Читать книгу Historical Characters - Henry Bulwer - Страница 4

Blesses the standard of France at festival of the 14th of July. – Increasing financial distress. – M. de Talleyrand’s views. – Civil constitution of the clergy. – M. de Talleyrand’s conduct. – Refuses archbishopric of Paris. – Letter to editors of Chronicle. – Mirabeau’s death. – Sketch of his career, and relations with M. de Talleyrand, who attends his death-bed. – Probabilities as to his having initiated M. de Talleyrand into plots of court. – Leaves M. de Talleyrand his intended speech on the law of succession, which regulated the present state of the law in France, and which M. de Talleyrand read in the National Assembly. – M. de Talleyrand suspended from his episcopal functions, and quits the Church. – The King’s flight. – Conduct and views of M. de Talleyrand. – Wishes to aid the King. – Foolish conduct of court party. – Fatal decree of National Assembly, forbidding the re-election of its members. – M. de Talleyrand’s project of education. – Assembly closes the 13th of September, 1791. – M. de Talleyrand goes to England, January 1792.

I

We are arrived at the festival of the 14th of July, held to celebrate the destruction of the Bastille, and to do honour to the new government which had risen on its ruins: let us pause for a moment on that day of joy!

An immense and magnificent amphitheatre is erected on the Champ de Mars: there the hereditary sovereign of France, and the temporary president of an elected assembly – the joint symbols of two ideas and of two epochs – are seated on two equal thrones, resplendent with the arms which the nation has taken from its ancient kings; and there is the infant prince, on whom an exulting people look kindly as the inheritor of his father’s engagements, and who is to perpetuate the race of Saint Louis: and there is that queen, “decorating and cheering the sphere she moves in, glittering like the morning star, full of life, and splendour, and joy;” and there that royal maiden, beauteous with the charms of the palace, blessed with the virtues of the cloister – a princess, a saint – destined to be a martyr! And there is the vain but honest Lafayette, leaning on his citizen sword: and there the terrible Mirabeau – his long hair streaming to the wind: and there that well-known and still memorable Assembly, prematurely proud of its vaunted work, which, alas! like the spectacle we are assisting at, is to be the mere pageant of a day. And, behold, in yonder balcony, the most graceful and splendid court in Europe, for such even at that time was still the court of France; and lo! in the open space, yon confederated bands, bearing their respective banners, and representing every portion of that great family which at this moment is rejoicing over the triumph it has achieved. On a sudden the sky – the light of which mingles so well with the joy of men, but which had hitherto been dark and sullen – on a sudden the sky clears up, and the sun blends his pomp with that of this noble ceremony! And now, robed in his pontifical garments, and standing on an altar thronged by three hundred priests, in long white robes and tricoloured girdles, the Bishop of Autun blesses the great standard, the oriflamme of France, no longer the ensign of war, but the sign and token of peace between the past and the future – between the old recollections and the new aspirations of the French people.

Who, that had been present that day in Paris, could have believed that those who wept tenderly with the children of Bearne, at the foot of the statue of Henry IV., would so soon laugh horribly round the scaffold of his descendant? that the gay multitude, wandering in the Champs Elysées, amidst garlands of light, and breathing sounds of gentle happiness and affection, would so soon be the ferocious mob, massacreing in the prisons, murdering in the public streets, dancing round the guillotine dripping with innocent blood? that the monarch, the court, the deputies, every popular and princely image of this august pageant, the very forms of the religion with which it was consecrated, would in two or three brief years be scoffingly cast away: and that even the high priest of that gorgeous solemnity, no longer attached to his sacred calling, would be wandering a miserable exile on foreign shores, banished as a traitor to the liberty for which he had sacrificed the prejudices of his caste, the predilections of his family, the honours and wealth of his profession?

II

From the 14th of July, 1789, to the 14th of July, 1790, the scenes which were comprehended in this, which may be called the first act in the great drama then agitating France, were upon the whole such as rather to excite the hopes than the fears of mankind; but from the latter period the aspect of things greatly changed, and almost each day became marked by some disappointment as to the success of a favourite scheme, or the fortune of a popular statesman.

On the 4th of September, 1790, M. Necker left almost unnoticed, and altogether unregretted, that Paris to which but a year before he had returned amidst unanimous acclamation. About the same time, Mirabeau began to be suspected; and the shouts of “Vive Lafayette!” were not unfrequently changed into “à bas Lafayette!”15 by the ever fickle multitude. At this period also it became apparent that the sale of the church property, which, properly managed, might have restored order to the finances, was likely, on the contrary, to render the national bankruptcy more complete.

In order to give a just idea of the conduct of M. de Talleyrand, it is necessary that I should explain rapidly how this calamity occurred. The Assembly, desiring to secure the irrevocability of its decrees by disposing as soon as possible of the vast estate which it had declared was to be sold, and desiring also to increase its financial resources without delay, looked out for some means by which this double end could be accomplished. After two or three projects, for a moment taken up and then abandoned, the idea finally adopted was that of issuing State notes, representing a certain value of national property, and giving them a forced currency, so that they would have an immediate value independent of that which they acquired as the representatives of property.

These notes or bonds, in short, thus became money; and they had this advantage over ordinary paper money, that they represented something which had a positive value; and as the first issue of four hundred millions of francs took place at a time when some substitute was really required for the coin which every one, from alarm and want of confidence, had then begun to hoard, its effects were rather beneficial than the reverse. The Assembly instantly thought it had an inexhaustible fund at its disposal; consequently a new issue of eight hundred million bonds followed shortly after the first issue of four hundred millions, as a matter of course; and it became evident that this mode of meeting the current wants of the State was to be adopted to a greater and greater extent, thereby increasing the currency in a manner not in any way called for by the increased wealth or business of the community, and altering the value of money in all the transactions of life. M. de Talleyrand at once foresaw the evils to which this system would naturally lead; and saying, “Je serais inconsolable si de la rigueur de nos décrets sur le clergé il ne résultait pas le salut de la chose publique,”16 demonstrated, with a singular clearness and sagacity, that the course on which the Assembly had entered must inevitably cause the total disappearance of bullion, an enormous rise in provisions, a daily depreciation of State paper and of land (such State paper representing land), a rapid variation of exchanges, an impossibility of all regular commerce.

But men in desperate times disregard ultimate results. The Assembly wanted funds at the moment: forced assignats created those funds; and when Mirabeau shrewdly observed that to multiply assignats was, at all events, to multiply the opponents to reaction, since no man who had an assignat could wish the property on which its value depended to be restored to its former possessors, this political argument settled the financial one.

III

The great characteristic of modern legislation is the principle of representation by election. It by no means follows, however, that because it has been an invaluable discovery to make a portion of government depend upon a particular principle, that every portion of a government should be deduced from that principle. On the contrary, the mobility given to a government by any system that introduces into it the popular passions and variations of opinion, requires some counteracting element of fixity and stability to give permanence to its duration, and steadiness to its action. But the National Assembly – like those invalids who, having found a remedy for their disease, fancy that if a little of such remedy does some good, a great deal must do much more – made the whole of their institutions, with one exception, depend upon the same basis; and as their chamber was elective, their municipalities elective – so their judges were to be elective, and their clergy and bishops elective also.

Here commenced the first serious schism in the nation, for that which had hitherto existed had been between the nation and the court. I have said that the clergy, and more especially the higher clergy, had not willingly abandoned the property which they had been accustomed to consider theirs. This loss, however, furnished them with but a worldly cause of feud; it neither affected their consciences, nor the consciences of their flocks. But the new regulations, whatever their intrinsic merits, entirely changed the existing condition of the Roman church, and struck at the root of its discipline. These regulations, consequently, were denounced by the Pope, and could not be solemnly accepted by the more zealous of the priesthood.

In such circumstances it would have been far wiser to have left the spiritual condition of the clergy untouched. To oblige all ecclesiastics either to give up their benefices, or to swear to uphold the “Civil Constitution of the Clergy” (such being the title given to the new system), was to provoke many who might otherwise have been silent to declare hostility to the Revolution; and at the same time gave to the Revolution itself that persecuting bias by which it was finally disgraced and ruined. Such a measure, besides, divided the clergy into two classes – one of which excited the veneration of the people by its sacrifices, and the indignation of the government by its complaints: the other satisfied the government by its obedience, but lost the respect of the people by its servility. A Catholic clergy disowned by the Pope was useless to those professing the Catholic religion; no clergy at all was wanted for those who professed no religion whatsoever. The course which M. de Talleyrand observed in this business was wary and cautious up to the moment at which it was bold and decided.

The Assembly had determined upon the “Civil Constitution of the Clergy,” prior to the 14th of July. The King, however, had requested a delay, with the intention of referring to Rome, and the law did not finally pass the Legislature till the 27th of November.

The struggle during this period was between the Sovereign and the Pope on the one side, and the philosophers and the church reformers – for both took a part in the matter – on the other.

It was disagreeable for a bishop, still looking to ecclesiastical preferment, to venture to quarrel with one party in the dispute, and equally disagreeable for a statesman aspiring to popular authority to separate himself from the other. The result of the contest, also, was for a while uncertain; and as there was no absolute necessity for the Bishop of Autun to express any opinion upon its merits, he was silent. But when the Assembly had pronounced its final decree, and that decree had received the formal though reluctant assent of the King, the case was different. A law had been regularly passed, and the question was, not whether it was a good law, but whether, being a law, it was to be obeyed. A battle had been fought, and the question was, not whether the victors were in the right, but whether it was better to join with those who had conquered, or with those who had been conquered.

In such a condition of things M. de Talleyrand rarely hesitated. He took his side with the law against the church, and with those who were daily becoming more powerful, against those who were daily becoming more feeble; and having once taken a step of this kind, it was never his custom to do so timidly.

He at once took the required oath, which all his episcopal brethren – with the notorious and not very creditable exceptions of the Bishops of Babylon and Lydia, whose titles were purely honorary – refused to take. He also justified this course in a letter to the clergy of his own department, and ultimately undertook to consecrate the new bishops who were elected to supply the place of those whom the Assembly had deprived of their dioceses.

We shall presently see the results of this conduct. But it may be as well at once to state, that although M. de Talleyrand accepted for himself those new regulations for his church which the State, in spite of the head of his church, had established, and took an oath to obey them without unwillingness, and although he even maintained that the State, considering the clergy as public functionaries enjoying a salary in return for the performance of public duties, might deprive any members of the clergy of such salary if they would not submit to the laws of the government which paid and employed them; he nevertheless contended, boldly and consistently and at all times, that all ecclesiastics thus dispossessed would have a right to the pension which, at the time of confiscating the church property, had been granted to any ecclesiastic whom the suppression of religious establishments or of useless benefices left without income or employment; a principle at first accepted as just, but soon condemned as inexpedient; for there is no compromise between parties when one is conscientiously disposed to resist what it deems an act of injustice, and the other resolutely determined to crush what it deems a selfish opposition.

IV

Amidst the various vacancies which were occasioned by the refusal of the high dignitaries of the church to take the oath which the Constitution now exacted from them, was that of the archbishopric of Paris; and as it was known that M. de Talleyrand could be elected for this post if he so desired it, the public imagined that he intended to take advantage of his popularity and obtain what, up to that period, had been so honourable and important a position. In consequence of this belief a portion of the press extolled his virtues; whilst another painted and, as usual in such cases, exaggerated his vices.

M. de Talleyrand was, up to the last hour of his life, almost indifferent to praise, but singularly enough (considering his long and varied career), exquisitely sensitive to censure; and his susceptibility on this occasion so far got the better of his caution, as to induce him to write and publish a letter in the Moniteur, of Paris, February 8th, 1791.

Letter of M. de Talleyrand to the editors of the “Chronicle,” respecting his candidature for the diocese of Paris

“Gentlemen,

“I have just read in your paper that you have been good enough to name me as a candidate for the archbishopric of Paris. I cannot but feel myself highly flattered by this nomination: some of the electors have in fact given me to understand that they would be happy to see me occupy the post to which you have alluded, and I, therefore, consider that I ought to publish my reply. No, gentlemen, I shall not accept the honour of which my fellow-citizens are so obliging as to think me worthy.

“Since the existence of the National Assembly, I may have appeared indifferent to the innumerable calumnies in which different parties have indulged themselves at my expense. Never have I made, nor ever shall I make, to my calumniators the sacrifice of one single opinion or one single action which seems to me beneficial to the commonwealth: but I can and will make the sacrifice of my personal advantage, and on this occasion alone my enemies will have influenced my conduct. I will not give them the power to say that a secret motive caused me to take the oath I have recently sworn. I will not allow them the opportunity of weakening the good which I have endeavoured to effect.

“That publicity which I give to the determination I now announce, I gave to my wishes when I stated how much I should be flattered at becoming one of the administrators of the department of Paris. In a free state, the people of which have repossessed themselves of the right of election —i. e. the true exercise of their sovereignty – I deem that to declare openly the post to which we aspire, is to invite our fellow-citizens to examine our claims before deciding upon them, and to deprive our pretensions of all possibility of benefiting by intrigue. We present ourselves in this way to the observations of the impartial, and give even the prejudiced and the hostile the opportunity to do their worst.

“I beg then to assure those who, dreading what they term my ambition, never cease their slanders against my reputation, that I will never disguise the object to which I have the ambition to pretend.

“Owing, I presume, to the false alarm caused by my supposed pretensions to the see of Paris, stories have been circulated of my having lately won in gambling houses the sum of sixty or seventy thousand francs. Now that all fear of seeing me elevated to the dignity in question is at an end, I shall doubtless be believed in what I am about to say. The truth is, that, in the course of two months, I gained the sum of about thirty thousand francs, not at gambling houses, but in private society, or at the chess-club, which has always been regarded, from the nature of its institution, as a private house.

“I here state the facts without attempting to justify them. The passion for play has spread to a troublesome extent. I never had a taste for it, and reproach myself the more for not having resisted its allurements. I blame myself as a private individual, and still more as a legislator who believes that the virtues of liberty are as severe as her principles: that a regenerated people ought to regain all the austerity of morality, and that the National Assembly ought to be directed towards this vice as one prejudicial to society, inasmuch as it contributes towards that inequality of fortune which the laws should endeavour to prevent by every means which do not interfere with the eternal basis of social justice, viz., the respect for property.

“You see I condemn myself. I feel a pleasure in confessing it; for since the reign of truth has arrived, in renouncing the impossible honour of being faultless, the most noble manner we can adopt of repairing our errors is to have the courage to acknowledge them.

“Talleyrand A. E. d’Autun.”

From this document we learn that the Bishop of Autun, notwithstanding his labours in the Assembly, was still a gay frequenter of the world: to be found pretty frequently at the chess-club, as well as in private society; and, though he lamented over the fact, a winner at such places of thirty thousand francs within two months. We also learn that he abandoned at this moment the idea of professional advancement, in order to maintain unimpeached the motives of his political conduct; and we may divine that he looked for the future rather to civil than to ecclesiastical preferment.

The most striking portion of this document, however, is the tone and style – I may almost say the cant – which prevails towards its conclusion. But every epoch has its pretensions: and that of the period which intervened between May, 1789, and August, 1792, was to decorate the easy life of a dissolute man of fashion with the pure language of a saint, or the stern precepts of a philosopher. “Le dire,” says old Montaigne, “est autre chose que le faire: il faut considérer le prêche à part, et le prêcheur à part.”17

V

And now, or but a little after this time, might have been seen an agitated crowd, weeping, questioning, and rushing towards a house in the Rue de la Chaussée d’Antin. It was in the first days of April, and in that house – receiving through the open windows the balmy air which for a moment refreshed his burning forehead, and welcoming yet more gratefully the anxious voice of the inquiring multitude – lay the dying Mirabeau, about to carry into the tomb all the remaining wisdom and moderation of the people; and, as he himself sadly and proudly added, all the remaining fragments of that monarchy which he had shown the power to pull down and had flattered himself he might have the power to reconstruct. By his death-bed stood the Bishop of Autun. It was a curious combination of circumstances which thus brought together these two personages, whose characters were essentially different, but whose position was in some respects the same. The one was eloquent, passionate, overbearing, imprudent; the other cool, urbane, logical, and cautious. But both were of illustrious families, endowed with great abilities, ejected from their legitimate place in society. Both also were liberal in their politics, and this from vengeance and ambition, as well as from principle and opinion. Aristocrats allied with a democratic faction; monarchists in desperate conflict with those by whom monarchy was most held in reverence; they had engaged in a battle for moderation with extreme auxiliaries and extreme opponents. Mirabeau, the fifth child, but who became, by a brother’s death, the eldest son of the Marquis de Mirabeau (a rich proprietor of a noble house in Provence), had been, when very young, married to a wealthy heiress, and intended for the profession of arms. Nevertheless, quitting his profession, separated from his wife, constantly involved in scrapes – now for money, now for love – he had led a bachelor’s life of intrigue, indigence, and adventure, up to the age of forty, alternately the victim of his own wild nature and of the unwise and absurd severity of his father, whose two pursuits in life were persecuting his family and publishing pamphlets for the benefit of mankind. Thus, frequently in confinement – always in difficulties (the first and last means of correction with the old marquis being to procure a “lettre de cachet,” and to stop his son’s allowance), the Comte de Mirabeau had supported himself almost entirely by his talents, which could apply themselves to letters, though action was their proper sphere.

During a short interval in his various calamities – an interval which he had passed at Paris in a desperate effort to better his condition – he had become acquainted with M. de Talleyrand, who, struck by his abilities and affected by his misfortunes, recommended him to M. de Calonne, at whose suggestion he was sent by M. de Vergennes, then minister of foreign affairs, on a sort of secret mission into Germany, just prior to the Great Frederick’s death. From this mission he returned when France was being agitated by the convocation of the “notables,” speedily succeeded by that of the States-General. He saw at a glance that an era was now approaching, suited to his eminent talents, and in which his haughty but flexible character was likely to force or insinuate its way: his whole soul, therefore, was bent upon being one of that assembly, which he from the first predicted would soon command the destinies of his country.

Certain expenses were necessary to obtain this object, and, as usual, Mirabeau had not a farthing. The means which he adopted for procuring the money he required were the least creditable he could have devised. He published a work called “The Secret History of the Court of Berlin,” a work full of scandal, public and private, and betraying the mission with which he had recently been intrusted.18

The government was naturally indignant; a prosecution was instituted against him before the Parliament of Paris; M. de Montmorin, and others, by whom he had previously been patronised, told him plainly they wished to drop his acquaintance.

Through all these disgraceful difficulties Mirabeau scrambled. He denied that the work was published by his authority.

Rejected from their sittings by the nobility of Provence, who decreed that, having no fiefs of his own, and being merely invested with his father’s voice, he had no right to sit among the nobles, he became the successful candidate of the tiers-état for Aix; and at the meeting of the States-General stood before the ministry which had accused, and the aristocracy which had repudiated him, a daring and formidable enemy.

But, though made a desperate man by circumstances, he was not so either by inclination or by ideas.

His views for France were limited to the procuring it a representative government; and his views for himself were those which frequently lead ambitious men under such a government to adopt opposition as a road to power. “Tribun par calcul,” as was justly said of him by a contemporary,19 “aristocrat par goût.” He aimed at obtaining for his country a constitution, and being minister of the crown under that constitution.

M. de Talleyrand had the same wish, and probably the same ambition. These two statesmen, therefore, would naturally, at the meeting of the States-General, have acted together as two private friends who thought the same on public matters. But the publication of “The Secret History of the Court of Berlin,” offensive to the minister who had employed Mirabeau, could not be otherwise than painful and disagreeable to M. de Talleyrand, at whose intercession Mirabeau had been employed, and to whom, indeed, Mirabeau’s correspondence had been principally addressed. This circumstance had, therefore, produced a cessation of all private intimacy between these two personages who were about to exercise so great an influence over approaching events. It is difficult, however, for two men to act a prominent part on the same side for any length of time in a popular assembly, and this at a great national crisis, without relapsing into an old acquaintance, or forming a new one. To what extent the old relations between Mirabeau and M. de Talleyrand were thus renewed, it is difficult to say, but that on the 21st of October, 1789, they already talked together with some degree of intimacy is evident from a letter of Mirabeau to the Comte de la Marck, in which letter Mirabeau states that he had been told the history of a secret political intrigue by the Bishop of Autun.20

About this time, too, it is now known that Mirabeau projected a ministry to which I have already alluded, and in which he and M. de Talleyrand were to be united. Had this ministry been formed, it is very possible that the history of France during the next sixty years would have been different.

But the most fatal measure adopted by the Assembly was that (November 9, 1789) which prevented any of its members from being minister during its continuance, and from entering the service of the crown for two years after its dissolution. The consequences of this resolution, aimed at those who, like Mirabeau and Talleyrand, were hoping to erect a constitutional government, and to have the direction of it, were incalculable. The persons at that time who had most influence in the Assembly were men with moderate opinions, great talents, and great ambition. Had such men been placed as the head of affairs they might have controlled them and established a government at once popular and safe. But this new regulation prevented those who were powerful as representatives of the people from using their influence in supporting the executive power of the crown. It drove them, moreover, if their passions were violent and their positions desperate, to seek for power by means hostile to the constitution which annihilated their hopes.

It had this effect upon Mirabeau; and his sentiments becoming known to the court, a sort of alliance established itself between them in the spring of 1790; – an alliance entered into too late (since most of the great questions on which Mirabeau’s influence might have been useful were already decided) and most absurdly carried on; for whilst the King opened to Mirabeau his purse, he shut from him his confidence, and at first, and for a long time, exacted that the compact he had entered into with the great orator for the defence of his throne should be kept altogether secret, even from his own ministers.21

Mirabeau was to advise the King in secret, to help him indirectly in public; but he was not to have the King’s countenance, and he was to be thwarted and opposed by the King’s friends.

The error which both parties to this arrangement committed was the result of the feeble and irresolute character of the one, who never did anything wholly and sincerely, and of the over-bold and over-confident character of the other, who never doubted that whatever he attempted must succeed, and who now easily persuaded himself that having vanquished the difficulty of opening a communication with the court, he should promptly vanquish that of governing it. Indeed, the desire of Mirabeau to serve the crown being sincere, and his ability to do so evident, he (not unnaturally perhaps) felt convinced that his sincerity would be trusted, and his talents given fair play.

But it is clear that the King thought of buying off a dangerous enemy, and not of gaining a determined ally. Thus he went on supplying Mirabeau’s wants, receiving Mirabeau’s reports, attending little to Mirabeau’s counsels, until matters got so bad that even the irresolution of Louis XVI. was vanquished (this was about the end of 1790), and then, for the first time, was seriously entertained a plan which the daring orator had long ago advised, but which the King had never, up to that period, rejected nor yet sanctioned.

This plan consisted in withdrawing the King from Paris; surrounding him with troops still faithful, and by the aid of a new assembly, for which public opinion was to be prepared, reforming the constitution – now on the point of being completed – a constitution which, while it pretended to be monarchical, not only prevented the monarch from practically exercising any power without the express permission of a popular assembly, but established, as its fundamental theory, that the King was merely the executor of that assembly’s sovereign authority: an addition which, at first sight, may seem of small importance, but which, as it was calculated daily to influence the spirit of men’s actions, could not but have an immense effect on the daily working of their institutions. Nor was this all. Nations, like individuals, have, so to speak, two wills: that of the moment – the result of passion, caprice, and impulse; and that of leisure and deliberation – the result of foresight, prudence, and reason. All free governments possessing any solidity (whatever their appellation) have, for this reason, contained a power of some kind calculated to represent the maturer judgment of the people and to check the spontaneous, violent, and changeful ebullitions of popular excitement. Even this barrier, however, was not here interposed between a chamber which was to have all the influence in the State, and a chief magistrate who was to have none.

The constitution about to be passed was, in short, an impracticable one, and no person saw this more clearly than Mirabeau; but, whilst ready and desirous to destroy it, he by no means lent himself to the ideas, though he was somewhat subjugated by the charms of Marie-Antoinette.

“Je serai ce que j’ai été toujours,” he says in a letter to the King, 15th December, 1790, “défenseur du pouvoir monarchique réglé par les lois; apôtre de la liberté garantie par le pouvoir monarchique.”22

Thus he undertook the difficult and almost impossible enterprise of rescuing liberty at the same time from a monarch in the hands of courtiers enthusiastic for absolute power, and from a mob under the influence of clubs, which intended to trample constitutional monarchy under the feet of a democratical despotism.

I have narrated what had undoubtedly been Mirabeau’s projects; for we have to consider what were probably his thoughts when, in acute suffering but with an unclouded mind and a clear prescience of his approaching dissolution, he summoned his former friend, with whom, it is said, he was never till that instant completely reconciled, to the couch from which he was no more to rise.

Must we not suppose that Mirabeau in this, his last conversation with M. de Talleyrand, spoke of the schemes which then filled his mind? And does it not seem probable that he at that hour conceived the Bishop of Autun to be the person best fitted to fill the difficult position which he himself was about to leave vacant, and amidst the various intrigues and combinations of which it required so much skill to steer?

For this supposition there are many plausible reasons. M. de Talleyrand, like Mirabeau, was an aristocrat by birth, a liberal by circumstances and opinion; he was also one of the members of the Assembly, who possessed the greatest authority over that portion of it which Mirabeau himself influenced; and likewise one of a very small number of members upon whom M. de Montmorin, the minister with whom Louis XVI. at last consented that Mirabeau should confidentially communicate, had told Mirabeau he most relied. Lastly, he was acquainted with all the classes and almost all the individuals then seeking to disturb, or hoping to compose, the disordered elements of society. He knew the court, the clergy, the Orleanists. He had been one of the founders of the Jacobins; he was a member of its moderate rival, the Feuillans; and although, undoubtedly, he wanted the fire and eloquence necessary to command in great assemblies, he was pre-eminent in the tact and address which enable a man to manage those by whom such assemblies are led.

In short, though Mirabeau left no Mirabeau behind him, M. de Talleyrand was, perhaps, the person best qualified to supply his loss, and the one whom Mirabeau himself was most likely to have pointed out for a successor. I have no clue, however, beyond conjecture, to guide me on this subject, unless the public trust which Mirabeau confided to M. de Talleyrand in his last hours may be cited as a testimony of his other and more secret intentions. What this trust was, we may learn from the statement of M. de Talleyrand himself, who, on the following day, amidst a silence and a sorrow which pervaded all parties (for a man of superior genius, whatever his faults, rarely dies unlamented), ascending the tribune of the National Assembly, said in a voice which appeared unfeignedly affected:

“I went yesterday to the house of M. de Mirabeau. An immense crowd filled that mansion, to which I carried a sentiment more sorrowful than the public grief. The spectacle of woe before me filled the imagination with the image of death; it was everywhere but in the mind of him whom the most imminent danger menaced. He had asked to see me. It is needless to relate the emotion which many things he said caused me. But M. de Mirabeau was at that time above all things the man of the public; and in this respect we may regard as a precious relic the last words which could be saved from that mighty prey, on which death was about to seize. Concentrating all his interest on the labours that still remain to this Assembly, he remembered that the law of succession was the order of the day, and lamented he could not assist at the discussion of the question, regretting death, because it deprived him of the power of performing a public duty. But, as his opinion was committed to writing, he confided the manuscript to me, in order that I might in his name communicate it to you. I am going to execute this duty. The author of the manuscript is now no more; and so intimately were his wishes and thoughts connected with the public weal, that you may imagine yourselves catching his last breath, as you listen to the sentiments which I am about to read to you.”

Such were the words with which M. de Talleyrand prefaced the memorable discourse which, in establishing the principles on which the law of inheritance has since rested in France, laid the foundations of a new French society, on a basis which no circumstance that can now happen seems likely to alter.

“There is as much difference,” said Mirabeau, “between what a man does during his life, and what he does after his death, as between death and life. What is a testament? It is the expression of the will of a man who has no longer any will respecting property which is no longer his property; it is the action of a man no longer accountable for his actions to mankind; it is an absurdity, and an absurdity ought not to have the force of law.”

Such is the argument set forth in this celebrated and singular speech. Ingenious rather than profound, it does not seem, as we turn to it coolly now, worthy of the reputation it attained, nor of the effect which it has undoubtedly produced. But, read in M. de Talleyrand’s deep voice, and read as the last thoughts upon testamentary dispositions of a man who was making his own will when he composed it, and who since then was with his luminous intellect and marvellous eloquence about to be consigned to the obscure silence of the grave, it could hardly fail to make a deep impression. It was, moreover, the mantle of the departed prophet; and the world, whether wrong or right in the supposition, fancied that it saw in this political legacy the intention to designate a political successor.

VI

Thus, M. de Talleyrand, already, as we have seen, a member of the department of Paris, was immediately chosen to fill the place in the directorship of that department, an appointment which Mirabeau’s death left vacant.

In this municipal council, considerable influence still existed; nor did it want various means for exercising that influence over the middle classes of the capital; so that a man of resolution and tact could have made it one of the most useful instruments for restoring the royal authority and consolidating it on new foundations.

It seems not unlikely, indeed, that M. de Talleyrand had the design of making it popular as the organ of good advice to the King, and of making the King popular by engaging him to listen to this advice, since we find that it drew up an address to him on the 18th April (about a fortnight after Mirabeau’s death), urging him to put aside from his councils those whom the nation distrusted, and to confide frankly in the men who were yet popular: whilst there is reason to believe, as I shall by-and-by have occasion to show, that M. de Talleyrand entered about this time into secret negotiations with the King, or, at least, offered him, through M. de Laporte, his best assistance.

But Louis XVI. was more likely to trust a bold and passionate man like Mirabeau, whom, notwithstanding his birth, he looked upon – considering the situation in which the Revolution had found him – as an adventurer who had been almost naturally his opponent, until he had purchased his support, rather than a man like M. de Talleyrand; a philosopher, a wit, who might be said to have been bred a courtier; and, on the other hand, M. de Talleyrand himself was too cautious to commit himself boldly and entirely to the daring and doubtful schemes which Mirabeau had prepared, until he saw a tolerable chance of their being successful.

Other circumstances, moreover, occurred at this time, which could not but have an unfavourable influence as to the establishment of any serious concert between the scrupulous and mistrustful monarch, and the chess-playing, constitutional bishop.

VII

When M. de Talleyrand rejected the archbishopric of Paris, it was clear that he expected nothing further from the church; and he no doubt from that moment conceived the idea of freeing himself from its trammels on the first decent opportunity: nor did he long wait for this opportunity, for, on the 26th of April, one day after his consecration of the Curé Expelles, the newly-elected Bishop of Finisterre, arrived a brief thus announced in the Moniteur of the 1st of May, 1791:

“Le bref du Pape est arrivé jeudi dernier. De Talleyrand-Périgord, ancien évêque d’Autun, y est suspendu de toutes fonctions et excommunié, après quarante jours s’il ne revient pas a résipiscence.”23

The moment had now come for that decisive measure which the unwilling ecclesiastic had for some time contemplated; for he had too much tact to think of continuing his clerical office under the interdiction of the head of his church, and was by no means prepared to abandon his political career, and to reconcile himself with Rome, on the condition of separating himself from wealth and ambition. But one alternative remained – that of abandoning the profession into which he had been forced to enter. This he did at once, and without hesitation; appearing in the world henceforth (though sometimes styled in public documents the Abbé de Périgord, or the ancien évêque d’Autun) under the plain designation of M. de Talleyrand, a designation which I have already frequently applied to him, and by which, though he was destined to be raised to far higher titles, he has by universal consent descended to posterity. The act was a bold one; but, like most bold acts in difficult circumstances, it was not (I speak of it as a matter of worldly calculation) an imprudent one: for it released an indifferent priest from a position which he could only fill with decency by a constant hypocrisy, for which he was too indolent; and it delivered up an able statesman to a career for which, by the nature of his talents, he was peculiarly fitted. Neither was M. de Talleyrand’s withdrawal from the church so remarkable a fact at that moment as it would have been at any other; for France, and even Europe, were then overrun by French ex-ecclesiastics of all grades, who were prohibited from assuming their rank and unable to fulfil their duties, and who, in many cases, were obliged to conceal their real calling under that from which they earned a daily subsistence.

Nevertheless, the Bishop of Autun’s particular case excited and merited attention. It had been as an organ and representative of the French church, that this prelate had contributed in no slight degree to alienate its property and change its constitution; and now, his brethren in the French clergy being what he had made them, he voluntarily threw their habit from his shoulders and renounced all participation in their fate.

It might, it is true, be urged that none had lost more by the destruction of the ancient church and its institutions than himself, that he had originally become a priest against his inclinations, and that he was compelled to decide either against his convictions as a citizen or against his obligations as a churchman. Still, this desertion from his order by one who had been so conspicuous a member of it, was undoubtedly a scandal, and though the world usually pardons those whom it has an interest to forgive, and though M. de Talleyrand, if he erred, had the consolation of living to see his errors forgiven or overlooked by many very rigid Catholics, who enjoyed his society, by many very pious princes, who wanted his services, and even by the Pope himself, when his holiness was in a situation to fear his enmity and require his goodwill – he himself never felt entirely at his ease as to his early profession, and was so sensitive on the subject that the surest way to offend him was to allude to it. I was told by a lady, long intimate with M. de Talleyrand, that even the mention of the word “lawn” annoyed him.

As to Louis XVI., although making perpetual compromises with his conscience, he was of all persons the one most likely to be shocked by a bishop thus coolly converting himself into a layman; whilst it must be added that M. de Talleyrand was of all persons the one least likely to respect Louis XVI.’s scruples.

We may, therefore, reasonably suppose that whatever relations were indirectly kept up between them at this time, such relations were neither intimate nor cordial, but rather those which men not unfrequently maintain with persons whom they neither like nor trust, but are ready to serve under or be served by, should circumstances arrive to render a closer connection mutually advantageous.

The King, however, had become more and more puzzled by the opposing advice of his various and never-trusted counsellors, and more and more dissatisfied with the prospect of having shortly to assent to a constitution which, in reality, he looked upon as an abdication. It was not surprising, therefore, that, on the morning of the 21st of June, it was discovered that he had, with his family, quitted Paris; and it was shortly afterwards ascertained that the fugitives had directed their course towards the north of France and the camp of M. de Bouillé.

It will be remembered that, to withdraw from the capital to the camp of this officer, in whose judgment, ability, and fidelity Louis XVI. most relied, was part of Mirabeau’s old scheme.

But this was not all: the King, in a paper which he left behind him, stated that it was his intention to retire to some portion of his “kingdom where he could freely exercise his judgment, and there to make such changes in the proposed constitution” (it was on the point of being terminated) “as were necessary to maintain the sanctity of religion, to strengthen the royal authority, and to consolidate a system of true liberty.” A declaration of this kind (though the words I have cited were rather ambiguous) was also comprised in the scheme of Mirabeau.

Now, M. de Montmorin, the minister of foreign affairs – with one of whose passports the King had actually made his escape as a servant of a Madame de Korff – had been initiated, as we know, into Mirabeau’s secrets, and M. de Talleyrand was one of M. de Montmorin’s friends, and had been, as we have recently seen, by Mirabeau’s bedside during his last hours. Hence it might be inferred, notwithstanding the causes which prevented any real sympathy or cordial understanding between the King and the ex-Bishop of Autun, that the latter was privy to the flight of the former, and prepared to take part in the plans of which that flight was to be the commencement.

Rumours, indeed, to this effect, concerning both M. de Montmorin and M. de Talleyrand, were for a moment circulated in Paris.

But M. de Montmorin proved to the satisfaction of the Assembly that he was innocent of all participation in the King’s evasion; and the reports respecting M. de Talleyrand never went further than to one or two of those journals which at that time disgraced the liberty of the press by their total indifference as to whether they published truth or falsehood.

It is also to be remarked that M. de Lafayette, whom on that subject one must accept as a good authority, expressly charges the King with having left M. de Montmorin and his most intimate friends ignorant of his intentions.

“Il était ignoré,” says M. de Lafayette, “de ses ministres, des royalistes de l’Assemblée, tous laissés exposés à un grand peril. Telle était la situation non seulement des gardes nationaux de service, de leurs officiers, mais des amis les plus dévoués du roi, du duc de Brissac, commandant des cent-suisses, et de M. de Montmorin qui avait très-innocemment donné un passeport sous le nom de la baronne de Korff.”24

It is difficult to account for the inconsistency in Louis XVI.’s conduct, except by referring to the inconsistency of his character: I am, however, disposed to surmise that, after Mirabeau’s death, he considered it would be impossible to unite a considerable portion of the Assembly and the army in one common plan; and that he then began carrying on at the same time two plans: the one relative to the policy he should pursue in the event of his stay in the capital, which he probably conducted through M. de Montmorin, who was intimate with the leading members of the constitutional party in the Assembly; the other relative to his flight, which he only entrusted to the general whose camp he was about to seek, and to those private friends and adherents who took little part in public affairs. It is further to be presumed that, according to his constant incertitude and indolence, never long or firmly fixed on any one project, he was scared by apprehensions of the mob at the moment when most disposed to remain quietly in his palace, and alarmed at the risk and trouble of moving when actually pressing the preparations for his journey.

In this manner we may best reconcile his writing to M. de Bouillé, to expect him at Montmedy within a week of his declaring to the sovereigns of Europe (23rd April) that he was satisfied with his condition at Paris: in this manner, likewise, we may explain his solemnly assuring the general of the National Guard that he would not quit the Tuileries, only two or three days before he actually did so.25

He rarely did what he intended to do; and belied himself more frequently from change of intentions, than from intentional insincerity.

VIII

At all events, it seems probable (returning to the fact with which we are in the present instance most concerned) that Louis XVI.’s departure took place without M. de Talleyrand’s active assistance, but I do not think it probable that it was altogether without his knowledge.

The ex-Bishop had such a varied and extensive acquaintance that he was pretty certain to know what he wished to know; and it was according to his usual practice to contrive that he should not be compromised if the King’s projects failed, and yet that he should be in a situation to show that the King was indebted to him if those projects succeeded. It is useless to speculate on what might have occurred had the unfortunate monarch reached his destination; for travelling in a carriage peculiarly heavy and peculiarly conspicuous at the rate of three miles an hour, walking up the hills, putting his head out of the windows at the post-houses, Louis XVI. arrived at the place where he was to have met his escort twenty hours later than the appointed time, and was finally stopped at the bridge of Varennes by a few resolute men, and reconducted leisurely to the capital, amidst the insults of the provinces and the silence of Paris.

The important question then arose, What was to be done respecting him?

Was he to be deposed in favour of a republic? All contemporary writers agree that, at this moment, the idea of a republic was only in a few visionary minds. Was he to be deposed in favour of a new monarch, which, considering the emigration of his brothers and the infancy of his child, could only be in favour of a new dynasty? or, was he to be reinstated in the position he had quitted?

IX

The views and conduct of M. de Talleyrand are at this crisis interesting. We have been told by contemporaries, that he and Sieyès were of opinion that there was a better chance of making the Revolution successful with a limited monarchy under a new chief, elected by the nation, than under the old one, who claimed his throne in virtue of hereditary right; and we can easily understand their reasoning.

A king who had succeeded to a throne from which his ancestors had been accustomed for centuries to dictate absolutely to their people, could hardly be sincerely satisfied with possessing on sufferance a remnant of his ancestors’ former authority; nor could a people be ever wholly without suspicion of a prince who had to forget the ideas with which he had received the sceptre before he could respect those which restricted the use of it.

Louis XVI., moreover, had attempted to escape from his palace, as a prisoner escaping from his gaol, and as a prisoner thus escaping he had been caught and brought back to his place of confinement.

It was difficult to make anything of a sovereign in this condition save a puppet, to be for a while the tool, and ere long the victim, of contending parties.

Now, M. de Talleyrand had always a leaning to the Orleans branch of the House of Bourbon: neither did he think so ill of the notorious personage who was then the representative of the Orleans family, as the contemporaries from whose report posterity has traced his portrait.

Of this prince he once said, in his own pithy manner, “Le duc d’Orléans est le vase dans lequel on a jeté toutes les ordures de la Révolution;”26 and this was not untrue.

Philippe d’Orléans, indeed, who has figured in history under the nickname or sobriquet of “Egalité,” was neither fitted for the part of a great sovereign in turbulent times nor for that of a quiet and obscure citizen at any more tranquil period. Nevertheless, he was not so bad a man as he has been represented; for both Legitimists and Republicans have been obliged to blacken his character in order to excuse their conduct to him.

His character has, furthermore, been mystified and exaggerated, as we have looked at it by the lurid glare of that unnatural vote which brings the later period of his life always prominently and horribly before us. Still, in reality, he was rather a weak man, led into villainous deeds by want of principle, than a man of a strong and villainous nature, who did not scruple at crimes when they seemed likely to advance his ambition. His only one strong passion was a desire to be talked about.

It is possible that the King, by skilful management, might have turned this ruling wish of his most powerful subject to the profit of his monarchy: for the young Duc de Chartres was at one time anxious to shine as an aspirant to military fame. The government, however, denied his request to be employed as became his rank; and when, despite of this denial, he engaged in a naval combat as a volunteer, the court unjustly and impoliticly spread reports against his courage. To risk his life in a balloon, to run riot in every extravagance of debauch, to profess the opinions of a republican though the first prince of the blood royal, were demonstrations of the same disposition which might have made him a gallant soldier, a furious bigot, a zealous royalist, and even a very tolerable constitutional monarch.

As to the various stories of his incessant schemes and complicated manœuvres for exciting the populace, debauching the soldiery, and seizing the crown, they are, in my opinion, no more worthy of credit than the tales which at the same period were equally circulated of Louis XVI.’s drunkenness, and Marie-Antoinette’s debaucheries. Belonging to those whom Tacitus has described as “men loving idleness – though hating quiet,” seeking popularity more than power, and with a character easily modelled by circumstances, I am by no means certain, that if M. de Talleyrand did think of bestowing on him what was afterwards called a “citizen crown,” (it must be remembered that he had not then been lowered and disgraced by the follies or crimes into which he was subsequently led), the plan was not the best which could have been adopted. But there was one great and insurmountable obstacle to this design.

General Lafayette commanded the National Guard of Paris, and although his popularity was already on the wane, he was still – Mirabeau being dead – the most powerful citizen that had been raised up by the Revolution. He did not want to run new risks, nor to acquire greater power, nor to have a monarch with more popularity or more authority than the runaway king.

Courageous rather than audacious, more avid of popularity than of power, a chivalric knight-errant, an amiable enthusiast, rather than a great captain, or a practical politician, the part which suited him was that of parading himself before the people as the guardian of the constitution, and before the sovereign as the idol of the nation. To this part he wished to confine himself; and the monarch under whom he could play it most easily was Louis XVI. Nor was this all.

Ambitious men may agree as to sharing the attributes of office; vain men will not agree as to sharing the pleasure of applause: and it is said that Lafayette never forgot that there was another bust, that of the Duc d’Orléans, carried about the streets of Paris together with his own, on the memorable day which saw the destruction of the Bastille. To any idea, therefore, of the Duc d’Orléans as King of France, he was decidedly opposed.

X

Thus, after making just that sort of effort in favour of the younger branch of the Bourbons which left him free to support the elder one, if such effort proved abortive, M. de Talleyrand finally declared for Louis XVI., as the only person who could be monarch, if a monarchy could be preserved; and was also for giving this prince such a position as he might honourably accept, with functions that he might really fulfil.

The King himself, it must be added, was now in a better disposition than he had hitherto been for frankly accepting the conditions of the new existence proposed to him.

A hero, or rather a saint, when it was required of his fortitude to meet danger or to undergo suffering, his nature was one of those which shrink from exertion, and prefer endurance to a struggle for either victory or escape.

It was with difficulty that he had been so far roused into action as to attempt his recent expedition; he had been disgusted with its trouble, more than awed by its peril. Death itself seemed preferable to another such effort.

He had seen, likewise, from the feeling of the provinces, and even from the infidelity of the troops, who, sent to escort him, might have attempted his rescue; but who, when told to cry, “Vive le Roi!” cried, “Vive la Nation!” that, even if he had reached M. de Bouillé’s camp, it would have been difficult for that general, notwithstanding his firmness of character and military ability, to have placed the sovereign of France in any position within the French territory from which he might have dictated to, or even treated with, the French people. To quit Paris, therefore, a second time was evidently to quit France and to unite himself with, and to be subordinate to, that party of émigrés which had always preferred his younger brother, whose presumption had become insulting to his authority and offensive to Marie-Antoinette’s pride.

On the other hand, many persons of note in the Assembly who had hitherto employed their talents and their popularity towards the weakening of the monarchical power, were at this juncture disposed to strengthen it.

Amongst the commissioners sent to conduct Louis XVI. from Varennes to Paris, was Barnave, an eloquent young lawyer, who, from a desire to distinguish himself in a glorious rivalry with Mirabeau, had adopted that party in the Assembly which, whilst declaring itself against a republic, contended in all discussions, and especially in the famous discussion on the veto, for abridging and in fact annihilating the royal authority. Struck by the misfortunes of Marie-Antoinette, – beauty never appearing so attractive to a generous heart as in the hour of distress, – and convinced, perhaps, by his own personal observations that Louis XVI. had in many respects been grossly calumniated, Barnave had at last adopted the views which had previously been formed by his great rival, whose ashes then slept in the Pantheon.

The two Lameths also, officers of noble birth, possessing some talent and more spirit, perceiving that by the course they had hitherto pursued they had raised up at each step more formidable rivals amongst the lower classes of society than any they would otherwise have had to encounter amongst the leaders of the nobility or the favourites of the court, were now as anxious to restrain the democracy which they hated, as Barnave was to assist the queen whom he loved; whilst many of all ranks, conscientiously in favour of liberty, but as justly alarmed at anarchy, beginning to consider it more important to curb the license of the mob and the clubs than that of the King and the government, were for rallying round the tottering throne and trying to give it a tolerable foundation of security.

XI

For these reasons, then, there was a combination of interests, desires, and abilities, in favour of establishing Louis XVI. at the head of such a constitution, as, if not the best possible, would have been the best possible at that time; and, every other rational project seeming out of the question, M. de Talleyrand entered, as I have said, into this one, although with less faith in its practicability than some of his coadjutors.

There were, however, at this moment circumstances which favoured it. An assemblage, collected together by the influence and exhortations of the most violent of the Jacobins for the purpose of signing a petition to the Assembly against the continuance of the monarchy, having given a sufficient pretext by its tumultuous character and excesses to justify the act, was dispersed by Lafayette at the head of the National Guard, and with the authority of Bailly, mayor of Paris; – that is, with the force and authority of the whole mass of the bourgeoisie, or middle class.

The Republicans were daunted. A revision of the constitution, moreover, was required; for the desultory and inconsistent manner in which many of the measures of the Assembly had been voted, rendered it necessary to distinguish between those which were temporary in their character and those that were to remain fundamental laws of the State. This revision offered the opportunity of introducing changes of importance into the constitution itself, and amongst these a second chamber or senate.

To this addition even Lafayette consented; although his opinion was that such second chamber should be elective, as in the United States (his constant model), and not hereditary as in England, which another section of public men – anxious to maintain an aristocracy as well as a monarchy – desired.

The moderate party, still powerful in the departments, in Paris, and in the National Guard, as well as in the army, had not, nevertheless, by itself a majority in the Assembly; and a mere majority could not have undertaken so great a plan as that contemplated. With the aid of the Royalists, however, the execution of this plan was easy. But the Royalists, consisting of two hundred and ninety members, with the Abbé Maury at their head (Cazales, the other leader of the Royalist party, at this time emigrated), retaining their seats in the Assembly, declined to take any part in its proceedings; – and in this manner the only hope of safety for the King was destroyed by the very persons who arrogated to themselves the title of “the King’s friends;” nor was this course, though foolish and unpatriotic, altogether unnatural.

What a party can least bear is the triumph of its opponents: the consolidation of a constitutional government was the triumph of that party, which from the beginning of the Revolution had advocated such a government and declared it possible. The triumph of the opposite party, on the contrary, was, that there should be an absolute monarchy, or no monarchy; a government of “lettres de cachet,” or no government. This party had to prove that to diminish the sovereign’s power was to conduct him to the scaffold; that to give the people freedom was to overthrow society. Thus, if they did not hope for the worst, they would do nothing to secure the best that was practicable. It is conjunctures like these which confound the calculations of those who fancy that men will act according to their interests.

Left to themselves, the Constitutionalists had not sufficient power to give battle to the democrats in the Assembly and the clubs out of it. They voted the King a body-guard and a privy purse – measures better calculated to excite the envy than to curb the license of the populace; and then, betrayed by the same wish to show their disinterestedness, which had made them parties, in November, 1789, to the stupid declaration that no member of the National Assembly should be the King’s minister, they committed the still greater folly of declaring that no member of the National Assembly should sit in the next legislature, nor hold any office under the Crown during its continuance; a decree decapitating France, and delivering an untried constitution into the hands of inexperienced legislators.

This decree left the future too obscure for any man of calmness and judgment to flatter himself that there was more than a faint probability of fixing its destinies for some years to come; but whatever these destinies might be, the reputation of the statesman whose views formed the mind of a rising generation, would survive the errors and passions of a past one.

It was with this thought before him that M. de Talleyrand, just previous to the dissolution of the National Assembly, or, as it is sometimes called, l’Assemblée constituante, brought under its notice a vast project of education, then too late to be decided upon, but which, printed and recommended to the attention of the coming legislature, and having at one extremity the communal school and at the other the Institute, exists with but slight alterations at this very day.

The Assembly now separated (on the 13th of September) amidst that usual exhibition of fireworks and fêtes which mark the history of the animated and variable people, who, never contented and never despairing, exhibit the same joy when they crown their heroes or break their idols.

Such was the end of that great Assembly which passed away rapidly from the face of affairs at the moment, but which left its foot-print on the world for generations that have not yet effaced it.

In this Assembly, M. de Talleyrand was the most conspicuous figure after Mirabeau, as he was hereafter in the Empire the most conspicuous personage after Napoleon; and I have dwelt more on this portion of his career than I may do upon others, because it is the one least known, and for which he has been least appreciated.

The reputation, however, which he obtained and justly earned in those violent and turbulent times, was not of a violent or turbulent character. A member of the two famous clubs of the day (Jacobins and Feuillans), he frequented them occasionally, not to take part in their debates, but to be acquainted with and influence those who did. In the National Assembly he had always sided with the most moderate who could hope for power, and who did not abjure the Revolution.

Necker, Mounier, Mirabeau, had successively his support so long as they took an active part in public affairs. In the same manner he acted, when they disappeared, with Barnave and the two Lameths; and even with Lafayette, though he and that personage disliked and despised each other. No personal feeling altered his course; it was never marked by personal prejudices, nor can I say that it was ever illumined by extraordinary eloquence. His influence arose from his proposing great and reasonable measures at appropriate times, in singularly clear and elegant language; and this from the height of a great social position. He did not pretend to be guided by sentiment or emotion; neither hatred, nor devotion, nor apprehension, ever seemed to affect his conduct. He avowed that he wished for a constitutional monarchy, and was willing to do all he could to obtain one. But he never said he would sacrifice himself to this idea if it proved impossible to make it successful.

Many have attacked his honour because, being a noble and a churchman, he sided against the two orders he belonged to; but in reality he rather wished to make ancient things live amongst new ideas than to sweep ancient things away. Others have denied his sagacity in promoting a revolution which drove him from affluence and power into poverty and exile. But, in spite of what has been said to the contrary, I by no means believe that the end of the Revolution of 1789 was the natural consequence of its commencement. The more we examine the history of that period, the more we are struck by the incessant and unaccountable follies of those who wished to arrest it. There was no want of occasions when the most ordinary courage and good sense on the part of the King and his friends would have given the one all the power it was advisable he should exercise, and preserved the other in as influential a position as was compatible with the abolition of intolerable abuses. No man can calculate with accuracy on all the faults that may be committed by his opponents. It is probable that M. de Talleyrand did not calculate on the utter subversion of the society he undertook to reform; but it appears that at each crisis he foresaw the dangers that were approaching, and counselled the measures most likely to prevent their marring his country’s prospects and his own fortunes.

At the actual moment, he perceived that the new legislature would be a new world, which could neither have the same notions, nor belong to the same society, nor be subject to the same influences, as the last; and that the wisest thing to do was to withdraw himself from the Paris horizon until the clouds that obscured it had, in some direction or other, passed away.

In England, he was sufficiently near not to be forgotten, and sufficiently distant not to be compromised. England, moreover, was the natural field of observation at that moment for a French statesman. To England, therefore, he went, accompanied by M. de Biron, and arrived in London on the 25th of January, 1792.