By the end of 1803 the First Consul was driven by his dread of plots into a condition that excited the horror of beholders. Spies and guards constantly surrounded him. Paroxysms of rage by day and sleepless nights wore his nerves and embittered his spirit. The failure of the plot of Georges and Pichegru only served to exasperate him against the Royalist plotters, and he swore to execute the first Bourbon that fell into his hands. When, therefore, a rumour spread that a Bourbon prince had been in Paris in connection with the plot to assassinate him, and the Duc d’Enghien, living only a few miles beyond the frontier, was the only one to whom the rumour could possibly apply, Napoleon turned his thoughts vindictively towards the young prince. The suspicion was increased by positive information received that the Duke had applied for service against France in the English army. A little later a secret agent reported that d’Enghien was conferring with Royalist officers with a view to invading France if the assassination of Napoleon was effected; and when application was made to the Prefect of Strassburg he forwarded a report that the ex-General Dumouriez was with the Duke at Ettenheim. A simple confusion of the names Thumery and Dumouriez thus offered a strong confirmation of the suspicion.
All that Talleyrand had done so far was to write a protest to the Elector of Baden against the use of his territory for conspiracy. The critical moment came when Napoleon summoned him and the other ministers, the two Consuls, and Fouché, to a council on the matter. At that council it was decided to violate the territory of Baden, and arrest the Duke; the rest was inevitable. What was the attitude of Talleyrand? His accuser is Savary, a bitter enemy, and a writer who is found time after time to distort his narrative in the interest of his prejudices. Savary says that Talleyrand urged that the duke “be arrested and settled with.” He gives this on the authority of two documents. The first is the memoirs of Cambacérès (one of the Consuls present, also an enemy of Talleyrand), which have never seen the light, and which, in fact, Savary did not care to invoke till Cambacérès was dead, as he “did not like to mention his name while he was still alive.” The other document purports to be an abstract of the speech that Talleyrand delivered on the occasion. All Talleyrand’s enemies have built their charge against him on this document. It is a forged document. In this case we have the confession of the forger himself, Talleyrand’s mischievous ex-secretary, Perrey. Thus there is not a particle of serious evidence that Talleyrand urged either the arrest or the execution. Such an act would be violently inconsistent with his character. We should require the most positive evidence before admitting it. As a fact, we are invited to believe it on the ground of an acknowledged fabrication and a reference by a malignant enemy to another document which no one else has ever seen.
Talleyrand told Mme. Rémusat that he knew Napoleon was absolutely bent on destroying the Duke and striking terror into the Bourbons, and so he said nothing. The careful student of his character must feel that that is just what he would do. “The best principle is not to have any at all,” he once said with a laugh. He meant that in such cases as this a virtuous protest would do no good whatever, and did not seem worth the torrent of anger it would provoke. We may not admire such prudence, but we must be just to it. Talleyrand could and did protest, before and after this date, when he believed something might be done.
Talleyrand admits that after the Council he wrote three letters at the direction of Napoleon, giving instructions for the arrest, or in connection with it. He says that this was a “painful necessity.” The critic could only suggest here that he ought to have resigned, which no one seems to have thought of doing at the time. Another memoir writer of the time, Pasquier, who is hostile to Talleyrand, says that “a lady” heard the Foreign Minister reply to a question about the Duke: “He will be shot.” It is a mere on dit, but it would not be strange for Talleyrand to have predicted that issue. Savary builds a good deal on a visit that Talleyrand paid to the Governor of Paris after the duke had been brought there. But the object of this is clear. The carriage containing the unfortunate prisoner had been driven by mistake to Talleyrand’s hotel, and he had to see the governor about its further direction. It left immediately for Vincennes, and the tragedy was carried to its close. Talleyrand has nothing to do with the last and darkest scenes, but Savary is deeply implicated. The statement that Talleyrand detained, until it was too late, the Duke’s request for an interview has been refuted long ago. On the other hand, Napoleon’s statement that he was unaware of the Duke’s existence until Talleyrand began to suggest the crime has been proved to be untrue, and is virtually retracted by Napoleon’s later and bolder expressions.
Thus when we bring the charge against Talleyrand down to its real proportions, it means that he did not protest against the execution in advance, and did not resign when it was accomplished. It seems clear that he did not regard the event with any horror at the time, and that he really did to some undefined extent regard it as, if not a political necessity, at least an effective political measure. Resignation on account of it was out of the question. He said to someone who suggested it: “If Bonaparte has committed a crime, that is no reason I should make a mistake.” We who judge these things dissect them out of their living texture, and set them under our ethical glasses in placid studies. It would be well, perhaps, to put ourselves in the place of a statesman who was a daily witness of the frightful condition into which plotters had thrown Napoleon, and who felt how much the peace of the country was overclouded by Bourbon and English conspirators.[39]
It would be ingenuous to trace any feeling or lack of feeling in Talleyrand’s conduct after the execution. It was his diplomatic duty to kill the feeling of disgust in others, whatever he felt himself. He had not a difficult task. The ball he gave immediately afterwards was well attended; amongst others the envoy of the Neapolitan Bourbons was there. The Spanish Bourbons shrugged their shoulders, and said it was a pity the Duke had drawn it on himself. Prussia and Austria were without difficulty persuaded to take no notice of the affair. The King of Sweden was disposed to interfere, but Talleyrand sent word to him that “as France did not meddle with Swedish affairs, perhaps Sweden would leave French matters to France.” When the Czar sent his Court into mourning, and raised difficulties, Talleyrand met him with the enquiry whether “at the time when England was compassing the death of Paul I every effort would not have been made to have the plotters seized if they were known to be only a league beyond the frontiers.” As the murderers of Paul I were the intimate friends of his son and were retained in honour by him, the inquiry sufficiently spoiled the dignity of the Russian protest.
One more great event of the year 1804 must be noticed before we return to foreign affairs. On May 18 Napoleon was declared Emperor. Talleyrand had no repugnance whatever to the re-introduction of the hereditary principle or the formal declaration of the autocracy of Napoleon. He would have preferred the title of king, but Napoleon had a larger prospect. The change took place with the full wish of the country, and seemed to be in its interest. Talleyrand was entrusted with the task of forming the new Court. From the frame of the old German Empire he borrowed half-a-dozen high-sounding dignities, and he is said to have been much mortified when Napoleon failed to bestow one of those on himself. It is explained that Napoleon did not care to put any minister in an “immovable” position. He was, however, made Grand Chamberlain to the new Emperor, receiving nearly 500,000 francs a year and a much closer association with Napoleon’s monarchical ways than he cared for. As Foreign Minister he had the difficult task of inducing Pius VII to come for the coronation—“a miracle of Napoleon’s destiny,” he calls it. In July he accompanied Napoleon and Josephine to the camp at Boulogne, and then to Aix la Chapelle, where Napoleon posed as the modern Charlemagne to a crowd of small German princes. In November the Pope arrived. The suspicious pontiff did not feel his apprehensions allayed when, at their first meeting, Napoleon deliberately tricked him into taking the second seat in the carriage. Nor was Napoleon too pleased when Josephine appealed to the Pope to have her marriage made secure by a religious ceremony. Cardinal Fesch married them, but the Bonapartists always held that it was invalid as the parish priest was not present. When Rogers asked Talleyrand afterwards whether Napoleon had really married Josephine, he answered: “Not altogether.”
Talleyrand witnessed the last act in the drama of the Revolution when, on December 2nd (1804), the three Bonapartes and Josephine, preceded by Murat and twenty brilliant squadrons of cavalry, drove in a gorgeous chariot to the door of Notre Dame. Where reason and humanity had been enthroned a few years before, a glittering pageantry of Church and State now gathered about the altar for the coronation of a more absolute autocrat than Louis XVI. A Pope, convinced in his conscience of the utter impiety and immorality of Napoleon, solemnly intoned the “Veni, Creator Spiritus,” and received Napoleon’s profession of faith. In the interest of peace and of the Church, Pius VII stooped to acts that nearly broke his heart. And when the supreme moment came in which he was to crown Napoleon, and thus assert at length and for ever his own ascendancy, Napoleon snatched the crown from its cushion and put it on his own head. For several months the Pope and his ministers remained at Paris. Talleyrand speaks in the memoirs with great respect and sympathy of the Pope, and says that he refused any presents for his family and asked no advantage of a material kind for the Church. We know that he did press for the restoration of the temporal power, and was met with the mocking assurance that “Napoleon must keep what God has given him.” So Pius VII returned to Rome empty-handed, with a bitter consciousness of his futile sacrifices and compromises.