Memoirs of the Duchesse de Dino (Afterwards Duchesse de Talleyrand et de Sagan), 1836-1840. Dorothée Dino

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СКАЧАТЬ was polite, but very reserved. I am greatly afraid of these publicists, men of letters, and writers of articles. I never spoke a word without deep consideration, and was delighted when he went. Moreover, he did not attract me; his face and bearing are vulgar, and I imagine his ideas are equally so. Undoubtedly he is a clever man, but his conversation is neither easy nor light, but, on the contrary, very dull. He watched and examined all of us most minutely, especially M. de Talleyrand.

      I could very well have done without this visit, and should have avoided it if I had been able. He aims at the extraordinary, and relates a thousand incidents about himself, of which I believe none.

      The Prince de Laval informed me that M. de Polignac has not yet been able to profit by the freedom which was granted him, as he was too ill to move at the moment arranged for his departure.56 He asks to be transported to the nearest frontier, Mons or Calais, to avoid any route of which he could not endure the fatigue.

      Rochecotte, December 2, 1836.– The Archbishop's letter concerning the convocation of the clergy is a bad one, because of its fault-finding, which is an unsuitable characteristic in an ecclesiastic whose finest quality is evangelical simplicity; but we must also admit that he must have been shocked by the attempt to influence the clergy directly, and that the prohibition of prayers instituted by the Church is somewhat too revolutionary, and I wish we could reform revolutionary ways more definitely. We cling to them out of fear, and this timidity, which is too obvious, brings us into isolation abroad and encourages enemies at home.

      The Duc d'Angoulême will certainly style himself Louis XIX. and his wife the Queen; she wished it to be so. However, immediately after the death of Charles X. they sent all the insignia of royalty into the room of the Duc de Bordeaux, declaring that even if events were favourable they never wished to reign in France. In any case the notifications were issued under the incognito title of Comte de Marnes. The young Prince is called Monseigneur at Goritz. He and his sister are staying with his uncle and aunt.

      M. de Polignac wrote to M. Molé after the death of Charles X., saying positively that he would be grateful to the King of the French for permission to leave Ham, and thus obtained his permit. M. Peyronnet wrote in charcoal on his prison wall, "I ask mercy only from God," which I think he had hardly the right to say, since he left his prison in very lively spirits. He would not see M. de Polignac again, even at the last moment.

      Rochecotte, December 15, 1836.– I shall certainly leave here to-morrow evening, and shall be at Paris in the afternoon of the day following.

      [The two correspondents whose letters furnish material for these memoirs spent a few months together at Paris, so that the memoirs were interrupted, and recommenced in 1837.]

      CHAPTER II

      1837

      Paris, April 17, 1837.– The new Ministry, which entered upon office the day before yesterday, and is destined to immortalise the date of April 15, as different Governments are designated by such dates, will have a stern conflict to wage, and I hope, for the sake of its leader, M. Molé, that it will emerge with honour from the struggle. The Journal de Paris offers a frank Doctrinaire opposition; the Journal des Débats pronounces a funeral oration over the last Ministry and offers peace and support to the new one. All this promises neither reality, sincerity, fidelity, nor stability, and I hardly know to whom or to what it is reasonable to trust in the sphere of political relations. M. Royer-Collard came to see me this morning before going to the Chamber of Deputies; he did not seem to think that the new Ministry would survive one session.57

      M. Thiers came to dine with us, among other guests, and talked largely, as usual. He came from the Chamber, where they had in vain awaited the official proclamation of the new Ministry which had been announced. The King was to take the Electress,58 who is at Paris at this moment incognito as the Comtesse d'Arco, to visit Versailles, but as the council lasted from ten in the morning till five in the afternoon the King was unable to go out or the Ministers to appear before the Chamber. The incident produced a bad effect upon the Electress, who is said to be irritable and scornful.

      Paris, April 19, 1837.– Madame de Castellane, who came to see me this morning, was very painfully affected by last night's session in the Chamber, and told me that the extreme length of yesterday's council was due to a keen discussion concerning the complete repeal of the law of appanage and the advisability of leaving blank the appanage of the Duc d'Orléans in the law which was to be presented to the Chamber on the occasion of his marriage with Princess Helena of Mecklenburg-Schwerin; the Duc d'Orléans, who was present at the council, was anxious that a blank space should be left, and eventually gained his point.

      Hardly had Madame de Castellane left my house than Madame de Lieven came in; she came to ask me to dinner to-day. She told me a saying which is current concerning the new Ministry, and is borrowed from a new invention; they call it the deodorised Ministry.

      Towards the end of the morning I had a visit from M. de Tocqueville, who came to me from the Chamber, where he had witnessed the solemn entry of the Ministry. He said that the entry took place amid the most absolute silence; there was not a word or a gesture, as if the benches had been empty, and as if one had been in the middle of the ice upon Lake Ladoga, to quote a later remark by Madame de Lieven. The same silence prevailed during M. Molé's speech, and when the Ministry retired in a body to make their way to the Chamber of Peers there was a murmur of dissatisfaction which drove back MM. de Salvandy and de Rosamel, who had come to resume their places upon the Ministerial bench. In the ensuing debate Marshal Clauzel seems to have cut a poor figure, but M. Jaubert was most incisive, and at his remarks upon the provisional state of affairs malicious laughter against the Cabinet burst out on all sides. On the whole the impression was most discouraging for the new Ministry.

      After our dinner the Duc de Noailles came in his turn to give an account of the Ministerial entry into the Chamber of Peers. M. Molé said a few short and confused words; M. de Brézé said that he thought the speech too vague, and asked for some explanation of the reason for the dissolution of the last Cabinet. M. Molé attempted to reply without committing himself, with the result, doubtless by mistake, that he used the word "categorical" to characterise the brevity of his words. Thereupon M. Villemain said maliciously that the speech of the President of the Council was anything rather than categorical, and that he would like to know what was going to happen concerning the law of non-revelation. M. de Montalivet then got up, and is said to have made an excellent speech. He would have left the Chamber with a thoroughly good impression, had not M. Siméon, the promoter of the law of non-revelation, announced that his speech was ready. This will be a great embarrassment for the Ministry, as they would have preferred to allow this proposed law to be forgotten.

      Paris, April 22, 1837.– Yesterday I had a visit from the Duc d'Orléans, who had just learnt the vote of the Chamber concerning his marriage dotation, and was satisfied both with the form and matter of it. He seems to me inclined to spend half of the million allotted to household expenses in charity to the workmen of Lyons, in bank-books bought for unfortunate people in the savings-banks of the country, in clothes for a large number of children in orphanages, and, in short, in good works. He is very pleased with his marriage, and in an excellent temper. The Princess Helena wishes to be escorted from Weimar by an envoy of France, and a suitable person is being sought for this mission. I should be glad to see the Baron de Montmorency obtain the honour. The Princess will see the King of Prussia at Potsdam. Her portrait has not yet arrived. There are still hopes that the marriage will take place before June 15. As the Princess is not to be married by procuration, and is not yet, consequently, the Duchesse d'Orléans, her household will not go to meet her at the frontier. There she will be met only by some member of the King's household, and perhaps by one of the Queen's ladies; in any case, she is coming accompanied by her step-mother, the СКАЧАТЬ