Volume 8 — Talleyrand, by Lytton Bulwer.

[Footnote 18]

Sir Henry Lytton Bulwer has presented the public with sketches of some eminent men, and has done his work well. It is not a series of biographies, but rather a finished outline of their prominent characteristics and of their achievements. In advance of the memoirs of Talleyrand, written by himself, and now in course of publication, this illustrious Frenchman is placed among the number, and in a new light. He is no longer the inscrutable being he appeared to his contemporaries, and as he has appeared since to their children. His name has been intimately associated with the great men and events of the last years of the unfortunate reign of Louis XVI. of France, near the close of the last century. Still more prominently is the memory of him associated with the convocation of the States-General and the National Assembly. By accident, he had the good fortune to be free from the odium attached to the Legislative Assembly and the atrocities of the National Convention, with the attendant horrors of the Committee of Public Safety in the Reign of Terror.

He fled from France in all haste as an émigré, and yet was lucky to avoid being classed with the aristocrats and so-called enemies of his country. He was prominent in the Revolution, without the stain of a regicide; he was a fugitive with the loyal crowd, without being stigmatized as a royalist. No amount of human foresight could have served him as a safe guide to shun the dangers which beset his fame and security on either side. His success was altogether fortuitous; but his friends attribute all to his superior sagacity and wisdom, while his enemies ascribe it to his remarkable cunning and prudence. When the days of danger and of blood passed by, Talleyrand returned to Paris with prestige, and was immediately employed by the Directory. When that went down, he floated to the surface with Bonaparte in the consulate and empire. Upon the fall of the empire, with the entrance of the allied armies into the capital he was their trusted counsellor. The restoration of the Bourbons was at once accompanied with the restoration of Talleyrand to the foreign office and to the head of affairs. When the Bourbons were expelled, in 1830, he was again reinstated by Louis Philippe, under whose reign he died in 1838, with that sovereign an attendant at his death-bed.

In truth, the same good fortune set in his favor when he was a boy: but it came in the guise of a calamity. Neglect on the part of a nurse resulted in a slight lameness for life in his legs, and in consequence a family council was convened wherein it was decided he should be deprived of his rights of primogeniture, of his high station as a nobleman, and of the wealth which went with them. His younger brother was substituted, while Talleyrand was destined for the priesthood. But such is the waywardness of fate that in a few years nobility was abolished, its privileges destroyed, and the nobles themselves were in exile, with his impoverished brother among the number. On the other hand, Talleyrand entered the church; he became a bishop, and in turn he deserted the church and his diocese when the road to greater worldly success and distinction led through desertion. He was excommunicated by the pope when papal censure and condemnation could only, for the time being, add to his popularity. Subsequently these were removed by the pontiff, when a brief to that end, with the turning tide of events, was all that was wanting to increase his prestige.

To what peculiar talent, quality, or skill he was indebted for his happy career has always been an open question; nor is it yet completely solved. Sir Henry does not undertake to discuss the problem, although he must entertain an opinion on the subject. But it is much better that he declined to propound any theory of his own; for in doing so the readers of his book would have misgivings that he tampered with some facts, or suppressed others altogether, in order to maintain it. His work in its present shape invites confidence, imports greater accuracy, and imparts additional satisfaction. No one can distrust his historical integrity, or doubt the extent of his inquiries and research in an honest endeavor to enlighten the public, or fail to appreciate the information obtained. It is a decided accession to biographical literature.

Nor are the opinions of the author, interspersed through the pages, the least interesting part of his performance; for these opinions on the mighty men and events of the period to which he refers may be taken as a reflex of the sentiments now current in the continental diplomatic corps, of which Sir Henry is an old and constant member of high standing. In his expositions, it is entertaining to compare the slow, lagging judgment of Europe on those times with American impressions, which are far more correct, enlightened, and advanced. The great idol which the foreign diplomatic community adores is success: Paris is its peculiar shrine; and Parisian society are fellow-worshippers. But, until success is attained and established, their fetich image is only one in the rough, to be hewed and hacked as cheap lumber. Napoleon and Talleyrand, during the long wars of the consulate and empire, were not deemed by neighboring states as much better than misshapen monsters of the human species: while the brilliancy of their achievements was dazzling the sight, bewildering the imagination, and extorting applause or admiration on this side of the Atlantic.

When the sanguinary contest closed in Europe, the exhibition of its continuous blaze of glory had lost much of its novelty in America; the ardor of our people commenced to cool down; they began to make a more dispassionate, and, consequently, a more rational estimate of their late heroes. This examination in some of its aspects was not favorable to the character of the republicans and of Napoleon. His genius, indeed, could not be denied; his deeds were marvellous; the splendor of his course had never been surpassed in ancient or modern ages; his individual or personal popularity was not in the least impaired. But on the whole, had his life been a blessing or otherwise to mankind? Had it been beneficial or injurious to progress? Had he or the preceding government of the Convention in the Reign of Terror promoted the welfare of France? Reluctantly but surely the American mind came to the conviction that the wars of the emperor had been as useless as they were prodigal of life, more desolating than the bloody guillotine worked by Robespierre. That decision will not soon be reversed; in all probability it will be confirmed and strengthened by time. On the eastern continent, however, this stage of enlightenment has not been reached by the mass of the intelligent population; but they are coming up to it. Napoleon as the scourge had there to be withdrawn, before he could reappear transformed into a hero, and from a hero into a great beneficent political being. His wars were there pronounced productive of good, as a destructive fire that had consumed the vermin of class abuses; that had extirpated the noxious weeds strangling civilization, which could not be eradicated by peaceful means; that the Reign of Terror had been a terrible tempest, to be sure, but a tempest, nevertheless, which, in the oratorical figure of Lord Erskine, had driven away pestilence and purified the atmosphere. At this point European sentiment now stands.

In republican America, the next stride will be still in the advance to the further conclusion, that Napoleon, in his martial policy, evinced only the cold-blooded, inordinately selfish despot, whose love of country was centred in self-love, whose patriotism for the State was unbounded when he was the State, for which he would sacrifice as much as Louis XIV. in a dazzling reign equally disastrous to the happiness of his subjects. But in Europe, to condemn the warlike propensities of Napoleon, is at the same time to condemn the hostile coalitions that promoted or provoked them. The measures adopted by inimical and rival powers to overthrow the French empire originated in passions and for a purpose fully as absurd and damaging to their own people. Both sides wanted war, without counting the cost, and now both are counting the loss, when war is no longer wanted. The losing figures present the longest columns to contemplative countenances the most elongated. In this showing, the picture is not inviting to monarchical perceptions; they are unwilling to acknowledge the fidelity of the portrait. England was always first in heart and soul in these conspiracies against the peace of Christendom, and England ever since has felt also, both first and last, the evil effects from the heaviest debts to be borne in consequence. Hence the dispiriting consciousness in the best of British circles, that France under Robespierre and Napoleon was matched in its foolishness by England under Pitt and Castlereagh. Something like even-handed retributive justice was meted out to all four: Robespierre attempted self-destruction when the executioner at the guillotine awaited him; Castlereagh cut his own throat; Pitt pined away and died as he closed the map of Europe with his finger pointing to the fatal field of Austerlitz; Napoleon lingered out a miserable life on a barren rock. The administrations of these men are now understood in the American republic, and have received the American condemnation. Talleyrand was an inferior personage to them in power, but only one degree less; he was the greatest in importance, and in position of the second grade. He is not so well comprehended. They did not know, until now, he had said to Montalvert:

"You have a prejudice against me, because your father was an imperialist, and you think I deserted the emperor. I have never kept fealty to any one longer than he has been obedient to common sense. But if you judge all my actions by this rule, you will find that I have been eminently consistent." (P. 408.)

The cause of his success was generally found in his strict adherence to the maxim that

"The thoughts of the greatest number of intelligent persons in any time or country are sure, with a few more or less fluctuations, to become in the end the public opinion of their age or community." (P. 442.)

He profited by this experience and knowledge; he understood men; he consulted public opinion, and followed it.

For these revelations and for these reasons, every line in the volume of Sir Henry Lytton Bulwer attracts attention and invites scrutiny. Sir Henry's style, turn of thought, opinions, even his words, must be weighed and studied, not only to gather the import of their meaning, but the exact shade of meaning. In this critical examination, it will be discovered Sir Henry adheres to no fixed method or standard of composition. Sometimes he is easy, smooth, and flowing as Joseph Addison; again he is terse as Dean Swift; sometimes he is turgid and rambling as a plenipotentiary who has particular instructions to communicate nothing in very verbose sentences long drawn out, wherein he is neither choice in his language nor correct in the common rules of grammar. Now, diplomacy admits of all these varieties of writing, and Sir Henry tries them all. No pent-up uniformity contracts the powers of his rhetoric or vocabulary. In one paragraph he exercises the precision of an algebraic formula; in another he wanders astray in the collocation of phrases with unguarded looseness. For him to write in his vernacular idiom must be something of an effort, although he can write well when on his good behavior; but it is evident he thinks in French. His ideas, thoughts, and some of his opinions and principles have consequently a Gallic tinge, and read like a translation; while others, if more cosmopolitan, are limited to the tone pervading the diplomatic circle; and diplomatists have among themselves a professional cant or set of political dogmas, which in a class less polished and select would be mistaken for a species of slang.

It is interesting and instructive to be made familiar with their proverbial philosophy, but it does not follow the infallibility of their proverbs must be recognized. Many of Sir Henry's opinions, therefore, may meet with dissent on this side of the water; much of his free and easy continental code he himself would abhor if made applicable to British interests, British politics, or British domestic ethics. In the cultivated opinion of the United States, the continental standard of justifiable policy is even more detestable, and ought to be in all climes and countries, in every latitude and longitude on the face of the earth.

Charles Maurice Talleyrand de Périgord was born in 1754, of one of the most noble and ancient families in France. He was sent to the Collége d'Harcout, where he gained the first prizes; transferred to the Seminary of St. Sulpice, his talents for disputation and composition were long remembered; and when, at last, sent to the Sorbonne, he was equally remarkable, although destined for the church, as a very clever and a very profligate young gentleman. He made no secret of his dislike to the profession chosen for him, but it was not doubted among those who knew him that he would reach its highest honors. In 1773, he entered the Gallican priesthood. When twenty years of age, his countenance was peculiarly attractive. It was indicative of softness, yet of boldness; of imperturbability, yet of humor and wit. When somewhat older, his features wore a long, oval appearance; his eyes were blue, deep, and variable; his lips usually compressed with an ironical smile, but not of ill nature; his nose, with clear-chiselled nostril, was delicate and slightly turned up; his voice deep toned, almost sepulchral. In five years he was chosen to the distinguished post of agent-general of the French clergy, where he administered with great success the ecclesiastical revenues of immense amount, and where he first exhibited his financial abilities in the clearness and neatness of his statements and reports. He became Bishop of Autun in 1789.

"'He dressed,' says one of his many biographers, 'like a coxcomb, he thought like a deist, he preached like a saint. At once active and irregular, he found time for everything: the church, the court, the opera. In bed one day from indolence or debauch, up the whole of the following night to prepare a memoir or a speech. Gentle with the humble, haughty with the high; not very exact in paying his debts, but very scrupulous with respect to giving and breaking promises to pay them.'" (P. 31.)

Early in life introduced into the salons of Paris, he readily caught their spirit, and soon obtained the friendship of the leading encyclopaedists and philosophers of scientific and historical fame; he was on intimate terms with many well known in letters and in the arts. The celebrated wits of both sexes, the beauties, the belles, courted his society; the charm of their brilliant conversation, their versatile accomplishments, and their winning manners were fascinating and irresistible. These divinities imagined they moved and had their being in a sublimated atmosphere far above and beyond the aspiration of common mortals; their sentiments breathed of perfect philanthropy, expressed in terms and in tenderness befitting persons divinely inspired. Every allurement that could inspire the imagination, every blandishment entrancing the senses, every grace, talent, every ornament which could enhance the form or ennoble the intellect, was cultivated and appreciated. Luxury in dress, in gems, in furniture, in equipage, in banquets, in music, in flowers, in painting, in frescoes, in sculpture, was displayed with excess of prodigality which vied with the purest taste. An ambrosial flavor of expression abounded in a common salutation; a delicate oriental perfume seemed to permeate every compliment, nor was any remark deemed appropriate unless it contained a compliment; eloquence was discarded because it was tinctured with too much external exhibition of feeling; it, moreover, took up too much precious time. But a higher art was attained in its stead—the art of epigrammatical brevity, to communicate in a half-line what an oration could not teach in a half-hour; nor was an epigram deemed perfect when its wit was rare and its sense profound, unless it tended to a sneer at religion or goodness in mankind, or told a scandalous lie.

The pervading object, the avowed purpose in this society, was to seek pleasure, to declaim against abuses in institutions, moral, political, and Christian, in the public at large, in domestic habits and manners, in the state, and in the church. But these refined creatures were not good, nor moral, nor pure, nor Christians themselves; they made no pretensions to any of these virtues; they were not proselyting reformers; they were in no sense radicals; they made no active exertions to pull down, neither did they aim to build up, nor to improve the world, but were content to deplore human evils and to rail at everybody. If a choice had been given to them to abolish institutions, or only to remove their abuses incident to all things of human creation, they would have preferred to abolish the institutions, provided the abuses were permitted to remain intact. But as they could not be rid of the beneficial advantages of the substance without the banishment of the evil shadow, they were content to tolerate the nuisance of what was a blessing to the nation, in order to possess for themselves the parts pernicious which were of sinful, comfortable consideration in their sight. They supposed their mission fulfilled when they talked and did nothing. If one of the coterie had turned patriot and aspired to usefulness, he would have been deemed a harmless traitor, and commiserated for the folly of his desertion. His efforts would have subjected him to their lamenting sympathy, their smiling mockery, their laconic brevities, which, although seemingly soothing, would be as scorching as they were short. Because he had accomplished something commendable or attempted its accomplishment, they would decide he had fallen from grace, had rendered himself liable to their biting condolence, and laid himself open to the piercing shafts of their pity. Voltaire, still lingering in his senility as head and chief priest of this highly refined and deeply depraved community, had sent forth a parting rescript to the faithful in their infidelity, that "one who has done nothing is possessed of a terrible advantage; but he must not abuse it."

Talleyrand, at the age of thirty-six, was fast rising to great prominence, if not pre-eminence in this unholy set. When Voltaire should be called to his last account in another world, and his mortal remains repose in the Père-la-Chaise or Parthenon, it was generally supposed the young Bishop of Autun would by common consent be raised to the place of the old philosopher of Ferney. But had it been thus, had the reign of the Bourbons been prolonged, Talleyrand would have betrayed and mocked the irreligious of the Palais Royal and St. Germain, as he bartered away the pious interests of his diocese. In some respects he resembled Voltaire, but in many more they widely differed. In general he was in mind unlike to him, as he was in morals dissimilar to the late bishop. Voltaire was always in search of flattery; Talleyrand despised it. Voltaire was pleased with petty scheming and petty intrigues; Talleyrand pushed them aside. Voltaire betrayed and lampooned his friends; Talleyrand did not deceive his, nor slander. Voltaire was much feared for his malicious sarcasm; Talleyrand was well liked for his bounteous humor. The one was a judge of books, as the other was a judge of men; the one was always grumbling from his failures, the other always content with his success; the one injecting a telling point into a falsehood, the other imparting force to a truth. Both were great in epigrammatic hits in their own way; with this difference, however, that Voltaire, being soured with the world, exposed his asperity in his jests; while Talleyrand, pleased with it, concealed all vexation and rounded his remarks with an easy smile. Voltaire was a spoiled child of society; society was a plaything for Talleyrand. In a word, the graceless bishop, intellectually, morally, socially, was the superior, and far outshone the snarling philosopher. Voltaire could never, in playing long whist and counting his points, if informed that an old lady had married her footman, have drawled out, "At nine honors don't count;" nor could he in pleasantry have said to Frederick of Prussia what Talleyrand remarked to Louis XVIII.: "There is something inexplicable about me which brings ill luck on the government that neglects me."

Before the death of Voltaire, the young Bishop of Autun had discovered, with his preternatural clearness of mental vision, that the scoffers who were the embodiment of science, philanthropy, and refinement, joined to profligate professors and shameless women, formed an institution, with its abominations also, like all others; just as the holy church had its sacred virtues scandalized by some glaring abuses among a portion of the clergy. The bishop must have felt that he constituted in himself a type of what was good and of what was bad in each: he ardently loved science, art, and whatever was refining and progressive, as he conscientiously revered the revealed truths of the Catholic faith. But he could not resist the enticements and adulations of society; nor refuse the temptation to raise himself to political power by laying sacrilegious hands on the property of the church. Not for one moment, however, was he deceived by the sophistries or jargon of the infidel school that reigned supreme in polite circles, and only once was his sound judgment found wanting in fidelity to his religious order, of which he was a most unworthy representative. He confounded the abuses in the state, the depravity of the aristocracy, the irregularities among the clergy, as one common class of grievances to the nation which ought to be ended; but he did not desire to witness the sovereign beheaded, the mob supreme, nor the idol of Reason enthroned in the house of God.

His aim in life seems to have been the possession of unrivalled prestige in Parisian society. To reach that pinnacle for his ease, comfort, and earthly happiness, he did or was willing to do whatever would promote his purpose: he left undone whatever would militate against it. He understood the requisites for its attainment, but would not sacrifice present tranquillity, the absolute satisfaction now, for the shadowy anticipation in the future. Intellectual exertion was a pleasure to him at all times. He desired wealth, rank, power, fame, as passports into the magic circle of his ambition; but he held himself on a level with the great, while he treated the unfortunate, the weak, the unsuccessful, with undiminished attention. He was keenly sensitive to censure, for censure impaired his prestige. Pozzo de Borgo, a celebrated and rival diplomatist, once said of him: "This man has made himself great by placing himself always by the side of the little and among those who most need him." In truth, he was willing to aid any one, powerful or weak, who could now or hereafter aid him. But he never deceived those whom he was serving, nor cringed, nor intrigued, nor betrayed them; he was always true to his country, and always sound in his judgment in deciding by what line of conduct the interests of his country could be best promoted.

In one instance only did he make a mistake, but that mistake was terrible; it was, moreover, unfortunate for France as for himself; it produced the only bad luck that befell him in his very long life and invariably prosperous career. It was in not discriminating between the clergy, as trustees of the church property, and the property itself entrusted to their keeping. He viewed the temporalities as absolutely their own, their inheritance, instead of perceiving that these possessions were only a charge delivered to them for safe keeping and transmission, which could not descend to their heirs but must go to their successors. He confounded their duties as administrators of the estate with the rights of the persons for whom the estate was formed. If the clergy were willing, therefore, to take a bribe to betray their trust, Talleyrand supposed the nefarious bargain amounted to a fair and honest purchase of the trust property. The estate was not created for them, but they were created for the estate.

A few months after Talleyrand was installed Bishop of Autun, he was elected a representative to the States-General. Of his peculiar fitness for the place, Sir Henry Bulwer brings forward some striking and convincing testimony.

When the States-General met, they formed themselves into the National Assembly; they resolved to legislate in one and the same hall, the nobles and the clergy, mixed with the commonalty, and all three merged into one body. The Three Estates were no more; it was only the Third Estate that remained. The impending danger from immediate bankruptcy of the nation being the vital as it was the first subject for discussion, the high reputation possessed by the Bishop of Autun for financial abilities and practical skill easily gained for him the first place as a man of business, as the first rank in social position was already accorded to him. He spoke well, sensibly, to the point. Mirabeau was the greater orator, it is true, but Mirabeau was the orator for the commons; Talleyrand was no orator at all; he was a fluent speaker, never indulging in meretricious or ornamental embellishments, never appealing to the vulgar passions: he was the pride and glory, the great favorite of the nobles and clergy. His sphere had been more select, more exalted, more refined, where the declamation, passionate appeals, rounded periods, startling antitheses of Mirabeau would have been deemed low and voted down. Mirabeau was unable to shine in the Parisian salons frequented by the choice aristocracy, while Talleyrand despised making a figure of himself for the applause of the bourgeoisie of the Third Estate. But what the Third Estate was wanting in elegance of manners, in wit and cultivation, they supplied in the strength of their numbers, and in the corresponding determination to absorb all political power. It was evident the nobles and the clergy would be compelled to succumb. At last they gave way, and not only yielded up whatever political rights or immunities were their own, but whatever also was confided by others to their keeping. To quote from Sir Henry:

"On the 4th of August … almost all the institutions and peculiarities which constituted the framework of government and society throughout France were unhesitatingly swept away, at the instigation and demand of the first magistrates and nobles of the land, who did not sufficiently consider that they who destroy at once all existing laws (whatever those laws may be) destroy, at the same time, all established habits of thought; that is, all customs of obedience, all spontaneous feelings of respect and affection, without which a form of government is merely an idea on paper. In after times, M. de Talleyrand, when speaking of this period, said, in one of his characteristic phrases: 'La Révolution a désossé la France,' 'The Revolution has disboned France.' … The Bishop of Autun was undoubtedly among the foremost in destroying the traditions which constitute a community, and proclaiming the theories which captivate a mob." (P. 55.)

This extract is a fair specimen of the false statement of facts, and of the fallacious reasoning in the diplomatic body, on popular events. It is as destitute of truth as it is of logic, or a correct understanding of the principles upon which civil government is constituted. In all that was done so far, only antiquated, effete, feudal, or petty provincial privileges were surrendered; privileges which properly belonged to the state for the benefit of the nation whenever the state might deem it proper to demand them or to destroy them; for, long before, they ought to have been abolished. The aristocracy now chose voluntarily to relinquish them gracefully. They removed thereby great grievances from the public, and many intolerable burdens from the peasants. The laws which were repealed at the same time were only customs or statutes which had protected the privileges given up, and became obsolete when nothing was left for them to protect. Instead of dissolving society, the relinquishment of petty political rights was the removal of pernicious, detestable rubbish. All laws were not abrogated; nor was one destroyed, altered, or amended which protected the person or preserved property.

The next step of progress in the right direction was a vigorous effort to induce the king to be equally generous and patriotic in relinquishing some of his odious antiquated prerogatives. But Louis XVI. was unwilling to conform to the public wishes; he refused, because compliance would trench upon the sovereignty which he had received untouched from his royal ancestors, and which he resolved to transmit untarnished to his posterity. But when the pressure for a written constitution began to threaten his personal safety, he yielded with a mental reservation that he had given way to superior force; he conscientiously, but erroneously and fatally, believed his consent was not binding on him or his heirs. The representatives of the nation now maintained, that ministers having the national confidence should be called into the royal cabinet. To this reasonable request, the king refused his consent; but he temporized by reluctantly giving audience to Mirabeau, Talleyrand, and some others of the liberal party, leaving them under the mistaken impression that he would listen to their advice. But the king did not adopt their counsels; he did not intend that any of them should become his counsellors.

Louis granted them a hearing in order to conceal his intentions. It was only a blind to cover his purpose, which was to resume, at the first opportunity, what he had relinquished, and to send Mirabeau and Talleyrand, with their friends the sans-culottes, adrift. These liberals were consequently deceived; in truth, they aided in their own deception; they could not imagine the king would prove a traitor to his own interests. The king, however, was only playing over again the losing game practised by Charles I., and by his son, James II., of England. The stake in both countries was the same: it was, whether sovereignty should repose in the crown, as in ancient times, or in the people, in accordance with modern ideas. The prize cannot be divided, as some supposed; it can never be divided; in its very nature it is indivisible; it would be as impossible as to place one crown on two separate heads at the same time. Sir Henry Bulwer, as a true Briton, thinks, no doubt, the Stuart sovereigns were perjured knaves, because they deceived the House of Commons, and broke solemn promises made to their ministers; but he views the Bourbon king as foolish only in doing the same things, and pursuing the same line of policy. Now, in verity, the moral code applies alike to both dynasties, in both countries, in both centuries. Whatever royal promise is made should be royally and religiously fulfilled; but its violation does not justify a resort to the block at Whitehall or to the guillotine at the Carrousel. The execution of a monarch for defending his prerogatives by fair means or false promises, is no less a crime against civilization than it is a political error. No good can come of it; no good ever has.

But the duplicity and falsehood of Louis, in its incidents, brought on the first blow against property; and with the attack on property, all the crimes and calamities, all the misery, poverty, and long list of woes of the Revolution commenced. Then society began to disintegrate; then France began to disbone; it never ended until morality, Christianity, civilization, were crushed to a jelly. Talleyrand was the leader in this raid, and on his head rests the responsibility. He was the great oracle on financial topics in the National Assembly; he was the member looked up to for the solution of the financial problem to save the nation from ruin; he had accepted the position almost thrust upon him; and his reputation was at stake in surmounting the crisis. With success he could compel the king to invite him into the ministry. Mirabeau admitted this in a letter to a friend, and a portfolio in the ministry was the goal of Talleyrand's ambition. All eyes were, therefore, turned to the Bishop of Autun, and the eyes of the bishop turned to the landed property of the church, from whence the wants of the treasury could be immediately and with facility supplied. He was willing to propose the double sacrilege on religion and on society; for it was no less an outrage on civilization or civil government than it was on Christianity, which is the foundation of good government.

The coolness with which Sir Henry Bulwer states this desecration can only be compared with the absurdity in the line of argument with which Talleyrand advocated the measure. If some Bishop Colenso in the House of Lords should propose the seizure and confiscation of the wealth of the Anglican Establishment, the question would appear in a different aspect to the British diplomatist. He would view it with horror. In either case, however, the measure would be infamous. Governments are instituted to protect property, not to squander it; and the only difference between that which is held by an individual for himself and that which is held in trust for the benefit of others, is in the circumstance that whatever is in trust is, in the public estimation, more sacred, because it is preserved for the welfare of the poor, the weak, the ignorant or infirm of mind, who cannot provide for themselves; just as the state extends a more paternal care over the property of infants, idiots, or orphans, than over the interests of men and women of full growth and sound mind. If a call must be made in a sudden exigency for funds, what government, not demented, would spare the mercantile houses of the rich, to sequestrate and spoliate the hospitals for the helpless?

Talleyrand considered the church property as public property; but this view, plausible at first sight, is found on reflection to be fallacious. It was not derived from the nation, nor from the public, but from individuals, and from its own accumulations; it was not designed for the benefit of the public, but for a specific class of the people—the needy—to which class the mass of the community did not belong, and, furthermore, hoped they never would. So much for the bishop's premises and argument. But a stronger objection remains: it is the broad principle of the invasion of private rights, of common justice; and when that principle is once rendered unstable by common consent, the stability of all public opinion, of all civil institutions, of all organized government, is shaken; the state is liable to be overturned. When the National Assembly deemed it proper for the public good to confiscate the church property, the Legislative Assembly followed the example set to deprive persons of their liberty, and the National Convention next voted away lives by the hecatomb daily; under the same plea, the king himself was decapitated. When the public morality was once vitiated, who could foretell where the national criminality would terminate, who or how many would not be its victims?

It has been the same with European ethics. When the great Frederick of Prussia violated the Pragmatic Sanction, to which Prussia had assented, and seized upon Silesia, neighboring nations were not slow to forget and forgive his audacity and to follow his unrighteous example. The partition of Poland grew out of it, from the contempt entertained for international opinion. Next came the French Revolution, when nations had no faith in the integrity of rival governments, nor had governments much confidence in their people. The world went backward in civilization, and the long wars of the republic, of the consulate, of the empire, ensued; not only the French, but every foreign soil on the Continent, was drenched in blood. At last, the moral atmosphere became so foul that the idea of assassination was entertained and talked about in every court at war with Napoleon. It was deemed feasible, it was favored by a silent assent; it floated in the air.

Sir Henry, in echo to diplomatic opinion and to the sentiment of the belligerent nations, treats the murder in cold blood of the Bourbon Duke d'Enghien, by order of Napoleon, as an atrocity. The act certainly was atrocious; but, at the bar of history, who are all the criminals that may be arraigned as accomplices in conspiring to efface the stain of turpitude in assassination from the Christian code of morals? How many were smiling at the prospect of doing unto the French emperor that which he did unto the duke? Not one statesman, or legislator, or diplomatist, or writer, could in his conscience cast the first stone. Public opinion was debauched on the subject; moral integrity was disboned. Napoleon justified his conduct in the only way left open to modify the enormity of the offence—to extenuate the nefarious deed. He excused himself as he excused his first attacks in war; it was to defend himself by becoming the assailant. He undertook to teach his enemies the efficacy of retaliation, and the lesson did teach them. Nothing more was ever whispered in secret, or again talked openly, of taking him off by poison or the dagger.

Talleyrand, although imperial prime minister at the time, does not appear to have been consulted. From all that is known, he certainly did not advise or countenance the act; he did not approve or condemn when it was done. What he communicated officially, he wrote, as secretary of the emperor, that which was dictated to him to write. But, on the other hand, no one is aware that he counselled against the murder; in all probability, in his laxity of morals, his sensibilities were not much shocked by the event. He was never known to have considered the transaction an impolitic measure; the common story that he spoke of it as worse than a crime—as a political blunder—has no authentic foundation.

Such was the course of affairs growing out of the first invasion of rights to property at the suggestion of the Bishop of Autun. But the immediate effects upon his fortunes are curious. He was erroneously associated in the foreign mind with the revolutionary acts that followed; and when, on the contrary, for self-preservation, he fled to London to escape the stigma of those very acts and the malice of the very men who perpetrated them, he was ordered out of England as a Jacobin or regicide and found a refuge in America. But in our republic no countenance was given to him, no cordial greeting extended. By the Federalists, he was, contemned as a traitor to his king, an apostate to his religion, an enemy to social order. By the anti-Federalists he was viewed as an aristocrat, an émigré, an obstacle to social progress. The ex-bishop, therefore, in 1794, like the expatriated M. Blot in 1864, had leisure to turn his attention to the culinary art. Talleyrand, and the other involuntary emigrants, observed upon the vines near the kitchens a beautiful round red production growing, which was cultivated as a vegetable ornament, whose botanical name was the lycopersicum, but which Americans called the love-apple. The French gentlemen recognized in it their tomate, and forthwith taught our great-grandmothers how to render it a more palatable esculent for their tables than it was a pleasing embellishment to their gardens.

But the Reign of Terror soon terminated; like the reign of Louis, it ended also at the guillotine. He now returned to Paris. His friend Barras was in the Directory, and Barras was of the aristocracy, who, however, "had been forgiven the crime of being a noble, in consideration of the virtue of being a regicide." From that date began the new lease to Talleyrand of power, prestige, influence, and prosperity, which was never again broken during his long life. He was willing to serve any administration under any form of government, providing it was the best under the circumstances, and when he could be, as he for the first time expressed it, the right man in the right place. But never for a day did he remain when he could not be useful to France, nor serviceable to the executive by whom he was retained. He knew how long it was beneficial to adhere to the Directory, and when the time had come to drop off. The first consul was treated in the same manner, and the emperor, and the allies, and Louis XVIII., and Louis Philippe. None of them could fascinate him by their condescension or consideration; yet he served them all honorably, honestly; but it was requisite he should be called and retained on his own terms. When he was dismissed, it was not before he already knew it was better for his own interests to go.

When Alexander of Russia entered Paris, in 1814, with the allied armies, the czar took up his imperial residence at Talleyrand's mansion, and expected to use the late prime minister for his own purpose by the high honor conferred. But Talleyrand was insensible to such delicate attentions; he was fully conscious he was himself a prince, and of the proud family of Périgord, a family that were sovereign in provinces of France in the middle ages, long before the Romanoffs, surrounded by a wild horde of half-naked Tartars, had ever held court on horse-back, or crossed the Ural, or been heard of in Europe. Talleyrand was not made a tool by the czar, but the czar was moulded like wax under the manipulations of Talleyrand; to him Louis XVIII. was indebted for his throne; and afterward, at the Congress of Vienna, when Alexander discovered Talleyrand could not be induced to betray French interests for the benefit of Russia, the czar compelled Louis to dismiss him from office.

Napoleon was estimated in a similar manner, but with even less respect, for he had been a plebeian, and perhaps, if anything, worse; he was not a Frenchman, he was a Corsican. After the battle of Leipsic, Napoleon offered the portfolio of foreign ministry to his former minister, but on the condition he should lay down the rank and emoluments of vice-grand elector. The object of the emperor was to make him dependent on imperial favor. But 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 critical for half-measures." No circumlocution was resorted to on either side; it was plain dealing; for the parties knew with whom they were treating, and no compliments were requisite. M. Thiers remarks that "two superior Frenchmen, until they have an opportunity to flatter one another, are natural enemies." However much Talleyrand's wish might have been to assist the emperor, he would not show it: his invariable maxim was point de zèle—never evince ardor in anything.

But while he had no abasement in the presence of the great, he had no assumption toward equals or inferiors in mind and in position. Thoroughly self-reliant, he was never found disconcerted nor off his guard; in the widest sense he was a man; he held all others as no more and no less. He had no confidants. Perhaps Montrond was an exception, for Montrond was a specialty, Sir Henry tells us, of the age, a type of the French roué. He was one of Talleyrand's pets, as Talleyrand was one of his admirations. Each spoke ill of the other; for each said he loved the other for his vices. But no one could speak to Talleyrand with so much intimacy, nor obtain from him so clear an answer; for they trusted one another, though Montrond would never have told any one else to trust Talleyrand, nor Talleyrand have told any one else to trust M. de Montrond.

Here we must, with reluctance, lay down Sir Henry's book; space will not permit dwelling longer upon it.