X
M. de Talleyrand was buried at Valençay, in the chapel of the Sisters of St. André, which he had founded, and in which he had expressed a desire that the family vault should be placed.
His career and character have been gradually developed in this sketch, so that there remains little to say of them here. They were both, as I have elsewhere observed, coloured by their times, and must be regarded in connection with an epoch of social immorality and constant political change. Many of his faults were so inherent in that epoch, that, although they justly merit blame (for vice and virtue should be independent of custom and example), they also admit of excuse.
As to the variety of political parts which he played in the different scenes of the great drama which lasted half a century, one is daily seeing changes so extraordinary and so rapid amongst the most respectable public men of our own day, and even of our own country, that it would be absurd not to acknowledge that, when years run rapidly through changeful events, we must expect to find those whose career is embarked on so unsteady a current, uncertain and variable in their opinions. The stiff consistent character is of the middle ages.
At the commencement of the great Revolution of 1789, M. de Talleyrand took the liberal side in politics; a strong party of his own rank and profession did not do so, but many of the most illustrious did; and with the best motives. A certain interval elapsed; the monarchy was overthrown; a reign of madness and terror succeeded it; and, emerging from this sanguinary obscurity, men were just beginning to adopt some principles of order, which they brought together under the name of a Republic.
It is hardly for us (who have with our own eyes seen Frenchmen of high rank and generally acknowledged honour, even the personal friends of a deposed sovereign, become, within a few days after his fall, Republicans; and within a few years the confidential leaders of another dynasty)—it is hardly for us, I say, to judge with any great severity a Frenchman, who, returning to France at the time at which M. de Talleyrand revisited it, consented to serve the Directory. Neither can we be surprised, when it appeared evident that under the Directory things were again approaching the state of terror and confusion, of which so horrible a recollection still existed, that M. de Talleyrand preferred the government of one man to the want of any government at all—the organization of society under a temporary despotism, to its utter and radical decomposition. By and by, license and disorder being vanquished, moderate and regular notions as to liberty grew up; the dictator then appeared the tyrant,—and the fortunate soldier, the military gambler after fortune. This soldier converted the nation into an army, and his army was beaten: and M. de Talleyrand aided in reviving that nation, and giving it the framework of a constitutional system, under a legitimate monarchy;—almost, in fact, that very system which thirty-five years before he had wished to see established. Years rolled on and seemed to bring with them the renewal of the old maxim, that “Restorations are impossible.” The royal émigré, pointedly described as having forgotten nothing and learned nothing during his misfortunes, had not sufficiently imbibed the spirit of a new society which had risen up since his youth—a society which had neither the customs nor inclinations on which he considered that a monarchy should be maintained.
Charles X.’s views created suspicions which his acts, greatly exaggerated by those suspicions, hardly justified. But the knowledge that he thought that public liberty depended solely on his will, made the slightest movement towards controlling that liberty—dangerous.
The crown fell into the gutters of Paris. The government which most resembled the one which was overturned was still a monarchy with a monarch taken from the same family as the one deposed, but who was willing to accept his throne as a gift of the French nation and could not pretend to it as a legitimate right. M. de Talleyrand helped to form such a government.
It cannot be said that he departed in this case from his principles, though he changed his allegiance.
In fact, I hardly think, looking calmly and dispassionately at each of the epochs I have thus rapidly passed over, that any sensible and moderate man will deny that the side taken by M. de Talleyrand was the one on which, in every instance, lay good sense and moderation. It cannot be said that in the various changes that marked his career, he ever acted disinterestedly; but at the same time it may be urged that every time he accepted office he did thereby a real service to the cause he espoused, and even to the country to which he belonged.
There can be no doubt that at the first establishment of something like order and government under the Republic, the relations of France with foreign powers were considerably strengthened by a man of M. de Talleyrand’s birth and well-known acquirements and abilities being selected as minister of foreign affairs. It is also undeniable that, during the Consulate and early part of the Empire, the experience, sagacity, and tact of the accomplished diplomatist were eminently useful to the young, half-educated, and impetuous warrior whose fiery genius had placed him at the head of the State. To Louis XVIII. M. de Talleyrand’s assistance, when that sovereign recovered his throne, was invaluable, and Louis Philippe derived in no small degree, as I have already noticed, the respect which foreign governments paid so promptly to his suddenly-acquired authority from the fact that M. de Talleyrand had consented to undertake the embassy to London. I must likewise here repeat that to which I have already called attention. No party had to complain of treachery or ingratitude from this statesman so frequently stigmatised as fickle. The course he took at the different periods of his eventful life was that which seemed natural to the position in which he found himself, and the course which both friend and foe expected from him. His defections were from those whose policy he had been previously opposing, and whose views the higher order of intellects in his country condemned at the time that his own hostility commenced. Indeed, the rule of his conduct and the cause of his success may be pretty generally found in his well-known and wise maxim, that “The thoughts of the greatest number of intelligent persons in any country, are sure, with a few more or less fluctuations to become in the end that public opinion which influences the State.”
It must, however, be confessed that there is something to an honest nature displeasing in the history of a statesman who has served various masters and various systems, and appeared as the champion of each cause at the moment of its triumph. Reason may excuse, explain, or defend such versatility, but no generous sympathy calls upon us to applaud or recommend it.
The particular and especial talent of M. de Talleyrand was, as I have more than once exemplified, his tact; the art of seizing the important point in an affair—the peculiar characteristic of an individual, the genius and tendency of an epoch! His other qualities were accessories to this dominant quality, but of an inferior order and in an inferior degree.
His great good fortune was to have been absent from France during the horrors of the Committee of Public Safety; his great merit, to have served governments when in serving them he served the public interests. His great defect, a love of money, or rather a want of scruple as to how he obtained it. I never heard any clear justification of his great wealth, though that which, it is said, he gave to Bonaparte, “I bought stock before the 18th Brumaire, and sold it the day afterwards,” has wit and à propos to recommend it. His great calamity was to have been minister of foreign affairs at the moment of the execution of the Duc d’Enghien; and the part of his conduct most difficult to explain justifiably, is to be found in the contradiction between his declaration to Lord Grenville, when he came over to England after the 10th of August in 1792, that he had nothing to do with the provisional government then established in France, and the declaration of M. de Chénier to the convention in 1795—a declaration which he himself subsequently repeated—that he went to England at the time alluded to as Danton’s agent.
An extract from the Moniteur, the 27th of May, 1838, page 1412, quoting from the Gazette des Tribunaux, is worth preserving:81
“We have already said that in the sequel to the will of Prince Talleyrand was found a sort of manifesto, in which the celebrated diplomatist asserted the principles which had guided him in his political life, and explained his way of looking at certain events.
“According to various facts we have collected, the following is the substance of that declaration, which is dated in 1836, and which, in accordance with the wish of the testator, has been read to the family and assembled friends.
“The prince declares that before all things, and to all things, he had preferred the true interests of France.
“Explaining himself on the part he had taken in the return of the Bourbons in 1814, he says that, in his opinion, the Bourbons did not re-ascend the throne in virtue of a pre-existing and hereditary right; and he gives us, moreover, to understand that his counsels and advice were never wanting to enlighten them on their true position, and on the conduct which they ought to have followed in consequence.
“He repels the reproach of having betrayed Napoleon; if he abandoned him, it was when he discovered that he could no longer blend, as he had up to that time done, France and the Emperor in the same affection. This was not without a lively feeling of sorrow, for he owed to Napoleon nearly all his fortune. He enjoins his heirs never to forget these obligations, to tell them to their children, and to instruct these, again, to tell them to their offspring; so that if some day a man of the name of Bonaparte should be found in want of assistance, he should always find it in the family of Talleyrand.
“Replying to those who reproached him for having served successively all governments, he observes that he had done so without the least scruple, guided by the idea that, in whatever situation the country might be, there were always means of doing it some good, and that to do this good was the business of a statesman.”
Supposing the testament thus spoken of to exist, it is curious; and the expression of gratitude to the Bonaparte family is the more creditable from the fact that it could not have been made with any idea that it would be rewarded.
As to the defence set up for serving all dynasties and all causes, it cannot apply to any country where public men have the power, out of office, to put down a bad government, as they have in office the power to uphold a good one.
I will conclude with the appreciation of a French friend, who thus summed up many of my own remarks:—
“Enfin, chez M. de Talleyrand, l’aménité et la raison remplaçaient le cœur, et la conscience. Avec bien des défauts qui ont terni sa réputation, il avait toutes les qualités qui devaient faire prospérer son ambition. Ses talents qu’il a employés constamment pour son propre avantage, il les a employés presque aussi constamment pour le bien public. Beaucoup attaqué et peu défendu par ses contemporains, il n’en restera pas moins pour la postérité un des hommes les plus aimables de son temps et un des citoyens les plus illustres de son pays.”