The storm soon burst.Napoleon then landed in the Gulf of Juan to attempt his heroic exploit of the Hundred Days. Matters were in a strangely complicated state at the Congress of Vienna, and Napoleon, looking at the affairs of Europe under one point of view only, had formed a fair judgment of the condition of the allied powers with regard to each other, without, however, comprehending that his presence on the Continent would unite them all in a terrible coalition. The very name of Buonaparte filled the old European sovereignties with so much alarm, that they recovered themselves with the utmost haste, in order to take measures for the general safety.They owed to the activity of Talleyrand and Metternich the official declaration of the Congress of Vienna, which placed Buonaparte at the ban of Europe, simultaneouslyroused against the common enemy. The mystic spirit of Alexander entered willingly into the idea of a Christian alliance and a European crusade, and Metternich, after the system he had adopted ever since the rupture in 1813, could not depart from the military agreement entered into at Chaumont. Napoleon was declared at the ban of the empire by a revived custom of the ancient assemblies of the German Diet.The pretended agreement between Napoleon, Austria, and England, at the time of his landing in the Gulf of Juan, was a romance invented afterwards by the imperialist party. Napoleon, who was well informed concerning the diplomatic state of things, might imagine a separation of interests among the cabinets a probable thing, but beyond this there was nothing. One of his first steps was to endeavour to place himself in communication with Metternich, and we again find Fouché in correspondence with the chief of the Austrian cabinet: they had never lost sight of each other since their memorable conference in 1809, and their acquaintance was renewed in 1813, when Fouché was appointed Governor-General of Illyria. I have reason to believe, that they had even then spoken to each other in confidence concerning the decline of power ofthat man, as the disaffected called Napoleon, and of the possibility of a regency under Maria Louisa; in 1813 the subject they would select for their conversation would probably be the abdication of the Emperor, which was one of the favourite ideas of the senatorial party. At the same time Napoleon wrote to Maria Louisa, he despatched, by means of some secret agents, confidential letters from intimate friends of the minister, and even from a princess of the imperial blood, between whom and Prince Metternich a tender feeling had existed: and finally, in order to sow dissension throughout thewhole of Europe, he transmitted to the Emperor Alexander a copy of the treaty of the triple alliance, concluded against Russia in the month of March 1815, and signed by Lord Castlereagh, Talleyrand, and Metternich: his primary object was to break the powerful union among the sovereigns.At this period, the Austrian armies had marched into Italy against Murat and the Neapolitans, and General Bianchi had obtained the most brilliant victories over the wavering and ill-organised troops of Joachim. Metternich caused all the fortresses of the kingdom of Naples and the Roman States to be garrisoned by Austrian troops; for he had decided, in concert with the French legation, upon the re-establishment of the House of Bourbon at Naples as completing the scheme of the government of Europe.While Fouché was negotiating with Metternich a plan for substituting the regency under Maria Louisa to the empire, organised as it had been during the hundred days, French agents were contriving means of carrying off the child who had been saluted in his cradle with the title of King of Rome. A great deal of mystification went on in all this; there was even one of these gentlemen, otherwise, too, a man in good society, who received a large sum of money, but who had in reality no other object than that of joining M. de Talleyrand at Vienna. Napoleon had promised that his wife and son would be present at the Champ de Mai, but Metternich's police baffled the intentions of the French agents, and, with the politeness which characterises all his actions, the minister conducted the daughter of the emperor and the Duke de Reichstadt to the palace of Schönbrunn, under an escort of the most trustworthy servants of the house of Austria. It was one of the most delicate circumstances that occurred during the life of Metternich, a man, too, always remarkablefor his attention to propriety; for Maria Louisa did not at that time feel the cold indifference for Napoleon which she afterwards exhibited, and she was a party to the project formed for carrying her off, by some attendants who had remained with her, but who now all received an order to quit Schönbrunn.The Austrian armies proceeded from Italy across the Alps, and took a part in the melancholy invasion of the south of France; they afterwards occupied Provence and Languedoc as far as Auvergne, their head-quarters being at Lyons and Dijon. On the dissolution of the Congress of Vienna, after the second fall of Napoleon, Metternich repaired to Paris, to be present at the conferences which were to precede the treaty of November 1815. Prussia and England had been victorious at Waterloo, and their interest had proportionally increased. In the negotiations of Paris, the two cabinets of Berlin and Vienna acted in concert to represent the interests of Germany, which were very hostile to the French nation. The German population had been greatly irritated during the gigantic efforts that Europe had made against Napoleon; the secondary princes on the banks of the Rhine demanded Alsace and a portion of Lorraine, marked upon a map drawn in 1815 (which now lies before me), under the name of Germania, as the representation of Germany. There was a terrible reaction in that country against France, one of those refluxes of the people and the national feeling by which various periods of our history have been distinguished.Nevertheless, what organisation, exterior or interior, did they intend to establish, to form a general constitution in Germany? How could they restore to the Emperor Francis the influence in that country which he formerly possessed, but of which he had been deprived by Napoleon? Germany had arisen with the doublecry of liberty and unity on her lips. Unity! how was it to be established among principalities of which the power and the population varied so greatly, and who still maintained the feudal principle in the midst of civilised Europe? And liberty! it was an indefinite expression; how could it be applied to so many different systems of government, and to so many various localities whose interests were so distinct from each other? The scheme of the Confederation of the Rhine had been formed by Napoleon solely with a view of increasing the importance of all the petty states, and of inducing them to enter into a coalition hostile to Austria and Prussia. Now circumstances were altered; Austria and Prussia were the great predominant powers, whose business it was to establish their own influence, and govern the whole confederation by means of a protectorate, more or less clearly defined; Prussia assuming the power in the northern provinces, Austria to the south. It was necessary, when the fatherland should be threatened, that its mixed population should be capable of being called forth to serve indifferently in the armies of Prussia and Austria. The unity of the German states was thus opposed as a barrier against Russia and France, and served equally as a protection against both those nations.Metternich, when he gave up the old imperial mantle in the name of the emperor, obtained for him a more real advantage as president of the diet; a number of votes were awarded to Austria and Prussia, in proportion to the importance of their position; and either by means of their command of the army of the confederation, or by their influence in the diet, these two countries held undisputed sway over the deliberations and the employment of the troops. No doubt, many little acts of injustice were committed, and some caprice was exhibited in the repartition of the states and of the contingents.Sovereignties were sometimes aggrandised because they were protected by the Emperor Alexander, and, sometimes, even by Metternich; but where are the human operations over which perfect justice presides? Since they were desirous of unity, this sacrifice of some to the cause of all was the natural consequence of it; and should it now be asked, what is to be the result of this confederation, I reply, that Austria has reason to fear lest Prussia should assume a constantly increasing importance in Germany. The destiny of Austria henceforth is elsewhere, her future lies in the south; Prussia is too singularly situated not to strive to agglomerate her dominions; she will undoubtedly do so, either in point of fact, by means of conquest, or morally, by the influence she will exercise. It is towards the shores of the Adriatic that Austria will find herself indemnified for the diminution of her influence in central Germany.The cry of liberty had been raised in Germany when it roused itself against Napoleon; and the secret societies of Schill and Stein still had representatives in old Blucher and General Gniesenau. What did the government propose doing for the liberty they demanded? Constitutions had been promised, and representative states were granted to some principalities, but, the victory being once obtained, there was hesitation about proceeding any farther.Now that experience has made us perfectly acquainted with the spirit of revolutions, it is easy to understand how, in the rapid alteration of political situations, the promises of to-day are violated to-morrow. It is in vain to imagine that these periods of transition, when the people struggle for crochets of sovereignty, can bear a comparison with seasons when the proceedings of the government are calm and regular; after victory the popular excitement shews itself unreasonable, and wantsto insist upon promises the government is no longer able to perform.In 1813, during the period of battles and revolutions, many things had been promised to Germany; but was it possible to perform them in 1815 and 1816? Suppose that in Germany, that country of excitement and mystical spirit, the utopias of the secret societies had been realised,—a political existence given to the universities, and a turbulent representation to all the states,—that they had granted them the liberty of the press and an organised democracy,—would Germany ever have reached the high degree of prosperity and public tranquillity she now enjoys? We must take customs as they exist, and minds with the habits they have formed; we must not give a people institutions which would be a torment to their existence without increasing their well-being. I do not say that the governments of Austria and Prussia acted rightly in not fulfilling their promises—I merely say, that time alone can shew whether this conduct proceeded from prudence, or from a calculating spirit of selfishness. The events of 1814 and 1815 had considerably increased the possessions of Austria in Italy, and, as this was really a country obtained by conquests, it was natural and necessary that an armed surveillance should be established in the Lombardo-Venetian territory, as well as a police capable of controlling the provinces united to the Austrian empire. The utmost ability will be required to slacken successively the springs of this police, in proportion as the victors may be more firmly established in their foreign possessions. To have granted free constitutions to the people would have been an imprudent generosity, for this conquest, like those of Napoleon, could only be maintained by military occupation, which it was desirable to render as little oppressive as circumstanceswould permit. The Italians, a hot and enthusiastic people, had driven out the French in the day of their calamity; the Austrians should endeavour to avoid a similar misfortune, and keep carefully upon their guard.Here begins the melodrama which has been cast around the person of Prince Metternich, with the picture of the cruel prisons and Piombi of Venice. I appeal to the Christian sincerity and good faith of Silvio Pellico, whether there be one word of real truth in his book,Le mie Prigioni. Does he call to mind the terrible Piombi of Venice, which, in his case, consisted of a room on the fourth floor in the ducal palace, commanding a most extensive view over the Great Canal, and for which Lord Byron would have paid some hundreds of sequins? He was deprived of his liberty, it is true; and this is, no doubt, a deplorable misfortune: but had he engaged in a conspiracy?—had he attempted to overturn the established government? He avows that he had done so, and in attempts of this kind a man sets his liberty and"Life upon a cast,And he must stand the hazard of the die."The Austrian cabinet, no doubt, takes ample precautionary measures, but there is no cruelty or oppression in its system; and whoever has had an opportunity of conversing with Prince Metternich ought to ask himself, whether it is possible a man of so calm and reasonable an intellect should be guilty of an act of barbarity without even a motive for his conduct?The strict repressive measures upon which the system of Prince Metternich in Germany and Italy is founded occasioned a movement of reaction; for liberty, that master passion of the mind, does not allow itself to be crushed without making some despairing efforts. Farfrom the secret societies having been dissolved in Germany, they were regularly organised in the universities among the students, and the heated state of their minds was encouraged by the influence of poetry and the political writings, which called upon the courage and patriotism of all those who possessed noble hearts to lend their assistance to the German unity. This unity, so loudly appealed to by the young generation, was in reality only a sort of federative republic, in which all the states, while enjoying their individual freedom, were to be united by the practice of virtue, and would thus tend to the general happiness of mankind. The old German sovereignties were obliged to curb these associations, which burst forth in the assassination of Kotzebue.Metternich had just been travelling in Italy when the universities distinguished themselves by this sanguinary crime. He was loaded with the benefits of his sovereign; he now bore the title of prince, and stars of almost all the orders of knighthood in Europe glittered on his breast. The state of fermentation which existed in Germany had not escaped his statesmanlike penetration, and it was solely at his suggestion that a congress took place at Carlsbad, where severe and distrustful measures were adopted against the organisation of the public schools in Germany. The conduct of the universities, the repression of seditious writings, the establishment of a political police,—nothing was neglected in this regular crusade, undertaken by the government against the revolutionary feelings by which the heated imaginations were then inflamed. After great disturbances have taken place in a state, the sole anxiety of the government is to check any disposition to disorder, and they are excited to do so by public opinion, and by the middle classes, who entertain a dread of fresh revolutions, and with good reason.In the year of the Congress of Carlsbad, the Propaganda menaced the kingdoms of Europe with a fresh revolution. Let us observe accurately their situation in 1820. Towards the south there was the insurrection of Spain and the Cortes, and the proclamation of a government more liberal than even that of England; at Naples, almost by a magical echo, the constitution was also proclaimed; from Naples the cry of liberty was heard in Piémont, and the king was deprived of his throne. In Paris the disturbances were so great that the government was exposed every evening to a change in its political system. This year of 1820 might be considered as the first edition of the stupendous event of July, which took place ten years later with all the fracas of an insurrection.Austria was particularly endangered by these revolutions, for the extremities of the kingdom of Naples and Piémont came in close contact with her Italian possessions. The people had declared themselves; the sovereigns then became aware of the danger, and roused themselves for their defence; congresses were held at Troppau and at Laybach, and Metternich, without hesitation, urged the adoption of powerful measures to quell the revolutionary spirit now manifested; he was so deeply convinced of their indispensable necessity, that he opposed every kind of delay, and only required the moral support of Prussia and Russia, declaring at once that an Austrian army was about to march into Italy and occupy Naples and Piémont. The Emperor Alexander, whose mind was full of the dread of secret societies and plots in Europe, lent his support to Metternich. There was but one single instance of opposition with regard to Piémont, and it is known from whence proceeded these objections. To such a degree has history been disfigured! It proceeded from the dignity ofLouis XVIII., and the despatches of the Duc de Richelieu and M. Pasquier. The revolutionary spirit was breaking out in the streets of Paris in 1820, and the restored sovereign declared to Metternich, that if the Austrian army entered Piémont their occupation could not be of long continuance, as France could not allow of the Austrians upon the Alps.In thiswrestling, to use the old expression of M. Bignon, the cabinets had the advantage over the people. Naples was overcome in a few marches, and Piémont was occupied by the Austrian troops. The repressive impulse being once given, a combined system was every where manifested with the design of suspending political liberty. War was declared by the cabinets against all forms of government which owed their birth to military excitement or to an exclusively revolutionary spirit. Metternich was present at the Congress of Verona, a meeting which appears to me to have been the final expression of the will of Europe regarding the spirit of insurrection. France was charged with the suppression of the Spanish Cortes, as Metternich had executed by force of arms the will of the allied powers against Naples and Piémont. Here the cabinets were again successful, the revolution was completely suppressed, as far as regarded its power of action, and only kept a place in the disordered imagination.All these acts of government, and all the proclamations which followed the assembly of the Congress, were the especial work of Prince Metternich. The Chancellor of Austria possesses a remarkable flow of language, a pure taste, and a noble manner of expressing his ideas, even in a diplomatic despatch, where the sense is almost always hidden under technical, and, it may be added, heavy modes of speech. To him is owing the style distinguishedby the elevation of ideas, which always appeals to posterity and to the justice of future times, from the opinion formed by contemporary passions. He even allows himself to be carried on too far by his anxiety to express his meaning, and by the literary ornament he is desirous of conferring upon the most trifling despatch that leaves his cabinet; he takes the principal part in their composition, he writes in French with extreme elegance and precision, and he reads all the newspapers regularly, even to the part which contains merely literary and theatrical critiques. Those who saw him in 1825, when the unfortunate illness of his wife obliged him to visit Paris, were surprised to find him possessed of the most exquisite literary taste. He was acquainted with all our good authors, and shewed remarkable sagacity in the judgment he formed of the writers of our own times. One could hardly imagine how a politician, whose life had been spent in affairs of so much importance, could have found time to study the most trifling productions of literature.Affairs were now settled in Europe. The governments began to emerge a little from the undecided political condition proclaimed by the Holy Alliance. From the beginning of the year 1827, Metternich had felt some uneasiness concerning the proceedings of Russia with regard to the Ottoman Porte, which was likely to be productive of extreme danger to the Austrian influence. If the Russian projects were realised, Austria would see herself deprived of her ascendancy over the Porte, which was nearly as old as that of France. At this time Metternich caused the French ministry to be sounded, but he was hardly listened to, for the most decided negotiations were in progress between the three cabinets of Russia, London, and Paris, on the Greek question; andhere it is well to explain the refusal of Metternich to interfere with the transactions which led to the treaty of July 1827.Since the year 1824, the cause of the Greeks had assumed a degree of consistency and a European character. Every era has its policy of sentiments, and people were now infatuated with a classic fanaticism for the Greeks. No doubt there was something glorious in the heroism which strove to burst the chain of the barbarians; but the enthusiastic declarations of Russia, her strong and pressing despatches in favour of the Greeks, were, in their main object, less the expression of a religious sympathy than the proceedings of a skilful policy, which sought to abase the Ottoman Porte, in order subsequently to reduce it into a state of vassalage. Russia, therefore, applied to Charles X., by speaking of the cross which had brought salvation to the world. In England it roused into action the Greek committee, and it was under the influence of these philanthropic prepossessions that the treaty of July 1827, and the battle of Navarino, which was the consequence of it, led to serious uneasiness on the part of Metternich. This minister instantly divined the full consequences of this shortsighted policy. The battle of Navarino, by crippling the power of the Porte, killed it, in a political sense, for the advantage of Russia: it was the prelude to the campaign of 1828 to the Balkan. Russia had succeeded in getting M. de la Ferronays placed at the head of foreign affairs in France: he was an honest man, but rather Russian in his inclinations and habits; consequently, Metternich could not draw France into a scheme of confederation and armed league against Russia. He was more fortunate in England with the Duke of Wellington, who acknowledged the mistake into which Mr. Canning had fallen, and pronounced thebattle of Navarinoan untoward event. England had thus returned to a perfect understanding of which were her real interests.People may ask, why did not Metternich at this time decide upon war? how came it that he did not at once take part with the Ottoman Porte? It was in consequence of the fixed system of the Austrian chancellor; he has gained every thing through peace. The conquests of Austria are owing to her pacific principles—to the species of armed neutrality which is always ready at the proper moment to obtain some advantage. A war would have compromised its general position in Europe. Being on good terms with England, and in concert with that nation, the Austrian cabinet stayed the victory; it was gaining something during the Russian expedition of 1829, but it was not enough.During this time events were advancing in France towards an unavoidable crisis; the ministry of M. de Polignac had just been formed. Under a merely political point of view, this was an advantage for Austria, for the Russian system had been abandoned, and they had entered into all the English ideas concerning the Eastern question; still a mind possessed of so much penetration could not fail to entertain great anxiety while watching so earnest a struggle between the political powers in a country like France, which had been accustomed to give an impulse to the rest of Europe. It is said that Metternich advised acoup-d'état: does this idea evince an acquaintance with the spirit of moderation and the capacity of the prime minister of Austria? Acoup-d'étatis too decided and too noisy a step ever to enter into the mind of Prince Metternich: when a difficult situation occurs, he does not attack it in front—he turns it; and, when he shews himself very determined in a strong and firm resolution, it is because people's minds arealready made up, and there is no longer any risk in having recourse to it. The Chancellor of the Empire was too well aware of the folly of M. de Polignac, and of the want of firmness of Charles X., to be ignorant that they were incapable of conducting a perilous undertaking to a prosperous termination. In the Foreign Office there is a despatch on this subject from M. de Rayneval, then ambassador at Vienna, who details one of his conversations with Prince Metternich, precisely upon thesecoups-d'état; it was much the subject of conversation at Vienna, and the uneasiness entertained concerning the system followed by M. de Polignac is revealed in more than one despatch addressed to M. d'Appony, the Austrian ambassador at Paris.Then broke out the revolution of July, an event of prodigious importance. Europe had never been in so much danger; for what were the ideas that led to the eruption? Was it not the spirit of the secret societies?—republicanism again triumphant in France, the country which, for the last forty years, had been accustomed to give the general impulse to continental Europe? The Propaganda principles had for their leader that old and obstinate spirit, General Lafayette, who again went to make an appeal to the independence of the people, as he had done in 1792. A few Frenchmen, and the tricoloured flag displayed every where, might have caused a general conflagration. What was to be done? A young, ardent, and inexperienced minister would, perhaps, have engaged in a war; what a happiness it was for the friends of peace that Prussia was governed by a wise king, whose mind was rendered moderate by age, and Austria by a minister who had witnessed so many storms without being frightened by them! One of the principal traits of Metternich's character is his perfect freedom from prejudice, either against or in favour ofpersons or events, so that he forms a judgment of them all with a degree of superiority. He therefore awaited the event of the revolution in a posture of defence; Austria merely held herself in readiness, and military precautions, combined with the renewal of political alliances, enabled her to oppose a barrier to all the invasions of a revolutionary spirit. This moderation was carried so far, that, as soon as a regular government was established in France, Metternich hastened to recognise it, without expressing either dislike or predilection, solely upon the principle that a regular government is always a protection to order and public peace. Since this time, Metternich has appeared to follow three rules of conduct, which govern the whole tenour of his political life. First, to enter into a close alliance with Russia and Austria for the suppression of all disturbances in Europe, and, consequently, to renew all the military contracts entered into at Chaumont in 1814, and Vienna in 1815; secondly, to combat the spirit of Propaganda, under whatever form it may appear; and this was a very laborious task, for the revolution of July had not only dispersed mischievous principles in Europe, but its money, its emissaries, its flag, and its hopes, had been circulated in every direction; and, thirdly, the Propaganda spirit having been every where diffused, Metternich had felt the necessity of augmenting both the military forces of Austria, and also her vigorous police establishment. The executive government has every where become more severe, because it was exposed to more danger. Liberty has sometimes been confounded with a revolutionary spirit in the system of strict repression that has been adopted; and it was unavoidable, perhaps, even necessary, in the complete overthrow of every thing that had been contemplated.The empire of Austria is composed of so many differentnations, that political unity would be as impossible in that empire as in the Russian, which extends over the half of two hemispheres. All that can be looked for is liberty in their local constitutions, and in establishments quite in accordance with the spirit of the States, and more especially with their situation with regard to the Austrian government. The most prejudiced people agree that no country can be more peaceably governed than the hereditary states; the other provinces which have been successively attached to it require more active precautions and a more watchful police; but civil liberty, which is, indeed, the first of all, is even there complete and entire. Let us not exaggerate; I do not propose the Austrian government as a model—I am too great an admirer of liberty and of the institutions of my country not to remain deeply attached to them, but I also give their due to the manners and customs of the people; and we well know that there are some countries that require to be governed, because they are utterly incapable of governing themselves. When travelling in Italy, I have often asked myself whether all these nations, indolently at variance with each other, who possess more genius than national vigour, more liveliness and intelligence than strength and reason, could ever aspire to a laborious liberty under the dominion of the greatly extolled Unity, which must have been obtained sword in hand—in fact, if this rich and lovely Italy, like a charming coquette, was not under the necessity of submitting to the rule of some one, because she has not sufficient energy to master either her love or her hatred.The administration of Prince Metternich appears to be deeply imbued with this sentiment, which has been severely put to the proof by him, that if civil liberty is necessary to all, political liberty is only desirable for a few, so far as it does not affect the character and thesafety of government. Protection should be granted to talent, but it ought to be serious talent, which will not evaporate in pamphlets; improvement, no doubt, is desirable, but it should take place without turbulence. The house of Austria has a great dread of noise, she is afraid of being talked of; never striving afteréclator clamorous liberty, she resembles those German professors who amass a store of erudition and science in some dusty corner of the university, and who only publish a few scarce copies of their works for the use of the learned.The private life of Prince Metternich has been repeatedly visited with domestic affliction. Mourning has darkened his dwelling, and the distractions of the busy world have not always been able to mitigate his grief. In private society his manners are affable, and he enjoys the repose of home after the fatigues of his vast ministerial duties. A clever writer has observed that he spends great part of his time in conversation; it is a propensity indulged in by men who have seen every thing—they take pleasure intalking historyin their fireside conversations, which are carefully preserved by their auditors. And who has not listened with delight to M. Talleyrand, when he used to give vent to his recollections? Prince Metternich has written long and curious memoirs, full of justificatory notes, for he considers himself at the bar of posterity. His work is a great one, and, as I said at the commencement of this sketch, all the glory and all the responsibility of it will rest with him. When we look back upon what Austria was after the peace of Presburg, and that we contemplate her now, greater than she had ever been, with her public credit, her ascendancy among the European states, the peace and the government of her provinces, her civil and military organisation, and then consider that all this is the work ofoneminister, who has governedthe empire for the last thirty years, we may easily form an idea of some of the judgments of posterity. We are ourselves surrounded by ruins, both of men and things; government, administration, ministry, every thing, has fallen to pieces, and when, from the midst of the wreck the revolutions have brought upon us, we turn our eyes upon a countenance which has remained unmoved among all the ravages of time, it appears as if it did not belong to the present period; we look back upon Richelieu, upon those ministers who laid down a system, and then carried it onward to its completion.Prince Metternich has reached an advanced age, yet he preserves all his faculties perfectly, with a ready wit that is admirable, and a freshness of recollection, which turns with extreme pleasure to the time of the French Empire and his embassy to Paris during the reign of Napoleon. We have all some favourite period of our lives, and we love particularly to dwell upon the days of our youth, before the illusions which charmed us had entirely faded away. He always speaks with great respect of the Emperor Napoleon, whose noble countenance exercised an unspeakable influence over his future life. Wherever that great genius passed, it left an indelible impression; and it was by the desire of Metternich that the remains of the Duke de Reichstadt were placed beside those of Maria Theresa and Francis II. in the vault of the Capuchin Church. It is a fine idea of the emperors of Austria to choose their last abode in the church of the most lowly of religious orders, to humble their greatness before the poorest brethren of the Christian church. The Capuchins have every thing in common, among them there is no property, no distinction between mine and thine. Babœuf was only a plagiary from them without the moral idea of heaven, which purifies and sanctifies every thing.The house of Austria is accustomed to be governed by old ministers, and its traditionary spirit takes pleasure in it. In politics it is often better to do well than to do a great deal, to act after due deliberation than to act hastily, and then return to deliberate. Prince Metternich is not an enemy to any form of government that has order for its basis; and this offers an explanation of his conduct since the revolution. When the Propaganda was heard every where, he decided strongly in favour of war, and his expression to the French ambassador at Vienna is well known: "If we must perish, it is just as well to die of apoplexy as to be suffocated with a slow fire; we will declare for war."The wisdom of the French government, its salutary repression of every Propaganda spirit, maintained peace. Since that period the Austrian minister, in all questions of any importance, has preserved the position of an armed mediator, with the invariable desire of preserving peace, and what he terms the Europeanstatus quo. He does not consider the present time requires agitation, war, or conquest. According to him, it is a season of organisation, and, by the position he gives to his monarchy, he holds the balance even, so as to prevent any conflict between the north and south of Europe. He said to me wittily one day: "I am, to a certain degree, the confessor of all the cabinets; I give absolution to those who have committed the fewest sins, and I thus maintain peace in their souls."In this situation it is easier for Metternich to employ himself in particular improvements. Austria is in a remarkable state of prosperity; we ought to be proud of our France, and it undoubtedly is a fine country, but, with our national pride, we form singular ideas upon the state of other people; and yet, among them also, we may every where observe signs of very forward civilisation,commerce, industry, railroads, with pleasing and kind hospitality, all are to be met with in the Austrian states; without speaking of the intellectual movement more sober, and as far advanced as in our country of little romances, novels, theatrical, and literary critiques.Men who like to bring circumstances together have sometimes instituted a comparison between Prince Metternich and Prince Kaunitz, who was so long at the head of the Austrian government. Although these parallels are always rather arbitrary, and that the different shades in the human character are innumerable, we may safely affirm in this instance, that there never existed two minds more completely opposed to each other; the only point of resemblance consists in the duration of their administration. Prince Kaunitz, altogether weakened by the ideas of the eighteenth century, allowed the Austrian empire to degenerate into a state of supineness and indolence. Prince Metternich, on the contrary, has reconstructed and consolidated this monarchy; he has retained nothing of Prince Kaunitz's system, except its extreme moderation, and the traditions ofstatus quo, adopted after the great reign of Maria Theresa. After Metternich, will Austria follow a different system? Will the statesman that appears likely to succeed him adopt a less prudent and more advanced plan? We do not believe it. It is in Austria with the ministers as with the heirs of the throne in England; before their accession they aim at popularity, and, when once at the head of the government, they continue the proceedings of the former reign, because reason and experience are of some value, and that the magnificent part of Austria is to place itself as an idea of pacification between empires which would strike against each other with too much violence.M. DE TALLEYRAND.[7]Oneof the torments of a statesman who has played a great part in politics is to see his conduct subjected to the judgment of ignoble minds and the discussions of people incapable of forming a just estimate of it. How much has been written concerning M. de Talleyrand! how manybons mots, and how many rude sayings have been attributed to him! His biography has been made a sort ofAna, for the amusement of idle people; he has been represented as a kind of facetious personage, almost a mountebank, abounding in all the little wit of society, and of provincial towns. Few men have pierced through the mysteries of that long existence; still fewer have read in the wrinkles of this old man, and in his eyes, still sparkling under his slightly contracted brows, the secret thoughts, the powerful motives that swayed his life, which was one of unity and system.If you have ever travelled in the southern part of France, you must have lingered in the Périgord, theprovince which still comprehends the best and the most numerous nobility of very ancient descent in the whole kingdom. There you will on every side meet with memorials of the Bosons and the Talleyrands, the sovereign princes of the province of Quercy: the keepers of the old records will recount to you the exploits of the Bosons of Périgord, under the Wolf dukes during the Carlovingian dynasty, who received this name from their wild exploits in the forests. The families of Talleyrand and Montesquiou-Fezensac disputed with each other the precedence over all the southern nobility. M. de Talleyrand sprang from the younger branch of the Grignols, who were of the stock of André de Talleyrand, Comte de Grignols, the youngest branch of the Périgord family; the eldest branch became extinct upon the death of Marie Francoise, Princess of Chalais, and Marchioness of Exideuil.[8]I have been particular in dwelling upon the high nobility of his origin, because it greatly assisted his position in diplomatic affairs. Noble birth, however people may declaim against it, facilitates negotiations with European powers. Be it a weakness, be it a habit, when a man takes his place as a titled nobleman, among so many foreigners of illustrious birth, it is an advantage to his position; he treats on a footing of equality, he obtains more because he is among his peers, misfortune does not upset him, because he preserves his name in spite of every thing; he cannot be degraded, for revolutions no more deprive him of the nobility of his race, than the royal confiscations that formerly took place could destroy the old family coat-of-arms.Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord was born at Paris in the year 1754; his maternal grandmother was the clever and witty Princess des Ursins, that eminent person who directed the councils of Philip V. of Spain, as her friend Madame de Maintenon governed the mind of Louis XIV. M. de Talleyrand, being the youngest of the family, was intended for holy orders, according to the custom of the nobility, who devoted themselves to the profession of arms, to the church, or the manor; an active life was necessary to men of family. There had always been a high prelate of the house of Talleyrand, and this ecclesiastical dignity was intended for the young Abbé of Périgord, who was accordingly sent at the age of fourteen to the seminary of Saint-Sulpice. One ought to have heard Talleyrand himself, in his hours of gaiety and unreserve, recount the pranks and first love-affair of the young abbé; his scaling the walls, his visits to the roof of the house,—all of them things little suitable to the serious profession for which he was intended by his family. I think that in reading his Memoirs in the year 1827-28, at which time he was out of favour, he made some concessions to the little philosophers of the eighteenth century, who surrounded him under the Restoration.His ecclesiastical studies were limited; he occupied himself but little with theology, but already very much with business. The situation of general agent for the clergy was given him by the custom of his family, which was a very lucrative appointment, for he might be considered as thechargé d'affairesof that great body, and he exhibited great method and remarkable judgment in the skilful application of the revenues of the church, which amounted to above one hundred and thirty-six millions of livres. The clergy met in a chapter every year, and the Abbé de Talleyrand gave an account of theirrevenues, of the steps he had taken, and the duties he had performed with regard to the court; his reports are remarkably exact, with a clearness of style that is very uncommon.At the age of five-and-thirty, after having attained the majority required by the Church, he was raised to the bishopric of Autun,—a fine appointment, which would afterwards lead to the archbishopric of Rheims and a cardinal's hat. The revenue of the see amounted to 60,000 francs, a magnificent situation for a young bishop, but such was the custom of the nobility; nevertheless, the bent of his inclinations led him to belong to the philosophical society, and the followers of the English school, which began to appear upon the horizon in 1789; among these were Mirabeau, Cabanis, Lally-Tollendal, and Mounier, in fact all the men who were dreaming of a reform in France. People said wittily that M. de Talleyrand, bishop of Autun, with his prebend and his bishopric, looked upon himself as an abuse. At this time people were animated with a glorious passion for suppressing themselves; and when one recollects that the proposal to abolish the titles of nobility was made by De Montmorency, De Montesquiou, La Rochefoucauld, De Talleyrand, and Clermont-Tonnerre, those illustrious elders of the French nobility, one must honestly confess that an incomprehensible spirit of vertigo had taken possession of the French society. There was in this something so insane, so eccentric, that I imagine the ancient nobility must have been led by an interested motive towards the suppression of titles: during the last three centuries so many patents of nobility had been conferred, that the really illustrious families were no longer distinguished: there were too many titled plebeians. Now, if all titles were abolished by a decree, all this nobility of a modern date would be entirely suppressed,for it depended solely upon royal grants and letters patent written according to the caprice of the sovereign; whilst those who bore a historical name, as the Rochefoucaulds, the Montmorencys, and the Montesquious, had no need of deeds to prove their genealogy; it was part of the soil.The Abbé de Talleyrand was in possession of his rich bishopric of Autun when the States-General were convened, and he was appointed deputy of the clergy of his diocese to the Constituent Assembly, so remarkable from its adventurous spirit, the boldness of its conceptions, and its total want of connexion, and absence of all kind of unity or method, either moral or political. The Constituent Assembly was a great chaos, where the opinions of men of talent clashed with each other, where all sorts of extravagances were proposed in the executive government, and all the ideas most fitted to overturn the monarchy and the society of France were encouraged; Rousseau's social contract was applied to a people already old in its customs and civilisation.The Bishop of Autun shewed himself the most zealous protector of all these innovations; he proposed the abolition of titles, and vehemently advocated the civil constitution of the clergy; he also introduced into the public system of education all the ideas of false and mischievous philosophy which the eighteenth century had diffused in human minds. Along with the Marquis of Condorcet, and Cabanis, he was one of the adepts, and of the friends of Mirabeau, whom that statesman and popular orator used to employ for the furtherance of the interests of his intellectual dictatorship. They were accustomed to meet in the evening at Mirabeau's house, to prepare the projects which would resound the next day from the tribune of the assembly. Without being very well educated, the Bishop of Autun wasgifted with an extremely fluent style, and a mode of expression remarkable for its clearness, and its elegant precision: the ancient high nobility certainly always possessed great natural talents; they had but little information, and yet they were eminently gifted with the power of expressing what they wished to say.The solemn festival of the confederation took place at this period, a singular proceeding of which the spirit has been greatly misrepresented: it was theatrical, for such is always necessary in France. In the Champ de Mars an altar was erected, surmounted by tricoloured flags, upon a scaffolding fifty feet high, ornamented with ribands, also of the national colours. Then came M. de Lafayette, at that time a very handsome man, with his courteous and somewhat hypocritical countenance beaming with smiles, mounted upon his snow-white, slender, prancing steed, and wearing the uniform of the National Guard with long skirts and a three-cornered hat on his head, as it was the fashion at the time of the American War. He was then trying on his royal dignity. Around him crowded the deputations from the Departments with their flags; there were many drunken people, as it was natural there should be, and others tired with having wheeled earth from the Champ de Mars; and there was a plentiful exchange of kisses and embraces, according to the system so approved by Lamourette. At the foot of the altar of which I have spoken appeared M. de Talleyrand, bishop of Autun, dressed in his pontifical habits, his mitre on his head, a crosier in his hand, and with manners as elegant, as much refinement, and as studiously dignified a demeanour, as he afterwards discovered when carrying his crutch stick into the assembly of the corps diplomatique: kneeling beside him was the Abbé Louis (afterwardsMinister of Finance) one of the curates, in his alb and surplice.The mass was celebrated with due solemnity by the Bishop of Autun; but there is a tradition which, for the honour and character of Talleyrand, we will believe to be unfounded, that when Mirabeau passed beside the altar the officiating pontiff addressed to him some expressions of mockery and irreligion, which must have weighed heavily upon his conscience on his death-bed. There are, unfortunately, seasons of youth and evil passions, when people give way to anti-Christian ideas, and at that time a degree of impiety was the fashion. Was it not then considered good taste to ridicule the holy and noble ceremonies of the Catholic religion? Talleyrand took a part in all the anti-religious proceedings of the Constituent Assembly upon the situation of the clergy in France, and he was commissioned to apply the civil constitution to his diocese, but the powerful opposition of his clergy did not permit him to accomplish his purpose, for the greater part of the parish priests refused to take the oath. He was present at the consecration of the first constitutional bishops, and, if this devoted conduct was considered deserving of praise by the assembly, it was regarded in a very different light elsewhere, and drew upon him the excommunication of the holy see. Pope Pius VI. published a bull against the Bishop of Autun, in which he declared him out of the pale of the Church, for having become an adherent of the civil constitution of the clergy. This step needs no explanation, such a constitution being in its very essence subversive of all Catholic faith. It was a work of the ultra-Jansenist party, and so thoroughly overstepped all the established rules, that it allowed the Jews and Protestants belonging to various districts and corporationsto participate in the election of the Catholic clergy. A bishop or a schoolmaster was appointed in the same manner that a deputy was elected for the National Assembly, for the whole electoral body discharged their duties in the same manner. An absurd principle of equality had levelled every thing; the people appointed the mayors, the bishops, the parish priests, the deputies, and the municipal officers. It was disorder in equality; the levelling principle had trampled down society.Talleyrand was the intimate friend of Mirabeau, or, to speak with more precision, the great tribune made a tool of him. They had lived together, and together had prepared their works for the Assembly. The popular orator had just been attacked by the mortal disease which carried him off in so rapid and mysterious a manner, and the Bishop of Autun was present when his friend breathed his last. It was not as a ghostly comforter affording him the consolations of his ministry, it was not as a Catholic bishop pointing to a world beyond the grave when those eloquent lips were about to be sealed in death; M. de Talleyrand sat by the bedside of the dying man as the depository of his last thoughts and of his political labours, which led to the destruction of the monarchy. Mirabeau had committed to writing a work upon the equal division of inheritance among the different members of a family, and on the right of making testamentary dispositions, it being the object of the Revolutionists to overturn civil rights as they had already destroyed political ones, because it was well known they were intimately connected. The Bishop of Autun undertook to read the discourse of Mirabeau in the name of his friend at the National Assembly, and excited the most lively enthusiasm while repeating the last words of the orator whose career was now at an end.The life of Mirabeau had been, in some respects, the reaction of a mind filled with strong passions against the persecutions he had endured as a son from the hand of a severe and inflexible father, and his discourse upon limiting the right of making a will and on the equal division of inheritance affords the most certain proof of it. The gift of eloquence was held in the most enthusiastic estimation by the Constituent Assembly, it resolved the greatest part of its business into brilliant oratorical theories, resting upon the ideas of demolition, which were the offspring of the eighteenth century, and as Talleyrand had some difficulty in ascending the tribune, he played but a secondary part at that time. He excited attention principally by his management of business and by his assiduous attendance on committees; it does not appear that he had attained, even at this period, to the reputation of taciturn ability enjoyed by the Abbé Siéyès, and I seldom meet with his name in important and brilliant discussions.When the Constituent Assembly had concluded their work, Talleyrand quitted France for England. M. de Chauvelin was ambassador there from the unfortunate Louis XVI., and the Bishop of Autun received a commission, of which the object was to draw the two governments of France and England into a nearer resemblance to each other, by establishing a system of two legislative chambers exactly upon the model of the English houses of parliament. There was already some idea of a revolution like that of 1688, and Talleyrand might serve as an agent for the attempt, for there was a good understanding between him and M. de Chauvelin, and a still better between him and the clubs of England. But opinions travelled too fast to allow proper consideration being given to the due balance of power, and the sovereignty of the people had given rise to the scheme ofa single chamber. Diplomatic business now went on in a singular manner; instead of the clever and prudent system, which since the commencement of the reign of Louis XVI. had secured so many advantages to France, so many favourable treaties, so many important annexations of territory, the diplomatic corps now amused themselves in encouraging the propaganda and spreading every where the spirit of Jacobinism. M. de Talleyrand had some interviews with the principal leaders of the Whigs, and his intimacy with Earl Grey began from this date. Shortly after this, being concerned in the intrigues of Danton, he returned to Paris on the 11th of August, and he always took pleasure in saying that his not having perished on the 2d of September was owing to the efforts of that singularly energetic man, as well as his having been able to obtain a passport for England.As the course of events was progressing towards war, and that the trial of Louis XVI. was considered by the Tories as a total subversion of every thing, Talleyrand received an order to quit Great Britain in virtue of the alien act, and was only allowed twenty-four hours to make his arrangements. In the year 1793 people were in the midst of revolutionary excitements; he, therefore, did not return to France, but embarked for the United States, the country that was then pointed out as a model, a pattern government, which the republican party in the Legislative Assembly always cited as the most perfect that political ideas could conceive, and which M. de la Fayette never ceased to extol. At that time two schools prevailed, the American system and the revolution of 1688, both of which have been since renewed and perpetuated both in men and events.Talleyrand settled in the United States, and during some years he devoted himself to commerce, and engagedin speculations with a considerable degree of activity. There always was something adventurous and bold in his disposition in money matters; to use a familiar expression, no one ever made his fortune oftener than M. de Talleyrand, without being particularly scrupulous as to the means he employed. His property in France was sequestered, it was, therefore, with very limited funds that he commenced his mercantile operations in the United States; and it was certainly singular enough to see a bishop of 1789, afterwards a popular orator, then a secret diplomatist acting as a spy for a party of the National Assembly, finally transforming himself into a merchant in a counting-house at Boston or New York. The shades of the ancient Bosons of Périgord, those great feudal barons, must have been horrified and have indignantly grasped their lances and their coats of arms when they contemplated their descendant seated amid bales of cotton in a republic of shopkeepers. In this manner do revolutions take hold of a man's destiny, play with it, and raise and abase it by turns; but the nobility had already accustomed France to still more extraordinary courses: had not men of noble birth in Brittany and Gascony become freebooters and buccaneers under Henry IV., Louis XIII., and Louis XIV.?A commercial profession in a country so distant from important events did not suit Talleyrand's inclination, and when order was a little restored, he lost no time in soliciting permission to return to France, the scene of his earliest days. He had left many friends there, among the partisans of what was called the moderate republic and constitutional system; such were Chenier and Madame de Staël, belonging to the literary and philosophical portion of society under the Directory, who had regained some degree of importance after theReign of Terror was past, for in calmer times the different shades of a party become more evident.It was particularly to the earnest solicitations of Madame de Staël that Talleyrand owed his return, and we know that her influence was at that time very great. Chenier undertook the report, and a decree was passed revoking the rigorous measures that had been adopted in 1793 against the late Bishop of Autun; it was also declared that he had not emigrated. Talleyrand had at that time entirely left off the ecclesiastical habit, and appeared every where as a layman. He enjoyed in the world a great reputation for wit and talent; there was something noble in his countenance, without its being exactly striking; he carried his head remarkably well, and his hair fell in curls upon his shoulders. He was no longer a young man, still his reputation for gallantry and for agreeableness in society had procured for him a great ascendancy over some women of that period, in the midst of that most singular society in the time of Barras and the Directory, in which were jumbled together men of high rank, contractors, renowned characters, and courtesans. Talleyrand had brought with him Madame Grand, with whom he had become acquainted at Hamburg, and, by a whimsical contrast, it was said no woman ever was possessed of less sense or less intelligence. We know how many capital stories were told of her in the Fauxbourg St. Germain, of which even the republic was so much afraid. The reason is, that the spirit of good society possesses great influence at the time that a bad state of society prevails. Jests were uttered, and the most charmingnaïvetéswere attributed to Madame Talleyrand, of which that regardingM. Denon and Robinson Crusoeis, perhaps, the most inimitable.As soon as he arrived in Paris, Talleyrand joined theConstitutional Club, which used to meet at the Hôtel de Salm. Many thinking people saw the republic was gradually coming to an end, it had then but very little root in France. It was no longer possible to maintain a feeble and violent democracy, which gave way to the most fantastic and extraordinary paroxysms in the public assembly; people returned to the system of the balance of power, and to the English ideas that the school of Mounier and Lally-Tollendal had been desirous of rendering prevalent in the Constituent Assembly, and that Talleyrand had been commissioned to represent in London, in his secret mission, in which, as I before observed, there was mingled some idea of a revolution like that of 1688.The institution of an executive directory had been the first step towards an oligarchic system, where, in default of an unity of power, a centre of action, reduced to five persons, had been established. Talleyrand applied all his credit to the support of the Directory, for, not being strong enough at that time to resist or to try to overturn the government, his only object was to draw some advantage from it. He refused steadily to join the royalist party, which, before the 18th Fructidor, was preparing the downfall of the Directory; still less would he belong to the Jacobin faction, for which he felt a strong antipathy, on account of its construction and its inclinations; accordingly, when the 18th Fructidor burst over France, with the proscription of the councils and the press, he was appointed to the ministry for foreign affairs; and theMoniteurannounced that citizen Talleyrand, devoted to the interests of the republic, was about to give a powerful impulse to our relations with foreign powers. To accept office under a republic was a singular employment for the heir of the Bosons of Périgord; but then was not the heir of the Barras, a family as old asthe rocks of Provence, the chief of the five directors? A curious history might be written by following the career of the old nobility during the French revolution; they assumed the position that men of gentle blood had done in former times during civil disturbances, every thing adventurous suited the younger branches of a noble family.We must now consider what was the state of France with regard to foreign affairs. The Directory was at war with Austria, Russia, and England; Belgium was ours, we occupied part of Italy, and the rest was transformed into little republics, after the model of the executive directory; for there was at that time, as during all revolutions, a great propaganda mania. Money was the principal instrument of the Directory, every thing was accomplished by means of bribery, and people made haste to achieve a fortune, that they might afterwards spend it in miserable debauchery. When a negotiation was opened with a foreign power, the first step was to impose contributions, and to demand secret presents; and the minister for foreign affairs was a sort of agent commissioned to receive all thisspolia opima, which afterwards went to fatten the friends of Barras and Siéyès, or some women who invaded the saloons of the Luxembourg, and presided over their sensual rites. It was a time when modesty was banished; the state of society resembled the Greek courtesans of the Directory, who, while they almost dispensed with clothing, covered even their feet with precious stones. Talleyrand began afresh to work at his fortune, but, no doubt, he manœuvred with too little discretion, for at the end of some months he was openly denounced by Charles de Lacroix, and was obliged to give in his resignation, after having published a rather curious pamphlet, which I have succeeded in obtaining; it bears the name of "Eclaircissements."A pamphlet written by him is a very rare book, for he has written very little in the course of his life. This little work contains an exposition of the conduct of Citizen Talleyrand, from the time of the Constituent Assembly to his appointment to the ministry for foreign affairs, and is couched in very moderate language. The ex-minister replies to his calumniators with remarkable clearness and simplicity, appealing to the testimony afforded by the past, during the whole course of his life. This pamphlet excited a vast controversy. Citizen Talleyrand was also impeached as an extortioner from the tribune of the Five Hundred, even by Lucien Buonaparte, and he was overwhelmed under the evidence produced against him, with the view of applying the principle of ministerial responsibility to his case. He had great difficulty in escaping from this unpleasant situation, in which he had been placed by rather too much avidity during his ministry for foreign affairs. I must confess, one of the defects of his character was his public indifference to all charges brought against him with regard to money; it often compromised his reputation, and sometimes placed him in a very awkward situation.Having quarrelled with the Directory, we now find him working with all his might for the establishment of the consular government. Buonaparte had surrounded himself on his return from Egypt with all the men who possessed any political talent or any idea of order in society, and he did not disdain the extensive abilities of M. de Talleyrand. The Abbé Siéyès had no predilection for the Bishop of Autun; there was an angry feeling between them on clerical subjects; but Napoleon required them both, he indulged in no feelings of repugnance when the triumph of his ambition was at stake; he therefore employed them both, each according to his abilities, so as to render them subservient to hisdesigns. The influence of Talleyrand over the constitutional party was not devoid of utility upon the 18th Brumaire, and when the consular government was established, the provisional commission appointed him minister for foreign affairs as a recompense for the service he had rendered, and Buonaparte confirmed him in his situation as soon as he was proclaimed First Consul.A more extensive field was now open before him; the consular government was founded on a principle of unity, there was no longer in their relations with foreign powers the unrestrained violence exhibited by the National Convention, or the unconnected measures pursued by the Directory. It was possible to negotiate with decency and moderation, the relations of one state to another were assuming a character of regularity they had never possessed under any of the preceding governments, and then commenced the great diplomatic arrangements which were at last to bless Europe with repose.The glorious commencement of the consulate was distinguished by numerous treaties; at Lunneville peace was concluded with Austria, at Amiens a covenant was made with England; other treaties were succeeded by peace with Russia and the Porte, and in all these negotiations Talleyrand evinced great skill and knowledge of what was proper and advisable. He placed the correspondence between governments upon an excellent footing, keeping aloof from the extravagant system which the agents of the Directory introduced into foreign negotiations during the time of theCarmagnolediplomatists, who levied so many forced contributions upon the pictures, the gold crucifixes, and the little property of the poor in the Mont de Piété.[9]These treaties were a great assistance to the fortune of Talleyrand, being almost all followed by presents of considerable value, according to the custom observed in negotiations between one state and another.On these occasions the minister did not exhibit sufficient modesty, I might say, sufficient discretion, for people had a tolerably good idea how much he had gained by each treaty, in money and diamonds. No doubt there was some exaggeration in the charges brought against him by discontented people, but I repeat it, one great defect of M. de Talleyrand was an inclination to play with bribery and corruption, and to establish it as a theoretic principle, even in his conversation: the stain remains upon his name. He held men in too much contempt, and this is a sentiment which society always returns with interest. It was now necessary he should lay the foundation of a new fortune; he entered boldly into various speculations: while avaricious and economical in little things, he gambled in the stocks with a perfect frenzy, and even lost considerable sums of money in them. Immediately after the peace of Amiens he had speculated upon a rise, and his gain appeared almost certain, but it happened by one of those caprices which stock-jobbing can alone explain, that the public funds fell more than ten per cent after the signing of the treaty, and he lost several millions of francs in a single turn of the stocks. These caprices of fortune occurred repeatedly in the course of his long life, and explain the necessity he was constantly under of repairing his fortune.The late Bishop of Autun had just been entirely restored to secular life by permission of Pope Pius VII. While the negotiation concerning the concordat was in progress, the First Consul insisted M. Portalis should write to Rome, and request a brief from the pope authorising the secularisation of M. de Talleyrand; andthe venerable Pius VII., who made so many sacrifices to obtain peace for the Church, consented to the act, though he rather exceeded his powers by so doing, as according to the canon the character of priest is indelible. It is said that this brief was not entirely explicit, the pontiff did not establish a principle permitting the marriage of priests; he merely, in virtue of his discretionary power, granted an act of indulgence and personal pardon to M. de Talleyrand for a deed he had already committed.The ex-bishop had hardly laid down his crosier before he was compelled to submit to the imperious requisitions of the First Consul. Buonaparte, who piqued himself upon his strict morality, insisted he should enter the state of matrimony—a most grievous yoke to impose upon a man of wit and good taste, for, with his habitual tact, Talleyrand had been well aware of the amusement afforded to the Fauxbourg St. Germain by the silliness and ignorance of Madame Grand, and when she should be legally invested with the title of Citizeness Talleyrand, how she would expose herself to the sarcasms and the ridicule of the aristocracy! But there was no help for it, for the First Consul had decided it should be so. The marriage was accordingly celebrated at the municipality and in the church, and as people expressed it,the Bishop of Autun took to himself a wife.The ministry of the First Consul now comprehended two men of great importance, Talleyrand and Fouché. The one represented at the court of Buonaparte the ancient aristocracy restored—he was essentially the man of diplomatic forms and traditions; Fouché, on the contrary, was the representative of Jacobinism and the revolutionary principle, which the First Consul considered as an internal malady fatal to his power. A deeply-rooted and continual competition could not fail toarise between two characters who had been led to accept office by such different ideas, and who met in the presence of Napoleon as the expression of such different systems. Both were men of incontestable ability, and were constantly informing against each other, or, at least, keeping a careful watch over the proceedings of their rival colleague; in addition to which, Fouché was very anxious to obtain the direction of Foreign affairs. Buonaparte was perfectly aware of the hatred that existed between them, but he was too wise to sacrifice one of the ministers to the other; each served as a check upon his rival, and he listened to the information they gave him, quite certain that neither would allow the treacherous dealings of the other to escape. It was in this manner Fouché delivered to Buonaparte the minutes of the secret treaty with Paul I., which Talleyrand had communicated to the court of London through the medium of one of his agents. The agent was sacrificed, but Buonaparte did not venture to touch his principal, because there was some danger in making known the treachery. Talleyrand afterwards employed the same agent in several subordinate negotiations; indeed, it is well known that he rather preferred people who were not much incommoded by scruples of conscience, men of whom he could boldly disclaim all knowledge if necessary, and who were content he should do so.We now come to the lamentable affair of the Duc d'Enghien; and there is not the slightest doubt that Talleyrand was as well acquainted as General Savary with Buonaparte's determination to seize the prince. He denied it in vain, for positive proofs exist of the truth of our assertion; amongst others, his letter to the Baron of Edelsheim, minister of Baden, which has been preserved in an entire state. The following is an extract from it: "The First Consul has considered it necessaryto order two detachments to proceed to Offemburg and to Ettenheim, to secure the authors of so odious a crime, which is sufficient to deprive the persons who have been concerned in it of the benefit of the law of nations."After the arrest of the unfortunate prince, Talleyrand was acquainted with all the proceedings of this horrible affair, and he was present at the privy council where his condemnation was determined upon, or, at least, discussed. I dare not believe the cold and laconic reply attributed to him in the drawing-room of his old friend, the Duchess of ***, the very evening the Duc d'Enghien was tried at Vincennes. This reply was not only an atrocious expression, but it also involved a degree of imprudence which did not make part of his character. It is bad enough to have been concerned even indirectly in so fearful a crime.In the midst of the active negotiations in which Talleyrand felt obliged to appear and to take a part, was there a political system formed in his mind, or merely a general principle? He still retained a strong bias towards English ideas, and a wish for an alliance with that country. This system, on which his earliest diplomatic plans were based, was constantly in his mind; he had not forgotten his residence in England at the beginning of the French revolution under M. de Chauvelin; he was also intimately connected with the Whig party, and considered Great Britain as the political ally of France against Russia, which last appeared to him, of all the powers in Europe, the most dangerous, as far as the civilisation of the world was concerned. He had not observed that by her situation Russia is our easiest, our most natural, and our most disinterested ally, for France and Russia do not clash either in a political or commercial point of view. But there are some early impressions which never wear out, and Talleyrand had passedsome of the best years of his life in England, and on terms of friendship with Lord Grey, Lord Russell, Fox, and Sheridan.
The storm soon burst.
Napoleon then landed in the Gulf of Juan to attempt his heroic exploit of the Hundred Days. Matters were in a strangely complicated state at the Congress of Vienna, and Napoleon, looking at the affairs of Europe under one point of view only, had formed a fair judgment of the condition of the allied powers with regard to each other, without, however, comprehending that his presence on the Continent would unite them all in a terrible coalition. The very name of Buonaparte filled the old European sovereignties with so much alarm, that they recovered themselves with the utmost haste, in order to take measures for the general safety.
They owed to the activity of Talleyrand and Metternich the official declaration of the Congress of Vienna, which placed Buonaparte at the ban of Europe, simultaneouslyroused against the common enemy. The mystic spirit of Alexander entered willingly into the idea of a Christian alliance and a European crusade, and Metternich, after the system he had adopted ever since the rupture in 1813, could not depart from the military agreement entered into at Chaumont. Napoleon was declared at the ban of the empire by a revived custom of the ancient assemblies of the German Diet.
The pretended agreement between Napoleon, Austria, and England, at the time of his landing in the Gulf of Juan, was a romance invented afterwards by the imperialist party. Napoleon, who was well informed concerning the diplomatic state of things, might imagine a separation of interests among the cabinets a probable thing, but beyond this there was nothing. One of his first steps was to endeavour to place himself in communication with Metternich, and we again find Fouché in correspondence with the chief of the Austrian cabinet: they had never lost sight of each other since their memorable conference in 1809, and their acquaintance was renewed in 1813, when Fouché was appointed Governor-General of Illyria. I have reason to believe, that they had even then spoken to each other in confidence concerning the decline of power ofthat man, as the disaffected called Napoleon, and of the possibility of a regency under Maria Louisa; in 1813 the subject they would select for their conversation would probably be the abdication of the Emperor, which was one of the favourite ideas of the senatorial party. At the same time Napoleon wrote to Maria Louisa, he despatched, by means of some secret agents, confidential letters from intimate friends of the minister, and even from a princess of the imperial blood, between whom and Prince Metternich a tender feeling had existed: and finally, in order to sow dissension throughout thewhole of Europe, he transmitted to the Emperor Alexander a copy of the treaty of the triple alliance, concluded against Russia in the month of March 1815, and signed by Lord Castlereagh, Talleyrand, and Metternich: his primary object was to break the powerful union among the sovereigns.
At this period, the Austrian armies had marched into Italy against Murat and the Neapolitans, and General Bianchi had obtained the most brilliant victories over the wavering and ill-organised troops of Joachim. Metternich caused all the fortresses of the kingdom of Naples and the Roman States to be garrisoned by Austrian troops; for he had decided, in concert with the French legation, upon the re-establishment of the House of Bourbon at Naples as completing the scheme of the government of Europe.
While Fouché was negotiating with Metternich a plan for substituting the regency under Maria Louisa to the empire, organised as it had been during the hundred days, French agents were contriving means of carrying off the child who had been saluted in his cradle with the title of King of Rome. A great deal of mystification went on in all this; there was even one of these gentlemen, otherwise, too, a man in good society, who received a large sum of money, but who had in reality no other object than that of joining M. de Talleyrand at Vienna. Napoleon had promised that his wife and son would be present at the Champ de Mai, but Metternich's police baffled the intentions of the French agents, and, with the politeness which characterises all his actions, the minister conducted the daughter of the emperor and the Duke de Reichstadt to the palace of Schönbrunn, under an escort of the most trustworthy servants of the house of Austria. It was one of the most delicate circumstances that occurred during the life of Metternich, a man, too, always remarkablefor his attention to propriety; for Maria Louisa did not at that time feel the cold indifference for Napoleon which she afterwards exhibited, and she was a party to the project formed for carrying her off, by some attendants who had remained with her, but who now all received an order to quit Schönbrunn.
The Austrian armies proceeded from Italy across the Alps, and took a part in the melancholy invasion of the south of France; they afterwards occupied Provence and Languedoc as far as Auvergne, their head-quarters being at Lyons and Dijon. On the dissolution of the Congress of Vienna, after the second fall of Napoleon, Metternich repaired to Paris, to be present at the conferences which were to precede the treaty of November 1815. Prussia and England had been victorious at Waterloo, and their interest had proportionally increased. In the negotiations of Paris, the two cabinets of Berlin and Vienna acted in concert to represent the interests of Germany, which were very hostile to the French nation. The German population had been greatly irritated during the gigantic efforts that Europe had made against Napoleon; the secondary princes on the banks of the Rhine demanded Alsace and a portion of Lorraine, marked upon a map drawn in 1815 (which now lies before me), under the name of Germania, as the representation of Germany. There was a terrible reaction in that country against France, one of those refluxes of the people and the national feeling by which various periods of our history have been distinguished.
Nevertheless, what organisation, exterior or interior, did they intend to establish, to form a general constitution in Germany? How could they restore to the Emperor Francis the influence in that country which he formerly possessed, but of which he had been deprived by Napoleon? Germany had arisen with the doublecry of liberty and unity on her lips. Unity! how was it to be established among principalities of which the power and the population varied so greatly, and who still maintained the feudal principle in the midst of civilised Europe? And liberty! it was an indefinite expression; how could it be applied to so many different systems of government, and to so many various localities whose interests were so distinct from each other? The scheme of the Confederation of the Rhine had been formed by Napoleon solely with a view of increasing the importance of all the petty states, and of inducing them to enter into a coalition hostile to Austria and Prussia. Now circumstances were altered; Austria and Prussia were the great predominant powers, whose business it was to establish their own influence, and govern the whole confederation by means of a protectorate, more or less clearly defined; Prussia assuming the power in the northern provinces, Austria to the south. It was necessary, when the fatherland should be threatened, that its mixed population should be capable of being called forth to serve indifferently in the armies of Prussia and Austria. The unity of the German states was thus opposed as a barrier against Russia and France, and served equally as a protection against both those nations.
Metternich, when he gave up the old imperial mantle in the name of the emperor, obtained for him a more real advantage as president of the diet; a number of votes were awarded to Austria and Prussia, in proportion to the importance of their position; and either by means of their command of the army of the confederation, or by their influence in the diet, these two countries held undisputed sway over the deliberations and the employment of the troops. No doubt, many little acts of injustice were committed, and some caprice was exhibited in the repartition of the states and of the contingents.Sovereignties were sometimes aggrandised because they were protected by the Emperor Alexander, and, sometimes, even by Metternich; but where are the human operations over which perfect justice presides? Since they were desirous of unity, this sacrifice of some to the cause of all was the natural consequence of it; and should it now be asked, what is to be the result of this confederation, I reply, that Austria has reason to fear lest Prussia should assume a constantly increasing importance in Germany. The destiny of Austria henceforth is elsewhere, her future lies in the south; Prussia is too singularly situated not to strive to agglomerate her dominions; she will undoubtedly do so, either in point of fact, by means of conquest, or morally, by the influence she will exercise. It is towards the shores of the Adriatic that Austria will find herself indemnified for the diminution of her influence in central Germany.
The cry of liberty had been raised in Germany when it roused itself against Napoleon; and the secret societies of Schill and Stein still had representatives in old Blucher and General Gniesenau. What did the government propose doing for the liberty they demanded? Constitutions had been promised, and representative states were granted to some principalities, but, the victory being once obtained, there was hesitation about proceeding any farther.
Now that experience has made us perfectly acquainted with the spirit of revolutions, it is easy to understand how, in the rapid alteration of political situations, the promises of to-day are violated to-morrow. It is in vain to imagine that these periods of transition, when the people struggle for crochets of sovereignty, can bear a comparison with seasons when the proceedings of the government are calm and regular; after victory the popular excitement shews itself unreasonable, and wantsto insist upon promises the government is no longer able to perform.
In 1813, during the period of battles and revolutions, many things had been promised to Germany; but was it possible to perform them in 1815 and 1816? Suppose that in Germany, that country of excitement and mystical spirit, the utopias of the secret societies had been realised,—a political existence given to the universities, and a turbulent representation to all the states,—that they had granted them the liberty of the press and an organised democracy,—would Germany ever have reached the high degree of prosperity and public tranquillity she now enjoys? We must take customs as they exist, and minds with the habits they have formed; we must not give a people institutions which would be a torment to their existence without increasing their well-being. I do not say that the governments of Austria and Prussia acted rightly in not fulfilling their promises—I merely say, that time alone can shew whether this conduct proceeded from prudence, or from a calculating spirit of selfishness. The events of 1814 and 1815 had considerably increased the possessions of Austria in Italy, and, as this was really a country obtained by conquests, it was natural and necessary that an armed surveillance should be established in the Lombardo-Venetian territory, as well as a police capable of controlling the provinces united to the Austrian empire. The utmost ability will be required to slacken successively the springs of this police, in proportion as the victors may be more firmly established in their foreign possessions. To have granted free constitutions to the people would have been an imprudent generosity, for this conquest, like those of Napoleon, could only be maintained by military occupation, which it was desirable to render as little oppressive as circumstanceswould permit. The Italians, a hot and enthusiastic people, had driven out the French in the day of their calamity; the Austrians should endeavour to avoid a similar misfortune, and keep carefully upon their guard.
Here begins the melodrama which has been cast around the person of Prince Metternich, with the picture of the cruel prisons and Piombi of Venice. I appeal to the Christian sincerity and good faith of Silvio Pellico, whether there be one word of real truth in his book,Le mie Prigioni. Does he call to mind the terrible Piombi of Venice, which, in his case, consisted of a room on the fourth floor in the ducal palace, commanding a most extensive view over the Great Canal, and for which Lord Byron would have paid some hundreds of sequins? He was deprived of his liberty, it is true; and this is, no doubt, a deplorable misfortune: but had he engaged in a conspiracy?—had he attempted to overturn the established government? He avows that he had done so, and in attempts of this kind a man sets his liberty and
"Life upon a cast,And he must stand the hazard of the die."
"Life upon a cast,And he must stand the hazard of the die."
The Austrian cabinet, no doubt, takes ample precautionary measures, but there is no cruelty or oppression in its system; and whoever has had an opportunity of conversing with Prince Metternich ought to ask himself, whether it is possible a man of so calm and reasonable an intellect should be guilty of an act of barbarity without even a motive for his conduct?
The strict repressive measures upon which the system of Prince Metternich in Germany and Italy is founded occasioned a movement of reaction; for liberty, that master passion of the mind, does not allow itself to be crushed without making some despairing efforts. Farfrom the secret societies having been dissolved in Germany, they were regularly organised in the universities among the students, and the heated state of their minds was encouraged by the influence of poetry and the political writings, which called upon the courage and patriotism of all those who possessed noble hearts to lend their assistance to the German unity. This unity, so loudly appealed to by the young generation, was in reality only a sort of federative republic, in which all the states, while enjoying their individual freedom, were to be united by the practice of virtue, and would thus tend to the general happiness of mankind. The old German sovereignties were obliged to curb these associations, which burst forth in the assassination of Kotzebue.
Metternich had just been travelling in Italy when the universities distinguished themselves by this sanguinary crime. He was loaded with the benefits of his sovereign; he now bore the title of prince, and stars of almost all the orders of knighthood in Europe glittered on his breast. The state of fermentation which existed in Germany had not escaped his statesmanlike penetration, and it was solely at his suggestion that a congress took place at Carlsbad, where severe and distrustful measures were adopted against the organisation of the public schools in Germany. The conduct of the universities, the repression of seditious writings, the establishment of a political police,—nothing was neglected in this regular crusade, undertaken by the government against the revolutionary feelings by which the heated imaginations were then inflamed. After great disturbances have taken place in a state, the sole anxiety of the government is to check any disposition to disorder, and they are excited to do so by public opinion, and by the middle classes, who entertain a dread of fresh revolutions, and with good reason.
In the year of the Congress of Carlsbad, the Propaganda menaced the kingdoms of Europe with a fresh revolution. Let us observe accurately their situation in 1820. Towards the south there was the insurrection of Spain and the Cortes, and the proclamation of a government more liberal than even that of England; at Naples, almost by a magical echo, the constitution was also proclaimed; from Naples the cry of liberty was heard in Piémont, and the king was deprived of his throne. In Paris the disturbances were so great that the government was exposed every evening to a change in its political system. This year of 1820 might be considered as the first edition of the stupendous event of July, which took place ten years later with all the fracas of an insurrection.
Austria was particularly endangered by these revolutions, for the extremities of the kingdom of Naples and Piémont came in close contact with her Italian possessions. The people had declared themselves; the sovereigns then became aware of the danger, and roused themselves for their defence; congresses were held at Troppau and at Laybach, and Metternich, without hesitation, urged the adoption of powerful measures to quell the revolutionary spirit now manifested; he was so deeply convinced of their indispensable necessity, that he opposed every kind of delay, and only required the moral support of Prussia and Russia, declaring at once that an Austrian army was about to march into Italy and occupy Naples and Piémont. The Emperor Alexander, whose mind was full of the dread of secret societies and plots in Europe, lent his support to Metternich. There was but one single instance of opposition with regard to Piémont, and it is known from whence proceeded these objections. To such a degree has history been disfigured! It proceeded from the dignity ofLouis XVIII., and the despatches of the Duc de Richelieu and M. Pasquier. The revolutionary spirit was breaking out in the streets of Paris in 1820, and the restored sovereign declared to Metternich, that if the Austrian army entered Piémont their occupation could not be of long continuance, as France could not allow of the Austrians upon the Alps.
In thiswrestling, to use the old expression of M. Bignon, the cabinets had the advantage over the people. Naples was overcome in a few marches, and Piémont was occupied by the Austrian troops. The repressive impulse being once given, a combined system was every where manifested with the design of suspending political liberty. War was declared by the cabinets against all forms of government which owed their birth to military excitement or to an exclusively revolutionary spirit. Metternich was present at the Congress of Verona, a meeting which appears to me to have been the final expression of the will of Europe regarding the spirit of insurrection. France was charged with the suppression of the Spanish Cortes, as Metternich had executed by force of arms the will of the allied powers against Naples and Piémont. Here the cabinets were again successful, the revolution was completely suppressed, as far as regarded its power of action, and only kept a place in the disordered imagination.
All these acts of government, and all the proclamations which followed the assembly of the Congress, were the especial work of Prince Metternich. The Chancellor of Austria possesses a remarkable flow of language, a pure taste, and a noble manner of expressing his ideas, even in a diplomatic despatch, where the sense is almost always hidden under technical, and, it may be added, heavy modes of speech. To him is owing the style distinguishedby the elevation of ideas, which always appeals to posterity and to the justice of future times, from the opinion formed by contemporary passions. He even allows himself to be carried on too far by his anxiety to express his meaning, and by the literary ornament he is desirous of conferring upon the most trifling despatch that leaves his cabinet; he takes the principal part in their composition, he writes in French with extreme elegance and precision, and he reads all the newspapers regularly, even to the part which contains merely literary and theatrical critiques. Those who saw him in 1825, when the unfortunate illness of his wife obliged him to visit Paris, were surprised to find him possessed of the most exquisite literary taste. He was acquainted with all our good authors, and shewed remarkable sagacity in the judgment he formed of the writers of our own times. One could hardly imagine how a politician, whose life had been spent in affairs of so much importance, could have found time to study the most trifling productions of literature.
Affairs were now settled in Europe. The governments began to emerge a little from the undecided political condition proclaimed by the Holy Alliance. From the beginning of the year 1827, Metternich had felt some uneasiness concerning the proceedings of Russia with regard to the Ottoman Porte, which was likely to be productive of extreme danger to the Austrian influence. If the Russian projects were realised, Austria would see herself deprived of her ascendancy over the Porte, which was nearly as old as that of France. At this time Metternich caused the French ministry to be sounded, but he was hardly listened to, for the most decided negotiations were in progress between the three cabinets of Russia, London, and Paris, on the Greek question; andhere it is well to explain the refusal of Metternich to interfere with the transactions which led to the treaty of July 1827.
Since the year 1824, the cause of the Greeks had assumed a degree of consistency and a European character. Every era has its policy of sentiments, and people were now infatuated with a classic fanaticism for the Greeks. No doubt there was something glorious in the heroism which strove to burst the chain of the barbarians; but the enthusiastic declarations of Russia, her strong and pressing despatches in favour of the Greeks, were, in their main object, less the expression of a religious sympathy than the proceedings of a skilful policy, which sought to abase the Ottoman Porte, in order subsequently to reduce it into a state of vassalage. Russia, therefore, applied to Charles X., by speaking of the cross which had brought salvation to the world. In England it roused into action the Greek committee, and it was under the influence of these philanthropic prepossessions that the treaty of July 1827, and the battle of Navarino, which was the consequence of it, led to serious uneasiness on the part of Metternich. This minister instantly divined the full consequences of this shortsighted policy. The battle of Navarino, by crippling the power of the Porte, killed it, in a political sense, for the advantage of Russia: it was the prelude to the campaign of 1828 to the Balkan. Russia had succeeded in getting M. de la Ferronays placed at the head of foreign affairs in France: he was an honest man, but rather Russian in his inclinations and habits; consequently, Metternich could not draw France into a scheme of confederation and armed league against Russia. He was more fortunate in England with the Duke of Wellington, who acknowledged the mistake into which Mr. Canning had fallen, and pronounced thebattle of Navarinoan untoward event. England had thus returned to a perfect understanding of which were her real interests.
People may ask, why did not Metternich at this time decide upon war? how came it that he did not at once take part with the Ottoman Porte? It was in consequence of the fixed system of the Austrian chancellor; he has gained every thing through peace. The conquests of Austria are owing to her pacific principles—to the species of armed neutrality which is always ready at the proper moment to obtain some advantage. A war would have compromised its general position in Europe. Being on good terms with England, and in concert with that nation, the Austrian cabinet stayed the victory; it was gaining something during the Russian expedition of 1829, but it was not enough.
During this time events were advancing in France towards an unavoidable crisis; the ministry of M. de Polignac had just been formed. Under a merely political point of view, this was an advantage for Austria, for the Russian system had been abandoned, and they had entered into all the English ideas concerning the Eastern question; still a mind possessed of so much penetration could not fail to entertain great anxiety while watching so earnest a struggle between the political powers in a country like France, which had been accustomed to give an impulse to the rest of Europe. It is said that Metternich advised acoup-d'état: does this idea evince an acquaintance with the spirit of moderation and the capacity of the prime minister of Austria? Acoup-d'étatis too decided and too noisy a step ever to enter into the mind of Prince Metternich: when a difficult situation occurs, he does not attack it in front—he turns it; and, when he shews himself very determined in a strong and firm resolution, it is because people's minds arealready made up, and there is no longer any risk in having recourse to it. The Chancellor of the Empire was too well aware of the folly of M. de Polignac, and of the want of firmness of Charles X., to be ignorant that they were incapable of conducting a perilous undertaking to a prosperous termination. In the Foreign Office there is a despatch on this subject from M. de Rayneval, then ambassador at Vienna, who details one of his conversations with Prince Metternich, precisely upon thesecoups-d'état; it was much the subject of conversation at Vienna, and the uneasiness entertained concerning the system followed by M. de Polignac is revealed in more than one despatch addressed to M. d'Appony, the Austrian ambassador at Paris.
Then broke out the revolution of July, an event of prodigious importance. Europe had never been in so much danger; for what were the ideas that led to the eruption? Was it not the spirit of the secret societies?—republicanism again triumphant in France, the country which, for the last forty years, had been accustomed to give the general impulse to continental Europe? The Propaganda principles had for their leader that old and obstinate spirit, General Lafayette, who again went to make an appeal to the independence of the people, as he had done in 1792. A few Frenchmen, and the tricoloured flag displayed every where, might have caused a general conflagration. What was to be done? A young, ardent, and inexperienced minister would, perhaps, have engaged in a war; what a happiness it was for the friends of peace that Prussia was governed by a wise king, whose mind was rendered moderate by age, and Austria by a minister who had witnessed so many storms without being frightened by them! One of the principal traits of Metternich's character is his perfect freedom from prejudice, either against or in favour ofpersons or events, so that he forms a judgment of them all with a degree of superiority. He therefore awaited the event of the revolution in a posture of defence; Austria merely held herself in readiness, and military precautions, combined with the renewal of political alliances, enabled her to oppose a barrier to all the invasions of a revolutionary spirit. This moderation was carried so far, that, as soon as a regular government was established in France, Metternich hastened to recognise it, without expressing either dislike or predilection, solely upon the principle that a regular government is always a protection to order and public peace. Since this time, Metternich has appeared to follow three rules of conduct, which govern the whole tenour of his political life. First, to enter into a close alliance with Russia and Austria for the suppression of all disturbances in Europe, and, consequently, to renew all the military contracts entered into at Chaumont in 1814, and Vienna in 1815; secondly, to combat the spirit of Propaganda, under whatever form it may appear; and this was a very laborious task, for the revolution of July had not only dispersed mischievous principles in Europe, but its money, its emissaries, its flag, and its hopes, had been circulated in every direction; and, thirdly, the Propaganda spirit having been every where diffused, Metternich had felt the necessity of augmenting both the military forces of Austria, and also her vigorous police establishment. The executive government has every where become more severe, because it was exposed to more danger. Liberty has sometimes been confounded with a revolutionary spirit in the system of strict repression that has been adopted; and it was unavoidable, perhaps, even necessary, in the complete overthrow of every thing that had been contemplated.
The empire of Austria is composed of so many differentnations, that political unity would be as impossible in that empire as in the Russian, which extends over the half of two hemispheres. All that can be looked for is liberty in their local constitutions, and in establishments quite in accordance with the spirit of the States, and more especially with their situation with regard to the Austrian government. The most prejudiced people agree that no country can be more peaceably governed than the hereditary states; the other provinces which have been successively attached to it require more active precautions and a more watchful police; but civil liberty, which is, indeed, the first of all, is even there complete and entire. Let us not exaggerate; I do not propose the Austrian government as a model—I am too great an admirer of liberty and of the institutions of my country not to remain deeply attached to them, but I also give their due to the manners and customs of the people; and we well know that there are some countries that require to be governed, because they are utterly incapable of governing themselves. When travelling in Italy, I have often asked myself whether all these nations, indolently at variance with each other, who possess more genius than national vigour, more liveliness and intelligence than strength and reason, could ever aspire to a laborious liberty under the dominion of the greatly extolled Unity, which must have been obtained sword in hand—in fact, if this rich and lovely Italy, like a charming coquette, was not under the necessity of submitting to the rule of some one, because she has not sufficient energy to master either her love or her hatred.
The administration of Prince Metternich appears to be deeply imbued with this sentiment, which has been severely put to the proof by him, that if civil liberty is necessary to all, political liberty is only desirable for a few, so far as it does not affect the character and thesafety of government. Protection should be granted to talent, but it ought to be serious talent, which will not evaporate in pamphlets; improvement, no doubt, is desirable, but it should take place without turbulence. The house of Austria has a great dread of noise, she is afraid of being talked of; never striving afteréclator clamorous liberty, she resembles those German professors who amass a store of erudition and science in some dusty corner of the university, and who only publish a few scarce copies of their works for the use of the learned.
The private life of Prince Metternich has been repeatedly visited with domestic affliction. Mourning has darkened his dwelling, and the distractions of the busy world have not always been able to mitigate his grief. In private society his manners are affable, and he enjoys the repose of home after the fatigues of his vast ministerial duties. A clever writer has observed that he spends great part of his time in conversation; it is a propensity indulged in by men who have seen every thing—they take pleasure intalking historyin their fireside conversations, which are carefully preserved by their auditors. And who has not listened with delight to M. Talleyrand, when he used to give vent to his recollections? Prince Metternich has written long and curious memoirs, full of justificatory notes, for he considers himself at the bar of posterity. His work is a great one, and, as I said at the commencement of this sketch, all the glory and all the responsibility of it will rest with him. When we look back upon what Austria was after the peace of Presburg, and that we contemplate her now, greater than she had ever been, with her public credit, her ascendancy among the European states, the peace and the government of her provinces, her civil and military organisation, and then consider that all this is the work ofoneminister, who has governedthe empire for the last thirty years, we may easily form an idea of some of the judgments of posterity. We are ourselves surrounded by ruins, both of men and things; government, administration, ministry, every thing, has fallen to pieces, and when, from the midst of the wreck the revolutions have brought upon us, we turn our eyes upon a countenance which has remained unmoved among all the ravages of time, it appears as if it did not belong to the present period; we look back upon Richelieu, upon those ministers who laid down a system, and then carried it onward to its completion.
Prince Metternich has reached an advanced age, yet he preserves all his faculties perfectly, with a ready wit that is admirable, and a freshness of recollection, which turns with extreme pleasure to the time of the French Empire and his embassy to Paris during the reign of Napoleon. We have all some favourite period of our lives, and we love particularly to dwell upon the days of our youth, before the illusions which charmed us had entirely faded away. He always speaks with great respect of the Emperor Napoleon, whose noble countenance exercised an unspeakable influence over his future life. Wherever that great genius passed, it left an indelible impression; and it was by the desire of Metternich that the remains of the Duke de Reichstadt were placed beside those of Maria Theresa and Francis II. in the vault of the Capuchin Church. It is a fine idea of the emperors of Austria to choose their last abode in the church of the most lowly of religious orders, to humble their greatness before the poorest brethren of the Christian church. The Capuchins have every thing in common, among them there is no property, no distinction between mine and thine. Babœuf was only a plagiary from them without the moral idea of heaven, which purifies and sanctifies every thing.
The house of Austria is accustomed to be governed by old ministers, and its traditionary spirit takes pleasure in it. In politics it is often better to do well than to do a great deal, to act after due deliberation than to act hastily, and then return to deliberate. Prince Metternich is not an enemy to any form of government that has order for its basis; and this offers an explanation of his conduct since the revolution. When the Propaganda was heard every where, he decided strongly in favour of war, and his expression to the French ambassador at Vienna is well known: "If we must perish, it is just as well to die of apoplexy as to be suffocated with a slow fire; we will declare for war."
The wisdom of the French government, its salutary repression of every Propaganda spirit, maintained peace. Since that period the Austrian minister, in all questions of any importance, has preserved the position of an armed mediator, with the invariable desire of preserving peace, and what he terms the Europeanstatus quo. He does not consider the present time requires agitation, war, or conquest. According to him, it is a season of organisation, and, by the position he gives to his monarchy, he holds the balance even, so as to prevent any conflict between the north and south of Europe. He said to me wittily one day: "I am, to a certain degree, the confessor of all the cabinets; I give absolution to those who have committed the fewest sins, and I thus maintain peace in their souls."
In this situation it is easier for Metternich to employ himself in particular improvements. Austria is in a remarkable state of prosperity; we ought to be proud of our France, and it undoubtedly is a fine country, but, with our national pride, we form singular ideas upon the state of other people; and yet, among them also, we may every where observe signs of very forward civilisation,commerce, industry, railroads, with pleasing and kind hospitality, all are to be met with in the Austrian states; without speaking of the intellectual movement more sober, and as far advanced as in our country of little romances, novels, theatrical, and literary critiques.
Men who like to bring circumstances together have sometimes instituted a comparison between Prince Metternich and Prince Kaunitz, who was so long at the head of the Austrian government. Although these parallels are always rather arbitrary, and that the different shades in the human character are innumerable, we may safely affirm in this instance, that there never existed two minds more completely opposed to each other; the only point of resemblance consists in the duration of their administration. Prince Kaunitz, altogether weakened by the ideas of the eighteenth century, allowed the Austrian empire to degenerate into a state of supineness and indolence. Prince Metternich, on the contrary, has reconstructed and consolidated this monarchy; he has retained nothing of Prince Kaunitz's system, except its extreme moderation, and the traditions ofstatus quo, adopted after the great reign of Maria Theresa. After Metternich, will Austria follow a different system? Will the statesman that appears likely to succeed him adopt a less prudent and more advanced plan? We do not believe it. It is in Austria with the ministers as with the heirs of the throne in England; before their accession they aim at popularity, and, when once at the head of the government, they continue the proceedings of the former reign, because reason and experience are of some value, and that the magnificent part of Austria is to place itself as an idea of pacification between empires which would strike against each other with too much violence.
Oneof the torments of a statesman who has played a great part in politics is to see his conduct subjected to the judgment of ignoble minds and the discussions of people incapable of forming a just estimate of it. How much has been written concerning M. de Talleyrand! how manybons mots, and how many rude sayings have been attributed to him! His biography has been made a sort ofAna, for the amusement of idle people; he has been represented as a kind of facetious personage, almost a mountebank, abounding in all the little wit of society, and of provincial towns. Few men have pierced through the mysteries of that long existence; still fewer have read in the wrinkles of this old man, and in his eyes, still sparkling under his slightly contracted brows, the secret thoughts, the powerful motives that swayed his life, which was one of unity and system.
If you have ever travelled in the southern part of France, you must have lingered in the Périgord, theprovince which still comprehends the best and the most numerous nobility of very ancient descent in the whole kingdom. There you will on every side meet with memorials of the Bosons and the Talleyrands, the sovereign princes of the province of Quercy: the keepers of the old records will recount to you the exploits of the Bosons of Périgord, under the Wolf dukes during the Carlovingian dynasty, who received this name from their wild exploits in the forests. The families of Talleyrand and Montesquiou-Fezensac disputed with each other the precedence over all the southern nobility. M. de Talleyrand sprang from the younger branch of the Grignols, who were of the stock of André de Talleyrand, Comte de Grignols, the youngest branch of the Périgord family; the eldest branch became extinct upon the death of Marie Francoise, Princess of Chalais, and Marchioness of Exideuil.[8]
I have been particular in dwelling upon the high nobility of his origin, because it greatly assisted his position in diplomatic affairs. Noble birth, however people may declaim against it, facilitates negotiations with European powers. Be it a weakness, be it a habit, when a man takes his place as a titled nobleman, among so many foreigners of illustrious birth, it is an advantage to his position; he treats on a footing of equality, he obtains more because he is among his peers, misfortune does not upset him, because he preserves his name in spite of every thing; he cannot be degraded, for revolutions no more deprive him of the nobility of his race, than the royal confiscations that formerly took place could destroy the old family coat-of-arms.
Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord was born at Paris in the year 1754; his maternal grandmother was the clever and witty Princess des Ursins, that eminent person who directed the councils of Philip V. of Spain, as her friend Madame de Maintenon governed the mind of Louis XIV. M. de Talleyrand, being the youngest of the family, was intended for holy orders, according to the custom of the nobility, who devoted themselves to the profession of arms, to the church, or the manor; an active life was necessary to men of family. There had always been a high prelate of the house of Talleyrand, and this ecclesiastical dignity was intended for the young Abbé of Périgord, who was accordingly sent at the age of fourteen to the seminary of Saint-Sulpice. One ought to have heard Talleyrand himself, in his hours of gaiety and unreserve, recount the pranks and first love-affair of the young abbé; his scaling the walls, his visits to the roof of the house,—all of them things little suitable to the serious profession for which he was intended by his family. I think that in reading his Memoirs in the year 1827-28, at which time he was out of favour, he made some concessions to the little philosophers of the eighteenth century, who surrounded him under the Restoration.
His ecclesiastical studies were limited; he occupied himself but little with theology, but already very much with business. The situation of general agent for the clergy was given him by the custom of his family, which was a very lucrative appointment, for he might be considered as thechargé d'affairesof that great body, and he exhibited great method and remarkable judgment in the skilful application of the revenues of the church, which amounted to above one hundred and thirty-six millions of livres. The clergy met in a chapter every year, and the Abbé de Talleyrand gave an account of theirrevenues, of the steps he had taken, and the duties he had performed with regard to the court; his reports are remarkably exact, with a clearness of style that is very uncommon.
At the age of five-and-thirty, after having attained the majority required by the Church, he was raised to the bishopric of Autun,—a fine appointment, which would afterwards lead to the archbishopric of Rheims and a cardinal's hat. The revenue of the see amounted to 60,000 francs, a magnificent situation for a young bishop, but such was the custom of the nobility; nevertheless, the bent of his inclinations led him to belong to the philosophical society, and the followers of the English school, which began to appear upon the horizon in 1789; among these were Mirabeau, Cabanis, Lally-Tollendal, and Mounier, in fact all the men who were dreaming of a reform in France. People said wittily that M. de Talleyrand, bishop of Autun, with his prebend and his bishopric, looked upon himself as an abuse. At this time people were animated with a glorious passion for suppressing themselves; and when one recollects that the proposal to abolish the titles of nobility was made by De Montmorency, De Montesquiou, La Rochefoucauld, De Talleyrand, and Clermont-Tonnerre, those illustrious elders of the French nobility, one must honestly confess that an incomprehensible spirit of vertigo had taken possession of the French society. There was in this something so insane, so eccentric, that I imagine the ancient nobility must have been led by an interested motive towards the suppression of titles: during the last three centuries so many patents of nobility had been conferred, that the really illustrious families were no longer distinguished: there were too many titled plebeians. Now, if all titles were abolished by a decree, all this nobility of a modern date would be entirely suppressed,for it depended solely upon royal grants and letters patent written according to the caprice of the sovereign; whilst those who bore a historical name, as the Rochefoucaulds, the Montmorencys, and the Montesquious, had no need of deeds to prove their genealogy; it was part of the soil.
The Abbé de Talleyrand was in possession of his rich bishopric of Autun when the States-General were convened, and he was appointed deputy of the clergy of his diocese to the Constituent Assembly, so remarkable from its adventurous spirit, the boldness of its conceptions, and its total want of connexion, and absence of all kind of unity or method, either moral or political. The Constituent Assembly was a great chaos, where the opinions of men of talent clashed with each other, where all sorts of extravagances were proposed in the executive government, and all the ideas most fitted to overturn the monarchy and the society of France were encouraged; Rousseau's social contract was applied to a people already old in its customs and civilisation.
The Bishop of Autun shewed himself the most zealous protector of all these innovations; he proposed the abolition of titles, and vehemently advocated the civil constitution of the clergy; he also introduced into the public system of education all the ideas of false and mischievous philosophy which the eighteenth century had diffused in human minds. Along with the Marquis of Condorcet, and Cabanis, he was one of the adepts, and of the friends of Mirabeau, whom that statesman and popular orator used to employ for the furtherance of the interests of his intellectual dictatorship. They were accustomed to meet in the evening at Mirabeau's house, to prepare the projects which would resound the next day from the tribune of the assembly. Without being very well educated, the Bishop of Autun wasgifted with an extremely fluent style, and a mode of expression remarkable for its clearness, and its elegant precision: the ancient high nobility certainly always possessed great natural talents; they had but little information, and yet they were eminently gifted with the power of expressing what they wished to say.
The solemn festival of the confederation took place at this period, a singular proceeding of which the spirit has been greatly misrepresented: it was theatrical, for such is always necessary in France. In the Champ de Mars an altar was erected, surmounted by tricoloured flags, upon a scaffolding fifty feet high, ornamented with ribands, also of the national colours. Then came M. de Lafayette, at that time a very handsome man, with his courteous and somewhat hypocritical countenance beaming with smiles, mounted upon his snow-white, slender, prancing steed, and wearing the uniform of the National Guard with long skirts and a three-cornered hat on his head, as it was the fashion at the time of the American War. He was then trying on his royal dignity. Around him crowded the deputations from the Departments with their flags; there were many drunken people, as it was natural there should be, and others tired with having wheeled earth from the Champ de Mars; and there was a plentiful exchange of kisses and embraces, according to the system so approved by Lamourette. At the foot of the altar of which I have spoken appeared M. de Talleyrand, bishop of Autun, dressed in his pontifical habits, his mitre on his head, a crosier in his hand, and with manners as elegant, as much refinement, and as studiously dignified a demeanour, as he afterwards discovered when carrying his crutch stick into the assembly of the corps diplomatique: kneeling beside him was the Abbé Louis (afterwardsMinister of Finance) one of the curates, in his alb and surplice.
The mass was celebrated with due solemnity by the Bishop of Autun; but there is a tradition which, for the honour and character of Talleyrand, we will believe to be unfounded, that when Mirabeau passed beside the altar the officiating pontiff addressed to him some expressions of mockery and irreligion, which must have weighed heavily upon his conscience on his death-bed. There are, unfortunately, seasons of youth and evil passions, when people give way to anti-Christian ideas, and at that time a degree of impiety was the fashion. Was it not then considered good taste to ridicule the holy and noble ceremonies of the Catholic religion? Talleyrand took a part in all the anti-religious proceedings of the Constituent Assembly upon the situation of the clergy in France, and he was commissioned to apply the civil constitution to his diocese, but the powerful opposition of his clergy did not permit him to accomplish his purpose, for the greater part of the parish priests refused to take the oath. He was present at the consecration of the first constitutional bishops, and, if this devoted conduct was considered deserving of praise by the assembly, it was regarded in a very different light elsewhere, and drew upon him the excommunication of the holy see. Pope Pius VI. published a bull against the Bishop of Autun, in which he declared him out of the pale of the Church, for having become an adherent of the civil constitution of the clergy. This step needs no explanation, such a constitution being in its very essence subversive of all Catholic faith. It was a work of the ultra-Jansenist party, and so thoroughly overstepped all the established rules, that it allowed the Jews and Protestants belonging to various districts and corporationsto participate in the election of the Catholic clergy. A bishop or a schoolmaster was appointed in the same manner that a deputy was elected for the National Assembly, for the whole electoral body discharged their duties in the same manner. An absurd principle of equality had levelled every thing; the people appointed the mayors, the bishops, the parish priests, the deputies, and the municipal officers. It was disorder in equality; the levelling principle had trampled down society.
Talleyrand was the intimate friend of Mirabeau, or, to speak with more precision, the great tribune made a tool of him. They had lived together, and together had prepared their works for the Assembly. The popular orator had just been attacked by the mortal disease which carried him off in so rapid and mysterious a manner, and the Bishop of Autun was present when his friend breathed his last. It was not as a ghostly comforter affording him the consolations of his ministry, it was not as a Catholic bishop pointing to a world beyond the grave when those eloquent lips were about to be sealed in death; M. de Talleyrand sat by the bedside of the dying man as the depository of his last thoughts and of his political labours, which led to the destruction of the monarchy. Mirabeau had committed to writing a work upon the equal division of inheritance among the different members of a family, and on the right of making testamentary dispositions, it being the object of the Revolutionists to overturn civil rights as they had already destroyed political ones, because it was well known they were intimately connected. The Bishop of Autun undertook to read the discourse of Mirabeau in the name of his friend at the National Assembly, and excited the most lively enthusiasm while repeating the last words of the orator whose career was now at an end.The life of Mirabeau had been, in some respects, the reaction of a mind filled with strong passions against the persecutions he had endured as a son from the hand of a severe and inflexible father, and his discourse upon limiting the right of making a will and on the equal division of inheritance affords the most certain proof of it. The gift of eloquence was held in the most enthusiastic estimation by the Constituent Assembly, it resolved the greatest part of its business into brilliant oratorical theories, resting upon the ideas of demolition, which were the offspring of the eighteenth century, and as Talleyrand had some difficulty in ascending the tribune, he played but a secondary part at that time. He excited attention principally by his management of business and by his assiduous attendance on committees; it does not appear that he had attained, even at this period, to the reputation of taciturn ability enjoyed by the Abbé Siéyès, and I seldom meet with his name in important and brilliant discussions.
When the Constituent Assembly had concluded their work, Talleyrand quitted France for England. M. de Chauvelin was ambassador there from the unfortunate Louis XVI., and the Bishop of Autun received a commission, of which the object was to draw the two governments of France and England into a nearer resemblance to each other, by establishing a system of two legislative chambers exactly upon the model of the English houses of parliament. There was already some idea of a revolution like that of 1688, and Talleyrand might serve as an agent for the attempt, for there was a good understanding between him and M. de Chauvelin, and a still better between him and the clubs of England. But opinions travelled too fast to allow proper consideration being given to the due balance of power, and the sovereignty of the people had given rise to the scheme ofa single chamber. Diplomatic business now went on in a singular manner; instead of the clever and prudent system, which since the commencement of the reign of Louis XVI. had secured so many advantages to France, so many favourable treaties, so many important annexations of territory, the diplomatic corps now amused themselves in encouraging the propaganda and spreading every where the spirit of Jacobinism. M. de Talleyrand had some interviews with the principal leaders of the Whigs, and his intimacy with Earl Grey began from this date. Shortly after this, being concerned in the intrigues of Danton, he returned to Paris on the 11th of August, and he always took pleasure in saying that his not having perished on the 2d of September was owing to the efforts of that singularly energetic man, as well as his having been able to obtain a passport for England.
As the course of events was progressing towards war, and that the trial of Louis XVI. was considered by the Tories as a total subversion of every thing, Talleyrand received an order to quit Great Britain in virtue of the alien act, and was only allowed twenty-four hours to make his arrangements. In the year 1793 people were in the midst of revolutionary excitements; he, therefore, did not return to France, but embarked for the United States, the country that was then pointed out as a model, a pattern government, which the republican party in the Legislative Assembly always cited as the most perfect that political ideas could conceive, and which M. de la Fayette never ceased to extol. At that time two schools prevailed, the American system and the revolution of 1688, both of which have been since renewed and perpetuated both in men and events.
Talleyrand settled in the United States, and during some years he devoted himself to commerce, and engagedin speculations with a considerable degree of activity. There always was something adventurous and bold in his disposition in money matters; to use a familiar expression, no one ever made his fortune oftener than M. de Talleyrand, without being particularly scrupulous as to the means he employed. His property in France was sequestered, it was, therefore, with very limited funds that he commenced his mercantile operations in the United States; and it was certainly singular enough to see a bishop of 1789, afterwards a popular orator, then a secret diplomatist acting as a spy for a party of the National Assembly, finally transforming himself into a merchant in a counting-house at Boston or New York. The shades of the ancient Bosons of Périgord, those great feudal barons, must have been horrified and have indignantly grasped their lances and their coats of arms when they contemplated their descendant seated amid bales of cotton in a republic of shopkeepers. In this manner do revolutions take hold of a man's destiny, play with it, and raise and abase it by turns; but the nobility had already accustomed France to still more extraordinary courses: had not men of noble birth in Brittany and Gascony become freebooters and buccaneers under Henry IV., Louis XIII., and Louis XIV.?
A commercial profession in a country so distant from important events did not suit Talleyrand's inclination, and when order was a little restored, he lost no time in soliciting permission to return to France, the scene of his earliest days. He had left many friends there, among the partisans of what was called the moderate republic and constitutional system; such were Chenier and Madame de Staël, belonging to the literary and philosophical portion of society under the Directory, who had regained some degree of importance after theReign of Terror was past, for in calmer times the different shades of a party become more evident.
It was particularly to the earnest solicitations of Madame de Staël that Talleyrand owed his return, and we know that her influence was at that time very great. Chenier undertook the report, and a decree was passed revoking the rigorous measures that had been adopted in 1793 against the late Bishop of Autun; it was also declared that he had not emigrated. Talleyrand had at that time entirely left off the ecclesiastical habit, and appeared every where as a layman. He enjoyed in the world a great reputation for wit and talent; there was something noble in his countenance, without its being exactly striking; he carried his head remarkably well, and his hair fell in curls upon his shoulders. He was no longer a young man, still his reputation for gallantry and for agreeableness in society had procured for him a great ascendancy over some women of that period, in the midst of that most singular society in the time of Barras and the Directory, in which were jumbled together men of high rank, contractors, renowned characters, and courtesans. Talleyrand had brought with him Madame Grand, with whom he had become acquainted at Hamburg, and, by a whimsical contrast, it was said no woman ever was possessed of less sense or less intelligence. We know how many capital stories were told of her in the Fauxbourg St. Germain, of which even the republic was so much afraid. The reason is, that the spirit of good society possesses great influence at the time that a bad state of society prevails. Jests were uttered, and the most charmingnaïvetéswere attributed to Madame Talleyrand, of which that regardingM. Denon and Robinson Crusoeis, perhaps, the most inimitable.
As soon as he arrived in Paris, Talleyrand joined theConstitutional Club, which used to meet at the Hôtel de Salm. Many thinking people saw the republic was gradually coming to an end, it had then but very little root in France. It was no longer possible to maintain a feeble and violent democracy, which gave way to the most fantastic and extraordinary paroxysms in the public assembly; people returned to the system of the balance of power, and to the English ideas that the school of Mounier and Lally-Tollendal had been desirous of rendering prevalent in the Constituent Assembly, and that Talleyrand had been commissioned to represent in London, in his secret mission, in which, as I before observed, there was mingled some idea of a revolution like that of 1688.
The institution of an executive directory had been the first step towards an oligarchic system, where, in default of an unity of power, a centre of action, reduced to five persons, had been established. Talleyrand applied all his credit to the support of the Directory, for, not being strong enough at that time to resist or to try to overturn the government, his only object was to draw some advantage from it. He refused steadily to join the royalist party, which, before the 18th Fructidor, was preparing the downfall of the Directory; still less would he belong to the Jacobin faction, for which he felt a strong antipathy, on account of its construction and its inclinations; accordingly, when the 18th Fructidor burst over France, with the proscription of the councils and the press, he was appointed to the ministry for foreign affairs; and theMoniteurannounced that citizen Talleyrand, devoted to the interests of the republic, was about to give a powerful impulse to our relations with foreign powers. To accept office under a republic was a singular employment for the heir of the Bosons of Périgord; but then was not the heir of the Barras, a family as old asthe rocks of Provence, the chief of the five directors? A curious history might be written by following the career of the old nobility during the French revolution; they assumed the position that men of gentle blood had done in former times during civil disturbances, every thing adventurous suited the younger branches of a noble family.
We must now consider what was the state of France with regard to foreign affairs. The Directory was at war with Austria, Russia, and England; Belgium was ours, we occupied part of Italy, and the rest was transformed into little republics, after the model of the executive directory; for there was at that time, as during all revolutions, a great propaganda mania. Money was the principal instrument of the Directory, every thing was accomplished by means of bribery, and people made haste to achieve a fortune, that they might afterwards spend it in miserable debauchery. When a negotiation was opened with a foreign power, the first step was to impose contributions, and to demand secret presents; and the minister for foreign affairs was a sort of agent commissioned to receive all thisspolia opima, which afterwards went to fatten the friends of Barras and Siéyès, or some women who invaded the saloons of the Luxembourg, and presided over their sensual rites. It was a time when modesty was banished; the state of society resembled the Greek courtesans of the Directory, who, while they almost dispensed with clothing, covered even their feet with precious stones. Talleyrand began afresh to work at his fortune, but, no doubt, he manœuvred with too little discretion, for at the end of some months he was openly denounced by Charles de Lacroix, and was obliged to give in his resignation, after having published a rather curious pamphlet, which I have succeeded in obtaining; it bears the name of "Eclaircissements."A pamphlet written by him is a very rare book, for he has written very little in the course of his life. This little work contains an exposition of the conduct of Citizen Talleyrand, from the time of the Constituent Assembly to his appointment to the ministry for foreign affairs, and is couched in very moderate language. The ex-minister replies to his calumniators with remarkable clearness and simplicity, appealing to the testimony afforded by the past, during the whole course of his life. This pamphlet excited a vast controversy. Citizen Talleyrand was also impeached as an extortioner from the tribune of the Five Hundred, even by Lucien Buonaparte, and he was overwhelmed under the evidence produced against him, with the view of applying the principle of ministerial responsibility to his case. He had great difficulty in escaping from this unpleasant situation, in which he had been placed by rather too much avidity during his ministry for foreign affairs. I must confess, one of the defects of his character was his public indifference to all charges brought against him with regard to money; it often compromised his reputation, and sometimes placed him in a very awkward situation.
Having quarrelled with the Directory, we now find him working with all his might for the establishment of the consular government. Buonaparte had surrounded himself on his return from Egypt with all the men who possessed any political talent or any idea of order in society, and he did not disdain the extensive abilities of M. de Talleyrand. The Abbé Siéyès had no predilection for the Bishop of Autun; there was an angry feeling between them on clerical subjects; but Napoleon required them both, he indulged in no feelings of repugnance when the triumph of his ambition was at stake; he therefore employed them both, each according to his abilities, so as to render them subservient to hisdesigns. The influence of Talleyrand over the constitutional party was not devoid of utility upon the 18th Brumaire, and when the consular government was established, the provisional commission appointed him minister for foreign affairs as a recompense for the service he had rendered, and Buonaparte confirmed him in his situation as soon as he was proclaimed First Consul.
A more extensive field was now open before him; the consular government was founded on a principle of unity, there was no longer in their relations with foreign powers the unrestrained violence exhibited by the National Convention, or the unconnected measures pursued by the Directory. It was possible to negotiate with decency and moderation, the relations of one state to another were assuming a character of regularity they had never possessed under any of the preceding governments, and then commenced the great diplomatic arrangements which were at last to bless Europe with repose.
The glorious commencement of the consulate was distinguished by numerous treaties; at Lunneville peace was concluded with Austria, at Amiens a covenant was made with England; other treaties were succeeded by peace with Russia and the Porte, and in all these negotiations Talleyrand evinced great skill and knowledge of what was proper and advisable. He placed the correspondence between governments upon an excellent footing, keeping aloof from the extravagant system which the agents of the Directory introduced into foreign negotiations during the time of theCarmagnolediplomatists, who levied so many forced contributions upon the pictures, the gold crucifixes, and the little property of the poor in the Mont de Piété.[9]
These treaties were a great assistance to the fortune of Talleyrand, being almost all followed by presents of considerable value, according to the custom observed in negotiations between one state and another.
On these occasions the minister did not exhibit sufficient modesty, I might say, sufficient discretion, for people had a tolerably good idea how much he had gained by each treaty, in money and diamonds. No doubt there was some exaggeration in the charges brought against him by discontented people, but I repeat it, one great defect of M. de Talleyrand was an inclination to play with bribery and corruption, and to establish it as a theoretic principle, even in his conversation: the stain remains upon his name. He held men in too much contempt, and this is a sentiment which society always returns with interest. It was now necessary he should lay the foundation of a new fortune; he entered boldly into various speculations: while avaricious and economical in little things, he gambled in the stocks with a perfect frenzy, and even lost considerable sums of money in them. Immediately after the peace of Amiens he had speculated upon a rise, and his gain appeared almost certain, but it happened by one of those caprices which stock-jobbing can alone explain, that the public funds fell more than ten per cent after the signing of the treaty, and he lost several millions of francs in a single turn of the stocks. These caprices of fortune occurred repeatedly in the course of his long life, and explain the necessity he was constantly under of repairing his fortune.
The late Bishop of Autun had just been entirely restored to secular life by permission of Pope Pius VII. While the negotiation concerning the concordat was in progress, the First Consul insisted M. Portalis should write to Rome, and request a brief from the pope authorising the secularisation of M. de Talleyrand; andthe venerable Pius VII., who made so many sacrifices to obtain peace for the Church, consented to the act, though he rather exceeded his powers by so doing, as according to the canon the character of priest is indelible. It is said that this brief was not entirely explicit, the pontiff did not establish a principle permitting the marriage of priests; he merely, in virtue of his discretionary power, granted an act of indulgence and personal pardon to M. de Talleyrand for a deed he had already committed.
The ex-bishop had hardly laid down his crosier before he was compelled to submit to the imperious requisitions of the First Consul. Buonaparte, who piqued himself upon his strict morality, insisted he should enter the state of matrimony—a most grievous yoke to impose upon a man of wit and good taste, for, with his habitual tact, Talleyrand had been well aware of the amusement afforded to the Fauxbourg St. Germain by the silliness and ignorance of Madame Grand, and when she should be legally invested with the title of Citizeness Talleyrand, how she would expose herself to the sarcasms and the ridicule of the aristocracy! But there was no help for it, for the First Consul had decided it should be so. The marriage was accordingly celebrated at the municipality and in the church, and as people expressed it,the Bishop of Autun took to himself a wife.
The ministry of the First Consul now comprehended two men of great importance, Talleyrand and Fouché. The one represented at the court of Buonaparte the ancient aristocracy restored—he was essentially the man of diplomatic forms and traditions; Fouché, on the contrary, was the representative of Jacobinism and the revolutionary principle, which the First Consul considered as an internal malady fatal to his power. A deeply-rooted and continual competition could not fail toarise between two characters who had been led to accept office by such different ideas, and who met in the presence of Napoleon as the expression of such different systems. Both were men of incontestable ability, and were constantly informing against each other, or, at least, keeping a careful watch over the proceedings of their rival colleague; in addition to which, Fouché was very anxious to obtain the direction of Foreign affairs. Buonaparte was perfectly aware of the hatred that existed between them, but he was too wise to sacrifice one of the ministers to the other; each served as a check upon his rival, and he listened to the information they gave him, quite certain that neither would allow the treacherous dealings of the other to escape. It was in this manner Fouché delivered to Buonaparte the minutes of the secret treaty with Paul I., which Talleyrand had communicated to the court of London through the medium of one of his agents. The agent was sacrificed, but Buonaparte did not venture to touch his principal, because there was some danger in making known the treachery. Talleyrand afterwards employed the same agent in several subordinate negotiations; indeed, it is well known that he rather preferred people who were not much incommoded by scruples of conscience, men of whom he could boldly disclaim all knowledge if necessary, and who were content he should do so.
We now come to the lamentable affair of the Duc d'Enghien; and there is not the slightest doubt that Talleyrand was as well acquainted as General Savary with Buonaparte's determination to seize the prince. He denied it in vain, for positive proofs exist of the truth of our assertion; amongst others, his letter to the Baron of Edelsheim, minister of Baden, which has been preserved in an entire state. The following is an extract from it: "The First Consul has considered it necessaryto order two detachments to proceed to Offemburg and to Ettenheim, to secure the authors of so odious a crime, which is sufficient to deprive the persons who have been concerned in it of the benefit of the law of nations."
After the arrest of the unfortunate prince, Talleyrand was acquainted with all the proceedings of this horrible affair, and he was present at the privy council where his condemnation was determined upon, or, at least, discussed. I dare not believe the cold and laconic reply attributed to him in the drawing-room of his old friend, the Duchess of ***, the very evening the Duc d'Enghien was tried at Vincennes. This reply was not only an atrocious expression, but it also involved a degree of imprudence which did not make part of his character. It is bad enough to have been concerned even indirectly in so fearful a crime.
In the midst of the active negotiations in which Talleyrand felt obliged to appear and to take a part, was there a political system formed in his mind, or merely a general principle? He still retained a strong bias towards English ideas, and a wish for an alliance with that country. This system, on which his earliest diplomatic plans were based, was constantly in his mind; he had not forgotten his residence in England at the beginning of the French revolution under M. de Chauvelin; he was also intimately connected with the Whig party, and considered Great Britain as the political ally of France against Russia, which last appeared to him, of all the powers in Europe, the most dangerous, as far as the civilisation of the world was concerned. He had not observed that by her situation Russia is our easiest, our most natural, and our most disinterested ally, for France and Russia do not clash either in a political or commercial point of view. But there are some early impressions which never wear out, and Talleyrand had passedsome of the best years of his life in England, and on terms of friendship with Lord Grey, Lord Russell, Fox, and Sheridan.