Talleyrand.
A letter from Talleyrand.
Such were the diplomatic transactions which were being completed in Vienna while we were stopping at Ghent. In this latter residence, I received the following letter from M. de Talleyrand:
"Vienna, 4 April.
"I learnt, monsieur, with much pleasure that you were at Ghent, for circumstances require that the King should be surrounded with strong and independent men.
"You will certainly have thought that it was useful to refute, by means of strenuously-reasoned publications, the whole of the new doctrine which they are trying to establish in the official documents now appearing in France.
"It would be useful if something could appear of which the object would be to establish that the Declaration of the 31st of March, made in Paris by the Allies, that the Act of Deposition, that the Act of Abdication, that the Treaty of the 11th of April, which resulted from them, are so many preliminary, indispensable and absolute conditions of the Treaty of the 30th of May; that is to say that, without those previous conditions, the treaty would not have been made. This admitted, the man who violates the said conditions or seconds their violation breaks the peace which that treaty established. It is, therefore, he and his accomplices who are declaring war against Europe.
"An argument taken in this sense would do good abroad as well as at home; only it must be well done, so make it your business.
"Accept, monsieur, the homage of my sincere attachment and of my high regard.
"Talleyrand.
"I hope to have the honour of seeing you at the end of the month."
Our Minister in Vienna was faithful to his hatred of the great chimera escaped from the shades: he dreaded a blow from its wing. This letter shows, for the rest, all that M. de Talleyrand was capable of doing when he wrote alone: he had the kindness to teach me the "movement," leaving the "graces" to me. It was a question indeed of a few diplomatic phrases on the deposition, on the abdication, on the Treaty of the 11th of April and of the 30th of May, to stop Napoleon! I was very grateful for the instructions given me by virtue of my patent as "a strong man," but I did not follow them: an ambassador in petto I was not at that moment meddling with foreign affairs; I busied myself only with my Ministry of the Interior ad interim.
But what was taking place in Paris?
[231] Jean Baptiste Baron Dalesme (1763-1832) was a brigadier-general under Napoleon, sat in the Legislative Body as Deputy for the Haute-Vienne from 1802 to 1809, and was created a baron of the Empire in 1810. He rallied to the Restoration, which made him a lieutenant-general in October 1814. He was Governor of Elba during the Hundred Days, and left the service on the Second Restoration. He was reinstated in 1830, and died Governor of the Invalides.—B.
[232] 4 May 1814.—B.