On the next day he met Wilberforce and Eliot at Canterbury, and on the 12th they crossed to Calais. He found the journey to Reims more comfortable, and the appearance of the people more prosperous, than he had expected; but “the face of the country the dullest I ever saw.” The reception of the party at Reims, where they proposed to improve their French before proceeding to Paris, had a spice of novelty. Each of the three friends had trusted to the others to provide the needful introductions. As a result they were able only to obtain one introduction, through the London banker, Thellusson, and this proved to be to a grocer, whom they found behind his counter selling figs and raisins. Somewhat crestfallen, the three milords anglais returned to their inn. Not for ten days did they gain an entrée to the intendant of Reims, and through him to the Archbishop. His Grace was by no means an awe-inspiring personage; he figures in Wilberforce’s letters as a jolly fellow, about forty years of age, who played billiards like other people. The three friends also met an Abbé de Lageard, “a fellow of infinite humour,” who used to entertain them by visits of five or six hours at a stretch. To him, early in their acquaintance, Pitt mooted a grievance, that there, in the middle of Champagne, they could get no wine that was even tolerable. The abbé thereupon entertained them at his house with the best wine of the province, and with five hours of breezy talk.
Pitt, so we learn from Wilberforce, was the most fluent of the visitors on these occasions. His ear, “quick for every sound but music,” readily caught the intonations of the language, and he soon conversed with ease and fair accuracy. Some few of his mots are preserved by Wilberforce. In answer to the abbé’s inquiry about his opinion of French institutions, Pitt replied: “Sir, you have no political liberty, but as for liberty in civil affairs, you have more than you think.” His opinion on the durability of the English constitution is even more surprising. “The part of our constitution which will first perish is the prerogative of the King and the authority of the House of Peers.”[171] None of Pitt’s sayings is more remarkable than this, uttered as it was long before the storms of the French Revolution, and after the British monarchy had easily weathered the Atlantic gale. Possibly the conviction here recorded helps to explain why, at the close of the year, Pitt undertook to support the monarchy, in order to maintain that balance of the English constitution which all thinkers (especially Montesquieu) had praised as its peculiar excellence.
The third of the mots mentioned by Wilberforce illustrates the generosity of Pitt’s character, a trait in which his opponents, judging from his generally cold exterior, believed him to be deficient. On the abbé expressing surprise at so moral a country as England allowing itself to be governed by Fox, a man signally deficient in private character, Pitt replied: “Ah! you have not been under the wand of the magician.” Out of the varied scintillations of wit and gaiety with which Pitt brightened this five weeks’ sojourn in France, we catch a glimpse of these three sparks alone. Doubtless the weakness of Wilberforce’s eyes at that time accounts for the tantalizingly meagre entries in his diary; but, seeing how elusive a figure Pitt is, we must be thankful even for these slight jottings.
We are therefore left wondering about the intercourse between the three Englishmen and Talleyrand, who was then staying with his uncle, the Archbishop of Reims. Of their brilliant conversations—for where Talleyrand was dullness could not dwell—we know nothing. Talleyrand and Pitt, we are told, instructed one another in their mother tongues and exchanged ideas, especially on literature and the advantages of Free Trade.[172] What a subject for Landor, this interchange of thoughts between the ablest young men of the age, who agreed on all the essentials of politics and yet were soon to be forced by destiny into bitter conflict! How different the future might have been had Talleyrand had enough strength and straightforwardness to become chief of the French Republic!
The stay of the three friends at Reims ended on 9th October, owing to Pitt’s desire to reach Paris in time to see George Rose, a Secretary of the Treasury, who had been travelling on the Continent with Lord Thurlow. There can be little doubt that Pitt hoped to hear from him news respecting the situation in London; for they had confidential converse, in which Pitt gained over Rose completely to his side.[173] At Paris he had intercourse with Lafayette, Benjamin Franklin, and many other celebrities. By special invitation they shared in the gala festivities of the Court at Fontainebleau, and there saw not only the French Ministers and chief nobles, but also the King and Queen (15th-19th October). That was the heyday of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. The conclusion of the Peace of Versailles with England seemed to place France without question at the head of the political world. She had sundered the Empire of her rival, and with ordinary wisdom she might hope to keep the lead as a commercial and colonizing power. Strong in the alliance of Austria and Spain, with her friendship courted by the United States, Prussia, Sweden, and Holland—at times by the Czarina Catharine—France seemed to be high above the reach of adverse fortune. The prestige of the monarchy was as yet undimmed by the affair of the Diamond Necklace. The factious opposition of the Parlements had scarcely begun; and the days of hunting and festivity at Fontainebleau must have realized those visions of charm and beauty in which Burke has enshrined Marie Antoinette, “glittering like the morning star, full of life and splendour and joy.”
By her side at Court and in the hunting field was that strange opposite, her husband. What the friends thought of Louis XVI in hunting attire is shown by Wilberforce’s note—“clumsy strange figure in immense boots.” Whether the King spoke to them is doubtful, for his words were ever few, and etiquette forbade his conversing much with foreigners.[174] But the Queen, with her usual vivacity and wit, rallied them upon their friend, the grocer, at Reims. The courtiers often crowded round Pitt (so Wilberforce recalls), “and he behaved with great spirit, though he was sometimes a little bored when they talked to him about Parliamentary Reform.” At Fontainebleau Pitt met Lafayette at dinner in company with the American Minister, Franklin. Again we long to know of the converse of these representative men. Only one scrap survives, namely, that Pitt informed the Frenchman, whom his admirers termed “the hero of both worlds,” that his principles were too democratic for him.[175] When the tempest burst upon Western Europe, this soon became apparent.
Necker, the Minister who in 1789 aspired to ride on the winds and control the storm, was desirous of allying his family with that of Pitt. The ex-Controller-General of French Finances and his ambitious consort sought to strengthen their claims on the Government for a return to office, by an alliance with a powerful family. What alliance could be so brilliant for these Genevese Protestants as with the son of Chatham? We now know for certain that Necker and his wife urgently wished for this union; for a year later the mother, when seriously ill, wrote to her daughter (the future Mme. de Staël) in these terms:
I did desire that you should marry Mr. Pitt. I wished to confide you to the care of a husband who had made for himself a great name; I also could have wished for a son-in-law to whose care I could commend your poor father, and who would feel the full weight of his charge. You were not disposed to give me this satisfaction. Well! All is now forgiven.[176]
Clearly the match was to have been of an eleemosynary character; and all who rejoice in the eager exuberance of the life of Mme. de Staël cannot be surprised at her refusal, even when a young girl, to become a testamentary asset in the life of her father. Whether her repugnance at the idea was further increased by seeing Pitt in one of his “bored” moods, we do not know. Indeed it is uncertain whether they ever met. If we may judge from the sketch of Pitt written by Wilberforce in 1821, the affair was mooted in the frigid bargaining manner usual with French parents. Horace Walpole, a close friend of M. Necker, remarked to Lord Camden, who thereupon passed it on to Pitt, that the Neckers had so much respect for him that, if he claimed the hand of their daughter, he would not be refused—by the parents. What would have happened when Mlle. Necker came to be asked must be left to the imagination.[177]
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