Historical Characters. Henry Bulwer

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СКАЧАТЬ the chief of the Empire justly dreaded the effect which, both at home and abroad, any violent act might produce; for it was far more difficult, than many have supposed, for him to strike, when his power was once on the decline, any strong blow against an eminent functionary. His government was a government of functionaries, throughout whom there reigned a sort of fraternity that could not safely be braved.

      This stern man had, moreover, – and this was one of the most remarkable and amiable portions of his character – a sort of tenderness, which he never overcame, for those who had once been attached to his person, or had done eminent service to his authority.59 He resolved, then, not to take any violent measure against M. de Talleyrand; but though he could restrain his anger from acts, he could not from expressions.

      A variety of scenes was the consequence. Savary relates one which happened in his presence and that of the arch-chancellor. I have also read of one in which Napoleon, having said that if he thought his own death likely he would take care that the vice-grand-elector should not survive him, was answered by M. de Talleyrand rejoining, quietly and respectfully, that he did not require that reason for desiring that his Majesty’s life might be long preserved. M. Molé recounted to me another, in the following terms: “At the end of the Council of State, which took place just before the Emperor started for the campaign of 1814, he burst out into some violent exclamations of his being surrounded by treachery and traitors; and then turning to M. de Talleyrand, abused him for ten minutes in the most violent and outrageous manner. Talleyrand was standing by the fire all this time, guarding himself from the heat of the flame by his hat; he never moved a limb or a feature; any one who had seen him would have supposed that he was the last man in the room to whom the Emperor could be speaking; and finally, when Napoleon, slamming the door violently, departed, Talleyrand quietly took the arm of M. Mollien, and limped with apparent unconsciousness downstairs. But on getting home, he wrote a dignified letter to the Emperor, saying, that if he retained his present dignity, he should be by right one of the regency, and that as he could not think of holding such a charge after the opinion his Majesty had expressed of him, he begged to resign his post, and to be allowed to retire into the country. He was informed, however, that his resignation would not be accepted, and that he might stay where he was.”

      It is to be presumed that insults like that I have been relating went a great way towards alienating and disgusting the person they were meant to humiliate; but though at the head of a considerable party which were dissatisfied, M. de Talleyrand did little more than watch the proceedings of 1814, and endeavour to make the fall of Napoleon, should it take place, as little injurious to France and to himself as possible.60

      During the conferences at Chatillon, he told those whom the Emperor most trusted, that he would be lost if he did not take peace on any terms; when, however, towards the end of these conferences, peace seemed impossible with Napoleon, he permitted the Duc Dalberg to send M. de Vitrolles to the allied camp with the information, that, if the allies did not make war against France, but simply against its present ruler, they would find friends in Paris ready to help them. M. de Vitrolles carried a slip of paper from the Duc in his boot as his credentials, and was allowed to name M. de Talleyrand; but he had nothing from that personage himself which could compromise him irrevocably with this mission.

      M. de Talleyrand saw, nevertheless, at that moment, that a new chief must, as a matter of course, be given to France, and he wished to be the person to decide who that chief should be, and under what sort of institutions the government should be assigned to him.

      Still, his communications with the Bourbons were, I believe, merely indirect. Many of their partisans were his relatives and friends. He said obliging things of Louis XVIII. to them, and he received obliging messages in return: but he did not positively adopt their cause; in fact, it seems doubtful whether he did not for a certain time hesitate between the ancient race, and the King of Rome with a council of regency, in which he was to have had a place. At all events, he kept the minister of police, according to Savary’s own account, alive to the Royalist movements in the south. It may even be said that he did not desert the Bonaparte dynasty till it deserted itself: for at the Council, assembled when the allies were approaching Paris to determine whether the Empress should remain in the capital or quit it, he advised her stay in the strongest manner, saying it was the best, if not the only, means of preserving the dynasty, and he did not cease urging this opinion until Joseph Bonaparte produced a letter from his brother, stating that in such a case as that under consideration Marie-Louise should retire into the provinces. It was then that, on leaving the council chamber, he said to Savary:61

      “Here, then, is the end of all this. Is not that also your opinion? we lose the rubber with a fair game. Just see where the stupidity of a few ignorant men, who perseveringly work on the influence acquired by daily intercourse, ends by carrying one. In truth, the Emperor is much to be pitied, and yet nobody will pity him; for his obstinacy in holding to those who surround him, has no reasonable motive; it is only a weakness which cannot be conceived in such a man. What a fall in history! To give his name to adventures, instead of giving it to his age! When I think of this I cannot help being grieved. And now what is to be done? It does not suit every one to be crushed under the ruins of the edifice that is to be overthrown. Well, we shall see what will happen!

      “The Emperor, instead of abusing me, would have done better in estimating at their first value those who set him against me. He should have seen that friends of that kind are to be more dreaded than enemies. What would he say to another who let himself be reduced to the state in which he is now?”

XIII

      The observation that it did not suit every one to be overwhelmed under the ruins of the government about to fall, applied, as it was intended to do by M. de Talleyrand, to himself. The part, however, he had to play was still a difficult one; desirous to remain in Paris in order to treat with the allies, he was ordered, as a member of the regency, to Blois. Nor was it merely because he feared that Napoleon might yet conquer, and punish his disobedience, that he disliked to resist his command; there is a sense of decency in public men which sometimes supplies the place of principle, and the vice-grand-elector wished to avoid the appearance of deserting the cause which notwithstanding he had resolved to abandon.

      The expedient he adopted was a singular and characteristic one. His state carriage was ordered and packed for the journey: he set out in it with great pomp and ceremony, and found, according to an arrangement previously made with Madame de Rémusat, her husband at the head of a body of the National Guard at the barrier, who stopped him, and, declaring he should remain in the capital, conducted him back to his hotel, in the Rue St. Florentin, in which he had soon the honour of receiving the Emperor Alexander.

      The success of the campaign had been so rapid, the march to Paris so bold, the name of Napoleon and the valour of the French army were still so formidable, that the Emperor of the Russias was almost surprised at the situation in which he found himself, and desirous to escape from it by any peace that could be made safely, quickly, and with some chance of duration. Beyond this, he had no fixed idea. The re-establishment of the Bourbons, to which the English Government inclined, seemed to him in some respects dangerous, as well on account of the long absence of these princes from France, as from their individual character and the prejudices of their personal adherents. To a treaty with Napoleon he had also reasonable objection. Some intermediate plan was the one perhaps most present to his mind; a regency with Marie-Louise, – a substitution of Bernadotte for Bonaparte; but all plans of this sort were vague, and to be tested by the principle of establishing things in the manner most satisfactory to Europe, and least hateful to France.

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