The Diplomatists of Europe

by M. Capefigue

The real cause of Talleyrand's disgrace was the active attempts he made to negotiate peace with England independent of Napoleon. The Emperor did not at all like men who acted upon their own opinion; he liked every thing to originate with himself alone. He got rid of Talleyrand as, in succeeding years, he shook off Fouché, minister of police.

There are times when men of consideration are a source of embarrassment, when advisers are no longer required: devoted servants alone are necessary. The Prince of Benevento took advantage of the circumstance, and as the Spanish war was very unpopular, he assumed the attitude of a martyr to his love for peace and moderate measures. He was always clever enough to account for his being out of favour by attributing it to some motive which might secure him a good place in public opinion, and he then profited by his situation to wage an underhand, but murderous war, against the power which had rejected him from its circle of activity. When he was no longer at the head of affairs for the purpose of directing them, he took care to bring up the rear, for the sake of causing hinderance and annoyance. Nevertheless, his dismissal was now covered with a golden mantle; he received the title of vice-grand elector, with the same salary of 500,000 francs, that he enjoyed during his ministry. The activity of his mind led him afresh into commercial pursuits, he gambled in the stocks, became a partner in a banking-house at Hamburg and in Paris, he invested considerable sums of money in the English funds, and awaited patiently the course of events. To know how to wait is a great mark of political knowledge, and it was one of Talleyrand's favourite axioms, that patience often leads to favourable situations: he never would be in a hurry.

A secret opposition was beginning to form against Napoleon, even in the highest ranks, among the heads of the senate, of the government, and of the army. Fearful of yet making itself manifest by any overt act, it only ventured upon apparently trifling remarks and half confidences; but people conspired in their minds, expressions were used, which were repeated as apophthegms and prophecies of society. "It is the beginning of the end," said Talleyrand, at the time of the disastrous expedition to Moscow; and this just appreciation had been warmly applauded. What a terrible opposition is that of the salons and the gay world! It kills with a lingering death, it upsets the strongest ideas, it destroys the best-laid plans; it would be far better to be compelled to engage in a pitched battle face to face. This opposition was gradually increasing, and the police establishment of General Savary, which tended more to the employment of brute force than the adoption of intelligent precautions, was incapable of restraining it; it was gradually appearing on every side, besides which the men who placed themselves at the head of the resisting party were of too much consequence for the Emperor to venture to touch them. Talleyrand and Fouché now did whatever they pleased with perfect impunity—they were acting against the Emperor, and he did not dare to shew his displeasure. It has always been supposed that Napoleon when at the summit of his greatness might have put down any one; yet, great as he was, there were some men too powerful for him. The day that he had touched Talleyrand or Fouché, all the officers of government would have considered themselves at the mercy of a caprice; Cambacérès, Lebrun, Regnault de Saint-Jean d'Angely, feeling themselves henceforth without any security against a master whom they detested, would, perhaps, have shaken off the yoke.

As early as the beginning of the year 1813, Talleyrand had opened a communication with the Bourbons. The venerable Cardinal de Périgord, grand almoner to Louis XVIII., was his uncle, but there was a considerable degree of coolness between them; still it may be easily imagined that it facilitated an exchange of hopes and promises, against the chances of a future restoration to the throne; but all this was done secretly and in strict confidence, as the idea of the restoration was not yet sufficiently matured. Talleyrand had never ceased to maintain a communication through his agents with Louis XVIII., who was himself at that time engaged in a confidential correspondence with all the great officers of the state, even including Cambacérès himself. Paris was filled with these letters, notwithstanding which, Talleyrand was one of the council appointed to assist the regency of Maria Louisa, whom the Emperor had placed at the head of affairs. He always exhibited the greatest interest in all questions relating to the government, he attended assiduously the meetings of the council, and appeared the most zealous of the Emperor's servants: the plan of the regency also was congenial to his mind, and he would have been satisfied with it as a political idea. He still, however, carried on an underhand correspondence with Louis XVIII., who, with his perfect knowledge of mankind, engaged to maintain him in his magnificent position, to which he added a promise that he should be placed at the head of the ministry. As to the regency of Maria Louisa, it involved a project for a closer alliance with Austria, and was suggested by the most able men in the council of Napoleon, who were desirous of exciting dissensions among the allied powers by giving rise to divers interests.

The misfortunes of war had now brought the enemy near the capital; and, as the powers of Napoleon became more feeble, people learned to estimate probabilities with a greater degree of certainty: first the regency, then a provisional government, and, finally, the restoration of the Bourbons. Since the year 1812, all illusion concerning the invincible power of Napoleon was over. The burning of Moscow, the snows which had covered the grand army as with a vast shroud, the conspiracy of Mallet, all had tended to place the imperial power in a tottering condition. The negotiations of Talleyrand began to assume an indescribable boldness; the plenipotentiaries of the allied powers had fixed a congress at Châtillon, more for the sake of appearances than to discuss really diplomatic questions; and M. de Coulaincourt, whose devotion to the Emperor was undoubted, was to propose a treaty determining the limits of France under the government of Napoleon, or the regency of the archduchess. This was the moment selected by Talleyrand to despatch a secret agent to the head-quarters of the Emperor Alexander. This agent, who was, I believe, M. de Vitrolles, was commissioned to describe the condition of the metropolis, the anxiety there was to get rid of Napoleon, and, above all, the imperative necessity there appeared to be for the restoration of the old dynasty, as the only certain step that could be taken under existing circumstances. M. de Vitrolles evinced great zeal and ability in the discharge of this secret mission, which exposed him to extreme danger; he succeeded in conveying to the Emperor Alexander some letters written in cipher, and a very detailed memorial upon the state of the public mind; but—must I confess it?—the allies, who cared but little about the Bourbons, did not perfectly understand the scope of this movement, neither did they know what might be the result. It was then Talleyrand exerted himself to demonstrate that these two ideas, the ancient territory and the ancient dynasty, were correlative; and the same system had been forcibly represented at Châtillon by Lord Castlereagh.

The disaffected party continued to gain strength in Paris. Talleyrand had made friends with several of the senators who still retained some recollections of the Republic, and professed an especial hatred towards Napoleon; such were M. de Lambrechts, Languinais, and Grégoire, and the Prince of Benevento could rely upon their assistance in any rising that might be organised against the empire. At the same time he had collected around himself the Duc de Dalberg, the Abbé de Pradt, and a multitude of Royalist agents, who were in communication with MM. de Noailles, de Fitzjames, and de Montmorency, all engaged in secret machinations for the Bourbons. The time was come when the Empire must terminate—there was so much disaffection among the citizens of Paris and in the provinces. Great precaution was shewn in taking the first steps in favour of the Bourbon restoration, and the greatest secrecy was observed; as soon, therefore, as it was decided, according to the instructions of Napoleon, that the Empress should leave Paris, and establish her regency at Blois, Talleyrand hastened to declare his intention of shewing his zeal by following the regency, it being necessary he should offer a pledge to the imperialist party in order to prevent suspicion, but by a piece of duplicity, perfectly in keeping with his character and position, he apprised the allies of his pretended flight. Accordingly, Prince Schwartzenberg posted a small body of cavalry at the first stage on the road to Blois, which stopped the carriage of Prince Talleyrand, and obliged him to return to Paris, where the wily diplomatist also declared himself compelled by force to remain. By this means he was enabled to place himself as the head and the nucleus of the general rising against the Emperor; his saloon was open to all the disaffected, and he encouraged the idea of Napoleon's downfall in a manner which charmed the hearts of the Republicans; for Buonaparte's violation of the constitution was the only circumstance that appeared to occur to their minds. The ground was well chosen, and Talleyrand worked at his ease and on an extended scale at the ruin of his master; every thing had tended towards it since the year 1812, and the moral strength of the Empire was gone.

Talleyrand's grand intrigue even began in the senate. He well knew the simplicity and the instinctive repugnance felt by Grégoire, Lambrechts, and Languinais, for Napoleon, and he determined they should serve as a pivot for the new order of things. Some of them thought they were making preparations for a regency. Talleyrand promised them constitutional forms and the sovereignty of the people, those old visions of the Republic, and they welcomed all these recollections with ecstasy: there was not much difficulty, certainly, in inducing these second-rate minds to act in concert with him. The patriot party were the first to demand that the Emperor should be deposed; they enumerated all the grievances, upon which they had observed so prudent a silence in the days of his prosperity; they fell upon Napoleon, his forfeiture of the crown was pronounced by the senate in the month of April 1814, and he was thus sacrificed by the party which had obeyed his will with apparent alacrity during the ten years of the Empire. Nothing is so violent or so rancorous in its hatred as an assembly which has long been humbled under a despotic rule: it afterwards takes signal vengeance upon the fallen power.

When the Emperor Alexander entered Paris, Talleyrand's ascendancy over his mind was sufficient to induce him to inhabit the Hôtel de la Rue Saint-Florentin, an unheard-of honour, which gave an undeniable proof of the great estimation in which he was held! The czar occupied the apartments, still to be seen, with the long stone balcony at the extremity of the Rue de Rivoli. It was in the blue drawing-room in this hôtel that the plan of the Restoration was organised, according to the ideas and principles which I have depicted in a work especially devoted to that purpose.[11] Talleyrand's influence over the proceedings of that time was unbounded; he induced the Emperor Alexander to reject all proposals for continuing the regency of Maria Louisa, as well as the loyal endeavours of Marshal Macdonald. He instigated all these refusals, and had adopted a maxim admirable for its clearness and precision, which he took pleasure in repeating as a means of putting a stop to all negotiations. "The restoration of the Bourbons," said he, "is a principle; every thing else is an intrigue." In after years, he forgot none of the services he had rendered to the old dynasty, and, when out of favour under the Restoration, he took pleasure in shewing this blue drawing-room which had been inhabited by the Emperor Alexander, and would repeat in a tone of affected bitterness and ridicule, as if to brand the ingratitude of the Bourbons, "Nevertheless, gentlemen, it was here the Restoration was accomplished." And then he would describe in his admirable manner the proceedings of that time, and point out the spot occupied by each of the party in the month of May 1814. "At the corner of the table," he would say, "sat the Emperor Alexander, there the King of Prussia, and here the Grand Duke Constantine; a little farther off were Pozzo di Borgo, Nesselrode, and Hardenberg—yes, gentlemen, it was here, in this little room, that we restored the throne of the Bourbons, and the monarchy of 1400 years." And this he would repeat with a sardonic smile which marked his dissatisfaction, and perhaps was an index of some future design of overturning what he had so easily raised. When a monarchy has been restored within the narrow limits of a drawing-room, it cannot be supposed to inspire very great confidence. Such was the secret thought of this great contriver of events.

Up to the arrival of Louis XVIII. Talleyrand was at the head of the provisional government; all the responsibility rested with him, and he had cause to reproach himself with many evil actions which were connected with the spirit of that period, for there are seasons when the human mind does not belong to itself; it is hurried on by the rapid course of ideas, it is imbued with a spirit of reaction. Has the mission of M. de Maubreuil ever been perfectly explained? What was its object? Some people will tell you he received no orders, except to prevent the crown diamonds from being carried away; but other accounts tell a very different story, and assert that he was intrusted to perform a deed of blood, similar perhaps to that which had destroyed the last of the Condés. I can positively declare that M. de Maubreuil never had any direct conversation or personal interview with Talleyrand. He took care never to appear in deplorable circumstances of this kind; and all that passed was as follows: One of the confidential secretaries of the minister said to M. de Maubreuil, in perfectly plain language, "This is what the prince requires of you; here is your warrant and a sum of money, and as a proof of what I say, and of his assent, remain in the salon to-day, and he will pass through and bend his head in token of approbation." The sign was made, and M. de Maubreuil considered himself perfectly authorised to undertake the mission. What, I repeat, was its object? The time is hardly yet arrived which makes it allowable to tell and to publish every thing; I judge no man's conduct, I only repeat that there are times when people do not appear to belong to themselves.