It has been the same with European ethics. When the great Frederick of Prussia violated the Pragmatic Sanction, to which Prussia had assented, and seized upon Silesia, neighboring nations were not slow to forget and forgive his audacity and to follow his unrighteous example. The partition of Poland grew out of it, from the contempt entertained for international opinion. Next came the French Revolution, when nations had no faith in the integrity of rival governments, nor had governments much confidence in their people. The world went backward in civilization, and the long wars of the republic, of the consulate, of the empire, ensued; not only the French, but every foreign soil on the Continent, was drenched in blood. At last, the moral atmosphere became so foul that the idea of assassination was entertained and talked about in every court at war with Napoleon. It was deemed feasible, it was favored by a silent assent; it floated in the air.
Sir Henry, in echo to diplomatic opinion and to the sentiment of the belligerent nations, treats the murder in cold blood of the Bourbon Duke d'Enghien, by order of Napoleon, as an atrocity. The act certainly was atrocious; but, at the bar of history, who are all the criminals that may be arraigned as accomplices in conspiring to efface the stain of turpitude in assassination from the Christian code of morals? How many were smiling at the prospect of doing unto the French emperor that which he did unto the duke? Not one statesman, or legislator, or diplomatist, or writer, could in his conscience cast the first stone. Public opinion was debauched on the subject; moral integrity was disboned. Napoleon justified his conduct in the only way left open to modify the enormity of the offence—to extenuate the nefarious deed. He excused himself as he excused his first attacks in war; it was to defend himself by becoming the assailant. He undertook to teach his enemies the efficacy of retaliation, and the lesson did teach them. Nothing more was ever whispered in secret, or again talked openly, of taking him off by poison or the dagger.
Talleyrand, although imperial prime minister at the time, does not appear to have been consulted. From all that is known, he certainly did not advise or countenance the act; he did not approve or condemn when it was done. What he communicated officially, he wrote, as secretary of the emperor, that which was dictated to him to write. But, on the other hand, no one is aware that he counselled against the murder; in all probability, in his laxity of morals, his sensibilities were not much shocked by the event. He was never known to have considered the transaction an impolitic measure; the common story that he spoke of it as worse than a crime—as a political blunder—has no authentic foundation.
Such was the course of affairs growing out of the first invasion of rights to property at the suggestion of the Bishop of Autun. But the immediate effects upon his fortunes are curious. He was erroneously associated in the foreign mind with the revolutionary acts that followed; and when, on the contrary, for self-preservation, he fled to London to escape the stigma of those very acts and the malice of the very men who perpetrated them, he was ordered out of England as a Jacobin or regicide and found a refuge in America. But in our republic no countenance was given to him, no cordial greeting extended. By the Federalists, he was, contemned as a traitor to his king, an apostate to his religion, an enemy to social order. By the anti-Federalists he was viewed as an aristocrat, an émigré, an obstacle to social progress. The ex-bishop, therefore, in 1794, like the expatriated M. Blot in 1864, had leisure to turn his attention to the culinary art. Talleyrand, and the other involuntary emigrants, observed upon the vines near the kitchens a beautiful round red production growing, which was cultivated as a vegetable ornament, whose botanical name was the lycopersicum, but which Americans called the love-apple. The French gentlemen recognized in it their tomate, and forthwith taught our great-grandmothers how to render it a more palatable esculent for their tables than it was a pleasing embellishment to their gardens.
But the Reign of Terror soon terminated; like the reign of Louis, it ended also at the guillotine. He now returned to Paris. His friend Barras was in the Directory, and Barras was of the aristocracy, who, however, "had been forgiven the crime of being a noble, in consideration of the virtue of being a regicide." From that date began the new lease to Talleyrand of power, prestige, influence, and prosperity, which was never again broken during his long life. He was willing to serve any administration under any form of government, providing it was the best under the circumstances, and when he could be, as he for the first time expressed it, the right man in the right place. But never for a day did he remain when he could not be useful to France, nor serviceable to the executive by whom he was retained. He knew how long it was beneficial to adhere to the Directory, and when the time had come to drop off. The first consul was treated in the same manner, and the emperor, and the allies, and Louis XVIII., and Louis Philippe. None of them could fascinate him by their condescension or consideration; yet he served them all honorably, honestly; but it was requisite he should be called and retained on his own terms. When he was dismissed, it was not before he already knew it was better for his own interests to go.
When Alexander of Russia entered Paris, in 1814, with the allied armies, the czar took up his imperial residence at Talleyrand's mansion, and expected to use the late prime minister for his own purpose by the high honor conferred. But Talleyrand was insensible to such delicate attentions; he was fully conscious he was himself a prince, and of the proud family of Périgord, a family that were sovereign in provinces of France in the middle ages, long before the Romanoffs, surrounded by a wild horde of half-naked Tartars, had ever held court on horse-back, or crossed the Ural, or been heard of in Europe. Talleyrand was not made a tool by the czar, but the czar was moulded like wax under the manipulations of Talleyrand; to him Louis XVIII. was indebted for his throne; and afterward, at the Congress of Vienna, when Alexander discovered Talleyrand could not be induced to betray French interests for the benefit of Russia, the czar compelled Louis to dismiss him from office.
Napoleon was estimated in a similar manner, but with even less respect, for he had been a plebeian, and perhaps, if anything, worse; he was not a Frenchman, he was a Corsican. After the battle of Leipsic, Napoleon offered the portfolio of foreign ministry to his former minister, but on the condition he should lay down the rank and emoluments of vice-grand elector. The object of the emperor was to make him dependent on imperial favor. But Talleyrand, who would have accepted the office, refused the condition, saying: "If the emperor trusts me, he should not degrade me; and if he does not trust me, he should not employ me; the times are too critical for half-measures." No circumlocution was resorted to on either side; it was plain dealing; for the parties knew with whom they were treating, and no compliments were requisite. M. Thiers remarks that "two superior Frenchmen, until they have an opportunity to flatter one another, are natural enemies." However much Talleyrand's wish might have been to assist the emperor, he would not show it: his invariable maxim was point de zèle—never evince ardor in anything.
But while he had no abasement in the presence of the great, he had no assumption toward equals or inferiors in mind and in position. Thoroughly self-reliant, he was never found disconcerted nor off his guard; in the widest sense he was a man; he held all others as no more and no less. He had no confidants. Perhaps Montrond was an exception, for Montrond was a specialty, Sir Henry tells us, of the age, a type of the French roué. He was one of Talleyrand's pets, as Talleyrand was one of his admirations. Each spoke ill of the other; for each said he loved the other for his vices. But no one could speak to Talleyrand with so much intimacy, nor obtain from him so clear an answer; for they trusted one another, though Montrond would never have told any one else to trust Talleyrand, nor Talleyrand have told any one else to trust M. de Montrond.
Here we must, with reluctance, lay down Sir Henry's book; space will not permit dwelling longer upon it.