies to Paris, where they were entertained as princes and given adouceurof 3,000 francs each; and Elba was incorporated into the growing empire.
In two years the Foreign Office had negotiated treaties with Austria, Russia, Prussia, Bavaria and England, redistributed all the small principalities of the Rhine valley, and prepared constitutions for Lucca, Genoa, Elba, Piedmont and Switzerland. Many princes, provinces and free towns gained by the changes: many escaped losses that seemed only too imminent:many lost less than they might have done. It is probable enough that Talleyrand accepted from these sums of money that were collectively respectable. A few cases are put on reliable record. There is not the least reason to doubt that in most cases of advantage conferred the Foreign Minister was ready to receive money. He freely expressed his disposition.Cadeau diplomatiquewas a familiar and not dishonourable phrase of the day. “I have given nothing to St. Julien,” Talleyrand wrote to Napoleon, “because all the Directory jewellery is out of date.” On another occasion he urges Napoleon to give a substantial sum of money to the Spanish Minister. No doubt, the present usually took the form of a piece of jewelleryworthmoney. “Talleyrand preferred cash,” says von Gagern, indulgently. It saved trouble. When we regard the enormous quantity of negotiations and settlements thrown on Talleyrand by Napoleon’s plans, it is difficult to feel surprise that he made some millions of francs. His action does not invite our admiration, but we may bear in mind that in not a single case is he known to have strained or deserted his duty for money, and that more than half the specific charges against him will not sustain examination.
To complete the picture of the extraordinary activity of Napoleon and Talleyrand at this time we must notice its range beyond Europe. Treaties were concluded with Turkey, Algeria and Tunis. Napoleon’s mind found time to interest itself in Australia, India, America and the West Indies. After the peace ofAmiens he took up the idea of colonies as “safety valves” for the over-strained and over-populated nation which Talleyrand had put forward under the Directory. But Talleyrand seems to have been little more than a clerk in the not very honourable pursuit of this plan. Napoleon sent out his ill-fated army to St. Domingo with a message to Toussaint l’Ouverture that it was coming to help him. At the same time he directed Talleyrand to inform England that it was going to destroy the native government, and hint that it might restore the slave trade; while Bruix and others were pointing out to the dazed new democracy in France that slavery had been fully recognised by those admirable models of theirs, the “free peoples of antiquity.” In 1801 he made Talleyrand assure Spain that Louisiana, which Spain ceded to him, would never be given to a third Power. It is on record that Talleyrand firmly opposed him when he unscrupulously sold it to the United States two years later. Expeditions to India and to Australia complete the gigantic programme of their activity, save for the important work of reconciliation with Catholicism which may open a new chapter.
THE RESTORATION OF RELIGION
Napoleon’s imperial vision included in its first vague outline the restoration of the Church in France and the establishment of good relations with Rome. The sharpness of his earlier antagonism to religion was worn down by his experience and his political requirements. Let the old clergy overrun the provinces of France again, and they would soon exorcise them of their superficial Jacobinism. He had seen in the East how despotism throve where it had the support of religion. The new Pope, Pius VII, should be disposed to make a bargain with the new Charlemagne. Not only did France seem still to drift away from Catholicism, but the spirit of Gallicanism had passed over the Rhine and the Pyrenees. Alarming rumours of the founding of “national” churches came to the Vatican from Spain and South Germany; while Catholic Austria held aloof with an open cupidity for the Pope’s temporal dominions. So the Corsican free-thinker converted himself into “Charlemagne.” The Pope might be reminded of the spiritual desolation that cried for his spiritual intervention in France; ultramontanism could be made innocuous by the simple expedient of abolishing the mountains, and making a Catholic Constantinople ofParis; the police would be seconded by the subtler gendarmery of the clergy, the heads of which would be ingeniously fitted into the political machinery of the country. Before Napoleon left Italy (after Marengo) he sent the Bishop of Vercelli to the Pope with a message of peace.
Talleyrand had already written to the Vatican in the same feeling, at the direction of the First Consul. Mr. Holland Rose and many other writers entirely misunderstand Talleyrand’s share in the work of religious pacification, because they have a quite false idea of his attitude towards the Church. I interpret the negative evidence to mean that Talleyrand was agnostic rather than deistic, in spite of his admiration for Voltaire and his dislike of Diderot and d’Holbach. But he was an agnostic Liberal statesman of a type familiar in France (and many other countries) down to our own time. He never attacked or ridiculed religion. He believed the Church to be a useful agency among the mass of the people, provided it was earnest and spiritual, and did not meddle with politics beyond promising eternal torment to the more violent radicals. Of this we have evidence enough even in his speeches of 1790-1792. He would not at all resent Napoleon’s proposals, if Napoleon would firmly maintain the rights of the constitutional clergy. There is not a particle of evidence that raises any difficulty as to Talleyrand’s attitude.35
He is nowhere found with the angry soldiers and politicians who thought the revolution had made a French Church an anachronism, and who filled Paris with fresh murmurs at the idea of a Concordat.
Towards the end of 1800, Paris had a new fact to proceed on in its cafés. The Vatican had sent Mgr. Spina, the Papal Nuncio at Florence, to confer with Talleyrand and Napoleon. The sagacious priest did not flaunt his purple, merely announcing that the Archbishop of Corinth had come to treat with Napoleon on matters concerning the administration of Rome. But the religious controversy had revived in France, and the appearance of a papal envoy fanned the flame. The relaxation of the laws had introduced a large number of the emigrant clergy, and these contended everywhere with the Constitutionalists for the care of souls and of presbyteries. The confusion was increased by the Theophilanthropists, who claimed the sacred edifices of the country in the superior name of virtue, and asked the people to bow to their august abstractions. After a mass they would decorate Catholic altars with flowers in honour of morality, and they showed no lack of courage in defending their fair ideals. Philosophic deists and quick-witted atheists smiled on the confusion. But all eyes were now centred on the pale and portly prelate who sat in long conference with the ex-bishop at the Foreign Office.
Mgr. Spina had been generally directed to avoid the excommunicated apostates, but to moderate therigour of the Canon Law when “urbanity” demanded. “Urbanity” clearly involved amiable relations with Talleyrand, and the suave, serious tone of the diplomatist at once disarmed the Italian. Talleyrand would “very soon return to the Church,” Spina wrote to Rome. Napoleon, however, had another agent at hand for this negotiation. He had retained the Breton priest, Bernier, at Paris, and now used him as a foil against the astute Italian. The Pope’s temporal possessions, the Legations, were the central difficulty in the negotiations that followed. Pius VII was pledged to work for their restoration; Napoleon had no intention whatever of restoring them. Talleyrand clearly stated this position, and then allowed the abbé and the archbishop to expend their diplomatic talent over theimpassefor a month or two. At last a draft of a Concordat was submitted to Rome, the First Consul sending with it the unexacting but precious present of the wooden statue of Our Lady of Loretto, which the revolutionary troops had brought from Italy, and telling his envoy to “treat the Pope as if he had 200,000 soldiers.” It was an original standard of spiritual respect.
But Talleyrand’s interest in the constitutional clergy of France—Napoleon is reported to have called them “a pack of dishonourable brigands”—found expression in the Concordat. The Pope was requested to secure the resignation of the orthodox emigrant bishops, so as to begin the foundation of the new church on a clear ground. The unhappy Pope was forced at length to askthis resignation, and the emigrant clergy cast off all restraint, and a good deal of theology, when the invitation reached them. While forty-five of them agreed to do so a large number sent a fiery and defiant reply to the Pope. Pamphlets circulated at London and at Rome in which priests described Pius VII as a Jew, or Judas, and declared it to be blasphemy to mention his name in the mass. The prospects of Catholicism in England had to be reassured by a counter fulmination from twenty-nine Irish Catholic Bishops and English Vicars Apostolic. At the same time the Pope was told that he must sanction the national appropriation of the estates of the Church in France. “The difficulties you raise,” Talleyrand wrote to Rome, “are imaginary. The Church has been stripped of her possessions in every age, and the despoilers have never been touched—unless weak.” And as the Vatican still lingered over these formidable demands Napoleon angrily summoned Talleyrand, Bernier, and Spina to Malmaison, formulated his ultimatum, and declared that if Rome did not comply within five days he would throw it over and erect a national Church.
On the fifth day the Pope’s Secretary of State, Cardinal Consalvi, was in Paris. He had left Rome placarded with the florid denunciations of the Pope by the emigrant bishops; he found Paris holding a congress of the constitutional bishops, who denounced the Concordat with equally lively rhetoric from their own point of view. The Pope was profoundly dejected andmiserable; the First Consul was radiantly surveying the universe from the height of success; Talleyrand was wearying of the futile resistance of the Romans. Consalvi brought every weapon from the diplomatic arsenal of the Vatican. Thinking he understood Talleyrand, he said to him: “People make me out to be a pietist. I’m nothing of the kind. I like pleasure as well as anyone.” But Talleyrand did not admire Consalvi’s diplomacy. After a few days he sent him a final draft of a Concordat, and left Paris to take the waters at Bourbon l’Archambault. Mr. Holland Rose puts it that “the polite scoffer, the bitter foe of all clerical claims, found it desirable to take the baths at a distant place, and left the threads of the negotiation in the hands of two men who were equally determined to prevent its signature.” I have already pointed out that Talleyrand never scoffed at religion, and was not at all a foe, “bitter” or otherwise, of clerical claims of a non-political character. Further, Talleyrand left Paris, firstly, because it was his custom to go to the baths about this time, and secondly because hewantedthe Concordat signed without further palaver. As a fact, Consalvi expressed satisfaction that Talleyrand was out of the way at the moment of signing. Talleyrand, again, was bound to leave his functions in the charge of d’Hauterive, his second in command, and the belief that d’Hauterive was “equally determined to prevent signature” is an equally unjust inference from the mere fact of his being an ex-cleric. In fine, the storythat the chiefs of the Foreign Office tried to trick Consalvi into signing a draft materially differing from the one they had given him, is only mentioned by Consalvi, and has been gravely questioned by some writers.36
The Concordat was signed by Consalvi and Joseph Bonaparte on the night of July 15-16. Consalvi admitted to his friends that he had been empowered to make even greater concessions than he had been forced to do, and attributed his comparative success to the absence of Talleyrand. But before he left Paris Talleyrand returned from the south, and at once pointed out to Napoleon the unsatisfactory features of the Concordat. The chief of these was that it contained no recognition of the constitutional clergy or of the married and secularised ex-priests. Rome was just as eager to ignore or punish these as Talleyrand was to defend them; and the First Consul was inclined to sacrifice them to the general agreement. But Talleyrand insisted on a recognition of their status; it is in this connection that Consalvi describes him as a “powerful opponent,” not with the implication that he is a “bitter foe” of clerical claims generally. Consalvi again fruitlessly struggled against the Foreign Minister. On August 29th Talleyrand was able to report to Napoleon that “the Holy See had sanctioned, without any material reserve, the results of the negotiations of its ministers—had, in fact, donemore, as it had given the name of bishops and archbishops to the titular prelates of the constitutional clergy.” He had threatened that France would not ratify the convention if the Vatican attempted to stigmatise in any way the clergy or ex-clergy of the country, but he permitted it the luxury of referring to their wives as “corrupt women,” and was content to suppress, as far as possible, the Brief containing the phrase.
The Concordat became law in April, 1802. The only people who murmured against it were, says Talleyrand, “a few soldiers—very brave fellows, but with minds too narrow to admit a conception of that kind.” The phrase clearly indicates his view of it. Broad-mindedness and a desire for peaceful social advance recommended the measure. It put an end to the unseemly squabble over churches and presbyteries, and ended the ridiculous confusion of the Republican day of rest (décadi—every ten days) and the Sabbath. It reconciled the Catholic feeling that still existed in the country (though this is sometimes grossly exaggerated) with the Napoleonic regime. Talleyrand would be the last to wish to sacrifice these solid advantages to a sentimental rationalism. He is one of the chief architects and builders of the Concordat.
A few months after the ratification of the Concordat Talleyrand was “secularised” by the Pope. This procedure has somewhat mystified his biographers, and as a fact it was a mere empty form, another concession of the Vatican to the perversity of the age. OnCatholic principles the Popecannotannul the priestly character; hemayrelease the priest from his vow of celibacy. Pius VII affected to do the former, but cleverly refrained from doing the latter, for Talleyrand. His letter, dated June 29th, 1802, and addressed to “our very dear son,” ran: “We were overjoyed at learning of your ardent desire to be reconciled with us and the Catholic Church. Hence, extending our fatherly love to you, we relieve you, in the fulness of our power, from the bond of all the excommunications, and grant you liberty to wear secular costume and to administer all civil affairs, whether in the office you now fill or in others to which your Government may call you.” The statement that Talleyrand thought this secularisation would leave him free to marry, and had asked for it, is ridiculous. The Vatican has only annulled the priestly vow of celibacy twice in the course of its history, though it professes to have full power to do so in any case. It was Napoleon who asked the Pope to secularise Talleyrand. Excommunications sat lightly enough on the ex-bishop; and he would, no doubt, keenly appreciate the “paternal charity” of the Pope in “reconciling” him by removing his excommunication and gravely admitting him to secular employment, while carefully refraining from noticing his notorious domestic relations and his infidelity.
Napoleon, apparently, had a large idea of the privileges he had secured for Talleyrand, and he presently put great pressure on him to marry Mme. Grand.Talleyrand does not seem to have cared at all for going through the meaningless ceremony. He knew he was not free to marry from the ecclesiastical point of view, and a civil contract would not in any case alter his relations to the lady of his choice. However, Mme. Grand felt that the form of marriage would improve her position. The etiquette of the Tuileries was developing once more. There was, one observer says, “not exactly a Court, but no longer a camp.” She appealed to Napoleon through Josephine, and Talleyrand was forced to go through the ceremony of marriage. The civil function was performed on September 10th, 1803, and the Church graciously blessed the diplomatic marriage on the following day. In the spiteful mood of later years Napoleon spoke of the marriage he had himself brought about as a “a triumph of immorality.” He seems to have discovered at St. Helena that in Catholic eyes a priest is “a priest for ever”; and he contrives to forget that Mme. Grand was not a “married woman” but adivorcée.37The story runs that the first time she appeared at a levee after the marriage the Emperor thought fit to express a hope that “the good conduct of Citoyenne Talleyrand would help them to forget the escapades of Mme. Grand.” She replied that, with the example of Citoyenne Bonaparte before her, she would do her best.
By this time the heavy diplomatic work that followed the treaties of Lunéville and Amiens was over, and theGerman princes had ceased (for the time) to struggle for the debris of the Holy Roman Empire. Talleyrand found himself in a position of great wealth, and with one or two years of comparative leisure. His official residence, a large mansion built under the old regime by a rich colonist, was the Hotel Galiffet in the Rue St. Dominique. He had wandered far since the day when he began his public life in a small house of the same street in 1778, but the tense experiences of those fifteen years had made little change in him. The Revolution and the exile might never have occurred. His principles were unchanged, his wit as keen as ever, his light cynicism not a shade less amiable, his fine taste for books, for food, or for society unimpaired. Lytton describes him at this time reclining, day by day, on a couch near the fire in his salon38and entertaining a brilliant circle of visitors. His chief Parisian friends at this time were Montrond, the Duc de Laval, Sainte-Foix, General Duroc, Colonel Beauharnais, Louis, Dalberg, and others of the wittier and more cultured men of the time. The dress and manners of the Revolution were now never seen in polite society. The artificial fraternity of the past, with its “thou” and “citizen,” was abandoned. Men ceased to be brothers and became friends once more. The long military coatand high boots and the tricolor were kept in the camp. The old life was being silently restored. Supple, graceful figures in Bourbon coats, with light rapiers dangling, and long silk hose and buckled shoes, trod the polished floors with confidence. Nature had been thrust out with a fork.
TALLEYRAND(Under Napoleon).
TALLEYRAND(Under Napoleon).
Talleyrand’s hotel was the chief centre of the revival. People of taste went to the Tuileries as they went to church or to business. There was little gaiety there. Napoleon, who certainly could talk well, was habitually gloomy and retired; and one had an uneasy consciousness of his temper and his command of language that is not found in the dictionary. His family and the family of his wife were already in bitter antagonism around him as to the succession to the coming empire. Josephine had displayed, possibly even felt, a tardy devotion to him as his genius fully revealed itself, but she had now herself to bemoan an infidelity which she conceived in the most sombre colours; and Napoleon, with proof about him of his own fertility, bitterly dwelt on her barrenness. His brothers did not tend to relieve his depression. He could not fondle the pretty son of Louis but the latter would flash forth an angry suspicion of an incestuous relation to Hortense. Lucien and Jerome would not be content to seduce, but must disgrace the family by marrying, two charming nobodies. It is a well known story how on one occasion, when Napoleon was giving a sedate family party, from which Mme. Tallien and other lively friends of Josephine were excluded, a message was handed to the First Consul, andhe burst forth with a violent and inelegant complaint that “Lucien had married his mistress”—to give a polite turn to the phrase.
At Talleyrand’s house there was neither restraint nor affectation. Lord Brougham tells us that “nothing could be more perfect than Talleyrand’s temper and disposition in private life.” Mme. Rémusat affirms that Talleyrand had quickly regretted his choice, but that talkative lady did not love Mme. Talleyrand. The malicious biographers are generally content to give us piquant stories of her lack of culture. One of the chief of these—the protean story of her taking Sir George Robinson for Robinson Crusoe, or Denou for the author of Defoe’s work—has been completely discredited by Pichot, an authority on legends. There are more authentic, but less interesting, stories of her ignorance, which must certainly have bored Talleyrand at times. On the whole, the evidence seems to indicate—especially on its negative side—that they lived pleasantly and faithfully together for many years. The wife was, unfortunately, childless. As Talleyrand deeply loved children this must have been a source of great disappointment. He alleviated it by adopting the daughter of a friend who had died in England, and children’s balls were frequently given at his hotel.
It was not unnatural that as soon as Napoleon felt his conduct and person to be secretly assailed with witticisms and criticisms he should look to Talleyrand’s hotel for the chief source. There was so much in hismelodramatic poses to make the hated Faubourg St. Germain smile. Baron von Gagern tells us of the keen rivalry to enter Talleyrand’s circle. Those who had theentréewent there after the opera at night, and played whist or billiards until two or three in the morning. “It was,” says Lord Brougham, “a lesson and a study, as well as a marvel, to see him disconcert with a look of his keen eyes, or a motion of his chin, a whole piece of wordy talk.” When a rumour spread of the death of George III, a Parisian banker came rather impertinently to ask his opinion. “Well,” said Talleyrand, gravely, “some say he is dead and some say he is not. I may tell you in confidence that I don’t believe either.” On another occasion a general of no great culture turned up late for dinner, and began to explain that a “maudit pékin” had detained him. Talleyrand asked him what apékinwas. He replied that it was a camp-phrase for “all that isn’t military.” “Oh! I see,” said Talleyrand. “Just as we call military all that is not civil.”
Dulness was the deadly sin at the Hotel Galiffet. When a not very handsome Englishman was boring the company one day with a long description of the charms of his mother, Talleyrand broke in at the first gap: “It must have been your father, then, who was not very good-looking.” He talked little, as a rule. Sometimes he would sit for an hour without speaking, then make a short and brilliant shot, in his sepulchral voice, at something that had been said. When Chateaubriand,whom he very much despised, had published his “Les Martyrs,” a friend gave Talleyrand a very long account of the plot of the work, concluding with the remark that the heroes were “thrown to the beasts.” “Like the book,” said Talleyrand, bitterly. When another man observed to him that Fouché had a great contempt for humanity, he said: “Yes, he had studied himself very carefully.” Another had the imprudence to ask him what had passed at a Council he had attended. “Three hours,” said Talleyrand. When he heard that Sémonville, for whom he had little respect, was getting fat, he pretended to be mystified, and explained that he “did not see how it was to Sémonville’s interest to get stout.” It was of the same man that he afterwards said, when Sémonville had become a senator, and someone was urging that “there were at all events consciences in the Senate”; “Oh! yes. Sémonville alone has at least two.” There was hardly a prominent person in Paris who did not go about with one or two of these barbs in him. It is well to remember them when we read their comments on him in their memoirs. Sometimes the quips actually came to be applied to himself. A friend, rather aroué, met him one day, and complained that he felt “infernal pains” (douleurs d’enfer). “Already?” said Talleyrand. It was pretended in later years that this pretty dialogue passed between himself and Louis Philippe, when he was dying. But Talleyrand could say sweet things as well as bitter on the spur of the moment. It is well known how, when he was challengedto say which of two ladies at table (Mme. de Staël and Mme. Grand or another) he would rescue from the water first, he turned to one and said: “You are able to swim.” So when Napoleon asked him very pointedly how he became rich: “I bought stock on the 18th Brumaire, and sold it the next day.” On another occasion, when Napoleon told him he was removing his study to a higher storey, he at once replied: “Naturally, you are bound to live high up.”
His attitude towards the First Consul remained loyal and cordial in spite of the occasional strain put on it. I will resume in the next chapter the thread of his official duties, and will deal here with two important events that occurred before war again broke out. The first is the murder of the Duc d’Enghien, in connection with which Talleyrand has been judged so severely.
There is at this hour of the day, and in default of fresh discoveries of documents, nothing new to be said about the pitiful tragedy of 1804. Happily, the progress of research on the matter has tended to exculpate Talleyrand. Writers so wholly devoid of sympathy with him as Mr. Holland Rose now say that the allegations against him are “sufficiently disposed of by the ex-Emperor’s will.” Napoleon with his last words took full responsibility for the tragedy, and declared he would do it again in similar circumstances. The only question is how far Talleyrand lent assistance in the execution of Napoleon’s purpose.
By the end of 1803 the First Consul was driven by his dread of plots into a condition that excited the horror of beholders. Spies and guards constantly surrounded him. Paroxysms of rage by day and sleepless nights wore his nerves and embittered his spirit. The failure of the plot of Georges and Pichegru only served to exasperate him against the Royalist plotters, and he swore to execute the first Bourbon that fell into his hands. When, therefore, a rumour spread that a Bourbon prince had been in Paris in connection with the plot to assassinate him, and the Duc d’Enghien, living only a few miles beyond the frontier, was the only one to whom the rumour could possibly apply, Napoleon turned his thoughts vindictively towards the young prince. The suspicion was increased by positive information received that the Duke had applied for service against France in the English army. A little later a secret agent reported that d’Enghien was conferring with Royalist officers with a view to invading France if the assassination of Napoleon was effected; and when application was made to the Prefect of Strassburg he forwarded a report that the ex-General Dumouriez was with the Duke at Ettenheim. A simple confusion of the names Thumery and Dumouriez thus offered a strong confirmation of the suspicion.
All that Talleyrand had done so far was to write a protest to the Elector of Baden against the use of his territory for conspiracy. The critical moment came when Napoleon summoned him and the other ministers,the two Consuls, and Fouché, to a council on the matter. At that council it was decided to violate the territory of Baden, and arrest the Duke; the rest was inevitable. What was the attitude of Talleyrand? His accuser is Savary, a bitter enemy, and a writer who is found time after time to distort his narrative in the interest of his prejudices. Savary says that Talleyrand urged that the duke “be arrested and settled with.” He gives this on the authority of two documents. The first is the memoirs of Cambacérès (one of the Consuls present, also an enemy of Talleyrand), which have never seen the light, and which, in fact, Savary did not care to invoke till Cambacérès was dead, as he “did not like to mention his name while he was still alive.” The other document purports to be an abstract of the speech that Talleyrand delivered on the occasion. All Talleyrand’s enemies have built their charge against him on this document. It is a forged document. In this case we have the confession of the forger himself, Talleyrand’s mischievous ex-secretary, Perrey. Thus there is not a particle of serious evidence that Talleyrand urged either the arrest or the execution. Such an act would be violently inconsistent with his character. We should require the most positive evidence before admitting it. As a fact, we are invited to believe it on the ground of an acknowledged fabrication and a reference by a malignant enemy to another document which no one else has ever seen.
Talleyrand told Mme. Rémusat that he knew Napoleon was absolutely bent on destroying the Dukeand striking terror into the Bourbons, and so he said nothing. The careful student of his character must feel that that is just what he would do. “The best principle is not to have any at all,” he once said with a laugh. He meant that in such cases as this a virtuous protest would do no good whatever, and did not seem worth the torrent of anger it would provoke. We may not admire such prudence, but we must be just to it. Talleyrand could and did protest, before and after this date, when he believed something might be done.
Talleyrand admits that after the Council he wrote three letters at the direction of Napoleon, giving instructions for the arrest, or in connection with it. He says that this was a “painful necessity.” The critic could only suggest here that he ought to have resigned, which no one seems to have thought of doing at the time. Another memoir writer of the time, Pasquier, who is hostile to Talleyrand, says that “a lady” heard the Foreign Minister reply to a question about the Duke: “He will be shot.” It is a mereon dit, but it would not be strange for Talleyrand to have predicted that issue. Savary builds a good deal on a visit that Talleyrand paid to the Governor of Paris after the duke had been brought there. But the object of this is clear. The carriage containing the unfortunate prisoner had been driven by mistake to Talleyrand’s hotel, and he had to see the governor about its further direction. It left immediately for Vincennes, and the tragedy was carried to its close. Talleyrand has nothing to do with the last and darkestscenes, but Savary is deeply implicated. The statement that Talleyrand detained, until it was too late, the Duke’s request for an interview has been refuted long ago. On the other hand, Napoleon’s statement that he was unaware of the Duke’s existence until Talleyrand began to suggest the crime has been proved to be untrue, and is virtually retracted by Napoleon’s later and bolder expressions.
Thus when we bring the charge against Talleyrand down to its real proportions, it means that he did not protest against the execution in advance, and did not resign when it was accomplished. It seems clear that he did not regard the event with any horror at the time, and that he really did to some undefined extent regard it as, if not a political necessity, at least an effective political measure. Resignation on account of it was out of the question. He said to someone who suggested it: “If Bonaparte has committed a crime, that is no reason I should make a mistake.” We who judge these things dissect them out of their living texture, and set them under our ethical glasses in placid studies. It would be well, perhaps, to put ourselves in the place of a statesman who was a daily witness of the frightful condition into which plotters had thrown Napoleon, and who felt how much the peace of the country was overclouded by Bourbon and English conspirators.39
It would be ingenuous to trace any feeling or lack of feeling in Talleyrand’s conduct after the execution.It was his diplomatic duty to kill the feeling of disgust in others, whatever he felt himself. He had not a difficult task. The ball he gave immediately afterwards was well attended; amongst others the envoy of the Neapolitan Bourbons was there. The Spanish Bourbons shrugged their shoulders, and said it was a pity the Duke had drawn it on himself. Prussia and Austria were without difficulty persuaded to take no notice of the affair. The King of Sweden was disposed to interfere, but Talleyrand sent word to him that “as France did not meddle with Swedish affairs, perhaps Sweden would leave French matters to France.” When the Czar sent his Court into mourning, and raised difficulties, Talleyrand met him with the enquiry whether “at the time when England was compassing the death of Paul I every effort would not have been made to have the plotters seized if they were known to be only a league beyond the frontiers.” As the murderers of Paul I were the intimate friends of his son and were retained in honour by him, the inquiry sufficiently spoiled the dignity of the Russian protest.
One more great event of the year 1804 must be noticed before we return to foreign affairs. On May 18 Napoleon was declared Emperor. Talleyrand had no repugnance whatever to the re-introduction of the hereditary principle or the formal declaration of the autocracy of Napoleon. He would have preferred the title of king, but Napoleon had a larger prospect. The change took place with the full wish of the country, and seemed to be in its interest. Talleyrand was entrusted with the taskof forming the new Court. From the frame of the old German Empire he borrowed half-a-dozen high-sounding dignities, and he is said to have been much mortified when Napoleon failed to bestow one of those on himself. It is explained that Napoleon did not care to put any minister in an “immovable” position. He was, however, made Grand Chamberlain to the new Emperor, receiving nearly 500,000 francs a year and a much closer association with Napoleon’s monarchical ways than he cared for. As Foreign Minister he had the difficult task of inducing Pius VII to come for the coronation—“a miracle of Napoleon’s destiny,” he calls it. In July he accompanied Napoleon and Josephine to the camp at Boulogne, and then to Aix la Chapelle, where Napoleon posed as the modern Charlemagne to a crowd of small German princes. In November the Pope arrived. The suspicious pontiff did not feel his apprehensions allayed when, at their first meeting, Napoleon deliberately tricked him into taking the second seat in the carriage. Nor was Napoleon too pleased when Josephine appealed to the Pope to have her marriage made secure by a religious ceremony. Cardinal Fesch married them, but the Bonapartists always held that it was invalid as the parish priest was not present. When Rogers asked Talleyrand afterwards whether Napoleon had really married Josephine, he answered: “Not altogether.”
Talleyrand witnessed the last act in the drama of the Revolution when, on December 2nd (1804), the three Bonapartes and Josephine, preceded by Muratand twenty brilliant squadrons of cavalry, drove in a gorgeous chariot to the door of Notre Dame. Where reason and humanity had been enthroned a few years before, a glittering pageantry of Church and State now gathered about the altar for the coronation of a more absolute autocrat than Louis XVI. A Pope, convinced in his conscience of the utter impiety and immorality of Napoleon, solemnly intoned the “Veni, Creator Spiritus,” and received Napoleon’s profession of faith. In the interest of peace and of the Church, Pius VII stooped to acts that nearly broke his heart. And when the supreme moment came in which he was to crown Napoleon, and thus assert at length and for ever his own ascendancy, Napoleon snatched the crown from its cushion and put it on his own head. For several months the Pope and his ministers remained at Paris. Talleyrand speaks in the memoirs with great respect and sympathy of the Pope, and says that he refused any presents for his family and asked no advantage of a material kind for the Church. We know that he did press for the restoration of the temporal power, and was met with the mocking assurance that “Napoleon must keep what God has given him.” So Pius VII returned to Rome empty-handed, with a bitter consciousness of his futile sacrifices and compromises.
THE RENEWAL OF WAR
We have now to resume the story of work at the Foreign Office, and examine—in so far as Talleyrand figures in them—the complicated events that led to the resumption of hostilities in 1805. The peace with England had not even an illusory appearance of solidity. Napoleon described it as “a short armistice;” George III said it was “an experimental peace.” Napoleon was irritated when Talleyrand used to say that he would have been willing to leave Malta to the English if he could have had the treaty signed by Fox or Pitt instead of the less clear and resolute Addington. But whether or no Napoleon himself regarded the Peace of Amiens as a stage in the conquest of Europe, it undoubtedly presented itself in that light very shortly. Once clothed with the Imperial purple, the mantle of Charlemagne, Napoleon would see the splendid strategic position he occupied in Europe. We must go back a little, however, to understand clearly the negotiations in which Talleyrand was engaged before the second campaign against Austria.
The pretty theory of sharing the world between the Mistress of the Sea and the Mistress of the Landsoon ceased to impose. England was far from willing to surrender Europe to Napoleon. Such an abandonment would have meant the closing of all European ports against her commerce, the closing of the route to India and a descent upon it through Russia, and the loss of Egypt. She therefore watched Napoleon closely in Europe, and clung to Malta on the plea that it was to have been put under the guarantee of the six Powers and four of them would not now carry out the agreement. Thiers blames Talleyrand for not securing this action on the part of Russia, Prussia, Austria and Spain, but it is incredible either that Talleyrand should neglect to press for so serious a guarantee of peace or that Napoleon should allow him to do so. It was the sight of Napoleon’s empire creeping out yearly beyond the borders of France that lit the flame—first of suspicion, finally of war. With this fatal ambition Talleyrand had no sympathy.
We have already seen how, after the conclusion of peace, Napoleon annexed Piedmont and Elba, and virtually subjugated Switzerland. Talleyrand declares that he made every effort to dissuade Napoleon from incorporating Piedmont, and we have the evidence of Luchesini that he threatened to resign if Napoleon made himself President of the Swiss Republic. But Piedmont was Napoleon’s own conquest, as well as the base of operations in Italy. When England protested against the invasion of Switzerland, and sent agents there to intrigue against the French, he caused Talleyrandto write a despatch to the French envoy at London, in which he unfolded the whole plan of a conquest of Europe, and the closing of all its ports against England. It is certain that Talleyrand averted the consequences of this by modifying the message before it was actually presented at London. Napoleon also complained bitterly of the protection afforded to royalist conspirators and libellists at London; and he said that, as Piedmont and Switzerland were not mentioned in the Treaty of Amiens, England had nothing to do with them.
In the early part of 1803 the strain became greater and greater, and led quickly to rupture. The English Ambassador at Paris, Lord Whitworth, was a firm and dignified noble, with instructions tobefirm and dignified rather than accommodating. Napoleon had, in January, published in the French papers a report on the mission of General Sebastiani to Egypt, the tenor of which was clearly to point to the practicability of a seizure by the French. When, therefore, Talleyrand approached Lord Whitworth on the subject of Malta at the close of the month, he found that England was more determined than ever to keep that island. Talleyrand made a desperate effort to represent the mission as commercial, but Napoleon now took up the matter, confessed that it wasnotwholly commercial, and made his famous project of an arrangement between England and France to govern the world. He had received news of the miscarriage of his West Indian expedition, and now seemed to contemplate a brilliant venture in the East; but hewanted peace until his plans were completed. As to Piedmont and Switzerland, they were—he used a word which Lord Whitworth shrinks from committing to paper. George III replied by his appeal for the embodiment of the militia and a further 10,000 men for the Navy. A few days afterwards Napoleon, in his most tactless manner, blurted out to Whitworth, as he stood in the circle of ambassadors at the levee: “So you want war?” He was now convinced that war was inevitable, but he wanted to throw the burden of declaring it on England.
Early in April Whitworth presented the English terms. Malta must be retained by England, Holland and Switzerland be evacuated by France and Elba ceded to her, and the Italian and Ligurian Republics would be recognized. When Talleyrand disclosed the terms informally to Napoleon, he would listen to no compromise that would nearly satisfy England. He prepared another violent charge to be made upon Whitworth at the levee on May 1st, but the English Ambassador was absent. Napoleon returned to St. Cloud, and dictated minute and characteristic instructions to Talleyrand for a last interview with Whitworth. “Be cold, haughty, and even rather proud in your bearing. If his note contains the word ultimatum, point out to him that this word includes ‘war,’ and that such a manner of negotiating is rather that of a superior towards an inferior; if the letter does not contain the word, force him to insert it.... Make him apprehensive as to the consequencesof delivering such a note. If he is unshakable, accompany him into your salon. When he is leaving you, say: ‘Are the Cape and the Island of Gorée evacuated!’ Tone down the close of the interview, and invite him to see you again before writing home, so that you can tell him what effect it has had on me.”
All the acting of the accomplished artists was of no avail. The ultimatum had to be presented by Talleyrand, and he was soundly abused by Napoleon for doing so. It was submitted to the Council at St. Cloud on May 11th, and all present except Talleyrand and Joseph Bonaparte voted for the rejection of the British demands. Lord Whitworth left Paris on the following day. England declared war on France six days later. Thus opened the Titanic struggle that was to bring Napoleon to the dust after ten weary years, and after spreading the flames of war from Moscow to Madrid. The biographer of Talleyrand has only to point out that here the Foreign Minister begins to diverge from the First Consul. We shall find them again in closest co-operation, until Napoleon’s harsh, arrogant and unworthy treatment of Austria, Prussia, and Spain compels Talleyrand to leave him; but the divergence begins in 1803, if not at the end of 1802. Talleyrand disapproved of the Gallicising of Piedmont and Switzerland, the mission of Sebastiani, the irritating language of the French official press and official documents, and the strict insistence on the evacuation of Malta by the English. He faced and endured the anger of Napoleon by his opposition.Napoleon to some extent declined to use him in the negotiations with England on account of his pacific feeling; Whitworth is said to have avoided him somewhat because of his “corruption.” But he stands out clearly in this crisis as a friend of peace and humanity, a wise and honest adviser, a firm opponent of Napoleon’s growing and benighting ambition. Meantime, while Napoleon is devising means to overleap the great barrier of his plans, the English Channel, we have to follow Talleyrand in the complicated negotiations with which he fought England for the alliance or the neutrality of the continental Powers.
Talleyrand was already in diplomatic correspondence with Russia, Prussia and Austria, about the “perfidy” of England in refusing to carry out the chief enactment of the Treaty of Amiens—the evacuation of Malta. The impressionable young Tsar was touched, and complained of the obscurity of England’s aims. Napoleon at once proposed that he should mediate between the belligerents, and for some months he was understood to be prepared to negotiate in this sense. As a fact he was deeply engrossed in humanitarian reform in his own country, and he had a growing suspicion of Napoleon’s aims. After prolonged communications he succeeded in drawing Prussia into a defensive alliance (May 24th, 1805) against France. This was a serious diplomatic defeat for Talleyrand, who had at the same time been endeavouring to secure the Prussian alliance. He had, in fact, concentrated hisefforts to obtain at least a benevolent neutrality from Berlin. “Do not be afraid of that mountain of snow, Russia,” he wrote. Napoleon distributed honours at the Prussian Court, and made generous offers of terms, but the deeply perplexed and anxious successor of Frederic the Great ended his long vacillation by concluding a treaty with his friend, the Tsar.
It would be useless here to describe in any detail the diplomatic work of the next two years (from the declaration of war by England to the opening of the campaign in 1805). Talleyrand’s task was to meet and defeat the effort of Pitt to raise up a fresh coalition against Napoleon. He made a loyal and brilliant effort to do so, but entirely failed. Napoleon’s encroachments were too obvious, his power in Europe too menacing, his concessions in diplomacy too tardy and niggardly to enable him to resist the power of English gold and the zeal of the alienated Tsar. His only successes were of an inglorious character. He forced helpless Spain to acquiesce in the sale of Louisiana to the United States for eighty millions, and to send seventy-two millions a year to the French treasury. Napoleon assisted his diplomacy in this case with two arguments: the formation of a huge military camp near the Spanish frontier, and a threat to draw the attention of Europe to the delicate relations of the Spanish Queen and leading minister.
In the course of the year 1804, Russia was approached by England, and the Tsar showed awillingness to enter into an alliance for the control of Napoleon and in the interest of Europe. The mercantile differences which had kept the two nations apart were gradually adjusted, and a treaty was concluded in April, 1805. Gustavus IV of Sweden was already engaged to Russia in the same sense. Austria, too, was bound by a secret agreement with Russia (November 6th, 1804) if Napoleon made any further aggression in Italy, or threatened the integrity of Turkey. Thus by the middle of 1805 a formidable coalition was in existence. The correspondence of Talleyrand with Napoleon during that period is an amazing indication of activity. He keeps the Emperor informed of events in Turkey and Sweden, Russia and England, Prussia and Austria; he sends the news from the surgeons who are with the armies and the secret agents who are plotting and observing from Ireland to Persia; he tells the latest marriages at Paris, the dissipations of the ambassadors, the small scandals, so finely told, that will relieve Napoleon’s leisure hours.40There was no lack of spirit or ability in his work, but Napoleon had cast for war and it could at the most only be postponed. When Talleyrand evaded the task of writing the violent letters he directed to be sent to foreign Courts, he wrote them himself. The Prussian Ambassador informed his Court that Napoleon wasforced into war in order to cover his enormous accumulation of men at Boulogne for the ostensible purpose of attacking England.
The spark that lit the conflagration was Napoleon’s descent into Italy in May, 1805. Talleyrand accompanied him to Milan. On May 26th he crowned himself King of Italy with the famous iron crown of the Lombard Kings, directed that a series of splendid spectacles should impress upon the astounded nations this last stroke of the effrontery of genius. The Ligurian or Genoese Republic was at the same time declared to be incorporated in the French Empire. Austria was now bound by her agreement with Russia to take action and she began to move her forces. Talleyrand went back to Paris with Napoleon but at the close of August we find he has joined the Emperor at Boulogne. By this time all hope of invading England was over. The combined French and Spanish fleet had retreated to Cadiz. With a phrase Napoleon converted the huge army, stretching nine miles along the coast, into “the army of Germany,” wheeled it about to face Austria, and set out for Paris to make his final preparations.
Talleyrand followed Napoleon to Strassburg towards the close of September. On the day that the Emperor was to leave for the field Talleyrand dined with him, and was greatly alarmed when Napoleon fell into a fit, which lasted half an hour. He made the Foreign Minister promise to keep it a secret, and was off in half an hourto Carlsruhe.41The letters he writes to Napoleon at this time exhale the old perfume. “He is afflicted beyond expression” to hear that he will learn nothing of Napoleon for five or six days. In another letter he says: “Your Majesty will always be deceived if you expect to find in other kings the grandeur of soul, the loftiness of sentiments, and the firmness of character that distinguish you.” This is a little rank, but there are other indications besides these letters that the old intimacy and confidence had been restored. Talleyrand had bitterly regretted the events at Milan, but, with his usual acceptance of accomplished facts, he was hoping that the defeat of Austria (of which he could entertain no doubt) would relieve Napoleon’s ardour and pave the way for peace. He wrote to d’Hauterive that the best thing would be for Napoleon to give up the kingdom of Italy, force Austria to abandon Venice, find her compensation in Germany, and enter into an alliance with her. That would remove grounds of quarrel in Italy. At the same time he prepared a memorandum, and even a treaty, to submit to Napoleon after the defeat of Austria. Italy was to be given up, Switzerland declared neutral, and the territory exacted of Austria to be divided among the small German States that had joined France.
He sent this admirable memorandum to Napoleon on the day he heard of the victory at Ulm. It had notsufficient of the arrogance of the conqueror in it for Napoleon. He submitted it as the subject of a discussion in Council, but the continued success of his arms made him ambitious to dictate “better” terms. The news of Trafalgar—Talleyrand broke it to him in his happiest manner: “Genius and good fortune were in Germany”—did not arrest him, or, indeed, forced him to look yet more to continental expansion now that his colonial scheme was shattered. He mistook Talleyrand’s sagacity and good sense for a puling humanitarianism. From Munich they passed on to Vienna, where Talleyrand had to press Napoleon’s harsh terms on Austria’s despairing statesmen. On December 1st he again framed a sober and reasonable treaty, but the next day occurred the battle of Austerlitz. “The Emperor Alexander,” he says bitterly in his memoirs, “was rather bored at Olmütz; he had never witnessed a battle, and he wanted to see the fun.” Talleyrand was exasperated against Russia and Austria for not coming to terms earlier. The day after Austerlitz he crossed the field with Marshal Lannes, and saw even that hardened soldier turn away with a feeling of sickness. He saw Napoleon established in the house of an Austrian prince, and the proudest flags and distinguished commanders of the two beaten nations brought to his feet.42He felt how difficult it would benow to restrain the conqueror, though he made one more eloquent appeal to him not to ruin Austria and sow a harvest of hatred on the frontier of France. Napoleon shook aside the appeal with a suspicion that Talleyrand must have been bought.
From Austerlitz he went to Brünn, and there heard with increased disgust that the Prussian Ambassador, Haugwitz, had signed a treaty of alliance with Napoleon. “Was it crime or folly?” Talleyrand asks. Prussia had agreed with Russia to offer armed mediation to Napoleon, and to make war on him if he did not accept it by December 15th. Instead of this, Haugwitz was bullied and bribed (by the offer of Hanover) into signing an alliance. Talleyrand hurried on to Pressburg to meet the Austrian envoys. Those who are tempted to conceive him as indolent would do well to read his letters at this time. At five in the morning of the 23rd he writes to tell Napoleon that he was half-blinded in crossing the frozen Danube, and so could not write earlier (evidently there are no obscure assistants doing the work for him here), but is now resuming work. At two on the following morning he tells that he has had a twelve hours’ conference with the Austrians, and will begin again at eight. But Napoleon was inexorable. The only modification of the terms that he would grant was a reduction of the indemnity by ten million francs.Austria had to part with Venice, Tyrol, Friuli, Istria, and Dalmatia, and to recognise the kingdom of Italy. That was Napoleon’s reply to Talleyrand’s memorandum. He had begun to sow the dragon’s teeth. The Austrian ministers were forced to sign the Treaty on January 1st. The only service Talleyrand could render them was to make the terms free from ambiguity. This action was described by Napoleon as “infamous and corrupt.” Talleyrand knew his master. Once before, when someone was giving him instructions from Napoleon as to the framing of the Cisalpine Constitution, and was telling him to make it “short and clear,” Talleyrand interrupted him with the words: “Yes, short and obscure.”
Mr. Holland Rose fully admits the unwisdom of Napoleon in rejecting Talleyrand’s plan of settlement, but he thinks it rather due to the idea of a “continental system” against England than to mere lust of domination. The very scanty sea frontier of Austria made her a matter of indifference in Napoleon’s plan of excluding England from Europe; it was far more important to win Prussia and Russia, and the Northern States. No one will question that the dream of the universal closing of ports was at work in the Treaty, but it does not explain some of the worst features of Napoleon’s divergence from Talleyrand. In any case, it is unquestionable that, as Talleyrand says, “moderation began to desert Napoleon after the Peace of Amiens,” and each fresh victory—Ulm, Austerlitz,Jena, Friedland—increased his insensibility to the sound law that a harsh and insolent settlement is not final. This is the just and honourable ground of that dissidence of feeling on the part of Talleyrand that culminated in “desertion.”
In January they returned to Paris. Napoleon arrived there at midnight of the 26th, and he opened a financial council at eight the following morning. His minister was scarcely less active. In the midst of his distinctive labours he had found time to study the financial disorder at home, and had submitted to Napoleon a new plan of a bank. Now that they were in Paris again the work of settlement had to be resumed. Haugwitz arrived on February 1st with fresh proposals from the King of Prussia, who had refused to ratify his outrageous treaty of Schönbrunn until peace was concluded with England. Napoleon’s whole policy being directed against England, he took advantage of Prussia’s delay to declare the treaty of Schönbrunn annulled, and make Talleyrand draw up a fresh one which bound Prussia to join the system by closing the Elbe and Weser against England. The new treaty was ratified at Berlin before the end of February. France had ceded Hanover to Prussia as her reward, but Hanover belonged to England. Moreover, a few weeks later Napoleon made his brother Louis King of Holland, as he had already made Joseph King of Naples. The second chief ground of Talleyrand’s divergence from Napoleon—the setting up of thrones for his family—wasbeginning to appear. “I don’t understand your way of doing business at all,” said Napoleon angrily to him, when he allowed the King of Prussia to state that the occupation of Hanover had been forced on him. There was “business” enough to do in the six months that followed. Besides trouble with the Vatican and renewed trouble with Austria, as well as the establishment of Louis and Joseph in Holland and Naples, there were important negotiations with England, Prussia, Russia and the great work of forming the Rhine Confederation.
Fox had returned to office in England, and had opened communications by sending information to Paris of a plot (often thought to be a diplomatic one) against the Emperor’s life. Talleyrand eagerly followed up the opening, and expressed willingness to treat with England by means of Lord Yarmouth, who had been detained as a prisoner at Verdun. Yarmouth went to London with an assurance that France was not hopelessly fixed as regards Hanover, and returned full of hope on June 16th. But Napoleon’s vulpine diplomacy was again overruling Talleyrand. He had forced him to promise Prussia secretly that France would not sacrifice Hanover, and to open separate negotiations with Russia. The only difficulties that Napoleon recognised, Talleyrand says, were those that force cannot overcome. His minister had now to conduct a most complex and mendacious communication with the three Powers, though it might be pleaded in extenuation that the Powers were also endeavouring to outwit each other. The policy ofEngland was comparatively straight—so straight, in fact, that it was her minister who innocently betrayed Napoleon’s duplicity. But while England refused to negotiate a peace independently of Russia, that Power was endeavouring to make a separate treaty with France, and deceiving England as to her unfriendly designs on Turkey; while she was at the same time concluding a secret agreement against France with Prussia. The latter Power, secretly signing the treaty against France on July 1st with Russia, was receiving from Napoleon the reassurance of Hanover (already promised by France to England) and entertaining proposals from him for her aggrandisement in Germany. France was simultaneously offering Hanover to England and Prussia, was secretly creating a great German confederation and denying to England and Prussia that she contemplated any changes in Germany, was playing with England until she could secure the separate alliance with Russia, and was secretly raising opposition to the latter Power in Turkey. And amidst this maze of negotiations and intrigue Talleyrand was coolly creating the Rhine Confederation and dealing with the huge crowd of German delegates who besieged the Hotel Galiffet with further demands for plunder or redress.
This network of intrigue broke by its own weight, and the sword of Napoleon did the rest before the close of the year. A Russian envoy arrived at Paris about the very date when the Tsar was concluding his secret alliance with Prussia against Napoleon. As in anearlier episode with Austria, the envoy was worried into going far beyond his powers and signing a treaty with France. He afterwards declared that Talleyrand terrified him with a threat that, unless he signed, Austria would again be attacked and annihilated. As soon as the Russian envoy had gone Talleyrand turned to Lord Yarmouth, and threatened that Portugal would be invaded unless England came to terms. Yarmouth in the meantime had betrayed to the Prussian Ambassador the French offer to give up Hanover, and Napoleon intercepted dispatches in which the Ambassador urged his Court to appeal to Russia. Moreover, Talleyrand had denied to Yarmouth that any changes were contemplated in Germany, although he must have already completed the scheme of the Rhine Confederation, and it was published a few days afterwards. England thereupon sent Lord Lauderdale to support, and eventually supersede, Yarmouth. Talleyrand says this was done “to please Lord Grenville,” but his dislike of Lauderdale is clearly due to the fact that he now had stiffer material to deal with. In August he wrote to Napoleon: “The claims of Lord Lauderdale over his slain sailor, and the fuss he makes of the affair, are the acts of a man who has been all his life a clubman and parliamentary declaimer, and does not know that an incident that may make a great scene between two parties is generally one that vanishes before more precise information and moderate explanations.”
Talleyrand was as ardent as ever for peace with England. Napoleon leaned just as strongly to his continental system against England. The march of events frustrated Talleyrand’s pacific aim once more. On the strength of his treaty with Russia, Napoleon made Talleyrand present exorbitant terms to Lauderdale, who demanded his passports. “Delay him a little,” said Napoleon; “tell him I am hunting and will be back soon.” He was hoping to hear of the ratification of the Russian treaty. He heard instead that the Tsar refused to sign it, and had appointed a Gallophobe minister. He still, however, refused to meet England by withdrawing his demand for Sicily, and in a week or two the whole intrigue came to a close in war with Prussia.
The betrayal of Napoleon’s duplicity in regard to Hanover had caused a very natural and dangerous agitation in Prussia. This was more than doubled when the Act of the Confederation of the Rhine was signed and published in July. The new kings created by Napoleon in 1805 (Wurtemburg, Baden, and Bavaria), in the partition of the ecclesiastical territory on the Rhine, had attempted to exercise the full feudal rights of the old Empire. The smaller princes, free towns, and “immediate” nobles appealed against them to France, and a fresh settlement was necessary. In co-operation with Bishop Dalberg, Talleyrand (who had now a new ex-clerical assistant, La Besnardière) began the work of settling disputes and drafting the chief of the smaller states into a Rhein-Bund, to be controlledby Napoleon. Only the representatives of Wurtemberg, Baden, and Bavaria were to be admitted to a share in the secret construction, but the rumour of it brought a flock of Teutonic envoys to beset the Hotel Galiffet, while Prussian, English, and Austrian spies hovered restlessly about. The Act was completed by the middle of July, and all the south German princelings were admitted to sign it. It is usual to point out here that Talleyrand once more reaped a rich harvest for his work. No one would question that he, as usual, accepted presents from the States that benefitted by admission. But here again charges have been endorsed without the least discrimination. Count von Senfft, who is more or less friendly to Talleyrand, should be the safest witness to rely upon. Senfft, however, tells us that Talleyrand made use of Von Gagern “in his financial relations with the German princes”; whereas Von Gagern, while confessing a belief that Talleyrand did make a lot of money somehow, gives us his solemn and credible assurance that not a farthing passed between them in connection with the Rhine Confederation.43There can be no doubt that Talleyrand’s profit has been grossly exaggerated. On the political side it is not questioned that the new creation was a great advantage to France, however selfish her motive may have been;it raised a bulwark against Prussia and Russia, and provided a fresh army to Napoleon of 63,000 men. Nor is it questioned that the unification and the adoption of the Napoleonic Code brought great advantages to the States involved.