The Diplomatists of Europe

by M. Capefigue

This danger, however, appeared again when intelligence was received of the landing of Buonaparte and his march to Paris; and the English minister had no hesitation in placing himself at the head of the coalition, for Napoleon was considered as the general enemy of Europe. In 1814, Lord Castlereagh had opposed the sovereignty of the island of Elba being awarded to the ex-Emperor, and now, laying aside all other considerations, he looked at nothing but at the necessity of restoring unity to the confederation, and marching at once against the man who had been placed at the ban of Europe. Reports were in circulation that England had favoured the return from Elba, in order again to humble France and to impose heavier conditions upon her; and Lord Castlereagh, when asking for subsidies, was obliged in the House of Commons to enter into an explanation upon the subject. He had only to answer, that it was against his opinion a sovereignty had been granted to Buonaparte; but that, after he had once been acknowledged as an independent sovereign, no one had any right to watch his actions and proceedings. He and the Duke of Wellington now shared the arrangements between them, the one directing the debates in parliament while the other was employed in organising the army. Immense subsidies were again required to assist the coalition, and set a million of men in motion against the glorious adventurer who had made but one step from the Gulf of Juan to Paris.

Lord Castlereagh had vowed an implacable hatred to all the ridiculous dynasties who sheltered themselves under the mantle of Napoleon, and he revealed to the House of Commons the correspondence between Murat and the Emperor; thus paving the way for the downfall of that melodramatic king who was playing his part among the lazzaroni at the palace of Portici, or at the Villa Reale. In the stormy debates in the House of Commons he always exhibited the same tenacity of principles and resolution which had supported him in the imperial crisis, and even the present situation awakened in his mind the pride of a statesman who has realised some great thing for his country; for the supreme power henceforth belonged to England, and no one could dispute with her the empire of the sea: for a short time she had been at war with America, but peace had just been concluded, and all these circumstances had greatly augmented her power.

In the struggle now taking place, his lordship was possessed with one great object: in 1814 he had made some concessions to France, and he considered the affair terminated when her ancient limits, augmented by Savoy and the Comté Venaissin, were assigned to her, under the government of her ancient dynasty; but he now found all his work had fallen to the ground, and he concluded from thence that the power of France was still too great, and predominated too much on the Continent: for the sake, therefore, of obtaining the applause of Germany and the support of Prussia, he entered unhesitatingly into all the hatred vowed to us by them. Waterloo had placed France under the especial direction of England and Prussia, and deprived her of the Russian influence; therefore his lordship was at liberty to explain his ideas, and there was every facility for the execution of his system. His principles being in perfect agreement with those of the Duke of Wellington, he communicated to him his opinion about the future condition of France. In the first place, the ministerial system must be entirely English; and as a good understanding had existed between him and Talleyrand at Vienna, he chose him to fill the situation of prime minister. Then again, the Tories do not like revolutionists; but as these last assumed a suppliant attitude before the English, and that the patriots, under the shield of Fouché and of the representative chamber, were at the feet of the Duke of Wellington, even to obtain a foreign prince, they decided Fouché should be appointed to the ministry with Talleyrand.

But this was only the commencement of the system. Lord Castlereagh had observed that the material power of France was too considerable for the balance of power in Europe, and also that Belgium was not sufficiently protected; he therefore considered it necessary another frontier should be adopted, to prevent any irruption on that side; and as England wanted to secure the good will of Germany, he agreed to support, if necessary, the proposal for the cession of Alsace and Lorraine to the Germanic confederation. These ideas gave birth to the hard conditions insisted upon by England, and rendered it necessary that France should have recourse to the Emperor Alexander to obtain better terms after her heavy afflictions.

With regard to Buonaparte, the minister's conduct was perfectly consistent. In 1814 he had strenuously opposed the idea of an independent sovereignty in the island of Elba, and the enemy of England was now again in his power. It has been written and currently reported, that Napoleon's resolution to throw himself for protection upon the generosity of England was a free and spontaneous action; but such was far from being the case: too well did he know the unpitying and irritated feelings entertained against him by that nation, but he went on board the English man-of-war because he could no longer escape the cruisers, and perhaps the sailors in those vessels might have done him some injury, in vengeance of the sufferings of Captain Wright, who died in so mysterious a manner in the Temple. His letter to the Prince Regent was only an attempt to escape his fate by assuming the position of a free agent, when a few hours later he would have been a prisoner of war. As soon as Buonaparte was on board the Bellerophon, Lord Castlereagh hastened to acquaint the plenipotentiaries of the allied powers, assembled at Paris, with the fact; and then he naturally returned to his original and favourite idea of placing him under the charge of the Allies, in some spot sufficiently remote from the Continent to secure Europe against the risk of any further bold attempt on his part. This proposal did not arise from any personal hatred or feeling of animosity, but was the result of a profound and well-considered conviction. As for the rest, every thing was done with proper attention and consideration; but no one ever shewed more sulkiness, ill-humour, and I may say more littleness, than did Napoleon in adversity. How had he treated the Duc d'Enghien? Had he not pursued and striven to ensnare Louis XVIII. in every part of Europe? Was it too much, immediately after his adventure of the hundred days, which had cost us so dear, to send him to a place of security, from whence he would no longer be able to torment Europe? Buonaparte took offence because the title of majesty was refused him, and because he was not permitted to live quietly like one of the citizen classes in England or the United States (a proposition he made with just the same degree of sincerity as his request to be appointed juge de paix of his district before the 18 Brumaire). Imagine Buonaparte a citizen of Westminster or Charleston! After so long a drama on the theatre of the world, if a man has not been able to die he ought to know how to submit to obscurity; but he, at St. Helena, did not exhibit the greatness that ought to have arisen from his recollections and his glory, and I would willingly believe his flatterers garbled his conversations in the narratives published of his exile.

By the treaty concluded in the month of November, which was the completion of the transactions at Vienna, a magnificent position was allotted to England. In the south of Europe her influence over Portugal was secured, and the family compact was broken; in the north, a kingdom was constructed of Holland and Belgium, under her patronage, for the Prince of Orange, one of her generals; Prussia was closely attached to her system, and the Elbe opened to her the road to Germany; Hanover belonged to the British crown; she absorbed the factories and establishments of France in India, and acquired the Cape of Good Hope, the Isle of France, and Ceylon, besides Malta and the Seven Islands in the Mediterranean. She had reached the highest degree of power permitted to a state, and it was the firm and resolute conduct of Lord Castlereagh that had led to these great results; for had the weak and unconnected opinion of the Whigs carried the day, had peace been signed with Buonaparte, based on the terms approved by Fox and Grenville, never would England have attained to such a pitch of power and splendour. In mortal struggles like these one party must perish; and as it was, Napoleon sunk under the efforts of Britain. The captive of St. Helena was well aware of this, for he never accused any one of his fall but Lord Castlereagh and the English aristocracy, whom he devoted to the execration of future ages; no doubt for thus having succeeded in exalting the grandeur of England, as he had dreamed of doing with the magnificence of his nation and his race.

In the history of states, two periods usually occur. When there is a strong inclination to foreign wars, it very seldom occurs that there is much agitation among parties at home, because when society is hurried with violence into affairs of great importance, she has no time for considering her own troubles or inquiring closely into her domestic afflictions; but when the war is over she turns her attention upon herself, and internal dissensions take place. This was the case in England after the treaty of Paris in 1815, extreme irritation was displayed in her troubles; and this requires some explanation: that there was much suffering among the various classes of British subjects is an undoubted fact, and it proceeded from many different causes. The successive debts she had been obliged to contract had inordinately increased the taxes; a war, lasting for twenty years, had been suddenly succeeded by a peace which had injured the interests of many people, because war, by occasioning an unnatural excitement to industry of every kind, had given employment to thousands, for the commerce of the world was in the hands of England. Peace opened an immense competition; Great Britain, formerly alone in the market, now met with the French and Americans, and the ports were no longer exclusively open to her manufactures. Besides this, pauperism, that species of leprosy in a nation, had greatly increased, and it had now become an actual sore in the British government, a vermin on the velvet robes of her rulers.

A radical and deep-seated movement had also taken place in the public mind. Great excitement always leaves a degree of fermentation behind; the revolutionary doctrines had sheltered themselves behind the shield of parliamentary reform, and this very reform became a pretext gladly seized upon by agitators; thus England found herself covered, not with secret societies, for on her soil people breathe freely, but with clubs and inflammatory meetings, so that the country resounded with petitions. On this occasion it again became necessary to display a degree of firmness; the inflexible character of Lord Castlereagh was alone capable of opposing to doctrines which manifested themselves by riotous assemblies of 100,000 men in various cities.

Independent of these domestic troubles, there were also difficulties connected with foreign affairs that exhibited a no less serious aspect. Ever since the year 1792 but one great danger had occupied the mind of Europe, the absorbing and inordinate power of the republic and empire of Napoleon. England having always been at the head of the implacable movement which attacked the revolutionary power in France, had also naturally taken the lead in the political transactions; and Europe did not stop to examine whether the cabinet of London assumed too great an influence while protecting the general interest; for Buonaparte excited alarm, and the assistance of Great Britain was required to oppose him: but as soon as this powerful Colossus was overthrown, a continental system was formed under the influence of the Emperor of Russia, and led to all those congresses, annually repeated, in which England could not take an active or predominant part. The statesmen of Great Britain, both Whigs and Tories, rejected all the theories of absolute power; they had been educated in the principles of 1688, and neither would, nor could, adopt the maxim of the divine right of kings. Thus Lord Castlereagh could not unite in all the manifestoes and declarations of principles which the Emperor Alexander issued in his mystical ideas of the Holy Alliance. We must not lose sight of this circumstance in the last four years of the minister's life. The treaty of 1815 had hardly been signed before a formidable conspiracy of Radicalism in arms arose in England, not merely easily suppressed riots, but bodies of 100,000, who broke the power-looms and pillaged the houses, and the ancient aristocracy appeared threatened with the most imminent danger; yet such is the spirit of order in that country, and the reliance to be placed on the English population, that these tumults were not attended with danger. On this occasion the firm repressive spirit of Lord Castlereagh was fully manifested; without hesitation, he demanded from parliament the suspension of all liberty, even of the habeas corpus, that powerful security of the English citizen. The troops ordered to act vigorously against the rioters, shewed no compassion, because there appeared no limit to the disturbances. How many accusations were brought against Lord Castlereagh after the riots at Manchester and Birmingham! The pamphlets published on the occasion represented him as a butcher of human victims, and Lord Byron wrote some lines on the cold impassiveness of his countenance. Was England to be allowed to perish to please the poets? or were the designs of housebreakers and destroyers of machinery to be seconded? The minister only did his duty as a statesman—he saved society, and what do people want more? He did it even at the peril of his fame—a great sacrifice for those who devote themselves to the idea of order in the midst of disorder. Very vigorous bills were passed, on the demand of the minister, against foreigners, and against the instigators of the disturbances, and he undertook in parliament the painful task of obtaining repressive measures. In England there are resources, even in times of the greatest danger, because there exists a race of statesmen, the Tories, who never give way to public clamour; in the midst of the most formidable riot a degree of respect for the laws is still felt, and people submit to the summons of a constable.