*
His underhand negotiations.
At the same time that Fouché was sending M. Gaillard to Ghent to negociate with the brother of Louis XVI., his agents at Bâle were parleying with those of Prince Metternich[300] on the subject of Napoleon II., and M. de Saint-Léon, dispatched by this same Fouché, was arriving in Vienna to treat of the crown as a "possibility" for M. le Duc d'Orléans. The friends of the Duc d'Otrante could rely upon him no more than his enemies: on the return of the legitimate Princes, he maintained his old colleague, M. Thibaudeau[301], on the list of exiles, while M. de Talleyrand struck this or that outlaw off the list, or added that other to the catalogue, according to his whim. Had not the Faubourg Saint-Germain reason indeed to believe in M. Fouché?
M. de Saint-Léon carried three notes to Vienna, of which one was addressed to M. de Talleyrand: the Duc d'Otrante proposed that the ambassador of Louis XVIII. should push the son of Égalité on to the throne, if he saw his way! What probity in those negociations! How fortunate they were to have to do with such honest persons! Yet we have admired, censed, blessed those highway robbers; we have paid court to them; we have called them monseigneur! That explains the world as it stands. M. de Montrond came in addition, after M. de Saint-Léon.
M. le Duc d'Orléans did not conspire in fact but by consent; he let the revolutionary affinities intrigue: a sweet society! In this dark lane, the plenipotentiary of the King of France lent an ear to Fouché's overtures.
Speaking of M. de Talleyrand's detention at the Barrière d'Enfer, I said what had, till then, been M. de Talleyrand's fixed idea as to the regency of Marie-Louise: he was obliged by the emergency to embrace the eventuality of the Bourbons; but he was always ill at ease: it seemed to him that, under the heirs of St. Louis, a married bishop would never be sure of his place. The idea of substituting the Younger Branch for the Elder Branch pleased him, therefore, so much so the more in that he had had former relations with the Palais Royal.
Taking that side, without however exposing himself entirely, he hazarded a few words of Fouché's project to Alexander. The Tsar had ceased to interest himself in Louis XVIII.: the latter had hurt him, in Paris, by his affectation of superiority of race; he had hurt him again by refusing to consent to the marriage of the Duc de Berry with a sister of the Emperor; the Princess was rejected for three reasons: she was a schismatic; she was not of an old enough stock; she came of a family of madmen: these reasons were not put forward upright but aslant, and, when seen through, gave Alexander treble offense. As a last subject of complaint against the old sovereign of exile, the Tsar brought up the projected alliance between England, France and Austria. For the rest, it seemed as though the succession were open; all the world claimed to succeed to the estate of the sons of Louis XIV.: Benjamin Constantin the name of Madame Murat[302], was pleading the rights which Napoleon's sister believed herself to possess over the Kingdom of Naples; Bernadotte was casting a distant glance upon Versailles, apparently because the King of Sweden came from Pau.
La Besnardière[303], head of a department at the Foreign Office, went over to M. de Caulaincourt; he drew up a hurried report on "the complaints and rejoinders of France" to the Legitimacy. After this kick had been let fly, M. de Talleyrand found means of communicating the report to Alexander: discontented and fickle, the Autocrat was struck with La Besnardière's pamphlet. Suddenly, in the middle of the Congress, the Tsar asked, to the general stupefaction, if it would not be a matter for deliberation to examine in how far M. le Duc d'Orléans might suit France and Europe as King. This is perhaps one of the most surprising things in those extraordinary times, and perhaps it is still more extraordinary that it has been so little discussed[304]. Lord Clancarty[305] made the Russian proposal fall through; His Lordship declared that he had no powers to treat so grave a question:
"As for myself," he said, "giving my opinion as a private individual, I think that to put M. le Duc d'Orléans on the throne of France would be to replace a military usurpation by a family usurpation, which is more dangerous to the sovereigns than any other usurpation."
At the Congress of Vienna.