Memoirs of the Duchesse de Dino Part 13

I looked at him closely yesterday. It is seldom that a man has a face so expressive of his character. The eyes are hard and pale, the nose turned up and impertinent. His smile is bitter, his laugh forced.

There is no dignity, or frankness, or correctness either in his features or his build. His conversation is dry, but, I confess, not wanting in wit. He has on him a stamp of obstinacy, arrogance, and treachery, which I believe to be an exact reflection of his real character.

_London, August 12, 1834._--In spite of the slow progress made by Don Carlos it is difficult to be quite happy about the state of Spain.

General Alava, who has gone back there after many years of exile, seems struck with the demoralisation and confusion which he sees. All natural bonds are broken by party spirit--the ferocity and violence of these Southern fanatics, no longer directed against the foreigner, have recoiled cruelly on themselves. Republicanism is gaining everywhere where religion is not on the side of the Legitimist party.

It appears with all the tawdry emotion of revolutionary eloquence in the address of the Procuradores to the Queen-Regent. Already since the opening of the Cortes the Ministry is at variance with the Second Chamber, and one cannot think how a Regency with such a feeble Government can possibly overcome so many adverse circ.u.mstances.

I lately saw, at Lord Palmerston's, a portrait of little Queen Isabella II., sent by the Regent to his Lordship. To judge by this picture, she is not at all a pretty child. She seems to have insignificant eyes and her father's wicked mouth; and, on the whole, is an ugly little Princess. It is a pity; women destined to sit on a throne, especially a disputed one, find it a dangerous thing not to be beautiful.

The species of bankruptcy proclaimed by M. de Toreno, which has proved so fatal to a horde of small _rentiers_ at Paris, is making the little Queen's cause unpopular there. It seems to me that this is in a way fortunate; for if vanity and the _furia francese_ had rushed the Government into taking too prominent a part in promoting the success of their little neighbour, they would have found themselves drawn into a series of embarra.s.sments and into a network of dangers the effect of which would have been incalculable. King Louis-Philippe is shrewd and alert enough, where his own dynastic interests are concerned, not to remain coldly aloof from this struggle, which cannot but end to his disadvantage, whether anarchy triumphs under Isabella II. or Legitimacy carries the day under Don Carlos. This being the case, it would not be advisable to ruffle our other neighbours (for they are neighbours and not allies) by too definite acts of intervention.

England alone is allied with us, but, undermined as she is by so many internal wounds, can she still a.s.sert herself as she ought in the councils of Europe? Certainly not; and she must be well aware of the fact, for neither in the Eastern Question nor in any other question which has come up during the last two years has England made good in action the boasting of her language.

The cholera continues to ravage Madrid, attacking chiefly the upper cla.s.ses and particularly women. It has also appeared again, though slightly, in Paris and London.

_London, August 13, 1834._--The Irish t.i.thes Bill has been rejected by the House of Lords, as was expected, and by so large a majority that it would be difficult to create enough new Peers to redress the balance. And yet how can one imagine next Session opening with the same Upper House and the same Ministry? The Ministry say that they will not give in, that they care nothing for the House of Lords, and will get on with the Commons alone without caring at all about the Clergy or the Peers, and without paying much attention to the Crown.

It is the Crown that should a.s.sert itself at this juncture; but, alas!

the Crown is in a most benighted condition.

Lord Grey told me he did not agree with the Chancellor that the only obstacles came from the House of Lords. He thinks that there will be very serious trouble in the Commons, where Mr. Stanley, the ex-Minister, is preparing a most violent attack on the Government.

Lord Grey has been staying away from the House of Lords; he feared he might perhaps be forced to speak and that, not being able to hide his distaste for the Cabinet's alliance with O'Connell, he might do an injury to the Ministry for which he does not wish to be responsible.

_London, August 14, 1834._--Grandees of Spain, it seems, are allowed to behave in a very free and easy way with their sovereigns. They smoke cigars with them and often finish the cigar which the monarch has left half consumed. The Duke of Frias, who was once Amba.s.sador here, is a curious, absurd, and absent-minded person who puts himself about for n.o.body; he came back some time ago on a few days visit to London. He went to the King's levee, and pushing forward his funny little face said to His Majesty: "You must know me." The King, who at first did not clearly remember him and was offended at the familiarity of his manner, said: "No, I don't know you." "I was Amba.s.sador here,"

replied the little Duke, "when you were _only_ Duke of Clarence." On this the King very nearly lost his temper, and, waving him on, repeated emphatically: "No, no, I don't know you." He then turned to the Minister of the Netherlands who came next and said to him aloud: "Who is that clown?" This was a curious scene.

_London, August 18, 1834._--For several days I have been oppressed by the unwholesome atmosphere in which we live in London, profoundly agitated by the illness of my friends, and overwhelmed with all the preparations for my approaching departure. Thus my notes have been neglected. I should have liked to set down some of my last recollections of London, which are blurred with illness, anxiety and regret, but which are none the less precious.

I have seen the Duke of Wellington and Lord Grey, who came to say good-bye, and expressed a friendship and esteem which I consider a great honour. Lord Grey I leave trying to quiet his conscience and to deceive himself about the too rapid progress of his country's affairs, which he has placed in a train that his successors will accelerate.

The Duke of Wellington is not deceived about the seriousness of the situation, but he has made up his mind to struggle to the last and doesn't know the meaning of discouragement. It is not that he wishes to oppose all the proposals of the Ministry or to obstruct systematically all administration and stop the machinery of government. He is too honest a man for that. But he thinks it his duty and that of the Upper House to make themselves a bulwark for the protection of the ancient and fundamental bases of the const.i.tution.

The personality of the King spoils almost every chance of safety. His successor is a child with perhaps almost more against her, the more so as her mother, the future Regent, seems to be very obstinate and very narrow-minded.

It is impossible not to think with terror of the future of this great country, which was still so brilliant and so proud four years ago when I came to it, and whose glory is now so tarnished when I am leaving it perhaps for ever.

I do not admit the possibility of M. de Talleyrand's coming back.

There are too many good reasons why he should not. I set them forth in a letter which I have written to him and which describes his position pretty correctly, so I insert it here.

"I have a serious duty towards you of which I am never more conscious than when your glory is at stake. When I speak to you you sometimes find me a little irritating, and then I am silent and do not tell you all that I think--the whole truth. Allow me therefore to write to you, and please forgive anything that may seem displeasing because of the devotion which inspires what I write. Without claiming a very great share of cleverness I don't think I am altogether at fault in forming an opinion about you whom I know so well, and whose difficulties and embarra.s.sments I am in such a good position for observing. It is not therefore lightly that I press you to abandon public life and to retire from the scene where a disordered society is playing a sorry part. Do not remain any longer at a post in which you will necessarily be called upon to demolish the edifice which you have laboured so hard to sustain. You know what I feared last year, and how greatly, when you made up your mind to return to England. I foresaw all the repugnance which you would find in performing your task with the instruments at your disposal. Confess that my forebodings have to a great extent been realised. This year there are a thousand additional aggravating circ.u.mstances. Think of the circ.u.mstances in which you would find yourself. What do we see in England? A society divided by party spirit, and agitated by all the pa.s.sions which arise from that spirit, losing every day something of its brilliancy, its breeding and its security, a King without firmness influenced chiefly by the very man of all his Cabinet who has most injured you, a frivolous, presumptuous, arrogant Minister, who pays you none of the respect due to your age and position. He obstructs and impedes business by every means in his power. His one thought is to secure the triumph of his own ideas; he has no thought of educating himself by studying yours.

He leads you on from uncertainty to uncertainty, entraps you with contradictions, leaves you in ignorance and doubt, carries on independently of you things in which you ought to have a share, and then glories in the success of his treachery and scorn. Do you think you can preserve much longer with such a man, the dignity which befits you? Do you not feel that it is already compromised, in fact, and soon will be in the public eye? Moreover, do you think that an Amba.s.sador who is a great personage, a man of your social gifts, can be acceptable to a Government which is being swept away by the current of Revolution, especially when you have already enough to do to struggle against a similar movement in your own country? You have founded an alliance on a common basis of good order, stable equilibrium, and conservation of existing inst.i.tutions. Will it please you to continue it on the basis of common sympathy with anarchy?

"Do not forget that the support and consolation which you have found for several years in your relations with your colleagues will no longer be there, now that the face of the Diplomatic Corps in London has changed so much. The new Spain, the new Portugal, the shapeless form of Belgium, are the only conspicuous features, as impudent as they are vulgar. You would therefore be isolated in England and in the trying situation which would be the result, where would you find support? Not in the Government you represent, for pettiness, indiscretion, vanity, and intrigue dominate everything in Paris. Only the greatness of your position in London enabled you to hold them in check. Our little Ministers are more on Lord Granville's side than ours, and you would not have their support in dominating things here.

You came here four years ago, not to make your fortune, your career or your reputation. All these were made long ago; you came, not out of affection for those who are conducting our government, for whom you have neither love nor affection. You came solely to render a great service to your country at a moment of the gravest peril. It was a perilous enterprise at your age! It was a bold thing to reappear to still the storm after fifteen years of retirement! You accomplished what you attempted; let that suffice you. Henceforth you can do nothing but diminish the importance of what you have done. Remember the truth of Lord Grey's words: 'When one has kept one's health, and one's faculties, one may still at an advanced age usefully occupy one's self with public affairs. But, in critical times like the present, a degree of attention, activity and energy is required which belongs only to the prime of life and not to its decline.' When one is young, one moment is as good as another for joining in the fray; when one is old the only thing to do is to choose a good time for leaving it. Here Lord Grey was the last, all too feeble barrier against the revolutionary spirit; here you have been the last barrier against the struggle of the powers with each other. Lord Grey realised too late that he was being carried away by the torrent; do you not also feel that your influence has become as inadequate as his? The n.o.ble and touching farewell words of Lord Grey threw a last fleeting ray of light on his career; his retirement became a triumph; another day and he was effaced! The last two champions of the old Europe should quit public life at the same time. May they carry with them into their retirement the consciousness of their efforts and their services, and may history one day show that the coincidence of their departures was honourable to both.

"This and only this I conceive to be the fitting close of your public life. All considerations which might lead you to think otherwise are unworthy of you. You cannot be influenced by the possibility of a little more amus.e.m.e.nt, a few more social resources. Are you to count the trifling excitements of dispatches, couriers, and news? The interest produced by such things is too often a child's plaything. Are we even to consider the more or less material tranquillity we enjoy?

Is the epoch of shocks and revolutionary torments at an end in France?

I do not know. Is it more or less distant in England? I cannot tell.

Will solitude be trying? Shall we seek distraction in travel? What in a word will be the arrangement of our private life? What does it matter? I am younger than you, and might, perhaps, more naturally take some thought for that; but I should think myself unworthy of your confidence and of the truth which I am now venturing to tell you if the slightest consideration of my own comfort made me keep anything from you. When one is a historical personage as you are, one has no right to think of any other future than the future of history.

History, as you know, judges the end of a man's life more severely than the beginning. If, as I am proud to believe, you think as highly of my judgment as of my affection, you will be as frank with yourself as I am with you now. You will have done with all self-created illusions, all specious arguments and subtle pieces of self-love, and you will put an end to a situation which would soon lower you in other eyes than mine. Do not bargain with the public. Dictate its judgment, do not submit to it. Confess that you are old in order that people may not say that you are aging. Say n.o.bly and simply before all the world, 'The time has come!'"

Dom Miguel has left Genoa and has been seen at Savona. This is particularly displeasing to Lord Palmerston.

_London, August 19, 1834._--It appears that while Dom Miguel was at Savona several vessels were seen in the offing which hoisted English colours and made many signals, following which Dom Miguel is said to have returned to Genoa. This is what was being said yesterday, but no explanation is forthcoming.

_London, August 20, 1834._--M. de Talleyrand left London yesterday, probably never to return. That, at least, is what he said himself.

There is always something solemn and peculiarly painful in doing a thing for the last time, in departure, in absence, in saying good-bye, especially when one is eighty. I think he felt it, I know I feel it for him. Besides, surrounded as I am with illness, and ill myself, this being the anniversary of my mother's death, remembering all the pleasant things that have happened to me in England, I feel very weak and discouraged by the thought of departure. I said good-bye to M. de Talleyrand with a heart-sinking as great as if I was not to see him again in four days, and I might well have said to him as I said to Madame de Lieven, "I mourn my departure in yours."

M. de Talleyrand's last impressions of his public life here were not precisely agreeable. After many hours spent at the Foreign Office in the company of M. de Miraflores, of M. de Sarmento, and of Lord Palmerston, who, as usual, kept everybody waiting a long time, the additional articles (which are of no great importance) of the Treaty of April 22, the Quadruple Alliance, were signed in the middle of the night. Lord Palmerston wanted to extend the scope of the Treaty. M. de Talleyrand, on the other hand, desired rather to narrow its obligations. Lord Granville's absence from Paris had left the French Government free from this source of obsession, so they held their ground and authorised M. de Talleyrand to maintain his position, and Lord Palmerston gained nothing by his wilfulness, Lord Holland by his draughtsmanship, or Miraflores by his antics.

There are two stories which I have heard M. de Talleyrand tell so often that for me they have lost their freshness. They seemed very good when first I heard them, so I will set them down here. They both have to do with the campaigns of the Emperor Napoleon, which ended in the Peace of Tilsit.

At Warsaw, where he remained during part of the winter of 1806-7, the Emperor received an amba.s.sador[28] from Persia, who seems to have been a man of wit. At any rate, M. de Talleyrand says that Napoleon asked the Persian whether he was not surprised to find a Western Emperor so near the East, and that the Amba.s.sador replied, "No, sir, for Tah-masp-Kouli-Khan got even nearer." I have always had my doubts about the authenticity of this retort, which, I believe, to have been invented by M. de Talleyrand himself in one of his moments of irritation against the Emperor, an irritation to which he gave vent in malicious sayings usually attributed to other people. Some, however, he acknowledged as his own, and, indeed, I have heard them said for the first time; such, for instance, as his remark in 1812, "It is the beginning of the end" (_C'est le commencement de la fin_), which has been so often quoted since, which has received such numerous applications, and has become public property and almost a commonplace.

The unfortunate campaign of 1812 inspired more than one of M. de Talleyrand's most mordant sayings. I remember one day M. de Dalberg came to my mother's, and said that all the _materiel_ of the army was lost. "Not at all," said M. de Talleyrand, "for the Duc de Ba.s.sano has just arrived." The Duc de Ba.s.sano was at that particular time, and for a very good reason, the object of M. de Talleyrand's displeasure. The Emperor desired to recall M. de Talleyrand to office, and it had been agreed that he should follow His Majesty to Warsaw. This was to remain a secret until the day of his departure. The Emperor, however, told the Duc de Ba.s.sano who, being disturbed at the revival of a favour which might disturb his own position, told his wife. She took it upon herself to put an end to the affair, and used, for this purpose, a M.

de Rambuteau, a talkative, pompous, and smooth-spoken person, pretentious and pliant at the same time, who fancied himself in love with the d.u.c.h.ess, and did her husband's dirty work. M. de Rambuteau, then, having been thoroughly coached by the d.u.c.h.esse de Ba.s.sano, went about everywhere spreading the news of the journey to Warsaw, saying that M. de Talleyrand was boasting about it and telling every one. The Emperor was offended, and M. de Talleyrand remained in France preparing reprisals.

[28] Myrza-Rhyza-Kan, Envoy Extraordinary of Seth-Ali, Shah of Persia, to Napoleon I, at Warsaw, in March 1807.

But to come to the second story which M. de Talleyrand so often tells--he says that the Persian Amba.s.sador, who made such subtly witty replies to the Emperor Napoleon, was a very tall, handsome man, whereas another Oriental, the Turkish Amba.s.sador,[29] was a little man, short, squat, common and ridiculous. At a great ball, given by Count Potocki, the two Amba.s.sadors were ascending the staircase together, and the little Turk darted forward in order to enter the ball-room before his colleague. The latter, seeing himself pa.s.sed, stretched out his arm so as to make a kind of yoke, under which he calmly allowed the Mussulman to pa.s.s.

[29] Eminin-Effendi, accredited by the Sultan Mustapha IV. to the Emperor Napoleon at Warsaw in March 1807.

_London, August 22, 1834._--The English Ministers wished to insert in the King's Speech on the prorogation of Parliament a phrase very offensive to the Upper House, in revenge for the rejection of the Dissenters Bill and The Protestant Clergy in Ireland t.i.thes Bill. But the King opposed this with sufficient firmness to secure the abandonment of the phrase, after a very sharp struggle which rather delayed the hour of the sitting.

The Queen has returned from her journey and has been received with ceremonious cordiality by the City of London, the chief magistrates of which went out to meet her. Her health is better. I think with pleasure of all the consolations which Providence in its equity reserves for her.

M. de Bulow announces that he has applied for leave of absence on family affairs and that he is sure to obtain it. He says he wants to go to the Hague to face the storm there, and having dispersed it at the Hague, to face more boldly that which he foresees at Berlin. I believe he will in fact go to the Hague, but much more for the purpose of rehabilitating himself by a few plat.i.tudes than of fighting his quarrel to a finish. He does not wish to reach Berlin until he has received absolution at the Hague; that at least is my opinion.

_London, August 23, 1834._--Here I end my London Journal with the regret that I did not begin it sooner. It would perhaps have possessed greater interest if I had. But four years ago when I arrived in this city I had neither pleasant memories of the past nor much interest in the present, nor much thought for the future. I then asked no more of each day as it succeeded its predecessor than a little distraction, and I paid little attention to the features which marked out each from the other....

_Dover, August 24, 1834._--I was quite astonished to find myself expected here and all along the road. The Duke of Wellington who goes this way to Walmer Castle, his residence as Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, had announced my arrival. A single family named Wright, who are very excellent people, keep almost all the inns on the road.

Last year after a storm I was received here by a very pretty Mrs.

Wright, who kept the Ship Hotel. She had the manner of a Queen and it was only to-day that I learned that she had been one--on the stage, and that her husband had been ruined by her extravagance. The hotel is now kept by people called Warburton, who do it in great style. I was again struck by the respectful politeness with which one is received in English inns when one changes horses, and with the pleasant language and good manners of the humblest people. On the way I heard of the Duke of Wellington, of the death of Mrs. Arbuthnot, of the pa.s.sage of M. de Talleyrand, of the desire to see us back in England, and all this in the most charming way possible.

I am to sail in a French packet--the weather is good and the sea calm.

Farewell to England, but not to the memory of the four happy years which I have spent there, and which have pa.s.sed with a rapidity to be explained by the interest of the events which have happened, and the particular sources of pleasure and contentment which I have found there! Farewell once more to this hospitable country which I leave with regrets and grat.i.tude!

_Paris, August 27, 1834._--I arrived here yesterday evening at ten o'clock to find M. de Talleyrand awaiting me. The general impression I got of him was that he was rather depressed and bored; yet he said he was very much pleased with the Tuileries where he seems to be much in fashion. He also says that he is so popular in Paris that the pa.s.sers-by stop before his carriage and lift their hats to him; but in spite of all this he repeats that he knows no one here, that he is bored and that every one is aged and worn out.

_Paris, August 28, 1834._--I was at Saint-Cloud yesterday. The King did me the honour to speak to me a great deal, perhaps too much, for I had to say something on my side, and at Court my one desire is to be silent. This conversation, however, was very interesting, for the King, who is witty on all subjects and intelligent about everything, talked about many things--the state of England at present, the break-up of which is so disquieting for her neighbours, Lord Grey's retirement which is greatly deplored here, Don Carlos's departure from England and the part great or small which the Duke of Wellington played in bringing it about. Here he is supposed to have arranged it all, a belief which I vigorously combated as I believed myself in duty bound to do. Then we talked of intervention in Spain, then of the Salic Law and in fact of everything that is occupying people just now.

The King talked very well. He insisted much on the fact that he alone had opposed the immediate intervention demanded by his Ministers, and closing his large hand he showed me his fist and said, "Do you understand Madame? I had to hold back by the mane steeds which have neither mouth nor bridle!"

As regards the Salic law he said, "I am 'Salic law' to my finger tips; the Dukes of Orleans always have been, you will believe me when I say so. But when I struggled for the law they thought that I should have less chance if it were destroyed, so every one lent a hand in its destruction instead of helping me to maintain it. I was left alone to fight French ignorance and vanity and all the other difficulties of the situation, and now I am reproached with having abandoned my own cause in that of Don Carlos. I have no enmity against him, no love for Isabella, but people would have what has come to pa.s.s. The two years before I came to the Throne saw the preparation of the deplorable state of things which now prevails in the Peninsula. However, whether Anarchy triumphs under Isabella, or the Inquisition under Don Carlos, I may be troubled by them being my neighbours, but I cannot be shaken.

We have made enormous internal progress, though I admit that much remains to be done, and with what instruments!"

The King then entered into many details relating to the troubles of his office and ended by saying, "Madame you must know that I have to be the Director in everything and the Master in nothing."

_A propos_ of the state of England, and of the complications which will arise there owing to the age and s.e.x of the heir to the throne, His Majesty said, "What a deplorable thing it is to see all these little girl Kings in a time like the present!" He went on to a dissertation full of real eloquence on the disadvantages of female rule, then suddenly stopped with a polite phrase and a sort of apology which was quite unnecessary. So I said that I thought that what M. de Talleyrand said of wits was true of women, "they were useful for anything but sufficient for nothing."

The King then talked for a long time about the restorations at Versailles and Fontainebleau. He has had Louis XIV.'s room at Versailles refurnished exactly as it was, that is with hangings embroidered by the Demoiselles de Saint-Cyr. One panel represents the Sacrifice of Abraham, a second that of Iphigenia, a third the loves of Armida. The King has had replaced in this room a portrait of Madame de Maintenon giving a lesson to Mlle. de Nantes. Versailles will be a true Museum of the history of France. I am grateful to the King for his respect for tradition; our historic monuments will owe him a great deal.