Napoleon, apparently, had a large idea of the privileges he had secured for Talleyrand, and he presently put great pressure on him to marry Mme. Grand. Talleyrand does not seem to have cared at all for going through the meaningless ceremony. He knew he was not free to marry from the ecclesiastical point of view, and a civil contract would not in any case alter his relations to the lady of his choice. However, Mme. Grand felt that the form of marriage would improve her position. The etiquette of the Tuileries was developing once more. There was, one observer says, “not exactly a Court, but no longer a camp.” She appealed to Napoleon through Josephine, and Talleyrand was forced to go through the ceremony of marriage. The civil function was performed on September 10th, 1803, and the Church graciously blessed the diplomatic marriage on the following day. In the spiteful mood of later years Napoleon spoke of the marriage he had himself brought about as a “a triumph of immorality.” He seems to have discovered at St. Helena that in Catholic eyes a priest is “a priest for ever”; and he contrives to forget that Mme. Grand was not a “married woman” but a divorcée.[37] The story runs that the first time she appeared at a levee after the marriage the Emperor thought fit to express a hope that “the good conduct of Citoyenne Talleyrand would help them to forget the escapades of Mme. Grand.” She replied that, with the example of Citoyenne Bonaparte before her, she would do her best.
By this time the heavy diplomatic work that followed the treaties of Lunéville and Amiens was over, and the German princes had ceased (for the time) to struggle for the debris of the Holy Roman Empire. Talleyrand found himself in a position of great wealth, and with one or two years of comparative leisure. His official residence, a large mansion built under the old regime by a rich colonist, was the Hotel Galiffet in the Rue St. Dominique. He had wandered far since the day when he began his public life in a small house of the same street in 1778, but the tense experiences of those fifteen years had made little change in him. The Revolution and the exile might never have occurred. His principles were unchanged, his wit as keen as ever, his light cynicism not a shade less amiable, his fine taste for books, for food, or for society unimpaired. Lytton describes him at this time reclining, day by day, on a couch near the fire in his salon[38] and entertaining a brilliant circle of visitors. His chief Parisian friends at this time were Montrond, the Duc de Laval, Sainte-Foix, General Duroc, Colonel Beauharnais, Louis, Dalberg, and others of the wittier and more cultured men of the time. The dress and manners of the Revolution were now never seen in polite society. The artificial fraternity of the past, with its “thou” and “citizen,” was abandoned. Men ceased to be brothers and became friends once more. The long military coat and high boots and the tricolor were kept in the camp. The old life was being silently restored. Supple, graceful figures in Bourbon coats, with light rapiers dangling, and long silk hose and buckled shoes, trod the polished floors with confidence. Nature had been thrust out with a fork.
TALLEYRAND
(Under Napoleon).
Talleyrand’s hotel was the chief centre of the revival. People of taste went to the Tuileries as they went to church or to business. There was little gaiety there. Napoleon, who certainly could talk well, was habitually gloomy and retired; and one had an uneasy consciousness of his temper and his command of language that is not found in the dictionary. His family and the family of his wife were already in bitter antagonism around him as to the succession to the coming empire. Josephine had displayed, possibly even felt, a tardy devotion to him as his genius fully revealed itself, but she had now herself to bemoan an infidelity which she conceived in the most sombre colours; and Napoleon, with proof about him of his own fertility, bitterly dwelt on her barrenness. His brothers did not tend to relieve his depression. He could not fondle the pretty son of Louis but the latter would flash forth an angry suspicion of an incestuous relation to Hortense. Lucien and Jerome would not be content to seduce, but must disgrace the family by marrying, two charming nobodies. It is a well known story how on one occasion, when Napoleon was giving a sedate family party, from which Mme. Tallien and other lively friends of Josephine were excluded, a message was handed to the First Consul, and he burst forth with a violent and inelegant complaint that “Lucien had married his mistress”—to give a polite turn to the phrase.
At Talleyrand’s house there was neither restraint nor affectation. Lord Brougham tells us that “nothing could be more perfect than Talleyrand’s temper and disposition in private life.” Mme. Rémusat affirms that Talleyrand had quickly regretted his choice, but that talkative lady did not love Mme. Talleyrand. The malicious biographers are generally content to give us piquant stories of her lack of culture. One of the chief of these—the protean story of her taking Sir George Robinson for Robinson Crusoe, or Denou for the author of Defoe’s work—has been completely discredited by Pichot, an authority on legends. There are more authentic, but less interesting, stories of her ignorance, which must certainly have bored Talleyrand at times. On the whole, the evidence seems to indicate—especially on its negative side—that they lived pleasantly and faithfully together for many years. The wife was, unfortunately, childless. As Talleyrand deeply loved children this must have been a source of great disappointment. He alleviated it by adopting the daughter of a friend who had died in England, and children’s balls were frequently given at his hotel.
It was not unnatural that as soon as Napoleon felt his conduct and person to be secretly assailed with witticisms and criticisms he should look to Talleyrand’s hotel for the chief source. There was so much in his melodramatic poses to make the hated Faubourg St. Germain smile. Baron von Gagern tells us of the keen rivalry to enter Talleyrand’s circle. Those who had the entrée went there after the opera at night, and played whist or billiards until two or three in the morning. “It was,” says Lord Brougham, “a lesson and a study, as well as a marvel, to see him disconcert with a look of his keen eyes, or a motion of his chin, a whole piece of wordy talk.” When a rumour spread of the death of George III, a Parisian banker came rather impertinently to ask his opinion. “Well,” said Talleyrand, gravely, “some say he is dead and some say he is not. I may tell you in confidence that I don’t believe either.” On another occasion a general of no great culture turned up late for dinner, and began to explain that a “maudit pékin” had detained him. Talleyrand asked him what a pékin was. He replied that it was a camp-phrase for “all that isn’t military.” “Oh! I see,” said Talleyrand. “Just as we call military all that is not civil.”
Dulness was the deadly sin at the Hotel Galiffet. When a not very handsome Englishman was boring the company one day with a long description of the charms of his mother, Talleyrand broke in at the first gap: “It must have been your father, then, who was not very good-looking.” He talked little, as a rule. Sometimes he would sit for an hour without speaking, then make a short and brilliant shot, in his sepulchral voice, at something that had been said. When Chateaubriand, whom he very much despised, had published his “Les Martyrs,” a friend gave Talleyrand a very long account of the plot of the work, concluding with the remark that the heroes were “thrown to the beasts.” “Like the book,” said Talleyrand, bitterly. When another man observed to him that Fouché had a great contempt for humanity, he said: “Yes, he had studied himself very carefully.” Another had the imprudence to ask him what had passed at a Council he had attended. “Three hours,” said Talleyrand. When he heard that Sémonville, for whom he had little respect, was getting fat, he pretended to be mystified, and explained that he “did not see how it was to Sémonville’s interest to get stout.” It was of the same man that he afterwards said, when Sémonville had become a senator, and someone was urging that “there were at all events consciences in the Senate”; “Oh! yes. Sémonville alone has at least two.” There was hardly a prominent person in Paris who did not go about with one or two of these barbs in him. It is well to remember them when we read their comments on him in their memoirs. Sometimes the quips actually came to be applied to himself. A friend, rather a roué, met him one day, and complained that he felt “infernal pains” (douleurs d’enfer). “Already?” said Talleyrand. It was pretended in later years that this pretty dialogue passed between himself and Louis Philippe, when he was dying. But Talleyrand could say sweet things as well as bitter on the spur of the moment. It is well known how, when he was challenged to say which of two ladies at table (Mme. de Staël and Mme. Grand or another) he would rescue from the water first, he turned to one and said: “You are able to swim.” So when Napoleon asked him very pointedly how he became rich: “I bought stock on the 18th Brumaire, and sold it the next day.” On another occasion, when Napoleon told him he was removing his study to a higher storey, he at once replied: “Naturally, you are bound to live high up.”
His attitude towards the First Consul remained loyal and cordial in spite of the occasional strain put on it. I will resume in the next chapter the thread of his official duties, and will deal here with two important events that occurred before war again broke out. The first is the murder of the Duc d’Enghien, in connection with which Talleyrand has been judged so severely.
There is at this hour of the day, and in default of fresh discoveries of documents, nothing new to be said about the pitiful tragedy of 1804. Happily, the progress of research on the matter has tended to exculpate Talleyrand. Writers so wholly devoid of sympathy with him as Mr. Holland Rose now say that the allegations against him are “sufficiently disposed of by the ex-Emperor’s will.” Napoleon with his last words took full responsibility for the tragedy, and declared he would do it again in similar circumstances. The only question is how far Talleyrand lent assistance in the execution of Napoleon’s purpose.