How impossible to affect any mysterious silence before the “House!”—how vain to attempt any knowledge from exclusive sources! “The ordinary channels of information,” to use Sir Robert’s periphrasis, are the extraordinary ones too; and not only do they contain whatever Ministers know, but very often “something more.”
Time was when the Minister, or even the Secretary at a Foreign Court, appeared in society as a kind of casquet of state secrets,—when his mysterious whispers, his very gestures, were things to speculate on, and a grave motion of his eyebrows could make “Consols” tremble, and throw the “Threes” into a panic. Now the question is, Have you seen the City article in the “Times?” What does the “Chronicle” say? No doubt this is a tremendous power, and very possibly the enjoyment of it, such as we have it in England, is the highest element of a pure democracy. Political information of a very high order establishes a species of education, which is the safest check upon the dangers of private judgment, and hence it is fair to hope that we possess a sounder and more healthy public opinion in England than in any of the states of the Continent. At least it would not be too much to infer, that we would be less accessible to those sudden convulsions, those violent “coups de main” by which Governments are overturned abroad; and that the general diffusion of new notions on political subjects, and the daily reference to such able expositors as our newspaper press contains, are strong safeguards against the seductive promises of mob-leaders and liberty-mongers.
In France, a Government is always at the mercy of any one bold enough to lead the assault. The attempt may seem often a “forlorn hope”—it rarely is so in reality. The love of vagrancy is not so inherent in the Yankee as is the destructive passion in the Frenchman’s heart; but it is there, less from any pleasure in demolition than in the opportunity thus. offered for reconstruction. Mirabeau, Rousseau, Fournier, La Mennais, are the social architects of French predilection, and many a clearance has been made to begin the edifice, and many have perished in laying the foundations, which never rose above the earth, but which ere long we may again witness undertaken with new and bolder hands than ever.
Events that once took centuries for their accomplishment, are now the work of days or weeks. Steam seems to have communicated its impetuosity to mind as well as matter, and ere many years pass over how few of the traces of Old Europe will remain, as our fathers knew them?
I have scarcely entered a foreign city, for the last few years, without detecting the rapid working of those changes. Old families sinking into decay and neglect—time-honoured titles regarded as things that “once were.” Their very homes, the palaces, associated with incidents of deep historic interests, converted into hôtels or “Pensionnats.”
The very last time I strolled through Paris, I loitered to the “Quartier” which, in my young ambition, I regarded with all the reverence the pilgrim yields to Mecca. I remembered the first “soirée” in which I was presented, having dined at the Embassy, and being taken in the evening, by the Ambassador, that I might be introduced to the Machiavel of his craft, Prince Talleyrand. Even yet I feel the hot blush which mantled in my cheek as I was passing, with very scant ceremony, the round-shouldered little old man who stood in the very doorway, his wide black coat, far too large for his figure, and his white hair, trimly brushed back from his massive temples.
It did not need the warning voice of my introducer, hastily calling my name, to make my sense of shame a perfect agony. “Monsieur Templeton, Monsieur le Prince,” said the Ambassador; “the young gentleman of whom I spoke;” and he added, in a tone inaudible to me, something about my career and some mention of my relatives.
“Oh, yes!” said the Prince, smiling graciously, “I am aware how ‘connexion,’ as you call it, operates in England; but permit me, Monsieur,” said he, turning towards me, “to give one small piece of advice. It is this: ‘If you can win by cards never score the honours.’” The precept had little influence on himself, however. No man ever paid greater deference to the distinctions of rank, or conceded more to the prestige of an ancient name. Neither a general, an orator, nor an author—not even the leader of a faction—this astonishing man stood alone, in the resources of his fertile intellect, directing events, which he appeared to follow, and availing himself of resources which he had stored up for emergency; but so artfully, that they seemed to arise out of the natural current of events. Never disconcerted or abashed—not once thrown off his balance—not more calmly dignified when he stood beside Napoleon at Erfurth, then master of Europe itself, than he was at the Congress of Vienna, when the defeat of France had placed her at the mercy of her enemies.
It was in this same house, in the Rue Saint Florentin, that the Emperor Alexander lived when the Allies entered Paris, on the last day of March, 1814. His Majesty occupied the first floor; M. de Talleyrand, the rez de chaussée. He was then no more than ex-Minister for Foreign Affairs; neither empowered by the Bourbons to treat for the Restoration, nor by the nation for the conditions of a government—he was merely “one among the conquered;” and yet to this man all eyes were turned instinctively, as to one who possessed the secret of the future. That rez de chaussée was besieged with visitors from morning till night; and even when, according to the custom of the French, he made his lengthened toilette, his dressing-room was filled by all the foreign ministers of the conquering monarchs, and Nesselrode and Metternich waited at these daily levées. In all these discussions M. de Talleyrand took the lead, with the same ease and the same “àplomb” discussing kings to make and kingdoms to dismember, as though the clank of the muskets, which now and then interrupted their colloquy, came from the Imperial Guard of Napoleon, and not the Cossacks of the Don and the Uhlans of the Danube, who crowded the stairs and the avenues, and bivouacked in the court.
Here the Restoration was decided upon, and Talleyrand himself it was who decided it. The Emperor Alexander opposed it strongly at first, alleging that the old spirit and the old antipathies would all return with the elder Bourbons, and suggesting the Duc d’Orléans as king. Talleyrand, however, overruled the objection, asserting that no new agent must be had recourse to for governing at such a juncture, and that one usurpation could not be succeeded by another. It is said that when the news reached Vienna, in 1815, that Napoleon had landed from Elba, the Emperor Alexander came hurriedly over to where Talleyrand was sitting, and informing him what had occurred, said, “I told you before your plan would be a failure!” “Mais que faire?” coolly retorted the calm diplomate; “of two evil courses it was the better—I never said more of it. Had you proclaimed the King of Rome, you had been merely maintaining the power of Napoleon under another name. You cannot establish the government of a great nation upon a half-measure. Besides that, Legitimacy, whatever its faults, was the only Principle that could prove to Europe at large that France and Napoleon were parted for ever; and, after so many barterings of crowns and trucklings of kingdoms, it was a fine opportunity of shewing that there was still something—whether it be or be not by right divine—which was superior to sabres and muskets, generals and armies.”