But the central question of French politics to every thoughtful man was that of finance. He saw nobles coquetting with democracy who were not prepared to surrender a tithe of those pecuniary privileges which were strangling the actual order. He saw constitutionalists working out their “theory of irregular verbs” without even a moderate grasp of the crucial need. He immediately set himself to master the science of finance and the fiscal disorders of his country. His archiepiscopal friends were well acquainted with the one, and such friends as Panchaud and Dupont de Nemours would help him with both. His first open political expression was a vehement attack on Necker after his assumption of power in 1776. There was a good deal of parti pris in his first attack. He ridiculed the person, the features, the dress, the speech, and everything about Necker, as well as his financial operations. But he did oppose on conviction the tactics of the Genevese banker. He thought them too slow, too timid, too small-minded to rescue France from the precipice. At last he made an opportunity for a constructive effort. The funds of the clergy were interested in the bank founded by Turgot, and when anxiety arose about this in 1784 he forced his position as Agent-General (so he himself says), and drew up a memoir in which he proposed a reconstruction of the bank. The memoir attracted much attention. One elderly banker listened to it almost with tears—at the pretty way in which he put banking common-places, Talleyrand says. A number of experts became acquainted with him—Foulon, Sainte-Foy, Daudé, &c. Presently he was introduced to Calonne, the new Minister of Finance, a man of great ability but fitful and unscrupulous.
Calonne’s failure is a matter of general history, but during the three years of his ministry Talleyrand was usefully associated with him. The stormy Mirabeau also appears on the scene, and alternately embraces and quarrels with Talleyrand. His dispatches from Berlin, where he acted as a kind of secret agent, were nearly all edited by Talleyrand before being submitted to the King. He addresses Talleyrand from Berlin as his “dear master,” but has a violent quarrel with him, and calls him “a wretched, mean, greedy, intriguing creature,” when he returns to Paris, on account of some offensive allusion to his mistress. Talleyrand overlooked his violence and vulgarity, and intervened for him when he published one of his spirited attacks on Calonne. But Talleyrand’s next important act was to help in preparing a scheme for the redemption of the debt of the clergy. Calonne had thought of parrying the growing demand for the convocation of the States-General by summoning an Assembly of Notables. Talleyrand speaks of his scheme as “a vast plan,” but without base, as the Notables had no power whatever to raise the necessary supplies. However, it afforded him an opportunity to do helpful work. The Assembly was to meet on February 22nd (1787), and on the 14th Calonne invited Talleyrand,13 Dupont de Nemours, and several others to come to assist him in preparing the papers to be submitted. They found a chaos of material, and none of the work done. They divided the work, Talleyrand undertaking to write the memoir and law on the new grain-proposals. He also helped M. de Saint-Genis to draw up a scheme for the redemption of the debt of the clergy. This was to be part of Calonne’s plan of a general land-tax and the abolition of all pecuniary privileges.
Calonne’s expedient, as is known, only brought about his own downfall. Talleyrand, in Paris, met these angry notables as they filled the salons during the Easter recess, and heard their comments on the impertinence of the subvention territoriale, by which they, the nobles and clergy, were to be mulcted. Loménie de Brienne fostered the opposition amongst the clergy. Calonne was dismissed, and, after an interval of nonentities, the Archbishop of Toulouse secured the long-coveted honour, chiefly through the influence of the Queen. Talleyrand would expect few favours from de Brienne (of whom he writes in the memoirs with disdain and dislike) and the Queen’s party. He felt that the near future would smooth out their intrigue. “The passion of the hour was the curtailment of the royal authority,” he says. The King was pitied and the Queen regarded with cold suspicion. The enormous deficit dismayed thoughtful men, whilst frivolous nobles called airily for a declaration of national bankruptcy as a means of salvation they had themselves tried with success. The letters which Talleyrand then wrote to his friend at Constantinople show that his observations in the memoirs faithfully convey the ideas he had at the time. Certain technical improvements in finance would do something, but it was clear that the situation of the nobility and clergy must change. The life-blood of France was being sucked for the support of a parasitic growth. Financial privileges must be curtailed or abolished. Who would cut away the exhausting growth of commissions, sinecures, benefices, and gifts? Clearly, neither the nobles themselves nor the King. The country must be prepared for popular representation on the English model—as seen through the merciful mists of the Channel. Talleyrand proceeded with interest to the Provincial Assembly at Chalons, to which he was deputed as abbé of St. Denis at Rheims.
The Provincial Assembly was a compromise with the new idea of popular representation. Six members of the clerical order and six of the nobility were pitted against twelve of the Third Estate; equal representation for the sansculottist twenty millions against the privileged two hundred thousand. And the president was to be chosen from the first two orders. These twenty-five nominated twenty-four other members, and one-fourth of the Assembly was to retire every year. At the elections to replace them everyone who paid ten livres in taxes was entitled to vote. Archbishop Talleyrand presided at Chalons, and must have gratified his nephew and the Third Estate at least by his outspoken denunciation of “greed” and his welcome of the promised reform of taxation. The work of these Assemblies was presently transferred to Versailles, in the opening of the States-General, and it need not be dwelt on. Talleyrand is believed to be the author of two long memoranda, submitted to the Chalons Assembly, on points relating to taxation. He was confirmed in his opinion of the value of these schools of popular training, for we find him urging the reopening of them in the National Assembly in 1789.
From an engraving, after a miniature by M. Gratis.
LOUIS XVI.
But his entry into political life was now properly regulated by his nomination to a bishopric. He had gone to Rheims as Vicar-General to his uncle, when Mgr. Marbœuf, who is believed to have so long opposed his promotion, was transferred from the See of Autun, and it was offered to Talleyrand. There are legends enough to explain how the King suddenly acquired his conviction of the “piety” of the Abbé de Périgord. The most probable story is that Talleyrand’s father, who died in 1788, begged Louis to confer the lingering bishopric on his son. Lieutenant-General Talleyrand had been an attendant on the King in his early years, and was a useful officer and a religious man. He would regard the long delay in finding a benefice for his son as a disgrace to one of the oldest houses in France. At all events, on November 2nd, the King signed the nomination, informing an amused Paris that he was “properly assured as to the good life, the morals, the piety, the competence, and all the other virtuous and commendable qualities of the Abbé de Périgord.” Paris remembered that a former Bishop of Autun had been the original of Tartuffe. “Ah, if Molière had only known his successor,” said one wag at the time. There were many religious and high-minded prelates amongst the French hierarchy, and they commanded a priesthood of considerable self-sacrifice and devotion. But Talleyrand’s opinions and habits would not cause a grave shock to a body that included Cardinal de Rohan, Archbishops Dillon, De Brienne and Cicé, and a considerable body of bishops and abbé’s of the type of de Grimaldi, Morellet, Arnaud, Bertrand, Delille, de Bourbon, de Dillon, Raynal, Maury, Sabatier, &c.
CHAPTER IV
AT THE STATES-GENERAL
Talleyrand was consecrated in the seminary-chapel at Issy, a house of retreat belonging to Saint-Sulpice, on January 16th, 1788. He had observed, in that age of forms, the form of making a preliminary retreat at Issy. His delighted friends from Paris took care that the “solitude,” as the place was called, should not depress him. The ceremony was performed by the Bishop-Count of Noyon, Mgr. de Grimaldi, a Voltairean prelate. There are two legendary versions of Talleyrand’s bearing during the service. Renan was told by an aged priest