Part 20

Such was the end attained by the negotiations of the Duc de Richelieu with foreign powers; the great object of his life was fulfilled, for in what a state of misery was France when he assumed the reins of government! 700,000 foreigners, contributions of all kinds, the country placed at the ban of Europe! Now to that country he had restored liberty, he had reorganised her army, had established her public credit, and reconciled France with the world. Before this great result was achieved, the Duke had repeatedly declared to his friends that, as soon as the personal credit he enjoyed with foreign powers was no longer necessary, he should quit the situation he had been compelled to accept, and retire into private life, and accordingly he sent in his resignation; but it was not accepted, for the old liberal spirit had arisen to struggle for victory. Many men possessed of no ability, except for public speaking, had striven to secure the elections, and the result of the proceedings of several of the electoral colleges had caused great anxiety to the friends of government. M. de Richelieu was therefore compelled to remain at the head of affairs; and he returned to Paris for the purpose of concerting the measures rendered necessary by the actual circumstances.

The cabinet were agreed upon the necessity of opposing a barrier to democratic opinions and principles; nevertheless, serious dissensions arose when the electoral system came to be debated; and the Duke, much annoyed by the difference of opinion that existed in the council between himself, M. Decaze, and Marshal Gouvion St. Cyr, returned to his former wish of retiring from office. His example was followed by the rest of the ministers, who gave in their resignation in a simultaneous manner that was very remarkable. It is a melancholy truth, that the statesman who had so powerfully contributed to deliver the territory from foreign occupation, was compelled to retire before the petty intrigues suggested by narrow policy and the Chamber of Deputies. The Duke's opinion of the electoral system was different from that entertained by the partizans of the old liberal school, and he resigned his portfolio to General Dessole.

In spite of all the great affairs in which M. de Richelieu had been engaged, he was in a condition of honourable poverty, and the king conferred upon the retired minister the appointment of Grand Huntsman, in the same manner as he had conferred the title of Grand Chamberlain upon M. de Talleyrand, after his services in 1815. The chambers, however, were conscious that a recompense was due from the country to the able negotiator of Aix-la-Chapelle, and M. de Lally made a proposal that the king should be requested to confer a national reward upon the Duc de Richelieu. The same suggestion was made in the upper chamber, at the very moment when a letter from the Duke declared to the president of the deputies, that he should be proud of receiving a mark of the king's favour, given with the concurrence of the chambers; but that as it was proposed to award him a _national_ recompense at the expense of the nation, he could not consent to see any thing added for his sake to the burdens under which the country was already groaning. Every body was well aware that the Duke possessed no fortune, and that his sole income was derived from his office of grand huntsman; a good deal of littleness, however, was exhibited in the Chamber of Deputies when it was proposed to assign a _majorat_ of 50,000 francs to the heir of the name of Richelieu, as a recompense to the minister who had obtained the liberation of the territory. Are public bodies only capable of great actions when a profit arises from them to the passions by which they are actuated? The proposed _majorat_ was afterwards changed into an annuity; and, out of respect to the king's wishes, the Duke did not refuse this acknowledgement of his services, but he devoted the entire income derived from it to the foundation of a religious charity in the city of Bourdeaux. Such was the personal generosity of this great man, who was desirous of retiring entirely to private life.

Alas! his political career was not yet concluded! The Decaze ministry, on every side inundated by old liberal opinions, was at its last gasp. Advantage was taken of the law of elections against the government, one concession led to another, and the Duke was summoned to the council extraordinary, presided over by the king in person, to advise upon the measures to be pursued in this emergency. The crime of Louvel had filled Paris with grief and horror, and M. Decaze, abandoned by the _côté gauche_ of the chamber, who defended the law of February 5th, 1817, rejected by the royalists, who reproached him with not having agreed to the propositions of the Marquis Barthélemy, at last sent in his resignation; and at this difficult juncture, the king again placed the Duc de Richelieu at the head of affairs. The most urgent entreaties were required to induce him to accept the appointment, for the situation was melancholy, and the country full of anxiety, while the irritation of parties had reached its highest pitch. The preceding administration had proposed an electoral system, which was distasteful to all parties in the chamber; it had demanded laws arming the government with extraordinary powers; no majority was yet formed, and the ministry were doubtful whether these laws would be capable of overcoming the formidable opposition they would have to encounter; the fears of Europe also had been aroused, and it was necessary to appease them. At length, every thing, however, was provided for, and, at the end of a long and painful discussion, exceptional laws were voted.

But then, who was able to calm the public mind? and what hand was sufficiently powerful to arrest the evil tendency of society? A bias had been given to education in France ever since the revolution of 1789; people were closely surrounded by mischievous opinions and frightful systems; parties considered themselves sufficiently powerful to conspire openly, and intimidate the government by tumultuous meetings. Seditious assemblies took place with a view to political catastrophes, and the slightest hesitation might have given rise to the most dreadful calamities. The command of Paris was now committed to Marshal Macdonald, by the ministers' council, formidable military preparations were made, and proofs were obtained of a conspiracy, involving some names since exalted by another revolution. During the ten days that this state of anxiety and trouble prevailed, they had only to regret the lives of two of the disturbers of the public peace; and now that the ideas concerning government are become more advanced, people will be surprised at the declamations of those who held liberal opinions, against measures which were indispensable for the safety of the country. Has not every government a right to defend itself, and is it not bound to do so?

Europe now began to assume an alarming aspect. The revolt of the Spanish army at the island of Léon found an echo in a similar movement among the Neapolitan troops. Portugal quickly followed their example; and the seditious, imagining the French army well inclined to imitate the conduct of their neighbours, directed all their efforts towards this end. After having broken all the bonds of civil order, the revolution endeavoured to overturn the principle of duty and obedience among the soldiery. In most of the corps, however, the officers continued faithful to their engagements; a few only were unable to resist the torrent, and a conspiracy was formed in several of the regiments at Paris, extending in its ramifications to various military stations, and it was determined that the rising should take place in the barracks on the 20th of August, 1820. On the proposal of M. Mounier, then director-general of the police, the ministers' council determined upon arresting the conspirators before they had unfurled a standard and actually proclaimed the insurrection. The heads of this military conspiracy are well known at present, and some of them have even been rewarded; but, as is always the case, the plot was denied by the parties engaged in it. The Chamber of Peers behaved with much indulgence, as able and experienced authorities usually do when severity is not indispensably necessary; and the government preferred pardoning many offences, and consigning much to oblivion, to being compelled to authorise the shedding of blood.

The elections of 1820, which had taken place when a favourable impression had been raised by the birth of the Duc de Bourdeaux, gave a powerful and compact _côté droit_ to the chamber, and MM. de Villèle and Corbière, who had assumed the position of its chiefs, ought naturally to have supported the Duc de Richelieu; but, at the very commencement of the session, clouds appeared on the horizon. The _côté droit_ of the chambers had hitherto fought by the side of the ministers, and triumphed with them, and consequently they claimed a direct participation in the administration. Negotiations were entered into with them; the Duke would not consent that any of the men who had hitherto governed with him, and preserved the kingdom in its hour of peril, should be excluded from the council; however, two only of the principal deputies on the _côté droit_, MM. de Villèle and Corbière, were appointed members of the cabinet, with the title of ministerial secretaries of state.[46] M. Lainé, a man with whose honest and upright character the Duke had been particularly struck, was also a member of this administration.

[46] Ministres secrétaires d'état.

The political principle of this revised ministry was the agreement of the centre of the _côté droit_, and the _droite_ itself, in one common vote; but the session under this management was long and troublesome, and a tedious and stormy debate took place before the Duke was able to decide upon the execution of his idea of an extended system of canal navigation, like that at present in force. He drew up a plan, inviting men possessed of large capital to take a part in these great works; for at that time the principal part of the capital in the kingdom, was invested in the funds, and enterprises tending to the benefit of industry and the improvement of the country were not popular: many difficulties were encountered, but they were all overcome by means of firmness and determination.

Order was now established in all the departments of government; the restraints formerly imposed upon the action of the municipal authorities, by a system of excessive centralisation, were removed; and in the financial department the most unlimited competition was invited, for the first time, in the sale of stock, and the value of public securities reached its highest pitch. In his foreign policy, the Duke never ceased for a moment to support the idea of the Russian alliance, less from former recollections, and his affection for the Emperor Alexander, than upon the principle constantly expressed in all his correspondence, that the Russian alliance was advantageous to France because it was perfectly disinterested. In fact, what can Russia demand of us? On what point can we clash? Commerce with her can never be otherwise than an equal exchange; the productions of industry in her country are not of equal value with ours; she requires our wines, our fashions, our manufactures, and we, in exchange, require her timber, her copper, and her iron. Her fleets cannot assume any dominion over us, her frontiers do not reach us in any direction, and we are benefited by her influence; whilst, on the other hand, the designs and interests of France are opposed by the English alliance in all questions of importance. M. de Richelieu's system was resumed by M. de la Ferronays in 1828.

During the Duke's second ministry the great European powers met at Laybach, to agree upon a vast repressive system to be pursued against the insurrection rising in arms around. The Richelieu cabinet was resolved upon a firm resistance against all the tumults and disorders that were disturbing the peace of Europe. Agitation had also arisen in the East, and the Greeks had raised the standard of the cross. But Russia, which under Catherine had supported the Hellenic emancipation, was now too fully occupied with her own affairs to be able to follow up the system she had then commenced. France, therefore, determined upon sending a naval force into the Grecian seas for the protection of commerce, and, while observing a generous neutrality, assistance was still afforded to all who implored it from the French flag. But now the Richelieu cabinet, entirely occupied with its foreign relations, was threatened with danger to itself. Its very feeble parliamentary combination rested upon a false basis in the chamber. The ministry only existed by the will of the _côté droit_; and that party with its chiefs, MM. de Villèle and Corbière, would not fail, sooner or later, to assume the direction of affairs, because they possessed the majority. The _droite_ and the _gauche_ were both distinct from the cabinet, and the former was evidently impatient to seize the reins of government.

These two fractions of the chamber were desirous of concluding with a _coup d'éclat_; and the reply to the speech from the throne in 1821 became the arena for the great political struggle. The commission under the direction of the _côté droit_ insisted that in the plan of the address presented to the chamber these words should be inserted: "We congratulate you, sire, upon your friendly relations with foreign powers, feeling a just confidence that so valuable a peace has not been purchased by sacrifices incompatible with the honour of the nation and the dignity of the crown." So offensive an expression was an open rupture with the cabinet. M. de Richelieu declared such an insinuation was an insult to the crown, and the ministers tendered their resignation. The chamber persisted, and voted the address, which was, in fact, a declaration that they did not wish the ministry to stand: the cabinet, therefore, retired in a mass, and were succeeded by MM. de Montmorency and de Villèle.

And here let us pause, and observe to what trials men are exposed who devote themselves entirely to the defence of the interests of their country, without intrigue or passion, simply from the feeling for all that is right and noble! No character can bear a comparison with that of the Duc de Richelieu; no services equal those he rendered to his country; and, behold! he was overturned both by the _côté droit_, and the _gauche_ of the Chamber of Deputies. The conduct of the _gauche_ was this: the Duke took charge of France at the time of the foreign invasion; the Buonapartists and the remains of the Jacobin faction, having a second time endangered the country by their madness of the _hundred days_; the enemy was in Paris--it occupied France; the influence of the Duke succeeded in preserving the country, and diminishing the sacrifices exacted from it; the foreign troops were withdrawn, and, as a recompense, the spirit of liberalism overturned the Duke.

Would you also know the conduct of the ungrateful monarchical party? A great crisis had occurred for the crown; the royalists were giving way, and the power was about to be wrested from their hands by the _côté gauche_. The restoration was completely compromised, when the Duke again sacrificed himself: holding his popularity cheap, he augmented and strengthened the royalist party, and this was the summary of the instructions concerning the elections, directed by M. Mounier: "Before every thing, the friends of royalty;" and then the ultras, masters by this means of the majority, had nothing so much at heart as the dismissal of the Duc de Richelieu, in order to give themselves up to their mad projects.

This moment was the conclusion of the Duke's political life; his feelings had been severely tried by the injustice of parties. It soon became apparent that his health was rapidly declining, and in a journey to the Château of Courteille, where the Duchess was living, he was taken ill, suddenly became insensible, and died at Paris, on the night of the 16th of May, 1822. He was only fifty-five years of age; his carriage was erect, and his features simple and regular, as they appear in the fine portrait of Lawrence of which I have spoken. All parties concur in awarding the highest praise to the noble qualities of the Duc de Richelieu. He was not a man of extraordinary genius, but of a thoroughly honest and upright character; and there are times, when no talent possessed by a statesman is of so much avail as honesty. I admire the infinite superiority of a man capable of allowing virtue and honour their full weight in the political balance, and I take especial pleasure in rendering this tribute to the Duc de Richelieu, because I have never known so fine a character combined with so noble a name.

PRINCE HARDENBERG.

It is natural that States which feel an incessant desire of increasing, should not retain the inflexible principles of upright and generous policy in their diplomatic system. Every time they feel stifled, they strive for more space and the means of more extended respiration; and such has constantly been the condition of the Prussian monarchy, from the time of its foundation, which may be said to have taken place unexpectedly, at the beginning of the eighteenth century. At this period the Duchy became a Kingdom, and no sooner was the kingdom established than it wanted to become great; for more room is required to unfold the sweeping train of a King, than to wear the robes merely of a Duke or a Margrave.

This necessity for augmentation created a national law peculiar to Prussia; and looking at nothing but the necessities of her position, she seized every thing she could lay her hands upon. Frederic II. carried on this system of conquest, for his wars were regulated by no principle of the law of nations, and he appeared to have but one object in view, which was, to attack at one time Poland, and at another Silesia, for the purpose of conquering cities and provinces. On this account he availed himself of all means of distinction, striving for the celebrity of a writer and the pretension of a poet; even making the most of the puerile vanity of the philosophical party of the eighteenth century. When we examine into the actual constitution of Prussia, as well as into that she formerly possessed, we shall observe that her organisation has always been such as to render conquest imperatively necessary; even at present is not the kingdom like a lean giant, armed at all points, whose head is at Königsberg and his feet dipped in the Rhine, but whose middle is wanting? and the country that is required to complete the picture, is it not Saxony?

It is, then, as the personification of the Prussian political system, that I am about to write the life of Baron, afterwards Prince Hardenberg, the most remarkable statesman that has been at the head of affairs in the monarchy of Frederic. Charles-Augustus, baron Hardenberg, was born in October 1750, at Hanover, that principality wedged into the midst of Germany, which recalls to the recollection the origin of the kings of England. Hanover preserves its German character under a separate administration, although it belongs to the patrimonial inheritance of the princes called to wear the English crown; and this separation was imperatively demanded by the English, a people so tenacious of their liberty, in order to avoid the chance of fatal continental wars, to defend the patrimony of their sovereign--a contingency their constitution will not permit.

Baron Hardenberg was descended from an ancient family, carried back by the old heraldic traditions as far as the eleventh century, at the time of the Emperors of the house of Suabia; he was himself the son of a marshal of the empire, and went to the military university of Brunswick with the intention of following his father's profession. The bent of his inclinations, however, appeared to be different, and while he applied his mind to the severest studies, he felt a strong vocation for a diplomatic life, and his curiosity led him always to endeavour to discover by what springs the cabinets recorded in history were actuated. He afterwards went to travel, gaining knowledge while visiting the different parts of Europe, and arrived in London at the time when Mr. Pitt was at the head of affairs, and a most violent and active opposition surrounded the ministry. As Hanover, as I have before mentioned, forms part of the patrimonial inheritance of the reigning family, Baron Hardenberg, though not an English subject, was naturally desirous of acquiring an extensive knowledge of the laws and customs which form a national law peculiar to England, and with which every British subject ought to be acquainted. But England was the scene of his greatest domestic infelicity; for having in early youth married the most beautiful woman in Germany, Mademoiselle de Randlaw, he introduced her into the brilliant society and dissipation of London, and she was received with an almost chivalric enthusiasm in the highest circles.

A Prince, from whom Richardson would have drawn his character of Lovelace, the Prince of Wales, heir to the throne of England, remarkable for his personal beauty, magnificent in his equipages, and accomplished in all manly exercises, fell desperately in love with Baroness Hardenberg; and so much publicity attached to his admiration, that a separation became inevitable; the Baron therefore quitted England and returned to Germany. He already gave evidence of three qualities denoting great ability; the subtlety of intellect necessary in all negotiations of any importance; a habit of conversation, alternately discreet and unguarded, cold or vehement, according to circumstances; and a most profound knowledge of European national law--talents which naturally fitted him for a high diplomatic situation: nevertheless, young Hardenberg gave himself up entirely to the details of the administration of the country--a circumstance in which he resembled William Pitt, who was at the same time a first-rate politician and attentive to the smallest minutiæ regarding war and finance. His perfect acquaintance with the laws of Germany was a great assistance to him, when he was summoned to the supreme direction of the affairs of Prussia.

Another quality possessed by Hardenberg, was his strong and decided taste for literature; and his intimate friendship with Goëthe, who exercised such absolute dominion over the intellects of his time, arose from this source. This was not one of the relations of protector and protégé; for in Germany, where matters of genius and study are viewed in a serious light, a man of literary celebrity is placed almost in a superior rank, and he is not only on a footing of equality with statesmen, but sometimes even in a position of master and scholar. What a brilliant sceptre was that extended by Goëthe over Germany! The poet who had shewn such incomparable skill in his delineation of the feudal ages, appeared to blend in his escutcheon of glory all the ancient colours of the German nobility. This threefold aptitude of Baron Hardenberg for literature, politics, and administration, produced great and uncommon results: first, an expansion of mind arising from the habit of treating important affairs; then, a close application to detail, arising from his employment in the executive administration; and, finally, a clear, exact, and benevolent mind, the consequence of the literary intercourse he had pursued with enthusiasm during his youth.