Reception at M. de Talleyrand’s—His attitude at the Congress—The Duc de Dalberg—The Duc de Richelieu—Mme. Edmond de PÉrigord—M. Pozzo di Borgo—Parallel between the Prince de Ligne and M. de Talleyrand—A Monster Concert.

Since my arrival in Vienna, I had given myself up so wholly to the pleasure of meeting with old friends that I had only been able to pay a ‘duty’ call at the French Legation. Although several friends, among others MM. Boigne de Faye and Achille Rouen, formed part of it in different capacities, I had not been able to have a confidential chat with any. I had begun sincerely to regret having missed the opportunity of going to M. de Talleyrand’s receptions, when he divined my wishes, and with his well-known and exquisite courtesy sent me an invitation to dinner. As may be imagined, I did not fail to respond to it, impatient as I was to observe from near at hand a man whom I had not seen since my early manhood, and who had been so largely mixed up with the chief events of the time. It is a memorable thing in a man’s life to be able to approach closely to an actor who has played a principal part on the world’s stage. It makes an impression which only ceases with life or with the loss of memory. I reached the embassy early, and from M. Rouen’s private apartments made my way to the reception-rooms. There was no one there but M. de Talleyrand, the Duc de Dalberg, and Madame Edmond de PÉrigord, whom I had already met at Mme. de Fuchs’s. The prince bade me welcome with the exquisite grace which had become a second nature to him, and taking hold of my hand with the kindliness reminiscent of a bygone period, he said: ‘I had to come to Vienna, then, Monsieur, in order to have the pleasure of seeing you at my home?’ I may have been mistaken, but at that moment he certainly belied the axiom so long ascribed to him, namely: That words were given to man to enable him to disguise his thought. Without awaiting my answer, which, judging from my embarrassed look, he fancied would not be quickly forthcoming, he presented me to the Duc de Dalberg with a few flattering and gracious words.

I had not seen M. de Talleyrand since 1806; but I was struck once more with the intellectual subtlety of the look, the imperturbable calm of the features, the demeanour of the pre-eminent man whom I, in common with all those forgathered in Vienna, considered the foremost diplomatist of his time. There were also the same grave and deep tone of voice, the same easy and natural manners, the same ingrained familiarity with the usages of the best society—a belated reflex, as it were, of a state of things which existed no longer, and of which one beheld in him one of the last representatives. In that room, and face to face with such a man, one could not help yielding to an irresistible feeling of timidity and awe.

The panegyric of the French plenipotentiaries at the Congress is practically contained in their names; nevertheless, M. de Talleyrand, in particular, seemed to dominate that illustrious assembly by the charm of his mind and the ascendency of his genius. Always the same, he treated diplomacy as he treated it formerly in his drawing-room in Paris and at Neuilly. Yet, France’s rÔle was rendered not less difficult by the circumstances from without than by the confusion from within. Hedged, as it were, by numberless obstacles, the inevitable consequences of a new organisation, and of the little harmony such an organisation is likely to command, France was virtually incapable of showing any virile disposition. It was an open secret that such a display was beyond the power and beyond the will of her government. The great European states, the arbiters of the Congress, proceeded with a common accord of which hitherto there had been no instance in diplomatic annals. It seemed as if nothing could either break or detach a single link of the chain. Hence, the representatives of France were bound to make up, either by the resources of their genius or by talent of the first order, for the obstacles opposed to them by a quadruple alliance applying to the deliberations the whole weight of its actual importance and of its unassailable union.

The force he could not look for from his government, M. de Talleyrand found in himself; for it is no exaggeration to say that the whole of the French mission at the Congress seemed personified in him, whatever may have been the merit of his colleagues and the consideration attached to their personality. With the marvellous intuition which was the particular dower of his intellect, and which seemed not only to foresee events but to dominate them, he soon recovered the position belonging to France. Admitted to the directing committee, composed of the four great Powers, he completely changed its ideas and its tendency. ‘I bring to you more than you possess, I bring to you the idea of “right.”’ He divided those Powers, hitherto so united; he, as it were, raised the spectre of a disproportionately aggrandised Russian weight on the rest of Europe, and the necessity of edging her back to the north. He caused Austria and England to share that conviction. Hence, Emperor Alexander, who under the influence and in the drawing-room of M. de Talleyrand had, six months previously, decided upon the restoration of the House of Bourbon, saw, not without annoyance, his projects stopped by the representative of a state which owed its existence to him. ‘Talleyrand enacts the part here of Louis XIV.’s minister,’ he said more than once with a show of bad humour. I have no intention of enumerating the labours of M. de Talleyrand at the Congress of Vienna, or the important acts in which he took a part. Still less do I intend to trace a portrait of that celebrated man. Apart from the consideration that such a task would entail infinite developments, M. de Talleyrand henceforth belongs to history; and history alone, with inflexible truth, can describe and make known one of the most historical personages of modern times. But, having been an eyewitness at that trying period of his often successful efforts at raising and reinstating the nation which he represented, I find it difficult to resist the temptation to record the vivid impression produced by his imperturbable calm, his attitude, and the whole of his personality.

It has been said often, and with considerable truth, that at no period did Talleyrand appear more conspicuously great than at the moment of France’s disasters in 1814. I had seen him eight years previously as Minister of France, then all-powerful, and dictating his laws to the whole of Continental Europe. At Vienna, as the plenipotentiary of a vanquished people, he was the same man, and as absolutely confident of himself. There was the same noble dignity, perhaps with an additional shade of pride, the same confidence essential to the representative of a nation which though vanquished was necessary to the maintenance of the European equilibrium—of a nation which might gather strength from the very consciousness of her defeat. His demeanour was, in one word, the most eloquent expression of the grandeur of our country. In watching the look which adverse fortune had been unable to disturb, the impassiveness which nothing could disconcert, one could not but feel that this man had still behind him a strong and powerful nation.

Just as his high renown, and the authority attached to his name and experience, made themselves felt in the deliberations of European politics, so did his noble manners, the manners of the grand seigneur, and his urbanity stamp his private receptions and his daily life with a character of gravity wholly in harmony with his diplomatic rÔle. At no moment in Vienna did he deviate from the habits contracted in Paris and in the century that lay behind. Every morning while he was dressing, visitors were admitted, and often during the operation of shaving and attending to his hair by his valet, discussions of the utmost gravity, though in the guise of mere talk, were engaged in. I have frequently seen him in his drawing-room seated on a couch by the side of the beautiful Comtesse Edmond de Perigord, and surrounded by bearers of the most eminent political names, the ministers of the victorious Powers, who, standing, conversed with him, or rather listened, as to the lessons of a teacher. In our century, M, de Talleyrand is perhaps the only man who constantly obtained such a triumph.

M. le Duc de Dalberg was well worthy of figuring by the side of M. de Talleyrand. Sprung from one of the oldest and noblest families of Germany, he contributed powerfully on the 31st March to the resolution which brought back the Bourbons to the throne; at the same time, he had pronounced in favour of constitutional measures calculated to reassure public opinion, and to make France rally to the restored rÉgime. Sharing the views and wishes of M. de Talleyrand at the time of the Restoration, the same bond of union drew them together at the Congress. The heartfelt aim of both was to restore to France the rank of which her misfortunes had deprived her among the Powers.34 M. de Talleyrand, before proceeding to Vienna, had drawn up his own instructions. It was said on excellent authority that he strictly adhered to them, and that the various phases of the negotiations had been foreseen and indicated by him with marvellous sagacity. What is not generally known is the existence of two different sets of private correspondence addressed to Paris by the French plenipotentiaries; one, partly from the pen of and edited by M. de la BesnadiÈre, and exclusively anecdotal, was sent to King Louis XVIII. M. de Talleyrand positively besprinkled it with those witty and original sallies, those subtle and profound remarks, characteristic of him. The other, exclusively political and principally indited by the Duc de Dalberg, went straight to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.35

On the day in question, there were few guests to dinner at M. de Talleyrand’s. This afforded me the opportunity of observing more attentively and of listening more carefully: each figure of such a picture could be studied separately and with greater advantage.

In addition to the members of the French Mission, there were only a few strangers, namely, the Comte Razumowski, General Pozzo di Borgo, and the Duc de Richelieu. When I parted from the last at Odessa in 1812, he was in a position most trying to a governor-general.36 The plague was ravaging his provinces of the Chersonese and the Taurida, and it required all his energy to get rid of such an importunate visitor. In those cruel circumstances he displayed the most admirable courage.

My questions followed each other most rapidly, as my pleasure at seeing him again was great. I was seated between him and M. de la BesnadiÈre, and we went back with great interest to the days of our past dangers; we chatted about the ravages of the plague as sailors preserved from shipwreck would have spoken of the hidden rocks on which their craft might have gone to pieces.

All those who have known the Duc de Richelieu are aware of the sincere friendship he was apt to inspire. Few men in their public capacity have shown a nobler character, and in their eminent functions a stricter disinterestedness. The esteem of all parties was his reward.

It is to him Russia owes, in the founding of Odessa, one of her most precious commercial centres. Up to that period, the duke was only distinguished for his military exploits. Having been sent to the shores of the Black Sea by Emperor Alexander, who understood all the importance of the site, Richelieu displayed in his fresh sphere of activity the greatest talent, from an administrative standpoint. In a few years, a harbour without life, and a few houses without tenants, were replaced by an accessible and spacious port and a rich and elegant town. The loyalty of his character contributed to draw around him merchants and colonisers. In spite of the plague and of the suspension of all commercial operations, Odessa, under his firm and enlightened administration, instead of declining, increased each day in prosperity. At present it is one of the most important points of the East.

Thereafter, M. de Richelieu passed from the government of the Taurida to that of his own country. He hesitated for a long while before assuming a burden he fancied to be beyond his strength, and only yielded at the repeated instances of Emperor Alexander. Obliged, in virtue of his office, to sign the disastrous treaties of 1815, he bore with patriotic fortitude their odious consequences. Students of history will remember his efforts at the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle (1818), and the happy results which crowned them. History may not, perhaps, acquiesce in his sufficient knowledge of the men and places which he had governed, but she will always refer with grateful remembrance to his sterling virtues and his exalted patriotism.

The conversation became general, and followed the direction given to it by the personages, interesting in so many respects, taking part in it. M. Pozzo di Borgo, whom I saw on that occasion for the first time, seemed to me to unite the finesse, the liveliness of intellect, and the imagination of his countrymen. An avowed enemy of Bonaparte since the beginning of his career, he had never disguised his joy at the latter’s fall. In a few words he summed up all the causes which were inevitably to lead to the acceleration of that great catastrophe.37 At that time a simple general of infantry in the Russian service, M. Pozzo di Borgo never deviated from the line of conduct which led him subsequently to exercise such a great influence on the destinies of Europe. Born in Corsica, and deputy for the island in the Legislative Assembly, he held the same ardent opinions which had made him conspicuous in his own country. It was he who in July 1792 induced the Assembly to declare war against the German Emperor. After the revolution of August 10th, his name was found mentioned in the papers of Louis XVI. A fellow-deputy for Corsica, one of the commissaries entrusted with the examination of those papers, informed him, it was said, of the danger he might be running, and prevailed upon him to leave Paris. On his return to Corsica, he changed his colours. Resolved to support the designs for rendering the island independent, he joined the party of Paoli, and in 1793, the Convention summoned him, as well as the general, to its bar, to account for his conduct. Neither obeyed the summons: the English army occupied the island, and M. Pozzo di Borgo was appointed president of the Council of State under Eliot, who was raised to the dignity of viceroy. Nevertheless, during his tenure of office there arose so many complaints against him that Eliot advised him to retire, at the request of Paoli, who had become afraid of the number of enemies his protÉgÉ had managed to array against himself. M. Pozzo di Borgo then went to London, where he was employed by the government in the secret diplomatic service. The British Government itself subsequently admitted that, thanks to the influence of Prince Czartoryski, Pozzo di Borgo had passed into the secret political service of Russia. The same good fortune that attended him in his political functions remained by his side on the battlefield: he obtained rapid promotion, and at Leipzig he fought as major-general under the orders of another Frenchman, to-day King of Sweden.38 It was Pozzo di Borgo who in 1814 settled the question of the Allied Powers marching upon Paris, and who in their deliberations removed all apprehension on the subject. Every one remembers the dignities with which he was subsequently invested, and the various phases of his political career. Already at the Congress he was credited with a sentence which he never denied, and which laid bare his thoughts. ‘France,’ he said, ‘is a seething saucepan; whatever comes out of it ought to be flung back into it.’ M. Pozzo di Borgo’s conversation did not lack piquancy; nevertheless, it did not take long to find out that the learning he somewhat ostentatiously displayed was neither solid nor extensive, nor profound. He had a mania for quoting, but not the talent of varying his quotations. For instance, at M. de Talleyrand’s, he supported an argument by a passage from Dante, a phrase of Tacitus, and shreds from English orators. M. de la BesnadiÈre told me that every one of those citations had already done duty two days previously at the Prince de Hardenberg’s.

When we went into the drawing-room, a good many distinguished personages were already there. In fact, to see this forgathering of the majority of the members of the Corps Diplomatique grouping themselves around M. de Talleyrand, the supposition would have been pardonable that his residence was the locale of the Congress.

Mme. la Comtesse de PÉrigord received her relative’s guests with a charming grace. Her brilliant and playful intellect tempered from time to time the gravity of the political matter gliding into the conversation. There was, however, this difference: under M. de Talleyrand’s roof the discussion was ever serious, and never deviated from its aim; while in the other drawing-rooms of Vienna, politics were treated as an accessory, and in an airy fashion, during the rare intervals not devoted to pleasure.

On the evening in question, Saxony was once more the subject of the conversation. Louis XVIII. had declared himself strongly opposed to the maintenance of Frederick-Augustus on its throne. He wished that prince to be punished with the loss of his kingdom for his faithful support of Napoleon. The utmost Louis would concede was the restricted sovereignty of Frederick-Augustus over some small patch of territory on the left bank of the Rhine. The execution of that plan would have involved the incorporation of the whole of the Saxon States with Prussia. The latter Power claimed them energetically as a compensation guaranteed to it by the Treaty of Kalisch. Alexander, who at that time was nursing the idea of a kingdom of Poland comprising the Polish provinces that had formerly lapsed to Prussia, had pronounced in favour of that incorporation. Austria, however, looked askance at this scheme of aggrandisement, while the minor German princes were positively afraid of such a spoliation, which seemed to them the precursor of their destruction. M. de Talleyrand, on the other hand, sided with Saxony, sustaining its rights on every possible opportunity with as much dignity as healthy logic.

There was a very lively discussion between Lord Castlereagh39 and the French envoys. England at that time, though having no direct interest in the question, seemed inclined to favour Prussia’s pretensions. A few months later, there was a reversal of her policy. But however interesting King Frederick-Augustus’s cause might be to me personally, it seemed to me that the atmosphere in which I had hitherto lived at Vienna excluded all political affairs, and I had drawn aside with the Duc de Richelieu. He gave me some particulars of the brilliant military career of his nephew, the Comte de Rochechouart, with whom I had spent so many happy moments at Odessa;40 and then talked to me about the handsome Mme. Davidoff,41 and of her famous friend Mme. la Comtesse Potocka. Surrounded by all that was most brilliant and accomplished in European civilisation, our thoughts yet went back to the deserts of the Yeddisen, and when we returned to the group of diplomatists, the prince had vanquished the grand sophist, and equity had scored a triumph over arbitrariness.

Although M. de Talleyrand was both in bearing and in temperament naturally cold and indifferent, his great reputation and his uncontested merit caused him to be assiduously courted. That apparent coldness, in fact, still further enhanced the special marks of his interest or of his affection. The words falling from his lips, a benevolent smile, a sign of approval—in short, everything emanating from him was calculated to fascinate. His was the flexible intellect which without effort and without pedantry can, on notable occasions, show itself the master of the situation, and which, in more familiar intercourse, knows how to lend itself with inimitable grace to the lightest banter. Full justice has never been done to his goodness of heart. He repaid hatred and slander by clever sallies; he never emphasised or paraded the services he rendered; and in general his kind actions were performed with such simplicity as to make him easily lose the recollection of them.42

At that period I often tried to establish a parallel between the two men who, even in that gathering of so many illustrious people, powerfully attracted and captivated everybody’s attention, namely, the Prince de Ligne and M. de Talleyrand. Both, having lived in contact with the celebrities of the eighteenth century, seemed to have been bequeathed to the new generation as models and ornaments; both were representatives, though in different styles, of that witty society—the one of its lighter and more sparkling phase, the other of its easy, graceful, and noble phase; both had the secret of pleasing by the charm of intellect: the first was more brilliant, the second more profound. M. de Talleyrand seemed born, as it were, to captivate his fellow-men by the strength of an ever-direct and luminous reason; the Prince de Ligne fascinated and dazzled them by the sparkle of an inexhaustible imagination: the latter bringing to bear upon the different branches of literature the subtlety, sparkle, and gracefulness of the habituÉ of Courts; the former dominating over the most important concerns with the easy calm of a grand seigneur and the imperturbable moderation of a superior intellect; the one and the other lavishly scattering around them clever sentences, happy sallies, original and piquant traits, graver and more individual in the case of the statesman, more spontaneous and brilliant in the case of the soldier:—both, in fine, animated with the sympathetic benevolence which is the appanage of the well-born man, and which was more contained with the first and more expansive with the second. ‘Happy ought the man to be who finds himself placed near the Prince de Ligne in the morning, and in the evening near M. de Talleyrand,’ I said to myself. ‘If the one be apt to enlighten his mind by the lessons of a long experience and a succession of true pictures, the other may purify his taste by the never-failing tact, the judicious observation which takes in everything, and the magic charm of a conversation which has the faculty of subjugating listeners even where it fails in convincing them.’

The reception on the evening in question did not last as long as usual, Mme. de PÉrigord, like the majority of us, being due at the Burg, to attend a monster concert. Nothing, it was said, could convey a better idea of the marvellous results of the practice of music in Vienna. We left the prince engaged in his game of whist, in which he indulged every night with a particular fondness and with superior skill, and made our way to the Imperial Palace.

In one of the vastest halls, that of the States, there were a hundred pianos on which professors and amateurs performed a concert. Salieri, the composer of the DanaÏdes, was the conductor of that gigantic orchestra. To tell the truth, however, save for the general scene, which in all these fÊtes was always dazzling, that matchless charivari, in spite of the superior talent of the maestro directing it, was more like a huge display of strength and skill than a concert of good taste. This new surprise was, nevertheless, such as might have been expected from a committee appointed by the Court. To justify the confidence placed in it, it had ransacked its imagination for something unforeseen and unprecedented, something altogether out of the ordinary. It had succeeded to perfection.