The Diplomatists of Europe

by M. Capefigue

In spite of all the great affairs in which M. de Richelieu had been engaged, he was in a condition of honourable poverty, and the king conferred upon the retired minister the appointment of Grand Huntsman, in the same manner as he had conferred the title of Grand Chamberlain upon M. de Talleyrand, after his services in 1815. The chambers, however, were conscious that a recompense was due from the country to the able negotiator of Aix-la-Chapelle, and M. de Lally made a proposal that the king should be requested to confer a national reward upon the Duc de Richelieu. The same suggestion was made in the upper chamber, at the very moment when a letter from the Duke declared to the president of the deputies, that he should be proud of receiving a mark of the king's favour, given with the concurrence of the chambers; but that as it was proposed to award him a national recompense at the expense of the nation, he could not consent to see any thing added for his sake to the burdens under which the country was already groaning. Every body was well aware that the Duke possessed no fortune, and that his sole income was derived from his office of grand huntsman; a good deal of littleness, however, was exhibited in the Chamber of Deputies when it was proposed to assign a majorat of 50,000 francs to the heir of the name of Richelieu, as a recompense to the minister who had obtained the liberation of the territory. Are public bodies only capable of great actions when a profit arises from them to the passions by which they are actuated? The proposed majorat was afterwards changed into an annuity; and, out of respect to the king's wishes, the Duke did not refuse this acknowledgement of his services, but he devoted the entire income derived from it to the foundation of a religious charity in the city of Bourdeaux. Such was the personal generosity of this great man, who was desirous of retiring entirely to private life.

Alas! his political career was not yet concluded! The Decaze ministry, on every side inundated by old liberal opinions, was at its last gasp. Advantage was taken of the law of elections against the government, one concession led to another, and the Duke was summoned to the council extraordinary, presided over by the king in person, to advise upon the measures to be pursued in this emergency. The crime of Louvel had filled Paris with grief and horror, and M. Decaze, abandoned by the côté gauche of the chamber, who defended the law of February 5th, 1817, rejected by the royalists, who reproached him with not having agreed to the propositions of the Marquis Barthélemy, at last sent in his resignation; and at this difficult juncture, the king again placed the Duc de Richelieu at the head of affairs. The most urgent entreaties were required to induce him to accept the appointment, for the situation was melancholy, and the country full of anxiety, while the irritation of parties had reached its highest pitch. The preceding administration had proposed an electoral system, which was distasteful to all parties in the chamber; it had demanded laws arming the government with extraordinary powers; no majority was yet formed, and the ministry were doubtful whether these laws would be capable of overcoming the formidable opposition they would have to encounter; the fears of Europe also had been aroused, and it was necessary to appease them. At length, every thing, however, was provided for, and, at the end of a long and painful discussion, exceptional laws were voted.

But then, who was able to calm the public mind? and what hand was sufficiently powerful to arrest the evil tendency of society? A bias had been given to education in France ever since the revolution of 1789; people were closely surrounded by mischievous opinions and frightful systems; parties considered themselves sufficiently powerful to conspire openly, and intimidate the government by tumultuous meetings. Seditious assemblies took place with a view to political catastrophes, and the slightest hesitation might have given rise to the most dreadful calamities. The command of Paris was now committed to Marshal Macdonald, by the ministers' council, formidable military preparations were made, and proofs were obtained of a conspiracy, involving some names since exalted by another revolution. During the ten days that this state of anxiety and trouble prevailed, they had only to regret the lives of two of the disturbers of the public peace; and now that the ideas concerning government are become more advanced, people will be surprised at the declamations of those who held liberal opinions, against measures which were indispensable for the safety of the country. Has not every government a right to defend itself, and is it not bound to do so?

Europe now began to assume an alarming aspect. The revolt of the Spanish army at the island of Léon found an echo in a similar movement among the Neapolitan troops. Portugal quickly followed their example; and the seditious, imagining the French army well inclined to imitate the conduct of their neighbours, directed all their efforts towards this end. After having broken all the bonds of civil order, the revolution endeavoured to overturn the principle of duty and obedience among the soldiery. In most of the corps, however, the officers continued faithful to their engagements; a few only were unable to resist the torrent, and a conspiracy was formed in several of the regiments at Paris, extending in its ramifications to various military stations, and it was determined that the rising should take place in the barracks on the 20th of August, 1820. On the proposal of M. Mounier, then director-general of the police, the ministers' council determined upon arresting the conspirators before they had unfurled a standard and actually proclaimed the insurrection. The heads of this military conspiracy are well known at present, and some of them have even been rewarded; but, as is always the case, the plot was denied by the parties engaged in it. The Chamber of Peers behaved with much indulgence, as able and experienced authorities usually do when severity is not indispensably necessary; and the government preferred pardoning many offences, and consigning much to oblivion, to being compelled to authorise the shedding of blood.

The elections of 1820, which had taken place when a favourable impression had been raised by the birth of the Duc de Bourdeaux, gave a powerful and compact côté droit to the chamber, and MM. de Villèle and Corbière, who had assumed the position of its chiefs, ought naturally to have supported the Duc de Richelieu; but, at the very commencement of the session, clouds appeared on the horizon. The côté droit of the chambers had hitherto fought by the side of the ministers, and triumphed with them, and consequently they claimed a direct participation in the administration. Negotiations were entered into with them; the Duke would not consent that any of the men who had hitherto governed with him, and preserved the kingdom in its hour of peril, should be excluded from the council; however, two only of the principal deputies on the côté droit, MM. de Villèle and Corbière, were appointed members of the cabinet, with the title of ministerial secretaries of state.[46] M. Lainé, a man with whose honest and upright character the Duke had been particularly struck, was also a member of this administration.

The political principle of this revised ministry was the agreement of the centre of the côté droit, and the droite itself, in one common vote; but the session under this management was long and troublesome, and a tedious and stormy debate took place before the Duke was able to decide upon the execution of his idea of an extended system of canal navigation, like that at present in force. He drew up a plan, inviting men possessed of large capital to take a part in these great works; for at that time the principal part of the capital in the kingdom, was invested in the funds, and enterprises tending to the benefit of industry and the improvement of the country were not popular: many difficulties were encountered, but they were all overcome by means of firmness and determination.

Order was now established in all the departments of government; the restraints formerly imposed upon the action of the municipal authorities, by a system of excessive centralisation, were removed; and in the financial department the most unlimited competition was invited, for the first time, in the sale of stock, and the value of public securities reached its highest pitch. In his foreign policy, the Duke never ceased for a moment to support the idea of the Russian alliance, less from former recollections, and his affection for the Emperor Alexander, than upon the principle constantly expressed in all his correspondence, that the Russian alliance was advantageous to France because it was perfectly disinterested. In fact, what can Russia demand of us? On what point can we clash? Commerce with her can never be otherwise than an equal exchange; the productions of industry in her country are not of equal value with ours; she requires our wines, our fashions, our manufactures, and we, in exchange, require her timber, her copper, and her iron. Her fleets cannot assume any dominion over us, her frontiers do not reach us in any direction, and we are benefited by her influence; whilst, on the other hand, the designs and interests of France are opposed by the English alliance in all questions of importance. M. de Richelieu's system was resumed by M. de la Ferronays in 1828.

During the Duke's second ministry the great European powers met at Laybach, to agree upon a vast repressive system to be pursued against the insurrection rising in arms around. The Richelieu cabinet was resolved upon a firm resistance against all the tumults and disorders that were disturbing the peace of Europe. Agitation had also arisen in the East, and the Greeks had raised the standard of the cross. But Russia, which under Catherine had supported the Hellenic emancipation, was now too fully occupied with her own affairs to be able to follow up the system she had then commenced. France, therefore, determined upon sending a naval force into the Grecian seas for the protection of commerce, and, while observing a generous neutrality, assistance was still afforded to all who implored it from the French flag. But now the Richelieu cabinet, entirely occupied with its foreign relations, was threatened with danger to itself. Its very feeble parliamentary combination rested upon a false basis in the chamber. The ministry only existed by the will of the côté droit; and that party with its chiefs, MM. de Villèle and Corbière, would not fail, sooner or later, to assume the direction of affairs, because they possessed the majority. The droite and the gauche were both distinct from the cabinet, and the former was evidently impatient to seize the reins of government.

These two fractions of the chamber were desirous of concluding with a coup d'éclat; and the reply to the speech from the throne in 1821 became the arena for the great political struggle. The commission under the direction of the côté droit insisted that in the plan of the address presented to the chamber these words should be inserted: "We congratulate you, sire, upon your friendly relations with foreign powers, feeling a just confidence that so valuable a peace has not been purchased by sacrifices incompatible with the honour of the nation and the dignity of the crown." So offensive an expression was an open rupture with the cabinet. M. de Richelieu declared such an insinuation was an insult to the crown, and the ministers tendered their resignation. The chamber persisted, and voted the address, which was, in fact, a declaration that they did not wish the ministry to stand: the cabinet, therefore, retired in a mass, and were succeeded by MM. de Montmorency and de Villèle.