“At our arrival we perceived a buzzing sound of voices saying, ‘Here comes the French embassy!’ Regards, evincing curiosity but not amity, were directed at once towards our battalion, for we were eight or ten, and we soon ascertained that we should not want space for our promenade, every one retreated to the right and left at our approach, as if they were afraid that there was contagion in our very atmosphere.”
M. de Talleyrand, seeing that all attempt to negotiate under such circumstances was vain, returned to Paris just previous to the 10th August, and was there when the wavering and unfortunate Louis XVI. lost his crown by a combination between the Girondins and the Jacobins: the first wishing to have the appearance of a victory, the latter aiming at the reality. M. de Talleyrand had been the object of attack when the united Republicans were mustering their forces for the combat, and he felt himself by no means secure after their triumph. The popular movement had now in truth swept over all the ideas and all the individuals it had commenced with; its next excesses were likely to be still more terrible than the last, and the wary diplomatist thought that the best thing he could do was to get back to England as soon as possible.
III.
He got his passport from Danton, then in the provisional government, and whom he knew as an early partisan of the Duc d’Orléans; and he used, when last in London, to tell a story as to the manner in which he obtained it by a timely smile at a joke, which the jocular and truculent tribune had just passed on another petitioner. But I shall have presently to allude further to this passport. The bearer of it but just escaped in time.
Among the papers found in the famous iron cupboard, discovered at the Tuileries, was the following letter from M. de Laporte, the intendant of the King’s household, to whom I have already alluded as having communicated the wishes of the King as to M. de Talleyrand’s first mission, and dated the 22nd of April, 1791:
“Sire,
“J’adresse à Votre Majesté une lettre écrite avant-hier, et que je n’ai reçue qu’hier après-midi; elle est de l’évêque d’Autun qui paraît désirer servir Votre Majesté. Il m’a fait dire qu’elle pouvait faire l’essai de son zèle, et de son crédit, et lui désigner les points où elle désirait l’employer.”[32]
The original communication, however, here alluded to, was not discovered: and M. de Talleyrand himself boldly denied that it had ever been written. It is possible that he knew it was destroyed (it is said that he purchased it from Danton), but at all events, various concomitant circumstances seemed to prove that he had been more in the interest and confidence of the Court than he could now safely avow; and the Convention issuing and maintaining a decree of accusation against him, he was unable to return to France on the 8th April, 1793, which he ought to have done in order not to be comprised in the general list of émigrés, and was thus forced to remain in England.
The first thing he had done on arriving there was to address the following letter to Lord Grenville:—