Kitabı oku: «Historical Characters», sayfa 12

On the other hand, when his Majesty, wishing perhaps to efface the impression of observations that were not altogether complimentary, spoke in admiration of M. de Talleyrand’s abilities, and asked him how he had contrived, first to overturn the Directory, and finally Bonaparte, M. de Talleyrand has the credit of having replied with a sort of naïveté which, when it suited him, he could well assume:

“Really, sire, I have done nothing for this: there is something inexplicable about me which brings ill luck on the governments that neglect me.”⁶⁵

Finally, as to essentials, the King appears, without entering much into details, to have given M. de Talleyrand to understand that France would have a constitution, and M. de Talleyrand the administration of foreign affairs.

This was all that M. de Talleyrand now expected.

Nevertheless he tried, on a subsequent occasion, to persuade the legitimate monarch that his throne would acquire increased solidity by being accepted as the spontaneous gift of the nation.

A really great man in Louis’s place would probably have provoked a vote by universal suffrage; the mere fact of appealing to such a vote would have attained a universal assent, springing from a universal enthusiasm; and, in fact, such a vote for a king who had legitimacy in his favour would at the same time have renewed the vigour of the legitimist principle.

A very prudent man would not have run this risk; he would have made the most of the vote of the Senate, since it was given, and taken for granted that it was a vote in favour of his race as well as of himself.

A vain and proud man, however, could not so easily divest himself of a peculiar quality which only he possessed. Any man might be chosen king of the French, but Louis XVIII. alone could be the legitimate King of France. This hereditary right to the throne was a personal property. He had claimed it in exile: he was resolved to assert it in power, and when M. de Talleyrand was for continuing the argument, he cut him short, according to contemporaneous authorities, by observing with a courteous but somewhat cynical smile:

“You wish me to accept a constitution from you, and you don’t wish to accept a constitution from me. This is very natural; mais, mon cher M. de Talleyrand, alors moi je serai debout, et vous assis.”⁶⁶

V

The observation just quoted admitted of no reply. Still Louis had the good sense to see that he could not enter Paris without some explanations, and the promise, more or less explicitly given, of a representative government. Unlike the Comte d’Artois, he felt no sort of difficulty about giving this promise, and was even willing to concert with his minister as to the most popular manner in which he could give the guarantees he intended to offer without abandoning the point on which he resolved to insist.

The first thing, however, to provide for, was a meeting between the sovereign who had taken the crown as a right, and the Senate who had offered it on conditions.

This meeting took place on the 1st of May, at Saint-Ouen, a small village near Paris, where the King invited the Senate to meet him. M. de Talleyrand, on presenting this body, pronounced a speech, composed with much art, and spoke for both parties. He said that the nation, enlightened by experience, rushed forward to salute the sovereign returning to the throne of his ancestors; that the Senate, participating in the sentiments of the nation, did the same; that, on the other hand, the monarch, guided by his wisdom, was about to give France institutions in conformity with its intelligence, and the ideas of the epoch: that a constitutional “Charter” (a title the King had selected) would unite every interest to that of the throne, and fortify the royal will by the concurrence of all wills; that no one knew better than his Majesty the value of institutions for a long time tried happily by a neighbouring people, and furnishing aid and not opposition to all kings who loved the laws, and were the fathers of their people.

A few words from the King, confirming what M. de Talleyrand had said, left nothing to be desired; and on the 3rd of May was published the famous declaration of Saint-Ouen, which, after stating that much that was good in the constitution proposed by the Senate on the 6th of April would be preserved, added that some articles in it bore signs, notwithstanding, of the haste with which they had necessarily been written, and must consequently be reformed; but that his Majesty had the full intention to give to France a constitution that should contain all the liberties that Frenchmen could desire, and that the project of such a constitution would ere long be presented to the chambers.

Louis XVIII., thus preceded, entered Paris amidst a tolerable degree of enthusiasm, and, seating himself in the palace of his ancestors, began to prepare his existence there.

His first thought was to reconstitute his household, and, in doing this, M. de Talleyrand-Périgord was named grand aumonier. The new ministry was next to be formed, and M. de Talleyrand figured as minister of foreign affairs; and was honoured with the title of prince, though he could no longer add to it – of Benevent.

The other persons named in the new ministry, and who afterwards attracted notice, were the Abbé de Montesquieu, minister of the interior, a gentleman of learning and talent, but wholly unused to affairs, and a Royalist as much from prejudice as from principle (M. Guizot, by the way, commenced his career under M. de Montesquieu); and the Abbé Louis, minister of finance, whose financial abilities were universally acknowledged.

But the most important minister for the moment was the minister of the household, “that certain M. de Blacas,” of whose influence over Louis XVIII. M. de Talleyrand had been early informed.

M. de Blacas was one of those gentlemen of the second order of nobility, who often produce on the vulgar a stronger effect as a grand seigneur than nobles of the first class, because they add a little acting to the natural dignity usually attendant upon persons who have been treated from their infancy with distinction. He was middle-aged, good-looking, courteous, a good scholar, a great collector of medals, very vain of his court favour, which was based on his long knowledge of all the moral and physical weaknesses of his master, and with an entire confidence in the indestructibility of an edifice which he had seen, notwithstanding, raised on the ruins of its own foundation.

He had, also, such a confidence in his own capacity that he conceived it impossible for any one but an egregious fool, or a malignant personal enemy, to doubt it.

He concentrated in his hands the King’s resolutions on all affairs, except foreign affairs, which M. de Talleyrand managed directly with his Majesty.

A government was thus formed, and the first duty of that government was to make a treaty of peace with the victorious powers. M. de Talleyrand had, necessarily, the conduct of this negotiation. There were two questions at issue: the one, the arrangements between the European potentates who had to give possessors to the territories they had taken from France; and the other, the arrangements to be made between France and these potentates.

Some persons thought it would be possible to deal with the two questions together, and that France could be admitted into a congress where the special questions of France with Europe, and the questions that had to be decided by the European sovereigns between themselves, could be settled simultaneously.⁶⁷

But a little consideration will, I think, show that the questions between France and Europe, and the questions between the different States of Europe, which had been in hostility with France, were perfectly distinct.

It would also have been absurd, and consequently impossible, for France to have exacted, that all the matters that had to be arranged as resulting from the late war with France, should be treated in France.

The capital of France was the proper place for treating as to French interests.

The capital of one of the allies was the place where the affairs between the allies were naturally to be discussed. Paris was chosen in the first case, Vienna in the second.

The allies, however, had undoubtedly placed themselves in a false position towards the French nation, and this was felt when a peace with it had to be concluded.

They had declared that they separated Napoleon from France, that they only made war against the French ruler, and that they would give the country better conditions than they would give the Emperor. M. de Talleyrand, therefore, came forward, saying, “Well, you were going to give Napoleon the old limits of the French monarchy, what will you give France?”

The allies replied, as it was certain they would reply, that the promises alluded to were vague, they could not dispose of the property of others; that France had nothing legitimate but that which she held before a predatory succession of conquests; that the allies held, it was true, the conquered territories recovered from the French, but that they could not give them back to wrongful acquirers; that the general understanding was, that France should have its ancient limits, and that when the allies had agreed on the 23rd of April to withdraw their troops from the French territory, it had been understood that this was the territory of ancient France. Anything more was out of the question. M. de Talleyrand, however, obtained the frontier of 1792, and not that of 1790, and in rounding that frontier, added some fortresses and inhabitants to the kingdom of Louis XVI. Moreover, Paris remained the mistress, and was permitted to boast of remaining the mistress, of all the works of art ravished from other nations, being thus, in fact, constituted the artistic capital of the world.

Such a limited result, however, did not satisfy the French people with peace when the horrors of war were over; and we find in various works concerning these times comments on the inconceivable légèreté of M. de Talleyrand, in not procuring more advantageous conditions.

I confess that I think that Europe should never have made compromising promises; and that she should have fulfilled generously whatever promises she had made; but upon the whole France, which in her conquests had despoiled every power, ought to have been satisfied when, in the returning tide of victory, those powers left her what she had originally possessed.

Poor M. de Talleyrand! he carried off all the absurd reproaches he had to encounter with a dignified indifference: even the accusation which was now made against him, of having signed the treaty of April, in which the provisional government, not being able to hold the fortresses still occupied by French troops out of France, with a foreign army demanding them in the heart of Paris, resigned them on the condition that France itself should be evacuated. “You seem to have been in a great hurry, M. de Talleyrand,” said the Duc de Berry, “to sign that unhappy treaty.” “Alas, yes, monseigneur; I was in a great hurry. There are senators who say I was in a great hurry to get the crown offered to your Royal house; a crown which it might otherwise not have got. You observe, monseigneur, that I was in a great hurry to give up fortresses which we could not possibly have kept. Alas, yes, monseigneur, I was in a great hurry. But do you know, monseigneur, what would have happened if I had waited to propose Louis XVIII. to the allies, and had refused to sign the treaty of the 23rd of April with them? No; you don’t know what would have happened! No more do I. But at all events you may rest assured, we should not now be disputing as to an act of the prince, your father.”

Again, when a little after this the son of Charles X. was boasting of what France would do when she got the three hundred thousand troops that had been locked up in Germany, Talleyrand, who had been seated at some little distance and apparently not listening, got up, and approaching slowly the Duc de Berry, said, with half-shut eyes and a doubtful look of inquiry, “And do you really think, monseigneur, that these three hundred thousand men can be of any use to us?” “Of use to us! to be sure they will.” “Hem!” said M. de Talleyrand, fixing the Duc, “you really think so, monseigneur? I did not know; for we shall get them from that unfortunate treaty of the 23rd of April!”

The best of it was that Charles X. had thought this treaty the great act of his life, until his son said it was a great mistake; and he did not know then whether he should defend it in his own glorification, or throw all the blame of it on M. de Talleyrand.

VI

The next link in the chain of events, – a final treaty of peace between France and Europe having been concluded (on the 30th of May), – was the promulgation of the long-promised constitution; for the sovereigns who were still in Paris, and with whom the Restoration had commenced, were anxious to leave it; and they said that they could not do so until the promises they had made to the French nation were fulfilled.

The 4th of June, therefore, was fixed for this national act.

The King had promised, as it has been seen, that the frame of a constitution should be submitted to the Senate and the legislative body.

He appointed the Abbé Montesquieu, whom we have already named, and a M. Ferrand, a person of some consideration with the Royalist party, to sketch the outline of this great work, assisted by M. de Beugnot, an accomplished gentleman, not very particular in his principles, but very adroit in his phraseology; when done, such sketch was submitted to and approved by the King, and passed on to two commissions, one chosen from the Senate and the other from the legislative body, the king reserving to himself the right of settling disputed points.

The result was generally satisfactory, for though the constitution was so framed as to give it the air of being a grant from the royal authority, it contained the most essential principles of a representative government, namely: —

Equality before the law, and in the distribution of taxation, – the admissibility of all to public employments, – the inviolability of the monarch, – the responsibility of ministers, – the freedom of religion, – the necessity of annual budgets; – and, finally, the permission to express in print and by publication all opinions – such permission being controlled by laws, which were to repress or punish its abuse.

There was to be a lower chamber with the qualification for the electors of the payment of three hundred francs, direct taxes; and, for the eligible, of one thousand francs.

The upper chamber was not then made hereditary, though the King might give an hereditary peerage. A great portion of the Senate, the dukes and peers before the Revolution, and other persons of distinction, formed the house of peers. The legislative body was to act as the lower chamber until the time for which the members had been chosen was expired. The senators, not carried on into the peerage, were given as a pension the payment that formerly attached to their function.

The King bargained that the new constitution should be called “La Charte Constitutionnelle;” “Charte” being an old word that the kings had formerly employed, and that it should be dated in the nineteenth year of his reign.

The preamble also stated that “the King, in entire possession of his full rights over this beautiful kingdom, only desires to exercise the authority he holds from God and his ancestors, in determining the bounds of his own power.” A phrase which somewhat resembles one of Bolingbroke’s, who says: “The infinite power of God is limited by His infinite wisdom.”

It cannot be affirmed that M. de Talleyrand had anything to do with the framing of “the Charter,” since Louis XVIII.’s instruction to the commissioners was to keep everything secret from M. de Talleyrand; but it was the sort of constitution he had insisted upon: and thus the Restoration was accomplished according to the plan which he had undertaken to give to it, when he obtained the decrees which deposed the Bonapartes and recalled the Bourbons.

VII

I have said that when M. de Talleyrand created the government of Louis XVIII., he wanted to give it a backbone, consisting of a party of able, practical, and popular men of moderate opinions. But Louis XVIII., as a principle, distrusted all men in proportion to their popularity and ability, his ministers especially. M. de Talleyrand, therefore, was, in his eyes, a person who should be constantly watched, and constantly suspected. Louis XVIII. had also in horror the idea of his cabinet being a ministry, i. e., a compact body agreeing together. His notion as to driving was that horses who were always kicking at each other, were less likely to kick at the carriage; furthermore, he considered that everything which was not as it had been thirty years back was really wrong, though he did not mean to take the trouble of changing it, and that all this new set of persons he had to deal with were coquins– not a gentleman amongst them. That it was proper manners, since they existed, to treat them courteously, and proper policy, since they had a certain power in their hands, to temporise with them; but in his heart of hearts he looked upon them as yahoos, who had got into the stalls of horses, and were to be kicked out directly the horses, strengthened by plentiful feeds of corn, were up to the enterprise. In the meantime nothing was to be risked, so that he sat himself down as comfortably as he could in his arm-chair, received all visitors with an air which an actor, about to play Louis XIV., might have done well to study; wrote pretty billets, said sharp and acute things, and felt that he was every inch – a king.

Such was the sovereign of France; but there was also another demi-sovereign, who was to be found in the Pavillon Marsan, inhabited by the Comte d’Artois.

I esteem that prince, whom it has been the fashion to decry, more in some respects than I do his brother; for though he had not a superior intelligence, he had a heart. He really wished well to his country: he would have laid down his life for it, at least he thought he would: his intentions were excellent; but he relied on his old notions and education for the means of carrying them out.

Louis XVIII. was more cultivated, more cynical, more false: he loved France vaguely, as connected with his own pride and the pride of his race: he thought ill of the world, but was disposed to extract the most he could from it towards his own comfort, dignity, and prosperity. This character was not amiable, but its coldness and hardness rendered its possessor more secure against being duped, though not against being flattered.

The Comte d’Artois was both flattered and duped; but it was by addressing themselves to his better qualities that his flatterers duped him. They depicted the French people as eminently and naturally loyal: full of sympathy and respect for the descendants of Henry IV. and Louis XIV. “Poor children! they had been led away by having bad men placed over them in the different functions of the State: all that was necessary was to place good men, loyal men, men who had served the royal family even in exile – men, in short, who could be relied upon, in the public employments. The church, too – that great instrument of government, and that great source of comfort and contentment to men – that guardian of the mind which prevents its emotions from wandering into the regions of false theories and hopes – had been treated with contempt and indifference. The church and the throne were required to aid each other – the Bourbons had to bring them into harmony. On these conditions, and on these conditions alone – conditions (so said all whom the Comte d’Artois consulted) so clear, so simple, so pious, and so just – the safety and prosperity of the monarchy depended.”

The whole mistake consisted in considering the French a people that they were not, and ignoring what they were, and in fancying that a few prefects and priests could suddenly convert a whole generation from one set of ideas to another. But the Comte d’Artois’ doctrines were pleasing to Louis XVIII., though he did not quite believe in them, and still more pleasing to all the friends or favourites who enjoyed his intimacy.

Thus, though they had not the support of his convictions, they influenced his conduct; which, however, never being altogether what Monsieur and his party required, was always watched by them with suspicion, and frequently opposed with obstinacy.

Where, then, could M. de Talleyrand turn for aid to maintain the government at the head of which he figured? To the King? he had not his confidence. To his colleagues? they did not confide in each other. To the Comte d’Artois? he was in opposition to his brother. To the Royalists? they wanted absolute possession of power. The Imperialists and Republicans were out of the question. Moreover, he was not a man who could create, stimulate, command. To understand a situation and to bring to bear not unwilling assistants on its immediate solution, to collect the scattered influences about him, and direct them to a point at which it was their own interest to arrive; this was his peculiar talent. But to sustain a long and protracted conflict, to overawe and govern opposing parties; this was beyond the colder temperament of his faculties.

His only parliamentary effort then was an exposition in the chamber of peers of the state of the finances, which exposition was as clear and able as his financial statements always were. For the rest, he trusted partly to chance, partly to the ordinary and natural workings of a constitutional system, which was sure in time to produce parties with opinions, and even ministers, who, in their common defence, would be obliged to adopt a common policy and line of conduct. Thus, shrugging up his shoulders at M. de Fontanes’ declaration that he could not feel free where the press was so, and smiling at Madame de Simiane’s notions as to a minister, who, according to her and the ladies of the Faubourg St. Germain, should be a grand seigneur, with perfect manners and a great name, who had hard-working men with spectacles under them, called bouleux,⁶⁸ to do their business – he hastened his preparations for joining the congress at Vienna, which was to have commenced its sittings two months after the treaty of Paris, that is, on the 30th of July, but which had not met in the middle of September.

VIII

I have said that the congress was to commence on the 30th of July, but it was not till the 25th of September that the Emperor of Russia, the King of Prussia, and the other kings and ministers of the different courts who were expected there, began to assemble. M. de Metternich, Lord Castlereagh, afterwards succeeded by the Duke of Wellington, the Prince Hardenberg, the Count Nesselrode, though only as second to the Emperor Alexander himself, who was his own negotiator, were the principal persons with whom M. de Talleyrand was associated.

His task was not an easy one. His sovereign owed his crown to those whose interests had now to be decided; he might himself be considered under obligations to them. It required a strong sense of a high position not to sink into a subordinate one. M. de Talleyrand had this, and sat himself down at Vienna with the air of being the ambassador of the greatest king in the world.

He was accompanied by persons with names more or less distinguished. The Duc Dalberg, the Comte Alexis de Noailles, M. de la Bernadière, and M. de Latour du Pin.

The first, M. de Talleyrand said, would let out secrets which he wished to be known; the second would report all he saw to the Comte d’Artois, and thus save that prince the trouble of having any one else to do so. As to M. de la Bernadière, he would keep the Chancellerie going, and M. de Latour du Pin would sign the passports.

The ideas he himself took under these circumstances to Vienna were, – to get France admitted into the congress on the same footing as other powers; to break up in some way or other the compactness of the confederation recently formed against her, and to procure friends from the body which was now a united enemy; to procure the expulsion of Murat from the throne of Naples, and lastly, to remove the Emperor of Elba to a more distant location (Bermuda, or the Azores, were spoken of).

The dissolution of the alliance was the independence of France, however brought about. As for the expulsion of Murat from Naples, or the removal of Napoleon from Elba, these, no doubt, were great objects to the Bourbons in France; but it is possible that there were other grounds also which induced M. de Talleyrand to pursue them.

If Murat were removed from Naples, and Napoleon were in some place of security, and the elder branch of the Bourbons compromised itself in France, two other governments, according to circumstances, were still on the cards. The regency with Napoleon’s son, or a limited monarchy with the Duc d’Orléans.

M. de Talleyrand had seen enough before he went to Vienna, and probably heard enough since he had been there, to make him doubtful of the success of his first experiment: but his position was such that in any combination in France that had not the late Emperor Napoleon at its head, he would still be the person to whom a large party in and out of his own country would look for the solution of the difficulty which the downfall of Louis XVIII. would provoke.

The basis of the congress of Vienna was necessarily that furnished by the engagements which had already taken place between the allies at Breslau, Töplitz, Chaumont, and Paris; engagements which concerned the reconstruction of Prussia according to its proportions in 1806, the dissolution of the Confederation of the Rhine; the re-establishment of the House of Brunswick in Hanover; and arrangements, to which I shall presently allude, concerning the future position of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw.

As all that was to be distributed was a common spoil in the hands of the allies, they suggested that a committee of four, representing England, Austria, Prussia, and Russia, should first agree amongst themselves as to the partition; and that an understanding having been established between these – the principal parties – this understanding should be communicated to the others; to France and Spain in particular; – whose objections would be heard.

Such an arrangement excluded France from any active part in the first decisions, which would evidently be sustained when the four allies had agreed upon them.

The tact and talent of M. de Talleyrand were displayed in getting this sentence reversed.

Taking advantage of the treaty of peace which France had already signed, he contended that there were no longer allies, but simply powers who were called upon, after a war which had created a new order of things in Europe, to consider and decide in what manner this new order of things could best be established for the common good, and with the best regard to the old rights existing before 1792, and the new rights which certain states had legitimately acquired in the long struggle which, with more or less continuity, had existed since that epoch.

With some difficulty he at last made these ideas prevail, and the committee of four was changed into a committee of eight, comprising all the signatories to the treaty of Paris: Austria, England, Russia, Prussia, France, Spain, Portugal, and Sweden.

This first point gained, the second, – viz., a division amongst the allies, was to be brought about. Any precipitate effort to do this would have prevented its success. M. de Talleyrand waited to work for it himself until rival interests began to work with him.

Now Austria’s great pre-occupation was to regain her old position in Italy, without diminishing the importance of that to which she pretended in Germany.

The views of Russia, or rather of the Emperor Alexander, were more complicated, and formed with a certain greatness of mind and generosity of sentiment, though always with that craft which mingled with the imperial chivalry.

I have just said that I should speak of the arrangements respecting the Duchy of Warsaw, which were contemplated during the war in the event of the allies being successful. It had been settled that this duchy – once delivered from the pretensions of Napoleon – should be divided between the three military powers, Austria, Prussia, and Russia.

But the Emperor of Russia now took a higher tone. The annihilation of Poland, he said, had been a disgrace to Europe: he proposed to himself the task of collecting its scattered members, and reconstituting it with its own laws, religion, and constitution. It would be a pleasure to him to add to what he could otherwise re-assemble, the ancient Polish provinces under his dominion. Poland should live again with the Czar of Russia for its king. I doubt whether the Emperor Alexander did not over-rate the gratitude he expected to awaken, and under-rate the feeling existing among the Poles, not merely as to nationality, but as to national independence.

But his notion most assuredly was, that he should thus create as an avant-garde into Europe a powerful kingdom, capable of rapid improvement, and combining with a complete devotion to his family, all the enthusiasm of a people who again stood up amidst the nations of the world.

He argued, moreover, and not without reason, that a kingdom of Poland thus existing would inevitably ere long draw back to itself all those portions of alienated territory which were in the hands of the other co-partitioning powers, and that thus Russia would ere long dominate the whole of that kingdom which she had at one time condescended to divide.

This project was of course easily seen through in Prussia as well as in Austria; but Russia presumed that Austria would be satisfied with her Italian acquisitions. He saw, however, that Prussia required no common bribe. The bribe proposed was Saxony, and thus a secret engagement was entered into between the two northern courts: Russia promising to stand by Prussia’s claims as to Saxony, and Prussia promising to support Russia’s plans as to Poland.