"The notion was approved of; and after the Cabinet was over, Castlereagh called me into his private room, and proposed the mission to me. I was, of course, highly flattered by such a proposal from such a person; but I had not a moment's hesitation in telling him, that I had tried my hand unsuccessfully on a somewhat similar mission to Berlin, where I had also been accredited to the two Emperors; that I had found myself quite incompetent to the task, which had half-killed me; that I thought the measure highly advisable, but that there was one person only who could execute it, and that person was himself. He started at first. How could he, as Secretary of State, undertake it? The thing was unheard of. I then told him, that it was not strictly true that it had never been done: that Lord Bolingbroke went to Paris in a diplomatic capacity when Secretary of State; and that, though in that case the precedent was not a good one, it was still a precedent, and I believed there were more. The conclusion to which this conversation led was, that 'he would talk it over with Liverpool;' and the consequence was that, the next day, or the day after, his mission was decided."
A letter, not less interesting, from Lord Ripon, gives some striking particulars of this mission. Lord Ripon had accompanied him to the Congress. "I allude to his first mission to the Continent, at the close of 1813. I travelled with him from the Hague to Bâle, where he first came in contact with any of the ministers of the Allied powers; and thence we proceeded to Langres, where the headquarters of the Grand Army were established, and where the allied sovereigns, the Emperors of Austria and Russia and the King of Prussia, with their respective ministers, were assembled."
The letter proceeds to state the views of the mission, much of whose success it attributes to the combined suavity and firmness of Lord Castlereagh's conduct. But, an instance of his prompt and sagacious decision suddenly occurred. Blucher's impetuous advance had been checked, with serious loss, by a desperate assault of Napoleon, who, availing himself of this success, had fallen upon all the advanced forces of the Allies. There was wavering at headquarters, and there were even proposals of retiring beyond the Rhine. It was essential to reinforce Blucher, but there were no troops at hand. Lord Castlereagh demanded, "Where were any to be found?" He was answered, that there were two strong corps of Russians and Prussians under the command of Bernadotte; but that he was "very tenacious of his command," and they could not be withdrawn without a tedious negotiation,—in other words, we presume, without fear of giving that clever but tardy commander a pretext for abandoning the alliance altogether. The difficulty was, by a high authority, pronounced insurmountable. Lord Castlereagh, who was present at the council, simply demanded, "whether the reinforcement was necessary;" and, on being answered in the affirmative, declared that the order must be given; that England had a right to expect that her allies should not be deterred from a decisive course by any such difficulties; and that he would take upon himself all the responsibility that might arise, regarding the Crown-Prince of Sweden.
The order was issued: Blucher was reinforced; Napoleon was beaten at Laon; and the campaign rapidly approached its close. Still, formidable difficulties arose. Napoleon, though he had at last found that he could not face the army of the Allies, conceived the daring manœuvre of throwing himself in their rear—thus alarming them for their communications, and forcing them to follow him back through France. The consequences of a desultory war might have been the revival of French resistance, and the ruin of the campaign. The manœuvre became the subject of extreme anxiety in the Allied camp, and some of the chief authorities were of opinion, that he ought to be pursued. It is said (though the Memoir has not yet reached that part of the subject,) that the decision of leaving him behind, and marching direct on Paris, was chiefly owing to Lord Castlereagh; who pointed out the weakness of taking counsel from an enemy, the advantage of finding the road to Paris open at last, and the measureless political importance of having the capital in their possession.
This advice prevailed: a few thousand cavalry were sent in the track of Napoleon, to entrap him into the idea that he was followed by the Grand Army, while Schwartzenberg marched in the opposite direction; and the first intelligence which reached the French army was in the thunderclap which announced the fall of the Empire!
Lord Harrowby's letter, in referring to a subsequent period, gives a curious instance of the chances on which the highest events may turn.
"Now for my other service in the dark. After the attempt to assassinate the Duke of Wellington at Paris, the Government was naturally most anxious to get him away. But how? Under whatever pretext it might be veiled, he would still call it running away, to which he was not partial. But, when Castlereagh was obliged to leave Vienna, in order to attend his duty in parliament, I was fortunate enough to suggest that the Duke should be sent to replace him; and that would be a command which he could not refuse to obey.
"When I mentioned this to the Duke, just after I left you—for I was then quite full of the memory of my little exploits—he quite agreed that, if he had been at Paris, on the return of Buonaparte to France, it would have been highly probable that they would have seized him.
"Small events are great to little men; and it is not nothing, to have contributed in the smallest degree to the success of the Congress at Vienna, (nor was it then so called,) and of the subsequent campaign, and to the saving of the Duke for Waterloo!"