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

On this point I shall say no more. The former speaker has himself pointed out the difference that should characterise the observations of one who speaks for the Government, and those of an isolated member of the Chamber. The Chamber will certainly understand that it is not for me to reply severally to the observations which have been laid before you, because any answer to these observations will have an undue importance as coming from myself.

As to the other branch of the question, the existence of treaties which the first speaker has discussed, and to which the second152 has also referred; I will speak upon the matter as shortly as I can. As far as I know, absolutely no one in Europe would assert that treaties should not be faithfully executed both in their letter and their spirit, but in the article of the treaty to which the two orators have referred, different principles are enounced; principles which are not incompatible, and should indeed be reconciled; on the one hand the Independence of Poland, and on the other the Union of Poland with Russia. In this article the principle is laid down that representation and certain national institutions should exist; but execution has been delayed until we know what these institutions are to be, and under what form they will be established.

This article was not drawn up with all the clearness that might have been desired. The possibility is thus open that the several Powers who signed the treaty of 1815 may interpret it in different senses, and emphasise more or less the principles therein enounced. It may be – I am only putting a hypothetical case – that the several Powers will not agree upon the application of these principles, or upon the nature of the action that lies before them. Are we to say that the moment a difference of opinion arises, we should immediately have recourse to force? The Chamber cannot countenance such an idea. The maintenance of relations between the Powers is upon the same footing as the maintenance of harmony between the public bodies. The mere fact that divergence of opinion is possible is no reason for an appeal to force. Discussion, reason, and time will enable the truth to prevail.

Well, gentlemen, I am confident that the Chamber will understand without further words from myself upon the question now before it, that there are divergences of opinion between the different Powers upon certain points. We consider that negotiations, discussion, and time will enable the truth to prevail, and we trust that upon this point you will agree with us. (Loud applause.)153

III

Eulogy upon Count Reinhart, delivered at the Academy of Moral and Political Science, by the Prince de Talleyrand, in the Session of March 3, 1838

Gentlemen,

I was in America when the kindness of my friends appointed me a member of the Institute, and thus connected me with the study of Moral and Political Science, to which society I have had the honour to belong since its origin.

On my return to France my first care was to attend the sessions of the Institute, and thus to show the members of that time, many of whom we have every reason to regret, what pleasure I felt at finding myself one of their number. During the first session at which I was present the committee was reappointed, and I received the honourable post of secretary. The six months' report which I drew up, with all the care that I could bring to it, was perhaps of a too deferential character, as I was giving an account of work to which I was a complete stranger. It was work which doubtless had cost much research and much labour to one of our most learned colleagues, and was entitled, "Dissertations upon the Riparian Laws." At the same time in our public meetings I delivered some lectures which I was then allowed to insert in the Memoirs of the Institute. Forty years have elapsed since that date, during which this chair has been forbidden to me, first by long absences, and also by duties to which I was obliged to devote the whole of my time, and I may add by the discretion which times of difficulty make incumbent upon a man whose business is political; and, finally, by the infirmities which old age usually brings or aggravates.

But to-day I feel it necessary – and, indeed, regard it as a duty – to appear for the last time in memory of a man known throughout Europe, a man who was my friend, and who was our colleague since the formation of the Institute. I come forward publicly to testify to our esteem for his person and to our regret for his loss. His position and mine enable me to reveal several of his special merits. His principal, but not his sole title to glory consists in a correspondence extending over forty years, necessarily unknown to the public, who will probably never hear of it. I asked myself, "Who will speak upon that matter within these walls? Who will have any reason to speak of it except myself, who have known so much of it, who have been so pleased by it, and so often helped by it in the course of the Ministerial duties which I have had to perform under three very different reigns?"

Count Reinhart was thirty years of age and I was thirty-seven when I first met him. He entered public life with a large stock of information; he knew five or six languages, and was familiar with their literatures. He could have attained celebrity as a poet or historian or geographer, and in this latter capacity he became a member of the Institute at the time of its foundation.

At that time he was already a member of the Academy of Science in Göttingen. Born and educated in Germany, he had published in his youth certain poems which had attracted the attention of Gessner, Wieland and Schiller. At a later date, when his health forced him to take the waters of Carlsbad, he was fortunate enough to meet and to know the famous Goethe, who so far appreciated his taste and his knowledge as to apply to him for information upon any outstanding features in French literature. Herr Reinhart promised to keep him informed. Undertakings of this nature among men of first-rate intellectual power are invariably mutual, and soon become bonds of friendship. The intimacy between Count Reinhart and Goethe gave rise to a correspondence which is now being printed in Germany.

Having thus reached that time of life when a man must definitely choose that career for which he thinks himself best fitted, we shall see that Herr Reinhart formed a resolution by no means consistent with his character, his tastes, his own position, and that of his family: remarkable as the fact was for that age, in preference to the many careers in which he could have been independent, he chose one in which independence was impossible, and gave his preference to diplomacy. His choice was a good one; he was fitted to occupy any post in this profession, and filled all posts in succession and all with distinction.

I will venture to assert that his early studies had fitted him admirably for his profession. His work in theology especially had brought him distinction in the seminary of Denkendorf and in the Protestant faculty of Tübingen; it had given him a strength and dexterity in argument which may be noted in every document from his pen. Lest I should seem to be pursuing a paradoxical idea, I may recall the fact that several of our great diplomatists were theologians, and have all made their mark in history by their conduct of the most important political affairs of their age. Cardinal Chancellor Duprat was as completely versed in canon law as jurisprudence, and fixed, in conjunction with Leo X., the principles of the Concordat which in large part survives to-day; Cardinal d'Ossat, notwithstanding the opposition of several great Powers, succeeded in reconciling Henry IV. with the Court of Rome; his surviving correspondence is still recommended for study to those of our young men who propose to follow a political career; Cardinal de Polignac, a theologian, poet, and diplomatist, after many unhappy wars, was able to preserve the conquests of Louis XIV. to France by the treaty of Utrecht.

Thus, too, amid theological books collected by his father, afterwards Bishop of Gap, was begun the education of M. de Lionne, to whose name fresh lustre has recently been added by an important publication.

The names which I have quoted will suffice to justify my idea of the influence which I conceive to have been exerted upon Count Reinhart's mind by the early studies to which his father's education had directed him.

The varied and profound information which he had acquired qualified him to perform at Bordeaux the honourable, if modest, duties of tutor in a Protestant family in that town. There he naturally began relations with several men whose talents, whose mistakes, and whose death brought such renown to our first Legislative Assembly. Count Reinhart was easily induced by them to enter the service of France.

I feel in no way obliged to follow in detail the many vicissitudes of his long career. The numerous posts which were entrusted to him, sometimes of importance, at other times of inferior rank, seem to have followed in no consecutive order, and, indeed, to denote a want of gradation which we could hardly understand at the present time; but in that age neither positions nor persons were subject to prejudice. In other times favour, and more rarely discrimination, called men to eminent positions, but during the time of which I speak, for good or for evil, positions were won by force, and such a system naturally produced confusion.

Thus we shall see Count Reinhart as First Secretary to the London Embassy; in a similar position at Naples; as Plenipotentiary Minister to the Hanseatic towns, Hamburg, Bremen, and Lübeck; head of the third division in the Department of Foreign Affairs; Plenipotentiary Minister at Florence; Foreign Minister; Plenipotentiary Minister in Switzerland; Consul-General at Milan; Plenipotentiary Minister for the area of Lower Saxony; Resident in the Turkish provinces beyond the Danube, and Chief Commissioner of commercial relations in Moldavia; Plenipotentiary Minister to the King of Westphalia; head of the chancery in the Department of Foreign Affairs; Plenipotentiary Minister to the Germanic Diet and to the free town of Frankfort; and, finally, Plenipotentiary Minister at Dresden. How many posts, how much work, and how many interests were thus confided to the care of one man! And this at a time when talent seemed likely to be the less appreciated, as war appeared to be the chief arbitrator in every difficulty.

You will not expect me, gentlemen, to give you any detailed account with dates of the works which Count Reinhart produced in the various posts which I have just enumerated; such an account would need a volume. I need only speak to you of the manner in which he fulfilled his official duties, whether he was Head of a Department, Minister, or Consul.

Count Reinhart had not at that time the advantage which he might have had a few years later of seeing excellent models for his imitation; but he was well aware what high and different capacities should distinguish the head of a department of Foreign Affairs. His delicate tact showed him that the habits of such a head should be simple, regular, and retiring; that, remote from the uproar of the world, he should live for business alone, and bring to it an impenetrable secrecy; that while always ready to give an answer concerning facts and men, he should have constantly present to his memory every treaty, know the dates of them, their history, have a correct knowledge of their strong points and their weaknesses, their antecedent and consequent circumstances; that he should know the names of the chief diplomatists and even their family relations; and that while using this knowledge, he should be careful not to disturb the penetrating self-esteem of the Minister, and that if he should ever induce that Minister to share his own opinions, his success should remain concealed. He knew that he could only shine by reflection elsewhere, but he was also aware that so pure and modest a life would naturally command every respect.

Count Reinhart's faculty of observation did not stop at that point. It had shown him how unusual is the combination of qualities necessary for a Minister of Foreign Affairs. Such a Minister must, in fact, be endowed with a kind of instinct which will give him prompt warning and prevent him from compromising himself before any discussion begins: he must be able to appear frank while remaining impenetrable; must be reserved and yet seem careless; must discriminate even in the nature of his amusements; his conversation must be simple, varied, attractive, always natural, and sometimes open. In a word, he must never cease for a single moment in the twenty-four hours of the day to be Minister of Foreign Affairs.

At the same time, unusual as these capacities are, they could hardly be adequate if loyalty did not give them that support which they almost always require. I am bound to mention the fact here in opposition to a prejudice generally current. Diplomacy is not a science of duplicity and trickery; if good faith is required anywhere, it is especially necessary in political transactions, for it alone can make them permanent and durable. Attempts have been made to identify reserve with duplicity; good faith will never authorise duplicity, but it may admit reserve, and reserve has the special faculty of increasing confidence.

Dominated by a sense of honour and of his country's interests, by the honour and interests of his Sovereign, by the love of liberty founded upon a respect for order and uniform justice, a Minister of Foreign Affairs, when he is equal to his task, occupies the highest position to which any lofty mind could aspire.

Much as is required of a competent Minister, how much more is required of a good Consul. The claims upon a Consul are infinitely varied and are of a totally different order from those which may affect the other officials of a Foreign Office. They require an amount of practical experience which can only be acquired by a special education. Within the area of their jurisdiction Consuls are required to perform for their compatriots the duties of judges, arbitrators, and mediators; often they are officers of the Civil State; they act as notaries, and sometimes as Admiralty officers; they watch and report upon sanitary affairs; their position enables them to give an accurate and complete idea of the state of trade, of navigation, and of manufactures in the country where they reside. Count Reinhart, who neglected nothing to secure the accuracy of that information with which it was his business to provide his Government, or the correctness of the decisions which as a political agent, as Consul and Admiralty officer, he was obliged to give, had made a profound study of international and shipping law. This study had induced him to think that a time would come when clever combinations would establish a general system of commerce and navigation in which the interests of every nation would be respected, and the basis of which would be so strong that not even war itself could alter the principle of it, though it might interrupt some of its results. He was also able to decide certainly and promptly all questions of interchange, arbitration, conversion of money, weights and measures, while no claims were ever raised in dispute of the information which he provided or of the judgments which he delivered. It is also true that the personal consideration which he enjoyed throughout his career gave much influence to his intervention in any matter which he conducted or in any dispute upon which he had to pronounce.

Wide as a man's knowledge may be and vast as his capacity, the complete diplomatist is but very rarely met with. Yet Count Reinhart might have attained this distinction if he had had one additional capacity. The clearness of his view and intelligence was admirable; he could write an excellent account of anything that he had seen or heard; his style was resourceful, easy, clever, and attractive. Of all the diplomatic correspondence of that age, the Emperor Napoleon, who had every right to be fastidious, showed a preference for the despatches of Count Reinhart; but admirably as he wrote, he could only express himself with difficulty. For action his intelligence required more time than conversation could provide, and for the easy reproduction of his mental speech he was obliged to work alone and unaided. Notwithstanding this real inconvenience, Count Reinhart always succeeded in performing his commissions thoroughly well. Whence did he derive the inspiration which enabled him to succeed?

The source of his power, gentlemen, was a real and profound belief which governed all his actions, the sense of duty. The strength of this belief is not often entirely realised. A life entirely devoted to duty is easily separated from ambition. Count Reinhart's life was given up to the duties which he had to perform, nor was there in him any trace of personal ambition or any claim to rapid promotion. The religion of duty to which Count Reinhart was faithful all his life, consists in perfect submission to the orders and instructions of superiors; in constant vigilance added to much perspicacity, which never leaves those superiors ignorant of what they ought to know; in a strict adherence to truth in every official report, whether agreeable or unpleasant; in an impenetrable discretion and a regularity of life which secure confidence and esteem; in decorum of outward conduct and in continual care to give the acts of his Government that colouring and that interpretation demanded by the interest of the affairs under his charge.

Though advancing age had warned Count Reinhart that it was time for rest, he would never have asked to be relieved, fearing that he might seem to show coldness in his pursuit of a career which had been life-long. The royal kindness, with its invariable attention, considered his necessities and gave this great servant of France a most honourable post, by calling him to the Chamber of Peers. Count Reinhart did not long enjoy this honour and died almost suddenly on December 5, 1837. He was twice married, and had a son by his first wife, who is now pursuing a political career. The best wish that we can offer the son is that he may resemble his father as nearly as possible.

IV

Memorandum addressed by Lord Palmerston to the French Government and handed to M. Thiers by Mr. Bulwer at the beginning of September 1840

Foreign Office, August 31, 1840.

Sir,

Various reasons have prevented me from sending you earlier and transmitting through you to the French Government certain observations which Her Majesty's Government desire to make upon the Memorandum which was handed to me on July 24 by the French Ambassador to this Court, in reply to the Memorandum which I had handed to His Excellency on the 17th of that month; but I am now able to fulfil this task.

Her Majesty's Government observes with great satisfaction the friendly tone of the French Memorandum and its assurances of keen desire to maintain peace and the balance of power in Europe. The Memorandum of July 17 was conceived in a spirit no less friendly towards France, and Her Majesty's Government is equally anxious that France should be able to keep peace in Europe and prevent the smallest disturbance of that equilibrium which now exists between the Powers.

Her Majesty's Government has been equally delighted to see the declarations contained in the French Memorandum stating that France wishes to act in concert with the other four Powers with reference to the affairs in the Levant.

On this point the sentiments of Her Majesty's Government correspond in every respect with those of the French Government: for, in the first place, throughout the negotiations which have proceeded upon this question for more than twelve months, the British Government has constantly been anxious that a concert of the five Powers should be established, and that all five should agree to a common line of action; Her Majesty's Government though not bound to defer, as proof of this desire, to the other proposals which have been made from time to time to the French Government, and to which reference has been made in the French Memorandum, can unhesitatingly declare that no European Power can be less influenced than Great Britain by private views or by any desire and hope of exclusive advantage which might arise in her favour from the conclusion of the questions in the Levant. On the contrary, in these matters the interests of Great Britain are identical with those of Europe in general, and are based upon the maintenance of the integrity and independence of the Ottoman Empire as a guarantee for the preservation of peace and as essential to the maintenance of the balance of power in general.

To these principles the French Government has promised its full adherence, and offered it in more than one instance, especially in a despatch from Marshal Soult, under date July 17, 1839. This despatch was officially communicated to the four Powers. It has also offered support in a collective note, dated July 27, 1839, and in the speech of the King of the French to the Chambers in December 1839.

In these documents the French Government declares its determination to maintain the integrity and independence of the Ottoman Empire under the reigning dynasty as essential to the balance of power and as a guarantee for the preservation of peace; in a despatch from Marshal Soult the French Government has shown its resolution to oppose by action and influence any combination which might be hostile to the maintenance of this integrity and this independence.

Hence the Governments of Great Britain and of France are entirely agreed upon the object towards which their policy should be directed. The only difference existing between the two Governments is a difference of opinion concerning the means regarded as most advisable to obtain this common end. On this point, as the French Memorandum observes, a difference of opinion may naturally be expected.

On this point a great difference of opinion has arisen between the two Governments, which seems to have become stronger and more pronounced in proportion as the two Governments have more completely explained their respective views, and this fact for the moment prevents the two Governments from acting in concert to attain their common purpose. On the one hand, Her Majesty's Government has repeatedly pointed out her opinion that it would be impossible to maintain the integrity of the Turkish Empire and to preserve the independence of the Sultan, if Mehemet Ali were to be left in possession of Syria, as the military key of Asiatic Turkey, and that if Mehemet Ali were to continue to occupy this province as well as Egypt, he would be able at any time to threaten Bagdad from the south, Diarbekir and Erzeroum from the east, Koniah, Brousse, and Constantinople from the north; and that the same ambitious spirit which has driven Mehemet Ali under other conditions to revolt against his Sovereign, would soon induce him hereafter to take up arms for further invasions; and that for this purpose he would always maintain a large army on foot; that the Sultan, on the other hand, would be continually on guard against the possible danger, and would also be obliged to remain under arms, so that the Sultan and Mehemet Ali would continue to maintain arms upon a war footing for the purpose of observing one another; that a collision would be the inevitable result of these continual suspicions and mutual alarms, and that even if there should be no premeditated aggression upon either side, any collision of the sort would necessarily lead to foreign intervention in the Turkish Empire, while such intervention, thus provoked, would produce the most serious discord between the Powers of Europe.

Her Majesty's Government has pointed out as probable, if not as certain, an even greater danger than this, which would result from the continued occupation of Syria by Mehemet Ali; namely, that the Pasha, trusting to military force and wearied by his political position as a subject, would carry out an intention which he has frankly avowed to the Powers of Europe that he would never abandon, and would declare himself independent. Such a declaration upon his part would incontestably amount to a dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire, and, what is more, this dismemberment might happen under such conditions as would make it more difficult for the European Powers to act in concert for the purpose of forcing the Pasha to withdraw such a declaration, and more difficult than it is for them to-day to combine their forces and oblige him to evacuate Syria.