But during the years that had elapsed since his quitting Paris, events which had been rushing on with a demoniacal rapidity through almost every horror and every crime (each phase in this terrible history being marked by the murder of one set of assassins and the momentary rule of another), had arrived at a new crisis.
The Gironde, whom I left trembling and triumphant on the 10th of August, had been soon after strangled in the giant grasp of Danton. Danton, too indolent and self-confident to be a match for his more cool and ambitious coadjutor, had bent his lofty head beneath the guillotine, to which he had delivered so many victims; and, finally, Robespierre himself had just perished by the hands of men whom fear had rendered bold, and experience brought in some degree to reason, inasmuch as that they at last felt the necessity of re-establishing some of those laws by which alone society can be preserved.
M. de Talleyrand on learning these occurrences determined on abandoning his commercial enterprises and striving once more for power and fortune amidst the shifting scenes of public affairs.
And here, as often, Fortune favoured him; for the vessel in which he was about to embark, sailing with his friend, was never afterwards seen or heard of. All his efforts were now bent on returning to his native country, where he had many active in his behalf. Amongst the most influential of these was a remarkable woman, of whose talents we have but a faint idea from her works, which—though bearing witness to an ardent imagination and a powerful intellect—hardly give evidence of that natural and startling eloquence which sparkled in her conversation. The daughter of Necker, of whom I speak, just awakening from the horrors of a nightmare that had absorbed almost every sentiment but fear, was at this period the centre of a circle, in which figured the most captivating women and the ablest men, rushing with a kind of wild joy back to those charms of society which of late years had been banished from all places, except perhaps the prisons, wherein alone, during what has been emphatically called the “Reign of Terror,” any records of the national gaiety seem to have been preserved.
Amongst the intimates at Madame de Staël’s house was the surviving Chénier (Joseph-Marie), who on the 18th of Fructidor addressed the Convention, after the return of M. de Montesquieu had just been allowed, in the following characteristic terms:
“I have a similar permission to demand for one of the most distinguished members of the Constituent Assembly—M. de Talleyrand-Périgord, the famous Bishop of Autun. Our different ministers of Paris bear witness to his services. I have in my hands a memoir of which the duplicate exists in the papers of Danton; the date of this memoir is 25th of November, 1792, and it proves that M. de Talleyrand was actually occupied in the affairs of the Republic when he was proscribed by it. Thus, persecuted by Marat and Robespierre, he was also banished by Pitt from England; but the place of exile that he chose was the country of Franklin, where, in contemplating the imposing spectacle of a free people, he might await the time when France should have judges and not murderers; a Republic, and not anarchy called laws!”
How are we to reconcile this declaration with M. de Talleyrand’s solemn protestations to Lord Grenville?
How could M. de Talleyrand have been writing memoirs to Danton and yet have come over to England, “solely for the purpose of seeking repose?”
That the passport to which we have drawn attention bore out M. Chénier’s affirmation allant à Londres par nos ordres—“going to London by our orders”—is certain, for M. de Talleyrand afterwards confirmed this fact in a pamphlet which we shall have by-and-by to notice. But of the memoir we can learn nothing further.
The friends of M. de Talleyrand say that probably it never existed, or that, if it did, it could only be a paper of no importance, and not such a one as the English government would have objected to. They add that the form given to the passport was the only one Danton could have ventured to give without danger from the provisional council; that the English government must have been acquainted with it; and that M. de Talleyrand merely availed himself of it, and pretended that it placed him in the position of a French agent, when this was necessary to procure his return to France or to defend himself against the charge of emigration.