M. de Talleyrand, before proceeding to Vienna, had drawn up his own instructions. It was said on excellent authority that he strictly adhered to them, and that the various phases of the negotiations had been foreseen and indicated by him with marvellous sagacity. What is not generally known is the existence of two different sets of private correspondence addressed to Paris by the French plenipotentiaries; one, partly from the pen of and edited by M. de la Besnadière, and exclusively anecdotal, was sent to King Louis XVIII. M. de Talleyrand positively besprinkled it with those witty and original sallies, those subtle and profound remarks, characteristic of him. The other, exclusively political and principally indited by the Duc de Dalberg, went straight to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.[35]
On the day in question, there were few guests to dinner at M. de Talleyrand’s. This afforded me the opportunity of observing more attentively and of listening more carefully: each figure of such a picture could be studied separately and with greater advantage.
In addition to the members of the French Mission, there were only a few strangers, namely, the Comte Razumowski, General Pozzo di Borgo, and the Duc de Richelieu. When I parted from the last at Odessa in 1812, he was in a position most trying to a governor-general.[36] The plague was ravaging his provinces of the Chersonese and the Taurida, and it required all his energy to get rid of such an importunate visitor. In those cruel circumstances he displayed the most admirable courage.
My questions followed each other most rapidly, as my pleasure at seeing him again was great. I was seated between him and M. de la Besnadière, and we went back with great interest to the days of our past dangers; we chatted about the ravages of the plague as sailors preserved from shipwreck would have spoken of the hidden rocks on which their craft might have gone to pieces.
All those who have known the Duc de Richelieu are aware of the sincere friendship he was apt to inspire. Few men in their public capacity have shown a nobler character, and in their eminent functions a stricter disinterestedness. The esteem of all parties was his reward.
It is to him Russia owes, in the founding of Odessa, one of her most precious commercial centres. Up to that period, the duke was only distinguished for his military exploits. Having been sent to the shores of the Black Sea by Emperor Alexander, who understood all the importance of the site, Richelieu displayed in his fresh sphere of activity the greatest talent, from an administrative standpoint. In a few years, a harbour without life, and a few houses without tenants, were replaced by an accessible and spacious port and a rich and elegant town. The loyalty of his character contributed to draw around him merchants and colonisers. In spite of the plague and of the suspension of all commercial operations, Odessa, under his firm and enlightened administration, instead of declining, increased each day in prosperity. At present it is one of the most important points of the East.
Thereafter, M. de Richelieu passed from the government of the Taurida to that of his own country. He hesitated for a long while before assuming a burden he fancied to be beyond his strength, and only yielded at the repeated instances of Emperor Alexander. Obliged, in virtue of his office, to sign the disastrous treaties of 1815, he bore with patriotic fortitude their odious consequences. Students of history will remember his efforts at the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle (1818), and the happy results which crowned them. History may not, perhaps, acquiesce in his sufficient knowledge of the men and places which he had governed, but she will always refer with grateful remembrance to his sterling virtues and his exalted patriotism.
The conversation became general, and followed the direction given to it by the personages, interesting in so many respects, taking part in it. M. Pozzo di Borgo, whom I saw on that occasion for the first time, seemed to me to unite the finesse, the liveliness of intellect, and the imagination of his countrymen. An avowed enemy of Bonaparte since the beginning of his career, he had never disguised his joy at the latter’s fall. In a few words he summed up all the causes which were inevitably to lead to the acceleration of that great catastrophe.[37]
At that time a simple general of infantry in the Russian service, M. Pozzo di Borgo never deviated from the line of conduct which led him subsequently to exercise such a great influence on the destinies of Europe. Born in Corsica, and deputy for the island in the Legislative Assembly, he held the same ardent opinions which had made him conspicuous in his own country. It was he who in July 1792 induced the Assembly to declare war against the German Emperor. After the revolution of August 10th, his name was found mentioned in the papers of Louis XVI. A fellow-deputy for Corsica, one of the commissaries entrusted with the examination of those papers, informed him, it was said, of the danger he might be running, and prevailed upon him to leave Paris. On his return to Corsica, he changed his colours. Resolved to support the designs for rendering the island independent, he joined the party of Paoli, and in 1793, the Convention summoned him, as well as the general, to its bar, to account for his conduct. Neither obeyed the summons: the English army occupied the island, and M. Pozzo di Borgo was appointed president of the Council of State under Eliot, who was raised to the dignity of viceroy. Nevertheless, during his tenure of office there arose so many complaints against him that Eliot advised him to retire, at the request of Paoli, who had become afraid of the number of enemies his protégé had managed to array against himself. M. Pozzo di Borgo then went to London, where he was employed by the government in the secret diplomatic service. The British Government itself subsequently admitted that, thanks to the influence of Prince Czartoryski, Pozzo di Borgo had passed into the secret political service of Russia. The same good fortune that attended him in his political functions remained by his side on the battlefield: he obtained rapid promotion, and at Leipzig he fought as major-general under the orders of another Frenchman, to-day King of Sweden.[38] It was Pozzo di Borgo who in 1814 settled the question of the Allied Powers marching upon Paris, and who in their deliberations removed all apprehension on the subject. Every one remembers the dignities with which he was subsequently invested, and the various phases of his political career. Already at the Congress he was credited with a sentence which he never denied, and which laid bare his thoughts. ‘France,’ he said, ‘is a seething saucepan; whatever comes out of it ought to be flung back into it.’ M. Pozzo di Borgo’s conversation did not lack piquancy; nevertheless, it did not take long to find out that the learning he somewhat ostentatiously displayed was neither solid nor extensive, nor profound. He had a mania for quoting, but not the talent of varying his quotations. For instance, at M. de Talleyrand’s, he supported an argument by a passage from Dante, a phrase of Tacitus, and shreds from English orators. M. de la Besnadière told me that every one of those citations had already done duty two days previously at the Prince de Hardenberg’s.
When we went into the drawing-room, a good many distinguished personages were already there. In fact, to see this forgathering of the majority of the members of the Corps Diplomatique grouping themselves around M. de Talleyrand, the supposition would have been pardonable that his residence was the locale of the Congress.