Historical Characters

There still lived, though on the verge of the tomb, an individual to whom this distinguishing misfortune of the eighteenth century was in no small degree attributable. The keen sagacity of Voltaire, his piercing raillery, his brilliant and epigrammatic eloquence, had ridiculed and destroyed all faith in old abuses, but had never attempted to give even a sketch of what was to come in their room. “Magis habuit quod fugeret quam quod sequeretur.” The effect of his genius, therefore, had been to create around him a sort of luminous mist, produced by the blending of curiosity and doubt; an atmosphere favourable to scepticism, favourable to credulity; and, above all things, generative of enthusiasts and empirics. St. Germain the alchymist, Cagliostro the conjurer, Condorcet the publicist, Marat the politician, were the successive produce of this marvellous and singular epoch. And thus it was, – amidst a general possession of privileges, and a general equality of customs and ideas – amidst a great generosity of sentiment, and an almost entire absence of principle in a society unequalled in its charms, unbounded in its hopes, and altogether ignorant of its destiny, – that the flower of M. de Talleyrand’s manhood was passed.

VI

I have dwelt at some length upon the characteristics —

“Of those gay times of elegance and ease,When Pleasure learnt so gracefully to please:When wits and courtiers held the same resorts,The courtiers wits, and all wits fit for courts:When woman, perfect in her siren art,Subdued the mind, and trifled with the heart;When Wisdom’s lights in fanes fantastic shone,And Taste had principles, and Virtue none:When schools disdained the morals understood,And sceptics boasted of some better good:When all was Fairyland which met the view,No truth untheorized, and no theory true.”

I have dwelt, I say, at some length upon the characteristics of those times; because it is never to be forgotten that the personage I have to speak of was their child. To the latest hour of his existence he fondly cherished their memory; to them he owed many of those graces which his friends still delight to recall: to them, most of those faults which his enemies have so frequently portrayed.

The great test of his understanding was that he totally escaped all their grosser delusions. Of this I am able to give a striking proof. It has been said that M. de Talleyrand was raised to the episcopal dignity in January, 1789, four months previous to the assembling of the States-General. To that great Assembly he was immediately named by the baillage of his own diocese; and perhaps there is hardly to be found on record a more remarkable example of human sagacity and foresight than in the new bishop’s address to the body which had chosen him its representative.

In this address, which I have now before me, he separates all the reforms which were practicable and expedient, from all the schemes which were visionary and dangerous – the one and the other being at that time confused and jumbled together in the half-frenzied brains of his countrymen: he omits none of those advantages in government, legislation, finance – for he embraces all these – which fifty years have gradually given to France: he mentions none of those projects of which time, experience, and reason have shown the absurdity and futility.

A charter giving to all equal rights: a great code embodying and simplifying all existing and necessary laws: a due provision for prompt justice: the abolition of arbitrary arrest: the mitigation of the laws between debtor and creditor: the institution of trial by jury: the liberty of the press, and the inviolability of private correspondence: the destruction of those interior imposts which cut up France into provinces, and of those restrictions by which all but members of guilds were excluded from particular trades: the introduction of order into the finances under a well-regulated system of public accounts: the suppression of all feudal privileges: and the organization of a well-considered general plan of taxation: such were the changes which the Bishop of Autun suggested in the year 1789. He said nothing of the perfectibility of the human race: of a total reorganization of society under a new system of capital and labour: he did not promise an eternal peace, nor preach a general fraternity amongst all races and creeds. The ameliorations he proposed were plain and simple; they affiliated with ideas already received, and could be grafted on the roots of a society already existing. They have stood the test of eighty years – now advanced by fortunate events, now retarded by adverse ones – some of them have been disdained by demagogues, others denounced by despots; – they have passed through the ordeal of successive revolutions; and they furnish at this instant the foundations on which all wise and enlightened Frenchmen desire to establish the condition of government and society in their great and noble country. Let us do honour to an intelligence that could trace these limits for a rising generation; to a discretion that resisted the temptation to stray beyond them!

VII

About the time of the assembling of the States-General, there appeared a work which it is now curious to refer to – it was by the pen of Laclos – entitled Galerie des États-Généraux. This work gave a sketch under assumed names of the principal personages likely to figure in the States-General. Amongst a variety of portraits, are to be found those of General Lafayette and the Bishop of Autun; the first under the name of Philarète, the second under that of Amène; and, assuredly, the author startles us by his nice perception of the character and by his prophetic sagacity as to the career of these two men. It is well, however, to remember that Laclos frequented the Palais Royal, which the moral and punctilious soldier of Washington scrupulously avoided. The criticism I give, therefore, is not an impartial one. For, if General Lafayette was neither a hero nor a statesman, he was, take him all in all, one of the most eminent personages of his time, and occupied, at two or three periods, one of the most prominent positions in his country.

“Philarète,” says M. Laclos, “having found it easy to become a hero, fancies it will be as easy to become a statesman. The misfortune of Philarète is that he has great pretensions and ordinary conceptions. He has persuaded himself that he was the author of the revolution in America; he is arranging himself so as to become one of the principal actors in a revolution in France.

“He mistakes notoriety for glory, an event for a success, a sword for a monument, a compliment for immortality. He does not like the court, because he is not at his ease in it; nor the world, because there he is confounded with the many; nor women, because they injure the reputation of a man, while they do not add to his position. But he is fond of clubs, because he there picks up the ideas of others; of strangers, because they only examine a foreigner superficially; of mediocrity, because it listens and admires.

“Philarète will be faithful to whatever party he adopts, without being able to assign, even to himself, any good reasons for being so. He has no very accurate ideas of constitutional authority, but the word ‘liberty’ has a charm for him, because it rouses an ambition which he scarcely knows what to do with. Such is Philarète. He merits attention, because, after all, he is better than most of his rivals. That the world has been more favourable to him than he deserves, is owing to the fact that he has done a great deal in it, considering the poverty of his ability; and people have been grateful to him, rather on account of what he seemed desirous to be, than on account of what he was. Besides, his exterior is modest, and only a few know that the heart of the man is not mirrored on the surface.

“He will never be much more than we see him, for he has little genius, little nerve, little voice, little art, and is greedy of small successes.”

Such was the portrait which was drawn of Lafayette; we now come to that of M. de Talleyrand.

“Amène has charming manners, which embellish virtue. His first title to success is a sound understanding. Judging men with indulgence, events with calmness, he has in all things that moderation which is the characteristic of true philosophy.

“There is a degree of perfection which the intelligence can comprehend rather than realise, and which there is, undoubtedly, a certain degree of greatness in endeavouring to attain; but such brilliant efforts, though they give momentary fame to those who make them, are never of any real utility. Common sense disdains glitter and noise, and, measuring the bounds of human capacity, has not the wild hope of extending them beyond what experience has proved their just limit.

“Amène has no idea of making a great reputation in a day: such reputations, made too quickly, soon begin to decline, and are followed by envy, disappointment, and sorrow. But Amène will arrive at everything, because he will always profit by those occasions which present themselves to such as do not attempt to ravish Fortune. Each step will be marked by the development of some talent, and thus he will at last acquire that general high opinion which summons a statesman to every great post that is vacant. Envy, which will always deny something to a person generally praised, will reply to what we have said, that Amène has not that force and energy of character which is necessary to break through the obstacles that impede the course of a public man. It is true he will yield to circumstances, to reason, and will deem that he can make sacrifices to peace without descending from principle; but firmness and constancy may exist without violent ardour, or vapid enthusiasm.

“Amène has against him his pleasing countenance and seductive manner. I know people whom these advantages displease, and who are also prejudiced against a man who happens to unite the useful chance of birth with the essential qualities of the mind.

“But what are we really to expect from Amène in the States-General? Nothing, if he is inspired with the spirit of class; much, if he acts after his own conceptions, and remembers that a national assembly only contains citizens.”

VIII

Few who read the above sketch will deny to the author of the “Liaisons Dangereuses” the merit of discernment. Indeed, to describe M. de Talleyrand at this time seems to have been more appropriate to the pen of the novelist than to that of the historian. Let us picture to ourselves a man of about thirty-five, and appearing somewhat older: his countenance of a long oval; his eyes blue, with an expression at once deep and variable; his lips usually impressed with a smile, which was that of mockery, but not of ill-nature; his nose slightly turned up, but delicate, and remarkable for a constant play in the clearly chiseled nostrils. “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.

A droll story is related with respect to this last peculiarity. The new Bishop had ordered and received a very handsome carriage, becoming his recent ecclesiastical elevation. He had not, however, settled the coachmaker’s “small account.” After long waiting and frequent letters, the civil but impatient tradesman determined upon presenting himself every day at the Bishop of Autun’s door, at the same time as his equipage.

For several days, M. de Talleyrand saw, without recognising, a well-dressed individual, with his hat in his hand, and bowing very low as he mounted the steps of his coach. “Et qui êtes vous, mon ami?” he said at last. “Je suis votre carrossier, Monseigneur.” “Ah! vous êtes mon carrossier; et que voulez-vous, mon carrossier?” “Je veux être payé, Monseigneur,” said the coachmaker, humbly. “Ah! vous êtes mon carrossier, et vous voulez être payé; vous serez payé, mon carrossier.” “Et quand, Monseigneur?”7 “Hum!” murmured the Bishop, looking at his coachmaker very attentively, and at the same time settling himself in his new carriage: “Vous êtes bien curieux!” Such was the Talleyrand of 1789, embodying in himself the ability and the frivolity, the ideas and the habits of a large portion of his class. At once the associate of the Abbé Sieyès, and of Mademoiselle Guimard: a profligate fine gentleman, a deep and wary thinker; and, above all things, the delight and ornament of that gay and graceful society, which, crowned with flowers, was about to be the first victim to its own philosophy. As yet, however, the sky, though troubled, gave no evidence of storm; and never, perhaps, did a great assembly meet with less gloomy anticipations than that which in the pomp and gallantry of feudal show, swept, on the 1st of May, through the royal city of Versailles.

Still, there was even at that moment visible the sign and symbol of the approaching crisis; for dark behind the waving plumes and violet robes of the great dignitaries of Church and State, moved on the black mass, in sable cloak and garb, of the Commons, or tiers-état, the body which had, as yet, been nothing, but which had just been told by one of its most illustrious members,8 that it ought to be everything.

The history of the mighty revolution which at this moment was commencing, is still so stirring amongst us, – the breath of the tempest which then struck down tower and temple, is still so frequently fancied to be rustling about our own dwellings, – that when the mind even now wanders back, around and about this time, it is always with a certain interest and curiosity, and we pause once again to muse, even though we have often before meditated, upon that memorable event which opened a new chapter in the history of the world. And the more we reflect, the more does it seem surprising that in so civilised an age, and under so well-meaning a sovereign, an august throne and a great society should have been wholly swept away; nor does it appear less astonishing that a monarch with arbitrary sway, that a magistracy with extraordinary privileges, each wishing to retain their authority, should have voluntarily invoked another power, long slumbering in an almost forgotten constitution, and which, when roused into activity, was so immediately omnipotent over parliament and king.

IX

The outline of Louis XVI.’s reign is easily, though I do not remember where it is briefly, and clearly traced. At its commencement, the influence of new opinions was confined to the library and drawing-room. The modern notions of constitutional liberty and political economy prevalent amongst men of letters, and fashionable amongst men of the world, had not been professed by men in power, and were consequently disdained by that large class which wishes in all countries to pass for the practical portion of the community. At this time, an old minister, himself a courtier, and jealous lest other courtiers should acquire that influence over his master which he possessed, introduced into affairs a set of persons hitherto unknown at court, the most eminent of whom were Turgot, Malesherbes, and Necker; and no sooner had these three eminent reformers obtained a serious political position, than their views acquired a political consideration which had not before belonged to them, and the idea that some great and general reform was shortly to take place entered seriously into the public mind. Each of these ministers would have wished to make the reforms that were most necessary with the aid of the royal authority; and, had they been able to do so, it is probable that they would have preserved the heart and strength of the old monarchy, which was yet only superficially decayed. But the moderate changes which they desired to introduce with the assent of all parties, were opposed by all parties, in spite of – or, perhaps, on account of – their very moderation: for losers are rarely satisfied because their losses are small, and winners are never contented but when their gains are great.

In the meantime, Maurepas, who would have supported the policy of his colleagues, if it had brought him popularity, was by no means disposed to do so when it gave him trouble. Thus, Malesherbes, Turgot, and Necker were successively forced to resign their offices, without having done anything to establish their own policy, but much to render any other discreditable and difficult.

The publication of the famous “Compte Rendu,” or balance-sheet of state expenses and receipts, more especially, rendered it impossible to continue to govern as heretofore. And now Maurepas died, and a youthful queen inherited the influence of an old favourite. M. de Calonne, a plausible, clever, but superficial gentleman, was the first minister of any importance chosen by the influence of Marie-Antoinette’s friends. He saw that the expenses and receipts of the government must bear some proportion to each other. He trembled at suddenly reducing old charges; new taxes were the only alternative; and yet it was almost impossible to get such taxes from the lower and middle classes, if the clergy and nobility, who conjointly possessed about two-thirds of the soil, were exempted from all contributions to the public wants. The minister, nevertheless, shrunk from despoiling the privileged classes of their immunities, without some authorization from themselves. He called together, therefore, the considerable personages, or “notables,” as they were styled, of the realm, and solicited their sanction to new measures and new imposts, some of the former of which would limit their authority, and some of the latter affect their purses.

The “notables” were divided into two factions: the one of which was opposed to M. de Calonne, the other to the changes which he wished to introduce. These two parties united and became irresistible. Amongst their ranks was a personage of great ambition and small capacity – Brienne, Archbishop of Toulouse. This man was the most violent of M. de Calonne’s opponents. The court turned round suddenly and chose him as M. de Calonne’s successor. This measure, at first, was successful, for conflicting opinions end by creating personal antipathies, and the “notables,” in a moment of exultation over the defeated minister, granted everything with facility to the minister who had supplanted him. A new embarrassment, however, now arose. The notables were, after all, only an advising body: they could say what they deemed right to be done, but they could not do it. This was the business of the sovereign; but his edicts, in order to acquire regularly the force of law, had to be registered by the Parliament of Paris; and it is easy to understand how such a power of registration became, under particular circumstances, the power of refusal. The influence of that great magisterial corporation, called the “Parliament of Paris,” had, indeed, acquired, since it had been found necessary to set aside Louis XIV.’s will by the sanction of its authority, a more clear and positive character than at former periods. This judicial court, or legislative assembly, had thus become a constituent part of the State, and had also become – as all political assemblies, however composed, which have not others for their rivals, will become – the representative of popular opinion. It had seen, with a certain degree of jealousy, the convocation, however temporarily, of another chamber (for such the assembly of notables might be called), and was, moreover, as belonging to the aristocracy, not very well disposed to the surrender of aristocratical privileges. It refused, therefore, to register the new taxes proposed to it: thus thwarting the consent of the notables, avoiding, for a time, the imposts with which its own class was threatened, and acquiring, nevertheless, some increase of popularity with the people who are usually disposed to resist all taxation, and were pleased with the invectives against the extravagance of the court, with which the resistance of the parliament was accompanied.

The government cajoled and threatened the parliament, recalled it, again quarrelled with it, attempted to suppress it – and failed.

Disturbances broke out, famine appeared at hand, a bankruptcy was imminent; there was no constituted authority with sufficient power or sufficient confidence in itself to act decisively. People looked out for some new authority: they found it in an antique form. “The States-General!” (that is, an assembly chosen from the different classes, which, in critical periods of the French nation had been heretofore summoned) became the unanimous cry. The court, which wanted money and could not get it, expected to find more sympathy in a body drawn from all the orders of the State than from a special and privileged body which represented but one order.

The parliament, on the other hand, imagined that, having acquired the reputation of defending the nation’s rights, it would have its powers maintained and extended by any collection of men representing the nation. This is why both parliament and court came by common accord to one conclusion.

The great bulk of the nobility, though divided in their previous discussions, here, also, at last agreed: one portion because it participated in the views of the court, and the other because it participated in those of the parliament.

In the meantime, the unfortunate Archbishop, who had tried every plan for filling the coffers of the court without the aid of the great council now called together, was dismissed as soon as that council was definitively summoned: and, according to the almost invariable policy of restoring to power the statesman who has increased his popularity by losing office, M. Necker was again placed at the head of the finances and presented to the public as the most influential organ of the crown.

X

It will be apparent, from what I have said, that the court expected to find in the States-General an ally against the parliament, whilst the parliament expected to find in the States-General an ally against the court. Both were deceived.

The nobility, or notables, the government, and the parliament, had all hitherto been impotent, because they had all felt that there was another power around them and about them, by which their actions were controlled, but with which, as it had no visible representation, they had no means of dealing.

That power was “public opinion.” In the Commons of France, in the Deputies from the most numerous, thoughtful, and stirring classes of the community, a spirit – hitherto impalpable and invisible – found at once a corporate existence.

Monsieur d’Espremenil, and those parliamentary patricians who a year before were in almost open rebellion against the sovereign, at last saw that they had a more potent enemy to cope with, and rallied suddenly round the throne. Its royal possessor stood at that moment in a position which no doubt was perilous, but which, nevertheless, I believe, a moderate degree of sagacity and firmness might have made secure. The majority of the aristocracy of all grades, from a feudal sentiment of honour, was with the King. The middle classes also had still for the monarch and his rank considerable respect; and were desirous to find out and sanction some just and reasonable compromise between the institutions that were disappearing, and the ideas that had come into vogue. It was necessary to calm the apprehensions of those who had anything to lose, to fix the views of those who thought they had something to gain, and to come at once to a settlement with the various classes – here agitated by fear, there by expectation. But however evident the necessity of this policy, it was not adopted. Suspicions that should have been dissipated were excited; notions that should have been rendered definite were further disturbed; all efforts at arrangement were postponed; and thus the revolution rushed onwards, its tide swelling, and its rapidity being increased by the blunders of those who had the greatest interest and desire to arrest it. The fortune of M. de Talleyrand was embarked upon that great stream, of which few could trace the source, and none foresaw the direction.

XI

I have just said that none foresaw the direction in which the great events now commencing were likely to run. That direction was mainly to be influenced by the conduct and character of the sovereign, but it was also, in some degree, to be affected by the conduct and character of the statesman to whom the destinies of France were for the moment confided.