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

by Baron Henry Lytton Bulwer Dalling and Bulwer

Where, then, could M. de Talleyrand turn for aid to maintain the government at the head of which he figured? To the King? he had not his confidence. To his colleagues? they did not confide in each other. To the Comte d’Artois? he was in opposition to his brother. To the Royalists? they wanted absolute possession of power. The Imperialists and Republicans were out of the question. Moreover, he was not a man who could create, stimulate, command. To understand a situation and to bring to bear not unwilling assistants on its immediate solution, to collect the scattered influences about him, and direct them to a point at which it was their own interest to arrive; this was his peculiar talent. But to sustain a long and protracted conflict, to overawe and govern opposing parties; this was beyond the colder temperament of his faculties.

His only parliamentary effort then was an exposition in the chamber of peers of the state of the finances, which exposition was as clear and able as his financial statements always were. For the rest, he trusted partly to chance, partly to the ordinary and natural workings of a constitutional system, which was sure in time to produce parties with opinions, and even ministers, who, in their common defence, would be obliged to adopt a common policy and line of conduct. Thus, shrugging up his shoulders at M. de Fontanes’ declaration that he could not feel free where the press was so, and smiling at Madame de Simiane’s notions as to a minister, who, according to her and the ladies of the Faubourg St. Germain, should be a grand seigneur, with perfect manners and a great name, who had hard-working men with spectacles under them, called bouleux,[68] to do their business—he hastened his preparations for joining the congress at Vienna, which was to have commenced its sittings two months after the treaty of Paris, that is, on the 30th of July, but which had not met in the middle of September.

VIII.

I have said that the congress was to commence on the 30th of July, but it was not till the 25th of September that the Emperor of Russia, the King of Prussia, and the other kings and ministers of the different courts who were expected there, began to assemble. M. de Metternich, Lord Castlereagh, afterwards succeeded by the Duke of Wellington, the Prince Hardenberg, the Count Nesselrode, though only as second to the Emperor Alexander himself, who was his own negotiator, were the principal persons with whom M. de Talleyrand was associated.

His task was not an easy one. His sovereign owed his crown to those whose interests had now to be decided; he might himself be considered under obligations to them. It required a strong sense of a high position not to sink into a subordinate one. M. de Talleyrand had this, and sat himself down at Vienna with the air of being the ambassador of the greatest king in the world.

He was accompanied by persons with names more or less distinguished. The Duc Dalberg, the Comte Alexis de Noailles, M. de la Bernadière, and M. de Latour du Pin.

The first, M. de Talleyrand said, would let out secrets which he wished to be known; the second would report all he saw to the Comte d’Artois, and thus save that prince the trouble of having any one else to do so. As to M. de la Bernadière, he would keep the Chancellerie going, and M. de Latour du Pin would sign the passports.

The ideas he himself took under these circumstances to Vienna were,—to get France admitted into the congress on the same footing as other powers; to break up in some way or other the compactness of the confederation recently formed against her, and to procure friends from the body which was now a united enemy; to procure the expulsion of Murat from the throne of Naples, and lastly, to remove the Emperor of Elba to a more distant location (Bermuda, or the Azores, were spoken of).

The dissolution of the alliance was the independence of France, however brought about. As for the expulsion of Murat from Naples, or the removal of Napoleon from Elba, these, no doubt, were great objects to the Bourbons in France; but it is possible that there were other grounds also which induced M. de Talleyrand to pursue them.

If Murat were removed from Naples, and Napoleon were in some place of security, and the elder branch of the Bourbons compromised itself in France, two other governments, according to circumstances, were still on the cards. The regency with Napoleon’s son, or a limited monarchy with the Duc d’Orléans.