Memoirs of the Duchesse de Dino Part 22

de Talleyrand's mind.

_Valencay, September 20, 1835._--General Sebastiani has been nearly blown up in Manchester Square in London. A new Fieschi had deposited an infernal machine there with the result that one poor woman was injured. There are as yet no further particulars. There is nothing but crime and mystery in these days!

M. Royer-Collard spoke to us yesterday of his last speech in the Chamber of Deputies. He said that if he had held his peace he would have thought himself dishonoured, that he would rather have had himself carried to the tribune than be silent in a situation in which the glory of his whole life was at stake, and finally that he would be dead now if he had not spoken and that the only reason he is not better than he is, is that he did not manage to express all that he was thinking.

I was bold enough to touch on the subject of the Cours Prevotales[56]

at the time of the second Restoration, for which he has been so much blamed lately, and M. Royer-Collard replied: "It is true that I, with several Councillors of State, was appointed to examine the Bill before the Minister introduced it in the Chamber. M. Cuvier and I opposed it in principle and secured many modifications in detail. M. de Marbois, who was then Garde des Sceaux, and who did not like the law, wished it to be introduced in the Chamber by people who were opposed to it, and appointed me Government Commissary without consulting me. I did not know what had been done till I saw the _Moniteur_ and I complained bitterly. I did not appear in the Chamber as Commissary during the discussion of the law, and I defy any one to quote a word I ever said in its favour." He added that M. Guizot, then Secretary-General at the Ministry of Justice, should not have contented himself with being so good as to quote to his colleagues in the present Cabinet the _Moniteur_ which contained his name. He should at the same time have explained how it happened. If this accusation had been made in the Chamber instead of merely in the Ministerial press M. Royer-Collard would have ascended the tribune to give the true version of the matter.

[56] In 1789 the Cours Prevotales were tribunals empowered to punish summarily and without appeal certain crimes and offences defined by an Ordinance of 1731. Under the Consulate and the Empire exceptional jurisdictions were established under the same name to deal with desertions, mutiny, political offences and smuggling. The Cours Prevotales of the Restoration were composed of Judges of Courts of first instance, and were directed by a Prevot, a superior officer of the army. These Courts from 1815 to 1817 took cognisance of offences against the public safety and acted retrospectively; they were an instrument of Reaction and Political vengeance.

He is sorry to have wounded M. Thiers by his speech, which was not aimed at him, and he would have liked to be able to make an exception in his favour.

M. Royer-Collard, who has not always either thought or spoken well of King Louis-Philippe, has changed his mind to a remarkable extent. Last night, _a propos_ of the fine portrait of the King which is here, he said he had gone up very much in his opinion, more than he was willing to admit to himself, so great was the contradiction between his past and present opinions on this point, and between his reason and his prejudices.

_Valencay, September 21, 1835._--M. de Talleyrand was rea.s.sured for a day or two by the conscientious and satisfactory report of Bretonneau, but has now relapsed into anxieties about his health. He admits that he thinks of nothing else and says that the cause lies in his state of mind, which is depressed and weary. Yesterday evening when I went back to his room I found him reading a medical book, studying the subject of heart disease, and fancying he had a polypus. Yet he suffers very little, only at long intervals, and then not without a purely natural cause. It is clear to me (and I know something about it) that he has an attack of nerves. He had no experience of this protean malady. He denied its existence in others and now he is a victim himself and will not admit it.

They say that General Alava has been appointed President of the Council at Madrid. He has been saying for the last year that he only accepted the mission to London because the Duke of Wellington was in office. He remained in spite of the Duke's resignation because, he said, Martinez de la Rosa was Premier at Madrid. The reason why he did not retire along with Martinez de la Rosa was, he explained, because Toreno was also his friend! He led the English Legion he had raised in London to Spain in person, after having sworn to declare for Don Carlos on the day the Queen Regent should summon a single foreigner to defend her cause, and finally he seems to have been placed at the head of the Spanish Cabinet by Mendezabal, whom he once drove out of his house as a rascal and a thief! This, it must be confessed, is to push the logic of inconsistency to its furthest limits!

_Valencay, September 22, 1835._--This is the first occasion for twenty years that I have spent this anniversary[57] away from M. de Talleyrand. He went away yesterday to the Conseil General at Chateauroux. I remained alone here with the generation which is destined to succeed him. This gave rise to one or two reflections, among which was that when M. de Talleyrand departs this life I should come here very seldom--not that I fear that I should not be well treated, but the memories of the past would make everything painful to me, and that the contrast which even yesterday was visible would become more marked. I did not feel that it was my business to manage and carry on the salon. It was not my house, and I longed for wings in order to fly to Rochecotte.

[57] September 22 is the day of Saint Maurice, the patron Saint of M. de Talleyrand.

M. Mennechet, up to the present time editor of _la Mode_, a Carlist paper, and defamatory on principle, says, "Just fancy; for five years I have been leading forlorn hopes on behalf of the Prague people and I have only had two letters from them, one from King Charles X. bitterly complaining of the caricatures of Louis-Philippe which we had sent him and which he ordered us to stop, and the other from Madame la Dauphine who two months ago wrote me a very severe letter, sending me back my paper and saying that she would give up her subscription because we had published an article in which it was said that we had seen or received a letter containing good news about the Duc de Bordeaux." M.

Mennechet, much distressed by these two letters, has resigned the editors.h.i.+p. I think the letters are very reasonable and very creditable to the writers.

_Valencay, September 23, 1835._--I am impatiently awaiting M. de Talleyrand's return from Chateauroux. Though he has become depressed and irritable, his presence does good here. It fills this great castle, and maintains good conversation and manners. Moreover, when he is here I feel there is a reason for my presence.

_Valencay, September 24, 1835._--Bretonneau's diagnosis is justified.

M. de Talleyrand has returned from Chateauroux revived and pleased with the reception of the Prefect and the enthusiasm of the whole town as well as by the success of the road in which he is interested.

Madame Adelade writes that the King's expedition to the town of Eu has been not only good for his health but gratifying to him personally and to all his family. The testimonies of affection which he received all along the way were impossible to describe.

Pepin was at last recaptured on the morning of the 22nd. This also I learn from Madame, but she had only just heard, and gives no details.

M. de Rigny is said to be at Toulon, which proves that he has not been successful in his negotiations for the Neapolitan marriage.

_Valencay, September 28, 1835_.--M. Brenier, who has just come from London, tells me that General Sebastiani hates music as much as his wife loves it. He will not allow her to go to the Opera or to concerts. One day, however, after many prayers, Madame Sebastiani obtained permission to go to a concert at Lady Antrobus's. It was on June 18, and the General was to call for his wife later. He arrived simultaneously with the Duke of Wellington, who was in uniform and surrounded by many officers, all coming from the great military dinner given on the occasion of the anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo.

The singers were at the moment singing a hymn in honour of the conqueror. Sebastiani was furious, and told M. de Bourqueney, his First Secretary, who had gone with him, to tell Madame Sebastiani that she must leave. She does not understand English, and therefore did not grasp what the words of the cantata meant, and at first refused to leave her place. M. de Bourqueney, stimulated by the furious gestures of the General, almost dragged the poor woman out by force over the seats. When she finally got to her husband he said to her, in his pompous and sententious manner, "I told you, madame, that music would be your ruin!"

It was this same M. Bourqueney, who was lately writing for the _Journal des Debats_ before he went to London with Sebastiani, who had the impudence to insinuate that he prepared for M. de Talleyrand from Paris the speech which the Prince made to the King of England in delivering the letters accrediting him to the Court of St. James's in 1830. The following is the history of this speech. M. de Talleyrand was just finis.h.i.+ng dressing to go to the King, and said to me that it had occurred to him that it would not be amiss to say a word or two, as was the old fas.h.i.+on. In the peculiar circ.u.mstances of the time he thought it would be a good thing, but he had no time to prepare anything. Then he added: "Come, Madame de Dino, sit down and find me a few phrases, and please write them in your largest hand." I did so. He changed two or three words in my draft, which I recopied while his orders were being pinned on and his hat and cane were being brought.

This is the precise history of this little speech, which by its fortunate allusions and a comparison between 1688 and 1830 attracted some attention at the time.[58]

[58] This speech is given at the end of this volume. I shall quote only the phrase here referred to. "England, like France, repudiates in her foreign relations the principle of interfering in the affairs of her neighbours, and the amba.s.sador of a monarchy established by the unanimous votes of a great people feels himself at ease in a land of liberty, in the presence of a scion of the ill.u.s.trious House of Brunswick."

It is the same with the letter of resignation which M. de Talleyrand wrote less than a year ago. The general idea is that M. Royer-Collard was its author, so here again follows an exact account of what pa.s.sed.

My conscience had told me that it was absolutely necessary that M. de Talleyrand should send in his resignation, and I familiarised him by degrees with this idea. I knew that he always found it difficult to express his thoughts in words, and that he preferred to act. I had, therefore, for a long time been considering what words it would be best to use. At last, one day last November, when we were alone here, I spoke again to M. de Talleyrand of the propriety, which was daily growing more obvious, of his sending in his resignation--a step from which he still shrank a little. He then said that the necessary letter would be very hard to write. Thereupon I immediately gathered together all that I had prepared in thought and put it into writing. I came back in half an hour and read what I had written to M. de Talleyrand, who was much struck with it and adopted it entire, all but two words, which he thought affected. I then asked him to submit the proposed letter to M. Royer-Collard, which he was quite willing to do. Next morning I left for Chateauvieux. M. Royer-Collard thought well of the letter, only putting at the end "the thoughts which it suggests"

instead of "the warning which it gives," as I had written, and replacing one expression at the beginning, which he thought too pompous, by another in better taste. Thus, without any further alteration, this letter afterwards appeared in the _Moniteur_, and for a good while occupied public attention. All the letters of this period written by M. de Talleyrand to the King, Madame Adelade, and the Duke of Wellington, were first thrown on paper by me and then rehandled by him. It was only the first above-mentioned, which contained his resignation, which was corrected by M. Royer-Collard. The others were merely communicated to him, and he approved them all.

_Valencay, October 1, 1835._--Yesterday I went to Chateauvieux; the weather was terrible.

M. Royer-Collard said that, of all the people he had ever met, the two most alike were Charles X. and M. de la Fayette. They were both equally mad, equally obstinate, and equally honest. Speaking of M.

Thiers, he said: "He is a good-humoured rascal with plenty of cleverness and some sparks of greatness, but capable of losing an empire by his recklessness and excitability." Referring to the recent repressive laws, he said: "I have no love for dictators, but reason tells me that they are necessary at times. Perhaps the present is one of these times. But where are we to find the Dictator? If they frankly proposed the King I could understand it, but to think of the present Cabinet occupying such a position!"

_Valencay, October 4, 1835._--Yesterday I heard some singular stories of M. Cousin, whose formerly revolutionary ideas have changed into monarchical sentiments of the most exalted character. Some delightful remarks on the subject are quoted. It seems that this ill.u.s.trious Peer has composed a monarchical and Catholic Catechism. The work being completed it was laid before M. Guizot, who gave it his approval, as did M. Persil, Minister of Public Wors.h.i.+p. The book was printed, sent out to educational establishments, and recommended to all the inst.i.tutions under the University. After all this there came a poor priest with the book in his hand and proved that all these doctors had only forgotten one little thing in the whole system of Catholic doctrine, which was the doctrine of Purgatory, to which not the slightest allusion was made throughout the catechism, verified and approved as it was by M. Guizot, Minister of Public Instruction and a Calvinist!

_Valencay, October 10, 1835._--A pedantic and ill-mannered Prefect spitefully refused permission to M. de Talleyrand to plant a few trees, saying that he was "_a cheval sur la loi_." "Dear me," replied M. de Talleyrand, "you have chosen to ride a sorry jade!"

The celebrated Alfieri was at first attracted by the ideas of the French Revolution, but became so disgusted with them, that he determined to leave France. The reason of this was that one day he was driving four-in-hand in the Bois de Boulogne at a great pace, himself holding the reins, when the horses were requisitioned by force for the public service. That very evening he announced his departure, and in reply to entreaties that he should remain, he observed, "What on earth is one to do in a country where the n.o.bility have no daggers and the priests no poison!"

_Valencay, October 16, 1835._--I am confronted with new anxieties. I had heard that the Princesse de Talleyrand was in an alarming condition, and that her end appeared to be approaching. The Baronne de Talleyrand, who told me, asked me to prepare M. de Talleyrand for this event. I confess I shrank from this mission. The gloomy ideas which have so frequently recurred to M. de Talleyrand's mind for some time, the depression caused by his great age, the anxiety which he feels at the slightest symptoms, the sharp and painful impression made on him by the deaths of his contemporaries--all this made me hesitate to tell him that his wife's days were numbered. I was not afraid of the shock of the bereavement, for his heart is not interested. But the disappearance of a person much of his own age, with whom he had lived and of whom he had once been fond, or who had been so indispensable to him that he had given her his name--all this made me think that the Princess's danger would affect him deeply.

I racked my brains to find some oblique way of getting at the subject without speaking directly of a seizure. My first remarks were received in silence, after which M. de Talleyrand immediately changed the subject. Next day, however, he returned to it, but only to refer to the embarra.s.sment it would be to be in mourning if she did die, of the funeral, and of the cards that would be sent out. If the Princess did die, he said, he would go out of Paris for a week or a fortnight, and all this he said, not only without any trace of grief, but even in a tone of obvious relief. He immediately proceeded to enter on the financial questions of importance which are involved in his wife's death which would repossess him not only of her annuity, but also of other monies in which she has only a life interest. All the rest of the day M. de Talleyrand showed a kind of serenity and gaiety which I have not seen in him for a long time, and which struck me so much, that when I heard him positively humming a tune, I could not help asking him "if it was the fact that he was soon to be a widower that put him in such spirits." He made a face at me like a mischievous child, and went on talking about all there would be to do if the Princess were to die. He will have the satisfaction of an easier income, which will be a relief to him, as for some years past his revenues have, to his great annoyance, notably diminished owing to several causes. Besides this, it is probably a relief to him (though he will not acknowledge this even to me), to see a bond snapped which was the greatest scandal of his life because it was the only one which was irremediable.

_Valencay, October 18, 1835._--After several months of silence, during which General Alava has come to grief at the head of the English ruffians he took with him to Spain, I have received a letter from him at Madrid, dated the 6th instant, which begins thus: "You were right, my dear d.u.c.h.esse, when you once said that to enter Spain with foreign troops was to tempt Providence." The letter ends with another allusion to my prediction, which seems to have come true to a degree which poor absurd Alava can hardly bear. He insists, however, that he was in honour bound to this partisan existence which he dignifies with the epithet chivalrous, although it is merely Quixotic in the bad sense.

He does not need to explain why he refused the Premiers.h.i.+p, but he says he took the Ministry of Foreign Affairs because he saw the safety of the Queen Regent was compromised. He does not say how. He then adds that as soon as he was rea.s.sured on this point he retired completely from the Cabinet, that his only desire is to resume his duties in London as soon as the session of the Cortes is over. He seems to feel the uncertainty of this, for he says, "Heaven alone knows what obstacles may come between me and London before then." He ends by saying that if he goes back to England it will be by sea in order to avoid Paris which, according to him, is a very dangerous place for a Spanish diplomatist.

As regards France, he says: "As they waited for the _casus fderis_ before they acted, the _casus mortis_ in which we find ourselves, relieves us of the necessity of thinking of our liberation, which is a thing of which dead men have no need."

_Paris, October 23, 1835._--We have been back in Paris some days.

M. le Duc d'Orleans was speaking to me yesterday of the Neapolitan marriage planned for his sister Princess Marie, which did not come off, and he told me that he had applied to his brother-in-law, the King of the Belgians, who is here just now, to find some younger son of a great German House who would be willing to marry the Princess and come and live at Paris. Princess Marie is clever, but her imagination is vivid and restless; she is fond of the arts, and is little used to restraint or to pomp and ceremony. They think she would be happier if established in Paris, and certainly freer than she would be elsewhere.

No opportunity seems likely to occur of a foreign marriage; even the chance of such a thing seems more remote. The Princess is twenty-three, and the Queen is worried and anxious about it.

The pretensions of the King's children are in all things much reduced, for M. Guizot said the other day, when M. de Bacourt was leaving for Carlsruhe, that there might not be much to do, but there was one thing, which was to preserve the last Princess of Baden for M. le Duc d'Orleans. This Princess is the daughter of Stephanie de Beauharnais.

I doubt if this marriage would be agreeable to the young Prince, who only yesterday, _a propos_ of the Leuchtenbergs, said some hard things of the Beauharnais family. He said they were all intriguers, and would not make an exception even in favour of the Grand d.u.c.h.ess Stephanie of Baden who, in my opinion, deserves a place apart. She is not only a kindly woman, but there is in her a touch of sublimity, though she is a trifle too energetic and her pretensions to wit are excessive.

The Princesse de Talleyrand is better, and so little concerned about her condition that all she thinks of is how to secure further advantages for herself at her husband's death.

_Paris, October 24, 1835._--M. Pasquier told us yesterday that they had been obliged to amputate one of Fieschi's finger-joints as a result of the wound caused by the bursting of his infernal machine, and that the patient grasped the injured finger with the other hand before the surgeons began their work saying: "Little one, I am sorry, but you are going to lose your head before I lose mine." His coolness, courage and physical strength are only equalled by his excessive vanity.

I find the Tuileries depressing, Madame Adelade aged, the King flushed and stouter. They are both cast down by the departure of the Prince Royal for Algeria. The punishment of an African brigand does not seem a sufficient motive for risking so precious a life. They are displeased with Ministers for having rather encouraged than checked the adventurous and highly natural impulse of the young Prince.

The cholera has ceased neither at Toulon nor in Africa; it may yet cause some calamity to the King. The failure of the Neapolitan marriage disappoints, and the extreme coldness of the new Russian Amba.s.sador discourages them.

In the thirty-six hours he spent in Vienna with the ostensible purpose of paying his respects to the last Emperor of Austria, and with the real object of charming M. de Metternich through his wife, and the Archduke Louis through the Archd.u.c.h.ess Sophia, the Czar of Russia rushed all over the city in a cab, forced the vault in which the last Emperor is buried, and contrived to change his uniform four times!

_A propos_ of the appointment of Count Pahlen as Russian Amba.s.sador in France the Carlists are saying that nothing can more clearly prove the _rapprochement_ of the Czar Nicholas with King Louis-Philippe than the choice of the son of a murderer as Amba.s.sador at the Court of the son of a regicide.

_Paris, October 27, 1835._--M. de Talleyrand said yesterday that on his return from America, after all the horrors of the Revolution, he met Sieyes and asked him how he had got through that frightful time, and what he did during those miserable years. "I lived," replied Sieyes! It was in fact the best, and the most difficult, thing to do!

The Government, wis.h.i.+ng to find a pretext for the liberation of the Ham prisoners,[59] eagerly seized on some symptoms of mental derangement shown by M. de Chantelauze. M. Thiers intended after some months of an asylum to remove the prisoners to the country houses of friends who would be answerable for them, and with this end in view he had appointed a commission of celebrated physicians to inquire into the condition of M. de Chantelauze and at the same time that of the other ex-Ministers. M. de Chantelauze however, as soon as he heard of the impending arrival of the doctors, hastened to declare that he would receive them politely as eminent persons but not in their medical capacity, that he would answer none of their questions, and that he desired his complete and instantaneous liberation or nothing.

I much doubt whether his companions in misfortune are pleased with him for showing so much disdain.

[59] In 1830 the signatories of the celebrated decrees which led to the fall of Charles X., MM. de Polignac, de Peyronnet, Guernon de Ranville, and Chantelauze, were prosecuted before the House of Peers, deprived of their t.i.tles, and condemned to perpetual imprisonment. They were then confined at Ham.

_Paris, November 14, 1835._--I have just had very friendly letters from Lord and Lady Grey. They are very busy with their estate of Howick, from which they write, and seem to be quite out of politics.

Lady Grey says a thing which I echo with all my heart. "If my friends will only love me and I can possess a garden in summer and an armchair in winter I am perfectly happy in leading the life of an oyster.--Don't expose me to Madame de Lieven, she would think me unfit to live!"