IX
The views and conduct of M. de Talleyrand are at this crisis interesting. We have been told by contemporaries, that he and Sieyès were of opinion that there was a better chance of making the Revolution successful with a limited monarchy under a new chief, elected by the nation, than under the old one, who claimed his throne in virtue of hereditary right; and we can easily understand their reasoning.
A king who had succeeded to a throne from which his ancestors had been accustomed for centuries to dictate absolutely to their people, could hardly be sincerely satisfied with possessing on sufferance a remnant of his ancestors’ former authority; nor could a people be ever wholly without suspicion of a prince who had to forget the ideas with which he had received the sceptre before he could respect those which restricted the use of it.
Louis XVI., moreover, had attempted to escape from his palace, as a prisoner escaping from his gaol, and as a prisoner thus escaping he had been caught and brought back to his place of confinement.
It was difficult to make anything of a sovereign in this condition save a puppet, to be for a while the tool, and ere long the victim, of contending parties.
Now, M. de Talleyrand had always a leaning to the Orleans branch of the House of Bourbon: neither did he think so ill of the notorious personage who was then the representative of the Orleans family, as the contemporaries from whose report posterity has traced his portrait.
Of this prince he once said, in his own pithy manner, “Le duc d’Orléans est le vase dans lequel on a jeté toutes les ordures de la Révolution;”26 and this was not untrue.
Philippe d’Orléans, indeed, who has figured in history under the nickname or sobriquet of “Egalité,” was neither fitted for the part of a great sovereign in turbulent times nor for that of a quiet and obscure citizen at any more tranquil period. Nevertheless, he was not so bad a man as he has been represented; for both Legitimists and Republicans have been obliged to blacken his character in order to excuse their conduct to him.
His character has, furthermore, been mystified and exaggerated, as we have looked at it by the lurid glare of that unnatural vote which brings the later period of his life always prominently and horribly before us. Still, in reality, he was rather a weak man, led into villainous deeds by want of principle, than a man of a strong and villainous nature, who did not scruple at crimes when they seemed likely to advance his ambition. His only one strong passion was a desire to be talked about.
It is possible that the King, by skilful management, might have turned this ruling wish of his most powerful subject to the profit of his monarchy: for the young Duc de Chartres was at one time anxious to shine as an aspirant to military fame. The government, however, denied his request to be employed as became his rank; and when, despite of this denial, he engaged in a naval combat as a volunteer, the court unjustly and impoliticly spread reports against his courage. To risk his life in a balloon, to run riot in every extravagance of debauch, to profess the opinions of a republican though the first prince of the blood royal, were demonstrations of the same disposition which might have made him a gallant soldier, a furious bigot, a zealous royalist, and even a very tolerable constitutional monarch.
As to the various stories of his incessant schemes and complicated manœuvres for exciting the populace, debauching the soldiery, and seizing the crown, they are, in my opinion, no more worthy of credit than the tales which at the same period were equally circulated of Louis XVI.’s drunkenness, and Marie-Antoinette’s debaucheries. Belonging to those whom Tacitus has described as “men loving idleness—though hating quiet,” seeking popularity more than power, and with a character easily modelled by circumstances, I am by no means certain, that if M. de Talleyrand did think of bestowing on him what was afterwards called a “citizen crown,” (it must be remembered that he had not then been lowered and disgraced by the follies or crimes into which he was subsequently led), the plan was not the best which could have been adopted. But there was one great and insurmountable obstacle to this design.
General Lafayette commanded the National Guard of Paris, and although his popularity was already on the wane, he was still—Mirabeau being dead—the most powerful citizen that had been raised up by the Revolution. He did not want to run new risks, nor to acquire greater power, nor to have a monarch with more popularity or more authority than the runaway king.
Courageous rather than audacious, more avid of popularity than of power, a chivalric knight-errant, an amiable enthusiast, rather than a great captain, or a practical politician, the part which suited him was that of parading himself before the people as the guardian of the constitution, and before the sovereign as the idol of the nation. To this part he wished to confine himself; and the monarch under whom he could play it most easily was Louis XVI. Nor was this all.
Ambitious men may agree as to sharing the attributes of office; vain men will not agree as to sharing the pleasure of applause: and it is said that Lafayette never forgot that there was another bust, that of the Duc d’Orléans, carried about the streets of Paris together with his own, on the memorable day which saw the destruction of the Bastille. To any idea, therefore, of the Duc d’Orléans as King of France, he was decidedly opposed.