The remainder of August was taken up with the discussion of the form in which the Rights of Man should be declared. Talleyrand intervened once or twice with effect. It was he, supported by Mirabeau, who induced the Assembly to cut out the two Articles relating to religion and morals. He has been censured for this, but his speech is a quite honest plea for a purely secular and political declaration, without any antagonism to religion. Long afterwards we shall find him pleading eloquently for moral instruction and for lessons in religion in the schools. On the 18th he was appointed Secretary, and on the 27th spoke with great effect in support of a proposed loan. In the long and stormy debates of September on the subject of the royal Veto, in the course of which the distinction of Right and Left became fully pronounced, Talleyrand took no part. The life of the people’s Assembly must have jarred on his taste. A hundred deputies at once would spring to their feet and out-bawl each other, only the roar of a Mirabeau or a Maury being heard through the din. Gallery also joined in—encouraging, threatening, whistling and singing. How Talleyrand must have longed for his Upper House—and a seat in it! Through this chaotic period it was almost useless to have a constructive policy. His one preoccupation was, as Aimée de Coigny afterwards said, to assist in allaying violence and to see that as little blood as possible be shed. His moderate colleagues on the Constitution-Committee resigned, but he and Sieyès were appointed on the new committee, and he continued his effort to frame a constitutional check for the daily increasing violence.
CHAPTER V
THE BREACH WITH THE CHURCH
When, in later years, Talleyrand looked back on the many oaths of allegiance he had successively sworn, he affirmed that he had never deserted any cause until it had abandoned itself. This is most certainly true of his desertion of the Royalist cause. His political ideal essentially and to the end included the element of limited monarchy; and his whole temper and taste would make him reluctant to turn from Versailles to the Paris of the end of 1789. A chaos, of which the issue was quite inconceivable, had succeeded to the older order. But the King and Queen had surrounded themselves with evil councillors from the first, and the throne was tottering. Talleyrand took no part in the long debates on the King’s Veto. The fact that the Assembly was discussing it at all meant, as he must have seen clearly, that a greater power than the King now ruled in France. He only can give or withhold an authority who possesses it.
Moreover, the royal party seemed to learn nothing from experience to the end. The King, indeed, was recognizing the permanence of the Revolution to some extent; nor was he without humane consciousness that it had been merited. With a wistful glance back at the golden days that were gone, he was clumsily learning his part as “Restorer of French Liberty” and loser of French autocracy. But “the Austrian” was far from reconciled, and what was left of the light-headed Court was frenzied with mortification. The debates on the Veto were answered by the military banquet in the Chateau on October 1st, by the huge white cockades at Versailles and black cockades at Paris. In the afternoon of the 5th the sitting of the Assembly is disturbed by whispers of Paris marching on Versailles. Presently the trickling stream of oratory is stopped by the sound of an approaching army, irregular and noisy. A deputation from Paris is announced, and fifteen indescribable females enter. With an implied disdain of constitution-making, they have come for mere vulgar bread. Talleyrand and his colleagues pour out and gaze with bewilderment on one more unique scene in the human drama—five thousand muddy, draggled, hungry, dangerous women of every type and complexion. The rest is familiar. Talleyrand saw the strange army surge and beat and roar about the gates of the Chateau, until the inevitable shot was fired, and the tide poured in and for a moment seemed likely to settle a good deal of the Constitution. Then it was rolled back upon Paris—but taking the King, now sunk to office of “chief baker” with it. Monarchy was over in France. There was no question of deserting it.
But what shall we say of his desertion of the Church, whose rights, privileges and properties he had sworn to defend on that gala-day at Autun seven months ago? When we go back to his election address, endorsed by the electors as their cahier of instructions, we are reminded that Talleyrand hinted long ago that titles to property must be scrutinised. It is almost certain that he was thinking of Church property. However that may be, the country had in October to face an appalling scarcity of bread and money. The loans could not be raised: the silver of the churches had been melted down: patriotic gifts had poured fruitlessly into the insatiable caisse: respectable ladies had sent their jewellery and other ladies had offered their earnings: monks had tendered their monasteries. The whole nation had caught the fever of August 4th. But the deficit remained, and very many eyes were turned towards the property of the Church, estimated to be worth 2,100,000,000 livres. The idea of appropriating this to national purposes had been broached in the Assembly early in August, and had been supported by several speakers. In the national emergency the proposal was certain to be voted sooner or later—probably sooner. Talleyrand put his name down for a speech on the subject, and it was delivered on October 10th. In it he urged the nation to assume the ownership of all the Church property in France.
It is impossible to read his speech without feeling that a sincere national interest inspires it. He points out that, in its distress, the nation has hitherto left one class of property untouched, and that, nevertheless, the clergy are probably expecting some change in their position, now that tithe has been suppressed. The clergy are not proprietors in the ordinary sense of the word. Estates are not so much left to them, as left for the performance of certain functions. A nation which has felt justified in dealing with tithe may go on to appropriate estates. In this a great saving can be made without injustice. The actual revenue of the Church is (to strike the average of estimates) 150,000,000. But religion can be fully provided for by the State out of a revenue of 100,000,000, and this may be gradually reduced to 80 or 85 millions. Sinecures will be abolished. Useless religious communities will be dispersed and compensated. At the same time the income of the curé will be raised to 1,200 livres a year and a house; and the clergy must have the first claim on the national revenue, and be paid in advance. He then shows how the sale of Church property may be made to yield 2,100,000,000 livres, and concludes with an attractive sketch of the expenditure of the profit.