The work of the year seems to have increased Napoleon’s appreciation of Talleyrand in spite of occasional suspicion and annoyance. In June he bestowed on his foreign minister the papal fief of Benevento, with the title of Prince. He had appropriated Benevento and Ponte Corvo on the ground that they led to incessant friction between Rome and Naples. Talleyrand merely claims that his rule in Benevento sheltered that little principality “from all spoliation and from conscription.” His biographers have not done him justice in the matter. Not only did Talleyrand abstain from making profit out of his gift, but he at once dispatched to Italy a humane and enlightened governor, and had a policy carried out in the sleepy and retrograde province that was of immense service to it.44On his side Talleyrand seems to have retained for some time the feeling of disappointment produced by Napoleon’s treatment of Austria. There is a distinct coolness in his letters throughout the spring and summer. But Napoleon overcame his repugnance, and they set out together for the Prussian campaign in apparent cordiality. At all events it is recorded that Napoleon wept on leaving Talleyrand at Mayence.
If Prussia had joined with the Austrians and Russians before Austerlitz, Napoleon’s position would have been very serious. He contrived to keep Haugwitz on the move until after that battle, and then persuaded him to sign an alliance. By the time Prussia learned how much she was really despised at Paris—a contempt in which Talleyrand now entirely joined with D’Hauterive—Austria was powerless, Russia had demobilised, and England was so far alienated that her offer of assistance only arrived after Jena. But when the news of the secret creation of the Rhine Confederation came on top of the exasperation over Hanover, the national temper was raised to white heat, and the King flung out a single-handed challenge to Napoleon. It was not without anxiety that Napoleon confronted the Prussian forces for the first time; and Talleyrand expresses real concern in his letters from Mayence, where he is staying with the Empress and the Queen of Holland. “Three days without news of you,” he writes, “are three centuries of anxiety and pain.” He warns Napoleon that there is a plot to assassinate him amongst the Prussian officers. At last (October 14th) comes the report of Jena. Within one month of their leaving Paris he is in Berlin with Napoleon, and sees the Emperor proudly dictating notes to his army in the cabinet of Frederick the Great.
Talleyrand remained at Berlin until the end of November, but Napoleon, who was bent on crushing Prussia as he had crushed Austria, began to dispensewith the services of his moderate councillor. Talleyrand had nothing to do with the insulting bulletins issued from the Prussian capital, or the Berlin Decree against England. Indeed, he affirms that in view of Napoleon’s attitude towards Prussia and Spain (which had just shown a not obscure sign of revolt) he resolved to resign his position as soon as they returned to France. He did this, as a matter of fact, but he had much to see and to do before reaching Paris once more. Napoleon brushed aside the Prussian negotiators at Berlin, and marched on to Posen to deal with Russia. Talleyrand joined him there, found him harangueing a deputation of Poles (got up by Murat) on national greatness, and telling them they will be a nation when they furnish him with an army of 40,000 men. Talleyrand also says that he found Napoleon reading a list of pictures to be taken to Paris from the Dresden galleries, and succeeded in preventing the raid. They moved on to Warsaw, where Napoleon left him to go and “shove these new Europeans [the Russians] back into their former limits.” He made a bad beginning at Pultusk, but returned to Warsaw as bombastic as ever, and spent several weeks in infusing military ardour into Poland and extracting an army from it. Talleyrand profited by the Emperor’s temporary check to save the lives of a few small places (Anhalt, Lippé, Waldeck, Reuss, and Schwartzburg) by including them in the Rhine Confederation. Napoleon wanted them for Murat, and did not thank his Foreign Minister for again thwarting him.
But the service rendered by Talleyrand to Napoleon during that winter in Poland was considerable. Napoleon did not at first set a stirring example. He fell into a period of sensuality, and, says Talleyrand, “laid his glory publicly enough at the feet of a beautiful Pole.” The Countess Anastase Walewska, then only seventeen years old, aspired to influence the Emperor in the interest of her country, and only succeeded in making the winter pass pleasantly for him at the castle of Finkenstein. Von Gagern, who met her and her son afterwards at Paris, was at Warsaw, and says that Talleyrand told him one day he was unwilling any longer to be “an instrument in the hand of the destroying angel of Europe.” He was at that time acting, not only as diplomatic minister in the continuous correspondence with Austria and Prussia, but as chief military agent. Napoleon had appointed an incompetent governor at Warsaw, and had enjoined Talleyrand to see to the commissariat and transport of the army. “To-day,” the Emperor writes on March 12th, “the fate of Europe and the greatest calculations depend on supplies. It will be child’s play to beat the Russians if I have food. Whatever you do will be done well. The charge I entrust to you is more important than all the negotiations in the world.” The hundred letters that Talleyrand writes to him during those four months—letters clearly written with his own hand—reflect an amazing activity. He is seeing, amid tremendous difficulties, that the Emperor gets 50,000 rations ofbiscuits and 2,000 pints of brandy, and so on, every day: he has had to settle a strike of the transport servants and the bakers: he has been round the military hospitals, distributing gifts from the Emperor, and “listening to the little requests” of the wounded soldiers; he sends the latest information about the state of the roads and the finances, the movements of the enemy, the dissipations of the Court at Warsaw, the important and interesting passages in the French and English journals, the progress of negotiations with Austria, Turkey, Prussia, &c. His carriage is fired at by guerillas as he travels, or sticks in the mud for hours together. He has at times to put up with the most wretched accommodation.
But Baron von Gagern makes a superfluous conjecture when he fancies the laborious stay in Poland had any influence on Talleyrand’s attitude towards Napoleon. There are more obvious grounds for the divergence. On the whole, Talleyrand’s feeling at this time was much the same as before Ulm and Austerlitz. He was waiting to see what use would be made of the new successes. He sends cordial messages to the Emperor, and performs his heavy duties loyally and well, with an occasional furtive departure for some humane motive. One day he comes to tell Von Gagern that a young Prussian count is in the Russian camp, and must be got away at once or Napoleon will hear and inflict heavy punishment. Von Gagern learns through Austria that the Count is seriously ill.“That is a mere empty phrase to the Emperor,” says Talleyrand, and insists on his removal. He was transferred without the matter coming to Napoleon’s ears, and his house was saved. Von Gagern adds that Talleyrand refused to take a single florin for the service he had rendered.
On the other hand he refused and returned four million florins that were put in the hands of his confidant, Baron Dalberg, by the Poles. Talleyrand rather despised the Poles as an incompetent and quarrelsome people. He resisted all efforts to induce him to take up their cause. The caresses of Princess Poniatowski and Countess Tyszkiewicz had no more effect than the offer of money, though they modified his dislike of Poland, and made him say in the end that he “quitted it with regret.”
At last the Russian winter dissolved and Napoleon moved his forces. On February 8th came the news of Eylau, “a battle more or less won,” Talleyrand says. Von Gagern found him in good spirits because he was empowered to offer moderate terms to Prussia, but the negotiations fell through, and he had to wait for the decisive overthrow of Russia. It was about this time that Napoleon once fell asleep in the room with him, and Talleyrand remained in his chair the whole night so as not to awake him. Then came Friedland (June 14th), and Talleyrand, who had left Warsaw in May, made a stirring appeal to the Emperor for peace. He trusts it is his “last victory” and a “guarantee of peace.” But thedisappointment of the preceding year was to be repeated, and he was to see Napoleon’s soaring ambition take a flight that he could not follow. The Tsar, though he knew Austria was preparing for action and Tartar reinforcements were on the way, arranged an armistice with Napoleon, and Prussia had to do the same. The proceedings that followed when the two Emperors met at Tilsit completed Talleyrand’s repugnance to Napoleon’s policy. Victory was once more made the step to a further war. The whole of Europe was now to be enlisted against England in the long dreamed of “continental system.” Alexander was exasperated against England for her failure to support him, and listened eagerly to the new idea of sharing the world between France and Russia (Napoleon’s “new Europeans” of nine months ago). Whether or no it is true that Alexander’s first words to Napoleon, as he stepped on to the raft in the middle of the Niemen (which fitted so well in “the poem of his life,” says Talleyrand), were: “I hate the English as much as you do, and I will second you in all your projects against them,”45the whole arrangement concluded was directed against England. Prussia and Russia were forced into the continental system. Prussia was humbled to the dust, and reduced from nine to four million inhabitants. Talleyrand says Alexander thought he had “done all that friendshiprequired for the King of Prussia in nominally preserving half his kingdom.” He saw the Tsar’s eyes sparkle when Napoleon, on receiving news of the deposition of the Sultan, spoke to him, “with an air of submitting to the decrees of Providence,” of an inevitable dismemberment of Turkey. But Napoleon told Talleyrand privately that not a word must be said in the treaty about Turkey, or about Moldavia and Wallachia, which also he had dangled before the eyes of the Tsar.
ALEXANDER I., EMPEROR OF RUSSIA.
ALEXANDER I., EMPEROR OF RUSSIA.
Talleyrand was disgusted at Napoleon’s brutal treatment of Prussia. He had several tender interviews with the Prussian Queen, and she spoke to him with great feeling at her departure. He had also several private interviews with Alexander, and, although he greatly disliked that monarch’s betrayal of Prussia, he won an influence over him which was to have historic importance. At the time it is possible, perhaps, to trace Talleyrand’s moderating influence in one or two details of the Treaty. He had, however, rigid instructions from Napoleon, and he had to sign the treaty with Prussia without having had any share in making it. There is a story of his betraying the secret articles to England. It rests on no authority, and Mr. Holland Rose has shown in his “Napoleonic Studies” that it is completely untenable.
He returned to Paris in August, and immediately resigned the foreign ministry. The separation was made in apparent amity. In a letter of August 10th (1807) Talleyrand tells the Emperor he is performing his lastact as foreign minister, but “the first and last sentiment of my life will be gratitude and devotion.” Napoleon was no less polite. He created a rich sinecure, the Vice-grand Electorship, for Talleyrand. He dropped his pilot with grace and forged ahead—towards the rocks. When Paris heard of Talleyrand’s new appointment, it said: “Another vice for him.”
AWAY FROM NAPOLEON
The legendary version of Talleyrand’s character that still lingers amongst encyclopædists and historians is refuted by his resignation in 1807. No cause can be assigned for it except an honest refusal to co-operate further with Napoleon’s harsh and dangerous and selfish policy. “Napoleon has abandoned the cause of peoples and is bent only on personal glory. He has entered on the fatal path of nepotism, in which I shall decline to follow him.” Talleyrand said this in 1807, not as a later explanation of his step. To Mme. de Rémusat he also said, in the same year: “Napoleon suspects me whenever I speak of moderation; if he ceases to believe me you will see with what folly he will compromise himself and us.” We are offered no serious alternative as a motive of Talleyrand’s retirement, which Count von Senfft describes as “very honorable.” The Emperor, says Senfft, wanted “absolutely submissive instruments.” Talleyrand declined to be one, as soon as the tragic selfishness of Napoleon was fully revealed. No one affected not to understand his action. It was a protest—a protest made at the height of Napoleon’s power. He had worked loyally and well with the Emperor “toestablish for France monarchical institutions which should guarantee the authority of the sovereign by restricting it within just limits; and to induce Europe not to grudge France her prosperity and glory.” Now Napoleon’s ambition was naked, France was burdened with the most exacting and ruinous military servitude to it, humanity was trodden under foot. And the only man in France to refuse further service was the man who is glibly described as devoid of principle or ideal, and prepared at all times to sell his soul to the wealthiest master.
So little obligation is felt to historical facts by those early and malicious biographers of Talleyrand, on whom our historians seem to rely, that Michaud says he is “quite sure” Talleyrand remained even after Tilsit the inspirer of Napoleon’s plans of conquest. Michaud is thinking in the first place of Napoleon’s descent on Spain, and it must be admitted that it requires careful study to determine Talleyrand’s attitude on this subject. Just before Jena, the Spanish minister, Godoy, had commenced operations for war against some unnamed Power, which all knew to be France, and Napoleon had sworn to Talleyrand that he would extinguish the Spanish Bourbons. When the news of Napoleon’s success reached Madrid, Godoy endeavoured to undo his terrible blunder, and Napoleon concealed for a time the claw that was in readiness for Spain. They returned to Paris in August, and Napoleon shortly turned his attention to the Peninsula. Portugal had refused to join in the blockade against England. A treaty wassigned by Spain and France, dividing it (in very unequal fractions) between them, and the French troops crossed the Pyrenees.
I need only summarise here the rapid and disgraceful succession of events in Spain. After Portugal had been taken, the French troops remained masters of Spain. In March the Spanish people, threatened with national ruin and disgusted with their incompetent and scandalous rulers, effected a Revolution. Charles IV abdicated, and was replaced by Ferdinand. Napoleon arrived at Bayonne, enticed both Ferdinand and the late Royal Family there by a trick, and forced them to abdicate. He wrote to Talleyrand on May 1st: “King Charles is a frank and good-looking fellow. The Queen’s sentimentality and history are written on her face—that will tell you enough. Godoy looks like a bull.... He had better be relieved of any imputation of lying, but must be left covered with a thin veil of contempt. Ferdinand is a brute, very malicious, and very hostile to France.” A few days later he wrote again to say that Talleyrand must receive and guard the Spanish princes at the mansion he had just bought at Valençay. “Your mission is an honourable one,” he says, sarcastically. “To receive and entertain three illustrious personages is quite in keeping with the character of the nation and with your rank.”
Talleyrand affirms in the memoirs that he had entirely disapproved the Spanish expedition, and that Napoleon sent the princes to him in order to make itappear that he approved. His enemies and Napoleon declare that he fully endorsed and urged the expedition until its evil effects were clear, and then disowned it. We have here another of the “mysteries” of Talleyrand’s career. The subject had arisen while he was with the Emperor in Germany and Poland, and, although he had resigned the Foreign Ministry on their return, it must not be supposed that he ceased entirely to share the conduct of foreign affairs. Senfft says that his successor in the Ministry, Champagny, so bored and annoyed Napoleon by the contrast of his incompetence, that Talleyrand was practically recalled to office in October. The truth seems to be that his Chancellorship, which gave him a certain formal interest in foreign affairs, was interpreted with some elasticity. For a time Talleyrand did not resist this. We shall find him doing important work presently. He had made his protest sufficiently clear.
However, in the matter of the Spanish expedition it seems possible to show that Talleyrand had little or no influence. Did he, or did he not, approve the expedition, apart from the treacherous termination? In his memoirs he says that he violently opposed this “insensate” invasion, and that “the disgrace which my candour brought on me justifies me in my conscience for separating myself from his policy and finally from his person.” This was written, of course, after all the world saw the blunder. Thiers concludes that he recovered Napoleon’s favour after Tilsit by complaisance in hisSpanish plans. He relies on Cambacérès, who is habitually hostile to Talleyrand. Pasquier, another hostile writer, says that Talleyrand urged Napoleon to make war on Spain, and appropriate the crown. D’Hauterive is described by his biographer as saying that Talleyrand was “in favour of the expeditionon certain conditions.” Napoleon declared to Las Cases that Talleyrand “goaded him into war.” Mme. de Rémusat, generally credible, says Talleyrand “was in favour of an open declaration of war” to overthrow the dynasty in the interest of Spain. Lytton quotes Beugnot for his belief that Talleyrand opposed the expedition altogether; and Count Ségur quotes de Pradt virtually to the same effect.
We have the usual conflict of evidence. We must at once distrust Napoleon’s later statements. The ex-Emperor would not take the trouble to “lie beautifully.” He forfeits all claim to be heard here when he goes on to say that Talleyrand urged him to murder the Spanish princes! I am just as ready to surrender Talleyrand’s statement that he “vehemently opposed” the expedition. In fact he also says: “Driven to death by the specious arguments of the Emperor, I advised him to occupy Catalonia until he should be able to conclude a maritime peace with England.” If we moderate the first few words, we probably have here the truth of the matter; though it is very possible that the sight of the incompetence of the royal family and the distress of Spain kept his mind in some vacillation as tothe intervention of France. That he urged Napoleon to invade and annex Spain is a statement made by the Emperor’s admirers only after it had proved a fatal and dishonourable enterprise; that the Emperor needed any such urging on the part of Talleyrand is a perfectly ludicrous supposition. The most probable reading of the situation (as regards Spain)beforethe troops cross the Pyrenees is that Talleyrand wavered between two motives—a keen perception of Spain’s evil plight on the one hand and of Napoleon’s ambition and nepotism on the other—and used vaguely approving language.
The final action of Napoleon was determined by the course of events, and not submitted for his approval or disapproval. There is no ambiguity about Talleyrand’s attitude on that. He was at his new home at Valençay in Touraine, a large and beautiful chateau lying in an extensive park, when the Spanish royal carriage arrived. In its heavy medieval splendour, with its panels of gold and silver, its curtains of crimson silk, and its huge gilt wheels, it reminded him painfully of the arrested development of Spain. He received the two young princes and their uncle with some feeling, and then set out for Nantes to meet Napoleon. If we may trust the memoirs (I would not press the point), he told Napoleon very freely what he thought of his stratagem. “It is one thing to take crowns, another thing to steal them,” he claims to have said; and it is stated that he told the Emperor that many irregularities, suchas mistresses, would be overlooked in a gentleman, but when he stooped to cheating at cards he forfeited the name. Napoleon went on to Paris, and Talleyrand returned to Valençay. The Emperor paid him 75,000 francs a year for the maintenance of the princes, but he seems to have treated them with real sympathy.
The task of entertaining them proved difficult. They had not a single accomplishment that counted in the code of a French gentleman. The attempt to interest them in books was a complete failure. Talleyrand did, indeed, notice with some consolation, that the pious uncle, Don Antonio, spent long hours in his valuable library, but he was more than disappointed when he discovered that the devout Spaniard had been cutting out the illustrations from rare old editions of the bible and the classics, to protect the morals of his nephews. It is usually said, and was certainly generally believed at Paris, that Don Carlos repaid his host by becoming the lover of Princess Talleyrand. “Spain was unlucky for both of us,” said Napoleon to him when he heard this. But the anonymous biographer of the princess46points out that even Mme. de Rémusat (who detested the princess) does not expressly accuse them of more than a platonic affection, and claims that not a single stain rests on her character after she became Mme. Talleyrand. In any case, Talleyrand insisted that they should be treated as princes. Napoleon wrote to complain that Ferdinand was addressing him as “moncousin,” and directed that he be taught to write “Sire.” “Ajaccio and St. Helena dispense with comment,” says Talleyrand. When Colonel Henri, commanding the military guard, made himself officious, he told him that the Emperor did not rule at Valençay. But in the midst of his efforts to teach them to shoot and ride and read he was summoned to Paris. The princes parted from him with tears, and offered him their old prayer-books as souvenirs.
Napoleon had in February suggested a second conference with the Tsar. At that time he was offering Russia Constantinople and impelling it to a descent on India, was sending an army against Sweden, and was menacing the very existence of Prussia and Austria. He had a real idea of dividing the Old World with Russia, and excluding England from it. Then came news of the rising of the people of Spain against France, and the landing of the English in Portugal. Wellesley had begun his historic advance towards Paris; though few then dreamed of the end of it. The southern trouble upset Napoleon’s calculations and diverted troops from the north. He fixed September 27th (1808) for the meeting with Alexander, and sent for Talleyrand to accompany him. He was weary of Champagny “coming every morning to excuse his blunders of the previous day,” Talleyrand says. At all events, Talleyrand’s experience at Tilsit and his friendship with Alexander recommended him. Napoleon directed all the documents to be sent to him, and met him with the most engagingconfidence and cordiality. He would remember later that Talleyrand was already talking to members of his Court of his “vile treachery” in Spain. Talleyrand studied the correspondence, and “at once made up his mind to prevent the spirit of enterprise from dominating this singular interview.” In the circumstances we can hardly hold that his acceptance was an infringement of the dignity of his resignation. In any case, his position as Grand Chamberlain compelled him to go.
So in September Talleyrand found himself on the way to Erfurt with the vast apparatus that Napoleon had dispatched to impress his allies. The road from Paris was alive with couriers, carriages, officers and troops. Napoleon had ordered the whole of the Comédie Française to go. When Dazincourt asked if they were to play comedies or tragedies, he replied that comedy was not appreciated beyond the Rhine. Dazincourt suggested “Athalie” amongst other tragedies. “What do you mean?” he said. “Do you think I want to get Joas into the heads of these Germans?” “These Germans,” he said to Talleyrand, “are still talking of d’Enghien. We must raise (agrandir) their standard of morality. I am not thinking of Alexander. Such things are nothing to a Russian. But we have to stir the men with melancholic ideas who abound in Germany.” He meant thinkers like Goethe. They must “give tragedies like Cinna,” and he sang the couplet:
Tous ces crimes d’État qu’on fait pour la couronneLe ciel nous en absout alors qu’il nous la donne.
Tous ces crimes d’État qu’on fait pour la couronneLe ciel nous en absout alors qu’il nous la donne.
Tous ces crimes d’État qu’on fait pour la couronneLe ciel nous en absout alors qu’il nous la donne.
Tous ces crimes d’État qu’on fait pour la couronne
Le ciel nous en absout alors qu’il nous la donne.
The first actors and actresses and the first soldiers in Europe jostled each other on the route. Nothing was forgotten. One dignitary was included “to do the honours of our actresses for the Grand Duke Constantine.”
In giving Talleyrand instructions he said that he wanted a treaty which would pledge him to nothing in the Levant (the chief magnet with which he was drawing Alexander), secure the passivity of Austria, and leave him free to do what he liked in Spain and to attack England. Talleyrand drew one up in two days, which was fairly satisfactory, though not strong enough as regards Austria. His last direction to Talleyrand was to see Alexander often in private and feed his facile imagination with dreams. “There’s a fine field for your philanthropic faculty! I give you carte blanche in it—only let it be a sufficiently remote philosophy. Adieu!” There was just one point that the great impresario overlooked, or failed to appreciate enough—the change in Talleyrand’s disposition. His Grand Chamberlain was now seriously determined to thwart him and save Austria. “If he had succeeded at Erfurt,” Talleyrand says, “he would have picked a quarrel with Austria and dealt with it as he had done with Prussia.” In the end he signed a totally different treaty from what he had intended, and the Tsar wrote a private letter to reassure the Emperor of Austria. Talleyrand claims, not incongruously, that he acted in Napoleon’s true interest.
To understand this result we have to examine the double current of life at Erfurt. While Alexander wasexposed to the full force of Napoleon’s ingenious action every day, he was seeing Talleyrand privately every night and being put on his guard. Napoleon arrived on the morning of the 27th with some of his most brilliant regiments, the crowds having lined his route all night. By the time Alexander arrived, two days later, there were forty monarchs and dukes in Erfurt with their Courts. Napoleon told Talleyrand he was delighted with his first conversation with Alexander, but no business must be touched until the Tsar is thoroughly “dazed” with French magnificence. He had altered Talleyrand’s treaty, making the terms more onerous for Austria. That night Talleyrand went to take tea with the Princess de la Tour et Taxis. Alexander followed in a quarter of an hour, and it was arranged that they should meet there every night after the opera. Talleyrand was also intimate with the Austrian ambassador, Baron Vincent, who was admitted at times to the nocturnal tea-party.
Thus the play proceeded. Napoleon artfully arranged long déjeuners, to be followed by hunts, reviews, or excursions that would last until dinner, and opera to close the day’s work. There was no time to talk business. Every opera was selected by Napoleon. He foresaw the applause when, in “Mahomet,” the line occurred:
“Qui l’a fait roi? Qui l’a couronné? La victoire.” The Grand Chamberlain saw Napoleon home every night (or early morning), and went at once to the houseof the discreet princess. After a few days Napoleon said to Alexander that they must speak of the treaty, and suggested that it should be kept to themselves. That night, when Alexander came to the princess’s, he bade her guard the door, and pulled the treaty from his pocket. Talleyrand implored him not to be drawn into any engagement to the detriment of Austria. Napoleon complained to Talleyrand that he could “get nothing out of Alexander.” He must leave Austria alone, and trust to scare it with the secret articles of the treaty. Talleyrand did not conceal his interest in Austria, but was told to continue to see Alexander, as Napoleon wanted to part on good terms. He did continue, with more effect than Napoleon imagined. When asked afterwards if he had not been imprudent, he replied: “I have never been betrayed by a woman.” From the first day he had said to Alexander: “It is for you to save Europe by making a stand against Napoleon. The French nation is civilised, but its ruler is not; the sovereign of Russia is civilised, but his people are not. The Russian monarch must unite with the French people.”
It is idle casuistry to prove that this was not treachery to Napoleon. It was done in pursuit of a deliberate plan to thwart him in the interest of France. There was now in the mind of Talleyrand a broad and clear distinction between the needs of France and the ambition of its Emperor, or, if you will, Napoleon’s view of its needs. Talleyrand’s view is admitted to havebeen more statesmanlike. The only question is whether Talleyrand was justified in accepting service under the Emperor with the determination to be disloyal to his personal views for the good of the country, if not in his own real interest. However that question may be answered, we must not ignore the bearing of these episodes on the chief charge against Talleyrand’s character. Lord Brougham, in his otherwise admirable sketch, says that we cannot altogether admire a man who was “always on the side of success.” But here we have Talleyrand wielding an opposition to Napoleon that would almost have cost him his life if it had become known, at the very summit of the Emperor’s power, and in a purely patriotic and humane interest. The legendary Talleyrand would not have dared to do it—could not have conceived it. Napoleon never discovered precisely what passed in the princess’s house, but he knew Talleyrand was meeting Alexander there, and that Talleyrand was a convinced pro-Austrian.
The Tsar obtained the provinces he wanted on the Danube without being pledged to more than an attack on Austria if she joined with England against France. In one other important matter Talleyrand more or less deceived Napoleon. The Emperor detained him one night with a pathetic reference to his childlessness, and at last “dropped the word divorce.” He would like to marry one of Alexander’s sisters, and Talleyrand might, “as a Frenchman,” suggest the idea to the Tsar. Towards two o’clock he went to theusual rendezvous, and found the Tsar telling the Princess with some feeling how Napoleon had that morning referred to his want of an heir. It had been “wrung from him.” Talleyrand not only knew the alliance was impossible from the Russian point of view, but considered it inadvisable for the country. He told the Tsar of Napoleon’s wish, and they agreed to humour him for the time by suggesting Anna, who was only fourteen years old.
The long series of fêtes and spectacles wore on meantime. One day Napoleon sent his actors to Weimar, and, after a hunt on the very field of Jena, entertained the princes to a banquet. The opera that night was unhappily chosen, “La mort de César,” but a ball was added that “dissipated the impression.” Napoleon made an effort to dazzle Goethe and Wieland with the brilliancy of his culture. Goethe made quiet and neat replies to the Emperor’s forced and well-prepared sallies into literature. Talleyrand has preserved an account of the conversation, but omitted one of its best passages. When Napoleon said he did not like the end of “Werther,” Goethe replied: “I did not know that your Majesty liked romances to have an end.” Wieland took up the defence of Tacitus against Napoleon. “I agree,” he said, “that his chief aim is to punish tyrants; but he denounces them to the justice of the ages and of the human race.” When, on the day before his departure, the crowd of princes and nobles gathered about Napoleon—“I didnot see a single hand pass with any dignity over the lion’s mane,” says Talleyrand—he turned again to the literary men, and asked if they had any idealists in Germany. They had many. “I pity you,” he replied. “These philosophers torture themselves with the creation of systems. They will search in vain for a better one than Christianity, which reconciles man with himself, and at the same time assures public order and the tranquility of States.” The feelings of the “idealists” are not recorded. Talleyrand himself disappoints us. He had Goethe to dinner one evening, and does not reproduce a word of the conversation, or devote a single line to appreciation of the greatest man in that historic gathering.
When they returned from Paris Napoleon set out for Spain, and Talleyrand settled down to a life of comparative quiet. After leaving the Hotel Galiffet he had occupied a small house at the corner of the rue d’Anjou, but he now bought the large Hotel de Monaco in the rue de Varennes. His old friends, Narbonne and Choiseul, had returned to Paris and helped to restore in his magnificent salon the gaiety and wit of the earlier days. Other groups of the old nobility were forming, and no figure was more welcome amongst them than that of the ex-bishop. At the Duchess de Laval’s he met once more the Duchess de Luynes, the Duchess de Fitzjames, the Countess Jaucourt, Mme. de Bauffremont, and many another great lady of the past and great admirer of himself. The Countess Tyszkiewicz, who had “caught thecomplaint of falling in love with Talleyrand” at Warsaw, brought a strong accession of fervour to the cult. The old society of Paris was forming the nucleus of the new, and, with a dim consciousness of their work, preparing the scene for the next act in the history of France. From these brilliant and envied centres daring witticisms crept abroad and began to circulate in Paris. The Napoleonic Court, the new Foreign Minister, the campaign in Spain, the succession to the throne, were fruitful in enlivening topics of conversation over the tea or whist tables. Possibly the story of Erfurt was discreetly told; certainly the story of the Archduchess Anna would prove irrepressible. There were more serious matters. It was observed that Talleyrand was reconciled with Fouché, and it was known that they were daring to speculate on the contingency of a Spanish ball finding its way to the Emperor’s heart; though the kinder of the myth-makers declare that the object of the new conspiracy was merely the heart of a certain pretty lady.
By this time the Bonapartes and the Beauharnais hated Talleyrand. He had never concealed his small estimate of Napoleon’s brothers. “Say what you like about my family,” said the Emperor with a laugh, when he asked Talleyrand to speak to Alexander about his want of an heir. He also warned him that Josephine knew he favoured a divorce. They and the Foreign Minister, and every other Napoleonist that had been made a butt of royalist wit, now joined in reporting to the Emperor, when he returned in January, the latestmisdeeds of the Faubourg St. Germain. Talleyrand had written amiable letters to Napoleon in Spain. He had congratulated him on his victories (with, we must remember, the usual hope that they will be made a step to peace and the real good of Spain), and encouraged his political action in Paris. The Corps Legislatif was giving trouble, and Talleyrand agreed that it might be extinguished without tyranny. In a country like France it was only necessary to have sufficient popular representation to vote supplies. When, therefore, Napoleon heard of the satirical comments on his campaign and the friendship of Talleyrand and Fouché, he determined to strike.
On the day following his return, when Talleyrand and the other Court dignitaries came before him, he opened the sluices of his Corsican oratory. “He became a sub-lieutenant once more,” says Meneval in recalling his language. In the general confusion Talleyrand alone stood “like a rock,” though the Emperor even threatened to strike him. To Napoleon’s brutal observation: “You did not tell me that the Duke of San Carlos was your wife’s lover,” he quietly retorted: “I did not think it redounded either to your Majesty’s honour or mine.” When the Duchess de Laval asked him afterwards why he did not knock Napoleon down with the tongs, he said he was “too lazy.” The only remark he made to those present, when the Emperor had exhausted himself and departed, was: “What a pity that such a great man had not a better education.” We are often asked at this juncture by Talleyrand’s biographers to deplore the lack of self-respect that he betrayed innotseizing the tongs, or returning the torrent of rhetoric. If he had been a bishop the same writers would ask us to admire his superhuman fortitude. The general reader will probably prefer an intermediate attitude. The aphorism quoted by Lord Acton, that such conduct belongs to one who is either more or less than man, is pretty but absurd.
It is just four years from the date of this incident to Talleyrand’s last interview with Napoleon. Those four years are full of adventure and life for the Napoleonist writer, but they offer little material to the biographer of Talleyrand. Throughout them the scene is being prepared for the next act. Wellesley is slowly forcing his way towards the Pyrenees. The coalition against England is gradually being converted into the final coalition against Napoleon. Parisian society is falling into two definite groups, Napoleonists and people who whisper to each other that the Emperor has no guarantee of immortality—“passengers,” in the words which Metternich applies to Talleyrand and Fouché; “passengers who see the helm in the hands of a reckless pilot steering straight for the reefs, and are ready to seize the tiller as soon as the first shock knocks down the helmsman.”
Talleyrand is still, it will be remembered, Vice-Grand Elector, and member of the Supreme Council. But after January, 1809, he has little influence onthe fortunes of France, and is continually offending the Emperor. His personal relation to Napoleon is curious. Michaud says that on the morning after the storm of January 23rd, he was one of the first to appear at the levee, and observers could see no trace of the events of the previous day in his bearing. The Emperor himself said to Roederer a few days later that “his feelings towards Talleyrand were unchanged,” and he would “leave him his dignities,” but would not have him closely associated as Chamberlain. The last letter of Talleyrand to Napoleon that we have, dated April, 1809, is full of amiability and ostensible devotion. Three years later, when he loses nearly the whole of his fortune, he applies to the Emperor through Savary, and receives two million francs for his hotel. In that year Napoleon even wanted to recall him to the conduct of affairs. It seems as if the two men retained, below all their political differences and personal friction, a softening memory of their joint achievements. But their divergence in policy was too serious to admit further co-operation. Napoleon saw all his hated enemies in Paris gather about the Hotel Talleyrand, and set his spies upon it. Talleyrand saw the Emperor reel fatally towards the precipice.
In the long and adventurous negotiations with the Pope in 1809 and 1810 Talleyrand had no part. He saw Napoleon as “successor of Charlemagne,” confiscate the last of the temporal power, and the Ecclesiastical Council at Paris (November 16th, 1809, to January 11th, 1810) trim and writhe before Napoleon’s theologicalqueries.47He was present when several of the bishops were summoned to Saint Cloud, after Napoleon had read an unsatisfactory account of the opening of their second Council. Napoleon sat in the midst of his Court, drinking coffee poured out by the Empress, and singled out his uncle, Cardinal Fesch, for one of his characteristic attacks. But “the Corsair (Fesch had fitted out more than one privateer in 1793-5) re-appeared at times under the cassock of the Archbishop.” The reply was as Corsican as the attack. Napoleon rushed on from blunder to blunder in the historical and theological matters he was daring to discuss. “You take me for Louis le Debonnaire,” he roared, “I’m not. I’m Charlemagne.” The negotiations came to nothing, and the bishops were informed “by the minister of police” that they might return to their dioceses.
Talleyrand was an idle but disgusted witness of the subsequent abduction of the Pope, and the final defeat of Napoleon’s aims. In January, 1810, he was present with all the other great dignitaries and ministers at the conference on the divorce of Josephine and re-marriage of the Emperor. Few knew, as Talleyrand did, thatthere was really no question of a Russian marriage, when Napoleon put it to them as an open question. When it came to his turn to speak, he advocated an alliance with Austria. Napoleon thanked and dismissed them; and a courier was dispatched to Vienna the same evening. Talleyrand was present at the marriage in April. He heard the bells of Notre Dame ring out the ecclesiastical share in the general joy at a time when the Pope was Napoleon’s prisoner, and listened to Austrian congratulations at a moment when the fortifications of Vienna were being blown up at the order of its conqueror. A month or two afterwards he again gave offence to the Emperor. Fouché had been detected in negotiation with England, and Napoleon consulted his Council as to the advisability of punishing him. Most of the members thought Fouché should be deposed, but could suggest no substitute for that astute chief detective. Talleyrand said to his neighbour in a stage-whisper: “Fouché has certainly done very wrong, and I would find a substitute for him—but it would be Fouché himself.” This led to Napoleon’s last extant letter to him. “Prince of Benevento, I have received your letter, the contents of which pained me. During your term of office I voluntarily shut my eyes to many things. I regret that you should have thought fit to take a step that revives the memory of what I have endeavoured, and will still endeavour, to forget.” The air of righteous forbearance is imposing.
In the spring of 1812 the difference between the two seemed to be bridged for a time. Talleyrand was generously assisted by the Emperor in a grave financial crisis, of which I will speak presently, and accepted an appointment from him to a political mission. With the long story of Napoleon’s rupture with Russia and the opening of a fresh campaign in 1812 I am not concerned. The friction between the two Emperors turned largely on the question of Poland, and Napoleon resolved to send Talleyrand on a secret mission to that country. Some affirm that he cancelled the appointment when he learned that Talleyrand had let it become known to Austria by sending to Vienna for a supply of ducats. It is likely enough that Talleyrand would think an accidental disclosure of his mission the safest way to avoid incurring the displeasure of Russia or Austria. Bulwer Lytton, however, says that Napoleon did not press the appointment because he found it difficult to adjust with the position of his Foreign Minister, who was to accompany him on the campaign. However that may be, the Emperor does not seem to have felt any particular resentment. He set out to face Russia. It was immediately whispered in Paris that Talleyrand declared it “the beginning of the end.”
Since his deposition from the chamberlainship in 1809 Talleyrand had spent a large proportion of his time in the country. He had never been a saving man. He liked to surround himself with things of great beauty, to entertain lavishly, and to be extremely generous toservants and friends. Until 1809 he had granted a pension of 60,000 a year to his mother,48and greatly helped other members of his family. He had now only the income from his savings, and his salary as Vice-Grand Elector. His establishment in Paris, the huge Hotel Monaco, was very exacting; Valençay was maintained by the Emperor for his Spanish “guests.” Savary tells us that Talleyrand’s affairs were somewhat straitened from 1810 onwards, and he had often to appeal for the payments for Valençay. In the general depression of 1812 a house failed in which he was interested, and he lost fourteen million francs. Savary says that he appealed through him to the Emperor, who sent his architect to value the Hotel Monaco with all its furniture, and paid him 2,100,000 francs for it. The act was a very generous one in the circumstances, though it is perhaps not ungracious to recall that Napoleon’s plans were responsible for the deep commercial depression of the time. Talleyrand happened to have a debt owing from the former Spanish ambassador, and he now accepted that nobleman’s mansion, the Hotel St. Florentin, in discharge of it.49This hotel now became the centre of discontent, while the salon of the Duchess de Bassano was the centre of Napoleonism.
The following year, 1813, saw considerable movement in the political barometers at Paris. Napoleon had returned from Moscow about the middle of December, and the remnants of the grand army were beginning to reach France when he called a special council in January to discuss the situation. He told those present—chiefly the heads of the foreign office and retired foreign ministers—that he desired peace, but was in a position still to wage successful war. Should he await overtures from Russia, or open negotiations himself, either directly or through Austria? Maret, the actual Foreign Minister, even less competent than Champagny, advocated negotiations through Austria. Talleyrand knew that Austria was seeking to detach itself from Napoleon, and to pose as armed mediator. He therefore gave the loyal counsel to open serious negotiations for peace directly with Russia. To do this with any profit, however, it would be necessary now to sacrifice some of France’s outlying conquests, and Napoleon would not give up even the duchy of Warsaw, and would not withdraw from Spain unless England withdrew from Sicily. As Talleyrand happily expressed it a little later, the only hope of safety for Napoleon was for him “tobecome King of France.” This was impossible for him. Talleyrand retired to his hotel, to play whist with Louis, Dalberg, and de Pradt, and to keep his eyes open.