This honour received additional solidity from a most able report in favour of the uniformity of weights and measures, which M. de Talleyrand made to the Assembly on the 30th April, 1790: a report which, carrying out the idea that Turgot had been anxious to establish, and furnishing a method for destroying the inconvenient distinctions which separated province from province, laid the foundation for that uniform system which now prevails throughout the French dominions. Nor would M. de Talleyrand have applied this project merely to France; he at the same time suggested that commissions from the Academy of Sciences in Paris and the Royal Society in London should be appointed to fix on some natural unity for measure and weight, which should be alike applicable to England and France. “Chacune des deux nations,” he added, “formerait sur cette mesure ses étalons, qu’elle conserverait avec le plus grand soin, de telle sorte que si, au bout de plusieurs siècles, on s’apercevait, de quelque variation dans l’année sidérale, les étalons pussent servir à l’évaluer, et par là à lier ce point important du système du monde à une grande époque – celle de l’Assemblée Nationale. Peut-être même est-il permis de voir dans ce concours de deux nations interrogeant ensemble la nature, pour en obtenir un résultat important, le principe d’une union politique, operée par l’entremise des sciences.”14
It is impossible not to sympathise with a conception at once so elevated and so practical as that which is here expressed; and rejoice at thus finding an example of what Bacon – himself no less a statesman than a philosopher – claims as the attribute of men of science and letters, viz.: that when they do give themselves up to public affairs, they carry thereunto a spirit more lofty and comprehensive than that which animates the mere politician.
The greater part of the work which the Assembly had proposed to itself, was now terminated. The old monarchy and aristocracy were destroyed; the new powers of the crown and the people were defined; the new divisions of the country into departments, districts, and communes, were marked out; the new organisation of the tribunals of justice was decreed. No one entirely approved of the constitution thus to be created, but there was an almost universal satisfaction at its being so nearly completed.
Part II
FROM THE FESTIVAL OF THE 14TH OF JULY TO THE CLOSE OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY
Blesses the standard of France at festival of the 14th of July. – Increasing financial distress. – M. de Talleyrand’s views. – Civil constitution of the clergy. – M. de Talleyrand’s conduct. – Refuses archbishopric of Paris. – Letter to editors of Chronicle. – Mirabeau’s death. – Sketch of his career, and relations with M. de Talleyrand, who attends his death-bed. – Probabilities as to his having initiated M. de Talleyrand into plots of court. – Leaves M. de Talleyrand his intended speech on the law of succession, which regulated the present state of the law in France, and which M. de Talleyrand read in the National Assembly. – M. de Talleyrand suspended from his episcopal functions, and quits the Church. – The King’s flight. – Conduct and views of M. de Talleyrand. – Wishes to aid the King. – Foolish conduct of court party. – Fatal decree of National Assembly, forbidding the re-election of its members. – M. de Talleyrand’s project of education. – Assembly closes the 13th of September, 1791. – M. de Talleyrand goes to England, January 1792.
We are arrived at the festival of the 14th of July, held to celebrate the destruction of the Bastille, and to do honour to the new government which had risen on its ruins: let us pause for a moment on that day of joy!
An immense and magnificent amphitheatre is erected on the Champ de Mars: there the hereditary sovereign of France, and the temporary president of an elected assembly – the joint symbols of two ideas and of two epochs – are seated on two equal thrones, resplendent with the arms which the nation has taken from its ancient kings; and there is the infant prince, on whom an exulting people look kindly as the inheritor of his father’s engagements, and who is to perpetuate the race of Saint Louis: and there is that queen, “decorating and cheering the sphere she moves in, glittering like the morning star, full of life, and splendour, and joy;” and there that royal maiden, beauteous with the charms of the palace, blessed with the virtues of the cloister – a princess, a saint – destined to be a martyr! And there is the vain but honest Lafayette, leaning on his citizen sword: and there the terrible Mirabeau – his long hair streaming to the wind: and there that well-known and still memorable Assembly, prematurely proud of its vaunted work, which, alas! like the spectacle we are assisting at, is to be the mere pageant of a day. And, behold, in yonder balcony, the most graceful and splendid court in Europe, for such even at that time was still the court of France; and lo! in the open space, yon confederated bands, bearing their respective banners, and representing every portion of that great family which at this moment is rejoicing over the triumph it has achieved. On a sudden the sky – the light of which mingles so well with the joy of men, but which had hitherto been dark and sullen – on a sudden the sky clears up, and the sun blends his pomp with that of this noble ceremony! And now, robed in his pontifical garments, and standing on an altar thronged by three hundred priests, in long white robes and tricoloured girdles, the Bishop of Autun blesses the great standard, the oriflamme of France, no longer the ensign of war, but the sign and token of peace between the past and the future – between the old recollections and the new aspirations of the French people.
Who, that had been present that day in Paris, could have believed that those who wept tenderly with the children of Bearne, at the foot of the statue of Henry IV., would so soon laugh horribly round the scaffold of his descendant? that the gay multitude, wandering in the Champs Elysées, amidst garlands of light, and breathing sounds of gentle happiness and affection, would so soon be the ferocious mob, massacreing in the prisons, murdering in the public streets, dancing round the guillotine dripping with innocent blood? that the monarch, the court, the deputies, every popular and princely image of this august pageant, the very forms of the religion with which it was consecrated, would in two or three brief years be scoffingly cast away: and that even the high priest of that gorgeous solemnity, no longer attached to his sacred calling, would be wandering a miserable exile on foreign shores, banished as a traitor to the liberty for which he had sacrificed the prejudices of his caste, the predilections of his family, the honours and wealth of his profession?
From the 14th of July, 1789, to the 14th of July, 1790, the scenes which were comprehended in this, which may be called the first act in the great drama then agitating France, were upon the whole such as rather to excite the hopes than the fears of mankind; but from the latter period the aspect of things greatly changed, and almost each day became marked by some disappointment as to the success of a favourite scheme, or the fortune of a popular statesman.
On the 4th of September, 1790, M. Necker left almost unnoticed, and altogether unregretted, that Paris to which but a year before he had returned amidst unanimous acclamation. About the same time, Mirabeau began to be suspected; and the shouts of “Vive Lafayette!” were not unfrequently changed into “à bas Lafayette!”15 by the ever fickle multitude. At this period also it became apparent that the sale of the church property, which, properly managed, might have restored order to the finances, was likely, on the contrary, to render the national bankruptcy more complete.
In order to give a just idea of the conduct of M. de Talleyrand, it is necessary that I should explain rapidly how this calamity occurred. The Assembly, desiring to secure the irrevocability of its decrees by disposing as soon as possible of the vast estate which it had declared was to be sold, and desiring also to increase its financial resources without delay, looked out for some means by which this double end could be accomplished. After two or three projects, for a moment taken up and then abandoned, the idea finally adopted was that of issuing State notes, representing a certain value of national property, and giving them a forced currency, so that they would have an immediate value independent of that which they acquired as the representatives of property.
These notes or bonds, in short,