In vindication of the ways of eternal justice, even upon earth, this polluted pile is participating the fate of its devoted members.
Those walls which once resounded with the florid, high toned declamation of republican visionaries, the most worthless, imposing, and desperate of mankind, are prevented, for a short time, by a few crazy props, from covering the earth below with their dust and ruins. The famed temple of the Goddess of Liberty, is not tenantable enough to cover the Babel Deity from the peltings of the midnight storm.
Where is now the enthusiastic Gironde, where the volcanic mountain, the fiery, and eloquent Mirabeau, the wily Brissot, the atheistic Lequinios, the remorseless Marat, the bloody St. Just, and the chief of the deplumed and fallen legions of equality? All is desolate and silent. The gaping planks of the guillotine are imbued with their last traces. The haunt of the banditti is uncovered. The revolution has preyed upon her own children, and metaphysical murderers have perished by the daggers of speculative republicans.
About two years since this place was converted into a ménagerie. The cave, and the wilderness, the desert, and the jungle, presented to the eye of the beholder, representative successors of those savages who, with more powers and more ferocity, were once enclosed within the same den. From the remembrance of such miscreants, I turn, with increased satisfaction, to the traces of approaching civilization, which mark the career of the present government, in which the want of suitable splendour no longer repels the approach and friendship of those nations which once shuddered at the idea of coming into contact with the infected rags of visionary fraternity. Some indications of this change I saw pourtrayed at the levee of Monsieur Talleyrand, the minister of foreign relations, when I had the honour of being presented to that able and celebrated politician by Mr. B. The hotel of Talleyrand is very superb. We entered the court yard through two lines of about twenty carriages in waiting. Under the portico, were several turks seated, who formed a part of the suite of the turkish embassador, who had just arrived, and was then closetted with Monsieur T——.
We passed through several noble apartments, preceded by servants, to a magnificent levee room, in which we met most of the foreign embassadors who were then at the consular court.
After waiting some time, the folding doors of the cabinet opened, the turkish embassy came out, making their grand salams, followed by Talleyrand, in his rich costume of embroidered scarlet, his hair full dressed, and a shining sabre by his side.
In his person, he is small and thin, his face is "pale and penetrating." He always looks obliquely, his small quick eyes and features, very legibly express mildness, wit, and subtilty. His right leg appears contracted. His address is insinuating. As the spirit of aggrandizement, which is said to have actuated the public and private conduct of Monsieur T—— has been so much talked of, it may, perhaps, excite some surprise, when it is mentioned that several persons who know him well, some of whom esteem him, and with some of whom he is not a favourite, declare, notwithstanding the anecdotes related of X Y, and Monsieur Beaucoup d'Argent, in the american prints, that they consider him to be a man, whose mind is raised above the influence of corruption. Monsieur T—— may be classed amongst the rarest curiosities in the revolutionary cabinet. Allied by an illustrious ancestry to the Bourbons, and a royalist from his birth, he was, with unusual celerity, invested with the episcopal robe and crosier[11]. During the temporary triumph of the abstract rights of man, over the practicable rights of reason, he moved with the boisterous cavalcade, with more caution than enthusiasm. Upon the celebrated national recognition of the sovereignty of man's will, in the Champs de Mars, the politic minister, adorned in snowy robes, and tricolor ribands, presided at the altar of the republic as its high priest, and bestowed his patriarchal benedictions upon the standard of France, and the banners of her departments.
Some time afterwards, in the shape of a secret unaccredited negotiator, he was discovered in the metropolis of England, and immediately transferred, upon the spread wings of the alien bill, to his own shores. Since that period, after having dissociated and neutralized the most formidable foes of his country, by the subtle stratagems of his consummate diplomacy, we beheld him as the successor of la Croix, armed with the powers, and clothed in the gaudy costume of the minister of foreign relations. In the polished Babel of the antichamber of this extraordinary man, I have beheld the starred and glittering representatives of the most distinguished princes of the earth waiting for hours, with exemplary resignation, contemplating themselves, in all their positions, in his reduplicating mirrors, or examining the splendour and exquisite ingenuity of his time pieces, until the silver sound of his little bell announced, that the invoked and lagging moment of ministerial leisure was arrived.
It is certain that few people possess the valuable qualities of imperturbable calmness and self possession, more than Monsieur T——. Balanced by these amiable and valuable qualities, he has been enabled to ride the political whirlwind, and in the diplomatic cabinet, to collect some advantage from the prejudices or passions of all who approached him. The caution and cunning of T—— have succeeded, where the sword and impetuous spirit of Bonaparte would have been unavailing. The splendour of his apartments, and of many of the personages present, displayed a very courtlike appearance, and inclined a stranger, like myself, to think, that nothing of the old government was missing, but the expatriated family of France.