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<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 53285 ***</div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_i" id="Page_i">[i]</a></span></p>

<h1>HISTORICAL CHARACTERS</h1>

<div class="figcenter" style="width: 200px;">
<img src="images/publisher.jpg" width="200" height="67" alt="MacMillan publisher's mark" />
</div>

<hr />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ii" id="Page_ii">[ii]</a></span></p>

<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;">
<img src="images/frontispiece.jpg" width="500" height="550" alt="" />
<p class="caption">TALLEYRAND</p>
</div>

<hr />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[iii]</a></span></p>

<p class="center larger">HISTORICAL CHARACTERS</p>

<table summary="Those in this volume">
  <tr>
    <td class="tdc">MACKINTOSH</td>
    <td class="tdc">TALLEYRAND</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="tdc">CANNING</td>
    <td class="tdc">COBBETT</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="tdc" colspan="2">PEEL</td>
  </tr>
</table>

<p class="titlepage"><span class="smaller">BY</span><br />
SIR HENRY LYTTON BULWER<br />
<span class="smaller">(LORD DALLING)</span></p>

<p class="titlepage">London<br />
<span class="smcap">MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited</span><br />
<span class="smaller">NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY</span><br />
1900</p>

<p class="center smaller"><i>All rights reserved</i></p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">[iv]</a></span></p>

<div class="blockquote smaller">

<p><i>First Edition, in 2 vols., demy 8vo, 30s., November 1867.
Second Edition, in 2 vols., demy 8vo, 30s., March 1868. Third
Edition, in one volume, crown 8vo, 6s., December 1869. Fourth
Edition, in which was included, for the first time, the Life of Sir
Robert Peel, in one volume, crown 8vo, 6s., December 1875.
Transferred to Macmillan and Co., Ltd., August 1898. Reprinted
May 1900.</i></p>

</div>

<hr />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[v]</a></span></p>

<h2>TO LORD LYTTON.</h2>

<p class="salutation"><span class="smcap">My dear Edward</span>,</p>

<p>The idea of this work, which I dedicate to you in
testimony of the affection and friendship which have
always united us, was conceived many years ago. I
wished to give some general idea of modern history, from
the period of the French Revolution of 1789 down to our
own times, in a series of personal sketches. In these
sketches I was disposed to select types of particular
characters, thinking that in this way it is easier to
paint with force and clearness both an individual and
an epoch. The outlines of Talleyrand, Cobbett, and
others, were then imperfectly traced; and Canning and
Mackintosh have been little altered.</p>

<p>The manuscript, however, was laid aside amidst the
labours of an active professional career, and only thought
of since complete leisure created the wish for some employment.
It was then that I resumed my task.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[vi]</a></span></p>

<p>I need not say that the portraits I give here are but a
few of those I commenced, but the constant change of
residence, rendered necessary by the state of health in
which I left Constantinople, interfered with the completion
of my design, and added to the defects which,
under any circumstances, would have been found in the
following pages.</p>

<p class="signoff">Ever yours affectionately,</p>

<p class="sig"><span class="smcap">H. L. Bulwer</span>.</p>

<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap">13, Rue Royale, Paris</span>,<br />
<i>Oct 10, 1867</i>.</p>

<hr />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[vii]</a></span></p>

<h2>PREFACE TO THIS NEW EDITION.</h2>

<p>The sale which this work has had in its original form has
induced my publisher to recommend a cheaper and more
popular one; and I myself gladly seize the opportunity
of correcting some of the errors in print and expression
which, though gradually diminished in preceding editions,
left even the last edition imperfect. An author with
ordinary modesty must always be conscious of many
defects in his own work. I am so in mine. Still I
venture to say that the portraits I have drawn have, upon
the whole, been thought truthful and impartial; and though
I have been often reminded of the difficulty which Sir
Walter Raleigh, when writing the History of the World,
experienced in ascertaining the real particulars of a tumult
that took place under his windows&mdash;almost every anecdote
one hears on the best authority being certain to find
contradiction in some of its particulars&mdash;I have not
refrained from quoting those anecdotes which came to me<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[viii]</a></span>
from good authority or the general report of the period;
since a story which brings into relief the reputed character
of the person it is applied to, and which, to use the Italian
proverb, ought to be true if it is not so, is far from being
indifferent to history.</p>

<p>In conclusion, I cannot but express my thanks, not only
to public, but to private and previously unknown critics,
whose remarks have always received a willing and grateful
attention, and to whose suggestions I am greatly indebted.</p>

<p class="smaller"><i>Nov. 6, 1869.</i></p>

<hr />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></p>

<h2>TALLEYRAND, THE POLITIC MAN.</h2>

<h3><span class="smcap">Part I.</span><br />
<span class="smaller">FROM THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE REVOLUTION TO THE
EXPOSITION OF THE STATE OF THE NATION.</span></h3>

<div class="smaller">

<p>Different types of men.&mdash;M. de Talleyrand, the politic man.&mdash;Character of
the eighteenth century, which had formed him.&mdash;Birth, personal description,
entry into church.&mdash;Causes of revolution.&mdash;States-General.&mdash;Talleyrand’s influence
over clergy; over the decision as to the instructions of members, and
the drawing up of the rights of man.&mdash;Courage in times of danger.&mdash;Financial
knowledge.&mdash;Propositions relative to church property.&mdash;Discredit with the
Court party.&mdash;Popularity with the Assembly.&mdash;Charged to draw up its
manifesto to the nation.&mdash;Project about uniformity of weights and measures.</p>

</div>

<h4>I.</h4>

<p>There are many men in all times who employ themselves
actively in public affairs; but very few amongst these
deserve the title of “Men of action.”</p>

<p>The rare individuals who justly claim this designation,
and whose existence exercises so important an influence
over the age in which they appear, must possess, in no
ordinary degree, intelligence, energy, and judgment; but
these qualities are found blended in different degrees in
the different classes or types of men who, as soldiers,
sovereigns, or statesmen, command the destiny of their
times.</p>

<p>They in whom superior intelligence, energy, and judgment
are equally united, mount with firm and rapid pace
the loftiest steeps of ambition, and establish themselves
permanently on the heights to which they have safely
ascended. Such men usually pursue some fixed plan or<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span>
predominant idea with stern caution and indomitable perseverance,
adapting their means to their end, but always
keeping their end clearly in view, and never, in the pursuit
of it, overstepping that line by which difficulties are separated
from impossibilities. Cardinal de Richelieu in
France, and William III. in England, are types of this
heroic race.</p>

<p>On the other hand, they in whom the judgment, however
great, is not sufficient to curb the energy and govern
the intellect which over-stimulates their nature, blaze out,
meteor-like, in history, but rather excite temporary admiration
than leave behind them permanent results. Their
exploits far surpass those of other men, and assume for a
moment an almost supernatural appearance: but, as their
rise is usually sudden and prodigious, their ruin is also
frequently abrupt and total. Carried on by a force over
which they gradually lose all control, from one act of
audacity to another more daring, their genius sails before
the wind, like a vessel with overcrowded canvas, and
perishes at last in some violent and sudden squall.
Charles XII. of Sweden was an example of this kind in
the last century, and Napoleon Bonaparte, if we regard
him merely as a conqueror, a more striking one in our
own days.</p>

<p>Thirdly, there are men whose energy though constant
is never violent, and whose intellect, rather subtle than
bold, is attracted by the useful, and careless of the sublime.
Shrewd and wary, these men rather take advantage of
circumstances than make them. To turn an obstacle, to
foresee an event, to seize an opportunity, is their peculiar
talent. They are without passions, but self-interest and
sagacity combined give them a force like that of passion.
The success they obtain is procured by efforts no greater
than those of other candidates for public honours, who
with an appearance of equal talent vainly struggle after
fortune; but all their exertions are made at the most
fitting moment, and in the happiest manner.</p>

<p>A nice tact and a far-sighted judgment are the predominant
qualities of these “<em>politic</em>” persons. They think
rarely of what is right in the abstract: they do usually<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span>
what is best at the moment. They never play the greatest
part amongst their contemporaries: they almost always play
a great one; and, without arriving at those extraordinary
positions to which a more adventurous race aspires, generally
retain considerable importance, even during the most
changeful circumstances, and most commonly preserve in
retirement or disgrace much of the consideration they
acquired in power. During the intriguing and agitated
years which preceded the fall of the Stuarts, there was
seen in England a remarkable statesman of the character
I have just been describing; and a comparison might not
inappropriately be drawn between the plausible and
trimming Halifax and the adroit and accomplished personage
whose name is inscribed on these pages.</p>

<p>But although these two renowned advocates of expediency
had many qualities in common&mdash;the temper, the
wit, the knowledge, the acuteness which distinguished the
one equally distinguishing the other&mdash;nevertheless the
Englishman, although a more dexterous debater in public
assemblies, had not in action the calm courage, nor in
council the prompt decision, for which the Frenchman
was remarkable; neither is his name stamped on the
annals of his country in such indelible characters, nor connected
with such great and marvellous events.</p>

<p>And yet, notwithstanding the vastness of the stage on
which M. de Talleyrand acted, and the importance of the
parts which for more than half a century he played, I
venture to doubt whether his character has ever been
fairly given, or is at this moment justly appreciated; nor
is this altogether surprising. In a life so long, brilliant,
and varied, we must expect to find a diversity of impressions
succeeding and effacing each other; and not a few
who admired the captivating companion, and reverenced
the skilful minister of foreign affairs, were ignorant that
the celebrated wit and sagacious diplomatist had exhibited
an exquisite taste in letters, and a profound knowledge in
legislation and finance. Moreover, though it may appear
singular, it will be found true, that it is precisely those
public men who are the most tolerant to adverse opinions,
and the least prone to personal enmities, who oftentimes<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span>
gather round their own reputation, at least during a time,
the darkest obloquy and the most terrible reproaches.
The reason for this is simple: such men are themselves
neither subject to any predominant affection, nor devoted
to any favourite theory. Calm and impartial, they are
lenient and forgiving. On the other hand, men who
love things passionately, or venerate things deeply,
despise those who forsake&mdash;and detest those who oppose&mdash;the
objects of their adoration or respect. Thus,
the royalist, ready to lay down his life for his legitimate
sovereign; the republican, bent upon glorious imitations
of old Rome and Greece; the soldier, devoted to the chief
who had led him from victory to victory, could not but
speak with bitterness and indignation of one who commenced
the Revolution against Louis XVI., aided in the
overthrow of the French Republic, and dictated the proscription
of the great captain whose armies had marched
for a while triumphant over Europe.</p>

<p>The most ardent and violent of the men of M. de
Talleyrand’s time were consequently the most ardent and
violent condemners of his conduct; and he who turns
over the various works in which that conduct is spoken of
by insignificant critics,<a name="FNanchor_1" id="FNanchor_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> will be tempted to coincide with
the remark of the great wit of the eighteenth century:
“<i lang="fr">C’est un terrible avantage de n’avoir rien fait; mais il
ne faut pas en abuser.</i>”<a name="FNanchor_2" id="FNanchor_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></p>

<p>How far such writers were justified will be seen more
or less in the following pages, which are written with
no intention to paint a character deserving of eulogy or
inviting to imitation, but simply with the view of illustrating
a remarkable class of men by a very remarkable man, who
happened to live at a period which will never cease to
occupy and interest posterity.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span></p>

<h4>II.</h4>

<p>Charles Maurice Talleyrand de Périgord was born
February 2, 1754.<a name="FNanchor_3" id="FNanchor_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> The House of Périgord was one of
the noblest in France, and in the earliest ages of the
French monarchy possessed sovereign power. The
principality of Chalais, the only one which existed, I
believe, in the time of Louis XIV. (for the other personages
called princes at the French court took their titles
as princes of the Roman States or the German Empire,
and ranked after French dukes), is said to have been eight
centuries in this family. Talleyrand, a name usually
attached to that of Périgord, and anciently written
<i lang="fr">Tailleran</i>, is supposed to have been a sort of <i lang="fr">sobriquet</i>,
or nickname, and derived from the words, “<i lang="fr">tailler les
rangs</i>” (cut through the ranks). It was borne by
Helie V., one of the sovereign counts of Périgord, who
lived in 1118; and from this prince (Helie V.) descended
two branches of the Talleyrand-Périgords; the one was
extinct before the time of Louis XVI., the other, being
the younger branch, was then represented by a Comte de
Périgord, Captain of the Guards, and Governor of the
States of Languedoc. A brother of this Comte de Périgord
was the father of Charles Maurice Talleyrand de Périgord
(the subject of this memoir), whose mother, Eléonore de
Damas, daughter of the Marquis de Damas, was also of a
highly noble family, and a lady alike remarkable for her
beauty and her virtue.<a name="FNanchor_4" id="FNanchor_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a></p>

<h4>III.</h4>

<p>The seal which marks our destiny has usually been
stamped on our childhood; and most men, as they look
back to their early youth, can remember the accident, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span>
book, the conversation, which gave that shape to their
character which events have subsequently developed.</p>

<p>M. de Talleyrand was in infancy an exile from his
home; the fortune of his parents did not correspond with
their rank: his father,<a name="FNanchor_5" id="FNanchor_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> a soldier, was always at the court
or the camp; his mother held a situation in the household
at Versailles. To both a child was an incumbrance, and
Maurice immediately at his birth was put out to nurse (as
was indeed at that time frequently the custom) in the
country, where, either by chance or neglect, he met with
a fall which occasioned lameness. This infirmity, when
the almost forgotten child at the age of twelve or thirteen
was brought up to Paris for the purpose of receiving rather
a tardy education, had become incurable; and by a <i lang="fr">conseil
de famille</i>, it was decided that the younger brother, the
Comte d’Archambaud&mdash;subsequently known as one of
the handsomest and most elegant of the courtiers of
Louis XVI., and whom I can remember under the title
of Duc de Périgord&mdash;(a title given by Louis XVIII.),
should be considered the elder brother, and enter the army,
whilst the elder son should be pronounced the younger
son, and devoted to the clerical profession, into which the
Périgords knew they had sufficient influence to procure
his admission, notwithstanding the infirmity which, under
ordinary circumstances, would have been a reason for excluding
him from the service of the church. From this
moment the boy&mdash;hitherto lively, idle, and reckless&mdash;became
taciturn, studious, and calculating. His early
propensities remained, for nature admits of no radical
change; but they were coloured by disappointment, or
combated by ambition. We see traces of gaiety in the
companion who, though rarely smiling himself, could
always elicit a laugh from others; we see traces of indolence
in the statesman who, though always occupied,
never did more than the necessity of the case exacted; we<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span>
see traces of recklessness in the gambler and politician
who, after a shrewd glance at the chances, was often disposed
to risk his fortune, or his career, on a speculation
for money or power: but the mind had been darkened and
the heart hardened; and the youth who might easily and
carelessly have accepted a prosperous fate, was ushered
into the world with a determination to wrestle with an
adverse one.</p>

<p>Nor did any paternal advice or maternal care regulate
or soften the dispositions which were thus being formed.
From the nurse in the country, the lame young Périgord&mdash;for
Périgord was the name which at this time he
bore&mdash;was transplanted to the “Collége d’Harcourt,”
since called that of St. Louis. He entered it more
ignorant, perhaps, than any boy of his years; but he
soon gained its first prizes, and became one of its most
distinguished scholars.</p>

<p>At the “Séminaire de St. Sulpice,” to which he was
removed in 1770, his talent for disputation attracted
attention, and even some of his compositions were long
remembered and quoted by contemporaries. Whilst at
the Sorbonne, where he subsequently completed his studies,
this scion of one of the most illustrious French houses was
often pointed out as a remarkably clever, silent, and profligate
young man: who made no secret of his dislike to
the profession that had been chosen for him, but was
certain to arrive at its highest honours.</p>

<p>With such prospects and such dispositions, M. de Talleyrand
entered, in 1773, the Gallican Church.</p>

<h4>IV.</h4>

<p>At this time we have to fancy the young ecclesiastic&mdash;a
gentleman about twenty years of age, very smart in his
clerical attire, and with a countenance which, without
being handsome, was singularly attractive from the triple
expression of softness, impudence, and wit. If we are to
credit the chronicles of that day, his first advance in his
profession was owing to one of those <i lang="fr">bon mots</i> by which
so many of the subsequent steps of his varied career were
distinguished.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span></p>

<p>There were assembled at Madame Dubarry’s a number
of young gentlemen, rather free in their conversation and
prodigal in their boasts: no beauty had been veiled to
their desires, no virtue had been able to resist their attacks.
The subject of this memoir alone said nothing. “And
what makes you so sad and silent?” asked the hostess.
“<i lang="fr">Hélas! madame, je faisais une réflexion bien triste.</i>”
“<i lang="fr">Et laquelle?</i>” “<i lang="fr">Ah, madame, que Paris est une ville
dans laquelle il est bien plus aisé d’avoir des femmes que
des abbayes.</i>”</p>

<p>The saying, so goes the story, was considered charming,
and being reported to Louis XV., was rewarded by that
monarch with the benefice desired. The Abbé de Périgord’s
career, thus commenced, did not long linger.
Within a few years after entering the church, aided by
his birth and abilities, he obtained (in 1780) the distinguished
position of “Agent-General” of the French
clergy&mdash;this title designating an important personage who
administered the ecclesiastical revenues, which were then
immense, under the control of regular assemblies.</p>

<p>It is a curious trait in the manners of these times that,
whilst holding this high post as a priest, the Abbé de
Périgord fitted out a vessel as a privateer; and, it being his
intention to plunder the English, received from the French
government the cannon he required for so pious a purpose.<a name="FNanchor_6" id="FNanchor_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a></p>

<p>I am unable to say what success attended M. de Talleyrand’s
naval enterprise; but when, in 1785, he had to
give an account of his clerical administration, the very
clear and statesmanlike manner in which he did so, raised
him, in the opinion of the public, from the position of a
clever man, into that of an able one. Nor was this all.
The peculiar nature of the first public duties which he
thus exercised, directed his mind towards those questions
which the increasing deficit in the French treasury, and
the acknowledged necessity of supplying it, made the
fashion: for every one at that time in Paris&mdash;ladies,
philosophers, wits, and men of fashion&mdash;talked finance.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span>
Few, however, troubled themselves with acquiring any
real insight into so dry a subject. But M. de Talleyrand,
although constitutionally averse to hard or continued
study, supplied this defect by always seeking and living
with men who were the best informed on those subjects
with which he wished to become acquainted. In this
manner his own information became essentially practical,
and the knowledge he obtained of details (furnishing him
with a variety of facts, which he always knew how to
quote opportunely), attracted the attention and patronage
of M. de Calonne, then at the head of the French government,
and who, being himself as much addicted to pleasure
as to affairs, was not sorry to sanction the doctrine that a
man of the world might also be a man of business.</p>

<p>Still, though thus early marked out as a person who,
after the example of his great ecclesiastical predecessors,
might rise to the highest dignities in the Church and
State, the Abbé de Périgord showed an almost ostentatious
disregard for the duties and decorum of the profession
which he had been forced to embrace. Indeed, he seemed
to make in this sort of conduct a kind of protest against
the decree by which his birthright had been set aside,
and almost to glory in the publication of profane epigrams
and amorous adventures which amused the world but
scandalised the Church. Thus, each year, which increased
his reputation for ability, added to the stories by
which public rumour exaggerated his immorality; and in
1788, when the bishopric of Autun, to which he had for
some time been looking forward, became vacant, Louis XVI.
was unwilling to confer the dignity of prelate on so irregular
an ecclesiastic. For four months the appointment
was not filled up. But the Abbé de Périgord’s father
lay at that time on his death-bed: he was visited by the
kind-hearted Louis in this condition, and he begged the
monarch, as the last request of a dying and faithful
servant, to grant the bishopric in question to his son.
The King could not withstand such a prayer at such a
moment, and the Abbé de Périgord was consecrated Bishop
of Autun on the 17th of January, 1789&mdash;four months
before the assembling of the States-General.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span></p>

<h4>V.</h4>

<p>The period which had elapsed between the time at
which M. de Talleyrand had entered the Church, and that
at which he attained the episcopal dignity, is, perhaps,
the most interesting in modern civilization. At no epoch
did society ever present so bright and polished a surface
as it did in the French capital during these fourteen or
fifteen years. The still great fortunes of the <i lang="fr">grand
seigneur</i>, the profuse expenditure of the financier, the
splendour of a court embellished by that love for the arts
and for letters which the Medici had imported from Italy,
and which Louis XIV. had made a part of his royal magnificence,
all contributed to surround life with a taste in
luxury which has never been surpassed. Rich manufactures
of silk, exquisite chiseling in bronze, china equally
beautiful in form and decoration, and paintings somewhat
effeminate, but graceful, and which still give celebrity to
the names of Watteau, Boucher, and Greuze, mark the
elegant refinement that presided over those days.</p>

<p>Nothing, however, in those courtly times had been
carried to such perfection as the art of living, and the
habits of social intercourse. People did not then shut up
their houses from their friends if they were poor, nor
merely open them in order to give gorgeous and pompous
entertainments if they were rich. Persons who suited
and sympathised, assembled in small circles, which permitted
the access of new members cautiously, but received
all who had once been admitted without preference or
distinction.</p>

<p>In these circles, the courtier, though confident of the
fixed superiority of his birth, paid homage to the accident
of genius in the man of letters; and the literary man,
however proud of his works, or conscious of his talents,
rendered the customary tribute of respect to high rank
and station.</p>

<p>Thus poets and princes, ministers of state, and members
of learned academies&mdash;men of wit, and men of the world&mdash;met
on a footing of apparent equality, and real familiarity,
on a stage where Beauty, ambitious of universal admiration,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span>
cultivated her mind as much as her person, and established
one presiding theory&mdash;“that all had to make themselves
agreeable.”</p>

<p>The evening parties of Madame de Brignole, and of
Madame du Deffand, the little suppers of Madame Geoffrin,
the dinners of Baron Holbach and Helvetius, the musical
receptions of the Abbé Morelet, and the breakfasts of
Madame Necker, were only specimens of the sort of
assemblies which existed amongst different classes, and
throughout every street and corner of Paris and Versailles.</p>

<p>Here, all orders mingled with suitable deference towards
each other. But beneath this brilliant show of actual
gaiety and apparent unity there lay brooding a spirit of
dissatisfaction and expectation, which a variety of peculiar
circumstances tended, at that time, to exaggerate in France,
but which is in fact the usual characteristic of every
intellectual community, when neither over-enervated by
luxury and peace, nor over-wearied by war and civil commotion.
Its natural consequence was a desire for change,
which diffused its influence over all things&mdash;great and
small. Léonard revolutionized the head-dress of the
French lady: Diderot and Beaumarchais, the principles
of the French stage: Turgot and Necker, the political
economy and financial system of the French state: and
just at this moment, when the imagination was on the
stretch for novelty, as if Providence designed for some
mysterious end to encourage the aspiring genius of the
epoch, the balloon of Montgolfier took its flight from the
Tuileries, and the most romantic dreams were surpassed by
a reality.</p>

<p>It was not, however, a mere discontent with the present,
a mere hope in the future, a mere passion after things
new, however violent that passion might be, which
constituted the peril, nor, indeed, the peculiarity of the
hour.</p>

<p>In other seasons of this kind, the wishes and views
of men have frequently taken some fixed form&mdash;have had
some fixed tendency&mdash;and in this way their progress has
been regulated, and their result, even from a distance,
foreseen.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span></p>

<p>But at the period to which I am referring, there was
no general conception or aim which cast a decisive shadow
over coming events, and promised any specific future in
exchange for the present, evidently passing away.</p>

<p>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.
“<i lang="la">Magis habuit quod fugeret quam quod sequeretur.</i>”
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,&mdash;amidst a general possession of privileges, and a
general equality of customs and ideas&mdash;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,&mdash;that
the flower of M. de Talleyrand’s manhood was passed.</p>

<h4>VI.</h4>

<p>I have dwelt at some length upon the characteristics&mdash;</p>

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

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span></p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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 <i lang="fr">baillage</i> 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.</p>

<p>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&mdash;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&mdash;for he embraces all these&mdash;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.</p>

<p>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:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span>
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&mdash;now advanced by fortunate events, now
retarded by adverse ones&mdash;some of them have been disdained
by demagogues, others denounced by despots;&mdash;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!</p>

<h4>VII.</h4>

<p>About the time of the assembling of the States-General,
there appeared a work which it is now curious to refer to&mdash;it
was by the pen of Laclos&mdash;entitled <i lang="fr">Galerie des États-Généraux</i>.
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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span>
time, and occupied, at two or three periods, one of the
most prominent positions in his country.</p>

<p>“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.</p>

<p>“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.</p>

<p>“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.</p>

<p>“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.”</p>

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

<p>“Amène has charming manners, which embellish virtue.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span>
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.</p>

<p>“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.</p>

<p>“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 <em>arrive at everything</em>, 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
<em>yield to circumstances</em>, to reason, and will deem that he
can make <em>sacrifices to peace without descending from
principle</em>; but firmness and constancy may exist without
violent ardour, or vapid enthusiasm.</p>

<p>“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.</p>

<p>“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.”</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span></p>

<h4>VIII.</h4>

<p>Few who read the above sketch will deny to the author
of the “<i lang="fr">Liaisons Dangereuses</i>” 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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.
“<i lang="fr">Et qui êtes vous, mon ami?</i>” he said at last. “<i lang="fr">Je suis
votre carrossier, Monseigneur.</i>” “<i lang="fr">Ah! vous êtes mon carrossier;
et que voulez-vous, mon carrossier?</i>” “<i lang="fr">Je veux
être payé, Monseigneur</i>,” said the coachmaker, humbly.
“<i lang="fr">Ah! vous êtes mon carrossier, et vous voulez être payé;
vous serez payé, mon carrossier.</i>” “<i lang="fr">Et quand,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span>
Monseigneur?</i>”<a name="FNanchor_7" id="FNanchor_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> “Hum!” murmured the Bishop, looking at
his coachmaker very attentively, and at the same time
settling himself in his new carriage: “<i lang="fr">Vous êtes bien
curieux!</i>” 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.</p>

<p>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, <em>as yet, been nothing</em>, but which had just been told by
one of its most illustrious members,<a name="FNanchor_8" id="FNanchor_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> that it <em>ought to be
everything</em>.</p>

<p>The history of the mighty revolution which at this
moment was commencing, is still so stirring amongst us,&mdash;the
breath of the tempest which then struck down tower
and temple, is still so frequently fancied to be rustling
about our own dwellings,&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span>
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.</p>

<h4>IX.</h4>

<p>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&mdash;or,
perhaps, on account of&mdash;their very moderation:
for losers are rarely satisfied because their losses are<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span>
small, and winners are never contented but when their
gains are great.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>The publication of the famous “<i lang="fr">Compte Rendu</i>,” 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.</p>

<p>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&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span>
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&mdash;as all political assemblies,
however composed, which have not others for their
rivals, will become&mdash;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.</p>

<p>The government cajoled and threatened the parliament,
recalled it, again quarrelled with it, attempted to suppress
it&mdash;and failed.</p>

<p>Disturbances broke out, famine appeared at hand, a
bankruptcy was imminent; there was no constituted<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span>
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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<h4>X.</h4>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span>
and about them, by which their actions were controlled,
but with which, as it had no visible representation, they
had no means of dealing.</p>

<p>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&mdash;hitherto
impalpable and invisible&mdash;found at once a
corporate existence.</p>

<p>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&mdash;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.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span></p>

<h4>XI.</h4>

<p>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.</p>

<p>M. Necker belonged to a class of men not uncommon
in our own time. His abilities, though good, were not of
the first order; his mind had been directed to one
particular branch of business; and, as is common with
persons who have no great genius and one specialty, he
took the whole of government to be that part which he
best understood. Accordingly, what he now looked to,
and that exclusively, was balancing the receipts and
expenditure of the State. To do this, it was necessary to
tax the nobility and clergy; and the class through whose
aid he could best hope to achieve such a task was the
middle-class, or “tiers-état.” For this reason, when it
had been decided to convoke the States-General, and it
became necessary to fix the proportionate numbers by
which each of the three orders (viz. the nobility, clergy,
middle-class, or “tiers-état,”) which composed the States-General,
was to be represented, M. Necker determined
that the sole order of the “tiers-état” should have as
many representatives as the two other orders conjointly;
thinking in this way to give the middle-class a greater authority,
and to counterbalance the want of rank in its individual
members, by their aggregate superiority in numbers.</p>

<p>But when M. Necker went thus far he should have
gone farther, and defined in what manner the three orders
should vote, and what power they should separately
exercise. This precaution, however, he did not take; and
therefore, as soon as the States-General assembled, there
instantly arose the question as to whether the three orders
were to prove the validity of their elections together as
members of one assembly, or separately as members of
three distinct assemblies. This question, in point of fact,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span>
determined whether the three orders were to sit and vote
together, or whether each order was to sit and vote apart;
and after M. Necker’s first regulation it was clear that, in
one case, the order of the Commons would predominate
over all opposition; and that, in the other, it would be
subordinate to the two rival orders. A struggle then
naturally commenced.</p>

<h4>XII.</h4>

<p>The members of the “tiers-état,” who, as the largest of
the three bodies forming the States-General, had been left
in possession of the chamber where all the orders had been
first collected to meet the sovereign&mdash;an accident much in
their favour&mdash;invited the members of the two other orders
to join them there. The clergy hesitated; the nobles
refused. Days and weeks passed away, and the minister,
seeing his original error, would willingly have remedied it
by now proposing that which he might originally have
fixed, namely, that the three orders should vote together on
questions of finance, and separately on all other questions.
This idea was brought forward late; but, even thus late,
it might have prevailed if the court had been earnest in its
favour. The King, however, and those who immediately
influenced him, had begun to think that a deficit was less
troublesome than the means adopted to get rid of it; and
fancying that the States-General, if left to themselves,
might ere long dissolve amidst the dissensions which were
discrediting them, were desirous that these dissensions
should continue. Nor would this policy have failed in its
object if negotiation had been much further prolonged.</p>

<p>But it is at great moments like these that a great man
suddenly steps forth, and whilst the crowd is discussing
what is best to be done, does it. Such a man was the
Comte de Mirabeau; and on the 15th of June, this
marvellous personage, whose audacity was often prudence,
having instigated the Abbé Sieyès (whose authority was
at that time great with the Assembly) to bring the subject
under discussion, called on the tiers-état, still doubting
and deliberating, to constitute themselves at once, and
without further waiting for the nobility, “The Representatives<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span>
of the French people.” They did so in reality,
though not in words, declaring themselves duly elected,
and taking as their title “The National Assembly.” The
government thought to stop their proceedings by simply
shutting up the chamber where they had hitherto met, but
so paltry a device was insufficient to arrest the resolutions
of men whose minds were now prepared for important
events. Encouraging each other, the Commons rushed
unhesitatingly to a tennis-court, and in that spot,
singularly destined to witness so solemn a ceremony,
swore, with but one dissentient voice, to stand by each
other till France had a constitution. After such an oath,
the alternative was clearly between the old monarchy, with
all its abuses, and a new constitution, whatever its
dangers. On this ground, two orders in the State stood
hostilely confronted. But another order remained, whose
conduct at such a juncture was all-decisive. That order
was the clergy,&mdash;which, still respected if not venerated,&mdash;wealthy,
connected by various links with each portion of
society, and especially looked up to by that great and
sluggish mass of quiet men who always stand long wavering
between extremes&mdash;had been endeavouring to effect
some compromise between the privileged classes and their
opponents, but had as yet taken no prominent part with
either. The moment was come at which it could no
longer hesitate.</p>

<h4>XIII.</h4>

<p>M. de Talleyrand, though but a new dignitary in the
church, was already one of its most influential members.
He had been excluded by a prejudice of the nobility from
the situation to which his birth had entitled him amongst
them. He had long resolved to obtain another position
at least as elevated through his own exertions. His views,
as we have seen, at the time of his election, were liberal,
though moderate, whilst he was sufficiently acquainted
with the character of Louis XVI. to know that that
monarch would never sincerely yield, nor ever sturdily
resist, any concession demanded with persistency. Partly,
therefore, from a conviction that he was doing what was
best for the public, and partly, also, from the persuasion<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span>
that he was doing what was best for himself, he separated
boldly from the rest of his family (who were amongst the
most devoted to the Comte d’Artois and Marie-Antoinette),
and laboured with unwearied energy to enlist the body he
belonged to on the popular side.</p>

<p>To succeed in this object he had the talents and advantages
most essential. His natural courtesy flattered the
curates; his various acquirements captivated his more
learned brethren; his high birth gave him the ear of the
great ecclesiastical dignitaries; and, finally, a majority of
his order, instigated by his exertions and address, joined
the Third Estate, on the 22nd of June, in the Church of
Saint-Louis.</p>

<p>From that moment the question hitherto doubtful was
determined; for at no time have the clergy and the
commons stood side by side without being victorious. It
was in vain, therefore, that even so early as the day
following, the descendant of Louis XIV., in all the pomp
of royalty, and in the presence of the three orders&mdash;whom
he had for that day summoned to assemble&mdash;denounced
the conduct which the tiers-état had pursued, annulled
their decisions, and threatened them with his sovereign
displeasure.</p>

<p>The tiers-état resisted; the King repented&mdash;retracted,&mdash;and
showing that he had no will, lost all authority. Thus,
on the 27th of June, the States-General, henceforth
designated by the title which had been already assumed
by the Commons (the National Assembly), held their
deliberations together, and the three orders were confounded.</p>

<h4>XIV.</h4>

<p>But one step now remained in order to legalise the
revolution in progress. Each deputy had received a sort
of mandate or instruction from those who named him at
the moment of his election. Such instructions or mandates,
which had been given at a time when people could
hardly anticipate the state of things which had since
arisen, limited, or seemed to limit, the action of a deputy
to particular points which had especially attracted the
attention of his constituents.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span></p>

<p>The conservative party contended that these mandates
were imperative, the liberal party that they were not.
According to the first supposition, the States-General
could do no more than redress a few grievances; according
to the other, they could create a perfectly new system of
government.</p>

<p>The Bishop of Autun, in the first speech he delivered
in the National Assembly&mdash;a speech which produced considerable
effect&mdash;argued in favour of his own liberty and
that of his colleagues, and his views were naturally enough
adopted by a body which, feeling its own force, had to
determine its own power. Hence, on the record of two
great decisions&mdash;the one solving the States-General into
the “National Assembly;” the other extending and fixing
that Assembly’s authority&mdash;decisions which, whatever their
other results, were at least fatal to the power and influence
of the class to which he belonged by birth, but from which
he had, in spite of himself, been severed in childhood&mdash;was
indelibly inscribed the name of the once despised
and still disinherited cripple of the princely house of
Périgord.</p>

<h4>XV.</h4>

<p>There was nothing henceforth to impede the labours of
the National Assembly, and it commenced those labours
with earnestness and zeal, if not with discretion. One of
its first acts was to choose by ballot a committee of eight
members, charged to draw up the project of a constitution,
which was subsequently to be submitted to the Assembly.
The Bishop of Autun was immediately placed upon this
select and important committee. It had for its task to
render practical the political speculations of the eighteenth
century. Things, however, had commenced too violently
for them to proceed thus peaceably; and as the success of
the popular party had been hitherto obtained by braving
the crown, it was to be expected that the crown would
seize the first opportunity that presented itself for boldly
recovering its authority. A well-timed effort of this kind
might have been successful. But neither Louis XVI., nor
any of the counsellors in whom he confided, possessed that
instinct in political affairs which is the soul of action,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span>
inspiring men with the resolve to do the right thing at
the right moment. It has often been found easy to crush
a revolution at its commencement, for the most ardent
of its supporters at such a time act feebly, and doubt about
the policy they are pursuing. It has often been found
possible to arrest a revolution at that subsequent stage of
its progress when the moderate are shocked by some excess,
or the sanguine checked by some disappointment; but a
revolution is invincible at that crisis, when its progress,
begun with boldness, has neither been checked by misfortune,
nor disgraced by violence.</p>

<p>Nevertheless, it was just at such a crisis that the
unfortunate Louis XVI., guided in a great degree by the
fatal influence of his brother, after having gradually surrounded
Versailles and the capital with troops, suddenly
banished M. Necker (July 10th), whose disgrace was
instantly considered the defeat of those who advised the
King to renovate his authority by concessions, and the
triumph of those who counselled him to recover and re-establish
it by force. But the measures which were to
follow this act were still in suspense, when a formidable
insurrection broke out at Paris. A portion of the soldiery
sided with the people. The Bastille was taken, and its
commandant put to death, the populace got possession of
arms, the prevôt or mayor of the city was assassinated,
whilst the army which had been so ostentatiously collected
in the Champ de Mars and at St. Denis was left an
inactive witness of the insurrection which its array had
provoked. The results were those which usually follow
the strong acts of weak men: Louis XVI. submitted;
M. Necker was recalled; the Comte d’Artois emigrated.</p>

<p>It was M. de Talleyrand’s fortune not merely at all
times to quit a falling party at the commencement of its
decline, but to stand firm by a rising party at the moment
of its struggle for success. This was seen during the
contest we have just been describing. Throughout that
contest the Bishop of Autun was amongst the most
determined for maintaining the rights of the nation
against the designs of the court. His decision and
courage added not a little to the reputation which had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span>
been already gained by his ability. We find his name,
therefore, first in the list of a small number of eminent
men,<a name="FNanchor_9" id="FNanchor_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> whom the Assembly, when surrounded by hostile
preparations for restoring the despotism which had been
abolished, charged, in a bold but not imprudent spirit of
defiance, with the task of at once completing and establishing
the constitution which had been promised, and
which it had become evident there was no intention to
accord. The labour of these statesmen, however, was not
easy, even after their cause was triumphant, for political
victories often leave the conquerors&mdash;in the excess of their
own passions, and the exaggeration of their own principles&mdash;worse
enemies than those whom they have vanquished.
Such was the case now.</p>

<h4>XVI.</h4>

<p>In the exultation of the moment all moderate notions
were laid aside, and succeeded by a blind excitement in
favour of the most sweeping changes. Nor was this
excitement the mere desire of vulgar and selfish interest
stirring the minds of those who hoped to better their own
condition: nobler and loftier emotions lit up the breasts
of men who had only sacrifices to make with a generous
enthusiasm. “Nos âmes,” says the elder Ségur, “étaient
alors enivrées d’une douce philanthropie, qui nous portait
à chercher avec passion les moyens d’être utiles à
l’humanité, et de rendre le sort des hommes plus heureux.”<a name="FNanchor_10" id="FNanchor_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a>
On the 4th of August, “a day memorable with one party,”
observes M. Mignet, “as the St. Bartholomew of property,
and with the other as the St. Bartholomew of abuses,”&mdash;personal
service, feudal obligations, pecuniary immunities,
trade corporations, seignorial privileges, and courts of
law,&mdash;all municipal and provincial rights,&mdash;the whole
system of judicature,&mdash;based on the purchase and sale of
judicial charges, and which, singular to state, had, however
absurd in theory, hitherto produced in practice<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span>
learned, able, and independent magistrates,&mdash;in short,
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;&mdash;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.</p>

<p>In after times, M. de Talleyrand, when speaking of
this period, said, in one of his characteristic phrases,
“<i lang="fr">La Révolution a désossé la France.</i>” But it is easier
to be a witty critic of by-gone history, than a cool and
impartial actor in passing events; and at the time to
which I am alluding the Bishop of Autun was, undoubtedly,
amongst the foremost in destroying the traditions
which constitute a community, and proclaiming the
theories which captivate a mob. The wholesale abolition
of institutions, which must have had something worth
preserving or they would never have produced a great
and polished society honourably anxious to reform its own
defects, was sanctioned by his vote; and the “rights of
man,” the acknowledgment of which did so little to secure
the property or life of the citizen, were proclaimed in the
words that he suggested.</p>

<p>It is difficult to conceive how so cool and sagacious a
statesman could have imagined that an old society was to
be well governed by entirely new laws, or that practical
liberty could be founded on a declaration of abstract principles.
A sane mind, however, does not always escape an
epidemic folly; any more than a sound body escapes an
epidemic disease. Moreover, in times when to censure
unnecessary changes is to pass for being the patron, and
often in reality to be the supporter, of inveterate abuses,
no one carries out, or can hope to carry out, precisely his
own ideas. Men act in masses: the onward pressure of
one party is regulated by the opposing resistance of
another: to pursue a policy, it may be expedient for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span>
those who do not feel, to feign, a passion; and a wise
man may excuse his participation in an absurd enthusiasm
by observing it was the only means to vanquish still more
absurd prejudices.</p>

<p>Still, if M. de Talleyrand was at this moment an exaggerated
reformer, he at least did not exhibit one
frequent characteristic of exaggerated reformers, by being
so wholly occupied in establishing some delusive scheme
of future perfection, as to despise the present absolute
necessities. He saw from the first that, if the new organization
of the State was really to be effected, it could
only be so by re-establishing confidence in its resources,
and that a national bankruptcy would be a social dissolution.
When, therefore, M. Necker (on the 25th of August)
presented to the Assembly a memoir on the situation of
the finances, asking for a loan of eighty millions of francs,
the Bishop of Autun supported this loan without hesitation;
demonstrating the importance of sustaining the
public credit; and shortly afterwards (in September),
when the loan thus granted was found insufficient to
satisfy the obligations of the State, he again aided the
minister in obtaining from the Assembly a tax of twenty-five
per cent. on the income of every individual throughout
France. A greater national sacrifice has rarely been
made in a moment of national distress, and has never
been made for a more honourable object. It is impossible,
indeed, not to feel an interest in the exertions of men
animated, amidst all their errors, by so noble a spirit, and not
to regret that with aspirations so elevated, and abilities so
distinguished, they should have failed so deplorably in their
efforts to unite liberty with order&mdash;vigour with moderation.</p>

<p>But Providence seems to have prescribed as an almost
universal rule that everything which is to have a long
duration must be of slow growth. Nor is this all: we
must expect that, in times of revolution, contending parties
will constantly be hurried into collisions contrary to their
reason, and fatal to their interests, but inevitably suggested
by their anger or suspicions. Hence the wisest
intentions are at the mercy of the most foolish incidents.
Such an incident now occurred.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span></p>

<p>A military festival at Versailles, which the royal family
imprudently attended, and in which it perhaps idly delighted
to excite a profitless enthusiasm amongst its guards
and adherents, alarmed the multitude at Paris, already
irritated by an increasing scarcity of food, and dreading
an appeal to the army on the part of the sovereign, as the
sovereign dreaded an appeal to the people on the part of
the popular leaders. The men of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine,
and the women of the market-place, either impelled
by their own pressing wants and indefinite fears,
or guided (as it was then&mdash;I believe falsely&mdash;reported) by
the secret influence of the Duc d’Orléans, were soon seen
pouring from the dark corners of the capital, and covering
the broad and stately road which leads to the long-venerated
palace, where, since the time of the “Great
Monarch,” his descendants had held their court. In the
midst of an accidental tumult, this lawless rabble entered
the royal residence, massacreing its defenders.</p>

<p>The King was rescued from actual violence, though not
from insult, and escorted with a sort of decorum to the
Tuileries, which he henceforth inhabited, nominally as the
supreme magistrate of the State, but in reality as a
prisoner. The National Assembly followed him to Paris.</p>

<h4>XVII.</h4>

<p>The events of which I have been speaking took place
on the 5th and 6th of October; and were, to the advocates
of constitutional monarchy, what the previous insurrection,
in July, had been to the advocates of absolute power.
Moderate men began to fear that it was no longer possible
to ally the dignity and independence of the crown
with the rights and liberties of the people: and MM.
Mounier and Lally-Tollendal, considered the leaders of
that party which from the first had declared the desire to
establish in France a mixed constitutional government,
similar to that which prevailed in England&mdash;disheartened
and disgusted&mdash;quitted the Assembly. Hitherto, M. de
Talleyrand had appeared disposed to act with these statesmen,
but he did not now imitate their conduct: on the
contrary, it was precisely at the moment when they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span>
separated themselves from the Revolution, that he brought
forward a motion which connected him irrevocably with
it.</p>

<p>Had affairs worn a different aspect, it is probable that
he would not have compromised himself so decidedly in
favour of a scheme which was certain to encounter a
determined and violent opposition: still it is but just to
observe that his conduct in this instance was in perfect
conformity with the course he had previously pursued, and
the sentiments he had previously expressed, both with
respect to the exigencies of the State and the property of
the Church. I have shown, indeed, the interest he had manifested
in maintaining the public credit, first by supporting
a loan of eighty millions of francs, and secondly by voting
a property tax of twenty-five per cent. But the one had
proved merely a temporary relief, and the other had not
given an adequate return; for, as the whole administration
of the country had been disorganized, so the collection
of taxes was precarious and difficult. Some new
resource had to be sought for. There was but one left.
The clergy had already resigned their tithes, which at
first had only been declared purchasable, and had also
given up their plate. When M. de Juisné, Archbishop
of Paris, made the two first donations in the name of his
brethren, he had been seconded by the Bishop of Autun;
and it was the Bishop of Autun who now proposed (on
the 10th of October) that all that remained to the clergy&mdash;their
land&mdash;should, on certain conditions, be placed at
the disposal of the nation.</p>

<h4>XVIII.</h4>

<p>M. Pozzo di Borgo, a man in no wise inferior to M. de
Talleyrand, though somewhat jealous of him, once said to
me, “Cet homme s’est fait grand en se rangeant toujours
parmi les petits, et en aidant ceux qui avaient le plus
besoin de lui.”<a name="FNanchor_11" id="FNanchor_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a></p>

<p>The propensity which M. Pozzo di Borgo somewhat
bitterly but not inaccurately described, and which perhaps<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span>
was in a certain degree the consequence of that nice
perception of his own interests which guided the person
whom I designate as “politic” through life almost like
an instinct, was especially visible in the present instance.
No one can doubt that, at the moment when
every other institution was overturned in France, a great
change in the condition of the French church, against
which the spirit of the eighteenth century had been particularly
directed, was an event not to be avoided. Alone
amidst the general prodigality, this corporation by its
peculiar condition had been able to preserve all its wealth,
whilst it had lost almost all its power.</p>

<p>The feeble and the rich in times of commotion are the
natural prey of the strong and the needy; and, therefore,
directly the nation commenced a revolution to avoid a
bankruptcy, the ecclesiastical property was pretty sure, a
little sooner or a little later, to be appropriated to the
public exigencies. Such an appropriation, nevertheless, was
not without difficulties; and what the laity most wanted
was a churchman of position and consideration who would
sanction a plan for surrendering the property of the church.
The opinions expressed by a man of so high a rank amongst
the nobility and the clergy as the Bishop of Autun, were
therefore of considerable importance, and likely to give him&mdash;those
opinions being popular&mdash;an important position, which
was almost certain (M. Necker’s influence being already undermined)
to lead&mdash;should a new ministry be formed on the
liberal side&mdash;to office. Mirabeau, in fact, in a note written
in October, which proposes a new ministerial combination,
leaves M. Necker as the nominal head of the government
“in order to discredit him,” proposes himself as a member
of the royal council without a department, and gives the
post of minister of finance to the Bishop of Autun, saying,
“His motion on the clergy has won him that place.”<a name="FNanchor_12" id="FNanchor_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a></p>

<p>The argument with which the Bishop introduced the
motion here alluded to has been so often repeated since
the period to which I am referring, and has so influenced
the condition of the clergy throughout a great portion of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span>
Europe, that it cannot be read without interest. “The
State,” said M. de Talleyrand, “has been for a long time
struggling with the most urgent wants. This is known
to all of us. Some adequate means must be found to
supply those wants. All ordinary sources are exhausted.
The people are ground down. The slightest additional
impost would be justly insupportable to them. Such a
thing is not to be thought of. Extraordinary means for
supplying the necessities of the State have been resorted
to: but these were destined to the extraordinary wants of
this year. Extraordinary resources of some kind are now
wanted for the future; without them, order cannot be
established. There is one such resource, immense and
decisive: and which, in my opinion (or otherwise I should
reject it), can be made compatible with the strictest respect
for property. I mean the landed estate of the church.</p>

<p class="center">…</p>

<p>“Already a great operation with regard to this estate is
inevitable, in order to provide suitably for those whom the
relinquishment of tithes has left destitute.</p>

<p class="center">…</p>

<p>“I think it unnecessary to discuss at length the question
of church property. What appears to me certain is,
that the clergy is not a proprietor like other proprietors,
inasmuch as that the property which it enjoys (and of
which it cannot dispose) was given to it&mdash;not for its own
benefit, but for the performance of duties which are to
benefit the community. What appears to me also certain
is, that the nation, exercising an almost unlimited power
over all the bodies within its bosom, possesses&mdash;not the
right to destroy the whole body of the clergy, because that
body is required for the service of religion&mdash;but the right
to destroy any particular aggregations of such body whenever
they are either prejudicial or simply useless; and if
the State possesses this right over the existence of prejudicial
or useless aggregations of the clergy, it evidently
possesses a similar right over the property of such aggregations.</p>

<p>“It appears to me also clear that as the nation is bound
to see that the purpose for which foundations or endowments<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span>
were made is fulfilled, and that those who endowed
the church meant that the clergy should perform
certain functions: so, if there be any benefices where
such functions are not performed, the nation has a right
to suppress those benefices, and to grant the funds,
therefrom derived, to any members of the clergy who can
employ them according to the object with which they
were given.</p>

<p class="center">…</p>

<p>“But although it is just to destroy aggregations of
the clergy which are either prejudicial or useless, and to
confiscate their property&mdash;although it is just to suppress
benefices which are no longer useful for the object for
which such benefices were endowed&mdash;is it just to confiscate
or reduce the revenue of those dignitaries and members
of the church, who are now actually living and performing
the services which belong to their sacred calling?</p>

<p class="center">…</p>

<p>“For my own part, I confess the arguments employed
to support the contrary opinion appear to me to admit of
several answers. I shall submit one very simple answer
to the Assembly.</p>

<p>“However the possession of a property may be guaranteed
and made inviolable by law, it is evident that the
law cannot change the nature of such property in
guaranteeing it.</p>

<p>“Thus, in a question of ecclesiastical property, it can
only assure to each titulary the enjoyment of the actual
donation of the founder. But every one is aware that,
according to the titles of church property, as well as
according to the various laws of the church, which explain
the spirit and meaning of these titles, the only part of
church property to which the ecclesiastic has any individual
right is that necessary for his honest subsistence:
the remainder has to be applied to the relief of the poor,
or to the maintenance of places of worship. If then the
nation assures to the holder of a benefice, whatever that
benefice may be, his necessary subsistence, it does not
violate his individual property; and if at the same time
that it takes possession of that portion of his revenue<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span>
which is not required for his subsistence, it assumes the
other obligations attached to the benefice in question,
such as the maintenance of hospitals, the performance of
works of charity, the repairing of churches, the expenses
of public education, &amp;c.; and, above all, if it does this in
a moment of general distress, I cannot but believe that
the intentions of the donors will be fully carried out, and
that justice will still be maintained.</p>

<p>“I think, then, that the nation in a period of general
distress may appropriate the property of those religious
establishments which it deems it necessary to suppress,
by securing to their dependants their necessary subsistence;
that it may also profit by all benefices to which
no duties are attached, and assure to itself the reversion of
all such benefices as may hereafter fall into that condition;
and lastly, that it may reduce all extravagant salaries now
enjoyed by the clergy if it take to itself all the obligations&mdash;apart
from the decent maintenance of the clergy&mdash;which
originally attached to church property according to
the founder’s bequest. Such are the principles according
to which the State may, in my opinion, legitimately
appropriate the whole of the ecclesiastical property, on
assuring to the clergy therefrom what would be sufficient
for their decent support.”</p>

<h4>XIX.</h4>

<p>Thus M. de Talleyrand contended:&mdash;</p>

<p>1st. That the members of the clergy were not like
other proprietors, inasmuch as they held their property
not for their own enjoyment but for the performance of
certain duties, and that it was only intended that they
should have out of the proceeds of that property a decent
subsistence, the residue being destined for the support of
the poor and the maintenance of religious edifices.</p>

<p>2nd. That the State could alter the distribution of
church property, or rather the payment of the clergy,
and also totally suppress such ecclesiastical institutions
as it deemed injurious or not requisite; as well as such
useless benefices as were then vacant, or might become<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span>
vacant; and, as a matter of course, employ the revenue
which was thereto attached, in the manner which might
seem best adapted to the general advantage.</p>

<p>3rd. That in a moment of great and national distress
it might altogether take possession of the whole property
held by the clergy, and appropriate the same to public
purposes; if at the same time it took upon itself those
charges with which the clergy were intrusted, and also
provided for the clergy themselves a fixed and adequate
support. He did not, however, propose, as some may
have idly imagined, and have unjustly stated, to reduce
his order to a state of indigence; on the contrary, presuming
the revenue of the church property, including the
tithes (which he would still have had collected as national
revenue), to be about a hundred and fifty millions of
francs, he advised the government to make a yearly grant
of no less than a hundred millions&mdash;never to be reduced
below eighty-five millions&mdash;for the support of the clergy,
no member of it receiving less than twelve hundred
francs, to which was added a dwelling; and when we
consider that the tithes having been surrendered, the
ecclesiastical revenue was at that time reduced to seventy-five
millions, the rent of the land; and when we consider
also that the ecclesiastical budget, including the payment
of all religions, has never, since that period, amounted
to the sum which M. de Talleyrand was disposed to allow,
I think it must be acknowledged that the proposals I
have been describing, looking at all the difficulties of the
times, were not to be despised, and that the French clergy
would have acted more prudently if they had at once
accepted them, although it must be confessed that any
bargain made in changeful times between a power which
is sinking in the State and a power which is rising, is
rarely kept faithfully by the latter.</p>

<p>But the clergy, at all events, and the high clergy
especially, would not accept this bargain. They complained
not so much of the insufficiency of the provision
which was to be made for them, as of the grievance of
having an income as proprietors changed into a salary as
functionaries. They contended, in short, that they were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span>
proprietors like other proprietors, and that the Bishop of
Autun had misstated their case and justified their robbery.</p>

<p>In this state of things&mdash;whatever the real nature of
the title under which the church held its possessions&mdash;whatever
the imprudence of the clergy themselves in
resisting the compromise that was proposed to them as an
equivalent for the surrender of those possessions&mdash;it was
impossible forcibly to confiscate a property which a great
corporation had held indisputedly for ages and which it
declared itself unwilling to resign, without weakening the
respect for property in general, and weakening also, by
the questions and discussions to which such a measure
was certain to give rise, the respect for religion: thus
enfeebling and undermining&mdash;at a moment when (amidst
the falling ruins of an old government and society) it was
most essential to strengthen and preserve&mdash;those foundations
on which every society that pretends to be civilized,
and every government that intends to be honest, has to
establish its existence.</p>

<p>“The wise,” says a great reformer, “should be cautious
about making great changes when the foolish are clamorous
for dangerous innovations.” But although the
maxim may be a good one, I suspect that it is more likely
to be professed by the speculative philosopher than followed
by the ambitious statesman.</p>

<p>There are, in fact, moments in the history of nations
when certain events are, by the multiplied force of converging
circumstances, inevitably foredoomed; and in
such moments, whilst the ignorant man is obstinate, the
proud man firm, the religious man resigned, the “<em>politic</em>
man” accommodates himself to fate, and only attempts to
mix up as much good as he can with the evil which has
to be accepted.</p>

<p>It is easy to conceive, therefore, that when M. de Talleyrand
proposed the appropriation of the church property
by the State, he did so because he saw that at all events
it would be appropriated; because he thought that he
might as well obtain the popularity which was to be got
by the proposition; and likewise because he could thus
bargain for such conditions as, if they had been frankly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span>
accepted by one party and fairly carried out by the other,
would have secured an honourable existence to the clergy
and an immense relief to the State. I say an immense
relief to the State, since, according to the calculations
which the Bishop of Autun submitted to the Assembly&mdash;and
these seem to have been made with consideration&mdash;had
the immense property, valued at two milliards of
francs, been properly sold, and the proceeds properly
applied, these, by paying off money borrowed at enormous
interest and life annuities which were granted at an extravagant
loss, might with tolerable economy have converted
a deficit of some millions of francs into a surplus
of about the same amount.</p>

<p>But it happened at this time, as it not unfrequently
happens when passion and prudence unite in some great
enterprise, the part which passion counselled was consummated
completely and at once; the part which prudence
suggested was transformed and spoilt in the execution.
To this subject I shall by-and-by have to return.</p>

<h4>XX.</h4>

<p>The motion of M. de Talleyrand with respect to the
property of the church was carried on the 2nd of November,
1789, after some stormy debates; and the party he
had defeated now classed him amongst its bitterest
opponents. But, on the 4th of December, he gained
more than a party triumph by the singular lucidity with
which, on the question of establishing a bank at Paris
and restoring order generally to the French finances, he
explained the principles of banking and public credit,
which the public at that time enveloped in the mystery
with which ignorance surrounds those subjects which are
detailed in figures, and involve such vast interests as the
resources and necessities of a nation.</p>

<p>The admirable talent which M. de Talleyrand displayed
on this occasion consisted in rendering clear what appeared
obscure, and simple what seemed abstract. After showing
that a bank could only exist with benefit to itself and to
others by its credit&mdash;and that this credit could not be the
effect of a paper money with a forced currency, on which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span>
some persons were disposed to form one, inasmuch as that
a currency which was forced was nothing more or less
than an exhibition of the insolvency of the institution
which it was intended to protect&mdash;he turned to the general
condition and credit of the State, and said: “The time,
gentlemen, is gone by for complicated fiscal plans, learnedly
and artfully combined, which are merely invented to delay
by temporary resources the crisis which is inevitably
arriving. All the contrivances of wit and cunning are
exhausted. For the future, honesty must replace genius.
Side by side with the evidence of our calamities must be
placed the evidence of their remedy. All must be reduced
to the simplicity of an account-book&mdash;drawn up by good
sense, kept by good faith.”</p>

<p>This speech obtained for its author general encomiums:
it was praised in the boudoir of the fine lady, for the
elegance of its style; in the country house of the banker,
for the soundness of its views; even the Faubourg St.
Germain acknowledged that M. de Talleyrand, though a
<i lang="fr">scélérat</i> (a rascal), was a statesman, and that in those
iniquitous times a <i lang="fr">scélérat</i>, a man of quality, and a statesman,
might be useful to his country. Such universal
popularity did not last long. In the following month
(January 31, 1790), the liberal bishop declared himself
in favour of conferring upon a Jew the rights of a French
citizen. This opinion&mdash;considered by many as a double
outrage against the distinctions hitherto maintained
between castes and between creeds&mdash;admitted of no
pardon from a large portion of that society which M. de
Talleyrand had formerly frequented; and I have read, in
some tale of the time, that the Marquis de Travanet, a
famous player of “tric-trac,” used subsequently to say, in
making what is called “<i lang="fr">la case du diable</i>,” “<i lang="fr">je fais la
case de l’évêque d’Autun</i>.”</p>

<p>A man’s reputation, however, when parties run high,
is not unfrequently made by his opponents; and the
name of M. de Talleyrand now rose in the country and
the Assembly just in proportion as it sank in the circles
of the court and amongst the extreme partisans of priestly
intolerance and royal prerogative.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span></p>

<p>Few persons had, in fact, rendered such important services
to the cause which he had espoused. To his endeavours,
as we have seen, it was mainly owing that the
clergy joined the commons in the church of St. Louis, and
thus constituted the States-General. Shortly afterwards,
by contending against the imperative nature of those orders
which the members of the States-General had received
from their constituents, he had aided in no small degree
in releasing the National Assembly from the instructions
which would otherwise have fettered its progress. Elected
a member of the committee, appointed to prepare the new
constitution which was to be given to France, his labours
had been amongst the most valuable of that body, and the
future rights of Frenchmen had been proclaimed in the
words which he had suggested as most appropriate.
Evincing on all questions of finance that knowledge of
principles which produces clearness of statement, he had
ably assisted M. Necker in the measures by which that
statesman had sought to reassure public credit and raise
the revenue; and, finally, he had delivered up the wealth
and power of his own order, as a sacrifice (such, at least,
was his pretension) to the public weal.</p>

<p>The part which he had taken in the proceedings of the
Assembly was, indeed, so considerable, that it was thought
that no one could be better qualified to explain and defend
its conduct. With such an explanation or defence he was
charged; and he executed his task in a sort of memoir or
manifesto to the French nation. This manifesto was read
in the National Assembly on the 10th of February, 1790,
and subsequently published and circulated throughout
France. It has long since been forgotten amongst the
many papers of a similar kind which have marked and
justified the successive changes that France has for the
last eighty years undergone.</p>

<p>But the skill and address of its composition was the
subject of universal praise at the time of its appearance,
and it still remains a remarkable exhibition of the ideas,
and a skilful and able attempt to vindicate the actions, of
an epoch which is yet awaiting the final judgment of
posterity.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span></p>

<h4>XXI.</h4>

<p>The memoir or manifesto, to which I have been alluding,
announced the abolition of privileges, the reform of the
church, the institution of a representative chamber and a
citizen guard; and promised a new system of taxation,
and a general plan of education. It was read, as I have
said, on the 10th of February, in the National Assembly,
and on the 16th of the same month its author was named
president of that assembly<a name="FNanchor_13" id="FNanchor_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> by a majority of three
hundred and seventy-five votes to one hundred and
twenty-five, although the Abbé Sieyès&mdash;no mean rival&mdash;was
his competitor.</p>

<p>This honour received additional solidity from a most
able report in favour of the uniformity of weights and
measures, which M. de Talleyrand made to the Assembly
on the 30th April, 1790: a report which, carrying out
the idea that Turgot had been anxious to establish, and
furnishing a method for destroying the inconvenient
distinctions which separated province from province, laid
the foundation for that uniform system which now prevails
throughout the French dominions. Nor would M. de
Talleyrand have applied this project merely to France; he
at the same time suggested that commissions from the
Academy of Sciences in Paris and the Royal Society in
London should be appointed to fix on some natural unity
for measure and weight, which should be alike applicable
to England and France. “<i lang="fr">Chacune des deux nations</i>,”
he added, “<i lang="fr">formerait sur cette mesure ses étalons, qu’elle
conserverait avec le plus grand soin, de telle sorte que si,
au bout de plusieurs siècles, on s’apercevait, de quelque
variation dans l’année sidérale, les étalons pussent servir
à l’évaluer, et par là à lier ce point important du système
du monde à une grande époque&mdash;celle de l’Assemblée
Nationale. Peut-être même est-il permis de voir dans ce
concours de deux nations interrogeant ensemble la nature,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span>
pour en obtenir un résultat important, le principe d’une
union politique, operée par l’entremise des sciences.</i>”<a name="FNanchor_14" id="FNanchor_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a></p>

<p>It is impossible not to sympathise with a conception at
once so elevated and so practical as that which is here
expressed; and rejoice at thus finding an example of
what Bacon&mdash;himself no less a statesman than a philosopher&mdash;claims
as the attribute of men of science and
letters, viz.: that when they do give themselves up to
public affairs, they carry thereunto a spirit more lofty
and comprehensive than that which animates the mere
politician.</p>

<p>The greater part of the work which the Assembly had
proposed to itself, was now terminated. The old monarchy
and aristocracy were destroyed; the new powers of the
crown and the people were defined; the new divisions of
the country into departments, districts, and communes,
were marked out; the new organisation of the tribunals
of justice was decreed. No one entirely approved of the
constitution thus to be created, but there was an almost
universal satisfaction at its being so nearly completed.</p>

<hr />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span></p>

<h3><span class="smcap">Part II.</span><br />
<span class="smaller">FROM THE FESTIVAL OF THE 14TH OF JULY TO THE
CLOSE OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY.</span></h3>

<div class="smaller">

<p>Blesses the standard of France at festival of the 14th of July.&mdash;Increasing
financial distress.&mdash;M. de Talleyrand’s views.&mdash;Civil constitution of the clergy.&mdash;M.
de Talleyrand’s conduct.&mdash;Refuses archbishopric of Paris.&mdash;Letter to
editors of Chronicle.&mdash;Mirabeau’s death.&mdash;Sketch of his career, and relations
with M. de Talleyrand, who attends his death-bed.&mdash;Probabilities as to his
having initiated M. de Talleyrand into plots of court.&mdash;Leaves M. de Talleyrand
his intended speech on the law of succession, which regulated the present
state of the law in France, and which M. de Talleyrand read in the National
Assembly.&mdash;M. de Talleyrand suspended from his episcopal functions, and
quits the Church.&mdash;The King’s flight.&mdash;Conduct and views of M. de Talleyrand.&mdash;Wishes
to aid the King.&mdash;Foolish conduct of court party.&mdash;Fatal
decree of National Assembly, forbidding the re-election of its members.&mdash;M. de
Talleyrand’s project of education.&mdash;Assembly closes the 13th of September,
1791.&mdash;M. de Talleyrand goes to England, January 1792.</p>

</div>

<h4>I.</h4>

<p>We are arrived at the festival of the 14th of July, held to
celebrate the destruction of the Bastille, and to do honour
to the new government which had risen on its ruins: let
us pause for a moment on that day of joy!</p>

<p>An immense and magnificent amphitheatre is erected
on the Champ de Mars: there the hereditary sovereign of
France, and the temporary president of an elected assembly&mdash;the
joint symbols of two ideas and of two epochs&mdash;are
seated on two equal thrones, resplendent with the arms
which the nation has taken from its ancient kings;
and there is the infant prince, on whom an exulting
people look kindly as the inheritor of his father’s engagements,
and who is to perpetuate the race of Saint Louis:
and there is that queen, “decorating and cheering the
sphere she moves in, glittering like the morning star, full<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span>
of life, and splendour, and joy;” and there that royal
maiden, beauteous with the charms of the palace, blessed
with the virtues of the cloister&mdash;a princess, a saint&mdash;destined
to be a martyr! And there is the vain but honest
Lafayette, leaning on his citizen sword: and there the
terrible Mirabeau&mdash;his long hair streaming to the wind:
and there that well-known and still memorable Assembly,
prematurely proud of its vaunted work, which, alas! like
the spectacle we are assisting at, is to be the mere pageant
of a day. And, behold, in yonder balcony, the most
graceful and splendid court in Europe, for such even at
that time was still the court of France; and lo! in the
open space, yon confederated bands, bearing their respective
banners, and representing every portion of that great
family which at this moment is rejoicing over the triumph
it has achieved. On a sudden the sky&mdash;the light of which
mingles so well with the joy of men, but which had
hitherto been dark and sullen&mdash;on a sudden the sky clears
up, and the sun blends his pomp with that of this noble
ceremony! And now, robed in his pontifical garments,
and standing on an altar thronged by three hundred
priests, in long white robes and tricoloured girdles, the
Bishop of Autun blesses the great standard, the oriflamme
of France, no longer the ensign of war, but the sign and
token of peace between the past and the future&mdash;between
the old recollections and the new aspirations of the French
people.</p>

<p>Who, that had been present that day in Paris, could
have believed that those who wept tenderly with the
children of Bearne, at the foot of the statue of Henry IV.,
would so soon laugh horribly round the scaffold of his
descendant? that the gay multitude, wandering in the
Champs Elysées, amidst garlands of light, and breathing
sounds of gentle happiness and affection, would so soon be
the ferocious mob, massacreing in the prisons, murdering
in the public streets, dancing round the guillotine dripping
with innocent blood? that the monarch, the court, the
deputies, every popular and princely image of this august
pageant, the very forms of the religion with which it was
consecrated, would in two or three brief years be scoffingly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span>
cast away: and that even the high priest of that gorgeous
solemnity, no longer attached to his sacred calling, would
be wandering a miserable exile on foreign shores, banished
as a traitor to the liberty for which he had sacrificed the
prejudices of his caste, the predilections of his family, the
honours and wealth of his profession?</p>

<h4>II.</h4>

<p>From the 14th of July, 1789, to the 14th of July,
1790, the scenes which were comprehended in this, which
may be called the first act in the great drama then
agitating France, were upon the whole such as rather to
excite the hopes than the fears of mankind; but from the
latter period the aspect of things greatly changed, and
almost each day became marked by some disappointment
as to the success of a favourite scheme, or the fortune of a
popular statesman.</p>

<p>On the 4th of September, 1790, M. Necker left almost
unnoticed, and altogether unregretted, that Paris to which
but a year before he had returned amidst unanimous
acclamation. About the same time, Mirabeau began to
be suspected; and the shouts of “Vive Lafayette!” were
not unfrequently changed into “à bas Lafayette!”<a name="FNanchor_15" id="FNanchor_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> by the
ever fickle multitude. At this period also it became
apparent that the sale of the church property, which,
properly managed, might have restored order to the
finances, was likely, on the contrary, to render the national
bankruptcy more complete.</p>

<p>In order to give a just idea of the conduct of M. de
Talleyrand, it is necessary that I should explain rapidly
how this calamity occurred. The Assembly, desiring to
secure the irrevocability of its decrees by disposing as soon
as possible of the vast estate which it had declared was to
be sold, and desiring also to increase its financial resources
without delay, looked out for some means by which this
double end could be accomplished. After two or three<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span>
projects, for a moment taken up and then abandoned, the
idea finally adopted was that of issuing State notes, representing
a certain value of national property, and giving
them a forced currency, so that they would have an
immediate value independent of that which they acquired
as the representatives of property.</p>

<p>These notes or bonds, in short, thus became money;
and they had this advantage over ordinary paper money,
that they represented something which had a positive
value; and as the first issue of four hundred millions of
francs took place at a time when some substitute was
really required for the coin which every one, from alarm
and want of confidence, had then begun to hoard, its
effects were rather beneficial than the reverse. The
Assembly instantly thought it had an inexhaustible fund
at its disposal; consequently a new issue of eight hundred
million bonds followed shortly after the first issue of four
hundred millions, as a matter of course; and it became
evident that this mode of meeting the current wants of the
State was to be adopted to a greater and greater extent,
thereby increasing the currency in a manner not in any
way called for by the increased wealth or business of the
community, and altering the value of money in all the
transactions of life. M. de Talleyrand at once foresaw the
evils to which this system would naturally lead; and
saying, “<i lang="fr">Je serais inconsolable si de la rigueur de nos
décrets sur le clergé il ne résultait pas le salut de la chose
publique</i>,”<a name="FNanchor_16" id="FNanchor_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> demonstrated, with a singular clearness and
sagacity, that the course on which the Assembly had
entered must inevitably cause the total disappearance of
bullion, an enormous rise in provisions, a daily depreciation
of State paper and of land (such State paper representing
land), a rapid variation of exchanges, an impossibility of
all regular commerce.</p>

<p>But men in desperate times disregard ultimate results.
The Assembly wanted funds at the moment: forced
assignats created those funds; and when Mirabeau<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span>
shrewdly observed that to multiply assignats was, at all
events, to multiply the opponents to reaction, since no
man who had an assignat could wish the property on which
its value depended to be restored to its former possessors,
this political argument settled the financial one.</p>

<h4>III.</h4>

<p>The great characteristic of modern legislation is the
principle of representation by election. It by no means
follows, however, that because it has been an invaluable
discovery to make a portion of government depend upon a
particular principle, that every portion of a government
should be deduced from that principle. On the contrary,
the mobility given to a government by any system that
introduces into it the popular passions and variations of
opinion, requires some counteracting element of fixity and
stability to give permanence to its duration, and steadiness
to its action. But the National Assembly&mdash;like those
invalids who, having found a remedy for their disease,
fancy that if a little of such remedy does some good, a
great deal must do much more&mdash;made the whole of their
institutions, with one exception, depend upon the same
basis; and as their chamber was elective, their municipalities
elective&mdash;so their judges were to be elective, and their
clergy and bishops elective also.</p>

<p>Here commenced the first serious schism in the nation,
for that which had hitherto existed had been between the
nation and the court. I have said that the clergy, and
more especially the higher clergy, had not willingly abandoned
the property which they had been accustomed to
consider theirs. This loss, however, furnished them with
but a worldly cause of feud; it neither affected their consciences,
nor the consciences of their flocks. But the new
regulations, whatever their intrinsic merits, entirely
changed the existing condition of the Roman church, and
struck at the root of its discipline. These regulations,
consequently, were denounced by the Pope, and could not
be solemnly accepted by the more zealous of the priesthood.</p>

<p>In such circumstances it would have been far wiser to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span>
have left the spiritual condition of the clergy untouched.
To oblige all ecclesiastics either to give up their benefices,
or to swear to uphold the “Civil Constitution of the
Clergy” (such being the title given to the new system),
was to provoke many who might otherwise have been
silent to declare hostility to the Revolution; and at the
same time gave to the Revolution itself that persecuting
bias by which it was finally disgraced and ruined. Such a
measure, besides, divided the clergy into two classes&mdash;one
of which excited the veneration of the people by its sacrifices,
and the indignation of the government by its
complaints: the other satisfied the government by its
obedience, but lost the respect of the people by its servility.
A Catholic clergy disowned by the Pope was useless to
those professing the Catholic religion; no clergy at all was
wanted for those who professed no religion whatsoever.
The course which M. de Talleyrand observed in this business
was wary and cautious up to the moment at which it was
bold and decided.</p>

<p>The Assembly had determined upon the “Civil Constitution
of the Clergy,” prior to the 14th of July. The
King, however, had requested a delay, with the intention of
referring to Rome, and the law did not finally pass the
Legislature till the 27th of November.</p>

<p>The struggle during this period was between the
Sovereign and the Pope on the one side, and the philosophers
and the church reformers&mdash;for both took a part in
the matter&mdash;on the other.</p>

<p>It was disagreeable for a bishop, still looking to ecclesiastical
preferment, to venture to quarrel with one party
in the dispute, and equally disagreeable for a statesman
aspiring to popular authority to separate himself from the
other. The result of the contest, also, was for a while
uncertain; and as there was no absolute necessity for the
Bishop of Autun to express any opinion upon its merits, he
was silent. But when the Assembly had pronounced its
final decree, and that decree had received the formal
though reluctant assent of the King, the case was different.
A law had been regularly passed, and the question was,
not whether it was a good law, but whether, being a law,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span>
it was to be obeyed. A battle had been fought, and the
question was, not whether the victors were in the right,
but whether it was better to join with those who had conquered,
or with those who had been conquered.</p>

<p>In such a condition of things M. de Talleyrand rarely
hesitated. He took his side with the law against the
church, and with those who were daily becoming more
powerful, against those who were daily becoming more
feeble; and having once taken a step of this kind, it was
never his custom to do so timidly.</p>

<p>He at once took the required oath, which all his
episcopal brethren&mdash;with the notorious and not very
creditable exceptions of the Bishops of Babylon and Lydia,
whose titles were purely honorary&mdash;refused to take. He
also justified this course in a letter to the clergy of his own
department, and ultimately undertook to consecrate the
new bishops who were elected to supply the place of those
whom the Assembly had deprived of their dioceses.</p>

<p>We shall presently see the results of this conduct. But
it may be as well at once to state, that although M. de
Talleyrand accepted for himself those new regulations for
his church which the State, in spite of the head of his
church, had established, and took an oath to obey them
without unwillingness, and although he even maintained
that the State, considering the clergy as public functionaries
enjoying a salary in return for the performance of
public duties, might deprive any members of the clergy of
such salary if they would not submit to the laws of the
government which paid and employed them; he nevertheless
contended, boldly and consistently and at all times,
that all ecclesiastics thus dispossessed would have a right
to the pension which, at the time of confiscating the church
property, had been granted to any ecclesiastic whom the
suppression of religious establishments or of useless benefices
left without income or employment; a principle at
first accepted as just, but soon condemned as inexpedient;
for there is no compromise between parties when one is
conscientiously disposed to resist what it deems an act of
injustice, and the other resolutely determined to crush what
it deems a selfish opposition.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span></p>

<h4>IV.</h4>

<p>Amidst the various vacancies which were occasioned by
the refusal of the high dignitaries of the church to take the
oath which the Constitution now exacted from them, was
that of the archbishopric of Paris; and as it was known
that M. de Talleyrand could be elected for this post if he
so desired it, the public imagined that he intended to take
advantage of his popularity and obtain what, up to that
period, had been so honourable and important a position.
In consequence of this belief a portion of the press extolled
his virtues; whilst another painted and, as usual in such
cases, exaggerated his vices.</p>

<p>M. de Talleyrand was, up to the last hour of his life,
almost indifferent to praise, but singularly enough (considering
his long and varied career), exquisitely sensitive to
censure; and his susceptibility on this occasion so far got
the better of his caution, as to induce him to write and
publish a letter in the <cite>Moniteur</cite>, of Paris, February 8th,
1791.</p>

<div class="blockquote">

<p class="hanging"><i>Letter of M. de Talleyrand to the editors of the
“Chronicle,” respecting his candidature for the diocese
of Paris.</i></p>

<p class="salutation">“<span class="smcap">Gentlemen</span>,</p>

<p>“I have just read in your paper that you have been
good enough to name me as a candidate for the archbishopric
of Paris. I cannot but feel myself highly
flattered by this nomination: some of the electors have in
fact given me to understand that they would be happy to
see me occupy the post to which you have alluded, and I,
therefore, consider that I ought to publish my reply. No,
gentlemen, I shall not accept the honour of which my
fellow-citizens are so obliging as to think me worthy.</p>

<p>“Since the existence of the National Assembly, I may
have appeared indifferent to the innumerable calumnies in
which different parties have indulged themselves at my
expense. Never have I made, nor ever shall I make, to
my calumniators the sacrifice of one single opinion or one
single action which seems to me beneficial to the commonwealth:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span>
but I can and will make the sacrifice of my
personal advantage, and on this occasion alone my enemies
will have influenced my conduct. I will not give them the
power to say that a secret motive caused me to take the
oath I have recently sworn. I will not allow them the
opportunity of weakening the good which I have endeavoured
to effect.</p>

<p>“That publicity which I give to the determination I now
announce, I gave to my wishes when I stated how much I
should be flattered at becoming one of the administrators
of the department of Paris. In a free state, the people of
which have repossessed themselves of the right of election&mdash;<i lang="la">i.e.</i>
the true exercise of their sovereignty&mdash;I deem that
to declare openly the post to which we aspire, is to invite
our fellow-citizens to examine our claims before deciding
upon them, and to deprive our pretensions of all possibility
of benefiting by intrigue. We present ourselves in
this way to the observations of the impartial, and give even
the prejudiced and the hostile the opportunity to do their
worst.</p>

<p>“I beg then to assure those who, dreading what they
term my ambition, never cease their slanders against my
reputation, that I will never disguise the object to which
I have the ambition to pretend.</p>

<p>“Owing, I presume, to the false alarm caused by my
supposed pretensions to the see of Paris, stories have
been circulated of my having lately won in gambling
houses the sum of sixty or seventy thousand francs. Now
that all fear of seeing me elevated to the dignity in
question is at an end, I shall doubtless be believed in
what I am about to say. The truth is, that, in the
course of two months, I gained the sum of about thirty
thousand francs, not at gambling houses, but in private
society, or at the chess-club, which has always been
regarded, from the nature of its institution, as a private
house.</p>

<p>“I here state the facts without attempting to justify
them. The passion for play has spread to a troublesome
extent. I never had a taste for it, and reproach myself
the more for not having resisted its allurements. I blame<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span>
myself as a private individual, and still more as a legislator
who believes that the virtues of liberty are as severe as
her principles: that a regenerated people ought to regain
all the austerity of morality, and that the National Assembly
ought to be directed towards this vice as one
prejudicial to society, inasmuch as it contributes towards
that inequality of fortune which the laws should endeavour
to prevent by every means which do not interfere with the
eternal basis of social justice, viz., the respect for property.</p>

<p>“You see I condemn myself. I feel a pleasure in
confessing it; for since the reign of truth has arrived,
in renouncing the impossible honour of being faultless,
the most noble manner we can adopt of repairing our
errors is to have the courage to acknowledge them.</p>

<p class="sig">“<span class="smcap">Talleyrand A. E. d’Autun.</span>”</p>

</div>

<p>From this document we learn that the Bishop of Autun,
notwithstanding his labours in the Assembly, was still a
gay frequenter of the world: to be found pretty frequently
at the chess-club, as well as in private society;
and, though he lamented over the fact, a winner at such
places of thirty thousand francs within two months. We
also learn that he abandoned at this moment the idea of
professional advancement, in order to maintain unimpeached
the motives of his political conduct; and we may
divine that he looked for the future rather to civil than to
ecclesiastical preferment.</p>

<p>The most striking portion of this document, however,
is the tone and style&mdash;I may almost say the cant&mdash;which
prevails towards its conclusion. But every epoch has its
pretensions: and that of the period which intervened
between May, 1789, and August, 1792, was to decorate
the easy life of a dissolute man of fashion with the pure
language of a saint, or the stern precepts of a philosopher.
“<i lang="fr">Le dire</i>,” says old Montaigne, “<i lang="fr">est autre chose que le
faire: il faut considérer le prêche à part, et le prêcheur
à part</i>.”<a name="FNanchor_17" id="FNanchor_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a></p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span></p>

<h4>V.</h4>

<p>And now, or but a little after this time, might have
been seen an agitated crowd, weeping, questioning, and
rushing towards a house in the Rue de la Chaussée d’Antin.
It was in the first days of April, and in that house&mdash;receiving
through the open windows the balmy air which
for a moment refreshed his burning forehead, and welcoming
yet more gratefully the anxious voice of the
inquiring multitude&mdash;lay the dying Mirabeau, about to
carry into the tomb all the remaining wisdom and
moderation of the people; and, as he himself sadly and
proudly added, all the remaining fragments of that
monarchy which he had shown the power to pull down
and had flattered himself he might have the power to
reconstruct. By his death-bed stood the Bishop of Autun.
It was a curious combination of circumstances which thus
brought together these two personages, whose characters
were essentially different, but whose position was in some
respects the same. The one was eloquent, passionate,
overbearing, imprudent; the other cool, urbane, logical,
and cautious. But both were of illustrious families, endowed
with great abilities, ejected from their legitimate
place in society. Both also were liberal in their politics,
and this from vengeance and ambition, as well as from
principle and opinion. Aristocrats allied with a democratic
faction; monarchists in desperate conflict with those by
whom monarchy was most held in reverence; they had
engaged in a battle for moderation with extreme auxiliaries
and extreme opponents. Mirabeau, the fifth child,
but who became, by a brother’s death, the eldest son of
the Marquis de Mirabeau (a rich proprietor of a noble
house in Provence), had been, when very young, married
to a wealthy heiress, and intended for the profession of
arms. Nevertheless, quitting his profession, separated
from his wife, constantly involved in scrapes&mdash;now for
money, now for love&mdash;he had led a bachelor’s life of intrigue,
indigence, and adventure, up to the age of forty,
alternately the victim of his own wild nature and of the
unwise and absurd severity of his father, whose two<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span>
pursuits in life were persecuting his family and publishing
pamphlets for the benefit of mankind. Thus, frequently
in confinement&mdash;always in difficulties (the first and last
means of correction with the old marquis being to procure
a “<i lang="fr">lettre de cachet</i>,” and to stop his son’s allowance), the
Comte de Mirabeau had supported himself almost entirely
by his talents, which could apply themselves to letters,
though action was their proper sphere.</p>

<p>During a short interval in his various calamities&mdash;an
interval which he had passed at Paris in a desperate effort
to better his condition&mdash;he had become acquainted with
M. de Talleyrand, who, struck by his abilities and affected
by his misfortunes, recommended him to M. de Calonne,
at whose suggestion he was sent by M. de Vergennes,
then minister of foreign affairs, on a sort of secret mission
into Germany, just prior to the Great Frederick’s death.
From this mission he returned when France was being
agitated by the convocation of the “notables,” speedily
succeeded by that of the States-General. He saw at a
glance that an era was now approaching, suited to his
eminent talents, and in which his haughty but flexible
character was likely to force or insinuate its way: his
whole soul, therefore, was bent upon being one of that
assembly, which he from the first predicted would soon
command the destinies of his country.</p>

<p>Certain expenses were necessary to obtain this object, and,
as usual, Mirabeau had not a farthing. The means which
he adopted for procuring the money he required were the
least creditable he could have devised. He published a
work called “The Secret History of the Court of Berlin,”
a work full of scandal, public and private, and betraying
the mission with which he had recently been intrusted.<a name="FNanchor_18" id="FNanchor_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a></p>

<p>The government was naturally indignant; a prosecution
was instituted against him before the Parliament of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span>
Paris; M. de Montmorin, and others, by whom he had
previously been patronised, told him plainly they wished to
drop his acquaintance.</p>

<p>Through all these disgraceful difficulties Mirabeau
scrambled. He denied that the work was published by
his authority.</p>

<p>Rejected from their sittings by the nobility of Provence,
who decreed that, having no fiefs of his own, and being
merely invested with his father’s voice, he had no right to
sit among the nobles, he became the successful candidate
of the tiers-état for Aix; and at the meeting of the States-General
stood before the ministry which had accused, and
the aristocracy which had repudiated him, a daring and
formidable enemy.</p>

<p>But, though made a desperate man by circumstances,
he was not so either by inclination or by ideas.</p>

<p>His views for France were limited to the procuring it a
representative government; and his views for himself
were those which frequently lead ambitious men under
such a government to adopt opposition as a road to power.
“<i lang="fr">Tribun par calcul</i>,” as was justly said of him by a contemporary,<a name="FNanchor_19" id="FNanchor_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a>
“<i lang="fr">aristocrat par goût</i>.” He aimed at obtaining
for his country a constitution, and being minister of
the crown under that constitution.</p>

<p>M. de Talleyrand had the same wish, and probably the
same ambition. These two statesmen, therefore, would
naturally, at the meeting of the States-General, have
acted together as two private friends who thought the
same on public matters. But the publication of “The
Secret History of the Court of Berlin,” offensive to the
minister who had employed Mirabeau, could not be otherwise
than painful and disagreeable to M. de Talleyrand,
at whose intercession Mirabeau had been employed, and
to whom, indeed, Mirabeau’s correspondence had been
principally addressed. This circumstance had, therefore,
produced a cessation of all private intimacy between these
two personages who were about to exercise so great an
influence over approaching events. It is difficult, however,
for two men to act a prominent part on the same<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span>
side for any length of time in a popular assembly, and
this at a great national crisis, without relapsing into an
old acquaintance, or forming a new one. To what extent
the old relations between Mirabeau and M. de Talleyrand
were thus renewed, it is difficult to say, but that on the
21st of October, 1789, they already talked together with
some degree of intimacy is evident from a letter of
Mirabeau to the Comte de la Marck, in which letter
Mirabeau states that he had been told the history of a
secret political intrigue by the Bishop of Autun.<a name="FNanchor_20" id="FNanchor_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a></p>

<p>About this time, too, it is now known that Mirabeau
projected a ministry to which I have already alluded, and
in which he and M. de Talleyrand were to be united.
Had this ministry been formed, it is very possible that
the history of France during the next sixty years would
have been different.</p>

<p>But the most fatal measure adopted by the Assembly
was that (November 9, 1789) which prevented any of its
members from being minister during its continuance, and
from entering the service of the crown for two years after
its dissolution. The consequences of this resolution, aimed
at those who, like Mirabeau and Talleyrand, were hoping
to erect a constitutional government, and to have the
direction of it, were incalculable. The persons at that
time who had most influence in the Assembly were men
with moderate opinions, great talents, and great ambition.
Had such men been placed as the head of affairs they
might have controlled them and established a government
at once popular and safe. But this new regulation prevented
those who were powerful as representatives of the
people from using their influence in supporting the
executive power of the crown. It drove them, moreover,
if their passions were violent and their positions desperate,
to seek for power by means hostile to the constitution
which annihilated their hopes.</p>

<p>It had this effect upon Mirabeau; and his sentiments
becoming known to the court, a sort of alliance established
itself between them in the spring of 1790;&mdash;an alliance
entered into too late (since most of the great questions on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span>
which Mirabeau’s influence might have been useful were
already decided) and most absurdly carried on; for whilst
the King opened to Mirabeau his purse, he shut from him
his confidence, and at first, and for a long time, exacted
that the compact he had entered into with the great orator
for the defence of his throne should be kept altogether
secret, even from his own ministers.<a name="FNanchor_21" id="FNanchor_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a></p>

<p>Mirabeau was to advise the King in secret, to help him
indirectly in public; but he was not to have the King’s
countenance, and he was to be thwarted and opposed by
the King’s friends.</p>

<p>The error which both parties to this arrangement committed
was the result of the feeble and irresolute character
of the one, who never did anything wholly and sincerely,
and of the over-bold and over-confident character of the
other, who never doubted that whatever he attempted
must succeed, and who now easily persuaded himself that
having vanquished the difficulty of opening a communication
with the court, he should promptly vanquish that of
governing it. Indeed, the desire of Mirabeau to serve the
crown being sincere, and his ability to do so evident, he
(not unnaturally perhaps) felt convinced that his sincerity
would be trusted, and his talents given fair play.</p>

<p>But it is clear that the King thought of buying off a
dangerous enemy, and not of gaining a determined ally.
Thus he went on supplying Mirabeau’s wants, receiving
Mirabeau’s reports, attending little to Mirabeau’s counsels,
until matters got so bad that even the irresolution of
Louis XVI. was vanquished (this was about the end of
1790), and then, for the first time, was seriously entertained
a plan which the daring orator had long ago
advised, but which the King had never, up to that period,
rejected nor yet sanctioned.</p>

<p>This plan consisted in withdrawing the King from Paris;
surrounding him with troops still faithful, and by the aid<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span>
of a new assembly, for which public opinion was to be
prepared, reforming the constitution&mdash;now on the point of
being completed&mdash;a constitution which, while it pretended
to be monarchical, not only prevented the monarch from
practically exercising any power without the express
permission of a popular assembly, but established, as its
fundamental theory, that the King was merely the
executor of that assembly’s sovereign authority: an addition
which, at first sight, may seem of small importance,
but which, as it was calculated daily to influence the spirit
of men’s actions, could not but have an immense effect on
the daily working of their institutions. Nor was this all.
Nations, like individuals, have, so to speak, two wills: that
of the moment&mdash;the result of passion, caprice, and
impulse; and that of leisure and deliberation&mdash;the result
of foresight, prudence, and reason. All free governments
possessing any solidity (whatever their appellation) have,
for this reason, contained a power of some kind calculated
to represent the maturer judgment of the people and to
check the spontaneous, violent, and changeful ebullitions of
popular excitement. Even this barrier, however, was not
here interposed between a chamber which was to have all
the influence in the State, and a chief magistrate who was
to have none.</p>

<p>The constitution about to be passed was, in short, an
impracticable one, and no person saw this more clearly
than Mirabeau; but, whilst ready and desirous to destroy
it, he by no means lent himself to the ideas, though he
was somewhat subjugated by the charms of Marie-Antoinette.</p>

<p>“Je serai ce que j’ai été toujours,” he says in a letter
to the King, 15th December, 1790, “défenseur du pouvoir
monarchique réglé par les lois; apôtre de la liberté garantie
par le pouvoir monarchique.”<a name="FNanchor_22" id="FNanchor_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a></p>

<p>Thus he undertook the difficult and almost impossible
enterprise of rescuing liberty at the same time from a
monarch in the hands of courtiers enthusiastic for absolute<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span>
power, and from a mob under the influence of clubs,
which intended to trample constitutional monarchy under
the feet of a democratical despotism.</p>

<p>I have narrated what had undoubtedly been Mirabeau’s
projects; for we have to consider what were probably his
thoughts when, in acute suffering but with an unclouded
mind and a clear prescience of his approaching dissolution,
he summoned his former friend, with whom, it is said, he
was never till that instant completely reconciled, to the
couch from which he was no more to rise.</p>

<p>Must we not suppose that Mirabeau in this, his last
conversation with M. de Talleyrand, spoke of the schemes
which then filled his mind? And does it not seem probable
that he at that hour conceived the Bishop of Autun
to be the person best fitted to fill the difficult position
which he himself was about to leave vacant, and amidst
the various intrigues and combinations of which it required
so much skill to steer?</p>

<p>For this supposition there are many plausible reasons.
M. de Talleyrand, like Mirabeau, was an aristocrat by
birth, a liberal by circumstances and opinion; he was also
one of the members of the Assembly, who possessed the
greatest authority over that portion of it which Mirabeau
himself influenced; and likewise one of a very small number
of members upon whom M. de Montmorin, the minister
with whom Louis XVI. at last consented that Mirabeau
should confidentially communicate, had told Mirabeau he
most relied. Lastly, he was acquainted with all the
classes and almost all the individuals then seeking to
disturb, or hoping to compose, the disordered elements of
society. He knew the court, the clergy, the Orleanists.
He had been one of the founders of the Jacobins; he was
a member of its moderate rival, the Feuillans; and
although, undoubtedly, he wanted the fire and eloquence
necessary to command in great assemblies, he was pre-eminent
in the tact and address which enable a man to
manage those by whom such assemblies are led.</p>

<p>In short, though Mirabeau left no Mirabeau behind
him, M. de Talleyrand was, perhaps, the person best
qualified to supply his loss, and the one whom Mirabeau<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span>
himself was most likely to have pointed out for a successor.
I have no clue, however, beyond conjecture, to guide me
on this subject, unless the public trust which Mirabeau
confided to M. de Talleyrand in his last hours may be
cited as a testimony of his other and more secret intentions.
What this trust was, we may learn from the statement of
M. de Talleyrand himself, who, on the following day,
amidst a silence and a sorrow which pervaded all parties
(for a man of superior genius, whatever his faults, rarely
dies unlamented), ascending the tribune of the National
Assembly, said in a voice which appeared unfeignedly
affected:</p>

<p>“I went yesterday to the house of M. de Mirabeau.
An immense crowd filled that mansion, to which I carried
a sentiment more sorrowful than the public grief. The
spectacle of woe before me filled the imagination with the
image of death; it was everywhere but in the mind of
him whom the most imminent danger menaced. He had
asked to see me. It is needless to relate the emotion
which many things he said caused me. But M. de Mirabeau
was at that time above all things the man of the
public; and in this respect we may regard as a precious
relic the last words which could be saved from that mighty
prey, on which death was about to seize. Concentrating
all his interest on the labours that still remain to this
Assembly, he remembered that the law of succession was
the order of the day, and lamented he could not assist at
the discussion of the question, regretting death, because it
deprived him of the power of performing a public duty.
But, as his opinion was committed to writing, he confided
the manuscript to me, in order that I might in his name
communicate it to you. I am going to execute this duty.
The author of the manuscript is now no more; and so
intimately were his wishes and thoughts connected with
the public weal, that you may imagine yourselves catching
his last breath, as you listen to the sentiments which I am
about to read to you.”</p>

<p>Such were the words with which M. de Talleyrand prefaced
the memorable discourse which, in establishing the
principles on which the law of inheritance has since rested<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span>
in France, laid the foundations of a new French society,
on a basis which no circumstance that can now happen
seems likely to alter.</p>

<p>“There is as much difference,” said Mirabeau, “between
what a man does during his life, and what he does after
his death, as between death and life. What is a testament?
It is the expression of the will of a man who has no longer
any will respecting property which is no longer his property;
it is the action of a man no longer accountable for
his actions to mankind; it is an absurdity, and an absurdity
ought not to have the force of law.”</p>

<p>Such is the argument set forth in this celebrated and
singular speech. Ingenious rather than profound, it does
not seem, as we turn to it coolly now, worthy of the reputation
it attained, nor of the effect which it has undoubtedly
produced. But, read in M. de Talleyrand’s
deep voice, and read as the last thoughts upon testamentary
dispositions of a man who was making his own will when
he composed it, and who since then was with his luminous
intellect and marvellous eloquence about to be consigned
to the obscure silence of the grave, it could hardly fail to
make a deep impression. It was, moreover, the mantle of
the departed prophet; and the world, whether wrong or
right in the supposition, fancied that it saw in this political
legacy the intention to designate a political successor.</p>

<h4>VI.</h4>

<p>Thus, M. de Talleyrand, already, as we have seen, a
member of the department of Paris, was immediately
chosen to fill the place in the directorship of that department,
an appointment which Mirabeau’s death left vacant.</p>

<p>In this municipal council, considerable influence still
existed; nor did it want various means for exercising
that influence over the middle classes of the capital; so
that a man of resolution and tact could have made it one
of the most useful instruments for restoring the royal
authority and consolidating it on new foundations.</p>

<p>It seems not unlikely, indeed, that M. de Talleyrand had
the design of making it popular as the organ of good
advice to the King, and of making the King popular by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span>
engaging him to listen to this advice, since we find that
it drew up an address to him on the 18th April (about
a fortnight after Mirabeau’s death), urging him to put
aside from his councils those whom the nation distrusted,
and to confide frankly in the men who were yet popular:
whilst there is reason to believe, as I shall by-and-by
have occasion to show, that M. de Talleyrand entered
about this time into secret negotiations with the King, or,
at least, offered him, through M. de Laporte, his best
assistance.</p>

<p>But Louis XVI. was more likely to trust a bold and
passionate man like Mirabeau, whom, notwithstanding
his birth, he looked upon&mdash;considering the situation in
which the Revolution had found him&mdash;as an adventurer
who had been almost naturally his opponent, until he had
purchased his support, rather than a man like M. de
Talleyrand; a philosopher, a wit, who might be said to
have been bred a courtier; and, on the other hand,
M. de Talleyrand himself was too cautious to commit
himself boldly and entirely to the daring and doubtful
schemes which Mirabeau had prepared, until he saw a
tolerable chance of their being successful.</p>

<p>Other circumstances, moreover, occurred at this time,
which could not but have an unfavourable influence as to
the establishment of any serious concert between the
scrupulous and mistrustful monarch, and the chess-playing,
constitutional bishop.</p>

<h4>VII.</h4>

<p>When M. de Talleyrand rejected the archbishopric of
Paris, it was clear that he expected nothing further from
the church; and he no doubt from that moment conceived
the idea of freeing himself from its trammels on the first
decent opportunity: nor did he long wait for this opportunity,
for, on the 26th of April, one day after his
consecration of the Curé Expelles, the newly-elected
Bishop of Finisterre, arrived a brief thus announced in
the <cite>Moniteur</cite> of the 1st of May, 1791:</p>

<p>“<i lang="fr">Le bref du Pape est arrivé jeudi dernier. De
Talleyrand-Périgord, ancien évêque d’Autun, y est suspendu<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span>
de toutes fonctions et excommunié, après quarante
jours s’il ne revient pas a résipiscence.</i>”<a name="FNanchor_23" id="FNanchor_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a></p>

<p>The moment had now come for that decisive measure
which the unwilling ecclesiastic had for some time contemplated;
for he had too much tact to think of continuing
his clerical office under the interdiction of the head of his
church, and was by no means prepared to abandon his
political career, and to reconcile himself with Rome, on
the condition of separating himself from wealth and
ambition. But one alternative remained&mdash;that of abandoning
the profession into which he had been forced to
enter. This he did at once, and without hesitation;
appearing in the world henceforth (though sometimes
styled in public documents the Abbé de Périgord, or the
ancien évêque d’Autun) under the plain designation of
M. de Talleyrand, a designation which I have already
frequently applied to him, and by which, though he was
destined to be raised to far higher titles, he has by
universal consent descended to posterity. The act was a
bold one; but, like most bold acts in difficult circumstances,
it was not (I speak of it as a matter of worldly calculation)
an imprudent one: for it released an indifferent priest
from a position which he could only fill with decency by a
constant hypocrisy, for which he was too indolent; and it
delivered up an able statesman to a career for which, by
the nature of his talents, he was peculiarly fitted. Neither
was M. de Talleyrand’s withdrawal from the church so
remarkable a fact at that moment as it would have been
at any other; for France, and even Europe, were then
overrun by French ex-ecclesiastics of all grades, who were
prohibited from assuming their rank and unable to fulfil
their duties, and who, in many cases, were obliged to
conceal their real calling under that from which they
earned a daily subsistence.</p>

<p>Nevertheless, the Bishop of Autun’s particular case
excited and merited attention. It had been as an organ
and representative of the French church, that this prelate<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span>
had contributed in no slight degree to alienate its property
and change its constitution; and now, his brethren in the
French clergy being what he had made them, he voluntarily
threw their habit from his shoulders and renounced
all participation in their fate.</p>

<p>It might, it is true, be urged that none had lost more
by the destruction of the ancient church and its institutions
than himself, that he had originally become a priest
against his inclinations, and that he was compelled to
decide either against his convictions as a citizen or against
his obligations as a churchman. Still, this desertion from
his order by one who had been so conspicuous a member
of it, was undoubtedly a scandal, and though the world
usually pardons those whom it has an interest to forgive,
and though M. de Talleyrand, if he erred, had the consolation
of living to see his errors forgiven or overlooked
by many very rigid Catholics, who enjoyed his society, by
many very pious princes, who wanted his services, and
even by the Pope himself, when his holiness was in a
situation to fear his enmity and require his goodwill&mdash;he
himself never felt entirely at his ease as to his early
profession, and was so sensitive on the subject that the
surest way to offend him was to allude to it. I was told
by a lady, long intimate with M. de Talleyrand, that
even the mention of the word “lawn” annoyed him.</p>

<p>As to Louis XVI., although making perpetual compromises
with his conscience, he was of all persons the one
most likely to be shocked by a bishop thus coolly converting
himself into a layman; whilst it must be added that
M. de Talleyrand was of all persons the one least likely
to respect Louis XVI.’s scruples.</p>

<p>We may, therefore, reasonably suppose that whatever
relations were indirectly kept up between them at this
time, such relations were neither intimate nor cordial,
but rather those which men not unfrequently maintain
with persons whom they neither like nor trust, but are
ready to serve under or be served by, should circumstances
arrive to render a closer connection mutually advantageous.</p>

<p>The King, however, had become more and more puzzled<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span>
by the opposing advice of his various and never-trusted
counsellors, and more and more dissatisfied with the prospect
of having shortly to assent to a constitution which,
in reality, he looked upon as an abdication. It was not
surprising, therefore, that, on the morning of the 21st of
June, it was discovered that he had, with his family,
quitted Paris; and it was shortly afterwards ascertained
that the fugitives had directed their course towards the
north of France and the camp of M. de Bouillé.</p>

<p>It will be remembered that, to withdraw from the
capital to the camp of this officer, in whose judgment,
ability, and fidelity Louis XVI. most relied, was part of
Mirabeau’s old scheme.</p>

<p>But this was not all: the King, in a paper which he
left behind him, stated that it was his intention to retire
to some portion of his “kingdom where he could freely
exercise his judgment, and there to make such changes
in the proposed constitution” (it was on the point of
being terminated) “as were necessary to maintain the
sanctity of religion, to strengthen the royal authority,
and to consolidate a system of true liberty.” A declaration
of this kind (though the words I have cited were
rather ambiguous) was also comprised in the scheme of
Mirabeau.</p>

<p>Now, M. de Montmorin, the minister of foreign affairs&mdash;with
one of whose passports the King had actually
made his escape as a servant of a Madame de Korff&mdash;had
been initiated, as we know, into Mirabeau’s secrets, and
M. de Talleyrand was one of M. de Montmorin’s friends,
and had been, as we have recently seen, by Mirabeau’s
bedside during his last hours. Hence it might be inferred,
notwithstanding the causes which prevented any
real sympathy or cordial understanding between the
King and the ex-Bishop of Autun, that the latter was
privy to the flight of the former, and prepared to take
part in the plans of which that flight was to be the commencement.</p>

<p>Rumours, indeed, to this effect, concerning both M. de
Montmorin and M. de Talleyrand, were for a moment
circulated in Paris.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span></p>

<p>But M. de Montmorin proved to the satisfaction of the
Assembly that he was innocent of all participation in the
King’s evasion; and the reports respecting M. de Talleyrand
never went further than to one or two of those
journals which at that time disgraced the liberty of the
press by their total indifference as to whether they published
truth or falsehood.</p>

<p>It is also to be remarked that M. de Lafayette, whom
on that subject one must accept as a good authority,
expressly charges the King with having left M. de
Montmorin and his most intimate friends ignorant of his
intentions.</p>

<p>“Il était ignoré,” says M. de Lafayette, “de ses
ministres, des royalistes de l’Assemblée, tous laissés exposés
à un grand peril. Telle était la situation non
seulement des gardes nationaux de service, de leurs
officiers, mais des amis les plus dévoués du roi, du duc
de Brissac, commandant des cent-suisses, et de M. de
Montmorin qui avait très-innocemment donné un passeport
sous le nom de la baronne de Korff.”<a name="FNanchor_24" id="FNanchor_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a></p>

<p>It is difficult to account for the inconsistency in Louis
XVI.’s conduct, except by referring to the inconsistency
of his character: I am, however, disposed to surmise that,
after Mirabeau’s death, he considered it would be impossible
to unite a considerable portion of the Assembly and
the army in one common plan; and that he then began
carrying on at the same time two plans: the one relative
to the policy he should pursue in the event of his stay in
the capital, which he probably conducted through M. de
Montmorin, who was intimate with the leading members
of the constitutional party in the Assembly; the other
relative to his flight, which he only entrusted to the
general whose camp he was about to seek, and to those
private friends and adherents who took little part in public<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span>
affairs. It is further to be presumed that, according to
his constant incertitude and indolence, never long or
firmly fixed on any one project, he was scared by apprehensions
of the mob at the moment when most disposed
to remain quietly in his palace, and alarmed at the risk
and trouble of moving when actually pressing the preparations
for his journey.</p>

<p>In this manner we may best reconcile his writing to
M. de Bouillé, to expect him at Montmedy within a week
of his declaring to the sovereigns of Europe (23rd April)
that he was satisfied with his condition at Paris: in this
manner, likewise, we may explain his solemnly assuring
the general of the National Guard that he would not
quit the Tuileries, only two or three days before he
actually did so.<a name="FNanchor_25" id="FNanchor_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a></p>

<p>He rarely did what he intended to do; and belied himself
more frequently from change of intentions, than from
intentional insincerity.</p>

<h4>VIII.</h4>

<p>At all events, it seems probable (returning to the fact
with which we are in the present instance most concerned)
that Louis XVI.’s departure took place without
M. de Talleyrand’s active assistance, but I do not think
it probable that it was altogether without his knowledge.</p>

<p>The ex-Bishop had such a varied and extensive acquaintance
that he was pretty certain to know what he
wished to know; and it was according to his usual practice
to contrive that he should not be compromised if the
King’s projects failed, and yet that he should be in a
situation to show that the King was indebted to him if
those projects succeeded. It is useless to speculate on
what might have occurred had the unfortunate monarch
reached his destination; for travelling in a carriage peculiarly
heavy and peculiarly conspicuous at the rate of
three miles an hour, walking up the hills, putting his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span>
head out of the windows at the post-houses, Louis XVI.
arrived at the place where he was to have met his escort
twenty hours later than the appointed time, and was finally
stopped at the bridge of Varennes by a few resolute men,
and reconducted leisurely to the capital, amidst the
insults of the provinces and the silence of Paris.</p>

<p>The important question then arose, What was to be
done respecting him?</p>

<p>Was he to be deposed in favour of a republic? All
contemporary writers agree that, at this moment, the idea
of a republic was only in a few visionary minds. Was
he to be deposed in favour of a new monarch, which,
considering the emigration of his brothers and the infancy
of his child, could only be in favour of a new dynasty?
or, was he to be reinstated in the position he had quitted?</p>

<h4>IX.</h4>

<p>The views and conduct of M. de Talleyrand are at this
crisis interesting. We have been told by contemporaries,
that he and Sieyès were of opinion that there was a
better chance of making the Revolution successful with
a limited monarchy under a new chief, elected by the
nation, than under the old one, who claimed his throne in
virtue of hereditary right; and we can easily understand
their reasoning.</p>

<p>A king who had succeeded to a throne from which his
ancestors had been accustomed for centuries to dictate
absolutely to their people, could hardly be sincerely satisfied
with possessing on sufferance a remnant of his ancestors’
former authority; nor could a people be ever wholly
without suspicion of a prince who had to forget the ideas
with which he had received the sceptre before he could
respect those which restricted the use of it.</p>

<p>Louis XVI., moreover, had attempted to escape from
his palace, as a prisoner escaping from his gaol, and as a
prisoner thus escaping he had been caught and brought
back to his place of confinement.</p>

<p>It was difficult to make anything of a sovereign in this
condition save a puppet, to be for a while the tool, and ere
long the victim, of contending parties.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span></p>

<p>Now, M. de Talleyrand had always a leaning to the
Orleans branch of the House of Bourbon: neither did he
think so ill of the notorious personage who was then the
representative of the Orleans family, as the contemporaries
from whose report posterity has traced his portrait.</p>

<p>Of this prince he once said, in his own pithy manner,
“Le duc d’Orléans est le vase dans lequel on a jeté toutes
les ordures de la Révolution;”<a name="FNanchor_26" id="FNanchor_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> and this was not untrue.</p>

<p>Philippe d’Orléans, indeed, who has figured in history
under the nickname or <i lang="fr">sobriquet</i> of “Egalité,” was neither
fitted for the part of a great sovereign in turbulent times
nor for that of a quiet and obscure citizen at any more
tranquil period. Nevertheless, he was not so bad a man
as he has been represented; for both Legitimists and
Republicans have been obliged to blacken his character in
order to excuse their conduct to him.</p>

<p>His character has, furthermore, been mystified and exaggerated,
as we have looked at it by the lurid glare of
that unnatural vote which brings the later period of his
life always prominently and horribly before us. Still, in
reality, he was rather a weak man, led into villainous
deeds by want of principle, than a man of a strong and
villainous nature, who did not scruple at crimes when
they seemed likely to advance his ambition. His only one
strong passion was a desire to be talked about.</p>

<p>It is possible that the King, by skilful management,
might have turned this ruling wish of his most powerful
subject to the profit of his monarchy: for the young Duc de
Chartres was at one time anxious to shine as an aspirant
to military fame. The government, however, denied his
request to be employed as became his rank; and when,
despite of this denial, he engaged in a naval combat as a
volunteer, the court unjustly and impoliticly spread reports
against his courage. To risk his life in a balloon, to run
riot in every extravagance of debauch, to profess the
opinions of a republican though the first prince of the
blood royal, were demonstrations of the same disposition
which might have made him a gallant soldier, a furious<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span>
bigot, a zealous royalist, and even a very tolerable constitutional
monarch.</p>

<p>As to the various stories of his incessant schemes and
complicated manœuvres for exciting the populace, debauching
the soldiery, and seizing the crown, they are, in my
opinion, no more worthy of credit than the tales which at
the same period were equally circulated of Louis XVI.’s
drunkenness, and Marie-Antoinette’s debaucheries. Belonging
to those whom Tacitus has described as “men
loving idleness&mdash;though hating quiet,” seeking popularity
more than power, and with a character easily modelled by
circumstances, I am by no means certain, that if M. de
Talleyrand did think of bestowing on him what was afterwards
called a “citizen crown,” (it must be remembered
that he had not then been lowered and disgraced by the
follies or crimes into which he was subsequently led),
the plan was not the best which could have been
adopted. But there was one great and insurmountable
obstacle to this design.</p>

<p>General Lafayette commanded the National Guard of
Paris, and although his popularity was already on the
wane, he was still&mdash;Mirabeau being dead&mdash;the most
powerful citizen that had been raised up by the Revolution.
He did not want to run new risks, nor to acquire
greater power, nor to have a monarch with more popularity
or more authority than the runaway king.</p>

<p>Courageous rather than audacious, more avid of popularity
than of power, a chivalric knight-errant, an amiable
enthusiast, rather than a great captain, or a practical
politician, the part which suited him was that of parading
himself before the people as the guardian of the constitution,
and before the sovereign as the idol of the nation.
To this part he wished to confine himself; and the
monarch under whom he could play it most easily was
Louis XVI. Nor was this all.</p>

<p>Ambitious men may agree as to sharing the attributes
of office; vain men will not agree as to sharing the
pleasure of applause: and it is said that Lafayette never
forgot that there was another bust, that of the Duc
d’Orléans, carried about the streets of Paris together with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span>
his own, on the memorable day which saw the destruction
of the Bastille. To any idea, therefore, of the Duc d’Orléans
as King of France, he was decidedly opposed.</p>

<h4>X.</h4>

<p>Thus, after making just that sort of effort in favour of
the younger branch of the Bourbons which left him free
to support the elder one, if such effort proved abortive, M.
de Talleyrand finally declared for Louis XVI., as the only
person who could be monarch, if a monarchy could be
preserved; and was also for giving this prince such a
position as he might honourably accept, with functions that
he might really fulfil.</p>

<p>The King himself, it must be added, was now in a
better disposition than he had hitherto been for frankly
accepting the conditions of the new existence proposed to
him.</p>

<p>A hero, or rather a saint, when it was required of his
fortitude to meet danger or to undergo suffering, his nature
was one of those which shrink from exertion, and prefer
endurance to a struggle for either victory or escape.</p>

<p>It was with difficulty that he had been so far roused
into action as to attempt his recent expedition; he had
been disgusted with its trouble, more than awed by its
peril. Death itself seemed preferable to another such effort.</p>

<p>He had seen, likewise, from the feeling of the provinces,
and even from the infidelity of the troops, who, sent to
escort him, might have attempted his rescue; but who,
when told to cry, “<i lang="fr">Vive le Roi!</i>” cried, “<i lang="fr">Vive la Nation!</i>”
that, even if he had reached M. de Bouillé’s camp, it
would have been difficult for that general, notwithstanding
his firmness of character and military ability, to have
placed the sovereign of France in any position within the
French territory from which he might have dictated to,
or even treated with, the French people. To quit Paris,
therefore, a second time was evidently to quit France and
to unite himself with, and to be subordinate to, that party
of <i lang="fr">émigrés</i> which had always preferred his younger
brother, whose presumption had become insulting to his
authority and offensive to Marie-Antoinette’s pride.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span></p>

<p>On the other hand, many persons of note in the
Assembly who had hitherto employed their talents and
their popularity towards the weakening of the monarchical
power, were at this juncture disposed to strengthen it.</p>

<p>Amongst the commissioners sent to conduct Louis XVI.
from Varennes to Paris, was Barnave, an eloquent young
lawyer, who, from a desire to distinguish himself in a
glorious rivalry with Mirabeau, had adopted that party in
the Assembly which, whilst declaring itself against a
republic, contended in all discussions, and especially in the
famous discussion on the <i lang="fr">veto</i>, for abridging and in fact
annihilating the royal authority. Struck by the misfortunes
of Marie-Antoinette,&mdash;beauty never appearing so
attractive to a generous heart as in the hour of distress,&mdash;and
convinced, perhaps, by his own personal observations
that Louis XVI. had in many respects been grossly
calumniated, Barnave had at last adopted the views which
had previously been formed by his great rival, whose
ashes then slept in the Pantheon.</p>

<p>The two Lameths also, officers of noble birth, possessing
some talent and more spirit, perceiving that by the course
they had hitherto pursued they had raised up at each step
more formidable rivals amongst the lower classes of society
than any they would otherwise have had to encounter
amongst the leaders of the nobility or the favourites of the
court, were now as anxious to restrain the democracy
which they hated, as Barnave was to assist the queen
whom he loved; whilst many of all ranks, conscientiously
in favour of liberty, but as justly alarmed at anarchy,
beginning to consider it more important to curb the
license of the mob and the clubs than that of the King
and the government, were for rallying round the tottering
throne and trying to give it a tolerable foundation of
security.</p>

<h4>XI.</h4>

<p>For these reasons, then, there was a combination of
interests, desires, and abilities, in favour of establishing
Louis XVI. at the head of such a constitution, as, if not
the best possible, would have been the best possible at that
time; and, every other rational project seeming out of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span>
question, M. de Talleyrand entered, as I have said, into
this one, although with less faith in its practicability than
some of his coadjutors.</p>

<p>There were, however, at this moment circumstances
which favoured it. An assemblage, collected together by
the influence and exhortations of the most violent of the
Jacobins for the purpose of signing a petition to the
Assembly against the continuance of the monarchy, having
given a sufficient pretext by its tumultuous character and
excesses to justify the act, was dispersed by Lafayette at
the head of the National Guard, and with the authority
of Bailly, mayor of Paris;&mdash;that is, with the force and authority
of the whole mass of the <i lang="fr">bourgeoisie</i>, or middle class.</p>

<p>The Republicans were daunted. A revision of the constitution,
moreover, was required; for the desultory and
inconsistent manner in which many of the measures of the
Assembly had been voted, rendered it necessary to distinguish
between those which were temporary in their
character and those that were to remain fundamental laws
of the State. This revision offered the opportunity of introducing
changes of importance into the constitution itself,
and amongst these a second chamber or senate.</p>

<p>To this addition even Lafayette consented; although
his opinion was that such second chamber should be
elective, as in the United States (his constant model), and
not hereditary as in England, which another section of
public men&mdash;anxious to maintain an aristocracy as well as
a monarchy&mdash;desired.</p>

<p>The moderate party, still powerful in the departments,
in Paris, and in the National Guard, as well as in the
army, had not, nevertheless, by itself a majority in the
Assembly; and a mere majority could not have undertaken
so great a plan as that contemplated. With the aid of
the Royalists, however, the execution of this plan was
easy. But the Royalists, consisting of two hundred and
ninety members, with the Abbé Maury at their head
(Cazales, the other leader of the Royalist party, at this
time emigrated), retaining their seats in the Assembly,
declined to take any part in its proceedings;&mdash;and in this
manner the only hope of safety for the King was destroyed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span>
by the very persons who arrogated to themselves the title
of “the King’s friends;” nor was this course, though
foolish and unpatriotic, altogether unnatural.</p>

<p>What a party can least bear is the triumph of its opponents:
the consolidation of a constitutional government
was the triumph of that party, which from the beginning
of the Revolution had advocated such a government and
declared it possible. The triumph of the opposite party,
on the contrary, was, that there should be an absolute
monarchy, or no monarchy; a government of “<i lang="fr">lettres de
cachet</i>,” or no government. This party had to prove that
to diminish the sovereign’s power was to conduct him to
the scaffold; that to give the people freedom was to overthrow
society. Thus, if they did not hope for the worst,
they would do nothing to secure the best that was
practicable. It is conjunctures like these which confound
the calculations of those who fancy that men will act
according to their interests.</p>

<p>Left to themselves, the Constitutionalists had not sufficient
power to give battle to the democrats in the
Assembly and the clubs out of it. They voted the King
a body-guard and a privy purse&mdash;measures better calculated
to excite the envy than to curb the license of the populace;
and then, betrayed by the same wish to show their disinterestedness,
which had made them parties, in November,
1789, to the stupid declaration that no member of the
National Assembly should be the King’s minister, they
committed the still greater folly of declaring that no
member of the National Assembly should sit in the next
legislature, nor hold any office under the Crown during its
continuance; a decree decapitating France, and delivering
an untried constitution into the hands of inexperienced
legislators.</p>

<p>This decree left the future too obscure for any man of
calmness and judgment to flatter himself that there was
more than a faint probability of fixing its destinies for
some years to come; but whatever these destinies might
be, the reputation of the statesman whose views formed
the mind of a rising generation, would survive the errors
and passions of a past one.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span></p>

<p>It was with this thought before him that M. de Talleyrand,
just previous to the dissolution of the National
Assembly, or, as it is sometimes called, <i lang="fr">l’Assemblée constituante</i>,
brought under its notice a vast project of
education, then too late to be decided upon, but which,
printed and recommended to the attention of the coming
legislature, and having at one extremity the communal
school and at the other the Institute, exists with but
slight alterations at this very day.</p>

<p>The Assembly now separated (on the 13th of September)
amidst that usual exhibition of fireworks and fêtes which
mark the history of the animated and variable people,
who, never contented and never despairing, exhibit the
same joy when they crown their heroes or break their
idols.</p>

<p>Such was the end of that great Assembly which passed
away rapidly from the face of affairs at the moment, but
which left its foot-print on the world for generations that
have not yet effaced it.</p>

<p>In this Assembly, M. de Talleyrand was the most
conspicuous figure after Mirabeau, as he was hereafter in
the Empire the most conspicuous personage after Napoleon;
and I have dwelt more on this portion of his career than I
may do upon others, because it is the one least known,
and for which he has been least appreciated.</p>

<p>The reputation, however, which he obtained and justly
earned in those violent and turbulent times, was not of a
violent or turbulent character. A member of the two
famous clubs of the day (Jacobins and Feuillans), he
frequented them occasionally, not to take part in their
debates, but to be acquainted with and influence those
who did. In the National Assembly he had always sided
with the most moderate who could hope for power, and
who did not abjure the Revolution.</p>

<p>Necker, Mounier, Mirabeau, had successively his support
so long as they took an active part in public affairs. In
the same manner he acted, when they disappeared, with
Barnave and the two Lameths; and even with Lafayette,
though he and that personage disliked and despised each
other. No personal feeling altered his course; it was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span>
never marked by personal prejudices, nor can I say that it
was ever illumined by extraordinary eloquence. His
influence arose from his proposing great and reasonable
measures at appropriate times, in singularly clear and
elegant language; and this from the height of a great
social position. He did not pretend to be guided by
sentiment or emotion; neither hatred, nor devotion, nor
apprehension, ever seemed to affect his conduct. He
avowed that he wished for a constitutional monarchy, and
was willing to do all he could to obtain one. But he
never said he would sacrifice himself to this idea if it
proved impossible to make it successful.</p>

<p>Many have attacked his honour because, being a noble
and a churchman, he sided against the two orders he
belonged to; but in reality he rather wished to make
ancient things live amongst new ideas than to sweep
ancient things away. Others have denied his sagacity in
promoting a revolution which drove him from affluence
and power into poverty and exile. But, in spite of what
has been said to the contrary, I by no means believe that
the end of the Revolution of 1789 was the natural consequence
of its commencement. The more we examine the
history of that period, the more we are struck by the
incessant and unaccountable follies of those who wished to
arrest it. There was no want of occasions when the most
ordinary courage and good sense on the part of the King
and his friends would have given the one all the power it
was advisable he should exercise, and preserved the other
in as influential a position as was compatible with the
abolition of intolerable abuses. No man can calculate
with accuracy on all the faults that may be committed by
his opponents. It is probable that M. de Talleyrand did
not calculate on the utter subversion of the society he
undertook to reform; but it appears that at each crisis he
foresaw the dangers that were approaching, and counselled
the measures most likely to prevent their marring his
country’s prospects and his own fortunes.</p>

<p>At the actual moment, he perceived that the new
legislature would be a new world, which could neither
have the same notions, nor belong to the same society, nor<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span>
be subject to the same influences, as the last; and that
the wisest thing to do was to withdraw himself from the
Paris horizon until the clouds that obscured it had, in
some direction or other, passed away.</p>

<p>In England, he was sufficiently near not to be forgotten,
and sufficiently distant not to be compromised. England,
moreover, was the natural field of observation at that
moment for a French statesman. To England, therefore,
he went, accompanied by M. de Biron, and arrived in
London on the 25th of January, 1792.</p>

<hr />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span></p>

<h3><span class="smcap">Part III.</span><br />
<span class="smaller">FROM CLOSE OF NATIONAL ASSEMBLY TO CONSULATE.</span></h3>

<div class="smaller">

<p>M. de Talleyrand in London.&mdash;Manner and appearance.&mdash;Witticisms.&mdash;Visit
to England.&mdash;Lord Grenville refuses to discuss business with him.&mdash;Goes to
Paris; returns with letter from King.&mdash;State of affairs in France prevents
success of any mission in England.&mdash;Arrives in Paris just prior to the 10th of
August.&mdash;Escapes and returns to England, the 16th of September, 1792.&mdash;Writes
to Lord Grenville, declaring he has no mission.&mdash;Sent away the 28th of
January, 1794.&mdash;Goes to America.&mdash;Waits until the death of Robespierre.&mdash;Gets
then permission to return to France.&mdash;Chénier declares that he was
employed by Provisional Government in 1792, when he had told Lord Grenville
he was not.&mdash;Successful reception.&mdash;Description of Directory and of
society at that time.&mdash;Chosen Secretary of Institute, and read two remarkable
memoirs to it.&mdash;Named Minister of Foreign Affairs.&mdash;Sides with Barras and
Executive against the Assemblies.&mdash;Negotiations at Lille broken off.&mdash;Address
to diplomatic agents.&mdash;Peace of Campo Formio.&mdash;Bonaparte goes to Egypt.&mdash;Democrats
triumph in the Directory.&mdash;M. de Talleyrand quits office, and
publishes an answer to accusations made against him.&mdash;Paris tired with the
Directory.&mdash;Bonaparte returns from Egypt.&mdash;Talleyrand unites with Sieyès to
overturn the Government, and place power in Bonaparte’s hands.</p>

</div>

<h4>I.</h4>

<p>When M. de Talleyrand made his first appearance in our
country, many persons in it still continued favourable to
the French Revolution, and viewed with esteem those who
had rather sought to destroy crying abuses than to put
fantastical theories into practice. Thus, although naturally
preceded by the calumnies which were certain to be circulated
about a man who had played so remarkable a part
on so eventful a scene as that which he had just quitted,
the ex-Bishop of Autun was, on the whole, well received
by a large portion of our aristocracy, and became particularly
intimate at Lansdowne House. The father of the
late marquis mentioned to me that he remembered him
dining there frequently, and being particularly silent and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span>
particularly pale. A contemporary, indeed, describes
M. de Talleyrand at this time as aiming to impose on the
world by an air of extreme reserve:&mdash;</p>

<p>“His manner was cold, he spoke little, his countenance,
which in early youth had been distinguished for its grace
and delicacy, had become somewhat puffed and rounded,
and to a certain degree effeminate, being in singular
contrast with a deep and serious voice which no one
expected to accompany such a physiognomy. Rather
avoiding than making advances, neither indiscreet, nor
gay, nor familiar, but sententious, formal, and scrutinizing,&mdash;the
English hardly knew what to make of a Frenchman
who so little represented the national character.</p>

<p>“But this exterior was a mask, which he threw off in
the circles in which he was at his ease, talking in these
freely, taking the greatest pains to please, and being
remarkable for the choice of his expressions and a certain
epigrammatic wit, which had a singular charm for those
who were accustomed to his society. His was the saying
cited by Chamfort, <i lang="fr">à propos</i> of Rulhières,<a name="FNanchor_27" id="FNanchor_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> who&mdash;on
observing that he did not know why he was called ill-natured,
for in all his life he had never done but one
ill-natured action&mdash;was replied to by M. de Talleyrand’s
drily observing, ‘<i lang="fr">Et quand finira-t-elle?</i>’&mdash;‘when will it
end?’</p>

<p>“One evening, playing at long whist, the conversation
turned on an old lady who had married her footman; some
people expressed their surprise, when M. de Talleyrand,
counting his points, drawled out in a slow voice, ‘<em>At nine,
one does not count honours</em>.’</p>

<p>“Another time,” says the person from whom I am
quoting, “we were speaking of the infamy of a colleague,
when I burst out by exclaiming, ‘That man is capable of
assassinating any one!’ ‘<em>Assassinating, no!</em>’ said M. de
Talleyrand, coolly; ‘<em>poisoning, yes!</em>’</p>

<p>“His manner of narrating was full of grace; he was a
model of good taste in conversation. Indolent, voluptuous,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span>
born for wealth and grandeur, he accustomed himself in
exile to a life simple and full of privations, sharing with
his friends the produce of his magnificent library, which he
sold very ill, the spirit of party preventing many from becoming
purchasers.”</p>

<p>This description, from Dumont (pp. 361, 362), is
interesting as a personal sketch at one of the most critical
periods of M. de Talleyrand’s life; that is, at the commencement
of his career as a diplomatist; for the voyage to
England which he was now making, first suggested to
Louis XVI. by M. de Montmorin, and subsequently
realized by the minister who succeeded him, was (though
this could not be officially avowed on account of the self-denying
ordinance of the National Assembly) of an official
character; a fact suspected if not known at the time.
Lord Gower, indeed (our ambassador at Paris), speaks of it
in January as a <em>mission</em> of peace. Lord Grenville, in a
communication to Lord Gower, in February, says M. de
Talleyrand had brought him a letter from M. Delessart,
then Minister of Foreign Affairs, and in March again he
thus writes:<a name="FNanchor_28" id="FNanchor_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a></p>

<p>“I have seen Monsieur de Talleyrand twice since his
arrival on the business of his <em>mission</em> to this country.</p>

<p>“The first time he explained to me very much at large
the disposition of the French government and nation to
enter into the closest connection with Great Britain, and
proposed that this should be done by a mutual guarantee,
or in such other manner as the government of this country
should propose. Having stated this, he earnestly requested
that he might not receive any answer at the time, but that
he might see me again for that purpose. I told him that,
in compliance with his request, I would see him again for
the object he wished, though I thought it fair to apprise
him that, in all probability, my answer would be confined
to the absolute impossibility of entering into any kind of
discussion or negotiation on points of so delicate a nature
with a person having no official authority to treat upon
them. When I did see him again I repeated this to him,
telling him it was the only answer I could give to any<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span>
proposal that he might make to me, although I had no
difficulty in saying to him individually, as I had to every
Frenchman with whom I had conversed on the present
state of France, that it was very far from being the disposition
of H. M. Government to foment or prolong any disturbances
there with a view of any profit to be derived
from them to this country.”</p>

<p>The coyness of Lord Grenville to enter into political
discussions at this moment with M. de Talleyrand might
arise in some degree from the position of the French
ministry, for though M. de Talleyrand had brought a
letter, as has been said, from M. Delessart, who belonged
to the more moderate section of the French ministry, his
intimate friend in it was the Comte de Narbonne; named,
just previous to M. de Talleyrand’s departure, minister of
war, and who, being the youngest and most ardent member
of the government, was all for an immediate war with
Austria, as the only means of saving France from the
internal agitation that was preying on her, and the only
means of definitively separating the King from the French
<i lang="fr">émigrés</i> and the court of Vienna, whose counsels rendered
it impossible to count on his conduct.</p>

<p>M. de Talleyrand shared these ideas. Narbonne’s
colleagues, however, soon began to think the young
soldier’s views, to which they had at one time half
assented, were too adventurous; and M. de Talleyrand’s
position becoming more and more difficult, was, after Lord
Grenville’s conversation in March, untenable. He returned,
therefore, to Paris, and on arriving at its gates, learnt that
M. de Narbonne was out of office.</p>

<p>But the moderate Constitutionalists who thought of
governing without M. de Narbonne had not been employed
till their party had lost its influence, and were unable to
stem the opposition to which the removal of their popular
colleague had given a new impulse. They soon, therefore,
gave way to the celebrated Gironde, a band which, though
rigid in its own principles of conduct, was not indisposed
to profit by the assistance of able men less scrupulous;
and General Dumouriez, a clever and bold adventurer,
became minister of foreign affairs. He had precisely the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span>
same views as Narbonne with respect to a war with
Austria, and thought that it was of the utmost importance
to make sure of the neutrality of England.</p>

<p>M. de Talleyrand had, as we learn from Lord Gower,
the address to speak satisfactorily of the sentiments of the
British Government after returning from his late expedition,
and to attribute whatever was unfriendly in its
language to the irregularity of the character he had
appeared in. He was again chosen, then, as the French
negotiator; and though, as in the former instance, he could
not be named ambassador, everything that the law permitted
was done to give weight to his character;&mdash;Louis
XVI. giving him a letter to George III. expressive of his
confidence in the bearer. In the meantime, M. de
Chauvelin, a gentleman of fashion, professing popular
principles, but who would never have been placed in so
important a post had not M. de Talleyrand been his counsellor,
was named minister plenipotentiary.</p>

<p>M. Dumouriez announces this double appointment to
Lord Grenville on the 21st of April, that is, the day after
the declaration of war with Austria, saying&mdash;</p>

<p>“That M. de Talleyrand, in his recent voyage to London,
had stated to Lord Grenville the desire of the French
government to contract the most intimate relations with
Great Britain. That it was particularly desirable at that
moment, when France was on the eve of a war that she
had not been able to avoid, to assure herself of the friendship
of that government which could most aid in bringing
about a peace; that for this object M. de Chauvelin had
been named minister plenipotentiary, a gentleman chosen
on account of the knowledge which his Majesty had of his
person, sentiments, and talents; and that to him had been
adjoined, in consequence of the extreme importance of the
negotiation, M. de Talleyrand (whose abilities were well
known to Lord Grenville), and M. de Roveray,<a name="FNanchor_29" id="FNanchor_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> formerly
<i lang="fr">procureur-général</i> in Geneva&mdash;a gentleman known in
Switzerland as well as in France; and the King hoped
that the efforts of three persons, understanding the situation<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span>
of France, and enjoying great confidence with the
French people, would not be without result.”</p>

<p>This letter was dated, as we have said, on the 21st April,
but the embassy did not reach its destination till the
month of May: M. de Chauvelin having been at first
displeased with the adjunction of M. de Talleyrand, and
not indisposed to prolong his dissatisfaction, had not the
minister, fatigued with quarrels about trifles at so critical
a moment, terminated them by saying, “M. de Talleyrand
s’amuse, M. de Chauvelin fronde, M. de Roveray marchande:<a name="FNanchor_30" id="FNanchor_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a>
if these gentlemen are not off by to-morrow
night they will be superseded.”</p>

<p>The story (told by Dumont) is worth notice, as showing
the careless indolence which the <i lang="fr">ci-devant</i> bishop often
affected in the affairs which he had most at heart&mdash;an
indolence which he afterwards justified by the well-known
maxim, “Point de zèle, Monsieur!”<a name="FNanchor_31" id="FNanchor_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a></p>

<h4>II.</h4>

<p>It was not for want of zeal, however, that this second
mission, notwithstanding the King’s letter, was even more
unsuccessful than the first; but for another very good
reason: viz., that whatever MM. de Chauvelin or Talleyrand
might say and do in London, the turn which affairs
were taking more and more decidedly at Paris was such
as could not but destroy the credit of any agent of the
French government.</p>

<p>The Legislative Assembly had been especially framed
to place power in the hands of the middle classes, and
was intended to be alike hostile to the nobles and the mob.</p>

<p>But the middle class, the most weighty auxiliary that a
government can have, is rarely found capable of directing
a government. Vergniaud and Roland, who were on this
occasion its organs, lost week by week their prestige; the
rabble, which forced the palace on the 20th of June,
began day by day to be more convinced of its power.
What authority remained to the representative of a sovereign<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span>
whose habitation was not secure and whose person
was insulted?</p>

<p>Amidst such events the Revolution lost in England
most of its early patrons. Fox, Sheridan, and a few of
their particular clique, formed the sole associates of the
French embassy; and Dumont, whom I again quote as a
trustworthy witness, describes a scene at Ranelagh which
testifies the general unpopularity in England of every
Frenchman having an official position.</p>

<p>“At our arrival we perceived a buzzing sound of voices
saying, ‘Here comes the French embassy!’ Regards,
evincing curiosity but not amity, were directed at once
towards our battalion, for we were eight or ten, and we
soon ascertained that we should not want space for our
promenade, every one retreated to the right and left at
our approach, as if they were afraid that there was contagion
in our very atmosphere.”</p>

<p>M. de Talleyrand, seeing that all attempt to negotiate
under such circumstances was vain, returned to Paris just
previous to the 10th August, and was there when the
wavering and unfortunate Louis XVI. lost his crown by a
combination between the Girondins and the Jacobins: the
first wishing to have the appearance of a victory, the latter
aiming at the reality. M. de Talleyrand had been the
object of attack when the united Republicans were mustering
their forces for the combat, and he felt himself by no
means secure after their triumph. The popular movement
had now in truth swept over all the ideas and all the
individuals it had commenced with; its next excesses were
likely to be still more terrible than the last, and the wary
diplomatist thought that the best thing he could do was to
get back to England as soon as possible.</p>

<h4>III.</h4>

<p>He got his passport from Danton, then in the provisional
government, and whom he knew as an early partisan of
the Duc d’Orléans; and he used, when last in London, to
tell a story as to the manner in which he obtained it by a
timely smile at a joke, which the jocular and truculent
tribune had just passed on another petitioner. But I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span>
shall have presently to allude further to this passport.
The bearer of it but just escaped in time.</p>

<p>Among the papers found in the famous iron cupboard,
discovered at the Tuileries, was the following letter from
M. de Laporte, the intendant of the King’s household, to
whom I have already alluded as having communicated the
wishes of the King as to M. de Talleyrand’s first mission,
and dated the 22nd of April, 1791:</p>

<div class="blockquote">

<p class="salutation">“<span class="smcap">Sire</span>,</p>

<p>“J’adresse à Votre Majesté une lettre écrite
avant-hier, et que je n’ai reçue qu’hier après-midi; elle est
de l’évêque d’Autun qui paraît désirer servir Votre Majesté.
Il m’a fait dire qu’elle pouvait faire l’essai de son zèle, et
de son crédit, et lui désigner les points où elle désirait
l’employer.”<a name="FNanchor_32" id="FNanchor_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a></p>

</div>

<p>The original communication, however, here alluded to,
was not discovered: and M. de Talleyrand himself boldly
denied that it had ever been written. It is possible that
he knew it was destroyed (it is said that he purchased it
from Danton), but at all events, various concomitant circumstances
seemed to prove that he had been more in the
interest and confidence of the Court than he could now
safely avow; and the Convention issuing and maintaining
a decree of accusation against him, he was unable to
return to France on the 8th April, 1793, which he ought
to have done in order not to be comprised in the general
list of <i lang="fr">émigrés</i>, and was thus forced to remain in England.</p>

<p>The first thing he had done on arriving there was to
address the following letter to Lord Grenville:&mdash;</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span></p>

<div class="blockquote">

<p class="date">“18th September, Kensington Square.<a name="FNanchor_33" id="FNanchor_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a></p>

<p class="salutation">“<span class="smcap">My Lord</span>,</p>

<p>“I have the honour of informing you that I arrived
in England two days ago. The relations which I
had the advantage of having with you, during my stay in
London, make this a duty to me.</p>

<p>“I should reproach myself for not promptly performing
it, and for not offering my first homage to the minister
whose mind has shown itself on a level with the great
events of the present times, and who has always manifested
views so pure, and a love of liberty so enlightened.</p>

<p>“On my first voyages, the King had intrusted me with
a mission to which I attached the greatest value. I
wished to hasten the moment of the prosperity of France,
and consequently connect her, if possible, with England.</p>

<p>“I hardly, indeed, dared to hope for such a blessing in
our circumstances, but I could not resolve not to make
exertions for attaining it.</p>

<p>“The assurance you vouchsafed to give us of the
neutrality of your government at the epoch of the war,
appeared to me most auspicious.</p>

<p>“Since that moment, everything has cruelly changed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span>
amongst us; and although nothing can ever unrivet my
heart or my wishes from France, and though I live in the
hope of returning thither as soon as the laws shall have
resumed their reign, I must tell you, my Lord, and I am
desirous that you should know, that I have at this time
<em>absolutely no kind of mission in England</em>, that I have
come here solely for the purpose of seeking repose, and the
enjoyment of liberty in the midst of its true friends.</p>

<p>“If, however, my Lord Grenville should wish to know
what France is at this moment, what are the different
parties that disturb her, and what is the new provisional
executive power, and lastly, what is permitted to conjecture
of the terrible and frightful events of which I have almost
been an eye-witness, I shall be happy to give such information,
and to avail myself of the occasion to renew the
expression of the respectful sentiments with which I am,
my Lord, your most humble and obedient servant,</p>

<p class="sig">“<span class="smcap">Talleyrand-Périgord</span>.”</p>

</div>

<p>There is no trace of Lord Grenville’s having taken any
notice of this communication.</p>

<p>Nothing, however, was done for some time to disturb
the fugitive’s residence amongst us.</p>

<p>M. de Chauvelin was sent away by the British government
after the execution of Louis XVI. on the 24th of
January, 1793, and it was not till the 28th of January,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span>
1794 that M. de Talleyrand received an order, under the
powers conferred by the Alien Bill, to quit England. He
wrote a letter, dated 30th, to Lord Grenville, in which he
begs to be allowed to justify himself from any false
accusation, declares that if his thoughts have been often
turned to France, it has only been to deplore its disasters,
repeats that he has no correspondence with the French
government, represents the calamitous condition he should
be reduced to if driven from our shores, and finally
appeals to the British minister’s humanity as well as
justice.</p>

<h4>IV.</h4>

<p class="center">M. DE TALLEYRAND’S DECLARATION.<a name="FNanchor_34" id="FNanchor_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a></p>

<p>“My respect for the King’s Council, and my confidence
in its justice, induce me to lay before it a personal declaration
more detailed than that which, as a stranger, I am
bound to lay before a magistrate.</p>

<p>“I came to London towards the end of January, 1792,
intrusted by the French government with a mission to the
government of England. The object of this mission, at a
moment when all Europe seemed to declare itself against
France, was to induce the government of England not to
renounce the sentiments of friendship and good neighbourhood
of which it had given constant proofs towards France
during the course of the Revolution. The King, especially,
whose most ardent wishes were the preservation of a peace
which seemed to him as useful to Europe in general as to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span>
France particularly, attached great value to the neutrality,
and to the friendship of England, and he had ordered
M. de Montmorin, who retained his confidence, and M. de
Laporte, to acquaint me with his wishes on this subject.
I was, moreover, instructed by the King’s ministers to
make to the government of England proposals referring to
the commercial interests of both nations. The constitution
had not allowed the King, while honouring me with his
commands, to invest me with a public capacity. This
want of an official title was held by my Lord Grenville to
be an obstacle to any political conference. I demanded,
in consequence, my recall, and I returned to France. A
minister plenipotentiary was sent some time after; the
King commanded me to assist in the negotiations, and
informed his Britannic Majesty of this by a private letter.
I remained attached to the duty the King had imposed
upon me until the epoch of the 10th of August, 1792.
At that time I was in Paris, where I had been called by
the minister of foreign affairs. After having been for
more than a month without being able to obtain a passport,
and having remained exposed during all this time, both as
an administrator of the department of Paris, and as a
member of the Constituent Assembly, to all the dangers<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span>
which can threaten life and liberty, I was at length able
to leave the French capital about the middle of September,
and I have reached England to enjoy peace and personal
safety under the shelter of a constitution protecting
liberty and property. There I have been living, as I
always have done, a stranger to all discussions and all
interests of party, and having nothing to fear before just
men from the publicity of any of my political opinions, or
from the knowledge of any of my actions. Besides the
motives of safety and liberty which brought me back to
England, there existed another reason, doubtless a very
legitimate one, which was some personal business, and the
early sale of a rather considerable library which I possessed
in Paris, and which I had brought over to London.</p>

<p>“I must add, that having become in some measure a
stranger to France, where I have maintained no other
relations than those connected with my personal affairs,
and an ancient friendship, I cannot approach my own
country save by those ardent wishes which I form for the
revival of its liberty and of its happiness.</p>

<p>“I thought that in circumstances where ill-will may
avail itself of various prejudices in order to turn them to
the profit of those enmities due to the first periods of our
revolution, it was carrying out the views of the King’s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span>
Council, to offer it a precise exposition of the motives for
my stay in England, and an assured and irrevocable
guarantee of my respect for its constitution and its laws.</p>

<p class="sig">“<span class="smcap">Talleyrand.</span></p>

<p class="date">“January 1, 1793.”</p>

<h4>V.</h4>

<p>Nothing can be more clear and precise than this declaration,
but it was ineffectual, and its writer now sailed for
the United States, carrying with him letters of recommendation
from different members of the Opposition, and,
amongst others, from the Marquis of Lansdowne, with
whose intimacy, as I have said, he had been especially
honoured. Washington replied:</p>

<div class="blockquote">

<p class="date">“30th August, 1794.</p>

<p class="salutation">“<span class="smcap">My Lord</span>,</p>

<p>“I had the pleasure to receive the introduction from
your Lordship delivered to me by M. de Talleyrand-Périgord.
I regret very much that considerations of a
political nature, and which you will easily understand, have
not permitted me as yet to testify all the esteem I entertain
for his personal character and your recommendation.</p>

<p>“I hear that the general reception he has met with is
such as to console him, as far as the state of our society
will permit, for what he abandoned on quitting Europe.
Time will naturally be favourable to him wherever he may
be, and one must believe that it will elevate a man of his
talents and merit above the transitory disadvantages which
result from differences as to politics in revolutionary times.</p>

<p class="sig">“<span class="smcap">Washington.</span>”</p>

</div>

<h4>VI.</h4>

<p>It will be seen from the foregoing communication that
M. de Talleyrand was spoken of with some respect, and
that his reception in the United States had been rather
flattering than otherwise. But the French name generally<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span>
had lost its popularity; for Lafayette was an exile in the
prisons of Olmütz, and the bloodthirsty violence of the
Convention and the intrigues of its agents were in nowise
congenial with American feelings. The moment, however,
was one of considerable excitement; the able men who
had hitherto formed round their venerable president a
united government were splitting up into opposing parties;
the treaty with England was under dispute; and M. de
Talleyrand, intimate with Jefferson, was active, it is said,
in adding to the prevailing agitation, and endeavouring to
thwart the policy of the government which had lately
banished him from its shores. His endeavours, however,
were unsuccessful; and becoming heartily wearied with
his new place of exile, he employed what capital he had
been able to save from his varied career in fitting out a
ship, in which, accompanied by M. de Beaumetz, like
himself a former member of the National Assembly, he
was about to sail for the East Indies.</p>

<p>But during the years that had elapsed since his quitting
Paris, events which had been rushing on with a demoniacal
rapidity through almost every horror and every crime
(each phase in this terrible history being marked by the
murder of one set of assassins and the momentary rule of
another), had arrived at a new crisis.</p>

<p>The Gironde, whom I left trembling and triumphant
on the 10th of August, had been soon after strangled in
the giant grasp of Danton. Danton, too indolent and
self-confident to be a match for his more cool and ambitious
coadjutor, had bent his lofty head beneath the guillotine,
to which he had delivered so many victims; and, finally,
Robespierre himself had just perished by the hands of men
whom fear had rendered bold, and experience brought
in some degree to reason, inasmuch as that they at last
felt the necessity of re-establishing some of those laws by
which alone society can be preserved.</p>

<p>M. de Talleyrand on learning these occurrences determined
on abandoning his commercial enterprises and
striving once more for power and fortune amidst the
shifting scenes of public affairs.</p>

<p>And here, as often, Fortune favoured him; for the
vessel in which he was about to embark, sailing with his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span>
friend, was never afterwards seen or heard of. All his
efforts were now bent on returning to his native country,
where he had many active in his behalf. Amongst the
most influential of these was a remarkable woman, of
whose talents we have but a faint idea from her works,
which&mdash;though bearing witness to an ardent imagination
and a powerful intellect&mdash;hardly give evidence of that
natural and startling eloquence which sparkled in her
conversation. The daughter of Necker, of whom I speak,
just awakening from the horrors of a nightmare that had
absorbed almost every sentiment but fear, was at this
period the centre of a circle, in which figured the most
captivating women and the ablest men, rushing with a
kind of wild joy back to those charms of society which of
late years had been banished from all places, except
perhaps the prisons, wherein alone, during what has been
emphatically called the “Reign of Terror,” any records of
the national gaiety seem to have been preserved.</p>

<p>Amongst the intimates at Madame de Staël’s house
was the surviving Chénier (Joseph-Marie), who on the
18th of Fructidor addressed the Convention, after the
return of M. de Montesquieu had just been allowed, in the
following characteristic terms:</p>

<p>“I have a similar permission to demand for one of the
most distinguished members of the Constituent Assembly&mdash;M.
de Talleyrand-Périgord, the famous Bishop of Autun.
Our different ministers of Paris bear witness to his services.
I have in my hands a <em>memoir of which the duplicate
exists in the papers of Danton</em>; the date of this memoir
is 25th of November, 1792, and it proves that M. de
Talleyrand was actually occupied in the affairs of the
Republic when he was proscribed by it. Thus, persecuted
by Marat and Robespierre, he was also banished by Pitt
from England; but the place of exile that he chose was
the country of Franklin, where, in contemplating the
imposing spectacle of a free people, he might await the
time when France should have judges and not murderers;
a Republic, and not anarchy called laws!”</p>

<p>How are we to reconcile this declaration with M. de
Talleyrand’s solemn protestations to Lord Grenville?</p>

<p>How could M. de Talleyrand have been writing memoirs<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span>
to Danton and yet have come over to England, “solely
for the purpose of seeking repose?”</p>

<p>That the passport to which we have drawn attention
bore out M. Chénier’s affirmation <i lang="fr">allant à Londres par
nos ordres</i>&mdash;“going to London by our orders”&mdash;is certain,
for M. de Talleyrand afterwards confirmed this fact in a
pamphlet which we shall have by-and-by to notice. But
of the memoir we can learn nothing further.</p>

<p>The friends of M. de Talleyrand say that probably it
never existed, or that, if it did, it could only be a paper of
no importance, and not such a one as the English government
would have objected to. They add that the form
given to the passport was the only one Danton could have
ventured to give without danger from the provisional
council; that the English government must have been
acquainted with it; and that M. de Talleyrand merely
availed himself of it, and pretended that it placed him in
the position of a French agent, when this was necessary to
procure his return to France or to defend himself against
the charge of emigration.</p>

<p>I must leave it to his autobiography to clear up whatever
is obscure in this transaction; but at present it seems
to justify the French lady, who, when the conversation
once turned on the agreeable qualities of the Abbé de
Périgord, acknowledged it would be difficult to refuse him
her favours, but that it would be impossible to give him
her confidence.</p>

<h4>VII.</h4>

<p>At all events, Chénier’s pleading was successful. The
permission to return was granted; and, accordingly, M. de
Talleyrand retraversed the Atlantic, and, having been
driven on the English coast by stress of weather, arrived
in the month of July, 1795, at Hamburg, then the place
of refuge for almost all <i lang="fr">émigrés</i>, especially Orleanists, as
well as of Irish malcontents: Madame de Genlis, Madame
de Flahaut, Lord Edward FitzGerald, &amp;c.</p>

<p>The condition of Europe may be briefly described at
this time by saying that the French arms had been
generally successful. Belgium was taken; the expedition
under the Duke of York beaten and repulsed; Holland<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span>
had become an allied and submissive Republic; on most
of the towns of the Rhine floated the tricolour flag; Spain
had sued for and obtained peace; Prussia was neutral.
The expedition to Quiberon had been a complete failure;
and although the French generals, Pichegru and Jourdan,
began to experience some reverses, the Directory was
powerful enough, both abroad and at home, to justify the
support of prudent adherents.</p>

<p>M. de Talleyrand consequently saw no objection to
serving it. But before appearing at Paris, he judged it
well to stay a short time at Berlin, which, being then the
central point of observation, would make his arrival in
France more interesting.</p>

<p>After this brief preparation, he appeared in the French
capital, and found his name one of the most popular in
the drawing-rooms (he never had the popularity of the
streets), in that capricious city. The ladies formerly in
fashion spoke of his wit and address from memory; those
of more recent vogue, from curiosity; the great mass of
the Convention were well disposed to have a “<i lang="fr">grand
seigneur</i>” in their suite; the “<i lang="fr">grands seigneurs</i>” who
still remained in France, to have one of their own body in
power; all the political leaders recognised his ability, and
were anxious to know to what particular section he would
attach himself. Even among the “<i lang="fr">savants</i>” he had a
party; for he had been named, though absent, member of
the Institute, which had recently been formed on the basis
that he had laid down for it. Above all things, he was
well known as a liberal, and undefiled by the bloody orgies
of freedom. Under such circumstances, he again appeared
on the stage of pleasure and affairs.</p>

<h4>VIII.</h4>

<p>The first movement of all parties after the death of
Robespierre had been, as I have said, against the continuance
of the murderous system connected with his
name; but it was difficult to combine into any one
government or policy the various parties that were
triumphant; that is, the violent Democrats, who had
risen against their chief;&mdash;the more moderate Republicans,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span>
who had been rather spectators than actors during the
domination of the Convention;&mdash;and the Constitutionalists
of the National and Legislative Assemblies. The reaction
once begun, extended by degrees, until it provoked conflicts
between extremes; and it was only after a series of
struggles, now against the Jacobins and now against the
disguised Royalists, that a sort of middle party formed the
Constitution of year III., which was founded on the
principle of universal tolerance; assuring, however, to the
Conventionalists a supremacy, by exacting that two-thirds
of the new assemblies should be chosen from amongst
them. These new assemblies were of two kinds, both
elected: the one called “the ancients,” a sort of senate,
which had the power of refusing laws; the second, the
Five Hundred, which had the power of initiating laws.
The executive was entrusted to a Directory, which, in
order to guard against a despot, consisted of five members:
Carnot, with whose republican severity M. de Talleyrand
had little sympathy; Laréveillère-Lepaux, whose religious
reveries he had turned into ridicule by christening the
“Théophilantropes” (a sect of deists whom Laréveillère
patronised) <i lang="fr">Les filoux en troupe</i>; Letourneur, an engineer
officer, who had little or no influence; Rewbell, a lawyer,
and a man of character and ability, not ill-disposed to
him; and Barras.</p>

<p>This last man, at the time I am speaking of the most
powerful member of the Directory, was the sort of person
who frequently rises to a greater height in civil commotions
than any apparent merit seems to warrant. Clever, without
great ability; intriguing, without great address; bold
and resolute on any critical occasions, but incapable of any
sustained energy; of gentle birth, though not of any
great historical family,&mdash;he had acquired his influence by
two or three acts of courage and decision; and was forgiven
the crime of being a noble, in consideration of the virtue
of being a regicide. Having been chosen by his colleagues,
as the man best acquainted with and accustomed to the
world, to represent the government with society,&mdash;he
sustained this position by easy manners and a sort of court
with which he contrived to surround himself; a court<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span>
containing all the fragments of the old society that were
yet to be found mingled with affairs.</p>

<p>In the south of Europe, and in the East, many such
adventurers have risen to great fortunes and retained
them. In the north, and (strange to say) especially
among the changing and brilliant people of France, more
solid qualities, and a more stern and equable character,
seem essentially necessary for command. Richelieu,
Mazarin, Louis XI., Louis XIV., even Robespierre, differing
in everything else, were all remarkable for a kind of
resolute, every-day energy, for a spirit of order and system
which the voluptuary of the Luxembourg wanted. His
drawing-room, however, was a theatre where the accomplished
gentleman of former times was still able to shine,
and his prejudices, though he affected democratic principles
in order to shield himself from the charge of being born
an aristocrat, were all in favour of the ex-noble. To
Barras, therefore, M. de Talleyrand attached himself.</p>

<h4>IX.</h4>

<p>The society of Paris was never more “<i lang="fr">piquante</i>,” if I
may borrow an expression from the language of the
country of which I am speaking, than at this moment.
Nobody was rich. Pomp and ceremony were banished;
few private houses were open: a great desire for amusement
existed; there were no pretensions to rank, for who
would have ventured to boast of his birth? There was
no drawing into sets or <i lang="fr">cliques</i>, for such would still have
been considered as conspiracies. People lived together in
public fêtes, in public gardens, at theatres, at subscription-balls,
like those of Marbeuf, where the grocer’s wife and
the monseigneur’s danced in the same quadrille; each
being simply qualified by the title of “<i lang="fr">citoyenne</i>.” The
only real distinction was that of manners. An active,
artful, popular man of the world, amidst such a confused
assemblage of all orders, bent on being amused, had full
play for his social and political qualities. But this was
not all; with the taste for gaiety had also returned the
taste for letters. Here, again, M. de Talleyrand found
means to excite attention. I have said that, during his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span>
absence from France he had been elected a member of the
National Institute, which owed its origin, as I have
noticed, to the propositions he had laid before the National
Assembly just previous to its dissolution. He had also
been chosen its secretary; and it was in this capacity that
he now addressed to the moral and scientific class, to
which he belonged, two memoirs: the one on the commercial
relations between England and the United States,
and the other on colonies generally. There are few
writings of this kind that contain so many just ideas in so
small a compass. In the first, the author gives a general
description of the state of American society, the calm
character, the various and peculiar habits, the Saxon laws,
and religious feelings of that rising community. He then
shows, what was at that time little understood, that the
mother country had gained more than she had lost by the
separation; and that the wants of Americans connected
them with English interests, while their language, education,
history, and laws, gave them feelings, which, if
properly cultivated, would be&mdash;English.</p>

<p>The memoir on colonisation, however, is even superior
to the preceding one; it is in this memoir on colonisation
that M. de Talleyrand points out&mdash;for he even then perceived
what has since been gradually taking place&mdash;the
impossibility of long continuing slave labour or of maintaining
those colonies which required it. He foresaw that
such colonies existed in the face of sentiments which must,
whether rightly or wrongly, in a few years sweep them
away. He looked out for other settlements to supply
their place; and Egypt and the African coast are the spots
to which, with a singular prescience, he directed the attention
of his country; whose inhabitants he describes, from
their sense of fatigue, from their desire of excitement, and
in many instances, from their disappointment and discontent,
to be peculiarly in want of new regions of rest, of
enterprise, and of change.</p>

<p>“The art of putting the right men in the right places”
(the phrase is not, I may observe <i lang="fr">en passant</i>, of to-day’s
invention), he observes profoundly, “is perhaps the first
in the science of government; but,” he adds, “the art of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span>
finding a satisfactory position for the discontented is the
most difficult.</p>

<p>“To present distant scenes to their imaginations, views
agreeable to their thoughts and desires, is,” he says, “I
think, one of the solutions of this social problem.”<a name="FNanchor_35" id="FNanchor_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a></p>

<p>In three weeks after the reading of this memoir, M. de
Talleyrand accepted the office of minister of foreign affairs.</p>

<h4>X.</h4>

<p>The immediate cause of his being named to replace
Charles Delacroix in this post, used to be thus related by
himself:&mdash;“I had gone to dine at a friend’s on the banks
of the Seine, with Madame de Staël, Barras, and a small
party which frequently met. A young friend of Barras,
who was with us, went out to bathe before dinner, and
was drowned. The director, tenderly attached to him,
was in the greatest affliction. I consoled him (I was used
to that sort of thing in early life), and accompanied him
in his carriage back to Paris. The ministry of foreign
affairs immediately after this became vacant; Barras
knew I wanted it, and through his interest I procured it.”</p>

<p>But this was not the sole cause of his selection. The
state of affairs was at this time critical; the reaction,
produced by the horrors of the democrats, became stronger
and stronger under a government of indulgence.</p>

<p>In proportion as the ordinary relations of society recommenced,
the feeling against those who had disturbed and
for a time destroyed them, became more and more bitter.
At last the hatred of the Robespierreans verged towards
an inclination for the Royalists; and Pichegru, the
president of the Assembly of the Five Hundred, and a
general at that time in great repute, was already in correspondence
with Louis XVIII.</p>

<p>The Directory itself was divided. Carnot, an impracticable
man of genius and a violent Republican, sided with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span>
the opposition from personal dislike to his colleagues and
from a belief that any new convulsion would end by the
triumph of his own principles. He carried with him
Barthélemy, the successor to Letourneur, who had lost his
place in the Directory by the ballot, which was periodically
to eliminate it. Rewbell and Laréveillère-Lepaux ranged
themselves with Barras, who, satisfied with his position,
and having to keep it against the two extreme parties, was
glad to get into the ministry, as attached to him, a man of
well-known ability and resolution.</p>

<p>Besides, the negotiation with Great Britain at Lille,
which not unnaturally followed the defeat of all her continental
allies, suggested the appointment of a more distinguished
diplomatist than M. Delacroix, who presided
at that time over the department to which M. de Talleyrand
was appointed.</p>

<p>The new minister soon justified the choice that had been
made of him. His eye took in at once the situation in
which Barras found himself,&mdash;a situation that singularly
resembled one in our own times. The majority of the
executive was on one side, and the majority of the legislative
bodies on the other.</p>

<p>The question was agitated by the Assembly as to
whether it should not take the first step, and, without
regard for the constitution, obtain possession by any means
of the executive power. General Pichegru hesitated, as
did General Changarnier after him.</p>

<p>Talleyrand advised Barras not to hesitate. He did not;
and, taking the command of the troops in virtue of his
office, seized the chief men amongst his opponents, to
whatever party they belonged. Carnot, Barthélemy, and
Pichegru were amongst the number, and, though Carnot
escaped by flight, M. de Talleyrand equally got rid of an
enemy, and the ardent Republicans lost a leader.</p>

<h4>XI.</h4>

<p>The worst effect of this <i lang="fr">coup-d’état</i> was the interruption
of the negotiations at Lille, and of the arrangements which
Monsieur Maret was on the point of concluding, which
Talleyrand had himself favoured, but which were impossible<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span>
to a government that had now to seek popularity as
a protection to usurpation.</p>

<p>The idea of peace with England being thus abandoned,
M. de Talleyrand addressed a circular to his agents, which,
considering the time at which it was written and the
position which its writer held at that moment, is a model
of tact and ability.</p>

<p>He describes England as the sole enemy of France.
He dates her power and prestige from the times of
Cromwell and the spirit and energy which liberty inspires.
He bases the power and prestige which France ought then
to hold on that same liberty, and invokes the victories
which she had just gained. He describes in a way that
suited his purpose the manner in which Great Britain had
acquired her influence, and accuses her of having abused it.</p>

<p>He shows to his agents the immense importance of an
intelligent diplomacy. He warns them against shocking
the habits and ideas of the nations to which they are sent;
he tells them to be active without being agitators. He
instils into them the conviction of the greatness of France
and the necessity of making that greatness acknowledged
and sympathised with.</p>

<p>He counsels them to avoid little tricks, and to evince
that confidence in the strength and continuance of the
Republic, which would inspire such confidence in others.</p>

<p>He points out how all the misfortunes and changes in
the government of France had been brought about by the
feeble and apathetic position which she had held abroad
during the reign of the later princes of the House of
Bourbon; and, finally, he assures them of his support, and
adds that he appreciates highly the services which their
talents may render to their country.</p>

<p>It is in this manner that great ministers form able agents.</p>

<p>In the meantime the treaty of Campo Formio had
established peace in Italy and Germany on conditions
advantageous to France, though, by the cession of Venice
to Austria, she abdicated the cause for which she had
hitherto pretended to fight.</p>

<p>Bonaparte, to whom this peace was due, now visited
Paris, and saw much of M. de Talleyrand, who courted<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span>
him with assiduity, as if foreseeing his approaching
destiny. But the time for a closer alliance was not yet
arrived: Napoleon, indeed, was not himself prepared for
the serious meditation of the design which he subsequently
executed. Vague ideas of conquest and greatness floated
before his eyes, and the gigantic empires that courage and
genius have frequently founded in the East, were probably
more familiar with his thoughts than any tyranny to be
established in his own country (May, 1798). He set out
for Egypt, then, where he thought of realising his splendid
dreams, and where the Directory, following a traditional
policy not yet abandoned, thought of striking a desperate
blow against the ancient enemy and rival with whom alone
she had now to maintain a conflict. With him seemed to
depart the fortunes of his country. A new European
coalition broke out with the murder of the French plenipotentiaries
at Rastadt, and divisions of all kinds manifested
themselves in France. The victories of the allies on the
Upper Rhine and in Italy increased these divisions, and
added to the strength of the democratic party, to which the
overthrow of Pichegru and his associates had already&mdash;contrary
to the intention of Barras, who, as I have said,
had wished to maintain a middle course&mdash;given an
increased influence. The loss of Rewbell, whose energy
the Democrats dreaded, and whose seat in the Directory
became legitimately vacant, gave strength to their desires,
the more especially as Sieyès, who replaced Rewbell,
entered the executive with his usual mania of propounding
some new constitution.</p>

<p>M. de Talleyrand, attacked as a noble and an <i lang="fr">émigré</i>,
resigned his department, and published a defence of his
conduct, which is remarkable, and of which I venture to
give, in an abbreviated and free translation, some of the
most salient points:&mdash;</p>

<p>“… I am accused of creating the league of kings against
our Republic! I! If I have been known for one thing
more than another, it has been for my constant desire
for an honourable peace; the great result that will alone
give solidity to our institutions! So it is I, then, who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span>
seek to augment our enemies, exasperate our friends, break
our treaties, indispose neutrals, and menace other states
with principles they do not wish to accept&mdash;and who
make this accusation? They who are always stirring
up discord, invoking the horrors of war; they, whose aim
it is to produce revolutions throughout the world, who
address to every power by turn the most injurious, absurd,
and impolitic reproaches; who employ the press to circulate
the assertion that monarchies and republics are
natural enemies; and who left to me the task of calming
the governments whom they kept in a state of constant
disquietude and alarm.</p>

<p class="center">…</p>

<p>“It is true that Austria, after the treaty of Campo
Formio, though that treaty was favourable to her, began
new combinations and alliances against us&mdash;and that
England and Russia engaged her in their designs. If
I had been ignorant of their intrigues or hostile preparations,
if I had not informed the government of them,
then, indeed, I might justly be accused. But, not only
do I defy any one to show that I ever neglected my duty
for a single day, it so happens that five months before
the entry of the Russians into Italy, <em>I procured a copy of
the combined plans of Russia and Austria</em>, and delivered
them to General Joubert, who has frequently declared that
they were of the utmost utility in his operations.</p>

<p class="center">…</p>

<p>“But I am a Constitutionalist of 1791 (a title I glory
in), and, consequently, I offer no guarantee to the Republic.</p>

<p>“If it were not true that a patriot of 1789, who has
not hesitated to take his oath to the Republic, and frequently
repeated it, has no favour to expect from a French
government that is not republican;&mdash;it is certain either
that the Republic will establish itself, or that it will
perish in a general confusion, or that it will be again
submitted to a royalty furious and revengeful. From
the Confusionists and the Royalists it appears to me that
I have little to expect. Is this no guarantee?</p>

<p>“But&mdash;I am an <i lang="fr">émigré</i>! an <i lang="fr">émigré</i>! When the first
republican authority&mdash;the National Convention&mdash;declared<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span>
with unanimity, at the period of its greatest independence
and its greatest force, that my name should be effaced from
the list of <i lang="fr">émigrés</i>, I was sent to London on the 7th of
September, 1792, by the executive government. My
passport, delivered to me by the provisional council, is
signed by its six members, Lebrun, Servan, Danton,
Clavière, Roland, Monge. It was in these terms:</p>

<p>“‘Laissez passer Ch. Maurice Talleyrand, allant à
Londres <i lang="fr">par nos ordres</i>.’</p>

<p>[M. de Talleyrand here repeats what was said by
Chénier.]</p>

<p>“Thus I was authorised to quit France, and to remain
out of it until the orders I received were revoked, which
they never were. But not wishing to prolong my
absence, I asked, the instant that the Convention recovered
the liberty which had been for a time suppressed,
to return to my native land, or to be judged if I had
committed any offence that merited exile. My request
was granted. I left France then by orders which I received
from the confidence of the French government. I
re-entered it directly it was possible for me to do so with
the consent of the French government. What trace is
there here of emigration?</p>

<p class="center">…</p>

<p>“Well, then, it was I ‘who made Malmesbury, who
had been sent about his business by Charles Delacroix,
return&mdash;not, it is true, to Paris, but&mdash;to Lille, the centre
of our military Boulevards.’</p>

<p>“What is the truth? On the 13th Prairial, year V.,
Lord Grenville proposed to enter into negotiation; on the
16th the proposal was accepted; on the 25th Charles
Delacroix sent passports to England, and fixed on Lille as
the place of negotiation.</p>

<p>“On the 29th Lord Grenville accepts Lille as the place
of negotiation, and announces the choice of Lord Malmesbury
as the English negotiator. On the 2nd Messidor,
the Directory sanctions this arrangement. On the 28th
the conferences commence at Lille, and it was not till the
28th I was named minister.</p>

<p class="center">…</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span></p>

<p>“I am attacked for all the acts of the ex-Directors.
My accusers know that, if my opinion differed from theirs,
I should not have charged them with errors when they
were in place, and still less should I do so now, when
they are stripped of power, and that all I desire to remember
is their kindness and confidence.</p>

<p>“It is for this reason that in my report to the legislative
body I only glanced rapidly over the fact that all
that was to be decided relative to Italy and Switzerland,
during my ministry, was decided without my knowledge
and concurrence. I could have added that, to the changes
operated in the Cisalpine Republic, I was entirely a
stranger; that, when the citizen Rivaud was sent to that
Republic as ambassador, I was asked for letters of
credence in blank, and that I only learnt of his mission
after it had been in activity. But my enemies do not
pause here.</p>

<p>“Ignorance and hatred seem to dispute as to which
should accumulate the most falsehoods and absurdities
against my reputation.</p>

<p>“I am reproached for not having invaded Hanover:
but if I had advocated carrying the war into that country
in spite of the neutral line which protects it, how much
more just and more violent would have been the attacks
on me for having violated that neutrality, and thereby
roused Prussia against us!</p>

<p>“Then it is said I should have assailed Portugal!
And if I had done so and been opposed by Spain, and thus
lost an alliance so useful to us, what reproaches should I
not have encountered!</p>

<p>“But I did not sufficiently encourage letters of marque
against England. Five hundred and forty-five privateers
fell into the hands of the English, from the commencement
of the war till the year VI. of the Republic. The number
of prisoners in England amounts to thirty-five thousand;
these cost fifteen millions to support on an enemy’s
territory, and it is principally owing to letters of marque
that we owe this result.</p>

<p>“I will say no more; but surely I have said enough to
inspire the most discouraging reflections as to that moral<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span>
disorganization&mdash;as to that aberration of mind&mdash;as to that
overthrow of all reasonable ideas&mdash;as to that want of good
faith, of the love of truth, of justice, of esteem for oneself
and others&mdash;which are the distinguishing characteristics of
those publications which it is difficult to leave unanswered,
and humiliating to reply to.”<a name="FNanchor_36" id="FNanchor_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a></p>

<p>We find, from the above, that the ex-minister did not
scruple to make his defence an attack, and to treat with
sarcasm and disdain the party by which he had been
ejected; but at the same time that he denounces the follies
of the over-zealous Republicans, he declares himself unequivocally
for a republic: and justifying what he had
done, ridiculing what he had been condemned for not doing,
he throws with some address the blame of much that had
been done against his opinion on those Directors still in
power.</p>

<p>What he says as to the negotiations at Lille shows
sufficiently the difficulties, after the 18th of Fructidor,
of any peace with England; and a passage that I have
quoted, and to which I had previously alluded, bears
out what had been said by Chénier as to the famous passport.</p>

<p>In these “Eclaircissements,” however, the ex-minister
aimed more at putting himself in a good position for future
events, than at referring to past ones.</p>

<p>He would hardly, indeed, have fixed his signature
to so bold a publication if his enemies had been firm in
their places: but already the Directory was tottering to its
fall.</p>

<h4>XII.</h4>

<p>The great evil of any constitution, formed for a particular
time and not the result of continual adaptation to
the wants of various epochs, is that it is altogether of one
character and is almost immediately out of date. The constitution
of the Directory, framed after a period of great
popular violence and individual despotism, was framed upon
the principle of so nicely checking every action in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span>
State, that there should be no honest means for any individual
gaining great power or distinction. But when the
influence of individuals in a government is over-zealously
kept down, the influence of government collapses, and
becomes unequal to restrain the agitation of a society more
ardent and ambitious than itself.</p>

<p>Thus, during four years, the Constitution of the year
III. was preserved in name by a series of actual infringements
of it. Now, the Directory checked the councils
by transporting the opposition; now, the opposition put
down the Directory by compelling an unpopular director to
resign his office; and now again, the absence of all laws
against the license of the press was compensated for by
declaring hostile journalists enemies of the State, and
punishing a clever article as an insurrection.</p>

<p>Nor was this all: where civil ability can create no great
career a civilian can excite no great enthusiasm. The
persons in civil employment had their prestige limited by
the same contrivances that limited their power; the nation
was fatigued with talkers, for talking had no result: a
general alone could strike its imagination, for a general
alone was in the situation to do anything remarkable.
Each party saw this. The patriots or democrats, represented
in the Directory by Laréveillère and Gohier (who had
become a Director instead of Treillard); Barras, of no
particular opinion, who might be said to represent those
generally who were intriguing for place; and Sieyès, the
most capable of the executive, at the head of a moderate
section, still for maintaining the Republic and establishing
order, though under some new form. Sieyès had with him
a majority in the Council of Ancients, a powerful minority
in the Council of the Five Hundred, and some of the
most eminent and capable men in France, amongst whom
was M. de Talleyrand.</p>

<p>He sought then a General like the rest, but the choice
was not so easy to make. Hoche was no more; Joubert
had just perished; Moreau was irresolute; Massena,
though crowned by the victory of Zurich, too much of the
mere soldier; Augereau, a Jacobin; Bernadotte, unreliable.
At this moment (on the 9th October, 1799), Bonaparte<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span>
landed from Egypt. He broke the quarantine laws, he
had deserted his army, but the country felt that he was
wanted; and through his progress to Paris, as well as on
his arrival there, he was hailed by acclamations.</p>

<p>His object at this time, if he had any distinct one, was
the Directory, for which, however, he wanted a dispensation
as to age. But he found that the majority of the
Directory would not hear of this dispensation. Something
else was to be tried, and that something else could only be
combined with Barras or Sieyès. Now Barras, Bonaparte
hated: for Barras had been his protector, without having
been his friend. In regard to Sieyès, M. Thiers has said,
not untruly, that two superior Frenchmen, until they have
had the opportunity of flattering one another, are natural
enemies. Moreover, Bonaparte and Sieyès had met at
Gohier’s without exchanging a syllable, and had separated,
disliking each other more than ever. M. de Talleyrand
undertook to reconcile these two men, whose rivalry had to
be conquered by their interests,&mdash;and he succeeded. But,
with Sieyès, a total subversion of the existing state of
things was a matter of course, because the only ambition
he ever fostered was that of inventing institutions, which
he did with a rare intelligence as to the combination of
ideas, forgetting that societies have something in them
besides ideas.</p>

<p>A revolution therefore was decided upon; it was to be
brought about by the Ancients, of whom Sieyès was sure,
and who were to declare that the chambers were in danger
at Paris, and should be assembled at St. Cloud; the safety
of these assemblies was then to be confided to the guardianship
of Bonaparte; and the dissolution of the Directory by
the resignation of a majority of its members was to follow.
After this, it was supposed that the majority of the Five
Hundred, overawed by a large military force, opposed by
the other branch of the Legislature, and having no government
to support it, would, in some way or other, be overcome.
The first two measures accordingly were taken on
the 18th Brumaire, but the third remained. Sieyès and
Ducos, who acted together and who resigned, were balanced
by Gohier and Moulins, who would not give in their resignation;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span>
while Barras had the casting vote; and it was
M. de Talleyrand again, who, in conjunction with Admiral
Bruix, was charged with the task of coaxing this
<em>once</em> important man into accepting insignificance and
retreat. In this task he succeeded, and the vanquished
director, conquered as much, perhaps, by his own indolence,
as by his politic friend’s arguments, stepped out of the
bath, reposing in which his two visitors had found him,
into the carriage which bore him from the Luxembourg,
and thus the Directory being no longer in existence, a
charge of grenadiers in the Orangery of St. Cloud settled
the affair on the day following.</p>

<h4>XIII.</h4>

<p>In glancing over the narrative of these events, we shall
see that, if a similar result could have been otherwise
arrived at (which is doubtful), it certainly could not have
been arrived at in the same peaceful and easy way, but
for the assistance of M. de Talleyrand. The legal part of
the recent change was effected by Sieyès, whom he had
united with Bonaparte; and accomplished through Barras,
whose abdication he also procured. The time for rewarding
these services was come, and when Napoleon became
first consul, M. de Talleyrand was made minister of foreign
affairs.</p>

<p>In following him through the period which intervened
between the 10th of August, 1792, and the 18th Brumaire,
we find him a fugitive to England under doubtful auspices,
an exile in America dabbling in politics, projecting commercial
adventures, and, above all, waiting on events
which proved fortunate to him.</p>

<p>Having quitted France as the partisan of a constitutional
monarchy, he returns to it when the feverish passions and
opinions which had so long convulsed it were settled down
under a republic&mdash;too strong to be overturned by Royalists&mdash;too
weak to promise a long existence.</p>

<p>He takes office under the government which he finds,
a government that, compared with its immediate predecessors,
offered in a remarkable manner the security of
property and life.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span></p>

<p>He sides, amidst the conflicts which still continue, with
those who are for a middle course, between bringing back
the Bourbons with all their prejudices, or re-establishing
the Robespierreans with all their horrors. In these political
struggles he exhibits moderation and resolution: in
the department which he fills, he shows tact and capacity.
His two memoirs, read before the Institute, are remarkable
for the elegance of their style and the comprehensiveness
of their views.<a name="FNanchor_37" id="FNanchor_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a> Defending himself against the two parties
who assailed him&mdash;the one for being too much, the other
for being too little, of a republican&mdash;he uses language
which is at once bold, dignified, and moderate, and the
only question that can arise is as to whether it was
sincere.</p>

<p>Finally, he throws a government&mdash;which is at once
feeble, profligate, divided, and conscious of its own incapacity,&mdash;into
the hands of a man of great genius, by
whom he expected to be rewarded, and who, upon the
whole, seemed the one most capable of steadying the
course, promoting the prosperity, and elevating the destiny
of his country.</p>

<hr />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span></p>

<h3><span class="smcap">Part IV.</span><br />
<span class="smaller">FIRST CONSULATE.</span></h3>

<div class="smaller">

<p>Talleyrand supports the extension of the First Consul’s power, based on a
principle of toleration and oblivion of the past.&mdash;Napoleon attempts peace with
England; fails.&mdash;Battle of Marengo.&mdash;Treaty of Lunéville and peace of Amiens.&mdash;Society
at Paris during the peace.&mdash;Rupture.&mdash;M. de Talleyrand supports
Consulate for life, Legion of Honour, and Concordat.&mdash;Gets permission from the
Pope to wear the secular costume and to administer civil affairs.&mdash;Marries.&mdash;Execution
of Duc d’Enghien.&mdash;New coalition.&mdash;Battle of Austerlitz.&mdash;Treaty
of Presburg.&mdash;Fox comes into power; attempts a peace unsuccessfully.&mdash;Prussia
declares against France, and is vanquished at Jena.&mdash;Peace of Tilsit.&mdash;M.
de Talleyrand resigns Ministry of Foreign Affairs.&mdash;Differences about policy
in Spain.&mdash;Talleyrand and Fouché now at the head of a quiet opposition.&mdash;Russian
campaign; idea of employing M. de Talleyrand.&mdash;Napoleon’s defeats
commence.&mdash;Offers M. de Talleyrand the Ministry of Foreign Affairs after the
battle of Leipsic, but on unacceptable conditions.&mdash;In the continued series of
disasters that ensue, Talleyrand always advises peace.&mdash;Tries to persuade Marie-Louise
not to quit Paris.&mdash;Doubtful then between a regency with her and the
Bourbons.&mdash;When, however, her departure suspends the constituted authority,
and the Emperor of Russia takes up his residence at the Hôtel Talleyrand, and
asks M. de Talleyrand what government should be established, he says that of
the Bourbons.&mdash;Efforts to obtain a Constitution with the Restoration.&mdash;Napoleon
arrives at Fontainebleau.&mdash;Negotiates, but finally abandons the
French throne, and accepts the island of Elba, under the title of Emperor, as a
retreat.</p>

</div>

<h4>I.</h4>

<p>One of M. de Talleyrand’s striking phrases (a phrase I
have already quoted) was that the great Revolution “<i lang="fr">avait
désossé la France</i>”&mdash;“had disboned France!” There
had ceased, in fact, to be any great principles in that
country, holding affairs together, and keeping them in
form and order. He said, then, “What principles cannot
do, a man must. When society cannot create a government,
a government must create society.” It was with
this idea that he was willing to centre in Napoleon all the
power which that wonderful man’s commanding genius<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span>
required. But he wanted, in return, two things: one,
that he should himself profit by the power he aided in
establishing; the other, that that power should be exercised,
on the whole, for the benefit of the French nation. Relying,
for the moment, on the fulfilment of these conditions,
he delivered himself up to a dictatorship which should
quietly and gradually absorb all the used-up opinions and
institutions.</p>

<p>Sieyès, who, with a more profound, had a less sagacious
intellect, imagined that after he, a man of letters, had
handed over the State to a daring, unscrupulous man of
the world, he could govern that man. But M. de Talleyrand
rather despised and underrated Sieyès, whom he
looked on as a tailor who was always making coats that
never fitted&mdash;a skilful combiner of theories, but without
any tact as to their application; and when some one,
<i lang="fr">à propos</i> of the new constitution, which Sieyès had undertaken
to frame, said, “Après tout ce Sieyès a un esprit
<em>bien profond</em>,” he replied, “Profond! Hem! Vous
voulez dire peut-être <em>creux</em>.”<a name="FNanchor_38" id="FNanchor_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a></p>

<p>Bonaparte’s conduct justified this witticism; for when
the first project of the constitution alluded to was presented
to him, he treated it with ridicule, in the well-known
phrase: “A man must have little honour or intellect who
would consent to be a pig, put up in a stye to fatten on
so many millions a year.”</p>

<p>The hero of the 18th Brumaire was not, in truth, a
man who would accept the robes without the reality of
power; and having taken out of the plan proposed for his
acceptance what suited his views, and discarded the rest,
he endowed himself with as much authority as he thought
would be tolerated; for though France was wearied with
perpetual changes and convulsions, she was not at that
time prepared to end them by a new sovereignty.</p>

<p>One of the causes, indeed, which facilitated Napoleon’s
early steps towards the great object of his ambition, was
the general incredulity as to the possibility of his attaining
it.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span></p>

<p>M. de Talleyrand himself did not, in all probability,
imagine that he was making a military empire, when he
was aiming at concentrating authority in the hands of the
chief of the Republic; but he thought that the first care
was to steady a community which had so long lost its
balance; and on one occasion, shortly after the formation
of the new government, and when the part which the first
consul was to play was not yet altogether decided, he is
said by a contemporary<a name="FNanchor_39" id="FNanchor_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a> to have held, at a private interview
with the first consul, the following language:<a name="FNanchor_40" id="FNanchor_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a>&mdash;</p>

<p>“Citizen consul, you have entrusted to me the ministry
of foreign affairs, and I will justify your confidence; but I
think I must declare to you that henceforth I will communicate
with you alone. This is no vain presumption
on my part. I say that, in the interest of France&mdash;in
order that it may be well governed&mdash;in order that there
may be unity of action in its conduct&mdash;you must be the
first consul; and the first consul must have in his hands
all the political part of the government; <i lang="la">i.e.</i>, the ministry
of the interior and of the police, for internal affairs; and
my ministry for foreign; and also the two great ministries
of execution, the war and the marine. It would be proper
that these five departments should communicate with you
alone. The administrations of justice and finance are, no<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span>
doubt, connected with the policy of the State by many
ties, but these ties are less inseparable from that policy
than the departments I have mentioned. If you will
allow me to say so, then, general, I would add that it
would be convenient to give to the second consul, a very
clever jurisconsult, the department of justice; and to the
third consul, also very able as a financier, the direction of
the finances. These matters will occupy and amuse them.
And you, general, having at your disposal all the mainsprings
of government, will be able to give it that fitting
direction for arriving at the noble aim which you have in
view&mdash;the regeneration of France.”</p>

<h4>II.</h4>

<p>The minister of foreign affairs, in advising a willing
listener thus to take possession of all important affairs,
merely echoed, it must be allowed, a general sentiment;
for all the different parties then in presence saw the new
dictator through glasses coloured by their own particular
illusions. The Royalists imagined that General Bonaparte
would turn out a General Monk; the moderate
Republicans, a General Washington! M. de Talleyrand
knew that Bonaparte was neither a Monk nor a Washington;
and that he would neither hand over the power he
had acquired to the exiled dynasty, nor lay it down at the
feet of the French people. He was aware, on the contrary,
that he would keep it as long as he could keep it;
and he wished him to keep it with a system which should<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span>
have at its head the men of the Revolution, without excluding
men of the ancient <i lang="fr">régime</i> who would accept the principles
that the Revolution had founded. This was precisely,
at that moment, the view of Napoleon himself; and the
appointment of Fouché, a regicide, as minister of police,
and the permission for the Royalist <i lang="fr">émigrés</i> and the proscribed
priests to return to France, gave the exact expression
of the policy that was thenceforth to be pursued.</p>

<p>But none knew better than the first consul that it was
necessary, having gained power by war, to show that he
wished to consolidate it by peace. He addressed, therefore,
his famous letter to George III.,<a name="FNanchor_41" id="FNanchor_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a> on the effect of
which he counted little, and his minister of foreign
affairs less. But it was always something in the eyes of
his nation to have evinced his own inclination for an
interval of repose, and to have placed himself on a level
with kings when he spoke to them as the popular chief of
the French people.</p>

<p>The refusal of England to treat was the signal of a new
coalition, and the renewal of a general war; at the commencement
of which Bonaparte, by a stroke of genius,
defeated the Austrians in Italy when they were marching
as they conceived without opposition into France.</p>

<p>But although the hopes of the cabinet of Vienna were
struck down at the battle of Marengo, it did not yet submit
to despair, even when the Emperor Paul, flattered by
the attentions of the first consul (who had returned him
his prisoners newly clothed), had withdrawn from the
coalition. The policy of France, under these circumstances,
was to create divisions amongst the remaining
allies (Austria and England) by opening negotiations with
each. This was tried by M. de Talleyrand with the
cabinet of Vienna, through the means of the Comte St.
Julien, who (sent to settle some particulars relative to the
convention which took place after the Italian war) actually
signed a treaty which his government disowned; and with
that of St. James, through the means of an agent employed
in the exchange of prisoners, but whose attempts
as a negotiator also failed. The success of Moreau, in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span>
Germany, however, at last obtained the treaty of Lunéville;
and shortly afterwards M. Otto concluded in London
the preliminaries of a similar treaty, which was received
with equal joy by the French and English nations.</p>

<p>The skill with which these affairs were conducted was
generally acknowledged; but M. de Talleyrand had nevertheless
to undergo the mortification of seeing Joseph
Bonaparte named the negotiator with Lord Cornwallis
instead of himself. He accepted, however, this arrangement
with a good grace, for he had this great advantage
over most men,&mdash;his vanity submitted itself easily to his
interest or his ambition; and seeing the impolicy of a
rivalry with the first consul’s eldest brother, he saw also
that, having already obtained the signature of the preliminaries
of a treaty, he should have with the public all the merits
of that treaty if it took place, and Joseph Bonaparte all the
blame, if any failure in the further negotiations occurred.</p>

<p>In the meantime, the seas were opened at once to France,
and the English government, having made this immediate
concession, was almost bound to give way in any subsequent
discussions; for to have yielded what France most desired
in order to obtain peace, and then not to have obtained
it, would have been ridiculous. Thus, a definitive treaty was
shortly afterwards signed at Amiens, and Paris re-opened its
gates to the excited curiosity of the English traveller.</p>

<h4>III.</h4>

<p>During this period M. de Talleyrand’s house became
necessarily one of the great resorts of foreign visitors. He
lived in the Hôtel Galifet, then the official residence of
the minister of foreign affairs, a large hotel in the Rue St.
Dominique (Faubourg St. Germain), which had been built
by a rich colonist of St. Domingo, who gave no other
order to his architect than to erect an hotel with ninety-nine
columns&mdash;a monument of the skill of the builder, and
of the singularity of the proprietor&mdash;which yet remains.</p>

<p>The principal <i lang="fr">habitués</i> of the ministry were M. de
Montrond, Duc de Laval, M. de Saint-Foix, General
Duroc, Colonel Beauharnais, afterwards Prince Eugène,
Fox, Erskine, &amp;c., &amp;c.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span></p>

<p>Some few yet remember the easy nonchalance with
which, reclining on his sofa by the side of the fire, the
minister of foreign affairs welcomed those whom he wished
to make at home, the extreme and formal civility which
marked his reception of his colleagues and the senators
with whom he was not intimate, and the careless and
pleasing familiarity that he used towards the favourite
officers of the first consul, and the ladies and diplomatists
to whom he was partial.</p>

<p>The enmity which for the last few years had been so
violent between the French and English people was
beginning to subside amidst their intercourse; but,
unhappily for them and for the world, the peace, or rather
truce, which they had concluded could only be maintained
by acknowledging a galling inferiority to the French
ruler, who, it was evident, regarded our retirement from
the contest we had long waged without dishonour as a
means for relieving St. Domingo, confirming his dominion
over Italy, and invading Switzerland, circumstances which
rendered it justifiable for England to retain Malta, even
though she had foolishly and inconsiderately engaged to
resign it.</p>

<p>I need hardly observe that the conduct of Napoleon
throughout the whole of this affair was overbearing; but
that of his minister of foreign affairs was the reverse; and
I should add that that minister had the credit of having
obtained, just as Lord Whitworth was departing, the first
consul’s permission to propose an arrangement which
would have left us Malta for such a compensation as,
under all the circumstances, might perhaps have been
accepted. But this compromise being haughtily rejected,
war somewhat abruptly recommenced.</p>

<p>The respite, however, thus secured, had served Napoleon’s
purposes, and enabled him, by the popularity it
brought, to lay the first stones of the Empire,&mdash;in the
Legion of Honour, out of which grew the nobility of the
Empire;&mdash;in the consulship for life, which was a step
towards the hereditary rank he soon assumed; and in the
Concordat, which preluded his coronation by the Pope.</p>

<p>It is not to be presumed that these great innovations<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span>
on the principles which had so long been dominant took
place without a struggle. All the ardent republicans
combated them as a matter of course, designating the
tyrant who proposed them as a second Cæsar, who evoked
the patriotism of a second Brutus. But a more serious
party also attacked them in the legislative bodies, nor was
it without an illegal act of authority that this party was
vanquished.</p>

<p>The measures in question were not in fact popular, and
the Concordat at one time seemed not unlikely to provoke
an insurrection in the army.</p>

<p>M. de Talleyrand, nevertheless, supported these measures
warmly; and, with the aid of Cambacérès, softened
and conciliated many of their opponents.</p>

<p>“We have,” he constantly repeated, “to consolidate a
government and reorganize a society. Governments are
only consolidated by a continued policy, and it is not only
necessary that this policy should be continued,&mdash;people
should have the conviction that it will be so.</p>

<p>“I look upon the consulship for life as the only means
of inspiring this conviction.”</p>

<p>So again, he said, with respect to the Legion of Honour
and the Concordat, “In reorganizing any human society,
you must give it those elements which you find in every
human society.</p>

<p>“Where did you ever see one flourish without honours
or religion? The present age has created a great many
new things, but it has not created a new mankind; and if
you mean to legislate practically for men, you must treat
men as what they always have been and always are.”</p>

<p>For the Concordat he had a peculiar reason to plead;
no one gained so much by it: for he now legitimately
entered into civil life on the authority of his spiritual
master, and by a brief which I here cite:&mdash;</p>

<div class="blockquote">

<p>“<i>To our very dear son, Charles Maurice Talleyrand.</i><a name="FNanchor_42" id="FNanchor_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a></p>

<p>“We were touched with joy at learning your ardent<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span>
desire to be reconciled with us and the Catholic Church:
loosening then on your account the bowels of our fatherly
charity, we discharge you by the plenitude of our power
from the effect of all excommunications. We impose on you,
as the consequence of your reconciliation with us and the
Church, the distribution of alms, more especially for the
poor of the church of Autun, which you formerly governed:
we grant you, moreover, the liberty to wear the secular
costume and to administer all civil affairs, whether in the
office you now fill, or in others to which your government
may call you.”</p>

<p>This brief was taken by M. de Talleyrand as a permission
to become a layman, and even to take a wife. The
lady he married, born in the East Indies, divorced from a
M. Grand, and mentioned, in connection with a scandalous
story, in the life of Sir Philip Francis, was as remarkable
for being a beauty as for not being a wit. Every one has
heard the story (whether true or invented) of her asking
Sir George Robinson after his man “Friday.” But M. de
Talleyrand vindicated his choice, saying, “A clever wife
often compromises her husband; a stupid one only compromises
herself.”</p>

</div>

<h4>IV.</h4>

<p>It was shortly after the renewal of hostilities that the
event occurred which has given rise to the most controversy
concerning Napoleon, and to the bitterest attacks
upon M. de Talleyrand. I speak of the execution of the
Duc d’Enghien. Many details attending this transaction
are still in dispute; but the broad outline of it is as
follows:&mdash;</p>

<p>The pure Republicans (as they were then called) had,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span>
on the one hand, at this period become desperate; on the
other hand, the latitude that had for a time been allowed
to the Royalists, had given that party courage. The
renewal of an European war increased this courage. The
power and prestige of the marvellous person at the head
of the consular government had made both parties consider
that nothing was possible to them as long as he lived.</p>

<p>A variety of attempts had consequently been made
against his life. The popular belief&mdash;that of Bonaparte
himself&mdash;was that these attempts proceeded mainly from
the <i lang="fr">émigrés</i>, aided by the money of England, a belief
which the foolish correspondence of the British minister
at Munich, Mr. Drake, with a pretended <i lang="fr">émigré</i>&mdash;in fact,
however, an agent of the French government (Mahée),&mdash;might
unfortunately have encouraged.</p>

<p>George Cadoudal, the daring leader of the Chouans,
who had already been implicated in plots of this kind, was
known to be in Paris and engaged in some new enterprise,
with which Pichegru, certainly&mdash;Moreau, apparently&mdash;was
connected. But in the reports of the police it was
also stated that the conspirators awaited the arrival at
Paris of a prince of the house of Bourbon.</p>

<p>The Duc d’Enghien, then residing at Ettenheim, in the
Duchy of Baden, seemed the most likely of the Bourbon
princes to be the one alluded to: and spies were sent to
watch his movements.</p>

<p>The reports of such agents are rarely correct in the
really important particulars. But they were particularly
unfortunate in this instance, for they mistook, owing to
the German pronunciation, a Marquis de Thumery, staying
with the Bourbon Prince, for Dumouriez: and the
presence of that general on the Rhenan frontier, and with
a Condé, strongly corroborated all other suspicions.</p>

<p>A council was summoned, composed of the three
consuls,&mdash;Bonaparte, Cambacérès, Lebrun,&mdash;the minister
of justice and police, Régnier,&mdash;and Talleyrand, minister
of foreign affairs.<a name="FNanchor_43" id="FNanchor_43"></a><a href="#Footnote_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a></p>

<p>At this council (10th March 1804) it was discussed
whether it would not be advisable to seize the Duc<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span>
d’Enghien, though out of France, and bring him to Paris;
and the result was the immediate expedition of a small
force, under Colonel Caulaincourt, which seized the prince
on the Baden territory (15th March); M. de Talleyrand,
in a letter to the Grand Duke, explaining and justifying
the outrage. Having been kept two days at Strasburg,
the royal victim was sent from that city, on the 18th, in a
post chariot, arrived on the 20th at the gates of Paris at
eleven in the morning; was kept there till four in the
afternoon; was then conducted by the boulevards to
Vincennes, which he reached at nine o’clock in the evening;
and was shot at six o’clock on the following morning,
having been condemned by a military commission&mdash;composed
of a general of brigade (General Hullin), six colonels,
and two captains&mdash;according to a decree of the governor
of Paris (Murat) of that day (20th March), which decree
(dictated by Napoleon) ordered the unfortunate captive to
be tried on the charge of having borne arms against the
Republic: of having been and being in the pay of England,
and of having been engaged in plots, conducted by the
English in and out of France, against the French government.
The concluding order was, that, if found guilty,
he should be at once executed.</p>

<p>The whole of this proceeding is atrocious. A prince of
the dethroned family is arrested in a neutral state, without
a shadow of legality;<a name="FNanchor_44" id="FNanchor_44"></a><a href="#Footnote_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a> he is brought to Paris and
tried for his life on accusations which, considering his
birth and position, no generous enemy could have considered
crimes; he is found guilty without a witness being
called, without a proof of the charges against him being
adduced, and without a person to defend him being
allowed.<a name="FNanchor_45" id="FNanchor_45"></a><a href="#Footnote_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a></p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span></p>

<p>This trial takes place at midnight, in a dungeon;
and the prisoner is shot, before the break of day, in a
ditch!</p>

<p>It is natural enough that all persons connected with
such a transaction should have endeavoured to escape from
its ignominy. General Hullin has charged Savary (afterwards
Duc de Rovigo), who, as commander of the gendarmerie,
was present at the execution, with having
hurried the trial, and prevented an appeal to Napoleon,
which the condemned prince demanded. The Duc de
Rovigo denies with much plausibility these particulars,
and indeed, all concern in the affair beyond his mere
presence, and the strict fulfilment of the orders he had
received; and accuses M. de Talleyrand&mdash;against whom
it must be observed he had on other accounts a special
grudge&mdash;of having led to the prince’s seizure by a report
read at the Council on the 10th March; of having
intercepted a letter written to the first consul by the
illustrious captive at Strasburg, and of having hastened
and provoked the execution, of which he offers no other
proof than that he met Talleyrand, at five o’clock, coming
out of Murat’s, who was then, as I have said, governor of
Paris, and who had just given orders for the formation of
the military commission. It must be observed also, that,
for the report of what passed in the council, M. de Rovigo
only quotes a conversation which he had some years
afterwards with Cambacérès, who was anxious to prove
that he himself had opposed the violation of the German
territory.</p>

<p>As to the supposed letter written by the Duc d’Enghien,
the persons about the Duc declared that he never wrote a
letter at Strasburg; and in the prince’s diary, which
speaks of a letter to the Princesse de Rohan, there is no
mention of a letter to the first consul. With respect to
another letter, written, the Duc de Rovigo seems to suppose,
by M. Massias, French minister at Baden, there is no<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span>
trace of it in the French archives; whilst the mere fact
of M. de Talleyrand having been at Murat’s proves nothing
(if it be true that he was there) beyond the visit. Indeed,
as Murat himself blamed the execution, and did what he
could to avert it (see Thiers’ <cite>Consulate and Empire</cite>,
vol. v. p. 4), there is some probability that, if M. de
Talleyrand sought Murat, it was with a view of seeing
what could be done to save the prince, and not with the
view of destroying him. On the other hand, Bourrienne,
who had opportunities of knowing the truth, asserts that
M. de Talleyrand, so far from favouring this murder,
warned the Duc d’Enghien, through the Princesse de
Rohan, of the danger in which he stood.</p>

<p>The Duc Dalberg, minister of Baden at Paris in 1804,
also speaks of M. de Talleyrand as opposed to all that was
done in this affair.<a name="FNanchor_46" id="FNanchor_46"></a><a href="#Footnote_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a></p>

<p>Louis XVIII., to whom M. de Talleyrand wrote when
the Duc de Rovigo’s statement appeared, ordered that
personage to appear no more at his court. Fouché declared
the act to be entirely that of the first consul; and lastly,
Napoleon himself always maintained that the act was his
own, and justified it.</p>

<p>For myself, after weighing all the evidence that has
come before me (none of it, I must admit, quite conclusive),
my persuasion is that the first consul had determined
either to put the prince in his power to death, or to
humiliate him by a pardon granted at his request; and it
seems to me not improbable that he hesitated, though
rather disposed, perhaps, to punish than to spare, till all
was over.</p>

<p>For this supposition there is the declaration of his
brother Joseph, who says that a pardon had been promised
to Josephine; of Madame de Rémusat, who, playing at
chess that evening with Napoleon, states that he was
muttering all the night to himself lines from the great<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span>
French poets in favour of clemency; and, lastly, there is
an order given to M. Real, minister of police, who was
charged to see the Duc d’Enghien, and to report to
Bonaparte the result of the interview, which evidently
implied that no execution was intended till the minister’s
report had reached the terrible disposer of life or death,
who might then finally take his resolve.</p>

<p>But the opportunity of coming to a decision, after
receiving the report of the minister of police, never
occurred. By one of those unforeseen accidents which
sometimes frustrate intentions, M. Real, to whose house
the written instructions I have been speaking of were
carried by Savary himself, had gone to bed with the
injunction not to be disturbed, and did not wake till the
prince was no more:&mdash;so that Napoleon had not the
chance of clemency, which he undoubtedly expected, presented
to him. At all events, whatever may have been
the intentions of this extraordinary man, whose policy was
generally guided by calculations in which human life was
considered of small importance, I believe, as far as regards
the person I am principally occupied with: first, that
M. de Talleyrand did read at the Council on the 10th of
March a memoir containing the information that had
reached his office, and which he was naturally obliged to
report; secondly, that when M. de Cambacérès spoke
against the original arrest, M. de Talleyrand remained
silent, which may be accounted for either by a wish not to
compromise himself, or, as persons well acquainted with
Napoleon have assured me, by a knowledge that this was
the best way to give efficacy to M. de Cambacérès’
arguments; thirdly, that when M. de Talleyrand wrote to
the Grand Duke of Baden, excusing the intended violation
of his territory, he did endeavour to convey such a warning
to the Duc d’Enghien as would prevent his being captured;
finally, that when the Duc was brought up to Vincennes
he gave no advice (which he thought would be useless) to
Bonaparte, but approved of the efforts made by Josephine
and Joseph, who were the best mediators in the prince’s
behalf, and that, being also aware of the instructions
sent to M. Real, he did not think the execution probable.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span></p>

<p>As to taking an active part in this tragedy, such
conduct would not be in harmony with his character;
nor have the accusations, to which his position not unnaturally
exposed him, been supported by any trustworthy
testimony. To have lent himself, however, even in appearance,
to so dark a deed, and to have remained an
instrument in Napoleon’s hands after its committal, evinces
a far stronger sense of the benefits attached to office, than
of the obloquy attached to injustice.</p>

<p>This, it is said, he did not deny; and, when a friend
advised him to resign, is reported to have replied: “If
Bonaparte has been guilty, as you say, of a crime, that is
no reason why I should be guilty of a folly.”</p>

<p>The execution of the Duc d’Enghien took place during
the night of the 20th March. On the 7th of April,
Pichegru, who had been arrested, was found strangled in
his room, as some thought, by the police&mdash;as the government
declared, by his own hands; George Cadoudal, who
had also been captured, suffered on the scaffold; and
Moreau, after being brought before a tribunal which
condemned him to two years’ imprisonment, had this
absurd sentence commuted into exile. Bonaparte having
thus struck terror into the partisans of the ancient dynasty,
and having rid himself of his most powerful military rival,
placed on his head, amidst the servile approbation of the
Legislature and the apparent acquiescence of the nation,
a crown which was solemnly consecrated by Pius VII.
(2nd December, 1804).</p>

<h4>V.</h4>

<p>The assumption of the imperial title was an epoch in
the struggle which had for some time been going on
between the two statesmen who contributed the most,
first, to raise the power of Napoleon, and finally to overthrow
it. Talleyrand and Fouché are these two statesmen;
and they may be taken as the representatives of
the classes whose adhesion marked Bonaparte’s force, and
whose defection marked his decline. The one, a great
nobleman, an enlightened member of the Constituent
Assembly, a liberal, such as the fashion, the theories, and
the abuses of the old <i lang="fr">régime</i> had created him. The other<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span>
a plebeian and conventionalist of the mountain, a democrat
and regicide by circumstances, position, and the fury of
the time. From the 18th Brumaire they both attached
themselves to the first consul’s fortunes. Cool, unprejudiced,
without hatred, without partialities, each, notwithstanding,
had the feelings of his <em>caste</em>; and, in
moderating the passion and influencing the views of
Napoleon, the one never forgot that he was born in the
aristocracy, the other that he was the offspring of the
people.</p>

<p>Fouché, then, was for employing the republican forms,
and entrusting authority exclusively to what may be
called new men. Talleyrand was rather for returning
to the fashions of a monarchy, ridiculed, to use his own
expression, the “<i lang="fr">parvenus</i>” who had never walked on a
“parquet,”<a name="FNanchor_47" id="FNanchor_47"></a><a href="#Footnote_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a> and endeavoured to introduce into the employment
of the State the aspirants whose principles
were liberal, but whose names were ancient and historical.</p>

<p>The Empire which was the natural consequence of the
tendency which Talleyrand had favoured and Fouché
opposed, nevertheless united and wanted these two politicians;
for while it sanctioned the advantages and titles
of the old nobility, it established on a firm and equal
basis a new nobility, and brought both to a central point,
under the rule of a man of genius.</p>

<p>Fouché, once the Empire decided upon, renounced all
further attempts to limit Napoleon’s will, and only sought
to regain his favour.</p>

<p>Talleyrand, conceiving that all the hopes of the enlightened
men of his youth who had sought to obtain a
constitutional monarchy were at that moment visionary,
abandoned them for a new order of things, which, while
it pressed upon the energy and intellect of the individual
Frenchman, gave a concentrated expression to the energy
and intellect of the French nation, and made it ready to
accept a glorious tyranny without enthusiasm, but without
dissatisfaction. Nor was the French nation wholly
wrong.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span></p>

<p>A great deluge had swept just recently over all that
previous centuries had established; society was still on a
narrow and shaking plank which required widening,
strengthening, but, above all, fixing over the still turbulent
and agitated waters. Everything of ancient manners, of
those habits of thought, without which no community of
men can march long or steadily together, was gone. No
received notions on essential subjects anywhere existed;
and a nation which has no such notions cannot have that
sort of public morality which is, to the position and respectability
of a state, what private morality is to the
respectability and position of an individual. The first
essential to a community is order, for under order received
notions establish themselves. Order combined with
liberty is the highest degree of order. But order without
liberty is preferable to disorder and license. Now,
Napoleon’s internal government, with all its faults, was
the personification of order, as that of the convention had
been of disorder; and what was the consequence? a spirit
of freedom grew up amidst the despotism of the latter, as
a submission to tyranny had been engendered under the
wild violence of the former. The phrase, that Bonaparte
“<i lang="fr">refaisait le lit des Bourbons</i>,”<a name="FNanchor_48" id="FNanchor_48"></a><a href="#Footnote_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a> was a criticism on his
own policy, but it might be an eulogium on that of his
followers.</p>

<h4>VI.</h4>

<p>In the meantime a change of forms and titles at Paris
was the sign of a similar change throughout Europe.
Republics became kingdoms: the Emperor’s family,
sovereigns: his marshals and favourites, princes and grand
dignitaries of the Empire. Those who had shared the
conqueror’s fortunes had a share allotted to them in his
conquests, and for a moment the theory of the nineteenth
century brought back the realities of the middle ages.
Yet, and notwithstanding these signs and tokens of
ambition, had it not been for the rupture with England
and the cruel deed at Vincennes, Napoleon’s new dignity,
that gave a splendid decoration to his new power and an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span>
apparent close to his adventurous career, would probably
have induced the continent, without absolutely prostrating
itself at his feet, to have acknowledged and submitted to
his superiority. But the fortitude with which England
had braved his menaces, and the act which had sullied
his renown, produced a new coalition, and led to a treaty
between England and Russia and Austria, the one signed
on 11th of April, and the other the 9th of August, 1805.
So formidable a combination served to disturb Bonaparte
from the project of an invasion, with which he was then
threatening our shores. But his star, though somewhat
clouded, was still in the ascendant. The battle of Austerlitz
sanctioned the title of Imperator, as the battle of
Marengo had done that of Consul.</p>

<p>M. Mignet has given us a curious instance, extracted
from the French archives, of the comprehensive views of
the minister of foreign affairs at this period.<a name="FNanchor_49" id="FNanchor_49"></a><a href="#Footnote_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a> Immediately
after the victory of Ulm, M. de Talleyrand wrote to
Napoleon in something like these terms:</p>

<p>“While your Majesty is gaining the victories which
will lead to a glorious peace, I am considering how that
peace can best be established. There are four great
States in Europe&mdash;France, Russia, England, and Austria.
England and France, from their juxtaposition, their spirit,
and consequent rivality, may be considered natural
enemies; that is to say, no great war will take place in
Europe without these powers coming into collision. In
such case, Russia cannot cordially be with France as long
as she retains her projects over the Ottoman empire,
which it would be madness in us to encourage. Austria,
on the other hand, is sure to side with England as long
as her frontiers join ours, and her natural objects of ambition
are the same. A great policy, therefore, would be
to deprive Russia of her Turkish dreams, and Austria of
the possessions neighbouring to those states which we
protect, and which, in fact, are ours. I would take from
Austria, then, Suabia, in Southern Germany, the Tyrol,
adjoining Switzerland; and I would make Venice an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span>
independent Republic, and thus a barrier to both parties
in Italy. To this plan, however, Austria herself must
consent with satisfaction, or it cannot be permanent; and
I would obtain that consent by giving her, in exchange
for what we take, Wallachia, Moldavia, Bessarabia, and
the northern portion of Bulgaria. By this plan, your
Majesty will remark, the Germans are for ever shut out
of Italy, Austria made the rival of Russia and guardian
of the Ottoman empire, and the Russians excluded from
Europe, and thus directed upon the kingdoms of Central
Asia, where they will naturally come into conflict with
the rulers of Hindostan.”</p>

<p>“This project,” says M. Mignet, “being conceived at a
time when nothing was impossible, might, after the battle
of Austerlitz, have been accomplished, and would doubtless
have given another destiny to Europe, and established the
grandeur of France on solid foundations.”</p>

<p>Napoleon, however, was not inclined to adopt so great a
plan on the suggestion of another; nor, indeed, is it
impossible but that the secret instinct of his peculiar
genius, which was for war, opposed itself to a permanent
system of tranquillity. He advanced, then, in the false
policy which ultimately proved his ruin; neither gaining
the affection nor utterly destroying the power of the vanquished:
and the cabinet of Vienna, subdued in Italy,
humbled, by the confederation of the Rhine and the elevation
of the secondary states, in Germany, but with its
power not annihilated, and its goodwill not conciliated,
signed the treaty of Presburg. This treaty, which severed
the relations between the Russian and Austrian empires,
and a change which now took place in the British councils,
afforded another chance of giving to the new empire a
peaceful and durable existence.</p>

<h4>VII.</h4>

<p>Mr. Fox had succeeded to Mr. Pitt, and Mr. Fox was
an advocate of peace and an admirer of the warrior who
guided the destinies of France. He was also a personal
friend of M. de Talleyrand. The Emperor Alexander
shared in some degree Mr. Fox’s admiration. The hopes<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span>
which he had founded on an alliance with Austria were
now, moreover, at an end, and no one at that time relied
on the shuffling, grasping, and timid policy of Prussia.
Both the Russian and English cabinets were willing
then to treat. M. d’Oubril was sent to Paris by the
cabinet of St. Petersburg, and negotiations begun through
Lord Yarmouth, the late Marquis of Hertford (then a
“<i lang="fr">détenu</i>”<a name="FNanchor_50" id="FNanchor_50"></a><a href="#Footnote_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a>), between the cabinets of St. James and the
Tuileries.</p>

<p>M. de Talleyrand, in these double negotiations, succeeded
in getting the Russian negotiator to sign a separate treaty,
which, however, the Russian government disavowed; and
acquired such an influence over Lord Yarmouth, that the
English government deemed it necessary to replace him
by Lord Lauderdale, who was empowered to negotiate for
the two allied governments. It is but just to observe
that M. de Talleyrand, though thwarted by a variety of
intrigues, laboured with the utmost assiduity in favour of
a peaceful termination of this negotiation; for he already
saw, and at this time almost alone saw, that without peace
all was yet a problem, and that, to use the words of a contemporary,
“a succession of battles was a series of figures,
of which the first might be ‘A,’ and the last ‘zero.’”<a name="FNanchor_51" id="FNanchor_51"></a><a href="#Footnote_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a></p>

<p>The position of Malta and Sicily, both at this time in
our hands, the natural reluctance that we felt at resigning
them without solid guarantees for European tranquillity;
and the impossibility of getting such guarantees from the
pride and ambition of an aspirant to universal empire,
were nevertheless difficulties too great for diplomacy to
overcome; and when Prussia, which had lost the golden
opportunity of fighting France with Austria by her side,
had become so involved by secret engagements with Russia
and by public engagements with France&mdash;and so restless
in the dishonourable and dangerous position in which she
found herself, as to be determined on the desperate experiment
of escaping from her diplomacy by her arms,
another great European struggle commenced.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span></p>

<p>Throughout the new campaigns to which this new
coalition led&mdash;campaigns beginning with the victory of
Jena and closing with the peace of Tilsit&mdash;M. de Talleyrand
accompanied his imperial master; and though he
could hardly be said to exercise a predominant influence
over those events, which a more violent character and a
more military genius decided, his calmness and good sense
(qualities rarely, if ever, abdicated by him) produced a
moderating effect upon the imperious warrior, that tended
generally to consolidate his successes. The sort of cool
way in which he brought to ground many of this extraordinary
man’s flights, testing them by their practical
results, is well enough displayed in a reply which he
made to Savary, who, after the battle of Friedland, said,
“If peace is not signed in a fortnight, Napoleon will cross
the Niemen.”</p>

<p>“Et à quoi bon,” replied M. de Talleyrand, “passer le
Niemen?”<a name="FNanchor_52" id="FNanchor_52"></a><a href="#Footnote_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a> “Why pass the Niemen?”</p>

<p>The Niemen, then, partly owing to M. de Talleyrand’s
counsels, was for this once not passed; and, at last, France,
pretending to sacrifice Turkey, and Russia abandoning
England, the two combatants signed a treaty, which
anticipated that the domination of Europe was for the
future to be shared between them.</p>

<h4>VIII.</h4>

<p>At this period M. de Talleyrand, who had been more
struck in the recent war by the temerity than by the
triumph of the conqueror, thought that Napoleon’s military
and his own diplomatic career should cease. Fortune,
indeed, had carried both the one and the other to the
highest point, which, according to their separate characters
and the circumstances of the times, they were likely to
attain. To Napoleon’s marvellous successes seemed now
to belong a supernatural prestige, which the slightest misfortune
was capable of destroying, and which a new victory
could hardly augment. So also the reputation of M. de
Talleyrand was at its height, and many were disposed to
consider him as great a master in the science of politics as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span>
his sovereign was in that of war. He had acquired, moreover,
immense wealth, as it is said, by extorted gifts from
the Powers with which he had been treating, and more
especially from the small princes of Germany, whom in
the general division of their territory he could either save
or destroy, and also by successful speculations on the
stock exchange:<a name="FNanchor_53" id="FNanchor_53"></a><a href="#Footnote_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a>&mdash;means of acquiring riches highly discreditable
to his character, but thought lightly of in a
country that teaches the philosophy of indulgence, and
had recently seen wealth so rudely scrambled for, that the
“<i lang="la">Res si possis recte</i>” had become as much a French as
ever it was a Roman proverb. His health, moreover, was
broken, and unequal to the constant attendance on the
Emperor’s person, which had become almost inseparable
from his office; while the elevation of Berthier to the
rank of vice-constable established a precedency exceedingly
galling to his pride. Under these circumstances, he
solicited and obtained permission to retire, and already
Prince de Benevent received the title of “vice-grand
electeur,” raising him to the rank of one of the great
dignitaries of the Empire; a position which it appears&mdash;so
small are even the greatest of us&mdash;he desired.</p>

<p>This change in his situation, however, was by no means
as yet what it has sometimes been represented&mdash;a “disgrace.”
He still retained great influence in the Emperor’s
councils, was consulted on all matters relative to foreign
affairs, and even appointed with M. de Champagny, his
successor, to conduct the negotiations with the court of
Spain, which, owing to the invasion of Portugal and the
quarrels which had already broken out in the family of
Charles IV., were beginning to assume a peculiar character.<a name="FNanchor_54" id="FNanchor_54"></a><a href="#Footnote_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a></p>

<p>It has been said, indeed, on the one side, that M. de
Talleyrand was opposed to any interference with Spain;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span>
and, on the other, that it was actually he who first
counselled Bonaparte’s proceedings in that country. It is
probable that he did so far compromise himself in this
matter as to advise an arrangement which would have
given the territory north of the Ebro to France, and
yielded Portugal as a compensation to the Spanish monarch.
It is not impossible, moreover, that he knew as early as
1805&mdash;for Joseph Bonaparte was then told to learn the
Spanish language&mdash;that Napoleon had vague dreams of
replacing the Bourbon by the Bonaparte dynasty in the
Peninsula. But when the French armies, without notice,
took possession of Burgos and Barcelona; when an insurrection
deposed Charles IV., and the Emperor was about
to adopt the policy, not of peaceably aggrandizing France
and strengthening Spain against Great Britain, but of
kidnapping the Spanish princes and obtaining by a sort of
trick the Spanish crown, he was resolutely and bitterly
opposed to it, saying: “<i lang="fr">On s’empare des couronnes, mais
on ne les escamote pas</i>” (“one takes a crown from a
sovereign’s head, but one does not pick his pocket of it”).
“Besides, Spain is a farm which it is better to allow
another to cultivate for you, than to cultivate yourself.”</p>

<p>Comte de Beugnot, in his memoirs recently published,
speaks thus of these transactions:<a name="FNanchor_55" id="FNanchor_55"></a><a href="#Footnote_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a></p>

<p>“The Prince de Benevent was acquainted, in all its
details, with what had passed (at Bayonne). He appeared
indignant. ‘Victories,’ he said, ‘do not suffice to efface
such things as these, because there is something in them
which it is impossible to describe, that is vile, deceitful,
cheating! I cannot tell what will happen, but you will see
that no one will pardon him (the Emperor) for this.’ The
Duc Decrès, indeed,” M. de Beugnot continues, “has told
me more than once that the Emperor had in his presence
reproached M. de Talleyrand for having counselled what<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span>
took place at Bayonne, without M. de Talleyrand seeking
to excuse himself. This has always astonished me. It is
sufficient to have known M. de Talleyrand to be sure that,
if he had been favourable to dispossessing the princes of
the House of Bourbon of the Spanish throne, he would not
have resorted to the means that were employed. Besides,
when he spoke to me, it was with a sort of passion that he
never displayed but on subjects which strongly excited him.”</p>

<p>There can be no doubt, indeed, that what took place as
to Spain was a subject of great difference between M. de
Talleyrand and Napoleon. M. de Talleyrand would never
afterwards during the reign of Louis XVIII. have publicly
affirmed this, surrounded as he was by contemporaries and
enemies, if it had not been true. Moreover, the general
voice of the time, which is more in such cases to be trusted
than any individual testimony, loudly proclaimed it; and
as to not answering Napoleon when he was pouring forth
in violent and insulting language the accusations which
he sometimes levelled at those who displeased him, it
is well known that M. de Talleyrand never replied to
such attacks but by an impassible face and a dignified
silence.</p>

<h4>IX.</h4>

<p>Nor were the affairs of the Peninsula the only ones on
which M. de Talleyrand and the Emperor at this time
disagreed. The French troops entered Rome and Spain
(for Napoleon was now for despoiling the Pope as a prince,
after courting him as a Pontiff) about the same epoch; and
the Prince of Benevent was as opposed to one violence as
to the other.</p>

<p>It was not, however, out of this affair, or that affair in
particular, that the enmity between the emperor and his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span>
former minister&mdash;an enmity so important in the history of
both&mdash;took its rise.</p>

<p>M. de Talleyrand, the Empire once established and
fortunate, had attached himself to it with a sort of enthusiasm.
The poesy of victory, and the eloquence of an
exalted imagination, subdued for a time the usual nonchalance
and moderation of his character. He entered into all
Napoleon’s plans for reconstituting “An Empire of the
Francs,” and reviving the system of fiefs and feudal dignitaries;
by which it is, however, true, that the followers
and favourites of the conqueror had nothing to lose.
“Any other system,” he said, “but a military one, is in
our circumstances at present impossible. I am, then, for
making that system splendid, and compensating France for
her liberty by her grandeur.”</p>

<p>The principality he enjoyed, though it by no means
satisfied him, was a link between him and the policy under
which he held it. He wished to keep it, and to safeguard
the prosperity of a man, whose adversity would cause him
to lose it. But he had a strong instinct for the practical;
all governments, according to his theory, might be made
good, except an impossible one. A government depending
on constant success in difficult undertakings, at home and
abroad, was, according to his notions, impossible. This
idea, after the Peace of Tilsit, more or less haunted him.
It made him, in spite of himself, bitter against his chief&mdash;bitter
at first, more because he liked him than because he
disliked him. He would still have aided to save the
Empire, but he was irritated because he thought he saw
the Empire drifting into a system which would not admit
of its being saved. A sentiment of this kind, however, is as
little likely to be pardoned by one who is accustomed to
consider that his will must be law, as a sentiment of a more
hostile nature.</p>

<p>Napoleon began little by little to hate the man for
whom he had felt at one time a predilection, and if he disliked
any one, he did that which it is most dangerous to
do, and most useless; that is, he wounded his pride without
diminishing his importance. It is true that M. de
Talleyrand never gave any visible sign of being irritated.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span>
But few, whatever the philosophy with which they forgive
an injury, pardon a humiliation; and thus, stronger and
stronger grew by degrees that mutual dissatisfaction
which the one vented at times in furious reproaches,
and the other disguised under a studiously respectful
indifference.</p>

<h4>X.</h4>

<p>This carelessness as to the feelings of those whom it
would have been wiser not to offend, was one of the most
fatal errors of the conqueror, who could not learn to subdue
his own passions: but he had become at this time equally
indifferent to the hatred and affection of his adherents;
and, under the ordinary conviction of persons over-satisfied
with themselves, fancied that everything depended on his
own merits, and nothing on the merits of his agents. The
victory of Wagram, and the marriage with Marie Louise,
commenced, indeed, a new era in his history. Fouché was
dismissed, though not without meriting a reprimand for his
intrigues; and Talleyrand fell into unequivocal disgrace, in
some degree provoked by his witticisms; whilst round
these two men gathered a quiet and observant opposition,
descending with the clever adventurer to the lowest
classes, and ascending with the dissatisfied noble to the
highest.</p>

<p>The scion of the princely house of Périgord was, indeed,
from his birth, quite as much as from his position in the
Empire, at the head of the discontented of the aristocracy;
M. de Talleyrand’s house then (the only place, perhaps,
open to all persons, where the government of the day was
treated without reserve) became a sort of “rendezvous” for
a circle which replied to a victory by a <i lang="fr">bon mot</i>, and confronted
the borrowed ceremonies of a new court by the
natural graces and acknowledged fashions of an old one.
All who remember society at this time, will remember that
the ex-minister was the sole person who had a sort of
existence and reputation, separate and distinct from the
chief of the State, whose policy he now affected to consider,
and probably did consider, as verging towards the passion
of a desperate gambler, who would continue to tempt
Fortune until she grew wearied and deserted him.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span></p>

<p>Nor did the Austrian alliance, which the Emperor had
lately formed, meet with M. de Talleyrand’s approval,
although he had at one period advised it, and been also
mixed up in the question of a marriage with the imperial
family of Russia. This change might have proceeded
from his now seeing that such an union as he had at one
time favoured, in the hope that it would calm the restless
energy of Napoleon, would only stimulate his ambition:
or it might have been because, having had nothing to do
with the resolutions adopted at Vienna, he had gained
nothing by them. At all events, what he said with
apparent sincerity, was&mdash;“Nothing is ever got by a
policy which you merely carry out by halves.” “If the
Emperor wants an alliance with Austria, he should satisfy
Austria: does he think that the House of Hapsburg
considers it an honour to ally itself with the House of
Bonaparte? What the Emperor of Austria desires, is to
have his provinces restored, and his empire raised and
revived: if the government of France does not do this, it
disappoints him; and the worst enemies we can have are
those we disappoint.”</p>

<p>These sentiments, however, found as yet no echo out of
the circle of a few independent and enlightened politicians.</p>

<p>I remember two of these&mdash;both high in the service of
the Empire&mdash;M. de Barante and M. Molé, referring in
my hearing to a conversation they had had at the period
I am speaking of, and one saying to the other, “Do you
call to mind how we both regarded what was passing
before us as a magnificent scene in an opera, which, whilst
it satisfied the eye with its splendour, did not fill the
mind with a sense of its reality?”</p>

<p>But the masses were still dazzled by the splendid
achievements of a man who, of all others, in ancient or
modern history, would have been the greatest if he had
joined the instincts of humanity with those of genius:
but now each day that passed added to the fatal disposition
which separated his future from his past; each hour he
became more haughty and self-confident, and more inclined
to an isolated career, which neither tolerated counsel nor
clung to affection. Josephine, the wife of his youth&mdash;Pauline,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span>
his favourite sister&mdash;Louis, his youngest brother&mdash;Massena,
his ablest general&mdash;were added to the list on
which his two ablest ministers were inscribed. He had
no longer even the idea of conciliating mankind to his
arbitrary authority. His mighty intellect, subdued by his
still mightier ambition, submitted itself to adopt a system
of despotism and oppression which interfered not only
with the political opinions, but with the daily wants, of
all his subjects and all his allies.</p>

<p>War with him had become an effort to exterminate
those who still opposed him, by oppressing those who had
hitherto aided him. Thus, he had seized the Roman
pontiff, kidnapped the Spanish king, taken violent possession
of the Hanseatic towns and the North of Germany;
and even those countries which were free from his armies,
were bound, as he contended, to obey his decrees. In
this state of things commenced the last and fatal struggle
between the two potentates, who a short time before had
projected partitioning the empire of the world as friendly
confederates, and were now prepared to contend for it as
deadly foes. Nor was the justice of M. de Talleyrand’s
views ever more conspicuous! The destruction of Prussia,
by making Russia and France neighbours, had in itself
tended to make them enemies. Moreover, the proud and
offended, but dissimulating Czar, though redoubling his
courtesy towards the court of France after the choice of
an Austrian archduchess, lest he might be supposed hurt
by the rejection of a marriage with a princess of his own
family, had begun to feel that, with the rest of continental
Europe subdued and Austria apparently gained, he was
alone in his independence; and to fret under the rein,
which his imperious rider pulled, with superb indifference,
somewhat too tightly.</p>

<p>Besides, though invested with unbounded authority
over his people by law and custom, there was the example
of his father to teach him that he could not wholly disregard
their interests or wishes; yet this was what the
Emperor of the French exacted from him. His subjects
were not to sell their produce to the only purchaser who
was ready and desirous to buy it;&mdash;and being thus harshly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span>
and foolishly placed between revolution and war, Alexander
chose the latter.</p>

<h4>XI.</h4>

<p>On the other hand, Napoleon, in determining on a
conflict of which he did not disguise from himself the
importance, awoke for a moment to his former sense of the
necessity of using able men in great affairs, and was
disposed, notwithstanding his disagreements with M. de
Talleyrand, to send him to Warsaw to organise a kingdom
of Poland; nor was it surprising that, confident in the
sagacity and tact of the agent he thought of employing,
he was also satisfied that, in the event of that agent’s
accepting employment, he might count perfectly on his
fidelity; for throughout M. de Talleyrand’s long career
and frequent changes there is not any instance of his
having betrayed any one from whom he accepted a trust.
The difficulty of reconciling the Prince de Benevent’s
position with that of the Duc de Bassano, who accompanied
the Emperor on this campaign as minister of foreign
affairs, prevented, it is said, the projected arrangement.
But neither during this transient gleam of returning
favour, nor after it, did M. de Talleyrand’s opinion against
the chances which Napoleon was unnecessarily (as he
thought) running, ever vary; neither were they disguised.
He insisted principally on the chance of war, which often
decides against the ablest general and the most skilful
combinations; on the great loss which would result from
a defeat, and the small gain that would follow a victory.
The whole of Europe that the reckless general left behind
him was, he knew, kept down merely by fear and constraint,
and though ready to assist an advancing army,
certain to fall on a retreating one. Besides, supposing
defeat was almost impossible, what had France to gain by
success?</p>

<p>Alexander might reiterate his promise of preventing all
commercial interchange between Great Britain and his
dominions; but would he be able to keep that promise?
He could not. The mind of Napoleon, however, had now
been trained by Fortune to consider wars mere military
parades, shortly after the commencement of which he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span>
entered the capital of his conquered enemy and returned
to Paris to be greeted by enthusiastic acclamations at the
theatre. He required this sort of excitement, and like
most men similarly influenced, convinced himself that
what was pleasing to his vanity was demanded by his
interests.</p>

<p>There were three epochs, indeed, in Napoleon’s career:
the first, when he fought for glory abroad to gain empire
at home; the second, when, being master of the government
of France, he fought to extend the limits of France,
and to make himself the most powerful individual in his
nation, and his nation the most powerful nation in the
world; the third, when France being but a secondary
consideration, his ambition was bent on becoming master
of the universe, and acquiring a dominion of which France
would be almost an insignificant portion.</p>

<p>It is necessary to bear this in mind, since it explains
Napoleon’s Russian campaign; it explains the difficulties
he raised against withdrawing his troops from Germany
after that campaign had ended in defeat; and his constant
dislike to accept any conditions that put a positive extinguisher
on his gigantic projects. To support his own
confidence in such projects he persuaded himself that a
charm attached to his existence, that supernatural means
would arrive to him when natural means failed. He did
not, however, neglect on this occasion the natural means.</p>

<p>When Fouché expressed his apprehensions at so vast an
enterprise, the soldier’s answer is said to have been, “I
wanted 800,000 men, and I have them.”<a name="FNanchor_56" id="FNanchor_56"></a><a href="#Footnote_56" class="fnanchor">[56]</a> But France
had begun to be at this period wearied even with his
successes; and the affair of Mallet, which happened just
previously to the arrival of the bad intelligence from
Russia, showed pretty clearly that her Emperor’s fall or
defeat left an open space for any new system that circumstances
might favour or impose.</p>

<p>No sooner, then, had the news that Moscow was burnt
reached Paris than M. de Talleyrand considered the
Bonapartist cause as lost. Not that Bonaparte might not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span>
yet have saved himself by prudence, but he was not
prudent; not but that the French government might not
yet have brought as many men in uniform into the field
as the allies, but that nations fought on one side, and
merely soldiers on the other.</p>

<p>The sagacious statesman, therefore, who now began
again to be consulted, advised a conclusion of the war,
promptly, at once, and on almost all conditions. So,
again, when the defection of the Prussians was known,
and Napoleon summoned a council to determine what
should be done under such circumstances, he said: “Negotiate:
you have now in your hands effects which you can
give away; to-morrow they may be gone, and then the
power to negotiate advantageously will be gone also.”<a name="FNanchor_57" id="FNanchor_57"></a><a href="#Footnote_57" class="fnanchor">[57]</a></p>

<p>During the armistice at Prague (June, 1813), when
the prestige of two or three recent victories coloured the
negotiations, and France might have had Holland, Italy,
and her natural frontiers, both Talleyrand and Fouché,
who was also asked for his advice, repeated constantly,
“The Emperor has but one thing to do&mdash;to make peace;
and the more quickly he makes it, the better he will make
it.” So also, when M. de St. Aignan, after the battle of
Leipsic, brought propositions from Frankfort, which might
even yet have given France her frontier of the Rhine
(November), M. de Talleyrand urged their acceptance
with the least delay, and told the Emperor that a bad
peace was better than the continuation of a war that could
not end favourably.<a name="FNanchor_58" id="FNanchor_58"></a><a href="#Footnote_58" class="fnanchor">[58]</a></p>

<p>Napoleon himself at this time wavered, and with a
momentary doubt as to his own judgment, and a remembrance
very possibly of happier times, offered the portfolio
of foreign affairs to his ancient minister, but on the condition
that he should lay down the rank and emoluments
of vice-grand-elector.</p>

<p>The object of the Emperor was thus to make M. de
Talleyrand entirely dependent on his place; but M. de<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span>
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 difficult for half
measures.”</p>

<h4>XII.</h4>

<p>The state of affairs at this period was assuredly most
critical. In looking towards Spain, there was to be seen
an English army, crowned by victory, and about to descend
from the Pyrenees. In looking towards Germany, there
was a whole population, whom former defeat had exasperated,
and recent success encouraged, burning to cross
the Rhine in search of the trophies of which an enemy
still boasted. In Italy, a defection in the Emperor’s
family was about to display the full extent of his misfortunes.
In Holland, the colours of the exiled family
(the House of Orange) were displayed with rapture amidst
shouts for national independence; even the King of
Denmark had left the French alliance; while in France a
people unanimated by liberty, an army decimated by
defeat, generals that had lost their hopes, and arsenals
which were empty, were the sole resources with which its
ruler had to encounter all Europe in arms.</p>

<p>The refusal of M. de Talleyrand, then, to accept office
at such a time, unless with all the confidence and splendour
that could give it authority, was natural enough; but it is
also not surprising that the sovereign who had made that
offer should have been irritated by its rejection, whilst
many urged that the vice-grand-elector, if not employed,
should be arrested. All proof, however, of treason was
wanting; and the chief of the Empire justly dreaded the
effect which, both at home and abroad, any violent act
might produce; for it was far more difficult, than many
have supposed, for him to strike, when his power was once
on the decline, any strong blow against an eminent
functionary. His government was a government of
functionaries, throughout whom there reigned a sort of
fraternity that could not safely be braved.</p>

<p>This stern man had, moreover,&mdash;and this was one of the
most remarkable and amiable portions of his character&mdash;a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span>
sort of tenderness, which he never overcame, for those who
had once been attached to his person, or had done eminent
service to his authority.<a name="FNanchor_59" id="FNanchor_59"></a><a href="#Footnote_59" class="fnanchor">[59]</a> He resolved, then, not to take
any violent measure against M. de Talleyrand; but though
he could restrain his anger from acts, he could not from
expressions.</p>

<p>A variety of scenes was the consequence. Savary
relates one which happened in his presence and that of the
arch-chancellor. I have also read of one in which
Napoleon, having said that if he thought his own death
likely he would take care that the vice-grand-elector should
not survive him, was answered by M. de Talleyrand
rejoining, quietly and respectfully, that he did not require
that reason for desiring that his Majesty’s life might be
long preserved. M. Molé recounted to me another, in the
following terms: “At the end of the Council of State,
which took place just before the Emperor started for the
campaign of 1814, he burst out into some violent exclamations
of his being surrounded by treachery and traitors;
and then turning to M. de Talleyrand, abused him for ten
minutes in the most violent and outrageous manner.
Talleyrand was standing by the fire all this time, guarding
himself from the heat of the flame by his hat; he never
moved a limb or a feature; any one who had seen him
would have supposed that he was the last man in the room
to whom the Emperor could be speaking; and finally,
when Napoleon, slamming the door violently, departed,
Talleyrand quietly took the arm of M. Mollien, and
limped with apparent unconsciousness downstairs. But
on getting home, he wrote a dignified letter to the
Emperor, saying, that if he retained his present dignity,
he should be by right one of the regency, and that
as he could not think of holding such a charge after
the opinion his Majesty had expressed of him, he begged
to resign his post, and to be allowed to retire into the
country. He was informed, however, that his resignation
would not be accepted, and that he might stay where he was.”</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span></p>

<p>It is to be presumed that insults like that I have been
relating went a great way towards alienating and disgusting
the person they were meant to humiliate; but though
at the head of a considerable party which were dissatisfied,
M. de Talleyrand did little more than watch the proceedings
of 1814, and endeavour to make the fall of Napoleon,
should it take place, as little injurious to France and to
himself as possible.<a name="FNanchor_60" id="FNanchor_60"></a><a href="#Footnote_60" class="fnanchor">[60]</a></p>

<p>During the conferences at Chatillon, he told those
whom the Emperor most trusted, that he would be lost if
he did not take peace on any terms; when, however,
towards the end of these conferences, peace seemed impossible
with Napoleon, he permitted the Duc Dalberg to
send M. de Vitrolles to the allied camp with the information,
that, if the allies did not make war against France,
but simply against its present ruler, they would find
friends in Paris ready to help them. M. de Vitrolles
carried a slip of paper from the Duc in his boot as his
credentials, and was allowed to name M. de Talleyrand;
but he had nothing from that personage himself which
could compromise him irrevocably with this mission.</p>

<p>M. de Talleyrand saw, nevertheless, at that moment,
that a new chief must, as a matter of course, be given to
France, and he wished to be the person to decide who
that chief should be, and under what sort of institutions
the government should be assigned to him.</p>

<p>Still, his communications with the Bourbons were, I
believe, merely indirect. Many of their partisans were his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span>
relatives and friends. He said obliging things of Louis
XVIII. to them, and he received obliging messages in
return: but he did not positively adopt their cause; in
fact, it seems doubtful whether he did not for a certain
time hesitate between the ancient race, and the King of
Rome with a council of regency, in which he was to have
had a place. At all events, he kept the minister of
police, according to Savary’s own account, alive to the
Royalist movements in the south. It may even be said
that he did not desert the Bonaparte dynasty till it
deserted itself: for at the Council, assembled when the
allies were approaching Paris to determine whether the
Empress should remain in the capital or quit it, he advised
her stay in the strongest manner, saying it was the best,
if not the only, means of preserving the dynasty, and he
did not cease urging this opinion until Joseph Bonaparte
produced a letter from his brother, stating that in such a
case as that under consideration Marie-Louise should
retire into the provinces. It was then that, on leaving
the council chamber, he said to Savary:<a name="FNanchor_61" id="FNanchor_61"></a><a href="#Footnote_61" class="fnanchor">[61]</a></p>

<p>“Here, then, is the end of all this. Is not that also
your opinion? we lose the rubber with a fair game. Just
see where the stupidity of a few ignorant men, who
perseveringly work on the influence acquired by daily
intercourse, ends by carrying one. In truth, the Emperor
is much to be pitied, and yet nobody will pity him; for
his obstinacy in holding to those who surround him, has
no reasonable motive; it is only a weakness which cannot
be conceived in such a man. What a fall in history! To
give his name to adventures, instead of giving it to his
age! When I think of this I cannot help being grieved.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span>
And now what is to be done? It does not suit every one
to be crushed under the ruins of the edifice that is to be
overthrown. Well, we shall see what will happen!</p>

<p>“The Emperor, instead of abusing me, would have
done better in estimating at their first value those who set
him against me. He should have seen that friends of
that kind are to be more dreaded than enemies. What
would he say to another who let himself be reduced to the
state in which he is now?”</p>

<h4>XIII.</h4>

<p>The observation that it did not suit every one to be
overwhelmed under the ruins of the government about to
fall, applied, as it was intended to do by M. de Talleyrand,
to himself. The part, however, he had to play was still a
difficult one; desirous to remain in Paris in order to treat
with the allies, he was ordered, as a member of the
regency, to Blois. Nor was it merely because he feared
that Napoleon might yet conquer, and punish his disobedience,
that he disliked to resist his command; there
is a sense of decency in public men which sometimes
supplies the place of principle, and the vice-grand-elector
wished to avoid the appearance of deserting the cause
which notwithstanding he had resolved to abandon.</p>

<p>The expedient he adopted was a singular and characteristic
one. His state carriage was ordered and packed
for the journey: he set out in it with great pomp and
ceremony, and found, according to an arrangement previously
made with Madame de Rémusat, her husband at
the head of a body of the National Guard at the barrier,
who stopped him, and, declaring he should remain in the
capital, conducted him back to his hotel, in the Rue St.
Florentin, in which he had soon the honour of receiving
the Emperor Alexander.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span></p>

<p>The success of the campaign had been so rapid, the
march to Paris so bold, the name of Napoleon and the
valour of the French army were still so formidable, that
the Emperor of the Russias was almost surprised at the
situation in which he found himself, and desirous to escape
from it by any peace that could be made safely, quickly,
and with some chance of duration. Beyond this, he had
no fixed idea. The re-establishment of the Bourbons, to
which the English Government inclined, seemed to him in
some respects dangerous, as well on account of the long
absence of these princes from France, as from their individual
character and the prejudices of their personal
adherents. To a treaty with Napoleon he had also
reasonable objection. Some intermediate plan was the
one perhaps most present to his mind; a regency with
Marie-Louise,&mdash;a substitution of Bernadotte for Bonaparte;
but all plans of this sort were vague, and to be
tested by the principle of establishing things in the
manner most satisfactory to Europe, and least hateful to
France.</p>

<p>Universal opinion pointed out M. de Talleyrand as the
person not only most able to form, but most able to carry
out at once whatever plan was best suited to the emergency.
This is why, on arriving at Paris, the Emperor
took up his abode at M. de Talleyrand’s house, Rue St.
Florentin, where he held, under the auspices of his host, a
sort of meeting or council which determined the destiny
of France.</p>

<h4>XIV.</h4>

<p>Among various relations concerning this council is that
of M. Bourrienne, and if we are to believe this witness of
the proceedings he recounts, M. de Talleyrand thus
answered the Emperor’s suggestion as to the crown prince
of Sweden, and pronounced on the various pretensions
that had been successively brought forward:</p>

<p>“Sire, you may depend upon it, there are but two
things possible, Bonaparte or Louis XVIII. I say
Bonaparte; but here the choice will not depend wholly
on your Majesty, for you are not alone. If we are to
have a soldier, however, let it be Napoleon; he is the first<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span>
in the world. I repeat it, sire: Bonaparte or Louis
XVIII.; each represents a party, any other merely an
intrigue.”</p>

<p>It was a positive opinion thus forcibly expressed that,
according to all accounts, decided the conqueror, who is
said to have declared subsequently:</p>

<p>“When I arrived at Paris, I had no plan. I referred
everything to Talleyrand; he had the family of Napoleon
in one hand, and that of the Bourbons in the other; I
took what he gave me.”</p>

<p>The resolution not to treat with Napoleon or his family
being thus taken, M. de Talleyrand engaged the Emperor
of Russia to make it known by a proclamation placarded
on the walls of Paris, and the public read in every street
that “Les souverains alliés ne traiteront plus ni avec
Napoléon Bonaparte ni avec aucun membre de sa famille.”</p>

<p>But this was not all. M. de Talleyrand did not wish
to escape from the despotism of Napoleon to fall under
that of Louis XVIII. He counted little on royal gratitude,
and it was as necessary for his own security, as for
that of his country, that the passions of the emigration
and the pride of the House of Bourbon should be kept in
check by a constitution. Hence, at his instigation, the
famous proclamation I refer to contained the following
sentence: “Ils reconnaîtront et garantiront la constitution
que la nation française se donnera, et invitent par conséquent
le Sénat à désigner un gouvernement provisoire
qui puisse pourvoir aux besoins de l’administration; il
préparera la constitution qui conviendra au peuple français.
Alexandre. 31 mars 1814.”</p>

<p>In this manner the allies recognised the Senate as the
representative of the French nation, and, as M. de Talleyrand
had a predominant influence with the Senate, his
victory seemed secure.</p>

<p>This was on the 31st March. But on the 30th, late
towards the night, and as Marmont and Mortier, having
defended the heights of Paris valiantly during the day,
were quitting that city in virtue of a capitulation they had
been compelled by the circumstances in which they found
themselves to sign, Napoleon, who had taken the advance<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span>
of his army, arrived at the environs of his capital, and
learnt from General Belliard, who was leaving it, what
had occurred. With the view of collecting his troops,
still on their march, at Fontainebleau, and gaining time
for this purpose, he sent Caulincourt, who had represented
him at Chatillon, to the sovereigns, who were then masters
of the situation, with orders to enter into feigned negotiations
with them, on almost any terms.</p>

<p>Now, though the Czar and the King of Prussia had
pretty well resolved to have nothing further to do with
Napoleon, and had stated that resolution in a pretty
decided manner, there was disquietude in the neighbourhood
of the great captain, who could rely on a military
force, amounting, it was said, to 50,000, exclusive of the
forces of Marmont and Mortier. The armies of Augereau
and Soult also still existed at no immense distance. The
lower class in Paris, who had more national sentiments
and less personal interests in jeopardy than the upper,
were, as it had been remarked in the passage of the
Russian and Prussian troops through Paris, moody and
discontented; a shadow of the former terror of Napoleon’s
power still remained on the minds of many who had so
long bowed to his will, and were only half disposed to
overthrow his authority. Negotiations, as Caulincourt’s
presence at Paris proved, would be attempted.</p>

<p>There was no time, then, to be lost. On the 1st April,
M. de Talleyrand assembled the Senate under his presidence
(for, as vice-president and grand dignitary of the
Empire, this function legitimately belonged to him).
That body, surprised at its own power, and placing it
readily in its president’s hands, who (alluding to Marie-Louise’s
retreat) called on them to come to the aid of a
state without any constituted authority, named, “<i lang="fr">séance
tenante</i>,” “a provisional government,” consisting, with
M. de Talleyrand at its head, of five members. These
persons had all played an honourable and distinguished
part under the Empire or in the National Assembly, but
the only one representing Legitimist opinions was the
Abbé Montesquieu.</p>

<p>At the same time the Senate, entirely partaking M. de<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span>
Talleyrand’s ideas as to a constitution, engaged itself to
form one within a few days.</p>

<p>Nothing, however, was as yet said of the intended exclusion
of Napoleon and his family, nor of the approaching
reign of the Bourbons.</p>

<p>Many of the partisans of the latter were as much
astonished as vexed at this omission.</p>

<p>Still entertaining ideas which they had carried into a
long exile, they could not even conceive what France, or
the French Senate, or the allies, had to do with the disposal
of the French government. Was not Louis XVIII.
the next in blood to Louis XVI.? Could there be a doubt
that he was the only possible king, the unholy and audacious
usurper having been defeated?</p>

<p>Did not the Comte d’Artois, said the ladies of the
Faubourg St. Germain, long to embrace his early associate,
the Bishop of Autun?</p>

<p>M. de Talleyrand, with a smile slightly cynical, acknowledged
the extreme happiness that this embrace would give
him; but begged, half mysteriously, that it might be
deferred for the present. He did not, however, think it
expedient that the Senate should delay any longer confirming
the act of the coalition as to Napoleon’s deposition;
and that assembly (exposing, as the motives of its conduct,
a thousand grievances which it had been its previous duty
to prevent), declared, as the Emperor Alexander had
already declared, that neither Napoleon nor his family
should reign in France, and relieved the nation from its
oath of allegiance.</p>

<p>It named also a ministry composed of men suited for
the occasion, and thus assumed provisionally all the
attributes of government.</p>

<p>In the meantime the deposed Emperor, still at Fontainebleau,
with an energy which misfortune had not abated,
was counting his gathering forces, studying the position of
his foes, and forming the plan for a final and desperate
effort, which consisted in defeating one of the three
divisions of the enemy, which was on the left bank of the
Seine, and following it in its flight into the streets of Paris,
where, amidst the general confusion, he felt certain of an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span>
easy victory, even if amongst the blazing ruins of the
imperial city.</p>

<p>With him losses that led to success were not calculated:
and though he would have preferred victory on other terms,
he was perfectly willing to take it as he could get it. At
least, this was said; and the intention attributed to him,
and which he did not deny, having being promulgated
before it was executed, shattered the remaining fidelity of
his superior officers. He could not understand their
timorous scruples; nor they his desperate resolves. An
altercation ensued, and, rendered bold by despair, the
marshals ventured to urge his abdication in favour of his
son. He foresaw the futility of this proposition, but was
nevertheless induced to accede to it, partly in order to
show the idleness of the hopes which his unwelcome
counsellors affected to cherish, partly in order to get rid of
their presence, and thus to find himself free, as he thought,
to execute his original projects, should he determine on
doing so.</p>

<p>Ney, Macdonald, together with Caulincourt, who had
rejoined the Emperor on the 2nd of April, and communicated
the inefficacy of his previous mission, were sent then
to the allied sovereigns; they were to enumerate their
remaining forces, protest as to their unwavering fidelity to
that family, the fortunes of which they had so long
followed&mdash;declare resolutely against the legitimate princes,
whom they considered strangers to their epoch; and state,
with firmness, their resolve to conquer or perish by the
side of their ancient master, if this, the last proposal they
could make in his name, were rejected.</p>

<p>They carried with them Marmont, at the head of the
important division of Bonaparte’s army stationed on the
Essonne, and commanding the position of Fontainebleau.
This general, though the one most favoured by Napoleon,
had nevertheless already entered into a capitulation with the
Austrian general; but, urged by his brother marshals, to
whom he confessed his treason, to retract his engagements,
he did so; and ordering those officers under his command,
and who had been acquainted with his designs, to remain
quiet till his return, accompanied Ney and Macdonald to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span>
Paris. The haughty hearing, the bold and vehement
language, of men accustomed to command and conquer,
and representing an army which had marched victoriously
from Paris to Moscow, made an impression on the somewhat
flexible Alexander. He did not accord nor deny their
petition, and granted them another interview on the
morrow, at which the King of Prussia was to be present.
This one took place on the 5th of April, at two in the
morning, with himself alone.</p>

<p>The struggle was yet undecided; for the Emperor of
Russia was never very favourable, as I have said, to the
Legitimists, and quite alive to the consideration of settling
matters quietly with Bonaparte, who had arms in his
hands, rather than with the Bourbons, who had not.
M. de Talleyrand had again to exert himself, and with his
easy, respectful, but self-confident manner, to point out
the feebleness and dishonour of which (though acting
under feelings of the noblest generosity) the Czar would be
accused, if, after having compromised himself and his allies
by what he had been doing during the last few days, he
was at last to undo it. He added, as it is said, that he did
not, in holding this language, consult his own interests,
for it was probable that he should have a more durable
position under the regency of Marie-Louise, if such a
regency could be durable, than under that of the emigration,
which, it was much to be feared, from what was then
passing (he wished to call the Emperor’s attention to the
efforts which this party was at that very moment making
against the publication of a constitution), would, ere long,
become more powerful and more forgetful than could be
desired. “Pardon my observations, sire,” he continued&mdash;“others
are uneasy, but I am not&mdash;for I know full well
that a sovereign at the head of a valorous army is not
likely to admit the dictation of a few officers of a hostile
force, more particularly when they represent the very
principle of constant war which the French nation repudiates,
and which has armed the allies.”</p>

<p>Both the Emperor Alexander (whose transitory emotion
soon passed away) and the King of Prussia received the
marshals on the following day, under the impressions that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span>
M. de Talleyrand’s remarks and their own considerate
judgment produced; and the refusal to treat on any basis
that gave the government of France to Napoleon or his
family, was clearly but courteously pronounced. The
marshals were persisting in their representations, when a
Russian officer, who had just entered the room, whispered
something into Alexander’s ear: it was the intelligence
that the division of Marshal Marmont had quitted its
post; an accident produced by the officers, to whom he
had confided his troops, having fancied that their intended
treachery was discovered, and would be punished, unless
immediately consummated. After such a defection, the
moral power of the deputation, which could no longer
speak in the name of the army, was gone; and all it
attempted to procure was an honourable provision for the
Emperor and the Empress, if the former tendered an
immediate abdication. The advice of his generals, who
accepted these poor conditions, left their commander no
alternative but submission, for his government was a
military machine, of which the main instrument now broke
in his hands.</p>

<p>On the 6th, the Senate framed a constitution, which, on
the 8th, was published, creating a constitutional monarchy,
with two chambers, and conferring the throne of France
on Louis XVIII. if he accepted that constitution. On
the 11th was signed a treaty by which Marie-Louise and
her son received the principality of Parma, and Napoleon
the sovereignty of Elba, a small island on the coast of
Italy, where it was presumed that a man, still in the
prime of life, and with the most restless spirit that ever
beat in human bosom, would remain quiet and contented
in the sight of empires he had won and lost.</p>

<hr />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span></p>

<h3><span class="smcap">Part V.</span><br />
<span class="smaller">FROM THE FALL OF THE EMPEROR NAPOLEON, IN 1814, TO
THE END OF M. DE TALLEYRAND’S ADMINISTRATION,
IN SEPTEMBER, 1815.</span></h3>

<div class="smaller">

<p>Comte d’Artois, Lieutenant-General of France.&mdash;Treaty of the 23rd of
April for the evacuation of France.&mdash;Louis XVIII., contrary to M. de Talleyrand’s
advice, refuses to accept the crown with a constitution as the gift of the
nation; but, agreeing to the first as a right, grants the second.&mdash;Forms his
government of discordant materials, naming M. de Talleyrand, of whom his
distrust and jealousy soon appear, Minister of Foreign Affairs.&mdash;Reactionary
spirit of the Émigré party and Comte d’Artois.&mdash;Treaty of Paris.&mdash;M. de
Talleyrand then goes to Vienna, and, in the course of negotiations there,
contrives to make a separate treaty with Austria and Great Britain, and thus
to break up solidarity of the alliance against France.&mdash;Bonaparte escapes from
Elba.&mdash;New treaty against Napoleon; not clear as to its intentions, but appearing
as renewal of Treaty of Paris.&mdash;Bourbons go to Ghent.&mdash;Bonaparte installed
at the Tuileries.&mdash;M. de Talleyrand goes to Carlsbad.&mdash;Prince Metternich
intrigues with Fouché for Napoleon’s deposition in favour of the regency
of his wife; does not succeed.&mdash;The Allies again take up Louis XVIII.&mdash;M. de
Talleyrand goes to Ghent.&mdash;At first ill received.&mdash;Lectures the Bourbons.&mdash;Is
again made Minister.&mdash;Opposed by Royalist party and the Emperor of Russia;
feebly supported by us; abandoned by Louis XVIII.&mdash;Resigns.</p>

</div>

<h4>I.</h4>

<p>Such for the moment was the end of the long struggle
which M. de Talleyrand had maintained with a man
superior to all others in the power of his faculties; but
who, owing to certain faults, which were perhaps inseparable
from the haughty and imaginative nature of those
faculties, was finally vanquished by the patience, moderation,
and tact of an adversary of far inferior genius, whose
hostility he had, by a singular instinct, dreaded, and, by
an unaccountable carelessness, provoked.</p>

<p>I have said that when M. de Talleyrand first attached
himself to the destinies of Napoleon, he expected from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span>
him&mdash;first, his own advancement; secondly, the advancement
of French interests.</p>

<p>He followed Napoleon, then, obsequiously up to the
period at which he foresaw clearly that the policy of that
personage was beginning to be such as would neither
profit an intelligent adherent nor establish a durable
empire.</p>

<p>It cannot be said, however, that in separating himself
from this policy, after the treaty of Tilsit, he left his
sovereign in a moment of adversity. France never appeared
to people in general so great, nor its ruler so stable,
as at that epoch. It was not at the moment of any
evident decline in either, but at a moment when to a keen
observer there was visible a tendency which if pursued
would, a little sooner or a little later, plunge both into
inextricable calamities, that the Prince de Benevent
detached himself quietly from the chariot that bore the
great soldier’s fortunes.</p>

<p>Even then he did little more than express with moderation
the convictions he felt; and indeed his opposition
when most provoked was never against the individual
whom he had served, but against the system that individual
was blindly pursuing. As the horizon grew darker,
he neither shrank from giving his advice, which events
proved invariably to be just, nor refused his services, if
they were allowed the necessary means of being useful.
His infidelity up to the last consisted in giving counsel
that was rejected, and taking measures with much reserve
for preserving himself and his country in some degree
from the fate that was preparing for its ruler. Nor was
it until Napoleon and the nation became two distinct
things, and it appeared necessary to destroy the one in
order to save the other, that it can be said that M. de
Talleyrand conspired against the man, who, it must be
added, never asked for heartfelt devotion in exacting blind
obedience.</p>

<p>There was nothing on earth, in fact, which Napoleon
himself would not have sacrificed, and did not unscrupulously
sacrifice, to promote his own objects. He said,
and I believe thought, that these were the happiness and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span>
glory of France. Behind his selfishness there was, all
must admit, a great and noble idea; but those who felt
sure that he was mistaken were not bound to subject their
notions of patriotism to his: M. de Talleyrand had not
been his creature, nor raised up from the dust by him.
He had been a distinguished and eminent man before
General Bonaparte’s career had commenced, and it is
hardly fair to talk of his treachery to a man, who had of
late years wearied him with affronts,&mdash;when the most
intimate of that man’s favourites (Marshal Berthier) told
Louis XVIII. at the commencement of the Restoration,
“that France had groaned for twenty-five years under
the weight of misfortunes that only disappeared at the
sight of its legitimate sovereign.”</p>

<p>The principal if not the only question at issue concerning
M. de Talleyrand in these affairs is, Whether
the advice to place Louis XVIII. on the French throne
was good or bad advice? What other candidates were
there? Bonaparte vanquished was out of the question.
He had not only become odious to M. de Talleyrand; he
was equally so to all Europe and to all France,&mdash;the
broken fragments of his army excepted.</p>

<p>There was something to say in favour of a regency
with Marie-Louise; but her husband himself declared at
Fontainebleau that she was incapable of acting for herself.
If Napoleon was in a situation to direct her, the government
was evidently still Napoleon’s. If she was placed
in the hands of the marshals, the exchange was that of a
military empire with order and a redoubtable chief, for a
military empire with confusion and without a chief;
Marie-Louise was, moreover, out of Paris.</p>

<p>Had she remained at Paris, had Bonaparte perished
on the field of battle, or been placed anywhere in secure
guardianship, the daughter of the Emperor of Austria,
assisted and controlled by four or five men of eminence,
moderation, and capacity, whom the allies could have
joined to her, might have been a possibility more compatible
perhaps with the epoch than the half-forgotten inheritor
of the crown of Louis XVI.; but when the choice was to
be made, this combination had gone by.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span></p>

<p>Then there was the House of Orleans. But this
younger branch of the Bourbon family was personally
almost as unknown to France as the elder one. The name
that connected it with the Revolution was not popular, on
the other hand, even with the revolutionists. A mere
soldier put on Napoleon’s throne by foreigners was an
evident humiliation to the French people. Louis XVIII.,
therefore, really seems the only person at the moment who
could carry with him to the vacant place any dignity, and
represent there, as M. de Talleyrand said, any principle.</p>

<p>This prince in early life had been supposed favourable
to constitutional government. His residence of late years
had been in a constitutional country. He had never been
remarkable for the strength of his personal attachments,
and he had, moreover, in his character, or at least in his
manner, a certain authority, which rendered it probable
that he would keep in order the more zealous of his
partisans.</p>

<p>Thus, it seemed likely that he would frankly accept
such a government as England possessed and France had
desired in 1789, to the opinions of which period the more
thinking portions of the French nation still looked back
with respect.</p>

<p>Risks had to be run, whatever resolution might be
taken; but risks in critical times have always to be run,
and a man of action can only choose the least dangerous.</p>

<h4>II.</h4>

<p>At all events, having deliberately adopted the legitimate
monarchy with a constitution, there can be no doubt as to
M. de Talleyrand having followed up this idea, amidst
immense difficulties, with great boldness and dexterity.
The task, however, so far as it depended on his skill, tact,
and activity, was now nearly over; and its ultimate success
was about to be confided to those who were to reap the
fruits of his efforts. It will have been seen, by what I
have said of the constitution voted by the Senate, that
Louis XVIII. was named King conditionally on his
accepting a constitution; a clause against which the
Royalists had revolted.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span></p>

<p>The Comte d’Artois, at that time out of Paris and in no
recognised position, insisted on appearing in the capital;
and, Napoleon having abdicated on the 11th, he executed
his intention on the 12th, assuming the title of “Lieutenant-general
of the Kingdom,” a title which he pretended
to have received from his brother, but which his brother, it
appears, had never given him.</p>

<p>Nothing could be more awkward than the position
thus created: Louis XVIII. was not yet sovereign
by any national act; and yet the Comte d’Artois
pretended that he was invested with royal authority by
Louis XVIII.</p>

<p>To establish as a right the Bourbon monarchy, was by
no means the intention of those who had called back the
Bourbon family; and yet they had so compromised themselves
to the Bourbon cause, that it was no easy matter to
recede from the ground they stood upon. The resolution
to be taken had to be immediate. Should the existing
authorities assist at the Comte d’Artois’ entry or not?
M. de Talleyrand and the provisional government did
assist, for their abstinence would have been a scandal; the
Senate did not assist, for its presence would have stultified
its previous decisions.</p>

<p>I am led to insert an animated account of this entry, not
only because it is painted with the colouring of an eye-witness;
but because it gives an amusing description of the
concoction of a celebrated <i lang="fr">bon mot</i>, which was not without
its effect on the early popularity of the prince to whom it
was attributed.<a name="FNanchor_62" id="FNanchor_62"></a><a href="#Footnote_62" class="fnanchor">[62]</a></p>

<p>“Next morning (12th of April), we marched out to
meet the prince. It was one of those lovely days of early
spring which are so delightful in the climate of Paris.
The sun was shining with all its splendour, and on every
side the tender buds were sprouting under the influence of
its subdued and genial warmth. There were flowers<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span>
already half blown, and the soft green was just beginning
to peep from the trees, while the spring notes of birds, the
joyous expression of every face, our march enlivened by
the dear old tune of good King Henry, all served to mark
out this day as a festival of Hope. There was little order
in our ranks, but many shed tears. As soon as <i lang="fr">Monsieur</i>
was in sight, M. de Talleyrand advanced to welcome him,
and, leaning against the prince’s horse with that indolent
grace, which the weakness of his legs excused, he paid him
a short compliment, remarkable for its delicacy and good
taste. Feeling that Frenchmen were pressing him on all
sides, the prince was too affected to make him a reply, but
said with a voice stifled by sobs, ‘Monsieur de Talleyrand,
gentlemen.&mdash;Thank you&mdash;I am too happy&mdash;Let us proceed,
let us proceed&mdash;I am too happy!’</p>

<p>“Since then, we have heard the same prince reply to
speeches with presence of mind and effect: but, to those
who saw and heard him the day of his entry into Paris, he
has never been so eloquent as on that occasion. We now
proceeded in the direction of Notre-Dame, according to the
old custom of going, after every joyful event, to the most
venerable church of Paris, in order to offer solemnly to God
the grateful homage of the French nation. The procession
was principally composed of National Guards, but it also<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span>
contained Russian, Prussian, Austrian, Spanish, and Portuguese
officers, and the prince at their head appeared like an
angel of peace descended into the midst of the great
European family. From the Barrière de Bondy to the
Parvis Notre-Dame, faces beaming with joy were seen at
every window. The streets were crowded with people who
pressed round the prince with shouts of applause. It was
difficult for him to advance in the midst of such general
enthusiasm, but when some one attempted to clear the way
by removing this pleasing impediment, he exclaimed,
‘Never mind, sir, never mind, we have plenty of time
before us.’ Thus was the prince borne along to Notre-Dame,
if I may be allowed the expression, on the hearts of
Frenchmen. After entering the sanctuary, when he cast
himself down before the altar, which had received during
so many centuries the prayers of his fathers, a vivid ray of
light fell upon his countenance, and made it appear almost
heavenly. He prayed fervently, and we all did the same.
The tears trickled down our cheeks, and they escaped from
the eyes even of the foreigners. Oh! how sincerely, how
fervently was each verse of the hymn of gratitude upraised
to Heaven! When the ceremony was concluded, several of
the prince’s old servants, who had bewailed his absence<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span>
during thirty years, came to embrace his knees, and he
raised them up with that heart-sprung grace so touching
and so natural to him. The return from Notre-Dame to
the Tuileries was no less animated and happy; and when
he had reached the court of the palace, the prince dismounted,
and turning to the National Guard, addressed
them in a speech perfectly suited to the occasion. He
shook hands with several of the officers and men, begging
them to remember this happy day, and protesting that he
himself would never forget it. I ordered the palace doors
to be opened for the prince, and had the honour of showing
him into the wing which he was to inhabit.</p>

<p>“I asked him to give me his orders for the rest of the
day, and to tell me the hour at which I should present
myself the next morning. He seemed to hesitate
whether he would dismiss or retain me. I thought I
could perceive that this arose from kindly feeling, so I
told him that I should be afraid of troubling him an
instant longer, as he must be fatigued, and it was to me
that he replied, ‘How can I possibly be fatigued? This
is the only happy day I have enjoyed for thirty years.
Ah! sir, what a delightful day! Say that I am pleased<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span>
and satisfied with everybody. These are my orders for
to-day. To-morrow morning, at nine o’clock.’</p>

<p>“After leaving the prince, I resumed my usual occupation,
and quitted it at about eleven o’clock in the
evening, to go to M. de Talleyrand’s. I found him discussing
the events of the past day with MM. Pasquier,
Dupont de Némours, and Anglès. They all agreed that
it had been a complete success. M. de Talleyrand reminded
us that an article would have to be written for
the <cite>Moniteur</cite>. Dupont offered to do it. ‘No, no,’ replied
M. de Talleyrand, ‘you would make it too poetical;
I know you well: Beugnot will do for that; I dare say
that he will step into the library, and knock us off an
article in a moment.’</p>

<p>“I sat down to my work, which was not very difficult:
but when the prince’s answer to M. de Talleyrand had
to be mentioned, I did not know what to do. A few
words, springing from a deep emotion, make effect by
the manner in which they are spoken, and by the presence
of the objects which have suggested them; but, when
they have to be reproduced on paper, stripped of these
accompaniments, they remain cold, and it is very lucky
if they are not ridiculous. I returned to M. de Talleyrand,
and informed him of the difficulty. ‘Let us see,’
he answered, ‘what <i lang="fr">Monsieur</i> <em>did</em> say; I did not catch<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span>
much; he appeared to me to be affected, and very anxious
to continue his journey; but, if what he said does not
suit you, invent an answer for him.’ ‘But how can I
make a speech that <i lang="fr">Monsieur</i> never pronounced?’ ‘There
is no difficulty about that; make it good, suitable to the
person and to the occasion, and I promise you that
<i lang="fr">Monsieur</i> will accept it, and so well, that in two days he
will believe he made it himself; and he <em>will</em> have made
it himself; you will no longer have had anything to do
with it.’ Capital! I returned and attempted my first
version, and brought it to be approved. ‘That won’t
do,’ said M. de Talleyrand, ‘<i lang="fr">Monsieur</i> never makes antitheses,
nor does he use the slightest rhetorical flourish.
Be brief, be plain, and say what is best suited to the
speaker and to his audience: that’s all.’ ‘It seems to
me,’ replied M. Pasquier, ‘that what is troubling a good
many minds, is the fear of changes, which would be
brought about by the return of the princes of the house
of Bourbon; that point would perhaps have to be touched,
but delicately.’ ‘Good! and I also recommend it to you,’
said M. de Talleyrand. I attempt a new version, and
am sent back a second time, for having made it too long
and too elaborate. At last I am delivered of the one
inserted in the <cite>Moniteur</cite>, in which I make the prince say,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span>
‘No more discord; Peace and France; at last I revisit
my native land; nothing is changed, except it be that
there is one Frenchman the more.’ ‘This time I give
in!’ exclaimed the great censor. ‘<em>That</em> is what <i lang="fr">Monsieur</i>
said, and I answer for it having been pronounced by
him; you need not trouble yourself any longer.’ And
in fact the speech turned out a regular success: the
newspapers took it up as a lucky hit; it was also repeated
as an engagement taken by the prince; and the expression,
‘<em>One Frenchman more!</em>’ became the necessary
password of the harangues, which began to pour in from
all quarters. The prince did not disdain commenting upon
it in his answers: and M. de Talleyrand’s prophecy was
fully accomplished.”</p>

<h4>III.</h4>

<p>The just described spectacle was gay, but its gaiety was
merely superficial. Deeper seated was the danger I have
referred to. The Senate had neither gone to meet the
Comte d’Artois nor attended the <i lang="la">Te Deum</i>. It might
be said that the members of the provisional government
had done so; but the absence of the Senate was, notwithstanding,
remarked. It was determined not to leave
things uncertain, and to have a clear understanding as
to whether the Comte d’Artois meant to despise the
national authorities, or to submit to them. This question
had to be brought to issue with the least possible delay.</p>

<p>The 13th and 14th of April were spent in negotiations.
Napoleon was still in France. Two armies had not
yet given in their adhesion to the new order of things.</p>

<p>The allies had solemnly declared that the French<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span>
government should be one chosen by the Senate, and not
one chosen by Louis XVIII.</p>

<p>It took, nevertheless, all M. de Talleyrand’s tact and
patience to get the Comte d’Artois and the zealots of his
party to act with ordinary prudence. An arrangement
was at last arrived at in this manner:</p>

<p>The Senate, professing to know that constitutional
principles animated the heart of the Comte d’Artois, offered
him the Lieutenant-generalship of France.</p>

<p>The Comte d’Artois accepted the post, saying that
though he could not take upon himself to sanction the
constitution of the Senate, with which he was acquainted,
but which had to be considered by the King, he nevertheless
felt sure that he could safely affirm that his
Majesty would accept the principal features in it.<a name="FNanchor_63" id="FNanchor_63"></a><a href="#Footnote_63" class="fnanchor">[63]</a></p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span></p>

<p>The government was thus installed until the arrival
of Louis XVIII.; and on the 23rd, M. de Talleyrand
signed, under his royal highness’s authority, the treaty
which obliged the foreign armies to quit France, and the
French troops to quit the fortresses out of France which
they still held.</p>

<h4>IV.</h4>

<p>The most urgent foreign question was thus settled;
but the permanent condition of internal affairs, though the
temporary arrangement I have been describing established
something like a principle in favour of a constitution, still
depended on the arrangements that might finally be made
with Louis XVIII.</p>

<p>M. de Talleyrand, exceedingly anxious on this subject,
had sent M. de Liancourt to the King, in the hope that
his Majesty would listen and speak to his messenger
confidentially. It was true that M. de Talleyrand was
warned that the Duc de Liancourt, who had belonged to
the Revolution, would not be well received by the monarch
of the Restoration, if a certain nobleman, M. de Blacas,
was by his side. But the Prince de Benevent treated this
idea <i lang="fr">du haut de sa grandeur</i>.</p>

<p>What! the sovereign who owed him (M. de Talleyrand)
his throne; who was at once indolent and ambitious; who
knew nothing of the country in which he was to appear,
a country in which he had no partisans who could guide<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span>
him by their counsels or aid him by their influence, and
in which were still the sovereigns with whom M. de Talleyrand
had been the confederate&mdash;would decline to
receive a man of the first respectability and the highest
birth, universally beloved, because he had taken the same
part that M. de Talleyrand himself had taken in the public
affairs of former times, and this when the new sovereignty
was to be founded on all parties and opinions, and have,
moreover, a constitution for its basis; the thing was impossible.
M. de Talleyrand replied to the person who gave
him this warning&mdash;</p>

<p>“The King, you say, will look back on the past, but
Nature has placed the eyes of men in the front of their
heads, in order that they may look forward.”</p>

<p>Undoubtedly, the warning referred to seemed absurd,
but it was correctly given. M. de Liancourt saw “the
certain M. de Blacas,” but came back without having seen
Louis XVIII.<a name="FNanchor_64" id="FNanchor_64"></a><a href="#Footnote_64" class="fnanchor">[64]</a></p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span></p>

<p>In sending the particular person he had selected to
Louis XVIII., M. de Talleyrand had the idea of engaging
the King at once with the party to which that person
belonged, viz., the moderate men of the early Revolution:
men who were, by opinion, in favour of constitutional
monarchy, but who had been so mixed up with persons of
all parties and opinions, as to know all and have friends
amongst all. In such a party he saw a centre at which
divergent lines might meet&mdash;a backbone, to which might
be attached the scattered members of the great and varied
society out of which a new government had to be constructed.
The project was not a bad one, and it is probable
that during the first days of an uncertain triumph
it would have succeeded.</p>

<p>But the unexpected popularity of his family, the general
acceptance of the “white cockade,” the reports of his
brother and the ardent Royalists, which did not fail to
reach him with suitable exaggerations, and the positive
abdication of Napoleon, created a new phase in Louis’s
affairs, and hesitating what to do, he determined on doing
nothing till he arrived in France.</p>

<p>This was sufficient to show M. de Talleyrand, who did
not subsequently forget M. de Blacas, that there would
be a court circle in the new reign from which he should
be excluded; that the King neither meant to confide in
him nor to offend him; that a system was not to be
formed; that if he did not break with the sovereign on
whose head he had a few days previously placed a crown,
he must compromise with that sovereign’s prejudices and
favourites. There were not as yet sufficient motives for a
rupture. Circumstances would shortly develop themselves,
and give many opportunities for a decided course.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span>
In the meantime a policy of principle was to be sacrificed
to a policy of dexterity.</p>

<p>Had he been consulted, he would certainly not have
counselled Louis XVIII., who made a sort of triumphal
entry into London on the 20th, to have said he owed his
crown to the Prince Regent; putting aside the Emperor
Alexander, who was still in Paris, and the Senate and the
Assembly, which were the only constituted organs at that
time of the nation’s wishes, and the only authority which
the French army and the French people would so easily
have obeyed. But he met his Majesty at Compiègne,
where Louis had determined to stay three or four days
before entering Paris and fixing his ultimate resolves.
The meeting would have been curious to witness.</p>

<p>Both personages were perfect actors in their way, and
each with a pretension to superiority, was determined not
to be subalternised by the other. Louis had acted the
part of king for some years with the more care and
punctiliousness because he was only king in name. Talleyrand
had been accustomed from his youth to the highest
positions in society; in later years he had been admitted
into the intimacy of sovereigns, and been treated by them,
if not on a footing of equality, with the highest respect;
and he had just disposed of the fortunes of France. The
descendant of kings meant to impose the sovereign on his
powerful subject at once, with the airs of royalty, for
which he was famous. The bishop, noble, and diplomatist
was prepared to encounter these airs with the respectful
well-bred nonchalance of a man of the world, who knew
his own value; and the natural but not obsequious deference
of a great minister to a constitutional monarch. It
is probable that neither said what he intended to say, or
what contemporaries have said for them; but it is reported
that Louis gave M. de Talleyrand to understand
that, in remaining tranquil and contented until Providence
had placed the crown on his head, he had played the
proper part of the prince and the philosopher, acting with
far more dignity and wisdom than the bustling men of
action who had been occupied during this time with their
own advancement.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span></p>

<p>On the other hand, when his Majesty, wishing perhaps
to efface the impression of observations that were not
altogether complimentary, spoke in admiration of M. de
Talleyrand’s abilities, and asked him how he had contrived,
first to overturn the Directory, and finally Bonaparte,
M. de Talleyrand has the credit of having replied with a
sort of naïveté which, when it suited him, he could well
assume:</p>

<p>“Really, sire, I have done nothing for this: there is
something inexplicable about me which brings ill luck on
the governments that neglect me.”<a name="FNanchor_65" id="FNanchor_65"></a><a href="#Footnote_65" class="fnanchor">[65]</a></p>

<p>Finally, as to essentials, the King appears, without
entering much into details, to have given M. de Talleyrand
to understand that France would have a constitution,
and M. de Talleyrand the administration of foreign affairs.</p>

<p>This was all that M. de Talleyrand now expected.</p>

<p>Nevertheless he tried, on a subsequent occasion, to
persuade the legitimate monarch that his throne would
acquire increased solidity by being accepted as the spontaneous
gift of the nation.</p>

<p>A really great man in Louis’s place would probably
have provoked a vote by universal suffrage; the mere fact
of appealing to such a vote would have attained a universal
assent, springing from a universal enthusiasm; and, in
fact, such a vote for a king who had legitimacy in his
favour would at the same time have renewed the vigour of
the legitimist principle.</p>

<p>A very prudent man would not have run this risk; he
would have made the most of the vote of the Senate, since
it was given, and taken for granted that it was a vote in
favour of his race as well as of himself.</p>

<p>A vain and proud man, however, could not so easily
divest himself of a peculiar quality which only he possessed.
Any man might be chosen king of the French, but Louis
XVIII. alone could be the legitimate King of France.
This hereditary right to the throne was a personal property.
He had claimed it in exile: he was resolved to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span>
assert it in power, and when M. de Talleyrand was for
continuing the argument, he cut him short, according to
contemporaneous authorities, by observing with a courteous
but somewhat cynical smile:</p>

<p>“You wish me to accept a constitution from you, and
you don’t wish to accept a constitution from me. This is
very natural; mais, mon cher M. de Talleyrand, alors moi
je serai debout, et vous assis.”<a name="FNanchor_66" id="FNanchor_66"></a><a href="#Footnote_66" class="fnanchor">[66]</a></p>

<h4>V.</h4>

<p>The observation just quoted admitted of no reply. Still
Louis had the good sense to see that he could not enter
Paris without some explanations, and the promise, more or
less explicitly given, of a representative government.
Unlike the Comte d’Artois, he felt no sort of difficulty
about giving this promise, and was even willing to concert
with his minister as to the most popular manner in which
he could give the guarantees he intended to offer without
abandoning the point on which he resolved to insist.</p>

<p>The first thing, however, to provide for, was a meeting
between the sovereign who had taken the crown as a
right, and the Senate who had offered it on conditions.</p>

<p>This meeting took place on the 1st of May, at Saint-Ouen,
a small village near Paris, where the King invited
the Senate to meet him. M. de Talleyrand, on presenting
this body, pronounced a speech, composed with much art,
and spoke for both parties. He said that the nation,
enlightened by experience, rushed forward to salute the
sovereign returning to the throne of his ancestors; that
the Senate, participating in the sentiments of the nation,
did the same; that, on the other hand, the monarch,
guided by his wisdom, was about to give France institutions
in conformity with its intelligence, and the ideas of
the epoch: that a constitutional “Charter” (a title the
King had selected) would unite every interest to that of
the throne, and fortify the royal will by the concurrence
of all wills; that no one knew better than his Majesty
the value of institutions for a long time tried happily by a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span>
neighbouring people, and furnishing aid and not opposition
to all kings who loved the laws, and were the fathers of
their people.</p>

<p>A few words from the King, confirming what M. de
Talleyrand had said, left nothing to be desired; and on
the 3rd of May was published the famous declaration of
Saint-Ouen, which, after stating that much that was good
in the constitution proposed by the Senate on the 6th of
April would be preserved, added that some articles in it
bore signs, notwithstanding, of the haste with which they
had necessarily been written, and must consequently be
reformed; but that his Majesty had the full intention to
give to France a constitution that should contain all the
liberties that Frenchmen could desire, and that the project
of such a constitution would ere long be presented to the
chambers.</p>

<p>Louis XVIII., thus preceded, entered Paris amidst a
tolerable degree of enthusiasm, and, seating himself in the
palace of his ancestors, began to prepare his existence there.</p>

<p>His first thought was to reconstitute his household, and,
in doing this, M. de Talleyrand-Périgord was named grand
aumonier. The new ministry was next to be formed, and
M. de Talleyrand figured as minister of foreign affairs;
and was honoured with the title of prince, though he could
no longer add to it&mdash;of Benevent.</p>

<p>The other persons named in the new ministry, and who
afterwards attracted notice, were the Abbé de Montesquieu,
minister of the interior, a gentleman of learning and
talent, but wholly unused to affairs, and a Royalist as
much from prejudice as from principle (M. Guizot, by the
way, commenced his career under M. de Montesquieu);
and the Abbé Louis, minister of finance, whose financial
abilities were universally acknowledged.</p>

<p>But the most important minister for the moment was
the minister of the household, “that certain M. de Blacas,”
of whose influence over Louis XVIII. M. de Talleyrand
had been early informed.</p>

<p>M. de Blacas was one of those gentlemen of the second
order of nobility, who often produce on the vulgar a
stronger effect as a grand seigneur than nobles of the first<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span>
class, because they add a little acting to the natural
dignity usually attendant upon persons who have been
treated from their infancy with distinction. He was
middle-aged, good-looking, courteous, a good scholar, a
great collector of medals, very vain of his court favour,
which was based on his long knowledge of all the moral
and physical weaknesses of his master, and with an entire
confidence in the indestructibility of an edifice which he
had seen, notwithstanding, raised on the ruins of its own
foundation.</p>

<p>He had, also, such a confidence in his own capacity that
he conceived it impossible for any one but an egregious
fool, or a malignant personal enemy, to doubt it.</p>

<p>He concentrated in his hands the King’s resolutions on
all affairs, except foreign affairs, which M. de Talleyrand
managed directly with his Majesty.</p>

<p>A government was thus formed, and the first duty of
that government was to make a treaty of peace with the
victorious powers. M. de Talleyrand had, necessarily, the
conduct of this negotiation. There were two questions at
issue: the one, the arrangements between the European
potentates who had to give possessors to the territories
they had taken from France; and the other, the
arrangements to be made between France and these
potentates.</p>

<p>Some persons thought it would be possible to deal with
the two questions together, and that France could be
admitted into a congress where the special questions of
France with Europe, and the questions that had to be
decided by the European sovereigns between themselves,
could be settled simultaneously.<a name="FNanchor_67" id="FNanchor_67"></a><a href="#Footnote_67" class="fnanchor">[67]</a></p>

<p>But a little consideration will, I think, show that the
questions between France and Europe, and the questions
between the different States of Europe, which had been in
hostility with France, were perfectly distinct.</p>

<p>It would also have been absurd, and consequently impossible,
for France to have exacted, that all the matters
that had to be arranged as resulting from the late war
with France, should be treated in France.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span></p>

<p>The capital of France was the proper place for treating
as to French interests.</p>

<p>The capital of one of the allies was the place where the
affairs between the allies were naturally to be discussed.
Paris was chosen in the first case, Vienna in the second.</p>

<p>The allies, however, had undoubtedly placed themselves
in a false position towards the French nation, and this was
felt when a peace with it had to be concluded.</p>

<p>They had declared that they separated Napoleon from
France, that they only made war against the French
ruler, and that they would give the country better conditions
than they would give the Emperor. M. de Talleyrand,
therefore, came forward, saying, “Well, you were
going to give Napoleon the old limits of the French
monarchy, what will you give France?”</p>

<p>The allies replied, as it was certain they would reply,
that the promises alluded to were vague, they could not
dispose of the property of others; that France had nothing
legitimate but that which she held before a predatory
succession of conquests; that the allies held, it was true,
the conquered territories recovered from the French, but
that they could not give them back to wrongful acquirers;
that the general understanding was, that France should
have its ancient limits, and that when the allies had
agreed on the 23rd of April to withdraw their troops from
the French territory, it had been understood that this was
the territory of ancient France. Anything more was out
of the question. M. de Talleyrand, however, obtained the
frontier of 1792, and not that of 1790, and in rounding
that frontier, added some fortresses and inhabitants to the
kingdom of Louis XVI. Moreover, Paris remained the
mistress, and was permitted to boast of remaining the
mistress, of all the works of art ravished from other
nations, being thus, in fact, constituted the artistic capital
of the world.</p>

<p>Such a limited result, however, did not satisfy the
French people with peace when the horrors of war were
over; and we find in various works concerning these times
comments on the inconceivable <i lang="fr">légèreté</i> of M. de Talleyrand,
in not procuring more advantageous conditions.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span></p>

<p>I confess that I think that Europe should never have
made compromising promises; and that she should have
fulfilled generously whatever promises she had made; but
upon the whole France, which in her conquests had despoiled
every power, ought to have been satisfied when, in
the returning tide of victory, those powers left her what
she had originally possessed.</p>

<p>Poor M. de Talleyrand! he carried off all the absurd
reproaches he had to encounter with a dignified indifference:
even the accusation which was now made against
him, of having signed the treaty of April, in which the
provisional government, not being able to hold the fortresses
still occupied by French troops out of France, with
a foreign army demanding them in the heart of Paris,
resigned them on the condition that France itself should
be evacuated. “You seem to have been in a great hurry,
M. de Talleyrand,” said the Duc de Berry, “to sign that
unhappy treaty.” “Alas, yes, monseigneur; I was in a
great hurry. There are senators who say I was in a great
hurry to get the crown offered to your Royal house; a
crown which it might otherwise not have got. You
observe, monseigneur, that I was in a great hurry to give
up fortresses which we could not possibly have kept.
Alas, yes, monseigneur, I was in a great hurry. But do
you know, monseigneur, what would have happened if I
had waited to propose Louis XVIII. to the allies, and had
refused to sign the treaty of the 23rd of April with them?
No; you don’t know what would have happened! No
more do I. But at all events you may rest assured, we
should not now be disputing as to an act of the prince,
your father.”</p>

<p>Again, when a little after this the son of Charles X. was
boasting of what France would do when she got the three
hundred thousand troops that had been locked up in Germany,
Talleyrand, who had been seated at some little distance
and apparently not listening, got up, and approaching
slowly the Duc de Berry, said, with half-shut eyes and a
doubtful look of inquiry, “And do you really think,
monseigneur, that these three hundred thousand men can
be of any use to us?” “Of use to us! to be sure they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span>
will.” “Hem!” said M. de Talleyrand, <em>fixing</em> the Duc,
“you really think so, monseigneur? I did not know;
for we shall get them from that unfortunate treaty of the
23rd of April!”</p>

<p>The best of it was that Charles X. had thought this
treaty the great act of his life, until his son said it was
a great mistake; and he did not know then whether he
should defend it in his own glorification, or throw all the
blame of it on M. de Talleyrand.</p>

<h4>VI.</h4>

<p>The next link in the chain of events,&mdash;a final treaty
of peace between France and Europe having been concluded
(on the 30th of May),&mdash;was the promulgation of
the long-promised constitution; for the sovereigns who
were still in Paris, and with whom the Restoration had
commenced, were anxious to leave it; and they said that
they could not do so until the promises they had made to
the French nation were fulfilled.</p>

<p>The 4th of June, therefore, was fixed for this national
act.</p>

<p>The King had promised, as it has been seen, that the
frame of a constitution should be submitted to the Senate
and the legislative body.</p>

<p>He appointed the Abbé Montesquieu, whom we have
already named, and a M. Ferrand, a person of some consideration
with the Royalist party, to sketch the outline
of this great work, assisted by M. de Beugnot, an accomplished
gentleman, not very particular in his principles,
but very adroit in his phraseology; when done, such sketch
was submitted to and approved by the King, and passed
on to two commissions, one chosen from the Senate and
the other from the legislative body, the king reserving to
himself the right of settling disputed points.</p>

<p>The result was generally satisfactory, for though the
constitution was so framed as to give it the air of being
a grant from the royal authority, it contained the most
essential principles of a representative government,
namely:&mdash;</p>

<p>Equality before the law, and in the distribution of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span>
taxation,&mdash;the admissibility of all to public employments,&mdash;the
inviolability of the monarch,&mdash;the responsibility of
ministers,&mdash;the freedom of religion,&mdash;the necessity of annual
budgets;&mdash;and, finally, the permission to express in print
and by publication all opinions&mdash;such permission being controlled
by laws, which were to repress or punish its abuse.</p>

<p>There was to be a lower chamber with the qualification
for the electors of the payment of three hundred francs,
direct taxes; and, for the eligible, of one thousand
francs.</p>

<p>The upper chamber was not then made hereditary,
though the King might give an hereditary peerage. A
great portion of the Senate, the dukes and peers before
the Revolution, and other persons of distinction, formed
the house of peers. The legislative body was to act as
the lower chamber until the time for which the members
had been chosen was expired. The senators, not carried
on into the peerage, were given as a pension the payment
that formerly attached to their function.</p>

<p>The King bargained that the new constitution should
be called “La Charte Constitutionnelle;” “Charte” being
an old word that the kings had formerly employed,
and that it should be dated in <em>the nineteenth</em> year of his
reign.</p>

<p>The preamble also stated that “the King, in entire
possession of his full rights over this beautiful kingdom,
only desires to exercise the authority he holds from God
and his ancestors, in determining the bounds of his own
power.” A phrase which somewhat resembles one of
Bolingbroke’s, who says: “The infinite power of God is
limited by His infinite wisdom.”</p>

<p>It cannot be affirmed that M. de Talleyrand had anything
to do with the framing of “the Charter,” since
Louis XVIII.’s instruction to the commissioners was to
keep everything secret from M. de Talleyrand; but it was
the sort of constitution he had insisted upon: and thus the
Restoration was accomplished according to the plan which
he had undertaken to give to it, when he obtained the
decrees which deposed the Bonapartes and recalled the
Bourbons.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span></p>

<h4>VII.</h4>

<p>I have said that when M. de Talleyrand created the
government of Louis XVIII., he wanted to give it a backbone,
consisting of a party of able, practical, and popular
men of moderate opinions. But Louis XVIII., as a principle,
distrusted all men in proportion to their popularity
and ability, his ministers especially. M. de Talleyrand,
therefore, was, in his eyes, a person who should be constantly
watched, and constantly suspected. Louis XVIII.
had also in horror the idea of his cabinet being a ministry,
<i lang="la">i.e.</i>, a compact body agreeing together. His notion as
to driving was that horses who were always kicking at
each other, were less likely to kick at the carriage;
furthermore, he considered that everything which was
not as it had been thirty years back was really wrong,
though he did not mean to take the trouble of changing
it, and that all this new set of persons he had to deal
with were <i lang="fr">coquins</i>&mdash;not a gentleman amongst them.
That it was proper manners, since they existed, to treat
them courteously, and proper policy, since they had a
certain power in their hands, to temporise with them;
but in his heart of hearts he looked upon them as yahoos,
who had got into the stalls of horses, and were to be
kicked out directly the horses, strengthened by plentiful
feeds of corn, were up to the enterprise. In the meantime
nothing was to be risked, so that he sat himself down
as comfortably as he could in his arm-chair, received all
visitors with an air which an actor, about to play Louis
XIV., might have done well to study; wrote pretty
billets, said sharp and acute things, and felt that he was
every inch&mdash;a king.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span>
his intentions were excellent; but he relied on his old
notions and education for the means of carrying them out.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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&mdash;men,
in short, who could be relied upon, in the public
employments. The church, too&mdash;that great instrument of
government, and that great source of comfort and contentment
to men&mdash;that guardian of the mind which prevents
its emotions from wandering into the regions of false
theories and hopes&mdash;had been treated with contempt and
indifference. The church and the throne were required to
aid each other&mdash;the Bourbons had to bring them into
harmony. On these conditions, and on these conditions
alone&mdash;conditions (so said all whom the Comte d’Artois
consulted) so clear, so simple, so pious, and so just&mdash;the
safety and prosperity of the monarchy depended.”</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>Thus, though they had not the support of his convictions,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span>
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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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
<i lang="fr">bouleux</i>,<a name="FNanchor_68" id="FNanchor_68"></a><a href="#Footnote_68" class="fnanchor">[68]</a> to do their business&mdash;he hastened his preparations<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span>
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.</p>

<h4>VIII.</h4>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>The ideas he himself took under these circumstances to
Vienna were,&mdash;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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span>
the Emperor of Elba to a more distant location (Bermuda,
or the Azores, were spoken of).</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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&mdash;the principal parties&mdash;this understanding<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span>
should be communicated to the others; to
France and Spain in particular;&mdash;whose objections would
be heard.</p>

<p>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.</p>

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

<p>Taking advantage of the treaty of peace which France
had already signed, he contended that there were no longer
<em>allies</em>, 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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>This first point gained, the second,&mdash;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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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&mdash;once<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span>
delivered from the pretensions of Napoleon&mdash;should be
divided between the three military powers, Austria, Prussia,
and Russia.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>But his notion most assuredly was, that he should thus
create as an <i lang="fr">avant-garde</i> 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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span>
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.</p>

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

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span>
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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>These reasons were&mdash;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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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&mdash;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:</p>

<p>“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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span>
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.”</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span>
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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span>
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.</p>

<h4>IX.</h4>

<p>It was in the midst of the gaieties of a ball on the 5th
of March,<a name="FNanchor_69" id="FNanchor_69"></a><a href="#Footnote_69" class="fnanchor">[69]</a> 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:&mdash;</p>

<p>“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.</p>

<p>People, however, often cover a hesitation in their
decisions by an extravagance in their attitude.</p>

<p>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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span>
repair the effects of their imprudence and save the honour
of their arms.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

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

<p>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 <i lang="fr">aumonier</i>, 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.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span>
“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 <i lang="fr">émigré</i>. 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.</p>

<h4>X.</h4>

<p>The conduct of M. de Talleyrand at Vienna had been
that which he always followed to any government that
employed him&mdash;zealous and faithful. He had, in short,
been an active and able agent, carrying out the policy
which Louis XVIII., with whom he kept up a private
correspondence, thought the best for his dynasty and
for France; and he had succeeded in giving both dignity
and influence to a government which in reality wanted
both. He had not during his foreign mission meddled
with the internal policy of the court, nor relaxed in his
endeavours to serve it on account of the faults it committed:
but to his intimate friends he had made no secret
of his belief that it was taking a road which would
probably lead to ruin. When it had arrived at that goal
the case was different. He did not separate himself from
it&mdash;but he did not link himself indissolubly with it. He
showed no hesitation, however, as to declaring against
its opponent. Concentrating himself indeed on the one
idea of getting rid of Napoleon, he repeated constantly to
those who expatiated on the deficiency of the Restoration,
“I don’t know what government may be the best for
France, but I do know that Napoleon’s is the worst.”</p>

<p>His old master would willingly have softened this
animosity; and Fouché, who was intriguing with all
parties, with the intention of choosing the most powerful,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span>
sent M. de Montrond to Vienna to learn what he could,
as to the real intentions of the alliance, and more especially
as to the intentions of M. de Talleyrand, whose services
M. de Montrond was to endeavour, by any assurances he
might judge necessary, to obtain.</p>

<p>This M. de Montrond was a specialty of his epoch: a
type of that French <i lang="fr">roué</i> whom Faublas, and more particularly
the “<i lang="fr">liaisons dangereuses</i>,” had produced. He
had ruled the world of fashion by his loves, his duels, and
his wit, which was superior to any man’s, for nearly forty
years. He was one of M. de Talleyrand’s pets, as M. de
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 M. de Talleyrand with so much
intimacy as M. de Montrond, nor obtain from him so clear
an answer. For they trusted each other, though M. de
Montrond would never have told any one else to trust M.
de Talleyrand, nor M. de Talleyrand told any one else to
trust M. de Montrond.</p>

<p>This latter gentleman, the soul of Queen Hortense’s
circle, and at the same time the friend of the Duc
d’Orléans, whom he had known in Sicily, to which island
he had exiled himself in one of Napoleon’s fits of ill-humour&mdash;not,
as it was thought, without an object&mdash;first
tried to see if any consideration could bring the diplomatist,
once known as Prince de Benevent, to his old allegiance:
and, on finding this impossible, sounded him, it is said,
as to his feelings towards the son of that prince, with
whose celebrated society in the Palais Royal his early
remembrances must have been familiar. The answer he
obtained was “that the door was not then open, but,
should it ever be open, there was no necessity for shutting
it with vehemence.”</p>

<p>This lukewarm fidelity was not precisely of the temperature
that suited the loyalty of Ghent, where some
people thought that it would not have been difficult to
have induced the allies to have been more positive and
explicit in favour of the legitimate monarch, if his representative
had been more zealous as to his rights and less
sensible as to his errors. The party of the Comte d’Artois,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span>
also, instead of repenting of the excess to which it had
carried its principles, and recognizing that this excess had
been the cause of its overthrow&mdash;thought, or at least <em>said</em>,
as is usual in such cases, that its failure was caused, not
by the policy it had pursued, but by the checks which
that policy had encountered.</p>

<h4>XI.</h4>

<p>M. de Talleyrand, then, was more or less in disgrace
with the politicians, who were already disputing about
the redistribution of the places that their mistakes had
just lost; and, bearing this disgrace with his usual supercilious
negligence, declared that his health required the
waters of Carlsbad, observing that a diplomatist’s first
duty after a congress was to take care of his liver.</p>

<p>In the meantime the hundred days which concentrated
so much of the past, present, and future, were rushing
rapidly on. I know no example that teaches us more
clearly that our intellect is governed by our character,
than that which is to be found in the conduct of Napoleon
during these hundred days. None saw more clearly than
himself that prudence and policy advised that he should
either appear before the French as the great captain who
came to free them from a yoke imposed by the foreigner;
and refuse any other title than that of their general until
a peace was established or a victory gained: or that he
should seize the full powers of dictator, and sustain them
by his prestige over the military and the masses, arming
and revolutionizing France, and being himself the representative
of that armed revolution. But he loved the
title and decorations of sovereignty, and could not induce
himself to descend from the emperor to the soldier.
Neither could he persuade himself to call to life those
elements of force in which he saw the elements of disorder,
nor condescend to be the chief of the mob even with the
title of majesty. He temporised, therefore, for the moment
with those with whom he had the least sympathy, and
from whom he could get the least assistance; I mean the
Constitutionalists, who, representing the middle order and
the thinking portion of the French people, formed a party,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span>
that with a regular government, and at an ordinary time,
and under a sovereign they could have trusted, might have
possessed considerable influence, but such a party, with a
government created by the sword, at the moment of a
crisis, under a ruler of whom they were suspicious, could
only embarrass Napoleon’s action, and could not add to
his authority.</p>

<p>The conditions, then, under which this marvellous being
fought for the last time for empire were impossible. He
had not in his character the elements of a revolutionary
leader; and he was not allowed to use the qualities, with
which nature had endowed him, of a great captain and
despotic chief.</p>

<p>His cool head, his incomparable energy, gave something
like character and system to his own military proceedings,
but all beyond them was confusion. A great battle was
to be safety or ruin. He fought it, and was vanquished;
but he had fought it with skill and courage against foreign
invaders; and I confess that my heart, though an English
one, beats in sympathy for him, as he quitted the field
where he left so many of his devoted followers, and, prescient
of the fate which awaited him, sought a city which
never tolerates the unfortunate. Would for England’s
honour that his destiny had closed on that memorable
field, and that we had not to inscribe on the same page of
our history the captivity of St. Helena and the victory of
Waterloo!</p>

<h4>XII.</h4>

<p>To return to Ghent; the ex-King, irritated and perplexed
by the prolonged absence of his minister, not
satisfied with that of the Duc d’Orléans, who had retired
to England, and harassed by the zeal of Monsieur, had
conducted himself, notwithstanding, with dignity and
ability; and, by a sort of representation about his person,
a continued correspondence with France, and a confident
attachment on the part of his adherents, kept up a certain
prestige in his favour.</p>

<p>Nothing, however, had at first been positively decided
concerning him, for M. de Metternich carried on, for a
time, a secret negotiation with Fouché, in which he offered&mdash;if<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span>
that false and wily man could procure Napoleon’s
abdication or deposition&mdash;to support the claims of either
the Duc d’Orléans or Marie-Louise: a proposition which,
as long as its success was uncertain, could not but affect
considerably the state of M. de Talleyrand’s liver.</p>

<p>This negotiation once broken off, Louis’ claims made a
great advance, since the allied sovereigns were strongly
persuaded that on entering France they must have some
national party in their favour.</p>

<p>There were certain indications likewise in France itself,
serving to show men who watched the inclination of the
many straws that were then in the air, that these were
being blown back towards the old monarchy; and when
Louis XVIII. saw that the list of Bonaparte’s senators did
not contain the name of M. de Semonville, he considered
his return pretty secure.</p>

<p>The same conviction arrived about the same time at
Carlsbad, where the distinguished invalid began to think
that he ought no longer to delay a personal account of
the services he had rendered at Vienna.</p>

<p>His arrival at Ghent was not, however, particularly
agreeable there, since he came as the decided enemy of
the now celebrated M. de Blacas, to whom he was determined
to attribute nearly all the errors which the King
had committed.</p>

<p>In fact, M. de Talleyrand’s disgrace was resolved upon;
and, as he was rarely the last to know what concerned
himself, when he waited on Louis XVIII. the day after
the battle of Waterloo, it was to request his gracious permission
to continue his cure at Carlsbad; nor was his
Majesty so ill-natured as to reply otherwise than by
saying: “Certainly, M. de Talleyrand; I hear those waters
are excellent.”</p>

<p>Nothing could equal the amiable and contented mien
with which M. de Talleyrand limped from his most
Christian Majesty’s presence after this considerate reply;
and, eating an excellent dinner that evening with the
mayor of Mons, he was never known, says one of the
guests, to be more gay, witty, or agreeable;&mdash;dilating to
one or two of his intimate friends on the immense pleasure<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span>
it was to find that he had no longer to disturb himself
about the affairs of a clique which it was impossible to
serve and to please.</p>

<p>But, as it happened, the Comte d’Artois, who hated
M. de Talleyrand as a liberal, hated M. de Blacas still
more as a favourite; and Louis XVIII. finding that, whatever
happened to M. de Talleyrand, M. de Blacas could
not be kept, and that he (the king) must either be the
tool of his brother, or obtain a protector in his minister,
preferred, on the whole, the latter situation.</p>

<p>The Duke of Wellington, moreover, who, since the
secret treaty at Vienna, considered the French negotiator
there as linked with the policy of England, told Louis
that if he wished for the influence of our government, he
must have a man at the head of his own in whom he could
confide.</p>

<p>M. Guizot, likewise, who, though young in affairs had
acquired, even thus early, much consideration, and who
spoke in the name of the constitutional Legitimists, had
already said that, to have the support of this small but
respectable party, a cabinet must be formed with M. de
Talleyrand at its head; and thus, on those second thoughts
which come to us often when we have been a little too
hasty and bold in listening to our first, M. de Talleyrand
received the order to join the King at Cambrai the day
after he had been allowed to proceed to Carlsbad.</p>

<p>M. de Talleyrand was, however, not only mortified by
the treatment he had received, but foresaw that he had
only such treatment eventually to expect, and was determined
to prefer the first recommendation to the subsequent
command.</p>

<p>There are many, however, anxious that a statesman
from whom they expect favours should not abjure office;
and, finally, the man of the first Restoration, his pride
being satisfied by a general appeal to his patriotism, agreed
to appear again as the minister of a second.</p>

<p>Still, in coming to this determination, M. de Talleyrand
adopted another. He had frequently, it is said, blamed
himself for having in 1814 allowed the sovereign, who
could not have done without him, to assume too absolute<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span>
an authority over him. He did not now expect to be at
the head of the French Government long, but he deemed
that his only chance of remaining there, or of doing any
good whilst he was there, was to show an indifference to
office, and a consciousness of power.</p>

<p>He appeared, then, when summoned to his Majesty’s
council, with a sketch of a proclamation which he called
upon the King to sign, and which was, in fact, a recognition
of the errors of his Majesty’s late reign.</p>

<p>As the conversation that took place on the reading of
this proclamation is related by a witness, I give it as
narrated, the more especially as it shows the position which
M. de Talleyrand assumed, and the cool self-confidence
with which he confronted the indignation of the whole
Bourbon family.<a name="FNanchor_70" id="FNanchor_70"></a><a href="#Footnote_70" class="fnanchor">[70]</a></p>

<p>“The Council assembles: it was composed of MM. de
Talleyrand, Dambray, de Feltre, de Fancourt, Beurnonville,
and myself” (M. de Beugnot is speaking).</p>

<p>“After a few words from M. de Talleyrand, explanatory
of the subject which was to be brought before the Council,
I commenced reading the proclamation, such as it remained
after the corrections made in it; the King permitted me to
read it to the end, and then, though not without some
emotion that his face betrayed, told me to read it once
more.</p>

<p>“Monsieur then spoke, and complained bitterly of the
terms in which the proclamation was drawn up. ‘The
King,’ he said, ‘is made to ask pardon for the faults he
committed. He is made to say that he allowed himself to
be carried away by his affections, and that for the future
he will conduct himself differently. Such expressions can<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span>
only do this mischief&mdash;lower royalty; for in all other
respects they say too much or too little.’</p>

<p>“M. de Talleyrand replied: ‘Monsieur will pardon me
if I differ from him; I find these expressions necessary, and
appropriately placed. The King has had faults, his affections
have misled him. There is nothing too much in
this paper.’ ‘Is it I?’ said Monsieur, ‘whom it is intended
indirectly to point out?’ ‘Why, yes, since Monsieur has
placed the discussion on that ground, Monsieur has done a
great deal of harm.’ ‘The Prince de Talleyrand forgets
himself.’ ‘I fear so, but truth carries me away.’ The
Duc de Berry, with the accent of anger painfully
restrained: ‘Nothing but the presence of the King would
permit me to tolerate this treatment of my father before
me, and I would like to know&mdash;&mdash;’ At these words, pronounced
in a higher tone than the rest, the King made a
sign to the Duc de Berry, and said, ‘Enough, my nephew;
I am the only person to judge of the propriety of what is
said in my presence, and in my Council. Gentlemen, I
neither approve of the terms of this proclamation, nor of
the conversation to which it has given rise. The framer
must retouch his work, not forgetting that when I speak,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span>
it must be with a due sense of my dignity and high position.’
The Duc de Berry, pointing at me: ‘But it is not he who
has strung all this nonsense together.’ The King:
‘Forbear interrupting, nephew, if you please. I repeat,
gentlemen, that I have listened to this discussion with
much regret. Let us turn to another subject.’”</p>

<h4>XIII.</h4>

<p>The proclamation with some slight alterations was
published, and M. de Talleyrand finally carried his point,
and formed his ministry. It is difficult to place oneself so
completely in the troubled scene of Paris at this time,
amidst the confused society composed of a defeated army,
disappointed Republicans, triumphant Royalists, all uneasy
and agitated in their actual position, and without the
possibility of a common attachment to what was to be
their government&mdash;it is difficult, I say, to take into a
comprehensive glance the confused and troubled state of
the French capital, disturbed by a thousand plots which
might at any moment concentrate into one&mdash;and, therefore,
it is difficult to appreciate the possible necessity of employing
an able and dexterous adventurer, who had pulled
many of the cords of the machine which had now to be
brought into harmonious working. Still, I venture to
consider that the Duke of Wellington committed an error
in recommending, and M. de Talleyrand an error in
accepting, M. Fouché as a member of the cabinet about to
be formed.</p>

<p>The late minister of police was, in fact, at this time,
an acknowledged scoundrel; he had gained our favour by
betraying his master’s secrets to our general; he had
gained the favour of the extreme Royalists by concealing
their plots, and keeping safe their persons when he was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span>
serving the government they were attempting to overthrow.
He had betrayed the Republicans of France to
the Emperor of France, and he had subsequently betrayed
the Emperor of France to the foreigner; and he had voted
for the death of the brother of the monarch who was now
to sit upon the throne. It was impossible for a man of
this sort, whatever his abilities, not to bring ultimate
disgrace on the government that enrolled him in its
ranks; and, in fact, by his successive efforts, first to gain
one party, and then to gain the other, by his personal
ambition, by his constant intrigues, and by the general
distrust he inspired, he deprived his colleagues of the
consideration of all honest men, and exposed them consequently
to the attacks of all violent factions.</p>

<p>But if England committed a fault in approving of the
appointment of the Duc d’Otrante, she committed another
fault still more important.</p>

<p>In designating M. de Talleyrand as the man best
calculated to establish a government in France, and to
consolidate an alliance between France and England, we
ought to have been prepared to render the position of that
minister tenable and honourable. Whether rightly or
wrongly, we, in common with the other four powers, had
made war, for a second time, on precisely the same principles
on which we had made it for the first; since we had
made it with the same declaration, that our conflict was
with a man, and not with a nation. Our second peace,
therefore, ought to have been in strict conformity with
our first, or, rather, our first treaty of peace should have
been maintained. We were dealing with the same monarch
under the same circumstances, and we ought to have done
so, preserving the same conditions.</p>

<p>If new circumstances of importance,&mdash;circumstances we
had not foreseen,&mdash;rendered a change of policy necessary,
that change should have been a large one, based on large
considerations, and its necessity should have been clearly
explained.</p>

<p>To take a few strips of territory, and a few pictures and
statues, was the spite of the pigmy, not the anger of
the giant.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span></p>

<p>Unfortunately, the power which rendered itself conspicuous
for its animosity, was one which had been conspicuous
for its valour. The descendant of all the Capets
was insulted by the dirty linen of the Prussian soldier
hung up to dry on the railing of his palace; and the
intention of the Prussian army to blow up the bridge of
Jena was only averted by M. de Talleyrand’s timely
precautions.</p>

<p>The story is recounted in rather an amusing manner
by a gentleman I have frequently cited, and is characteristic
of the subject of this memoir.</p>

<p>M. de Talleyrand, on hearing what the Prussians were
about to do, and knowing in these occasions no time was
to be lost, ordered M. de Beugnot to find Marshal Blücher
wherever he might be, and to use the strongest language
in his vocabulary on the part of the King and his government
in order to induce the marshal to give such peremptory
orders as would prevent the threatened outrage.
“Shall I say,” said M. de Beugnot, “that the King will
have himself carried to the bridge, and be blown up
with it?” “Not precisely; people will not believe us quite
so heroic, but say something strong, very strong.”</p>

<p>Off went M. de Beugnot to discover the marshal, who was
easily to be found in a certain gambling house in the Palais
Royal. Though by no means delighted at being disturbed
in his only amusement, the marshal, on being assured that
the name of the bridge was to be altered, gave the orders
for stopping its destruction.</p>

<p>When M. de Beugnot returned, and gave an account of
his mission, M. de Talleyrand said, good-humouredly,
“Well, now I think that we may profit by your idea of
this morning. You remember the King threatened to be
carried to the bridge, and was prepared to be blown up
with it. It will make a good newspaper article.” “I
profited,” says Beugnot, “by the hint.” The anecdote
appeared in all the papers, and the King received the
compliments made to him upon it with his accustomed
affability and assurance.<a name="FNanchor_71" id="FNanchor_71"></a><a href="#Footnote_71" class="fnanchor">[71]</a></p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span></p>

<p>But this was not all. The violent seizure of the works
of art which France had till then retained, and which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span>
might justifiably have been taken away at the first capture
of Paris, was this time an unwarranted robbery, against
which the King and his ministers could only protest in a
manner which seemed offensive to the conquerors and
feeble to the French people.</p>

<p>The payment of a large indemnity, the maintenance
of a large foreign army, to be supported by France for
seven years for the suppression of its own action and
independence, were conditions that no French minister
could sign with dignity, and least of all the minister who
had taken so active a part with the coalition.</p>

<p>Having assisted at the appointment of a French government
which was friendly to good relations with England,
and it being our predominant interest to be on good
terms with the French nation, we should have firmly
resisted the imposition of such disgraceful conditions.</p>

<p>The natural consequence of our not doing so was that
the Emperor Alexander, who had never forgiven M. de
Talleyrand for his conduct at the recent congress, did not
now disguise his personal antipathy to him, and told
Louis XVIII. that he had nothing to expect from the
cabinet of St. Petersburg as long as M. de Talleyrand
was at the head of that of the Tuileries; but that, if his
Majesty gave M. de Talleyrand’s place to M. de Richelieu,
he (the Emperor) would then do what he could to mitigate
the severity of the conditions that all the allies now
peremptorily demanded.</p>

<h4>XIV.</h4>

<p>The Duc de Richelieu, illustrious by his name, and
with a character which did honour to that name, was one
of those nobles who, when the state of France rendered
it impossible as they thought to take an active part in
their own country, could not, nevertheless, submit themselves
to the useless inactivity of an <i lang="fr">émigré’s</i> life in the
suburbs of London. He sought his fortune then in
Russia, and found it in the Emperor Alexander’s favour,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span>
at whose desire he undertook the government of the
Crimea, and marked his administration by an immense
progress in the condition of that country.</p>

<p>The new order of things made him again a Frenchman;
but, diffident of his own powers, he was far from
being ambitious of office, and even declined it at the first
Restoration. But the public has frequently a tendency
to give people what it is thought they don’t want, and
there was a pretty general feeling that M. de Richelieu
was a man destined to figure politically in his native land.
His air was noble, his manners were polished and courteous,
his honesty and straightforwardness proverbial, his
habits of business regular, his abilities moderate; but
there was that about him which is felt and cannot be
defined, and which points out persons for the first places,
if they are to have any places at all. Every one acknowledged
then that if the Duc de Richelieu was to be a
minister, he should be the first minister.</p>

<p>The King was delighted to get rid of M. de Talleyrand,
whose presence reminded him of an obligation, and whose
easy air of superiority was disagreeable to his pride.
But it was deemed prudent to wait the result of the
elections that were then pending.</p>

<p>They were decidedly unfavourable to the existing administration.
A government, in fact, can only be moderate
when it is strong, and the government of M. de Talleyrand
was weak, for the only efficient support it could
have had against the court party, was that of the King’s
favour, and this support it had not got.</p>

<p>Thus, the Royalists, emboldened by the foreign armies
which were, so to speak, holding a rod over their opponents,
acted with the force of a party which considered
it must be victorious,&mdash;and carried all before it.</p>

<p>For a moment, M. de Talleyrand seemed disposed to
resist the coming reaction, and even obtained the creation
of some peers, whom the King unwillingly consented to
name for that purpose. But, exposed to the violent
hostility of the Emperor of Russia, and not having the
active friendship of Great Britain, he saw that the
struggle could not succeed; and, whilst foreseeing and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span>
foretelling that his retirement would be the commencement
of a policy that would eventually link France with
the despotic governments of the continent in a war against
liberal opinions, he resigned on the national ground that
he could not sign such a treaty as the allies now proposed;
and on the 24th of September ceased to be prime minister
of France.</p>

<p>Louis XVIII. rewarded his retirement with an annual
pension of one hundred thousand francs, and the high
court charge of great chamberlain, the functions of which,
by the way, the ex-minister, who might be seen coolly
and impassively standing behind the King’s chair on all
state occasions, notwithstanding the cold looks of the
sovereign and the sagacious sneers of his courtiers, always
scrupulously fulfilled.</p>

<p>In their last official interview, his Majesty observed:</p>

<p>“You see to what circumstances oblige me: I have to
thank you for your zeal, you are without reproach, and
may remain unmolested at Paris.”<a name="FNanchor_72" id="FNanchor_72"></a><a href="#Footnote_72" class="fnanchor">[72]</a></p>

<p>This phrase pierced through the usual coolness of the
person it was addressed to. He replied with some vehemence:</p>

<p>“I have had the happiness of rendering sufficiently important
services to the King, to believe that they are not
forgotten. I cannot understand then what could oblige
me to quit Paris. I shall remain there, and shall be too
happy to find that the counsels which the King receives
will not be such as to compromise his dynasty and
France.”<a name="FNanchor_73" id="FNanchor_73"></a><a href="#Footnote_73" class="fnanchor">[73]</a></p>

<p>As these remarks were made on either side before the
cabinet, and subsequently repeated, they may be considered
authentic.</p>

<hr />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span></p>

<h3><span class="smcap">Part VI.</span><br />
<span class="smaller">FROM THE RETIREMENT OF M. DE TALLEYRAND TO THE
REVOLUTION OF 1830.</span></h3>

<div class="smaller">

<p>M. de Talleyrand’s retirement from public affairs during the period which
closed with the dethronement of Charles X.&mdash;Appearance in the House of
Peers on two occasions, to protest against the Spanish war and to defend the
liberty of the press.&mdash;Reasons for the course he pursued.&mdash;Share in the advent
of Louis Philippe.&mdash;Accepts the embassy to London.&mdash;Conduct and policy
when there.&mdash;Retires after the Quadruple Alliance.&mdash;Discourse in the Institute
on M. Reinhard.&mdash;Death.&mdash;Summary of character.</p>

</div>

<h4>I.</h4>

<p>M. de Talleyrand gave a proof of his sagacity when he
foresaw that, with the violent Royalists entering into
power under a minister named by the Autocrat of the
North, a state of things was preparing that would lead to
a war of opinion throughout Europe, and unite the
governments that could not support liberal institutions
with that party in the French nation which repudiated
them. He was equally sagacious in retiring voluntarily
from affairs, and doing so on national and not on party
grounds. But at the same time he could not long have
remained at the head of a parliamentary government,
even had he been free from the peculiar difficulty which
then surrounded him. To direct affairs with such a
government, in critical times, one must have some of the
passions of those times. M. de Talleyrand, as I have
said at the beginning of this sketch, had no passions.</p>

<p>He represented the power of reason; but that power,
which predominates at the end of every crisis, has its
voice drowned at the commencement. His administration
then was necessarily doomed: but he had at least the
credit of having endeavoured, first to prevent and then to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span>
moderate those acts of vengeance which a minority that
obtains the supremacy always wishes to inflict on an adverse
majority: for he furnished passports and even money
(the budget of foreign affairs was charged with four
hundred and fifty-nine thousand francs for this purpose)
to all who felt desirous to quit France&mdash;Ney, though he
did not profit by the indulgence, might have done so.
The list of proscriptions at first contained one hundred
persons, M. de Talleyrand reduced that number to fifty-seven.<a name="FNanchor_74" id="FNanchor_74"></a><a href="#Footnote_74" class="fnanchor">[74]</a>
Labédoyère&mdash;and this owing entirely to his own
imprudence, in obliging the government either to release
him publicly or to bring him to trial&mdash;was the only
victim of an administration which wished to be moderate
when every one was violent.</p>

<p>A most memorable epoch in French history now commenced&mdash;the
constitutional education of the French nation.
It went through a variety of vicissitudes. For a time
the Royalist reaction, headed by the Comte d’Artois,
prevailed. It was then for a moment stopped by the
jealousy of Louis XVIII., who felt that France was in
reality being governed by his brother, who could ride on
horseback. After a short struggle the conflict between
the two princes ceased, and M. de Villelle with more or
less adroitness governed them both. The elder at last
was deprived by death of the sceptre he had ceased to
wield independently, and with the ardent desire he had
ever felt to be loved by his countrymen, Charles X. legitimately
commenced his right of ruling them. But a
hesitating policy of conciliation producing after a short
effort but a doubtful result, another policy was resolved
upon. The King would show that he was king, and he
selected a ministry ready to be his soldiers in a battle
against popular ideas. The battle was fought: the King
was vanquished. So passed the time from 1815 to
1830.</p>

<p>Within this epoch of fifteen years, during which it must
be said that France, however agitated and divided, made<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span>
an immense progress under the institutions that she owed
in no small degree to M. de Talleyrand, that statesman
was little more than a spectator of passing events. The
new patriots, orators, journalists, generals of the day,
occupied public attention, and he ceased to be considered
except as one of those characters of history that have been
too interesting in their day to be consigned quietly to
posterity. Moreover, the judgment passed on him from
time to time by contemporaneous writers was usually
superficial and sometimes supercilious.</p>

<p>As to the deputies whom local influence and the zeal of
parties returned to the lower chamber, they were for the
most part unknown to him by their antecedents, and not
worth knowing for their merits.</p>

<p>In the upper chamber, where men of high rank and
intellectual eminence were certainly to be found, his personal
influence was not great; the sympathies and recollections
of that chamber, whether amongst the old
Royalists or most distinguished Bonapartists, were
against him. There was no one consequently to press
him to take part in its debates, nor were there many
subjects of discussion sufficiently important to arouse his
indolence, and call forth with dignity the exertions of a
statesman who had played so great a part amidst the
great events of that marvellous period through which his
career had run.</p>

<p>On one memorable occasion, however, he stepped boldly
forward to claim&mdash;if affairs took the course which many
thought most probable&mdash;the first place in a new system:
this was when war, in 1823, was declared against Spain.</p>

<h4>II.</h4>

<p>That war was commenced by M. de Châteaubriand, who
had always been M. de Talleyrand’s antipathy, not merely
as a war against the Spanish people, or in support of the
Spanish monarch, but as a war which was to be considered
an armed declaration in favour of ultra-monarchical principles,
thus justifying all the previsions with which M. de
Talleyrand had quitted office. A victory was certain to
deliver France into the hands of the ultra-Royalist party;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span>
defeat or difficulty was as certain to give power to more
moderate men and more moderate opinions. In the one
case, M. de Talleyrand had nothing to hope; in the other,
it was necessary to fix attention on the fact that he had
predicated misfortune. The struggle in Spain, moreover,
depended greatly on the state of public opinion; and this
alone made it advisable to endeavour to create as strong a
belief as possible that men of weight and consideration
looked upon it with apprehension and disfavour. It was
under these circumstances that M. de Talleyrand expressed
the following opinion:<a name="FNanchor_75" id="FNanchor_75"></a><a href="#Footnote_75" class="fnanchor">[75]</a></p>

<p>“Messieurs,” this impressive discourse commences, “il
y a aujourd’hui seize ans qu’appellé par celui qui gouvernait
alors le monde à lui dire mon avis sur une lutte à
engager avec le peuple espagnol, j’eus le malheur de lui
déplaire, en lui dévoilant l’avenir, en révélant tous les
dangers qui allaient naître en foule d’une aggression non
moins injuste que téméraire. La disgrâce fut le prix de
ma sincérité. Etrange destinée, que celle qui me ramène
après ce long espace de temps à renouveler auprès du
souverain légitime les mêmes efforts, les mêmes conseils.
Le discours de la couronne a fait disparaître les dernières
espérances de amis de la paix, et, menaçant pour l’Espagne,
il est, je dois le dire, alarmant pour la France.…
Oui, j’aurai le courage de dire toute la vérité. Ces mêmes
sentiments chevaleresques qui, en 1789, entraînaient les
cœurs généreux, n’ont pu sauver la monarchie légitime, ils
peuvent encore la perdre en 1823.”</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span></p>

<p>The Spanish war, in spite of these alarming prognostications,
was successful; and courtiers sneered not unnaturally
at the statesman who had denounced it. But if M.
de Talleyrand had not shown his usual foresight, he had
not acted contrary to his usual prudence. People, in deciding
on the conduct they should adopt, can only calculate
upon probabilities, and must, after all, as Machiavelli
with his worldly experience observes, “leave much to
chance.” This sort of prophecy, contained in the speech
I have just quoted from, had a good deal in its favour;
M. de Châteaubriand himself had, as I once heard from
the lips of a person to whom he spoke confidentially, the
most serious doubts as to the issue of the approaching
campaign; though he considered that its happy termination
would firmly establish the Bourbons as sovereigns in
France, and himself as their prime minister: in both
of which conclusions he was wrong, though it seemed
likely he would be right. The contemplated enterprise
was, in fact, unpopular; the prince at its head was without
capacity, the generals around him were on ill terms
with each other, the soldiers themselves of doubtful
allegiance. A considerable body of Frenchmen and some
French soldiers were in the enemies’ ranks, and were about,
in the name of liberty and Napoleon II., to make an
appeal, from the opposite shore of the Bidassoa, to their
advancing comrades.</p>

<p>The courage of the nation now attacked had on many
occasions been remarkable; the discipline of its armies had
been lately improved; the policy of England was uncertain;
the credit of France was far from good. These
were all fair elements out of which it was by no means
unreasonable to concoct a disastrous presage, which, like
many presages, had a tendency to realise itself. But more
especially it should be observed that the predictions of M.
de Talleyrand, if unfortunate, would do him no harm, and
if fortunate, would replace him on the pinnacle of power.</p>

<h4>III.</h4>

<p>The ex-minister of Louis XVIII. thus revived the
recollections of the ex-minister of Napoleon le Grand; as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span>
already the member of the Chamber of Peers had vindicated
the principles of the veteran of the National
Assembly; for on the 24th of July, 1821, we find him
expressing the same sentiments in favour of the liberty of
the press after practical experience, which at the commencement
of his career he had proclaimed with theoretical
anticipations.</p>

<p>As the question at issue is not yet solved in the country
he was addressing, it may not be without interest to hear
what he says:<a name="FNanchor_76" id="FNanchor_76"></a><a href="#Footnote_76" class="fnanchor">[76]</a></p>

<p>“Without the liberty of the press there can be no
representative government; it is one of its essential
instruments&mdash;its chief instrument, in fact: every government
has its principles, and we cannot remember too often
that frequently those principles which are excellent for
one government are detestable for another. It has been
abundantly demonstrated by several members of this
House, both in this and the preceding session, that
without the liberty of the press representative government
does not exist. I will not, then, repeat what you have
already heard or read, and which is no doubt the frequent
subject of your reflections.</p>

<p>“But there are two points of view in which it appears
to me the question has not been sufficiently treated, and
which I resolve into two propositions:</p>

<p>“1st. The liberty of the press is a necessity of the
time.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span></p>

<p>“2nd. A government exposes itself when it obstinately
refuses, and that for a lengthened period, what the time
proclaims as necessary.</p>

<p>“The <em>mind is never completely stationary</em>. The discovery
of yesterday is only a means to arrive at a fresh
discovery to-morrow. One is nevertheless justified in
affirming that it <em>appears to act by impulses, because there
are moments when it appears particularly desirous of
bringing forth&mdash;of producing; at others, on the contrary,
when, satisfied by its conquests, it appears to rest itself,
and is occupied in putting the treasures it has acquired
in order, rather than in seeking after new ones</em>. The
seventeenth century was one of these fortunate epochs.
The human intellect, dazzled by the immense riches which
the art of printing had put at its disposal, paused to gaze
in admiration on the wondrous sight. Giving itself up
entirely to the enjoyment of letters, science, and art, its
glory and happiness became concentrated in the production
of masterpieces. All the great men of the time of Louis
XIV. vied with each other in embellishing a social order,
beyond which they saw nothing, and desired nothing, and
which appeared to them made to last as long as the glory
of the great king, the object alike of their respect and of
their enthusiasm. But when they had exhausted the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span>
fertile mine of antiquity, their intelligent activity found
itself almost compelled to search elsewhere, and discovered
nothing new, except in speculative studies that embrace
all the future, and of which the limits are unknown. It
was amidst these dispositions that the eighteenth century
dawned&mdash;a century so little resembling the preceding one.
To the poetical lessons of Telemachus succeeded the
theories of ‘the <cite>Esprit des Lois</cite>,’ and Port Royal was
replaced by the Encyclopædia.</p>

<p>“I pray you to observe, gentlemen, that I neither
censure nor approve: I simply relate.</p>

<p>“In calling to mind all the calamities poured out upon
France during the Revolution, we must not be altogether
unjust towards those superior men that brought it about;
and we ought not to forget, that if in their writings they
have not always been able to avoid falling into error, we
owe to them the revelation of some great truths. Above
all, let us not forget that we ought not to make them
responsible for the precipitation with which France rushed
practically into a career which her philosophers merely
indicated. Thoughts were turned at once into action, and
one might well say, ‘Woe to him who in his foolish pride<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span>
would go beyond the necessities of his epoch! Some
abyss or revolution awaits him.’ But when we simply
follow the necessity of an epoch, we are certain not to go
astray.</p>

<p>“Now, gentlemen, do you wish to know what were in
1789 the real necessities of that epoch? Turn to the
mandates of the different orders represented in the
National Assembly. <em>All that were then the reflected
wishes of enlightened men are what I call necessities.</em>
The Constituent Assembly was only their interpreter
when it proclaimed liberty of worship, equality before the
law, individual liberty, the right of jurisdiction (that no
one should be deprived of his natural judges), <em>the liberty
of the press</em>.</p>

<p>“It was little in accordance with its epoch when it
instituted a single chamber, when it destroyed the royal
sanction, when it tortured the conscience, &amp;c. &amp;c. And,
nevertheless, in spite of its faults, of which I have only
cited a small number&mdash;faults followed by such great
calamities&mdash;posterity which has begun for it accords to it
the glory of establishing the foundation of our new public
rights.</p>

<p>“<em>Let us hold, then, for certain, that all that is desired,
that all that is proclaimed good and useful by all the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span>
enlightened men of a country, without variation, during
a series of years diversely occupied, is a necessity of the
times.</em> Such, gentlemen, is the liberty of the press. I
address myself to all those amongst you who are more
particularly my contemporaries&mdash;was it not the dear
object and wish of all those excellent men whom we so
admired in our youth&mdash;the Malesherbes, the Trudaines&mdash;who
surely were well worth the statesmen we have had
since? The place which the men I have named occupy
in our memories amply proves that the liberty of the
press consolidates legitimate renown; and if it destroys
usurped reputations, where is the harm?</p>

<p>“Having proved my first proposition, that the liberty
of the press is in France the necessary result of the state
of its society, it remains for me to establish my second
proposition&mdash;that a government is in danger when it obstinately
refuses what the state or spirit of its society requires.</p>

<p>“The most tranquil societies, and those which ought to
be the most happy, always number amongst them a certain
class of men who hope to acquire by the means of disorder
those riches which they do not possess, and that importance
which they ought never to have. Is it prudent to furnish
the enemies of social order with pretexts for discontent,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span>
without which their individual efforts to promote disturbance
would be impotent?</p>

<p>“Society in its progressive march is destined to experience
new wants. <em>I can perfectly understand that
governments ought not to be in any hurry to recognise
them; but when it has once recognised them</em>, to take back
what it has given, or, what comes to the same thing, to
be always suspending its exercise, is a temerity of which
I more than any one desire that those who conceived <em>the
convenient</em> and <em>fatal thought</em> may not have to repent.
The good faith of a government should never be compromised.
<em>Now-a-days, it is not easy to deceive for long.
There is some one who has more intelligence than Voltaire;
more intelligence than Bonaparte; more intelligence than
each of the Directors&mdash;than each of the ministers, past,
present, and to come. That some one is everybody.</em> To
engage in, or at least to persist in, a struggle against
what according to general belief is a public interest, is a
political fault,&mdash;and at this day all political faults are
dangerous.</p>

<p>“When the press is free&mdash;when each one knows that
his interests are or will be defended&mdash;all wait with patience
a justice more or less tardy. Hope supports, and with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span>
reason, for this hope cannot be deceived for long; but
when the press is enslaved, when no voice can be raised,
discontent will soon exact, on the part of the government,
either too much concession or too much repression.”</p>

<p>On the 26th of February, 1822, M. de Talleyrand spoke
on the same subject, commenting on the rights accorded
by, and the intentions which had presided over, the
charter. Such efforts on such subjects preserved for his
name a national character, and connected the most memorable
acts of his own career with the most ardent aspirations
of his country.</p>

<h4>IV.</h4>

<p>Still, notwithstanding these occasional appearances on
the public stage, it is certain that the easy though momentary
triumph of a cause of which he had somewhat
solemnly announced the almost certain defeat, disgusted
him from further meddling in affairs, and much of his
time was afterwards passed out of Paris, at Valençay, the
estate which he meant should be ancestral, in Touraine.
His fortune, moreover, was much affected by the bankruptcy
of a commercial house in which he had engaged
himself as what we call a “sleeping partner.” Nevertheless
he held, when in the capital, a great existence:&mdash;his
drawing-room becoming to the Restoration what it
had been to the best days of the Empire&mdash;a rival court,
and a court which gathered to itself all the eminences of
the old times, and all the rising young men of the new.</p>

<p>There, from his easy-chair, drawn up to the window
which looks upon the Tuileries, and surrounded by those
who had acted in the past with him, or who might make
a future for him, he read with pleased composure the fall
of ministry after ministry on the flushed countenance of
the eager deputy rushing to or from the fatal vote; until,
at the nomination of M. de Polignac, he repeated calmly
to those about him, the phrase he is said to have pronounced<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span>
after the Russian campaign: “<i lang="fr">C’est le commencement
de la fin</i>.” Indeed, ever since the dismissal of the
National Guard, and the failure of M. de Martignac’s
ministry, which, tried as it was and at the time it was,
could not but fail, he spoke without reserve, though
always with expressions of regret, to those in his intimacy,
of the extreme peril to which the legitimate monarchy
was hurrying; and he could do this with the more
certainty, from the knowledge he possessed of Charles X.’s
character, the good and bad qualities of which he considered
equally dangerous.</p>

<h4>V.</h4>

<p>The following account of the share which M. de Talleyrand
took in the new Revolution, that, after many ominous
preludes, at last took place, was given me by an actor in
the history he relates.</p>

<p>For the first two days of the insurrection, viz., the
27th and 28th of July, M. de Talleyrand said little or
nothing, remaining quietly at home and refusing himself
to all inquirers. On the third day he called to him his
private secretary, and with that winning manner he knew
so well how to adopt when he had any object to gain, said
to him: “M. C&mdash;&mdash;, I have a favour to request of you;
go for me to St. Cloud” (the service was one of some
danger and difficulty), “see if the royal family are still
there, or what they are doing.” The secretary went and
found Charles X. just departing for Rambouillet. M. de
Talleyrand, who had during his messenger’s absence seen
General Sebastiani, General Gerard, and two or three
other influential persons of the same party and opinions,
on hearing that the King had quitted St. Cloud, retired
to his room and remained there alone for about two hours,
when he again sent for the same gentleman, and this time
his manners were, if possible, more persuasive than before.
“I have yet another and greater favour to ask, M. C&mdash;&mdash;.
Go for me to Neuilly; get by some means or other to
Madame Adelaide;<a name="FNanchor_77" id="FNanchor_77"></a><a href="#Footnote_77" class="fnanchor">[77]</a> give her this piece of paper, and
when she has read it, either see it burnt or bring it back<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span>
to me.” The piece of paper contained merely these
words: “Madame peut avoir toute confiance dans le
porteur, qui est mon secrétaire.” “When madame has
read this, you will tell her that there is not a moment to
lose. The Duc d’Orléans must be here to-morrow; he
must take no other title than that of Lieutenant-general
of the Kingdom, which has been accorded to him&mdash;‘<i lang="fr">le reste
viendra</i>.’”</p>

<p>With this confidential message, M. C&mdash;&mdash; started.
With great difficulty&mdash;for the gates of Neuilly were closed
to every one&mdash;he got to the château and to Madame. On
saying that he brought a message from M. de Talleyrand,
“Ah, ce bon prince, j’étais sûre qu’il ne nous oublierait
pas!”<a name="FNanchor_78" id="FNanchor_78"></a><a href="#Footnote_78" class="fnanchor">[78]</a> The messenger then delivered his credentials and
his message. “Tell the prince that I will pledge my
word for my brother’s following his advice. He shall be
in Paris to-morrow,” was the reply; after which M. C&mdash;&mdash;
had the courage to ask, though with some hesitation, that
the piece of paper should be destroyed or returned. It
was given back to him, and he restored it to M. de Talleyrand,
who did not, by the way, forget to ask for it. It
only remains to say that the Duc d’Orléans did come to
Paris the following day; did only take the title of Lieutenant-general;
and that the rest did, as M. de Talleyrand
had predicted, follow. Thus ended the last Revolution
with which this singular man was blended.</p>

<p>When the message he sent arrived, the future king of
the French was concealed, the conduct he seemed likely
to pursue uncertain; and those who know anything of
revolutions will be aware of the value of a day and an
hour. Moreover, this prince got to the throne by the
very door which M. de Talleyrand had warned Louis XVIII.
to close, viz., a constitution proceeding <em>from</em> the people.</p>

<p>Nor is this all: the knowledge that M. de Talleyrand
had recognised, and even been concerned in establishing,
the new dynasty, had no slight influence on the opinion
formed of it in other courts, and might be said more
especially to have decided our own important and immediate
recognition of it. He himself was then offered the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span>
post of minister of foreign affairs, but he saw it was more
difficult and less important than that of ambassador to
St. James’, and while he refused the first position he accepted
the last.</p>

<h4>VI.</h4>

<p>The choice was a fortunate one. No one else could
have supplied the place of M. de Talleyrand in England
at that juncture; he knew well and personally both the
Duke of Wellington and Lord Grey, the chiefs of the
opposing parties, and it was perhaps his presence at the
British court, more than any other circumstance of
the time, which preserved, in a crisis when all the
elements of war were struggling to get loose, that
universal peace which for so many years remained unbroken.</p>

<p>With a firm conviction, indeed, of the necessity of this
peace, he took the best and only course for maintaining
it. An ordinary diplomatist is occupied with the thousand
small affairs passing through his hands, and the thousand
ideas of more or less importance connected with them.
M. de Talleyrand’s great talent, as I have more than once
said, was in selecting at once in every affair the most
<em>important question</em> of the moment, and in sacrificing,
without delay or scruple, whatever was necessary to attain
his object with respect to that question.</p>

<p>He saw that the peaceful acceptance of the Orleans’
dynasty could be obtained, and could only be obtained, by
being on good terms with England. A quarrel with us
was an European war; a good understanding with us
rendered such a war unlikely, almost impossible. Belgium
was the especial question on which all earlier negotiations
turned, and on which the amity of our government
depended. That country, smarting under many real, and
irritated by the thought of many fancied, grievances, had
thrown off the Dutch yoke. The Dutch troops, who with
a little more vigour might have been victorious, had
retreated, beaten, from Brussels; the frontier fortresses
were in the hands of the insurgents, and it is no use disguising
the fact that there was, is, and ever will be, a
considerable party in France in favour of extending the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span>
French frontier, and comprising Antwerp within the
French dominions. England, however, was not then disposed,
and probably will not at any time be disposed, with
statesmen caring for the safety of their country, to submit
to this. She had, in fact, as I have said at the peace of
1814, provided especially, as she thought, for the safety of
the Netherlands, by the amalgamation of the Belgian
and Dutch provinces into one kingdom, and by the
fortresses which she had built or repaired for protecting
that kingdom.</p>

<p>This policy was now overthrown, and could not be reconstructed
without exciting the warlike and excited spirit
of the French people. On the other hand, we could only
make a limited sacrifice to French susceptibility and
ambition. Much skill then was necessary on the part of
all persons, but more especially on the part of the French
negotiator, to avoid any serious wound to the interests of
the one nation, or to the feelings of the other. There was
a call, in short, for the steadiest discretion without any
change of purpose; and all through the various phases of
those long negotiations, by which jarring questions were
finally composed, M. de Talleyrand warily persevered in his
plan of planting the new government of France amongst
the established governments of Europe through its alliance
with Great Britain.</p>

<p>The establishment of conferences in London was one of
the most artful of the measures adopted with this end.
Here the ambassador of Louis Philippe was brought at
once, and in union with the Cabinet of St. James’, into
almost daily and intimate communication with the representatives
of the other great powers. A variety of misrepresentations
were removed, and a variety of statements
made, not merely useful for the questions which were
especially under discussion, but for the general position
and policy of the State which the veteran diplomatist represented.</p>

<p>The quadruple alliance&mdash;an alliance of the western and
constitutional governments of Europe&mdash;was, in fact, a mere
extension of the alliance between France and England,
and a great moral exhibition of the trust placed by the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span>
parties themselves in that alliance. With this remarkable
and popular compact&mdash;a compact which embodied the best
principles on which an Anglo-French alliance can be
formed&mdash;the diplomatic career of M. de Talleyrand closed.
He felt, as he himself said, that there “is a sort of space
between death and life, which should be employed in dying
decently.”</p>

<p>The retirement of Lord Grey removed from the scene of
public affairs in England that generation which, long
accustomed to the reputation of a man who had filled half
a century with his name, treated both himself and his
opinions with the flattering respect due to old remembrances.
To the men of the new government he was,
comparatively speaking, a stranger. The busy time of
their career he had passed in seclusion from affairs. They
considered him, in a certain degree, as antiquated and gone
by: a sentiment which he was keen enough to detect, and
sensitive enough to feel deeply.</p>

<p>His opinions, indeed, became somewhat embittered by
certain affronts or negligences of which, during the latter
part of his embassy, he thought he had to complain; and,
after his retirement, it is said that he rather counselled
his royal master to consider that the advantages sought
for in an alliance with England were obtained, and that
the future policy of France should be to conciliate other
powers.</p>

<h4>VII.</h4>

<p>At all events M. de Talleyrand, during his mission in
England, not only sustained his previous reputation, but
added very considerably to it. What struck the vulgar,
and many, indeed, above the vulgar, who did not remember
that the really crafty man disguises his craft, was the
plain, open, and straightforward way in which he spoke of
and dealt with all public matters, without any of those
mysterious devices which distinguish the simpleton in the
diplomacy from the statesman who is a diplomatist. In
fact, having made up his mind to consider the English
alliance at this time essential to his country, he was well
aware that the best and only way of obtaining it was by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span>
such frank and fair dealing as would win the confidence of
British statesmen.</p>

<p>Lord Palmerston told me that his manner in diplomatic
conferences was remarkable for its extreme absence of pretension,
without any derogation of authority. He sat, for
the most part, quiet, as if approving: sometimes, however,
stating his opinion, but never arguing or discussing;&mdash;a
habit foreign to the natural indolence which accompanied
him throughout his active career, and which he also condemned
on such occasions, as fruitless and impolitic: “I
argue before a public assembly,” he used to say, “not
because I hope to convince any one there, but because I
wish my opinions to be known to the world. But, in a
room beyond which my voice is not to extend, the attempt
to enforce my opinion against that which another is
engaged to adopt, obliges him to be more formal and
positive in expressing his hostility, and often leads him,
from a desire to shine in the sense of his instructions, to go
beyond them.”</p>

<p>Whatever M. de Talleyrand did, therefore, in the way of
argument, he usually did beforehand, and alone, with the
parties whom he was afterwards to encounter, and here he
tried to avoid controversy. His manner was to bring out
the principal point in his own opinion, and present it to
the best advantage in every possible position.</p>

<p>Napoleon complained of this, saying, he could not
conceive how people found M. de Talleyrand eloquent.
“Il tournait toujours sur la même idée.”<a name="FNanchor_79" id="FNanchor_79"></a><a href="#Footnote_79" class="fnanchor">[79]</a> But this was a
system with him, as with Fox, who laid it down as the
great principle for an orator who wished to leave an
impression.</p>

<p>He was apt, however, to ask to have a particular word
or sentence, of which he had generally studied the bearing
and calculated the effect, introduced into a paper under discussion,
and from the carelessness with which he made the
request it was usually complied with. There was something
in this silent way of doing business, which disappointed
those who expected a more frequent use of the
brilliant weapons which it was well known that the great<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span>
wit of the day had at his command. But in the social
circle which he wished to charm, or with the single
individual whom he wished to gain, the effect of his peculiar
eloquence generally overran the expectation.</p>

<p>M. de Bacourt, who was secretary to his embassy in
London, informed me “that M. de Talleyrand rarely wrote
a whole despatch,” but that a variety of little notes and
phrases were usually to be found in his portfolio. When
the question which these notes referred to had to be
treated, they were produced, and confided to him (M. de
Bacourt), who was told the general sense of the document
he was to write, and how such memoranda were to be
introduced. Finally, a revisal took place, and the general
colouring, which proved that the despatch came from the
ambassador, and not from his chancery, was fused over the
composition. As a general rule in business, M. de Talleyrand
held to the rule, that a chief should never do anything
that a subaltern could do for him.</p>

<p>“You should always,” he used to say, “have time to
spare, and rather put off till to-morrow what you cannot do
well and easily to-day, than get into that hurry and flurry
which is the necessary consequence of feeling one has too
much to do.”</p>

<p>I have painted the subject of this sketch personally in
his early life. Towards the close of his existence, the likenesses
of him that are common are sufficiently resembling.
His head, with a superfluity of hair, looked large, and was
sunk deep into an expanded chest. His countenance was
pale and grave, with a mouth, the under-lip rather protruding,
which formed itself instantly and almost instinctively
into a smile that was sarcastic without being ill-natured.
He talked little in general society, merely expressing
at intervals some opinion that had the air of an
epigram, and which produced its effect as much from the
manner with which it was brought out, as from its intrinsic
merit. He was, in fact, an actor, but an actor with such
ease and nonchalance that he never seemed more natural
than when he was acting.</p>

<p>His recorded <i lang="fr">bon mots</i>, of which I have given some,
have become hackneyed, especially the best. But I will<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span>
venture to mention a few that occur to me, as I am writing,
and which are remarkable as expressing an opinion concerning
an individual or a situation.</p>

<p>When the Comte d’Artois wished to be present at the
councils of Louis XVIII., M. de Talleyrand opposed the
project. The Comte d’Artois was offended, and reproached
the minister. “Un jour,” said M. de Talleyrand, “Votre
Majesté me remerciera pour ce qui déplaît a Votre Altesse
Royale.”</p>

<p>M. de Châteaubriand was no favourite with M. de Talleyrand.
He condemned him as an affected writer, and
an impossible politician. When the “Martyrs” first
appeared, and was run after by the public with an appetite
that the booksellers could not satisfy, M. de Fontanes,
after speaking of it with an exaggerated eulogium, finished
his explanation of the narrative by saying that Eudore and
Cymodocée were thrown into the circus and devoured “par
les bêtes.” “Comme l’ouvrage,” said M. de Talleyrand.</p>

<p>Some person saying that Fouché had a great contempt
for mankind, “C’est vrai,” said M. de Talleyrand, “cet
homme s’est beaucoup étudié.”</p>

<p>There is a certain instinct which most persons have as
to their successor; and when some one asked M. de Talleyrand
a little before the Duc de Richelieu, governor of
Odessa, was appointed prime minister in his own country,
whether he, M. de Talleyrand, really thought that the
Duc was fit to govern France, he replied, to the surprise
of the questioner, “Most assuredly;” adding, after a
slight pause, “No one knows the Crimea better.”</p>

<p>A lady, using the privilege of her sex, was speaking
with violence of the defection of the Duc de Raguse.
“Mon Dieu, madame,” said M. de Talleyrand, “tout cela
ne prouve qu’une chose. C’est que sa montre avançait et
tout le monde était à l’heure.”</p>

<p>A strong supporter of the chamber of peers, when there
was much question as to its merits, said, “At least you
there find consciences.” “Ah, oui,” said M. de Talleyrand,
“beaucoup, beaucoup de consciences. Semonville,
par exemple, en a au moins deux.”</p>

<p>Louis XVIII., speaking of M. de Blacas before M. de<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span>
Talleyrand had expressed any opinion concerning him,
said, “Ce pauvre Blacas, il aime la France, il m’aime,
mais on dit qu’il est suffisant.” “Ah oui, Sire, suffisant
et insuffisant.”</p>

<p>As Madame de Staël was praising the British Constitution,
M. de Talleyrand, turning round, said in a low,
explanatory tone, “<i lang="fr">Elle admire surtout l’habeas corpus</i>.”</p>

<p>One evening at Holland House the company had got
into groups, talking over some question of the moment in
the House of Commons; and thus M. de Talleyrand, left
alone, got up to go away, when Lord Holland, with his
usual urbanity, following him to the door, asked where
he was going so early. “Je vais aux <i lang="fr">Travellers</i>, pour
entendre ce que vous dites ici.”</p>

<p>We could prolong almost indefinitely this record of
sayings from which M. de Talleyrand, notwithstanding
his many services and great abilities, derives his popular
and traditional reputation: but, in reality, they belong
as much to the conversational epoch at which he entered
the world, as to himself.</p>

<h4>VIII.</h4>

<p>On quitting England, he quitted not only diplomacy,
as I have said, but public life, and passed the remainder
of his days in the enjoyment of the highest situation, and
the most agreeable and cultivated society, that his country
could afford.</p>

<p>His fortune and ability might now, according to the
Grecian sage, be estimated; for his career was closed;
and, as the old sought his saloon as the hearth on which
their brighter recollections could be revived, so the young
were glad to test their opinions by the experience of “the
politic man,” who had passed through so many vicissitudes,
and walked with a careless and haughty ease over the
ruins of so many governments, at the fall of which he had
assisted. He himself, with that cool presence of mind for
which he was so remarkable, aware that he had but a few
years between the grave and himself, employed them in
one of his great and constant objects, that of prepossessing
the age about to succeed him in his favour, and explaining<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span>
to those whom he thought likely to influence the coming
generation, the darker passages of his brilliant career.
To one distinguished person, M. Montalivet, who related
to me the fact, he once said: “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 himself been obedient
to common sense. But, if you judge all my actions by
this rule, you will find that I have been eminently consistent;
and where is there so degraded a human being,
or so bad a citizen, as to submit his intelligence, or
sacrifice his country, to any individual, however born, or
however endowed?”</p>

<p>This, indeed, in a few words, was M. de Talleyrand’s
theory; a theory which has formed the school, that without
strictly adhering to the principle that common sense
should be the test of obedience, bows to every authority
with a smile and shrug of the shoulders, and the well-known
phrase of “<i lang="fr">La France avant tout</i>.”</p>

<p>Shortly previous to his last illness he appeared (evidently
with the intention of bidding the world a sort of dignified
adieu) in the tribune of the Institute. The subject which
he chose for his essay was M. Reinhard, who had long
served under him, and was just dead, and between whom
and himself, even in the circumstance of their both having
received an ecclesiastical education, there was some sort
of resemblance. The discourse is interesting on this
ground, and also as a review of the different branches of
the diplomatic service, and the duties attached to each&mdash;forming
a kind of legacy to that profession of which the
speaker had so long been the ornament.</p>

<h4>IX.</h4>

<p>“<span class="smcap">Gentlemen</span>,&mdash;<a name="FNanchor_80" id="FNanchor_80"></a><a href="#Footnote_80" class="fnanchor">[80]</a></p>

<p>“I was in America when I was named a member
of the Institute, and placed in the department of moral<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span>
and political sciences, to which I have had the honour of
being attached ever since it was first established.</p>

<p>“On my return to France, I made it my principal
object to attend its meetings, and to express to my new
colleagues, many of whom we now so justly regret, the
pleasure it gave me to find myself one of their number.
At the first sitting I attended, the <i lang="fr">bureau</i> was being
renewed, and I had the honour of being named secretary.
During six months, I drew up, to the best of my ability,
the minutes of the proceedings, but my labours betrayed
perhaps a little too plainly my diffidence, for I had to
report on a work, the subject of which was new to me.
That work, which had cost one of our most learned colleagues
many researches, many sleepless nights, was ‘A
Dissertation on the Riparian Laws.’ It was about the
same period that I read at our public meetings several
papers, which were received with such indulgence as to
be thought worthy of being inserted in the memoirs of
the Institute. But forty years have now elapsed, during
which I have been a stranger to this tribune; first, in
consequence of frequent absence; then from duties, to
which I felt bound to devote my whole time and attention;
I must also add, from that discretion, which, in times of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span>
difficulty, is required of a man employed in public affairs;
and finally, at a later period, from the infirmities, usually
brought on, or at least aggravated, by age.</p>

<p>“At the present moment, I feel myself called upon to
perform a duty, and to make a last appearance before this
Assembly, in order that the memory of a man, known to
the whole of Europe;&mdash;of a man whom I loved, and who,
from the very foundation of the Institute, has been our
colleague, should receive here a public testimony of our
esteem and regret. His position with respect to my own
furnishes me with the means of speaking with authority
of several of his merits. His principal, but I do not say
his only, claim to distinction, consists of a correspondence
of forty years, necessarily unknown to the public, and
likely to remain so for ever. I asked myself, ‘Who will
mention this fact within these walls? who, especially, will
consider himself under the obligation of directing your
attention to it, if the task be not undertaken by me, to
whom the greater part of this correspondence was addressed,
to whom it always gave so much pleasure, and often so
much assistance in those ministerial duties, which I had
to perform during three reigns … so very different in
character?’</p>

<p>“The first time I saw M. Reinhard, he was thirty, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span>
I thirty-seven, years of age. He entered public life with
the advantage of a large stock of acquired knowledge. He
knew thoroughly five or six languages, and was familiar
with their literature. He could have made himself remarkable
as an historian, as a poet, or as a geographer;
and it was in this last capacity that he became a member
of the Institute, from the day it was founded.</p>

<p>“Already at this time he was a member of the Academy
of Sciences of Göttingen. Born and educated in Germany,
he had published in his youth several pieces of poetry,
which had brought him under the notice of Gesner,
Wieland, and Schiller. He was obliged at a later period
to take the waters of Carlsbad, where he was so fortunate
as to find himself frequently in the society of the celebrated
Goethe, who appreciated his taste and acquirements
sufficiently to request to be informed by him of everything
that was creating a sensation in the French literary world.
M. Reinhard promised to do so; engagements of this kind
between men of a superior order are always reciprocal, and
soon become ties of friendship; those formed between
M. Reinhard and Goethe gave rise to a correspondence,
which is now published in Germany.</p>

<p>“We learn from these letters that when he had arrived<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span>
at that time of life, when it is necessary to select definitively
the profession for which one feels most aptitude,
M. Reinhard, before making his final decision, reflected
seriously upon his natural disposition, his tastes, his own
circumstances and those of his family; and then made a
choice singular at that time, for instead of choosing a
career that promised independence, he gave the preference
to one in which it is impossible to secure it. The diplomatic
career was selected by him, nor is it possible to
blame him; qualified for all the duties of this profession,
he has successively fulfilled them all, and each with
distinction.</p>

<p>“And I would here venture to assert that he had been
successfully prepared for the course he adopted by his early
studies. He had been remarked as a proficient in theology
at the Seminary of Denkendorf, and at that of the Protestant
faculty of Tübingen, and it was to this science
especially that he owed the power, and at the same time
the subtlety, of reasoning, that abounds in all his writings.
And to divest myself of the fear of yielding to an idea
which might appear paradoxical, I feel obliged to bring
before you the names of several of our greatest diplomatists,
who were at once theologians and celebrated in history
for having conducted the most important political negotiations
of their day. There was the chancellor, Cardinal<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span>
Duprat, equally skilled in canon and civil law, who
established with Leo X. the basis of the Concordat, of
which several articles are still retained. Cardinal d’Ossat,
who, in spite of the efforts made by several great powers,
succeeded in effecting a reconciliation between Henry IV.
and the Court of Rome. The study of his letters is still
recommended at the present day to young men who are
destined for political life. Cardinal de Polignac, a theologian,
poet and diplomatist, who, after so many disastrous
campaigns, was able to preserve, by the treaty of Utrecht,
the conquests of Louis XIV. for France.</p>

<p>“The names I have just mentioned appear to me
sufficient to justify my opinion that M. Reinhard’s habits
of thought were considerably influenced by the early studies
to which his education had been directed by his father.</p>

<p>“On account of his solid, and, at the same time, various
acquirements, he was called to Bordeaux, in order to
discharge the honourable but modest duties of a tutor in a
Protestant family of that city. There he naturally became
acquainted with several of those men whose talents, errors,
and death have given so much celebrity to our first
legislative assembly. M. Reinhard was easily persuaded
by them to devote himself to the service of France.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span></p>

<p>“It is not necessary to follow him step by step through
all the vicissitudes of his long career. In the succession
of offices confided to him, now of a higher, now of a lower
order, there seems to be a sort of inconsistency and absence
of regularity, which, at the present day, we should have
some difficulty in conceiving. But, at that time, people
were as free from prejudice with respect to places as to
persons. At other periods, favour, and sometimes discernment,
used to confer situations of importance. But, in
the days of which I speak, every place had to be won.
Such a state of things very quickly leads to confusion.</p>

<p>“Thus, we find M. Reinhard first secretary of legation
at London; occupying the same post at Naples; minister
plenipotentiary to the Hanseatic towns of Hamburg,
Bremen, and Lübeck; chief clerk of the third division in
the department of foreign affairs; minister plenipotentiary
at Florence; minister of foreign affairs; minister plenipotentiary
to the Helvetian Republic; consul-general at
Milan; minister plenipotentiary to the Circle of Lower
Saxony; president in the Turkish provinces beyond the
Danube, and commissary-general of commercial relations<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span>
in Moldavia; minister plenipotentiary to the King of
Westphalia; director of the <i lang="fr">Chancellerie</i> in the department
of foreign affairs; minister plenipotentiary to the
Germanic Diet and the free city of Frankfort; and,
finally, minister plenipotentiary at Dresden.</p>

<p>“What a number of places, of charges, and of interests,
all confided to one man, and this at a time when it seemed
likely that his civil talents would be less justly appreciated,
inasmuch as that war appeared to decide every question.</p>

<p>“You do not expect me, gentlemen, to give here a
detailed account of all M. Reinhard’s labours in the various
employments, which I have just enumerated. This would
require a volume.</p>

<p>“I have only to call your attention to the manner in
which he regarded the duties he had to perform, whether
as chief clerk, minister, or consul.</p>

<p>“Although M. Reinhard did not possess at that time
the advantage which he might have had a few years later
of being able to study excellent examples, he was already
perfectly aware of the numerous and various qualities that
ought to distinguish a chief clerk in the foreign office. A
delicate tact had made him feel that the habits of a chief
clerk ought to be simple, regular, and retired; that, a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span>
stranger to the bustle of the world, he ought to live solely
for his duty, and devote to it an impenetrable secrecy;
that, always prepared to give an answer respecting facts
or men, he must have every treaty fresh in his memory,
know its historical date, appreciate its strong and weak
points, its antecedents and consequences, and finally be
acquainted with the names of its principal negotiators, and
even with their family connections; that, in making use
of this knowledge, he ought, at the same time, to be
cautious not to offend a minister’s self-esteem, always so
sensitive, and, even when he should have influenced the
opinion of his chief, to leave his success in the shade; for
he knew that he was to shine only by a reflected light.
Still, he was aware that much consideration would be the
reward of so pure and modest a life.</p>

<p>“M. Reinhard’s power of observation did not stop here;
it had taught him to understand how rare is the union of
qualities necessary to make a minister of foreign affairs.
Indeed, a minister of foreign affairs ought to be gifted
with a sort of instinct, which should be always prompting
him, and thus guarding him, when entering into any
discussion, from the danger of committing himself. It is
requisite that he should possess the faculty of appearing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span>
open, while remaining impenetrable; of masking reserve
with the manner of frankness; of showing talent even in
the choice of his amusements. His conversation should be
simple, varied, unexpected, always natural, and at times
<i lang="fr">naïve</i>; in a word, he should never cease for an instant during
the twenty-four hours to be a minister of foreign affairs.</p>

<p>“Yet all these qualities, however rare, might not suffice,
if they did not find in sincerity a guarantee which they
almost always require. I must not omit to notice here
this fact, in order to destroy a prejudice, into which people
are very apt to fall. No! diplomacy is not a science of
craft and duplicity. If sincerity be anywhere requisite, it
is especially so in political transactions; for it is that
which makes them solid and durable. It has pleased
people to confound reserve with cunning. Sincerity never
authorizes cunning, but it admits of reserve; and reserve
has this peculiarity, that it increases confidence.</p>

<p>“If he be governed by the honour and interests of his
country, by the honour and interests of his sovereign, by
the love of a liberty based upon order and the rights of all
men, a minister of foreign affairs, who knows how to fill
his post, finds himself thus in the noblest position to
which a superior mind can aspire.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span></p>

<p>“After having been a distinguished minister, how many
things more must be known to make a good consul! For
there is no end to the variety of a consul’s attributions;
and they are perfectly distinct from those of the other
persons employed in foreign affairs. They demand a vast
amount of practical knowledge which can only be acquired
by a peculiar education. Consuls are called upon to discharge,
for the advantage of their countrymen, and over
the extent of their jurisdiction, the functions of judges,
arbitrators, and promoters of reconciliation; it frequently
happens that they are employed in other civil capacities;
they perform the duties of notaries, sometimes those of
naval administrators; they examine and pronounce upon
sanitary questions; it is they who are enabled, by their
numerous professional connections, to give correct and
perfect notions respecting the state of commerce or navigation,
or of the manufactures peculiar to the country where
they reside. Accordingly, as M. Reinhard never neglected
anything which might confirm the accuracy of the information
required by his government, or the justice of
the decisions which he had to pronounce as a political
agent, as a consular agent, or as a naval administrator, he
made a profound study of international and maritime law.
It was owing to this study, that he became persuaded that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span>
the day would come when, by skilful political combinations,
a universal system of commerce and navigation
would be inaugurated, which would respect the interests of
all nations, and be established on such foundations that
war itself would be powerless to assail its principles, even
were it able to suspend some of its effects.</p>

<p>“He had also learned to resolve, with accuracy and
promptitude, every question connected with exchange,
arbitration, valuation of money, weights and measures;
and all this without a single dispute ever having arisen
from the information he had supplied, or the judgments
he had pronounced. But it is also true that the personal
consideration, which accompanied him during his whole
career, gave a weight to his interference, in every question
that required his assistance, and in all arbitrations where
he had to give a decision.</p>

<p>“But, however extensive may be a man’s information,
however vast his capacity, there is nothing so rare as a
complete diplomatist. We should perhaps have found one
in M. Reinhard if he had possessed but one qualification
more. He observed well, and understood well; when he
took up his pen, he could give an admirable account of
what he had seen and heard. His written language was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span>
ready, abundant, witty, and pointed. Thus we find that,
of all the diplomatic correspondence of my time, none was
preferred to that of Count Reinhard by the Emperor
Napoleon, who had the right, and was under the necessity,
of being difficult to please. But this eloquent writer was
embarrassed when he had to speak. To carry out his
intentions, his mind required more time than ordinary
conversation affords. To express his thoughts with facility,
it was necessary for him to be alone, and not interfered
with.</p>

<p>“In spite of this serious difficulty, M. Reinhard always
succeeded in doing, and doing well, whatever was intrusted
to him. How, then, did he find the means of
succeeding? whence did he derive his inspirations?</p>

<p>“He received them, gentlemen, from a deep and true
feeling, which guided all his actions&mdash;from the sense of
duty. People are not sufficiently aware of the power
derived from this feeling. A life wholly devoted to duty
is very easily diverted from ambition; and that of M. Reinhard
was entirely taken up by his professional avocations,
while he never was influenced in the slightest degree by an
interested motive or a pretension to premature advancement.</p>

<p>“This worship of duty, to which M. Reinhard continued<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span>
faithful to the end of his days, comprised entire acquiescence
in the orders of his superiors&mdash;indefatigable vigilance,
which, joined to much penetration, never suffered them to
remain ignorant of anything which it was expedient for
them to know&mdash;strict truthfulness in all his reports, however
unpleasing their contents&mdash;impenetrable discretion&mdash;regular
habits, which inspired esteem and confidence&mdash;a
style of living suited to his position&mdash;and finally, constant
attention in giving to the acts of his government the colour
and lucidity which their importance demanded.</p>

<p>“Although age seemed to invite M. Reinhard to seek
the repose of private life, he would never have asked permission
to retire from active employment, so much did he
fear to be thought lukewarm in the duties of a profession
which had occupied the greater part of his days.</p>

<p>“It was necessary that his Majesty’s ever-thoughtful
benevolence should have providently intervened to place
this great servant of France in a most honourable position,
by calling him to the Chamber of Peers.</p>

<p>“Count Reinhard enjoyed this honour during too short a
time. He died suddenly on the 25th of December, 1837.</p>

<p>“M. Reinhard was twice married. By his first wife he
has left a son who is now following a political career. For<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span>
the son of such a man the best wish that we can form is
that he may resemble his father.”</p>

<p class="tb">The force of nature, which a long life had exhausted in
a variety of ways, seemed now unequal to any further
struggle.</p>

<p>A disease, which at Prince Talleyrand’s age was almost
certain to be fatal, and which had already made its appearance,
assumed a more formidable character.</p>

<p>An operation was advised. The prince submitted to it,
and bore it with a fortitude that surprised even those who
most knew the stoicism which he on all occasions affected
and usually practised. Dangerous symptoms, however,
soon followed, and his physician judged it an act of duty to
warn him that his disorder might be fatal.</p>

<p>He was urged indeed to do so by the noble patient’s
relations, who were especially anxious that he should die
in peace with the church; and when convinced that he
could not recover, he assented to all that was asked of him,
in this respect, as a favour that could not hurt himself, and
was agreeable to those about him.</p>

<p>The following account of his last moments is given by
a person who was present at them: “When I entered the
chamber where reposed the veteran statesman, he had
fallen into a profound slumber, from which some amendment
was augured by his physicians. The slumber, or
rather lethargy, had continued for about an hour after my
arrival, when it became curious to observe the uneasiness
which was manifested, as time drew on, even by those
dearest and nearest, lest this repose, however salutary,
should endure beyond the hour fixed for the King’s visit,
for the sovereign intended to pay M. de Talleyrand this
last homage.</p>

<p>“With some difficulty he was at last aroused and made
to comprehend the approaching ceremony, and hardly was
he lifted from his reclining position and placed at the edge<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span>
of the bed, when Louis Philippe, accompanied by Madame
Adelaide, entered the apartment. ‘I am sorry, Prince, to
see you suffering so much,’ said the King, in a low
tremulous voice, rendered almost inaudible by apparent
emotion. ‘Sire, you have come to witness the sufferings
of a dying man; and those who love him can have but
one wish, that of seeing them shortly at an end.’ This
was uttered by M. de Talleyrand in that deep strong voice
so peculiar to himself, and which the approach of death
had not the power to weaken.</p>

<p>“The royal visit, like all royal visits of a disagreeable
nature, was of the shortest duration possible. Indeed, the
position was to all parties embarrassing and painful.
Louis Philippe rose, after an effort and some few words
of consolation, to take his leave; and not even at this last
moment did the old prince lose his wonted presence of
mind, or forget a duty which the etiquette he had been
bred in dictated&mdash;that of introducing those formally to the
sovereign who found themselves in his presence. Slightly
raising himself, then, he mentioned by name his physician,
his secretary, his principal valet, and his own private
doctor, and then observed slowly: ‘Sire, our house has
received this day an honour worthy to be inscribed in our
annals, and which my successors will remember with pride
and gratitude.’ It was shortly afterwards that the first
symptoms of dissolution were observed, and a few persons
were then admitted to his chamber; but the adjoining
room was crowded, and exhibited a strange scene for a
room so near the bed of death.</p>

<p>“The flower of the society of Paris was there. On one
side old and young politicians, grey-headed statesmen,
were gathered round the blazing fire, and engaged in eager
conversation; on another was to be seen a coterie of
younger gentlemen and ladies, whose sidelong looks and
low pleasant whispers formed a sad contrast to the dying
groans of the neighbouring sufferer.</p>

<p>“Presently, the conversation stopped; the hum of voices
was at an end. There was a solemn pause, and every
eye turned towards the slowly opening door of the prince’s
chamber. A domestic entered, with downcast looks and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span>
swollen eyes, and advancing towards Dr. C&mdash;&mdash;, who like
myself had just then sought an instant’s relief in the drawing-room,
whispered a few words in his ear. He arose
instantly, and entered the prince’s chamber. The natural
precipitation with which this movement was executed but
too plainly revealed its cause. There was an instantaneous
rush to the door of the apartment within which M. de
Talleyrand was seated on the side of his bed, supported in
the arms of his secretary. It was evident that Death had
set his seal upon that marble brow; yet I was struck with
the still existing vigour of the countenance. It seemed as
if all the life which had once sufficed to furnish the
whole being was now contained in the brain. From time
to time he raised up his head, throwing back with a
sudden movement the long grey locks which impeded his
sight, and gazed around; and then, as if satisfied with the
result of his examination, a smile would pass across his
features, and his head would again fall upon his bosom.
He saw the approach of death without shrinking or fear,
and also without any affectation of scorn or defiance.</p>

<p>“If there be truth in the assertion, that it is a satisfaction
to die amidst friends and relations, then, indeed, must
his last feeling towards the world he was for ever quitting
have been one of entire approbation and content, for he
expired (on the 17th of May, 1838) amidst regal pomp
and reverence; and of all those whom he, perhaps, would
have himself called together, none were wanting.</p>

<p>“The friend of his maturity, the fair young idol of his
age, were gathered on bended knee beside his bed, and if
the words of comfort whispered by the murmuring priest
failed to reach his ear, it was because the sound was stifled
by the wailings of those he had loved so well. Scarcely,
however, had those eyes, whose every glance had been
watched so long, and with such deep interest, for ever
closed, when a sudden change came over the scene.</p>

<p>“One would have thought that a flight of crows had
suddenly taken wing, so great was the precipitation with
which each one hurried from the hotel, in the hope of
being first to spread the news amongst the particular set
or coterie of which he or she happened to be the oracle.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span>
Ere nightfall, that chamber, which all the day had been
crowded to excess, was abandoned to the servants of the
tomb; and when I entered in the evening, I found the
very arm-chair, whence I had so often heard the prince
launch the courtly jest or stinging epigram, occupied by a
hired priest, whispering prayers for the repose of the
departed soul.”</p>

<h4>X.</h4>

<p>M. de Talleyrand was buried at Valençay, in the chapel
of the Sisters of St. André, which he had founded, and
in which he had expressed a desire that the family vault
should be placed.</p>

<p class="tb">His career and character have been gradually developed
in this sketch, so that there remains little to say of them
here. They were both, as I have elsewhere observed,
coloured by their times, and must be regarded in connection
with an epoch of social immorality and constant
political change. Many of his faults were so inherent in
that epoch, that, although they justly merit blame (for
vice and virtue should be independent of custom and
example), they also admit of excuse.</p>

<p>As to the variety of political parts which he played in
the different scenes of the great drama which lasted half
a century, one is daily seeing changes so extraordinary
and so rapid amongst the most respectable public men of
our own day, and even of our own country, that it would
be absurd not to acknowledge that, when years run
rapidly through changeful events, we must expect to find
those whose career is embarked on so unsteady a current,
uncertain and variable in their opinions. The stiff consistent
character is of the middle ages.</p>

<p>At the commencement of the great Revolution of 1789,
M. de Talleyrand took the liberal side in politics; a strong
party of his own rank and profession did not do so, but
many of the most illustrious did; and with the best
motives. A certain interval elapsed; the monarchy was
overthrown; a reign of madness and terror succeeded it;
and, emerging from this sanguinary obscurity, men were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[248]</a></span>
just beginning to adopt some principles of order, which
they brought together under the name of a Republic.</p>

<p>It is hardly for us (who have with our own eyes seen
Frenchmen of high rank and generally acknowledged
honour, even the personal friends of a deposed sovereign,
become, within a few days after his fall, Republicans; and
within a few years the confidential leaders of another
dynasty)&mdash;it is hardly for us, I say, to judge with any
great severity a Frenchman, who, returning to France at
the time at which M. de Talleyrand revisited it, consented
to serve the Directory. Neither can we be surprised,
when it appeared evident that under the Directory things
were again approaching the state of terror and confusion,
of which so horrible a recollection still existed, that M. de
Talleyrand preferred the government of one man to the
want of any government at all&mdash;the organization of
society under a temporary despotism, to its utter and radical
decomposition. By and by, license and disorder being
vanquished, moderate and regular notions as to liberty
grew up; the dictator then appeared the tyrant,&mdash;and the
fortunate soldier, the military gambler after fortune.
This soldier converted the nation into an army, and his
army was beaten: and M. de Talleyrand aided in reviving
that nation, and giving it the framework of a constitutional
system, under a legitimate monarchy;&mdash;almost,
in fact, that very system which thirty-five years before he
had wished to see established. Years rolled on and
seemed to bring with them the renewal of the old maxim,
that “Restorations are impossible.” The royal <i lang="fr">émigré</i>,
pointedly described as having forgotten nothing and
learned nothing during his misfortunes, had not sufficiently
imbibed the spirit of a new society which had
risen up since his youth&mdash;a society which had neither the
customs nor inclinations on which he considered that a
monarchy should be maintained.</p>

<p>Charles X.’s views created suspicions which his acts,
greatly exaggerated by those suspicions, hardly justified.
But the knowledge that he thought that public liberty
depended solely on his will, made the slightest movement
towards controlling that liberty&mdash;dangerous.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span></p>

<p>The crown fell into the gutters of Paris. The government
which most resembled the one which was overturned
was still a monarchy with a monarch taken from the same
family as the one deposed, but who was willing to accept
his throne as a gift of the French nation and could not
pretend to it as a legitimate right. M. de Talleyrand
helped to form such a government.</p>

<p>It cannot be said that he departed in this case from his
principles, though he changed his allegiance.</p>

<p>In fact, I hardly think, looking calmly and dispassionately
at each of the epochs I have thus rapidly
passed over, that any sensible and moderate man will deny
that the side taken by M. de Talleyrand was the one on
which, in every instance, lay good sense and moderation.
It cannot be said that in the various changes that marked
his career, he ever acted disinterestedly; but at the same
time it may be urged that every time he accepted office
he did thereby a real service to the cause he espoused, and
even to the country to which he belonged.</p>

<p>There can be no doubt that at the first establishment
of something like order and government under the
Republic, the relations of France with foreign powers
were considerably strengthened by a man of M. de
Talleyrand’s birth and well-known acquirements and
abilities being selected as minister of foreign affairs. It is
also undeniable that, during the Consulate and early part
of the Empire, the experience, sagacity, and tact of the
accomplished diplomatist were eminently useful to the
young, half-educated, and impetuous warrior whose fiery
genius had placed him at the head of the State. To
Louis XVIII. M. de Talleyrand’s assistance, when that
sovereign recovered his throne, was invaluable, and Louis
Philippe derived in no small degree, as I have already
noticed, the respect which foreign governments paid so
promptly to his suddenly-acquired authority from the fact
that M. de Talleyrand had consented to undertake the
embassy to London. I must likewise here repeat that to
which I have already called attention. No party had to
complain of treachery or ingratitude from this statesman
so frequently stigmatised as fickle. The course he took<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</a></span>
at the different periods of his eventful life was that which
seemed natural to the position in which he found himself,
and the course which both friend and foe expected from
him. His defections were from those whose policy he had
been previously opposing, and whose views the higher
order of intellects in his country condemned at the time
that his own hostility commenced. Indeed, the rule of
his conduct and the cause of his success may be pretty
generally found in his well-known and wise maxim, that
“The thoughts of the greatest number of intelligent
persons in any country, are sure, with a few more or
less fluctuations to become in the end that public opinion
which influences the State.”</p>

<p>It must, however, be confessed that there is something
to an honest nature displeasing in the history of a
statesman who has served various masters and various
systems, and appeared as the champion of each cause at
the moment of its triumph. Reason may excuse, explain,
or defend such versatility, but no generous sympathy calls
upon us to applaud or recommend it.</p>

<p>The particular and especial talent of M. de Talleyrand
was, as I have more than once exemplified, his tact; the
art of seizing the important point in an affair&mdash;the peculiar
characteristic of an individual, the genius and
tendency of an epoch! His other qualities were accessories
to this dominant quality, but of an inferior order
and in an inferior degree.</p>

<p>His great good fortune was to have been absent from
France during the horrors of the Committee of Public
Safety; his great merit, to have served governments when
in serving them he served the public interests. His great
defect, a love of money, or rather a want of scruple as to
how he obtained it. I never heard any clear justification
of his great wealth, though that which, it is said, he gave
to Bonaparte, “I bought stock before the 18th Brumaire,
and sold it the day afterwards,” has wit and <i lang="fr">à propos</i> to
recommend it. His great calamity was to have been
minister of foreign affairs at the moment of the execution
of the Duc d’Enghien; and the part of his conduct
most difficult to explain justifiably, is to be found in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</a></span>
contradiction between his declaration to Lord Grenville,
when he came over to England after the 10th of August
in 1792, that he had nothing to do with the provisional
government then established in France, and the declaration
of M. de Chénier to the convention in 1795&mdash;a declaration
which he himself subsequently repeated&mdash;that he went to
England at the time alluded to as Danton’s agent.</p>

<p>An extract from the <cite>Moniteur</cite>, the 27th of May, 1838,
page 1412, quoting from the <cite>Gazette des Tribunaux</cite>, is
worth preserving:<a name="FNanchor_81" id="FNanchor_81"></a><a href="#Footnote_81" class="fnanchor">[81]</a></p>

<div class="blockquote">

<p>“We have already said that in the sequel to the will of
Prince Talleyrand was found a sort of manifesto, in which
the celebrated diplomatist asserted the principles which
had guided him in his political life, and explained his way
of looking at certain events.</p>

<p>“According to various facts we have collected, the
following is the substance of that declaration, which is
dated in 1836, and which, in accordance with the wish of
the testator, has been read to the family and assembled
friends.</p>

<p>“The prince declares that before all things, and to all
things, he had preferred the true interests of France.</p>

<p>“Explaining himself on the part he had taken in the
return of the Bourbons in 1814, he says that, in his
opinion, the Bourbons did not re-ascend the throne in
virtue of a pre-existing and hereditary right; and he
gives us, moreover, to understand that his counsels and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[252]</a></span>
advice were never wanting to enlighten them on their true
position, and on the conduct which they ought to have
followed in consequence.</p>

<p>“He repels the reproach of having betrayed Napoleon;
if he abandoned him, it was when he discovered that he
could no longer blend, as he had up to that time done,
France and the Emperor in the same affection. <em>This was
not without a lively feeling of sorrow, for he owed to
Napoleon nearly all his fortune. He enjoins his heirs
never to forget these obligations, to tell them to their
children, and to instruct these, again, to tell them to their
offspring; so that if some day a man of the name of
Bonaparte should be found in want of assistance, he
should always find it in the family of Talleyrand.</em></p>

<p>“Replying to those who reproached him for having
served successively all governments, he observes that he
had done so without the least scruple, guided by the idea
that, in whatever situation the country might be, there
were always means of doing it some good, and that to do
this good was the business of a statesman.”</p>

</div>

<p>Supposing the testament thus spoken of to exist, it is
curious; and the expression of gratitude to the Bonaparte
family is the more creditable from the fact that it could<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[253]</a></span>
not have been made with any idea that it would be rewarded.</p>

<p>As to the defence set up for serving all dynasties and
all causes, it cannot apply to any country where public
men have the power, out of office, to put down a bad
government, as they have in office the power to uphold a
good one.</p>

<p>I will conclude with the appreciation of a French friend,
who thus summed up many of my own remarks:&mdash;</p>

<p>“Enfin, chez M. de Talleyrand, l’aménité et la raison
remplaçaient le cœur, et la conscience. Avec bien des
défauts qui ont terni sa réputation, il avait toutes les
qualités qui devaient faire prospérer son ambition. Ses
talents qu’il a employés constamment pour son propre
avantage, il les a employés presque aussi constamment
pour le bien public. Beaucoup attaqué et peu défendu
par ses contemporains, il n’en restera pas moins pour la
postérité un des hommes les plus aimables de son temps et
un des citoyens les plus illustres de son pays.”</p>

<hr />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[254]</a></span></p>

<h2>MACKINTOSH, THE MAN OF PROMISE.</h2>

<h3><span class="smcap">Part I.</span><br />
<span class="smaller">FROM HIS YOUTH TO HIS APPOINTMENT IN INDIA.</span></h3>

<div class="smaller">

<p>Mackintosh’s character.&mdash;Character of men of his type.&mdash;Birth and parentage.&mdash;Starts
as a physician, fails, and becomes a newspaper writer, and author
of a celebrated pamphlet in answer to Burke’s “Thoughts on the French
Revolution.”&mdash;Studies for the bar.&mdash;Becomes noted as a public character,
violent on the Liberal side.&mdash;Becomes acquainted with Mr. Burke.&mdash;Modifies
his opinions.&mdash;Gives lectures on public law, remarkable for their eloquence and
their Conservative opinions.&mdash;Becomes the advocate of Peltier; makes a great
speech, and shortly afterwards accepts an appointment in India.</p>

</div>

<h4>I.</h4>

<p>I still remember, amongst the memorable events of my
early youth, an invitation to meet Sir James Mackintosh
at dinner; and the eager and respectful attention with
which this honoured guest was received. I still remember
also my anxiety to learn the especial talents, or
remarkable works, for which Sir James was distinguished,
and the unsatisfactory replies which all my questions elicited.
He was a writer, but many had written better; he
was a speaker, but many had spoken better; he was a
philosopher, but many had done far more for philosophy;
and yet, though it was difficult to fix on any one thing in
which he was first-rate, it was generally maintained that
he was a first-rate man. There is, indeed, a class amongst
mankind, a body numerous in all literary societies, who
are far less valued for any precise thing they have done
than according to a vague notion of what they are capable<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[255]</a></span>
of doing. Mackintosh may be taken as a type of this
class; not that he passed his life in the learned inactivity
to which the resident members of our own universities
sometimes consign their intellectual powers, but which
more frequently characterizes the tranquil scholars, whose
erudition is the boast of some small German or Italian
city.</p>

<p>But though mixing in the action of a great and stirring
community, a lawyer, an author, a member of parliament,
Mackintosh never arrived at the eminence in law, in
letters, or in politics, that satisfied the expectations of
those who, living in his society, were impressed by his
intellect and astonished at his acquirements.</p>

<p>If I were to sum up in a few words the characteristics
of the persons who thus promise more than they ever
perform, I should say that their powers of comprehension
are greater than their powers either of creation or exposition;
and that their energy, though capable of being
roused occasionally to great exertions, can rarely be relied
on for any continued effort.</p>

<p>They collect, sometimes in rather a sauntering manner,
an immense store of varied information. But it is only
by fits and starts that they are able to use it with effect,
and at their happiest moments they rarely attain the
simple grace and the natural vigour which give beauty
and life to composition. Their deficiencies are inherent in
their nature, and are never therefore entirely overcome.
They have not in their minds the immortal spark of
genius, but the faculty of comprehending genius may give
them, in a certain degree, the power of imitating it;
whilst ambition, interest, and necessity, will at times
stimulate them to extraordinary exertions. As writers,
they usually want originality, ease, and power; as men of
action, tact, firmness, and decision. The works in which
they most succeed are usually short, and written under
temporary excitement; as statesmen, they at times attract
attention and win applause, but rarely obtain authority or
take and keep the lead in public affairs. In society, however,
the mere faculty of remembering and comprehending
a variety of things is quite sufficient to obtain a considerable<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[256]</a></span>
reputation; whilst the world, when indulgent, often
estimates the power of a man’s abilities by some transient
and ephemeral display of them.</p>

<p>I will now turn from these general observations to see
how far they are exemplified in the history of the person
whose name is before me; a person who advanced to the
very frontier of those lands which it was not given to him
to enter; and who is not only a favourable specimen of his
class, but who, as belonging to that class, represents in many
respects a great portion of the public during that memorable
period of our annals, which extends from the French
Revolution of 1789 to the English Reform Bill in 1830.</p>

<h4>II.</h4>

<p>The father of Sir James was a Scotch country gentleman,
who, having a small hereditary property, which he
could neither part with nor live upon, entered the army
early, and passed his life almost entirely with his regiment.
Young Mackintosh was born on the 24th of October,
1765, in the county of Inverness, and was sent as soon as
he could be to a school at Fortrose; where he fell in
with two books which had a permanent influence on his
future career. These books were “Plutarch’s Lives” and
the “Roman History,” books which, by making him ambitious
of public honours, rendered his existence a perpetual
struggle between that which he desired to be and
that for which he was best suited. At Aberdeen, then,
where he was sent on quitting Fortrose, he was alike
remarkable for his zeal in politics, and his love for metaphysics&mdash;that
is, for his alternate coquetry between an
active and a meditative life. At Edinburgh, also, where
he subsequently went to study medicine, it was the same
thing. In the evening he would go now and then to a
“spouting” club and make speeches, while the greater part
of his mornings was spent in poetical lucubrations. To
the medical profession he paid little attention, till all of a
sudden necessity aroused him. He then applied himself,
with a start, to that which he was obliged to know; but
his diligence was not of that resolute and steady kind
which insures success as the consequence of a certain<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</a></span>
period of application; and after rushing into the novelties
of the Brunonian System,<a name="FNanchor_82" id="FNanchor_82"></a><a href="#Footnote_82" class="fnanchor">[82]</a> which promised knowledge
with little labour, and then, rushing back again, he resolved
on taking his countrymen’s short road to fortune,
and set out for England. His journey, however, did not
answer. He got a wife, but no patients; and on the
failure of his attempts to establish himself at Salisbury
and at Weymouth, retired to Brussels&mdash;ill, wearied, and
disgusted. The Low Countries were at that time the
theatre of a struggle between the Emperor Joseph and his
subjects; the general convulsion which shortly afterwards
took place throughout Europe was preparing, and the
agitation of men’s minds was excessive. These exciting
scenes called the disappointed physician back to the more
alluring study of politics; and to this short visit to the
Continent he owed a knowledge of its opinions and its
public men, which first served him as the correspondent
of a newspaper, <cite>The Oracle</cite>; and, subsequently, furnished
him with materials for a pamphlet which in an instant
placed him in the situation he so long occupied as one of
<em>the most promising men of his day</em>. This celebrated
pamphlet, published in 1791, and known under the name
of “Vindiciæ Gallicæ,” whether we consider the circumstances
under which it appeared, the opponent whom it
combated, or the ability of the composition itself, merited
all the attention it received, and was the more successful
because it gave just the answer to Burke which Burke
himself would have given to his own Reflections.</p>

<p>Thus, the club of Saint James’, the cloister of Trinity<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</a></span>
College, had a writer to quote, whose sentiments were in
favour of liberty, and whose language, agreeable to the ear
of the gentleman and the scholar, did not, in defending the
patriots of France, advise their imitation or approve their
excesses.</p>

<p>“Burke,” he says, “admires the Revolution of 1688;
but we, who conceive that we pay the purest homage to
the authors of that Revolution, not in contending for
what they then did, but for what they would now do, can
feel no inconsistency in looking on France&mdash;not to model
our conduct, but to invigorate the spirit of freedom. We
permit ourselves to imagine how Lord Somers, in the
light and knowledge of the eighteenth century, how the
patriots of France, in the tranquillity and opulence of
England, would have acted.</p>

<p>“We are not bound to copy the conduct to which the
last were driven by a bankrupt exchequer, and a dissolved
government; nor to maintain the establishments which
were spared by the first in a prejudiced and benighted age.</p>

<p>“Exact imitation is not necessary to reverence. We
venerate the principles which presided in both, and we
adapt to political admiration a maxim which has long been
received in polite letters, that the only manly and liberal imitation
is to speak as a great man would have spoken, had he
lived in our times, and been placed in our circumstances.”</p>

<p>There is much even in this passage to show that the
adversary was still the imitator, imbued with the spirit
and under the influence of the genius of the very writer
whom he was bold enough to attack. Many, nevertheless,
who, taken by surprise, had surrendered to the magisterial
eloquence of the master, were rescued by the elegant
pleading of the scholar. Everywhere, then, might be
heard the loudest applause, and an applause well merited.
On the greatest question of the times, the first man of the
times had been answered by a young gentleman aged
twenty-six, and who, hitherto unknown, was appreciated
by his first success.</p>

<p>The leaders of the Whig party sought him out; they
paid him every attention. His opinions went further than
theirs; for he was an advocate of universal suffrage,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[259]</a></span>
an abolitionist of all titles, an enemy to a senate or second
assembly. No persons practically contending for power
could say they exactly sanctioned such notions as these;
but all praised the style in which they were put forth,
and, allowing for the youth, lauded the talent, of the
author. Indeed, “the love to hatred turned” ever repudiates
moderation, and the antagonist of Burke was certain of
the rapturous cheers of those whom that great but
passionate man had deserted. In this manner Mackintosh
(who was now preparing for the bar) became necessarily a
party man, and a violent party man. Mr. Fox praised
his abilities in Parliament; the famous Reform Association
called the “Friends of the People” chose him for their
honorary secretary. A great portion of the well-known
declaration of this society was his composition; and in a
letter to the Prime Minister of the day (Mr. Pitt), he
abused that statesman with a fierceness and boldness of
invective which even political controversy scarcely allowed.</p>

<p>Here was the great misfortune of his life. This fierceness
and boldness were not in his nature; in becoming a
man of action, he entered upon a part which was not suited
to his character, and which it was certain therefore he
would not sustain. The reaction soon followed. Amongst
its first symptoms was a review of Mr. Burke’s “Regicide
Peace.” The author of the review became known to the
person whose writing was criticised: a correspondence
ensued, very flattering to Mr. Mackintosh, who shortly
afterwards spent a few days at Beaconsfield (1796).</p>

<p>It was usual for him to say, referring to this visit, that
in half an hour Mr. Burke overturned the previous reflections
of his whole life. There was some exaggeration,
doubtless, in this assertion, but it is also likely that there
was some truth in it. His opinions had begun to waver,
and at that critical moment he came into personal contact
with, and was flattered by, a man whom every one praised,
and who praised few. At all events, he was converted,
and not ashamed of his conversion, but, on the contrary,
mounted with confidence a stage on which his change
might be boldly justified.</p>

<p>The faults as well as the excellences of the English<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[260]</a></span>
character arise from that great dislike to generalise which
has made us the practical, and in many instances the prejudiced,
people that we are. Abroad, a knowledge of
general or natural law, of the foundations on which all
laws are or ought to be based, enters as a matter of course
into a liberal education. In England lawyers themselves
disregard this study as useless or worse than useless.<a name="FNanchor_83" id="FNanchor_83"></a><a href="#Footnote_83" class="fnanchor">[83]</a>
They look, and they look diligently, into English law,
such as it is, established by custom, precedent, or act of
Parliament. They know all the nice points and proud
formalities on which legal justice rests, or by which it may
be eluded. The conflicting cases and opposing opinions,
which may be brought to bear on an unsound horse, or a
contested footpath, are deeply pondered over, carefully
investigated. But the great edifice of general jurisprudence,
though standing on his wayside, is usually passed
by the legal traveller with averted eyes: the antiquary
and the philosopher, indeed, may linger there; but the
plodding man of business scorns to arrest his steps.</p>

<p>When, however, amidst the mighty crash of states and
doctrines that followed the storm of 1791&mdash;when, amidst
the birth of new empires and new legislatures, custom lost
its sanctity, precedent its authority, and statute was made
referable to common justice and common sense,&mdash;then,
indeed, there uprose a strong and earnest desire to become
acquainted with those general principles so often cited by
the opponents of the past; to visit that armoury in which
such terrible weapons had been found, and to see whether
it could not afford means as powerful for defending what
remained as it had furnished for destroying what had
already been swept away.</p>

<h4>III.</h4>

<p>A course of Lectures on Public Law&mdash;about which the
public knew so little, and were yet so curious&mdash;offered a
road to distinction, which the young lawyer, confident in
his own abilities and researches, had every temptation to
tread. Private interest procured him the Hall at Lincoln’s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[261]</a></span>
Inn; but this was not sufficient; it was necessary that
he should make the world aware of the talent, the knowledge,
and the sentiments with which he undertook so
great a task. He published his introductory essay&mdash;the
only memorable record of the Lectures to which we are
referring that now remains. The views contained in this
essay may in many instances be erroneous; but its merits
as a composition are of no common kind. Learned, eloquent,
it excited nearly as much enthusiasm as the “Vindiciæ
Gallicæ,” and deserved, upon the whole, a higher order of
admiration.</p>

<p>But praise came this time from a different quarter. A
few years before, and Mackintosh had spoken of Mr. Pitt
as cold, stern, crafty, and ambitious; possessing “the
parade without the restraint of morals;” the “most profound
dissimulation with the utmost ardour of enterprise;
prepared by one part of his character for the violence of a
multitude, by another for the duplicity of a court.”<a name="FNanchor_84" id="FNanchor_84"></a><a href="#Footnote_84" class="fnanchor">[84]</a></p>

<p>It was under the patronage of this same Mr. Pitt that
the hardy innovator now turned back to “the old ways,”
proclaiming that “history was a vast museum, in which
specimens of every variety of human nature might be
studied. From these great occasions to knowledge,” he
said, “lawgivers and statesmen, but more especially moralists
and political philosophers, may reap the most
important instruction. There, they may plainly discover,
amid all the useful and beautiful variety of governments and
institutions, and under all the fantastic multitude of usages
and rites which ever prevailed among men, the same
fundamental, comprehensive truths&mdash;truths which have
ever been the guardians of society, recognised and revered
(with very few and slight exceptions) by every nation upon
earth, and uniformly taught, with still fewer exceptions,
by a succession of wise men, from the first dawn of speculation
down to the latest times.”</p>

<p>“See,” he continued, “whether from the remotest periods
any improvement, or even any change, has been made in
the practical rules of human conduct. Look at the
code of Moses. I speak of it now as a mere human composition,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[262]</a></span>
without considering its sacred origin. Considering
it merely in that light, it is the most ancient and the most
curious memorial of the early history of mankind. More
than 3000 years have elapsed since the composition of the
Pentateuch; and let any man, if he is able, tell me in
what important respects the rule of life has varied since
that distant period. Let the institutes of Menu be explored
with the same view; we shall arrive at the same
conclusion. Let the books of false religion be opened; it
will be found that their moral system is, in all its good
features, the same. The impostors who composed them
were compelled to pay this homage to the uniform moral
sentiments of the world. Examine the codes of nations,
those authentic depositories of the moral judgments of
men: you everywhere find the same rules prescribed, the
same duties imposed. Even the boldest of these ingenious
sceptics who have attacked every other opinion, have spared
the sacred and immortal simplicity of the rules of life. In
our common duties, Bayle and Hume agree with Bossuet
and Barrow. Such as the rule was at the first dawn of
history, such it continues at the present day. Ages roll
over mankind; mighty nations pass away like a shadow;
virtue alone remains the same, immutable and unchangeable.”</p>

<p>The object of Mackintosh was to show that the instinct
of man was towards society; that society could not be
kept together except on certain principles; that these
principles, therefore, from the nature of man&mdash;a nature
predestined and fashioned by God&mdash;were at once universal
and divine, and that societies would perish that ignored
them;&mdash;a true and sublime theory; but with respect to
which we must, if we desire to be practical, admit that
variety of qualifications which different civilizations, different
climates, accidental interests, and religious prescriptions
interpose.</p>

<p>It may be said, for instance, that no society could exist
if its institutions honoured theft as a virtue, and instructed
parents to murder their children; but a great and celebrated
society did exist in ancient Greece,&mdash;a society
which outlived its brilliant contemporaries, and which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[263]</a></span>
sanctioned robbery, if not detected; and allowed parents
to kill their children, if sickly. It is perfectly true that
the ten commandments of the Jewish legislator are applicable
to all mankind, and are as much revered by the
people of the civilized world at the present day, as by
the semi-barbarous people of Israel 3000 years ago. They
are admitted as integrally into the religion taught by
Christ, as they were into the religion taught by Moses.
But how different the morality founded on them! How
different the doctrine of charity and forgiveness from the
retributive prescription of vindicative justice! Nay, how
different the precepts taught by the various followers of
Christ themselves, who draw those precepts from the same
book!</p>

<p>If there is anything on which it is necessary for the
interest and happiness of mankind to constitute a fixed
principle of custom or of law, it is the position of woman.
The social relationship of man with woman rules the
destiny of both from the cradle to the grave; and yet, on
this same relationship, what various notions, customs, and
laws!</p>

<p>I make these observations, because it is well that we
should see how much is left to the liberty of man, whilst
we recognise the certain rules by which his caprice is
limited: how much is to be learned from the past&mdash;how
much is left open to the future!</p>

<p>But all argument at the time that Mackintosh opened
his lectures consisted in the opposition of extremes. As
the one party decried history altogether, so the other
referred everything to history; as the former sect declared
that no reverence was due to custom, so the latter announced
that all upon which we valued ourselves most was traditional.
Because those fanatics scoffed at the ideas and
manners of the century that had just elapsed, these
referred with exultation to the manners and ideas that
prevailed some thousands of years before.</p>

<p>Mackintosh stood forth, confessedly, as History’s
champion; and with the beautiful candour, which marked
his modest and elevated frame of mind, confessed that the
sight of those who surrounded his chair&mdash;the opinions he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[264]</a></span>
knew them to entertain&mdash;the longing after applause, for
which every public speaker, whatever his theme, naturally
thirsts&mdash;and also, he adds, “a proper repentance for former
errors”&mdash;might all have heightened the qualities of the
orator to the detriment of the lecturer, and carried him,
“in the rebound from his original opinions, too far towards
the opposite extreme.”<a name="FNanchor_85" id="FNanchor_85"></a><a href="#Footnote_85" class="fnanchor">[85]</a></p>

<h4>IV.</h4>

<p>We shall soon have to inquire what were the real nature
and character of the change which he confessed that his
language at this time exaggerated. Suffice it here to say
that, amidst the sighs of his old friends, the applauses of
his new, and the sneering murmurs and scornful remarks
of the stupid and the envious of all parties, his eloquence
(for he was eloquent as a professor) produced generally
the most flattering effects. Statesmen, lawyers, men of
letters, idlers, crowded with equal admiration round the
amusing moralist, whose glittering store of knowledge was
collected from the philosopher, the poet, the writer of
romance and history.</p>

<p>“In mixing up the sparking julep,” says an eloquent
though somewhat affected writer, “that by its potent
application was to scour away the drugs and feculence and
peccant humours of the body politic, he (Mackintosh)
seemed to stand with his back to the drawers in a metaphysical
dispensary, and to take out of them whatever
ingredients suited his purpose.”<a name="FNanchor_86" id="FNanchor_86"></a><a href="#Footnote_86" class="fnanchor">[86]</a></p>

<p>In the meanwhile (having lost his first wife and married
again) he pursued his professional course, though without
doing anything as an advocate equal to his success as a
professor.</p>

<p>M. Peltier’s trial, however, now took place. M. Peltier
was an <i lang="fr">émigré</i>, whom the neighbouring revolution had
driven to our shores; a gentleman possessing some ability,
and ardently attached to the royal cause.</p>

<p>He had not profited by the permission to return to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[265]</a></span>
France, which had been given to all French exiles, but
carried on a French journal, which, finding its way to the
Continent, excited the remarkable susceptibility of the
first consul. This was just after the peace of Amiens.
Urged by the French government, our own undertook the
prosecution of M. Peltier’s paper. The occasion was an
ode, in which the apotheosis of Bonaparte was referred to,
and his assassination pretty plainly advocated. So atrocious
a suggestion, however veiled, or however provoked,
merited, no doubt, the reprobation of all worthy and high-minded
men; but party spirit and national rancour ran
high, and the defender of the prosecuted journalist was
sure to stand before his country as the enemy of France
and the advocate of freedom.</p>

<p>A variety of circumstances pointed out Mr. Mackintosh
as the proper counsel to place in this position; and here,
by a singular fortune, he was enabled to combine a hatred
to revolutionary principles with an ardent admiration of
that ancient spirit of liberty, which is embodied in the
most popular institutions of England.</p>

<p>“Circumstanced as my client is,” he exclaimed, in his
rather studied but yet powerful declamation, “the most
refreshing object his eye can rest upon is an English jury;
and he feels with me gratitude to the Ruler of empires,
that after the wreck of everything else ancient and venerable
in Europe, of all established forms and acknowledged
principles, of all long-subsisting laws and sacred institutions,
we are met here, administering justice after the manner of
our forefathers in this her ancient sanctuary. Here these
parties come to judgment; one, the master of the greatest
empire on the earth; the other, a weak, defenceless fugitive,
who waives his privilege of having half his jury
composed of foreigners, and puts himself with confidence
on a jury entirely English. Gentlemen, there is another
view in which this case is highly interesting, important,
and momentous, and I confess I am animated to every
exertion that I can make, not more by a sense of my duty
to my client, than by a persuasion that this cause is the
first of a series of contests with the ‘freedom of the press.’
My learned friend, Mr. Perceval, I am sure, will never<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[266]</a></span>
disgrace his magistracy by being instrumental to a measure
so calamitous. But viewing this as I do, as the first of a
series of contests between the greatest power on earth and
the only press that is now free, I cannot help calling upon
him and you to pause, before the great earthquake swallows
up all the freedom that remains among men; for though
no indication has yet been made to attack the freedom of
the press in this country, yet the many other countries
that have been deprived of this benefit must forcibly
impress us with the propriety of looking vigilantly to
ourselves. Holland and Switzerland are now no more,
and near fifty of the imperial crowns in Germany have
vanished since the commencement of this prosecution.
All these being gone, there is no longer any control but
what this country affords. Every press on the Continent,
from Palermo to Hamburg, is enslaved; one place alone
remains where the press is free, protected by our government
and our patriotism. It is an awfully proud consideration
that that venerable fabric, raised by our ancestors,
still stands unshaken amidst the ruins that surround us.
<em>You are the advanced guard of liberty</em>,” &amp;c.</p>

<p>After the delivery of this speech, which, after being
translated by Madame de Staël, was read with admiration
not only in England, but also on the Continent, Mr. Mackintosh,
though he lost his cause, was considered no less
promising as a pleader, than after the publication of
the “Vindiciæ Gallicæ” he had been considered as a
pamphleteer. In both instances, however, the sort of effort
he had made seemed to have exhausted him, and three
months had not elapsed, when, with the plaudits of the
public, and the praise of Erskine, still ringing in his ears,
he accepted the Recordership of Bombay from Mr. Addington,
and retired with satisfaction to the well-paid and
knighted indolence of India. His objects in so doing
were, he said, to make a fortune, and to write a work.</p>

<p>We shall thoroughly understand the man when we see
what he achieved towards the attainment of these two
objects. He did not make a fortune; he did not write a
work. The greater part of his time seems to have been
employed in a restless longing after society, and a perpetual<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[267]</a></span>
dawdling over books; during the seven years he was
absent, he speaks continually of his projected work as
“always to be projected.” “I observe” he says, in one of
his letters to Mr. Sharpe, “that you touch me once or
twice with the spur about my books on Morals. I felt it
gall me, for I have not begun.”</p>

<hr />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[268]</a></span></p>

<h3><span class="smcap">Part II.</span><br />
<span class="smaller">HIS STAY IN INDIA AND HIS CAREER IN PARLIAMENT.</span></h3>

<div class="smaller">

<p>Goes to India.&mdash;Pursuits there.&mdash;Returns home dissatisfied with himself.&mdash;Enters
Parliament on the Liberal side.&mdash;Reasons why he took it.&mdash;Fails in
first speech.&mdash;Merits as an orator.&mdash;Extracts from his speeches.&mdash;Modern
ideas.&mdash;Excessive punishments.&mdash;Mackintosh’s success as a law reformer.&mdash;General
parliamentary career.</p>

</div>

<h4>I.</h4>

<p>Sir James Mackintosh, in accepting a place in India,
abdicated the chances of a brilliant and useful career in
England; still his presence in one of our great dependencies
was not without its use&mdash;for his literary reputation
offered him facilities in the encouragement of learned and
scientific pursuits&mdash;which, when they tend to explore and
illustrate the history and resources of a new empire, are,
in fact, political ones; while his attempts to obtain a
statistical survey, as well as to form different societies,
the objects of which were the acquirement and communication
of knowledge, though not immediately successful,
did not fail to arouse in Bombay, and to spread much
farther, a different and a far more enlightened spirit than
that which had hitherto prevailed amongst our speculating
settlers, or rather sojourners in the East. The mildness
of his judicial sway, moreover, and a wish to return to
Europe with, if possible, a “bloodless ermine,”<a name="FNanchor_87" id="FNanchor_87"></a><a href="#Footnote_87" class="fnanchor">[87]</a> contributed
not only to extend the views, but to soften the manners
of the merchant conquerors, and to lay thereby something
like a practical foundation for subsequent legislative improvement.</p>

<p>To himself, however, this distant scene seems to have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[269]</a></span>
possessed no interest, to have procured no advantage.
Worn by the climate, wearied by a series of those small
duties and trifling exertions which, unattended by fame,
offer none of that moral excitement which overcomes
physical fatigue; but little wealthier than when he
undertook his voyage, having accomplished none of those
works, and enjoyed little of that ease, the visions of which
cheered him in undertaking it; a sick, a sad, and, so far
as the acceptance of his judgeship was concerned, a repentant
man, he (in 1810) took his way homewards.</p>

<p>“It has happened,” he observes in one of his letters&mdash;“it
has happened by the merest accident that the ‘trial
of Peltier’ is among the books in the cabin; and when I
recollect the way in which you saw me opposed to Perceval
on the 21st of February, 1803 (the day of the trial), and
that I compare his present situation&mdash;whether at the head
of an administration or an opposition&mdash;with mine, scanty
as my stock is of fortune, health, and spirits, in a cabin
nine feet square, on the Indian Ocean, I think it enough
that I am free from the soreness of disappointment.”</p>

<p>There is, indeed, something melancholy in the contrast
thus offered between a man still young, hopeful, rising
high in the most exciting profession, just crowned with
the honours of forensic triumph, and the man prematurely
old, who in seven short years had become broken, dispirited,
and was now under the necessity of beginning life anew,
with wasted energies and baffled aspirations.</p>

<p>But Sir James Mackintosh deceived himself in thinking
that if the seven years to which he alludes had been passed
in England, they would have placed him in the same
position as that to which Mr. Perceval had ascended
within the same period. Had he remained at the bar, or
entered Parliament instead of going to India, he might,
indeed, have made several better speeches than Mr. Perceval,
as he had already made one; but he would not always
have been speaking well, like Mr. Perceval, nor have
pushed himself forward in those situations, and at those
opportunities, when a good speech would have been most
wanted or most effective. At all events, his talents for
active life were about to have a tardy trial; the object of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[270]</a></span>
his early dreams and hopes was about to be attained&mdash;a
seat in the House of Commons. He took his place
amongst the members of the Liberal opposition; and
many who remembered the auspices under which he left
England, were somewhat surprised at the banner under
which he now enlisted.</p>

<h4>II.</h4>

<p>Here is the place at which it may be most convenient
to consider Sir James Mackintosh’s former change; as well
as the circumstances which led him back to his old connections.
He had entered life violently democratical,&mdash;a
strong upholder of the French Revolution; he became,
so to speak, violently moderate, and a strong opponent of
this same Revolution. He altered his politics, and this
alteration was followed by his receiving an appointment.</p>

<p>Such is the outline which malignity might fill up with
the darkest colours; but it would be unjustly. The
machinery of human conduct is complex; and it would
be absurd to say that a man’s interests are not likely to
have an influence on his actions. But they who see more
of our nature than the surface, know that our interests
are quite as frequently governed by our character as our
character is by our interests. The true explanation, then,
of Mackintosh’s conduct is to be found in his order of
intellect. His mind was not a mind led by its own inspirations,
but rather a mind reflecting the ideas of other
men, and of that class of men more especially to which he,
as studious and speculative, belonged. The commencement
of the French Revolution, the long-prepared work
of the Encyclopedists, was hailed by such persons (we
speak generally) as a sort of individual success. Burke
did much to check this feeling; and subsequent events
favoured Burke. But by far the greater number of those
addicted to literary pursuits sympathized with the popular
party in the States-General. Under this impulse the
“Vindiciæ Gallicæ” was written. The exclusion of the
eminent men of the National Assembly from power
modified, the execution of the Girondists subdued, this
impulse. At the fall of those eloquent Republicans the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[271]</a></span>
lettered usurpation ceased; and now literature, instead of
being opposed to royalty, owed, like it, a debt of vengeance
to that inexorable mob which had spared neither.</p>

<p>It was at the time, then, when everybody was recanting
that Mackintosh made <em>his</em> recantation. Most men of his
class and nature took the same part in the same events;
for such men were delighted with the theories of freedom,
but shocked at its excesses; and, indeed, it is difficult to
conceive anything more abhorrent to the gentle dreams
of a civilised philosophy than that wild hurricane of
liberty which carried ruin and desolation over France in the
same blast that spread the seeds of future prosperity.</p>

<p>We find, it is true, this beautiful passage in the
“Vindiciæ Gallicæ:” “The soil of Attica was remarked
by antiquity as producing at once the most delicious fruits
and the most violent poisons. It is thus with the human
mind; and to the frequency of convulsions in the commonwealths
we owe those examples of sanguinary tumult and
virtuous heroism which distinguish their history from the
monotonous tranquillity of modern states.” But though
these words were used by Mackintosh, they were merely
transcribed by him; they belong to a deeper and more
daring genius&mdash;they are almost literally the words of
Machiavel, and were furnished by the reading, and not by
the genuine reflections, of the youthful pamphleteer. He
had not in rejoicing over the work of the Constituante
anticipated the horrors of the Convention; the regret,
therefore, that he expressed for what he condemned as his
early want of judgment, was undoubtedly sincere; and
no one can fairly blame him for accepting, under such
circumstances, a post which was not political, and which
removed him from the angry arena in which he would
have had to combat with former friends, whose rancour
may be appreciated by Dr. Parr’s brutal reply&mdash;when
Mackintosh asked him, how Quigley, an Irish priest,
executed for treason, could have been worse. “I’ll tell
you, Jemmy&mdash;Quigley was an Irishman, he might have
been a Scotchman; he was a priest, he might have been
a lawyer; he was a traitor, he might have been an
apostate.”</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[272]</a></span></p>

<p>Thus much for the Bombay Recordership. But the
feverish panic which the sanguinary government of Robespierre
had produced&mdash;calmed by his fall, soothed by the
feeble government which succeeded him, and replaced at
last by the stern domination of a warrior who had at least
the merit of restoring order and tranquillity to his country&mdash;died
away.</p>

<p>A variety of circumstances&mdash;including the publication
of the “Edinburgh Review,” which, conducted in a liberal
and moderate spirit, made upon the better educated class
of the British population a considerable impression&mdash;favoured
and aided the reaction towards a more temperate
state of thought. A new era began, in which the timid
lost their fears, the factious their hopes. All question of
the overthrow of the constitution and of the confiscation
of property was at an end; and as politics thus fell back
into more quiet channels, parties adopted new watchwords
and new devices. The cry was no longer, “Shall there
be a Monarchy or a Republic?” but, “Shall the Catholics
continue proscribed as helots, or shall they be treated as
free men?”</p>

<p>During the seven years which Sir James had passed in
India, this was the turn that had been taking place in
affairs and opinions. It is hardly possible to conceive
any change more calculated to carry along with it a mild
and intelligent philosopher, to whom fanaticism of all
kinds was hateful.</p>

<p>Those whom he had left, under the standard of
Mr. Pitt, contending against anarchical doctrines and
universal conquest, were now for disputing one of Mr. Pitt’s
most sacred promises, and refusing to secure peace to an
empire, at the very crisis of its fortunes, by the establishment
of a system of civil equality between citizens who
thought differently on the somewhat abstruse subject of
transubstantiation. Mr. Perceval, at the head of this
section of politicians, was separated from almost every
statesman who possessed any reputation as a scholar.
Mr. Canning did not belong to his administration; Lord
Wellesley was on the point of quitting it. There never
was a government to which what may be called the thinking<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[273]</a></span>
class of the country stood so opposed. Thus, the very
same sort of disposition which had detached Sir James
Mackintosh, some years ago, from his early friends, was
now disposing him to rejoin them; and he moved backwards
and forwards, I must repeat, in both instances&mdash;when
he went to India a Tory,<a name="FNanchor_88" id="FNanchor_88"></a><a href="#Footnote_88" class="fnanchor">[88]</a> and when he entered
Parliament a Whig&mdash;with a considerable body of persons,
who, though less remarked because less distinguished,
honestly pursued the same conduct.</p>

<p>All the circumstances, indeed, which marked his conduct
at this time do him honour. Almost immediately on his
return to England, the premier offered him a seat in
Parliament, and held out to him the hopes of the high
and lucrative situation of President of the Board of Control.
A poor man, and an ambitious man, equally anxious
for place and distinction, he refused both; and this refusal,
of which we have now the surest proof, was a
worthy answer to the imputations which had attended the
acceptance of his former appointment. Lord Abinger,
who has since recorded the refusal of a seat from
Mr. Perceval, was himself the bearer of a similar offer
from Lord Cawdor;<a name="FNanchor_89" id="FNanchor_89"></a><a href="#Footnote_89" class="fnanchor">[89]</a> and under the patronage of this
latter nobleman Sir James Mackintosh first entered
Parliament (1813) as the Member for Nairnshire, a representation
the more agreeable, since it was that of his
ancestral county, wherein he had inherited the small
property which some years before he had been compelled
to part with.<a name="FNanchor_90" id="FNanchor_90"></a><a href="#Footnote_90" class="fnanchor">[90]</a></p>

<h4>III.</h4>

<p>Any man entering the House of Commons for the first
time late in life possesses but a small chance of attaining
considerable parliamentary eminence. It requires some
time to seize the spirit of that singular assembly, of which
most novices are at first inclined to over-rate and then to
under-rate the judgment.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[274]</a></span></p>

<p>A learned man is more likely to be wrong than any
other. He fancies himself amidst an assembly of meditative
and philosophic statesmen; he calls up all his
deepest thoughts and most refined speculations; he is
anxious to astonish by the profundity and extent of his
views, the novelty and sublimity of his conceptions; as he
commences, the listeners are convinced he is a bore, and
before he concludes, he is satisfied that they are blockheads.</p>

<p>The orator, however, is far more out in his conjectures
than the audience. The House of Commons consists of a
mob of gentlemen, the greater part of whom are neither
without talent nor information. But a mob of well-informed
gentlemen is still a mob, requiring to be amused
rather than instructed, and only touched by those reasons
and expressions which, clear to the dullest as to the
quickest intellect, vibrate through an assembly as if it had
but one ear and one mind.</p>

<p>Besides, the House of Commons is a mob divided beneficially,
though it requires some knowledge of the general
genius and practical bearings of a representative government
to see all the advantages of such a division, into
parties. What such parties value is that which is done
in their ranks, that which is useful to themselves, of advantage
to a common cause; any mere personal exhibition
is almost certain to be regarded by them with contempt
or displeasure. Differing amongst themselves, indeed, in
almost everything else&mdash;some being silent and fastidious,
some bustling and loquacious, some indolent and looking
after amusement, some incapable of being and yet desiring
to appear to be men of business, some active, public-spirited,
and ambitious&mdash;all agree in detecting the philosophic
rhetorician. Anything in the shape of subtle refinement,&mdash;anything
that borders on learned generalities,
is sure to be out of place. Even supposing that the new
member, already distinguished elsewhere although now
at his maiden essay in this strange arena, has sufficient
tact to see the errors into which he is likely to fall, he is
still a suspected person, and will be narrowly watched as
to any design of parading his own acquirements at the
expense of other people’s patience.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[275]</a></span></p>

<p>How did Sir J. Mackintosh first appear amongst auditors
thus disposed? Lord Castlereagh moved, on the 20th
of December, 1814, for an adjournment to the 1st of
March. At that moment the whole of Europe was pouring,
in the full tide of victory, into France. Every heart
thrilled with recent triumph and the anticipation of more
complete success. The ministry had acquired popularity
as the reflection of the talents of their general and the
tardy good fortune of their allies. The demand for adjournment
was the demand for a confidence which they
had a right to expect, and which Mr. Whitbread and the
leading Whigs saw it would be ungenerous and impolitic
to refuse. They granted then what was asked; Mackintosh
alone opposed it. His opposition was isolated, certain
to be without any practical result, and could only be
accounted for by the desire to make a speech!</p>

<p>Lord Castlereagh, who was by nature the man of action
which Mackintosh was not, saw at once the error which
the new Whig member had committed, and determined to
add as much as possible to his difficulties. Instead, therefore,
of making the statement which he knew was expected
from him, and to which he presumed the orator
opposite would affect to reply, he merely moved for the
adjournment as a matter of course, which needed no
justification. By this simple manœuvre all the formidable
artillery which the profound reflector on foreign politics
and the eloquent lecturer on the law of nations had
brought into the field, was rendered useless. A fire
against objects which were not in view, an answer to
arguments which had never been employed, was necessarily
a very tame exhibition, and indeed the new member
was hardly able to get through the oration to which it
was evident he had given no common care. In slang
phrase, he “broke down.” Why was this? Sir James
Mackintosh was not ignorant of the nature of the assembly
he addressed; he could have explained to another all that
was necessary to catch its ear; but, as I have said a few
pages back, the character of a person governs his interests
far more frequently than his interests govern his character;
and the man I am speaking of was not the man whom a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[276]</a></span>
sort of instinct hurries into the heat and fervour of a real
contest. To brandish his glittering arms was to him the
battle. He therefore persuaded himself that what he
did with satisfaction he should do with success. It was
just this which made his failure serious to him.</p>

<p>The runner who trips in a race and loses it may win
races for the rest of his life; but if he stops in the middle
of his course, because he is asthmatic and cannot keep his
breath, few persons would bet on him again. Now, the
failure of Mackintosh was of this kind; it was not an
accidental, but a constitutional one, arising from defects
or peculiarities that were part of himself. He never,
then, recovered from it. And yet it could not be said
that he spoke ill; on the contrary, notwithstanding certain
defects in manner, he spoke, after a little practice, well,
and far above the ordinary speaking of learned men and
lawyers. Some of his orations may be read with admiration,
and were even received with applause.</p>

<h4>IV.</h4>

<p>Where shall we find a nobler tone of statesmanlike
philosophy than in the following condemnation of that
policy which attached Genoa to Piedmont<a name="FNanchor_91" id="FNanchor_91"></a><a href="#Footnote_91" class="fnanchor">[91]</a>&mdash;a condemnation
not the less remarkable for the orator’s not unskilful
attempt to connect his former opposition to the French
Revolution with the war he was then waging against the
Holy Alliance?</p>

<p>“One of the grand and patent errors of the French
Revolution was the fatal opinion, that it was possible for
human skill to make a government. It was an error too
generally prevalent not to be excusable. The American
Revolution had given it a fallacious semblance of support,
though no event in history more clearly showed its falsehood.
The system of laws and the frame of society in
North America remained after the Revolution, and remain
to this day, fundamentally the same as they ever were.<a name="FNanchor_92" id="FNanchor_92"></a><a href="#Footnote_92" class="fnanchor">[92]</a>
The change in America, like the change in 1688, was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[277]</a></span>
made in defence of legal right, not in pursuit of political
improvement; and it was limited by the necessity of
defence which produced it. The whole internal order
remained, which had always been Republican. The somewhat
slender tie which loosely joined these Republics to a
monarchy, was easily and without violence divided. But
the error of the French Revolutionists was, in 1789, the
error of Europe. From that error we have been long reclaimed
by fatal experience.</p>

<p>“We now see, or rather we have seen and felt, that a
government is not like a machine or a building, the work of
man; that it is the work of nature, like the nobler productions
of the vegetable or animal world, which man may
improve and corrupt, and even destroy, but which he
cannot create. We have long learned to despise the
ignorance or the hypocrisy of those who speak of giving a
free constitution to a people, and to exclaim, with a great
living poet:</p>

<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="verse">‘A gift of that which never can be given</div>
<div class="verse">By all the blended powers of earth and heaven!’</div>
</div>
</div>

<p>“Indeed, we have gone, perhaps as usual, too near to the
opposite error, and not made sufficient allowances for those
dreadful cases, which I must call desperate, where, in long-enslaved
countries, it is necessary either humbly and
cautiously to lay foundations from which liberty may slowly
rise, or acquiesce in the doom of perpetual bondage on ourselves
and our children.</p>

<p>“But though we no longer dream of making governments,
the confederacy of kings seem to feel no doubt of
their own power to make a nation. A government cannot
be made, because its whole spirit and principles spring from
the character of the nation. There would be no difficulty
in framing a government, if the habits of a people could be
changed by a lawgiver; if he could obliterate their recollections,
transform their attachment and reverence, extinguish
their animosities and correct those sentiments which,
being at variance with his opinions of public interest, he
calls prejudices. Now this is precisely the power which
our statesmen at Vienna have arrogated to themselves.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[278]</a></span>
They not only form nations, but they compose them of
elements apparently the most irreconcilable. They made
one nation out of Norway and Sweden; they tried to make
another out of Prussia and Saxony. They have, in the
present case, forced together Piedmont and Genoa to form
a nation which is to guard the avenues of Italy, and to be
one of the main securities of Europe against universal
monarchy.</p>

<p>“It was not the pretension of the ancient system to form
states, to divide territory according to speculations of
military convenience.</p>

<p>“The great statesmen of former times did not speak of
their measures as the noble lord (Lord Castlereagh) did
about the incorporation of Belgium with Holland (about
which I say nothing), as a great improvement in the system
of Europe. That is the language of those who revolutionize
that system by a partition like that of Poland, by
the establishment of the Federation of the Rhine at Paris,
or by the creation of new states at Vienna. The ancient
principle was to preserve all those States which had been
founded by Time and Nature, the character of which was
often maintained, and the nationality of which was sometimes
created by the very irregularities of frontier and
inequalities of strength, of which a shallow policy complains;
to preserve all such States down to the smallest,
first by their own national spirit, and secondly by that
mutual jealousy which makes every great power the
opponent of the dangerous ambition of every other;
to preserve nations, living bodies, produced by the
hand of Nature&mdash;not to form artificial dead machines,
called nations, by the words and parchment of a diplomatic
act&mdash;was the ancient system of our wiser forefathers,
&amp;c. &amp;c.…”</p>

<h4>V.</h4>

<p>There is also a noble strain of eloquence in the following
short defence of the slave-treaty with Spain:</p>

<p>“I feel pride in the British flag being for this object
subjected to foreign ships. I think it a great and striking
proof of magnanimity that the darling point of honour of
our country, the British flag itself, which for a thousand<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[279]</a></span>
years has braved the battle and the breeze, which has defied
confederacies of nations, to which we have clung closer and
closer as the tempest roared around us, which has borne us
through all perils and raised its head higher as the storm
has assailed us more fearfully, should now bend voluntarily
to the cause of justice and humanity&mdash;should now lower
itself, never having been brought low by the mightiest, to
the most feeble and defenceless&mdash;to those who, far from
being able to return the benefits we would confer upon
them, will never hear of those benefits, will never know,
perhaps, even our name.”</p>

<p>By far the most effective of Sir James Mackintosh’s
speeches in Parliament, however, was one that he delivered
(June, 1819) against “The Foreign Enlistment Bill,” a
measure which was intended to prevent British subjects
from aiding the South American colonies in the struggle
they were then making for independence. No good report
of this oration remains, but even our parliamentary records
are sufficient to show that it possessed many of the rarer
attributes of eloquence, and moving with a rapidity and a
vigour (not frequent in Sir James’s efforts), prevented
his language from seeming laboured or his learning
tedious.</p>

<p>It contained, doubtless, other passages more striking in
the delivery, but the one which follows is peculiarly
pleasing to me&mdash;considering the argument it answered and
the audience to which it was addressed:</p>

<p>“Much has been said of the motives by which the
merchants of England are actuated as to this question. A
noble lord, the other night, treated these persons with
great and unjust severity, imputing the solicitude which
they feel for the success of the South American cause to
interested motives. Without indulging in commonplace
declamations against party men, I must considerately say
that it is a question with me whether the interest of
merchants do not more frequently coincide with the best
interests of mankind than do the transient and limited
views of politicians. If British merchants look with
eagerness to the event of the struggle in America, no
doubt they do so with the hope of deriving advantage from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[280]</a></span>
that event. But on what is such hope founded? On
the diffusion of beggary, on the maintenance of ignorance,
on the confirmation, on the establishment of tyranny in
America? No; these are the expectations of Ferdinand.
The British merchant builds his hopes of trade and profit
on the progress of civilization and good government; on
the successful assertion of freedom&mdash;of freedom, that
parent of talent, that parent of heroism, that parent of
every virtue. The fate of America can only be necessary
to commerce as it becomes accessory to the dignity and the
happiness of the race of man.”</p>

<h4>VI.</h4>

<p>As a parliamentary orator, Sir James Mackintosh never
before or afterwards rose to so great a height as in this
debate; but he continued at intervals, and on great and
national questions, to deliver what may be called very
remarkable essays up to the end of his career. I myself
was present at his last effort of this description; and most
interesting it was to hear the man who began his public
life with the “Vindiciæ Gallicæ,” closing it with a speech
in favour of the Reform Bill. During the interval, nearly
half a century had run its course. The principles which,
forty years before, had appeared amidst the storm and
tempest of doubtful discussion, and which, since that period,
had been at various times almost totally obscured, were
now again on the horizon, bright in the steady sunshine
of matured opinion. The distinguished person who was
addressing his countrymen on a great historical question
was himself a history,&mdash;a history of his own time, of which,
with the flexibility of an intelligent but somewhat feeble
nature, he had shared the enthusiasm, the doubt, the
despair, the hope, the triumph.</p>

<p>The speech itself was remarkable. Overflowing with
thought and knowledge, containing sound general principles
as to government, undisfigured by the violence of
party spirit, it pleased and instructed those who took the
pains to listen to it attentively; but it wanted the qualities
which attract or command attention.</p>

<p>It were vain to seek in Mackintosh for the playful fancy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[281]</a></span>
of Canning, the withering invective of Brougham, the deep
earnestness of Plunkett. The speaker’s person, moreover,
was gaunt and ungainly, his accent Scotch, his voice
monotonous, his action (the regular and graceless vibration
of two long arms) sometimes vehement without passion,
and sometimes almost cringing through good nature and
civility. In short, his manner, wanting altogether the
quiet concentration of self-possession, was peculiarly opposed
to that dignified, simple, and straightforward style of public
speaking, which may be characterised as “English.”</p>

<p>Still, it must be remembered that he was then at an
advanced age, and deprived, in some degree, of that mental,
and yet more of that physical, energy, which at an earlier
period might possibly have concealed these defects. I have
heard, indeed, that on previous occasions there had been
moments when a temporary excitement gave a natural
animation to his voice and gestures, and that then the
excellence of his arguments was made strikingly manifest
by an effective delivery.</p>

<p>His chief reputation in Parliament, nevertheless, is not
as an orator, but as a person successfully connected with
one of those great movements of opinion which are so long
running their course, and which it is the fortune of a man’s
life to encounter and be borne up upon when they are near
their goal.</p>

<h4>VII.</h4>

<p>Sir Thomas More, in his “Utopia” (1520), says of
thieving, that, “as the severity of the remedy is too great,
so it is ineffectual.” In Erasmus, Raleigh, Bacon, are to
be found almost precisely the same phrases and maxims
that a few years ago startled the House of Commons as
novelties. “What a lamentable case it is,” observes Sir
Edward Coke (1620), “to see so many Christian men and
women strangled on that cursed tree of the gallows, the
prevention of which consisteth in three things:</p>

<p>‘Good education,</p>

<p>‘Good laws,</p>

<p>‘Rare pardons.’”</p>

<p>Evelyn, in his preface to “State Trials” (1730),<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[282]</a></span>
observes, “that our legislation is very liberal of the lives
of offenders, making no distinction between the most
atrocious crimes and those of a less degree.”</p>

<p>“Experience,” says Montesquieu, “shows that in
countries remarkable for the lenity of their laws, the spirit
of its inhabitants is as much affected by slight penalties as
in other countries by severe punishments.”<a name="FNanchor_93" id="FNanchor_93"></a><a href="#Footnote_93" class="fnanchor">[93]</a></p>

<p>This feeling became general amongst reflecting men in
the middle and towards the end of the eighteenth century.</p>

<p>Johnson displays it in the “Rambler” (1751). Blackstone
expressly declares that “every humane legislator
should be extremely cautious of establishing laws which
inflict the penalty of death, especially for slight offences.”
Mr. Grose, in writing on the Criminal Laws of England
(1769), observes: “The sanguinary disposition of our laws,
besides being a national reproach, is, as it may appear, an
encouragement instead of a terror to delinquents.”</p>

<p>At this time also appeared the pamphlet of “Beccaria”
(1767), which was followed by an almost general movement
in favour of milder laws throughout Europe. The
Duke of Modena (1780) abolished the Inquisition in his
states; the King of France, in 1781, the torture; in
Russia, capital punishment&mdash;never used but in cases of
treason&mdash;may be said, for all ordinary crimes, to have
been done away with.</p>

<p>In England, where every doctrine is sure to find two
parties, there was a contest between one set of men who
wished our rigorous laws to be still more rigorously
executed, and another that considered the rigour of those
laws to be the main cause of their inefficiency. A pamphlet,
called “Thoughts on Executive Justice,” which produced
some sensation at the moment, represented the first class
of malcontents, and the author declaimed vehemently
against those juries, who acquitted capital offenders because
it went against their conscience to take away men’s lives.
Sir Samuel Romilly, then a very young man, replied to
this pamphlet with its own facts, and contended that the
way of insuring the punishment of criminals was to make
that punishment more proportionate to their offences.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[283]</a></span></p>

<p>From this pamphlet dates the modern battle which the
great lawyer, whose public career commenced with it,
carried subsequently to the floor of the House of Commons.</p>

<p>His exertions, however, were less fortunate than they
deserved to be. To him, indeed, we owe, in a great
measure, the spreading of truths amongst the many which
had previously been confined to the few; but he never
enjoyed the substantial triumph of these truths, for the
one or two small successes which he obtained are scarcely
worth mentioning.</p>

<p>His melancholy death took place in 1819, and Sir
James Mackintosh, who had just previously called the
attention of Parliament to the barbarous extent to which
executions for forgery had been carried, now came forward
as the successor of Romilly in the general work of criminal
law reformation.</p>

<p>In March, 1819, accordingly, he moved for a committee
to inquire into the subject, and obtained, such being the
result in a great measure of his own able and temperate
manner, a majority of nineteen. Again, in 1822, though
opposed by the ministers and law-officers of the Crown, he
carried a motion which pledged the House <em>to increase the
efficiency by diminishing the rigour of our criminal
jurisprudence</em>; and, in 1823, he followed up this triumph
by Nine Resolutions, which, had they been adopted, would
have taken away the punishment of death in the case of
larceny from shops, dwelling-houses, and on navigable
rivers, and also in those of forgery, sheep-stealing, and
other felonies, made capital by the “<em>Marriage</em> and Black
Act;” in short, he proposed that sentences of death should
only be pronounced when it was intended to carry them
into execution. Mr. Peel, then home secretary, opposed
these resolutions, and obtained a majority against them;
but he pledged himself at the same time to undertake, on
behalf of the government, a plan of law reform, which,
although less comprehensive than that which Sir James
Mackintosh contended for, was a great measure in itself,
and an immense step towards further improvement.</p>

<p>Mackintosh’s success, throughout these efforts, was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[284]</a></span>
mainly due to the plain unpretending manner in which he
stated his case. “I don’t mean,” he said, “to frame a
new criminal code; God forbid I should have such an idle
and extravagant pretension. I don’t mean to abolish the
punishment of death; I believe that societies and individuals
may use it as a legitimate mode of defence.
Neither do I mean to usurp on the right of pardon now
held by the Crown, which, on the contrary, I wish, practically
speaking, to restore. I do not even hope that I
shall be able to point out a manner in which the penalty
of the law should always be inflicted and never remitted.
But I find things in this condition&mdash;that the infliction of
the law is the exception, and I desire to make it the rule.
I find two hundred cases in which capital punishment is
awarded by the statute-book, and only twenty-five in
which, for seventy years, such punishment has been
executed. Why is this? Because the code says one
thing, and the moral feeling of your society another. All
I desire is that the two should be analogous, and that our
laws should award such punishments as our consciences
permit us to inflict.”</p>

<p>It was this kind of tone which reassured the House that
it was not perilling property by respecting life, and
brought about more quickly than less prudent management
would have done that reform to which the general
spirit of the time was tending, and which must necessarily,
a few years sooner or later, have arrived.</p>

<h4>VIII.</h4>

<p>Thus, Sir James Mackintosh not only delivered some
remarkable speeches in Parliament, but he connected his
name with a great and memorable parliamentary triumph;
nor is this all, he was true to his party, opposing the
government, though with some internal scruples, in 1820;
supporting Mr. Canning in 1827; and going again into
opposition, to the Duke of Wellington, in 1828. And
yet, notwithstanding the ability usually displayed in his
speeches, notwithstanding the result of his efforts in
criminal law reform, and, more than all, notwithstanding
the constancy during late years of his politics, he held but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[285]</a></span>
a third-rate place with the Whigs, and when they came
into office in 1830, was only made secretary at that board
of which he had been offered the presidency twenty years
before. It is easy to say that this was because he had not
aristocratical connections. Mr. Poulett Thompson was
not more highly connected, and yet, though thirty years
his junior, and far his inferior in knowledge and mental
capacity, received at the time a higher office, and rose in
ten years to the first places and honours of the State.
The one had much the higher order of intelligence, the
other the more resolute practical character. What you
expected from the first, he did not perform; the other
went beyond your expectations. For this is to be remarked:
a man’s career is formed of the number of little
things he is always doing, whereas your opinion of him is
frequently derived, as I have already said, from something
which, under a particular stimulus, he has done once or
twice, and may do now and then.</p>

<p>The fact is that Mackintosh was not fit for the daily toil
and struggle of Parliament; he had not the quickness, the
energy, the hard and active nature of those who rise by
constant exertions in popular assemblies. He did very
well to come out like the State steed, on great and solemn
occasions, with gorgeous caparison and prancing action,
but he did not do as the every-day hack on a plain road.
He was, moreover, inclined by his nature rather to repose
than to strife; and that which we do by effort we cannot
be doing for ever&mdash;nor even do frequently well. His
reason, which was acute, told him what he should be; but
he had not the energy to be it. For instance, on returning
to England, he exclaimed: “It is time to be something
decided, and I am resolved to exert myself to the
utmost in public life, if I have a seat in Parliament, or to
condemn myself to profound retirement if the doors of
St. Stephen’s are barred to me.”<a name="FNanchor_94" id="FNanchor_94"></a><a href="#Footnote_94" class="fnanchor">[94]</a></p>

<p>He had not, however, been many years a member before
he accepted a professorship (year 1818) at Haileybury
College, because it left him in the House of Commons;
and refused the chair of moral philosophy at Edinburgh<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[286]</a></span>
(1818), because, it would have withdrawn him from it.
The great stream of public life thus passed for ever by
him; he could neither commit himself to its waves nor yet
avoid lingering on its shores. Now and then, in a moment
of excitement, he would rush into it, but it was soon again
to retire to some sunny reverie, or some shady regret,
where he could quietly plot for the future, or mourn over
the past, or indulge the scheme of lettered indolence which
wooed him at the moment.</p>

<hr />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[287]</a></span></p>

<h3><span class="smcap">Part III.</span><br />
<span class="smaller">MERITS AS A WRITER, DEATH, AND ESTIMATE OF GENERAL
CAPACITY AND CHARACTER.</span></h3>

<div class="smaller">

<p>History of England.&mdash;Articles in “Edinburgh Review.”&mdash;Treatise on
Ethical Philosophy.&mdash;Revolution of 1688.&mdash;Bentham’s system of morals and
politics.&mdash;His own death.&mdash;Comparison with Montaigne.</p>

</div>

<h4>I.</h4>

<p>I have said that Sir James Mackintosh allowed himself to
be lured from the strife of politics by the love of letters.
And what was the species of learned labour on which his
intervals of musing leisure were employed? He read at
times&mdash;this he was always able and willing to do&mdash;for the
future composition of a great historical work&mdash;the “History
of England”&mdash;which his friends and the public, with a
total ignorance of his sort of character and ability, always
sighed that he should undertake, and considered that he
would worthily accomplish. But while he read for the
future composition of this work, he actually wrote but
little for it. The little he did write was undertaken at
the call of some particular impulse, and capable of being
finished before that impulse was passed away. In such
writings he followed the bent of his nature, and in them
accordingly he best succeeded, as they who refer to his
contributions to the “Edinburgh Review”<a name="FNanchor_95" id="FNanchor_95"></a><a href="#Footnote_95" class="fnanchor">[95]</a> may be well<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[288]</a></span>
disposed to acknowledge. At last, within a few yards of
his grave, he made a start. Life was drawing to a close,
the season for action was almost passed, and of all he had
mused and read and planned for it, there existed nothing.
This thought galled him to a species of exertion, and he
is one of the very few men who, at an advanced age,
crowded the most considerable and ambitious of their
works into the last years of their life.</p>

<p>The volumes on “English History” brought out in
Dr. Lardner’s “Encyclopædia,” the “Life of Sir Thomas
More,” which appeared in the same publication, a “Treatise
on Ethical Philosophy,” and a commencement of the
“History of the Revolution of 1688,” delivered to the
world after his death, are these works.</p>

<p>They all exhibit the author’s defects and merits; third-rate
in themselves, and yet at various times persuading us
that he who wrote them was a first-rate man. Let us
take up, for instance, the volumes on “English History.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[289]</a></span>
The narrative is languid, and interrupted by disquisitions:
the style is in general prolix, cumbrous, cold, profuse;
nevertheless, these volumes are full of thought and knowledge;
they contain many curious anecdotes, many scattered
observations of profound wisdom, while here and there
burst upon us, by surprise it must be confessed, passages
which, written under a temporary excitement, display
remarkable spirit and power. Such is the description of
Becket’s murder:</p>

<h4>II.</h4>

<p>“Provoked by these acts of extraordinary imprudence,
Henry is said to have called out before an audience of
lords, knights, and gentlemen, ‘To what a miserable state
am I reduced, when I cannot be at rest in my own realm,
by reason of only one priest; is there no one to deliver
me from my troubles?’ Four knights of distinguished
rank, William de Tracy, Hugh de Moreville, Richard
Briths, and Reginald Fitz-Urse (December 28), interpreted
the King’s complaints as commands. They repaired to
Canterbury, confirmed in their purpose by finding that
Becket had recommenced his excommunications by that of
Robert de Broe, and that he had altered his course homeward
to avoid the royalist bishops on their way to court,
in Normandy; they instantly went to his house, and
required him, not very mildly, to withdraw the censures of
the prelates, and take the oath to his lord-paramount.
He refused. John of Salisbury, his faithful and learned
secretary, ventured at this alarming moment to counsel
peace. The primate thought that nothing was left to him
but a becoming death.</p>

<p>“The knights retired to put on their armour, and there
seems to have been sufficient interval either for negotiation
or escape. At that moment, indeed, measures were preparing
for legal proceedings against him.</p>

<p>“But the visible approach of peril awakened his sense
of dignity, and breathed an unusual decorum over his
language and deportment. He went through the cloisters
into the church, whither he was followed by his enemies,
attended by a band of soldiers, whom they had hastily
gathered together. They rushed into the church with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[290]</a></span>
drawn swords. Tracy cried out, ‘Where is the traitor?
Where is the archbishop?’ Becket, who stood before the
altar of St. Bennet, answered gravely, ‘Here am I, no
traitor, but the archbishop.’ Tracy pulled him by the
sleeve, saying: ‘Come hither, thou art a prisoner.’ He
pulled back his arm with such force as to make Tracy
stagger, and said: ‘What meaneth this, William? I
have done <em>thee</em> many pleasures; comest thou with armed
men into my church?’ ‘It is not possible that thou
shouldst live any longer,’ called out Fitz-Urse. The
intrepid primate replied: ‘I am ready to die for my God,
in defence of the liberties of the Church.’</p>

<p>“At that moment, either by a relapse into his old
disorders, or to show that his non-resistance sprung not
from weakness, but from duty, he took hold of Tracy by
the habergeon, or gorget, and flung him with such violence
as had nearly thrown him to the ground. He then bowed
his head, as if he would pray, and uttered his last words:
‘To God and St. Mary I commend my soul, and the cause
of the Church!’ Tracy aimed a heavy blow at him, which
fell on a bystander. The assassins fell on him with many
strokes, and though the second brought him to the ground,
they did not cease till his brains were scattered over the
pavement.”<a name="FNanchor_96" id="FNanchor_96"></a><a href="#Footnote_96" class="fnanchor">[96]</a></p>

<h4>III.</h4>

<p>The characters of Alfred, of William I., of Henry VII.,
are superior to any sketches of the same persons with
which I am acquainted. The summing up of events into
pictures of certain epochs is frequently done with much
skill, and I particularly remember a short description of
the commencement of the Crusades, concluding with the
capture of Jerusalem;&mdash;the state of Europe in the
thirteenth century, comprising a large portion of history
in two pages; and the death of Simon de Montfort, with
the establishment of the English Constitution. In a true
spirit of historical philosophy, Sir James Mackintosh says:</p>

<p>“The introduction of knights, citizens, and burgesses
into the Legislature, by its continuance in circumstances<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[291]</a></span>
so apparently inauspicious, showed how exactly it suited
the necessities and demands of society at that moment.
No sooner had events brought forward the measure, than
its fitness to the state of the community became apparent.
It is often thus that in the clamours of men for a succession
of objects, society selects from among them the one that
has an affinity with itself, and which most easily combines
with its state at the time.”</p>

<p>The condition of Europe, also, just prior to the wars of
the Roses, is rapidly, picturesquely, and comprehensively
sketched.</p>

<p>“The historian who rests for a little space between the
termination of the Plantagenet wars in France and the
commencement of the civil wars of the two branches of
that family in England, may naturally look around him,
reviewing some of the more important events which had
passed, and casting his eye onward to the preparations for
the mighty changes which were to produce an influence
on the character and lot of the human race. A very few
particulars only can be selected as specimens from so vast
a mass. The foundations of the political system of the
European commonwealth were now laid. A glance over
the map of Europe, in 1453, will satisfy an observer that
the territories of different nations were then fast approaching
to the shape and extent which they retain at this day.
The English islanders had only one town of the continent
remaining in their hands. The Mahometans of Spain
were on the eve of being reduced under the Christian
authority. Italy had, indeed, lost her liberty, but had
yet escaped the ignominy of a foreign yoke. Moscovy
was emerging from the long domination of the Tartars.
Venice, Hungary, and Poland, three states now placed
under foreign masters, guarded the eastern frontier of
Christendom against the Ottoman barbarians, whom the
absence of foresight, of mutual confidence, and a disregard
of general safety and honour, disgraceful to the western
governments, had just suffered to master Constantinople
and to subjugate the eastern Christians. France had
consolidated the greater part of her central and commanding
territories. In the transfer of the Netherlands to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[292]</a></span>
house of Austria originated the French jealousy of that
power, then rising in South-Eastern Germany. The
empire was daily becoming a looser confederacy under a
nominal ruler, whose small remains of authority every day
continued to lessen. The internal or constitutional history
of the European nations threatened, in almost every continental
country, the fatal establishment of an absolute
monarchy, from which the free and generous spirit of the
northern barbarians did not protect their degenerate posterity.
In the Netherlands an ancient gentry, and
burghers, enriched by traffic, held their still limited
princes in check. In Switzerland, the patricians of a few
towns, together with the gallant peasantry of the Alpine
valleys, escaped a master. But Parliaments and Diets,
States-General and Cortes, were gradually disappearing
from view, or reduced from august assemblies to insignificant
formalities, and Europe seemed on the eve of exhibiting
nothing to the disgusted eye but the dead
uniformity of imbecile despotism, dissolute courts, and
cruelly oppressed nations.</p>

<p>“In the meantime the unobserved advancement and
diffusion of knowledge were preparing the way for discoveries,
of which the high result will be contemplated
only by unborn ages. The mariner’s compass had conducted
the Portuguese to distant points on the coast of
Africa, and was about to lead them through the unploughed
ocean to the famous regions of the East. Civilized men,
hitherto cooped up on the shores of the Mediterranean
and the Atlantic, now visited the whole of their subject
planet and became its undisputed sovereigns. The great
adventurer<a name="FNanchor_97" id="FNanchor_97"></a><a href="#Footnote_97" class="fnanchor">[97]</a> was then born, who, with two undecked boats
and one frail sloop, containing with difficulty a hundred
and twenty persons, dared to stretch across an untraversed
ocean, which had hitherto bounded the imaginations as
well as the enterprises of men; and who, instead of that
India renowned in legend and in story, of which he was
in quest, laid open a new world which, under the hands of
the European race, was one day to produce governments,
laws, manners, modes of civilization and states of society<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[293]</a></span>
almost as different as its native plants and animals from
those of ancient Europe.</p>

<p>“Who could then&mdash;who can even now&mdash;foresee all the
prodigious effects of these discoveries on the fortunes of
mankind?”</p>

<h4>IV.</h4>

<p>No one will deny that what I have just quoted might
have been written by a great historian; yet no one will
say that the work I quote from is a great history.</p>

<p>It is a series of parts, some excellent, some indifferent,
but which altogether do not form a whole. The fragment
of the Revolution, though a fragment, presents the same
qualities and defects. The narrative is poor; some of the
characters, such as those of Rochester, Sunderland, and
Halifax&mdash;and some of the passages (that with which the
work opens, for instance)&mdash;are excellent; but then, these
fine figures of gold embroidery are worked here and there
with care and toil, on an ordinary sort of canvas.</p>

<p>The “Life of Sir Thomas More” is the only complete
performance; and this because it was a portrait which
might have been taken at one sitting.</p>

<p>The “Treatise on Ethics,” first published in the supplement
of the seventh edition of the “Encyclopædia Britannica,”
and which has since appeared in a separate form
under the auspices of Professor Whewell, is still more
remarkable, both in its design and execution, as characterising
the author. He seems here, indeed, to have been
aware of his own capabilities, and to have accommodated
his labours to them; for his work is conceived in separate
and distinct portions, and he undertakes to write the
course and progress of philosophy by descriptions of its
most illustrious masters and professors; a plan gracefully
imagined, as diffusing the charm of personal narrative
over dry and speculative disquisition.</p>

<p>Nothing, accordingly, can be better executed than some
of these pictures. It would be difficult to paint Hobbes,
Leibnitz, Shaftesbury, more faithfully, or in more suitable
colours; the contrast between the haughty Bossuet and
the gentle Fénelon is perfectly sustained; while Berkeley
the virtuous, the benevolent, the imaginative, is drawn<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[294]</a></span>
with a pencil which would even have satisfied the admiration
of his contemporaries:</p>

<h4>V.</h4>

<p>“<cite>Berkeley.</cite>&mdash;Ancient learning, exact science, polished
society, modern literature, and the fine arts, contributed to
adorn and enrich the mind of this accomplished man.
All his contemporaries agreed with the satirist in ascribing</p>

<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="verse">“‘To Berkeley every virtue under heaven!’</div>
</div>
</div>

<p>“Adverse factions and hostile wits concurred only in
loving, admiring, and contributing to advance him. The
severe sense of Swift endured his visions; the modest
Addison endeavoured to reconcile Clarke to his ambitious
speculations. His character converted the satire of Pope
into fervid praise. Even the fastidious and turbulent
Atterbury said, after an interview with him, ‘So much
understanding, so much knowledge, so much innocence,
and such humility, I did not think had been the portion of
any but angels, till I saw this gentleman.’<a name="FNanchor_98" id="FNanchor_98"></a><a href="#Footnote_98" class="fnanchor">[98]</a> ‘Lord
Bathurst told me,’ says Warton, ‘that the members of the
Scribblers’ Club being met at his house at dinner, they
agreed to rally Berkeley, who was also his guest, on his
scheme at Bermudas. Berkeley, having listened to the
many lively things they had to say, begged to be heard in
his turn, and displayed his plan with such an astonishing
and animating force of eloquence and enthusiasm that
they were struck dumb, and, after some pause, rose all up
together, with earnestness exclaiming, “Let us set out
with him immediately!”’<a name="FNanchor_99" id="FNanchor_99"></a><a href="#Footnote_99" class="fnanchor">[99]</a> It was when thus beloved
and celebrated that he conceived, at the age of forty-five,
the design of devoting his life to reclaim and convert the
natives of North America; and he employed as much
influence and solicitation as common men do for their
most prized objects, in obtaining leave to resign his
dignities and revenues, to quit his accomplished and
affectionate friends, and to bury himself in what must
have seemed an intellectual desert. After four years’<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[295]</a></span>
residence at Newport, in Rhode Island, he was compelled,
by the refusal of government to furnish him with funds for
his college, to forego his work of heroic, or rather godlike
benevolence, though not without some consoling forethought
of the fortune of a country where he had sojourned:</p>

<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="verse">“‘Westward the course of empire takes its way:</div>
<div class="verse indent1">The first four acts already past,</div>
<div class="verse">A fifth shall close the drama with the day,</div>
<div class="verse indent1">Time’s noblest offspring is its last.’</div>
</div>
</div>

<p>“Thus disappointed in his ambition of keeping a school
for savage children, at a salary of a hundred pounds a
year, he was received on his return with open arms by the
philosophical Queen, at whose metaphysical parties he
made one, with Sherlock, who, as well as Smallridge, was
his supporter, and with Hoadley, who, following Clarke,
was his antagonist. By her influence he was made Bishop
of Cloyne. It is one of his greatest merits, that though of
English extraction, he was a true Irishman, and the first
eminent Protestant, after the unhappy contest at the
Revolution, who avowed his love for all his countrymen;<a name="FNanchor_100" id="FNanchor_100"></a><a href="#Footnote_100" class="fnanchor">[100]</a>
and contributed, by a truly Christian address to the
Roman Catholics of his diocese, to their perfect quiet
during the rebellion of 1745. From the writings of his
advanced years, when he chose a medical tract<a name="FNanchor_101" id="FNanchor_101"></a><a href="#Footnote_101" class="fnanchor">[101]</a> to be the
vehicle of philosophical reflections, though it cannot be
said that he relinquished his early opinions, it is at least
apparent that his mind had received a new bent, and was
habitually turned from reasoning towards contemplation.
His immaterialism, indeed, modestly appears, but only to
purify and elevate our thoughts, and to fix them on mind,
the paramount and primeval principle of all things.
‘Perhaps,’ says he, ‘the truths about innate ideas may be,
that there are properly no ideas on passive objects in
the mind but what are derived from sense, but that there
are also, besides these, her own acts and operations&mdash;such
are notions;’ a statement which seems once more to admit
general conceptions, and which might have served, as well
as the parallel passage of Leibnitz, as the basis of modern<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[296]</a></span>
philosophy in Germany. From these compositions of his
old age, he then appears to have recurred with fondness to
Plato, and the later Platonists: writers from whose mere
reasonings an intellect so acute could hardly hope for an
argumentative satisfaction of all its difficulties, and whom
he probably either studied as a means of inuring his mind
to objects beyond the visible diurnal sphere, and of attaching
it, through frequent meditation, to that perfect and
transcendent goodness, to which his moral feelings always
pointed, and which they incessantly strove to grasp. His
mind, enlarging as it rose, at length receives every theist,
however imperfect his belief, to a communion in its
philosophic piety. ‘Truth,’ he beautifully concludes, ‘is
the cry of all, but the game of few. Certainly, where it
is the chief passion, it does not give way to vulgar cares,
nor is it contented with a little ardour in the early time
of life; active perhaps to pursue, but not so fit to weigh
and revise. He that would make a real progress in
knowledge, must dedicate his age as well as youth, the
latter growth as well as first fruits, at the altar of truth.’
So did Berkeley, and such were almost his latest words.</p>

<p>“His general principles of ethics may be shortly stated
by himself: ‘As God is a being of infinite goodness, His
end is the good of His creatures. The general well-being
of all men of all nations, of all ages of the world, is that
which He designs should be procured by the concurring
actions of each individual.’ Having stated that this end
can be pursued only in one of two ways&mdash;either by computing
the consequences of each action, or by obeying the
rules which generally tend to happiness; and having
shown the first to be impossible, he rightly infers, ‘That
the end to which God requires the concurrence of human
actions, must be carried on by the observation of certain
determinate and universal rules, or moral precepts, which
in their own nature have a necessary tendency to promote
the well-being of mankind, taking in all nations and ages,
from the beginning to the end of the world.’<a name="FNanchor_102" id="FNanchor_102"></a><a href="#Footnote_102" class="fnanchor">[102]</a> A romance,
of which a journey to an Utopia in the centre of Africa<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[297]</a></span>
forms the chief part, called, ‘The adventures of Signor
Gaudentio di Lucca,’ has been commonly ascribed to him;
probably on no other ground than its union of pleasing
invention with benevolence and elegance.”<a name="FNanchor_103" id="FNanchor_103"></a><a href="#Footnote_103" class="fnanchor">[103]</a></p>

<h4>VI.</h4>

<p>The following short description of the practical Paley
comes aptly after that of this charming Utopian:</p>

<p>“<cite>Paley.</cite>&mdash;The natural frame of Paley’s understanding
fitted it more for business and the world than for philosophy;
and he accordingly enjoyed with considerable
relish the few opportunities which the latter part of his
life afforded, of taking a part in the affairs of his country,
as a magistrate. Penetration and shrewdness, firmness
and coolness, a vein of pleasantry, fruitful, though somewhat
unrefined, with an original homeliness and significancy
of expression, were perhaps more remarkable in
his conversation than the restraints of authorship and
profession allowed them to be in his writings. His taste
for the common business and ordinary amusements of life,
fortunately gave a zest to the company which his neighbourhood
chanced to yield, without rendering him insensible
to the pleasures of intercourse with more enlightened
society. The practical bent of his nature is
visible in the language of his writings, which, on practical
matters, is as precise as the nature of the subject requires;
but, in his rare and reluctant efforts to rise to first
principles, becomes undeterminate and unsatisfactory,
though no man’s composition was more free from the
impediments which hinder a writer’s meaning from being
quickly and clearly seen. He possessed that chastised
acuteness of discrimination, exercised on the affairs of
men, and habitually looking to a purpose beyond the mere
increase of knowledge, which forms the character of a
lawyer’s understanding, and which is apt to render a mere
lawyer too subtle for the management of affairs, and yet
too gross for the pursuit of general truths. His style is
as near perfection, in its kind, as any in our language.
Perhaps no words were ever more expressive and illustrative<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[298]</a></span>
than those in which he represents the art of life to be
that of rightly setting our habits.”&mdash;“Ethical Philosophy,”
p. 274.</p>

<p>Such are the portraits in this work; the history of
ancient ethics, and the vindication of the scholiasts also,
are in themselves and as separate compositions of great
merit; but when, after admiring these different fragments,
we look at the plan, at the system which is to result from
them, or endeavour to follow out the line of reasoning
which is to bring them together&mdash;we quit the land of
realities for that of shadows, and are obliged to confess
that the author has barely sufficient vigour to make his
meaning intelligible.</p>

<h4>VII.</h4>

<p>To give the history intended to be given by Sir James’s
treatise, would be without the scope of the present sketch;
but it may not be amiss to say something of the state of
the philosophical opinions which existed at the time of
its publication, and which, in fact, called it forth. Helvetius,
the friend of Voltaire and Diderot&mdash;Helvetius,
whose works have been considered as merely the record
of those opinions which circulated around him&mdash;the most
amusing, if not the most logical of metaphysicians, wrote
that everything proceeded from the senses, and that man
(for this was one of his favourite hypotheses) differed from
a monkey mainly because his hands were tenderer and
more soft.</p>

<p>The doctrine of sensation led necessarily to that of
selfishness, since, owing what we think to what we feel,
every idea is the consequence of some pain or pleasure,
and our own pains and pleasures are thus the parents of
all our emotions.</p>

<p>A strong reaction, however, took place in the beginning
of the nineteenth against the eighteenth century; the
original existence of certain sentiments or affections implanted
by nature, was contended for, in Germany and in
Scotland, under a variety of qualifications. The school,
which said that the affections arose from this primary
source, called them disinterested, as that which contended<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[299]</a></span>
that they more or less directly proceeded from some cause
which had reference to ourselves, called them interested.
There was but one step easily made by both parties in
carrying out their doctrines.</p>

<p>The philosophers who thought that self-interest,
“through some certain strainers well refined,” was the
cause of all our actions and ideas, maintained that utility
was the only measure of virtue, or of greatness. The
philosophers of the opposite faction argued on the contrary,
that as many of our emotions were natural and involuntary,
so there was also a sense of wrong and right, natural
and involuntary, and connected with those emotions implanted
in us.</p>

<p>Living in a retired part of London, visited only by his
adorers and disciples, looking rarely beyond the confines
of his early knowledge, and on the train of thinking it
had inspired, an old and singular gentleman, with great
native powers of mind, almost alone resisted the new
impulse, and, classifying and extending the doctrines of
the French philosophy, established a reputation and a
school of his own. The charm of Mr. Bentham’s philosophy,
however obscured by fanciful names and unnecessary
subdivisions, is its apparent clearness and simplicity.</p>

<p>He considers with the disciples of Helvetius&mdash;1, that
our ideas do come from our sensations, and that consequently
we are selfish; 2, that man in doing what is most
useful to himself does what is right.</p>

<p>Very strange and fantastical notions have been propagated
against the philosopher by persons so egregiously
mistaking him as to imagine that what he thus says of
mankind generally&mdash;of man, meaning every man&mdash;is said
of a man, of man separately; so that a murderer, pretend
these commentators, has only to be sure that a second
murder is useful to him by preventing the detection of
the first, in order to be justified in committing it. It
were useless to dwell upon this ridiculous construction.
But in urging men to pursue the general interest of
society at large, in telling them that to do what is most
for that interest is to act usefully and thereby virtuously,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[300]</a></span>
Mr. Bentham found it necessary to explain how such interest
was to be discovered.</p>

<p>Accordingly he has propounded that the general interest
of a society must be considered to be the interest of the
greatest number in that society, and that the greatest
number in any society is the best judge of its interest.
Moreover, in the further development of his doctrine, he
contends that a majority would always, under natural circumstances,
govern a minority, and that, therefore, there
is a natural tendency, if not thwarted, towards the
happiness and good government of mankind. This system
of philosophy gained the more attention from its being
also a system of politics. According to Mr. Bentham,
that which was most important to men depended on maintaining
what he considered the natural law, viz., governing
the minority by the majority.</p>

<h4>VIII.</h4>

<p>Unfortunately for the destiny of mankind, and the
soundness of the Benthamite doctrine, it is by no means
certain that the majority in any community is the best
judge of its interests; whilst it is even less certain, if it
did know these interests, that it would necessarily and
invariably follow them. In almost every collection of
men the intelligent few know better what is for the
common interest than the ignorant many; and it is rare
indeed to see communities or individuals pursuing their
interest steadily even when they perceive it clearly. It
would, perhaps, be more reconcilable to reason to say that
the intellect of a community should govern a community;
but this assertion is also open to objection, since a small
number of intelligent men might govern for their own
interest, and not for the interest of the society they represented.
In short, though it is easy to see that the
science of government does not consist in giving power
to the greatest number, but in giving it to the most intelligent,
and making it for their interest to govern for
the interest of the greatest number; still, every day
teaches us that good government is rather a thing relative
than a thing absolute; that all governments have good<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[301]</a></span>
mixed with evil, and evil mixed with good; and that the
statesman’s task, as is beautifully demonstrated by Montesquieu,
is, not to destroy an evil combined with a greater
good, nor to create a good accompanied with a greater
evil; but to calculate how the greatest amount of good
and the least amount of evil can be combined together.
Hence it is, that the best governments with which we are
acquainted seem rather to have been fashioned by the
working hand of daily experience, than by the artistic
fingers of philosophical speculation.</p>

<p>Nevertheless, the theory, that the good of the greatest
number in any community ought to be the object which
its government should strive to attain, and the maxim,
that the interest and happiness of every unit in a community
are to be treated as a portion of the interest and
happiness of the whole community, are humanizing precepts,
and have, through the influence of Mr. Bentham
and of his disciples, produced, within my own memory,
a considerable change in the public opinion of England.</p>

<p>Mr. Bentham’s name, then, is far more above the scoff
of his antagonists than below the enthusiasm of his disciples;
and it is in this spirit, and with a becoming
respect, that Sir James Mackintosh treats the philosopher
while he combats his philosophy.</p>

<h4>IX.</h4>

<p>In regard to the theory of Sir James himself, if I
understand it rightly (and it is rather, as I have said,
indistinctly expressed), he accepts neither the doctrine of
innate ideas disinterestedly producing or ordering our
actions, nor that of sense-derived ideas by which, with a
concentrated regard to self, some suppose men to be
governed&mdash;but imagines an association of ideas, naturally
suggested by our human condition, which, according to
a pre-ordinated state of the mind, produces, as in chemical
processes, some emotion different from any of the combined
elements or causes from which it springs.</p>

<p>This emotion, once existing, requires, without consideration
or reflection, its gratification. In this manner
the satisfaction of benevolence and pity springs as much<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[302]</a></span>
from a spontaneous desire as the satisfaction of hunger;
and man is unconsciously taught, through feelings necessary
to him as man, to wish involuntarily for that
which, on reflection and experience, he would find (such
is the beautiful dispensation of Providence) most for his
happiness and advantage.</p>

<p>The union, assemblage, or incorporation, if one may so
speak, of these involuntary desires, affecting and affected
by them all, becomes our universal moral sense or conscience,
which in each of its propensities is gratified or
mortified, according to our conduct.</p>

<h4>X.</h4>

<p>Here end my criticisms. They have passed rapidly in
review the principal works and events of Sir James
Mackintosh’s life;<a name="FNanchor_104" id="FNanchor_104"></a><a href="#Footnote_104" class="fnanchor">[104]</a> and what have they illustrated?
That, which I commenced by observing: that he had
made several excellent speeches, that he had taken an
active part in politics, that he had written ably upon
history, that he had manifested a profound knowledge of
philosophy; but that he had not been pre-eminent as an
orator, as a politician, as an historian, as a philosopher.<a name="FNanchor_105" id="FNanchor_105"></a><a href="#Footnote_105" class="fnanchor">[105]</a>
It may be doubted whether any speech or book of his
will long survive his time; but a very valuable work
might be compiled from his writings and speeches.
Indeed, there are hardly any books in our language more
interesting or more instructive than the two volumes<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[303]</a></span>
published by his son, and which display in every page the
best qualities of an excellent heart and an excellent understanding,
set off by the most amiable and remarkable
simplicity. His striking, peculiar, and unrivalled merit,
however, was that of a conversationalist. Great good-nature,
great and yet gentle animation, much learning,
and a sound, discriminating, and comprehensive judgment,
made him this. He had little of the wit of words&mdash;brilliant
repartées, caustic sayings, concentrated and epigrammatic
turns of expression. But he knew everything
and could talk of everything without being tedious. A
lady of great wit, intellect, and judgment (Lady William
Russell), in describing his soft Scotch voice, said to me&mdash;“Mackintosh
played on your understanding with a
flageolet, Macaulay with a trumpet.” Having lived much
by himself and with books, and much also in the world
and with men, he had the light anecdote and easy manner
of society, and the grave and serious gatherings in of
lonely hours. He added also to much knowledge considerable
powers of observation; and there are few persons
of whom he speaks, even at the dawn of their career,
whom he has not judged with discrimination. His
agreeableness, moreover, being that of a full mind expressed
with facility, was the most translatable of any
man’s, and he succeeded with foreigners, and in France,
which he visited three times&mdash;once at the peace of Amiens,
again in 1814, and again in 1824&mdash;quite as much as in his
own country, and with his own countrymen. Madame de
Staël and Benjamin Constant prized him not less than did
Lord Dudley or Lord Byron. It was not only in England,
then, but also on the Continent, where his early pamphlet
and distinguished friendships had made him equally known&mdash;that
he ever remained the <em>man of promise</em>; until, amidst
hopes which his vast and various information, his
wonderful memory, his copious elocution, and his transitory
fits of energy, still nourished, he died, in the sixty-seventh
year of his age, universally admired and regretted, though
without a high reputation for any one thing, or the ardent
attachment of any particular set of persons. His death,
which took place the 30th of May, 1832, was occasioned<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[304]</a></span>
by a small fragment of chicken-bone, which, having
lacerated the trachea, created a wound that ultimately
proved fatal. He met his end with calmness and resignation,
expressing his belief in the Christian faith, and
placing his trust in it.</p>

<h4>XI.</h4>

<p>No man doing so little ever went through a long life
continually creating the belief that he would ultimately do
so much. A want of earnestness, a want of passion, a
want of genius, prevented him from playing a first-rate
part amongst men during his day, and from leaving any
of those monuments behind him which command the
attention of posterity. A love of knowledge, an acute and
capacious intelligence, an early and noble ambition, led
him into literary and active life, and furnished him with
the materials and at moments with the energy by which
success in both is obtained. An amiable disposition, a lively
flow of spirits, an extraordinary and varied stock of information
made his society agreeable to the most distinguished
persons of his age, and induced them, encouraged
by some occasional displays of remarkable power, to consider
his available abilities to be greater than they really were.</p>

<p>“What have you done,” he relates that a French lady
once said to him, “that people should think you so
superior?” “I was obliged,” he adds, “as usual, to refer
to my projects.” For active life he was too much of the
academic school:&mdash;believing nearly all great distinctions
to be less than they were, and remaining irresolute between
small ones. He passed, as he himself said, from Burke to
Fox in half an hour, and remained weeks, as we learn
from a friend (Lord Nugent), in determining whether he
should employ “usefulness” or “utility” in some particular
composition. Such is not the stuff out of which
great leaders or statesmen are formed. His main error as
a writer and as a speaker was his elaborate struggle
against that easy idle way of delivering himself, which
made the charm of his talk when he did not think of what
he was saying. “The great fault of my manner,” he
himself observes somewhere, “is that I overload.” And
to many of his more finished compositions we might,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[305]</a></span>
indeed, apply the old saying of the critic, who on being
asked whether he admired a certain tragedy of Dionysius,
replied: “I have not seen it; it is obscured with language.”
His early compositions had a sharper and terser
style than his later ones, the activity of the author’s mind
being greater, and his doubts and toils after perfection
less; but even these were over-prepared. Can he be
considered a failure? No; if you compare him with
other men. Yes; if you compare him with the general
idea entertained as to himself. The reputation he attained,
however vague and uncertain, the writings that he left,
though inferior to the prevalent notions as to his powers,&mdash;all
placed him on a pedestal of conspicuous, though not of
gigantic elevation amongst his contemporaries. The
results of his life only disappointed when you measured
them by the anticipations which his merits had excited&mdash;then
he became “the man of promise.” Could he have
arrived at greater eminence than that which he attained?
if so, it must have been by a different road. I cannot
repeat too often that no man struggles perpetually and
victoriously against his own character; and one of the
first principles of success in life, is so to regulate our
career as rather to turn our physical constitution and
natural inclinations to good account, than to endeavour to
counteract the one or oppose the other.</p>

<p>There can be no general comparison between Montaigne
and Mackintosh. The first was an original thinker, and
the latter a combiner and retailer of the thoughts of
others. But I have often pictured to myself the French
philosopher lounging away the greatest portion of his life
in the old square turret of his château, yielding to his
laziness all that it exacted from him, and becoming, almost
in spite of himself, the first magistrate of his town, and,
though carelessly and discursively, the greatest writer of
his time. He gave the rein to the idleness of his nature,
and had reason to be satisfied with the employment of his
life.</p>

<p>On the other hand, let us look at the accomplished
Scotchman, constantly agitated by his aspirations after
fame and his inclinations for repose; formed for literary<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[306]</a></span>
ease, forcing himself into political conflict&mdash;dreaming of a
long-laboured history, and writing a hasty article in a
review; earnest about nothing, because the objects to
which he momentarily directed his efforts were not likely
to give the permanent distinction for which he pined;
and thus, with a doubtful mind and a broken career,
achieving little that was worthy of his abilities, or equal
to the expectations of his friends. I have said there can
be no general comparison between men whose particular
faculties were no doubt of a very different order; yet, had
the one mixed in contest with the bold and factious spirits
of his day, he would have been but a poor “<i lang="fr">ligueur</i>;”
and had the other abstained from politics and renounced
long and laborious compositions, merely writing under the
stimulus of some accidental inspiration, it is probable that
his name would have gone down to posterity as that of the
most agreeable and instructive essayist of his remarkable
epoch. But at all events that name is graven on the
monument which commemorates more Christian manners
and more mild legislation: and “Blessed shall he be,” as
said our great lawyer, “who layeth the first stone of this
building; more blessed he that proceeds in it; most of all
he that finisheth it in the glory of God, and the honour of
our king and nation.”</p>

<hr />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[307]</a></span></p>

<h2>COBBETT, THE CONTENTIOUS MAN.</h2>

<h3><span class="smcap">Part I.</span><br />
<span class="smaller">FROM HIS BIRTH, IN MARCH, 1762, TO HIS QUITTING THE
UNITED STATES, JUNE 1ST, 1800.</span></h3>

<div class="smaller">

<p>Son of a small farmer.&mdash;Boyhood spent in the country.&mdash;Runs away from
home.&mdash;Becomes a lawyer’s clerk.&mdash;Enlists as a soldier, 1784.&mdash;Learns
grammar and studies Swift.&mdash;Goes to Canada.&mdash;Remarked for good conduct.&mdash;Rises
to rank of sergeant-major.&mdash;Gets discharge, 1791.&mdash;Marries.&mdash;Quits
Europe for United States.&mdash;Starts as a bookseller in Pennsylvania.&mdash;Becomes
a political writer of great power.&mdash;Takes a violent anti-republican tone.&mdash;Has
to suffer different prosecutions, and at last sets sail for England.</p>

</div>

<h4>I.</h4>

<p>The character which I am now tempted to delineate is just
the reverse of that which I rise from describing. Mackintosh
was a man of great powers of reasoning, of
accomplished learning, but of little or no sustained energy.
His vision took a wide and calm range; he saw all things
coolly, dispassionately, and, except at his first entry into
life, was never so lost in his admiration of one object as to
overlook the rest. His fault lay in rather the opposite
extreme; his perception of the universal weakened that of
the particular, and the variety of colours which appeared
at once before him became too blended in his sight for the
adequate appreciation of each.</p>

<p>The subject of this memoir, on the contrary, though he
could argue well in favour of any opinion he adopted, had
not that elevated and philosophic cast of mind which
makes men inquire after truth for the sake of truth,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[308]</a></span>
regarding its pursuit as a delight, its attainment as a
duty. Neither could he take that comprehensive view of
affairs which affords to the judgment an ample scope for
the comparison and selection of opinions. But he possessed
a rapid power of concentration; a will that scorned
opposition; he saw clearly that one side of a question
which caught his attention; and pursued the object he
had momentarily in view with an energy that never
recoiled before a danger, and was rarely arrested by a
scruple. The sense of his force gave him the passion for
action; but he encouraged this passion until it became
restlessness, a desire to fight rather for the pleasure of
fighting than for devotion to any cause for which he
fought.</p>

<p>While Mackintosh always struggled against his character,
and thereby never gave himself fair play, the
person of whom I am now about to speak&mdash;borne away in
a perfectly opposite extreme&mdash;allowed his character to
usurp and govern his abilities, frequently without either
usefulness or aim. Thus, the one changed sides two or
three times in his life, from that want of natural ardour
which creates strong attachments; the other attacked and
defended various parties with a furious zeal, upon which
no one could rely, because it proceeded from the temporary
caprice of a whimsical imagination, and not from
the stedfast enthusiasm of any well-meditated conviction.
With two or three qualities more, Cobbett would have
been a very great man in the world; as it was, he made a
great noise in it. But I pass from criticism to narrative.</p>

<h4>II.</h4>

<p>William Cobbett was born in the neighbourhood of
Farnham, on the 9th of March, 1762. The remotest
ancestor he had ever heard of was his grandfather, who
had been a day labourer, and, according to the rustic
habits of old times, worked with the same farmer from the
day of his marriage to that of his death. The son,
Cobbett’s parent, was a man superior to the generality
of persons in his station of life. He could not only read
and write, but he knew also a little mathematics; understood<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[309]</a></span>
land surveying, was honest and industrious, and had
thus risen from the position of labourer, a position in
which he was born, to that of having labourers under him.</p>

<p>Cobbett’s boyhood, I may say his childhood, was passed
in the fields: first he was seen frightening the birds from
the turnips, then weeding wheat, then leading a horse at
harrowing barley, finally joining the reapers at harvest,
driving the team, and holding the plough. His literary
instruction was small, and only such as he could acquire
at home. It was shrewdly asked by Dr. Johnson, “What
becomes of all the clever schoolboys?” In fact, many of
the boys clever at school are not heard of afterwards,
because if they are docile they are also timid, and attend
to the routine of education less from the love of learning
than the want of animal spirits. Cobbett was not a boy
of this kind. At the age of sixteen he determined to go
to sea, but could not get a captain to take him. At the
age of seventeen he quitted his home (having already,
when much younger, done so in search of adventures), and
without communicating his design to any one, started,
dressed in his Sunday clothes, for the great city of
London. Here, owing to the kind exertions of a passenger
in the coach in which this his first journey was made, he
got engaged after some time and trouble as under-clerk
to an attorney (Mr. Holland), in Gray’s Inn Lane.</p>

<p>It is natural enough that to a lad accustomed to fresh
air, green fields, and out-of-door exercise, the close atmosphere,
dull aspect, and sedentary position awaiting an
attorney’s under-clerk at Gray’s Inn must have been
hateful. But William Cobbett never once thought of
escaping from what he called “an earthly hell” by a
return to his home and friends. This would have been to
confess himself beaten, which he never meant to be. On
the contrary, rushing from one bold step to another still
more so, he enlisted himself (1784) as a soldier in a
regiment intended to serve in Nova Scotia. His father,
though somewhat of his own stern and surly nature,
begged, prayed, and remonstrated. But it was useless.
The recruit, however, had some months to pass in
England, since, peace having taken place, there was no<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[310]</a></span>
hurry in sending off the troops. These months he spent
in Chatham, storing his brains with the lore of a circulating
library, and his heart with love-dreams of the
librarian’s daughter.</p>

<p>To this period he owed what he always considered his
most valuable acquisition, a knowledge of his native
language; the assiduity with which he gave himself up to
study, on this occasion, insured his success and evinced
his character. He wrote out the whole of an English
grammar two or three times; he got it by heart; he
repeated it every morning and evening, and he imposed
on himself the task of saying it over once every time that
he mounted guard. “I learned grammar,” he himself
says, “when I was a private soldier on the pay of sixpence
a day. The edge of my berth, or that of the guard-bed,
was my seat to study on; my knapsack was my book-case,
a bit of board lying on my lap was my writing-table, and
the task did not demand anything like a year of my life.”
Such is will. In America, Cobbett remained as a soldier
till the month of September, 1791, when his regiment was
relieved and sent home. On the 19th of November, he
obtained his discharge, after having served nearly eight
years, never having once been disgraced, confined, or
reprimanded, and having attained, owing to his zeal and
intelligence, the rank of sergeant-major without having
passed through the intermediate rank of sergeant.</p>

<p>The following was the order issued at Portsmouth on
the day of his discharge:</p>

<div class="blockquote">

<p class="date">“Portsmouth, 19th Dec. 1791.</p>

<p>“Sergeant-Major Cobbett having most pressingly applied
for his discharge, at Major Lord Edward Fitzgerald’s
request, General Frederick has ordered Major Lord Edward
Fitzgerald to return the Sergeant-Major thanks for his
behaviour and conduct during the time of his being
in the regiment, and Major Lord Edward adds his most
hearty thanks to those of the General.”</p>

</div>

<h4>III.</h4>

<p>At this period Cobbett married. Nobody has left us
wiser sentiments or pithier sentences on the choice of a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[311]</a></span>
wife. His own, the daughter of a sergeant of artillery,
stationed like himself at New Brunswick, had been selected
at once. He had met her two or three times, and found
her pretty; beauty, indeed, he considered indispensable,
but beauty alone would never have suited him. Industry,
activity, energy, the qualities which he possessed, were
those which he most admired, and the partner of his life
was fixed upon when he found her, one morning before it
was distinctly light, “scrubbing out a washing-tub before
her father’s door.” “That’s the girl for me,” he said, and
he kept to this resolution with a fortitude which the object
of his attachment deserved and imitated.</p>

<p>The courtship was continued, and the assurance of
reciprocated affection given; but before the union of hands
could sanctify that of hearts, the artillery were ordered
home for England. Cobbett, whose regiment was then at
some distance from the spot where his betrothed was still
residing, unable to have the satisfaction of a personal
farewell, sent her 150 guineas, the whole amount of his
savings, and begged her to use it&mdash;as he feared her
residence with her father at Woolwich might expose her
to bad company&mdash;in making herself comfortable in a small
lodging with respectable people until his arrival. It was
not until four years afterwards that he himself was able to
quit America, and he then found the damsel he had so
judiciously chosen not with her father, it is true, nor yet
lodging in idleness, but as servant-of-all-work for five
pounds a year, and at their first interview she put into his
hands the 150 guineas which had been confided to her&mdash;untouched.
Such a woman had no ordinary force of
mind; and it has been frequently asserted that he who,
once beyond his own threshold, was ready to contend with
every government in the world, was, when at home, under
what has been appropriately called the government of the
petticoat.</p>

<p>Cobbett’s marriage took place on the 3rd of February,
1792; that is, about ten weeks after his discharge; but
having in March brought a very grave charge against some
of the officers of his regiment, which charge, when a court-martial
was summoned, he did not appear to support, he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[312]</a></span>
was forced to quit England for France, where he remained
till September, 1792, when he determined on trying his
fortune in the United States.</p>

<h4>IV.</h4>

<p>On his arrival he settled in Philadelphia, and was soon
joined by Mrs. Cobbett, who had not accompanied him
out. His livelihood was at first procured by giving
English lessons to French emigrants; and it is a fact not
without interest that a celebrated person who figures
amongst these sketches&mdash;M. de Talleyrand&mdash;wished to
become one of his pupils. He refused, he says, to go to
the ci-devant bishop’s house, but adds, in his usual style,
that the lame fiend hopped over this difficulty at once by
offering to come to his (Cobbett’s) house, an offer that was
not accepted. About this time Doctor Priestley came to
America. The enthusiasm with which the doctor was
received roused the resentment of the British soldier, who
moreover panted for a battle. He published then&mdash;though
with some difficulty, booksellers objecting to the unpopularity
of the subject, an objection at which the author
was most indignant&mdash;a pamphlet called “Observations
on Priestley’s Emigration.” This pamphlet, on account
both of its ability and scurrility, made a sensation, and
thus commenced the author’s reputation, though it only
added 1<i>s.</i> 7½<i>d.</i> to his riches. But he was abusing, he
was abused. This was to be in his element, and he
rose at once, so far as the power and peculiarity of his
style were concerned, to a foremost place amongst political
writers. This style had been formed at an early period
of life, and perhaps unconsciously to himself.</p>

<p>“At eleven years of age,” he says in an article in the
<cite>Evening Post</cite>, calling upon the reformers to pay for
returning him to Parliament, “my employment was
clipping of box-edgings and weeding beds of flowers in
the garden of the Bishop of Winchester at the castle of
Farnham, my native town. I had always been fond of
beautiful gardens, and a gardener who had just come from
the King’s gardens at Kew gave me such a description of
them as made me instantly resolve to work in those<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[313]</a></span>
gardens. The next morning” (this is the early adventure
I have previously spoken of), “without saying a word to
any one, off I set, with no clothes except those upon my
back, and with thirteen halfpence in my pocket. I found
that I must go to Richmond, and I accordingly went on
from place to place inquiring my way thither. A long
day (it was in June) brought me to Richmond in the afternoon.
Two pennyworth of bread and cheese and a pennyworth
of small beer which I had on the road, and one
halfpenny that I had lost somehow or other, left three
pence in my pocket. With this for my whole fortune, I
was trudging through Richmond in my blue smock-frock,
and my red garters tied under my knees, when, staring
about me, my eye fell upon a little book in a bookseller’s
window, on the outside of which was written ‘The Tale of
a Tub, price 3<i>d.</i>’ The title was so odd that my curiosity
was excited. I had the threepence; but then I could not
have any supper. In I went and got the little book,
which I was so impatient to read, that I got over into a
field at the upper corner of Kew Gardens, where there
stood a haystack. On the shady side of this I sat down
to read. The book was so different from anything that I
had ever read before, it was something so new to my mind,
that, though I could not understand some parts of it, it
delighted me beyond description, and produced what I
have always considered a sort of birth of intellect.</p>

<p>“I read on until it was dark without any thought of
supper or bed. When I could see no longer, I put my
little book in my pocket and tumbled down by the side of
the stack, where I slept till the birds in the Kew Gardens
awakened me in the morning, when off I started to Kew,
reading my little book. The singularity of my dress, the
simplicity of my manner, my lively and confident air, and
doubtless his own compassion besides, induced the gardener,
who was a Scotchman, I remember, to give me victuals,
find me lodging, and set me to work; and it was during
the period that I was at Kew that George IV. and two of
his brothers laughed at the oddness of my dress while I
was sweeping the grass-plot round the foot of the Pagoda.
The gardener, seeing me fond of books, lent me some<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[314]</a></span>
gardening books to read; but these I could not relish after
my ‘Tale of a Tub,’ which I carried about with me
wherever I went, and when I&mdash;at about twenty years old&mdash;lost
it in a box that fell overboard in the Bay of Fundy,
in North America, the loss gave me greater pain than I
have since felt at losing thousands of pounds.”</p>

<h4>V.</h4>

<p>Many had cause to remember, this evening passed under
a haystack at Kew. The genius of Swift engrafted itself
naturally on an intellect so clear and a disposition so
inclined to satire as that of the gardener’s boy.</p>

<p>Cobbett’s earliest writings are more especially tinged
with the colouring of his master. Take for instance the
following fable, which will at all times find a ready application:</p>

<p>“In a pot-shop, well stocked with wares of all sorts, a
discontented, ill-formed pitcher unluckily bore the sway.
One day, after the mortifying neglect of several customers,
‘Gentlemen,’ said he, addressing himself to his brown
brethren in general&mdash;‘gentlemen, with your permission,
we are a set of tame fools, without ambition, without
courage, condemned to the vilest uses; we suffer all without
murmuring; let us dare to declare ourselves, and we
shall soon see the difference. That superb ewer, which,
like us, is but earth&mdash;these gilded jars, vases, china, and,
in short, all those elegant nonsenses whose colour and
beauty have neither weight nor solidity&mdash;must yield to our
strength and give place to our superior merit.’ This civic
harangue was received with applause, and the pitcher,
chosen president, became the organ of the assembly.
Some, however, more moderate than the rest, attempted to
calm the minds of the multitude; but all the vulgar
utensils, which shall be nameless, were become intractable.
Eager to vie with the bowls and the cups, they were
impatient, almost to madness, to quit their obscure abodes
to shine upon the table, kiss the lip, and ornament the
cupboard.</p>

<p>“In vain did a wise water-jug&mdash;some say it was a
platter&mdash;make them a long and serious discourse upon the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[315]</a></span>
utility of their vocation. ‘Those,’ said he, ‘who are
destined to great employments are rarely the most happy.
We are all of the same clay, ’tis true, but He who made us
formed us for different functions; one is for ornament,
another for use. The posts the least important are often
the most necessary. Our employments are extremely
different, and so are our talents.’</p>

<p>“This had a most wonderful effect; the most stupid
began to open their ears; perhaps it would have succeeded,
if a grease-pot had not cried out in a decisive tone: ‘You
reason like an ass&mdash;to the devil with you and your silly
lessons.’ Now the scale was turned again; all the horde
of pans and pitchers applauded the superior eloquence
and reasoning of the grease-pot. In short, they determined
on an enterprise; but a dispute arose&mdash;who should
be the chief? Every one would command, but no one
obey. It was then you might have heard a clatter; all
put themselves in motion at once, and so wisely and with
so much vigour were their operations conducted, that the
whole was soon changed&mdash;not into china, but into
rubbish.”</p>

<h4>VI.</h4>

<p>The tendency of this tale is manifest. It was in opposition
to the democratic spirit mainly because such was the
ruling spirit of the country in which the author had come
to reside&mdash;a democratic spirit which has since developed
itself more fully, but which then, though predominant, had
a powerful and respectable party to contend against.</p>

<p>The constitution of the United States had indeed
perfectly satisfied none of its framers. Franklin had
declared that he consented to it, not as the best, but as the
best that he could then hope for. Washington expressed
the same opinion. It necessarily gave birth to two parties,
which for a time were held together by the position, the
abilities, and the reputation of the first president of the
new Republic. They existed, however, in his government
itself, where Jefferson represented the Democratic faction,
and Hamilton the Federal or Conservative one. To the
latter the president&mdash;though holding the balance with
apparent impartiality&mdash;belonged; for he was an English<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[316]</a></span>
gentleman, of a firm and moderate character, and, moreover,
wished that the government of which he was the
head should be possessed of an adequate force. The great
movement, however, in France&mdash;which he was almost the
only person to judge from the first with calm discernment&mdash;overbore
his views and complicated his situation.
Determined that the United States should take only a
neutral position in the European contest, he was assailed
on all sides&mdash;as a tyrant, because he wished for order&mdash;as
a partisan of Great Britain, because he wished for peace.
To those among the native Americans, who dreamt impossible
theories, or desired inextricable confusion, were joined
all the foreign intriguers, who, banished from their own
countries, had no hopes of returning there but as enemies
and invaders. “I am called everything,” said Washington,
“even a Nero.”<a name="FNanchor_106" id="FNanchor_106"></a><a href="#Footnote_106" class="fnanchor">[106]</a> His continuance in the presidency, to
which he was incited by some persons to pretend for a
third time, had indeed become incompatible with his
character and honour.</p>

<p>The respect which he had so worthily merited and so
long inspired was on the wane. The cabinet with which
he had commenced his government was broken up; his
taxes, in some provinces, were refused; a treaty he had
concluded with England was pretty generally condemned;
and as he retired to Mount Vernon, the democratic party
saw that approaching triumph which the election of their
leader to the presidency was soon about to achieve. The
cry against Great Britain was fiercer; the shout for
Jefferson was louder than it had ever been before.</p>

<h4>VII.</h4>

<p>At this time Cobbett, then better known as Peter
Porcupine, a name which on becoming an author he had
assumed, and which had at least the merit of representing
his character appropriately, having quarrelled with a legion
of booksellers, determined to set up in the bookselling line
for himself; and in the spring of 1796, he took a house
in Second Street for that purpose.</p>

<p>Though he was not so universally obnoxious then as he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[317]</a></span>
subsequently became, his enemies were already many and
violent&mdash;his friends warm, but few. These last feared for
him in the course he was entering upon; they advised
him, therefore, to be prudent&mdash;to do nothing, at all events,
on commencing business, that might attract public indignation;
and, above all, not to put up any aristocratic
portraits in his windows.</p>

<p>Cobbett’s plan was decided. His shop opened on a
Monday, and he spent all the previous Sunday in so preparing
it that, when he took down his shutters on the
morning following, the people of Philadelphia were actually
aghast at the collection of prints, arrayed in their defiance,
including the effigies of George III., which had never been
shown at any window since the rebellion. From that
moment the newspapers were filled, and the shops placarded,
with “A Blue Pill for Peter Porcupine,” “A Pill for
Peter Porcupine,” “A Boaster for Peter Porcupine,” “A
Picture of Peter Porcupine.” Peter Porcupine had
become a person of decided consideration and importance.</p>

<p>“Dear father,” says the writer who had assumed this
name, in one of his letters home, “when you used to set
me off to work in the morning, dressed in my blue smock-frock
and woollen spatterdashes, with a bag of bread and
cheese and a bottle of small beer over my shoulder, on the
little crook that my godfather gave me, little did you
imagine that I should one day become so great a man.”</p>

<h4>VIII.</h4>

<p>Paine’s arrival in America soon furnished fresh matter
for invective. Paine, like Priestley, was a Republican;
and was, like Priestley, hailed with popular enthusiasm by
the Republicans. Cobbett attacked this new idol, therefore,
as he had done the preceding one, and even with still
greater virulence. This carried him to the highest pitch
of unpopularity which it was possible to attain in the
United States, and it was now certain that no opportunity
would be lost of restraining his violence or breaking his
pen. In August, 1797, accordingly, he was indicted for a
libel against the Spanish minister and his court; but the
bill was ignored by a majority of one; and indeed, it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[318]</a></span>
would have been difficult for an American jury to have
punished an Englishman for declaring the Spanish king
at that time “the tool of France.” A question was now
raised as to whether the obnoxious writer should not be
turned out of the United States, under the Alien Act.</p>

<p>This having been objected to by the Attorney General,
a new course of prosecution was adopted. Nearly all
Cobbett’s writings were brought together into one mass,
and he was charged with having published throughout
them libels against almost every liberal man of note in
America, France, and England. Under such a charge he
was obliged to find recognisances for his good behaviour to
the amount of 4000 dollars, and it was hoped by a diligent
search into his subsequent writings to convict him of
having forfeited these recognisances.</p>

<p>His enemies, indeed, might safely count on his getting
into further troubles; nor had they long to wait. A
Doctor Rash having at this time risen into great repute
by a system of purging and bleeding, with which he had
attempted to stop the yellow fever, Cobbett, who could
ill tolerate another’s reputation, even in medicine, darted
forth against this new candidate for public favour with his
usual vigour of abuse. “Can the Rush grow up without
mire, or the flag without water?” was his exclamation, and
down went his ruthless and never-pausing flail on poor
Dr. Rush’s birth, parentage, manners, character, medicine,
and everything that was his by nature, chance, or education.
This could not long continue; Cobbett was again
indicted for a libel.</p>

<p>In tyrannies justice is administered unscrupulously in
the case of a political enemy; in democracies also law
must frequently be controlled by vulgar prejudice and
popular passion. This was seen in the present case. The
defendant pleaded, in the first place, that his trial should
be removed from the Court of the State of Pennsylvania
to that of the United States. It was generally thought
that as an alien he could claim to have his cause thus
transferred. This claim, however, was refused by the
chief justice, whom he had recklessly affronted; and the
trial coming on when a jury was pretty certain to be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[319]</a></span>
hostile, Cobbett was assessed in damages to the amount of
5000 dollars; nor was much consolation to be derived from
the fact that on the 14th December, the day on which
he was condemned for libelling Rush, General Washington
died, in some degree the victim of that treatment which
the libelled doctor had prescribed.</p>

<p>The costs of the suit he had lost, added to the fine which
the adverse sentence had imposed, made altogether a
considerable sum. Cobbett was nearly ruined, but he bore
himself up with a stout heart; and for a moment turning
round at bay faced his enemies, and determined yet to
remain in the United States. But on second thoughts,
without despairing of his fortunes, he resolved to seek
them elsewhere; and set sail for England. This he did
on the 1st of June, 1800; shaking the dust from his feet
on what he then stigmatised as “that infamous land,
where judges become felons, and felons judges.”</p>

<hr />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[320]</a></span></p>

<h3><span class="smcap">Part II.</span><br />
<span class="smaller">FROM JUNE 1ST, 1800, TO MARCH 28TH, 1817, WHEN,
HAVING ALTOGETHER CHANGED HIS POLITICS, HE
RETURNS TO AMERICA.</span></h3>

<div class="smaller">

<p>Starts a paper, by title <cite>The Porcupine</cite>, which he had made famous in
America.&mdash;Begins as a Tory.&mdash;Soon verges towards opposition.&mdash;Abandons
<cite>Porcupine</cite> and commences <cite>Register</cite>.&mdash;Prosecuted for libel.&mdash;Changes politics,
and becomes radical.&mdash;Prosecuted again for libel.&mdash;Convicted and imprisoned.&mdash;Industry
and activity though confined in Newgate.&mdash;Sentence expires.&mdash;Released.&mdash;Power
as a writer increases.&mdash;Government determined to put
him down.&mdash;Creditors pressing.&mdash;He returns to the United States.</p>

</div>

<h4>I.</h4>

<p>The space Cobbett filled in the public mind of his native
land was at this time, 1800, considerable. Few, in fact,
have within so brief a period achieved so remarkable a
career, or gained under similar circumstances an equal
reputation. The boy from the plough had become the
soldier, and distinguished himself, so far as his birth and
term of service at that time admitted, in the military
profession; the uneducated soldier had become the writer;
and, as the advocate of monarchical principles in a Republican
state, had shown a power and a resolution which had
raised him to the position of an antagonist to the whole
people amongst whom he had been residing. There was
Cobbett on one side of the arena, and all the democracy of
democratic America on the other!</p>

<p>He now returned to the Old World and the land for
which he had been fighting the battle. His name had
preceded him. George III. admired him as his champion;
Lord North hailed him as the greatest political reasoner of
his time (Burke being amongst his contemporaries);
Mr. Windham&mdash;the elegant, refined, classical, manly, but
whimsical Mr. Windham&mdash;was in raptures at his genius;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[321]</a></span>
and though the English people at this time were beginning
to be a little less violent than they had been in their hatred
of France and America, the English writer who despised
Frenchmen and insulted Americans, was still a popular
character in England.</p>

<p>Numerous plans of life were open to him; that which he
chose was the one for which he was most fitting, and
to which he could most easily and naturally adapt himself.
He again became editor of a public paper, designated by
the name he had rendered famous, and called <cite>The
Porcupine</cite>.</p>

<p>The principles on which this paper was to be conducted
were announced with spirit and vigour. “The subjects of
a British king,” said Cobbett, “like the sons of every
provident and tender father, never know his value till
they feel the want of his protection. In the days of youth
and ignorance I was led to believe that comfort, freedom,
and virtue were exclusively the lot of Republicans. A
very short trial convinced me of my error, admonished
me to repent of my folly, and urged me to compensate for
the injustice of the opinion which I had conceived.
During an eight years’ absence from my country, I was not
an unconcerned spectator of her perils, nor did I listen in
silence to the slander of her enemies.</p>

<p>“Though divided from England by the ocean, though
her gay fields were hidden probably for ever from my
view, still her happiness and her glory were the objects of
my constant solicitude. I rejoiced at her victories, I
mourned at her defeats; her friends were my friends, her
foes were my foes. Once more returned, once more under
the safeguard of that sovereign who watched over me in
my infancy, and the want of whose protecting arm I have
so long had reason to lament, I feel an irresistible desire
to communicate to my countrymen the fruit of my experience;
to show them the injurious and degrading
consequences of discontent, disloyalty, and innovation; to
convince them that they are the first as well as happiest
of the human race, and above all to warn them against
the arts of those ambitious and perfidious demagogues who
could willingly reduce them to a level with the cheated<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[322]</a></span>
slaves, in the bearing of whose yoke I had the mortification
to share.”</p>

<h4>II.</h4>

<p>The events even at this time were preparing, which in
their series of eddies whirled the writer we have been
quoting into the midst of those very ambitious and perfidious
demagogues whom he here denounces. Nor was
this notable change, under all the circumstances which
surrounded it, very astonishing. In the first place, the
party in power, after greeting him on his arrival with a
welcome which, perhaps, was more marked by curiosity
than courtesy, did little to gratify their champion’s vanity,
or to advance his interests. With that indifference
usually shown by official men in our country to genius, if
it is unaccompanied by aristocratical or social influence, they
allowed the great writer to seek his fortunes as he had
sought them hitherto, pen in hand, without aid or patronage.</p>

<p>In the second place, the part which Mr. Pitt took on
the side of Catholic emancipation was contrary to all
Cobbett’s antecedent prejudices: and then Mr. Pitt had
treated Cobbett with coolness one day when they met at
Mr. Windham’s. Thus a private grievance was added to a
public one.</p>

<p>The peace with France&mdash;a peace for which he would
not illuminate, having his windows smashed by the mob in
consequence&mdash;disgusted him yet more with Mr. Addington,
whose moderate character he heartily despised; and not
the less so for that temporising statesman’s inclination
rather to catch wavering Whigs than to satisfy discontented
Tories. These reasons partly suggested his giving
up the daily journal he had started (called, as I have said,
<cite>The Porcupine</cite>), and commencing the <cite>Weekly Political
Register</cite>, which he conducted with singular ability against
every party in the country. I say against every party in
the country; for, though he was still, no doubt, a stout
advocate of kingly government, he did not sufficiently
admit, for the purposes of his personal safety, that the
king’s government was the king’s ministers. Thus, no
doubt to his great surprise, he found that he, George III.’s
most devoted servant, was summoned one morning to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[323]</a></span>
answer before the law for maliciously intending to move
and incite the liege subjects of his Majesty to hatred and
contempt of his royal authority.</p>

<p>The libel made to bear this forced interpretation was
taken from letters in November and December, 1803,
signed “Juverna,” that appeared in the <cite>Register</cite>, and
were not flattering to the government of Ireland.</p>

<h4>III.</h4>

<p>If we turn to the state of that country at this time, we
shall find that the resignation of Mr. Pitt, and the hopeless
situation of the Catholics, had naturally created much
discontent. Mr. Addington, it is true, was anything but a
severe minister; he did nothing to rouse the passions of
the Irish, but he did nothing to win the heart, excite the
imagination, or gain the affection of that sensitive people.
The person he had nominated to the post of Lord Lieutenant
was a fair type of his own ministry, that person
being a sensible, good-natured man, with nothing brilliant
or striking in his manner or abilities, but carrying into
his high office the honest intention to make the course he
was enjoined to pursue as little obnoxious as possible to
those whom he could not expect to please. In this manner
his government, though mild and inoffensive, neither captivated
the wavering nor overawed the disaffected; and
under it was hatched, by a young and visionary enthusiast
(Mr. Emmett), a conspiracy, which, though contemptible
as the means of overturning the established authority, was
accompanied at its explosion by the murder of the Lord
Chief Justice, and the exposure of Dublin to pillage and
flames. The enemies of ministers naturally seized on so
fair an occasion for assailing them, and Cobbett, who held
a want of energy to be at all times worse than the want
of all other qualities, put his paper at their disposal.</p>

<p>In the present instance, the writer of “Juverna’s”
letters, calling to his aid the old story of the wooden horse
which carried the Greeks within the walls of Troy, and
exclaiming, “Equo ne credite Teucri!” compared the
Irish administration, so simple and innocuous in its
outward appearance, but containing within its bosom, as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[324]</a></span>
he said, all the elements of mischief, to that famous and
fatal prodigy of wood; and after complimenting the Lord
Lieutenant on having a head made of the same harmless
material as the wooden horse itself, thus flatteringly proceeded:
“But who is this Lord Hardwicke? I have
discovered him to be in rank an earl, in manners a gentleman,
in morals a good father and a kind husband, and
that, moreover, he has a good library in St. James’s
Square. Here I should have been for ever stopped, if I
had not by accident met with one Mr. Lindsay, a Scotch
parson, since become (and I am sure it must be by Divine
Providence, for it would be impossible to account for it by
secondary causes) Bishop of Killaloe. From this Mr.
Lindsay I further learned that my Lord Hardwicke was
celebrated for understanding the mode and method of
fattening sheep as well as any man in Cambridgeshire.”</p>

<p>The general character of the attack on Lord Hardwicke
may be judged of by the above quotation, and was certainly
not of a very malignant nature. It sufficed, however,
to procure a hostile verdict; and the Editor of the <cite>Political
Register</cite> was declared “Guilty of having attempted
to subvert the King’s authority.”</p>

<p>This, however, was not all. Mr. Plunkett, then
Solicitor-General for Ireland, had pleaded against Mr.
Emmett, whose father he had known, with more bitterness
than perhaps was necessary, since the culprit brought
forward no evidence in his favour, and did not even
attempt a defence. Mr. Plunkett, moreover, had himself
but a short time previously expressed rather violent
opinions, and, when speaking of the Union, had gone so
far as to say that, if it passed into a law, no Irishman would
be bound to obey it. In short, the position in which he
stood was one which required great delicacy and forbearance,
and delicacy and forbearance he had not shown. “Juverna”
thus speaks of him:</p>

<p>“If any one man could be found of whom a young but
unhappy victim of the justly offended laws of his country
had, in the moment of his conviction and sentence, uttered
the following apostrophe: ‘That viper, whom my father
nourished, he it is whose principles and doctrines now<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[325]</a></span>
drag me to my grave; and he it is who is now brought
forward as my prosecutor, and who, by an unheard-of
exercise of the royal prerogative, has wantonly lashed with
a speech to evidence the dying son of his former
friend, when that dying son had produced no evidence,
had made no defence, but, on the contrary, acknowledged
the charge and submitted to his fate’&mdash;Lord Kenyon
would have turned with horror from such a scene, in which,
if guilt were in one part punished, justice in the whole
drama was confounded, humanity outraged, and loyalty
insulted.”</p>

<p>These observations, made in a far more rancorous
spirit than those relating to Lord Hardwicke, could not
fail to be bitterly felt by the Solicitor-General, who was
probably obliged, in deference to Irish opinion, to prosecute
the editor of the paper they appeared in.</p>

<p>He did so, and obtained 500<i>l.</i> damages.</p>

<p>Luckily for Cobbett, however, he escaped punishment
in both suits; for the real author of these attacks, Mr.
Johnson, subsequently Judge Johnson, having been discovered,
or having discovered himself, Cobbett was left
without further molestation. But an impression had been
created in his mind. He had fought the battle of loyalty
in America against a host of enemies to the loss of his property,
and even at the hazard of his life. Shouts of
triumph had hailed him from the British shores. The
virulence of his invectives, the coarseness of his epithets,
the exaggeration of his opinions, were all forgotten and
forgiven when he wrote the English language out of
England. He came to his native country; he advocated
the same doctrines, and wrote in the same style; his heart
was still as devoted to his king, and his wishes as warm
for the welfare of his country; but, because it was stated
in his journal that Lord Hardwicke was an excellent sheep-feeder,
and Mr. Plunkett a viper&mdash;(a disagreeable appellation,
certainly, but one soft and gentle in comparison
with many which he had bestowed, fifty times over, on
the most distinguished writers, members of Congress,
judges and lawyers in the United States&mdash;without the
regard and esteem of his British patrons being one jot<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[326]</a></span>
abated)&mdash;he had been stigmatised as a traitor and condemned
to pay five hundred pounds as a libeller.</p>

<p>He did not recognise, in these proceedings, the beauties
of the British Constitution, nor the impartial justice which
he had always maintained when in America, was to be
found in loyal old England. He did not see why his
respect for his sovereign prevented him from saying or
letting it be said that a Lord Lieutenant of Ireland was a
very ordinary man, nor that a Solicitor-General of Ireland
had made a very cruel and ungenerous speech, when the
facts thus stated were perfectly true. The Tory leaders
had done nothing to gain him as a partisan, they had
done much that jarred with his general notions on politics,
and finally they treated him as a political foe. The insult,
for such he deemed it, was received with a grim smile of
defiance, and grievous was the loss which Conservative
opinions sustained when those who represented them drove
the most powerful controversialist of his day into the opposite
ranks.</p>

<p>Nor can the value of his support be estimated merely
by the injury inflicted by his hostility. When Cobbett
departed from his consistency, he forfeited a great portion
of his influence. With his marvellous skill in exciting the
popular passions in favour of the ideas he espoused; with
his nicknames, with his simple, sterling, and at all times
powerful eloquence, it is difficult to limit the effect he
might have produced amongst the classes to which he
belonged, and which with an improved education were
beginning to acquire greater power, if acquainted with
their habits and warmed by their passions, he had devoted
his self-taught intellect to the defence of ancient institutions
and the depreciation of modern ideas.</p>

<p>But official gentlemen then were even more official than
they are now; and fancying that every man in office was
a great man, every one out of it a small one, their
especial contempt was reserved for a public writer. If,
however, such persons, the scarecrows of genius, were indifferent
to Cobbett’s defection, they whose standard he
joined hailed with enthusiasm his conversion.</p>

<p>These were not the Whigs. Cobbett’s was one of those<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[327]</a></span>
natures which never did things by halves. Sir Francis
Burdett, Mr. Hunt, Major Cartwright, and a set of men
who propounded theories of parliamentary reform&mdash;which
no one, who was at that time considered a practical statesman,
deemed capable of realization&mdash;were his new associates
and admirers.</p>

<p>Nor was his change a mere change in political opinion.
It was, unfortunately, a change in political morality. The
farmer’s son had not been educated at a learned university&mdash;having
his youthful mind nourished and strengthened
by great examples of patriotism and consistency, drawn
from Greece and Rome:&mdash;he was educating himself by
modern examples from the world in which he was living,
and there he found statesmen slow to reward the advocacy
of their public opinions, but quick to avenge any attack on
their personal vanity or individual interests. It struck
him then that their principles were like the signs which
innkeepers stick over their tap-rooms, intended to catch
the traveller’s attention, and induce him to buy their
liquors; but having no more real signification than “St.
George and the Dragon,” or the “Blue Boar,” or the
“Flying Serpent;” hence concluding that one sign might
be pulled down and the other put up, to suit the taste of
the customers, or the speculation of the landlord.</p>

<p>And now begins a perfectly new period in his life. Up
to this date he had always been one and the same individual.
Every corner of his being had been apparently
filled with the same loyal hatred to Frenchmen and
Democrats. He had loved, in every inch of him, the king
and the church, and the wooden walls of Old England.
“Who will say,” he exclaims in America, “that an
Englishman ought not to despise all the nations in the
world? For my part I do, and that most heartily.”
What he here says of every one of a different nation from
his own, he had said, and said constantly, of every one of
a different political creed from his own, and his own
political creed had as yet never varied. But consistency
and Cobbett here separated. Not only was his new self a
complete and constant contradiction with his old self&mdash;this
was to be expected: but whereas his old self was one solid<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[328]</a></span>
block, his new self was a piece of tesselated workmanship, in
which were patched together all sorts of materials of all sorts
of colours. I do not mean to say that, having taken to the
liberal side in politics, he ever turned round again and became
violent on the opposite side. But his liberalism had no
code. He recognised no fixed friends&mdash;no definite opinions.
The notions he advocated were such as he selected for the
particular day of the week on which he was writing, and
which he considered himself free on the following day to
dispute with those who adopted them. As to his alliances,
they were no more closely woven into his existence than
his doctrines; and he stood forth distinguished for being
dissatisfied with everything, and quarrelling with every one.</p>

<h4>IV.</h4>

<p>The first tilt which he made from the new side of the
ring where he had now taken his stand was against Mr.
Pitt&mdash;whom it was not difficult towards the close of his
life to condemn, for the worst fault which a minister can
commit&mdash;being unfortunate. Cobbett’s next assault&mdash;on
the demand of the Whigs for an increase of allowance to
the king’s younger sons&mdash;was against Royalty itself, its
pensions, governorships, and rangerships, which he called
“its cheeseparings and candle-ends!” Some Republicans
on the other side of the Atlantic must have rubbed their
spectacles when they read these effusions; but the editor
of the <cite>Register</cite> was indifferent to provoking censure, and
satisfied with exciting astonishment. Besides, we may
fairly admit, that, when the King demanded that his
private property in the funds should be free from taxation
(showing he had such property), and at the same time
called upon the country to increase the allowances of his
children, he did much to try the loyalty of the nation, and
gave Cobbett occasion to observe that a rich man did not
ask the parish to provide for his offspring. “I am,” said
he, “against these things, not because I am a Republican,
but because I am for monarchical government, and consequently
adverse to all that gives Republicans a fair occasion
for sneering at it.”</p>

<p>In the meantime his periodical labours did not prevent<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[329]</a></span>
his undertaking works of a more solid description; and in
1806 he announced the “Parliamentary Register,” which
was to contain all the recorded proceedings of Parliament
from the earliest times; and was in the highest degree
useful, since the reader had previously to wade through a
hundred volumes of journals in order to know anything of
the history of the two Houses of Parliament. These more
serious labours did not, however, interfere with his weekly
paper, which had a large circulation, and, though without
any party influence (for Cobbett attacked all parties), gave
him a great deal of personal power and importance. “It
came up,” says the author, proudly, “like a grain of
mustard-seed, and like a grain of mustard-seed it has
spread over the whole civilised world.” Meanwhile, this
peasant-born politician was uniting rural pursuits with
literary labours, and becoming, in the occupation of a farm
at Botley, a prominent agriculturist and a sort of intellectual
authority in his neighbourhood. From this life,
which no one has described with a pen more pregnant
with the charm and freshness of green fields and woods,
he was torn by another prosecution for libel.</p>

<h4>V.</h4>

<p>The following paragraph had appeared in the <cite>Courier</cite>
paper:</p>

<p class="date">“London, Saturday, July 1st, 1809.</p>

<p>“Motto.&mdash;The mutiny amongst the Local Militia,
which broke out at Ely, was <em>fortunately</em> suppressed on
Wednesday by the arrival of four squadrons of the German
Legion Cavalry from Bury, under the command of General
Auckland.</p>

<p>“Five of the ringleaders were tried by a court-martial,
and sentenced to receive <em>five hundred lashes each</em>, part of
which punishment they received on Wednesday, and a
part was remitted. A stoppage for their knapsacks was
the ground of complaint which excited this mutinous
spirit, and occasioned the men to surround their officers
and demand what they deemed their arrears. The first
division of the German Legion halted yesterday at Newmarket
on their return to Bury.”</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[330]</a></span></p>

<p>On this paragraph Cobbett made the subjoining observations:</p>

<p>“‘Summary of politics. Local Militia and German
Legion.’ See the motto, English reader, see the motto,
and then do, pray, recollect all that has been said about
the way in which Bonaparte raises his soldiers. Well
done, Lord Castlereagh! This is just what it was thought
that your plan would produce. Well said, Mr. Huskisson!
It was really not without reason you dwelt with so much
earnestness upon the great utility of the foreign troops,
whom Mr. Wardle appeared to think of no utility at all.
Poor gentleman! he little thought how great a genius
might find employment for such troops; he little imagined
they might be made the means of compelling Englishmen
to submit to that sort of discipline which is so conducive
to producing in them a disposition to defend the country
at the risk of their lives. Let Mr. Wardle look at my
motto, and then say whether the German soldiers are of
no use. <em>Five hundred lashes each!</em> Ay, that is right;
flog them! flog them! flog them; they deserve it, and a
great deal more! They deserve a flogging at every meal
time. Lash them daily! Lash them daily! What!
shall the rascals dare to <em>mutiny</em>, and that, too, when the
<em>German</em> Legion is so near at hand? Lash them! Lash
them! Lash them! they deserve it. Oh! yes, they
deserve a double-tailed cat. Base dogs! what, mutiny for
the sake of the price of a knapsack! Lash them! flog
them! base rascals! mutiny for the price of a goat-skin,
and then upon the appearance of the German soldiers they
take a flogging as quietly as so many trunks of trees.”</p>

<h4>VI.</h4>

<p>The attack on the Hanoverian troops, who had nothing
to do with the question as to whether the militiamen were
flogged justly or not, was doubtless most illiberal and
unfair. Those troops simply did their duty, as any other
disciplined troops would have done, in seeing a superior’s
order executed. It was not their fault if they were
employed on this service; neither were they in our country
or our army under ordinary circumstances. They had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[331]</a></span>
lost their own land for fighting our battles; they were in
our army because they would not serve in the army of the
enemy.</p>

<p>But we can hardly expect newspaper writers to be more
logical and just than forensic advocates. A free press is
not a good unmixed with evil; there are arguments against
it, as there are arguments for it; but where it is admitted
as an important part of a nation’s institutions, this admission
includes, as I conceive, the permission to state one
side of a question in the most telling manner, the corrective
being the juxtaposition of the other side of the question
stated with an equal intent to captivate, and perhaps
to mislead.</p>

<p>Two years’ imprisonment, and a fine of £1000 only
wanted the gentle accompaniment of ear-cropping to have
done honour to the Star Chamber; for, to a man who had
a newspaper and a farm to carry on, imprisonment threatened
to consummate the ruin which an exorbitant fine was
well calculated to commence.</p>

<p>Cobbett was accused of yielding to the heaviness of the
blow, and of offering the abandonment of his journal as
the price of his forgiveness. I cannot agree with those
who said that such an offer would have been an unparalleled
act of baseness. In giving up his journal,
Cobbett was not necessarily giving up his opinions. Every
one who wages war unsuccessfully retains the right of
capitulation. A writer is no more obliged to rot uselessly
in a gaol for the sake of his cause, than a general is
obliged to fight a battle without a chance of victory for
the sake of his country. A man, even if a hero, is not
obliged to be a martyr. Cobbett’s disgraceful act was not
in making the proposal of which he was accused, but in
denying most positively and repeatedly that he had ever
made it; for it certainly seems pretty clear, amidst a good
deal of contradictory evidence, that he did authorize
Mr. Reeves, of the Alien Office, to promise that the
<cite>Register</cite> should drop if he was not brought up for judgment;
and if a Mr. Wright, who was a sort of factotum
to Cobbett at the time, can be believed, the farewell was
actually written, and only withdrawn when the negotiation<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[332]</a></span>
was known to have failed. At all events, no indulgence
being granted to the offender, he turned round and faced
fortune with his usual hardihood. In no portion of his
life, indeed, did he show greater courage&mdash;in none does
the better side of his character come out in brighter relief
than when, within the gloomy and stifling walls of Newgate,
he carried on his farming, conducted his paper,
educated his children, and waged war (his most natural
and favourite pursuit) against his enemies with as gay a
courage as could have been expected from him in sight of
the yellow cornfields, and breathing the pure air he loved
so well.</p>

<p>“Now, then,” he says, in describing this period of his
life, “the book-learning was forced upon us. I had a
farm in hand; it was necessary that I should be constantly
informed of what was doing. I gave all the orders,
whether as to purchases, sales, ploughing, sowing, breeding&mdash;in
short, with regard to everything, and the things
were in endless number and variety, and always full of
interest. My eldest son and daughter could now write
well and fast. One or the other of these was always at
Botley, and I had with me&mdash;having hired the best part of
the keeper’s house&mdash;one or two besides, either their brother
or sister. We had a hamper, with a lock and two keys,
which came up once a week or oftener, bringing me fruit
and all sorts of country fare. This hamper, which was
always at both ends of the line looked for with the most
lively interest, became our school. It brought me a journal
of labours, proceedings, and occurrences, written on paper
of shape and size uniform, and so contrived as to margins
as to admit of binding. The journal used, when my
eldest son was the writer, to be interspersed with drawings
of our dogs, colts, or anything that he wanted me to have
a correct idea of. The hamper brought me plants, herbs,
and the like, that I might see the size of them; and
almost every one sent his or her most beautiful flowers,
the earliest violets and primroses and cowslips and bluebells,
the earliest twigs of trees, and, in short, everything
that they thought calculated to delight me. The moment
the hamper arrived, I&mdash;casting aside everything else&mdash;set<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[333]</a></span>
to work to answer every question, to give new directions,
and to add anything likely to give pleasure at Botley.</p>

<p>“Every hamper brought one letter, as they called it,
if not more, from every child, and to every letter I wrote
an answer, sealed up and sent to the party, being sure that
that was the way to produce other and better letters; for
though they could not read what I wrote, and though
their own consisted at first of mere scratches, and afterwards,
for a while, of a few words written down for them
to imitate, I always thanked them for their pretty letter,
and never expressed any wish to see them write better,
but took care to write in a very neat and plain hand
myself, and to do up my letter in a very neat manner.</p>

<p>“Thus, while the ferocious tigers thought I was doomed
to incessant mortification, and to rage that must extinguish
my mental powers, I found in my children, and in their
spotless and courageous and affectionate mother, delights
to which the callous hearts of those tigers were strangers.
‘Heaven first taught letters for some wretch’s aid.’ How
often did this line of Pope occur to me when I opened the
little fuddling letters from Botley. This correspondence
occupied a good part of my time. I had all the children
with me, turn and turn about; and in order to give the
boys exercise, and to give the two eldest an opportunity
of beginning to learn French, I used for a part of the two
years to send them for a few hours a day to an abbé, who
lived in Castle Street, Holborn. All this was a great
relaxation to my mind; and when I had to return to my
literary labours, I returned fresh and cheerful, full of
vigour, and full of hope of finally seeing my unjust and
merciless foes at my feet, and that, too, without caring a
straw on whom their fall might bring calamity, so that
my own family were safe, because&mdash;say what any one
might&mdash;the community, taken as a whole, had suffered
this thing to be done unto us.</p>

<p>“The paying of the workpeople, the keeping of the
accounts, the referring to books, the writing and reading
of letters, this everlasting mixture of amusement with
book-learning, made me, almost to my own surprise, find
at the end of two years that I had a parcel of scholars<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[334]</a></span>
growing up about me, and, long before the end of the
time, I had dictated my <cite>Register</cite> to my two eldest children.
Then there was copying out of books, which taught spelling
correctly. The calculations about the farming affairs
forced arithmetic upon us; the <em>use</em>, the <em>necessity</em> of the
thing, led to the study.</p>

<p>“By and by we had to look into the laws, to know
what to do about the highways, about the game, about
the poor, and all rural and parochial affairs.</p>

<p>“I was, indeed, by the fangs of government defeated
in my fondly-cherished project of making my sons farmers
on their own land, and keeping them from all temptation
to seek vicious and enervating enjoyments; but those
fangs&mdash;merciless as they had been&mdash;had not been able to
prevent me from laying in for their lives, a store of useful
information, habits of industry, care, and sobriety, and a
taste for innocent, healthful, and manly pleasures. The
fiends had made me and them penniless, but had not been
able to take from us our health, or our mental possessions,
and these were ready for application as circumstances
might ordain.”</p>

<h4>VII.</h4>

<p>At length, however, Cobbett’s punishment was over;
and his talents still conferred on him sufficient consideration
to have the event celebrated by a dinner, at which
Sir Francis Burdett presided. This compliment paid,
Cobbett returned to Botley and his old pursuits, literary
and agricultural. The idea of publishing cheap newspapers,
under the title of “Twopenny Trash,” and which,
not appearing as periodicals, escaped the Stamp Tax, now
added considerably to his power; and by extending the
circulation of his writings to a new class,&mdash;the mechanic
and artisan, in urban populations,&mdash;made that power
dangerous at a period when great distress produced general
discontent&mdash;a discontent of which the government rather
tried to suppress the exhibition, than to remove the causes.
Nor did Cobbett speak untruly when he said, that the
suspension of the Habeas Corpus, and the passing of the
celebrated “Six Acts,” in the year 1817, were more
directed against himself than against all the other writers<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[335]</a></span>
of sedition put together. But notwithstanding the exultation
which this position gave him for a moment, he soon
saw that it was one which he should not be able to maintain,
and that the importance he had temporarily acquired
had no durable foundation. He had no heart, moreover,
for another midsummer’s dream in Newgate. Nor was
this all. Though he had not wanted friends or partisans,
who had furnished him with pecuniary aid, his expenses
had gone far beyond his means; and I may mention as
one of the most extraordinary instances of this singular
person’s influence, that the debts he had at this time been
allowed to contract amounted to no less than £34,000, a
sum he could not hope to repay.</p>

<p>For the first time his ingenuity furnished him with no
resource, or his usual audacity failed him; and with a
secrecy, for which the state of his circumstances accounted,
he made a sudden bolt (the 28th of March, 1817) for the
United States, informing his countrymen that they were
too lukewarm in their own behalf to justify the perils he
incurred for their sakes; and observing to his creditors
that, as they had not resisted the persecutions from which
his losses had arisen, they must be prepared to share with
his family the consequences of his ruin.</p>

<p>Sir Francis Burdett had been for many years, as we
have seen, his friend and protector, and had but recently
presided at the festival which commemorated his release
from confinement; but Sir Francis Burdett was amongst
those from whom Cobbett had borrowed pretty largely;
and though the wealthy baronet could scarcely have expected
this money to be repaid, yet, having advanced it
to a political partisan, he was not altogether pleased at
seeing his money and his partisan slip through his fingers
at the same time; and made some remarks which, on
reaching Cobbett’s ears, irritated a vanity that never slept,
and was only too ready to avenge itself by abuse equally
ungrateful and unwise.</p>

<hr />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[336]</a></span></p>

<h3><span class="smcap">Part III.</span><br />
<span class="smaller">FROM QUITTING ENGLAND IN 1817 TO HIS DEATH IN 1835.</span></h3>

<div class="smaller">

<p>Settles on Long Island.&mdash;Professes at first great satisfaction.&mdash;Takes a farm,&mdash;Writes
his Grammar.&mdash;Gets discontented.&mdash;His premises burnt.&mdash;He
returns to England, and carries Paine’s bones with him.&mdash;The bones do not
succeed.&mdash;Tries twice to be returned to Parliament.&mdash;Is not elected.&mdash;Becomes
a butcher at Kensington.&mdash;Fails there and is a bankrupt.&mdash;His works from
1820 to 1826.&mdash;Extracts.&mdash;New prosecution.&mdash;Acquitted.&mdash;Comes at last
into Parliament for Oldham.&mdash;Character as a speaker.&mdash;Dies.&mdash;General summing
up.</p>

</div>

<h4>I.</h4>

<p>The epoch of Cobbett’s flight from England was decidedly
the one most fatal to his character. So long as a man
pays his bills, or sticks to his party, he has some one to
speak in his favour; but a runaway from his party and his
debts, whatever the circumstances that lead to his doing
either, must give up the idea of leaving behind him any
one disposed to say a word in his defence. Cobbett probably
did give up this idea, and, having satisfied himself
by declaring that the overthrow of the regular laws and
constitution of England had rendered his person as a public
writer insecure, and his talents unprofitable, in his native
country, seemed disposed to a divorce from the old world,
and to a reconciliation with the new. At all events, he
viewed America with very different eyes from those with
which he had formerly looked at it. The weather was
the finest he had ever seen; the ground had no dirt; the
air had no flies; the people were civil, not servile; there
were none of the poor and wretched habitations which
sicken the sight at the outskirts of cities and towns in
England; the progress of wealth, ease, and enjoyment
evinced by the regular increase of the size of the farmers’
buildings, spoke in praise of the system of government
under which it had taken place; and, to crown all, four<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[337]</a></span>
Yankee mowers weighed down eight English ones! During
the greater part of the time that these encomiums were
written, Cobbett was living at a farm he had taken on
Hampstead Plains, Long Island, where he wrote his
grammar, the only amusing grammar in the world, and of
which, when it was sent to his son in England, 10,000
copies were sold in one month.</p>

<p>A year, however, after his arrival at Long Island, a fire
broke out on his premises and destroyed them. The misfortune
was not, perhaps, an untimely one.</p>

<p>Whatever Cobbett might have been able to do in the
United States as a farmer, he did not seem to have a
chance there of playing any part as a politician. He was
not even taken up as a “lion,” for his sudden preference
for Republican institutions created no sensation amongst
men who were now all heart and soul Republicans. He
was not a hero; and he could not, consistently with his
present doctrines, attempt to become a martyr. He had,
to be sure, the satisfaction of saying bitter things about
the tyranny established in his native land; but these produced
no effect in America, where abuse of monarchical
government was thought quite natural, and he did not see
the effect they produced at home. Moreover, they did
not after all produce much effect even there. His periodical
writings were like wine meant to be drunk on the spot,
and lost a great deal of their flavour when sent across the
wide waters of the ocean. They were, indeed, essentially
written for the day, and for the passions and purposes of
the day. Arriving after the cause which had produced
them had ceased to excite the public mind, their sound
and fury were like the smoke and smell of an explosion
without its noise or its powers of destruction. Cobbett
saw this clearly, though even to his own children he would
never confess it.</p>

<h4>II.</h4>

<p>The condition of England, moreover, at this moment
excited his attention, perhaps his hopes. A violent policy
can never be a lasting one. The government was beginning
to wear out the overstretched authority that had
been confided to it and the community was beginning to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[338]</a></span>
feel that you should not make (to use the words of
Mr. Burke) “the extreme remedies of the State its daily
bread.” On the other hand, the general distress, which
had created the discontent that these extreme remedies
had been employed to suppress, was in no wise diminished.
The sovereign and the administration were unpopular, the
people generally ignorant and undisciplined, neither the
one nor the other understanding the causes of the prevalent
disaffection, nor having any idea as to how it should be
dealt with.</p>

<p>Such is the moment undoubtedly for rash or designing
men to propagate wild theories; and such is also the
moment when bold men, guided by better motives, will
find, in a country where constitutional liberty cannot be
entirely destroyed, the means of turning the oppressive
measures of an unscrupulous minister against himself.
With the one there was a chance of war against all government,
with the other a chance of resistance against
bad government. The revolutionist and the patriot were
both stirring, whilst a vague idea prevailed amongst many,
neither patriots nor revolutionists, that our society was
about to be exposed to one of those great convulsions
which overturn thrones and change the destiny of empires.</p>

<p>Cobbett was probably too shrewd to look on such a
crisis as a certainty; but he was very probably sanguine
enough to build schemes on it as a possibility. Besides,
there were strife and contention in the great towns, and
murmurings in the smaller hamlets; and, where there
were strife and contention and murmurings, such a man
as Cobbett could not fail to find a place and to produce
an effect. This was sufficient to make him feel restlessly
anxious to re-appear on the stage he had so abruptly
quitted. But he was essentially an actor, and disposed
to study the dramatic in all his proceedings. To slink
back unperceived to his old haunts, and recommence
quietly his old habits, would neither suit his tastes, nor,
as he thought, his interests. It was necessary that his
return should be a sensation. Too vain and too quarrelsome
to pay court to any one, he had through life made<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[339]</a></span>
friends by making enemies. His plan now was to raise
a howl against the returning exile as an atheist and a
demagogue amongst one portion of society, not doubting
that in such case he would be taken up as the champion
of civil and religious liberty by another.</p>

<h4>III.</h4>

<p>The device he adopted for this object was disinterring,
or saying he had disinterred, the bones of Thomas Paine,
whom he had formerly assailed as “the greatest disgrace
of mankind,” and now declared to be “the great enlightener
of the human race,” and carrying these bones
over to England as the relics of a patron saint, under
whose auspices he was to carry on his future political
career.</p>

<p>Now, Paine had been considered the enemy of kingly
government and the Christian religion in his time, and
had greatly occupied the attention of Cobbett, who had
styled him “an infamous and atrocious miscreant,” but he
had never been a man of great weight or note in our
country; many of the existing generation scarcely knew
his name, and those who did felt but a very vague retrospective
interest in his career. In vain Cobbett celebrated
him as “an unflinching advocate for the curtailment of
aristocratical power,” and “the boldest champion of
popular rights.” In vain he gave it clearly to be understood
that Paine did not believe a word of the Old
Testament or the New; nobody, in spite of Cobbett’s
damning encomiums, would care about Paine, or consider
a box of old bones as anything but a bad joke. So that
after vainly offering locks of hair or any particle of the
defunct and exhumed atheist and Republican at a low
price, considering the value of the relics, he let the matter
drop; and, rubbing his hands and chuckling with that
peculiar sardonic smile which I well remember, began to
treat the affair as the world did, and the inestimable fragments
of the disinterred Quaker suddenly disappeared,
and were never heard of more.</p>

<p>But though his stage trick had failed to give him importance,
his sterling unmistakable talent and unflagging<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[340]</a></span>
energy were sufficient to secure him from insignificance.
Cobbett in England, carrying on his <cite>Register</cite>, charlatan
as he might be, unreliable as he had become, was still a
personage and a power. He supplied a sort of writing
which every one read, and which no one else wrote or
could write. People had no confidence in him as a
politician, but, in spite of themselves, they were under
his charm as an author. He was not, however, satisfied
with this; he now pretended to play a higher part than
he had hitherto attempted. In his own estimate of his
abilities&mdash;and perhaps he did not over-rate them&mdash;his
talent as an orator might, under cultivation and practice,
become equal to that which he never failed to display as
a pamphleteer.</p>

<p>A seat in the House of Commons had become then the
great object of his ambition, and with his usual coolness,
which might, perhaps, not unadvisedly be termed impudence,
he told his admirers that the first thing they had
to do, if they wanted reform, was to subscribe 5000<i>l.</i>,
and place the sum in his hands, to be spent as he might
think proper, and without giving an account of it to any
person. “One meeting,” he says, arguing this question&mdash;“one
meeting subscribing 5000<i>l.</i> will be worth fifty
meetings of 50,000 men.”</p>

<p>On the dissolution of Parliament, at the demise of
George III., he pursues the subject. “To you”&mdash;he is
speaking to his partisans&mdash;“I do and must look for
support in my public efforts. As far as the press can
go, I want no assistance. Aided by my sons, I have
already made the ferocious cowards of the London press
sneak into silence. But there is a larger range&mdash;a more
advantageous ground to stand on, and that is the House
of Commons. A great effect on the public mind I have
already produced, but that is nothing to the effect I should
produce in only the next session of June in the House of
Commons; yet there I cannot be without your assistance.”</p>

<p>Coventry was the place fixed on as that which should
have the honour of returning Cobbett to the House of
Commons. Nor was the place badly chosen. In no town<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[341]</a></span>
in England is the class of operatives more powerful, and
by this class it was not unnatural to expect that he might
be elected. The leading men, however, amongst the
operatives, whilst admiring Cobbett, did not respect him.
The Goodes and the Pooles&mdash;men whom I remember in
my time&mdash;said in his day, “He is a man who will assuredly
make good speeches, but nobody can tell what he
will speak in favour of, or what he will speak about.
That he will say and prove that Cobbett is a very clever
fellow, we may be pretty sure; but with respect to every
other subject there is no knowing what he will say or
prove.”</p>

<p>Nor did the story of Paine and his bones do Cobbett
any service with the Coventry electors. Some considered
his conduct in this affair impious, others ludicrous. “I
say, Cobbett, where are the old Quaker’s bones?” was a
question which his most enthusiastic admirers heard put
with an uncomfortable sensation.</p>

<p>He puffed himself in vain. His attempt to enter the
great national council was this time a dead failure, and
clearly indicated that though he might boast of enthusiastic
partisans, he had not as yet obtained the esteem of
an intelligent public. This, however, did not prevent his
announcing not very long afterwards that bronze medals,
which judges thought did justice to his physiognomy,
might be had for a pound apiece&mdash;a price which he
thought low, considering the article. The medals, however,
in spite of their artistic value, and the intrinsic
merit of the person they represented, were not considered
a bargain; and some of Mr. Cobbett’s most devoted friends
observed that they had had already enough of his bronze.
This was preparatory to his starting to contest Preston
(1826). But he was no better treated there than at
Coventry, being the last on the poll, though as usual
perfectly satisfied with himself, notwithstanding a rather
remarkable pamphlet got up by a rival candidate,
Mr. Wood, which placed side by side his many inconsistencies.</p>

<p>Mr. Huish, in a work called “Memoirs of Cobbett,” published
in 1836, states that this singular man now appeared<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[342]</a></span>
in a new character that required no constituents; coming
forth “as a vendor of meat, and weekly assuring his
readers that there never was such mutton, such beef, or
such veal, as that which might be seen in his windows,
an assurance which continued uninterruptedly,” says this
author, “until one inauspicious day, when it was replaced
by the announcement of William Cobbett, butcher, at
Kensington, having become a bankrupt.”<a name="FNanchor_107" id="FNanchor_107"></a><a href="#Footnote_107" class="fnanchor">[107]</a> But this story,
though told thus circumstantially (I have not, for the
sake of brevity, copied the exact words, but in all respects
their meaning), though generally repeated, and apparently
confirmed by other contemporaneous writers, is incorrect;
and we are not to count amongst Cobbett’s eccentricities
that of cutting up carcases as well as reputations.</p>

<h4>IV.</h4>

<p>But whatever the other pursuits Cobbett had indulged
in since his return to England, none had interfered with
those which his literary talents suggested to him.</p>

<p>“A Work on Cottage Economy,” a Volume of Sermons,
“The Woodlands,” “Paper against Gold,” “The Rural
Rides,” “The Protestant Reformation,” were all published
between the years 1820 and 1826. His “Rural Rides,”
indeed, are amongst his best compositions. No one ever
described the country as he did. Everything he says
about it is real. You see the dew on the grass, the
fragrance comes fresh to you from the flowers; you fancy
yourself jogging down the green lane, with the gipsy
camp under the hedge, as the sun is rising; you learn the
pursuits and pleasures of the country from a man who
has been all his life practically engaged in the one, and
keenly enjoying the other, and who sees everything
he talks to you of with the eye of the poet and the
farmer.</p>

<p>“The History of the Protestant Reformation” turned
out a more important production than the author probably
anticipated&mdash;for his chief aim seems to have been to
volunteer a contemptuous defiance to all the religious and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[343]</a></span>
popular feelings in England. The work, however, was
taken up by the Catholics, translated into various languages,
and widely circulated throughout Europe. The
author’s great satisfaction seems to consist in calling
Queen Elizabeth, “Bloody Queen Bess,” and Mary,
“Good Queen Mary,” and he, doubtless, brought forward
much that could be said against the one, and in favour
of the other, which Protestant writers had kept back;
still his two volumes are not to be regarded as a serious
history, but rather as a party pamphlet, and no more racy
and eloquent party pamphlet was ever written. I quote
a passage of which those who do not accept the argument
may admire the composition:</p>

<p>“Nor must we by any means overlook the effects of
these institutions (monastic) on the mere face of the
country. That man must be low and mean of soul who
is insensible to all feeling of pride in the noble edifices of
his country. Love of country, that variety of feelings
which altogether constitute what we properly call patriotism,
consist in part of the admiration of, and veneration
for, ancient and magnificent proofs of skill and opulence.
The monastics built as well as wrote for posterity. The
never-dying nature of their institutions set aside in
all their undertakings every calculation as to time and
age. Whether they built or planted, they set the generous
example of providing for the pleasure, the honour,
the wealth, and greatness of generations upon generations
yet unborn. They executed everything in the very best
manner; their gardens, fishponds, farms, were as near
perfection as they could make them; in the whole of
their economy they set an example tending to make the
country beautiful, to make it an object of pride with the
people, and to make the nation truly and permanently
great.</p>

<p>“Go into any county and survey, even at this day, the
ruins of its, perhaps, twenty abbeys and priories, and then
ask yourself, ‘What have we in exchange for these?’ Go
to the site of some once opulent convent. Look at the
cloister, now become in the hands of some rack-renter the
receptacle for dung, fodder, and fagot-wood. See the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[344]</a></span>
hall, where for ages the widow, the orphan, the aged, and
the stranger found a table ready spread. See a bit of
its walls now helping to make a cattle-shed, the rest
having been hauled away to build a workhouse. Recognise
on the side of a barn, a part of the once magnificent
chapel; and, if chained to the spot by your melancholy
musings, you be admonished of the approach of night by
the voice of the screech-owl issuing from those arches
which once at the same hour resounded with the vespers
of the monk, and which have for seven hundred years
been assailed by storms and tempests in vain; if thus
admonished of the necessity of seeking food, shelter, and
a bed, lift up your eyes and look at the whitewashed and
dry-rotten shed on the hill called the ‘Gentleman’s
House,’ and apprised of the ‘board wages’ and ‘spring
guns,’ which are the signs of his hospitality, turn your
head, jog away from the scene of former comfort and
grandeur; and with old-English welcoming in your mind,
reach the nearest inn, and there, in a room, half-warmed
and half-lighted, with a reception precisely proportioned
to the presumed length of your purse, sit down and listen
to an account of the hypocritical pretences, the base
motives, the tyrannical and bloody means, under which,
from which, and by which, the ruin you have been witnessing
was effected, and the hospitality you have lost
was for ever banished from the land.”</p>

<h4>V.</h4>

<p>The popularity of Mr. Canning had now become a
grievous thorn in Cobbett’s side. That of Mr. Robinson
(afterwards Lord Goderich) had at one time sorely galled
him. But Mr. Robinson’s reputation was on the wane;
the reputation of Mr. Canning, on the contrary, rose
higher every day; and when that statesman, after being
deserted by his colleagues, stood forward as premier of
a new government, being taken up by Sir Francis Burdett,
and many of the Whig leaders, Mr. Cobbett set no bounds
to his choler; and, in company with Mr. Hunt, made at
a Westminster dinner (in 1827) a foolish and ill-timed
display of his usual hostility to the popular feeling.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[345]</a></span></p>

<p>His character, in sooth, was never so low as about this
period, and in 1828, when he offered himself as a candidate
for the place of common councilman (for Farringdon
Without), he did not even find one person who would
propose him for the office.</p>

<p>It is needless to add that he was now an utterly soured
and disappointed man, and in this state the year 1830
found him. The close of that year was more full of
melancholy presage for England than perhaps any which
the oldest man then alive could remember. The success
of the insurrection at Paris had shaken the political foundations
of every state in Europe. Scarcely a courier
arrived without the bulletin of a revolution. The minds
of the intelligent classes were excited; they expected, and
perhaps wished for, some great movement at home, analogous
to those movements which a general enthusiasm
was producing on the Continent. The minds of the
lower classes were brutalized by the effects of a Poor Law
which had taught them that idleness was more profitable
than labour, prostitution than chastity, bad conduct, in
short, than good. Consequently, there was on the one
hand a widely-spread cry for parliamentary reform, and
on the other a general rural insurrection. Amidst this
state of things the ministry of the Duke of Wellington
retired, and Lord Grey’s, composed of somewhat discordant
materials, and with a doubtful parliamentary majority,
took its place. Fires blazed throughout the country;
rumours of plots and insurrections were rife, and the
<cite>Register</cite> appeared with an article remarkable for its
power, and which indirectly excited to incendiarism and
rebellion. The Attorney-General prosecuted it. I had
then just entered Parliament, and ventured to condemn
the prosecution, not because the article in question was
blameless, but because I thought that the period for newspaper
prosecutions by government was gone by, and that
they only excited sympathy for the offender. I was not
wrong in that opinion; for the jury being unable to agree
as to a verdict, Cobbett walked triumphantly out of court,
and having gained some credit by his trial, was shortly
afterwards returned to Parliament for Oldham, being<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[346]</a></span>
at the same time an unsuccessful candidate for Manchester.</p>

<p>The election, however, was less the effect of public
esteem than of private admiration, since the veteran
journalist owed his success mainly to the influence of a
gentleman (Mr. Fielden) who had the borough of Oldham
pretty nearly under his control. Still, it was a success,
and not an inconsiderable one. The ploughboy, the
private of the 54th, after a variety of vicissitudes, had
become a member of the British Legislature. Nor for
this had he bowed his knee to any minister, nor served
any party, nor administered with ambitious interest to
any popular feeling. His pen had been made to serve as
a double-edged sword, which smote alike Whig and Tory,
Pitt and Fox, Castlereagh and Tierney, Canning and
Brougham, Wellington and Grey, even Hunt and Waithman.
He had sneered at education, at philosophy, and
at negro emancipation. He had assailed alike Catholicism
and Protestantism; he had respected few feelings that
Englishmen respect. Nevertheless, by force of character,
by abilities to which he had allowed the full swing of
their inclination, he had at last cut his way, unpatronized
and poor, through conflicting opinions into the great
council chamber of the British nation. He was there,
as he had been through life, an isolated man. He
owned no followers, and he was owned by none. His
years surpassed those of any member who ever came
into Parliament for the first time expecting to take an
active part in it. He was stout and hale for his time of
life, but far over sixty, and fast advancing towards three
score years and ten.</p>

<p>It was an interesting thing to most men who saw him
enter the House to have palpably before them the real,
living William Cobbett. The generation amongst which he
yet moved had grown up in awe of his name, but few had
ever seen the man who bore it.</p>

<p>The world had gone for years to the clubs, on Saturday
evening, to find itself lectured by him, abused by him; it
had the greatest admiration for his vigorous eloquence, the
greatest dread of his scar-inflicting lash; it had been living<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[347]</a></span>
with him, intimate with him, as it were, but it had not seen
him.</p>

<p>I speak of the world’s majority; for a few persons had
met him at county and public meetings, at elections, and
also in courts of justice. But to most members of Parliament
the elderly, respectable-looking, red-faced gentleman,
in a dust-coloured coat and drab breeches with gaiters, was
a strange and almost historical curiosity. Tall and strongly
built, but stooping, with sharp eyes, a round and ruddy
countenance, smallish features, and a peculiarly cynical
mouth, he realized pretty nearly the idea that might have
been formed about him. The manner of his speaking
might also have been anticipated. His style in writing
was sarcastic and easy&mdash;such it was not unnatural to
suppose it might also be in addressing an assembly; and
this to a certain extent was the case. He was still
colloquial, bitter, with a dry, caustic, and rather drawling
delivery, and a rare manner of arguing with facts. To say
that he spoke as well as he wrote, would be to place him
where he was not&mdash;among the most effective orators of his
time. He had not, as a speaker, the raciness of diction,
nor the happiness of illustration, by which he excels as a
writer. He wanted also some physical qualifications unnecessary
to the author, but necessary to the orator, and
which he might as a younger man have naturally possessed
or easily acquired. In short, he could not be at that time
the powerful personage that he might have been had he
taken his seat on the benches where he was then sitting,
when many surrounding him were unknown&mdash;even unborn.
Still, I know no other instance of a man entering the
House of Commons at his age, and becoming at once an
effective debater in it. Looking carelessly round the
assembly so new to him, with his usual self-confidence he
spoke on the first occasion that presented itself, proposing
an amendment to the Address; but this was not his
happiest effort, and consequently created disappointment.
He soon, however, obliterated the failure, and became
rather a favourite with an audience which is only unforgiving
when bored.</p>

<p>It was still seen, moreover, that nothing daunted him;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[348]</a></span>
the murmurs, the “Oh!” or more serious reprehension and
censure, found him shaking his head with his hands in his
pockets, as cool and as defiant as when he first stuck up
the picture of King George in his shop window at Philadelphia.
He exhibited in Parliament, too, the same want
of tact, prudence, and truth; the same egotism, the same
combativeness, and the same reckless desire to struggle with
received opinions, that had marked him previously through
life, and shattered his career into glittering fragments,
from which the world could never collect the image, nor
the practical utility of a whole.</p>

<p>A foolish and out-of-the-way motion, praying his Majesty
to strike Sir Robert Peel’s name off the list of the Privy
Council, for having proposed a return to cash payments in
1819. was his wildest effort and most signal defeat, the
House receiving Sir Robert, when he stood up in his
defence, with a loud burst of cheers, and voting in a
majority of 298 to 4 in his favour.</p>

<p>Cobbett, however, was nothing abashed; for this motion
was rather a piece of fun, in his own way, than anything
serious; and in reality he was less angry with Sir Robert
Peel, on account of his financial measures in 1819, than
on account of his being the most able speaker in Parliament
in 1833.</p>

<h4>VI.</h4>

<p>In the new Parliament elected in January 1835, and
which met on the 19th February, Cobbett was again
member for Oldham. But his health was already much
broken by the change of habits, the want of air, and the
confinement which weighs on a parliamentary life. He
did not, however, perceive this; it was not, indeed, his
habit to perceive anything to his own disadvantage. He
continued his attendance, therefore, and was in his usual
place during the whole of the debate on the Marquis of
Chandos’s motion for a repeal of the Malt Tax, and would
have spoken in favour of the repeal but for a sudden attack
of the throat, to which it is said that he was subject. On
the voting of Supplies, which followed almost immediately
afterwards, he again, notwithstanding his indisposition,
exerted himself, and on the 25th of May persisted in voting<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[349]</a></span>
and speaking in support of a motion on Agricultural
Distress. At last, he confessed he was knocked up, and
retired to the country, where for some little time he seemed
restored. But on the night of the 11th of June, 1835, he
was seized with a violent illness, and on the two following
days was considered in extreme danger by his medical
attendant. He then again rallied, and on Monday, the
15th, talked (says his son in an account of his death,
published on the 20th of June), in a collected and sprightly
manner, upon politics and farming, “wishing for four days’
rain for the Cobbetts’ corn and root crops,” and on
Wednesday could remain no longer shut up from the fields,
but desired to be carried round the farm, and criticised the
work which had been done in his absence. In the night,
however, he grew more and more feeble, until it was
evident (though he continued till within the last half-hour
to answer every question that was put to him) that his
agitated career was drawing to a close. At ten minutes
after one P.M. he shut his eyes as if to sleep, leant back,
and was no more&mdash;an end singularly peaceful for one
whose life had been so full of toil and turmoil.</p>

<p>The immediate cause of his death was water on the
chest. He was buried, according to his own desire, in a
simple manner in the churchyard of Farnham, in the
same mould as that in which his father and grandfather
had been laid before him. His death struck people with
surprise, for few could remember the commencement of
his course, and there had seemed in it no middle and no
decline; for though he went down to the grave an old
man, he was young in the path he had lately started
upon. He left a gap in the public mind which no one else
could fill or attempt to fill up, for his loss was not merely
that of a man, but of a habit&mdash;of a dose of strong drink
which all of us had been taking for years, most of us
during our whole lives, and which it was impossible for
any one again to concoct so strongly, so strangely, with so
much spice and flavour, or with such a variety of ingredients.
And there was this peculiarity in the general
regret&mdash;it extended to all persons. Whatever a man’s
talents, whatever a man’s opinions, he sought the <cite>Register</cite><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[350]</a></span>
on the day of its appearance with eagerness, and read it
with amusement, partly, perhaps, if De la Rochefoucault
is right, because, whatever his party, he was sure to see his
friends abused. But partly also because he was certain to
find, amidst a great many fictions and abundance of impudence,
some felicitous nickname, some excellent piece of
practical-looking argument, some capital expressions, and
very often some marvellously-fine writing,<a name="FNanchor_108" id="FNanchor_108"></a><a href="#Footnote_108" class="fnanchor">[108]</a> all the finer
for being carelessly fine, and exhibiting whatever figure or
sentiment it set forth, in the simplest as well as the most
striking dress. Cobbett himself, indeed, said that “<em>his
popularity was owing to his giving truth in clear
language</em>;” and his language always did leave his meaning
as visible as the most limpid stream leaves its bed. But
as to its displaying truth, that is a different matter, and
would be utterly impossible, unless truth has, at least, as
many heads as the Hydra of fable; in which case our
author may claim the merit of having portrayed them all.</p>

<p>This, however, is to be remarked&mdash;he rarely abused
that which was falling or fallen, but generally that which
was rising or uppermost. He disinterred Paine when his
memory was interred, and attacked him as an impostor
amongst those who hailed him as a prophet. In the heat
of the contest and cry against the Catholics&mdash;whom, when
Mr. Pitt was for emancipating them, he was for grinding
into the dust&mdash;he calls the Reformation a devastation, and
pronounces the Protestant religion to have been established
by gibbets, racks, and ripping-knives. When all London
was yet rejoicing in Wellington hats and Wellington
boots, he asserts “that the celebrated victory of Waterloo
had caused to England more real shame, more real and
substantial disgrace, more debt, more distress amongst the
middle class, and more misery amongst the working class,
more injuries of all kinds, than the kingdom could have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[351]</a></span>
ever experienced by a hundred defeats, whether by sea or
by land.” He had a sort of itch for bespattering with
mud everything that was popular, and gilding everything
that was odious. Mary Tudor was with him “Merciful
Queen Mary;” Elizabeth, as I have already observed,
“Bloody Queen Bess;” our Navy, “the swaggering Navy;”
Napoleon, “a French coxcomb;” Brougham, “a talking
lawyer;” Canning, “a brazen defender of corruptions.”</p>

<p>His praise or censure afforded a sort of test to be taken
in an inverse sense of the world’s opinion. He could not
bear superiority of any kind, or reconcile himself to its
presence. He declined, it is said, to insert quack puffs in
his journal, merely, I believe, because he could not bear to
spread anybody’s notoriety but his own; while he told his
correspondents never to write under the name of subscriber&mdash;it
sounded too much like <em>master</em>. As for absurdity, nothing
was too absurd for him coolly and deliberately to assert: “The
English government most anxiously wished for Napoleon’s
return to France.” “There would have been no national debt
and no paupers, if there had been no Reformation.” “The
population of England had not increased one single soul
since he was born.” Such are a few of the many paradoxes
one could cite from his writings, and which are now
before me.</p>

<p>Neither did his coarseness know any bounds. He called
a newspaper a “cut-and-thrust weapon,” to be used without
mercy or delicacy, and never thought of anything
but how he could strike the hardest. “There’s a fine
Congress-man for you! If any d&mdash;&mdash;d rascally rotten
borough in the universe ever made such a choice as this
(a Mr. Blair MacClenachan), you’ll be bound to cut my
throat, and suffer the <i lang="fr">sans culottes</i> sovereigns of Philadelphia&mdash;the
hob-snob snigger-snee-ers of Germanstown&mdash;to
kick me about in my blood till my corpse is as ugly and
disgusting as their living carcases are.” “Bark away,
hell-hounds, till you are suffocated in your own foam.”
“This hatter turned painter (Samuel F. Bradford), whose
heart is as black and as foul as the liquid in which he
dabbles.”</p>

<p>“It is fair, also, to observe that this State (Pennsylvania)<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[352]</a></span>
labours under disadvantages in one respect that no other
State does. Here is precisely that climate which suits the
vagabonds of Europe; here they bask in summer, and lie
curled up in winter, without fear of scorching in one
season, or freezing in the other. Accordingly, hither they
come in shoals, just roll themselves ashore, and begin to
swear and poll away as if they had been bred to the
business from their infancy. She has too unhappily
acquired a reputation for the mildness or rather the feebleness
of her laws. There’s no gallows in Pennsylvania.
These glad tidings have rung through all the democratic
club-rooms, all the dark assemblies of traitors, all the
dungeons and cells of England, Scotland, and Ireland.
Hence it is that we are overwhelmed with the refuse, the
sweeping, of these kingdoms, the offal of the jail and the
gibbet. Hence it is that we see so many faces that never
looked comely but in the pillory, limbs that are awkward
out of chains, and necks that seem made to be stretched.”</p>

<p>It would be difficult to put together more pithy
sentences, or more picturesque abuse than is set forth in
the scurrilous extracts I have been citing; yet Cobbett’s
virulence could be conveyed in a more delicate way whenever
he thought proper:</p>

<p>“Since then, Citizen Barney is become a French commodore
of two frigates, and will rise probably to the rank
of admiral, if contrary winds do not blow him in the way
of an enemy.”</p>

<p>His mode of commencing an attack also was often
singularly effective from its humour and personality: “He
was a sly-looking fellow, with a hard, slate-coloured
countenance. He set out by blushing, and I may leave
any one to guess at the efforts that must be made to get a
blush through a skin like his.” Again: “Having thus
settled the point of controversy, give me leave to ask you,
my sweet sleepy-eyed sir!”</p>

<p>The following picture is equal to anything ever sketched
by Hogarth, and is called “A Summary of Proceedings of
Congress,” November, 1794:</p>

<p>“Never was a more ludicrous farce acted to a bursting
audience. Madison is a little bow-legged man, at once<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[353]</a></span>
stiff and slender. His countenance has that sour aspect,
that conceited screw, which pride would willingly mould
into an expression of disdain, if it did not find the features
too skinny and too scanty for its purpose. His thin, sleek
air, and the niceness of his garments, are indicative of that
economical cleanliness which expostulates with the shoeboy
and the washerwoman, which flies from the danger of a
gutter, and which boasts of wearing a shirt for three days
without rumpling the frill. In short, he has, take him
altogether, precisely the prim, mean, prig-like look of a
corporal mechanic, and were he ushered into your parlour,
you would wonder why he came without his measure and
his shears. Such (and with a soul which would disgrace
any other tenement than that which contains it) is the
mortal who stood upon his legs, confidently predicting the
overthrow of the British monarchy, and anticipating the
pleasure of feeding its illustrious nobles with his oats.”</p>

<p>Again, let us fancy the following sentences, imitating
what the gentlemen of the United States call “stump
speaking,” delivered with suitable tone and gesture on the
hustings: “The commercial connection between this
country (America) and Great Britain is as necessary as
that between the baker and the miller; while the connection
between America and France may be compared to
that between the baker and the milliner or toyman.
France may furnish us with looking-glasses, but without
the aid of Britain we shall be ashamed to see ourselves in
them; unless the <i lang="fr">sans culottes</i> can persuade us that
threadbare beggary is&mdash;a beauty. France may deck the
heads of our wives and daughters (by the bye, she shan’t
those of mine) with ribbons, gauze, and powder; their
ears with bobs, their cheeks with paint, and their heels
with gaudy parti-coloured silk, as rotten as the hearts of
the manufacturers; but Great Britain must keep warm
their limbs and cover their bodies. When the rain pours
down, and washes the rose from the cheek, when the bleak
north-wester blows through the gauze, then it is that we
know our friends.”</p>

<p>Cobbett’s talent for fastening his claws into anything
or any one, by a word or an expression, and holding them<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[354]</a></span>
down for scorn or up to horror&mdash;a talent which, throughout
this sketch, I have frequently noticed&mdash;was unrivalled.
“Prosperity Robinson,” “Œolus Canning,” “The Bloody
<cite>Times</cite>,” “the pink-nosed <cite>Liverpool</cite>,” “the unbaptized,
buttonless blackguards” (in which way he designated the
disciples of Penn),<a name="FNanchor_109" id="FNanchor_109"></a><a href="#Footnote_109" class="fnanchor">[109]</a> were expressions with which he
attached ridicule where he could not fix reproach, and it is
said that nothing was more teasing to Lord Erskine than
being constantly addressed by his second title of “Baron
Clackmannan.”</p>

<h4>VII.</h4>

<p>I have alluded, at the commencement of this sketch, to
the fact that if the life of Mackintosh was in contradiction
to his instincts, and forced to adapt itself to his wishes or
ideas, that of Cobbett was ruled by his instincts, to which
all ideas and wishes were subordinate. His inclinations
were for bustle and strife, and he passed his whole life in
strife and bustle. This is why the sap and marrow of his
genius show themselves in every line he sent to the press.
But at the same time his career warns us how little talents
of the highest order, even when accompanied by the most
unflagging industry, will do for a man, if those talents and
that industry are not disciplined by stedfast principles
and concentrated upon noble objects. It is not to be
understood, indeed, when I say that a man should follow
his nature, that I mean he should do so without sense or
judgment; your natural character is your force, but it is a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[355]</a></span>
force that you must regulate and keep applied to the track
on which the career it has chosen is to be honourably run.
I would not recommend a man with military propensities
to enter the church; I should say, “Be a soldier, but do
not be a military adventurer. Enlist under a lawful
banner, and fight for a good cause.”</p>

<p>Cobbett acknowledged no banner; and one cannot say,
considering the variety of doctrines he by turns adopted
and discarded, that he espoused any cause. Nor did he
consider himself bound by any tie of private or political
friendship. As a beauty feels no gratitude for the homage
which she deems due to her charms, so Cobbett felt no
gratitude for the homage paid to his abilities. His idea of
himself was that which the barbarian entertains of his
country. Cobbett was Cobbett’s universe; and as he
treated mankind, so mankind at last treated him. They
admired him as a myth, but they had no affection for him
as a person. His words were realities, his principles
fictions.</p>

<p>It may indeed be contended that a predominant idea
ran winding through all the twistings and twinings of his
career, connecting his different inconsistencies together;
and that this was “a hatred for tyranny.” “He always
took his stand,” say his defenders, “with the minority:”
and there is something in this assertion. But there is far
less fun and excitement in fighting a minority, with a
large majority at one’s back, than in coming out, at the
head of a small and violent minority, to defy and attack a
body of greater power and of larger numbers. It was this
fun and excitement which, if I mistake not, were Cobbett’s
main inducements to take the side he took in all the
contests he engaged in, whether against the minister of
the day, or against our favourite daughter of the eighth
Henry, who reigned some centuries before his time. Still
the tendency to combat against odds is always superior to
the tendency to cringe to them, and a weak cause is not
unfrequently made victorious by a bold assertion.</p>

<p>It must be added also, in his praise, that he is always a
hearty Englishman. He may vary in his opinions as to
doctrines and as to men, but he is ever for making<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[356]</a></span>
England great, powerful, and prosperous&mdash;her people
healthy, brave, and free. He never falls into the error of
mistaking political economy for the whole of political
science. He does not say, “Be wealthy, make money, and
care about nothing else.” He advocates rural pursuits as
invigorating to a population, although less profitable than
manufacturing. He desires to see Englishmen fit for war
as well as for peace. There is none of that puling primness
about him which marks the philosophers who would
have a great nation, like a good boy at a private school,
fit for nothing but obedience and books. To use a slang
phrase, there was “a go” about him which, despite all
his charlatanism, all his eccentricities, kept up the national
spirit, and exhibited in this one of the highest merits of
political writing. The immense number of all his publications
that sold immediately on their appearance, sufficiently
proves the wonderful popularity of his style; and it is
but just to admit that many of his writings were as useful
as popular.</p>

<p>A paper written in 1804, on the apprehended invasion,
and entitled “Important Considerations for the People of
this Kingdom,” was placed (the author being unknown) in
manuscript before Mr. Addington, who caused it to be
printed and read from the pulpit in every parish throughout
the kingdom. For many years this paper was attributed
to other eminent men; and it was only when some
one thought of attacking Cobbett as an enemy of his
country, that he confessed the authorship of a pamphlet,
to the patriotism of which every Englishman had paid
homage.</p>

<p>Again, in 1816, the people of the northern and midland
counties being in great distress, attributed their calamities
to machinery, and great rioting and destruction of property
was the consequence. Cobbett came forward to stop these
vulgar delusions. But he knew the nature of the public
mind. It was necessary, in order to divert it from one
idea, to give it another. So, he ridiculed the idea of
distress proceeding from machinery, and attributed it to
misgovernment. Of his twopenny pamphlet, called “A
Letter to Journeymen and Labourers,” 30,000 copies were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[357]</a></span>
sold in a week, and with such advantage that Lord
Brougham, in 1831, asked permission to republish it.
Much in his exaggerations and contradictions is likewise
to be set down to drollery rather than to any serious
design to deceive. I remember the late Lady Holland
once asking me if I did not think she sometimes said
ill-natured things; and on my acquiescing, she rejoined:
“I don’t mean to burn any one, but merely to poke the
fire.” Cobbett liked to poke the fire, to make a blaze;
but in general&mdash;I will not say always&mdash;he thought more
of sport than of mischief.</p>

<p>At all events, this very spirit of change, of criticism, of
combativeness, is the spirit of journalism; and Cobbett
was not only this spirit embodied, but&mdash;and this renders
his life so remarkable in our history&mdash;he represented
journalism, and fought the fight of journalism against
authority, when it was still a doubt which would gain the
day.</p>

<p>Let us not, indeed, forget the blind and uncalculating
intolerance with which the law struggled against opinion
from 1809 to 1822. Writers during this period were
transported, imprisoned, and fined, without limit or conscience;
and just when government became more gentle
to legitimate newspapers, it engaged in a new conflict
with unstamped ones. No less than 500 vendors of
these were imprisoned within six years. The contest was
one of life and death. Amidst the general din of the
battle, but high above all shouts more confused, was heard
Cobbett’s bold, bitter, scornful voice, cheering on the small
but determined band, which defied tyranny without employing
force. The failure of the last prosecution against the
<cite>Register</cite> was the general failure of prosecutions against
the Press, and may be said to have closed the contest in
which government lost power every time that it made
victims.</p>

<p>Such was Cobbett&mdash;such his career! I have only to
add that, in his family relations, this contentious man was
kind and gentle. An incomparable husband, an excellent
father; and his sons&mdash;profiting by an excellent education,
and inheriting, not, perhaps, the marvellous energies, but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[358]</a></span>
a great portion of the ability, of their father&mdash;carry on
with credit and respectability the name of a man, who,
whatever his faults, must be considered by every
Englishman who loves our literature, or studies our history,
as one of the most remarkable illustrations of his very
remarkable time.</p>

<hr />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[359]</a></span></p>

<h2>CANNING, THE BRILLIANT MAN.</h2>

<h3><span class="smcap">Part I.</span><br />
<span class="smaller">FROM BIRTH AND EDUCATION TO DUEL WITH
LORD CASTLEREAGH.</span></h3>

<div class="smaller">

<p>Proper time for writing a biography.&mdash;Mr. Canning born (1770).&mdash;Education
at Eton and Oxford.&mdash;Early literary performances.&mdash;Brought into Parliament
by Mr. Pitt.&mdash;Politics he espoused.&mdash;His commencement as a speaker.&mdash;Writes
for the <cite>Anti-Jacobin</cite>.&mdash;Quits office with Mr. Pitt.&mdash;Opposes Mr.
Addington.&mdash;Returns to office with Mr. Pitt.&mdash;Distinguishes himself in
opposition to “All the Talents.”&mdash;Becomes Minister of Foreign Affairs on
their fall.&mdash;Foreign policy.&mdash;Quarrel with Lord Castlereagh, and duel.</p>

</div>

<h4>I.</h4>

<p>There is no period at which an eminent person is so little
considered, so much forgotten and disregarded, as during
the few years succeeding his decease. His name, no
longer noised above that of others by the busy zeal of his
partisans, or the still more clamorous energies of his opponents,
drops away suddenly, as it were, from the mouths
of men. To his contemporaries he has ceased to be of
importance&mdash;the most paltry pretender to his place is
of more;&mdash;while posterity does not exist for him, until
the dead are distinctly separated from the living; until
the times in which he lived, and the scenes in which he
acted, have become as a distant prospect from which the
eye can at once single out from amidst the mass of
ordinary objects, those which were the memorials of
their epoch, and are to become the beacons of after-generations.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[360]</a></span></p>

<p>The French, who are as fond of putting philosophy into
action as we are coy of connecting theory with practice,
marked out, at one moment, a kind of intermediate space
between the past and the present, the tomb and the
pantheon; but the interval of ten years, which they assigned
for separating the one from the other, is hardly
sufficient for the purpose.</p>

<p>We are, however, now arrived at the period that permits
our considering the subject of this memoir as a character
in history which it is well to describe without further
procrastination. Every day, indeed, leaves us fewer of
those who remember the clearly-chiselled countenance
which the slouched hat only slightly concealed,&mdash;the lip
satirically curled,&mdash;the penetrating eye, peering along the
Opposition benches,&mdash;of the old parliamentary leader in
the House of Commons. It is but here and there that we
find a survivor of the old day, to speak to us of the
singularly mellifluous and sonorous voice, the classical
language&mdash;now pointed into epigram, now elevated into
poesy, now burning with passion, now rich with humour&mdash;which
curbed into still attention a willing and long-broken
audience.</p>

<p>The great changes of the last half-century have,
moreover, created such a new order of ideas and of society,
that the years preceding 1830 appear as belonging to an
antecedent century; and the fear now is&mdash;not that we
are too near, but that we are gliding away too far from
the events of that biography which I propose to sketch.
And yet he who undertakes the task of biographical delineation,
should not be wholly without the scope of the
influences which coloured the career he desires to sketch.
The artist can hardly give the likeness of the face he never
saw, nor the writer speak vividly of events which are
merely known to him by tradition.</p>

<h4>II.</h4>

<p>It is with this feeling that I attempt to say something
of a man, the most eminent of a period at which the
government of England was passing, imperceptibly
perhaps, but not slowly, from the hands of an exclusive<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[361]</a></span>
but enlightened aristocracy, into those of a middle class,
of which the mind, the energy, and the ambition had been
gradually developed, under the mixed influences of a war
which had called forth the resources, and of a peace which
had tried the prosperity, of our country;&mdash;a middle class
which was growing up with an improved and extended
education, amidst stirring debates as to the height to
which the voice of public opinion should be allowed to
raise itself, and the latitude that should be given, in a
singularly mixed constitution, to its more democratic
parts.</p>

<p>Mr. Canning was born on the 11th of April, 1770, and
belonged to an old and respectable family originally resident
in Warwickshire.<a name="FNanchor_110" id="FNanchor_110"></a><a href="#Footnote_110" class="fnanchor">[110]</a> A branch of it, obtaining a
grant of the manor of Garvagh, settled in Ireland in the
reign of James I., and from this branch Mr. Canning
descended; but the misfortunes of his parents placed him
in a situation below that which might have been expected
from his birth.</p>

<p>His father, the eldest of three sons&mdash;George, Paul, and
Stratford&mdash;was disinherited for marrying a young lady
(Miss Costello) without fortune; and having some taste
for literature, but doing nothing at the bar, he died
amidst the difficulties incidental to idle habits and elegant
tastes.</p>

<p>Mrs. Canning, left without resources, attempted the
stage, but she had no great talents for the theatrical
profession, and never rose above the rank of a middling
actress. Her son thus fell under the care of his uncle,
Mr. Stratford Canning, a highly respectable merchant,
and an old Whig, much in the confidence of the leaders
of the Whig party and possessing considerable influence
with them. A small inheritance of 200<i>l.</i> or 300<i>l.</i> a year
sufficed for the expenses of a liberal education, and after
passing through the regular ordeal of a private school,
young Canning was sent to Eton, and subsequently to
Christ Church, Oxford. At Eton no boy ever left behind
him so many brilliant recollections. Gay and high-spirited<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[362]</a></span>
as a companion, clever and laborious as a student,
he obtained a following from his character, and a reputation
from his various successes. This reputation was
the greater from the schoolboy’s triumphs not being
merely those of school. Known and distinguished as
“George Canning,” he was yet more known and distinguished
as the correspondent of “Gregory Griffin;”&mdash;such
being the name adopted by the fictitious editor of the
<cite>Microcosm</cite>, a publication in the style of the <cite>Spectator</cite>, and
carried on solely by Eton lads. In this publication, the
graver prose of the young orator was incorrect and inferior
to that of one or two other juvenile contributors, but some
of his lighter productions were singularly graceful, and it
would be difficult to find anything of its kind superior to
a satirical commentary upon the epic merits of an old
ballad:</p>

<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="verse">“The queen of hearts</div>
<div class="verse">She made some tarts</div>
<div class="verse"><em>All on a summer’s day</em>,” &amp;c<a name="FNanchor_111" id="FNanchor_111"></a><a href="#Footnote_111" class="fnanchor">[111]</a></div>
</div>
</div>

<p>“I cannot leave this line,” says the witty commentator,
“without remarking, that one of the Scribleri, a descendant
of the famous Martinus, has expressed his
suspicions of the text being corrupted here, and proposes,
instead of ‘All on,’ reading ‘Alone,’ alleging, in the
favour of this alteration, the effect of solitude in raising
the passions. But Hiccius Doctius, a High Dutch commentator,
one nevertheless well versed in British literature,
in a note of his usual length and learning, has confuted
the arguments of Scriblerus. In support of the present
reading, he quotes a passage from a poem written about
the same period with our author’s, by the celebrated
Johannes Pastor (most commonly known as Jack
Shepherd), entitled, ‘An Elegiac Epistle to the Turnkey
of Newgate,’ wherein the gentleman declares, that, rather
indeed in compliance with an old custom than to gratify
any particular wish of his own, he is going</p>

<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="verse indent5">“‘<em>All hanged</em> for to be</div>
<div class="verse">Upon that fatal Tyburn tree.’</div>
</div>
</div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[363]</a></span></p>

<p>“Now, as nothing throws greater light on an author
than the concurrence of a contemporary writer, I am inclined
to be of Hiccius’ opinion, and to consider the ‘All’
as an elegant expletive, or, as he more aptly phrases it,
‘elegans expletivum.’”</p>

<p>The other articles to which the boyish talent of the
lad, destined to be so famous, may lay claim, are designated
in the will of the supposed editor, Mr. Griffin
(contained in the concluding number of the <cite>Microcosm</cite>),
which, amongst special bequests assigns to “Mr. George
Canning, now of the college of Eton, all my papers, essays,
&amp;c., signed B.”</p>

<h4>III.</h4>

<p>It is needless to observe that an Eton education is more
for the man of the world than for the man of books. It
teaches little in the way of science or solid learning, but
it excites emulation, encourages and gratifies a love of
fame, and prepares the youth for the competitions of
manhood. Whatever is dashing and showy gives pre-eminence
in that spirited little world from which have
issued so many English statesmen. It developed in
Canning all his natural propensities. He was the show
boy at Montem days with master and student.</p>

<p>“Look, papa,&mdash;there, there;&mdash;that good-looking fellow
is Canning&mdash;such a clever chap, but a horrible Whig. By
Jupiter, how he gives it to Pitt!”</p>

<p>Nor was this wonderful. The youthful politician spent
his holidays with his uncle, who only saw Whigs; and
then, what clever boy would not have been charmed by
the wit and rhetoric of Sheridan&mdash;by the burning eloquence
of Fox?</p>

<p>The same dispositions that had shown themselves at
Eton, carried to Oxford, produced the same distinctions.
Sedulous at his studies, almost Republican in his principles,
the pride of his college, the glory of his debating
society, the intimate associate of the first young men in
birth, talents, and prospects, young Canning was thus
early known as the brilliant and promising young man of
his day, and thought likely to be one of the most distinguished<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[364]</a></span>
of those intellectual gladiators whom the great
parties employed in their struggles for power; struggles
which seemed at the moment to disorder the administration
of affairs, but which, carried on with eloquence and ability
in the face of the nation, kept its attention alive to national
interests, and could not fail to diffuse throughout it a lofty
spirit, and a sort of political education.</p>

<h4>IV.</h4>

<p>From the University Canning went to Lincoln’s Inn.
It does not appear, however, that in taking to the study
of the law he had any idea of becoming a Lord Chancellor.
There was nothing of severity in his plan of life&mdash;he dined
out with those who invited him, and his own little room
was at times modestly lit up for gatherings together of
old friends, who enjoyed new jokes, and amongst whom
and for whom were composed squibs, pamphlets, newspaper
articles, in steady glorification of school and college
opinions, which the Oxonian, on quitting the University,
had no doubt the intention to sustain in the great battles
of party warfare.</p>

<p>But events were then beginning to make men’s convictions
tremble under them; and, with the increasing
differences amongst veteran statesmen, it was difficult to
count on youthful recruits.</p>

<p>At all events, it is about this time that Mr. Canning’s
political career begins. It must be viewed in relation to
the particular state of society and government which then
existed.</p>

<p>From the days of Queen Anne there had been a contest
going on between the two aristocratic factions, “Whig”
and “Tory.” The principles professed by either were
frequently changed. The Tories, such as Sir William
Windham, under the guidance of Bolingbroke, often acting
as Reformers; and the Whigs, under Walpole, often
acting as Conservatives. The being in or out of place
was in fact the chief difference between the opposing
candidates for office, though the Whigs generally passed
for being favourable to popular pretensions, and the Tories
for being favourable to Royal authority.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[365]</a></span></p>

<p>In the meantime public opinion, except on an occasional
crisis when the nation made itself heard, was the opinion
of certain coteries, and public men were the men of those
coteries. It not unfrequently happened that the most
distinguished for ability were the most distinguished for
birth and fortune. But it was by no means necessary
that it should be so. The chiefs of the two conflicting
armies sought to obtain everywhere the best soldiers.
Each had a certain number of commissions to give away,
or, in other words, of seats in Parliament to dispose of.
They who had the government in their hands could count
from that fact alone on thirty or forty. It matters little
how these close boroughs were created. Peers or
gentlemen possessed them as simple property, or as the
effect of dominant local influence. The Treasury controlled
them as an effect of the patronage or employments
which office placed in its hands. A certain number were
sold or let by their proprietors, and even by the Administration;
and in this manner men who had made fortunes
in our colonies or in trade, and were averse to a public
canvass, and without local landed influence, found their
way into the great National Council. They paid their
5000<i>l.</i> down, or their 1000<i>l.</i> a year, and could generally,
though not always, find a seat on such terms. But a
large portion of these convenient entries into the House
of Commons was kept open for distinguished young men,
who gave themselves up to public affairs as to a profession.
A school or college reputation, an able pamphlet, a club,
or county meeting oration, pointed them out. The
minister, or great man who wished to be a minister,
brought them into Parliament. If they failed, they sank
into insignificance; if they succeeded, they worked during
a certain time for the great men of the day, and then
became great men themselves.</p>

<p>This system had advantages, counterbalanced by defects,
and gave to England a set of trained and highly educated
statesmen, generally well informed on all national questions,
strongly attached to party combinations, connected by the
ties of gratitude and patronage with the higher classes,
having a certain contempt for the middle: keenly alive<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[366]</a></span>
to the glory, the power, the greatness of the country, and
sympathising little with the habits and wants of the great
masses of the people.</p>

<p>They had not a correct knowledge of the feelings and
wants of the poor man,&mdash;they understood and shared the
feelings of the gentleman. Bread might be dear or cheap,
they cared little about it; a battle gained or lost affected
them more deeply. A mob might be massacred without
greatly exciting their compassion; but the loss of a
great general or of a great statesman they felt as a
national calamity.</p>

<p>Such were the men who might fairly be called “political
adventurers:” a class to which we owe much of our
political renown, much of our reputation for political
capacity, but which, in only rare instances, won the public
esteem or merited the popular affections. Such were our
political adventurers when Mr. Pitt sent for Mr. Canning,
a scholar of eminence and a young man of superior and
shining abilities, and offered him a seat in the House of
Commons.</p>

<p>The following is the simple manner in which this
interview is spoken of by a biographer of Mr. Canning:<a name="FNanchor_112" id="FNanchor_112"></a><a href="#Footnote_112" class="fnanchor">[112]</a></p>

<p>“Mr. Pitt, through a private channel, communicated
his desire to see Mr. Canning; Mr. Canning of course
complied. Mr. Pitt immediately proceeded, on their
meeting, to declare to Mr. Canning the object of his requesting
an interview with him, which was to state that
he had heard of Mr. Canning’s reputation as a scholar and
a speaker, and that if he concurred in the policy which
the Government was then pursuing, arrangements would
be made to bring him into Parliament.”</p>

<p>The person to whom this offer was made accepted it;
nor was this surprising.</p>

<p>I have already said that events were about this period
taking place, that made men’s convictions tremble under
them; and in fact the mob rulers of Paris had in a few
months so desecrated the name of Freedom, that half of
its ancient worshippers covered their faces with their hands,
and shuddered when it was pronounced.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[367]</a></span></p>

<p>But there were also other circumstances of a more
personal nature, which, now that young Canning had
seriously to think of his entry into public life, had, I have
been assured, an influence on his resolutions.</p>

<p>The first incident, I was once told by Mr. John Allen,
that disinclined Mr. Canning (who had probably already
some misgivings) to attach himself irrevocably to the
Whig camp, was the following one: Lord Liverpool, then
Mr. Jenkinson, had just made his appearance in the
House of Commons. His first speech was highly successful.
“There is a young friend of mine,” said Mr.
Sheridan, “whom I soon hope to hear answering the
honourable gentleman who has just distinguished himself:
a contemporary whom he knows to possess talents not
inferior to his own, but whose principles, I trust, are very
different from his.”</p>

<p>This allusion, however kindly meant, was disagreeable,
said Mr. Allen, to the youthful aspirant to public honours.
It pledged him, as he thought, prematurely; it brought
him forward under the auspices of a man, who, however
distinguished as an individual, was not in a position to be
a patron. Other reflections, it is added, followed. The
party then in opposition possessed almost every man
distinguished in public life: a host of formidable competitors
in the road to honour and preferment, supposing
preferment and honour to be attainable by talent. But
this was not all. The Whig party, then, as always, was
essentially an exclusive party; its preferments were concentrated
on a clique, which regarded all without it as its
subordinates and instruments.</p>

<p>On the other side, the Prime Minister stood almost
alone. He had every office to bestow, and few candidates
of any merit for official employments. Haughty from
temperament, and flushed with power, which he had
attained early and long exercised without control, he had
not the pride of rank, nor the aristocratic attachments for
which high families linked together are distinguished.
His partisans and friends were his own. He had elevated
them for no other reason than that they were his. By
those to whom he had once shown favour he had always<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[368]</a></span>
stood firm; all who had followed had shared his fortunes;
there can be no better promise to adherents.</p>

<p>These were not explanations that Mr. Canning could
make precisely to the Whig leaders, but he had an affection
for Mr. Sheridan, who had always been kind to him, and
by whom he did not wish to be thought ungrateful.
He sought, then, an interview with that good-natured and
gifted person. Lord Holland, Mr. Canning’s contemporary,
was present at it, and told me that nothing could be more
respectful and unreserved than the manner in which the
ambitious young man gave his reasons for the change he
was prepared to make, or had made; nothing more warm-hearted,
unprejudiced, and frank, than the veteran orator’s
reception of his retiring <i lang="fr">protégé’s</i> confession: nor, indeed,
could Mr. Sheridan help feeling the application, when he
was himself cited as an example of the haughtiness with
which “the great Whig Houses” looked down on the
lofty aspirations of mere genius. The conversation thus
alluded to took place a little before Mr. Pitt’s proposals
were made, but probably when they were expected.
Mr. Canning, his views fairly stated to the only person to
whom he felt bound to give them, and his seat in Parliament
secured, placed himself in front of his old friends,
whom Colonel Fitz-Patrick avenged by the following
couplet:</p>

<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="verse">“The turning of coats so common is grown,</div>
<div class="verse indent1">That no one would think to attack it;</div>
<div class="verse">But no case until now was so flagrantly known</div>
<div class="verse indent1">Of a schoolboy turning his jacket.”</div>
</div>
</div>

<h4>V.</h4>

<p>There was little justice in Colonel Fitz-Patrick’s satire.
Nine-tenths of Mr. Fox’s partisans, old and young, were
deserting his standard when Mr. Canning quitted him.
The cultivated mind of England was, as it has been said
in two or three of these sketches, against the line which
the Whig leader persisted to take with respect to the
French Revolution&mdash;even after its excesses; and it is easy
to conceive that the cause of Liberty and Fraternity should
have become unfashionable when these weird sisters were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[369]</a></span>
seen brandishing the knife, and dancing round the guillotine.
Admitting, however, the legitimacy of the horror
with which the assassins of the Committee of Public Safety
inspired the greater portion of educated Englishmen, it is
still a question whether England should have provoked
their hostility; for, after the recall of our ambassador and
our undisguised intention of making war, the Republic’s
declaration of it was a matter of course.</p>

<p>“Where could be the morality,” said Mr. Pitt’s opponents,
“of bringing fresh calamities upon a land which so many
calamities already desolated? Where the policy of concentrating
and consolidating so formidable an internal system
by an act of foreign aggression? And if the struggle we
then engaged in was in itself inhuman and impolitic, what
was to be said as to the time at which we entered upon it?</p>

<p>“The natural motives that might have suggested a
French war, were&mdash;the wish to save an unhappy monarch
from an unjust and violent death; the desire to subdue
the arrogance of a set of miscreants who, before they were
prepared to execute the menace, threatened to overrun the
world with their principles and their arms. If these were
our motives, why not draw the sword, before the Sovereign
whose life we wished to protect had perished? Why
defer our conflict with the French army until, flushed with
victory and threatened with execution in the event of
defeat, raw recruits were changed into disciplined and
desperate soldiers? Why reserve our defence of the
unhappy Louis till he had perished on the scaffold&mdash;our
war against the French Republic until the fear of the
executioner and the love of glory had made a nation
unanimous in its defence? Success was possible when
Prussia first entered on the contest: it was impossible
when we subsidized her to continue it.”</p>

<p>The antagonists of the First Minister urged these
arguments with plausibility. His friends replied, “that
Mr. Pitt had been originally against all interference in
French affairs; that the conflict was not of his seeking;
that the conduct of the French government and the feelings
of the English people had at last forced him into it; that
he had not wished to anticipate its necessity; but that if<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[370]</a></span>
he had, the minister of a free country cannot go to war at
precisely the moment he would select; he cannot guard
against evils which the public itself does not foresee. He
must go with the public, or after it; and the public mind
in England had, like that of the Ministers, only become
convinced by degrees that peace was impossible.</p>

<p>“As to neutrality, if it could be observed when the
objects at stake were material, it could not be maintained
when those objects were moral, social, and religious.</p>

<p>“When new ideas were everywhere abroad, inflaming,
agitating men’s minds, these ideas were sure to find everywhere
partisans or opponents, and to attempt to moderate
the zeal of one party merely gave power to the violence of
the other.</p>

<p>“It was necessary to excite the English people against
France, in order to prevent French principles, as they
were then called, from spreading and fixing themselves in
England.”</p>

<p>Such was the language and such the opinions of
many eminent men with whom Mr. Canning was now
associated, when, after a year’s preliminary silence, he
made his first speech in the House of Commons.</p>

<h4>VI.</h4>

<p>This first speech (January 31, 1794), like many first
speeches of men who have become eminent orators, was
more or less a failure. The subject was a subsidy to
Sardinia, and the new member began with a scoff at the
idea of looking with a mere mercantile eye at the goodness
or badness of the bargain we were making. Such a scoff
at economy, uttered in an assembly which is the especial
guardian of the public purse, was injudicious. But the
whole speech was bad; it possessed in an eminent degree all
the ordinary faults of the declamations of clever young men.
Its arguments were much too refined: its arrangement
much too systematic: cold, tedious, and unparliamentary,
it would have been twice as good if it had attempted half
as much; for the great art in speaking, as in writing,
consists in knowing what should not be said or written.</p>

<p>This instance of ill success did not, however, alienate<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[371]</a></span>
the Premier; for Mr. Pitt, haughty in all things, cared
little for opinions which he did not dictate. In 1795,
therefore, the unsubdued favourite was charged with the
seconding of the address, and acquitted himself with some
spirit and effect.</p>

<p>The following passage may be quoted both for thought
and expression:</p>

<p>“The next argument against peace is its insecurity; it
would be the mere name of peace, not a wholesome and
refreshing repose, but a feverish and troubled slumber,
from which we should soon be roused to fresh horrors and
insults. What are the blessings of peace which make it
so desirable? What, but that it implies tranquil and
secure enjoyment of our homes? What, but that it will
restore our seamen and our soldiers, who have been
fighting to preserve those homes, to a share of that
tranquillity and security? What, but that it will lessen
the expenses and alleviate the burdens of the people?
What, but that it explores some new channel of commercial
intercourse, or reopens such as war had destroyed?
What, but that it renews some broken link of amity, or
forms some new attachment between nations, and softens
the asperities of hostility and hatred into kindness and
conciliation and reciprocal goodwill? And which of all
these blessings can we hope to obtain by a peace, under the
present circumstances, with France? Can we venture to
restore to the loom or to the plough the brave men who
have fought our battles? Who can say how soon some
fresh government may not start up in France, which may
feel it their inclination or their interest to renew hostilities?
The utmost we can hope for is a short, delusive, and
suspicious interval of armistice, without any material
diminution of expenditure; without security at home, or a
chance of purchasing it by exertions abroad; without any
of the essential blessings of peace, or any of the possible
advantages of war: a state of doubt and preparation such
as will retain in itself all the causes of jealousy to other
states which, in the usual course of things, produce remonstrances
and (if these are answered unsatisfactorily) war.”</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[372]</a></span></p>

<h4>VII.</h4>

<p>In 1796, Parliament was dissolved, and Mr. Canning
was returned to Parliament this time for Wendover. He
had just been named Under-Secretary of State for Foreign
Affairs; and it has been usual to refer to this appointment
as a proof of his early parliamentary success. He owed
the promotion, however, entirely to the Prime Minister’s
favour; for though his late speech, better than the preceding
one, had procured him some credit, there was still
a careless impertinence in his manner, and a classical
pedantry in his style, which were unsuitable to the taste
of the House of Commons. Indeed, so much had he to
reform in his manner, that he now remained, by, as it is
said, Mr. Pitt’s advice, silent for three years, endeavouring
during this time to correct his faults and allow them to
be forgotten.</p>

<p>It does not follow that he was idle. The <cite>Anti-Jacobin</cite>,
started in 1797, under the editorship of Mr. Gifford, for
the purpose which its title indicates, was commenced at the
instigation and with the support of the old contributor to
the <cite>Microcosm</cite>, and did more than any parliamentary
eloquence could have done in favour of the anti-Jacobin
cause.</p>

<p>“Must wit,” says Mr. Canning, who had now to contend
against the most accomplished humorists of his day, “be
found alone on falsehood’s side?” and having established
himself as the champion of “Truth,” he brought, no doubt,
very useful and very brilliant arms to her service. The
verses of “New Morality,” spirited, exaggerated, polished,
and virulent, satisfied the hatred without offending the
taste (which does not seem to have been at that time very
refined) of those classes who looked upon our neighbours
with almost as much hatred and disgust as were displayed
in the verses of the young poet; while the “Friend of
Humanity and the Knife-grinder”&mdash;almost too trite to be
quoted, and yet too excellent to be omitted&mdash;will long
remain one of the happiest efforts of satire in our
language:</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[373]</a></span></p>

<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="title">“<span class="smcap">Imitation Sapphics.</span></div>
<div class="title">“THE FRIEND OF HUMANITY AND THE KNIFE-GRINDER.</div>
<div class="speaker">“<i>Friend of Humanity</i>:</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">“Needy Knife-grinder, whither are you going?</div>
<div class="verse">Rough is the road,&mdash;your wheel is out of order;</div>
<div class="verse">Bleak blows the blast,&mdash;your hat has got a hole in’t,</div>
<div class="verse indent5">So have your breeches.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">“Weary Knife-grinder, little think the proud ones,</div>
<div class="verse">Who in their coaches roll along the turnpike</div>
<div class="verse">Road, what hard work ’tis crying all day, ‘Knives and</div>
<div class="verse indent5">Scissors to grind, O!’</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">“Tell me, Knife-grinder, how came you to grind knives?</div>
<div class="verse">Did some rich man tyrannically use you?</div>
<div class="verse">Was it the squire, or parson of the parish,</div>
<div class="verse indent5">Or the attorney?</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">“Was it the squire, for killing of his game? or</div>
<div class="verse">Covetous parson, for his tithes distraining?</div>
<div class="verse">Or roguish lawyer, made you lose your little</div>
<div class="verse indent5">All in a lawsuit?</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">“Have you not read the ‘Rights of Man,’ by Tom Paine?</div>
<div class="verse">Drops of compassion tremble on my eyelids,</div>
<div class="verse">Ready to fall as soon as you have told your</div>
<div class="verse indent5">Pitiful story.</div>
</div>
<div class="speaker">“<i>Knife-Grinder</i>:</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">“Story! God bless you, I have none to tell, sir;</div>
<div class="verse">Only last night, a-drinking at the ‘Chequers,’</div>
<div class="verse">These poor old hat and breeches, as you see, were</div>
<div class="verse indent5">Torn in a scuffle.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">“Constables came up for to take me into</div>
<div class="verse">Custody; they took me before the justice:</div>
<div class="verse">Justice Aldmixon put me in the parish</div>
<div class="verse indent5">Stocks for a vagrant.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">“I should be glad to drink your honour’s health in</div>
<div class="verse">A pot of beer, if you will give me sixpence;</div>
<div class="verse">But, for my part, I never love to meddle</div>
<div class="verse indent5">With politics, sir.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[374]</a></span>
</div>
<div class="speaker">“<i>Friend of Humanity</i>:</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verse">“I give thee sixpence? I’ll see thee damn’d first.</div>
<div class="verse">Wretch, whom no sense of wrong can rouse to vengeance!</div>
<div class="verse">Sordid, unfeeling, reprobate, degraded,</div>
<div class="verse indent5">Spiritless outcast!”</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="verse right">[<i>Exit, kicking over the wheel, in a<br />fit of universal philanthropy.</i>]</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>

<p>An instance of the readiness of Mr. Canning’s Muse
may be here related.</p>

<p>When Frere had completed the first part of the “Loves of
the Triangles,” he exultingly read over the following lines
to Canning, and defied him to improve upon them:</p>

<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="verse">“Lo! where the chimney’s sooty tube ascends,</div>
<div class="verse">The fair Trochais from the corner bends!</div>
<div class="verse">Her coal-black eyes upturned, incessant mark</div>
<div class="verse">The eddying smoke, quick flame, and volant spark;</div>
<div class="verse">Mark with quick ken, where flashing in between,</div>
<div class="verse">Her much-loved <em>smoke-jack</em> glimmers thro’ the scene;</div>
<div class="verse">Mark how his various parts together tend,</div>
<div class="verse">Point to one purpose,&mdash;in one object end;</div>
<div class="verse">The spiral grooves in smooth meanders flow,</div>
<div class="verse">Drags the long chain, the polished axles glow,</div>
<div class="verse">While slowly circumvolves the piece of beef below.”</div>
</div>
</div>

<p>Canning took the pen, and added:</p>

<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="verse">“The conscious fire with bickering radiance burns,</div>
<div class="verse">Eyes the rich joint, and roasts it as it turns.”</div>
</div>
</div>

<p>These two lines are now blended with the original text,
and constitute, it is said, the only flaw in Frere’s title to
the sole authorship of the first part of the poem, from
which I have been quoting: the second and third parts
were both by Canning.</p>

<p>In prose I cite the report of a peroration by Mr. Erskine,
whose egotism could hardly be caricatured, at a meeting of
the Friends of Freedom.</p>

<p>“Mr. Erskine concluded by recapitulating, in a strain
of agonizing and impressive eloquence, the several more
prominent heads of his speech: He had been a soldier,
and a sailor, and had a son at Winchester School; he had
been called by special retainers, during the summer, into<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[375]</a></span>
many different and distant parts of the country, travelling
chiefly in post-chaises; he felt himself called upon to
declare that his poor faculties were at the service of his
country&mdash;of the free and enlightened part of it, at least.
He stood here as a man; he stood in the eye, indeed in
the hand, of God&mdash;to whom (in the presence of the
company, and waiters) he solemnly appealed; he was of
noble, perhaps royal blood; he had a house at Hampstead;
was convinced of the necessity of a thorough and radical
reform; his pamphlet had gone through thirty editions,
skipping alternately the odd and even numbers; he loved
the Constitution, to which he would cling and grapple;
and he was clothed with the infirmities of man’s nature;
he would apply to the present French rulers (particularly
<em>Barras</em> and <em>Reubel</em>) the words of the poet:</p>

<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="verse">“‘<i>Be to their faults a little blind;</i></div>
<div class="verse"><i>Be to their virtues ever kind,</i></div>
<div class="verse"><i>Let all their ways be unconfined,</i></div>
<div class="verse"><i>And clap the padlock on their mind!</i>’</div>
</div>
</div>

<p class="noindent">and for these reasons, thanking the gentlemen who had
done him the honour to drink his health, he should
propose ‘<em>Merlin</em>, the late Minister of Justice, under the
Directory, and Trial by Jury.’”</p>

<p>I refer those who wish to know more of the literary
merits of Mr. Canning to an article, July, 1858, in the
“Edinburgh Review,” in which article the accomplished
writer has exhausted the subject he undertook to treat.</p>

<p>Nor was Mr. Canning’s reputation for wit, at this time,
gained solely by his pen. Living with few, though much
the fashion, who could be more charming in his own
accomplished circle&mdash;when, the pleasant thought lighting
up his eye, playing about his mouth, and giving an indescribable
charm to his handsome countenance, he abandoned
himself to the inspiration of some happy moment,
and planned a practical joke, or quizzed an incorrigible
bore, or related some humorous anecdote? No one’s
society was so much prized by associates; no one’s talents
so highly estimated by friends; and his fame in the drawing-room,
or at the dining-table, was at least as brilliant
as that which he subsequently acquired in the senate.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">[376]</a></span></p>

<p>This, indeed, was the epoch in his life at which perhaps
he had the most real enjoyment; for though he felt
conscious that his success in Parliament had not yet been
complete, the feeling of certainty that it would become so,
now began to dawn upon him, and the triumphs that his
ardent nature anticipated went probably even beyond those
which his maturer career accomplished.</p>

<h4>VIII.</h4>

<p>On the 11th of December, 1798, Mr. Tierney made a
motion respecting peace with the French Republic. The
negotiations at Lille, never cordially entered into, were at
this time broken off. We had formed an alliance with
Russia and the Porte, and were about to carry on the
struggle with new energies, though certainly not under
very encouraging auspices. The coalition of 1792-3 was
completely broken up. Prussia had for three years been
at peace with France; nor had the Cabinet of Vienna
seen any objection to signing a treaty which, disgracefully
to all parties, sacrificed the remains of Venetian liberty.</p>

<p>France, in the meanwhile, distracted at home, had,
notwithstanding, enlarged her empire by Belgium, Luxemburg,
Nice, Savoy, Piedmont, Genoa, Milan, and
Holland. There were many arguments to use in favour
of abandoning the struggle we had entered upon: the
uncertain friendship of our allies; the increased force of
our enemy; and the exhausting drain we were maintaining
upon our own resources. In six years we had added one
hundred and fifty millions to our debt, by which had been
created the necessity of adding to our annual burdens
eight millions, a sum equal to the whole of our expenditure
when George III. came to the throne.</p>

<p>But the misfortunes which attend an expensive contest,
though they necessarily irritate and dissatisfy a people with
war, are not always to be considered irrefutable arguments
in favour of peace. This formed the substance of the
speech which Mr. Canning delivered on Mr. Tierney’s
motion. Defective in argument, it was effective in delivery,
and added considerably to his reputation as a speaker.</p>

<p>In the meantime, our sworn enmity to France and to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[377]</a></span>
French principles, encouraged an ardent inclination to both
in those whom we had offended or misgoverned. The
Directory in Paris and the discontented in Ireland had,
therefore, formed a natural if not a legitimate league. The
result was an Irish rebellion, artfully planned, for a long
time unbetrayed, and which, but for late treachery and
singular accidents, would not have been easily overcome.</p>

<p>Mr. Pitt, taking advantage of the fears of a separation
between Great Britain and the sister kingdom, which this
rebellion, notwithstanding its prompt and fortunate suppression,
had created, announced, in a message from the
Crown, a desire still further to incorporate and consolidate
the two kingdoms. Whatever may have been the result
of the Irish Union, the promises under which it was
passed having been so long denied, so unhappily broken,
there was certainly at this period reason to suppose that it
would afford the means of instituting a fairer and less
partial system of government than that under which
Ireland had long been suffering.</p>

<p>As for the wail which was then set up, and which has
since been re-awakened, for the independent Legislature
which was merged into that of Great Britain, the facility
with which it was purchased is the best answer which can
be given to the assertions made of its value.</p>

<p>The part, therefore, that Mr. Canning adopted on this
question (if with sincere and honest views of conferring
the rights of citizenship on our Irish Catholic fellow-subjects,
and not with the intention, which there is no
reason to presume, of gaining their goodwill and then
betraying their confidence) is one highly honourable to an
English statesman. But another question now arose.
That Catholic Emancipation was frequently promised as
the natural result of the Union, has never been disputed.
As such promises were made plainly and openly in
Parliament, the King could not be supposed ignorant of
them. Why, then, if his Majesty had such insuperable
objections to their fulfilment, did he allow of their being
made? And, on the other hand, how could his Ministers
compromise their characters by holding out as a lure to a
large majority of the Irish people a benefit which they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">[378]</a></span>
had no security for being able to concede? Mr. Canning’s
language is not ambiguous:</p>

<p>“Here, then, are two parties in opposition to each
other, who agree in one common opinion; and surely if
any middle term can be found to assuage their animosities,
and to heal their discords, and to reconcile their jarring
interests, it should be eagerly and instantly seized and
applied. That an union is that middle term, appears the
more probable when we recollect that the Popery code
took its rise after a proposal for an union, which proposal
came from Ireland, but which was rejected by the British
government. This rejection produced the Popery code.
<em>If an union were therefore acceded to, the Popery code
would be unnecessary.</em> I say, if it was in consequence of
the rejection of an union at a former period that the laws
against Popery were enacted, it is fair to conclude that an
union would render a similar code unnecessary&mdash;that an
union would satisfy the friends of the Protestant ascendency,
without passing new laws against the Catholics, and
without maintaining those which are yet in force.”<a name="FNanchor_113" id="FNanchor_113"></a><a href="#Footnote_113" class="fnanchor">[113]</a></p>

<p>The Union, nevertheless, was carried; the mention of
Catholic Emancipation, in spite of the language just
quoted, forbidden. Mr. Pitt (in 1801) retired.</p>

<h4>IX.</h4>

<p>There will always be a mystery hanging over the transaction
to which I have just referred,&mdash;a mystery difficult
to explain in a manner entirely satisfactory to the character
of the King and his minister. One can only presume
that the King was willing to let the Union be carried, on
the strength of the Premier’s promises, which he did not
think it necessary to gainsay until he was asked to carry
them into effect; and that the Minister counted upon the
important service he would have rendered if the great
measure he was bringing forward became law, for the
influence that would be necessary to make his promises
valid. It cannot be denied that each acted with a certain
want of candour towards the other unbecoming their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[379]</a></span>
respective positions, and that both behaved unfairly
towards Ireland. Mr. Pitt sought to give consistency to
his conduct by resigning; but he failed in convincing the
public of his sincerity, because he was supposed to have
recommended Mr. Addington, then Speaker of the House
of Commons, and the son of a Doctor Addington, who had
been the King’s physician (to which circumstance the son
owed a nickname he could never shake off), as his successor;
and Mr. Addington was only remarkable for not
being remarkable either for his qualities or for his defects,
being just that staid, sober sort of man who, respectable in
the chair of the House of Commons, would be almost
ridiculous in leading its debates.</p>

<p>Thus an appointment which did not seem serious, perplexed
and did not satisfy the public mind; more especially
as the seceding minister engaged himself to support the
new Premier, notwithstanding their difference of opinion
on the very question on which the former had left office.
The public did not know then so clearly as it does now
that the King, who through his whole life seems to have
been on the brink of insanity, was then in a state of mind
that rendered madness certain, if the question of the
Catholics, on which he had morbid and peculiar notions,
was persistingly pressed upon him; and that Mr. Pitt
thus, rightly or wrongly, thought it was his duty, after
sacrificing office, to stop short of driving the master he
had so long served into the gloom of despair. This, however,
was a motive that could not be avowed, and consequently
every sort of conjecture became current. Was
the arrangement made on an understanding with the
King, and would Mr. Pitt shortly resume the place he
had quitted? Did Mr. Pitt, if there was no such arrangement,
really mean to retain so incapable a person as Mr.
Addington, at so important a time, at the head of the
Government of England, or was his assistance given merely
for the moment, with the intention of subsequently withdrawing
it?</p>

<p>At first the aid offered to the new Premier by the old
one was effective and ostentatious; but a great portion of
the Opposition began also to support Mr. Addington,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">[380]</a></span>
intending in this way to allure him into an independence
which, as they imagined, would irritate his haughty
friend, and separate the <i lang="fr">protégé</i> from the patron. The
device was successful. The Prime Minister soon began
to entertain a high opinion of his own individual importance,
Mr. Pitt to feel sore at being treated as a simple
official follower of the Government, which he had expected
unofficially to command, and ere long he retired almost
entirely from Parliament. He did not, however, acknowledge
the least desire to return to power.</p>

<p>In this state of things, the conduct of Mr. Canning
seemed likely to be the same as Mr. Pitt’s, but it was not
so. He did not, even for a moment, affect any disposition
to share the partiality which the late First Lord of the
Treasury began by testifying for the new one. Sitting in
Parliament for a borough for which he had been elected
through government influence, his conduct for a moment
was fettered; but obtaining, at the earliest opportunity, a
new seat (in 1802) by his own means&mdash;that is, by his
own money&mdash;he then went without scruple into the most
violent opposition.</p>

<p>His constant efforts to induce Achilles to take up his
spear and issue from his tent, are recorded by Lord
Malmesbury, and though not wholly disagreeable to his
discontented chief, were not always pleasing to him. He
liked, no doubt, to be pointed out as the only man who
could direct successfully the destinies of England, and
enjoyed jokes levelled at the dull gentleman who had
become all at once enamoured of his own capacity; but he
thought his dashing and indiscreet adherent passed the
bounds of good taste and decorum in his attacks, and he
disliked being pressed to come forward before he himself
felt convinced that the time was ripe for his doing so.
Too strong a show of reluctance might, he knew, discourage
his friends; too ready an acquiescence compromise
his dignity, and give an advantage to his enemies.</p>

<p>He foresaw, indeed, better than any one, all the difficulties
that lay in his path. The unwillingness of the
Sovereign to exchange a minister with whom he was at
his ease, for a minister of whom he always stood in awe;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">[381]</a></span>
the unbending character of Lord Grenville, with whom
he must of necessity associate, if he formed any government
that could last, and who, nevertheless, rendered every
difficulty in a government more difficult by his uncompromising
character, his stately bearing, and his many
personal engagements and connections. More than all,
perhaps, he felt creeping over him what his friends did
not see and would not believe&mdash;that premature decrepitude
which consigned him, in the prime of life, to the infirmities
of age. Thus, though he felt restless at being
deprived of the only employment to which he was accustomed,
he was not very eager about a prompt reinstatement
in it, and preferred waiting until an absolute necessity for
his services, and a crisis, on which he always counted,
should float him again into Downing Street, over many obstacles
against which his bark might otherwise be wrecked.</p>

<p>His real feelings, however, were matter of surmise;
many people, not unnaturally, imagined that Mr. Canning
represented them; and the energetic partisan, mixing
with the world, derived no small importance from his
well-known intimacy with the statesman in moody retirement.
His marriage, moreover, at this time with Miss
Joan Scott, one of the daughters of General Scott, and
co-heiress with her sisters, Lady Moray and Lady Titchfield,
brought him both wealth and connection, and gave
a solidity to his position which it did not previously possess.</p>

<h4>X.</h4>

<p>In the meantime the Addington administration went
on, its policy necessarily partaking of the timid and half-earnest
character of the man directing it. Unequal to
the burden and the responsibility of war, he had concocted
a peace, but a peace of the character which Mr. Canning
had previously described: “a peace without security and
without honour:” a peace which, while it required some
firmness to decline, demanded more to maintain, since the
country was as certain to be at first pleased with it as to
be soon ashamed of it. No administration would have
had the boldness to surrender Malta; few would have
been so weak as to promise the cession.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382">[382]</a></span></p>

<p>Indeed, almost immediately after concluding this halcyon
peace, we find the Secretary of War speaking of “these
times of difficulty and danger,” and demanding “an increased
military establishment.” Nor was it long before
an additional 10,000 men were also demanded for our naval
service. On both these occasions Mr. Canning, supporting
the demand of the Minister, attacked the Administration;
and after stating his reasons for being in favour of the especial
measure proposed, burst out at once into an eloquent
exhibition of the reasons for his general opposition:</p>

<p>“I do think that this is a time when the administration
of the Government ought to be in the ablest and fittest
hands. I do not think the hands in which it is now
placed answer to that description. I do not pretend to
conceal in what quarter I think that fitness most eminently
resides. I do not subscribe to the doctrines which have
been advanced, that, in times like the present, the fitness
of individuals for their political situations is no part of the
consideration to which a Member of Parliament may fairly
turn his attention. I know not a more solemn or important
duty that a Member of Parliament can have to
discharge than by giving, at fit seasons, a free opinion
upon the character and qualities of public men. <em>Away
with the cant of measures, not men&mdash;the idle supposition
that it is the harness, and not the horse, that draws the
chariot along.</em> No, sir; if the comparison must be made&mdash;if
the distinction must be taken&mdash;measures are comparatively
nothing, men everything. I speak, sir, of times
of difficulty and danger&mdash;of times when systems are
shaken, when precedents and general rules of conduct fail.
Then it is that not to this or that measure, however
prudently devised, however blameless in execution, but to
the energy and character of individuals a state must be
indebted for its salvation. Then it is that kingdoms rise
and fall in proportion as they are upheld, not by well-meant
endeavours (however laudable these may be), but
by commanding, overawing talent&mdash;by able men. And
what is the nature of the times in which we live? Look
at France, and see what we have to cope with, and consider
what has made her what she is&mdash;a man! You will tell<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">[383]</a></span>
me that she was great, and powerful, and formidable
before the date of Bonaparte’s government&mdash;that he found
in her great physical and moral resources&mdash;that he had
but to turn them to account. True; and he did so.
Compare the situation in which he found France with
that to which he has raised her. I am no panegyrist of
Bonaparte; but I cannot shut my eyes to the superiority
of his talents&mdash;to the amazing ascendency of his genius.
Tell me not of his measures and his policy. It is his
genius, his character, that keeps the world in awe. Sir,
to meet, to check, to curb, to stand up against him, we
want arms of the same kind. I am far from objecting to
the large military establishments which are proposed to
you. I vote for them with all my heart. But, for the
purpose of coping with Bonaparte, one great commanding
spirit is worth them all!”<a name="FNanchor_114" id="FNanchor_114"></a><a href="#Footnote_114" class="fnanchor">[114]</a></p>

<p>Mr. Canning was right. No cant betrays more ignorance
than that which affects to undervalue the qualities
of public men in the march of public affairs. However
circumstances may contribute to make individuals, individuals
have as great a share in making circumstances.
Had Queen Elizabeth been a weak and timid woman, we
might now be speaking Spanish, and have our fates dependent
on the struggle between Prim and Narvaez.
Had James II. been a wise and prudent man,&mdash;instead of
the present cry against Irish Catholics, our saints of the
day would have been spreading charges against the
violence and perfidy of some Puritan Protestant, some
English, or perhaps Scotch, O’Connell. Strip Mirabeau
of his eloquence, endow Louis XVI. with the courage and
the genius of Henry IV., and the history of the last
eighty years might be obliterated.</p>

<p>Mr. Canning, I repeat, was right; the great necessity
in arduous times is a man who inspires other men; and
the satirist, in measuring the two rivals for office, was
hardly wrong in saying:</p>

<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="verse">“<i>As London to Paddington,</i></div>
<div class="verse"><i>So Pitt is to Addington.</i>”</div>
</div>
</div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">[384]</a></span></p>

<h4>XI.</h4>

<p>Well-adapted ridicule no public man can withstand, and
there seems to have been something peculiar to Mr.
Addington that attracted it. Even Mr. Sheridan, his
steady supporter to the last (for the main body of the
Whigs, under Mr. Fox, when they saw a prospect of power
for themselves, uniting with the Grenvillites, went into
violent opposition)&mdash;even Mr. Sheridan, in those memorable
lines:</p>

<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="verse">“I do not love thee, Doctor Fell,</div>
<div class="verse">The reason why I cannot tell;</div>
<div class="verse">But this I know, and know full well,</div>
<div class="verse">I do not love thee, Doctor Fell”:</div>
</div>
</div>

<p class="noindent">quoted in defence of the Minister whom so many attacked
without saying why they disapproved, furnished a nickname
that too well applied to him, and struck the last nail
into the coffin that a mingled cohort of friends and enemies
bore&mdash;a smile on their faces&mdash;to the tomb.</p>

<p>Previous to this, the war, which had been suspended
by mutual bad faith, was recommenced, each party complaining
of the other.</p>

<p><em>The man</em> to whom Mr. Canning had been so long
pointing now came into power, but was not precisely the
man, in spite of Mr. Canning’s eulogium, for the sort of
crisis in which he assumed it. There was, indeed, a
singular contrast in the life of Lord Chatham and that of
his son. The first Pitt was essentially a war minister;
he seemed to require the sound of the clarion and
trumpet and of the guns proclaiming victory from the
Tower, to call forth the force and instincts of his genius.
In peace he became an ordinary person. The second Pitt,
on the contrary, was as evidently a peace minister. In
quiet times his government had been eminently successful.
Orderly, regular, methodical, with a firm and lofty soul,
and the purest motives for his guides, he had carried on
the business of the country, steadily, prudently, and ably&mdash;heedless
of the calumnies of envy, or the combinations
of factions: but he wanted that imagination which
furnishes resources on unexpected occasions. The mighty<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">[385]</a></span>
convulsion which made the world heave under his feet did
not terrify him, but it bewildered him; and nothing could
be more unfortunate, or even more wavering, than his
conduct when he had to deal with extraordinary events.
Still, in one thing he resembled his father&mdash;he had unbounded
confidence in himself. This sufficed for the
moment to give confidence to others; and his stately
figure, standing, in the imagination of the nation, by the
side of Britannia, added to the indomitable courage of our
mariners, and shed a kindred influence over the heroic
genius of their chief. But though Mr. Pitt had in a
supreme degree the talent of commanding the respect of
his followers and admirers, he had not the genial nature
which gives sway over equals; and Mr. Fox had of late
won to himself many eminent persons who by their
opinions and antecedents were more naturally disposed to
join his rival. The Premier felt this difficulty, and being
wholly above jealousy, would have coalesced with Mr.
Fox, and formed a ministry strong in the abilities which
at that critical time were so required. But George III.,
with a narrowness of mind that converted even his good
qualities into defects, said, “Bring me whom you please,
Mr. Pitt, except Fox.” This exception put an end to the
combination in view; for, in spite of Fox’s disinterested
remonstrances, or, perhaps, in consequence of them, none
of his friends would quit his side.</p>

<p>Nevertheless, proud, accustomed to power, careless of
responsibility, defying all opponents, inspiring awe by his
towering person and sonorous voice, as well as by the lofty
tone of his eloquence and the solitary grandeur of his
disposition, alone in front of a stronger phalanx of
adversaries than ever, perhaps, before or since, were
marshalled against a minister,&mdash;Mr. Fox, Mr. Sheridan,
Mr. Windham, the Grenvilles, Mr. Grey, Mr. Tierney&mdash;as
daring and undaunted in appearance as in the first flush
of his youthful glory, stood this singular personage,
honoured even in his present isolation with the public
hopes. But Fortune, which in less eventful moments had
followed, chose this fatal moment for deserting him. In
vain he turned to his most able supporter for assistance;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">[386]</a></span>
that early friend, more unfortunate than himself, stood
disabled, and exposed to a disgraceful impeachment. The
struggle was too severe; it wore out a spirit which nothing
could bend or appal. On the 23rd of January, 1806,
immediately after the news of the fatal battle of Austerlitz,
which chilled the remains of life within him, and on the
anniversary of the day on which, twenty-five years before,
he had been returned to Parliament, Mr. Pitt died.</p>

<h4>XII.</h4>

<p>Lord Grenville and Mr. Fox (the King’s antipathy was
this time overborne by necessity) formed the new Ministry,
in which Lord Sidmouth (late Mr. Addington), who, Mr.
Canning said, “was like the small-pox, since everybody
must have him once in their lives,” was also included.</p>

<p>During the short time that Mr. Canning had lately held
office, his situation as Treasurer of the Navy had invested
him with the defence of Lord Melville, a defence which he
conducted with much tact and ability, and to this his
parliamentary labours had been confined. The employment
of “All the Talents” (as the new Administration, comprising
men of every party, was called) now left him
almost alone amongst the parliamentary debaters in
opposition. This position was a fortunate one.</p>

<p>In the most formidable and successful attacks against
Lord Ellenborough’s seat in the Cabinet, which was
indefensible&mdash;against Mr. Windham’s Limited Service Bill,
of which party spirit denied the merits&mdash;he led the way.
His success on all these occasions was great, and the style
of his speaking now began to show the effects of care and
experience. A less methodic mode of arguing, a greater
readiness in replying, had removed the unprepossessing
impression of previous study; while an artful rapidity of
style permitted that polish of language which is too apt,
when unskilfully employed, to become prolix, monotonous,
and languid. It was this peculiar polish, accompanied by
a studied though apparently natural rapidity, which,
becoming more and more perfect as it became apparently
more natural, subsequently formed the essential excellence
of Mr. Canning’s speaking; for his poetical illustrations<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387">[387]</a></span>
required the charm of his delivery, and his jokes, imitated
from Mr. Sheridan, were rarely so good as their model;
although, even in his manner of introducing and dealing
with these, we may trace, as he advanced, a very marked
improvement.</p>

<p>The coalition between parties at one time so adverse as
those enlisted under the names of Fox, Grenville, and
Addington, could only be maintained by the ascendency of
that master-spirit which had been so long predominant in
the House of Commons. But when Mr. Fox undertook
the arduous duties of the Foreign Office, his health (that
treasure which statesmen often spend with improvidence,
and which he had wasted more than most men) was already
beginning to fail, rendering heavy the duties of public life;
and in 1806&mdash;while our diplomacy at Paris was making a
last attempt to effect that honourable peace which had so
long been the object of the worn-out minister’s desires&mdash;that
great statesman, whose generous and noble heart
never deceived him, but whose singular capacity in debate
was often marred by a remarkable want of judgment
in action, followed his haughty predecessor to an untimely
grave.</p>

<p>The Grenville Administration, after the death of Mr
Fox, was no more the former Administration of Lord
Grenville than the mummy, superstitiously presumed to
preserve the spirit of the departed, is the real living body
of the person who has been embalmed. It avoided, however,
the ignominy of a natural death, by being the first
Administration which, according to Mr. Sheridan, “not
only ran its head against a wall, but actually built a wall
for the purpose of running its head against it.” This
instrument of suicide was the well-known bill “for securing
to all his Majesty’s subjects the privilege of serving in the
Army and Navy.” A measure which, by permitting Irish
Catholics to hold a higher military rank than the law at
that time allowed them, showed the Whig government to
be true to its principles, but without tact or ability in
carrying them out; for this bill, brought forward honourably
but unadvisedly, withdrawn weakly, alarming many,
and never granting much, dissatisfied the Catholics,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">[388]</a></span>
angered the Protestants, and gave the King the opportunity
of sending a ministry he disliked about their
business, on a pretext which there was sufficient bigotry in
the nation to render popular. A dissolution amidst the
yell of “No Popery!” took place; and it was by this cry
that the party with which Mr. Canning now consented to
act reinstalled itself in power.</p>

<h4>XIII.</h4>

<p>A person well qualified to know the facts of that time,
once told me that, not very long before the dissolution of
the Ministry to which he succeeded, at a time certainly
when that dissolution was not so apparent, Mr. Canning
had privately conveyed to Lord Grenville, who had
previously made him an offer, his wish to secede from
opposition, and had even received a promise that a suitable
place (Mr. Windham’s dismissal was at that time arranged)
should be reserved for him. Reminded of this when
affairs had become more critical, he is said to have
observed, “it was too late.” Whatever may be the truth
as to this story&mdash;and such stories are rarely accurate in all
their details&mdash;one thing is certain, the brilliant abilities
of the aspiring orator, though then and afterwards depreciated
by the dull mediocrity which affects to think wit
and pleasantry incompatible with the higher and more
serious attributes of genius, now became apparent, and
carried him through every obstacle to the most important
political situation in the country.</p>

<p class="center">LIST OF MINISTERS.</p>

<table summary="List of ministers in March and in April, 1807" id="ministers">
  <tr>
    <th class="top"></th>
    <th class="top">In March, 1807.</th>
    <th class="top last-col">In April, 1807.</th>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>President of the Council</td>
    <td>Viscount Sidmouth</td>
    <td class="last-col">Earl Camden.</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>Lord High Chancellor</td>
    <td>Lord Erskine</td>
    <td class="last-col">Lord Eldon.</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>Lord Privy Seal</td>
    <td>Lord Holland</td>
    <td class="last-col">Earl of Westmoreland.</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>First Lord of the Treasury</td>
    <td>Lord Grenville</td>
    <td class="last-col">Duke of Portland.</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>First Lord of the Admiralty</td>
    <td>Right Hon. T. Grenville</td>
    <td class="last-col">Lord Mulgrave.</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>Master-General of the Ordnance</td>
    <td>Earl of Moira</td>
    <td class="last-col">Earl of Chatham.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">[389]</a></span></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>Secretary of State for the Home Office</td>
    <td>Earl Spencer</td>
    <td class="last-col">Lord Hawkesbury (afterwards Lord Liverpool).</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs</td>
    <td>Lord Howick</td>
    <td class="last-col">Mr. Canning.</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>Secretary for War and the Colonies</td>
    <td>Right Hon. W. Windham</td>
    <td class="last-col">Lord Castlereagh.</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>President of the Board of Trade</td>
    <td>Lord Auckland</td>
    <td class="last-col">Earl Bathurst.</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>Lord Chief Justice</td>
    <td>Lord Ellenborough.</td>
    <td class="last-col"></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>Chancellor of the Exchequer</td>
    <td>Lord H. Petty (afterwards Marquis of Lansdowne)</td>
    <td class="last-col">Hon. Spencer Perceval.</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="bottom">A seat in the Cabinet without office</td>
    <td class="bottom">Earl Fitzwilliam.</td>
    <td class="bottom last-col"></td>
  </tr>
</table>

<p>It is remarkable enough that in the Whig or popular
cabinet there was only one person (Mr. Windham)&mdash;a
gentleman of great landed property, as well as of remarkable
ability&mdash;who was not a lord or a lord’s son. In
the Tory cabinet Mr. Canning formed the only similar
exception.</p>

<p>The principles on which the new Government stood in
respect to the Irish Catholics were soon put to the test by
Mr. Brand, afterwards Lord Dacre, who moved:</p>

<p>“That it is contrary to the first duties of the confidential
servants of the Crown to restrain themselves by
any pledge, expressed or implied, from offering to the King
any advice which the course of circumstances may render
necessary for the welfare and security of any part of his
Majesty’s extensive empire.”</p>

<p>This motion was caused by the King having required
the late Government to pledge itself not to bring forward
any future measure of Catholic relief, and having dismissed
it when it refused thus to fetter its judgment.</p>

<p>Mr. Canning rose amidst an unwilling audience. The
imputations to which his early change of principles had
exposed him were rather vividly confirmed by the recklessness
with which he now appeared to be rushing into office<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">[390]</a></span>
amongst colleagues he had lately professed to despise, and
in support of opinions to which he was known to be
opposed. The House received him coldly, and with cries
of “Question,” as he commenced an explanation or defence,
marked by a more than usual moderation of tone and
absence of ornament. The terms on which he had been
with the former Administration were to a great degree
admitted in the following passage:</p>

<p>“For myself, I confidently aver that on the first intimation
which I received, from authority I believed to be
unquestionable, of the strong difference of opinion subsisting
between the King and his Ministers, I took the determination
of communicating what I had learnt, and I
did communicate it without delay to that part of the late
Administration with which, in spite of political differences,
I had continued, and with which, so far as my own feelings
are concerned, I still wish to continue in habits of personal
friendship and regard. I communicated it, with the most
earnest advice and exhortation, that they should lose no
time in coming to such an explanation and accommodation
on the subject at issue as should prevent matters from
going to extremities.”</p>

<p>This statement, it is acknowledged, was perfectly
correct; but it leaves untouched the tale just alluded to,
and which represented the Minister, who was then making
his explanations, as having been ready to join an Administration
favourable to the Catholic claims, previous to his
joining an Administration hostile to those claims. But
though I have related this tale as I heard it, I do not
pretend to vouch for its accuracy. But without denying
or vouching for the truth of this tale (though the
authority on which it rests is highly respectable), I may
observe, it may be said that “no coalition can take
place without previous compromise or intrigue,” and that
almost every Administration is formed or supported by
coalition.</p>

<p>How, indeed, had the Administration which now gave
way been originally composed? Of Mr. Windham, the
loudest declaimer for war; of Mr. Fox, the most determined
advocate of peace; of Lord Sidmouth, the constant<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">[391]</a></span>
subject of ridicule to both Mr. Windham and Mr. Fox.
There was Mr. Sheridan, the champion of annual Parliaments;
Lord Grenville, opposed to all reform! Besides,
it was at that time accepted as an axiom by a large number
of the supporters of the Catholics, that the Sovereign’s
health created a justifiable reason for leaving the Catholic
question in abeyance, and that the attempt to push it
forward at an untimely moment would not really tend to
its success.</p>

<p>Nor did Lord Castlereagh, who had always shown
himself an honest champion of the Catholic cause, evince
more scruples on this matter than the new Foreign
Secretary. But if Mr. Canning’s friends made excuses
for him, Mr. Canning himself, always saying “that a
thrust was the best parry,” felt more disposed to attack
the enemy than to defend himself; and many of the
political squibs which turned the incapable Administration
of “All the Talents” into ridicule, were attributed to
his satirical fancy. From 1807 to 1810, he remained in
office.</p>

<h4>XIV.</h4>

<p>The period just cited was marked by our interference
in Spain, our attack on Copenhagen, and that expedition
to the Scheldt, which hung during two years over
the debates in Parliament, like one of the dull fogs of that
river.</p>

<p>Our foreign policy, though not always fortunate, could
no longer at least be accused of want of character and
vigour. As to the intervention in Spain, though marked
by the early calamity of Sir John Moore, it was still
memorable for having directed the eye of our nation to the
vulnerable point in that Colossus whom our consistency and
perseverance finally brought to the ground.</p>

<p>The Danish enterprise was of a more doubtful character,
and can only be judged of fairly by carrying our minds
back to the moment at which it took place. That moment
was most critical; every step we took was of importance.
Before the armies of France, and the genius of her ruler,
lay the vanquished legions of the north and south of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">[392]</a></span>
Germany. From the House of Hapsburg the crown of
Charlemagne was gone; while the throne of the Great
Frederick was only yet preserved in the remote city of
Königsberg. In vain Russia protracted an inauspicious
struggle. The battle of Friedland dictated peace. There
remained Sweden, altogether unequal to the conflict in
which she had plunged: Denmark protected by an evasive
neutrality, which it was for the interest of neither contending
party to respect. On the frontiers of Holstein, incapable
of defence, hung the armies of France. Zealand
and Funen, indeed, were comparatively secure, but people
do not willingly abandon the most fertile of their possessions,
or defy an enemy because there are portions
of their territory which will not sink before the first
attack.</p>

<p>Ministers laid some stress on their private information,
and it is said that Sir R. Wilson, returning, perhaps it
may be said escaping, with extraordinary diligence from
Russia after the Peace of Tilsit, brought undeniable
intelligence as to the immediate intentions of our new
allies. But private information was useless. We do not
want to know what a conqueror intends to do, when we
know what his character and interests imperatively direct
him to do. It would have been absurd, indeed, not to
foresee that Napoleon could not rest in neutral neighbourhood
on the borders of a country, the possession of which,
whether under the title of amity or conquest, was eminently
essential to his darling continental system, since through
Tonningen were passed into Germany our manufactures
and colonial produce. Had this, indeed, been disputable
before the famous decree of the 21st of November,<a name="FNanchor_115" id="FNanchor_115"></a><a href="#Footnote_115" class="fnanchor">[115]</a> that
decree removed all doubts.</p>

<p>Denmark, then, had no escape from the mighty war
raging around her, and had only to choose between the
tyrant of the Continent or the mistress of the seas. If she
declared against us, as it was likely she would do, her
navy, joined to that of Russia, and, as it soon would be, to
that of Sweden, formed a powerful force&mdash;not, indeed, for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393">[393]</a></span>
disputing the empire of the ocean; there we might safely
have ventured to meet the world in arms; but for assisting
in those various schemes of sudden and furtive invasion
which each new continental conquest encouraged and
facilitated&mdash;encompassed, as we became, on all sides by
hostile shores. But if the neutrality of the Danes was
impossible, if their fleet, should they become hostile to us,
might add materially to our peril, was it wrong to make
them enter frankly into our alliance, if that were possible,
or to deprive them of their worst means of mischief, if
they would not?</p>

<p>After all, what did we say to Denmark?&mdash;“You cannot
any longer retain a doubtful position; you must be
for us, or we must consider you against us. ‘<em>If a friend,
you may count on all the energy and resources of Great
Britain.</em>’” Denmark had offered to sell a large portion
of her marine to Russia, and we offered to purchase it
manned. It was required, she said, to defend Zealand;
we offered to defend Zealand for her.</p>

<p>But our negotiation failed, and finally we seized, as belonging
to a power which was certain to become an enemy,
the ships with which she refused to aid us as an ally. A
state must be in precisely similar circumstances before it
can decide whether it ought to do precisely a similar
thing.</p>

<p>Some blamed our conduct as unjust, whilst others
praised it as bold. What perhaps may be said is, that if
unjust at all, it was not bold enough. War once commenced,
Zealand should have been held; the stores and
supplies in the merchant docks not left unnoticed; the
passage of the Sound kept possession of. In short, our
assault on Copenhagen should have been part of a permanent
system of warfare, and not suffered to appear a
mere temporary act of aggression.</p>

<p>Still it showed in the Minister who planned and stood
responsible for it, three qualities, by no means common:
secrecy, foresight and decision.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394">[394]</a></span></p>

<h4>XV.</h4>

<p>But if our conduct towards the Danes admits of defence,
luckily for Mr. Canning the odium of that miserable expedition
against Holland&mdash;in which</p>

<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="verse">“Lord Chatham, with his sword undrawn,</div>
<div class="verse">Stood waiting for Sir Richard Strachan;</div>
<div class="verse">Sir Richard, longing to be at ’em,</div>
<div class="verse">Stood waiting for the Earl of Chatham;”</div>
</div>
</div>

<p class="noindent">an expedition equally disgraceful to ministers and commanders&mdash;fell
chiefly on his colleague, who had originated
and presided over it, having himself been present at the
embarkation.</p>

<p>It is necessary here to say a word or two concerning
that statesman, who, though agreeing with Mr. Canning
upon the principal question of their time, was never
cordially united with him. Lord Castlereagh joined to
great boldness in action,&mdash;great calm and courtesy of
manner, long habits of official routine, and a considerable
acquaintance with men collectively and individually. He
lived in the world, and was more essentially a man of the
world than his eloquent contemporary; but, on the other
hand, he was singularly deficient in literary accomplishments,
and this deficiency was not easily pardoned in an
assembly, the leading members of which had received a
classical education, and were as intolerant to an ungrammatical
phrase as to a political blunder. His language&mdash;inelegant,
diffuse, and mingling every variety of metaphorical
expression&mdash;was the ridicule of the scholar. Still
the great air with which he rose from the Treasury Bench,
threw back his blue coat, and showed his broad chest and
white waistcoat, looking defiance on the ranks of the Opposition,
won him the hearts of the rank and file of the
government adherents. In affairs, he got through the
details of office so as to satisfy forms, but not so as to produce
results: for if the official men who can manufacture
plans on paper are numerous, the statesmen who can give
them vitality in action are rare; and Lord Castlereagh
was not one of them.</p>

<p>There was never, as I have just said, any great cordiality<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">[395]</a></span>
or intimacy between two persons belonging to the
same party and aspiring equally to play the principal part
in it. The defects of each, moreover, were just of that
kind that would be most irritating to the eye of the other;
but they would probably have gone on rising side by side,
if they had not now been thrown together and almost
identified in common action. The success of most of Mr.
Canning’s schemes as Minister of Foreign Affairs depended
greatly upon the skill with which Lord Castlereagh, as
Minister of War, carried them into execution; any error of
the latter affected the reputation of the former; thus the
first difficulty was sure to produce a quarrel. Mr. Canning
indeed was constantly complaining that every project
that was conceived by the Foreign Office miscarried when
it fell under the care of the War Office; that all the gold
which he put into his colleague’s crucible came out, somehow
or other, brass; and these complaints were the more
bitter, since, involuntarily influenced by his rhetorical
predilections, he could not help exaggerating the consequences
of mistakes in conduct, which were aggravated by
mistakes in grammar.</p>

<p>Nevertheless, wishing, very probably, to avoid a public
scandal, he merely told the head of the Government
privately that a change must take place in the Foreign or
in the War Department, and, after some little hesitation,
the removal of Lord Castlereagh was determined on; but
some persons from whom, perhaps, that statesman had no
right to expect desertion, anxious to keep their abandonment
of him concealed as long as possible, requested delay;
and the Duke of Portland, a man of no resolution, not
daring to consent to the resignation of one of the haughty
gentlemen with whom he had to deal, was glad to defer
the affront that it was intended to put on to the other.
Such being the state of things, Mr. Canning was prevailed
upon to allow the matter to stand over for a while, receiving
at the same time the most positive assurances as to
his request being finally complied with. At the end of
the session and the conclusion of the enterprise (against
Flushing) already undertaken, some arrangement was to
be proposed, “satisfactory, it was hoped, to all parties.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">[396]</a></span>
Such is the usual hope of temporising politicians. But, in
the meantime, the Secretary of War was allowed to suppose
that he carried into the discharge of the duties of his
high post, all the confidence and approbation of the Cabinet.</p>

<p>This was not a pleasant state of things to discover in
the moment of adversity; when the whole nation felt itself
disgraced at the pitiful termination of an enterprise which
had been very lavishly prepared and very ostentatiously
paraded. Yet such was the moment when Mr. Canning,
fatigued at the Premier’s procrastination, disgusted by the
calamity which he attributed to it, and resolved to escape,
if possible, from a charge of incapacity, beneath which the
whole Ministry was likely to be crushed, threw up his appointment,
and the unfortunate Secretary of War learnt
that for months his abilities had been distrusted by a
majority of the Cabinet in which he sat, and his situation
only provisionally held on the ill-extorted acquiescence of
a man he did not like, and who underrated and disliked
him. His irritation vented itself in a letter which produced
a duel&mdash;a duel that Mr. Canning was not justly
called upon to fight; for all that he had done was to postpone
a decision he had a perfect right to adopt, and which
he deferred expressly in order to spare Lord Castlereagh’s
feelings and at the request of Lord Castlereagh’s friends.
But the one of these gentlemen was quite as peppery and
combative as the other, though it appeared he was not
quite so good a shot, for Mr. Canning missed his opponent
and received a disagreeable wound, though not a dangerous
one; the final result of the whole affair being the resignation
of the Premier and of the two Secretaries of State,
the country paying twenty millions (the cost of the late
barren attempt at glory) because the friends of a minister
had shrunk from saying anything unpleasant to him until
he was prostrate.</p>

<hr />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">[397]</a></span></p>

<h3><span class="smcap">Part II.</span><br />
<span class="smaller">FROM MR. PERCEVAL’S ADMINISTRATION TO ACCEPTANCE OF
THE GOVERNOR-GENERALSHIP OF INDIA.</span></h3>

<div class="smaller">

<p>Mr. Perceval, Prime Minister.&mdash;Lord Wellesley, Minister of Foreign Affairs.&mdash;King’s
health necessitates regency.&mdash;The line taken by Mr. Canning upon it.&mdash;Conduct
with respect to Mr. Horner’s Finance Committee.&mdash;Absurd resolution
of Mr. Vansittart.&mdash;Lord Wellesley quits the Ministry.&mdash;Mr. Perceval
is assassinated.&mdash;Mr. Canning and Lord Wellesley charged to form a new
Cabinet, and fail.&mdash;Further negotiations with Lords Grey and Grenville fail.&mdash;Lord
Liverpool becomes head of an Administration which Mr. Canning declines
to join.&mdash;Accepts subsequently embassy to Lisbon, and, in 1816, enters the
Ministry.&mdash;Supports coercive and restrictive measures.&mdash;Resigns office at home
after the Queen’s trial, and accepts the Governor-Generalship of India.</p>

</div>

<h4>I.</h4>

<p>A new Administration brought Lord Wellesley to the
Foreign Office, and Mr. Perceval to the head of affairs.</p>

<p>In 1810 the state of the King’s health came once more
before the public. Parliament met in November; the
Sovereign was this time admitted by his courtiers to be
unmistakedly insane. A commission had been appointed,
but there was no speech with which to address the
Houses; no authority to prorogue them. Mr. Perceval
moved certain resolutions. These resolutions were important,
for they furnished a text for debate, and settled the
question so much disputed in 1788-9, deciding (for no one
was found to take up the old and unpopular arguments of
Mr. Fox) that Parliament had the disposal of the Regency;
and that the Heir-apparent, without the sanction of the
Legislature, had no more right to it than any other individual.
These first resolutions were followed by others,
expressive of a determination to confer the powers of the
Crown on the Prince of Wales, but not without restrictions.
Here arose a new question, and of this question Mr.
Canning availed himself. Interest and consistency alike
demanded that he should stand fast to the traditions of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_398" id="Page_398">[398]</a></span>
Mr. Pitt, whose name was still the watchword of a considerable
party. But Mr. Pitt had alike contended for
the right of Parliament to name the Regent, and for the
wisdom of fettering the Regency by limitations. Whereas
Mr. Canning, though advocating the powers of Parliament
to name the Regent, was not in favour of limiting the
Regent’s authority. Through these confronting rocks the
wary statesman steered with the skill of a veteran pilot:<a name="FNanchor_116" id="FNanchor_116"></a><a href="#Footnote_116" class="fnanchor">[116]</a></p>

<p>“The rights of the two Houses,” said he, “were proclaimed
and maintained by Mr. Pitt; that is the point on
which his authority is truly valuable. The principles
upon which this right was affirmed and exercised are true
for all times and all occasions. If they were the principles
of the Constitution in 1788, they are equally so in 1811;
the lapse of twenty-two years had not impaired, the lapse
of centuries could not impair them. But the mode in
which the right so asserted should be exercised, the precise
provisions to be framed for the temporary substitution of
the executive power&mdash;these were necessarily then, as they
must be now, matters not of eternal and invariable principle,
but of prudence and expediency. In regard to these,
therefore, the authority of the opinion of any individual,
however great and wise and venerable, can be taken only
with reference to the circumstances of the time in which
he has to act, and are not to be applied without change or
modification to other times and circumstances.”<a name="FNanchor_117" id="FNanchor_117"></a><a href="#Footnote_117" class="fnanchor">[117]</a></p>

<h4>II.</h4>

<p>Thus, all that partisanship could demand in favour of
an abstract principle, was religiously accorded to the
<i lang="la">manes</i> of the defunct statesman; and a difference as wide
as the living Prince of Wales could desire, established
between the theory that no one any longer disputed, and
the policy which was the present subject of contention.
Here Mr. Canning acted with tact and foresight if he
merely acted as a political schemer. The Royal personage
on whom power was about to devolve had always expressed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_399" id="Page_399">[399]</a></span>
the strongest dislike, not to say disgust, at any abridgment
of the Regal authority. He was likely to form a new
Administration. The Whigs, it is true, were then
considered the probable successors to power; but the
Whigs would want assistance; and subsequent events
showed that a general feeling had begun to prevail in
favour of some new combination of men less exclusive than
could be found in the ranks of either of the extreme and
opposing parties. But it is fair to add that the course
which Mr. Canning might have taken for his private
interest, he had every motive to take for the public
welfare.</p>

<p>Beyond the personal argument of the sick King’s convenience&mdash;an
argument which should hardly guide the
policy or affect the destinies of a mighty kingdom&mdash;Mr.
Perceval had not, for the restrictions he proposed, one
reasonable pretext. It might, indeed, be agreeable to
George III., if he recovered from his sad condition, to find
things and persons as he had left them; and to recognise
that all the functions of Government had been palsied
since the suspension of his own power. But if ever the
hands of a sovereign required to be strongly armed, it was
most assuredly in those times. They were no times of
ease or peace in which a civilized people may be said to
govern themselves; neither were we merely at war. The
war we were waging was of life or death; the enemy with
whom we were contending concentrated in his own mind,
and wielded with his own hand, all the force of Europe.
This was not a moment for enfeebling the Government
that had to contend against him. The power given to the
King or Regent in our country is not, let it be remembered,
an individual and irresponsible power. It is a
National power devolving on responsible Ministers, who
have to account to the nation for the use they make of it.</p>

<p>“What,” said Mr. Canning (having assumed and asserted
the right of the two Houses of Parliament to supply
the incapacity of the sovereign)&mdash;“what is the nature of
the business which through incapacity stands still, and
which we are to find the means of carrying on? It is the
business of a mighty state. It consists in the exercise o£<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_400" id="Page_400">[400]</a></span>
functions as large as the mind can conceive&mdash;in the regulation
and direction of the affairs of a great, a free, and a
powerful people: in the care of their internal security and
external interests; in the conduct, of foreign negotiations;
in the decision of the vital questions of peace and war;
and in the administration of the Government throughout
all the parts, provinces, and dependencies of an empire
extending itself into every quarter of the globe. This is
the awful office of a king; the temporary execution of
which we are now about to devolve upon the Regent.
What is it, considering the irresponsibility of the Sovereign
as an essential part of the Constitution,&mdash;what is it
that affords a security to the people for the faithful exercise
of these all-important functions? The responsibility
of Ministers. What are the means by which these functions
operate? They are those which, according to the
inherent imperfection of human nature, have at all times
been the only motives to human actions, the only control
upon them of certain and permanent operation, viz., the
punishment of evil, and the reward of merit. Such, then,
being the functions of monarchical government, and such
being the means of rendering them efficient to the purposes
of good government, are we to be told that in providing
for its delegation, while it is not possible to curtail
those powers which are in their nature harsh and unpopular,
it is necessary to abridge those milder, more amiable
and endearing prerogatives which bear an aspect of grace
and favour towards the subject?”</p>

<h4>III.</h4>

<p>There was no answer to Mr. Canning, but a very
practical one. Mr. Perceval thought that the King would
shortly recover and keep him in office&mdash;and that the
Regent, if his Royal Highness had but the power, would
forthwith turn him out of it. Such an argument might
satisfy a more scrupulous minister. In vain, therefore,
was it urged, “If the powers of a monarch are not
necessary now, they are never necessary. In consulting
the possible feelings of the sick King, you are injuring the
certain interests of kingly authority.”</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_401" id="Page_401">[401]</a></span></p>

<p>The passions or interests of a faction will ever ride high
over its principles; and for a second time within half a
century the theory of monarchy received the greatest
practical insult from a high Tory minister. That the
House of Commons thought a new era at hand was seen
by its divisions. On the motion of Mr. Lamb (afterwards
Lord Melbourne) against the “Restrictions,” the majority
in favour of Government was but 224 to 200.</p>

<p>A variety of circumstances, however, to which allusion
will presently be made, prevented the general expectation
from being realized. The Government remained, but it
was not a Government that seemed likely to be of long
duration. On one important question Mr. Canning almost
immediately opposed it.</p>

<h4>IV.</h4>

<p>The report of a committee, distinguished for its ability,
had attributed the depreciation in the value of bank-notes
to their excessive issue, and recommended a return, within
two years, to cash payments. Mr. Canning had belonged
to this committee, and had given the subject, however
foreign to his customary studies, much attention. The
view which he took upon the sixteen resolutions moved by
Mr. Horner, May 8, 1811, was, perhaps, the best. To
all those resolutions, which went to fix as a principle that
a real value in metal should be the proper basis for a
currency&mdash;a general landmark, by which legislation should,
as far as it was practicable, be guided&mdash;he assented; that
particular resolution, which, under the critical circumstances
of the country, went to fetter and prescribe the moment
at which this principle should be resumed, he opposed.</p>

<p>Such opposition was unavailing; and History instructs
us, by the resolution which Mr. Vansittart then proposed,
that no absurdity is so glaring as to shock the eye of
prejudiced credulity.</p>

<div class="blockquote">

<p class="date">“May 13, 1811.</p>

<p>“Resolution III.&mdash;‘<i>That it is the opinion of this
committee <span class="antiqua">(a committee of the whole House)</span> that the
promissory notes of the company <span class="antiqua">(the Bank)</span> have hitherto
been, and are at this time, held in public estimation to be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_402" id="Page_402">[402]</a></span>
equivalent to the legal coin of the realm, and generally
accepted as such.</i>’”</p>

</div>

<p>The Chancellor of the Exchequer thus called upon the
House of Commons to assert, that the public esteemed, a
twenty shilling bank-note as much as twenty shillings;
and it had just been necessary to frame a law to prevent
persons giving more than £1 and 1 shilling for a guinea,
and all the guineas had disappeared from England. It
had just been found expedient to raise the value of crown-pieces
from 5<i>s.</i> to 5<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> (which was, in fact, to reduce
£1 in paper to the value of 18<i>s.</i>), in order to prevent
crown-pieces from disappearing also. Persons were in
prison for buying guineas at a premium; whilst pamphlets
and papers were universally and daily declaring that the
notes of the company were not at that time held in public
estimation to be equivalent to the legal coin of the realm.</p>

<p>“When Galileo,” said Mr. Canning, “first promulgated
the doctrine that the earth turned round the sun, and
that the sun remained stationary in the centre of the
universe, the holy father of the Inquisition took alarm at
so daring an innovation, and forthwith declared the first
of these propositions to be false and heretical, and the
other to be erroneous in point of faith. The holy office
pledged itself to believe that the earth was stationary and
the sun movable. But this pledge had little effect in
changing the natural course of things: the sun and the
earth continued, in spite of it, to preserve their accustomed
relations to each other, just as the coin and the bank-note
will, in spite of the right honourable gentleman’s resolution.”&mdash;[Report
of Bullion Committee.]</p>

<p>But if the opposition had the best of the debate, the
minister triumphed in the division; nevertheless so equivocal
a success, whilst lowering the character of Parliament,
did not heighten that of the Ministry.</p>

<p>Mr. Perceval, indeed, though possessing the quick,
sharp mind of a lawyer, and the small ready talent of a
debater, was without any of those superior qualities which
enable statesmen to take large views. Great as an
advocate, he was small as a statesman. Lord Wellesley<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_403" id="Page_403">[403]</a></span>
at last revolted at his supremacy, and, quitting the
government, observed that “he might serve <em>with</em> Mr.
Perceval, but could never serve <em>under</em> him again.”</p>

<h4>V.</h4>

<p>About this time expired the period during which the
Regency restrictions had been imposed; and not long
after, the Premier (being confirmed in office by new and
unsuccessful attempts to remodel the Administration) was
assassinated by a madman (11 May, 1812).</p>

<p>The cabinet, which with Mr. Perceval was weak, without
Mr. Perceval seemed impossible; and all persons at
the moment were favourable to such a fusion of parties as
would allow of the formation of a Cabinet, powerful and
efficient.</p>

<p>Lord Wellesley, a man who hardly filled the space in
these times for which his great abilities qualified him
(co-operating with Mr. Canning, who was to be leader in
the House of Commons), was selected as the statesman
through whom such a Cabinet was to be formed. But
Lord Liverpool, from personal reasons, at once declined all
propositions from Lord Wellesley. Another negotiation
was then opened, the basis proposed for a new ministry
being that four persons should be returned to the Cabinet
by Lord Wellesley and Mr. Canning; four (of whom Lord
Erskine and Lord Moira were two) by the Prince Regent;
and five by Lords Grey and Grenville, whilst the principles
agreed to by all, were to be the vigorous prosecution
of the war, and the immediate conciliation of the Catholics.
The vigorous prosecution of the war and the conciliation
of the Catholics were assented to; nor was it stated that
the other conditions were inadmissible, though it was
suggested that there would be a great inconvenience in
making the Cabinet Council a debating society, and
entering it with hostile and rival parties. Lord Wellesley
returned to the Regent for further orders. But his Royal
Highness deemed it expedient to consider that Lord
Wellesley’s attempt had been a failure, and the task which
had been given to him was transferred to Lord Moira.
This nobleman, vain, weak, and honest, undertook the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_404" id="Page_404">[404]</a></span>
commission, and a new treaty was commenced with Lords
Grey and Grenville, whose conduct at this time, it must
be added, seems at first sight unintelligible; for they were
granted every power they could desire in political matters.
But there were various personal and private reasons which
rendered all arrangements difficult. In the first place,
Lord Grey is said to have despised, and never to have
trusted the Prince, who, as he believed, was merely
playing with the Whig party. In the next, Lord Grenville
could not make up his mind to resign the auditorship
of the exchequer, a certain salary for life, nor to accept a
lower office than that of First Lord of the Treasury, while
the union of the two offices, the one being a check upon
the other, was too evident a job to escape observation;
indeed, Mr. Whitbread had positively said that he could
never support such a combination.</p>

<p>Thus, a variety of petty interests made any pretext
sufficient to interfere with the completion of a scheme
which every one was eager to counsel, no one ready to
adopt. The most ungracious pretext, that of dictating
the Regent’s household, was chosen for a rupture; but it
happened to chime in with the popular cry, which was
loud against the influence of Hertford House; as may be
seen by the speeches of the day, and particularly by a
speech from Lord Donoughmore, in which he talks of the
Marchioness of Hertford, to whose veteran seductions the
Regent was then supposed to have fallen a victim, as “a
matured enchantress” who had by “potent spells” destroyed
all previous prepossessions, and taken complete
possession of the Royal understanding.</p>

<h4>VI.</h4>

<p>There was as much bad taste as impolicy in these
attacks; and the long-pending struggle terminated at last
in favour of Lord Liverpool, who on June 8, 1812,
declared himself Prime Minister. Why did Mr. Canning,
who was solicited at the close of the session to join Lord
Liverpool’s Administration, decline to do so? Not because
he was personally hostile to Lord Liverpool: he was
warmly attached to that nobleman; not because the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_405" id="Page_405">[405]</a></span>
Administration was exclusive, and only admitted those who
were hostile to the Catholic Question; for he subsequently
says (May 18, 1819): “I speak with perfect confidence
when I assert that those who gave their support to the
present Ministry on its formation, did so on the understanding
that every member of it entered into office with
the <em>express stipulation</em> that he should maintain his own
opinion in Parliament on the Catholic Question.”</p>

<p>Mr. Stapleton says it was because his friends thought
that to the Foreign Office, which he was offered, ought to
have been added the lead in the House of Commons, which
Lord Liverpool would not withdraw from Lord Castlereagh.
But Mr. Canning eventually became a member of the
Government whose fate he now declined to share, leaving
to Lord Castlereagh the lead in the House of Commons.
How, then, are we to account for this difference of
conduct at two different epochs?</p>

<p>An explanation may thus be found: During the years
1810 and 1811, our continental policy had still remained
unfortunate. True it was that, by the unexpected skill
and unexampled energy of our new commander, we gained,
during 1811, the possession of Portugal, driving from
that country a general who had hitherto been equally
conspicuous for his talents and his fortune. But the whole
of the Spanish frontier, and the greatest part of Spain
itself, was held by the French armies; while the victory
of Wagram, the revolution in Sweden, the marriage of Napoleon,
the birth of the King of Rome, had greatly added
to the weight and apparent stability of the French empire.</p>

<p>Our differences with the United States had also continually
increased; and in 1812, war, which had long
been impending, was declared and justified in an eloquent
and able statement by Mr. Madison.</p>

<p>In the meantime Napoleon, surrounded by that luminous
mystery which gave a kind of magic to his actions, was
marching in all the pomp of anticipated triumph against
the remote and solitary state which alone, on the humbled
and subjugated continent, had yet the means and the
courage to dispute his edicts and defy his power. Up to
the 14th of September, when he entered Moscow, his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_406" id="Page_406">[406]</a></span>
career was more marvellous, his glory more dazzling than
ever.</p>

<h4>VII.</h4>

<p>Such was the state of foreign affairs when Mr. Canning
and his friends refused to connect themselves with a
feeble and self-mistrusting administration. But the year
following things were strangely altered. The retreat from
Russia had taken place; the battle of Leipsic had been
fought. Russians, Austrians, Saxons, Swedes, Bavarians,
Spaniards, Portuguese, the people of those various nations,
who had formerly to defend their own territory, were now
pouring into France.</p>

<p>The first gleams of victory shone over the gloomy
struggle of twenty years. An accident yet unexplained&mdash;the
burning of a city on the farthest confines of the
civilized world&mdash;had changed the whole face of European
affairs. “The mighty deluge,” to use Mr. Canning’s
poetical language, “by which the Continent had been so
long overwhelmed, began to subside. The limits of
nations were again visible, and the spires and turrets of
ancient establishments began to re-appear from beneath
the subsiding wave.”<a name="FNanchor_118" id="FNanchor_118"></a><a href="#Footnote_118" class="fnanchor">[118]</a></p>

<p>From this moment Mr. Canning began to show confidence
in a ministry which he had hitherto more or less
despised. The desire of sustaining it in this crisis of the
terrible conflict in which we were engaged, had no doubt
some influence over his conduct; but I venture to add
that there are natures which, without being instigated by
low and vulgar motives, have a propensity to harmonize
with success. Mr. Canning’s nature was of this description.
It loved the light to shine on its glittering
surface; and he began to feel a sympathy for the
Government, bright with the rays of anticipated fortune,
which in darker moments he had shrunk from with
antipathy and mistrust.</p>

<h4>VIII.</h4>

<p>Napoleon fell shortly afterwards, and Mr. Huskisson,
the most celebrated of Mr. Canning’s followers, was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_407" id="Page_407">[407]</a></span>
gazetted as Commissioner of Woods and Forests; Mr.
Canning himself (who at the last general election had
been honoured by the unsolicited representation of Liverpool)
accepting an embassy to Lisbon. His acceptance of
this office was one of the actions of his life for which he
was most attacked; it was considered a job; for an able
minister (Mr. Sydenham), on a moderate salary, was
recalled, in order to give the eminent orator, whose
support the Government wished to obtain, the appointment
of ambassador on a much larger salary: and
although, when Mr. Lambton (afterwards Lord Durham)
brought forward a motion on the subject, Mr. Canning
made a triumphant reply to the specific charges brought
against his nomination, and although he was altogether
above the accusation of accepting any post for the mere
sake of its emoluments, it was nevertheless clear that it
was because he was going to Lisbon for the health of his
son, and that it was more agreeable to him to go in an
official position than as a simple individual, that he had
been employed, and his predecessor removed. It is needless
to add he would have acted more wisely had he not
accepted a post in which little credit was to be gained and
much censure was to be risked.</p>

<p>On his return from Portugal he entered the Cabinet at
the head of the Board of Control.</p>

<p>During his absence many events had occurred to characterize
the Administration he joined. Peace finally
established on the prostrate armies of France, which at
Waterloo had made their last struggle, left the war which
we had pursued with so lavish an expenditure, and so
desperate a determination, to be estimated by its results.
Whatever the necessity of this war at its commencement,
the cause under which it had been continued for the last
fourteen years was sacred.</p>

<p>A military chief at the head of a valorous soldiery, had
during this time trampled on the rights and feelings of
almost every people in Europe. The long-established
barriers of independent states had been shifted or pulled
down like hurdles, to make them fit the increasing or
diminishing drove of cattle which it suited the caprices of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_408" id="Page_408">[408]</a></span>
the French ruler that they should contain. The inhabitants
of such states, treated little better than mere
cattle, had been seized, sold, bartered, given away. It was
no marvel, then, that the conquerors became in the end
the conquered; for the struggle was one which commenced
by all the kings marching against one people, and concluded
by every people marching against one warrior.
They invoked&mdash;these new assailants&mdash;what is best in
philosophy, morality, policy; they conquered, and what
did philosophy, morality, policy gain? Were rights and
natural sympathies respected? Were old landmarks restored?</p>

<p>The peace alluded to was said to be a peace founded on
justice, and justice never deserts the weak; yet Genoa was
gone; Venice was no more; Poland remained partitioned;
Saxony had been plundered by Prussia with as unsparing
a hand as that by which she herself had been despoiled
during the conquests of France. Norway, by a treaty,
which Mr. Canning had said, in 1813, when still unshackled
by office, “filled him with shame, regret, and
indignation,” was become the unwilling recompense to
Sweden for the loss of a province of which a mightier
power had taken possession. A struggle of the fiercest
nature had been steadily maintained merely for the sake
of restoring things to their old condition; and no nation
not pre-eminent in power got back its own, except Spain,
which recovered the Inquisition.<a name="FNanchor_119" id="FNanchor_119"></a><a href="#Footnote_119" class="fnanchor">[119]</a> Even Holland was not
re-invested with her ancient liberties, her old noble
republican name. Stripped of her glorious history, and
weakened by the addition of four millions of discontented
subjects, the statesmen of the day fancied her more
august and more secure. The errors committed at this
time were those of a system; for there were two courses
to pursue in the re-settlement of Europe. Had it appeared
that, after a conflict of nearly thirty years, during
which violence had held unlimited sway, everything which
was dear to the people it concerned, and which still stood
forth vivid in history, was endowed with a new reality;
that at the overthrow of wrongful power, the right of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_409" id="Page_409">[409]</a></span>
meanest was everywhere weighed, and the right of the
weakest everywhere established: had it appeared that the
mightiest captain of modern times had only been vanquished
by a principle&mdash;which, if the general interest
could predominate, would regulate the destinies of the
world&mdash;then indeed a lesson, of which it is impossible to
calculate the effects, would have been given to all future
ambitious disturbers of mankind: while the lovers of
peace and virtue in every portion of the globe, even in
France, would have seen something holy in the triumph
which had been gained, and gathered round the cause of
the allies. But if this was one policy, there was also
another, and that other was adopted.</p>

<h4>IX.</h4>

<p>As Bonaparte had cut up and parcelled out nations for
the purpose of enlarging the boundaries and strengthening
the dominions of France, so the conquerors of Bonaparte
spoiled and partitioned with equal zeal, in order to control
the boundaries and restrain the dominion of the warlike
people they had defeated. The limits imposed by right,
justice, antiquity, custom, were all disregarded, and an
attempt, by preference, made to throw up against all
future schemes of conquest the patchwork barrier of ill-united
and discordant populations.</p>

<p>Such had been the termination of affairs in Europe;
but our contest with America was also over. We had
made a treaty with that Power&mdash;a treaty so contrived
that it did not settle a single one of those questions for
which we had engaged in war. Nor were the circumstances
under which this singular arrangement was completed
such as compelled us to accede to it. The whole
force of the British empire was disengaged; we could no
longer say that our fleets were not invincible in one
quarter of the world because their strength was exerted in
another; whilst, if we meant to keep the dominion of the
seas&mdash;more important to us than the whole of that continent
we had been subsidizing and contending upon&mdash;there
was every peril to apprehend from leaving unchecked
the spirit of a rising rival, who had lately fought and frequently<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_410" id="Page_410">[410]</a></span>
vanquished us on our own element, and who
during a long peace would have the opportunity to mature
that strength of which she was already conscious and
proud. In short, the peace of Europe affected our character
for morality, that of America weakened the belief
in our power.</p>

<p>Mr. Canning would hardly have joined an Administration
which had so mismanaged our foreign affairs, if the
glory of our arms had not gilded in some degree the faults
of our diplomacy. But the part which that diplomacy
had played on the Continent was not without its effect
upon things at home. We had become each year more
and more alienated from our military allies, who having
triumphed by the enthusiasm of their people, seemed
disposed to govern by the bayonets of their troops. The
Holy Alliance&mdash;that singular compact, invented partly by
the superstition, partly by the policy of the Emperor
Alexander&mdash;an alliance by which three sovereigns, at the
head of conquering armies, swore in very mystical language
to govern according to the doctrines of Christian
charity, swearing also (which was more important) to
lend each other assistance on all occasions, and in all
places&mdash;this alliance, which no one could clearly understand,
and which our Government refused to join, excited
all the suspicion and all the apprehension which mystery
never fails to produce, and made Englishmen, while they
were rejoicing at having subdued an overgrown and
despotic tyranny in one quarter of the world, doubt
whether they might not have created as dangerous a one
in another.</p>

<h4>X.</h4>

<p>Nor was this all. They who begin to be dissatisfied
with the fruits of victory, soon grow more and more dissatisfied
with what victory has cost. Moreover, this
period, from a variety of circumstances, some of them
inseparable from the sudden transition from active war to
profound peace, was one of great uncertainty and distress;
whilst the public mind, no longer excited by military
conflict, was the more disposed to political agitation. A
demand for diminished imposts, and a demand for political<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_411" id="Page_411">[411]</a></span>
reform, are always to be expected at such moments. Our
form of government led more naturally to these demands,
for the theory of the constitution was at variance with its
practice; the one saying that Englishmen should be taxed
by their representatives, the other proving that they were
in many instances taxed by persons who represented a
powerful patron or a petty constituency, and not the
people of England. The evils complained of were exaggerated;
there were exaggerations also as to the remedies
for which the most violent of the clamorous called. But
the thoughts of the nation were directed to economy as a
relief from taxation, and to parliamentary reform as a
means of economy. Public meetings in favour of parliamentary
reform were held; resolutions in favour of parliamentary
reform were passed; petitions praying for it
were presented; the energies of a free people, who thought
themselves wronged, were aroused: great excitement
prevailed.</p>

<h4>XI.</h4>

<p>The vessel of the state in these sudden squalls requires
that those at the helm should govern it with a calm heart
and a steady hand. Anger and fear are equally to be
avoided, for they lead equally to violent measures, and
the excitement of one party only feeds the excitement of
the other.</p>

<p>Lord Castlereagh, the leading spirit at this time in the
Cabinet, vapid and incorrect as an orator, inefficient as an
administrator, was still, as I have elsewhere said, not
without qualities as a statesman&mdash;for he was cool and he
was courageous; and, therefore, if we now see him acting
as if under the influence of the most slavish apprehension,
we must look for some reasonable motive for his appearing
to entertain fears which he could not have really felt.</p>

<p>Now, the fact is, that he had but two things to do&mdash;to
satisfy the discontented as aggrieved, or to rally the
majority of the country against them as disaffected. The
first policy would not keep his party in power; the
second, therefore, was the one he preferred. The terrors
of the timid were to be awakened; the passions of the
haughty were to be aroused; the designs of the malcontents<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_412" id="Page_412">[412]</a></span>
were to be darkened&mdash;their strength increased&mdash;in
short, to save the Ministry, it was essential that the
State should be declared in danger. This is an old course;
it has been tried often: it was tried now.</p>

<p>Thus Government opened the Session of 1817 with a
“green bag.” This bag, a true Pandora’s box, contained
threats of every mischief&mdash;assassination, incendiarism, insurrection,
in their most formidable and infuriated shapes.
One conspiracy, indeed, was a model that deserves to be
set apart for the use of future conspirators or&mdash;statesmen.
It comprehended the storming of the Bank and the Tower,
the firing the different barracks, the overthrow of everybody
and everything, even the great and massive bridges
which cross the Thames, and which were to be blown up
as a matter of course; but the traitors were pious and
brave men, relying almost wholly on Providence and their
courage, so that only two hundred and fifty pikes and
some powder in an old stocking had been provided to
secure the success of their undertaking.</p>

<h4>XII.</h4>

<p>Many schemes equally plausible were attributed to, and
perhaps entertained by, a few unhappy men in the manufacturing
districts; while the well-known doctrines of an
enthusiast named Spence<a name="FNanchor_120" id="FNanchor_120"></a><a href="#Footnote_120" class="fnanchor">[120]</a>&mdash;doctrines which inculcate the
necessity of property being held in common, and which
under different names have been continually put forward
at every period of the world&mdash;found amongst the poor and
starving, as they will ever find in times of distress and
difficulty, a ready reception. “These doctrines,” said
Lord Castlereagh, “contain in themselves a principle of
contradiction;” but he was not willing to trust to this
principle alone!</p>

<p>Various laws were passed, tending to limit the right of
discussion: men were forbidden to co-operate or correspond
for the purpose of amending the existing constitution.
Public meetings were placed at the disposal of a magistrate,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_413" id="Page_413">[413]</a></span>
who could prevent or disperse them as he thought
proper. Finally, the “Habeas Corpus” Act was suspended.</p>

<p>Nothing could be more wanton or absurd than this last
outrage on public freedom. The Ministers who were
calling upon the country to defend our institutions, were
for sweeping away their very foundations. In vain did
Lord Grey, with even more than his usual eloquence,
exclaim, “We are warned not to let any anxiety for the
security of liberty lead to a compromise of the security of
the State; for my part, I cannot separate these two
things; the safety of the State can only be found in the
protection of the liberties of the people.”</p>

<p>Having entered upon a career of terror, a new violence
is daily necessary in order to guard against the consequences
of the last; nor was the addition of 3,000,000<i>l.</i>
of taxes, imposed at the close of 1819, well adapted to
soothe popular irritation. In the meantime the meeting
at Manchester, foolishly got up, and foolishly and barbarously
put down, aroused a cry which only the utmost
severity could hope to quell. Such severity was adopted
in the Acts which prevented public and parish meetings;
which punished offences of the press with transportation;
which exposed the houses of peaceable inhabitants to midnight
search, and deprived an Englishman of what was
once considered his birthright&mdash;the right of keeping arms
for his own defence. At the same time the bulk of the
nation was declared to be sound and loyal, the country
prosperous; and as a note which may perhaps be considered
somewhat explanatory of these different declarations, came
a demand for 10,000 additional troops. It was of no use
to argue that the nation was quiet, and resolved only on
constitutional means of redress. “Yes, sir,” said the
figurative seconder of the Address (1819)&mdash;“yes, sir, there
has undoubtedly been an appearance of tranquillity, but
it <em>is the tranquillity of a lion waiting for his prey</em>.
There has been the apparent absence of danger, but it is
that of a fire half-smothered by the weight of its own
combustible materials.” “The meeting at Manchester,”
argued Lord Lansdowne (Nov. 30, 1819), “if it had not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_414" id="Page_414">[414]</a></span>
been disturbed by the magistrates, would have gone off
quietly.” “Perhaps,” replied an orator who defended the
Government, “that might have been the case; but why?
in the contemplation of things to come, the peaceable and
quiet demeanour of the disaffected, instead of lessening the
danger, ought to aggravate the alarm&mdash;<i lang="la">ipsa silentia terrent</i>.”</p>

<h4>XIII.</h4>

<p>So because people assembled at a meeting which was
likely to disperse peaceably might at some future time
(and this was conjecture) act less peaceably, they were to
be charged and sabred; while their constitutional conduct
neither at this nor at any other period could be of the
least avail; heat of language was not even necessary to
procure them the treatment of rebels; for if men met and
were <em>silent</em>, if they met and never uttered a word, their
very silence, under the classical authority of three Latin
words, was to be considered full of awful treason. Jury
after jury denounced the conduct of the Government by
returning verdicts which were accusations against it. Still
the same system was persevered in. Ministers went
through the country with a drag net, hauling up&mdash;not
one or two influential persons (such, indeed, they could
not find)&mdash;but whole classes of men. Spies also, as it
appeared from the different trials, acted as incendiaries,
contributing in no small degree to the marvellous plots
that they discovered. In one instance, a fellow of the
name of Oliver had gone about to all whom he imagined
ill disposed, presenting Sir Francis Burdett’s compliments;
a circumstance the more remarkable, since the only decent
colour ever attempted to be given to these notions of
insurrection was, that the names of respectable persons
had been used in connection with them. In another case
a government creature, by the name of Edwards, actually
advanced money to a gentleman who may be considered
the arch-traitor of the epoch, since he was the author of
that famous conspiracy which included in its programme
cutting off all the ministers’ heads.</p>

<p>This conspiracy&mdash;of which Mr. Thistlewood, supported
by the aforesaid Mr. Edwards, Mr. Davidson, a man of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_415" id="Page_415">[415]</a></span>
colour, and Messrs. Tidd and Brunt, two shoemakers, were
the leaders&mdash;closed the series of those formidable plots for
putting an end to King, Lords, and Commons, which for
three years disturbed the country; the Ministers affecting
to consider that the wisdom of the policy they pursued
was proved by the folly of those wretched men whom they
delivered to the executioner.</p>

<p>Another circumstance is to be remarked in reviewing
these times, and attempting to portray their spirit. The
Government had not only been tyrannical at home, it had
afforded all the assistance in its power to foreign tyrants.
First was passed the Alien Bill; a measure which might
have been defended in 1793, when France was sending
out her revolutionary apostles; which might, with a
certain plausibility, have been asked for in 1814, when, if
the war were concluded, peace could hardly be considered
as established; but which in 1816 could have no other
pretext than that of enabling the minister of the day to
refuse a refuge to any unhappy exile from the despotism
of the Continent.</p>

<p>Shortly afterwards (1819) came the Foreign Enlistment
Bill. That which Queen Elizabeth refused to Spain when
Spain was in the height of her power, was conceded to
Spain, now fallen into the lowest state of moral as well as
political degradation. It was true that during the Administration
of Sir Robert Walpole, and under the natural
fears of Jacobite armies, formed on foreign shores, laws
had been passed prohibiting British subjects, except upon
special permission, from engaging in foreign service; and
the pretext now put forward was insomuch plausible, that
it pretended to place service in the armies of recognised
and unrecognised states on the same footing&mdash;no law
existing in respect to the last. But the law in existence
had not been enforced. Spain, which had been hasty in
recognising the independence of the United States, could
not ask us to defeat rebellion in her own colonies. Those
colonies had, in fact, been first instigated by us to revolt.
The regulation, professing to be impartial, would only
operate in reality against one of the parties; and with
that party all our commercial interests were connected.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_416" id="Page_416">[416]</a></span></p>

<h4>XIV.</h4>

<p>It is impossible to look back to these years, and to
consider the conduct of Mr. Canning without deep regret.
The most eloquent and plausible defences of the un-English
policy which prevailed were made by him. In his speech
in favour of the Seditious Meetings Bill (Feb. 24, 1817),
may be seen wit supplying the place of argument; argument
rendered attractive by the graces of rhetoric, and
forcible by the appearance of passion. He had now,
indeed, nearly attained the perfection of his own style,
a style which, as it has been said, united the three excellences
of&mdash;rapidity, polish, and ornament; and it was the
first of these qualities, let it be repeated, which, though
perhaps the least perceivable of his merits, was the
greatest.</p>

<p>“What is the nature of this danger? Why, sir, the
danger to be apprehended is not to be defined in one word.
It is rebellion; it is treason, but not treason merely; it is
confiscation, but not confiscation within such bounds as
have usually been applied to the changes of dynasties, or
the revolution of states; it is an aggregate of all these
evils; it is that dreadful variety of sorrow and suffering
which must invariably follow the extinction of loyalty,
morality, and religion; the subversion, not only of the
constitution of England, but of the whole frame of society.
Such is the nature and extent of the danger which would
attend the success of the projects developed in the report
of the committee. But these projects would never have
been of importance, it is affirmed, had they not been
brought into notice by persecution. Persecution! Does
this character belong to the proceedings instituted against
those who set out on their career in opposition to all law;
and who, in their secret cabals, and midnight counsels,
and mid-day harangues, have been voting for destruction of
every individual, and every class of individuals, which may
stand in their way? But the schemes of these persons
are visionary. I admit it. They have been laid by these
twenty years without being found to produce mischief.
Be it so. Such doctrines when dormant may be harmless<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_417" id="Page_417">[417]</a></span>
enough, and their intrinsic absurdity may make it appear
incredible that they should ever be called up into action.
But when the incredible resurrection actually takes place,
when the votaries of these doctrines actually go forth
armed to exert physical strength in furtherance of them,
then it is that I think it time to be on my guard&mdash;not
against the accomplishment of such plans (that is, I am
willing to believe, impracticable), but against the mischief
which must attend the attempt to accomplish them by
force.”</p>

<p>Throughout the whole of this passage it can hardly be
said that there is a full stop. However studiously framed,
not a period lingers; a rush of sentences gives the audience
no time to pause. Abruptly framed, rapidly delivered,
the phrases which may have been for hours premeditated
in the Cabinet, could not, in the moment of delivery, have
the least appearance of art. The oratory of Mr. Canning
was also remarkable for a kind of figurative way of stating
common-places, which good taste may not approve, but
which, nevertheless, is well calculated to strike and inflame
a popular assembly.</p>

<p>“The honourable gentleman,” Mr. Canning says of
Mr. Calcraft (March 14, 1817), “attempts to ridicule these
proceedings. He is in truth rather hard to be satisfied on
the score of rebellion; to him it is not sufficient that the
town had been summoned [N.B. it had been summoned by
<em>one</em> man], it ought to have been taken; the metropolis
should not merely have been attacked, but in flames. He
is so difficult in regard to proof that he would continue to
doubt until all the mischief was not only certain but
irreparable. For my part, however, I am satisfied when I
hear the trumpet of rebellion sounded; I do not think it
necessary to wait the actual onset before I put myself on
my guard. I am content to take my precautions when I
see the torch of the incendiary lighted, without waiting
till the Bank and the Mansion House are blazing to the
sky.”</p>

<h4>XV.</h4>

<p>But if there was much of eloquence, there was more of
sophistry, in these pointed and painted harangues. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_418" id="Page_418">[418]</a></span>
designs on foot were represented as so formidable that
they required the utmost rigour to suppress them; and
yet they were the designs of a few, of a very few, against
whom millions were arrayed. These few were to be
struck down at all hazards and by all means, in order
that the millions might be in security. The anti-revolutionary
statesman was simply borrowing from
the revolutionary apostle. “What are a few aristocrats,”
would Danton say, “to the safety of a nation?
Strike! strike! It is only terror that can save the Republic!”
For such principles, destructive of all liberty,
peace, and order, every just man must entertain the
deepest horror; and the dark shadow of those days still
hangs over the party to whose excesses they are attributable,
and obscures this part of the career of the statesman
who defended them.</p>

<p>I do not, however, think that Mr. Canning acted on
the cool systematic calculation by which I do think Lord
Castlereagh might have been guided. Looking at all
affairs with the excitable disposition of the poet and the
orator, and having his attention more called by his office
to the affairs of India than to those at home, it is not
improbable that he allowed himself to be carried into the
belief of dangers which the Government he belonged to
had in a certain degree created, and in an enormous degree
exaggerated; whilst the manner in which even calm and
sensible men had their heads confused and their judgment
biassed by the alarming reports put in circulation, and the
constant arrests that were taking place, reacted upon the
Government itself, and made it fancy that the fictions
reflected from its fear were truths established by facts.
At all events, whatever were the real opinions and convictions
of Mr. Canning, as he was the most eloquent
supporter of the policy in vogue, he gathered round himself
the greatest portion of the unpopularity that attended
it. Nor, though he assumed the air of defying this unpopularity,
was he pleased with it.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_419" id="Page_419">[419]</a></span></p>

<h4>XVI.</h4>

<p>The very bitterness, indeed, which he manifested towards
his opponents at this time, shows that he was ill
at ease with himself. Linked with a set of men whom in
general he despised, and by whom he was in a certain
degree mistrusted, and accused, as he well knew, of accepting
this alliance merely for the love of “office,” which the
vulgar made to signify the mere “emoluments of place;”&mdash;possessing
a mind, which, elevated by education, was
inclined to liberality; careless of the praise of the fanatics
of his own party, and careless also of the applause of those
timorous spirits amongst the nation with whom he could
feel no sympathy;&mdash;knowing he was detested by the great
masses of the people, whose applause he could not with his
temperament refrain from coveting;&mdash;knowing also that
though supported by the love and admiration of a few
able friends, he was confided in by no great political
party, and that even if his duties imposed on him the
necessity of struggling against existing difficulties, those
difficulties might have been avoided or palliated by a more
conciliatory and prudent policy; writhing under all these
circumstances and agitated by all these feelings,&mdash;this
able, ambitious, and excitable man may now be seen
listening with ears almost greedy of a quarrel, for reproaches
he could retort, and insults he could avenge.
Mr. Hume, not very cautious in these matters, was called
to account: Sir Francis Burdett, who had spoken disrespectfully,
was made to explain; while to the author of
an anonymous libel, in which the style and invectives
of “Junius” were copied with doubtful success, was sent
a note, eminently characteristic of the galled feelings and
gallant spirit of the writer:</p>

<div class="blockquote">

<p class="salutation">“<span class="smcap">Sir</span>,</p>

<p>“I received early in the last week the copy of
your pamphlet, which you, I take for granted, had the
attention to have forwarded to me. Soon after I was
informed, on the authority of your publisher, that you
have withdrawn the whole impression from him, with the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_420" id="Page_420">[420]</a></span>
view (as was supposed) of suppressing the publication.
I since learn, however, that the pamphlet, though not
sold, is circulated under blank covers. I learn this from
(among others) the gentleman to whom the pamphlet is
industriously attributed, but who has voluntarily and
absolutely denied to me that he has any knowledge of it
or its author.</p>

<p>“To you, sir, whoever you may be, I address myself
thus directly for the purpose of expressing my opinion
that <em>you are a liar and a slanderer, and want courage
only to be an assassin</em>. I have only to add that no man
knows of my writing to you, and that I shall maintain
the same reserve as long as I have an expectation of hearing
from you in your own name.”</p>

</div>

<p>To this letter there was no reply.</p>

<h4>XVII.</h4>

<p>During the eventful years over which this narrative
has been rapidly gliding, the Heiress to the crown, who
had already possessed herself of the affections of the
British people, had expired (it was in Nov. 1817); and
in 1820, as the Ministers, fatigued by their laborious
efforts to excite alarm, began to allow the nation to recover
its tranquillity, George III. (two years after his
young and blooming grandchild) died also. The new
King’s hatred, and Queen Caroline’s temper, rendering a
more decent and moderate course impossible, occasioned
the unhappy trial which scandalized Europe.</p>

<p>Nor was the question at issue merely a question involving
the Queen’s innocence or guilt. The people, comparatively
calm, as well on account of the recent improvement
in trade, as in consequence of the cessation of that
system of conspiracy-making or finding, which had so
long kept them in a state of harassed irritation, were still
for the main part thoroughly disgusted with the exhibition
of fear, feebleness, and violence which, under the
name of Lord Liverpool, and through the influence of
Lord Castlereagh, had for the last three years been displayed.
They detested the ministers of the Crown, and
they were alienated from the Crown itself, which had been<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_421" id="Page_421">[421]</a></span>
perpetually arrayed against them in prosecutions and
almost as often stigmatised by defeat.</p>

<p>It was thus that Queen Caroline appeared as a new
victim&mdash;as another person to be illegally assailed by the
forms of law, and unjustly dealt with in the name of
justice. Besides, she was a woman, and the daughter of
a Royal house, and the mother of that ill-fated princess,
whose early death the nation still deeply mourned. The
people, then, took up her cause as their own, and rallied
at once round a new banner against their old enemies.</p>

<p>On the other hand, the Government, urged by the
wounded pride and uncontrollable anger of the Sovereign,
consented to bring the unfortunate lady he denounced
before a public tribunal, and were thus committed to a
desperate career, of which it was impossible to predict
the result.</p>

<p>Mr. Canning had long been the unhappy Queen’s
intimate friend; but in adopting her cause, he must, as
we have been showing, have adopted her party&mdash;the party
of discontent, the party of reform&mdash;a party against which
he had, during the last few years, been fiercely struggling.
Here, as far as the public can judge from the information
before it, lies the only excuse or explanation of his conduct;
for it was hardly sufficient to retire (as he did)
from any share in the proceedings against a friend and a
woman, in whose innocence he said that he believed,
when her honour and life were assailed by the most
powerful adversaries, and by charges of the most degrading
character.</p>

<p>He refused, it is true, to be her active accuser; but
neither was he her active defender. He remained silent
at home or stayed abroad during the time of the prosecution,
and resigned office when, that prosecution being
dropped, the Cabinet had to justify its proceedings.</p>

<p>The following letter to a constituent contains the
account he thought it necessary to give of his conduct:</p>

<div class="blockquote">

<p class="date">“Tuddenham, Norfolk, Dec. 22, 1820.</p>

<p class="salutation">“<span class="smcap">My dear Sir</span>,</p>

<p>“I left town on Wednesday, a few minutes after
I had written to you, not thinking I should be quite so<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_422" id="Page_422">[422]</a></span>
soon set at liberty to make you the communication
promised in my letter of that morning. I had hitherto
forborne to make the communication, in order that I
might not in any way embarrass others by a premature
disclosure; and I sincerely expected in return due notice
of the time when it might suit them that the disclosure
should be made. I have no doubt that the omission of
such notice has been a mere oversight. I regret it only
as it has prevented me from anticipating with you, and
the rest of my friends at Liverpool, the announcement in
a newspaper of an event in which I know your kind
partiality will induce you to feel a lively interest. The
facts stated in the <cite>Courier</cite> of Wednesday evening, are
stated in substance correctly. I have resigned my office.
My motive for separating myself from the Government
(however reluctantly at a conjuncture like the present)
is to be found solely in the proceedings and pending
discussions respecting the Queen. There is (as the
<cite>Courier</cite> justly assumes) but this one point of difference
between my colleagues and myself. Those who may have
done me the honour to observe my conduct in this unhappy
affair from the beginning, will recollect that on the
first occasion on which it was brought forward in the
House of Commons, I declared my determination to take
as little part as possible in any subsequent stage of the
proceedings. The declaration was made advisedly. It
was made, not only after full communication with my
colleagues, but as an alternative suggested on their part
for my then retirement from the Administration. So long
as there was a hope of amicable adjustment, my continuance
in the Administration might possibly be advantageous;
that hope was finally extinguished by the failure
of Mr. Wilberforce’s address. On the same day on which
the Queen’s answer to that address was received by the
House of Commons, I asked an audience of the King, and
at that audience (which I obtained the following day)
after respectfully repeating to his Majesty the declaration
which I had made a fortnight before in the House of
Commons, and stating the impossibility of my departing
from it, I felt it my duty humbly to lay at his Majesty’s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_423" id="Page_423">[423]</a></span>
feet the tender of my resignation. The King, with a
generosity which I can never sufficiently acknowledge,
commanded me to remain in his service, abstaining as
completely as I might think fit from any share in the
proceedings respecting the Queen, and gave me full
authority to plead his Majesty’s express command for so
continuing in office. No occasion subsequently occurred
in Parliament (at least no adequate occasion) for availing
myself of the use of this authority, and I should have
thought myself inexcusable in seeking an occasion for the
purpose; but from the moment of my receiving his
Majesty’s gracious commands, I abstained entirely from
all interference on the subject of the Queen’s affairs. I
did not attend any meetings of the Cabinet upon that
subject; I had no share whatever in preparing or approving
the Bill of Pains and Penalties. I was (as you know)
absent from England during the whole progress of the
bill, and returned only after it had been withdrawn.</p>

<p>“The new state in which I found the proceedings upon
my return to England, required the most serious consideration;
it was one to which I could not conceive the King’s
command in June to be applicable. For a minister
to absent himself altogether from the expected discussions
in the House of Commons, intermixed as they were
likely to be with the general business of the session,
appeared to me to be quite impossible. To be present as
a minister, taking no part in these discussions, could only
be productive of embarrassment to myself, and of perplexity
to my colleagues; to take any part in them was now, as
always, out of the question.</p>

<p>“From these difficulties I saw no remedy except in the
humble but earnest renewal to my Sovereign of the tender
of my resignation, which has been as graciously accepted,
as it was in the former instance indulgently declined.</p>

<p>“If some weeks have elapsed since my return to
England, before I could arrive at this practical result, the
interval has been chiefly employed in reconciling, or endeavouring
to reconcile, my colleagues to a step taken by
me in a spirit of the most perfect amity, and tending (in
my judgment) as much to their relief as to my own.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_424" id="Page_424">[424]</a></span></p>

<p>“It remains for me only to add that having purchased,
by the surrender of my office, the liberty of continuing to
act in consistency with my original declaration, it is now
my intention (but an intention perfectly gratuitous, and
one which I hold myself completely free to vary, if I shall
at any time see occasion for so doing) to be absent from
England again until the agitation of this calamitous affair
shall be at an end.</p>

<p class="signoff">“I am, Sir, &amp;c.,</p>

<p class="sig">“<span class="smcap">George Canning</span>.”</p>

</div>

<p>Thus in the years 1821-22, Mr. Canning took little
part in the business of the House of Commons, residing
occasionally near Bordeaux or in Paris.</p>

<p>He came to England, however, to speak on Mr.
Plunkett’s motion for a committee to consider the Catholic
claims (February 28, 1821), and in 1822 also he made
two memorable speeches&mdash;one on Lord John Russell’s
motion for Parliamentary Reform, and another in support
of his own proposition to admit Catholic peers into the
House of Lords.</p>

<p>These last speeches were made in the expectancy of his
speedy departure from England; the Directors of the
East India Company, in testimony of their appreciation
of the zeal and intelligence with which he had discharged
his duties as President of the Board of Control, having
selected him as Governor-General of India, a situation
which he had accepted.</p>

<hr />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_425" id="Page_425">[425]</a></span></p>

<h3><span class="smcap">Part III.</span><br />
<span class="smaller">FROM DEATH OF LORD LONDONDERRY TO PORTUGUESE
EXPEDITION.</span></h3>

<div class="smaller">

<p>Lord Castlereagh’s death.&mdash;Mr. Canning’s appointment as Foreign Secretary.&mdash;State
of affairs.&mdash;Opposition he encountered.&mdash;Policy as to Spain and South
America.&mdash;Commencing popularity in the country, and in the House of Commons.&mdash;Affairs
of Portugal and Brazil.&mdash;Recognition of Brazilian empire.&mdash;Constitution
taken by Sir Charles Stuart to Portugal,&mdash;Defence of Portugal
against Spanish treachery and aggression.&mdash;Review of policy pursued thus
far as a whole.</p>

</div>

<h4>I.</h4>

<p>At this critical moment Lord Castlereagh, who had now
succeeded to the title of Lord Londonderry, worn out by a
long-continued series of struggles with the popular passions&mdash;placed
in a false position by the manner in which the
great military powers had at Troppau and Laybach
announced principles which no English statesman could
ever sanction,&mdash;too high-spirited to endure defeat, and
without the ability requisite for forming and carrying on
any policy that might be triumphant,&mdash;irritated, overworked,
and about to depart for Verona with the intention
of remonstrating against acts which he had been unable to
prevent,&mdash;having lost all that calm and firmness with
which his proud but cheerful nature was generally armed,&mdash;and
overpowered at last by an infamous conspiracy to
extort money, with the threat that he should otherwise be
charged with a disgraceful and dishonouring offence&mdash;put
an end to his existence.</p>

<p>Fate looked darkly on the Tory party. Ever since
1817, it had excited one half of the community by fear,
as a means of governing the other half by force. But the
machinery of this system was now pretty well used up.
Moreover the result of Queen Caroline’s trial was a
staggering blow to those who had been its advisers; and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_426" id="Page_426">[426]</a></span>
though this unhappy and foolish lady did all she could to
destroy the prestige which had once surrounded her&mdash;and
it was only unexpected decease that rescued her from approaching
contempt&mdash;even her death gave the authorities
a new opportunity of injuring themselves by an idle and
offensive conflict with her hearse.</p>

<p>Meanwhile the affairs in the Peninsula were becoming
more and more obscured, whilst through the clouds which
seemed everywhere gathering, some thought they could
perceive the fatal hour in which a terrible despotism and
an ignorant and equally terrible democracy were to dispute
for the mastery of the world. In France the Bourbons
trembled on their throne, and petty cabals and paltry
conflicts amongst themselves rendered their rule at once
violent, feeble, and uncertain. The volcanic soil of Italy
was covered with ashes from a recent conflagration&mdash;some
embers might yet be seen alive. Over the whole of
Germany reigned a dreamy discontent which any accident
might convert into a practical revolution.</p>

<h4>II.</h4>

<p>What part could the baffled and unpopular Ministers of
England take amidst such a state of things as I have been
describing? To the advocacy of democratic principles
they were of course opposed. With the advocates of
absolute power they dared not, and perhaps did not feel
disposed to, side. Neutrality was their natural wish, since
to be neutral required no effort and demanded no declaration
of opinion. But it is only the strong who can be
really neutral; and the Government of the day was too
conscious of weakness to hold with confidence the position
which, if powerful, it could have preserved with dignity.
Such being the miserable condition of the British cabinet
when Lord Londonderry was alive, it became yet more
contemptible on losing that statesman’s energy and resolution.
Mr. Canning was its evident resource. Yet the
wish to obtain Mr. Canning’s services was by no means
general amongst those in power, for the ministry was
divided into two sections: one, hostile to Catholic Emancipation,
to any change in, and almost any modification of,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_427" id="Page_427">[427]</a></span>
our long-standing system of high duties and commercial
protection, and hostile also to all those efforts in favour
of constitutional liberty which had lately agitated the
Continent; the other, which, though opposed to any constitutional
change that tended to increase the democratic
element in our institutions, was still favourable to Catholic
Emancipation as a means of conciliating the large majority
of the Irish people&mdash;to the development of the principles
of Free Trade, as a means of augmenting our national
wealth&mdash;and to the spread of our political opinions, under
the idea that we should thus be extending our commercial,
moral, and political power.</p>

<p>These two parties, forced to combine under the common
battle-cry of “no parliamentary reform,”&mdash;a reform which
both opposed (in order to get a parliamentary majority for
their united force)&mdash;were nevertheless jealous of each
other, and in constant struggle for the predominant influence.
Mr. Canning out of office, and away in India,
there could be no doubt that the more Conservative section
of the Administration would occupy the highest ground;
Mr. Canning not going to India, and coming into office,
the more liberal party, of which he was universally considered
the chief, might overtop its rival. Lord Liverpool,
however, was himself in a peculiar position. He agreed
with Mr. Canning’s opponents as to the Catholic Emancipation
question, but with Mr. Canning on all other
questions. His policy, therefore, was to rule a pretty
equally balanced cabinet, and not to have one half too
strong for the other. With this object he had lately
given office to two or three followers of Lord Grenville,
who, though himself retired from affairs, had still a party
favourable to Catholic Emancipation, and hostile to constitutional
innovations. For the same reason he now insisted
on the necessity of offering the Secretaryship of Foreign
Affairs to Mr. Canning, and impressed his opinions on
this subject so strongly on the Duke of Wellington, that
his Grace, though he had some prejudices of his own to
conquer, undertook to vanquish those of his Majesty,
against Mr. Canning’s appointment. A lady who was an
intimate friend of George IV., and at that moment of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_428" id="Page_428">[428]</a></span>
Duke also, and who was then staying at Brighton, told
me that the Duke went down to Brighton, and held an
interview with the King, and she related to me parts of a
conversation which, according to her, took place on this
occasion.</p>

<p>“Good God! Arthur, you don’t mean to propose that
fellow to me as Secretary for Foreign Affairs; it is impossible!
I said, on my honour as a gentleman, he should
never be one of my ministers again. You hear, Arthur,
on my honour as a gentleman. I am sure you will agree
with me, that I can’t do what I said on my honour as a
gentleman I would not do.”</p>

<p>“Pardon me, Sire, I don’t agree with you at all; your
Majesty is not a gentleman.”</p>

<p>The King started.</p>

<p>“Your Majesty, I say,” continued the imperturbable
soldier, “is not a gentleman, but the Sovereign of
England, with duties to your people far above any to
yourself; and these duties render it imperative that you
should at this time employ the abilities of Mr. Canning.”</p>

<p>“Well!” drawing a long breath, “if I must, I must,”
was finally the King’s reply.<a name="FNanchor_121" id="FNanchor_121"></a><a href="#Footnote_121" class="fnanchor">[121]</a></p>

<h4>III.</h4>

<p>Mr. Canning thus entered the Cabinet; and under
ordinary circumstances his doing so at such a crisis would
have been hailed with general satisfaction. It so happened,
however, that some time had elapsed between the death of
Lord Castlereagh and any offer to his successor; and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_429" id="Page_429">[429]</a></span>
during this interval, Mr. Canning, then on the verge of
departure for the East, made a speech at Liverpool, which,
from its remarkable moderation, was considered by many
as the manifestation of a wish to purchase place by a
sacrifice of opinion. The words most objected to were
these:</p>

<p>“Gentlemen, if I were remaining in this country, and
continuing to take my part in Parliament, I should continue,
in respect to the Catholic Question, to walk in the
same direction that I have hitherto done. But I think
(and as I may not elsewhere have an opportunity of
expressing this opinion, I am desirous of expressing it
here)&mdash;I think that after the experience of a fruitless
struggle for more than ten years, I should, as an individual
(speaking for none but myself, and not knowing whether
I carry any other person’s opinion with me) be induced
henceforth, or perhaps after one more general trial, to
seek upon that question a <em>liberal compromise</em>.” Thus,
when instead of going to India the Governor-General,
already named, came into office at home, it was said at
once that he had done so on a <em>compromise</em>.</p>

<p>The accusation was false, but there was some appearance
of its being true, and those amongst the Opposition
who believed it, were the more enraged, since they thought
that if the Ministry had not been strengthened by the
new Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, it could not
have sustained itself, in which case they themselves would
have been called to power.</p>

<p>The speeches made against Mr. Canning were consequently
of the bitterest kind. One, by Lord Folkestone,
on a motion for the repeal of the Foreign Enlistment
Bill, delivered with extraordinary vehemence, accused him
of truckling to France.</p>

<p>“Sir,” said Mr. Canning, in reply, “I will not follow
the noble lord through a speech of which it would be
impossible to convey the impression by a mere repetition
of language. The Lacedæmonians, with the desire of
deterring their children from the vice of intoxication, used
occasionally to expose their slaves in a state of disgusting
inebriety. But, sir, there is a moral as well as a physical<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_430" id="Page_430">[430]</a></span>
intoxication; and never before did I behold so complete a
personification of the character which I have somewhere
seen described as <em>exhibiting the contortions of the sibyl
without her inspiration</em>. I will not on this occasion
reply to the noble lord’s speech, being of opinion that this
is not a fit opportunity for entering into the discussion it
would provoke; but let it not be supposed that I shrink
from the noble lord; for he may believe me when I say
that however I may have truckled to France, I will never
truckle to him.”</p>

<h4>IV.</h4>

<p>This speech was delivered April 16, 1823. On the
17th another important discussion occurred in Parliament.
Mr. Plunkett, who had joined the Administration
with Mr. Canning, bringing forward on that day the
claims of the Catholics, as a sort of token that he and
those who thought with him had not, on taking office,
abandoned the question of which they had so long been
the most eminent supporters,&mdash;Sir Francis Burdett accused
both the Attorney-General for Ireland and the
Secretary for Foreign Affairs of seeking to make an idle
parade of fine sentiments, which they knew would be practically
useless. Mr. Canning defended himself, and, as he
sat down, Mr. Brougham rose:</p>

<p>“If,” said he, “the other ministers had taken example
by the single-hearted, plain, manly, and upright conduct
of the right honourable Secretary for the Home Department
(Mr. Peel), who has always been on the same side
on this question, never swerving from his opinions, but
standing uniformly up and stating them&mdash;who had never
taken office on a secret understanding to abandon the
question in substance while he contrived to sustain it in
words&mdash;whose mouth, heart, and conduct have always
been in unison; if such had been the conduct of all the
friends of emancipation, I should not have found myself
in a state of despair with regard to the Catholic claims.
Let the conduct of the Attorney-General for Ireland (Mr.
Plunkett) have been what it might&mdash;let him have deviated
from his former professions or not&mdash;still, if the Secretary
of State for Foreign Affairs had only come forward at this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_431" id="Page_431">[431]</a></span>
critical moment, when the point was whether he should go
to India into honourable exile, or take office in England
and not submit to his sentence of transportation, but be
condemned to hard labour in his own country&mdash;doomed to
the disquiet of a divided council, sitting with his enemies,
and pitied by his friends, with his hands chained and tied
down on all those lines of operation which his own sentiments
and wishes would have led him to adopt&mdash;if, at that
critical moment, when his fate depended on Lord Chancellor
Eldon, and on his sentiments with respect to the
Catholic cause&mdash;if, at that critical moment, he who said
the other night that he would not truckle to a noble lord,
but who then exhibited the most incredible specimen of
monstrous truckling for the purpose of obtaining office
that the whole history of political tergiversation could
furnish.…”</p>

<p>At these words, Mr. Canning, labouring to conceal
emotion which his countenance had long betrayed, started
up, and, in a calm voice, with his eye fixed on Mr.
Brougham, said, “Sir, I rise to say that that is false.” A
dead silence of some minutes ensued; the Speaker interfered;
neither party would retract, and both gentlemen
were ordered into custody; but at last the matter was
arranged through Sir R. Wilson’s mediation.</p>

<h4>V.</h4>

<p>Without going into many details, I have thus said
enough to show that Mr. Canning had, in his new post, to
contend&mdash;first, against the disfavour of the Crown; secondly,
against the dislike, jealousy, and suspicion of a large
portion of his colleagues; thirdly, against the bitterest
hostility of the most able and eloquent amongst his parliamentary
opponents.</p>

<p>It is necessary to take into consideration all these difficulties
in order to appreciate the rare abilities, the adroit
adaptation of means to ends, the clever profiting by times
and occasions, the bold bearing-up against powerful antagonists,
the conquest over personal antipathies, which in a
few years placed England&mdash;humbled to the lowest degree
when Lord Castlereagh expired&mdash;in the highest position<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_432" id="Page_432">[432]</a></span>
she ever occupied since the days of Lord Chatham; and,
at the same time, ended by making the most unpopular
man with the nation, and the most distasteful minister
to the Sovereign, the people’s idol and the monarch’s
favourite.</p>

<p>I have asserted that England was never in a more
humbled position than at the death of Lord Castlereagh.
I had myself the opportunity of seeing this illustrated in
a private and confidential correspondence between Prince
Metternich and a distinguished person with whom he was
on terms of great intimacy, and to whom he wrote without
reserve;&mdash;a correspondence in which the Prince, when
alluding to our great warrior, who represented England at
the Congress of Verona, spoke of him as “the great Baby,”
and alluded to the power and influence of England as
things past and gone.</p>

<p>It was, in fact, too true that all memory of the long
efforts of twenty years, eventually successful in liberating
Europe, had wholly lapsed from the minds of those military
potentates, who having during war experienced every
variety of defeat, appeared at the conclusion of peace to
have recovered unbounded confidence in their arms.</p>

<p>The institutions which had nourished the pride and
valour to which we had owed our victories, were daily
denounced by the sovereigns in whose cause we had
fought; and every new expression of opinion that came to
us from the Continent, manifested more and more that
Waterloo was forgotten by every nation but the French.
Nothing, in short, was wanting to complete our degradation
after the false and impudent conduct of M. de Villèle,
but its disrespectful avowal; and painful and humiliating
must have been the sentiments of an English statesman,
when he read the speech of the French minister in the
Chamber of Deputies, and found him boast of having
amused our Government by misrepresenting the force on
the Spanish frontier as merely a <i lang="fr">cordon sanitaire</i>, until it
was made to act as <em>army of invasion</em>.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_433" id="Page_433">[433]</a></span></p>

<h4>VI.</h4>

<p>The ground, however, which the sovereigns forming the
Holy Alliance had now chosen for fighting the battle of
principles, was not well selected by them for the conflict.</p>

<p>During the despotism of Ferdinand, it was never forgotten
in this country, that those with whom he filled his
prisons, those whose blood he shed, those of whose hopeless
exile he was the cause, had fought side by side with our
own gallant soldiers; were the zealous and valiant patriots
who had delivered the land from which they were driven,
and re-established the dynasty which their tyrant disgraced.
Many, then, who disapproved of the new Spanish
constitution, were disposed to excuse the excesses of
freedom as the almost natural reaction from the abuses of
absolute power.</p>

<p>Nor was this all. There has always been a strong
party in England justly in favour of a good understanding
with the French nation. On such an understanding is
based that policy of peace which Walpole and Fox
judiciously advocated&mdash;the first more fortunately and more
opportunely than the last. But as no policy should ever
be carried to the extreme, we have on the other hand to
consider that the only serious danger menacing to England
is the undue aggrandisement of France. Her proximity,
her warlike spirit, her constant thirst for glory and
territory, the great military and naval armaments at her
disposal, the supremacy amongst nations which she is in
the habit of affecting, are all, at certain times, threatening
to our interests and wounding to our pride; and when the
French nation, with the tendency which she has always
manifested to spread her opinions, professes exaggerated
doctrines, whether in favour of democracy or despotism,
the spirit of conquest and proselytism combined with
power makes her equally menacing to our institutions and
to our independence. Her predominance in Spain, moreover,
which unites so many ports to those of France&mdash;ports
in which, as we learnt from Napoleon I., armaments
can be fitted out, and from which expeditions can be sent
against our possessions in the Mediterranean, or our<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_434" id="Page_434">[434]</a></span>
empire in the Channel, or against Egypt, on the high
road to our Indian dominions, has always been regarded
by English statesmen with a rational disquietude, and on
various occasions resisted with boldness, perseverance, and
success; nor did it matter to us whether it was the white
flag or the tricolour which crossed the Bridassoa when either
was to be considered the symbol of ambition and injustice.</p>

<h4>VII.</h4>

<p>Thus, Spain became, not inauspiciously, the spot on
which a liberal English minister had to confront the
despotic governments of the Continent. But for war on
account of Spain, England was not prepared; and, indeed,
the treachery which we knew existed in the Spanish counsels,
rendered war on account of that divided country out of the
question. The only remaining means of opposition was
protestation, and Mr. Canning at once protested against
the act of aggression which France was committing, and
against the principles put forth in its justification. The
mode of doing this was rendered easy by the speech from
the French throne, which was inexplicable, except as a
bold assertion of the divine rights of kings; and for that
slavish doctrine Mr. Canning, who, whichever side he
took, was not very guarded in his expressions, roundly
stated that “he felt disgust and abhorrence.”</p>

<p>The gauntlet of Legitimacy having been thus thrown
down, and being in this manner taken up, it only remained
to conduct the contest.</p>

<p>Caution was necessary in the selection of an opportunity
where a stand should be made. Boldness was also necessary
in order to make that stand without fear or hesitation,
when the fitting occasion arrived.</p>

<p class="tb">France, therefore, was permitted to overrun the Spanish
territory without resistance. But Mr. Canning declared
that, whilst England adopted, thus far, a passive attitude,
she could not permit the permanent occupation of Spain,
or any act of aggression against Portugal. At the same
time he alluded to the recognition of the revolted provinces
in South America, which provinces France was expecting<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_435" id="Page_435">[435]</a></span>
to gain in compensation for her expenses, as an event
merely dependent upon time, and protested against any
seizure by France, or any cession by Spain of possessions
which had <em>in fact</em> established their independence. In
these expressions were shadowed out the whole of that
course subsequently developed. They were little noticed,
it is true, at the time, because they did not interfere with
the plan of the moment, viz., the destruction of a constitutional
government at Madrid; but they became a text to
which our Minister could subsequently refer as a proof of
the frankness and consistency of the policy that from the
commencement of the French campaign he had been pursuing.
No one, however, understood better than the statesman
who had resolved on this policy, that to be powerful
abroad you must be popular at home. Thus at the close
of the session in which he had denounced the absolute
doctrines of the French Legitimists, we see him passing
through the great mercantile and manufacturing towns,
and endeavouring to excite amidst the large and intelligent
masses of those towns an enthusiasm for his talents, and
that attachment to his person, which genius, when it comes
into contact with the people, rarely fails to inspire.</p>

<h4>VIII.</h4>

<p>On one of these occasions it was that he delivered the
memorable speech, meant to resound throughout Europe,
and spoken with exquisite propriety in sight of the docks
at Plymouth.</p>

<p>“Our ultimate object, no doubt, is the peace of the
world, but let it not be said that we cultivate it either
because we fear, or because we are unprepared for war.
On the contrary, if eight months ago the Government did
not proclaim that this country was prepared for war, this
was from causes far other than those produced by fear;
and if war should at last unfortunately be necessary, every
intervening month of peace that has since passed has but
made us so much the more capable of warlike exertion.
The resources created by peace are indeed the means of
war. In cherishing these resources, we but accumulate
these means. Our present repose is no more a proof of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_436" id="Page_436">[436]</a></span>
incapability to act, than the state of inertness and inactivity
in which I have seen those mighty masses that float
on the waters above your town, is a proof that they are
devoid of strength, and incapable of being fitted for action.
<em>You well know, gentlemen, how soon one of those stupendous
masses, now reposing on their shadows in perfect
stillness&mdash;how soon upon any call of patriotism, or of
necessity, it would assume the likeness of an animated
thing, instinct with life and motion; how soon it would
ruffle, as it were, its swelling plumage; how quickly it
would put forth all its beauty and its bravery; collect its
scattered elements of strength, and awaken its dormant
thunder! Such as is one of those magnificent machines
when springing from inaction into a display of its might,
such is England herself; while apparently passionless
and motionless, she silently concentrates the power to be
put forth on an adequate occasion.</em>”</p>

<p class="tb">Luckily for Mr. Canning, the circumstances of the
country in 1824 enabled him to maintain and increase
that popularity which he was desirous to acquire. Trade
had begun to thrive, the revenue to increase, taxation to
diminish; nor were these facts merely valuable in themselves,
they were also valuable in affording a facility for
entering more freely upon that large and comprehensive
system of commerce which was the best adapted to a
country that combined great maritime power with great
manufacturing capacity.</p>

<p>Besides, by entering frankly upon this system, Mr.
Canning was giving strength to one of those links which
now began to unite him to the Opposition, and thus to
rally round him by degrees nearly the whole liberal force
of the House of Commons. Already, indeed, many of his
opponents had softened in their tone, and Sir James Mackintosh
(June 25, 1824), referring to papers that had been
laid before Parliament, passed the highest eulogy on the
conduct which the Foreign Secretary was adopting in
respect to the South American question.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_437" id="Page_437">[437]</a></span></p>

<h4>IX.</h4>

<p>The time is now arrived for speaking of that question.
From the first moment that the intentions of the French
government towards Spain were known, Mr. Canning, as
it has been seen, hinted at the recognition of the Spanish
colonies, and protested against any proceeding which
either directly or indirectly should bring them under the
authority of France. A variety of projects,&mdash;amongst
which that of holding a congress of the Great Powers at
Paris, for the purpose of considering how it might be
most expedient to assist Spain in adjusting her differences
with the revolted colonies, was the most significant,&mdash;all
tended to show the necessity of some immediate step
for placing beyond dispute the condition of those colonies.</p>

<p>By a series of measures, each in advance of the preceding
one, none going so far as to excite any burst of
resentment, Mr. Canning went on gradually towards the
ultimate decision he had in view.</p>

<p>A warning to Spain that unless she forthwith effected
an accommodation with her former subjects, their independence
would be recognised, was given and repeated;
a warning to France that the cession to any other power
of the Spanish possessions in America would not be allowed,
had also been once given, and was now formally renewed.
The project of interfering for their conquest with foreign
troops, whatever might be decided by any congress, was
boldly forbidden. Consuls had already been appointed to
attend to the interests of British commerce in those parts,
and commissioners had been sent out to Columbia and
Mexico (the emancipation of Buenos Ayres was undisputed)
to report on their condition. The memorable declaration
of the United States, frequently referred to since&mdash;as the
Munroe Doctrine,&mdash;and to which our foreign minister, by
his communications with the United States Envoy in
London, had in no small degree contributed;&mdash;a declaration
to the effect that the United States would not see with
indifference the attempt of any European power to
establish itself on the American continent, was a positive
assurance of the only alliance that might be important,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_438" id="Page_438">[438]</a></span>
should England have to contend by force of arms against a
French and Spanish expedition.</p>

<p>At last, strong in popularity at home, having by previous
measures, difficult to be opposed, lessened the shock that
might have been produced abroad, Mr. Canning put the seal
to this portion of his plans, and announced his recognition
of three of the most powerful of the new republics.</p>

<p>This recognition, however justifiable on its proper
merits, is not merely to be considered on such isolated
grounds. It formed a part, and an important part, of
European policy; it altered the position in which this
country stood towards those powers who had declared their
principles to be in opposition to our own. Now it was the
turn of Austria, Prussia, and Russia to <em>remonstrate</em>, and to
have their <em>remonstrances</em> treated as those of England had
been by them on former occasions. Thus, the part which
Great Britain had hitherto played was for the first time
reversed; and her character, which at each late congress
had been sinking lower and lower in the scale of public
opinion, rose at once in the balance. This is the first
important epoch in Mr. Canning’s foreign administration.</p>

<h4>X.</h4>

<p>The affairs of Portugal next demand attention. That
country, from the commencement of the new conflict in
the Peninsula, had been the scene of French intrigues for
the purpose of destroying English interests; and of court
cabals, with the object of favouring Don Miguel’s pretensions.
The Queen, a violent and profligate old woman,
who had never kept any terms with her passions, countenanced
the most desperate schemes; and King John VI.,
a weak but not unamiable monarch, was even obliged on
one occasion to seek safety on board a British frigate. The
defeat of the conspiracy which occasioned this alarm banished
Don Miguel; but M. Subserra, the King’s minister
and favourite, and a mere tool in the hands of France, still
remained; so that although the Portuguese government
never took any open part against the Spanish Cortes, the
King would never concede a constitution to his people (this
being very strenuously opposed by the French Government<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_439" id="Page_439">[439]</a></span>
and its allies), nor unite himself cordially with
England, by giving Lord Beresford the command of his
army, and conferring on M. Palmella the chief influence
in his cabinet. Our situation in respect to Portugal was
moreover complicated by the state of Brazil. Don Pedro,
King John’s eldest son, had been left Regent in that
colony by his father, when the latter returned to his more
ancient dominions. The King’s secret instructions were
that the Prince should adopt any course that circumstances
might render necessary, rather than allow so important a
possession to pass from the family of Braganza. But the
spirit of the Brazilians, who from the long residence of
their monarch amongst them had for some time enjoyed
the privileges of a Metropolitan State, would not submit
to a renewal of their old dependence on the mother
country; and the Regent was forced, in obedience to the
injunctions just mentioned, to place himself at the head of
a revolt, and to become, under the title of “Emperor,”
sovereign of a new kingdom.</p>

<p>It may be doubtful whether Don Pedro’s father was
quite pleased at an act of which (whatever might be his
commands in the case of a supposed contingency) it might
always have been difficult to prove the necessity by formal
and unpalatable explanations; but the Portuguese in
general were at all events far more violent than their
monarch, and would at once have attempted the conquest
of their rebellious but distant province if they had possessed
any of the means requisite for such an undertaking. Mr.
Canning, on the other hand, not only saw that Portugal,
for her own sake, should endeavour to enter into some
arrangement, admitting a fact which it was impossible to
alter; he was also obliged, in consequence of the policy
which he was elsewhere pursuing, to endeavour to obtain
for Brazil an independent position.</p>

<p>It became desirable, then, on every account, to settle as
soon as possible the differences between the colony and
the mother country; and, having vainly attempted to do
this in other ways, it was resolved at last, as the best and
promptest course, to send some superior Diplomatist to
Lisbon, who, if he succeeded in obtaining the consent of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_440" id="Page_440">[440]</a></span>
the Portuguese government to a moderate plan of accommodation,
might proceed at once to Rio Janeiro, and
urge Don Pedro and his government to accept it. Sir
Charles Stuart (afterwards Lord Stuart de Rothsay), was
selected for the double mission, and succeeded, after some
difficulty, in accomplishing its object. He then, however,
being in Brazil, undertook the arrangement of a commercial
treaty between the newly emancipated colony and
Great Britain, and some singular errors into which he
fell delaying the completion of his business, he was still at
Rio when King John died.</p>

<h4>XI.</h4>

<p>The Emperor of Brazil, Don Pedro, then became King
of Portugal; and having to decide on the relinquishment
of one of these kingdoms, it seeming impossible to keep
them permanently united, he assumed that, in abdicating
the throne of Portugal, he had the right of dictating the
method and terms of his abdication. He proposed, then,
first, to take upon himself the crown to which he had
succeeded; secondly, in his capacity of sovereign of Portugal,
to give a constitution to the Portuguese; thirdly, if
that constitution were accepted, and that Don Miguel, his
brother, were willing to espouse Donna Maria, his (Don
Pedro’s) daughter, to place the ancient sceptre of Portugal
in that daughter’s hands.</p>

<p>The apparent countenance of Great Britain, however
obtained, was no doubt of consequence to the success of
this project, and Sir Charles Stuart was prevailed upon to
accept the title of Portuguese ambassador, and in such
capacity to be the bearer of the new constitutional charter
to Portugal. He thus, it is true, acted without Mr. Canning’s
authority, for the case was one which could hardly
have been foreseen, and it may be doubted whether his
conduct was well advised; but still no experienced Diplomatist
would have taken upon himself so important a part
as Sir Charles Stuart assumed, unless he had pretty fair
reasons to suppose that he was doing that which would
be agreeable to his chief; and when Mr. Canning gave
his subsequent sanction to Sir Charles’s conduct, by declaring<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_441" id="Page_441">[441]</a></span>
in a despatch, dated July 12, 1826, that the King
entirely approved of the ambassador’s having consented
(under the peculiar circumstances of his situation in Brazil)
to be the bearer of the Emperor’s decrees to Lisbon, the
world in general considered the whole affair, as in fact it
had become, the arrangement of Great Britain.</p>

<p>In this manner did we appear as having recognised the
South American Republics, as having arranged the separation
and independence of the great Portuguese colony;
and, finally, as having carried a constitution into Portugal
itself. All the Powers leagued in favour of despotism,
protesting at this time against the recognition of any
colony, and France being then as their deputed missionary
in Spain, for the express purpose of putting down a constitution
in that country.</p>

<p>This is the second memorable epoch in Mr. Canning’s
foreign policy&mdash;the second period in that diplomatic war
which at Troppau and Verona had been announced, and
which when the Duc d’Angoulême crossed the Pyrenees,
had been undertaken against Liberal opinions.</p>

<h4>XII.</h4>

<p>If our government at last stood in a position worthy of
the strength and the intellect of the nation it represented,
that position was, nevertheless, one that required for its
maintenance the nicest tempering of dignity with forbearance;
no offence was to be heedlessly given, none
timidly submitted to. Spain and Portugal, long jealous
and hostile, were marshalled under two hostile and jarring
opinions. The most powerful, backed by friendly and kindred
armies, was likely to invade the weaker; and that
weaker we were bound to defend by an indissoluble alliance.</p>

<p>The first step manifesting the feelings of King Ferdinand’s
government was a refusal to recognise the Portuguese
Regency established at King John’s death; but
matters were certain not to stop here. Portuguese
deserters were soon received in Spain, and allowed to arm;
nay, were furnished with arms by Spanish authority, for
the purpose of being sent back as invaders into their native
country. Even Spanish troops, in more than one instance,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_442" id="Page_442">[442]</a></span>
hostilely entered Portugal, while the Spanish ministry
scrupled at no falsehoods that might stretch a flimsy covering
over their deceitful assurances and unfriendly designs.</p>

<p>Things were in this state, peace rested upon these
hollow and uncertain foundations, when Mr. Canning
received at the same time the official news that the rebel
troops which had been organised in Spain were marching
upon Lisbon; and the most solemn declarations from Spain
herself that these very troops should be dispersed, and
their chief arrested. The crisis for action seemed now to
have arrived; for England was bound, as I have said, by
treaty, to defend Portugal against a foreign power, and a
foreign power was in this instance clearly, though meanly,
indirectly, and treacherously assailing her. To shrink
from the dangerous obligation to which we stood pledged,
or even to appear so to shrink, was to relinquish that hold
upon public opinion, both at home and abroad, which hold
we had at last obtained, and to abandon the moral power
which, if a contest did arise, would be the main portion
of our strength. On the other hand, to comply with the
request of the Portuguese government for succour (that
request was now formally made), and to send a British
force to Portugal was, no doubt, an event that might be
the commencement of a general war. Of all policies, a
hesitating, shuffling policy would have been the worst.
Had it been adopted, Spain, or those who then governed
Spain, would have proceeded to more violent and irremediable
acts&mdash;acts to which we must have submitted
with the grossest dishonour, or resented with the smallest
chances of success.</p>

<h4>XIII.</h4>

<p>At this moment, 12th December, 1826, Mr. Canning
came down to the House of Commons, his fine eye kindling
with a sense of the magnitude of the transactions in which
he was called upon to play so important a part; and
having described the circumstances in which England was
placed, and the obligations to which she was pledged,
stated the manner in which the duty of the English
government had been fulfilled:</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_443" id="Page_443">[443]</a></span></p>

<p>“I understand, indeed, that in some quarters it has
been imputed to his Majesty’s ministers that an extraordinary
delay intervened between the taking up the
determination to give assistance to Portugal and the
carrying of that determination into effect. But how
stands the fact? On Sunday, the 3rd of this month, we
received from the Portuguese ambassador a direct and
formal demand of assistance against a hostile aggression
from Spain. Our answer was, that although rumours had
reached us through France of this event, his Majesty’s
government had not that accurate information&mdash;that
official and precise intelligence of facts on which it could
properly found an application to Parliament. It was only
on last Friday night that this precise information arrived&mdash;on
Saturday his Majesty’s confidential servants came to
a decision. On Sunday that decision received the sanction
of his Majesty; on Monday it was communicated to both
Houses of Parliament; and this day, sir, at this hour in
which I have the honour of addressing you, the troops are
on their march for embarkation.”</p>

<p>This passage possesses all the qualities of oratory, and
could hardly have been delivered without exciting a burst
of applause. So again, when the Minister, his voice
swelling, his arm outstretched, and his face turned towards
the benches where sat the representatives of the great
monarchs who, but a short time before, derided our power
and denounced our principles, said, “We go to plant the
standard of England on the <em>well-known heights</em> of Lisbon.
Where that standard is planted, foreign dominion <em>shall
not come</em>,” a thrill ran through the assembly at these simple
but ominous words. My conviction, indeed, was that this
speech must throughout have produced as great an effect
in delivery as it does, even now, in reading; but I was
talking the other day with a friend who, then being a
Westminster boy, was present at the debate; and he told
me I was mistaken, and that with the exception of one or
two passages such as those I have cited, there was a want
of that elasticity and flow which distinguished Mr. Canning’s
happier efforts.</p>

<p>It is probable that not having had time, amidst the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_444" id="Page_444">[444]</a></span>
business which the step he was taking had created, to
prepare himself sufficiently, he had the air of being over-prepared,
and, according to my friend, only rose to his
full height as an orator, when he made that famous
allusion to the position which England then held between
conflicting principles, like Œolus between conflicting
winds; and when again, in reply, defending the course he
had adopted during the recent French expedition, he thus
elevated his hearers to a conception of the grandeur of his
views, and the mingled prudence and audacity of his
conduct. “If France occupied Spain, was it necessary, in
order to avoid the consequences of that occupation, that
we should blockade Cadiz? No: I looked another way;
I sought the materials of occupation in another hemisphere.
Contemplating Spain such as her ancestors had known
her, I resolved that, if France had Spain, it should not be
Spain with the Indies; I called the New World into
existence to redress the balance of the old.”</p>

<h4>XIV.</h4>

<p>But the Minister of Foreign Affairs displayed talents far
beyond those of the mere orator on this occasion. He took
a step which was certain to incur the displeasure and
excite the open hostility of a powerful party throughout
Europe. Many who might have felt themselves obliged
by honour to take this step would have done so with a
timid and downcast air, endeavouring by an affectation of
humanity to deprecate the anger of the high personages
they were offending. Such men, exciting no sympathy,
creating and maintaining no allies, encouraging the attacks
and justifying the insults of all enemies, would have placed
their country in a false and pitiful position, where, powerless
and compromised, she would have stood before her
opponents, exposed by her advance, tempting by her
weakness. But the sagacious know that a bold game
must be played boldly, and that the great art of
moderating opponents consists in gaining friends.</p>

<p class="tb">Mr. Canning, then, neither flinched nor faltered. In
venturing upon a measure which aroused the anger of so<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_445" id="Page_445">[445]</a></span>
many powerful foes, he made those foes aware that if we
were assailed because, in fulfilment of treaties, we marched
to the defence of a country which was attacked on account
of its liberal institutions, England would gather beneath
her standard all those who loved liberty throughout
Europe. Our country was on the verge of a contest with
the most potent sovereigns. Our minister neither provoked
nor quailed before those sovereigns, but plainly
told them, that if such a contest did arise, it would be a
contest in which many of the governments eager to provoke
it might expect to find, side by side with our soldiers,
not a few of their own people&mdash;a contest in which, were
Englishmen forced to take a part, they would not shrink
from taking the part that befitted the brave and free
descendants of men who had suffered for their religion at
the stake, and adjudged their monarch to the scaffold.</p>

<h4>XV.</h4>

<p>British troops, then, were at last sent in aid of Portugal;
no other troops opposed them; the expedition was successful;
and from that moment Mr. Canning was pointed to
as the first statesman of his time; and Great Britain&mdash;without
having excited war or produced revolutions,
following a course conformable to her interests, her history,
and her character, backed by the sympathy of the free,
and guarded by the reverence and affection of the
intelligent; having shed no blood, having exhausted no
treasure, having never uttered a word that our nation did
not echo, nor shrunk from supporting a word that had been
uttered&mdash;stood before the world in a yet more exalted and
noble situation than even at that moment when Napoleon
fled from Waterloo, and the British drum was beating in
the streets of Paris.</p>

<p>This is the third epoch in Mr. Canning’s conflict with
the crusaders against constitutional principles. I have
described the measures by which that conflict had been
supported. It would be difficult to point out any stronger
measures that a country, placed in similar circumstances,
could have taken. But Mr. Canning, acting with force
and spirit, had acted without exaggeration. He had not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_446" id="Page_446">[446]</a></span>
said, “I will wage war with certain opinions;” he had
not told the sovereigns of Troppau, Laybach, and Verona,
“Because you commit aggression and injustice, I will do
the same; because you enter into a war against Liberal
governments, I will forthwith arm the people of my
country against all governments of a despotic nature.”</p>

<p>Representing a state which did not wish to give the law,
but which would not receive it, he neither cringed nor
threatened. “Publish what doctrines and take what
course you may,” was the language of England’s great
statesman, “I will shape my way according to the
interests and treaties of my country with equal independence.”</p>

<p>With such language the Spanish colonies were recognised,
because Spain could be no longer responsible for
their conduct; because France maintained herself in Spain
under the hope that those colonies would furnish an
indemnity for the money she had spent in re-establishing
despotism in Spain itself; because England, at the head of
constitutional governments, found it necessary to check
the moral influence of the Holy Alliance, at the head of
absolute governments.</p>

<p>Thus the separation of Brazil from Portugal was
negotiated, since the struggle between the mother country
and her ancient but emancipated possession, was unfavourable
to British commerce, embarrassing to British
influence, and adverse to the general policy it was
found expedient, as I have said, to pursue in Spanish
America.</p>

<p>Thus British troops were sent even ostentatiously to
Lisbon, since Mr. Canning would not for a moment
countenance the belief that England would shrink from
her engagements to the weakest ally, although the form
of government adopted by that ally was contrary to the
particular opinions of the most powerful confederacy in the
world.</p>

<p>And here it is especially to be remarked that a policy
which, regarded as a whole, bears so decided an appearance,
and which was certain to produce so considerable an effect,
offers hardly a single point where the success was doubtful,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_447" id="Page_447">[447]</a></span>
or the peril great. Developing itself, like that game
where the skilful winner advances gradually but surely,
each piece protected by another through a series of moves,
our policy had only become conspicuous by the last move
which obtained its victory.</p>

<p>Our treaties with Buenos Ayres, with Mexico, and
Columbia, guarded as they were by our own previous
declarations, and also by the important declaration of the
American President, could only expose us to a useless and
insignificant exhibition of displeasure.</p>

<p>The severance of Brazil from Portugal, as long as
Portugal was a consenting party, could with little decency
be objected to by an indifferent power; the concession of a
charter to Portugal, coming from the sovereign of Portugal
himself, was an act which those who contended for the
divine right of kings to do what they thought proper,
could not well oppose: and finally, the expedition of
British troops to Lisbon&mdash;sent out at the time when the
name of “Mr. Canning” had become the rallying word of
England, and “England” herself the rallying word of
the free and the intelligent throughout the world, demanded
also under circumstances too well known to be
disputed, and authorised by treaties which had always been
acknowledged, and to which, from the very commencement
of his administration, Mr. Canning had called attention&mdash;resolutely
as it was announced, gallantly as it was made,
and important as its impression on the public mind was
sure to be&mdash;could hardly have been resented with propriety
or advantage. On each occasion the minister had made
his stand at the happiest opportunity and on the strongest
grounds. Abandoning, it is true, all direct resistance to
France and to the principles she maintained&mdash;where such
resistance must have been made with great peril, and with
but small chance of success&mdash;he had adopted towards both
France and her principles a system of opposition which
exhibited itself by a variety of successive acts each by
itself little likely to be dangerous, and all in their combination
certain to be effective. In the first place, instead
of meeting the enemy on a ground undermined by factions,
and where a large military force, inconsistent with the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_448" id="Page_448">[448]</a></span>
nature of our means, would have been necessary, he carried
the quarrel into a new hemisphere, and placed it on a
question which, mistress of the seas, England had the
undoubted power of deciding. Lastly, when a British
army was sent to the continent, it was sent not on grounds
which might merely be justifiable, but for reasons which
were obligatory; while the people to whose aid it marched&mdash;open
to the ocean, animated by hereditary jealousy
against their neighbours, accustomed to British command,
and confident in British assistance&mdash;were the people whom
we were most likely to be allowed to succour with impunity,
and most certain, should war ensue, of triumphantly
defending.</p>

<p>Something of chance and fortune, no doubt, was mingled
in the happy conduct of these events, as is the case in all
human affairs; but there is visible a steady and impressive
will, tempering and ruling them throughout; the mind
and spirit of a man, who was capable of forethought,
governed by precaution, and prompt in decision.</p>

<hr />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_449" id="Page_449">[449]</a></span></p>

<h3><span class="smcap">Part IV.</span><br />
<span class="smaller">FROM THE BEGINNING OF MR. CANNING’S POPULARITY AS
FOREIGN MINISTER TO HIS DEATH.</span></h3>

<div class="smaller">

<p>Mr. Canning’s position.&mdash;Altered tone of opposition.&mdash;Favour of King.&mdash;Death
of Duke of York and of Lord Liverpool.&mdash;Struggle for the Premiership.&mdash;Nomination
of Mr. Canning.&mdash;Secession of Duke of Wellington and Anti-Catholic
party.&mdash;Junction with Whigs.&mdash;Formation of Cabinet.&mdash;Effect of
Canning on the men of his time, and their effect on a subsequent one.&mdash;Eastern
affairs.&mdash;Treaty concerning Greece with Russia and France.&mdash;Sickness.&mdash;Death.</p>

</div>

<h4>I.</h4>

<p>It is needless to say that a policy which raised England
so high in the world’s consideration was popular with
Englishmen; they were proud of their country and of
their minister. The Whig opposition, moreover, which
at first depreciated that minister and praised his colleagues,
soon began to depreciate his colleagues and to
praise him. But Mr. Canning’s most extraordinary and
unexpected triumph was at court. From being the man
in the Cabinet the most odious to the King, he had become
the King’s pet minister, and one of the most intimate
of his chosen circle.</p>

<p>The leader of the House of Commons had one peculiar
mode of obtaining his Majesty’s confidence, and cultivating
his intimacy. It was his arduous duty to send to the
Sovereign every night a written account of that night’s
proceedings in the assembly to which he belonged. It is
easy to see the advantage which this established custom
may give to a writer who expresses himself with tact and
clearness. A minister of foreign affairs has also more
opportunities than any other minister of captivating the
Royal attention. Foreign politics, which constitute the
arena in which kings are pitted against kings, are the
politics which most interest royal personages. A monarch<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_450" id="Page_450">[450]</a></span>
there represents before other monarchs the fame, the
power, the character of the nation he rules; he rises as it
rises, he falls as it falls.</p>

<p>George IV., whatever his faults, was not without talent
or ambition. In early life he wished to distinguish himself
in military service abroad, and when, on this being
denied him, he entered more deeply than discreetly into
politics at home, it was the desire for popularity which
connected him with the Opposition. He still remembered
the high position which after the battle of Waterloo he
held, as Regent of England, amongst the great potentates
of the earth; and though personally attached to Lord
Castlereagh, and unwilling to sever himself altogether
from the sovereigns who had formerly been his allies, and
who now in confounding Liberty with Anarchy came
forward as the champions of Royalty and order, still he
was not insensible to the fact that he had become, little by
little, a nonentity in the councils of his peers, and that his
advice and opinions, even when expressed by the great
warrior who had vanquished Napoleon, were treated with
a disregard which was galling to his pride as a monarch,
and painful to his feelings as an Englishman. He experienced
no small exultation, then, when he saw this
state of things reversed, and that the King of England
was once more a personage whose policy created hope and
alarm. He had, moreover, a singular propensity, which
was in fact a sort of madness, for conceiving that he had
played a personal part in all the events which had passed
in his reign. Amongst other fancies of this kind, he believed,
or at least often spoke as if he believed, that he
had been on the great battle-field which had terminated
the war in 1815; and I have been told by two persons
who were present, that one day at dinner, after relating
his achievements on this occasion, he turned round to the
Iron Duke and said:</p>

<p>“Was it not so, Duke?”</p>

<p>“I have heard your Majesty often say so,” replied the
Duke, drily.<a name="FNanchor_122" id="FNanchor_122"></a><a href="#Footnote_122" class="fnanchor">[122]</a> It was easy, then, for Mr. Canning to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_451" id="Page_451">[451]</a></span>
make George IV. consider Mr. Canning’s policy his policy,
Mr. Canning’s successes his successes, and indeed
Mr. Canning always spoke to his Majesty, when the
popularity of his administration became apparent, as if he
had only followed the inspiration of a prescient and intelligent
master.</p>

<p>I should omit more trifling causes of favour, if I did not
think them necessary to illustrate the character of the
parties, and of the times of which I am speaking, and to
show the attention which Mr. Canning, once engaged in
the task of recasting our foreign policy, gave to the
smallest circumstances which might facilitate it. In the
ordinary acceptation of the word, he was not a courtier, or
a man of the world. Living, as I have already stated, in
the midst of a small clique of admirers, and little with
society at large, he confined his remarkable powers of
pleasing to his own set. He had determined, however, on
gaining George IV.’s goodwill, or, at all events, on vanquishing
his dislike, and he saw at once that this was to
be done rather indirectly than directly, and that it could
best be done by gaining the favour of those ladies of the
court whom the King saw most frequently, and spoke to
most unreservedly. These were Lady Conyngham and
Madame de Lieven. For Lady Conyngham George IV.
had a sort of chivalric devotion or attachment; Madame
de Lieven he liked and appreciated as the lady who had
the greatest knack of seizing and understanding his wishes,
and making his court agreeable. She was a musician, and
he was fond of music; she had correspondents at every
capital in Europe, and knew all the small gossip as well as
the most important affairs that agitated Paris, St. Petersburg,
and Vienna, and he was amused by foreign gossip
and interested in foreign affairs. Her opinion, moreover,
as to the position of any one in the world of fashion was
law, and George IV. piqued himself especially on being
the man of fashion. Mr. Canning resolved, then, on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_452" id="Page_452">[452]</a></span>
pleasing this remarkable lady, and completely succeeded.
She became, as she afterwards often stated, subjugated by
the influence of his natural manner and brilliant talents;
and the favour of Madame de Lieven went the further in
this instance with the King, since he had previously a
sort of prejudice against Canning, as being too much the
man of letters, and not sufficiently the fine gentleman.
This prejudice once removed, a man of wit, genius, and
information, had no inconsiderable hold on a prince whose
youth had been passed in the most brilliant society of his
time, and who was still alive to the memory of the sparkling
wit of Sheridan and the easy and copious eloquence of Fox.
Lady Conyngham’s alliance was still more important than
that of Madame de Lieven, and one of Mr. Canning’s first
acts was to name Lord Francis Conyngham Under Secretary
of State, it is said at the King’s desire. At all events,
Lord Francis’s appointment, which was in every respect a
good one, pleased the Marchioness, and satisfied his Majesty,
who saw in it the willingness of his Minister to bring even
the most private acts of his administration under the Royal
cognisance.</p>

<h4>II.</h4>

<p>An anecdote of the time is worth recording, since it
connected itself with the recognition of the Spanish
colonies, and the subsequent elevation of the minister to
whom this important act was due.</p>

<p>Lady Conyngham had been supposed in early life to
have greatly admired (there was no scandal, I should say,
attached to this admiration) Lord Ponsonby, then the
finest gentleman of his day. Lord Ponsonby, who had
long been absent from England, returned from the Ionian
Islands, where he had held a small office, not a little
desirous to get a better place than the one he had quitted.
He met Lady Conyngham at Lady Jersey’s, and (so went
the story of the day) Lady Conyngham fainted. So interesting
a piece of gossip soon reached the ear of the
monarch: the friendship of old men is very often as
romantic as the love of young men. His Majesty took to
his bed, declared himself ill, and would see no one. All
business was stopped. After waiting some time, Mr.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_453" id="Page_453">[453]</a></span>
Canning at last obtained an interview. George IV. received
him lying on a couch in a darkened room, the light
being barely sufficient to read a paper.</p>

<p>“What’s the matter? I am very ill, Mr. Canning.”</p>

<p>“I shall not occupy your Majesty for more than five
minutes. It is very desirable, as your Majesty knows, to
send Envoys, without delay, to the States of South
America, that are about to be recognised.”</p>

<p>The King groaned, and moved impatiently.</p>

<p>“I have been thinking, Sire, it would be most desirable
to select a man of rank for one of these posts (another
groan), and I thought of proposing Lord Ponsonby to
your Majesty for Buenos Ayres.”</p>

<p>“Ponsonby!” said the King, rising a little from his
reclining position&mdash;“a capital appointment! a clever
fellow, though an idle one, Mr. Canning. May I ask
you to undraw that curtain a little? A very good appointment:
is there anything else, Canning, that you
wish me to attend to?”</p>

<p>From that moment, said the person who told me this
story, Mr. Canning’s favour rose more and more rapidly.<a name="FNanchor_123" id="FNanchor_123"></a><a href="#Footnote_123" class="fnanchor">[123]</a></p>

<p>But in mentioning Lady Conyngham and Madame de
Lieven, as having been of much use to Mr. Canning, I
should also mention Doctor Sir Wm. Knighton. Yet, I
would not have it thought that I intend in any way to
take from Mr. Canning’s character as a great minister by
showing that he adopted the small means necessary to
rule a court. George IV.’s habits were such that without
some aid of this kind no statesman could have got current
affairs carried on with due regularity, or initiated any
policy that required the Royal support.</p>

<h4>III.</h4>

<p>The moment was now at hand, when the extent of this
Royal support was to be tested; when, in short, it was to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_454" id="Page_454">[454]</a></span>
be decided whether the Canning party or the Wellington
and Eldon party was to be predominant in the Cabinet.
The difference in feeling and opinion between the two
sections was, as I have said, more or less general; but as
the only question on which the members of the same
government were allowed to disagree (according to the
principle on which the Cabinet had been founded) was
Catholic Emancipation, so it was on the Catholic Emancipation
question that each tried its strength against the
other. In the preceding year the Emancipationists had
obtained a majority in the House of Commons, and would
have had only a small majority against them in the House
of Lords, but for the speech of the Duke of York, heir-presumptive
to the throne, who declared that he was, and
ever would be, a determined supporter of the Protestant
principles of exclusion, maintained by his late father.
There is reason to suppose that this declaration was made
on an understanding with the King, who thought that he
would thus fortify his own opinions, which had become
for the last twenty years hostile to the Catholics, and also
deter Canning and his friends from pushing forward too
eagerly a matter on which they must expect to encounter
the opposition of two successive sovereigns.</p>

<p>On the 5th of January, 1827, however, the Duke of
York died; and though during his illness he strongly
advised his brother to form an anti-Catholic Administration&mdash;without
which, he said, Catholic Emancipation must ere
long be granted&mdash;the counsel, though it had distressed
George IV. considerably, had not decided him; for his
Majesty preferred his ease, as long as he could enjoy it, to
facing difficulties which would disorder the ordinary routine
of his social life, as well as that of public affairs. The
Duke of York’s influence on George IV., moreover, was
that of personal contact, of a living man of honest and
sterling character, over a living man of weaker character;
it expired, therefore, when he expired.</p>

<p>Another death soon afterwards occurred. Lord Liverpool
was taken ill in February, 1827, and he died in
March. This left the first situation in the Government
vacant. The moderator between the two conflicting<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_455" id="Page_455">[455]</a></span>
parties was no more, and a struggle as to the Premiership
became inevitable.</p>

<p>Mr. Canning was at this crisis seriously ill at Brighton:
and we may conceive the agitation of his restless mind,
since Sir Francis Burdett’s annual motion on the Catholic
claims was just then coming on. His absence would, he
knew, be misinterpreted; and literally rising from his bed,
and under sufferings which only ambition and duty could
have rendered supportable, he appeared to confront his
enemies and encourage his followers in his place in the
House of Commons.</p>

<p>The debate was more than warm, and an encounter
between the Master of the Rolls, Sir J. Copley, afterwards
Lord Lyndhurst, and the Secretary of State for Foreign
Affairs, was such as might rather be expected from rival
chiefs of hostile factions, than from men belonging to the
same government, and professing to entertain on most
subjects the same opinions. Finally, a majority of four
decided against Sir Francis Burdett.</p>

<p>After this trial of strength, it was difficult for the
Minister of Foreign Affairs to insist upon the first place
in a balanced cabinet, with a majority in both Houses of
Parliament against the party which he represented.
When, therefore, the King consulted him subsequently as
to a new Administration, he said:</p>

<p>“I should recommend your Majesty to form an Administration
wholly composed of persons who entertain, in
respect to the Roman Catholics, your Majesty’s own
opinions.”</p>

<p>This counsel could not be carried out; but it seemed
disinterested, and forced George IV. to allow, after making
the attempt, that it was impracticable. The formation of
a Cabinet on the old terms of general comprehension thus
became a necessity, and to that Government Mr. Canning
was indispensable. But his Majesty naturally wished to
retain him in a position that would not offend the rest of
his colleagues, and to place some person opposed to the
Catholics in Lord Liverpool’s vacant situation. This
Mr. Canning would not consent to. In serving under
Lord Liverpool, he had served under a man highly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_456" id="Page_456">[456]</a></span>
distinguished from his youth, offered, as early as the death
of Mr. Pitt, the first situation in the State, and who, as
the head of a government retaining possession of power for
many years, had enjoyed the good fortune of holding it at
one of the most glorious epochs in British history. That
nobleman left no one behind him entertaining his own
opinions, and on whom his own claims of precedency could
be naturally supposed to descend. Besides, he was
Mr. Canning’s private friend, and agreed with him on
almost every question, except the solitary one of Catholic
Emancipation.</p>

<p>It was clear, then, that if the successor to Lord Liverpool
shared Lord Liverpool’s opinions on Catholic Emancipation,
but did not share Lord Liverpool’s other opinions,
and was more or less adverse to Mr. Canning instead of
being particularly attached to him, this would make a great
change as to Mr. Canning’s position in the Administration,
and a great change as to the general character of the
Administration itself. Mr. Canning, therefore, could not
submit to such a change without damaging his policy and
damaging himself. He was to be Cæsar or nobody;
the man to lead a party, not the hack of any party that
offered him the emoluments of place, without the reality
of power.</p>

<h4>IV.</h4>

<p>But if Mr. Canning was determined to be Head of the
Government, or not to belong to it at all, his rivals were
equally determined not to belong to a government of which
he was to be the head.</p>

<p>In this dilemma George IV. fixed his eyes on the Duke
of Wellington. Few at that period considered the duke
fit for the management of civil affairs; but George IV.
had great confidence in his general abilities, and thought
that with his assistance it might be possible to conciliate a
minister whom he was disposed to disappoint, and did not
wish to displease. But the Duke of Wellington was the
very last man under whom it was Mr. Canning’s interest
to place himself. That he refused to do so is therefore no
matter of surprise; his refusal, however, was skilfully
framed, and in such terms as were most likely to catch<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_457" id="Page_457">[457]</a></span>
the ear of the nation, “<em>he could never consent to a military
Premier</em>.” In the meantime, the struggle that had been
going on in the Cabinet and the Court was pretty
generally known in the country, and such steps were taken
by the two conflicting parties as were most accordant with
their several principles and desires. The Duke of Newcastle,
on the one hand, claimed the privilege of a Royal
audience, and spoke in no measured terms of the parliamentary
influence he possessed, and the course he should
pursue if Mr. Canning attained his wishes. Mr. Brougham,
on the other hand, wrote to Mr. Canning, offering him his
unqualified support, and saying that this offer was unconnected
with any desire for office, which, indeed,
nothing would then tempt him to accept.</p>

<h4>V.</h4>

<p>A serious contest thus commenced. The different
epochs through which this contest was conducted may
thus be given. On the 28th of March, the King first
spoke to Mr. Canning in a direct and positive manner as
to filling up Lord Liverpool’s vacancy. Between the 31st
of March and the 6th of April affairs remained in suspense.
On the 3rd and 4th Mr. Canning and the Duke of
Wellington met; and on the 5th, by the desire of the
latter, Mr. Canning saw Mr. Peel; the result of these
three different interviews being a persuasion on the part
of Mr. Canning that it was hoped he would himself suggest
that the Premiership should be offered to the Duke of
Wellington. On the 9th Mr. Peel again saw Mr. Canning,
by the King’s desire, and openly stated that “the Duke of
Wellington’s appointment would solve all difficulties.”
On the 10th Mr. Canning, not having assented to this
suggestion, was empowered to form the new Administration.</p>

<p>The events which followed are well known. On
receiving the King’s commands, Mr. Canning immediately
requested the services of all his former colleagues, to some
of whom his application could only have been a mere
matter of form. For this reason the surprise affected at
many of the answers received appears to me ridiculous.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_458" id="Page_458">[458]</a></span>
Mr. Canning and his friends would have retired, if the
Duke of Wellington had been made Premier; and the
Duke of Wellington and his friends retired when Mr.
Canning was made Premier.</p>

<p>Nothing was more simple than the tender of those
resignations which were received with such artificial
astonishment; and nothing more absurd than the cant
accusations which were made against those who tendered
them of abandoning the King, &amp;c. &amp;c. Nor was the
refutation of such accusations less idle than their propagation.
It might not be true that the seceding Ministers
met in a room, and said, “We will conspire, and you shall
send in your resignation, and I will send in mine.” But
it is quite clear that they had common motives of action,
that each understood what those motives were, that as a
body they had long acted in unison, that as a body they
intended to continue so to act. In every representative
government men constantly band in this manner together,
often denying uselessly that they do so; and we have
only to refer to a memorable instance of Whig secession,
in 1717, in order to find the same accusation as foolishly
raised, and the same denial as falsely given.<a name="FNanchor_124" id="FNanchor_124"></a><a href="#Footnote_124" class="fnanchor">[124]</a></p>

<p class="tb">But although the resignation of the Duke of Wellington
and his friends was almost certain, when the nature of the
new arrangement became fully known, the mere fact of
Mr. Canning having been commissioned to form a government
was not at once taken as the proof that he would
possess the power and dignity of Prime Minister.</p>

<p>The Duke of Wellington more particularly seemed
determined to consider that nothing as to a Premier was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_459" id="Page_459">[459]</a></span>
yet decided, and replied to Mr. Canning’s announcement
that he was charged to form an Administration, by
saying:</p>

<p>“I should wish to know who the person is whom you
intend to propose to his Majesty as the head of the
Government.”</p>

<p>To this question Mr. Canning replied at once:</p>

<div class="blockquote">

<p class="date">“Foreign Office, April 11, 1827.</p>

<p class="salutation">“<span class="smcap">My dear Duke of Wellington</span>,</p>

<p>“I believed it to be so generally understood that
the King usually entrusts the formation of an Administration
to the individual whom it is his Majesty’s gracious
pleasure to place at the head of it, that it did not occur to
me, when I communicated to your Grace yesterday the
commands which I had just received from his Majesty, to
add that in the present instance his Majesty does not
intend to depart from the usual course of proceeding on
such occasions. I am sorry to have delayed some hours
the answer to your Grace’s letter; but from the nature of
the subject, I did not like to forward it, without having
previously submitted it (together with your Grace’s
letter) to his Majesty.</p>

<p>“Ever, my dear Duke of Wellington, your Grace’s
sincere and faithful servant,</p>

<p class="signoff">(Signed)</p>

<p class="sig">“<span class="smcap">George Canning</span>.”</p>

</div>

<p>The Duke of Wellington’s retirement from office and
from the command of the army immediately followed, and
now the whole anti-Catholic party definitely seceded.</p>

<h4>VI.</h4>

<p>At a cooler moment such an event might have seriously
startled George IV., but the pride of the Sovereign
overcame the fears and doubts of the politician. “He had
not altered his policy; he had merely chosen from amongst
his Ministers, a vacancy occurring in the Premiership, a
particular individual to be Prime Minister. It was his
clear right to select the Prime Minister. Who was to
have this nomination? The Duke of Newcastle forsooth!”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_460" id="Page_460">[460]</a></span>
Thus spoke those of his circle whom Mr. Canning had
had the address to gain.</p>

<p>Nor did he himself shrink from his new situation. His
appointment was announced on the very night it took
place, and another writ issued for the borough of Harwich,
amidst cheers that rang through the House of Commons.
Thus he became at once the Minister of the people of
England. They anxiously asked themselves whether he
could maintain himself in this position?</p>

<p class="tb">A circumstance occurred which went far towards
settling opinions on this subject. Almost immediately
after the official retreat of the anti-Catholic party, Lord
Melville, First Lord of the Admiralty, though in favour
of the Catholic claims, sent in his resignation, assigning
what in the reign of James I. would have been called a
good <em>Scotch reason</em> for doing so, namely, <em>he did not think
the Government could last</em>.</p>

<p>The manner of filling up the situation thus vacated
might also have satisfied Lord Melville’s scruples. On
the 12th his lordship resigned; on the 18th Mr. Canning
informed him that the Duke of Clarence, heir-presumptive
to the crown, had accepted the office of Lord High
Admiral, and would receive Sir George Cockburn and the
other Lords of the Admiralty at twelve on the following
day. This selection, suggested, it was said, by Mr.
Croker, was a decisive blow, and announced the Royal
feelings, as far as Mr. Canning was concerned, for two
reigns at least. There was still, however, the highest
office in the gift of a Minister to fill, that of Lord
Chancellor. A supporter of the Catholic claims could
hardly at that moment be selected to fill it. Amongst the
opponents of those claims there was an eminent lawyer in
Parliament, who, if placed on the Woolsack, would become
a most valuable ally in the Lords, instead of being a most
formidable antagonist in the Commons. Sir John Copley,
whose recent altercation with the new Premier on the
Catholic question was not forgotten, was the eminent
lawyer alluded to; and hardly was it known that the
Duke of Clarence was Lord High Admiral, when it was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_461" id="Page_461">[461]</a></span>
likewise officially promulgated that Sir John Copley,
under the title of Lord Lyndhurst, had accepted the Great
Seal. The other appointments immediately made known
were those of Mr. Sturges Bourne (a friend of Mr.
Canning) as Minister for Home Affairs; of Lord Dudley,
a Tory who often voted with Whigs, as Minister of
Foreign Affairs; of Mr. William Lamb (after Lord Melbourne),
a Whig who often voted with the Tories, as
Secretary for Ireland; and of Mr. Scarlett, a Whig, as
Attorney-General. The Duke of Portland had accepted
the Privy Seal, the Duke of Devonshire the highest court
office, Mr. Robinson, resigning the Chancellorship of the
Exchequer to Mr. Canning, became Lord Goderich, and
Leader in the House of Lords. Lord Palmerston acquired
a seat in the Cabinet. Lord Harrowby, Mr. Wynn, and
Mr. Huskisson retained their former offices.</p>

<p>A private arrangement was also made for admitting
into the Cabinet, at the end of the session, Lord Lansdowne
(who was to take the place of Mr. Sturges Bourne),
as well as Lord Carlisle and Mr. Tierney.</p>

<h4>VII.</h4>

<p>In this way commenced that new period in our history,
which finally led to the forming of a large Liberal party,
capable of conducting the affairs of the country, and to a
series of divisions in that Tory party which had so long
governed it. I have said that this party was already
divided before the death of Lord Castlereagh; for it then
contained some influential, well-educated men of Whig
opinions, though of Tory alliances, who, whilst opposed to
democratic innovations, were dissatisfied with the unpopular
resistance to all changes, which was the peculiar
characteristic of the Lord Chancellor.</p>

<p>Mr. Canning’s junction with this section of politicians
brought to it a great additional force.</p>

<p>Nor was this all. His brilliant genius rallied round
him all those in Parliament and the country who had
enlightened ideas and generous feelings, and were desirous
to see England at the head of civilization, and, whether in
her conduct towards foreign nations or at home, exhibiting<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_462" id="Page_462">[462]</a></span>
an interest in the well-being and improvement of mankind.
Mr. Canning’s feelings on this subject were in no wise
disguised by his language.</p>

<p>“Is it not,” said he on one occasion, when defending
Mr. Huskisson’s Free Trade policy&mdash;“is it not the same
doctrine and spirit now persecuting my right honourable
friend which in former times stirred up persecution against
the best benefactors of mankind? Is it not the same
doctrine and spirit which embittered the life of Turgot?
Is it not a doctrine and a spirit such as those which have
at all times been at work to stay public advancement and
roll back the tide of civilization? A doctrine and a spirit
actuating the minds of little men who, incapable of
reaching the heights from which alone extended views of
human nature can be taken, console and revenge themselves
by calumniating and misrepresenting those who
have toiled to such heights for the advantage of mankind.
Sir, I have not to learn that there is a faction in this
country&mdash;I mean, not a political faction; I should rather
perhaps have said a sect, small in numbers and powerless
in might, who think that all advances towards improvement
are retrogradations towards Jacobinism. These
persons seem to imagine that under no possible circumstances
can an honest man endeavour to keep his country
upon a line with the progress of political knowledge, and
to adapt its course to the varying circumstances of the
world. Such an attempt is branded as an indication of
mischievous intentions, as evidence of a design to sap the
foundations of the greatness of the country.”</p>

<p class="tb">Again, whilst avowing himself the pupil and disciple
of Mr. Pitt, he thus beautifully expresses himself:</p>

<p>“It is singular to observe how ready some people are to
admire in a great man the exceptions to the general rule
of his conduct rather than the rule itself. Such perverse
worship is like the idolatry of barbarous nations, who can
see the noonday splendour of the sun without emotion, but
who, when he is in eclipse, come forward with hymns and
cymbals to adore him. Thus there are those who venerate
Mr. Pitt less in the brightness of his meridian glory, than<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_463" id="Page_463">[463]</a></span>
under his partial obscurity, and who gaze on him with
the fondest admiration when he has ceased to shine.”</p>

<p>In this manner, by his spirit, eloquence, and abilities,
he brought public opinion round in such a manner that it
even accommodated itself to his personal position, bringing
forward into the light his personal views as the popular
ones, and throwing those which had formerly been popular,
but which he did not support, into the shade. The great
constitutional questions hitherto debated were for a time
lost sight of, and party spirit, as Mr. Baring stated,
leaving its other and more accustomed topics, seemed for
the first time to display itself on subjects simply relating
to the commerce and mercantile policy of the country.</p>

<h4>VIII.</h4>

<p>At first the adherents of the Duke of Wellington were
like the Royal emigrants from the old French army at the
period of the great Revolution. They thought no officers
could be found fitted to take their places. But when they
saw another government formed, and formed of materials
which, if they could be gradually moulded together, would
constitute a composition of solid and perhaps permanent
endurance, their feelings were marked by all that violence
and injustice which are invariably displayed by men who
unexpectedly lose power. Mr. Canning was a renegade
for quitting his old political friends to join the Whigs;
the Whigs were renegades for abandoning their old
political principles to join Mr. Canning. Party rancour
had not the candour to acknowledge that if the opinions
of Mr. Canning on Catholic Emancipation were sufficient
to alienate from him the great bulk of the Conservatives,
it was natural that those opinions should attach to him
the great bulk of the Liberals. To the attacks of his own
party, which he called “the barking of his own turnspits,”
Mr. Canning was sufficiently indifferent; but there was
one voice lifted up against him, the irony of which pierced
his proud heart deeply. Alone and stately, Lord Grey,
who had long considered himself the great Whig leader,
now stood stripped of his followers, and with little disposition
to acknowledge the ascendency of another chieftain.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_464" id="Page_464">[464]</a></span>
Contempt was the terrible weapon with which he
assailed his brilliant rival, whom from the height of a
great aristocratic position and a long and consistent public
career, he affected to look down upon as a sort of political
adventurer; now carrying out measures the most oppressive
to the civil liberties of the people; now spouting
liberal phrases which he had no intention to realise; now
advocating the claims of the Catholics in glowing words;
and now abandoning them when called upon for practical
deeds; and finally dressing himself up in borrowed plumes
and strutting before the public as the author of a foreign
policy the errors of which he cast off upon his colleagues,
the merits of which, with equal meanness and unfairness,
he took wholly to himself.</p>

<p>If all that Lord Grey said could have been completely
justified (which it could not); if all that Lord Grey said,
I repeat, had been entirely just (which it was not), the
speech which contained it would still have been ill-timed,
and impolitic. Mr. Canning represented at that moment
those liberal ideas which the public were prepared to
entertain. He was encircled by the general popular
sympathy, and was therefore in his day, and at the hour
I am speaking of, the natural head of the Liberal party.
The great necessity of the moment was to save that party
from defeat, and give it an advanced position, from which
it might march further forward in the natural course of
events. If Mr. Canning’s party had not obtained power,
Lord Grey would never have had a party capable of
inheriting it. If Mr. Canning had not become Prime
Minister when he did, Lord Grey would not have become
Prime Minister three years afterwards.</p>

<p>The public, with that plain common sense which
distinguishes most of its judgments, made allowances for
the haughty nobleman’s anger, but condemned its exhibition.
Moreover, the formal charge of Lord Londonderry,
who, as his brother’s representative, accused Mr. Canning
of having forsaken that brother’s policy, was more than a
counterpoise to Lord Grey’s accusation that one Foreign
Secretary was no better than the other. Nor did people
stop to examine with minute criticism every act of a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_465" id="Page_465">[465]</a></span>
statesman who had lived in changeful times, and who was
then supporting a policy at home favourable to our trade,
and carrying out a policy abroad which inspired affection
for our name and reverence for our power.</p>

<p>I have as yet purposely confined my observations to
those events which were connected with Spain and Portugal,
and the struggle we had entered into against the Holy
Alliance in regard to those countries; because it was there
that Mr. Canning’s talents had been most displayed, and that
their consequences had been most important. But we are
not to limit our review of his conduct merely to these
questions.</p>

<p>It was not merely in Spain or in Portugal that England
justified her statesman’s proud pretension to hold over
nations the umpire’s sceptre, and to maintain, as the
mediatrix between extremes, the peace of the world. Such
was the reputation which this statesman had obtained,
even amongst those against whom his policy had been
directed, that the Emperor Alexander, disgusted with the
irresolution of all his other long, credited allies, turned at
last to Mr. Canning, as the only one capable of taking a
manly and decided part in the settlement of a question in
which his power was to be guarded against on the one
hand, and the feelings of his subjects, and the traditions of
his empire, were to be considered on the other.</p>

<h4>IX.</h4>

<p>The affairs in the East during the last few years require
a narrative which, though rapid, may suffice to account
for the alliance into which at this time we entered.</p>

<p>In 1821 broke out the Greek insurrection. Suppressed
in Moldavia and Wallachia, where it originated, it soon
acquired strength in the Greek islands and the Morea.
Excesses were natural on both sides, and committed by
the conquering race, determined to maintain its power,
and by the subjugated one, struggling to throw off its
chains. The Greek Patriarch was murdered at Constantinople,
and a series of savage butcheries succeeded and
accompanied this act of slaughter.</p>

<p>By these events Russia was placed in a peculiar and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_466" id="Page_466">[466]</a></span>
embarrassing position. She could not countenance insurrection;
her system of policy just displayed in Italy could
not be reversed in Greece. But the sympathies of religion,
and the policy she had long pursued (that of placing
herself at the head of the Christian subjects of the Porte
by always assuming the air of their protectress), demanded
some manifestation of interest in the cause of the rebels.
She came forward, then, denouncing the attempt at revolution
on the one hand, but protesting on the other
against the feelings which this attempt had excited, and
the means which had been taken to suppress it. The re-establishment
of the Greek Church, the safe exercise of
the Christian religion, were insisted upon. The indiscriminate
massacre of Christians, and the occupation of
Moldavia and Wallachia by Turkish troops, were loudly
condemned. A reply within the time fixed not having
been given to the note in which these remonstrances were
expressed the Russian Ambassador quitted Constantinople,
and war seemed imminent.</p>

<p>But it was the desire of Austria and England especially
to prevent war, and their joint representations finally
succeeded in persuading the Sultan to satisfy the Russian
demands; consequently, shortly after Mr. Canning’s accession
to office, the Greek churches were rebuilt, and the
Principalities evacuated, while wanton outrages against
the Rayah population were punished with due justice and
severity.</p>

<p>Russia, however, now made new requests; even these,
through the negotiations of the British ambassador at
Constantinople, were complied with; and, finally, after
some hesitations and prevarications, the cabinet of St.
Petersburg renewed its diplomatic relations with the
Porte.</p>

<p class="tb">Still it was not difficult to perceive that all the differences
hitherto arranged were slight in comparison with
those which must arise if the Greek struggle long continued
unsettled. In ordinary times, indeed, we shrink before the
possibility of a power (whose empire, however wide, conquest
would long keep cemented) establishing itself across the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_467" id="Page_467">[467]</a></span>
whole of Europe, and holding on either side, here at the
Straits of the Baltic, there on those of the Mediterranean,
the means of carrying on war, or securing safety and
peace as it might seem easy to obtain victory, or advisable
to avoid defeat; a power which, placed in this position,
would demand the constant vigilance of our fleets, establish
an enormous and perpetual drain upon our resources, and
which appeared not unlikely to carry through Persia (the
governor of which would be merely one of her satraps)
disorder and destruction to our Indian empire. In ordinary
times this gigantic vision, when seen but dimly and at a
distance, has more than once alarmed our government and
excited our nation. But the tardy struggle of that race
for independence, to whose genius and spirit we owe our
earliest dreams of freedom&mdash;a struggle in which we were
called upon to side with Greeks fighting for Liberty, with
Christians contending for Christianity, had awakened
feelings which overwhelmed all customary considerations.
A paramount enthusiasm, to which a variety of causes, and
especially the verses of our great and fashionable poet,
were contributing, had seized upon the public mind, and
was destined for a while to be omnipotent. Guarded by
that enthusiasm, Russia might have planted her eagles
upon the walls of Constantinople, if she had appeared as
the champion of that land</p>

<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="verse">&mdash;&mdash;“of gods, and godlike men,”</div>
</div>
</div>

<p class="noindent">which had at last “exchanged the slavish sickle for the
sword,” and it is doubtful whether an English Minister
could have found a Parliament that would at that moment
have sanctioned his defence of the Mahometan power.</p>

<h4>X.</h4>

<p>Mr. Canning, then, had either to allow the Russian
cabinet to pursue its unavowed policy uncontrolled, or to
limit its action by connecting himself with the policy which
it professed. The contest, it was evident, after the first
successes that had attended the Porte’s revolted subjects,
would not be allowed to terminate in their subjugation.
With the co-operation, or without the co-operation of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_468" id="Page_468">[468]</a></span>
Great Britain, the Morea was certain to be wrested from
the Turks. To stand by neutral, calm spectators of what
was certain to take place was to lose our consideration
equally with the Ottoman empire and with Christian
Europe, and to give to the Government which acted alone
in this emergency, as the representative of an universal
feeling, an almost universal prestige. But if our interference
was expedient, the only question that could arise was as
to the time and manner of our interfering.</p>

<p>As early as 1824 Count Nesselrode had had a plan for
placing Greece in the situation of the Principalities of the
Danube, and the great powers of Europe were invited to
consider the subject. Mr. Canning was not averse to
this project; but he hoped little from the discordant
counsels of the five or six governments called upon to
accept it; more especially as both Greece and Turkey,
to whom it had become accidentally known, were equally
dissatisfied; and he was therefore very properly unwilling
to bind his government by a share in conferences which
he foresaw were doomed to be fruitless. In short, the
negotiators met and separated, and the negotiation failed.</p>

<p class="tb">But, in the meantime, affairs had been becoming every
day more and more interesting and critical. On the one
hand the sympathy for the Greeks had been increased by
the unexpected resolution they had displayed; they had a
loan, a government, and able and enterprising foreigners
had entered into their service. So much was encouraging
for their cause. But on the other hand the Egyptian
army of Ibrahim Pasha had achieved cruel triumphs, and
a great part of the Morea, devastated and depopulated, had
submitted to his arms.</p>

<p>During these events the Czar Alexander died; and for
some little time there was hesitation in the Imperial
counsels. Alexander’s successor, however, soon pursued
the policy which his accession to the empire had interrupted,
and propositions (not unlike those formerly contemplated)
were now submitted to our Minister, propositions
in the carrying out of which Great Britain and Russia
were alone to be combined. The circumstances of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_469" id="Page_469">[469]</a></span>
moment showed that the period of action had arrived, and
Mr. Canning no longer shrank from accepting a part
which there appeared some hope of undertaking with
success.</p>

<p>An alliance between two powers, indeed, afforded a fairer
chance of fixing upon a definite course, and maintaining a
common understanding, than the various counsels amongst
which union had previously been sought. The Greeks
also, who had formerly rejected all schemes of compromise
(May, 1826), now requested the good offices of England
for obtaining a peace upon conditions which would have
recognised the supremacy of the Sultan, and entailed a
tribute upon his former subjects. Finally (and this
affords an interpretation to the whole of that policy which
prevailed in the British counsels, from the first to the last
moment of negotiation), the treaty of alliance into which
Mr. Canning felt disposed to enter, contained this
condition:</p>

<p>“That neither Russia nor Great Britain should obtain
any advantage for themselves in the arrangement of those
affairs which they undertook to settle.”</p>

<p>France became subsequently a party to this scheme of
intervention, and it was hoped that a confederacy so powerful
would induce the Turks to submit quietly to the measures
which it had been determined, at all events (by a secret
article), if necessary, to enforce.</p>

<p>But whilst these projects were being carried out, these
hopes entertained, that dread King, more potent than all
others, held his hand uplifted over the head of the triumphant
and still ardent statesman.</p>

<h4>XI.</h4>

<p>On the 2nd of July Parliament had been prorogued;
on the 6th the triple alliance was signed. This celebrated
treaty was the last act of Mr. Canning’s official life. The
fatigues of the session, short as it had been, had brought
him near the goal to which the enterprising mind and
assiduous labours of our most eminent men have too often
prematurely conducted them. Of a susceptibility which
the slightest word of good or evil keenly affected, and of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_470" id="Page_470">[470]</a></span>
that sanguine and untiring temperament which would
never suffer him to repose during circumstances in which
he thought his personal honour, his public opinions, and
the welfare of his political friends required his exertions:
tortured by every sneer, irritated by every affront, ready
for every toil; in the last few months in which he had
risen to the heights of power and ambition&mdash;such are
human objects&mdash;was concentrated an age of anxiety,
suffering, and endurance. His countenance became
more haggard, his step more feeble, and his eye more
languid. Yet at this moment, jaded, restless, and worn,
he held in the opinion of the world as high and enviable
a position as any public man ever enjoyed. All his
plans had succeeded; all his enemies had been overthrown.
By the people of England he was cherished as a
favourite child; on the Continent he was beloved as the
tutelary guardian of Liberal principles, and respected as
the peaceful and fortunate arbiter between conflicting interests.
Abroad, one of the most formidable alliances ever
united against England had been silently defeated by his
efforts. At home, the most powerful coalition that a
haughty aristocracy could form against himself had been
successfully defied by his eloquence and good fortune.
The foes of Don Miguel, in Portugal; the enemies of the
Inquisition in Spain; the fervent watchers after that
dawn of civilization, which now opened on the vast empires
of the New World, and which promised again to shine
upon the region it most favoured in ancient times; the
American patriot, the Greek freedman, and last of all,
though not the least interested (whether we consider the
wrongs he had endured, the rights to which he was justly
born, the links which should have joined him to, and the
injustice which had severed him from, the national prosperity
of Great Britain), last of all, the Irish Catholic,
dwelt fondly and anxiously on the breath of the aspiring
statesman at the head of affairs. His health was too
precious, indeed, for any one to believe it to be in danger.</p>

<p>The wound, notwithstanding, was given, which no
medicine had the power to cure. On the 1st of August
the Prime Minister gave a diplomatic dinner; on the 3rd<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_471" id="Page_471">[471]</a></span>
he was seized with those symptoms which betokened a
fatal crisis to be at hand. At this time he was at the
Duke of Devonshire’s villa at Chiswick, where he had
resided since the 20th of July, for the sake of greater
quiet and purer air. The room in which he lay, and in
which another as proud and generous a spirit, that of Mr.
Fox, had passed away, and towards which the eyes of the
whole Liberal world were now turned with agonizing suspense
for five days, has since become a place of pilgrimage.
It is a small low chamber, once a kind of nursery, dark,
and opening into a wing of the building, which gives it
the appearance of looking into a courtyard. Nothing can
be more simple than its furniture or decorations, for it was
chosen by Mr. Canning, who had always the greatest
horror of cold, on account of its warmth. On one side of
the fireplace are a few bookshelves; opposite the foot of
the bed is the low chimneypiece, and on it a small bronze
clock, to which we may fancy the weary and impatient
sufferer often turning his eyes during those bitter moments
in which he was passing from the world which he had
filled with his name, and was governing with his projects.
What a place for repeating those simple and touching lines
of Dyer:</p>

<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="verse">“A little rule, a little sway,</div>
<div class="verse">A sunbeam on a winter’s day,</div>
<div class="verse">Is all the proud and mighty have</div>
<div class="verse">Between the cradle and the grave.”</div>
</div>
</div>

<p>After passing some time in a state of insensibility,
during which the words “Spain and Portugal” were frequently
on his lips, on the 8th of August Mr. Canning
succumbed. His remains sleep in Westminster Abbey; a
peerage and a pension were granted to his family; and a
statue is erected to his memory on the site of his parliamentary
triumphs.</p>

<p class="tb">The generation amidst which Mr. Canning died, attended
his hearse, and crowned his funeral with honours. What
is the place he ought to hold in the minds of future generations
of his countrymen?</p>

<hr />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_472" id="Page_472">[472]</a></span></p>

<h3><span class="smcap">Part V.</span></h3>

<div class="smaller">

<p>One must judge men by a real and not ideal standard of mankind.&mdash;Criticisms
on Mr. Canning’s conduct.&mdash;His faults when in a subordinate
position.&mdash;His better qualities developed in a superior one.&mdash;Nature of
faculties.&mdash;Influence on his own time and the succeeding one.&mdash;Foreign policy
considered.&mdash;Person; manners; specimens of his various abilities; eloquence;
art; and turn for drollery and satire.&mdash;Style of speaking of despatches.&mdash;Always
young, and inspiring admiration and affection, even when provoking
censure.</p>

</div>

<h4>I.</h4>

<p>In estimating the character of public men, the biographer
or critic, if he descend from the sublimity of unbounded
panegyric, is often apt to elevate himself at the expense of
the person of whom he speaks; and to treat with artificial
severity any dereliction from that perfection of conduct
which he sees nowhere attained. Thanks to this affected
severity or paltry envy, we have hardly a great man left
to us. Bolingbroke is nothing but a quack; the elder
Pitt only a charlatan; Burke himself a declaimer and a
renegade; Fox an ambitious politician out of place; all of
which things these great men to a certain degree were,
being still great men; and deserving the admiration of a
posterity which can hardly hope to furnish their equals.</p>

<p>“No one should write history,” said Montaigne, “who
has not himself served the State in some civil or military
capacity.” By which this shrewd and impartial observer
meant, that no man is fit to judge the conduct of men of
action who is not himself a man of action, and can judge
it practically, according to what men really are in the
world, and not according to any imaginary theory which
he may adopt in the obscure nook of his own chimney
corner, as to what they might and ought to be.</p>

<p>“We are not,” says Cicero, “in the Republic of Plato,
but in the mud of Romulus;” and they who have observed
and meditated upon the vicissitudes of empires, will have
seen that such have risen or fallen according to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_473" id="Page_473">[473]</a></span>
number of eminent men, endowed with lofty intelligences
and daring spirits, whom they have produced. And where
have such eminent men existed without defects? Human
nature is too imperfect for us to expect to find extraordinary
abilities and energies under the constant control of
moderate virtues.</p>

<p>To those, then, who have read the preceding pages, the
whole of Mr. Canning’s career may be shortly summed up
in the words of Lord Orford (Horace Walpole), who,
speaking of Lord Chatham, says:</p>

<p>“His ambition was to be the most illustrious man in
the first country in the world, and he thought that the
eminence of glory could not be sullied by the steps to it
being passed irregularly” (vol. iv. p. 243).</p>

<p>In the same manner Canning was less scrupulous than
he should have been to obtain power and fame. But, in
the most memorable part of his life, he made a noble use
of the one and well deserved the other. Desirous of
office and distinction, he attached himself, on entering life,
to that minister by whom office and distinction were most
likely to be conferred. The circumstances of the time
afforded him not merely an apology, but a fair reason for
doing this; still, there seems no injustice in adding that,
in ranging himself under the banner of the great commoner’s
great son, he thought of his own personal prospects
as well as of the public interests.</p>

<p>Mr. Pitt died; Mr. Canning was, as he declared himself,
henceforth without a leader. Some of his opinions
inclined him to unite with his early friends and recent
opponents (the Whigs), who then came into office; and
this, it seems, he was on the point of doing, when, by a
sudden whirl of Fortune’s wheel, the persons he was
seceding from were jerked into power, and those he was
about to join jerked out of it. A young man, conscious of
his own abilities, and satisfied in his own mind that, however
he might obtain influence, he would use it for the
public advantage, he did not refuse a high situation from
the party to which he still publicly belonged, in order to
follow a party just driven from the Administration, and
with which he had but begun to treat.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_474" id="Page_474">[474]</a></span></p>

<p>There are things to say in excuse of this conduct, and I
have said them; but no one who wishes that Mr. Canning’s
life had been without a flaw, can do otherwise than regret
that the statesman who made so many subsequent sacrifices
for the Catholics, should have joined, at this juncture, a
Ministry which rallied its partisans under the cry of “No
Popery!”</p>

<p>It is likewise to be regretted that having so frequently
expressed his sense of the incapacity of Lord Castlereagh,
he should nevertheless have consented first to serve as a
subordinate under him when he was mismanaging foreign
affairs; and, secondly, to serve as a colleague with him
when he was alike lowering us abroad and misgoverning
us at home.</p>

<p>During four years he did not shrink from the promulgation
of any arbitrary edict&mdash;from the suppression of any
popular right; and though I admit that many liberal and
prudent persons (influenced, I cannot but think, by most
exaggerated apprehensions) considered that the strongest
measures were necessary at that time to control a spirit of
insurrection, which the mingled harshness and incapacity
of the ruling Administration had provoked; still, there is
a great difference between men who sanction bad laws
which a bad government, in which they have had no share,
may render momentarily necessary, and men who bring
forward bad laws as the result of a bad government which
has been carried on by themselves.</p>

<p>It is hardly an excuse to say his errors were committed
in an inferior situation, with the idea of rising to a commanding
one; but, at all events, when he reached the
eminence towards which he had so long been toiling, he
made, as I have shown, the best use of that power which
had not always been sought for by the best means. Thus,
from first to last, we see a man anxious to have power and
to use it well; but as anxious to have it as to use it well.
That he was blamed and praised with exaggeration was
natural; for amidst confronting arrays he was seen for
ever in the first rank with the most glittering arms, exciting
the admiration of friends and the hatred of foes by
his scornful air and ostentatious attitude of defiance.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_475" id="Page_475">[475]</a></span></p>

<p>His talents, by nature showy, were given their peculiar
turn by his early education, and his career was shaped to
the paths which offered to lead him most easily to distinction.
Trained to the juvenile task of writing a foreign
language in polished periods, he was at times less anxious
to find solid arguments than striking expressions. Not
brought up in communication with the uneducated classes,
he was more keenly alive to the opinion of the cultivated
and refined. Too accommodating as to the temporary
suspension of national freedom at home, he was constantly
anxious and determined to maintain the power and prestige
of the country abroad&mdash;throughout his whole life he
exhibited the effects of the public school and the close
borough.</p>

<p>Like most men who have become illustrious, Mr. Canning
owed much to fortune. Lucky in the time of his
decease, lucky in the times at which many of those with
whom he had hitherto acted deserted him. If he had
lived longer, it would have been difficult for him to have
kept the station to which he had risen: if he had not been
left when he was by a great portion of his party, he would
never have obtained the popularity by which his death was
hallowed. To few has it happened to be supported by a
set of men just as long as their support was useful,&mdash;to be
quitted by them just when their alliance would have been
injurious. The persons who as friends gave Mr. Canning
power, as enemies conferred on him reputation. That
reputation was above all others, at the time of his demise,
amongst his countrymen and contemporaries; and it still
retains its predominance, though the influence which he
exercised over our domestic policy, and over the events
which succeeded his death, is not yet, perhaps, sufficiently
recognised. I have already observed that if he had not
been Prime Minister in 1827, it is not likely that Lord
Grey would have been Premier in 1830. I may add that
had not his appointment at the former period brought
together all the elements of a great Liberal party, who
were allied under the cry of Catholic Emancipation, thus
giving a hope and a spirit to the Catholics which they
had not previously possessed, the Duke of Wellington<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_476" id="Page_476">[476]</a></span>
would not within a year or two afterwards have been
forced to acknowledge that further resistance to them was
impossible. Furthermore, if such men as Lord Melbourne,
Lord Palmerston, the Grants, and a large party in the
country looking up to these statesmen as safe as well as
liberal guides&mdash;had not been already connected with the
Whigs, and alienated from the Tories, under the influence
of Mr. Canning in 1827, the Reform Bill would hardly
have been proposed in 1830, and would certainly not have
been carried in 1832. The more minutely, in short, that
we examine the events of the last thirty-six years, the
more we shall perceive how much their quiet development
has been owing to Mr. Canning, and to the class of men
whom Mr. Canning formed, and in his later days represented.</p>

<p>In determining his merits as director of the foreign
policy of Great Britain, I have stood, I confess, by the old
doctrines, and argued upon the assumption that England
is a great state, disposed to maintain that greatness; that
the English people is a proud, generous, and brave people,
prepared to assert its principles and its position, and to
assume its part in the affairs of the world&mdash;a nation that
takes its share in the general policy of nations&mdash;that feels
it has a common interest in the maintenance of justice, in
the limitation of unscrupulous ambition, in the progress of
civilization. I have supposed that the collective wisdom
and experience of past ages, have taught us that human
nature is ever, though under different forms, guided by
the same rules; that the strong, unless they are adequately
restrained, insult and oppress, and finally vanquish the
weak; that those who under all circumstances are determined
to be at peace, become eventually the certain
victims of aggression and war; that the spirit of a people
cannot with impunity be allowed to droop and languish
without dimming the brightness of its genius and losing
the force of its character. That a mere money-making
population, which, lapped in the luxury of commercial
prosperity, begins to disregard its nice sense of honour, its
admiration for valour and daring, becomes daily weaker
against the spoiler, and a greater temptation to spoliation.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_477" id="Page_477">[477]</a></span>
I have ventured to believe that a noble people has a heart
open to noble emotions&mdash;that such a heart is not dead to
pity for the unfortunate, to sympathy with the brave&mdash;to
the love of glory inspiring to great deeds, and to the love
of power, with the intention to use it for the public good.
I do not think it wise to exchange the principles of action
derived from these sentiments for a colder, less generous,
and, as I feel convinced, a less sound code of political
philosophy. The same sentiments which make one man
considered and beloved above others, must distinguish the
State aspiring to be great and beloved; but it does not
follow that if you feel compassion for a drowning man, you
are to plunge into the sea to save him if you cannot swim;
that if you see two men valiantly struggling against two
regiments, you are to rush into the middle of the combat
with the certainty of not vanquishing the assailants, and
with that of losing your own life. I condemn nations that
interfere needlessly with the international affairs of others,
as I should the lady who pretended to dictate to her
neighbour how she should have her drawing-room swept,
or her chimneys cleaned. I condemn governments which
threaten heedlessly, and then fail to strike in spite of their
threats; but I esteem governments which look carefully
after their honour and interests, and do interfere when it
is necessary or expedient to do so, in order either to defend
that honour, or to maintain those interests; governments
cautious to speak, but bold in acting up to their words.</p>

<p>It is with these views that I look upon the foreign
policy of Mr. Canning,&mdash;a policy for giving England a
great and proud position,&mdash;for giving to Englishmen a
glorious and respected name; for safeguarding our shores
by the universal prestige of our bravery and our power;
for limiting the ambition of rival states, without needlessly
provoking their animosity; for showing a wish to conciliate
wherever moderation is displayed, and for displaying a
resolution to resist when conciliation is repulsed&mdash;as a
great English policy, with which the people of England
will ever sympathize, and by which the permanent interests
of England will best be preserved.</p>

<p>There are men who are anxious for civil commotion,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_478" id="Page_478">[478]</a></span>
which they think may be more easily brought about by
concentrating the public mind on domestic grievances;
there are men who are indifferent to the pride of country&mdash;who
would as soon be Portuguese, Mexicans, or Moldo-Wallachians,
as Englishmen. There are men who, though
fame and consideration are the great objects of their
countrymen, hold they ought not to be objects for their
country. These will repudiate my opinion. But every
Briton who is justly proud of his race, who will inquire
from a small and despised state the value of being a great
and renowned one, will, I believe, recognise the foreign
policy I have been describing to be the true policy for
maintaining the dignity and authority, without rashly
risking the peaceful prosperity, of the British empire.</p>

<p>In person Mr. Canning was favoured by nature, being
of a good height, of a strong frame, and of a regular and
remarkably intelligent countenance. The glance of his
eye when excited, and the smile of his lip when pleased,
were often noted by his contemporaries.</p>

<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="verse">“And on that turtle I saw a rider,</div>
<div class="verse">A goodly man, with an eye so merry,</div>
<div class="verse">I knew ’twas our foreign secretary,</div>
<div class="verse">Who there at his ease did sit and smile</div>
<div class="verse">Like Waterton on his crocodile;</div>
<div class="verse">Cracking such jokes, at every motion,</div>
<div class="verse">As made the turtle squeak with glee,</div>
<div class="verse">And own that they gave him a lively notion</div>
<div class="verse">Of what his own forced-meat balls would be.”</div>
<div class="attribution"><cite>A Dream of a Turtle.</cite>&mdash;<span class="smcap">T. Moore.</span></div>
</div>
</div>

<p>Charming in manner, as I have said, constant in attachments,
it was observed of him at one period, that he was
as dear to his friends as odious to the public.<a name="FNanchor_125" id="FNanchor_125"></a><a href="#Footnote_125" class="fnanchor">[125]</a></p>

<p>Ever ready to praise his subordinates, and to consult
the tastes of his associates, he was honoured as a chief as
much as he was relished as a companion. His accomplishments
were various, and of a kind which may leave
disputes open as to the degree of their excellence, but they
were all of that brilliant and genial description which was
sure to attract sympathy and procure reputation. How<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_479" id="Page_479">[479]</a></span>
many must have chuckled over the following light and
lazy piece of satire:</p>

<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="verse">“I am like Archimedes for science and skill,</div>
<div class="verse">I am like the young prince who went straight up the hill;</div>
<div class="verse">And to interest the hearts of the fair be it said,</div>
<div class="verse">I am like a young lady just bringing to bed.</div>
<div class="verse">If you ask why the eleventh of June I remember</div>
<div class="verse">So much better than April, or March, or December,</div>
<div class="verse">’Tis because on that day, as with pride I assure ye,</div>
<div class="verse">My sainted progenitor took to his brewery.</div>
<div class="verse">On that day in the month he began making beer;</div>
<div class="verse">On that night he commenced his connubial career.</div>
<div class="verse">On that day he died when he had finished his summing,</div>
<div class="verse">And the angels all cried ‘here’s old Whitbread a coming.’</div>
<div class="verse">So that day I still hail with a smile and a sigh,</div>
<div class="verse">For his beer with an <em>e</em> and his bier with an <em>i</em>;</div>
<div class="verse">And that day every year, in the hottest of weather,</div>
<div class="verse">The whole Whitbread family dine altogether.</div>
<div class="verse">My Lords, while the beams of the hall shall support</div>
<div class="verse">The roof which o’ershades this respectable court</div>
<div class="verse">(Where Hastings was tried for oppressing the Hindoos),</div>
<div class="verse">While the rays of the sun shall shine in these windows</div>
<div class="verse">My name shall shine bright as my ancestor’s shines,</div>
<div class="verse">Emblazoned on journals as his upon signs.”</div>
</div>
</div>

<p>How many must have felt their minds respond and their
hearts bound at the following argumentative and spirited
declamation:</p>

<p>“When the elective franchise was conceded to the
Catholics of Ireland, that acknowledgment and anticipation,
which I now call upon the House formally to ratify
and realize, was, in point of fact, irrevocably pronounced.
To give the latter the elective franchise was to admit him
to political power; for, to make him an elector and at
the same time to render him incapable of being elected,
is to attract to our sides the lowest orders of the community,
at the same time that we repel from us the highest
orders of the gentry. This is not the surest or safest way
to bind Ireland to the rest of the Empire in ties of affection.
And what is there to prevent our union from being
wrought more closely? Is there any moral&mdash;is there any
physical obstacle? <i lang="fr">Opposuit natura?</i> No such thing.
<em>We have already bridged the channel!</em> Ireland now sits
with us in the Representative Assembly of the Empire;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_480" id="Page_480">[480]</a></span>
and when she was allowed to come there, why was she
not also allowed to bring with her some of her Catholic
children? For many years, alas! we have been erecting
a mound, not to assist or improve the inclinations of
Providence, but to thwart them. We have raised it high
above the waters, and it has stood there frowning hostility
and effecting a separation. In the course of time, however,
chance and design&mdash;the necessities of man and the
sure workings of nature&mdash;have conspired to break down
this mighty structure, till there remains of it only a
narrow isthmus standing</p>

<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="verse indent3">‘between two kindred seas,</div>
<div class="verse">Which mounting view each other from afar,</div>
<div class="verse">And long to meet.’</div>
</div>
</div>

<p>What, then, shall be our conduct? Shall we attempt to
repair the breaches, and fortify the ruins? A hopeless
and ungracious undertaking! or shall we leave them to
moulder away by time and accident? a sure but distant
and thankless consummation! Or shall we not rather cut
away at once the isthmus that remains, allow free course
to the current which our artificial impediments have constructed,
and float upon the mighty waters the ark of our
common constitution?”</p>

<p>And we are now to be told that this same man, so
playful and jocose, so ornamented and brilliant, was a
close arguer, and indefatigable in attendance at his office.
But though always ready for business, he would not
scruple to introduce a piece of drollery into the most
serious affairs. For instance:</p>

<p>The embassy at the Hague is in earnest dispute with
the King of Holland; a despatch addressed to Sir Charles
Bagot arrives&mdash;it is in cypher. The most acute of the
attachés set to work to discover the meaning of this particular
document; they produce a <em>rhyme</em>! they are
startled, thrown into confusion; set to work again, and
produce another rhyme. The important paper (and it
was important) contains something like the following
doggrel:</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_481" id="Page_481">[481]</a></span></p>

<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="verse">“Dear Bagot, in commerce the fault of the Dutch</div>
<div class="verse">Is giving too little, and asking too much,</div>
<div class="verse">So since on this policy Mynheer seems bent,</div>
<div class="verse">We’ll clap on his vessels just 20 per cent.”</div>
</div>
</div>

<p>As a specimen of his more private and trivial pleasantries
may be mentioned his observation to, I believe, Lord
Londonderry, who had been telling a story of some Dutch
picture he had seen, in which all the animals of antediluvian
times were issuing from Noah’s Ark, “and,” said
Lord Londonderry, “the elephant was last.” “That of
course,” said Mr. Canning; “he had been packing up his
trunk.”</p>

<p>In his celebrated contest with Lord Lyndhurst (then
Sir John Copley), that noble lord having appeared in it
with a speech borrowed for the most part from a popular
pamphlet, written by the late Bishop of Exeter (then
Doctor Philpotts), he was overthrown amidst shouts of
laughter, by the appropriate recollection of the old song:</p>

<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="verse">“‘Dear Tom, this brown jug that now foams with mild ale,</div>
<div class="verse">Out of which I now drink to sweet Nan of the Yale,’</div>
<div class="verse">Was once <em>Toby Philpot</em>.”</div>
</div>
</div>

<p>Again, who does not remember the celebrated sketch
of Lord Nugent<a name="FNanchor_126" id="FNanchor_126"></a><a href="#Footnote_126" class="fnanchor">[126]</a>&mdash;who went out to join the Spanish
patriots when their cause was pretty well lost&mdash;a sketch
which furnished Mr. Canning’s most effective defence of
the neutral policy he had adopted towards Spain, during
the French expedition.</p>

<p>“It was about the middle of last July that the heavy
Falmouth coach”&mdash;(here Mr. Canning was interrupted
with loud and continued laughter)&mdash;“that the heavy
Falmouth coach was observed travelling to its destination
through the roads of Cornwall with more than its wonted
gravity (very loud laughter). The coach contained two
inside passengers&mdash;the one a fair lady of no inconsiderable
dimensions, the other a gentleman who was conveying the
succour of his person to the struggling patriots of Spain.
I am further informed&mdash;and this interesting fact, sir, can<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_482" id="Page_482">[482]</a></span>
also be authenticated&mdash;that the heavy Falmouth van (which
honourable gentlemen, doubtless, are aware is constructed
for the conveyance of cumbrous articles) was laden, upon
the same memorable occasion, with a box of most portentous
magnitude. Now, sir, whether this box, like the flying
chest of the conjuror, possessed any supernatural properties
of locomotion, is a point which I confess I am quite
unable to determine; but of this I am most credibly
informed&mdash;and I should hesitate long before I stated it to
the House, if the statement did not rest upon the most
unquestionable authority&mdash;that this extraordinary box
contained a full uniform of a Spanish general of cavalry,
together with a helmet of the most curious workmanship;
a helmet, allow me to add, scarcely inferior in size to the
celebrated helmet in the castle of Otranto (loud laughter).
Though the idea of going to the relief of a fortress,
blockaded by sea and besieged by land, in a full suit of
light horseman’s equipments was, perhaps, not strongly
consonant to modern military operations, yet when the
gentleman and his box made their appearance, the Cortes,
no doubt, were overwhelmed with joy, and rubbed their
hands with delight at the approach of the long-promised
aid. How the noble lord was received, or what effects he
operated on the councils of the Cortes by his arrival, I
(Mr. Canning) do not know. Things were at that juncture
moving rapidly to their final issue; and how far the noble
lord conduced to the termination by throwing his weight
into the sinking scale of the Cortes, is too nice a question
for me just now to settle.”<a name="FNanchor_127" id="FNanchor_127"></a><a href="#Footnote_127" class="fnanchor">[127]</a></p>

<p>Mr. Canning’s wit, it is true, was not unfrequently too
long and too laboured, and a happy combination of words
would almost always seduce him into an indiscretion.
The alliteration of “revered and ruptured,” as applied to
the unfortunate Mr. Ogden, cost him more abuse, and
procured him for a time more unpopularity, than the worst
of his acts ever deserved. His description of the American
navy (in 1812) as “half a dozen fir-frigates, with bits of
bunting flying at their heads,” excited the American nation
more than any actual grievance, and caused in a great<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_483" id="Page_483">[483]</a></span>
measure the bitterness of that contest in which we were so
insolent and so unsuccessful. His propensity to jokes
made him also many enemies in private life. The late
Duke of Bedford told a friend of mine that Mr. Canning,
when staying with a party at Lord Carrington’s (a few
weeks after Lord C. had been made a peer by Mr. Pitt),
wrote in chalk, on the outside of the hall-door, the
following lines:&mdash;</p>

<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="verse">“One Bobby Smith lives here,</div>
<div class="verse">Billy Pitt made him a peer,</div>
<div class="verse">And took the pen from behind his ear.”</div>
</div>
</div>

<p>This unnecessary impertinence, I have heard, Lord Carrington
never forgave.</p>

<p>In the art of speaking, our orator’s progress, like that
of Pulteney, Fox, and all our great parliamentary debaters,
with the exception of the two Pitts, Bolingbroke, and
Lord Derby, was slow and gradual; and though I have
heard Lord Lansdowne (once known as Henry Petty)
observe that he considered Canning in his best days even
more effective than Fox or Pitt, he had at an earlier period
been often accused, by no mean judges, now of being
wordy and tedious, now of being rather elegant than
argumentative. To time, practice, a proud spirit, and a
continually developing understanding, he owed his triumph
over these defects. Then it was that his eloquence approached
almost to perfection, as we consider the audience,
half lounging and sleepy, half serious and awake, to which
it was addressed. Quick, easy, and fluent, frequently
passionate and sarcastic, now brilliant and ornamented,
then again light and playful; or, if he wished it, clear,
simple, and incisive; no speaker ever combined a greater
variety of qualities, though many have been superior in
each of the excellences which he possessed. Remarkable
as a general rule for the polish of his language (we have
proof, even to the last, of the pains he bestowed upon it),
those who knew him well assert that he would sometimes
purposely frame his sentences loosely and incorrectly, in
order to avoid the appearance of preparation. “Erat
memoriæ nulla tamen meditationis suspicio.” His action
exhibiting when calm an union of grace and dignity,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_484" id="Page_484">[484]</a></span>
became, as he warmed, unaffectedly fervent; and made
natural by its vigour and animation the florid language
and figurative decorations in which he rather too fondly
indulged. His arguments were not placed in that clear,
logical form, which sometimes enchains, but more often
wearies, attention; neither did he use those solemn
perorations by which it is attempted to instil awe or terror
into the mind. His was rather the endeavour to charm
the ear, to amuse the fancy, to excite the feelings, to lead
and fascinate the judgment; and in these different attributes
of his great art he succeeded in the highest degree,
insomuch that though he might be said to want depth and
sublimity, the faculties he possessed were elevated to such
a pitch, that at times he appeared both profound and
sublime.</p>

<p>A great merit, which he finally possessed, was that of
seizing and speaking the general sense of the popular
assembly he addressed. Sir Robert Peel, his distinguished
rival, told me one day, in speaking of Mr. Canning as to
this particular, that he would often before rising in his
place, make a sort of lounging tour of the House, listening
to the tone of the observations which the previous debates
had excited, so that at last, when he himself spoke, he
seemed to a large part of his audience to be merely giving
a striking form to their own thoughts.</p>

<p>Neither were his despatches, though not so elaborately
perfect as those of his successor (Lord Dudley), inferior
to his orations; possessing precision, spirit, and dignity,
they remain what they were justly called by no incompetent
authority, “models and masterpieces of diplomatic
composition.”<a name="FNanchor_128" id="FNanchor_128"></a><a href="#Footnote_128" class="fnanchor">[128]</a></p>

<p>There are critics who have said that there was something
in his character which tended to diminish our
respect for his talents, though it softened our censure for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_485" id="Page_485">[485]</a></span>
his defects. And it is true that the same unstately love
for wit&mdash;the same light facility for satire&mdash;the same
imprudent levity of conduct, that involuntarily lowered our
estimate of his graver abilities&mdash;involuntarily led us to
excuse his graver errors. We at one time blame the
statesman for being too much the child&mdash;at another we
pardon the veteran politician in the same humour in
which we would forgive the spoiled and high-spirited
schoolboy.</p>

<p>Mr. Canning, indeed, was always young. The head of
the sixth form at Eton&mdash;squibbing “the doctor,” as
Mr. Addington was called; fighting with Lord Castlereagh;
cutting jokes on Lord Nugent; flatly contradicting
Lord Brougham; swaggering over the Holy Alliance;
he was in perpetual personal quarrels&mdash;one of the reasons
which created for him so much personal interest during
the whole of his parliamentary career. Yet out of those
quarrels he nearly always came glorious and victorious&mdash;defying
his enemies, cheered by his friends&mdash;never sinking
into an ordinary man,&mdash;though not a perfect one.</p>

<p>No imaginative artist, fresh from studying his career,
would sit down to paint this minister with the broad and
deep forehead&mdash;the stern compressed lip&mdash;the deep,
thoughtful, concentrated air of Napoleon Bonaparte. As
little would the idea of his eloquence or ambition call to
our recollection the swart and iron features&mdash;the bold and
haughty dignity of Strafford. We cannot fancy in his
eye the volume depth of Richelieu’s&mdash;the volcanic flash of
Mirabeau’s&mdash;the offended majesty of Chatham’s. Sketching
him from our fancy, it would be as a few still living
remember him, with a visage rather marked by humour
and intelligence than by meditation or sternness; with
something of the petulant mingling in its expression with
the proud; with much of the playful overruling the
profound. His nature, in short, exhibited more of the
genial fancy and the quick irritability of the poet who
captivates and inflames an audience, than of the inflexible
will of the dictator who puts his foot on a nation’s neck,
or of the fiery passions of the tribune who rouses a people
against its oppressors.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_486" id="Page_486">[486]</a></span></p>

<p>Still, Mr. Canning, such as he was, will remain one
of the most brilliant and striking personages in our
historical annals. As a statesman, the latter passages of
his life cannot be too deeply studied; as an orator, his
speeches will always be models of their kind; and as a
man, there was something so graceful, so fascinating, so
spirited in his bearing, that even when we condemn his
faults, we cannot avoid feeling affection for his memory,
and a sympathetic admiration for his genius.</p>

<hr />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_487" id="Page_487">[487]</a></span></p>

<h2>SIR ROBERT PEEL.</h2>

<h3><span class="smcap">Part I.</span></h3>

<div class="smaller">

<p>Family.&mdash;Birth.&mdash;Formation of character.&mdash;Education at Harrow
and Oxford.&mdash;Entry into Parliament.&mdash;Line adopted there.&mdash;Style of
speaking.&mdash;Becomes Secretary of Colonies.&mdash;Secretary for Ireland.&mdash;Language
on the Catholic question.&mdash;Returned as member for the
University of Oxford.&mdash;Resigned his post in Ireland.</p>

</div>

<h4>I.</h4>

<p>The family of the Peels belonged to the class of
yeomanry, which in England, from the earliest times,
was well known and reputed, forming a sort of
intermediate link between the gentry and the commonalty,
as the gentry formed an intermediate link
between the great barons and the burghers or wealthy
traders. The yeoman was proud of belonging to the
yeomanry, and if you traced back the descent of a
yeoman’s family, you found it frequently the issue
of the younger branch of some noble or gentle house.
For some generations this family of Peel had at its
head men of industry and energy, who were respected
by their own class, and appeared to be gradually
rising into another. The grandfather of the great
Sir Robert inherited a small estate of about one
hundred pounds a year, called Peel’s Fold, which
is still in the family. He received a fair education
at a grammar-school, and married (1747) into a
gentleman’s family (Haworth, of Lower Darwen).</p>

<p>Beginning life as a farmer of his little property, he
undertook, at the time that the cotton manufacture<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_488" id="Page_488">[488]</a></span>
began to develop itself in Lancashire, the business of
trader and printer.</p>

<p>The original practice had been to send up the
fabricated article to Paris, where it was printed and
sent back into this country for sale. Mr. Peel started
a calico printing manufactory, first in Lancashire and
afterwards in Staffordshire, and his success was the
result of the conviction&mdash;that “a man could always
succeed if he only put his will into the endeavour,” a
maxim which he often repeated in his later days,
when as a stately old gentleman he walked with a
long gold-headed cane, and wore the clothes fashionable
for moderate people in the days of Dr. Johnson.</p>

<p>The first Sir Robert Peel was a third son.
Enterprising and ambitious, he left his father’s
establishment, and became a junior partner in a
manufactory carried on at Bury by a relation, Mr.
Haworth, and his future father-in-law, Mr. Yates.
His industry, his genius, soon gave him the lead
in the management of this business, and made it
prosperous. By perseverance, talent, economy, and
marrying a wealthy heiress&mdash;Miss Yates, the daughter
of his senior partner&mdash;he had amassed a considerable
fortune at the age of forty.</p>

<p>He then began to turn his mind to politics,
published a pamphlet on the National Debt, made
the acquaintance of Mr. Pitt, and got returned to
Parliament (1790) for Tamworth, where he had
acquired a landed property, which the rest of his
life was passed in increasing. He was a Church
and King politician in that excitable time, and his
firm contributed no less than ten thousand pounds in
1797 to the voluntary subscriptions for the support of
the war. So wealthy and loyal a personage was
readily created a baronet in 1800.</p>

<p>His celebrated son was born in 1788, two years
before he himself entered public life, and on this son
he at once fixed his hopes of giving an historical lustre
to the name which he had already invested with credit
and respectability.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_489" id="Page_489">[489]</a></span></p>

<h4>II.</h4>

<p>It was the age of great political passions, and of
violent personal political antipathies and partialities.
The early elevation of Mr. Pitt from the position of a
briefless barrister to that of prime minister had given
a general idea to the fathers of young men of promise
and ability that their sons might become prime
ministers too. The wealthy and ambitious manufacturer
soon determined, then, that his boy, who was
thought to give precocious proofs of talent, should
become First Lord of the Treasury. He did not
merely bring him up to take a distinguished part in
politics, which might happen to be a high position in
opposition or office, he brought him up especially for a
high official position. It was to office, it was to power,
that the boy who was to be the politician was taught
to aspire; and as the impressions we acquire in early
life settle so deeply and imperceptibly into our minds
as to become akin to instincts, so politics became
instinctively connected from childhood in the mind of
the future statesman with office; and he got into the
habit of looking at all questions in the point of view
in which they are seen from an official position; a
circumstance which it is necessary to remember.</p>

<p>To say nothing of the anecdotes which are told in
his family of the early manifestations which Mr. Peel
gave of more than ordinary ability, he was not less
distinguished at Harrow as a student for his classical
studies, than he was as a boy for the regularity of his
conduct. I remember that my tutor, Mark Drury,
who, some years previous to my becoming his pupil,
had Peel in the same position, preserved many of his
exercises; and on one occasion brought some of them
down from a shelf, in order to show me with what
terseness and clearness my predecessor expressed
himself, both in Latin and English.</p>

<p>Lord Byron says: “Peel, the orator and statesman
that was, or is, or is to be, was my form-fellow, and
we were both at the top of our remove, in public<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_490" id="Page_490">[490]</a></span>
school phrase. We were on good terms, but his
brother was my intimate friend. There were always
great hopes of Peel amongst us all, masters and
scholars, and he has not disappointed them. As a
scholar, he was greatly my superior; as a declaimer
and actor, I was reckoned at least his equal; as a
schoolboy out of school, I was always in scrapes&mdash;he
never.” This character as a lad developed itself,
without altering in after life.</p>

<p>At the University of Oxford the young man was the
simple growth of the Harrow boy. He read hard,
and took a double first-class, indicating the highest
university proficiency both in classics and mathematics.
But it is remarkable that he studiously
avoided appearing the mere scholar: he shot, he
boated, he dressed carefully, and, without affecting
the man of fashion, wished evidently to be considered
the man of the world.</p>

<p>As soon as he became of age, his father resolved to
bring him into Parliament, and did so, in 1809, by
purchasing a seat for him at Cashel.</p>

<h4>III.</h4>

<p>The great men of the Pittite day were passing
away. The leading men at the moment were
Grey, Liverpool, Petty, Perceval, Tierney, Whitbread,
Romilly, Horner, Castlereagh, Canning: the genius of
Sheridan had still its momentary flashes; and Grattan,
though rarely heard, at times charmed and startled
the House of Commons by his peculiar manner and
original eloquence.</p>

<p>Brougham, Palmerston, Robinson, were Peel’s contemporaries.
The Duke of Portland was prime
minister; Perceval, the leader of the House of
Commons; Canning, minister of foreign affairs;
and Lord Castlereagh, secretary of war. But this
ministry almost immediately disappeared: the Duke
of Portland resigning, Lord Castlereagh and Canning
quarrelling, and Mr. Perceval, as prime minister,
having to meet Parliament in 1810 with the disastrous<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_491" id="Page_491">[491]</a></span>
expedition of Walcheren on his shoulders. Young
Peel, not quite twenty-two, was chosen for seconding
the address, and did so in a manner that at once drew
attention towards him. He was then acting as private
secretary to Lord Liverpool, who had become minister
of war and the colonies. The condition of the
Government was but rickety: Lord Carnarvon
carried against it a motion for inquiry into the
conduct and policy of the expedition to the Scheldt;
and, subsequently, it could only obtain a vote of
confidence by a majority of twenty-three, which, in
the days of close boroughs, was thought equivalent to
a defeat. Peel spoke in two or three debates, not ill,
but not marvellously well; there was, in fact, nothing
remarkable in his style; and its fluency and correctness
were more calculated to strike at first than on
repetition. He never failed, however, being always in
some degree beyond mediocrity.</p>

<p>In the meantime his business qualities became more
and more appreciated; and it was not long before he
was appointed to the under-secretaryship of the
colonies.</p>

<p>It was no doubt a great advantage to him that the
government he had joined wanted ability.</p>

<p>Mr. Perceval’s mediocrity, indeed, was repulsive to
men of comprehensive views; but, on the other hand,
it was peculiarly attractive to men of narrow-minded
prejudices. The dominant prejudice of this last class&mdash;always
a considerable one&mdash;was at this time an
anti-Catholic one; some denouncing Romanists as
the pupils of the devil, others considering it sufficient
to say they were the subjects of the Pope. Mr. Peel
joined this party, which had amongst it some statesmen
who, sharing neither the bigotry nor the folly of
the subalterns in their ranks, thought, nevertheless,
that it would be impossible to satisfy the Catholics
in Ireland without dissatisfying the Protestants in
England, and were therefore against adding to the
strength of a body which they did not expect to
content.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_492" id="Page_492">[492]</a></span></p>

<h4>IV.</h4>

<p>Mr. Perceval’s unexpected death was a great blow
to the anti-Catholics, and appeared likely to lead to
the construction of a new and more liberal Cabinet.
The general feeling, indeed, was in favour of a
Cabinet in which the eminent men of all parties
might be combined; and a vote in favour of an
address to the Regent, praying him to take such
measures as were most likely to lead to the formation
of a strong administration, passed the House of
Commons.</p>

<p>But it may almost be said that eminent men are
natural enemies, who can rarely be united in the
same Cabinet, and are pretty sure to destroy or
nullify each other when they are. The attempt at
such an union was, at all events, on this occasion a
signal failure.</p>

<p>Thus, luckily for the early advancement of Mr.
Peel, Lord Liverpool had to construct a government
as best he could out of his own adherents, and the
under-secretary of the colonies rose at once to the
important position of Secretary for Ireland, to which
the Duke of Richmond, a man more remarkable for
his joviality than his ability, and a strenuous anti-Catholic,
was sent as Lord Lieutenant.</p>

<h4>V.</h4>

<p>The Catholic question was to be considered an open
one in the new Cabinet, but the Irish Government, as
I have shown, was altogether anti-Catholic. This was
in fact the strong bias of the administration, and also
of the Prince Regent, who, regardless of former
promises and pledges, had now become an avowed
opponent of the Catholic claims. These claims,
moreover, were strongly opposed by the feelings, at
that time greatly excited, of the English clergy, and,
speaking generally, of the English people.</p>

<p>Under such circumstances, a Catholic policy was
at the moment impracticable; that is, it could not be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_493" id="Page_493">[493]</a></span>
carried out: for to carry out a policy opposed by the
sovereign, opposed by the premier (who had been
selected because his most able opponents could not
form a Cabinet), opposed by the English clergy,
opposed by the general sentiment of the English
people, was impracticable, whatever might be said
theoretically in its favour.</p>

<p>Mr. Peel then, in taking up the anti-Catholic
policy, took up the practical one.</p>

<p>The Catholics themselves, indeed, destroyed for a
while all hope in their cause, for when the most
considerable of their supporters, in order to dissipate
the alarm of their co-religionists, proposed certain
guarantees for maintaining the authority of the King
and the State over the Catholic priesthood, although
the English Catholics and the highest orders of
Catholics in Ireland willingly agreed to these guarantees,
the more violent of the Irish Catholics, with
Mr. O’Connell at their head, joining the most violent
anti-Catholics, vehemently opposed them. Moderate
people were, therefore, crushed by the extremes.
Even Grattan was for a moment put on one side.</p>

<p>This was unfortunate for Mr. Peel, who would
willingly have been as moderate as his situation
would permit him, but could only at such a crisis live
with violent people, and thus obtained the nickname
of “Orange Peel,” so that after different altercations
with Mr. O’Connell&mdash;altercations which nearly ended
in a duel&mdash;he found himself, almost in his own
despite, regarded by both Protestants and Catholics
as the great Protestant champion.</p>

<p>It was in this position that he made, in 1817 (on
an unsuccessful motion of Mr. Grattan’s), a very
remarkable speech, the success of which Sir James
Mackintosh attributes to its delivery.</p>

<p>“Peel,” he says, “made a speech of little merit,
but elegantly and clearly expressed, and so well delivered
as to be applauded to excess. He now fills
the important place of spokesman to the intolerant
faction.”</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_494" id="Page_494">[494]</a></span></p>

<p>The speech, however, had other merits than those
Sir James acknowledged, and I quote a passage which
subsequently formed the groundwork of all Mr. Peel’s
anti-Catholic speeches.</p>

<p>“If you give them” (the Catholics) “that fair
proportion of national power to which their numbers,
wealth, talents, and education will entitle them, can
you believe that they will or can remain contented
with the limits which you assign to them? Do you
think that when they constitute, as they must do, not
this year or next, but in the natural, and therefore
certain order of things, by far the most powerful body
in Ireland&mdash;the body most controlling and directing
the government of it; do you think, I say, that they
will view with satisfaction the state of your church or
their own? Do you think that if they are constituted
like other men, if they have organs, senses, affections,
passions, like ourselves; if they are, as no doubt they
are, sincere and zealous professors of that religious
faith to which they belong; if they believe your
intrusive church to have usurped the temporalities
which it possesses; do you think that they will not
aspire to the re-establishment of their own church in
all its ancient splendour? Is it not natural that they
should? If I argue from my own feelings, if I place
myself in their situation, I answer that it is. May I
not then, without throwing any calumnious imputations
upon any Roman Catholics, without proclaiming
(and grossly should I injure them if I did) such men
as Lord Fingal or Lord Gormanston to be disaffected
and disloyal, may I not, arguing from the motives
by which men are actuated, from the feeling which
nature inspires, may I not question the policy of
admitting those who must have views hostile to the
religious establishments of the State to the capacity
of legislating for the interests of those establishments,
and the power of directing the Government, of which
those establishments form so essential a part?”</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_495" id="Page_495">[495]</a></span></p>

<h4>VI.</h4>

<p>Have we not seen that every word I have been
quoting is practically true? Are we not beginning to
acknowledge the difficulty of maintaining a Protestant
Church establishment in Ireland in the face of a large
majority of Irish Catholic representatives? Are we
not beginning to question the possibility of upholding
an exclusive church belonging to a minority, without
a government in which that minority dominates? Do
we not now acknowledge the glaring sophistry of those
who contended that the Catholics having once obtained
their civil equality would submit with gratitude to
religious inferiority? Mr. Peel saw and stated the
case pretty clearly as it stood; the whole condition
of Ireland, as between Catholic and Protestant, was
involved in the question of Catholic emancipation, and
as the avowed champion of Protestant ascendancy, he
said, “do not resign your outworks as long as you
can maintain them, if you have any serious design
to keep your citadel.” But the very nature of his
argument showed in the clearest manner that we were
ruling against the wishes and interests of the large
majority of the Irish people; that we were endeavouring
to maintain an artificial state of things in Ireland
which was not the natural growth of Irish society;&mdash;a
state of things only to be maintained by force, and
which, the day that we were unable or unwilling to
use that force, tumbled naturally to pieces. It is well
to bear this in mind.</p>

<p>The anti-Catholic party, however, accepted Mr.
Peel’s argument; they did not pretend to say that
they governed by justice; and they applauded their
orator for showing that, whenever there was an
attempt to govern justly, as between man and man,
and not unjustly, as between Protestant and Catholic,
their cause would be lost.</p>

<p>His reward was the one he most valued. Mr.
Abbott, then Speaker, represented the University of
Oxford. Mr. Abbott was made a peer, and Mr. Peel,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_496" id="Page_496">[496]</a></span>
through the interest of Lord Eldon and of the party
that Sir James Mackintosh calls the intolerant one,
was elected in his place, in spite of the well-known
and favourite ambition of Mr. Canning.</p>

<p>With this result of his Irish administration Mr. Peel
was satisfied. All the duties attached to his place he
had regularly and punctually fulfilled. His life had
been steady and decorous in a country where steadiness
and decorum were peculiarly meritorious because
they were not especially demanded. In all matters
where administrative talents were requisite he had
displayed them: the police, still called “Peelers,”
were his invention. He protected all plans for
education, except those which, by removing religious
inequalities and animosities, and infusing peace into
a discordant society, would have furnished the best;
and with a reputation increasing yearly in weight and
consideration, resigned his post, and escaped from a
scene, the irrational and outrageous contentions of
which were out of harmony with his character.</p>

<hr />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_497" id="Page_497">[497]</a></span></p>

<h3><span class="smcap">Part II.</span></h3>

<div class="smaller">

<p>Currency.&mdash;Views thereupon.&mdash;Chairman in 1859 of Finance Committee.&mdash;Conduct
as to the Queen’s trial.&mdash;Becomes Home Secretary.&mdash;Improvement
of police, criminal law, prisons, &amp;c.&mdash;Defends Lord
Eldon, but guards himself against being thought to share his political
tendencies, and declares himself in favour in Ireland of a general
system of education for all religions, and denounces any attempt to mix
up conversion with it.&mdash;Begins to doubt about the possibility of resisting
the Catholic claims.&mdash;The Duke of York dies, and Lord Liverpool soon
after follows.&mdash;Question of Premiership between the Duke of Wellington
and Mr. Canning.&mdash;Peel sides with the Duke of Wellington.</p>

</div>

<h4>I.</h4>

<p>The great practical question at issue, on Mr. Peel’s
return from Ireland, was the currency.</p>

<p>The Bank, in 1797, declared, with the consent of
the Government, that its notes would not be converted,
on presentation, into gold.</p>

<p>At the time this was, perhaps, a necessary measure.
It enabled the Bank to make large advances to the
State, which it could not have made otherwise, and
without which the Government would have found it
difficult to maintain the struggle of life and death it
was engaged in. We did, in fact, in our foreign war,
what the United States lately did in their domestic
war; but the commercial consequences of such a
measure were inevitable.</p>

<p>If the Bank gave a note convertible into gold on
presentation it gave gold: if it gave paper, which
simply specified the obligation to pay gold for it some
day or other, the value of the note depended on the
credit attached to the promise. The promise to do a
thing is never entirely equivalent to doing it; consequently,
it was utterly impossible that a bank-note,
not immediately convertible into gold, could have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_498" id="Page_498">[498]</a></span>
precisely the same value as gold. Gold, therefore,
would have a value of its own, and a bank-note a
value of its own. Moreover, as the value of the bank-note
depended on the faith placed in it, if it had been
merely required for home trade, the decrease in value
would have been small; because the English people
had confidence in the Bank of England and in the
Government which sustained it; but in all foreign
transactions the case was different. If an English
merchant had to purchase goods on the Continent
and he sent out bank-notes, the merchant at St.
Petersburg would have less confidence in the English
bank-note than the Manchester merchant, and he
would therefore say, “No, pay me in gold; or if you
want to pay me in bank-notes, I will only take them
at the value I place on them.” In proportion, therefore,
to the extent of purchases abroad was the natural
abasement of paper money at home, and the increase
in the value of gold as compared with paper. Besides,
paper money, resting on credit, partook of the nature
of the public funds, depending also on credit. As the
one fell naturally, in a long and critical war, so the
other fell from the same cause, though not in the
same degree; all our dealings were thus carried on in
a money which had one real value and one nominal
one; and the real value depending, in a great measure,
on matters beyond our control. Efforts on the
part of our legislature to sustain it were useless. We
forbade persons giving more for a guinea than twenty-one
shillings in paper money, and we forbade persons
exchanging a twenty-shilling bank-note for less than
twenty shillings. We tried, in short, to prevent gold
and silver getting the same price in England that they
could get out of it.</p>

<p>The inevitable consequence was, that the precious
metals, in spite of stupid prohibitions against their
exportation, went to those countries in which it could
obtain its real value. In this manner there was, first,
the transmission of coin for the maintenance of our
armies; secondly, its exportation for the purposes of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_499" id="Page_499">[499]</a></span>
our commerce; and, lastly, its escape from the laws
which deteriorated its value, all operating to drain
England of its gold and silver; and in proportion as
they became scarcer, their comparative value with
paper increased, insomuch that fifteen shillings in
coin became at last equivalent to twenty shillings in
paper bank-notes.</p>

<p>Much was said as to the over-issue of bank-notes.
It may always be taken for granted that where there
is an inconvertible paper, there is an over-issue of
bank-notes; because the over facility of having or
making money will naturally tend to the over-advance
of it. But we must remember, that a currency must
be in proportion to the transactions which require it;
that our trade increased almost, if not quite, in proportion
to the increased issue from the Bank; that
the absence of coin necessitated a large employ of
paper, and that there did not appear to be that
multitude of bubble schemes which are the usual
concomitants of a superabundant circulation. There
were, in fact, quite sufficient reasons, without attributing
indiscretion to the Bank, to account for the difference
between its paper and the coin it was said to
represent; nor is there any possibility of keeping
paper money on an equality with metallic money,
except by making the one immediately exchangeable
for the other.</p>

<p>The inequality, then, between paper money and
metallic money could only be remedied by re-establishing
that immediate exchange. But this was not
an easy matter.</p>

<h4>II.</h4>

<p>For many years in England every transaction had
been carried on in paper. Individuals had borrowed
money in it, and had received this money in bank-notes.
If they were called upon to repay it in gold,
they paid twenty-five per cent. beyond the capital
they had received. On the other hand, if individuals
had purchased annuities, the seller, whether the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_500" id="Page_500">[500]</a></span>
Government or an individual, had to pay them
twenty-five per cent. more than they had purchased.</p>

<p>The resumption of cash payments, therefore, could
not take place without great individual hardship and
great public loss. There can be no doubt, also, that
paper money afforded great facilities for trade; and
that the sudden withdrawal of these facilities might
be felt throughout every class of the population.</p>

<p>Thus, although Mr. Horner brought the subject
before the House of Commons with great ability in
1811, it was not till 1819, when the war had ceased,
and the public mind in general had been gradually
prepared for terminating a situation which could not
be indefinitely prolonged, that the ministers intimated
their intention to deal with it by the appointment of a
select committee, of which Mr. Peel was named the
chairman.</p>

<p>Up to this period, it is to be observed, the resumption
of cash payments could not have been carried;
and up to this period Mr. Peel and his father, who
both voted against Mr. Horner, had opposed the resumption.
But the question was probably now ripe,
so to speak, for being dealt with. It was a matter,
therefore, of practical consideration, and Mr. Peel reconsidered
it; and on the 20th of May it was curious
to see the venerable Sir Robert representing the ideas
of his time, and coming forward with a petition in
favour of paper money; and his son, the offspring
of another epoch, rising, after the father had sat down,
to propose a measure by which paper money (I speak
of paper money not immediately convertible into gold)
was to be abolished; and avowing, as he said, “without
shame and remorse,” a thorough change of
opinion.</p>

<p>His proposals compelled the Government to repay
the sums which it owed to the Bank, and compelled
the Bank to resume cash payments at a date which
the Bank anticipated by resuming them in 1821.</p>

<p>Of the necessity of these measures there can be no
doubt; at the same time they were calculated, as I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_501" id="Page_501">[501]</a></span>
have said, to produce momentary discontent and
distress, and already much discontent and distress
existed.</p>

<p>There was, indeed, a dark period in our history to
which I have already alluded in these biographical
sketches, but Peel (luckily for him) was out of office
during the greater portion of that gloomy time, and
never made himself prominent in it except once, when
called upon as a neighbour to defend the character of
the magistrates on that day still memorable, in spite
of all excuses and palliations, as the day of the
“Manchester massacre.” He undertook and performed
his very delicate task on this occasion with
tact and discretion. No one, indeed, ever spoke in a
less unpopular manner on an unpopular subject. Far
superior to Mr. Canning, in this respect, from that
calm, steady, and considerate tone which never gives
offence, and which, laying aside the orator, marks the
statesman, he neither attempted to excite anger, nor
ridicule, nor admiration; but left his audience under
the impression that he had been performing a painful
duty, in the fulfilment of which he neither expected
nor sought a personal triumph.</p>

<h4>III.</h4>

<p>From the proceedings against the Queen, which
shortly followed (the old King dying in 1820), he kept
as much as possible aloof. On one occasion, it is true,
he defended the legal course which the Ministry had
adopted for settling the question of the Queen’s guilt
or innocence; but he blamed the exclusion of her
Majesty’s name from the litany; the refusal of a
ship of war to bring her to England, and of a royal
residence on British soil; in short, he separated
himself distinctly from any scheme of persecution,
manifesting that he would not sacrifice justice to
Royal favour.</p>

<p>The Government at this time was so weak, having
suffered, even previous to the Queen’s unfortunate
business, which had not strengthened it, several<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_502" id="Page_502">[502]</a></span>
defeats, that Lord Liverpool saw the necessity of a
reinforcement, and, faithful to the system of a double-mouthed
Cabinet, took in Mr. Wynn (the representative
of the Grenvilles), to speak in favour of the
Catholics, and Mr. Peel (as successor to Lord Sidmouth,
who gave up the Home Office, but remained
in the ministry), to speak against them.</p>

<p>The change, nevertheless, considerably affected the
administration, both as to its spirit and its capacity.
The Grenvillites were liberal, intelligent men generally,
as well as with respect to the Catholics, and Peel was
generally liberal, though hostile to the claims of the
Catholic body.</p>

<p>Lord Sidmouth, at the Home Office, had moreover
been a barrier against all improvement. His career,
one much superior to his merits, had been owing to
his having all George III.’s prejudices without George
III.’s acuteness. He was, therefore, George III.’s
ideal of a minister, and on this account had been
stuck into every ministry, during George III.’s lifetime,
as a kind of “<i>King’s send</i>,” representing the
Royal mind. Uniting with Lord Eldon against every
popular concession, and supporting in a dry, disagreeable
manner every unpopular measure, he was
as much hated as a man can be who is despised.
Peel, at all events, wished to gain the public esteem.
His abilities were unquestioned. He was much
looked up to by his own party, much respected by
the opposing one; and, as it was known that Mr.
Canning had at this time engaged himself to accept
the Governor-Generalship of India, every one deemed
that, if the Tories should remain in power, Peel
would be Lord Liverpool’s inevitable successor.</p>

<p>The moderate and elevated tone of his language,
his indefatigable attention to business, a certain
singleness and individuality which belonged to him,
foreshadowed the premiership. Even the fact that
his father had, undisguisedly, intended him for this
position, though the idea was quizzed at Peel’s entry
into public life, tended eventually to predispose<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_503" id="Page_503">[503]</a></span>
persons to accept it; for people become accustomed
to a notion that has been put boldly and steadily
before them, and it is rare that a man of energy and
ability does not eventually obtain a distinction for
which it is known, during a certain number of years,
that he is an aspirant.</p>

<p>But one of those accidents which often cross the
ordinary course of human life&mdash;the sudden death of
Lord Castlereagh and the appointment of Mr. Canning
as his successor&mdash;retained the Home Secretary in a
second-rate position, over which the great and marvellous
success of the new foreign secretary threw a
certain comparative obscurity. He was obliged, therefore,
to be satisfied with continuing to pursue a
subordinate, but useful career, which might place
him eventually in men’s minds, side by side with his
more brilliant competitor.</p>

<h4>IV.</h4>

<p>The subject to which he now particularly devoted
himself was the most useful that he could have
chosen. We had at the time he entered office a
police that was notoriously inefficient; prisons, which
by their discipline and condition were calculated
rather to increase crime than to act as a corrective
to it; and laws which rendered society more criminal
than the criminals it punished. One can scarcely,
in fact, believe that such men as Lord Eldon and
Lord Ellenborough did not think it safe to abolish
the punishment of death in the case of privately
stealing six shillings in a shop; and it is with a
shudder that one reads of fourteen persons being
hanged in London in one week in 1820, and of thirty-three
executions in the year 1822.</p>

<p>No one reflected whether the punishment was proportionate
to the offence; no one considered that the
alleged criminal himself was a member of the community,
and had as much right to be justly dealt
with and protected against wrong as the community
itself. Satisfied with the last resort of hanging, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_504" id="Page_504">[504]</a></span>
State neglected to take suitable precautions against
the committal of those acts which led to hanging;
nor did it seem a matter of moment to make places
of confinement places of reformation, as well as
places of atonement. To Bentham, Romilly, Mackintosh,
Basil Montagu, and others, we owe that
improvement in the public mind which led finally
to an improvement in our laws. Mr. Peel had
marked and felt this gradual change of opinion;
and almost immediately after he became invested
with the functions of the Home Department, he
promised to give his most earnest attention to the
state of the police, the prisons, and the penal laws;
a promise that, in the four or five succeeding years,
he honourably fulfilled; thus giving to philanthropic
ideas that practical sanction with men of the world,
which theories acquire by being taken up by men in
power.</p>

<p>It is true that the country was, as I have observed,
becoming desirous for the changes that Mr. Peel
introduced, and that he never advocated them until,
owing to the efforts of others, they had won their
way with the good and the thoughtful; but it is
likewise true that, so soon as they became practically
possible, he took them up with zeal, and carried them
against a considerable and, as it was then deemed,
respectable opposition, which held fœtid dungeons,
decrepid watchmen, and a well-fed gallows to be
essential appendages to the British constitution.</p>

<p>During this time also he supported, though not
conspicuously, the liberal foreign policy of Mr.
Canning, and the liberal commercial policy of Mr.
Huskisson. He kept, nevertheless, at the head of
his own section in the Ministry, as well by his consistent
opposition to the Catholic claims as by his
defence of Lord Eldon, whose slowness in the administration
of justice and obstinate adherence to
antiquated doctrines were frequently the subject of
attack. This remarkable man, one of the many
emanations of the Johnsonian mind which contrived<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_505" id="Page_505">[505]</a></span>
to make the most narrow-minded prejudices palatable
to the most comprehensive intellect, exercised great
influence over the King, over the older peers and
members of the House of Commons, and over that
large mass of uncertains that rallies round a man who
entertains no scruples and doubts. Mr. Peel took
care, however, not to pass for a mere follower of Lord
Eldon, nor a mere bigot of the ultra-Protestant party.
In defending and lauding the great judge and lawyer,
he said expressly: “The House will remember I have
nothing to do on this occasion with the political
character of the Lord Chancellor:” and again, in
discussing the question of proselytism and education,
he not only ridiculed the idea that some extravagant
people entertained of making Catholic Ireland Protestant,
but stated in so many words, “that he was
for educating Catholics and Protestants together under
one common system, from which proselytism should
be honestly and studiously excluded.” His conduct
on this occasion merited particular attention. The
great difficulty which he foresaw in passing Catholic
emancipation was the hostile feeling between Catholics
and Protestants. If that feeling was removed, and
a common education secured&mdash;the best mode of
modifying or removing it&mdash;the practical and political
objections to Catholic emancipation ceased.</p>

<h4>V.</h4>

<p>The fact is that even as early as 1821, when he
answered a speech from Mr. Plunkett, which he once
told me was the finest he ever heard, Mr. Peel felt
that the ground on which he had hitherto stood was
shifting from under him; that just as it had been
impracticable to carry what was called “Catholic
emancipation” when he entered public life, so it was
becoming more and more impracticable to resist its
being carried as time advanced.</p>

<p>Such an impression naturally became stronger and
stronger as he saw distinguished converts, from Mr.
Wellesley Pole, in 1812, down to Mr. Brownlow, in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_506" id="Page_506">[506]</a></span>
1825, going over to his opponents, whereas not a
single convert was made to the views he advocated.
He might still think that the hope of those who
imagined that the Irish Catholics, once admitted to
Parliament, would rest satisfied with that triumph,
was chimerical: he might still think that the Irish
Catholics would, as a matter of course, insist upon
equality in all respects with the Protestants: he
might still foresee that this equality, the Catholics
being the majority, would lead to superiority over
the Protestants: he might still believe that the Protestants,
accustomed to domination, and supported
by property and rank, would not submit tranquilly
to numbers: he might contemplate the impossibility
of maintaining a Protestant Church establishment,
absorbing all the revenue accorded to religious purposes,
with a Catholic representation which would feel
galled and humiliated by such a preference; and he
might also recognise the probability that the English
Protestant clergy would take part with the Irish
Protestant clergy, and denounce as an atrocious
robbery what might be demanded as a simple act of
justice: and yet, retaining all his former convictions
against the measure he was called upon to agree to,
he might feel that prolonged opposition would only
serve to protract a useless struggle, and be more
likely to increase the evils he foresaw than to prevent
them. Such a consideration could not but deeply
affect his mind, and breathe over his conduct an air
of hesitation and doubt.</p>

<p>It is not surprising, therefore, that any one who
reviews his conduct attentively during the five or six
years that preceded Lord Liverpool’s retirement
should find evident traces of this state of thought.
On one occasion he says: “No result of this debate
can give me unqualified satisfaction.” On another:
“If I were perfectly satisfied that concession would
lead to perfect peace and harmony, if I thought it would
put an end to animosities, the existence of which all
must lament, I would not oppose the measure on a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_507" id="Page_507">[507]</a></span>
<em>mere theory</em> of the constitution.” Just previous to the
Duke of York’s celebrated declaration that, “whatever
might be his situation in life, so help him God
he should oppose the grant of political power to
Roman Catholics,” Peel says, on the third reading
of the Catholic Relief Bill, which had been carried
in the House of Commons by a majority of twenty-one,
that he should record, perhaps for the last time,
his vote against the concessions that it granted.</p>

<p>This phrase, “<em>for the last time</em>,” much commented
on at the time, might have alluded to the possibility
of the measure then under discussion being carried;
and it was generally believed that Mr. Peel meditated
at this time quitting office, and even Parliament, in
order not to prevent Lord Liverpool from dealing with
a matter on which his own opinions differed from
those to which he thought it likely that the Government
would have to listen.</p>

<p>When, however, after the death of the Duke of
York, and the illness of Lord Liverpool, the question
was whether he should desert or hold fast to a cause
which had lost its most powerful supporters; whether
he should abandon those with whom he had hitherto
acted at the moment when victory seemed almost
certain to crown their opponents, or still range himself
under their banner, there was hardly a choice for
an honourable man, and he spoke as follows:</p>

<p>“The influence of some great names has been
recently lost to the cause which I support, but I have
never adopted my opinions either from deference to
high station, or that which might more fairly be
expected to impress me&mdash;high ability. Keen as the
feelings of regret must be with which the loss of those
associates in feeling is recollected, it is still a matter
of consolation to me that I have now the opportunity
of showing my attachment to those tenets which
I formerly espoused, and of showing that if my
opinions are unpopular I stand by them still, when the
influence and authority which might have given them
currency is gone, and when I believe it is impossible<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_508" id="Page_508">[508]</a></span>
that in the mind of any human being I can be
suspected of pursuing my principles with any view to
favour or personal aggrandizement.”</p>

<h4>VI.</h4>

<p>This speech had a double bearing. It said, as
clearly as possible, that the Catholic disabilities could
not be maintained; but that the speaker could not
separate himself from those with whom he had hitherto
acted in opposing their removal.</p>

<p>The struggle was, in fact, then commencing between
the Duke of Wellington, backed by Lord Eldon on the
one side, and Mr. Canning, backed by the opponents
of Lord Eldon on the other. The ground taken for
this struggle was the Catholic question; but I doubt
whether it could have been avoided if there had not
been a Catholic question.</p>

<p>Mr. Canning had, especially of late, adopted a tone
and manner of superiority which Mr. Peel and Lord
Eldon chafed at, and which the Duke of Wellington
could no longer brook. The constant interposition of
Lord Liverpool, who, by flattering alternately the great
warrior and the great orator, prevented an outbreak
from either, had kept up apparent harmony. But Lord
Liverpool withdrawn, it was felt, both by the Duke of
Wellington and Mr. Canning, that the one or the other
must be master. As to Mr. Peel, he naturally saw
that under Mr. Canning, both being in the House of
Commons, he would be comparatively insignificant,
whereas, as first lieutenant of the Duke of Wellington,
the duke being in the House of Lords, he was a
person of considerable importance.</p>

<p>The determination of the Duke of Wellington not to
serve under Mr. Canning, and of Mr. Canning not
to serve under the Duke of Wellington, left no alternative
but to act with one or the other.</p>

<p>Mr. Peel has been attacked for siding with the Duke
of Wellington. But was it to be expected that he
should leave that section of the Ministry where he
was a chief to join another where he would be a subordinate?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_509" id="Page_509">[509]</a></span>
What part could he play amidst Mr. Canning
and his friends, joined by a certain portion of the
Whigs with whom he was a perfect stranger? and
for what public object was he called upon to make
this private sacrifice?</p>

<p>The settlement of the great question which agitated
the Empire? No; that was to be left in its actual
state. The point at issue was not whether an united
Cabinet should be formed to settle the Catholic
question; but whether a mixed Cabinet should be
formed, with the Duke of Wellington or Mr. Canning
at its head, leaving the Catholic question unsettled.
Let us suppose that some progress towards the settlement
of this question would have been made by the
choice of Mr. Canning&mdash;which is doubtful&mdash;this was a
progress that would rather have kept up agitation
and not have stilled it.</p>

<p>There is, indeed, an immense difference between
concurring with the people with whom you have previously
been acting in order to terminate an affair,
and an alliance which does not terminate the affair,
with persons whom you have previously been opposing.
It would, I think, have been easier for Mr. Peel to join
Mr. Canning in an attempt to form a Cabinet which
should bring forward a Catholic Relief Bill, than to
join him in forming a cabinet on the same principles
as those on which the Duke of Wellington would have
formed one.</p>

<p>I know that I do not give to these transactions the
precise colour given to them by Mr. Peel himself, and
that he says, in a letter of the 19th April to Lord
Eldon, that if he had thought as Mr. Canning did on
the Catholic question, or if Mr. Canning had thought
as he did, he would have served under Mr. Canning;
but this is creating an imaginary case in order to put
a particular interpretation on a real one.</p>

<p>I believe, notwithstanding the pains taken to make
a personal question appear a public one, that the
dispute as to the premiership was in reality a personal
one; but at the same time based on motives which if<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_510" id="Page_510">[510]</a></span>
personal were not dishonourable. At all events, Mr.
Canning deemed Mr. Peel’s conduct under all circumstances
so natural that he was neither surprised nor
offended by it. Their partisans, as it always in such
cases happens, were bitter; and Mr. Peel has been
much blamed for the violence of his brother-in-law,
Mr. Dawson. Every one, however, knows the proverb,
“Save me from my friends, and I will save myself
from my enemies!” and I have little doubt that so
profound an axiom originated in the wisdom of an
experienced statesman. But Mr. Pitt had not been
able to temper Mr. Canning’s criticisms against Mr.
Addington, and Mr. Peel would have found it a still
harder task to moderate the anger of his <i lang="fr">protégés</i>
against Mr. Canning.</p>

<p>It is useless dwelling longer on this epoch. Mr.
Canning came into power at the head of a Government
composed of heterogeneous materials, and closed
his brilliant life without any solid advantages having
attended his momentary triumph. The attempt to
continue his administration without him was like that
which had previously been made to continue Mr. Fox’s
ministry after the death of that great statesman. In
both cases the Government was the man.</p>

<hr />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_511" id="Page_511">[511]</a></span></p>

<h3><span class="smcap">Part III.</span></h3>

<div class="smaller">

<p>Fall of the Goderich ministry.&mdash;Formation of the Cabinet under the
Duke of Wellington.&mdash;Policy of that Cabinet.&mdash;Its junction with Mr.
Canning’s friends.&mdash;The secession of these, and the defeat of Mr. Fitzgerald
in the Clare election.&mdash;Majority in the House of Commons in
favour of Catholic claims.&mdash;The Language of the House of Lords.&mdash;The
conviction now brought about in the mind of Mr. Peel, that there
was less danger in settling the Catholic claims than in leaving them
unsettled.&mdash;The effect produced by this conviction on the administration.&mdash;The
propositions brought forward in consequence in Parliament.&mdash;Carrying
of these propositions through the two Houses.&mdash;Sir Robert
Peel’s conduct and sentiments throughout the discussion of the measure
he had advocated.</p>

</div>

<h4>I.</h4>

<p>Lord Goderich soon perished as premier because,
though a clever and accomplished man in a secondary
place, he had not the indescribable something which
fits a man for a superior one: that which Mr. Peel
might fairly have anticipated, even had Mr. Canning
lived, took place. The section of the Tory party to
which he belonged was recalled to office. It is evident
from the private correspondence which has since been
published that two plans were then discussed. One
of these was to form an administration excluding
Lord Eldon, and excluding any but those who had
declared against Mr. Canning; the other was for an
administration which, excluding Lord Eldon, should
comprise as many of Mr. Canning’s partisans as
would accept office. It is, moreover, clear that Mr.
Peel not only concurred in, but recommended the
latter course, notwithstanding the connection which
had hitherto existed between him and the Chancellor,
a man whom it would be difficult to comprehend if
one did not remember that he was born under the
sceptre of Johnson, whose genius generated a class
of men with minds like his own, exhibiting the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_512" id="Page_512">[512]</a></span>
compatibility of the strongest prejudices with an
excellent understanding. Such a man is not to be
spoken of with contempt. He represented with force
the epoch to which he belonged, but that epoch was
worn out. Loyalty to the House of Hanover and
fidelity to the Protestant Constitution had ceased to
be the war cries of the day; and even that spirit of
firmness, energy, and consistency, which characterised
a large part of George III.’s reign, were beginning
to be replaced by a tone partly of indifference, partly
of moderation, partly of liberality, that to Lord Eldon
was treachery and weakness. He was, therefore, left
out of the new Cabinet.</p>

<p>On the other hand, Mr. Lamb, Mr. Huskisson,
Lord Dudley, Palmerston, the Grants, were sought
as associates. “What,” says Mr. Peel, “must have
been the fate of a Government composed of Goulburn,
Sir J. Beckett, Wetherall, and myself?…
We could not have stood creditably a fortnight.”
Again: “I care not for the dissatisfaction of ultra-Tories.”</p>

<p>The Duke of Wellington, in recounting his interview
with the King, when the offer to form an administration
was made to him, said: “The Catholic question
was not to be a Cabinet question; there was to be
a Protestant Lord Lieutenant, a Protestant<a name="FNanchor_129" id="FNanchor_129"></a><a href="#Footnote_129" class="fnanchor">[129]</a> Lord
Chancellor, and a Protestant Chancellor in Ireland.”
The Irish Government, however, with Lord Anglesea
as Lord Lieutenant, and Mr. Stanley as Secretary,
was neither in spirit nor in letter according to this
programme; and the change was attributable to Mr.
Peel.</p>

<p>This was one of his most prosperous moments.
His career had gone on up to this time, gradually
collecting round it those materials out of which the
character of a leading statesman is formed. There
was a quiet, firm regularity in the course he had
followed that had not won for him the cheers that
wait on brilliant success, but had secured for him a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_513" id="Page_513">[513]</a></span>
constant murmur of continued approbation. He had
never disappointed; whatever had been expected from
him he had always done. His devotion to public
affairs was unremitting and unaffected; they furnished
not only his sole employment, but constituted his sole
amusement; his execution of the law, where he had
to see to its administration, was thoroughly upright
and impartial. The changes which had taken place
in his opinions were towards a more liberal and, as it
was then beginning to be thought, a more practical
policy in commerce, a sounder system of banking, a
milder code of penal legislation.</p>

<p>These changes had taken place in such a manner
that they seemed natural, and the result of a mind
that did not submit itself to any bias but that of
reason. He had no longer to contend against his
brilliant and lamented rival; he was no longer burthened
by a patron who had been useful but had
become inconvenient and out of date. He was universally
looked upon as a man of liberal tendencies,
one subject alone excepted. On that subject he shewed
obstinacy or firmness, but not bigotry. Would he
now deal with it? Could he? Was it possible, with
the King and the Duke of Wellington against the
Catholics, to satisfy their hopes? Or was it possible,
with a House of Commons almost equally divided, to
adopt such measures as would crush their expectations?</p>

<h4>II.</h4>

<p>There are situations which impose a policy on
ministers who wish to remain ministers&mdash;this was
one. It was now necessary to “mark time,” if I
may use a military figure of speech, making as little
dust as possible. Mr. Peel tried to do so; dropping
the Act against the Catholic Association, which had
been found wholly inefficient, and endeavouring not
to provoke agitation, though he could not quiet it.</p>

<p>In the meantime, the tendency of opinion against
religious disqualifications manifested itself on a motion<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_514" id="Page_514">[514]</a></span>
of Lord John Russell, introduced in a speech of remarkable
power and ability, for removing the Test and
Corporation Acts. Mr. Peel had stated with emphasis,
during the administration of Mr. Canning, that he
would always oppose the repeal of these Acts, and he
now did oppose it; but evidently with the feeling that
his opposition, which was weak, would be ineffectual.
A majority, indeed, of forty-four in the House of Commons
declared against him; and the Government then
took up the measure and carried it through both
Houses. Mr. Peel, in his memoirs, gives as his
reason for this course, that if he had gone out of
office he would have caused great embarrassment in
the conduct of affairs in general, and not altered the
disposition of Parliament as to the particular question
at issue; and that if he remained in office he was
obliged to place himself in conformity with the feeling
of the House of Commons. Almost immediately
afterwards, that House pledged itself, by a majority of
six, to take the state of Ireland into consideration;
and, though this majority was overruled by an adverse
one in the House of Lords, the language of the Duke
of Wellington and of Lord Lyndhurst, who both
admitted that things could not remain as they were,
left little doubt that a decided system of repression or
concession was about to be attempted, and that the
latter system was the more likely one.</p>

<h4>III.</h4>

<p>Two events had occurred between the vote in the
House of Commons in favour of the resolution respecting
the Catholics, and the vote in the House of Lords
against it, which events had, no doubt, exercised great
influence on the debate in the latter assembly. First,
Mr. Canning’s friends had somewhat abruptly quitted
the Government under the following circumstances:</p>

<p>East Retford had been disfranchised for corrupt
practices. The question was, what should be done
with the two seats for that borough? All the other
members of the Government voted for leaving the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_515" id="Page_515">[515]</a></span>
seats to the district in which East Retford was
situated.</p>

<p>Mr. Huskisson alone gave his vote for transferring
the right of election to Birmingham; and on the very
night of this vote (May 20th, 1828) tendered his
resignation, which the Duke of Wellington accepted.
When the other members of the Canning party heard
of Mr. Huskisson’s hasty resignation, provoked, as he
said, by the cross looks of some of his colleagues on
the Treasury Bench, they remonstrated with him on
his conduct, which rendered theirs very difficult, since
they had not voted as he had done. Mr. Huskisson
tried to explain and retract his resignation. But the
Premier had a particular dislike to Mr. Huskisson,
who had shown too much desire for office, and gave
himself too many airs after getting it. He would not
accept Mr. Huskisson’s excuses or explanations; and
his manner was thought altogether so unfriendly and
overbearing that Mr. Lamb, Mr. Charles Grant, Lord
Palmerston, and Lord Dudley quitted the Government
with Mr. Huskisson. The second event to which I
have alluded was the consequence of the first.</p>

<h4>IV.</h4>

<p>The secession of the Canningites had rendered it
necessary to fill their places. Mr. Vesey Fitzgerald
was selected to fill the place at the Board of Trade
vacated by Mr. Grant. This rendered necessary a
new election for Clare.</p>

<p>No axiom can be more true than that if you do
not mean to have a door forced open you should not
allow the wedge to be inserted. It is difficult to
understand how George III. could permit the measure
in 1798 which made Catholics electors, whilst he resolved
never to grant Catholics the right to be elected.
At first the Catholic voters merely chose Protestants,
who promised to extend Catholic privileges when
they could do this without great injury to their own
interests.</p>

<p>Mr. O’Connell determined on straining the power<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_516" id="Page_516">[516]</a></span>
of Catholic votes to the utmost. He first tried it in
1826, in Waterford, by combining an opposition
against the Protestant family of the Beresfords, who
had hitherto, from their large possessions, been all-powerful
in the county. But property availed
nothing. The word was given, and almost every
tenant voted against his landlord. The Beresfords
were ignominiously defeated. The next trial was a
more audacious one.</p>

<p>There was nothing in law to prevent a Catholic from
being elected to serve in Parliament; it was only on
taking his seat in Parliament that he was stopped by
the parliamentary oath. Of all Protestants in Ireland
none were more popular, or had been more consistently
favourable to the Catholic cause, than Mr.
Fitzgerald. His name, his fortune, his principles,
gave him every claim on an Irish Catholic constituency
that a Protestant could have. He felt himself
so sure of being confirmed in the seat he occupied
that he prepared to meet his constituents without the
slightest fear of opposition.</p>

<p>But it was determined that a Catholic should be his
opponent; and, in order to prevent all doubt or hesitation
amongst his followers, the great agitator took
the field himself. He was successful; and after Mr.
Fitzgerald’s defeat it was to be expected that a similar
defeat awaited sooner or later every other Protestant.
This was a serious state of things.</p>

<p>The Government was much weakened by the loss of
the able men who had left it, and at the same time
the dangers that menaced it were greater than they
had ever been before.</p>

<p>Lord Anglesea, who was then, as I have stated, the
Irish Viceroy, a gallant soldier, and a man whose
judgment was good, though his language was indiscreet,
declared loudly that there was no way of dealing
with the Catholic organization but by satisfying
the Catholics.</p>

<p>The considerations which these various circumstances
inspired decided the mind, which as I have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_517" id="Page_517">[517]</a></span>
shown had been long wavering, of Mr. Peel; and
avowing it was no longer possible to resist the
Catholic claims, he thus speaks of his conduct at
this juncture:</p>

<p>“In the interval between the discussion (he speaks
of the interval between the discussion in the Lower
and Upper Houses of Parliament) I had personal
communication with the Duke of Wellington; I
expressed great reluctance to withdraw from him
such aid as I could lend him in the carrying on of
the Government, particularly after the recent schism;
but I reminded him that the reasons which had
induced me to contemplate retirement from office in
1825, were still more powerful in 1828, from the lapse
of time, from the increasing difficulties in administering
the government in Ireland, and from the more
prominent situation which I held in the House of
Commons.</p>

<p>“I told him that, being in a minority in the House
of Commons on the question that of all others most
deeply affected the condition and prospects of Ireland,
I could not, with any satisfaction to my own feelings
or advantage to the public interests, perform the
double functions of leading the House of Commons
and presiding over the Home Department; that at
an early period, therefore, my retirement must take
place. I expressed at the same time an earnest hope
that in the approaching discussion in the Lords, the
Duke of Wellington might deem it consistent with his
sense of duty to take a course in debate which should
not preclude him, who was less deeply committed on
the question than myself, from taking the whole state
of Ireland into consideration during the recess, with
the view of adjusting the Catholic question.”</p>

<p>After the prorogation of Parliament, the course to
be adopted was maturely considered.</p>

<p>Sir Robert Peel’s opinion was already made up.
He argued thus:</p>

<p>“The time for half measures and mixed cabinets is
gone by. We must yield or resist. Can we resist?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_518" id="Page_518">[518]</a></span>
Is it practicable? I don’t mean so as to keep things
for a short time as they are. Can we resist effectually
by at once putting down the disturbers of the public
peace, who connect themselves with the Catholic
cause? Can we get a ministry divided on the
Catholic question to put down efficiently an agitation
in favour of that question?</p>

<p>“If we go to a Parliament in which there is a
majority in favour of the Catholic claims, and ask
for its support for the purpose of coercion, will it not
say it is cheaper to conciliate than coerce?</p>

<p>“It is of no use to consider what it would be best to
do if it were possible. Coercion is impossible.</p>

<p>“Well, then, we must concede what we can no
longer refuse.”</p>

<p>His letters to the Duke of Wellington, given in his
memoirs, speak clearly in this sense:</p>

<p>“I have uniformly opposed what is called Catholic
Emancipation, and have rested my opinion on broad
and uncompromising grounds. I wish I could say
that my views were materially changed, and that I
now believed that full concessions could be made
either exempt from the dangers I have apprehended
from them, or productive of the full advantages which
their advocates anticipate from the grant of them.</p>

<p>“But whatever may be my opinion upon these
points, I cannot deny that the state of Ireland, under
existing circumstances, is most unsatisfactory; that
it becomes necessary to make your choice between
different kinds and different degrees of evil&mdash;to compare
the actual danger resulting from the union and
organization of the Roman Catholic body, and the
incessant agitation in Ireland, with prospective and
apprehended dangers to the constitution or religion of
the country; and maturely to consider whether it
may not be better to encounter every eventual risk of
concession than to submit to the certain continuance,
or rather, perhaps, the certain aggravation of existing
evils.”<a name="FNanchor_130" id="FNanchor_130"></a><a href="#Footnote_130" class="fnanchor">[130]</a></p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_519" id="Page_519">[519]</a></span></p>

<p>“I have proved to you, I hope, that no false
delicacy, no fear of the imputation of inconsistency,
will prevent me from taking that part which present
dangers and a new position of affairs may require. I
am ready at any sacrifice to maintain the opinion
which I now deliberately give, that there is upon the
whole less of evil in making a decided effort to settle
the Catholic question, than in leaving it as it has been
left&mdash;an open question.</p>

<p>“Whenever it is once determined that an attempt
should be made by the Government to settle the
Catholic question, there can be, I think, but one
opinion&mdash;the settlement should, if possible, be a complete
one.”<a name="FNanchor_131" id="FNanchor_131"></a><a href="#Footnote_131" class="fnanchor">[131]</a></p>

<p>The Duke of Wellington and Lord Lyndhurst,
without difficulty, adopted these views. The rest of
the Cabinet accepted them.</p>

<p>Sir Robert, however, whilst expressing himself thus
clearly as to the necessity of dealing without delay
with the Catholic question, and offering, in the most
unequivocal way, his personal support to the Government
in doing so, desired to retire from the Administration,
and it was at first settled he should do so, but
finally, at the Duke of Wellington’s particular and
earnest solicitation, he remained.</p>

<p>The King’s speech at the opening of Parliament
spoke of the necessity of putting down the Catholic
Association, and of reviewing the laws which imposed
disabilities on his Majesty’s Roman Catholic subjects.
The authority of the Government was to be vindicated,
the constitution was to be amended. Mr.
Peel did not say he had altered his opinions: he did
not deny the possibility of future dangers from the
changes which the Government meant to propose;
but he added that those distant dangers had become
in his opinion less pressing and less in themselves
than the dangers which, under present circumstances,
would result from leaving matters as they were.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_520" id="Page_520">[520]</a></span></p>

<p>He takes as his defence upon the charge of inconsistency
“the right, the duty, of a public man to act
according to circumstances;” this defence is the
simple, and almost the only one he uses throughout
the various discussions now commencing. To Mr.
Bankes, on one occasion, he replies pertinently by an
extract from a former speech made by that gentleman
himself:</p>

<p>“Mr. Bankes hoped it would never be a point of
honour with any Government to persevere in measures
after they were convinced of their impropriety. Political
expediency was not at all times the same. What
at one time might be considered consistent with sound
policy, might at another be completely impolitic. Thus
it was with respect to the Roman Catholics.”</p>

<p>On another occasion he quotes that beautiful
passage from Cicero, which was the Roman orator’s
vindication of his own conduct:</p>

<p>“Hæc didici, hæc vidi, hæc scripta legi, hæc sapientissimis
et clarissimis viris, et in hâc republicâ et in
aliis civitatibus, monumenta nobis, literæ prodiderunt,
non semper easdem sententias ab iisdem, sed, quascumque
reipublicæ status, inclinatio temporum, ratio
concordiæ postularent, esse defendendas.”&mdash;<cite>Orat. pro
Cn. Plaucio</cite>, xxxix.</p>

<p>It had been arranged that a bill for suppressing
the Catholic Association should be passed, before the
bill for removing Catholic disabilities should be
brought forward.</p>

<p>On the 5th of March, the Catholic Association Bill
passed the House of Lords, and on the same day
the Catholic Disabilities Bill was introduced into the
House of Commons&mdash;admitting Catholics to Parliament,
and to the highest military and civil offices,
save those connected with church patronage and with
the administration of the Ecclesiastical law, on taking
an oath described in the Act; and Mr. Peel, in opening
the debate, repeats with earnestness and solemnity
his previous declaration:</p>

<p>“On my honour and conscience, I believe that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_521" id="Page_521">[521]</a></span>
the time is come when less danger is to be apprehended
to the general interests of the Empire, and
to the spiritual and temporal welfare of the Protestant
establishment in attempts to adjust the Catholic
question than in allowing it to remain in its present
state. I have already stated that such was my
deliberate opinion; such the conclusion to which I
felt myself forced to come by the irresistible force
of circumstances; and I will adhere to it: ay, and I
will act on it, unchanged by the scurrility of abuse,
by the expression of opposite opinions, however
vehement or general; unchanged by the deprivation
of political confidence, or by the heavier sacrifice of
private friendships and affections.”</p>

<p>He shows the difficulties that had existed since
the time of Mr. Pitt, in forming a cabinet united
in its views with respect to the Catholics; the state
of things that experience had proved to be the consequence
of a divided one; the final necessity of some
decided course. The authority which those who were
hostile to English rule had acquired, and were acquiring
amidst the distracted councils of the English
Government; the power already granted by previous
concessions; and the dangers which could not but
follow the exercise of this power for the purpose of
counteracting the law, or procuring a change in it.</p>

<p>It had been argued that the elective franchise
already gave parliamentary influence to the Catholics.
In reply to this it had been suggested that we could
withdraw that source of influence. “No; we cannot,”
replies Mr. Peel, with some eloquence, “replace
the Roman Catholics in the condition in which we
found them, when the system of relaxation and
indulgence began. We have given them the means
of acquiring education, wealth, and power. We have
removed with our own hands the seal from a vessel
in which a mighty spirit was enclosed; but it will
not, like the Genius in the fable, return to its narrow
confines and enable us to cast it back to the obscurity
from which we evoked it.”</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_522" id="Page_522">[522]</a></span></p>

<p>He does not say who is to blame for the state of
things he thus describes. He does not seem to
care. He describes a situation which it is necessary
to deal with, and never stopping to burthen the
argument with his own faults or merits, thus continues:</p>

<p>“Perhaps I am not so sanguine as others in my
expectations of the future; but I have not the slightest
hesitation in saying that I fully believe that the adjustment
of this question in the manner proposed will give
better and stronger securities to the Protestant interest
and the Protestant establishment than any that the
present state of things admits of, and will avert
dangers <em>impending and immediate</em>. What motive, I
ask, can I have for the expression of these opinions
but an honest conviction of their truth?”</p>

<p>It was this general impression that he was honest,
and that he was making great personal sacrifices,
which, no doubt, rendered his task easier; and when,
after opening the way to a new election by the resignation
of his seat, he was defeated in a contest for the
University of Oxford, the eulogy of Sir James Graham
spoke the public sentiment:</p>

<p>“I cannot boast of any acquaintance with that right
honourable gentleman (Mr. Peel) in private life. I
have been opposed to him on almost all occasions since
I entered into public life. I have not voted with him
on five occasions, I believe, since I entered into Parliament.
I think him, however, a really honest and conscientious
man; and considering the sacrifices which
he has recently made&mdash;the connections from which he
has torn himself&mdash;the public attachments which he has
broke asunder&mdash;the dangers which he might have
created by an opposite course&mdash;the difficulties which
he might have created by adhering to an opposite
system&mdash;the civil war which he has avoided by departing
from it,&mdash;and the great service which he has
rendered to the State by the manly avowal of a
change of opinion:&mdash;considering all these circumstances,
I think the right honourable gentleman<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_523" id="Page_523">[523]</a></span>
entitled to the highest praise, and to the honest
respect of every friend of the Catholics.”</p>

<p>One hostile feeling, however, still rankled in the
heart of the Liberal ranks;&mdash;the party whose opposition
had wearied out the generous and excitable spirit
of Mr. Canning, was about to enjoy the triumph of
Mr. Canning’s opinions.</p>

<p>The dart, envenomed with this accusation, had
more than once been directed at Mr. Peel’s reputation.
He felt it necessary to show that it made a
wound which he did not consider that he deserved.
He had been praised by many for having settled the
long-pending differences which his propositions were
to compose.</p>

<p>In answering Sir Charles Wetherell, he says: “The
credit of settling this question belongs to others, not
to me. It belongs, in spite of my opposition, to Mr.
Fox, to Mr. Grattan, to Mr. Plunkett, to the gentlemen
opposite, and to an illustrious and Right Honourable
friend of mine who is now no more. I will not
conceal from the House that, in the course of this
debate, allusions have been made to the memory of
that Right Honourable friend, which have been most
painful to my feelings. An honourable baronet has
spoken of the cruel manner in which my Right
Honourable friend was hunted down. Whether the
honourable baronet was one of those who hunted him
down I know not. But this I do know&mdash;that whoever
joined in an inhuman cry against my Right Honourable
friend, I did not. I was on terms of the most
friendly intimacy with him up to the very day of his
death; and I say, with as much sincerity as the heart
of man can speak, that I wish he was now alive to
reap the harvest which he sowed.”</p>

<p>It was a consummate touch of art on the part of the
orator thus to place himself in the position of the
conquered, when others proclaimed him the conqueror;
in this way smothering envy, and quieting reproach.</p>

<p>The Bill passed through the House of Commons on
the 30th of March; by a majority of 320 to 142; and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_524" id="Page_524">[524]</a></span>
was carried in the House of Lords on the 10th of
April, 1829, by a majority of 213 to 109. On the
19th of April this great measure received the Royal
assent.</p>

<p>It is useless to protract the narrative of this memorable
period; but I will not close it without observing
that there was one still living to whom the end of the
battle, which had begun so long ago, was as glorious
and as gratifying as it could have been to the illustrious
statesman who was no more. Justifying, more,
perhaps, than any statesman recorded in our annals,
the classical description of the just and firm man,
Lord Grey had, through a long series of disappointing
years&mdash;with an unaffected scorn for the frowns of the
monarch, and the shouts of the mob&mdash;proclaimed the
principles of civil equality of which his bitterest
opponents were at last tardily willing to admit the
necessity.</p>

<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="verse">“Justum et tenacem propositi virum</div>
<div class="verse">Non civium ardor prava jubentium,</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Non vultus instantis tyranni</div>
<div class="verse indent2">Mente quatit solidâ.”</div>
</div>
</div>

<p>But the feelings of the great peer were in bitter
contrast with those of the humiliated sovereign.</p>

<p>The change of George IV. from the friend to the
enemy of the Catholic cause had been sudden; up to
the formation of the Liverpool ministry, he was supposed
to be favourable to it&mdash;ever afterwards he was
most hostile. It is not to be supposed that he had
not understood at an early period of life the value of
the coronation oath, and all that in the later period of
his life he drivelled over, as to the Protestant Constitution
and the Protestant Succession. But the fact
is, that the haughty bearing of Lord Grey, during
those various questions which arose as to the formation
of a new Government, shortly after the Regency,
had deeply wounded and irritated the Regent. Out of
his animosity to Lord Grey had grown up his animosity
to the Catholics. The politician and his policy
were mixed up together in the royal mind. He had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_525" id="Page_525">[525]</a></span>
kept the politician out of his cabinet; but that
politician’s policy now stormed it.</p>

<p>The mortification was severe.</p>

<p>From the summer of 1828 till the beginning of
1829 it was impossible to get from his Majesty a
clear adoption of the principle that the Government
should treat the Catholic question with the same
freedom as any other. When this was granted,
another battle was fought over the opening speech,
and finally, on the 3rd of March, when the great
ministerial propositions were to be brought before
Parliament, he refused his assent to them, and the
Wellington ministry was for some hours out of office.</p>

<p>The struggle continued throughout the Parliamentary
discussions, the King’s aversion to Mr.
Peel became uncontrollable, and he did not attempt
to disguise it.</p>

<p>But the leader of the House of Commons bore the
sulky looks of the Sovereign with as much composure&mdash;a
composure that was by no means indifference&mdash;as
he bore the scurrility of the press, and the taunts of
the Tory Opposition.</p>

<p>The conviction that he was acting rightly in a great
cause made him a great man: and he faced the storm
of abuse that assailed him with a proud complacency.</p>

<hr />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_526" id="Page_526">[526]</a></span></p>

<h3><span class="smcap">Part IV.</span></h3>

<div class="smaller">

<p>Mr. O’Connell’s opposition in Ireland.&mdash;The general difficulties of the
Government.&mdash;The policy it tried to pursue.&mdash;Its increasing unpopularity.&mdash;Its
policy towards Don Miguel.&mdash;William IV.’s accession.&mdash;The
Revolution in Paris.&mdash;The cry now raised in England for Reform.&mdash;The
King’s opening speech on convocation of new Parliament.&mdash;The
discontent against the Government it excited.&mdash;The Duke of Wellington
opposed to any change in the Constitution.&mdash;Postponement of Lord
Mayor’s dinner to the new Sovereign.&mdash;Impressions this created.&mdash;The
Duke’s administration in a minority in the House of Commons.&mdash;His
resignation.&mdash;Earl Grey’s appointment as Premier.&mdash;Personal description
of Sir Robert Peel at this time.&mdash;The Reform Bill.&mdash;Sir Robert
Peel’s conduct thereon.&mdash;Its success in the country.&mdash;The large
majority returned by new elections in favour of it.&mdash;Its opposition in
the House of Lords.&mdash;Lord Grey’s resignation and resumption of
office.&mdash;The passing of his Reform Bill through both Houses.</p>

</div>

<h4>I.</h4>

<p>I have said that Sir Robert Peel was proud of having
made great sacrifices for a great cause. There can
be little doubt that he had prevented a civil war in
which many of the most eminent statesmen in
England and all the eminent statesmen of foreign
countries would have considered that the Irish
Catholics were in the right. At the same time he
did not derive from the course he had taken the
hope which many entertained that all Irish feuds
would henceforth cease, and that it would become easy
to establish in Ireland the satisfaction and tranquillity
that were found in other parts of our empire. He did,
however, deem that if the great and crying cause of
grievance, which had so long agitated and divided the
public mind were once removed, there would be no
powerful rallying cry for the disaffected, and that in
any dangerous crisis the Government would find all
reasonable men in Ireland and all men in England by
its side.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_527" id="Page_527">[527]</a></span></p>

<p>He saw, however, more clearly than most people,
and in fact it was this foresight that had made him so
long the opponent of the measure which he had
recently advocated, that to bring the Irish Catholics
into Parliament was the eventual transfer of power
from the Protestant to the Catholic.</p>

<p>The great policy would, no doubt, have been to
accept at once this consequence in its full extent, and
to have conciliated the Catholic majority, and the
Catholic priesthood, by abandoning everything which
under a Protestant ascendancy had been established.
But no one was prepared for this. The Whigs would
have opposed it as well as the Tories. The English
Protestant Church would have made common cause
with the Irish Protestant Church,&mdash;the English
Protestants in general with the Irish Protestants.
In short, it was not practicable at the moment on
which our attention had been hitherto concentrated to
do more for the Irish Catholics than had been done;
and this was not likely, as Mr. Peel himself had said
in 1817, to satisfy them: “We entered, therefore,
inadvertently on a period of transition, in which a
series of new difficulties were certain to be the result
of the removal of the one great difficulty.” Under such
circumstances, Mr. Peel conceived he had only to
watch events; it was not in accordance with the
natural tendency of his character to anticipate them,
and to act in the different situations that might arise
as a practical view of each particular situation might
suggest.</p>

<p>He was right, no doubt, in considering that the
Catholic Belief Bill would not realize the expectations
of its most ardent supporters, and it must be added
that the state of things amidst which it was passed
was alone sufficient to destroy many of those expectations.
Agitation had evidently obtained for Ireland
what loyalty and forbearance had never procured; and
though the fear to which our statesmen had yielded
might be what Lord Palmerston asserted, “the provident
mother of safety,” a concession to it, however<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_528" id="Page_528">[528]</a></span>
wise or timely, gave a very redoutable force to the
menacing spirit by which concession had been gained.
That force remained with all its elements perfectly
organized, and in the hands of a man whom it was
equally difficult to have for a friend or an enemy. His
violence shocked your more timid friends if he supported
you, and encouraged your more timid enemies
if he attacked you.</p>

<p>The Government, which had in reality yielded to
him, did not wish to appear to have done so. It consequently
provoked an altercation which it might as
well have avoided. Mr. O’Connell had been returned
for Clare, when by law he could not sit in Parliament,
but when by law he could be elected. It was not unfair
to say his election should not give him a seat in Parliament,
because when he was elected he could not have a
seat. But, on the other hand, it might be contended
that, having been elected legally, he was entitled to take
his seat when no legal impediment prevented it. The
better policy would doubtless have been, not to fight a
personal battle after having yielded in the public
contest.</p>

<p>The Government, however, compelled Mr. O’Connell
to undergo a new election; and considering this a
declaration of war, he adopted a tone of hostility to
the Ministry, far too extravagant to do them harm in
England, but which added greatly to their difficulties
in Ireland&mdash;where a thorough social disorganization
rendered the Government impotent for the protection
of property and life against robbery and murder,
unless it could count amongst its allies patriotism and
popularity themselves.</p>

<p>But besides the weakness of the Government in
Ireland, it was generally weak, for it had lost by the
change in its Irish policy much of its previous support,
and could hardly hope to maintain itself any length
of time without getting back former partisans, or
drawing closer to new allies.</p>

<p>To regain friends whom you have once lost, owing
to a violent difference on a great political principle,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_529" id="Page_529">[529]</a></span>
is an affair neither easily nor rapidly managed. It
requires agreement on some question as important as
that which created disagreement.</p>

<p>On the other hand, for the Tories, under the Duke
of Wellington, to have coalesced with the Whigs,
under Lord Grey, called for sacrifices on both sides
too great to be accepted by either with honour or even
propriety.</p>

<p>The Duke of Wellington and Mr. Peel tried, therefore,
a moderate course. Detaching able men from
the Whig ranks where they could secure them, carrying
out administrative reforms, opposing constitutional
changes, doing, in short, all which could be done to
conciliate one party without further alienating another,
and carrying on affairs, as in quiet times a despotic
Government can do, even with credit and popularity.
But a free Government rarely admits, for
any lengthened period, of this even and tranquil
course; it generates energies and passions that must
be employed, and which concentrate in an opposition
to the rulers who do not know how to employ them.</p>

<p>Some administrative improvements were nevertheless
worthy of notice. The watchman’s staff was
broken in the metropolis. The criminal code was
still further improved, and punishment by death in
cases of forgery partially abolished and generally discountenanced.</p>

<p>Taxes also were repealed, and savings boasted of.
But the nation had become used to strong political
excitement, and had a sort of instinct that the passing
of the Roman Catholic Bill should be followed by some
marked and general policy, analogous to the liberal
spirit which had dictated that measure.</p>

<p>Nor was this all. Mr. Canning, when he said that
he would not serve under a military premier, had expressed
an English feeling. The Duke of Wellington’s
treatment of Mr. Huskisson was too much like that
of a general who expects implicit obedience from his
inferior officers. The very determination he had
displayed in disregarding and overruling George IV.’s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_530" id="Page_530">[530]</a></span>
anti-Catholic prejudices, evinced a resolve to be obeyed
that seemed to many dangerous. His strong innate
sense of superiority, the language, calm and decided,
in which it was displayed, were not to the taste
of our public in a soldier at the head of affairs, though
they might have pleased in a civilian. At the same
time, this undisguised and unaffected superiority
lowered his colleagues in the public estimation, whilst
the general tendency of many minds is to refuse one
order of ability where they admit another.</p>

<p>An act of foreign policy, moreover, did the administration
at this time an immense injury. We had
cordially, though indirectly, placed Donna Maria on
the throne of Portugal, and endowed that country
with a constitution. Don Miguel, Donna Maria’s
uncle, afterwards dispossessed her of that throne and
ruled despotically. We had not, however, as yet
recognized him as the Portuguese Sovereign. We
still honoured the niece residing in England with
that title, when accident occurred which led to grave
doubts as to whether the great commander was also
a great minister.</p>

<p>The Island of Terceira still acknowledged Donna
Maria’s sway; and an expedition, consisting chiefly
of her own subjects, had embarked from Portsmouth
for that Island, when it was stopped and prevented
from landing there by a British naval force, the pretext
being that the expedition, though first bound to
Terceira, was going to be sent to Portugal, and to be
employed against Don Miguel.</p>

<p>But no sufficient proof was given of this intention;
the force arrested in its passage was a Portuguese
force, proceeding to a place <i lang="la">bonâ fide</i> in the Queen of
Portugal’s possession. If it were eventually to be
landed on the territory held by the usurper, it had
not yet made manifest that such was its destination.
Its object might be merely to defend Terceira, which
had lately been attacked. Arguments might be drawn
from international law both for and against our
conduct. But the public did not go into these arguments;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_531" id="Page_531">[531]</a></span>
what it saw was, that Mr. Canning had
favoured the constitutional cause, that the Duke of
Wellington was favouring the absolute one. “He did
not do this,” said people, “to please his own nation;
no one suspected him of doing it to gratify a petty
tyrant. He did it then to satisfy the great potentates
of the Continent who were adverse to freedom.” This
suspicion, not founded on fact, but justified by appearances,
weighed upon the Cabinet as to its whole foreign
policy, and reacted upon its policy at home.</p>

<p>So strong were its effects, that when Charles X.
called Prince Polignac to the head of his counsels,
it was said, “Oh, this is the Duke of Wellington’s
doing!” and even when the ordinances of July were
published, it was supposed that they had been advised
by our military premier. Feelings of this sort have
no limit. They spread like a mist over opinion.</p>

<p>At this time occurred the death of George IV.
(June 26th, 1830), and a new era opened in our
history.</p>

<p>William IV., who succeeded, had not the same
talents or accomplishments as the deceased monarch,
his brother, nor perhaps the same powers of mind.
But he was more honest and straightforward; took a
greater interest in the welfare of the nation, and was
very desirous to be beloved by his people. He retained
the same Ministry, but a new reign added to the
impression that there must ere long be a new Cabinet,
and the circumstances under which the forthcoming
elections took place confirmed this impression. Parliament
was dissolved on the 23rd of July, and on the
30th was proclaimed the triumph of a revolution in
Paris; whilst immediately after the fall of the throne
of Charles X. came that general crash of dynasties
which shook the nerves of every prince in Europe.</p>

<p>The roar of revolution abroad did not resound
in England and obscure the lustre of the brightest
reputations; nevertheless, it was echoed in a general
cry, for constitutional change, and accompanying this
cry, there was, as winter approached, an almost<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_532" id="Page_532">[532]</a></span>
general alarm from the demoralization that prevailed
in the rural districts and the excitement that existed
in the great towns.</p>

<p>The country wanted to be reassured and calmed.</p>

<p>The King’s speech (Nov. 2, 1830) was not calculated
to supply this want. With respect to home affairs,
it spoke of the dangerous state of Ireland, and said
nothing of the one question which began to occupy
men’s minds in England&mdash;the question of Reform.
Abroad, our policy had been weak against Russia
when on her road to Constantinople; timid and
uncertain towards Greece, when the time was come
for her recognition; and now we announced the
intention of opening diplomatic relations with Don
Miguel, in Portugal, and made the insurrection in
Belgium popular by taking the King of the Netherlands
under our protection.</p>

<p>In short, there was hardly one word our new
Sovereign was made to say which did not add to the
unpopularity of his ministers. These ministers,
indeed, were in a critical position.</p>

<p>Some plan of Parliamentary Reform had of necessity
to be proposed. The true Conservative policy would
have been to propose a moderate plan before increased
disquietude suggested a violent one. Nor was this task
a difficult one at that moment; for if a Parliamentary
Reform was proclaimed necessary, there was no
definite idea as to what that Reform should be. Many
of the Tories were willing to give Representatives to a
few of the great towns, and to diminish in some degree
the number of close boroughs; a large portion of the
Whigs would have been satisfied with Reform on this
basis.</p>

<p>It is probable that Sir Robert Peel (Mr. Peel had
succeeded to his father’s title in March of this year)
would have inclined, had he been completely his own
master, towards some course of this kind.</p>

<p>But, whilst a general incertitude prevailed as to
what would be the best course for the Government to
pursue, the Duke of Wellington, who felt convinced<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_533" id="Page_533">[533]</a></span>
that we should be led step by step to revolution if
we did not at once and decidedly declare against all
change, determined to check any contrary disposition
in his followers before it was expressed, and surprised
all persons by the declaration that the Constitution as
it stood was perfect, and that no alteration in it would
be proposed as long as he was Prime Minister.</p>

<p>I have reason to believe that his more wary
colleague was by no means pleased with this hasty
and decided announcement; and, although he could
not directly contradict the speech of his chief, he in a
certain degree mitigated its effect by saying: “That
he did not at present see any prospect of such a
measure of safe, moderate Reform as His Majesty’s
Government <em>might be inclined to sanction</em>” which, in
fact, said that if a moderate, safe Reform were found,
it would be sanctioned. But the party in office, after
the significant words of the Premier, were compromised;
and the line they had to follow practically
traced.</p>

<p>Those words were hazardous and bold; but in
times of doubt and peril, boldness has sometimes its
advantages. One must not, however, be bold with
any appearance of timidity. But the Government
was about to show that it wanted that resolution
which was its only remaining protection.</p>

<p>The King had been invited to dine with the Lord
Mayor on the 9th of November. There are always a
great many busy people on such occasions who think
of making themselves important by giving information,
and the Lord Mayor is precisely the person who
is most brought into contact with these people. It is
not in the least surprising, therefore, that his Lordship
was told there was a plot for attacking the Duke of
Wellington on his way to the city, and that he had
better be well guarded. On this somewhat trumpery
story, and not very awful warning, the Government
put off the Royal dinner, saying, they feared a tumult.</p>

<p>It is evident that a set of Ministers so unpopular
that they thought they could not safely accompany<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_534" id="Page_534">[534]</a></span>
the sovereign through the City of London to the
Mansion House, were not the men to remain in office
in a time of trouble and agitation. Thus, the days
of the Government were now numbered; and being on
the 15th of November in a minority of 29, on a motion
respecting the arrangements of the civil list, they
resigned.</p>

<p>Lord Grey succeeded the Duke of Wellington, and
announced his intention of bringing forward a measure
of Reform.</p>

<p>I had been elected for that Parliament, and
returned from abroad but a few days after the change
of Government.</p>

<p>I then saw Sir Robert Peel for the first time, and it
was impossible, after attending three or four sittings
of the House of Commons, not to have one’s attention
peculiarly attracted to him.</p>

<p>He was tall and powerfully built. His body somewhat
bulky for his limbs, his head small and well-formed,
his features regular. His countenance was
not what would be generally called expressive, but it
was capable of taking the expression he wished to give
it, humour, sarcasm, persuasion, and command, being
its alternate characteristics. The character of the
man was seen more, however, in the whole person
than in the face. He did not stoop, but he bent
rather forwards; his mode of walking was peculiar,
and rather like that of a cat, but of a cat that was
well acquainted with the ground it was moving over;
the step showed no doubt or apprehension, it could
hardly be called stealthy, but it glided on firmly and
cautiously, without haste, or swagger, or unevenness,
and, as he quietly walked from the bar to his seat, he
looked round him, as if scanning the assembly, and
when anything particular was expected, sat down with
an air of preparation for the coming contest.</p>

<p>The oftener you heard him speak the more his
speaking gained upon you. Addressing the House
several times in the night on various subjects, he
always seemed to know more than any one else knew<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_535" id="Page_535">[535]</a></span>
about each of them, and to convey to you the idea
that he thought he did so. His language was not
usually striking, but it was always singularly correct,
and gathered force with the development of his argument.
He never seemed occupied with himself. His
effort was evidently directed to convince you, not that
he was <em>eloquent</em>, but that he was <em>right</em>. When the
subject suited it, he would be witty, and with a look
and a few words he could most effectively convey
contempt; he could reply also with great spirit to an
attack, but he was rarely aggressive. He seemed
rather to aim at gaining the doubtful, than mortifying
or crushing the hostile. His great rivals, Canning
and Brougham, being removed, he no doubt felt more
at his ease than formerly; and though there was
nothing like assumption or pretension in his manner,
there was a tone of superiority, which he justified by
a great store of knowledge, a clear and impressive
style, and a constant readiness to discuss any question
that arose.</p>

<p>Lord John Russell had not then the talents for debate
which he subsequently displayed. Lord Palmerston
had only made one or two great speeches. Sir
James Graham was chiefly remarkable for a weighty
statement. Mr. Charles Grant had lost his once great
oratorical powers. Mr. Macaulay was only beginning
to deliver his marvellous orations. O’Connell, mighty
to a mob, was not in his place when addressing a
refined and supercilious audience. Mr. Stanley, the
late Lord Derby, surpassed Sir R. Peel and every one
else in vivacity, wit, lucidity, and energy. But he
struck you more as a first-rate cavalry officer than
as a commander-in-chief. Sir Robert, cool and self-collected,
gave you, on the contrary, the idea of a
great, prudent, wary leader who was fighting after a
plan, and keeping his eye during the whole of the
battle directed to the result. You felt, at least I felt,
that without being superior to many of his competitors
as a man, he was far superior to all as a
Member of Parliament; and his ascendancy was the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_536" id="Page_536">[536]</a></span>
more visible as the whole strength of his party was
in him.</p>

<p>He profited, no doubt, by the fact that the Whigs
had been (with the exception of a short interval) out
of office for nearly half a century, and showed at
every step the self-sufficiency of men of talent, and the
incapacity of men without experience. Every one felt,
indeed, that in the ordinary course of things their
official career would be short, and none were more
convinced of this than their leaders. They acted
accordingly. Under any circumstances they were
pledged to bring forward a Reform Bill; but under
actual circumstances their policy was to bring forward
a Reform Bill that would render it almost impossible
for their probable successors to deal with that question.
Such a Bill they introduced, destroying at one
swoop sixty small boroughs, and taking one member
from forty-seven more.</p>

<p>Mr. John Smith, an ardent Reformer, said that the
Government measure went so far beyond his expectations,
that it took away his breath. I myself happened
to meet Mr. Hunt, the famous Radical of those
days, in the tea-room of the House of Commons, just
before Lord John Russell rose. We had some conversation
on the project about to be proposed, no one out
of a small circle having any conception as to what it
would be. Mr. Hunt said, if it gave members to a
few of the great towns, and disfranchised with compensation
a few close boroughs, the public would rest
contented for the moment with this concession. In
fact, the Government plan was received with profound
astonishment. Lord John continued his explanations
of it amidst cheers and laughter. It almost appeared
a joke; and had Sir Robert Peel risen when Lord
John sat down, and said that “he had been prepared
to consider any reasonable or practical plan, but that
the plan of the Government was a mockery repugnant
to the good sense of the House, and that he could not
therefore allow the time of Parliament to be lost by
discussing it; moving at the same time the order of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_537" id="Page_537">[537]</a></span>
the day, and pledging himself to bring the question
in a practical form under the attention of the House
of Commons at an early opportunity,” he would have
had a majority of at least a hundred in his favour.</p>

<p>It was a great occasion for a less prudent man.
But Sir Robert Peel was not an improvisatore in
action, though he was in words. He required time
to prepare a decision. He was moreover fettered by
his relations with the late premier. Could he reject
at once a project of Reform, however absurd, without
taking up the question of Reform? Could he pledge
his party to take up that question without being
certain of his party’s pretty general acquiescence?</p>

<p>He persuaded himself, not unnaturally, that the
Government measure had no chance of success; that
nothing would be lost by an appearance of moderation,
and that time would thus be gained for the
Opposition to combine its plans.</p>

<p>Nine men out of ten would have judged the matter
as he did, and been wrong as he was. But the
magnitude of the Whig measure, which appeared
at the moment its weakness, was in reality its
strength. It roused the whole country.</p>

<p>Much, also, in a crisis like the one through which
the country had now to pass, depends on the action
of individuals whose names are not always found in
history. There happened, at the moment of which
I am speaking, to be a man connected with the Whig
Government who, by his frank, good-natured manner,
his knowledge of human nature, his habits of business,
his general acquaintance with all classes of persons,
and his untiring activity, gave an intensity and a
direction to the general sentiment which it would not
otherwise have attained.</p>

<p>I allude to Mr. Edward Ellice, Secretary of the
Treasury. He was emphatically a man of the world,
having lived with all classes of it. His intellect was
clear, and adapted to business; and he liked that sort
of business which brought him into contact with men.
Naturally kind-hearted and good-natured, with frank<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_538" id="Page_538">[538]</a></span>
and easy manners, he entered into other people’s
plans and feelings, and left every one with the conviction
that he had been speaking to a friend who
at the proper time would do him a service. He took
upon himself the management of the Press, and was
entrusted shortly afterwards (when Lord Grey, finding
his ministry in a minority in the House of Commons,
obtained the King’s permission to dissolve Parliament)
with the management of the elections. He
knew that the great danger to a Reform party is
almost always division, and bound the Reform party
on that occasion together by the cry of “The bill!
the whole bill, and nothing but the bill!”</p>

<p>All argument, all discussion, all objection, were
absorbed by this overwhelming cry, which, repeated
from one end of the country to another, drowned
the voice of criticism, and obliged every one to take
his place either as an advocate of the Government
measure, or an opponent of the popular will.</p>

<p>The general feeling, when, after the elections in
1831, the shattered forces of the Tory party gathered
in scanty array around their distinguished leader,
was that that party was no more, or at least had
perished, as far as the possession of political power
was concerned, for the next twenty years. People
did not sufficiently recognize the changeful vibration
of opinion; neither did they take sufficiently into
account the fact that there will always, in a state
like ours, be a set of men who wish to make the
institutions more democratic, and a set of men who
do not wish this; though at different epochs the
battle for or against democracy will be fought on
different grounds. The Reform Bill now proposed
having been once agreed to, it was certain that there
would again be persons for further changes, and
persons against them. Sir Robert’s great care, therefore,
when our old institutions sunk, was not to cling
to them so fast as to sink with them. He defended,
then, the opinions he had heretofore asserted, but he
defended them rather as things that had been good,
and were gone by, than as things that were good and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_539" id="Page_539">[539]</a></span>
which could be maintained. The Tories in the House
of Lords were in a more difficult position than the
Tories in the House of Commons. They were called
upon to express their opinions, and to do so conscientiously.
They were in a majority in the upper
assembly, as the Whigs were in a majority in the
lower one. According to the theory of the Constitution
the vote of one branch of the Legislature was
as valid as that of the other. Were they to desert
their duties, and declare they were incompetent to
discharge them? They considered they were not.
They, therefore, threw out the Government bill when
it was brought before them for decision, and thus it
had again to be introduced into the House of Commons.
Again it arrived at the House of Lords, which
displayed a disposition to reject it once more.</p>

<p>Lord Grey, in this condition of things, asked the
King for the power of making peers, or for the permission
to retire from his Majesty’s service. His
resignation was accepted, and the Duke of Wellington
was charged with forming a new Government, which
was to propose a new Reform Bill. He applied to
Sir Robert Peel for assistance, but Sir Robert saw
that the moment for him to deal with the question
of Reform was passed, and declined to give that
assistance, saying that he was not the proper person
to represent a compromise. That any Reform Bill that
would now satisfy the momentary excitement must
comprehend changes that he believed would be permanently
injurious. He felt, indeed, that it would
be better to let the reformers carry their own bill than
to bring forward another bill which could not greatly
differ from the one which the House of Commons had
already sanctioned, and which, nevertheless, would
not satisfy, because it would be considered the bill of
the House of Lords. The Duke of Wellington consequently
was obliged to retire, the Lords to give way.
Lord Grey’s Reform Bill was carried, and Sir Robert
Peel took his seat in a new Parliament formed by his
opponents, who thought they had secured thereby the
permanence of their own power.</p>

<hr />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_540" id="Page_540">[540]</a></span></p>

<h3><span class="smcap">Part V.</span></h3>

<div class="smaller">

<p>Effects of Reform.&mdash;Changes produced by reform.&mdash;Daniel O’Connell.&mdash;Lord
Melbourne.&mdash;Choice of Speaker.&mdash;The Irish Tithe Bill.&mdash;Measures
of Lord Melbourne.&mdash;The Irish question.&mdash;The Queen’s
household.&mdash;The Corn Law League.&mdash;Whig measures.</p>

</div>

<h4>I.</h4>

<p>The great measure just passed into law was not
calculated to justify the fears of immediate and violent
consequences; but was certain to produce gradual
and important changes.</p>

<p>The new constitution breathed, in fact, a perfectly
different spirit from the old one. The vitality of our
former government was drawn from the higher classes
and the lower ones. An election for Westminster was
not merely the return of two members to Parliament:
it was a manifestation of the feeling prevalent amongst
the masses throughout England; and the feeling
amongst the masses had a great influence in moments
of excitement, and in all matters touching the national
dignity and honour. On the other hand, it was by
the combinations of powerful families that a majority
was formed in Parliament, which, in ordinary times,
and when no great question was at issue, ruled the
country.</p>

<p>The populace, by its passions&mdash;the aristocracy, by
its pride&mdash;gave energy to the will, and elevation to the
character of the nation, disposing it to enterprise and
to action. The government we had recently created
was, on the contrary, filled with the soul of the middle
classes, which is not cast in an heroic mould. Its
objects are material, its interests are involved in the
accidents of the moment. What may happen in five
years to a man in trade, is of comparatively small
consequence. What may happen immediately, makes<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_541" id="Page_541">[541]</a></span>
or mars his fortunes. Moreover, the persons likely to
replace the young men, distinguished for their general
abilities and general instruction, who had formerly
represented the smaller boroughs, were now for the
most part elderly men with a local reputation, habits
already acquired, and without the knowledge, the
energy, or the wish to commence a new career as
politicians.</p>

<p>A writer on Representative Government has said,
that the two important elements to represent are
intellect and numbers, because they are the two great
elements of force. The new Reform Bill did not affect
especially to represent either. But it represented
peace, manufactures, expediency, practical acquaintance
with particular branches of trade. It established
a greater reality. A member of Parliament was more
likely to represent a real thing concerning the public
than a mere idea concerning it. The details of daily
business were more certain to be attended to, useless
wars to be put on one side.</p>

<p>On the other hand, that high spirit which insensibly
sustains a powerful nation, that devotion to the permanent
interests of the country, which leads to
temporary sacrifices for its character and prestige,
that extensive and comprehensive knowledge of
national interests, which forms statesmen, and is the
peculiar attribute of an enlightened and patriotic
aristocracy, that generous sympathy with what is
right, and detestation for what is wrong, which exists
nowhere with such intensity as in the working classes,
who are swayed more by sentiment, and less by calculation,
than any other class&mdash;all those qualities, in
short, which make one state, without our being able
exactly to say why, dominate morally and physically
over other states, were somewhat too feebly implanted
in our new institutions; and these institutions
generated a set of politicians who, with a very limited
range of view, denied the existence of principles that
were beyond the scope of their observation.</p>

<p>There were also other considerations, probably<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_542" id="Page_542">[542]</a></span>
overlooked by those who imagined they were building
up a permanent system by the bill of 1832. The
middle class, which is perhaps the most important one
for a government to conciliate, is not a class that can
itself govern. Its temporary rule nearly always leads
to a democracy or to a despotism; it must, therefore,
be considered as a mere step, upwards or downwards,
in a new order of things. Besides, if you destroy
traditional respect, and that kind of instinct of
obedience which is created by the habit of obeying
spontaneously to-morrow, what you obeyed without
inquiry yesterday&mdash;if you begin by condemning everything
in a constitution which reason does not approve,
you must arrive at a constitution which reason will
sanction. You cannot destroy anomalies and preserve
anomalies. The tide of innovation which you have
directed towards the one anomaly as absurd, will, ere
long, sweep away, as equally ridiculous, another
anomaly. There is no solid resting-place between
custom and argument. What is no longer defended
by the one, must be made defensible by the other.</p>

<p>It is only by degrees, however, that the full extent
of a great change develop es itself; for the peculiarities
of a new constitution are always modified when that
new constitution is carried out by men who have grown
up under the preceding one; and in the meantime the
vessel of the State, struggling between old habits and
new ideas, must be exposed to the action of changeful
and contrary winds.</p>

<p>Thus, the Reform party, temporarily united during
the recent combat, split into several sections at its
termination.</p>

<p>First, Lord Durham quitted the administration,
because he thought it too cautious; secondly, Mr.
Stanley and Sir James Graham quitted it, because
they each thought it too fast; finally, Lord Grey
himself quitted it, because he deemed that his authority
was diminishing, as his generation was dying
away, and younger men absorbing old influences. In
the meantime Mr. O’Connell continued to be a great<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_543" id="Page_543">[543]</a></span>
embarrassment. He represented the majority of the
Irish people, who contended for a supremacy over the
minority, a contest in which it was natural for the
Catholics to engage after they had been declared as
good citizens as the Protestants; but in which it was
impossible for the British Government to concur, so
long as there was a feud between the Protestant and
the Catholic, and that the Protestant majority in
England were disposed to sustain the Protestant
minority in Ireland.</p>

<p>Hence, the reformed Parliament had met amidst
cries for the repeal of the Union, and those savage
violations of social order which, in the sister kingdom,
are the usual attendants on political agitation.</p>

<p>The Ministry first tried coercion, but its effects
could only be temporary, and they alienated a portion
of its supporters. It then tried conciliation. But it
was found impossible to conciliate the Irish Catholics
without conciliating their leader. That leader was
not irreconcilable, for he was vain: and vain men
may always be managed by managing their vanity;
but to gratify the vanity of a man who was always
defying the power of England, was to mortify the
pride of the English people.</p>

<p>Lord Melbourne had succeeded Lord Grey. He
united various accomplishments with a manly understanding
and a character inclined to moderation.
There could not have been selected a statesman better
qualified to preside over a Cabinet containing conflicting
opinions and antagonistic ambitions. But no
body of men, acting together under a system of compromises,
can act with vigour or maintain authority.
All these circumstances gave an air of feebleness and
inferiority to an administration which contained,
nevertheless, many men of superior ability. But that,
perhaps, which tended most to discredit the ministry,
was the credit which Sir Robert Peel was daily gaining
as its opponent.</p>

<p>Carefully separating himself from the extreme
opinions to be found in his own party, condemning<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_544" id="Page_544">[544]</a></span>
merely the extreme opinions on the opposite one;
professing the views and holding the language of a
mediator between opinions that found no longer an
echo in the public mind, and opinions that had not
yet been ripened by public approbation; contrasting
by his clear and uniform line of conduct with the
apparent variations and vacillations of a Cabinet that
was alternately swayed by diverging tendencies; professing
no desire for power, he created by degrees a
growing opinion that he was the statesman who ought
to possess it: and thus, when the Reform Ministry
had to add to its former losses that of Lord Althorpe,
who by the death of Lord Spencer was withdrawn
from the House of Commons, which he had long led
with a singular deficiency in the powers of debate, but
with the shrewdness and courtesy of a man of the
world, the King thought himself justified in removing
a Cabinet which he considered deficient in dignity,
spirit, and consideration.</p>

<p>The Duke of Wellington, to whom he offered the
post of Premier, declined it, and recommended Sir
Robert Peel. Sir Robert had not expected, nor perhaps
wished for, so sudden a summons. He was, in
fact, at Rome when he was offered, for the first time,
the highest place in the Cabinet. Returning to
England instantly, he accepted the offer. His object
now was to organize a new Conservative party on a
new basis, and to come forward himself as a new man
in a new state of affairs, neither lingering over ancient
pledges nor fettered by previous declarations. As the
first necessity for a new system, he sought new men,
and wishing to obliterate the prejudice against himself
as an anti-Reformer by a union with those who had
been Reformers, hastened to invite Sir James Graham
and Lord Stanley to join him. This invitation being
declined, he had to fall back on his former associates;
but being unable to change the furniture of the old
Conservative Cabinet, he repainted and regilded it.
In a letter to the electors of Tamworth, which engrafted
many Liberal promises on Conservative principles,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_545" id="Page_545">[545]</a></span>
he went as far towards gaining new proselytes
as was compatible with retaining old adherents. This
letter was a preparation for the great struggle on the
hustings which was now about to take place. Parliament
had been dissolved, and the appeal made to the
country was answered by the addition of one hundred
members to the new Conservative party. Such an
addition was sufficient to justify King William’s belief
that a considerable change had taken place in public
opinion, but was not sufficient to give a majority in
the House of Commons to the ministry he had chosen.
It was beaten by ten votes on the choice of a Speaker,
Mr. Abercrombie having that majority over Mr.
Manners Sutton.</p>

<p>But if Sir Robert Peel had not a sufficient majority
to insure his maintenance in office, the Whigs were
not so sure of a majority as to risk a direct attempt to
turn him out, unless on some specific case which called
for a vote to sanction a specific opinion. Sir Robert’s
policy was to avoid a case of this kind, knowing that,
if he could once by his tact, prudence, and ability,
increase his numbers and establish a tendency in his
favour, the fluctuating and uncertain would soon join
his standard. This policy was contained in the speech
with which he opened the campaign:</p>

<p>“With such prospects I feel it to be my duty&mdash;my
first and paramount duty&mdash;to maintain the post which
has been confided to me, and to stand by the trust
which I did not seek, but which I could not decline.
I call upon you not to condemn before you have heard&mdash;to
receive at least the measures I shall propose&mdash;to
amend them if they are defective&mdash;to extend them if
they fall short of your expectations; but at least to
give me the opportunity of presenting them, that you
yourselves may consider and dispose of them. I make
great offers, which should not be lightly rejected!
I offer you the prospect of continued peace&mdash;the
restored confidence of powerful states, that are willing
to seize the opportunity of reducing great armies,
and thus diminishing the chances of hostile collision.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_546" id="Page_546">[546]</a></span>
I offer you reduced estimates, improvements in
civil jurisprudence, reform of ecclesiastical law, the
settlement of the tithe question in Ireland, the
commutation of the tithe in England, the removal
of any real abuse in the Church, the redress of
those grievances of which the Dissenters have any
just grounds to complain. I offer you those specific
measures, and I offer also to advance, soberly and
cautiously, it is true, in the path of progressive improvement.
I offer also the best chance that these
things can be effected in willing concert with the other
authorities of the State; thus restoring harmony,
ensuring the maintenance, but not excluding the
Reform (where Reform is really requisite) of ancient
institutions.”</p>

<p>It was difficult to use more seducing language, but
the Opposition would not be seduced. From the 24th
of February till the beginning of April, Sir Robert
struggled against its unsparing attacks. It was not
easy, however, to catch him exposed on any practical
question; at last, however, he had to deal with one&mdash;he
had promised to settle the tithe question in Ireland.
How was he to do so? He thought to balk his assailants
by bringing forward a measure this year very
similar to one which they themselves had brought
forward the year before. But once on Irish ground,
he was pretty sure of being beaten. The difference
between Lord John Russell and Mr. Stanley, which
had led to the secession of the latter, was a difference
of principle as to the nature of Church property:
the former contending that if the revenue possessed by
the Protestant Church in Ireland was larger than
necessary for the decent maintenance of the Protestant
clergy, the State might dispose of it as it thought
proper; the latter asserting that the State could not
employ it for any purposes that were not ecclesiastical.</p>

<p>This was a great question; it was brought to an
issue in a very small manner. Lord John Russell
proposed as a resolution that no Irish tithe bill would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_547" id="Page_547">[547]</a></span>
be satisfactory which did not contain a clause devoting
any surplus over and above the requirements of the
Church establishment to the purposes of secular
education. A committee was then sitting to determine
whether there was any such surplus as that alluded
to or not, and it would have been, doubtless, more
regular first to have got the surplus and then to have
determined about its use. Besides, if we were to deal
with so great a principle as the alienation of the
property of the Protestant Church, it would surely
have been worth while to do so for some great practical
advantage. The majority, nevertheless, voted for
Lord John Russell’s proposition, partly because it
established a public right, partly because it answered
a party purpose. Thus Parliament decided against
the inviolability of Church property&mdash;a decision certain
to affect the future; which did affect the present; and
Sir Robert Peel was forced to resign the seals of the
Treasury.</p>

<p>But let us be just. Never did a statesman enter
office more triumphantly than Sir Robert Peel left it.
His self-confidence, his tact, his general knowledge,
his temper, filled even his opponents with admiration!</p>

<p>It was impossible not to acknowledge to oneself that
there was a man who seemed shaped expressly for
being first minister of England. But, on the other
hand, a sense of justice compelled one to consider that
Lord Melbourne had done nothing to justify the
manner in which he had been dismissed; that the
party he represented had but two years since achieved
a popular triumph which rendered the reign of
William IV. almost as memorable in our annals as
that of William III.&mdash;that it had added to this triumph
in the name of Liberty, a triumph quite as great in
the cause of Humanity; and that it would have
inflicted a stigma of fickleness on our national character
to pass by with indifference and neglect the author of
the Reform Bill and the Negro Emancipation Bill&mdash;condemning
a party still possessed of a majority in
the most important branch of the Legislature, on the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_548" id="Page_548">[548]</a></span>
ground that the late Earl of Spencer was no more,
and that it was necessary to replace Lord Althorpe&mdash;an
honest man of respectable talents&mdash;by Lord John
Russell&mdash;an honest man of very eminent talents.</p>

<p>Sir Robert’s attempt, in fact, though made bravely
and sustained with consummate ability, was premature;
made a few years later,&mdash;when the Stanley
party had joined and were conformed with the Peel
party, and made in consequence of some parliamentary
measure, not as the consequence, which it then
appeared to be, of Royal patronage and favour,&mdash;the
result would have been different.</p>

<p>At the same time, it made an immense change
in the condition of the Tory party. That party,
after this attempt, was no longer a shattered band
of impossible politicians, placed by public opinion
without the pale of political power.</p>

<p>It became a compact, numerous, and hopeful party,
considered by the country as prudent and practical,
and having at its head the man most looked up to in
that House of Parliament, which he declared publicly
he would never quit.</p>

<p>For four years after this struggle Sir Robert Peel
remained at the head of the powerful opposition he
had gradually collected around him; the Whig
Government having in the meantime to perform the
very difficult and ungrateful task of carrying out
changes which it deemed necessary, against Conservatives,
and opposing innovations which it deemed
dangerous, against Reformers. The friends of Liberal
institutions and of religious toleration, and even of
administrative improvement, owe it a debt of gratitude
which they have never fully paid. The introduction
of popular suffrage into the system of municipal
government; the removal of various grievances that
still existed and were mortifying and harassing to the
Dissenters; the reduction of newspaper stamps; the
commutation of tithes, are the footprints which Lord
Melbourne’s administration left on those times. On
the other hand, Lord John Russell resisted in its<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_549" id="Page_549">[549]</a></span>
name vote by ballot (a question of which both its
advocates and opponents exaggerated the importance);
any further extension of the suffrage, and also the re-establishment
of triennial Parliaments. His great
antagonist aided him in respect to all measures which
the public, irrespective of parties, were prepared to
adopt, and supported him against all demands which
the more democratic portion of his adherents put
forward, but depreciated his general authority by
showing that, though invested with the functions of
Government, he and his colleagues had not the power
of governing.</p>

<p>The great battle-field, however, between Whig and
Tory, or as the latter now called themselves “Conservatives,”
was, as it had long been and seems always
destined to be,&mdash;Ireland; for there was still to settle
that Irish Tithes Bill, into which the Whigs had
insisted for some time on inserting the principle of
appropriation; and there was also another question
at stake, more pressing and more practical,&mdash;that of
the Irish corporations.</p>

<p>The Whigs were for applying to the municipalities
in Ireland the same principles of popular election
which had been applied to municipalities in England
and Scotland. The Conservatives contended that Irish
society was not constituted like English and Scotch
society, and would not admit of the same institutions.
They urged that the old municipalities had been constituted
on the basis most proper to keep up an exclusive
Protestant ascendancy; they contended that
the new municipalities, according to the Government
plan, seemed likely to create an exclusive ascendancy
for the Catholics; and they asserted that under such
circumstances it would be wise and just to establish
an order of things that would preserve some balance
between the two great divisions of the Irish community.
They entered, in fact, upon that difficult
ground, a ground made difficult when the Irish
Catholic was placed on an equality with the Irish
Protestant, and commenced the transfer of power<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_550" id="Page_550">[550]</a></span>
from a long predominant minority to an ambitious
and irritated majority. But it was after carefully
weighing immediate peril against contingent difficulties,
that Sir Robert Peel had already taken his
choice; and he ought now to have accepted its
consequences. The worst way of arguing for a
legislative union between two countries is surely to
question that they will admit of the same laws. The
best way of removing religious passions from political
affairs, is to forget in political questions religious
distinctions.</p>

<p>By not acting on these convictions, he re-opened
the sore which he had made such sacrifices to
heal, but this error, which was certain to bear its
punishment in regard to Ireland at a later season,
did not affect his immediate position in the rest of the
Empire.</p>

<h4>II.</h4>

<p>We have said that anything like an alliance with a
man who assumed an attitude of defiance towards
English power would arouse the instincts of English
pride. Besides, nothing at all times injures and
lowers a government more than the appearance of
being counselled by a private individual who is not
publicly responsible for his advice. The mere fact
that the Whig policy was more congenial to Mr.
O’Connell’s views than the Tory one, would have
naturally created a sort of link between this singular
man and the Whig Government. To keep his
followers together, he wanted the influence of patronage;
to obtain the aid of his followers, the Government
did not show itself unwilling to bestow patronage
upon him. In the meantime the independence of his
attitude and language&mdash;an independence which the
peculiarity of his position obliged him somewhat
ostentatiously to display&mdash;apparently justified the
accusation that the Premier was his <i lang="fr">protégé</i>, and not
he the <i lang="fr">protégé</i> of the Premier. Hence, though the
House of Commons still maintained by a small
majority the Whig policy in Ireland, there was a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_551" id="Page_551">[551]</a></span>
growing coolness amongst the English at large
towards Irish grievances, and a disposition to accuse
Lord Melbourne of a mean desire to retain place, when
in reality he was undergoing many personal mortifications
from public motives.</p>

<p>The Conservatives in Parliament had, moreover,
increased, and were become impatient. A difference
between the Colonial Office and the Jamaica Legislature
offered the opportunity of adding some votes to
that number. A battle was fought, and the ministry
only gained a majority of five. Being oppressed by a
long catalogue of questions which it had undertaken
to settle, and had not the power to deal with, the
Ministry not unwillingly resigned; and, by the Duke
of Wellington’s advice, Sir Robert Peel had the same
commission confided to him by Queen Victoria which
he had received previously from William IV.</p>

<p>A difficulty, however, here intervened with respect
to certain leaders in the highest position at Court,
whom the Premier desired to remove, and from whom
the Queen would not consent to part. The question
ought not to have arisen, but once having done so,
concession could not be made with becoming dignity,
either by the sovereign or by the statesman, who
had acted too much as a man of business, and too
little as a man of the world.</p>

<h4>III.</h4>

<p>Lord Melbourne resumed for a time the position he
had abandoned, but, by doing so, he rather weakened
than strengthened his party, and gave his opponents
the advantage of maturing their strength by a prolonged
contest against a ministry which had confessed
its incapacity to master the difficulties which beset it.</p>

<p>These difficulties were not a little increased by
combinations which betokened an insurrectionary disposition
amongst the working classes, who, in some
cases, proceeded to riot, and set forth their general
plans and devices on the project of a constitution
called “the people’s charter,” a project which was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_552" id="Page_552">[552]</a></span>
generally considered as subversive of credit, property,
and order.</p>

<p>The Conservatives attributed these doctrines, however
denounced by the Whigs, as deducible from Whig
tendencies, and profited by the mistrust which a weak
government and an agitated commonalty naturally
suggested. One hostile motion succeeded another,
each manifesting an increasing decline in the strength
of the Whigs, and an increasing confidence on the
part of their opponents, until a new opportunity arose
for bringing together the same parties that had, by
their union, brought about Lord Melbourne’s previous
resignation.</p>

<p>The doctrines of Free Trade had of late made rapid
progress; they were principally directed by the Corn
Law League, recently established, towards a free
trade in corn, and against a free trade in this commodity
Sir Robert Peel had emphatically declared
himself; but they were also applicable to all articles
of commerce, and to the general principles of Free
Trade in dealing with the greater number of these
articles the Conservative leader gave his assent. As,
however, he made an exception with respect to corn,
so he made an exception as to sugar; his argument
being, that the state of our West Indian colonies
merited our special consideration, for we had deprived
them of slave labour, and thereby placed them in an
unequal condition as to their products with countries
which employed slave labour.</p>

<p>For this inequality, he said, it is fair that you
should compensate by imposing a heavier duty on
sugar produced by slave labour than on the sugar
cultivated by free labour. The Government, on the
other hand, not daring as yet to declare decidedly in
favour of a Free Trade in corn, was disposed to lower
and fix the duty, which was then variable, and to
abolish the differential duties on timber and sugar.
In this state of things, Lord Sandon gave the following
notice:&mdash;“That, considering the efforts and
sacrifices which Parliament and the country have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_553" id="Page_553">[553]</a></span>
made for the abolition of the slave trade and slavery,
with the earnest hope that their exertions and example
might lead to a mitigation and final extinction of
those evils in other countries, this House is not
prepared (especially with the present prospect of the
supply of sugar from the British possessions) to adopt
the measure proposed by her Majesty’s Government,
for the reduction of the duty on foreign sugar.”</p>

<p>After a long debate, the opposition had a majority
of thirty-six. The ministers did not resign, meaning
to dissolve, but intending first to renovate their claims
to public sympathy by an exposition of Free Trade
policy, which, though it might not go so far as
Mr. Cobden and his friends might desire, would still
go far enough to place them at the head of the movement
which they foresaw would soon agitate the
country.</p>

<p>Sir Robert, however, little disposed after his recent
victory to afford a respite to his adversaries, declaring
that he did not think it for the advantage of the
monarchy that the servants of the Crown should be
retained, when unable to carry those measures which
they felt it their duty to advise, moved, on the 27th
of May, a vote of want of confidence, and obtained a
majority of one. A dissolution followed, in which the
party which still held office was more unsuccessful
than could have been expected, and, at the opening of
Parliament, ministers were in a minority of ninety-one.
This closed their existence, but it might be recorded
on their grave that they had finally given Ireland
elective municipalities, and conferred on the three
kingdoms the benefit of a penny postage.</p>

<hr />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_554" id="Page_554">[554]</a></span></p>

<h3><span class="smcap">Part VI.</span></h3>

<div class="smaller">

<p>Differences in the country.&mdash;Sir Robert Peel’s programme.&mdash;A new
Conservative party.&mdash;Peel’s commercial policy.&mdash;Catholic education.&mdash;The
Maynooth grant.&mdash;Corn Law agitation.&mdash;The Irish distress.&mdash;Peel
resumes the Government.&mdash;The Corn Laws repealed.&mdash;Review of
Peel’s career.&mdash;Character of Peel.&mdash;Peel and Canning contrasted.</p>

</div>

<h4>I.</h4>

<p>The great interest which attaches to Sir Robert Peel’s
life is derived from the period over which it extended,
and his complete identification with the spirit and
action of that period. It is difficult to point out in
history any time at which such numerous changes in
the character and Government of a country took place
peacefully within so small a number of years. We
are now at the sixth epoch in this remarkable career.
The first ended by Mr. Peel’s election for Oxford, and
his quitting Ireland as the especial champion of the
Protestant cause. The second, with his rupture with
Lord Eldon, and his formation of a moderate administration,
in which he stood as the mediator between
extremes. The third, in which he effected the abrupt
concession of the Catholic claims. The fourth, in
which he opposed the reform or change in our system
of representation. The fifth, in which, planting his
standard on the basis of our new institutions, he
carried into power the party most hostile to the
principles on which those institutions had been remodelled.
The sixth, as we shall see, concludes with
the momentary destruction of that party.</p>

<p>The characteristic features of our Government when
Mr. Peel began political life were the supremacy of
Protestants, the peculiar and anomalous condition of
nomination boroughs, and the predominant influence
of our landed gentry. Such was what was called the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_555" id="Page_555">[555]</a></span>
English Constitution. The Protestant supremacy was,
as a principle, abolished; the close boroughs were
done away with; the landed influence was now
beginning to be in jeopardy.</p>

<p>The elections that had just taken place were in
some degree a trial of the comparative popularity of
free trade and protectionist principles, the Protectionists
being for the most part country gentlemen,
voting generally with the Tories, and the Free
Traders, who were chiefly from the mercantile and
manufacturing classes, with the Whigs. But the
opinions between the leaders of the two parties with
respect to commercial principles were not so wide
apart. Other causes affected their struggle for power.</p>

<p>The country had been for some time perplexed by
the differences which prevailed amongst the liberals,
and the discordant and heterogeneous elements of
which their body was composed. It had a general
idea that many of the questions under discussion were
not ripe for a solution, that Sir Robert Peel, though
adverse to change, was not blind to improvement;
that his followers were more united than his opponents,
and composed of a less adventurous class of
politicians; above all, he himself considered that he
was the person who, by his practical knowledge, was
the most capable of restoring order to our finances,
long since deranged by an annual deficit, which the
late government had done nothing to supply. In
short, the large majority in the country and in Parliament
which brought Sir Robert Peel into office did so
far more in homage to his personal prestige than in
respect to the principles which his adherents represented.
He stood, in fact, in the most eminent but
in the most difficult position which an individual could
occupy. It is worth while to consider what that
position was.</p>

<p>From the time that the Reform Bill of 1832 had
been carried, in spite of the aristocratic branch of our
Legislature, there had been a natural and continuous
difference between the two Houses of Parliament, a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_556" id="Page_556">[556]</a></span>
difference that was in itself far more dangerous to the
form of our constitution than any decision on any
question on which they differed. In a celebrated
speech which Sir R. Peel delivered at Merchant
Tailors’ Hall (in 1839) he had stated that his
endeavour was to form such a party as might bring
the House of Commons and the House of Lords into
harmonious working. “My object,” said he, “for
some years past, has been to lay the foundations of a
great party, which, existing in the House of Commons,
and deriving its strength from the popular will, should
diminish the risk and deaden the shock of collisions
between the two deliberative branches of the Legislature.”
This could not be effected by a party which
merely represented the feelings of the most democratic
portion of the democratic assembly; it could still less
be effected by a party only representing the feelings
of the most aristocratic portion of the aristocratic
assembly. A party was required that should draw
strength from the moderate men of both assemblies.
The Whigs had not been able to form a party of this
kind; Sir Robert undertook to do so, stating then,
and frequently afterwards, the course he should
pursue with this object.</p>

<p>In Ireland he proposed to act up to the spirit of the
Catholic Relief Bill, in his distribution of patronage
to the Catholics, but to maintain the Protestant
Church. In the rest of the empire he promised a
careful attention to material interests and administrative
reforms, and an unswerving opposition to further
constitutional changes. As to commercial policy, he
admitted the general theory of free trade, but contended
that its application should be relative to existing
circumstances and long-established interests, any
sudden overthrow of which would interfere with the
natural progress of events, and the gradual and safe
development of national prosperity. For his own
position he claimed an entire liberty, protesting that
he did not mean to fetter the opinions of others, but
that at the same time no consideration would induce<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_557" id="Page_557">[557]</a></span>
him to carry out views or maintain opinions in which
he did not concur.</p>

<p>“I do not estimate highly the distinction which
office confers. To any man who is fit to hold it, its
only value must be, not the patronage which the
possessor is enabled to confer, but the opportunity
which is offered to him of doing good to his country.
And the moment I shall be convinced that that power
is denied me, I tell every one who hears me that he
confers on me no personal obligation in having placed
me in this office. Free as the winds, I shall reserve
to myself the power of retiring from the discharge of
its onerous and harassing functions the moment I feel
that I cannot discharge them with satisfaction to the
public and to my own conscience.”</p>

<p>This liberty he foresaw was necessary, for the
object he had to effect was a compromise between
conflicting extremes, in which he must expect to
dissatisfy all those whose views were extreme. But
it is public opinion which establishes extremes. What
is extreme one day may not be so another. A certain
latitude in accommodating himself to public opinion
was therefore a natural claim.</p>

<p>But though Sir Robert Peel’s intention was thus to
form a new Conservative party, he was obliged to
use old and recognized Conservative materials. The
Protestants in Ireland, the country gentlemen in
England, were the backbone of any Conservative
party. He might endeavour to mitigate their prejudices
and to popularize their opinions, but he could
not have a Conservative party without them. The
difficulties which this situation presented were not
conspicuous when he had merely to criticise in opposition.
They were certain, however, to become so when
he began to act in office, and was exposed in his turn
to criticism.</p>

<p>Years, however, had to pass before his plans could
be developed or their tendency discovered. The
distress was great; the finances were disordered;
but the mere fact that Sir Robert Peel was at the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_558" id="Page_558">[558]</a></span>
head of affairs tranquillised the public mind. In this
period, when confidence was required, the power of
character was felt.</p>

<p>On the meeting of Parliament in the following year,
the general scheme of the ministerial policy was
explained. The intentions of the Government as to
the corn trade were confined to the imposition of more
moderate duties, graduating according to a sliding
scale, which made the duty imposed depend on the
average price of corn. The mode adopted for equalizing
the revenue with the expenditure was an Income
Tax, accompanied by a reduction in certain articles of
consumption; and finally came a new tariff which
had for its principal object the lowering the price
of essential articles of food, and admitting raw
materials applicable to manufactures. The proposed
arrangements as to the corn duties were attacked
by the Whigs, who were in favour of a fixed instead
of a varying duty, and by the Free Traders, who
contended that there should be no duties at all. It
was attacked also by a certain number of country
gentlemen, who considered that it afforded insufficient
protection to land; but it was considered at the
moment by the country at large as a tolerably fair
compromise between conflicting demands. As to the
Income Tax, it was submitted to as a disagreeable
necessity, affording the simplest and surest method
of rescuing the country from the degrading position
of constant loans, whilst the tariff was hailed with
general delight as increasing the value of income, thus
affording a compensation for the reduction imposed
on it.</p>

<p>It was on this tariff, indeed, the principles of which
were gradually developed, that Sir Robert Peel’s
commercial policy was based. In the meantime the
beneficial effects of his practical and active administration
were soon apparent. The Poor Law was amended,
a large saving was gained by the reduction of the
Three and a Half per Cents., the currency was satisfactorily
regulated by the Bank Charter Bill; the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_559" id="Page_559">[559]</a></span>
insolvent law was improved, above three millions of
taxes were remitted. Here was fair subject for
legitimate boast.</p>

<p>But whatever consideration these facts might procure
for the Premier in the country, they did not
add to his strength in the House of Commons, for
there you can rarely conciliate opponents, whilst the
appearance of an attempt to do so irritates supporters.
It is true that the accusations brought against him
by the Protectionists were as yet unjust. He had
never declared himself a Protectionist in principle.
From the days when Mr. Huskisson commenced his
commercial policy he had accepted Mr. Huskisson’s
opinions. He had, to be sure, made some exceptions
to the general theory which he then adopted, and
these exceptions he still maintained. The persons
interested in abolishing them declared at once that
as the principles on which they might be defended
had been disavowed, it was absurd that they should
be afterwards maintained. The persons, however,
who were interested in them, saw not only that they
could not stand alone, but that they could not last
long after the principles on which they had hitherto
defended had been given up.</p>

<p>In the meantime, Ireland caused even more than its
usual amount of disquietude and annoyance. Vague
complaints violently expressed, monster meetings
militarily organized, alarmed the peaceful, encouraged
the disaffected, and crushed all hopes of industrious
tranquillity. The agitators demanded the repeal of
the Union. The Government seized the arms of the
peasantry. Mr. O’Connell and his son were arrested,
and convicted by a jury on a charge of conspiracy,
and though their sentence was subsequently set aside
by the House of Lords, this exhibition of vigour
produced some effect.</p>

<p>The perfect tranquillisation of Ireland, whether by
Whig or Tory, is, I fear, impossible, until the united
Legislature shall be disposed to give the majority in
Ireland, under the restraint which the influence of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_560" id="Page_560">[560]</a></span>
property may justly create for the minority, what
that majority would be able to obtain if Ireland had
a Legislature of her own; but at the same time, the
more the Imperial Government manifests its desire to
conciliate those interests it cannot satisfy, the more
it is likely to maintain in that long-distressed country
a state of peace, if not of content.</p>

<p>Sir Robert Peel brought forward at this time a
measure in conformity with these views. Up to the
year 1795, the Catholic clergy had been in the habit
of seeking their education abroad. The state of the
continent at that time suggested the advisability of
offering the means of such education within the
British empire. It might have been well, perhaps,
if a college for this purpose had been established in
England, where the Catholic clergy would have been
educated in some degree without the sphere of Irish
politics and passions; but such a college was founded
in Ireland at Maynooth. It is so clear, that if we
undertook to create an institution of this kind we
should have done so generously and munificently,
that it seems superfluous to waste an argument upon
the subject. We had not, however, acted in that
large and comprehensive spirit which the occasion
demanded; the sum we had dedicated (£9,000 per
annum) to the maintenance of an establishment most
important to the welfare of so large a portion of our
population, was wholly inadequate for its object. Sir
Robert Peel now proposed to increase the allowance,
and thus to give a proof that the English Government
was not indifferent to any class of British subjects,
whether within or without the pale of the dominant
Church.</p>

<p>It is terrible to find recorded in any page of our
modern history that the attempt to provide decorously
for the education of the Catholic, was
regarded as a grievance by the Protestant; but so it
was. Although the principle involved in the Maynooth
grant was already conceded,&mdash;although neither
George III., nor Lord Eldon, nor the Protestants at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_561" id="Page_561">[561]</a></span>
the Protestant epoch of 1795, had objected to this
principle,&mdash;it was now assailed as if it had been for
the first time propounded, and a bigotry displayed
by fanatics, which almost justified agitators. The
Premier said, “Abuse me if you will, but let my
measure be carried.” He was abused, and his
measure was carried.</p>

<p>I have said that when he undertook to form a new
Conservative party he was obliged to use the old
Conservative materials, and that these were the Irish
Protestants and the English country gentry. In his
endeavour to give to these two bodies a more national
character, he had already lost his prestige with the
one, and damaged it with the other. Another crisis,
however, had yet to arrive, before the career he had
entered upon was closed. I approach the repeal of
the Corn Laws.</p>

<h4>II.</h4>

<p>A most rapid change had taken place in public
opinion within but a few years about the laws concerning
corn. From the earliest period of my public
life I had considered them untenable and dangerous
to the class which fancied itself interested in their
maintenance. Thus, I voted for their total repeal as
early as 1832, but only two persons (Mr. Hume and
Mr. Cobbett) voted with me.</p>

<p>Almost every statesman, in fact, up to 1840, had
considered, as a matter of course, that home-grown
was to be protected by a duty on foreign corn. They
might differ as to the manner in which that duty
should be imposed, as to what should be its amount,
but no one doubted that there should be a duty
sufficient to procure a remunerative price to the
English grower. Mr. Charles Pelham Villiers has
the credit of first bringing this subject before the
serious attention of politicians. Ere long the Corn
Law League was formed, and produced, no doubt, a
great effect on the public mind; but this was in consequence
of the fact that when the Corn Law League
commenced its labours, people’s thoughts had been<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_562" id="Page_562">[562]</a></span>
subjected to an influence different from that which
had formerly governed them.</p>

<p>Previous to the Reform Bill and the Municipality
Bills everybody in England looked up: the ambitious
young man looked up to the great nobleman for a seat
in Parliament; the ambitious townsman to the chief
men of his borough for a place in the corporation.
Subsequently to these measures, men desirous to
elevate their position looked down. The aristocratic
tendency of other days had thus become almost
suddenly a democratic one. This democratic tendency,
which has gone on increasing, had made itself already
visible at the period when the Corn Law agitation
began. It had been natural until then to consider
this subject in relation to the interests of the upper
classes; it was now becoming natural to consider it
in relation to the interests of the lower classes. The
question presented itself in a perfectly different point
of view, and politicians found, somewhat to their surprise,
that all former arguments had lost their force.
It was this change in the spirit of the times which
had occasioned within such a very few years a total
change in the manner of looking at matters affected
by the Legislature. We must, whether we wish to do
so or not, breathe the atmosphere that is around us.
Directly it was shown them that low wages did not
necessarily follow a low price of corn, and that the
labourer did not earn more because his living was
dearer, the only argument that was still listened to
against foreign competition disappeared. Statesman
after statesman felt himself gliding into the conviction
that all attempts to maintain the existing state of
things, because it was thought favourable to the country
gentry, was impracticable.</p>

<p>Lord John Russell and other leading members of
the Whig party, who had been supporters of a Corn
Law, underwent year by year a modification in their
former opinions, and were arriving in 1845 at the
determination of abandoning them. Sir Robert Peel
had been undergoing precisely the same influences,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_563" id="Page_563">[563]</a></span>
and was arriving precisely at the same conclusions.
The country gentlemen amongst the Whigs had quite
as much cause to reproach their leader for an alteration
in his views as the country gentlemen of the
Tories had a right to reproach theirs. But neither
the one statesman nor the other had as yet gone so
far as to make common cause with Mr. Villiers and
Mr. Cobden. An important and alarming incident
hastened the decision of both. That incident was the
failure of the potato-crop. Unless some measure was
taken for bringing food from foreign countries into
England, and especially into Ireland, there was
legitimate cause for apprehending a famine. An
apprehension of this kind involves no ordinary responsibility.
Lord John Russell and Sir Robert Peel
felt this almost at the same moment. But whilst
the responsibility of the one was far greater than that
of the other, his course was far more embarrassed.
Lord John did not rely chiefly on those persons who
fancied that their income depended on upholding the
value of home produce. Sir Robert Peel did. The
first might gain office by declaring that the moment
was come for putting Protection altogether on one
side; the other could only lose it.</p>

<p>Such a consideration might in many cases fairly
weigh with a public man. A change of administration,
a dislocation of parties, may affect a variety
of questions, as well as the one which at the moment
may be most prominent. But when the matter which
presents itself before you is the death by starvation of
hundreds or thousands of your fellow-creatures, and
you think, whether rightly or wrongly, that your
decision can save or condemn so many existences,
is there any one who could counsel you for any reason
whatever to sanction wholesale murder by suppressing
your convictions? There were persons who did not
think famine imminent. To them, of course, the
question presented itself in a different point of view.
But Sir Robert Peel seems to have been finally convinced
that nothing short of a suspension of the Corn<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_564" id="Page_564">[564]</a></span>
Laws, and the proposal of measures tending to their
ultimate abolition, would meet the urgency of the
case. He had already lost his confidence in the
policy of protecting corn under ordinary circumstances;
and now came circumstances which, even
if his general opinions had been the same as formerly,
would have created an especial reason for putting
them on one side.</p>

<p>What was he to do? Some of his colleagues
dissented altogether from his views. They did not
see the crisis he foresaw so clearly as he did, and
therefore were not for meeting it by a temporary
suspension of a permanent duty. They did not
recognise the necessity for eventually repealing that
duty, and therefore were not for proposing measures
that would lead to its ultimate abolition. The
Premier might have attempted the policy he had
in view with the remainder of the ministry, but he
wisely resolved on not making such an attempt; and
tendering his resignation to her Majesty, and indicating
the causes, he stated his readiness to support
Lord John Russell if he were willing, and able, to
form a Cabinet that would undertake to carry out
the views which he believed Lord John and himself
entertained in common. The Whig leader failed in
executing the commission with which, after this
communication, the Queen intrusted him; and Lord
Stanley, now at the head of the Protectionist party,
considering it was not in his power to form a Government,
Sir Robert Peel had as a matter of duty and
necessity to resume his post.</p>

<p>It appears to me that the fact that he had resigned
office on changing his policy, and that he did not
return to it until every other ministerial combination
had failed, rendered his course on this occasion more
clear than on the Catholic question. To accuse him
under such circumstances of changing his views in
order to retain his office is as absurd as unjust. He
is not even subject to the charge of retaining power
after changing the opinions that he entertained on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_565" id="Page_565">[565]</a></span>
receiving it. His conduct appears to me to have been
dictated by the purest patriotism, and the most
complete sacrifice of personal ambition to public
motives. Nor was his ability ever more conspicuous
than during the ordeal he had now to undergo.</p>

<p>It is not, however, my intention to follow him
through the Parliamentary contest in which he was
soon engaged, and out of which he came triumphant,
though not without, for the second time in his life,
having been submitted to the severest obloquy, and
having exposed his friends, which must have been his
most painful trial, to accusations as bitter as those
which he had himself to support.</p>

<p>The event which he must have anticipated was now
at hand.</p>

<p>We know that, according to Mahomedan superstition,
a man walks through life with his good and his
bad angel by his side. Sir Robert Peel had at this
moment his good and his bad angel accompanying
his political fortunes with equal pace.</p>

<p>“During the progress of the Corn Law Bill,” he
says in his Memoirs, “through the two Houses of
Parliament, another bill, entitled a Bill for the Protection
of Life in Ireland, which at an early period of
the Session had received the assent of the House of
Lords, was brought under discussion in the House
of Commons, and encountered every species of opposition.”</p>

<p class="tb">On the 21st of January, 1846, the two bills, the
Corn Law Repeal Bill, and the Bill for Protection of
Life in Ireland, were in such a position in the two
Houses respectively, that there appeared every reason
to calculate on the double event,&mdash;the passing of the
first bill unmutilated by the House of Lords, and the
rejection of the second by the House of Commons.
These two bills were indeed his guardian and destroying
angels. The one crowned him with imperishable
fame&mdash;the other ejected him for the last time from
power.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_566" id="Page_566">[566]</a></span></p>

<p>On the 19th of May, 1846, the Corn Law Repeal
Bill was carried by a majority of 98. On the 25th
of June, by a concerted union between the Protectionists
and Whig parties, the Irish Life Protection
Bill was rejected by a majority of 75, and the Premier
retired, the shouts of congratulation at his victory
mingling with the condolence at his defeat. One
farther triumph, however, yet remained to him, that
of supporting the Whig Government, when, but a
short time afterwards, it deemed itself obliged to
bring forward a bill almost similar to the one which
when proposed by an opposite party it had denounced.
The most triumphant portion of Sir Robert Peel’s
political career was indeed that which followed his
exclusion from official life. I know of no statesman
who ever occupied so proud a position as that
in which a greater commoner than even the first
William Pitt stood from 1846 to July, 1850, when an
unhappy accident filled with patriotic sorrow every
heart in England. Above all parties, himself a party,&mdash;he
had trained his own mind into a disinterested
sympathy with the intelligence of his country. He
never during this period gave a vote to court democratic
influence or to win aristocratic favour. Conscientiously
and firmly attached to the religion of
the State, he flattered none of its prejudices, and
repudiated boldly its exclusive pretensions; and his
speech on the Jewish Disabilities Bill, considering
that it was delivered towards the close of a career
which had begun under the intolerant patronage of
Lord Eldon, is perhaps the most notable and the
most instructive that he ever delivered, as marking
the progress of opinion during forty years in the
history of England.</p>

<h4>III.</h4>

<p>If it could be said of any man, indeed, it could be
said of this statesman, that time in its progress turned
him inside out. But the process was a gradual one,
and it was only when you put the Peel of 1810 by the
side of the Peel of 1850, that the totality of the change<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_567" id="Page_567">[567]</a></span>
appears distinct. And yet, though the end of Sir
Robert Peel’s career was at such variance with the
commencement, there is a certain consistency that
may be traced throughout it. Formed on those official
habits which incline a minister to postpone or oppose
the consideration of all questions which cannot be
successfully dealt with, he never exposed a theory
until it could be realized, nor brought forward a
measure which he did not think he could carry. At
the same time his tendencies were liberal whenever
the object brought under his consideration became
practical. It must also be said that in the matter on
which these tendencies came most strikingly into view
his objects were Conservative.</p>

<p>He was converted with respect to the Catholic
question, and was converted to Liberal views, but
when he professed this conversion, it was to save the
country from civil war. He was converted with
respect to the Corn Law, and was converted to Liberal
convictions; but when he professed this conversion,
it was to save the country from famine.</p>

<p>Those who have asserted that his natural bent was
towards a change in established institutions and
ancient customs, were, I think, decidedly wrong. His
natural disposition was rather to maintain what he
found existing, but he sacrificed old things without
scruple when he considered them decidedly incompatible
with new ideas. He had not that order of
mind which creates and forces its creations on the
minds of others. His mind was, on the contrary, a
recipient which opened gradually to growing opinions,
and became another mind as these opinions got by
degrees possession of it. His changes were thus more
sudden in appearance than in reality, because they
always went on for a certain time, silently, and to a
certain degree unconsciously to himself as well as to
the world before they were fully felt; nor were they
ever publicly announced till, having passed through a
stage of doubt, they arrived at the stage of conviction.
His convictions, moreover, were generally simultaneous<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_568" id="Page_568">[568]</a></span>
with those of the public, when the public formed its
convictions gradually. But any sudden and unexpected
leap of opinion, as in the case of the Whig
Reform Bill of 1872, took him unprepared. His
manner in personal intercourse, however intimate
your relations might be, were nearly always formal,
though not cold; but in correspondence he was easy,
natural, and remarkable for the simplicity and frankness
of his letters.</p>

<p>I speak at least from the result of my own experience.
In all matters of home policy he was
thoroughly master of every subject that could interest
an English statesman. In foreign matters he had
general notions, but not much knowledge of particulars,
nor any special plan or theory of policy; but a high
idea of the power of England and the expediency of
maintaining her dignity and prestige.</p>

<p>In the early part of his life I have no doubt that
ambition, and the personal motives of ambition, had
a certain influence over his actions. At a later
period, in his last administration, and after quitting
office, I believe he had no personal view that separated
him in the slightest degree from an entire and disinterested
devotion to the interests of his country.
He was a scholar in the highest sense of the term;
nor did the attention he could give to the driest
details of business damp his sympathy for the
elegancies of literature, or his appreciation of what
was beautiful, whether in painting or sculpture. He
had no hatred&mdash;no inveterate prejudices against
persons or things. His domestic virtues are too well
known to make it necessary to allude to them.</p>

<p>In short, without pretending to raise him above
the defects and littlenesses of human nature, I do not
know where to point to any one who united such
talents for public business with such qualities in
private life.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_569" id="Page_569">[569]</a></span></p>

<h4>IV.</h4>

<p>A comparison which suggests itself naturally to
those who study the history of their times, is one
between the practical statesman, the sketch of whose
career I am concluding, and his more brilliant
contemporary, of whom I have previously spoken.
Though for a long period rivals, they both entered
political life under the Tory banner, and gained their
reputation by adopting Whig principles. In canvassing
their separate merits, it is just to say that Sir
Robert Peel’s great acts were the development of
Mr. Canning’s principles. The former hatched the
latter’s ideas, and for one triumph especially, which
Sir Robert tardily but nobly achieved, the Catholics of
the British empire must feel even more grateful to
their early champion than to their subsequent benefactor.</p>

<p>Sir Robert Peel had the talents for giving a prosperous
issue to a popular cause, Mr. Canning the
genius that makes a cause popular. The one had the
courage to advocate an opinion before it was ripe
for realization. The other, the fortitude when the
advantage and the possibility of a measure became
apparent, to make unhesitatingly every personal
sacrifice for the public welfare. If we praise the one
for his prescience as a statesman, we bend with
admiration before the other as a patriot.</p>

<p>The brilliant talents, the genial and generous spirit
of Mr. Canning procured him partisans who served
him with their heart, and animating his country by a
sympathy with his spirit, inspired a sort of affectionate
interest in his fortunes. The calm and steady
prudence, the sober and moderate language, the
punctilious devotion to business, the constant attention
to practical and useful improvements, the comprehensive
acquirements, the gradual abandonment
of early prejudices, won by degrees for Sir Robert
Peel a sort of judicial pre-eminence which made men<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_570" id="Page_570">[570]</a></span>
obey his decisions who were displeased with his
manners, and who even differed from his opinions.
Thus was he finally elevated to a height in the
general esteem which was the more remarkable from
its being gained by qualities which neither charmed
individuals nor dazzled the public.</p>

<p>Each left a school. In the one we may learn how
to sustain our renown and our power abroad; in
the other how to advance our prosperity at home.
Both were the citizens of a free state, but if I might
venture to distinguish the peculiarities of these two
illustrious Englishmen by a reference to classical
examples, I would say that the one resembled a Greek
in the most glorious times of Athens, the other
reminded you of a Roman in the noblest epoch of the
city of Romulus.</p>

<hr />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_571" id="Page_571">[571]</a></span></p>

<h2>APPENDIX.<br />
<span class="smaller">TWO MEMOIRS, READ BY M. DE TALLEYRAND AT THE
NATIONAL INSTITUTE.</span></h2>

<h3><i>Essai sur les avantages à retirer de colonies nouvelles dans les circonstances
présentes. Par le <span class="smcap">Citoyen Talleyrand</span>. Lu à la
séance publique, de l’Institut national, le 25 messidor, an V.</i></h3>

<p>Les hommes qui ont médité sur la nature des rapports qui unissent
les métropoles aux colonies, ceux qui sont accoutumés à lire de
loin les événements politiques dans leurs causes, prévoyaient depuis
longtemps que les colonies américaines se séparaient un jour de leurs
métropoles, et, par une tendance naturelle que les vices des Européens
n’ont que trop accélérée, ou se réuniront entre elles, ou s’attacheront
au continent qui les avoisine: ainsi le veut cette force des
choses qui fait la destinée des états, et à laquelle rien ne résiste.</p>

<p>Si de tels événements sont inévitables, il faut du moins en
retarder l’époque et mettre à profit le temps qui nous en sépare.</p>

<p>Des mesures désastreuses ont porté dans nos colonies la dévastation.
L’humanité, la justice, la politique même, commandent
impérieusement que, par des mesures fermes et sages, on s’efforce
enfin de réparer ces ruines.</p>

<p>Mais, en même temps, ne convient-il pas de jeter les yeux sur
d’autres contrées, et d’y préparer l’établissement de colonies
nouvelles, dont les liens avec nous seront plus naturels, plus utiles
et plus durables? car il faut bien que le système de notre gouvernement
intérieur amène dans nos rapports étrangers des changements
qui lui soient analogues.</p>

<p>L’effet nécessaire d’une constitution libre est de tendre sans cesse
à tout ordonner, en elle et hors d’elle, pour l’intérêt de l’espèce
humaine: l’effet nécessaire d’un gouvernement arbitraire est de
tendre sans cesse à tout ordonner, en lui et hors de lui, pour l’intérêt
particulier de ceux qui gouvernent. D’après ces tendances
opposées, il est incontestable que rien de commun ne peut exister<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_572" id="Page_572">[572]</a></span>
longtemps pour les moyens, puisque rien de commun n’existait pour
l’objet.</p>

<p>La tyrannie s’irrite des regrets alors qu’ils se manifestent; l’indifférence
ne les entend pas: la bonté les accueille avec intérêt; la
politique leur cherche un contre-poids: or le contre-poids des regrets,
c’est l’espoir.</p>

<p>Les anciens avaient imaginé le fleuve de l’oubli, où se perdaient,
au sortir de la vie, tous les souvenirs. Le véritable Léthé, au sortir
d’une révolution, est dans tout ce qui ouvre aux hommes les routes
de l’espérance.</p>

<p>“Toutes les mutations,” dit Machiavel, “fournissent de quoi en
faire une autre.” Ce mot est juste et profond.</p>

<p>En effet, sans parler des haines qu’elles éternisent et des motifs de
vengeance qu’elles déposent dans les âmes, les révolutions qui ont tout
remué, celles surtout auxquelles tout le monde a pris part, laissent,
après elles, une inquiétude générale dans les esprits, un besoin de
mouvement, une disposition vague aux entreprises hasardeuses, et une
ambition dans les idées, qui tend sans cesse à changer et à détruire.</p>

<p>Cela est vrai, surtout quand la révolution s’est faite au nom de
la liberté. “Un gouvernement <em>libre</em>,” dit quelque part Montesquieu,
“c’est-à-dire, <em>toujours agité</em>,” &amp;c. Une telle agitation ne pouvant
pas être étouffée, il faut la régler; il faut qu’elle s’exerce non aux
dépens, mais au profit du bonheur public.</p>

<p>Après les crises révolutionnaires, il est des hommes fatigués et
vieillis sous l’impression du malheur, dont il faut en quelque sorte
rajeunir l’âme. Il en est qui voudroient ne plus aimer leur pays, à
qui il faut faire sentir qu’heureusement cela est impossible.</p>

<p>Le temps et de bonnes lois produiront sans doute d’heureux
changements; mais il faut aussi des établissements combinés avec
sagesse: car le pouvoir des lois est borné, et le temps détruit indifféremment
le bien et le mal.</p>

<p>Lorsque j’étais en Amérique, je fus frappé de voir qu’après une
révolution, à la vérité très-dissemblable de là nôtre, il restait aussi
peu de traces d’anciennes haines, aussi peu d’agitation, d’inquiétude;
enfin qu’il n’y avait aucun de ces symptômes qui, dans les états devenus
libres, menacent à chaque instant la tranquillité. Je ne tardai
pas à en découvrir une des principales causes. Sans doute cette révolution
a, comme les autres, laissé dans les âmes des dispositions à
exciter ou à recevoir de nouveaux troubles; mais ce besoin d’agitation
a pu se satisfaire autrement dans un pays vaste et nouveau, où des
projets aventureux amorcent les esprits, où une immense quantité de
terres incultes leur donne la facilité d’aller employer loin du théâtre
des premières dissensions une activité nouvelle, de placer des espérances
dans des spéculations lointaines, de se jeter à la fois au milieu
d’une foule d’essais, de se fatiguer enfin par des déplacements, et
d’amortir ainsi chez eux les passions révolutionnaires.</p>

<p>Heureusement le sol que nous habitons ne présente pas les mêmes
ressources: mais des colonies nouvelles, choisies et établies avec
discernement, peuvent nous les offrir; et ce motif pour s’en occuper<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_573" id="Page_573">[573]</a></span>
ajoute une grande force à ceux qui sollicitent déjà l’attention publique
sur ce genre d’établissements.</p>

<p>Les diverses causes qui ont donné naissance aux colonies dont
l’histoire nous a transmis l’origine, n’étaient pas plus déterminantes;
la plupart furent beaucoup moins pures; ainsi l’ambition, l’ardeur
des conquêtes, portèrent les premières colonies des Phéniciens<a name="FNanchor_132" id="FNanchor_132"></a><a href="#Footnote_132" class="fnanchor">[132]</a> et
des Égyptiens dans la Grèce; la violence, celle des Tyriens à Carthage<a name="FNanchor_133" id="FNanchor_133"></a><a href="#Footnote_133" class="fnanchor">[133]</a>;
les malheurs de la guerre, celle des Troyens fugitifs en
Italie<a name="FNanchor_134" id="FNanchor_134"></a><a href="#Footnote_134" class="fnanchor">[134]</a>; le commerce, l’amour des richesses, celle des Carthaginois
dans les<a name="FNanchor_135" id="FNanchor_135"></a><a href="#Footnote_135" class="fnanchor">[135]</a> îles de la Méditerranée, et sur les côtes de l’Espagne et de
l’Afrique; la nécessité, celles des Athéniens dans l’Asie mineure,<a name="FNanchor_136" id="FNanchor_136"></a><a href="#Footnote_136" class="fnanchor">[136]</a>
lorsqu’ils devinrent trop nombreux pour leur territoire borné et peu
fertile; la prudence, celle des Lacédémoniens à Tarente, qui, par
elle, se délivrèrent de citoyens turbulents; une forte politique, les
nombreuses colonies des Romains<a name="FNanchor_137" id="FNanchor_137"></a><a href="#Footnote_137" class="fnanchor">[137]</a>, qui se montraient doublement
habiles en cédant à leurs colons une portion des terres conquises, et
parce qu’ils apaisaient le peuple, qui demandait sans cesse un nouveau
partage, et parce qu’ils faisaient ainsi, des mécontents mêmes, une
garde sûre dans le pays qu’ils avaient soumis; l’ardeur du pillage
et la fureur guerrière (bien plus que l’excès de population), les
colonies ou plutôt les irruptions des peuples du Nord<a name="FNanchor_138" id="FNanchor_138"></a><a href="#Footnote_138" class="fnanchor">[138]</a> dans l’empire
romain; une piété romanesque et conquérante, celles des Européens<a name="FNanchor_139" id="FNanchor_139"></a><a href="#Footnote_139" class="fnanchor">[139]</a>
dans l’Asie.</p>

<p>Après la découverte de l’Amérique, on vit la folie, l’injustice, le
brigandage de particuliers altérés d’or, se jeter sur les premières
terres qu’ils rencontrèrent. Plus ils étaient avides, plus ils s’isolaient;
ils voulaient non pas cultiver, mais dévaster: ce n’étaient pas encore
là de véritables colonies. Quelque temps après, des dissensions
religieuses donnèrent naissance à des établissements plus réguliers:
ainsi les Puritains se réfugièrent au nord de l’Amérique; les Catholiques
d’Angleterre, dans le Maryland; les Quakers, dans la Pensylvanie:
d’où Smith conclut que ce ne fût point la sagesse, mais
plutôt les vices des gouvernements d’Europe, qui peuplèrent le
nouveau monde.</p>

<p>D’autres grands déplacements sont dus aussi à une politique ombrageuse,
ou à une politique faussement religieuse: ainsi l’Espagne
rejeta de son sein les Maures; la France, les Protestants; presque
tous les gouvernements, les Juifs; et partout on reconnut trop tard
l’erreur qui avait dicté ces déplorables conseils. On avait des mécontents;
on voulut en faire des ennemis: ils pouvaient servir leur
pays; on les força de lui nuire.</p>

<p>Cette longue expérience ne doit pas être perdue pour nous. L’art
de mettre les hommes à leur place est le premier, peut-être, dans<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_574" id="Page_574">[574]</a></span>
la science du gouvernement: mais celui de trouver la place des mécontents
est, à coup sûr, le plus difficile; et, présenter à leur imagination
des lointains, des perspectives où puissent se prendre leurs
pensées et leurs désirs, est, je crois, une des solutions de cette difficulté
sociale.</p>

<p>Dans le développement des motifs qui ont déterminé l’établissement
d’un très-grand nombre de colonies anciennes, on remarque
aisément qu’alors même qu’elles étaient indispensables, elles furent
volontaires; qu’elles étaient présentées par les gouvernements
comme un appât, non comme une peine: on y voit surtout dominer
cette idée, que les états politiques devaient tenir en réserve des
moyens de placer utilement hors de leur enceinte cette surabondance
de citoyens qui, de temps en temps, menaçaient la tranquillité. Ce
besoin, au reste, était fondé sur une origine vicieuse: c’était, ou une
première loi agraire qui suscitait de menaçantes réclamations qu’il
fallait calmer, ou une constitution trop exclusive qui, faite pour une
classe, faisait craindre la trop grande population des autres.</p>

<p>C’est en nous emparant de ce qu’ont de plus pur ces vues des
anciens, et en nous défendant de l’application qu’en ont faite la
plupart des peuples modernes, qu’il convient, je pense, de s’occuper,
dès les premiers jours de la paix, de ce genre d’établissements, qui,
bien conçus et bien exécutés, peuvent être, après tant d’agitations, la
source des plus précieux avantages.</p>

<p>Et combien de Français doivent embrasser avec joie cette idée!
combien en est-il chez qui, ne fût-ce que pour des instants, un ciel
nouveau est devenu un besoin! et ceux qui, restés seuls, ont perdu,
sous le fer des assassins, tout ce qui embellissait pour eux la terre
natale; et ceux pour qui elle est devenue inféconde, et ceux qui n’y
trouvent que des regrets, et ceux même qui n’y trouvent que des
remords; et les hommes qui ne peuvent se résoudre à placer l’espérance
là où ils éprouvèrent le malheur; et cette multitude de malades
politiques, ces caractères inflexibles qu’aucun revers ne peut plier,
ces imaginations ardentes qu’aucun raisonnement ne ramène, ces
esprits fascinés qu’aucun événement ne désenchante; et ceux qui
se trouvent toujours trop resserrés dans leur propre pays; et les
spéculateurs avides, et les spéculateurs aventureux; et les hommes
qui brûlent d’attacher leur nom à des découvertes, à des fondations
de villes, à des civilisations; tel pour qui la France constituée est
encore trop agitée, tel pour qui elle est trop calme; ceux enfin qui
ne peuvent se faire à des égaux, et ceux aussi qui ne peuvent se
faire à aucune dépendance.</p>

<p>Et qu’on ne croie pas que tant d’éléments divers et opposés ne
peuvent se réunir. N’avons-nous pas vu dans ces dernières années,
depuis qu’il y a des opinions politiques en France, des hommes de
tous les partis s’embarquer ensemble, pour aller courir les mêmes
hasards sur les bords inhabités du Scioto? Ignore-t-on l’empire
qu’exercent sur les âmes les plus irritables, le temps, l’espace, une
terre nouvelle, des habitudes à commencer, des obstacles communs
à vaincre, la nécessité de s’entr’aider remplaçant le désir de se nuire,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_575" id="Page_575">[575]</a></span>
le travail qui adoucit l’âme, et l’espérance qui la console, et la
douceur de s’entretenir du pays qu’on a quitté, celle même de s’en
plaindre? etc.</p>

<p>Non, il n’est pas si facile qu’on le pense de haïr toujours: ce sentiment
ne demande souvent qu’un prétexte pour s’évanouir; il ne
résiste jamais à tant de causes agissant à la fois pour l’éteindre.</p>

<p>Tenons donc pour indubitable que ces discordances d’opinions,
aussi bien que celles de caractères, ne forment point obstacle à de
nouvelles colonies, et se perdront toutes dans un intérêt commun, si
l’on sait mettre à profit les erreurs et les préjugés qui ont flétries
jusqu’à ce jour les nombreuses tentatives de ce genre.</p>

<p>Il n’entre point dans le plan de ce mémoire de présenter tous les
détails d’un établissement colonial, mon but n’étant que d’éveiller
l’attention publique, et d’appeler sur ce sujet des méditations plus
approfondies et les connaissances de tous ceux qui ont des localités à
présenter.</p>

<p>Toutefois je ne m’interdirai point d’énoncer quelques-uns des
principes les plus simples, sur lesquels ces établissements doivent
être fondés; j’ai besoin de me rassurer moi-même contre la crainte
de voir renouveler des essais désastreux. Je pense qu’on sentira le
besoin de s’établir dans des pays chauds, parce que ce sont les seuls
qui donnent des avances à ceux qui y apportent de l’industrie; dans
des lieux productifs de ce qui nous manque et desireux de ce que
nous avons, car c’est là le premier lien des métropoles et des colonies.
On s’occupera, sans doute, à faire ces établissements vastes, pour que
hommes et projets y soient à l’aise; variés, pour que chacun y
trouve la place et le travail qui lui conviennent. On saura, surtout,
qu’on ne laisse pas s’embarquer inconsidérément une multitude
d’hommes à la fois, avant qu’on ait pourvu aux besoins indispensables
à un premier établissement; et l’on se rappellera que c’est par la
plus inepte des imprévoyances que les expéditions de Mississipi en
1719, et de Cayenne en 1763, ont dévoré tant de milliers de Français.</p>

<p>Jusqu’à présent les gouvernements se sont fait une espèce de principe
de politique de n’envoyer, pour fonder leurs colonies, que des
individus sans industrie, sans capitaux et sans mœurs. C’est le
principe absolument contraire qu’il faut adopter; car le vice, l’ignorance
et la misère ne peuvent rien fonder: ils ne savent que détruire.</p>

<p>Souvent on a fait servir les colonies de moyens de punition; et
l’on a confondu imprudemment celles qui pourraient servir à cette
destination, et celles dont les rapports commerciaux doivent faire la
richesse de la métropole. Il faut séparer avec soin ces deux genres
d’établissements: qu’ils n’aient rien de commun dans leur origine,
comme ils n’ont rien de semblable dans leur destination; car l’impression
qui résulte d’une origine flétrie a des effets que plusieurs
générations suffisent à peine pour effacer.</p>

<p>Mais quels seront les liens entre ces colonies nouvelles et la
France? L’histoire offre des résultats frappants pour décider la
question. Les colonies grecques étaient indépendantes; elles prospérèrent
au plus haut point. Celles de Rome furent toujours<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_576" id="Page_576">[576]</a></span>
gouvernées; leurs progrès furent presque nuls, et leurs noms nous
sont à peine connus. La solution est encore aujourd’hui là, malgré
la différence des temps et des intérêts. Je sais qu’il est difficile de
convaincre des gouvernements qui ne savent pas sortir de l’habitude,
qu’ils retireront le prix de leurs avances et de leur protection sans
recourir à des lois de contrainte: mais il est certain que l’intérêt
bien entendu de deux pays est le vrai lien qui doit les unir; et ce
lien est bien fort lorsqu’il y a aussi origine commune: il se conserve
même lorsque la force des armes a déplacé les relations. C’est ce
qu’on aperçoit visiblement dans la Louisiane, restée française quoique
sous la domination espagnole depuis plus de trente ans; dans le
Canada, quoiqu’au pouvoir des Anglais depuis le même nombre
d’années: les colons de ces deux pays ont été Français; ils le sont
encore, et un tendance manifeste les porte toujours vers nous. C’est
donc sur la connaissance anticipée des intérêts réciproques, fortifiés
par ce lien si puissant d’origine commune, que l’établissement doit
être formé, et sur la force de cet intérêt qu’il faut compter pour en
recueillir les avantages. A une grande distance, tout autre rapport
devient, avec le temps, illusoire, ou est plus dispendieux que productif:
ainsi, point de domination, point de monopole; toujours
la force qui protège, jamais celle qui s’empare; justice, bienveillance;
voilà les vrais calculs pour les états comme pour les individus; voilà
la source d’une prospérité réciproque. L’expérience et le raisonnement
s’unissent enfin pour repousser ces doctrines pusillanimes qui
supposent une <em>perte</em> partout où il s’est fait un <em>gain</em>. Les principes
vrais du commerce sont l’opposé de ces préjugés: ils promettent à
tous les peuples des avantages mutuels, et ils les invitent à s’enrichir
tous à la fois par l’échange de leurs productions, par des communications
libres et amicales, et par les arts utiles de la paix.</p>

<p>Du reste, les pays propres à recevoir nos colonies sont en assez
grand nombre; plusieurs rempliraient parfaitement nos vues.</p>

<p>En nous plaçant dans la supposition où nos îles d’Amérique s’épuiseraient,
ou même nous échapperaient, quelques établissements le
long de la côte de l’Afrique, ou plutôt dans les îles qui l’avoisinent,
seraient faciles et convenables. Un auteur recommandable par les
vues qui se manifestent dans ses ouvrages, tous inspirés par l’amour
du bien public, le citoyen Montlinot, dans un très-bon mémoire qu’il
vient de publier, indique le long de cette côte un archipel d’îles dont
plusieurs, quoique fertiles, sont inhabitées et à notre disposition.</p>

<p>M. le duc de Choiseul, un des hommes de notre siècle qui a eu le
plus d’avenir dans l’esprit, qui déjà en 1769 prévoyait la séparation
de l’Amérique de l’Angleterre et craignait le partage de la Pologne,
cherchait dès cette époque à préparer par des négociations la cession
de l’Egypte à la France, pour se trouver prêt à remplacer par les
mêmes productions et par un commerce plus étendu, les colonies
américaines le jour où elles nous échapperaient. C’est dans le même
esprit que le gouvernement anglais encourage avec tant de succès
la culture du sucre au Bengale; qu’il avait, avant la guerre, commencé
un établissement à Sierra-Leona, et qu’il en préparait un<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_577" id="Page_577">[577]</a></span>
autre à Boulam. Il est d’ailleurs une vérité qu’il ne faut pas chercher
à se taire: la question si indiscrètement traitée sur la liberté
des noirs, quel que soit le remède que la sagesse apporte aux malheurs
qui en ont été la suite, introduira, tôt ou tard, un nouveau
système dans la culture des denrées coloniales: il est politique
d’aller au-devant de ces grands changements; et la première idée
qui s’offre à l’esprit, celle qui amène le plus de suppositions favorables,
paraît être d’essayer cette culture aux lieux mêmes où naît le
cultivateur.</p>

<p>Je viens à peine de marquer quelques positions; il en est d’autres
que je pourrais indiquer également: mais, ici surtout, trop annoncer
ce qu’on veut faire est le moyen de ne le faire pas. C’est d’ailleurs
aux hommes qui ont le plus et le mieux voyagé, à ceux qui ont
porté dans leurs recherches cet amour éclairé et infatigable de leur
pays; c’est à notre Bougainville, qui a eu la gloire de découvrir ce
qu’il a été encore glorieux pour les plus illustres navigateurs de
l’Angleterre de parcourir après lui; c’est à Fleurieu, qui a si parfaitement
observé tout ce qu’il a vu, et si bien éclairé du jour d’une
savante critique les observations des autres; c’est à de tels hommes à
dire au gouvernement, lorsqu’ils seront interrogés par lui, quels sont
les lieux où une terre neuve, un climat facilement salubre, un sol
fécond et des rapports marqués par la nature, appellent notre
industrie et nous promettent de riches avantages pour le jour du
moins où nous saurons n’y porter que des lumières et du travail.</p>

<p>De tout ce qui vient d’être exposé, il suit que tout presse de
s’occuper de nouvelles colonies: l’exemple des peuples les plus sages,
qui en ont fait un des grands moyens de tranquillité; le besoin de
préparer le remplacement de nos colonies actuelles pour ne pas nous
trouver en arrière des événements; la convenance de placer la culture
de nos denrées coloniales plus près de leurs vrais cultivateurs; la
nécessité de former avec les colonies les rapports les plus naturels,
bien plus faciles, sans doute, dans des établissements nouveaux que
dans les anciens; l’avantage de ne point nous laisser prévenir par une
nation rivale, pour qui chacun de nos oublis, chacun de nos retards
en ce genre est une conquête; l’opinion des hommes éclairés qui ont
porté leur attention et leurs recherches sur cet objet; enfin la douceur
de pouvoir attacher à ces entreprises tant d’hommes agités qui ont
besoin de projets, tant d’hommes malheureux qui ont besoin d’espérance.</p>

<h3><i>Mémoires sur les relations commerciales des Etats-Unis avec l’Angleterre,
par le <span class="smcap">Citoyen Talleyrand</span>. Lu le 15 germinal,
an V.</i></h3>

<p>Il n’est pas de science plus avide de faits que l’économie politique
L’art de les recueillir, de les ordonner, de les juger la constitue presque
tout entière; et, sous ce point de vue, elle a peut-être plus à attendre
de l’observation que du génie; car, arrive le moment où il faut tout<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_578" id="Page_578">[578]</a></span>
éprouver, sous peine de ne rien savoir; et c’est alors que les faits
deviennent les vérificateurs de la science, après en avoir été les
matériaux.</p>

<p>Toutefois il faut se garder de cette manie qui voudrait toujours
recommencer les expériences; et ne jamais rien croire, pour avoir le
droit de tout ignorer; mais on ne doit pas moins repousser cette
témérité qui, dédaignant tout ce qui est positif, trouve plus commode
de deviner que de voir.</p>

<p>Que faut-il donc? Unir sans cesse les produits de l’observation
à ceux de la pensée; admettre, sans doute, les résultats que donnent
certains faits généraux bien constants, bien d’accord, et vus tout entiers;
mais en même temps, savoir appeler, dans les nouvelles
questions et même dans les profondeurs de quelques-unes des anciennes,
le secours de faits nouveaux ou nouvellement observés. Il
faut se défendre des premiers aperçus, ces axiomes de la paresse et
de l’ignorance; et enfin se défier beaucoup de ces principes ambitieux
qui veulent tout embrasser; ou plutôt, corrigeant l’acception
d’un mot dont on a tant abusé, n’appeler du nom de principe que
l’idée première dans l’ordre du raisonnement, et non l’idée générale;
que ce qui précède, non ce qui domine.</p>

<p>Plein de ces vérités auxquelles tout nous ramène, j’ai cru pouvoir
présenter à la classe de l’institut à laquelle j’ai l’honneur d’appartenir
quelques observations que j’ai été à portée de faire en Amérique, et
dont les conséquences m’ont plus d’une fois étonné.</p>

<p>Je me suis persuadé que quelques-unes de ces observations, vérifiées
sur toute l’étendue d’un pays longtemps encore nouveau, pourraient
être apportées au dépôt de l’économie politique, et y être
reçues avec l’intérêt qu’on accorde en histoire naturelle à la plus
simple des productions ramassée par un voyageur sur sa route.</p>

<p>Malheureusement, l’esprit de système est dans les sciences ce que
l’esprit de parti est dans les sociétés: il trouve les moyens d’abuser
même des faits; car il les dénature, ou il en détourne les conséquences;
raison de plus, non pour les dédaigner, mais pour apprendre
à bien connaître et ce qu’ils sont et ce qu’ils prouvent.</p>

<p>On dit proverbialement qu’il ne faut pas disputer sur les faits. Si
ce proverbe parvient un jour à être vrai, il restera bien peu de disputes
parmi les hommes.</p>

<p>Un fait remarquable dans l’histoire des relations commerciales, et
que j’ai été à portée de bien voir, m’a fait connaître particulièrement
jusqu’à quel point il importe d’être observateur attentif de ce qui est,
alors qu’on s’occupe de ce qui sera et de ce qui doit être. Ce fait est
l’activité toujours croissante des relations de commerce entre les
Etats-Unis et l’Angleterre; activité qui, par ses causes et ses résultats,
n’appartient pas moins à l’économie politique qu’à l’histoire
philosophique des nations.</p>

<p>Lorsque, après cette lutte sanglante, lutte où les Français défendirent
si bien la cause de leurs nouveaux alliés, les Etats-Unis de
l’Amérique se furent affranchis de la domination anglaise, toutes les
raisons semblaient se réunir pour persuader que les liens de commerce<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_579" id="Page_579">[579]</a></span>
qui unissaient naguère ces deux portions d’un même peuple
allaient se rompre, et que d’autres liens devaient se former: le
souvenir des oppressions qui avaient pesé sur les Américains; l’image
plus récente des maux produits par une guerre de sept ans; l’humiliation
de dépendre de nouveau, par leurs besoins, d’un pays qui
avait voulu les asservir; tous les titres militaires subsistent dans
chaque famille américaine pour y perpétuer la défiance et la haine
envers la Grande-Bretagne.</p>

<p>Que si l’on ajoute ce sentiment si naturel qui devait porter les
Américains à s’attacher par la confiance aux Français, leurs frères
d’armes et leurs libérateurs; si l’on observe que ce sentiment s’était
manifesté avec force lorsque la guerre se déclara entre l’Angleterre
et la France; qu’à cette époque les discours du peuple américain, la
grande majorité des papiers publics, les actes mêmes du gouvernement,
semblaient découvrir une forte inclination pour la nation
française, et une aversion non moins forte pour le nom anglais;
toutes ces raisons si puissantes de leur réunion doivent entraîner vers
ce résultat, que le commerce américain était pour jamais détourné
de son cours, ou que, s’il inclinait du côté de l’Angleterre, il faudrait
bien peu d’efforts pour l’attirer entièrement vers nous; dès lors de
nouvelles inductions sur la nature des rapports entre la métropole et
les colonies, sur l’empire des goûts et des habitudes, sur les causes
les plus déterminantes de la prospérité du commerce, sur la direction
qu’il peut recevoir des causes morales combinées avec l’intérêt,
et, en dernière analyse, beaucoup d’erreurs économiques.</p>

<p>L’observation, et une observation bien suivie, peut seule prévenir
ces erreurs.</p>

<p>Quiconque a bien vu l’Amérique ne peut plus douter maintenant
que dans la plupart de ses habitudes elle ne soit restée anglaise; que
son ancien commerce avec l’Angleterre n’ait même gagné de
l’activité, au lieu d’en perdre, depuis l’époque de l’indépendance
des Etats-Unis, et que, par conséquent, l’indépendance, loin d’être
funeste à l’Angleterre, ne lui ait été à plusieurs égards avantageuse.</p>

<p>Un fait inattaquable le démontre. L’Amérique consomme
annuellement plus de trois millions sterling de marchandises
anglaises; il y a quinze ans elle n’en consommait pas le moitié;
ainsi, pour l’Angleterre, accroissement d’exportation d’objets manufacturés
et, de plus, exemption des frais de gouvernement. Un tel
fait, inscrit dans les registres de la douane, ne peut être contesté;
mais, on l’a déjà dit, il n’est point de fait dont on n’abuse. Si l’on
regardait celui-ci comme une suite nécessaire de toute rupture des
colonies, même des colonies à sucre, avec la métropole, on se tromperait
étrangement. Si, d’autre part, on voulait croire qu’il tient
uniquement à des causes passagères, et qu’il est facile d’obtenir un
résultat opposé, on ne se tromperait pas moins. Pour échapper à
l’une et l’autre erreur, il ne s’agit que de bien connaître et de bien
développer les causes du fait.</p>

<p>Il faut se hâter de le dire, la conduite irréfléchie de l’ancien
gouvernement de France a, plus qu’on ne pense, préparé ce résultat<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_580" id="Page_580">[580]</a></span>
favorable à l’Angleterre. Si, après la paix qui assura l’indépendance
de l’Amérique, la France, eût senti tout le prix de sa position, elle
eût cherché à multiplier les relations qui pendant la guerre s’étaient
heureusement établies entre elle et ses alliés, et qui s’étaient
interrompues avec la Grande-Bretagne: alors, les anciennes
habitudes étant presque oubliées, on eût pu du moins lutter avec
quelque avantage contre tout ce qui pouvait les rappeler. Mais
que fit la France à cette époque? Elle craignit que ces mêmes
principes d’indépendance qu’elle avait protégés de ses armes chez les
américains, ne s’introduisissent chez elle, et à la paix elle discontinua
et découragea toutes relations avec eux. Que fit l’Angleterre?
elle oublia ses ressentiments, et rouvrit promptement ses anciennes
communications, qu’elle rendit plus actives encore. Dès lors, il fut
décidé que l’Amérique servirait les intérêts de l’Angleterre. Que
faut-il en effet pour cela? qu’elle le veuille et qu’elle le puisse. Or,
volonté et pouvoir se trouvent réunis ici.</p>

<p>Ce qui détermine la volonté, c’est l’inclination, c’est l’intérêt. Il
paraît d’abord étrange et presque paradoxal de prétendre que les
Américains sont portés d’inclination vers l’Angleterre; mais il ne
faut pas perdre de vue que le peuple américain est un peuple
dépassionné, que la victoire et le temps ont amorti ses haines, et que
chez lui les inclinations se réduisent à de simples habitudes: or,
toutes ses habitudes le rapprochent de l’Angleterre.</p>

<p>L’identité de langage est un premier rapport dont on ne saurait
trop méditer l’influence. Cette identité place entre les hommes de
ces deux pays un caractère commun qui les fera toujours se prendre
l’un à l’autre et se reconnaître; ils se croiront mutuellement chez
eux quand ils voyageront l’un chez l’autre; ils échangeront avec un
plaisir réciproque la plénitude de leurs pensées et toute la discussion
de leurs intérêts, tandis qu’une barrière insurmontable est élevée entre
les peuples de différent langage, qui ne peuvent prononcer un mot
sans s’avertir qu’ils n’appartiennent pas à la même patrie; entre qui
toute transmission de pensée est un travail pénible, et non une
jouissance; qui ne parviennent jamais à s’entendre parfaitement, et
pour qui le résultat de conversation, après s’être fatigués de leurs
efforts impuissants, est de se trouver mutuellement ridicules. Dans
toutes les parties de l’Amérique que j’ai parcourues, je n’ai pas trouvé
un seul Anglais qui ne se trouva Américain, pas un seul Français
qui ne se trouva étranger.</p>

<p>Qu’on ne s’étonne pas, au reste, de trouver ce rapprochement vers
l’Angleterre dans un pays où les traits distinctifs de la constitution,
soit dans l’union fédérale, soit dans les Etats séparés, sont empreints
d’une si forte ressemblance avec les grands linéaments de la constitution
anglaise. Sur quoi repose aujourd’hui la liberté individuelle en
Amérique? Sur les mêmes fondements que la liberté anglaise.
Sur <i lang="la">l’habeas corpus</i> et sur le jugement par jurés. Assistez aux
séances du Congrès, à celle des législatures particulières; suivez les
discussions qui préparent les lois nationales: où prend-on ses citations,
ses analogies, ses exemples? Dans les lois anglaises, dans les<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_581" id="Page_581">[581]</a></span>
coutumes de la Grande-Bretagne, dans les règlements du Parlement.
Entrez dans les cours de justice: quelles autorités invoque-t-on?
Les statuts, les jugements, les décisions des cours anglaises. Certes,
si de tels hommes n’ont pas une tendance vers la Grande-Bretagne,
il faut renoncer à connaître l’influence des lois sur les hommes et
nier les modifications qu’ils reçoivent de tout ce qui les entoure.
Inutilement, les noms de république et de monarchie semblent placer
entre les deux gouvernements des distinctions qu’il n’est pas permis
de confondre: il est clair pour tout homme qui va au fond des idées,
que dans la constitution représentative de l’Angleterre il y a de la
république, comme il y a de la monarchie dans le pouvoir exécutif
des Américains. Cela a été vrai surtout aussi longtemps qu’a duré
la présidence du général Washington; car la force d’opinion attachée
à sa personne dans toute l’Amérique représente facilement l’espèce
de pouvoir magique que les publicistes attribuent aux monarchies.</p>

<p>La partie de la nation américaine chez qui l’on devrait rencontrer le
moins de préjugés, les hommes qui réunissent l’aisance et l’instruction,
ceux qui ont été les moteurs de la révolution, et qui, en soufflant
dans l’âme du peuple la haine contre les Anglais, auraient dû, il
semble, s’en pénétrer pour toujours; ceux-là mêmes sont insensiblement
ramenés vers l’Angleterre par différents motifs. Plusieurs ont
étés élevés en Europe; et, à cette époque, l’Europe des Américains
n’était que l’Angleterre. Ils n’ont guère d’idées comparatives de
grandeur, de puissance, d’élévation, que celles qui leur sont fournies
par les objets tirés de l’Angleterre; et, surpris eux-mêmes de la
hardiesse du pas qu’ils ont fait en se séparant, ils sont ramenés à
une sorte de respect pour elle par tous leurs mouvements involontaires.
Ils ne peuvent pas se dissimuler que, sans la France, ils n’auraient
pas réussi à secouer le joug de l’Angleterre; mais, malheureusement, ils
pensent que les services des nations ne sont que des calculs, et non
de l’attachement; ils disent même que l’ancien gouvernement de
France, alors qu’il fit des sacrifices en leur faveur, agit bien plus
pour leur indépendance que pour leur liberté; qu’après les avoir
aidés à se séparer de l’Angleterre, il travailla sourdement à les tenir
désunis entre eux, pour qu’ils se trouvassent émancipés sans avoir
ni sagesse pour se conduire, ni force pour se protéger.</p>

<p>Ainsi les inclinations, ou, si l’on veut, les habitudes, ramènent
sans cesse les Américains vers l’Angleterre; l’intérêt, bien plus
encore; car la grande affaire, dans un pays nouveau, est incontestablement
d’accroître sa fortune. La preuve d’une telle disposition
générale s’y manifeste de toutes parts: on la trouve avec évidence
dans la manière dont on y traite tout le reste. Les pratiques
religieuses elles-mêmes s’en ressentent extrêmement. A cet égard,
voici ce que j’ai vu; la liaison avec mon sujet ne tardera pas à se
faire sentir.</p>

<p>On sait que la religion a conservé en Angleterre un puissant
empire sur les esprits; que la philosophie même la plus indépendante
n’a osé s’y déprendre entièrement des idées religieuses; que depuis
Luther toutes les sectes y ont pénétré, que toutes s’y sont maintenues,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_582" id="Page_582">[582]</a></span>
que plusieurs y ont pris naissance. On sait la part qu’elles ont eue
dans les grandes mutations politiques; enfin, que toutes se sont
transplantées en Amérique, et que quelques-uns des Etats leur
doivent leur origine.</p>

<p>On pourrait croire d’abord, qu’après leur transmigration ces sectes
sont ce qu’elles étaient auparavant, et en conclure qu’elles pourraient
aussi agiter l’Amérique. Quelle n’est pas la surprise du voyageur
lorsqu’il les voit co-exister toutes dans ce calme parfait qui semble à
jamais inaltérable; lorsqu’en une même maison le père, la mère, les
enfants, suivent chacun paisiblement et sans opposition celui des
cultes que chacun préfère. J’ai été plus d’une fois témoin de ce
spectacle, auquel rien de ce que j’avais vu en Europe n’avait pu me
préparer. Dans les jours consacrés à la religion, tous les individus
d’une même famille sortaient ensemble, allaient chacun auprès du
ministre de son culte, et rentraient ensuite pour s’occuper des mêmes
intérêts domestiques. Cette diversité d’opinions n’en apportait
aucune dans leurs sentiments et dans leurs autres habitudes: point
de disputes, pas même de questions, à cet égard. La religion y
semblait être un secret individuel que personne ne se croyait le droit
d’interroger ni de pénétrer. Aussi, lorsque de quelque contrée de
l’Europe il arrive en Amérique un sectaire ambitieux, jaloux de faire
triompher sa doctrine en échauffant les esprits, loin de trouver,
comme, partout ailleurs, des hommes disposés à s’engager sous sa
bannière, à peine même est-il aperçu de ses voisins, son enthousiasme
n’attire ni n’émeut, il n’inspire ni haine ni curiosité; chacun enfin
reste avec sa religion et continue ses affaires.<a name="FNanchor_140" id="FNanchor_140"></a><a href="#Footnote_140" class="fnanchor">[140]</a></p>

<p>Un telle impassibilité, que ne peut ébranler le fougueux prosélytisme,
et qu’il ne s’agit point ici de juger, mais d’expliquer, a
indubitablement pour cause immédiate la liberté et surtout l’égalité
des cultes. En Amérique, aucun n’est proscrit, aucun n’est ordonné,
dès lors point d’agitations religieuses. Mais cette égalité parfaite a
elle-même un principe: c’est que la religion, quoiqu’elle y soit
partout un sentiment vrai, y est surtout un sentiment d’habitude:
toutes les ardeurs du moment s’y portent vers les moyens d’accroître
promptement son bien-être; et voilà en résultat la grande cause du
calme parfait des Américains pour tout ce qui n’est pas, dans cet
ordre d’idées, ou moyen ou obstacle.</p>

<p>Remarquons, de plus, que les Américains des villes, naguère colons
et dès lors accoutumés à se regarder là comme étrangers, ont dû
naturellement tourner leur activité vers les spéculations commerciales,
et subordonner à ces spéculations les travaux mêmes de
l’agriculture, par laquelle cependant elles doivent s’alimenter. Or,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_583" id="Page_583">[583]</a></span>
une telle préférence, qui suppose d’abord un désir impatient de faire
fortune, ne tarde pas à accroître ce désir: car le commerce, qui
étend les rapports de l’homme à l’homme, multiplie nécessairement
ses besoins; et l’agriculture, qui le circonscrit dans la famille, nécessairement
aussi les réduit.</p>

<p>L’Amérique, dont la population est actuellement de plus de quatre
millions d’habitants et augmente très-rapidement, est dans l’enfance
des manufactures; quelques forges, quelques verreries, des tanneries,
et un assez grand nombre de petites et imparfaites fabriques de
casimir, de tricot grossier et de coton dans quelques endroits,
servent mieux à attester l’impuissance des efforts faits jusqu’à ce
jour, qu’a fournir au pays les articles manufacturés de sa consommation
journalière. Il en résulte qu’elle a besoin de recevoir de
l’Europe, non-seulement une grande partie de ce qu’elle consomme
intérieurement, mais aussi une grande partie de ce qu’elle emploie pour
son commerce extérieur. Or, tous ces objets sont fournis à l’Amérique
si complètement par l’Angleterre, qu’on a lieu de douter si, dans les
temps de la plus sévère prohibition, l’Angleterre jouissait plus
exclusivement de ce privilège avec ce qui était alors ses colonies,
qu’elle n’en jouit actuellement avec les Etats-Unis indépendants.</p>

<p>Les causes de ce monopole volontaire sont, au reste, faciles à
assigner: l’immensité de fabrication qui sort des manufactures
anglaises, la division du travail, à la fois principe et conséquence de
cette grande fabrication, et particulièrement l’ingénieux emploi des
forces mécaniques adaptées aux différents procédés des manufactures,
ont donné moyen aux manufacturiers anglais de baisser le prix de
tous les articles d’un usage journalier au-dessous de celui auquel les
autres nations ont pu le livrer jusqu’à ce jour. De plus, les grands
capitaux des négociants anglais leur permettent d’accorder des crédits
plus longs qu’aucun négociant d’aucune autre nation ne le pourrait
faire: ces crédits sont au moins d’un an, et souvent de plus. Il en
résulte que le négociant américain qui tire ses marchandises d’Angleterre,
n’emploie presque aucun capital à lui dans le commerce, et le
fait presque tout entier sur les capitaux anglais. C’est donc réellement
l’Angleterre qui fait le commerce de consommation de
l’Amérique.</p>

<p>Sans doute que le négociant Anglais doit, de manière ou d’autre,
charger ses comptes de vente de l’intérêt de ses fonds dont il accorde
un si long usage; mais, comme les demandes se succèdent et s’augmentent,
chaque année, il s’établit une balance de paiements réguliers
et de crédits nouveaux qui ne laissent en souffrance qu’un premier
déboursé, dont l’intérêt est à répartir sur les factures suivantes en
même temps que sur les premières. Cette première dette établit,
comme on voit, un lien difficile à rompre des deux côtés entre le
correspondant anglais et l’Américain. Le premier craint, s’il arrêtait
ses envois, de renverser un débiteur dont la prospérité est la seule
garantie de ses avances: l’Américain craint de son côté de quitter un
fournisseur avec lequel il y a trop d’anciens comptes à régler. Entre
ces intérêts réciproques et cimentés par de longues habitudes, il est à<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_584" id="Page_584">[584]</a></span>
peu près impossible à une nation tierce d’intervenir. Aussi la
France est-elle réduite avec l’Amérique a quelques fournitures de
denrées particulières à son sol; mais elle n’entre point en concurrence
avec l’Angleterre sur la vente des objets manufacturés, qu’elle ne
pourrait établir en Amérique ni à si bon compte, ni à si long terme
de crédit.</p>

<p>Si l’on voulait objecter qu’il s’est fait pendant notre révolution de
nombreuses exportations de marchandises françaises en Amérique, la
réponse serait bien facile. De telles exportations n’ont rien de commun
avec un commerce régulier; c’est la spéculation précipitée de
ceux qui, épouvantés des réquisitions, du maximum et de tous les
désastres révolutionnaires, ont préféré une perte quelconque sur leurs
marchandises vendues en Amérique, au risque ou plutôt à la certitude
d’une perte plus grande s’ils les laissaient en France; c’est
l’empressement tumultueux de gens qui déménagent dans un incendie
et pour qui tout abri est bon, et non l’importation judicieuse de
négociants qui ont fait un calcul et qui le réalisent. Du reste, ses
objets se sont mal vendus, et les Américains ont préféré de beaucoup
les marchandises anglaises: ce qui fournit un argument de plus pour
l’Angleterre dans la balance des intérêts américains.</p>

<p>Ainsi le marchand américain est lié à l’Angleterre, non seulement
par la nature de ses transactions, par le besoin du crédit qu’il y
obtient, par le poids du crédit qu’il y a obtenu, mais encore par la
loi qui lui impose irrésistiblement le goût du consommateur; ces
liens sont si réels, et il en résulte des rapports commerciaux si constants
entre les deux pays, que l’Amérique n’a d’échange véritable
qu’avec l’Angleterre; en sorte que presque toutes les lettres de
change que les Américains tirent sur ce continent sont payables à
Londres.</p>

<p>Gardons-nous cependant, en considérant ainsi les Américains sous
un seul point de vue, de les juger individuellement avec trop de
sévérité; comme particuliers, on peut trouver en eux le germe de
toutes les qualités sociales; mais comme peuple nouvellement
constitué et formé d’éléments divers, leur caractère national n’est pas
encore décidé. Ils restent Anglais, sans doute par d’anciennes
habitudes, mais peut-être aussi parce qu’ils n’ont pas eu le temps
d’être entièrement Américains. On a observé que leur climat
n’était pas fait; leur caractère ne l’est pas davantage.</p>

<p>Que l’on considère ces cités populeuses d’Anglais, d’Allemands, de
Hollandais, d’Irlandais, et aussi d’habitants indigènes; ces bourgades
lointaines, si distantes les unes des autres; ces vastes contrées
incultes, traversées plutôt qu’habitées par des hommes qui ne sont
d’aucun pays; quel lien commun concevoir au milieu de toutes ces
disparités. C’est un spectacle neuf pour le voyageur qui, partant
d’une ville principale où l’état social est perfectionné, traverse
successivement tous les degrés de civilisation et d’industrie qui vont
toujours en s’affaiblissant, jusqu’à ce qu’il arrive en très-peu de jours
à la cabane informe et grossière construite de troncs d’arbres nouvellement
abattus. Un tel voyage est une sorte d’analyse pratique et<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_585" id="Page_585">[585]</a></span>
vivante de l’origine des peuples et des Etats: on part de l’ensemble
le plus composé pour arriver aux éléments les plus simples; à
chaque journée on perd de vue quelques-unes de ces inventions que
nos besoins, en se multipliant, ont rendues nécessaires; et il semble
que l’on voyage en arrière dans l’histoire des progrès de l’esprit
humain. Si un tel spectacle attache fortement l’imagination, si l’on
se plaît à retrouver dans la succession de l’espace ce qui semble
n’appartenir qu’à la succession des temps, il faut se résoudre à ne
voir que très-peu de liens sociaux, nul caractère commun, parmi des
hommes qui semblent si peu appartenir à la même association.</p>

<p>Dans plusieurs cantons, la mer et les bois en ont fait des pêcheurs
ou des bûcherons; or, de tels hommes n’ont point, à proprement
parler, de patrie, et leur morale sociale se réduit à bien peu de chose.
On a dit depuis longtemps que l’homme est disciple de ce qui
l’entoure, et cela est vrai: celui qui n’a autour de lui que des
déserts, ne peut donc recevoir des leçons que de ce qu’il fait pour
vivre. L’idée du besoin que les hommes ont les uns des autres
n’existe pas en lui; et c’est uniquement en décomposant le métier
qu’il exerce, qu’on trouve le principe de ses affections et de toute sa
moralité.</p>

<p>Le bûcheron américain ne s’intéresse à rien; toute idée sensible
est loin de lui: ces branches si élégamment jetées par la nature, un
beau feuillage, une couleur vive qui anime une partie de bois, un
vert plus fort qui en assombrit un autre, tout cela n’est rien; il n’a
de souvenir à placer nulle part: c’est la quantité de coups de hache
qu’il faut qu’il donne pour abattre un arbre, qui est son unique idée.
Il n’a point planté; il n’en sait point les plaisirs. L’arbre qu’il
planterait n’est bon à rien pour lui, car jamais il ne le verra assez
fort pour qu’il puisse l’abattre: c’est détruire qui le fait vivre; on
détruit partout: aussi tout lieu lui est bon; il ne tient pas au
champ où il a placé son travail, parce que son travail n’est que de la
fatigue, et qu’aucune idée douce n’y est jointe. Ce qui sort de ses
mains ne passe point par toutes les croissances si attachantes pour le
cultivateur; il ne suit pas la destinée de ses productions; il ne
connaît pas le plaisir des nouveaux essais; et si en s’en allant il
n’oublie pas sa hache, il ne laisse pas de regrets là ou il a vécu des
années.</p>

<p>Le pêcheur américain reçoit de sa profession une âme à peu près
aussi insouciante. Ses affections, son intérêt, sa vie, sont à côté de
la société à laquelle on croit qu’il appartient. Ce serait un préjugé
de penser qu’il est un membre fort utile; car il ne faut pas comparer
ces pêcheurs-là à ceux d’Europe, et croire que c’est comme en
Europe le moyen de former des matelots, de faire des hommes de
mer adroits et robustes: en Amérique, j’en excepte les habitants de
Nantuket qui pêchent la baleine, la pêche est un métier de
paresseux. Deux lieues de la côte, quand ils n’ont pas de mauvais
temps à craindre, un mille quand le temps est incertain, voilà le
courage qu’ils montrent; et la ligne est le seul harpon qu’ils sachent
manier: ainsi leur science n’est qu’une bien petite ruse; et leur<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_586" id="Page_586">[586]</a></span>
action, qui consiste à avoir un bras pendant au bord d’un bateau,
ressemble bien à de la fainéantise. Ils n’aiment aucun lieu; ils ne
connaissent la terre que par une mauvaise maison qu’ils habitent;
c’est la mer qui leur donne leur nourriture; aussi quelques morues
de plus ou de moins déterminent leur patrie. Si le nombre leur
paraît diminuer à tel endroit, ils s’en vont, et cherchent une autre
patrie où il y ait quelques morues de plus. Lorsque quelques
écrivains politiques ont dit que la pêche était une sorte d’agriculture,
ils ont dit une chose qui a l’air brillant, mais qui n’a pas de vérité.
Toutes les qualités, toutes les vertus qui sont attachées à l’agriculture,
manquent à l’homme qui se livre à la pêche. L’agriculture
produit un patriote dans la bonne acception de ce mot; la pêche ne
sait faire que des cosmopolites.</p>

<p>Je viens de m’arrêter trop longtemps peut-être à tracer la peinture
de ces mœurs; elle peut sembler étrangère à ce mémoire, et pourtant
elle en complète l’objet, car j’avais à prouver que ce n’est pas seulement
par les raisons d’origine, de langage et d’intérêt que les Américains
se retrouvent si souvent Anglais. (Observation qui s’applique
plus particulièrement aux habitants des villes.) En portant mes
regards sur ces peuplades errantes dans les bois, sur le bord des mers
et le long des rivières, mon observation générale se fortifiait à leur
égard de cette indolence, de ce défaut de caractère à soi, qui rend
cette classe d’Américains plus facile à recevoir et à conserver l’impression
d’un caractère étranger. La dernière de ces causes doit
sans doute s’affaiblir et même disparaître, lorsque la population
toujours croissante aura pu, en fécondant tant de terres désertes,
en rapprocher les habitants; quant aux autres causes, elles ont
des racines si profondes, qu’il faudrait peut-être un établissement
français en Amérique pour lutter contre leur ascendant avec quelque
espoir de succès. Une telle vue politique n’est pas sans doute à
négliger, mais elle n’appartient pas à l’objet de ce mémoire.</p>

<p>J’ai établi que les Américains sont Anglais et par leurs habitudes
et par leurs besoins; je suis loin de vouloir en conclure que par leurs
inclinations ils soient restés sujets de la Grande-Bretagne. Tout, il
est vrai, les ramène vers l’Angleterre industrieuse, mais tout doit les
éloigner de l’Angleterre mère-patrie. Ils peuvent vouloir dépendre
de son commerce, dont ils se trouvent bien, sans consentir à dépendre
de son autorité, dont ils se sont très-mal trouvés. Ils n’ont pas
oublié ce que leur a coûté leur liberté, et ne seront pas assez
irréfléchis pour consentir à la perdre et à se laisser entraîner par des
ambitions individuelles. Ils n’ont plus, il est vrai, l’enthousiasme qui
détruit; mais ils ont le bon sens qui conserve. Ils ne haïssent pas
le gouvernement anglais; mais ce sera sans doute à condition qu’il
ne voudra pas être le leur. Surtout ils n’ont garde de se haïr entre
eux; ensemble ils ont combattu, ensemble ils profitent de la victoire.
Partis, factions, haines, tout a disparu:<a name="FNanchor_141" id="FNanchor_141"></a><a href="#Footnote_141" class="fnanchor">[141]</a> en bons calculateurs ils<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_587" id="Page_587">[587]</a></span>
ont trouvé que cela ne produisait rien de bon. Aussi personne ne
reproche à son voisin ce qu’il est; chacun cherche à le tourner à son
avantage: se sont des voyageurs arrivés à bon port, et qui croient
au moins inutile de se demander sans cesse pourquoi l’on s’est embarqué
et pourquoi l’on a suivi telle route.</p>

<p>Concluons. Pour parvenir à la preuve complète du fait que
j’avais avancé sur les relations des Américains avec la Grande-Bretagne,
il a fallu repousser les vraisemblances, écarter les analogies;
donc, dans les sciences positives surtout, il importe, sous peine de
graves erreurs, de se défendre de ce qui n’est que probable.</p>

<p>Ce fait lui-même bien connu pouvait conduire à de faux résultats;
il portait à croire que l’indépendance des colonies était un bien pour
les métropoles: mais en remontant à ses véritables causes, la conséquence
s’est resserrée. Maintenant on n’est plus en droit d’y voir
autre chose, si ce n’est que l’indépendance des Etats-Unis a été utile
à l’Angleterre, et qu’elle le serait à tous les Etats du Continent qui,
d’une part, offriraient les mêmes avantages à des colonies du même
genre, et, de l’autre, seraient secondés par les mêmes fautes de leurs
voisins.</p>

<p>Le développement des causes de ce fait a amené beaucoup de conséquences
ultérieures.</p>

<p>En parcourant ces causes on a dû conclure successivement:</p>

<p>1ᵒ. Que les premières années qui suivent la paix décident du
système commercial des Etats; et que s’ils ne savent pas saisir le
moment pour la tourner à leur profit, elle se tourne presque inévitablement
à leur plus grande perte.</p>

<p>2ᵒ. Que les habitudes commerciales sont plus difficiles à rompre
qu’on ne pense, et que l’intérêt rapproche en un jour et souvent pour
jamais ceux que les passions les plus ardentes avaient armés pendant
plusieurs années consécutives:</p>

<p>3ᵒ. Que dans le calcul des rapports quelconques qui peuvent
exister entre les hommes, l’identité de langage est une donnée des
plus concluantes:</p>

<p>4ᵒ. Que la liberté et surtout l’égalité des cultes est une des plus
fortes garanties de la tranquillité sociale; car là ou les consciences
sont respectées, les autres droits ne peuvent manquer de l’être:</p>

<p>5ᵒ. Que l’esprit de commerce, qui rend l’homme tolérant par
indifférence, tend aussi à le rendre personnel par avidité, et qu’un
peuple surtout dont la morale a été ébranlée par de longues agitations,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_588" id="Page_588">[588]</a></span>
doit, par des institutions sages, être attiré vers l’agriculture;
car le commerce tient toujours en effervescence les passions, et
toujours l’agriculture les calme.</p>

<p>Enfin, qu’après une révolution qui a tout changé, il faut savoir
renoncer à ses haines si l’on ne veut renoncer pour jamais à son
bonheur.</p>

<hr />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_589" id="Page_589">[589]</a></span></p>

<h2>APPENDIX II.</h2>

<p>There is a circumstance connected with the sketch of Mr. Canning
which I am called upon to notice.</p>

<p>The original MS.&mdash;which has since then been but very slightly
altered&mdash;was completed twenty-six years ago, and the greatest part
in print not very long afterwards. Before, however, the whole had
been sent to the press, I was called away on diplomatic duty, and
left the proof-sheets in the hands of Mr. Colburn and the printer’s,
Beaufort House; abandoning in my own mind the intention of ever
publishing or completing the work. In fact, in the busy life of
Spain it was forgotten. On my return to England, in 1848, I
received a visit from Mr. Bell, then editor of the <cite>Atlas</cite>. He sat with
me some time, but did not make to me any particular communication,
and it was only some time afterwards that I conjectured the
purport of his visit. I then by accident, it might have been in
America, read his Life of Mr. Canning, and found it was undeniably
based on my original sketch. Many anecdotes were in it that I had
had from private sources of a particular description, some of which
anecdotes I have now omitted. Whole passages were entirely the
same in purport and almost in expression; in fact, there are parts,
the one relating to the Treaty of Vienna and the partitions which
then took place, for instance, which are almost verbally repeated.
I did not think it worth while to take notice of this; I was rather
glad than otherwise that the labour, which I had considered thrown
away, as far as any object of my own was concerned, had been
useful in the composition of an able work by another; and I only
now mention the facts I have been relating, to clear myself from any
charge of plagiarism which might otherwise be reasonably made
against me. A copy of the old proofs I still retain.</p>

<p class="sig">H. L. B.</p>

<div class="blockquote">

<h3>M. R.</h3>

<h4>1. Separate, <em>secret</em>, <em>and confidential</em>. (In cypher.)</h4>

<p class="date">Foreign Office, January 31st, 1826.</p>

<p class="salutation"><span class="smcap">Sir</span>,</p>

<p>In matters of commerce the fault of the Dutch is offering too little and
asking too much. The French are with equal advantage content, so we clap<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_590" id="Page_590">[590]</a></span>
on Dutch bottoms just 20 <i lang="la">per cent.</i> Chorus of English Custom House officers
and French douaniers: “We clap on Dutch bottoms just 20 <i lang="la">per cent.</i>; Vous
frapperez Falk avec 20 pour cent.”</p>

<p>I have no other commands from his Majesty to convey to your Excellency
to-day.</p>

<p class="signoff">I am, with great truth and respect,
Sir, Your Excellency’s</p>

<p class="signoff">Most obedient humble servant,</p>

<p class="signoff">(Signed)</p>

<p class="sig"><span class="smcap">George Canning</span>.</p>

<p class="noindent">H. E. The Right Hon.
Sir <span class="smcap">Charles Bagot</span>, G.C.B., The Hague.</p>

<h4>2. Secret.</h4>

<p class="date">The Hague, February 3rd, 1826.</p>

<p class="salutation"><span class="smcap">Sir</span>,</p>

<p>I sincerely hope that this circumstance will not be productive of any
public inconvenience; but I am concerned to state that I do not possess any
cypher by which I am enabled to decypher your despatch of the 31st of last
month, which I received this morning; the only cypher belonging to this
embassy is letter S.</p>

<p>I take the liberty of suggesting that it might be convenient at the present
moment that I should be furnished with the cypher given to his Majesty’s
ambassador at St. Petersburg, or at least with that of which his Majesty’s
minister at Berlin may be in possession.</p>

<p class="signoff">I have the honour to be, with the highest respect,
Sir,</p>

<p class="signoff">Your most obedient humble servant,</p>

<p class="signoff">(Signed)</p>

<p class="sig"><span class="smcap">Charles Bagot</span>.</p>

<p class="noindent">The Right Hon. <span class="smcap">George Canning</span>.</p>

<h4>3. Secret and separate.</h4>

<p class="date">Foreign Office, February 6th, 1826.</p>

<p>In consequence of your despatch marked “Secret,” of the 3rd instant,
I send your Excellency the cyphers and the decyphers I and U, both of which
are in the possession of his Majesty’s ambassador at St. Petersburg and his
Majesty’s minister at Berlin.</p>

<p>I regret the circumstance of your Excellency’s not having been furnished
with the proper cyphers, as I was anxious that your Excellency should receive
with as little delay as possible the impression which has been made upon his
Majesty’s Government by the very opposite feelings and conduct which have
been demonstrated by the governments of the Netherlands and France, in the
late commercial negotiations with Great Britain.</p>

<p class="signoff">I am, &amp;c.,</p>

<p class="signoff">(Signed)</p>

<p class="sig"><span class="smcap">George Canning</span>.</p>

<p class="noindent">His Excellency
The Right Hon. Sir <span class="smcap">C. Bagot</span>.</p>

<h4>4. Private.</h4>

<p class="date">The Hague, February 13th, 1826.</p>

<p class="salutation"><span class="smcap">My dear Canning</span>,</p>

<p>You have fretted me to fiddlestrings, and I have a great mind not to
give you the satisfaction of ever knowing how completely your mystification of
me has succeeded. It was more than you had a right to expect when you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_591" id="Page_591">[591]</a></span>
drew from me that solemn and official lamentation which I sent you of my
inability to decypher his Majesty’s commands; but, as the devil would have
it, your success did not end here. The post which brought me the decyphers
arrived at eleven o’clock at night, when I had only time before I sent off the
other messenger to read your grave regret at what had occurred and to acknowledge
the receipt of the mail.</p>

<p>The next morning Ferney and I were up by cock-crow to make out “la
maudite dépêche;” and it was not till after an hour of most indescribable
anxiety that we were put “out of our fear” by finding what it really was,
and that “you Pyramus” were not Pyramus, but only “Bottom the
weaver.”</p>

<p>I could have slain you, but I got some fun myself, for I afterwards put
the fair decypher into Douglas’ hands, who read it twice without moving a
muscle, or to this hour discovering that it was not prose; and returning it to
me, declared that it was “oddly worded;” but he had always had a feeling that
the despatch must relate to discriminating duties.</p>

<p class="sig"><span class="smcap">C. Bagot.</span></p>

</div>

<hr />

<div class="footnotes">

<h2>FOOTNOTES</h2>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_1" id="Footnote_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Many of those works confound dates and names, and make the
most absurd, as well as the most malignant, accusations; but here
and there they relate facts which authentic documents have since
confirmed, as well as anecdotes which I have heard contemporaries
repeat, and of which I shall therefore take advantage.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_2" id="Footnote_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> “It is a terrible advantage to have done nothing; but one
must not abuse it.”</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_3" id="Footnote_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> There seems to be some difficulty in ascertaining the date of M.
de Talleyrand’s birth with exactitude. I have been told, on apparently
the best authority, that he was born on the 7th of March, on
the 1st of September, and on the 2nd of February. This last is the
date I have selected, having reason upon the whole to believe it the
correct one. With respect to the year there is no dispute.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_4" id="Footnote_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> The Countess de Talleyrand lived to 1809; and was very
proud of the talents of her son, but regretting, it is said, the use he
had made of them.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_5" id="Footnote_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> This gentleman had been <i lang="fr">menin</i> to the Dauphin, son of Louis
XV. He subsequently commanded a regiment in the Seven Years’
War, and rose to be lieutenant-general in the King’s armies. He
bore an excellent character, but was never considered to have any
ability.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_6" id="Footnote_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> This singular fact is mentioned by M. Mignet in a short and
able memoir, which after M. de Talleyrand’s death he read to the
French Academy.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_7" id="Footnote_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> “And who are you, my friend?” “I am your coachmaker,
my lord.” “Ah! you are my coachmaker; and what do you want,
my coachmaker?” “I want to be paid, my lord.” “Ah! you are
my coachmaker, and you want to be paid; you shall be paid,
my coachmaker.” “And when, my lord?” “You are very inquisitive!”</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_8" id="Footnote_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> Sieyès, in a celebrated pamphlet published at this period.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_9" id="Footnote_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> Evêque d’Autun, archévêque de Bordeaux, Lally, Clermont-Tonnerre,
Mounier, Sieyès, &amp;c., &amp;c.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_10" id="Footnote_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> “Our souls were then intoxicated by a gentle philanthropy,
which induced us to seek passionately the means of being useful to
humanity, and of rendering the condition of man more happy.”</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_11" id="Footnote_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> “This man has made himself great by placing himself always
by the side of the little, and aiding those who most needed him.”</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_12" id="Footnote_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> “La motion du clergé lui a conquis cette place.”&mdash;<cite>Correspondance
de Mirabeau et le Comte de la Marck.</cite></p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_13" id="Footnote_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> The presidency was only for fifteen days; but the consideration
in which this dignity was held may be estimated by the fact that
Mirabeau, notwithstanding his utmost efforts, was unable to obtain
it until the subsequent year.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_14" id="Footnote_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> “Each of the two nations should by this means form its
standards, which it ought to preserve with the greatest care, so that
if, at the end of several centuries, any variation in the sidereal year
should be perceived, the standards might serve to ascertain its
extent, and in this way to connect this important point in the
system of the universe with a mighty epoch, such as that of the
National Assembly. Perhaps, even we may be permitted to foresee
in this co-operation of two nations, together interrogating nature to
obtain from her an important solution, the principle of a political
union brought about by the intervention of the sciences.”</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_15" id="Footnote_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> “La popularité de M. de Lafayette qui s’était élevée si haut
commençait à décliner de ce jour là (14 July): un mois plus tard,
les cris ‘à bas Lafayette!’ avaient succédé aux cris de ‘Vive
Lafayette!’”&mdash;(<cite>Comte de la Marck.</cite>)</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_16" id="Footnote_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> “I should be inconsolable if the severity of our decrees as to
the clergy should not produce as its result the salvation of the
State.”&mdash;See <cite>Appendix</cite>.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_17" id="Footnote_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> “Saying is quite a different thing from doing: the preaching
and the preacher must be considered apart.”</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_18" id="Footnote_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> A defence has been set up for Mirabeau, viz., that the work,
though written by him, was published without his knowledge by a
bookseller’s wife, his mistress. But besides the utter improbability
of this story, there is the fact that Mirabeau remained until his
death on the best terms with the person who would thus have
betrayed a most sacred trust and merited his bitterest contempt and
indignation.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_19" id="Footnote_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> See <cite>Les Considérations sur la Révolution</cite>, by Madame de Staël.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_20" id="Footnote_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> See <cite>Appendix</cite>.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_21" id="Footnote_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> When M. Mercy, the Austrian ambassador, and for a long time
the intermediate agent between the court and Mirabeau, left Paris,
M. de Montmorin, the minister of foreign affairs, was, without the
knowledge of his colleagues, admitted into the secret of the court’s
engagements, and authorised to correspond with Mirabeau concerning
their execution.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_22" id="Footnote_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> “I shall be what I have always been, the defender of the
monarchical power, regulated by the laws; the apostle of liberty,
guaranteed by the monarchical power.”</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_23" id="Footnote_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> “The brief of the Pope arrived last Thursday. De Talleyrand-Périgord,
the late Bishop of Autun, is suspended from all functions
and excommunicated, if after forty days he has not repented.”</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_24" id="Footnote_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> “The ministers, the royalists of the Assembly, were all left in
ignorance of the King’s intentions, and exposed to great peril. Such
was the situation, not only of the National Guards and their officers,
but also of the most devoted of the King’s friends, the Duc de
Brissac, commander of the Swiss Guards, and M. de Montmorin,
who had unwittingly given a passport in the name of the Baroness
de Korff.”</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_25" id="Footnote_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> “Ce prince (Louis XVI.) dont on ne peut trop déplorer le
manque de bonne foi dans cette occasion, lui donna les assurances si
positives, si solennelles, qu’il crut pouvoir répondre <em>sur sa tête</em> que
le roi ne partirait pas.”&mdash;<cite>Mémoires de Lafayette.</cite></p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_26" id="Footnote_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> “The Duc d’Orléans is the vase into which people have thrown
all the filth of the Revolution.”</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_27" id="Footnote_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> M. de Rulhières, l’ancien secrétaire du baron de Breteuil à St.
Pétersbourg, le confident du maréchal de Richelieu, le poëte de la
duchesse d’Egmont, narrateur fort redouté de Catherine II., &amp;c. &amp;c.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_28" id="Footnote_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> March 9. Lord Grenville to Lord Gower.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_29" id="Footnote_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> He acted as secretary to the mission.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_30" id="Footnote_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> M. de Talleyrand amuses himself, M. de Chauvelin grumbles,
and M. de Roveray bargains.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_31" id="Footnote_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> No zeal, sir.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_32" id="Footnote_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> “<span class="smcap">Sire</span>,&mdash;I address to your Majesty a letter written the day
before yesterday, and which I only received yesterday after mid-day.
It is from the Bishop of Autun, who seems desirous to serve your
Majesty. He had it conveyed to me that the King might make a
trial of his zeal and influence, and indicate to him the points on
which he could be employed.”</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_33" id="Footnote_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a></p>

<p class="date">“18 septembre, Kensington Square.</p>

<p class="salutation">“<span class="smcap">My Lord</span>,</p>

<p>“J’ai l’honneur de vous informer que je suis arrivé en Angleterre
il y a deux jours. Les rapports que j’ai eu l’avantage d’avoir
avec vous pendant mon séjour à Londres m’en font un devoir.</p>

<p>“Je me reprocherais de ne pas m’en acquitter promptement et de
ne pas offrir mes premiers hommages au ministre dont l’esprit m’a
paru au niveau des grands événements de cette époque, et qui a
toujours manifesté des vues si pures, et un amour éclairé de la vraie
liberté.</p>

<p>“A mes premiers voyages j’étais chargé par le roi d’une mission à
laquelle j’attachais le plus grand prix. Je voulais hâter le moment
de la prospérité de la France, et par conséquent l’attacher, s’il était
possible, à l’Angleterre.</p>

<p>“J’osais à peine, il est vrai, espérer tant de bonheur dans nos circonstances,
mais je ne pouvais me résoudre à ne pas faire des efforts
pour y parvenir.</p>

<p>“L’assurance que vos daignâtes nous donner de la neutralité de
votre gouvernement à l’époque de la guerre me parut un présage
très-heureux.</p>

<p>“Depuis ce moment tout est cruellement changé parmi nous, et
quoique rien ne puisse jamais détacher mon cœur ni mes vœux de la
France, et que mon espoir soit d’y retourner aussitôt que les lois y
auront repris leur empire, je dois vous dire, mylord, et je tiens
beaucoup à ce que vous sachiez que je n’ai absolument aucune espèce
de mission en Angleterre, que j’y suis venu uniquement pour y chercher
la paix et pour y jouir de la liberté au milieu de ses véritables
amis.</p>

<p>“Si pourtant mylord Grenville désirait connaître ce que c’est que
la France en ce moment, quels sont les différents partis qui l’agitent,
et quel est le nouveau pouvoir exécutif provisoire, et enfin ce qu’il
est permis de conjecturer des terribles et épouvantables événements
dont j’ai été presque le témoin oculaire, je serais charmé de le lui
apprendre et de trouver cette occasion de lui renouveler l’assurance
des sentiments de respect avec lesquels je suis, mylord, votre très-humble,
et très-obéissant serviteur,</p>

<p class="sig">“<span class="smcap">Talleyrand-Périgord</span>.”</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_34" id="Footnote_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a></p>

<p class="center">“<i>Déclaration de Monsieur de Talleyrand.</i></p>

<p>“Mon respect pour le conseil du roi, et ma confiance en sa justice
m’engagent à lui présenter une déclaration personnelle plus détaillée
que celle que je vois comme étranger présenter au magistrat.</p>

<p>“Je suis venu à Londres vers la fin de janvier 1792, chargé par
le gouvernement français d’une mission auprès du gouvernement
d’Angleterre. Cette mission avait pour objet, dans un moment où
toute l’Europe paraissait se déclarer contre la France, d’engager le
gouvernement d’Angleterre de ne point renoncer aux sentiments
d’amitié et de bon voisinage qu’il avait montré constamment en
faveur de la France pendant le cours de la Révolution. Le roi
surtout, dont le vœux le plus ardent était le maintien d’une paix
qui lui paraissait aussi utile à l’Europe en général qu’à la France en
particulier, le roi attachait un grand prix à la neutralité et à l’amitié
de l’Angleterre, et il avait chargé Monsieur de Montmorin qui conservait
sa confiance, et Monsieur de Laporte, de me témoigner son désir
à ce sujet. J’étais chargé de plus par les ministres du roi de faire au
gouvernement d’Angleterre des propositions relatives à l’intérêt
commercial des deux nations. La constitution n’avait pas permis
au roi en me chargeant de ses ordres, de me revêtir d’un caractère
public. Ce défaut de titre officiel me fut opposé par mylord
Grenville comme un obstacle à toute conférence politique. Je
demandai en conséquence mon rappel à Monsieur de Laporte, et je
retournai en France. Un ministre plénipotentiaire fut envoyé
quelque temps après; le roi me chargea d’en seconder les travaux,
et en fit part à S. M. Britannique par une lettre particulière. Je
suis resté attaché au devoir que le roi m’avait imposé jusqu’à l’époque
du 10 août, 1792. J’étais alors à Paris où j’avais été appelé par le
ministre des affaires étrangères. Après avoir été plus d’un mois
sans pouvoir obtenir de passeport et être resté exposé pendant tout ce
temps, et comme administrateur du département de Paris, et comme
membre de l’Assemblée Constituante à tous les dangers qui peuvent
menacer la vie et la liberté, j’ai pu enfin sortir de Paris vers le
milieu de septembre, et je suis venu en Angleterre jouir de la paix
et de la sûreté personnelle à l’abri d’une constitution protectrice de
la liberté et de la propriété. J’y existe, comme je l’ai toujours été,
étranger à toutes les discussions et à tous les intérêts de parti; et
n’ayant pas plus à redouter devant les hommes justes la publicité
d’une seule de mes opinions politiques que la connaissance d’une
seule de mes actions. Outre les motifs de sûreté et de liberté qui
m’ont ramené en Angleterre, il est une autre raison, très-légitime
sans doute, c’est la suite de quelques affaires personnelles et la vente
prochaine d’une bibliothèque assez considérable que j’avais à Paris,
et que j’ai transportée à Londres.</p>

<p>“Je dois ajouter que devenu en quelque sorte étranger à la France,
où je n’ai conservé d’autres rapports que ceux de mes affaires personnelles,
et d’une ancienne amitié je ne puis me rapprocher de ma
patrie que par les vœux ardents que je fais pour le rétablissement de
sa liberté et de son bonheur.</p>

<p>“J’ai cru que dans des circonstances où la malveillance pouvait
se servir de quelques préventions pour les faire tourner au profit
d’inimitiés dues aux premières époques de notre Révolution, c’était
remplir les vues du conseil du roi que de lui offrir dans une déclaration
précise un exposé des motifs de mon séjour en Angleterre, et un
garant assuré et irrévocable de mon respect pour la constitution et
pour les lois.</p>

<p class="sig">“<span class="smcap">Talleyrand.</span></p>

<p class="date">“1er janvier, 1793.”</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_35" id="Footnote_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> “L’art de mettre des hommes à leur place est le premier de la
science du gouvernement; mais celui de trouver la place des mécontents
est à coup sûr le plus difficile; et présenter à leur imagination
des lointains, des perspectives où puissent se prendre leurs pensées et
leurs désirs, est, je crois, une des solutions de cette difficulté sociale.”</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_36" id="Footnote_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> (XII.) Eclaircissements donnés par le citoyen Talleyrand à ses
concitoyens.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_37" id="Footnote_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> See <cite>Appendix</cite>.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_38" id="Footnote_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> “After all that Sieyès has a very profound intellect.” “Profound!
Hem! You mean perhaps&mdash;<em>hollow</em>.”</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_39" id="Footnote_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a> Bourrienne.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_40" id="Footnote_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_40"><span class="label">[40]</span></a> “Quand Roger Ducos et Sieyès portaient le titre de consuls, les
trois membres de la commission consulaire étaient égaux, si non de
fait, du moins en droit. Cambacérès et Lebrun les ayant remplacés,
M. de Talleyrand, appelé dans le même moment à succéder à M.
Reinhard au ministère des relations extérieures, fut reçu en audience
particulière dans le cabinet du premier consul.</p>

<p>“‘Citoyen Consul,’ lui dit-il, ‘vous m’avez confié le ministère des
relations extérieures, et je justifierai votre confiance; mais je dois
vous déclarer dès à présent que je ne veux travailler qu’avec vous.
Il n’y a point là de vaine fierté de ma part; je vous parle seulement
dans l’intérêt de la France. Pour qu’elle soit bien gouvernée, pour
qu’il y ait unité d’action, il faut que vous soyez le premier consul, et
que le premier consul ait dans sa main tout ce qui tient directement
à la politique, c’est-à-dire les ministères de l’intérieur et de la police,
pour les affaires du dehors; ensuite les deux grands moyens d’exécution,
la guerre et la marine. Il serait donc de toute convenance que
les ministres de ces cinq départements travaillassent avec vous seul.
L’administration de la justice et le bon ordre dans les finances tiennent
sans doute à la politique par une foule de liens: mais ces liens
sont moins sacrés. Si vous me permettez de le dire, général,
j’ajouterai qu’il conviendrait de donner au deuxième consul, très-habile
jurisconsulte, la haute main sur la justice, et au troisième
consul, également bien versé dans la connaissance des lois financières,
la haute main sur les finances. Cela les occupera, les amusera; et
vous, général, ayant à votre disposition les parties vitales du gouvernement,
vous arriverez au noble but que vous vous proposez&mdash;la
régénération de la France.’”</p>

<p>“Qui ne reconnaît là le premier germe de l’archichancellerie et de
l’architrésorerie de l’empire?” Bourrienne, <cite>Mémoires</cite>, vol. iii., pp.
324, 325.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_41" id="Footnote_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_41"><span class="label">[41]</span></a> See <cite>Napoleon’s Letter to King George III. before Marengo</cite>.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_42" id="Footnote_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor_42"><span class="label">[42]</span></a></p>

<p class="salutation">“<i>A notre Très-cher Fils, Charles Maurice Talleyrand.</i></p>

<p>“Nous avons été touché de joie quand nous avons appris l’ardent
désir que vous avez de vous réconcilier avec nous et avec l’Eglise
catholique. Dilatant donc à votre égard les entrailles de notre charité
paternelle, nous vous dégageons par la plénitude de notre puissance
du lien de toutes les excommunications. Nous vous imposons par
suite de votre reconciliation avec nous et avec l’Eglise, des distributions
d’aumônes pour le soulagement surtout des pauvres de l’église
d’Autun que vous avez gouvernée. Nous vous accordons le pouvoir
de porter l’habit séculier, et de gérer toutes les affaires civiles, soit
qu’il vous plaise de demeurer dans la charge que vous exercez maintenant,
soit que vous passiez à d’autres auxquelles votre gouvernement
pourrait vous appeler.”</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_43" id="Footnote_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor_43"><span class="label">[43]</span></a> Fouché, not then in office, was also consulted.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_44" id="Footnote_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor_44"><span class="label">[44]</span></a> It is even remarked, that a few days previous, the Duc Dalberg
had been informed that there was no jealousy of the <i lang="fr">émigrés</i> at that
place.&mdash;See <cite>M. de Rovigo</cite>, vol. ii., and <cite>Letter of the Duc Dalberg to
M. de Talleyrand</cite>, 13th November, 1823.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_45" id="Footnote_45"></a><a href="#FNanchor_45"><span class="label">[45]</span></a> There were two “<i lang="fr">procès-verbaux</i>,” or accounts taken of this
trial. The one published in the <cite>Moniteur</cite>, which cites the laws in
virtue of which the prince was condemned, and the pieces that were
brought forward in proof of the accusation. This is evidently an
afterthought: there was not time to write it at the spot and on the
scene. The other cites nothing but the decree of the 29th Ventôse,
and the answers of the prince, after a deliberation on which he is
ordered to immediate execution; this is genuine. The laws by
which he is condemned are left in blank.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_46" id="Footnote_46"></a><a href="#FNanchor_46"><span class="label">[46]</span></a> “Bonaparte seul, mal informé par ce que la police avait de plus
vil, et n’écoutant que sa fureur, se porta à cet excès sans consulter.
Il fit enlever le prince avec l’intention de le tuer. Il est connu que
sous votre ministère vous n’avez cessé de modérer les passions de
Bonaparte.”&mdash;<cite>Letter of Duc Dalberg</cite>, May 13, 1823.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_47" id="Footnote_47"></a><a href="#FNanchor_47"><span class="label">[47]</span></a> The houses of the upper classes had oaken floors, called
<i lang="fr">parquets</i>: the houses of the lower classes had brick floors.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_48" id="Footnote_48"></a><a href="#FNanchor_48"><span class="label">[48]</span></a> “Was re-making the bed of the Bourbons.”</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_49" id="Footnote_49"></a><a href="#FNanchor_49"><span class="label">[49]</span></a> See <cite>Mémoires sur Talleyrand</cite>, read in the Academy by M.
Mignet, May 11, 1839.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_50" id="Footnote_50"></a><a href="#FNanchor_50"><span class="label">[50]</span></a> The term applied to persons detained in France at the rupture
of the peace of Amiens.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_51" id="Footnote_51"></a><a href="#FNanchor_51"><span class="label">[51]</span></a> <cite>Mémoires de Rovigo.</cite></p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_52" id="Footnote_52"></a><a href="#FNanchor_52"><span class="label">[52]</span></a> <cite>Mémoires de Rovigo</cite>, vol. iii. p. 116.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_53" id="Footnote_53"></a><a href="#FNanchor_53"><span class="label">[53]</span></a> With regard to his habits in this respect, it may not be amiss
to refer to the American correspondence: <cite>State Papers and Public
Documents of the United States</cite>, vol. iii. pp. 473-479.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_54" id="Footnote_54"></a><a href="#FNanchor_54"><span class="label">[54]</span></a> A note written by M. Izquierdo, Spanish ambassador to the
Court of France, and dated 24th of March, 1808, is exceedingly
curious respecting these particulars.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_55" id="Footnote_55"></a><a href="#FNanchor_55"><span class="label">[55]</span></a> “Le prince était instruit dans le plus grand détail de ce qui
s’était passé à Bayonne, et il m’en parut indigné: ‘Les victoires,’
me disait-il, ‘ne suffisent pas pour effacer de pareils traits, parce
qu’il y a là je ne sais quoi de vil; de la tromperie, de la tricherie!
Je ne peux pas dire ce qui en arrivera, mais vous verrez que cela ne
lui sera pardonné par personne.’ Le duc Decrès m’a plus d’une fois
assuré que l’Empereur avait reproché en sa présence à M. de Talleyrand
de lui avoir conseillé tout ce qui s’était fait à Bayonne, sans
que celui-ci eût cherché à s’en défendre. Cela m’a toujours étonné.
D’abord, il suffit de connaître un peu M. de Talleyrand pour être
bien sûr que, si au fond il a été d’avis de déposséder du trône
d’Espagne les princes de la maison de Bourbon, il n’a certainement
pas indiqué les moyens qu’on a employés. Ensuite, lorsqu’il m’en a
parlé, c’était avec une sorte de colère qu’il n’éprouve qu’en présence
des événements qui le remuent fortement.”</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_56" id="Footnote_56"></a><a href="#FNanchor_56"><span class="label">[56]</span></a> “Il me fallait 800,000 hommes, et je les ai.”&mdash;<cite>Mémoires de
Fouché</cite>, vol. ii. p. 113.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_57" id="Footnote_57"></a><a href="#FNanchor_57"><span class="label">[57]</span></a> <cite>Mémoires de Rovigo</cite>, vol. vi. p. 66.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_58" id="Footnote_58"></a><a href="#FNanchor_58"><span class="label">[58]</span></a> “Une mauvaise paix ne peut nous devenir aussi funeste que la
continuation d’une guerre qui ne peut plus nous être favorable.”&mdash;<cite>Mémoires
de Rovigo</cite>, vol. vi. p. 229.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_59" id="Footnote_59"></a><a href="#FNanchor_59"><span class="label">[59]</span></a> “‘Jamais,’ dit-il au dignitaire qui le lui insinuait, ‘jamais je
ne donnerai la main à la perte d’un homme qui m’a longtemps
servi.’”&mdash;<cite>Mémoires de Rovigo</cite>, vol. vi. p. 298.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_60" id="Footnote_60"></a><a href="#FNanchor_60"><span class="label">[60]</span></a> M. Thiers gives the account of such a scene as we have just described,
but fixes it in 1809; nothing is omitted, not even the position
of M. de Talleyrand and his hat; and in this account M. Thiers makes
Napoleon accuse Talleyrand of the murder of the Duc d’Enghien.</p>

<p>I cannot but believe that M. Thiers’s authority has been incorrect.
Count Molé could not be mistaken as to dates and facts, for he was
present at the scene I have related, and stated to me all the details,
as I have given them, without touching on the Duc d’Enghien,
which he certainly would have spoken of had Napoleon himself done
so. The Emperor’s reproaches were, according to Count Molé,
entirely confined to what he considered were M. de Talleyrand’s
intrigues at that particular time&mdash;intrigues which were not, however,
then further advanced than in clearing away the obstacles which might
interfere with his defection, if Napoleon was ultimately defeated.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_61" id="Footnote_61"></a><a href="#FNanchor_61"><span class="label">[61]</span></a> “Eh bien! voilà donc la fin de tout ceci. N’est-ce pas aussi
votre opinion? Ma foi! c’est perdre une partie à beau jeu. Voyez
un peu où mène la sottise de quelques ignorants qui exercent avec
persévérance une influence de chaque jour. Pardieu! l’Empereur
est bien à plaindre, et on ne le plaindra pas, parce que son obstination
à garder son entourage n’a pas de motif raisonnable; ce n’est que
de la faiblesse qui ne se comprend pas dans un homme tel que lui.
Voyez, monsieur, quelle chute dans l’histoire! Donner son nom à
des aventures au lieu de le donner à son siècle! Quand je pense à
cela je ne puis m’empêcher d’en gémir. Maintenant quel parti
prendre? Il ne convient pas à tout le monde de se laisser engloutir
sous les ruines de cet édifice. Allons, nous verrons ce qui arrivera!</p>

<p>“L’Empereur, au lieu de me dire des injures, aurait mieux fait
de juger ceux qui lui inspiraient des préventions; il aurait vu que
des amis comme ceux-là sont plus à craindre que des ennemis.
Que dirait-il d’un autre s’il s’était laissé mettre dans cet état?”&mdash;<cite>Mémoires
du Duc de Rovigo</cite>, cités par M. Thiers.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_62" id="Footnote_62"></a><a href="#FNanchor_62"><span class="label">[62]</span></a> “Le lendemain, 12 avril, on se mit en marche pour aller au-devant
de Monsieur. Le temps était admirable; c’était un de ces
premiers jours du printemps, ravissants sous la température de Paris,
où le soleil brille de tout son éclat, et ne distribue qu’une chaleur
douce aux germes encore tendres qui sourdissent de toutes parts.
Quelques fleurs déjà entr’ouvertes, un vert tendre qui commençait à
poindre sur les arbres, le chant des oiseaux printaniers, l’air de joie
répandu sur les figures, et le vieux refrain du bon Henri qui marquait
la marche, avaient signalé cette entrée comme la fête de l’Espérance.
Il y régnait peu d’ordre, mais on y répandait des larmes. Dès
qu’on vit paraître le prince, M. de Talleyrand alla à sa rencontre, et
en s’appuyant sur le cheval du prince, avec la grâce nonchalante
qu’autorise la faiblesse de ses jambes, il lui débita un compliment
en quatre lignes, frappé au coin d’une sensibilité exquise. Le
prince, qui, de toutes parts se sentait pressé par des Français, était
trop ému pour pouvoir répondre; il dit, d’une voix étouffée par les
sanglots: ‘Monsieur de Talleyrand, Messieurs, je vous remercie; je
suis trop heureux. Marchons, marchons, je suis trop heureux!’</p>

<p>“Nous avons entendu depuis, le même prince répondre avec de la
présence d’esprit et du bonheur aux harangues qu’on lui faisait, mais,
pour ceux qui l’ont vu et qui l’ont entendu à son entrée à Paris, il
ne fut jamais aussi éloquent que ce jour-là. Le cortège se mit en
marche pour Notre-Dame, suivant l’antique usage d’aller porter à
Dieu, dans la première église de Paris, les hommages solennels des
Français pour chaque événement heureux. La garde nationale
formait le fond du cortège, mais il se composait aussi d’officiers
russes, prussiens, autrichiens, espagnols, portugais, à la tête desquels
le prince apparaissait comme un ange de paix descendu au milieu de
la grande famille européenne. Depuis la Barrière de Bondy jusqu’au
Parvis Notre-Dame, il n’y avait pas une fenêtre qui ne fût garnie de
figures rayonnantes de joie. Le peuple, répandu dans les rues,
poursuivait le prince de ses applaudissements et de ses cris. A
peine pouvait-il avancer au milieu de l’ivresse générale, et il répondit
à quelqu’un qui voulait écarter de si douces entraves:
‘Laissez, Monsieur, laissez, j’arriverai toujours trop tôt.’</p>

<p>“C’est ainsi que le prince fut, s’il est permis de le dire, porté jusqu’à
Notre-Dame sur les cœurs des Français; et à son entrée dans
le sanctuaire, lorsqu’il se prosterna aux pieds de l’autel, qui avait,
durant tant de siècles, reçu les prières de ses pères, un rayon de
lumière très-vive vint frapper sur sa figure et lui imprima je ne sais
quoi de céleste. Il priait avec ardeur; tous priaient avec lui. Des
larmes mouillaient nos yeux; il en échappait aux étrangers eux-mêmes.
Oh! avec quelle vérité, avec quelle ardeur, chaque strophe
de l’hymne de la reconnaissance était poussée vers les cieux! A la
fin de la cérémonie, de vieux serviteurs du prince qui avaient pleuré
trente ans son absence embrassaient ses genoux, et il les relevait avec
cette grâce du cœur si touchante et qui lui est si naturelle. Le
retour, de Notre-Dame aux Tuileries ne fut pas moins animé, moins
heureux, et, parvenu dans la cour du palais, le prince descendit le
cheval et adressa à la garde nationale une allocution parfaitement
appliquée à la situation. Il prit la main à plusieurs officiers et
soldats, les pria de se souvenir de ce beau jour, et leur protesta que
lui-même ne l’oublierait jamais. Je fis ouvrir devant le prince les
portes du palais et j’eus l’honneur de l’introduire dans l’aile qu’il
devait habiter.</p>

<p>“Je lui demandai ses ordres pour le reste de la journée, et l’heure
à laquelle je devais me présenter le lendemain pour le travail. Le
prince paraissait hésiter s’il me laisserait partir ou me retiendrait.
Je crus m’apercevoir que c’était indulgence de sa part, et je lui dis
que je craindrais de l’occuper une minute de plus, parce que je le
supposais fatigué, et c’est à moi qu’il répondit:&mdash;‘Comment voulez-vous
que je sois fatigué? C’est le seul jour de bonheur que j’ai
goûté depuis trente ans. Ah! monsieur, quelle belle journée!
Dites que je suis heureux et satisfait de tout le monde. Voilà mes
ordres pour aujourd’hui&mdash;à demain, à neuf heures du matin.’</p>

<p>“En quittant le prince, je repris mon travail ordinaire et je le
quittai sur les onze heures du soir pour aller chez M. de Talleyrand.
Je le trouvai s’entretenant de la journée avec MM. Pasquier, Dupont
de Némours, et Anglès. On s’accordait à la trouver parfaite. M. de
Talleyrand rappela qu’il fallait un article au <cite>Moniteur</cite>. Dupont
s’offrit de le faire. ‘Non pas,’ reprit M. de Talleyrand, ‘vous y
mettriez de la poésie; je vous connais. Beugnot suffit pour cela;
qu’il passe dans la bibliothèque et qu’il broche bien vite un article
pour que nous l’envoyions à Sauvo.’</p>

<p>“Je me mets à la besogne qui n’était pas fort épineuse, mais parvenu
à la mention de la réponse du prince à M. de Talleyrand, j’y
suis embarrassé. Quelques mots échappés à un sentiment profond
produisent de l’effet par le ton dont ils sont prononcés, par la présence
des objets qui les ont provoqués, mais quand il s’agit de les traduire
sur le papier, dépouillés de ces entours, ils ne sont plus que froids, et
trop heureux s’ils ne sont pas ridicules. Je reviens à M. de Talleyrand,
et je lui fais part de la difficulté.&mdash;‘Voyons,’ me répondit-il,
‘qu’a dit <i>Monsieur</i>? Je n’ai pas entendu grand’chose; il me paraissait
ému et fort curieux de continuer sa route; mais si ce qu’il a dit
ne vous convient pas, faites-lui une réponse.’ ‘Mais comment faire
un discours que <i>Monsieur</i> n’a pas tenu?’ ‘La difficulté n’est pas
là: faites-le bon, convenable à la personne et au moment, et je vous
promets que <i>Monsieur</i> l’acceptera, et si bien, qu’au bout de deux
jours il croira l’avoir fait, et il l’aura fait; vous n’y serez plus pour
rien.’ A la bonne heure! Je rentre, j’essaye une première version,
et je l’apporte à la censure. ‘Ce n’est pas cela,’ dit M. de Talleyrand,
‘<i>Monsieur</i> ne fait pas d’antithèses et pas la plus petite fleur de
rhétorique. Soyez court, soyez simple, et dites ce qui convient
davantage à celui qui parle et à ceux qui écoutent; voilà tout.’ ‘Il
me semble,’ reprit M. Pasquier, ‘que ce qui agite bon nombre
d’esprits est la crainte des changements que doit occasionner le
retour des princes de la maison de Bourbon; il faudrait peut-être
toucher ce point, mais avec délicatesse.’ ‘Bien! et je le recommande,’
dit M. de Talleyrand. ‘J’essaye une nouvelle version et je
suis renvoyé une seconde fois, parce que j’ai été trop long et que le
style est apprêté. Enfin j’accouche de celle qui est au <cite>Moniteur</cite>, et
où je fais dire au prince: ‘Plus de divisions: la paix et la France;
je la revois enfin; et rien n’y est changé, si ce n’est qu’il s’y trouve
un Français de plus.’ ‘Pour cette fois je me rends!’ reprit enfin
le grand censeur, ‘c’est bien là le discours de <i>Monsieur</i>, et je vous
réponds que c’est lui qui l’a fait; vous pouvez être tranquille à
présent.’ Et en effet le mot fit fortune: les journaux s’en emparèrent
comme d’un à propos heureux; on le reproduisit aussi comme
un engagement pris par le prince, et le mot, ‘<em>un Français de plus!</em>’
devint le passeport obligé des harangues qui vinrent pleuvoir de toutes
parts. Le prince ne dédaigna pas de le commenter dans ses réponses,
et la prophétie de M. de Talleyrand fut complètement réalisée.”</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_63" id="Footnote_63"></a><a href="#FNanchor_63"><span class="label">[63]</span></a> Page 41, <cite>du Consulat</cite>.&mdash;“A huit heures du soir le Sénat se
présenta aux Tuileries, ayant en tête son président, M. de Talleyrand.
Ce personnage si bien fait pour les représentations où il
fallait tempérer le fermeté par une exquise politesse, s’approcha du
Prince, et selon sa coutume s’appuyant sur une canne, la tête
penchée sur l’épaule, lut un discours à la fois fier et adroit, dans
lequel il expliquait la conduite du Sénat sans l’excuser, car elle
n’avait pas besoin d’excuse.</p>

<p>“‘Le Sénat,’ disait-il, ‘a provoqué le retour de votre auguste
maison au trône de France. Trop instruit par le présent et le passé,
il désire avec la nation affermir pour jamais l’autorité royale sur une
juste division des pouvoirs, et sur la liberté publique, seules garanties
du bonheur et des intérêts de tous.</p>

<p>“‘Le Sénat, persuadé que les principes de la constitution nouvelle
sont dans votre cœur, vous défère, par le décret que j’ai l’honneur de
vous présenter le titre de lieutenant-général du royaume jusqu’à
l’arrivée du Roi, votre auguste frère. Notre respectueuse confiance
ne peut mieux honorer l’antique loyauté qui vous fut transmise par
vos ancêtres.</p>

<p>“‘Monseigneur, le Sénat, en ces moments d’allégresse publique,
obligé de rester en apparence plus calme sur la limite de ses devoirs,
n’en est pas moins pénétré des sentiments universels. Votre Altesse
Royale lira dans nos cœurs à travers la retenue même de notre
langage.’”</p>

<p>M. de Talleyrand joignit à ces paroles fermes et respectueuses les
protestations de dévouement qui étaient alors dans toutes les
bouches; il y mit de moins la banalité et la bassesse qui se rencontraient
dans presque toutes.</p>

<p>“Le Prince répondit par le texte de la déclaration convenue.
‘Messieurs,’ dit-il, ‘j’ai pris connaissance de l’acte constitutionnel
qui rappelle au trône de France le Roi, mon auguste frère. Je n’ai
point reçu de lui le pouvoir d’accepter la Constitution, mais je
connais ses sentiments et ses principes, et je ne crains pas d’être
désavoué en assurant en son nom qu’il en admettra les bases.’</p>

<p>“Après cet engagement explicite, la déclaration énumérait les
bases elles-mêmes, c’est-à-dire la division des pouvoirs, le partage du
gouvernement entre le Roi et les Chambres, la responsabilité des
ministres, le vote de l’impôt par la nation, la liberté de la presse, la
liberté individuelle, la liberté des cultes, l’inamovibilité des juges, le
maintien de la dette publique, des ventes, dites nationales, de la
Légion d’Honneur, des grades et dotations de l’armée, l’oubli des
votes et actes antérieurs, etc. ‘J’espère ajouta le Prince, que l’énumération
de ces conditions vous suffit, et comprend toutes les
garanties qui peuvent assurer la liberté et le repos de la France.’”</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_64" id="Footnote_64"></a><a href="#FNanchor_64"><span class="label">[64]</span></a> Page 121.&mdash;“‘Je sais tout cela mieux que vous,’ répondit M. de
Talleyrand, ‘mais il ne faut pas qu’il en reste de trace dans l’esprit
du roi, et c’est pour que l’oubli soit patent que j’ai choisi le duc de
Liancourt; c’est l’homme du pays; il y fait du bien à tout le monde,
il est placé pour en faire au roi, et je vous proteste qu’il sera bien
reçu. Ce qui est passé est passé: la nature n’a pas donné aux
hommes d’yeux par derrière, c’est de ce qui est devant qu’il faut
s’occuper, et il nous restera encore assez à faire. Mais cependant, si
M. de Liancourt trouvait de la difficulté à approcher du Roi? Car
on s’accorde à dire qu’il est sous le joug d’un M. de Blacas qui ne
laisse aborder que ceux qui lui conviennent. Qu’est-ce que ce
Blacas? Je ne sais pas d’où il vient et me soucie assez peu de la
savoir. Nous allons entrer dans un régime constitutionnel où le
crédit se mesurera sur la capacité. C’est par la tribune et par les
affaires que les hommes prendront désormais leur place, et se
chargera qui voudra d’épier le moment du lever et de vider les
poches du roi à son coucher.’</p>

<p>“M. de Liancourt était en effet parti, et partageant l’illusion de
M. de Talleyrand il croyait aller reprendre sans difficulté auprès du
roi l’exercice de son ancienne charge de maître de la garderobe.
Tous deux avaient notablement compté sans leur hôte. M. de
Liancourt ne vit point le roi, mais seulement M. de Blacas, qui le
congédia avec la politesse froide qui ne lui manque jamais. Le
hasard me fit rencontrer M. de Liancourt au retour, et avant qu’il eût
pu voir M. de Talleyrand, je lui demandai comment il avait été reçu.
Il me répondit: ‘Mal, très-mal, ou, pour mieux dire, pas du tout. Il
y a là un certain M. de Blacas qui garde les avenues et vous croyez
bien que je ne me suis pas abaissé à lutter contre; au reste, je crains
fort que M. de Talleyrand n’ait donné dans un piège: les princes
vont nous revenir les mêmes que lorsqu’ils nous ont quittés.’</p>

<p>“Le roi nous fut bientôt annoncé; les affaires se pressaient les
unes sur les autres de telle sorte qu’à peine l’insuccès de M. de Liancourt
put effleurer l’attention. Il fallait, toutefois, qu’il eût donné
beaucoup à penser à M. de Talleyrand, car il n’en parlait à personne.”</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_65" id="Footnote_65"></a><a href="#FNanchor_65"><span class="label">[65]</span></a> “Mon Dieu, sire, je n’ai rien fait pour cela. C’est quelque
chose d’inexplicable que j’ai en moi et qui porte malheur aux
gouvernements qui me négligent.”</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_66" id="Footnote_66"></a><a href="#FNanchor_66"><span class="label">[66]</span></a> “But then, my dear M. de Talleyrand, I should be standing,
and you seated.”</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_67" id="Footnote_67"></a><a href="#FNanchor_67"><span class="label">[67]</span></a> M. Thiers is of this opinion.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_68" id="Footnote_68"></a><a href="#FNanchor_68"><span class="label">[68]</span></a> “Madame de Simiane reprit: ‘Il ne s’agit pas de cela; c’était
bon du temps de Bonaparte; aujourd’hui il faut mettre dans les
ministères des gens de qualité et qui ont à leurs ordres des bons
travailleurs qui font les affaires, ce qu’on appele des <em>bouleux</em>.’”&mdash;<cite>Mémoires
de Beugnot</cite>, p. 142.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_69" id="Footnote_69"></a><a href="#FNanchor_69"><span class="label">[69]</span></a> So many and such different accounts are given of the time and
manner in which this news arrived, that I merely give the popular,
without answering for its being the accurate one.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_70" id="Footnote_70"></a><a href="#FNanchor_70"><span class="label">[70]</span></a> “Le Conseil s’assemble: il se composait de MM. de Talleyrand,
Dambray, de Feltre, de Fancourt, Beurnonville, et moi.</p>

<p>“Après deux mots de M. de Talleyrand sur ce dont le Roi a permis
que le Conseil s’occupât, je commence la lecture du projet de la proclamation
tel que les corrections l’avaient ajusté. Le Roi me laisse
aller jusqu’au bout; puis, et non sans quelque émotion que trahit
sa figure, m’ordonne de relire. Quand j’ai fini cette seconde lecture,
Monsieur prend la parole; il se plaint avec vivacité des termes dans
lesquels cette proclamation est rédigée. On y fait demander pardon
au Roi des fautes qu’il a commises; on lui fait dire qu’il s’est laissé
entraîner à ses affections, et promettre qu’il aura dans l’avenir une
conduite toute différente. De pareilles expressions n’ont qu’un tort,
celui d’avilir la royauté; car du reste elles disent trop ou ne disent
rien du tout. M. de Talleyrand répond:</p>

<p>“‘Monsieur, pardonnera si je diffère de sentiments avec lui. Je
trouve ces expressions nécessaires, et pourtant bien placées; le Roi a
fait des fautes; ses affections l’ont égaré; il n’y a rien là de trop.’</p>

<p>“‘Est-ce moi,’ reprend Monsieur, ‘qu’on veut indirectement
désigner?’</p>

<p>“‘Oui, puisque Monsieur a placé la discussion sur ce terrain, Monsieur
a fait beaucoup de mal.’</p>

<p>“‘Le prince de Talleyrand s’oublie!…’</p>

<p>“‘Je le crains, mais la vérité m’emporte.…’</p>

<p>“M. le Duc de Berry, <em>avec l’accent d’une colère péniblement contrainte</em>:
‘Il ne faut rien moins que la présence du Roi pour que je
permette à qui que ce soit de traiter ainsi mon père devant moi, et
je voudrais bien savoir.…’</p>

<p>“A ces mots, prononcés d’un ton encore plus élevé que le reste,
le Roi fait signe à M. le Duc de Berry, et dit: ‘Assez, mon neveu:
c’est à moi seul <em>à faire justice</em> de ce qui se dit en ma présence et dans
mon Conseil. Messieurs, je ne peux approuver ni les termes de la
proclamation, ni la discussion dont elle a été le sujet. Le rédacteur
retouchera son œuvre et ne perdra pas de vue les hautes convenances
qu’il faut savoir garder quand on me fait parler.’</p>

<p>“M. le Duc de Berry, <em>en me désignant</em>: ‘Mais ce n’est pas lui
qui a enfilé toutes ces sottises là.’</p>

<p>“Le Roi: ‘Mon neveu, cessez d’interrompre, s’il vous plaît.
Messieurs, je répète que j’ai entendu cette discussion avec beaucoup
de regrets. Passons à un autre sujet.…’”&mdash;<cite>Mémoires du Comte
Beugnot</cite>, tom. ii. p. 274.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_71" id="Footnote_71"></a><a href="#FNanchor_71"><span class="label">[71]</span></a> “Mais, reprend vivement M. de Talleyrand, partez donc!
Tandis que nous perdons le temps en allées et venues, et à disputer
sur la compétence, le pont sautera! Annoncez-vous de la part du
Roi de France et comme son ministre, dites les choses les plus fortes
sur le chagrin qu’il éprouve.</p>

<p>“Voulez-vous que je dise que le Roi va se faire porter de sa
personne sur le pont, pour sauter de compagnie si le maréchal ne se
rend pas?</p>

<p>“Non pas précisément: on ne nous croit pas faits pour un tel
héroïsme; mais quelque chose de bon et de fort: vous entendez bien,
quelque chose de fort.</p>

<p>“Je cours à l’hôtel dû maréchal. Il était absent, mais j’y trouve
les officiers de son état-major réunis. Je me fais annoncer de la part
du Roi de France, et je suis reçu avec une politesse respectueuse;
j’explique le sujet de ma mission à celui des officiers que je devais
supposer le chef de l’état-major. Il me répond par des regrets sur
l’absence de M. le maréchal, et s’excuse sur l’impuissance où il est
de donner des ordres sans avoir pris les siens. J’insiste, on prend le
parti d’aller chercher le maréchal qu’on était sur de trouver dans le
lieu confident de ses plus chers plaisirs, au Palais-Royal, No. 113.
Il arrive avec sa mauvaise humeur naturelle à laquelle se joignit le
chagrin d’avoir été dérangé de sa partie de trente-et-un. Il m’écoute
impatiemment, et comme il m’avait fort mal compris, il me répond
de telle sorte qu’à mon tour je n’y comprends rien du tout. Le chef
d’état-major reprend avec lui la conversation en allemand. Elle
dure quelque temps, et j’entendais assez la langue pour m’apercevoir
que le maréchal rejetait avec violence les observations fort raisonnables
que faisait l’officier. Enfin, ce dernier me dit que M. le
maréchal n’avait pas donné l’ordre pour la destruction du pont, que
je concevais sans peine comment le nom qu’il avait reçu importunait
des soldats prussiens; mais que du moment que le Roi de France
avait fait justice de ce nom, il ne doutait pas que les entreprises
commencées contre ce pont ne cessassent à l’instant même, et que
l’ordre allait en être donné. Je lui demandai la permission
d’attendre que l’ordre fût parti pour que j’eusse le droit de rassurer
complètement Sa Majesté. Il le trouva bon. Le maréchal était
retourné bien vite à son cher No. 113; l’ordre partit en effet. Je
suivis l’officier jusque sur la place, et quand je vis que les ouvriers
avaient cessé et se retiraient avec leurs outils, je vins rendre compte
à M. de Talleyrand de cette triste victoire. Cela lui rendit un peu
de bonne humeur. ‘Puisque les choses se sont passées de la sorte,
dit le prince, on pourrait tirer parti de votre idée de ce matin, que
le Roi avait menacé de se faire porter sur le pont pour sauter de compagnie:
il y a là matière d’un bon article de journal. Arrangez
cela.’</p>

<p>“Je l’arrangeai en effet; l’article parut dans les feuilles du surlendemain.
Louis XVIII. dût être bien effrayé d’un pareil coup de
tête de sa part; mais ensuite il en accepta de bonne grâce la renommée.
Je l’ai entendu complimenter de cet admirable trait de
courage, et il répendait avec une assurance parfaite.…”</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_72" id="Footnote_72"></a><a href="#FNanchor_72"><span class="label">[72]</span></a> “Vous voyez à quoi les circonstances me forcent: j’ai à vous remercier
de votre zèle, vous êtes sans reproche, et rien ne vous
empêche de rester tranquillement à Paris.”</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_73" id="Footnote_73"></a><a href="#FNanchor_73"><span class="label">[73]</span></a> “J’ai eu le bonheur de rendre au Roi assez de services pour
croire qu’ils n’ont pas été oubliés; je ne comprendrais pas ce qui
pourrait me forcer de quitter Paris. J’y resterai, et je serai trop
heureux d’apprendre qu’on ne fera pas suivre au Roi une ligne
capable de compromettre sa dynastie et la France.”</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_74" id="Footnote_74"></a><a href="#FNanchor_74"><span class="label">[74]</span></a> Of whom nineteen to be tried by military law, the rest banished.
A list of sixty, who were to be warned to quit France, was in the
same spirit reduced to twenty.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_75" id="Footnote_75"></a><a href="#FNanchor_75"><span class="label">[75]</span></a> “Gentlemen,&mdash;It is to-day sixteen years ago, that, called by
him who then governed the world to give him my opinion as to a
conflict which we were about to engage in with the Spanish people,
I had the misfortune to displease him by unveiling the future, and
revealing all the dangers likely to spring from an aggression not less
unjust than rash. Disgrace was the price of my sincerity. Strange
destiny! that which brings me back after this long space of time to
renew to my legitimate sovereign the same efforts, the same counsels.
The speech of the crown has dispelled the last hopes of the friends of
peace, and, menacing Spain, is, I ought to say it, alarming for
France.… Yes, I will have the courage to tell all the truth.
The chivalrous sentiments, which in 1789 carried away the generous
hearts of that epoch, could not save the legitimate monarchy: they
may lose it in 1823.”</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_76" id="Footnote_76"></a><a href="#FNanchor_76"><span class="label">[76]</span></a> “Sans la liberté de la presse il n’y a point de gouvernement représentatif:
elle est un de ses instruments essentiels, elle en est
l’instrument principal: chaque gouvernement a les siens, et nous
ne nous souvenons pas assez que souvent ceux qui sont bons pour
tel gouvernement sont détestables pour tel autre. Il a été démontré
jusqu’à l’évidence, par plusieurs membres de cette Chambre, qui,
dans cette session et dans le précédentes, ont parlé sur cette matière,
que sans la liberté de la presse il n’y a point de gouvernement représentatif.
Je ne vous redirai donc point ce que vous avez tous ou
entendu, ou lu, et ce qui a dû souvent être l’objet de vos méditations.</p>

<p>“Mais il est deux points de vue sous lesquels la question ne me
paraît pas avoir été suffisamment examinée et que je réduis à ces
deux propositions:</p>

<p>“1ᵒ. La liberté de la presse est une nécessité du temps.</p>

<p>“2ᵒ. Un gouvernement s’expose quand il se refuse obstinément et
trop longtemps à ce que le temps a proclamé nécessaire.</p>

<p>“L’esprit humain n’est jamais complètement stationnaire. La
découverte de la veille n’est pour lui qu’un moyen de plus d’arriver
à des découvertes nouvelles. Il est pourtant vrai de dire qu’il
semble procéder par crises, parce-qu’il y a des époques où il est plus
particulièrement tourmenté du besoin d’enfanter et de produire,
d’autres, au contraire, où, satisfait de ses conquêtes, il paraît se
reposer sur lui-même, et plus occupé de mettre ordre à ses richesses
que d’en acquérir de nouvelles: le dix-septième siècle fut une de ces
époques fortunées. L’esprit humain, étonné des richesses immenses
dont l’imprimerie l’avait mis complètement en possession, s’arrêta
d’admiration pour jouir de ce magnifique héritage. Tout entier aux
jouissances des lettres, des sciences et des arts, il mit sa gloire et son
bonheur à produire des chefs-d’œuvre. Tous les grands génies du
siècle de Louis XIV. travaillèrent a l’envi à embellir un ordre social
au-delà duquel ils ne voyaient rien, ils ne désiraient rien, et qui leur
paraissait devoir durer autant que la gloire du grand Roi, objet de
leurs respects et de leur enthousiasme. Mais quand on eut épuisé
cette mine féconde de l’antiquité, l’activité de l’esprit humain se
trouva presque forcée de chercher ailleurs, et il ne trouva de choses
nouvelles que dans les études spéculatives qui embrassent tout
l’avenir, et dont les limites sont inconnues. Ce fut dans ces dispositions
que s’ouvrit le dix-huitième siècle, qui devait si peu ressembler
au précédent. Aux leçons poétiques de Télémaque succédèrent les
théories de l’esprit des lois, et Port-Royal fut remplacé par l’Encyclopédie.</p>

<p>“Je vous prie de remarquer, Messieurs, que je ne blâme ni
n’approuve: je raconte.</p>

<p>“En nous rappelant tous les maux versés sur la France pendant la
révolution, il ne faut cependant pas être tout-à-fait injuste envers
les génies supérieurs qui l’ont amenée; et nous ne devons pas oublier
que si dans leurs écrits ils n’ont pas toujours su se préserver de
l’erreur, nous leur devons aussi la révélation de quelques grandes
vérités. N’oublions pas surtout que nous ne devons pas les rendre
responsables de la précipitation inconsidérée avec laquelle la France,
presque tout entière, s’est lancée dans la carrière qu’ils s’étaient
contentés d’indiquer. On a mis en pratique des aperçus, et toujours
on a pu dire: ‘malheur à celui qui dans son fol orgueil veut aller
au-delà des nécessités du temps, l’abîme ou quelque révolution
l’attendent.’ Mais quand on ne fait que ce que le temps commande,
on est sûr de ne pas s’égarer.</p>

<p>“Or, Messieurs, voulez-vous savoir quelles étaient en 1789 les
véritables nécessités du temps? ouvrez les cahiers des différents
ordres. Tout ce qui était alors le vœu réfléchi des hommes éclairés,
voilà ce que j’appelle des nécessités. L’Assemblée Constituante n’en
fut que l’interprète lorsqu’elle proclama la liberté des cultes, l’égalité
devant la loi, la liberté individuelle, le droit des jurisdictions (nul ne
peut être distrait de ses juges naturels), la liberté de la presse.</p>

<p>“Elle fut peu d’accord avec le temps lorsqu’elle institua une
Chambre unique, lorsqu’elle détruisit le sanction royale, lorsqu’elle
tortura les consciences, etc. etc. Et cependant, malgré ses erreurs,
dont je n’ai cité qu’un petit nombre, erreurs suivies de si grandes
calamités, la postérité qui a commencé pour elle, lui reconnaît la
gloire d’avoir établi les bases de notre nouveau droit public.</p>

<p>“Tenons donc pour certain que ce qui est voulu, que ce qui est
proclamé bon et utile par tous les hommes éclairés d’un pays, sans
variation pendant une suite d’années diversement remplies, est une
nécessité du temps. Telle est, Messieurs, la liberté de la presse.
Je m’adresse à tous ceux d’entre vous qui sont plus particulièrement
mes contemporains, n’était-elle pas l’objet des vœux de tous
ces hommes excellents que nous avons admirés dans notre jeunesse,&mdash;des
Malesherbes, des Trudaines,&mdash;qui certes valaient biens les
hommes d’état que nous avons depuis? La place que les hommes
que j’ai nommés occupent dans nos souvenirs prouve bien que la
liberté de la presse consolide les renommées légitimes; et si elle
ruine les réputations usurpées, où donc est le mal?</p>

<p>“Après avoir prouvé que la liberté de la presse est en France le
résultat nécessaire de l’état actuel de la société, il me reste à établir
ma seconde proposition, qu’un gouvernement s’expose quand il se
refuse obstinément à ce que le temps a proclamé une nécessité.</p>

<p>“Les sociétés les plus tranquilles et qui devraient être les plus
heureuses, renferment toujours dans leur sein un certain nombre
d’hommes qui aspirent à conquérir, à la faveur du désordre, les
richesses qu’ils n’ont pas et l’importance qu’ils ne devraient jamais
avoir. Est-il prudent de mettre aux mains de ces ennemis de l’ordre
social, des motifs de mécontentement sans lesquels leur perversité
serait éternellement impuissante?</p>

<p>“La société, dans sa marche progressive, est destinée à subir de
nouvelles nécessités; je comprends que les gouvernements ne doivent
pas se hâter de les reconnaître et d’y faire droit; mais quand il les
ont reconnues, reprendre ce qu’on a donné, ou, ce qui revient au
même, le suspendre sans cesse, c’est une témérité dont, plus que
personne, je desire que n’aient pas à se repentir ceux qui en conçoivent
la commode et funeste pensée. Il ne faut jamais compromettre
la bonne foi d’un gouvernement. De nos jours, il n’est pas facile de
tromper longtemps. Il y a quelqu’un qui a plus d’esprit que
Voltaire, plus d’esprit que Bonaparte, plus d’esprit que chacun des
directeurs, que chacun des ministres passés, présents, à venir, c’est
tout le monde. S’engager, ou du moins persister dans une lutte où
tout le monde se croit intéresse, c’est une faute, et aujourd’hui toutes
les fautes politiques sont dangereuses.</p>

<p>“Quand la presse est libre, lorsque chacun peut savoir que ses
intérêts sont ou seront défendus, on attend du temps une justice plus
ou moins tardive; l’espérance soutient, et avec raison, car cette
espérance ne peut être longtemps trompée; mais quand la presse est
asservie, quand nulle voix ne peut s’élever, les mécontentements
exigent bientôt de la part du gouvernement, ou trop de faiblesse ou
trop de répression.”</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_77" id="Footnote_77"></a><a href="#FNanchor_77"><span class="label">[77]</span></a> The Duc d’Orléans’ sister.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_78" id="Footnote_78"></a><a href="#FNanchor_78"><span class="label">[78]</span></a> Ah, the good prince! I knew he would not forget us.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_79" id="Footnote_79"></a><a href="#FNanchor_79"><span class="label">[79]</span></a> He always turned round the same idea.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_80" id="Footnote_80"></a><a href="#FNanchor_80"><span class="label">[80]</span></a></p>

<p class="salutation">“<span class="smcap">Messieurs</span>,&mdash;</p>

<p>“J’étais en Amérique, lorsque l’on eut la bonté de me nommer
Membre de l’Institut, et de m’attacher à la classe des sciences
morales et politique, à la quelle j’ai depuis son origine, l’honneur
d’appartenir.</p>

<p>“A mon retour en France, mon premier soin fut de me rendre à
ses séances, et de témoigner aux personnes qui la composaient alors,
et dont plusieurs nous ont laissé de justes regrets, le plaisir que
j’avais de me trouver un de leurs collègues. A la première séance à
laquelle j’assistai, on renouvelait le bureau et on me fit l’honneur de
me nommer secrétaire. Le procès-verbal que je rédigeai pendant
six mois avec autant de soin que je le pouvais, portait, peut-être un
peu trop, le caractère de ma déférence; car j’y rendais compte d’un
travail qui m’était fort étranger. Ce travail, qui sans doute avait
coûté bien des recherches, bien des veilles à un de nos plus savants
collègues, avait pour titre ‘Dissertation sur les Lois Ripuaires.’ Je
fis aussi, à la même époque, dans nos assemblées publiques, quelques
lectures que l’indulgence, qui m’était accordée alors, a fait insérer
dans les Mémoires de l’Institut. Depuis cette époque, quarante
années se sont écoulées, durant lesquelles cette tribune m’a été
comme interdite, d’abord par beaucoup d’absences ensuite par des
fonctions auxquelles mon devoir était d’appartenir tout entier: je
dois dire aussi, par la discrétion que les temps difficiles exigent d’un
homme livré aux affaires; et enfin, plus tard, par les infirmités que
la vieillesse amène d’ordinaire avec elle, ou du moins qu’elle aggrave
toujours.</p>

<p>“Mais aujourd’hui j’éprouve le besoin, et je regarde comme un
devoir de m’y présenter une dernière fois, pour que la mémoire d’un
homme connu dans toute l’Europe, d’un homme que j’aimais, et qui,
depuis la formation de l’Institut, était notre collègue, reçoive ici un
témoignage public de notre estime et de nos regrets. Sa position et
la mienne me mettent dans le cas de révéler plusieurs de ses mérites.
Son principal, je ne dis pas son unique titre de gloire, consiste dans
une correspondance de quarante années nécessairement ignorée du
public, qui, très-probablement, n’en aura jamais connaissance. Je me
suis dit: ‘Qui en parlera dans cette enceinte? Qui sera surtout
dans l’obligation d’en parler, si ce n’est moi, qui en ait reçu la plus
grande part, à qui elle fut toujours si agréable, et souvent si utile
dans les fonctions ministérielles que j’ai eues à remplir sous trois
règnes … très-différents?’</p>

<p>“Le comte Reinhard avait trente ans, et j’en avais trente-sept,
quand je le vis pour le première fois. Il entrait aux affaires avec un
grand fonds de connaissances acquises. Il savait bien cinq ou six
langues dont les littératures lui étaient familières. Il eût pu se
rendre célèbre comme poëte, comme historien, comme géographe; et
c’est en cette qualité qu’il fut membre de l’Institut, des que
l’Institut fut créé.</p>

<p>“Il était déjà à cette époque, membre de l’Académie des Sciences
de Göttingen. Né et élevé en Allemagne, il avait publié dans sa
jeunesse quelques pièces de vers qui l’avaient fait remarquer par
Gesner, par Wieland, par Schiller. Plus tard, obligé pour sa santé,
de prendre les eaux de Carlsbad, il eut de bonheur d’y trouver et d’y
voir souvent le célèbre Göthe, qui apprécia assez son goût et ses connaissances
pour désirer d’être averti par lui de tout ce qui faisait
quelque sensation dans la littérature française. M. Reinhard le lui
promit: les engagements de ce genre, entre les hommes d’un ordre
supérieur, sont toujours réciproques et deviennent bientôt des liens
d’amitié: ceux qui se formèrent entre M. Reinhard et Göthe donnèrent
lieu à une correspondance que l’on imprime aujourd’hui en
Allemagne.</p>

<p>“On y verra, qu’arrivé à cette époque de la vie où il faut définitivement
choisir un état M. Reinhard fit sur lui-même, sur les goûts,
sur sa position et sur celle de sa famille un retour sérieux qui précéda
sa détermination; et alors, chose remarquable pour le temps, à
des carrières où il eût pu être indépendant, il en préféra une où il ne
pouvait l’être. C’est à la carrière diplomatique qu’il donna la préférence,
et il fit bien: propre à tous les emplois de cette carrière, il
les a successivement tous remplis, et tous avec distinction.</p>

<p>“Je hasarderai de dire ici que ses études premières l’y avait
heureusement préparé. Celle de la théologie surtout, où il se fit
remarquer dans le Séminaire de Denkendorf et dans celui de la
faculté protestante de Tübingen, lui avait donné une force et en
même temps une souplesse de raisonnement que l’on retrouve dans
toutes les pièces qui sont sorties de sa plume. Et pour m’ôter à
moi-même la crainte de me laisser aller à une idée qui pourrait
paraître paradoxale, je me sens obligé de rappeler ici les noms de
plusieurs de nos grands négociateurs, tous théologiens, et tous
remarqués par l’histoire comme ayant conduit les affaires politiques
les plus importantes de leurs temps: le cardinal chancelier Duprat
aussi versé dans le droit canon que dans le droit civil, et qui fixa
avec Léon X. les bases du concordat dont plusieurs dispositions subsistent
encore aujourd’hui. Le cardinal d’Ossat, qui, malgré les
efforts de plusieurs grandes puissances, parvint à réconcilier Henry IV.
avec le cour de Rome. Le recueil de lettres qu’il a laissé est encore
prescrit aujourd’hui aux jeunes gens qui se destinent à la carrière
politique. Le cardinal de Polignac, théologien, poëte et négociateur,
qui, après tant de guerres malheureuses sut conserver à la France,
par le traité d’Utrecht, les conquêtes de Louis XIV.</p>

<p>“Les noms que je viens de citer me paraissent suffire pour justifier
l’influence qu’eurent, dans mon opinion, sur les habitudes d’esprit de
M. Reinhard, les premières études vers lesquelles l’avait dirigé l’éducation
paternelle.</p>

<p>“Les connaissances à la fois solides et variées qu’il y avait acquises
l’avaient fait appeler à Bordeaux pour remplir les honorables et
modestes fonctions de précepteur dans une famille protestante de cette
ville. Là, il se trouvà naturellement en relation des hommes dont
le talent, les erreurs et la mort jetèrent tant d’éclat sur notre
première assemblée legislative. M. Reinhard se laissa facilement
entraîner par eux à s’attacher au service de la France.</p>

<p>“Je ne m’astreindrai point à le suivre pas à pas à travers les vicissitudes
dont fut remplie la longue carrière qu’il a parcourue. Dans
les nombreux emplois que lui furent confiés, tantôt d’un ordre
élevé, tantôt d’un ordre inférieur, il semblerait y avoir une sorte
d’incohérence, et comme une absence de hiérarchie que nous aurions
aujourd’hui de la peine à comprendre. Mais à cette époque il n’y
avait pas plus de préjugés pour les places qu’il n’y en avait pour les
personnes. Dans d’autres temps, la faveur, quelquefois le discernement,
appelaient à toutes les situations éminentes. Dans le temps
dont je parle, bien ou mal, toutes les situations étaient conquises.
Un pareil état de choses mène bien vite à la confusion.</p>

<p>“Aussi, nous voyons M. Reinhard, premier secrétaire de la légation
à Londres; occupant le même emploi à Naples; ministre plénipotentiaire
auprès des villes anséatiques, Hambourg, Brême et Lubeck;
chef de la troisième division au département des affaires étrangères;
ministre plénipotentiaire à Florence; ministre des relations extérieures;
ministre plénipotentiaire en Helvétie; consul-général à
Milan; ministre plénipotentiaire près le cercle de Basse-Saxe;
président dans les provinces turques au delà du Danube, et commissaire-général
des relations commerciales en Moldavie; ministre plénipotentiaire
auprès du roi de Westphalie; directeur de la chancellerie
du département des affaires étrangères; ministre plénipotentiaire
auprès de la diète germanique, et de la ville libre de Frankfort, et,
enfin, ministre plénipotentiaire à Dresde.</p>

<p>“Que de places, que d’emplois, que d’intérêts confiés à un seul
homme, et cela, à une époque où les talents paraissaient devoir être
d’autant moins appréciés que la guerre semblait, à elle seule, se
charger de toutes les affaires!</p>

<p>“Vous n’attendez donc pas de moi, Messieurs, qu’ici je vous
rende compte en détail, et date par date, de tous les travaux de
M. Reinhard dans les différents emplois dont vous venez d’entendre
l’énumération. Il faudrait faire un livre.</p>

<p>“Je ne dois parler devant vous que de la manière dont il comprenait
les fonctions qu’il avait à remplir, qu’il fût chef de division,
ministre, ou consul.</p>

<p>“Quoique M. Reinhard n’eût point alors l’avantage qu’il aurait
eu quelques années plus tard, de trouver sous ses yeux d’excellents
modèles, il savait déjà combien de qualités, et de qualités diverses,
devaient distinguer un chef de division des affaires étrangères. Un
tact délicat lui avait fait sentir que les mœurs d’un chef de division
devaient être simples, régulières, retirées; qu’étranger au tumulte
du monde, il devait vivre uniquement pour les affaires et leur vouer
un secret impénétrable; que, toujours prêt à répondre sur les faits et
sur les hommes, il devait avoir sans cesse présents à la mémoire tous
les traités, connaître historiquement leurs dates, apprécier avec
justesse leurs côtés forts et leurs côtés faibles, leurs antécédents et
leurs conséquences; savoir, enfin, les noms des principaux négociateurs,
et même leurs relations de famille; que, tout en faisant usage
de ces connaissances, il devait prendre garde à inquiéter l’amour-propre
toujours si clairvoyant du ministre, et qu’alors même qu’il
l’entraînait à son opinion, son succès devait rester dans l’ombre; car
il savait qu’il ne devait briller que d’un éclat réfléchi; mais il savait
aussi que beaucoup de considération s’attachait naturellement à une
vie aussi pure et aussi modeste.</p>

<p>“L’esprit d’observation de M. Reinhard ne s’arrêtait point là; il
l’avait conduit à comprendre combien la réunion des qualités nécessaires
à un ministre des affaires étrangères est rare. Il faut, en effet,
qu’un ministre des affaires étrangères soit doué d’une sorte d’instinct
qui, l’avertissant promptement, l’empêche, avant toute discussion, de
jamais se compromettre. Il lui faut la faculté de se montrer ouvert
en restant impénétrable; d’être réservé avec les formes de l’abandon,
d’être habile jusque dans le choix de ses distractions; il faut que sa
conversation soit simple, variée, inattendue, toujours naturelle et
parfois naïve; en un mot, il ne doit pas cesser un moment, dans les
vingt-quatre heures, d’être ministre des affaires étrangères.</p>

<p>“Cependant, tout ces qualités, quelque rares qu’elles soient,
pourraient n’être pas suffisantes, si la bonne foi ne leur donnait une
garantie dont elles ont presque toujours besoin. Je dois le rappeler
ici, pour détruire un préjugé assez généralement répandu: non, la
diplomatie n’est point une science de ruse et de duplicité. Si la
bonne foi est nécessaire quelque part, c’est surtout dans les transactions
politiques, car c’est elle qui les rend solides et durables. On a
voulu confondre la réserve avec la ruse. La bonne foi n’autorise
jamais la ruse, mais elle admet la réserve; et la réserve a cela de
particulier, c’est qu’elle ajoute à la confiance.</p>

<p>“Dominé par l’honneur et l’intérêt du prince, par l’amour de la
liberté, fondé sur l’ordre et sur les droits de tous, un ministre des
affaires étrangères, quand il sait l’être, se trouve ainsi placé dans la
plus belle situation à laquelle un esprit élevé puisse prétendre.</p>

<p>“Après avoir été un ministre habile, que de choses il faut encore
savoir pour un bon consul! Car les attributions d’un consul sont
variées à l’infini; elles sont d’un genre tout différent de celles des
autres employés des affaires étrangères. Elles exigent une foule de
connaissances pratiques pour lesquelles une éducation particulière
est nécessaire. Les consuls sont dans le cas d’exercer, dans l’étendue
de leur arrondissement, vis-à-vis de leurs compatriotes, les fonctions
de juges, d’arbitres, de conciliateurs; souvent ils sont officiers de
l’état civil; ils remplissent l’emploi de notaires, quelquefois celui
d’administrateur de la marine; ils surveillent et constatent l’état
sanitaire; ce sont eux qui, par leurs relations habituelles, peuvent
donner une idée juste et complète de la situation du commerce, de la
navigation et de l’industrie particulière au pays de leur résidence.
Aussi M. Reinhard, qui ne négligeait rien pour s’assurer de la justesse
des informations qu’il était dans la cas de donner à son gouvernement,
et des décisions qu’il devait prendre comme agent politique,
comme agent consulaire, comme administrateur de la marine, avait-il
fait une étude approfondie du droit des gens et du droit maritime.
Cette étude l’avait conduit à croire qu’il arriverait un temps où, par
des combinaisons habilement préparées, il s’établirait un système
général de commerce et de navigation, dans lequel les intérêts de
toutes les nations seraient respectés, et dont les bases fussent telles
que la guerre elle-même n’en pût altérer le principe, dût-elle suspendre
quelques-unes de ses conséquences. Il était aussi parvenu à
résoudre avec sûreté et promptitude toutes les questions de change,
d’arbitrage, de conversion de monnaies, de poids et mesures, et tout
cela sans que jamais aucune réclamation se soit élevée contre les
informations qu’il avait données et contre les jugements qu’il avait
rendus. Il est vrai aussi que la considération personnelle qu’il l’a
suivi dans toute sa carrière donnait du poids à son intervention dans
toutes les affaires dont il se mêlait et à tous les arbitrages sur
lesquels il avait à prononcer.</p>

<p>“Mais, quelque étendues que soient les connaissances d’un homme,
quelque vaste que soit sa capacité, être un diplomate complet est
bien rare; et cependant M. Reinhard l’aurait peut-être été, s’il eut
en une qualité de plus; il voyait bien, il entendait bien; la plume
à la main, il rendait admirablement compte de le qu’il avait vu, de
ce qui lui avait été dit. Sa parole écrite était abondante, facile
spirituelle, piquante; aussi, de toutes les correspondances diplomatiques
de mon temps, il n’y en avait aucune à laquelle l’empereur
Napoléon, qui avait le droit et le besoin d’être difficile, ne préférât
celle du comte Reinhard. Mais ce même homme qui écrivait à
merveille s’exprimait avec difficulté. Pour accomplir ses actes, son
intelligence demandait plus de temps qu’elle n’en pouvait obtenir
dans le conversation. Pour que sa parole interne pût se reproduire
facilement, il fallait qu’il fût seul et sans intermédiaire.</p>

<p>“Malgré cet inconvénient réel, M. Reinhard réussit toujours à
faire, et bien faire, tout ce dont il était chargé. Où donc trouvait-il
ses moyens de réussir, où prenait-il ses inspirations?</p>

<p>“Il les prenait, Messieurs, dans un sentiment vrai et profond qui
gouvernait toutes ses actions, dans le sentiment du devoir. On ne
sait pas assez tout ce qu’il y a de puissance dans ce sentiment. Une
vie tout critère au devoir est bien aisément dégagée d’ambition. La
vie de M. Reinhard était uniquement employée aux fonctions qu’il
avait à remplir, sans que jamais chez lui il y eût trace de calcul
personnel ni de prétention à quelque avancement précipité.</p>

<p>“Cette religion du devoir, à laquelle M. Reinhard fut fidèle tout sa
vie, consistait en une soumission exacte aux instructions et aux
ordres de ses chefs; dans une vigilance de tous les moments, qui,
jointe a beaucoup de perspicacité, ne les laissait jamais dans l’ignorance
de ce qu’il leur importait de savoir; en une rigoureuse véracité
dans tous ses rapports, qu’ils dussent être agréables ou déplaisants;
dans une discrétion impénétrable, dans une régularité de vie qui
appelait la confiance et l’estime; dans une représentation décente,
enfin dans un soin constant à donner aux actes de son gouvernement
la couleur et les explications que réclamait l’intérêt des
affaires qu’il avait a traiter.</p>

<p>“Quoique l’âge eût marqué pour M. Reinhard le temps du repos,
il n’aurait jamais demandé sa retraite, tant il aurait crainte de
montrer de la tiédeur a servir dans une carrière qui avait été celle
de toute sa vie.</p>

<p>“Il a fallu que la bienveillance royale, toujours si attentive, fut
prévoyante pour lui, et donnât à ce grand serviteur de la France la
situation la plus honorable en l’appelant à la chambre des pairs.</p>

<p>“M. le comte Reinhard n’a pas joui assez longtemps de cet honneur,
et il est mort presque subitement le 25 décembre, 1837.</p>

<p>“M. Reinhard s’était marié deux fois. Il a laissé du premier lit
un fils qui est aujourd’hui dans la carrière politique. Au fils d’un
tel père, tout ce qu’on peut souhaiter de mieux, c’est de lui
ressembler.”</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_81" id="Footnote_81"></a><a href="#FNanchor_81"><span class="label">[81]</span></a> “Nous avons dit qu’à la suite du testament du prince de
Talleyrand se trouvait une sorte de manifeste, dans lequel le célèbre
diplomate exposait les principes qui l’avaient guidé dans sa vie
politique, et exprimait sa manière de voir à l’égard de certains
événements.</p>

<p>“Voici, d’après les renseignements que nous avons recueillis, ce
que contient en substance cette déclaration, qui porte la date de
1836, et qui, conformément au vœu du testateur, a été lui à la
famille et à ses amis assemblés.</p>

<p>“Le prince déclare qu’avant tout et à tout, il a préféré les vrais
intérêts de la France.</p>

<p>“S’expliquant sur la part qu’il a prise à la rentrée des Bourbons
en 1814, il dit que, dans son opinion, les Bourbons ne remontaient
pas sur le trône en vertu d’un droit héréditaire, et pré-existant, et il
donne même à entendre que ses conseils et ses avis ne leur manquèrent
pas pour les éclairer sur leur vraie position, et sur la conduite
qu’ils devaient tenir en conséquence.</p>

<p>“Il repousse le reproche d’avoir trahi Napoléon: s’il l’a abandonné,
c’est lorsqu’il reconnut qu’il ne pouvait plus confondre,
comme il l’avait fait jusqu’alors, la France et l’Empereur dans une
même affection; ce ne fut pas sans un vif sentiment de douleur, car
il lui devait à peu près toute sa fortune; il engage ses héritiers à ne
jamais l’oublier, à le répéter à leurs enfants, et ceux-ci à ceux
qui naîtront d’eux, afin, dit-il, que si quelque jour un homme du
nom de Bonaparte se trouvait dans le besoin, ils s’empressassent de
lui donner aide, secours et assistance.</p>

<p>“Répondant à ceux qui lui reprochent d’avoir servi successivement
tous les gouvernements, il déclare qu’il ne s’en est fait aucun
scrupule, et qu’il a agi ainsi, guidé par cette pensée que, dans quelque
situation que fût un pays, il y avait toujours moyen de lui faire
du bien, et que c’était a opérer ce bien que devait s’appliquer un
homme d’état.”</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_82" id="Footnote_82"></a><a href="#FNanchor_82"><span class="label">[82]</span></a> <cite>Brunonian System.</cite>&mdash;Medical doctrines first broached by Dr.
John Brown, in his “Elementæ Medicinæ,” in 1780. He imagined
that the body was endowed with a certain quantity of <em>excitability</em>,
and that every external agent acted as a <em>stimulant</em> on this property
of excitability. Health consisted in a just proportion of stimulation,
but when this was carried too far, exhaustion, or <em>direct debility</em>, was
the consequence, and when not far enough, <em>indirect debility</em>. The
diseases which he supposed to arise from one or other of those two
states were classed into two orders, the <em>sthenic</em> and the <em>asthenic</em>.
Brown was considered no great prophet in his own country, but he
exercised considerable influence on the medical doctrines of the
Italian schools, which to this day are somewhat tinctured with
Brunonianism.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_83" id="Footnote_83"></a><a href="#FNanchor_83"><span class="label">[83]</span></a> It is fair to observe that this prejudice is gradually disappearing.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_84" id="Footnote_84"></a><a href="#FNanchor_84"><span class="label">[84]</span></a> Letter to Mr. Pitt.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_85" id="Footnote_85"></a><a href="#FNanchor_85"><span class="label">[85]</span></a> Letters to Mr. Sharpe. See “Life of Sir James Mackintosh,”
by his Son.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_86" id="Footnote_86"></a><a href="#FNanchor_86"><span class="label">[86]</span></a> Hazlitt.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_87" id="Footnote_87"></a><a href="#FNanchor_87"><span class="label">[87]</span></a> He only sanctioned one execution.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_88" id="Footnote_88"></a><a href="#FNanchor_88"><span class="label">[88]</span></a> He would perhaps have repudiated this name; but, as far as
opinions gave the title, it certainly at this time belonged to him.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_89" id="Footnote_89"></a><a href="#FNanchor_89"><span class="label">[89]</span></a> See “Life of Sir James Mackintosh,” by his Son, pp. 246
and 279.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_90" id="Footnote_90"></a><a href="#FNanchor_90"><span class="label">[90]</span></a> Subsequently he sat for Knaresborough, under the patronage of
the Duke of Devonshire.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_91" id="Footnote_91"></a><a href="#FNanchor_91"><span class="label">[91]</span></a> 27th April, 1815.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_92" id="Footnote_92"></a><a href="#FNanchor_92"><span class="label">[92]</span></a> This idea has lately been brought forward by M. de Tocqueville,
and treated by many as a novelty.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_93" id="Footnote_93"></a><a href="#FNanchor_93"><span class="label">[93]</span></a> “On the Power of Punishments,” ch. xii.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_94" id="Footnote_94"></a><a href="#FNanchor_94"><span class="label">[94]</span></a> See “Life of Sir James Mackintosh,” by his Son, vol. ii. p. 2.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_95" id="Footnote_95"></a><a href="#FNanchor_95"><span class="label">[95]</span></a> Principal Papers of Sir James Mackintosh in the “Edinburgh
Review”:</p>

<table summary="List of papers in the Edinburgh Review">
  <tr>
    <td class="tdr">Vol. 20.</td>
    <td>Account of Boy born Blind and Deaf.</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="tdr"><cite>Ib.</cite></td>
    <td>Wakefield’s Account of Ireland.</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="tdr">21.</td>
    <td>Madame de Staël: On Suicide.</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="tdr">22.</td>
    <td><cite>Ib.</cite> L’Allemagne.</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="tdr"><cite>Ib.</cite></td>
    <td>On Rogers’ Poems.</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="tdr">24.</td>
    <td>On the French Restoration.</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="tdr">26.</td>
    <td>Life of James II. (Stuart’s Papers.)</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="tdr">27.</td>
    <td>Stuart’s Preliminary Essay (Metaphysics) to Encyclopædia Britannica.</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="tdr">36.</td>
    <td><cite>Ib.</cite></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="tdr">34.</td>
    <td>Parliamentary Reform.</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="tdr">35.</td>
    <td>Sismondi: Histoire des Français.</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="tdr">36.</td>
    <td>Sir George Mackenzie’s “Scotland.”</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="tdr">44.</td>
    <td>Who wrote “Eikon Basilike?”</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="tdr"><cite>Ib.</cite></td>
    <td>Danish Revolution. (Struensee.)</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="tdr">November, 1822.</td>
    <td>The Partition of Poland.</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="tdr">No. 89.</td>
    <td>Portugal&mdash;Don Miguel.</td>
  </tr>
</table>

<p>The following articles were also published by Sir James in the
“Monthly Review”:</p>

<table summary="List of papers in the Monthly Review">
  <tr>
    <td>Year&nbsp;1795.</td>
    <td class="tdr">Vol. 19.</td>
    <td>Burke’s Letter to a Noble Lord.</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td></td>
    <td class="tdr"><cite>Ib.</cite></td>
    <td>A Letter to Mr. Miles, occasioned by his late scurrilous attack on Mr. Burke.</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td></td>
    <td class="tdr">20.</td>
    <td>Miscellaneous Works of Gibbon (Part).</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>1796.</td>
    <td class="tdr"><cite>Ib.</cite></td>
    <td>Roscoe’s “Life of Lorenzo de Medici.”</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td></td>
    <td class="tdr"><cite>Ib.</cite></td>
    <td>Moore’s “View of the Causes of the French Revolution.”</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td></td>
    <td class="tdr">21.</td>
    <td>Burke’s Two Letters.</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td></td>
    <td class="tdr"><cite>Ib.</cite></td>
    <td>Thoughts on A Regicide Peace.</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td></td>
    <td class="tdr"><cite>Ib.</cite></td>
    <td>O’Brien’s “Utrum Horum?”</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td></td>
    <td class="tdr"><cite>Ib.</cite></td>
    <td>Burke’s Two Letters (concluded).</td>
  </tr>
</table>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_96" id="Footnote_96"></a><a href="#FNanchor_96"><span class="label">[96]</span></a> The death of Rizzio is an almost equally vivid description.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_97" id="Footnote_97"></a><a href="#FNanchor_97"><span class="label">[97]</span></a> Columbus, born 1441, or earlier, according to Mr. W. Irving.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_98" id="Footnote_98"></a><a href="#FNanchor_98"><span class="label">[98]</span></a> Duncombe’s Letters, pp. 106, 107.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_99" id="Footnote_99"></a><a href="#FNanchor_99"><span class="label">[99]</span></a> Warton on “Pope.”</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_100" id="Footnote_100"></a><a href="#FNanchor_100"><span class="label">[100]</span></a> See his “Querist,” p. 358, published in 1737.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_101" id="Footnote_101"></a><a href="#FNanchor_101"><span class="label">[101]</span></a> “Siris; or, Reflections on Tar Water.”</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_102" id="Footnote_102"></a><a href="#FNanchor_102"><span class="label">[102]</span></a> Sermon in Trinity College Chapel on “Passive Obedience,”
1712.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_103" id="Footnote_103"></a><a href="#FNanchor_103"><span class="label">[103]</span></a> “Gentleman’s Magazine,” 1777.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_104" id="Footnote_104"></a><a href="#FNanchor_104"><span class="label">[104]</span></a> He published the “Vindiciæ Gallicæ” in 1791; he gave his
lectures in 1799; he appeared as Peltier’s advocate in the same
year; he entered Parliament in 1813; he delivered his celebrated
speech against the Foreign Enlistment Bill in 1819, and carried his
motion pledging the House of Commons to an improvement in the
criminal law in 1822; his work on “Ethics” was published in
1830; his “History of England” in 1830-31.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_105" id="Footnote_105"></a><a href="#FNanchor_105"><span class="label">[105]</span></a> B. Constant was another instance of this kind, and it is singular
to see Mackintosh himself thus judging him:&mdash;“Few men have turned
talent to less account than Constant. His powers of mind are very
great, but as they have always been exerted on the events of the
moment, and as his works want that laboured perfection which is
more necessary but more difficult in such writings than in any
others, they have left us a vague or faint reputation which will
scarcely survive the speaker or writer.”</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_106" id="Footnote_106"></a><a href="#FNanchor_106"><span class="label">[106]</span></a> Letter to Mr. Taylor. “Writings,” vol. xii. s. 212.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_107" id="Footnote_107"></a><a href="#FNanchor_107"><span class="label">[107]</span></a> Page 393.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_108" id="Footnote_108"></a><a href="#FNanchor_108"><span class="label">[108]</span></a> People are often at this day disputing as to whether a particular
picture is by the master it is attributed to, or by one of his scholars.
A peculiarity of genius in an artist is to create first-rate imitators in
those who live in his society; and it is not unworthy of notice that
one of the best pieces of writing in Cobbett’s best style is “The Rat
Hunt” (<cite>Political Register</cite>, vol. xci. p. 380), and was by the pen of
Mr. J. M. Cobbett, Mr. Cobbett’s son.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_109" id="Footnote_109"></a><a href="#FNanchor_109"><span class="label">[109]</span></a> Of this sect, by the way, he elsewhere speaks in these eulogistic
terms:</p>

<p>“Here am I amongst the thick of the Quakers, whose houses and
families pleased me so much formerly, and which pleasure is now
revived. Here all is ease, plenty, and cheerfulness. These people
are never <em>giggling</em>, and never in <em>low spirits</em>. Their minds, like
their dress, are simple and strong. Their kindness is shown more
in acts than in words. Let others say what they will, I have
uniformly found those whom I have intimately known of this sect
sincere and upright men; and I verily believe that all those charges
of hypocrisy and craft that we hear against Quakers, arise from a
feeling of <em>envy</em>; envy inspired by seeing them possessed of such
abundance of all those things which are the fair fruits of care,
industry, economy, sobriety, and order; and which are justly forbidden
to the drunkard, the prodigal, and the lazy.”</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_110" id="Footnote_110"></a><a href="#FNanchor_110"><span class="label">[110]</span></a> His son, the late Earl Canning, represented Warwick in the House
of Commons from August, 1836, to March, 1837.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_111" id="Footnote_111"></a><a href="#FNanchor_111"><span class="label">[111]</span></a> See <cite>Microcosm</cite>.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_112" id="Footnote_112"></a><a href="#FNanchor_112"><span class="label">[112]</span></a> In the Life given in the edition of Mr. Canning’s Speeches.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_113" id="Footnote_113"></a><a href="#FNanchor_113"><span class="label">[113]</span></a> Speech on the King’s Message relative to Union with Ireland,
January 2, 1799.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_114" id="Footnote_114"></a><a href="#FNanchor_114"><span class="label">[114]</span></a> Speech on the Army Estimates, Dec. 8, 1802.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_115" id="Footnote_115"></a><a href="#FNanchor_115"><span class="label">[115]</span></a> A virtual declaration of hostility against every neutral power.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_116" id="Footnote_116"></a><a href="#FNanchor_116"><span class="label">[116]</span></a> This is one of the portions from my original sketch, which it
would appear that Mr. Bell consulted and copied. See Appendix.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_117" id="Footnote_117"></a><a href="#FNanchor_117"><span class="label">[117]</span></a> Speech on Regency Question, Dec. 31, 1810.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_118" id="Footnote_118"></a><a href="#FNanchor_118"><span class="label">[118]</span></a> Speech on vote of thanks to the Marquis of Wellington, July 7,
1813.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_119" id="Footnote_119"></a><a href="#FNanchor_119"><span class="label">[119]</span></a> See <cite>Appendix</cite>.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_120" id="Footnote_120"></a><a href="#FNanchor_120"><span class="label">[120]</span></a> Spence preached about the period of the French Revolution,
and his doctrines were revived now by his follower, Evans.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_121" id="Footnote_121"></a><a href="#FNanchor_121"><span class="label">[121]</span></a> The accuracy of this story having been disputed, I asked Lady
Palmerston, who was living in the same set as the lady in question,
and also about this period residing at Brighton, whether she remembered
hearing anything corroborating my information, and she said
she perfectly well remembered hearing the anecdote I have narrated.
But there is nothing in the Duke of Wellington’s letters to confirm
it, and, like most tales of a similar nature, it probably had some
foundation, but was not precisely correct either in details or dates.</p>

<p>The main fact, however, remains untouched, and is indeed proved
by the Wellington correspondence, viz., that Lord Liverpool applied
to the Duke of Wellington to obtain the King’s consent to Mr. Canning’s
appointment, and that the Duke succeeded, though not without
difficulty.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_122" id="Footnote_122"></a><a href="#FNanchor_122"><span class="label">[122]</span></a> This story was related by Sir Roundell Palmer in his address
to the jury in the trial of Ryves <i lang="la">v.</i> the Attorney-General. I do not
know whence Sir Roundell derived the anecdote, but I think it as
well to say, in favour of its authenticity, that I heard it thirty years
ago from a person who was present on the occasion, and that it has
been recorded for twenty-six years in my MS.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_123" id="Footnote_123"></a><a href="#FNanchor_123"><span class="label">[123]</span></a> The correctness of this story has been questioned by a correspondent
to the <cite>Times</cite>, who signs “A. W. C.” I heard it from a
person much in the intimacy of George IV. and Mr. Canning, and
noted it when I heard it as curious; but I give it as gossip, which,
whether true or false, illustrates the notions of the time, and is not
incompatible with what is said by “A. W. C.” himself.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_124" id="Footnote_124"></a><a href="#FNanchor_124"><span class="label">[124]</span></a> Lord Townsend being dismissed in 1717 from the Lord Lieutenancy
of Ireland, at the instigation of Lord Sunderland, the whole
of Lord Townsend’s party in the Cabinet at that time, including
Walpole, resigned. They were attacked in much the same way as
the Duke of Wellington was attacked in 1827, and thought it necessary
to defend themselves in the same manner, though there is no
doubt that they did resign expressly for the purpose of ousting a
government which they thought could not go on without them. In
the end they succeeded.&mdash;See Coxe’s “Memoirs of Sir Robert Walpole,”
page 107.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_125" id="Footnote_125"></a><a href="#FNanchor_125"><span class="label">[125]</span></a> In the Memoirs of Sir J. Mackintosh, in the “Keepsake.” 1829.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_126" id="Footnote_126"></a><a href="#FNanchor_126"><span class="label">[126]</span></a> Lord Nugent was a remarkably large heavy man, with a head
even larger than was required to be in proportion to his body.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_127" id="Footnote_127"></a><a href="#FNanchor_127"><span class="label">[127]</span></a> “Annual Register,” 1821.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_128" id="Footnote_128"></a><a href="#FNanchor_128"><span class="label">[128]</span></a> Sir J. Mackintosh, in speaking of Mr. Canning’s despatches on
the South American question, said that “they contained a body of
liberal maxims of policy, and just principles of public law, expressed
with a precision, a circumspection, a dignity, which will always
render them models and masterpieces of diplomatic composition.”&mdash;June
15, 1826.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_129" id="Footnote_129"></a><a href="#FNanchor_129"><span class="label">[129]</span></a> Protestant here is, of course, meant to signify anti-Catholic.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_130" id="Footnote_130"></a><a href="#FNanchor_130"><span class="label">[130]</span></a> Letter to the Duke of Wellington, August 11, 1828.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_131" id="Footnote_131"></a><a href="#FNanchor_131"><span class="label">[131]</span></a> Mr. Peel’s Memorandum for the Duke of Wellington,
August 25, 1828.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_132" id="Footnote_132"></a><a href="#FNanchor_132"><span class="label">[132]</span></a> Cécrops, Cadmus et Danäus.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_133" id="Footnote_133"></a><a href="#FNanchor_133"><span class="label">[133]</span></a> Didon.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_134" id="Footnote_134"></a><a href="#FNanchor_134"><span class="label">[134]</span></a> Enée.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_135" id="Footnote_135"></a><a href="#FNanchor_135"><span class="label">[135]</span></a> Syracuse.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_136" id="Footnote_136"></a><a href="#FNanchor_136"><span class="label">[136]</span></a> Milet, Ephèse.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_137" id="Footnote_137"></a><a href="#FNanchor_137"><span class="label">[137]</span></a> Grand nombre de petites colonies dans le pays latin; aucune ne devint
célèbre.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_138" id="Footnote_138"></a><a href="#FNanchor_138"><span class="label">[138]</span></a> Invasion des Huns, Goths, Vandales, Cimbres, etc.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_139" id="Footnote_139"></a><a href="#FNanchor_139"><span class="label">[139]</span></a> Croisades.</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_140" id="Footnote_140"></a><a href="#FNanchor_140"><span class="label">[140]</span></a> Dans un temps de factions politiques cela cesserait d’être exact; car alors
chaque secte voudrait nécessairement être l’auxiliaire de tel ou tel parti,
comme on l’a déjà vu; mais ces factions une fois calmées la religion deviendrait
à l’instant dans les Etats-Unis ce qu’elle y est aujourd’hui; ce qui veut
dire en résultat, qu’elle n’y a point de fanatisme pour son propre compte,
et c’est déjà beaucoup.&mdash;(<cite>Note du citoyen Talleyrand, au mois de ventôse,
an VII.</cite>)</p>

</div>

<div class="footnote">

<p><a name="Footnote_141" id="Footnote_141"></a><a href="#FNanchor_141"><span class="label">[141]</span></a> Cela était littéralement vrai lorsque ce mémoire a été lu à l’institut. Si
depuis ce moment des partis s’y sont formés de nouveau, s’il en est un qui
travaille à remettre honteusement l’Amérique sous le joug de la Grande-Bretagne,
cela confirmerait beaucoup trop ce que j’établis dans le cours de ce
mémoire, que les Américains sont encore Anglais; mais tout porte à croire
qu’un tel parti ne triomphera pas, que la sagesse du gouvernement français
aura déconcerté ses espérances; et je n’aurai pas à rétracter le bien que je dis
ici d’un peuple de qui je me plais à reconnaître qu’il n’est Anglais que par des
habitudes qui ne touchent point à son indépendance politique, et non par le
sentiment qui lui ferait regretter de l’avoir conquise.&mdash;(<cite>Note du citoyen
Talleyrand, au mois de ventôse, an VII.</cite>)</p>

</div>

</div>

<p class="titlepage">THE END.</p>

<p class="titlepage smaller">LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET
AND CHARING CROSS.</p>

<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 53285 ***</div>
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