Historical Characters. Henry Bulwer
project seeming out of the question, M. de Talleyrand entered, as I have said, into this one, although with less faith in its practicability than some of his coadjutors.
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; – that is, with the force and authority of the whole mass of the bourgeoisie, or middle class.
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.
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 – anxious to maintain an aristocracy as well as a monarchy – desired.
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; – and in this manner the only hope of safety for the King was destroyed 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.
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 “lettres de cachet,” 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.
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 – 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.
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.
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, l’Assemblée constituante, 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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 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.
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.
Part III
FROM CLOSE