Memoirs of Talleyrand

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Memoirs of
Tallerand

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M. 2.

MEMOIRS

OF

C. M. TALLEYRAND

DE PERIGORD

VOL. II

2QS1G16

of Illustrations

PAGE
SPANISH DESPATCHES .... Frontispiece

GENERAL BUONAPARTE .... 44

Louis BUONAPARTE . . . . .96

TALLEYRAND . . . . .144

MARIE ANTOINETTE . . . . .212

Due D'ENGHIEN 222

MEMOIRS

OF

C. M. TALLEYRAND

CORDELIA'S husband had been informed of her
intention to follow Talleyrand in his intended journey.
Negligent, or rather indifferent, as he had been, he
now, however, took the alarm, and concerted measures
to prevent so rash an act. But they were unneces-
sary. Talleyrand's ungenerous and cruel reproaches
had deeply wounded a mind over which he tyran-
nised too successfully. Neither the vigour of her
youth, nor the strength of her constitution, could
withstand this dastardly assault; and she was
unable to stir out, although she made several
attempts. For some days she refused the aid of
medicine and every kind of sustenance; but, forty-
eight hours before her death, she suddenly changed
her obstinacy, and seemed recovering her health as
well as her tranquillity. On the last evening of her
life, she invited her husband (who seldom visited
her) to tea. She thanked him for his condescending
behaviour towards her, but entreated him, should he

VOL. II I

2 MEMOIRS OF

ever marry again, not to allow his wife such an un-
restrained freedom as had been permitted her, as it
had shortened her days, and was the origin of all
her misery. Bathed with her tears, she delivered to
him her daughter, whom she implored him to send,
after her decease, to a noble convent, to be educated
in such a manner as to become one of its future
members. After pressing the child almost to suffoca-
tion to her bosom, she ordered her to be carried to
the nursery, which was at a distance in one of the
wings of the chateau. She recommended to his
notice the young man, her first lover, bequeathing
to him, besides all her jewels, a sum of money —
her private property — sufficient to procure him an
annuity of ^850. In embracing her husband for
the last time, she deposited her will in his hands,
and entreated its execution, particularly that part in
which she had desired to be burnt after her death,
and her ashes collected in an urn and sent according
to a sealed address. Upon his surprise at hearing
her speak of a death which, judging from her im-
proved state of health, seemed yet distant, she
answered, " No, my friend ! you are mistaken ; my
death-warrant was signed yesterday, and I received
it this morning! " Saying this, she showed him a
letter from Talleyrand, which he, in vain, demanded

TALLEYRAND 3

to read. In leaving her, he ordered the physician
to be called, supposing her conversation the effect
of delirium, or derangement. The physician found
her reading; calm, and better than in the morning.

At ten o'clock she went to bed, and ordered one
of her maids, who slept in the same room, and her
nurse and another maid, who had beds in an adjoin-
ing closet, to do the same. She had a table by
her bedside, and continued for some time reading and
writing alternately. Finding herself watched by her
maid, she sent her to bed with the nurse, and bolted
the door of the closet. This was about one o'clock
in the morning. At six, the nurse heard a scream,
and, forcing open the door, found the unfortunate
Cordelia weltering in her blood, having stabbed her-
self through the heart with an American penknife
of curious workmanship, presented to her by Talley-
rand. She was already dead. Upon the table were
found a sealed letter to her husband, and an open
note addressed to Talleyrand, containing these lines:
"Five d ^ clock in the morning*

"I have burnt aft your letters. They would
neither do honour to my memory, nor to your
heart. God forgive you! you are my assassin! I

pardon you!

" CORDELIA."

i — 2

4 MEMOIRS OF

By the side of this note and the letter lay
Rousseau's " Eloisa " and the " Sorrows of Werter."
The former of these works lay open, and in the
letter from St. Preux to Lord Boston, these words
were underlined: "By making existence insupportable,
God commands us to put an end to it. In putting
an end to existence, we, therefore, only obey the
command of the Divinity."

The alarm which the fatal deed occasioned soon
assembled all persons in the chateau round the body;
among others, the young lover, who, from illness, had
not been able for three weeks to leave his bed. His
sufferings, and the general consternation, may easily
be conjectured. In pressing the bleeding remains of
his Cordelia to his bosom, he fainted away, and was
carried senseless back to his apartment. Even her

«

philosophical husband, whose want of feeling and
apathy were proverbial, shed tears at the sight.

The same night her remains were, according to her
will, without pomp, consumed upon a funereal pile,
erected in the park opposite the windows of the
library from which she, for the first time, had seen
her seducer. The sealed address contained these
words, to be engraved on the urn: "The ashes of

Cordelia de S , born Princess de H , bequeathed

to Citizen Charles Maurice Talleyrand. — Memento
mori! "

TALLEYRAND 5

When Cordelia's young lover recovered from his
swoon, he desired to speak with a clergyman, and to
obtain the succours of religion. Upon the assurance
of this venerable man that the sufferer was resigned
with submission to the decrees of Providence, he was
not suspected of any designs on his own life. It is
probable that such was then the state of his mind;
but observing, just before sunset, smoke issuing
from the park, and enquiring the cause, his servant
imprudently told him, not only that the body of
Cordelia was reduced to ashes, but that those ashes
had been bequeathed by her to Talleyrand. In about
an hour afterwards he desired to be left alone, under
pretence of requiring rest. At midnight the servant
knocked at the door, and was ordered to go to bed:
he was no more wanted that night. At seven
o'clock in the morning, he returned to light his
master's fire, but the door was still bolted.
Afraid of causing disturbance, he went away;
but in two hours afterwards, on knocking and calling
without receiving an answer, he communicated his

apprehension to Baron de S , and, the door being

forced open, a most dreadful and affecting spectacle
presented itself to view. The young man was lying
on the bed, with the portrait of Cordelia in one
hand and the very knife with which she had stabbed

6 MEMOIRS OF

herself in the other, having with it previously pierced
his own heart. He was dressed in the same night-
gown that in the morning had been stained with his
mistress's blood; round his neck was a collar of her
hair; on his left arm was a bracelet of the same,
and upon his fingers were three rings with her hair
set round with diamonds. Between fifty and sixty of
her letters were spread about him on the bed, and
the one in which she first avowed her love of him
had been placed inside his shirt, near his bosom;
and consequently a great part of its contents was
blotted out by his blood. Upon his writing-desk lay
two open letters; the one addressed to Baron de

S , the other to Talleyrand. In the former he

prayed that his body might be permitted to be
buried in the park, upon the spot where that of
Cordelia had been reduced to ashes, without being
stripped of his present dress or ornaments. He
desired to be shut up in his coffin surrounded by all
the letters of his first and only mistress. Everything
she had left him in her will he bequeathed to her
daughter Julia. "Oh, Cordelia! " exclaimed he in this
letter, "how was it possible for this strange seducer
to perplex and shake your sentiments, even of me,
whom you must have known so well? Could you
suppose that wealth, gold, or diamonds would recom-

TALLEYRAND 7

pense me, or console me for the loss of your affec-
tion? No! you could not be in your senses when
you imagined that anything, or any person upon
earth, would have power to alleviate that insupport-
able agony, those incurable pangs your untimely
death must inflict on a lover who saw nothing lovely
in the universe but you; who, willingly, would have
sacrificed worlds to see you happy, and to whom a
world which you ceased to inhabit became a desert,
and is now a tomb! And your ashes: you refuse me
even them ! — but you were in the right ; if your
destroyer has any human feelings, their sight must
be to him a corrosive — a consuming poison."

The letter to Talleyrand was very long, and
written in a language, though somewhat confused,
strong and energetic. The following are the most
pointed paragraphs :

"Monster, vomited out of hell! why did you
pollute with your infernal presence this quiet pro-
vince, so remote from the scene of your early
crimes? And why did you infect with your de-
pravity, and bring misery into dwellings, before the
uninterrupted abode of happiness? What could
induce you to mark for destruction persons who
received you with hospitality, who treated you with
kindness, who desired your happiness and studied

8 . MEMOIRS OF

your comfort? After betraying me, seducing Cor-
delia, and dishonouring Baron de S , what could
be your motive for reducing to despair those you had
so cruelly outraged? Gracious God! was it blood
you sought? — then why not select me for your sole
victim? Why not, treacherous coward as you are,
plunge your dagger in my back, rather than fix it
in the bosom of Cordelia? Upon the verge of
eternity, with one foot already in the grave, I
solemnly declare before the God who will have
judged me when these lines reach you, had you
informed me that my death was necessary for the
tranquillity of Cordelia, that very day should have
been my last, and I had never more beheld the
setting sun. I should then have forgiven you all
the wretchedness you have caused me, persuaded
that my resignation would have convinced Cordelia
of the disinterested purity of my affection. But no!
— no! it soothed the horrid vanity of your demoniac
heart to contemplate the bleeding sacrifice of beauty;
to deprive society of one of its brightest ornaments,
whose virtues were so many and whose frailties so
few; and to bury, in the prime of life, so much
goodness, talent and elegance. God forgive me!
For hours this morning I have been meditating to
despatch you first, and then myself; but, trusting

TALLEYRAND 9

to the justice of the Divine Providence, I left this
deed to the common executioner, who, sooner or
later, must avenge insulted nature and violated hu-
manity. May the shades of Cordelia and myself,
as ever-relentless furies, pursue and torment your
guilty conscience upon earth, that you may antici-
pate here what you have to endure hereafter. My
wrath descends with me to the tomb: I expire with-
out forgiving you!"

It was from the lady whom he intended to seduce
that Talleyrand first obtained the intelligence of the
fatal catastrophe — the consequence of his depravity.
It was accompanied with an order never afterwards
to appear in her sight, and with a threat that, if he did
not quit the country immediately, her husband should
be informed of the attempt against his honour, and a
prison for life would be the least the seducer could
expect. Taking the alarm, he set out in some few
hours for Berlin, there to continue his career of in-
trigue and infamy.1

I Mon Sejouren Allemagne and Die A llgemeineA nnalen (Leipzig,
1790) contain most of the above particulars of Cordelia's and her
lover's last moments, with their last letters, wills, &c. In Les
Intrigues de Ch. M. Talleyrand, p. 66, it is, besides, stated that the
urn was presented to him in December, 1796, at Paris, and lost
by him on Christmas Day, urn, ashes and alj, to* Chevalier
Pension, at faro.

IO MEMOIRS OF

Among French ladies of natural genius and literary
talents; among the Genlis, the Staels, and others,
there is a general opinion, professed in their conver-
sations and published in their writings, that "the
virtue of women has more to apprehend from witty,
able and artful, than from young and handsome
men." This notion seems to be confirmed in the
life of Talleyrand. An able and impartial author
has drawn an accurate portrait of this political
Adonis in these words: "It is impossible to see a
more lifeless, ill-shapen machine, hung out with a wide,
glittering State uniform, than this Talleyrand. The
greatest enervation of body, with hollow cheeks and
a death-like eye, announce the profligate, broken, and
exhausted sensualist. His worn-out carcase, supported
on a pair of club feet, moves slowly on in short, un-
certain steps. His tardy, loathsome utterance shows
the satiated and cynical state of his mind: he must
indeed be a great physiognomist who could discover
the profound and subtle ex-bishop and statesman, who
dupes France and Europe by this disgusting inani-
mate exterior, by the dim remains of fire still visible
in his eyes, and by the insipid, sallow hue of his com-
plexion." * Such is the true picture of that man,

I See "Bonaparte and the French People under his Con-
sulate" (London, 1804), pp. 157 and 158.

TALLEYRAND I I

who, after gaming her affections, by his inconstancy
and vice reduced to despair one of the most beautiful
and accomplished women of the age.

The journey to Berlin was not merely dictated by
fear, but had for some time been meditated upon from
policy. The King of Prussia had but lately concluded
a peace with the regicides in France, who, insincere
themselves, supposed him equally so. When Talley-
rand had again obtained the right of a French citizen,
he offered his services to sound the ground in the capital
of Prussia, which had been accepted by the hardly
organised Directorial Government, composed of un-
principled men whose characters and conduct fore-
bode new internal changes or civil disturbances in
France. His own safety, therefore, he thought as
much connected with his secret mission to Prussia
now as his former secret mission to Great Britain
had been some few years before. In fact, all the
Directors agreed in one particular: they had assiduously
promoted, and given their suffrages for, the murder of
the King ; but in all other respects they were incapable
of sincere union. Attached to all the different parties
which had gained ascendency and been destroyed
during the Revolution, they hated each other, and
nothing but a temporary necessity could occasion an
appearance of cordiality between Orleanists, Bris-

12 MEMOIRS OF

sotines and mountaineers, who had a thousand topics
of mutual reproach and not one cause of mutual con-
fidence. The contempt and detestation which attended
the last days of the Convention were indeed favour-
able to the new Government — for new it was, in name
at least, though composed of the shreds and refuse of
the body so much hated and despised.

Peace was now avowed to be the principal wish
of the French people; but the campaign of 1795,
both on the Rhine and the frontiers of Italy, had
not produced events so important as might have
been expected. The state of the French finances,
the agitations and distractions which embarrassed the
Directory, and the numerous uncertainties attending
newly-acquired power, prevented vigorous exertions.
, France had, besides, a deeper game of policy to play.
The Governors affected a spirit of conciliation and a
desire of peace, conforming their professions towards
foreign nations with the pretended system of modera-
tion and lenity which they had established at home,
and thus deluded many Powers into a belief that they
had carried on war merely on principles of self-defence
and for purposes of security. The successes of the
protracted campaign of 1794 had weakened their armies
more than their opponents could believe. The neces-
sity of keeping up such a force in Holland as would

TALLEYRAND 1 3

enable them to effect their schemes of extortion to the
fullest extent, weakened their disposable forces for the
field, and they had no hopes, until a peace with
Prussia, Spain and other Powers limited and con-
densed their operations, of being able to carry on
effectual hostilities for another year. Their Conti-
nental enemies, on the other hand, were equally
weakened and fatigued by the length of the contest.
The Cabinet of Vienna was, unfortunately, divided by
jarring and treacherous counsels; and those who were
most patriotic in their views for the good of the
Empire were filled with consternation at the unex-
pected successes of the French and the inglorious
defection of the King of Prussia.

In that situation of affairs, a man of Talleyrand's
talents was more useful at Berlin than anywhere
else. It is, however, curious that, during the first
three months he passed there, he was only known by
the appellation of Citizen Maurice, having his pass in
that name. He was, however, often observed in the
company of the Prussian ministers, particularly in
that of Count Haugwitz, and he associated familiarly
with those male and female favourites who so much
influenced the determinations of the late King. He is
said to have passed many days with General Bishops-
werder, and many nights with the Countess of Lich-

(4 MEMOIRS OF

teneau; he here plotted with the Prussian illuminati,
preached with the Prussian atheists, fraternised with
the Prussian revolutionists, declaimed with the Prus-
sian demagogues, and complained with the Prussian
aristocrats. From his political campaign in this
capital he carried back with him to France, as
trophies of his achievements, the friendship of Count
Haugwitz; the secrets of the weakness of the Cabinet
of Berlin; the organised neutrality of Prussia; the
promise of procuring the present King— at that time
Prince Royal— his election as King of the Romans;
and a secret treaty, signed with the Prussian patriots
in the name of the French Directory, agreeing to
establish upon the ruins of monarchy a Prussian Re-
public, one and indivisible. On his return to Paris,
he wrote to Barras: "That, short as the period of
his late secret mission had been, he could take upon
himself to affirm, that either the King ot Prussia would
continue neutral as long as it suited the plans and
interest of France, or a Prussian Commonwealth
would unite its arms in the cause of liberty with
those of the French Republic."

Soon after his arrival at Paris he was elected
first a member, and afterwards one of the secretaries
to the National Institute, to which he presented a
tract written with great ability, entitled, "Des Tra-

TALLEYRAND I g

vaux de la Classe des Sciences Morales et Politi-
ques," in which he showed the advantages both of
the sciences and of liberty, and, therefore, strongly
recommended the continuance of a Republican Govern-
ment, with an elective executive as well as legisla-
tive power. Hereditary authorities and dignities, he
attempted to prove, were not only incompatible with
the improvement and felicity of society, but repro-
bated by common sense, because the history of all
times had evinced that eminent virtues and great
talents had never continued hereditary, even in two
generations. This tract, were it now revised and pre-
sented to the Corsican usurper, would certainly
procure the author a dungeon in the Temple, a
place in the Cayenne diligence, or a bullet in the
Wood of Vincennes. But honour and consistency
are qualities to which French patriots have never
pretended. This justice is due to them, that, under
former as well as under present emperors of faction,
they have, with the most daring impudence, equally
exhibited their political and religious apostacy and
their moral and social profligacy.

Before he left the vicinity of Hamburg, Talley-
rand had, in the house occupied by Madame Genlis
and General Valence, held several conferences with
Lord Edward Fitzgerald, Arthur O'Connor, and other

1 6 MEMOIRS OF

Irish conspirators, who had arrived there by appoint-
ment. With them he discussed the relative situations
of his old friends the Irish and English patriots, and
the means of establishing the independence of Ire-
land, a revolution in Great Britain, and a republican
government in both islands. In all ages and countries
there have been plots and criminal confederacies, but
it was reserved for the French Revolution to furnish
a model of multiplied and concentrated associations
conspiring against the laws, and deliberating upon their
overthrow for a series of years, while under their pro-
tection; forming, in the very heart of social order, a
league to dissolve it, having a secret legislative and
executive administration; attacking their country by
the same organs and with the same forms which
serve for its preservation and the maintenance of
public tranquillity. He had communicated to Barras
his revolutionary transactions with the Irish rebel
chiefs, and the Directory sanctioned them with their
official approbation. Their minister at Hamburg was
ordered to make that city the sanctuary of fugitives
from the British dominions, and to protect their
committee which conducted the intermediary corre-
spondence with Paris, London and Ireland, under
the mask of commercial affairs or information for
newspapers. General Hoche was sent in disguise to

TALLEYRAND 1 7

meet Lord Edward Fitzgerald and Arthur O'Connor
in Switzerland; and it was in consequence of an
agreement with them that the expedition, under this
general, to Bantry Bay in December, 1796, was
undertaken. Its miscarriage was of the greatest
utility to the British Empire, because the Directory
afterwards mistrusted the reports of the Irish rebels;
and whatever Talleyrand, when in the ministry, did
to the contrary, he could not persuade them to under-
take any but partial armaments.

Notwithstanding the brilliant exploits of the
British navy and the recent conquest of the Cape
of Good Hope, the Cabinet of St. James's, always
preferring humanity to glory, made two unsuccessful
attempts during 1796 to enter into a negotiation
for a peace with the French revolutionary rulers —
the first by means of Mr. Wickham, minister to
the Cantons of Switzerland, and the next through the
medium of Lord Malmesbury, a nobleman whose long
services in the diplomatic line, whose knowledge,
experience and integrity justly inspired the utmost
confidence that the interests of his country, or the
claims of her allies, would not be sacrificed by him
through ignorance or inattention. After much pre-
vious discussion, he obtained a passport to visit Paris.
The avowed temper and declared ambition of the

VOL. II 2

28 MEMOIRS OF

memorial, exposing the fallacy of the conclusions
drawn in the former, and the danger of France in
negotiating upon the very principles La Croix had
so strongly recommended. He manifested, also, such
an inveteracy against the British Empire, and such
a rooted hatred against the British nation, that at
last even Rewbel consented to his appointment to
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, La Croix's incapacity
being now regarded as too evident. Had not the
peace faction here been blinded to everything else
but to the indulgence of their seditious principles,
the promotion of Talleyrand, whose aversion and
fury against this country were proverbial, not only
in France, but in every quarter of Europe and
America, would have enabled them to conclude
that the French Directory had no intention of ending
the war with England, but that their whole design
was to furnish some argument to the declaimers
for peace here, while they amused the attention of
the people of France preparatory to the new revolu-
tion they were planning in favour of Jacobinism.

Talleyrand had been a member of the Diplomatic
Committee of the Constituent Assembly, which de-
creed, on the 2nd of May, 1790, " That the French
nation for ever renounced all conquests, and con-
sequently ail wars leading to that object." The

TALLEYRAND 2Q

Legislative Assembly expressed and confirmed the
same principle ; and Chauvelin, in his official notes
of the 1 2th and 24th of May, 1792, presented to
Lord Grenville, declares in the former : " That
whatever may finally be the fate of arms, France
rejects all ideas of aggrandisement" ; and, in the latter,
" That, religiously faithful to the principles of its
Constitution, whatever may be definitively the fortune
of her arms, France disclaims every idea of aggrandise-
ment"1 These notes, though signed by Chauvelin,
were penned by Talleyrand, whose political con-
sistency and moral rectitude has since been such
that he has not, as a minister, negotiated a single
peace without directly or indirectly obtaining some
acquisition to France by conquest or exaction; nor
has a war been entered into by France during his
ministry the object of which was not, besides extor-
tion of plunder, extension of territory. Nay, even
without a declaration of war, he has wrested from
the allies of his country various possessions. Geneva
and a part of Switzerland were conquered in time
of peace ; the Republic of Genoa invaded in time of
peace ; Piedmont incorporated in time of peace ;
Louisiana, Parma, Plaisance, and the Isle of Elba

I See " Rivington's Annual Register for 1792," Part II.,
pp. 258, 260.

2O MEMOIRS OF

Foreign Department in France ; but he and the Director
Rewbel were so closely connected by partitions of
plunder and other patriotic deeds, when on missions as
members of the National Convention, that Talleyrand,
nevertheless, lost all hope of turning him out, or of
succeeding him. Ramel, the Minister of the Finances,
being a regicide as well as Rewbel and La Croix, had,
however, embroiled himself with the former, was hated
by Barras, and supported only by Carnot. Talley-
rand, therefore, from a politician became a financier,
and determined at any rate to have his ambition
gratified by his appointment to the rank of a minis-
ter. A long memorial, comparing the finances of
France in 1796 with those of America in 1783, was
presented by him to his friend Barras, who laid it
before the Directory. It was found to contain so
many just observations and pertinent remarks that
it was remitted to the financial committee of the
Council of Five Hundred. There the state of the
finances continued to be a source of continual
debates, and schemes of fraud and imposture were

dislocated his shoulder, the surgeon who set it discovered a
mark from a hot iron inflicted on him as a thief and a forger.
This scandalous discovery caused his removal. He is a member
of the Legion of Honour! Let Nouvelies d la Main, Messidor,
year XII., No. iii., page 8.

TALLEYRAND 2 1

daily presented for supplying the National Treasury
with money, although the Government was divested
of credit. This domestic penury, while a victorious
army was plundering the most wealthy States of
Europe, should convince the people of all countries
that economy, public faith, general industry, and
rigid justice can alone preserve them from distress ;
and that, without these qualities, so eminently pos-
sessed by the English Government and nation, the
entire treasures of a subjugated world would be seized
in vain. Individuals might, as in France, be shame-
fully enriched, but the community must continue
poor, oppressed and hopeless.

Shortly afterwards, at the desire of Barras, Talley-
rand wrote on this subject a message from the
Directory, in which, by an affecting, though not
overcharged picture of public calamity, they solicited
the attention of the Council of Five Hundred. "All
parts of the public service," they said, "are in
extreme distress. The pay of the troops is in arrear,
and the defenders of the country given up to the
horrors of nakedness. Their courage is enervated by
their grievous wants, and their disgust occasions deser-
tions. The hospitals are without furniture, fire or
drugs; and the charitable institutions, similarly unpro-
vided, repel the approach of that indigence and infir-

22 MEMOIRS OF

mity which they ought to solace. The State creditors
and contractors who contributed to supply the wants of
the armies can only obtain, by their utmost exertions,
small parts of the sums which were due to them, and
the example of their distress deters others who would
perform the same services with more punctuality and
less profit. The highroads are broken up and com-
munication interrupted, the salaries of the public
functionaries are unpaid, and throughout the Republic
we see judges and administrators reduced to the
horrible alternative of dragging on a miserable ex-
istence, or disgracefully selling themselves to every
intrigue. Malevolence is universally busy; in many
places assassination is reduced to a system, and the police,
without activity or force, and being destitute of pecu-
niary means, is unable to terminate disorders." As a
remedy for these inconveniences, it was proposed in
the message — first, a compulsory advance in money
from all purchasers of national domains, a project
which only increased their embarrassments, by giving
reason to expect a new circulation of paper, with no
better guarantee than the credit of individuals. The
Minister of Finance was next authorised to convoke
an assembly of merchants from all the considerable
trading towns of the Republic, to meet at Paris.
Some attended, others refused to obey the summons;

TALLEYRAND 23

but all concurred in rejecting four several plans which
were offered for the establishment of a national bank,
though enforced by all the persuasions which power
and eloquence could lend to the Ministers Ramel
and Benezeth. The merchants answered by a plain
enumeration of facts: "All Government paper," they
said, "has been discredited, and every scheme for
giving circulation to such a symbol in France has
been disgraced by an unprincipled seizure of the
property which was to realise its value. The effects
of anarchy depress the spirit of commerce; we trade
only on the ruins of our former wealth, capital is
spent or buried, manufactures are shut up, corre-
spondence is annihilated, a continual fluctuation in
Government checks the spirit of enterprise, and
the best combined speculations fail because, between
the period of projecting and that of perfecting them,
a total change takes place in the laws relating to
their operation." When such was the situation of
the French finances, a man must, indeed, possess
great confidence of his own powers to promise him-
self success in an attempt to repair derangement so
universal, and to restore a ruined credit; but Talley-
rand's intent was rather to expose the want of talents
in the Minister than to relieve the sufferings of the
State. He desired a place in the Ministry to enrich

24 MEMOIRS OF

himself first, and that done, he would, perhaps, con-
sider whether it was possible to abate the misery of
his impoverished country.

In the spring of 1797, Talleyrand presented a
petition to the Directory in the name of Madame
Grand. She proved herself to have been born a
Danish subject, though married to an Englishman,
whom she detested because he had made her un-
happy. This petition was referred to Citizen Cochon,
the then Minister of Police, whose approbation it
obtained. She was, therefore, permitted to return to
France, where she arrived with a Danish pass, and
continued to reside under the protection of the Danish
minister, until she was married to her present husband.
Her house at Montmorency, near Paris, soon became
the rendezvous of all those foreign diplomatic agents
or directorial courtiers whom he judged favourable to
his designs, whose services he expected, whose in-
fluence he knew, and whose assistance he courted. It
is difficult to say what could induce Madame Grand
to prostitute herself and her reputation with a man
of whose depravity she had been informed, and with
whose libertinism she was not unacquainted; who never
made a mistress happy, but who often had declared his
greatest enjoyment was to witness the misery of those
females he had ruined. Some pretended that it origin-

TALLEYRAND 2 5

ated in a feeble mind that knew and detested him, but
wanted courage to express itself, and therefore received
a faithless man as a friend and a disagreeable man as
a lover. Others, and those her apologists, in not
denying her own want of energy and her dislike of
Talleyrand, insinuate that gratitude for having, by
his means, recovered her property, silenced all other
feelings, and even changed disgust into affection and
contempt into confidence. But her indiscreet friends,
in degrading her understanding, libel her heart. She
had always, during her migration, property enough to
live even in affluence, both from what Lieutenant
Belcher, with such honourable disinterestedness and
at so much risk, had saved for her, and from an
unlimited credit sent her by Mr. Grand from Switzer-
land, who, hearing of her flight to England and not
knowing her circumstances, forgot that he had been
injured by her, only remembering that she bore his
name and had once been worthy of his love as well
as of his esteem, and that if she had since been
culpable she then was unfortunate. This was con-
duct not unexpected from a Briton, because it is
honourable to the man; in how different a manner
has the delicate French citizen Talleyrand acted! He
has always openly, though not much to the credit of
his mistress, declared that she was just the woman

26 MEMOIRS OF

he wanted, and of the whole female army he had
known and commanded, the person who best suited
his purposes— not having sense enough to dupe him
by interfering in any political intrigues, but capacity
enough to do well the honours of her house. She
was an inoffensive but agreeable companion at table,
and Venus herself in the boudoir, which was all
that he looked for. Whether he much trusted in
her fidelity may be concluded from the following
anecdote. His valet de chambre, who was also his
pimp, introduced to his acquaintance, during his stay
in Germany, a young daughter of a Protestant clergy-
man, whom he soon debauched and carried away
with him, in the disguise first of a jockey, and after-
wards, as she grew taller, in that of private secre-
tary. When Madame Grand came back to Paris,
he made this girl assume the dress of her sex, and
recommended her to his mistress as a chambermaid,
or, rather, as a governess, . because she has been
obliged to submit to the rudeness, as well as to the
awkwardness of this Abigail, who watched her
words, reported her behaviour, inspected her corre-
spondence, and embroiled her with her lover, or
pacified him, just as humour, anger, malice or
caprice dictated. This woman he now calls the
prefect of the female department of his house, and

TALLEYRAND 2?

Madame Talleyrand is to this time more afraid of
provoking her than of offending her husband.1

By another endeavour of the English Government
to negotiate a peace, Talleyrand expected to find
another opportunity of making his abilities known,
and, perhaps, himself necessary. He composed an
artful, but more eloquent than conclusive, memorial
of the relative political situation of Great Britain and
France, which he, as a friend, gave La Croix to
read over and improve with his observations. As
he suspected, this minister immediately made use of
it, and laid it before the Directory in his own name,
recommending the adoption of its contents. Talley-
rand was, however, beforehand with him, having
two days previously presented to Rewbel another

I Les Nouvelles & la Main, Thermidor, year XI., No. ii.,
p. 4 and 5. In the note of the last page is mentioned a proof
of Madame Talleyrand's ingenuousness. When, in the autumn
of 1797, the Directory negotiated a loan, and Bonaparte gave
England as security for its acquittal, Madame Grand wrote to
Talleyrand, expressing her uneasiness on account of her jewels
and valuables deposited in the Bank of England, and begged
him to inform Bonaparte of it. In return she was answered,
"that, having always her interest at heart more than his own,
he had obtained from the Directory a separate decree, which
exempted her property in England from being included in
Bonaparte's pledge, and that it therefore was safe." She was
ingenuous enough to show Talleyrand's answer to several
persons, to the great amusement of the then fashionable wits.
Even Talleyrand himself was entertained by her sally.

28 MEMOIRS OF

memorial, exposing the fallacy of the conclusions
drawn in the former, and the danger of France in
negotiating upon the very principles La Croix had
so strongly recommended. He manifested, also, such
an inveteracy against the British Empire, and such
a rooted hatred against the British nation, that at
last even Rewbel consented to his appointment to
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, La Croix's incapacity
being now regarded as too evident. Had not the
peace faction here been blinded to everything else
but to the indulgence of their seditious principles,
the promotion of Talleyrand, whose aversion and
fury against this country were proverbial, not only
in France, but in every quarter of Europe and
America, would have enabled them to conclude
that the French Directory had no intention of ending
the war with England, but that their whole design
was to furnish some argument to the declaimers
for peace here, while they amused the attention of
the people of France preparatory to the new revolu-
tion they were planning in favour of Jacobinism.

Talleyrand had been a member of the Diplomatic
Committee of the Constituent Assembly, which de-
creed, on the 2nd of May, 1790, "That the French
nation for ever renounced all conquests, and con-
sequently all wars leading to that object." The

TALLEYRAND 2Q

Legislative Assembly expressed and confirmed the
same principle; and Chauvelin, in his official notes
of the 1 2th and 24th of May, 1792, presented to
Lord Grenville, declares in the former : " That
whatever may finally be the fate of arms, France
rejects all ideas of aggrandisement" ; and, in the latter,
" That, religiously faithful to the principles of its
Constitution, whatever may be definitively the fortune
of her arms, France disclaims every idea of aggrandise-
ment"1 These notes, though signed by Chauvelin,
were penned by Talleyrand, whose political con-
sistency and moral rectitude has since been such
that he has not, as a minister, negotiated a single
peace without directly or indirectly obtaining some
acquisition to France by conquest or exaction ; nor
has a war been entered into by France during his
ministry the object of which was not, besides extor-
tion of plunder, extension of territory. Nay, even
without a declaration of war, he has wrested from
the allies of his country various possessions. Geneva
and a part of Switzerland were conquered in time
of peace; the Republic of Genoa invaded in time of
peace ; Piedmont incorporated in time of peace ;
Louisiana, Parma, Plaisance, and the Isle of Elba

x See " Rivington's Annual Register for 1792," Part II.,
pp. 258, 260.

30 MEMOIRS OF

were swindled in time of peace ; and had not the
all-powerful veto of British bravery interposed, Egypt
had, in time of peace, again been torn from the
Turkish Empire.

Knowing the determination of the majority of the
Directors to continue the unpopular war with England,
and apprehensive that the odium of an unsuccessful
issue of the negotiation would be cast on him, with
a view to shelter himself as much as possible from
all connection with it, Lisle, in Flanders, was fixed
as the place of meeting, and the ex-Director Le
Tourneur, the ex-Minister Pleville Lepelley, and
Maret were nominated the French negotiators, whilst
Lord Malmesbury alone was appointed Plenipotentiary
on behalf of Great Britain. The English Ministry
on their part were too well acquainted with the
characteristics of the French Government to expect
that a specific compact would easily be arranged ;
yet the appearance of an approaching peace with the
Emperor of Germany and the avowed disposition of
two members of the Directory afforded some hopes.
The extensive claims of restitution made by the
French during ttie preceding negotiation, though
coloured by pretexts of an honourable attention to
the interests of their allies, were in fact intended
merely as a means of gaining for themselves the most

TALLEYRAND 3!

valuable colonies. Nor did the Directors scruple to
avow their intention of keeping Holland in a state
of abject dependence, to plunder the country, and
to acquire, either by force, or at the expense of
the Dutch, the Cape of Good Hope and Trin-
comali ; but afterwards to retain the possession
themselves. The cession of the Spanish part of St.
Domingo to France had materially changed the aspect
of affairs in the West Indies, and, therefore, the
first proposition of a treaty, on the basis of reciprocal
compensations, was followed by a note claiming, on
the part of Great Britain, the retention of Trinidad,
and, as an exemption to the proposition of the status
quo ante bellum, the English Plenipotentiary demanded
that the Cape of Good Hope, the Dutch possessions
in Ceylon and the town and fort of Cochin should
be given up to His Britannic Majesty, in exchange
for Negapatam and its dependencies. The French
negotiators, instead of answering these propositions,
raised a cavil on the title of the King of France,
which the monarchs of Great Britain had so long
borne, and which they insisted should be no longer
used. They claimed restitution of the ships captured
at Toulon, and an indemnity for those which were
destroyed; and stated several scruples respecting the
mortgages that the English Government might have

32 MEMOIRS OF

on the Flemish dominions of the Emperor of Germany.
These proposals, and the collateral discussions arising
from them, consumed a large portion of time, during
which the majority of the Directory were arranging
their plans for the revolution of the i8th of Fructidor.
When that was effected, measures of decency were
no longer deemed necessary. The three negotiators
hitherto employed were recalled; but, before they
quitted Lisle, paid the most ample and merited
homage to the frankness and honour with which
Lord Malmesbury had conducted himself. Bonnier
and Treilhard — both members of the National Con-
vention, where they had voted for the death of their
King — were their successors. Their questions were
so captious, their demands so extravagant and their
conduct so overbearing, that the unfavourable termina-
tion of the negotiation was considered inevitable ; and,
after a few unsatisfactory notes, Lord Malmesbury
was ordered by the French to return within twenty-
four hours, and obtain from his Court the necessary
powers for consenting to such restitutions as the
laws and treaties of the French Republic rendered
indispensable. Lord Malmesbury accordingly quitted
the scene of unavailing contest ; while the French, in
order to retain the appearance of wishing for peace,
suffered their regicide negotiators to remain some

TALLEYRAND 33

time longer, and even officially notified to the
British plenipotentiary that his return to Lisle was
expected. This piece of duplicity, of Talleyrand's
invention, produced a spirited letter, in which Lord
Malmesbury observed that he had in his last note
pointed out, with precision and candour, the only
remaining means of continuing the negotiation. The
King, His Lordship added, could not again treat in
an enemy's country without an assurance that the
customs established among all civilised nations with
respect to public ministers, especially those des-
patched for the purpose of restoring peace, should
in future be respected in the person of his pleni-
potentiary. This reproach was the more offensive
because obviously merited. The answer of the Direc-
tory, written by Talleyrand, was published in an
angry proclamation ; but the King of Great Britain
appealed to all civilised nations in a temperate and
dignified manifesto.1

Thus Talleyrand began his ministerial campaign.
The Parisians said that, during the whole summer
of 1797, he had many severe battles to fight, with
the English guineas on one side and the Spanish

i See "State Papers, Collections of Parliamentary Debates,
&c."

VOL. II 3

34 MEMOIRS OF

dollars, Prussian frederics d'or and Dutch ducats
on the other. Whether the English guineas got
the better of their adversaries, or the offers of the
British plenipotentiary were such as he thought
humiliating enough for this country, and sufficiently
advantageous to France, it is a fact that, on the
igth of August, he proposed to the Directory the
acceptance of them. Even in some of the French
papers it was reported that a peace had actually
been signed.1 Ambitious men, of all countries, will
endure many affronts, and suffer many insults, before
they consent to give up their places, to renounce
their authority, or to lose their lucrative employ-
ments; but there are no outrages, however violent, nor
any humiliation, however degrading, which an am-
bitious revolutionary Frenchman will not submit to
rather than resign. When Talleyrand offered this
proposition for terminating hostilities, the Director
Rewbel, after reading over the plan, threw it in
his face with this delicate expression: "You rascally
priest, you must either be a fool or a rogue gained

I It was inserted in many papers, among others, in Fuillant's
Journal du Soir. The author was at Paris, and went to enquire
of Pichegru, then in the Council of Five Hundred, and was told
the report had reached him. This was said in General Jourdan's
hearing who nodded affirmation. Some merchants even sent
couriers to the provinces with this news.

TALLEYRAND 35

over by the English, to dare to lay before us such
an ill-digested and inacceptable plan; call on me
after our sitting is over and I will convince you that
you are an imbecile or a traitor." Talleyrand, of
course, subscribed to the strong arguments of his
revolutionary sovereign, acknowledged his own ignor-
ance, promised improvement, and the very next day
made amende honorable by inventing and producing
some new and extravagant demands on Great Britain
to which he knew she would never assent. Whether
Talleyrand published this scandalous affair to expose
or to be revenged on Rewbel, or whether the latter
did it to humiliate the former, whom he suspected
of having pocketed a bribe without sharing it with
him, is unknown; but certain it is that within
twenty-four hours its particulars were circulated, not
only in the Directorial circles, but found their way
into several newspapers.1 At the same time copies
of some letters curiously contrasting with its con-
tents, written in 1789 by Rewbel to Talleyrand,
were printed and handed about at Paris. In these
the then humble attorney speaks to Monseigneur,
the then Bishop of Autun, of nothing but of the

i See Le Thee, a daily evening paper, from the xgth to the
30tb of August, 1797. Barthelemy, when in England in 1798,
confirmed the truth of this scandalous scene.

3—2

36 MEMOIRS OF

most reverend prelate's haute sagcsse, pro/end savoir
talents inappreciables, &c. This seasonable exposure
certainly originated from Talleyrand's portfolio,
though he announced in the Journal de Paris that
these letters had been seized with his other papers
during the time he was proscribed, and now made
public by his enemies, either among the aristocrats or
among the terrorists, with no other views than to emboil
him with his benefactor, Citizen Rewbel. He, however,
either would not or could not deny their authenticity.
On this occasion it required all his cunning and
pliability to preserve his place and to avoid the
vengeance of the Directorial trio, Rewbel, La Re-
veilliere and Barras. He had imprudently shown his
plan of pacification to their antagonist, Barthelemy,
previous to presenting it to the Directory. It had
obtained this Director's approbation, and it is supposed
that it was through him, or through his intelligence
with several loyal members of the two councils, that
it came to the notice of the public. This would have
been an unpardonable error, and a punishable indis-
cretion, had not Talleyrand been master of Barras's
secret, relative to the Revolution nearly ripe for
execution. Rewbel, therefore, was persuaded to accept
of an apology, and seemed convinced that the whole
fault originated in Maret's Anglomania, who was,

TALLEYRAND 37

therefore, disgraced during the remaining part of the
Directorial reign.

On the i yth of September, Lord Malmesbury had
been obliged to leave Lisle, and, on the I7th of Oc-
tober, amidst mutual threats, defiances, preparations
and even slight hostilities, the peace between Austria
and France was signed at Campo Formio. The public
articles stipulated the cession of the Low Countries to
France, and that the Republicans should retain the
islands in the Archipelago and in the Adriatic Sea
formerly belonging to Venice, and the establishment of
that Republic in Albania. The Emperor was to possess
the absolute sovereignty of the territories of Venice
to the Adige ; the Milanese and Mantuan territories
were ceded to the Cisalpine Republic, which was
formally acknowledged ; and an indemnity was to be
granted to the Duke of Modena in the Brisgaw.
Finally, a Congress was to be established at
Rastadt, to settle a pacification between France and
the German Empire. The secret articles did not long
remain secret to those Powers whom they most injured :
within six days after their ratification by the Direc-
tory, Talleyrand, for the moderate sum of 1,500,000
livres, divided between him, Barras and Rewbel,
informed the Turkish, the Prussian and the Bavarian
ministers of their contents. They were, however,

$8 MEMOIRS OF

not given to the public at large until the dissolution
of the political farce, which had been acting eighteen
months at Rastadt, approached. It is more to be
deplored that these secret articles ever existed, than
that they should be published. They disclosed in
the Austrian plenipotentiaries (one of them, Count
Cobentzel, the present ambassador at Paris) a fas-
cination, an erroneous calculation and a want of fore-
sight difficult to be accounted for. It is incompre-
hensible how they could be lured into Talleyrand's
snare ; how they could receive and make such
presents ; how bind themselves to the most treacherous
of governments, by a stipulation the nature and secret
of which chained in future the Imperial Cabinet to
the usurping politics of revolutionary France. After
reading these articles it is unnecessary to look any
further for the cause of the distrust and division
which afterwards broke out in the Congress at Rastadt,
for the alarms which still withheld several Powers
from a general confederacy, and for the unresisted
tyranny of Bonaparte, in Germany as well as in Italy,
in Switzerland as well as hi Holland, in Spain as
well as in Portugal. It is easy to foresee that, in
possession of such an instrument, the French Govern-
ment would avail themselves of it to commit those
numerous robberies they have perpetrated everywhere,

TALLEYRAND 39

and the boundless encroachments they have usurped,
and with which they have encircled a regicide Re-
public. The nature of the articles evidently proves
that they were composed by Talleyrand, with the
approbation of Bonaparte and their then sovereigns,
the Directors. Of course, in publishing them they
become accusers of their own treachery. If they
made the Imperial Cabinet suspected in the eyes of
Prussia, of Turkey, of the Elector Palatine, of the
Germanic body, in short, of all Europe, what senti-
ments must they excite among the potentates whose
territories, safety, and sovereignty they thus trafficked
with, to load them some time afterwards with their
protestations of kindness and patronage! What pro-
tectors for the Empire 1 What guardians of its
independence !

No nation at war with France had less provoked
her attacks, or had oftener negotiated with her for
peace, than Portugal. The weighty persuasions of
Spain at last overcame Talleyrand's political nicety,
and a passport for Chevalier d'Aranjo, as an acknow-
ledged Portuguese envoy, was signed by him. But
after the plenipotentiary's arrival, his instructions
to negotiate were deemed too limited ; he was,
therefore, first dismissed, and then recalled. When,
signing a peace (purchased at the price of ^250,000,

40 MEMOIRS OF

divided between the five Directors and Talleyrand),
he was a second time turned away, as soon as they
had touched that sum, and declared the treaty not
to have taken place. The same patriotic negotiator,
inured to all affronts, a third time compromising
the dignity of his Sovereign and of his country,
again returned to solicit peace and offer his gold,
but with an indiscretion for which, notwithstanding
his privileged character, he was sent to the Temple
by an order (mandat d'arrtt) signed by Talleyrand.
This arrest, so contrary to the laws of nations, took
place in consequence of a discovery having been
made by the then Minister of Police (Sattin), of
Talleyrand receiving ^"82,000, besides the ^"250,000
shared with the Directory. Suspecting perfidy, and
dreading evidences, he falsely accused Chevalier
d'Aranjo of intriguing for Great Britain. Confined
in the Republican State prison, this pacificator had
no opportunity to confound his accusers or to refute
his calumniators. Some further pecuniary sacrifices
advanced by the Spanish Ambassador (Marquis
Del Campo), opened, however, the doors of his
prison, and prevented him being detained a prisoner
until a general pacification, which was the wish of
Talleyrand, and the first determination of the
Directory.

TALLEYRAND 4!

The following account is given of a sitting of the
Directory, on the 2nd of December, 1797, at which
Bonaparte and Talleyrand were admitted:1

"The map of the world was spread over the table,
and each Director had a globe before him. The order
of the day was to discuss in what manner liberty and
equality could be propagated to the greatest honour
of the French arms, to the greatest glory of the great
nation, and to the greatest injury to the British
Empire. The Director Francis Neufchateau opened
the sitting with a long speech, in which he proposed
to revolutionise India and China, as with these
nations France had no binding treaties or stipu-
lations, but among whom her warriors might at once
both plunder riches and gather laurels. He desired
the equipment of the whole Republican navy, together
with those of their allies, to sail, accompanied by as
many transports and as numerous armies as possible.
The Director Merlin agreed to the utility of invading
and republicanising China and India, but he desired
that France would first annihilate monarchy and
aristocracy in Europe. The Director La Reveilliere

z Le Voyageur Suisse, page 24, &c. The author says that he
read the minutes of this sitting at Madame St. Hilaire's who
was then kept by La Garde, Secretary of the Directory and
that it was in his handwriting.

42 MEMOIRS OP

assented to the justness of Citizen Merlin's opinion;
he only added that, 'before we undertook any remote
regenerations, we should bury Christianity in the
same grave with monarchy and aristocracy, as priests
were the most revengeful of all despots and the most
dangerous of all aristocrats.' The Director Rewbel
hoped that French patriots would always bear it in
mind that their safety could only be ensured by the
ruin of the English monarchy. The conquest and
regeneration of Ireland by France was, unfortunately,
retarded by the late disasters of the Batavian fleet
(Lord Duncan's victory). By the Treaty of Campo
Formio, Great Britain was isolated from the Conti-
nent. ' Let us,' said he, ' organise this isolation by
immediately extending republicanism to the other
side of the Pyrenees and the Rhine, as well as on
the other side of the Alps and the Adige. Let the
tricoloured standard triumphantly wave, from the
banks of the Elbe to the banks of the Tagus,
from the borders of the Baltic to the shores of the
Black and Red Seas. In every country we enter,
we advance nearer the attainment of our object;
and, by every new republic we erect, one of the
pillars of monarchy falls to the ground.' The
Director Barras agreed with Citizen Rewbel in the
necessity of organising the political as well as the

TALLEYRAND 43

natural isolation of Great Britain from the Continent,
and foresaw the great utility of surrounding France
with allied or tributary republics in Europe as well
as in Asia, Africa and America. ' But might we
not hope,' continued he, 'from the valour of our
troops and the talents of our generals, that regenera-
tions may be effected at the same time in different
quarters of the globe? Let us hasten the expedi-
tion at Toulon; let us order one division of our
forces to make Egypt a bridge to India; whilst
other divisions constitute new republics in Helvetia,
Spain, Portugal, Ireland and in Cis-Rhenian Germany.
In all these countries we already are, or shall be,
invited by the friends of liberty and equality, the
soundest part of every nation. Let us invariably
enter all States destined for regeneration as friends,
as allies, and nowhere as intruders or foes. In so
doing no treaties are broken, and no other Powers
will have any just grounds of complaint. As all
these new republics add to the weight of our scale
in the balance of power, we shall soon have occasion
to fear no superior, acknowledge no equal, but
command and obtain tribute even from the most
distant States, well convinced, as they must be, that
subjugation will follow opposition.'

" General Bonaparte was then asked his opinion :

44 MEMOIRS OP

' Citizen Directors,' said he, * I am so well persuaded
of the advantage of colonising and regenerating
Egypt, that I have already offered myself to head
the expedition as soon as you are certain that
Malta will receive a French garrison. As to
republicanising the other countries, I should libel
my love of universal freedom did I not approve it
to its full extent. As, however, the naval forces of
Spain and Portugal are absolutely necessary for the
perfection of our plans, both in the Mediterranean
and in the Indian Seas, and as these forces are
still in the power of despots and commanded by
aristocrats, I submit to your consideration whether
it would not be more prudent and political, first to
see the Spanish and Portuguese navy safe in our
harbours before we plant the tree of liberty in the
cities on the other side of the Pyrenees.'

"Citizen Talleyrand, upon obtaining permission to
speak, declared that, after what had fallen from his
superiors in talent, as well as in rank, he could have
but little to say. With General Bonaparte he be-
lieved it would be better to adopt, for a short time, a
temporising system with respect to Spain and Portugal.
By treaties with the former we could claim the dis-
posal of her navy, and, by negotiations with the latter,
French garrisons might soon occupy her seaports and

TALLEYRAND 45

dispose of her arsenal and navy in the manner lately
executed with so much skill and adroitness at Venice.
As money was the sinew of authority and influence,
as well as of war, he took the liberty to call the
attention of the Directory to the relative situation of
neutral States. They were formerly poor, but were
now enriched by the distresses of France and her
revolutionary war. They could not, therefore, com-
plain of injustice if she reclaimed a part of these ex-
torted and ill-gotten treasures. He did not mean to
propose a direct warfare with neutral nations, but
such severity and restrictions on their navigation and
trade as would, in our turn, procure us opportunities
to use the right our actual powers give us of seizing,
capturing and confiscating, together with their cargoes,
all vessels sailing contrary to our regulations: this,
while it compensated the losses we have suffered, might
even augment our future resources. To attain this
desirable object, a decree of the Directory should
immediately declare every neutral ship trading with
England, or having English property on board, a legal
prize. Such a decree would not only be political and
advantageous to France, but detrimental and destruc-
tive in the highest degree to England. The goods in
her crowded magazines would then become rotten for
want of purchasers, her manufacturers would cease to

46 MEMOIRS OF

work for want of consumers, her merchants would be-
come bankrupts, her mechanics beggars, her people
seditious, and, without the landing of an army, we
might conquer her strongest hold — her finances. Such
a decree would, no doubt, create some alarm among
neutral Powers; but, to evince to them that the modera-
tion of the French Government is equal to its grandeur,
pecuniary sacrifices might be allowed to produce some
extenuations, and even exceptions. 'I submit,' said
he, 'to the wisdom of the Directory the following
calculation as to the amount which each neutral
government may be asked to repay ; and how much
the subjects of each can, without causing their
utter ruin, by captures restore to the French Re-
public. From the American Government may be
claimed ^"4,000,000, from the American citizens may
be captured as high as to ^"20,000,000; from the
Danish Government may be claimed ^"2,000,000,
and from the Danish subjects may be captured as
far as ^"8,000,000 ; from the Prussian Government, as
an ally, whose commercial navy is vastly inferior to
Eer military strength, may be claimed ^1,000,000,
and from the Prussian subjects may be captured
as far as ^2,500,000 ; from the Swedish Govern-
ment may be claimed ^"1,200,000, and from the
Swedish subjects may be captured as far as

TALLEYRAND 47

£4,000,000 ; from the Senate of the Imperial Cities
and Hanse Towns may be claimed £3,200,000, and
from their citizens may be captured as far as
£8,000,000 ; from the King of Naples may be
claimed £1,000,000, and from his subjects may be
captured up to £2,000,000; from the Grand Duke
of Tuscany £1,200,000 may be claimed, and from
his subjects may be captured to the extent of
£2,700,000 ; from the King of Spain may be claimed
£6,000,000, and from his subjects may be captured
as far as £12,000,000 ; from the Pope may be
claimed £500,000, and from his subjects may be
captured as far as £1,000,000.' When Talleyrand
had ended his speech, the Director Merlin bestowed
lavish encomiums on the Minister's zeal and patriot-
ism, and moved, ' That this proposal with regard
to neutral nations should be immediately changed
into a decree, and its contents communicated to all
neutral ministers and consuls resident in France,
and by couriers sent to all the diplomatic and
commercial agents of the French Republic accredited
to neutral States.' Citizen Merlin's motion was,
without further deliberation, assented to unanimously
by the Directory."

Jonathan Wild, associated with six banditti like
himself, could have furnished nothing more ingenious

48 MEMOIRS OP

than this official and State mockery. Let Europe
attend to this special character of men, at once
cruel and corrupt, who carry on their crimes with
still more cunning than fury, mingling infamous with
ferocious actions, robbing, sometimes openly, some-
tunes covertly; who are plunderers under arms,
sharpers under the Ministerial cloak, knaves and
assassins under the Directorial mantle as well as
under the Imperial diadem ; everywhere making dupes
and sacrificing victims, uniting the vilest depravity
and most contemptible means with the exercise of
violence and despotic power ; and they crown this
monstrous medley of iniquity with hypocrisy, equivoca-
tion, and with the insolent and burlesque custom of
describing themselves not only the great nation, but
the only civilised nation. Is it possible to draw such
a picture among any of the nations that have preceded
the revolutionary French in the career of serious
crimes? It cannot be too often repeated of regicide
France :

Her slaves are soldiers, and her soldiers slaves;
Her knaves are rulers, and her rulers knaves.

In proposing this decree against neutrals, Talley-
rand could have had no other object in view but
immediate, though temporary pillage. His abilities
as a statesman are, unfortunately, too much tried to

TALLEYRAND 49

leave any doubt of his not foreseeing that its conse-
quence, instead of being hurtful, must be profitable
to Great Britain, as it would change her passive
commerce with many neutral nations into an active
one with them all. The productions of British
industry, and of the British colonies, were, from
custom and from reciprocal gain, become necessities
to all people, not excepting the French Republicans
themselves; if, therefore, they were prevented from
procuring them from the first hand, they must pay
dearer for them to a second or third, as they could
not do without them. Even the wise Bonaparte,
by his restrictions against English trade, forces his
debased subjects to pay at Lubeck, Embden, Trieste
or Lisbon from three to five guineas for what they,
in a direct way, might have bought in London for
twenty shillings. Such is, and such will always be,
the case with revolutionary tyrants ; the will, passions,
and vulgar prejudices of the obscure and envious
individual never cease to accompany the fortunate
upstart in his seized palace, as well as on his
usurped throne: his mind is that of a needy and
malicious adventurer, let his power be ever so great,
ox his rank ever so elevated.

No sooner was the decree of the 2nd of December

known than English ships were engaged by neutrals,
VOL. ii 4

50 MEMOIRS OF

who carried, under the protection of convoys, those
articles they before had fetched in their own bottoms,
whence to other profits that England derived, freight
was added. This miscalculation caused Talleyrand
and the Directors no uneasiness. They had all fitted
out privateers, that, with valuable prizes of friendly or
neutral ships, repaid their advances, rewarded their
patriotism, and gratified their cupidity. It was
reported that, by this piracy only, from the ist of
January, 1798, to the ist of July the same year, Rew-
bel gained ^"250,000 ; Barras, ^"164,000 ; La Reveil-
liere, ^"100,000 ; Merlin, ^290,000 ; Neufchateau,
^50,000 ; Talleyrand, ^"210,000 ; and Madame Bona-
parte, to whom her husband had given ^12,500 to
engage in privateering, ^75,000. But, notwithstand-
ing that such infamous proceedings not only annulled
all former commercial treaties but were real acts of
hostilities in time of peace, so much had the world
been of late accustomed to the insolent and
treacherous conduct of France, that, although her
men-of-war and privateers in some few months
brought into her harbours upwards of fourteen
hundred neutral merchantmen, and her mock
tribunals condemned upwards of eight hundred of
them, the sovereigns of these nations, instead
of arming and defending the rights and property

TALLEYRAND 5!

of their subjects, contented themselves with timid
representations, made through their trembling am-
bassadors or humbled consuls.1

Of all neighbouring States, the Swiss cantons

I Le Voyageur Suisse, page 12. The author heard the following
particulars, in July, 1798, from a neutral consul-general at Paris :
Most of the judges of the French prize-tribunal were owners of
the privateers, and, of course, judges in their own cause. In Spain,
Italy, and other countries under the French yoke, their consuls
fitted out privateers, and were the only judges, in the first instance,
of such prize causes as came under their cognisance. They did
not use much ceremony. A Danish ship was condemned because
in the cabin was rolled up an English carpet for the cabin-floor.
Another was condemned because one of the sailors had on board
a new pair of English boots. A Swedish ship coming direct from
Sweden was condemned because on board was found a barrel of
Swedish strong beer, which the French judged to be English
porter. In these and many other instances the injustice of the
French was surpassed almost by the meanness of the neutral
Powers who suffered and so tamely submitted.

Some ingenious Frenchmen took advantage of this piracy
fashion to introduce by it contraband goods. A merchant at
Calais had two ships under Prussian colours loading in London.
Knowing their departure, he fitted out a fishing-boat as a privateer,
went to meet them, and carried them to Dunkirk as prizes. The
Custom-house officers were in the secret, his own friends or
relatives were the national guards put on board, and notwith-
standing all his expenses and the share he paid the Government,
his clear profit amounted to ^36,000. The author dined on board
one of these prizes, and the owner's ingenuity was related and
laughed at by twenty-two persons present. The English-manufac-
tured goods on board had already received the stamp as manu-
factured in France, and were sent to Paris as the production
of French industry!

4—2

52 MEMOIRS OF

had most grievously been insulted by revolutionary
Frenchmen, though their neutrality had not only
protected a long-unfortified frontier of France, but
supplied her with provisions in the time of famine,
and by their commerce kept up her few existing
manufactories. They had endured such barbarous
outrages since the conquest of their independence as
were never offered them before. Their youth, serving
in France according to ancient habits, and performing
their duty conscientiously and honourably, were, for
that very reason, murdered in the most dastardly
manner ; and, at the same time, every one of their
countrymen residing upon the faith of treaties among
these civilised savages, was proscribed, and hunted
to destruction like a wild beast. Notwithstanding
these sufferings, or perhaps in consequence of these
sufferings, scarcely had the regicide Convention pro-
claimed France a Republic, when the French Revolu-
tionists smothered the liberty of Geneva, and threat-
ened that of Switzerland : it was the sport of their
infancy. The general league against them obliged
them, however, to change their manoeuvres in Switzer-
land, and, instead of open attacks, console themselves
with secret plots. Early in 1795 their influence was
felt by the effects of the elections in the Councils,
which were as immediate as fatal. It gave a shock

TALLEYRAND 53

to the Government, weakened the authority of the
magistrates, and was the first step to anarchy.
Whether it was that the novelties of the day had
more charms for the young people, or that their im-
patience to rule was fomented by circumstances, or
whether, in fine, enervated by their relish for pleasure,
they dreaded to expose their fortunes and enjoyments,
the majority of the new-comers ranged themselves
under the banners of the French party, in whom
they found flatterers of their indiscretion and sponsors
for unalterable peace. Everywhere, since the storms
of the Revolution, youth has left to age the merit of
manhood, of stoicism, and inflexible attachment to
public duty.

On the admission of those novelties, all respect
for grey hairs was lost : a deluge of motions and
speeches overflowed the Grand Council; its new
guides paid deference to none. Upon the word of
their leaders and on the authority of their knowledge,
they pursued the chimera of acquiring the goodwill
of the French revolutionary rulers. Like the wor-
shippers of malignant deities, they prostrated them-
selves before them with the offering of their affections,
without considering that the only sacrifice that could
satisfy them was that of the Constitution, of the
independence, and, above all, of the riches of Switzer

54 MEMOIRS OF

land. Bonaparte had done enough in Italy to
convince them of it. By inscribing the sentence
of neutral States on the ruins of Genoa and Venice,
he divulged to Europe the mysteries of the revolu-
tionary cabinet. Such effrontery and perfidy, an
hypocrisy so dastardly, combined with such bare-
faced usurpations, announced the dissolution of
every social system. A revolutionist by constitu-
tion, a conqueror by subornation, unjust by instinct,
insulting in victory, mercenary in his patronage, an
inexorable plunderer, bartering his lenity with the
victims whose credulity he betrays, as terrible by his
artifices as by his arms, dishonouring valour by the
studied abuse of public faith, crowning immorality
with the palm of philosophy, and oppression with the
cap of liberty — this fortunate Corsican, carrying the
torch of Erostratus in one hand, and the sabre of
Genseric in the other, laid the plan for burying
Switzerland beneath the ruins of Italy. By the
Revolution of the i8th of Fructidor, or of the 4th of
September, 1797, that devoted country was left with-
out protectors in the French Councils, and the avarice
of Rewbel and Talleyrand became the active instru-
ment of Bonaparte's lust for devastation. Without,
however, regularly opening the trenches, the mines
were dug, and preparations made to facilitate the

TALLEYRAND 55

assault. Above all, Talleyrand at Paris was at work
rummaging archives and consulting sophists for a
pretence for an invasion, and then to clear the way
by revolutionary devices. Searching in vain, he con-
strained himself to entangle the Swiss in some
resolution which he might calumniate, in order to fix
on that calumny the pivot of aggression. On the
other hand, as cowardly as unjust, he did not dare to
affront a martial nation when armed, whose resistance
might have endangered the expedition and rekindled
a general war. He therefore advised the Directory to
set out with intrigues and expedients to dissolve the
States internally. To prolong the confidence of the
Swiss by pacific representations, to threaten one par-
ticular canton in order to detach the others from its
interests, to divide the members of the League and
the Councils of each Government, to invest the
people with suborners, to answer umbrages with
caresses, to instigate innovations that enfeeble autho-
rity and concord, to stifle Switzerland by her own
means, and to crush her as she was expiring,
was the subtle detail of the instructions he gave
the Directorial agents. Serpents foreran tigers; and
political poisoners were here — as everywhere else —
the advanced guard of French armies. Some few
alienated natives of Switzerland were associated in

56 MEMOIRS OF

this conspiracy. To introduce war and desolation
into the country which has nourished us, to be the
underling of a foreign usurpation, to give up one's
countrymen to the scourges of a revolution, and to
rise upon their dead bodies to the dignity of vice-
regent of a Rewbel, of a Bonaparte, or of a Talley-
rand, were such crimes as had never yet tarnished
the Helvetic history.

At last, when French banditti had in numbers
advanced towards Switzerland, the petulance of Gallic
despotism got the better of the policy of the Direc-
tors, as well as of that of their minister. They
quickly ceased to qualify the insolence of their con-
duct. The Helvetic Government, beset by imperious
requisition's, had only to choose between obedience
and war. Their legislative independence tottered,
and, by the first insult they bore against their sove-
reignty, they lost the sovereignty itself. Of these
accumulated outrages, the most decisive was the
request for dismissing the minister of His Britannic
Majesty. Ever since civilised communities have
acknowledged a law of nations, not one among them
had ever yet attempted such outrages. States have
been known to send away ambassadors who, hav-
ing themselves violated the law of nations, had also
forfeited its protection; but to require of an inde-

TALLEYRAND 57

pendent State such a contempt for public faith and
for national character, was to arrogate to themselves
the sovereign authority. This presumption caused,
then, a general surprise and indignation; the Talley-
rand of 1797 has, therefore, in 1804, changed his
method of humiliating free States. Instead of desir-
ing British agents to be dismissed, his agents, his
spies, and his other political banditti hunt them
away as a Drake or a Taylor, or carry them off
as a Sir George Rumbold.

The Swiss magistrates were confounded, and ap-
peared to be struck with moral pusillanimity. Instead
of shutting, without delay, all communication with
France, increasing the strictness of their police, and
intimidating the evil-minded, they were still afraid
of offending their enemy by preventing his wicked
encroachments, talked of the generosity of the revolu-
tionary French, wasted time that was precious in
fruitless debates, and did not seem at all to suspect
that their ruin was at hand. In order to prolong this
stupefaction, and not belie the preachers of moderation,
Talleyrand, avowing Mengaud1 (a man formerly em-
ployed in commissions of a dark nature, and in revolu-

i This is the same Mengaud who, during the late peace, as a
police commissary at Calais, treated English travellers with so
much rudeness and insolence.

58 MEMOIRS OF

tionary achievements, joining insolence to the vulgarity
of a recruiter) as chavgk d'affaires, acquainted the Hel-
vetic body that the mission of that envoy " should
have no other object than to embrace every oppor-
tunity of expressing the sincere wishes of the Executive
Directory for the prosperity of the deserving Helvetic
body." These assurances were repeated by appointed
informers. Mengaud himself wrote to the Chancery
of Zurich: "The resolution of the Directory," says
he, " forbids me all explanation upon the absurd reports
of an invasion, which obtains the success of calumny
only by the good faith of those whom odious motives,
aided by the means of perfidy, keep in error." The
duplicity of Talleyrand, the balderdash of Mengaud,
and all those delusions of the petty princes of Italy
in the fifteenth century, laid the cantons asleep till
the 1 5th of December, 1797, the day on which the
invasion of the Helvetic part of the Bishopric of Basle,
by a body of French troops, burst the cloud and
flashed lightning on every eye. When afterwards
some seditious vagabonds in the Pays de Vaud,
instigated by French emissaries, flew to arms, Tal-
leyrand transmitted to the Helvetic Government the
following resolutions, adopted by the Directory upon
his report, dated the 8th Nivose, year 6, or Decem-
ber 28th, 1797: "The Executive Directory resolve

TALLEYRAND 59

that it shall be declared to the Governments of
Berne and Fribourg that the members of those
Governments shall answer personally for the safety
of the persons and property of the inhabitants of
the Pays de Vaud who have applied, or may yet
aPPty > to the French Republic to request, by virtue
of ancient treaties, her mediation, for the purpose
of being maintained or reinstated in their rights."
In that impertinent decision it was no longer one
sovereign State speaking of another sovereign State;
the revolutionary French Cabinet was become,
according to the proposal of the liberal-minded
Talleyrand, a criminal court where the assistant-
judges were passing sentence upon Swiss magistrates.
By this expedient of terrorism he absolved the
subjects of Berne and Fribourg from their allegiance,
dissolved those two Governments, gave the signal of
rebellion against their authority, and by threatening
the magistrates personally, still further lessened their
inclination to resist.

Of these and many other acts of audacity and
treachery, the destruction of the liberty and
independence of the Helvetians was the immediate
consequence. But this is not the sole evil of French
fraternity. Those people whom their military banditti
politically enslave with their bayonets, their revo-

6O MEMOIRS OF

lutionary emissaries morally degrade by their precepts
and examples. Since the simplicity of the Swiss has
been misled by perfidious delusion, the energy of their
former national character has vanished, and they
seem to console themselves under their yoke, their
ruin and their disgrace. Their tyrants have succeeded
in reconciling them to their sufferings, in corrupting
their instincts, in ranging them among the flocks of
effeminate beings to whom everything is indifferent
except the loss of ease. Let them, however, be sure
beforehand that, when Bonaparte's ambition or Talley-
rand's avidity require it, this state of ease shall be no
more. There is no sleeping upon the pillow of a
revolution of which an eternal perturbation is the
principle, and all the furious passions of mankind the
result. Let the descendants of William Tell re-
member for an instant the glorious exploits of their
ancestor ! Let them recollect the liberty which he
achieved, which their forefathers preserved, and which
they have surrendered I If this remembrance does not
make them ashamed of their present slavery and hu-
miliation, let them fear the eternal reproaches of their
posterity as well as of their contemporaries. What
a degradation, what an infamy to a high-spirited
and military nation, to be reduced to a situation so de-
based that the most contemptible of all usurpers, the

TALLEYRAND 6l

Corsican adventurer, Napoleon Bonaparte, confers on
them a favour by addressing them thus : " Be the
slaves of my interests, espouse my passions, bow to
my determinations, endure your misfortunes without
a murmur, dance round the scaffolds I have erected,
sing in the gaols I have constructed, kiss the chains
I present you, and I, Napoleon the First — your
master, may, perhaps, then condescend to alleviate
their pressure I"1

Whilst the ruin of Switzerland was accomplishing,
Bonaparte, with a retinue of doctors and wise men,
set sail from Toulon with the left wing of the Army of
England, and, to make short work, went to conquer
Great Britain on the sands of the Nile. The plan of
this expedition was another offspring of Talleyrand's
portfolio. France, at all times fertile in turbulent
and fantastic projects, engendered the ideas of those
encroachments, transitions and political vicissitudes
which time but too abundantly multiplies without
the aid of human perversity to assist their progress.
But, formerly, the ministers, accustomed to those
effervescences of restlessness and ambition, treated

z In this narrative have been consulted " Bulletin Helvetique
for 1798 " ; Mallet du Pan's " History of Destruction of Liberty
in Switzerland"; Posset's "Neceeste Weltkunde for 1798";
Danican's "Cassander" ; "Helvelicker Revolutions"; "Almanack
for 1799"; and Planta's "History of the Helvetic Confederacy."

62 MEMOIRS OP

the authors of such plans as madmen, and their
inventions were thrown among old papers, scorned
and forgotten. Bonaparte, the Directory, and before
them, the Committee of Public Safety, with their
ministers, have rummaged those archives to find in-
flammatory materials, ideas of usurpation, and moulds
of mischief. Among other plans formerly proposed
was the conquest of Egypt. The attention of the
former King had been twenty times called to it
without effect. It requires a system such as that
which followed to revive so extravagant an enter-
prise, solicited by philosophers and scholars,
promised by some enthusiastic travellers, digested
by logical robbers, and worthy, in every sense,
of the avarice, as well as of the disorganising
activity of revolutionary councils and counsellors.
Before it was put into execution, it had some time
lingered in that scientific jumble called the National
Institution, in Talleyrand's secret closet, and in the
confidential societies of universal republicanism. The
hope of penetrating to India by the Red Sea was
only a secondary consideration in this project. It
was attended with too many risks and delays for
adventurous spirits; but the plunder of Egypt — its
permanent usurpation, the conversion of that country
into a colony, whence, when leisure and inclination

TALLEYRAND 63

suited, they might set Asia in a flame — and the ab-
solute dominion over Greece and the Archipelago pre-
sented more immediate advantages. Besides, the hope
of getting rid of the Hero of Italy, of the companions
of his fortune, and of the uneasiness ever resulting
to a prevailing faction from generals whom they
must displace or destroy as soon as they return
home to their country, formed also a part of
Directorial gratitude and of Talleyrand's friendship.
Fortunately for mankind, the talents of a Nelson,
Abercrombie and Hutchinson, and the valour of
British officers, sailors and soldiers, brought Talley-
rand's schemes to ruin, and Bonaparte's arms to
disgrace.

In consequence of the above-mentioned decree
against neutral Powers, proposed by Talleyrand on
the 2nd of December, 1797, the American Republic
was also marked as a fit victim to this new system
of finance. Ambition, cupidity and gratitude seldom
are found cordially to unite in the same bosom;
but in the heart of an apostate and rebel the two
former entirely exclude the latter, or change it into
hatred. Talleyrand was hardly seated in place and
power, when, in return for the hospitable protection
that he had received in the United States at the
time he was proscribed everywhere in Europe,

64 MEMOIRS OP

without any previous declaration of war, he caused
orders to be issued to capture all American ships ;
and upwards of five hundred of them were very
soon seized in the West Indies and in Europe.
A late treaty of alliance and neutrality, concluded
between Great Britain and the United States, was
assigned as the cause of an attack that violated all
ancient stipulations and conventions between France
and America. That people, sufficiently removed from
the centre of war to be exempt from the passions
which it excited and the miseries which attended it,
were anxious to retain the inestimable benefits re-
sulting from neutrality. They were not, therefore,
hasty in making reprisals, but deputed plenipoten-
tiaries to Paris. After much political chicanery, he
advised the Directory to receive them in France as
privileged characters, but not to acknowledge them as am-
bassadors or negotiators, a distinction as novel as unjust
in transactions with independent nations. It was
also very humiliating to the Americans, who, to gain
his favour, had selected citizens of known impartiality
in politics, and one of them his intimate friend when
at Philadelphia. He made the Directory, in imputing
this mode of conduct to abject fear, assume a pro-
portionate haughtiness and refuse them an audience;
but, through their inferior agents and subaltern in-

TALLEYRAND 65

triguers, insinuated that the donation of about ^60,000
to him, to be divided with four of the Directors, would
be a necessary preliminary to any attempt at nego-
tiation. It was also more than intimated that, as
the Director Merlin1 had been paid for the letters
of marque issued to privateers, those licences could
not be recalled, but the American Government
might purchase the goodwill of France by a loan
of ^3,500,000, in part to be shared between the
Directory and their minister. In making such pro-
posals, Talleyrand had egregiously mistaken the
character of those with whom he was treating. In
the minds of the Americans no passion is stronger
than the love of money; and this attempt at extortion
immediately drove the plenipotentiaries back to their
own shores, where they exposed to the whole universe
the detestable system which had been practised with
a design to plunder and dupe a friendly and neutral
nation. The Americans cheerfully armed, and pre-
pared to make reprisals; and General Washington
was again invested with the command of all the
military resources of the Republic, which derived its

I This regicide Merlin is now Bonaparte's Attorney-General,
and member of the Legion of Honour. His property amounts
to £840,000, plundered by him since 1792, -when he did not
possess an acre of land, or a louis d'or in money. — Les Nouvelles
a la Main, Ventose, year XII., No. iii., page 2.

VOL. II 5

66 MEMOIRS or

formation from his valour and judgment, and owed
its continuance to his justice and moderation.

In this official specimen of Talleyrand's political
morality, one of the secret agents employed by him
was an intriguer of the name of Bellamy, born at
Geneva, but educated at Paris in the ante-chambers
of revolutionary ministers and committees, where he
had been introduced by the notorious Claviere, an
outlawed countryman of his. After the publicity of
this shameful transaction, he had the audacity to
come over to this country, provided with a neutral
Danish pass, on a purpose that can easily be con-
jectured, expecting, no doubt, that, as in the corre-
spondence of the American plenipotentiaries he and
his associates were only mentioned as X, Y and Z,
he was unknown to our Government. An order to
leave this country convinced him, however, that he
was mistaken in his supposition. A certain Baron
du Metz, an old fellow-labourer of Talleyrand, and
who had already been sent away from England by
our ministers, was another secret agent. But in this
secret agency females were also employed — Madame
de Rochechouart, and a Madame Bonociul, whose
real name is Beaumont. The former of these ladies
made, during 1797 and 1798, several voyages between
France and England; and, after duping our Govern-

TALLEYRAND 67

ment of a sum of money, went to Altona and wrote
a libel against it. The other lady is mentioned in
Kotzebue's "Souvenirs," and played no inconsiderable
part at St. Petersburg in the events of the latter
part of the reign of Paul I.

At Talleyrand's entrance into the Ministry he
found that anarchy and ignorance had penetrated
into the offices of State, as well as into all other
places of the Republic. This was chiefly the case
with regard to the secret agency, where impostors
of both sexes, without education, usurping the name
of patriots, pocketed the secret-service money without
capacity of serving. He was, therefore, obliged to
begin an entirely new organisation, in which he was
ably assisted by Daunoud, his grand vicaire when a
bishop at Autun, but then a member of the Council
of Five Hundred. According to the list left him by
his predecessor, La Croix, two hundred and five male
and sixty-two female secret agents were paid as
employed by France in foreign countries and Courts.
After reading through their correspondence, he dis-
missed them all, assigning as a reason that "the
French Government was determined for the future
to act with such frankness that no secret agents
should be necessary to watch foreign States, who

would, moreover, be kept to their duty from the dread

5—2

58 MEMOIRS OF

of the irresistible power of France." Men whom he
had formerly known when a member of the Jacobin
propaganda were then engaged by him to find out
able recruits, and within six months three hundred
and fifteen' male and eighty-four female agents in his
pay overspread not only Europe, but the other prin-
cipal parts of the globe. He established a nursery
for the secret agency office, by sending to all
countries, for education, and to perfect themselves
in the languages, children of both sexes, between
eight and twelve years of age, taken from the found-
ling or orphan houses. They were chosen from
among those who showed some genius and possessed
beauty of person. The secret agents everywhere
inspect their education, and instruct them gradually
in what manner best to serve their country. Politics
and commerce form the principal part of instruction
for the boys, as well as for the girls; but no pains
are spared to make their persons as easy and agree-
able as their understandings penetrating. The boys
when eighteen, and the girls when fifteen, are to
return to France to undergo an examination before
the Minister ; some of the latter, previously to their
new mission, as early as 1801, furnished him a
tolerably numerous seraglio, and in his boudoir
were initiated in the mystery of his political

TALLEYRAND 69

plans. Some of these female agents are now
travelling as governesses, as actresses, as singers,
as gipsies or fortune-tellers ; several of the most
accomplished assume the names of some of the many
extinguished noble families, and travel with a retinue
in consequence ; but all their servants and all those
about them are, as well as themselves, attached to the
secret agency. Their religion is that of Nature, or of
atheism, and they all understand fencing as well as
the men, and know how to handle a stiletto, or to
administer poison, with the same good grace and
dexterity. They may marry in every country if they
think that their husbands may be serviceable to
France. Should they, after marriage, find themselves
mistaken, they may despatch their partners, and
France will protect them. They have learnt all the
gambling tricks practised either with dice or cards,
and can perform them skilfully. They can imitate
all handwritings, and delineate the features of any
dangerous person after seeing them for a moment.
They are instructed at all times to overcome their
passions, so as to command tears whilst the heart is
rejoicing, or smiles whilst it is almost breaking. They
are inured to suffer torments without complaint, and
with the same seeming indifference hear their sentence
of death pronounced or a happiness confirmed that

70 MEMOIRS OF

makes life desirable. Insinuating in their manners
and handsome in their persons — polite, lively and con-
descending— they are everywhere in their place, in
Courts or in cottages, and must make favourable im-
pressions on the prince as well as on the peasant.
They are especially ordered to insinuate themselves,
so as to become the mistresses of sovereigns, of their
ministers, counsellors or favourites, or to obtain the
confidence of their mistresses or friends. Politics are
never to enter into their conversation, and, being
always furnished with pick-lock keys, they are to act
without speaking. They are, besides, provided with
the same instructions and resources as the secret
agents of the secret French police. When they are
past thirty-six years of age they may demand their
retreat, and dispose of the remainder of their lives
according to their own inclination, and be rewarded
by Government with a pension proportioned to the
extent and value of their services.

But the drudgery of office did not occupy the
whole of Talleyrand's time. Four days of each
decade he received company of both sexes, or
accepted invitations of parties abroad. The ninth
day of every decade he went to visit Madame
Grand, at Montmorency, where he remained until
the first of the next decade. Never fond of soli-

TALLEYRAND Jl

tude, persons agreeable or entertaining were in-
formed a week before by the hostess that their
presence would be acceptable. The choicest dishes
were served, the finest wines were drunk, and
amusements were as numerous as various. Plays
and farces were represented by comedians from the
capital, or by amateurs of the company, who were
chiefly good musicians or amateurs able to entertain
their friends with excellent concerts. A bank of
rouge et noir, another of pharaon, and a third of la
roulette, or birribi, lightened the pockets of those who
found no pleasure in more rational and less expen-
sive amusements: more innocent games for pledges
or fines often intervened. The grave ex- Bishop
and crafty Minister sometimes even jumped about
at Madame Grand's favourite blindman's-buff, and
frequently set the party in a roar by his tricks as
much as by his clumsiness. He was cunning even
when blindfolded.1 Although Bonaparte, before he

Z See Les Intrigues du Ch. M. Talleyrand, p. 35. The author
was present in the winter of 1797 at Montmorency, at one of
these parties, when an Italian minister was blindman, and had,
when blindfolded, his pocket picked of a despatch received when
he sat down to dinner. Among other young men partaking in
this child's play were the then Prussian Minister, Count Sandos,
aged 75, and the Danish Minister, Chevalier Dreyer, aged 68.
When tired of this, the company sat down to write and unfold
enigmas, double entendres, conundrums, letters, &c. Talleyrand

72 MEMOIRS OF

sailed for Egypt, had hinted to his dear moitil that
the less she frequented this coterie the better, the
rouleaus on the gaming tables, and the delicious juice
of the grape in crystal decanters, were too tempting
for a disconsolate, deserted wife, not to prefer them
to the admonitions of an absent husband. Most of
the ladies of Talleyrand's society at Montmorency were
either, like Madame Grand, divorced wives, living in
open adultery, or, like Madame Bonaparte and Madame
Tallien, wives of many husbands. The manners,
language and customs of fashionable revolutionary

presented one piece of paper to Madame Bonaparte, who, blush-
ing, declared she could not explain the meaning of the letters,
which were LA c. c. A c. c. LB c. Everyone knew that they
meant LA COQUINE CREOLE A COCUSIER LE CORSE (Madame Bona-
parte was born at Martinico). Talleyrand, observing that she
began to look serious on account of the smiles of the company,
called to her, joking, " Your pledge, madam, and the explanation
is ready." On her giving him a ring, he said, " It is nothing but

LA CHERE CAROLINE A CHER CHER LE CHRISTOPHE. Caroline and

Christophe were both children of Madame Grand's gardener.
Everybody approved of this explanation, and Madame Bona-
parte with the rest.

It was calculated that the gambling banks here more than
paid the expenses of the house and table ; a person who had not
the politeness to lose from twenty to fifty louis d'or was seldom
asked a second time. The bankers, who were ruined emi-
grants, farmed, in 1800, these banks, at the rate of ^"1,200 in
the month, and gained double that sum. Talleyrand boasted
to everybody of this act of generosity. One of these emigrants
was a relative of his, plundered by the Revolution of ^2,500 in
the year 1

TALLEYRAND 73

coteries were so different from those of all other
countries that a true description of them would
everywhere be thought an exaggerated caricature.
Bonaparte, since he has become emperor-mad, has
certainly improved them ; but an attentive observer
will soon distinguish the mixture of upstart valets
fraternising with their former masters, whom they
have ruined.1

Lord Nelson's victory near Aboukir shook the
French rebel's hope of uninterrupted prosperity; and
the dissolution of the Congress at Rastadt and the
successful campaign of the combined Imperial arms
during 1790, disturbed the regicide's dream of a

I See Le Voyageur Suisse, page 43. Madame Bonaparte's
passion for gambling brought her into many difficulties during
her husband's wanderings in the deserts of Africa. She borrowed
money as long as she had any credit, which, owing to the dis-
asters near Aboukir, was but a short time. She then pawned
all her diamonds, plundered by General Bonaparte in Italy, and
presented to her, to the amount of £50,000. Money was then
scarce in France, and she got only £6,000 upon them. What
was her surprise, when her husband usurped the consulate, to
receive them back again as a present from Talleyrand, who had
previously refused her the loan of a louis d'or. This crafty in-
triguer had, by his spies, advanced the money, with an intent
to keep those diamonds so cheaply possessed should the General
perish, and to show his disinterested gallantry in restoring them
should the Corsican once rule France. The conduct of General
Moreau towards her was very different. — See " The Revolutionary
Plutarch," third edition, vol. i., page 39.

74 MEMOIRS OF

universal republic. Talleyrand had, however, left no
resource of Machiavelism untried against Germany.
When he advised the convocation of their States at
Rastadt, it was to assassinate them. He and his
sovereigns, the Directors, the generous protectors of
the Germanic liberty, trafficked with it secretly to
conciliate the Court of Vienna. If he found that
Power too untractable, he accused it at Berlin,
Munich, Dresden, Aschaffenburgh and Cassel of the
projects which he had himself suggested. When he
robbed certain sovereigns, he offered to rob others to
indemnify them. When he signed a truce, he re-
quired it to be observed by the other party, whilst
he counselled the French Government to violate it
themselves. According to his insinuations, sometimes
by terror, sometimes by artifice, the Directory put
an end to resistance or prevented opposition. Their
extortioners, plunderers and generals did not spare
the right bank of the Rhine more than the left.
Every one of their haughty notes, written by him,
was a threat or a command, and always an insult.
At length this long and tedious farce came to an
end. The three regicide incendiaries, whom the
Empire acknowledged in quality of plenipotentiaries,
and their clerks, delivered Germany from their
presence, their insolence, the scandal of their diplo-

TALLEYRAND 75

matic dinners, the intriguers and the sharpers,
vaulters and prostitutes that swarmed in their train.
But, in leaving Rastadt, two of these revolutionary
diplomats were assassinated by fifty agents of
Talleyrand's secret police, disguised as Austrian
hussars, that the odium might be thrown upon
the Cabinet of Vienna and revive the extinguished
enthusiasm of the French armies.1 This tragedy, in
which the third plenipotentiary, Jean de Bry, was
one of the principal actors, first excited surprise
and indignation ; but, even in France, the Directory
and their ministers were soon accused of having
plotted a murder which could be of no advantage
to Austria. They had long continued to deceive
the French nation by promises of a speedy peace,
and by hypocritical wishes for its conclusion. When

i Jean de Bry is at present Bonaparte's prefect at Besanfon,
and commander of his Legion of Honour, and has, ever since this
catastrophe, a pension from Talleyrand's secret-service money for
his discretion. It is now well known that Dubois Creance, then
commander at Coblentz, arranged for the Directory and Talley
rand the whole plan of assassination. The assassins were com-
manded by his nephew, a colonel of mounted riflemen, who, for
this achievement, was rewarded with the hand of the Director
Merlin's daughter, with a fortune of £1 60.000. Dubois Creance
was, at the same time, promoted to a minister of the War Depart-
ment. The regimentals for these banditti of Talleyrand's secret
agency were made at Strasburg and Coblentz.— Les Nouvelks d
la Main, Nivose, year X., No. v., page a.

76 MEMOIRS OP

they renewed the war without a cause, after tres-
passing so long on the condescension of the Em-
peror and Empire, how were they to persuade France
that the renewal of hostilities was owing to Austria?
The two plenipotentiaries, Bonnier and Roberjot, who
were both dissatisfied with the breaking -up of the
Congress, would have divulged the cause of it ; they
would have said, "Here are your instructions, your
designs, your object, and the conduct you prescribed
to us, all signed by Talleyrand." This embarrassing
evidence was incontrovertible, and the more danger-
ous, as, in order to escape public censure, it was
their interest to divulge the truth. The war having
begun unsuccessfully, they would have been eager
to show that it was not the consequence of their
counsels, and that they had opposed the measures
of the Government, who alone ought to bear the
blame of their hypocrisy and violence. Will it be
asked why Jean de Bry was spared ? The answer
is, " How could the Directory suspect such a man —
a fellow who had said in the tribune of the National
Convention that 'he wished all sovereigns had but a
single head, that it might be struck off at one blow,
who proposed a legion of regicides, and would have
enlisted in that honourable corps ? He had proved
himself; and Talleyrand and the Directors knew their

TALLEYRAND 77

men. It is easy to conceive that he might be spared by
assassins in the secret, but very difficult to compre-
hend how a foreign Government should have so mis-
taken the importance of their victims as to let the
most infamous in particular escape. When so much
pains are taken about an assassination, the order given
is, not to scratch with sabres, but to cut off heads.
As to the capture of the papers of the French Legation,
the secrets of revolutionary tyrants, and their revo-
lutionary ministers, those who run may read them.
Never were politics more evident than theirs; they
arise from their situation — a situation which required
war, and all their instructions flowed from the same
principles. What occasion was there to seize papers
to be acquainted with them ? They are to be read in
Machiavel. The object is the same, namely, the ruin
of the neighbouring States, the plunder of all people,
the oppression of all legitimate governments, and the
support of a usurped power: the maxims are also
always the same — those of a boundless tyranny. But
suppose the writings of the French plenipotentiaries
contained secrets of the most important nature, were
there no other means equally sure, and more conform-
able to diplomatic arts, to get possession of those
mysterious papers ? Read history : — what secrets have
been discovered, or betrayed, without murder 1 It is

78 MEMOIRS OP

but too true that of late those artifices, when Govern-
ment chooses to make use of them, are nothing more
than a game: Bonaparte and Talleyrand can testify
that. Even setting all corruption aside, people may
be taken up by mistake, tneir papers seized through
excessive zeal, and when they have been read,
apologies may be made; but the distance between
this stratagem and murder is immense, and could
only be passed by rebels accustomed to audacity, and
regicides inured to atrocities.

The progress of the arms of the Allied Powers,
and the disasters experienced by the French armies,
revived in the Republic those numerous factions
which had been slumbering, but had never been ex-
tinguished. Their plots and threats removed those of
the members of the Directory who, with Rewbel,
going out of authority by lot, were impeached by the
Council of Five Hundred. This alarmed their accom-
plice and tool, Talleyrand, who, already denounced
and pursued by several accusers, gave in his resigna-
tion, expecting that a voluntary retirement would
soothe resentment, extenuate guilt, and prevent chas-
tisement. He took care, however, previously to
influence the appointment of a successor, and to
raise to the office of Minister for Foreign Affairs a
German by birth named Rheinhard, who had been

TALLEYRAND 79

secretary under him and Chauvelin in England, a
minister at Hamburg, and a commissary in Tuscany.
This agent, prudent, moderate, and upright, saved
the Grand Duchy from the pillage suffered by the
rest of Italy. He had observed the greatest delicacy
towards the Grand Duke ; he was incorruptible and
considerate — the very reverse of that gang of robbers
who usually execute abroad the ordinances of revo-
lutionary France. But with all these good qualities
he possessed a timid and weak character, easily im-
posed upon, easily intimidated, and easily governed.
When at Hamburg, the intriguers Genlis and
Valence, though emigrants, ruled him, and at this
time, though Talleyrand had resigned, his maxims
were followed and his dictates submitted to as much
as if he still had been in place. Without responsi-
bility his power continued indefinite, his plans were
adopted, his regulations observed, and his determina-
tions respected.

Among the numerous pamphlets then published
to prove the criminality and treachery of Talleyrand
was one written by the Jacobin Le Marchand : 1
"I accuse you," said this citizen, "of having sold

I This pamphlet is called La Trahison de VEmigre Talleyrand,
chez Bouvais a Paris, an vii., or 1799 ; see pages 9, 10, zx and
12, with the notes to 22 and 23.

8o MEMOIRS OP

the secrets of France, instead of purchasing those
of other Cabinets ; of having pocketed the money
destined for this use, or, with the other wages of your
infamy, remitted it to be deposited in the English
Funds, at the very time you promised France and
Europe the destruction of England. I accuse you
of having violated the law of nations, by attacking,
without declaration of war, the Ottoman Porte
and the Helvetian Republic; of having invaded
the sovereignty of the people, by altering so often
the Constitution of the Batavian and Cisalpine
nations, so solemnly sworn to by the citizens of
these Republics. I accuse you of having endangered
our external security by drawing another enemy on
the French Republic, by forcing the Ottoman Porte
to join in the coalition of the tyrants armed against
liberty and equality. I accuse you of having en-
dangered our internal security by admitting emigrants,
by exciting with your intrigues the citizens against
one another, by devoting Republicans to proscription,
and by recommending aristocrats to advancement in
the offices of State, as well as in the armies of
the Republic. I accuse you of crimes against the
sovereignty of the French nation by having engaged
assassins to despatch those of our ambassadors whom
your treachery had previously exposed to insults

TALLEYRAND 8 I

among the slaves representing despots. I accuse you
of having dissipated the public money of the French
Republic, and of having shared in the robberies and
peculations of your agents in Italy, Germany, Hol-
land, and Switzerland. I accuse you of having during
year VI. (1797 and 1798) received 20,000 English
guineas, to procure a peace with France; 12,000
Prussian frederics d'or, for continuing the war with
England ; 10,000 double Austrian souverains, for
promising a rupture with Prussia, and a part of
Bavaria as indemnity; 12,000 sequins from the Pope
and 18,000 from the King of Naples, for a promise
of continuing their neutrality at the very time you
*knew that the Papal territory would be repub-
licanised and Malta wrested from the sovereignty
of Naples. I accuse you of having attempted to
extort 1,200,000 livres from the United States of
America and 100,000 dollars from the King of Spain,
for granting the former a neutrality they ought never
to have lost, and for not forcing the latter to a war
with Portugal, united with him by ties of blood and
treaties. I accuse you of having attacked and plun-
dered, under the most false and specious pretext, every
neutral nation of the globe, and of having pocketed for
your share in this plunder the immense sum of ^"420,000.
I accuse you of having obtained from the banditti

VOL. II 6

82 MEMOIRS OF

sent by your recommendation to devastate Helvetia the
sum of ^"100,000, sent on your account by bills from
Switzerland on Hamburg, and from thence by other
bills sent to England, and employed by your agents
in the English Funds. I accuse you of having, by
your scandalous depravity, organised pillage and ra-
pacity in every department of the State; of having
sold the places of clerks, as well as the offices of
ambassadors; of having your official tariff, and ac-
cordingly disposing of all places depending on your
nomination for money, and not to merit or patriotism.
I accuse you of having, by your barefaced immo-
rality, injured the honourable character and under-
mined the morals of French Republicans; and finally,
I accuse you of having perpetrated all these crimes
with counter-revolutionary intents, of establishing an
hereditary despotism upon the ruins of liberty and
equality."

Although most of these charges were supported
by public notoriety, and although the denunciation
of them literally expressed the unanimous opinion of
Europe, and of France, Talleyrand's intrigues pre-
vailed to prevent their consequences, until another
Revolution removed them for ever. He caused,
however, an answer to be printed, in which, without
entering into particulars or denying the reality of

TALLEYRAND 83

what he was accused, " he sheltered himself under
the superior authority of the Directory, to whose ap-
probation all his plans had been submitted before
they were carried into execution, according to their
orders. He said that he always had been, and was,
a Republican by heart and from principle; and that
another proscription, or restoration of monarchy in
France, would either prove an act of universal eut-
lawry against him, as no country existed upon earth
where he must not expect to be punished for his
patriotism, and for the part he had taken in propa-
gating liberty and promoting equality."

At no preceding period had the situation of the
French Republic been more extraordinary than it
was at that moment. A government, renewed, tot-
tering, and suspended between its total fall and the
confirmation of its authority; a legislative body
divided between two parties — one of them lamenting
that they havs not attained their object, and the other,
that they have gone beyond theirs ; a new political
club of incendiaries striving to break the last thread
by which the apparent equilibrium of the different
Powers is supported ; most of the offices bestowed on
the abettors of disorder, and an unbounded anarchy;
a State, pressed on all sides by dangers, foreign and

domestic, facilitating its own disorganisation, by the

6—2

84 MEMOIRS OP

sudden change of every man in place ; a nation, silent
and motionless, looking on, while these turbulent fac-
tions are provoking her destiny ; all the evils of a
past Revolution, with the dread of a new one — such
was the state to which France had been reduced, as
a reward of the madness, barbarism, passions, and
crimes that have enslaved her since the rebellion in
the name of Reason, Liberty and Equality. A dic-
tatorship of the firmest kind, the most absolute, and
the least exposed to the interference of jurisdictions,
and other obstacles, was desired by many patriots, in
a country where, from Antwerp to Nice, from Stras-
burg to Bayonne, an abyss of troubles, dissensions,
and anarchy was opened, and daily grew wider ;
where armies without pay, and finances degraded
to theatrical expedients, required prompt remedies,
administered by all-powerful hands ; where victorious
foreign armies were seen approaching the frontiers;
where internal enemies endangered tranquillity, and
where the whole social system was shaken to its
foundation by the perpetual succession of innovations,
and by the flames of faction, which consumed to-day
what was instituted yesterday.

So dreadfully circumstanced was the French Re-
public when the too fortunate Corsican, after escaping
the fire, the sword, the vengeance of Turks and Arabs,

TALLEYRAND 85

the vigilance of British cruisers, and the dangers of
the waves, arrived in Europe, having treacherously
deserted his army in Africa. He was hailed by all
parties in France as a deliverer, courted by all
factions as a valuable acquisition, and desired by
all conspirators as their chief. The Revolution
effected by Bonaparte was, therefore, easily ac-
complished ; not from any greatness of character
shown by himself, but from the weakness of his
adversaries. If, after swearing fidelity to the Direc-
torial Constitution at St. Cloud, at the moment when
a great majority of the Council of Five Hundred
were about to outlaw him, a hundred men, led by
General Jourdan, had appeared at the opposite door,
there would have been an end to his usurpation and
conspiracy, to his consulate and emperorship, and the
Jacobins would have remained masters of the Re-
public. Upon such a comparatively trifling incident
depended the success of an undertaking from which
mankind has since suffered so much, and of which
the consequences are still so fatally felt. But, trem-
bling as he was when the event was undecided, he be-
came tyrannical when victory declared in his favour.
In every act of this drama the world soon heard of
and saw only Bonaparte. He alone engrossed the
scene. From pride, ambition, and further views he

86 MEMOIRS OP

openly piqued himself upon eclipsing all his col-
leagues ; gave a national occurrence the character
of a personal contest between him and the Legisla-
ture; assumed the gait, and expressed himself as an
aga of Janissaries, coming to set the Divan to rights
and force its decision on the Empire. There was no
greatness, no patriotism, and no skill to be traced
on this occasion in the affectation of a Republican
general who, puffed up with his military fortune,
spoke only of his soldiers, his brothers in arms, his
bayonets, and the use he would make of them. No-
body can trace the man of genius in this sudden
transformation of the new military dictator into the
Consul of a Republic, where they still continued to
swear to respect the sovereignty of the people, liberty
and equality. He was then accused, and the world
is now convinced of the truth of this accusation, of
having drawn his sword only to cut off the robe from
his superiors in the State to invest himself with the
Imperial mantle and the double-edged sword of un-
limited despotism.

Sieyes, Talleyrand, Volney, Roederer and Renard
de St. Jean d'Angely were the only persons who
shared Bonaparte's confidence, and who were em-
ployed in preparing an enterprise which annihilated a
Constitution they, as well as himself, had so often

TALLEYRAND 87

sworn to respect and defend. Though this was the
first time in which the military power in France
absolutely prevailed over the civil one, no generals,
not even Berthier or Moreau, were acquainted with
his plans. They, with other generals, accompanied
him to St. Cloud with the idea of supporting him
with their popularity in his attempt to silence
factions, as he promised, but not to overthrow the
Government. Some indirect and indiscreet expres-
sions had indeed escaped him ; but his secret re-
mained impenetrable. The majority of the Council,
and of the Directory, the War Minister, Dubois
Creance, and several others, and more than hah0 of
the agents of the police, found themselves threatened
by the conspiracy; but their distrust did not go
beyond vague suspicions, and was ignorant of the
nature, as well as of the time of execution. The
conspirators first met at Roederer's house in the
Rue Faubourg St. Honcre, then in a house taken
by Madame Grand in the Rue St. Dominique, in the
Faubourg St. Germain, and finally in one hired by
Talleyrand in the Rue de Turenne in the Marais.
Sieyes, Talleyrand and Volney inclined to a consti-
tutional monarchy, in some new dynasty : Roederer1

I See the characters of Sieyes, Volney and Roederer in the
first volume of " The Revolutionary Plutarch." Camille Des-

88 MEMOIRS OF

was of the same opinion, but opposed the revival of
the name of a king, or kingdom, wishing that some
other title should be given to the supreme and
hereditary chief of a constitutional commonwealth ;
Renard St. Jean d'Angely proposed that the French
Republic should, like the Roman of old, be headed
by two consuls, one of whom, in the course of time,
might be converted into, and the other salute, a
Caesar. Bonaparte alone mentioned the Bourbons,
discussed the talents, virtues, weakness, services, of
each member of each branch. He proved, to the
satisfaction of his associates, that the princes in direct
lineage of the oldest branch did not possess genius,
capacity or firmness requisite to restore and pre-
serve order and tranquillity in a nation agitated by so
many factions, during so many years, and accustomed
to a licentiousness which a man used to enforce
discipline, even among soldiers bewildered by the
cries of liberty, only can restrain from producing
new crimes and new devastations. The princes of
the other branches were all accused of those errors,
or stained with those irresolutions which precipitated
Louis XVI. from the throne of his ancestors. To
elect a chief magistrate from among them would

moulins said of Roederer, that "his head was a sketch formed
by Nature to express the affinity of envy, perfidy and roguery."

TALLEYRAND 89

inevitably bring on new civil wars, because the
Conde branch had its adherents as well as the
Orleans branch, and those of Louis XVIII. would,
to a certainty, unite with any party combating the
prince occupying an authority which he claimed,
and from which he had been excluded. France, he
said, was now, and must always continue to be, a
military nation. Except the princes of the Cond6
branch, no Bourbon ever commanded a battalion,
and the military exploits of these have consisted in
carrying arms against their own country. The
Spanish Bourbons he pretended to have degenerated
still more in talents to reign, and therefore their
sceptres were tottering in their hands. He went
through all other Imperial dynasties, all, according
to his notions, not producing, for a century past,
one individual who could be called a great sovereign,
with the sole exception of Frederic II. of Prussia ;
but he died without leaving any posterity behind.
Would it not, besides, said he, be a disgrace to
France, and an acknowledgment of her incapacity,
after such glorious achievements, to call in a foreigner,
of no other merit than birth, to rule her, and to
bestow upon him a rank, which so many eminent
and meritorious Frenchmen had evinced themselves
worthy to obtain? Would all the French patriots,

9O MEMOIRS OP

purchasers of national property, generals, statesmen,
or legislators think themselves safe, or continue quiet
under a French Bourbon, or a prince of a foreign
dynasty, educated in all the dangerous prejudices the
French Revolution has proscribed ? He, therefore,
believed that an elective consulate, at least for some
years, was necessary. He then went into considera-
tions of the danger of proclaiming three generals the
three consuls, which he supposed would be necessary
to well govern the French Republic at that crisis.
He declared that he would never accept of the
place of a consul with any distinguished military

character as his equal at his side. He exposed

•

also the foibles, or weak side, of the most cele-
brated generals. He accused Pichegru of an in-
corrigible fanaticism for the Bourbons; Moreau of
an inconsistency which clouded all his military
exploits; Jourdan of ignorance and brutality; Au-
gereau of incapacity and ferocity; Massena of
immorality and cupidity; Brune of uniting the
ferocity of Augereau with the ignorance of Jourdan
and the cupidity of Massena. Macdonald, he said,
was a foreigner, and Bernadotte a grenadier in the
regimentals of a general. Berthier had talents to
grace a second rank, but in the first sphere his rank
would eclipse his talents. This discussion is reported

TALLEYRAND 9 I

to have taken place on the yth of November, 1799,
in Roederer's house, where it was finally agreed to
effect a revolution on the next day; but Bonaparte
imprudently delayed the explosion for twenty-four
hours. Heroes who can fight Austrians, Italians,
Cossacks, Arabs and Mamelukes are common enough;
but Timoleons, Thrasybuluses and Washingtons are
very rare. There is a great difference between that
vulgar ambition which displaces and subverts States
to seize upon the sovereignty, or sanction its caprice,
and the patriotic, generous and sublime spirit of a
chief great in authority, eminent in capacity and
powerful by popularity, who takes advantage of an
extraordinary moment in his fortune to lay down
his power and restore to his country its lawful
government and laws which would secure its liberty.
Talleyrand intrigued to be, and was placed upon
the list of candidates for the election of a second
consul. But Bonaparte chose rather to have in him
a real slave than nominally an equal, and therefore
returned to him the ministerial portfolio of the
Foreign Department, and joined with him Fouch6 to
organise the destruction of the liberty of the Press,
and to embroil and dupe the Royalist chiefs of La
Vendee, and the other western department, to lay
down their arms.

Q2 MEMOIRS OF

Bonaparte, in the intoxication of his success on
the day of his usurpation, had so rashly and so
ostentatiously promised to become the pacificator of
Europe, that he could not recede from making some
show of an intention to negotiate. In a despatch
from Talleyrand to Lord Grenville, he ordered a
letter to be enclosed from him to our Sovereign, both
the substance and form of which were enough to
create doubts of the sincerity of the writer. Talley-
rand could not be ignorant, if he were, of those forms
established by custom which have the force of law
throughout Europe; and that he who exalts himself
above those ceremonies which are universally re-
spected, stands forward the haughty and dangerous
reformer of the law of nations. Besotted, then, with
his eight days' consular greatness, as he has been
more recently after usurping an Imperial dignity, he
forgot the glorious distance between a King of Great
Britain and the principal magistrate of a republic of
yesterday. He addressed our Sovereign in an im-
pertinent, interrogatory style, and with a dogmatical
pedantry that would have been passed over as
ridiculous in any other performance than that of a
diplomatic letter, where it has to be rebutted as
insolent and unbecoming. He opened his credentials
with informing His Majesty that he was called to

TALLEYRAND Q3

the supr^T^e magistracy by the voice of the French
nation, as if he intended to play the fool with the
House of Brunswick as he was doing with the
petit-maitrest shopkeepers, and coffee-house tribes of
Paris. Lord Grenville's letters in answer, addressed
to Talleyrand, were both becoming and dignified : " I
have," wrote his Lordship, " received, and laid before
the King, the two letters which you have transmitted
to me; and His Majesty, seeing no reason to depart
from those forms which have long been established
in Europe for transacting business with foreign
States, has commanded me to return, in his name,
the official answer, which I send you herewith en-
closed." This official answer, in the form of a note,
very accurately traced the conduct of France from
the origin of the existing hostilities, and noticed the
repeated assurances made by every succeeding Govern-
ment of pacific intentions, whilst all their acts were
replete with aggression. His Majesty declared, at
the same time, that when the security of his own
dominions and those of his allies, and the general
security of Europe could be attained, he would
eagerly seize the opportunity to concert with his
allies the means of an immediate and general pacifi-
cation.

The recrimination upon which Talleyrand ven-

94 MEMOIRS OP

tured, in a second note, led Lord Grenville to a
reconsideration of the causes of the war between
Great Britain and France — a question worn out,
and which had united all voices, except those of
faction, in a decision against the latter, and, therefore,
very improperly brought forward again in a despatch
pretending to propose a pacification. The examina-
tion of Bonaparte's past conduct justly furnished his
Lordship with his principal arguments against placing
any confidence in his present advances. He traced
the usurper through every step of his public career,
beginning with his generalship against the sections
of Paris, and concluding with his insidious instruc-
tions given to General Kleber at the moment of his
flight from Egypt. From this recapitulation, his
Lordship thought himself warranted to conclude that,
in proposing peace, Bonaparte had two objects in
view: the one, to relax the efforts of England; the
other, to sow jealousy and distrust among the allies
of Great Britain. t"It is," continued his Lordship,
"the same person who now appears so desirous of
peace with England that formerly hastened to con-
clude the Treaty of Campo Formio, for the purpose
of turning the whole weight and force of France
against this country ; who — at that time contem-
plating our ruin as the greatest achievement of his

TALLEYRAND 95

life — seflt his two confidants, Berthier and Monge,
to the Directory to declare that the French Republic
and the English Government could not exist together."
Talleyrand, in one of the first Councils of State
after Bonaparte's usurpation, advised proposals for
a general pacification. The Emperors of Germany
and of Russia were, therefore, as well as the King
of Great Britain, insulted with similar letters from
the Corsican upstart, beginning with " Liberty and
Equality." This had long been the revolutionary
etiquette of former kings of factions in their corre-
spondence with neutral princes, and would, therefore,
not deserve any remark had not the petty, vain-
glorious Bonaparte but lately again had the audacity
to style our beloved Sovereign his brother! and on
all occasions, both before and since, with the ferocity
of a tiger united the vanity of a coxcomb. In this
and other countries blessed with the government of
legitimate princes, people are imperfectly acquainted
with the littleness of mind of the present and past
Republican rulers of the great nation. Rewbel, Mer-
lin, La Reveilliere and Sieyes keep, as precious relics,
all letters addressed to them, as great and dear friends,
by the neutral Kings of Prussia, Spain, Denmark, when
they were presidents of the Directory, together with au-
thenticated copies of these letters or despatches thus,

96 MEMOIRS OF

in fhe same quality, signed to their great and dear
friends, Frederic William, Charles IV. and Christian
VII. These certificates of fraternity with sovereign
princes they and their wives and children show to
everybody with a ludicrous ostentation and insupport-
able arrogance. The wives of these dethroned usurpers
have also their exhibitions to make, and their princely
stories to tell, for which certain queens and princesses
(not more vile in their correspondence, presents and
connections with these mock queens than their con-
sorts in accepting indemnities from their husbands)
have furnished plenty of materials. Bonaparte, how-
ever, has surpassed them all in insolence as well
as in crimes; when they were satisfied to be the
great and dear friends of kings, nothing would do
for the Corsican tiger-monkey but to be a brother,
both of emperors and kings; to acknowledge no
other father but the Pope, no other relatives but
imperial and royal highnesses. Since the fratricide
of Abel, never was the fraternity of Cain more pro-
verbial, more degrading and more dangerous. Bona-
parte not only uses, but "writes and speaks daggers,"
that will never cease their destructive activity, ac-
cording to Talleyrand's boasts, "until they have
pierced the bosom of the last loyal subject upon
the corpse of the last legitimate sovereign." Such

TALLEYRAND 97

is the final issue of the doctrine of French sans-
culottes, and of the precepts of French levellers !

When, in January, 1800, the First Consul Bona-
parte presented to Great Britain his treacherous olive-
branch of peace, Talleyrand's emissaries were plotting
at St. Petersburg to embroil Russia with England,
and were preparing at Berlin, Stockholm and Copen-
hagen the plan for that Northern Coalition which
eleven months afterwards was concluded, and which
Lord Nelson's victory dissolved within four months
after its conclusion. When, in January, 1805, the sham
Emperor, Bonaparte, again attempted to delude us with
his perfidious offer of a pacification, Talleyrand was
well informed by his secret agents that those ties
between England, Russia and Sweden which the
success of his intrigues had five years ago dissolved
were renewing, and that Prussia and Denmark were
equally disgusted with his encroachments, alarmed at
his vicinity, and acquainted with his duplicity, and,
therefore, should a new Continental war break out, if
they did not unite with the Coalition, would certainly
not oppose it and support the arms of usurpation.
As our ministers at the former period, by their
abilities, energy and patriotism, saved their country,
and deserved well of mankind, it is hoped that

now, when convinced that Napoleon Bonaparte
VOL. ii 7

98 MEMOIRS OP

the First is more deceitful and sanguinary in his
plots against this country, and more violent and
vindictive in his hatred against this nation than was
ever the Citizen Napoleon, Brutus, or Ali Bona-
parte, the last of sans-culottes, they will act with
the same determination, loyalty, and firmness, and
for a second time be the saviours of their country
and of civilised society. Let them remember the
Peace of Amiens, the intent to invade us during a
peace, and the accumulated outrages heaped upon
Great Britain since hostilities broke out; let them
read his calumnies, his threats, his forgeries in the
name of Drake and Taylor, and his seizure of Sir
George Rumbold. Let them not forget that his
starving army on the coast, and his impotent armada
in his harbours, may perish and rot during some
few years' war, whilst some few months' peace are
sufficient, if we trust to treaties only, for his in-
cendiaries and banditti to remove the last and sole
remaining barrier against a universal revolution.

It was by Talleyrand's advice that Bonaparte
sent, in the winter of 1796 his aide-de-camp Duroc,
and in the winter of 1800 his brother Louis, to
fraternise with the King and Queen of Prussia1 at

i When the sans-cvlotte Duroc went with the King of Prussia
to see the parade at Berlin, he admired the scarfs of the officers

TALLEYRAND 99

Berlin, and to correspond from that capital with
his secret agents in the capital of Russia. That
rebels should conspire is not surprising — it belongs
to their nature; but that lawful sovereigns and their
counsellors can enter into their conspiracies, become
accomplices of their guilt and associates of their
infamy, posterity would hardly believe did not the
disgusting pages of the doleful history of our
wretched times bear incontrovertible testimonies of
these facts. And how despicable the instruments
that have been employed to produce such disgrace-
ful events ! In one place, Duroc, the son of a
fiddler, and Louis Bonaparte, the son of God
knows whom, are successfully employed, not only
to procure a continuance of neutrality on the one
hand, but to break the precious neutrality of one
king in favour of rebellion, and against another
king, on the other. In another State a strumpet
and spy, Madame Bonociul, and an actress, also a
prostitute and spy, Madame Chevalier, are enabled
with their charms, and in following Talleyrand's
instructions, to transform the most powerful of

of the Guard. At his departure the Queen ! — the amiable Queen
of Prussia — presented him with a scarf knitted with her own
hands! What indemnities repaid such a condescension the world
is still unacquainted with : they are the secrets of the patriots
Haugvntz and Talleyrand I

7— a

IOO MEMOIRS OP

emperors and the proudest of princes into an ally
of the most despicable of usurpers and most con-
temptible of adventurers ! But the Russian monarch
was great even in his degradation, because he was
disinterested ; whilst the political pedlars, the Prus-
sian ministers, bargained for every step they led
their master towards his own dishonour and the
debasement of monarchy.

When Bonaparte, in the spring of 1800, set out
from Paris to head the army of reserve destined to
cross the Alps and to invade Italy, Talleyrand, ac-
cording to report, provided him with two projects for
a separate pacification with Austria. The one to be
used in case of a repulse was to propose to Austria,
as an indemnity for Brabant and Flanders, the whole
of the provinces and islands of the late Venetian
Republic, the restoration of Lombardy, and the ces-
sion of the Republic of Genoa, to indemnify the King
of Sardinia for Savoy and Nice. The King of Naples,
the Pope, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, the Dukes
of Modena and Parma were to be put in statu quo
ante bellum. France offered to renounce the Lower
Rhine as a frontier, and the boundaries of the French
Republic were to extend on the side of Germany no
farther than the River Meuse, which deprived the
King of Prussia of all claims to any indemnities.

TALLEYRAND IOI

The second project, to serve in case of success, was
to renew the preliminaries signed at Campo Formio.

By means of a certain Baron D , who had long

been in French pay at Vienna — where he had in-
sinuated himself into the confidence and intimacy
of the Prime Minister, Baron Thugut, and a Chevalier

de L , who was in the suite and secrets of General

Melas — Talleyrand had so arranged affairs that even
a defeat in the field of battle would be followed by a
victory in the Cabinets. Among the combined Powers
Austria showed some coolness, and even suspicion,
against England, because the troops under General
Abercrombie, instead of landing in Italy, had sailed
for Egypt; and Russia, in withdrawing from the
League, was offended both with Austria and England.
Of the inferior princes, the Elector of Bavaria hated
the House of Austria more than he disliked the
Jacobins of France, and, though receiving a subsidy
from Great Britain, neutralised or neglected the
stipulations he had signed.

After the victory of Marengo, which was lost
by simplicity to treachery, the armies of France as-
sumed an imposing attitude; but whilst they were
preparing to reconquer the whole of Italy, partly by
their arms and partly by intrigues and new revolu-
tions, Talleyrand deemed it politic to make peace

102 MEMOIRS OF

with the Barbary Powers, as nothing could be ob-
tained from them, and they might be rendered ex-
tremely serviceable by supplying the army in Egypt
and the French ports in the Mediterranean with corn
and provisions. Accordingly, treaties were entered
into, and signed soon after, with the Regencies of
Tunis, Algiers and Tripoli. A negotiation also took
place with new plenipotentiaries from America, who
brought with them a credit for beawoup d' argent ; and
a peace was concluded which no declaration of war
had preceded. The United States restored the ships
their cruisers had captured from France, whilst the
French Republic kept the American ships her pirates
had seized and the American property which her
rulers and Talleyrand had shared with her pirates.

But it was found more difficult to adjust the
differences subsisting between the European States.
Talleyrand began his scheme of a universal peace
with transforming military conventions into diplomatic
transactions, and both the one and the other into
financial speculations. Making money was his first
object, of which negotiations or ruptures, pacifications
or hostilities were the only means. On the I2th of
July, 1800, the Austrian General (Count de St. Julien)
arrived at Paris, especially charged by the Imperial
Commander-in-Chief (Melas) to settle some differences

TALLEYRAND IO3

concerning the limits allowed the respective armies of
the belligerent Powers in Italy by the Convention
signed after the battle of Marengo, and to arrange
an exchange of prisoners between Austria and France.
This General was cajoled by Talleyrand into a belief,
after some few hours' conference, that his talents as
a statesman equalled his valour as a warrior, and
that, limited as his instructions were, they might be
regarded extensive enough to change the destiny of
nations instead of the position of armies, and that it
depended upon him to be hailed the pacificator of
the Continent. Abler and less ambitious men than
the Count de St. Julien might have been the dupes
of so much art and such extravagant flattery.
Accordingly, unauthorised as he was, he signed,
on the 28th of July, preliminaries of peace between
Austria and France, founded on the Treaty of Campo
Formio. It must be added, in his justification, that
an agreement had already been signed between him
and Talleyrand that this act should remain secret
until ratified by the Emperor of Germany. This
was, however, contrary to the views and interest
of Talleyrand, who immediately despatched couriers
to his money-brokers in Holland and England, to
speculate as if no such preliminaries had ever
existed, being well aware that the Emperor of

104 MEMOIRS OP

Germany, faithful to his engagements with Great
Britain, by which His Majesty had pledged himself
not to listen to a separate peace, would, as became
the case, immediately disavow the transaction. By
this intrigue, and its influence upon the French and
foreign Funds, Talleyrand pocketed nearly ^"300,000.
The great condescension of the First Consul, the
brilliant routs of his wife, the elegant fetes of the
Minister, and the caresses of his female spies, pre-
vented, no doubt, the Austrian general from chas-
tising the impostor who led him to commit an
indiscretion which he knew would be followed by
an inevitable disgrace.

In consequence of the demand of the Emperor of
Germany that plenipotentiaries from Great Britain
should assist at the Congress to be held at Lune-
ville, Talleyrand's ingenuity was again at work not
to deviate from his old system, Divide et impeva. He
sent, therefore, instructions to Bonaparte's agent for
the exchange of prisoners in London to propose an
unacceptable maritime truce, in return for which the
cessation of hostilities was not to be interrupted on
the Continent. An impertinent project for this pur-
pose was soon after presented, by which the ships
and merchantmen of the two nations were to en-
joy a free navigation, without being subject to

TALLEYRAND IO5

search. Neutral vessels were to be allowed to repair
to Alexandria, Malta and Bellisle. The squadrons
which then blockaded Brest, Cadiz, Toulon and
Flushing were to keep out of sight of the coast;
and His Catholic Majesty, as well as the Batavian
Republiq, were to be admitted to the benefit of
these stipulations. As it was impossible that the
British Ministry should comply with such a project,
when they, in professing their readiness to accede
to a suspension of hostilities by sea upon just terms,
endeavoured in vain to frame a more moderate
scheme of naval forbearance, all their moderation
was steadfastly disregarded by French insolence and
inveteracy.

In the midst of these discussions the armistice
on the Continent had been suffered to expire; and
the Cabinet of Vienna, little prepared for a renewal
of the contest, was under the necessity of soliciting
a new truce. The high price paid for a further
suspension of arms for forty-five days indicated the
critical situation of the Austrian affairs, and that
France would soon command a Continental peace
upon terms that would entirely destroy the already
veering balance of power. This fatal occurrence the
victories of Moreau hastened. In consequence of the
preliminary articles signed at Luneville, on the a6th

IO6 MEMOIRS OF

of January, 1801, Mantua was delivered up ; and by
the definitive treaty of the gth February following,
the Austrian Netherlands were ceded in perpetuity to
France, as well as the whole of the left bank of the
Rhine. All the principal articles of the Treaty of
Campo Formio were at the same time confirmed,
and the Cisalpine and Ligurian Republics were
recognised. But, in addition to this treaty, the
Emperor gave up the country of Falkenstein and
the Frickthal ; and his brother, the Grand Duke of
Tuscany, was also forced to renounce that Grand
Duchy in favour of the infant Duke of Parma, who,
for being appointed by a Corsican adventurer a
revolutionary King of Etruria, paid with Spanish
dollars, to the Bonaparte family, ^3,500,000, and
^"42,000 to Talleyrand, besides diamonds to Madame
Grand to the value of ^"21,000. Such were the
general outlines of the Treaty of Luneville, which
spread general joy through France — a joy far better
founded than the boasts of moderation with which
the treaty was announced in the proclamation issued
by Government. Such was even General Moreau's
opinion. Between the Convention and definitive
treaty, this General openly declared that, "by the
humiliating and dishonourable terms imposed upon
Austria, it was clear that Bonaparte and Talleyrand,

TALLEYRAND IO7

with all their political hypocrisy and revolutionary
Machiavelism, with all their pretended wish for peace
and affected endeavours to procure it, never sincerely
desired, nor could expect, more than a suspension of
arms; because a peace dictated by the power of the
bayonet could only by the same means be preserved,
and might as easily be annulled by the bayonets of
foreigners as commanded by the bayonets of France."
Bonaparte had always spies in the different
Republican armies, but round Moreau they were
the most numerous: all his transactions were there-
fore watched, and, together with his conversations,
reported and known. When, after the battle of
Hohenlinden, this General approached Vienna, he had
several interviews both with the Archdukes Charles
and John, and one audience even with the Emperor.
On these occasions, according to report, he promised
that Tuscany should continue to belong to the
Austrian Grand Duke; and accordingly one of his
aides-de-camp was expedited to Paris, with a remon-
strance to Bonaparte, expressing the policy of not
driving Austria to a dangerous despair by any
degrading sacrifices ; that by consenting to restore
Tuscany to its former Sovereign, France was certain
of gaming the friendship and gratitude of Austria,
without violating any engagements with Spain; but

IO8 MEMOIRS OF

by giving up Tuscany to a Spanish Prince, France
made Austria irreconcilable, without gaming any-
thing by its impolitic liberality to Spain. The
same officer that carried this despatch to the First
Consul had a letter from Moreau to Talleyrand,
which was to be delivered first, that this minister
might be prepared to second the General's proposals.
Talleyrand had on every occasion tried to insinuate
himself into Moreau's confidence, or at least to
obtain his good opinion ; and at an entertainment
he gave in the spring before the General went to
assume the command of the Republican army, he
openly insinuated that, " if merit and services were
the only successful pretensions to the supreme power
in a Republic, General Moreau would have no rival
to oppose his governing the French commonwealth":
but since the victories of this General had consoli-
dated Bonaparte's consulate, and Talleyrand's place
depended upon this usurper's good grace, he justly
imagined that, by humiliating Moreau in the eyes
of foreign princes, this would be a fit opportunity
to ensure its continuance, in gratifying at the same
time the mean jealousy of the Consul. This crafty
intriguer, therefore, easily dissuaded the aide-de-camp
from mentioning anything concerning this business
until it had been well considered what was to be

TALLEYRAND IOQ

done, because he could not answer for what other-
wise might be the consequence, " knowing as he did
how intent the First Consul was to create a Bourbon
a King in Tuscany." This aide-de-camp had arrived
at Paris on the -24th of January, at night, and
on the 25th, in the morning, orders were sent by
telegraph to Joseph Bonaparte at Luneville, imme-
diately to sign the preliminaries of peace, by which
Austria renounced Tuscany. During that day Talley-
rand was not visible, although the aide-de-camp
remained at the Foreign Office till near 12 o'clock at
night ; but the next day Mr. Hauterive, one of the
Minister's confidential secretaries, called upon him
with the information that, "Government had just
learned, by a telegraphic despatch, that the prelimi-
naries between France and Austria had been signed;
that Talleyrand therefore advised his return to
General Moreau immediately, and to represent to
him the necessity of dropping at present his inter-
ference for Austria." He assured the aide-de-camp
that the Minister had not communicated a word to
the Consul as to the contents of the General's
letter, who, of course, on his return to Paris, would
be received as if nothing had occurred to alter the
union between the First Magistrate and his first
general — a union so indispensably necessary and

IIO MEMOIRS OF

useful to them both, so advantageous to their
common cause, and so glorious for their common
country.

England being now the only active enemy of the
French Republic, Bonaparte, Talleyrand, and the
Police Minister, Fouch6, employed then, as during
the present war, all their artifices and machinations
in exciting such a spirit among Frenchmen, and es-
tablishing such a system among other Powers of
Europe, as would promote their views of crushing,
and if possible destroying, the British nation. Then,
as well as now, every slight commotion in France,
every exertion of expiring faction, every crime dic-
tated by political enthusiasm or personal vengeance,
was imputed to the agency of the English Govern-
ment; and then, as well as now, from the enslaved
state of the Press, and from the prejudices and ignor-
ance of the people, it was not difficult to dupe their
credulity and excite their passions by the grossest
absurdities. Their fabrications were then, as they
are now, worthy of their genius, veracity, honour, and
honesty. Instead of some few letters written by a
British envoy to a French spy, like the late offspring
of their ingenuity, a volume of three hundred pages
was published, containing a pretended correspondence
between the English Ministry and their agents in

TALLEYRAND III

France. It would be an unprofitable and tedious
task to analyse these clumsy fictions, which have,
however, not been without their effects in deluding
and inflaming a giddy and debased nation. When-
ever the arms of Bonaparte are unable to make any
impression on the British Empire, or the intrigues of
Talleyrand have been ineffectual in embroiling Great
Britain with other States, this system of revolu-
tionary calumny and political forgery will always be
resorted to. When Bonaparte is raving, and Talley-
rand is fabricating, it is for Britons to rejoice in their
security; our country is then out of all danger from
the bayonets of their military banditti, as well as
from the plots of their revolutionary incendiaries.1

At Talleyrand's office is a private cabinet, contain-
ing, besides the correspondence of his secret agents,
fac-similes of the handwritings of every Sovereign,
Minister of State, ambassador, agent, and of those of
all other persons of rank, eminence, or talents whose
loyal principles are suspected, whose penetration is
offensive, or whose abilities are dreaded. One of his
confidential secretaries is the chief of this private

I In Le Voyageur Suisse, page 17, it is stated that when
Talleyrand's intrigue for a naval armistice had miscarried, he
said with La Montagne : " Nous ne pouvons pas atteindre les
Anglais, vengeons-nous par en me'dire."

112 MEMOIRS OF

cabinet, having under him as clerks four young men
educated abroad at Government's expense, on purpose
to become members of the secret agency. Being
foundlings, they have no relatives to whom they can
betray their trust, and having passed their youth in
foreign countries, their acquaintances in France are
but few, and these such as their chief judges harm-
less, or at least not dangerous. In Government is
concentrated all their gratitude for past benefactions
and all their hopes of future advancement; to it alone
is directed all those natural and moral feelings which
parentage, consanguinity, protection, and instruction
divide in other persons between so many different
objects. They consult, therefore, their superior, and
obey his dictates as emanating from a double authority,
parental as well as social. They are liberally paid,
but strictly watched, and severely reprimanded for the
least error. They are lodged together, and provided
with everything, even with mistresses; but they are
not permitted to marry without the consent of their
chief, who chooses them both wives and mistresses
from among persons of the other sex — orphans and
foundlings like themselves, educated like themselves
for dark designs. If, after a trial of three years, their
conduct and capacity are approved of, they receive
appointments as under-secretaries to foreign lega-

TALLEYRAND IIJ

tions, or as deputies of commercial agents. Their
names are, on such occasions, changed a third time,
having received on their return to their country a
different name from that they were known under in
their youth, differing still from that of their child-
hood. This precaution is used to prevent all dis-
covery of their families. Since Talleyrand's entry
into the Ministry only two have been punished, and
those only for indiscretions, having in the presence
of their mistresses called each other " the Emperor
of Russia " and " the Queen of Spain," two Sovereigns
whose handwritings they were best acquainted with,
and most accustomed to imitate. They were, with
heir mistresses, within twenty-four hours after the
discovery, despatched by poison.1 As at the same
office, in the same private cabinet, they have the

I In last June, Bonaparte presided one day in the Senate,
and taking out by nonchalance his pocket handkerchief, some
letters dropped on the floor, which the senators strived who
should be foremost to pick up. Being returned to the Corsican,
he said, with a contemptuous sneer, " Never mind, they are of
no consequence, being only some letters from Alexander and
Frederic (the Emperor of Russia and the King of Prussia), who
tease me almost to death with their troublesome correspondence.
Look," continued he, "Alexander writes a better hand than
Frederic ; but (seafching in his pocket for another letter)
Francis (the Emperor of Germany) writes worse than either!"
— Les Nouvelles ct. la Main, Messidor, year XII., No. iv., pages 9
and 10.

VOL. II g

114 MEMOIRS OF

usual seals of all great, famous, or notorious charac-
ters, it would not be hazardous to suppose that all
the pretended private letters from the Emperor of
Russia, from the King of Prussia, and from the Em-
peror of Germany, to the upstart Bonaparte, men-
tioned lately with such a disgusting affectation in the
French journals as arrived with extra couriers from
St. Petersburg, Berlin, and Vienna, were the pro-
ductions of Talleyrand's manufactory at his office,
Rue de Bacq, from which, after a journey of five or
ten minutes, they had safely been delivered according
to direction at the Tuileries, or at St. Cloud. At
least, those billet-doux which Louis Bonaparte, in the
spring of iSoi, prided himself in having received from
a certain beautiful princess, even the Parisians dared
to whisper were forgeries.

No sooner had the Peace of Luneville been
signed, than the Consular Minister Talleyrand made
Bonaparte determine to punish the kingdom of Por-
tugal, the only remaining faithful ally of Great
Britain. Queen Mary, the widow of her uncle Peter
III., incapacitated, partly by age and partly by a
terrible malady, from the exercise of the Royal
functions, still retained the semblance of sovereignty,
though her son governed under the name of Regent.
The Prince of Brazil, conscious that his country had

TALLEYRAND 115

been repeatedly saved, and his family continued on
the throne, in consequence of the support and pro-
tection of the King of England, was devoted to that
Sovereign. He had, however, by the mediation of
Spain, made several attempts, by embassies and
pecuniary sacrifices, to negotiate and purchase
neutrality from the French usurpers ; but had, at
the same time, rejected the idea of any treaty that
tended to exclude the military or commercial navy of
this country from his ports.

The King of Spain, guided by the imbecile Prince
of Peace, and tyrannised by the Cabinet of the
Tuileries, acted either imprudently or through com-
pulsion. Talleyrand had, in the autumn of 1800, pre-
sented him with an ambassador in Lucien Bona-
parte, who, after selling Tuscany, was determined to
govern Spain; and, with the forces of the King of
Spain, invade or plunder the kingdom of Portugal,
although ruled by the son-in-law of this Sovereign.1

I Les Nouvelles d la Main, Messidor, year XII., No, 5, page
240. It is said in the notes that Talleyrand sent this manifesto
enclosed in a complimentary letter to the Prince of Peace
asking him to perfect it by his wisdom and improvement. This
flattery so much pleased this Spanish upstart, that he sent
Talleyrand in return a diamond ring worth £20,000. The late
false and virulent manifesto by the Prince of Peace against
England originates, no doubt, from the same pure source.

8— a

Il6 MEMOIRS OF

Charles IV. accordingly published a manifesto, drawn
up by Talleyrand, in which were intermingled the
complaints of Spain with those of France,

"Europe," he said, "was scandalised at beholding
Portugal presenting a secure asylum to the squadrons
of the enemy, from which they were enabled to issue
forth and seize on his vessels and those of a Republic
united to him by friendship. We have seen Portu-
guese mixed with British ships, forming a part of
their fleets, facilitating their movements, and par-
ticipating in all those acts of hostility which the
English commit against Spain. Their ports have
become the public markets of the French and
Spanish prizes taken upon their coast, and in sight
of their fortresses ; while their Admiralty releases all
the captures made by my subjects. The French
Republic, irritated at these outrages, is desirous of
inflicting a just punishment; and its victorious
armies would have long since spread desolation
through her own provinces if my fraternal affection
for the most faithful Queen and her august children
had not suspended the blow."

After complaining that the Prince Regent had
" evaded the Royal promise so often pledged in
favour of peace," and, in complaisance to England,
his enemy, "abused those engagements which His

TALLEYRAND 117

Majesty had entered into with France,*' it was
stated that the King of Spain had ordered his
ambassador to quit Lisbon, and given a passport
to the Portuguese Minister at the Court of Madrid
to depart : " being decided," concluded His Majesty,
"to attack that Power by uniting my forces with
those of the Republic, whose cause is become the
same as my own, as well as to avenge the par-
ticular insults that have been offered to myself.
For this purpose, I declare war against her most
faithful Majesty, her kingdom and subjects, wishing
this resolution to be promulgated through all my
States, in order that convenient measures may be
taken for the defence of my kingdom and my ships,
as well as against the territories and vessels of my
enemies."

The counter-manifesto, published by the Court of
Lisbon, and addressed to the clergy, nobility and
people, was replete with energy, and worthy of the
more prosperous days of that monarchy. After con-
gratulating the nation on retaining its independence,
notwithstanding the subjugation of so many othet
countries, the Prince Regent justly maintained that
Portugal had always evinced a scrupulous fidelity
to the fulfilment of its promises in respect to foreign
States. A remarkable proof of this, he said, was

I IS MEMOIRS OF

afforded in the assistance given to Spain in 1795,
which, by terminating hostilities against France, has
not only involved the nation that succoured her, but
declared war because the former had kept the faith
of treaties inviolate.

" This alone," adds His Royal Highness, " is
sufficient to rouse the dormant spirit of patriotism ;
but there are still more powerful motives to animate
you. It is intended to degrade and debase you by
reducing you to supplicate for the preservation of
your commerce. Spain even demands that our ports
shall be guarded by her troops as a security for
our fidelity ; but a nation which knew how to resist
the Romans, to conquer Asia, to discover a passage
to the East, to break, when she was still weak, the
hereditary yoke of a foreign sceptre, to recover and
maintain her independence — this nation ought to
recollect the many honourable facts recorded in its
history.

" Portuguese ! we will still preserve the courage
and the sentiments of honour transmitted to us by
our ancestors ; justice is on our side. The true
God, propitious to our cause, will punish by means
of our arms the injuries committed by our enemies;
He will crown our generals and our legitimate
Sovereign with glory ; while our zeal, the equity of

TALLEYRAND IIQ

our cause, and the remembrance of our exploits will
secure us victory."

The brave Prince of Peace, having been declared
generalissimo of the Spanish army, immediately en-
tered Portugal ; and, as the Portuguese had not
time to arm, easily over-ran that country. Having
penetrated by two different routes to Alentejo, he
obtained possession of Campo Major and all the
fortified places in that extensive province, com-
pelled the few troops who opposed him to retire
beyond the Tagus, and transmitted eleven standards
to Madrid. Immediately after these glorious achieve-
ments, the Prince Regent, though he had received
a subsidy of ^"300,000 from England, was obliged to
consent to a treaty of peace, by which Spain obtained
the province of Olivenza, and stipulated that no armed
ships belonging to her enemy should be admitted into
any of the harbours of Portugal.

Although Lucien Bonaparte had, for the moderate
sum of ^"650,000, consented on- the part of France to
this treaty, as Talleyrand had been forgotten, he ex-
cited the First Consul to order General St. Cyr, who
had succeeded Lucien as ambassador to the Court of
Madrid, immediately to enter Portugal with twenty
thousand men, and invest the fortress of Almeida,
within thirty leagues of the capital. Without any

120 MEMOIRS OP

means of resistance, the Prince Regent was under
the necessity to sign a new peace with France. By
this treaty Portugal engaged no longer to admit either
British ships of war or merchantmen into her har-
bours ; the limits of French Guiana were extended,
and commercial immunities, highly favourable to the
Consular Republic, together with a few more millions
of livres in ready money, to be divided between the
Consul's wife and his mother. Talleyrand also waf
indemnified for his advice with ^"25,000.

Whilst the King of Spain was thus forced into
an unnatural war against his son-in-law by the assas-
sins of his family, these very men were meditating,
after selling him the throne of Tuscany, to annihilate
the throne of Spain. The same day that the Spanish
ambassador at Paris, Chevalier d'Azzara, received the
information of the Prince of Peace having invaded
Portugal according to the desires of France, a report
reached him, that " the Consular Government had de-
termined to take advantage of the opportunities then
offered to carry the revolution into Spain, and to
constitute that monarchy an Iberian Republic, of
which Lucien Bonaparte was to be the first consul
or chief magistrate." As this report had been de-
rived from so good a source that he could little
doubt its authenticity, he called upon Talleyrand to

TALLEYRAND 121

know what were the intentions or complaints of
France towards Spain. The answer, so far from
being satisfactory, rather confirmed him in his opinion
that the ruin of his country was meditating ; he
therefore apprised his Court of it, and the con-
sequence was the treaty unexpected by France
between Spain and Portugal, ?.nd the orders given
to St. Cyr to renew hostilities without the succours
of the Spanish troops. The pacific turn which the
negotiation between Bonaparte and the English
Government took, caused, however, this revolutionary
plan against Spain then to be laid aside ; and
General St. Cyr obtained instructions to conclude
a peace with the Portuguese monarchy, instead of
organising a republic upon its ruins, as were his
first orders. Should the Cabinet of Madrid ever
again be imprudent or treacherous enough to unite
in French harbours the Spanish navy with that of
France, as was then the case, or permit French
armies, without opposition, to pass through Spain
to garrison the seaports, and consequently to seize
on the navy of Portugal, a revolution in these
two kingdoms will be inevitable. " Bonaparte has
brothers still unprovided with thrones, and Talley-
rand does not conceal that to insure the stability
of the present revolutionary government in France,

122 MEMOIRS OP

all Bourbons must be removed, and all ancient
dynasties changed."1 Yet the Spanish monarchy is
suspended between a revolution daily meditated and
the burden of a shameful war, which has neither
object nor motive, in which success would but hasten
the ruin of the monarch, and in which every defeat
deserves to be celebrated at Madrid with a Te
Deum. It is in this deceitful position, it is in the
arms of the assassins of his family, that the King of
Spain drags his existence; a prey to the perturbation
of bis mind, the incapacity, the dissentions of his
ministry, the complaints, the misery of his subjects;
to anxiety for the present, and to terror for the
future. Slumbering beneath a canopy of impending
poniards, this monarch, bound by the ties of an
unnatural alliance, can neither break them nor suffer
them to remain unbroken without danger; can neither
make peace nor support war ; his allies are his
scourges ; his enemies are his protectors ; he would
cease to be a king were the British arms to cease

I According to Les Nouvelles d la Main, Frimaire, year XII.,
No. ii., page 2, Talleyrand has not only held this language in
private coteries, but in the presence of foreign diplomatic agents.
The author has received from a friend in Paris a " List of all
persons in all countries of Europe and America intended as the
chief of the new future dynasties," but prudence does not permit
to publish it y«t. It has been circulated by Talleyrand's agents.

TALLEYRAND 12$

being victorious. And thus reduced, thus agitated
and thus wretched have the Spanish monarch and
the Spanish monarchy been ever since the signature
of the alliance with F-ench regicides in 1796 — an
act that procured the present favourite and Prime
Minister the title of a Prince of Peace!

Great Britain continued, after the pacification of
the Continent, to maintain the indisputable sove-
reignty of the ocean, not only protecting her own
coasts and settlements, but assailing, in every part
of the world, those of her opponents, ruining their
commerce, conquering their colonies, and reducing
them to a state of impotent mendicancy. To coun-
tervail the ascendency of the British naval power,
all the secret spies and official agents of France,
male and female, were let loose by Talleyrand, that
he might avail himself of the jealousies and disputes
to which a long-continued contest of unexampled
activity and extent had given birth. He represented
to the Powers of the North, in the most insidious
terms, the necessary precautions of our fleets in
searching and detaining neutral vessels as acts of
aggression. His intrigues and their interest — more
persuasive than the sophistry of his emissaries — led
the Northern Courts to renew the pretentions they
had advanced during the American War, and to

124 MEMOIRS OF

revive the dangerous and inapplicable axiom that
" free bottoms make free goods."

During the former part of the late war, Great
Britain had either obtained the open or secret appro-
bation of every neighbouring Court. But the fortune
of Bonaparte, the active plots of Talleyrand, and
the selfishness of Prussia had now altered the scene t
and this country, which had commenced the contest
with all the States of Europe as her allies, now be-
held the majority of them leagued against her. They
absurdly complained that their neutrality was no
longer respected, that their shores and harbours were
violated by the British cruisers, and that even their
men-of-war were not permitted to afford succours to
the convoys entrusted to their charge. They urged
at the same time the procrastination, delays and ex-
penses incident to the English Court of Admiralty,
and resolved to recur to decisive measures for the
purpose of obtaining redress. Sweden deemed her-
self greatly injured on a variety of occasions, but
more particularly by the detention and condemnation
of several merchantmen under the convoy of a ship
of war. She also complained that one of her mer-
chantmen, without a cargo, had been seized by an
English squadron, and employed in a hostile enter-
prise against two Dutch frigates in the Bay of

TALLEYRAND 125

Barcelona, by which stratagem they had both been
captured. Denmark also, after enduring patiently so
many insults and losses from France, enumerated
her grievances against England. She asserted that
a number of her vessels had been seized on the
most frivolous pretexts, and even carried into the
ports of Great Britain, although no species of contra-
band property whatsoever had been found on board.1
It was stated, at the same time, that the captain of
one of her frigates had been detained and treated
with harshness. An event occurred soon after which,
though undoubtedly planned and prepared by Talley-
rand's agents at Copenhagen, occasioned much per-
plexity, and was productive of all those disagreeable
consequences which his plots had measured out.1
Although the armed vessels of the two Northern
Powers had protested against a search, and one of
them actually recurred to small-arms, yet nothing in
the shape of a regular engagement had hitherto taken
place. This, however, at length occurred in the

1 It is a notorious fact, that for 100 marks, or six guineas,
Danish burgher-right was sold at Altona. The severity of British
cruisers could, therefore, not be too strict in search of French
property neutralised by such easy and cheap arts.

2 In Les Intrigues du Ch. M. Talleyrand, p. 12, it is stated that the
rehearsal of this naval farce took place at Paris in Bonaparte's
Cabinet, the day before he left that capital to assume the command
of the army of reserve near Dijon.

126 MEMOIRS OP

course of the summer of 1800 ; for the captain of the
Danish frigate Freya having refused to permit the
vessels under his protection to be examined by an
English squadron, at the mouth of the Channel, an
action immediately ensued ; and, after having two
men killed and five wounded, he struck the Danish
colours, and was carried into the Downs.

As a rupture was apprehended upon this occasion,
the English Ministers were naturally alarmed for the
safety of the vessels employed in the Baltic trade.
Lord Whitworth was accordingly sent to Copenhagen
in the character of a plenipotentiary, while his mis-
sion was supported by a strong squadron under Ad-
miral Dickson, which entered the Sound. After a
considerable time spent in discussion, a temporary
adjustment took place, in consequence of which the
Danish frigate, with the convoy, were to be released,
and the former repaired in a port of His Britannic
Majesty, according to the usage of friendly and allied
Powers. The decision respecting the right of visit-
ing merchantmen, under the convoy of men-of-war,
was postponed ; and, in the meantime, Denmark was
to employ her armed vessels for this purpose in the
Mediterranean only, a measure rendered necessary in
that sea in consequence of the depredations of the
Barbary corsairs.

TALLEYRAND 127

Had Sweden and Denmark alone been the dupes
of Talleyrand's inveteracy against this country, and
parties of an association entered into some few months
afterwards, which actually revived the treaty of armed
neutrality concluded during the American War, their
efforts would probably have been confined to memo-
rials and remonstrances; but, by one of those strange
turns of politics which often derange the best pro-
jects of human wisdom and foresight, the Emperor
of Russia, totally changing his principles, and revers-
ing the acts of that period of his reign which had
entitled him to the greatest share of admiration, had,
from the influence of Talleyrand's secret female
agents, become the zealous partisan of revolutionary
France, and the soul of the League fabricated under
her auspices for the ruin of the British ^Empire.
Justly offended at the transactions in Switzerland, at
the close of the campaign in 1799, Paul I. had
observed a gloomy and suspicious neutrality during
the first portion of the ensuing year ; but, while
his passions were bewildered by the charms of the
harlots Talleyrand had placed in his train, as
success gilded the banners of Bonaparte, his eyes
became dazzled, and he panted to share the
Emperor's friendship and the renown of his un-
deserved prosperity. The First Consul and his

128 MEMOIRS OF

Minister easily appreciated the character of this ur>
fortunate Prince ; they saw that he rather admired
what was splendid than pursued what was just, and
therefore ensnared his senses, flattered his vanity
and desire of being thought a model of heroism and
virtue, by the most abject and incessant soothings.

As the ascendency of French partisans over the
mind of the Emperor increased, he became addition-
ally captious in his conduct towards Great Britain,
and, on the surrender of Malta, appears to have
seized that occasion of advancing pretences which
would justify a premeditated hostility. In defiance
of all rules, and contrary to the statutes of the
Order, he had, after the treacherous occupation of
the island by the French, been elected a Grand
Master, and was desirous of opening a negotiation
with the British Ministry for the possession of this
ill-acquired sovereignty. But before any considerable
progress could be made in the transaction, the im-
patience of his temper and violence of his character,
augmenting to a degree which afforded evident proofs
of insanity, broke out into acts that rendered hos-
tilities between him and his late ally inevitable.
Bonaparte, anxious to secure his friendship, liberated
7,000 Russian prisoners captured by the French
armies, and sent them tack to their own country,

TALLEYRAND I2Q

well clothed, and armed at his expense, the amount
of which Talleyrand took care to have repaid by
Great Britain, in the Treaty of Amiens. This
generosity of the First Consul, at the time his own
troops were in rags and without pay, made Paul
his friend, even to enthusiasm. A solemn Russian
legation, headed by the Vice-Chancellor Kalitchief,
was immediately sent to Paris, for the purpose of
drawing more closely the ties which were to con-
nect the Russian Empire with the French Republic.
Although he had formerly expressed his resolution to
check the contraband trade carried on by Sweden
and Denmark with France, to the prejudice of the
allies, and of England in particular, he now declared
himself the warm champion of their pretended rights.
In a declaration published about this period by His
Imperial Majesty, the measures taken in 1780 " for
establishing the principles of a wise and impartial
neutrality " were appealed to ; and great credit was
given to Russia " for bringing to a conclusion this
salutary work," which, in respect to that country, had
become " the basis of all future treaties of commerce,
while universal suffrage had converted this code of
humanity into a code for nations." After lamenting
that, " at the epoch of the dissolution of a Great
Power," too little care was taken to give a new

VOL. II 9

I30

MEMOIRS OF

sanction to these principles, on account of the inter-
vention of novel and extraordinary events, the deten-
tion of the. Danish frigate is mentioned, as tending to
prove " how much the independence of crowned
heads might be endangered if they neglected to re-
establish the principles and maxims on which the
safety of the neutral Powers rests in the course of
this war. As the manifest interest of His Imperial
Majesty," it is added, " both in regard to the navi-
gation of his own subjects and that of his ports
bordering upon other nations, requires that the seas
which wash the coasts of the Russian Empire should
be sheltered from such acts of violence, he invites
the Powers who possess harbours in these districts,
and particularly Their Majesties the Kings of Prussia,
of Denmark, and of Sweden, to concert with him
respecting measures that will be successively com-
municated to them, for re-establishing, in their full
force, the principles of an armed neutrality, to secure
the liberty of the seas. He accordingly makes
known, by the present declaration, that he is dis-
posed to employ all the forces of his Crown to
maintain the honour of his flag and that of his
allies ; to secure his subjects from every infraction of
those rights respected by all nations, and to procure
to them, under the protection of their respective

TALLEYRAND 1^1

Governments, the advantages resulting from the
liberty of trade and navigation."1

In consequence of this invitation, the King of
Sweden entered into a treaty with the Emperor Paul,
in which they laid down certain principles for the
extension and security of commerce. By these new
regulations it was maintained that any ship might
freely navigate on the coasts of the belligerent
Powers ; and that everything but 'what is expressly
contraband shall be free. The description of a
blockaded harbour is limited and defined; the
declaration of the officers commanding ships of war
convoying merchantmen, respecting their cargoes, is
deemed sufficient ; no search is to be allowed ; and,
to protect the trade of the two countries, the con-
tracting parties agree to equip and provide squad-
rons. The Kings of Prussia and Denmark soon
after acceeded to this confederacy ; and the Emperor

I In the publication Le Voyageur Suisse, pages 3 and 4, it is
stated that Madame Chevalier, the mistress of Paul's favourite
minister, Ropotschin, having received this note from Talley-
rand's office, learned it by heart, and when the expected news
arrived at St. Petersburg of the capture of the Danish frigate,
asked him to permit her to write a note against the tyrants of
the seas in his presence, which she did so very ably, that he
had but very few alterations to make for changing his mistress's
note into an official declaration of his Sovereign. A ring oi
great value repaid her adroitness.

9—2

132 MEMOIRS OF

of Russia carried his resentment still further, by
laying an embargo on all British ships in his ports.
He also issued orders to burn those detained in the
harbour of Narva, in consequence of the escape of
two vessels in contravention of his commands, and
treated the sailors with uncommon rigour.

These proceedings were partly connected wkh
the grand-mastership of the Order of St. John of
Jerusalem; but chiefly directed, in consequence of
the hatred with which Talleyrand's agents about his
person inspired him, against Great Britain. To con-
ceal their degrading ascendency in Russia, and also
to furnish materials of cavil for the factious in this
country, the Court gazette at St. Petersburg ex-
pressly stated that the Emperor had resorted to this
measure because possession had been taken "of Val-
etta and the island of Malta, in the name of the
King of Great Britain, and the English flag alone
hoisted," &c. ; and it is asserted, towards the con-
clusion, that the sequestration should not be taken
off " until the conditions of the Convention, con-
cluded in the year 1798, were punctually fulfilled."

The crisis appeared truly tremendous to Great
Britain. The nation, placed in a new political posi-
tion by the incorporate union with Ireland, was
oppressed by the calamities of two years of scarcity,

TALLEYRAND 133

and open to all the fluctuations of opinion of those
who, at different periods, opposed the war, or were
dissatisfied with the views, or with the measures,
political or financial, of the minister who conducted
it. Yet the national spirit, when adequately roused,
was sufficient to repel every insult ; and the national
resources were sufficiently abundant to meet any
contest. The storm was therefore dissipated, and
England, by the vigour of her ancient institutions,
by her wealth, by her valour, by the talents and
patriotism of her ministers, at length acquired her
former ascendency.

When further moderation would have been weak-
ness, and forbearance pusillanimity, our Government
returned the aggression of Russia with great firmness.
The payment of bills due to merchants of that Em-
pire was prohibited by Order of Council, and extensive
preparations were commenced for attacking the North-
ern Confederates in other points, when the ministry
suddenly dissolved, and was replaced, not by the
party so long in the Opposition, but by loyal and
cordial friends of the preceding Cabinet. Under their
auspices, a powerful squadron was despatched to the
Baltic, and the victor of the Nile reaped new laurels
before Copenhagen. Denmark was terrified into a
truce ; the King of that country, who had sequestered

134 MEMOIRS OF

British property at Hamburg, resigned his prey; the
King of Prussia, who, in contempt of neutrality, honour
and justice, had seized Hanover, evacuated this elec-
torate; the King of Sweden withdrew from the Con-
federacy, and Lord St. Helens was deputed ambassador
to St. Petersburg, for the final arrangement of all
disputes between the contending nations. The re-
ception of an English plenipotentiary in Russia was
facilitated by the sudden death of the Emperor
Paul, which, in the proclamation of his successor,
was ascribed to apoplexy ; but it is undoubted that
the same French faction at St. Petersburg which
influenced his late impolitic conduct were wearied
with his extravagances, and dreaded another altera-
tion of his principles, of which they had lately
observed several symptoms. Another change of his
politics would have been as severely felt by France
as his virulence against England had been unavailing,
because his resentment had always exceeded his
attachment ; he might, when unopposed by this
country, have landed armies either in Italy or
France; but he could never land an army in the
British Islands as long as the British navy re-
mained master of the ocean. When the news of
his murder reached Paris, Bonaparte and Talleyrand
could not conceal their satisfaction. "Thank God,"

TALLEYRAND 135

said the latter, to the Dutch Ambassador, Schimmel-
penninck, " the Russian navy is safe ! the death of
Paul has preserved it from falling into the hands
of the English." That this would have happened,
and Cronstadt and Revel have added new lustre
to British heroism, had not convention prevented
engagement, the brilliant victory of Copenhagen
evinced and ensured. The objects, the plots and
their consequences are invariably the same, wher-
ever French regicides, or their emissaries, penetrate;
wherever their duplicity misleads, their artifice im-
poses, or their sophistry seduces. Their thirst after
the blood of all legitimate Sovereigns was doubly
gratified if their victim was dishonoured before he
was murdered.

Thus perished, at a very critical period, the son
of that Peter III. who, forty years before, after a
short reign, fell a sacrifice to the masculine am-
bition of a female and the treason of a few con-
temptible conspirators. Ensnared by the secret agents
of Bonaparte and Talleyrand, Paul contemplated the
Corsican usurper with the same degree of enthusiasm
with which his unfortunate father had formerly ad-
mired Frederick the Great. A correspondence had
actually taken place between them, compliments and
presents interchanged, and projects of a novel and

136 MEMOIRS OF

portentious kind broached. During the last six
months of his reign, the Russian Emperor was per-
plexed with no less than seven schemes of Talley-
rand's to revolutionise, or partition, the different
nations of the world. In one, the throne of Constan-
tinople was proposed for the Grand Duke Constan-
tine ; in another, the Swedish part of Finland, the
better to secure the capital of the Russian Empire,
and to increase the commerce of the Russian sub-
jects. In one, the Empire of England in India is
insured to a Russian army from Persia ; in another,
the Russian Emperor is desired to regain the posses-
sion of the German principality of Holstein, the
patrimony of his ancestors, when France would place
in his hand the sceptre of Germany, and on his head
the crown of the Caesars. China, at least a part of
it, is held out as an equally easy conquest in Asia,
and the Austrian part of Poland in Europe. In re-
turn for so many generous and disinterested offers,
Talleyrand only demanded for France — Egypt, a part
of Syria, the Morea, and the Seven Islands. These
were some of the revolutionary diversions with which
he entertained a sovereign whilst his grave, dug by
his emissaries, was yawning to receive him.

Since the Treaty of Luneville, the lure of the
secularisations and indemnities had been a Pandora's

TALLEYRAND 137

box to Germany, and the decisive means of influ-
ence and of discord which Bonaparte and Talleyrand
had contrived to keep in their hands. The spirit of
rapine immediately burst forth. The latter, putting
the German Empire up to auction, drew out the list
of principalities, bishoprics, abbeys, monasteries, with
which he meant to reward the services and docility
of the friends of France. They fell upon the lots
like starving wretches upon a feast. It was, in fact,
a Saturnalian festival. The road from Strasburg
to Paris was crowded with supplicants; and every-
one ran to the door of the grantor with their
maps, surveys, rules, and lines of demarcation. The
whole empire would scarcely have been enough to
satisfy the grantees, or furnish the indemnities they
claimed. A prince, who never had anything but
debts, asks for a State ; and a baron, without a
home, without credit, and almost without clothing,
wants a principality. Memorials were piled on
Talleyrand's table, who, though not over - delicate
himself, is shocked at this keen struggle for plunder,
and determined to profit by it. His disinterestedness
was soon observed ; but, notwithstanding, a multitude
of members, and states of the empire, were ex-
hausting the question, on the means of ruining their
country and of abridging their own existence. In

138 MEMOIRS OP

vain, for several years past, had a number of them
abandoned the Empire and the Emperor to their fate;
in vain had they separated their cause from that of
their associates, and their duty from their interests;
in vain had they hoped that their defection would
arrest the rod and the rapacity of the common
enemy ; neither those stolen and private treaties,
which they had the boldness to solicit and the mis-
fortune to obtain of Talleyrand, nor their clandestine
deputations, nor their ransoms, nor their petitions,
nor the exorbitancy of - their sacrifices, have been
able to secure them what they possessed, much less
the possession of others desired by them as indem-
nities. New conventions, new pecuniary offerings,
were necessary; but the ink of the conventions was
not all dried, or the money pocketed, before all stipu-
lations were forgotten or laid aside for the agreements
with others, and higher bidders pillaged and duped
in their turn. When it is known that what has
been squandered away in France in bribes, presents,
taxes and requisitions, by the members of the Ger-
man Empire, would have been sufficient to keep up
six armies of 50,000 men each during six campaigns,
it is evident that the exploits of France alone have
not reduced the Continent to its present enslaved
and wretched state. The time was when Germany
fought thirty years to establish its political equili-

TALLEYRAND 139

brium, and the left bank of the Rhine was defended
against Louis XIV. for forty years. In these days
that possession has been relinquished by a dash of
the pen ; and the independence of the right bank,
after being disputed by notes and counter -notes,
violated by Bonaparte at pleasure with impunity, and
not a German soldier called out to avenge the depre-
dation of his country. When no more money could
be extorted Talleyrand removed the trial of the
Empire from his ante-chambers to the Diet at Ratis-
bon ; and Bonaparte invited the present magnanimous
Russian Emperor to become, with him, a guarantee
of the new constitution which his revolutionary con-
stitution-mongers had fabricated at Paris for the
German Empire. The ministers of this monarch
committed a great mistake in having placed any
confidence in an accommodation with the Corsican
usurper — in having depended upon any equity in his
claims, any sincerity in his engagements, or any
fulfilment of hjs promises. The invasion of Hanover,
of the territories of Baden and Hamburg, proclaim
this error. It is difficult to conceive a situation
more deplorable than that to which the Empire has
now reduced itself by its disunion, by the selfishness
that has prevailed in it, by its useless meanness, by
its persevering endeavours at peace, and by that
parade of eternal negotiations in which it has b«-

I4O MEMOIRS OP

trayed its weakness. Bonaparte rules at present as
much at Ratisbon as at the Hague, at Milan, or
at Madrid; and Talleyrand lays the Empire oftener
under contribution than Holland, Italy or Spain.
Even last summer, during Bonaparte's journey along
the banks of the . Rhine, and during his stay at
Aix-la-Chapelle, and at Mentz, his minister produced
a new plan for supplementary indemnities, and ex-
torted several millions for his invention, without any
benefit or advantage to the incurably selfish dupes of
Germany. When the money had been counted in
his closet, and shut up in his drawers, the plan of
supplementary indemnities was locked up in his port-
folio, where it will remain until cupidity or ambition
again calls it forward.

When a general pacification of the Continent had
organised the slavery prepared by the partial con-
quests of Bonaparte's enemies, Talleyrand took every
opportunity of representing to his master "the glory
he would acquire by adding the reputation of a great
statesman to that of a great general, in preparing, by
a pacification, the subjugation of the British Empire,
on which, without an equal or superior navy, France
could make no impression during a war."1 Accord-

i See Lts Intrigues du Ch. M. Talleyrand, page 13, and Les
Nouvelles d la Main, Ventose, year X., No. v., page 2. Bonaparte

TALLEYRAND 14!

ingly, a negotiation which, during the summer of
1 80 1, had been depending, was accelerated, towards
the autumn, with all the subtlety of French diplo-
matic refinement. The inhabitants of Great Britain
and France had become heartily tired of a war which
circumstances had of late divested of any fixed object.
The British Government had also long since, and
often, desired to close the scene of carnage; and had
always shown, because they felt, those sentiments
of moderation which the French Consul and his
minister only affected. After so many splendid acqui-
sitions in all parts of the world, it did honour to
British generosity sincerely to desire a peace; whilst
Bonaparte — always guided by selfish and perfidious
motives — held a pacific language only that he might
restore the islands of the West Indian Archipelago
and the French possessions in the East to the
Republic, and issue, from thence, incendiaries on
the British colonies in these climates, at the same
time that his armed banditti in Europe surprised
the British Islands — reposing on the dangerous secu-
rity of Gallic faith and revolutionary treaties. For
some time past an active intercourse had taken

said one day in August, 1801, "Talleyrand's eternal proposals
of peace will kill me before they destroy England.'' He was
then in ill-humour idem, page 4.

142 MEMOIRS OP

place between the two Governments. Flags of truce
and of defiance were actually displayed at the same
time and in the same strait; so that, while Boulogne
and Dunkirk were bombarded, or blockaded, by hos-
tile squadrons, the ports of Dover and Calais were
frequently visited by the packet-boats and the mes-
sengers from the Courts of St. James's and the
Tuileries. At length the preliminaries were signed,
on the ,ist of October, and ratified at the end of
eleven days subsequent to this event. Amiens, the
city assigned for the discussion of a definite treaty,
was visited in the course of a few months by the
ministers of the respective Powers. After a lapse
of considerable time, during which the public expec-
tation was amazingly excited by alternate hopes and
fears, the long-expected treaty was signed, ratified
and promulgated according to the established forms.
This event at first diffused a lively joy throughout
the British Empire; but its danger soon became as
evident as Bonaparte's insidiousness, and every en-
lightened mind foresaw, and every true patriot desired,
an end of a truce which, if continued, would in-
evitably have brought on the ruin, as well as the
disgrace, of the British Empire. But, short as the
cessation of hostilities was, it has not been without
its utility. It exposed in its true light to all factious,

TALLEYRAND 143

seduced and deluded Britons, the real character of a
man in favour of whom many had been so infatuated ;
whose duplicity was as great as his cruelty; who
offered freedom when he intended slavery, and the
repose of peace when he meditated the horrors of a
revolution ; and who held out equality, when all his
actions and transactions had proved that he could no
more endure an equal than salute a superior.

All the perfidiousness of Bonaparte and Talleyrand
in giving up Egypt only as a compensation for the
restitution of the French colonies, at a time when
they were fully acquainted with the fall of Alexandria,
has been doubted by many. The author, who, during
the summer of 1801, was a prisoner on parole at
Marseilles, can affirm that, on the 2ist of September,
a vessel from Alexandria anchored in its vicinity,
which it had left on the first of the same month,
and brought the official account of the capitulation
of General Menou, concluded two days before, or
August 3oth. This capitulation was known upon the
Exchange at Marseilles before three o'clock that day.
At the playhouse in the evening, both the prefect,
La Croix, and the commander, General Cervoni,
made no secret of it, or that they had expedited
couriers to Paris with information to Government of
this event. Orders were, besides, publicly sent to the

144 MEMOIRS OP

commissary of marine and to the inspector of the
quarantine, to prepare provisions, refreshments, medi-
cines, &c., for the garrison of Alexandria, of which
four hundred men arrived on the ist of October in
the roads of Marseilles. The distance between this
city and Paris is two hundred leagues, or six hundred
English miles, which a courier may easily travel in
four days and nights. No doubt, therefore, can re-
main but that before the 26th of September, Talley-
rand was acquainted with the surrender of Menou,
and that he in consequence ordered Otto to sign the
preliminaries which, though highly honourable to the
good faith and sincerity of the English Cabinet,
treachery alone concluded on the part of France.

From the impolitic eagerness to applaud Lauriston,
who brought over the ratification of the preliminaries,
and from the humiliating distinctions which were
shown to this emissary of a usurper, Bonaparte and
Talleyrand supposed that such was the desire and
want of peace among all classes in this country,
that they might do, contrary to the honour and
interest of England, anything that caprice, passion
or ambition should instigate or require to gratify
humour, cupidity, hatred, revenge or vanity. A treaty
injurious to British commerce was, therefore, sur-
prised from Russia, and a peace, or rather a treaty

TALLEYRAND 145

of peace, was swindled from the Sublime Porte.
An army was sent to invade St Domingo, and a
legion of commercial agents .quartered on Great
Britain. Cargoes of spies were shipped for the
East Indies by way of the Isle of France, and
Ireland was inundated with revolutionary propagators.
The supreme magistracy of Italy was extended by
Bonaparte, and Talleyrand's political frauds added
Parma, 1'Isle d'Elba and Louisiana to the other
usurpations of France. A senatus consultus incorporated
Piedmont with the French Republic, and new regu-
lations of the Council of State violated even the
laws of nations to prevent all commercial inter-
course with Great Britain. All these indirect threats,
direct insults to England and real acquisitions and
encroachments of France, occurred within six months
after the preliminaries had been agreed to; and on
the very day our plenipotentiary, by his signature,
changed them into a definitive treaty, our country
was insulted with another treaty between France
and Holland, which deprived our ancient ally and
the relative of our beloved Sovereign, the Prince
of Orange, of all his property and claims in
the Batavian Republic, and left him without
any other prospect of being indemnified in Ger-
many than to resort to the humiliating and

VOL. II ZO

146 MEMOIRS OP

expensive expedient of bowing to Bonaparte and
feeing Talleyrand. No British subject who had the
misfortune to have property in France was permitted
to take possession of his estates ; nor could he obtain
any remuneration for what had been sold or plun-
dered, or the rents due to him from the public
funds ; and, with some few political or patriotic ex-
ceptions, all British travellers were, without redress,
exposed to impositions, aggressions, insolence, rude-
ness, and even imprisonments. From these and
other repeated and barefaced provocations the most
impartial politicians, both in England and upon the
Continent, were convinced that the violent hatred of
Bonaparte would not long submit to the advices of
moderation, or imitate the example of the political
deceit and inveteracy of Talleyrand ; but alarm the
pride and rouse the spirit of Britons to avenge the
outrages offered their country before the plots of her
infamous foes had time to reach their maturity.

By the different negotiations, intrigues, indem-
nities, loans, jobbings, treaties, armistices, conven-
tions, &c., up to Midsummer, 1802, Talleyrand is
said, since his appointment as a Minister, to have
identified himself »with the following sums:1

z See Lts Nouvillts d la Main, Nivose, year XIII., No. 4, page
5, Ac.

TALLEYRAND

147

1797-

Lavres.1

Of the money extorted from Portugal his share was - 1,200,000

By speculations in the French and foreign Funds,
during the negotiation of Lord Malmesbury at
Lisle- ......... 1,500,000

Received from Austria for the secret articles of the
Convention at Campo Fonnio of the tyth October,
1797 -------... 1,000,000

Received from Prussia for the disclosure of, and for

impacting, the execution of these secret articles - 1,000,000

Received from the Elector of Bavaria for ditto ditto 500,000

Advanced by the candidates for indemnities hi the
German Empire, during the first six months of the
Congress at Rastadt ------ 1,800,000

Free gift of Naples for the preservation of her neu-
trality --..----. 500,000

Presents accepted of the King of Sardinia for the

continuance of his neutrality ----- 300,000

Patriotic donations of the Grand Duke of Tuscany,

for the respect shown the neutrality of his States 500,000

Offerings of His Holiness the Pope for the ratification
of his treaty of neutrality with the French Re-
public -----.... 150,000

From the Cisalpine Republic for procuring a new

Constitution -------- 1,000,000

From the Bavarian Republic for retarding a new Con-
stitution --------- 1,200,000

From the Ligurian Republic for improving the old

Constitution - - 200,000

Shared of the prizes captured from neutral States by

French privateers ------- 2,000,000

A loan of the Prince of Peace ..... 1,000,000

Ditto of the Grand Vizier ...... 600,000

Ditto of the Hanse Towns ...... 500,000

x A French livre is worth about tenpence.

IO — 2

i48

MEMOIRS OF

I798.

Livres.

From new candidates for new German Indemnities • 900,000
By speculations in the French and foreign Funds - 1.000,000
A loan from the Imperial cities of Frankfort, Nurem-
berg and Augsburg ...... 550,000

Shared with the Republican Generals and Commis-
saries in the plunder of Switzerland ... 1,600,000
Ditto with General Berthier and Commissary Haller

in the pillage of Rome ------ 1,000,000

A loan from the Prime Minister of the King of Naples,

Chevalier Dacton -.----- 600,000

Ditto from the Minister of the King of Prussia, Count

Haugwitz- -..----. 500,000

Ditto from the Minister of the Emperor of Germany,

Prince Colloredo -.--.-. 750,000
Ditto from the Ministers of the Cisalpine Directory - 1,000,000
Ditto from the Ministers of the Batavian Directory • 1,300,000
Ditto from the Ministers of the Ligurian Directory - 150,000
Ditto from the Ministers of the Helvetian Directory - 200,000
Share of the value of neutral prizes brought into

French ports -------- 1,400,000

Profit by speculations in purchases of national pro-
perty ......... 600,000

1799.

Offered from the Margrave of Baden, for the renova-
tion of his treaty of neutrality with the French
Republic --------- 500,000

Demanded and obtained from the Landgrave of Hesse

for ditto ditto -------- 650,000

Another loan from the Hanse Towns - 600,000

A loan from the Spanish Ambassador, Chevalier

d'Azzara - - - -'- - - - - 750,000

A present from the Cabinets of Madrid and Lisbon,
for the breaking up of the army under General
Augereau intended to conquer Portugal - - 1,200,000

TALLEYRAND

I49

Shared with the General and Commissaries, for the

plunder of Piedmont -..--.
Shared with General Championet and Commissary

Faypoul, for the plunder of Naples
Shared of the value of neutral prizes brought into

French harbours -------

Shared with the French Consuls the value of prizes

brought into the ports of Spain and Italy -
A present from Bonaparte on his return from Egypt -
A loan from the Batavian Directory • • • •

Idvres.
800,000

• 1,400,000

850,000

450,000
600,000
1,000,000

1800.

By speculations in the French and foreign Funds • 8,000,000
From Austria, for procuring several armistices - - 1,200,000
From Prussia, for causing these armistices not to be

prolonged without new territorial sacrifices - - 1,000,000
From Spain, for the promise of erecting Tuscany into
a kingdom for the infant Prince of Parma, in

money and presents 2,200,000

A loan from Denmark, for promising a subsidiary

treaty --------- 500,000

For the separate treaties of neutrality signed with

several German princes ------ 1,500,000

A loan from the Bavarian Minister, Baron Montgelas 500,000
A loan from the new Ministers of the Cisalpine Re-
public -.------. 600,000

A loan from the Russian Minister, Ropotschin - - 750,000
Presents from some Grecian and Algerine merchants,
for contracts for grain and provisions, &c., to be
delivered in Egypt for the subsistence and sup-
port of the army of the East .... 400,000

By speculations in the barter of national property - 1,500,000
From Pope Pius VII., for his election to the tiara,
and for the peace given His Holiness by the
French Republic -..--.- 600,000

150

MEMOIRS OF

From some Neapolitan and other Italian patriots, for
having their outlawry reversed, and their property
restored ---------

From the States of Barbary, for their treaties of peace
with the French Republic - - ... .

Presents in money and valuables from the Executive
Government of the United States of America at
the conclusion of the treaty of peace with the
French Republic .......

Livres

200,000

600,000

500,000

, 1801.

From the Emperor of Germany, after the signature

and ratification of the Treaty of Luneville - - 1,200,000

From the Elector of Bavaria, for the conclusion of

his treaty of peace with the French Republic - 750,000

From the new candidates of indemnities in the
German Empire, in consequence of the Treaty of
Luneville 1,500,000

For the signature of separate treaties of peace or
neutrality, between the French Republic and
several German Princes - 1,000,000

By speculations in the French and foreign Funds - 15,500,000

For contracts to supply the army and navy with pro-
vision, clothing, arms and stores - - - - 3,000,000

From Prussia, when the plan of her indemnities in
Germany was agreed to by the Government of
the French

A loan from
Republic -

A loan from
Republic -

A loan from
Republic -

A loan from
Republic -

Repi

ibhc

-

-

2,000,000

the

Government

of

the

Cisalpine

-

.

-

-

600,000

the

Government

of

the

Batavian

-

-

-

-

900,000

the

Government

of

the

Helvetian

.--:

*

-

• :-

200,000

the

Government

of

the

Ligurian

•

«.,-. .

-

•

150,000

5 Republic of Lucca . • • .

100,000

TALLEYRAND

Livres.
A present from the Hanse Towns, for preserving their

independence -------- 600,000

A present from the Imperial cities of Frankfort,
Nuremberg and Augsburg, for not including them
in the indemnities given to the Princes in the
neighbourhood -------- 600,000

By speculations in the barter of national property • 1,300,000

From His Holiness the Pope, for his project of a

religious concordat ------- 300,000

From the King of Spain, for not impeding the ratifi-
cation of the treaty of peace between Spain and
Portugal 600,000

From Portugal, for procuring the ratification of the
treaty of peace concluded with the French
Republic --------- 500,000

Presents in money from the King of Etruria during

his stay in Paris 600,000

From the King of Naples, for the ratification of the
treaty of peace between His Majesty and the
French Republic - 500,000

A loan from the Austrian Minister of State, Count

Cobentzel- ----.--- 600,000

A loan from the Landgrave of Hesse - - - 300,000

A present from the members elected to the Italian

Consulta, assembled at Lyons .... 500,000

1802.

By speculations in the French and foreign Funds - 6,000,000

Presents from the Russian Emperor, at the ratifica-
tion of the treaty of peace with the French
Republic 500,000

Presents from the Cabinet of St. James's, at the

ratification of the Treaty of Amiens ... 500,000

Presents from the King of Spain, for the conclusion

of the Treaty of Amiens ----- 500,000

Presents from the Directory of the Batavian Republic,

for the conclusion of a peace with Great Britain- 600,000

153 MEMOIRS OF

Presents from the Batavian Government, fcr the Livres.
private treaty signed with France, which delivered
the United States from all claims of the Prince
of Orange ----.„.. 1,000,000

Presents from the Grand Seignior, for the treaty
concluded between the Ottoman Porte and the
French Republic -----.. 600,000

From the contractors for purchasing naval stores in
Russia for the French arsenals and navy, two per
cent, of their contracts, amounting to two
hundred millions of livres - - _.' - 4,000,000

A loan from Cardinal Caprara, at the proclamation

of the concordat ....... 200,000

Thus extorting, during a period of five years,
nearly ^"4,000,000 sterling from Princes and sub-
jects ; from Sovereigns and their ministers ; from
hereditary chiefs of monarchies and from elective
magistrates of commonwealths; from national con-
tractors and from foreign merchants; from allied or
neutral States and even from hostile nations — by
taking advantage of that information his official
station procured him to lay all people and all
classes under a contribution, either directly by forced
loans, or indirectly by speculation in public Funds.
This is a new system of plunder, not yet mentioned
in history, nor even in the annals which record the
corruption of Eastern satraps, or of Turkish viziers
and pachas. This explains the many changes in
the governments and constitutions of the tributary
republics, and the impolitic conduct of many cabinets

TALLEYRAND 153

of tributary, allied or neutral princes; because, when
Talleyrand is able to command money from monarchs
or their counsellors, their deliberations must be known
to him, and their determinations dictated by him, whc
therefore may justly be styled the Prime Minister of
the Continent, instead of the Principal Minister of
Bonaparte.

The manner in which this curious statement, of
private political marauding was rendered public is
accounted for in this manner: A young man of
the name of Osselin was Talleyrand's confidential
secretary, charged with inspecting and transacting
the Minister's private financial speculations until
Midsummer, 1802, when, in reward for his zeal and
honesty, he obtained the lucrative place of a receiver-
general of the contributions in Piedmont. He there
fell into the snares of some male and female sharpers,
and became a defaulter for several millions of livres.
When this was discovered, General Murat, Bonaparte's
vice-regent at Turin, had Osselin arrested last spring,
and sent under an escort of gendarmes to Paris, where
he was confined in the Temple. Here Fouch6 exa-
mined him ; and, upon promise of procuring him
liberty, obtained from him every necessary and useful
information for a rival favourite to be acquainted
with. This statement was immediately printed and

154 MEMOIRS OP

circulated secretly by Fouch6's spies ; and of the copies
disseminated in the palace of the Tuileries, one fell into
the hands of Bonaparte, who showed it to Talley-
rand, at the same time smiling maliciously, and
saying, "Should this account be correct, your private
property is greater than what I and all the members
of my family possess together." " Sire," answered
Talleyrand, " my enemies are more malicious than
dexterous ; they might as easily, and with equal
truth, have added a couple of ciphers (zeros) more to
each article, and made me at once richer than all the
sovereigns of Europe en masse." Between these two
pure characters the subject dropped. As to poor
Osselin, he had disappeared ; and was the victim
either of Fouch6's treachery, Bonaparte's cruelty, or
Talleyrand's vengeance.1 These two ministers of the
revolutionary Emperor always continue irreconcilable,
often expose the villainy of each other, and strive to
supplant each other in the good opinion of their
villainous master. After Bonaparte's return to Paris
from Mentz, in October, 1804, Fouch6 told him that
the honour of the great nation and the morality of
government were injured abroad by the insatiable

I See Les Nouvelles d la Main, Nivose, year XIII., No. iv.,
pages ii and 12. It is said that this statement was signed Joseph
d' Osselin.

TALLEYRAND 155

avarice of Talleyrand : " Hardly a day passes," said
he, " that his agents did not report the complaints and
reproaches, not only of the members of the foreign
diplomatic corps in France, but of those of all Courts
on the Continent, who are regularly every year im-
posed on to a certain amount, under the appellations
of loans or presents." Shortly after Fouche was gone
Talleyrand arrived. " I am sorry to hear," said
Bonaparte, "that your finances are deranged in such
a manner that you are obliged to borrow money
from foreign princes and sovereigns all over Europe."
"Sire," answered the ex-Bishop, "if I borrow money,
never a bond of mine was dishonoured. I suppose my
friend Fouche has made Your Majesty uneasy on my
account. It is impossible, Sire, that my situation can
be so brilliant as the situation of this disinterested
senator. Of this permit me to convince Your Ma-
jesty by this calculation, which I defy Fouch6 to
contradict. As a Minister of Police he has pocketed,
during four years, £1,700,000, wrested from returned
emigrants, for restoring them the rights of French citi-
zens, and their unsold or sequestered property ; and of
the £850,000 allowed him by Your Majesty for secret-
service money, he has yearly laid hold of, for his
own use, from £170,000 to £340,000. Permit me
to deposit with your Majesty these documents,

156 MEMOIRS OP

signed by my secret agents, who have no objection
to be confronted with his Excellency, M. Fouch6."
After casting his eyes over the papers, Bonaparte
tore them to pieces, saying, " Allez, vous etes tous
les deux des coquins!" (Begone, you are both rogues
together). The Imperial aides-de-camp, Duroc and
Rapp, were present during this conversation. Talley-
rand's assertion that his bonds for his loans were
never dishonoured, is so far true : they were never
presented for payment; having taken care, before
they came due, to pick some quarrel with the money-
lenders, who knew what he wanted, and, therefore,
to escape the consequences of his intrigues, returned
bonds which they never expected to be paid.

Previous to annihilating the independence of
Great Britain by military surprise and conquest
during a peace, Talleyrand, after the ratification
of the Treaty of Amiens, determined politically to
isolate her from all Continental connections, to
degrade her in the opinion of Continental States ;
or, if that did not succeed, by calumnies render
her despised, and by accusations mistrusted. His
emissaries and gazetteers held her up to public
view as the natural enemy of a Continent from
which Nature had separated her; whose politics
were to embroil nations, beggared by her com-

TALLEYRAND 157

merce, that she might be enabled to subsist and
to bear away amidst disturbance, havoc and ruin,
her sole and necessary support. Having thus,
and successfully, attempted to alienate from her the
friendship of Continental Princes, and inspire pre-
judices or hatred against her amongst their subjects,
he brought forward another old plan (buried for cen-
turies in the dust of the archives of the Foreign
Department), of dividing her interest from that of
all other countries. He proposed, in the month of
January, 1803, to some of the principal Continental
Cabinets the establishment of a " Conservative Per-
manent Congress for a Perpetual Peace," to sit in
the city of Frankfort-on-the- Maine. Each Sovereign
and each independent State were .to be represented
there by a Conservative ambassador, and all disputes
or pretensions between nations were to be amicably
settled there, according to the decisions of the
majority of votes ; and these decisions of the Con-
gress were to be enforced by the united arms of
all Powers against any refractory member. This
Congress was to contain three colleges. In the first
were to reside exclusively the ambassadors of the
four Sovereigns of the first rank, or those of France,
Austria, Russia, and Prussia. In the second, the
ambassadors of those deemed Sovereigns of a secon-

158 MEMOIRS OP

dary rank ; or, those of Turkey, Spain, Naples,
Sweden, Denmark, Etruria, Portugal, Saxony, Ba-
varia, and of the Batavian and Italian Republics. In
the third, the ambassadors of those deemed Sovereigns
of a third rank, or those of Sardinia, of Rome, of
Hesse, and of all other electors and princes who
could at present bring into the field upwards of
i'5,ooo troops, together with the ambassadors of the
Helvetian and Ligurian Republics. Were the am-
bassadors of the Sovereigns of the first rank unani-
mous in a question laid before them, the affair was
decided, and the votes of the other two colleges
were not necessary. Did one differ, the votes of
the ambassadors of the second college were to be
demanded ; and were the votes equally divided in the
first college the votes of the ambassadors of the third
college, as well as of the second, were to be taken,
except in such cases where a member of the col-
lege was the party, then the two other colleges
were to decide; or, if the parties belonged to
two colleges, both these colleges were excluded
from voting, and the decision of the one remaining
was to be respected as law. Were members of all
three colleges parties, their ambassadors were to
retire during the determination of the three colleges.
Whenever in such cases the votes were equal in one

TALLEYRAND 159

college, lots were to be drawn for the admission of
a member of one of the other colleges as an umpire.
All the religious, political, military, judicial, com-
mercial, or financial affairs of Europe were to be
decided here as in the last resort. No political
or commercial treaties, conventions, stipulations, or
agreements were valid without the ratification of the
members of the Congress ; even the regulations for
a general police, or anything that regarded the
political economy of each individual State, could
not be put into execution without the previous
approbation of the Congress : a member wilfully
neglecting to obtain it was under the immediate
care of the Conservative Permanent Congress of
Perpetual Peace ; his ambassador was to be put under
arrest, and, if he persisted in his disobedience, his
subjects were released from their allegiance, and his
territory divided according to the decision of the
Congress. Talleyrand proposed to fix the number
of troops of each Sovereign, to diminish to half
their actual number the troops of Princes and States
of the second and third rank, and to reduce those of
France to 200,000 men, those of Austria and Russia
to 125,000 men, and those of Prussia to 75,000 men.
Each ambassador in his turn was to remain for
three months in each college, and during that period

l6o MEMOIRS OF

the executive power was in his hands. As all affairs
and negotiations were to be examined and decided
by this Congress, the respective Sovereigns agreed
to relinquish the expensive usage of permanent
embassies at their respective Courts, and satisfy
themselves with temporary legations to condole or
to congratulate, as events might demand. Such
were some of the outlines of a plan by which
Talleyrand said that the First Consul of the French
Republic intended to unite all Continental nations in
one family of brothers. England was not mentioned
by him, because " her interest and policy was not
only different from, but opposite to, the interest
and welfare of the Continent. But the Government
of some small isolated islands could not be humili-
ated by being obliged to submit to the regulations
of these States, without whose connections she is
unable to subsist or support her population and
artificial power for ten years together. As she is
entirely excluded from all Continental political trans-
actions, it was suggested that only some of her com-
mercial agents should be admitted in Continental
seaports, whilst all her political agents were to be
dismissed from all Continental Courts, which, for
the future, were to agree to appoint none but com-
mercial agents in Great Britain."

TALLEYRAND l6l

Less able and less inveterate politicians than
Talleyrand, but equally envious of the prosperity
with which Providence has rewarded British honour
and industry, contend that it was absolutely necessary
for reducing the wealth, power and pride of Great
Britain to effect a political isolation between her
and other European States, as a commercial isolation
would as soon follow then, as it would, in its turn,
shortly be succeeded by national bankruptcy, sedition,
anarchy, poverty and revolution. This is such an
undeniable truth that it is surprising two opinions
could have prevailed on the subject. It would,
indeed, be irrational in us to resolve never to have
any concern in the affairs of the Continent. We
have two natural connections with the Continent of
Europe: one for the preservation or encouragement
of our trade, and the other for the restoration and
preservation of a balance of power. Neither of
these, if we have but common prudence, can ever
lead us into any unreasonable or ruinous relations,
because neither can ever lead us into an unequal
war. We have a third — an accidental connection
with the Continent of Europe — which is the hered-
itary dominions of our Sovereign there. It was so
when our kings were masters of a great part of

VOL. II XI

1 62 MEMOIRS OP

France, and it will be so now they are masters of
a considerable part of Germany.

But not satisfied with mere schemes of destruction
against Great Britain on the Continent, Talleyrand
had also procured some partial restrictions, which,
were he enabled to make general, would certainly be
fatal to our commerce. Not to mention the exclusion
of all English productions from those Republics
groaning under the French revolutionary tyranny,
and from those countries awed and controlled by
French armies, he obtained in 1800, at Berlin, a
prohibition even for a transit of British goods
through Prussia; at Stockholm, an augmentation of
one per cent, on all importations to Sweden from
Great Britain, and one per cent, on all exportations
to Great Britain from Sweden ; at Copenhagen, an
augmentation of two per cent, on all transits through
Denmark of the productions of our colonies or in-
dustry, and the toll or duty on the passage through
the Sound was increased. In 1801, his friend and
Bonaparte's minister to the Elector of Saxony, De la
Rochefoucault, presented memorials upon memorials
against the introduction of English - manufactured
goods into the Saxon territory, particularly to the
fairs at Leipzig; and by his intrigues and emissaries
all the manufacturing towns of the Electorate have

TALLEYRAND 163

presented similar memorials with similar complaints.
These have since been regularly renewed twice in
the year at the period of the Leipzig fairs, in the
spring and autumn, but without effect; the wise and
patriotic Prince who governs this country being well
aware of the source from which these jealousies
originate, and being, besides, well convinced of the
reciprocal advantage of the reciprocal commercial
intercourse between Great Britain and Saxony. In
every treaty Talleyrand penned since the preliminaries
of peace with this country, some public or secret
articles were inserted hurtful to our trade. Such
was the case with Spain, Portugal, Naples, and the
Pope. The flourishing state of our revenue and of
our manufactories evinces, however, the inefficacy
of his malice, his hatred, his envy and his plots.
But with an ungenerous foe, equally able and active,
we cannot be too much on our guard, too vigilant
in watching his intrigues, or too suspicious of his
machinations. Even in September, 1804, when Bona-
parte was at Mentz, he diverted the proud upstart's
attention from the flattery of the cringing German
Princes to turn it on the trembling deputies from
Frankfort, and to bestow on them a proportionate
quantity of abuse for not preventing what would
have been the ruin of their city — the sale of English

II — 2

164 MEMOIRS OP

goods during the Frankfort fairs. The low usurper
addressed them not in the language of a grenadier
emperor, but that of a poissarde empress. He showed
even his base and blushing courtiers that the mind
and manners of a sans-culotte still remained unaltered
and unimpaired under the cover of an Imperial
mantle.

' His instructions to General Andreossy, of the
aoth of October, 1802,* and the memorial which he

i Instructions of Charles M. Talleyrand to General An-
dreossy :

" At your first interview with the British ministers, you have
to declare, in the name of the First Consul, his great esteem for

them all; but particularly for Mr. A and Lord H , and

that it is the sincere wish of France to continue in peace with
England. You hope they will not listen to the clamours and
complaints of the personal enemies of the First Consul, and the
implacable and hereditary enemies of France. You may insinuate
that their own honour and interest and the welfare of England
are nearly connected with such conduct, because the Pitts, the
Windhams, the Grenvilles, the Bourbons and their friends the
Chouans, and the emigrants, are as much their enemies, and the
enemies of the peace, as the enemies of the present French
Government, and little care if war ruin England, so that it only
displaces the present ministers, and gives some trouble to the
First Consul. On all occasions hold this same language, and try

to penetrate into the impression it makes upon Mr. A and

Lord H individually; if they believe its truth or doubt its

sincerity ; and if ambition and interest blind, or patriotism guide,
their judgments, actions and answers.

" At your first audience of his B M , present him with

the high respect and admiration of the First Consul for all his

TALLEYRAND 165

presented to Bonaparte 'on the 4th of December
following, to dissuade him from a rupture with this
country, were two acts both proving his dangerous
talents, and that they were chiefly employed on the
same object — the severance of the British Empire
from among independent States.

Under the monarchy, it was no more the custom
of etiquette in France than in any other countries

Royal and personal virtues, to which alone, and to his present
able and wise ministers, France and Europe ascribe the general
peace with which the world is blessed, and which it is the
intention of the First Consul inviolably to preserve. At every
audience, until otherwise instructed, you are to touch with as
much delicacy as possible on the merits of his present
ministers, and his own great judgment in choosing such just,
meritorious, and patriotic counsellors.

"To His Royal Highness the Prince of W , you have

to insinuate that the First Consul has always admired his
generous and noble mind, and that it has been a source of
the greatest regret to him, during the late contest, not to be
able sooner to express his respectful admiration, and to gain
the good opinion of such a great Prince. Pay particular
attention to the Prince's answers and conversation, and
if he throws out any hints, that he knows what the First
Consul had said about him in a conversation with some of
his friends who visited France last summer ; but by your
conduct you are to appear perfectly ignorant on this subject.
Try to find out who are the Prince's principal friends and
favourites ; if those persons, whose names you already know,
continue to advise and govern him, or if they have been suc-
ceeded by others, and who they are. If you can insinuate
yourself into the confidence of anyone who you afe certain
possesses the entire confidence of the Prince, you may let him

l66 MEMOIRS OP

governed by lawful rulers, to nominate military
characters to diplomatic offices. But the regicide
French Republic has introduced this, as well as
many other impertinent innovations. The first
French grenadier ambassador was a real grenadier,
sent to fraternise with the King of both Sicilies at
.Naples, in November, 1792, and to oblige this
Sovereign to acknowledge the new-created Republic.

understand, as from yourself, that you regret to see his (the
Prince's) retired situation ; and that although you had no per-
mission so to do, yet you would take upon yourself, from the
known sentiments of the First Consul, if approved by the Prince,
to ask any sum of money His Royal Highness should fix upon,
as a loan, to be repaid when the Prince succeeds to the throne.
This transaction is of the most delicate and secret nature, and
must be kept entirely from the knowledge of the King, his family,
and the ministers; and you cannot be too careful not to commit
(compromettre) yourself or your character. Should the Prince
accept of the offer, and you of course receive private audiences,
impress strongly upon the Prince's mind the necessity for secrecy.
When the question is about the sum he should want, you should
observe, that to avoid exciting suspicion, which may be followed
by discovery, and be hurtful to the Prince in the public opinion,
you think a certain annual sum (any sum under one million) would
be the best and most convenient arrangement. When this point
is settled, and that you have received the first remittance for
the Prince, and, of course, are offered his bond, you are to
refuse it, saying, the First Consul trusts entirely to the honour of
the Prince ; but you have at the same time to declare that it would
give the First Consul the highest satisfaction, if, in a letter from
the Prince's hand, he were assured that His Royal Highness would,
by degrees, cease all future acquaintance and connection with the
Bourbons, and, at the Prince's accession to the throne, not permit

TALLEYRAND 167

As he was supported by a numerous fleet at anchor,
ready to bombard the capital, his recommendations
were too powerful to be resisted, and he therefore
succeeded in his diplomatic mission. The Ottoman
Porte was, in 1796, also favoured with a grenadier
ambassador, in the person of General Dubois Deboy,
whose civil career was interrupted by death. The
grenadier ambassador, General Bernadotte, son of a

them or the other emigrants to reside any longer in his dominions.
Be attentive to what the Prince says, and if he is sincere in what
he says, after your report you shall receive further instructions
how to act. If the Prince or his friends decline your offer, en-
deavour to find out the reason, and if he has not a previous
engagement with the Bourbons, and if he entertains any hatred
or prejudice against the First Consul. In her present disgrace,

avoid great attention Jo or notice of the Princess of^ W ,

because it might hurt her and offend the Prince ; as you know
that next summer a French lady who knew the Princess at Bruns-
wick intends to renew her acquaintance, and to inspire her with a
good opinion of the First Consul, and then to receive directions
how to assist her. Inform yourself, however, if her daughter,
the young Princess, shows any genius and abilities; in what
manner she is educated; if her governess and the persons
educating and attending her have talents ; to what party they
belong, and if they are known to like or to hate France. If, by
some discreet attentions, you can gain their good opinion, do not
neglect it. If they are to be gained over to our interest only by
money, make your report, and you shall receive orders how to
conduct yourself.

" With respect to the other branches of the Royal Family,
you have to follow the examples, customs and etiquette of other

ambassadors ; but when you speak with the D of Y ,

remember to throw out delicate compliments on his military

l68 MEMOIRS OP

lackey, was, in 1798, forced upon the Emperor of
Germany ; but having prematurely attempted to pro-
claim the rights of man, and the sacred rights of
insurrection, the loyal inhabitants of Vienna, not
yet transformed into a sovereign people, forced their
diplomatic grenadier to make a disgraceful retreat.
Prussia, in her turn, was honoured, in 1800, with a
grenadier ambassador from the First Consul Bona-

abilities, from which France has suffered so much; and to the

D of C express the obligations of France to him for not

employing his great naval talents during the late war.

"Endeavour to be as popular as possible; never refuse an
invitation from the chief of the city, or of the wealthy citizens ;
imitate as much as possible their manners of society, and their
custom of conversation. As at their feasts and assemblies, where
you are invited, some members of the Government will probably
be present, as a Frenchman you may, without giving offence, mix
water with your wine, whilst they drink theirs undiluted ; and thus
often, perhaps, you may discover their secrets without exposing
ours.

" It is not necessary to remind you to be polite and con-
descending at the balls and routs of the English nobility, but
not so as to forget your rank, and that of the nation which you
represent. Your own judgment will tell you when it will be
necessary to be prouder than the proudest, and to resent with
indignation or contempt offences or neglect. Never forget or
forgive the presence of a Bourbon, of any noble emigrant, or one
decorated with the proscribed orders. Should you meet with Pitt,
Windham, Grenville, or any other known enemies of the First
Consul, be civil, but formal and distant; and at any future in-
vitation to the same place, refuse your presence ; on the contrary,
to those of the other party, who have opposed the late war, and
whose liberal opinions and attachment to the cause of the Revolu-

TALLEYRAND 169

parte, in the person of General Bournonville, the
son of a porter, and a footboy himself in his youth,
actually the worthy representative of Napoleon the
First at the Court of Madrid. In 1801, Portugal
was presented with one of the most insolent of all
grenadier ambassadors, in General Lasnes, the son
of a lodger of smugglers and mule-drivers, and who,
twelve years before he seated himself at the table

tion are known, you cannot be affable enough ; and endeavour
by distinctions, invitations and amiableness to prove to them that
the First Consul knows, remembers, and is grateful for their past
conduct and behaviour.

" As in most societies you will probably meet with military
men of the army and navy, if they do not shun yours, court their
acquaintance and conversation, and report your opinion of their
principles, talents and abilities ; lay it down as an invariable
rule to address yourself to the passions, and not to the reason, of
those men, particularly if they are over-heated by drinking; and
you may depend upon it you will pick up some, to us unknown
and useful, truths and discoveries. If they are dissatisfied or
disaffected, endeavour to find out if ambition, avarice or patriotism
is the cause of their disaffection or complaint; and should they
be men of parts, rank and distinction, give with nonchalance as a
consolation an indirect condemnation of their Government, by
hinting that under monarchical governments those things happen,
and men are neglected who, in republics, would probably be at
the head of the State, and, instead of suffering from princes,
would command emperors and kings. Your own discretion will
tell you when such complaints are to be heard, such conversations
to be suffered, and when such hints are to be thrown out ; but at
all times observe that you speak not in your official capacity, but
as an individual and a military man, who feels for the honour
and interest of all military men. Should any such conversation

I7O MEMOIRS OP

of and ate with Sovereign Princes in their palaces,
had fed horses and mules as a groom in a stable
in Dauphiny. The appointment of Andreossy as an
ambassador caused even the French to doubt the
sincerity of Bonaparte in his pacification with Eng-
land. This General had, twelve months before, been
one of the most active members in a committee of
select naval and military characters, occupied pur-

with firm and distinguished characters be followed with any
overtures or intrigues, make your report, and expect orders be-
fore you engage yourself any further.

" With the chief of the demagogues or democrats associate
seldom in public, but hi private keep up the spirit of discontent-
ment, of faction, and of hope ; with inferior members of parties
decline all both public and private society and connection : leave it
to your inferior agents. As to pensions to individuals, or money to
factious societies, make always your report before you give your
promise, and gain time to enquire into the characters of the persons,
and what probable service may be derived from their societies ; I. X.
is, however, the fittest person to transact those things ; leave them,
therefore, to him, lest you should expose or commit yourself, and
avoid, as much as possible, all such intriguers or intrigues, except
when some decisive blow is to be struck.

" Should you, by chance, meet in company with known Repub-
licans and reformers, take care to hint that they are not to judge of
the future conduct of the First Consul in favour of liberty from
that which necessity forces him to adopt at present ; that you are
confident, should Providence preserve his life, and Europe once
enjoy the tranquillity it has lost by the many late revolutionary con-
vulsions, he will restore to Frenchmen a greater portion of liberty
than the Romans enjoyed in the time of the Gracchi, and that pos-
terity shall not have to reproach him with permitting any other
government to exist in Europe but that of a universal Republic.

TALLEYRAND 171

posely to devise some plan, and direct their talents
in finding out some means of rendering an invasion
of England not only easy and possible, but suc-
cessful. It was according to their project that
Boulogne was fortified, its harbour enlarged and made
a point of union for a fleet of gunboats, and that
Cherbourg and Antwerp were decreed naval stations
of the first rank, as well as Brest and Toulon.

" In the company of aristocrats you are to hold a different
language : speak of the dangers of innovation, the horrors of revolu-
tions, and the necessity of ceasing to be any longer the dupes of
speculative philosophers and revolutionary sceptics ; that the privi-
leged orders are as necessary and indispensable, in the present
civilised state of mankind, as equality is absurd, dangerous and
impossible ; and that such are the real sentiments of the First
Consul, his whole conduct since in power has proved.

" England is the only country hi the world where a diplomatic
character of talents and judgment has so many and repeated oppor-
tunities to injure, to intrigue and to embroil, and, at the same time,
to complain of wrongs and insults, and, even when he is himself the
offender, to speak as the offended; a paragraph in a newspaper,
a word hi a debate, or a toast at a club, which he may have paid for
or provoked, will furnish him easily with complaints every week, if
not every day.

" As the English ministers will probably show some jealousy
of our aggrandisements, and our endeavours to exclude England
from its former connections with the Continent — should they
make you any representations on this or other subjects, meet
them with complaints of the non-execution of the Treaty of
Amiens; of their tyranny in the East Indies; of. the libels in
the newspapers; of the injuries and calumnies of their writers
against the First Consul; and of the protection afforded to the
Bourbons and other French rebels. Should, however, some un-

172 MEMOIRS OF

It was impolitic of Talleyrand to propose, and im-
pertinent of Bonaparte to nominate, as a preserver
of peace with this nation, a person whose only occu-
pation of late had been to study its destruction,
and at the time of whose arrival in England a
French army was collecting on the opposite coast,
and who was both preceded and accompanied with
French threats and calumnies in Bonaparte's and

foreseen demand be made, or explanation insisted on, gain time
by referring to the decision of the First Consul, and await his
orders.

" If any complaints are made about the seizure of British
ships, or confiscation of British property in France, say always
that France is the proper place to arrange those matters, as
England is for the arrangement of the claims of French citizens
there.

" Never give a direct answer to any proposals made, or to
any sudden complaints or offers. The want of instructions, and
the necessity to consult your Government, are always acceptable
and accepted excuses for delays in political transactions ; make
use of them, even if your mind is made up on the subject in
question, for fear of committing yourself or blundering. Few
political transactions are of a nature not admitting delays, and
no delays can in the present state of Europe ever hurt any
political transactions; but a negotiator or minister, let his pre-
sence of mind be ever so great, and his abilities ever so tried,
by giving a decisive, and not a temporising, answer, may by
one moment's forgetfulness do his cause and his country more
harm than services of years could repair.

" Endeavour, if possible, to get an account of the real state
of the East India Company's finances, and an exact list of all
the native and European forces in English pay in the East
Indies; of what force they are, of what religion and language,

TALLEYRAND 173

Talleyrand's daily libel — the official Moniteur. The
revolutionary usurpers in France usually sent mili-
tary men as political incendiaries to those nations
they wished to embroil, or intended to conquer.
Whilst Bernadotte was, in 1798, conspiring at Vienna,
General Brune,1 the representative of the French
Republic in Switzerland, whose plots were ripe for

and to what divisions they belong. Until our colonies there
are in our power, and the forces intended to be sent there
have arrived, avoid all discussions concerning the usurpations
of England, the complaints of the native princes, or anything
that can give reason to suspect our future plans. On this sub-
ject, until further orders, observe the silence of the Treaty of
Amiens.

" Spare no pains to obtain every information possible of the
weak or vulnerable parts in India ; where the greatest dis-
content reigns, where the English are most hated and the
French most liked.

"Amuse the ministers with the details of our misfortunes in
the Western Hemisphere, so as to divert their attention from what
we intend to do in the East. Be unceasing in your endeavours
to persuade them that, without their assistance in ships and
money, we are unable to conquer the negroes of St. Domingo;
observe that it is the common cause of France and England to
prevent a republic, or rather an anarchy, of negroes in the
West Indies, which, sooner or later, must extend to Jamaica and
the other British colonies, and cause their ruin or separation from
the mother-country. Should these arguments fail to determine
England to afford us any assistance, and that you think the

I This is the same Brune who has lately been Bonaparte's
Ambassador at Constantinople. The French Revolution found
him a sans-culotte journeyman printer, and has made him a field-
marshal, with plundered property producing ^30,000 a year I

174 MEMOIRS OF

execution, suddenly changed his title of Ambassador
for that of a Commander-in-Chief, and headed an
army, invading and pillaging a country which his
intrigues had divided and distracted, his perfidy
duped, and his art blinded. Shortly before Andre-
ossy landed in this country, the brave Helvetians
had in vain attempted to shake off the heavy yoke
imposed upon them by the barbarous Corsican and

offer will be accepted, you may propose that England should
keep St. Eustatia as a security until what it may at present
advance to France shall be repaid ; and should the advances
of England exceed 120 millions, any other Dutch colony in the
West Indies (Surinam excepted) may be added as further
security. Be careful, however, not to make those offers without
a certain prospect of success, and after all other means have
been tried in vain.

" Enquire how the public spirit is in Canada ; if the inhabi-
tants are yet attached to France, and if assisted by arms,
ammunition and money, whether there would be any prospect
in a future war that they would rise and throw off the English
yoke. Should any person of consequence and of sense from that
country' call upon you, say that his countrymen who emigrate to
Louisiana shall there be received with the same protection and
privileges as French citizens, and that it was one of the motives
of the First Consul in getting back that settlement, to afford
an asylum there to his oppressed and injured countrymen at
Canada.

"With the Spanish, Prussian, and Dutch ministers yon are
to live upon the most friendly and intimate terms; do not, how-
ever, lose sight of their movements and transactions. Gain the
friendship of the Russian ambassador, and endeavour to persuade
him that it was not the intrigues of France, but those of his
enemies in Russia, that caused his disgrace by the late Emperor.

TALLEYRAND 175

his vile slaves, who, to refit their fetters, appointed
another French general, Citizen Ney, a ci-devant
bankrupt shopkeeper of Strasburg, both a French
ambassador and a French commander in wretched
Helvetia. That Andreossy, should hostilities recom-
mence between England and France, was destined to
head the army invading the British Empire, or at
least to be the chief of its staff, was the common

Should you conceive that any seasonable present of value from
the First Consul would be acceptable, mention it, and it shall
be sent you, accompanied with a letter from the First Consul's
hand. Make, however, no unbecoming or degrading advances.

"With the present Austrian ambassador be rather distant,
not however to offend, but enough to show that he is under the
personal displeasure of the First Consul. Watch his actions
strictly, and report if he continues to see the Bourbons and the
emigrants ; and if those speak well or complain of him, and with
what other members of the diplomatic body he is most intimate ;
accept of his invitations, but be formal and regular in returning
invitation for invitation, visit for visit.

" Find out, in your conversation with the Portuguese am-
bassador, if he has abilities to see, and patriotism to feel for, the
degraded bondage in which England keeps his country ; if he
has any partiality for England or antipathy to France — if he
mentions the conduct of Lasnes with prudence, anger, or con-
tempt ; if he be liked or disliked by the English ministers, and
if his reception at Court is as gracious as that of the Imperial
ambassadors : flatter him sometimes it you judge it proper — but
watch him at all times.

"With the ministers and diplomatic agents from the other
Powers and States you are to follow the etiquette established in
England, never forgetting, or suffering to be forgotten that you
•re the representative of the first naiion upon earth.

176 MEMOIRS OF

opinicr in the Consular circles at Paris, and even in«
serted in the French newspapers. This last rank it is
well known that he at this moment fills in Bona-
parte's Army of England. Every impartial man must
acknowledge, in reading Talleyrand's instructions for
this military ambassador, in considering the relative
situation of the Continent at that period, and in
. remembering all the circumstances which at first

" Should any one of them be particularly distinguished for
great talent, or for great defects; for hatred or partiality for
England or France ; a favourite with his own Sovereign, or with
the English ministers — report it. Be condescending to them
individually, but keep a vigilant eye upon them all, and upon
what they are about.

" For the reasons explained to you, pay particular attention
to everything concerning the English finances, manufactures and
commerce. Of the financial agents under you, you may trust 15,
51 and 60; 29 is doubtful, but 18 is a traitor, to whom, when
sufficient proofs of his delinquency are collected, you may give a
mission either to France or Holland, and he shall be taken care
of. The reports of 29 must always be compared with those of
15, 51 and 60, before believed or depended on, as he is very
interested, and has many underhand transactions not concerning
France. Citizen Otto will leave you some notes regarding those
and other agents, which you must often consult. His plan of
influencing and depressing the public funds you must study and
follow at all times : it is a masterpiece. In the financial and
commercial intrigues, as well as in those with the factions, you
are always to remain mobile invisible ; you are to command,
instruct and protect, but your agents only are seen to act and
transact.

" Procure a correct list of all the persons possessing great
property, with remarks of what their properties consist ; whether

TALLEYRAND 177

retarded, and afterwards determined, Andreossy's de-
parture for this country, that his mission was not
merely of a diplomatic nature, but that, like Brune in
Switzerland, had time permitted Talleyrand's perfi-
dious intrigues to ripen, the sword of the General
would have cut to pieces the laws of nations which the
ambassador had sworn to respect. In two Continental
periodical publications it was also stated, which con-
in landed estates, in the Funds, or in goods ; whether in the
colonies of the East or West Indies ; the amount of their certain
revenue ; if they are supposed to spend the whole, or only a part ;
if they increase it or decrease it. The list copied from the
income-tax, and sent by M. Otto, is incorrect ; but since this
tax has ceased, English vanity will get the better of English
cupidity, and a correct one may be easily procured, and is abso-
lutely necessary for fixing loans and requisitions at our future
invasion.

" Buy up all plans, drawings and maps of the English coasts,
provinces, cities, fortifications, dock-yards and wharfs ; all writings
and remarks on the soundings, tides and winds of England,
Scotland and Ireland ; the productions, population, resources,
poverty or riches of all the countries where a landing may take
place with advantage; the character of the people of those
countries, their political opinions, their vices and prejudices.

"Endeavour to find out if the officers of the English navy
have a favourable opinion of the First Consul ; if they speak
the French language and are of Whig or Republican princi-
ples; and send over the names of those distinguished for naval
abilities and political or senatorial talents.

" Of those agents employed to watch the conduct of the

Bourbons, you can trust 2, 5 and 52 ; read the reports of the

others, and pay the reporters, but do not depend upon them ; of

those about Pichegru and Georges, 19, 44 and 66 may be be-

VOL. II 12

178 MEMOIRS OP

firms this conjecture, that General Berthier had shown
a confidential friend a list of all the generals intended

lieved; the others are too stupid to be either of service or
harm, and may, without danger, be dismissed ; of those about
the bishops, and other emigrants and chouans, 10, 12, 33, 43
and 55 may be continued ; but let the others know that their
services are no longer wanted in England; give them passes to
France, with promises of employment there, under the police.

" Give seldom any grand feasts, but when you do give them,
let them surpass others in splendour, taste, delicacy and elegance ;
on some occasions, such as the birthday of the First Consul,
the anniversary of the Republic, or, if approved by the Consul,
in honour of the birthday of the King of England, no money is
to be spared to impress upon the minds of the English nation
the greatness and generosity of the French. Do not forget to
order your subaltern agents to have all the particulars of these
feasts noted in all the newspapers ; the lower classes in England
devour the description of feasts in their public prints with the
same avidity as the higher classes eat of your dishes and drink
of your wine.

"Citizen Otto's list of authors and men of letters is to be
attended to; but should you hear of, or discover, any great
talents in any other persons, court their acquaintance, ofier a
place in the National Institute, or a literary pension. To men of
letters you are always to insinuate that pensions or places from
the First Consul are only rewards for past labours, and not any
pretensions or expectations of future services; that he looks on
men of letters as fellow-citizens of all countries, and that their
talents belong to no country ; neither to France nor to England,
but to the universe.

"In your transactions with Irish patriots, or with any other
persons, or in any things not mentioned here, you are to follow
the instructions to Citizen Otto, of the loth of October, 1801 ;
or, if you judge it necessary, ask for new ones.

"C. M. TALLEYRAND
••PARIS, October zoth, 1802."

TALLEYRAND 179

to command divisions under Andreossy, together with
the name of the battalions, and the number of troops
composing the armies projected by the First Consul
to annihilate the commercial tyranny of Great Britain
and to deliver Ireland from her yoke. These troops
amounted to 270,000 men. Among others, their prin-
cipal commanders, were mentioned Arthur O'Connor,
Emmet, and some few other traitors whom the
lenity of British laws and the ill-placed humanity of
the British Government had preserved from a merited
ignominious death.

As to Talleyrand's views and plans against this
Empire, they are explained in his memorial to the
First Consul, dated the 4th of December, 1802,* an
official declaration which cannot too often be read, nor
too well remembered, by every Briton who has the
honour, prosperity and independence of his country
at heart:

De ses inimitids, rien n'arrete le cours,
Quand il hai't une fois, il veut hai toujours.

Though he, as cordially as Bonaparte, wished

I "Pursue, Citizen Consul, this plan steadily for ten or
fifteen years, constantly directing the riches of the country to
the raising a navy equal or superior to England ; and then,
and not till then, shall we be able to strike the blow we
have for above one hundred and fifty years been meditating—
the conquest of the British Islands."

12 — 2

ISO MEMOIRS OF

the reduction of the British Islands to departments
of France, he differed as to the means, as well as
the time of effecting this desirable object. Better
acquainted than his master with the resources of
this country, and with the spirit of her inhabitants,
he was, and is still, of opinion that the funeral
pile of British liberty must be constructed of and
lighted with the olive - branches of peace. He was,
and is still, convinced that, although fraud may
allure Britons into security, and duplicity impose
upon them, open force will never be able to con-
quer them ; and that even the last of Britons,
instead of surrendering to revolutionary tyrants, and
saving his life at the expense of liberty, would
encompass himself with the ruins of his country
and expire a free man. A letter, under the date
of the 26th of February, 1805, with which the
author has been favoured from a loyal French
General,1 states that Bonaparte is now converted

i This General was formerly an officer in the King's service,
and emigrated to this country, where, neither stooping to
intrigue, nor cringing for protection, notwithstanding his talents,
he obtained no other place than that of a corporal in one of
the regiments sent to St. Domingo. At the peace he returned
to France, where all his property was sold, and was therefore
reduced to the necessity of accepting the place of a General of
division under the Corsican, to which he was recommended by
General Berthier, his distant relation. His loyalty is, however

TALLEYRAND l8l

to, or has adopted, the sentiments of his Minister,
seeing the total impossibility of even injuring Great
Britain during a war; and that he is, therefore,
plotting, through the mediation of neutral States, to
obtain a peace on the best terms his power can
extort, and Talleyrand's intrigues juggle (escamoter).
" We have now," continues the writer, " been en-
camped on this coast twenty-one months ; but our
officers, and even our men, are less sanguine in their
success now than on the first day we pitched our
tents. We have now, however, flotillas sufficiently
numerous to carry over to England in three hours
93,000 men, according fo the lowest calculation ; but
the danger of attempting this short passage is no
longer regarded as chimerical by anybody, though
everybody, from the Commander-in-Chief down to the
lowest drummer, firmly believes that this number of
troops once landed in England would be sufficient
to bury the independence of the British Islands
beneath the ruins of the Continent. Blows must
therefore be struck before any safe peace can be
concluded. Great Britain will continue to be in-
sulted by our Government and despised by our

unshaken; and, what is more consoling to suffering loyalty in
England, Bonaparte's armies contain many other generals of
bis sentiments.

i8a MEMOIRS OP

troops, and France will continue to be agitated
by her present military mania, until, upon British
ground, our hopes of easy conquest have been
realised or defeated. As to our situation here, and
the spirit of our troops, they are rather altered
for the worse. According to the official report of
our medical staff, we have lost by disease, within
eighteen months, at the rate of one man in ten.
This mortality is not surprising to anybody ac-
quainted with the periodical fevers that always
reign on this coast. The divisions encamped between
Gravelines and Antwerp have suffered more than
those between Calais and Montreuil. In Holland,
particularly in Zealand, the mortality has been still
more destructive. Until within these six weeks we
have always been regularly paid, and the present
arrears are said to originate from disappointments
Government has experienced in payments due from
Spain and Holland. The murmurs these delays have
caused in our camp are, however, not of a dangerous
nature : the discipline being kept up so very strict,
and the Emperor's determination of never pardoning
any breach of discipline being known, have produced
the best effects to quash all mutinous inclinations.
Last autumn, indeed, the desertion became rather
fashionable among the conscripts, who dreaded a

TALLEYRAND 183

winter campaign; but some severe punishments, and
a cordon of gendarmes placed between the camps
and the interior soon put a stop to it. I was not
among the generals invited to witness the coronation
ceremony, and can therefore only relate what I have
heard from others, and they all agree, that it
excited a favourable sentiment in favour of the
Emperor, particularly on account of the presence
and performance of the Pope, who, notwithstand-
ing, leaves France without having succeeded in
eradicating the schism subsisting in our Church
for the last fifteen yea^s.1 In the capital, the

i The following translation of the circular letter, lately
addressed by the Minister of Police, Fouche, to all the French
Bishops, is a confirmation of the above statement :

"Paris, .

"There is more connection, sir, between my office and
yours than is generally imagined. It is my duty to prevent
crimes, to avoid the necessity of punishing them. It is yours
to stifle in the hearts of men all criminal projects, and even the
very idea of crime. Our common object is to establish the
security of the Empire upon virtue and good order. With the
views and most benevolent intentions which you possess, the
spiritual authority with which you are invested, would only be
productive of very limited and uncertain advantages if it did
not find in the co-operation of my office the means of chastising
all opposition to it.

" A Prince of the Church ! This title will be disputed with
you for some time to come, and by an inconsiderable number
of Bishops of the old Establishment, who have abandoned the
union of that Church; and by some priests whose passions

184 MEMOIRS OF

Emperor's popularity is said to be greater than in
our camps; but, if I am well informed, the inhabi-
tants of the provinces evince the same apathy and
indifference which have ever since the Revolution
been productive to France of so much wretchedness.
The penury is, however, very great everywhere,

have been increased, but whose understandings have not been
enlarged by the Revolution. The first would arrogate to them-
selves a stricter adherence to the faith of your fathers than you
are supposed to profess ; the second assert that they are more
true to the Revolution and its principles. You are placed
between those extremes, and your place is that of wisdom and
of truth. You are attacked on one side by the errors of barbarous
and ignorant ages, and on the other you are assailed by those
excesses that are inseparable from a period of revolution.

" What pretexts, however, can those Bishops have who
have abandoned the union of the Church ? Where can they
seek for it, or hope to find it ? Do they imagine that the true
worship is not restored in our temples because the Bourbons
have not been restored to the throne ? But what other throne
than that of the Sovereign Pontiff has ever appeared to have a
necessary connection with the Catholic religion? In what
symbol of faith, or in what venerated tradition, can the smallest
connection between the dynasty of the Bourbons and the pure
and spotless existence of the Gallican Church be pointed out ?
The union of our Church with all other Catholic Churches,
and with the Pope, was not broken by the transfer of the
Roman Empire to the Merovingian dynasty, from that to
Charlemagne, or from that to the race of Capet ; nor was it
broken by the change from the dynasty of the Bourbons to that
of the Bonapartes. Political questions appertain to nations and
not to religion; and France has always decided them according
to her inclinations, or the lessons of experience.

"You are too well informed, sir, to render it incumbent on

TALLEYRAND 185

and the wish for a peace with England general,
under a supposition that it alone can relieve the
public distress. The people of Italy, Switzerland
and Holland are said to be reduced to still greater
misery, though they are more patient. The war in
which Spain is now involved will deprive us of
her pecuniary resources and increase the great scarcity

me to suggest to you the great necessity of attending to the
rigorous execution of those laws which have for their object
the liberty and the regulation of public worship. If you allow
those pastors who are subject to your authority either to modify
or infringe them, there will be no long ;r any bounds to arbitrary
encroachments. The passions invariably extend, beyond all
bounds, those indulgences which they have extorted from
weakness.

" Freedom of religion is a law of the Empire, and one of
the rights of man, and is at present established in every
enlightened State. You are no longer at liberty to extend the
conquests of religion, of which you are the chief ministers,
than by your talents and your evangelical virtues. In the age
in which we live, that may be denominated the best religion
which most forcibly inculcates the principles of morality and
obedience to the laws. The divine impress of a religion is
to be as beneficent as the Almighty himself.

" His Majesty the Emperor will acknowledge that you have
justified the confidence he has placed in you when, under the
influence of your doctrine, he shall perceive that all hatred and
dissension has disappeared, that the love of everything that can
tend to the advantage of your country has been nourished in the
places of worship in the presence of the images of the Divinity,
and the prosperity of the Empire become to all those whose
consciences you direct the most certain pledge that they have
merited those rewards which religion holds out to them.

(Signed) " FOUCHE.'

1 86 MEMOIRS OF

of money we already experience. All these considera-
tions have determined the Emperor to endeavour to
finish an unavailing contest, and Talleyrand is re-
ported to have presented, within some few weeks,
three different plans for a general pacification to
the Courts of Vienna and Berlin, besides pacific
overtures to England, Russia and Sweden."

This General knows more than he dares to ex-
press, and his opinion of Talleyrand's plots to allure
us into another impolitic pacification all late com-
munications from other parts of the Continent con-
firm. They add that the impatience of Bonaparte's
soldiers, now threatened with a third campaign, with-
out any enemy to combat or any country to pillage,
may force him to temporary sacrifices, as the only
means of preventing the army destined to annihilate
liberty and prosperity in Great Britain from chas-
tising a guilty usurper in dethroning a cruel tyrant.
Let us, however, beware of Talleyrand's perfidy
and Bonaparte's ambition. Malta may be given up
and Hanover evacuated ; France may consent to
sign a commercial treaty; Holland may be forced
to renounce some of her colonies and Spain
sacrifice her treasures; but, great as these ac-
quisitions might be regarded in ordinary times,
in the present relative situation of England and

TALLEYRAND 187

France they are only the wages and allurements
of bondage from the one to the other. This will
always be the case as long as French gunboats
exist opposite our shores, and the Corsican shall not
consent to the destruction of his armada and give,
if possible, security that no such means of menace
shall be resorted to in future. While his flotilla
exists, there is no safety against invasion, shelter
from alarm, or limit to expense. In former treaties
of peace it has been usual to establish, on each side
of the disarming Powers, reciprocal and respectable
commissioners to superintend and effectuate the
mutual relinquishment of all hostile indications.
Heretofore such commissions were limited to dis-
mantling ships of the line and frigates ; but with
these the dangers do not now rest. A gunboat, as
a unit of an armada of gunboats, is an object of
more insufferable offence than La Ville de Paris of
three decks. An assassin dwarf, destined and dis-
posed for midnight mischief and murder, is more
dangerous to the safety and sanctity of repose than
the brawny noonday ruffian equipped for undissembled
contest. Let England stab the Corsican dwarf of
assassins, and she will remain confident against the
giants of the world in arms. Not only the quiet
and independence of Great Britain, but of Europe,

l88 MEMOIRS OF

require, previously to the ratification of a peace, the
destruction of Bonaparte's flotilla, either by battle or
by compact. It must be blown to the bottom of
the ocean by British seamen, or blasted in its own
ports from the face of the creation by the power of
convention. Were our enterprising forces in the
West Indies to continue their valorous and victorious
career, and be as completely and ultimately success-
ful as their brethren in the East; were they to annex
all the colonies of France, Spain and Holland to our
country by conquest, it would, in our opinion, be
better — far better — that Great Britain should resign
them all at a peace, without any equivalent, without
even the redemption of anything lost in the usual
course and casualties of war, than suffer Bonaparte's
gunboats to remain in existence, even without masts,
rigging or ordnance. Scuttling, swamping, or even
burning will not do, unless by burning is meant to
be implied tho drawing them up high and dry upon
the beach and reducing them to ashes.

That Bonaparte will not consent to, nor Talley-
rand dare to propose, such humiliations, a paragraph
in the Moniteur has officially declared — in copying from
the English prints some speculations concerning this
arrangement necessary before any peace can possibly
be concluded between the two contending parties

* TALLEYRAND l8g

— that, "were even a victorious English army at the
gates of Paris, the delenda est flotilla would not be
signed." That the subjugation of this country are
Bonaparte's and Talleyrand's unchangeable designs
traitors only will deny, and fools doubt. Laying aside
Bonaparte's proverbial inveteracy against the British
nation, his safety as a criminal individual and his
rank as a ferocious usurper require the absolute re-
moval of the only barrier, of the only rallying-point,
around which the good and loyal may still assemble
and defend the only ancient unobliterated landmark
that distinguished the rights of nations — from which
they may still support the little that remains of civil-
ised Europe, and from which they may still issue
forth and revenge outraged humanity, blasphemed
religion, and insulted lawful sovereignty. From what
the world has seen within these last twenty-two
months, but particularly since May, 1804, when the
usurper officially proclaimed that his armada had
obtained its completion in men and vessels, it is not
probable, notwithstanding his audacity, inhumanity,
and confidence in fortune, that he will expose his
great schemes of universal dominion to be overturned,
and the fallacy of his boasts proved, by an unsuc-
cessful attempt on this country, an attempt he must
know will meet with defeat and disgrace. On the

IQO MEMOIRS OF '

other hand, unlimited as his power is, and heavy as
are the fetters of his slaves, it cannot be supposed
that so many millions have been expended in build-
ing vessels merely for a show, nor that such ex-
penses will be quietly submitted to merely for
keeping up armies as for a parade. Should it
be disclosed to the Continent how despicable and
desperate, because inefficient and impracticable,
his projects and means are to conquer this country,
during a war, his numerous internal enemies may,
perhaps, take advantage of the impatience and dis-
appointment of his soldiers, and of the complaints
and sufferings of the people, and stir up revolt in his
camps and rebellion in his provinces, whilst his
external enemies, who, notwithstanding treaties and
indemnities, are as many as there are Continental
nations, may unite and encourage the disaffected
Frenchmen to throw off a degrading yoke which
they wear in common with all their neighbours with
so much impatience. Who can be ignorant or mad
enough to doubt that a legitimate prince, a loyal
subject, a pious Christian, or a good man exists upon
earth who would not rather rejoice at seeing the
head of Napoleon the First decorate a scaffold, than
gilded with a crown and dishonouring monarchy
upon a throne ? The private correspondence with

TALLEYRAND IQI

Sovereigns is forged, the salutations of ambassadors
are purchased, or ordered, as much as the compli-
ments of prefects and the adulations of bishops are
commanded. By fraud, bribes or terror, Bonaparte
reigns in the capitals of Austria, Prussia, Spain,
Portugal, Denmark and Naples, as well as in those
of France, Italy, Holland and Switzerland. Take
away the supports of the terrific despot, let mutiny
break out in his armies, and the rejoicings for his
execution will be greater, or, at least, more sincere,
than those for his coronation. To preserve his life,
as well as his authority, he has no other choice but
an invasion of England, a negotiation with England
or a Continental war. The distance of Russia and
Sweden prevents him from carrying on the war with
them with any prospect of success ; and, as long as
the Emperor of Germany and the Kings of Prussia
and Denmark continue their present armed neutrality,
an offensive Continental war is out of the question.
Of the danger and the consequences of invading this
country he is no longer ignorant ; nothing, there-
fore, remains for him but to try to gain, by
his political incendiaries, what his .military ban-
ditti are unable to conquer — a peace with Great
Britain. The first military characters in Europe
are of opinion that, during a war, Great

192 MEMOIRS OF

Britain has little or nothing to apprehend from
Bonaparte's hatred and power. Let it, therefore,
never escape our recollection that his treachery equals
his ferocity, and that by him and his accomplices,
during a time of peace, the Republics of Genoa, of
Venice and of Helvetia were invaded, conquered and
ruined. In time of peace he attacked Egypt and
captured Malta. In time of peace he made the
Grand Duchy of Tuscany a revolutionary kingdom,
and changed the Kingdom of Sardinia into depart-
ments of a revolutionary Republic. In time of peace
he planned a war in India by his military emissaries,
and encouraged insurrections in Ireland by his com-
mercial agents. Had he, in 1802, possessed his
present armada, the tricoloured flag on Dover Castle
would have informed the British nation of his per-
fidy before the British Government could have known
it from Lord Whitworth's despatch. But it is not
only the destruction of his flotilla, but the restoration
of the lost balance of power, which is absolutely
necessary before our country can prudently listen to
proposals of peace. In twelve months two thousand
armed vessels have been built. Suppose them de-
stroyed: has not Bonaparte — as long as he can dispose
of the forests, the rivers, the carpenters, the artificers,
the sailors and resources of Italy, Spain, France,

TALLEYRAND 193

Germany, Switzerland and Holland — the same means
to repair those losses in the same short period of
time ? If Bonaparte and Talleyrand seriously desire
to be thought sincere ; if they really have abjured
their former errors and injustice ; if they wish to
raise the French Republic from the disgrace into
which she has been plunged by her infidelities, vio-
lences and proceedings, they have in their hands a
means of laying a foundation for the return of con-
fidence. Let them shor/ themselves worthy of it by
their actions as well as by their professions ; and
while they declaim against the crimes of former revo-
lutionary governments, let them cease to be inheritors
of the fruits of their iniquities. Very different, for
instance, are the titles by which the Republic has in-
corporated or subjected the Ipuntries which she has
thought proper to confiscate to add to her own terri
tory or to keep under her guardianship. Over some she
exercises the right of conquest ; this right remains valid
till changed by the fate of arms, or by negotiation.
But are conquests which were the reward of victory
to be confounded with scandalous robberies, usurpa-
tions effected in the midst of peace by artifice or
violence, the plunder of towns, and provinces deprived
of their independence without resistance, and of their
laws without any pretence ? Why does not Bonaparte

VOL. II 13

194 MEMOIRS OP

show his moderation, justice, conversion, and love of
peace by restoring their original liberty to these
States? Why does he not render to the County of
Nice, to the Duchy of Savoy, to the Principality of
Piedmont, to the Republics of Italy, of Batavia, of
Helvetia, of Geneva, of Mulhausen, of Bienne, to the
Bishopric of Basle, the Principality of Salm, Mont-
belliard, the Comtat of Venaissin, and to the
countries France engulfed by decrees, and without
unsheathing a sword — that sovereignty of which they
have been robbed ? When he and Talleyrand have
performed these acts of political repentance, then
indeed may Europe confide in, and Great Britain
with safety listen to, their offers of pacification.

Notwithstanding Talleyrand's perpetual though
humble remonstrances, during the winter of 1802,
Bonaparte, though well acquainted with the honour-
able and independent spirit of Britons, received
and treated the English ambassador, after having
delayed his first audience for three weeks, with the
most striking coolness, and with an impertinence
which the meanness of the representatives of
subdued, tributary, or indemnified Princes had
accustomed him to use and themselves to endure.
At the public audiences, and in the circles of
Madame Bonaparte, he was often insolent in the

TALLEYRAND IQ5

highest degree. Perhaps the substance of his
addresses might not have given so much offence,
or excited so much disgust, as the haughty and
commanding tone in which he spoke. The language
of watch-houses, or of camps, is, however, at all
times improper at Courts in the mouth of a
person who occupies the rank and pretends to the
respect always shown to Sovereigns; but when such
a person so far forgets his own dignity as to attack
with abuse, or insult with reproaches, in a place
and in a situation where long-established etiquette
does not permit answers or retorts, it proves a
smallness of mind which fortune has elevated but
not altered, and which Nafcire destined to remain
in native lowness and obscurity. Every Frenchman
of sense and every foreigner of distinction who
witnessed this revolutionary conduct of the usurper
justly inferred from it that his mind was already
bent on great enterprises against the British Empire
even during a peace, and that his ungovernable pride
alone made him forget the necessary precaution of
concealing his intentions. His endeavours towards
an amicable adjustment of differences when the
patience of our Government was exhausted, clearly
evince that he did not wish to come to a rupture
with this country so soon, though the reports of the

13—2

196 MEMOIRS OF

Irish Committee at Paris, who continued during the
peace to act and transact in the same manner as
during the war, and the scenes of riot his emissaries
had witnessed in London in the summer of 1802,
during the Middlesex election, had made him believe
England distracted by factions, Ireland ripe for an
insurrection, and that therefore his menaces, supported
by an army on the coast, were sufficient to effect
those desolating outrages, that dreadful anarchy, and
those cruel barbarities which have in many Conti-
nental States been the forerunners of rebellions, of
civil wars and of revolutions. He thought, from
the terms he had obtained in the Treaty of Amiens,
that Britons would quietly submit to his audacious
provocations, and without suspicion or complaint
behold his persevering and unremitting activity to
restore the French navy, to fortify the French coast,
to prepare a flotilla that might supply the want of
large ships, and wink at all other direct or indirect
threats held out by him in such an impertinent
abundance. He supposed them unable to resist,
whilst he, by opening an intercourse with the
Netherlands, should secure to himself and to France
a great revenue at the expense, and to the ruin, of
British commerce.

It has been asserted that " Talleyrand, either the

TALLEYRAND 197

dupe of his own opinion of his ascendency over
Bonaparte, or of his idea of the pretended weakness
of the British Government, was so certain of pre-
venting the renewal of hostilities, even after Lord
Whitworth had left Paris, that he sent couriers to
two respectable houses in London, to three at
Amsterdam and to two at Hamburg to speculate
in his name in the different Funds, as all differences
between England and France would be settled without
resorting to arms " ; and it has also been stated that
"by the miscarriage of this political-financial specula-
tion he lost ^"370,000, a sum.he, within six months
afterwards, extorted from the Courts of Madrid and
Lisbon for signing with them a temporary neu-
trality."

Under date the 28th of February, 1792, Count de
Goltz, Extraordinary Envoy of the King of Prussia
to the King of France, addressed to M. Delessart,
then Minister of the Foreign Department, the follow-
ing note :

" The undersigned Envoy Extraordinary and
Minister Plenipotentiary of the King of Prussia at
the Court of His Most Christian Majesty has the
hpnour to remind His Excellency M. Delessart that
he has repeatedly informed him that an invasion of
the territory of the Empire by French troops can-

198 MEMOIRS OF

not but be regarded as a declaration of war against
the Germanic body, and that in consequence His
Prussian Majesty could not avoid opposing it, in
conjunction with His Imperial Majesty, with all his
forces. He has more particularly given this informa-
tion to the Ministry of France on occasion of the
official note which the Imperial Court sent to the
Ambassador of France, under date of the gth of
January last. He now repeats it in consequence of
a despatch dated the lyth of this month, from the
Chancellor of State and of the Court, Prince de
Kaunitz, to M. de Blumendorff, charge d'affaires of
His Majesty the Emperor, and transmitted by the
latter to the Ministry of His Most Christian Majesty ;
this despatch contains the principles on which the
Courts of Berlin and Vienna are perfectly in concert.

(Signed) "THE COUNT DE GOLTZ.

" Paris, the 28th of February, 1792."

This official declaration is conformable to the
Constitution of the German Empire, and acknowledges
the duty of His Prussian Majesty to oppose all in-
vasion of the territory of Germany — a duty never
neglected during former wars between England and
France, and which had preserved Hanover for forty
years from the visit of French marauders. During

TALLEYRAND I 99

the months of March, April and May, 1803, Talley-
rand's intriguers were particularly active at the Court
of Berlin, and, after some opposition, removed by new
plans of indemnities all scruples from the political con-
science of the Prussian ministers; and the unfortunate
electorate became a prey to disloyal and unfaithful
selfishness on the one hand, and of audacious
cupidity on the other. Notwithstanding the repeated
declarations of Talleyrand that the English politics
were entirely unconnected with those of the Conti-
nent, Hanover was taken possession of because the
King of England was her Sovereign ; Germany was
invaded because Bonaparte had forced England into
war ; and a hostile army had laid waste a province
of the Empire because the Cabinet of St. James's had
been attacked by the machinations of that of the
Tuileries. This disgraceful consent of Prussia, her
impolitic forbearance, and the dangerous innovation
on the principles and system of the German common-
wealth, has opened even in the vicinity of this
artificial military monarchy a revolutionary volcano,
which spreads its destructive veins under Berlin as
well as Vienna, under Ratisbon as well as under
Hamburg. For the future, from this division of
politics and interest among the members of the
German Empire, a French army may always be

2OO MEMOIRS OF

expected to be quartered in one of its provinces.
Talleyrand and Bonaparte will never want pleas for
collecting plunder or forging fetters. Every petty
disagreement between the German Princes and their
States or subjects will oblige the conciliator, the
guarantee Bonaparte, to send his banditti to enforce
obedience to the contents of Talleyrand's purchased
notes. Division has always been the grand ally, and
the best army in the service of the French Republic.
It has resisted example, reason, counsel, aid ; it has
assisted all the plots of the former as well as of
the present revolutionary rulers of France, their
insults, their taunts and their endless invasions.
Italy left the King of Sardinia alone upon the field
of battle; and Italy has shared the fate of his do-
minions. The King of Naples found himself deserted,
as the King of Sardinia and the Pope had been
before him, and French troops are now at the
gates both of Naples and Rome. The Helvetic
League saw Berne and Underwalden perish without
sending them a soldier; and French bayonets are
now ruling the Helvetian Republic. Prussia rejoiced
when Moreau was within two days' march of the
capital of Austria ; and now, from the Hanoverian
frontier, a French army may arrive in five days at
the gates of the Prussian capital : the loyal part of

TALLEYRAND 2O1

V

Europe would certainly not rejoice, but they would
neither pity nor succour this monarchy were Bona-
parte to treat it as he has already done Italy and
the German Empire. What he has already done
he will undoubtedly do over again, and repeat,
until the subjugation of the Continent, prepared by
the selfishness and impolicy of Prussia, has been
completed by the destruction of Prussia herself.
How can Frederic William expect, more than other
Sovereigns, to escape the assassin's dagger, the plun-
derer's avidity, and the perfidy of a Government
whose politics respect na^ treaties, favour no name,
laugh at faith, despise rank and proscribe property ?
When Talleyrand had thus allured Prussia, his
first object was to make money of this unexpected
success. Several generals immediately presented
themselves as candidates for a command in a country
where they expected no enemy to combat, but
plenty of pillage to seize upon. In reward for the
ability with which he had duped the Cabinet of
Berlin, Bonaparte gave Talleyrand the nomination of a
commander of the army in Hanover. No sooner
was this known among the military pretenders,
than they crowded his ante-chambers with presents,
offers, contracts and proposals. Massena offered to
give 1,000,000 livres, to be paid immediately ;

2O2 MEMOIRS OF

<w

Auger eau, 1,200,000, in three payments ; Bernadotte,
an estate he possessed in Normandy ; and Mortier,
his sister, his wife, and carte blanche. Mademoiselle
Mortier breakfasted Ute-a-tete with the minister, when
she brought him her brother's carte blanche, which
the next morning, at another breakfast tete-a-tete with
Madame Mortier, he filled up. General Mortier was
to pay him, during the first three months, 300,000
livres per month ; and during the remainder of his
command, 100,000 livres1 per month.

The detention of British travellers in France as
prisoners of war (another outrage against the law of
nations) was another scheme of Talleyrand's inven-
tion to " coin money," as the Parisians expressed
themselves. By his spies in England he got infor-
mation of the property which all detained persons
possessed, and of the amount it was supposed that
friends and relations would advance for the release
of those who had no personal property. In Sep-
tember, 1803, his agents had made out a list of
names, and of the sums required to permit these
British travellers to return to their country. Before,
however, it could be communicated to them, Fouche

i See Les Nouvelles d la Main, Messidor, year XII., No. il.,
page 4. Madame Mortier is the daughter of an innkeeper at
Coblentz, of the inn called " Le Sauvage."

TALLEYRAND 303

had by his spies discovered his rival's attempt to
intrude upon the concerns and profits of the Ministry
of Police, and advised the Grand Judge, then the
chief of the police, not to endure such an encroach-
ment, but, as the British prisoners were under his
responsibility, take advantage himself of their desire
to obtain their liberty. Accordingly, overtures were
made to some of the most wealthy, who willingly
consented to pecuniary sacrifices rather than to a
disagreeable imprisonment. They had already written
over to this country for^ remittances, when Talley-
rand's agents presented themselves with their pro-
posals, which were more exorbitant than those of
the Grand Judge, and therefore declined. By their
cunning, or by the indiscretion of the prisoners, the
real cause of the refusal was soon found out.
Enraged at his disappointment, Talleyrand informed
Bonaparte that intriguers from Paris were busy to
procure those British subjects he had so justly
detained, their liberty or escape; that to prevent
them from succeeding it would, perhaps, be prudent,
if not absolutely necessary, to confine all British
prisoners at some greater distance from the capital
than Fontainebleau. The Grand Judge was imme-
diately sent for, and, after receiving a severe
philippic, ordered to remove all persons detained at

204 MEMOIRS OP

Fontainebleau, or residing with permission at Paris
or elsewhere, to Valenciennes and Verdun. The
Grand Judge, knowing that Fouch6 again desired the
place of Minister-General of the Police, supposed that
he had taken advantage of this false step into which
he had led him to disgrace him with Bonaparte,
and to succeed him. From that time these two
revolutionary statesmen have been irreconcilable :
and, if Talleyrand was not successful enough to
pillage Britons, he dexterously embroiled two of his
rivals.

A certain neutral ambassador was, in January,
1804, detected by Talleyrand to have bribed over a
clerk in his office. Of this discovery he took ad-
vantage to form a plot, which reduced the ministers
of two powerful Continental Cabinets to the necessity
of enduring, instead of revenging, the invasion of
Baden, the seizure and murder of the Duke of En-
ghien, and the audacious usurpation of the Imperial
dignity by Bonaparte. Being confident of the breach
of trust by his clerk, he sent for him, told him
what he knew, and that it depended upon his future
services not only to be pardoned for past crimes,
but to obtain a reward proportionate to his per-
formance and its success. "You are in the pay of
the P Ambassador," said Talleyrand; "try to be

TALLEYRAND

equally so in that of the A , and your fortune is

made. But you must follow my advice in every-
thing, and, above all, be discreet. Here is a

despatch received this morning from B . Call on

Madame B on the Boulevards; she is kept by the

A Ambassador ; tell her a story that you are ruined

by gambling, and are, therefore, in that desperate
situation, that you must either blow out your brains
or sell the secrets of Sta^ That she may trust to
your sincerity, leave the despatch with her for two
hours, and if you are not well paid then, it is your
own fault. You shall regularly be furnished every
day with some news or other, the reality of which
my conferences and conversation with the two am-
bassadors will confirm. Whenever any couriers from

V or B arrive, their original despatches shall

always be delivered into your hands, to be shown to
one or other of these two ambassadors, to whom you
may announce from this day that I have made
you one of my private secretaries. Lei them pay
you well, and in proportion to the value of the
authentic communication with which you have pro-
vided them. Go now into my private cabinet, where
your name is already put down for the confidential
post to which I have appointed you. Remember that
you are everywhere surrounded by spies, and that not

2O6 MEMOIRS OF

a word nor an action of yours can escape their notice.
You are now suspended between a total annihilation
or an honourable and happy existence; your choice
is in your ov/n hands, in your own power. Can you
hesitate about it ? " The clerk, whose name was
Tourneaux, retired with protestations of gratitude and
professions of fidelity. For six weeks he continued,
without intermission, and strictly, to obey Talleyrand's
dictates, and to repeat his lessons ; and the two
ambassadors despatched and received couriers upon
couriers, had repeated conferences with Talleyrand,
and repeated audiences with Bonaparte. They
mutually strove who should be foremost to gain the
usurper's friendship by proposals as humiliating to
loyalty as flattering to rebellion. While the Cabinet

of B desired him to assume the title with the

power of a King, the Cabinet of V assured him

that anything short of Imperial dignity was beneath
his deserts, and unworthy of his exploits. On the
yth of March, Tourneaux was suddenly arrested and
shut up in the Temple. His confession was com-
municated to the two ambassadors, who were at the
same time informed that Bonaparte's ministers at
their respective Courts would be ordered to com-
plain of their intrigues — so contrary to the intents
of their Sovereigns — if they did not promise to sup-

TALLEYRAND 3O7

port, with their advice and influence, the grand
coup d"£tat Bonaparte was meditating. They had
advanced too far, and their Cabinets had, by their
mutual negotiations and jealousies, laid themselves
too open to discovery to dare to produce remon-
strances, much less oppose resistance. This explains
the almost incomprehensible conduct of certain
Sovereigns, who, notoriously detesting Bonaparte's
atrocity against the Duke of Enghien, his injustice
in invading Baden, and his scandalous insolence
of proclaiming himself an Emperor, left murder,
violence, and insulting and humiliating usurpation, not
only without chastisement, but without showing an
indignation which policy commanded and honour
claimed. It is not necessary to observe that all the
original despatches given to Tourneaux were forgeries
of Talleyrand's official forgers, and, as well as his
authentic information, impostures to delude the two
Cabinets into overtures required by Bonaparte's am-
bition and Talleyrand's avidity, but which, if made
public, would have degraded them in the opinion
of all other Powers of Europe. Tourneaux was re-
moved, and has never since been heard of; and
Talleyrand was permitted by Bonaparte to demand
another loan of the Hanse Towns for his private use.
But Talleyrand not only employs his official forgers

208 MEMOIRS OF

in fabricating private letters of legitimate Sovereigns
to the usurper, and official despatches to himself;
he also condescends sometimes to employ them in
writing letters in the name of renowned individuals,
particularly if their supposed sentiments are useful
to Bonaparte, or advantageous to his own specula-
tions, or corresponding with his passions. Among
other forgeries the French and other foreign journals
contained last summer, was a pretended letter from
the staunch defender of royalty, Cardinal Maury, to
Bonaparte, in which his usurpation is approved, his
crimes extenuated and his elevation applauded. Un-
fortunately for Talleyrand, this Cardinal had courage
enough to contradict what his heart never felt, and
resignation enough to abide the consequences of the
publicity of a declaration injurious to a man who
never forgave.1

i LETTER FROM CARDINAL MAURY TO Louis XVIII.

(From Les Nouvelks d la Main of 3oth Vende'miaire, year XIII.;
or the zand of October, 1804.)

" SIRE, — My present dignity I owe to Your Majesty's recom-
mendation ; for the fame I have obtained among the virtuous
part of my contemporaries, I am indebted to nothing but to
that zeal and courage with which I, fifteen years ago, com-
bated rebels and atheists, as I was bound by honour, conscience,
duty and gratitude. I would, therefore, be an undutiful, ungrateful
and contemptible subject, and an unworthy prelate of the

TALLEYRAND 2OO,

It ought not to pass unobserved that it was just
about this very same period that Talleyrand's spy,
Meh6e de la Touche, was employed to intrigue with
our Minister to the Court of Munich, Mr. Drake, and
to fabricate a correspondence in his name. That
Bonaparte's minister, in publishing this impudent
fabrication, should declaim against the violation of
the law of nations, is less surprising than that the

Catholic Church werel to cease to profess the same senti-
ments of loyalty and religion.

" Sire, persons, no doubt envious of my glory, have, from
motives easily seen through, published writings in my name,
which, though they cannot deceive my King, might mislead
my fellow-subjects, and foreigners, to whom political as well
as religious apostacy have of late become so familiar. This
causes me to intrude upon Your Majesty with this letter, and
to implore your forgiveness for the publicity I am under the
necessity to give it.

" Sire, from principle, as well as from conviction, I united
with the few loyal members of the Sacred College to supplicate
the Pope not to give the death-blow to the Catholic religion
by prostituting the sacredness of his high and holy station in
sacrilegiously placing the crown of St. Louis on the head of a
foreigner accused of such enormous crimes, and whose hands are
still reeking with the pure and innocent blood of a descendant
of this sainted King, so dastardly assassinated in the wood of
Vincennes. With becoming humility I remonstrated on the
probability of all future criminals whom fortune, from inscrut-
able purposes, procures a temporary usurpation of power,
forcing the successors of St. Peter to seal their iniquity and
guilt with a sacred approbation, to the scandal of the faithful
and to the destruction of the faith ; acts which soon must
bring forth those dreaded and deplorable times when the
VOL. II 14

2IO MEMOIRS OP

members of the foreign diplomatic corps at Paris
should have reprobated what they must be convinced
was nothing mo^e than one of Talleyrand's political
stratagems to palliate the invasion of the German
Empire, the assassination of the Duke of Enghien,
and the senatus consultus which transformed a Corsican
adventurer from a First Consul to an Emperor.
After all, were the design of this conspiracy as evi-

blessing of a supreme Christian pontiff will be received and
regarded by the people with the same indifference as the
blasphemous mummeries of a high priest of the Goddess of
Reason. I represented that, according to the canon laws of
our Holy Church, General Bonaparte was still excommunicated,
not having made public penance and obtained public absolu-
tion for his shocking and disgraceful apostacy in his desertion
from Christ to Mahomet, in 1798.

" Even in a political view I proved that this horrible act
would neither procure tranquillity to France nor safety to
Europe. The difference is great between the military despotism
seized by a usurper, supported by accomplices, by victims and
by terror, and the lawful monarchical authority inherited by
a legitimate Prince with the national will and wishes for ages.
The latter never dies ; but history of all times evinces that the
annihilation of the former is on the point of the sword of a
rival, or in the poisonous cup of an enemy. Napoleon Bona-
parte may reign ; but were his progeny ever so numerous, he
will leave no posterity behind him, and his dynasty perishes
with him, because France has within her bosom many other
generals, equally ambitious, audacious and ferocious, who will
never respect a rank to which they have equal right with
Napoleon, and superior claims to those of his children, brothers,
and nephews. Until, therefore, Your Majesty ascends the throne
of your ancestors, my unfortunate countrymen will only fight

TALLEYRAND 211

dent as it is chimerical, Europe indeed might have
complained of it ; but silence would better become
the French Government. They have broken the ties

for the choice of their tyrants, and my degraded country ex-
perience nothing but an intermittent and incurable anarchy,
extending its ravages, tormenting and undermining civilised
society in every part of the globe. My humble remonstrances
and representation?Siere, however, as ineffective as my power-
ful arguments, and an evidence not to be refuted. Pius VII.
goes to France, and true religion is equally threatened with all
lawful dynasties !

" If I feel sensibly, Sire, particularly at this moment, the hap-
piness of being consistent and faithful to my invariable doctrine,
in laying at the feet of Your Majesty my usual and unchangeable
allegiance and homage, I am also well aware of the imminent
dangers to which such an honourable profession exposes me.
But, Sire, already, from age, on the borders of eternity, some
days' longer existence in a world where crime prospers and virtue
suffers are of no value to me at the expense of the dictates of
my conscience. Submitted with resignation to the will of Pro-
vidence, I am prepared to meet death, either in the dungeons
of the Temple, in the wilds of Cayenne, hi the wood of Vin-
cennes, or at the Place de Greve. I shall expire as I have lived,
with the firm and consoling hope of inhabiting the same blessed
abodes with a St. Louis, with a Louis XVI., a Lescurie, with a
Charrette, with an Enghien, with a Pichegru, with a Georges,
and with all other heroes and martyrs of religion and loyalty.

" I am, with the most profound respect, Your Majesty's most

obedient, devoted, and faithful humble servant and subject,

^
(Signed) "JEAN SIFRBIN, Cardinal Maury,

"Bishop of Monte Fiascone and Bornetto.

••MONTE FIASCONE, Oct. 2, 1804*.
"To His Most Christian Majesty Louis XVIIL,
" King ol France and Navarre."

2—14

212 MEMOIRS OF

which held men, States and nations together. They
have awakened hatred, exasperated resentment and
set every passion in a blaze, and yet dare to appeal
to the law of nations ! Did their Republic observe
the law of nations when they dragged the beautiful
Queen of France, the irreproachable daughter of the
great Maria Theresa, bound in a cart, and delivered
her up to the executioner — a Princess bestowed on
France upon the faith of a solemn contract, and the
guarantee of laws human and divine? Did they
observe it when they assassinated the child after the
mother — when, without pity or remorse, they devoted
that bud of Henry IV. to a lingering death beneath
the vaults of a dungeon, in company with his virtuous
aunt, who was hurried to the scaffold, and his sister
drowned in tears in the dreary cell of a prison?
Did they observe it when, in contempt of the laws
of war, they treated General O'Hara, Sir Sidney
Smith and Captain Wright as malefactors, whom
they threatened to put to death? Did they observe
the law of nations when they robbed Venice and

Genoa of their independence, and swept Geneva into

v

the vortex of their dominion, after deceiving them
for four years successively with promises of fraternity,
and of respect for their independence? Did they
observe the law of nations when they attacked

TALLEYRAND 213

the Swiss in the security of peace; when their
General, the infamous Brune, broke a settled truce;
when he caused General d'Erlach to be assas-
sinated by his soldiers ; when he drenched the
rocks of Underwalden with the blood of its free
inhabitants ; when^aagistrates, men far advanced in
years, were torn by his Sbirri from their independ-
ent country — from their plundered dwellings — and
carried off to French fortresses like State criminals?
Did they observe the law of nations against the
King of Sardinia, their ally, who was surprised in
the profoundest security, seized in his palace, robbed
of his fortresses, of his treasures, of his movables,
and driven from his throne and dominions, at the
very moment when his ambassador was cozened at
Paris by Talleyrand with the basest protestations of
goodwill, which he was transmitting to his Sove-
reign ? Did they observe it when, in contempt of the
capitulation of that unfortunate monarch, his servants
were forced from him and thrown into confinement ;
and when they transported to France, to be under
the inspection of the municipalities, those very Pied-
montese to whom they had guaranteed the liberty of
remaining in their country, or of quitting it if they
thought proper ? Did they observe it when, within
six days after having extorted two millions of livres

214 MEMOIRS OF

from the Grand Duke of Tuscany for granting him
neutrality, their troops, by forced marches, were at
the same time before the gates of Florence, and in
the Port of Leghorn ? Did they observe the law of
nations in the surprise of Malta, when their agents,
sent under pretext of neutrality, plotted and effected
treason ? Did they observe it in landing an army in
Egypt, as allies of the Ottoman Porte, whilst they
were butchering the Turkish subjects like assassins
and plundering them like freebooters? Did they ob-
serve it in crossing the Rhine to capture the Duke
of Enghien, and the Elbe to seize Sir George Rum-
bold ? Let them be silent for ever : the whole earth
accuses them. They only have a right to complain
who can appear pure and innocent at the tribunal of
justice and humanity. But Bonaparte and Talleyrand
act as if the Continental States with their independ-
ence had lost their honour, their judgment and their
understanding.

When their conduct has been such with inde-
pendent or neutral States, it is not unexpectedly
that they have introduced violation and violence for
what the general law and progress of civilisation
had adoped among received customs towards the
representatives of Sovereigns. It is impossible to
trace or discuss principles, because Bonaparte and

TALLEYRAND 215

Talleyrand acknowledge none. It is of their modes
of proceeding only, not of their code, that it may
be useful to take a view. The list of the testi-
monies of respect which those barbarians have given
to the sovereignty of other States since they have
declared their schism from the civilised world, speaks
for itself. It will show what recompenses they have
inflicted upon those Governments which, considering
them as a civilised Power, have sent them am-
bassadors, envoys, or other privileged agents.

Count Carletti, ambassador from the Grand Duke
of Tuscany, notwithstanding his revolutionary in-
fatuation, his admiration, his assiduities at Madame
Tallien's, at Madame Rewbel's, and at Madame
Barras's, the powerful or fashionable goddesses of
those days, was ordered away from Paris in three
days — and not being able, from illness, to obey,
was carried away sick, under the guard of gendarmes,
to the French frontiers — because he sought to pay
his respects to Madame Royal, the first cousin of
his Sovereign, before her departure from the Temple,
where she had passed three years and five months
in tears, and witnessed the murders of her father,
mother, brother and aunt.

The Chevalier Revel, Minister Plenipotentiary
from the King of Sardinia, was turned out as an

2l6 MEMOIRS OP

emigrant of the County of Nice, after being first
acknowledged in his official capacity. His crime
was his fidelity and loyalty, his spirit, courage and
penetration.

The Abbe Pierrarchi, envoy from the Pope, and
received as a negotiator, was driven out as an
opposer of the French Government's decision re-
specting His Holiness, and of their plocs against
the Christian religion. After an imprisonment of
twenty-four hours in the Temple, gendarmes, the
then Republican masters of ceremonies, saw him
safe to the other side of the Alps.

Baron de Stael, the Swedish ambassador, sus-
pended by the French Government from his func-
tions, when appointed by his own Sovereign, but
when recalled, treated by them as an ambassador
in fact, and his successor, M. de Rehausen, under
pain of a visit to the Temple Bastile, were ordered
to quit Paris in three days, and France in a week!

M. Reybaz, the minister from Geneva, cashiered
and sent off for having seen through the amicable
views of the French rulers towards his Republic,
and for having warned his Government of its danger.
Within three months after his departure, four other
ministers from Geneva were first received, and then
degraded and ordered away.

TALLEYRAND 217

Count de Cabarrus, who was admitted for a time
in Paris as a Spaniard, was rejected as minister
for being of French extraction. This exception would
no doubt haverJteen overlooked had he been a free
Revolutionist and entered into the views of the
French Government of ruining his country by loan,
subsidies, and tributes, previously to decreeing a
Republic.

The Senator Quirini, the Venetian ambassador,
after being swindled of a sum of money, was arrested,
sent to the Temple, and then driven away under an
escort of gendarmes, in consequence of the confisca-
tion of the Republic of Venice by Bonaparte.

Count Rivarola, envoy from Genoa, after having
paid some millions for the neutrality of his country,
was arrested, shut up in the Temple, and hunted
away by French gendarmes, when Bonaparte had
overturned the Government which had so liberally
rewarded him for his protection.

The Marquis Massini, the Pope's minister, was
imprisoned in the Temple, and delivered over to
gendarmes to be carried away, because his master
did not give up his tiara, his capital, and his
States to a rabble who were hired by the honest
man of the family, Joseph Bonaparte, then am-
bassador to the Sovereign Pontiff, and supported by

2l8 MEMOIRS OF

their general, to seize upon Rome in the name of
the rights of man, of the general will, and of the
social compact.

MM. Tillier and Montach, ambassadors from
Switzerland, were driven away for not having
brought sufficient money and apologies to Paris, and
as troublesome witnesses to the conspiracy brewing
in the French capital against the liberty and wealth
of Helvetia.

The Chevalier d'Aranjo, the Portuguese Pleni-
potentiary, was admitted and dismissed as a
negotiator ; recalled again, paid £250,000 for a
peace, and when the money had been touched,
turned away a second time, and the treaty declared
not to have taken place. The same person, inured
to all affronts, a third time compromising the dignity
of his Sovereign and of his country, came again
to solicit peace and offer his gold ; but with an
indiscretion for which he was sent to the Temple.

Lord Malmesbury was twice admitted as a pleni-
potentiary, and twice ordered away with as little
ceremony as a common intriguer.

Three American negotiators, after being admitted
in France as plenipotentiaries, were refused ad-
mittance and audience by tiie French Government.
To console them for this humiliation, Talleyrand

TALLEYRAND 21 Q

despatched some of his inferior male and female
intriguers to dupe them of a sum of money.

M. de Blfekenau, the Swedish charge d'affaires,
was ordered away from Paris three times in twenty-
four hours, for complaining too frequently of the
piracy of French privateers, for demanding repara-
tion for the losses experienced by his countrymen,
and, above all, for dining too often with Madame
Stael, then in disgrace with her former friends,
Bonaparte and Talleyrand. Another Swedish agent,
La Tour, was in 1804 carried out of the country
by gendarmes, after being shut up in the Temple.

The secretary of the Italian Legation, Acerbi,
was in 1802 shut up in the Temple, for some
impertinent expressions in his "Travels in Sweden"
concerning his Swedish Majesty. In 1804 Bonaparte
appointed him a member of the Italian Institute
and of the Legion of Honour, for having written
these very Travels.

The agents of the Hanse Towns, of the free
Imperial cities, and of the inferior German Princes
have been imprisoned, plundered, changed, or sent
away, one or more every year, according to the
whims, interest or avidity of the French rulers.

Among the representatives of foreign Sovereigns
who have been officially and publicly insulted by

22O MEMOIRS OF

Bonaparte at his diplomatic audiences, or at Madame
Bonaparte's routs, are the English, the Russian, the
Austrian, the Neapolitan, the Swedish, the Spanish,
the Danish, the Portuguese, the Saxon, the Hessian,
and the Wurtemberg ambassadors. The Batavian,
Italian, Swiss, and other fraternal envoys Bonaparte
and Talleyrand insult or chastise, publicly or in
private, with as little regard as if they were the
pages of the former or the valets of the latter. The
Prussian, Baden, and two or three more indemnified
ministers have hitherto escaped the dungeons of
Bonaparte's gaols, as well as the language of a
gaoler in the palaces of the Tuileries or St. Cloud.
But a Government that spreads its political envoys
and commercial agents over Europe, Asia, Africa,
and America, and which, taking advantage of the
weakness of Sovereigns so imprudent as to receive
them, so daunted as to admit their inviolability,
while their employers reject the principle of it, is
not afraid to treat the ministers of other Powers like
spies without credentials, is guilty of an additional
outrage when the insult is not generalised, and when
it determines, from caprice or interest, which am-
bassador it shall disgrace and which respect.1

x The above particulars are extracted from Le Voyageur
Suisse, page 75, &c. ; from Les Intrigues du Ch. M. Talleyrand,

TALLEYRAND 221

It is in this manner that the French revolution-
ary rulers have respected the character of privileged
agents in'^Brance; whilst wherever there exists a
French envoy, consul, or agent abroad, there is sure
to be found a revolutionary society, under some name
or other, conspiring against the Governments admitting
them. To preach up a contempt for the ancient in-
stitutions, to insult Sovereigns, to magnify the French
theories, to celebrate their triumphs, to defend the
crimes of their professors, and, by anarchical or
impious discussions, to shake the foundations of re-
ligious belief, social order, and public tranquillity and
obedience, are the use they make of places protected
by the law of nations. They are in perpetual warfare
against civilised society, and in perpetual conspiracy
against its existence under the very shelter of its
protection. They call down on the countries where
they are tolerated all the evils that have overwhelmed
France, and stand forth the accomplices of the authors
of these evils. It would, therefore, be reasonable and
just, in the critical state of the Continent, to consider
the emissaries of Bonaparte and Talleyrand, not as
seduced fanatics or privileged agents, but as assassins
enlisted by other assassins to spread over the world

page 140, &c. ; and from several numbers of Les Nouvelles & la
Main for the year XII.

222 MEMOIRS OF

the French genius of dissolution, robbery, atheism and
tyranny.

On the publication of the pretended correspon-
dence between Mr. Drake and Talleyrand's spy,
Meh£e de la Touche, an emulation, which would
have been disgraceful had it not been ridiculous,
took place among the members of the foreign
diplomatic corps in France who should be foremost
to evince their meanness or imbecility, in compli-
menting the Corsican on his escape from imaginary
assassins, whilst his own hands were still reeking with
the blood of the Duke of Enghien. But these harm-
less compliments might be excusable in persons having
before them the prospect of the Temple, had they not
also, without waiting for instructions from their Courts,
acknowledged Talleyrand's fabrications as . evidences
of the political immorality of the British Government.
In their number the Danish and American1 ministers

x The following observations, from the New York Evening
Post of the ist of June, 1804, show that the conduct of the
American minister in France on this occasion was not approved
by all parties in the United States.

" We now furnish our readers with the letters of some of the
other ministers for whom Citizen Talleyrand set his gull-trap. They
follow this article in their order ; the first, from the ambassador
of the Italian Republic, is precisely such a one as might be
expected from the representative of a conquered and an abject
Republic, over which the First Consul holds an absolute sway.

TALLEYRAND 223

particularly distinguished themselves by their impolitic
and impertinent answers and reproaches against this
country. The plots of the French and Spanish
ministers accredited to the United States of America,
not only to excite insurrections in Canada, but to
produce a revolution that would make the American
Federal Commonwealth a Republic one and indi-
visible as France, have been proved, as well as the

The other three letters, though from the ministers of Sovereigns
who by no means stand in an independent or enviable situation,
a relation to Bonaparte, are all of them written with more caution
and discretion than that from the ambassador of the United
States, who proudly boasts of their independence. If we are not
extremely mistaken, Mr. Livingston will rue the day when he
wrote that letter to Talleyrand.

" However much we detest the horrible crime of assassina-
tion, we yet ask under what pretence it is that the French
nation takes such high ground on this subject ? ' Oh I (says
their humble vassal) — oh 1 who but must detest a Government
that blushes not to employ corruption, sedition, bribery, and
assassination as legitimate expedients of policy ? ' We shall say
nothing about French corruption, sedition, and bribery — all that
might as well have been left out; but, as to their assassination,
why, in 1792, they drove a trade of it. Turn to the journals of
the National Assembly and you will find a solemn decree intro-
duced by Jean de Brie, one of the members, for organising a
corps of assassins, to be called the Twelve Hundred Tyrannicides,
which corps was to be made up of the greatest villains to be
found in their felon dungeons; and this corps were to be bound
by an oath to assassinate all the Kings, the Sovereigns, and
generals in Europe whom they should judge unfriendly to the
equal rights of man. All this is matter of solemn record, nay,
more, it will appear from the same official documents that the

224 MEMOIRS OF

machinations of French envoys and emissaries in
Denmark. In that country particularly their prin-
ciples and licentiousness have found the readiest ad-
mission, by means of the liberty of the Press. Until
the era of the French Revolution, this liberty,
which seemed incompatible with the nature of the
Government, had been attended with greater advan-
tages than inconveniences ; but, elated by circum-

fifteen southern departments of France actually offered to raise
a subscription of 3,000,000 livres to be distributed as rewards to
those brave Republicans who should assassinate the principal
Sovereigns of Europe. The following is the proportion in which
the Assemby voted the reward : To assassinating the

Livres.
Emperor of Germany .... 400,000

King of Prussia ..... 400,000

Duke of Brunswick .... 400,000

Louis XVIII. ..... 300,000

Count d'Artois ..... 300,000

Prince Conde1 ..... 200,000

Duke de Bourbon .... 200,000

Marshall Bouill6 ..... 200,000

Duke de Broglio ..... 100,000

Monsieur Calonne .... 30,000

and other sums for all distinguished personages. After this,
surely, we think it ill becomes the rulers of France to talk about
detesting a Government that blushes not to employ assassination
as legitimate expedients of policy ; France, the only country on
earth where assassination was publicly sanctioned by law. We
mean not to advance any sort of palliation for the conduct of
Mr. Drake, the British minister at Munich, allowing it to be
correctly stated; but we think an ordinary share of discretion
would have prevented the American ambassador, the minister

TALLEYRAND 225

stances, and protected by the revolutionary ministers
of France ^at Copenhagen and Hamburg, it soon
engendered a swarm of pamphlets, as disgraceful to
reason as derogatory to the salutary principles of
public order. The most audacious of these libellers
was one Heiberg, who, by ridiculing, abusing, and

of a neutral country, from taking the part in this affair he has
done. He undertakes to judge between the parties, although he
has only heard one side, and to decide that the charge brought
against the British minister — of having engaged in a plot to
assassinate the First Consul — has been proved against him. But
it appears from Talleyrand's letter itself that Mr. Livingston had
only seen printed copies of the letter of Mr. Drake; he, there-
fore, has not had even the possibility of detecting a forgery, if
one has been committed. Perhaps his veneration and uncommon
attachment to the First Consul may have been so great as to
render it impossible to entertain a suspicion of this sort ; and yet
his recollection might, without any great difficulty, have supplied
him with cases showing at least the possibility of such a thing
at so very great a distance of time. Whether true or false, Mr.
Livingston should have recollected that he represented a nation
at peace with England as well as France, and that propriety,
good sense, and the laws of nations required of him the strictest
neutrality. That this letter is not neutral, but is a very wide
departure from it, appears not only in the precipitate condemna-
tion pronounced against the English minister, but in a still more
explicit and exceptional manner in the close of his letter. In
every point of view, Mr. Livingston's conduct must be regarded
as indiscreet, improper, and unwarranted by precedent. For our-
selves, we see in this business a deep-laid snare of policy, into
which the American minister has blundered headlong. Whether
his 'actions are to be attributed to the Government he repre-
sents, and his conduct to be identified with it,' is a question we
leave to be settled between him and Mr. Jefferson."

VOL. II 15

226 MEMOIRS OF

attacking religion and government, at length attracted
the attention of the laws, and was prosecuted by
the Crown officers. The fear this prosecution excited
in him, and his insolence, may be judged by the
following letter addressed by him to his protector,
Grouvelle, the Minister of the French Republic at
Copenhagen, the same person who read the sentence
of death to his King, Louis XVI. This letter, as
well as this minister's answer, deserve a place in a
work where the plots and dangers of Talleyrand's
revolutionary diplomacy are intended to be exposed:

"COPENHAGEN, 24 Ventose, Year VII.
"of the French Republic.

•'CITIZEN, — At length the die is cast. I am cited
before the Court to be punished, according to what
the King's solicitor says, for the crime of high treason !
Never fear, I beseech you ! a solicitor does as the Jew
boys do who go about the streets selling sealing-
wax ; they ask sixpence a stick, and take twopence.
I intend to plead my cause myself. I shall engage
no counsel, but I shall find a lawyer to attend to the
legal forms. In the first place, I shall dispute upon
these forms with the Court, and upon some expres-
sions, although I have given such offence in proving
that I know my own tongue. In time you shall be

TALLEYRAND 227

informed o\ the issue of this business; and you shall
see that I won't flinch. Let them persecute me, with
all my heart; but I will compel my persecutors to
esteem me.

" But this is not what I wanted to say to you.
You know that for some time past some people have
amused themselves with circulating reports equally
injurious to you and me. Some notice, in my
opinion, ought to be taken of them even in despising
them ; however, I think that the humiliating idea
which had been formed, I know not how, of my in-
tention to rely on some support foreign to my country
and my cause, is now pretty well removed. Nobody
knows better than you the falsity of that assertion ;
and I believe you are well assured that all the protec-
tion I ever required is that of my innocence, of reason
and of justice. I see very well there is a show of
inclination to grant me the last of these ; and, how-
ever dependent justice may now be amongst us, I
do not fear it, especially as I am well convinced
that the business may be of some advantage to the
public.

" This is the reason of my not having seen you
before. I repeat, I fear nothing for myself; but one
ought not to commit one's friends in any manner
whatever. I respect the innocent motives of others

*— 2

228 MEMOIRS OF

as if they were my own ; and those very motives will
also still make me abstain from the pleasure of seeing
you, till you shall yourself be of opinion that an in-
terview could not be injurious to your own interests
or to those of the great Republic you represent.

" Give me joy ! I am happy to find that my wife
approves my conduct. She has sufficient strength of
mind to prefer that I should become a sacrifice to
my principles and the good cause, rather than see
me stoop through fear or meanness. You may now
easily guess the reason of her not returning the visit
the owes. She charges me, and I charge you in re-
turn, with a thousand compliments to the female
Citizen Grouvelle, and a thousand apologies ! I beg
you to assure your amiable wife of my respectful
attachment to her, which nothing equals but that
which I shall always have for you.

'* Health and friendship,

"P. A. HEIBBRG.
" Copenhagen, 12th March, 1799."

THE ANSWER.

" To Citizen Grouvelle, Minister of the French Republic.

"M. HEIBERG, — The information you give me,
sir, surprises and grieves me. How can you have

TALLEYRAND 22Q

been involved in so serious a prosecution ? I have
but an imperfect idea of the affair, as I scarcely
understand what I read in Danish. But if I am
little acquainted with your language, / am well ac-
quainted with your sentiments; and, as nobody denies
you the talent of expressing your ideas, I am per-
suaded you have written nothing really criminal.

" I have not the least notion of the law of this
country relative to Ugh treason, but I know the law
on the liberty of the Press; and I do not suppose
the one contradictory to the other. At Athens, the
Areopagus considered it as a duty, every year, to
purge the code of all kind of clashing in the laws, as
a scandal to the good sense and sincerity of the
Legislature. The Danish legislators, who knew them
both, cannot have neglected this duty.

" I know, too, that the accusation de majestate
is an instrument of terror, which the Trajans and
Marcus Aureliuses did themselves the honour to leave
dormant. They understood the majesty of the State by
that term, and not the dignity of the Governor ; still
further were they from believing that either that
majesty or that dignity could be hurt by fugitive
sarcasms.

"Besides, whatever may be the old law on which
you are accused, I think that, if it be arbitrary and

230 MEMOIRS OF

vague, it would not be applied to you; and if equitable
and exact, its application will be enougn to acquit
you.

" Such are the obvious reflections on which I
augur a termination in your favour. Your courage,
too, as well as your talents, are such as to make
your friends easy. Above all, the known virtue of a
life, as simple as wise and laborious, is on your
side. That alone is such a commentary on all you
advance as to preclude malignant interpretations. So
useful a citizen is not lightly given up.

" I depend on those real supports of your cause ;
I depend on its publicity ; I depend, also, on the
equity of your judges. They will be jealous of the
abusive mode of legal proof. They will reject the in-
sidious jurisprudence that hunts out our past wrongs
to poison present grievances. They know that a
thousand little errors, ever so well put together, do
not make a crime. They will not wrest particular
phrases to extort odious meanings from them. They
will admit only natural explanations, and countenance
only liberal proceedings. They are juries trying a
citizen, and not inquisitors trying a heretic.

"As to the reports that have been circulated re-
specting my connections with you, and which, as you
say, are equally injurious to you and me, I confess that

TALLEYRAND 23!

/

I have paid little attention to them, and, perhaps,
too little. But so many absurd things have been
said of me, and my character and conduct are such
complete answers to them, that I have acquired an
invincible indifference to those gossipings. They who
could think that I have promised you, and that you
had asked of me, any protection whatever, will be
soon undeceived, or would not deserve to be so.
Most of the people who disseminate such reports
do not believe a word of them. There is even
every appearance that the authors of these fine
inventions are still less your enemies or mine than
the enemies of France, which every attempt is
made to render odious and suspected here as else-
where.

" It is doubtless with this idea, sir, that, being
resolved to avoid all that could affect us, you think
it proper to discontinue seeing me for a time. I feel
all the delicacy of this conduct, and thank you for
it, as well for my country as for myself. I yield
to you, but with regret, I confess, inclined as I
ever am to rebel against the despotism of the 'what
will be said?' Although I have not so often enjoyed
the advantages of your society as I could have
wished, I was very sensible of the value of it. An
agreeable company and safe intercourse* are rare

232 MEMOIRS OF

things everywhere. Literary and philosophical con-
versations have long been my favourite amusements.
With you I could sometimes resume a recreation
so salutary to me. I must be deprived of it ; but
it is hard, however, that I, who have nothing to do
with your trial, should be already punished by it,
while you are yet only accused.

" Yes ! I am delighted to congratulate you on
the energy with which your wife associates in your
principles. I am not surprised at it. Softness does
not exclude magnanimity. There is nothing generous
of which women are not capable. A National ardour
is natural to them, as well as a spring of enthusiasm.
So they will always be found by those who do not
treat them as children or slaves. Virtue is of no
sex. Souls are of both united ; our Revolution, so
productive of both public and private calamities,
has afforded many admirable instances of this. I
have myself had very affecting proofs of it. What
would it be with a different education?

" Whatever may happen, sir, my esteem and
friendship you have acquired and shall always retain.
I could have wished they might have been of service
to you ; but I shall console myself with the hope
that they will not be injurious to you, which will be
something in these days of party prejudices, when

TALLEYRAND 333

the best hearts cannot shield themselves from some
injustice, nor the wisest heads from some intoxication.

" I am, very cordially yours,

•« P. L. GROUVELLE."»

To complete their impudence, the accused and
his diplomatic patron did not keep their correspond-
ence a secret. The former inserted it in a paper he
published under the title of " Reading for the Public,"
and he did it with the printed authority of Citizen
Grouvelle. What must be the temper of a mon-
archical government where a man charged with high
treason is thus permitted to correspond with a foreign
minister on the fact for which he is prosecuted; to
ridicule the public accuser and the laws ; to print
this mockery, and to add to it the pedantic witticisms
of a regicide Grouvelle on the clash of laws, Marcus
Aurelius and Trajan ? Is this public interference of
a French minister in a criminal prosecution where
the Sovereign is concerned very consistent with that
profound respect for the law of nations which Bona-
parte and Talleyrand sometimes take into their heads
to proclaim ? Where is the Government that would
not, twenty years ago, in such a case, have ordered

i Le Voyageur Suisse, page 84 et seq., and the Danish paper

Ldsning for Publicum.

234 MEMOIRS OF

the perfidious envoy to quit the country, or at least
"have required his immediate recall ? Would not
Bonaparte have commanded, and his minister signed,
an order for the instant seizure of the Danish Ambas-
sador at Paris — Chevalier Dreyer — had he written a
line to Moreau or Pichegru, lately in similar situations
in France to that of Heiberg in 1799 in Denmark ?
This instance confirms what has been repeated before,
that, wherever a legate of France is to be found,
there is to be found a fire-ship, round which the
factious, the seditious, the opposers of government,
perverted heads, corrupted hearts, and vile con-
spirators rally. This fire-ship is destined to blow up
all ancient thrones, ail former dynasties, and all
lawful sovereignties. Every Prince who has ac-
knowledged and admitted an envoy selected by
Bonaparte, and instructed by Talleyrand, should
recollect that this envoy is the natural plotter of his
destruction, the sworn enemy of his rank, and the
audacious competitor of his authority ; who, if suc-
cessful in his mission, will, after causing him to
be deposed by rebels, substitute in his place some
obscure criminal like his Corsican master. " This is
the time," said the secret agents sent by Bonaparte
and Talleyrand to engage assassins to poison Louis
XVIII., " appointed by the Eternal for a universal

-»L TALLEYRAND 235

change of dynasties over the world; and before ten years
not a Prince will reign who was not, ten years
before, an 'unnoticed subject. The Emperor of the
French can never rule with safety until good fortune
and merit have taken place of birthright and pre-
rogatives, until all present Sovereigns shall have been
dethroned or annihilated, and individuals like himself
placed upon their thrones. Do not think," continued
they, "that what we promise are the sudden and
insignificant sentiments of men imposed upon, or
impostors themselves. We are members of Bona-
parte's secret police, whose influence extends to all
countries, to all ranks; who distribute indemnities
among the Germans ; who prepared the death of the
Duke of Enghien, the disgrace of Drake, and the
elevation of a Parmesan Prince to the throne of
Etruria." >

After the above known and avowed facts, ex-
tracted from the enormous mass of outrages
perpetrated by the guilty usurpers of the French
Republic, the following circular note of Talleyrand,
addressed to all Bonaparte's accredited emissaries on
the Continent, must be supposed by many an act
of insanity of the writer, or that he was of opinion

x See "The Revolutionary Plutarch," vol. iii., page 81, in
the note of the third edition.

236 MEMOIRS OF

that he wrote to fools, and therefore ran no risk in
writing like a madman :

Circular Note front the Minister of Foreign Affairs to all
the Agents of His Majesty the Emperor of the French.

(From the Moniteur of November 5th.)

" Aix-la-Chapelle, Sept. 5th, Year XII.

"You must, sir, have observed and known, ac-
cording to my instructions at the time of the com-
munication of the note of Lord Hawkesbury to the
foreign ministers residing in London, the impression
which this publication of the strangest maxims of
political and social morality could not fail to pro-
duce on the mind of the Government with which
you reside. I think I ought to return to the subject ;
I therefore send, officially, a copy of this note, and
expressly charge you, by order of His Majesty, to
make it the object of a special conference with the
Ministry.

" The project which the English Government has
conceived for the last half-century, gradually to
abolish the tutelary system of public law, which
unites and engages all nations, develops itself with
a fearful progression. Will other Governments re-
frain from making opposition to such an enterprise
till there no longer exists any moral bond which

TALLEYRAND 237

may preserve their rights, guarantee their engage-
ments, and protect their interests ?

"The Powers of the Continent have seen with
what audacity the faith of oaths has been sported
with by this Government, and solemn treaties vio-
lated even before they were carried into execution.
The maritime nations every day experience its
tyranny. There no longer exists any theoretical
principle of navigation, any written convention,
which have not been scandalously violated on every
shore and in every sea. Neutral States know that,
even in using the rights which still remain to them
with the most timid circumspection, they expose
themselves to insult, to pillage, and to extermina-
tion.

"Those States, in fine, which have the unhappi-
ness to be at war, no more rely on any reciprocal
principle of moderation and justice. All the bonds
existing between them and neutral Powers are broken.
Approach to the coasts, and entrance into the ports
and islands, though situate at the distance of two
hundred leagues from the station of their squadrons,
have been prohibited by simple proclamations.

"Thus the English Government has hitherto
opposed every Power, according to its particular
position — a maxim injurious to its honour, and

238 MEMOIRS OF

subversive of all its rights. It now attacks them all
together, and, the more completely to attain its end,
directs its blow against morality itself, and, if I may
so speak, against the religion of public law.

" In all countries, and in all times, the ministry
of diplomatic agents has been held in veneration
amongst men.

" Ministers of peace, organs of conciliation, their
presence is an augury of wisdom, of justice and of
happiness ; they speak and act only to terminate or
prevent those fatal differences which divide princes
and degrade nations by the passions, murders and
miseries which war produces. Such is the object of
the diplomatic ministry ; and to the observation of the
duties it imposes, and to the generally respectable
character of the men who exercise this sacred
ministry in Europe, is that quarter of the world in-
debted for the glory and happiness it enjoys. But
these happy results torment the jealous ambition of
the only Government which is interested in the ruin,
the disgrace and the servitude of other Governments.

"It wishes diplomatic ministers to be the insti-
gators of plots, the agents of disturbances, the
directors of secret machinations, vile spies and
cowardly conspirators ; it charges them to foment
seditions, to excite and pay assassinations ; and it

TALLEYRAND 239

would endeavour to shield this infamous service with
the respect and inviolability which are due to the
mediators of kings and the pacificators of nations.

" ' Diplomatic ministers,' says Lord Hawkesbury,
' ought not to conspire, in the country in which they
reside, against the laws of that country; but they
are not subject to the same rules with respect to
States to which they are not accredited.' Admirable
restriction ! Europe will be filled with conspirators ;
yet the defenders of public law will have no right to
complain. There will be always some local distance
between the chief and his accomplices. The ministers
of Lord Hawkesbury will pay the crimes which they
will cause to be committed ; but they will have this
prudent deference for public morality — that they will
not be at once the instigators and witnesses of the
fact.

"Such maxims are the height of audacity and
hypocrisy. Never have the opinion of Cabinets and
the conscience of nations been sported with so shame-
lessly. His Majesty the Emperor thinks it is time
to put an end to this disastrous train of principles,
subversive of all social order.

" You are, in consequence, ordered to declare
to the Governments with which you reside, that
His Majesty will not acknowledge the English corps

240 MEMOIRS OF

diplomatique in Europe, so long as the British Ministry
shall not abstain from charging its ministers with
any military agency, and not retain them within the
limits of their functions.

" The evils suffered by Europe arise only from this :
that it is everywhere believed that we are bound to
observe the maxims of moderation and liberality ;
which, being just only from reciprocity, are not
obligatory except to those who submit to be bound
by them. Thus, Governments have as much to suffer
from their own justice as from the iniquity of a
Ministry which acknowledges no law but its ambi-
tion and its caprice.

" The evils of Europe arise, again, from this : that
public law is considered under a partial point of view;
whereas it has neither life nor force but as a whole.
The maritime law, Continental law and the law of
nations are not parts of the public law, which may
be considered and observed separately. The nation
which pretends to introduce arbitrary rules into one
of these parts, loses all rights to the privileges of
the whole. The systematic infractor of the law of
nations places himself out of that law, and renounces
every interest founded on the maritime and Con-
tinental law.

" His Majesty the Emperor regrets having to order

TALLEYRAND 24!

measures which are an absolute interdiction against
a Government ; but all persons who reflect will easily
perceive that in this he only acts according to facts.
The English Ministry, by the universality of its
attacks, has placed the coasts, the isles, the ports,
neutral Powers, and commerce in general in a state
of interdiction. Recently, in fine, it has proclaimed
the prostitution of the Ministry the most sacred and
the most indispensable to the tranquillity of the world.
His Majesty believes it his duty to call the attention
of all Governments, and to inform them that, with-
out new measures, taken under the sense of the
present danger, all the ancient maxims on which
are founded the honour and independence of States
must immediately be annihilated.

(Signed) "C. M. TALLEYRAND."

Talleyrand admits that the contents of this note
are a "real interdiction pronounced against England";
and he concludes with observing that it is a " new
measure." Here, then, Europe finds a Corsican usurper
and his apostate minister addressing legitimate Sove-
reigns of the Continent, and dictating to their Govern-
ments in the same style they might be supposed to
speak to so many French prefects, or secret political
or police agents. If they are to dictate to foreign

VOL. II 1 6

242 MEMOIRS OF

Courts what ministers they are to receive, and whom
to reject ; if they are to have the enlisting and
drilling of the whole diplomatic corps of Europe —
then they are the lords and masters of the Conti-
nent, and emperors, kings, princes and ministers are
but their vassals. It cannot be said that this is
only an advice given by Talleyrand to foreign Courts,
accompanied by a hint that if any English agent
whom Bonaparte chooses to suspect or disapprove
is admitted by them, he will withdraw his minister
from the Court offending : the note will bear no
such moderate construction. He would have it con-
sidered as a positive decree; and he does not hesitate
to assert that he means it should be a " real interdic-
tion." That it is not to be a law without a sanction, a
mere dead letter without any means of enforcement,
he has also clearly shown. His seizure of Sir George
Rumbold evinced how he meant to proceed in case
any other minister not suiting his fancy should be
accredited to any other Power on the Continent.
Any such minister, he says, is interdicted all Courts
and politically excommunicated from the diplomatic
society. He is without the protection of the law
of nations, and can derive no respect nor sanctity
from his public character. Should not other States
resent this new attack against their independence,

-

TALLEYRAND 243

Talleyrand will send his spies to watch, and Bona-
parte his myrmidons to carry off, British agents
from St. Petersburg or Naples, from Berlin or Con-
stantinople, from Vienna or Lisbon, from Stockholm
or Madrid, just as their plots or passions dictate ;
and in future treaties with Continental Sovereigns,
Great Britain must either ask them to procure safe-
guards for her ministers from France, or oblige
them to deposit in England, previously to the de-
parture of her agents for their diplomatic posts,
hostages for their safety. Civilised society will then
revert to that state of barbarity in which it was
during the tenth, eleventh and twelfth centuries.
Besides, the principles here asserted would warrant
a variety of monstrous conclusions if there be a
single particle of independence upon the Continent,
without the boundary of the French territory.1

x " STATE PAPER.
"Note Offidelle, envoyee aux Cours etrangires.

"Sa majeste a regu la nouvelle d'une violence sans exemple,
commise a Hambourg en la personne du chevalier Rumbold,
son ministere aupres du gouvernement de cette ville, lequel a
6te saisi dans sa propre maison pendant la nuit du 25 Octobre,
par un detachement de soldats francais. et enlev6 avec les archives
de la mission.

"Apres les preuves reiterees que le gouvernement francais
a fournies par sa conduite, de son mepris absolu pour toute obli-
gation du droit des gens, sa majeste ne peut etre etonnee de

1 6 — 2

244 MEMOIRS OF

This note Talleyrand was ordered by Bonaparte
to compose in one of those fits of disappointed rage
to which British valour and spirit often expose him.
He had, after using the bleeding corse of the Duke
of Enghien, and the violated code of the law of
nations, as footsteps to ascend a usurped throne,
passed three months in shows and theatrical exhibi-
tions on the coast with his Army of England, where
British cruisers daily insulted or attacked his armada,
despised his threats, and challenged his forces; and
finally, the British Government, to convince the up-

1'exces d'un pareil outrage sur le territoire d'un e"tat faible et sans
defense.

" Mais sa majest6 se doit non seulement a elle-meme et a la
ville respectable et infortun^e dont les droits sont le plus im-
mediatement attaques, mais elle doit aussi a ses relations avec le
reste de 1' Europe, et a la dignite" de toute puissance qui conserve
encore le d6sir et les moyens de maintenir son independance,
de ne pas differer un instant sa protestation solennelle contre
une agression aussi atroce.

" S'il etait possible qu'un pareil attentat devint plus insultant
et plus effrayant encore, ce serait bien par 1'explication qu'on
apprend y avoir €t6 donnee par le resident fran9ais a Hambourg,
savoir : ' Qu'il avait eu lieu a la suite d'un ordre adresse de la
part du chef de la police a Paris au commandant des forces
fran9aises en Hanovre.'

" Sa majeste s'assure qu'il n'y aura pas sur le continent une
puissance qui puisse rester insensible aux suites d'une mesure qui,
par son principe et son exemple, menace immediatement toutes
les cours qui pourraient se trouver a la portee des armes fran-
caises, et qui tend en meme temps a la destruction des droiti

TALLEYRAND 245

start at once of their power and contempt, declared
all the ports where armed vessels or unarmed trans-
ports owed their safety to the protection of the land
batteries in a state of blockade. His rage was
somewhat softened when, at Aix-la-Chapelle, he was
informed that Francis II. had not only saluted him
as an Emperor of the French, but had himself
assumed the title of an Emperor of Austria. This
unexpected determination was made, according to
reports in France, in consequence of an intrigue of

sacre de tout territoire neutre, a 1'extinction des communications
usitees entre les 6tats independants, et a I'aneantissement des
privileges des ministres diplomatiques, reconnus et respected
jusqu'ici dans toutes les siecles et par toutes les nations.
"Downing Street, le 5 Novembre, 1804.

TRANSLATION.
" Official Note sent to Foreign-Courts.

" His Majesty has received an account of a new and unex-
ampled violation committed at Hamburg on the person of Sir
George Rumbold, his minister to the Government of that city,
who has been seized in his own house on the night of the 25th
of October, by a detachment of French soldiers, and carried off
with the papers of his mission.

"After the reiterated proofs which the French Government
has afforded by its conduct of its absolute contempt of all obliga-
tion of the law of nations, His Majesty cannot be astonished at
the excess of such an outrage upon the territory of a feeble and
defenceless State.

" But His Majesty owes it not only to himself and to the
respectable and unfortunate city whose rights are more immediately
attacked, but also to his relations with the rest of Europe, and to

246 MEMOIRS OF

Talleyrand with the Cobentzel at Paris, whilst his
agent, Champigny, lulled into this revolutionary sleep
another Cobentzel at Vienna. Most foreign Powers
and people have, however, mistaken the motives
which determined the Cabinet of Vienna to advise
its Sovereign to make this change in his hereditary
title. Everyone must acknowledge that Bonaparte
has reason to be proud of the success of his political
machinations and intrigues ; that he makes a traffic
of every passion of the human heart ; finds out the
wants and weaknesses of every Court, of every

the dignity of every Power which still preserves the desire and the
means to maintain its independence, not to postpone for a moment
his solemn protest against so atrocious an aggression.

" If it were possible that such an attempt could become still
more insulting and shocking, it would be done by the explanation
which, it is understood, has been given of it by the French Resident
at Hamburg, viz. : ' That it took place in pursuance of an order
from the chief of police at Paris to the commander of the French
forces in Hanover.1

" His Majesty is convinced that there will not be upon the
Continent one Power which can remain insensible to the con-
sequences of a measure which, from its principle and example,
immediately threatens all the Courts which can be found within
the reach of the French armies, and which tends at the same time
to the destruction of the sacred rights of all neutral territory, to
the extinction of t^e usual communications between independent
States, and the Annihilation of the privileges of diplomatic
ministers, acknowledged and respected hitherto in all ages and
by all nations.

" Downing Street, November 5th, 1804."

TALLEYRAND 247

potentate, and of every minister; and, by playing
upon the common feelings of them all, renders every
Power, even in its degradation and fall, subservient
to his own gigantic views of ambition and aggran-
disement. But this cannot be applied to the assump-
tion of the new hereditary dignity by the Emperor
of Germany; nor is this measure to be regarded
as a studied imitation of the conduct of the up-
start self-elected tyrant of France, or as a
sanction of his usurpation. Surely there is a sub-
stantial and obvious difference between the mere
change of a title from King to Emperor, by a
lawful, hereditary monarch — without the advancement
of any new pretensions, without the exercise of any
additional power — and the assumption of a title by
a usurper, not only more dignified and elevated
than that which he previously enjoyed, but of a

nature totally different, and accompanied with the

v A
usurpation 61 a despotic and absolute power, equally

destructive of that limited authority with which the
people had entrusted him, and of that Constitution
which he was appointed to protect, and which he
had sworn to maintain. In the former, therefore,
there is neither imitation nor sanction of the latter.
It is the interest of Bonaparte, and the plan of
Talleyrand, to have it considered in this point of

248 MEMOIRS OF

view ; but it is to be hoped that their miserable
sophistry will not succeed now, as it has done in
many other instances, in blinding the judgment of
mankind, and in silencing the voice of common sense.
The Emperor's motive for the assumption of this
new title is to be looked for in the known and selfish
intentions of His Prussian Majesty to dispossess the
House of Austria of its present dignity as chief of the
German Empire, and in the insidious promises of the
Cor si can to transfer this dignity to the House of
Brandenburg. Francis II. is looking forward to the
time when the growing influence of France in the
pusillanimous Councils of the Empire will be suc-
cessfully exerted in procuring for a Prince, mean
enough to be indebted to her interference for the
aggrandisement of this name, and the extension of his
power, the title of " King of Romans," and his con-
sequent elevation to the head of the German Empire;
and, unwilling to have an inferior raised above his
superior, a monarchy of yesterday placed higher in
the regal scale than a Prince descended from a long
line of royal and illustrious ancestors who had ruled
as Emperors for centuries, was willing to avert the
affront of such degradation by leaving to his heir at
least an equal title to that which he enjoys himself.
This was a natural and a laudable desire, and not the

TALLEYRAND 249

offspring of ridiculous pride, puerile ambition, or de-
grading and dishonourable imitation.

Although the power of the Emperor of Austria
is great, it is not unlimited. He is bound by Con-
stitutions, which he has never attempted to violate
or change, to govern each of the States of his exten-
sive dominions according to laws which for ages have
ensured obedience and respect to the Sovereign, and
liberty and happiness to the subject, whilst such a
mass of political imbecility and profligacy never before
disgraced a nation claiming any rank among the
civilised States of the globe as the Constitution
which proclaimed Bonaparte an Emperor of the
French. It is infinitely worse than any of the pre-
ceding revolutionary codes, absurd or arbitrary as all
of them were. In vain do the friends of national
freedom look for that discrimination of power, that
definition of duty, that official responsibility, and that
legal dependence, without which no political inde-
pendence, no public liberty, can possibly exist. These
means of security to the subject, these guards of
social happiness, these protectors of civil rights are
nowhere to be found in the Corsican's Imperial char-
ter. It exhibits one rude mass of harsh, disgusting,
iron despotism. Through every part of it, in the
minutest regulations, as well as the most important

250 MEMOIRS OF

provisions, nothing is seen but the revolutionary
Emperor. In him are virtually united the whole oi
the executive, legislative and judicial powers of his
mock Republic. Like her, his authority is one and
indivisible ; it pervades every part of the body politic.
It is subordinate to no laws, restrained by no modi-
fications, confined by no limits. His will is absolute;
it precludes all deliberation, annihilates all law, and
overleaps all forms. The force of magic could not
produce more wonderful effects. In short, from the
Creation to the present day, in no part of the world
has such a systematised code of absolute power been
imposed on the people. Despotism has, indeed, existed
in various countries, and does still exist in many parts
of Asia; but in no country or State has it been before
formed into a system, reduced to writing, and divided
into sections. Besides, the most absolute or powerful
Sovereign of the East would not dare to transgress
the rules and precepts of the Alcoran : there is a boun-
dary beyond which his authority cannot extend. But
where are the moral rules or religious precepts which
the sL' m Emperor of the French does not transgress?
In the Bible? Napoleon the First does not believe in a
God. Where is the boundary that can stop the pro-
gress of his tyranny? Certainly the Pope will not
be considered as this sacred barrier; that unhappy

TALLEYRAND 251

Pontiff, alas! is sunk, by his own weakness, into
the lowest state of degradation, and, far from inter-
posing obstacles to the will and power of the
usurper, has — like the Romish religion, which the
Corsican apostate to Christ, as well as to Mahomet,
now affects to profess — become his tool and his instru-
ment, and, by the sacrilegious act of his coronation,
even his accomplice. Public opinion, which has been
ever supposed to operate as a moral check upon the
most despotic princes, can have no efficacy nor in-
fluence upon a man whose known and past enormous
crimes must be abhorred, but can never be palliated.
It may, indeed, be urged that certain modes and
forms of proceeding are prescribed, in judicial cases,
by the Constitutional code. But the power assigned
Bonaparte renders them all nugatory and impotent.
His special tribunals and his conduct constitute the
best explanation of their efficacy. He daily, nay
hourly, exercises the tyranny of arresting and punish-
ing individuals, and of delivering them up to the
assassin judges of his special tribunals, for acts not
declared to be criminal by any law, without observing
any of the constitutional forms, and without even the
appearance of any lawful trial. On all these occa-
sions his will has been the substitute for law. He
has formed the crime, arrested the offender, decided

252 MEMOIRS OF

on his guilt, and punished him with imprisonment,
exile, transportation or death. If, then, the person
placed at the head of the Government has a right to
treat as a crime an act which no law forbids ; and,
by his mandate alone, to deprive any subject of his
life or liberty — can it be denied that he is, to all
intents and purposes, a despot, or that his power
is marked by every attribute and characteristic of
tyranny ? What would Britons say if their own
beloved Sovereign, whose personal conduct gives him
every claim to their respect and love ; who never sold
his prisoners of war for slaves to an ally ; who never
directed the murder of eight thousand men, women
and children in the streets of his capital, nor the
destruction of a village and the massacre of its
inhabitants, without distinction of age and sex, for
daring to resent the brutal insolence of one of his
soldiers ; who never presided over a similar slaughter
of the subjects of a friendly Power, for presuming to
mat*, a vain attempt to defend their lives against
enemies who would not allow them to surrender ; who
never ordered the murder in cold blood of four
thousand five hundred captives who had yielded to
his arms, nor the poisoning of seven hundred of his
own soldiers, wounded in fighting his battles; who
never sent any military banditti in time of peace to

TALLEYRAND 253

capture on a neutral, and to butcher on his own,
territory, an innocent Prince, whose rank and popu-
larity were his only faults ; who never publicly re-
nounced his Redeemer and preached atheism, nor
ever violated any of his duties to God or man — if
he were to usurp and use such a right over their lives
or liberty ? Would they not deem him an insupport-
able tyrant and themselves most abject slaves? Thus,
then, different from the Austrians, practice combines
with theory to render the sovereign people of the great
nation the most wretched slaves that vegetate on
the face of the earth. All the gloomy predictions of
the great and ever-to-be-regretted Edmund Burke,
which, eloquent as they were, were still less distin-
guished for their eloquence than their wisdom, have
been completely fulfilled; and the French Revolution —
the pretended struggle for liberty — has terminated, as
all rebellions ought, in a military despotism — an
emperor the despot, the bayonet the minister of his
power. For this did the depraved and miserable
people of that guilty country murder their lawful
Sovereign — just, mild and benignant as he was ! For
this did they proscribe their nobility, plunder their
clergy, annihilate their laws, destroy the sources of
their prosperity, dry up the current of their happiness,
subdue the best feelings of their nature, and render

254 MEMOIRS OF

their native land one continued scene of desolation
and of blood ! Notwithstanding what Talleyrand's
agents insinuate to the contrary, there is nothing
in common between the usurpation of Napoleon the
First and the lawful change of title of Francis II.,
any more than between the regicide crimes of the
vile slaves of the former and the honourable loyalty
of the dutiful subjects of the latter.

Talleyrand's journey with Bonaparte along the
banks of the Rhine, and his residence at Aix-la-
Chapelle and Mentz, during the summer and autumn
of 1804, he called a golden campaign (une campagne d'oy).
Besides his usual number of secret agents, four of
his principal chefs des bureaux, or under-secretaries,
were in his suite. Of these, Mathieu and Hauterive
are said to have, by their industry, gained in six
weeks, with the consent of Talleyrand, ^"5,000 each,
whilst he himself was satisfied with ^"82,000 in cash,
and half that sum in diamonds, or other presents,
bestowed upon him by some electors for making
them kings, by some princes for making them
electors, by some counts for making them princes,
and by some barons for making them counts.
Several free Imperial cities advanced him loans for
the continuance of their independence ; whilst some
of their neighbouring Princes purchased his promise

TALLEYRAND 255

of having these free Imperial citiqs incorporated with
their States, or annexed to their territories, when
the final arrangement of the German affairs, or
organisation of the German Constitution, has been
settled between France, Austria, Russia, and Prussia.
His activity and Bonaparte's condescension with
some of the German electors caused Austria and
Prussia to suspect that the Emperor of the French
intrigued to be elected a King of the Romans, and
thus add the crown of the Caesars to the sceptre of
the Bourbons. Talleyrand, however, soon tranquil-
lised them on this subject, by offering at the same
time to procure this election to the Grand Duke,
son of Francis II., and to Frederic William himself.
He only asked in return, from the House of Austria,
the Kingdom of Naples for Lucien Bonaparte, and
from the House of Brandenburg the electorate of
Hanover for Jerome Bonaparte. With the consent of
either party was to be connected an immediate
offensive and defensive alliance with France. The
Cabinet of Vienna declined this proposal without
deliberating ; whilst the Cabinet of Berlin calculated
and deliberated without either accepting or declining.
The immense sums which Talleyrand has plun-
dered or extorted have certainly made him one of
the richest, if not the richest man in Europe. His

256

MEMOIRS OF

expenses are great, even extravagant, but much be-
neath half the interest arising from an enormous
capital, daily increasing, deposited under several
names in the French, as well as in all foreign Funds.
During the year XII., or from the 22nd of Septem-
ber, 1803, to the 22nd of September, 1804, he is said
to have laid out the following sums :

Livres.
For purchases of four national estates of the property

of the ci-devant Clergy ------ j,6oo,ooo

For five patrimonial estates of the returned emigrants 2,150,000
For seven houses or hotels at Paris of the ci-devant

Nobility in France ------- 950,000

For two estates in the Duchy of Holstein, and for one

.- in the Duchy of Mecklenburg ... - 3,260,000
Upon one German county in the circle of Franconia,
and upon one German principality in Suabia, ad-
vanced nearly their value at the interest of one
per cent, per month ------ 6,446,000

For two estates bought in England by his agents • 2,241,000
For one estate bought up by his agents in Ireland - 560,000
For one copper-mine and for two iron-mines in Sweden 1,510,000
Fc. the purchase of lands in the United States of

America --------- 833,000

For one estate in Lombardy, one in the Neapolitan and

one in the Papal territory 1,115,000

To his female agents for the importation of females
from Italy and Spain for his seraglio in the Rue
St. Dominique, Faubourg St. Germain - - 490,000

To ditto for ditto from England and Germany for

ditto ditto - - - - . - - - - 244,000
Expenses for the women in this seraglio ... 560,000
Expenses for his French seraglio in the Faubourg St.

Honore, agents included- • • - - 793,000

TALLEYRAND 257

To Madame de R for the company of her two vres'

daughters during the month Floreal ... 60,000
To ditto for the company of her two nieces during

ditto ----_--.- 24,000

For the entertainment of six young jockeys at Citizen

Gaudry's in the Rue de Lille - - • 21,000

Yearly expense allowed Madame Talleyrand • • 600,000

For his establishment in town yearly - ... 1,200,000

For ditto in the country ...... 400,000

To poor relations ruined by the Revolution - - 6,000

In divers charities ....... 300

The girls imported from foreign countries, as well
as those educated under his inspection in France,
when he finds their charms faded, or when their
novelty is worn off, he disposes of to his agents, or
to the members of foreign diplomatic corps all over
Europe, as well as to those accredited in France,
after being previously instructed by him how to
continue his friends though no longer kept as his
mistresses. Those who cannot captivate either public
ambassadors or secret agents, are transported to the
colonies for having attempted to conspire against the
State. The seraglios are renewed every year, and
their governesses changed once in six months. Every
girl who should have the misfortune to find herself
pregnant is immediately removed as suspected of in-
fidelity. As all the girls at their reception must be
under fifteen, the neighbours of Talleyrand's former
VOL. ii 17

258 MEMOIRS OF

seraglios supposed them to be boarding-schools for
young ladies, until Fouch6's agents informed them of
their mistake. He was, therefore, under the necessity
of purchasing houses to which were annexed ex-
tensive gardens ; so that the girls are no longer
permitted to walk out, but are shut up as in a
convent. Not to excite suspicions, or give rise to
scandal, he has regular chaplains officiating there
every Sunday, or holiday, and confessing as often as
the consciences of these unfortunate beings demand
it. These chaplains are also among his secret
agents. They belong to the Constitutional clergy,
and serve him, not only by revealing to him the
secrets of his seraglios, but those of many others
of both sexes to whom they are introduced, whom
their hypocrisy deceives, and whom their treachery
frequently ruins. It is stated that two of these
chaplains are now honourably and devoutly employed
by him as confessors to the Queen of Spain and
to the Prince of Peace.

Bonaparte is well informed of Talleyrand's private
transactions; but the immorality of the minister is
inseparable from the immorality of his revolutionary
government. Talleyrand's personal profligacy, always
connected and interwoven with political intrigues,
serves a State ruled by a criminal and supported

TALLEYRAND 259

only by crimes. From the mock Emperor himself
down to his lowest sub-prefect, no faith is found in
religion, nor any esteem shown to virtue. Hardly
a man employed by or under the Corsican exists
who, with the same means and resources, would
cot have led an equally corrupt and vicious life
with Talleyrand, whom no French Republican blames
but from envy, and whom all are ambitious to
imitate from inclination.

The only person whom Talleyrand had most
reason to dread is now reconciled to him ; and he
no longer quarrels with Fouch6 about "spoils and
havoc," but partakes of them with him. This recon-
ciliation, it is said, was effected by Madame Bona-
parte, in gratitude for ^"50,000 lent her by Talleyrand
some few days before the coronation, when she had
lost greater sums in gambling than she dared to
avow to her husband. These two ministers have
since entered into an offensive and defensive treaty
against all the other ministers, or courtiers, and are
now supposed to govern and plunder France and
Europe under the name and authority of Bonaparte.
On the day of signature of the treaty, these two
revolutionary potentates exchanged, as usual, presents.
Talleyrand received from his ally a stiletto, encrusted
at the point with the finest Indian poison, a scratch

17 — 2

260 MEMOIRS OF

of which is sudden death; and four young girls,
whom his agents had in vain been hunting for
during six months. In return, Fouch6 obtained a
perfumed snuff, mixed with the most subtle poison,
which lulls to sleep in an instant, and kills in five
minutes; and six of his favourite agents, whom his
ally had contrived to shut for some months in one
of bi9**frivafo Bastilles. Their first united exploit
was to cajole Decres, the Minister of Marine, out
of £60,000 he intended to lay aside for his private
use from two contracts for the navy, but which they,
with Bonaparte's permission, disposed of to more
honest contractors, to whom they sold a national
forest in Belgium, which produced them ^"42,000.
They afterwards considered and fell upon the secret-
service money in their respective departments. They
agreed to propose to their secret agents to wink at
their private extortions, in proportion as they con-
sented to the reduction of their salaries and private
expenses, without diminishing the vigilance and
activity of their services. By this regulation some
more millions would to a certainty yearly increase
their already immense treasury.1

i See Les Nouvelles & la Main, Ventose, year XIII., pages n
and 12. In the last page it is stated that the list of Talleyrand's
expenses, and the particulars of his treaty with Fouche, were

TALLEYRAND 26l

How easily and extensively these worthies can
even rob the usurper himself may be judged from
the enormity of the sums, under the appellation of
"unforeseen expenses, or expenses during negotia-
tions" (frais des negotiations}, which pass through
Talleyrand's hands without any other control than
his official assertion that they are expended for the
State.

FOR YEAR IX.

32,000,000 livres expended in negotiations (four
frais des negotiations).

FOR YEAR X.

10,000,000 livres in unforeseen expenses (depenses
imprlmus}.

15,500,000 livres expended in negotiations (four
frais des negotiations').

FOR YEAR XI.

12,300,000 livres in unforeseen expenses.
17,660,000 livres expended in negotiations.

FOR YEAR XII.

14,000,000 livres in unforeseen expenses.
19,368,075 livres expended in negotiations.

presented in form of a supplication to the Pope, who, not
comprehending what they meant, showed them to Cardinal
Cambaceres, who made them public.

262 MEMOIRS OP

All these sums are extracted verbatim from the
Moniteurs containing the budget of each year. During
last year France signed no alliance and negotiated no
treaty. The sums stated to be thus employed are,
however, greater than those of the preceding years,
which made it believed at Paris that Bonaparte, to
satisfy his vanity and the expenses it necessitated,
had sEared with Talleyrand and Fouche the plunder
of the State. To present budgets to the legislators
of the French Republic is only to add mockery to
fraud and pillage.1

i Les Nouvelhs it la Main contains the following remarks
concerning the late coronation and its expenses:

" The expenses of Robespierre's Court were supported by
the persons of rank and property in France whom he confined
in dungeons or released by the operation of the guillotine. The
sultans of the Committee of Public Safety and the pachas of
the Directory all glittered in gold and rioted in luxury at the
expense of those whom they had reduced to slavery and rags.
By whom is the splendour of his present revolutionary Majesty's
illustrious throne maintained ? By the free patriotic donations of
the free and happy inhabitants of France, Spain, Portugal, Italy,
Germany, Switzerland, and Holland — all indebted to Napoleon
the First for the preservation of their liberty and rights, for the
respect shown to their independence, for the safety of their pro-
perty, and for the augmentation of their wealth and prosperity ?
It is true that in most of these countries privileged spies and
constitutional gendarmes, in and out of livery, plunder and imprison
without interruption, whilst protected gaolers torment, and execu-
tioners of honour despatch in permanence ; but it is also true,
according to the hypotheses of modern philosophers and the calcu-

TALLEYRAND 263

Talleyrand's table is esteemed by the French
gluttons and sensualists, and by those who pretend
to be connoisseurs in cookery, or amateurs in sensual
debauchery, who have passed their lives in inventing
or studying the refinements of gratifying their palates
as the best and best regulated at Paris. Every pro-
duction of every country, of every climate, either
esteemed delicious, valued as rare, regarded as fan-

lations of modern metaphysicians, that the wretchedness of millions
is often necessary, and, of course, permitted, to procure power and
support the usurpation of an individual, though ever so guilty or
ever so obscure. As this doctrine is defended by the all-powerful
arguments of the bayonet, Frenchmen must subscribe to it and pro-
claim that Napoleon is not only the most proper to rule, but that the
submissive Continental nations, which bear the yoke with such
admirable patience, are the most fit to be the miserable slaves
of his most revolutionary Majesty. These observations may be
necessary to silence the anti-revolutionary remarks of envious
Englishmen, who are still deprived of the blessing of the govern-
ment of a revolutionary emperor, and are, therefore, incompetent
judges of its invaluable comforts. These difficulties removed, it
remains to show to the world that the expenses of one revolutionary
coronation ought to surpass those of ten legitimate princes. A
revolutionary monarch must keep up armies of spies as well as
armies of soldiers, regiments of placemen and battalions of pen-
sioners— burdensome, but not useful, to an hereditary Sovereign.
The former must elevate his low parents, brothers or sisters, to
princes or princesses, enrich his beggarly relatives, and support, by
external show and extravagance, the want of internal merit and
manners ; whilst the date of the rank, as well as the possessions and
domains of the relations of the latter, is lost in archives of ages, and,
born to be great and eminent, no artificial lustre is required to
make them conspicuous. By the former, a revolutionary nobilitj

264 MEMOIRS OF

ciful, or admired as curious, either fashionable or
unseasonable, if money can procure, the agents of
his kitchens have carte blanche to purchase. Regular
couriers to Marseilles, Cologne, and Dieppe bring
fresh sturgeon of the Mediterranean, carp of the
Rhine, and turbot of the Channel ; whilst other
couriers carry salmon from Holland, venison from
Germany, game from Italy, pies from Perigord, fruits

most be created, educated, clothed and fed ; whilst the hereditary
nobles of an hereditary prince, with their fortunes as well as with
their talents, support and serve the State. With as many rivals as
equals by birth or by crime, the former must surround himself and
his Courts with satellites, satraps and mutes ; his guards must be a
hundred times more numerous than those of the latter — having no
equal, fearing no rival, guarded by the hearts, and not by the arms,
of his subjects. From these and a thousand other contrasts who
shall dare to complain if 200,000,000 of livres, including 10,000,000
to the Pope and 6,000,000 to the Sacred College, are indis-
pensable for the coronation of Napoleon I., while the corona-
tion of Louis XVI. cost no more than 8,000,000 of livres ? if
192,000,000 were paid by the ancestors of the French during
the fourteen centuries the Bourbons reigned, whilst the present
race, with their contemporaries, are to pay at once, and en masse,
200,000,000, as the fixed price for a revolutionary emperor of a
revolutionary dynasty? But to console even those not consoled
by what we have already said, and who love their money more
than the elevation of Napoleon, we can announce, from the
authority of the revolutionary minister of the revolutionary
treasury, that France and Frenchmen are to pay but a small
part of the expenses of the coronation. A paper has been cir-
culated at Paris, entitled, 'An Authentic List of Sovereigns,
Subjects and States who are to contribute to the Expenses of
the Coronation of His Imperial Majesty, Napoleon the First,

TALLEYRAND 265

from Switzerland, and mutton from the Ardennes.
The most famous wine-merchants travel everywhere
to select and buy up the choicest wines and finest
liqueurs. His own hot-houses bring forth the most
unseasonable, but at the same time the best-flavoured
fruits; but neither the mountains of the Alps and
the Pyrenees, nor the plains of Italy and Flanders,
neither Sicily nor Russia, are left unsearched by his
agents for what Nature produces in perfection, or

Emperor of the French.1 It is supposed to have been published
by the authority of His Excellency M. Marbois, for the purpose
of preventing the discontent which such extravagance is so well
calculated to produce. In this list of plunder we find the
Princes of the Empire, in gratitude for past, and in hope of
future indemnities, are to pay 30,000,000 of livres ; the Hanse
Towns, for the preservation of their privileges, and the- increase
of their commerce, 20,000,000; the Batavian Republic, for the
respect shown to her independence, and the augmentation of
her incredible prosperity, 30,000,000; the Helvetic Republic, for
her landamman, for her liberty, and for her equality, 10,000,000 ;
the Italian Republic, for her majestic president, for her independ-
ence, and for her crosses of the Legion of Honour, 30,000,000;
the King of Naples, for the invasion of his kingdom in time of
peace, 10,000,000; the King of Spain, for the gracious permis-
sion of a tributary neutrality, 40,000,000; the Regent of Portu-
gal, for the blessing of having only one French ambassador at
Lisbon, whilst His Royal Highness has two ambassadors at
Paris, 20,000,000; leaving but 20,000,000 to be paid by the
great nation for the great coronation of her great revolutionary
Emperor — a mere trifle for a great people, so greatly free,
so greatly happy, so greatly prosperous, so greatly virtuous, so
greatly contented, and so greatly submissive."

266 MEMOIRS OF

what the artificial wants of the voluptuous and the
wealth of the luxurious have suggested and perplexed
the ingenuity of the indigent to improve. The
ancient Epicurean's sentence, " Ede, libe, lude, post
mortem nulla voluptas," even his friends and admirers
-have supposed his maxim, and suggested to him as
an applicable motto.1

But, extravagant and profligate as he is, his vices
might injure France without prejudice to other States
had he not incorporated most of the revenues of the
Continental Governments to support the extravagance
and want of economy of the French revolutionary
rulers. In peace, as well as during a war, the
products of the industry of other nations are forced
to be deposited in the National Treasury of France.
Montesquieu has justly observed, " Were one of the
Powers of Europe to make war, as the Romans did,
at the expense of those whom it vanquished, and
draw its resources for war from war itself, it would
attain the empire of the world." Talleyrand and
Bonaparte have revived those military politics which

i See Le Voyageur Suisse, pages 93 and 94. In a note it is
observed that, after the Peace of Luneville, the frequent arrival
and departure of Talleyrand's kitchen couriers caused a great
deal of conjecture and anxiety to certain neutral ambassadors,
who supposed them to be political messengers, who brought,
instead of carp or pike, plans of indemnities.

TALLEYRAND 267

morality, the laws of war, the general system, the
experience of retaliation, and a strict agreement
among civilised people, had long left mouldering on
the antiquated rolls of history. Since the decline
of the Roman Empire, the invasions made by
irregular multitudes were as transitory as those
transmigrations of rapid plunderers. Abler to con-
quer than to preserve their conquests, after laying a
country waste, they abandoned it ; or if, imitating
the Visigoths and Normans, they settled on their con-
quests, it was in a national body. They spent the
fruit of their rapine among the vanquished them-
selves, with whom they mingled, and were in time
confounded. Till the reign of Louis XIV. the regular
armies were neither considerable enough, nor the
Princes sufficiently rich, to preserve conquests which
lay at any distance. Neither Charles VIII. nor
Louis XII. would have been able, like the modern
French, to have subjugated Italy from the shores of
Nice to the Velino. How were they to subject, to
keep, and to extort the riches of a country without
exhausting their armies? Dominion was at an end
with the retreat of those armies, whose empire rarely
extended the scene of the enterprise beyond the scene
of the campaign, and some bad fortresses on the out-
skirts. If conquests have become more difficult, they

268 MEMOIRS OF

have also acquired more stability. This is one of
the effects of the multiplicity and improvement of
fortifications, and of the establishments of great
standing armies — a scourge the weight of which,
crushing at once nations and governments, has con-
verted a revenue into a calamity, has introduced
disorder into administration, and ripened the causes
of popular revolutions.

Created in the midst of war, and for purposes of
war, the military Republic of France, having more
soldiers under arms than ever Augustus or Trajan
had, extended its limits in order to make room for
its supernumerary forces, to draw off the riches of
the new territories, and to secure upon them the sub-
sistence, pay, arming, and even clothing, of its army.
In its turn, the army serves to pillage and preserve
these acquisitions. From this double want have
proceeded the oppression that supports its revenue,
and the military oppression which consumes the con-
quered States — oppressions that have been spread over
those revolutionary emanations, over those tributary
Republics which, instead of pillaging in a common
way, Bonaparte and his predecessors have deigned to
incorporate with France.

In settling their equestrian colonies, the Romans,
with the military yoke, also introduced a generous

TALLEYRAND 269

police, wise laws and a creative spirit. But the
spirit of the French Republic has not risen above
that of a leader of Bedouins. The French Govern-
ment differs from those of Egypt and Syria only
by its hypocrisy and buffoonery. A committee of
public safety, a directory, a consulate, an emperor,
senators, legislators, tribunes, prefects, ministers,
generals and commissaries, all tend to a central
point, that of converting the right of conquest into
a right of universal confiscation. No species of pro-
perty, public or private, has withstood their rapacity.
Whether hostile or neutral, republican or monarchical,
every nation whose patience they experience has under-
gone a treatment perfectly uniform. The presence of
the armies and possession of the fortified towns make
it easy to continue extortion ; even rebellion or insur-
rection serves but to support it by opening a new
door to the rapine of the confiscators.

Revolutionary France counts as many robbers as
civil or military governors — of whom not one, was
ever punished; not one of the ruffians let loose
upon Holland, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Spain,
Portugal, Egypt, St. Domingo and Hanover has been
even threatened with examination. But France had
herself been previously stripped at home. The cause
of this is to be traced to the year 1789 ; for, at

270 MEMOIRS OF

the very outset, by Talleyrand's motion for the sale
of the property of the clergy, the supreme power
patronising robbery, making it practically and theo-
retically a law, put itself at the head of the outrages
against property; and what it had established sys-
tematically and through covetousness, it continued
through necessity. It is avarice, and not the charms
of the jargon of liberty, which has led, and which will
ever lead," the Revolution ; wherever it comes, plunder
follows. Rapine was its first object, of which ferocity
has been but the means. The French Republic was
fostered by robbery and murder, two nurses that will
adhere to her to the last hour of her existence.

From Hamburg to Naples, from Ratisbon to
Lisbon, the property of all men and of every in-
dividual now forms the private capital of men who,
like the Bonapartes, ten years ago possessed not a
guinea ; or who, like Talleyrand, had debts to pay,
but no honour to preserve. Such is the degradation
of most Continental nations that they submit peace-
ably because they know it is no longer possible to
dispute either purse or life otherwise than by means
of the sword. No civil or political responsibility
restrains the arms of these collective ravishers, who
are supported by edicts and by soldiers, by the
degeneracy of their country, and their own depravity ;

TALLEYRAND 27!

whilst they rule and intrigue unopposed, in the midst
of their individual plenty and of the public want, an
irregular and beggared Government, rendered, by its
very irregularities and poverty, insatiable and inordi-
nate. There is no era in history in which dissipation
and plunder can be found to have played so exten-
sive a part. A great empire might be raised, en-
riched and made to flourish with what the Revolution,
the Republic, and war have cost France to brutalise,
oppress and impoverish it. From the effects of the
clergy, to the very bells of the churches ; not only
the plate and jewels, but the very lead and iron on
gentlemen's seats ; from the domains of the Crown, to
the estates of suspected persons ; from patriotic con-
tributions and forced loans, to dry taxes levied by
the committees of revolutionary agents of the men in
power ; from cash to paper - money — all has been
seized, melted and engulfed. The capital of France
thus made away with, Bonaparte inheriting, and
Talleyrand improving, the crimes and ingenuity of
their predecessors, have extended their practice to
other parts of Europe, just as a new mine is opened
when the old veins are exhausted. Whilst Hanover,
the Hanse Towns and Naples are plundered by mili-
tary banditti, political satraps lay Spain and Por-
tugal under contribution. According to report, during

272 MEMOIRS OP

twenty months' occupation by French troops, Hanover
has paid more than the revenue of its Government
had amounted to the twenty-five years preceding ;
and of the revenue of Spain the half, and of
the revenue of Portugal two-thirds have been
extorted as tributes for neutrality by Talleyrand's
agents. The discretion of Bonaparte's generals and
the liberality of Talleyrand's commissaries are the
only ooundaries that prevent the total ruin of
the neutral Imperial cities, as well as of neutral
Naples. Few men have a just notion of the amount
of this pillage ; in general, the enormity of it is far
from being suspected. In Hanover, not only palaces
have been emptied, but cottages stripped. Not only
has movable wealth been captured, but what was
immovable attacked. French satellites have not only
seized the fruits of the earth and the produce of
trade, but metals, money, men, forests, and the soil
itself. Let those who have any property, of what-
ever class, country, society, religion or politics they
be, reflect that volumes on volumes might be filled
with similar examples, all of public notoriety ; and
that, wherever revolutionary Frenchmen penetrate,
they will repeat the same enormities.

Amidst the present vortex of unpunished atro-
cities and unrewarded virtues ; of audacious and sue-

TALLEYRAND 273

cessful rebellion, and suffering and unpitied loyalty;
of usurpation daring everything, and legitimate sove-
reignty enduring everything ; of impudence on one
part, and weakness or meanness on the other — it
may be interesting, if not useful, to remember and
consider what Europe was, and would have been,
under the reign of Bourbons in France; and what it
is, and must continue, under the tyranny of Bonaparte
over the French Republic. Before the Revolution
Europe was truly what the pedantic, affected and hypo-
critical language of the Corsican styles it — a Western
family. Even the wars between the different States
were merely family quarrels, if the generosity is
remembered with which the victor treated the van-
quished, and the magnanimity, even upon the field
of battle, reciprocally shown and bestowed.

Frenchmen, called by trade or curiosity to Great
Britain, were travelling in the midst of hostilities as
in the profoundest peace, without impediment in all
our islands; whilst British subjects, whom pleasure
invited, business called or illness necessitated to
undertake a voyage to France, were received in that
kingdom with respect and treated with hospitality.
No chicanery, no vexation, no trouble of a low,
insolent or suspicious police insulted them anywhere ;

because the Sovereign as well as his ministers
VOL. ii 18

274 MEMOIRS OF

and governors were gentlemen by sentiment as well
as by birth. During war, neutrals brought, without
obstacle, to France the productions of British in-
dustry and invention, and returned to the ports of
England, Scotland and Ireland with the productions
of French climes as in the time of peace.

When preliminaries of peace were signed, war
was at an end ; and, before their ratification, almost
forgotten. In some few weeks all former amicable
communications and connections were restored as if
uninterrupted. Mutual injuries were repaired, mutual
debts paid, mutual property returned, mutual wrongs
forgiven, and mutual claims satisfied almost without
diplomatic interference. More years of hostilities had
often been counted than weeks after their cessation
passed over, before a sincere, perfect, national har-
mony was re-established, because the subjects of
the Bourbons and of the House of Brunswick
always reciprocally esteemed each other ; whilst it is
impossible for the free subjects of George III. not
to despise the degraded slaves of Napoleon I., and
these in their turn most naturally envy or hate an
honour and a liberty they have made themselves
unworthy to enjoy, or which they have proved
themselves incapable to maintain.

War between Great Britain and France once

TALLEYRAND 275

terminated, all other States experienced with the
reconciled Powers the tranquillity and safety of
peace. No agitations for the present, no appre-
hensions for futurity! That sacred code of the law
of nations and the revered custom of civilised
States insured and protected the weak from the
pretensions, from the encroachments and from the
superiority of the powerful, of the ambitious and of
the audacious. Their reciprocal rights and their recip-
rocal duties were known, observed, seldom infringed,

(>
but never violated without incurring the opposition,

remonstrances, and often chastisements, even of allies.
The most insignificant, the most petty prince, and
the most destitute, defenceless community, safe
under the refreshing and protecting shade of the
balance of power of civilised Europe, spoke the
language of independence, felt their own con-
sequence, and boldly, though justly, resented any
attempt of intrusion, any external interference or
projected violence as much as the most powerful
Monarch or the most wealthy State. All Govern-
ments and all Sovereigns were masters of their Con-
stitutions, of their religious notions, of their political
transactions, of external negotiations, as well as of
internal policy. They ruled and regulated, deliberated

and determined, without the interference of imperti-

1 8— 2

276 MEMOIRS OF

nent neighbours, without the intimations of alien
counsellors, the influence of strange intriguers, or the
dictates of foreign Cabinets. Their mutual agents,
their respective Courts, were equally acquainted with
the obligations they had to perform and the privileges
they could demand. In fulfilling the former they
were certain that the latter would be preserved in-
violate. Parchments were then of as much con-
sequence and value as armies. All violence was

proscribed, all outrages abhorred, and bayonets em-

*
ployed only on the field of battle, but were banished

from Courts and excluded by a unanimous consent
from all council-chambers. Deliberations were as free
as determinations were generally just. All European
nations possessed an equal relative independence, and
no nation saluted a master, much less bowed to a
tyrant, in the chief or ruler of another nation. Such
was, and such would have been still, the real and
relative situation of the European commonwealth
had Providence blessed Frenchmen with a Bourbon
for their monarch instead of a Bonaparte for their
despot. How dreadfully different this barbarous
usurper treated the rights and liberties of indepen-
dent Continental nations the following short remarks
evince:

Divided between a forced peace and a necessary

TALLEYRAND 277

war, the Continent participates the dangers of both
without enjoying the usual advantage of the former,
or the chances which result from the latter. What
kind of peace is that which excludes the principle on
which our independence and tranquillity are founded ?
After the thirty years' convulsion in the seventeenth
century, which was terminated by the Peace of West-
phalia, the public rights of Europe were at last
settled by stipulations, in consequence of a long
arbitration of Powers, more or less proportionate to
each other, and guaranteed by the balance which
that solemn transaction preserved among them. At
present all balance is overthrown, and every treaty
signed with Bonaparte and Talleyrand confirms that
overthrow ; for the consequences of them are new
usurpations, new spoils, either by arms or by revolu-
tionary influence ; yet the cry for peace is everywhere
heard. Such is the force of words and habits that
many princes, many ministers and many individuals
still imagine that they are where they were in 1648
or 1713 ; expect from conventions with the Corsican
and his minister the result of those of Munster or
of Utrecht, and conceive that all disputes between
France and them will vanish the moment honest
Talleyrand shall sign the assurance of it.

The distress into which most nations and govern-

278 MEMOIRS OF

ments are plunged by Bonaparte's usurpation, aud-
its consequence — the uncertainty of their situation, is
an object worthy attention and calling for remedy.
Never did the miseries of war appear with so hideous
an afepect, nor the dangers of peace more manifest.
No State, in negotiating or purchasing its reconciliation
with revolutionary France, can determine whether
there be less risk in braving the hatred or in solicit-
ing the friendship of the revolutionary Emperor. The
effects of the latter are no longer problematical.
Everyone knows what it costs, and must cost, to
enter into terms with a usurper who oppresses full
as much by his treaties as by his arms, and who
never granted nor grants peace but with a view to
falling upon his enemies the moment he has disarmed
or disorganised them.

What have the pacific Powers, or those that have
been made pacific, gained by their desertion of the
general cause ? If there be one that merited any
consideration, it was the King of Sardinia. By de-
livering up to Bonaparte his fortresses, his country,
his security, he delivered up Italy. He surrendered
at discretion, put himself, his throne and family
under the protection of the honour of the conqueror,
trusting in the faith of a treaty signed upon the
ruins of his ramparts, by which his sovereignty was

TALLEYRAND 27Q

stripped of all means of defence. In return, he is a
wanderer without a home and without a subject on
the Continent. Scarcely had the Pope bought peace
at the price of his treasures, his chefs d'ceuvre of the
arts, and the third of his territory, when a concordat
was put into requisition to execute the same revolu-
tionary innovations and scandals in the Church as
had already taken place in the State ; and to give
the death-blow to the Roman religion, its chief is
forced to add blasphemy to degradation by perform-
ing the vilest and most impolitic of all acts, the
coronation of an assassin and poisoner as an Emperor
of one of the most populous nations in Europe !

The Grand Duchy of Tuscany, the Duchies of
Parma and Modena, the Republics of Venice, Hel-
vetia, Geneva, Genoa and Lucca, notwithstanding
the successive contributions to which they so re-
peatedly submitted, and their numberless sacrifices,
by which they purchased the suspension of their
ruin, exist no more, or only as departments of
France. Has the King of Naples obtained more
tranquillity or safety by a peace than he would have
preserved by continuing in war ? Still is that enemy
in his kingdom, whom he believed he should have
removed from it. No longer is there any connection
between his States and the rest of Italy, demo-

280 MEMOIRS OP .

cratised, enslaved, and under the subjection of in-
satiable French banditti ; while the sums which
peace has cost him would have maintained numerous
armies. Madrid and Lisbon present the same melan-
choly picture ; thrones suspended between a revolution
daily preparing, an invasion daily threatened, and
the burdens of the most shameful tributes.

If from the South one turns towards the North, a
disgraceful multitude of German Princes and States
is observed exhausting the question, on the means
necessary to abridge their precarious existence. It is
difficult to conceive a situation more deplorable than
that of the German Empire. Disunited, plundered
by armies, ruined by treaties, Bonaparte's satellites
now cross with impunity, and dispose of with
effrontery, the banks of the Rhine and of the Elbe
in the same manner as those of the Seine or Loire.
Deserted by his co-estates, the Emperor of Germany
has been obliged to shelter himself under the same
red cap which decorates the head of the sans-culotte
Emperor of the French : an impolitic palliation, which,
by suspending immediate ruin, has made ultimate
destruction almost inevitable.

Prussia — neutral Prussia — does she enjoy anything
but an armed truce? Her parade of endless negotia-
tion, in which she betrayed her real weakness, as well

TALLEYRAND 28l

SLS her dangerous want of policy, and her camps
in Brandenburg, Pomerania, Silesia and Westphalia,
answer this question. Her transient calm she owes
only to her cruel indifference at the ravages of a
tempest rapidly advancing towards her, and which,
in a few years, must plunge her artificial power
into the same gulf that has swallowed the German
Empire, Italy, Holland and Switzerland. Denmark
and Sweden have armies on foot. The former had
been threatened and insulted in the Moniteur of
September, 1803, as the latter was in the same
official libel of August, 1804. Both are exclusively
indebted for their temporary safety to their distance,
and the forces of Great Britain and Russia. What
has Russia obtained from her condescensions, her
guarantees and from her treaties? Insults, invasions,
usurpations and infractions; and, as long as the
throne of the Bourbons is occupied by a Corsican
usurper, Russia, in common with all other nations, has
nothing else to expect.

It is to avoid open war, then, in favour of the
Bourbons, and what is immediately connected with
so desirable an event, the return of social order and
of general safety — it is, then, to perpetuate a dis-
astrous breach of connection, that the Continent
suffers such an accumulation of insolence and con-

282 MEMOIRS OP

tempt, habituates subjects no longer to fear or respect
lawful authority, and allows the edifice of public
safety, property and justice to be demolished. Lest
they should perish at once by resistance, they perish
piecemeal without resisting. In a similar crisis the
Romans would have armed with the resolution of
victory or death. The primitive Christians would
have sung hymns to Providence and flown to martyr-
dom. Their successors neither die nor fight, but
consent to wait their last hour, and to calendar the
days of their existence, like wretches who have re-
ceived sentence of execution. This dying convulsion
with which the Continent is attacked cannot
be of long duration. Either the principal Powers
must resume their arms and proclaim Louis XVIII.,
or it will sink gradually under successive invasions,
for which revolutionary pioneers, secret emissaries,
and shallow pacificators will clear the way. While
it is deciding, every day increases the danger,
multiplies obstacles, and diminishes resources. All
property, all establishments, all ranks, all legitimate
dynasties are in a state of consumptive uncertainty.
Industry, trade, the arts, all decay, and civilised
society returns with rapid steps to barbarism.
Anxiety takes possession of every family, ruin is at
their doors, and consternation in their hearts. Un«

TALLEYRAND 283

easiness appears on their countenance, terror disturbs
even the enjoyments of selfish frivolity. All senti-
ment is painful, and the expression of it restrained.
They do not allow themselves to breathe a com-
plaint, lest it should be heard on the left bank of
the Rhine. Prudence enjoins the sufferance of humili-
ations, outrages, and the most disgusting enormities.
All their energy consists in hiding their heads, like
the ostrich, and in escaping Bonaparte's bayonets
and Talleyrand's plots by keeping their faces turned
from them. The weight of these revolutionary
criminals' merciless oppression is felt from Paris to
Stockholm, and from the Danube to the Straits of
Gibraltar. Their police may be said to be a spy
abroad upon actions and thoughts. It is only to
those with whom they are in the strictest intimacy
that two-thirds of the inhabitants of the Continent
dare avow their horror and their indignation. Such
is the deplorable state into which they are thrown
that, amidst a hundred daily papers and thousands
of daily pamphlets devoted to extenuate the crimes
of Bonaparte, and to excuse the perfidy of Talley-
rand, to applaud their plans, to vaunt their power,
to extol their benevolence, to insult their enemies,
to contribute to the success of a universal revolu-
tion, not a pen dares to write, nor a press to print,

284 MEMOIRS OF

the complaints of suffering humanity, or the defence
of social order.

But let the observer, saddened by the gloom of
the interdicted Continent, and scared by its stupor,
irresolution and degradation, cross the ocean, and
come and contemplate Great Britain. It is not the
sea only that separates her from the rest of Europe ;
it is, besides, a contrast of conduct worthy of ad-
miration. All the fury of Bonaparte, all his efforts,
accomplices, victims, battalions, flotillas and robberies ;
all the fabrications, calumnies and intrigues of Talley-
rand are directed against this point of the globe.
They pursue it with the united forces of the revo-
lutionary war, and the military resources which they
acquire by continued public tyranny, execution, de-
population and pillage. They have proscribed Great
Britain, as they proscribe a Bourbon, an emigrant, a
Batavian director or a Swiss landamman. Their Dutch,
Italian, Helvetian and Spanish tributaries have, at
the word of command, shut their ports, their stores
and their commerce against England. They flattered
themselves that they should cut her oft from one end
of Europe to the other ; they would set both hemi-
spheres on fire, could they but destroy their enemy in
the conflagration. And this island has supported, and
still with glory supports, the dreadful conflict. Hei

TALLEYRAND 285

dignity and her honour are unsullied as her navy and
her army. Her fleets press on every side of this
colossus of infamy and corruption, who tramples under
his ensanguined feet all who negotiate, pay, fear,
serve or caress him. It is amidst an annihilated com-
merce, blockaded ports, deserted roads, ships destroyed
or flying, that dare no longer visit the ocean but by
stealth, that the Sultan and Grand Vizier of the great
nation vent their rage and disappointment in knavery
and imprecations. While other nations basely address
them with prayers, with presents, with conferences
and diplomatic flattery, this island despises them,
combats them, surmounts danger, prospers, and re-
gards no sacrifice that is necessary for its honour or
its independence. These gloomy dreams of irresolution,
that lethargic depression, that perplexity which tortures
the Continent are here unknown ; because our liberty,
property, security, repose and hope are not founded
upon the faith of treaties digested by Talleyrand and
commanded by Bonaparte, but upon our own resources,
our own valour, our own patriotism and our own
loyalty, and because George III. has not yet saluted
Napoleon the First an Emperor of the French. But
should ever such a deplorable event take place, Great
Britain must be involved in the same disgrace, in
the same slavery, in the same misery as the Con-

236 MEMOIRS OP

tinental nations. Then, offensive or defensive, the
system of Europe will no longer be in its power.
Bonaparte as the head of the Revolution, and Talley-
as his worthy deputy, should things be suffered to
arrive at that point, will alone decide the common
destiny. You shall (they then will be enabled to say)
have peace or war as it suits our convenience, ac-
cording to the tranquillity or agitation which shall
prevail in the interior of the Republic ; according to
the obedience of the armies or the state of the
National Treasury ; according to the occasion we shall
have of diverting the attention of a vain and fickle
people with revolutionary fetes which amuse and de-
grade them, or with military triumphs which serve at
once to enslave and terrify them. Thus must con-
tinue the real and relative situation of other States
with France until a Bourbon is seated on the throne
of his ancestors. It is in vain for Europe to be in
peace with the revolutionary Government, for it will
never be so with the revolutionary spirit, which is
much more independent of the Government than the
Government is of it. Should, during a peace, a re-
bellion be effected in Great Britain or Ireland, through
the means of revolutionary propagators, can anyone
imagine that Bonaparte would be willing, or Talley-
rand advise him, to oppose it?

TALLEYRAND 287

From a work1 composed by a loyal and able
writer, who visited Paris in 1803, is extracted the
following character of Talleyrand, and the following
particulars of his conduct, all confirming what has
been stated in several parts of this publication :

" No Frenchman," it is said, " since Mirabeau was
ever so generally and so decidedly stamped with the
double character of the utmost moral depravity and
the greatest superiority in the faculties of the mind.
Mirabeau, though he signalised himself during the
Revolution as a statesman and orator, though in full
possession of popular favour, still showed great energy
and art to establish a constitutional monarchy, for he
would have nothing else ; he destroyed himself by his
extravagances and profligacy, which soon brought
him to the grave, and only the fame of his moral
turpitude has outlived him.

" This sensual, pliant Bishop of Autun was, from
the beginning of the Revolution, the friend and
companion of Mirabeau in all his debaucheries. He,
Talleyrand Perigord, descended from one of the
most ancient families of France, was the first who
resigned his clerical dignity and polluted his noble
descent to side with the Tiers Etat when they de-

I See "Bonaparte and the French People under his Con-
sulate" (London, 1804), p. 158 et seq.

288 MEMOIRS OP

manded in the National Assembly the equalisation
of all Orders, under the direction of Sieyes and
Mirabeau. He formed the Secret Committee with
Sieyes and eight other members, who drew up the
plan of the First Constitution. He was, in con-
junction with Mirabeau and Sieyes, the first founder
of the Jacobin Club, and afterwards of the new club
of Jacobins in 1789. He was the first who proposed
the general sale of all clerical property. He main-
tained that the Clergy had not the right of secular
proprietors, and that it was in the power of Govern-
ment to apply their revenues, destined to defray the
expenses of public worship, to other purposes. He
stood up as a champion against the Clergy and
Noblemen of France, who demanded the Roman
Catholic religion, the sole reigning one in France.
He endeavoured to obtain for Mirabeau, Voltaire
and Rousseau the honour of being deposited in the
Pantheon, formerly the Church of St. Genevieve.
He celebrated Mass on the altar of Liberty, in the
Field of Mars, at the grand festival of the Federa-
tion. He consecrated the colours of the departments,
and called them the sacred banners of liberty. But
as soon as the Constitutional party found itself embar-
rassed and in a precarious state, he was the first to
desert it, and had the art to obtain from the minister

TALLEYRAND 289

a secret mission to England. When he was sent out
of that country he sought an asylum with several
other emigrants in America. When his name was
discovered in those private papers of the King,
which were taken from a secret desk, and on which
the chief accusations against the unfortunate good
monarch were founded, he was put on the list of
emigrants by the National Convention. He availed
himself of a favourable moment, and induced the very
same Convention that had signed his proscription to
erase his name from the list, and to reinstate him
in all his property. He then returned to France,
and was appointed Minister of the Directory which
superseded this Convention. Sieyes, who too well
knew the episcopal renegade, came into the
Directory, and Talleyrand thought proper to retire,
loaded with immense riches. An unfortunate honest
German was substituted by him to weather the
storm which arose during the dreadful epoch of a
Directorial commission. He knew how to supplant
this man as soon as it was safe to re-enter the
Ministry.

" In conjunction with Lucien Bonaparte, his con-
fidant and companion in his debaucheries, he had
in the meantime, by secret intrigues, plotted the

return of Napoleon Bonaparte from Egypt; he,
VOL. ii 19

290 MEMOIRS OP

with the latter, prepared the blow which was to be
levelled against Barras, the first promoter of Bona-
parte's exaltation, and Sieyes, the old rival of this
ex-Bishop : they succeeded. Bonaparte stood at the
head as First Consul, and Talleyrand as Principal
Minister by his side. What he has done for the
last four years, whilst in this important office, is
sufficiently notorious ; but it is perhaps less known
that, by his example, the most infamous bribery has
been introduced into all public offices in France.
Bribery was always more frequent there than in
any other country, but some forms and decency
were still observed. It was necessary, at least, to
find out some pretext, if they wished to move the
heart of the Minister and his underlings by the
grand and universal laxative of feelings. At present
there is no need of it. The Minister and his
commissary say exactly like the French general and
his quarter-master in an enemy's country — * II
me faut tant (I must have so much). If you refuse
me, you shall have nothing, whatever your right
or claim may be.'

"It may also not be so well known abroad as
it is at Paris, that it was Talleyrand who chiefly
effected the recall of the Noblemen and Clergy. This
man, who formerly ordered the seizure of their

TALLEYRAND 2QI

property and thereby prepared their proscription, and
who so violently opposed them when they wanted
the restoration of the Catholic faith — the only one
tolerated in France — now labours himself to that very
purpose. He applied even to the Pope for a dis-
pensation to marry a woman with whom he had long
cohabited, and whom he might have married before,
like his other brothers in iniquity. He, the trum-
peting advocate of the rights of man, the most
ardent combatant against lotteries and all kinds of
gambling — he is now the chief instrument of a
Government that tramples upon the rights of all men
indiscriminately, and draws a very great income from
lotteries and licences for public gambling-houses of
all kinds. He, the worshipper of Mirabeau, Voltaire
and Rousseau, is now the handle of a despot, a
sworn enemy to those men; who hates freedom at
opinion and strives to annihilate all liberal instruction.
He may say again, as he did in his late defence, 'I
am Minister for Foreign Affairs, and have nothing
to do with the Home Department'; but everyone
who has watched him knows very well what he
chiefly aims at. Even by the most expensive and
sumptuous style in which he lives, he cannot spend
his income. He looks upon himself, therefore, with
the most purse-proud complacency, and treats every-

19 — 2

2Q2 MEMOIRS OP

body who has to deal with him with arrogance and
contempt. Foreigners of the highest rank — nay, even
foreign ladies of distinction — must be presented to
him in the same manner as to Bonaparte; and he
scarcely condescends to speak to them, despatching
them sometimes with a hum or a nod. His power
over the Chief Consul increases daily, and must
increase, as he is the only one who is thoroughly
versed in a thousand things which Bonaparte and
his nearest attendants know nothing of." l

The public and indecent bribery and corruption
mentioned above as introduced in the offices of Bona-
parte's other ministers, as well as in that under the
direction of Talleyrand, has enriched them all more
or less. A parallel has been made in France of
what they possessed formerly and what they enjoy at
present :

1789.

1804.

Income

Supposed

formerly.

income at

present.

1

Livres.

Livres.

Talleyrand, whose income could

not

pay the interest of his debts

nil

12,500,000

The Minister of War, Berthier

12,000

1,500,000

i In the last-mentioned publication it is stated (page 105)
that the power of Talleyrand and Cardinal Caprara over Bona-
parte became at Paris the subject of a caricature, representing
the miserable figure of Talleyrand, with his club feet, seizing
both hands of Bonaparte and making him dance, whilst the
smiling and simpering Cardinal is playing the fiddle.

TALLEYRAND 293

1789. 1804.

Income Supposed

formerly. income at
present.

Livres. Livres.

The Minister of Police, Foucb.61 • nil 3,600.000

The Minister of Marine, Decres - 1,400 900,000

The Minister of Interior, Chaptal - l.ooo 750,000

The Minister of Finance, Gaudin - 600 600,000
The Minister of Justice, the Grand

Judge Regnier .... 500 450,000
The Minister of Public Worship,

Portalis ... . 3,000 200,000

Of the thousands of Bonaparte's public func-
tionaries, senators, generals, legislators, tribunes,
counsellors of State, prefects, &c., not fifty possessed
before the Revolution a revenue of one thousand
livres, or ^"42; and at present some enjoy one, two,
three, and even five millions of livres yearly income,
and none less than one hundred thousand livres
(^"4,000). They have all pined in misery, rioted in
plunder, and revel now in luxury.8 For a stranger
who had known Monarchical, and who visits Repub-
lican France, it is not the least striking contrast to
observe at the balls, fetes and routs given by Talley-
rand and the other members of the revolutionary

1 For other intrigues between Fouch6 and Talleyrand, see
the sketches of their lives in " The Revolutionary Plutarch,"
vol. i.

2 See Le Voyageur Suisse, page 127. Those public functionaries
who have commanded armies, or been commissaries or deputies,
are all immensely rich.

294 MEMOIRS OF

gentry, the ci-devant Nobility and ladies of the old
Court — all ruined — mixed with their former valets,
lackeys or chamber-maids, all enriched with their
property and elevated at the expense of their rank.
But a still more curious sight is the deformed ex-
Bishop of Autun, in full regimentals, with a large
sabre at his side, presenting, in the Palace of the
Tuileries, to a Corsican sans-culottc and apostate, on
the same morning the legate from the Pope and
the ambassador of the Grand Seignior; the Russian
minister of the Greek Church and the Protestant
plenipotentiary of Prussia; the representative of the
Emperor of Germany and an envoy extraordinary
from the Bourbon reigning in Spain.

Because the former Kings of France, Louis XIII.,
Louis XIV. and Louis XV., made their ministers
cardinals, Bonaparte proposed to Talleyrand, in 1802,
to procure him the same dignity. He had, however,
given his promise to marry his mistress, Madame
Grand. When, therefore, this proposal was made,
he cunningly answered that those cardinals were
prime ministers; that the great Henry IV. had no
cardinal for a minister, but a friend in his minister
Sully. The same day he obtained the usurper's per-
mission to fulfil his engagement with Madame Grand,
who shortly afterwards became his wife.

TALLEYRAND 2Q5

The French Revolution has corroborated a general
truth which cannot be too much studied by Govern-
ments, and that is, that great convulsions in society
never originate with the people. Left to themselves,
they may act seditiously, plunge into temporary
errors, and commit transient excesses. An intoler-
able degree of oppression has sometimes excited the
sudden rising of a nation ; but never did a popular
systematic insurrection, and still less did a total
subversion of political order, ever accompany these
occasional commotions. Even in the history of the
pettiest republic, it is very rare to read of a revo-
lution spontaneously undertaken by the people, whose
fury is without foresight, whose rebellion is circum-
scribed, and whose action is too disorderly to pro-
duce anything but an anarchy, of which they soon
grow tired. This kind of storm has been known
frequently to rise and to subside by an influence of
the slightest incident.

A State begins to be in danger when an attempt
is made by men of rank and talents, as a Mirabeau
and Talleyrand, to move the people by principles and
to associate their passions with systems. If it be
easy to calm the most turbulent, it is not so to pacify
people rendered reasoners and made enthusiasts in
their errors. All is lost in republics when orators,

296 MEMOIRS OF

demagogues and factious men make themselves mas-
ters of this terrible instrument, shape it, and direct
it to the ruin of established institutions. All is lost
in monarchies when the great and powerful bodies,
and the classes above the people, stimulate their
passions, entice them into the execution of their
plots, make use of their delirium, flatter their in-
terests, and cause them to effect, without their having
a suspicion of it, a subversion premeditated by their
corruptors. The French Revolution would never have
acquired its organised and frightful character if un-
principled, ambitious and profligate men among the
superior orders of society had not led the people into
the path of guilt, and had not trained their under-
standings as well as their hands to it. They perverted
them by harangues and maxims ; they encouraged
them by their example; and while they secured them
with impunity, they chained them to a perpetual
revolution by the terror of chastisement on the return
of order and of the laws.

The end of this farrago of horrors — of popular
murders, of prisoners butchered, of palaces reduced
to ashes, of houses burnt, of tombs profaned, of pro-
perty ravaged, of innocence proscribed, of guilt ele-
vated, of hanging, drowning and shooting — is, finally,
that the conquering Revolution has destroyed the philo-

TALLEYRAND 2Q7

Revolution. The people now consider their
pretended deliverers as hypocritical executioners, and
feel horror at a liberty and equality which made their
appearance in the pillage of churches, in the most
infamous outrages against morals and public opinion,
and in the cruellest devastations of every description.
They therefore patiently support slavery after licen-
tiousness, and submit quietly to tyranny after having
suffered so much from anarchy. Talleyrand and
other French philosophers and friends of liberty are
now happy in securely dragging their existence in
the most debased bondage, after having escaped the
scaffolds which their conspiracy, in the name of
liberty, erected, and the daggers it sharpened sixteen
years ago. He and they were then the free subjects
of a legitimate and virtuous King ; and he and they
are now the most oppressed slaves of the most
despicable and barbarous usurper that ever tormented,
afflicted, or dishonoured humanity. May the example
of France not be lost to other countries, where the
ambitious may intrigue, the factious plot, profligacy
seduce, or craft delude 1

That Talleyrand would willingly sign the ruin of
France were he certain that that of Great Britain
would follow, even every Frenchman believes. As
long as a revolutionary Government is the plague

2g8 MEMOIRS OF

of France, war is the only security of England.
Of this (it cannot be too often repeated) he is well
aware, and therefore never ceases to hold out his
treacherous olive-branch of peace. The last com-
munications from the Continent state that he has
again made proposals to the Courts of Vienna and
Berlin for a congress of general pacification, where
not only the political, but naval balance of power is
to be discussed and regulated. Our ministers are
too wise and too patriotic to listen to such over-
tures, made only to ensnare us or to embroil us
with our Continental friends.

It has often been remarked by nice observers
that there is a blind impulse which, in times of
great events, force men in spite of themselves to
the point which they are labouring to avoid, and
by the very road they take to run from it. This
impulse, which results from the invincible nature of
things, is the prime minister of the universe and
the executive power of Providence. Its influence has
determined most of the great events of the French
Revolution, and, pressing upon its leaders full as
much as upon its victims, has chained the former to
a round of crimes and the latter to a series of
errors and inconsistencies. The present war between
England and France is a memorable instance of this

TALLEYRAND 299

contradiction given to prudence by natural necessity.
Neither Bonaparte's interest, power and threats;
Talleyrand's wishes, perfidy and professions ; nor the
sincere desire of the British Cabinet to avoid another
war, could prevent a rupture.

France must soon be delivered of one of her
great criminals, and England of one of her most
inveterate foes. By debauchery, intemperance and
gluttony, Talleyrand's constitution is entirely broken,
and his health destroyed. Neither yearly journeys
to the coast for bathing in the sea, nor yearly visits
to the mineral springs at Aix-la-Chapelle and Ba-
reuge ; neither the prescriptions of the faculty, nor
the drugs of quacks, can long prevent a dissolu-
tion which continual excesses must hasten. "Da
mihi, Domine, mortem justi hujus," said Talleyrand,
when he heard last summer that the Senator Fargues
had expired suddenly in the arms of his mistress.
This is an authentic confession of his present religious
as well as moral notions : as he has lived profligate,
he prays to die unrepenting.

Nature had bestowed on Talleyrand a first-rate
genius. An early entrance into society procured
him an early knowledge of mankind, and supplied
the improvements others obtain by assiduous applica-
tion and by profound meditations. Having, with the

300 MEMOIRS OF

most vicious propensities, the duties of his order as
an ecclesiastic to observe, or at least to guard the
appearance of them, hypocrisy first became necessary,
and afterwards habitual. Club-footed from his birth,
he studied to banish the sense of his deformity
by insinuating manners, obliging attentions, and an
agreeable conversation. Ambitious to please, he ac-
quired an easy penetration to discover whether he
could ascribe his success to his merit or his rank ; or
his miscarriage to want of adroitness on his part, or
want of discrimination in his companions. By degrees
he accustomed himself to draw acute and accurate con-
clusions, more from what he observed in the mind
than heard from the discourses or professions of those
with whom he associated. Duplicity was then added
to hypocrisy, and treachery to both. He carried,
therefore, with him into office all the vices, all the
qualities, all the habits which in times of trouble,
of rebellion, of revolution, make men conspicuous
for eminence ; but which, in orderly and regular
times, under moral and lawful governments, would
make them shunned as dangerous, despised as
contemptible, or punished as wicked. The im-
morality of his private life accompanied him in his
public station. His policy has therefore been fraud;
his conferences, deceptions; his negotiations, intrigues;

TALLEYRAND 30!

his agreements, impostures ; his promises, infidelities ;
and his treaties, acts to delude the unwary, to dupe
the unsuspicious, to crush the weak, to humble '
the elevated, to plunder the rich, to enslave the
free, to rule the powerful, and to oppress and
tyrannise over them all — the strongest and best guarded
State, as well as the most defenceless community,
those who confided in his justice or generosity, or
those who trusted only to their own valour or re-
sources.

Of former French ministers, he possesses the
financial abilities of a Sully, the political capacity
and duplicity of a Richelieu, the cunning and
cupidity of a Mazarin, the commercial knowledge
of a Colbert, the insensibility and cruelty of Louvois,
the profligacy and depravity of Dubois, the method
and perspicuity of Fleury, the penetration of Choiseul,
the suppleness of Maurepas, and the activity of
Vergennes. Though, from haughtiness, he affects to
depend upon his secretaries and inferiors for trans-
acting the chief business of his office, nothing
escapes his attention. With great facility, he decides
in some few hours what has puzzled the com-
prehension of others for a week.

Education unfolds talents received from the hand
of Nature ; but their adaptation to time, and their

302 MEMOIRS OP

just application to extraordinary junctures, are the
work of Reason, cultivated and enlightened by
Experience. There were, no doubt, in France great
generals, statesmen, and men of genius sixteen
years ago ; but they wanted the lesson of adversity,
the examples of the triumphs of the Revolution, the
secrets of its strength, and the use of the weapons
proper to offend or to oppose it.

But of what benefit to civilised society have all
Talleyrand's natural and acquired talents been ?
What advantage have his contemporaries derived,
or can future ages expect, from his high station,
mighty influence, decisive transactions, and all-
powerful achievements? Have they procured for
France liberty and happiness, and other nations
tranquillity and safety? Open the map of the
world, and not a country is found in which France,
under his ministry, has not committed some de-
vastation, infringed some treaty, or violated some
principle of the law of nations.

Periere mores, jus, decus, pietas, fides;
Et, qui redire nescit cum perit, pudor I

SKWXCA.

APPENDIX

LETTERS FROM THE BARONESS DE S

TO M. TALLEYRAND.

(See Vol. I., p. 334.)

" JE n'ai pas pa commencer ma lettre ce matin, j'ltois dans
un e"tat qui me mettoit dans 1'impossibilite absolue d'ecrire, et
puis je fis un plan que je voulois auparavant exe"cuter, et je 1'ai
fait I — les viola de nouveau detruites toutes mes douces esperances
de bonheur I J'osois encore une fois me livrer a 1'idee que je
pourrai etre heureuse; c'etoit une folie, je devois savoir qu'il ne
peut plus exister de bonheur pour moi dans le monde. Je
voulois jouir de la paix, du contentement, des plaisirs purs qui
ne peuvent etre que la recompense de la vertu. Quelle extrava-
gance 1 j'en suis bien punie — et par qui ? Par celui qui avoit
fait naitre un espoir trop flateur, par celui qui avoit ranime mon
ame abattue, par celui qui je croyois me rendroit ce bonheur
perdu depuis longtems, ce calme interieur, cette estime de moi-
merne, qui me rendroit enfin tout ce que ma malheureuse destinee
m'a fait perdre. Charles, je ne te fais pas de reproches, je n'en
ai point a te faire, je suis malheureuse, plus malheureuse que je
1'ai jamais 6ti, mais je n'en prends qu'a moi-meme, au passe" que
je ne puis pas aneantir ! Cependant il est vrai si je merite mes
peines je ne me"ritois pas tout ce que contient ta lettre; non,
Dieu m'est temoin, je ne le meritois pas. Te dire ce que m'a
fait e"prouver ta cruelle lettre, non, je ne le puis. J'Stais au
comble du bonheur par celle que j'avois recu bier de toi ; je suis
a present au comble de la tristesse. Le passe me fait meriter
que tu me juge comme tu 1'as fait, le passe me faisoit meriter
cette punition affreuse, mais grand Dieu, qui connoit le fond de

T

304 APPENDIX

mon ame, tu sais que 1'amour avoit £ present 6pur6 mon coenr
tu sais que j'avois repris plus que jamais le desir ardent d'etre
sage et honnete; oui, Dieu salt que par toi, par mon amour
vrai, tendre, par mon amour extreme pour toi, j'etois sur le
point de redevenir ce que malheureusement j'avois cesse d'etre;
par la destinee la plus bizarre, avec une ame faite pour la vertu,
je croyois avoir trouve dans 1'amant bien-aim6 un ami tendre et
indulgent, qui seroit £ 1'avenir mon guide, qui m'offriroit une
main secourable pour me ramener sur le chemin de la vertu •
et cette main secourable, helas ! elle-meme pourroit me pousser
dans un abime. Pour revenir au bien il faut regagner un peu
1'estime de soi-meme, il falloit, comme tu 1'avois fait, me faire
voir que malgr6 mes fautes passees, il y a un fond de bien en
moi qui, grace i V amour et & I'amitie, pourroit me rendre capable
de reparer le passe — et toi, au contraire, dans ta derniere lettre
tu me dis que mon caractere est alt£r6, tu me dis que je ne suis
qu'une fern me sensuelle, qui ne peut vivre sans amant, qui n'est
guid6 que par son temperament ; tu me dis que j'aime mieux le
jeune homme qu'ainsi mon amour pour toi n'est qu'un jeu,
que je ne te regarde que comme un objet qui pourra faire
oublier au monde ma liaison avec — — . Voili comme tu
m'avilis, comme tu me rabaisses, comme tu juges ce sentiment si
pur, si vrai, qui m'animoit pour toi. Ah, mon Dieu I avois-je
m6rit£ cette peine, cette humiliation ? Vois ce que tu pourrois
faire de moi ; c'est par toi que j'ai appris que ma reputation est
entierement detruite, mais ton estime, ta bonne opinion de moi,
m'en consoloit ; a present, je sais que tu ne m'estimes plus, je sait
enfin que personne ne m'estime plus, tu m'a rabaiss6 4 mes
propres yeux. Si j'etois cette femme seulement dirig6 par les
sens comme tu le crois tu m'auroit ot£ tout le frein qui pourrois
me retenir. Meprise'e de tout le monde, mdprisable a mes
propres yeux, tu m'exposes au danger de le devenir plus que
jamais. Mais non 1 un sentiment me ranime, c'est celui que,
malgre' tout le passed je vaux mieux que tu ne pense. Je ne tiens
pas aux sens comme tu le crois; j'ai la tete, 1'imagination beau-
coup plus ardente, beaucoup plus vive que les sens, et tout ce
que j'ai fait a £te beaucoup plus un egarement de tete que des

APPENDIX 305

sens. Mon plus grand defaut est d'avoir an grand desir de
plaire; la vanite est pour moi le veritable ecueil que j'aurois a
craindre, mais mou amour si vrai, si tendre pour toi, m'en
auroit preserve a 1'avenir.

" Pour ce qui regarde le jeune homme, je t'avois parle en
detail de ma liaison avec lui, pour ne manquer en rien a la parfaite
sincerity que je t'avois promise et que j'ai cru te devoir. Au reste,
si j'ai dit que j'avois ete trop facile a lui accorder des favours, j'ai
parle des commencemens de notre liason, j'ai eie unie a lui moins
pour mon bonheur que pour le sien, je jouirois de le voir si heureux,
et c'est cela ce qui sourtout me rendoit un peu trop facile pour lui,
mais depuis longtems cette facilite n'existoit plus, et depuis que je
t'aime ma liaison avec lui m'a ete un veritable supplice. Je ne
savois comment la rompre d'abord tout a fait, sans le rendre bien
malheureux, mais je n'ai plus trouv6 un moment de jouissance avec
lui, au contraire ; enfin ce qui est bien vrai, c'est que, loin de 1'aimer
plus que toi, je sens dans ces cruels momens que je t'aime plus que
j'ai jamais aime un etre dans le monde, et qu'en renoncant a toi, je
renonce a mon seul bonheur, et cependant — oui cependant — O mon
Dieu, je le vois — il faut que je renonce a toi I je le vois avec
desespoir, ma main ne le trace qu'en tremblant, mon cceur est
serre, mes yeux obscurcis par les larmes — je vois qu'il faut que je
renonce a toi, mais ne crois pas que c'est pour appartenir au jeune
homme ; non, je renonce aussi 4 lui, et cela n'est pas un sacrifice ;
au contraire je ne pourrais plus etre a lui, d'abord apres avoir lu
cette lettre fatale, j'ai forme un plan, et je 1'ai execute — j'ai fait
venir un m6decin, je lui ai parl£ de mon corps, qui a pris une forme
si singuliere depuis mes couches ; ensuite j'ai fait venir le jeune
homme, je lui ai dit que le medecin m'avoit donne pour raison de
cet accident a mon corps, que les parties intSrieures n'avoient pas
repris leur ton, et qu'il seroit a souhaiter pour .moi, que je reste
quelque terns sans avoir des enfans ; apres lui avoir dit cela, je lui
ai demande comme une recompense de tout ce que j'ai fait pour Ini,
comme la preuve d'une veritable tendresse, de renoncer pour
quelques terns a des jouissances qui pourroient avoir des suites
funestes pour moi. II fut effray£ et triste, mais il ne balanca
pas un instant a se resigner a on sacrifice que lui parut si

VOL. ii 20

306 APPENDIX

necessaire par ce que je lui avois dit. Je jure & la face de Dieu,
que depuis notre derniere entrevue il ne m'a pas touch6 ; je jure
que jamais je ne serai plus pour lui ce que j'ai etc.

"Je ne dis pas cela pour te regagner; non, Charles, je le
sens que je renonce au plus grand bonheur, mais comme tu me
jugeje ne puis aussi etre desormais que ton amie. Tu me crois
d'un temperament qui me rendent les plaisirs de 1'amour un
veritable besoin — dans tes bras j'aurois la crainte affreuse que
loin que tu puisse croire que tes jouissances te seroient donnas
par le veritable amour, tu ne les devoient qu'a mes sens. • Je
n'oserois pas le faire voir dans ces momens ni ma tendresse ni
mon plaisir, je craindrois trop une conclusion trop humiliante,
trop injuste pour moi ; et puis tu ne m'estime pas assez pour me
croire vrai. Malgre ce que je t'ai dis et ce que je pourrai te
dire, tu ne croira pas que ma liaison avec le jeune homme a
cesse, et ces doutes — je ne les supporteroient pas; enfin il faut
me resigner a mon sort ; la felicit6 d'un amour vrai, pur, et
tendre, n'est plus fait pour moi — trop heureuse si un jour je puis,
pour prix de mes peines actuelles, regagner une meilleure opinion
de toi. Pour cet hyver, dois-je le passer loin de toi ? O mon
Dieu, apres de si douces esperances serois-je si malheureuse ?
Vois ce qui fait a present 1'objet de mes desirs, si tu peut con-
sentir a ce que je te propose, je serai moins malheureuse; viens
ici, mais comme mon ami; ne me quitte pas un seul instant,
observe toujours ma conduite ; observe mes moindres actions ;
et si pendant tout le terns tu trouve que je ne suis plus a lui,
et que de meme je puis rester sans etre a toi, a 1'objet de toute
ma tendresse, alors tu finira peut-etre par avouer que je ne suis
pas 1'esclave des sens, et je puis encore esperer pour I'avcnir
quelque bonheur. Mais si tu ne peux etre avec moi comme ami,
alors je ne sais que faire, car je ne dois, je ne puis, je ne veux
pas etre ton amante jusqu'au moment ou avec une persuasion
intime tu pourra me dire, ' Cordelie, j'etois injuste pour toi, tu
n'est pas une creature qui ne tient qu'aux vils plaisirs des sens
— tu est de nouveau digne de ma tendresse et de ma confiance.'
II s'est trouv£ une occasion pour t'envoyer cette lettre, je n'ai
pu attendre le courier: par pitie respond moi, et dit si tu veux

APPENDIX 307

accepter la proposition qui est mon unique espoir. (Je te conjure,
respond moi par 1'homme qui t'apport cette lettre.)

" Pourra tu lire cette lettre ? j'ai 6t6 si saisie en 1'ecrivant que
I'ecriture est a peine lisible. Adresse ta lettre par le porteur de
celle-ci a mon mari, et sois sure que, malgre 1'adresse, personne
ne 1'ouvrira que moi."

•• Ce Lundi.

"Je ne voulois pas prendre hier les drogues que le medecin
m'avoit ordonne — helas ! me disois-je, a quoi bon tous ces remedes ?
la source du mal est dans mon cceur — mais mon mari m'y forca
enfin par ses instances reite're'es. Je ne sais si c'est cependant
1'effet de la medecine, ou si le chagrin a cede enfin £ la nature
£puisee, j'ai dormi cette nuit quelques heures, et j'ai pu me lever
ce matin a mon heure ordinaire, au lieu que hier je fus obligee
de raster presque tout le jour au lit. Aujourd'hui en me reVeillant
j'etois d'abord toute confuse, je n'avois pas un sentiment distinct
de ce qui depuis quelques jours me rend si malheureuse, mais
mes tristes id£es, mes cruels souvenirs ne revinrent que trop
t6t. O Charles! pourquoi pour prix de ma tendresse pour toi
m'a-tu condamne au malheur ? pourquoi te refuse-tu a toi-meme
d'etre heureux quand tu pourrois 1'etre ? h^las ! 1'arret que tu a
prononce seroit-il irrevocable ? — oui, il Test sans doute ; car, je le
repete, il faudroit qu'une puissance celeste te fasse lire dans mon
ame, il faudroit qu'elle t'eclaire, qu'elle te fasse distinguer la
verit^ du mensonge — toi seul tu ne le peut pas, je ne le sens que
trop, tu ne peut savoir quand la malheureuse Cord61ie a 6t6 vrai —
peut-etre son artifice te paraitra-t-il la ve'rite', la veiit6 un men-
songe. Qu'ai-je fait en Scrivant ces lettres fatales ? O Charles !
pourquoi ce doute, et quand j'etois si vraie, te refusoit-tu a me
croire ? pourquoi alors toujours ces dontes cruels qui m'6toient si
affligeans ! — tes doutes, tes soupcons vinrent si souvent me troubler
dans le sein meme des plaisirs ; dans les momens ou je me sentois
la plus heureuse, tu revenois toujours a me les t£moigner, a me dire
des phrases qui blessoient cruellement mon cceur : a Stillbeckens, O
Dieu ! a Stillbeckens, ou je jouissois d'un si grand bonheur, tu m'a
cependant fait verser des larmes ameres ; t'en souviens-tu, cher et

308 APPENDIX

cruel ami ? Je me disois £ moi-meme que nous ne serions jamaia
parfaitement heureux si je ne parvenois pas a 1'inspirer une confiance
si necessaire en amour et en amitie. Je voulois acheter cette con-
fiance a tout prix. Voila ce qui me donna la funeste idee de
m'accuser moi-meme, • il ne me croira, me disois-je, que lorsque je
m'avouerai coupable, mon apparente sincerite me fera obtenir enfin
sa confiance, dont je ne puis me passer.' Cependant je ne pouvois
pas me resigner a te laisser croire que je partagerai toujours mes
faveurs. Voila pourquoi je te demandois des conseils dont je
n'avois que faire — j'aurois dit ensuite, que je les avois suivies, et
j'esperois qn'alors, ayant enfin vaincus tes soup?ons par mes aveux,
tu aurois fini par me croire pour 1'avenir sincere. J'6tois loin de
penser que tu me conseillerois de renoncer a toi. Lorsque je re9us
cette lettre qui me montra combien mes calculs avoient etoient faux,
comme j 'avois par ce malheureux mensonge detruit tout mon bon-
heur, alors j'etois au desespoir — je ne savois plus que dire, qui faire ;
dire la ve"rite* ; dire que j 'avois menti en te faisant ces aveux imagi-
naires, c'est ce que je n'osois, de crainte que tu prendroit cela pour
un nouvel artifice. Encore une fois, pour en eViter 1'apparences,
j'en imaginois, je disois avoir dit au jeune homme ce que je lui
avois dit depuis longtems; a present et trop tard — je reviens
a la ve"rite — mais a present je sais que c'est en vain, je sais que
tu ne pourra plus me croire. Surtout en t'e"crivant la seconde
de ces deux malheureuses lettres j 'avois le cceur si serre, il me
sembloit que je pressentois les suites que ces lettres pourroient
avoir. Mais plus j'y pensois, et plus je persistois £ croire que
ce seroit le seul moyen de paroitre vraie i tes yeux. C'est ainsi
que j'ai fait moi-meme mon malheur — mais je n'en suis pas
seule la cause — O Charles ! tes soupcons, ta malheureuse cruelle
defiance y a beaucoup de part. Je serois moins de"sesperee si
j'e"tois seule a plaindre, mais 6 toi, 6 toi, mon bien-aimee, toi
pour lequel aucun sacrifice ne me paroitroit pe"nible, dont
j'aimerois assurer le contentement a tout prix, 6 Charles, tu
partage 1'horreur de ma destinee ! — et nous pourrions etre si
heureux 1 — tout nous favorisoit d'ailleurs ! — avec tout cela — non,
avec tout cela je n'ose me livrer a aucun espoir — Que con.
tiendra ta lettre de Jeudi ? . . . Charles, je suis plus de sang-

APPENDIX 3Og

froid que hier, je suis toujours triste, malheureuse au-deli de
toute expression, mais ce que je dis, et plus encore que hier,
dicte par la reflexion, et je persiste & tt dire, si tu ne veux pas
m'accorder la derniere faveur que j 'implore de toi, si tu veux
me quitter sans m'avoir revu une seule fois, alors oubliant tout
ce qui pourroit me retenir, je pars, je te suis en tout lieux,
je serai capable d'abandonner mon enfant, mon mari, d'aban-
donner tout pour toi ; mais rester sans t'avoir revue, rester
toujours livree £ ce desespoir affreux, c'est au-dessus des forces
humaines. Dieu sait que je ne le puis. — Charles, Charles, prend
pitie de moi, ne m'abandonne pas au malheur, au desespoir,
aux remords. O Charles, une femme qui t'aime avec un senti-
ment sans bornes, une femme qui n'a d'autre torts avec toi
que d'avoir menti par une intention qui n'etoit pas criminelle,
merite-t-elle que tu la condamne a un £ternel malheur ? Si c'est
ainsi, si 1'arret est irrevocable, prie Dieu alors qu'il finira bien-

tot la triste existence de la malheureuse

" CORDELIB."

" Ce Dimanche.

" TON depart de G est ainsi fix£ : tu vas t'eloigner

de moi, et sans m'avoir revu ! Apres avoir recu cette nouvelle,
il est terns que je t'ecrive pour la derniere fois sur un sujet
si important pour notre bonheur. II m'en coutera beaucoup
d'etre en l'£crivant si calme qu'il est necessaire ; malgr6
tous les efforts que je tache de faire sur moi-meme, la main
me tremble, et mes idees se confondent. Charles, je te le
repete c'est pour la derniere fois que je tacherai de parler
a ton cceur. Si c'est en vain, je me condamne au silence ; je me
soumet a mon sort que tu aura decide. Je te prie de lire ce que je
vais te dire avec reflexion, de le retire souvent, et de ne pas te presser
de prononcer mon arret. Je n'espere cependant rien de cette
lettre. Non, non, je n'espere rien; ta resolution est sans doute
tout-a-fait inebranlable ; oui, je le vois plus que jamais, tu est
decide a rompre ce tendre lien qui nous unissoit, qui nous
rendoit si heureux. Je tacherai d'examiner de sangfroid les
raisons qui font port6 £ cette funeste resolution. N'est-ce pas

3IO APPENDIX

avant toute chose le bonheur et 1'honneur de Cordelie? Onl.
ce sont des motifs si tendres, si honorables, si purs, qui te
portent surtout au sacrifice auquel tu t'es resign^ et auquel tu
veuz me soumetre. Je les honore ces motifs, mais prends
garde, Charles, de n' avoir pas fait un faux calcul, si, en voulant
faire mon bonheur, tu me plonge dans un abime; si un jour,
malgr£ tes intentions louables, tu aurois les plus cruels reproches
i te faire ; si tu aurois pu me rendre une personne heureuse et
estimable, et que c'est toi peut-etre qui me condamne au mal-
heur, et qui, en voulant me ramener au bien, m'en eloigne peut-
etre plus que jamais — prends garde de ne pas me preparer un
avenir affreuz. Tes conseils sont excellens, ta morale tres-pure,
mais, helas ! je ne puis plus les suivre. Charles 1 Charles 1 une
passion violente et invincible me consume. Tu me dis que je
dois chercher mon bonheur en remplissant les devoirs d'epouse,
d'amante, et de mere. Pour les derniers je les reconnois, je
tacherai de les remplir ; mais pour ceux d'epouse et d'amante, il
n'y plus des pareils devoirs pour moi — je te le jure, il m'est
impossible d'etre an jeune homme, et je n'y vois aucun avan-
tage ni pour lui ni pour moi, et s'il y en auroit, mon coeur
s'oppose absolument. Je ne sais d'ailleurs quel est le devoir
qui me forceroit, malgrl tons ces sentimens de mon coeur,
d'etre a lui. Seroit-ce 4 cause de lui? Nous nous convenons
trop pen pour le caractere, pour tout enfin. II lui en coutera
un moment de renoncer pour jamais & moi, mais il en sera plus
heureuz a 1'avenir pour Julie. II n'y a aucun interet de mon
enfant qui puisse m'y obliger, de mon enfant qui n'ose meme
jamais se douter qu'il est 1'auteur de ses jours ; et pour moi, pour
moi en un mot, je ne le pourrois, et si tous les motifs qui peuvent
m'en dispenser n'ezistoient pas. Je ne pourrai ainsi pas, comme
tu le pense, trouver des consolations et du bonheur dans une
union fond£ sur le devoir, car cette union n'ezistera pas. Je
resterai ainsi triste et isolee, consumee d'une passion sans bornes,
me disant que j 'aurois pu etre si heureuse — 1'ame dechiree par les
regrets, par le desirs infructueux — ma jeunesse, ma sante, ma
vie, va fletrir — mais ce n'est pas le plus grand malheur auquel
ta m'expose, ta me fait courir les risques d'un malheur bien plus

APPENDIX 311

grand. Si pour m'arracher & one situation insupportable, si pour
chasser les souvenirs qui me consument, si mon ame ayant perdu
le reste de 1'energie que 1'amour heureux lui auroit donne — si.
enfin, je risque de redevenir un jour plus meprisable que je n'ai
jamais etc — Charles ! ce sera alors ton seul ouvrage. Si, au
contraire, j'aurois pu etre & toi, je n'aurois pas ete seulement
heureuse, 6 je serai devenue si estimable, que tu aurois
pu, malgr£ mes egaremens passes, me trouver digne de toi,
c'est alors que j'aurois remplie les devoirs d'epou$e et d'amante
avec transport et dans toute leur etendues, 1'amour m'auroit rendu
1'exercice de toutes le vertus si faciles. O mon Dieu ! Charles,
ne voudra-tu pas prendre pitie de mo: — tu crois travailler pour
mon bonheur, mais tu te trompe, et je suis la victime de cette
funeste erreur — ou est-ce pour toi-meme que tu veuz rompre le
lien qui nous unissoit ? Me trouve-tu trop indigne de toi, ou ne
veux-tu pas courir les risques de partager le bonheur avec un
autre ? O Charles, si j'ai et6 indigne de toi, je veux consacrer
ma vie entiere & le re'parer. Pardonne, homme genereux, ami
tendre et sensible, pardonne le passe, et mit moi en etat de
1'effacer par ma conduite a 1'avenir — pour partager ta Cordelie
avec un autre, tu peut t'en persuader, ne me quitte pas en seul
instant ; je te jure de rester toujours sous tes yeux quand
tu est ici ; des petits voyages, je pourrois les faire avec to!
— mon Dieu, tu peux te persuader par toi-meme, ne t'y refuse
pas, 6 ne fait pas mon malheur. Ecoute si tu ne peux te re-
soudre a passer 1'hyver avec moi, si tu me condamne absolu-
ment a ce cruel sacrifice, alors ne met pas le comble £ mon
malheur, reste dans quelque endroit qui ne soit pas trop loin
d'ici, je te jure que sans ta permission je ne veux pas t'y aller
rejoindre; au moins pour le premier ne part pas trop loin, tache
de gagner du terns pour reflechir avec plus de calrae ; non, il est
impossible que ton ame soit assez tranquille pour que tu puisse
parfaitement juger notre situation — si tu te trompe, si tu aurois
pu me rendre bonne et heureuse, et que ce sera toi qui fera mon
malheur, pourra-tu te le pardonner ? Ce n'est que pour cet
hyver — ensuite tu pourroit emmener Cordelie loin d'ici, quels
sont les odieux devoirs qui devroient me retenir? — re'ellement je

312 APPENDIX

n'en vois attain, et pour cet hjrver, tu peux done te persuader
par ta presence, par ta chere presence, ou n'y auroit-il pas moyen
d'e"loigner quand il se porte mieux, pour te tranquilliser parfaite-
ment, le jeune homme? — trouve un moyen de me rendre . . .,
de me rendre mon bonheur; non, je ne puis vivre sans toi: je
fais tous les efforts possibles par moi-meme, mais en vain ; prends
garde, je le repete, de ne pas te pr£parer d'e"ternels repentirs.

"Au moins pour dernier bienfait, ne part pas trop loin — je
ne le supporterai pas; tu ne pourra pas lire cette lettre, elle te
dira plus de ma sante que tout ce que je puis t'en dire — je ne
puis pas tenir la plume. Tu me reprochera peut-etre ainsi d'etre
malade, tu me dira qu'il est de mon devoir de me menager —
helas ! j'en ai la bonne volont6. Dieu sait que je fait mon pos-
sible— mais malgre' moi-meme, je suis dans un e"tat affreux : toi
seul peut m'en tirer.

"Adieu, Charles, je ne veux plus t'affligir; je finis et pour
toujours de te parler de mes peines affreuses — tu ne les apprendra
plus par des vaines paroles — tu les apprendra peut-etre un jour
par les cruelles suites qu'elles pourroit avoir pour moi — mais je
te le jure, je ne t'en parlera plus.

"Adieu, Charles, adieu, tu vas done me quitter — sois heureux
— Corddie fera tout pour ne pas troubler ton bonheur — elle ne te
parlera plus de son chagrin. Adieu, adieu, mon cher, mon bien-
aime, mon tout, adieu, adieu 1"

THE END

A 000 048 1 9