M. de Talleyrand, in these double negotiations, succeeded in getting the Russian negotiator to sign a separate treaty, which, however, the Russian government disavowed; and acquired such an influence over Lord Yarmouth, that the English government deemed it necessary to replace him by Lord Lauderdale, who was empowered to negotiate for the two allied governments. It is but just to observe that M. de Talleyrand, though thwarted by a variety of intrigues, laboured with the utmost assiduity in favour of a peaceful termination of this negotiation; for he already saw, and at this time almost alone saw, that without peace all was yet a problem, and that, to use the words of a contemporary, “a succession of battles was a series of figures, of which the first might be ‘A,’ and the last ‘zero.’”51
The position of Malta and Sicily, both at this time in our hands, the natural reluctance that we felt at resigning them without solid guarantees for European tranquillity; and the impossibility of getting such guarantees from the pride and ambition of an aspirant to universal empire, were nevertheless difficulties too great for diplomacy to overcome; and when Prussia, which had lost the golden opportunity of fighting France with Austria by her side, had become so involved by secret engagements with Russia and by public engagements with France – and so restless in the dishonourable and dangerous position in which she found herself, as to be determined on the desperate experiment of escaping from her diplomacy by her arms, another great European struggle commenced.
Throughout the new campaigns to which this new coalition led – campaigns beginning with the victory of Jena and closing with the peace of Tilsit – M. de Talleyrand accompanied his imperial master; and though he could hardly be said to exercise a predominant influence over those events, which a more violent character and a more military genius decided, his calmness and good sense (qualities rarely, if ever, abdicated by him) produced a moderating effect upon the imperious warrior, that tended generally to consolidate his successes. The sort of cool way in which he brought to ground many of this extraordinary man’s flights, testing them by their practical results, is well enough displayed in a reply which he made to Savary, who, after the battle of Friedland, said, “If peace is not signed in a fortnight, Napoleon will cross the Niemen.”
“Et à quoi bon,” replied M. de Talleyrand, “passer le Niemen?”52 “Why pass the Niemen?”
The Niemen, then, partly owing to M. de Talleyrand’s counsels, was for this once not passed; and, at last, France, pretending to sacrifice Turkey, and Russia abandoning England, the two combatants signed a treaty, which anticipated that the domination of Europe was for the future to be shared between them.
At this period M. de Talleyrand, who had been more struck in the recent war by the temerity than by the triumph of the conqueror, thought that Napoleon’s military and his own diplomatic career should cease. Fortune, indeed, had carried both the one and the other to the highest point, which, according to their separate characters and the circumstances of the times, they were likely to attain. To Napoleon’s marvellous successes seemed now to belong a supernatural prestige, which the slightest misfortune was capable of destroying, and which a new victory could hardly augment. So also the reputation of M. de Talleyrand was at its height, and many were disposed to consider him as great a master in the science of politics as his sovereign was in that of war. He had acquired, moreover, immense wealth, as it is said, by extorted gifts from the Powers with which he had been treating, and more especially from the small princes of Germany, whom in the general division of their territory he could either save or destroy, and also by successful speculations on the stock exchange:53– means of acquiring riches highly discreditable to his character, but thought lightly of in a country that teaches the philosophy of indulgence, and had recently seen wealth so rudely scrambled for, that the “Res si possis recte” had become as much a French as ever it was a Roman proverb. His health, moreover, was broken, and unequal to the constant attendance on the Emperor’s person, which had become almost inseparable from his office; while the elevation of Berthier to the rank of vice-constable established a precedency exceedingly galling to his pride. Under these circumstances, he solicited and obtained permission to retire, and already Prince de Benevent received the title of “vice-grand electeur,” raising him to the rank of one of the great dignitaries of the Empire; a position which it appears – so small are even the greatest of us – he desired.
This change in his situation, however, was by no means as yet what it has sometimes been represented – a “disgrace.” He still retained great influence in the Emperor’s councils, was consulted on all matters relative to foreign affairs, and even appointed with M. de Champagny, his successor, to conduct the negotiations with the court of Spain, which, owing to the invasion of Portugal and the quarrels which had already broken out in the family of Charles IV., were beginning to assume a peculiar character.54
It has been said, indeed, on the one side, that M. de Talleyrand was opposed to any interference with Spain; and, on the other, that it was actually he who first counselled Bonaparte’s proceedings in that country. It is probable that he did so far compromise himself in this matter as to advise an arrangement which would have given the territory north of the Ebro to France, and yielded Portugal as a compensation to the Spanish monarch. It is not impossible, moreover, that he knew as early as 1805 – for Joseph Bonaparte was then told to learn the Spanish language – that Napoleon had vague dreams of replacing the Bourbon by the Bonaparte dynasty in the Peninsula. But when the French armies, without notice, took possession of Burgos and Barcelona; when an insurrection deposed Charles IV., and the Emperor was about to adopt the policy, not of peaceably aggrandizing France and strengthening Spain against Great Britain, but of kidnapping the Spanish princes and obtaining by a sort of trick the Spanish crown, he was resolutely and bitterly opposed to it, saying: “On s’empare des couronnes, mais on ne les escamote pas” (“one takes a crown from a sovereign’s head, but one does not pick his pocket of it”). “Besides, Spain is a farm which it is better to allow another to cultivate for you, than to cultivate yourself.”
Comte de Beugnot, in his memoirs recently published, speaks thus of these transactions:55
“The Prince de Benevent was acquainted, in all its details, with what had passed (at Bayonne). He appeared indignant. ‘Victories,’ he said, ‘do not suffice to efface such things as these, because there is something in them which it is impossible to describe, that is vile, deceitful, cheating! I cannot tell what will happen, but you will see that no one will pardon him (the Emperor) for this.’ The Duc Decrès, indeed,” M. de Beugnot continues, “has told me more than once that the Emperor had in his presence reproached M. de Talleyrand for having counselled what took place at Bayonne, without M. de Talleyrand seeking to excuse himself. This has always astonished me. It is sufficient to have known M. de Talleyrand to be sure that, if he had been favourable to dispossessing the princes of the House of Bourbon of the Spanish throne, he would not have resorted to the means that were employed. Besides, when he spoke to me, it was with a sort of passion that he never displayed but on subjects which strongly excited him.”
There can be no doubt, indeed, that what took place as to Spain was a subject of great difference between M. de Talleyrand and Napoleon. M. de Talleyrand would never afterwards during the reign of Louis XVIII. have publicly affirmed this, surrounded as he was by contemporaries and enemies, if it had not been true. Moreover, the general voice of the time, which is more in such cases to be trusted than any individual testimony,