God bless you, my dear brother.
The time had now arrived when the English Cabinet believed that an attempt might be made to negotiate for peace, without compromising its honour. In the preceding March, the ambassador to the Helvetic States had been authorized to inquire of the Government of France, through the medium of their representative, whether they were disposed to entertain such a negotiation. The answer was so unsatisfactory, laying down as a peremptory condition the retention of all those conquests which, during the course of the war, had been annexed to the republic, that nothing more was then done in the matter. The subject was resumed in September, and, the Directory having signified their readiness to grant passports to any persons who should be furnished with full powers and official papers, Lord Malmesbury was appointed as plenipotentiary on the part of His Britannic Majesty to treat for peace with the French Republic. On the 22nd of October his Lordship announced to M. de la Croix, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, his arrival in Paris in that capacity. The negotiations occupied nearly two months, and the main point of difficulty turned upon the Netherlands, Lord Malmesbury, who acted strictly on his instructions, making the restoration of the Netherlands a sine quâ non, and M. de la Croix repeatedly stating that this difficulty was one which could not be overcome. The negotiations had arrived at that stage which made this insuperable difficulty perfectly clear and unmistakeable on both sides, when Mr. Talbot, a gentleman connected with Lord Malmesbury's embassy, addressed the following letter to Lord Buckingham. No allusion will be found in it to the pending negotiations, which were of too delicate and important a nature to be touched upon in a private letter; but it is very curious and interesting, as presenting a picture of the state of France at that period.
MR. TALBOT TO THE MARQUIS OF BUCKINGHAM.
Paris, Dec. 18th, 1796.
My Lord,
Your Lordship, I trust, is aware of my motives for not having written to you since I left England; I shall, therefore, make no apologies for my neglect; but I must beg leave to assure your Lordship that I am, notwithstanding the urgency of my reasons, so much ashamed of the omission, that I now feel much embarrassed in taking up my pen.
The only letters I have hitherto sent to England have been to Lord Grenville, in answer to those he has done me the honour to write; and to Mr. B. Taylor, his secretary, for some articles which I stood in need of.
Your Lordship has without doubt received much better accounts of the appearance and state of things in this country than it is in my power to communicate; however, I will attempt a description of what has struck me as worthy of notice, and rely upon your kind indulgence for my errors.
Our first entrance into France was certainly not attended with the reception which might have been expected, under the particular circumstances in which we came. It is true a good many people of all sorts were upon the quay at Calais when we arrived, but they showed no signs of joy or any other feeling more than the arrival of an indifferent vessel would have occasioned; and very shortly after we had landed, and gone to the inn, the crowd was dispersed, and everything seemed as silent as if nothing had happened. Indeed, all those we conversed with expressed their happiness at seeing us, and wished success to the negotiation; and all the principal officers of the Government stationed there waited upon Lord Malmesbury with the utmost civility; but the bulk of the inhabitants—whether they were ignorant of the arrival of an envoy to propose peace, or whether they were afraid to express their satisfaction in any public manner, I cannot say—manifested not the least sign of rejoicing.
Nothing very material occurred between this place and Paris. The aubergistes and post-masters were almost the only persons with whom we had any conversation, and their language uniformly was that France was most anxiously desirous for the restoration of peace; that their sufferings had been more than they could describe, but that latterly their situation was much mended by the diminution in the price of provisions. But I was not inclined to give much credit to them, imagining that this language was intended to flatter us, and coming from those who had suffered more than any of their description in France, from the intercourse between the two countries being stopped. It must, however, be allowed that a general gloom seemed to prevail; and very little of that gaiety for which this nation was formerly remarkable was to be observed. At Amiens, I remember, the people of the inn where we supped entered more fully and with less reserve into the detail of their calamities. There had been a considerable manufacture of woollen cloths in this town, in which at this time no more than two hundred people were employed.
I profited of the opportunity which the changing horses afforded me to see the Château of Chantilly. I found it totally stripped of its furniture, and every decoration that bore the smallest reference to armorial bearings was defaced; but otherwise the building has not suffered much injury. The statue of the great Condé on the principal staircase remains, but the head is cut off. The barbarians were not content with beheading the statues of men, but they have likewise done so to all the busts of stags placed over the stalls in the stables. The château was used as a prison in the time of Robespierre, and almost all the apartments continue still divided into small spaces for that purpose. The gardens are totally destroyed, but the park has met with no injury further than the almost total destruction of the game. There is a keeper appointed by the nation for the protection of the wood. The timber on the opposite side of the river is chiefly cut down, the land having been sold.