Talleyrand’s diocesans would be represented on the benches of provincial delegates, but we do not find them quarrelling with him again until he accepts the civil constitution of the clergy. In the discussions of religious and ecclesiastical affairs that continued through the whole year he took no part, except, as I said, to intervene twice when there seemed danger of injustice to the clergy. On the financial side of the proceedings he spoke several times. In their ignorance of the elements of political economy, the majority wished to treat the confiscated estates as so much wealth actually added to the country’s resources, or to dispose of them at a ruinous loss. Talleyrand firmly pointed out the fallacies of their view, and pleaded for a wise and business-like procedure in turning the estates into available money. The flooding of the country with paper-money—“robbery by violence” Mirabeau called it—was a serious addition to the financial confusion of the times. But in spite of Talleyrand’s clear and earnest warning, supported by all the financiers, the temptation to issue the paper-currency on the strength of the new estates was too great, and Talleyrand had again to bemoan in private the immature democracy that had assumed power. He retained his popularity, however, and was mentioned for the Archbishopric of Paris in September. He wrote a curious letter to the Moniteur on the 8th of September, disclaiming any ambition for the post, but at the same time replying to the personal charges which the rumour had caused the Right to circulate. He denied that he was addicted to heavy gambling, but admitted that he had won 30,000 francs at the Chess Club. With a rather hollow show of penitence, he allowed that he had no excuse to make for his gaming, and said that the State ought to interfere and protect citizens from themselves in the matter.
But the determination of the Constituent Assembly to control the Church and force it into the political unity of the State was gradually nearing its climax, and was to close Talleyrand’s clerical career. It is hardly surprising that he did not take part in the debates. The issue was never really doubtful, and on the whole would not displease Talleyrand. His abstinence should be construed in his favour; no one could seriously expect him to stand for the autonomy of the Church. The priest was, in his opinion, a moral functionary (for the masses) or nothing, and his work was part of the nation’s life. His experience and his knowledge of history would tell him the danger of leaving the clergy “a State within a State.” He would regard with satisfaction the suppression (on the just conditions he had himself laid down) of the monastic orders and the redistribution of income. He would hardly resent the rearrangement of ecclesiastical divisions, the exclusion of the Pope, and the elective character of the new hierarchy. Certainly he must have foreseen the disturbances that interference in these matters would cause, but that was a concern of the executive. With the Archbishop of Sens (de Brienne), the Bishop of Orleans, the Bishop of Vivières, three bishops in partibus, and 66 curés, he took the oath and accepted the civil constitution of the clergy. Archbishop Dillon and 130 prelates refused to submit—the majority of them doing so, Dillon said, as gentlemen, not as theologians. The distinction is unfortunate, though necessary. They had plunged the country in a civil war which only a strict regard for their theology could have justified.
Talleyrand had no more respect for theology than Dillon (and “most of his colleagues,” to use Dillon’s words), but he professed to regard the new State control as purely disciplinary, and wrote to invite his clergy to follow his example. They sent him a fiery reply, promising him “infamy in this world and eternal reprobation in the next,” and declining to “follow him into the abyss.” After the passing of the civil constitution the municipal authorities of Autun had notified Talleyrand’s chapter of the cessation of their functions, and sealed the door of the chapter-house. They continued to meet, however, in private and discuss the morals of their bishop. In the rearrangement of ecclesiastical areas the authorities had contrived to leave Autun an episcopal centre, but on January 21st Talleyrand resigned his See. He had, he politely explained, been elected a member of the Department of Paris, and must in future reside constantly in the capital! Lytton’s statement that Talleyrand remained throughout life very sensitive to any reference to his bishopric, and that a lady once greatly disturbed him by dropping the word “lawn,” is not to be taken seriously. His friends continued to call him “the bishop” for years after (witness the correspondence in 1792 of Narbonne and Lauzun). There is as little plausibility in the story of the Prince of Condé once asking him “what had become of some precious relative of his who used to be Bishop of Autun.” No one not gifted with the skin of an elephant would venture to say such things to Talleyrand. I may add that Talleyrand, under the Directorate, more than once sent help to emigrant members of his old clergy who had censured him.
One more episcopal act must be mentioned before Monseigneur becomes plain Citizen Talleyrand. The administration appointed two new bishops, but had retained sufficient respect for the apostolic succession to require their proper consecration. Several of the rallied prelates refused, and Talleyrand promised to officiate, with the assistance of two of the bishops in partibus, Gobel and Mirondot. The latter withdrew at the last moment. Talleyrand saw him, and is said to have worked on his feelings by toying with the handle of a pistol and talking of suicide. The three bishops and the candidates conducted this ceremony on the following day in a curious environment. The chapel was strongly guarded by soldiers, and a military band supplied the music. Saint-Sulpice sent its master of ceremonies to keep the eye of a ritualist expert on Talleyrand, but was disappointed in its search for an essential flaw. The American envoy, Morris, tells that Talleyrand’s dread of violence from the orthodox occasioned a good deal of grief to his friend, Mme. de Flahaut. The night before the ceremony she received an envelope containing his will, and sent in search of him. He did not return to his house that night, and she feared a catastrophe. The truth was that, conceiving an attack to be possible, he had slept away from home, and had directed his will to be sent to her only in case of anything happening.
Lytton, a very careful if not generous judge of Talleyrand’s career, looks upon this ordination as one of his “unpardonable” acts. It is one of those acts as to which one’s judgment is almost inevitably swayed by one’s religious views. Talleyrand explains in his memoirs that he did it to save the Gallican Church from falling into Presbyterianism from sheer lack of bishops. The paragraph is ingenious, but not very convincing. Nearer to the point seems to be an answer he gave in later years, according to a letter of the Duchess de Dino to Dupanloup. When asked to explain some action or other, he answered that it was impossible to explain many things done at the time of the Revolution; the disorder was so great that people hardly knew what they were doing. If we could succeed in putting ourselves in the frame of mind of a man who had lived through the bewilderingly rapid changes of 1789 and 1790, we should be in a position to pass moral judgment on him. To do it in the light of our calm standards, in our placid days, is absurd. However, my purpose is only to have Talleyrand understood, and there is in this ordination nothing inconsistent with the ideas and policy he has hitherto followed.
But Rome now found itself obliged to interfere and clip the wings of this dangerous bishop at large. On May 1st the Moniteur published the announcement from the Vatican that Talleyrand was suspended, and would incur excommunication if he “did not return to penance within the space of forty days.” The romantic biographers say that the only notice Talleyrand took of it was to invite Lauzun to supper to console him, adding that “as he was now denied fire and water they would have to be content with wine and iced foods.” Unfortunately, the story had been told before, and Talleyrand did not plagiarise. The censure would not distress him. We can, in fact, imagine that he would close his clerical career with some relief. It had imposed not a little duplicity on him. In justice to him we must remember that he had been forced into the clerical estate, had been unchecked in his irregular ideas and habits, had been promoted from order to order by those who were fully acquainted with them, and, in fine, found a position like his sanctioned by almost his whole social class. Yet this chapter alone of his career will prevent one from ever calling him “great,” except in the qualified sense of a great diplomatist.
CHAPTER VI
CITIZEN TALLEYRAND