A MEPHISTOPHELES OF MERCY.

Otago Witness, Issue 2757, 16 January 1907, Page 78

A MEPHISTOPHELES OF MERCY.

Of all the figures in the French Revolution, the most enigmatic is the man who maintained that "speech was given to man to disguise his thoughts." Voltaire, in the dry light of his intelligence, certainly symbolised the rational side of the revolution, just as Jean Jacques Rousseau must be accepted as the interpreter of its emotional side. Midway between the two, utterly devoid of the destructive enthusiasm of Voltaire, utterly alien from the rhetorical passion of Jean Jacques, there stands a man who looked on at dangerous events, stimulated by an immense curiosity which was eventually to pass into ambition tempered only by the almost-forgotten notion of mercy. Talleyrand served many masters, and, betraying them each in turn, remained true to himself. Charged with almost every imaginable crime^ no human being of any period was more profoundly convinced of the bad taste of violence. Accused of cowardice, he constantly risked his life in order to gratify his weakness for power. Living in an atmosphere of carnage and noble sentiments, it was his dangerous pleasure to remind Frenchmen that good breeding was, at all events, only a misdemeanour. "I am an old umbrella," he said once, "on which the rain has beaten for 40 years ; a drop more or less makes no difference." Certainly he shrugged his shoulders at history in an age when a gesture of hauteur only too frequently suggested the guillotine. And this gesture of Talleyrand greeted alike the despair of kings and the rage of Napoleon, saluted alike the tumbril of death and the post-chaise of exile. It is this superb and indomitable gesture that places the Mephistopheles of mercy in the very 6mall group of beings who explain in their own lives the most dangerous period in the history of the world.

I. It was Mme. de Stael who summed up the opinion of her generation when ehe called Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Peri-gord "the most impenetrable and most inexplicable of men." Much of this complexity, Mr Joseph M'Cabe reminds us, in his admirable biographical 6tudy, is due to the future diplomatist having fallen off a chest of drawers and injured his foot when he waa about three years old. "That wrench of muscles and tendons," 6ays Mr M'Cabe, "making him limp for life, led to a perverse action on the part of hia educators that did equal violence to an excellent natural disposition." If ever there were an "Abbe Malgre lvi" it was Talleyrand, who, "limping slightly, faultlessly dressed in blue coat and white vest and chamois breeches (unless it were advisable to remember the "soutane)," was received enthusiastically by Parisian" society on the eve of the Revolution. Almost immediately his biting wit made itself felt and feared. "I don't know why people don't like me," said a man in his hearing, "I have only done one wrong thing- in my life." "When will jt be over?" questioned Talleyrand. "Siey%s is deep," said another to him. "You mean hollow," was the instant response. There is a tradition that, to a lady who asked him how his legs were, he replied : "As you see, madame." This lady squinted. A coachbuilder dunned him for payment for a new episcopal carriage. "Oh, you will be paid," said the prelate, suavely. "But when, Monseigneur?" "Oh, you are very inquisitive," said Talleyrand, as he drove away.

Once when there was a rumour of the death of George 111, a Parisian banker asked Talleyrand hia opinion. "Well," was the roply, "some cay he is dead, and some say he is not. I may tell you in confidence that I don't believe either." On another occasion, when a general of the new school happened to be late for dinner and explained that he had been detained by a maudit pekin, Talleyrand asked him what a pekin was. The general answered that it wa6 a camp phrase for "all that isn't military." "Oh! I see," exclaimed Talleyrand. "Just as we call military all that is not civil." A Frenchman once gave the diplomatist a long account of Chateaubriand's "Lcs Martyrs," concluding with the observation that the heroes were "thrown to the beasts." "Like the book," responded Talleyrand. Talleyrand had as great a contempt for Fouche as he had for Chateaubriand, and when someone remarked that Napoleon's Minister of Police had a great contempt for humanity, he answered, "Yes. He hae studied himself very carefully.' Occaionally these bitter jibes, which explain one side of Talleyrand so much better than pages of comment, were actually applied to himself. For example., a friend once complained to him that he felt "infernal pains" (douleurs d'enfer). "Already?" asked Talleyrand. It was pretended that this dialogue took place between Talleyrand on his death-bed and Louis Philippe. At the very dawn of the Revolution he is cold and alert, watching alw ays : "A feeling akin to that of intoxication is growing epidemic, but Talleyrand coolly watches the strange scenes with the keen, blue-grey eyes under the bushy eyebrows He sees these prim lawyers crowding like schoolboys about the King as ho returns to the chateau, covered with sweat and dust, and the Royal Family again on thebalcony and the great crowds wild with rejoicing. Then he returns to the hall, and is deputed to set out at once with 99 other members to inform Paris, and allay its panic." Tlie times were growing more and more dangerous for Tnllevrand, who shuddered not so much at the bloodguiltiness of his compatriots as at their bad manners. He was, as all the world knows, quick to recognise ""the star of Napoleon. His biographer describes the first meeting :

Talleyrand and Mme. de Stael arid a few friends wailed in the Hotel Galiffet, when Napoleon, quietly dres6ed, pale.

• " Talleyrand " By Mr Joseph M'Cabe iHuttiuneou. 163 ttvt).

very silent, entered the salon. He toot Talleyrand into his private room and had a long conversation with him, and then Talleyrand introduced him to the directors at the Luxembourg. Napoleon puzzled in a charming way the citizens of Paris. He dressed ■witn ostentatious plannpss, sjioke little, and avoided public meetings and demonstrations. At the Luxembourg a splendid reception ceremony had been prepared. The directors sat on a dais in the court in their stagey satin clothes, lawyers and parliamentarians filled the amphitheatre, and a great orchestra and choir rendered an ode written for the occasion. 111. The time soon came when France only too eagerly forsook the weak Directory, and Talleyrand was with France. Napoleon, his position in Italy secure, had returned to Paris, apparently a very simple, even nonchalant civilian : "After the inevitable round of fetes was over — and it was remarked how he drank his wine from a private bottle at the- public dinner — he seemed to forget that he was a soldier He spent most of his time at the Institut, discussing questions of science and philosophy; and when visitors to Paris sought the great general, they had -pointed out to them a quiet, pale little man in the dress of a scholar of the .Institut. But. his little house in the Rue de Vietoire soon became the political centre of Paris." On the eve of the coup d'etat, which all were expecting, Talleyrand and some "amateurs" ordered dinner at a house at Saint Cloud, a coach waiting outside the door. It was to be a new master or exile for Talleyrand, and at first the issue looked doubtful : — sNNapoleon did in fact make a terrible muddle when it came W his turn to speak. In the hall whefe the Ancients met he made a violent, disjointed, most imprudent speech, answering questions with the most clumsy fabrications until Bourrienne had to drag him away with the remark : "You don't- know what you are saying." The Ancients, however, gave the required vote. But no sooner did Napoleon enter the hall of the Five Hundred than the deputies raged about him. in ctfowds. He nearly fainted, and had to be carried out. But his military instinct at once revived. Mounting his horse he complained to the troops that his life had been attempted ; and when Lucien came out with the news that they were outlawing him, and Sieyes had drily answered : "Well, as they are putting you out of the law, put them out of ilh& room," he cast off all hesitation. Napoleon told the captain of the Grenadiers to "go and disperse this assembly of busybodies."' The thing was done. Talleyrand and his "amateurs" sat down, to dinner. IV. Talleyrand worked zealously for his new ; 1 master. "It was not time-serving," writes his biographer, "but real conviction, that made him encourage Napoleon's monarchical tendency." This tendency now became almost crudely accentuated.^ "The pike is making short work of the other fishes," said an observant lady to Mme. Bonaparte. But Talleyrand was not in the number of these fishes : "Napoleon would take care to attach to his person and cause a minister of the ability of Talleyrand. To the end of his career he acknowledged that Talleyrand had no equal in his work, and) their letters show that 'foreign ministry' was taken in a wide sense. Talleyrand could entertain returned nobles who despised the thin polish of the Tuileries, as well as play with a St. Julien or conciliate Swiss and Italian patriots." One Swiss patriot, Stapfer, put this side,, of Napoleon's indebtedness into words : "I shall feel gratified and honoured throughout life," he wrot« to Talleyrand, "that I have been in touch with you who have brought the light and the urbanity of the old regime into the new, and who have proved that all the results of social advance and of the culture of the first ranks of society may be completely reconciled with democratic principles." The great diplomatist smoothed things over for the First Consul at home, and when the more dangerous of the Jacobins were banished, this merciful cynic removed from the lib-t of the proscribed i the name of Jarry, his bitter personal enemy. Abroad he worked unswervingly for the consolidation of the empire. "What we want now," he said once to Napoleon, "is for success in war to put new life into the department of peace !" He .worked for the Peace of Amiens, he deplored the harshness of the Peace of Tilsit, he foresaw the disaster of the Russian invasion. In short, he worked loyally for Napoleon so long; and so long only, as he believed himself to be also woiking for France.

V. On one occasion Napoleon attacked the diplomatist with more than Corsica n fury. "He became a sub-lieuteuant again," comment**- Meneval. as he. recalls the i>cene during which Talleyrand stood "like a rock," even when the Emperor threatened to strike him. To Napoleon's horrible sneer . "You did not tell me that the Duke of San Carlos was your wife's lover," he answered, without raising his voice — "I did not think it redounded either to your Majesty's honour or mine."' After the Emperor had exhausted his rage and left the loom, Talleyrand remarked to those who had witnessed the scene: "What a pity that such a great man had not a better education." Asked afterwards by the Duchess de Laval why he did not knock Napoleon down with the tongs, he replied that he was. "too lazy." The last interview came in January, 1814. "You are a cowaid, a traitor, a thief," thundered Napoleon. "You don't even believe in Ood. You have betrayed and deceived everybody. You would sell your own father." One of the witnesses of this tirade said that Talleyrand seemed to be the last person in the room interested in what Napoleon said. Posterity has puzzled over the attitude of Talleyrand. It is difficult to impute cowardice to one of kb race who had pas&ed so much of his

life in the midst- of dangers which ireflSr his by choice. It is more probable tihatf Talleyrand in such, scenes resembled m mathematician- engrossed in a profound problem, who, threatened by f a boor, thinks less' of the insult than of the possible injure to his head ! Regarding him in this UghS one can understand how he was able, ta exclaim, when asked •why he did not? resign after the atrocious murder of the Due d'Enghien : "If Bonaparte has committed a crime, that is no reason that J3 should make a mistake." No, rulers might! come and go, strutting and fuming through the years, but he, Talleyrand, - "the old umbrella," must make no mistake in this noisy, muddled world. VI. And so he bowed his head to all storms with mockery on his lips. He survived them one after another, these fleeting shadows of rulers. To the very last he was conscious of power. "Over the catafalquej" says his biographer, "on which) his worn frame lay was emblazoned by priestly- hands the motto of iiis horae:' 'Re qu« Diou' — I lived so high that - God alone towered afcove- ipe." Crowds , gathered to this, triumphant death-bed : : "He sat on the edge of the bed, supported^by two servants, a 'dying lion,* says one witness. His long, white heir now. hung loosely about -the pallid^uad shrunken ; face. The head drooped on the chesty - but cow and again he slowly raised it, and looked with the last faint shadow of a smile on the great crowd that had come to pay the tribute of France. It was a 'grand spectacle,' said RoyderCollard ; the fall of 'the last cedar of Lebanon.' He ' died in public,' ' died amidst the regal pomp and reverence/ say other .eye-witnesses. The duchess and her daughter knelt by the bedside. He was conscious to the end — conscious that hia career was ending amid a manifestation of love, power, and profound respect as great as he could ever have wished." Finally, Mr .M'Cabe closes his profoundly, interesting study with this analysis of perhaps the most enigmatic figure of bis period : He had no belief in the divine right of either kings or mobs ; and no ruler he met had charm enough or real great- Iness enough to win from him a personal allegiance. With has last breath (antl in his will) he spoke tenderly of Napoleon, and commended the ex-Em- - peror's family to his heirs. He served 1 France more in deserting Louis XVT than those who remained faithful ; and his successive desertion, of the Direc- - ■ tors, Napoleon, and Charles X needs no defence. The only rational ground of" censure is that be kept so entirely to- ' gether his personal interest and tfee high cause of France and humanity that he served through aH these vicissitudes of his country. Talleyrand made his own.v choice, and so many have slaughtered with prayers upon their lips that it is difficult not to be grateful for the dry smile of this Mephistopheles of mercy. — L. L. L., in T. P.'» Weekly.