Historical Characters: Mackintosh, Talleyrand, Canning, Cobbett, Peel

by Baron Henry Lytton Bulwer Dalling and Bulwer

XIII.

M. de Talleyrand, though but a new dignitary in the church, was already one of its most influential members. He had been excluded by a prejudice of the nobility from the situation to which his birth had entitled him amongst them. He had long resolved to obtain another position at least as elevated through his own exertions. His views, as we have seen, at the time of his election, were liberal, though moderate, whilst he was sufficiently acquainted with the character of Louis XVI. to know that that monarch would never sincerely yield, nor ever sturdily resist, any concession demanded with persistency. Partly, therefore, from a conviction that he was doing what was best for the public, and partly, also, from the persuasion that he was doing what was best for himself, he separated boldly from the rest of his family (who were amongst the most devoted to the Comte d’Artois and Marie-Antoinette), and laboured with unwearied energy to enlist the body he belonged to on the popular side.

To succeed in this object he had the talents and advantages most essential. His natural courtesy flattered the curates; his various acquirements captivated his more learned brethren; his high birth gave him the ear of the great ecclesiastical dignitaries; and, finally, a majority of his order, instigated by his exertions and address, joined the Third Estate, on the 22nd of June, in the Church of Saint-Louis.

From that moment the question hitherto doubtful was determined; for at no time have the clergy and the commons stood side by side without being victorious. It was in vain, therefore, that even so early as the day following, the descendant of Louis XIV., in all the pomp of royalty, and in the presence of the three orders—whom he had for that day summoned to assemble—denounced the conduct which the tiers-état had pursued, annulled their decisions, and threatened them with his sovereign displeasure.

The tiers-état resisted; the King repented—retracted,—and showing that he had no will, lost all authority. Thus, on the 27th of June, the States-General, henceforth designated by the title which had been already assumed by the Commons (the National Assembly), held their deliberations together, and the three orders were confounded.

XIV.

But one step now remained in order to legalise the revolution in progress. Each deputy had received a sort of mandate or instruction from those who named him at the moment of his election. Such instructions or mandates, which had been given at a time when people could hardly anticipate the state of things which had since arisen, limited, or seemed to limit, the action of a deputy to particular points which had especially attracted the attention of his constituents.

The conservative party contended that these mandates were imperative, the liberal party that they were not. According to the first supposition, the States-General could do no more than redress a few grievances; according to the other, they could create a perfectly new system of government.

The Bishop of Autun, in the first speech he delivered in the National Assembly—a speech which produced considerable effect—argued in favour of his own liberty and that of his colleagues, and his views were naturally enough adopted by a body which, feeling its own force, had to determine its own power. Hence, on the record of two great decisions—the one solving the States-General into the “National Assembly;” the other extending and fixing that Assembly’s authority—decisions which, whatever their other results, were at least fatal to the power and influence of the class to which he belonged by birth, but from which he had, in spite of himself, been severed in childhood—was indelibly inscribed the name of the once despised and still disinherited cripple of the princely house of Périgord.