No. 11
Probably written from Astorga, where he arrived on January 1st, having brought 50,000 men two hundred miles in ten days.
Your letters.—These probably, and others received by a courier, decided him to let Soult follow the English to Corunna—especially as he knew that transports were awaiting the enemy there. He himself prepares to return, for Fouché and Talleyrand are in league, the slim and slippery Metternich is ambassador at Paris, Austria is arming, and the whole political horizon, apparently bright at Erfurt, completely overcast. Murat, balked of the Crown of Spain, is now hoping for that of France if Napoleon is killed or assassinated. It is Talleyrand and Fouché who have decided on Murat, and on the ultimate overthrow of the Beauharnais. Unfortunately for their plans Eugène is apprised by Lavalette, and an incriminating letter to Murat captured and sent post-haste to Napoleon. This, says Pasquier, undoubtedly hastened the Emperor’s return. Ignoring the complicity of Fouché, the whole weight of his anger falls on Talleyrand, who loses the post of High Chamberlain, which he had enjoyed since 1804. For half-an-hour this “arch-apostate,” as Lord Rosebery calls him, receives a torrent of invectives. “You are a thief, a coward, a man without honour; you do not believe in God; you have all your life been a traitor to your duties; you have deceived and betrayed everybody: nothing is sacred to you; you would sell your own father. I have loaded you down with gifts, and there is nothing that you would not undertake against me. Thus, for the past ten months, you have been shameless enough, because you supposed, rightly or wrongly, that my affairs in Spain were going astray, to say to all who would listen to you that you always blamed my undertaking there, whereas it was yourself who first put it into my head, and who persistently urged it. And that man, that unfortunate (he was thus designating the Duc d’Enghien), by whom was I advised of the place of his residence? Who drove me to deal cruelly with him? What then are you aiming at? What do you wish for? What do you hope? Do you dare to say? You deserve that I should smash you like a wine-glass. I can do it, but I despise you too much to take the trouble.” This we are assured by the impartial Pasquier, who heard it from an ear-witness, and second-hand from Talleyrand, is an abstract of what Napoleon said, and to which the ex-Bishop made no reply.