Historical Characters. Henry Bulwer

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СКАЧАТЬ armies, were bound, as he contended, to obey his decrees. In this state of things commenced the last and fatal struggle between the two potentates, who a short time before had projected partitioning the empire of the world as friendly confederates, and were now prepared to contend for it as deadly foes. Nor was the justice of M. de Talleyrand’s views ever more conspicuous! The destruction of Prussia, by making Russia and France neighbours, had in itself tended to make them enemies. Moreover, the proud and offended, but dissimulating Czar, though redoubling his courtesy towards the court of France after the choice of an Austrian archduchess, lest he might be supposed hurt by the rejection of a marriage with a princess of his own family, had begun to feel that, with the rest of continental Europe subdued and Austria apparently gained, he was alone in his independence; and to fret under the rein, which his imperious rider pulled, with superb indifference, somewhat too tightly.

      Besides, though invested with unbounded authority over his people by law and custom, there was the example of his father to teach him that he could not wholly disregard their interests or wishes; yet this was what the Emperor of the French exacted from him. His subjects were not to sell their produce to the only purchaser who was ready and desirous to buy it; – and being thus harshly and foolishly placed between revolution and war, Alexander chose the latter.

XI

      On the other hand, Napoleon, in determining on a conflict of which he did not disguise from himself the importance, awoke for a moment to his former sense of the necessity of using able men in great affairs, and was disposed, notwithstanding his disagreements with M. de Talleyrand, to send him to Warsaw to organise a kingdom of Poland; nor was it surprising that, confident in the sagacity and tact of the agent he thought of employing, he was also satisfied that, in the event of that agent’s accepting employment, he might count perfectly on his fidelity; for throughout M. de Talleyrand’s long career and frequent changes there is not any instance of his having betrayed any one from whom he accepted a trust. The difficulty of reconciling the Prince de Benevent’s position with that of the Duc de Bassano, who accompanied the Emperor on this campaign as minister of foreign affairs, prevented, it is said, the projected arrangement. But neither during this transient gleam of returning favour, nor after it, did M. de Talleyrand’s opinion against the chances which Napoleon was unnecessarily (as he thought) running, ever vary; neither were they disguised. He insisted principally on the chance of war, which often decides against the ablest general and the most skilful combinations; on the great loss which would result from a defeat, and the small gain that would follow a victory. The whole of Europe that the reckless general left behind him was, he knew, kept down merely by fear and constraint, and though ready to assist an advancing army, certain to fall on a retreating one. Besides, supposing defeat was almost impossible, what had France to gain by success?

      Alexander might reiterate his promise of preventing all commercial interchange between Great Britain and his dominions; but would he be able to keep that promise? He could not. The mind of Napoleon, however, had now been trained by Fortune to consider wars mere military parades, shortly after the commencement of which he entered the capital of his conquered enemy and returned to Paris to be greeted by enthusiastic acclamations at the theatre. He required this sort of excitement, and like most men similarly influenced, convinced himself that what was pleasing to his vanity was demanded by his interests.

      There were three epochs, indeed, in Napoleon’s career: the first, when he fought for glory abroad to gain empire at home; the second, when, being master of the government of France, he fought to extend the limits of France, and to make himself the most powerful individual in his nation, and his nation the most powerful nation in the world; the third, when France being but a secondary consideration, his ambition was bent on becoming master of the universe, and acquiring a dominion of which France would be almost an insignificant portion.

      It is necessary to bear this in mind, since it explains Napoleon’s Russian campaign; it explains the difficulties he raised against withdrawing his troops from Germany after that campaign had ended in defeat; and his constant dislike to accept any conditions that put a positive extinguisher on his gigantic projects. To support his own confidence in such projects he persuaded himself that a charm attached to his existence, that supernatural means would arrive to him when natural means failed. He did not, however, neglect on this occasion the natural means.

      When Fouché expressed his apprehensions at so vast an enterprise, the soldier’s answer is said to have been, “I wanted 800,000 men, and I have them.”56 But France had begun to be at this period wearied even with his successes; and the affair of Mallet, which happened just previously to the arrival of the bad intelligence from Russia, showed pretty clearly that her Emperor’s fall or defeat left an open space for any new system that circumstances might favour or impose.

      No sooner, then, had the news that Moscow was burnt reached Paris than M. de Talleyrand considered the Bonapartist cause as lost. Not that Bonaparte might not yet have saved himself by prudence, but he was not prudent; not but that the French government might not yet have brought as many men in uniform into the field as the allies, but that nations fought on one side, and merely soldiers on the other.

      The sagacious statesman, therefore, who now began again to be consulted, advised a conclusion of the war, promptly, at once, and on almost all conditions. So, again, when the defection of the Prussians was known, and Napoleon summoned a council to determine what should be done under such circumstances, he said: “Negotiate: you have now in your hands effects which you can give away; to-morrow they may be gone, and then the power to negotiate advantageously will be gone also.”57

      During the armistice at Prague (June, 1813), when the prestige of two or three recent victories coloured the negotiations, and France might have had Holland, Italy, and her natural frontiers, both Talleyrand and Fouché, who was also asked for his advice, repeated constantly, “The Emperor has but one thing to do – to make peace; and the more quickly he makes it, the better he will make it.” So also, when M. de St. Aignan, after the battle of Leipsic, brought propositions from Frankfort, which might even yet have given France her frontier of the Rhine (November), M. de Talleyrand urged their acceptance with the least delay, and told the Emperor that a bad peace was better than the continuation of a war that could not end favourably.58

      Napoleon himself at this time wavered, and with a momentary doubt as to his own judgment, and a remembrance very possibly of happier times, offered the portfolio of foreign affairs to his ancient minister, but on the condition that he should lay down the rank and emoluments of vice-grand-elector.

      The object of the Emperor was thus to make M. de Talleyrand entirely dependent on his place; but M. de Talleyrand, who would have accepted the office, refused the condition, saying, “If the Emperor trusts me, he should not degrade me; and if he does not trust me, he should not employ me; the times are too difficult for half measures.”

XII

      The state of affairs at this period was assuredly most critical. In looking towards Spain, there was to be seen an English army, crowned by victory, and about to descend from the Pyrenees. In looking towards Germany, there was a whole population, whom former defeat had exasperated, and recent success encouraged, burning to cross the Rhine in search of the trophies of which an enemy still boasted. In Italy, a defection in the Emperor’s family was about to display the full extent of his misfortunes. In Holland, the colours of the exiled family (the House of Orange) were displayed with rapture amidst shouts for national independence; even the King of Denmark had left the French alliance; while in France a people unanimated by liberty, an army decimated by defeat, generals that had lost their hopes, and arsenals which were empty, were the sole resources with which its ruler had to encounter all Europe in arms.

      The refusal of M. de Talleyrand, then, to accept office at such a time, unless with all the confidence and splendour that could give it authority, was natural enough; but it is also not surprising that the sovereign who had made that offer should have been irritated by its rejection, whilst many urged that СКАЧАТЬ