The king delegated his powers to no single statesman, but held the reins in his own hand. His ability as a ruler consisted in his tact and moderation in managing the conflicting parties, and in his honest abstention from encroaching on the liberties of the people in rare emergencies; so that his reign was peaceable and tolerably successful. It required no inconsiderable ability to preserve the throne to his successor amid such a war of factions, and such a disposition for encroachments on the part of the royal family. In contrast with the splendid achievements and immense personality of Napoleon, Louis XVIII. is not a great figure in history; but had there been no Revolution and no Napoleon, he would have left the fame of a wise and benevolent sovereign. His only striking weakness was in submitting to the influence of either a favorite or a woman, like all the Bourbons from Henry IV. downward,--except perhaps Louis XVI., who would have been more fortunate had he yielded implicitly to the overpowering ascendency of such a woman as Madame de Maintenon, or such a minister as Richelieu.
The reign of Louis XVIII. is not marked by great events or great passions, except the unrelenting and bitter animosity of the Royalists to everything which characterized the Revolution or the military ascendency of Napoleon. By their incessant intrigues and unbounded hatreds and intolerant bigotry, they kept the kingdom in constant turmoils, even to the verge of revolution, gradually pushing the king into impolitic measures, against his will and his better judgment, and creating a reaction to all liberal movements. These turmoils, which are uninteresting to us, formed no inconsiderable part of the history of the times. The only great event of the reign was the war in Spain to suppress revolutionary ideas in that miserable country, ground down by priests and royal despotism, and a prey to every conceivable faction.
The ministry which the king appointed on his accession was composed of able, moderate, and honest men, but without any ascendant genius, except Talleyrand; who selected his colleagues, and retained for himself the portfolio of foreign affairs and the presidency of the Council, giving to Fouché the management of internal affairs. Loth was the king to accept the services of either,--the one a regicide, and the other a traitor. The whole royal family set up a howl of indignation at the appointment of Fouché; but it was deemed necessary to secure his services in order to maintain law and order, and the king remained firm against the earnest expostulations of his brother the Comte d'Artois, his niece the Duchesse d'Angoulême, and all the Royalists who had influence with him. But he despised and hated in his soul Fouché,--that minion of Napoleon, that product of blood and treason,--and waited only for a convenient time to banish him from the councils and the realm. Nor did he like Talleyrand (at that time the greatest man in France), but made use of his magnificent talents only until he could do without him. When the king felt established on his throne, he sent Talleyrand away; indeed, there was great pressure brought to bear for the dismissal by those who found the minister too moderate in his views. The king did not punish him, but kept him in a subordinate office, leaving him to enjoy his dignities and the immense fortune he had accumulated.
Talleyrand was born in 1754, and belonged to one of the most illustrious families in France. He was destined to the Church against his will, being from the start worldly, ambitious, and scandalously immoral; but he accepted his destiny, and soon distinguished himself at the Sorbonne for his literary attainments, for his wit and his social qualities. At twenty, as the young Abbé de Périgord, he was received into the highest society of Paris; his noble birth, his aristocratic and courtly manners, his convivial qualities, and his irrepressible wit made him a favorite in the gay circles which marked the early part of the reign of Louis XVI., while his extraordinary abilities and consummate tact naturally secured early promotion. In 1780 he was appointed to the office of general agent for the clergy of France, which brought him before the public. Eight years after, at the early age of thirty-four, he was made Bishop of Autun. In May, 1789, he became a member of the States-General, and with his fascinating eloquence tried to induce the clergy to surrender their tithes and church lands to the nation,--a result which was brought about soon after, nolens volens, by the genius of Mirabeau. Talleyrand hated the Church and despised the people, but, like Mirabeau, was in favor of a constitution like that of England, In all his changes he remained an aristocrat from his tastes, his education, and his rank, but veiled his views, whatever they were, with profound dissimulation, of which he was a consummate master. The laxity of his morals, the secret hatred of his order, and his infidel sentiments led to his excommunication, which troubled him but little. Out of the pale of the Church, he turned his thoughts to diplomacy, and was sent to London as an ambassador,--without, however, the official title and insignia of that high office,--where he fascinated the highest circles by the splendor of his conversation and the causticity of his wit. On his return to Paris he was distrusted by the Jacobins, and with difficulty made his escape to England; but the English government also distrusted a man of such boundless intrigue, and ordered him to quit the country within twenty-four hours. He fled to America at the age of forty, with straitened means, but after the close of the Reign of Terror returned to Paris, and six months later was made foreign minister under the Directory. This office he did not long retain, failing to secure the confidence of the government. The austere Carnot said of him:--
"That man brings with him all the vices of the old régime, without being able to acquire a single virtue of the new one. He possesses no fixed principles, but changes them as he does his linen, adopting them according to the fashion of the day. He was a philosopher when philosophy was in vogue; a republican now, because it is necessary at present to be so in order to become anything; to-morrow he would proclaim and uphold tyranny, if he could thereby serve his own interests. I will not have him at any price; and so long as I am at the helm of State he shall be nothing."
When Bonaparte returned from Egypt, Citizen Talleyrand had been six months out of office, and he saw that it would be for his interest to put himself in intimate connection with the most powerful man in France. Besides, as a diplomatist, he saw that only in a monarchical government could he have employment. Napoleon, who seldom made a mistake in his estimate of character, perceived that Talleyrand was just the man for his purpose,--talented, dexterous, unscrupulous, and sagacious,--and made him his minister of foreign affairs, utterly indifferent as to his private character. Nor could he politically have made a wiser choice; for it was Talleyrand who made the Concordat with the Pope, the Treaty of Luneville, and the Peace of Amiens. Napoleon wanted a practical man in the diplomatic post,--neither a pedant nor an idealist; and that was just what Talleyrand was,--a man to meet emergencies, a man to build up a throne. But even Napoleon got tired of him at last, and Talleyrand retired with the dignity of vice-grand elector of the empire, grand chamberlain, and Prince of Benevento, together with a fortune, it is said, of thirty million francs.
"How did you acquire your riches?" blandly asked the Emperor one day. "In the simplest way in the world," replied the ex-minister. "I bought stock the day before the 18th Brumaire [when Napoleon overthrew the Directory], and sold it again the day after."
When Napoleon meditated the conquest of Spain, Talleyrand, like Metternich, saw that it would be a blunder, and frankly told the Emperor his opinion,--a thing greatly to his credit. But his advice enraged Napoleon, who could brook no opposition or dissent, and he was turned out of his office as chamberlain. Talleyrand avenged himself by plotting against his sovereign, foreseeing his fall, and by betraying him to the Bourbons. He gave his support to Louis XVIII., because he saw that the only government then possible for France was one combining legitimacy with constitutional checks; for Talleyrand, with all his changes and treasons, liked neither an unfettered despotism nor democratic rule. As one of those who acted with the revolutionists, he was liberal in his ideas; but as the servant of royalty he wished to see a firmly established government, which to his mind was impossible with the reign of demagogues. When the Congress of Vienna assembled, he was sent to it as the French plenipotentiary. And he did good work at the Congress for his sovereign, whose representative he was, and for his country by contriving with his adroit manipulations to alienate the northern from the southern States of Germany, making the latter allies of France and the former allies of Russia,--in other words, practically dividing Germany, which it was the work of Bismarck afterward to unite. A united Germany Talleyrand regarded as threatening to the interests of France; and he contrived to bring France back again into political importance,-- to restore her rank among the great Powers. He did not bargain for spoils, like the other plenipotentiaries; he only strove to preserve the nationality of France, and to secure her ancient limits, which Prussia in her greed and hatred would have destroyed or impaired but for the magnanimity of the Czar Alexander and the firmness of Lord Castlereagh.
On his return from the Congress of Vienna, the reign of Talleyrand as prime minister was short; and as his power was comparatively small under both Louis XVIII. and his successor Charles X., and as he was not the representative of reactionary ideas or movements, but only of a firm government, I do not give to him the leadership of the counter-revolution. He was unquestionably the greatest statesman at that time in France, though indolent, careless, and without power as an orator.
Who was then the great exponent of reaction, and of antagonism to liberal and progressive opinions, during the reigns of the restored Bourbons? It was not the king himself, Louis XVIII.; for he did all he could to repress the fanatical zeal of his family and of the royalist party. He despised the feeble mind of his brother, the Comte d'Artois, his narrow intolerance, and his court of priests and bigots, and was in perpetual conflict with him as a politician, while at the same time he clung to him with the ties of natural affection.