Part 24

I am not aware that the Russian cabinet has ever been made the subject of consideration in France, in the point of view of its great diplomatic ability. The principal source of its predominance has been sought in the strength communicated by its armies, and in its absolute organisation; but they have been mistaken: the truth is, that there is nothing more persevering, or more deeply reflecting, than the Russian cabinet; it goes on slowly, without attracting attention by noise or tumult. During the last century, the Russian population has increased by eleven millions of souls, who occupy more than five hundred leagues square of territory, if we include Georgia and the part of Tartary united to the government of the Crimea; and, independent of these actual conquests, Russia has acquired an undoubted protectorate over Moldavia and Wallachia, and such a degree of influence in Persia, that no other country would now think of disputing it with her: finally, every one is aware of the position she has obtained at Constantinople, and also of the efforts made by the whole of Europe to prevent her from actually accomplishing the vast projects formed by Peter the Great. In order to arrive at this result, nothing has been neglected by Russia; neither political protestations, nor appeals to religious feeling, have been spared. Knowing exactly where to stop, she never ventures too far in an idea; she waits patiently till the opportunity is ripe; and, should her system have too much awakened attention, she does not overstep certain limits, but makes a momentary concession, and then resumes her projects with admirable consistency. As soon as the proper season has arrived, and that the obstacles she at first encountered are overcome, then Russia progresses straight to the accomplishment of her wishes.

Catherine, struck with a fatal apoplexy, had descended to the tomb, and the sceptre passed to the Grand Duke Paul, who had been condemned to the most profound obscurity, until the moment when he was summoned from his solitude to the government of forty millions of people. The gloomy singularity of his character has been exaggerated; he has been represented as a capricious prince, who would pass suddenly from acts of savage tyranny to kindness and tender intimacy; but we must remember that Paul came of the blood of Peter the Great, and being incessantly surrounded by conspiracies, which threatened both his crown and his life, he often formed resolutions which flew at once from unreserve to anger, from confidence to sudden fury. Characters generally spring from situations, and are what events have made us. Paul had to defend his life, which had been endangered by many attempts against it; we must not, therefore, be too hasty in our judgment of this prince, but, in order to form a fair opinion, we must descend to the depths of the national character, and view the general situation of her politics.

Europe had received a vehement impulse from the French revolution. The Grand Duke, who was himself threatened by the spirit of revolt, must have viewed with but little satisfaction this popular explosion at the other extremity of Europe; but the distance of Russia, her financial embarrassments, and the accomplishment of the partition of Poland, did not permit her to take part in the first coalition against the French revolution: the Russians did not join the hostile party until the second Italian war, during the campaign of Suwarof. I will not repeat the well-known military story; the divisions in the cabinets of Vienna and St. Petersburg put a stop to the second coalition: but the Russian regiments had seen Italy; they had touched the soil of Switzerland; for the first time their breasts had been warmed by the mild rays of the southern sun; and, like the invaders of the third and fourth centuries, they recollected during the long wintry nights of their icy clime, that there were large towns and fair cities in the south of Europe, that those fertile lands produced delicious fruits, while the smiling plains were crowned with abundant harvests: these recollections lay deep in the mind of many a Russian veteran in the years 1813 and 1814, and from this time forth the cabinet of St. Petersburg took a part in the interests of southern Europe.

The diplomatic career of Count Nesselrode began at the time of the embassy of Count Marcoff at Paris, under the Consulate--that wonderful period when every thing, government, institutions, and political and social ideas, appeared to have been renewed with the vigour of youth. The forcible administration of the First Consul easily opened the way to negotiations with Russia, for whenever a regular power has been established in France, Europe has never attempted to overturn it. Count Nesselrode being attached to the embassy in Paris, had the opportunity of witnessing the magnificent developement of the power and genius of Buonaparte, then First Consul. Who would have foretold that fifteen years later, he, as the Chancellor of Alexander, would preside over the acts relative to the downfall of the Emperor, and sanction the decrees of the senate of 1814 for the restoration of the House of Bourbon?

Paris, at this early period of the Consulate, was an abode full of pleasure and enjoyment. The treaty of Amiens had just been concluded, peace had been obtained through victory, and people were desirous of amusement and repose; they were emerging from the system of the Directory, the spirit of good society again raised its head, and its rules and customs were eagerly sought for, in order to restore it from its ruins. There was a little court at the Tuileries around Joséphine; all the ceremonies and etiquette of former times were collected with avidity; ambassadors alone had liveries, and their splendid equipages shone with double lustre among the half-republican assemblage, where there was a long string of hackney-coaches with their numbers concealed. Napoleon still reserved all his magnificence for his military festivals; his grand reviews on the Place du Carrousel, where in the midst of clouds of dust the squadrons of _guides_, and the grenadiers of the consular guard defiled, as we see them depicted in the pictures of Isabey.

The luxurious splendour of the embassies cast over every thing belonging to the legation, an aristocratic gloss which turned the heads of this generation; and this may explain the success in female society enjoyed by various members of the _corps diplomatique_ at this period, and the close and tender intimacies which were afterwards so useful to Prince Metternich in his diplomatic _surveillances_. Young Nesselrode, like all Russians, spoke French with the greatest fluency, and without the decided accent, which all Prince Metternich's talents are unable to correct. He had his share of the dissipation of the new court, where some young women, as if astonished at their own position, forgot themselves, and forgot also that they had the gravest and most serious head in the world as their chief. I can hardly say wherefore, but nothing has given me a more contemptible idea of society in the time of the Consulate, than the perusal of some memoirs that have been written in apology for it; beside the wonders achieved by one man, how mean and wretched appear the tricks and narrow intrigues of those around him!

The Russian legation was at that time obliged to concern itself, with one of the most important questions of maritime rights, and of the law of nations. The treaty of Amiens, which never could have been any thing more than a truce between France and England, was broken by both parties at once; and it is an invidious question to inquire which of these two governments, was guilty of the first infringement of the treaty: the peace fell to the ground because it was only a momentary repose for two cabinets unable to live in peace with each other, on account of their gigantic ambition. As soon as war was declared between France and England, Napoleon was naturally desirous of carrying on hostilities in a vigorous manner, and for that purpose he endeavoured to secure the co-operation of some of the continental powers. Paul, who was as ardent in his admiration as in his hatred, had conceived a high esteem for the First Consul, and Buonaparte, taking advantage of this feeling, requested him again to put in force, for the benefit of the neutral powers, the principle of the liberty of the sea; a principle completely opposed to the ideas and interests of England, for the British government never would admit that the flag should protect the merchandise. A squadron appeared in the Sound, to act simultaneously against Denmark, Sweden, and Russia, who had adhered to the principle of armed neutrality. The legation at Paris, under the direction of Count Marcoff, based the treaty on the rights of the neutral nations, being the developement of a grand maritime idea renewed by Louis XVI.

A change, however, soon took place, for, as if stricken by a thunderbolt, Paul fell a victim to a conspiracy. The mysterious horrors of that awful night have been recorded in history. The mild and romantic Alexander was placed on the throne of his father, who appeared almost immediately inclined to proceed to warlike measures against France and Napoleon; and accordingly the influence exercised by England over the cabinet of St. Petersburg was very considerable. The Russian legation quitted Paris, and as it had lately exhibited great activity in obtaining information that was not favourable to the ideas of Napoleon, Count Marcoff was on the point of being arrested, and there was a good deal of hesitation whether he should receive his passports. These acts of violence were a habit of Napoleon, for even the barrier opposed by the law of nations to his will was displeasing to him, and he was always on the eve of breaking through it.

The part played since this period by Count Nesselrode, and the importance of the negotiations between Russia and France, render it necessary to explain the organisation of the highest class of the _corps diplomatique_, as it exists in the Russian empire. The Emperor being the supreme head of the army, of the government, and of the church, all the authorities depend upon him, and consequently he reserves to himself the entire direction of what is called the _Chancellerie_. This _chancellerie_ appoints agents, who, under the title of ministers or ambassadors, represent officially their sovereign at foreign courts; it also exercises much activity and vigilance, and keeps a watch upon the ambassadors, who are often compelled to collect the most minute information--a proceeding not at all in keeping with their elevated rank, for the shades are almost imperceptible between what is allowable, and what is forbidden in diplomatic affairs; and, as I have before stated, this ambiguous situation often induced the Emperor Napoleon to be almost violent in his measures against the Russian ambassadors, when he found they obtained statements of the military establishments, and secret conventions, so as to become masters of the most carefully guarded secrets of the cabinet.

Independent of these people, who are officially accredited, the Czar despatches aides-de-camp, without any positive commission except that of travelling, or perhaps being the bearers of some complimentary message; and these officers examine into every thing and send reports, not only regarding the government and the population they are deputed to inspect, but even concerning the Russian agents. To recall an example: under the Emperor Napoleon, in 1811, the aide-de-camp Czernitcheff made two or three journeys to Paris, ostensibly to compliment the Emperor, and to carry him autograph letters from the Czar; and then he returned to Russia with a statement of all the military strength of the country, which had been given him by an _employé_ in the war-office--information that was of the greatest possible service to Russia in the defence of 1812. In addition to all this, when the Czar takes the field a great number of general officers unite diplomatic missions and services, to their military titles; as, for instance, Count Pozzo di Borgo, as we have before observed, attended at the same time to the strategic operations, and to the arrangements in the cabinets, which might secure their developement. When England, who was the first to follow this plan, granted subsidies to a power, she always sent a commissioner with each army to follow the campaign.

Count Nesselrode was early attached as a councillor to the private _chancellerie_ of the Czar, who soon discovered him to possess a faithful disposition, great and solid erudition, a serious understanding, and a spirit of ready obedience that would willingly support his sovereign will. Count Nesselrode took especial pains to please Alexander, whose mind was too full of his own ideas to bear any impulse that was not given by himself. At the time of his departure for the interview at Erfurt, it was evident that three ideas in particular possessed the minds of the members of the cabinet of St. Petersburg. The one, entirely Russian, observed with feelings of grief and humiliation, the alliance between Alexander and the head of the French government; a strong dislike was felt by the old Muscovites to the greatness of the new empire; the noble Sclavonian detested the proud and arrogant _parvenus_. They did not wish for an open rupture with France, but the engagements entered into by the treaty of Erfurt, the intimacy between the two crowns, which had been formed by the fascinations of Napoleon--all this, I say, was a source of great displeasure to the old aristocracy, to the successors of those Boyards who claimed the feudal government of the Russian provinces.

The second school of this diplomacy was in some degree Greek and Oriental. Napoleon had been desirous of satisfying some of the projects of Russia by the treaty of Erfurt; and as he was then dividing the world with Alexander, he conceded to him the full and entire realisation of the plans of Catherine, agreeing that Constantinople should be his in a few years, Ispahan and Persia in the course of time; they even spoke of the independence of Greece, and consequently of the possibility of an insurrection among the Hellenic and Syrian population. Napoleon had long revolved these projects in his mind; in fact, had not the general of the army of Egypt already had an idea of appealing to the Christian profession, as a means of rousing the Copts and Syrians against their Ottoman masters? Some maxims of liberty were to be attached to the Greek school of diplomacy, and they were brought forward some years afterwards at the congress of Vienna by Count Capo d'Istria.

The third diplomatic school, which was to a certain degree founded by Count Nesselrode, consisted in taking a middle course between the two former systems. The young Count had never been devoted to the plans proposed at Erfurt, and he did not for a moment allow himself to be carried away by the gigantic projects then determined upon in a moment of enthusiasm; he did not identify himself either with the Greek or the German school, nor even entirely with the Muscovite, in its repugnance for Napoleon. What Alexander particularly remarked was, the perfect obedience of his minister to all his wishes, though he sometimes strove to infuse a little moderation into his decisions, when their tendency was too abrupt or positive to be advisable in political affairs. Nesselrode always executed the orders of his sovereign, but in so doing he tempered the expressions of enthusiastic mysticism which often characterised the politics of the Czar; he did not attempt to give an impulse, but he endeavoured to prevent the will of his master from going too far.

The commencement of Count Nesselrode's favour dates especially from the French expedition to Russia. The movement, still more national than military, which repulsed this gigantic undertaking, naturally took its source from the old Muscovite families, and in the savage energy against which the Czars, ever since the days of Peter the Great, have struggled in vain; and Alexander, whose education and principles rendered him particularly averse to this return of barbarism, felt the need of a confidential friend, in whose bosom he might confide his fears of the results to be apprehended from this Muscovite tendency, which went beyond his own ideas and wishes. Count Nesselrode became one of these confidential servants, and as early as 1812, although he did not fill the official situation of _conseiller d'état_, he took the principal part in the prodigious diplomatic movement then in progress; he concluded and signed the treaty of the subsidies with England, and the secret alliance of the two great powers against Napoleon, which completed his political fortune.

The intimacy between Count Nesselrode and Prince Metternich began in the course of the negotiations at the congress of Prague. As I have before observed, it is impossible to institute a comparison between these diplomatists; Prince Metternich being the creator of a system, while Nesselrode was merely employed in executing, or perhaps in moderating an idea, which was not always his own. Count Nesselrode was not the official plenipotentiary at the congress of Prague, the full powers being entrusted to M. d'Anstett, a man of considerable ability, but hardly likely to be very favourably inclined to a peaceable system, for he was a French _émigré_; however, the impulse and the direction of the whole business emanated entirely from Alexander, and consequently from Count Nesselrode, the most faithful and devoted of his representatives. It was then, as we cannot but feel, of the greatest importance, to induce Austria to join the coalition of the Allies against Napoleon, for upon it depended the success of the campaign of Germany; but Metternich was far from being decided in favour of this step, and he wished to oblige them to purchase the co-operation of Austria at a very high price: the negotiations, however, were conducted with great ability by Count Nesselrode, and at the conclusion of the congress of Prague the alliance of Austria was well secured to the coalition. The Russian minister arranged in the name of his sovereign all the articles of this treaty, which calmed the fears of Austria, by assigning to her an advantageous frontier in Germany and Italy.

A new element had just manifested itself in the Russian diplomacy, General Pozzo di Borgo having arrived at head-quarters, after accomplishing his mission to Bernadotte, crown-prince of Sweden. Count Pozzo was the friend of the disaffected generals of the Empire; and his constant thought, and the master-passion of his soul, was his desire to bring about the ruin of his ancient rival, whom he considered as the oppressor of Europe. It was necessary for Count Nesselrode, if not exactly to contend with this influence over the mind of Alexander, at least not entirety to concur in it; for he, like Metternich, for a short time considered it might be possible to treat with Napoleon, and to impose such a degree of restraint upon his military power, as to prevent him from injuring the German independence, or the security of the interests and relations of the States. On this head Nesselrode perfectly agreed in the opinions of Alexander, who, during the campaign of 1813, was as far from desiring the downfall of Napoleon, as from wishing to interfere with the form of government in France; there was then quite enough to do in Germany, the Rhine had not yet been passed, and the question concerning the deposition of the French Emperor did not occur until 1814. Count Nesselrode having been present at the interview at Abo, between the Czar and Bernadotte, it was impossible he should be ignorant that questions had been raised concerning certain possible events, among which the chance of another form of government being established in France was spoken of. Those who have some knowledge of the state of the case, are well aware that nothing could be more vague and undecided than all that was settled in this interview, if we except the close alliance between Russia and Sweden, and certain decisions concerning their territorial claims. The Emperor Alexander conversed with Bernadotte about the plan of the campaign, and the state of the public mind in France, as well as concerning all the possibilities and chances that might be the consequence of the war; and Bernadotte in his turn naturally spoke of his grievances, and of the injuries which, as a Republican general, he had been exposed to from Napoleon, and for which he retained a strong dislike to him: but there was no talk of any change, and they entered into no positive agreement to overturn the sovereign who then reigned in France.

During the campaign of 1814, there was as much activity in the negotiations as even in the military operations; and when the Allies had once passed the Rhine it was considered necessary diplomacy should follow all the phases of the war, so as to be ready to reply to the proposals that might be made by the Emperor of the French, and also to resolve all the difficulties they might encounter. The arrival of Lord Castlereagh on the Continent greatly facilitated the transactions regarding the subsidies and the equipment of the troops; and the treaty of Chaumont was signed by Count Nesselrode, as well as by the plenipotentiaries of the other allied powers. The ascendancy acquired by England just then was so great, that she may almost be said to have alone given the impulse and direction to all the acts of the cabinet; it must, however, be acknowledged, that as she furnished the sinews of war, it was very natural she should fix positively the use to which they were to be applied. Count Nesselrode arranged with Lord Castlereagh the method of issuing the pay of the troops, and the diplomatic result of the campaign.

The sad events of the war brought the Allies to Paris; and the moment was decisive for that portion of the senate which, under the direction of Talleyrand, D'Alberg, and Jaucourt, wished for the fall of Napoleon. A provisional government was established, after the occupation of the capital. There could be no hesitation in the choice of alliances, for the support of Alexander was indispensably necessary to accomplish the ruin of the imperial system, whose hour was come! For this purpose, however, it was essential to obtain the concurrence of Nesselrode, the minister who had signed all the diplomatic acts concluded in the last three years; and even had they considered him as a mere secretary (Alexander being accustomed to act very much for himself), they would naturally have been desirous of engaging him in the interests of the provisional government.