LETTER XV.
PARIS, August, 1805.
MY LORD:—You have with some reason in England complained of the conduct of the members of the foreign diplomatic corps in France, when the pretended correspondence between Mr. Drake and Mehee de la Touche was published in our official gazette. Had you, however, like myself, been in a situation to study the characters and appreciate the worth of most of them, this conduct would have excited no surprise, and pity would have taken the place both of accusation and reproach. Hardly one of them, except Count Philipp von Cobenzl, the Austrian Ambassador (and even he is considerably involved), possesses any property, or has anything else but his salary to depend upon for subsistence. The least offence to Bonaparte or Talleyrand would instantly deprive them of their places; and, unless they were fortunate enough to obtain some other appointment, reduce them to live in obscurity, and perhaps in want, upon a trifling pension in their own country.
The day before Mr. Drake's correspondence appeared in the Moniteur, in March, 1804, Talleyrand gave a grand diplomatic dinner; in the midst of which, as was previously agreed with Bonaparte, Duroc called him out on the part of the First Consul. After an absence of near an hour, which excited great curiosity and some alarm among the diplomatists, he returned, very thoughtful and seemingly very low-spirited.
"Excuse me, gentlemen," said he, "I have been impolite against my inclination. The First Consul knew that you honoured me with your company today, and would therefore not have interrupted me by his orders had not a discovery of a most extraordinary nature against the law of nations just been made; a discovery which calls for the immediate indignation against the Cabinet of St. James, not only of France, but of every nation that wishes for the preservation of civilized society. After dinner I shall do myself the honour of communicating to you the particulars, well convinced that you will all enter with warmth into the just resentment of the First Consul."
During the repast the bottle went freely round, and as soon as they had drunk their coffee and liqueurs, Talleyrand rang a bell, and Hauterive presented himself with a large bundle of papers. The pretended original letters of Mr. Drake were handed about with the commentaries of the Minister and his secretary. Their heads heated with wine, it was not difficult to influence their minds, or to mislead their judgment, and they exclaimed, as in a chorus, "C'est abominable! Cela fait fremir!"
Talleyrand took advantage of their situation, as well as of their indiscretion. "I am glad, gentlemen," said he, "and shall not fail to inform the First Consul of your unanimous sentiments on this disagreeable subject; but verbal expressions are not sufficient in an affair of such great consequence. I have orders to demand your written declarations, which, after what you have already expressed, you cannot hesitate about sending to me to-night, that they may accompany the denunciation which the First Consul despatches, within some few hours, to all the Courts on the Continent. You would much please the First Consul were you to write as near as possible according to the formula which my secretary has drawn up. It states nothing either against convenance, or against the customs of Sovereigns, or etiquettes of Courts, and I am certain is also perfectly congenial with your individual feelings."
A silence of some moments now followed (as all the diplomatists were rather taken by surprise with regard to a written declaration), which the Swedish Ambassador, Baron Ehrensward, interrupted by saying that, "though he personally might have no objection to sign such a declaration, he must demand some time to consider whether he had a right to, write in the name of his Sovereign, without his orders, on a subject still unknown to him."
This remark made the Austrian Ambassador, Count von Cobenzl, propose a private consultation among the members of the foreign diplomatic corps at one of their hotels, at which the Russian charge d'affaires, D'Oubril, who was not at the dinner—party, was invited to assist. They met accordingly, at the Hotel de Montmorency, Rue de Lille, occupied by Count von Cobenzl; but they came to no other unanimous determination than that of answering a written communication of Talleyrand by a written note, according as every one judged most proper and prudent, and corresponding with the supposed sentiments of his Sovereign.
As all this official correspondence has been published in England, you may, upon reading the notes presented by Baron de Dreyer, and Mr. Livingstone,
[In consequence of this conduct, Livingstone was recalled by his Government, and lives now in obscurity and disgrace in America. To console him, however, in his misfortune, Bonaparte, on his departure, presented him with his portrait, enamelled on the lid of a snuff-box, set round with diamonds, and valued at one thousand louis d'or.]
the neutral Ambassadors of Denmark and America, form some tolerably just idea of Talleyrand's formula. Their impolitic servility was blamed even by the other members of the diplomatic corps.
Livingstone you know, and perhaps have not to learn that, though a stanch republican in America, he was the most abject courtier in France; and though a violent defender of liberty and equality on the other side of the Atlantic, no man bowed lower to usurpation, or revered despotism more, in Europe. Without talents, and almost without education, he thinks intrigues negotiations, and conceives that policy and duplicity are synonymous. He was called here "the courier of Talleyrand," on account of his voyages to England, and his journeys to Holland, where this Minister sent him to intrigue, with less ceremony than one of his secret agents. He acknowledged that no Government was more liberal, and no nation more free, than the British; but he hated the one as much as he abused the other; and he did not conceal sentiments that made him always so welcome to Bonaparte and Talleyrand. Never over nice in the choice of his companions, Arthur O'Connor, and other Irish traitors and vagabonds, used his house as their own; so much so that, when he invited other Ambassadors to dine with him, they, before they accepted the invitation, made a condition that no outlaws or adventurers should be of the party.
In your youth, Baron de Dreyer was an Ambassador from the Court of Copenhagen to that of St. James. He has since been in the same capacity to the Courts of St. Petersburg and Madrid. Born a Norwegian, of a poor and obscure family, he owes his advancement to his own talents; but these, though they have procured him rank, have left him without a fortune. When he came here, in June, 1797, from Spain, he brought a mistress with him, and several children he had had by her during his residence in that country. He also kept an English mistress some thirty years ago in London, by whom he had a son, M. Guillaumeau, who is now his secretary. Thus encumbered, and thus situated at the age of seventy, it is no surprise if he strives to die at his post, and that fear to offend Bonaparte and Talleyrand sometimes gets the better of his prudence.
In Denmark, as well as in all other Continental States, the pensions of diplomatic invalids are more scanty than those of military ones, and totally insufficient for a man who, during half a century nearly, has accustomed himself to a certain style of life, and to expenses requisite to represent his Prince with dignity. No wonder, therefore, that Baron de Dreyer prefers Paris to Copenhagen, and that the cunning Talleyrand takes advantage of this preference.
It was reported here among our foreign diplomatists, that the English Minister in Denmark complained of the contents of Baron de Dreyer's note concerning Mr. Drake's correspondence; and that the Danish Prime Minister, Count von Bernstorff, wrote to him in consequence, by the order of the Prince Royal, a severe reprimand. This act of political justice is, however, denied by him, under pretence that the Cabinet of Copenhagen has laid it down as an invariable rule, never to reprimand, but always to displace those of its agents with whom it has reason to be discontented. Should this be the case, no Sovereign in Europe is better served by his representatives than his Danish Majesty, because no one seldomer changes or removes them.
While I am speaking of diplomatists, I cannot forbear giving you a short sketch of one whose weight in the scale of politics entitles him to particular notice: I mean the Count von Haugwitz, insidiously complimented by Talleyrand with the title of "The Prince of Neutrality, the Sully of Prussia." Christian Henry Curce, Count von Haugwitz, who, until lately, has been the chief director of the political conscience of His Prussian Majesty, as his Minister of the Foreign Department, was born in Silesia, and is the son of a nobleman who was a General in the Austrian service when Frederick the Great made the conquest of that country. At the death of this King in 1786, Count von Haugwitz occupied an inferior place in the foreign office, where Count von Herzburg observed his zeal and assiduity, and recommended him to the notice of the late King Frederick William II. By the interest of the celebrated Bishopswerder, he procured, in 1792, the appointment of an Ambassador to the Court of Vienna, where he succeeded Baron von Jacobi, the present Prussian Minister in your country. In the autumn of the same year he went to Ratisbon, to cooperate with the Austrian Ambassador, and to persuade the Princes of the German Empire to join the coalition against France. In the month of March, 1794, he was sent to the Hague, where he negotiated with Lord Malmesbury concerning the affairs of France; shortly afterwards his nomination as a Minister of State took place, and from that time his political sentiments seem to have undergone a revolution, for which it is not easy to account; but, whatever were the causes of his change of opinions, the Treaty of Basle, concluded between France and Prussia in 1795, was certainly negotiated under his auspices; and in August, 1796, he signed, with the French Minister at Berlin, Citizen Caillard, the first and famous Treaty of Neutrality; and a Prussian cordon was accordingly drawn, to cause the neutrality of the North to be observed and protected. Had the Count von Haugwitz of 1795 been the same as the Count von Haugwitz of 1792, it is probable we should no longer have heard of either a French Republic or a French Empire; but a legitimate Monarch of the kingdom of France would have ensured that security to all other legitimate Sovereigns, the want of which they themselves, or their children, will feel and mourn in vain, as long as unlimited usurpations tyrannize over my wretched country. It is to be hoped, however, that the good sense of the Count will point out to him, before it is too late, the impolicy of his present connections; and that he will use his interest with his Prince to persuade him to adopt a line of conduct suited to the grandeur and dignity of the Prussian Monarchy, and favourable to the independence of insulted Europe.
When his present Prussian Majesty succeeded to the throne, Count von Haugwitz continued in office, with increased influence; but he some time since resigned, in consequence, it is said, of a difference of opinion with the other Prussian Ministers on the subject of a family alliance, which Bonaparte had the modesty to propose, between the illustrious house of Napoleon the First and the royal line of Brandenburgh.
On this occasion his King, to evince his satisfaction with his past conduct, bestowed on him not only a large pension, but an estate in Silesia, where he before possessed some property. Bonaparte also, to express his regret at his retreat, proclaimed His Excellency a grand officer of the Legion of Honour.
Talleyrand insolently calls the several cordons, or ribands, distributed by Bonaparte among the Prussian Ministers and Generals, "his leading-strings." It is to be hoped that Frederick William III. is sufficiently upon his guard to prevent these strings from strangling the Prussian Monarchy and the Brandenburgh dynasty.