Kitabı oku: «Historical Characters», sayfa 13

With respect to England, she seemed more especially occupied with the idea of forming a united kingdom of Holland and Belgium, and beguiled by the delusion that you could unite by treaties populations which were disunited by sympathies, fancied she could, by the union proposed, create a barrier against French ambition where England was most concerned; and thus save us in future from those dangers by which we were menaced when the Scheldt was in Napoleon’s possession, and the British coast was menaced by maritime arsenals, which confronted it from Brest to Antwerp.

The conflict which at once commenced had reference to the ambitious claims of Prussia and Russia.

The King of Saxony, though an ally of Napoleon, had been faithful to France, and there was a feeling in the French nation favourable to him. As to Poland, France, which has always taken a lively interest in Polish independence as a barrier against Russian aggrandisement, could not see with satisfaction an arrangement which was to make Poland an instrument of Russian power.

Our disposition as to Prussia was at first somewhat undecided. We did not approve of the destruction of Saxony, still we were not unwilling to see a strong state established in the north of Germany, if it was an independent state: and would therefore at first have allowed the addition of Saxony to the Prussian dominions, if Prussia would have joined with Great Britain and Austria against the Russian projects in Poland. Austria, on the other hand, was quite as much against the Prussian project as the Russian one; but Prince Metternich, being perfectly aware that Prussia would not separate herself from Russia, affected to fall into Lord Castlereagh’s views, and agreed to sacrifice Saxony if Prussia would insist with ourselves on Polish independence.

Prussia, as Prince Metternich foresaw, refused this; and indeed took possession of Saxony, as Russia did of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, assuming towards the other powers an attitude of defiance.

In the meantime the question of Saxony became popular with the English parliament and the English court: with the English parliament, which is always against the oppressor; and with the English court, which began to think that, when Prussia had once got Saxony, she might take a fancy to Hanover. Austria gladly perceived this change, and it was agreed that England and Austria should oppose themselves conjointly and distinctly to the intentions haughtily manifested by the two northern courts.

Thus England, Austria, and France found themselves linked together by common opinions. Still there were reasons why the first two powers hesitated as to connecting themselves with the third.

These reasons were – the connection which M. de Talleyrand desired, would be a rupture of that league by which the peace of Europe had been obtained; it was uncertain whether France could give Austria and England any practical aid; and also it was doubtful whether she would not exact more for such aid, if she did give it, than it was worth, and aim at renewing all the ambitious designs which the overthrow of Napoleon and the treaty of Paris had set at rest.

The principal objection wore away as it became more and more evident that Prussia and Russia had already entered, into separate and particular engagements, which rendered it not only justifiable but necessary for England and Austria, if they did not mean to submit servilely to the results of these engagements, to guard against them by counter-engagements between themselves.

With respect to the power of France as an auxiliary, M. de Talleyrand, by an able exposition of the state of affairs at Vienna, induced the French government to display its military capacity by raising the French army from 130,000 to 200,000, and creating the facility for increasing it to a far more formidable amount – a measure which the extraordinary recovery of French finances under the able administration of M. Louis rendered easy, and which produced a considerable moral effect, both in France and out of it. At the same time the ambassador of France, in his numerous conversations with Lord Castlereagh and M. de Metternich, held this language:

“A government to last must be faithful to its origin. Bonaparte’s was founded by conquest: he was forced to continue conquering; that of the present sovereign of France is based on principle. To this principle it must adhere; it is the principle of legitimate right, which conquest, until confirmed by treaty, cannot effect. We support the King of Saxony on this principle: we do not want then to be paid for doing so. In supporting his throne, we guarantee our own. Do you doubt my sincerity? I will sign any paper you wish to tranquillize all suspicion as to our ambition.”

It was in this manner that he led by degrees to the signing of the secret treaty of 3rd of January, 1815, a treaty by which Austria, England, and France bound themselves to furnish each 150,000 men, to support any one of the three powers which might be attacked by other powers attempting forcibly to alter the equilibrium of Europe for their own advantage. The names of the powers suspected were not mentioned, and the compact entered into was essentially of a defensive character; but it was in sympathy with French feelings; it broke up the anti-French alliance, and gave to France the two most important allies she could hope to gain; for England alone had formed the late coalition, and without her a coalition could not be again formed.

M. Thiers, who is too prone to consider that all statesmanship consists in acquiring extensions of territory, objects to everything done by M. de Talleyrand, and considers that this diplomatist should have waited quietly, rather favouring Prussia and Russia, and that then these powers would have offered France Belgium or the frontiers of the Rhine, in which case Prussia and Russia would, he considers, have been more advantageous allies to France than England and Austria.

Now, of all ideas the one that seems the most extravagant to me is that Prussia, or even Russia, would have reseated France on the Rhine, or brought her back in any way nearer to Germany. I feel certain that under no circumstances was this likely. But, at all events, Prussia and Russia would only have made the strange proposal on which M. Thiers counts, at the last extremity.

They would have previously carried their negotiations with their late allies to the utmost limit; and as we were prepared to make many concessions, and did indeed finally give up one-third of Saxony to Prussia, and as much of Poland as she could well digest to Russia, there is not the slightest probability that, for the remaining differences, Prussia and Russia would have purchased the aid of France by a large increase of frontier and a deadly quarrel with Great Britain and Austria.

M. de Talleyrand then, in following the policy suggested by M. Thiers, would, in the first place, have lost the opportunity which he more wisely seized of separating the great powers; he would also have ungenerously abandoned Saxony, and at the same time so disgusted England, that it would afterwards have been impossible to get an English parliament to vote a sixpence for sustaining the Bourbon cause. Waterloo would never have been fought; Russia and Prussia could have done little without English subsidies; and France would have been again delivered into the hands of Napoleon, whose triumph would have been M. de Talleyrand’s own ruin; and the ruin of the master he then served.

As it is not my intention to enter into the general subject of the treaty of Vienna, which I have always considered alike defective in principle and policy, I shall not follow the negotiations I have been alluding to further; though it may be as well, since I have spoken of Naples, to observe that M. de Talleyrand never obtained Prince Metternich’s attention to the dethronement of Murat until the Prussian and Russian questions had been settled by suitable arrangements; for Prince Metternich was too wise to have Germany and Italy on his back at once; when, however, these arrangements were completed, and the brother-in-law of Napoleon had compromised himself by intrigues, which had been watched but allowed to ripen, the Austrian statesman then gave the French ambassador a private but positive assurance that the Kingdom of Naples should shortly be restored to its old possessors.

As to the question of a change of residence for Napoleon, that was decided, just as the congress was closing, by Napoleon himself; who, not ignorant of the plans that were maturing for his removal from a position wherein nothing but the most absurd want of consideration could ever have placed him, engaged in that audacious enterprise, the most glorious, though the most fatal, in his meteor-like career.

IX

It was in the midst of the gaieties of a ball on the 5th of March,⁶⁹ and just as the congress was about to separate, that from a small group of sovereigns collected together and betraying the seriousness of their conversation by the gloom of their countenances, there came forth as a sort of general murmur: —

“Bonaparte has escaped from Elba.” Prince Metternich, it is said, was the only person who at once divined that the ex-Emperor’s intentions were to march at once on Paris. The success of so bold an adventure was, of course, doubtful; but in the hope there might still be time to influence public opinion, a proclamation, proposed (at the instigation of the Duke of Wellington) by Austria, and signed 13th March by France and the four great powers, denounced the Emperor of Elba in language only applicable to a pirate or a freebooter: a language that Louis XVIII. had used at Paris on the 6th of March, and might use with some propriety, but which came far less decorously from princes who had not very long previously treated this pirate and freebooter as “the king of kings,” and which was unsuitable to the lips of a sovereign who was speaking of the husband of his favourite daughter.

People, however, often cover a hesitation in their decisions by an extravagance in their attitude.

The idea of a new war was popular with no one; the different powers, moreover, represented at Vienna, were no longer on the same cordial terms of fraternity that had distinguished their relations at Paris; they felt notwithstanding, that, in the face of a common danger they must consider as extinguished their several rivalries and animosities, and show themselves united and determined on the deadly combat, which alone could, if successful, repair the effects of their imprudence and save the honour of their arms.

Shortly after this came the news of that glorious and soul-stirring march through legions who, when commanded to point their bayonets at the breast of their old commander as a traitor, wept at his knees as a father; but this great historical romance rather strengthened than weakened the resolves that had previously been formed; and the proclamation of the 13th of March was soon succeeded by the treaty of the 25th.

This treaty, to which the four allied powers were the only principal parties, was a revival of the treaty of Chaumont and the treaty of Paris. The position of the Bourbons was not clearly defined; for though Louis XVIII. was invited to be a party to it, the allies, and England in particular, expressly declared that they did not attempt to impose a government on France, nor bind themselves to support the claims of the fugitive monarch. I say “fugitive monarch” because Louis XVIII. had by this time tested the value of his adherents, and was settling down quietly at Ghent; Napoleon being as quietly re-established in the Tuileries.

The secret of all that had occurred is to be stated in a few words.

Louis XVIII. had not gained the affections of the French nation; his predecessor had retained the affections of the French army. There was little mystery in the intrigues of the Bonapartes. The Queen Hortense (Comtesse de St. Leu) resided at Paris, and the conversation of her drawing-room was a constant conspiracy, whilst the correspondence she received was the confidence of half the capital. Barras and Fouché both informed M. de Blacas of much that was going on, and offered to give him more detailed information; but that gentleman’s horizon was limited, and what he did not see he did not believe. Moreover, the Royalists conceived that the most Christian king had gained the consciences of the military by naming an aumonier, with the rank of captain, to each regiment, and had the provinces in his hands, because he had placed them in those of functionaries who professed hatred to “the usurper.” “What had they to fear?” Thus, the country which had been fatigued with the soldier and the drum, was teased by the mass and the émigré. And, in the meantime, the veterans of the great army, who saw themselves replaced by a guard of young gentlemen with good names and splendid uniforms; and the beauties of the Empire, who found themselves out of fashion amongst the great ladies of the legitimate court, were at the two ends of the electric wire, which had only to be touched by the little man in the grey great-coat, in order to vibrate through the heart of every soldier who had ever followed the imperial eagle, and still kept the tricolour cockade in his writing-desk or his knapsack.

X

The conduct of M. de Talleyrand at Vienna had been that which he always followed to any government that employed him – zealous and faithful. He had, in short, been an active and able agent, carrying out the policy which Louis XVIII., with whom he kept up a private correspondence, thought the best for his dynasty and for France; and he had succeeded in giving both dignity and influence to a government which in reality wanted both. He had not during his foreign mission meddled with the internal policy of the court, nor relaxed in his endeavours to serve it on account of the faults it committed: but to his intimate friends he had made no secret of his belief that it was taking a road which would probably lead to ruin. When it had arrived at that goal the case was different. He did not separate himself from it – but he did not link himself indissolubly with it. He showed no hesitation, however, as to declaring against its opponent. Concentrating himself indeed on the one idea of getting rid of Napoleon, he repeated constantly to those who expatiated on the deficiency of the Restoration, “I don’t know what government may be the best for France, but I do know that Napoleon’s is the worst.”

His old master would willingly have softened this animosity; and Fouché, who was intriguing with all parties, with the intention of choosing the most powerful, sent M. de Montrond to Vienna to learn what he could, as to the real intentions of the alliance, and more especially as to the intentions of M. de Talleyrand, whose services M. de Montrond was to endeavour, by any assurances he might judge necessary, to obtain.

This M. de Montrond was a specialty of his epoch: a type of that French roué whom Faublas, and more particularly the “liaisons dangereuses,” had produced. He had ruled the world of fashion by his loves, his duels, and his wit, which was superior to any man’s, for nearly forty years. He was one of M. de Talleyrand’s pets, as M. de Talleyrand was one of his admirations. Each spoke ill of the other, for each said he loved the other for his vices. But no one could speak to M. de Talleyrand with so much intimacy as M. de Montrond, nor obtain from him so clear an answer. For they trusted each other, though M. de Montrond would never have told any one else to trust M. de Talleyrand, nor M. de Talleyrand told any one else to trust M. de Montrond.

This latter gentleman, the soul of Queen Hortense’s circle, and at the same time the friend of the Duc d’Orléans, whom he had known in Sicily, to which island he had exiled himself in one of Napoleon’s fits of ill-humour – not, as it was thought, without an object – first tried to see if any consideration could bring the diplomatist, once known as Prince de Benevent, to his old allegiance: and, on finding this impossible, sounded him, it is said, as to his feelings towards the son of that prince, with whose celebrated society in the Palais Royal his early remembrances must have been familiar. The answer he obtained was “that the door was not then open, but, should it ever be open, there was no necessity for shutting it with vehemence.”

This lukewarm fidelity was not precisely of the temperature that suited the loyalty of Ghent, where some people thought that it would not have been difficult to have induced the allies to have been more positive and explicit in favour of the legitimate monarch, if his representative had been more zealous as to his rights and less sensible as to his errors. The party of the Comte d’Artois, also, instead of repenting of the excess to which it had carried its principles, and recognizing that this excess had been the cause of its overthrow – thought, or at least said, as is usual in such cases, that its failure was caused, not by the policy it had pursued, but by the checks which that policy had encountered.

XI

M. de Talleyrand, then, was more or less in disgrace with the politicians, who were already disputing about the redistribution of the places that their mistakes had just lost; and, bearing this disgrace with his usual supercilious negligence, declared that his health required the waters of Carlsbad, observing that a diplomatist’s first duty after a congress was to take care of his liver.

In the meantime the hundred days which concentrated so much of the past, present, and future, were rushing rapidly on. I know no example that teaches us more clearly that our intellect is governed by our character, than that which is to be found in the conduct of Napoleon during these hundred days. None saw more clearly than himself that prudence and policy advised that he should either appear before the French as the great captain who came to free them from a yoke imposed by the foreigner; and refuse any other title than that of their general until a peace was established or a victory gained: or that he should seize the full powers of dictator, and sustain them by his prestige over the military and the masses, arming and revolutionizing France, and being himself the representative of that armed revolution. But he loved the title and decorations of sovereignty, and could not induce himself to descend from the emperor to the soldier. Neither could he persuade himself to call to life those elements of force in which he saw the elements of disorder, nor condescend to be the chief of the mob even with the title of majesty. He temporised, therefore, for the moment with those with whom he had the least sympathy, and from whom he could get the least assistance; I mean the Constitutionalists, who, representing the middle order and the thinking portion of the French people, formed a party, that with a regular government, and at an ordinary time, and under a sovereign they could have trusted, might have possessed considerable influence, but such a party, with a government created by the sword, at the moment of a crisis, under a ruler of whom they were suspicious, could only embarrass Napoleon’s action, and could not add to his authority.

The conditions, then, under which this marvellous being fought for the last time for empire were impossible. He had not in his character the elements of a revolutionary leader; and he was not allowed to use the qualities, with which nature had endowed him, of a great captain and despotic chief.

His cool head, his incomparable energy, gave something like character and system to his own military proceedings, but all beyond them was confusion. A great battle was to be safety or ruin. He fought it, and was vanquished; but he had fought it with skill and courage against foreign invaders; and I confess that my heart, though an English one, beats in sympathy for him, as he quitted the field where he left so many of his devoted followers, and, prescient of the fate which awaited him, sought a city which never tolerates the unfortunate. Would for England’s honour that his destiny had closed on that memorable field, and that we had not to inscribe on the same page of our history the captivity of St. Helena and the victory of Waterloo!

XII

To return to Ghent; the ex-King, irritated and perplexed by the prolonged absence of his minister, not satisfied with that of the Duc d’Orléans, who had retired to England, and harassed by the zeal of Monsieur, had conducted himself, notwithstanding, with dignity and ability; and, by a sort of representation about his person, a continued correspondence with France, and a confident attachment on the part of his adherents, kept up a certain prestige in his favour.

Nothing, however, had at first been positively decided concerning him, for M. de Metternich carried on, for a time, a secret negotiation with Fouché, in which he offered – if that false and wily man could procure Napoleon’s abdication or deposition – to support the claims of either the Duc d’Orléans or Marie-Louise: a proposition which, as long as its success was uncertain, could not but affect considerably the state of M. de Talleyrand’s liver.

This negotiation once broken off, Louis’ claims made a great advance, since the allied sovereigns were strongly persuaded that on entering France they must have some national party in their favour.

There were certain indications likewise in France itself, serving to show men who watched the inclination of the many straws that were then in the air, that these were being blown back towards the old monarchy; and when Louis XVIII. saw that the list of Bonaparte’s senators did not contain the name of M. de Semonville, he considered his return pretty secure.

The same conviction arrived about the same time at Carlsbad, where the distinguished invalid began to think that he ought no longer to delay a personal account of the services he had rendered at Vienna.

His arrival at Ghent was not, however, particularly agreeable there, since he came as the decided enemy of the now celebrated M. de Blacas, to whom he was determined to attribute nearly all the errors which the King had committed.

In fact, M. de Talleyrand’s disgrace was resolved upon; and, as he was rarely the last to know what concerned himself, when he waited on Louis XVIII. the day after the battle of Waterloo, it was to request his gracious permission to continue his cure at Carlsbad; nor was his Majesty so ill-natured as to reply otherwise than by saying: “Certainly, M. de Talleyrand; I hear those waters are excellent.”

Nothing could equal the amiable and contented mien with which M. de Talleyrand limped from his most Christian Majesty’s presence after this considerate reply; and, eating an excellent dinner that evening with the mayor of Mons, he was never known, says one of the guests, to be more gay, witty, or agreeable; – dilating to one or two of his intimate friends on the immense pleasure it was to find that he had no longer to disturb himself about the affairs of a clique which it was impossible to serve and to please.

But, as it happened, the Comte d’Artois, who hated M. de Talleyrand as a liberal, hated M. de Blacas still more as a favourite; and Louis XVIII. finding that, whatever happened to M. de Talleyrand, M. de Blacas could not be kept, and that he (the king) must either be the tool of his brother, or obtain a protector in his minister, preferred, on the whole, the latter situation.

The Duke of Wellington, moreover, who, since the secret treaty at Vienna, considered the French negotiator there as linked with the policy of England, told Louis that if he wished for the influence of our government, he must have a man at the head of his own in whom he could confide.

M. Guizot, likewise, who, though young in affairs had acquired, even thus early, much consideration, and who spoke in the name of the constitutional Legitimists, had already said that, to have the support of this small but respectable party, a cabinet must be formed with M. de Talleyrand at its head; and thus, on those second thoughts which come to us often when we have been a little too hasty and bold in listening to our first, M. de Talleyrand received the order to join the King at Cambrai the day after he had been allowed to proceed to Carlsbad.

M. de Talleyrand was, however, not only mortified by the treatment he had received, but foresaw that he had only such treatment eventually to expect, and was determined to prefer the first recommendation to the subsequent command.

There are many, however, anxious that a statesman from whom they expect favours should not abjure office; and, finally, the man of the first Restoration, his pride being satisfied by a general appeal to his patriotism, agreed to appear again as the minister of a second.

Still, in coming to this determination, M. de Talleyrand adopted another. He had frequently, it is said, blamed himself for having in 1814 allowed the sovereign, who could not have done without him, to assume too absolute an authority over him. He did not now expect to be at the head of the French Government long, but he deemed that his only chance of remaining there, or of doing any good whilst he was there, was to show an indifference to office, and a consciousness of power.

He appeared, then, when summoned to his Majesty’s council, with a sketch of a proclamation which he called upon the King to sign, and which was, in fact, a recognition of the errors of his Majesty’s late reign.

As the conversation that took place on the reading of this proclamation is related by a witness, I give it as narrated, the more especially as it shows the position which M. de Talleyrand assumed, and the cool self-confidence with which he confronted the indignation of the whole Bourbon family.⁷⁰

“The Council assembles: it was composed of MM. de Talleyrand, Dambray, de Feltre, de Fancourt, Beurnonville, and myself” (M. de Beugnot is speaking).

“After a few words from M. de Talleyrand, explanatory of the subject which was to be brought before the Council, I commenced reading the proclamation, such as it remained after the corrections made in it; the King permitted me to read it to the end, and then, though not without some emotion that his face betrayed, told me to read it once more.

“Monsieur then spoke, and complained bitterly of the terms in which the proclamation was drawn up. ‘The King,’ he said, ‘is made to ask pardon for the faults he committed. He is made to say that he allowed himself to be carried away by his affections, and that for the future he will conduct himself differently. Such expressions can only do this mischief – lower royalty; for in all other respects they say too much or too little.’

“M. de Talleyrand replied: ‘Monsieur will pardon me if I differ from him; I find these expressions necessary, and appropriately placed. The King has had faults, his affections have misled him. There is nothing too much in this paper.’ ‘Is it I?’ said Monsieur, ‘whom it is intended indirectly to point out?’ ‘Why, yes, since Monsieur has placed the discussion on that ground, Monsieur has done a great deal of harm.’ ‘The Prince de Talleyrand forgets himself.’ ‘I fear so, but truth carries me away.’ The Duc de Berry, with the accent of anger painfully restrained: ‘Nothing but the presence of the King would permit me to tolerate this treatment of my father before me, and I would like to know – ’ At these words, pronounced in a higher tone than the rest, the King made a sign to the Duc de Berry, and said, ‘Enough, my nephew; I am the only person to judge of the propriety of what is said in my presence, and in my Council. Gentlemen, I neither approve of the terms of this proclamation, nor of the conversation to which it has given rise. The framer must retouch his work, not forgetting that when I speak, it must be with a due sense of my dignity and high position.’ The Duc de Berry, pointing at me: ‘But it is not he who has strung all this nonsense together.’ The King: ‘Forbear interrupting, nephew, if you please. I repeat, gentlemen, that I have listened to this discussion with much regret. Let us turn to another subject.’”

XIII

The proclamation with some slight alterations was published, and M. de Talleyrand finally carried his point, and formed his ministry. It is difficult to place oneself so completely in the troubled scene of Paris at this time, amidst the confused society composed of a defeated army, disappointed Republicans, triumphant Royalists, all uneasy and agitated in their actual position, and without the possibility of a common attachment to what was to be their government – it is difficult, I say, to take into a comprehensive glance the confused and troubled state of the French capital, disturbed by a thousand plots which might at any moment concentrate into one – and, therefore, it is difficult to appreciate the possible necessity of employing an able and dexterous adventurer, who had pulled many of the cords of the machine which had now to be brought into harmonious working. Still, I venture to consider that the Duke of Wellington committed an error in recommending, and M. de Talleyrand an error in accepting, M. Fouché as a member of the cabinet about to be formed.

The late minister of police was, in fact, at this time, an acknowledged scoundrel; he had gained our favour by betraying his master’s secrets to our general; he had gained the favour of the extreme Royalists by concealing their plots, and keeping safe their persons when he was serving the government they were attempting to overthrow. He had betrayed the Republicans of France to the Emperor of France, and he had subsequently betrayed the Emperor of France to the foreigner; and he had voted for the death of the brother of the monarch who was now to sit upon the throne. It was impossible for a man of this sort, whatever his abilities, not to bring ultimate disgrace on the government that enrolled him in its ranks; and, in fact, by his successive efforts, first to gain one party, and then to gain the other, by his personal ambition, by his constant intrigues, and by the general distrust he inspired, he deprived his colleagues of the consideration of all honest men, and exposed them consequently to the attacks of all violent factions.