Anecdotal Recollections of the Congress of Vienna

by Comte de Auguste Louis Charles La Garde-Chambonas

CHAPTER III

Reception at M. de Talleyrand’s—His attitude at the Congress—The Duc de Dalberg—The Duc de Richelieu—Mme. Edmond de Périgord—M. Pozzo di Borgo—Parallel between the Prince de Ligne and M. de Talleyrand—A Monster Concert.

Since my arrival in Vienna, I had given myself up so wholly to the pleasure of meeting with old friends that I had only been able to pay a ‘duty’ call at the French Legation. Although several friends, among others MM. Boigne de Faye and Achille Rouen, formed part of it in different capacities, I had not been able to have a confidential chat with any. I had begun sincerely to regret having missed the opportunity of going to M. de Talleyrand’s receptions, when he divined my wishes, and with his well-known and exquisite courtesy sent me an invitation to dinner. As may be imagined, I did not fail to respond to it, impatient as I was to observe from near at hand a man whom I had not seen since my early manhood, and who had been so largely mixed up with the chief events of the time. It is a memorable thing in a man’s life to be able to approach closely to an actor who has played a principal part on the world’s stage. It makes an impression which only ceases with life or with the loss of memory. I reached the embassy early, and from M. Rouen’s private apartments made my way to the reception-rooms. There was no one there but M. de Talleyrand, the Duc de Dalberg, and Madame Edmond de Périgord, whom I had already met at Mme. de Fuchs’s. The prince bade me welcome with the exquisite grace which had become a second nature to him, and taking hold of my hand with the kindliness reminiscent of a bygone period, he said: ‘I had to come to Vienna, then, Monsieur, in order to have the pleasure of seeing you at my home?’ I may have been mistaken, but at that moment he certainly belied the axiom so long ascribed to him, namely: That words were given to man to enable him to disguise his thought. Without awaiting my answer, which, judging from my embarrassed look, he fancied would not be quickly forthcoming, he presented me to the Duc de Dalberg with a few flattering and gracious words.

I had not seen M. de Talleyrand since 1806; but I was struck once more with the intellectual subtlety of the look, the imperturbable calm of the features, the demeanour of the pre-eminent man whom I, in common with all those forgathered in Vienna, considered the foremost diplomatist of his time. There were also the same grave and deep tone of voice, the same easy and natural manners, the same ingrained familiarity with the usages of the best society—a belated reflex, as it were, of a state of things which existed no longer, and of which one beheld in him one of the last representatives. In that room, and face to face with such a man, one could not help yielding to an irresistible feeling of timidity and awe.

The panegyric of the French plenipotentiaries at the Congress is practically contained in their names; nevertheless, M. de Talleyrand, in particular, seemed to dominate that illustrious assembly by the charm of his mind and the ascendency of his genius. Always the same, he treated diplomacy as he treated it formerly in his drawing-room in Paris and at Neuilly. Yet, France’s rôle was rendered not less difficult by the circumstances from without than by the confusion from within. Hedged, as it were, by numberless obstacles, the inevitable consequences of a new organisation, and of the little harmony such an organisation is likely to command, France was virtually incapable of showing any virile disposition. It was an open secret that such a display was beyond the power and beyond the will of her government. The great European states, the arbiters of the Congress, proceeded with a common accord of which hitherto there had been no instance in diplomatic annals. It seemed as if nothing could either break or detach a single link of the chain. Hence, the representatives of France were bound to make up, either by the resources of their genius or by talent of the first order, for the obstacles opposed to them by a quadruple alliance applying to the deliberations the whole weight of its actual importance and of its unassailable union.

The force he could not look for from his government, M. de Talleyrand found in himself; for it is no exaggeration to say that the whole of the French mission at the Congress seemed personified in him, whatever may have been the merit of his colleagues and the consideration attached to their personality. With the marvellous intuition which was the particular dower of his intellect, and which seemed not only to foresee events but to dominate them, he soon recovered the position belonging to France. Admitted to the directing committee, composed of the four great Powers, he completely changed its ideas and its tendency. ‘I bring to you more than you possess, I bring to you the idea of “right.”’ He divided those Powers, hitherto so united; he, as it were, raised the spectre of a disproportionately aggrandised Russian weight on the rest of Europe, and the necessity of edging her back to the north. He caused Austria and England to share that conviction. Hence, Emperor Alexander, who under the influence and in the drawing-room of M. de Talleyrand had, six months previously, decided upon the restoration of the House of Bourbon, saw, not without annoyance, his projects stopped by the representative of a state which owed its existence to him. ‘Talleyrand enacts the part here of Louis XIV.’s minister,’ he said more than once with a show of bad humour.

I have no intention of enumerating the labours of M. de Talleyrand at the Congress of Vienna, or the important acts in which he took a part. Still less do I intend to trace a portrait of that celebrated man. Apart from the consideration that such a task would entail infinite developments, M. de Talleyrand henceforth belongs to history; and history alone, with inflexible truth, can describe and make known one of the most historical personages of modern times. But, having been an eyewitness at that trying period of his often successful efforts at raising and reinstating the nation which he represented, I find it difficult to resist the temptation to record the vivid impression produced by his imperturbable calm, his attitude, and the whole of his personality.

It has been said often, and with considerable truth, that at no period did Talleyrand appear more conspicuously great than at the moment of France’s disasters in 1814. I had seen him eight years previously as Minister of France, then all-powerful, and dictating his laws to the whole of Continental Europe. At Vienna, as the plenipotentiary of a vanquished people, he was the same man, and as absolutely confident of himself. There was the same noble dignity, perhaps with an additional shade of pride, the same confidence essential to the representative of a nation which though vanquished was necessary to the maintenance of the European equilibrium—of a nation which might gather strength from the very consciousness of her defeat. His demeanour was, in one word, the most eloquent expression of the grandeur of our country. In watching the look which adverse fortune had been unable to disturb, the impassiveness which nothing could disconcert, one could not but feel that this man had still behind him a strong and powerful nation.

Just as his high renown, and the authority attached to his name and experience, made themselves felt in the deliberations of European politics, so did his noble manners, the manners of the grand seigneur, and his urbanity stamp his private receptions and his daily life with a character of gravity wholly in harmony with his diplomatic rôle. At no moment in Vienna did he deviate from the habits contracted in Paris and in the century that lay behind. Every morning while he was dressing, visitors were admitted, and often during the operation of shaving and attending to his hair by his valet, discussions of the utmost gravity, though in the guise of mere talk, were engaged in. I have frequently seen him in his drawing-room seated on a couch by the side of the beautiful Comtesse Edmond de Perigord, and surrounded by bearers of the most eminent political names, the ministers of the victorious Powers, who, standing, conversed with him, or rather listened, as to the lessons of a teacher. In our century, M, de Talleyrand is perhaps the only man who constantly obtained such a triumph.

M. le Duc de Dalberg was well worthy of figuring by the side of M. de Talleyrand. Sprung from one of the oldest and noblest families of Germany, he contributed powerfully on the 31st March to the resolution which brought back the Bourbons to the throne; at the same time, he had pronounced in favour of constitutional measures calculated to reassure public opinion, and to make France rally to the restored régime. Sharing the views and wishes of M. de Talleyrand at the time of the Restoration, the same bond of union drew them together at the Congress. The heartfelt aim of both was to restore to France the rank of which her misfortunes had deprived her among the Powers.[34]