Part 30

The hostility of Lord Clare having stopped him in the practice of his profession, Sheares and his brother Henry decided to emigrate to America. But they not only did not do so but joined in a plot to disaffect the militia in King’s County against the Government. A certain Captain Armstrong of that regiment made their acquaintance, and after having gained their confidence, informed against them, and they were both arrested May 21, 1798, and confined in Kilmainham Gaol. They were tried for high treason six weeks later. John Sheares, knowing that his own fate was sealed, only desired and hoped to save his brother Henry, his senior by thirteen years, a married man with six children, and whom he declared had acted entirely under his (John Sheares’) guidance.

The only witness against the brothers was Armstrong. The trial lasted for sixteen consecutive hours--an adjournment was moved for by the prisoner’s counsel, as every one connected with the affair was sinking from exhaustion, but the motion was opposed by the Attorney-General--and at eight o’clock in the morning, after a summing up lasting only a few minutes, a hurried verdict of guilty against the prisoners was returned by the wearied and worn out jury. Henry Sheares fainted in court upon hearing the sentence of death pronounced. After their condemnation no friends or relatives were allowed an interview with the brothers, who were hanged the following morning before the prison gates. After remaining for some time on the gallows their heads were struck off; but their bodies were not quartered (July 14, 1798).

ST. JUST, LOUIS ANTOINE DE SAINT JUST.

Born August 25, 1767; guillotined, July 28 (10th Thermidor), 1794, in Paris.

His father, a retired army captain, died in 1777, and St. Just was placed in the Oratorian school of Soissons, where he remained for seven years. On leaving school he studied law for a short time at Rheims, but finally decided to embrace a literary career. Having written a volume of poems, he proceeded to Paris, to arrange about their publication, towards the close of the year 1789, and he there became an enthusiastic revolutionary, giving up literature for politics. His youthful ardour and natural eloquence were assisted by an extraordinary beauty of form and feature, grave and serious manners, and a haughty and resolute demeanour. His private life was that of an ascetic until the termination of his short but chequered career.

The inhabitants of his native town, Decize (Minervais) elected him lieutenant-colonel of their newly formed National Guard, and he conducted a detachment of that regiment to Paris in 1790 to join in the Feast of Federation. His youth prevented his election to the Legislative Assembly until September 1792, when he attained the age of twenty-five.

From that time he took a most active part in the Government, and became the intimate (perhaps the only intimate) friend of Robespierre.

On November 12, when the question of the King’s trial came before the Convention, St. Just’s diatribe was by far the most violent of the many violent and fanatical speeches made on that occasion. On December 16 he proposed the exile of all the Bourbons. At the trial of Louis XVI. he voted for the immediate execution of the King.

In the meantime the Republic was attacked on all sides, from both without and within, for, of the eighty-four Departments, sixty-five were known to be secretly hostile to the Revolution, and to desire the restoration of the _ancien régime_. On April 24, 1793, St. Just presented to the Convention the following scheme:

The Republic, one and indivisible, was to be represented by a Legislative Assembly, elected every two years by universal suffrage and by a Council elected every three years by the electors of the second degree. This Council, composed of a member for each Department, could only act by the authority of the Assembly, and the Ministers whom it was to appoint were to have _no personal or individual power_. Any conflict between the Council and the Assembly should be settled by an appeal to the people.

This impossible and impracticable project gives an excellent example of the exaggerated humanitarianism which at that time pervaded the opinions of the young legislator. The Girondins were, in the opinion of St. Just, a danger to the Republic. Their dreams of a federation by which France would be governed in the same way as the United States, and Paris cease to be the head and centre of government, filled him with apprehension. When the Girondins fell St. Just took an important part in their impeachment; his report on the matter was received with applause, and in July he became one of the leading members of the Committee of Public Safety.

From this moment a coalition was formed between Robespierre, Couthon, Le Bas, and St. Just, which continued until they all perished twelve months later. They banded themselves together with a settled purpose, and pitilessly destroyed any and every individual who opposed their views. St. Just was the principal instrument of Robespierre; he read, on October 10, the report upon the organisation of a revolutionary government until a general peace should be declared. “In the present circumstances,” he said, “no Constitution can be established; for it would be an attack upon liberty; with a Constitution the Government could not use sufficient violence against the enemies of the Republic.” He then proposed a decree, which was unanimously adopted by which the Ministers, the Generals, the Admirals, the Executive Council, and all constitutional bodies were to be placed under the immediate supervision of the Committee of Public Safety.

On October 16, the very day of the execution of the Queen, St. Just presented a report by which all foreigners residing in Paris, and particularly the English, were to be arrested. He referred to the death of Marie Antoinette in these words: “Your Committee has punished Austria by bringing a scaffold and the infamy of a public execution into the reigning family of that country.”

A few days later St. Just was despatched to Alsace as a superintendent of military operations; le Bas accompanied him. Arrived at Strasburg, they immediately established a commission to punish summarily “crimes, disorders, and abuses.” No legal forms were observed: a colonel accused of having spoken against the Republic was shot upon the spot; an officer accused of striking one of his men was degraded to the ranks; General Eisenberg, who had been defeated by the Austrians, was executed without a trial. The soldiers were in want of boots. St. Just wrote to the Strasburg municipality: “Ten thousand men in the army are bare-footed; strip the boots and shoes from the feet of the aristocrats of Strasburg. To-morrow, before 10 o’clock, 10,000 pairs of boots must be on their way to the military headquarters.” An immense number of persons were arrested and imprisoned, and innumerable executions took place. The commissioners left Strasburg and joined the army beyond the Rhine, where the generals were treated in the same high-handed manner. On the 12th Frimaire (November 9) St. Just wrote to General Hoche: “Thou hast taken at Kaiserslautern (where he had won a great battle) a further engagement; for instead of one victory, we require TWO.”

After remaining two months with the army St. Just returned to Paris in January 1794. He only remained a couple of weeks in the metropolis, departing for Flanders to supervise the conduct of those military chiefs who commanded in the north. In a few days he had inspected the various posts on the frontier, and, after carrying out his usual policy, he gave the supreme command to Pichegru, and returned to Paris. On February 19 St. Just was elected President of the Convention.

In March the fall of Hébert was followed by that of Danton. The impeachment of the latter was carried out by St. Just, his speech being composed from notes made by Robespierre. He accused Danton of having served the “Tyrant,” of being the _protégé_ of Mirabeau, the friend of Lameth, the accomplice of Dumouriez, and of having defended the Girondins.

Danton’s execution, and those of his immediate allies, delivered Robespierre and St. Just from the enemies they feared, and they flattered themselves they could now carry out their plans without interruption.

On April 29 St. Just returned to the army, Robespierre remaining the head and centre of all government in Paris. This was the most sanguinary period of the Terror.

St. Just remained with the army in Flanders until June 27, when, Charleroi having fallen and the army of the Republic being everywhere victorious in Belgium, he returned in triumph to Paris. The conspiracy which was to break out on July 27 (9th Thermidor) was already in process of formation, but St. Just suspected nothing, and continued to attend the meetings of the Committee of Public Safety and to make many violent speeches. He attacked Fouché, Tallien, and other members without mercy, and on the very morning of 9th Thermidor was speaking in the Tribune, when he was interrupted by Tallien, and the well-known violent scenes which resulted in the arrest of Robespierre and his immediate friends took place.

St. Just, unlike Couthon, le Bas, and Robespierre, did not attempt suicide; he followed the mutilated bodies of his friends on foot, with his hands bound behind him, from the Hôtel de Ville to the Conciergerie. The next day he mounted the scaffold and died silently and courageously. He was not quite twenty-seven years of age.

TALLEYRAND, PERIGARD, PRINCE DE BENEVENTO, CHARLES MAURICE DE.

Born, 1754; died, 1838.

To give a description of the life and work of this statesman would far exceed the limits of this biographical supplement; but the following few facts may interest the reader.

The eldest son of the Comte de Talleyrand, as he was lame and slightly deformed he could not enter the army, he was therefore compelled by his parents to take holy orders; he had no vocation whatever for the priesthood. He received valuable ecclesiastical preferment, and in 1778 was ordained Bishop of Autun. He joined the revolutionary party, and was a member of the National Assembly.

On July 14, 1790, it was he who celebrated the Mass of the Federation in the Champs de Mars, and in December of the same year he took the constitutional oath. He ordained several of the constitutional bishops, and was in consequence excommunicated by the Holy See, who declared all constitutional priests and bishops schismatics.

He was sent to England in February 1792 as an envoy by the French Government, with the idea of reconciling the British Sovereign and his Ministers to the revolutionary changes being then carried out in France. He did not, however, inspire any confidence in either George III. or Pitt, with whom he had several interviews. He returned privately to London in December 1792, and three months later was accused of conspiring against the Republic. He continued to remain in England until the death of Louis XVI., when, finding his position intolerable, owing to the indignation the death of the King excited against all supposed revolutionaries, he departed to America, where he remained until his sentence of banishment from France was revoked in 1795. He did not arrive in France till the following year; he was accompanied by the then notorious Mdme. Grand, with whom he cohabited for a considerable time before he married her. She was the divorced wife of a merchant at Calcutta, and had created a considerable scandal in India owing to her intrigue with Sir Philip Francis, the enemy of Warren Hastings, and reputed author of the _Junius Letters_. Talleyrand reached Paris, March 1796.

In 1797, by the influence of Barras, and notwithstanding the opposition of Carnot (who was probably the only sincere and disinterested member of the Directorate), Talleyrand was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs. He took a considerable part in the _coup d’état_ of 18th Fructidor (September 4, 1797), by which the Directorate re-established, in the name of liberty, most of the tyrannical excesses of the Convention. He had already discovered the extraordinary genius of Bonaparte, and from that time until the fall of the Empire was more or less attached to the fortunes of the then youthful hero.

It was Talleyrand who drew up the treaty of Campo-Formio (October 17, 1794), which Talleyrand and Bonaparte concluded in direct opposition to the desires of the Directorate. Talleyrand first suggested to Bonaparte the idea of an expedition to Egypt, in lieu of that invasion of England which was then the favourite scheme of the French Government.

Bonaparte endeavoured to persuade Talleyrand to accompany him to Egypt; but this he refused, and remained in Paris during the Egyptian and Syrian campaigns, carrying out unchecked his ingenious and tortuous foreign policy. He it was who brought about the occupation of the Papal States by the French, and the imprisonment and capture of the Pope (_see_ Pius VI.), and he also caused the destruction of the Swiss Republic, on the ground that its government was not sufficiently democratic. By diplomatic ruses and threatened violence he extorted an act of abdication from Charles Emmanuel, King of Sardinia, December 9, 1798.

During this time Talleyrand was obtaining in various ways large sums of money for his own private use, more particularly from the Kings of Spain and Portugal, who by lavish bribes to the French Minister of Foreign Affairs hoped to prevent the invasion of their kingdoms.

These circumstances, coupled with the fact that the French army met with defeat after defeat, and, since the departure of Bonaparte, lost all hold over Northern Italy, brought about a violent movement against Talleyrand, who resigned his office as Minister of Foreign Affairs in July 1799.

The return of Napoleon changed the situation, and on November 22 Talleyrand once more occupied his old post, which he held until 1807, when, a month after the treaty of Tilsit, he gave up the seals of this office to Champagny, Duke de Cadore. He was promoted to the dignity of a Prince Electeur of the Empire; he had been created Prince of Benevento, with a fief granted from the Papal States in the previous year.

He continued to hold the key of office as Lord High Chamberlain until 1809, but his intimate relations with the Emperor ceased from the time he abandoned the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. His astute nature had already foreseen the inevitable fall of the Empire, and he secretly used every effort to hasten this catastrophe. He continued to act, nevertheless, as Napoleon’s emissary with foreign Powers; gave up his château at Valençay as a State prison for the Spanish Princes; was present at the interview between Napoleon and Alexander at Erfurt, and in an audience with the Russian Emperor, explained to that sovereign Napoleon’s project for a divorce, and asked him, in his master’s name, for the hand of the Grand Duchess Catherine Paulovna, sister to the Czar.

In 1813, when the troubles of the Empire had reached their zenith, Talleyrand was summoned to St. Cloud, and offered the portfolio of Foreign Affairs. He consented to take it on condition peace should immediately be concluded. His advice was not accepted.

During the winter of 1814 he was in secret communication with the Bourbons; had much to do with the conclusion of peace in the April of that year, and entered as Foreign Minister into the first Cabinet of Louis XVIII. May 12, 1814, he represented France at the Council of Vienna.

On the return of Napoleon, Talleyrand during “the Hundred Days” absolutely refused to listen to any offer from the Emperor. After the Second Restoration he took up his old office in the Cabinet, but his opposition to the return of the artistic treasures with which the Republic and the Empire had enriched the Museums of Paris, and his efforts to prevent any cession of French territory, diminished his credit with the Czar and the English commander-in-chief, who were at that time the rulers of France. By their influence he was compelled to leave the Cabinet, Louis XVIII. creating him the same day Lord Chamberlain with a salary of 100,000 francs (£4000).

During the whole of the Restoration, Talleyrand was excluded from taking any leading part in public affairs.

After the Revolution of 1830, to which he had contributed not a little, Talleyrand, who had had for a considerable period a private understanding with Louis Philippe, became his principal political auxiliary.

In September 1830, Prince Talleyrand was sent as Ambassador from the King of the French to the Court of St. James’. He remained in London in that capacity for four years, and notwithstanding his great age showed himself an astute and admirable diplomatist. He received a warm welcome in all the higher circles of English society.

In November 1834 he retired from political life; but his mind was still fresh and vigorous, and his life during the next four years was occupied by social amenities and intellectual pursuits. On March 3, 1838, having entered his eighty-fifth year, he gave an address to the Academy of Science upon the death of the Comte Reinhard, a celebrated diplomatist.

A few weeks later he was suddenly attacked by a painful internal malady, and died on May 17, aged eighty-four years and three months. Before his death he received the Sacraments, signing a letter in which he regretted his abjurations and sins against religion; this letter was despatched to Pope Gregory XVI.

TALLIEN, JEAN LAMBART.

Born in 1769; died in 1820.

The son of the house steward of the Marquis de Bercy. He received, through the kindness of this nobleman, a good education, and became a notary’s clerk.

At the outbreak of the Revolution he gave up this employment for journalism, publishing for five months under the title of _L’Ami des Citoyens_, a newspaper which was a worthy companion to the _Ami du Peuple_ of Marat. His newspaper was financed by the Jacobin Club.

He took a prominent part in the events of August 10, and in the massacres in the prisons on September 2. Elected member of the Convention, he defended Marat and denounced General Montesquieu and Roland (then Minister). His speeches against Louis XVI. and the Royal family were so violent and so frequent as actually to evoke a vote of censure from the Convention. At the King’s trial he voted, “For instant death in the interests of humanity.”

It was upon his proposal five months later that the Girondins were put _hors de la loi_; and in September 1793, Tallien departed with Ysabeau for Bordeaux, “to utterly extirpate any remains of that hydra Girondism.”

Here he instituted a reign of terror. He added tortures to executions, and, under the name of “requisitions,” made, as he said, war upon the commercial aristocracy, by plundering all the wealthy merchants of the town. To the mean cruelties of the worst form of Roman pro-consul he added in his private life the luxury and pomp of a Persian satrap.

He met Mdme. Fontenay and fell desperately in love with her. He saved her from prison and brought her back with him to Paris. He was in consequence ill received by the Committee of Public Safety, who immediately imprisoned the woman he loved, on the accusation of being an aristocrat.

To avert suspicion, Tallien affected an even more vehement and sanguinary patriotism than he had previously shown, and on March 22, 1794, was elected President of the Convention. Robespierre denounced him to the Convention on June 12. He also erased the name of Tallien from the Jacobin Society; this was tantamount to a sentence of death.

Tallien determined to strike first, and to save not only his own life, but that of his mistress; he therefore joined those who feared and hated the triumvirate of Robespierre, St. Just, and le Bas, and who wished to avenge Danton and save their own lives. Tallien became the leader of the party who six weeks later overthrew Robespierre.

After this he occupied for a short time the place that the death of Maximilien Robespierre had left unoccupied. He married the woman he loved, closed the Club of the Jacobins, and put upon their trial le Bon, Fouquier-Tinville and other agents of terrorism. He retained predominant power in the State until July 1795, when he visited the army on the western frontier on a mission to General Hoche. Here he was once more guilty of summary executions and caused much unnecessary bloodshed.

The advent of the Directorate in October of the same year practically finished his active political career. He was accused of venality and treason, and though he became a member of the Five Hundred, his speeches were received with indifference or insult.

In May 1798 he left that assembly, and here his public life may be said to have terminated.

He accompanied the expedition of Bonaparte to Egypt in the capacity of a _savant_! Bonaparte and he were friends at the time owing to the intimacy of their wives, and he had acted as witness when the general married Madame Beauharnais.

In Egypt Tallien was appointed Administrator of the Interior, and he wrote a work called “Décade Egyptienne.” On his return to Europe a year after the departure of Napoleon, the ship upon which he sailed was taken by an English cruiser and he was carried to London. Here he was enthusiastically received by the Radical party.

After the peace of Amiens he returned to France, but did not find a warm welcome. His wife had been notoriously unfaithful to him during his absence; he divorced her immediately.

After vainly petitioning the First Consul for an appointment he received, by the influence of Talleyrand and Fouché, the unenviable situation of Consul in the unhealthy Spanish seaport of Alicante several months later. Here he remained for some years, nearly dying on one occasion of yellow fever, by which he lost the sight of an eye.

He returned to France, and ended his days living in obscurity on a small pension, and dying in 1820, at the age of fifty-one.

TALLIEN, COMTESSE OF CARAMON, PRINCESSE DE CHIMAY, THERESA CABARRUS.

Born at Saragossa, in Spain, 1773; died at Chimay, in Belgium, 1835.

This beautiful woman was the daughter of the Count of Cabarrus, Spanish Minister of Finance. At the age of sixteen she married M. Devin de Fontenoy, Counsellor to the Parliament of Bordeaux. Her married life was unhappy; and when the Republic instituted divorce, she obtained one from her husband. After this she led a life of absolute freedom, joined the revolutionary party, and became a conspicuous feature in their meetings at Bordeaux. For some reason, now unknown, she was imprisoned. Tallien, on his mission to Bordeaux as Commissionary of the Republic, heard her beauty praised, visited her in her cell, fell madly in love with her, and carried her back with him to Paris; there she was arrested and again imprisoned. After her release and marriage to Tallien, she became one of the most brilliant leaders of the corrupt and immoral society of the Directorate. Her conduct, during the absence of her husband in Egypt, passed all bounds of decency, and she gave birth to two children, whom Tallien refused to acknowledge. He divorced her in 1802.

In 1805 she married M. de Caramon, who became Prince de Chimay, by whom she had a family of two sons and two daughters.

Although she had been the companion in prison of Josephine Beauharnais, and both Tallien and herself intimate friends of the Bonapartes in the early days of their married life, Napoleon would never allow his wife to receive her publicly at the Tuileries, either as Mdme. Tallien or the Princess de Chimay.

TREILHARD, JEAN BAPTISTE, COMTE DE.

Born at Brives, January 3, 1742; died in Paris, 1810.