1 "Under control!" that is the word applied by every one of those who handle the volumes just published in Paris; but this implies more the immediate inaccuracies of which the actual edition is accused, than any alterations or misstatements attributed to the original author himself. And after minute examination, we are obliged to recognise that a very large mass of confirmation is to be discovered in various portions of the volumes before us, and that, in reality, a manner of "control" had been exercised already by the writer himself. There is, amongst others, an exceedingly curious reason for this fact. Up to the time of Prince Talleyrand's death, few ministers or great official dignitaries would have imagined diplomatic documents buried in the recesses of the Government archives being brought to light in order to confront the autobiographical records of their own writers. They were, at all events, safe, hidden away, often forgotten. Taking, for instance, the precious correspondence recovered with such pains half a century later by M. Pallain, and by him presented to the French Foreign Office (the invaluable "De Lessart Correspondence")—this was as much in reality a secret to its principal author at the period of his demise as to any other ordinary mortal; was almost as much as to any one else a chronicle of bygone events carried away, swamped by the Revolution! Alluding to the length of time, III, But the blank spaces left by events, the gaps impossible to have foreseen-these, as M. Sorel so sagaciously observes, brought about disturbances even in the rolls of Ministerial State Papers. against many things, revised a good "Talleyrand," he adds, "provided deal, guarded as much as possible against imitations or falsifications, or mistakes made by copyists, against anything apocryphal, but he did not guard against history! (Il ne s'était point prémuni contre l'histoire !) He had not foreseen that, pending the long seclusion of his own' Memoirs,' the State archives would be opened, and that all and whatever he should have left-manuscripts, autographs, authentic despatches, innumerable documents—all I would be laid bare that he had believed sealed up, and had lost count of and that, when the time for publication prefixed by him had come, the public would already know every 1 The expression is quoted as specially to be noted in the last most telling review of the work by M. Albert Sorel, Temps,' 26th March 1891. thing, and be in a position to judge competently, weighing the good and bad, and passing sentence on the acts that lay before its eyes." Here M. Sorel's is the fairest and truest judgment passed, and for that reason we have given his own words. It is in fact before the history he himself contributed to make that M. de Talleyrand to a large degree stands judged. Now, without attempting to enter upon the chaos of incidents familiar to all politico-historical students from Jena to Leipsic, and from the Congress of Vienna to the coronation of Charles X., there are two points on which it seems to us something is to be said not without interest to the British reader. Why did Prince Talleyrand compile the materials for his 'Memoirs'? and what was the lesson (if any) that, after a certain lapse of time, he wished to leave on the minds of the public of his age? A very generally adopted notion is, that when he commenced his work-in 1818-21-23 (the Restoration still enduring, and Louis XVIII. being still alive)-he intended to prove (indirectly to show the sovereign to whom much was communicated, and who was an appreciator of extraordinary worth) that in real truth one man had foreseen all,-had, from the first sign of Napoleonic folly, prejudged the inevitable end, and had contributed mainly to the retrieval; that, in short, Charles Maurice de Talleyrand had been the General Monk! This, until 1830, was the opinion of more than one politician; and when from 1836 on wards the restrictions were placed on the date of publication, it was supposed that they had for their motive the desire of avoiding any future offence to any member of the Orleans family. Let us accept either or both explanations, which contain nothing whatever very improbable or particularly unworthy. There are still reserves to make as regards the relative sincerity of Talleyrand's later career.1 A controversy of which we have not yet reached the end has, from 1822-30 until the present day, been waged throughout the continent of Europe in order to decide what were the bond fide political opinions of the man who was reproached with having served all masters. Was he an adherent of conservative principles, or had he been genuinely converted to what are termed "liberal" ones? Did he believe in any principles whatsoever, or had he in turn been false to all? And in the latter hypothesis, who were the parties he had the most and oftenest betrayed? There is in the best controlled portion of the 'Memoirs,' in the passages that are most strongly confirmed by the autobiographical documents, a not unimportant number of attestations proving Talleyrand's adoption of certain modern liberal doctrines, though as against this must be largely admitted the declaration made by his enemies of the complete untrustworthiness of his character, and the all but certainty of his adoption of any party opinion or creed that should serve his own interest or ambition. 1 We discard the legend of the Talleyrand Papers said to have been carried away from the Prince's deathbed by Louis Philippe and Madame Adelaïde, for it seems to us manifestly not to hold together. If taken and in positive possession, why was it neglected, at the same time, to secure the frightfully damaging portrait of Egalité-the worst of any of the historic presentments, and undisputed by any serious authority? Without deciding in favour of this extreme view, we think it just to premise that in the average political beliefs of M. de Talleyrand-those most apparent throughout the longest consistent sections of his existence-there must evidently be set down a vast sum of indifference and a great share of contempt, indifference for the deeds done, and contempt for the doers of them. Both, we must however in all fairness say, are more distinctly visible during the latter than during the former part of his career. After his return from America in 1797, we have little difficulty in accepting the estimate of his detractors touching his moral worth. It is perhaps of less importance to the ultimate result than might be supposed. One fact, as a fact, must be stated at all hazards-it is this: throughout the evidences of Talleyrand's life from first to last, the proofs of his liberal modern tendencies outweigh numerically those of any retrograde or absolutist sort. But "do not rely upon that," cry the enemies with one acclaim; "it is all pretence—a mere blind, meant to beguile and take you in!" Let it be so. Granted. It is the conviction not of the Bismark but of the Metternich school, with whom Talleyrand had, as a matter of fact, nothing in common, and who for that reason mortally hated him. "The Emperor," says Prince Talleyrand, relating a conversation in 1807, "had more than once evinced a great desire to talk to me about his plans regarding Spain, but I invariably eluded the subject, knowing well whither tended his rapacious ambition; and when it even came to a point, I never failed to show him the him the mortal regrets and disasters convince him, and he ever after mistrusted me." There was added to this the argument of the danger that is inseparable from all invasion, the declaration of the incomparable difficulties attending the attack of a "nation of patriots by a foreign Power alone." These were the very theories resorted to under the Restoration in 1822-23, and employed to prevent the campaign of the Duc d'Angoulême in Spain, and this was the tone of the Opposition in Paris, redounding to its utmost credit, be it said.1 What prevented Prince Talleyrand from resorting to these same methods of resistance in the same identical moment, and placing under the date of 1807 as opposed to the omnipotent Emperor the liberal language meant to encourage the English proclivities of Louis XVIII.? The adversaries knew of but one form of abuse: Liberalism or Conservatism, it was all deceit ! He had always had a personal plan -a plan for his own advantage, and for some one else's eventual undoing-in every single assertion he had ever made, in every single proposal he had ever initiated. Let it be so. When the blindness of Charles X. and the insanity of his ministers produced the fatal, and, as time has proved, irremediable catastrophe of 1830, the immediate necessity was to save what remained, to prevent a total destruction. "Sauvons en les morceaux!" was the last cry of hope, and Talleyrand was despatched to London. 1 Vide Mémoires du Duc Victor de Broglie. 4 vols. Paris, 1886: C. Lévy. . "Europe is assuredly at this moment in a state of crisis. Well, England is, with ourselves, the sole Power sincerely desirous of peace. Other Governments recognise divine right, whereas of us two neither sees therein its origin. duty is to use all our several points of unity to give to Europe the peace whereof she stands in need. There may be other States inclined for war but we two must declare peace, and impose it as the two strongest. Certain Cabinets entertain, no doubt, dreams of coalition, and may come to an understanding, for they are based on common principles. These are being weakened every day, it is true, but they still exist, and when these Cabinets speak together, they agree with each other quickly they sustain divine right with cannon. We two (England and France) have only principles wherewith to back public opinion; but a principle can penetrate everywhere, whereas cannon I believe that our The forces has a limited range. are pretty equal on both sides; for whilst opinion and principles find allies on the side of their very opponents, the latter count no adherents save in the Faubourg St Germain. . . . There is a way of inclining the scale towards our system, there is but one,-namely, to win over Prussia to our ideas, her own being far less distant from ours than those of her northern neighbours. . . . I took occasion yesterday to develop these theories at great length with Lord Grey, and did so also to-day with Lord Palmerston. Both adopt them entirely, and will send corresponding instructions in this sense to their agents in Berlin." 1 Nor is this all. On presenting his credentials to William IV., he took occasion to address to his Majesty a short speech, that was welcomed by universal favour in the English press. He urged its reproduction in the Moniteur'; but Count Mole, then Prime Minister, threw obstacles of every kind in the path of such publicity, and all the ambassador's vehemence could be of no avail, for Louis Philippe backed his Minister in lication in the 'National,' the leadhis resistance. At last, after pubing Opposition organ of the time, the speech of the French ambassador was admitted to the 'Moniteur.' But it is not the least curious episode of the moment that difficulties of this description should have been placed in Prince Talleyrand's road by the head of his own Government. Now, to condense the heterogeneous materials from which the many sources now before us have furnished the portrait of the cel ebrated French statesman, suppose we deliberately adopt the 1 Always the old combination of 1792, the original notion of Mirabeau: the constitutional tendency-" We must secure Berlin; . . . mind you don't lose your hold on Ségur." most unfavourable view-that of his worst detractors, — the view that his whole life admits only the vicious, the false, the unscrupulous, the perjured, the incarnation of all evil, making the man of whom it was said that "il ne pouvait pas craindre le diable puisqu'il l'était," suppose we accept this estimate of him as the true one, there still remains one qualifying circumstance to be taken into account: if he did not, as he asserts, advise Napoleon in the height of his omnipotence to abstain from his unjustifiable and insane aggressions, and if he never on any occasion attempted to stay the ruthless flood of violence against the weak ; if he never raised his voice to prevent useless wrong, never tried to avert or mitigate the excesses of either the Prussian, or, above all, the Spanish "robber raids"; if he merely pretended to have done so when long years afterwards it might conduce to his credit,-there is always the one reserve to be made—that he knew and distinctly acknowledged where the right and proper and honourable line of conduct lay,—knew in his inmost conviction what he ought to have done, had the respect a public man should have for what a public man should do, and proved he had it by pretending That much it is to have done it! Whatever else we may deny, we must grant him his intelligence, and his absence of blind or narrow prejudice. His sense of the fitness of things, as of his own personal ease, was much injured; and, aggrieved from his very cradle by the foolish avoidances of Progress in the civilisation whereinto he was born, he was undeniably of a far-seeing spirit, cast in the modern mould-more modern even than simply intelligent, his modes of perception being decidedly more in accord with the usages and forms of what lay before than of what lay behind him. If, therefore, we ask no grandeur of moral thought, no rectitude of principle, no preference, from a higher point of view, of the grandness of man's dignity or the stateliness of freedom, we may still, in his intellect, in his fine appreciations of men and things, see the determining cause for a belief in the expediency of progress, in the superiority of free institutions over the depressing barbarities of absolute rule. He is not led astray by words; he looks into the inmost minds of men. He is to the last the same man who so admired the unyielding will of the English nation and the splendid character of William Pitt." |