It would be useless here to describe in any detail the diplomatic work of the next two years (from the declaration of war by England to the opening of the campaign in 1805). Talleyrand’s task was to meet and defeat the effort of Pitt to raise up a fresh coalition against Napoleon. He made a loyal and brilliant effort to do so, but entirely failed. Napoleon’s encroachments were too obvious, his power in Europe too menacing, his concessions in diplomacy too tardy and niggardly to enable him to resist the power of English gold and the zeal of the alienated Tsar. His only successes were of an inglorious character. He forced helpless Spain to acquiesce in the sale of Louisiana to the United States for eighty millions, and to send seventy-two millions a year to the French treasury. Napoleon assisted his diplomacy in this case with two arguments: the formation of a huge military camp near the Spanish frontier, and a threat to draw the attention of Europe to the delicate relations of the Spanish Queen and leading minister.
In the course of the year 1804, Russia was approached by England, and the Tsar showed a willingness to enter into an alliance for the control of Napoleon and in the interest of Europe. The mercantile differences which had kept the two nations apart were gradually adjusted, and a treaty was concluded in April, 1805. Gustavus IV of Sweden was already engaged to Russia in the same sense. Austria, too, was bound by a secret agreement with Russia (November 6th, 1804) if Napoleon made any further aggression in Italy, or threatened the integrity of Turkey. Thus by the middle of 1805 a formidable coalition was in existence. The correspondence of Talleyrand with Napoleon during that period is an amazing indication of activity. He keeps the Emperor informed of events in Turkey and Sweden, Russia and England, Prussia and Austria; he sends the news from the surgeons who are with the armies and the secret agents who are plotting and observing from Ireland to Persia; he tells the latest marriages at Paris, the dissipations of the ambassadors, the small scandals, so finely told, that will relieve Napoleon’s leisure hours.[40] There was no lack of spirit or ability in his work, but Napoleon had cast for war and it could at the most only be postponed. When Talleyrand evaded the task of writing the violent letters he directed to be sent to foreign Courts, he wrote them himself. The Prussian Ambassador informed his Court that Napoleon was forced into war in order to cover his enormous accumulation of men at Boulogne for the ostensible purpose of attacking England.
The spark that lit the conflagration was Napoleon’s descent into Italy in May, 1805. Talleyrand accompanied him to Milan. On May 26th he crowned himself King of Italy with the famous iron crown of the Lombard Kings, directed that a series of splendid spectacles should impress upon the astounded nations this last stroke of the effrontery of genius. The Ligurian or Genoese Republic was at the same time declared to be incorporated in the French Empire. Austria was now bound by her agreement with Russia to take action and she began to move her forces. Talleyrand went back to Paris with Napoleon but at the close of August we find he has joined the Emperor at Boulogne. By this time all hope of invading England was over. The combined French and Spanish fleet had retreated to Cadiz. With a phrase Napoleon converted the huge army, stretching nine miles along the coast, into “the army of Germany,” wheeled it about to face Austria, and set out for Paris to make his final preparations.
Talleyrand followed Napoleon to Strassburg towards the close of September. On the day that the Emperor was to leave for the field Talleyrand dined with him, and was greatly alarmed when Napoleon fell into a fit, which lasted half an hour. He made the Foreign Minister promise to keep it a secret, and was off in half an hour to Carlsruhe.[41] The letters he writes to Napoleon at this time exhale the old perfume. “He is afflicted beyond expression” to hear that he will learn nothing of Napoleon for five or six days. In another letter he says: “Your Majesty will always be deceived if you expect to find in other kings the grandeur of soul, the loftiness of sentiments, and the firmness of character that distinguish you.” This is a little rank, but there are other indications besides these letters that the old intimacy and confidence had been restored. Talleyrand had bitterly regretted the events at Milan, but, with his usual acceptance of accomplished facts, he was hoping that the defeat of Austria (of which he could entertain no doubt) would relieve Napoleon’s ardour and pave the way for peace. He wrote to d’Hauterive that the best thing would be for Napoleon to give up the kingdom of Italy, force Austria to abandon Venice, find her compensation in Germany, and enter into an alliance with her. That would remove grounds of quarrel in Italy. At the same time he prepared a memorandum, and even a treaty, to submit to Napoleon after the defeat of Austria. Italy was to be given up, Switzerland declared neutral, and the territory exacted of Austria to be divided among the small German States that had joined France.
He sent this admirable memorandum to Napoleon on the day he heard of the victory at Ulm. It had not sufficient of the arrogance of the conqueror in it for Napoleon. He submitted it as the subject of a discussion in Council, but the continued success of his arms made him ambitious to dictate “better” terms. The news of Trafalgar—Talleyrand broke it to him in his happiest manner: “Genius and good fortune were in Germany”—did not arrest him, or, indeed, forced him to look yet more to continental expansion now that his colonial scheme was shattered. He mistook Talleyrand’s sagacity and good sense for a puling humanitarianism. From Munich they passed on to Vienna, where Talleyrand had to press Napoleon’s harsh terms on Austria’s despairing statesmen. On December 1st he again framed a sober and reasonable treaty, but the next day occurred the battle of Austerlitz. “The Emperor Alexander,” he says bitterly in his memoirs, “was rather bored at Olmütz; he had never witnessed a battle, and he wanted to see the fun.” Talleyrand was exasperated against Russia and Austria for not coming to terms earlier. The day after Austerlitz he crossed the field with Marshal Lannes, and saw even that hardened soldier turn away with a feeling of sickness. He saw Napoleon established in the house of an Austrian prince, and the proudest flags and distinguished commanders of the two beaten nations brought to his feet.[42] He felt how difficult it would be now to restrain the conqueror, though he made one more eloquent appeal to him not to ruin Austria and sow a harvest of hatred on the frontier of France. Napoleon shook aside the appeal with a suspicion that Talleyrand must have been bought.
From Austerlitz he went to Brünn, and there heard with increased disgust that the Prussian Ambassador, Haugwitz, had signed a treaty of alliance with Napoleon. “Was it crime or folly?” Talleyrand asks. Prussia had agreed with Russia to offer armed mediation to Napoleon, and to make war on him if he did not accept it by December 15th. Instead of this, Haugwitz was bullied and bribed (by the offer of Hanover) into signing an alliance. Talleyrand hurried on to Pressburg to meet the Austrian envoys. Those who are tempted to conceive him as indolent would do well to read his letters at this time. At five in the morning of the 23rd he writes to tell Napoleon that he was half-blinded in crossing the frozen Danube, and so could not write earlier (evidently there are no obscure assistants doing the work for him here), but is now resuming work. At two on the following morning he tells that he has had a twelve hours’ conference with the Austrians, and will begin again at eight. But Napoleon was inexorable. The only modification of the terms that he would grant was a reduction of the indemnity by ten million francs. Austria had to part with Venice, Tyrol, Friuli, Istria, and Dalmatia, and to recognise the kingdom of Italy. That was Napoleon’s reply to Talleyrand’s memorandum. He had begun to sow the dragon’s teeth. The Austrian ministers were forced to sign the Treaty on January 1st. The only service Talleyrand could render them was to make the terms free from ambiguity. This action was described by Napoleon as “infamous and corrupt.” Talleyrand knew his master. Once before, when someone was giving him instructions from Napoleon as to the framing of the Cisalpine Constitution, and was telling him to make it “short and clear,” Talleyrand interrupted him with the words: “Yes, short and obscure.”
Mr. Holland Rose fully admits the unwisdom of Napoleon in rejecting Talleyrand’s plan of settlement, but he thinks it rather due to the idea of a “continental system” against England than to mere lust of domination. The very scanty sea frontier of Austria made her a matter of indifference in Napoleon’s plan of excluding England from Europe; it was far more important to win Prussia and Russia, and the Northern States. No one will question that the dream of the universal closing of ports was at work in the Treaty, but it does not explain some of the worst features of Napoleon’s divergence from Talleyrand. In any case, it is unquestionable that, as Talleyrand says, “moderation began to desert Napoleon after the Peace of Amiens,” and each fresh victory—Ulm, Austerlitz, Jena, Friedland—increased his insensibility to the sound law that a harsh and insolent settlement is not final. This is the just and honourable ground of that dissidence of feeling on the part of Talleyrand that culminated in “desertion.”
In January they returned to Paris. Napoleon arrived there at midnight of the 26th, and he opened a financial council at eight the following morning. His minister was scarcely less active. In the midst of his distinctive labours he had found time to study the financial disorder at home, and had submitted to Napoleon a new plan of a bank. Now that they were in Paris again the work of settlement had to be resumed. Haugwitz arrived on February 1st with fresh proposals from the King of Prussia, who had refused to ratify his outrageous treaty of Schönbrunn until peace was concluded with England. Napoleon’s whole policy being directed against England, he took advantage of Prussia’s delay to declare the treaty of Schönbrunn annulled, and make Talleyrand draw up a fresh one which bound Prussia to join the system by closing the Elbe and Weser against England. The new treaty was ratified at Berlin before the end of February. France had ceded Hanover to Prussia as her reward, but Hanover belonged to England. Moreover, a few weeks later Napoleon made his brother Louis King of Holland, as he had already made Joseph King of Naples. The second chief ground of Talleyrand’s divergence from Napoleon—the setting up of thrones for his family—was beginning to appear. “I don’t understand your way of doing business at all,” said Napoleon angrily to him, when he allowed the King of Prussia to state that the occupation of Hanover had been forced on him. There was “business” enough to do in the six months that followed. Besides trouble with the Vatican and renewed trouble with Austria, as well as the establishment of Louis and Joseph in Holland and Naples, there were important negotiations with England, Prussia, Russia and the great work of forming the Rhine Confederation.
Fox had returned to office in England, and had opened communications by sending information to Paris of a plot (often thought to be a diplomatic one) against the Emperor’s life. Talleyrand eagerly followed up the opening, and expressed willingness to treat with England by means of Lord Yarmouth, who had been detained as a prisoner at Verdun. Yarmouth went to London with an assurance that France was not hopelessly fixed as regards Hanover, and returned full of hope on June 16th. But Napoleon’s vulpine diplomacy was again overruling Talleyrand. He had forced him to promise Prussia secretly that France would not sacrifice Hanover, and to open separate negotiations with Russia. The only difficulties that Napoleon recognised, Talleyrand says, were those that force cannot overcome. His minister had now to conduct a most complex and mendacious communication with the three Powers, though it might be pleaded in extenuation that the Powers were also endeavouring to outwit each other. The policy of England was comparatively straight—so straight, in fact, that it was her minister who innocently betrayed Napoleon’s duplicity. But while England refused to negotiate a peace independently of Russia, that Power was endeavouring to make a separate treaty with France, and deceiving England as to her unfriendly designs on Turkey; while she was at the same time concluding a secret agreement against France with Prussia. The latter Power, secretly signing the treaty against France on July 1st with Russia, was receiving from Napoleon the reassurance of Hanover (already promised by France to England) and entertaining proposals from him for her aggrandisement in Germany. France was simultaneously offering Hanover to England and Prussia, was secretly creating a great German confederation and denying to England and Prussia that she contemplated any changes in Germany, was playing with England until she could secure the separate alliance with Russia, and was secretly raising opposition to the latter Power in Turkey. And amidst this maze of negotiations and intrigue Talleyrand was coolly creating the Rhine Confederation and dealing with the huge crowd of German delegates who besieged the Hotel Galiffet with further demands for plunder or redress.
This network of intrigue broke by its own weight, and the sword of Napoleon did the rest before the close of the year. A Russian envoy arrived at Paris about the very date when the Tsar was concluding his secret alliance with Prussia against Napoleon. As in an earlier episode with Austria, the envoy was worried into going far beyond his powers and signing a treaty with France. He afterwards declared that Talleyrand terrified him with a threat that, unless he signed, Austria would again be attacked and annihilated. As soon as the Russian envoy had gone Talleyrand turned to Lord Yarmouth, and threatened that Portugal would be invaded unless England came to terms. Yarmouth in the meantime had betrayed to the Prussian Ambassador the French offer to give up Hanover, and Napoleon intercepted dispatches in which the Ambassador urged his Court to appeal to Russia. Moreover, Talleyrand had denied to Yarmouth that any changes were contemplated in Germany, although he must have already completed the scheme of the Rhine Confederation, and it was published a few days afterwards. England thereupon sent Lord Lauderdale to support, and eventually supersede, Yarmouth. Talleyrand says this was done “to please Lord Grenville,” but his dislike of Lauderdale is clearly due to the fact that he now had stiffer material to deal with. In August he wrote to Napoleon: “The claims of Lord Lauderdale over his slain sailor, and the fuss he makes of the affair, are the acts of a man who has been all his life a clubman and parliamentary declaimer, and does not know that an incident that may make a great scene between two parties is generally one that vanishes before more precise information and moderate explanations.”