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

by Baron Henry Lytton Bulwer Dalling and Bulwer

VIII.

On quitting England, he quitted not only diplomacy, as I have said, but public life, and passed the remainder of his days in the enjoyment of the highest situation, and the most agreeable and cultivated society, that his country could afford.

His fortune and ability might now, according to the Grecian sage, be estimated; for his career was closed; and, as the old sought his saloon as the hearth on which their brighter recollections could be revived, so the young were glad to test their opinions by the experience of “the politic man,” who had passed through so many vicissitudes, and walked with a careless and haughty ease over the ruins of so many governments, at the fall of which he had assisted. He himself, with that cool presence of mind for which he was so remarkable, aware that he had but a few years between the grave and himself, employed them in one of his great and constant objects, that of prepossessing the age about to succeed him in his favour, and explaining to those whom he thought likely to influence the coming generation, the darker passages of his brilliant career. To one distinguished person, M. Montalivet, who related to me the fact, he once said: “You have a prejudice against me, because your father was an Imperialist, and you think I deserted the Emperor. I have never kept fealty to any one longer than he has himself been obedient to common sense. But, if you judge all my actions by this rule, you will find that I have been eminently consistent; and where is there so degraded a human being, or so bad a citizen, as to submit his intelligence, or sacrifice his country, to any individual, however born, or however endowed?”

This, indeed, in a few words, was M. de Talleyrand’s theory; a theory which has formed the school, that without strictly adhering to the principle that common sense should be the test of obedience, bows to every authority with a smile and shrug of the shoulders, and the well-known phrase of “La France avant tout.”

Shortly previous to his last illness he appeared (evidently with the intention of bidding the world a sort of dignified adieu) in the tribune of the Institute. The subject which he chose for his essay was M. Reinhard, who had long served under him, and was just dead, and between whom and himself, even in the circumstance of their both having received an ecclesiastical education, there was some sort of resemblance. The discourse is interesting on this ground, and also as a review of the different branches of the diplomatic service, and the duties attached to each—forming a kind of legacy to that profession of which the speaker had so long been the ornament.

IX.

“Gentlemen,—[80]

“I was in America when I was named a member of the Institute, and placed in the department of moral and political sciences, to which I have had the honour of being attached ever since it was first established.

“On my return to France, I made it my principal object to attend its meetings, and to express to my new colleagues, many of whom we now so justly regret, the pleasure it gave me to find myself one of their number. At the first sitting I attended, the bureau was being renewed, and I had the honour of being named secretary. During six months, I drew up, to the best of my ability, the minutes of the proceedings, but my labours betrayed perhaps a little too plainly my diffidence, for I had to report on a work, the subject of which was new to me. That work, which had cost one of our most learned colleagues many researches, many sleepless nights, was ‘A Dissertation on the Riparian Laws.’ It was about the same period that I read at our public meetings several papers, which were received with such indulgence as to be thought worthy of being inserted in the memoirs of the Institute. But forty years have now elapsed, during which I have been a stranger to this tribune; first, in consequence of frequent absence; then from duties, to which I felt bound to devote my whole time and attention; I must also add, from that discretion, which, in times of difficulty, is required of a man employed in public affairs; and finally, at a later period, from the infirmities, usually brought on, or at least aggravated, by age.

“At the present moment, I feel myself called upon to perform a duty, and to make a last appearance before this Assembly, in order that the memory of a man, known to the whole of Europe;—of a man whom I loved, and who, from the very foundation of the Institute, has been our colleague, should receive here a public testimony of our esteem and regret. His position with respect to my own furnishes me with the means of speaking with authority of several of his merits. His principal, but I do not say his only, claim to distinction, consists of a correspondence of forty years, necessarily unknown to the public, and likely to remain so for ever. I asked myself, ‘Who will mention this fact within these walls? who, especially, will consider himself under the obligation of directing your attention to it, if the task be not undertaken by me, to whom the greater part of this correspondence was addressed, to whom it always gave so much pleasure, and often so much assistance in those ministerial duties, which I had to perform during three reigns … so very different in character?’