Emperor Alexander took a few steps towards the Prince de Talleyrand. ‘I told you that it would not last,’ he said. The French plenipotentiary did not move a muscle of his face, and simply bowed without replying. The King of Prussia gave a sign to the Duke of Wellington, and both left the ball-room together, followed almost immediately by Emperors Alexander and Francis and M. de Metternich. The majority of the guests seemed bent upon disappearing unnoticed, so that finally the place became deserted save for a few apparently terror-stricken talkers.
The Prince Koslowski, whom I saw during the evening, was unable to add anything to the news already current among the public. ‘This is an excellent opportunity for the players to give us a second performance of that charming vaudeville La Danse Interrompue. Comte Palfi, who played the part of Wasner so brightly, might well sing:
‘“Enfin voilà la danse interrompue;
Comment tenir à cet incident-là?”
The chorus, I am afraid, will probably be accompanied in a short time by the thunder of a hundred thousand firearms. This news,’ he went on, ‘will no doubt remind you of the tidings of the taking of Amiens by the Spaniards, told to Henri IV. in the midst of a ballet in which both he and Sully were dancing, though it is difficult to imagine Sully disporting himself in that way: he was certainly not famed for that kind of thing. “Mistress mine,” said the king to “la belle Gabrielle” (d’Estrées), taking her hand, “we are bound to give up our dancing and our games; we must to horse, and recommence another war. There’s a truce to the joys of love.” It would be well, perhaps, to translate the phrase into several languages for the benefit of some of the would-be Henri Quatres assembled here.’
It would be impossible to depict the aspect of the Austrian capital from that moment. Vienna was like an individual who, lulled to sleep by dreams of love and ambition, suddenly found himself violently awakened by the rattle of the watchman or the clanging of the belfry warning him that his house was on fire. The various guests from all parts of Europe could not recall without dread the phases of the period that had just gone by. The constantly renewed disasters of a quarter of a century of war; the invaded capitals; the battlefields bestrewn with the dead; commerce and industry paralysed; whole families, nay, whole nations, in mourning—all this presented itself simultaneously to their minds; and the recollection of the lurid flames of Moscow lent additional terror to the picture. No doubt there had been recent reprisals on their part; and the presence of the Allied Armies in Paris proved to a certain extent that the terms ‘unvanquished’ and ‘invincible’ were by no means synonymous. This, however, rendered their anxiety all the greater. To fell the Colossus to the ground, it had required a conjunction of circumstances, and, moreover, an accord of sentiments and ideas, which had increased the strength of each individual nation tenfold. At present those nations had assumed an observant attitude towards each other; the stern reality only showed the certainty of evils which had been considered as dispelled for ever.
Under those grave circumstances, M. de Talleyrand gave proof of an ability and a strength of will that had the effect of carrying all before it. Never was there a more difficult rôle than his. He was, as it were, the buffer betwixt the government he represented and France, whose interest he wished to save, and the inimical Powers, which confounded in the self-same ban Napoleon and the country which once more had welcomed him. I was not in Paris at the time of the first Restoration; Talleyrand’s conduct, therefore, only came to me through contemporary accounts, not always to be depended on for their veracity. But having been an eye-witness of what he did in March 1815 for his country and for the Bourbons, I have no hesitation in saying that the latter were indebted to him a second time for their crown; and that France, perhaps, owed to him her existence as a nation. He understood, with marvellous intuition, that these two facts were narrowly bound up with and emanated from each other. Hence his attitude, and his efforts to obtain the declaration of the 13th March.
That famous act, so differently appreciated, claims its mention here. The irritation in Vienna was at its height, and kept up by the prospect of a relentless war. The enthusiasm aroused by Napoleon’s presence, the welcome given to him by the various populations, the rallying around him of the army—all these things combined caused the French nation to be looked upon as an accomplice to the breaking of the much desired peace. There was, moreover, the dread of a revival of the Revolutionary ideas, the delirium of which had struck terror throughout Europe. The Emperor of Austria, addressing the czar, had said ‘Behold, sire, the result of your holding your hand over your Paris Jacobins.’ ‘That’s true, sire,’ was the answer, ‘but to repair the wrong, I hold myself and my armies at your Majesty’s disposal.’
The quarrel on the point of breaking out was, therefore, between France on the one side, and the whole of Europe on the other; a duel to the bitter end, which could only cease with the death of one of the combatants. I also heard the word ‘partition’ mentioned, and the example of Poland was there to prove that a nation may be struck off the European family register.
M. de Talleyrand, on the contrary, laid down the principle that in 1815, as in the previous year, Europe could be at war with Napoleon only and not with France. He manœuvred with so much skill or so much luck as to overcome all obstacles and entirely to change the intentions hostile to France, and finally to obtain the acceptance of his principle. A score of times the Congress was about to separate without having made up its mind to anything save a blind and relentless war; a score of times he rallied around him opinions fundamentally opposed to each other. I am aware of the repugnance of certain dogmatic minds to these compromises inspired by prudence. Over and again it has been said that it would have been better for France to accept a declaration of war—a threat of extermination addressed to herself. In her hour of despair, the country would have found a supernatural force; she would have perished in the struggle or obtained a glorious triumph.
M. de Talleyrand was swayed by too much moderation to risk this; he had too correct a notion of the enfeebled condition of France to fling her once more into violent and desperate adventures. He himself beheld Europe ready to rise as one man; he directed the rise against an individual instead of against a people. And in this he acted rightly. His conduct was appreciated and admired in Vienna as the triumph of reason and of an enlightened patriotism. More than once he returned from the Congress to his residence utterly discouraged. On the morning of the 13th March, the day appointed for the signing of this important act, he was by no means sure of his success. Meanwhile, everything depended on it. When he was ready to go to M. de Metternich, his entourage could not refrain from showing a natural anxiety. ‘Wait for me here,’ he said, ‘and in order not to try your patience by as much as a minute, watch for my return at the windows. If I have succeeded, I’ll show you from the carriage the treaty on which shall depend the fate of Europe and of France.’