Historical Characters

Such was the sovereign of France; but there was also another demi-sovereign, who was to be found in the Pavillon Marsan, inhabited by the Comte d’Artois.

I esteem that prince, whom it has been the fashion to decry, more in some respects than I do his brother; for though he had not a superior intelligence, he had a heart. He really wished well to his country: he would have laid down his life for it, at least he thought he would: his intentions were excellent; but he relied on his old notions and education for the means of carrying them out.

Louis XVIII. was more cultivated, more cynical, more false: he loved France vaguely, as connected with his own pride and the pride of his race: he thought ill of the world, but was disposed to extract the most he could from it towards his own comfort, dignity, and prosperity. This character was not amiable, but its coldness and hardness rendered its possessor more secure against being duped, though not against being flattered.

The Comte d’Artois was both flattered and duped; but it was by addressing themselves to his better qualities that his flatterers duped him. They depicted the French people as eminently and naturally loyal: full of sympathy and respect for the descendants of Henry IV. and Louis XIV. “Poor children! they had been led away by having bad men placed over them in the different functions of the State: all that was necessary was to place good men, loyal men, men who had served the royal family even in exile – men, in short, who could be relied upon, in the public employments. The church, too – that great instrument of government, and that great source of comfort and contentment to men – that guardian of the mind which prevents its emotions from wandering into the regions of false theories and hopes – had been treated with contempt and indifference. The church and the throne were required to aid each other – the Bourbons had to bring them into harmony. On these conditions, and on these conditions alone – conditions (so said all whom the Comte d’Artois consulted) so clear, so simple, so pious, and so just – the safety and prosperity of the monarchy depended.”

The whole mistake consisted in considering the French a people that they were not, and ignoring what they were, and in fancying that a few prefects and priests could suddenly convert a whole generation from one set of ideas to another. But the Comte d’Artois’ doctrines were pleasing to Louis XVIII., though he did not quite believe in them, and still more pleasing to all the friends or favourites who enjoyed his intimacy.

Thus, though they had not the support of his convictions, they influenced his conduct; which, however, never being altogether what Monsieur and his party required, was always watched by them with suspicion, and frequently opposed with obstinacy.

Where, then, could M. de Talleyrand turn for aid to maintain the government at the head of which he figured? To the King? he had not his confidence. To his colleagues? they did not confide in each other. To the Comte d’Artois? he was in opposition to his brother. To the Royalists? they wanted absolute possession of power. The Imperialists and Republicans were out of the question. Moreover, he was not a man who could create, stimulate, command. To understand a situation and to bring to bear not unwilling assistants on its immediate solution, to collect the scattered influences about him, and direct them to a point at which it was their own interest to arrive; this was his peculiar talent. But to sustain a long and protracted conflict, to overawe and govern opposing parties; this was beyond the colder temperament of his faculties.

His only parliamentary effort then was an exposition in the chamber of peers of the state of the finances, which exposition was as clear and able as his financial statements always were. For the rest, he trusted partly to chance, partly to the ordinary and natural workings of a constitutional system, which was sure in time to produce parties with opinions, and even ministers, who, in their common defence, would be obliged to adopt a common policy and line of conduct. Thus, shrugging up his shoulders at M. de Fontanes’ declaration that he could not feel free where the press was so, and smiling at Madame de Simiane’s notions as to a minister, who, according to her and the ladies of the Faubourg St. Germain, should be a grand seigneur, with perfect manners and a great name, who had hard-working men with spectacles under them, called bouleux,68 to do their business – he hastened his preparations for joining the congress at Vienna, which was to have commenced its sittings two months after the treaty of Paris, that is, on the 30th of July, but which had not met in the middle of September.

VIII

I have said that the congress was to commence on the 30th of July, but it was not till the 25th of September that the Emperor of Russia, the King of Prussia, and the other kings and ministers of the different courts who were expected there, began to assemble. M. de Metternich, Lord Castlereagh, afterwards succeeded by the Duke of Wellington, the Prince Hardenberg, the Count Nesselrode, though only as second to the Emperor Alexander himself, who was his own negotiator, were the principal persons with whom M. de Talleyrand was associated.

His task was not an easy one. His sovereign owed his crown to those whose interests had now to be decided; he might himself be considered under obligations to them. It required a strong sense of a high position not to sink into a subordinate one. M. de Talleyrand had this, and sat himself down at Vienna with the air of being the ambassador of the greatest king in the world.

He was accompanied by persons with names more or less distinguished. The Duc Dalberg, the Comte Alexis de Noailles, M. de la Bernadière, and M. de Latour du Pin.

The first, M. de Talleyrand said, would let out secrets which he wished to be known; the second would report all he saw to the Comte d’Artois, and thus save that prince the trouble of having any one else to do so. As to M. de la Bernadière, he would keep the Chancellerie going, and M. de Latour du Pin would sign the passports.

The ideas he himself took under these circumstances to Vienna were, – to get France admitted into the congress on the same footing as other powers; to break up in some way or other the compactness of the confederation recently formed against her, and to procure friends from the body which was now a united enemy; to procure the expulsion of Murat from the throne of Naples, and lastly, to remove the Emperor of Elba to a more distant location (Bermuda, or the Azores, were spoken of).

The dissolution of the alliance was the independence of France, however brought about. As for the expulsion of Murat from Naples, or the removal of Napoleon from Elba, these, no doubt, were great objects to the Bourbons in France; but it is possible that there were other grounds also which induced M. de Talleyrand to pursue them.

If Murat were removed from Naples, and Napoleon were in some place of security, and the elder branch of the Bourbons compromised itself in France, two other governments, according to circumstances, were still on the cards. The regency with Napoleon’s son, or a limited monarchy with the Duc d’Orléans.

M. de Talleyrand had seen enough before he went to Vienna, and probably heard enough since he had been there, to make him doubtful of the success of his first experiment: but his position was such that in any combination in France that had not the late Emperor Napoleon at its head, he would still be the person to whom a large party in and out of his own country would look for the solution of the difficulty which the downfall of Louis XVIII. would provoke.

The basis of the congress of Vienna was necessarily that furnished by the engagements which had already taken place between the allies at Breslau, Töplitz, Chaumont, and Paris; engagements which concerned the reconstruction of Prussia according to its proportions in 1806, the dissolution of the Confederation of the Rhine; the re-establishment of the House of Brunswick in Hanover; and arrangements, to which I shall presently allude, concerning the future position of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw.

As all that was to be distributed was a common spoil in the hands of the allies, they suggested that a committee of four, representing England, Austria, Prussia, and Russia, should first agree amongst themselves as to the partition; and that an understanding having been established between these – the principal parties – this understanding should be communicated to the others; to France and Spain in particular; – whose objections would be heard.

Such an arrangement excluded France from any active part in the first decisions, which would evidently be sustained when the four allies had agreed upon them.

The tact and talent of M. de Talleyrand were displayed in getting this sentence reversed.

Taking advantage of the treaty of peace which France had already signed, he contended that there were no longer allies, but simply powers who were called upon, after a war which had created a new order of things in Europe, to consider and decide in what manner this new order of things could best be established for the common good, and with the best regard to the old rights existing before 1792, and the new rights which certain states had legitimately acquired in the long struggle which, with more or less continuity, had existed since that epoch.

With some difficulty he at last made these ideas prevail, and the committee of four was changed into a committee of eight, comprising all the signatories to the treaty of Paris: Austria, England, Russia, Prussia, France, Spain, Portugal, and Sweden.

This first point gained, the second, – viz., a division amongst the allies, was to be brought about. Any precipitate effort to do this would have prevented its success. M. de Talleyrand waited to work for it himself until rival interests began to work with him.

Now Austria’s great pre-occupation was to regain her old position in Italy, without diminishing the importance of that to which she pretended in Germany.

The views of Russia, or rather of the Emperor Alexander, were more complicated, and formed with a certain greatness of mind and generosity of sentiment, though always with that craft which mingled with the imperial chivalry.

I have just said that I should speak of the arrangements respecting the Duchy of Warsaw, which were contemplated during the war in the event of the allies being successful. It had been settled that this duchy – once delivered from the pretensions of Napoleon – should be divided between the three military powers, Austria, Prussia, and Russia.

But the Emperor of Russia now took a higher tone. The annihilation of Poland, he said, had been a disgrace to Europe: he proposed to himself the task of collecting its scattered members, and reconstituting it with its own laws, religion, and constitution. It would be a pleasure to him to add to what he could otherwise re-assemble, the ancient Polish provinces under his dominion. Poland should live again with the Czar of Russia for its king. I doubt whether the Emperor Alexander did not over-rate the gratitude he expected to awaken, and under-rate the feeling existing among the Poles, not merely as to nationality, but as to national independence.

But his notion most assuredly was, that he should thus create as an avant-garde into Europe a powerful kingdom, capable of rapid improvement, and combining with a complete devotion to his family, all the enthusiasm of a people who again stood up amidst the nations of the world.

He argued, moreover, and not without reason, that a kingdom of Poland thus existing would inevitably ere long draw back to itself all those portions of alienated territory which were in the hands of the other co-partitioning powers, and that thus Russia would ere long dominate the whole of that kingdom which she had at one time condescended to divide.

This project was of course easily seen through in Prussia as well as in Austria; but Russia presumed that Austria would be satisfied with her Italian acquisitions. He saw, however, that Prussia required no common bribe. The bribe proposed was Saxony, and thus a secret engagement was entered into between the two northern courts: Russia promising to stand by Prussia’s claims as to Saxony, and Prussia promising to support Russia’s plans as to Poland.

With respect to England, she seemed more especially occupied with the idea of forming a united kingdom of Holland and Belgium, and beguiled by the delusion that you could unite by treaties populations which were disunited by sympathies, fancied she could, by the union proposed, create a barrier against French ambition where England was most concerned; and thus save us in future from those dangers by which we were menaced when the Scheldt was in Napoleon’s possession, and the British coast was menaced by maritime arsenals, which confronted it from Brest to Antwerp.

The conflict which at once commenced had reference to the ambitious claims of Prussia and Russia.

The King of Saxony, though an ally of Napoleon, had been faithful to France, and there was a feeling in the French nation favourable to him. As to Poland, France, which has always taken a lively interest in Polish independence as a barrier against Russian aggrandisement, could not see with satisfaction an arrangement which was to make Poland an instrument of Russian power.

Our disposition as to Prussia was at first somewhat undecided. We did not approve of the destruction of Saxony, still we were not unwilling to see a strong state established in the north of Germany, if it was an independent state: and would therefore at first have allowed the addition of Saxony to the Prussian dominions, if Prussia would have joined with Great Britain and Austria against the Russian projects in Poland. Austria, on the other hand, was quite as much against the Prussian project as the Russian one; but Prince Metternich, being perfectly aware that Prussia would not separate herself from Russia, affected to fall into Lord Castlereagh’s views, and agreed to sacrifice Saxony if Prussia would insist with ourselves on Polish independence.

Prussia, as Prince Metternich foresaw, refused this; and indeed took possession of Saxony, as Russia did of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, assuming towards the other powers an attitude of defiance.

In the meantime the question of Saxony became popular with the English parliament and the English court: with the English parliament, which is always against the oppressor; and with the English court, which began to think that, when Prussia had once got Saxony, she might take a fancy to Hanover. Austria gladly perceived this change, and it was agreed that England and Austria should oppose themselves conjointly and distinctly to the intentions haughtily manifested by the two northern courts.

Thus England, Austria, and France found themselves linked together by common opinions. Still there were reasons why the first two powers hesitated as to connecting themselves with the third.

These reasons were – the connection which M. de Talleyrand desired, would be a rupture of that league by which the peace of Europe had been obtained; it was uncertain whether France could give Austria and England any practical aid; and also it was doubtful whether she would not exact more for such aid, if she did give it, than it was worth, and aim at renewing all the ambitious designs which the overthrow of Napoleon and the treaty of Paris had set at rest.

The principal objection wore away as it became more and more evident that Prussia and Russia had already entered, into separate and particular engagements, which rendered it not only justifiable but necessary for England and Austria, if they did not mean to submit servilely to the results of these engagements, to guard against them by counter-engagements between themselves.

With respect to the power of France as an auxiliary, M. de Talleyrand, by an able exposition of the state of affairs at Vienna, induced the French government to display its military capacity by raising the French army from 130,000 to 200,000, and creating the facility for increasing it to a far more formidable amount – a measure which the extraordinary recovery of French finances under the able administration of M. Louis rendered easy, and which produced a considerable moral effect, both in France and out of it. At the same time the ambassador of France, in his numerous conversations with Lord Castlereagh and M. de Metternich, held this language:

“A government to last must be faithful to its origin. Bonaparte’s was founded by conquest: he was forced to continue conquering; that of the present sovereign of France is based on principle. To this principle it must adhere; it is the principle of legitimate right, which conquest, until confirmed by treaty, cannot effect. We support the King of Saxony on this principle: we do not want then to be paid for doing so. In supporting his throne, we guarantee our own. Do you doubt my sincerity? I will sign any paper you wish to tranquillize all suspicion as to our ambition.”

It was in this manner that he led by degrees to the signing of the secret treaty of 3rd of January, 1815, a treaty by which Austria, England, and France bound themselves to furnish each 150,000 men, to support any one of the three powers which might be attacked by other powers attempting forcibly to alter the equilibrium of Europe for their own advantage. The names of the powers suspected were not mentioned, and the compact entered into was essentially of a defensive character; but it was in sympathy with French feelings; it broke up the anti-French alliance, and gave to France the two most important allies she could hope to gain; for England alone had formed the late coalition, and without her a coalition could not be again formed.

M. Thiers, who is too prone to consider that all statesmanship consists in acquiring extensions of territory, objects to everything done by M. de Talleyrand, and considers that this diplomatist should have waited quietly, rather favouring Prussia and Russia, and that then these powers would have offered France Belgium or the frontiers of the Rhine, in which case Prussia and Russia would, he considers, have been more advantageous allies to France than England and Austria.

Now, of all ideas the one that seems the most extravagant to me is that Prussia, or even Russia, would have reseated France on the Rhine, or brought her back in any way nearer to Germany. I feel certain that under no circumstances was this likely. But, at all events, Prussia and Russia would only have made the strange proposal on which M. Thiers counts, at the last extremity.

They would have previously carried their negotiations with their late allies to the utmost limit; and as we were prepared to make many concessions, and did indeed finally give up one-third of Saxony to Prussia, and as much of Poland as she could well digest to Russia, there is not the slightest probability that, for the remaining differences, Prussia and Russia would have purchased the aid of France by a large increase of frontier and a deadly quarrel with Great Britain and Austria.

M. de Talleyrand then, in following the policy suggested by M. Thiers, would, in the first place, have lost the opportunity which he more wisely seized of separating the great powers; he would also have ungenerously abandoned Saxony, and at the same time so disgusted England, that it would afterwards have been impossible to get an English parliament to vote a sixpence for sustaining the Bourbon cause. Waterloo would never have been fought; Russia and Prussia could have done little without English subsidies; and France would have been again delivered into the hands of Napoleon, whose triumph would have been M. de Talleyrand’s own ruin; and the ruin of the master he then served.

As it is not my intention to enter into the general subject of the treaty of Vienna, which I have always considered alike defective in principle and policy, I shall not follow the negotiations I have been alluding to further; though it may be as well, since I have spoken of Naples, to observe that M. de Talleyrand never obtained Prince Metternich’s attention to the dethronement of Murat until the Prussian and Russian questions had been settled by suitable arrangements; for Prince Metternich was too wise to have Germany and Italy on his back at once; when, however, these arrangements were completed, and the brother-in-law of Napoleon had compromised himself by intrigues, which had been watched but allowed to ripen, the Austrian statesman then gave the French ambassador a private but positive assurance that the Kingdom of Naples should shortly be restored to its old possessors.

As to the question of a change of residence for Napoleon, that was decided, just as the congress was closing, by Napoleon himself; who, not ignorant of the plans that were maturing for his removal from a position wherein nothing but the most absurd want of consideration could ever have placed him, engaged in that audacious enterprise, the most glorious, though the most fatal, in his meteor-like career.

IX

It was in the midst of the gaieties of a ball on the 5th of March,69 and just as the congress was about to separate, that from a small group of sovereigns collected together and betraying the seriousness of their conversation by the gloom of their countenances, there came forth as a sort of general murmur: —

“Bonaparte has escaped from Elba.” Prince Metternich, it is said, was the only person who at once divined that the ex-Emperor’s intentions were to march at once on Paris. The success of so bold an adventure was, of course, doubtful; but in the hope there might still be time to influence public opinion, a proclamation, proposed (at the instigation of the Duke of Wellington) by Austria, and signed 13th March by France and the four great powers, denounced the Emperor of Elba in language only applicable to a pirate or a freebooter: a language that Louis XVIII. had used at Paris on the 6th of March, and might use with some propriety, but which came far less decorously from princes who had not very long previously treated this pirate and freebooter as “the king of kings,” and which was unsuitable to the lips of a sovereign who was speaking of the husband of his favourite daughter.

People, however, often cover a hesitation in their decisions by an extravagance in their attitude.

The idea of a new war was popular with no one; the different powers, moreover, represented at Vienna, were no longer on the same cordial terms of fraternity that had distinguished their relations at Paris; they felt notwithstanding, that, in the face of a common danger they must consider as extinguished their several rivalries and animosities, and show themselves united and determined on the deadly combat, which alone could, if successful, repair the effects of their imprudence and save the honour of their arms.

Shortly after this came the news of that glorious and soul-stirring march through legions who, when commanded to point their bayonets at the breast of their old commander as a traitor, wept at his knees as a father; but this great historical romance rather strengthened than weakened the resolves that had previously been formed; and the proclamation of the 13th of March was soon succeeded by the treaty of the 25th.

This treaty, to which the four allied powers were the only principal parties, was a revival of the treaty of Chaumont and the treaty of Paris. The position of the Bourbons was not clearly defined; for though Louis XVIII. was invited to be a party to it, the allies, and England in particular, expressly declared that they did not attempt to impose a government on France, nor bind themselves to support the claims of the fugitive monarch. I say “fugitive monarch” because Louis XVIII. had by this time tested the value of his adherents, and was settling down quietly at Ghent; Napoleon being as quietly re-established in the Tuileries.

The secret of all that had occurred is to be stated in a few words.

Louis XVIII. had not gained the affections of the French nation; his predecessor had retained the affections of the French army. There was little mystery in the intrigues of the Bonapartes. The Queen Hortense (Comtesse de St. Leu) resided at Paris, and the conversation of her drawing-room was a constant conspiracy, whilst the correspondence she received was the confidence of half the capital. Barras and Fouché both informed M. de Blacas of much that was going on, and offered to give him more detailed information; but that gentleman’s horizon was limited, and what he did not see he did not believe. Moreover, the Royalists conceived that the most Christian king had gained the consciences of the military by naming an aumonier, with the rank of captain, to each regiment, and had the provinces in his hands, because he had placed them in those of functionaries who professed hatred to “the usurper.” “What had they to fear?” Thus, the country which had been fatigued with the soldier and the drum, was teased by the mass and the émigré. And, in the meantime, the veterans of the great army, who saw themselves replaced by a guard of young gentlemen with good names and splendid uniforms; and the beauties of the Empire, who found themselves out of fashion amongst the great ladies of the legitimate court, were at the two ends of the electric wire, which had only to be touched by the little man in the grey great-coat, in order to vibrate through the heart of every soldier who had ever followed the imperial eagle, and still kept the tricolour cockade in his writing-desk or his knapsack.