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TALLEYEAND. 
 VOL. I. 
 
TALLEYEAND. 
 
 By lady BLENNERHASSETT 
 
 (grafin leyden). 
 
 TKANSLATED FKOM THE GERMAN 
 
 By FREDERICK CLARKE, 
 
 Lo.U Taylorian Scholar in the University of Oxford. 
 
 " Les homrues a piincipes sont dispenses de r^ussir. Le succte est au contraiie 
 pour les habiles une condition obligee." — A. Thiers, " Cmisidat et Emi)ire," 
 xviii., 99. 
 
 IN TWO VOLS. — VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 
 
 1894. 
 
<2//ss^y 
 
 Printed by Hazell, Watson, & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury. 
 
n 
 
 
 N& 
 
 
 TO THE MEMORY 
 
 OF 
 
 SIE KOBEET MORIEK, G.C.B., G.C.M.G. 
 
 THESE PAGES ARE DEDICATED BY 
 A DEVOTED FRIEND. 
 
PEEFACE. 
 
 "FN May 1892 I was entrusted with the task of 
 reviewing Talleyrand's Memoirs in the Deutsche 
 Rundschau. His will directed that their publication 
 should be deferred for thirty years after his death. 
 This term expired in 1868. Owing to over-anxious 
 scruples, it was prolonged to 1891. The impatience of 
 the public rose with its expectations. Most of Talley- 
 rand's contemporaries had already told their story, and 
 when at last his turn came, he addressed a generation 
 whose jaded cm-iosity imagined itself adequately in- 
 formed as to his public career, and hoped to find 
 indiscretions relating to his private life. In this it 
 was not gratified. The words " Je veux eviter tout ce 
 qui aurait une apparence libellique " precluded, with 
 but few exceptions, the admission of all frivolous matter 
 into the text of the Memoirs. The disappointment 
 to which this gave rise found vent in a controversy 
 as to their authenticity, which never had any solid 
 
Till PREFACE. 
 
 basis. Xo one now has any serious doubt that 
 Talleyrand is the author of the memoranda to which 
 his executors, the Duchesse de Dino and 3ionsieur de 
 Bacourt, gave their present connected form. 
 
 On the other hand, an objection of a different kind 
 proved all the more well founded. The ^Memoirs, by 
 far the greater part of which were composed in 1816 
 for a definite object, and for Louis XVIII.. are silent 
 on many points, and only give firagmentary notices 
 of Talleyrand's work in Hfe. It was obvious that he 
 would confine himself to what was strictly necessarv 
 in regard to such events as the murder of the Duke 
 of Enghien. On the other hand, people were naturally 
 surprised that he should pursue precisely the same 
 course with regard to matters which do him the 
 greatest credit, such as his mission of peace to London 
 in 1792, or the courageous stand which he made for 
 religious tolerance on the eve of the Reign of Terror. 
 In the same way, the prominent part he took in the 
 settlement of the Concordat in 1801 is not known 
 through his Memoirs, but fi"om the three volumes of 
 documents which have been recently published by 
 Boulay de la Meurthe. These and similar instances lead 
 to the conclusion that in cases where his silence is not 
 intentional, Talleyrand's experiences were of too manifold 
 
PEEFACE. IX 
 
 a nature to permit him to render an exhaustive account 
 of everything he did. As feudal aristocrat, ecclesiastic, 
 financier, economist, bishop, deputy, legislator, co- 
 founder of a schism, diplomatic agent, refugee, exile, 
 speculator in New York, Academician in Paris, ex- 
 communicated by one Pope, secularised by another, 
 Minister of the Directory, the Consulate, the Empire, 
 and of both Eestorations, twice ambassador, once 
 regent, disciple of Montesquieu, contemporary of Turgot 
 and colleague of Thiers, Talleyrand, in the eighty-four 
 years of his life, experienced almost every variety of 
 human fortune. His contemporaries marked the weak 
 points, the shortcomings, the blemishes of his character, 
 and passed a severe verdict on him. But history is 
 able to sun'ey a homogeneous whole and a coherent 
 policy, in which moderation and wisdom rise to the 
 level of greatness. 
 
 It was not in 1814 and 1815, after Leipzig and 
 Waterloo, and under the pressure of necessity, but in 
 1792, on the eve of the universal war which he wished 
 to avert, that Tallevrand put forth a programme of 
 peace : " La France doit rester circonscrite dans ses 
 propres limites; elle le doit a sa gloire, a la justice, 
 a la raison, a son interet et a celui des peuples qui 
 seront libres par elles." Forty years afterwards he 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 addressed the same language to Louis Philippe. The 
 policy which he advocated for PVance under Louis XVL 
 remained the same throughout : the hegemony of the 
 Latin races, the abandonment of the Rhine frontier, 
 the establishment of a counterpoise to Russian ambition, 
 and the foundation of a vast colonial empire with its 
 centre of graWty in North Africa. 
 
 The outlines of Talleyrand's home policy are not 
 less clear and distinct. He has been called the 
 greatest of all Opportunists, and rightly so. He was 
 the last person in the world to sacrifice himself for 
 ideas, even if they were his own. But he waited 
 patiently till their time came round again. Amid 
 the tumult of 1789 he kept a cool head and laid the 
 foundations of the modern state. He remained faith- 
 ful to his creed when the waves of reaction were 
 submerging the best and the wisest of his contem- 
 poraries. His interpretation of the genius of his race 
 was that Monarchy, which had founded France, 
 could alone continue her historical development, and 
 reconcile and harmonise the conservative forces of 
 the past with the aspiring elements of the futm'e. 
 Like Cavour and Bismarck, he believed that national 
 unity was safest when encircled by the golden orb of 
 the Crown and placed under the JBgis of the nation's 
 
PREFACE. XI 
 
 hereditary dynasty. This policy failed on three 
 separate occasions, but on each of them he ad- 
 dressed himself once more to the task. It was not 
 till the year 1830 that he gave up the dynasty, and 
 then with the bitter conviction that kings cannot 
 be improvised, that the Monarchy of July was only 
 another stage in the development of the still unfinished 
 Kevolution, and that the work of his life was ending 
 in disappointment. 
 
 The last historical figure of the eighteenth century, 
 Talleyrand remains one of the leading statesmen of the 
 nineteenth. His frigid scepticism prevented him from 
 indulging in the generous delusions of enthusiasm ; 
 but he escaped the inevitable reactions which overtake 
 enthusiasts. His observation and experience culmin- 
 ated in the conviction that democracies are incapable 
 of governing, and that the work must be carried on 
 for them. No one has taken a more active part in 
 raising the edifice of modern society than this aristo- 
 cratic Minister, who never courted popularity, and 
 under every regime, at all periods of his life, was 
 a great patriot and an advocate of peace. 
 
CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 TALLEYRAND'S YOUTH (1754 — 1780) . . . 1 
 
 Antiquity of Talleyrand's family — His birth, Feb. 13th, 
 1 754 — His father's pecuniary circumstances — Neglect 
 of children in those days — Cause of his lameness — 
 Talleyrand's visit to his great-grandmother — His 
 account of the Perigord nobility — Description of life 
 at Chalais— Sent to school at the College d'Harcourt 
 — Bitter feeling caused by neglect — Sent to seminary 
 of St. Sulpice — Distaste for ecclesiastical surround- 
 ings at Rheims — Life at St. Sulpice — Influence of 
 books — View of Christianity — Influence of Montes- 
 quieu — Not attracted by J. J. Rousseau — Leaning 
 towards Voltaire — Economic and financial studies — 
 Trained by Choiseul for public affairs — His view of 
 Choiseul's policy — Affinity with Montaigne. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 TALLEYRAND AGENT-GENERAL OF THE CLERGY 
 
 (1780—1786) 25 
 
 Talleyrand enters the priesthood with the greatest re- 
 pugnance — Present at the coronation of Louis XVI. 
 in June 1755 — Important part played by women in 
 his career — Position of the French clergy at that time 
 
XIV CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 — Clerical training of Talleyrand — His ambition — 
 Important part played by ecclesiastics in the 
 Revolution, etc. — Talleyrand's mother — Talleyrand 
 appointed to benefice of St. Denis at Rheims — 
 His life in Paris — His friends — His ideas of social 
 intercourse — A favourite with women — Personal 
 appearance — His attacks on Necker — No sympathy 
 with Gallo- Americans — Satirical description of La 
 Fayette — Talleyrand's views of French policy — 
 Acquaintance with Pitt — Adherent of free trade 
 — Clerical reforms proposed by Talleyrand not 
 supported by the clergy. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE CALONNE MINISTRY AND MIRABEAU'S MISSION TO 
 
 BERLIN (1786—1787) ..... 51 
 
 Talleyrand in Brittany — Countess Buffon — Countess 
 Flahaut — Talleyrand an authority on finance — Re- 
 organises discount bank — Return of Mirabeau to 
 Paris — Talleyrand takes him up — Mirabeau 's mis- 
 sion to Berlin — His abuse of Talleyrand — His 
 attack on Calonne — Talleyrand's account of Calonne 
 — Letter from Talleyrand to Choiseul-GoufBer on 
 questions of the day — Talleyrand's opinion on 
 Lome'nie de Brienne and the Notables — Character- 
 istics of French society — Talleyrand's remark to 
 Guizot — His attitude towards democracy — Aversion 
 to doctrinaires. 
 
 CHAPTER lY. 
 
 TALLEYRAND BISHOP OF AUTUN AND DEPUTY OF 
 
 THE CLERGY IN 1789 (1787—1789) . . 74 
 
 Great success of Talleyrand as Agent-General— Prospect 
 of becoming Cardinal — The Countess de Brionne — 
 
CONTENTS. XV 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Talleyrand in disfavour at Court — Disappointment 
 at not receiving promotion — Joins the provincial 
 assembly at Chalons — His labours there — Import- 
 ance of the provincial assemblies — The French 
 clergy and the Revolution — Talleyrand's high 
 opinion of value of provincial assemblies- — Appointed 
 Bishop of Autun — Public comments — Sketch of his 
 character by Laclos — Satire by Chenier — Talleyrand 
 and outward propriety — Candidate for election to 
 States-General — Important address to his electors — 
 Joins the " Thirty Club " in Paris — Quarrel with 
 Mirabeau — Madame de Stael — Talleyrand's opinion 
 on Necker — His view on the double representation 
 of the Third Estate — His own plan — Seance Royale 
 and Mirabeau — Talleyrand tries to save Louis XVI. 
 — His nocturnal interview at Marly with the Comte 
 d'Artois — His tactics in the Assembly. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 TALLEYRAND AND THE SECULARISATION OF THE 
 
 FRENCH CHURCH (1789) . . . .106 
 
 Talleyrand and Mirabeau — Talleyrand's motion with re- 
 gard to the electors' mandates — His oratorical style 
 — His share in declaration of rights of man — His 
 motion for sequestration of the property of the 
 Church — Summary of his arguments in the Assem- 
 bly — The Assembly passes the motion — Attitude of 
 the clergy — Talleyrand and Mirabeau endeavour to 
 form a Ministry — Talleyrand's financial statements 
 — His protest against the assignats — His work in 
 the Assembly^He composes the address on the 
 labours of the Assembly — Appointed President of 
 the Assembly — Celebration of anniversary of fall of 
 Bastille on Champ de Mars — Talleyrand acts as 
 celebrant — His alleged cynical remarks on the 
 occasion. 
 
Xvi CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE CIVIL CONSTITUTION OF THE CLERGY AND THE 
 
 REFORM OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION (1790 — 1791) 135 
 
 Debates in the Assembly — Civil constitution of the clergy- 
 carried — Effect in the country — Correspondence 
 between Talleyrand and his clergy — Talleyrand's 
 speeches on public credit and the assignats — His 
 advice unheeded — Ferment in the provinces — Atti- 
 tude of the clergy — Talleyrand takes the oath to 
 the civil constitution — He consecrates two newly 
 appointed bishops — His remarks in his Memoirs — 
 Letter to the Moniteur, Feb. 8th, 1891— Elected 
 member of assembly of Department of Paris — 
 Resigns his bishopric — Death of Mirabeau — Talley- 
 rand at his death-bed — Talleyrand's speech in the 
 Assembly on Mirabeau — Courageous advocacy of 
 religious toleration by Talleyi-and in Assembly- 
 Excommunicated by the Pope — Secularisation of 
 Public Instruction — Education in France before the 
 Revolution— Talleyrand's scheme— Not carried into 
 law — Question finally settled by Napoleon. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 TALLEYRAND'S MISSIONS TO LONDON (1792) . .168 
 
 Foreign policy of France — Talleyrand succeeds Mirabeau 
 in diplomatic committee of Assembly— Attitude of 
 the European Powers and of England— Propaganda 
 of the Revolution— Fanaticism of the Jacobins- 
 Count Louis de Narbonne— Girondists in favour of 
 war— Proposed alhance with England and Prussia 
 — Talleyrand's position at this time — Hated by the 
 Royalists— Threatened with impeachment by Jaco- 
 bins — Not in favour of emigration — Duke of 
 Brunswick— Attitude of Robespierre— Prussia and 
 
CONTENTS Xvii 
 
 PAOE 
 
 Russia — Talleyrand sent on mission to London — 
 His difficulties there — Returns to Paris on March 
 10th, 1792 — Policy of Dumouriez — Talleyrand re- 
 turns to London again on April 29th — Partial success 
 of his mission — Returns once more to Paris on 
 July 5th — Plans for safety of King — Talleyrand's 
 circular to the Powers — Talleyrand and Danton — 
 Talleyrand's third journey to London — His memor- 
 andum to Lebrun — His policy frustrated by the 
 Convention — Fox and Pitt — Execution of Louis 
 XVI. — Convention declares war — Talleyrand and 
 the English alliance. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 EXILE (ENGLAND AND AMERICA, 1792 — 1796) . 216 
 
 Talleyrand impeached by the Convention — His relations 
 with the Court — Suspected of Orleanist conspiracy 
 — His sketch of the Duke of Orleans — French emigres 
 in England in 1793— Talleyrand's life in England 
 — Attitude of the Monarchists — Jacobin hatred of 
 England — Talleyrand expelled from England — Sails 
 for the United States, Feb. 1794 — Intercourse with 
 Alexander Hamilton — His admiration for Hamilton 
 — Papers written in America — Boston society, "aris- 
 tocracy of blackguards" — Talleyrand in the far 
 West — Madame de Stael procures reversal of his 
 sentence — Leaves New York — Arrives at Hamburg 
 Jan. 1796. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 TALLEYRAND MINISTER OF THE DIRECTORY (1798 — 
 
 1799) 245 
 
 Talleyrand does not return to France at once — Situation 
 in France — Foreign affairs — Revolutionary diplo- 
 macy — Policy of Pitt — Talleyrand decides to wait 
 at Hamburg — Madame Grand — Successes of Bona- 
 
 VOL. I. 6 
 
XVlll CO^'TENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 parte — Talleyrand goes to Amsterdam and Brussels 
 — Returns to Paris in Sept. 1796 after absence of four 
 years — Made a member of the Institute — Madame 
 de Stael helps him — Appointed Minister of Foreign 
 Affairs under Directory, July 1798 — Successful 
 administration — Coup cVetat of Fructidor — Negotia- 
 tions for peace with England — Talleyrand enters 
 into communication with Bonaparte — Bonaparte's 
 letter to him of Sept. 19th — Talleyrand meets Bona- 
 parte for the first time, Dec. 1798 — Egyptian 
 expedition — Policy of secularisation — Sieyes in 
 Berlin — Talleyrand's contempt for government of 
 Directory — His venality — Quarrel between France 
 and the United States — American agents in Paris 
 — Talleyrand's attempt to extort money from them 
 — Interview with Madame de Stael — Talleyrand 
 tries to vindicate himself — Venality of members of 
 Du'ectory. 
 
 CHAPTEK X. 
 
 THE SECOND COALITION AND THE COUP d'^TAT OF 
 
 BRUMAIRE (1799) 290 
 
 "War between France and Second Coalition, March 1799 
 — Moral responsibility for it — State of feeling in 
 France — Military operations on the Continent — 
 Sieyes President of the Directory — Talleyrand re- 
 signs his office — Publishes his defence — Directory 
 decides to recall Bonaparte from Egypt — Bonaparte 
 lands at Frejus — Coup d'etat of Brumaire — Talley- 
 rand brings about understanding between Sieyes 
 and Bonaparte — Talleyrand's share in couj) d'etat of 
 Brumaire — Thanked by First Consul for his co- 
 operation in it — Public opinion on Brumaire — 
 Talleyrand's view — TallejTand and the Royalists — 
 Re-appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs, Nov. 21st, 
 1799 — Bonaparte's opinion of him — New constitu- 
 
CONTENTS. Xix 
 
 TAG E 
 
 tion — Change of Government ^jer.s-o?i«eZ — Benjamin 
 Constant and Madame de Stael — Talleyrand's mean 
 conduct to Madame de Stael. 
 
 CHAPTEK XI. 
 
 TALLEYRAND MINISTER OF THE CONSULATE (1799 — 
 
 1801) 324 
 
 Policy of Bonaparte — Admiration of Talleyrand for 
 Bonaparte — Talleyrand's influence — Reorganisa- 
 tion of staff of Foreign Office — Talleyrand and 
 Prussia — The First Consul and England — Desperate 
 financial situation in France — Objects of French 
 diplomacy— Talleyrand and Spain — Negotiations 
 with Russia — Battle of Marengo — First Consul 
 returns to Paris — Negotiations with St. Julien — 
 Battle of Hohenlinden — Peace of Luneville — The 
 Tsar Paul — Attempt on the First Consul's life — 
 Talleyrand consulted by the First Consul — His 
 advice — Murder of the Tsar Paul — Collapse of 
 alliance between Russia and France — Talleyrand's 
 remark on receipt of neAvs of the Tsar's death. 
 
LIST OF WOEKS CONSULTED BY 
 THE AUTHOE. 
 
 TALLEYRAND'S WRITINGS, SPEECHES, DESPATCHES, 
 
 AND LETTERS. 
 
 " Memoir es du Prince de Tal- 
 leyrand, publics avec line 
 Preface et des Notes, par Ic 
 -due de Broglie, de I'Academie 
 fran9aise." Vol. I — V. Paris, 
 Calmann Levy. 1891. 
 
 G. Pallain, "La Mission de 
 Talleyrand h, Londres en 1792, 
 avec introduction et notes." 
 Paris, Plon. 1839. 1 vol. 
 
 G. Pallain, " Le Ministers de 
 Talleyrand sous le Directoire." 
 Paris, Plon. 1891. 1 vol. 
 
 Pierre Bertrand, " Lettresine- 
 dites de Talleyrand k Napo- 
 le'on," 1800—1809, avec intro- 
 duction et notes. Paris, Perrin 
 et Cie. 1889. 1 vol. 
 
 G. Pallain, "Talleyrand et 
 Louis XVIII., Correspondance 
 inedite pendant le Congres de 
 Vienne." Paris, Plon. 1881. 
 1 vol. 
 
 G. Pallain, " Ambassade de 
 
 Talleyrand h. Londres." 1830 
 
 —1834. Paris, Plon. 1891. 
 
 2 vols. 
 Comtesse de Mirabeau, "Le 
 
 Prince de Talleyrand et la 
 
 Maison d'Orle'ans." 1 vol. 
 Talleyrand, " Lettres a Choi- 
 
 seul-Gouffier." ("Bibliophile 
 
 francais.") 
 Talleyrand, "Correspondance 
 
 avec le 1*^'" Consul." (Revue 
 
 d'Hist. diplom. 1892.) 
 Talleyrand, " Lettres a la du- 
 
 chesse de Courlande, 1814." 
 
 (Revue d'Hist. diplom. 1887.) 
 Talleyrand, " Lettres k Mme. 
 
 de Stael." (Revue d'Hist. 
 
 diplom. 1890.) 
 Talleyrand, " Lettres a M. 
 
 de Bacourt 1831 — 1838." 
 
 (Correspondant 10 Mars, 
 
 1893.) 
 
XXU LIST OF WORKS CONSULTED BY THE AUTHOR. 
 
 WRITINGS, ETC. {continued). 
 
 Mavidalet Laurent, "Archives baux rlu comity de I'lnstruc- 
 
 parlementairesP'^^Serie." (Dis- I tion publique." ( Disco urs de 
 
 cours de Talleyrand.) Talleyrand.) 
 
 M. S. Guillaume, " Proces-ver- 
 
 BIOGRAPHIES AND NOTICES OF TALLEYRAND. 
 
 Abt, L., " Lebens-Kjide Tal- j Mignet, " Notice sur Talley- 
 
 leyrands." i rand." 
 
 Brougham, Lord, " Historical \ Pichot, " Souvenirs intimes 
 
 Sketches of Statesmen." 
 Carion, H., " Talleyrand." 
 Castellane, "Talleyrand. Es- 
 
 sai de psychologie politique." 
 Colmache, " Eevelations sur 
 
 Talleyrand." 
 Balling, Lord, " Talleyrand." 
 Dufour de la Thuilerie, S. D., 
 " Hist, de la vie et de la mort 
 de M. de Talleyrand." 
 Gorsas, J., " Mem. papiers et 
 
 lettres de Talleyrand." 
 Kolb, E., " Talleyrand intime." 
 "Life of Talleyrand." Phila- 
 delphia, 1834. 
 Marcade, A., " Talleyrand pre- 
 
 tre et eveque." 
 Michaud, G., " Hist, politique 
 et privde de Talleyrand." 
 
 sur Talleyrand." 
 Place et Florens, " Mem. sur 
 
 Talleyrand." 
 Sainte-Beuve, " Talleyrand." 
 
 (Nouveaux Lundis XII.) 
 
 Salle, " Vie politique de Tal- 
 leyrand." 
 
 Sommer, Mrs. Mary, " Les 
 belles amies de Talleyrand." 
 
 Stapfer, A., "Bonaparte et 
 Talleyrand " 
 
 Touehard la Fosse, "Talley- 
 rand, hist, polit. et vie intime.'' 
 
 Tusset, " Vie politique de Tal- 
 leyrand." 
 
 Vars, Baron de, " Les femmes 
 de Talleyrand." 
 
 Villemarest, " Talleyrand." 
 
 BIOGRAPHIES. 
 
 Alison, " Lord Castlereagh Artaud de Montor, " Le 
 
 and Sir Ch. Stewart, Lives." I borate d'Hauterive, sa vie, ses 
 
 Artaud de Montor, " Histoire ' ^ ^''^^f^ Et^-'^^'^'r.- ^ 
 ripPipVTT" I Barante, "Vie politique de 
 
 ^^ ^'^ ^ ^^- I Royer-CoUard." 
 
LIST OF WORKS CONSULTED BY THE AUTHOR. XXlll 
 
 BIOGRAPHIES {continued). 
 
 Bardoux, " Le Comte de Mont- 
 
 losier." 
 Blennerhassett, Lady, "Fiau 
 
 von Stael." 
 
 Mignet, " Eoederer, Notice 
 
 hist." 
 Muralt, C. v., "Hans von 
 
 Reiuhard." 
 
 Boulay de la Meurthe, " Le Noailles, Vicomtesse de, " La 
 
 due d'Enghien. Dei'nieres an- Princesse de Poix." 
 
 nees." \ Pertz, " Leben Steins." 
 
 Capefigue, " Diplomates euro- j Pingaud, Leon, " Le Cte. 
 
 P^ens." d'Antraigues." 
 
 Balling, Lord, " Life of Lord Rosebery, Lord, " Pitt." 
 
 Palmerston." 
 Baunou, " Notice sur Rul- 
 
 hiere." 
 Emouf, Bron., " Maret, due de 
 
 Bassano." 
 Fournier, A., "Napoleon I." 
 Geffrey, " Gustave III. et la 
 
 cour de France." 
 Helfert, " Marie Luise, etc." 
 Lagrange, " Vie de Dupan- 
 
 loup." 
 Lamartine, A. de, " OEuvres. 
 
 Autobiographie." 
 Lescure, " Rivarol. ' 
 Lomenie, L. de, " Les Mira- 
 
 beau." 
 Marconnay-Beaulieu, " C. v. 
 
 Dalberg." 
 Masson, P., " Le Cardinal de 
 
 Bernis." 
 Maynard, " Mgr. Dupanloup, 
 
 etc." 
 
 Rousse, E., '• Mirabeau." 
 Sainte-Beuve, " Chateaubriand 
 et son groupe litteraire sous 
 lEmpire." 
 
 "Rulhiere." 
 
 '■ Le due de Lauzun." 
 
 " Le Cardinal Maury," and 
 
 others. 
 Say, Leon, " Turgot." 
 Schelle, " Dupont de Nemours 
 
 et I'eeole physiocratique." 
 Seeley, " Life of Stein." 
 Shea, E., " Alexander Hamil- 
 ton." 
 Sorel, A., " Montesquieu." 
 Sparks, Jared, " Life of Gover- 
 nor Morris." 
 Stern, A., "Mirabeau." 
 Uhde, H., "D. Reichhardts 
 
 Selbstbiographie." 
 Welschinger, A., "Le due 
 d'Enghien." 
 
XXIV LIST OF WOEKS CONSULTED BY THE AUTHOR. 
 
 MEMOIKS. 
 
 Arblay, Mme. d', " Diary and 
 
 Letters." 
 Arnault, " Souvenirs d'un 
 
 Sexagenaire." 
 Auckland, Lord, " Journal 
 
 and Correspondence." 
 Bachaumont, " Memoires Se- 
 crets." 
 Barbe-Marbois, " Journal d'un 
 
 deporte." 
 Barrere, " Memoires." 
 Bouille, " Memoires." 
 Brissot, " Memoires." 
 Burghersh, Lord, " Memoirs 
 on the Operations of the 
 Allied Armies." 
 Capefigue, " Memoires tires 
 des papiers d'un homme 
 d'Etat." (Decazes.) 
 Carnot, " Memoires." 
 Chaptal, " Souvenirs." 
 Cretineau-Joly, " Memoii-es 
 
 du Cardinal Consalvi." 
 Czartoryski, " Memoires." 
 Du Casse, Bron., " Josepli 
 Bonaparte, Memoires et Let- 
 tres." 
 
 " Memoires du Prince 
 
 Eugene." 
 Dumas, Mathieu, " Memoires." 
 Edling, Comtesse, "Memoires." 
 Fauche-Borel, " Memoires." 
 Ferrieres, " Memoires." 
 Fesenzac, - Souvenirs." 
 Gaudin, due de Gaete, " Me- 
 moires et Souvenirs." 
 
 Genlis, Mme. de, " Memoires." 
 
 Girardin, Stanislas, " Me- 
 moires." 
 
 Gontaut, Duchesse de, "Me- 
 moires." 
 
 Greville, Henry, " ]\Iemoii's." 
 
 Guizot, " Memoires pour servir 
 a I'histoire de mon temps." 
 
 Hyde de Neuville, " Memoires 
 et Souvenirs." 
 
 Jung, Th., " Lucien Bonaparte 
 et ses Memoires." 
 
 Labrador, " Melanges." 
 
 La Fayette, " Memoires et 
 Correspondance. " 
 
 Langon, " Evenings with 
 
 Prince Cambaceres." 
 Las Cases, " Memorial de Ste. 
 
 Helene." 
 Lauzun, " Memoires." 
 Lavalette, " Memoires." 
 Macdonald, Marechal, " Sou- 
 venirs." 
 Mallet du Pan, " Memoires et 
 
 Correspondance." 
 Malmesbury, Lord, " Diary 
 
 and Correspondence." 
 Malouet, " Memoires." 
 Meneval, " Souvenii-s sur 
 
 Marie Louise." 
 Merivale, " Memoirs of Sir 
 
 Philip Francis." 
 Mettemich, " Avis Metternichs 
 
 nachgelassenen Papieren." 
 Miot de Melito, " Memoii-es." 
 
LIST OF WORKS CONSULTED BY THE AUTHOE. XXV 
 
 MEMOIRS (continued). 
 
 MoUeville, Bertrand de, " Me- 
 
 moires." 
 Montgelas, " Denkwiirdigkei- 
 
 ten." 
 Morellet, " M6moires." 
 Pasquier, " Memoires." 
 Pontecoulant, " Memoii^es." 
 Remusat, Mme. de, " Me- 
 moires." 
 Renan, E., " Souvenirs de 
 
 Jeunesse." 
 Ricard, " Le Cardinal Maury, 
 
 Memoires et Correspondance." 
 Rochechouart, " Memoires 
 
 Inedits." 
 Salamon, "Memoires inedits 
 
 pendant la Revolution." 
 
 j Savary, " Memoires." 
 j Segur, Comte de, " Histoii-e 
 et Memoires." 
 
 Senfft, " Memoires." 
 
 Stockmar, " Denkwlirdigkei- 
 ten." 
 
 Thibaudeau, " Memoires.'" 
 
 Ticknor, G., "Life, Letters 
 and Journals." 
 
 Trotter, "Memoirs of Ch. J. 
 Fox." 
 
 Varnhagen von Ense, " Denk- 
 wurdigkeiten." 
 
 Villele, " Memoires et Corre- 
 spondance." 
 
 Vitrolles, " Memoires et rela- 
 tions politiques." 
 
 GENERAL AUTHORITIES. 
 
 Alexandre et Czartoryski, 
 
 " Lettres." 
 Alison, " History of Europe." 
 
 Angeberg, " Recueil des 
 
 Traites." 
 Annual Register. 
 
 Aulard, " Les Orateurs de 
 I'Assemblee Constituante." 
 
 Babeau, A., " Histoire de 
 Troyes pendant la Revolu- 
 tion." 
 
 Bacourt, A. de, "Correspond- 
 ance entre Mirabeau et de In 
 Marc." 
 
 Baden, K. Friedrich von, 
 
 " Politische Cori'espondenz." 
 Bailleu, P., " Preussen und 
 
 Frankreich, 1797—1807." 
 Barante, "Histoire du Direc- 
 
 toire." 
 Baiimgarten, H., "Geschichte 
 
 Spaniens." 
 Beer, A., " Zehn Jahre oster- 
 
 reichischer Politik." 
 Beer, A., " Oesterreich und 
 
 Russland, 1804 bis 1805." 
 Berenger, "Esprit de Mably 
 
 et de Condillac." 
 
XXVI LIST OF WORKS CONSULTED BY THE AUTHOE. 
 
 GENERAL AUTHORITIES {continued). 
 
 Bernhardi, Th. v., " Denk- 
 wiirdigkeiten aus dem Leben 
 des Feldmarschalls Grafen 
 Toll." 
 
 "Der Franzosische Adel 
 
 wahrend der Revolution." 
 
 " Geschichte Russlands." 
 
 Biedermann,H. von, "Goethe's 
 Gesprache." 
 
 Bignon, " Histoire diplomati- 
 que du regne de Napoleon." 
 
 Boisgelin, " Exposition des 
 principes sur la constitution 
 civile du Clerge." 
 
 Boiteau, "Etat de la France 
 en 1789." 
 
 Borgnet, " Histoire des Beiges 
 a la fin du xviii. siecle." 
 
 Botta, " Storia d'ltalia." 
 
 Boulay de la Meurthe, "Le 
 Directoire et I'Expedition 
 d'Egypte." 
 
 " Negociations du Con- 
 cordat." 
 
 Browning, 0., " Despatches 
 of Earl Gower." 
 
 Caro, E., " La Fin du xviii. 
 siecle." 
 
 Castlereagh, " Correspond- 
 ence." 
 
 Chaderlos de Laclos, " Galerie 
 des Etats-ge'ne'raux et des 
 dames frangaises." 
 
 Chamfort, " CEuvres com- 
 pletes." 
 
 Chassin, P., " Les cahiers du 
 clerge en 1789." 
 
 Chateaubriand, " Congres de 
 Ve'rone." 
 
 Chauvelot, " Lettres de Louis 
 XVI." 
 
 Chavaray, "L'assemblee elec- 
 toral de Paris, 1790—1791." 
 
 Cherest, " La chute de I'ancien 
 regime." 
 
 Congis, " La constitution ven- 
 gee des inculpations des 
 ennemis de la Revolution." 
 
 Constant, B.," Political pamph- 
 lets." 
 
 Courcelles, de, " Dictionnaire 
 des Generaux francais." 
 
 Coyer, Abbe, " La noblesse 
 commercante." 
 
 " Le gdnie de la Revolu- 
 tion." 
 
 Crequi, Marquise de, " Lettres 
 ine'dites." 
 
 Daudet, E., " Histoii-e des 
 Conspirations royalistes dans 
 le Midi." 
 
 " Histoire de I'Emigration." 
 
 " Ministere de M. de Marti- 
 
 gnac." 
 
 Daunou, " Plan d'education, 
 Paris, 1790 et 1793." 
 
 Delbos, A. J., "Histoire de 
 lEglise de France, 1789— 
 1799." 
 
 Delbriick, H., " Friedrich Wil- 
 helm III. und Hardenberg 
 auf dem Wiener Congress." — 
 (Sybels Histor. Zeitsch. 1888, 
 1889.) 
 
LIST OF AVOEKS CONSULTED BY THE AUTHOR. XXVll 
 
 GENERAL AUTHORITIES {contimied). 
 
 De Maistre, " Correspondance 
 diplomatique." 
 
 De Pradt, " Les quatre Con- 
 cordats." 
 
 ■ — - " L'ambassade de Varsovie." 
 
 '' Recit historique de la 
 
 Restauration en France." 
 
 De Pressense, " L'Eglise et la 
 Revolution fran§aise." 
 
 D'Haussonville, " L'Eglise ro- 
 maine et le premier Empire." 
 
 Droz, S., " Histoire de Louis 
 XYI." 
 
 Du Casse, A., "Histoire des 
 Negociations diplomatiques." 
 
 " Les Rois, f reres de Napo- 
 leon." 
 
 Dumont, E., '• Souvenirs sur 
 Mirabeau." 
 
 Duruy, " Histoire de I'instruc- 
 tion publique en France pen- 
 dant la Revolution." 
 
 Duvergier de Hauranne, 
 '' Histoire du Gouvernement 
 parlementaire en France." 
 
 Fain, " Manuscrit de 1814." 
 
 Fauriel, A., " Les derniers 
 jours du Consulat." 
 
 Feuillet de Conches, "Louis 
 XVI. et Marie Antoinette." 
 
 Flahaut, Mme. de, " Adele de 
 Se'nanges." 
 
 Flassan, " Histoire du Congres 
 de Vienne." 
 
 Forneron, " Histoire des Emi- 
 gres." 
 
 Fournier, " Lettres de la 
 
 Marquise de Cre'qui k Senac 
 de Meilhan." 
 
 Fournier, A., " Historicche 
 
 Studien und Skizzen." 
 Gagern, H. v., " Mein Antheil 
 
 an der Politik." 
 Gazier, A., " Le clerge sous 
 
 Tancien Regime." 
 Gervinus, " Geschichte des xix. 
 
 Jahrhunderts." 
 Goethe, " Werke." (Yol. 
 
 XXVII, Cotta edit., 1840.) 
 Goncourt, E. and J., " Histoire 
 
 de la societe francaise pendant 
 
 la Revolution." 
 
 Gourgand et Montholon, 
 " Memoires pour servir a 
 I'histoire de France sous 
 Napole'on." 
 
 Granier de Cassagnac, " His- 
 toire du Directoire." 
 
 Gregoire, " Histoii-e des sectes 
 religieuses." 
 
 Gregoire, L., " Histoire de 
 France sous Louis-Philippe." 
 
 Grimm, " Correspondance lit- 
 teraire." 
 
 Guglia, G., " Die conservativen 
 Elemente in Franki'eich am 
 Vorabend der Revolution." 
 
 GuiUermy, " Papiers d'un 
 Emigre'." 
 
 Guyton de Morveau, " Me- 
 moire sur I'Education pub- 
 lique." 
 
 Hamilton, J. C, " History of 
 
XXVm LIST OP WOEKS CONSULTED BY THE AUTHOR. 
 
 GENERAL AUTHORITIES {continued). 
 
 the Republic, as shown in the 
 
 writings of." 
 Hausser, G., " Deutsche Ges- 
 
 chichte." 
 Hillebrand, C, " Geschichte 
 
 Frankreichs, 1830—1871." 
 Houssaye, Henry, " 1814," 
 
 "1816." 
 Hume, David, " Essays — Idea 
 
 of a Perfect Commonwealth." 
 Jefferson, T., " Works and 
 
 Correspondence." 
 Jung, Th., " Bonaparte et son 
 
 temps." 
 Klinkowstrbm, " Le Comte 
 
 de Fersen et la Cour de 
 
 France." 
 Kliiber, " Akten des Wiener 
 
 Congresses." 
 Laboulaye, E., " Cours de 
 
 Legislation compar^e. L'as- 
 
 semblee constituante." 
 " Histoire des Etats- 
 
 Unis." 
 La Chalotais, " Essai d' educa- 
 tion nationale." 
 Lagarde, " Congres de Vienne." 
 
 Lamartine, " Cours familier de 
 litterature." 
 
 Lanfrey, " Histoire de Napo- 
 leon I." 
 
 Lavergne, L. de, "Les As- 
 semble'es provinciales sous 
 Louis XVI." 
 
 Lebon A., " L'Angleterre et 
 I'Emigration." 
 
 Lecky, "History of England 
 in the Eighteenth Century." 
 
 Lehmann, M., " Erla liter ungen 
 zum Tagebuch Steins auf 
 dem Wiener Congress." 
 
 Leouzon-le-Duc, " Correspond- 
 ance diplomatique du Baron 
 Stael-Holstein." 
 
 Lescure, " Correspondance se- 
 crete inedite." 
 
 Livi, " Napoleone all' isola 
 d'Elba." 
 
 Louandre Ch., " La noblesse 
 f rangaise sous I'ancienne Mon- 
 archie." 
 
 Luginbuhl, " Aus Stapfers 
 
 Briefwechsel." 
 Mahan, A.T., U.S.N., "The 
 
 Influence of Sea Power upon 
 
 the French Revolution and 
 
 Empire, 1793—1812." 
 
 Mallet du Pan, " Correspond- 
 ance avec la Cour de Vienne." 
 
 Martens, " Ptecueil pratique 
 des traitds." 
 
 Masson, F., " Le departement 
 des Affaires etrangferes pen- 
 dant la Revolution." 
 
 MatMson, " Brief e an F. 
 Brun." 
 
 Miles, W. A., "Correspondence 
 on the French Revolution." 
 
 Mirabeau, " De la Monarchie 
 prussienne." 
 
 Monroe, " A View of the Con- 
 duct of the Executive." 
 
LIST OF WORKS CONSULTED BY THE AUTHOR. XXIX 
 
 GENERAL AUTHORITIES {continued). 
 
 Morellet, " Eeflexions du lende- 
 main." 
 
 Mortimer, Ternaux, " Histoire 
 
 de la Terreur." 
 Mtaier, F. v., "Goethes Unter- 
 
 haltungen." 
 
 Napier, " History of the Pen- 
 insular War." 
 
 Napoleon I., " Correspond- 
 ance." 
 
 Necker, " De la Eevolution 
 fraiKj'aise." 
 
 " Dernieres Vues de politi- 
 que et de finance." 
 
 Nettement, A., "Histoire de 
 la Restauration." 
 
 Olliyier, E., " L'Eglise et 
 I'Etat au Concile du Vati- 
 can." 
 
 Oncken, W., " Oesterreich und 
 Frankreich im Befreiungs- 
 krieg." 
 
 Pellet, "Napoleon a Tile d' 
 Elbe." 
 
 Pierre, V., " La Terreur sous 
 le Directoire." 
 
 Pingaud, L., " Choiseul-Gouf- 
 fier, La France en Orient." 
 
 " Correspondance de Vaud- 
 
 reuil avec le Comte d'Artois." 
 
 Pozzo di Borgo, " Correspond- 
 ance." 
 
 und die Geschichte des preus- 
 sischen Staates, etc." 
 — " Pius VII. und ConsalvL ' 
 
 Richelieu, Due de, " Docu- 
 ments et Correspondance." 
 (Publ. de la societe imp. de 
 Russie, 1886, 1887.) 
 
 Robinet, " Recherches sur la 
 diplomatie de la Republique." 
 
 Rocquain, F., "Etat de la 
 France au 18 Brumaire." 
 
 Roederer, " Chronique de cin- 
 quante jours." (Euvres com- 
 pletes." 
 
 Schlesier, A., " Brief e, ver- 
 traute Blatter, etc., von 
 Gentz." 
 
 Schmidt, A., " Paris wahrend 
 der Revolutionszeit." 
 
 Sciout, L., " Histoire de la 
 Constitution civile du Clerge." 
 
 Senior, W. N., " Conversations 
 with Tocqueville." 
 
 Sicard, " Histoire de I'Eglise 
 de France pendant la Revolu- 
 tion." 
 
 Simon, J., " Une Academie 
 sous le Directoire." 
 
 Sorel, A., " L'Europe et la 
 Revolution fran(,'aise." 
 
 Stael, Mme. de, " Considera- 
 tions sur la Revolution fran- 
 §aise. 
 
 Rambaud, A., "L'AlIemagne i stanhope, Earl, "Notes of 
 sous Napoleon." ! conversations with Welling- 
 
 Ranke, L. v., "Hardenberg | ton." 
 
XXX L[ST OF WORKS CONSULTED BY THE AUTHOR. 
 
 GENERAL AUTHORITIES (continued). 
 
 Stern, A., " Abhandlungen unci 
 
 Aktenstilcke, etc." 
 Stockmar, " Zur Kritik Ba- 
 
 courts" (Sybels hist. Zeitsch., 
 
 1878). 
 Sybel, H. v., " Geschichte der 
 
 Revolution." 
 Taine, H , " Les Origines de 
 
 la France contemporaine." 
 Tatischeif, " Alexandre et 
 
 Napoleon, 1801—1812." 
 Theiiier, A., " Dociiments ine- 
 
 dits relatifs aux affaires reli- 
 
 gieuses de France." 
 
 "Histoire des deux Con- 
 cordats." 
 
 Thiers, A., " Histoii-e du Con- 
 
 sulat et de I'Empire." 
 Thureau-Dangin, " Eoyalistes 
 
 et Ee'publicains." 
 
 "Le Parti libe'ral kSous la 
 
 Restauration." 
 
 " Histoire de la Mon- 
 
 archie de Juillet." 
 
 Trachewski, " Russland und 
 Frankreich im Zeitalter Napo- 
 leons." 
 
 Treitschke, H., " Deutsche 
 Geschichte im XIX. Jahrhun- 
 dert." 
 
 Turgot, " Lettres sur la Toler- 
 ance." 
 
 Vandal, A., " Alexandre et 
 
 Napoleon." 
 Viel-Castel, " Histoire de la 
 
 Restauration." 
 Villemain, " Souvenirs con- 
 
 temporaius d'histoire et de 
 
 litterature." 
 " Rapport sur I'Education 
 
 publique." 
 Viollet, Paul, " Precis de 1' his- 
 toire du droit francais." 
 Vivenot, A. v., " Vertraute 
 
 Briefe Thuguts." 
 Voltaire, " Correspondance." 
 Vreede, G., "La Souabe apres 
 
 la paix de Bille." 
 Wallon, H., " Le clerge de 
 
 1789." 
 Wellington, " Despatches," 
 
 " Supplementary Despatches." 
 Welschinger, H., " Le Divorce 
 
 de Napole'on." 
 " Le Proces du Mare'chal 
 
 Ney." 
 Wertheimer, "Geschichte Oes- 
 
 terreichs und Ungarns." 
 Wollstonecraft, Mary, " Vindi- 
 cation of the Rights of 
 
 Women." 
 Zinkeisen, " Geschichte des 
 
 Osmanischen Reiches." 
 Zschokke, " Ueberlieferungen, 
 
 etc." 
 
LIST OF WOEKS CONSULTED RY THE AUTHOR. XXXI 
 
 VARIOUS ARTICLES IN THE FOLLOWING 
 PERIODICALS. 
 
 Correspondant. 
 Deutsche Rundschau, etc., etc. 
 English Historical Review. 
 La Revolution francaise. 
 Preussische Jahrbiicher. 
 
 Revue contemporaine. 
 Revue des deux Mondes. 
 Revue diplomatique. 
 Revue historique. 
 Sybels historischeZeitschiift. 
 
LIFE OF TALLEYEAND. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Talleyrand's youth. 
 1754—1780. 
 
 " /~\UI t'a fait Eoi ? " retorted a powerful vassal, 
 ^~\u the Count of Perigord, when asked by the new 
 King Hugo Capet: "Qui t'a fait Comte?" The 
 descendants of both might have resumed the dialogue 
 more than eight hundred years afterwards. The family 
 which has shown such vitality traces its pedigree 
 from Helie V., sovereign lord of Perigord, who in the 
 thirteenth century transferred the name of Taleiran 
 or Tailleran, which he was the first to bear, to a 
 younger son, while the elder line was henceforward 
 styled " Princes de Chalais," after an estate which 
 had lately come into the family. The coat-of-arms, 
 gules, three lions rampant or, azure crowns, with the 
 motto " Re que Diou," was common to both lines. 
 From the elder line was descended the Count de 
 Chalais, the youthful conspirator who plotted with 
 VOL. I. 1 
 
2 LIFE OF TALLEYKAND. [Ch. 
 
 Gaston of Orleans in 1626, was condemned to death 
 by Eichelieu, and expired under four-and-thirty blows, 
 owing to the clumsiness of an improvised executioner. 
 A descendant of the younger line was the first husband 
 of the celebrated Princess Orsini, Duchess of Bracciano, 
 better known to history as the Princesse des Ursins. 
 
 Their grandnephew was Charles-Maurice, born on the 
 13th of February, 1754, to Lieut enant-General Charles- 
 Daniel de Talleyrand-Perigord and his wife Alexandrine 
 de Damas d'Antigny. By his mother the boy was a 
 grandson of Michel Chamillart, Marquis de Cany, an 
 honourable but incapable man of business, raised by 
 the favour of Madame de JMaintenon to the post of 
 Finance Minister of Louis XIV. 
 
 The pecuniary circumstances of the family did not 
 correspond to the distinction of its origin and name. 
 Talleyrand's father, an officer who had seen good 
 service in the Seven Years' War, lived after its termina- 
 tion as " menin " or, as we should say now-a-days, 
 attendant on the Dauphin at the court of Versailles, 
 " the place where lords are turned into lacqueys," as 
 Montesquieu used to say. " Ce sont nos gens," said 
 the Comte d'Artois on his wedding-day to his young 
 bride, referring to his court. This aristocracy degraded 
 to a court nobility cost the king a sum which Vauban 
 reckoned at forty million livres a year. The outgoings 
 were not reduced when Madame de Pompadour spent 
 thirty-seven millions in nineteen years. Louis XVI. 
 
I.] EDUCATION OF CHILDREN. 3 
 
 abolished five hundred court offices in the first ten 
 years of his reign, but the saving was swallowed up 
 by sixteen other places, which cost 1,097,750 livres. 
 Luxury and gambling involved an expenditure which 
 offices and pensions could not meet. Talleyrand's 
 father was not spared this experience, and seems never 
 to have succeeded in defraying the expenses of bringing 
 up his children. It was the children who in the 
 eighteenth century felt the full weight of the pressure 
 of this unnatural state of things. The care of them 
 and their education were left to chance ; the fashion 
 of looking after one's own children had not yet 
 penetrated into the regions of the exalted society 
 which at Versailles bent the knee before the empty 
 bed of the Monarch : " Too much attention to their 
 doings and shortcomings would have appeared pedantic; 
 tenderness too warmly expressed would have seemed 
 strange and almost ridiculous." In those days sons 
 were the heirs of the name and of the coat-of-arms. 
 Parents thought they had done enough for them in 
 helping them to get on in life, and providing them 
 with appointments, offices, wealthy marriages, and 
 means of enriching themselves. 
 
 In other words, eight years more had to elapse 
 before " Emile " appeared and taught this artificial 
 society the " return to nature," the long-forgotten joys 
 of motherly love, the revelation of childhood, before, 
 to quote Talleyrand once more, it became " the 
 
4 LIFE OF TALLBYEAND. [Ch. 
 
 fashion " again to have a heart, and to follow its 
 dictates. For him the appeal came too late. Imme- 
 diately after his birth he was handed over to the care 
 of a nurse in a Paris faubourg, and left in her charge, 
 or, to speak more correctly, forgotten, until he was 
 four years old. By the death of an elder brother 
 the right of primogeniture devolved upon him, and 
 he was intended for a military career when, owing to 
 neglect, he had a fall from a chest of drawers and 
 sustained the injury which maimed his right foot and 
 made him lame. This was not noticed until his 
 great-grandmother, the Princesse de Chalais, sent for 
 the child to her chateau of P^rigord. The mischief 
 had then become permanent, and a cure hopeless. 
 But they managed to strengthen the other leg, and 
 Talleyrand in spite of his deformity grew up a man 
 of lofty stature, broad shoulders, and powerful frame, 
 and walked with the help of a stick only in later 
 years. But after this accident the profession of arms 
 was quite out of the question, and consequently it 
 was decided in the interest of the family, which in 
 those days was paramount, that he should enter the 
 Church. The die was already cast when the little 
 fellow arrived at his " grandmother's " after a seven- 
 teen days' journey in the mail-coach from Paris to 
 Bordeaux. This old lady occupies a place in his life 
 which none should dispute her, for she was the only 
 one of all his belongings who really loved him. He 
 
I.] LIFE AT CHALATS. 5 
 
 refers to it himself with emotion, and always venerated 
 her memory. The tenderest and most feeling passages 
 in his Memoirs are devoted to her, and to the days 
 spent at Chalais. She was a Mortemart, which was 
 accounted an intellectual distinction. To her gifts of 
 intellect she united a noble and dignified character, 
 and a lofty conception of the duties of her rank and 
 of her position in the country : " The first lady in 
 the province would have lowered herself in her own 
 eyes, if she had not been courteous, helpful, and 
 charitable. In like manner the nobility of the neigh- 
 bourhood would have considered themselves as wanting 
 in self-respect if they had not paid to the bearer of 
 a historic name that intelligent deference which, 
 when shown with good breeding, seemed a homage 
 of the heart. As for the country people, they were 
 accustomed to meet with help by word and deed, 
 with consolation and encouragement, at the chateau. 
 The ways of the Perigord nobility resembled its old 
 chateaux', they had something grand and stable 
 about them. Light penetrated slowly, but with a mild 
 and beneficent gleam. They prepared with a wise 
 deliberateness for a more enlightened civilisation. . . . 
 Even the Eevolution has not succeeded in robbing 
 these venerable old seats of the sovereign power of 
 their charm. There they stand, like ancient temples 
 deserted by their worshippers, but still venerable in 
 the eyes of tradition.'' 
 
6 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 The man who wrote the above at an adv^anced age 
 remembered well how as a child, attended by trusty 
 retainers, he accompanied his grandmother every 
 Sunday to the parish church, where his little stool 
 was ready by the side of her prie-dieu, and an old 
 relative of the family arranged the prayer-books, 
 which he had solemnly carried behind the venerable 
 lady in a red velvet bag trimmed with gold. After 
 the service they returned to the chateau and the 
 dispensary, where all the year through, under the 
 supervision of the priest and the apothecary, medicines 
 and healing draughts, lint and nice old linen, were 
 kept ready for the sick, and clothing for the poor. 
 The grandmother in a handsome dress, trimmed with 
 lace and decked with flowing ribbons, and a high cap, 
 took her seat in the arm-chair surrounded by her 
 little court ; the first lady of the chamber presented 
 the applicants for relief in their order, and two sisters 
 of mercy distributed the gifts. The old lady had 
 a kind word for all. We can fancy her grandchild 
 standing by her side, in powder, even at that tender 
 age, his hair carefully curled and tied tightly into X 
 a pigtail, with a lace cravat and embroidered coat, 
 his little sword on, and his tiny hat under his arm. 
 Talleyrand has apologised in his Memoirs for dwell- 
 ing so long on these details : " But," he says, " the 
 recollection of what I saw and heard in those early 
 days is inexpressibly dear to me. To her I owe the 
 
I.] THE COLLEGE D'HARCOURT. 7 
 
 spirit which governed my conduct in after life. If 
 while entertaining good-will and affection towards my 
 fellow-creatures I have avoided immoderate familiarity, 
 if in difficult positions I have preserved perfect equa- 
 nimity and self-control, and have always loved and re- 
 spected old age, I owe it all to the days spent at Chalais, 
 to the respect with which I saw my grandmother and 
 my whole family surrounded, and to the example of 
 goodness and highmindedness which she transmitted to 
 me as a heritage added to by successive generations." 
 
 It sounds almost tragic to be told that this was the 
 only time when Talleyrand shared in the joys of family 
 life. He left Chalais in 1762 at the bidding of his 
 parents. After a tearful parting he travelled back to 
 Paris by coach, as he came, and was received by an old 
 servant and taken to the College d'Harcourt, a school 
 for boys of good family. In the eighteenth century 
 the story ran that Talleyrand had never slept under 
 the same roof with his parents. There was not much 
 exaggeration in this, for he says himself : " I may say 
 once for all, and then I hope dismiss it from my 
 mind, that I am, perhaps, the only member of a large 
 and distinguished family who never in his whole life 
 had the good fortune to spend even a single week under 
 the same roof with his parents." 
 
 He remained three years in the College d'Harcourt, 
 under the care of insignificant teachers. On Sundays 
 one of them took the boy to his parents, with whom he 
 
8 LIFE OF TALLEYEAND. [Ch. 
 
 dined, and who used always to dismiss him after dinner 
 with the words : " Be a good boy, and do what Monsieur 
 I'Abbe tells you." His consolation in these school-days 
 was his friendship for young Choiseul, a nephew of the 
 Minister, who was known after his marriage as Count 
 Choiseul-Gouffier, and became ambassador at Con- 
 stantinople under Louis XVI., and Minister of State 
 under Louis XVIIL At the age of twelve Talleyrand 
 caught the smallpox. In spite of his illness, his 
 parents sent him away to a nurse, who aggravated the 
 patient's symptoms by keeping him in an overheated 
 and unventilated room. He got through it all, but aU 
 kinds of thoughts assailed him in his solitude : " The 
 little interest taken in me, the way in which I was sent 
 to school, and other painful impressions, saddened me. 
 I felt helpless, and always thrown upon myself. I will 
 not complain of having had to suffer so early in my 
 life. To it I owe a capacity for serious reflection 
 and calm judgment in misfortune, which pleasurable 
 impressions would never have given me. It is, there- 
 fore, not without a certain sense of satisfaction that 
 I look back on the past. Since then I have come to 
 the conclusion that my parents, after having decided 
 for family reasons to devote me to a profession for which 
 I had not the slightest inclination, were afraid of not 
 having the courage to carry out their plans, if they 
 saw me too often. This fear was a proof of their love, 
 for which I gladly acknowledge my obligation to them." 
 
I.] STAY AT RHEIMS. 9 
 
 The above was written in all sincerity, a strong family 
 feeling being a marked characteristic of this outcast 
 from the family circle. He always provided for his 
 relations, and once he came upon the following affec- 
 tionate passage in a letter which he had wi'itten when 
 he was assisting the children of one of his cousins : 
 " I consider that the complete difference of o})inion 
 existing between my family and myself makes the 
 claims of affection all the more binding on me." 
 
 About the year 1766 he was transferred from the 
 College d'Harcourt to the seminary of St. Sulpice. In 
 accordance with the system pursued in his case, he 
 received as little encouragement and praise as possible, 
 although he was a diligent student. The idea was that 
 he was to be forgotten, and so be gradually prepared 
 for the coming change, of which he had hitherto been 
 kept in ignorance. The next step in this direction was 
 the journey to Eheims, where his uncle Talleyrand, as 
 coadjutor of the Archbishop and Cardinal de la Eoche- 
 Aymon, duke, premier peer of France and legate of the 
 Holy See, was in a position to give him grand ideas 
 of the brilliance of an ecclesiastical com-t. The hope 
 that Talleyrand would at his age of fifteen be dazzled 
 and seduced by this spectacle was doomed to dis- 
 appointment. The historic city seemed to him a place 
 of exile ; the daily life, confined to external observances, 
 was intolerable to him, and the magnificence surround- 
 ing the Cardinal-Duke '•' could not make up to him for 
 
10 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 the sacrifice of liis sincerity, which was demanded of 
 him at an age when the heart speaks truest." As the 
 allurements of wealth and of rank made no impression 
 on him, a more subtle form of temptation was resorted 
 to by placing at his disposal the INIemoirs of Eetz, the 
 Lives of Richelieu and Ximenes, and the writings of 
 Hinkmar of Rheims. If the pleasures of the world 
 failed to attract him, yet perhaps he aspired to rule, 
 and the great Ministers who had worn the purple were 
 incomparable teachers of the art of governing men. 
 Talleyrand read them with advantage, and perhaps 
 learnt more from Grondy than his teachers liked. But 
 it was only in after years that he developed an apti- 
 tude for the maxims of this statecraft. At this time 
 he was young, and unable to understand " why the 
 world should be openly renounced while ambition was 
 really the goal, and why the path to the Ministry of 
 Finance led through the seminary." But there was 
 no one to help him ; everybody around him repeated 
 a lesson got by heart, and so at last he resigned him- 
 self to the inevitable. After a stay of one year at 
 Eheims he returned to the seminary, a melancholy 
 morose boy of sixteen, in secret revolt against his 
 superiors and his parents, and against the institutions 
 and the power of the prejudices which compelled him 
 to submit. He was called haughty, and reproached 
 with a proud reserve ; but he disdained to defend him- 
 self, for he knew that he was only profoundly unhappy 
 
I.] LIFE AT ST. SULriCE. 11 
 
 and embittered. To the frequent reproach that he was 
 good for nothing at all, a voice within him replied 
 that he would, in spite of this, do good, perhaps great 
 things ; and then, for a few moments at least, he was 
 seized with that delightful presentiment which some- 
 times reveals and lights up the future for the youthful 
 soul. 
 
 At this period of his life the Saint-Sulpice library, 
 formed by Cardinal Fleury, afforded him mental 
 relaxation ; his favourite authors were historians and 
 moralists, and he " devoured " descriptions of travel. 
 These tales of constant dangers and unforeseen cata- 
 strophes had a peculiarly tranquillising effect on his 
 mind. Shipwrecks reminded him of his own fate ; he 
 used to dream of distant shores, where the unexpected 
 happened, and tumultuous desires were satisfied. 
 
 In this crisis heroic courage and a formed character 
 would have been necessary to save his better self. But 
 the hero of the situation was only a boy who longed to 
 be happy, and the issue was an episode of a very ordi- 
 nary kind. In the chapel of St. Sulpice, Talleyrand 
 had often remarked a young and handsome girl, 
 whose simple and modest appearance pleased him 
 greatly. One morning, when it was pouring with rain, 
 he plucked up courage and offered her shelter under 
 his umbrella. From that time they saw each other 
 often, and later on almost every day. Her parents had 
 destined her against her will for the stage, as his had 
 
12 LIFE OF TALLEYEAND. [Ch. 
 
 him for the priesthood, and consequently they com- 
 pared grievances. When afterwards it was pointed out 
 to him that the object of his first aflfections was a 
 person of very mediocre intelhgence, he confessed that 
 he had never remarked it in the course of his two 
 years' intercourse with her. His superiors now found 
 him in good spirits, and knew how to hold their 
 tongues. He himself was fond of referring to the 
 episode in after years, and it was in this way it became 
 known through the Memoirs of Madame de E6musat. 
 
 During this period of his life, Talleyrand, like nearly 
 all men who have played an important part on the 
 world's stage, read much and continuously. And it 
 is characteristic of the bent of his mind, that he used 
 always to argue with his authors : " Les livTes," he 
 said, " m'ont 6claire, mais jamais asservd," Neither 
 in the case of men nor of books did he ever take 
 things for granted. There was no such thing as ready- 
 made assertions for a man " who had doubted so much 
 in his life as he had." His best school was the world, 
 and it was as a man of the world that he criticised 
 literary productions, by the standard of classical tra- 
 dition which Voltaire handed down to the revolutionary 
 school. As late as 1817, Madame de K^musat men- 
 tions Thomas' " Essai sur les filoges " as a favourite 
 book of Talleyrand's. On the other hand, when 
 Chateaubriand's " Itineraire " appeared, he did not 
 join in the admiration of the public, but remarked : 
 
I.] SOURCE OF INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT. 13 
 
 " II y a la beaucoup trop d'esprit pour un livre de poste 
 et pas assez de talent pour un ouvrage." But certain 
 things were beyond his comprehension, and the verdict 
 of the public proved the right one. 
 
 Books, however, are hardly mentioned in the five 
 volumes of his Memoirs ; at the most a passage from 
 the " Principe " and the following from Thomassin : 
 " Nothing is so much in keeping with the canons 
 as an evasion of them ; that is, when more good can 
 be attained thereby than by their observance." 
 
 Talleyrand was speaking ironically when he told 
 Gragern that he considered himself one of the ablest 
 theologians of his age, but in all sincerity when he 
 told him that he was astonished " at the amount of 
 intelligence displayed in the Christian doctrine." If 
 its deeper meaning always remained a sealed book 
 to him, yet his ecclesiastical training had taught him 
 all the more successfully the arts of keen observation 
 and subtle discrimination. But it is not a difficult 
 matter to trace his intellectual development to its 
 source. The age explains the man, and the age in 
 which he grew up was, perhaps more than any other, 
 influenced by a literature which furnished the cosmo- 
 politan propaganda of ideas with two incomparable 
 instruments — a clear method, and a language of 
 classical perfection. 
 
 The secret of this intellectual movement was that 
 it enforced mental discipline while inspiring enthusiasm. 
 
14 LIFE OF TALLEYKAND. [Ch. 
 
 that it carried away the multitude and gave thinkers 
 matter for serious reflection. It was for the latter that 
 Montesquieu wrote and observed. Histor}^ and experi- 
 ence, facts and traditions, are the elements by which 
 he explains the existing order of things. Neither 
 caprice nor chance, but external and internal con- 
 ditions, determine the character of institutions and 
 make the laws of society. To preserve them from 
 decay, we must hark back to the principle to which 
 they owe their origin, and examine the spirit which 
 has presided over their development. Even if the 
 ideal of the state, as it floated before Montesquieu's 
 mind, is found in English institutions, yet, as applied 
 to France, his system is instinct with that elevated 
 spirit of moderation, which can discover a remnant of 
 justice in an abuse, and by the side of an evil descry 
 the possibility of reform. 
 
 The Eevolution would have been inconceivable if a 
 system of this kind had been in harmony with the 
 intellectual temperament of the French, and had deter- 
 mined their political development. But such calm 
 wisdom was foreign to all their mental habits. The 
 devotees of the right of nature, the apologists of des- 
 potism, the zealots in the Church, the adherents of 
 routine in the State, all joined forces against the great 
 empiric who preferred explanation to condemnation. 
 In their Journal de Trevoux the Jesuits attacked the 
 irreligious spirit which drew no distinction between 
 
].] INFLUENCE OF MONTESQUIEU. 15 
 
 truth and falsehood. The " Nouvelles Ecclesiastiques " 
 of the Jansenists extorted from Benedict XIV. a con- 
 demnation which was kept so secret that they them- 
 selves never heard of it. On behalf of the philosophy 
 of the day, Helvetius complained of the indulgence 
 with which so many prejudices were treated, of the 
 forbearance shown to aristocrats and despots, and of 
 the influence of English political ideas on the author's 
 train of thought. Voltaire, who had a personal dislike 
 to Montesquieu, constantly varied in his estimate of 
 the book which actually performed what the " Essai 
 sur les Moeurs " had merely promised. It is true he 
 uttered the apophthegm : " The human race had lost 
 its patent of nobility : Monsieur de Montesquieu found 
 and restored it." But gradually criticism got the 
 upper hand. Sometimes he rated Mercier de la 
 Eivifere's book, at others Chastellux's work, higher 
 than " L'Esprit des Lois," " de I'esprit sur les lois," as 
 he mockingly remarked to Madame du Deffand. A 
 whole series of writers, — Claude Dupin, Eaynal, the 
 Abbe Coyer, Count d'Albon, Diderot, — great and small, 
 thought they were performing a patriotic duty in 
 combating Montesquieu or warning the public against 
 the example of England. On the eve of the meeting 
 of the States-General, Sieyes called the British con- 
 stitution " a piece of humbug, the object of which is 
 to delude the people." " Voila ce qui a perdu I'Angle- 
 terre ! " Brissot used to exclaim, when constitutions 
 
16 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 were under discussion. Condorcet, Duport, A. de 
 Lametli, and Garat took the same view. The speeches 
 made in the Constituent Assembly teem with assertions 
 of the following kind : " Have we not, as compared 
 with England, the inestimable advantage that we can 
 frame every part of our constitution at the same 
 moment, while theirs is a fabric of time and mere 
 piece-work ? The English had to make allowance for 
 prejudices ; we consult only the I'ights and interests 
 of the people," Even Turgot, the greatest statesman 
 of the age, is evidently not free from a similar spirit 
 of opposition. In a letter to Hume he doubts whether 
 it will ever be possible to win over the English to his 
 economical system, on account of the difficulty of 
 reconciling its principles with that ambition which 
 aims at monopolising the commerce of the world. In 
 another passage Turgot calls " the supremacy of the 
 English and the temporal power of the Papacy the 
 two elements of abuse." Like Joseph II., he failed 
 through undue haste, although far his superior in 
 political insight. 
 
 Thus it came about that barely five-and-twenty 
 years after Montesquieu's death he was only the re- 
 presentative of a minority ; Taine goes even fm'ther 
 and says : " Sa celebrite n'etait pas une influence." 
 This minority was Talleyrand's party up to the very 
 end. Establishment of a limited monarchy was the 
 aim of the constitutional politician in 1789 ; a gene- 
 
I.] NOT INFLUENCED BY J. J. EOUSSEAU. 17 
 
 ration later the ambassador of Louis XVIII. at the 
 Vienna Congress was found pledged to the very same 
 ideas. It is by no means a mere coincidence that 
 Talleyrand's despatches in 1815 preserve the impress 
 of Montesquieu's style, for the policy of the Eestoration 
 expounded in them is penetrated with his spirit. 
 
 The seductive genius who threw a spell over the 
 age tried his arts in vain here ; J. J. Eousseau's name 
 is hardly mentioned by Talleyrand. The aristocrat, 
 whose birth entitled him to everything, could not 
 sympathise with or even understand the parvenu's 
 indignation against society. The disillusions of his 
 early youth warned the sceptic against a rhetoric, the 
 influence of which was all the more powerful because 
 its glorification of an imaginary state of nature 
 flattered the instincts of the multitude by inculcating 
 the attractive belief in the original goodness of the 
 human heart. 
 
 The brilliant sophisms of the " Contrat Social " had 
 as little attraction for him as the harangues of the 
 Savoy Vicar, and all the instincts of his race must have 
 revolted against Jean Jaques' womankind. "With the 
 exception perhaps of Voltaire, scarcely any one was 
 so little accessible to the pathos of that morbidly 
 excited mind, and so averse to the Wertherism of the 
 day, as this precocious Epicurean, and offences against - 
 good taste, such as Julie commits, were about the 
 only sins which he could not pardon. Madame de 
 
 VOL. I. 2 
 
18 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 Pompadour's well-known opinion of "La Nouvelle 
 Heloise," and Voltaire's verdict, " Sot, bourgeois, im- 
 pudent, ennuyeux," were, we may presume, not very 
 different from his own. On the other hand, Eousseau's 
 passion in its highest flights has something of 
 Germanic fervour and power, which accounts for his 
 influence on Germany being much greater than on 
 France, and is beyond the reach of Talleyrand's 
 frivolousness. Shallow and incapable of enthusiasm, 
 he contented himself with commonplaces in meta- 
 physics. Even at an advanced age he quotes Voltaire : 
 " Philosophy is simple, calm, free from envy and ambi- 
 tion. Far from luxury and the tumult and intrigues 
 of the world, it lives for contemplation, is full of 
 indulgence and ready to help. Its hand holds aloft 
 the torch, which is to serve as a beacon to mankind ; 
 it has never used this to kindle a conflagration. Its 
 voice is faint, but audible ; it repeats unceasingly : 
 ' Worship God, serve the King, love your fellow- 
 creatures.' " 
 
 This philosophical trifling did not really harmonise 
 so well with his theory of life as a sort of epicurean 
 optimism, which hoped to see progress come, not from 
 higher moral forces, but from the spread of refinement 
 and from a superior civilisation, and which, when its 
 precepts were at fault, got over the difficulty with 
 some clever flout or gibe. Talleyrand considered the 
 world which surrounded him as by no means the best 
 
I,] EOOXOMIC VIEWS. 19 
 
 imaginable, and was all the more ready to improve 
 the existing order of things because he had had to fight 
 his own battle with it. But both natural disposition 
 and education inclined him from an early age to com- 
 promise, and he never believed in extreme solutions. 
 Clever, worldly-wise, kindly, and tolerant, he was ready 
 to further to the best of his uncommon ability the 
 humanitarian aims and ideas of reform of his age, 
 provided that the following was a limited one, and 
 that the school did not turn into a sect. Within these 
 limits Talleyrand was in his youth a " physiocrat." 
 
 Like Voltaire and Turgot, he became a convert to 
 the school which considered the improvement of 
 agriculture the only som'ce of national wealth and the 
 most effective remedy for the misery of the people. 
 But of the two founders of this school it is not Quesnay, 
 but Vincent de Gournay, who had the most enduring 
 influence on Talleyrand. From the inventor of the 
 axiom, " Laissez faire, laissez passer," he borrowed the 
 doctrines of free trade and of emancipation of labour, 
 commerce, and industry from all checks and restraints. 
 Quesnay advocated these views in the interest of agri- 
 cultural production ; Turgot broadened and deepened 
 them, and to the best of his power put them into 
 practice, which makes him the precursor and pioneer 
 of modern economical doctrines. Following his example, 
 Talleyrand devoted himself to the study of econo- 
 mical and financial questions, and in this department 
 
20 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Cii. 
 
 acquired the knowledge and attained the authority of 
 an expert. But the political ideal of the economists 
 was not to the taste of the pupil of Montesquieu. 
 Quesnay's enlightened despot, who was only to be 
 bound by " the universal laws of natural order," " le 
 roi pasteur," as that ardent adherent of physiocratic 
 doctrines, the elder Mirabeau, calls him, never found 
 favour with Talleyrand. Like Turgot, he preferred to 
 see the people gradually educated for self-government 
 by means of communal, district, and provincial as- 
 semblies, and when these latter were introduced on 
 the motion of the Marquis de Mirabeau he took a 
 lively interest in them. 
 
 Young Talleyrand had also the advantage of a 
 finishing school of political education. As guest of the 
 fallen ^Minister, the Due de Choiseul, at his chateau 
 of Chanteloup, which was more like a prince's residence 
 than a place of banishment, he was able to make a 
 personal study of the diplomacy of 1756 and 1760. 
 With his friend Choiseul-Gouffier and his subsequent 
 colleague and tried adviser, d'Hauterive, he was trained 
 by Choiseul for public affairs. " In my department," 
 Choiseul used to say to the young people, " I always 
 made others work more than I did myself. It is no 
 use burying yourself under a mass of papers ; you must 
 be able to lay your hands on subordinates who can get 
 at the pith of them, and then you will have time enough 
 and to spare. I^or a statesman, a nod, a gesture, a 
 
I.] VIEWS ON THE AUSTRIAN ALLIANCE. 21 
 
 change of punctuation, should be sufficient. His proper 
 place is in the world ; in his office he learns nothing." 
 This teaching was not lost on Talleyrand. Choiseul was 
 the first to draw his attention to the conduct of great 
 affairs. 
 
 In his sketch of Choiseul, which, although not 
 written till 1816, bears traces of personal impressions, 
 Talleyrand blames the French Cabinet, and Bernis 
 more than Choiseul, for their thoughtless shortsighted- 
 ness in allowing themselves to be over-reached by 
 Austria in the treaty of 1756, and in neither foreseeing 
 nor preventing the subsequent events in the north. 
 But he considered the leading idea of the treaty, the 
 Austrian alliance, as the only means of " protecting 
 Europe from the calamity of Eussian barbarism," and 
 even at the height of his diplomatic career he reverted 
 to the same policy, with the con\dction that it alone 
 could frustrate Eussian plans of conquest and thwart 
 the ambition of Prussia. 
 
 In the same way he considered the family treaty of 
 1761 as " worthy of a great statesman," but regrets 
 that it was made too late, at a time when France, 
 exhausted by the Seven Years' War, dragged Spain 
 dovra with her. It was the traditional policy of the 
 Monarchy, the alliance of the Latin races under the 
 sceptre of the Bourbons at Paris and ]Madrid, with 
 the intention of gaining over Italy to the family, that 
 Choiseul inaugurated afresh. With the same object 
 
22 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 Cardinal Fleury had concluded the treaties of 1733 
 and 1743 with Spain, which have been called the key 
 to the politics of Europe in the eighteenth century. 
 The political idea which they furthered outlived the 
 dynastic interests to which it owed its origin. Talley- 
 rand found it again under the Napoleonic regime in the 
 renewal of the Latin confederation by means of a fresh 
 family arrangement, in which the Bonapartes took the 
 place of the Bourbons. Talleyrand was not so severe a 
 critic of Choiseul's diplomacy as of his attitude with 
 regard to the great event of his home administration, 
 the suppression of the order of the Jesuits, which 
 Talleyrand discusses solely from a political point of 
 view. " Choiseul," he writes, " had repeatedly noticed 
 the influence of the order in ecclesiastical matters and 
 parliamentary controversies. And although, in the case 
 of a clergy so enlightened and so conversant with the 
 great world as the French, the machinations of the 
 Jesuits were much less to be feared than with another 
 and less liberal-minded body, yet perhaps it was a 
 salutary step to lower the prestige of the order. One 
 might even take a further step, and suppress it entirely. 
 I will not go into a question which might lead me 
 too far. This much, however, is certain, that with a 
 monarchical government, such as France had in those 
 days, more good than harm would have been done by 
 leaving the direction of the family, and, to a certain 
 extent, that of public opinion, in the hands of the 
 
I.] AFFINITY WITH MONTAIGNE. 23 
 
 Jesuits. As a proof you might adduce the fact, that 
 in 1789 not one member of the noblesse on the side 
 of the minority had been educated by Jesuits. But 
 Monsieur de Choiseul, heedless as he was and hostile 
 to all power which did not emanate from himself, 
 suppressed the Jesuits simply because he felt they were 
 not quite under his thumb. The question was really 
 an affair of state ; in his hands it became a mere 
 intrigue. . . . Just in the same way he afterwards 
 declared war against the philosophers, because they 
 impaired the authority which he wished to exercise 
 alone over his contemporaries." 
 
 To find such a well-balanced piece of criticism as 
 this, such an unbiassed consideration of pros and cons, 
 we must go back to Montaigne, and bear in mind that 
 Talleyrand was not only a denizen of the same sunny 
 south, but also a member of the same intellectual 
 family. Montaigne is the father of a line which has 
 never become extinct in France. St. Evremond in the 
 seventeenth centurv is a mild edition of Montaisfne. 
 La Fontaine seems to have had in his mind Pascal's 
 severe strictures on the Essays, when he puts Mon- 
 taigne's epigrams in the mouth of wise animals : — 
 
 " Le peuple s'etonna comme il se pouvait faire 
 Qu'un homme seul eut plus de sens 
 Qu'une multitude de gens." 
 
 Mark what the weasel is made to say, a whole century 
 before the " Discours sur I'Inegalite " : — 
 
24 LIFE OF TALLEYRAXD. [Ch. I. 
 
 " La dame au nez pointu repondit que la terre 
 
 Etait au premier occupant . . . 
 
 Et quand ce serait un royaume, 
 Je voudrais bien savoir, dit-elle, quelle loi 
 
 En a pour toujours fait I'octroi 
 A Jean, fils ou neveu de Pierre ou de Guillaume, 
 
 Plutot qu'k Paul, plutot qu'k moi." 
 
 It is the old unquenchable humour — Vesprit gaulois 
 — speaking under the mask of decorum, and Talley- 
 rand's Memoirs, which are so chary of quotations, do 
 not carry the old dictum " In all things think of the 
 end" further back than the Fables of the worthy 
 La Fontaine, the moral of which they endorse. 
 
 If ideals are unattainable, defeats inevitable, if 
 majorities win the day and dulness rules the roast, 
 then, at all events, we can fall back upon our right of 
 laughing at the folly of mankind, of flouting the matter- 
 of-fact winners in the lottery of life, and of parrying 
 the bludgeon of fate with the rapier-thrust of irony. 
 This spirit has never quite died out in France. Ninon 
 de I'Enclos, who knew St. lilvremond well, lived long 
 enough to remember Voltaire, then a boy, in her will. 
 The latter in his old age laid his hands on the head 
 of Talleyrand, then twenty-four : " C'est bien Voltaire 
 en 1789 . . . bon sens parfait et fin," says Sainte- 
 Beuve of the Abbe de Perigord on the eve of the 
 meeting of the States-Gfeneral. Thus did the intel- 
 lectual descendants of Montaigne join hands on 
 French soil. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 TALLEYRAND AGENT-GENERAL OF THE CLERGY. 
 
 1780—1786. 
 
 r I TALLEYRAND'S IMemoirs preserve a complete 
 -^ silence with respect to his entry into the priest- 
 hood. We only know from his friend Choiseul-Grouffier 
 that the decisive step was preceded by a period of 
 violent excitement. lu vain Choiseul begged and 
 implored him to save himself by a refusal at the last 
 moment. Respect for his mother's wishes and fear of 
 what the world would say restrained him, and with the 
 words, " It is too late, there is no way out of it," the 
 youth resigned himself to his fate. 
 
 Talleyrand was already a priest when he witnessed 
 the coronation of Louis XVI. at Rheims in June 
 1775. The ceremony left in his mind a recollection 
 of the noble bearing of the young King, the grace of 
 the Queen, and the presence of three women, the 
 Duchesses de Luynes and Fitz-James, and the Coun- 
 tess de Laval, whose friendship he won and retained. 
 " Inclination, calculation, and taste," writes Vitrolles, 
 "all led Talleyrand to look to women for advancement. 
 
26 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 They always played an important part in his career, 
 and were his friends, companions, or masters in politics. 
 The contrast between his natural disposition and his 
 calling made them all the more attractive to him, 
 and so he learned early in life not to be afraid of 
 scandal, and to despise the comments of respectabiUty." 
 This verdict of an opponent omits all the extenuating 
 circumstances — his need of attachments, his suscepti- 
 bility and his capacity for true friendship, a character 
 easily swayed by the passions, and affected by an 
 element of weakness, which in society and among his 
 intimates showed itself with almost feminine grace, but 
 in public life only too often involved a loss of personal 
 dignity. Talleyrand made his debut in the world at 
 Eheims, where, although only one-and-twenty, he was 
 made a member of the assembly of the clergy. It was 
 the first step to the much more influential position of 
 Agent-General, the duties of which were not unlike 
 those of a modern Minister of Public Worship. 
 
 Since the last meeting of the States-General in 
 1614, the clergy alone had preserved its representative 
 institutions. It treated with the Crown like a power 
 of equal rank, and made its only contribution to 
 taxation by means of a loan, called the don gratuit, 
 for the interest and amortisation of which the clergy 
 were responsible, while the State remained liable for 
 the capital sum. But in consequence of the ever- 
 increasing debt the State treasury hardly received a 
 
II.] EBLATIONS BETWEEN CHURCH AND STATE. 27 
 
 penny, because the clergy kept back the greater part 
 of the money to meet the sinking fund. The grant 
 was accompanied by stipulations for a quid pro quo, 
 which were exorbitant or moderate according as the 
 State's want of money happened to be greater or less 
 than the Church's need of protection. 
 
 The King made use of the means of pressure at his 
 disposal, especially of the right to appoint to bishoprics 
 and benefices conceded to him by the Concordat of 
 1517. The clergy demanded increase of its privileges, 
 confirmation of its ancient rights and liberties, and 
 enforcement of the law against heretics. There were 
 assemblies of the clergy so stormy as to be called small 
 Constituantes, and conflicts which could only be settled 
 by an appeal to Eome. On the other hand, the move- 
 ment in favom- of applying Church property towards 
 redemption of the public debt and in promoting the 
 welfare of the nation dates from the sixteenth century 
 and the time of the religious wars. From that time 
 the clergy also consented to the regular payment of 
 the ordinary and extraordinary tenths, but maintained 
 its right to administrative autonomy, and in its general 
 assemblies made excursions from the sphere of finance 
 and administration into that of ecclesiastical discipline 
 and theological controversy, so that these assemblies 
 acquired more and more the importance of national 
 synods, and became a stronghold of Grallican doctrine. 
 
 Elected as to one half from the ranks of the epis- 
 
28 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 copate, and as to the other from among ecclesiastics in 
 possession of large benefices, they met from 1579 every 
 second and fifth year for their own affairs, and every 
 tenth year for the purpose of settling the don gratuit, 
 which amounted to fifteen or sixteen million livres. 
 The latter meeting was held in Paris, and the session 
 lasted from three to six months. The resolutions of 
 the assemblies, for the validity of which a two-thirds 
 majority was requisite, were published in the sessional 
 reports. 
 
 The administration, which with its widely-ramified 
 interests and small army of officials formed an imper- 
 ium in imperio, was controlled by two Agents-General 
 of the clergy, appointed for a term of five years by 
 two of the ecclesiastical provinces in rotation. These 
 Agents-Greneral acted as go-betweens for the clergy in 
 its dealings with the Government, and their office was 
 rightly considered of such importance that Cardinal 
 Richelieu made an unsuccessful attempt to transfer the 
 right of appointment to the Crown. Their importance 
 increased as the situation became more threatening, 
 when in the eighteenth century the clergy's claim to 
 exemption from taxation and its monopoly of enormous 
 revenues were attacked with increasing vehemence, 
 not, as in the old days, by lawyers pleading for royal 
 control over the property of the nation, or by isolated 
 appeals on behalf of the general welfare, but by a 
 newly awakened public opinion. The internal history 
 
IL] TAXATION OF THE CLERGY. 29 
 
 of France under Louis XV. and in the first years of 
 the reign of Louis XVI. is full of episodes of the 
 struggle in which the clergy disarmed the o^Dposition of 
 parliament and humoured the vacillation of the Govern- 
 ment by repeated concessions and grants of money, and 
 yet, whenever a favourable opportunity offered, always 
 managed to win back the lost ground and uphold its 
 privileges. An edifice of centuries was not to fall at 
 the first blow. The man who opened the attack on 
 behalf of the State, the Minister JNlachault, was no 
 opponent, but a devout adherent, of the Church. In 
 1749 he had a valuation of Church property made, 
 which was followed by taxation of the clergy to the 
 extent of a twentieth part of its revenues. But after 
 JNIachault's fall in 1757 this tax was taken off, although 
 the Ministry of the Abbe de Bernis would hardly have 
 had much scruple in paying this price for the deliver- 
 ance of France as she was after Eosbach, on the verge 
 of bankruptcy and defeated at all points, and styled 
 " Madame Job " in a well-known correspondence of the 
 day. It was not until after these disasters that the 
 moral blows were dealt, the Savoy Vicar's confession of 
 faith in " Emile," and then Voltaire's " Sermon des 
 Cinquante," which were the signal for a general and 
 open assault. A little later, in 1768, came Puysegur's 
 attack on the right of the clergy to hold property, 
 which gave rise to a whole series of similar publications. 
 Six years afterwards Turgot became Minister. Of an 
 
30 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 inflexible character, he was not devoid of moderation in 
 office, although his purpose never varied. His policy 
 consisted of abolition of all privileges and equal taxation 
 for all. These ideas inspired the famous six edicts 
 which brought about his fall, especially the first relating 
 to the corvees. The clergy's claim to exemption from 
 public burdens seemed to him just as untenable as that 
 of the noblesse. When, however, the Keeper of the 
 Seals expressed the opinion that the clergy might at all 
 events be excepted for the present, Turgot agreed, add- 
 ing that "after deducting the tithe and the surplice- 
 fees the Church property was not very considerable." 
 But he maintained the principle, and, as matters stood, 
 the clergy were full}^ justified in treating him as an 
 antagonist, not so much on account of his financial 
 policy, which recognised the principle of adequate com- 
 pensation for all vested interests, as because he had, 
 immediately on his assumption of office, submitted to 
 the King a plan for re-constructing the entire French 
 educational system and placing it in the hands of lay 
 teachers. In this respect Talleyrand became Tm'got's 
 executor in the Constituent Assembly. The revolution 
 intended by the Minister was so vast, and, it must also 
 be added, so premature and so questionable in its pro- 
 posed scope, that his wish to introduce toleration for 
 all forms of worship, and his subsequent suggestion to 
 the King at Rheims to omit the promise to extirpate 
 heretics from the oath, sink into complete insignificance 
 
IL] CLERICAL TRAINING. 31 
 
 beside it. As a matter of course the clergy took care 
 to join the coalition of menaced interests to which 
 Turgot fell a victim. 
 
 Such were the conflicts in which Talleyrand received 
 his training. He signed without a moment's hesitation 
 petitions of his order demanding the condemnation of 
 Voltaire's works or stringent measures against the 
 Protestants, and drafted memorials which endeavoured 
 to prove that the clergy owed no feudal services to the 
 Crown. His orthodoxy was unimpeachable, but his 
 sympathies were on the other side. He refers with 
 finished irony to " the importation of conscience into 
 all these questions of pounds, shillings, and pence, the 
 treatment of which became, in consequence, marked 
 by a certain eloquence, such as the clergy alone has at 
 its command." He saw without feelings of regret that 
 Lomenie de Brienne, at that time still Archbishop of 
 Toulouse, suppressed many ecclesiastical orders under 
 the pretext of reform, and checked the spread of the 
 philosophic movement among the ambitious members 
 of the clergy. When the assembly at Kheims had 
 concluded its sittings, he returned to Paris, ostensibly 
 for two years' further study of theology in the Sorbonne, 
 but in reality to enjoy himself, and lay a foundation 
 for his career. " In those days," he writes in his 
 Memoirs, " I knew ambition only in its good sense ; 
 my aim was to attempt everything which I felt able to 
 do well. . . . The thought of Cardinal Eiehelieu, who 
 
32 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 has such a fine monument in the Sorbonne church, 
 was in this respect not calculated to discourage me." 
 It was certainly anything but discouraging, for from 
 first to last the theologian element turned the scale in 
 the politics of the day. 
 
 The eighteenth century, transported from the domain 
 of Christianity into that of philosophy, believed in the 
 same ideal of a perfect State, and of a wise and happy 
 people — " un peuple neuf," as Turgot expresses it — 
 which, under the transparent veil of Salent's generous 
 delusion, had inspired the successor of Louis XIV. with 
 enthusiasm. Fenelon, who wished to limit the royal 
 prerogative by transferring part of it to the Estates, 
 the Abbe de St. Pierre, who, like St. Simon, wanted 
 to see the country governed by elective councils, are 
 the forerunners and pioneers of the " constitutionals " 
 in 1789. Chamfort, afterwards a friend of Talleyrand's, 
 who was himself in his youth destined for the priest- 
 hood, and never lost sight of Church matters, remarks 
 somewhere that thirty decrees of the Constituent 
 
 f 
 
 Assembly could be found in the " Education d'un 
 Prince," by the Jansenist Duguet. The religious dis- 
 putes were a training-school for the parliamentary 
 opposition ; the dead weight of an enforced orthodoxy 
 produced contempt for an authority which was satisfied 
 with outward submission. Tm-got, like Talleyrand, 
 had been a pu})!! in the Sorbonne. Si eyes framed the 
 political creed of the Eevolution in the authoritative 
 
II.] TALLEYRAND'S MOTHER. 38 
 
 language which he had learned in the seminary. 
 Grregoire, a blameless priest who looked for the advent 
 of a new reformation with the fanaticism of a doc- 
 trinaire, brought in the motion for the establishment 
 of a Republic. Two bishops were colleagues of the 
 Abbe Sieyes in the constitutional committee of 1789. 
 The constitutions of the years III. and VIII. were for 
 the most part the work of theologians, and four 
 theologians, Fouche, Talleyrand, Montesquiou, and the 
 Abbe Louis, introduced parliamentary government in 
 the Ministry of 1815. From this point of view 
 Talleyrand had every reason to congratulate himself 
 " d'avoir 6te trempe dans les eaux du Styx." 
 
 The first acquaintance which he made on his entry 
 into Paris society was that of his mother, who had 
 several surprises in store for him. Possessed of great 
 intellectual distinction and charm, and without the 
 slightest pretension, she was always careful to avoid 
 emphasis : " EUe ne parlait que par nuances ; jamais 
 elle n'a dit un bon mot : c'etait quelque chose de trop 
 exprime." From his intercourse with her he derived 
 a mistrust of the intelligence of those who employ 
 technical expressions, have no corresponding terms at 
 their command, and insist upon always defining. But 
 he did not deny himself the luxury of a hon mot. 
 His first appearance in society is said to have been 
 marked by one, in the days of Louis XV. and in 
 Madame du Barry's salon. The gentlemen surround- 
 
 VOL. I, 3 
 
34 LIFE OF TALLEYKAND. [Ch. 
 
 ing her were relating their adventures, but the young 
 Abbe remained silent. " You tell us nothing," re- 
 marked the favourite, turning towards him. "Alas, 
 no, Madam ; a melancholy reflection occurred to me." 
 " What ? " " How much easier it is to win the favour 
 of a woman than to obtain preferment in a city like 
 Paris." 
 
 The King's reply to this sally is said to have been 
 the gift of the benefice of St. Denis at Rheims, and 
 with his first receipts Talleyrand paid the arrears 
 which his father owed to the College d'Harcourt for 
 his education. About this time he stayed several 
 months in Strasburg, to hear the professors of con- 
 stitutional law, Schopflin and Koch. The latter, 
 although a Protestant, was considered an authority on 
 the canon law in German Catholic circles. Narbonne, 
 Segur, Tracy, Eayneval, and Bignon among the French, 
 and Cobenzl and Metternich among the Grermans, 
 attended his lectures. Talleyrand met him sub- 
 sequently in the committees of the Constituent 
 Assembly as representative of the interests of his 
 Alsatian co-religionists. 
 
 Talleyrand, now known as the Abbe de Perigord, 
 took an apartment, on his return to Paris, in the 
 convent of Bellechasse, Rue St. Dominique, where 
 Madame de Genlis was his neighbour. There he 
 collected a small library of fine editions in choice 
 bindings, and surrounded himself with friends. The 
 
II.J SOCIETY IN PAEIS. 35 
 
 eldest of them, Choiseul-Gouffier, had just returned 
 after a long absence spent in travelling, and had 
 married in Paris. There are some nice letters from 
 Talleyrand to him, written when he was appointed 
 ambassador at Constantinople shortly afterwards. In 
 the Memoirs Talleyrand calls him one of those ordinary 
 minds, " whose fate is to resolve themselves into 
 forms." His opinion of the brilliant colonel of the 
 Piedmont regiment, Count Louis de Narbonne, is even 
 less enthusiastic. His name has often been mentioned 
 in connection with that of Talleyrand, liut the latter 
 says that their relations did not go beyond mere 
 comradeship, and hints that Narbonne was more enter- 
 taining than trustworthy, and that he was witty at 
 the expense of good taste. You can read between the 
 lines that Talleyrand thought this darling of Parisian 
 drawing-rooms rather vulgar. Lauzun, then and after- 
 wards notorious and famous as Due de Biron, was 
 evidently a much greater favourite of his. He calls 
 him brave, romantic, generous, and witty. His own 
 taste, with all its reputation for refinement, could 
 tolerate every kind of moral corruption, as long as the 
 tone was correct and the manners faultless. The say- . 
 ing that in the eighteenth century want of propriety 
 found expression in actions but never in words applies 
 to him more than any one else. Chamfort's notes 
 preserve the tone of the conversation which probably 
 passed at the Abbe de P^rigord's breakfast-table. 
 
36 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 Besides the too carefully discussed chroniqiie scan- 
 daleuse, some interesting mots were uttered. It must 
 be Talleyrand who recommends a friend with the 
 remark that " we must manufacture a little public 
 opinion in his favour," Even more in his style is 
 the pointed reply to the observation, " Vous aimez 
 beaucoup la consideration " — " J'en ai pour moi, ce 
 qui m'attire quelquefois celle des autres." And the 
 description of France as " an absolute monarchy 
 tempered by lampoons " is probably also his. 
 
 Chamfort is certainly worth reading : " I cannot 
 resist the pleasure of rubbing the most electrical head 
 I have ever met with," says Mirabeau of him. Cham- 
 fort afterwards boasted that he had proclaimed his 
 doctrines to the world by the mouth of Talleyrand from 
 the tribune of the Constituent Assembly. His influence 
 over the Abb^ Sieyes was far greater. It is known 
 that he suggested the inflammatory title of the pam- 
 phlet " What is the Third Estate ? " The commentary 
 on it is equally saturated with his spirit, and with 
 the revolt against the existing order of things which 
 distinguishes the revolutionists from the reformers. 
 Of a milder disposition, but of scandalous conduct, was 
 another friend of Talleyrand's, the Abbe Delille, the 
 poet of the " Jardins." Count Lauraguais must have 
 interested Talleyrand more by his essays on French 
 constitutional questions than by his tragedies. Both 
 Chamfort and Talleyrand have spoken with crushing 
 
II.] PANCHAUD. 37 
 
 severity of another of his guests, Rulhitire, the popular 
 historian of the day. His remark, " Je n'ai jamais fait 
 de la vie qu'une mechancete," is said to have drawn 
 from Talleyrand the retort : " Quand finira-t-elle ? " 
 An invitation to breakfast did not necessarily imply 
 affection, but might sometimes be compatible with 
 mutual respect. This was the case with Dupont de 
 Nemours, Turgot's friend and colleague, an enthusiastic 
 " economist," whose optimism Talleyrand often ridiculed, 
 but to whom he was sincerely attached. Panchaud, 
 the Greneva banker, was a leading member of the set. 
 Driven from Geneva by political troubles, he had, like 
 Claviere, Dumont, Necker, and other of his fellow- 
 countrymen, found a second home in Paris. Talleyrand 
 calls him an extraordinary man, of an ardent and com- 
 prehensive mind and unerring intelligence. " Every 
 kind of eloquence was at his command. If genius 
 consists of a twin capacity for thought and feeling, 
 then Panchaud certainly possessed it. , I could quote 
 a thousand instances of his magnanimity, his gaiety, 
 and the uprightness of his character." And he 
 adds : " Panchaud told Calonne, Meilhan, Foulon, and 
 myself, over and over again, that, as Europe was 
 circumstanced, whichever of the two countries France 
 and England most carefully carried out his plan for 
 the redemption of the public debt would win the day. 
 England adopted his system, and took the lead in 
 Europe for thirty years." Both Talleyrand and 
 
38 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch, 
 
 Mirabeau profited by Panchaud's teaching. The latter 
 calls him the only man in France who understood the 
 art of not killing the goose which laid the golden eggs. 
 Mirabeau, who had just served a term of three years' 
 imprisonment at Vincennes, was known only by the 
 excesses of his youth and the scandals of his private 
 life. The first house where he was received at this 
 time, and afterwards on his return from England to 
 Paris in 1785, was Talleyrand's, who was not slow to 
 do justice to his vast though tarnished abilities. 
 
 His ideas of social intercom'se may be gathered from 
 his criticism of others. At the Swedish ambassador's, 
 Count Kreutz, he submitted to the reading of Mar- 
 montel's " Contes " and stayed till " Numitor " was 
 reached, but did not come a second time. He does 
 not say whether he laughed when he listened to the 
 immortal dialogue in " Figaro " at the Polignacs : 
 "J'etais ne pour etre courtisan." — "On dit que c'est 
 un metier si difficile." — " Kecevoir, prendre et demander, 
 voila le secret en trois mots." But he makes no 
 secret of having listened to the end of Delille's 
 " Jardins," the " Eevolution de Kussie," as Eulhiere's 
 work was then called, and Guibert'a " Connetable de 
 Bourbon," simply because it was a sioie qua non for 
 would-be members of intellectual society. For the 
 same reason he went to hear music, while taking no 
 part in the controversy between the followers of Piccini 
 and Gluck. But there is no doubt tliat neither recitals 
 
II.] CONTACT WITH CELEBRITIES. 39 
 
 nor concerts were given in Bellechasse. Belles-lettres 
 occupied a subordinate position there, and rhetoric 
 made no impression. Talleyrand says cuttingly of 
 Choiseul-Gouffier : " If he had admired Buffon's beau- 
 tiful periods less as a young man, he would have been 
 a writer of some distinction." He himself had read 
 with advantage Voltaire's " Temple du Gout," in which, 
 at the inner shrine, the great masters of literature 
 improve their works by pruning them. After his first 
 printed speech on public credit, loudly applauded by 
 the old Geneva banker Rilliet, Talleyrand carefully 
 put aside everything that had called forth this noisy 
 admiration : " A frigid demeanour and an appearance 
 of reserve first gave the idea that I was a man of parts." 
 From the beginning he tried to come into contact with 
 the celebrities of the day, and obtained the entree 
 to the Ministers, the frivolous old Maurepas, the 
 Secretary of the Marine, de Castries, and Malesherbes, 
 who had withdrawn into private life. He visited 
 Turgot in the stern retirement of his concluding years, 
 and afterwards Turgot's most powerful opponent, 
 Choiseul, at Chanteloup, and in 1778 received Voltaire's 
 apostolic benediction with calculated ostentation. There 
 was nothing to lose and everything to gain by joining 
 the opposition under Louis XVI. 
 
 It was not difficult for him to ingratiate himself 
 with women, although the Duchesse de Broglie refers 
 to "the insolent familiarity of the grand ladies of 
 
40 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 the day, who took all kinds of liberties." Foremost 
 among them was the Duchesse de Grammont, sister of 
 Choiseul, to whom she devoted herself with an affection 
 bordering on idolatry, " not handsome, fair, buxom, 
 and sprightly, of lofty character and powerful and 
 unprejudiced mind. She would have been eloquent, 
 were eloquence compatible with an unpleasing voice. 
 She wrote well, and there was something at once 
 attractive and imperious in her manner. In her own 
 salon she allowed only one opinion : all who were on 
 Choiseul's side were accepted ; the others were not 
 even tolerated. To her worship of her brother she 
 united loyalty to her friends. Love had been only a 
 brief episode of her youth. She maintained up to the 
 close of her life the position which she had conquered 
 for herself in society." 
 
 It was this lady who addressed the young Abbe de 
 Perigord by his name when they first met : " Why 
 did you say ' Ah ! Ah ! ' when I called you. Monsieur 
 I'Abbe ? " she asked. " I did not say ' Ah ! Ah ! ' but 
 ' Oh ! Oh ! ' " was the reply. Talleyrand, who for a 
 wonder relates this anecdote, "cette miserable reponse," 
 as he styles it, was soon invited everywhere : once a 
 week to Madame d'Hericourt's, a literary dinner; to 
 Madame de Boufflers' in Auteuil ; to Madame La 
 Keyniere's, the wife of the Fermier-Oeneral, whose 
 cook was considered the best in Paris. INIadame de 
 Montesson, afterwards second wife of the Duke of 
 
II.] PERSONAL APPEAEANCE. 41 
 
 Orleans, whose house, " a Textremite de la decence," 
 was thought one of the pleasantest in Paris, gave 
 performances of plays written by herself; a box was 
 reserved " pour le clerge un peu dissipe," in which 
 Talleyrand found a place kept for him next to Lomenie 
 de Brienne and Dillon, the Archbishops of Toulouse 
 and Narbonne. Dillon, an aristocratic man of Irish 
 descent, shrewd and unprejudiced, and well versed in 
 worldly matters, has much in common with the Abbe 
 de Perigord. " Your Grrace," said Louis XVI. to him 
 one day, "it is said that you are in debt, and even 
 greatly in debt." " Sire," rejoined the prelate ironic- 
 ally, " I will consult my steward on the point, and 
 then do myself the honour of reporting thereon to your 
 Majesty." They were the days of la ser^nissime 
 banqueroute and enormous deficits ; who could be 
 expected to trouble his head about economy in the 
 household or in the State ? 
 
 Without being handsome, Talleyrand was a favourite 
 with women. A portrait taken in his youth depicts 
 him with wavy hair, slightly powdered, and tied into 
 a pigtail with a black ribbon. The eyes look forth 
 from beneath the brows with a cheerful assurance ; a 
 slightly turned-up nose and a prominent chin give 
 the face a look of audacity and calm energy. The 
 expression of misanthropy about the mouth was a 
 product of much later years. 
 
 The only thing now required to assure the social 
 
42 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 position of the elegant young Abbe was an attitude 
 of marked opposition to the opinions of the day, " so 
 as not to be confounded with, the multitude." Talley- 
 rand fixed on Necker as the most suitable object of 
 this. The latter had succeeded Turgot since the 22nd 
 of October, 1776, after a brief interregnum of a few 
 nobodies. Grreeted by the Court as a deliverer, but 
 also hailed as a saviour by the people, not feared, and 
 rightly, by the clergy in his capacity of Protestant, 
 he was branded by the economists as an opponent of 
 Turgot and " the system." 
 
 Talleyrand ranged himself with emphasis on the 
 side of this minority. He declined in a marked way 
 to enter Necker's house, called him a bad statesman 
 and a worse Minister, and a corrupter of morals into 
 the bargain, because his extravagant loans had en- 
 couraged the selfishness of speculators to an unheard-of 
 extent. He made fun of his pointed head, his awkward 
 manners, and his frequent fits of absence of mind ; he 
 even went further, and accused " the charlatan " of 
 having impoverished France to enrich a couple of 
 dozen firms in Geneva. This slashing invective 
 directed against a Minister who was the idol and slave 
 of public opinion seems like an echo of Chamfort's 
 words, which were probably spoken at Talleyrand's 
 breakfast-table : " The public, the public ! how many 
 fools does it take to make a public ? " 
 
 The public of France was just then on the jjoint of 
 
II.] ATTITUDE ON THE AMERICAN QUESTION. 43 
 
 surprising the world by a change of front. The 
 American colonies had risen against the mother- 
 country, and Montesquieu's fellow-countrymen took 
 their side. Here at last was a subject on which King 
 and people felt alike. Long years of humiliation, the 
 loss of Canada, the disasters in India, defeats on the 
 high seas, lowered prestige in Europe, and decline of 
 national prosperity, all might be made good if they 
 could only turn upon the hated foe and strike a blow 
 at England in America. In vain did Necker, like 
 Turgot before him, warn the public against warlike 
 preparations with an empty treasury. His protest was 
 drowned in the storm of youthful enthusiasm, which 
 saw no contradiction in restoring the prestige of the 
 Crown by means of a struggle which was to bring 
 to the people a freedom moulded on the pattern of a 
 democracy beyond the seas, itself ignorant of its own 
 destiny. 
 
 Talleyrand saw the men of his own standing depart, 
 Noailles, Damas, Lauzun, Montesquiou, Chastellux, 
 who was somewhat older, Stedingk and Fersen, two 
 young Swedes naturalised in France, La Fayette, 
 Mauduit, La Eouerie, La Luzerne, Grouvion, and the 
 rest of them, the knights-errant whose names are 
 known to history as the Gallo-Americans. But there 
 is not a syllable to show that the young Abbe envied 
 them their departure or approved of their decision. 
 Possibly he shared Narbonne's opinion that there was 
 
44 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND [Ch. 
 
 enough republicanism to be found in France without 
 going elsewhere to seek it. The Memoirs profess but 
 little admiration for the philosophers, who examined 
 every point in the controversy and carefully weighed 
 the sovereign's prerogative and the people's rights 
 one against the other, while a petty, quarrelsome, and 
 shortsighted policy made the Government an accom- 
 plice in all these extravagances. Then comes the 
 satirical description of La Fayette, the hero of the 
 piece, who would have remained forgotten and un- 
 distinguished his whole life through had not extra- 
 ordinary events called him out of the ranks. " There 
 was nothing in him above the common ; he was below 
 the level at which people gain a reputation for ability. 
 There seemed to be something learnt by rote both 
 in his desire for popularity and mode of acquiring it. 
 His actions appear to be foreign to his nature and 
 inspired by others. Unfortunately no one is likely to 
 boast of having inspired him at the critical moment 
 of his life." And Talleyrand continues: "The grand 
 gentlemen of my young days had the peculiarity of 
 thinking that they had discovered, and consequently 
 of valuing all the more highly, everything that was 
 new to them. Where should we be without America? 
 you heard then on all sides. It procures us a navy, 
 said ]Malouet ; it extends our commerce, said Raynal ; 
 it provides for our sm'plus population, said the admini- 
 strators ; it is an outlet for our turbulent spirits, said 
 
II.] OBJECTS OF HIS STATESMANSHIP. 45 
 
 the Ministers ; it is a refuge for all our nonconformists, 
 said the philosophers. . . ," 
 
 Are our differences less, our malcontents fewer in 
 number, our wars shorter ? retorts Talleyrand ; and 
 then he treats the American enthusiasts to a historical 
 disquisition on the national movement towards the East, 
 the importance of the Mediterranean, and the colonisa- 
 tion of Africa, every line of which reflects the great 
 traditions of French policy, the teachings of Montes- 
 quieu, and the dazzling vision of a dominion marked out 
 by climate, customs, and character for the Latin race, 
 which the author of " L'Esprit des Lois " extols as 
 the ideal of Charlemagne, and Napoleon's imagination 
 made use of in the construction of his empire. At 
 every stage of his stirring public life Talleyrand re- 
 mained true to these ideas, by which he sought to attain 
 the goal of his statesmanship — peace and the English 
 alliance. For England the supremacy of the sea, and 
 great colonies in distant lands ; for France the control 
 of the old world, if not direct, then secured by a well- 
 knit system of alliances, which would recognise her 
 unquestioned supremacy in the Mediterranean, and 
 leave the north coast of Africa under her sway. 
 
 It is Talleyrand's rare merit that, even when all 
 around him embarked in pursuit of illusions, he never 
 required experience to keep him on the terra firma 
 of reality. 
 
 The only trace of his participation in the American 
 
46 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch 
 
 war is the equipment of a privateer against England, 
 in conjunction with his friend Choiseul-Grouffier, a 
 speculation the result of which is not known. The 
 ■ first political negotiations in which he took part were 
 concerned with the treaty of commerce with England, 
 which was foreseen at the Peace of Versailles in 1783, 
 but not concluded till 1786. At his uncle's, the 
 Archbishop of Rheims, he made the acquaintance in 
 the summer of 1783 of Pitt, who was then four-and- 
 twenty, and with his friends Elliot and Wilberforce 
 was employing a short rest from his parliamentary 
 work in learning French and paving the way for that 
 very treaty. The two young men gave each other 
 lessons in their respective languages, and exchanged 
 ideas. Talleyrand saw perfectly clearly that the great 
 industrial superiority of the English would secure 
 them every advantage in the immediate future, and 
 that the French Government would get nothing but 
 reproaches. But in spite of this he clung to the 
 principle of free trade. No country, he wrote to 
 Mirabeau in 1786, would reap greater benefit from 
 the treat V than France, thanks to its natural ad van- 
 tages, and in course of time a rapprochement with 
 England would be brought about. The same view is 
 expressed in his Memoirs : " In time each of the two 
 countries would have adapted itself to the conditions 
 of production assigned to it by nature, and as a final 
 result the principle of free trade would have won the 
 
II.] PKOPOSED CLERICAL REFORMS. 47 
 
 day. Prejudice willed it otherwise." Like Turgot, 
 Talleyrand committed the unpardonable error of being 
 a century ahead of his generation. 
 
 In 1780 he was appointed Agent-Greneral of the 
 Clergy. His colleague was Boisgelin, a cousin of the 
 Cardinal-Archbishop of that name, whose mode of life 
 created such scandal that all real influence passed to 
 Talleyrand. The latter found useful subordinates in 
 Mannay, Bourlier, and Duvoisin, who afterwards became 
 bishops of Treves, Evreux, and Nantes. Of Des- 
 renaudes, whose name has so often been mentioned in 
 connection with his on important occasions, he remarks 
 pointedly that " he had great skill in carrying out the 
 ideas of other people." A very able man also was the 
 Abbe Louis, " a financier to his last gasp," as Talleyrand 
 used to say of him. This group produced two Finance 
 Ministers and several excellent servants qf the State. 
 Talleyrand did not hide from himself that his order 
 was daily losing prestige owing to the repeated attacks 
 made on it, and, by way of remedy, he took a step in 
 the assembly of the clergy of 1782 which he rightly 
 judged would have earned gratitude for the Church. 
 The proposal was to buy the royal lottery, which was 
 so pernicious to small investors, from the State, then 
 suppress it, and meet the deficit by a voluntary annual 
 grant, thus making a pecuniary sacrifice " in order to 
 set the example of a lofty morality." The motion met 
 with no support, and Talleyrand drew the conclusion 
 
48 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 that he had to deal with people who were much too 
 feeble to wield the arms which he was ready to put in 
 their hands. 
 
 But he was not discouraged, and his second proposal 
 went beyond the first in scope and importance. On 
 the ground that the existing provisions of the law were 
 carried out only in the letter and not in the spirit, he 
 moved that the stipends of the parochial clergy should 
 be raised from five hundred livres to a sum not 
 exceeding seven hundred and fifty, in proportion to 
 the increase in the cost of the necessaries of life. The 
 proposal seemed simple enough, but as a matter of 
 fact it hit one of the worst blots of the ancien regiTae. 
 The Church courted opposition, not only by its vast 
 wealth, but also by the unequal distribution of it. 
 There were ecclesiastical dignitaries whose revenues 
 ranged between four hundred thousand and a million 
 livres, and poor cures who had to beg their scanty 
 means of subsistence from the impoverished com- 
 munity in whose service they passed their lives 
 without hope of preferment. In the period preceding 
 the Revolution there arose a whole literature of 
 memorials and pamphlets on this subject. The writers 
 complained that those who served the altar could not 
 live by the altar, that priests overtaken by age and 
 sickness were left a prey to grinding poverty, and they 
 depicted the distress of vicars in receipt of two hundred 
 and fifty livres a year, while the Abb6 de Vermont, 
 
11.] ATTEMPTS AT REFORM UNSUCCESSFUL. 49 
 
 prelector to the Queen, drew eighty thousand livres, 
 and many archbishops from a hundred thousand to two 
 hundred thousand. " I pity," writes Voltaire, " the 
 fate of the country cure who has to wrest his tithe 
 from the wretched peasant, or go to law against him, 
 in order to secure the portion of peas and lentils which 
 forms his miserable subsistence. Still more do I pity 
 the substitutes, who, for a pittance of forty ducats 
 flung to them by the monks, perform the laborious 
 duties of their office the whole year through, day a?id 
 night, for miles around, and in all weathers." 
 
 The sequel of Talleyrand's attempts at reform was 
 remarkable. The lottery was considerably increased 
 by the advice of Casanova, and the famous decree of 
 the War Department in 1781, making the grant of all 
 officers' commissions dependent on proof of noble birth, 
 was accompanied by another royal decree enacting that 
 benefices and abbeys should in future be bestowed 
 only on members of the noblesse. 
 
 The consequences of this blindness were seen in 
 1789. At the elections the Government had reckoned 
 on the devoted support of the sixty thousand members 
 of the lower clergy, wrongly so styled, — ■"■ expression 
 etrange pour designer un pretre faisant son devoir," 
 says Chamfort. But the hundred and eighty-seven 
 priests returned as deputies had every reason not to 
 make common cause with the prelacy, which had so 
 long refused them justice, and their desertion to the 
 
 VOL, L 4 
 
50 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. IL 
 
 ranks of the Third Estate turned the scale in its 
 favour. 
 
 When men bethought them of the wise counsels 
 which might have prevented this result, it was too 
 late. 
 
I 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE CALONNE MINISTRY AND MIRABEAU'S MISSIOX 
 
 TO BERLIN. 
 
 (1786, 1787.) 
 
 N the eighties Talleyrand used often to stay in 
 the provinces, especially in Brittany, the Estates 
 of which gave him an opportunity of studying the 
 working of the French administrative machine in one 
 of its original forms. While staying with Madame 
 de Girac, the sister-in-law of the Bishop of Eennes, 
 he wrote some vers cU occasion in her album, and 
 jokingly referred to the second line as containing a 
 sort of autobiography : — 
 
 " Et que me fait k moi qu'on soit belle ou jolie, 
 A moi qui, par raison, ai fait une folie ? " 
 
 He had, however, already succeeded in alleviating his 
 lot. The social chronicles of the day mention the 
 beautiful and gentle Countess Buffon, the daughter-in- 
 law of the great naturalist, as one of the women to 
 whom he had paid his addresses. Perhaps the relent- 
 lessness of his hostility to the Duke of Orleans may be 
 partially explained by the fact that the Countess, " a 
 sweet young creature, whose unselfishness and devotion 
 
 51 
 
52 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 gained for her the indulgence of all who knew her," 
 was the Duke's mistress when the Eevolution broke 
 out. Talleyrand, moreover, did not always deal 
 tenderly with women who had been the object of his 
 erratic affections. During the period before the out- 
 break of the Eevolution he was captivated by the 
 Countess Flahaut, to whom he remained warmly 
 attached for a considerable time. Married to an 
 elderly man, whose position at Court gave him the 
 privilege of living in the Louvre, Madame de Flahaut 
 differed in one characteristic point from the women 
 around her. They all talked politics : " Each has her 
 particular party; every chatterbox in the quartier 
 discusses the affairs of the nation and is full of schemes 
 of government. . . . The women are the death of me ; 
 they talk and talk, but know nothing and have never 
 learnt how to think," writes a sensible old lady, 
 Madame de Crequy, who, however, was herself a reader 
 of Grotius and Puffendorf. Talleyrand himself has 
 a quiet laugh at Madame de Stael and Madame de 
 Simiane, " who in the interval of a dance discourse 
 to their partners on the sovereignty of the West and 
 the tobacco duty in Virginia." Madame de Flahaut, 
 on the other hand, hated politics. To be rid of them, 
 she devoted those stirring times to the composition 
 of an idyll, which is considered one of the good novels 
 of the day. When the Revolution came she admitted 
 that the distress which it caused her had been pre- 
 
Iir.] MADAME UE FLAHAUT. 53 
 
 ceded by a feeling of profound weariness. Her de- 
 scription of the snug corner of a room, " a recess with 
 harp, piano, books, and drawing materials," in which 
 the heroine spends her happy hours, was recognised 
 as a reproduction of her own retreat, under a royal 
 roof, close to the future site of the Jacobin Club, and 
 yet far from the madding crowd. Afterwards, when 
 times had changed, she gave proof of courage and pre- 
 sence of mind and of her knowledge of men. " C'est 
 le poltron le plus entreprenant du monde," she said of 
 Siey^s. Under the Empire she arrived at Saint-Cloud 
 one day from Berlin, to wait upon the Empress Jose- 
 phine. All of a sudden the Emperor appeared in 
 hunting costume, evidently angry at the delay. " You 
 come from Berlin," he said harshly ; " is France liked 
 there ? " If I answer Yes, she said to herself, he will 
 think me a fool ; if No, he will think me defiant : 
 " Yes, sire," she replied, " France is liked there, as 
 young women are liked by old ones." At the age of 
 four-and-twenty she had a son, and a picture of her, 
 with the child in her lap, painted by Madame Vigee- 
 Lebrun, " a Penelope, fair as Venus and of such retiring 
 modesty that she concealed her name from the 
 public," adorned the Salon of that year. The son 
 was Count Flahaut, a protege of Napoleon's and 
 employed by him both in a military and diplomatic 
 capacity, who had the well-known liaison with Queen 
 Hortense, and was the father of the Due de Morny. 
 
54 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 The creator of the Second Empire used to boast among 
 his intimates of his_ descent, to which he could 
 certainly lay claim on the score of talent. Talley- 
 rand speaks often and disparagingly of Flahaut. His 
 references to the mother in the Memoirs are of such 
 a character as to injure his own reputation more than 
 hers. After the death of her first husband on the 
 scaffold she married the Portuguese Minister Souza in 
 1802, and lived thenceforward in Paris, where she died 
 in 1836. 
 
 During the period in which a passionate devotion 
 to women was the predominant feature of Talleyrand's 
 life, he had never relaxed in his interest in public 
 affairs, and they now assumed an aspect for which he 
 had been so specially prepared by study and experience 
 that from henceforth the attention of his contempor- 
 aries remains fixed upon him. Since the conclusion 
 of peace with England, finance had absorbed all other 
 interests to an extent such as had been unknown 
 since the days of Law ; a shrewd female observer calls 
 it " the epoch of banking schemes and finance." Private 
 speculation held out prospects of wealth, the allure- 
 ments of which even the prudent petit bourgeois found 
 it difficult to resist, while the State, with its con- 
 tinually widening deficits, was glad to avail itself of 
 private resources. 
 
 In those days of " financial innocence," however, 
 there were only three banks in Paris, and one of them 
 
 ^^ 
 
III.] RELATIONS WITH CALONNE. 55 
 
 was the discount bank founded by Turgot in 177G, 
 the affairs of which were in a yery satisfactory state. 
 The Finance Minister, d'Ormesson, applied to it for 
 a secret loan of six millions to the Treasury. The 
 public got wind of the transaction, the customers with- 
 drew their deposits, and the bank, whose cash reserve 
 was quite insufficient, obtained from the Minister an 
 extension of the time fixed for repayment. Talleyrand, 
 as representative of the clergy, was one of the prin- 
 cipal shareholders. He proposed a reconstruction of 
 the articles of association and the formation of a new 
 bank with the special object of improving public credit, 
 to which he referred in a way that secured him the. 
 approbation of the new Finance Minister, Calonne, 
 formerly Intendant of Lille, whom Court favour and 
 intrigue had entrusted with the destinies of France. 
 Calonne, whom Niebuhr has compared to Egmont, 
 conducted the affairs of his department in the spirit 
 of a gambler. He encouraged the Court in extrava- 
 gance, and promoted speculations of the riskiest 
 character, both at home and abroad, which he influ- 
 enced by means of pamphlets and newspaper articles. 
 He had been Minister for rather more than a year 
 when Mirabeau returned from England to Paris, in 
 April 1785. The latter's fortunes were at their lowest 
 ebb ; he was well-nigh penniless, at enmity with his 
 father, covered with disgrace by the divorce suit in 
 the court of Aix, and reduced to such desperate shifts 
 
66 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 as stealing his sister's watch and extorting money from 
 his mother. His hope of obtaining employment at 
 some Court of northern Europe had been disappointed. 
 In Paris the only houses open to the disreputable 
 adventurer were those of two actresses, Julie Carreau, 
 better known as Talma's wife, and the singer St, 
 Huberti, who afterwards married d'Antraigues, one of 
 Mirabeau's dubious friends. Grimm's correspondence 
 speaks of Mirabeau as the " modern Aretino." The 
 only people of any importance who still took an 
 interest in him were Dupont de Nemours, who had 
 known him since 1771 ; Chamfort, to whom he writes 
 in a submissive strain, " as a disciple to a master " ; 
 and especially Clavi^re of Geneva, who had made his 
 acquaintance at Neuenburg in 1782. Clavi^re took 
 him to Panchaud, where he met Talleyrand again, 
 who commended the Minister's financial plans to him. 
 Panchaud being Court banker and in constant commu- 
 nication with Calonne, the latter's attention was 
 drawn to Mirabeau, and he was induced to avail him- 
 self of the pen which had already given proof of its 
 rough, sledge-hammer force. Michaud's quotation 
 from a letter in which Mirabeau renders a similar 
 service to the Abbe de Pdrigord and writes to Calonne, 
 " You will never find a discreeter, more grateful or 
 less ambitious man," only proves that Mirabeau mis- 
 understood his position, as he had often done before : 
 Talleyrand was in the Minister's confidence ; he himself 
 
III.] MIEABEAU'S MISSION TO BEKLIN. 57 
 
 was raerely tolerated, and paid into the bargain. It 
 was in Calonne's pay, even if, as he assures us, in 
 complete accord with his own convictions, that he 
 brought out, one after the other, in co-operation with 
 Claviere and Brissot, the pamphlets on the discount 
 bank, and against the Spanish bank of San Carlos 
 and the Paris Waterworks Company. The latter then 
 managed to convert the Minister to their views, and 
 .Mirabeau was thrown over. The result would have 
 been a rupture between him and Calonne at that stage, 
 had not Lauzun, who had known Mirabeau since the 
 Corsican campaign of 1767, and Talleyrand, who never 
 lost sight of him, interposed and prevailed on him to 
 go to Grermany at the end of 1785, first to Brunswick 
 and then to Berlin, with good introductions and the 
 prospect of an official mission later on. 
 
 Both knew perfectly well what they had to expect 
 from their protege'. During his imprisonment at 
 Vincennes Dupont de Nemours had sent him the 
 paper on " the municipalities," i.e. the elective pro- 
 vincial and communal assemblies, which he had 
 written for Turgot. Mirabeau took a copy of it and 
 tried to pass it off as his own on Calonne, to whom 
 Dupont exposed the trick by producing the original 
 manuscript. Not content with that, Mirabeau en- 
 deavoured after Calonne's fall to sell the copy as a 
 work of Tm-got's. In letters still preserved in the 
 archives of the French Foreign Office he tries to 
 
58 LIFE OF TALLEYEANU. [Ch. 
 
 justify himself to Talleyrand by throwing suspicion on 
 Claviere. In spite of all this Talleyrand stuck to him. 
 All Mirabeau's cyphered despatches from Berlin, where 
 he was employed on a secret mission from July 1786 
 to the end of January 1787, were revised by the Abb6 
 de Perigord, with the exception of three, which passed 
 through Lauzun's hands. He toned them down, sup- 
 pressed offensive passages, warned Louis XVI. through 
 Prussian statesmen of an " Austrian Ministry " under 
 Breteuil, gave a new lustre to the prestige surrounding 
 the Duke of Brunswick's name, and by this means 
 served up, first to the Minister, and then to the 
 King, a diplomatic dish which they found much more 
 piquant than the official reports of the Ambassador 
 d'Esterno. It probably reminded them of the secret 
 diplomacy by which Louis XV. not only controlled, 
 but often thwarted and even misled, his own Ministers, 
 the traditions of which were passed on to Talleyrand 
 by Favier himself, who conducted it. 
 
 Thus began, in the awe-inspiring proximity of 
 the dying Frederick, JVIirabeau's and Talleyrand's 
 apprenticeship to diplomacy. The one figm'es as an 
 anonymous ambassador, the other as a Minister in 
 partibus of a policy of peace, which in this con- 
 juncture was not in conflict with Vergennes' official 
 strategy. Ten years before this Joseph 11. had 
 sounded France on the proposed cession of a part of 
 the Netherlands in exchange for Bavaria, and had met 
 
III.] MIRABEAU AND FEEDERICK THE GREAT. 59 
 
 with a refusal from Vergennes on the ground that 
 France and public opinion generally would not regard 
 an extension of territory as any compensation for 
 Austria's aggrandisement. " Something of ' L'Esprit 
 des Lois' is penetrating into diplomacy," is Sorel's 
 remark on this. But there were not only sentimental 
 but good practical reasons for the answer. Since the 
 occurrences in Poland the French Cabinet had very 
 naturally imbibed a distaste for a policy of partitions 
 and annexations from which it had nothing to gain. 
 Mirabeau held the same views. His admiration for 
 Prussia and her great monarch was all the more sincere 
 because he thought Frederick's work could not out- 
 live him. It is true he writes : "If Prussia falls to 
 pieces, then the art of government will sink into its 
 second childhood." But he considered the greatest 
 triumph of enlightened despotism and philosophy as 
 irretrievably lost when the king breathed his last on 
 the 17tfc of August, 1786 : " The first cannon-shot will 
 shatter the whole fabric of mediocrity; where is the 
 pilot ? " In his later despatches from Berlin he lapses 
 into the style of the pamphleteer. He did not wait 
 there to be undeceived by the events of 1787, when 
 Frederick's successor sent a body of troops into 
 Holland, with the result that the patriotic party sup- 
 ported by France was put to flight, and an alliance 
 concluded between Prussia, Holland, and England. 
 Joseph II. is reported to have said : " France has 
 
60 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 fallen, and I doubt whether she will ever rise again." 
 Vergennes, who died in February 1787, escaped the 
 humiliating discomfiture of French policy in Holland. 
 Talleyrand felt the full significance of it, and this first 
 indirect participation in the negotiations of the two 
 Cabinets left in his mind that mistrust of Prussia, 
 which, although forced into the background for a time 
 by other exigencies of French policy, always remained 
 an essential factor of his own. 
 
 Five of his letters to ]Mirabeau during the Berlin 
 mission have been preserved. Such affectionate assur- 
 ances as : " J'aime bien a vous dire, mon cher comte, 
 que c'est pour la vie que je vous suis tendrement 
 attache," were soon followed by recriminations of the 
 kind which no one who had dealings with the fiery 
 hero escaped. When Talleyrand tells him what satis- 
 faction his efforts were giving, there comes the 
 rejoinder : " I will not conceal from you, cher maitre, 
 how surprised I was at the expression you used : ' his 
 services are valuable, but he spends a great deal of 
 money.' ... Do they consider me too expensive ? 
 Two hundred pistoles a month and an assured future, 
 or my recall. Your friend is not a man to sit with 
 a leg on each side of the fence. In a word, by birth 
 I am above most of His Majesty's Ministers." The 
 future leader of the democracy was the son of a man 
 who used to say that the Medici were the only mesal- 
 liance in his family, a perfectly unwarranted state- 
 
III.] MIRABEAU'S QUARREL WITH TALLEYRAND. 61 
 
 ment, for, as a matter of fact, there never was any 
 alliance between the two families. But Mirabeau's 
 pride of rank was in no way behind Talleyrand's. 
 When advices from Paris foreshadowed the convocation 
 of the Notables by Calonne, Mirabeau, who had sug- 
 gested the idea, in one of his later letters to Talleyrand 
 makes use of the expression which was to determine 
 the course of the Revolution : " Je regarde comme 
 un des plus beaux jours de ma vie celui ou vous 
 m'apprenez la convocation des Notables, qui, sans 
 doute, precedera de peu celle de I'Assemblee nationale." 
 He then returned to Paris. The relations between 
 the two did not improve after they had met. Some 
 observations which Talleyrand had ventured to make 
 about Madame de Nehra, a Dutch lady, who, although 
 Mirabeau was married, followed him about everywhere 
 in a mistaken spirit of devotion, provoked the latter 
 to upbraid the Abbe de Perigord with " perfidie." A 
 letter to d'Antraigues, " la fleur des droles," the aristo- 
 cratic chevalier d'ioidustrie, who seems mixed up in 
 many intrigues of the day, is still more outspoken. 
 " My misfortunes," writes Mirabeau of Talleyrand in 
 April 1787, "have put me in the power of this 
 wretched, mean, greedy, intriguing creature, and, what 
 is more, I am obliged to treat him with forbearance. 
 The result is nothing but dirt and money. He has 
 bartered his own honour and his friend for money. 
 He would sell his soul for money, and he would do 
 
62 LIFE OF TALLEYEAND. [Ch. 
 
 right, for it would be receiving gold in exchange for 
 filth." What had happened to cause such an outbreak 
 as this ? 
 
 In Februai-y 1787, soon after his return from Berlin, 
 Mirabeau, whose rage against Calonne knew no bounds, 
 had written the pamphlet " Denonciation de I'Agiotage," 
 in which he accused the already tottering Minister of 
 secretly indulging in the stock-broking speculations 
 carried on at the expense of the State, which he 
 publicly condemned and stigmatised. Before publish- 
 ing it INIirabeau gave the manuscript to the Abb6 de 
 P(§rigord, " un sien ami fort intrigant," as the elder 
 Mirabeau calls him, and asked him to submit it to 
 Calonne. The latter was probably not much mistaken 
 in construing this step as an attempt at blackmail, 
 and he stipulated for certain modifications, for which 
 he made an offer of 3,600 livres through Talleyrand. 
 Thereupon, Talleyrand intimated that he wished to be 
 relieved of his mission ; but Mirabeau, irritated by the 
 delay, had already started for Orleans, where the 
 pamphlet was printed. The following lines of Voltaire 
 were adopted as a motto : 
 
 " Pensais-tu qu'un instant ma vertu dementie 
 Mettrait dans la balance un homme et la patrie ? " 
 
 The appendix contained a violent attack on Calonne 
 and a political chapter, which, repeating former 
 demands from other quarters, called for a consti- 
 tution and representative institutions. Still Calonne 
 
III.] MIRABEAU AND CALONNE. 6S 
 
 remained unmoved. To tranquillise public opinion 
 more than for his own protection he procured lettres 
 de cachet from the Minister Breteuil, firstly against 
 his own gang, now unmasked, especially the Abbe 
 d'Espagnac, one of the worst of them, and then against 
 their accuser jNIirabeau. But he warned him in good 
 time through Talleyrand, who sent him money for his 
 flight across the frontier. A month afterwards he 
 received an autograph letter from Calonne, inviting 
 him to return. " It would not be worthy of you," wrote 
 Calonne, " to sacrifice the welfare of the country to a 
 personal grievance. I will write to you again, in con- 
 junction with the amiable, excellent Abbe de Perigord. 
 Our thoughts are not only occupied with you ; we are 
 thinking what we can do for Madame de Nehra." 
 
 A Minister who has a clear conscience is seldom as 
 obliging as this, especially to a man whom Rivarol 
 thus satirises : — 
 
 " Puisse toa hom^lie, 6 bouillant Mirabeau, 
 E eraser les ft'ipons qui gatent nos affaires ; 
 Un voleur converti doit devenir bourreau, 
 Et precher sur I'echelle en pendant ses confreres." 
 
 It was hardly worth while making peace with Calonne. 
 ^Mirabeau's wrath was more turned against Talleyrand, 
 who had preferred the Minister to him. 
 
 This liking for Calonne finds expression in the 
 ^Memoirs thirty years afterwards. They refer to his 
 brilliant intelligence, to his rapid and delicate appre- 
 
64 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 hension : " He wrote and spoke well, his style was 
 always clear and elegant ; he had the power of em- 
 bellishing what he knew and concealing what he did 
 not know. . . . He was capable of loyalty and attach- 
 ment to his friends, but he selected them more with 
 the head than with the heai't, and then attributed 
 to affection what was really due to vanity. He was 
 tall and ugly, active and well built, with a clever 
 expression and pleasing voice. In his intrigues for 
 power he had neglected his reputation. His surround- 
 ings were disreputable. The public considered him 
 able, but immoral, and when he became Finance 
 Minister he was looked on as a clever steward who 
 manages the affairs of a ruined spendthrift. Adroitness 
 makes a good impression, but does not engender con- 
 fidence. A man of this stamp is thought heedless 
 of good advice, and incapable of hard work. This 
 was the case with Monsieur de Calonne ; like all gifted 
 natures, he was thoughtless and over-confident, and 
 these were his leading characteristics." Talleyrand 
 rendered a notable service to this organiser of disaster, 
 whose energy impressed him in spite of all his failings. 
 When Calonne had decided to convoke the Notables, 
 he had quarrelled with the Parliaments, which with- 
 held all money supplies by refusing to register the 
 royal edicts. Talleyrand was of opinion that the 
 Minister had often been in the right. The 22nd of 
 February, 1787, was fixed for the meeting of the 
 
III.] SCHEME FOE REDEMPTION OF DEBT OF CLEEGY. 65 
 
 Notables ; a week beforehand Talleyi-and received a 
 note from the ]Minister, asking him to come to Versailles 
 and assist in drawing up the State papers to be sub- 
 mitted to the assembly. A similar invitation was sent 
 to various other persons, among them Dupont de 
 Nemours. When they all met on the 14th of February 
 in the Minister's cabinet, it turned out that no prepara- 
 tions had been made, that whole piles of papers had 
 to be waded through, and that the preliminary work, 
 for which five months would have been available since 
 the meeting was first mooted, would have to be finished 
 in a week. 
 
 Talleyrand undertook the preparation of a scheme 
 for the redemption of the debt of the clergy, and says 
 that it was a good piece of work. It followed Calonne's 
 ideas by adopting as a basis a general land tax and the 
 consequent abolition of all the financial privileges of 
 the two first Estates. Calonne, as is well known, went 
 much farther, and submitted a programme which drew 
 from the King the remark : " This is one of Necker's 
 prescriptions." It really was more one of Turgot's, 
 and when the Notables rejected the Minister's projects, 
 the latter sent copies of the proposed measures to all 
 the clergy and Government servants in the kingdom, 
 who thus learned through an official channel the 
 intended destruction of its administration, and the 
 failure of the attempt on the part of the Crown to make 
 common cause with the people. 
 
 VOL. I. 5 
 
66 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 A letter written by Talleyrand at this time to his 
 friend Choiseul-Gouffier, ambassador at Constantinople, 
 shows what far-reaching hopes the Minister's policy 
 had aroused in him, and how completely he had be- 
 come a convert to the new ideas of reform : — 
 
 "Je t'envoie, men ami, les discours de M. de Calonne, 
 a I'ouverture de rAssemblee des Notables et les memoires 
 
 qui ont ete soumis aux discussions des bureaux Tu 
 
 trouveras dans cat envoi d'excellente besogne ; e'est a peu 
 pres le resultat de tout ce que les bons esprits pensent 
 depuis quelques annees. Les oppositions sont extremement 
 fortes ; M. de Calonne a eu le tort de ne pas rendre publics 
 ses memou-es d6s le commencement de I'Assemblee; le 
 public instruit aurait contenu les Notables, qui ont mis lem" 
 gloire dans I'opposition, et qu'il est Men difficile actuellement 
 de tirer de cette route-la. 
 
 "Pendant plusieurs semaines, Paris a regvi son opinion 
 de I'Assemblee, au lieu que Paris instruit aurait fait 
 a I'Assemblee I'opinion qu'elle devait avoir. 
 
 " Ce sont, comme de raison, les privilegies qui mettent 
 le plus d'activite dans toutes leurs attaques centre M. de 
 Calonne, et maintenant on a fait de I'affaire actuelle une 
 affau-e personnelle. On croit qu'en culbutant M. de Calonne 
 ce serait culbuter ses projets, et e'est bien vraisemblable ; 
 mais il parait impossible que le roi ne le soutienne pas; 
 encore quinze jours, et il a victoire gagnee. Alors il se 
 sera fait par Louis XVI. le plus heureux changement dans 
 I'administration qu'il y ait eu a aucune epoque. Des 
 administrations provinciales et plus de privileges, — e'est la 
 source de tons les biens. II n'y a rien qui ne puisse etre 
 
III.] MINISTRY OF LOMENIE DE BEIENNE. 67 
 
 fait par les administrations provinciales, et il n'y a pas de 
 changement heureux qui puisse etre fait sans elles. 
 
 "Mon ami, le peuple sera enfin compte pour 
 quelque chose." 
 
 This was not to be for a time. Calonne's last expe- 
 dient, the conciliation of public opinion, was destined 
 to fail through the emphatic disapproval which 
 branded him as a more glaring abuse than any of 
 those which he proposed to reform. Immediately after 
 his fall came Mirabeau's attack on Necker. It was 
 probably in concerted agreement with Talleyrand that 
 he assailed Necker at the moment when the latter 
 was obliged to defend the integrity of his administra- 
 tion against Calonne. 
 
 Chamfort and Talleyrand make merry in almost 
 similar terms over the fools' paradise of their friends, 
 who placed their hopes on Calonne's successor, Four- 
 queux, a disciple of Turgot. Soon afterwards the 
 Queen's influence replaced him by Lomenie de Brienne, 
 Archbishop of Toulouse, of whom Talleyrand writes : 
 " Shortly after his accession to office he made advances 
 to public opinion, which, encountering only weakness, 
 increased its demands daily. From the Notables came 
 nothing but complaints, and the advice to summon 
 the States-General. I really cannot see what more 
 they could have done. Every concession on their part 
 would have been valueless, for they had no authority 
 whatever to agree to any such, and they would only 
 
68 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch 
 
 have made themselves unpopular without any object. 
 It was therefore a tremendous mistake to convoke them 
 without the certainty of being able to control their 
 proceedings. For the incompetence of the Parliaments 
 was admitted directly their competence was called in 
 question by the convocation of the Notables instead of 
 the former, and so they could do nothing more. They 
 rejected every proposition submitted to them on the 
 ground that they had no legal power to treat. Their 
 refusal was punished by dismissal, and this earned 
 them popularity. Then their recall gave them a 
 magnified importance, which they consequently endea- 
 voured to preserve. All these experiments revealed 
 the limits of the royal prerogative without giving it 
 the slightest advantage, and so the Government was 
 confronted with the alternative, either of acting alone, 
 which was impossible on account of the deficit, or of 
 summoning the States-General," 
 
 When La Fayette announced Lomenie de Brienne's 
 appointment to Washington, he referred to him as 
 " the ablest and most honourable man that could have 
 been selected." The oracle of American democracy, 
 the otherwise so inflexible Jefferson, would apparently 
 have made the same choice as Louis XVI., for he 
 speaks of the Minister as "virtuous, patriotic, and 
 gifted," and even in after years was penetrated with 
 the merits of this " capable and reforming statesman." 
 Talleyrand gives Lomenie de Brienne a place in the 
 
III.] CHARM OF PRE-EEVOLUTIONARY SOCIETY. 69 
 
 lowest circle of the Inferno of his Memoirs, where 
 the Duke of Orleans reigns as Lucifer. To depict the 
 moral deterioration and social decomposition which 
 preceded the awful catastrophe, their author says that 
 he cannot do better than present the sum of the 
 corruption of the age in the portrait of this one man, 
 and thus " impress for all time on the memory of 
 mankind the characteristics which should disqualify 
 men from taking part in public affairs." 
 
 At this stage the question forces itself on us : If the 
 Government was so incapable, society so deteriorated, 
 mankind so degenerate, and the future so threatening, 
 wherein lay the much talked of charm of this expiring 
 world ? 
 
 There were not a few who denied its existence. 
 When Horace Walpole paid his last visit to France, 
 his impressions were such that the poet Gray replies 
 to one of his letters : " As an Englishman and an 
 anti-Gallican I rejoice at the dulness and nastiness of 
 the French, though I fear we shall come to imitate 
 them in both. I have long been sick at the atheism 
 in their authors, and hated them for it ; but I pity 
 their poor innocent people of fashion. They were 
 bad enough when they believed everything." Even 
 Madame de Stael writes in 1786, probably on a rainy 
 day : " Paris society is becoming more uninteresting 
 every day. One no longer wishes to shine in it, and if 
 it were not for play there would be no excitement 
 
70 LIFE OF TALLEYEAND. [Ch. 
 
 at all in life." But if you had taken her at her 
 word you would have heard a very different story. 
 Chateaubriand's aversion both to the ideas and to the 
 social conditions of the eighteenth century is well 
 known. His famous description of the female atheist 
 is a portrait of a heroine of that day. In our own time 
 one of the best living critics of the seventeenth 
 century, Brunetiere, has also accused the eighteenth 
 centmy of being dull. But these are views of 
 foreigners, opponents and people at a distance. 
 Contemporaries were of a different opinion. Between 
 the monotonous despotism of Louis XV. and the 
 frenzied tyranny of the disciples of the ' Contrat 
 Social ' there lies an interval during which France was 
 governed by people of esprit. The like of it was not 
 seen again. A comparatively small group of highly- 
 gifted persons, most of them of original intellect or 
 eminent in politics and affairs, discussed with complete 
 freedom the same problems, devoted themselves to the 
 spread of the same ideas, and were buoyed with the 
 same hopes. Leaders of thought in Paris, they felt 
 themselves even more powerful in St. Petersburg and 
 Berlin. It was they who educated princes, guided 
 statesmen, and represented public opinion. With the 
 exception of Rousseau's works nearly all the important 
 books of the age, from Montesquieu down to Siey^s, 
 originated in conversation. Afterwards, when speeches 
 took the place of books, it was the same thing. 
 
III.] CHARACTEEISTICS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY, f 1 
 
 Taine, speaking of the great rhetorical displays in 
 the Constituent Assembly, calls them the perform- 
 ances which had already been rehearsed to an au- 
 dience of ladies. " What is this inferior book that 
 is being read here?" asked the blind Madame du 
 Deffand as she came into a room one day. It was 
 Kivarol speaking. Another saying, " I do not compose, 
 I converse," is the key to the whole literature. 
 The decay of Atticism in French writing dates from 
 the time when it first became rhetorical with 
 Chateaubriand. Alexis de Tocqueville remarks that 
 if one of these men of the eighteenth century could 
 be recalled to life, electricity and chloroform, steam 
 and the telegraph would not astonish him so much as 
 the monotony of modern society and the mediocrity of 
 modern books. Such a refined culture is only possible 
 in periods of transition, when the old has been 
 discarded, the new not yet tried, and space is left 
 between both for Utopias, in which the eighteenth 
 century towards its close believed with an unselfish 
 enthusiasm that covers a multitude of its sins. Its 
 joyous confidence infects even men who do not share 
 in its illusions. " Qui n'a pas vecu avant 1789," said 
 Talleyrand to Guizot, " n'a pas connu le plaisir de 
 vivre." We can believe him, for he never lost his 
 head. 
 
 At the first blush it strikes one as almost superficial 
 that a man of such penetration should have begun to 
 
72 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 doubt the permanence of the ancien regime when he 
 saw Chamfort arm-in-arm with Vandreuil and met an 
 unknown abbe at the Comte d'Artois' card-table. But 
 there is more beneath this. While all around him were 
 ra\ing of liberty and equahty, Talleyrand never ceased 
 to believe in the necessity of a hierarchical organisation 
 of society. Those who knew him best called him an 
 " aristocrat by birth, theory, and inclination." An arbi- 
 trary etiquette was to him as inexcusable as bad finance. 
 He considered the monarchy as the apex of a social 
 order which from henceforth was to embrace the whole 
 nation. If the Crown mistook the part thus assigned 
 to it, and chose to identify itself with a party, then it 
 was lost. Democracy was knocking at the doors of the 
 future, and Talleyrand had no objection to throwing 
 them wide open. The best side of his character, a 
 prudent reasonableness, recognised the obligations 
 which the democratic movement imposed, and never 
 haggled over the price which it asked. Besides, he 
 coolly calculated what forces were at its back, and by 
 what play of conflicting interests the new regime, like 
 the old one, would be brought under control. 
 
 Next to the Duke of Orleans, no one has been more 
 severely condemned by Talleyrand than Sieyes, " who 
 passed off his hatred of his betters as philanthropy, and 
 admitted no compromise ; " dedaignant ce qui est conuu, 
 il veut aller au-dela." It was after a breakfast at 
 Talleja-and's, in the course of a stroll with his guests 
 
III.] ATTITUDE TOWAEDS THE EEVOLUTION. 73 
 
 in the Tuileries gardens, that Sieyes made the rejoinder 
 to Dumont : " La politique est une science que je crois 
 avoir acheyee." Barrere utters the last words of the 
 school : " It is your mission to begin history over 
 again." Nothing could be more repugnant to Talley- 
 rand's way of thinking, and his statesmanship was at 
 the other pole. It recognised tradition, took account 
 of experience, and appreciated the utility of com- 
 promise in politics and the mission of aristocracies in 
 history. 
 
 Talleyrand joined in the movement with the feelings 
 of a man who knows that he has a great task before 
 him. 
 
CHAPTEE IV. 
 
 TALLEYRAND BISHOP OF AUTUN AND DEPUTY OF THE 
 CLERGY IN 1789. 
 
 1787—1789. 
 
 T^N 1789 Talleyrand was five-and-thirty years of age. 
 -*- The conditions on which he had sacrificed his 
 independence were about to be fulfilled, for he was 
 on the threshold of the episcopate. The distinctions 
 conferred upon the priest had been deserved by the 
 man of affairs. As Agent-General in the assemblies 
 of the clergy in 1782, 1785, and 1786, his labours had 
 been crowned by such success that his colleagues voted 
 him a special grant of 31,000 hvres. In the meanwhile 
 he had experienced a disappointment for which the 
 Church was not responsible, for in 1785 he was on 
 the point of being created a cardinal. The path to 
 this promotion also lay through the hoiidoir. 
 
 Among the grand ladies who corresponded with 
 Gustavus III., King of Sweden, one of the royal disciples 
 of philosophy who wrote to Paris to find out how he 
 was to govern at home, was the Countess de Brionne, 
 of the house of Lorraine. Grimm refers to her as one 
 
 74 
 
Ch. IV.] NEARLY CREATED A CARDINAL. 75 
 
 of the eminent women of the day. Bachaumont calls 
 her " La superbe Comtesse." Frederick II. received 
 her sons, the Princes de Lambesc and Vaudemont, with 
 ijreat distinction in Berlin. Chamfort attributes to 
 her a frivolous anecdote, which connects her name 
 with that of the Cardinal de Rohan, who was her 
 cousin. Talleyrand stood high in her favour, and it 
 was she who made use of the influence of her royal 
 friend, Gustavus III., and persuaded him to ask Pope 
 Pius VI. for a cardinal's hat for the Abbe de Perigord. 
 The Pope raised no objection to the mediation of the 
 Lutheran sovereign, who was personally known to him, 
 nor to the candidate himself, and the coveted honour 
 seemed within Talleyrand's grasp, when the storm 
 broke out in Paris which carried off among other 
 things his cardinal's hat, never to be seen again. The 
 affair of the diamond necklace revealed the abyss 
 which yawned at the very foot of the throne, and 
 Madame de Brionne sided strongly with the Rohan 
 family. The Queen, smarting with rage and resent- 
 ment, induced the Court of Vienna, by means of the 
 Austrian ambassador, Count Mercy, to protest against 
 the selection of a Frenchman as member of the Sacred 
 College, on the ground that it was Austria's turn to 
 exercise its right of suggesting a candidate. She 
 carried her point ; the nomination was cancelled just 
 in time and was never heard of again. In later years, 
 when the purple would have been a Nessus shirt for 
 
76 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 him, Talleyrand probably congratulated himself on the 
 result. From a worldly point of view, Madame de 
 Brionne made up to him for the hostility of the Queen. 
 " The beauty of a woman," he writes, " her generous 
 pride, and the just pretensions of an illustrious line 
 which has so often neared the throne in an attitude 
 of protection or of menace, enhance the charm of the 
 feelings which she inspires. The recollection of this 
 disfavour at Court is sweeter and pleasanter to me than 
 that of many other happy moments of my life which 
 have left no trace in my thoughts or feelings." 
 
 In the midst of this opposition to the Court 
 Talleyrand's thoughts were occupied with the prospect 
 of the archbishopric of Bourges, which would have been 
 particularly welcome on account of its political import- 
 ance. A second letter to Choiseul reveals his disappoint- 
 ment at being passed over in favour of another. 
 
 "... J'ai ete tout ce temps-ci a Rosny ; j'ai porte de 
 I'inquietude sur ta position et du degout sur la mienne. 
 YoUk rarcheveche de Bourges donne a I'eveque de Nancy, 
 et I'eveche de Nancy a I'Abbe de la Farre ; k present, 
 qii'est-ce qui arrivera ? Je ne prevoLs plus d'ici a longtemps 
 de mouvement dans le clerge ; quand il y en aura, me 
 donnera-t-on la place qui me conviendra et a laquelle je 
 conviendi-ai ? Eien de ce que je desire ne tourne comme 
 je le voudrais; mon ami, je ne suis pas dans un moment 
 de bonheur. Mais cela changera. J'attendrai, et on 
 trouvera peut-etre qu'un homme qui a trente-quatre ans, 
 et qui a toujours ete occupe d'affaires, qui a fait celles de son 
 
IV.] THE PEOVINCIAL ASSEMBLIES. 77 
 
 corps, tout seul, pendant cinq ans, et de qui on s'est loue 
 pendant tout ce temps-lci, merite qvi'on le traite un pen 
 mieux. 
 
 " Je vais dans quinze jours a I'Assemblee provinciale 
 de Champagne, j'y passerai environ un mois, et de la je 
 viendrai perdre le reste de mon hiver a Paris, puisqu'on 
 ne veut pas me faire employer mon temps ailleurs. Si je 
 peux contribuer a faire faire quelque chose d'utile en Cham- 
 pagne, cela adoucira un peu mon oisivete. . . . Adieu, je ne 
 me permets pas d'ecrire un mot de nouvelles, parce que 
 je veux que ma lettre t'arrive et que tu regoives de moi un 
 mot qui te dise que e'est de toute mon ame et dans tous les 
 moments de ma vie, heureuse ou contrariee, ou meme 
 malheureuse, que je t'aime le plus que tout au monde. 
 . . . Adieu, ne m'ecris que quatre lignes, mais ecris-moi." 
 
 Deputed by his order to join the provincial assembly 
 of the " generalite " of Chalons, Talleyrand found in 
 it a welcome opportunity of promoting the public 
 welfare. Advocated by Fenelon, proposed by the 
 elder Mirabeau, included in Turgot's plans of reform, 
 tried with success by Necker, abandoned after his 
 INIinistry and recently demanded by the Notables, 
 these assemblies were at last revived by Lomenie de 
 Brienne. Dupont de Nemours, who had assisted 
 Turgot with his pen on a similar occasion in 1774, 
 had a share in framing the edict of 1787, which was 
 all the more acceptable to the Economists because it 
 was accompanied by two other edicts, one introducing 
 complete freedom of trade in grain, and the other 
 
78 LIFE OF TALLEYKAND. [Ch. 
 
 substituting a money payment in lieu of the corvces 
 for the roads. Six members of the clergy, six of the 
 noblesse, and twelve of the Third Estate, with a 
 president chosen from among the two first orders, 
 elected twenty-four other deputies for a term of three 
 years, one-fourth of the whole assembly retiring yearly 
 by lot and being replaced by communal and district 
 elections, in which every one who paid ten livres in 
 land or personal taxes was entitled to vote. These 
 assemblies never met again, but the principle under- 
 lying them, which approached universal suffrage, did 
 not vanish with them from public life, but determined 
 the composition of the States-General, which, accord- 
 ing to Turgot's plan, would have been elected by the 
 provincial assemblies. 
 
 Talleyrand was deputed to the assembly as holder 
 of the benefice of St. Denis in the diocese of 
 Kheims ; his successor in the post of Agent-Greneral 
 of the clergy, de Montesquiou-Fezensac, was among 
 his colleagues as Abb6 of Beaulieu. They met sub- 
 sequently as constitutional advisers of Louis XVIII., in 
 the Ministry of the first Restoration. Their task was 
 no easy one, for the " generalite " of Chalons repre- 
 sented the old province of Champagne, which was 
 burdened with a heavy taxation, and since the loss of 
 its old constitution had become one of the poorest 
 districts in France. 
 
 Talleyrand's uncle, Archbishop of Rheims and pre- 
 
IV.] VIEWS OF TALLEYEAND'S UNCLE. 79 
 
 sident of the assembly, a grave man, who was Cardinal- 
 Archbishop of Paris at his death in 1821, was so far 
 from being hostile to the ideas of the day that a 
 pamphlet advocating the abolition of the celibacy of 
 the clergy was freely circulated at Eheims in 1781 
 and attributed to him. On opening the session at 
 Chalons he referred to the impending wise and just 
 reform of taxation, "which would coincide with the 
 extinction of the fi-audulent and greedy spirit which 
 seeks to withhold from the State what it would be 
 ashamed of refusing in the case of its own private 
 obligations, as if it were possible without incurring 
 the charge of meanness and injustice to look to the 
 State for protection in the quiet enjoyment of one's 
 worldly goods and at the same time refuse society its 
 just dues." The prelate's mode of expressing himself 
 is somewhat clumsy, but his views indicate clearly 
 that the Abbe de Perigord's ideas were not an 
 exception in the Talleyrand family. Talleyrand was 
 elected a member of the committee on imposts and 
 taxes, and according to the historian of the provincial 
 assemblies, two long and exhaustive reports, one on 
 the taille, and the other on the land-tax known as 
 the vingtieme, were probably drawn up by him. In 
 Lavergne's opinion they show the same many-sided 
 knowledge of which Talleyrand afterwards gave 
 proofs in the National Assembly. A more attentive 
 examination of his labours previous to 1789 only 
 
80 LIFE OF TALLEYEAND. [Ch. 
 
 confirms this view ; and it is not unlikely that the 
 nephew inspired the passage commending the study 
 of economical questions with which the Archbishop 
 concluded his parting speech. At Chalons, as in all 
 other parts of the country, only one session was held. 
 
 The reforms which these institutions should have 
 introduced, and for which they really did pave the 
 way, had no time to ripen. On the other hand, 
 they brought before the public for the first time, or 
 enhanced the reputation of, persons who afterwards 
 attracted much attention and for the most part became 
 famous. Beugnot, the two Lameths, the Dukes of 
 La Rochefoucauld, Nivernais, Liancourt, and d'Ayen, 
 La Fayette and his brother-in-law Noailles, Mold, 
 Rochambeau, Toulongeon, Lavoisier, Tesse, Menou, the 
 Prince de Broglie, Dietrich, Mayor of Strasbourg, Por- 
 talis, and Mathieu de Montmorency, were all members, 
 and showed the liberal-mindedness, the grasp of the 
 requirements of the time, the devoted patriotism and 
 the public-spirited treatment of political and economic 
 problems which marked the attitude of the Monarchical- 
 Constitutionalists dm'ing the first months of the Con- 
 stituent Assembly, and rendered the only good and 
 lasting achievements of the revolutionary era possible,. 
 The representatives of the clergy, Sieyes and the Abbe 
 Louis, Lubersac, Bishop of Chartres, Saint Aulaire of 
 Poitiers, La Ferronnays of Bayonne, the Archbishops 
 Champion de Cicd of Bordeaux, Boisgelin of Aix, 
 
IV.] THE CLEEGY AND THE EEVOLUTIOX. 81 
 
 Durfort of Besancon, and Dillon of Narbonne, were 
 not behind their lay colleagues. Some of them yielded 
 to the frivolous influences of the time ; but none were 
 wanting in insight or in devotion to the public weal. 
 Especially was this the case with Dillon, whose conduct 
 at the meeting of the States of Languedoc at Mont- 
 pellier, in January 1789, extorted a tribute of admira- 
 tion even from Barrere. In July 1788 this prelate, 
 who in point of personal importance was at the head 
 of the French clergy, thanked the King for granting 
 civil rights to the Protestants, and for removing that 
 strange contradiction " which armed the laws against 
 the rights of nature." " The mischief is great," says 
 the concluding report of the last general assembly of 
 the clergy that ever met, " but the remedies are even 
 greater. It is your Majesty's glory, not to be King 
 of France, but King of the French." " It is impossible," 
 says F. Eocquain, "to separate the clergy from the 
 tremendous liberal movement which invaded France 
 in 1789." The apparent contradiction between the 
 often so intolerant and unintelligent attitude of the 
 clergy as a whole, and the warm and openly-expressed 
 sympathy of many bishops with the ideas and demands 
 of the day, was due to considerations not unlike those 
 which in times of revolation make great families take 
 up a different position from small landowners or a 
 court nobility. The two or three hundred still power- 
 ful historic houses, which have preserved their con- 
 VOL. I. 6 
 
82 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 nection with the population by means of inherited 
 estates and unbroken local tradition, can afford to 
 surrender the rights and privileges of their order, for 
 even after the loss of them they remain very much 
 what they were before. But the possessors of worthless 
 titles and offensive prerogatives cling to these as the 
 essence of their social position and national well-being. 
 In the same way the clergy as an order opposed all 
 concessions. When brought into immediate contact 
 with the national interests a divergence appeared in 
 its own, and the motives by which it was swayed were 
 of a conflicting character. The cures sided with the 
 Third Estate, to which they belonged. The majority 
 of the episcopate held with the nobility. A consider- 
 able number of bishops, however, were as favourable 
 to reform as the constitutional aristocratic minority, 
 which supplied leaders to the movement up to the 
 moment when it plunged headlong down the steep 
 incline of revolutionary dogma. 
 
 There is unequivocal testimony to Talleyrand's high 
 opinion of the value of the provincial assemblies, which 
 he held in common with Siey^s. On the 17th of August, 
 1789, when the crisis was becoming acute, in the course 
 of a speech on iinance he advocated the immediate 
 convocation of these assemblies with a view to tran- 
 quillising public opinion, providing fresh financial 
 resources, and completing representative institutions. 
 A report on their organisation was to be drawn up 
 
IV.] APPOINTED BISHOP OF AUTUN. 83 
 
 by the constitutional committee, of which he was 
 a member. But the Constituent Assembly was too 
 absorbed in metaphysical discussions to adopt such 
 practical proposals as these. It was reserved for 
 subsequent legislation to revert to them, and to utilise, 
 to a certain extent at least, the fundamental idea of 
 the provincial assemblies in the French conseils- 
 generaux. 
 
 This assembly of 1787 was Talleyrand's last school 
 of political experience before he attained complete ex- 
 ternal independence. He was vicar-general to his uncle 
 at Eheims when his father died on the 4th of November, 
 1788. On taking leave of the King, shortly before his 
 death, he asked for the bishopric of Autun for the 
 Abb6 de Perigord. It was one of the oldest in France, 
 with an income of only 20,000 francs, but with the 
 prospect of the archiepiscopal see of Lyons and the 
 primateship of Gaul. 
 
 The often repeated assertion that the King granted 
 the request only after long hesitation rests on no 
 foundation. Louis XVI. had among his clergy digni- 
 taries such as Dom Collignon, Abbe of Metlach, 
 Grrimaldi, Bishop of Le Mans, the Cardinals de Eohan 
 and Brienne, who combined the deism of the Savoy 
 Vicar with the prevailing elegant frivolity. The best 
 preacher of the day, the Abbe Maury, was a sceptic 
 like Bassinot, vicar-general of Cahors, whose panegyric 
 of Louis IX. would never have been taken for the 
 
84 LIFE OP TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 discourse of a priest speaking of a saint to Christians. 
 Eivarol calls the clergy of his time " as enlightened as 
 the philosophers," and Mercier speaks of them as " the 
 order which has the fewest prejudices." The exag- 
 geration is palpable, the reference being only to the 
 group of worldly prelates. But this minority led the 
 fashion, and Talleyrand matched very well with them. 
 The 2nd of November is the date of the decree in which 
 the King states that he has received satisfactory infor- 
 mation concerning " the mode of life, the morals, the 
 doctrine, the piety, and other virtuous and commend- 
 able qualities " of the new bishop. The public of Paris 
 was also well informed, and private correspondence 
 endeavoured to satisfy foreign curiosity, as, for instance, 
 a letter written to St. Petersburg in March 1788: 
 " The Abbe de Perigord, who has been proposed for the 
 archiepiscopal see of Bordeaux, possesses every possible 
 quahfication except those of his order ; he has been 
 director of the discount bank, head of the agiotage, 
 and confidential agent of the charitable fund. He is 
 considered as likely to enhance the reputation of the 
 episcopate in Gruyenne, and it is said that Count 
 Mirabeau and Monsieur de Chamfort will be of assist- 
 ance to him in this respect. There is a talk even of 
 some amiable ladies being enlisted in the task of 
 conciliation." After his nomination to Autun the 
 following was added : " During the period when he 
 was Agent-General of the clergy Monseigueur furnished 
 
IV.] CHAKACTER DRAWN BY LACLOS. 85 
 
 material for some chapters in the chronique scandaleuse, 
 to which a sequel is expected." 
 
 On the whole, open attacks upon him were few and 
 far between. Grrimm's '• Correspondance Litteraire," 
 the Paris " Correspondance Litteraire Secrete," and 
 contemporary letters, such as those of Madame du 
 Defifand or Madame de Crequy, hardly refer to 
 Talleyrand. A little later he j&gures in the parlia- 
 mentary sketches of Chaderlos de Laclos, the secretary 
 to the Duke of Orleans, and author of prohibited 
 novels ; the portrait is a very indulgent one, but drawn 
 with a penetration which was afterwards called pro- 
 phetic. " Amene has the charming manners which 
 embellish even virtue. The great secret of his success 
 is the excellence of his understanding. He judges 
 men with indulgence, and events with calmness. He 
 possesses the moderation which is the mark of true 
 wisdom. . . . Amene has no idea of becoming famous 
 in a day, but he will succeed in everything, for oppor- 
 tunities present themselves in abundance to the man 
 who knows how to wait. At each step in advance he 
 will develop a new talent, and his progress from one 
 success to another will secure him that public appro- 
 bation which calls a man to the highest posts. Envy, 
 which always makes some detraction from merit, may 
 reply that Am^ne lacks the force of character required 
 for overcoming the obstacles which block the path of 
 every man who devotes himself to the public welfare. 
 
86 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 I should like first of all to raise the question whether 
 the expression ' force of character ' is not often mis- 
 used, and whether its prejDonderating influence in a 
 great crisis is always a matter of congratulation. But 
 I pause, for some of my readers might be disposed to 
 think that I cannot distinguish firmness, personal 
 dignity, and steadfastness from ardour, enthusiasm, 
 and wild impulsiveness. Amene yields to circum- 
 stances and to reason, and deems himself entitled to 
 make concessions in the interests of peace without 
 sacrificing the principles which govern his moral 
 conduct." 
 
 Chance was not so forbearing as Laclos. Talleyrand's 
 predecessor in the see of Autun in the time of 
 Louis XIV. was a certain Eoquette, " homme de fort 
 peu," according to Saint-Simon, " all sugar and honey," 
 a friend of the influential women of the day, and 
 mixed up in every intrigue. He was the original of 
 Moli^re's " Tartufife," and every one recognised the 
 portrait. Marie-Joseph Chenier recollected this after- 
 wards, and satirised Talleyrand in the well-known 
 lines : — 
 
 " Roquette en son temps, Perigord dans le notre, 
 Furent tons deux prdlats d'Autun ; 
 Tartuffe est le portrait de I'un ; 
 Ah ! si Moliere eut connu I'autre ! " 
 
 The new bishop was consecrated on the 16th of 
 January, 1789, in the chapel of the seminary for 
 
IV.] DISREGAED OF OUTWARD PROPRIETY. ■• 87 
 
 priests at Issy. In after years Ernest Eenan met, in 
 the seminary of St. Sulpice, an eyewitness of the 
 consecration, the Abbe Hugon, who told him that 
 Talleyrand's demeanour during the ceremony made 
 him accuse himself, at confession on the following 
 Saturday, of profane doubts of the reverend prelate's 
 piety. There is an anecdote related by Grovernor 
 Morris, which shows how little value Talleyrand 
 attached to outward propriety at this period of his 
 life. A few days after his arrival in France the 
 IMinister of the United States accepted an invitation 
 to stay with the Duke of Orleans at his chdteau at 
 Raincy. After breakfast, at twelve o'clock, mass was 
 heard in the chapel, the Duchess and her guests being 
 present in a sort of raised pew. It was a cold day, and 
 there was a fire in the fireplace. One of the company, 
 Count Segur, lighted a candle and endeavoured to 
 slip it unobserved into the bishop's pocket, which he 
 at last succeeded in doing amid general hilarity, before 
 all the servants, who were sitting opposite, and in sight 
 of the country-folk in the body of the chapel. The 
 Duchess was the only one who remained grave, and 
 Morris was much displeased at the conduct of this 
 singular prelate, who gave him the impression of being 
 a " sly, cunning, ambitious, and malicious man." 
 
 A few days after his consecration Talleyrand issued 
 the pastoral letter in which he addressed the priests 
 of his diocese as his future electors. 
 
88 LIFE OF TALLEYEAND. [Ch. 
 
 The promulgation of the edicts on taxation in May 
 1788, their rejection by the Parliaments, the insur- 
 rection in Dauphine arising therefrom, the dismissal 
 of Lomenie de Brienne, the summoning of Necker 
 on the 24th of August, 1788, brought about the solu- 
 tion which was almost unanimously demanded by the 
 provincial assemblies and Notables, and by the clergy 
 and the Estates. The meeting of the States-General 
 was fixed by royal proclamation, while Brienne was 
 still Minister, for the 1st of May, 1789. 
 
 In Burgundy, where the Estates still existed in 
 name, the Bishop of Autun for the time being presided, 
 in his capacity of head of the ecclesiastical chamber. 
 In the Third Estate the towns only, and not the 
 country population, were represented. The governor 
 was always a prince of the house of Conde, who,, as 
 successor of the once so powerful dukes, possessed 
 great authority. Altogether Burgundy, with its rich 
 and influential nobility, was considered one of the 
 most feudal of the French provinces. When its 
 estates met for the last time at the end of 1787, 
 the noblesse and the Third Estate endeavoured, but 
 unsuccessfully, to obtain payment of the vingtieme 
 from the clergy. In the following year the noblesse 
 in special meeting decided on payment of all taxes in 
 proportion to their property, and on representation 
 of the Third Estate by freely elected deputies, to 
 whom was conceded the power of vetoing the resolu- 
 
IV.] ADDEESS TO HIS ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITUENTS. 89 
 
 tions of the two other Estates, but subject to the 
 proviso that each of these latter was to remain a 
 separate independent body. The assembly was still 
 sitting when Talleyrand became Bishop of Autun. 
 He neither sought nor exercised the functions of 
 president of the Burgundian Estates, but, on the other 
 hand, solicited the suffrages of his ecclesiastical con- 
 stituency for election to the States-General. 
 
 His address to them in April dispelled all doubts 
 as to the position which he intended to take up. 
 Conceived in a sober and business-like tone, it demands 
 regular sessions of the States-General, provincial 
 assemblies, gradual education of the people in self- 
 government on Turgot's plan, habeas corpus, trial by 
 jury, freedom of trade and industry, the right to work, 
 " the only possession of those who have no property — 
 it will be the business of wise and far-sighted legis- 
 lation to assure it." He then goes on to stipulate for 
 conscientious performance of all the State's obligations 
 to its creditors and for the exclusive right of the 
 Estates to grant money supplies ; he utters a warning 
 against the economical " delusion " of a single tax, 
 advocates freedom of speech and of the Press, inviola- 
 bility of private correspondence, reform of legislation, 
 and codification of the law. The following passage is 
 of great significance : " The strict maintenance of the 
 rights of property involves the assurance that every- 
 thing appertaining thereto shall be for ever protected 
 
90 LIFE OF TALLEYEAND. [Ch. 
 
 and held sacred. But at the same time it will be 
 necessary to enquire whether the term has not become 
 applicable to things which originally could only have 
 been included in it by a \'iolation of the laws of 
 nature; also, whether it does not comprise things 
 which in principle came under the category of pro- 
 perty, but afterwards ceased to do so by reason of the 
 removal or disappearance of the causes which lay at 
 the root of their existence. To all genuine rights of 
 property the principle must apply that in cases where 
 any of these have degenerated into an abuse, the 
 nation cannot interfere with them without paying full 
 compensation." 
 
 Almost simultaneously with these proposals of Talley- 
 rand's appeared the instructions which Siey^s drew up 
 on behalf of the Duke of Orleans for the latter's repre- 
 sentatives in the various baillages controlled by him. 
 There is a great similarity between the two documents. 
 Sieyes mentions most of the reforms demanded by 
 Talleyrand, and adds ministerial responsibility and 
 divorce. But of his favourite political ideas, according 
 to which all the powers of the nation were to be 
 vested exclusively in the Third Estate, and resistance 
 to " the despotism of aristocrats " was considered the 
 first duty of the States-General, and the definition of 
 the rights of man their principal task — of all these 
 demands made by the organiser of egalitaire democracy 
 and signed by a prince of the blood, there is not a 
 
IV.] VIEWS ON CHURCH ENDOWMENTS. 91 
 
 single word in Talleyrand's programme. The latter's 
 views respecting the competence of the State to have 
 recourse to legislation for the purpose of abolishing 
 corporations or altering their objects, when the public 
 interest requires it, seem to be borrowed from Turgot. 
 In the article on " fondations," which Turgot wrote 
 for the encyclopaedia, he maintains that it is absurd 
 to treat endowments, or, in other words, creations of an 
 individual will, as sacred, when the circumstances to 
 which they owe their origin have completely changed, 
 and in consequence the original purposes which they 
 were intended to serve can no longer be carried out. 
 Turgot had applied this theory only to lay bodies, 
 such as corporations and guilds. Talleyrand's adoption 
 of it on the eve of the meeting of the States was a 
 warning to the Church. The clergy of Burgundy 
 elected him as deputy for the haillages of Autun, 
 Moncenis, and Semur-en-Brionnais. Talleyrand's address 
 was so entirely to their taste that they took the un- 
 usual step of adopting it as their cahier, only adding 
 a few words in favour of the improvement of the 
 cures^ condition and protesting against pluralism. His 
 colleague was Cice, Bishop of Auxerre and brother of 
 the Archbishop of Bordeaux, one of Turgot's oldest 
 friends. 
 
 The Bishop of Autun's mandate was delivered to him 
 in Paris. According to a local tradition, he left the 
 episcopal residence on the morning of Easter Sunday, 
 
92 LIFE OF TALLEYEAND. [Ch. 
 
 and only revisited it, if at all, on brief occasions. All 
 his interests centred in the capital. Since 1786, he, as 
 well as Mirabeau and Lauzun, had joined the " Thirty 
 Club," " le plus hardi de tons ces clubs," as Morellet 
 calls it, a political group which, under the name of the 
 " Comite Duport," fell under the influence of the leaders 
 of the parliamentary opposition at the close of 1788. 
 It was the meeting place of Freteau, Sabatier, La 
 Fayette, Dupont de Nemours, Target, Eoederer, the 
 liberal Dukes de Luynes, Aiguillon, La Kochefoucauld, 
 and of Semonville, afterwards a diplomatist and 
 the personal friend of " His Eminence of Autun." 
 Pamphlets for the enlightenment of the people were 
 published from it. One of the latest biographers of 
 Mirabeau says that its history contains much that is 
 obscure. Chassin describes it as the club constitutionnel 
 which afterwards became the Jacobin club. At the 
 Abb6 Morellet's the Bishop of Autun conferred with 
 Eoederer, Grarat, the younger Trudaine, and Lacretelle ; 
 and Morellet bears witness that at that time they 
 discussed the great questions of the day with perfect 
 calmness ; " which proves," he adds, " how quickly 
 poHtics deteriorated afterwards, and how pernicious 
 were the effects of continual delay." 
 
 In the meanwhile a difference had arisen between 
 Talleyrand and Mirabeau, which was afterwards bridged 
 over by politics, but never entirely adjusted. Since 
 1787 Mirabeau had been incessantly engaged in 
 
IV.] DIFFICULTIES WITH MIEABEAU. 93 
 
 stirring up public opinion, and endeavouring to enlist 
 it in favour of himself. His pamphlets increased with 
 his debts, and things were further complicated by the 
 wife of his publisher Lejay being his mistress. He 
 still possessed the drafts of the Berlin letters, which 
 the Abbe de Perigord had expurgated. It is said that 
 he offered to sell them in this original form to the 
 Minister Montmorin, and that the latter agreed to pay 
 a sum of money for their suppression. However, the 
 bargain was not concluded, . and in January 1789 
 Mirabeau went to Provence, having sold the manuscript 
 to Lejay before his departm^e. In August 1788 he had 
 written to Madame de Nehra : " Four copies on vellum 
 of my book, ' The Prussian Monarchy,' are destined for 
 the four persons who stand nearest to me in the world, 
 you, the Abbe de Perigord, the Duke of Lauzun, and 
 Panchaud." When " The Secret History of the Court 
 of Berlin " appeared six months afterwards, which was 
 nothing more nor less than the text of Mirabeau's 
 letters, a whole number of living personages found 
 themselves gibbeted in this chronique scandaleuse, 
 among them Prince Henry of Prussia, who was at that 
 moment staying in Paris. The duties of hospitality 
 had to be observed, so far as was feasible, and the book, 
 the anonymous author of which was known to all, was 
 bm-ned by the public executioner. On his return to 
 Paris jMirabeau denied all complicity, circulated the 
 report that the manuscript had been stolen by ^ladame 
 
94 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 Lejay, and commissioned Lauzun, whose interests were 
 affected, but who had speedily condoned the offence, to 
 persuade Talleyrand to take an indulgent view of it. 
 " If the Bishop of Autun were only a political personage 
 in my eyes," he wrote to Lauzun on the 21st of April, 
 1789, "I should keep at such a distance as he might 
 think proper ; and the consciousness of having done all 
 in my power not to break with him would console me 
 for the loss which the national interests would sustain 
 by a rupture between us. But I love him, and cannot 
 help entertaining a peculiar tenderness for him. My 
 feelings towards him are those of boundless devotion 
 and profound gratitude." Talleyrand showed himself 
 as indifferent to Mirabeau's protestations of regard as 
 he had formerly been to his abuse, and for a time the 
 two men, whom circumstances marked out as allies, 
 remained apart. 
 
 In the meanwhile a long-standing antipathy had 
 yielded to the influence of a woman. Necker's daugh- 
 ter had married the Swedish Minister, Baron Stael von 
 Holstein, in Paris on the 14th of January, 1786. From 
 this date the Minister's house in the Kue du Bac 
 assumed a social and soon afterwards a political import- 
 ance varying with Necker's official position, being at first 
 in opposition with him, then siding with the Govern- 
 ment when he became Minister, and throwing its 
 influence into the scale on the eve of the convocation 
 of the States. 
 
JV.] MADAME DE STAEL. 95 
 
 Born in 1766, Madame de Stael was then in the 
 bloom of youth. The firstfruits of her rising talent 
 had already appeared, a book which, composed under 
 the spell of J. J. Rousseau, was marked by intellectual 
 precocity, and also revealed those stormy feelings which 
 a mariage de raison had since rendered uncontrollable. 
 Impetuous and passionate, with wonderful eyes, black 
 cm-Is, and full voluptuous figure, somewhat hard in 
 manner and yet not wanting in charm, eloquent and 
 indiscreet, excitable and enthusiastic, her exterior pro- 
 voked opposition as much as her intellect. Even at 
 that time she encountered it in a very marked degree. 
 Throughout her whole life she had to exert the supe- 
 riority of genius and tax the greatness of a heroic soul 
 to obtain from her fellow-creatures the measure of 
 justice and good will which falls unsolicited into the 
 lap of colourless mediocrity. In 1789 her talents had 
 not yet gained recognition. All that was known of her 
 was that she was passionately devoted to Narbonne, and 
 that she idolised her father and regarded him as the 
 saviour of France. Since Necker had become Minister 
 for the second time her salon was the meeting-place 
 of his friends, as Madame Necker's declining health 
 excluded her more and more from society. At her 
 daughter's house Marmontel, Grimm, Suard, and 
 Morellet met the younger generation of the Constitu- 
 tionalists, Narbonne, Lauzun, Lally-Tollendal, S^gur, 
 Mathieu de Montmorency, the young Prince de Broglie, 
 
96 LIFE OF TALLEYEAND. [Ch. 
 
 Malouet, and La Fayette. The former had to be 
 retained, and the latter won over. The Bishop of 
 Autun joined them at last, on condition of preserving 
 the right to his own opinions. He never really liked 
 Madame de Stael at any time of his life, not even 
 when her friendship was the means of saving him. Her 
 intellectual restlessness disturbed his composure ; he 
 was ready to take advantage of, but never understood, 
 the extraordinary devotion of which she was capable. 
 He listened in silence when she compared Necker with 
 Fenelon, and kept to his own opinion that Louis XVI. 
 could not have taken a worse step in 1788 than 
 send for Necker a second time. It seemed to him 
 madness that a Minister, who afterwards declared his 
 ideal to be a constitution on the English pattern with 
 two chambers and a strong aristocracy, should, instead 
 of endeavouring to frame such a constitution, confine 
 himself to the resolution of December 27th, 1788, 
 conceding the double representation of the Third 
 Estate. The concession was a valueless one, if voting 
 was to proceed, as before, by orders, and the Third 
 Estate reverted to the old proportion of one to two. It 
 gave the Third Estate absolute power if, as actually 
 happened, votes were taken by heads and in one 
 assembly. 
 
 The best of the Constitutionalists, Malouet and 
 Mounier, Mallet du Pan, Eivarol, Cice, La Luzerne, 
 and above all Mirabeau himself, shared Talleyrand's 
 
IV.] VIEWS ON THE THIRD ESTATE. 97 
 
 conviction that the division of the national repre- 
 sentation into two chambers ought to have been the 
 necessary consequence of the decision of December 
 27th, and that there was no excuse for the Minister's 
 vacillation on this all-important point. Mirabeau's 
 position is clear from his often quoted letter of De- 
 cember 28th, 1788, to the Minister Montmorin : " Has 
 the Government a fixed definite plan, to be submitted 
 to the representatives of the nation for approval ? I 
 have such a plan. The basis of it is a constitution 
 which would protect us from the machinations of the 
 aristocracy, and save us from the excesses of the 
 democracy and from the sea of anarchy into which 
 authority with us is now plunged simply because it 
 aims at being free from all restraint." When, how- 
 ever, the Third Estate constituted itself the National 
 Assembly, he uttered the famous words : " You wish 
 to be master of the King instead of remaining master 
 through him." Talleyrand took precisely the same 
 view. His plan was a Senate composed of bishops and 
 grandees, and a second elective chamber for the Third 
 Estate. In lieu of this he found himself with forty- 
 seven of his episcopal colleagues confronted by a 
 majority of two hundred and sixty cures. He took no 
 part in the attempts to arrive at an understanding, in 
 which the King and the States racked their brains for 
 weeks together over the question as to whether the latter 
 should verify their powers separately or in one body. 
 VOL. I. 7 
 
98 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 The settlement of this i^oint had been anticipated 
 by Sieyes in the preceding January, and was simple 
 enough : " The Third Estate must remain separated 
 from the two others. The latter represent two hundred 
 thousand individuals, and have no idea but their own 
 privileges. But the objection will be taken that the 
 Third Estate cannot form the State s-Greneral by itself. 
 So much the better! Then it will be the National 
 Assembly." This solution was adopted on the I7th of 
 June, nominally on the motion of a long-forgotten 
 deputy, but in reality on the suggestion of Sieyes and 
 after a protest by Mirabeau, from whom the revolu- 
 tionary character of the step drew such emphatic warn- 
 ings that the opposition hurled in his teeth the retort 
 that he had sold himself to the Crown. While this 
 was going on at Versailles the Court was at Marly, in 
 deep mourning for the dauphin, who had just died at 
 the age of seven years. The Ministry was divided. 
 Necker was for steering a course between the wild 
 schemes of the reactionaries, who advocated the em- 
 ployment of force against the Third Estate, and un- 
 conditional acceptance of the resolution of June 17th. 
 His proposal was that the King should do of his own 
 authority what the Third Estate had just done in 
 despite of it, and order the States to meet together. 
 The noblesse and clergy, however, were to deliberate 
 separately, as before, on their own affairs, the consti- 
 tution was to be based on the system of a double 
 
IV.] CONCESSIONS TO THE THIRD ESTATE. 99 
 
 chamber, the executive to be strengthened, the King 
 to have supreme command of the army, all decrees of 
 the Assembly to be subject to his assent, and the 
 public to be excluded from its sittings for the future. 
 In return the King engaged to abolish all existing 
 privileges of taxation, to concede the right of approval 
 of taxation by the States, and their participation in 
 legislation, the principal subjects of which were to be 
 reform of the civil and criminal law and guarantees for 
 freedom of the person and of the Press. On the 19th 
 of June Necker's five colleagues appeared to be agreed 
 on this programme. On the following day two of 
 them, Barentin and Brienne, dissented, because on 
 mature consideration they thought the concessions to 
 the Third Estate went too far. In the meanwhile 
 rumours of an approaching cowp dV'tat were circulated 
 in Versailles, which assumed a more definite shape 
 when the royal master of the ceremonies, the Marquis 
 de Breze, demanded the suspension of the session on 
 the 20th of June in order to prepare for the royal 
 session, which was fixed for the 23rd of June. The 
 deputies replied to this request by the oath taken 
 in the tennis-court, not to part until the constitution 
 was completed, or as Talleyrand put it later, " till the 
 constitution of the Monarchy was destroyed." Malouet 
 agrees that it was " the signal for revolt." 
 
 On the 23rd of June the King appeared at the 
 Seance Roy ale, without Necker; his address, couched in 
 
100 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 an imperious tone, reproduced the essential features 
 of the Minister's programme, with the one significant 
 exception that separate deliberation of the States was 
 maintained. All resolutions to the contrary were 
 declared null and void. At the close he assured his 
 audience that he had the welfare of the country at 
 heart and that he would promote it alone, if the 
 assembly refused to second his efforts. The speech was 
 received with glacial silence. When Br^z^ summoned 
 the deputies to separate after the King had withdrawn, 
 he was met by Mirabeau's famous rejoinder, that "they 
 were there by the will of the people, and would only 
 yield to bayonets," followed by Siey^s' interpretation 
 of the incident, " What we were yesterday, that we are 
 to-day : let us continue our deliberations." When the 
 King was informed that his orders were set at defiance, 
 he walked up and down for a few moments in deep 
 thought, and then said angrily, " Well, if they refuse 
 to evacuate the hall, let them stay in it," a remark 
 which was equivalent to abdication. This was the 
 construction placed on it by Morris, who entertained 
 La Fayette at dinner that evening, and told him that 
 the French were rushing to their own destruction ; to 
 which La Fayette replied that " his party had gone 
 mad." Even Jefferson, the American envoy, who 
 hated the monarchy, counselled a compromise, and 
 subsequently admitted that after years of upheaval 
 and of catastrophes of every kind the French had not 
 
IV.] DISAPPROVAL OF ATTITUDE OF THIRD ESTATE. 101 
 
 secured more than was offered them on that 23rd of 
 June. ]\lirabeau made a similar admission : " J'avoue 
 que ce que vous venez d'entendre pourrait etre le salut 
 de la patrie, si les presents du despotisme n'6taient 
 toujours dangereux. Quelle est cette insultante 
 dictature, etc." The offer was adequate, but the 
 manner in which it was made failed . to inspire 
 confidence. 
 
 Talleyrand held identical opinions. It is abundantly 
 clear that approval of the attitude of the Third Estate 
 never entered into his head. On the 13th and 16th 
 of June the first deputies of the clergy had joined the 
 Third Estate. On the 19th of June a majority of one 
 hundred and fifty members of the clergy had de- 
 clared for the union of the States, and on the 22nd of 
 June they made their appearance, with archbishops and 
 bishops at their head, and amid boundless rejoicings, 
 in the church of St. Louis at Versailles, which the 
 clergy had placed at the disposal of the Third Estate 
 as a temporary place of meeting. Talleyrand was not 
 among them. At that time he frequently visited the 
 Comte d'Artois, of whom he says in his Memoirs, 
 " je I'aimais," and with whom he had points of 
 connection. Both of them disliked Necker, and the 
 Prince, though without any grasp of the situation, had 
 manifested tendencies in the direction of opposition. 
 At the commencement of the reign of Louis XVI. his 
 independent attitude and his question, " What can my 
 
102 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 brother do to me ? " had provoked the answer of the 
 aged Minister Maurepas : " Monseigneur, the King can 
 pardon you." On the 21st of June a council of state 
 was held at Marly, to which the King's brothers were 
 invited for the first time. The Comte d'Artois was in 
 favour of giving up all pecuniary privileges and of 
 lightening the burdens of the people, but he opposed 
 the union of the States, and behaved with such 
 extreme violence to Necker, that the latter felt his 
 real object was to drive him into resignation. When 
 he did tender his resignation after the Seance Roycde, 
 the Comte d'Artois accosted him with the remark that 
 he " must stay in office as a hostage for all the harm 
 that he had done," 
 
 Such had been the succession of events from day to 
 day when Talleyrand, being convinced that Louis XVI. 
 and his Ministers were still blind to the terrible 
 gra\ity of the situation, determined to venture on a 
 last step. He mentions briefly in his Memoirs, and 
 afterwards related in greater detail to Baron Vitrolle^, 
 that he went in the strictest secrecy, " with three or 
 four friends," of whom he names only the Yicomte 
 de Noailles and Count d'Agoult, to Marly, where they 
 arrived about midnight. A request for an audience of 
 the King met with the reply that the Comte d'Artois 
 had been deputed to receive them. He was already in 
 bed. Talleyrand went to his bedside, and expounded 
 at great length a proposal for dissolving the present 
 
IV.] NEGOTIATIONS WITH THE COUET AT MARLY. 103 
 
 assembly and convoking another under a different 
 elective system. He declared that it was hopeless to 
 expect to save the country, the King, or the monarchy 
 by means of concessions and prevarications. A wise 
 and adroitly managed display of royal power was the 
 only available resource. He and his friends were ready 
 and in a position to undertake such a task if entrusted 
 therewith by the confidence of the King. If, however, 
 their aims were misunderstood, then, instead of con- 
 tinuing to battle with the torrent, they would let 
 themselves be swept along by it as far as it might 
 carry them. " C'etait un acte de force, et la force, il 
 n'y avait autour du roi personne pour la manier." 
 Louis XVI. declined this suggestion to form a Ministry, 
 and Talleyrand came to the conclusion that " sous 
 peine de folie, il fallait penser a soi." 
 
 " Ask the Comte d'Artois if he recollects the 
 nocturnal interview," he said, five-and-twenty years 
 afterwards, to Vitrolles, in April 1814, before he sent 
 him to Nancy, to invite the brother of Louis XVIII. 
 to Paris. The Prince remembered it perfectly, and 
 confirmed every particular of Talleyrand's narration. 
 A third account of Bacourt, in endeavouring to make 
 the incident dramatic, has completely misrepresented 
 it. According to him, the interview took place in the 
 night of the 17th to the 18th of July, consequently 
 after the fall of the Bastille, and the Comte d'Artois 
 left the country that morning with the parting words 
 
104 LIFE OF TALLEYEAND. [Ch. 
 
 that "he would never blame Talleyrand's future 
 conduct." If this version were the true one, then 
 Talleyrand would have proposed an absurdity, for 
 a coup cVetat had already failed nine days before 
 that date, and the King had not a single loyal 
 regiment left between Versailles and Paris wherewith to 
 attempt a second. Besides, Talleyrand was committed 
 to the Revolution by the 14th of July. Fortunately, 
 there is a simple mode of fixing the dates. The Court 
 left Marly on the 9th of July and did not return there. 
 Talleyrand made his proposal after the resolution of 
 June 17th constituting the Third Estate the National 
 Assembly, and before the Seance Roy ale, in all probability 
 in the night after the oath in the tennis-court, and at 
 a juncture when an assertion of the royal authority 
 entrusted to an able soldier and resolute Minister would 
 have had every chance of success. The soldier could 
 not have been either Broglie or La Fayette. The 
 bishop probably had his friend Lauzun, now Due de 
 Biron, in his mind, for he considered Lauzun as 
 belonging not to the party but only to the social circle 
 of the Duke of Orleans, and not initiated into the 
 latter's political plans. Talleyrand would probably 
 have offered seats in his cabinet to Malouet and La 
 Luzerne, Bishop of Langres, two political allies who 
 advocated a constitution with two chambers on the 
 English pattern, and to Dupont de Nemours, who 
 represented the traditions of Turgot and Panchaud in 
 
IV.] TACTICS OF TALLEYEAND AND MIKABBAU. 105 
 
 finance. Mirabeau would certainly have been excluded 
 and Sieyfes treated as an enemy. But it was not to 
 be, and three weeks later a feeble reactionary Ministry, 
 headed by Breteuil, made another attempt, which 
 provoked the revolt of the troops, the fall of the 
 Bastille, and the victory of the Eevolution. 
 
 Long before this Talleyrand had carried his arms, or 
 rather his mitre, into the enemy's camp, the 26th of 
 June being the date on which he joined the ranks of 
 the Third Estate. 
 
 The standard of pure monarchy had been lowered. 
 That of constitutional monarchy was raised until 
 October, and in spite of the King. From henceforth 
 Talleyrand did not dream of making further attempts 
 to come to an understanding with the Court. He 
 says emphatically : " The last King of France who 
 knew when to yield and when to resist was Henri 
 Quatre." Thenceforward the tactics of Mirabeau are, 
 in almost all other respects, those of the Bishop of 
 Autun. Both of them headed the movement inside 
 the Assembly in order to preserve their authority, and 
 both employed all their influence outside of it in 
 minimising the revolutionary character of their public 
 policy. Their courses were parallel, with this all- 
 important distinction, that Talleyrand had a huge 
 bribe to offer to the Eevolution, and that the destruc- 
 tion of the Gallican Church was his own personal 
 settlement of accounts with the Ancien Regime. 
 
CHAPTEE V. 
 
 TALLEYRAND AND THE SECULARISATION OF THE 
 FRENCH CHURCH. 
 
 1789. 
 
 ny/r ORRIS, who was generally well informed, refers 
 -^-^ in September 1789 to an understanding between 
 Mirabeau and the Bishop of Autun as a well-known 
 fact. The publication of Mirabeau's correspondence 
 has entirely confirmed this, but neither at that time 
 nor afterwards did the Bishop overrate the power of 
 the great tribune. When La Fayette on his first 
 meeting with Talleyrand, with whom he was then only 
 superficially acquainted, asked him whether Mirabeau's 
 influence over the Assembly was really so great as was 
 supposed, he received the reply that " it was not very 
 considerable." But Talleyrand, as is well known, had 
 a mean opinion also of La Fayette. On the other 
 hand, whenever Mirabeau attempted to stem the 
 revolutionary current by opposing statesmanlike ideas 
 and practically feasible schemes to the abstract theories 
 of the doctrinaires, Talleyrand was always found fight- 
 ing by his side. Another point of resemblance was 
 that might was more an object to both of them than 
 
 106 
 
Ch. v.] decision as to ELECTORS' MANDATES. 107 
 
 right. They were prepared to sacrifice the latter rather 
 than lose the former. 
 
 This was seen for the first time on the 7th of July, 
 1789, in the discussion of the important question whether 
 the instructions from the baillages, the so-called 
 " cahiers," were still binding on the deputies after the 
 union of the States. Even moderates, like Malouet, 
 held that, now that voting by orders was impracticable, 
 they required to be revised by those who had given 
 them. But to cancel the mandates altogether was in 
 their eyes equivalent to a recourse to arbitrary power. 
 Talleyrand thought differently, and declared in his 
 first speech for complete freedom of action. He con- 
 tended that, while the " cahiers " no doubt set forth 
 the wishes of the electors, they could only in a very 
 restricted sense be regarded as peremptory instructions 
 to the deputies. Any other construction would limit 
 freedom of deliberation and paralyse the action of the 
 Assembly. The individual baillages should, as mere 
 fragments of one great whole, submit to the decision 
 of the majority. His motion was supported by Siey^s 
 and Mirabeau and carried. It was fraught with the 
 fatal consequence that the voice of the country, the 
 freely-expressed wish of the whole of France, was 
 stifled, first by the clubs, and afterwards by the 
 populace, of Paris, and that the Assembly, which had 
 been returned to establish a constitutional monarchy, re- 
 appeared before its electors with a ready-made republic. 
 
108 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. 
 
 [Ch. 
 
 As regards the clergy, their instructions exhibited 
 a unanimity which was not observable in the case of 
 the other two orders, ecclesiastical reform, money 
 grants, and education being the principal topics. But 
 not one of these vital questions was settled in accord 
 ance with the wishes and suggestions of the clergy as 
 expressed in their mandates. Their proposed measures 
 of reform were partly revived in the civil constitu- 
 tion, but were also condemned to perish with it. 
 Instead of accepting the pecuniary sacrifices which 
 they were ready to make, the Assembly took from 
 them all their property. The educational system, 
 which they had hitherto managed almost exclusively, 
 from the village school upwards to the University, 
 and were prepared to remodel in accordance with the 
 requirements of the time, was suddenly withdrawn 
 from their control. This was the work of the same 
 hand that had torn up their mandates on the 7th of 
 July, the hand of the Bishop of Autun. 
 
 Talleyrand was not an orator in the sense of being 
 able to carry away the masses or kindle enthusiasm. 
 He adopted a business-like method, elegant language, 
 and a deliberate style in addressing an assembly 
 which was peculiarly impressionable and susceptible 
 to rhetoric. But as a rule he did not descend from 
 the tribune without having attained his object, and 
 his name figures on the most important decrees of the 
 Constituent Assembly. His English biographer, how- 
 
v.] SHARE IN DECLARATION OF RIGHTS OF MAN. 109 
 
 ever, is mistaken in making him responsible for the 
 declaration of the rights of man. It was referred to 
 a committee of five, consisting of La Luzerne, Bishop 
 of Langres, Desmeuniers, Tronchet, Redon, and Mira- 
 beau, the last-named being appointed reporter. When 
 about thirty different versions had been discussed in 
 the Assembly and the torrent of eloquence at last 
 began to run dry, it was Talleyrand who carried the 
 final text of the article by which was established not 
 only the complete equality of all before the law but 
 also the right of all to participate in making it. Two 
 days afterwards he brought forward a motion for 
 omitting all passages relating to religion and public 
 worship from the declaration of the rights of man and 
 inserting them in the constitution. Mirabeau, as is 
 well known, wanted to postpone the declaration until 
 after the completion of the constitution, and it is a 
 fact that twenty-eight bureaux out of thirty rejected 
 it before it was carried by the whole Assembly. 
 
 The Assembly recognised Talleyrand's pre-eminence 
 by making him on the 1 4th of July, a member of the 
 committee for the preparation of the constitution, 
 together with his two clerical colleagues Cic6 and 
 Sieyes, and with Mounier, Lally-Tollendal, Clermont- 
 Tonnerre, Chapelier, and Bergasse, A few weeks after 
 this began the battle in which he led the assault, 
 and in which the completeness of his victory is only 
 surpassed by the extent of the ruin which it involved. 
 
110 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 The suppression of the firstfruits of benefices on the 
 4th of August was the first step in the arbitrary re- 
 organisation of the Church, and then the sequestra- 
 tion of Church property appeared in the orders of the 
 day, not to disappear from them until finally settled. 
 Archbishops and bishops, abbes and parish priests, 
 outdid one another in the pictures they drew of the 
 misery wrought by feudal oppression, and in enthusi- 
 astic renunciation of all benefits accruing to themselves 
 from it. Those who possessed no worldly goods wished 
 for them in order to be able to give them away ; some, 
 like the Benedictines of St. Martin-des-Champs in Paris, 
 offered their all. Talleyrand and Mirabeau held aloof 
 from this midsummer-night's madness, the signal for 
 which was given by another of the Marly negotiators, 
 the Viscount de Noailles. But they too were carried 
 away by a movement which they were powerless to 
 restrain. On the 6th of August Talleyrand proposed 
 an amendment to the first article of the motion of his 
 friend ]Montmorency for the abolition of all feudal 
 rights. His object was to distinguish between charges 
 which might be redeemed and those which .the 
 majority of the proprietors themselves were willing 
 to surrender without compensation ; but his amend- 
 ment was lost, and this was his last attempt to deal 
 with this intricate question, which contributed to the 
 labours of three assemblies, the Convention event- 
 ually cutting the knot on the 17th of July, 1793, by 
 
v.] PKOPOSES SECULARISATION OF THE CHURCH. Ill 
 
 abolishing without distinction all claims derived from 
 feudal rights. 
 
 On the 8th of August the Marquis de Lacoste proposed 
 that the State should take possession, of the entire 
 property of the Church ; on the 9th, after a deplorable 
 statement of the financial situation from Necker, the 
 deputy Delandine moved that it should be subjected 
 to a yearly payment of two million livres. " We shall 
 be only too glad to allow the nation to raise money 
 on mortgage of our property," rejoined Boisgelin, Arch- 
 bishop of Aix, and offered four hundred millions in the 
 name of the clergy. Taine says that the bargain 
 would have been an excellent one for the State, for the 
 clergy's credit was so good that it could borrow at 5 
 per cent., whereas the State had to pay 10 per cent., 
 and had difficulty in borrowing even at that rate. 
 Talleyrand then sprang to his feet. "The Bishop of 
 Autun proposes sequestration of all the property of 
 the Church and payment of the clergy ! " exclaimed 
 Gouttes, cure of Argelliers, and continued : " I do not 
 believe that we priests have the right to alienate our 
 property in this manner, but we can say with St, 
 Ambrose that, while we cannot give it away, we can 
 permit it to be taken from us." The remark was 
 afterwards appropriated by many members of the 
 French clergy, among them by Barral, Bishop of 
 Troyes, afterwards Archbishop of Tours. 
 
 Gouttes added that he did not wish to retain the 
 
112 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 tithes, for priests had been commanded to live by the 
 work of their own hands. On the following day the 
 deputy Chasset brought in a motion for its abolition. 
 Mirabeau hereupon declared that the tithe had never 
 been property in the strict sense of the word, and he 
 was the first to speak of paying the clergy a salary, 
 " des officiers de morale et d'instruction," as he called 
 them. Sieyes then uttered his famous protest, " You 
 wish to be free and do not know how to be just," and 
 warned the Assembly against allowing it to be said 
 that they were doing good wrongly. He contended, 
 with perfect truth, that the proposed measure was 
 a breach of faith, because the Assembly had on the 
 4th of August agreed to redeem the tithe. It was a 
 charge on the land, a " redevance," which was always 
 deducted in fixing the purchase money or rent, and 
 was consequently not borne by the owner or occupier of 
 the soil. If the tithe were abolished in their favom-, 
 it was equivalent to making them, the rich, a present 
 of over seventy millions, and depriving the clergy of 
 more than half of their total revenue of a hundred and 
 sixty millions. On the 11th of August Talleyrand de- 
 manded the adoption of Chasset's motion, whereupon 
 the Assembly voted the abolition of the tithe, subject 
 to the understanding that the requirements of religion 
 should be provided for in some other manner. It was 
 Dupont de Nemours who at this stage first proposed 
 a budget of public worship of a hundred millions. 
 
v.] ATTITUDE OX COXSTITUTIONAL QUESTION. 113 
 
 Up to this point the majority of the constitution- 
 alist committee under Mounier's lead had endeavoured 
 to found a constitutional monarchy, while Sieyes, 
 Chapelier, and their party sought to establish demo- 
 cracy with the Crown as a figure-head, and opposed 
 the strengthening of the now powerless executive 
 demanded by Mirabeau and his constitutionalist follow- 
 ing. The idea of a second chamber had been entirely 
 abandoned. Mounier's Senate as well as the King's 
 absolute veto were rejected. " The Assembly planned 
 a constitution as a soldier plans a campaign ; all other 
 mistakes are traceable to this." ]Mounier, Bergasse, 
 Lally-Tollendal, and Clermont-Tonnerre gave up the 
 game as lost, and left the constitution committee. 
 With them disappeared the spirit which, with JNIontes- 
 quieu for its source, had inspired the reformers of 
 1789. " All is lost," wrote Mirabeau ; "the King and the 
 Queen are doomed to perish. Le peuple battera leurs 
 ■ cadavres." It was a mere chance that the prophecy 
 was not fulfilled on the 6th of October at Versailles. 
 
 Talleyrand's attitude in the constitution committee 
 and in the Assembly with respect to the constitutional 
 question was one of apparent passivity. In September, 
 after the discussion on the Royal veto, which ter- 
 minated with the defeat of the Crown, the constitution 
 committee was renewed in a revolutionary sense, and 
 of the old members only Sieyes, Chapelier. and 
 Talleyrand were re-elected. The latter bided his time 
 
 VOL. I. 6 
 
114 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 till tlie 10th of October, and then, four days after the 
 Assembly had moved from Versailles to Paris, brought 
 in his motion for sequestration of all Church property 
 by the State. 
 
 On this occasion it was not a hostile deputy, a 
 fanatical disciple of the social contract, an inex- 
 perienced and enthusiastic priest with a single-minded 
 devotion to reform, that dealt the blow. It was a man 
 of the world, well versed in affairs, and a bishop to 
 boot, who offered the impoverished State the wealth 
 lying ready to hand which might save it from bank- 
 ruptcy. Rejection of such a tempting proposal was 
 out of the question. 
 
 Talleyrand stated his arguments in support of the 
 measure on two occasions, firstly, on the above- 
 mentioned 10th of October, and afterwards on the 9th 
 of November, in a speech which was printed but not 
 delivered. Since the surrender of the tithe by the 
 clergy he considered the Church's property lost, being 
 of Turgot's opinion that after deduction of it the 
 remainder was not of great consequence. The tithe, 
 he calculated, amounted to eighty of the one hundred 
 and fifty millions of the total yearly revenue of the 
 French Church. In future the remaining seventy 
 millions would be the only income available. It 
 would be no loss to the clergy, therefore, if, instead of 
 leaving them in this situation, the State sequestrated 
 all the property of the Church, and in return set 
 
v.] PLAN FOE DEALING WITH CHUECH PEOPEETY. 115 
 
 apart two-thirds of its total revenue, i.e., one hundred 
 millions, which would probably be reduced by the 
 death of sinecure-holders and the suppression of con- 
 vents, etc., to eighty millions, for payment of the 
 clergy and for the ser\ices of religion, a sum exceeding 
 the French budget of public worship of the present 
 day by twenty-five millions. Then comes his plan for 
 dealing with the property of the Church. He clearly 
 foresaw the danger, which subsequently did arise, of a 
 fall in the value of the land by reason of this enormous 
 forced sale, and proposed to meet it by giving the 
 creditors of the State the optioD of purchasing Church 
 property, and in case of exercise of such option making 
 them pay in cash, or by cancelling their Grovernment 
 bonds, or by leaving the purchase-money on mortgage, 
 they paying the State interest. Talleyrand estimates 
 the total capital value at 2,100,000,000 livres, and 
 submits a plan of administration, according to which 
 the State, after fulfilment of all its obligations to the 
 clergy and payment of the floating debt, would be 
 able to save the amount required for purchase of 
 the judicial appointments and for the arrears of the 
 abolished salt-tax, would pay the interest of the debt 
 contracted from time to time by the clergy on behalf 
 of the State, and create a sinking fund for redemp- 
 tion of the tithe with the balance of 35,600,000 livres. 
 Parish priests were in future to have a yearly stipend 
 of not less than twelve hundred livres, with rent-free 
 
116 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 house and garden. Convents were forbidden to admit 
 fresh novices until it was settled which of them were 
 to be suppressed and which retained. The accuracy 
 of Talleyrand's figures has been disputed, first by 
 Necker, who speaks of his financial estimates as 
 " wretched." In modern days Taine, following Arthur 
 Young, has contended that the property of the Church 
 was really far more valuable, and that in particular the 
 revenue derived from the land, which paid 3| per cent, 
 before 1789 instead of 2^ per cent, as it does now, was 
 much higher. Treilhard also put the total value at 
 four milliards when he addressed the Assembly on 
 behalf of the committee for Church affairs. To which 
 should be added that all these figures must be multiplied 
 by two, to arrive at the value of money in the present 
 day. 
 
 Passing on to the legal aspect of the matter, Talley- 
 rand adopts the view which he had long before enforced, 
 that the landed estate of the Church was never property 
 in the correct sense of the word, but was assigned to 
 the clergy by way of remuneration for the performance 
 of certain duties. The clergy never had the right of 
 disposing of it or alienating it, and it is for the nation 
 to decide how far the above duties still correspond with 
 the objects and wishes of the founders. The latter 
 have by their endowments relieved the nation from 
 obligations which it would have had to undertake if 
 the endowments had not been made. But everything 
 
v.] AEGUMENT IN DEBATE ON CHURCH QUESTION. 117 
 
 which is given for the nation may be said to be given 
 to it. The endowments were made for the benefit of the 
 whole community, and the nation has the sole right 
 of dealing with everything that appertains thereto. 
 They were destined for the Church and the poor ; 
 but, as has been correctly remarked, the clergy are 
 only the teaching members of the Church. The whole 
 body of the faithful in a Catholic country is only another 
 term for the nation. 
 
 In times of distress the King as well as the superior 
 authorities of the Church have always used their right 
 of mortgaging or selling Church property in order to 
 relieve the necessities of the State. The nation can 
 act in a similar manner at the present juncture when 
 the State has need of the whole property of the 
 Church. The former is the real owner, not in the 
 sense of being able to dispose of it at discretion, but 
 with the limited functions of carrying out the original 
 purposes of the pious founders and performing the 
 duties prescribed by them. If every holder of a 
 benefice is assured of a suitable competency, then the 
 surplus may be devoted to the sick, to hospitals, and 
 to education. 
 
 The above summary presents the principal points 
 of Talleyrand's argument. His speech of October 10th 
 does not contain a word of sympathy either for his 
 colleagues or his Church. In his second speech he 
 refers to himself as " almost the only member of his 
 
118 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 order" who professes principles so antagonistic to its 
 interests. In his capacity of ecclesiastic he felt a 
 certain compunction — " la sorte de peine que j'eprouve " 
 — but as a citizen he would have the courage of his 
 opinions. In his peroration he adopts an encouraging 
 tone : the clergy should resign themselves to the in- 
 evitable sacrifice while the moral grandeur of their 
 surrender was still recognised. A priest of the Church 
 could not lose in importance if he joined in the work 
 of national unity and laid the foundations of an im- 
 proved social order by means of such a truly religious 
 act. 
 
 Mirabeau's " Courrier de Provence " assented approv- 
 ingly to the Bishop of Autun's plan, and on the 12th of 
 October the deputy for Aix brought in a more stringently 
 worded motion of two short paragraphs, which declared 
 the whole estate of the clergy to be the property of 
 the nation, subject to the obligation of the State to 
 provide in a suitable manner for the requirements of 
 public worship, the subsistence of the priests, and the 
 care of the poor. The stipends of the parish priests 
 were fixed on the scale proposed by Talleyrand. The 
 Assembly passed the motion in this form by a majority 
 of 568 to 346 votes. 
 
 " The liberties of the nation," wrote Mirabeau about 
 this time, " had three foes to encounter, the clergy, 
 the nobles, and the parliaments. The Church in its 
 present form is no longer in harmony with the spirit 
 
v.] NATUEE OF VIEWS ON CHUECH QUESTION. 119 
 
 of the age ; the pitiable condition of our finances 
 would have sufficed to destroy it. The noblesse is a 
 permanent institution, which must be reckoned with 
 and kept in check by a coalition of Crown and people." 
 
 There is often an unconscious tragedy in dates. 
 The decree nominating Talleyrand Bishop of Autun 
 was signed on the 9th of November, 1788, and the 
 confiscation of the estate of the Church was carried on 
 the same day of the following year. 
 
 Talleyrand's intellectual development and surround- 
 ings, the age and the society in which he lived, stamp 
 his action in this question not as an abrupt and 
 isolated resolve, but as the product of the whole inner 
 growth of the man. In his eyes the Church was 
 merely an institution which could not be preserved 
 in its existing form. This proposition once established 
 beyond dispute, prudence suggested that he should 
 carry out the sentence himself rather than leave it to 
 be executed by others. It is only just to bear in 
 mind that moderates like Malouet, Clermont-Tonnerre, 
 Montlosier, and many others, held much the same 
 view as Talleyrand with regard to the right of the 
 Church to its property. And the strange way in 
 which the majority of the clergy themselves defended 
 their position may be pleaded as an excuse for their 
 antagonists. " We restore to the benefactor (the 
 nation) what we have received from his generosity," 
 paid priests like the Abbe Dillon ; others, such as 
 
120 LIFE OF TALLEYEAND. [Ch. 
 
 lallet and d'Eymar, offered three-fourths of all their 
 belongings. The speeches and pastoral letters of the 
 archbishops of Aix, Bordeaux, Vienne, and Narbonne, 
 the utterances of the bishops of Angers, Troyes, 
 Chartres, Eodez, Orange, and Langres, are vivid illus- 
 trations of this self-denial. The Galilean Church, on 
 behalf of which they spoke, was a national Church, and 
 felt itself such. During the long struggle for their 
 material existence not one of its members ever intro- 
 duced the Pope's name into the debate, so foreign to 
 their minds was the idea of looking abroad for help 
 in their own internal concerns. 
 
 On the other hand, Talleyrand has not thought 
 fit to make any reference to the moral significance 
 of the decree of November 2nd. The effect of the 
 decree was that the clerical order, which had hitherto 
 treated with the State like a sovereign power, did not 
 even obtain freedom within its own sphere, as in 
 America, but sank into a position of dependence on the 
 State, its priests becoming the latter's salaried function- 
 aries. The Bishop of Autun was better qualified than 
 most of his colleagues to appreciate not only the 
 intellectual danger involved in the change, but also 
 the precarious nature of the material guarantees offered 
 the clergy as compensation for the injury done to their 
 interests. If the clerical spokesmen of the Eight, 
 Maury, jNIontesquiou, and Cazalfes, interpreted the con- 
 fiscation of November 2nd as a menace to property 
 
v.] DANGEROUS EXCESSES IN THE PROVINCES. 121 
 
 in general, there was a party in the Constituent 
 Assembly which by no means shrank from the 
 inference. 
 
 As early as the month of May the parliamentarian 
 Freteau had warned his colleagues not to devote so 
 much time to abstract questions, " as war had been 
 declared between rich and poor." Since June Dupont 
 de Nemours had constantly but in vain reminded the 
 Assembly of the most important of their duties, pro- 
 tection of property and of the person. In August 
 another economist, the Abbe Morellet, declared that 
 the Eevolution was becoming hostile to property. 
 About the same time, but too late, came Sieyes' protest 
 against the construction which had been placed on his 
 dictum, that " he did not want to destroy property, 
 but only change the holders of it." Four days after 
 the decree of November 2nd Talleyrand had to protect 
 his work, which was already threatened, from interpre- 
 tations of this kind. He stated that after the proposal 
 to abolish feudal rights, the country people burnt the 
 chateaux in order to destroy the archives, and that now 
 churches, convents, libraries, and sacristies were being 
 broken into, their contents taken away, and the forests 
 devastated. It was necessary to take severe measures 
 to prevent such excesses. They were promised, partly 
 ordered, and never carried out. On the very same day 
 Talleyrand and Mirabeau experienced a much greater 
 disappointment. Both of them wanted to become 
 
122 LIB^E OF TALLEYKAND. [Ch. 
 
 Ministers, both thought they had strengthened their 
 claims by their attitude in the Church question, and 
 both had with the same object watched the various 
 stages of the financial crisis with the eye of an expert. 
 Confronted with the alternative of Necker's retirement 
 or a disgraceful bankruptcy, they had both given their 
 support to the detested Minister, because they knew 
 that the prestige still attaching to his name could 
 alone stave off the imminent risk of a complete col- 
 lapse, and thus save the national honour, while his own 
 fall was only a question of time. On the 27th of August 
 Talleyrand spoke in support of the projected special loan 
 of eighty millions, and moved for the appointment of a 
 finance committee and the convocation of the provincial 
 assemblies. On the 26th of September Mirabeau, 
 seconded by Talleyrand, delivered the famous speech in 
 which he enforced the duty of the State towards its 
 creditors in terms of thrilling eloquence. From that 
 moment the idea of supplanting Necker became daily 
 more and more clearly defined. Immediately after the 
 events of October 5th and 6th, Mirabeau drew up lists 
 of JMinistries for La Fayette and the Queen, in which 
 Talleyrand was to take the portfolio of Foreign Affairs 
 or Finance, in the latter list with the note " sa motion 
 du clerge lui a conquis cette place." Necker was to be 
 Prime Minister, while Talleyrand now held that his 
 removal must be demanded as a sine qua oion. Morris, 
 in the course of a conference at the Countess de 
 
v.] FINANCIAL LABOUES. 123 
 
 Flahaut's, considered that the Bishop of Autun was 
 amply justified in insisting on his claim to Necker's 
 place, but thought it a great mistake to treat with 
 Mirabeau, who was too discredited to be of any service. 
 On the other hand, Monsieur, Comte de Provence, whom 
 La Fayette was sounding as to the proposed Ministry, 
 made Talleyrand's exclusion one of the conditions of 
 its acceptance. All these combinations were frustrated 
 by the resolution of November 7th, directed against the 
 formation of a parliamentary Ministry. INlirabeau, at 
 whom it was chiefly aimed, resumed his old position of 
 wire-puller ; the " coalition of all the talents " was 
 never formed again, and Talleyrand turned his attention 
 to matters of more practical importance. 
 
 " In his financial statements," says Mignet, " which 
 were remarkable for perfection of style and thorough 
 grasp of the subject, he propounded the plan of a 
 sinking fund, for facilitating financial operations, and 
 the observance of strict economy, with a view to 
 inspiring confidence, as the means whereby he hoped 
 to improve the national credit, which he very happily 
 called the best security in the world." On the 26th of 
 November he was elected a member of the committee for 
 enquiring into the condition of the discount bank, and 
 on the 4th of December he spoke against Necker's pro- 
 posal to convert this creation of Turgot and Panchaud 
 into a national bank with the right of recouping itself 
 for its ninety-one millions advanced to the State by 
 
124 LIFE OF TALLEYEAND. [Ch. 
 
 issuing notes on bad security and with no definite 
 term of repayment. He remarked that the time had 
 gone by for artificial fiscal combinations, alluding to 
 Necker's operations ; the inadequate relief afforded by 
 such measures only deferred the crisis, to re-introduce 
 it in a more dangerous form. All these ultra-clever 
 expedients are now exhausted, and simplicity must 
 take the place of genius. The nation is in the same 
 position as a private individual as regards its creditors, 
 and nothing injures its credit so much as promises 
 which it is unable to keep. Talleyrand adopts the 
 saying of the JNIarquis de jMontesquiou : " Just as 
 disorder was the ruin of despotism, so it would be 
 the ruin of freedom." In a similar train of thought 
 Mirabeau referred, on the 27th of August, to the deficit 
 as being the real treasure of the State, the public debt 
 having been the germ from which alone liberty could 
 spring. It was wrong to accept the benefit without 
 paying the price demanded for it. 
 
 Talleyrand's speech was the first protest against the 
 impending mischief of the assignats, which it was power- 
 less to prevent. On the 1 9th of December the Assembly 
 adopted Petion's motion for the sale of Crown lands 
 and Church property up to the value of four hundred 
 millions, for which the first interest-bearing assignats 
 were issued with a forced currency. This was the 
 commencement of the sequestration of the property 
 of the Church, and of the financial catastrophe, the 
 
v.] DEFENCE OF THE COMTE DE PEOVBNCE. 125 
 
 course of which Talleyrand's knowledge of the subject 
 enabled him to predict with accuracy. 
 
 A few days afterwards the Assembly ordered the 
 arrest of the unfortunate Marquis de Favras, who was 
 accused of a plot against Necker, La Fayette, and 
 Bailly, which has never been quite cleared up, and died 
 on the scaffold without making any confession. When 
 the alleged conspiracy jBrst became known, Monsieur, 
 Comte de Provence, was suspected of complicity. In 
 his helpless consternation the Prince looked round him 
 for a defender, and according to ]Morris found one in 
 the Bishop of Autun. Talleyrand makes the future 
 Legitimist King, for whom he drafted the Charter in 
 1814, say in his defence to the Assembly : " Since the 
 day when, in the second meeting of the Notables. I 
 spoke on the great question which had not then 
 received a solution, I have never ceased to think that 
 a great revolution is at hand, that the King by his 
 aims, his virtues, and his supreme authority is destined 
 to be its leader, and that it can only conduce to the 
 welfare of the nation if it adopts the supremacy of 
 the Monarch as the bulwark of liberty and liberty as 
 the foundation-stone of the Monarchy." The matter 
 ended by the panic-stricken Prince calling himself 
 " a citizen of Paris " and submitting his private 
 accounts to the Assembly. 
 
 Soon after this incident Talleyrand reverted to one 
 of his old measures, and carried the abolition of the 
 
126 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 royal lottery. His argument, closely knit and breath- 
 ing a lofty humanitarian spirit, gives no indication 
 of the fact that this severe censor of public morals 
 was himself a habitual gambler in private life. 
 
 In 1790 he advocated the granting of equal political 
 rights to the Jews, the special object of his speech 
 being the maintenance of the privileges by which 
 the Portuguese and Spanish Jews settled in Southern 
 France had long ago attained a position of almost 
 complete civic equality. In this he was successful, 
 and subsequently he took part in the debates on this 
 hotly-disputed question. 
 
 Another measure carried by Talleyrand was a corollary 
 of the division of France into departments. Sieyes, 
 whose political doctrines were borrowed from Mably, 
 had devised this territorial re-arrangement in imitation 
 of Harrington, whose scheme for an English republic 
 developed in "Oceana" included a similar plan in- 
 volving the suppression of the counties, a reform which 
 was mooted also by Cromwell. The revision of the 
 map of France was more effective than all the decrees 
 of the Constituent Assembly in breaking down the 
 resistance of the provinces and placing thena under the 
 heel of the doctrinaires of the Eevolution. The imme- 
 diate practical result of this centralisation was the 
 necessity of introducing uniformity of standai'ds in 
 trade throughout the country ; between Lyons and La 
 Koclielle there were as many as fifteen different weights 
 
v.] RESULTS OF LEGISLATIVE WORK. 127 
 
 and measures. The project for bringing order into this 
 chaos, elaborated by Laplace, Monge, Condorcet, and 
 others, and submitted by Talle^Tand, was borrowed 
 from Turgot, who had no time to carry it into execution. 
 Scientifically a child of Lavoisier, it has been styled 
 " the application of the principle of the Revolution to 
 material standards of value." Talleyrand's hope of 
 extending it beyond the borders of France and of 
 persuading England in the first place to adopt it after- 
 wards furnished him with a welcome pretext for his 
 mission to London. 
 
 Two more speeches of Talleyrand's, on the 22nd of 
 November and the 12th of December, 1790, dealing with 
 registration fees and recoinage of small money, conclude 
 this portion of his legislative labours, which were of 
 far-reaching consequences, for they contributed to the 
 foundation of the system of taxation which in its main 
 outlines has remained in force in France up to the 
 present day, and, at the time of its introduction, served 
 the purpose of extending the idea of equality from 
 persons to property. 
 
 In marked contrast to this practical work comes an 
 unwonted contribution to the declamatory rhetoric of 
 the Constituent Assembly. The gloomier and the 
 more menacing the reports from all parts of the country 
 became, the more urgent grew the need of concealing 
 the stern reality from the public view by a mirage of 
 hopes for the future. And its effect would probably 
 
128 J-IFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 be enhanced if it proceeded from the lips of a man 
 whose temperate and restrained style had hitherto 
 produced such a marked impression. Talleyrand was 
 commissioned to render the country an account of the 
 labours of the Assembly in the form of an address of 
 the constitution committee. His report depicts the 
 revolt against centuries of prejudice and injustice, 
 against oppression and falsehood. He expounds the 
 complete programme of the Eevolution and pleads its 
 cause in accents of earnest hope. 
 
 The address calls the rights of man " the law of the 
 law-giver " ; the King is congratulated on the accept- 
 ance of " the true principles of monarchy." The 
 provinces are told that the " loss of their special 
 privileges has made them richer," that " a troublesome 
 administration " has disappeared for ever, and that 
 with the new division of France into departments love 
 of the fatherland will take the place of local patriotism. 
 A problem hitherto considered insoluble has been 
 solved, and the rights of every individual and of every 
 community in France have been regulated in accord- 
 ance with their relations to the State. The purchase 
 of appointments, inequality of taxation, interference 
 with liberty and oppressive privileges, have all dis- 
 appeared. Even the finances are painted in the rosiest 
 hues in this best of all possible societies : " they stood 
 in need of vast reforms; the endeavour to bring about 
 these reforms has been unremitting ; ere long you will 
 
v.] ADDKESS OX WORK OF CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY. 129 
 
 enjoy the fruits of them." Only wilful blindness can 
 object that the work of destruction has been immense, 
 the proceedings precipitate, the deliberations dis- 
 orderly, the plans impracticable, and that mankind is 
 incapable of improvement. Why attempt to reply to 
 such paltry objections ? The would-be Minister of 
 yesterday expresses his satisfaction that " the influence 
 of Ministers has been diminished, the people armed, 
 and the powers of the Assembly exceeded." Still 
 greater reforms are in store ; an army of citizen soldiers 
 will shortly be created ; a clergy composed of citizens, 
 " neither rich nor poor," a pattern and example to all, 
 will turn the hearts of all to religion, while the reorgan- 
 isation of the legislature and the reform of education 
 and instruction will usher in the glorious reign of 
 freedom. Already the Monarch has embraced the cause. 
 Discarding the errors of his youth and the teachings of 
 his early surroundings, he has become King of the 
 French; he is attended, not by courtiers, but bv his 
 people. His heart is worthy to rejoice in the example 
 of the virtues which flourish under the gegis of 
 liberty. 
 
 The Assembly received this eulogy of their labours 
 with " frantic applause," and ordered it to be read from 
 every pulpit. 
 
 If this optimist manifesto is compared with Talley- 
 rand's attitude outside the Assembly, with passages 
 from the contemporaneous correspondence of ]Mirabeau 
 
 VOL. I. 9 
 
130 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 — "We are threatened with complete disintegration, 
 and have grown so Wind that we do not even ask for 
 a remedy . . . civil and religious war is on the point 
 of breaking out at twenty dififerent places in France " 
 — then the solemn expression of the actor becomes 
 a grimace, and we seem to hear a well-known voice 
 say :— 
 
 " The fashion always was, my friend, 
 (Art, as you know, is old and new) 
 By hocus-pocus to pretend 
 
 That truth is false and falsehood true." ' 
 
 The Assembly rewarded the thoroughness of the 
 Bishop of Autun's devotion by electing him President 
 by 373 to 125 votes, which latter were given to Sieyes. 
 It was in the second half of February that Talleyrand 
 entered on the office, which Mirabeau did not hold 
 till a year later. By an irony of fate it was during 
 his presidency that the debate took place on the 
 measures to be adopted for restoring order and 
 security in the country, the condition of which he 
 had just depicted in such glowing colours, but which 
 Montlosier described as " a prey to the right of the 
 stronger : " •' que les brigands qui dominent ma patrie 
 entendent ces paroles et qu'ils fremissent," exclaimed 
 
 ' " Mein Freund, die Kunst ist alt und neu : 
 Es war die Art zu alien Zeiten, 
 Durch Drei unci Eins imd Eins und Drei 
 Irrthum statt Wahrheit zu verbreiten." 
 
 Mejildstopheles, Goethe's " Fanst," Part I. 
 
v.] NEW CONSTITUTIONAL CLUB. 131 
 
 the eloquent^ deputy for Auvergne, in the well-known 
 style of the day. But the brigands declined to 
 tremble, and had not the slightest reason for so doing, 
 for the newly-elected municipalities, which had been 
 made responsible for the maintenance of order in the 
 future, possessed neither the power nor the indepen- 
 dence necessary for their task, and were controlled by 
 the clubs, which in their turn were ruled by the mob : 
 " quand le peuple est roi, la populace est reine," said 
 Eivarol. The agitation was organised by the Breton 
 Club, which, with the Duport - Lameth - Barnave 
 triumvirate at its head, had met in Paris since the 
 month of October, and by means of the so-called 
 patriotic societies maintained a staff of agents and 
 correspondents in the departments. It has been com- 
 pared to a mine which might blow up France at any 
 moment. 
 
 As a counterpoise another Club was founded in 1789, 
 under the patronage of Mirabeau and presided over by 
 Sieyes, in which the moderate element was represented 
 by the Minister Montmorin, the deputies Condorcet, 
 Chapelier, Dupont de Nemours, Talleyrand, Clavi^re, 
 and Duroveray, the municipality of Paris by Bailly, 
 and the National Guard by La Fayette. But it proved 
 a failure, and the Jacobin dictatorship obtained an 
 easy victory over the disunited defenders of the 
 constitution. 
 
 A lull now ensued in the contest, for Paris was 
 
132 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 preparing for a festival. On the 14th of July, 1790, the 
 anniversary of the fall of the Bastille was celebrated 
 on the Champ de Mars. A report by Talleyrand to 
 the Assembly had started the idea, while Mirabeau 
 opposed it, ostensibly because " he did not wish the 
 stern seriousness of the Christian religion to be 
 marred by profane pageants " ; in reality, because he 
 knew the danger attending the assemblage of large 
 masses of men. Two hundred and fifty thousand 
 persons volunteered to transform the plain into an 
 amphitheatre by constructing terraces. Officers and 
 workmen, school children, actresses, soldiers, Car- 
 thusian monks, hairdressers, butcher-boys armed with 
 knives, breathing vengeance against aristocrats — all 
 thronged together to carry out the patriotic work ; 
 fashionable women raised enthusiasm to a pitch by the 
 grace with which they wheeled their barrows ; parish 
 priests and mayors brought up their flocks ; from all 
 parts of France came the members of the confedera- 
 tion. On the morn of the eventful day all was ready. 
 Some four hundred thousand men passed under the 
 huge triumphal arch. An open gallery ran from one 
 side of the Champ de Mars, which now formed a 
 valley-like depression between two mounds of earth. 
 In the centre stood the Eoyal throne, behind it the 
 tribune for the Royal family, in front the seats for the 
 members of the National Assembly. Right and left, 
 in dense array, were drawn up the troops of the line 
 
v.] ANNTVERSARY OF FALL OF BASTILLE. 133 
 
 and deputations of the National Guard from all the 
 provinces. Opposite the throne, and surrounded by 
 scaffolding, on which burnt incense in vases of antique 
 form, rose the altar, surmounted by a cross, and 
 adorned by symbolic figures, among them that of the 
 Constitution, which from afar resembled the Blessed 
 Virgin, as Talleyrand, the celebrant, resembled a high 
 priest. Around him were gathered two hundred 
 priests in white robes and decked with tricolour 
 scarves, while three hundred trumpeters and twelve 
 hundred bandsmen accompanied the religious service 
 with strains of military music, and forty pieces of 
 artillery thundered forth their salvoes at the most 
 impressive moments. At the end of the service the 
 King, his arms extended towards the altar, took a 
 grave and solemn oath to observe the still incomplete 
 constitution, which was repeated by the electrified 
 masses. According to a verbal tradition communicated 
 to Sainte-Beuve it was during these proceedings that 
 cynical remarks were exchanged between the Bishop 
 of Autun and one of his deacons, the Abbe Louis, 
 afterwards Finance Minister of the Kestoration : 
 according to another version he whispered, " Ah qa, 
 ne me faites pas rire," to the great ornamental person- 
 age of the occasion, the Marquis de la Fayette, the 
 general commanding the National Guard, as the latter 
 was ascending the steps of the altar to take the oath. 
 None who were present ever forgot the moment when 
 
134 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. V. 
 
 Talleyi'and blessed the new standard of PVance, of 
 which La Fayette had proclaimed that it would go 
 round the world. " Only a priest who feels that God 
 does not desire to be worshipped by slaves could 
 approach the altar on such a day," says the " Corre- 
 spondance Litteraire." It rained in torrents, but 
 nothing could damp the general enthusiasm. Dancing 
 was kept up till late in the night on the Champ de 
 Mars and on the site of the Bastille ; an eyewitness 
 narrates that he saw knights of the order of St. Louis 
 and ecclesiastics join in it. Who could spare the time 
 for calm reflection, or pluck up courage to call the 
 burlesque by its proper name ? 
 
CHAPTEK VI. 
 
 THE CIVIL CONSTITUTION OF THE CLERGY AND THE 
 REFORM OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION. 
 
 1790—1791. 
 
 rriALLEYEAND had not taken part in the debates 
 -*- of the Assembly since February 1790, although 
 they were chiefly concerned with financial and reli- 
 gious subjects. A committee of fifteen members had 
 been sitting on the Church question since the 20th 
 of August, and in February Treilhard submitted 
 to it his report on the suppression of the religious 
 communities. This brought the question into a new 
 and acute stage. Hitherto men had been able to 
 argue that the material interests of the Church had 
 nothing to do with its spiritual duties ; they had 
 even gone further, and had connected the loss of its 
 temporal possessions and outward dignities with certain 
 long-cherished hopes. What the leaders of Catholic 
 reform had often and in vain condemned, pluralism, 
 the continued existence of convents which no longer 
 fulfilled the objects of their founders, the bestowal of 
 rich benefices on non-residents — all these abuses were 
 
136 LIFE OF TALLEYKAND. [Ch. 
 
 now abolished, and yet there were still men in the 
 Constituent Assembly who believed in their power and 
 their mission to reform the Church as well as the State. 
 All these stifled convictions and baffled hopes now 
 clamoured for expression. For days and weeks the 
 National Assembly had to listen to disquisitions on 
 ecclesiastical history, quotations from Holy Scripture 
 and from the Fathers, bulls of Popes and dogmas of 
 Councils, and treatises on the canon law. The Galli- 
 cans demanded the restoration of the rights and 
 privileges which the Concordat of 1516 had abandoned 
 to the See of Eome. The Jansenists contended for the 
 ideal of Church government which long persecution 
 had glorified in their eyes. A political assembly was 
 to deal with problems which synods and councils 
 generally fail to solve ; men who were ready to die 
 for their faith bandied words with those who had 
 sworn the destruction of Christianity ; Galilean parlia- 
 mentarians and Jansenist theologians discussed eccle- 
 siastical reforms with Voltairians and deists ; Mirabeau, 
 who Lad reproached Frederick the Great with his toler- 
 ance of Silesian Catholics, and attacked Christianity 
 for ignoring the rights of nature, and Kobespierre, 
 who maintained that priests had to provide " pour le 
 bouheur des hommes," were eager for the suppression 
 of celibacy ; Barnave and Garat proclaimed in the 
 name of the rights of nature that the oath was not 
 binding on their conscience, and ruthlessly expelled 
 
\"I.] CIVIL CONSTITUTION OF THE CLEEGY. 137 
 
 monks and nuns from their homes. Instead of the 
 desired reforms came destruction, against which the 
 victims struggled in vain. At last the proposed sup- 
 pression of all religious houses and prohibition of 
 priestly vows cleared the air, though at a heavy cost, 
 and put an end to a situation which for months had 
 been little better than a huge misunderstanding. 
 Since the appearance of Treilhard's report the com- 
 mittee on Church affairs had split into two camps. 
 The minority, which had resigned with a protest 
 against the decree as an encroachment on the sphere 
 of conscience, was replaced, through a vote of the 
 Assembly, by other members, for the most part of 
 much more advanced opinions, and it was they who, 
 deliberately exceeding their powers, invaded the 
 domain of the Church, and framed the civil con- 
 stitution of the clergy. 
 
 By a series of decrees the one hundred and thirty- 
 one old French dioceses were now abolished, and 
 eighty-three new bishoprics formed, with areas corre- 
 sponding to the Departments and completely inde- 
 pendent of papal jurisdiction. The electors of the 
 Department were to appoint the bishop, those of the 
 district the parish priest, and the latter his vicars. It 
 was not necessary to be a Catholic or even a Christian 
 to have the right of voting ; attendance at a mass was 
 the sole qualification. The bishops were forbidden to 
 apply to the Pope for canonical institution ; they could 
 
138 LIFE OF TALLEYKAND. [Ch. 
 
 only report their nomination to him. In every case 
 in which they objected to the election of a cure or of 
 any priest, whatsoever his office, an appeal lay from 
 their decision to a tribunal of laymen. If an " ecclesi- 
 astical functionary " was absent from his post for more 
 than fourteen days without special permission, he 
 forfeited his stipend. Every priest had to swear adhe- 
 rence to the civil constitution of the clergy by the 
 solemn oath which he took to observe the greater 
 constitution of which it formed part. The same rule 
 applied to all laymen, who lost their elective rights 
 and became ineligible for all offices if they refused to 
 take the oath. 
 
 These enactments left the clergy no choice between 
 schism and disobedience to the law of the land. The 
 theory which presided over the birth of the Revolution 
 guaranteed them their liberties ; the traditions of an 
 all-powerful State, which forced them into its official 
 hierarchy, demanded their submission. If they 
 refused, they were penniless ; if they took the oath, 
 they ceased to be Catholic priests. The same policy 
 which made them look to Eome for protection of their 
 religious convictions and so changed the national into 
 an ultramontane Church, kindled the flames of civil 
 war throughout the country. As early as May 1790 
 several southern provinces rose in arms against the 
 interference of the National Assembly with the 
 inner organisation of the French Church. It was a 
 
VI.] DECISION AS TO CATHOLIC EELIGION. 139 
 
 protest against the decrees of April 11th and 17th, 
 fixing the payment of the clergy in money, without 
 any grant of land, which up to that time they had 
 still hoped to receive. Not one single fragment of 
 all the real and personal property which the State 
 devoiued was secured to meet the obligations which it 
 undertook. The milliards were swallowed up by the 
 deficit, to reappear in circulation in the form of 
 assignats, and the Church had to look for its daily wants 
 to the budget of the State, which spent and squandered 
 with one hand what it took away with the other. 
 
 The growing conviction that hostility to religion 
 itself lay at the root of the measures against the clergy 
 induced Dom Gerles, a Carthusian monk and enthu- 
 siastic adherent of Christian democracy, to propose the 
 issue of a manifesto by the Assembly in favour of the 
 Catholic religion as that of the French people. 
 Mirabeau, pointing from the tribune towards the win- 
 dow of the Louvre, where a shot by the King had given 
 the signal for the massacre of St. Bartholomew, replied 
 that they should beware of mixing up religion with 
 politics. The Assembly called to mind the principle of 
 toleration, which prohibited a privileged Church, and 
 rejected Dom Gerles' motion at the very moment when 
 they were on the point of creating a State religion to 
 be upheld by persecution. 
 
 Deputies of the Eight, who met under Malouet's 
 leadership in the " Club des Impartiaux," protested 
 
140 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 against the decision of the Assembly, and published a 
 manifesto in favour of the Catholic religion and of secur- 
 ing the revenues of the Church by a land grant, which 
 received numerous signatures in all parts of France. 
 The clergy of Autun looked in vain for the name of 
 their bishop among the signatures, and a brief corre- 
 spondence ensued between them. It is with the most 
 profound regret, wrote the clergy, that we miss the name 
 of our spiritual pastor and deputy. We beg Monseig- 
 neur to add his name to the list of our names, and then 
 present the petition to the National Assembly as the 
 most honourable and authentic record of his patriotism. 
 If there is a principle, replied Talleyrand, which is 
 sacred to mankind it is that which makes an inviolable 
 sanctuary of the conscience. No earthly power, to use 
 the words of Fenelon, may seek to pierce the impene- 
 trable barrier which guards the freedom of the heart. 
 I entreat you therefore to extend to me your approval 
 if I decline to carry out your wishes. I cannot see 
 what would be gained if I submitted to the legislative 
 body your protest against its decrees, and especially, as 
 you desire, as evidence of your patriotism. I prefer to 
 leave the legislature in ignorance of it. 
 
 It was easier to write ironical letters to the clergy 
 of Autun than to shut one's eyes to the fact that with 
 the new turn which things were taking the Gallican 
 Church would be destroyed and public credit left in 
 its old predicament. No one knew this better than 
 
VI.] SALE OF CHCECH PROPERTY. 141 
 
 Talleyrand. He uttered words of warning to the 
 Assembly : " Je serais inconsolable si de la riguem- de 
 nos decrets sur le clerge il ne resultait pas le salut de 
 la chose publique." With the same object he spoke on 
 the 13th of June in favour of the Duke de la Eoche- 
 foucauld's proposals regarding the procedure to be ob- 
 served by the departments and districts entrusted since 
 March with the sale of the Church lands, now declared 
 national property, and protested against the unfair 
 advantages given to holders of new assignats, at the 
 expense of the other creditors of the State. Where 
 cash payments, which were only possible in a very few 
 cases, were not made, assignats alone were to be taken 
 in payment, a measure the mischievous efifect of which 
 Talleyrand demonstrated in detail. His aim also was 
 to facilitate the purchase of the national property by 
 all creditors of the State, and transfer it as rapidly as 
 possible from the administration into private hands, 
 A special class of these creditors were the holders of 
 benefices, who in addition to .their stipend were 
 entitled to an annuity by way of compensation. 
 Talleyrand implored the Assembly to reconcile them, 
 as well as all former holders of abolished offices, to the 
 new order of things by compensation in the shape of 
 a grant of land. 
 
 On the 1 8th of September he spoke even more ear- 
 nestly against the impending issue of two milliards of 
 new assignats. Most of his arguments are addressed to 
 
142 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 the special knowledge of fellow-experts, but his appeal 
 to the sound common sense of the general public is 
 not less convincing. The nation, he remarks among 
 other things, has not increased its wealth by offering 
 the sequestrated Church property for sale, and conse- 
 quently the assignats do not represent any new source 
 of riches ; they are simply an instrument, a token of 
 exchange, and not a valid payment. Society, in its 
 collective capacity, has decided on making a fresh 
 distribution of its property amongst its members, the 
 result of which will be that a portion of its debt will 
 be paid off. If the transfer takes place slowly and 
 gradually, then no special measures are required to 
 facilitate it ; they are only necessary because the 
 change of ownership is effected suddenly. The issue 
 of the assignats can only be a successful operation in 
 cases in which they pass direct out of the hands of the 
 creditors of the State into the treasury in payment 
 of the national property acquired by them, with the 
 result that a forced • currency is not required. The 
 latter must bring about a rise in prices and a fall in 
 wages, while the State, instead of reaping any ad- 
 vantage, would lose in its double capacity of debtor 
 and creditor. " I admit that within our frontiers you 
 will be able to prevent paper-money from losing in 
 value, but you will not be able to prevent the appre- 
 ciation of the precious metals. You can compel people 
 to take an assignat of one thousand livres in payment 
 
VL] EESISTANCE OF THE CLERGY. 143 
 
 of a debt of one thousand livres, but you cannot make 
 them pay one thousand silver livres for an assignat of 
 that figure. But this is the gist of the question, and 
 on this point the whole scheme will break down." 
 
 None of these warnings were heeded. The Assembly 
 adhered to its financial measures, which were con- 
 demned by all authorities on finance, and sanctioned 
 the elective principle, and consequently the sovereignty 
 of the people in Church government, by its vote of 
 July 12th adopting the civil constitution of the clergy. 
 
 The parliamentarian Duval d'Espremesnil was not 
 the only one who held that the Assembly had trans- 
 formed itself into a schismatic and presbyterian council. 
 Calmer minds, such as the archbishops Cice and 
 Boisgelin, endeavoured even at this stage, with the 
 support of the King- himself, and taking their stand on 
 some wise and useful provisions of the civil constitu- 
 tion, to bring about an understanding with the French 
 episcopate as well as with the Pope. They had all the 
 better prospect of success, because the latter had in the 
 only rescript which had been issued on French Church 
 matters avoided not only expressions of blame but also 
 all direct interference. He expressed himself more 
 plainly in a private letter to the King, but could not 
 prevent the latter, who was torn by conflicting advice, 
 from sanctioning the decree on the 24th of August. 
 The first line of resistance of the Catholic hierarchy 
 consisted in ignoring it. The dismissed as well as the 
 
144 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 newly re-appointed bishops continued to exercise their 
 office as before. The population in Brittany, in Alsace, 
 and especially in the south of France, in Nimes, 
 Montauban, and in Provence, sided with their clergy. 
 The conviction that the lands of the Church, which 
 had hitherto been well managed or let at a moderate 
 rent, would either fall into the hands of speculators or 
 be withdrawn from the present leaseholders by the new 
 owners, contributed to increase the ferment among the 
 country people, and the National Assembly was besieged 
 with petitions from all sides, one set appealing for pro- 
 tection to religion in danger, and the other denouncing 
 " the ultramontane bishops and priests." All over 
 France the officials, the clubs, and the political agitators 
 of every description backed the Assembly, which took 
 no notice of the very conciliatory protest of the bishops, 
 carried out in Finisterre the election of the first con- 
 stitutional bishop of Quimper on the 31st of October, 
 and stopped payment of the stipends of all contu- 
 macious bishops and priests. Finally, on the 27th of 
 November, it decreed the dismissal of all priests who 
 had not taken the oath to observe the constitution 
 within the next fourteen days, and their prosecution as 
 disturbers of the public peace if they performed the 
 functions of their office in spite of such dismissal. 
 
 The ultras on both sides were not displeased to see 
 the principles of the Eevolution pushed to their 
 extreme consequences. " We only want three or four 
 
VI.] CLERGY REFUSE TO TAKE THE OATH. 145 
 
 more such decrees," said the Abbd Maury to his friends 
 of the Right, who counted on a total collapse to pave 
 the way for the reaction. Maury saw clearly that 
 Mirabeau, in dragging the Assembly deeper and 
 deeper into the policy of religious persecution, was 
 playing a similar desperate game, without knowing 
 anything of the contents of his communications to 
 the Court, which prove it. "Aj^ologies are no longer 
 admissible," rejoined the leader of the Left : " we are 
 defied by criminals, who let loose civil war upon us, de 
 veritables parricides, who gloat over the sufferings of 
 their country." A hundred and thirty-one archbishops, 
 bishops, and coadjutors refused to take the oath. Not 
 a few of them were actuated more by esprit de corps 
 in making this sacrifice than by religious conviction. 
 "We behaved like true gentlemen in 1791," said 
 Dillon, Archbishop of Narbonne, " for it cannot be 
 said of the majority of us that religion was their 
 leading motive." Burke, who knew how to appreciate 
 nobility of character, bears witness that the French 
 clergy rose high above the common level, and that in 
 a time of tremendous degradation they restored the 
 moral balance by a display of heroic virtues. 
 
 In the period which elapsed between the decree of 
 November 27th and the condemnation of the civil 
 constitution by Pius YI., the attitude of the clergy 
 was not so clearly defined. About two-thirds of the 
 priests followed their bishops. The remainder yielded 
 
 VOL, I. 10 
 
146 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 to intimidations and threats, to the wish not to be 
 parted from their flock, to solicitude for their material 
 interests, and also to the hope that a via media would 
 be found, in consequence of which many priests took 
 the oath under reserve of the rights of the Church, 
 and were then entered in the lists simply as " jureurs." 
 In February 1791 Lanjuinais writes that the outlook 
 is favourable, and that the oath is being taken by most 
 of the functionaries of the Church. Shortly afterwards, 
 when all hope of a compromise had to be abandoned, 
 many retracted and were replaced to a great extent by 
 renegade monks and disfrocked priests from all parts 
 of Europe. In the Assembly itself the oath was taken 
 by sixty-five ecclesiastics, among them eighteen future 
 constitutional bishops. On the 23rd of December the 
 unfortunate Louis XVI., confronted with the alternative 
 of revolt combined with massacre of the contumacious 
 priests and outrage to his own conscience, yielded to 
 the pressure of the Assembly, and by his sanction 
 invested the decree of November 27th with the force of 
 law. On the 28th of December Talleyrand took the oath 
 to the civil constitution, alone among the thirty bishops 
 who were also deputies ; on the 2nd of Januar}^ he 
 was followed by Gobel, Bishop of Lydda in partibus. 
 Of the bishops of the French Church only three 
 members of the French episcopate took the oath, 
 Lom^nie de Brienne, Cardinal Archbishop of Sens, 
 Jarente, Bishop of Orleans, Lafont de Savines, Bishop 
 
VI.] CONSECRATION OF NEW BISHOPS. 147 
 
 of Viviers, and then two bishops in partibus, Miroudot 
 of Babylon, and Lom6nie of Trajanopolis, a nephew of 
 the Cardinal. 
 
 The clergy of Autun now listened to the voice of 
 their pastor for the last time. " The decrees," he 
 wrote, " which govern the civil constitution distinguish 
 most carefully between dogma and questions which 
 do not appertain to dogma. They constitute, in almost 
 every respect, a return to the most sublime laws of the 
 Church." " We possess full power to make changes 
 in religion," was the simultaneous declaration of the 
 advocate Camus on the other side, who a few years 
 before had been appointed counsel for the clergy in 
 their assemblies on Talleyrand's recommendation, and 
 exercised paramount influence over the Constituent 
 Assembly in Chm'ch matters. 
 
 The next step, the consecration of the two newly- 
 appointed bishops, Expilly for Finisterre and Marolles 
 for the Department of the Aisne, met with difficulties. 
 Talleyrand announced his willingness to perform the 
 ceremony with the assistance of Gobel and Miroudot. 
 The 24th of February was fixed for it, and everything 
 seemed ready, when Miroudot at the eleventh hour 
 lost his head and threatened to withdraw. Talleyrand, 
 informed by Gobel, with quick presence of mind 
 hurried to his vacillating colleague. He told him that 
 Gobel was on the point of abandoning them both, 
 that his own resolution had been taken, and that 
 
148 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 rather than be pelted by the mob and encounter the 
 disgrace attaching to defection he would lay violent 
 hands on himself. As he said this he played with 
 the hammer of a pistol, which he had taken out of 
 his pocket in the course of the conversation. It was 
 late in the afternoon of the day preceding the 24th. 
 Miroudot was taken in ; the first fear was driven out 
 by a second, and on the following morning he was at 
 his post. Morris completes the story. On that 24th 
 of February he was invited to dine with Countess 
 Flahaut, and found her ill and in bed. On the 
 evening of the day before she had received an envelope 
 addressed to her containing Talleyrand's will, leaving 
 everything to her. She recollected some remarks 
 which had fallen from him in the course of recent 
 conversations, was filled with forebodings of evil, passed 
 the night in tears, and ordered him to be searched for 
 everywhere. Not till the following morning did it 
 transpire that he had been intimidated by threats, and 
 had slept out of his house in fear of the vengeance of 
 the clergy. The missive to the Countess, which was to 
 have been delivered only in case of the worst happen- 
 ing, had reached her prematurely, and Miroudot was 
 not the only man who suffered the pangs of terror on 
 that occasion. 
 
 In Talleyrand's Memoirs all these events are wrapped 
 in that diplomatic silence which at the time of the 
 Restoration it seemed prudent to observe with respect 
 
VI.] ARCHBTSHOPRIC OF PARIS VACANT. 149 
 
 to his attitude in the religious question under the 
 Constituent Assembly. He only remarks that in 1790 
 France was in danger of becoming presbyterian if 
 nobody could be found in the episcopate to invest a 
 constitutional prelate with the bishop's office, " for in 
 that case France might have been lost for ever to 
 Catholicism, the hierarchy and rites of which are in 
 harmony with the monarchical system," This observa- 
 tion made in 1816 was for the benefit of Louis XVIII., 
 and had the advantage of serving as a weapon to the 
 clerical entourage of the Comte d'Artois against the 
 detested Jansenism, of which they held the same 
 opinion as Chamfort : " Le presbyterianisme ne pent 
 signifier parmi nous que le jans^nisme." 
 
 In the meanwhile the archiepiscopal see of Paris 
 had become vacant by the flight of the threatened 
 Juigne, and public opinion fixed on Siey^s as his suc- 
 cessor, who declined with the remark, that "he had never 
 preached or heard confession ; " then on Talleyrand, 
 who declared that the mere idea of being a competitor 
 with Siey^s filled him with pride, and in comparison 
 with Lomenie or Jarente still ranked among the less 
 compromised candidates. But he was sufficiently 
 compromised to make the mere mention of his name 
 provoke an outburst of indignation. 
 
 All his life he was extremely sensitive to criticism, 
 and especially so at a time when his whole future 
 depended on his popularity. Besides, it by no means 
 
150 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 entered into his plans to rivet the chains binding him 
 to his order more closely by becoming Archbishop of 
 Paris. Since the commencement of the Kevolution 
 his preoccupation had been to take the earliest oppor- 
 tunity of striking them off. In a letter addressed to 
 the Moniteur, dated the 8th of February, 1791, he not 
 only disclaimed all intention of becoming Juign^'s suc- 
 cessor, but also defended himself against the accusation, 
 *' among other numerous calumnies," of having won 
 large sums of money at the gaming-table, but admitted 
 that his winnings at the " chess club " had amounted 
 to 30,000 francs in the short space of two months. 
 He could not justify his conduct. " The passion of 
 gambling," he writes, " has become alarmingly pre- 
 valent in society. I never had any liking for it. and 
 therefore if I have yielded to temptation, I must blame 
 myself all the more severely, both as a private indi- 
 vidual and as a legislator, for as such I am aware 
 that the virtues of freedom must correspond with its 
 principles, and that a regenerated people must observe 
 the strictest morality. The attention of the National 
 Assembly must be directed to abuses which injure the 
 community by promoting inequality of fortune, and 
 they must be combated by every means consistent 
 with the eternal foundation of all social justice, the 
 security of property. I therefore blame myself, and 
 make open avowal of my shortcomings." . . . This 
 display of contrition had its practical side. While 
 
VI.] EESTGNS HIS BISHOPEIC. 151 
 
 Talleyrand' thus declined ecclesiastical honours, he 
 declared in the same letter that he considered it a 
 high honour to have been made a member of the 
 assembly of the newly-created Department of Paris. 
 " In a free state," he continues, " the citizens of which 
 have recovered the right of election — i.e., the true 
 exercise of their sovereignty — to become a candidate 
 for a post is equivalent to an invitation to our fellow- 
 citizens to scrutinise our claims to it, and to clear 
 them from all suspicion of resting on intrigue. In this 
 manner we challenge the judgment of all impartial men, 
 and give even our opponents the opportunity of doing 
 their worst." Talleyrand had been elected on the 18th 
 of January, simultaneously with Siey^s and Mirabeau. 
 On the 31st of January came Danton's election, which 
 paved the way for relations between him and Talleyrand, 
 relations which soon assumed political importance. 
 
 On the 21st of January, 1791, two days after his 
 election, Talleyrand addressed a letter to the admini- 
 strators of the district of Autun, informing them that he 
 had resigned the bishopric of the new department of 
 Saone-et-Loire, because he foimd the obligation to 
 reside for the future in Paris incompatible with the 
 exercise of its functions. 
 
 The new administrative body, which Talleyrand had 
 joined, plays a unique part in the history of Paris 
 during the revolutionary sera. It stood alone in en- 
 deavouring to give expression to the real views of a 
 
152 LIFE OF TALLEYEAND. [Ch. 
 
 population cowed by the terrorism of a minority. This 
 was the case after the flight of the King, on the 22nd of 
 June, 1791, when it protested publicly against the incite- 
 ment to rebellion which its own member Danton issued 
 in the club of the Cordeliers, and a year afterwards, on 
 the 12th of June, 1792, before the first invasion of the 
 Tuileries. The report then submitted by the admini- 
 stration of the Department to the INlinister Eoland con- 
 tained an unvarnished account of the situation and of the 
 consequences that would ensue if no authority intervened 
 at the eleventh hour to bring the misguided masses 
 under the arm of the law and close the Jacobin Club. 
 Talleyrand, too, in the Church question repeatedly 
 appealed to the moral influence of his colleagues, which 
 they were ready to exert up to the last, and it was 
 not their fault if his appeal died away unheard. 
 
 On the 2nd of April, 1791, the Constitutionalists met 
 with the severest blow of all — Mirabeau's death. Up 
 to the very end he had endeavoured to play the double 
 game of maintaining his authority over the Assembly 
 by encouraging the worst revolutionary decrees, and at 
 the same time by his communications to the Court and 
 all the means of agitation at his disposal, of promoting 
 a reaction against a position which he felt to be unten- 
 able. His own policy consisted of unity of taxation, 
 liberty, but not license, of the Press, religious tolera- 
 tion, ministerial responsibility, equality of all before 
 the law, and sound finance. When in lieu of this 
 
VI.] DEATH OF MIRABEAU. 153 
 
 programme he had to witness the disorganisation of 
 the army, contempt of the law, the helplessness of the 
 executive, and the country in the hands of the Jacobin 
 faction, then the only resource left seemed to him to 
 be a revision of the constitution and rescue of the King 
 from the yoke of the demagogues of Paris. In January 
 1791, he thought, like Maury, that the best course was 
 to let the suicidal policy of the National Assembly 
 have free scope. They must have strange spectacles 
 on, if the refusal of twenty thousand priests to take 
 the oath did not open their eyes. His last letter, 
 dated from the Chamber, which was at that moment 
 discussing the project for a regency, predicts the end 
 of the monarch, " if time cannot be gained." But he 
 had shot his bolt, and had long since, especially by his 
 attitude on the Church question, forfeited the confidence 
 of the Court. The stupendous attempt to save the 
 monarchy in spite of the sovereign, liberty in spite of 
 the Jacobins, and the Revolution from itself, was inter- 
 rupted by death. Among those who surrounded his 
 death-bed, occupied in destroying or securing documents, 
 was the Bishop of Autun, whose presence kept the 
 priest at a distance. " On a bien de la peine a arriver 
 jusqu'a vous," said Talleyrand to the dying man; "je 
 suis venu comme le peuple de Paris trois fois par joui- 
 a votre porte, et il y a deux heures que j'y attends de 
 vos nouvelles avec lui." " Ah ! je le sais bien," replied 
 Mirabeau, " pour le peuple c'est toujom's un grand 
 
154 LIFE OF TALLEYKAND. [Ch. 
 
 jour que celui ou Ton meurt." Then he added : " On 
 dit que la conversation est nuisible aux malades ; ce 
 n'est pas celle-ci ; on vivrait comme cela d^licieuse- 
 ment, entoure de ses amis, et meme on y meurt trfes 
 agreablement." Then turning to Frochot, the young 
 deputy who was eyewitness and reporter of the fore- 
 going, he uttered the famous words : " J'emporte avec 
 moi le deuil de la Monarchic ; apres ma mort, les 
 factieux s'en disputeront les lambeaux." The inter- 
 view with Talleyrand lasted two hours. This dramatic 
 moment, in which the great tribune of the Assembly 
 dropped the reins of his disputed power into the hands 
 of its adroitest politician, has been criticised in very 
 different ways. One of the most remarkable comments 
 is that of Lamartine, who writes with reference to this 
 scene : " Monsieur de Talleyrand n'etait au fond qu'un 
 Mirabeau a demi-voix. Partout oil j'ai eu a en parler 
 ou a en ecrire, je I'ai fait avec indulgence, admiration 
 et respect. Plus j'ai v^cu, plus j'ai apprecie cet ami 
 de JMirabeau, qui I'appreciait comme moi et qui lui 
 laissa en mourant toutes ses grandes vues sans sa 
 grande parole." 
 
 Talleyrand has not breathed a word of the feelings 
 which may have contended within his breast on that 2nd 
 of April. But he undertook the task of transmitting 
 the last message of Achilles to the Assembly. He 
 referred to his own personal grief " more intense than 
 the public mourning. . . . Death was present every- 
 
VI.] SUCCEEDS MIEABEAU IN ASSEMBLY. 155 
 
 where but in the mind of the man threatened by it, 
 who remained mindful of his public duties up to the 
 end. As a last legacy I bring you the words ' qui ont 
 6te arraches a I'immense proie que la mort vient de 
 saisir.' " The speech itself, which he had to read, in 
 which Mirabeau advocated equal division in all cases 
 of inheritance in the direct line of succession, was not 
 composed by the latter, but partly by the former Swiss 
 pastor Reybaz, and partly by Mirabeau's secretary, 
 Maret, afterwards Duke of Bassano and Talleyrand's 
 Mte noire. By a strange irony of chance it contained 
 the profession of faith of au atheist, who looked upon 
 death as complete annihilation, and that of a politician, 
 who proposed to subject " the profound depravity of 
 human nature" to legal restraint. The barefaced 
 calumny of Michaud, who states that Mirabeau died of 
 poison administered by the Bishop of Autun as an accom- 
 plice of the Palais-Royal plot, is beneath serious notice. 
 After Mirabeau's death Talleyrand was the most 
 eminent exponent of his policy. The Assembly elected 
 him his successor in the diplomatic committee, and 
 Morris and he discussed the question whether it would 
 be advisable to take the opportunity of making a 
 declaration of policy at the funeral. The idea was 
 abandoned, but from henceforth Talleyrand was sus- 
 pected of keeping up communications with the Court, 
 in spite of his having signed an address of the 
 Department to the King on the 19th of April, in which 
 
156 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 the latter is reproved, in the style of the day, for 
 showing a preference for contumacious priests, and 
 surrounding himself with enemies of the constitution, 
 instead of identifying himself with the glorious Eevo- 
 lution in the face of Europe as king of a free people 
 and appointing Ministers worthy of his confidence. 
 
 This document was preceded by another which 
 aimed at securing the tolerance in religious matters 
 which practically was no longer attainable. At Easter- 
 time, the 9th of April, the Paris mob had broken into 
 some convents, and had used threats to the non-juring 
 priests in the churches where they were performing 
 service. Two days afterwards, Talleyrand, supported 
 by some of his colleagues, carried a measure intended 
 to uphold liberty of conscience as opposed to excesses 
 of this kind. This resolution of the Department of 
 Paris, passed on the 11th of April, allowed the non-juring 
 Catholics, the non-conformistes, as Talleyrand calls 
 them, to meet in the old church of the Theatines, and 
 also conceded them the right of acquiring all places 
 of divine worship not required for the official cult. 
 
 As recently as the 28th of March Talleyrand had 
 given unmistakable proof of adherence to the constitu- 
 tional Church by consecrating Grobel to the arch- 
 bishopric of Paris. If he now risked his popularity 
 in order to vindicate the right of freedom of worship 
 for his Catholic co-religionists, it was because he was 
 convinced that the Eevolution was abandoning its own 
 
VI.] SPEECH ON EELIGIOUS TOLERATION. 157 
 
 principle by plunging down the steep incline of pro- 
 scription, which terminates in the abyss where the 
 dogma of the Jacobin joins hands with the code of the 
 Inquisitor. It was politic of Talleyrand, that, instead 
 of opening a debate, he induced the administration of 
 the Department to pass this, from a legal point of view, 
 unimpeachable measure, and left its legality to be 
 decided by the National Assembly. Before this could be 
 done a fresh rising had taken place on the 18th of April. 
 The King and his suite had intended to proceed on 
 that day to St. Cloud, to attend an Easter service con- 
 ducted by a non-juring priest, but had been prevented 
 by force, whereupon the struggle between the official 
 Church and the " refractaires " broke out anew in the pro- 
 vinces. On the 7th of May these events were discussed 
 in the Assembly, and Talleyrand made a memorable 
 speech. It was not, he said, a question of tolerance. 
 The word sounded Hke an insult after the guarantee 
 of complete freedom of conscience. The people must 
 be made to understand that refusal to take the oath 
 disquaUfies for all offices salaried by the State, and 
 places Catholic nonconformists on the same footing as 
 all other dissenters. More than this was never intended 
 on behalf of the creed of the majority of Frenchmen. 
 The exercise of religion is free, and every French 
 citizen, the King included, can choose whichever he 
 likes. If it were not so, then religious freedom would 
 be a mere name. " Lorsque de grandes passions 
 
158 LIFE OF TALLEYKAND. [Ch. 
 
 tourmentent les hommes," he said, in a warning tone. 
 " il ne faut pas les comprimer trop fortement, de peur 
 de les rendre trop violentes." He repudiated the 
 imputation of schism. Although the brief of March 
 10th described the constitutional Church as a schis- 
 miatic one, the Pope had neither the right nor the power 
 to sever a Church, which protests against schism, from 
 Eome. If, misled by ultramontane views and perfidious 
 counsels, he entered on a course of condemnation, then 
 the liberties of the Galilean Church and the history 
 of the aberrations of Eome would supply effective 
 arguments to confute him. In the meanwhile they 
 would remain firm in their adherence to the Komish 
 see, and consolidate freedom by setting a great example 
 of moderation. 
 
 As Talleyrand had foreseen, this time the Assembly 
 was obliged to ratify the measure of the Department 
 of Paris. Its law of May 7th, which allowed non- 
 juring priests the exercise of religious functions, was 
 the last victory won in the name of liberty of con- 
 science. Subsequent events made it a dead letter. 
 The rising tide of revolution swept away the law, and 
 the Legislative Assembly proceeded from silent con- 
 nivance to open persecution. When that took place 
 Talleyrand was no longer a deputy, and the Church 
 had excommunicated him. 
 
 Pius VI. had condemned the civil constitution by his 
 brief of March 10th, 1791, which was secret] y delivered 
 
VI.] SUSPENDED BY THE POPE. 159 
 
 by the papal Internuncio Salamon to all the metro- 
 politans still remaining in France. A second brief of 
 April 13th required all priests who had taken the oath 
 to make a solemn retractation within fourteen days on 
 pain of suspension, declared the episcopal consecrations 
 which had taken place illegal, sacrilegious, and void, 
 and placed Talleyrand, who had performed them, in the 
 list of suspended bishops. He refused to make the 
 required retractation, and so incurred the pains and 
 penalties of the Church. No direct excommunication 
 was launched against him afterwards. According to 
 Michaud he wrote to Lauzun at the time : "Vous savez 
 la nouvelle ; venez me consoler et souper avec moi. 
 Tout le monde va me refuser le feu et I'eau, ainsi nous 
 n'aurons ce soir que des viandes glacees et nous ne 
 boirons que du vin." It was as layman and as 
 " I'ancien fiveque d'Autun," the title given him from 
 June in the official reports of the Assembly, that 
 Talleyrand dealt the Gallican Church his second and 
 far more deadly blow, which, as a consequence of its 
 expropriation, but by virtue of another principle, 
 deprived it of the education of the young. The 
 principle was the secularisation of instruction. 
 
 The question had occupied public attention since 
 Turgot's time. When the wishes of France were made 
 known through the " cahiers," or instructions conveyed 
 to the deputies by their electors, it turned out that the 
 re-organisation of public instruction was demanded far 
 
160 LIFE OF TALLEYEAND. [CH 
 
 more strenuously by the two first orders than by the 
 Third Estate. The immense significance of the change 
 can be more fully appreciated now that an entirely 
 new light has been thrown on the condition of 
 education in the France of that day by the publica- 
 tions of the Abbd Allarin, of A. Duruy, Maggiolo, 
 Buisson, Silvy, and others. The figures given in the 
 old statistics have nearly all proved to be too low. 
 Before 1789 primary education was provided for mostly 
 by the religious establishments, and it is supposed that 
 forty-seven out of one hundred men and twenty-six out 
 of one hundred women had learned to read and write in 
 the twenty to twenty-five thousand schools of this kind 
 which were scattered over the thirty-seven thousand 
 French parishes and received a yearly grant of nine 
 hundred and thirty thousand livres from the State. 
 There were often special endowments for the stipend of 
 the teacher, who in poorer districts kept the school open 
 only in the winter, worked in the fields in the summer, 
 and received a payment of four or five sous a month 
 for each child if his salary was insufficient. Sometimes 
 the cure himself or his vicar had to teach in the school. 
 The provision for higher education was on a much 
 better footing. The latest researches of Silvy show 
 that nine hundred of these schools were in existence. 
 Many of them had such large endowments that forty 
 thousand out of the seventy-two thousand scholars 
 received an education which was entirely or partly 
 
VI.] COST OF INSTRUCTION BEFOEE REVOLUTION. 161 
 
 gratuitous. At the present day this is the case 
 with only five thousand out of seventy-nine thousand 
 pupils in French lycees. It is not necessary to 
 attribute this extraordinarily favourable result to the 
 beneficence of former generations. Circumstances 
 had combined to make the expenditure slight and 
 the income very considerable. Most of the teachers 
 were priests or monks, and as such restricted to a mode 
 of life, which, even if they were lukewarm and fond 
 of their ease, cost a good deal less than the support 
 of a family. The stipend of a professor at that time 
 varied from four hundred and fifty to twelve hundred 
 livres, and the colleges were so numerous that pupils 
 could either live at home, or lodge with friends or 
 relations in the neighbourhood, in which case they 
 could be boarded from home. The result was that the 
 cost of instruction amounted to about three hundred 
 francs a year, while the board and lodging of a boy not 
 living in the college did not exceed two or three livres 
 a month. But the education was in the hands of 
 ecclesiastics, to which a generation which had learned 
 its ideas on this subject from " Emile " could not 
 submit. The universities did not oppose the move- 
 ment, and many of the colleges openly supported it. 
 The first projects of reform submitted to the National 
 Assembly came from Oratorians, Villiers, Delmas, 
 Paris, and Daunou, Desrenaudes, vicar-general to the 
 Bishop of Autun and afterwards his private secretaiy, 
 VOL. I. 11 
 
162 LIFE OP TALLEYRAND. [Oh. 
 
 who must have had something to do with Talleyrand's 
 proposals, also belonged to the society of priests of 
 the Oratory. Previous schemes of La Chalotais, 
 Gruyton de Morveau, and Koland include a system of 
 national instruction to be given by lay teachers, but 
 the idea of a centralised monopoly by the State does 
 not enter into them. Eoland's plan was the only one 
 which placed the University of Paris at the head of 
 the twenty provincial universities and provided for 
 inspection of schools, for a kind of normal school for 
 training teachers, and for State supervision over private 
 educational establishments. Keform of the educational 
 system of course formed part of the programme of the 
 Constituent Assembly. But it was entrusted to the 
 constitutional committee appointed on the 14th of July, 
 1 789, as a component part of the constitution, and placed 
 in the hands of Talleyrand. The preparation of the 
 draft was a long and difficult task, and Talleyrand had 
 to warn the committee repeatedly not to spoil the 
 scheme as a whole by premature attempts at piecemeal 
 legislation. After the 4th of August, the loss of the 
 tithe, the suppression of many religious communities, 
 and the completion of the civil constitution of the 
 clergy, the position became most critical, for the 
 endowment of most of the Church schools had also 
 disappeared, the teaching staff were required to take 
 the oath, and in a very brief space of time many 
 schools and colleges were closed, without any provision 
 
VI.] PUBLIC INSTEUCTION DURING REVOLUTION. 163 
 
 having been made to replace them. In consequence, 
 spontaneous anarchy spread to the department of 
 education, with the final result that during the ten 
 years that elapsed between 1789 and 1799 the number 
 of students in the eighty-eight central establishments 
 opened by the State sank from seventy-two thousand 
 to seven or eight thousand, the primary schools existed 
 only on paper, the thread of tradition as regards both 
 secular and religious instruction was broken, and a 
 whole generation had to content itself with such crumbs 
 of education as might be picked up at home or by 
 a lucky chance. Talleyrand's suggestion, made on the 
 13th of October, 1790, that "the King should be peti- 
 tioned to enforce the continuance of their accustomed 
 studies by the young during the ensuing year, and then 
 give orders for the preservation and maintenance of the 
 churches, monuments, art treasures, libraries, manu- 
 scripts, etc., now declared national property," remained 
 a dead letter, like most of the decrees of the Con- 
 stituent Assembly. His appeal in 1790, " qu'il ne 
 faut rien detruire sans le remplacer promptement," 
 was indeed vox clamiantis in deserto. 
 
 The main outlines of his report on the proposals 
 made with regard to education were already marked 
 out. The National Assembly had decided that in- 
 struction should be universal but gratuitous only in 
 respect of such knowledge as is indispensable to all. 
 
 INIirabeau was the last to take a line of his own. 
 
 vl 
 
164 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 His posthumous papers, probably composed by the 
 Genevese Keybaz and published by Cabanis, entrust 
 the supervision of all schools to the administrative 
 authorities of the departments. The idea was a most 
 revolutionary one, for it placed education at the mercy 
 of political passions, but his plan did not include either 
 obligatory or gratuitous instruction. 
 
 Talleyrand's scheme, developed in a lengthy speech on 
 the 10th of September, 1791, substitutes moral teaching 
 for the catechism, and constitutional rights for dogma. 
 It educates the child as the future sovereign, and puts 
 in his hand the rights of man instead of the Gospel. 
 Instruction in " the elements of religion " is retained 
 in Talleyrand's school. The three grades of the 
 administrative hierarchy, the commune, the district, 
 and the department, serve as counterparts for the 
 threefold division of primary school, lyceum, and 
 University, crowned by the Institute and its inspectors 
 as controlling authority. Freedom of instruction, 
 gratuitous primary education, cultivation of the fine 
 arts, national festivals and dramatic performances at 
 the expense of the State, give an artistic finish to 
 the design, in the harmonious proportions of which 
 the hand of the mathematician Desrenaudes is sup- 
 posed to be easily recognisable. Talleyrand only 
 praises his skill in picking the brains of other people, 
 and mentions, not him, but Lavoisier, Laplace, 
 Lagrange, Condorcet, Monge, Vicq d'Azir, and La Harpe 
 
VI.] POLITICAL EIGHTS OF WOMEN. 165 
 
 as the men whose advice he sought in carrying out 
 his task. It is not very difficult to determine their 
 share in it. Condorcet contributes his favourite doc- 
 trine of perfectibility, reserving his idea of a universal 
 language for another occasion. The physician Vicq 
 d'Azir has a clearly-outlined vision of the establish- 
 ment of a Ministry of Public Health connected with 
 the faculty of medicine. 
 
 In the introductory portion of his report Talleyrand 
 himself refers with rhetorical exaggeration to the 
 barbarism of the state of things which he had set 
 himself to reform. With the frivolous irony of a 
 Voltairian he provides the ecclesiastical schools of the 
 future with a plan of instruction in theology, " which 
 is no science," and a programme of Christian morals, 
 " which teach complete equality." Women are placed 
 on an equality with men in regard to political rights 
 as well as means of education, and then, " for the sake 
 of the happiness and well-being of both sexes," the 
 right conceded in theory is withdrawn in practice. 
 This explains how it was that Mary Wolstonecraft 
 came to write the " letter to the late Bishop of Autun," 
 which deserves to be preserved as a model of unconscious 
 absurdity, dedicating to Talleyrand the book in which 
 the rights of women are for the first time advocated. 
 
 The reading of Talleyrand's report occupied three 
 days, the 10th, 11th, and 25th of September ; by the 
 30th the Constituent Assembly had disappeared from 
 
166 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch- 
 
 the scene, leaving the completion of the task to its 
 successor, the Legislative Assembly. 
 
 The latter never took it up, and Talleyrand's report 
 was consigned to oblivion as a literary production for 
 the space of ten years. Of his advisers Condorcet was 
 the only one who became, on the 28th of October, 1791, 
 a member of the new education committee, which went 
 its own way and propounded its wild schemes without 
 rseorting to the aid of experience or taking account 
 of circumstances. The plan which Condorcet sub- 
 mitted to the committee established a republic of 
 savants divided into five classes, " for the perfecting 
 of human reason in general," to be paid by the State, 
 but not controlled by it. All instruction was to be 
 entirely gratuitous — ^this on the eve of bankruptcy — 
 and the same for both sexes ; religion no longer 
 appears, and the school is atheistic. Lanthenas after- 
 wards constructed an edifice on the same foundations 
 under the Convention. The schemes put forward by 
 Lakanal and Sieyes were not possessed of greater 
 vitality than his. It was not till the year IV, that 
 the former Oratorian Daunou succeeded in passing the 
 decree of the 3rd Brumaire, which failed, not through 
 its own intrinsic inadequacy, but for lack of the 
 necessary funds and the required staff of teachers, 
 and, above all, owing to the absence of confidence in 
 a regime which had lost its ideal of duty as well as 
 its religious convictions. 
 
VI.] PUBLIC INSTRUCTION UNDER NAPOLEON. 167 
 
 It was not reserved for the discredited survivors of 
 the Convention, or the used-up nonentities of the 
 Directory, to settle this question ; the iron grasp of 
 Bonaparte fastened on the rising generation, and out 
 of the soft material of youth moulded the Frenchman 
 of the Empire, who, whether soldier or priest, official 
 or savant, was pressed into the service of the masterful 
 genius who organised his system of instruction as 
 he did his army, and proclaimed with the infallible 
 instinct of the despot : " L'education publique c'est 
 I'avenir et la duree de mon oeuvre apres moi." In 
 1802 and 1806 Talleyrand's ideas reappeared under 
 Napoleon's sway, and in the plan of the Imperial 
 University, which combined all public instruction, 
 from the primary school up to the Institute, into one 
 harmonious whole, and placed it under one centralised 
 government. Conceived in the style and sentiment 
 of 1789, and designed as a bulwark against the en- 
 croachments of tyranny, in the hands of the First 
 Consul and Emperor his proposals proved an unrivalled 
 instrument of arbitrary power. The idol of the 
 Revolution, that ideal of equality, which absolute 
 Monarchy had long ago called into being, and even 
 Talleyrand's rhetoric honours with a passing tribute, 
 placed a whole people under the heel of the last of 
 the Csesars, while the despotism of egalitaire centrali- 
 sation has outlived the despot. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Talleyrand's missions to London. 
 
 1792. 
 
 TD Y a final suicidal decree the Constituent Assembly 
 -^^^ had prohibited its members from seeking election 
 to the next three Legislative Assemblies, and from 
 taking office for two years after its dissolution. The 
 disqualification came upon Talleyrand at a juncture 
 when the foreign policy of France was exercising a 
 preponderating influence on its internal concerns. 
 
 As far back as the end of 1790 the conduct of 
 foreign affairs had been to a great extent in the hands 
 of the diplomatic committee and its reporter Mirabeau. 
 His views are well known. Exchange of territory and 
 extension of frontiers he opposed as mere expedients 
 of arbitrary authority. A system of alliances, based 
 on mutual economic advantages, was to replace the 
 dynastic policy of feudal Europe. Mirabeau's stepson 
 relates that the recommendation of an alliance of 
 this kind between France and England was the dying 
 man's legacy to Talleyrand. The latter succeeded him 
 in the diplomatic committee, and it was through his 
 
 168 
 
VII] FOREIGN POLICY OP CONSTITUTIONALISTS. 169 
 
 influence that the Constituent Assembly made the 
 abandonment of foreign conquest a fundamental law 
 of the State. 
 
 As late as the autumn of 1791 this policy seemed to 
 have every prospect of success. Moutmorin, the King's 
 jNIinister and friend, supported it from conviction, and 
 from motives of moderation, as the tradition of 
 Vergennes and the best safeguard of the Monarchy. 
 The Constitutionalists, who were committed to peace, 
 had, after the flight to Varennes, replaced the King, 
 who was at first suspended and then pardoned, on the 
 throne, put down the insurrection, and proved that 
 in 1791 only a dwindling minority of Frenchmen was 
 in favour of a republic. They persuaded Louis XVI. 
 to take the oath to the constitution, which he had 
 shortly before declared to be unworkable, an opinion 
 shared by those who had framed it. The revolutionist 
 Barnave and the conservative Malouet agreed that, if 
 it was impossible to govern with it, then the conflict 
 must end by strengthening the executive, unless the 
 country was to become a prey to anarchy. There was 
 no difficulty in getting Louis XVI. to issue a formal 
 condemnation of the emigrants at Coblenz, where the 
 Queen was detested, his own authority set at naught, 
 and intrigue had assumed the proportions of rebellion. 
 As regards the attitude of the European powers, the 
 three greatest historians of the Revolution, Sybel, 
 Taine, and Sorel, have demonstrated convincingly that 
 
170 LIFE OF TALLEYRASD. [Ch, 
 
 both Eussia and Prussia were not directing their 
 
 attention to war with France but to Polish affairs, 
 
 that the Empi-ess Catharine wished to entangle 
 
 Prussia in the conflict in order to have a free hand 
 
 in Poland, that the Emperor Leopold did all in his 
 
 power to avoid warlike measures against France or 
 
 to reduce them to a minimum, and that England's 
 
 aims were not less peaceful, provided Antwerp and 
 
 Amsterdam were not threatened. As long as France 
 
 did not obtain access to the Dutch frontier by the 
 
 conquest of Belgium, Pitt, who was bound by treaties 
 
 to Holland, remained a resolute adherent of peace. In 
 
 the words of his latest biographer, he held aloof " with 
 
 ostentatious ignorance " from French complications : 
 
 and, besides, it was not the interest of England to 
 
 check the process of disintegration which had set in 
 
 in France. This had already borne fruit in the 
 
 autumn of 1790, in the settlement of the dispute with 
 
 Spain, and had at the same time led to the termination 
 
 of the family agreement of 1762, a result due simply 
 
 to the refusal of the Constituent Assembly to render 
 
 any assistance to its ally Spain. A successful war 
 
 would have been less advantageous to England than 
 
 a neutrality of this kind. The Emperor Leopold took 
 
 his stand on the unwarlike attitude of France when 
 
 rejecting the impatient demands of the princes in 
 
 Coblenz for armed intervention and his sister's entreaty 
 
 for an armed congress. The few weeks that elapsed 
 
VII.] EEVOLUTIONARY PKOPAGANDA. 171 
 
 between September and November 1791 sufficed to 
 scatter all these hopes of peace to the winds. 
 
 By the side of the official policy of the Constituent 
 Assembly there had existed another, the advocates of 
 which held that a propaganda of the Eevolution and a 
 crusade against the old feudal monarchies, with the 
 object of bringing freedom to the nations, was a neces- 
 sary consequence of the declaration of the rights of 
 man. Anarcharsis Clootz reduced it to a caricature ; 
 La Fayette was coquetting with it when the Eevolution 
 broke out in Belgium ; Brissot, the author of the 
 apophthegm " la propriete c'est le vol," preached it in 
 the Jacobin Club; Si eyes dilated in 1790 on all the 
 advantages of a rupture with England, and the Consti- 
 tuent Assembly transformed all these tendencies into 
 action by uniting, in virtue of the new principles of 
 1789, the papal enclaves of Avignon and the Venaissin 
 to France, " by desire of the majority of the popula- 
 tion," but at the cost of a frightful massacre. As is well 
 known, it was the only one of all the French annexa- 
 tions which England was to recognise at the Congress 
 of Vienna! This took place on the 13th of September. 
 A few weeks afterwards the Legislative Assembly, or, 
 to speak more correctly, the Gironde, was in power. 
 The Constitutionalists had dwindled down to a small 
 minority ; the Centre, which held the same views, 
 yielded to intimidation. Kobespierre was master in 
 the Jacobin Club ; Danton was the leader of the Paris 
 
172 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 demagogues, and, great as was the mutual hatred and 
 distrust of the various groups, all were united in one 
 common aim, the destruction of the Monarchy, an 
 object to be compassed, according to the Gironde, with 
 all the greater certainty by a policy of religious per- 
 secution at home and war abroad. 
 
 On the 8th of November was passed the resolution 
 decreeing the penalties of death and confiscation of 
 property against all emigrants who had not returned to 
 France by the 1st of January, 1792. On the 29th of 
 November the Assembly demanded the removal of the 
 emigrants from the frontier, the cessation of their arma- 
 ments, the reorganisation of the diplomatic service, and 
 the formation of an army, in order to carry out. if need 
 be, by force, what could not be effected by negotiation. 
 On the same day it required all priests to take the oath, 
 whether in receipt of a stipend from the State or not, 
 and made all who refused to take it liable to suspension, 
 loss of stipend, and expulsion. 
 
 Its next step was to ask the Directory of the Depart- 
 ment of Paris for a list of suspected priests — the future 
 proscription list — and to assist in criminal proceedings 
 against them. The Directory refused both. Several 
 of its members went further, and in a special petition 
 addressed to the King begged him to counteract the 
 intrigues of the emigration and the reaction, but to 
 withhold his consent to the decree against the priests 
 of November 29th. The petition was signed by 
 
VII.] NARBONNE MINISTER OF WAR. 173 
 
 Beaumetz, Desmeuniers, La Rochefoucauld, and Talley- 
 rand. It referred with a forced optimism to the situa- 
 tion in Paris and the state of the public mind as " aussi 
 rassurantes que Votre Majeste peut le desirer," but 
 contained the following passage in reference to the 
 religious troubles : " Un siecle entier de philosophie 
 n'aurait-il done servi qu'a nous ramener a I'intolerance 
 du seizieme siecle par les routes memes de la liberte ? . . . 
 Puisqu'aucune religion n'est une loi, qu'aucune religion 
 ne soit un crime." Louis XVI. vetoed the decrees 
 which would have forced him to send his brothers to 
 the scaffold and condemn his priests to poverty and 
 exile, but had to look helplessly on while forty-three 
 departments defied his authority with impunity. 
 
 On the 21st of November Montmorin, unable to resist 
 the repeated attacks and insinuations directed against 
 him, resigned. He was succeeded by De Lessart, a medi- 
 ocrity. The leading spirit now was the new Minister 
 of War, Count Louis de Narbonne. A diplomatist of 
 the old school, the negotiator of the Austrian alliance 
 of 1756, Bernis, now ambassador in Rome, wrote the 
 following contemptuous remarks when he heard of the 
 appointment : " Nous verrons s'il suffira de boire du 
 vin de Champagne, de deshonorer des femmes et de faire 
 des dettes pour remplacer Monsieur de Louvois." On 
 the other hand, Narbonne was one of the trio designated 
 by Mirabeau as possessing his confidence, the other two 
 being Talleyrand and Lauzun. In 1790 he was in 
 
174 LIFE OF TALLEYKAND. [Ch. 
 
 command at Besan9on, where bj dint of tact and firm- 
 ness he succeeded in quelling the religious disturbances 
 without bloodshed. He then escorted the aunts of 
 Louis XVI. safely to Eome, a service which gained for 
 him the sympathies, if not the confidence, of the King. 
 As Minister he now determined on playing a desperate 
 game. 
 
 The Constitutionahsts, now called " Feuillants " after 
 their new club, were opposed to war, because they feared 
 what the Grironde hoped, and, like the latter, held that 
 a defeat in the field would lead to the fall of the 
 Monarchy. Nor had the moment arrived for the 
 Jacobins to identify themselves with war : they still 
 shared Robespierre's apprehension that the reorganisa- 
 tion of the army and restoration of discipline might 
 serve to consolidate the royal power. War above all 
 and before all was, on the other hand, the constant 
 cry of Brissot, Condorcet, Isnard, and Madame Roland, 
 all spokesmen of the Gironde, for only by war could 
 the constitution fall and the King along with it. 
 
 At this point Narbonne carried out his surprise, and 
 went over to the Gironde, taking the Feuillants with 
 him. If war was the order of the day, then it was better 
 that the King should take the initiative and risk the 
 consequences. If his enemies, the Jacobins, were right, 
 then he might be saved by war and settle his account 
 with the Gironde ; if he remained inactive he was 
 lost. The 4th of December was the^date of Narbonne's 
 
VII.] POLICY OF NARBONNE. 175 
 
 appointment. Ten days later the King declared himself 
 on the side of the nation as against the foreigner, 
 summoned the Elector of Treves to disband the army 
 of emigrants within fourteen days, and ordered one 
 hundred and fifty thousand men to be raised and 
 divided into three corps, under Eochambeau in Lille, 
 Luckner on the Rhine, and La Fayette in Metz. 
 
 The demonstration was directed against the Emperor. 
 Narbonne reverted to the tradition of the old Monarchy, 
 the opposition to the House of Austria which had 
 been suspended in 1756. He was in hopes that he 
 might by this means at the same time predispose the 
 anti-Austrian Prussophil England in favour of France, 
 and so pave the way for the alliance which, combined 
 with the rapprochement with Prussia, formed the key- 
 stone of his policy. To carry it into effect the assist- 
 ance of an adroit diplomatist was required. Narbonne 
 thought at once of Talleyrand, who, all official channels 
 being barred to him, thus found the desired side path 
 leading back into public life. 
 
 His star was not in the ascendant when this tm-n 
 of affairs came. To escape from the difficulties of his 
 new position he had thought of the ambassadorship 
 in Vienna, and then of that in Constantinople ; the 
 latter did not become vacant, because his friend 
 Choiseul declined the Ministry offered to him, and 
 Talleyrand was so detested in Vienna that a secret 
 mission thither of his confidant the Abb^ Louis in 
 
176 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 August failed because it had been connected with his 
 name. Even his relations with Narbonne had recently 
 been somewhat clouded by reports as to his intimacy 
 with Madame de Stael, who addressed to him the 
 passage in " Delphine " : " Midway in your life you 
 miet the young woman who offered you her first friend- 
 ship, a sentiment well-nigh as deep and heai'tfelt as a 
 first love." Her feelings towards him, which were of a 
 passionate nature, as was always the case with her, had 
 been misconstrued, and she had to exert all her peculiar 
 power of conciliation to put the two men on their old 
 terms. A further difficulty of Talleyrand's position 
 was that his tolerant views in the religious question 
 had lost him his popularity without propitiating the 
 royalists. After Mirabeau's death it was not he but 
 Cabanis, the mouthpiece of Siey^s, who was entrusted 
 with the task of keeping up communications with the 
 Court. Danton was then in the pay of the Court and 
 of the Duke of Orleans, and towards the end of the 
 year declined further offers of the King with the 
 cynical remark that it was too late : " Nous le detro- 
 nerons et puis nous le tuerons." Even INIontmorin 
 preferred to deal with A. de Lameth and Duport rather 
 than with Talleyrand. In a postscript appended by 
 the Austrian ambassador Mercy to a report made by 
 Pellenc to de la Marck about this time, the Bishop 
 is spoken of as one of the "trois grands sc^ldrats de 
 I'Assemblee constituante." When shortly afterwards 
 
VII.] ATTACKED BY ROYALISTS AND DEMAGOGUES. 177 
 
 Frederick William II. heard of the bad reception 
 which the Constitutionalist negotiator had met with 
 in London, he made no secret of his delight. The 
 hatred of the Royalists was on a par with that shown 
 in Peltier's lines, the " Actes des Apotres," where 
 Talleyrand was gibbeted as follows : — 
 
 " Froidement du mepris il affronte les traits ; 
 II conseille le vol, enseigne le parjure, 
 Et seme la discorde en annoncant la paix. 
 Sans cesse on nous redit qu'il ne pent rien produire, 
 Et que de ses discours il n'est que le lecteur. 
 Mais ce qu'un autre ecrit, c'est lui seul qui I'inspire, 
 Et Ton ne peut du moins m^connaitre son coeur." 
 
 The last lines are an allusion to the fact that Des- 
 renaudes, Dupont de Nemours, and others were con- 
 sidered to be Talleyrand's coadjutors, as Dumont, 
 Duroveray, Claviere, Reybaz, Semonville, Talon, 
 Pellenc, Lamourette, and Maret had been Mirabeau's. 
 After the publication of the address of the Department 
 of Paris to the King the invectives of the Royalists 
 were followed by the insults of the demagogues. The 
 Paris Commune had elected Petion mayor in place of 
 Bailly, and had made Manuel procurator, Roederer 
 syndic, and Danton Manuel's substitute. Thereupon 
 the Paris sections demanded the impeachment of the 
 authors of the address. 
 
 The motion was unsuccessful, but the menace re- 
 mained. " La nation est une parvenue et comme 
 telle insolente," remarked Talleyrand to Morris. He 
 
 VOL. I. 12 
 
178 LI^E OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 had never thought of escaping from his awkward 
 position by emigration. He condemned not only the 
 first political emigration, for which the Comte d'Artois 
 had given the signal against his advice, but also the 
 second departure, or, to speak more correctly, flight 
 of the nobles to the army at Coblenz and abroad, 
 as he considered such a step only justifiable when 
 life was in immediate peril. " Do not emigrate," 
 he said to the Countess de Brionne ; as the danger 
 became serious for her : " Neither Paris nor your 
 chateaux are suitable residences for you. Go to 
 some small provincial town, and endeavour to live 
 there unobserved." " Fi, Monsieur d'Autun," was 
 the reply, " paysanne tant qu'on voudra, bourgeoise 
 jamais." His own rule of conduct was to hold him- 
 self at the disposal of events. He says in the 
 Memoirs : " Pourvu que je restasse Franeais, tout 
 me convenait ; la Revolution promettait de nouvelles 
 destinies a la nation ; je la suivis dans sa marche et 
 j'en courus les chances. Je lui vouai le tribut de 
 toutes mes aptitudes, decide a servir mon pays pour 
 lui-m^me." 
 
 When the Feuillants resolved to fight the enemy 
 with his own weapons and re-establish the throne in 
 the camp, they found Talleyrand ready to join in the 
 experiment. He consented without hesitation to a 
 policy which has been compared to that to which he 
 prompted Greneral Bonaparte eight years afterwards, 
 
VII.] FOREIGN POLICY OF NARBONNE. 179 
 
 and by means of whicli he himself restored the crown 
 to the brother of Louis XVI. in 1814. The parts were 
 allotted in Madame de Stael's salon, under the roof of 
 the envoy of Grustavus of Sweden. Young Custine, son 
 of the Greneral, was sent to Brunswick via Berlin, to 
 enlist the influence of Prince Henry of Prussia in 
 favour of an utopia, the idea of which could only have 
 occurred at a time when men who stood on the thres- 
 hold of a five-and-twenty years' war still fancied them- 
 selves working at the formation of a brotherhood of 
 peoples. The Duke of Brunswick, the darling of the 
 philosophers and — a notable point to the adherents 
 of the English alliance — the husband of an English 
 princess, was to be won over to the cause of France and 
 take the supreme command of her armies. His hatred 
 of Austria was well known, and it was considered a great 
 move in the game to deprive the other side of its best 
 general. " You will be told," wrote Narbonne, " that 
 the French constitution, which you would have to 
 engage to maintain, is very defective ; but, such as it 
 is, it undoubtedly marks a great epoch in the history 
 of the human mind, and it is not fair to pronounce 
 a verdict upon it so long as it has only been seen 
 working in the midst of the commotions of civil 
 war. For civil war is really upon us, although the 
 words themselves have not yet been uttered. The 
 French people is ready to perish under the ruins of 
 this constitution." 
 
180 LIFE OF TALLEYEAND. [Ch. 
 
 Strange to say, the Duke of Brunswick was far 
 better informed than Narbonne on this very point. 
 The latter was not aware that the Duke had simul- 
 taneously with his assurances received a communica- 
 tion from Sieyes, which, in direct contravention of the 
 constitution, actually held out a prospect of the French 
 Crown in case of victory. The Duke declined all 
 these tempting offers by referring to his engagements 
 to Prussia, and subsequently contributed to the 
 success of the French arms only by his procrastinating 
 strategy. While this was going on in Brunswick 
 Barbe-Marbois was ordered to tranquillise the small 
 German courts, and make them understand the ad- 
 vantages of an alliance of the nations. Barthelemy 
 was sent to Switzerland with the same object ; 
 Talleyrand and Biron compared their experiences of 
 the days of Mirabeau's mission to Berlin in dis- 
 cussing the best mode of bribing the entourage of 
 Frederick William. "If we can get the King of 
 Prussia on our side, we are masters of the situation," 
 wrote Talleyrand ; " in that case the constitution 
 will assert its vitality and confidence will revive. 
 The attitude of Prussia will decide that of the 
 Emperor." 
 
 These attempts failed owing to the divisions pre- 
 vailing in the counsels of the Crown. De Lessart, in- 
 fluenced by Barnave, who, moved by her tragic fate 
 and the contemplation of her grief, had become 
 
VII.] FOEEIGX POLICY OF THE JACOBINS. 181 
 
 attached to the Queen after the Varennes incident, 
 clung to the hope of maintaining peace by means of 
 an armed congress. He sent Count Segur as ambas- 
 sador to Berlin to obtain neutrality instead of an 
 alliance. But Segur was disavowed behind his back 
 as an agent of revolutionary propaganda by the secret 
 diplomacy of Louis XVI. under Breteuil, and at the 
 same time another secret emissary, named Jarry, in 
 the employ of Talleyrand and Biron, submitted a 
 request for an alliance instead of neutrality to the 
 Ministers in Berlin. It was now too late for the one 
 as well as the other. 
 
 The Emperor had made the Elector of Treves 
 disband the army of emigrants, but had at the same 
 time declared that he would come to his assistance if 
 he were attacked by France notwithstanding. On 
 the 20th of January, 1792, Noailles, the French ambas- 
 sador in Vienna, reported that there would be no war 
 if France did not declare it. 
 
 Eobespierre, who had changed his mind, now turned 
 the scale. He too wanted war, he declared defiantly 
 to the Grironde ; not a campaign conducted by cabinets, 
 controlled by kings, and under the command of a 
 Narbonne or a La Fayette, but a triumphal march of 
 the nation for the liberation of peoples. The Gironde, 
 suspected and menaced, replied to his challenge by 
 another, and informed the Assembly of the plots of 
 Austria and the " Austrian committee." The Jacobins 
 
182 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 attacked the Monarchy, the Girondists threw over the 
 Queen, and provoked the treaty between Austria 
 and Prussia of February 7th, 1792, by demanding 
 from the Emperor, who had just done their bidding 
 and dispersed the gatherings of emigrants, a solemn 
 promise to abstain from all hostilities until the 1st 
 of March, with the intimation that refusal or silence 
 would be considered tantamount to a declaration 
 of war. 
 
 This 1st of March was the day of the Emperor's 
 death. On the 16th Gustavus III., the only dis- 
 interested friend of the French Monarchy, fell by 
 the dagger of an assassin, and the young Emperor, 
 Francis II., was confronted with a question the settle- 
 ment of which threw even French affairs into the 
 background. 
 
 The Empress Catharine, who had concluded peace with 
 the Turks at Jassy on the 9th of January, now directed 
 her troops towards Poland, while her diplomatists in 
 Berlin offered Prussia a share of the spoil if the latter 
 would consent to the third and last partition. Prussia 
 was bound to Poland by the treaties of March 29th, 
 1790, and February 7th, 1792, the latter guaranteeing 
 the integrity of the Eepublic. Austria at the same 
 time demanded from Prussia a guarantee of the 
 Polish constitution of 1791, and recognition of the 
 Elector of Saxony's hereditary title. The Austrian 
 proposals were declined, and those of the Empress 
 
VII.] FIRST MISSION TO LONDON. 183 
 
 accepted. Thus was consummated the gran rifiuto, 
 by which the two great continental powers destined 
 to combat the Eevolution entered on a course which 
 was not less revolutionary than that of their French 
 opponents. 
 
 While these events were following each other on 
 the Continent, Talleyrand, who was selected for the 
 most important of the missions, had arrived in London 
 on the 24th of January, where Hirsinger, the French 
 charge d'affaires, had orders to support him in every 
 way. He was also the bearer of a letter from De Lessart 
 to Lord Grenville, which stated that the ex-Bishop of 
 Autun was visiting England on his own private affairs, 
 but that his profound knowledge of the political situa- 
 tion rendered it desirable that the Foreign Secretary 
 should confer with him. Talleyrand was accompanied 
 by Lauzun, Due de Biron, whose pretext for the journey 
 was the purchase of horses for the army, and had letters 
 of introduction from Dumont to the Opposition, espe- 
 cially to Lord Lansdowne. Hirsinger took Talleyrand 
 to Pitt, who confined himself to formal politeness, but 
 did not forget their old acquaintance in 1783. On the 
 1st of February Talleyrand was presented to the King, 
 who took hardly any notice of him ; and on the 
 following day the Queen turned her back upon him, 
 which was the signal for the intentional slights put 
 upon him by the fashionable world. Under the im- 
 pression of his first conversations with the Liberals, 
 
184 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 Talleyrand had written to Paris that " a rapprochement 
 with England was by no means hopeless." A few 
 days later he was obliged to admit that fair words and 
 plausible statements were an inadequate foundation 
 for it. "We address the powers of northern Europe 
 with one hundred and fifty thousand men at our back. 
 A naval demonstration is the only language which 
 England understands. ... A bare neutrality, un- 
 accompanied by any formal declaration thereof, is of 
 no use to us." 
 
 These first reports were written under the im- 
 pression that he might succeed in influencing the 
 Government through public opinion, sui^posed to be 
 favourable to the French, and through the Opposition 
 in Parliament, and then win over the Cabinet by 
 means of offers of territory. The cession of the 
 island of Tobago was mooted in France. According 
 to well-informed persons, such as Barou Stael and 
 Morris, the surrender of even some French fortresses 
 was to be held out as a guarantee. But Burke had 
 long since roused the English conscience in accents 
 of thunder, declaring that it was liberty which was 
 menaced in France, and bidding his fellow-country- 
 men repudiate all comparison between the Revolution 
 of 1688 and that of 17<'<9 as an insult to England. 
 According to Macaulay, nine-tenths of those who had 
 a roof over their head and a coat to their back 
 were violently anti-Jacobin. The anti-Austrian pro- 
 
VII.] FIRST INTERVIEW WITH LORD GREXVILLE. 185 
 
 revolntiouary i3olicy of Fox could only hope for 
 success if sni^ported by pnblic opinion, wliicli showed 
 itself daily more averse to it, and in January — 
 February 1 892 the French charge (V affaires described 7 
 Pitt's influence as " well-nigh absolute." Talleyrand 
 was instructed to press for a declaration of neu- 
 trality even in case France should find herself com- 
 pelled to advance into the Austrian Netherlands, 
 " as a military precaution against the aggression of 
 the Emperor." He was also ordered to ask for ex- 
 planations as to the line which George III. in his 
 capacity of Elector of Hanover intended to take with 
 his thirty or forty thousand troops in the impending 
 conflict. 
 
 His first interview with Lord Grenville, on the 
 17th of February, was a lengthy one. He referred 
 to his own position, to the calumnies with which he 
 had been assailed, to his devotion to a monarchical 
 constitution and to the cause of liberty and equality. 
 He said that he had come as the representative of a 
 policy which had always regarded England as the 
 natural ally of France. But, he added, England 
 should be under no illusion as to the state of afiairs 
 in France. Nothing could now stifle the spirit of 
 freedom which had arisen there. England, he urged, 
 should rise superior to petty considerations and 
 recognise this fact, and think only of the future, with 
 its common principles and interests for both coun- 
 
186 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch 
 
 tries. To promote this object Talleyraud proposed 
 a treaty with mutual guarantee of the status quo, 
 in India as well as iu Ireland, the former of 
 which was threatened with war, and the latter 
 with internal commotion. Lord Grenville listened 
 to him attentively, assured him that England's 
 intentions were thoroughly peaceful and that she 
 was well disposed towards France, but stated that 
 he had no power to negotiate with a person who had 
 no authority whatever to treat himself. Talley- 
 rand interpreted this remark in an optimist sense 
 as guaranteeing a neutrality de facto, and sent 
 assurances of a most tranquillisiug character to 
 Paris. 
 
 In the meanwhile he met with annoyances in 
 London of an altogether unforeseen kind. Biron had 
 been gambling and had lost enormous sums, and 
 could only be released from prison with the greatest 
 difficulty. At the same time the English Press, 
 especially the Times, published a series of attacks on 
 Talleyraud, which were inspired by his opponents 
 in Paris, and made his position in society all the 
 more difficult by representing him as in constant 
 intercourse with Thomas Paine, Home Tooke, and 
 men of similar opinions. Observant and silent, he 
 managed to shelter himself behind a barrier of 
 frigid reserve, and his pallor and taciturnity excited 
 general remark. The news from Paris was not of a 
 
VII.] RETURNS TO PARIS. 187 
 
 nature to compensate him for his worries in London. 
 " We are on the eve of complete dissolution," 
 wrote Narbonne ; " mistrust has reached its extreme 
 limit, and the war which we once had such good 
 reason to dread is probably our last glimmer of 
 hope." 
 
 Under these circumstances the success of Talleyrand's 
 semi-official mission was almost hopeless, but the 
 energy with which he clung to his forlorn hope excites 
 our admiration. "If we do not appear to believe in 
 our Revolution ourselves," he wrote to De Lessart, 
 " how can we inspire confidence in others ? " " Je 
 vous exhorte a vous tuer ou a vous unir ; il n'y a que 
 cela de sur et de loyal." In long and eloquent de- 
 spatches he endeavoured to give his incapable chief an 
 idea of what he himself understood by diplomacy. He 
 never mentions Louis XVI. With English politicians 
 he alluded to the Revolution as a fact which nothing 
 could ever upset. On the 8th of March De Lessart 
 summoned him to a conference at Paris ; on the 10th 
 of March he arrived there, accompanied by Dumont 
 and Duroveray, and at the barriers the travellers were 
 informed that Narbonne had been dismissed by the 
 King, and that De Lessart was to be impeached on 
 the motion of Brissot. " People were surprised," writes 
 Dumont, " that the King was in a position to disgrace 
 any one." The cause was an intrigue, in which 
 Madame de Stael was mixed up, with the object 
 
188 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 of placing Narbonne at the head of the Ministry 
 of Foreign Affairs. The Gironde had frustrated 
 his plans for the reorganisation of the army, and 
 Louis XVI. refused to proceed to ]Metz with his 
 adherents, under the protection of La Fayette, for 
 the purpose of framing a constitution and declaring 
 a war in accordance with his desires. The Feuil- 
 lants had thus played their trump card, and their 
 Ministers succumbed to the denunciations of the 
 Grironde, which now supplied the King with his new 
 advisers. Claviere of Geneva, the friend of Mirabeau, 
 became Finance Minister ; while General Dumouriez, 
 Gensonn^'s friend, received the portfolio of Foreign 
 Affairs. 
 
 The latter had served his apprenticeship as agent 
 of the secret diplomacy of Louis XV. In private life 
 he was, like Narbonne and Biron in their sphere, an 
 adventurer of abilities, for whom the Revolution was 
 above all things a career. He detested Austria, was 
 bent on war, and removed the scene of it to Belgium. 
 Sorel notices how Dumouriez, trained in the old tactics 
 of French statecraft, simply used the political traditions 
 of the Monarchy under Louis XIV. to promote the 
 propaganda of the Revolution. He had been in 
 Belgium in 1790, and knew from his own personal 
 observation that the burghers of Brabant, confronted 
 with the choice between Austria and the Jacobins, 
 would rather draw the sword for the former than the 
 
VII.] POLICY OF DUMOURIEZ.. 189 
 
 latter. Accordingly, Belgium was not to be conquered, 
 but placed under a French protectorate as a federated 
 republic. In this way, so Dumouriez hoped, England 
 might be brought to recognise the fait accompli, and 
 a rising in Holland would be avoided. He sent young 
 Custine once more to Berlin, to demonstrate the 
 necessity of the traditional alliance with France against 
 Austria. Other agents were instructed to win ov^er 
 the German Courts and assure the neutrality of Sweden 
 and Denmark. The territory of Milan was dangled 
 before the eyes of the King of Sardinia. Spain would 
 keep quiet if England only remained neutral, and that 
 Tallej'rand answered for. He found Dumouriez's ideas 
 in harmony with his own : " absolument a la revolution, 
 toujours a I'id^e d'attaquer. Tout ce qui nous tourmente 
 dans I'interieur I'y porte." Siey^s introduced the 
 Bishop to Brissot and the Gironde. The young 
 INIarquis de Chauvelin was appointed ambassador in 
 London at his suggestion. The litterateur Garat, 
 " un ecolier en vacances," as Talleyrand calls him, 
 Duroveray of Geneva, and a young Swabian theologian, 
 by name Keinhard, who had become a Frenchman, 
 were given him as colleagues. The real plenipotentiary 
 was Talleyrand. 
 
 In De Lessart's despatches he had felt the want of 
 a certain " noblesse de style." He now, as it would 
 appear, drafted the instructions by means of which 
 Dumouriez hoped to win over the English cabinet to 
 
190 LIE'E OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 the French proposals for an alHance. In them France 
 offered a provisional guarantee of the possessions of 
 each country, a common continental and colonial 
 policy, the conclusion of a commercial treaty, and the 
 cession of Tobago. In addition to this Talleyrand was 
 the bearer of a letter from Louis XVI. to George III., 
 which laid stress on the value of the alliance as a 
 means of " dictating peace to Europe." A second 
 ultimatum, couched in a tone of aggressive insolence, 
 was addressed to Austria ; and on the 20th of April 
 appeared the declaration of war which had been 
 extorted fi-om Louis XVI. It was intended for the 
 kings, as Merlin de Thionville triumphantly re- 
 marked; with the peoples of Europe France wished 
 for peace. 
 
 Talle}Tand and the members of his mission still 
 lingered in Paris, " M, de Talleyrand s'amuse, M. de 
 Chauvelin boude, M. Duroveray marchande," said 
 Dumouriez to Dumont, and threatened to appoint other 
 plenipotentiaries in their place. On the 29th of April, 
 while the army of the North was crossing the Belgian 
 frontier, the French negotiators arrived in London. 
 The day before Pitt had trauquillised the openly 
 expressed apprehensions of the public with the semi- 
 official assurance that peace was not endangered either 
 at home or abroad. Two days after Chauvelin had 
 delivered the confidential letter of Louis XVI., French 
 journals published the text of it in London, which 
 
VII.] SECOND MISSION TO LONDON. 191 
 
 naturally produced the most intense annoyance there. 
 In vain Talleyrand implored his fellow-countrymen 
 to be guided by reason, and warned them of the 
 danger of insulting the English Ministry every day 
 in the papers, the clubs, and from the tribune, of 
 publishing confidential documents, of counting on a 
 revolutionary rising in London, and confounding the 
 English opposition with the Eevolution. His own 
 greatest difficulty was that, as on the occasion of his 
 first mission, he was obliged to confine his intercourse 
 to Fox, Sheridan, and their friends, with whom 
 Chauvelin compromised himself with utter want of 
 tact, and in a style which would never have been 
 tolerated so long in any other place. 
 
 In spite of all this, he was able to report one success. 
 While the French offensive campaign opened with dis- 
 graceful defeats, while Dumouriez's negotiations failed 
 in Berlin, could not even be begun in Turin, and were 
 declined in Madrid, in London, on the 25th of May, a 
 royal proclamation appeared, prescribing measures in 
 conformity with the neutral position of England. A 
 note of the same date from Lord Grenville to Chauvelin 
 regretted the war, promised observance of existing 
 treaties, and expressed a wish that the friendly 
 relations between the two countries might be main- 
 tained by respect on the part of France for the rights 
 of England and her allies. This was not an alliance 
 such as Dumouriez had hoped for, but at all events 
 
192 LIFE OF TALLEYKAND. [Ch. 
 
 it was an assurance of neutrality on certain defined 
 conditions, and the only bright spot in the chaotic 
 confusion produced by French diplomatic intrigue. 
 Talleyrand had attained his object by exceeding his 
 instructions, and by meeting the English Cabinet, 
 whose efforts were directed to the maintenance of 
 peace, with assurances which excluded all idea of 
 proselytism and propaganda : " How," he wrote home 
 on the 23rd of May, " can we stigmatise Austria's 
 intervention in our affairs as a breach of inter- 
 national law, if we do not ourselves refrain from 
 all such proceedings in our dealings with friendly 
 or neutral Powers, and especially with England, 
 which has always observed the rules of conduct 
 which should govern relations with a friendly neigh- 
 bouring state, and has never interfered in our domestic 
 troubles ? " 
 
 The Grovemment in Paris was unable to appreciate 
 this wise advice, and besides would not have had the 
 power of acting upon it. Instead of contenting him- 
 self with the success achieved, Dumom'iez became very 
 uneasy, and demanded further explanations as to the 
 attitude which Greorge III. proposed to take up in his 
 capacity of Elector of Hanover, in case of a declaration 
 of war, as to England's intentions if Holland were to 
 intervene in Belgium in opposition to the French, 
 and finally as to the meaning of the expression 
 " England's allies " used by Lord Grenville, although 
 
VII.] DIPLOMATIC DIFFICULTIES. 193 
 
 there was no doubt that they referred to Prussia and 
 Holland. 
 
 As regards Prussia, the French Government was 
 prepared to meet her in every possible way, and it was 
 not Dumouriez's fault that all his friendly advances in 
 Berlin came to nothing. As for Holland, Talleyrand 
 replied that it was not expedient to press for explana- 
 tions of a too categorical kind ; that Holland's treaties 
 with England and Austria, in regard to Belgium, were 
 of a purely defensive nature ; and that there was no 
 risk so long as France abstained from all provocation. 
 Instead of this a Bata\dan legion was armed in Paris, 
 and the revolutionising of the Netherlands encouraged. 
 The demagogues demolished the edifice which the 
 diplomatists were laboriously constructing ; the idea 
 of an invasion of Holland as the most effective weapon 
 against England, the future cry of Danton, "Prenons 
 la Hollande et Carthage est a nous," began to take in- 
 distinct shape, and Dumouriez found himself swamped 
 by the Eevolution. In Paris, where the royal family 
 was waiting for the entry of the Allies as a liberation 
 from the oppression of traitors and rebels, the old 
 pedant Poland was administering to the King reproofs 
 composed by his wife, and the Gironde endeavouring 
 to extort from him a prohibition of the summons of 
 the Federates to Paris, and a condemnation of the 
 nonjuring priests, 
 
 Dumouriez, who had arrived at the conclusion that 
 VOL. I. 13 
 
194 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Oh. 
 
 the Girondists, who had attained power by means of 
 revolution, were no longer able to control it, now 
 advised the King to dismiss his Ministers, which was 
 done on the 14th of June. On the same day he took 
 over the portfolio of War, in order, as Narbonne had done 
 before him, to redeem the failure of his diplomacy by 
 military successes at the expense of Austria in Belgium, 
 and gild the declining monarchy with the lustre of 
 victory. Two days afterwards he had ceased to be 
 Minister, and on the 20th of June the Gironde, with 
 the support of the Jacobins, replied to the King's veto 
 of their decrees and his rejection of their dictatorship 
 by inciting the mob to invade the Tuileries and the 
 Assembly. 
 
 It was no longer possible to deceive foreign countries 
 as to the state of France. On the 5th of July, Chauvelin 
 wrote to the stop-gap who had taken Dumouriez's 
 place, that it was difficult to obtain anything from 
 foreign powers so long as no one could tell who was 
 master in France. On the same day Talleyrand, in 
 order to study the situation, proceeded to Paris, where 
 he could speedily assure himself that the real master 
 was Danton, and that he had been wasting his time 
 in London. 
 
 With the cry of " La patrie en danger " the Assembly 
 insisted on war to the knife, long before the manifesto 
 of the Duke of Brunswick had raised fanaticism to the 
 boiling-point. The King, abandoned and submissive, 
 
VII.] IDEA. OF SAVING KOYAL FAMILY. 195 
 
 maintained his rejection of the latest demands of the 
 Grironde, who discussed his deposition after having 
 once more failed in an endeavour to force their 
 domination on him by means of a Ministry selected 
 by themselves. 
 
 Talleyrand's share in the events of these last weeks 
 of the Monarchy was not a passive one. The Mayor 
 of Paris, Petion, one of the most contemptible mounte- 
 banks produced by the Revolution, had brought about 
 the insurrection of June 20th by culpable com- 
 plicity, and had been suspended for it by the Depart- 
 ment of Paris. When the Assembly pronounced him 
 innocent, in spite of the grave charges against him, its 
 President, the Duke de la Rochefoucauld-d'Anville, 
 and eight of its members tendered their resignations. 
 Among the latter was Talleyrand, who relates in his 
 Memoirs that on the following morning, the anniversary 
 of July 14th and the Federation, while he was passing 
 the Tuileries with his colleagues, a gracious greeting 
 from the Queen drew on them the insults of the 
 populace. He too was preoccupied at that time with 
 the idea of saving the royal family. Like Malouet, 
 Roederer, Morris, and others, he was in the secret of 
 one of the many plans for flight made in those days. 
 His idea was to take the King and his family to 
 Rouen, where the Duke de la Rochefoucauld-Liancourt 
 was in command, and from there to England. When 
 Pdtion on the 8th of August informed the Department 
 
196 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 of Paris that he could not answer for the safety of the 
 Tuileries, Koederer communicated the fact to Talley- 
 rand, who at that moment was acting on a jury in 
 the Palais de Justice, and received the laconic note 
 "on le saura" in reply. The royal family could not 
 make up its mind. They were then in treaty with 
 some of the Girondists, and, according to La Fayette, 
 also with Danton, and in consequence thought them- 
 selves safe. On the 10th of August, when the 
 artillerists of the National Guard threw away their 
 cartridges instead of firing on Danton's mob, Beaumetz, 
 a friend of Talleyrand, and Eoederer, the syndic of the 
 Paris Commune, ad\dsed that the royal family should 
 be brought into the Assembly for greater security. 
 Talleyrand, who guaranteed the authenticity of these 
 details subsequently, was not in the chateau, and the 
 story that he suggested in writing to the President of 
 the Assembly that the royal family should be taken 
 to the Temple is equally devoid of foundation. 
 Michaud, who makes the accusation, relies on Eoederer, 
 who expressly states that the responsibility for this 
 step rests with the Commune. 
 
 A few weeks more, and no calumny was needed to 
 place Talleyrand's attitude in a more than dubious light. 
 On the 10th of August the Commune had the King, 
 the capital, the Assembly, and the Gironde at its feet, 
 and gave the reins of power into the hands of the new 
 Minister of Justice, Danton. The deputy for Arcis-sur- 
 
VII.] DANTON AND TALLEYEAND. 197 
 
 Aube was under three-and-thirty, his face marked with 
 small-pox, thick-set in figure, corrupt, turbulent, and 
 as unstable and violent as IMirabeau. What the latter 
 had been in the Constituent Assembly, that the 
 former became in the Cordeliers' club and at the head 
 of the executive in 1792. A mob favourite and born 
 tribune of the people, he was yet the only one of 
 his colleagues who possessed an instinctive faculty 
 of government, and retained statesmanlike ideas in 
 the midst of the chaotic work of destruction. Like 
 Mirabeau, who wanted constitutional monarchy and 
 could only create anarchy, so Danton wanted peace 
 and saw himself forced instead into an internecine 
 struggle. 
 
 On the 18th of August, when the dust had hardly 
 settled in the wrecked apartments of the royal chateau, 
 the provisional government issued an apology for the 
 rising of August 10th in the form of a circular addressed 
 to the Powers, and especially to England. The King, 
 so it was stated in this document, had not been able to 
 conquer the prejudices inseparable from his education, 
 and trust in his real friends. The enemies of freedom 
 had been bribed with his gold, and his intrigues had 
 undermined the foundations of the constitution ; a vast 
 plot, with its headquarters in the Tuileries, threatened 
 the existence of om' revolution and the success of our 
 arms. It was only in face of this counter-revolution 
 that the people, summoned by the tocsins and joined 
 
198 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 by hrave federes from all parts of France, had marched 
 on the royal residence, where the treachery of some 
 cowardly satellites compelled them to act in self-defence. 
 The Assembly was an eyewitness, and had almost been 
 a victim, of all this perfidy. No course was left to it 
 but to suspend the King in the interests of his own 
 personal safety, to assume power in the name of the 
 public welfare and summon a national convention. Its 
 moderation had earned the gratitude of the nation; 
 anarchy had been defeated and France now consisted of 
 only one party. The provisional government took this 
 opportunity of assuring the English people and its 
 rulers of their confidence and esteem, and of remind- 
 ing them how under similar and even more terrible 
 circmnstances they had assumed the sovereign power 
 and met with the approval of Europe. 
 
 The French publisher of this document, M. Pallain, 
 speaks of it admiringly -'as a specimen of the finest 
 language that was ever heard in the Foreign Office." 
 He does not add that it was also one of the greatest 
 insults that has ever been deliberately offered to 
 historic truth. Its author, who was no less a person 
 than Talleyrand, has been refuted more completely 
 by events than by the most trustworthy evidence. 
 " Courtisan du destin," writes Lamartine, " il accom- 
 pagnait le bonheur, il servait les forts, il meprisait les 
 maladroits, il abandonnait les malheureux." There 
 is no other possible explanation of the abrupt change 
 
VII.] TALLEYEAND'S APOLOGY FOR REVOLUTION. 199 
 
 of front which turned the signer of the protest 
 against the rising of June 20th into an apologist of 
 that of August 10th. The Monarchy was played out, 
 the policy of the moderates was lost. With the 
 masterly assurance peculiar to a man who has not a 
 conviction in the world, Talleyrand now ranged himself 
 on the side of Danton. He had ventured to stigmatise 
 the despairing resistance of eight hundred loyal Swiss 
 to twenty thousand furious assailants as " the treachery 
 of cowardly satellites." His destiny dragged him 
 deeper still, into the bloody torrent of the September 
 massacres, with which Danton inaugurated the Terror. 
 The Commune's attempt at government had already cost 
 one thousand three hundred and seventy-eight human 
 lives, among them two hundred and fifty priests, three 
 bishops, forty-three children, and one negro. Talleyrand's 
 friends had been either massacred, such as De Lessart, 
 Clermont-Tonnerre, La Rochefoucauld-d'Anville, and 
 Montmorin, or were outlawed and had taken flight, 
 such as Narbonne, Beaumetz, Jaucourt, Lally, and, in 
 fact, all the constitutionnels of 1789. The only one 
 left free and unharmed was Talleyrand, who returned to 
 London on the 14th of September with a passport of 
 the executive government obtained by Danton's influ- 
 ence. Barrere saw him in Danton's apartment on the 
 morning of his departure, " en culottes de peau, avec 
 des bottes, un chapeau rond, un petit frac, et une 
 petite queue." In reply to an enquiry he stated that 
 
200 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 he was going on a mission for the Executive Committee. 
 His passport contained the following : " Laissez passer 
 le citoyen Ch. M. Talleyrand .... allant a Londres par 
 nos ordres." On the 23rd of September, in an official 
 letter to Lebrun, who had in the meanwhile been 
 appointed Foreign Minister, he denied that he had 
 been entrusted with any mission. Chauvelin confirmed 
 this in a despatch dated the 6th of November, 
 Talleyrand's Memoirs only refer to negotiations for 
 introducing a uniform standard of weights and mea- 
 sures as the object of his mission, but do not conceal 
 the fact that "after the crime of August 10th," as 
 he then styled it, his one idea was to get out of 
 France. 
 
 But this third journey to London was also dictated 
 by political aims. Like Mirabeau, Narbonne, and 
 Dumouriez, Danton wished to arrive at an under- 
 standing with England, But he wanted it in his own 
 fashion, by means of the parliamentary opposition 
 supported by the demagogues throughout the country, 
 and through the fall of Pitt, which was to be brought 
 about by the annexation of Belgium and the invasion 
 of Holland. 
 
 Talleyrand, of whose advice Danton wished to avail 
 himself, who repudiated the means employed by 
 Danton, but was agreed with him as to the end in 
 view, wrote in a reserved tone: "The 10th of August 
 has altered om' position, and has perhaps secured 
 
VII.] THIRD MISSION TO LONDON. 201 
 
 the freedom and independence of France, and at all 
 events has removed and punished traitors in the camp. 
 But it has impaired our power of action, and from 
 henceforth the course of events cannot be calculated. 
 We must take up new ground, that is, abstain from 
 action and confine ourselves to parrying the attacks 
 meditated by our opponents." Danton lent a ready 
 ear to these counsels of moderation. By means of his 
 personal friend Noel, whose instructions once more 
 betray the hand of Talleyrand, he renewed Dumouriez's 
 offers in London at the beginning of September, 
 adding to them proposals for joint action on the part 
 of both countries in the interest of their trade with 
 South America. It was known that both Danton and 
 Talleyrand, in order to keep Spain in check, had been 
 won over to Dumouriez's favourite scheme of revolu- 
 tionising the Spanish republics, a plan for which the 
 Creole Francesco Miranda was then endeavouring to 
 obtain from the English opposition the support which 
 had been refused by Pitt. In addition to this Noel 
 was to ask for a British guarantee to a French 
 loan, and hold out the hope of abstention from all 
 revolutionary propaganda, especially in respect of 
 Holland. 
 
 But Danton was making promises which he could not 
 keep, and relying on combinations which revolutionary 
 fanaticism again frustrated. After the 10th of August 
 the English ambassador at the Court of Louis |XVI. 
 
202 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 had been recalled, and after the September massacres 
 George III. prohibited his Ministers from holding 
 any intercourse with Chauvelin and Noel. These 
 atrocities had aroused such indignation in England 
 that Chauvelin, completely discouraged and threatened 
 ■with recall into the bargain, informed his govern- 
 ment that he was shunned as a Jacobin, begged 
 them to treat the King and the Queen with con- 
 sideration if they wished to save the liberty of the 
 country, and said that no diplomatist could negotiate 
 on behalf of the detested Commune of Paris. 
 
 Talleyrand, who had not hastened his journey, did 
 not arrive in London till the 23rd of September, three 
 days after Dumouriez's victory over the Prussians at 
 Valmy, the meeting of the Convention in Paris, and 
 the proclamation of the Eepublic. In a letter addressed 
 to Lord Grenville he gave a most formal disclaimer 
 of any official mission, and stated that he had come 
 to seek peace and freedom in the society of their best 
 friends, but that the latter would always find him 
 ready to give information respecting affairs in France, 
 especially the recent terrible events, of which he had 
 been almost an eyewitness. No information, how- 
 ever, was asked for, and Talleyrand can hardly have 
 regretted that the English Ministers, in completely 
 ignoring him, rescued him from an intolerable di- 
 lemma. Danton, having been elected a deputy of the 
 Convention, was, in consequence, obliged to retire from 
 
VII.] MEMOEANDUM TO LEBKUN. 203 
 
 the Ministry, and Lebrun remained at the head of the 
 new Cabinet, one of the most incapable in Europe, in 
 which the new War Minister Pache, Madame Roland's 
 confidential friend, gained the appellation of " dis- 
 organiser of \dctory." It was only subsequently with 
 the Jacobins that Talleyrand found it expedient to 
 refer to the mission, which he so flatly disclaimed in 
 London and passed over so completely in his Memoirs, 
 and to state in 1799: " Je fus envoyd h Londres pour 
 la deuxieme fois le 7 Septembre, 1792, par le conseil 
 executif provisoire." 
 
 The last paper which Talleyrand sent to the Paris 
 government was his memorandum to Lebrun, " on the 
 present relations of France to the other states of 
 Europe." It takes its stand on the principle that the 
 policy of a free people must discard the traditions of 
 despotic governments also in respect of foreign affairs. 
 The old-fashioned ideas of precedence and supremacy, 
 the ridiculous pretension to dictate to others, must give 
 place to the only ambition which is justifiable, that of 
 being master in one's own house. " Le regne de 
 I'illusion est fini pour la France. On se seduira plus 
 son age mur par toutes ces grandes considerations 
 politiques qui avaient, pendant si longtemps et d'une 
 maniere si deplorable, egare et prolong^ son enfance. . . . 
 Tous les leviers de I'ancienne politique sont rompus ou 
 pres de I'etre, et ceux qui existent encore ne sont plus 
 k I'usage de la France. ... La France doit rester 
 
204 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Gh. 
 
 circonscrite dans ses propres limites ; elle le doit a sa 
 gloire, a la justice, a la raison, a son interet, et a celui 
 des peuples qui seront libres par elle." 
 
 The first consequence of this change of system is a 
 rearrangement of alliances. For the future only those 
 which are concluded with the object of repelling ex- 
 ternal attack can prove durable. England is reminded, 
 with an opportuneness characteristic of the age^ that 
 the treaty with Holland in 1788, " made in favour of 
 a ruHng family and of the Batavian aristocracy, and 
 inspired by a false conception of commercial interests," 
 had cost her immense sacrifices of blood and money, 
 " simply in order to prevent another people from being 
 free after its own fashion." This singular description 
 of the relation of the Netherlands to their deliverers of 
 the illustrious House of Orange is followed by an 
 enumeration of emancipated nationalities and states, 
 such as Savoy, Belgium, and Li6ge. Liberated by the 
 French Republic, they would conclude with her a 
 fraternal alliance " of the weak with the strong, for 
 the protection of their mutual interests." Alliances of 
 another kind, conventions of a more transitory nature, 
 were in view, firstly with Prussia for the maintenance 
 of peace, and then with the Porte for the opening of 
 the Black Sea. In this way Talleyrand arrives at the 
 gist of his remarks, the relations of France to England. 
 The treaties between Austria and the Bourbons, family 
 compacts aimed at the subversion of liberty, must give 
 
VII.] RELATIONS BETWEEN FRANCE AND ENGLAND. 205 
 
 place to a national alliance concluded for its protection. 
 Up to a recent date this policy and he himself, as the 
 exponent of it, had been denounced by royal agents, 
 " de la liste ci\ile," even from the tribune of the 
 Assembly. The Monarchy had now fallen in France, 
 and an alliance was no longer needed, but in its stead 
 an understanding by means of a convention in the 
 interests of the commerce of both countries. Its object 
 would be the independence of their colonies. England 
 should beware of being beguiled by old-fashioned mer- 
 cantile prejudices, and should concede this independence 
 before it is extorted by the force of circumstances. 
 The example of the United States proves how the trade 
 between that country and England had benefited by 
 the declaration of independence. Their emancipation 
 would be followed as a necessary consequence by that 
 of the Spanish colonies, Peru and Mexico. The hostile 
 attitude of Spain during the rising in San Domingo 
 was a sufficient justification for the intervention of 
 France, which moreover was only directed against an 
 usurpation. The combined French and English fleets 
 should open the Pacific Ocean and the southern seas to 
 free trade. Such a result would be obtained with 
 comparatively little expense. After a revolution it was 
 necessary to open fresh trade routes and provide a new 
 sphere of activity for the passions which had been 
 aroused by it. 
 
 Talleyrand reserved to himself the task of working 
 
206 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 out the details of the scheme, which was to remain a 
 secret. The peace of Bale in 1795, the treaty with the 
 Porte, which opened the Black Sea to French vessels, 
 and which he himself was destined to sign on the 23rd 
 of June, 1802, and the revolutions in Spanish America, 
 gave a prophetic character to his proposals in these 
 respects. England, on the other hand, naturally 
 enough declined to make the surrender of her supre- 
 macy which Talleyrand had thought possible, but 
 consolidated and extended it mostly at the expense of 
 France, attaining a height of power beyond her wildest 
 dreams by the foundation of new empires and new 
 colonies in Africa, in India, and in Australasia. 
 
 But the most crushing blow to Talleyrand's projects 
 for the future was first given by his own country. His 
 programme, bearing date the 2nd of November, 1792, 
 which assumed the renunciation of the policy of con- 
 quest of the old monarchy as a matter of course, came 
 in the midst of a series of decrees of the Paris Conven- 
 tion, which, presenting one of the most remarkable 
 examples of political atavism recorded in history, 
 reverted to the policy of Louis XIV., and made it 
 serve the aims of the Jacobin propaganda, thus pro\ang 
 that the system, but not the instinct and genius of the 
 race, had changed in France. 
 
 The first of these decrees, dated the 24th of October, 
 ordered the struggle to be continued until the enemies 
 of the Republic were driven across the Khine, there- 
 
VII.] FOREIGN POLICY OF JACOBINS. 207 
 
 by altering the war of resistance to invasion into 
 an aggressive campaign for the liberation of neigh- 
 bouring nationalities. A second, dated the 19th of 
 November, published after Jemappes and the conquest 
 of Belgium by Dumouriez, that of Savoy and Nice by 
 Montesquiou, and the occupation of Geneva, offered 
 the armed assistance of France to all peoples who 
 wished to gain their freedom. But of far greater 
 significance, although quite irreconcilable with the two 
 first-named, was the third, of December 15th, which 
 compelled all countries occupied by French troops to 
 accept French institutions. This measure gave the 
 rein to persecution and transformed the campaign 
 undertaken for a Jacobin propaganda into a regular 
 war of conquest. In Belgium annexation to France 
 was demanded only by a minority which dwindled 
 daily under the tyranny and extortions of the French 
 army and its commissaries. On the Khine, where the 
 invaders had indulged in hopes of a military pro- 
 menade through the ecclesiastical states, " la rue des 
 cur^s," as they were contemptuously called, enthusiasm 
 abated in presence of the sobering experiences of 
 Custine's administration. The situation was worse in 
 Geneva, where the democracy invoked the assistance of 
 the federal troops of their menaced country against the 
 constitution of the Convention and the French occu- 
 pation, while in Paris the political ideal of Louis XIV., 
 "the Alps, the Khine, the Pyrenees, and the sea," 
 
208 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 became the watch-word adopted by the disciples of the 
 " Contrat Social " in defence of natural right. 
 
 The dispute about the navigation of the Scheldt 
 was now not needed to make England abandon her 
 passive attitude. The victories of Dumouriez had 
 once more inspired the English revolutionary party 
 with confidence. Fox hailed Valmy as a triumph for 
 the good cause. English congratulatory deputations 
 appeared at the bar of the Convention, and Danton's 
 diplomatic friends in London, with Chauvelin at their 
 head, in the intoxication of success played the part of 
 revolutionary agents and intrigued under the eyes of 
 the English Government with the insurrectionary 
 committees in Ireland, while optimists of the stamp 
 of Grregoire raved about an alliance with the future 
 British island-republic. The invasion of Belgium had 
 commenced, when Lord Grenville, wi'iting on the 7th of 
 November, the day after Jemappes, stated that the war 
 with Austria was a life-and-death struggle for France, 
 that the former would probably be forced into neutrality 
 to its own advantage, that he did not know himself 
 what course Spain would take, that Sardinia and Italy 
 would defend themselves as best they could, probably 
 very inefficiently, that Portugal and Holland would 
 follow England, but that England would remain passive. 
 As for Pitt, both Chauvelin and Noel testified, as 
 Talleyrand had done before them, to his well-nigh 
 invincible love of peace. The appointed tasks of his 
 
VII.] PITT AND THE REVOLUTION. 209 
 
 life, the settlement of the finances, the development 
 of national prosperity, the promotion of domestic re- 
 forms, were all lost the moment that he was driven 
 into war. There were other motives also at work. 
 The only great disappointment which his policy had 
 hitherto experienced was connected with an attempt 
 at a military demonstration on behalf of the Turks 
 against Eussia. In March 1791 Pitt had been forced 
 into a humiliating diplomatic retreat, owing to the 
 refusal of the country to follow him. This episode had 
 increased his aversion to warlike intervention on the 
 Continent. Like so many English statesmen before 
 and after him, he was unfamiliar with foreign affairs : 
 " little versed in foreign politics, ... in all matters 
 that relate to our foreign interests he wants informa- 
 tion," writes his admirer, the agent William Augustus 
 Miles, in 1788, and repeats his opinion in 1794. At 
 the outset he was completely at sea as to the real 
 significance of the movement in France. This is the 
 only explanation of his reduction of the forces of the 
 country as late as 1792, and his declaration in parlia- 
 ment that peace appeared to be safe. Lebrun's 
 English agent, Mathews, testifies even in the summer 
 of 1793 that Pitt was not one of the irreconcilables. 
 But fate left him no choice. It is stated that after 
 the outbreak of war he expressed the opinion that 
 it would be of short duration and confined to a couple 
 of campaigns, and that Burke rejoined that it would 
 VOL. I. 14 
 
210 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 be long and perilous, but was an unavoidable necessity. 
 On the Continent the English statesman was doomed 
 to meet with all the disappointments attending the 
 coalition, the desertion of some, his own defeat and that 
 of others. " An incapable war-minister," is Macaulay's 
 verdict on Pitt, to whom he refuses the merit of the 
 naval successes. But the great Minister did more 
 than lucky generals and victorious admirals can do. 
 Almost a generation before the rising in the Tyrol 
 and the resistance of Spain his heroic will braced a 
 whole people to the struggle with arbitrary power 
 and aggressive conquest, and led them through every 
 stage of the enforced contest along the path which 
 ended in a world-wide supremacy. In this struggle 
 the continental campaigns were mere episodes ; the 
 world's fate was decided on the high seas. The 
 possession of her opponent's colonies and the annihila- 
 tion of their fleets gave England the means of carrying 
 on the war at their expense, and the final result was, 
 to use the words of a French historian, that the 
 millions demanded from the English as war taxes and 
 subsidies were gladly paid as insurance premia for the 
 continuance of the national prosperity. 
 
 When the English ambassador at the Hague, Lord 
 Auckland, informed the States-General on behalf of his 
 Government, on the 16th of November, that they could 
 count on England's support in case of attack, it was 
 not known that a decree of the Convention bearing the 
 
VII.] ALTITUDE OF FOX. 211 
 
 same date had opened the Sclieldt, the closing of 
 which rested on treaties, the last being that of 1788, 
 and on Pitt's own guarantee. Fox was prepared to help 
 the Opposition even over this difficulty. On the 7th 
 of December he informed the ambassador Chauvelin : 
 " Nous ne voulons point de guerre avec la France, 
 s'il n'y a point d'aggression faite contre la Hollande, 
 et si cette guerre ne doit avoir lieu que pour I'ouver- 
 ture de I'Escaut, nous serous assez forts pour I'empecher." 
 But in the course of the same conversation he gave 
 him to understand that he and his party would rally 
 to the Grovernment without a moment's hesitation 
 if the intrigues of a few thousand Irish rebels suc- 
 ceeded in inducing France to interfere in England's 
 domestic affairs. Maret, now an agent of Lebrun, 
 was the last French negotiator who interviewed Pitt 
 and had an opportunity of noting his aversion to war. 
 But Lebrun's proposals were rightly considered as 
 mere pitfalls, with the object of making the English 
 Cabinet appear irreconcilable, while the Paris govern- 
 ment had made up its mind to declare war. 
 
 Talleyrand's last communication, which is preserved 
 in the archives of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and 
 was brought to Paris by Lebrun's agent Benoit, was 
 made about the middle of January, and referred even 
 then to the possibility of successful negotiations in 
 London if the Grovernment would only think better 
 of its policy with regard to Holland. But at this 
 
212 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 point the King's head fell, sacrificed to the raison 
 d'etat of the Revolution, and a decision which the 
 most outrageous provocation had not succeeded in 
 bringing about was now demanded by the nation 
 itself. Under the stunning impression produced by 
 the deed of January 21st the population of London 
 put on mourning, and received the King with a cry 
 for war. Chauvelin did not dare to show himself in 
 public, and on the 24th of January was ordered to leave 
 London within a week. The Convention rejoined 
 with a declaration of war on the 1st of February, and 
 an order to Dumouriez to cross the Dutch frontier, 
 which took place on the 17th, and England began the 
 struggle on behalf of law and order in Europe and in 
 defence of her own power, which was to last three-and- 
 twenty years and end with Waterloo, 
 
 From this moment there is not a trace of any further 
 relations between Danton and Talleyrand. His diplo- 
 matic debut in London had failed, but the fault did 
 not lie with him or the statesmen with whom he 
 negotiated. If the alliance which he had come to 
 cement had gone the way of the other torn-up treaties 
 which had formed the basis of public law in Europe 
 since the Peace of Utrecht, the responsibility rested 
 with the Isnards and the Condorcets, the Brissots and the 
 Cambons. It was no business of Talleyrand's to defend 
 their work of destruction ; his task consisted in recon- 
 structing the edifice which they had pulled to pieces. 
 
VII.] TALLEYRAND AND ENGLAND. 213 
 
 He had gone to England with all the sympathies of 
 a disciple of Montesquieu for the English constitution, 
 and of an adherent of Turgot and the Greneva school 
 for the doctrines of Adam Smith and the economic 
 policy of England. Like so many others, he had but 
 an imperfect knowledge of what he admired so warmly. 
 His attitude in the Constituent Assembly, the personal 
 reputation which preceded him, the instructions which 
 he received, and the difficulties of the mission itself — 
 all combined to make him seek the intercourse and 
 the support of the Opposition. In the eyes of the 
 Government he was so suspected that they only 
 negotiated with him under reserve, and, at the close 
 of his mission, considered him sufficiently dangerous 
 to be expelled the country. But Talleyrand had not 
 been many months in London when he arrived at the 
 conviction that his own opinions were not so much 
 in harmony with the violent advocacy of revolutionary 
 France displayed by Fox and the Opposition, as with 
 those of the vast majority of the nation and its political 
 leaders. No one knew better than Talleyrand how 
 grossly the British democracy was deceived when it 
 looked for respect for the rights of others from the 
 Jacobins, or exalted their cruel tyranny as the dawn 
 of a new era of freedom. Personally he was most 
 intimate with Lord Lansdowne ; but his view of the 
 situation in Europe no longer agreed with the latter's 
 but with that of his great adversary Pitt, If anything 
 
21-i LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 could have astonished Talleyrand's sang-froid, it must 
 have been the coolness bordering on apathy with which 
 the English Cabinet witnessed the invasion of Belgium. 
 But it was just this dogged clinging to the last possi- 
 bilities of a peaceful solution which was calculated to 
 impress him, who sought the reputation of a man of 
 peace, in the highest degree. What he observed and 
 learned at that critical time laid the foundations of 
 his subsequent invincible confidence in the power and 
 the vocation of England and the value of her alliance. 
 This alliance he endeavoured to bring about at Lille 
 and at Amiens. From the time of his mission to 
 London dates his constant and firm conviction of the 
 impossibility of ever entangling England again in a 
 war of Cabinets for exclusively dynastical interests, or 
 of plunging the nation into a foreign conflict against 
 its will. The fanaticism of revolutionary doctrinaires 
 frustrated his policy in 1792 and 1797 ; and afterwards 
 the Imperial Jacobin forced on him a rupture with 
 England and the blockade of the continental ports. 
 But Talleyrand was a master of the art of waiting ; his 
 intellect possessed the steadiness which was wholly 
 lacking in his character. When at last the time came 
 in which he could carry out his own policy, and not 
 that of others, he picked up the thread which had 
 been dropped, and concluded the alliance of 1815 with 
 a practised hand. He lived long enough to found the 
 monarchy of 1830 by repeating the experiment which 
 
VII.] TALLEYRAND'S LEGACY TO POSTERITY. 215 
 
 had been successful at the Eestoration. The English 
 alliance, with the object of securing the peace of 
 Europe, was Talleyrand's legacy to posterity. His 
 apprenticeship to diplomacy in London deserves the 
 praise which he himself bestowed on Choiseul when 
 he commended him for having had " tant d'avenir 
 dans I'esprit." 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 EXILE (ENGLAND AND AMERICA). 
 
 1792—1796. 
 
 rriALLEYEAND had reason to congratulate himself 
 -^ that the silver streak of sea lay between him and 
 his own country. The memorandum to Lebrun had 
 hardly reached the Minister, when a decree of the 
 Convention, dated the /)th of December, impeached its 
 author and thus placed him on the dreaded list of 
 einiigrcs. The cause of this was a letter from the 
 Intendant Laporte to the King found in the Armoire 
 de fer. Laporte stated, on the 22nd of April, 1791, 
 shortly after Mirabeau's death, that the Bishop of 
 Autun had in writing and afterwards by word of mouth 
 suggested that the King should put his influence and 
 good-will to the test, and let him know in what way his 
 services could be of use. This was all, and subsequently 
 it was asserted that Talleyrand had bought back com- 
 promising documents from Danton. On the 15th of 
 December the Moniteur published a strong protest 
 signed " D.," probably from Desrenaudes, followed on 
 the 24th of December by Talleyrand's own defence. 
 
 216 
 
ch. viil] exiled by the convention. 217 
 
 The anonymous friend appealed to the loyalty of Lebrun, 
 who had received proofs of Talleyrand's patriotic devo- 
 tion to the Republic in the shape of his despatches, and 
 especially a memorandum which had recently reached 
 him. The memorandum was confidential, so that 
 Desrenaudes' knowledge of it raises a presumption that 
 he had something to do with its composition. Talley- 
 rand himself flatly denied all personal relations with the 
 King. The latter, he said, was no doubt acquainted 
 with the address of the Department, in which liberty of 
 conscience was defended, and the King's religious and 
 personal freedom placed on a level with that of any 
 other French citizen. But it should not be forgotten 
 that he, Talleyrand, had at the same time drawn up 
 the other address of the Department, the repuMican 
 spirit of which had been acknowledged by all patriots. 
 
 The Convention did not think it worth while to 
 reverse its decision. The Royalists were indignant 
 at the tone of the apology, which threw over the King 
 at the very moment when his life was at stake, and 
 when the nation was divided into the two hostile 
 camps of a Republic born of the Revolution on the 
 one side and a Monarchy resting on ancient tradition 
 and precedent on the other, and on the eve of the 
 tremendous struggle which was destined to absorb all 
 parties and all persons and involve them one after the 
 other in one common ruin. 
 
 We now know, however, and from Talleyrand himself, 
 
218 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 that confidential communications passed between " the 
 Bishop " and the Court, and, as was surmised, through 
 the medium of Laporte. When he was ordered to 
 leave England at the end of January 1794, he gave a 
 sketch of his work in London, in a letter addressed 
 to Lord Grenville, which refers as follows to the object 
 of his first mission, in January 1792: "The King 
 above all, whose dearest wish was the maintenance of 
 peace, in the interests of Europe and especially of 
 France, the King set great store by the neutrality 
 and the friendship of England. He commissioned 
 Montmorin, who always possessed his confidence, and 
 subsequently Laporte, to communicate to me his 
 wishes in this respect. The constitution prevented 
 the King from investing my mission with an official 
 character when he gave me his orders, and this want 
 of official authority was treated by Lord Gren\dlle as 
 a bar to all political negotiation with me. I there- 
 fore demanded my recall from M. de Laporte, and 
 returned to France." Talleyrand's tactics were always 
 the same. To the Cabinet in London he presented 
 a royalist, to the Convention in Paris a republican 
 mandate. The consequence was that in London he 
 was even thought capable of having devised his 
 impeachment and banishment to save his own person. 
 Both at that time and subsequently the charge of 
 having taken part in Orleanist conspiracies followed 
 him like an evil spectre. On the 14th of June, 1792, 
 
VIII.] CHARGE OF ORLEANIST CONSPIRACY. 219 
 
 Eibes, a deputy of the Right, had accused him from the 
 tribune of the Legislative Assembly of complicity in 
 the plot of the Orleanist faction against the King and 
 the constitution, the Girondist Guadet speaking in 
 his defence. The denunciation was made with the 
 object of undermining Talleyrand's position in London, 
 for people had not forgotten there that in October 
 1789 the Duke of Orleans in his usual frivolous way 
 had conceived the passing idea of becoming Grand 
 Duke of Brabant, and of gaining the consent of Prussia 
 and England to the scheme, out of hatred to Marie 
 Antoinette. Fersen, the most chivalrous and devoted 
 of all the adherents of the Queen, was so firmly con- 
 vinced of Egalite's and Talleyrand's joint guilt that 
 he proposed to Count Mercy, in February or jNIarch 
 1793, to buy over Talleyrand and then Dumouriez by 
 his means, in order that the latter might surrender 
 the Orleanist Princes to Austria, and so force Danton 
 to liberate the Queen and her children in exchange. 
 
 This suspicion of being concerned in an Orleanist 
 conspiracy, which attached more strongly to Biron 
 than to Talleyrand, dated from the days of his intimacy 
 with Mirabeau. It has been repeated over and over 
 again, and from very different quarters, but has never 
 been confirmed by proof. Mirabeau's chief accuser 
 was Mounier. But Mallet du Pan, who was influenced 
 by him, had to admit years afterwards that, in spite 
 of the minutest investigations, he had not been able 
 
220 LIFE OF TALLEYEAND. [Ch. 
 
 to discover a trace of INIirabeau's guilt, although there 
 was no doubt that the latter had considered the 
 possibility of an Orleanist succession to the throne. 
 Mirabeau's biographer, Alfred Stern, is also of opinion 
 that the so-called proofs adduced against Mirabeau 
 come to nothing. Sorel thinks that the part played by 
 the Duke of Orleans during the Revolution was quite a 
 subordinate one. " J'ai ete personnellement lie avec 
 le due d'Orleans," says Eoederer, " et je crois que, s'il 
 y a en une conspiration d'Orle'ans, il n'en etait pas." 
 In his Memoirs Talleyrand has adopted a method of 
 his own of disclaiming all complicity with the Palais- 
 Eoyal. The man of the world, whose sang-froid was 
 undisturbed by insults, the sceptic, who disdained to 
 bandy words with his opponents, the impersonal nar- 
 rator, who could relate the stormy events of his life 
 with such dispassionateness, has here for once gone out 
 of his way to pen a tremendous invective, the subject 
 of which is the Duke of Orleans. To brand him it was 
 sufl&cient to give a sketch of his character. 
 
 Born on the steps of the throne, of vast wealth, of 
 strong constitution, well versed in all bodily exercises, 
 so ignorant as to be unable to write his own language 
 correctly, malignant, ungrateful, cold-hearted and 
 calculating, of precocious depravity and convinced 
 that all expression of feeling was ridiculous and every 
 moral scruple a weakness, he never in his life knew 
 what it was to love a friend or a woman. One of his 
 
VIII.] CHARACTER OF DUKE OF ORLEANS. 221 
 
 surroundings dies just as he is going to dine with 
 him : " Lauzun," he says, on hearing the news, " let 
 us go to dinner, as nobody else is coming, or we shall 
 be too late for the opera." His intimacy is the ruin 
 of men and the disgrace of women. The Marquise 
 de Fleury, the Princesses of Bouillon and Lamballe, 
 were his victims; but, because he was the man who 
 compromised their honour, they were pitied instead 
 of being condemned. The only person who played 
 a permanent part in his life was Madame de Genlis, 
 who at the same table and with the same pen com- 
 posed a prayer-book for the daughter and a speech 
 in the Jacobin Club for the father. His personal 
 bravery was questioned, and his greed made him stoop 
 to acts of violence. No courage was needed to take 
 up an attitude of opposition, which was assumed with 
 impunity by any petty district in the country, and 
 by the courtiers themselves under the very nose of 
 the monarch. His hatred of the Queen had been 
 fostered by small points of etiquette and social 
 exclusions. This was the character of the man, whom 
 a spirit of blind revenge had enlisted in the cause of 
 the Kevolution, " That," adds Talleyrand, " was the 
 secret of the latter half of his life." After the Duke's 
 well-known protest in the Royal Session of November 
 19th, 1787, after his instructions to the electorate, 
 which were drawn up by Sieyes, and the rising in 
 the Faubourg St. Antoine, marked by the murder of 
 
222 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 R^villon on the 28th of April, 1789, who was in the 
 Duke's pay and instigated by his agents, no important 
 event of the Eevolution, according to Talleyrand, could 
 be traced to his influence. Talleyrand concludes thus : 
 " After his criminal vote he was a nonentity, his occu- 
 pation was gone, and he fell back into the ranks, and as 
 that was not his natural place, his fate was humiliation 
 and political extinction. . . . The Revolution had no 
 authors, no chiefs, and no leaders. It was disseminated by 
 writers, who in an enlightened, intrepid, and progressive 
 age waged war against prejudices, and in doing so under- 
 mined the foundations of religious and social order ; 
 it was accelerated by incapable Ministers, who increased 
 the financial distress and the popular discontent." 
 
 So far Talleyrand. The chapter on the Duke of 
 Orleans was probably sketched in London. It bears 
 every trace of having been written at the time. We 
 know that after 1830 its author, rather than suppress 
 it, gave directions that his Memoirs should not 
 be published for another generation. During this 
 interval proofs of his and Mirabeau's complicity have 
 been sought for but not found. His offence was the 
 same as Lauzun's : he did not belong to the Palais- 
 Royal party, but to its social circle. This was quite 
 enough to make the Royalists condemn him and place 
 him under a stricter social ban. 
 
 The second band of emigres that gathered in 
 England in 1793 did not, like the first on the Rhine, 
 
Vni.] FEENCH EMIGRANTS IN ENGLAND. 223 
 
 seek salvation in conspiracies and consolation in ban- 
 quets and fetes. They had learnt how to bear the 
 inevitable with dignity, sometimes with cheerful 
 resignation ; they lived in attics and endured cold and 
 hunger, without appealing to the compassion of their 
 friends or wasting their time in idle complaints. Any- 
 thing beyond a mere passing reference to material 
 privations they would have scouted as a mark of low 
 origin and ignoble disposition. Aristocratic women, 
 bred in a life of luxury, earned a living for their 
 families like the humblest of their sex, and the be- 
 haviour of the eight thousand exiled priests contributed 
 not a little to overcome the English prejudice against 
 Catholicism. But while an example of heroic courage 
 and invincible constancy was set, the right of indulging 
 in contempt and hatred of their fellow-citizens, who 
 were supposed to be responsible for the catastrophe, 
 was not abandoned. Even a Royalist of Malouet's 
 unblemished reputation did not escape suspicion. 
 Cazales and Rivarol, both members of the Eight, 
 quarrelled at the Lord Mayor's dinner ; Lally-Tollendal 
 was stigmatised as " la lie du peuple." Montlosier and 
 the Comte d'Artois wrangled in public. In the eyes 
 of the orthodox party the Jacobins were hardly more 
 culpable than the Constitutionalists, and those who 
 had endeavoured to bring about an understanding with 
 foreign powers were considered double traitors. Under 
 these circumstances Talleyrand could not count on 
 
224 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 indulgence or even on common fairaess. His most 
 lenient critics agreed with Morris : " He is not exactly 
 of a criminal disposition, though certainly indifferent 
 between virtue and vice. He would rather do right 
 than wrong, and would not, I believe, perpetrate a 
 great crime." 
 
 Those who enjoyed Talleyrand's intimacy, however, 
 yielded to the spell of his personal charm, and did not 
 judge him severely. Dumont describes how irresistibly 
 fascinating he could be among his intimates " in the 
 confined space of a carriage," and how he could even 
 at times move his hearers to tears. The German 
 physician Bollmann gives evidence to the same effect. 
 He was induced by the grief and the entreaties of 
 jNladame de Stael to save her friend Narbonne on the 
 2nd of September, at the risk of his own life, and had 
 accompanied him from Paris to London, where the 
 house of the Countess de la Chatre in Kensington, 
 who afterwards married Talleyrand's friend Jaucomt, 
 was the social rendez-vous of the Constitutionalists. 
 Bollmann, who saw a great deal of them, admired 
 Narbonne's brilliant gifts, but found Talleyrand far 
 superior to him, " of imperturbable ease and repose, 
 refined and charming . . . one could listen to him 
 for years." The little money that he had, the proceeds 
 of the sale of his library, he shared with his companions 
 in misfortune, and 3Iadame de Genlis, among others, 
 refers with gratitude to the generous offer of assistance 
 
Vill.] LIFE IN ENGLAND. 225 
 
 which he made her in tiiose days of need. Madame 
 de Stael could call him '" the best of men, a misunder- 
 stood character," without fear of contradiction. In 
 January 1793 she came from Coppet to England, and 
 made the country-seat of Juniper Hall in Surrey a 
 home for her friends. Miss Fanny Burney, afterwards 
 Madame d'Arblay, lady-in-waiting to the Queen, and 
 the authoress of novels the healthy and pointed realism 
 of which has been commended by Burke and Gibbon, 
 Sheridan and Macaulay, has left memoirs, in which 
 Talleyrand is often mentioned. She relates how he 
 discussed a project with Madame de Stael of fighting 
 the Jacobins, how he worked with her at the first plan 
 of her book " Sur I'lnfluence des Passions," and corrected 
 her when she recited passages from " Tancred " or other 
 tragedies. M^'hen they went out visiting in the neigh- 
 bourhood he sat on the box of the small one-horse 
 carriage, and let down the window, when necessary, in 
 order to join in the conversation, and he assured the 
 authoress of " Evelina " and " Cecilia" that the perusal 
 of her books made up to him for his disappointed 
 ambition. When Madame de Stael had to leave 
 England in the early summer he wrote to her as 
 follows : . . . " Personne ici tout-a-fait selon mon esprit 
 ou selon mon coeur, et avec cela je vois que j'y resterai 
 encore plusieurs mois, ne fut-ce que pour refuter 
 I'ouvrage de Madame votre Mere sur le divorce ; c'est 
 la seule chose a laquelle je suis de'cide." 
 
 VOL. I. 15 
 
226 LIFE OF TALLEYEAND. [Ch. 
 
 There is little reference in these letters to the events 
 of the Terror. Talleyrand was not a man to indulge 
 in idle regrets. Not till the 28th of September, when, 
 in consequence of the insurrection of the southern 
 provinces, Toulon had been surrendered to the English 
 by the Eoyalists, and the resistance of La Vendee had 
 made civil war a just cause, did he write to Madame 
 de Stael : " Mon vceu serait que les districts des departe- 
 ments meridionaux, qui ont deja fait connaitre leur 
 attachement a cette constitution de 1789, rappelassent 
 a Toulon ou ailleurs, les ddput^s de la Constituante. 
 On am-ait une assemblee et c'est Tessentiel : car il n'y 
 a qu'une assemblee qui puisse avoir longtemps une 
 popularite assez forte pour aller en avant . . . Cela 
 ferait avant tout les affaires de la France et en suite 
 ferait les notres, car notre role d'emigre tranquille ne 
 pent pas honnetement nous convenir longtemps encore." 
 ..." Nous avons deux mois a attendre," he adds, 
 following the same train of thought, on the 3rd and 8th 
 of October : " si nous nous pressons, nous nuirons a nos 
 affaires ! . . . Attendre et dormir si Ton pent. C'est 
 a cela que je me destine d'ici au mois de Mars." And 
 then he surveys the situation in the true spirit, but 
 with all the illusions, of 1789: "On dit toujours que 
 les constitutionnels n'ont point de parti en France. 
 La France est leur parti, car c'est precisement I'amour 
 des Fran^ais pour la constitution qu'on a employ^ pour 
 la d^truire. C'est en disant que le roi ne voulait pas 
 
VIII.] UNCOMPROMISING ATTITUDE OF ROYALISTS. 227 
 
 etre constitutionuel, que les puissances belUgerantes 
 voulaient detruire la constitution, qu'on a anime le 
 peuple et qu'on a fait le 10 Aout. Ainsi le peuple 
 n'aurait pas songe a devenir republicain s'il n'avait pas 
 4t6 trompe." 
 
 Talleyrand's advice and the constitution shared the 
 common fate of being impracticable. The Constitu- 
 tionalists had aimed at monarchy in 1789, and had 
 established a republic. The Monarchy now repudiated 
 all connection with them as an affront. The Comte 
 de Provence, the Kegent of the emigration, sent 
 confidential agents into La Vendee to enquire whether 
 " I'armee catholique et royale " was taking the field 
 for a constitutional monarch or the king of the old 
 French monarchy, and at the same time protested 
 against the occupation of Toulon, because the English 
 admiral, in taking possession of the town in the name 
 of the King of France, had not sufficiently distin- 
 guished between the royal cause and that of the 
 constitution. The Comte d'Artois left his adherents in 
 the lurch and would not come to La Vendee, because 
 the English refused to recognise, not only the integrity 
 of the kingdom, but also the Rey neto of the ancien 
 regime ; and the Comte de Provence, who had been 
 summoned by the Royalists of Toulon, for the same 
 reason came only as far as Turin, where he waited in 
 vain for an English passport, which was not delivered 
 to him. All this took place while Paris was plunged 
 
228 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 in the Terror and the Girondists were being led to 
 the scaffold, while the Queen was guillotined and 
 Eobespierre was commencing his dictatorship. If 
 anything could save the Queen, wrote Talleyrand to 
 Madame de Stael, on the 3rd of October, it was her 
 book ; but the appeal to mercy was unheeded, and a few 
 days after the execution Talleyrand wrote the memor- 
 able words : " C'est une maison finie pour la France 
 que la maison de Bourbon. Voila de quoi penser." At 
 the other end of Europe one of the noblest and most 
 faithful adherents of the Eoyalist cause, the Duke of 
 Eichelieu, who had entered the Eussian service, came 
 to exactly the same conclusion. The Monarchy, he 
 wi'ote to Eassumoffsky, would in all probability be 
 restored in France, but not with a Bourbon : the atti- 
 tude of the Comte de Provence was incomprehensible. 
 While the continental powers, as in 1792, were neglect- 
 ing the aims of the coalition for their own interests, 
 and showing themselves equally incapable of utilising 
 their own victories and the Eoyalist risings on French 
 soil, the war between England and France was assuming 
 an internecine character. In Paris the humiliation 
 of defeat was goading the spirit of resistance into 
 frenzy. Pitt was to be placed beyond the pale of 
 human intercourse, and was branded in the meanwhile 
 as " an enemy of the human race." The Convention 
 called on the peoples of Europe to destroy the modern 
 Carthage, and renewed the navigation acts against 
 
VIII.] PITT AND THE EEVOLUTION. 229 
 
 England, whicli in its turn had adopted strict measures 
 since the month of June, with the view of establishing 
 a complete blockade of the French coasts. Pitt, who 
 had refused to see Talleyrand for more than a year, 
 had a long conversation about this time with Narbonne, 
 who was placed under the same ban as the latter. 
 " Paris," said the English Minister, " is nothing better 
 than a gang of criminals engaged in decimating a 
 horde of slaves ; the war with France is a life-and- 
 death struggle for civilisation ; the welfare of Europe 
 and of society compels us to pursue it until we have 
 destroyed the evil root and branch. . . ." In reply 
 Narbonne ventured to warn the Minister. There was 
 still honour, he said, in the Eepublican camp, and 
 such a policy would beget a desperate resistance. As 
 for present feeling in France, he could vouch that the 
 overpowering sense of danger would render her in- 
 vincible, and that the tyranny endured at home would 
 in no way affect her patriotic enthusiasm abroad. He 
 would not refer to her shortcomings, her weak points 
 of defence, her unreliable elements ; no one would 
 betray the secrets of French resistance, although they 
 were patent enough. Talleyrand expresses precisely 
 the same conviction : " II me semble que deux ans de 
 guerre avaient assez demontre que, centre les etrangers, 
 tout le monde est soldat en France, et les honnetes 
 gens qui detestent la Convention, et les scdldrats qui 
 sont ddvouds a son service, parce que les etrangers se 
 
230 LIFE OF TALLEYEAXD. [Ch. 
 
 sont toujours pr^sent^s ou comme voulant conqu^rir 
 le territoire, ou comme voulant detruire la liberty. II 
 faut se presser de prendre un autre moyen ; j'ai dte 
 frappe de ce que dit sur cela Mallet du Pan, qui effraye 
 les puissances en annon9ant qu' a la haine des etrangers 
 il se joindra en France des habitudes militaires im- 
 possibles ensuite a detruire et tres pres de se former 
 par I'impossibilite de faire aujourd'hui un autre metier 
 que celui des armes." 
 
 Narbonne's words, Mallet du Pan's warning, and 
 Talleyrand's letter lie between two memorable dates. 
 On the 14th of August, just as the French armies 
 were being repulsed at all points, Carnot was elected 
 a member of the committee of public safety on the 
 motion of Barrere, and appointed organiser of the 
 army — organiser of victory, as he was about to be 
 called. On the 29th of October an unknown Corsican 
 officer of the age of five-and-twenty was placed in 
 command of the artillery at the siege of Toulon, which 
 was re-conquered on the 18th of December. France 
 thus resumed the offensive and Bonaparte made his 
 debut in history. 
 
 Six weeks afterwards Pitt put in force the provisions 
 of the Alien Bill against Talleyrand. This measure 
 had been passed in January 1793, and gave him 
 power to place all foreigners in England under strict 
 supervision, and, if necessary, expel them the country. 
 At that time Talleyrand had applied to the Duke of 
 
VIIL] EXPELLED FROM ENGLAND. 231 
 
 Tuscany for an asylum in his States, which had been 
 refused with a reference to the declaration of neutrality 
 of 1778, renewed a short time since. He was now 
 ordered to leave England within five days. He sub- 
 sequently made the cmigi't'S responsible for this 
 decision of the ^Ministry, which selected him from 
 the list of prominent personages as a scapegoat. 01- 
 humour at the unfavourable turn in military affairs, 
 the subjection of La Vendee and the suppression of 
 Royalist risings, may have had something to do with 
 it. Against Talleyrand himself no charges can be 
 discovered; in the course of 1793 he had become 
 almost forgotten. A letter addressed to Madame de 
 Stael shortly before his departure merely states : 
 " Un ordre du roi m'enjoignait de quitter sef; fitats 
 dans I'espace de cinq jours. J'ai lu I'ordre et j'ai dit, 
 sans faire une reflexion, et je crois meme sans avoir 
 montre le plus leger trouble, que j'executerai les ordres 
 qui m'etaient signifies. II n'y a pas un seul motif, un 
 seul pretexte a I'ordre que j'ai re9u, et cela est vrai, 
 parole d'honneur, de moi a vous. . . . Je vous prie de 
 ne pas me parler de regrets, il y a ici necessite, et 
 ensuite travaillons au retour." ..." Aucune personne," 
 he adds on March 1st, " aquelque hauteur d'aristocratie 
 que je I'aie choisie, n'a pu obtenir de reponse on 
 plutot d'explication sur I'ordre que j'ai regU de quitter 
 1 Angleterre. Apparemment que I'empereur et le roi 
 de Prusse craignent les gens qui pechent a la ligne 
 
232 LIFE OF TALLEYEAND. [Ch. 
 
 pendant I'ete et corrigeut les epreuves d'un roman 
 pendant I'hiver. C'est a cela qu'a ete employee cette 
 tete active, dont le sejour en Europe est si inquietant." 
 Angling was not usually Talleyrand's pastime ; the 
 novel which he was correcting was " Adele de 
 S^nanges," composed by the Countess Flahaut during 
 her exile at Hamburg, and translated into German by 
 Theresa Huber, George Forster's widow. The sale of 
 his books, " une bibliotheque considerable," as he 
 stated to Lord Grenville, had left him with £750 
 out of France. " "SVhat can I do with that ? " he 
 remarks, adding that at the age of thirty-nine he had 
 to begin life over again : " Car c'est la vie que je 
 veux ; j'aime trop mes amis pour avoir d'autres idees, 
 et puis j'ai a dire et a dire bien haut ce que j'ai voulu, 
 ce que j'ai fait, ce que j'ai empech^, ce que j'ai 
 regrette ; j'ai a montrer combien j'ai aime la liberty 
 que j'aime encore, et combien je deteste les Francais." 
 "I hoped," he wrote to Lord Lansdowne, "that the 
 French would prove themselves not wholly unworthy 
 of liberty. Clubs and pikes are the ruin of energy, 
 and a school of dissimulation and baseness. Once a 
 people has learned the wretched habit, it has no other 
 wish but to change its tyrants. P'orgive the dis- 
 couragement of a man who has been a witness of 
 everything and has seen through everything." 
 
 He went on board ship on the 3rd of February, 1794, 
 but the vessel anchored off Greenwich. Pitt's colleague 
 
VIII.] DEPARTCTRE FOE AMERICA. 233 
 
 Dundas, on hearing of this, sent one of his friends on 
 board, and invited him to spend the time before the 
 start at his house. But Talleyrand replied that after 
 what had happened he declined to set foot on British 
 soil again, and remained on board for three weeks. 
 His farewell to the official world was the memorandum 
 to Lord Grrenville on the objects of his mission to 
 London mentioned above. The unjust persecution, of 
 which he was the ^'ictim, filled him with a kind of 
 proud satisfaction. To bear his share of the common 
 misfortunes was a welcome consolation. A series of 
 tremendous storms, which threatened to throw him on 
 the French coast, brought him to English shores again 
 at Falmouth. When he arrived at the mouth of the 
 Delaware after a passage of several weeks, he found a 
 ship just about to set sail for Calcutta. He would have 
 preferred to go there rather than " set foot on the vast 
 countr}'' which has no memories of the past." But 
 there was no room for him on board, and so he con- 
 tinued his journey to Philadelphia. 
 
 A letter of introduction from Lord Lansdowne to 
 "Washington produced a courteous reply and an expres- 
 sion of regret from the latter that he was unable, for 
 obvious political reasons, to receive Monsieur de Talley- 
 rand-Perigord, whose personal character he respected. 
 Washington at that time was exerting all his influ- 
 ence to prevent a quarrel but also a rapprochement 
 between revolutionary France and the young republic. 
 
23-J: LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Gh, 
 
 Talleyrand himself admitted that Jacobinism, just as 
 the diplomacy of Louis XVI. had done before it, was 
 menacing Washington's achievement by its support 
 of the anti-federal party, an admission which did not 
 prevent him from doing the same thing in 1798. 
 
 Washington's offer to see Talleyrand privately was 
 declined with the remark that when the front door was 
 closed to him he disdained to come in by the back- 
 stairs. But chance compensated him by bringing him 
 into contact with the statesman whose political genius 
 welded the thirteen states of America into one nation, 
 Alexander Hamilton, " le general Hamilton," as he is 
 called in the Memoirs, the founder of the " Federalist," 
 the handbook of libertv, according to Laboulave's 
 expression, the creator of the great conservative force 
 in the machinery of the Union, represented ideas which 
 must have been all the more interesting to Talleyrand 
 because they had been familiar to him ever since 
 Mirabeau's time. The state constructed on federal 
 lines at the close of a revolution, the executive of which 
 Alexander Hamilton invested with such extensive 
 powers that he did not escape the reproach of having 
 aimed at making a king more than a president of a 
 republic, this state, with the substitution of monarchy 
 for republic, was what floated in the mind of ^lirabeau :. 
 " I adhere more than .ever to my idea," he wrote on 
 one occasion to his confidant Mauvillon, " that a great 
 state can only be well governed as a federation of 
 
VIIL] FEDERALISM IN FRANCE. 235 
 
 small separate states, the federal centre of which is 
 a representative assembly with the monarch for 
 president." 
 
 Mirabeau constantly reverted to this idea. After 
 the fall of the Throne, when the executive was at the 
 mercy of factions, the Gironde, confronted with war 
 abroad and anarchy at home, took up the cry of 
 federalism in quite another sense. In America it was 
 a bond which held the various states together, an 
 equivalent of centralisation ; in the France of 1793 its 
 principal signification was liberation of the provinces 
 from the tyranny of the capital and the clubs, coupled, 
 however, with a weakening of the central authority. 
 The danger of making the country into a second 
 Poland instead of a model state on the American plan 
 was averted by the nation's instinct of self-preservation. 
 A like conviction, that the policy of the Gironde would 
 destroy the unity of the Kepublic, made the youthful 
 Bonaparte a Jacobin and provoked a reaction in favour 
 of despotism. France, in order to escape the process 
 of disintegration which threatened her, sent the 
 Girondists to the scaffold, and submitted, firstly to 
 the tyranny of Robespierre, and then to the cossarism 
 of Napoleon. 
 
 Talleyrand has rendered homage to the political genius 
 of Alexander Hamilton with the words " cet homme 
 avait devine I'Europe." He considered him, taking him 
 altogether, not only as the greatest statesman of the 
 
236 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 Union, but as the most remarkable of all his contem- 
 poraries, Napoleon not excepted. When he left the 
 United States he asked Mrs. Hamilton for a portrait of 
 her husband, and after his death it was found in his 
 bedroom with an inscription to the effect that the two 
 men had entertained a mutual regard and esteem for 
 each other. It has been noted that their public career 
 presents some striking analogies. Both were engaged 
 in the task of framing a constitution, and both selected 
 finance and public instruction as the sphere of their 
 labours. The one achieved what the other in vain 
 attempted, Hamilton having restored public credit 
 and enabled the state to fulfil all its obligations to its 
 creditors. 
 
 But in one point Talleyrand, who was barely three 
 years older than his friend, was superior to him. As 
 a disciple of the Economists he was an advocate of 
 free trade, while the American statesman remained a 
 moderate protectionist, and maintained that America 
 required only two great inland markets, the one for 
 the North, the other for the South, and that with them 
 its trade would develop with steadiness and regularity. 
 Talleyrand, who found the interests of agriculture 
 sacrificed to those of industry in the United States, 
 was not over zealous in his defence of the Economists' 
 doctrines, liut clung to the hope that it would 
 eventually be possible to remove the Custom-liouse 
 barriers and unite all trading countries by means of 
 
VIII.] VIEWS ON THE AMERICAN CONSTITUTION. 287 
 
 a liberal policy. Philanthropic ideas, he says, com- 
 mend themselves with peculiar force to an outcast. 
 His correspondence with Lord Lansdowne in 1795 and 
 his papers written in America, " On the advantages 
 to be derived from the acquisition of colonies in the 
 present circumstances," and " On the commercial rela- 
 tions between England and the United States," have 
 practical objects in view. The letters to the English 
 statesman describe the separation of England and the 
 United States as a final one, but warn him not to 
 take passing symptoms for permanent effects. The 
 Americans' dislike of the mother-country is only on 
 the surface ; in the heart of the nation both inclination 
 and interest are on the side of England. Habeas 
 corpus and trial by jury are the foundations of liberty 
 in both countries ; the citizens of the United States 
 have remained Englishmen ; both are influenced by 
 the same laws and the same constitutional usage, by 
 the same language and the same literatm-e ; the two 
 different titles of republic and monarchy are only 
 incompatible in appearance, and Talleyrand here 
 shows his penetration in referring to " the monarchical 
 element in the constitutional machinery and the exe- 
 cutive of the Union," Two years after the English 
 government had issued the decree of November 6th, 
 1793, ordering the capture of all vessels sailing to 
 or from French ports under the neutral flag, and a 
 new war with the United States seemed imminent on 
 
238 LIFE OF TALLEYKAND. [Ch. 
 
 that account, Talleyrand observes, in almost identical 
 language with Alexander Hamilton, that gratitude is 
 not a characteristic of nations, that the present dis- 
 satisfaction would soon pass away, the position of 
 America tending to make her dependent on England, 
 which alone possessed large capital, vast productive 
 power, and the required credit, with the result that 
 the English exports to America had doubled in the ten 
 years succeeding the war, from 1784 to 1794. For in 
 the United States, he continues, making a fortune or 
 adding to it is the ruling passion, to which even 
 religious feeling is subordinated, the latter, although 
 sincere, being thoroughly free from fanaticism. The 
 Constitutionalist of 1789 does not forget to point out 
 that freedom of worship is the best safeguard of society 
 and free trade the great school of toleration. 
 
 Talleyrand's second paper reminds his fellow- 
 countrymen of the necessity of founding new colonies 
 to replace those they had lost, and above all of calming 
 the passions aroused by the Revolution and finding 
 fresh fields for their activity. He quotes Macchiavelli, 
 " Every violent change presents the possibility of 
 making another " ; and Montesquieu, " A free govern- 
 ment is a government in a perpetual state of motion." 
 A great revolutionary crisis, he adds himself, leaves 
 behind it men whom misfortune has made prematurely 
 old and weary ; the problem is to renew their youth. 
 Time and good legislation can effect changes in the 
 
VIIL] COLONIAL TOLICY. 239 
 
 right direction, but they are not sufficient in them- 
 selves, for the influence of legislation is limited, and 
 time obliterates good and bad without distinction. A 
 wise policy must be adopted, with the object of supply- 
 ing us with what the Americans have in the vast 
 uncultivated plains of a new continent. Colonies are 
 a spur to energy and a fresh goal to ambition, and 
 they soften the hostile feelings produced by the course 
 of events. "It is not so easy as one would think to 
 cherish eternal hatred . . . and, on the other hand, 
 the art of putting men in their right place is one 
 of the very first conditions of good government ; its 
 hardest task consists in finding room for the discon- 
 tented classes." 
 
 The practical solution proposed by Talleyrand harks 
 back to Choiseul's policy. The latter, like d'Argenson, 
 Mirabeau the elder, and Turgot,' foresaw the separation 
 of the American colonies from the mother-country, 
 looked forward with apprehension to the partition of 
 Poland, and, by way of counterpoise, endeavoured to 
 pave the way for the cession of Egypt, " the Holland 
 of the East,'' the conquest of which had already been 
 suggested to Louis XIV. by Leibnitz. The abolition 
 of slavery, argues Talleyrand further, will sooner or 
 later involve a new system of cultivation for all colonial 
 products; a wise policy demands that we should 
 prepare for such great changes, and turn our attention 
 to regions which supply the markets of the world with 
 
240 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Cii 
 
 these products, and are therefore best adapted to 
 compensate us for the loss of our old colonies. 
 
 These State papers unquestionably betray an inkling 
 of the future, a premature perception of the rise of the 
 working classes, of the approaching paramount import- 
 ance of economic interests, of the good understanding 
 which the latter were destined to bring about between 
 the great trading nations of the world, and of a policy 
 of peace. But the advantages which the statesman 
 derived from contact with a new world did not com- 
 pensate the exile for the loss of the old one. In his 
 conversations with Hamilton he sought and found 
 oblivion of the events in France, to which he himself, 
 since the 10th of August, denied even the right of 
 serving as an example for future generations. But 
 the stiffness of Boston society, accompanied though it 
 was by a certain aristocratic polish, by no means 
 made up to him for the loss of that other society, 
 to the refined corruption of which he had contributed, 
 and Washington's puritan friends inspired him with 
 as much ennui as respect. He is even said to have 
 exclaimed, no doubt in a fit of ill-humour : "A 
 democracy ! what is it but an aristocracy of black- 
 guards ? " 
 
 He did not remain long in Philadelphia, but 
 accompanied by Beaumetz, who had shared his exile 
 in London, and then crossed the Atlantic with him, 
 he turned his back on the luxury of the cities, where. 
 
VIIL] LIFE IN THE FAE WEST. 241 
 
 the want of taste grated on him like barbarism, and 
 took refuge in the woods and savannahs of the far 
 West. On the banks of the mighty rivers, and in the 
 shade of the primeval forests, where his fellow-country- 
 man Chateaubriand had shortly before called into being 
 a poetic world around the fair vision of " Atala," 
 Talleyrand's practical mind pictured to itself the 
 farming homesteads of the future, abundant harv^ests, 
 fat cattle, flourishing settlements and emporia of trade. 
 Instead of peopling the mighty country which lay 
 before him with the creations of fancy or with the 
 ideals of freedom which had excited the foolish 
 optimism of his other countryman La Fayette, the 
 great Opportunist studied the men who crossed his 
 path, and, by way of noting characteristic traits, put 
 on paper one of his few sketches which has a literary 
 ring about it : — " Le bncheron americain ne s'interesse 
 a rien ; toute idee sensible est loin de lui : ces branches 
 si elegamment jetees par la nature, un beau feuillage, 
 une couleur vive qui anime une partie de bois, un vert 
 plus fort qui en assombrit un autre, tout cela n'est 
 rien ; il n'a de souvenir a placer nulle part : c'est la 
 quantite de coups de hache qu'il faut qu'il donne 
 pour abattre un arbre, qui est son unique] idee. II n'a 
 point plante ; il n'en sait point les plaisirs. L'arbre 
 qu'il plant erait n'est bon a rien pour lui, car jamais il 
 ne le verra assez fort pour qu'il puisse I'abattre : c'est 
 detruire qui le fait vivre; on detruit partout; aussi 
 VOL. I. 16 
 
242 LIFE OP TALLEYKAND. [Ch. 
 
 tout lieu lui est bon ; il ne tient pas au champ ou il a 
 place son travail, parce que son travail n'est que de la 
 fatigue, et qu'aucune idee douce n'y est jointe. Ce 
 qui sort de ses mains ne passe point par toutes les 
 croissances si attachantes pour le cultivateur ; il ne 
 suit pas la destinee de ses productions; il ne connait 
 pas le plaisir des nouveaux essais ; et si en s'en allant 
 il n'oublie pas sa hache, il ne laisse pas de legrets la 
 ou il a vecu des ann^es." 
 
 Talleyrand relates how oddly it sounded, when he 
 called his servant in the middle of a nocturnal ride on 
 the prairie, to be answered with, " Yes, Monseigneur," 
 which seemed like an echo of the distant Autun. We 
 know from his letters to [Madame de Stael that he 
 endeavoured to improve his position by speculations, 
 and also that his schemes failed for want of the large 
 capital required for buying land or making a profit on 
 European goods. He spent the money he had saved 
 from France in equipping an Indian merchant-man, 
 and was on the point of embarking in her with 
 Beaumetz when he received, in November 1795, the 
 news that the Convention had revoked its decree 
 against him. 
 
 It is said that the ship, in which Beaumetz now 
 embarked alone, never reached its destination. 
 Talleyrand merely states that his friend died in India, 
 and that he was quite unprepared for tlie decree, 
 which was the cause of his speedy return home. 
 
VIII.] EETUEN TO EUEOPE. 243 
 
 Both these last assertions are untrue. He returned 
 to Europe, but not to France, and he had previously 
 set everything in motion to procure the reversal of 
 his sentence of banishment, firstly, after Eobespierre's 
 death, through his former vicar-general Desrenaudes, 
 and still more through JNIadame de Stael's good offices 
 with M. J. Chenier and Daunou. " Si je reste encore 
 un an ici, j'y meurs," he had said in a letter to her, 
 and that was enough to change her sympathy into 
 assistance of the most active kind. She obtained the 
 support of the Jacobin Legendre, and then that of 
 Boissy d'Anglas; she aroused the pity of M. J. 
 Chenier's friend, Madame de la Bouchardie, whose 
 stanzas entitled the " Romance d'un Proscrit" reminded 
 her fellow-countrymen of the exile beyond the seas. 
 On the 16th of June, 1795, Talleyrand presented his 
 petition, which Chenier supported before the Conven- 
 tion on the 4th of September, saying that he held in 
 his hands a memorandum dated the 2oth of November, 
 1792, a copy of which was among Danton's papers, 
 proving that Talleyrand was labouring in the service 
 of the Republic when he was proscribed by her. Per- 
 secuted by Marat and Robespierre, driven from England 
 by Pitt, he had waited in the country of Franklin 
 for the day when there would be judges instead of 
 executioners in France. The Republic should recall 
 him for the sake of his services to the cause of liberty, 
 and as a token of her hatred of the emigres, whose 
 
244 LIFE OF TALLEYEAND. [Ch. Vlli. 
 
 \dctim he would be "if cowards could ever triumph." 
 Michaud takes care to point out how unfortunate this 
 expression was six weeks after Quiberon and during the 
 executions en masse of the last defenders of La Vendee. 
 Chenier carried his point; and the decree which 
 recalled Talleyrand referred to him as one " whose 
 noble conduct as priest and man had powerfully pro- 
 moted the Ee volution." 
 
 Before embarking he had written from New York 
 to Madame de Stael : " Voila done, grace a vous, 
 chere amie, une affaire terminee . . . M. de Stael me 
 donnera-t-il une petite chambre ? c'est chez vous que 
 je voudrais descendre en arrivant . . . je vous aime 
 de toute mon ame." But when the Danish ship in 
 which he had sailed arrived at Hamburg in January 
 1796, events had taken place which caused him to 
 change his mind. Madame de Stael had left Paris, 
 and did not return there till the summer of 1797, and 
 more than a year elapsed before Talleyrand again set 
 foot on French soil. 
 
CHAPTEE IX. 
 
 TALLEYRAND MINISTER OF THE DIRECTORY. 
 
 1798—1799. 
 
 rriHE reasons which prevented Talleyrand from enter- 
 ing France were of a political nature. According to 
 the apt expression of De Maistre, the 9th of Thermidor 
 had been far more of " a family quarrel," a change of 
 persons, than a change of systems, Kobespierre owing 
 his fall to Dantonists who had resolved on getting 
 rid of him in order to save their own lives. The 
 committee of public safety of the year III. consisted, 
 with but few exceptions, of regicides, who could only 
 keep themselves in power by means of war abroad and 
 force at home. On three separate occasions in the 
 space of six months the Convention was obliged to 
 maintain its position by the sword ; on the 1st of April, 
 1795, by Pichegru's victory over the Paris sections; on 
 the 20th of May by the defeat inflicted on the Parisian 
 mob by the troops of the line ; and on the 5th of 
 October by Bonaparte's triumph over the moderate 
 Eepublicans and the Eoyalists — Germinal, Prairial, and 
 A^endemiaire, 1795. After the introduction of the 
 
 245 
 
246 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 constitutiou of the year III., which was its last act, 
 there was a change of names, but not of principles, 
 and the committee of public safety reappeared in the 
 government of the Directory. 
 
 Talleyrand had written from America in May 1794 
 that peace would be followed by civil war in France. 
 But there was no question of peace, for the Eepublic 
 was still committed to the policy of conquest involved in 
 the acquisition of natural frontiers, and only the scene 
 of the campaigns changed. Of the ten states with 
 whom England had concluded alliances or to whom she 
 had promised subsidies between the 25th of March, 
 1793, and the 19th of April, 1794, half had either left or 
 been forced out of the coalition in the course of 1795, 
 and since the conclusion of the Peace of Bale. Austria 
 and Kussia, joined by Sardinia, Portugal, and Naples, 
 made the new treaty of alliance and guarantee of the 
 20th of May, 1795, with Pitt against France ; but the 
 two great Powers were intent on a policy of annex- 
 ations and compensations which had little or nothing in 
 common with the interests on behalf of which England 
 had been putting continental armies into the field 
 since 1793. It was the division of the Polish booty 
 which absorbed the attention of Russia, and weakened 
 Austria's power of action against France. Belgium 
 and the left bank of the Rhine had been conquered 
 by the republican troops at the expense of Poland. 
 The secret treaty, signed by Russia and Austria at 
 
IX.] FOREIGN POLICY OF REVOLUTIONISTS. 247 
 
 St. Petersburg on the 3rd of January, 1795, besides 
 giving the latter her share of Poland and holding out 
 hopes of the annexation of Bavaria and other Grerman 
 territory, invited her to take possession of Venice as 
 a comi^ensation for the loss of the Netherlands, On 
 the other hand, the treaty of peace between France 
 and Spain, the 22nd of July, 1795, was made with the 
 object of excluding England from the Mediterranean, 
 of transporting the scene of war to Italy, and of forcing 
 Austria to recognise the conquest of the left bank 
 of the Rhine, and the cession of the Netherlands by 
 victories in the plain of Lombardy. After the mass 
 of proposals and programmes, of intrigues and wild 
 schemes, which were mooted in the brief interval 
 between Danton's diplomatic essays in 1793 and Sieyes' 
 re-entry into diplomacy in 1795, there was little left 
 for Napoleonic policy to invent up to 1815. Danton 
 insisted on the conquest of Holland in order to retain 
 Belgium. Dumouriez, Kersaint, and the cosmopolitan 
 German George Forster were for destroying England's 
 Indian empire. A daring negotiator, Mackau, proposed 
 the partition of the States of the Church to Acton, 
 the Minister at Naples, as early as 1793, Dubois- 
 Crane^ and Sieyes were the precursors in 1795 of the 
 policy of 1805, 1806, and 1807, and offered Hanover 
 to Prussia, Lombardy to Piedmont, and Portugal to 
 Spain. Sieyes devised the confederation of the Rhine, 
 the camp at Boulogne, and the secularisations, and 
 
248 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 disposed of the peoples of Europe with a cynicism 
 hardly exceeded by Napoleon. This revolutionary di- 
 plomacy was only perfectly consistent on one point. In 
 Holland and on the Ehine, in Italy and the Pyrenees, 
 England was the object of attack, and a common 
 hatred united Girondists and Thermidorians, ^Moderates 
 and Jacobins, Brissot and Barere, Eewbell and Bona- 
 partein their crusade against the modern Carthage. 
 
 It was this undying hatred which confirmed Pitt 
 in the conviction that the only means of attaining a 
 lasting peace was for France, which wished for peace, 
 to abandon the policy of conquest of the Eevolution 
 and revert to monarchy with the frontiers of 1792, 
 and for the monarchy to break once and for all with 
 the ancien regime. The policy of the revolutionary 
 government in Paris was an outline of that of Tilsit 
 and Bayonne; the Ministry in London was absorbed 
 in the ideas which triumphed in 1815 under Wellington. 
 Both were a generation ahead of history, and the plans 
 of both were frustrated by the vicissitudes of war and 
 the infatuation of parties. 
 
 Pitt was the first to experience a great disappoint- 
 ment. When the Crown emigrated after the death 
 of the unfortunate child in the Temple, the new 
 king, Louis XVIII. , issued the manifesto of Verona 
 in August, 1795. In it he coodemned the Eevolu- 
 tion, set up absolute monarchy and the status quo 
 before 1789 in opposition to it, and made all the long 
 
IX.] POLICY OF DIRECTORY. 249 
 
 and laborious negotiations between English diplomacy 
 and the Koyalist parties collapse like a house of cards. 
 After Thermidor monarchical sympathies were strong 
 enough in France, exhausted and impoverished as she 
 then was, to make Tallien, Freron, and Barras approach 
 the monarchist-constitutionalists, whose representatives 
 were to be found even in the constitution committee 
 of the Convention. ^Madame de Stael, who was by 
 no means a Eoyalist, could then interpret the senti- 
 ments of the moderate groups by referring even to 
 peace with England as a possibility, which deserved 
 to be taken into account by both Constitutionalists 
 and moderate Republicans in the interests of a 
 prudent policy. 
 
 All combinations of this kind became hopeless when 
 it was proved that the old monarchy refused to come 
 to *terms with the nation, and that the Directory was 
 merely a continuation of the Convention under another 
 name. The decrees of Fructidor assured its members 
 a majority in both the new assemblies. The appoint- 
 ment of the five Directors was subject to the proviso 
 that each of them must have voted for the execution 
 of the King. Liberty of worship, which had only 
 just been guaranteed, was again abolished, and religious 
 persecution and penal legislation against the emigrants 
 were once more the order of the day. The men of 
 the Terror began to creep out of their hiding-places. 
 It was characteristic of the situation that one of them, 
 
250 LIFE OF TALLEYKAND. [Ch. 
 
 the butcher Legendre, demanded the expulsion of 
 Madame de Stael because she had entertained relations 
 ■with the opposition, and had exerted her influence 
 to obtain the pardon of emigrants like Montesquiou, 
 Jaucourt, Narbonne, and Talleyrand. It is true that 
 Boissy d'Anglas protected her against violence, but 
 Siey^s could not forgive the doubts of the genuineness 
 of his republican sentiments which had been openlv 
 expressed in her set, and she found herself obliged 
 to absent herself from Paris for more than a year. 
 
 As for Talleyrand, he decided to wait at Hamburg 
 till the storm had blown over. Chauvelin's secretary 
 of embassy, Eeinhard, had been residing there as 
 French charge d'af aires since the 24tli of June, and 
 was well qualified to enlighten him on the situation ; 
 for besides his official duties he was entrusted with 
 the far more important secret mission of assuring the 
 neutrality of the northern states of Germany and 
 bringing them into the French alliance, a task which 
 he performed with skill and good fortune up to the 
 time when his marriage with the daughter of Eeimarus 
 in October 1796 led to his being transferred to 
 Florence. It was during this time that a devoted 
 friendship grew up between Eeinhard and Talleyrand, 
 who was destined to find him one of the most efficient 
 supporters of his official career. There were also liWng 
 in Hamburg Dumouriez, Countess Flahaut, who was 
 thinking of marrying again, the new Duke of Orleans, 
 
IX.] MADAME GRAND. 251 
 
 as whose agent Talleyrand was again designated, and 
 the Duke's " gouverneur,'' Madame de Grenlis, whom 
 he found quite unchanged : " La fixite dans les natures 
 composees tient a leur souplesse." 
 
 Talleyrand moreover did not return alone, but 
 accompanied by a lady whose acquaintance he had 
 made in New York, a blonde beauty who had com- 
 pletely disarmed the calculating coolness and prudence 
 for which he was generally remarkable. The daughter 
 of a French officer, born in the East Indies and 
 married to a Swiss merchant of the name of Grand, 
 she had been separated from her husband in 1778 at 
 the age of sixteen, owing to an episode of which Sir 
 Philip Francis, the supposed author of the " Letters 
 of Junius," was the hero. Although she succeeded in 
 attracting two of the cleverest men of her time, she 
 herself had so little pretensions to cleverness that 
 people laughed at her, and asked her where she came 
 from in order to receive the answer : " Je suis dinde 
 (d'lnde)." Madame de Remusat, who has recorded 
 the charm of her dazzling beauty, also refers to 
 her unpleasing voice, her ill-natured disposition, and 
 positively inexhaustible stupidity, which made Talley- 
 rand say : " Une femme d'esprit compromet souvent 
 son mari ; une femme stupide ne compromet qu'elle- 
 m^me." The silken thread with which he then bound 
 himself was not destined to be a light one. He had 
 fifty thousand francs left for himself and the beautiful 
 
252 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 Creole. His remark to ^Madame de Genlis, " that 
 nothing on earth would induce him to take office 
 again," was not seriously meant. The difficulty was 
 rather to find the way back to it. 
 
 News was arriving from the seat of war which 
 completely changed the political as well as the mili- 
 tary situation. The Directory had found its master 
 and victory its favourite. The armies which Carnot 
 despatched to the Rhine in September were defeated ; 
 the young general who had been entrusted by him 
 with the supreme command in Italy, had taken the 
 offensive, had vanquished the veteran commanders of 
 Austria, whose power in the jjeninsula was broken by 
 the capture of Mantua on the 3rd of February, 1797, 
 and had concluded treaties with three Italian states, 
 which secured plenty to the French troops and closed 
 the harbours of Italy against the English. A despatch 
 from Bonaparte to the Directory contained the famous 
 passage : " I have received your treaty of peace with 
 Sardinia ; the army has approved it." While the future 
 dictator was learning to despise the advocates who 
 governed France in the classic home of European culture 
 and civilisation, poverty and a rise in prices had goaded 
 the Paris proletariate under the leadership of Babeuf 
 into a campaign against social order. Warned in good 
 time, the Jacobins in power were able to suppress the 
 rising of the Jacobins of the streets before its outbreak, 
 and so protect .society from the Utopian devotees of 
 
IX.1 EETURN TO PARIS. 253 
 
 revolutionary logic, for whom the idea of equality was 
 resolving itself into a denial of the rights of property 
 in a communistic state. But in the face of the general 
 distress public opinion evinced no gratitude to the 
 Directory for successes of this kind, and in May the 
 first retiring third of the Convention was replaced by 
 moderate deputies. The executive remained revolu- 
 tionary, while the popular representation ceased to 
 be so, and the figure of the long expected Csesar, who 
 alone could bring the Revolution to a close, began to 
 assume a distinct outline. From henceforth it was 
 safe for a man of Talleyrand's antecedents to return 
 to Paris. 
 
 Since the summer he had left Hamburg. He spent 
 a fortnight in Amsterdam and then made a stay of 
 some duration in Brussels. Masson and Lord Calling 
 speak of a three months' secret mission in Berlin, of 
 which no traces are discoverable. In September 1796 
 he re-entered Paris after an absence of four years, 
 accompanied by Madame Grand, who a few days after- 
 wards was put down as an emissary of the emigration. 
 "C'est une Indienne bien belle, bien paresseuse, la plus 
 desoccupee de toutes les femmes," wrote Talleyrand 
 to the Director Barras, then a stranger to him: "je 
 I'aime et je vous atteste, d'homme a homme, que de 
 sa vie elle ne s'est melee et n'est en etat de se meler 
 d'aucune affaire." He had taken up his abode in a 
 modest lodging, and hardly knew himself again in 
 
254 LIFE OB^ TALLEYEAND. [Ch. 
 
 Paris. Churches were being used as warehouses, 
 palaces as barracks or taverns, and monasteries as 
 dancing-saloons for the people. In the once aristocratic 
 Faubourg grass was growing on the deserted streets. 
 New rulers and parvenu speculators rubbed shoulders 
 in the salons of Madame Tallien and Madame 
 Hamelin, " habilldes . . . comme on ne se deshabille 
 pas " ; the pre-revolutionary society, as he had known 
 it, had disappeared : he himself seemed to be forgotten 
 by the political world. The Institute, which had been 
 re-established, alone remembered his measures for the 
 reform of public instruction and the scientific institu- 
 tions of the country, and his legislative labours, and 
 made him, with Dupont de Nemours, Lacuee, and 
 Roederer, a member of the section for national 
 economy, to which he submitted his two papers com- 
 posed in America, and for which he wrote the report 
 for 1797 as secretary of the classes : " C'est un de nos 
 bons constituants," Roederer heard one of the audience 
 say as they were applauding him on this occasion. 
 In political circles he was counted one of the constitu- 
 tionnels directoriaux, for whom Benjamin Constant, 
 then a rising young publicist, published two pamphlets 
 advocating' the defence of republican institutions 
 against the threatening attacks of the reaction. The 
 indefatigable reporter of the Court of Vienna, 3Iallet 
 du Pan, did not fail to note that Monsieur d'Autun, 
 •" le moins scrupuleux et le plus immoral des hommes," 
 
IX.] " POSITION IN PARIS. 255 
 
 had declared in favour of keeping Belgium, Liege, and 
 the Dutch fortresses, and of the independence of 
 Holland, in the Cerde constitutionnel, the rendez- 
 vous of the moderate party. This pronouncement was 
 made in November, just when Lord Malmesbm-y had 
 arrived in Paris with instructions to make future 
 negotiations for peace conditional on the evacuation 
 of Holland. 
 
 The winter of 1797 passed away without any notice 
 being taken of Talleyrand's overtm-es. Ill fortune, 
 while it did not ennoble his character, never ruffled 
 his temper. His remarks only betray the humiliation 
 inflicted by the pecuniary straits in which he was 
 placed. As long ago as 1792 he had made the 
 characteristic observations to his friend Biron : " Oil 
 en etes-vous de vos affaires ? les suivez-vous ? c'est la 
 qu'il faut chercher le bonhem*. Dans deux ans, il 
 sera la tout entier pour nous qui ne sommes plus 
 jeunes." From America he wrote to ]Madame de 
 Grenlis : " La situation de mon esprit est a pen pres la 
 meme que vous I'avez vue, ni plus haineux, ni plus 
 violent que de coutume. Je ne songe guere a mes 
 ennemis ; je m'occupe de refaire de la fortune, et j'y 
 porte I'activite que pent inspirer I'emploi que j'espere 
 en faire ; et la mon imagination trouve des esperances 
 et des emotions douces. Entre les sentiments dont 
 on a besoin pour etre content de soi, il faut compter 
 celui de I'independance : c'est ma tache actuelle. 
 
256 LIFE OP TALLEYEAND. [Ch. 
 
 -Si je parviens a la remplir, je dois regarder ces ann^es- 
 ci comme les plus utiles de ma vie, et me croire dans 
 le petit nombre de ceux qui ont 6t4 bien partagds." 
 " Voyez-vous, il ne faut jamais etre pauvre dialile," 
 he said afterwards to Vitrolles. His attempts to make 
 a fortune in America had not succeeded, and in Paris 
 he said to Madame de Stael : " Ma chere enfant ; je 
 n'ai plus que 25 louis, il n'y a pas de quoi aller 
 un mois ; vous savez que je ne marche pas et qu'il me 
 faut une voiture. Si vous ne me trouvez pas un moyen 
 de me creer une position convenable, je me brulerai 
 la cervelle. Arrangez-vous la-dessus. Si vous m'aimez, 
 voyez ce que vous avez a faire." 
 
 She complied ^with his request, gave him twenty- 
 four thousand francs to go on with, and hastened to 
 Barras, who consented to meet him, and with this 
 view invited him to dine at his country-house at 
 Suresnes, It was in May, and, as chance would have 
 it, shortly after Talleyrand's arrival the Director's 
 adjutant, whom he had brought up and to whom he 
 was tenderly attached, was drowned while bathing in 
 the Seine. Barras was deeply affected ; Talleyrand 
 returned to Paris with him and showed such sympathy 
 in consoling him that from that day he became 
 Talleyrand's friend. " II aurait donne un parfum au 
 fumier," was the expression which Barras employed 
 to describe what he felt in Talleyrand's society. 
 
 On the 18th of July he carried Talleyrand's appoint- 
 
IX.] APPOINTED FOREIGN MINISTER. 257 
 
 ment as Minister of Foreign Affairs with the support 
 of his colleagues Rewbell and Reveillere-Lepaux. The 
 two other Directors, Barthelemy, the negotiator of the 
 peace of Bale, and Carnot opposed it vehemently, and 
 advocated the appointment of Colchen, a nonentity ; 
 they said openly that the renegade priest, who had 
 been a traitor to his order, his king, and his God, 
 would be ready to betray the whole Directory, that he 
 changed his principles as he did his linen. But 
 Carnot, who used this language, had to countersign his 
 own discomfiture in his letter announcing the appoint- 
 ment to Talleyrand, to which the latter replied that 
 the new Minister would prove his devotion to the 
 Eepublic by deeds. He had succeeded as a candidate 
 of the extremists, and was, nevertheless, mistrusted by 
 them as an aristocrat and adherent of the Orleans 
 faction, while the Constitutionalists, such as Mathieu 
 Dumas and Dupont de Nemours, recommended him to 
 the Councils as a man of firm character and great 
 ability. The Prussian ambassador reported to his 
 government to the same effect. "A few days ago," 
 wrote Sandoz-Eollin, " he said to me in the course of 
 a confidential conversation : ' I shall stand as a con- 
 ciliating link between the Directory and the two 
 Councils ; my object is peace, and I detest all revolu- 
 tionary schemes and intrigues." This coincides with 
 what we find in his Memoirs : " Peace abroad could 
 alone lead to order at home, and from thenceforth all 
 VOL. I. 17 
 
258 LIFE OF TALLEYKAXD. [Ch. 
 
 my thoughts and actions were bent on peace." But to 
 attain this end he would have required a measure of 
 authority such as he never possessed at any stage of 
 his career as Minister under the Directory. Not only 
 was he kept in ignorance of all domestic afifairs, but 
 the Directors conducted even the business of' his own 
 department in direct contradiction to his own views 
 and advice. 
 
 Madame de Stael was absent from Paris when the 
 appointment, which was owing to her initiative, was 
 made. On the following day he wrote to her : " Me 
 voila done encore Ministre. J'ai des raisons de posi- 
 tion pour en etre Men aise, des raisons de caractere 
 pour en etre fache ; c'est fort loin d'etre un plaisir com- 
 plet." A few days before he had said to her : " Je fais 
 des vceux pour les succes de la Eepublique, je deteste 
 plus que jamais I'aristocratie ; je fais des vceux pour 
 votre retour : j'ai un besoin extreme de vous revoir ; je 
 vous aime de toute mou ame." He used to relate 
 afterwards that in the Hotel Galiffet, which was 
 assigned to him as an official residence, he was sur- 
 rounded by external splendour and by a crowd of 
 servants whose wages he was unable to pay, and who 
 used costly Sevres dishes, because there was no money 
 to buy earthenware. 
 
 His predecessor in office, Delacroix, left him a staff 
 of capable officials, who soon experienced the con- 
 sideration which characterised all his dealings with his 
 
IX.] EELATIONS WITH COLLEAGUES. 259 
 
 subordinates. One of his first appointments was that 
 of Hauterive, whom he had first met under the roof 
 of the Duke de Choiseul, and afterwards in America, 
 where he was working as a gardener, and who from 
 this time proved an ornament to the French Foreign 
 Office. When Talleyrand took over his office, the 
 salaries were in arrear, and even the bill for his own 
 state-coach could not be paid. " Vous etes bien 
 curieux," was his reply to the coach-builder who en- 
 quired when the account would be settled. The method 
 and order which he introduced into the administration 
 of his department gained for him the commendation 
 of the budget commissions of 1798 and 1799. It was 
 more difficult for him to get on with his colleagues. 
 At the first meeting which he attended as Minister the 
 following scene took place : Barras accused Carnot of 
 suppressing an official document ; both Directors stood 
 up as they spoke. " I swear that it is untrue," cried 
 Carnot, raising his right hand. " Do not swear," 
 rejoined Barras, " for drops of blood would fall from 
 your hand." 
 
 At the same time that Talleyrand was appointed, 
 Franpois de Neufchateau was made Minister of the 
 Interior, Hoche Minister of War, for a short time only, 
 and Ple'ville-Peley Minister of Marine. The latter was 
 succeeded in 1798 by Admiral Bruix, whom TallejTand 
 mentions as the only one of his colleagues with whom 
 he could get on, and whose portfolio he took over when 
 
260 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 the admiral was placed in command of the fleet which 
 took Bonaparte and his army to Egypt. 
 
 The new Ministry came to the helm at an eventful 
 period. Bonaparte had commenced negotiations for 
 peace with Austria by the preliminaries of Leoben, and 
 the Directory, confronted with the question " to be or 
 not to be," de\ised the coup d'etat of Fructidor, which 
 succeeded because Bonaparte, without seriously believing 
 in the danger of Eoyalist conspiracies, nevertheless 
 thought it good policy to play off the Jacobin trium- 
 virate of Barras, Rewbell, and Reveill^re against the 
 two moderate Directors, Carnot and Barthelemy, and 
 the two legislative assemblies. The constitutional 
 authorities were bound to be a danger to him as soon 
 as they gathered strength ; and he was already on bad 
 terms with them owing to his arbitrary treatment of the 
 Venetian Republic. As for the Jacobins, they repre- 
 sented a system which he could overthrow whenever 
 he pleased. But he did not consider it necessary to go 
 himself into the streets, as on the 13th of Yendemiaire. 
 He sent Barras three millions, which were gratefully 
 accepted. Then he despatched the turbulent Augereau 
 to Paris, who infringed the constitution by collecting 
 troops in close proximity to the capital, and thus 
 provoked the coup d'etat which was carried out on 
 the 4th of September and placed Paris under the iron 
 heel of a military des})otism, without a single hand 
 being lifted among the people to defend its legitimate 
 
IX.] COUP D'ETAT OF FKUCTIDOR. 261 
 
 representatives. Then began an era of proscriptions 
 and deportations, to the cold-blooded cruelty of which 
 all the opponents of the victorious party, without 
 distinction of political sentiments, fell victims, the 
 deadly malaria of Guiana taking the place of the 
 guillotine. 
 
 According to contemporary statements, Talleyrand 
 passed the evening before the coup cVetat in Barras' 
 house with Benjamin Constant and Madame de Stael. 
 It was he who, according to Miot de Melito, vehemently 
 insisted on action, fearing that the Bourbons might be 
 recalled. He is also said to have answered a question 
 as to Madame de Stael's share in these events, to the 
 effect -'that she was concerned in the 18th but not 
 the 19th of Fructidor " ; in other words, that she was 
 for the overthrow of the Koyalists but not for the 
 return of the Terror. Talleyrand accepted both. We 
 know what he has to answer for from the historians 
 who have investigated the second Terror, " la guillotine 
 seche," as it was called, and still more from the 
 accounts of the victims of this narrow and fanatical 
 persecution. The chief culprits were Merlin and 
 Keveillere, who shared the task of punishing Royalist 
 intrigues and persecuting recalcitrant priests by means 
 of the decrees of 1790 — 1795 which had been revived 
 against them. As the elastic offence of disturbing 
 ]mblic order was sufficient to warrant deportation, no 
 less than nine thousand nine hundred and fifty-two 
 
262 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 ecclesiastics were found guilty, although only one 
 thousand three hundred and ninety-nine of them 
 actually suffered the penalty. Talleyrand was asked 
 to submit official reports concerning the participation 
 of emigrant priests in Royalist conspiracies, pretended 
 as well as real ; he urged extenuating circumstances, 
 and in January 1799 interceded for Count Coligny, 
 without, however, being able to dispose his colleagues 
 to clemency either in the one case or the other. On 
 the other hand, he managed to get Roederer's name 
 struck off the list and a journalist deported in his 
 place, the Minister of Police, Sotin, insisting on his 
 full nmnber. He saved another constitutionnel, Mathieu 
 Dumas, by giving him a forged passport. 
 
 The question now was to justify the 18th of 
 Fructidor, as had been done with the 10th of August, 
 not only in the eyes of foreign countries, but, strange 
 to say, of Bonaparte himself, who had not given his 
 consent to the violent measures which Talleyrand 
 now styled legal and commended as a specimen of 
 finished state-craft. The apology must have been no 
 easy one, for his own hopes of peace had vanished. In 
 August he had said to Sandoz-Rollin that Pitt wished 
 for peace, that an understanding with him must bring 
 about one in Vienna, and that he (Talleyrand) had 
 rendered this possible. This policy had every prospect 
 of success, if the rulers in Paris would onlv consent to 
 it. War loans and subsidies were weighing heavily on 
 
IX.] SITUATION IN ENGLAND. 263 
 
 Pitt's budget. The coalition, which he had formed with 
 so much labour, had ceased to exist, Portugal was the 
 only country on the Continent which still held to the 
 English alliance, when at the end of August the news 
 fell like a thunderbolt that the Court of Lisbon had 
 also joined the deserters, while the English fleet was 
 in open mutiny, and Ireland was on the brink of a 
 terrible insurrection. The nerve of resistance, public 
 opinion in England, was in favour of peace. " We 
 have not what is of all means the most essential, the 
 mind," wrote Canning, who had almost lost heart, 
 to Pitt, who now directed all the energy which had 
 inspired his resistance to obtaining peace. Lord 
 Malmesbury was sent to France once more, this time 
 to Lille, with full power to leave Belgium and Holland 
 to their fate, to recognise French acquisitions of 
 territory in Germany and Italy, and to stipulate for 
 the retention by England of only the Cape, Trinidad, 
 Ceylon, and the town and port of Cochin among all 
 the French colonies which she had conquered. Of 
 the three French plenipotentiaries at Lille one, Maret, 
 was sincerely in favour of peace. Two of the Directors 
 were on his side ; Carnot declared afterwards that if 
 his advice had been followed, peace would have been 
 then concluded on most favourable terms. On the 10th 
 of June, 1797, Barthelemy stated to Sandoz-Rollin that 
 it would be " une absurdite politique intolerable " to 
 aggrandise the Republic on the Rhine as a counter- 
 
264 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 poise to the power of Russia. But when Talleyrand 
 took up the negotiations the influence of the brutal 
 and ^'iolent Rewbell had already prevailed over 
 counsels of moderation, and Lord Malmesbury was 
 expected to agree to England's surrender of all her 
 conquests, those made at the expense of Holland and 
 Spain as well as those from France, and was informed 
 that this was a sine qua non for the continuance of 
 negotiations. After Fructidor the remodelled Direc- 
 tory went even further, and made such exorbitant 
 claims that the negotiations were broken off, and 
 Lord Malmesbury received his passports for the second 
 time in the space of a year. Talleyrand's attempts 
 to moderate these absurd demands were overruled 
 by Rewbell as " frivolous ; " he used the epithet 
 " ignorantissime " when the Minister endeavoured to 
 continue the negotiations for peace with Austria on 
 the basis of the preliminaries of Leoben, instead of 
 driving her from the Rhine at all hazards, while 
 Talleyrand received despatches from Bonaparte dated 
 from jNIontebello complaining that he was as bad a 
 judge of the situation in Italy as the Directors 
 themselves. The cause of the reprimand was that 
 Talleyrand had, shortly before Fructidor, sent instruc- 
 tions to Bonaparte warning him that the establishment 
 of isolated republics in Italy might pave the way for 
 a united Italian Republic, which might in the future 
 be persuaded to turn against France. 
 
IX.] COERESPONDENCE WITH BONAPARTE. 265 
 
 Even at this early stage Sandoz-EoUin pointed out 
 that everything conspired to thwart Talleyrand, and 
 that his continuance in office for any length of time 
 was impossible. But this opinion did not take into 
 account the supple nature of the man. He accepted 
 with outward calm the diplomatic discomfiture in 
 which the failure of the Lille negotiations had in- 
 volved his own policy. In the year 1797 he entered 
 at Hoche's request into communication with Irish 
 emissaries ; a year afterwards he complied with an 
 order of jNIerlin and issued unlimited powers for 
 negotiations with Tippoo Sahib and other Indian 
 princes, whose names were not even known in France. 
 But all this time he was coolly watching which way 
 the balance of power was inclining, and he soon came 
 to the conclusion that its centre of gravity had shifted. 
 
 Directly after his nomination he had reported his 
 appointment to Bonaparte. In his Memoirs he refers 
 to a letter of congratulation from the latter as the 
 cause of this communication. But this is a slip of the 
 memory, and it was he who began the correspondence. 
 "J'ai I'honneur de vous annoncer, general, que le 
 Direct oire executif m'a nomme ministre des relations 
 exterieures. Justement effraj'd des fonctions dont je 
 sens la p^rilleuse importance, j'ai besoin de me rassurer 
 par le sentiment de ce que \otre gloire doit apporter 
 de moyens et de facilites dans les negociations. Le 
 nom seul de Bonaparte est un auxiliaire qui doit tout 
 
266 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. L<^'H. 
 
 aplanir. Je m'empresserai de vous faire parvenir 
 toutes les vues que le Directoire me chargera de vous 
 transmettre, et la Renommee, qui est votre organs 
 ordinaire, me donnera souvent le bonheur de lui 
 apprendre la maniere dont vous les aurez remplies." 
 
 Bonaparte's first letter to Talleyrand requests him to 
 accelerate the negotiations for peace. By way of reply 
 the ^Minister had to confine himself to transmitting the 
 instructions of the Directory, which, a prey to inward 
 dissensions, first of all threw difficulties in the way of 
 the negotiations, and then, after the coup d'etat, 
 dictated to him the following aggressive passage : 
 "We did not go to Italy to bargain away the rights 
 of peoples : Venice must be given to understand that 
 its liberation from the Austrian yoke is the object of 
 the war." In September 1797 he also sent word to 
 Miot de Melito, the ambassador in Turin, that the 
 idea of an alliance between the French Republic and 
 Piedmont must, under existing circumstances, be 
 abandoned. When the exact contrary took place, the 
 Directory consenting, under pressure from Bonaparte, 
 to the alliance, by which he in vain attempted to save 
 the little kingdom, and Bonaparte himself concluding 
 peace between France and Austria on the 17th of 
 October, on condition of the cession of Venice to the 
 latter, then the Directors only ventured on the submis- 
 sive language of assent and approval. But Talleyrand 
 wrote : " Voila done la paix faite, et une paix a la 
 
IX.] LETTER FROM BONAPARTE, 267 
 
 Bonaparte. Eecevez mon compliment de coem", mon 
 general ; les expressions manquent pour vous dire tout 
 ce qu'on voudrait en ce moment. Le Directoire est 
 content, le public enchante. Tout est au mieux. On 
 aura peut-etre quelques criailleries d'ltaliens ; mais 
 c'est egal. Adieu, general pacificateur ! Adieu ! 
 amitid, admiration, respect, reconaissauce ; on ne sait 
 ou s'arreter dans cette enumeration." 
 
 Bonaparte repaid Talleyrand's admiring confidence 
 by addressing to him the letter of September 19th, in 
 which he states his views on the sovereignty of the 
 people and the delegation of its powers a propos of 
 the draft of the constitution for the new Cisalpine 
 Republic, which was formed out of the three papal 
 legations. " The organisation of the French people," 
 he wrote, " exists at present only in outline. The 
 good opinion we have of ourselves, the thousand-and- 
 one pamphlets and the inexhaustible speeches which 
 flow from our deputies, do not prevent us from being 
 very ignorant in political matters. We have not yet 
 succeeded in clearly distinguishing between executive, 
 legislative, and judicial authority. Montesquieu him- 
 self has not given a correct definition of them. No 
 doubt this great man was fully equal to the task, but 
 he himself admits that his work was more an analysis 
 of the present and the past ; a collection of observa- 
 tions and notes. His definitions of legislative, executive, 
 and judicial power are taken from England. The right 
 
268 LIFE OB^ TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 of declaring war, of concluding peace, and of levying 
 taxes is not necessarily an attribute of legislative 
 authority, although the English constitution for motives 
 of prudence confers one of these rights on the House 
 of Commons. This constitution, which is composed of 
 privileges, — a dark ceiling edged with gold — rests on 
 the assumption that the House of Commons represents 
 the nation and consequently possesses the right to tax 
 it, and so to protect it against despotism and abuse 
 of power, and even against the insolence of courtiers. 
 But in the case of a State, in which all power rests 
 in the people and the people is the sovereign, there 
 is no reason for investing the legislature with powers 
 which are really foreign to its nature. In a case of 
 this kind the government itself must be considered 
 the representative of the nation, to the full extent of 
 the powers which are conferred on it by the text of the 
 constitution and the organic laws. The governmental 
 authority must be divided into two distinct organs, of 
 which one should not be able to take the initiative by 
 action, but should only supervise and give legal approval 
 to the measures of the others, the so-called executive. 
 The executive should only be filled by men who have 
 already held office and gained experience, whereas the 
 legislative authority has to enact or amend organic 
 laws, not, as now takes place, in the space of a few 
 days, but after mature deliberation, lasting, if neces- 
 sary, for months. A legislative assembly thus con- 
 
IX.] FIRST MEETING WITH BONAPARTE. 269 
 
 stituted, without rank in the Kepublic, devoid of party 
 feeling and indifferent to the clamour of the day, 
 would not have the ambition or the inducement to 
 burden us with a quantity of legislative enactments, 
 which, inspired by chance, jDerish of their own absurdity, 
 and condemn us to the fate of being a nation with 
 three hundred codes and no laws," Siey^s, to whom 
 the contents of this document were to have been 
 communicated, threw cold water on the attempt to 
 deprive him of the monopoly of planning constitutions. 
 Talleyrand took the matter more seriously, to all 
 appearances at least, and mentioned Benjamin Constant 
 as a republican of liberal views who was able and ready 
 to put Bonaparte's political ideas into constitutional 
 shape. His advice was not followed then, but after- 
 wards, in 1815, and in the Gent Jours. 
 
 When the general arrived in Paris from Rastatt in 
 December, Talleyrand saw him for the first time on 
 the following morning, and fell under the spell of his 
 personal charm : " Vingt batailles gagnees vont si bien 
 a la jeunesse, a un beau regard, a de la paleur, a une 
 sorte d'epuisement ! " He introduced him in solemn 
 audience at the Luxemburg on the 10th of December, 
 the odes of Ch^nier and Lebrun and an orchestra of one 
 thousand nine hundred musicians forming an accom- 
 paniment, surrounded by brilliant toilettes and uniforms, 
 amid the applause of the public, who hissed the hump- 
 backed Keveillere and his colleagues and gave an 
 
270 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 ovation to the conqueror, who was obliged to submit 
 to the embraces of the five Directors. By way of com- 
 pensation Talleyrand gave a fete in honour of Josephine, 
 which was remarkable for tasteful arrangements, great 
 luxury, and complete absence of ladies of good social 
 position. It was recollected afterwards that Talley- 
 rand'^ address contained the remark that without the 
 Revolution " le genie du vainqueur d'ltalie eut langui 
 dans de vulgaires honneurs." He compared him to 
 his favourite Ossian, referred to his unworldliness and 
 inaccessibility to ambition, and said that, far from 
 dreading his ambition, a time perhaps would come 
 when its aid might be invoked. 
 
 Talleyrand had considerable difficulty in inducing 
 Bonaparte to attend the anniversary of the King's 
 execution with his Jacobin following, but they both 
 found each other of one mind as to future policy. The 
 Directory declaimed against " the insolence of England," 
 and. a few weeks after the destruction of the Dutch 
 fleet by Duncan's victory off Camperdown, strongly 
 urged that a landing should be effected on the British 
 coast. Bonaparte, who was placed in command of the 
 army intended for England, knew the real value of 
 these wild schemes. For a moment Talleyrand could 
 indulge in the hope that he had converted him to his 
 own views, for on the 28th of February, 1798, Sandoz- 
 Kollin wrote to Berlin : " Le ministre m'assura que 
 le general Bonaparte considerait cette entreprise (contre 
 
IX.] PEOPOSED MISSION TO THE EAST. 271 
 
 I'Angleterre) comme trfes hazardee, et prefererait cle 
 negocier la paix avec I'Angleterre." But Bonaparte 
 had already other plans in view. For a whole year 
 he had had his eye on the East, hoping to strike a 
 blow in that quarter at the enemy whom he could 
 not reach on the Thames. His confidant with regard 
 to the Egyptian expedition was Talleyrand, who re- 
 cognised his own ideas in the scheme for making the 
 IMediterranean, from Malta to the Nile, a French lake. 
 He was to follow the General and then proceed as 
 French ambassador to Constantinople in order to re- 
 concile the Porte to the campaign which was to ovei- 
 throw the power of the Mamelukes. There would be 
 time enough to choose between an alliance with Turkey, 
 in return for the restoration of her suzerainty on the 
 Nile, or a partition of the Turkish provinces with the 
 Imperial Courts, which Talleyrand mooted in Vienna 
 by means of Bernadotte. The frigate La BacUoie, 
 which was to take Talleyrand to Egypt, had been 
 ready in Toulon since the 3rd of June ; after the 
 taking of Malta Bonaparte became more urgent and 
 sent another vessel to fetch Talleyrand, but in spite 
 of this his mission to the East was not undertaken. 
 It would have removed him too far from the centre 
 of action, and would hardly have prevented the Porte 
 from joining the second coalition after the Battle of 
 the Nile. 
 
 Talleyrand's views with regard to the Egyptian 
 
272 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 expedition changed with the course of events. In 
 September 1797 he commended Bonaparte's grand 
 idea; in February 1798 he told the Prussian ambassador 
 that he had originated it himself ; two years afterwards 
 he saddled the French consul in Cairo, Magallon, with 
 the responsibility for it ; but before Bonaparte embarked 
 from Toulon in May, Talleyrand, who was confined to 
 his bed with a serious illness, gave him one hundred 
 thousand francs, which were repaid under the Consulate. 
 " What induced you to lend me the money then ? " 
 asked Napoleon subsequently. " I had no particular 
 motive," replied Talleyrand ; " I might not have seen 
 you again ; you were young, and I felt an irresistible 
 impulse to render you the service." " Vous faisiez 
 un metier de dupe," was the only reply which Napoleon 
 vouchsafed to him. 
 
 Talleyrand did not take any personal initiative in 
 the events which in the winter of 1798 led to the 
 establishment of the Koman Republic, the captivity 
 of Pius VI. and his removal to Valence, the revolu- 
 tionising of Switzerland and its transformation into 
 the Helvetian Republic. In his memorandum of June 
 27th, 1799, he states that he strongly disapproved 
 of the policy of the Directory in the first two cases, 
 and as regards Switzerland, his despatches to the 
 French charge d'affaires Bacher in Bale, prove that 
 as early as the close of 1797 he tried in vain to prevent 
 Bonaparte's violent measures against the Valtellina 
 
IX.] THE SECULARISATIONS. 273 
 
 and the cantons of Tessin and Vaud. Subsequently, 
 
 he only succeeded in considerably reducing the amount 
 
 of the war contribution demanded from Berne, which 
 
 he did all the more readily because the brutal Rapinat, 
 
 a brother-in-law of Rewbell and French commissary 
 
 in Switzerland, had never reported to the Foreign 
 
 Office. But with regard to the temporal power of the 
 
 Pope and the clergy generally the position was very 
 
 different, and in the matter of the secularisations the 
 
 policy of the Directory met with his entire sympathy, 
 
 both in Germany and in Italy. 
 
 The Duke of Longueville, an ambassador of Louis 
 
 XIV. and Mazarin, was the first to make use of the 
 
 word on the 8th of April, 1648, during the negotiations 
 
 for the peace of Westphalia, and in defence of a policy 
 
 which aimed at treating the Grerman ecclesiastical 
 
 states as objects of compensation, or converting them 
 
 into domains for the noble and princely families of 
 
 Germany. A policy of this kind commended itself at 
 
 once to the Convention. A diplomatist of that time, 
 
 Desportes, who was envoy in Zweibrucken, prepared a 
 
 complete scheme of secularisation as early as 1793. 
 
 Three years afterwards Carnot proposed to deprive the 
 
 Pope of his temporal possessions and bestow them on 
 
 Spain, the object being to establish a counterpoise to 
 
 the power of Austria in the Peninsula. In 1795 
 
 Si eyes advocated the suppression of all ecclesiastical 
 
 states without exception, and the committee of public 
 VOL. I. 18 
 
274 LIFE OF TALLEYRAKD. [Ch. 
 
 safety suggested, through Barthelemy, its ambassador 
 iu Bale, that the ecclesiastical territory on the right 
 bank of the Khine would form a suitable indemnity 
 to the temporal princes on its left bank, and also to 
 Prussia, which was to be won over to the side of 
 France by this means and by the prospect of a new 
 confederation of princes, and which signified its consent 
 to the cession of the left bank of the Rhine and its 
 unconditional acceptance of the principle of seculari- 
 sation iu the treaty of August 5th, 1796. 
 
 It was not so easy to reconcile Austria to these ideas. 
 The ecclesiastical princes of the Empire were her 
 natural allies, and the Emperor himself an ecclesiastic, 
 having received the minor orders. When the secret 
 agreement of 1796 between France and Prussia became 
 known to the diplomatic world, Francis II. informed 
 the ecclesiastical states of the Empire, at Regensburg 
 on the 6th of February, 1797, of the plans which the 
 Protestant states had formed against them. A few 
 months afterwards, at Campio Formio, Bonaparte suc- 
 ceeded in overcoming the resistance of the Court of 
 Vienna by the oifer of the bishoprics of Salzburg and 
 Passau, and by promising that Prussia should retain its 
 territory on the left bank of the Rhine, but be excluded 
 from all share in the ecclesiastical booty, although the 
 latter had openly accepted the principle of compensa- 
 tion for herself for the House of Orange and for Hesse- 
 Cassel on the 3rd and 20th of July. Austria only 
 
IX.] TEMPORAL POWER OF THE POPE. 275 
 
 asked for the maintenance of the three ecclesiastical 
 Electorates and the recognition of her right to com- 
 pensation ; but at the same time Cobenzl exerted all 
 his powers of persuasion at Rastatt to satisfy Thugut's 
 demands, and to obtain the three Papal legations as an 
 indemnity for Austria, whose designs on Italian territory 
 Carnot had already endeavoured to thwart by his 
 proposal to hand over the whole of the states of the 
 Church to Spain, as an ally of the Eepublic, and so 
 balance Austria's power in the Italian peninsula. 
 
 Talleyrand's policy was therefore not much more 
 revolutionary than that of the chiefs of the Vienna 
 cabinet when he sent the following significant instruc- 
 tions to the French ambassador in Rome : " Yous 
 aiderez, bien loin de restreindre, les bonnes dispositions 
 de ceux qui penseraient qu'il est temps que le regne 
 du Pape finisse ; en un mot, vous encouragerez I'elan 
 que le peuple de Rome parait prendre vers la liberte." 
 Three months afterwards he drew up a memorandum 
 for Bernadotte, who was going as ambassador to 
 Vienna, in which he stated quite frankly that the best 
 means of limiting Austria's influence was to give as 
 wide an extension as possible to the principle of 
 secularisation. He quieted Abel, the representative 
 of Wurtemberg in Paris, about the proceedings at 
 Rastatt by pointing out that the acceptance of this 
 principle was the best guarantee for the reorganisation 
 of the Empire and the interests of its various sover- 
 
276 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 eigns. To Berlin, where, since the death of Frederick 
 William III. a coolness in the relations with the 
 French Republic was becoming more and more percep- 
 tible, he. sent despatches and advice which continually 
 laid stress on the advantage of shifting the power of 
 Prussia from the Rhine to the north and east, and so 
 perhaps restoring an autonomous kingdom of Poland 
 under the Prussian sceptre. ^Madame de Remusat 
 confirms this by her remark that she often heard him 
 say that " the peace of Europe was to be found in 
 Poland." 
 
 Since May 1798, Sieyes had succeeded Caillard in 
 Berlin, who had been a great favourite there. Talley- 
 rand told Sandoz-Rollin that he hoped Sieyes would 
 have a good reception, that he was disappointed with 
 republicans and still more with republics, and was 
 glad to leave a country which had ceased to have 
 any attractions for him. Instead of taking this line 
 Sieyes posed as the champion of representative Govern- 
 ment on a republican basis, declared that " fear was 
 the only principle of action for governments," wanted 
 to sm-render Bavaria to Austria and drive the latter 
 out of Venice and the Tyrol, which were to be converted 
 into republics. Austria, he said, once involved in a 
 war with Prussia and Russia, would in all probability 
 be forced to part with Bavaria. Prussia and Austria 
 would be best kept in check by fomenting the rivalry 
 between them, and then France, supported by the 
 
IX.] DIPLOMACY OF SIEiTES IN BBELIN. 277 
 
 small German states, would be in a position to close 
 the continental ports, " from Gibraltar to Holstein and 
 even up to the North Cape," to English commerce. 
 For similar reasons he had urged the seizure of Flushing 
 in 1795, and informed the astonished Dutchmen that 
 " principles were all very well for schools, states were 
 governed by their own interests." As advocate of the 
 confederation of the Rhine and the continental blockade 
 Sieyes was a forerunner of the Imperial policy of con- 
 quest in its crudest form. No wonder that doctrines 
 of this kind frightened and sobered people in Berlin, 
 and defeated the plans for an alliance which were the 
 object of his mission. In vain Talleyrand raised a 
 warning voice. He too was in favour of a threefold 
 division of Germany, and of shifting Austria's and 
 Prussia's spheres of interest farther east. But he 
 recognised what was possible, and, when Sieyes pro- 
 posed the formation of an Italian republic, replied : 
 " Permettez que je soutienne mon opinion contre la votre. 
 Ce que vous appelez la force des choses, cette tendance 
 vers le regime republicain que vous supposez que nous 
 combattons dans cette contree, y existe-t-elle en effet ? 
 Nous avons de toutes parts les preuves du contraire." 
 The cause of liberty, he wrote on another occasion, re- 
 quired to be let alone to gain adherents. In March 1798 
 he remarked to Sandoz-Rollin that while the Directory 
 was preaching war with England he was hoping for 
 peace : " You are the only person capable of uttering 
 
278 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 such nonsense," interrupted Rewbell. Another time 
 he silenced him with the following : " To the point, 
 to the point ! you always lose sight of that." Grradually 
 things came to such a pass that all or nearly all that 
 the Directory required of its Minister was his signature. 
 But a very different opinion of him prevailed abroad. 
 In March 1798 the Prussian ambassador referred to 
 the possibility of his entry into the Directory as a 
 guarantee for peace, and reported to Berlin that both 
 Spain and Portugal had promised him a million and 
 a half in case of his appointment. As for Talleyrand, 
 he made no secret of the contempt with which his 
 Government inspired him. " Vous chercherez en vain 
 un gouvernement plus absurde que le notre sur la face 
 de la terre," he said to the Prussian ambassador in 
 August 1798; "a Turin, Ginguene fait des scenes 
 ridicules ; a Naples, Garat debite un discours de maitre 
 d'ecole, qui aura fait rire d'etonnement toute I'Europe. 
 k. Genes, Sotin voulait soulever la republique ligurienne 
 contre la Sardaigne ; a la Haye, le sieur Delacroix 
 batissait des syst^mes contre I'Angleterre, tandis que 
 le gouvernement hollandais croulait a ses pieds. . . ." 
 When Ginguene, with utter want of taste, made his 
 wife appear at the Queen's reception in Turin in the 
 prohibited costume of the Directory instead of the 
 proper court-dress, Talleyrand added an ironical 
 marginal note to the paragraph on the subject in the 
 Moniteur, to the effect that no one could fail to 
 
IX. J OPINION OF KEVOEUTIONISTS. 279 
 
 appreciate the significance of the victory won by the 
 great nation. But even more ridiculous in his eyes than 
 the Jacobins, who preached to princes and ministers, 
 were the rulers at home, who in their white satin dress, 
 \vith sky-blue rosettes on their shoes, scarlet mantles 
 thrown over their shoulders, mock swords at their sides, 
 and waving plumes in their hats, gave the reception- 
 rooms of the Directory the appearance of a resort of 
 strolling players. ^Madame de Stael gave open expres- 
 sion to Talleyrand's thoughts when she had the courage 
 to write frankly in 1798 : "This revolution may in the 
 long run contribute to the spread of greater enlighten- 
 ment among a considerable number of people, but the 
 vulgarity of expression, of manners, and of views must 
 be fatal to good sense and higher culture for years 
 to come." The great craze of the day, the sect of 
 the theophilanthropists, the Jiloux en troupe, as Talley- 
 rand used to call them, excited his bitterest ridicule. 
 The founder of it was Haiiy, a brother of the well- 
 known physicist ; but its most zealous apostle was the 
 Director Reveillere. The latter submitted to the 
 Institute a memorandum in favour of a confession of 
 faith drawn up by him which enjoined the commemora- 
 tion of the three great acts of life — birth, marriage, 
 and death. Talleyrand listened to it attentively, and 
 then said drily that he had only one remark to make : 
 to found his rehgion Jesus Christ had been crucified 
 and had risen from the dead, and he advised the 
 
280 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 would-be founder of this new religion to do the 
 same. 
 
 The days of such a regime were numbered, and 
 Talleyrand gave his friends clearly to understand that 
 he intended to secure himself against all eventualities, 
 the most serious of which, poverty and want of inde- 
 pendence, he had already experienced. He used to 
 say that he had never met any one who was able to 
 live on his income. He had hardly been a few weeks 
 in office when the treaty with Portugal gave him an 
 opportunity of enriching himself. Out of an indemnity 
 of eight millions, which was paid in retm'n for certain 
 concessions, he is said to have divided one amongst 
 the five Directors, and kept three for himself. 
 Michaud's assertion that he concealed for two years 
 from the allied government in Madrid the one-fifth 
 reduction allowed by the Directory in the war-con- 
 tribution payable since the treaty of San Ildefonso, and 
 put the money, which amounted to twelve millions, in 
 his pocket, cannot be verified from H^panish sources. 
 But its probability is invalidated by the fact that 
 Godoy's wretched administration was attacked and 
 then overthrown in the course of these very two years, 
 and that a thoroughly honest man, Don Francisco 
 ►Saavedra, took charge of the finances and afterwards of 
 foreign affairs. The embezzlement of such an enor- 
 mous sum could hardl}' have escaped his notice, nor 
 would he have had any motive to submit to it in 
 
IX.] PAID BY FOEEIGN GOVERNMENTS. 281 
 
 silence. Talleyrand, however, never made a secret of 
 his intention to make money out of his official position, 
 and he told the Prussian ambassador plainly, among 
 others, that he had not accepted the post in order to 
 leave it as a poor devil and accept a pittance from 
 the Eepublic. It was this conversation which made 
 Sandoz-Rollin write to his government that he could 
 not offer citizen Talleyrand less than three hundred 
 thousand francs for his services. But he added : " Je 
 I'ai dit : la soif de I'argent I'aura entraine dans une 
 multitude de souillures. , . . Je le crois perdu pour le 
 ministere." A year afterwards, in June 1799, the 
 Prussian councillor of legation, Roux, expressed himself 
 still more strongly on this point. " Ce pretre adroit," 
 he wrote to Berlin, " n'a pas acquis un pouce de terre, 
 mais il est possesseur d'un riche portefeuille, et il 
 a depose pres de trois millions, soit a Hamburg, soit a 
 Jjondres. Le seul traits d'alliance avec la Suisse lui 
 a valu cinq cent mille francs." ..." Orgueilleux 
 comme un paon et venal comme un laquais. . . . il ne 
 dit jamais ce qu'il fait et ne fait jamais ce qu'il dit." 
 In all these transactions Talleyrand pursued a definite 
 system, treating the money as a payment due to him 
 for services rendered. Thus Saxony and Wurtemberg 
 afterwards each paid a million, at the time of the 
 mediatisations, and Madame Grand made herself useful 
 here, by telling the envoys of the handsome presents 
 given by the great Powers, and so accelerating their 
 
282 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 payments. Napoleon attributed the treaty of Press- 
 burg to bribery, and in 1807, at the instigation of 
 Berthier, made his Minister return a present of one 
 hundred thousand florins received from Bavaria, which, 
 however, was afterwards paid to him again. On other 
 occasions the Emperor shut his eyes, and Talleyrand 
 himself, as in Poland in 1806, used to return the 
 present if the service was not rendered. Of course 
 things did not always go quite so smoothly, and there 
 were moments in Talleyrand's career under the 
 Directory when the laboriously constructed edifice, 
 which was intended to serve as a refuge for the 
 future, showed serious signs of collapsing. 
 
 In the year 1796, shortly before Washington's retire- 
 ment from the Presidency, a conflict broke out between 
 the Directory and the United States which threatened 
 to terminate in war. The origin of it dated back to the 
 year 1794. On the 19th of November in that year a 
 treaty with the United States was signed in London, 
 which substituted a benevolent neutrality for the 
 previous hostile attitude of the two countries, settled 
 their commercial relations for the next twelve years, 
 and recognised the English principle that the neutral 
 flag should not cover enemy's merchandise. The 
 federalists, led by Washington and Hamilton, who 
 wished to keep on good terms with all the Powers, 
 concluded the treaty through Jay. The democrats^ 
 especially Jefferson and Monroe, showed a strong 
 
IX.] CONFLICT WITH UNITED STATES. 283 
 
 leaning towards France, In 1794 Monroe had gone to 
 Paris as Minister of the United States, and he arrived 
 there in July, a few days after the fall of Kobespierre. 
 His instructions were to demand an indemnity for the 
 damage done to American citizens in the war between 
 France and England, on the basis of existing treaties. 
 Instead of following them, he joined in the intrigues 
 of the Jacobins, with the object of forcing America out 
 of her neutral position into open hostilities against 
 England. Monroe went so far as to propose the levy 
 of a special tax, to serve as a loan to the sister 
 republic, which was in want of money. In the mean- 
 while the news of the treaty concluded between 
 England and the United States in London got abroad, 
 and Monroe, who was in concert with the diplomatic 
 committee of the Convention, demanded that its text 
 should be published in Paris. His government replied 
 to this request, which interfered with their freedom 
 of action, by recalling him, whereupon the Directory, 
 which had now come into power, assumed an aggres- 
 sive attitude towards the United States. A decree of 
 July 2nd, 1796, which was at first kept secret, enacted 
 that the flag of allied and neutral states should receive 
 the same treatment from France as these states re- 
 ceived from England. The consequence of this was 
 the confiscation of all English goods found in American 
 bottoms. The attempt to get up an insurrection in 
 Canada in favour of France, by which the French 
 
284 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 hoped to compromise the government in Washington, 
 failed in the same year, as did the agitation of the 
 Directory's diplomacy and of the so-called " French 
 party " for Jeiferson's succession to the Presidency. 
 But an American vessel was captured by the French a 
 few miles from port, the French envoy ado})ted a very 
 offensive tone, and the Paris government took up the 
 position that the treaty between England and America 
 was an infringement of that concluded between the 
 latter and France in 1778. 
 
 In the summer of 1797 the moderate party in the 
 Council of the Five Hundred strongly opposed these 
 tactics, and the appointment of Talleyrand, Alexander 
 Hamilton's friend and admirer, to the ^Ministry of 
 Foreign Affairs seemed to promise a change for the 
 better as regards the American dispute also. In July 
 he notified to the French consul in Philadelphia the 
 despatch of French commissaries to settle the existing 
 difterences, whereupon the new President, Adams, sent 
 Generals Pinckney and Marshall and the lawyer 
 Elbridge Gerry as envoys extraordinary to Paris. 
 When they arrived there on the 4th of October, they 
 found the Directory confirmed in its insulting aggressive 
 policy by the victory of Fructidor, and they were in- 
 formed that they would not be received until America 
 had complied with the demands of France, and with- 
 drawn its offensive complaints against the Directory. 
 Subsequently, on the 8th of January, 1798, a new decree 
 
IX] NEGOTIATIONS WITH AMEEICAN ENVOYS. 285 
 
 was issued which declared all vessels with English 
 goods on board to be prize of war, and prohibited 
 all ships which had touched at an English port in the 
 course of their voyage from entering a French port. By 
 these measures, and with the assistance of their new 
 satellites, Holland, Spain, and Denmark, they hoped to 
 isolate England and force America into hostilities with 
 her. Even at this stage prudent politicians on the 
 other side of the Atlantic, like Alexander Hamilton, 
 deprecated hasty action, but at the same time in his 
 capacity of War jNIinister he made preparations by land 
 and sea, in order to be ready for any eventuality. 
 
 In the meanwhile, Talleyrand's agents, Hottinguer, 
 Bellamy, and Hauteval, called on the American pleni- 
 potentiaries, and hinted that an offer of €50,000 to 
 the Directors would appease their resentment and 
 materially facilitate the course of the negotiations. 
 They then reverted to Monroe's ill-advised proposal, 
 and asked for a loan from the American government to 
 the French Republic^ which was to he made in the 
 following manner : a claim of France on Holland 
 dating from the year 1795, to the amount of thirty- 
 two millions, the market value of which was fifty per 
 cent, discount, was to be taken over from the Directory 
 at its full nominal value ; at the end of the war the 
 Dutch Republic would be obliged to meet its obliga- 
 tions, and America therefore would run no risk in 
 doing France this friendly service. France, they saicl, 
 
286 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 required a large sum of money for the invasion of 
 England, the success of which the Americans had at 
 heart, and if it was not forthcoming, the negotiations 
 would not advance a step for the next six months, and 
 the United States would be threatened with the fate of 
 Venice. The Directory, they added, had relations 
 with the French party in the country. After this 
 Talleyrand had several interviews with the plenipoten- 
 tiaries in Bellamy's presence, which were confined to 
 details respecting the loan. A letter of Talleyrand's 
 to Hamilton, written shortly after his return to 
 Europe, had referred to " la conduite audacieuse et 
 folle des agents de la France, qui s'^taient toujours 
 montres les ennemis de votre gouvernement." What 
 must Hamilton, who had advised the despatch of the 
 mission in the interests of peace, have thought of 
 Talleyrand's attitude, when Pinckney and Marshall 
 reported the threats and attempts at corruption, which 
 they met with a categorical refusal, and after weeks 
 of futile discussion finally answered by leaving France. 
 Grerry alone remained behind, and was inveigled into 
 further negotiation with Talleyrand, whereupon Presi- 
 dent Adams recalled him with a severe reprimand, and 
 jmblished the envoys' rej^orts. 
 
 While Alexander Hamilton appealed to the national 
 honour for resistance, and Washington, leaving his 
 retirement, consented to take command of the forces 
 in case of war, the news of these disgraceful pro- 
 
IX,] EXPLANATION TO THE PUBLIC. 287 
 
 ceedings reached Europe through the Press. The 
 Directory, brought to its senses by the energetic atti- 
 tude of the Washington government, now disclaimed 
 all intention of violating existing treaties, set the 
 American sailors at liberty, and prohibited the seizure 
 of American vessels in the future. Talleyrand adopted 
 a conciliatory demeanour, and promised that the next 
 envoy of the United States to France should be re- 
 ceived with all due honours. It was in the year 1799. 
 The quarrel so wantonly provoked by France was not 
 settled until a year later, after Brumaire and by 
 Bonaparte, who commissioned Talleyrand to draw up a 
 new convention regulating the relations of the two 
 countries. 
 
 Talleyrand now had to make his peace with the 
 public. Madame de Stael, as soon as she heard 
 through the Press of his alleged attempt at bribery, 
 hastened to the Ministry, and in a state of great 
 excitement urged him to vindicate his reputation. 
 He listened to her quietly, left her with a smile, saying 
 that he would soon be back, but did not re-appear, 
 and afterwards described in the best of humours the 
 scene which she had inflicted on him. The remark, 
 " Madame de Stael n'a qu'un dt^faut ; elle est insup- 
 portable," was probably made about this time. He 
 did not treat public opinion so lightly. He admitted 
 the negotiations for the loan, but as regards the 
 £50,000 stated that the American plenipotentiaries 
 
288 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 had been imposed upon by some impudent rogues, and 
 demanded that the names should be published in full, 
 the initial letters only being given in the published 
 despatches. This mode of defence deceived nobody, 
 least of all those who, like Sieyes, had always had a 
 liking for him. " You have followed the bad example 
 of those who traffic in their honour, man's most precious 
 possession," he wrote to his chief from Berlin. " I 
 have repudiated the charge, but you must clear 
 yourself or cease to be my friend." Talleyrand, 
 however, had very good reason not to be much alarmed 
 at this remonstrance. Even in the days of the provin- 
 cial assemblies Sieyes was said to have been dissuaded 
 from his opposition by the present of a rich benefice, 
 and Roger Ducos, to whom Sieyes owed his appointment 
 as Director, admitted after Brumaire to his colleague 
 Gohier that he had received a hundred thousand francs, 
 but Sieyes four hundred thousand, and that the First 
 Consul had said : " II faut gorger ce pretre de biens 
 pour en avoir raison." In his Memoirs Talleyrand has 
 repaid Sieyes for his Berlin letter with the following 
 passage : " He is not high-souled enough to dispense 
 with riches ; even his pride has not sufficed to protect 
 his reputation in this respect." 
 
 Barras, who took whatever he could get, and Eewbell 
 were still more deeply compromised. Talleyrand had 
 hardly been appointed Minister when Barras prevailed 
 on him to send an agent to Pitt on their behalf to 
 
IX.] OVERTUEES TO PITT. 289 
 
 bring about an understanding, although the negotia- 
 tions had just been broken off. In spite of all official 
 protests to the contrary, the cession of Ceylon and the 
 Cape was offered if Pitt would consent to make the 
 chiefs of the French government a secret payment 
 of two million .sterling in return for it. The sum far 
 exceeded the amount of secret service money at the 
 disposal of the English Minister ; but his desire for 
 peace was so strong that he could not bring himself to 
 meet the offer with a flat refusal, but responded with a 
 counter-proposal for a payment of ten and a half million 
 francs. Barras and Eewbell probably did not think 
 it advisable to accept a fifth of what they had asked, 
 and so the matter dropped. 
 
 Under these circumstances, at all events, there was 
 no reason why the members of the Paris government 
 should not continue to act together, and so for the 
 present Talleyrand was not disturbed in his office. 
 
 VOL, 1. 19 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE SECOND COALITION AND THE COUP D'eTAT OF 
 
 BRUMAIRE. 
 
 1799. 
 
 "TN March 1799 the war between France and the 
 second coalition broke out in Europe. The imme- 
 diate cause of hostilities was the advance of Russian 
 troops into Austrian territory. But the whole moral 
 responsibility for the renewal of the horrors of war 
 lay at the door of the men who had inherited the 
 policy of 1792, the champions of the revolutionary 
 propaganda taken over from the Gironde and the 
 Convention, which left its opponents no alternative 
 between resistance and annihilation. It was they 
 who at Lille forced England to continue the struggle 
 which, beginning with Aboukir Bay and ending with 
 Trafalgar, was destined to place the naval power of 
 France at her mercy. It was the instinct of self- 
 preservation which, after the battle of Aboukir, drove 
 the Sultan Selim, whose empire was threatened with 
 partition, into an alliance with the Tsar. The 
 Emperor Paul's resistance to the French Jacobins, so 
 
 2iX) 
 
Ch. X.] FAILURE OF NEGOTIATIONS AT EASTATT. '291 
 
 loudly attributed to principle, was really the outcome 
 of the rage excited by the French and Polish intrigues 
 for the liberation of Poland, which found their way to 
 him through Berlin as well as Vienna. The negotia- 
 tions at Kastatt had broken down on the point in 
 which failure had been anticipated. Austria's policy 
 consisted of acquisition of territory in Italy and 
 restriction of secularisation in Germany, France was 
 bent on general secularisation, her object being to 
 weaken Austria's influence in the Empire and so 
 prevent any increase of her power in Italy. Thugut's 
 efforts to bring about an understanding owed their 
 failure to the dualistic position of the Austrian 
 sovereign, who in his capacity of German Emperor 
 had to defend interests which were at direct variance 
 with the policy of Vienna statesmen. If Thugut could 
 have brought himself to overcome the traditional 
 distrust of Prussia, and if the latter could have 
 been induced to abandon her fatal neutrality, then, 
 with the strong opposition which French policy had 
 aroused in Italy and Switzerland, the final result could 
 hardly have been doubtful. Eevolutionary conquest 
 had lost its attractiveness and its prestige in the 
 country of its birth. Detested by the oppressed 
 nationalities as much as by the French themselves, it 
 had, moreover, become an object of contempt to both. 
 When the envoys of the Directory were cut down by the 
 Hungarian hussars on leaving the Congress of Eastatt, 
 
29'2 LIFE OF TALLBYKAXD. [Ch. 
 
 people learned what the rulers of France were thought 
 capable of by their fellow-citizens. Talleyrand in 
 a conversation with Gagern designated the Austrian 
 envoy, Count Lehrbach, as the culprit. But among 
 his countrymen there were not a few who, instead of 
 calling for vengeance, accused their own government 
 of having instigated the murder of the three men. 
 
 This state of public feeling, which at home oscillated 
 between conspiracy and apathy, and could no longer 
 be blinded by ephemeral military successes gained 
 against small helpless states, relaxed the bonds of 
 discipline in the army as soon as defeats became the 
 order of the day. Scherer, who had been beaten in 
 Italy, was followed by the imprecations of his troops 
 when he laid down his command. Jourdan and 
 Bernadotte, when defeated by the Arch-duke Charles, 
 hurried to Paris on their own initiative, in order to 
 call the Directory to account for their inadequate 
 forces, their empty war-chests, and the demoralisation 
 of their troops. Deprived of their posts for a short 
 time, and then re-appointed, the one to the command 
 of the army, and the other to the Ministry of War, 
 they lent a ready ear to schemes for ridding the 
 country of the misrule of incapable despots. At last 
 the day of reckoning seemed to have arrived. In the 
 spring a Russo-Tm-kish fleet seized the Ionian Islands, 
 which had belonged to France since the treaty of 
 Campo Formio, and by the convention of March 21st, 
 
X.] MILITARY SITUATION ON THE CONTINENT. 293 
 
 1800, they were constituted a republic under the pro- 
 tectorate of the two Powers. The Arch-duke Charles 
 defeated Mass^na at Zurich. Thugut's and Cobenzl's 
 great move, the appointment of Suvoroff to the su- 
 preme command of the Austrian and Russian forces, 
 led to the \dctories over Moreau and Macdonald in 
 June, and so to the recovery of Italy. The most ill- 
 fated creation of the Directory's policy in 1798, the 
 Parthenopean Republic, collapsed after a duration of 
 ten weeks, and Naples plunged into a bloody carnival 
 of revenge. Carnot's and Rewbell's pet child, the 
 Roman republic, which had existed since February 
 1798, was dissolved. Milan and Turin opened their 
 gates to the allies ; Joubert, despatched to Italy to 
 change the fortune of war, met with a premature death 
 at Novi. England did not confine herself to subsidising 
 the allies, but an English force, supported by Russian 
 auxiliaries, reappeared on the Continent after an 
 interval of many years, and landed in JVorth Holland, 
 again under the command of the Duke of York, on the 
 27th of August. It obtained a preliminary success 
 under Abercromby, whereupon Pitt's previsions were 
 fulfilled, and the Dutch sailors brought what was left of 
 the Dutch fleet over to the English. Another insurrec- 
 tion was threatening in Brittany and La Vendee, and 
 France was on the point of being invaded, when dis- 
 union in the camp of the Allied Powers, the sole but 
 the best ally of the revolutionary government in Paris, 
 
29-1 LIFE OF TALLEYEAND. [Ch. 
 
 came once more to her assistance. It was with feelings 
 of rising indignation that old Suvoroff had received 
 orders dictated by " the clerks in the Vienna cKan- 
 cellerie,'' and had subordinated his own and the Tsar's 
 views to Austrian interests. With the fixed determina- 
 tion of tearing up the detested Austrian alliance he 
 marched over the Gothard, too late to prevent Korssa- 
 koff's defeat and Massena's Ndctory at Zurich, and 
 devoted his energies to the brilliant retreat, which 
 restored the Tsar his army and broke up the second 
 coalition. While these events were succeeding each 
 other in Switzerland, the allied forces of the Russians 
 and English sustained a defeat at Bergen on the 19th 
 of September, which the Duke of York attributed to 
 the refusal of the Russians to obey his commands, and 
 which enabled his antagonist Brune to save Belgium 
 and Holland for the Republic. In the meanwhile, 
 however, in France itself things had taken a turn 
 which external successes were powerless to prevent. 
 
 In May, while the news of French disasters in Italy 
 and on the Rhine were spreading panic and conster- 
 nation, the government had once more to face the 
 re-election of a third of the legislative assembly and 
 a compact opyjosition. Eight months after the coujj 
 fVctat of Fructidor, on the 22nd of Floreal Qlay), 1798, 
 the Directory had been powerful enough to exclude 
 the recalcitrant Jacobins as it had done with the Con- 
 stitutionalists a year previously. But on this occasion 
 
X.] CHANGE IX DIRECTORY. 295 
 
 there was no chance of a successful coup cVetat on the 
 part of the ruling Terrorists against the defeated 
 fraction in their own camp, ^^'hile the other parties 
 held aloof, the Jacobins of the opposition were victori- 
 ous in the elections, and chance sealed the defeat of 
 their Directorial opponents still more completely. At 
 the election for the renewal of the executive on the 
 11th of May, the most energetic of the Directors, 
 Rewbell, drew the retiring lot, and the Council of the 
 Ancients appointed Sieyes, who was ambassador at Berlio, 
 in his place. With utter ignorance of the real state of 
 aflFairs he was ascribed the merit of ha\ing detached 
 Prussia from the coalition. Their information as to 
 his home policy was more accurate ; it was known that 
 he had a very poor opinion of his colleagues, and that 
 he was forming plans for a reform of the constitution, 
 which would not be confined to a change of persons. 
 He had hardly entered on his office when the Councils, 
 making use of their recovered fi'eedom of action, on the 
 18th of June (the 30th of Prairial) replaced the Directors 
 Treilhard, ^Merlin, and Reveill^re by Gohier, ^loulins, 
 and Roger-Ducos, three mediocrities, who discussed the 
 paragraphs of the constitution of the year III. while 
 the constitution itself was crumbling into niins. 
 
 Sieyes, the new President of the Directory, had also 
 by no means lost faith in the saving virtue of logical 
 combinations for restraining unbridled passions. But 
 he kept the text of the new constitution, that of the 
 
296 LIFE OF TALLEYEAND. [Ch. 
 
 year VIII., in his pocket for the present, and looked 
 about him for a soldier possessed of sufficient strength 
 to save France by means of a coujj d'etat. He first 
 thought of Joubert ; then, after the latter's death, 
 Talleyrand suggested the Duke of Brunswick, whose 
 name recalled the combinations of 1792 referred to 
 above. Sieyes' friends went still farther. In order to 
 get rid of Louis XVIII. they hit upon the idea of 
 marrying his niece, Madame Eoyale, afterwards Duchess 
 of Angouleme. to the Arch-duke Charles, and ofifei'ing 
 him the French throne. The Princess was then in 
 Vienna, and wild as the scheme was, it created some 
 uneasiness in Mittau, among the members of the 
 exiled royal family. It came to nothing, as Thugut 
 demanded Alsace and Lorraine as the Arch-duke's 
 dowry, and the Director now turned his thoughts to 
 Berlin. A friend of Talleyrand's, Saint e-Foy, who 
 had taken part in the negotiations between Mirabeau 
 and the Court in 1791, called on Sandoz-Rollin in 
 August, and in the course of a long conversation pointed 
 out that peace could only be restored by means of a 
 hereditary constitutional monarchy, but that the nation 
 would never consent to place a Bourbon on the throne. 
 A Grerman Protestant prince would have a better chance, 
 and Prince Louis Ferdinand, nephew of the King of 
 Prussia, had been thought of. The ambassador re- 
 ])orted the conversation to Berlin with the remark 
 that he thought he detected in it the secret object 
 
X.] RESIGNS OFFICE UNDER DIRECTORY. 297 
 
 of sowing discord and distrust between Prussia and the 
 other Powers. He calls Sainte-Foy a confidant of 
 Talleyrand's, but the latter had ceased to be Minister 
 since the 14th of July. On the 6th of July he stated 
 that he would resign, and on the 13th he sent in his 
 resignation, but remained in charge of the business of 
 the office until his old pupil and present successor 
 Reinhard arrived in Paris from Switzerland on the 
 6th of September. 
 
 The Directory accepted Talleyrand's resignation with 
 flattering expressions of gratitude. He did not lea\'e 
 office of his own accord, and Sieyes in particular did 
 what he could to prevent him. The act was forced 
 upon him by the so-called pure Republicans of the 
 Societe du Manege, the Jacobins headed by Delacroix, 
 who accused Talleyrand, " V endgn' '' as they called 
 him. in the Journal des Hom'mes Libres, of having kept 
 up relations with Louis XVIII. by means of his uncle, 
 the cardinal-archbishop, and of simulating republican 
 sentiments in order to undermine the Republic, like 
 his successor Reinhard. It was not difficult for him 
 to clear himself of such vague charges as these. He 
 published the pamphlet entitled " ficlaircissements 
 donnes par le Citoyen Talleyrandi a ses Concitoyens." 
 In this document the Constitutionalist of 1789 lays 
 claim to the title of fellow- worker in the cause of 
 liberty, appeals to the London mission entrusted to 
 him by the provisional executive in September 1792, 
 
298 LIt'E OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 and then, passing to the administration of his office, 
 states that an honourable peace had been the aim of 
 all his hopes and endeavours. 
 
 At this point the tone changes, and the accused 
 becomes an accuser, who has settled his account with 
 the present, and now addresses every one of his words 
 to a future audience, which may shortly be in a position 
 either to place him on his trial or give him their 
 confidence. 
 
 "N'est-il pas evident que ce n'est pas moi qui ai cherche 
 a accroitre le nombre de nos enuemis, a exasperer nos amis, 
 a hater la rvipture des traites, k indisposer les neutres, a 
 menacer enfin toutes les puissances de I'irruption de nos 
 principes ? Et lorsqu'on pense que ceux qui osent me faire 
 cet inconcevable reproche, sout ceux-la meme qui sans cesse 
 attisaient le feu de la discorde, qui appelaient a grands oris 
 toutes les fureurs de la guerre, qui etaient impatients de 
 mouvements revolutionnaires dans toutes les parties du 
 monde, qui adressaient ineonsiderement k toutes les puis- 
 sances les injures les plus absiu-des et les plus impolitiques, 
 qui ne semblaient s'occuper qu'a entraver toute negociation, 
 qui se plaisaient a repandre sans cesse dans les feuilles 
 publiques cette assertion si funeste au repos de I'Europe, 
 que les republiques et les rois sont essentiellement en guerre. 
 Lorsqu'on songe que moi, j'etais constamment occupe a 
 reparer tant de disconvenances, tant de folies ; a calmer les 
 envoyes des puissances neutres et amies, toujours prets a 
 en tirer des motifs d'alarmes ; quand on s'arrete un instant 
 iv ces reflexions, on est frappe d'etonnement de voir que 
 ces hommes veulent m'accuser, moi, d'avoir coopere k I'exist- 
 
X.] defejSDs himself against attacks. 299 
 
 ence de la coalition, et qu'ils paraissent ignorer, eux, k 
 combien de titres cette imputation pourrait leur etre faite. 
 . . . Paraitra-t-il etonnant c|ue ces mumes hommes m'im- 
 putent, a moi, toutes les operations du gouvernement, celles 
 du ministre de la guerre, celles du ministre des finances, 
 celles du ministre de la police, la destitution des generaux, 
 la nomination des commissaires, la nomination des fournis- 
 seurs, etc., en un mot, tout ce qui a ete fait ou n'a point 
 ete fait dans la republique et liors de la republique, depuis 
 que je suis ministre ; qu'ils me demandent, a moi, pourquoi 
 le grand-due de Toscane n'a pas ete garde en otage, comme 
 si, moi, je donnais des instructions aux generaux ; qu'aguerris 
 contre la erainte de tout reproche, par la multitude meme 
 de leurs mensonges et de leurs contradictions, lorsqu'ils 
 m'accusent, et si injustement, du i-efroidissement d'une puis- 
 sance neutre, ils f assent, eux, d'incroyables efforts pour nous 
 brouiller avec I'Espagne et la Prusse ; que, fermant les 
 yeux k toute evidence, ils osent affirmer que c'est moi qui 
 ai aliene de nous les Etats-Unis, lorsqu'ils savent si bien 
 qu'au moment precis ou ils impriment cet etrange reproche, 
 des negociateurs americains arrivent en France, et qu'ils 
 ne peuvent ignorer la part qu'il m'est permis de prendre 
 dans cet ev^nement, a raison du langage plein de deference, 
 de moderation et de dignite, que je leur ai adresse au nom 
 du gouvernement frangais, tandis que ceux qui m'attaquent 
 aujourd'hui ne voulaient alors leur faire parvenir que des 
 paroles dures et irritantes ? Est-il etonnant qu'ils veuillent 
 me faire rendre compte de la cession du duche de Benevent 
 au roi de Naples, lorsque le duche de Benevent n'a jamais 
 ete cede au roi de Naples ? qu'ils confondent tout, qu'ils 
 alterent tout, qu'ils ignorent tout ; qu'ils placent les ports 
 du Portugal dans la Mediterranee ; qu'ils prennent le 
 
300 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. ' [Vh. 
 
 citoyen Eymar, ex-auibassadeur dans le Piemont, pour un 
 abbe Daymar, du cote droit de I'Assemblee constituante ; 
 qu'ils me supposent des relations intimes avec tel homme 
 qu'ils nomment, et avec qui je n'ai meme jamais eu une 
 communication depuis que je suis ministre ; qu'ils pretendent 
 que e'est moi qui ai pi-ovoque contre le citoyen Truguet un 
 genre de rigueur qui m'a constamment paru sans excuse, 
 tandis que mille voix s'eleveraient au besoin, meme la sienne, 
 pour repousser de moi une aussi absurde calomnie." 
 
 " Et qu'ai-je done fait pour qu'un tel soupcon ait pu 
 s'adi-esser a moi ? Ma vie toute entiere permet-elle de me 
 supposer une action de ce genre ? Ai-je jamais ete vindi- 
 catif , persecuteur ? Dans tout le cours de mon ministere, 
 peiit-on me reprocher meme un acte severe ? Ai-je blesse 
 quelqu'un, meme par un propos? Les citoyens associes u 
 mes travaux ont-ils jamais reqn de moi autre chose que 
 des temoignages de confiance et d'amitie ? Ont-ils redoute 
 un caprice de ma part ? Ont-ils ete inquiets un seul instant 
 sur leur sort 1 — On a, I'annee derniere, convert les muis 
 d'injures contre moi, dictees pai- la fureur: avais-je fait 
 pi-ecedemment ai-je fait depuis le moindre mal au jeune 
 homme egare qui me les adressait 1 Enfin, ai-je denonce 1 
 ai-je fait destituer? ai-je fait supprimer? Non, certaine- 
 ment ; non ; et je suis loin sans doute de m'en faire un 
 merite Quiconque me connait. salt tres-bien qu'il n'etait 
 pas plus dans mes principes que dans mon caractere d'agir 
 autremeut. J'ai fini : je suis certain d'avoir repondu 
 victorieusement a tous les repi-oches ; je laisse les injures. 
 Je les meprisais des le commencement de la revolution ; je 
 ne changerai point." 
 
 This remarkable document is the only instance, in 
 
X.] CHARACTER OF DEFENCE. 301 
 
 a public life extending over fifty years, of a departure 
 from Talleyrand's invariable practice of never taking 
 notice of personal attacks. The quietly dignified 
 question, " Ai-je blessd quelqu'un, meme par un pro- 
 pos ? " could hardly have been uttered by any other 
 of the politicians who took part in the Revolution. 
 The obvious retort, why did he identify himself with 
 a policy, which he knew to be so pernicious, and 
 countersign its decrees, he meets with the rejoinder : 
 " .Je I'avouerai, j'etais retenu par ce desir, par cette 
 esperance infatigable de la paix, don't rien ne pouvait 
 me detacher." The whole of his apology, and still 
 more his attack, takes but little account of the existing 
 order of things. Everything, up to the chance refer- 
 ence to the Papal fief of Beneventum, which was 
 destined to be his after the lapse of a few years, 
 announces the impending crisis, the inevitable collapse 
 of the old regime, and the approach of the new. 
 
 The last document which bears Talleyrand's signa- 
 ture as Minister is dated the 3rd of September, two days 
 before he made over charge of his office to Reinhard. 
 It is addressed to the Directory, and confirms the 
 failure of the " great and sublime project " of the 
 Egyptian expedition, and the danger which threatened 
 Bonaparte, and emphasises the necessity of bringing 
 him and the army back, even at the cost of the loss 
 of Egypt, and of concluding a convention with this 
 view in Constantinople, provided that England gives 
 
302 LIFE OF TALLEYHAND. [C]i. 
 
 her consent thereto. The negotiations, he adds, should 
 be conducted by a Spaniard, as there was no chance 
 of getting a Frenchman unharmed to the Eosphorus 
 either by land or sea, the last French envoy, Bouligny, 
 having been under arrest since the outbreak of hos- 
 tilities. It was nothing more or less than a capitu- 
 lation, a word which Talleyrand did not hesitate to 
 use, only Bonaparte was to have the power of accepting 
 or rejecting its terms. 
 
 But what was known about Bonaparte ? A letter of 
 his, written on the 10th of February, 1799, under the 
 impression that war had not broken out, reported to 
 the Directory his impending departure for Syria, and 
 his intention to return home as soon as the object of 
 the expedition was attained and "France had taken 
 arms against the Kings of Europe." This had already 
 taken place when the small French army left for Syria. 
 It was lying before St. Jean d'Acre when Barras, on the 
 14th of April, moved by the bad news from Italy and 
 the Rhine, started the idea of recalling Bonaparte. 
 His proposal met with vehement resistance from his 
 colleagues ; there were ahead}' plenty of generals, they 
 replied, who were only too ready to seize on supreme 
 power ; Bonaparte had better be left where he was. 
 Four weeks afterwards they changed their mind. The 
 Spanish fleet, which had been shut up within its 
 ports for two years by the Enghsh blockade, could 
 now move more freely. Talleyrand, who was then in 
 
X.] KAPOLEOX'S ABSENCE IN EGYPT. 303 
 
 temporary charge of the Ministry of Marine, urged the 
 Spanish cabinet to put its naval forces at the disposal 
 of France, in order to support Admiral Bruix's expedi- 
 tion, which was to relieve Malta and fetch Bonaparte 
 and his army from Egypt. Bruix was the bearer of 
 a despatch from the Directory dated the 26th of ^lay, 
 which left Bonaparte a free hand as regards his arrange- 
 ments in Egypt, but at the same time offered him the 
 command of the republican forces. " Eamenez-le," 
 wrote Talleyrand laconically to his friend the admiral. 
 
 But the latter underwent an experience similar to 
 that which Thugut had had with Suvorofif. The 
 Russians had crossed the Alps, to fight not for Austria 
 but against France ; in the same way people in jMadrid 
 were willing to join the French against the English, 
 but not to sacrifice themselves for French interests in 
 the Levant. Instead of meeting in the Mediterranean, 
 the allied fleets appeared off Brest on the 8th of August, 
 where the utter want of munitions of war and stores 
 would have alone sufficed to detain Admiral Bruix, who 
 had no funds at his command, while in Paris, which 
 was now without tidings of Bonaparte, newspapers 
 brought the intelligence on the 28th of July, of the 
 raising of the siege of St. Jean d'Acre and the return 
 of the French troops to Egypt. After this everything 
 became so uncertain that Talleyrand, and subsequently 
 Reinhard, were ordered to enter into the negotiations 
 referred to above, which were based on the assumption 
 
304 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 that the problem was to bring the remnant of a 
 defeated army back to France, .lung adduces some 
 facts which prove that .loseph, Lucien, and Talleyrand 
 heard from and communicated with Egyjit through 
 the French consulates in Genoa. Ancona, Cadiz, 
 Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli ; but even this slender 
 thread was broken, when all of a sudden, on the 
 evening of October 4th, Bonaparte's despatch, giving 
 a glowing description of the victory at Aboukir, arrived 
 in Paris. The Directory had hardly had time to make 
 the arrangements necessitated by the change of 
 situation, when the telegraph announced Bonaparte's 
 arrival in France. He had given Nelson the slip, had 
 landed at Frejus after a voyage of forty-seven days, 
 and was now on his way to the capital, hailed by the 
 people as a deliverer. 
 
 When Talleyrand's friend, Hans von Gagern, asked 
 him afterwards who had recalled Bonaparte from Egypt, 
 the reply was that it was Bonaparte's sole doing. But 
 to the further question, who had planned the 18th of 
 Brumaire, the answer was that this was everybody's 
 doing. In cases of this kind it was Talleyrand's wont 
 to anticipate " everybody," and Koederer says he was 
 one of the first to j)enetrate the seclusion which the 
 man on whom all eves were now fixed deliberately 
 sought in his small apartment in the Rue Chautereine, 
 now Rue de la Victoire. The breach of faith as regards 
 the mission to the East had been forgiven. No one 
 
X.] BARBAS. 305 
 
 was better qualified than the ex-Minister to supply 
 information respecting the men who were to be made 
 use of or removed from the scene. In the latter 
 category was Barras, who, as Lucien said, had found his 
 Capua in the Luxemburg, and whose only object was to 
 provide for his own future. The charge frequently 
 made against him, that he had been in communication 
 with the Bourbons since May 1797, and had pledged 
 himself to schemes for restoring the Monarchy in 
 return for an unconditional amnesty for the past and 
 an enormous sum of money, is refuted by Ernest 
 Daudet in his history of the emigration. He quotes 
 Barras' manuscript memoirs and Kussian documents 
 to prove that the Court at Mittau had been taken in 
 by its own agents Fauche-Borel and David Monnier 
 when it issued letters patent and written promises for 
 the Director. Barras himself, he states, did not 
 discover these intrigues until September 1799, and 
 immediately informed Talleyrand, and afterwards his 
 colleagues, of them. Two of the latter, Moulin and 
 Gohier, when sounded as to the possibility of 
 Bonaparte's election in place of Sieyes, declared with 
 short-sighted formalism that it was out of the question, 
 because he had not attained the required age of forty. 
 The Director Eoger-Ducos was a tool of Sieyes, and 
 the latter played every card in his hand before 
 consenting to the Bonaparte solution. It is true that 
 after Zurich he had requested his brother to summon 
 VOL. I. 20 
 
306 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Cii. 
 
 him back from Egypt ; but when Moreau arrived in 
 Paris from Italy almost simultaneously with Bonaparte, 
 Biey^s made him proposals which, if they had been 
 accepted by the Greneral, would have placed the fate 
 of PVanee in his hands. Since the year 1797, when 
 the Abbd had rejected overtures from Bonaparte, which 
 were made through Talleyrand, the two men had 
 cherished an ill-concealed antipathy for each other. 
 It was much remarked that at a dinner shortly after 
 his return, the Greneral had taken no notice of the 
 Director, although at that time he was holding out 
 hopes to and dangling schemes before the various 
 republican parties, which kept them on the move 
 without binding him to anything. But the coup 
 d'etat, which all were expecting, could not take place 
 until Si eyes and Bonaparte came to terms ; and 
 Talleyrand now undertook to bring about this necessary 
 understanding. 
 
 In spite of many reasons for dissatisfaction Sieyes 
 retained a feeling of regard for him, which was not 
 returned. It was known that he had voted for 
 Talleyrand's entry into the Directory on the 30th of 
 Prairial. When the Jacobins frustrated the election, 
 Talleyrand remarked "to the Prussian ambassador that 
 it was doubtful whether recent events would not turn as 
 much to the disadvantage of Sieyes as to that of those 
 whom he had turned out. " C'est un esprit prof ond," 
 said some one of the Director in his presence : " Dites 
 
X.] NEGOTIATIONS WITH SIEYES. 307 
 
 creux," rejoined Talleyrand. But both Bonaparte and 
 he had been convinced for years past that Sieyes, when 
 confronted with the alternative of a revival of the 
 Terror or an arbitrary coup d'etat, would prefer the 
 latter. This surmise was confirmed when Bernadotte, 
 whose sympathies were on the side of the Jacobins, was 
 suddenly dismissed on the 14th of September, in spite of 
 his brilliant success as War Minister, and Fouche was 
 appointed Minister of Police for opposite reasons on the 
 20th of July. Lucien Bonaparte had been President of 
 the Five Hundred since the 22nd of October; Cambaceres, 
 Eoederer, Bruix, and Eegnault de Saint-Jean were with 
 Talleyrand in Bonaparte's confidence. He could count 
 upon Berthier, Marmont, and Lannes, who had returned 
 from Egypt with him. There exists a complete list 
 of the generals and officers who had been won over 
 by them, or who had placed themselves spontaneously 
 at their disposal. Moreau was one of them. Jourdan, 
 Augereau, and even the Jacobin Bernadotte remained 
 passive. In the case of the latter, this was due to the 
 influence of his brother-in-law Joseph. Sieyes now 
 received an oral promise from Bonaparte to support his 
 new "constitution, which replaced the five Directors by 
 three Consuls appointed for ten years, a Senate nomi- 
 nated for life, and an Elective Chamber of Deputies, but 
 on condition that the draft of the constitution should 
 be referred to a special commission, and that, in the 
 meanwhile, a provisional government should be formed. 
 
308 LIFE OF TALLEYEAND. [Ch. 
 
 consisting of Bonaparte, Sieyes, and Koger-Ducos. 
 Sieyes had been looking out for a soldier, and now, 
 since the 1 st of November, the day on which this inter- 
 view took place, he had found one. And he never for 
 a moment doubted that the new saviour of society 
 would make short work of him as well as of everybody 
 else; but it was too late for him to go back. He drew 
 up the three decrees, of which the first, issued by the 
 Council of the Ancients, constitutionally empowered 
 for that purpose, transferred the popular assembly from 
 the capital to St. Cloud ; the two others invested 
 Bonaparte with the supreme command of all the forces, 
 and directed the election of three new Consuls. 
 
 The drama which, in the form of the coup d'etat of 
 the 18th Brumaire, or November 9th, 1799, heralded 
 the introduction of Napoleon's rule at the close of the 
 century, was enacted in two days, and under such 
 varying circumstances, that the second day threatened, 
 for the space of a few hours, to upset what had been 
 achieved on the first. On the 18th, while the Council 
 of the Ancients was summoning the legislative assembly 
 to meet at St. Cloud on the following morning, and 
 placing Bonaparte at the head of the army, Talleyrand 
 undertook to make Barras resign. On the 20th of 
 October, Barras had dined with Bonaparte, and had 
 told the latter that the Republic was near its end, that 
 great changes were necessary, that Hedouville should lie 
 made President, and Bonaparte return to the army, in 
 
X.] retire:ment of barkas 309 
 
 accordance with his own wishes ; as for himself, he was 
 in bad heahh, unpopular, and used up, and only fitted 
 for the sphere of private life. Hedouville, a republican 
 general, employed by Hoclie during the first pacification 
 of La Vendee, was now in command of the army of the 
 west, and had behaved in a prudent and conciliatory 
 manner. During the last few weeks of the government 
 of the Directory, confidence as to tlie future had been 
 so shaken, that republican officers joined the Royalist 
 standard, and Barras, in spite of all the denials pro- 
 duced in his memoirs, may very well have indulged in 
 the hope that he would be able to win over Hedouville 
 to the monarchical cause. To the above remarks, 
 which were dropped in a casual waj', Bonaparte re- 
 turned no answer, but Talleyrand now reverted to them 
 and made use of them for his own immediate object. 
 While he himself awaited the development of events in 
 the hotel of the administration of the Department of 
 the Seine, on the Place Vendome, he sent his confidant 
 Bruix to the unsuspecting Barras, with an application 
 for resignation drafted by Roederer. According to 
 INIichaud, Barras confided his schemes for the restoration 
 of the monarchy to Talleyrand, and the latter compassed 
 his fall by betraying the secret to Bonaparte. But 
 Barras was compromised without any such complicity in 
 Royalist conspiracies, and quite ready to depart when he 
 was requested to do so. He onlv asked for a safe con- 
 duct to Grosbois, his country-house near Paris. About 
 
310 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. iCu. 
 
 noon, his secretary Bottot appeared with the required 
 resignation, which put the two opposition Directors in 
 a minority. Bonaparte's reply : '' Qu'avez-vous fait de 
 la France ? " was addressed to the Directory only as a 
 matter of form, and really intended for public opinion 
 in Europe. Gohier, who up to the eleventh hour 
 refused to believe in a coup d'etat, because Madame 
 Bonaparte had invited him to breakfast that morning, 
 and Moulin, who like him clung to the old constitution, 
 were soon relieved of further responsibility, the one 
 by a hasty flight, and the other as a prisoner of 
 Moreau. That very evening Siey^s advised the arrest 
 of forty Deputies, whose opposition was appi'ehended 
 on the following day. But Bonaparte had scruples 
 about this on account of the oath which he had taken 
 that morning in the Council of the Ancients to defend 
 the representatives of the nation. 
 
 On the 19th of Brumaire the actors in the drama 
 met again at St. Cloud. A house had been taken there 
 for a year for the civilians implicated in the conspiracy, 
 which, however, was only required for four-and-twenty 
 hours. Talleyrand says that he went there as " an 
 amateur." He does not do himself justice, for he was 
 in the very heart of the conspiracy. He was accom- 
 panied by Montrond, a witty Epicm-ean and political 
 frondeur, who from this time belonged to the circle 
 of his intimate friends, by Duquesnoy the economist, 
 Arnault the writer, Desrenaudes, Callot, an army con- 
 
X.] COUP D'i:TAT OF BRUMAIRE. 311 
 
 tractor, and Roederer, who made a point of attending 
 every political funeral. In the morning Fouche had 
 conferred with the zealous Bonapartist Arnault and had 
 told him that he would answer for Paris ; it was for 
 the Greneral to do the like for St. Cloud. 
 
 Talleyrand now sent Arnault with a message to 
 Bonaparte that Fouche and he thought the time had 
 come to accelerate matters. " No time has been lost," 
 answered Bonaparte with a smile ; "a little patience 
 and everything will be arranged." He and Sieyes 
 waited alone in one of the rooms of the chateau, while 
 the Five Hundred were holding a stormy sitting in 
 the Orangerie. When his adjutant Lavalette informed 
 him that the oath was being taken to the existing 
 constitution, amid shouts of " A bas les dictateurs ! " 
 and each deputy answering to his name, and Sieyes 
 hereupon remarked, " La constitution entiere, c'est 
 beaucoup," then he prepared to act. He entered the 
 Council of the Ancients, and apostrophised the assembly 
 in the incoherent speech, which Bourrienne interrupted 
 with the whispered remark that he did not know what 
 he was saying. His appearance among the Five 
 Hundred, with fom* grenadiers behind him, threatened 
 at one time, as is well known, to have a more disastrous 
 termination. Of his address to the Deputies, delivered 
 amid constant interruptions, in a passionate strain and 
 with gathering irritation, and alternating between a 
 tone of menace and apology, the famous allocution, 
 
312 LIFE OF TALLEYKAND. [Ch. 
 
 " Suivez-moi, je suis le Dieu du jour," are the only 
 words which have lived in the memory of posterity. 
 Desrenaudes was not the only person who lost his 
 presence of mind when Duquesnoy, who had been sent 
 to find out what was going on, returned with the news 
 that Bonaparte had been declared " hors la loi." 
 Roederer states that Talleyrand then despatched 
 Duquesnoy and Montrond hurriedly to Bonaparte. 
 But Sieyes had already addressed to him the historic 
 words : " Puisqu'ils vous mettent hors la loi, mettez-les 
 hors la salle " ; and all that iMontrond had to say after- 
 wards was that he had seen Bonaparte change colour. 
 While Lucien was conducted by his brother's soldiers 
 out of the assembly of the Five Hundred, where 
 things had passed beyond his control, and was aiding 
 him with his theatrical southern rhetoric to stir up 
 the soldiers against the recalcitrant deputies, Lavalette 
 observed Talleyrand and Arnault awaiting the result in 
 the court^yard in a state of great excitement. A travel- 
 ling carriage was standing at the gate, ready for any 
 emergency. At this point Murat's grenadiers crossed 
 the parliamentary threshold, and dispersed the Five 
 Hundred with drums beating. Their red cloaks and caps 
 were left on the empty benches, and that same ev^ening 
 ]^ucien collected a sufficient number of them to form a 
 commission, which declared the violation of the constitu- 
 tion to have been unavoidable, and oflfered the thanks 
 of the country to Bonaparte, by whom it was effected. 
 
X.] PUBLIC OPINION ON COUP D'ETAT. 313 
 
 Talleyrand did not wait for this last act. " ^^'e 
 must go to dinner," he said to Roederer. Madame 
 Simons, a pretty and amiable woman, had prepared 
 dinner for them, as well as for Arnault, IMontrond, and 
 Sainte-Foy, in her country-house near St. Cloud. The 
 company was in the best of spirits ; Montrond alone 
 seemed to be troubled with unpleasant recollections, 
 and occasionally muttered to himself, " That was not 
 correct, General Bonaparte," referring, not to the coup 
 d'etat, but to his change of colour. 
 
 A few days afterwards the First Consul publicly 
 thanked the citizens Talleyrand, Volney, and Eoederer 
 for their co-operation in the coup d'etat. With the 
 exception of the discomfited Jacobins there was not a 
 soul in France who did not hail the victory of arbitrary 
 over constitutional power. It put an end to chil war 
 and anarchy at home, and held out hopes of peace 
 abroad. "Le 18 Brumaire a sauve la France," wrote 
 La Fayette to Bonaparte in 1802. In his preface to 
 " Le G6nie du Christianisme," Chateaubriand compared 
 the conqueror of -Brumaire to Cyrus. Toulongeon, a 
 Constitutionalist of 1789, concluded his history of the 
 Revolution with the words, " Bonaparte was not the 
 first, but the only man." Chenier congratulated the 
 Council of the Ancients, and still more himself, that 
 from henceforth the guarantees for liberty were 
 inscribed, not in a constitutional document, but in 
 the heart of Bonaparte. Sieyes admitted to Talleyrand 
 
314 LIFE I OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 that he had found his master : " qui sait tout, veut 
 tout, et peut tout." Independent observers like 
 Chateaubriand's friend Joubert said : " II n'est point 
 parvenu, il est arrive." Niebuhr called the 18th of 
 Brumaire " the only one of all the French revolutions 
 that was necessary and beneficial." Napoleon's accuser, 
 Lanfrey, says it was an improvement " that despotism 
 was no longer shielded by anonymity." The French 
 bourgeoisie breathed again, and the French noblesse 
 soon deserved Bonaparte's commendation, that " it 
 alone knew how to serve." Of the three hundred and 
 sixty-one members of the Convention who had voted for 
 the death of Louis XVI., one hundred and twenty-one 
 out of about three hundred survivors took service under 
 the Empire. A future ]Minister of the Monarchy of 
 July, the Duke de Broglie, describes his sensations 
 and experiences when France heard the news, and 
 Barante, a thoroughly moderate man, testifies that the 
 state of public feeling was one of satisfaction and 
 re-awakened hope. One of the best proofs of this was 
 that Gaudin, afterwards Duke de Gaeta, who had 
 declined the offer of the Ministry of Finance made 
 him under the preceding governments, now accepted 
 it and brought order out of chaos. He remained in 
 office for fourteen years. The 5 per cent, rente went 
 up from 7 to 12 after Brumaire, and a fortnight later, 
 after the abohtion of the compulsory tax, to 17. In 
 the year 1803, during the visit to Brussels, Madame 
 
X.] TALLEYKAND'S VIEWS ON BRUMAIEE. 315 
 
 de Remusat one evening heard the First Consul ask 
 Talleyrand how he had managed to grow rich so 
 quickly, and if it was true, as was stated, that he 
 gambled on the Bourse. " I did so once," was the 
 reply : " I bought rentes on the 18th of Brumaire and 
 sold them on the 19th." 
 
 In his Memoirs Talleyrand speaks of monarchy 
 having succeeded " polygarchy " on that date, but 
 takes care to point out that this elective sovereignty 
 had nothing in common with the restoration of the 
 legitimate monarchy, and that the latter was out 
 of the question in 1799. For the problem was, 
 not to find the best ruler, but to find one possessed 
 of the qualities required for lifting the country out of 
 the groove of revolution, and accustoming it to the 
 idea of a monarchical government. No one was so 
 well fitted for this as Napoleon. The Zurich statesman 
 Hans von Reinhard mentions a remark made by 
 Talleyrand in the summer of 1 798, which proves that 
 he did not adopt this view in later years to justify his 
 own political attitude, but that it was really his opinion 
 at the time. It was on the occasion of a republican 
 fete, presumably that of July 14th, that he said to 
 Reinhard himself: " Eh bien, aujourd'hui ceci, demaiu 
 les Bourbons ; mais il faut que d'abord quelqu'un 
 retourne la pyramide." When, shortly after the cou'p 
 d'etat. General Lamarque turned to Talleyrand and 
 observed that everything had improved in France 
 
316 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND [Oh. 
 
 since a step had been taken in the direction of the 
 monarchical principle, the latter rejoined : " C'est clair, 
 vous aviez mis la pyramide sur la pointe, nous I'avons 
 replacee sur la base ; le nom en haut n'y fait rien ; il 
 s'agissait d'abord de la tourner." 
 
 At Mittau there was very little taste for such ingenious 
 distinctions as this. There the view prevailed that 
 the name at the apex of the pyramid was everything, 
 and that, even after Brumaire, it ought only to have 
 been that of the lawful monarch. At present the 
 courtiers of the exiled king knew nothing of the 
 armistice in La Vendee and the rebellious provinces 
 of the west, which H^douville had concluded in 
 December on behalf of the provisional Consuls ; they 
 only knew that England was firmly resolved to make 
 no treaty with the revolutionary government, and they 
 believed that the whole policy of the Emperor of 
 Russia was bound up with a scheme for a general 
 restoration. The Voltairian Louis XVIII. wrote in a 
 sentimental strain to Cardinal Maury, who was not 
 much more seriously inclined than himself, that 
 Providence had chosen the noble figure of the Tsar 
 for this task, and the legitimate king took Paul for a 
 Cyrus, as he afterwards took Bonaparte for a iMonk, 
 The Eoyalist party had three generals, Pichegru, Willot, 
 and Dumouriez, devoted to their policy ; they were 
 endeavouring to gain the support of the exiled La 
 Fayette and Carnot, and they indulged in the hope 
 
X.] ATTITUDE TOWARDS ROYALISTS. 317 
 
 that they would be able to rally Massena, Moreau, 
 Moncey, and Joubert to their cause. 
 
 Talleyrand's was the only name never connected 
 with these hopes. A Koyalist agent, who refers to him 
 in 1798, adds that he listened to what was said to 
 him, but that his course of action would evidently 
 be regulated by events alone. Monseigneur d'Autun, 
 the accomplice in the schism, the emissary of Danton, 
 the conspirator of Fructidor, was also held responsible 
 for offences of which he was never guilty, and credited 
 with absurdities which no one condemned more 
 severely than himself. Inferior conspirators declared 
 that it was not necessary to secure him, because he 
 had no influence or voice in the matter. Baron Hyde 
 de Neuville, one of the men who professed themselves 
 ready to get rid of Bonaparte by force, was better 
 informed. He states that Talleyrand, in order to 
 dispose the Koyalists favourably towards the projected 
 pacification of the west, held out hopes to him after 
 Brumaire of reconciling the First Consul to the idea 
 of a restoration, in case a peaceful solution with 
 England and Russia should turn out to be impractic- 
 able. He then took Hyde and the Royalist general 
 d'Andigne to the Luxemburg to see Bonaparte, who 
 discussed the terms of pacification, but repudiated all 
 idea of an arrangement with the Bourbons : " Join 
 me," he said to the agent of the Chouans, " my 
 government will be a government of youth and 
 
818 LIFE OF TAr.LEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 iutelligence." He referred contemptuously to the 
 Comte d'Artois, saying that he had not been seen on 
 the field of battle. Talleyrand, on the other hand, 
 affirmed his liking for him, said that he could not 
 render the prince any services, but that the man was 
 lovable, and that he felt attached to him. Hyde says 
 that Talleyrand was perfectly straightforward, and 
 that he had no complaint whatever to make of him ; 
 he also mentions a remark Talleyrand made about 
 Bonaparte, that " if he remained in power for a year, 
 the world would see great things." The conference 
 led to no result, but in a letter, sent through Josephine, 
 Louis XVIII. once more asked the First Consul to draw 
 his sword on behalf of a restoration. The answer was 
 given after the battle of Marengo, and destroyed for 
 ever the illusions of the exiled Court. 
 
 Talleyrand's re-appointment to the Ministry of 
 Foreign Affairs took place as early as the 21st of 
 November. The Swedish charge d'affaires, Brinkmann, 
 refers to the First Consul's openly expressed hesitation 
 on making it ; Roederer records his remark that 
 corruption had always prevailed in France, that every 
 one who had been Minister had built country-houses. 
 He might have also referred to Thugut, among others, 
 who had drawn an allowance from the King of France 
 from the year 1768, when he went to Constantinople 
 as Austrian ambassador, up to the outbreak of the 
 Eevolution. Similar experiences awaited him in his 
 
X.] APPOINTED FOEEIGN MINISTEK. 319 
 
 own family ; " Murat is returning with his pockets 
 full, Leclerc is making his pile, we are all rich," said 
 Joseph in 1802. Lucien as ambassador in Madrid 
 was paid for the treaty of Badajoz in little bags full 
 of diamonds. The Bonapartes were not indispensable, 
 but Talleyrand was. All public offices, remarks 
 Napoleon in the St. Helena memorial, were so organised 
 that their administration only required an average 
 amount of intelligence, coupled with zeal and devotion 
 to the service of the State ; but the Ministry for Foreign 
 Affairs forms an exception, as it demands initiative and 
 the power of persuasion. But who, said Bonaparte to 
 Mollien, who was not best pleased with the observation, 
 can compare with Talleyrand in knowledge of the time, 
 of the world, of cabinets and of peoples ? His appoint- 
 ment was not seriously objected to even by his Jacobin 
 opponents, while Fouche's continuance at the head 
 of the police had to be maintained in the teeth of 
 Sieyes, who now advocated arbitrary measures which 
 the tamed hero of the Terror was not inclined to 
 sanction. The tendency was now in a contrary direction. 
 The detested decree of the preceding Messidor, the 
 loi des otages, which was directed against La Yende'e, 
 and placed liberty and property at the mercy of party 
 hatred, was abolished. Even as regards the Jacobins, 
 measures were confined to banishment or imprisonment 
 of those who were most compromised, Talleyrand 
 taking the opportunity of striking his personal assailant 
 
820 LIFE OF TALLEYHAND. L*^'"- 
 
 Jorry off the list. He also succeeded in keeping 
 Bonaparte and Sieyfes, never cordially disposed to one 
 another, on decent terms. The idea was to leave 
 Sieyes alone for the present. He was allowed to 
 expound the new constitution to the two commissions. 
 It regulated the elective rights of the sovereign people 
 by a beautifully contrived machinery, and controlled 
 one function of the State by another, with the result 
 that authority was resolved into fragments and 
 government disappeared in a cloud of metaphysics. 
 " Que voulez-vous ? " said Bonaparte to La Fayette, 
 " Sieyes has created mere phantoms, phantoms of 
 judicial and phantoms of executive power. Flesh and 
 blood had to be put in the constitution somewhere, 
 and so I have put them in the executive. The Grand- 
 elector of the Constitution of the year VIII., " le pore 
 a I'engrais," as Bonaparte called him mockingly, was 
 replaced by a First Consul appointed for ten years, 
 whose real omnipotence was hardly veiled by the 
 presence of two colleagues with a consultative vote. 
 A subservient Senate composed of notables took the 
 place of Sieyes' constitutional jury, and nominated the 
 members of the legislative body and the Tribunate, 
 the former of which voted the measures of the 
 Government without debating them, while the latter 
 debated them without ever proceeding to a vote. 
 Talleyrand might have recalled the plan which General 
 Bonaparte sent him in September 1797, when the 
 
X.] PERSONNEL UNDER THE CONSULATE. 321 
 
 draft of the Italian constitution was under discussion. 
 Its main outlines clearly reappeared in the new 
 organisation of the Napoleonic state, only that instead 
 of Cisalpina it was Prance who was the subject of 
 the experiment. 
 
 The change of system necessitated a complete 
 change of persons. Sieyes and Ducos declined to be 
 consular colleagues of Bonaparte. The former was 
 made President of the Senate, with a handsome 
 allowance, survived the Revolution of 1830, and never 
 thought it worth while to remind the public of his 
 existence. Ducos was made a Senator. He was 
 succeeded, on Roederer's recommendation, by Lebrun, 
 who had been trained under the Monarchy and then 
 elected a member of the Constituent Assembly, was 
 a Royalist by con^^ction and an excellent financier. 
 Cambaceres was appointed Minister of Justice. He 
 was of good family and gentlemanly manners, and 
 combined avarice with an unblemished character, and 
 it was said of him that he knew how to be mean with 
 dignity. He was loaded with honours, and ended as 
 one of the great official personages of the Empire. 
 The men with a talent for administration, such as 
 Chaptal, Fourcroy, Cretet, and Portalis (banished at 
 Fructidor), were transferred to the Council of State, 
 together with. Roederer, who had expected a portfolio 
 and saw first of all Laplace and then Lucien Bonaparte 
 preferred to himself for the Ministry of the Interior. 
 
 VOL. I. 21 
 
322 LIFE OF TALLEYllAND. [C'H. 
 
 Bonaparte made use of Roederer, but did not like him, 
 and said one day to JMiot that lie could never have 
 any confidence in the man who had been guilty of 
 the treachery of August 10th. oNlaret, the negotiator 
 of London and Lille, was made secretary to the 
 Consuls. The 'personnel of the Empire began to learn 
 their parts. The first discordant note came from the 
 Tribunate ; Benjamin Constant had taken his election 
 seriously, and had prepared an opposition speech, 
 which, however, only attacked the bill regulating 
 the procedure of the three assemblies. Roederer, who 
 was apprised of his intention, endeavoured in vain to 
 dissuade him from it, and published an article in 
 the Journal de Pans that morning, stigmatising all 
 deliberate opposition as contemptible. Madame de 
 Stael, warned by her friend Constant of the possible 
 consequences of his proceedings for himself and for 
 her, replied that he ought to obey his convictions. 
 The speech was delivered, and in the evening jNIadame 
 de Stael found herself deserted by her usual circle of 
 friends. Excuses followed, among them one from 
 Talleyrand ; a conventional refusal of an in\dtation to 
 dinner was his parting word to the woman to whom 
 he owed his return to France and the change in his 
 fortunes. ]Madame de Stael has immortalised this 
 meanness in the portrait of herself, " Delphine," in 
 which Talleyrand is evidently the original of the 
 sketch of Madame de Vernon, who sacrifices Delphine's 
 
X.] PASSAGE IN "DELPHINE." 323 
 
 happiness to the prejudices of society. " I am told 
 that the authoress and I are both disguised as women 
 in the book," he replied, when some one called his 
 attention to the satire, which, after all, was of a mild 
 description. We are not told whether he looked into 
 " Delphine " and found the following passage, which is 
 also addressed to him : " INIidway in your life you met 
 the young woman who gave you her first friendship, 
 a sentiment well-nigh as deep and fervent as a first 
 love. Attracted by the charm of your intellect and 
 your manners, she never doubted the nobility of your 
 character, and defended you against all the attacks 
 of the world. You have inflicted a mortal wound on 
 the heart which was yours, although this cruelty could 
 not have promoted any of your interests, for truth 
 would have served your pm'pose better than falsehood. 
 I hope from the bottom of my heart that you will be 
 happy, but I venture to predict that you \vill find no 
 one to love you as I have done. An intimacy of this 
 kind comes but once in a lifetime. However fascinat- 
 ing you may be, you will never again meet with the 
 friendship, the devotion, and the illusions of Delphine." 
 The question now was whether his official career had 
 any compensations to offer him, whether the Minister 
 of the Consulate was likely to succeed in the policy of 
 peace which the blindness of the Directory had doomed 
 to such ignominious failm^e. 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 TALLEYRAND MINISTER OF THE COlSlSULATE. 
 
 1799—1801. 
 
 rr^HE brilliant period inaugurated by the Consulate 
 -^ justified the most sanguine expectations formed 
 of it, for it fulfilled its promise and completed the 
 reconstruction of France. The leading characteristic 
 of Bonaparte's achievement was that he refused to be 
 bound by the narrow rules of doctrinaire fanaticism, 
 and reverted to the elem.entary and indispensable 
 foundations of social order, which had disappeared in 
 France. He avoided the danger of reaction by taking 
 care not to disturb such institutions of the Revolution 
 as showed signs of vitality, and declined to run the 
 risk of fresh upheavals and injustice involved in the 
 restoration of what had been radically destroyed. The 
 new system steered between these extremes and took 
 its stand on the principle of possession, which was the 
 source also of his own power. The purchasers of the 
 biens nationaux were left in quiet enjoyment, and as 
 most of them belonged to the peasantry, the latter 
 were attached to the new regime by the strongest of 
 all ties, that of property. People could now obtain a 
 
 324 
 
Ch. XL] CONCILIATORY POLICY OF NAPOLEON. 325 
 
 decision from the courts uninfluenced by the suitors' 
 political views or antecedents, which had been impos- 
 sible since the enactment of the Jacobin decrees of 
 proscription. At the commencement of the Consulate 
 the list of cinigrcs amounted to one hundred and 
 forty-six thousand persons, mostly officers, politicians, 
 nobles, and priests, who risked their lives if they 
 crossed the frontier ; while, besides them, there were 
 two or three hundred thousand of their dependents, 
 who, deprived of political rights and robbed of their 
 property, existed on sufferance as the pariahs of 
 society. Napoleon did not repeal the decrees relat- 
 ing to exile, but a series of senatus - cousulta and 
 remissions resulted in the exemption of so many 
 classes of persons from their operation, that after 
 the Peace of Amiens the doors of the fatherland 
 were opened to all but the actual leaders of armed 
 resistance. The man who had consented to the coup 
 d'etat of Fructidor hastened, as soon as he was in 
 power, to repair the injustice done by it. Barthelemy, 
 Carnot, Barbe-jNlarbois, Mathieu Dumas, Sime'on, 
 Portalis, and Fontanes, were recalled from exile, and 
 gradually appointed to the highest ofl&ces. The work 
 of reconciliation extended farther into the past, and 
 embraced the Thermidorians, the Terrorists, and the 
 few survivors of the Gironde. All the members of the 
 Constituent Assembly were struck off the list of 
 ^onigr^s, and all persons under suspicion were given 
 
326 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 a chance of clearing themselves. The only thing that 
 was impossible was to distribute the money voted as 
 compensation for those who had lost their pi'operty 
 with even an approach to justice. It is true that the 
 restitution of the property not sold liy the State 
 provided a certain indemnity, but of a total value of 
 at least two milliards of francs, only about one hundred 
 million was restored, mostly to small people, and even 
 for them the senatus-consultum of the year X. meant 
 little more than the permission " to die of starv^ation 
 in France." Napoleon was perfectly well aware of the 
 glaring injustice of this ; but, on the one hand, the 
 state of the finances precluded more being done, and, 
 on the other, it was no part of his policy to place 
 large sums of money at the disposal of the Royalists. 
 For he thus obtained the benefit of their services, and 
 saw the first names of the JMonarchy take their place 
 in the Imperial Almanac. The First Consul found 
 himself at the head of a society without privileges. 
 They had ceased to exist in the cgalitaire democracy', 
 which strewed his path with the docti'ines of the 
 " Contrat Social." But the future Emperor avoided the 
 mistake of thinking that because institutions had 
 changed men had changed with them. He put the 
 right construction on the conception of equality by 
 interpreting it as an aversion on the part of the 
 modern Frenchman to all distinctions from which he 
 himself is excluded by reason of chance, position, or 
 
XL] ADMIRATION OF NAPOLEON. 327 
 
 birth, and held out to him every prospect of advance- 
 ment to which his personal ability entitled him. The 
 First Consul could thus devote himself to the career of 
 ambition, in which his claim to the throne met with 
 no opposition. No one, he said to Eoederer, had any 
 interest in the fall of a government which rewarded 
 all merit according to its deserts. But, he added, he 
 alone of all his surroundings knew what a government 
 should be. 
 
 Talleyrand yielded to the spell like the rest. In 
 the despatches of De Lessart, Dumouriez, and Danton, 
 and still more in those of Rewbell and Barras, he had 
 missed " le langage noble." Now at last the ruler 
 had made his appearance who could countersign the 
 INJinister's notes with the sword of the conqueror. 
 Talleyrand's admiration was sincere, and expressed 
 itself in warm terms, often of affectionate flattery : 
 " The feeling which unites me to you," he wrote in 
 June 1800 to the First Consul, "and the confidence 
 that the sacrifice of my whole life to yom' fortunes and 
 to your aims may be of service to the latter, make me 
 take care of my health." Four weeks afterwards he 
 added : " I am not myself when separated from you." 
 In 1804 he made the following confession to "the 
 restorer of the honour of France," as he called him : 
 " Heartily weary of all the political changes which for 
 the space of ten years have agitated France and made 
 her so unhappy, I feel that the person of the Emperor 
 
323 I^IFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 is the only thing which binds me to the institutions 
 which he has founded." The latter returned his 
 affection, and on one occasion, when taking leave of 
 Jiim at Mayence in 1806, broke into sobs as he 
 embraced him and his wife. The self-control of 
 the man of the world and statesman impressed his 
 more brutal genius ; when he returned from Egypt 
 he possessed knowledge of mankind, liut not of 
 individual Frenchmen, whom he had had no o])por- 
 t unity of observing, and Talleyrand's knowledge of 
 persons supplied the deficiency. But the latter made 
 only a very limited use of his influence in this respect. 
 Thus Dupout de Nemours, who might have rendered 
 great service in finance, remained forgotten in America, 
 where he had been dragging out a miserable existence 
 since Fructidor. Narbonne had been living in Paris 
 since 1801, in straitened circumstances, and Talleyrand 
 saw him continually at the house of the Countess 
 Laval, with whom he lived. But it was not owing to 
 his intervention that the Emperor, who afterwards 
 showed such a marked preference for Narbonne, took 
 him into his service in 1809. This apathy, which 
 Talleyrand's friends experienced to their disadvantage, 
 was a boon to his opponents. When Lucien left the 
 Ministry of the Interior a year after Brumaire, he 
 accused Talleyrand of perfidy because he had advised 
 him to exchange his portfolio for an embassy. But 
 the advice was the best that could have been given 
 
XI.] INFLUENCE OF TALLEYRAND. 329 
 
 him, for the want of integrity of Lucien's administra- 
 tion and the indiscretions of his pen had made him 
 impossible, and it was Fouche, not Talleyrand, vvlio 
 insisted on his retirement, although the latter knew 
 exactly what sort of man he was, and had called him 
 " un grand estafier." But there is nothing to show 
 that, when his influence was at its height, he abused 
 it for the purpose of injuring those whom he disliked, 
 such as Maret and Semonville, or those who, like 
 Mollien, belonged to his opponents. Macdonald com- 
 plained that by sending him to Copenhagen he had 
 interrujited his career for eight years ; and that he 
 was on bad terms with Chaptal, the INIinister of the 
 Interior, is shown by the quotation in the ^Memoirs 
 of Napoleon's verdict on Chaptal, that he was heavy, 
 vain, and dull, and that he had only kept him in office 
 to please Cambacdr^s, — which, by the way, was very 
 unjust. Talleyrand knew that he was surrounded by 
 opponents, if not by enemies, and insisted, in order 
 to maintain his influence, on direct intercom-se with 
 the First Consul in every matter connected with his 
 department. The latter's idea of a government was 
 one in which all the threads were gathered into his 
 hands ; he treated even Ministers as executive officers. 
 In later times Talleyrand's cause of complaint was that 
 he was obliged, in order not to interrupt this personal 
 intercourse, to follow the Emperor about everywhere 
 under the most trying circumstances, and submit to 
 
330 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 all the fatigues and liardsliips of camp life and winter 
 campaigns. 
 
 After assuming office his first task was the re-organi- 
 sation of the staff. He obtained the grant of pensions 
 for the old deserving employe's, who had been in want 
 since 1789, thus re-establishing the connection between 
 the past and the present. Two excellent officials, 
 d'Hauterive and Miot de Melito, were appointed to 
 represent the interests of the Foreign Office in the 
 section of the Council of State for the home service, and 
 the staff of the office was henceforth in part recruited 
 from among the auditors, who were trained in every 
 branch of administration in close proximity to, and, so 
 to speak, under the eye of, the chief of the state. Up 
 to 1805, when their relations underwent a change, 
 d'Hauterive was the Minister's right-hand man ; he 
 rose high in the favour of the First Consul and 
 Emperor, and was strong enough, when necessary, 
 to hold his own against both. His idea of depart- 
 mental discipline was so strict, that he considered even 
 the frequenting of cafes and restaurants as an offence 
 against the dignity due to the office, and expected his 
 subordinates to confine themselves to the family circle, 
 and to be ready to place every moment of their time 
 at the disposal of the government even out of office 
 hours. This was the tradition of the office, and this 
 was the idea of official duty in the days of Torcy 
 and Vergennes. Henceforth a yearly account of the 
 
XL] MEMOEAXDUM ON EUROPEAN .SITUATION. 331 
 
 objects and results of the administration was to be 
 rendered to the country : " Vous ne cacherez ni les 
 fautes, ni les erreurs," wrote Bonaparte to Talleyrand. 
 But this grand order was given in the year of the 
 victory of JNIarengo ; it ceased to be observed in more 
 difficult times, and when one complication after another 
 had generated a policy which was not calculated to bear 
 the open light of day. 
 
 The first document in which the new head of the 
 Foreign Office appealed to public opinion in Europe 
 was the memorandum on the European situation at 
 the close of the century addressed to the Consuls. 
 It advocated peace and a system of alliances, strong 
 enough to restoi-e the balance of power in Europe, 
 which eight years of ruin and revolution had destroyed. 
 France was saddled with the responsibility for this 
 state of things, whereas prudence enjoined that she 
 of all others should leave no stone unturned to secure 
 peace. A durable peace could only be obtained by 
 carefully conducted negotiations. 
 
 All diplomatic intercourse with the British Cabinet 
 had ceased since the meeting at Lille. France 
 was still at war with Russia. Thugut proved more 
 amenable, and consented to discuss matters with the 
 antagonist whose armies were facing the Austrian 
 troops and ready to renew the struggle in Italy and on 
 the Khine. But in spite of this Talleyrand addressed 
 himself to Prussia in the first instance. Although 
 
SS'2 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND, [Ch. 
 
 the aggressive policy of tlie Directory had impaired 
 the good relations between Paris and Berlin, the 
 Prussian cajntal was still the central point from which 
 French diplomacy could take stock of the situation 
 and pick up threads which had been dropped, even 
 if both governments had every reason to approach each 
 other with reserve. 
 
 During the last few years Prussia had been alternately 
 cajoled and played off against Austrian influence in 
 the Empire, then allured by hopes of the leadership 
 in North Germany and of acquisition of territory, and 
 lastly duped, as at Kastatt, where no attention was 
 paid to her demands. Even the great achievement 
 of Hardenberg's diplomacy, the neutrality of North 
 German}^ secured by the treaty of July 16th, 1796, 
 was more than once in danger ; as, for instance, in 1797, 
 when the French government discussed the advisability 
 of arbitrary measures against the Hanse towns, the 
 idea being to force them to exclude the English flag, 
 and, if they refused, to ruin their trade, in order to 
 strike another blow at England. After Campo Formio 
 the Directory had taken into consideration an invasion 
 of Hanover, and Bonaparte himself, in a memorandum 
 addressed to the Directory on the 23rd of February, 
 1798, had referred to the seizm'e of Hanover and 
 Hamburg as desirable moves in the struggle against 
 England. In April of the same year a report of 
 Talleyrand's foreshadowed measures for closing the 
 
XI.] POLICY IN GERMANY. 333 
 
 Elbe. Then the Egyptian expedition and the events 
 of 1799 drove these schemes into the background. 
 The victories won by the coahtion made even the Berlin 
 government pluck up courage to demand the cession 
 of Prussian territory on the left bank of the Ehine 
 and the independence of Holland from the French 
 government. But before this request had been even 
 considered, the French armies were victorious in 
 Switzerland and in the Netherlands, and the only 
 result of Prussia's representations was to confirm the 
 conviction in Paris that " nothing would really rouse 
 the Prussian Cabinet out of the apathy which had 
 constituted the whole stock-in-trade of its policy for 
 the last four years." " There is always the 8ame 
 inertia, the same reluctance to enter into any engage- 
 ment which might by any possibility, at any period, 
 however remote, lead to a conflict." The above 
 remarks are quoted from Talleyrand's reports. Directly 
 after his appointment, on the 28th of November, 1799, 
 he reverted to his favom'ite scheme, which was often 
 thwarted but never abandoned, and advocated the 
 conclusion of separate treaties with the ^^outh German 
 kingdoms as a counterpoise to Austrian influence. 
 At the same time he expressed the hope that it might 
 be feasible to form a confederation of the North Gferman 
 states with the same object against Prussia, and so 
 hold in check both these ambitious Powers, whose 
 quarrels were always at the expense of their weaker 
 
334 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 neighbours, and who would never make peace except 
 on condition of their annihilation. 
 
 This determination, to confine Prussia's power in 
 Germany within the narrowest possible limits, was 
 quite compatible with his intention to avail himself 
 of her intervention in the impending negotiations with 
 the European powers. Just at that moment it had 
 risen in value. An incident took place in Ancona, 
 the Russian colours being removed from the ramparts 
 by a subordinate Austrian officer, which made the 
 Emperor Paul more embittered than ever against 
 Austria, and induced him to take the initiative in 
 approacmng Prussia. Herr von Kriidener, a diplomatist 
 who was in his confidence, was sent, at first on a secret 
 mission, to the Court of Berlin ; and he was followed 
 shortly afterwards by Duroc, who was despatched by 
 the First Consul, to announce, in accordance with 
 etiquette, the news of a change of government in 
 France to the King of Prussia. With the same object 
 of making polite advances the charge d'affaires, Otto, 
 who had succeeded Sieyes, received another appoint- 
 ment, and General Eeurnonville, who was considered 
 an open enemy of Austria, was nominated ambassador in 
 Berlin. The relations with Prussia having thus been 
 replaced on a good footing, the First Consul addressed 
 a communication to the King of England and another 
 to the German Emperor, on the 26th of December, 
 1799, in which he called upon the two sovereigns, the 
 
XI.] ENGLAND'S ANSWER TO NAPOLEON, 335 
 
 first in solemn tones, as the head of a free people, 
 and the second in warmer language, to join, before 
 resuming a sanguinary struggle, in a loyal endeavour 
 to bring about a durable and general peace. 
 
 In taking this step the First Consul invited the 
 verdict of the two Cabinets on the coup cVetat of 
 Brumaire and on his own right to address them in the 
 name of Finance. The response was not long in coming ; 
 they declined to recognise him., not even vouchsafing 
 a direct answer to his letter, and identified him with 
 the Kevolution. Lord Grenville sketched the history 
 of the war of conquest waged by the Jacobin propa- 
 ganda, dwelling on the exactions, the injustice, and 
 the ruin which had marked its path, and declared that 
 England could not discern any change of principle 
 in the altered language of the new chief of the state, 
 and that the restoration of the Bourbons could alone 
 guarantee this. England, he said, had no wish to 
 dictate any particular form of government to the 
 French, but she would continue the struggle until 
 adequate security was given for the safety of herself 
 and her allies, and for the preservation of social order 
 in Europe. Thugut enquired in a milder tone what 
 guarantees were forthcoming for the future observance 
 by France of the principles of international law. 
 
 England's decision has been severely censured even 
 by Englishmen both at the time and in our own day. 
 Fox argued ironically that according to Grenville's 
 
88G LIl'E OF TAJJ.EYEAND. [Ch. 
 
 ideas the new regime would have to be opposed until 
 it received an accession of strength. The English 
 Cabinet, which consisted of twelve members, was split 
 into four parties, and it was Windham who was the 
 mouthpiece of Burke's irreconcilalile [)olicy, not Pitt, 
 who, then as ever, was in favour of peace. Even now 
 Lord Kosebery, Pitt's latest biographer, calls Lord 
 Grenville's note " a supercilious and arrogant lecture," 
 and an interference with the right of the French to 
 control their own destiny. Napoleon himself, however, 
 has undertaken the justification of the verdict of his 
 opponents. Every reason which made him indis- 
 pensable to France, he, the great heir of the Revolution, 
 alone possessing the power to curb it, and bring order 
 out of chaos, and every consideration which marked 
 him out as the only man who could terminate the 
 revolutionary movement at home, combined to force 
 him to extend it abroad, and so accomplish the task, 
 the aim and end of which was the Empire of the West 
 and the supremacy of the Latin race. It is true that 
 neither Danton, nor Merlin, nor Dubois-Crance had 
 invented it ; they only continued in their own way 
 the tradition of the Monarchy, the policy of Richelieu 
 and of Louis XIV., but with this all-important dis- 
 tinction, that the Monarchy could give up foreign 
 conquest and yet remain what it had been before. 
 The precursors of Bonaparte and Bonaparte himself 
 had no such alternative. His onlv title to rule was 
 
XL] FINANCIAL SITUATION OF FRANCE. 337 
 
 victory. At the inomeut when he made overtures of 
 peace to London and Vienna this title was invalidated, 
 Italy having been lost by the blunders of the Directory, 
 and his own dubious successes having failed to secure 
 Egypt. Besides this there was another and not less 
 cogent reason. The French treasury was empty, and 
 no administrative conjuring could alter the fact that, 
 to use the emphatic words of the Finance JMinister 
 (jraudin, " finance had ceased to exist in France." 
 When Bonaparte crossed the Alps for the first time, 
 he applied to the Directory for 500,000 francs, and 
 received 24,000 instead. In the course of his victorious 
 campaign he not only fed and paid his army, but also 
 remitted 60 millions, partly to Paris, and [)artly to the 
 army of the Ehine. Gaudin had found 167,000 francs 
 in the treasury, the remains of a sum of 300,000 francs 
 borrowed the day before. The troops had not been 
 paid, and official salaries were ten months in arrear. 
 The requisitions for the army were covered by orders, 
 not only on the taxes in arrears, but also on those about 
 to fall due ; moreover, these taxes were to a great 
 extent already mortgaged to contractors. In addition 
 to this, in the western Departments, all taxation was 
 swallowed up by the civil war, and in 1799 the direct 
 receipts in the whole country showed a falling off of 
 409 millions, while the iDudgets exhibited an enormous 
 deficit every year. This desperate situation had 
 brought the Directory down to framing its budgets 
 VOL. I. 22 
 
338 LIFE OF TAI.LEYEANI). [Ch. 
 
 for a period of ten days, and Gaudin thought himself 
 lucky when he managed to })roloug it to four weeks 
 in the first year of his administration. This incredible 
 state of things, which he compares to sitting on a 
 volcano, would of itself have sufficed to hring about 
 a warlike solution. At all events, neither the First 
 Consul nor his Minister for Foreign Affairs was dis- 
 appointed by England's rejection of their proposals. 
 p]ven Talleyrand openly stated that things had taken 
 a happy turn on this occasion. " C'est maintenant 
 aux succes de la guerre a ranimer le departement de 
 la paix," he wrote to Bonaparte. Lord Grenville's 
 note was answered with the question, what would 
 England say to a proposal to undo the Eevolution of 
 1688 and restore the Stuarts? Thugut was requested 
 to negotiate on the basis of Campo Formio, which, 
 after the Austrian successes, was equivalent to a 
 declaration of war. 
 
 In the meanwhile the government had to live. 
 Talleyrand received notes and instructions nearly every 
 day, with the object of relieving the financial distress. 
 Now it was Flushing which was to be ceded to the 
 Dutch Kepublic for ten to fifteen millions, at another 
 time Hamburg which, by the mediation of the same 
 Republic, was to be guaranteed by France against 
 Prussian designs of annexation, if its Senate would 
 agree to pay ten or, at all events, not less than six 
 millions. The First Consul considered these negotia- 
 
XI.] NAPOLEON'S POLICY BEFORE MAEENGO. 339 
 
 tions of more importance than those with London and 
 Vienna, for the issue of the next campaign depended 
 on them. He was not less eager in urging the resump- 
 tion of negotiations with Portugal. If she could be 
 induced to pay eight to nine millions, that would in 
 all probability ensure the re-conquest of Italy, which 
 depended chiefly on providing teams for the artillery, 
 for which ten thousand horses were required. Money 
 meant above all things battalions and batteries ; a> 
 usual, French diplomacy was to lay the Continent 
 under contribution, but at the same time occupy the 
 various cabinets with proposals and negotiations, which 
 led to nothing but helped to gain time, Talleyrand's 
 exchange of notes with Thugut, which lasted for five 
 months, had no other object. In May, when the 
 French armies were marching, the one on Bavaria 
 and the other over the Alps, and Bonaparte had left 
 Paris to take the command in Italy, he wrote to his 
 Minister from Lausanne, directing him not to break 
 off negotiations with Thugut, but to continue them 
 by means of Lavalette, the French charge d'affaires 
 in Dresden, " His principal task," wrote the First 
 Consul, " must be to express a desire for peace, to listen 
 to all that is said to him, to hint that we shall have no 
 difficulty in coming to an understanding with Eome, 
 Sardinia, and Switzerland, to say that the treaty of 
 Campo Formio must be carried out, liut that modifica- 
 tions of it are admissible. Citizen Lavalette must 
 
340 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 put nothing down in writing, bind himself to nothing, 
 adopt a thoroughly conciliatory attitude, and reply to 
 all proposals made on behalf of Austria that he will 
 lose no time in submitting them to his government. 
 All this will help to settle the preliminaries." One 
 of the last communications which Talleyrand received 
 from Bonaparte before Marengo, dated from Novara 
 on the 1st of June, betrays his annoyance with Prussia. 
 Beurnonville rightly asserted that she would never be 
 of any use to France, and pointed out that the im- 
 pending collapse of the Turkish Empire was producing 
 an identity of interests between France and Russia. 
 
 A similar train of thought runs through the fifty-two 
 notes and bulletins by means of which Talleyrand 
 kept the First Consul informed of the diplomatic 
 situation during the latter's absence in Italy, which 
 lasted barely two months, from the 6th of May to the 
 3rd of July, Chance and haste have prevented these 
 documents from disappearing and probably being de- 
 stroyed, with all the letters addressed to Napoleon in 
 the imperial archives, by Talleyrand's order in April 
 1814. He was to have accompanied the First Consul, 
 but a serious illness detained him in Paris, and his 
 intention to follow him later on was not carried out. 
 But he sent him reports every other day, the principal 
 interest of which is that they prove how completely 
 paralysed the diplomatic action of France would have 
 been without the prestige of the victories on the 
 
XI.] RELATIONS WITH SPAIN. 341 
 
 Danube and on the Po. Semonville wrote from Holland 
 that the first news of a defeat would be the signal for 
 revolt in every part of the country and for mutiny of 
 the troops, that all parties were on bad terms with 
 France, and that a change of personnel would probably 
 involve complete disorganisation, as there were no 
 partisans of the French alliance in Holland. It was 
 not till after Marengo that they condescended to 
 furnish the seven thousand men demanded by 
 Bonaparte. Spain, whose fleet had been blockaded 
 off Brest since August 1799, betrayed an inclination 
 to abandon her submissive attitude, and lend an ear 
 to English overtures. The French government was 
 obliged to take advantage of the circumstance that 
 letters were opened in the Spanish post-office, to 
 address flattering remarks to the Queen in the 
 despatches to the ambassador, Alquier, and followed up 
 the impression so produced by presents of French 
 millinery, A letter is extant signed by Talleyrand 
 and addressed to the " Citoyenne Minette," who took 
 boxes packed with dresses to Madrid, dealing with her 
 and her mission in a thoroughly serious spirit. In a 
 report on the general European situation, dated the 
 21st of June, the Minister expresses the opinion that 
 Spain needed peace more than all the other Powers, 
 because none was affected by such a disproportion 
 between engagements and the ability to carry them 
 out, as existed in her case. As regards Prussia, 
 
342 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 l^onaparte and Talleyraud warned each other of the 
 danger of listening to the vague assurances of Haugwitz 
 or of placing any reliance on his " sterile fecondite." 
 Talleyrand even proposed to dispense with the dilatory 
 untrustworthy offices of Prussia, and to enter into 
 direct relations with Eussia, as it would be easier to 
 influence the Court of Berlin through the Tsar than 
 the latter through Berlin. 
 
 The difficulty was to find a go-between who would 
 be fersona grata to the Tsar. Talleyrand thought of 
 his old friend Choiseul-Gouffier, who had resided in 
 St. Petersbm-g for a long time, and then of another 
 emigre, Caraman. But Choiseul was not in favour 
 with Paul, and Caraman was devoted to the interests 
 of Louis XVIII., although Talleyrand was not aware 
 of it. Some other expedient had to be found. 
 Bourgoing, the French agent in Hamburg, endeavoured, 
 by means of his Russian colleague Muravieff, to get a 
 letter from Talleyrand into the hands of Pauin, the 
 Emperor's favourite, conveying the intention of the 
 First Consul to send six thousand Russian prisoners 
 back to their own country with all military honours. 
 But Muravieff was frightened by the order of the 
 Tsar prohibiting all intercourse with the official diplo- 
 matists of France on pain of instant dismissal, and 
 Talleyrand's letter finally reached its destination by 
 means of subordinate agents. At the same time a 
 Russian prisoner-of-war, the officer Sergejeff, was de- 
 
XI.J - THE TSAE AND MALTA. 343 
 
 spatchecl to St. Petersburg with a duplicate of it to 
 which was added a postscript of far greater importance 
 than the letter itself. Malta, which was blockaded by 
 the English and defended by a weak French garrison, 
 was on the point of surrendering. In 1798 Paul had 
 procured his own nomination as Grand ^Master of the 
 Order of St. John, which was quite dependent on him 
 for support, and in process of dissolution. The 3Ialtese 
 were his favourite plaything, the chivalrous element 
 in his crusade against the Revolution, and the posses- 
 sion of the island " sa folie," as Haugwitz says, for 
 which he would have given the half of his empire. 
 The First Consul now offered him the island, 
 thereby gaining the advantage of either depriving 
 the English of it or embroiling them with their 
 northern ally. 
 
 Whether the move would succeed seemed at hrst 
 doubtful. The Tsar made no reply to the communica- 
 tions of the French government, or to the semi-official 
 flatteries of the French Press, which thanked him 
 among other things for having " thwarted the mad 
 schemes of the Directory." Talleyrand was obliged 
 as before to have recourse to Berlin for information 
 about Russia. England is hardly mentioned in his 
 reports at this time. They refer to the intrigues of 
 English agents in Switzerland, in Italy, and at the 
 South German courts, and to the plan for provoking 
 an insurrection in Provence ; he also points out on one 
 
344 LIFE OF TALLEVBAND. [Ch. 
 
 occasion that no concessions could be expected from 
 England, but does not expatiate further on the situa- 
 tion, which for the time seemed to be be^'ond the 
 range of diplomatic influence. At this point the news 
 of INIarengo arrived and made him exclaim : " Quel 
 d^but et quel denouement ! La posterite pourra-t-elle 
 croire aux prodiges de cette campagne ? Sous quels 
 auspices votre retour nous est promis ! II n'y a point 
 eu d'empire qui ne fut fond^ sur le merveilleux, et ici 
 le merveilleux est la verite." 
 
 Talleyrand was among those who, like Fouche, 
 Roederer, and many others, viewed the First Consul's 
 decision to take the command in Italy with anxiety. 
 The question, What was to become of France if he did 
 not come back ? was discussed quite openly, and bv 
 Bonaparte as much as by any one else. To Eoederer, 
 who even at this early stage dwelt on the necessity of 
 having a direct heir, he said that the succession of one 
 of his brothers was the worst thing that could happen, 
 that Moreau had no friends, and that Carnot was 
 probably best fitted to be chief of the state. When 
 the same question was discussed in Talleyrand's 
 presence by Sieves, Fouche, Carnot, and La Fayette, 
 the choice lay between the two last-named. A report 
 was circulated in Paris that in crossing the St. Bernard 
 tlio First Consul had been in danger of being cut down 
 by an Austrian detachment, whereupon Talleyrand 
 begged him to take care of "himself, adding that for a 
 
XL] RESUMPTION OF PEACE NEGOTIATIONS. 345 
 
 long time to come his name was the only guarantee 
 for the safety of the state. Lucien's INIemoirs are alto- 
 gether wrong in speaking of "a conspiracy of Auteuil," 
 v^here Talleyrand then lived, at this juncture. If it 
 was not in his character to leave anything to chance, it 
 was just as little his interest to replace Bonaparte by 
 La Fayette. 
 
 In the night of July 2nd-3rd the Yivst Consul 
 returned to Paris, surrounded by a halo of prestige 
 from the battlefield of Marengo, the lustre of which 
 was undimmed by the successes of Moreau in South 
 Grermany and the claim of Kellermann and the dead 
 Desaix to the victory of June 14th. The object of 
 the campaign had been attained. Millions })0uved 
 into the treasury from Germany and Italy. Beyond 
 the Alps Austria was deprived of the result of her 
 successes in 1799, and forced to sign the convention 
 of June loth, which fixed the JNIincio as her prelimi- 
 nary frontier. Negotiations for peace could now be 
 resumed, and immediately after the victory the First 
 Consul, in a long letter to the Emperor Francis, 
 written "from the battlefield," which was directed 
 much more against English than Austrian policy, 
 reverted to peace on the basis of Campo Formio, 
 with a better right than he had done six months 
 previously. The bearer of the letter was General 
 Count Joseph St. Julien, who arrived in Paris with 
 the reply of his Sovereign a few weeks later, on the 
 
346 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Cii. 
 
 21st of July, having been too late to catch the First 
 Consul in Lombavdy. The Emperor announced his 
 readiness to accept a general truce, but once more 
 declined to be ] tarty to a treaty the stipulations of 
 which would plunge Europe into fresh agitation. He 
 added that he was prepared to conclude a durable 
 peace on a different basis, and endeavour to bring 
 it into harmony with the engagements which he had 
 been obliged to enter into since the resumption of 
 hostilities. This last significant passage referred to 
 an agreement with England, which had been signed 
 in Vienna by Thugut and Lord Minto on the 
 20th of June, after a long delay and in ignorance of 
 the result of the battle of Marengo. Austria was to 
 receive a subsidy of two-and-a-half millions sterling, 
 and in return promised not to conclude a separate 
 treaty of peace with France before the end of 
 February. 
 
 Nothing could have come more amiss to the First 
 Consul. His object was, and could not help being, to 
 obtain peace at once, as his own individual achieve- 
 ment and as the result of the battle of Marengo. It 
 was with this end in view that he had written the, 
 as he himself said, " somewhat original " letter to the 
 Emperor Francis. He now made Talleyrand take part 
 in a very unworthy piece of intrigne. St. Julien 
 was not a diplomatist by profession. His instructions 
 were to propose a serviceable basis for the future public 
 
XT.] NEGOTIATIONS WITH ST. JULIEN. 347 
 
 negotiations, and so prevent public expectation from 
 being once more disappointed by a premature and 
 useless commencement of them. This was the extent 
 of his powers. In spite of this, a week after his arrival 
 in Paris, he had signed preliminaries binding the 
 Emperor to close the ports of his empire against his 
 English allies, and so contradicting the contents of 
 his own letter, Campo Formio being again taken as 
 the basis of the understanding and the frontier of the 
 Ehine being abandoned. 
 
 St. Julien had certainly entertained doubts as 
 to whether he was justified in taking a step of this 
 importance. But Talleyrand allayed them by assuring 
 him that, in his place, and as the confidant of his 
 sovereign, he would act in precisely the same manner ; 
 fresh scruples on the part of the General were met by 
 the threat that, if he refused to sign, hostilities would 
 be resumed forthwith; whereupon St. Julien liesitated 
 no longer, but left for Vienna with the treaty in his 
 pocket and accompanied by Duroc. The First Consul's 
 adjutant was ordered amongst other things to insist 
 on a speedy conclusion of the definite treaty. But he 
 did not get beyond the Austrian outposts, where pass- 
 ports for the onward journey to Vienna were refused 
 him. In the meanwhile these proceedings were to 
 be kept a profound secret in Paris. But St. Julien 
 had let the cat out of the bag ; while Talleyrand denied 
 that any agreement had been signed, Sainte-Foy and 
 
348 LIFE OF TALLEYllAND. [Cii. 
 
 ^Madame Gfraud admitted to tlie Prussian ambassador : 
 " II ne saurait convenir de rien avec vous. Le premier 
 Consul, qui a tout fait et tout redige, lui a jn'escrit le 
 secret, mais il u'en est pas moins vrai que lui et St. 
 Julien out signe les preliminaires a La Malmaison le 
 30, a une heure du matin." It has been urged in ex- 
 planation of St. Julien's conduct, which threw Tliugut's 
 whole policy to the winds, and which the latter 
 stigmatised in his first panic as " a mad step, unpre- 
 cedented in the history of the world," that the Emperor 
 Francis was more eager for the speedy conclusion of 
 peace than his Minister, and that St. Julien knew 
 this. Thugut's letters certainly show that he awaited 
 the Emperor's decision with great anxiety. But it was 
 given in accordance with his own views. St. Julien 
 was disavowed and sent to a foi'tress, the separate 
 treaty was rejected and a congress proposed in its stead, 
 and the English ambassador in Vienna was at once 
 informed of what had taken place, so as at all events 
 to frustrate the intention of the French to represent 
 the event as a breach of faith with England. The 
 document conveying the decision, which was dated the 
 11th of August and addressed to Talleyrand, reached 
 Duroc in good time, who thus returned with a complete 
 diplomatic defeat instead of the hoped-for success. 
 " J'ai bien su," remarked the First Consul to Eoederer 
 a few weeks afterwards, " que les pouvoirs de ]M. de 
 St. Julien n'dtaient point en regie, quand j'ai ratifie 
 
XL] CONGRESS OF LUNEVILLE. 349 
 
 les preliminaives de paix signes par lui. !Mais j'etais 
 hien aise de mettre rEmperem* dans le tort aux yeux 
 de r Europe, et cela m'a reussi." 
 
 Talleyrand probably did not take snch an optimist 
 view. In his answer to Thugut he had to maintain the 
 fiction that St. Julien had abused his confidence; but 
 he admitted to the Council of State that the Austrian 
 envoy's powers were insufficient, and that therefore 
 there was no ground for making the matter the subject 
 of a public complaint or the point of departure for a 
 fresh rupture. It would be better, he added, to agree 
 to Austria's proposals, and, without discontinuing 
 hostilities, consider what should be the new basis of 
 peace. The Emperor P'rancis had proposed Luneville 
 as the place of meeting for the new congress ; Count 
 Cobenzl, the negotiator of Campo Formio, arrived there 
 on the 24th of October, and then accepted an invitation 
 of the P'irst Consul to spend a few days in Paris. He 
 was the guest of Talleyrand, who had not seen him 
 since they met at Strasburg, and who relates in his 
 Memoirs how Bonaparte, who in 1707 had treated with 
 Cobenzl on the footing of complete equality, now so 
 contrived matters that at the first audience, which was 
 given late in the evening, there was no chair forth- 
 coming for the Imperial ambassador to take a seat beside 
 him. In their exchange of views also such marked 
 differences manifested themselves that Cobenzl's 
 speedy return to Luneville seemed desirable from every 
 
350 LIFE OF TALLEYEAND. [Cii. 
 
 point of view. Joseph Bonaparte was to conduct tlie 
 negotiations there. A few weeks before, on the 3rd of 
 October, he had signed the first peace of the Consulate, 
 the treaty with the United States, as after the events 
 of 1798 it seemed unadvisable to conclude it through 
 Talleyrand. It was not without some opposition on 
 the part of the Minister that Joseph managed to get 
 this treaty named after the place where it was signed, 
 his country-seat Morfontaine. A more difficult task 
 awaited him at Luneville, where Cobenzl made de- 
 mands out of all keeping with the military situation, 
 which had changed at all points to the disadvantage of 
 Austria, the great bone of contention now being that 
 France insisted on a separate peace with Austria, and 
 the latter refused to act independently of England. 
 At the end of November the First Consul met Cobenzl's 
 obstinate diplomatic resistance with the resumption of 
 hostilities. Moreau's victory at Hohenlinden achieved 
 what Marengo had failed to accomplish, and Austria 
 agreed to cede Italian territory which Brune's advance 
 to the Adige had already placed in her opponent's 
 hands. 
 
 In the meanwhile Talleyrand's despatches to Joseph 
 in Luneville betrayed a bitterness which was generally 
 foreign to him. The episode with St, 'Julien had 
 left its sting. Cobenzl felt the effect of it in the 
 manner in which the conqueror's terms were dictated 
 to him after the successes of the two campaigns. 
 
XI.] PEACE OF LUNEVILLE. 351 
 
 Talleyrand carried out the First Consul's orders by 
 declaring that all further discussion was inadmissible. 
 The conditions of Campo Formio were revived ; the 
 Adige became Austria's boundary in Italy, and the 
 valley of the Khine France's Grerman frontier. On 
 the 9th of January Talleyrand wrote to Joseph that 
 Piedmont should be restored to the King of Sardinia, 
 to preserve the balance of power in Europe, and that 
 there was no objection to the re-instatement of the 
 Grand Duke of Tuscany. On the 20th of January he 
 had to countermand his instructions on the last point, 
 for Bonaparte, in order to gain over the Queen of 
 Spain, had made the preliminary secret treaty of San 
 Ildefonso on the 1st of October, which promised her 
 nephew and son-in-law at Parma the title of king, and 
 a larger territory in the shape of Tuscany or the 
 Legations, in return for which Spain restored Louisiana 
 to France and left her Parma and Elba. Since 
 Marengo Godoy had again become Minister, and 
 Tuscany was now finally fixed on at Luneville as an 
 indemnity for the Duke of Parma, INIodena, and after- 
 wards the Legations, being added to Cisalpina. Talley- 
 rand reiterated the views which he had expressed in 
 1798 by pointing out that the necessity for finding- 
 compensation for Modena and Tuscany in Germany 
 would be the most effectual way of making Austria 
 recognise the principle of the secularisations. The 
 ecclesiastical states, he remarked, should share in the 
 
352 LIFE OF TALLEYRAND. [Ch. 
 
 losses sustained by the Empire, and only the hereditary 
 princes should obtain an indemnity. 
 
 On the 9th of February the peace was signed which 
 destroyed Thugut's policy and closed his official career. 
 On the 7th of March it was ratified by the Empire. 
 After a contest lasting for nearly ten years Austria was 
 isolated, driven out of Lombardy, and depri\ed of her 
 position in Italy and of all hopes of aggrandisement 
 in South Grermany. She had obtained Venice, given 
 up the Rhine frontier, and lost the Netherlands : in the 
 traditional struggle for supremacy in central Europe 
 she had succumbed to her French adversary. The 
 result, great as it was, did not absorb the activity of 
 French diplomacy. While negotiations were pro- 
 ceeding with Austria, their effect was watched in Berlin 
 and St. Petersbm-g. As regards the Tsar, the problem 
 was complicated by the eccentricity of his character. 
 At this moment he was just as angry with England as 
 with Austria, for England called on him to continue 
 the war, but took no steps to obtain the exchange of 
 the Russians, who were taken prisoners at Zurich, and 
 neglected his troops, which, after the defeat in Holland, 
 were quartered in Jersey and Guernsey, and suffered 
 great privations there during the winter. The rupture 
 became complete when Malta fell into the hands of 
 the English on the 5th of September, and the latter 
 refused to comply with the Tsar's demand to surrender 
 the island, which was so important both from a 
 
XT.] RUSS A'S CHAXGE OF FRONT. 353 
 
 strategical and commercial point of view. His mind 
 moved by leaps and bounds, and all calmer feelings 
 were merged in a resolve to^ revenge himself on his 
 faithless allies. The treaty of alliance between Prussia 
 and Russia of 1702 had been renewed with certain 
 modifications on the 28tli of July, shortly after 
 Marengo. The original plan of a confederation of the 
 northern Powers, England included, against France, 
 was now transformed into a league of armed neutral- 
 ity between Russia, Prussia, Sweden, and afterwards 
 Denmark, with the object of protecting the neutral 
 flags against England's tyrannical interpretation of 
 maritime law ; the British ambassador was requested 
 to leave St. Petersburg, English vessels in Russian ports 
 were seized, and at the end of the year Russia, Sweden, 
 and Denmark signed a convention binding themselves 
 to take the offensive against England in the following 
 spring. The deeper his liatred of England, the more 
 intense was his sudden admiration foi- the conqueror 
 of P)rumaire. Tlie change which had long been quietly 
 preparing found its first open expression in the mission 
 of General Sprengtporten to Paris, to take charge of 
 the six thousand Russian prisoners. Fourteen days 
 later, on the 30th of December, a friendly letter of 
 Paul's announced the despatch of a Russian pleni- 
 potentiary as desired by the First Consul, and at the 
 same time the Tsar intimated to the government in 
 Berlin, which was inclined to raise difficulties, that he 
 VOL. I. 23 
 
354 TJFE OF TALT-KVKAND. [Ch. 
 
 agreed to the cession of the left bank of the Rhine 
 and to indemnifying the temporal states of the Empire 
 bv secularisations. Since the 3rd of October there had 
 existed an understanding between Beurnonville and 
 Kriidener, which became more and more unaffected 
 by Prussian influence. The new ambassador, the 
 Marquis Luchesini, who had replaced Sandoz-Eollin, 
 now used-up, in Paris since the end of October, was 
 negotiating with Talleyrand as to Prussia's mediation 
 between Russia and France when the situation had 
 already undergone a complete change. After the 
 liattle of Hohenlinden and Paul's overtures to the 
 First Consul the French iMinister changed his tone, 
 and declared that the impending peace with the Tsar 
 would determine the attitude of P'rance towards Prussia. 
 These negotiations were in active ^jrogress when 
 the First Consul escaped by a mere chance from the 
 infernal machine on the evening of December 24th. 
 1^'ouche. now admirably served by Barere. who had 
 turned police-spy, discovered that the real authors of 
 the crime were the Royalists ; but being attacked on 
 all sides and pressed to take this course by the First 
 Consul, he consented to the deportation of one hundred 
 and thirty Terrorists. " Ddporter des honimes a 
 I'occasion d'un crime qui leur est etranger, me parait le 
 comble de riniquite," said Fouche's violent opponent 
 Koederer to R^al, when the latter told him on the 30th 
 of December that the Chouans were the real culprits. 
 
XI.] DEPORTATION OF TKRRORISTS. 355 
 
 '' Fouche feva toujours ses listes," was the reply, 
 " parce que ce sont des homines mauvais par eux- 
 m6mes." Three days before this Talleyrand had been 
 consulted by the First Consul in presence of the 
 Council of State on the point whether the sentence 
 should be carried out by means of a special law or by 
 the direct action of the executive. Eoederer states 
 that Talleyrand answered as follows : " Je pense que 
 votre pouvoir suflfit pour agir et que vous devez en 
 user. Je pense que le gouvernement doit montrer 
 qu'il salt se defendre ; cela est necessaire au dedans 
 et au dehors. Les ii^gociatious out ete interronipues 
 vingt jours, a cause de I'affaire de Ceracchi."' Accord- 
 ing to Miot de Melito Talleyrand's reply was couched 
 in more laconic style : " A quoi bon avoir uu Senat, si 
 ce n'est pour s'en servir ? " At all events, the point 
 was decided in accordance with the second view, the 
 legal dictatorship being conferred on the Senate, 
 which for the first time oidered deportation by means 
 of a senatus-consultum. The First Consul admitted 
 openly that he struck at the Terrorists not because 
 of the attentat, which they did not commit, but on 
 account of the crimes of the Terror, the 2nd of 
 September, the 31st of May, and the conspiracy of 
 Babeuf. They met with no compassion and deserved 
 none ; but the reign of arbitrary power had com- 
 menced ; the sentence was directed not against tlie 
 crime, but against persons who were thought capable 
 
356 J'i^'K <^l'' TALLEYRAND. [Ch 
 
 of committing it. On the 9tli of January Ceracchi, 
 Arena, Topino-Lebrun, and Domerville were executed 
 for an alleged attempt on the life of the First Consul. 
 Five other conspirators, whose guilt was not proved by 
 more satisfactory evidence, met with a similar fate, 
 whereupon two of the real autliors of the crime of the 
 24th of December, the Royalists Carbon and Saint- 
 Kegent, were actually discovered. 
 
 Talleyrand was implicated in these arbitrary pro- 
 ceedings, which condemned innocent men to death, 
 and justified his attitude by the necessity of maintain- 
 ing the authority of the government in the face of 
 foreign powers. This practical object was attained. 
 The Tsar, who did not do things by hahes, ordered 
 Louis XVIIL, who was living under his protection and 
 at his expense at Mittau, to leave Russian territory. 
 While the exile and his suite were wandering from 
 place to place along the high roads amid the snows 
 of winter, the Russian envoy Kalitscheff was received 
 with royal honours in Paris at the end of Februaiy, 
 and brought instructions to make the conclusion of 
 peace conditional on the cession of Malta to the 
 knights of the Order of St. John, and on the in- 
 dependence of Naples and Sardinia, Bavaria and 
 Wurtemberg. The First Consul was ready to comply 
 with these demands. Although the incorporation 
 of Piedmont into France had already been decided 
 on, he contented himself with claiming Savoy and 
 
XL] DEATH OF THE TSAI!. 357 
 
 consenting to the peace with Naples, which was 
 signed on the 18th of JNIarch, on condition that the 
 Neapolitan ports shonld be closed to the Dutch. 
 France, Russia, and Prussia were to come to an under- 
 standing as to compensations in Germany. At the 
 same time Prussia's troops closed the mouths of the 
 Elbe and Weser, In addition to this, the Tsar indulged 
 in the idea of advancino- on India bv^ wav of Khiva and 
 
 O It 
 
 Herat, in order to punish the English in that part of 
 the world for the breach of faith which had deprived 
 him of Malta. 
 
 These combinations, which in many respects were 
 a prelude to those at Tilsit, were destined to have 
 an abrupt termination. Paul's last ]jolitical act was 
 the ultimatum to Prussia to occupy Hauover or be 
 prepared for a Russian attack. It was this despatch 
 which arrived in Berlin with Pahlen's postscri})t : " Sa 
 Majeste est indisposee aujourd'hui. Cela pourrait a\-oir 
 des suites." It was dated the 23rd of March, the day 
 of his death, and led to the advance of Prussian troops 
 into Hanover, to which the King, who had entirely 
 different schemes in view, gave his consent with 
 reluctance. The hrst pronouncement of the new Tsar 
 Alexander was in favour of peace with France, but also 
 of peace with England; and a few weeks later the 
 coalition created out of such heterogeneous elements 
 fell to pieces. The only tears which were shed for 
 Catherine's ill-fated son are said to have come from 
 
358 LIFE OF TALLEYEAND. [Ch. XI. 
 
 Bonaparte, when he heard of the ghastly deed by 
 which Russia once more tempered her despotism. 
 Talleyrand took the matter more coolly, and received 
 the official intimation, that Paul had died of ajx)plexy 
 like his father, with the remark that it seemed advisable 
 to invent a new disease in Eussia. 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
 Printed by Haz«ll, Watson, & Viney, LU., London and Aylesbuiy. 
 

' "* * COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY UBRARIK 
 
 931146 
 
 Columbia University 
 in the City of New York 
 
 JUN Z^ 1962