[369] Cf. Vol. III., p. 147—T.
[370] Speech of the Prince de Talleyrand against the vote of one hundred millions proposed for the cost of the Spanish War (March 1823).—B.
[371] Elisabeth Pierre Comte de Montesquiou-Fézensac (1764-1834) was President of the Legislative Body in 1810, 1811 and 1813. He was created a count of the Empire in 1809 and, in the following year, was appointed Great Chamberlain of France in Talleyrand's stead.—B.
[372] The Duc de La Rochefoucauld-Doudeauville (Cf. Vol. IV., p. 134, n. 1) was a member of the Chamber of Peers from 1814 to 1831.—B.
[373] Jean Girard Lacuée, Comte de Cessac (1752-1841) was an inspector-general of reviews under Napoleon (1806), a minister of State (1806) and Minister of the Board of Military Administration. He was a member of the French Academy.—B.
[374] The Comte Roederer, in his Souvenirs, describes a conversation which he had with the Emperor, at the Élysée, on the 6th of March 1809. The subject of the conversation was King Joseph, who, in his letters from Madrid to his wife and Napoleon, complained of his brother and threatened to leave the Throne of Spain to go and grow his small potatoes at Mortefontaine. Napoleon, in the course of this interview with Roederer, walked to and fro, and became more and more excited as he spoke of the contents of those letters:
"'He says that he wants to go to Mortefontaine, rather than stay in a country bought by blood unjustly shed. And what is this Mortefontaine? It is the price of the blood which I spilled in Italy. Does he hold it from his father? Does he hold it from his work? He holds it from me. Yes, I have spilt blood, but it is the blood of my enemies, of the enemies of France. Does it become him to use their language? Does he want to act like Talleyrand? Talleyrand! I have covered him with honours, riches, diamonds. He has employed all of that against me. He has betrayed me as much as he could, on the first occasion that he had to do it in.... He said, during my absence'—during the Spanish War—'that he had gone on his knees to prevent the Spanish business; and he pestered me for two years to undertake it! He maintained to me that I should require only twenty thousand men; he gave me twenty memorandums to prove it. He behaved in the same way in the affair of the Duc d'Enghien; I knew nothing about him; it was Talleyrand who told me about him.' The Emperor always pronounces it Taillerand. 'I did not know where he was.' The Emperor stopped in front of me. 'It was he who told me the place where he was and, after advising his death, he bemoaned it with all his acquaintances.' The Emperor resumed his walk and, in a calmer tone, after a short pause, continued, 'I shall do him no harm; I am keeping him in all his offices; I even have the same feelings for him that I used to have; but I have taken from him the right to enter my closet at all times. He shall never have a private conversation with me; he will no longer be able to say that he has advised me or dissuaded me from one thing or the other.'"
[375] Cf. Vol. II., pp. 281-282.—T.
[376] Cf. Vol. III., p. 144.—T.
[377] Talleyrand was appointed Minister of External Relations, on the 16th of July 1797, in succession to Charles Delacroix, the father of Eugène Delacroix the painter.—B.