M. de Talleyrand, attacked as a noble and an émigré, resigned his department, and published a defence of his conduct, which is remarkable, and of which I venture to give, in an abbreviated and free translation, some of the most salient points: —
“… I am accused of creating the league of kings against our Republic! I! If I have been known for one thing more than another, it has been for my constant desire for an honourable peace; the great result that will alone give solidity to our institutions! So it is I, then, who seek to augment our enemies, exasperate our friends, break our treaties, indispose neutrals, and menace other states with principles they do not wish to accept – and who make this accusation? They who are always stirring up discord, invoking the horrors of war; they, whose aim it is to produce revolutions throughout the world, who address to every power by turn the most injurious, absurd, and impolitic reproaches; who employ the press to circulate the assertion that monarchies and republics are natural enemies; and who left to me the task of calming the governments whom they kept in a state of constant disquietude and alarm.
“It is true that Austria, after the treaty of Campo Formio, though that treaty was favourable to her, began new combinations and alliances against us – and that England and Russia engaged her in their designs. If I had been ignorant of their intrigues or hostile preparations, if I had not informed the government of them, then, indeed, I might justly be accused. But, not only do I defy any one to show that I ever neglected my duty for a single day, it so happens that five months before the entry of the Russians into Italy, I procured a copy of the combined plans of Russia and Austria, and delivered them to General Joubert, who has frequently declared that they were of the utmost utility in his operations.
“But I am a Constitutionalist of 1791 (a title I glory in), and, consequently, I offer no guarantee to the Republic.
“If it were not true that a patriot of 1789, who has not hesitated to take his oath to the Republic, and frequently repeated it, has no favour to expect from a French government that is not republican; – it is certain either that the Republic will establish itself, or that it will perish in a general confusion, or that it will be again submitted to a royalty furious and revengeful. From the Confusionists and the Royalists it appears to me that I have little to expect. Is this no guarantee?
“But – I am an émigré! an émigré! When the first republican authority – the National Convention – declared with unanimity, at the period of its greatest independence and its greatest force, that my name should be effaced from the list of émigrés, I was sent to London on the 7th of September, 1792, by the executive government. My passport, delivered to me by the provisional council, is signed by its six members, Lebrun, Servan, Danton, Clavière, Roland, Monge. It was in these terms:
“‘Laissez passer Ch. Maurice Talleyrand, allant à Londres par nos ordres.’
[M. de Talleyrand here repeats what was said by Chénier.]
“Thus I was authorised to quit France, and to remain out of it until the orders I received were revoked, which they never were. But not wishing to prolong my absence, I asked, the instant that the Convention recovered the liberty which had been for a time suppressed, to return to my native land, or to be judged if I had committed any offence that merited exile. My request was granted. I left France then by orders which I received from the confidence of the French government. I re-entered it directly it was possible for me to do so with the consent of the French government. What trace is there here of emigration?
“Well, then, it was I ‘who made Malmesbury, who had been sent about his business by Charles Delacroix, return – not, it is true, to Paris, but – to Lille, the centre of our military Boulevards.’
“What is the truth? On the 13th Prairial, year V., Lord Grenville proposed to enter into negotiation; on the 16th the proposal was accepted; on the 25th Charles Delacroix sent passports to England, and fixed on Lille as the place of negotiation.
“On the 29th Lord Grenville accepts Lille as the place of negotiation, and announces the choice of Lord Malmesbury as the English negotiator. On the 2nd Messidor, the Directory sanctions this arrangement. On the 28th the conferences commence at Lille, and it was not till the 28th I was named minister.
“I am attacked for all the acts of the ex-Directors. My accusers know that, if my opinion differed from theirs, I should not have charged them with errors when they were in place, and still less should I do so now, when they are stripped of power, and that all I desire to remember is their kindness and confidence.
“It is for this reason that in my report to the legislative body I only glanced rapidly over the fact that all that was to be decided relative to Italy and Switzerland, during my ministry, was decided without my knowledge and concurrence. I could have added that, to the changes operated in the Cisalpine Republic, I was entirely a stranger; that, when the citizen Rivaud was sent to that Republic as ambassador, I was asked for letters of credence in blank, and that I only learnt of his mission after it had been in activity. But my enemies do not pause here.
“Ignorance and hatred seem to dispute as to which should accumulate the most falsehoods and absurdities against my reputation.
“I am reproached for not having invaded Hanover: but if I had advocated carrying the war into that country in spite of the neutral line which protects it, how much more just and more violent would have been the attacks on me for having violated that neutrality, and thereby roused Prussia against us!
“Then it is said I should have assailed Portugal! And if I had done so and been opposed by Spain, and thus lost an alliance so useful to us, what reproaches should I not have encountered!
“But I did not sufficiently encourage letters of marque against England. Five hundred and forty-five privateers fell into the hands of the English, from the commencement of the war till the year VI. of the Republic. The number of prisoners in England amounts to thirty-five thousand; these cost fifteen millions to support on an enemy’s territory, and it is principally owing to letters of marque that we owe this result.
“I will say no more; but surely I have said enough to inspire the most discouraging reflections as to that moral disorganization – as to that aberration of mind – as to that overthrow of all reasonable ideas – as to that want of good faith, of the love of truth, of justice, of esteem for oneself and others – which are the distinguishing characteristics of those publications which it is difficult to leave unanswered, and humiliating to reply to.”36
We find, from the above, that the ex-minister did not scruple to make his defence an attack, and to treat with sarcasm and disdain the party by which he had been ejected; but at the same time that he denounces the follies of the over-zealous Republicans,