Another feature of the situation was that he had incurred the hostility of the Queen, and she robbed him of a cardinal’s hat in that very year; though the hat might have been very much in the way in 1791. The Countess de Brionne persuaded the King of Sweden to ask the Pope for a hat for the Abbé de Périgord. The Pope, who at that time was friendly with the Protestant prince, agreed, and the matter was nearly arranged when the diamond-necklace affair happened. Mme. de Brionnne sided with de Rohan, and Talleyrand followed. The Queen took a small revenge by getting the Austrian Ambassador to protest against another hat being sent to France, and Talleyrand was disappointed. Later, when the archbishopric of Bourges fell vacant, and he was passed over, Talleyrand complained bitterly to his friend Choiseul. It was not until the end of 1788, that he became Bishop of Autun.
In the meantime Talleyrand had opened his political career on other than ecclesiastical questions. I have already said that, whilst he lived at Bellechasse, he visited not only fashionable ladies, savants and artists, but also some of the great statesmen of the last generation. He met Maurepas, a typical representative of the decaying order, Malesherbes, the great parliamentarian and liberal reformer, and Turgot. As Maurepas and Turgot died in 1781, he must have given serious attention to political matters as soon as, or even before, he left the Sorbonne. With the elder Choiseul in his retirement he would be more closely connected through his intimacy with the nephew. The outbreak of the American war and the departure of a number of young French nobles, had done even more than the prospect of national bankruptcy to arouse political interest. Franklin’s house at Passy was besieged by fair enthusiasts, eager to embrace him; his fur cap was copied by every dandy in Paris, and constitutional problems were discussed by young ladies in the intervals of a dance. “The zeal for America is simply sublime,” says Michelet; while Alison has opined that “the American war was the great change which blew into a flame the embers of innovation.” The philosophical party certainly tried to give it that character. When Lafayette and his nobles returned with an account of the glorious new constitution and democracy, the concrete instance led to a more general discussion, which was boldly, though in a limited extent (for there were no republicans yet to speak of) applied to France. Talleyrand was not carried away in the flood. He did fit out a privateer with his friend Choiseul, begging a few guns from the Ministry of Marine; but he ridiculed the general enthusiasm. The next fashion was Anglo-mania, and this in turn raised constitutional questions of interest to France.[12]
It is clear that, from an early stage of his attention to the questions raised in the salons and circles by these episodes, Talleyrand was prepared for popular representation, and was disposed to favour the English model. His manifesto, issued on the eve of the States-General, will show us that he did not wait for the logic of events to make him embrace democracy, but there are earlier indications. During the Assembly of the Notables in 1787 he complained to Choiseul that “Paris was taking its cue from the Assembly instead of an instructed Paris impressing its opinion on the Assembly;” and in the same letter he observed with satisfaction that “the people were going to count for something,” and that “the granting of provincial administration [local self-government] and the abolition of privileges would prove a source of great gain.” The tragic incompetency of the King and Queen to master the situation of their country impressed him. Mere “goodness of heart” was fatal. “Too great a familiarity in sovereigns,” he says in his memoirs, “inspires love rather than respect, and at the first mishap affection goes.” It was the opinion of a man in whom (to turn his own words upon himself) “philosophic ideas had replaced sentiments,” but it expresses the facts here. The network of noble and ecclesiastical privileges made aristocracy impossible in an impoverished country. The choice was between a strong autocrat (whom the gods gave when they willed) and a monarchy limited by an educated democracy. With Montesquieu he leaned to the latter; the satirical description of France as “an autocracy tempered with lampoons” is attributed to him. With Turgot he felt that the people must be educated up to self-government. He pleaded strongly for more efficient and more comprehensive education. A contemporary gives this as his fad. He travelled in privileged provinces like Brittany, and noted the good result of local administration. He would hardly admit moral feeling in the matter, but as a practical politician he was for gradual and constitutional, but thorough, reform.
But the central question of French politics to every thoughtful man was that of finance. He saw nobles coquetting with democracy who were not prepared to surrender a tithe of those pecuniary privileges which were strangling the actual order. He saw constitutionalists working out their “theory of irregular verbs” without even a moderate grasp of the crucial need. He immediately set himself to master the science of finance and the fiscal disorders of his country. His archiepiscopal friends were well acquainted with the one, and such friends as Panchaud and Dupont de Nemours would help him with both. His first open political expression was a vehement attack on Necker after his assumption of power in 1776. There was a good deal of parti pris in his first attack. He ridiculed the person, the features, the dress, the speech, and everything about Necker, as well as his financial operations. But he did oppose on conviction the tactics of the Genevese banker. He thought them too slow, too timid, too small-minded to rescue France from the precipice. At last he made an opportunity for a constructive effort. The funds of the clergy were interested in the bank founded by Turgot, and when anxiety arose about this in 1784 he forced his position as Agent-General (so he himself says), and drew up a memoir in which he proposed a reconstruction of the bank. The memoir attracted much attention. One elderly banker listened to it almost with tears—at the pretty way in which he put banking common-places, Talleyrand says. A number of experts became acquainted with him—Foulon, Sainte-Foy, Daudé, &c. Presently he was introduced to Calonne, the new Minister of Finance, a man of great ability but fitful and unscrupulous.
Calonne’s failure is a matter of general history, but during the three years of his ministry Talleyrand was usefully associated with him. The stormy Mirabeau also appears on the scene, and alternately embraces and quarrels with Talleyrand. His dispatches from Berlin, where he acted as a kind of secret agent, were nearly all edited by Talleyrand before being submitted to the King. He addresses Talleyrand from Berlin as his “dear master,” but has a violent quarrel with him, and calls him “a wretched, mean, greedy, intriguing creature,” when he returns to Paris, on account of some offensive allusion to his mistress. Talleyrand overlooked his violence and vulgarity, and intervened for him when he published one of his spirited attacks on Calonne. But Talleyrand’s next important act was to help in preparing a scheme for the redemption of the debt of the clergy. Calonne had thought of parrying the growing demand for the convocation of the States-General by summoning an Assembly of Notables. Talleyrand speaks of his scheme as “a vast plan,” but without base, as the Notables had no power whatever to raise the necessary supplies. However, it afforded him an opportunity to do helpful work. The Assembly was to meet on February 22nd (1787), and on the 14th Calonne invited Talleyrand,[13] Dupont de Nemours, and several others to come to assist him in preparing the papers to be submitted. They found a chaos of material, and none of the work done. They divided the work, Talleyrand undertaking to write the memoir and law on the new grain-proposals. He also helped M. de Saint-Genis to draw up a scheme for the redemption of the debt of the clergy. This was to be part of Calonne’s plan of a general land-tax and the abolition of all pecuniary privileges.
Calonne’s expedient, as is known, only brought about his own downfall. Talleyrand, in Paris, met these angry notables as they filled the salons during the Easter recess, and heard their comments on the impertinence of the subvention territoriale, by which they, the nobles and clergy, were to be mulcted. Loménie de Brienne fostered the opposition amongst the clergy. Calonne was dismissed, and, after an interval of nonentities, the Archbishop of Toulouse secured the long-coveted honour, chiefly through the influence of the Queen. Talleyrand would expect few favours from de Brienne (of whom he writes in the memoirs with disdain and dislike) and the Queen’s party. He felt that the near future would smooth out their intrigue. “The passion of the hour was the curtailment of the royal authority,” he says. The King was pitied and the Queen regarded with cold suspicion. The enormous deficit dismayed thoughtful men, whilst frivolous nobles called airily for a declaration of national bankruptcy as a means of salvation they had themselves tried with success. The letters which Talleyrand then wrote to his friend at Constantinople show that his observations in the memoirs faithfully convey the ideas he had at the time. Certain technical improvements in finance would do something, but it was clear that the situation of the nobility and clergy must change. The life-blood of France was being sucked for the support of a parasitic growth. Financial privileges must be curtailed or abolished. Who would cut away the exhausting growth of commissions, sinecures, benefices, and gifts? Clearly, neither the nobles themselves nor the King. The country must be prepared for popular representation on the English model—as seen through the merciful mists of the Channel. Talleyrand proceeded with interest to the Provincial Assembly at Chalons, to which he was deputed as abbé of St. Denis at Rheims.
The Provincial Assembly was a compromise with the new idea of popular representation. Six members of the clerical order and six of the nobility were pitted against twelve of the Third Estate; equal representation for the sansculottist twenty millions against the privileged two hundred thousand. And the president was to be chosen from the first two orders. These twenty-five nominated twenty-four other members, and one-fourth of the Assembly was to retire every year. At the elections to replace them everyone who paid ten livres in taxes was entitled to vote. Archbishop Talleyrand presided at Chalons, and must have gratified his nephew and the Third Estate at least by his outspoken denunciation of “greed” and his welcome of the promised reform of taxation. The work of these Assemblies was presently transferred to Versailles, in the opening of the States-General, and it need not be dwelt on. Talleyrand is believed to be the author of two long memoranda, submitted to the Chalons Assembly, on points relating to taxation. He was confirmed in his opinion of the value of these schools of popular training, for we find him urging the reopening of them in the National Assembly in 1789.
From an engraving, after a miniature by M. Gratis.
LOUIS XVI.