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 EfflNENT STATESMEN AND AYRITERS, 
 
 WITH OTHER ESSAYS. 
 
 lEep'i-inted, from the " Quarterly Eeview," with Additions and Corrections.'] 
 
 I 
 
 By a. HAYWAKD, Q.C. 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES. 
 YOL. I. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 
 
 1880.
 
 LONDON : 
 PEIKTED BT WILLIAJI CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, 
 STAMFOED STREET AND CHARING CROSS.
 
 
 CONTENTS OF VOL. I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Thiers ... ... ... ... ... ... 1 
 
 Prince Bismarck ... ... ... ... 69 
 
 Count Cavour ... ... ... ... ... 133 
 
 Prince Metternich ... ... ... ... 201 
 
 Charles, Comte de Montalembert ... ... ... 264 
 
 Lord Melbourne ... ... ... ... 329 
 
 The Marquess Wellesley ... ... ... ... 394 
 
 S_- tS*"* V..- f<v .^ %_*
 
 T H I E R S/ 
 
 (From the Quarterly Beview, October, 1878.) 
 
 Bacon bequeathed his name, and memory to men's 
 charitable speeches, to foreign nations, and the 
 next ages. By few, if any, who have earned a 
 place in history, could the example of Bacon have 
 been more appropriately followed than by Thiers. 
 It was and is impossible for his countrymen, 
 hardly possible for his contemporaries, to do him 
 justice. The living generation must pass away : 
 the battle between republican and monarchical 
 institutions must be fought out : the French people 
 must arrive at something like a definite conclusion 
 touching Imperiahsm : passion and prejudice must 
 fade away, or take a new direction, before anything 
 hke an impartial estimate can be formed of the 
 
 ^ 1. Etudes historiqites sur la Vie privee, politique et litteraire de M. 
 A. Thiers (Histoire de quinze ans, 1830-1846). Par M. Alexandre Laya, 
 Avocat h laCour royale, ancien chef au Cabinet du Ministrede I'lnterieur. 
 Paris, deux volumes, Oct. 1846. 
 
 2. Histoire populaire de M. A. Thiers. Par Alexandre Laya, etc. etc. 
 Troisieme edition. Paris, 1872. 
 
 3. Francis Franck. Vie de M. Thiers. Cinquieme edition. Paris, 
 1877. 
 
 4. TTistoire complete de M. A. Thiers. Illustree, etc. Paris, 1878. 
 
 5. Coninrsations with M. Thiers, M. Ouizot, and other distinguished 
 Persons durin;/ the Second Empire. By the late Nassau William Senior, 
 Master in Chancery, etc. etc. Edited by his daughter, Mrs. M. C. M. 
 Simpson. In 2 volumes. London, 1878. 
 
 6. ].e Oouvernement de M. Thiers. 8 Fevrier 1871 — 24 Mai 1873. 
 Par Jules Simon. Deux volumes. Paris, 1878. 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 THIERS. 
 
 career and character of one who was by turns the 
 champion of contrasted forms of government, 
 whose destiny it was at one period or another of 
 his hfe to be engaged in bitter conflict with each 
 of the great parties that still divide and have so 
 frequently convulsed France. 
 
 Whilst one of them is comparing him for pure 
 enlightened patriotism to Washington, another will 
 allow him neither patriotism nor statesmanship. 
 Fortunately they are tolerably well agreed upon 
 the facts: i.e. that he followed certain lines of 
 policy, that he did or said certain things at given 
 periods. The grand difference regards the manner 
 in which these are to be interpreted. Can his al- 
 leged inconsistencies be referred to any broad com- 
 prehensive principle? Can the child, as he was 
 proud to call himself, of the Kevolution of 1789 be 
 reconciled with the historian of the Consulate and 
 the Empire ? the promoter of insurrection in 1830 
 with the suppressor of insurrection in 1832 and 
 1835? the youthful democrat with the matured 
 conservative, or the professed Orleanism of his best 
 years, of his prime, with the republicanism in 
 which he died ? We shall endeavour to place our 
 readers in a position to answer these questions for 
 themselves, by rapidly recapitulating the leading 
 events of his life, which will be found more than 
 ordinarily replete with the kind of interest that 
 attaches to political and literary biography. 
 
 Thiers (Louis Adolphe) was born at Marseilles 
 on the 15th of April, 1797. In the register of his 
 birth he is entered as the son of Pierre-Louise- 
 Marie Thiers, proprietadre : but one of his bio- 
 graphers describes the father as a workman, 
 another as a tradesman, and he himself told 
 Senior, ''By birth I belong to the people; my 
 family were humble merchants in Marseilles ; they
 
 THIERS. S 
 
 had a small trade with the Levant in cloth, which 
 was ruined by the Eevolution. By education I 
 am a Bonapartist ; I was born when Napoleon 
 was at the summit of his glory." ^ According 
 to another account, his father held the post of 
 subarchivist in Marseilles. By the mother, he 
 was related to Andre and Marie- Joseph Chenier ; 
 and it would seem that the principal, if not sole, 
 charge of him during infancy devolved upon 
 her : 
 
 "What a mother," exclaims M. Franck, "was this 
 cousin of Andre Chenier ! How devoted, foreseeing, 
 attentive to develop in her son the happy natm-al gifts 
 which nature had bestowed upon him ! She spared 
 neither time nor trouble. She was his master, his pro- 
 fessor, his Egeria. Left almost without fortune, on the 
 death of her husband, she was obhged to accept for her son 
 an exhibition {bourse) at the Lyceum of Marseilles just 
 founded by an imperial decree." 
 
 This exhibition was one of many founded by 
 Napoleon, with the view of consolidating the 
 imperial regime by imbuing the rising generation 
 with its principles. The education being military, 
 mathematics, geography, and history formed an 
 essential part of it, and in these Thiers so rapidly 
 distanced his competitors as to raise a general 
 behef, handed down by tradition, that he was 
 destined for somethiug great. He carried off 
 prize after prize, and acquired at the same time, 
 as much by his high spirits and gay joyous tem- 
 perament as by his intellectual superiority, an 
 extraordinary influence over his fellow-students. 
 A brilliant prospect was opening on him when the 
 Empire came down with a crash, and there was 
 
 > " Conversations," vol. i. p. 137. The notes of most of the con- 
 versations with Thiers appear to have been read over and translated to 
 him.
 
 4 THIERS. 
 
 an end to all the hopes and aspirations of those 
 youthful spirits who were stimulating each other 
 by repeating that every French soldier carried a 
 marshal's baton in his knapsack and that every 
 road out of Paris led to a European capital. 
 
 Thiers' marked predilection for military subjects, 
 and his peculiar aptitude for deahng with them, 
 leave little doubt that arms would have been the 
 profession of his choice, had it not been thus 
 suddenly closed against him. The imperial eUve 
 had no alternative but to adopt a calling uncon- 
 nected with Government, and Thiers, now in his 
 nineteenth year, at once elected for the bar, and 
 started for Aix to take the required degrees in law. 
 Then and there began his lifelong friendship with 
 Mignet : a rare instance of two gifted men aiming 
 at and attaining the highest distinction in the 
 same walk of literature, whose mutual sentiments 
 of admiration, confiding' intimacy and esteem, 
 were never ruffled or clouded for an hour by a 
 breeze or cloud of jealousy. It is true that there 
 was one wide arena — the political — from which 
 Mignet held aloof, whilst Thiers was winning his 
 way to the highest honours of the popular 
 Assembly and the first employments in the State. 
 
 They were in the habit of sharpening their 
 intellects by constant discussion, and their joint 
 speculations on the existence of a God are said to 
 have been made the foundation of a treatise on 
 philosophy more than half completed by Thiers. 
 Besides " Ciijas " and '' Bartholle," the ''Insti- 
 tutes of Justinian," and the " Code Napoleon," 
 which formed a regular part of their course of 
 jurisprudence, " all philosophy — Plato, Kant, Des- 
 cartes, Bacon, all the literary and artistic marvels 
 of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, were 
 studied, commented, analysed, with an inexorable
 
 THIERS. 5 
 
 conscience by the two neophytes; laying up 
 treasure for a future for which they felt themselves 
 predestined." Thiers especially was at no pains 
 to conceal his ambition or his. consciousness of 
 superiority, and he has been credited with one of 
 those numerous boasts which, when once or twice 
 in a century they are wholly or partially realised, 
 are accepted as prophetic : like Nelson's saying 
 that one day or another he would have a gazette 
 to himself, and Lord Beaconsfield's boast to the 
 [ House of Commons. Parties ran high in the law- 
 
 school at Aix; and Thiers, who had become a 
 leader on the ultra-liberal side, was wont to ex- 
 claim when the practicability of their doctrines 
 was disputed, " Well, well, wait till we are 
 ministers." He told Senior, "By habits and 
 associations I am an aristocrat. I have no 
 sympathy with the bourgeoisie, or with any 
 system in which they are to rule." This is in 
 accordance with his early life at Aix, when under 
 the patronage of Madame Keybaud — described as 
 his protectress, his adopted mother — he frequented 
 the most aristocratic salons : 
 
 " He liked to impregnate himself with the air of other 
 times that was breathed in them. The luxmy of these old 
 mansions, of many generations' standing, which the pro- 
 prietors had taken pride in adorning with all the riches of 
 art, could not fail to influence his artistic tastes. It is 
 there, perhaps, that he learnt to compare and to criticise. 
 It is there, perhaps, in the noble salons of the Coriolis and 
 the Albertas, before some panel painted by Boucher or 
 Fragonard, or some precious portraits, that he penetrated 
 the secrets of painting to the point of becoming himself a 
 very skilful miniature painter." 
 
 It was a marked tribute to his personal qualities 
 at this time, that he was made free of a society 
 whose political tendencies were so antagonistic to
 
 6 THIERS. 
 
 his own, in "wliich many shook their heads and 
 said of him, '* II ecrit bien : mais il pense mal." 
 In fact, so strong was the prejudice excited by the 
 freedom and democratic colour of his opinions, that 
 an attempt was made to deprive him of the fairly- 
 won honours of his pen. 
 
 In 1819 the subject of the prize essay at the 
 Academy of Aix was the "Eloge de Vauvenargues." 
 On the earnest recommendation and encourage- 
 ment of his principal supporter, M. d'Arletan de 
 Lauris, a magistrate and member of the academic 
 board, Thiers entered the lists and produced an 
 essay which would probably have been crowned by 
 acclamation, had the authorship been kept secret. 
 It unluckily transpired through the indiscretion of 
 M. de Lauris, and the board, mostly composed of 
 royalists, unwilling to concede a triumph to an 
 adversary, but afraid to stultify themselves, post- 
 poned the adjudication for a year, during which the 
 competition was to remain open. Before the expira- 
 tion of the assigned period, an essay arrived from 
 Paris which elicited a chorus of approbation, swelled 
 by the voices of those who saw in it the defeat 
 and mortification of Thiers ; but when the sealed 
 papers containing the names of the respective 
 essayists were opened, the belauded and triumphant 
 Parisian was found to be no other than the pre- 
 suming and provoking young democrat of Aix. 
 
 The second (the prize) essay, which has been re- 
 printed, comprises a review of the leading French 
 moralists and writers of maxims, Montaigne, La 
 Pochefoucauld, La Bruyere, and Vauvenargues. 
 The general conclusion is : 
 
 " It follows that Montaigne is an amiable dreamer : La 
 Eochefoucauld, a melancholy philosopher : La Bruyere, an 
 admirable painter. Vauvenargues alone seems to me to 
 have given a complete doctrine on man, his nature, and his 
 distinction."
 
 THIERS. 7 
 
 Thiers was received advocate (called to the bar) 
 in 1820, and sprang at once into reputation by a 
 speech, or rather by a mot. An advocate of Aix 
 had run away with the daughter of a colleague, 
 hardly sixteen years old, the Lothario being past 
 fifty. He was arrested, and brought before the 
 tribunal of Aix. Thiers, who was retained for the 
 prosecution, enlivened the ordinary routine of pro- 
 fessional pleading by an apostrophe, " You are not 
 a seducer; you are only a corrupter." This 7?^o^, 
 we are assured, did more for his reputation than 
 the Eloge of Yauvenargues. "The whole of the 
 South, whose attention had been concentrated on 
 the case, resounded with his name." But the 
 whole South, with its capital, no longer afforded 
 breathing-room for the nascent statesman and 
 historian, who had become conscious of his powers. 
 He felt cabined, cribbed, confined in a provincial 
 although applauding public. Mignet, similarly 
 impelled, had already (July, 1821) left Aix for 
 Paris, when (September, 1821), only a few months 
 after his forensic triumph, Thiers arrived in the 
 metropolis to share the humble apartment (Passage 
 Montesquieu au quatrieme) of his friend. 
 
 The embryo celebrity commonly brings with him 
 to the metropolis (as Johnson brought " Irene ") 
 the manuscript of a work which is to take the 
 town by storm. Neither Mignet nor Thiers came 
 armed or provided in this fashion. Their primary 
 reliance was journalism, then a well-ascertained 
 stepping-stone to fame and fortune. Mignet had 
 found ready admittance to the staff of the " Cour- 
 rier Fran^ais," under the auspices of Chatelain. 
 Thiers brought letters of recommendation to 
 Manuel, who introduced him to Eticnne, one of 
 the chief conductors of the " Constitutionnel," an 
 opposition journal of constitutional principles
 
 8 THIERS. 
 
 which was vigilantly enforcing the strict oh- 
 servance of the Charte. His value as a contributor 
 was recognised from the first, and in March, 1822, 
 he wrote an article which is mentioned as having 
 formed an epoch in his career. The subject was 
 the celebrated work of Montlosier on "La Monar- 
 chie Fran9aise." Thiers' versatility and variety 
 were no less remarkable than his vigour, energy, 
 and dash. In the same year he wrote a series 
 of articles on the "Salon" (annual exhibition), 
 followed by "Impressions of Travel during a Tour 
 of the Pyrenees." The articles on the "Salon" 
 were collected and republished in a volume, with 
 a preface, in which he traces the progress of the 
 arts of design, and describes their actual state 
 in France. It is a coincidence worth noting, 
 that in this preface he handles the precise range 
 of topics to which M. Cousin subsequently devoted 
 a book, " Du Vrai, du Beau, et du Bien." 
 
 " The true, the beautiful, the good, form an end to which 
 all tend, towards which some advance, at which very few 
 arrive : it is a long march, and this is as it should be : if 
 man had been thrown here below with the truth found, the 
 beautiful known, the good realised, there would have been 
 nothing more to do, nothing to seek: there would have 
 been neither action, nor life, nor universe." 
 
 This train of speculation, without reference to 
 its justness or originality, may help to illustrate 
 the formation of a mind which eventually became 
 more conversant with the hard, positive, and 
 material aspect of men and things, than with the 
 true, the beautiful, the good. 
 
 His writings on art of this period included 
 criticisms on all the leading painters and sculptors, 
 and these, we are assured, hazarded more than 
 fifty years ago, have been fuUy ratified; there
 
 THIERS. 9 
 
 being not an artist for whom he prophesied dis- 
 tinction who has not attained more or less of it. 
 Amongst them were David, Gerard, Delaroche, 
 Horace Yernet, Fragonard, and Diibuffe. As if 
 to show that he could turn his hand (or pen) to 
 anything, he wrote a notice of Mrs. Bellamy, the 
 actress, which has been republished by way of intro- 
 duction to the French edition of her '' Memoirs." 
 
 The rate of remuneration for his articles was 
 sufficient to enable him to live comfortably, to 
 travel at intervals, and settle a pension on his 
 mother ; but whether out of gratitude, or a sense 
 of justice, or with the view of making sure of his 
 continued collaboration, the proprietors of the 
 journal proposed to him to become a shareholder 
 and thereby acquire an influential voice in the 
 management. He eagerly closed with the offer, 
 and the purchase-money was advanced to him, 
 not, as commonly asserted, by Lafitte, but by 
 Cotta, the German publisher, who entertained 
 what is termed an almost fantastic regard for him, 
 and confidently predicted his rise to the highest 
 pinnacle of fame. He was already a personage, 
 and a welcome guest at the houses of the opposi- 
 tion leaders. His appearance at Lafitte's is thus 
 described by an acute and caustic observer, whose 
 portrait obviously borders on the caricature : 
 
 "Here he soon made himself remarkable by his con- 
 versation, spirit, and the vivacity of his southern imagina- 
 tion ; the littleness of his figure — the ordinary expression 
 of his features, half hidden under a vast pah of spectacles 
 — the singular cadence of his accents, which made a sort 
 of psalmody of his conversation of a quite novel effect — 
 the continual fidgety motion in which he indulged — a total 
 want of the habits of society, remarkable even in the mixed 
 cohort which encumbered the salons of M. Lafitte, all con- 
 tributed to make of M. Thiers a man apart, who attracted 
 attention from the first. Once granted, M. Thiers knew
 
 10 THIERS. 
 
 well how to keep it : for nothing appeared new to him, 
 neither finance, nor war, nor administration ; and he dis- 
 cussed all these matters in a manner sufficiently specious 
 and clever to seduce the bankers, the ancient functionaries 
 of the empire, and the generals, all of whom he addressed 
 without ceremon3^ Thus a few months after his arrival in 
 Paris, M. Thiers had become the assiduous guest of M. 
 Lafitte, and had his regular place at the table of Baron 
 Louis." 1 
 
 Amongst those most favom^ably impressed by 
 Mm were the Due de Rochefoucauld, Liancourt, 
 M. de Flahaut, M. de Ternaux, and Talleyrand, 
 who is said to have uttered his well-known onot 
 
 * 
 
 on the appearance of the article on Montlosier. 
 " Ce n'est pas un parvenu, c'est une arrive,'" and 
 in M. Franck's version he is made to add, " qui 
 ira plus loin que nous tous." But the most im- 
 portant of the friendships, next to Mignet's, which 
 he formed at starting, was that of Charles de 
 Eemusat, to whom at their first or second meeting, 
 he exclaimed, "We are the young guard." In 
 co-operation with Mignet and de Eemusat, he 
 contributed (1823) to the " Tablettes Historiques." 
 In the same year he wrote for the " Tablettes 
 Universelles " a political summary {bulletin), 
 which had the effect of inducing the Government 
 to silence the journal by purchasing it. He was 
 also an occasional writer in the " Globe," the 
 doctrinaire organ, founded in 1824. It was in 
 the midst of these multifarious and distracting 
 occupations that he planned and composed his 
 " History of the French Revolution," which, 
 indeed, he could hardly have composed at all 
 without the materials and opportunities which 
 his every-day Hfe threw in his way. His chief 
 
 ^ " Eevue des deux Mondes," 4""° serie, vol. iv. 1835. The article was 
 by M. Loeve-Yeimar.
 
 THIERS. 11 
 
 authorities, Ms main sources of information, were 
 more oral than written : the actors in the drama, 
 the eye-witnesses of the events, the survivors of 
 the internecine conflicts, the statesmen, generals, 
 and public functionaries of the Convention, the 
 Directory, and the Empire. He dwells, in his 
 preface, on the advantage of "having heard and 
 observed those old men, who, all full of their 
 recollections, all agitated by their impressions, 
 reveal to us the spirit and character of parties, 
 and help us to understand them." 
 
 " No one enters here," exclaims the great 
 pubhsher to Balzac's " Grand Homme de Province," 
 " but with a made reputation. Become famous, 
 and you will find streams of gold. I am not here 
 to be the stepping-stone of glories to come, but to 
 gain money and give money to celebrated men." 
 It would seem that Thiers was similarly addressed. 
 His name was not known enough to attract a 
 publisher, and he was obliged to enter into part- 
 nership with M. Felix Bodin, a writer in the 
 " Constitutionnel " and author of some long-for- 
 gotten works. Their names figure as joint authors 
 on the title-page of the two first volumes, pub- 
 lished in the autumn of 1823. But there is no 
 reason for supposing that Bodin did more than 
 lend his name, which was dropped in the continua- 
 tion and the complete editions. The continuation 
 was admitted on all hands to be a marked im- 
 provement on the commencement, and when 
 (1827) the tenth and concluding volume appeared, 
 Thiers' reputation as an historian was firmly 
 established ; not, indeed, for impartiality or ju- 
 dicial calmness of tone : the history hardly pre- 
 tended to be impartial, except in so far as it 
 assumed to be true, being avowedly aimed at the 
 detractors of the Kevolution and composed to
 
 12 THIERS. 
 
 stem the reactionary current. *' It was a cou- 
 rageous protest, a first revindication of the Eights 
 of History and Truth. This was a sufficient 
 ground of success. From this day M. Thiers 
 could say : Exegi monumentum. From this 
 moment he was popuLar ; he became a marked 
 man. Paris took an interest in his words and 
 deeds." 
 
 *' You wish to rise : make enemies," was Talley- 
 rand's advice to him, and he followed it fearlessly 
 to the letter. Few public men have made more ; 
 and there are few whose private lives have been 
 more unscrupulously ransacked for topics of de- 
 preciation. One story told with that view is 
 rather creditable to him ; at all events, as a proof 
 of his personal courage, which has been unjustly 
 doubted or denied. Some time in 1827, an Aix 
 friend, named Bonnafoux, came to Paris for the 
 express purpose of calling on him to fulfil a pro- 
 mise of marriage given to a near relative. Thiers 
 denied the promise ; and alleged that there was 
 never anything serious in the afl"air meant or 
 understood on either side. A hostile meeting 
 became inevitable, and was arranged to take place 
 at Montmartre. Thiers' seconds were Mignet and 
 Rabbe, a devoted admirer of antiquity, w^ho would 
 willingly have made them fight with javelins. 
 
 " The morning was cold, a penetrating fog covered the 
 heights of Paris. Thiers arrived on the ground calm and 
 resolute. Mignet was very pale. Bonnafoux, with arms 
 crossed and a threatening frown, had assumed the attitude 
 of Talma in tragical situations. Eabbe loaded the pistols. 
 They drew lots for the choice of ground and the first shot — 
 Bonnafoux won both. The adversaries were placed twenty- 
 five paces apart. Thiers received the fire of Bonnafoux 
 without flinching, and fired in his turn a little at hap- 
 hazard. ' Let us recommence ! ' exclaimed Bonnafoux. 
 ' Let us recommence ! ' said Thiers. Eahbe reloaded the
 
 THIERS. 13 
 
 pistols, and the balls -whistled a second time without pro- 
 ducing a result. Rabbe, who was perishing with cold, 
 walked up to Bonnafoux, ' The young man,' he said, 
 ' has paid his debt of honour. He owes himself to his 
 country, and not to an interet bourgeois. Old Lutetia wants 
 men from the countries of the Sun — Mirabeau, Barbaroux, 
 Manuel, have proved it. This writer, who has confronted 
 your murderous weapon, was not destined to succumb to 
 your fire. Offer him, then, a generous hand, and leave 
 him to the celebrity which awaits him.' Bonnafoux, 
 softened, embraced his adversary." 
 
 The narrative stops liere, but the end of the 
 story was that the deceived or disappointed 
 damsfel married two years afterwards, and when 
 Thiers attained power, one of his first acts was to 
 give her husband, as well as her champion Bon- 
 nafoux, a place. 
 
 Instances abound in which a great career has 
 hung upon an accident. Lord Eldon was within 
 an ace of retiring from the bar upon a curacy, and 
 the Duke of Wellington of leaving the army for 
 a commissionership of customs. It rests upon 
 respectable, if not quite unimpeachable, authority, 
 that Cromwell, Hampden, and Arthur Hazelrigg, 
 were on the point of weighing anchor to join the 
 Pilgrim Fathers, when a royal embargo was laid 
 upon the ship. In the summer of 1829, Thiers 
 was certainly on the point of accompanying Cap- 
 tain Laplace on his voyage of circumnavigation 
 round the world, although the precise motive and 
 intention are left in doubt. All the biographers 
 are agreed that what decided him to stay was the 
 formation of the Polignac ministry, August 5, 
 1829, which was regarded as a declaration of war 
 against the liberal party. " The friends of Thiers 
 turned to him and said : ' You must remain, for 
 we shall have to fight.' He remained." He not 
 only remained : he gave his voice for open war —
 
 14 THIERS. 
 
 war to the knife ; and when the conductors of the 
 "Constitutionnel" drew back, startled by the bold- 
 ness of his programme, he joined with Mignet 
 and Armand Carrel in founding the " National," 
 the first number of which appeared on January 1, 
 1830. He was the life and soul of the enterprise, 
 and almost all the articles which fixed public 
 attention were by him. " Let us confine them in 
 the Charter, like Ugolino in his dungeon," was 
 the rallying cry of the opposition ; and the Charter 
 accordingly was the main topic, the most formid- 
 able weapon, the sword and shield of Thiers. 
 Standing firm behind it, or flaming it in the faces 
 of the ministerialists, he soon left them no alter- 
 native but to go further, to go to extremes or go 
 back. He was at no pains to moderate his lan- 
 guage: 
 
 " Let the ministry reason, let it entreat, let it threaten : 
 no attention will be paid to it. In vain will it imitate an 
 august voice and say, ' I am the king, listen to me ! ' It 
 will be answered, ' No, you are not the king : you are M. 
 de Polignac, the headstrong, the incapable : you are M. de 
 Peyronnet, the deplorable : M. de Bourmont, the deserter : 
 M. de Montbel, the humble dupe : M. de Chantelauze, the 
 Jesuit,' &c. &c." 
 
 He thus repelled, by accepting, the imputation 
 of Jacobinism : 
 
 "We are Jacobins, and we do not wish to be anything 
 else ; we are men of the people and Jacobins with Mirabeau, 
 with Barnave, with Vergniaud, Sieyes, Hoche, Desaix, and 
 Napoleon ; it is also on our side that are found the 
 Jacobins who died like Bailly, and who all suffered their 
 captivity as the patriot Lafayette suffered at Olmutz. In 
 your eyes the Jacobins of the revolutionary party are aU 
 the men who from 1789 to 1830 have outlived a profession 
 of liberty. Well, we are proud to be of the party of this
 
 THIERS. 15 
 
 revolution. We owe to it all we are, and not merely we 
 who uphold it, but our adversaries who defame and calum- 
 niate it." 
 
 To discredit the Government, he assailed their 
 foreign policy without discrimination or reserve. 
 Later in life we shall iind him expatiating on the 
 value of the English alliance. But when Polignac 
 inclined towards it he exclaimed : 
 
 " The world is tired of all despotisms. From the 
 summits of Gibraltar, of Malta, of the Cape of Good 
 Hope, an immense tyranny extends over the seas — there 
 must be an end of it. . . . The Mediterranean is and 
 ought to be a French lake." 
 
 When the party in power, complaining of the 
 strained interpretation put upon the Charter, cried 
 out: " Legahty is killing us," Thiers retorted: 
 " We will kill you with legality." 
 
 The most celebrated of his phrases, one which 
 has passed into a doctrine and become a principle, 
 was : " Le Boi regne et ne gouverne pas " (the king 
 reigns and does not govern). This appeared in 
 the "National," and was fully developed in an 
 article concluding thus : " The king does not 
 administer. To reign, then, is not to govern : it 
 is the truest, the highest, the most respected 
 image of the country. The king is the country- 
 made man." The phrase has not been accepted 
 without a cavil. Alphonse Karr paraphrased it 
 by : " The king reigns like a cornice round a 
 room." But it is the best definition of the status 
 of a constitutional sovereign that has yet been hit 
 upon. 
 
 Lamartine's impression of Thiers at this time is 
 recorded in '' Souvenirs et Portraits " : 
 
 " One day, it was some months before the Eevolution of 
 1830, one of my friends, Auguste Bernard, said to me,
 
 16 THIERS. 
 
 * I should like to bring together for once the two men for 
 •whom I have hoped much in my life, you and Thiers. He 
 writes for the " National," and you serve the cause of the 
 Bourbons ; but we will not take a tablecloth for a flag, 
 and we will leave politics under the table. It is not two 
 opinions, but two natures, that I wish to bring together.' 
 I had a predilection for M. Thiers, as one has preferences 
 in the camp of the enemy. I accepted. 
 
 " We dined, we three, in a neutral salon of the restau- 
 rateur Verey, in the Palais Royal. I saw a little man, 
 strongly built, nimble, set on all his limbs as if he had 
 been always ready for action, the head well balanced on 
 the neck, the forehead kneaded by various aptitudes, the 
 eyes soft, the mouth firm, the smile full of meaning. 
 Ordinary men would have been capable of mistaking this 
 physiognomy for ugliness. But I was not deceived for a 
 moment. It was intellectual beauty triumphing over 
 features, and compelling a rebel body to express a splen- 
 dour of mind {esprit). ^^ 
 
 After a description of Thiers' manner of con- 
 versation, to which we shall have occasion to 
 revert, Lamartine continues : 
 
 ** It was in vain that we had agreed to exclude the sub- 
 ject of politics : it entered through the open window with 
 the air. He let himself flow with the current. He judged 
 without hate, but with a severity tempered only by con- 
 sideration for me, the situation of Charles X. and that of 
 the Duke of Orleans, to whose windows he pointed on the 
 other side of the garden. One could see that, whilst 
 striking the old trunk, he already held a dynastic monarchy 
 
 in reserve in this palace of revolutions." 
 
 ****** 
 
 *' I had not a momentary doubt of his fortunes : there 
 are men who foretell themselves at the first look : it is the 
 evidence of superiority. Never was it written for me in 
 more readable and (I frankly add) more seducing traits, 
 for courage and frankness are the first of seductions for 
 me. 
 
 "All went down with a crash, and I found, on returning 
 to Paris some months afterwards, Thiers struggling in the 
 midst of ruins and reconstructions."
 
 THIERS. 17 
 
 It has been asked what became of Thiers when 
 the crisis he had provoked and anticipated had 
 arisen, when hfe and fortune were to be risked in 
 open direct conflict with authority. M. Loeve- 
 Veimar, who asks this question in the most in- 
 , vidious manner, says that he coukl answer it in a 
 way httle favourable to the object of the insinua- 
 tion if he thought fit. From aU that is now 
 known from authentic sources, we should say that 
 Thiers acted throughout with judgment, spirit, 
 and decision ; and that his temporary withdrawal 
 to avoid arrest was no more a sign of cowardice 
 than the similar withdrawal of the five members 
 of the Long Parliament, whom the Martyr-King 
 made his ill-advised attempt to seize. 
 
 The Ordinances, signed on the 25th July, ap- 
 peared in the " Moniteur " on the morning of the 
 26th. A meeting was held at the office of the 
 ''National," where the proprietors and contributors 
 were speedily joined by the majority of the leading 
 writers of the Opposition. A protest was drawn 
 up by Thiers, who proposed that, instead of its 
 being pubhshed as the act of the " National," it 
 should be adopted as the protest of the collective 
 journaHsts. This proposition was under discus- 
 sion, when de Eemusat, representing the " Globe," 
 came in, and on the question being abruptly put 
 to him by Thiers, whether he was prepared to 
 afiix his signature, answered without hesitation in 
 the afiirmative.^ This was enough. Thiers signed 
 first, de Eemusat second, and they were followed 
 by all present, making altogether forty-three. 
 The day following, the 27th, this protest, with the 
 signatures, appeared in all the Ojiposition journals. 
 On the evening of the 28th, Thiers, who had been 
 
 ^ M. de Remusat was the writer of the article in the " Globe," beginuiug 
 " Le cri'me est cousomiuc," wliich produced an immense eli'ect. 
 VOL. 1. C
 
 18 ♦ THIERS. 
 
 actively organising an armed resistance, received 
 an intimation from Royer-Collard that royal 
 warrants were out against Armand Carrel, Mignet, 
 and himself. A hasty consultation was held with 
 their friends : it was agreed on all hands that 
 their arrest would have a depressing effect on the 
 movement ; and it was with the general approval 
 that they retired to a place of security in the 
 suburbs of St. Denis. The battle began in right 
 earnest on the 29th, and so soon as news was 
 brought to Thiers and Mignet that the insurrec- 
 tion was gaining ground, they left theu' retreat, 
 and by a circuitous route, after having been 
 exposed to numberless dangers, they succeeded in 
 regaining the office of the " National," which, 
 fi'om being the focus of the intellectual and con- 
 stitutional movement, had now become the head- 
 quarters of the military one.^ 
 
 There was a cm-rent anecdote to the effect, that, 
 one day during the Polignac ministry. Cousin, 
 meeting Thiers, Mignet, and Carrel, laughingly 
 inquired : " Well, when you have upset the legiti- 
 mist monarchy, what will you put in its place ? " 
 Carrel replied : " Bah ! my dear Cousin, we will 
 put in its place the administrative monarchy." 
 Carrel probably spoke ironically, but he spoke the 
 sentiments of Thiers, who persuaded Lafitte to 
 force the hand of the Duke of Orleans and name 
 him for the vacant crown without personally com- 
 mitting by consulting him. It was Thiers who 
 drew up the Orleanist proclamation, which was 
 circulated by way of feeler on the evening of the 
 29th. 
 
 Nor was this all. Whilst the intentions of the 
 future King of the French were still unknown, 
 Thiers, at the suggestion of General Sebastiani 
 
 Laya, " Histoire Populaire," p. 32.
 
 THIERS. 19 
 
 and Lafitte, started on horseback for Neuilly, 
 where he arrived after being stopped at the 
 barrier and chased by the people, and was intro- 
 duced by M. Ondart into the cabinet of the prince. 
 The Duchess Amelie (afterwards Queen) was the 
 first to come to him, and on being made ac- 
 quainted with his proposal, she expressed the 
 strongest reluctance to it. The Duke was absent, 
 at all events did not appear, and Thiers' communi- 
 cations were limited to the rest of the royal family, 
 amongst whom, Madame Adelaide, the Duke's 
 sister, took the lead by promising her brother's 
 assent and even authorising the official announce- 
 ment of it. On being asked whether she had any 
 objection to confer personally with members of 
 the Chambers, she replied : " I will go, my dear 
 M. Thiers ; certainly, I will go : they will not 
 distrust a woman, and it is so natural for a sister 
 to risk her life for her brother." It was agreed 
 that Sebastiani should come for her. Thiers then 
 returned to Paris, where the Duke arrived on the 
 evening of the 30th. Thiers' first interview with 
 his royal master that was to be, a formal one, took 
 place on the morning of the 31st, and he then 
 rejoined his friends of the " National," whom he 
 succeeded in convincing that the Eepubhc must 
 wait. 
 
 If Thiers really exercised the influence on the 
 course of events at this period which the bio- 
 graphers concur in assigning to him, it seems 
 strange that no place, not even a subordinate one, 
 was found for him in the new arrangements. It 
 was not until the 17th August, 1830, that he was 
 nominated member of a commission appointed 
 by M. Guizot, Minister of the Interior, to prepare 
 a project of electoral reform. Soon afterwards 
 Baron Louis, Minister of Finance, sent for him
 
 20 THIERS. 
 
 and said : " I can still retain tlie direction, but 
 I am too old to do more ; come, then, to my aid." 
 After serving a short time as State Councillor, 
 a place revived for him in this department, he was 
 made Secretary- General of Finance. Baron Louis 
 found him so apt a pupil and effective an assistant, 
 that on resigning in August, 1831, he recommended 
 him for the vacant portfolio. The first words 
 addressed to the astonished Secretary-General by 
 the King, when, in obedience to the royal mandate, 
 he attended at the Palais Eoyal, were : " Are you 
 ambitious, Monsieur Thiers ? " We may well 
 suppose that the soft impeachment was not denied, 
 but his ambition was not of that vaulting kind 
 that o'erleaps itseK and falls on the other side. 
 He could bide his time, and he felt instinctively 
 that he had not yet either position or experience 
 enough for such a post. He acted as Lord 
 Palmerston acted when offered the Chancellorship 
 of the Exchequer by Mr. Perceval, and his refusal 
 was couched in terms which impressed the King 
 more favourably than the readiest and most 
 grateful acceptance would have done. 
 
 He did not become a Deputy till the year 
 following, when he was chosen by the electoral 
 college of Aix, a proof that his name stood high 
 where his earliest intellectual distinctions had 
 been won. But organs of the Government were 
 privileged to address the Chambers without being 
 members, and it was as royal commissary, De- 
 cember 10, 1830, in the discussion of the law 
 relating to the indemnities of emigrants, that he 
 made his debute It was not a success. Lamartine 
 
 1 Franck, p. 44, "Histoire complete," p. 22. But it rests upon 
 authority that Thiers' first speech in a legislative assembly was his 
 speech on the budget delivered on the 23rd November, 1830. " Discours 
 Parlemeutaires de M. Thiers." Publics par M. Calmon, Senateur,
 
 THIERS. 21 
 
 was engaged to dine with liim the same evening 
 at his own house, and the assembled guests 
 were talking of what had just occurred when he 
 appeared : 
 
 *' He took off his coat in the ante-chamber on account 
 of the double heat of the tribune and the day, and threw it 
 on a billiard table. * I have been beaten,' were his words 
 with his little lively voice, smiling and shaking hands with 
 his friends ; ' but, never mind, I am not cast down, I am 
 making my first essay in arms. Beaten to-day, beaten 
 to-morrow ; it is the fate of the soldier and the orator. In 
 the tribune, as under fire, a defeat is as useful as a victory : 
 we begin again. Let us never think of the blows we have 
 received, but of those that we shall strike. The essential 
 thing is to be in the right. In any case let us go to dinner 
 and drink freely.' " 
 
 In another place, Lamartine says of him : 
 
 " He tried the tribune : his first essays did not inspire 
 hope. Nature had not given him a voice, but a will which 
 dispenses with nature. It was necessary for him to be an 
 orator : he became one." 
 
 His success as a parliamentary orator or debater 
 dates from his speech in support of an hereditary 
 peerage, which is thus described in the satirical 
 sketch already cited : 
 
 " M. Thiers' speech had been announced eight days 
 beforehand. He arrived at an early hour, contrary to his 
 wont, which led to an expectation that his speech would be 
 long. His toilette was recherchee, and he wore gloves. 
 He ascended the steps of the tribune with an air of affected 
 carelessness, as if about to do the easiest thing in the world, 
 and remained silent for a time, as if to impose silence by 
 his attitude ; but this was only obtained by the interposition 
 of his friends. At length he began, and it was seen at 
 
 Member de I'Institut— Premiere Partie, 1830-1836. Paris, 1879. 
 Three volumes. M. Laya also mentions the speech of November 23, as 
 
 tlie first.
 
 2 2 THIERS. 
 
 once that he was attempting a new description of oratory, 
 for instead of the classical and formal style in which he 
 had failed to attract attention, he was now all nature, ease, 
 pertness, frankness, familiarity, colloquialism. By way of 
 conciliating the favour of the Chamber towards the experi- 
 ment, he took occasion at the outset to remark, that, in 
 the case of the assembly he was addressing, the forum of 
 the ancients had been changed into a room of honest men ; 
 and he endeavom-ed to keep up their attention during a 
 four hours' display by the introduction of anecdotes." 
 
 To illustrate the hereditary quality of greatness, 
 he told a story of the younger Pitt's being placed 
 on a table, when only six years old, to recite 
 speeches ; ^ but according to the malicious narrator, 
 he himself, with his little figure and thin voice, 
 so strongly recalled the image of the youthful 
 statesman, that the effect fast bordered on the 
 ludicrous. The speech, however, made a sensation, 
 and he was now frequently employed to make 
 speeches for the ministry, although (if we may 
 trust Timon) his lack of discretion prevented them 
 from recognising him as their spokesman ; and 
 when Mauguin alluded to him as the organ of 
 the Government, Casimir Perier contemptuously 
 exclaimed: '' Ca, un organe du Gouvernement ! 
 M. Mauguin se moque de vous." 
 
 It is difficult to reconcile this story with the 
 duty entrusted to Thiers by Casimir Perier on 
 a trying occasion, when the character and stability 
 of his ministry were at stake. Under an impression 
 that they had ample time before them, they had 
 omitted to prepare their financial statement when 
 (January 22, 1832) the Chamber suddenly came 
 
 ^ " A douze ans on le faisait monter sur une table, ou il traduisait, en 
 presence d'un ccrcle nombreux, de I'anglais en latin et du latin en 
 anglais. A quinze ans, il allait tous les jours au Parlenient, il analysait 
 ]es discours des meilleurs orateurs. Son vieux pere le teuait soigneuse- 
 ment dans ces bonnes dispositions." — Thiers.
 
 THIERS. 23 
 
 to a resolution to have the budget brought forward 
 and considered at the next sitting : 
 
 " Nothing was ready. In twenty-four hours the Secre- 
 tary-General has collected his figures, studied all the heads 
 and prepared the very comprehensive report exacted by the 
 annual law of finance. The day following he ascends the 
 tribune, and, guided solely by a few notes hastily dotted 
 down, lie lays before the Assembly, in a speech of several 
 hours, a clear, rapid, complete account of the financial 
 situatioQ, explaining the receipts, justifying the expendi- 
 ture, demonstrating in a condensed, logical, brilliant 
 argumentation the necessity of the acquired credits. He 
 gained a striking victory. People stood confounded at such 
 versatility and pliability, such prodigious facility of work. 
 From this day his . eloquence had undergone a radical 
 transformation. Up to this time he had followed the 
 traditional habits of the tribune, making the period, the 
 amplificErtion, his objects, and, despite his talent, not 
 always avoiding afi"ectation and emphasis. He had now 
 discovered his true style of speaking, a style enthely 
 personal and thoroughly original, which he has ever since 
 retained, and to which he has been indebted for his finest 
 triumi)hf." ^ 
 
 This form or style of speaking was thus de- 
 scribed by Timon, uniting in 1839, when it may 
 be supposed to have been definitively fixed : 
 
 " It Ji not oratory, it is talk, but talk lively, brilliant, 
 light, aiimated, mingled with historical traits, anecdotes, 
 and refhed reflections ; and all this is said, broken off, cut 
 short, ied, untied, sewn together again, with a dexterity 
 of language absolutely incomparable. Thought springs 
 up so [uick in that head of his, so quick, that one would 
 say it was born before it had been conceived. The vast 
 lungs )f a giant would not suffice to expectorate the words 
 of tbrfc clever dwarf. Natm'e, ever watchful and con- 
 siderae in her compensations, seemed to have aimed at 
 conceitrating in him all the powers of virility in the frail 
 orgais of the larynx. 
 
 ^ " Uistoirc complete," p. 26.
 
 24 TniERS. 
 
 " His phrase flies like the wing of the humming-bird, 
 and pierces you so rapidly that you feel yourself wounded 
 without knowing whence the arrow comes. He envelops 
 3^ou in the labyrinth of his argumentation, where a thousand 
 lines cross and re-cross, of which he alone holds the thread. 
 He resumes, on a side that has escaped notice, the question 
 which seems exhausted and revives it by such ingenious 
 reasons. You will never find him at default in anything : 
 as fertile, as rapid, in the defence as in the attack, in the 
 reply as in the exposition. I know not if his answer is 
 always the most conclusive, but I know that it is always 
 the most specious." ^ 
 
 Lamartine's more fanciful description is sub- 
 stantially to the same effect : 
 
 " He did not strike great blows, but he struck a multi- 
 tude of little blows, with which he broke to j)ieces 
 ministries, majorities, and thrones. He had not .he great 
 gestures of soul of Mirabeau, but he had the force in 
 detail : he took the club of Mirabeau into the tribune and 
 made arrows of it. He shot these right and left at the 
 Assembly : on the one was inscribed, reasoning; on the 
 other, sarcasm ; on this, grace ; on that, passion. It was 
 a flight of them, fi-om which there was no escape. As to 
 me, who often combated the politician, it was inpossible 
 for me not to admire the supreme artist." 
 
 Sainte-Beuve dwells more on the effects of Ms 
 speaking : 
 
 "He is the man who has displayed the most skill in 
 bringing his hearers insensibly to his ends, in movng and 
 conducting great assemblies. It is not by elevatbn and 
 authority like other great orators. He persuaded md in- 
 sinuated ; he won his way by the clearness of his txposi- 
 tions, by the abundance and accumulated and imi^id 
 stream of his deductions ; he carried with him even those 
 who did not believe themselves of his group and his irmy, 
 
 ^ "Etudes sur les Oratcurs Farlementaires." Par Timon (le 'Vcomte 
 fie Cormenin). 8""= edition, PnriK, 1839. This book attracted great 
 attention, and was reviewed in the "Quarterly Review " for October isSD.
 
 THIERS. 25 
 
 to conclude like him, to act and vote like him, and in a 
 sense in which most of them would not have thought of 
 being conducted when he began." 
 
 The late Earl Kussell is a somewhat similar ex- 
 ample of what may be done by perseverance, self- 
 confidence, cultivation, and intellectual power, to 
 cover or supply physical defects. But Earl Eussell, 
 although a master of debate on great occasions, 
 never acquired the ease, readiness, and fluency 
 of Thiers, who was quite perfect in the familiar 
 colloquial style, in which we know nobody to 
 compare with him, except perhaps Tierney in the 
 House of Commons and Scarlett at the bar.^ 
 
 Casimir Perier died of cholera, May 16, 1832. 
 The state in which he left France may well have 
 laid the foundation for a remark subsequently 
 attributed to Thiers : " Providence must have 
 abundant confidence in me, for every time when 
 I arrive at power she seems to reserve the most 
 embarrassing affaii's for me." ' He had gone to 
 Italy for his health, but was immediately hurried 
 back, Hlie Sir Eobert Peel in 1834 ; and in the 
 Soult Cabinet of October 11, 1832, he was made 
 Minister of the Interior. This post he exchanged 
 in the following December for the Department 
 of Commerce and Public Works, in which he 
 remained till April 4, 1834, without, it would 
 seem, confining himself to its duties, or evading 
 those which were of a nature to provoke censure 
 and invite calumny. During his ministry of Pubhc 
 Works, the Pantheon, the Triumphal Arch, and the 
 Madeleine were completed, and the column of 
 the Place Vendome inaugm-ated with the con- 
 
 ^ Speaking of M. Guizot, M. Loeve Veimar says : " Lord John Russell, 
 so little, so ])alo, and so feeble, that it was necessary to stretch him on 
 a sofa in the lobby after his speech on Parliamentary Reform, may give 
 you an idea of this person."—" Revue dcs deux ^iJuudcs." This is an over- 
 charged picture as regards both.
 
 26 THIERS. 
 
 ventional Napoleon at the top. He was elected a 
 member of the Academy in the place of Andrieux, 
 and he delivered his " Discours de Reception " on 
 the 13th of December, 1834. The reply by M. 
 Yiennet, was in the highest tone of compliment : 
 
 "It is not the eminent post to which yom' talents have 
 elevated you that has caused you to be distinguished by 
 the Academy. Who thinks now of flattering power ? Who 
 is the man who would dare to knock at our door if he had 
 nothing to offer us besides his political power or the transi- 
 tory eclat of his honours . . . We have seen in you only the 
 conscientious historian, the elegant writer, the enhghtened 
 publicist, the eloquent orator ; and it would be sujBficient 
 for your eulogium that public opinion has ratified the 
 choice of which you have been the object, although it has 
 fallen upon a minister." 
 
 Sevir severement (to be hard and harsh) was the 
 device of the Cabinet, and Thiers was foremost 
 in proposing and applying prompt measures of 
 repression. In April, 1833, he wrote to M. 
 Gasparin, Prefect of Lj^ons : "Strongly as I re- 
 commended you in February to avoid all coUision, 
 as strongly do I now recommend energy, if the 
 sanctuary of justice is violated." Whilst he was 
 speaking in the Chamber of the Law of Associa- 
 tion as bearing on the disturbances at Lyons, a 
 member of the Left exclaimed, " It will always 
 be impotent." " Well then," retorted Thiers, 
 " violate this law which you declare to be impotent, 
 which seems to you incapable of execution, and I, 
 I who stand here, undertake to have it executed." 
 On another occasion, in reference to the same 
 subject, he said : '' People are striving hard to dis- 
 honour the civil war, to blame the effusion of 
 French blood. They are right, assuredly ; but 
 they blame it bitterly in the defenders of public 
 order, and very gently in the assailants." He took
 
 THIERS. 27 
 
 an active personal share in the suppression of the 
 Paris insurrection which followed that of Lyons. 
 
 " He started with General Bugeaiid from the Hotel de 
 Ville, and for the first time a minister, surrounded by his 
 staff of civil functionaries, was seen united with the mihtary 
 staff to take the direction of the public forces. The minister 
 and the general repaired to the very centre of the revolt. 
 When they arrived in the Eue Sainte-Avoye, two shots 
 were aimed at Thiers, whose small stature facilitated his 
 recognition by the insurgents. He was not hit ; but, close 
 to him, M. Armand de Vareilles, auditor of the Council of 
 State, and Captain Eey were hit, and round him the balls 
 of the insurgents made more than twenty victims. The 
 courage and coolness of the minister never failed him for 
 a single instant." 
 
 ^C3^ 
 
 As a matter of coui'se, he was violently assailed 
 hy a portion of the press, which accused him of 
 tergiversation and apostasy : charges which were 
 reproduced in the Chamber, where he was chal- 
 lenged to deny that he, the champion of order, had 
 professed the most revolutionary doctrines and 
 done honour to the most violent demagogues in his 
 " History." He accepted the challenge : 
 
 "I am perhaps the sole writer become a member of the 
 Government who has consented to fom- reprints of a book, 
 written Avlien he was in opposition, without permitting the 
 alteration of a line." 
 
 In the affair of the Duchess of Berry, the 
 management of which, in the first instance, de- 
 volved upon him, he displayed his usual boldness 
 and sagacity. His instructions to his agents were 
 to secure the person of the princess, but on no 
 account to use violence. To avoid accidents, they 
 were not to carry firearms. *' In a word, we wish 
 to take the Due d'Enghien, but we do not wish 
 to shoot him." It was known that the Duchess
 
 28 TniERS. 
 
 was at Nantes, but her place of concealment was 
 a mystery, and the police were completely at fault, 
 when Thiers received an anonymous letter, offer- 
 ing to supply the required information, if he would 
 meet the writer at nine in the evening, in the 
 Allee des Veuves, Champs-Elysees, making it a 
 condition that he should come alone, fairly and 
 honestly alone, to the rendezvous. He determined 
 to run the risk. It was raining in torrents when 
 he left his carriage, a hundred paces from the 
 Allee, where he was met by a man in a cloak, who 
 turned out to be Deutz, a Jewish renegade, who 
 had been employed in confidential missions by 
 the Carlists. Their colloquy was brief, and the 
 result may be collected from the words with which 
 it was terminated by Thiers : " Agreed. You have 
 my word of honour." 
 
 A few days afterwards (Nov. 6) the Duchess was 
 arrested, under circumstances on which it is need- 
 less to dwell, with the exception of a single inci- 
 dent. When she came from the passage behind 
 the chimney, in which she had been nearly 
 smothered, she addressed General Dermancourt : 
 '' General, I throw myself on your loyalty." 
 *' Madame," he replied, " you are under the safe- 
 guard of French honour." She was enceinte^ and 
 one would have thought that French honour, at 
 all events the honour of the royal family of France 
 (including the branch upon the throne) was in- 
 volved in saving her from the open avowal of her 
 situation. But no alternative was left her but to 
 declare a secret (generally thought non-existing) 
 marriage with the Comte de Lucchesi-Palli, whom 
 DO one believed to be the father of her child ; and 
 then, being no longer an object of chivalrous 
 enthusiasm, with her place amongst the royal 
 ladies of Europe forfeited or tarnished, she was
 
 THIERS. 29 
 
 set free. In point of policy, nothing could be 
 more adi'oit : in point of delicacy or generosity, 
 nothing less commendable. But the blame, if 
 blame there be, must fall more on the Sovereign 
 than the Minister, who may plead that he had 
 nothing to do with delicacy when the fate of 
 dynasties, haply the public welfare, was at stake. ^ 
 
 Just after this affair, Thiers sought an interview 
 with Berryer, who had recently been tried for an 
 overt act of rebellion or consphacy. It took place 
 at the private residence of the Minister, who, after 
 a cold and hasty dinner, thus addressed the legiti- 
 mist orator : 
 
 "You are too considerable a man, my dear colleague, 
 for me not to make a point of giving you an explanation of 
 my conduct. There are not words of censure or vocifera- 
 tions enough in your party a propos of what I have just 
 been doing. Well then, see here ; " and he took from the 
 pocket of his overcoat a portfolio crammed with papers, 
 " I have in this portfolio proofs enough to condemn to 
 death all the chiefs of the legitimist party who have risen 
 in ' La Vendee.' If it was to be war, I had the means of 
 making it decisive and victorious for us. To strike the 
 chiefs, to strike home, was in my power. Their condemna- 
 tion is there, signed by theh own hands. Another mode 
 presented itself, less tragic, less cruel : to aim at a woman 
 instead of causing thirty or forty heads to fall. I have not 
 hesitated, and, to save these men, I have made this woman 
 my mark. History will give me credit for it, and I hope 
 that you, you yourself, will hardly blame me for so doing." 
 
 In narrating tliis incident, Berryer depicted the 
 resolute paleness and the firm clear accent of 
 Thiers, portfolio in hand stuffed with death-war- 
 
 ' The measures for making the exposure complete during the confine- 
 ment at Blaye, were the joint work of tlic King and the Cabinet, when 
 Tliiers liad ceased to be Minister of the Interior, liaving clianged places 
 with M. d'Argout. M. Louis Blanc has devoted a long chapter to these 
 measures, " Histoirc de Dix Aus," vol. iv. ch. i.
 
 30 THIERS. 
 
 rants, and was wont to say that lie could not help 
 trembling for his friends and admiring the mag- 
 nanimity of the statesman. " The finishing touch 
 of the whole," he was wont to add, half in 
 earnest, "would have been, that the famous port- 
 folio contained nothing whatever, no compro- 
 niising paper, and that Thiers showed it to me to 
 affiict and soften me. He had wit enough for 
 that." 
 
 If ever extreme measures were justified by cir- 
 cumstances, it was during the early years of 
 Thiers' tenure of high office, and we must give 
 him credit for believing that the very existence 
 of society was at stake when he brought in the 
 famous laws of September which have been so 
 perseveringly reproduced as an enduring blot upon 
 his fair fame. They are open to pretty nearly the 
 same sort of objection and defence as the equally 
 memorable Six Acts (1819) in England. There 
 were three. The first authorised the Government 
 to form as many courts of assize as should be 
 deemed necessary. It empowered the courts, as re- 
 presented by the President, to remove by force any 
 prisoners or accused persons who should interrupt 
 the proceedings, and try them in their absence. 
 This provision was imperatively called for by the 
 outrageous language and demeanour of the Lyons 
 and Paris insurgents before the Court of Peers. 
 The second, relating to the jury, reduced the 
 number of voices required for a verdict of guilty 
 from eight to seven, and made the punishment of 
 transportation more severe. The thu'd, relating 
 to the press, was the most severe and, coming 
 from an ex-journalist who (as we have seen) had 
 not minced his language, the least defensible. 
 Nestor Koqueplan, an old ally turned enemy, 
 states that Thiers had given special attention to
 
 THIEKS. 3 1 
 
 this law, and said, in the course of his instructions 
 to M. Persil, the functionary employed in pre- 
 paring it, " Give me the whole of it ; I have 
 learnt in opposition what can be done with the 
 journals. I am going to kill them all for you at 
 a blow." 
 
 The bitter taimts and reproaches levelled against 
 Thiers for his participation in these and other 
 measures, conceived in the same spirit, were 
 epitomised by Timon : 
 
 " Since then (1830) M. Thiers has changed his party; 
 he has become monarchist, aristocrat, maintainer of 
 privileges, giver and executer of pitiless commands ; he 
 has attached his name to the etat de siege of Paris, to the 
 mitraillades of Lyons, to the magnificent achievements of 
 the Eue Transnonain, to the deportations of Mont St. 
 Michel, to the la"U's regarding combinations, public criers, 
 the courts of assize, and the nevspapers, to all that has 
 fettered liberty, to all that has degraded the press, to all 
 that has corrupted the jury, to all that has decimated the 
 patriots, to all that has dissolved the national guards, to 
 all that has demoralised the nation, to all that has dragged 
 the noble and pure Eevolution of July through the 
 mud. . . ." 
 
 Thiers might have replied that the Eevolution 
 was dragged through the mud by those who used 
 it as a precedent for a normal state of insurrection 
 and defiance of the law. " These laws of Sep- 
 tember," remarks a biographer, " are in some sort 
 the formulary of that policy of pitiless repression, 
 of which M. Thiers by necessity, and M. Guizot 
 by taste, had made themselves the promoters or 
 (more accurately speaking) the directors." They 
 had already acted together in refusing an amnesty 
 to political offenders, and on one notable occasion 
 Thiers came gallantly to the rescue of his rival. 
 A deputy, M. Charamande, professed to have dis-
 
 o 
 
 2 THIERS. 
 
 covered in a little work of M. Guizot, published 
 twenty years before, doctrines which the author 
 had repudiated, and infeiTed fi-om it " the gravity 
 of the situation." Thiers pointedly ' remarked, 
 "If you misunderstand a book, the situation is 
 not the more grave on that account." He volun- 
 teered an avowal of his leanings in favour of 
 authority, saying, '' I am not liberal, but I am 
 national." 
 
 Almost from the moment when they began to 
 take the lead, these two remarkable men became 
 rivals, naturally and necessarily ; being both in- 
 sj^ired with the same eagerness for supremacy, 
 both the architects of their own fortune, both the 
 creation of the Revolution of July, of Hteratm-e, 
 and the press. It was not upon the cards that 
 they should co-operate cordially, and early in 183G 
 the}^ came to an open disagreement regarding the 
 23olicy to be pursued towards Spain. Thiers was 
 for intervention : Guizot against. The King took 
 a middle course, partially favourable to Queen 
 Christine. This did not satisfy Thiers, who 
 wished once for all to crush Carlism ; and he was 
 not sorry for, if he did not suggest or provoke, the 
 incident which broke up the Cabinet. This was 
 a proposition for the reduction of the rentes, 
 carried against the Grovernment, which resigned 
 en 7Jiasse. But the only available materials for 
 the formation of a new Ministry were the divided 
 members of the old. The King's choice lay be- 
 tween Thiers and M. Guizot. The one repre- 
 sented the Right Centre, the other the Left. The 
 Left was the strongest. It was therefore Thiers 
 who was entrusted with the arrangements, and, 
 along with the Presidency of the Council, he took 
 for himself the portfoHo of Foreign Affairs. From 
 this epoch dates not precisely the anta^jOnism of
 
 THIERS. 33 
 
 Thiers and M. Guizot, but their open, vehement, 
 unrestrained struggle for ascendency : 
 
 " During all the monarchy the great and interesting 
 question for France was this : Shall we be governed by 
 M. Thiers or by M. Guizot ? Then was seen a renewal of 
 the grand struggles of Marius and Sylla, of Csesar and 
 Pompey, of Hannibal and Scipio. During the reign of 
 Louis Phihppe, M. Thiers has overthrown or dissolved, in 
 his own personal interests, more than one ministry, but 
 after having conquered power, he has never known how to 
 keep it more than a very short time." 
 
 The same writer goes on to allege as the reason 
 that, to retain power under a parliamentary regime, 
 one must know how to get and, above all, keep a 
 majority : 
 
 " Say what you will, a majority is only to be swayed by 
 principles ; a faithful majority is only to be made sure 
 by associating oneself with its spirit, its sentiments, its 
 thoughts, I may also say its bad or good passions." 
 
 Considering the division of parties during the 
 period in question, we should say that the reins 
 of power could only be long retained by one who 
 contrived to get and keep the King uj)on his side ; 
 and this was impossible for Thiers, whose device 
 was that the King was not to govern but to reign. 
 The truth, constantly overlooked, is that real 
 parliamentary government has never been recog- 
 nised in France. No head of the State or chief 
 magistrate, whether Emperor, King, or President 
 (unless we are to except Marshal MacMahon) has 
 ever consented to be bound by a majority like a 
 constitutional Sovereign ; nor has any majority, 
 which happened to get the upper hand, been ever 
 known to respect the rights of the minority. 
 
 Thiers' first ministry, which lasted only five 
 months, was brought to an untimely end, not by 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 34 THIERS. 
 
 an adverse vote of the Chamber, but by the 
 positive refusal of the King to permit an active 
 intervention in Spain. This ministry had been 
 discredited by what was called the affair Conseil : 
 a demand addressed to the Swiss Government for 
 the expulsion of a so-called refugee, who turned 
 out to be an agent or spy of the French ; and M. 
 Laya refers to it as the " cause of the resignation 
 of M. Thiers, who, already an object of suspicion 
 to the doctrinaire camarilla organised by M. 
 Guizot, did not receive the most important com- 
 munications from the King and retired, letting fly 
 a mot like an arrow, ' Je n'ai pas tout su ' (I did 
 not know all)." He resigned on the 25th August, 
 1836, and was succeeded in the presidency of the 
 Council by Count Mole. Early in September he 
 started for Kome, and returned via Florence in 
 November. It was about this time that he is 
 supposed to have formed the resolution of con- 
 tinuing his History, pressed upon him by friends 
 and encouraged by Talleyrand, who, referring to 
 his "History of the Eevolution," remarked, 
 '' Thiers would probably be still more at home if 
 he tried his hand at the Empire." But he had 
 not yet given up the hope of a speedy return to 
 power : his heart was still in the exciting conflicts 
 of the Chamber, and soon after his return he had 
 to encounter and repel a formidable attack directed 
 a.gainst the policy which caused his downfall. 
 
 M. Guizot, who had accepted the oflice of 
 Minister of Public Instruction under Count Mole, 
 separated from him in April, 1837, and forthwith 
 proceeded to organise a coalition for his overthrow. 
 Eoyer-Collard broke wdth him on this account, 
 and the " Journal des Debats " wrote : " You will 
 perhaps one day or another have our support — our 
 esteem, never." But the biographers describe 
 
 I
 
 THIEKS. 
 
 35 
 
 Thiers as the soul, the spirit, if not the founder, 
 of this coaHtion ; and in June, 1838, after another 
 visit to Italy, he writes to Veron, the conductor of 
 the " Constitutionnel " : 
 
 "You praise M. Mole too much. I know that M. Mole 
 has more talent than his colleagues, but he is incapable of 
 making up for them : he has not talent enough for that : 
 their weakness which crushes them, crushes him too. One 
 does not shine alongside of colleagues more feeble than 
 oneself, except when one makes up for them. But M. Mole 
 only knows how to do one thing, to elude : but one may 
 elude difficulties for a moment, never long. M. Mole, 
 therefore, remains weak by the weakness of his people and 
 his own. I have always liking enough for him, I should 
 not wish him to be ill-treated, but neither should I wish 
 him to be made believe that we are of one mind with him." 
 
 In the debate (Jan. 7, 1839) on the address, M. 
 Guizot, who led the attack, got a slap in the face 
 which seriously disconcerted him. He had applied 
 insultingly to the Cabinet and the Chief the sen- 
 tence of Tacitus : " Omnia serviliter pro domina- 
 tione " (Everything servilely for power). "It was 
 not of courtiers or iplsice-Jiolders that Tacitus was 
 speaking," retorted Mole, " but of place-7mw2^ers." 
 Thiers was more fortunate or more adroit, and 
 delivered a damaging speech, amplifying his letter 
 to Veron, to which there was no effective reply. 
 After resorting to a dissolution, Mole resigned, and 
 was succeeded by Soult, who made every effort to 
 induce Thiers to join him ; and Thiers was willing 
 enough upon condition that he should have the de- 
 partment of Foreign Affairs: that the intervention 
 policy should be carried out in Spain ; and that 
 Odilon-Barrot should be President of the Chamber. 
 The arrangements fell through in consequence of 
 the refusal of the King to consent to these terms. 
 Soult. then called on Thiers, and, after a cordial
 
 36 THIERS. 
 
 iuterchange of views, took leave of him, saying 
 that he would go and entreat the King to entrust 
 the formation of the Cabinet to him (Thiers) ; a 
 step against which he strongly protested, on the 
 ground that it could only be regarded as a 
 manoeuvre and a snare. Further negotiations 
 were cut short by a popular movement or insurrec- 
 tion (May 12, 1839), which demanded the instant 
 attention of an executive ; and the Soult-Passy 
 government was formed, leaving out both Guizot 
 and Thiers, and consequently foredoomed to a 
 short life from its birth. The biographers, how- 
 ever, represent Thiers as reckoning on an interval 
 of quiet, and connect with his not altogether 
 voluntary rehnquishment of the cares of o£Sce, the 
 announcement which appeared in the " Journal 
 des Debats " of June 9, 1839 : 
 
 << 
 
 M. Thiers has just concluded with the publisher 
 Pauline a bargain for the publication of a * History of the 
 Consulate and the Empire,' in continuation of his ' History 
 of the French Kevolution,' M. PauHne has acquired the 
 property in perpetuity of M. Thiers' manuscript at the 
 price of 500,000 francs. M. Thiers will receive 400,000 
 francs on the day of the delivery of the manuscript, and 
 100,000 francs a year afterwards. We are in a condition 
 to affirm that these figures are rigorously exact." 
 
 The Soult-Passy Cabinet resigned on the rejec- 
 tion by the Chamber of a proposal to grant an 
 annuity to the Due de Nemours ; and Thiers was 
 *' sent for" at once. He showed no unseemly 
 eagerness to undertake the task : and offered to 
 co-operate in any combination which would render 
 the change less sudden or be more agreeable to 
 the King, such as leaving the Presidency of the 
 Council with Soult or reconstructing a former 
 cabinet. The one thing for which he stipulated 
 was the department of Foreign Affairs, and when 
 
 i
 
 THIERS. 37 
 
 subsequently attacked on this ground, he re- 
 plied : 
 
 " It is not a puerile vanity ; it is not a personal taste ; 
 I should not dare, in the face of my country, allege as 
 reasons my vanity or my taste. It has been said — and I 
 demand permission to explain myself with all possible 
 freedom in this respect — it has been said that foreign 
 diplomacy repudiated me. I do not believe it. I believe 
 that they respect our Government too much to express 
 either preferences or repugnances ; I believe our Govern- 
 ment respects itself too much to listen to them. But for 
 the very reason that the objection had been raised, I 
 regarded it as a patriotic duty on my part to give it a 
 marked contradiction, by accepting no other portfolio than 
 that of Foreign Affairs." 
 
 The Spanish, Belgian, and Eoman questions 
 were settled, or so far in a quiescent state that the 
 old differences concerning them were not likely 
 to revive. The rock ahead was the Eastern 
 Question, and on this there was every reason to 
 suppose that he would encounter no difficulty at 
 home ; as he had recently developed the view he 
 took of it in a speech regarded as a bid for office, 
 and called the Discours Ministre. It was also a 
 significant fact that, when so much turned on this 
 question, M. Guizot retained the vitally important 
 post of Ambassador to England. Henry Bulwer 
 (Lord Bailing) was Secretary of Embassy and 
 acting minister at Paris during the greater part of 
 1840 ; and one of the most interesting passages 
 of his '■'■ Life of Lord Palmerston " is his account 
 of the diplomatic duel between Thiers and Lord 
 Palmerston : the point at issue between them 
 being whether France or England should take the 
 lead in the East. Thiers was quietly and (he 
 thought) secretly getting the upper hand, when 
 timely warning of his miinouuvrc led to the Treaty
 
 38 THIERS. 
 
 of London, July 15, 1840, between tlie Sultan and 
 the Four Powers (Great Britain, Austria, Prussia, 
 Eussia) whom he intended to circumvent. " The 
 mine, in short, by which M. Thiers meant to blow 
 up Lord Palmerston was met by a countermine 
 which blew up M. Thiers." On July 21, 1840, 
 Lord Palmerston writes : 
 
 *' My dear Bulwer, 
 
 " I am curious to know how Thiers has taken 
 our convention. No doubt it has made him very angry. 
 It is a great blow to France ; but she has brought it on 
 herself by her own obstinacy in refusing to accede to any 
 reasonable terms. I am inclined to think that Thiers has 
 been misled by EUice and Guizot, and has acted upon the 
 belief that the English Cabinet would never venture to 
 take such a step ; and that, if France would only hold out 
 firmly, the rest of Europe would yield to her will. . . . 
 You say Thiers is a warm friend, but a dangerous enemy ; 
 it may be so ; but we are too strong to be swayed by such 
 considerations. I doubt, however, that Thiers is much to 
 be relied upon as a friend ; and, knowing myself to be in 
 the right, I do not fear him as an enemy. The way to 
 take anything he may say is to consider the matter as a 
 fait accompli, as an irrevocable decision, and a step taken 
 that cannot be retraced." ^ 
 
 Thiers was very angry, and did attempt to 
 bluster, but his roar was as subdued as that of 
 Bottom's lion, and he took good care that it 
 
 ' " Life of Lord Palmerston," vol. ii. p. 315. The whole of Lord 
 Palmerston's correspondeuce contained in the Life has appeared in a 
 French dress : " Lord Palmerston, sa Correspondance intime, pour servir 
 a I'histoire diplomatique de I'Europe de 1830 a 18G5. Traduite do 
 I'anglais, ]irecedee d'une introduction et suivie d'un appendice, par 
 Augustus Craven." Paris, 1878. This publication may help to clear up 
 much foreign misapprehension touching the general policy of Lord 
 Palmerston. Mr. Cr;-.ven has added in an appendix the correspondence 
 between M. Guizot, the King of the French, and M. Bresson, containing 
 ample proof of M. Guizot's duplicity in the affair of the Spanish mar- 
 
 i
 
 THIERS. 39 
 
 sliould not be heard across the Channel. This is 
 illustrated by Bulwer : 
 
 " I had ridden down to see him at a beautiful chateau 
 which he then occupied at Auteuil (Sept. 18). I found him 
 w'alking up and down in a long room or gallery, and I 
 joined him in his perambulations. After a turn or two he 
 stopped and said : ' I have ' despatches from Walewski ' 
 (the Count Walewski had been sent to Egypt on a special 
 mission to Mehemet Ali). 'He has terminated his nego- 
 tiations with the Pasha ; ' and he then stated to me the 
 conditions, in some abatement of his original demands, 
 which the Pasha, through Walewski' s mediation, was 
 willing to accept. 'Well,' he continued, 'France thinks 
 these conditions reasonable and just. If yom- Government 
 will act with us in persuading the Sultan and the other 
 Powers to accept them, there is once more a cordiale entente 
 between us. If not, after the concessions obtained through 
 our influence from Mehemet Ali, we are bound to support 
 him.' With these words, he fixed his eyes on my counte- 
 nance, and added gravely, ' Vous comprenez, mon cher, la 
 gravite cle ce que je viens de dire ! ' ' Perfectly,' I said, with 
 an intentional air of imperturbability. ' You wish me to 
 understand, that if we accept the arrangement made 
 through Walewski, you and we are the best friends in the 
 world ; if not, you mean to declare for the Pasha and go to 
 war with us in his favour.' We resumed our perambula- 
 tions. ' You know what I have been saying to you,' M. 
 Thiers resumed, ' is said as M. Thiers, not as President of 
 the Council. I have to consult my colleagues, the King 
 also. But I wished you to understand clearly the tendency 
 of my own personal opinions.' 
 
 "'I am much obliged to you,' I replied, 'for this dis- 
 tinction ; but the fact is, you are President of the Council, 
 and you think, no doubt, that whatever your opinions are, 
 they will prevail. You wiU see, therefore, that my position 
 is a ver}^ difficult one. If I say more or less than j^ou 
 mean, I may do incalculable mischief ; so, if you please, 
 I will ride back to Paris, and recount in a despatch our 
 conversation, and you shall read it and correct it just a^ 
 you think proper.' "
 
 40 THIERS. 
 
 Bnlwer rode to Paris, wrote his despatch, and 
 brought it back. He began by stating that Lord 
 Palmerston need not have the slightest apprehen- 
 sion as to the King's refusal of Thiers' programme, 
 and that, if Thiers' resignation were tendered on 
 that account, it would be accepted without a 
 moment's hesitation : 
 
 " I then went on to relate as accurately as I could our 
 interview of the morning. I put this despatch, just as I 
 had written it, into M. Thiers' hands ; he read it, and then 
 said to me, — ' Mon cher Bulwer, comment poiivcz-vous vous 
 tnnnper ainsi ? Vous gdtez une belle carriire ; le roi est hien 
 2)lus helliqueux que moi. But do not let us compromise the 
 future more than we can help. Don't send this despatch. 
 Let Lord Palmerston know what you think of oiu- con- 
 versation. Events may alwaj^s change ; and it is better 
 not to render affairs less liable to their influence than is 
 necessary.' I followed his advice, and only reported as 
 much of our conversation as conveyed its substance, with- 
 out giving its details." 
 
 Describing in conversation with the wiiter this 
 or another interview at Auteuil, Bulwer stated 
 that when he asked Thiers whether he was to 
 report his warhke intention as avowed, he said, 
 '' Non.y dites que vous Vavez lu sur ma figure.'" 
 Thiers' tact and penetration seem to have failed 
 him throughout in this matter, or how could he 
 have been led into believing for a moment that 
 his royal master was actually more warlike than 
 himself? Louis Philippe told Bulwer: '' M. 
 Thiers is furious against me because I did not 
 choose to go to war. He tells me that I spoke 
 of going to war; but speaking of going to war 
 and going to war, Mr. Bulwer, are very different 
 things." Not intending to go to war, his Majesty 
 certainly suffered language to be used and acts 
 to be done that would better have been suppressed
 
 THIEKS. 41 
 
 and left undone. On the Austrian Ambassador 
 insisting on the Httle importance Syria could have 
 for France, Thiers petulantly replied, "Yes, cer- 
 tainly ; therefore we should in no case go to Syria 
 to make war, but Italy is worth more to us, besides 
 being nearer." 
 
 He went the length of calling out the reserves, 
 and taking a credit of sixty-four milhons for the 
 service of the army and navy ; and it was upon 
 hearing this that Lord Melbomme (October, 1840) 
 wrote to the King of the Belgians, " Thiers' an- 
 nouncement is a threat. By Gr — d, I won't stand 
 it ! If this goes on, I will immediately call 
 Parliament together, and see what they think 
 of it." ^ This letter was forwarded to the King 
 of the French, who refused his assent to the 
 warHke speech proposed for the opening of the 
 Chambers, whereupon Thiers resigned, and was 
 succeeded (October 29) by M. Guizot. 
 
 Bulwer expresses his disbelief in the existence 
 of any intrigue to bring about this result, and 
 regards M. Guizot as the natural successor of 
 Thiers, when the King determined for peace 
 instead of war. But M. Guizot had acted as the 
 representative and organ of the belhcose policy 
 up to the very hour of its repudiation by the King : 
 nor, although he may have given Thiers fail' warn- 
 ing of the probable isolation of France, does it 
 anywhere appear that he disapproved or protested 
 against what was doing in a great measure through 
 his instrumentality. Pubhc opinion, therefore, 
 went completely along with Odilon-Barrot, when, 
 in the debate on the explanations, he spoke 
 thus : 
 
 ** A personal conflict has arisen, a conflict between two 
 men who have recently directed the foreign pohcy of the 
 
 • • Kclcilcd liy Loid ralmeibLon to the writer, June, 18G5.
 
 42 THIERS. 
 
 country. I doubt whether there is a single member in this 
 assembly who has not been painfully affected to the bottom 
 of his heart, when the ambassador and the minister have 
 been seen combating in this tribune with confidential 
 notes. 
 
 " Do 3^ou believe that, in such a conflict, men and 
 affairs do not receive a serious injury ? Ah ! I know it ; 
 you have not betrayed ; you have obeyed instructions which 
 were given you ; no one suspects the contrary. But do you 
 know what, on the reading of certain documents, has raised 
 the unanimous expression of a painful sentiment ? Hence- 
 forth, people said to one another, w4io will be sure of the dis- 
 cretion of power in the direction of affairs, when a minister 
 having chosen a representative of France abroad, and having 
 confided to him not only official documents but his inmost 
 thoughts, this representative, passing without transition 
 into an opposite camp, shall ascend this tribune to offer to 
 the country and the foreigner the sad spectacle of such an 
 antagonism, and avail himself even of the j)apers in which 
 the inmost thought of the minister has been poured out ? 
 
 " Ah, let not such examples be reproduced. One may be 
 sure of oneself: one may have a j)ersonal confidence in 
 one's talent ; but there are situations which dominate all 
 talent. Shall I be frank with you? Ambassador of this 
 j)olicy, intimate confidant of this policy, you were the last man 
 to replace the minister iclio had practised it I " 
 
 M. Guizot maintains a most suspicious reticence 
 on this subject in his " Memoirs." He offers 
 neither explanation nor justification. He does 
 not even state or leave it to be inferred that his 
 conduct was blamed in any quarter : that Thiers 
 had, or pretended to have, any cause of complaint. 
 
 It was when war was considered imminent that 
 Thiers, by a simple ordinance (September 10), in 
 the absence of the Chambers, declared the urgency 
 of the fortifications of Paris. His views were fully 
 developed in a report, and eventually adopted. In 
 the speech justifying the project he demonstrated 
 to his own entire satisfaction that, when the pro-
 
 THIERS. 43 
 
 posed fortifications were complete, the difiSculties 
 in the way of a besieging army would be tanta- 
 mount to impossibilities, and that, if a blockade 
 were attempted, the invaders, not Paris, would be 
 starved. 
 
 Another memorable measure of his administra- 
 tion was the expedition to bring back the ashes of 
 Napoleon, which entered Paris in solemn pro- 
 cession, and amidst an immense concourse, on 
 the 15th of December, 1840. That the modern 
 Ulysses, as the Citizen King was called, should 
 have sanctioned a proceeding so menacing to his 
 dynasty, is one amongst many proofs of his poli- 
 tical short-sightedness. As regards Thiers, whether 
 he saw it in that hght or not, the revival of the 
 imperiaUstic feeling was the best possible mode of 
 securing a favourable reception for his " History 
 of the Consulate and the Empire," the two first 
 volumes of which were pubhshed in 1845. 
 
 His appearances in the tribune for some years 
 subsequently to his retirement fi'om office were 
 rare. In 1842, on the death of the Due d'Orleans, 
 he supported the claim of the Due de Nemours 
 to the regency against Odilon-B arret and other 
 political friends, who were in favour of the Duchess 
 of Orleans. In the course of a telling speech, 
 pointing out the evils that might accrue from 
 female intervention, he caused a sensation by 
 exclaiming, " Savez-vous, Messieurs, ce qu'il faut 
 faire pour plaire aux femmes ? " 
 
 In 1846 he opened a campaign against M. 
 Guizot, objecting to his foreign policy that it 
 favoured English interests at the expense of 
 French : to his domestic policy, that it upheld 
 a corrupt electoral system, and throve upon it. 
 In a remarkable speech on parliamentary reform.
 
 44 THIERS. 
 
 after expatiating on the English Constitution, he 
 said: 
 
 " Behold the true model of representative government. 
 As for me, I have pursued it from my youth upwards ; I 
 have wished for it under the Eestoration ; I have never 
 wished for anything else. I wrote in 1829 this phrase, 
 which has become celebrated : Le roi regne et ne gouverne 
 pas! I wrote it in 1829. Do you believe that what I 
 wrote in 1829, I do not think in 1846 ? No, I think it still. 
 But there are disdainful spirits who tell me, you overlook 
 the diiference which exists between France and England. 
 I do not see, say what you will, that there are such dif- 
 ferences between England and France, that we are destined, 
 the one to have but the fiction of a representative govern- 
 ment, whilst the other has the reality. But if it were so, 
 what then ? Piepresentative government would be im- 
 possible in France ! Ah ! we should have been told as much 
 in July, 1830 ! " 
 
 It was by steadily maintaining this doctrine 
 that he insured his exclusion from office for the 
 remainder of the reign ; and this should never 
 be forgotten when charges of time-serving and 
 place-hunting are brought against him. 
 
 The discredit into which the Guizot ministry 
 had fallen in 1848 was, in no slight degree, owing 
 to the repeated attacks of Thiers, but he held 
 aloof from the reform banquets, foreseeing their 
 democratic tendencies from the first and smiling 
 at the blindness of his friends. " Duvergier de 
 Hauranne," he remarked, "expects to go to the 
 banquets avec ses gants jaunes.'' At 2 a.m. on 
 the morning of the 24th of February, after the 
 resignation of Guizot and the refusal of Count 
 Mole to undertake the government, Thiers received 
 a summons to the Tuileries, which, he says, he 
 obeyed with difficulty, having hundreds of barri- 
 cades to cross and the challenges of hundreds of
 
 THIERS. 45 
 
 sentinels, all of tliem excited and many drunk, 
 to answer — 
 
 ** Montalivet and the Princes Nemours and Montpensier, 
 whom I found in the ante-room, said to me, ' Surtout 
 menagez le roi,' as if that was a time for personal con- 
 siderations. 
 
 "The King was always fond of me. ' Quand je ne 
 I'aimais plus,' he said, ' toujours il me plaisait.' This 
 time, however, he received me coldly. ' Eh, bien ! ' he 
 said, ' have you made me a ministry ? ' ' Made a 
 ministry, Sire,' I answered, 'why I have only just re- 
 ceived your Majesty's commands.' ' Ah ! ' he rephed, 
 ' vous ne voulez pas servir dans le regne.' This was an 
 allusion to an old speech of mine. I really had said that I 
 would not serve again during his reign. I became angry, 
 and said, ' Non, Sire, je ne veux pas servir dans votre 
 regne.' My ill-temper calmed his. ' Well,' he said, 
 *we must talk reasonably. Whom can you have for 
 colleagues ? ' ' Odilon-Barrot,' I anwered. ' Bon,' re- 
 plied the King ; ' c'est un niais, mais il est bon homme.' 
 'M. de Eemusat.' 'Passe pom* lui.' 'Duvergier de 
 Ilauranne.' ' I will not hear of him.' ' Lamoriciere.' 
 'A la bonne heure.' 'Now,' he continued, ' allons aux 
 choses.' ' We must have parliamentary reform,' I 
 said. ' Nonsense,' he answered ; ' you would produce 
 a Chamber that would give us bad laws, and perhaps war.' 
 * I do not ask,' I replied, ' more than fifty or a hundred 
 thousand new electors, and that is not a great concession 
 — and the present Chamber must be dissolved.' ' Im- 
 possible ! ' said the King ; ' I cannot part with my 
 majority.' ' But,' I said, ' if you refuse both the objects 
 that I propose, and the instruments with whom I am to 
 work, how can I serve you ? ' ' You shall have Bngeaud,' 
 said the King, ' for your Commander-in-chief. He will 
 put down the emeute ; et apres ca nous verrons.' ' Bu- 
 geaud,' I said, ' will add to the irritation.' ' No,' 
 answered the King ; ' he will inspire terror, and terror is 
 what we want.' ' Terror,' I replied, ' is useful where it 
 is supported by sufficient force. Have we that force ? ' 
 ' Go, mon cher,' said the King, * to Bugeaud ; talk to 
 him ■; collect your ministers ; come back to me at eight
 
 46 TEIEES. 
 
 o'clock to-morrow morning, et nous verrons.' * We are 
 not ministers yet,' I said. ' No,' answered the King, 
 * you are engaged to nothing, nor am I. But whatever be 
 the arrangement you must be the chef. You are the only 
 one of the set whom I trust.' ' That suits me,' I re- 
 plied, * for I have resolved never again to enter a Cabinet 
 of which I am not the head.' It fell in also with my 
 engagements to Barrot. We had agreed that neither of us 
 should be minister without the other, and that I should 
 preside." ^ 
 
 He goes on to state tliat, after leaving the king, 
 he went at once to Bugeaud, whom he found eager 
 to resort to force, although ill-provided with ammu- 
 nition and complaining of the insufficient number 
 and demoralized condition of his troops. " How- 
 ever," he repeated several times, '' I shall have the 
 pleasure of killing lots of this canaille, and this 
 is always something." Odilon-Barrot, with whom 
 Thiers communicated next, was for a milder 
 course. " Bugeaud," he objected, " goes well with 
 Guizot, but not with us. Let Guizot and Bu- 
 geaud beat down the resistance. It is their affair : 
 our business is to concihate." The king was 
 still hesitating between repression and concilia- 
 tion, what line to take or what minister to lean 
 upon, when Thiers returned to report progress. 
 " It was now past ten. I went back to the 
 King. As I entered his cabinet Guizot went out 
 of it. It was now that I used an expression 
 which has since been quoted, though incorrectly 
 as to its occasion, ' La maree monte, inonte ; dans 
 deux heures peut-etre nous serons tous engloutis.^ " 
 
 His words were speedily verified. The revolu- 
 tionary tide swept away the monarchy, and the 
 republican regime began. He failed in his first 
 candidature for the Constituent Assembly, but on 
 
 ^ Senior, " Conversations" vol. i. pp. 5-7.
 
 THIERS. 47 
 
 tlie 4th June, 1848, lie was elected by four depart- 
 ments and made liis election for that of the Seine 
 Inferieure. He voted for the Presidency of Louis 
 Napoleon, although reported to have said that such 
 an election would be a disgrace to France. When 
 charged in the Chamber with having said this, 
 he denied it. " I heard it," exclaimed M. Bixio, 
 and a duel, a bloodless one, was the result. If 
 he did not utter the very phrase attributed to him, 
 he used terms which might easily have been 
 mistaken for it. 
 
 " It was now within about a fortnight of the election ; 
 Mole and I left the Assembly together, and as we passed 
 the embarcadere of the Eouen railroad we got out of the 
 carriage, and walked up and down the colonnade until we 
 had decided who should be the ruler of France. As 
 against Louis Napoleon I supported Cavaignac. ' I do 
 not much like him,' I said, ' but he is an honest man ; 
 he has military talents and the habit of command ; he will 
 repress conspirators and insurgents, and he will not con- 
 sphe himself. Louis Napoleon is a pretender ; all his 
 friends and advisers are of the worst description ; he is 
 ignorant, rash, and obstinate ; he will discredit the party 
 that supports him, and give us at last only the alternative 
 of civil war or despotism.' " 
 
 Mole replied that Louis Napoleon hated the 
 republic and would pave the way for a restora- 
 tion : that he would be their instrument, whereas 
 Cavaignac would be their master. 
 
 Cl 
 
 I was not convinced ; but I yielded. We went that 
 evening to the Eue de Poitiers, proposed Louis Napoleon 
 as the candidate of the Parti de I'Ordre, and carried him 
 with little opposition. ... As soon, however, as the club 
 had decided, I inserted in the " Constitutionnel " a notice 
 that L. N. Bonaparte was the candidate of the Parti de 
 rOrdre ; but to prevent it being supposed that I had turned 
 Bonapartist, I added, 'M. Thiers n'a pas de relations 
 politiques avec M. L. N. Bonaparte, et n'en aura ja))iaiH.'
 
 48 TEIERS, 
 
 The next clay he came to me overflowing with gratitude, pro- 
 testations, and devotion." 
 
 Thiers' versions of the most important trans- 
 actions in which he was engaged from the fall 
 of the monarchy to the coup cVetat, were taken 
 down from his dictation by Senior ; but the 
 publication of them has proved injurious to his 
 memory, by placing the principal defects of his 
 character — his egotism, vain-glory, and exagger- 
 ated nationality, in broad relief. 
 
 " He (Louis Napoleon) was suppleness itself, compared 
 to Cavaignac. There was no sacrifice that he would not 
 make, no engagement that he would not enter into. His 
 highest ambition was to be a mere instrument of the Parti 
 de rOrdre. He relied on me for his minister, etc. He 
 fancied that, because I had written the history of Napoleon, 
 I must be a friend of the Bonapartes. Now, though I 
 revere the great name, I detest and despise his family. So 
 I received his advances coldly, and almost contemptuously. 
 He begged me at least to look at his address. I told him 
 that it was detestable, full of socialism and bad French, and 
 sent him back to try and write a new one." 
 
 * * * * iff * 
 
 *' He earnestly pressed me to act as his minister ; but 
 after having served the greatest monarch of his time, after 
 having stood on the same elevation as Metternich and 
 Peel, I could not descend to be the instrument or even the 
 associate of a pretender. He entreated me then at least 
 to make a ministry for him, a task for which he had the 
 sense to feel his own incompetence. So I gave him 
 Barrot, Drouyn d'Lhuys, Faucher, and Passy, and the 
 rest of that Ca.binet, with Bugeaud for the grand army 
 which watched the Italian frontier, and Changarnier as 
 commander-in-chief in Paris." 
 
 ****** 
 
 "What he wanted, above all, was my sanction to his 
 imperial tendencies. And I have sometimes almost re- 
 gretted that I did not favour them, and try to turn him 
 into a constitutional monarch."
 
 THIERS. 49 
 
 "I am not sure that as respects war, my advice was 
 wise. Perhaps it would have been better if I had allowed 
 him to overrun the Continent." 
 
 It is now known that Thiers had no real influence 
 over the Prince-President, who flattered and 
 eventually outwitted him ; yet he talks as if the 
 Prince was all along a mere puppet in his hands. 
 Could he have forgotten the memorable Con- 
 ference of January 8, 1851, when the President 
 stood alone, and more than held his own against 
 the first statesmen, the first orators, the cleverest 
 talkers in France.^ On this occasion Thiers took 
 the lead in urging upon the President the injustice 
 of superseding Changarnier : 
 
 "As to General Changarnier, you would judge wrong of 
 him if you supposed him capable of conspiring. If any- 
 thmg recommends him to the public esteem, and to your 
 conscience, it is his extreme reserve in the middle of agita- 
 ting parties ; it is even a certain affectation to isolate him- 
 self from all. Has he ever been known, by speeches, by 
 votes, or by acts, to captivate their favour or give them 
 pledges ? He has only once mounted the tribune -^vithout 
 being called to it ; and who will forget under what circum- 
 stances and with what result ? No, General Changarnier 
 is not a conspirator; he has served you loyally, and he will 
 continue to do so. 
 
 " M. le President. — Yet words of his would signify on his 
 part widely different sentiments. Has he n,ot announced 
 that he undertook to carry me to Vincennes ? I attach no 
 importance to these bravados, for I have no fear of them. 
 
 "M. Thiers. — So it is the gossip of antechambers, hawked 
 about, disfigured by go-betweens, officious or interested in 
 lying, that influence you rather than serious and incontes- 
 table services ! It is personal susceptibilities, rather than 
 reasons of state, which prompt you to so dangerous a 
 
 ' MM. Dupiu, Thiers, Odilon-Burrot, Bcnyer, the Comte Mole, the 
 Comte Daru, the Comte de Montalembert, and the late Duo de Broalie. 
 A full report of what took place is given by Odilon-Barrot in his 
 Memoirs. 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 TBIERS. 
 
 measure ! Great God ! if we, on our side, were to he 
 decided by the idle talk of the lobby, or the reports of 
 agents of police, where should we be, all of us ? " 
 
 That the Prince's distrust of Changarnier was 
 well founded is placed beyond a doubt by Odilon- 
 Barrot's report of a prior interview with the 
 general : 
 
 " * As action may be taken at any moment,' began 
 Changarnier, * I have ventured to rouse you in your retreat. 
 It is which of us two, Louis Napoleon and I, shall take the 
 initiative.' ' But have you made sure of the conciu-rence 
 of the prefect of police ? ' I asked. ' Oh, yes, I am sure 
 of Carlier (the prefect), he is entirely wdth me.' On my 
 bluntly asking him if he was en mesure to arrest the Presi- 
 dent, he replied that, when I gave him the order, he would 
 put him in a basket-carriage {jxinier a salade) and carry 
 him without more ceremony to Vincennes. . . . When 
 (continues Odilon-Barrot) I exclaimed and pointed out 
 that Carlier had without doubt lost no time in reporting 
 this conversation to Louis Napoleon, and haply offered to 
 do him the same service with the general, ' So much the 
 better,' remarked Changarnier's aide-de-camp, Valaze ; 
 ' we are not sorry that what we can do should be known at 
 the Tuileries.' " 
 
 The failure at the conference was always a sore 
 subject with the party. On its being mentioned 
 at Mr. Edward Ellice's table in Arlington Street, 
 when Thiers was present, the writer suggested that 
 they had made the mistake of despising Louis 
 Napoleon as an antagonist. *'Oui," exclaimed 
 Thiers, getting positively angry, ^'oui, je I'ai me- 
 prise, je le meprise, et je le mepriserai toujours." 
 
 One of Thiers' most curious revelations to Senior 
 is the following : 
 
 " ' I remember in particular a meeting at which only 
 Mole, Broglie, Changarnier, the President and I were 
 present, about six weeks after his election. The question
 
 THIERS. 51 
 
 was, whether the time had not come 2'^our en finir avec 
 Vassemhlee — whether its violence, its absurdities, its delays 
 and its mischievous interferences were not become abso- 
 lutely intolerable.' After stating that, whilst the rest 
 were hesitating, he declared strongly against an immediate 
 coup cVetat (which he termed an ' heroic ' act to be reserved 
 for great emergencies), he adds: 'As I went on, the 
 President's face kept brightening and brightening. The 
 adjournment of the couf d'etat ob\iously relieved him from 
 an oppressive load of anxiety.' " 
 
 The hesitation of the Due de Broglie (the late) 
 and Count Mole is as unaccountable as the 
 alleged reluctance of the President. Thiers had 
 just before said of the same (the Constituent) 
 Assembly : " It was the most honest that France 
 had ever seen. It began clothed in Sociahst 
 prejudices, of which I stripped it one by one." It 
 notoriously began by declaring against Socialism 
 and sending the Socialist leaders to the right 
 about. 
 
 Changarnier told the writer, in the presence of 
 Montalembert, that repeated offers were made to 
 him to secure his co-operation in a coup d'etat, and 
 that advances were simultaneously made to Thiers, 
 whose alleged contempt for the President was 
 rapidly giving way to undisguised apprehension, 
 when (January 17, 1851) he spoke another of the 
 phrases that have become historical : 
 
 ''Well, for my part, I have only a word to add. There 
 are now but two powers in the State : the executive and 
 the legislative. If the Assembly gives way this day, there 
 will be no more than one. And when there is no more 
 than one, the form of the government is changed : the 
 Word, the form, will come. When will they come ? That 
 matters little : but what you profess not to wish, — if the 
 Assembly gives way, you will have obtained now at once : 
 there is no more than one power. The word wiU come 
 when it is wanted. L'Evqnre est fait."
 
 52 THIERS. 
 
 The aim, the end, the keystone, the alpha and 
 omega of his foreign pohcy, fi'om one end of his 
 career to the other, was the aggrandisement of 
 France. We have repeatedly heard him declare 
 that Prance had a right to have weak states on 
 her frontiers, and was entitled to resent the unity 
 of Italy or Germany as an aggression or a menace.^ 
 In justification of the invasion of Spain, in 1823, 
 he maintained : 
 
 " That it was essential to the safety of France that Spain 
 should be under her control ; that if Spain continued con- 
 stitutional, that is to say, if the feelings of the people were 
 to influence her policy, the antipathy of the Spaniards 
 towards the French would make her a rival or an enemy 
 instead of an ally. That it was the duty therefore of 
 every French Government to put down every Sx)anish con- 
 stitution." 
 
 Such policy rested on no sound foundation, no 
 broad principle, no strong sense of justice, no 
 recognised distinction between right and wrong. 
 '' Nil magnilicum, nil generosum sapit." It was a 
 blunder as well as a crime : it was as mistaken 
 and shallow as it was morally wrong. No 'nation 
 or people was ever permanently benefited by the 
 weakness, degradation, or misgovernment of 
 another. From the War of Succession to the 
 War of 1870, the unsettled state of Spain has been 
 the bane of France. Selfishness in public or 
 private affairs commonly recoils in the long run 
 upon itself; and Thiers had some experience of 
 this, when, in 1870, he went from capital to 
 capital in the vain pursuit of sympathy. Even 
 then he could not be made to understand that the 
 claim of Grerman}'- to Lorraine and Alsace was 
 identical in principle or no-principle with that of 
 France to the left bank of the Ehine. C'est tout 
 
 ' See his speech, January 11, 1SG4. 

 
 THiErtS. 53 
 
 autre cJiose, mon ami, was his reply to an English 
 friend who ventured to suggest the parallel. 
 
 Speaking of the expedition to Kome, he said 
 that it was not for the sake of the Pope, it was not 
 for the sake of Cathohcism that it was under- 
 taken : 
 
 *' It was for the sake of France ; it was to plant the 
 French flag on the Castle of St. Angelo ; it was to maintain 
 our right to have one half of Italy if Austria seized the 
 other. Rather than see the Austrian eagle on the flagstaff 
 tJiat rises above the Tiber, I ivoidd destroy a hundred con- 
 stitutions and a hundred religions. I repeat, therefore, that 
 we, the planners of the Eoman expedition, acted as states- 
 
 men." 
 
 Under his guidance, he was convinced, the 
 French could go anywhere and do anything. 
 Alluding to the Syrian affair of 1840, he says : 
 
 "If he (Louis Philippe) had stood by me for only two 
 months, we should have come out of it not merely success- 
 fully but gloriously. Never was there such an absurdity as 
 your thinking of conquering Syria with a few ships and 2000 
 soldiers. The Pasha alone had 130,000. Now, though 
 2000 Englishmen are fully equal to 20,000 Asiatics, 
 they are not equal to 100,000. And in less than two 
 months the winter would have driven your ships from 
 the coast. I had ascertained that Austria would not send 
 any troops to Syria. Appony promised me that as the 
 price of my not attacking her. I was sure that you would 
 not venture to take Kussians there. I had an army of 
 500,000 men, and a fleet that could have fought one action 
 with yours. All the coalition was trembling. Metternich 
 said, ' I have staked all on one card — the chance of a 
 quarrel between the king and Thiers.' And it turned up 
 in his favour. But you cannot wonder at my disgust." 
 
 ***** 
 
 "The King's gi-eat fault was his timidity. He was 
 personally a hero, but politically a coward. He never
 
 54 THIERS. 
 
 coiiltl forget the disasters of 1813, 1814, and 1815, and I 
 could not make him feel that, though inferior to the 
 Continental Powers united, we are more than a match 
 for any of them separatel3\ Prussia even joined to 
 Holland and Belgium could not stand against us for a 
 fortnight. Austria would not be an affair of more than 
 one campaign ; and as for Eussia, the most powerful of 
 them all, if we were fairly pitted against one another, with 
 no allies on either side, we should crush her." 
 
 There can be no doubt at all that he was an 
 excellent, an indefatigable administrator ; but the 
 account of his exertions and exhaustion in 1840 
 will be read with a mixture of incredulity and 
 surprise : 
 
 *'I kept my colleagues and my bureaux at work all day, 
 and almost all night. We were all of us half killed. Such 
 a tension of mind wearies more than the hardest bodily 
 work. At night my servants undressed me, took me by 
 the feet and shoulders and placed me in my bed, and I lay 
 there like a corpse tiU the morning. Even my dreams, 
 when I dreamt, were administrative." 
 
 He would have done better by husbanding his 
 strength and choosing subordinates on whom he 
 could depend without having so constantly to look 
 after them or do their w^ork for them. But he 
 would fain be omniscient as well as omnipresent. 
 During his presidency of the liepublio a person 
 was proposed to him for manager of the Sevres 
 china manufactory. "Why," he exclaimed, "that 
 man knows no more about china than I know 
 about" — and he paused. "Your excellency," 
 remarked a colleague, "is at a loss for something 
 you don't know all about. ^ " 
 
 ' " He liked to know the business of ministries a little before tlie 
 ministers, which was not always to their taste. . . . He wished to know, 
 minute by minute, the condition of France, that of all Europe, all our 
 relations with the Chaiiccllur of the German Empire, and with the
 
 THIERS. 55 
 
 It follows almost as a matter of course that, with 
 this narrowness of grasp, this incapacity for con- 
 sidering the interests of more than one country, he 
 was a protectionist. His artistic and Uterary taste 
 was similarly cramped : — 
 
 ** Thiers. — ^Wliat a nation is France ! How mistaken in 
 her objects, how absurd in her means, yet how glorious is 
 the result of her influence and of her example ! I do not 
 say that we are a happy people ; I do not say that we are 
 good neighbours ; we are always in hot water ourselves, 
 and we are always the pest and the plague of all who have 
 anything to do with us, but after all we are the salt of the 
 earth. We are always fighting, always inquiring, always 
 inventing, always destroying prejudices, and breaking up 
 institutions, and supplying political science with new facts, 
 new experiments, and new warnings. 
 
 " Senior. — Do you put France as high in art as in science 
 and in arms ? 
 
 " Thiers. — Certainly I do, with the exception of painting, 
 in which we are nothing. Where is there Gothic architec- 
 ture like that of our cathedrals ? Where is there a classi- 
 cal building equal to the facade of the Louvre ? 
 
 " Senior. — What think you of the great temple of 
 Paestum ? 
 
 " Thiers. — That is a glorious monument, but not equal 
 to the Louvi-e. If we go to the arts which depend on 
 language, where is there eloquence like that of Bossuet ? 
 
 smallest general of the army of occupation. Whilst M, Jules Favre was 
 Minister for Foreign Affairs, Thiers lodged him in his own house, to get 
 tlie news more quickly. He subsequently organized an apartment for M. 
 do Piemusat in the prefecture. He had every day conferences with the 
 Ministers of the Interior and Finance. He required the frequent attend- 
 ance of the Governor of tlie Bank and the great financiers. He went into 
 tlie minutest details of the war administration ; armament, equipment, 
 quarters, provisions." ("Le Gouvernement de M. Thiers,' par Jules 
 Simon, vol. ii. p. 242.) War administration was his passion. At the 
 commencement of the Crimean war he wrote a succession of letters to an 
 English friend (to be shown to the Duke of Newcastle), pointing out not 
 only how the campaign should be conducted, but what measures should be 
 taken for sujiplying the requirements of the troops ; and if his advice had 
 been followed, both Frencli and En'.dish would have been spared much of 
 the i)rivatiou and sullcring they endured before tSubastopol.
 
 56 THIERS. 
 
 Where is there depth of mtelligence like that of Moliere? 
 Where is there poetry Hke that of Eacine ? The choruses 
 of Esther and AthaHe are to nil other compositions like a 
 Kaphael Virgin to one of Guercino or Giiido. 
 
 " Senior. — Do you put Racine above Shakespeare ? 
 
 " Tillers. — I cannot compare him with Shakespeare, 
 whom I read only in translations ; but I put him above 
 Homer ; I put him above Virgil, whom he most resembles ; 
 I put him, in short, above all that I know." 
 
 Thiers could never for a moment rise out of his 
 country and himself : he was more than a repre- 
 sentative, an intensified, Frenchman : it is hardly 
 too much, to say that, when talking about France, 
 he was an expanded, elevated, idealised, trans- 
 figured gamin de Paris. Mark the tone in which 
 he dwells on the necessity of finding constant food 
 for the vanity and restless craving for excitement 
 of his countrymen : 
 
 " Senior. — Will 'not industry and commerce, will not 
 manufacturers and railways supply food 'for what you 
 call yom' diabolical passion for excitement ? 
 
 "Thiers. — Not in the least: they interest only the 
 gamblers of the Bourse. The French public does not 
 care whether it travels at the rate of five miles an hour 
 or of thirty, whether its ports are empty or full, whether 
 Rouen and Lyons are prosperous or starving. Vanity, 
 envy, and ambition are our real passions. The govern- 
 ment that prohibits our gratifying them from the tribune 
 must give them vent in the field." 
 
 Not a word of disapproval or regret : not a word 
 implying that it is hard on the rest of Europe to 
 be periodically disturbed to find occupation or 
 excitement for the French. Truth must be sacri- 
 ficed if it is unpleasant to his countr3^men to Hsten 
 to it. To disabuse the Continent of the false 
 impressioii, most unfavourable to the Enghsh, 
 produced by the Baron de Bazancourt's semi-
 
 THIERS. 57 
 
 official history of the Crimean war, a reply in the 
 "North British Eeview" was by the express desire 
 of Lord Palmerston translated and circulated 
 under the title of " Quelques Eclaircissements 
 relatifs a TArmee Anglaise." In a letter (Jan. 16, 
 1857, to the writer) Thiers deprecates the pubH- 
 cation in the strongest terms, on the ground that 
 the counterstatement would wound the suscepti- 
 bility of the French. " The least scratch (jncplre) 
 would suffice to cause an explosion. Now, rest 
 well assured that, the alliance broken, the world 
 would be overturned. A little military glory is as 
 nothing in the scale." 
 
 No one had done more to stimulate the national 
 vanity which led to the Franco-German war of 
 1870 : no one felt more keenly, or declared more 
 loudly, that something must be done after Sadowa 
 to vindicate the military prestige of France ; but 
 he had an instinctive perception of the state to 
 which the army had been reduced by maladminis- 
 tration, and at the risk of his cherished popularity 
 he came gallantly to the front to protest against 
 rushing unprepared into the field. Parodying the 
 famous " Strike, but hear me," he replied to the 
 intemperate exclamations with which he was 
 interrupted: " Afiront me ! Insult me ! I am ready 
 to undergo all to save the blood of my fellow- 
 citizens, which you are imprudently ready to 
 shed." When twitted with being the prophet of 
 disaster, he retorted : '^ It is not I who have 
 brought disaster upon France. I have never done 
 so. They who have done it are those who would 
 not listen to my warnings, when, in this place, I 
 spoke of Sadowa and the expedition to Mexico." 
 
 The remainder of his career belongs to general 
 history, and is weU known. He refused to join 
 the government of National Defence after Sept. 4,
 
 58 THIERS. 
 
 but placed his services at its disposal, and did all 
 that could be done to mitigate the disaster he had 
 failed to avert. A graphic picture of him at the 
 work has been drawn by Prince Bismarck in 
 an '' interview " with a correspondent of the 
 "Times":— 
 
 " Ah ! the French have not been just towards that poor 
 M. Thiers. He was a true patriot, however, and the most 
 striking figure I have yet met with in contemporary 
 France. I had a kind of pity for that poor httle old man, 
 who went over Europe amid the rigour of winter to sohcit 
 impossihle succour, who crossed and .re-crossed the hnes 
 separating us from Paris, anxious to make peace, worried 
 by the requirements of those who had remained in Paris, 
 passing through musket shots fired at him by our posts, 
 notwithstanding the strict orders which had been given 
 them." 
 
 [Here the Prince paused an instant, half closing his eyes 
 as if recalling something ; then resuming the conversation 
 he said : — ] 
 
 " I remember an incident I shall never forget. We had 
 met to discuss a question on which we could not agree. 
 M. Thiers fought like a beau diable. M. Jules Favre wept, 
 made tragic gestures, and no progress was made. Sud- 
 denly I began talking German. M. Thiers looked at me 
 with an amazed air and said, 'You know very well we 
 do not understand German.' * Just so,' I said ; ' when 
 I discuss with men with whom I expect ultimately 
 to come to an understanding, I speak their language ; 
 but when I begin to see that it is useless to discuss 
 with them I speak my own; send for an interpreter.' 
 The truth is, I was in a hurry to settle matters. I had 
 been on thorns for a week. I was expecting every night 
 to be woke up by a telegram bringing an English, Eus- 
 sian, Austrian, or Italian demand in favour of France. I 
 know, indeed, I should have disregarded it, but it would 
 have none the less been an indirect intervention and an 
 interference in the quarrel between France and Germany. 
 This had to be avoided at all costs, and it was therefore 
 that, despite my admiration of M. Thiers' patriotic tena- 
 city, I was so oif-haud in talking German.
 
 THIERS. 59 
 
 '' These tactics had a strange effect. M. Jules Favre 
 extended his long arms to heaven, his hair stood on end, 
 and, concealing his face in his hands, he rushed into a 
 corner of the room, pressing his head against the wall 
 as if he would not be a witness of the humiliation inflicted 
 on the representatives of France in forcing them to con- 
 tinue the negotiations in German. M. Thiers looked up 
 above his spectacles with a scandalized air, then rushed 
 to a table at the end of the room, and I heard his pen 
 dashing feverishly over the paper. In a short time he 
 came back to me. His small eyes flamed behind his spec- 
 tacles, his mouth was drawn up with anger, and he offered 
 me the paper with an abrupt movement, and in a husky 
 and almost harsh voice said, ' Is that what you want ? ' 
 I looked at what he had written ; it was admirably drawn 
 up, and was pretty nearly what I wanted. I then resumed 
 speaking in French and the negotiations were completed in 
 that tongue." 
 
 The picture is toucliing, altliough calculated to 
 provoke a smile. The weakness is merged and 
 forgotten in the agony : — 
 
 *' Lust, through some certain strainers well refined, 
 Is gentle love, and charms all womankind." • 
 
 National vanity, refined and elevated into love 
 of country or patriotism, takes rank as a virtue, 
 sways as a power, attracts sympathy, and com- 
 mands respect. There were moments of exalta- 
 tion when it ennobled Thiers and made him speak 
 like one^^inspired. " I see him still, pale, agitated, 
 sitting down and standing up by turns : I hear his 
 voice, hoarse from suffering, his broken words, his 
 accents at the same time suppliant and proud, and 
 I know nothing grander than this noble heart, 
 bursting forth in complaints, in menaces, in 
 prayers." This is M. Jules Favre's description of 
 him in the apparently desperate effort to save 
 Belfort, which \Yas saved by his impassioned
 
 CO THIERS. 
 
 appeals. '' M. de Bismarck appeared troubled. 
 Tlie emotion of M. Thiers had gained upon him : 
 he replied that he comprehended what he must 
 suffer, and would be happy to be able to make 
 him a concession." ^ 
 
 At the election of the National Assembly, 
 February 18, 1871, Thiers was chosen by twenty- 
 six departments. Large minorities had supported 
 him in others, and it was computed that he 
 received more than tw^o millions of votes. " He 
 had never," said M. Jules Simon, " sought popu- 
 larity : he had braved it. All the world, friends 
 and enemies, knew that he was our only states- 
 man, and that his name was for us a protection, a 
 moral force." His nomination to the chief magis- 
 tracy by the Assembly seemed to follow as a 
 matter of course, but we have good reason for 
 believing that a feeler was put forth on behalf of 
 the majority to try whether the Due d'Aumale 
 would accept the post upon an understanding that 
 he was to make a monarchical coup d'etat. 
 
 A decided majority of the Assembly was royalist, 
 including a- large sprinkling of legitimists, and this 
 constituted Thiers' chief difficulty from the first. 
 By the programme or compact know as the Facte 
 de Bordeaux, it was agreed on all sides that the 
 discussion of forms of government must be post- 
 poned till the country was freed of the foreigner, 
 and peace, order, and credit were re-established. 
 The capacity, energy, tact, temper, fertility of 
 resource which he displayed in accelerating these 
 results have been generally admitted. If formal 
 proof were wanting of the extraordinary difficulties 
 of his position and the eminent quaHties by which 
 he overcame most of them, it would be found 
 in the complete, clear. and able, although neces- 
 
 ^ "Le Gouvcrnement de M. Thiers," vol. i. p. 121.
 
 THIEllS. 61 
 
 sarily partial and unnecessarily pugnacious, his- 
 tory of his government by M. Jules Simon/ 
 
 What enhanced his patriotism and disinterested- 
 ness, was the consciousness that his tenure of 
 power was becoming precarious in exact proportion 
 to the efficient use he made of it in restoring a 
 normal state of things. "Wait," he called out to a 
 royalist orator, " wait, before driving me to the 
 wall, till the territory is evacuated, because then 
 your courage will be equal to the task." Before 
 the Facte de Bordeaux, he said to one friend, 
 " France is very sick : I shall be the physician to 
 cure her, but you know how one deals with the 
 physician when one is cured ; the danger over, 
 adieu the doctor." To another, when harassed by 
 the permanent commission: "Yes, yes, I know full 
 well that if they had no further need of me, they 
 would not give me even my eight days' warning as 
 to a lacquey." 
 
 It was his honest adherence to the spirit of the 
 Facte, his determination to uphold the republic as 
 the only possible government under the circum- 
 stances, that made him obnoxious to the majority. 
 
 " If I believed the monarchy possible, I would retire : I 
 should have fulfilled my engagement : I should remain a 
 man of honour, and I should see my country follow what 
 you call her destinies. Interrupt me this moment if you 
 believe that the interest of the country is to make the 
 monarchy at once : bid me descend from this tribune : 
 
 ^ Allowance may be made for the asperity with which M, Jules Simon 
 assails his political antagonists, but why go out of his way to revive 
 national animosities by stories of Prussian exaction which are exaggerated 
 on the face of them? Thus, in speaking of what took jilace at Versailles, 
 under the eye of the Emperor and his staff: — 'The debauch was very 
 general, very shameless, very cynical. General, also, the drunkenness. 
 The officers did not always show themselves more civilised than tlie 
 soldiers. They entered the houses by violence, opened the drawers, 
 ordered dinner, chose their rooms without respect, often taking the 
 chamber of the daughter of the house." — Vol. ii. J.-i5.
 
 G2 THIERS. 
 
 take the po^wer : it is not I wiio will dispute it with you. 
 Gentlemen, you see me as I am. I am an old disciple of 
 monarchy, I am what is called a monarchist, who adopts 
 the repuhlic for two reasons : because he has engaged 
 himself, and that, practically at present, he cannot do 
 anything else. You see what sort of republican I am : I 
 give myself for what I am : I deceive nobody." ^ 
 
 We do not believe that he betrayed any undue 
 leaning to the ultras of the Left ; the accusation 
 of radicalism was belied by his acts, by the whole 
 tenor of his life from his first entry into office. 
 But where he erred, where he played into the 
 hands of his adversaries, was in not acting on his 
 own favourite maxim of parliamentary govern- 
 ment, instead of cumulating the parts of President 
 and minister. He had no business in the tribune : 
 he should have left the duty of exposition and 
 explanation to his ministers, and held them 
 responsible. He resigned (May 24, 1873) in con- 
 sequence of a vote by 360 against 344 "that the 
 recent ministerial modifications had not given 
 the conservatives the satisfaction they had a right 
 to expect." Why, as chief of a constitutional 
 government, did he resign ? Why not submit to 
 be bound by the majority of the representatives 
 of the people, as Marshal MacMahon, although 
 reluctantly and with a bad grace, has done, — 
 thereby presenting the nearest approximation to 
 parliamentary government that has hitherto been 
 seen in France ? 
 
 Thiers had resigned once before (Jan. 20, 1872) 
 on a question of finance. M. Jules Simon says 
 that, on the withdrawal of his resignation, the 
 satisfaction was "profound and unanimous," that 
 the Eight, in particular, felt more profoundly than 
 any, that he was the indispensable man. 
 
 1 Speech of November 29, 1872.
 
 THIERS. G 
 
 o 
 
 "They never faced for a moment the possibihty of 
 replacing him. Never did man witness a more striking 
 demonstration of the grandeur of his situation. The 
 princes who are offered crowns have conspired and played 
 the valet to get the offer. But this bourgeois had positively 
 rejected power, and treated with disdain the Assembly 
 which, notwithstanding, was at his feet." 
 
 We presume that when M. Jules Simon wrote 
 this, he could not have been aware that what 
 really induced the majority to refuse the resigna- 
 tion was the opportune and calculated an- 
 nouncement by the Germans that the liberation 
 of the territory would be checked or brought to 
 a standstill if Thiers ceased to be President. It 
 would seem that he himself was under a mis- 
 apprehension as to the possibility of replacing 
 Mm. 
 
 " In the course of conversation, at the Council, of these 
 different incidents, M. Jules Simon said, laughing, to 
 M. Thiers, 'Now, you should say yom- " Nunc dimittis."' 
 
 " il/. Thiers (with a pensive air). — 'But they have no 
 one. M. Jules Simon. — ' They have Marshal MacMahon.' 
 M. Thiers (with vivacity). — ' Oh, as for him, I will answer 
 for him. He will never accept.' " 
 
 The second resignation was readily accepted by 
 the Assembly and the Presidency as readily 
 by Marshal MacMahon. Only two months before 
 (March 17) the Assembly had solemnly declared 
 that *' M. Thiers, President of the Eepublic, had 
 deserved well of the country." It was felt by all 
 who had the real interests of the country at heart 
 that they were safest in his keeping, and the 
 news of his retirement was received both at home 
 and abroad with consternation and regret. His 
 reputation never stood higher than after his fall. 
 The having him in reserve for the presidency, in 
 a highly probable contingency, was a tower of
 
 64 THIEES. 
 
 strength to the Liberal party in the ensuing 
 struggle, and the result of that struggle was in no 
 small degree owing to the posthumous publication 
 of his views and wishes, entitled his " Political 
 Testament." 
 
 Whatever difference of opinion may exist as to 
 his statesmanship, critics are tolerably well agreed 
 upon his merits and demerits as an historian, that 
 is, as the historian of the Consulate and the 
 Empire, for he is comparatively immature, he 
 does not rise to his full height, in his "History 
 of the Eevolution." His imerits are the mastery 
 of the subject, the artistic selection and group- 
 ing of the facts : the flow, vivacity, and lucidity 
 of the narrative : the lifelike sketches of cha- 
 racter : the versatility and variety of speculation, 
 observation, and thought. He is never tame or 
 cold. His eagerness, his enthusiasm, are catch- 
 ing : you are interested because he is interested ; 
 and you are carried away by and with him the 
 more readily from feeling that you are in the 
 hands of one who has made or assisted in making, 
 as well as one who has written, history. His 
 familiarity wuth public affairs is especially seen 
 and felt in the fulness and completeness of the 
 administrative details. " We are introduced," 
 says Sainte-Beuve, " for the first time, to what 
 private persons would never have had a chance 
 of knowing otherwise : into the secrets of councils 
 and negotiations, into the intimate conversations 
 of sovereigns, into the succession of thoughts 
 agitated under the tent of Caesar, on the pillow of 
 Alexander." 
 
 That his work is coloured by his likings and 
 dislikings, by his opinions, his predilections and 
 his prejudices, rather enhances than lessens its 
 attractiveness : and so, to his countr^^men, does
 
 THIERS. 65 
 
 the all-pervading spirit of nationality ; but these 
 are serious drawbacks when he comes to be 
 weighed as an authority. He is often fairly beside 
 himself, and sets all probability at defiance, when 
 the reputation of his imperial hero or the glory 
 of the French arms is at stake. If we are to 
 accept his account of Waterloo, almost every 
 battalion of the English army was culhute (his 
 favourite phrase) two or three times over, and 
 could hardly have known whether they stood on 
 their heads or their heels before the battle was 
 won. He begins his account of the battle of 
 Aboukir, by stating that " the Bellerophon dis- 
 mantled, and other English vessels horribly 
 maltreated, were obliged to draw off," and at- 
 tributes the defeat of the French to the non- 
 observance of a signal. At Trafalgar, he says, 
 '' Nelson's ship, the ' Victory,' would infalhbly 
 have been carried by boarding from the * Eedoubt- 
 able ' (a two-decker), if 200 men, including the 
 boarding-party, had not been swept away by a 
 single discharge of grape from the ' Temeraire.' " 
 In describing what took place off Boulogne in 
 1804, he states that the Emperor, to set an 
 example to his navy, got into a barge, had it 
 steered right towards an EngHsh frigate, received 
 a broadside, and got off with a splashing {ctait 
 quitte pour Veclahoussure). 
 
 In a Preface to the concluding volumes, he 
 compares a perfect style to glass, through which 
 we look without being conscious of its presence 
 between the object and the eye. His own style 
 is glass of whose presence we are occasionally 
 made conscious by specks. One of his learned 
 friends, when asked for liis opinion after receiving 
 a volume, replied that he thought it excellent, but 
 that there were numerous negligences of style ; 
 
 VOL. 1. F
 
 66 THIERS. 
 
 he had found the word lielas repeated more than 
 twenty times. ^ " Is that all ? " asked Thiers. 
 *' No, it is also too loose, too free, too famihar." 
 *' That is nothing," was the retort — •" no, truly, 
 it is nothing, and gives me little concern : I 
 have no hterary pretension : what I dreaded is 
 that I should be accused of having imperfectly 
 embraced the entirety (ensemble) of the subject 
 which I treat." 
 
 The comphment to his authorship which 
 touched him most, was the phrase adroitly in- 
 troduced by Napoleon III. in the speech from the 
 throne in 1867 : Historien illustre et national. 
 It was well earned, for the foundation-stone of the 
 Second Empire was laid by the history. His 
 book, entitled " De la Propriete," published in 
 1848, contains some admirable specimens of 
 written eloquence, blending imagination with 
 argument and thought. 
 
 It was impossible to know Thiers well without 
 being impressed by his kindness of disposition, 
 good-nature, and amiability. The number and 
 quality of his attached friends are an all-sufficient 
 answer to the calumnies that have been heaped 
 upon him. His style of conversation in early life 
 is thus described by Lamartine : 
 
 " Modesty is a virtue of the North, or an exquisite fruit 
 of education. He spoke first, he spoke last, he paid little 
 attention to replies : but he spoke with a justness, an 
 audacity, a fecundity of ideas, that caused the volubility 
 of his lips to he forgiven. It was clear that his disciples 
 had accustomed him to be listened to. This talk, perfectly 
 familiar and appropriate to the ease (abandon) of the hour 
 and the place, was neither eloquent nor pretentious. It 
 was the heart and mind that were poured out." 
 
 ' " I did not say * Alas ! ' Nobody ever does that I know of, though 
 tUe word is so frequently written." — Eothen.
 
 THIERS. 07 
 
 This was equally true of him in after life, in the 
 fulness of his fame. Modesty would have been 
 misplaced, and Sydney Smith has laid down that 
 there is no necessary connection between modesty 
 and merit except that they both begin with an 
 m. But Thiers was always simple, easy, and 
 unassuming, and in one respect must have im- 
 proved ; for he was ready to listen. French 
 causerie, however, is more continuous and less 
 elliptical than English conversation, and a some- 
 what different test of excellence is consequently 
 applied. When he was in England in 1852, a 
 dinner (March 1) was made for him, at which were 
 present : Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Hallam, Edward 
 Lord Lytton, Lord Elcho, Lord Cardwell, Lord 
 Herbert of Lea, Sir W. Stirling Maxwell, Mr. 
 Henry Fitzroy, Lord Kingsdown, Colonel Darner 
 and the writer. The conversation was varied and 
 animated : Thiers had the advantage of language 
 and choice of subject ; but the general impression 
 was that Mr. Gladstone was (if anything) the 
 better talker of the two. 
 
 We hardly know a pubhc character, ancient or 
 modern, which it is more difficult to sum up or 
 judge. He can hardly be called great ; although 
 (if influence be a test of greatness) a man cannot 
 be far from it, when he paves the way for an 
 empire or consolidates a republic : when the pulse 
 of a great nation throbs at his touch : when, in 
 a momentous crisis — with peace, order, and liberty 
 at stake — his name is sounded through the whole 
 length and breadth of his native land as a rallying 
 cry, and his voice is listened to like a revelation 
 as it comes charged with wise counsel and solemn 
 warning from the tomb. But considering his 
 marvellous intelhgence, his range, versatility and 
 elasticity of mind, his sway over popular assem-
 
 68 
 
 THIERS. 
 
 blies, his genius for the conduct of affairs, his 
 power of rising to emergencies and (above all) the 
 amount of thought and action he originated or 
 impelled, we do not hesitate to declare him, with 
 all his faults and errors, the most brilliant and 
 distinguished of the illustrious band of writers, 
 orators and statesmen whom France of the nine- 
 teenth centmy has produced.
 
 PRINCE BISMARCK.' 
 
 (From the Quarterly Beview, January, 1879.) 
 
 Speculating in 1870 whether Prussia would even- 
 tually be merged in Germany, M. Kenan ex- 
 claimed : " I know not, for M. de Bismarck hitherto 
 has not submitted himself, and perhaps never will 
 submit himself, to analysis." Prince Bismarck 
 had been tolerably frank before 1870 ; and at all 
 events he has since submitted himself to analysis 
 as completely as is well possible for any living 
 statesman. We allude not merely to the com- 
 promising publication of Dr. Busch, although its 
 indiscretion does not affect its authenticity, 'and 
 we incline to think that, so far as it goes, the 
 general impression left by it is correct. There 
 have been interviewing correspondents and trusted 
 biographers. The Prince's famihar letters, as well 
 as his private conversation, have been freely laid 
 
 ^1. The Life of Bismnrch, Private and Political: luith Descrijitive 
 Notices of his Ancestry. By J. E. L. Hesekiel. Translated and Edited, 
 &c., by Kenneth R. H. Mackenzie, F.S.A., &c. London, 1870. 
 
 2. Prince Bismarck's Letters, to his Wife, his Sister, arid others, from 
 1844 to 1870. Translated from the German by Fitzli. Maxse. London, 
 1878. 
 
 3. Deux Chancel iers, le Prince Oortchakoff et le Prince de Bismarck. 
 Par M. Julian Klaczko, ancien Depute au Purlemeut de Vienna. Paris, 
 1876. 
 
 4. Oraf Bismarck iind seine L^mte vdhrend des Kriegs mit Frankreich . 
 ("Coun* Bismarck and his Peo}ile during the War with France.") Von 
 D. Moritz Busch. Zwci Bauele. Zweite unveriindcrte Auflage. Leijjzig, 
 1878. '
 
 70 PRIXCE BISMARCK. 
 
 before the world. He has been photographed in 
 all attitudes, and stenographed in all moods of 
 mind. We have been unreservedly made ac- 
 quainted with the strange medley of principle and 
 prejudice, faith and superstition, sternness and 
 volatihty, strength and weakness, of which his 
 character is made up ; and altogether there are 
 now ample materials for deciding, at least ap- 
 proximatively, in what class of statesmen he is 
 to be placed : whether amongst the bold and 
 fortunate, or the really great. Has his success 
 been owing to sagacity, forethought, grasp and 
 comprehensiveness of view, the instinctive prompt- 
 ings of political genius, the grand quahties which 
 naturally control events and dominate mankind ; 
 or to self-reliance bordering on audacity, an iron 
 will, a set purpose, an unscrupulous resort to 
 means, and a never-faihng readiness to stake all 
 on the hazard of the die ? 
 
 The problem is well worth solving ; and it cannot 
 be solved without reverting to his birth, education, 
 and early life, w^hich, more than is commonly the 
 case with men of his intellectual calibre, marked 
 out and influenced his career. 
 
 To begin with his birth : the most distinctive 
 features of his character, his chivalrous devotion 
 to his sovereign as a feudal chief or liege lord, 
 his belief in the right divine of kings, his aristo- 
 cratic tendencies, were inborn and inherited. 
 They came to him as the lineal descendant of a 
 family whose nobility or gentility may be estimated 
 from the fact, that no flaw could be discovered 
 in his pedigree till it was carried back to the four- 
 teenth century, when Eulo Bismarck was member, 
 and frequently j^^^evot, of the guild of master tailors 
 in the small borough of Stendal. In vain was 
 it plausibly alleged that a noble might have been
 
 PRINCE BISMARCK. 71 
 
 member of tlie guild without exercising the craft : 
 that Eulo might have been a master-tailor, as 
 Dante, his contemporary, was an apothecary : the 
 Liberal Opposition could not resist the temptation 
 of levelling at their arch-enemy the same sneer 
 to which Goethe (three of whose progenitors were 
 tailors) was exposed ; and it was maliciously 
 suggested that Eulo " might contemplate from 
 heaven with pride and satisfaction the splendid 
 imperial mantle that his descendant has managed 
 to cut for King William out of the cloth of Europe." 
 His mother was the daughter of Privy-Councillor 
 Menken, of a family non-noble, although dis- 
 tinguished in literature and the public service. 
 He was born at Schonhausen, on the 1st of April, 
 1815. His parents were accustomed to pass the 
 winter months at Berlin, and it was there that he 
 received his first schooling and his first college 
 education, which was completed at Gottingen.^ 
 The tradition of both universities is that he was 
 more distinguished as a Bursche, that is, as a 
 rioting, rollicking kind of fellow, than by his pro- 
 ficiency in the studies of the place. He there 
 acquired or perfected the power of swallowing any 
 given amount of beer or fermented liquor with 
 comparative impunity, and his duels were nu- 
 merous. His first, at Berlin, was, with a Jew 
 student, named Wolf, whose spectacles he cut ofi", 
 himself receiving a wound in the leg. He fought 
 twenty-eight at Gottingen, and was only woulided 
 once, — by the fracture of his adversary's sword, 
 leaving a scar still visible in the cheek. The 
 
 ^ "He said he was placed from his sixth to his twelfth year iu the 
 Plamann Institute, in which the Spartan regime was rigidly enforced. 
 He never got enou'^h to cat, never once ate his fill, except when he was 
 asked out. They had always " clastic " meat, not absolutely hard, hut 
 impenetrable to the teeth : and carrots mixed with potatoes he ate with a 
 relish.'' — liusch.
 
 72 TRIXCE BISMARCK. 
 
 antlior of the " Life," a highly favourable bio- 
 grapher, although admitting that even Savigny 
 could not tempt him to attend more than two 
 lectures on Jurisprudence, asserts that he passed 
 his examination with credit at the appointed time, 
 " with the aid of his own industry, his great gifts, 
 and a clever memoria technica ; " but M. Klaczko 
 raises a doubt whether he ever passed this ex- 
 amination (the indispensable qualification for office) 
 at any time. 
 
 " Grave question ! which was long debated in Germany 
 and of which a weapon has been made dui'ing twenty 
 3'ears against the party man, the Deputy, the Ambassador, 
 the President of the Council. Eemarkable fact ! which 
 well characterises the formalist spirit of the nation ! M. de 
 Bismarck had already defied all Europe and dismembered 
 the Danish monarchy when, in the opposition journals of 
 Germany, were flung from time to time, like reserved 
 crackers, malicious allusions to this problematical exami- 
 nation ! It is only since the epoch of Sadowa that they -j^ 
 have definitely ceased : Sadowa cleared away a great many 
 other and more important irregularities." 
 
 Goethe's Doctor's degree was similarly con- 
 tested, till the cavil was extinguished in his fame. 
 On leaving the University, whether he passed the 
 requisite examination or not, Bismarck entered the 
 Civil Service as Auscultator or Referendary to one 
 of the minor Courts of Justice at Berlin, where, 
 as usual, he left his mark for originality or 
 oddity : 
 
 " The following anecdote we know to be genuine. The 
 Auscultator was taking the protocol of a true Berliner, 
 who finally so tried the patience of Bismarck by his im- 
 pudence, that he jumped up and exclaimed, ' Sir, behave 
 better, or I'll have you kicked out ! " The magistrate 
 present j^atted the zealous official in a friendly way upon 
 the shoulder, and said quietly, ' Herr Auscultator, the 
 
 ■It
 
 PRINCE BISMARCK. 73 
 
 kicking out is my business.' They proceeded in taking 
 evidence, but very soon Bismarck again sprang to bis feet, 
 thundering out, ' Sir, behave yourself better, or the magis- 
 trate shall kick you out ! ' The face of the Court may be 
 imagined."^ 
 
 In 1836 he was transferred to tlie Crown Office 
 at Aix-la-Chapelle, and later on we find him in 
 the same capacity at Potsdam. He tried the 
 army, but for a long time did not rise higher than 
 Lieutenant of the Landwehr. He figures as 
 Major at Sadowa, after which he was promoted 
 per saltum to the rank of General. His temporary 
 withdrawal from the Civil Service may have been 
 mainly owing to the duty imposed upon him and 
 his brother, through the father's maladministration, 
 of undertaking the management of the family 
 estates. The care of two of these devolved upon 
 him, and he devoted himseK in right earnestness 
 to agricultural pursuits till he had set matters 
 right ; but the return of prosperity was the signal 
 for a relapse into eccentricities, which he indulged 
 to such an extent as to acquire the nickname of 
 " Der ToUe (mad) Bismarck." The hospitality of 
 the manor-house of Kniehoff rivalled that of an 
 Irish Castle Rack-rent when a party was invited to 
 drink out a hogshead of claret ; and its evil 
 reputation and its orgies bore some resemblance 
 to those of Medenham Abbey in the days of the 
 Hellfire Club and Wilkes. At the same time he 
 had the credit of reading much, and he was known 
 to receive frequent parcels of books, historical, 
 theological, and philosophical. He is said to have 
 made a deep study of Spinoza. He visited 
 
 ^ " The Life," p. 104. This is a valuable book, despite of its faulty 
 composition and its exaggerated tone of eulogy, on account of the author's 
 peculiar sources of information. We are indebted to it for much that is 
 not to be found elsewhere. The " Letters," which now form a separate 
 publication, firbt appeared in it.
 
 74 PRINCE BISMARCK. 
 
 France and England, having previously acquired 
 a competent knowledge of the language of both 
 countries ; and from a restless desire of change or 
 longing for a fixed occupation of any sort, he got 
 re-appointed to his old position of referendary at 
 Potsdam. Conceiving himself slighted in society 
 by the President, he quietly requested him to 
 remember that, beyond the precincts of the Court, 
 Herr von Bismarck was as good as Herr Anybody 
 Else. The same functionary having kept him 
 playing antechamber for an hour after he had sent 
 in his name, was thus addressed : '' I came to 
 request a short leave of absence, but, having 
 passed the last hour in reflection, I now demand 
 leave to resign." He then paid his father a visit 
 at Schonhausen, with a half-formed resolution to 
 remain there and become Landrath in the original 
 seat of his race. On his return to Kniehofl, he is 
 isolated on a narrow step of land by the overflow 
 of a river, and with a touch of irony at the slender 
 limits of his domain he writes : 
 
 " About one o'clock one of my waggons was carried 
 away by the flood, and in my little river, the Hampel, I 
 am proud to say a man driving a pitch-cart was carried 
 away and drowned." 
 
 Swift expresses a similar feeling of mock exulta- 
 tion when a man narrowly escaped drowning in 
 his little river at Laracor. Bismarck's father died 
 in 1845, and being now (February 1846) fixed at 
 Schonhausen, he writes : .i| 
 
 " They are going to make me captain of the dykes here, 
 and I am pretty certain of being returned to the Saxon 
 Diet (of course not the Dresden one). My acceptance of 
 the first post woukl be decisive as regards my future 
 residence here. There is no salary attached, but the con- 
 duct of the business of this office is of material importance 
 
 r
 
 praxcE Bis:.iAP.cK. 75 
 
 for the welfare of Sclionhansen and other property, as 
 it is dej^endent upon such conduct as to whether we are on 
 certain occasions to be under water again or not. On the 
 other hand, my friend ... is always at me, as he wishes 
 to send me to East Prussia as His Majesty's Commissioner 
 of Works there. 
 
 " Bernhard, against my expectation, urges me strongly 
 to go to East Prussia. I should like to know what he is 
 aiming at. He pretends that my bent and cajiabilities -point 
 to entering the service of the State, and that sooner or later I 
 shall do so." 
 
 Besides being made Dyke Captain, he was 
 named Knight Deputy in the Saxon Provincial 
 Diet at Mersebiirg, which gave [him a seat in the 
 United Diet ; and he attended the first meeting in 
 1847. There were times when he seriously medi- 
 tated going to seek his fortune in India. Marriage 
 was frequently in "his thoughts, and in February 
 1846, referring to his land-bailiff, he writes : 
 
 " The ideal of his dreams, instigated thereto by her 
 parents, has lately thrown him over, and married a wheel- 
 wright : just my case, barring the wheelwright, who is still 
 creaking about in the future. I must, however, marry; 
 the d — take me ! I see it again too clearly now that 
 father has left me, and the damp mild weather exercises a 
 melancholy, love-longing influence over me. It is no use 
 my struggling, I shall have to marry . . . : everybody 
 wills it so, and nothing seems more natural, as we are both 
 of us left behind. 
 
 " She makes no impression upon me, it is true, but this 
 is the case with all of them. Ah ! if one could only change 
 one's inclinations with one's linen — however seldom such 
 an event might occur ! " 
 
 On the 28th of July, 1847, he was married to 
 Johanna, the only daughter of Herr von Put- 
 kammer, a neighbouring landed proprietor, who, 
 subsequently recurring to the day when she 
 avowed her attachment to mad Bismarck, de-
 
 76 PRINCE BISMARCK. 
 
 clared : " It seemed as if I had been felled with an 
 axe." The marriage was in all respects a happy 
 one. They had three children, a daughter and 
 two sons, born resj)ectively in 1848, 1849, and 
 1852. His first appearance in the Diet (between 
 the betrothal and the marriage) was on the 17th of 
 IMay, 1847. He joined the Extreme Eight or 
 Conservative party, and broke ground at once in a 
 style that fixed attention. He was not, and never 
 became, an orator, although he has shown some 
 skill as a debater. His strength lay in the depth 
 of his convictions, which he expressed or blurted 
 out in vehement unmeasured language, devoid of 
 rhetorical grace or polish, but occasionally warmed 
 and animated by burning words, condensed 
 thoughts, and striking images, which came flash- 
 ing through his tangled periods like hghtuing 
 through clouds. Thus, contemptuously dismiss- 
 ing the notion that the principles of revolution 
 and counter-revolution could be disposed of or 
 settled by parliamentary debate, he said : " The 
 decision can come only from God, the God of 
 battles, when He shall let fall from his hand the 
 iron dice of destiny." 
 
 In Weber's opera, " Der Freischiitz," Max 
 borrows a cartridge from Eobert, the evil genius, 
 and with it brings down an eagle. He asks for 
 more of the same cartridges, and is told that the 
 bullets are enchanted and can only be had by 
 selling himself to the infernal spirits — by the 
 sacrifice of his soul. Max draws back, and then 
 Bobert, with a sneer, informs him that it is useless 
 to hesitate, that the compact is made, and that he 
 is already engaged hj the cartridge which he has 
 used: "Did you fancy, then, that this eagle was 
 a gratuitous gift?" Nothing could be happier 
 than Bismarck's application of this scene when. 

 
 PRINCE BISilARCK. 77 
 
 adjuring the Prussian Chamber in 1849 not to 
 accept for the King the imperial crown offered by 
 the Frankfort Parliament, he exclaimed: "It is 
 Eadicalism which brings this donation to the 
 King. Sooner or later this same Eadicalism will 
 draw itself up to its full height before him, will 
 demand its reward, and, pointing to the eagle on 
 this now imperial flag, will say to him, ' Did you 
 fancy, then, that this eagle was a gratuitous 
 gift ? ' " 
 
 The most telling retort to his adversaries, and 
 the most inspiriting assurance to his supporters, 
 were condensed in the application of a memorable 
 event in history. When the Emperor Henry the 
 Fourth crossed the Alps to make his submission 
 to Gregory the Seventh, the Pope kept him wait- 
 ing three winter days with bare head and naked 
 feet in an outer court of the Castle of Canossa. 
 Eeferring to this in the height of his conflict with 
 Eome, Bismarck pointedly exclaimed : " Be sure of 
 one thing, gentlemen, we shall not go to Canossa." 
 
 His maiden speech. May 17, 1847, was in 
 answer to an orator who had attributed the rising 
 of Germany against the Napoleonic yoke to a 
 longing for free government : 
 
 "I am compelled," lie said, "to contradict what is 
 stated horn this tribune, as well as what is so loudly and 
 so frequently asserted outside this hall, in reference to the 
 necessity for a constitution, as if the movements of our 
 nation in 1813 should be ascribed to other causes and 
 motives than those of the tyranny exercised by the foreigner 
 in our land." 
 
 Here he was assailed with hisses, cries, and 
 other marks of disapprobation. Finding it im- 
 possible to obtain a hearing, he quietly drew a 
 newspaper from his pocket — the " Spenersche
 
 78 PRINCE BISMAECK. 
 
 Zeitung," adds tlie biographer, wlio delights in 
 particularity — and read or appeared to read it in 
 an easy, unconcerned attitude, till order was re- 
 stored. He then resumed : 
 
 " In my opinion it is doing sorry service to the national 
 honour to conclude that ill-treatment and humiliation 
 suffered by Prussia at the hands of a foreign rule would 
 not be enough to rouse Prussian blood, and cause all other 
 feelings to be absorbed by the hatred of foreigners." 
 
 He was followed by some elderly Liberals, who 
 suggested that he was too young to know what 
 he was talking about, and declared that their 
 motives in taking the field in 1813 had been mis- 
 understood. He then reascended the tribune and, 
 amidst renewed clamour, replied coldly and sar- 
 castically : 
 
 " It is certainly undeniable that I can hardly be said to 
 have lived in those days, and I am truly sorry not to have 
 been permitted to take part in that movement : my regret 
 for this is certainly diminished by the exj)lanations I have 
 received just now upon the movement of that epoch. I 
 always thought the servitude against which the sword was 
 then used was a foreign servitude ; I now learn that it lay 
 at home. For this correction I am not by any means 
 grateful ! " 
 
 His political faith was sharply defyied in a 
 parallel between the state of things which led 
 respectively to the English revolution of 1688 and 
 the Prussian Constitution of 1847. 
 
 "The English people were then in a different position 
 from that of the Prussian peoj)le now ; a century of revolu- 
 tion and civil war had invested them with the right to 
 dispose of a crown, and bind up with it conditions accepted 
 by William of Orange. On the other hand, the Prussian 
 sovereigns were in possession of a crown, not by grace of 
 
 i
 
 PRIXCE BISMARCK. 79 
 
 the people, but by God's grace ; an actually unconditional 
 crown, some of the rights of which they voluntarily con- 
 ceded to the people — an example rare in history." 
 
 In strict keeping with his doctrine of divine 
 right was the theory of the Christian basis of the 
 State, by which he justified his resistance to the 
 emancipation of the Jews. He remained unshaken 
 throughout the stormy period brought about by 
 the French Eevolution of 1848, protesting that, 
 if he accepted the programme of progress, it was 
 only because he was powerless to do otherwise, 
 because an ultra-Liberal ministry was better than 
 no government at all : 
 
 " The past is buried and I mourn it with greater pain 
 than many among you, because no human power can 
 awaken it when the Crown itself lias scattered ashes upon 
 the coffin.'" 
 
 He had a marked distrust of the Frankfort 
 Parliament, and an aversion for everything ema- 
 nating from it, especially the project of fusion 
 which was to merge Prussian individuahty in one 
 all-embracing Fatherland. His denunciation of 
 the tricolour contrasts strikingly with Lamartine's 
 famous boast that it had made the tour of Europe 
 on the car of Victory : 
 
 " The auny has no enthusiasm for the tricolour ; in it, 
 as in the rest of the people, will be found no longing for 
 national regeneration. The name of Prussia is all-sufiicient 
 for it. These hosts follow the banner of black and white, 
 and not the tricolour : under the black and white they 
 joyfully die for their country. . . . We are Prussians, and 
 Prussians we desire to remain. I know that in these 
 words I utter the creed of the Prussian army, the creed 
 of the majority of my fellow-countrymen, and I hope to 
 God that we shall continue Prussians, when this bit of 
 paper is forgotten like the withered leaf of autumn ! "
 
 80 PRINCE BISMARCK. 
 
 It was the maxim of Frederic the Great that 
 the sky did not rest more firmly on the shoulders 
 of Atlas than the Prussian State on the Prussian 
 army, and it would seem to have heen the especial 
 and well-understood vocation of Bismarck to verify 
 this maxim to the letter. The old-fashioned 
 Eoyalists were seldom well-read in history. A 
 French Legitimist, duke and peer, was compli- 
 mented on having spoken like Demosthenes. " I 
 don't know much about that," was the reply, '' but 
 Demosthenes was not more attached to his King 
 than I am." One of Bismarck's most vehement 
 supporters was the Adjutant-General von Eauch, 
 who, when Eadowitz, the leader of the Liberal- 
 Conservatives, conjured the king, like Caesar, to 
 cross the Eubicon, replied, with a twang of the 
 Berhn dialect : " I do not know that fellow Caesar, 
 nor that fellow the Eubicon, but the man cannot 
 be a true Prussian who counsels his Majesty thus." 
 Eadowitz was by birth a Westphalian ; but he 
 was virtually Prime Minister of Prussia when he 
 brought forward the new constitution in 1849, 
 and when, anticipating Bismarck, he was eager 
 to bring the long pending rivalry between Prussia 
 and Austria to the arbitrament of arms in 1850. 
 
 In the autumn of that year, the people of Hesse 
 Cassel had risen as one man against their Govern- 
 ment, and expelled the minister, the chief source 
 of theii' discontent. Austria sided with the op- 
 pressor, Prussia with the oppressed. Constitution- 
 alism and Absolutism were on the point of coming 
 to a fair stand-up fight, when Constitutionalism 
 lost heart and the Hessians were compelled to 
 take back their detested Hassenpflug. Manteuffel 
 was President of the Council whilst this afi"air was 
 brewing ; but Eadowitz, then Minister for Foreign 
 Afi"airs, stood towards his chief much in the same 
 
 1
 
 PRINCE BISMARCK. 81 
 
 relation in which Pitt stood towards the Duke of 
 Newcastle during the Seven Years' War. The 
 menacing attitude of Russia in the background 
 had something to do with the collapse ; but Ra- 
 dowitz told the writer that all he needed was the 
 moral support of England, which Lord Palmerston, 
 contrary to his alleged policy, refused. Wanting 
 this, the war policy was overruled, and Man- 
 teuffel, after proposing an amicable interview with 
 the Austrian Minister (Prince Schwarzenberg) at 
 Oderberg on the frontier, took the humiliating 
 step of telegraphing to say that, in obedience to 
 the positive orders of his sovereign, he would 
 come to OlmiJtz, an Austrian town, to await the 
 reply. 
 
 The terms of the arrangement (November 29, 
 1850) were mortifying in the extreme to Prussia, 
 and raised such a storm of indignation against 
 Manteuffel, that he declared he would rather en- 
 counter pointed bullets than pointed speeches — 
 lieber Spitzhugeln ah Spitze-reden. A leading 
 member of the Chamber was enthusiastically ap- 
 plauded when he concluded a violent philip2)ic 
 with " Down with the Minister." Bismarck alone 
 came to the rescue, and boldly maintained that, 
 having got into a wrong groove, the minister had 
 acted wisely in getting out of it in the only 
 available way. His hatred of liberaKsm appears 
 to have got the better of both his loyalty and 
 patriotism ; for, careless or forgetful of the pre- 
 dominance he had asserted for Prussia and her 
 King by right divine, he maintained that no 
 German federation was possible without Austria, 
 that Austria was a German power in all the force 
 of the term, and that Prussia ought to subordinate 
 herself to Austria, in order to combat the threaten- 
 ing democracy in concert. 
 
 VOL. 1. o
 
 82 PRINCE BISMARCK. 
 
 ''Most assuredly," remarks M. Klaczko, "whilst com- 
 memorating this sitting of the Chamber one may, to speak 
 ■with Montesquieu, give ourselves the spectacle of the 
 astonishing vicissitudes of history ; but the irony of fate 
 begins to assume truly fantastic proportions when "we 
 reflect that it was precisely this speech of the 3rd of De- 
 cember, 1850, which decided the vocation of M. de Bis- 
 marck, and opened to him the career of foreign affairs. 
 Forced to consent to the restoration of the Bund, and 
 resigned to the preponderance of the empire of the Haps- 
 burgs, the Prussian Government thought it could not give 
 better pledges of its dispositions than by naming as its 
 plenipotentiary at the Germanic Confederation the fiery 
 orator whose devotion to the cause of the Hapsburgs was 
 able to stand the test of the humiliation at Olmiitz ; and 
 it ivas as the most decided partisan of Austria that the future 
 victor of S ado w a made his entry on the arena of diplomacy." 
 
 It would seem that the offer of this appointment 
 was made with the view of conciliating him, with- 
 out much expectation of his closing with it. On 
 his intimating his willingness to accept it, the 
 president referred him to the King, to whom he 
 said at once : — " If your Majesty is desirous of 
 trying the experiment, I am ready to fulfil your 
 wishes." On the King's drawing his attention to 
 the significance and responsibilities of the post, he 
 replied, "Your Majesty can surely try me: if I 
 prove a failure, I can be recalled in six months, 
 or even sooner." In May 1851, he was named 
 First Secretary of the Embassy to the Diet, with 
 the title of privy-councillor. He did not become 
 envoy and plenipotentiary till the August follow- 
 ing. Although he arrived the professed partisan 
 of Austria, the independent position he took up is 
 shown by the now familiar anecdote of his re- 
 questing a light (to hght his cigar) from the 
 Austrian envoy, who had hitherto smoked in 
 solitary dignity in the Bund.
 
 PRINCE BISMARCK. 83 
 
 It was not iu form only that he asserted his 
 equality. He was not long in discovering the 
 error into which he had been hurried by his dread 
 or hatred of democracy. Austria had a secure 
 majority in the Diet ; and it required unceasing 
 vigilance, combined with energy, to prevent 
 Prussia from being completely overshadowed ; the 
 more especially that the tone and attitude of the 
 Government were long perceptibly modified by 
 recollections of Olmiitz. His diplomatic was 
 strengthened by his social position. He occupied 
 a handsome house : entertained largely : and 
 (what was unusual in official circles) received 
 authors, artists, and musicians, as well as nobles. 
 To show his attachment to the army, he always 
 appeared in public in his Landwehr or militia 
 uniform, with (at first) a solitary decoration on his 
 breast, a medal corresponding with our Humane 
 Society medal, won by saving his soldier-servant 
 from drowning at great personal risk. To the 
 supercilious diplomatist who asked him what it 
 was and how he got it, he replied: "Why, for 
 once I took it into my head to save a man's Hfe." 
 
 His Frankfort mission, although he pronounced 
 it " terribly dull," was full of movement, occupa- 
 tion and excitement. But when he had fairly 
 arrived at the conclusion that httle or nothing 
 was to be done with the Bund, he contracted a 
 dislike approaching to contempt for diplomacy, at 
 all events such diplomacy as he found there, and 
 longed for a more congenial field of action. His 
 state of mind is strikingly portrayed in his letters, 
 which leave what we beheve to be a more faith- 
 ful as well as more favourable impression of him 
 than his table-talk as reported by Dr. Busch. 
 They are, moreover, quite as fresh, frank and out- 
 spoken, and still more remarkable fur force of
 
 84 PRINCE BISMARCK. 
 
 expression, piquancy, and point. In a letter to 
 his wife he says : 
 
 " We all i:)lay at believing that each of us is crammed 
 full of ideas and plans if he would only speak, and we are 
 every one of us perfectly well aware that all of us together 
 are not a hair better as to knowledge of what will become 
 of Germany than Gossamer Summer. No one, not even 
 the most malicious democrat, can form a conception of 
 the charlatanism and self-importance of our assembled 
 diplomacy." 
 
 Passages abound in which the romantic and 
 sentimental elements of his character combine or 
 contrast with the religious feeling which he again 
 and again tells us is its foundation and its 
 strength. 
 
 " Saturday afternoon I drove out with Eochow and 
 Lj'nar to Riidesheim ; there I took a boat, rowed out uj^on 
 the Ehine, and swam in the moonlight, with nothing but 
 nose and eyes out of the water, as far as the Mausethurm 
 near Bingen, where the bad bishop came to his end. It 
 gives one a peculiar dreamy sensation to float thus on a 
 quiet warm night in the water, gently carried down by the 
 current, looking above on the heavens studded with the 
 moon and stars, and on each side the banks and wooded 
 hill-tops and the battlements of the old castles bathed in 
 the moonlight, whilst nothing falls on one's ear but the 
 gentle splashing of one's own movements. I should like 
 to swim like this every evening. I drank some very fair 
 wine afterwards, and then sat a long time with Lynar 
 smoking on the balcony — the Rhine below us. My little 
 New Testament and the star-studded heavens brought us 
 on the subject of religion, and I argued long against the 
 Eousseau-like sophism of his ideas, without, however, 
 achieving more than to reduce him to silence." 
 
 He is sent on an important mission to Vienna, 
 and there are few better things in descriptive 
 letter- writing than the hasty sketches, interspersed 
 
 I
 
 PRINCE BISMARCK. 85 
 
 with tonclies of hnmonr, whicli lie dashes off upon 
 the way. He visits Holland in 1853, and sends 
 his sister gi'aphic accounts of what he saw in town 
 and country, including a sea-piece on board a 
 Dutch sloop and an animated parallel between 
 Venice and Eotterdam. He was in Paris in 1853, 
 and again in 1857, when he had the first of those 
 conferences with the French emperor which led 
 to such momentous consequences in the end. He 
 was so frequently summoned to attend the cabinet 
 or court that he was computed to have travelled 
 2600 miles (German) between Berlin and Frank- 
 fort in one year. 
 
 The tone of the letters is hardly reconcilable 
 with the statement in the " Life," that he wished 
 to remain at Frankfort, and that he personally 
 complained to the Prince of the transference to 
 St. Petersburg. The truth is, his known hostility 
 to Austria, with whom Prussia was not yet pre- 
 pared to break, rendered his presence as Prussian 
 ambassador in the Bund extremely inconvenient 
 at this particular conjuncture, — the eve of the 
 Italian war of 1859 ; and the state of opinion at 
 Berlin was not ripe for the reception of his policy. 
 He was therefore (to use his own expression mis 
 a la glace — laid up in ice — in Kussia. He arrived 
 there on the 29th of March, 1859, and on the 12th 
 of May following he addressed to M. de Schleinitz 
 the remarkable confidential despatch in which he 
 fully develops his view of the relations between 
 Prussia and Austria, and indicates the policy by 
 which alone the resulting problem could be 
 solved. 
 
 " I see in our relation with the Bund an error of Prussia's 
 which, sooner or later, we shall have to repair ' ferro et 
 igni,' unless we take advantage betimes of a favourable 
 season' to employ a healing remedy against it."
 
 86 PRINCE BTSMAUCK. 
 
 This is the first occurrence of the phrase, 
 *' sword and fire," which subsequently became so 
 celebrated. 
 
 It is the moral and purpose of M. Klaczko's 
 book, ingeniously and artistically evolved and 
 worked out, that the destiny of Europe has been 
 decided by his two Chancellors : that by express 
 or tacit understanding they have lent each other 
 a helping hand upon all trying emergencies : that 
 Prince Gortchakoif answered for the neutrality or 
 inaction of France during the Austrian war of 
 3866: that Prince Bismarck repaid the obligation 
 by keeping Austria aloof during the Turkish war 
 which closed with the Treaty of Berhn ; and that 
 it is by the connivance of these two that all the 
 convulsions of Europe during the last twenty 
 years have been brought about. 
 
 This community of feeling and interest, which 
 began at Frankfort, was cemented at St. Peters- 
 burg, where Bismarck sedulously laid himself out 
 to conciliate not merely the Russian Chancellor 
 but Russian public opinion, such as it was, by 
 adopting Russian habits and pursuits. 
 
 " Never," says M. Klaczko, " had a foreign ambassador 
 on the banks of the Neva shown such devotion as the 
 knight of La Marche for the polar star nor pushed so far 
 the passion for the local colouring. He pushed it to the 
 point of domesticating several bear cubs, which (like the 
 foxes at Kniepliof) were admitted during dinner to 
 the dining-room, to afford an agreeable distraction to the 
 guests, lick the hand of the master, and pinch the calves 
 of the servants." 
 
 He had a long and severe illness soon after his 
 arrival, but when he was sufficiently recovered he 
 was a regular attendant at the bear or wolf hunts, 
 arriving amongst the first at the rendezvous or 
 " meet " in a sledge, attired in the Russian sport-
 
 PRINCE BISMARCK. 87 
 
 ing costume, and surprising the boldest and most 
 practised sportsmen by bis coolness and skill. He 
 took a Eussian professor into his house and learnt 
 enough of the language to give orders to the 
 servants, and on one occasion to delight the Czar 
 by some appropriate phrases in the language of 
 Pouchkine. 
 
 " I shall -WTap myself up in my bearskin," he writes, 
 September 24, 1859, " and let myself be snowed up, and 
 see what is left of me and mine next May when it thaws. 
 If that won't do, I shall go to earth and have done with 
 politics, like Geschperl in the fom'th tableau." 
 
 The prospect had not improved in his eyes when 
 the May thaw came. Prussia was still pursuing 
 what he thought a truckling policy, following in 
 the wake of Austria instead of taking an inde- 
 pendent line and striking for her proper place in 
 Germany. The accounts which reached him of 
 the meeting at Toplitz in August between the 
 Prince-Eegent of Prussia and the Emperor were 
 far from reassuring. " We have been finely led 
 by the nose at Toplitz by Vienna ; geniality sold 
 for nothing, not even for a mess of pottage," is 
 the report of one whom he describes as a well- 
 informed but rather Bonapartist correspondent. 
 *' God grant he is mistaken," is his comment. 
 
 Three months later, after the conquest of 
 Naples, the Cabinet of Berlin addressed a strong 
 remonstrance to that of Sardinia, to the effect 
 that it is only by the legal course of reform and 
 by respecting existing rights that a regular govern- 
 ment is allowed to realise the legitimate wishes 
 of nations, and concluding with this sentence : 
 *' Called to pronounce on the acts and principles 
 of the Sardinian Government, we cannot do other- 
 wise- than deeply deplore them, and we behove
 
 88 PRINCE BISMARCK. 
 
 ourselves to Le fulfilling a rigorous duty in ex- 
 pressing in the most explicit and most formal 
 manner our disapprobation both of those principles 
 and of the application that it has been thought 
 fit to make of them." When this despatch was 
 read by the Prussian envoy at Turin to Cavour, 
 he listened to it in silence, and, after expressing 
 his deep regret at the displeasure of the govern- 
 ment of Berlin, added that he derived consolation 
 from the thought that the time would come when 
 Prussia would feel grateful to Piedmont for the 
 example it had set. That time was approaching 
 rapidly. 
 
 On the 3rd of February, 1860, Bismarck writes : 
 
 " .... I still hear with pleasure and a touch of 
 home-sickness every piece of news about Frankfort affairs 
 and persons, and when reading the papers I am often 
 seized by the impulse to hurry into the sittings, eager for 
 the fray. The move with the war -organisation was excel- 
 lent : forward in the same style ; out openly and boldly 
 with our claims : they are too well justified not to win an 
 eventual although perhaps dilatory recognition." 
 
 On the 8th November, 1858, the now Emperor, 
 then Regent, in an allocution to his Cabinet, had 
 declared that it was the predestined duty or voca- 
 tion of Prussia to make moral conquests in Ger- 
 many, and M. Klaczko combats the notion that 
 her military successes have been owing to a long 
 meditated scheme or half a century of preparation. 
 The adoption of the needle-gun in 1847 was an 
 isolated step, and when the mobilisation of the 
 army was rendered necessary by the Italian com- 
 plications of 1859, its organisation was discovered 
 to be faulty in the extreme. It was to the reforms 
 then instituted that Bismarck alluded when he 
 said that the move with the war-organisation was 
 
 /
 
 PRINCE BISMARCK. 89 
 
 excellent. " I am sorry for tlie Austrian soldiers," 
 is his remark after Solferino. ''How must they 
 be led that they get beaten every time ! " And 
 again on the 24th, " It is a lesson for the ministry, 
 which they in their obstinacy will not take to 
 heart. For the moment, I should fear France 
 less than Austria, if we had to take up war." 
 
 Examples abound of great men, on the eve of 
 great events, a prey to despondency and uncon- 
 scious of the brilliant career in store for them. 
 Bismarck is one. 
 
 " Petersburg, March 26, 1861. 
 " For the rest, I have reconciled myself with the life 
 here, do not find the winter at all as bad as I thought, 
 and ask no change in my position, till, if it is God's will, 
 I retire to Schonhausen or Eeinfeld, to set the carpenter 
 at my coffin without unnecessary haste. The ambition to 
 be minister quits a man nowadays for manifold reasons, 
 which are not all suited for written communication. In 
 Paris or London I shoukl exist less comfortably than here, 
 and not have more to say upon matters ; and a change of 
 abode is halfway in dying." 
 
 During the entire period of his Eussian embassy, 
 events had been leading up to the consummation 
 which, despite of his real or affected indifference, 
 was seldom alien from his wishes or absent from 
 his thoughts. In November 1858, the Emperor 
 Napoleon had commissioned the Marquis Pepoli 
 to represent strongly to the Prince-Eegent of 
 Prussia all the advantages he would find in a 
 rupture with Austria. " In Germany, Austria re- 
 presents the past, Prussia the future : by chain- 
 ing herself to Austria, Prussia condemns herself 
 to immobility ; she ca,nnot rest in it ; she is called 
 to a higher fortune ; she must fulfil in Germany 
 the great destinies which await her, and which 
 Germany expects from her." In October 1861,
 
 00 TRINCE BISMARCK. 
 
 tlie Eegent paid a visit to the Frencli Emperor 
 at Compiegne, a most significant event, and re- 
 turned imbued witli a policy wliich Bismarck, 
 with whom it had in a great measure originated, 
 was obviously the man to carry out. But, as 
 an intermediate step, before placing him at the 
 head of affairs or because the royal intentions 
 were still wavering, he was named ambassador 
 at Paris. 
 
 " Paris, June 1, 1862. 
 " In eight or ten days I shall probably receive a tele- 
 graphic summons to Berlin, and then it is all over with 
 music and dancing. If my opponents only knew what a 
 boon they would confer on me personally by their victory, 
 
 and how sincerely I wish them it, would then do his 
 
 best out of malice to get me to Berlin. You cannot have 
 a greater disinclination to the Wilhelmstrasse than myself, 
 and if I am not con\dnced that it must he, I don't go. To 
 leave the King in the lurch under pretext of illness, I hold 
 to be cowardice and disloyalty." 
 
 He speaks of a visit to Fontainebleau and of 
 the Empress as '' prettier than ever, and always 
 veiy amiable and gay ; " but there is no mention 
 of any personal communication with the Emperor, 
 either in the "Letters" or the "Life." M. 
 Klaczko says they met more than once, and that, 
 while all the world were lost in wonder at the 
 newly-discovered profundity of the Emperor, Bis- 
 marck did not hesitate to pronounce him ^^ inie 
 graride incajjacite meconnue.^' At this time, as at 
 all others, the Chancellor-expectant made no 
 secret of his ultimate designs, acting throughout 
 on the theory that, even when it is an object to 
 keep things doubtful or dark, there is no blind like 
 truth, nothing so sure to throw dust in the eyes 
 of professional diplomatists, most of whom are too 
 clever by half. 

 
 prjNCE cisMAnCK. 91 
 
 ^France, he openly declared, would have no 
 reason to take umbrage at the aggi-andizement of 
 Prussia, who would become only more valuable as an 
 ally when she had absorbed a minor State or two. 
 *' She has, in fact, an unhappy, impossible con- 
 figuration : she wants belly on the side of Cassel 
 and Nassau ; her shoulder is out of joint on the 
 side of Hanover ; she is en air, and this painful 
 situation condemns her to follow implicitly the 
 policy of Vienna and St. Petersburg, to revolve 
 unceasingly in the orbit of the Holy Alliance." 
 Enlarged, rounded, unrestrained, he argued, she 
 would naturally co-operate with France. If it be 
 objected that the balance of power would be dis- 
 turbed by the proposed annexations, what was to 
 prevent France from being aggrandized, from 
 being rounded in her turn ? " Why should she 
 not take Belgium, and there stifle a nest of 
 demagogues ? The Cabinet of Berlin would offer 
 no opposition : suum cuique is the ancient and 
 venerable device of the Prussian monarchy."^ 
 
 It may have been the device of the Prussian 
 monarchy since the seizure of Silesia by Frederic 
 the Great, but it is at variance with the still more 
 ancient and venerable device and doctrine of 
 meum and tuum, and no common audacity was 
 required to propound it as a principle of action, 
 before the public mind of Europe had been pre- 
 pared for it by such events as the appropriation of 
 the Duchies by Prussia or the annexation of Savoy 
 and Nice to France. All this, we are assured, was 
 said mtli liveliness, with animation, with humour, 
 accompanied by many a malicious remark on men 
 and things : " on this Chamber of Lords at Berlin, 
 for example, composed of respectable pemiqiies, 
 and the Chamber of Deputies, equally composed 
 
 ^ " Deux Chancclicis," p. 15b.
 
 92 PRIXCE BTSMAKCK. 
 
 of perruqites^ but not respectable ; and an august 
 personage, the most respectable, tlie most perruque 
 of all." 
 
 During the two months, June and July, 1862, 
 passed in Paris, he made much the same impres- 
 sion as during his three years at St. Petersburg. 
 His social success was marked : all agreed in full 
 acknowledgment of the Iwvivie d'esjjvit, but the 
 grave people, the people in place, the party leaders, 
 shook their heads, and could not make up their 
 minds to accept him as the liomine serieux. This 
 was just what he wanted. His schemes became 
 known, and what was starthng in them was 
 smoothed away by familiarity without his being 
 made responsible for them in their embryo state : 
 so that, when the time for action came, he might 
 carry them out with all the honour of forethought 
 or drop them as well-understood pleasantries. 
 
 Thiers did not see further below the surface 
 than the rest. One evening in June, 1862, when 
 the salon of the Place St. Georges was closed to 
 all but a select and congenial circle, the host and 
 the company were startled by the announcement 
 of the Prussian ambassador, who, at the first 
 opportune opening in the conversation, developed 
 the policy he intended to pursue in case his august 
 master should ever call him to the helm. Instead 
 of inspiring confidence, his simulated indiscretion 
 (as they thought it) was regarded as " a sort of 
 ironical defiance addressed to their good faith." 
 When Thiers returned the visit, Bismarck, with 
 an air of gushing cordiality, addressed him : 
 " Don't deny it, you are sulking {vans houdez) with 
 your friends and your books." '' When one has 
 opinions," replied Thiers, " one must respect 
 them." "You are right," rejoined Bismarck; 
 " one must have ideas, but one must carry them
 
 PRINCE BISMARCK. 93 
 
 out by power. Come, I will make it up for you 
 with the Emperor : be Minister, and we two 
 between us will remake the map of Europe." 
 Thiers turned the conversation, declining the offer 
 and the idea by a wave of the hand, and speedily 
 took his leave. Their next meeting was at 
 Versailles, during the siege of Paris. ^ 
 
 On the 25th of July, 1862, Bismarck left Paris 
 for the south of France. He was kept in un- 
 certainty for six weeks, and it was fi'om the 
 Pyrenees, about the middle of September, that he 
 was summoned by telegraph to Berhn. On his 
 homeward journey he stops just long enough at 
 Paris to take a hasty leave of his friends with a 
 characteristic apophthegm : " Liberalism is but 
 childishness, which is easily brought to reason ; 
 but revolution is a force, and one must know how 
 to utilise it." 
 
 On his arrival at Berlin, he found Liberalism 
 something more than childishness or child's play. 
 It was in the flush of triumph, having just re- 
 turned an increased majority to the Electoral 
 Chamber, and the general belief was that he was 
 summoned for the express purpose of repeating 
 the feat of Polignac, of resorting to the extreme 
 measure of a coup d'etat. The split between the 
 Government and the Second Chamber turned 
 mamly on the war budget : 
 
 " The nation at large sided with their representatives. 
 The love of peace was absolute. There was a comi:)lete 
 absence of ambition : peoi)le were entirely resigned to the 
 political situation which they occupied ; and on the other 
 hand no one was willing to admit that so peaceable a 
 kingdom could be threatened by its neighbours. In such 
 
 ' Thiers himsolf is the authority for these details, wliich he narrated 
 to the late Bishop of Orleans. See " llecits de I'luvasiou," by M. A. 
 Boucher.'
 
 94 PRINCE BISMARCK. 
 
 a state of things, all augmentation of the army, entailing 
 an increase of military and financial burdens, was re- 
 garded by the country as an inconceivable caprice of their 
 rulers." ^ 
 
 From this estimate of the popular feeling, 
 adopted by M. Klaczko and confirmed by con- 
 temporaries, it will appear that Bismarck's 
 position closely resembled that of Strafford, whoso 
 distinctive policy, embodied in the single word 
 Thorough, he openly professed. The Prussian 
 Chamber, how^ever, had not, he contended, like 
 the English House of Commons, the exclusive 
 right to vote supplies or impose taxes. " The 
 Prussian budget is fixed annually by a law, which 
 requires the assent of the two Chambers and th0 
 Crown. Of their concurrent rights, each is un- 
 limited in theory, and one is as strong as the 
 other. In the case of their disagreement, the 
 Constitution contains no disposition to decide 
 w^hich of them must give way." This is equally 
 true of the English Constitution ; but constitu- 
 tional ways were new to Prussia, and the deputies 
 were more puzzled than revolted when he told 
 them that, with the dignity of the Crown and the 
 welfare of the nation at stake, it was no infringe- 
 ment of their privileges to levy the required 
 imposts without their consent. On the 29th of 
 September 1862, he withdrew the budget of 1863, 
 and said : 
 
 "It is owing to the great obstinacy of individuals that 
 it is difficult to govern with the Constitution in Prussia. 
 A constitutional crisis is no disgrace : it is an honour. 
 We are, perhaps, too cultured to endorse a Constitution. . . . 
 Germany does not contemplate the liberality of Prussia, 
 but her power. Prussia must hold her power together for 
 
 ^ Constantine Kosser, " Graf Bismarck und die Deutsche JS^ation," 
 Berlin, 1871. 
 
 I
 
 PRIXCE BISMARCK. 95 
 
 the favourable opportunity which has ah'eady been some- 
 times neglected. The frontiers of Prussia are not favour- 
 able to a good State Constitution. Tlte great questions of 
 the day are not to he decided by speeches and majorities — this 
 has been the error of 1848 and 1849 — but by iron and 
 blood/" 
 
 We quote from the "Life." The strongest 
 expressions do not occur in the meagre report in 
 the collected edition of the speeches ; but in the 
 January following, on being twitted with having 
 said that Might makes Eight, he explained that 
 he had recommended a compromise to avoid con- 
 flicts, " because these conflicts are questions of 
 power, and, the life of the State not being able 
 to endure times of stoppage, he who fluds himself 
 in possession of power feels himself under the 
 necessity of using it." ^ There can be httle 
 doubt that the words (iron and blood) were 
 actually used ; for it is stated, although rather 
 clumsily, in the " Life " " that the opposition 
 understood this frank language so little, that there 
 was nothing more than plenty of jesting about 
 the iron and blood policy, without end." That he 
 contemplated a resort to force as a probable con- 
 tingency, and the fate of Strafford as a possible 
 result, is clear from involuntary exclamations 
 which, according to the same authority, he let 
 drop to friends : " Death on the scaffold, under 
 certain circumstances,- is as honourable as death 
 on the battle-field. ... I can imagine worse 
 modes of death than the axe." 
 
 He was named Minister of State and President 
 of the Cabinet ad interim on the 22nd of Sep- 
 tember, 1862 : President of the Cabinet and 
 Minister for Foreign Affairs on the 8th of October 
 
 ^ Speech, Jan. 27, 1863. The collected edition begins with the Sitting 
 of Septv 29, 1862, and is not continued after 1872.
 
 96 PRINCE BISMARCK. 
 
 following. On the 13tli the Session of the Diet 
 was closed, and soon afterwards he left Berlin for 
 Paris, to make his formal adieiix at the Tnileries ; 
 a significant step under the circumstances, as 
 showing the importance he attached to a complete 
 understanding with the Emperor. Referring to 
 this period, he said at Versailles, as reported by 
 Dr. Busch : 
 
 " When I became minister, I had a conversation with 
 him (the Emperor) in Paris. He then expressed an 
 opinion that it would not last long : there would be an 
 insurrection in Berlin and revolution throughout the land, 
 and on a plebiscite the King would have all against him. 
 I told him the people with us erected no barricades : only 
 the kings in Prussia made revolutions. If the King only 
 held out four or five years against the tension which 
 certainly existed at present, let the dissatisfaction of the 
 public be as unpleasant and inconvenient as it might, he 
 will have won the game. If he did not get tired and leave 
 me in the lurch, I should not fall. And if an appeal was 
 now made to the people and their votes taken, he had 
 already nine chances to ten in his favour. The Emperor 
 then said of me: He is not un homme serieux ; of which 
 I naturally did not remind him at the weaver's at Donchery 
 (after Sedan)." 
 
 The result does justice to his sagacity. After 
 the failure of two dissolutions the deputies were 
 sent about their business, and the administration 
 proceeded as if the budget and the army organisa- 
 tion had regularly passed into law. 
 
 The author of ''Count Bismarck" states that 
 insult was added to injury : that Bismarck and 
 Yon Boon (the Minister for War) had fits of 
 audacious cynicism. 
 
 " One day, a speaker having raised great complaints 
 against the ministers, and Herr Virchow having desired 
 that they should attend the sittings, iu order that they 
 
 II 
 
 ft'
 
 PllINCE BISMARCK. 97 
 
 might be able to answer, Count Bismarck coolly stepped 
 forth from an adjoining room, and stated in a con- 
 temptuous way, that it would be superfluous to recom- 
 mence the discussion, inasmuch as what was going on 
 amongst the gentlemen could be heard well enough in 
 the room where he had been. Another time, in a public 
 meeting of the House, he told the deputies to their face, 
 * If we think it necessary to make war, we shall do so, 
 with or without your consent.' " 
 
 Ordinances, rivalling tlie famous July ordinances 
 in severity, were issued against the press. Liberty 
 of speech in the Chambers was suppressed. Judges 
 and functionaries who were not found pliant were 
 replaced by a younger and less scrupulous class 
 sufficiently numerous to he designated as the 
 aspirers {die Streber). The system partook of 
 both Strafford and Polignac. " One such open 
 violation of the Constitution as was then perpe- 
 trated," remarks a temperate writer, "would have 
 been enough to kindle a revolution in a less cold- 
 blooded people." But the Prussians endured all; 
 there were no insurrections, no barricades ; and 
 Bismarck was left free to pursue the foreign policy 
 which was all along the paramount object he had 
 in view. 
 
 This was not, as has been surmised, adopted to 
 direct attention from his home policy. He had 
 thoroughly at heart the aggrandizement of Prussia : 
 he preferred greatness to freedom ; and he fully 
 believed that the means justified the end. His 
 first step was to force on a definite arrangement 
 with Austria ; in other words, to decide which was 
 to take the lead in the affairs of Germany. Coming 
 to the point at once, as his manner was, two 
 months after his accession to the Presidency he 
 told Count Karolyi, the Austrian ambassador at 
 Berlin,, that the relations between the two Powers 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 98 • PRINCE BISMARCK. 
 
 could not continue as they were ; that they must 
 be changed for the better or the worse. Ex- 
 planations ensued, and the upshot may be collected 
 from Count Karolyi's report to his government 
 (February 18, 1863), in which he says : " Finally, 
 Bismarck placed before us in so many words the 
 alternative of withdrawing from Germany and 
 transporting our centre of gravity to Ofen, or of 
 seeing Prussia in the ranks of our enemies on the 
 occasion of the first European war. The least 
 Prussia would accept was equality and the sub- 
 stitution of a real German Parliament for the 
 Bund. These terms were refused by Austria ; and 
 Prussia, threatened by the Confederation, was 
 beginning to talk of a casus belli, when a temporary 
 diversion was unexpectedly caused by the death of 
 Frederic VIL, King of Denmark, on the 14th of 
 November, 1863. This gave a new turn to the 
 long pending affair of the Duchies, to which the 
 Duke of Augustenburg now laid claim ; it being 
 already a question whether they were an appanage 
 of the Danish Crown, or de jure independent 
 members of the Confederation. f 
 
 " The episode of the Schleswig-Holstein war, looked at 
 as a whole, so completely exhibits the character of a 
 dramatic intrigue — the cleverest and most successful ever 
 seen on the political stage — that friends and enemies have 
 long agreed in regarding it as Bismarck's masterpiece. If 
 it be true that the series of incidents which followed in 
 succession after the sudden death of the King of Denmark 
 up to the Bohemian campaign were the result of a pre- 
 conceived plan, it must be admitted that Machiavellism, in 
 its boldest flights, has never produced anything parallel 
 to it. 
 
 " To have found Austria on the high road to popularity, 
 supported by the German princes with comj^lete devotion, 
 firmly ensconced in the Diet at which she presided; to 
 have found Austria the representative of legitimacy, the
 
 PEINCE BISMARCK. 99 
 
 ancient friend and ally of the Great European Powers, and 
 at the end of two years to have isolated her from every- 
 body; to have lowered her in the eyes of the masses, to 
 have brought her into deadly antagonism with the princes 
 and the Bund ; to have made her disown the principle of 
 legitimacy and federal authority, and led her into a course 
 directly opposed, not only to France and England, but also 
 to her own former policy — to have thus taken her in tow, 
 and led her on fi'om one folly to another, in order finally 
 to turn against her and ride over her when she was robbed 
 of all internal support, and had no longer friends, allies, 
 system, nor aim ; to have done all this, must certainly be 
 reckoned the highest perfection of that art of duping, 
 which was formerly held to be the quintessence of diplo- 
 matic skill." 1 
 
 This is far from being an overcharged picture, 
 and the simplicity of the steps taken by Bismarck 
 is no less remarkable than their audacity. The 
 Diet had caused the Duchies to be occupied by 
 a Federal force consisting of Saxons and Hano- 
 verians : Prussia sent a force to join in the occu- 
 pations ; whereupon Austria, to ensure a share 
 in the good or profitable work, did the same. In 
 this state of things Bismarck proposed to Count 
 Rechberg (the Austrian minister) to lay aside 
 rivalry and settle the matter between them in their 
 individual capacity of first-rate Powers. Count 
 Rechberg agreed, and, prompted by Bismarck, 
 proposed to the Diet that the Duke of Augus- 
 tenburg should be ordered to quit the Duchies, 
 and that all demonstrations in his favour in the 
 Confederated States should be suppressed. The 
 Diet refused. Then followed a joint demand from 
 Austria and Prussia that the Diet should authorize 
 their exclusive occupation. This, too, as Bismarck 
 had calculated, was refused (January, 1864) ; and, 
 dispensing with further ceremony, they marched in. 
 
 ^ " Count Bismarck : A i'oluical Biography," cliap. v.
 
 100 TRTNCE BISMARCK. 
 
 It was not without warnings or misgivings that 
 the Austrian statesmen fell into the trap. " That 
 Bismarck is dragging us by the halter," was the 
 cry at Vienna ; and the Emperor Joseph, when 
 some one was depreciating Bismarck in his pre- 
 sence, is reported to have exclaimed, '' Ah ! if I 
 had but him." It would seem also that the popu- 
 lation, whose vital interests were at stake, did not 
 regard the Prussians as their well-wishers or give 
 Bismarck credit for exalted motives ; for the 
 following squib was widely circulated : 
 
 " Es giebt nur eine Kaiserstadt, und es heisst Wien ; 
 Es giebt nur erne Kaubernest, und das ist BerHn." 
 (" Tbere is only one imperial city, and its name is Vienna; 
 There is only one robbers' nest, and tbat is Berlin.")^ 
 
 We read in " Jonathan Wild," that after Bagshot 
 in concert with Wild had robbed the Count, " they 
 went together to the tavern, where Mr. Bagshot 
 (generously, as he thought) offered to share the 
 booty, and having divided the money into two 
 unequal heaps, and added a golden snuff-box to the 
 lesser heap, he desired Mr. Wild to take his choice. 
 Mr. Wild immediately conveyed the larger share 
 of the ready into his pocket, according to an ex- 
 cellent maxim of his : " First secure what share 
 you can, before you wrangle for the rest." And 
 then, turning to his companion, he asked him, with 
 a stern countenance, " whether he intended to 
 keep all that sum to himseK? " Prince Bismarck 
 was unconsciously taking Jonathan Wild for 
 his prototype, when, having made Austria his 
 catspaw in occupying the Duchies with a view 
 to an equal division, he suddenly turned round 
 upon her, claimed, and eventually appropriated 
 
 ^ The " Life," p. 351, note by Translator, who suggests that the squib 
 may have come from the enemj's (the Austrian) camp. 
 
 ii
 
 PRINCE BISMARCK. 101 
 
 both. In the midst of the comphcation (May 16th, 
 1864) he wrote in a private letter to a friend : 
 
 " You see from this how I look at the matter according 
 to human lights. For the rest, the feeHng of gratitude to 
 God for his support hitherto, raises in me the confidence 
 that the Lord knows how to turn even our faults to our 
 advantage ; this I learn daily to my salutary humbling. 
 
 " Finally, I may observe that annexation is not the chief 
 and necessary aim of my efforts, although it may be their 
 most pleasant result." 
 
 The merit of the acquisition, as the triumph of 
 unprincipled adroitness under difficulties, is en- 
 hanced when we hear in mind that, besides other 
 obligations, he had the Treaty of London (1852) 
 recognising the dynastic rights of the King of 
 Denmark, to get over, as well as his own speeches 
 in the Prussian Chamber in 1849, when he " de- 
 plored that the Prussian troops had gone to up- 
 hold revolution in Sleswig against the legitimate 
 sovereign of this country, the King of Denmark, 
 and did not hesitate to declare that the war pro- 
 voked in the Duchies of the Elbe was an enterprise 
 eminently iniquitous, fiivolous, disastrous, and 
 revolutionary." ^ 
 
 In a chapter entitled " Yistule et Elbe," M. 
 Klaczko represents Bismarck as uncertain, on his 
 first accession to power, in what direction he had 
 best look for an extension of territory, and coolly 
 considering which of the Em'opean Powers might 
 be kept quiet whilst he was carrying out his pro- 
 jects, or be coaxed or bribed into co-operating 
 with him. "It is long," he said to a friend, 
 " since England has entered into my calculations, 
 and do you know since when I no longer take her 
 into the reckoning ? Since the day when, of her 
 
 1 « 
 
 Deux Chaucelicrs," p. TO.
 
 102 PRIXCE BISMARCK. 
 
 own free will, slie renounced the Ionian Isles. A 
 Power wliicli ceases to take, and begins to restore, 
 is a used up Power {puissance finie).^^ But by 
 not taking England into the reckoning, in other 
 words, by giving up the hopes of making her an 
 accomplice, he paid, without intending it, a high 
 compliment to her honesty and disinterestedness. 
 His main reliance was on Russia, and he turned 
 the Polish insurrection of 1863 to account as 
 cleverly and unscrupulously as the imbroglio of 
 the Duchies. When England, France, and 
 Austria were addressing remonstrances of the 
 most irritating nature to Russia and incidentally 
 encouraging the Poles to their ruin, he was press- 
 ing a mihtary convention (offensive and defen- 
 sive) on the Czar, setting himself steadily against 
 the other great Powers, defying Prussian opinion 
 as manifested by the press, and telling his Liberal 
 assailants in the Chambers that they were alto- 
 gether in the dark. 
 
 " Placed before the chess-board of diplomacy, 
 the uninitiated spectator believes the game de- 
 cided by each new piece that he sees moved, and 
 he may even fall into the illusion that the player 
 changes his object." The player of the game 
 before them never changed his main object, 
 Prussian aggrandizement ; but it would have re- 
 quired no ordinary degree of perspicacity to divine 
 his peculiar method of pursuing it at this time. 
 His notion was that the Russian army unaided 
 would not be able to suppress the insurrection ; 
 and about the middle of February 1863, he un- 
 bosomed himself at a Court ball to the Vice- 
 President of the Prussian Chamber, M. Behrend : 
 " This question (he said) may be resolved in two 
 ways : either we must promptly stifle the insur- 
 rection in concert with Russia and come before 
 
 i
 
 PKINCE BISMARCK. 103 
 
 the Western Powers with an accomplislied fact, 
 or we might leave the situation to spread and 
 become aggravated, wait till the Eussians are 
 driven out of Poland or reduced to invoke assist- 
 ance, and then proceed boldly to occupy the king- 
 dom for Prussia. At the end of three years, all 
 there woiild be Germanised." "But this is only 
 ball talk {propos cle hal),'" exclaimed the aston- 
 ished Vice-president. "No," was the reply; "I 
 am speaking seriously of serious things. The 
 Eussians are tired of Poland : the Emperor Alex- 
 ander himself said as much to me at St. Peters- 
 burg." 
 
 That he was mistaken as to the main point, the 
 power of the Eussians to suppress the insurrec- 
 tion, was speedily made clear ; and it is difficult to 
 believe that the Czar ever thought of relaxing his 
 hold on Poland from any doubt on this subject, 
 when we find the Grand Duke Constantine, re- 
 ferring (February 1863) to the offer of the military 
 convention, expressing his surprise at such a 
 proposition, and ironically remarking that the 
 Prussian Government was making the devil much 
 blacker than he was in reality. It may be taken 
 for granted that this embryo design on Poland 
 never assumed shape enough to create a disagree- 
 able sensation at St. Petersburg, for the friendly 
 relations between the two Chancellors were con- 
 firmed rather than weakened by what took place 
 in 1863 ; and Bismarck's mode of dealing with 
 Austria was in no slight degree owing to the con- 
 sciousness that he had Russia at his back. Pre- 
 paratory to the final breach, he had made sure of 
 other effective aid. It was on his return from 
 Biarritz in 1865, after seeing to what extent the 
 Italian proclivities of the French Emperor were 
 likely to operate on the situation, that Bismarck
 
 104 PRINCE BISMARCK. 
 
 said to the Chevalier Nigra : "If Italy did not 
 exist, we should be obliged to invent her." He 
 showed his sense of her value by signing the offen- 
 sive and defensive alliance of April 1866. 
 
 Merimee was fond of reverting to the scenes on 
 the beach of Biarritz, when Napoleon III., leaning 
 on his arm, was hstening with a mixture of 
 seriousness and amused incredulity to the projects 
 of the German Chancellor, and how on one occa- 
 sion his imperial friend murmured in his ear, " /Z 
 est foil. ^' General Govone states that Benedetti, 
 in speaking of Bismarck, described him as a 
 maniac, adding, by way of giving weight to his 
 estimate, that he had been following him for 
 fifteen years. It never crossed the mind of the 
 Emperor or the diplomatist, that what they had 
 been hstening to as the dreams of a madman were 
 the matured schemes of a statesman, which they 
 were unwittingly aiding him to carry out. They 
 were in the condition of the instrument-maker, of 
 whom Barrington, the famous pickpocket, ordered 
 an instrument of so rare a construction that he 
 was induced to ask for what purpose it was to be 
 employed. "For picking pockets," was the cool 
 reply ; and after his customer had left the shop he 
 discovered that it had been successfully employed 
 upon his own. 
 
 A hero of the comic drama tells his valet that a 
 fib is too good a thing to be thrown away. Prince 
 Bismarck seems to be of the same opinion : his 
 favourite mode of deception is to tell the truth ; 
 but when truth will not serve the purpose, he does 
 not stand upon trifles. On the eve of the declara- 
 tion of war of 18G6, Count Karolyi, on the part of 
 Austria, summoned him to declare categorically if 
 he thought of teariug up the Treaty of Gastein. 
 "No," was the reply, " I have no such thought ;
 
 PRTNCE BISMARCK. 105 
 
 but slionld I answer you otherwise if I had ? " He 
 had fully resolved to tear up the treaty. 
 
 After the two Powers, a la Bagshot and 
 Jonathan, had agreed to share the Duchies to 
 which neither had the shadow of a right, Bis- 
 marck addressed (July 11, 1865) a haughty, menac- 
 ing despatch to the Vienna Cabinet, proposing to 
 become the purchaser of their share of the plunder, 
 which he had made up his mind to monopolise by 
 fair means or foul. This revived and aggravated 
 the feeling of mutual exasperation, as he no doubt 
 anticipated ; for four days afterwards (July 15) he 
 told the Due de Grammont, the French ambas- 
 sador to the Austrian Court, whom he met at 
 Carlsbad, that he deemed the war inevitable, that 
 it had become a necessity, and that he ardently 
 wished for it. He used the same language to the 
 Bavarian Premier, adding that Austria could not 
 last a campaign, that one blow, one grand battle 
 on the side of Silesia, would suffice to bring 
 the House of Hapsburg to his feet.^ But at the 
 critical moment the King shrank from taking the 
 initiative in what was pretty generally considered 
 as a fratricidal war, and the Treaty of Gastein was 
 signed (August 14, 1865), by which the compact to 
 divide the spoil was renewed, the duchy of Lauen- 
 burg being transferred to Prussia for a stipulated 
 sum. On the completion of this arrangement 
 Bismarck was made a Count. ^ 
 
 In the midst of the grave occupations of Gastein 
 he allowed liimself to be photographed in what 
 M. Klaczko terms a romanesque attitude ^dth 
 Signora Lucca, the prima donna of Berlin. 
 This scandalized the serious pubhc, mth whom 
 
 ' " Deux Chanccliers," p. 242, confirmed by A. Schmidt and others, but 
 flatly contradictcxl by Hosekiel in " Tlic Life." 
 * lie 'was made Prince, March 21st, 1871.
 
 lOG PRIXCE BISMArvCK. 
 
 he Lad always endeavoured to stand well, and a 
 religious friend, M. Andre de Roman, thought 
 proper to address to him an epistle, in which, after 
 dwelling on the unbecoming levity of the asso- 
 ciation with the " Bathsheba of the opera," he 
 took him severely to task for defying to mortal 
 combat — he, prime minister, — the celebrated 
 physician and deputy. Dr. Virchow. This, it 
 w^as impressed upon him, was not the conduct 
 of a true Christian ; and it was suggested that 
 his old friends, remarking his systematic non- 
 attendance at divine service, were beginning to 
 be disturbed about the condition of his soul. 
 His reply, which, like everything else from his 
 lips or pen, soon found its way to pubHcity, began 
 thus : 
 
 " Berlin, December 26, 18G5. 
 "Dear Ande^, — Although my time is very much taken 
 up, I cannot refrain from replying to an interpellation 
 made by an honest heart in the name of Christ. I am 
 very sorry if I offend believing Christians, but I am cer- 
 tain that this is unavoidable for one in my vocation. . . . 
 What man breathes who in such a position must not 
 give offence justly or unjustly ? I will even admit more, 
 for your expression as to concealment is not accurate. I 
 would to God that, besides what is known to the world, 
 I had not other sins upon my soul, for which I can only 
 hope for forgiveness in a confidence upon the blood of 
 Christ. As a statesman I am not sufficiently disinterested, 
 in my own mind I am rather cowardly, and that because 
 it is not easy always to get that clearness on the question 
 coming before me, which grows upon the sod of divine 
 confidence." 
 
 This is Cromwell all over. In regard to the 
 duel, he resorts to the same sort of justification 
 as a famous contemporary whom no one will 
 accuse of hypocrisy although occasionally prone, 
 in obedience to what he deemed duty, to be
 
 PRINCE BISMARCK. 107 
 
 guided more by expediency than by principle. 
 The Duke of Wellington, in a letter to the Duke 
 of Buckingham, justified his duel with Lord Win- 
 chelsea on the ground of its necessity to enable 
 him to carry Catholic Emancipation.^ It was 
 from a mixed motive of poHcy and faith that 
 Bismarck challenged the doctor : 
 
 "As to the Virchow business, I am beyond the years 
 in which any one takes counsel in such matters from flesh 
 and blood. If 1 set my life on any matter, I do it in the 
 same faith in which 1 have, by long and severe strife, but 
 in honest and humble prayer to God, strengthened myself, 
 and in which no human words, even if spoken by a friend 
 in the Lord and a servant of the Church, can alter me." 
 
 "With regard to the other charges he (in the 
 language of special pleading) confesses and 
 avoids : 
 
 " As to attendance at church, it is untrue that I never 
 visit the house of God. For seven months I have been 
 either absent or ill ; who therefore can have observed 
 me ? I admit freely that it might take place more fre- 
 quently, but it is not owing so much to want of time, 
 as from a care of my health, especially in winter ; and 
 to those who feel themselves justified to be my judges 
 in this I will render an account — they will believe, even 
 without medical details. 
 
 "As to the Lucca photograph, you would probably bo 
 less severe in your censure, if you knew to what accident 
 it owes its existence. The present Frau von Eadden 
 (MdUe. Lucca), although a singer, is a lady of wdiom, 
 as much as myself, there has never been any reason to 
 say at any time such unpermitted things. Notwith- 
 standing this, 1 should, had I in a quiet moment thought 
 of the offence which this joke has given to many and 
 
 * "The truth is, that the duel with Lord Winchelsea was as much 
 a part of the Roman Catholic question, and it was as necessary to under- 
 take it and carry it to the extremity to which I did carry it, as it was to 
 do cvcrythiiig else which I did do to attain the object wliich 1 had in 
 view." — '(" DcsjxUchcs, Corrcspundenci" &c., vol. v. p. 585.)
 
 108 PRINCE BISMARCK. 
 
 faithful friends, have withrlrawn myself from the field 
 of the glass pointed at us. You perceive from the detailed 
 manner in which I reply to you, that I regard your letter 
 as well-intentioned, and by no means place myself above 
 the judgment of those with whom I share a common faith. 
 But from your fi-iendship and your own Christian feeling, 
 I anticipate that you will recommend to my judges pru- 
 dence and clemency in similar matters for the future — 
 of this we all stand in need. 
 
 *' If among the multitude of sinners who are in need 
 of the glory of God, I hope that His grace will not deprive 
 me of the staff of humble faith which I endeavour to find 
 out of my jjath. This confidence shall neither find me 
 deaf to censorious words of friendly reiDroof, nor angry 
 with loveless and proud criticism. 
 
 "In haste, yours, 
 
 "Bismarck." 
 
 Having tlius eased his conscience and made 
 good his position as a Christian, he proceeded, 
 in similar reliance on divine help, to consider 
 how the recent Treaty of Gastein could be set 
 aside, and the blood and iron, fire and sword, 
 policy he put in action. Where there is a will 
 there is a way ; and he found no difficulty 
 in picking a fresh quarrel with Austria, nor, 
 though clearly the aggressor, in putting her more 
 than once technically and logically in the wi'ong. 
 Thus when England, Eussia, and France proposed 
 a conference of the Five Great Powers, he ac- 
 cepted it, knowing full well that Austria would 
 refuse, except on wholly inadmissible conditions, 
 namely, that no territorial changes should be 
 discussed. When Austria proposed to leave the 
 revived dispute touching the Duchies to the 
 Bund, he declined; offering at the same time 
 to be bound by a free German Parliament, to 
 be elected by universal suffrage. The first call 
 to arms came from the Bund, when (June 12,
 
 PRINCE BISMARCK. 109 
 
 1866), at the instigation of Austria, it ordered 
 federal execution against Prussia. Prussia re- 
 sponded, June 15, by declaring war against Han- 
 over, Saxony, and the Electorate of Hesse, the 
 three States which had assumed a hostile attitude 
 to support the Bund. The war manifesto of 
 Austria was on the 17th, that of Prussia on the 
 18th, that of Italy (against Austria and Bavaria) 
 on the 20th. 
 
 Early in June, M. Yilbert, the correspondent 
 of a French journal, the '' Siecle," was, much to 
 his surprise, admitted to an interview with the 
 great man who had been described to him as quite 
 inaccessible, and, as was doubtless anticipated, he 
 immediately published the conversation ; which 
 he began by requesting the Chancellor to explain 
 the flagrant contradiction between his home and 
 his foreign policy. He was calling, he was re- 
 minded, for a national Parliament to regenerate 
 Germany, whilst he was treating the repre- 
 sentative Chamber of Berlin as Louis XIV. 
 treated the French Parliament when he entered 
 it whip in hand. 
 
 "A la bonne heure, you go at once to the root of things," 
 replied M. de Bismarck. "In Prance, I know, I am as 
 unpopular as in Germany. Everywhere I am considered 
 responsible for a state of things that I have not created, 
 but which has been forced upon me, as upon every one 
 else. I am the scapegoat of public opinion; but that 
 does not much trouble me. I pursue the course which 
 I believe to be beneficial to my country, and to Germany, 
 with a perfectly easy conscience. As to the means, I 
 have used those which were within my reach iu default 
 of better. 
 
 ****** 
 
 " Sixteen years ago, I was living as a country gentle- 
 man, when the King appointed me the envoy of Prussia 
 at the Trankfort Diet. I had been brought up to admire.
 
 110 PRINCE BISMARCK. 
 
 I might almost say to worship, Austrian policy. Much 
 time, however, was not needed to dispel my youthful 
 illusions with regard to Austria, and I hecome her declared 
 opponent. The humiliation of my country ; Germany 
 sacrificed to the interests of a foreign nation ; a crafty 
 and perfidious line of policy; — these were not things 
 calculated to give me satisfaction. I did not know that 
 the future would call upon me to take any important 
 ]Dart in public events, but from that period I conceived 
 the idea, which at the present day I am still working out 
 — the idea of withdrawing Germany from Austrian pres- 
 sure ; at any rate that part of Germany whose tone of 
 thought, religion, manners, and interests, identify her 
 destinies with those of Prussia — I speak of Northern 
 Germany, In the plan which I brought forward, there 
 has been no question of overthrowing thrones, of taking 
 a duchy from one ruler, or some petty domain from 
 another. The King, moreover, would lend no hand to 
 such schemes. And then there are all the interests of 
 relationships, cousinships, a host of antagonistic influences, 
 against which I have had to sustain a daily and hourly 
 warfare. 
 
 " But neither all this, nor the opposition which I have 
 had to struggle against in Prussia, could jDrevent my 
 devoting myself, heart and soul, to the idea of a Northern 
 Germany, constituted in her logical and natural form 
 under the aegis of Prussia. To attain this end, I would 
 brave all dangers, exile — the scaffold itself. / said to ihe 
 Croivn Prince, tvhose education and natural tendencies incline 
 him rather to the side of parliamentary governmeyit : What 
 matter if they hang me, provided the rope hy whicli I am hung 
 hind this new Germany firmly to your throned " 
 
 He was so far right, that parliamentary govern- 
 ment in Prussia was then incompatible with the 
 greatness he meditated, for her, since the army 
 would have been kept upon a peace footing be- 
 fitting a second-rate State, had he attended to the 
 national will as expressed by the representative 
 Chamber after repeated appeals to the con- 
 stituency. Although there was a party that began
 
 PRINCE BISMARCK. Ill 
 
 to talk of a United Germany with a Prussian point, 
 the war was unpopular. On arriving at Berlin in 
 the spring of 1866, General Govone writes, " Not 
 only the higher classes but the middle are con- 
 trary or httle favourable to the war. This aversion 
 is seen in the popular journals : there exists no 
 hatred to Austria. What is more, although the 
 Chamber has no great prestige or great popularity, 
 the debates still create adversaries to Count Bis- 
 marck." A month before the war began the 
 General writes again : " Unhappily the public 
 mind in Prussia is not sensibly awakened even in 
 face of a situation so decisive, so vital for the 
 country." The principal towns, Cologne, Magde- 
 burg, Stettin, Minden, &c., sent up addresses to 
 the King in favour of peace and against the "fatal" 
 policy of the Cabinet. Most assuredly if things had 
 gone ill, Bismarck would not have been thanked 
 by his countrymen, as Varro was thanked after the 
 defeat of Cannae, for not despairing of the republic 
 — " quod de republica non desperasset." 
 
 The army formed no exception. " From all we 
 have heard said by the ofi&cers," writes General 
 Govone, April 2, 1866, " the army is not enthu- 
 siastic for the war against Austria : there is rather 
 sympathy in its ranks with the Austrian army. 
 I know well that, when once the war is declared, 
 the army would be electrified and do its duty 
 bravely, but it is neither a stimulant nor a support 
 for the policy which Count Bismarck wishes to 
 carry out." Admirably organised, complete, and 
 readily available as an instrument as that army 
 turned out to be, it inspired no alarm, hardly 
 respect, in those who were so soon to quail before 
 it. Referring to the battle of Sadowa in the 
 Legislative Assembly, M. Rouher described it as 
 " an event that Austria, that France, that the
 
 112 PRINCE BISMARCK. 
 
 soldier, that the simple citizen, had all considered 
 as improbable, for it was, as it were, a universal 
 presumption that Austria must be victorious and 
 that Prussia must pay, and pay dearly, the price 
 of its imprudence." It was taught in the French 
 mihtary schools that the Prussian army, owing to 
 the short service, was little better than a militia, 
 whilst Austria had an army which placed her in 
 the highest rank, second only to France as a 
 mihtary power. ^ 
 
 " Eien si bete q'un vieux mihtaire," was a 
 saying of Count Nesselrode : the sarcasm acquired 
 point from the failure of experienced military men 
 to discern the merit of the Prussian system, or the 
 quahty of the Prussian soldier, till these were 
 placed beyond dispute by repeated trials in the 
 field. It was not tiU after the Franco-German 
 war that old officers who had seen service could 
 be got to admit that education, intelligence, mind, 
 might more than compensate for smartness and 
 mechanical precision of movement. Prior to the 
 war of 1866, Lord Clyde and General Forey were 
 commissioned by their respective Governments to 
 attend one of the grand Prussian reviews, and, 
 after a critical inspection of the troops of all arms, 
 they were hospitably entertained by the Staff. As 
 they left the dinner together, General Forey threw 
 his arm over Lord Clyde's shoulder and exclaimed, 
 *' Eh bien, mon ami, si jamais nous rencontrons 
 ces messieurs sur le champ de bataille, ils seront 
 joliment rosses." Lord Clyde told the story (to 
 the writer) as agreeing with his French colleague ; 
 
 ' A full and accurate account of the organisation and strength of the 
 Prussian army at the commencement of the war of 1866, is given in 
 " The Seven Weeks' War ; its Antecedents and its lucideuts." — By- 
 Captain Henry Hozier, who was with the army, as correspondent of " The 
 Times," during the whole of the campai'in. This book is, in all respects, 
 a very valuable contribution to military history.
 
 PRINCE BISMARCK. 11 
 
 Q 
 
 and what seemed to have impressed both of them 
 was the ineqnahty of the step, the comparative 
 irregularity of the line, and the incongruity of 
 men wearing spectacles, with a decided civilian 
 look, in the ranks. 
 
 Although the English and French military 
 attaches at Berlin (General Walker and M. de 
 Clermont Tonnerre) made timely reports of the 
 adoption and efficiency of the needle-gun — which 
 had been proved in the war with Denmark — little 
 or no account was made of it in calculating the 
 chances of the campaign ; a want of foresight 
 which would seem inexplicable did we not re- 
 member how perseveringly the Iron Duke clung 
 to Brown Bess.^ Moltke was yet unknown to 
 fame as a tactician, and carried no weight as an 
 authority. The indirect encouragement given by 
 the French Emperor was of evil presage, as, like 
 a gambler in the funds watching the turn of 
 events, he was known to be speculating on a fall. 
 Bismarck, therefore, had everybody and (to all out- 
 ward appearances) everything against him, except 
 a section of the Cabinet and the King, who kept 
 vacillating till the very moment when he made 
 the plunge. All were propelled, were hurried on, 
 in their own despite, against their convictions, 
 their predilections, or their fears, by the iron will, 
 the fixed unbending resolution, of one man. 
 
 On the very day when he crossed the Eubicon, 
 
 ^ M. de Laveleye, in " La Prusse et rAutrichc depuis Sadowa," con- 
 tends that the success of tlie Prussians was mainly owing to moral causes, 
 and that the schoolmaster had more to do with the victory at Sadowa 
 than the needle-gun. Since the introduction of arms of precision, very 
 much depends upon the intelligence of the soldier, and discipline will 
 always be best maintained in an army in which it is strengthened by self- 
 respect. The essential principle of the Prussian system is conscription 
 without substitutes. It was originall)' set on foot, in the days of Scharn- 
 horst and Stein, to evade the restriction imposed by Napoleon after Jena 
 on the numbers of the standing army of Prussia. 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 114 PRINCE BISMARCK. 
 
 when the die was cast (June 15th), he was over- 
 heard murmuring : " The Ahnighty God is capri- 
 cious." As he was leaving Berlin (June 30th) for 
 the campaign, he said, " I will return by Vienna 
 or Munich, or I will charge with the last squadron, 
 with that which does not return." He is accused 
 of darkly hinting at the use he might make of his 
 revolver in case of a catastrophe. Coupling this 
 with his letter from the battle-field (July 2nd) to 
 his wife, begging her to send him a novel, we are 
 reminded of Frederick the Great, whom Macaulay 
 describes as riding about with an ounce of poison 
 in one pocket and a quire of bad verses in the 
 other. There was a quarter of an hour on the 
 3rd of July, the day of Sadowa, when Bismarck's 
 thoughts may well have reverted to the caprice 
 of destiny. The position of Prince Frederic 
 Charles closely resembled that of the Duke of 
 Wellington at Waterloo ; with this difi'erence, that 
 the duke could wait the attack, which. Prince 
 Frederic Charles was obliged to precipitate lest 
 the Austrian army should evade the combined 
 movement of the Prussian armies by falling back 
 behind the Elbe. With the view of occupying 
 the Austrians till the Crown Prince came up, he 
 made the required dispositions for an advance at 
 midnight on the 2nd. 
 
 "At the same time he sent Lieutenant von Normand 
 with a letter to the Crown Prince, asking him to push 
 forward in the morning with one corps and attack the 
 right flank of the Austrians, whilst he himself engaged 
 them in front. There was some fear that the Austrian 
 cavalry patrols would intercept the aide-de-camp, but he 
 succeeded in avoiding them, and got safely to the Crown 
 Prince's quarters at one o'clock on the morning of the 3rd, 
 and rejoined Prince Frederic Charles at four to report 
 the success of his mission, and to bring to the leader of
 
 PRINCE BISMARCK. 115 
 
 the first army an assurance of the co-operation of the 
 second. Had this aide-de-camp been taken prisoner or 
 killed on his way to Milletin, his loss would have probably 
 influenced the whole campaign, for on that letter depended 
 in a great measure the issue of the battle." ^ 
 
 The Crown Prince, having received a subse- 
 quent order to that effect from the King, advanced 
 with his entire force. The battle was begun by 
 Prince Frederic Charles about eight, but, owing 
 to the superior numbers of the enemy, after 
 various alterations of fortune, he was brought to 
 a check about three, and the cavalry was actually 
 formed to protect a retrcEit, when the Crown 
 Prince, by a dashing attack which carried the key 
 of the Austrian position, decided the day. He 
 had made himself felt as early as half-past twelve 
 on the Austrian flank, but distance and the nature 
 of the ground had kept his friends in suspense. 
 The King and Bismarck were with Prince Fre- 
 deric Charles : 
 
 " Noon arrived, but no decisive news from the Crown 
 Prince. The battle went burning on, and many a brave 
 heart feared at that time for beloved Prussia. Dark were 
 the looks in the neighbourhood of the King; old Pioon, 
 and Moltke of the bright face, sat there like two statues of 
 bronze. It was whispered that the Prince would have to 
 let loose his Brandenbm^gers — his own beloved third corps, 
 whom he had till now held in reserve, his stormers of 
 Diippel — against the foe, which meant that he would have 
 to set his last hazard on the die to gain the victory. 
 
 " Suddenly Bismarck lowered the glass through which 
 he had been observing the country in the direction from 
 which the Crown Prince was approaching, and drew the 
 
 1 Hozier, " Tlie Seven Weeks' War." Tlie battle was called the battle 
 of Sadowa on its first announcement in the " Times." It was formally 
 christened the battle of Koniggratz by Royal order ; although Koiiigiiriitz 
 was not the actual scene of conflict. The supposed reason for the change 
 was that the ojierations of the Crown Prince's army did not extend to- 
 Sadowa.
 
 J 16 PRINCE BISMARCK. 
 
 attention of his neighbours to certain lines in the far 
 distance. All telescopes were pointed thitherward, but the 
 lines were pronounced ploughed fields. There was a deep 
 silence, and then the Minister-President lowered his glass 
 again and said decidedly, ' Those are not plough furrows ; 
 the spaces are not equal ; they are marching lines ! ' Bis- 
 marck had been the fu-st to discover the advance of the 
 second army. In a little while the adjutants and intel- 
 ligence flew about in every direction — the Crown Prince 
 and victory were at hand." ^ 
 
 In a letter to his wife, July 9tli, Bismarck says 
 tliat the King exposed himseK very much, and 
 that it was a very good thing he was with him, for 
 all warnings on the part of others were of no avail. 
 On the 11th he writes : — 
 
 " At Koniggratz I rode the large chestnut ; thirteen 
 hours in the saddle without a feed. He held out well, was 
 not startled either by the firing or by corpses ; ate corn- 
 ears and plum-tree leaves with gusto at the most serious 
 moments, and went on swimmingly to the end, when I 
 seemed more tired than the horse. ^ My first bed for the 
 night was on the pavement of Horic, without straw and 
 with the aid of a carriage-cushion. Everywhere crowds 
 of wounded; the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg discovered 
 me, and then shared his room with me, E, and two 
 aides-de-camp, which was very welcome to me on account 
 of the rain. With regard to the King and shells, I have 
 already written to you. The generals all had the super- 
 stition that they, as soldiers, ought not to speak to the 
 King of danger, and sent me, who am also a major, each 
 time to him. In cocking the revolver, the hammer hid 
 the line of sight, and the notch on the top of the hammer 
 was not in an exact line with sight and bead. Tell that 
 to T." 
 
 The difficulties in store for him in the diplomatic 
 
 1 The " Life," p. 402. 
 
 2 At Waterloo the Duke's chestnut horse, " Copenhagen," carried him 
 the whole day, and kicked out in play when the Duke dismounted at past 
 ten. — Life, by Gleig. 
 
 M
 
 PRINCE BISMARCK. 117 
 
 campaign, close at hand, are indicated in the letter 
 of the 9th. 
 
 " Matters are going well with us ; if we are not im- 
 moderate in our demands, and do not imagine that we 
 have conquered the world, we shall acquire a peace which 
 will be worth the trouble. But we are just as quickly 
 intoxicated as discouraged, and I have the ungrateful task 
 of pouring water in the foaming wine, and to make them 
 see that we are not living alone in Europe, but with three 
 neighbours still." 
 
 One of these neighbours, Enssia, gave no 
 trouble. The most pertinacious and exacting in 
 the first instance was France. The French Em- 
 peror had reckoned on the speedy defeat of Prussia 
 or a long war which would exliaust both comba- 
 tants, and enable him to intervene, like Neptune 
 with the Qiios ego. Even as things stood, he 
 began by blustering, and talked of sending an 
 army of observation to the Ehine frontier; but 
 the army was not forthcoming, and all he could 
 venture was to instruct his ambassador, Benedetti, 
 to see that the equilibrium of Europe and the 
 interests of France received due attention in the 
 Preliminaries about to be signed at Nicholsburg. 
 The ambassador was mystified and tricked, as it 
 was his fate to be more than once, by the grand 
 master of diplomacy whom he had taken for a 
 maniac. He was told, or led to beheve, that when 
 Prussia had settled with Austria and become pre- 
 dominant in Germany, there was nothing to pre- 
 vent Prussia and France from rectifying their 
 frontiers and arranging the map of Em"ope as they 
 thought fit. France might take Belgium, and, as 
 for the Khine, although King William would 
 hardly be brought to part with territoiy, some- 
 thing might be found to serve as a compensation
 
 118 PRINCE BISMARCK. 
 
 in the Palatinate. Lnlled by vague hopes and 
 half-promises, M. Benedetti offered no effective 
 opposition to the settlement, by which Austria 
 was virtually excluded from Germany, and Prussia 
 established in the long coveted position of its 
 head, with the complete control of its military 
 force. 
 
 Whilst the war was proceeding, a dissolution of 
 the electoral Chamber of Prussia had taken place, 
 and the new one met on the 5th of August. 
 Relying on his recent triumphs and services, Bis- 
 marck applied for and obtained an indemnity for 
 all past transgressions of the Constitution. The 
 Chamber also voted an extraordinary credit for the 
 army and navy, with dotations for the Chancellor, 
 the Minister of War, and three generals. The 
 Northern Bund, or Confederation, was constituted 
 on the basis of universal suffrage, and Bismarck, 
 being named Bund-Chancellor, assumed the pre- 
 sidency. 
 
 The Treaty of Peace (based on the Prelimi- 
 naries) was as much matter for a European Con- 
 ference as the Treaty of San Stefano. But the 
 selfish, grasping, and paltry course of proceeding 
 which Napoleon III. pursued on the grand occa- 
 sion presented by the war, provoked the com- 
 parison of him to one who should profit by an 
 eruption of Vesuvius to roast an egg. It was 
 contemptuously stigmatized by Bismarck as une 
 2)olitique de pourhoire : the smallest donations 
 thankfully accepted : any territorial acquisition, 
 however shght, in any quarter, rather than under- 
 go the ridicule (which he had to undergo) of 
 coming out of the affair empty-handed. There 
 can be little doubt that the loss of personal 
 prestige, the wound given to national vanity by 
 the temporary eclipse of Prance, and the neces-
 
 PRINCE BISMARCK. 119 
 
 sity of repairing the check, were the main motives 
 of the poHcy which cost him his throne. His first 
 attempt to better his position made it worse. 
 When he entered into a bargain with the King of 
 Holland for the purchase of Luxemburg, then in 
 the mihtary occupation of Prussia, he must have 
 known that Prussia would object. But when Bis- 
 marck threatened to make the prosecution of the 
 scheme a casus belli, it was discovered that the 
 French army, not yet supplied with breechloaders 
 and in other respects incomplete, was not in a 
 state to encounter the Prussians flushed with 
 victory, and there seemed no alternative but to 
 give in and abandon the scheme, when the crown- 
 ing humiliation was averted by Lord Derby (then 
 Foreign Secretary), at whose suggestion Luxem- 
 burg was declared a neutral state under the pro- 
 tection of the great Powers. This subject came 
 under discussion at Versailles, October 14th, 1870. 
 
 " He (Bismarck) was silent a while. Then he said, ' I 
 remember, 1867, when I was in Paris, thinking how would 
 things have gone if we had come to blows for Luxemburg : 
 whether I should then have been in Paris or the French in 
 Berlin. I believe I did right to dissuade war at that time. 
 We were far from being as strong as we are now.' " 
 
 He here goes into details to show that equally 
 eifective aid could not have been given by the 
 Hanoverians, Hessians, and others. 
 
 "And then," he continued, "the right was not on our 
 side. I have never openly o^Tied as much, but I may say 
 so here. After the dissolution of the German Bund the 
 Grand Duke had become sovereign, and could do what he 
 would. That he wished to part with his land for money 
 was mean, but he could part with it." 
 
 Moltke was of a different opinion, maintaining 
 that the Prussians might have marched on Paris 
 in 1867 as they did in 1870.
 
 120 PRINCE BISMARCK. 
 
 "During the dinner (October 14) the chief, after a 
 minute's reflection, remarked, laughing, ' I have a pet 
 plan in connection with the conclusion of peace. It is to 
 constitute an international tribunal to decide who have 
 brought about the war — journalists, deputies, senators, 
 ministers.' Abeken added that Thiers should have a place 
 amongst them, and a prominent one, on account of his 
 Chauvinist ' History of the Consulate and the Empire.' 
 ' The Emperor, too, for he is not so innocent as he would 
 fain appear,' continued the Minister. ' My notion was to 
 have judges from each of the Great Powers, from America, 
 England, Kussia, etc., and we would be the complainants. 
 The English and Eussians, however, will not act ; and so 
 the tribunal might be formed out of the nations who have 
 suffered most from the war, out of the French and 
 German.' " 
 
 Any impartial tribunal, anticipating the verdict 
 of posterity, must decide that the French were 
 mainly, if not exclusively, to blame. Three 
 months before the commencement of the war we 
 saw it coming and indicated the cause. '' Per- 
 sonal government," we wrote, "rudely shaken by 
 the Mexican expedition, received its death-blow 
 at Sadowa, which threw Magenta and Solferino 
 into the shade. France is kept awake by think- 
 ing of the trophies of Prussia, and cannot rest 
 under the thought that she is no longer con- 
 fessedly the first military nation in the w^orld. If 
 the Continent is to be again turned into one huge 
 battle-field, it will be to satisfy this fantastic point 
 of honour.^ And so it fell out. The candidature 
 of the Prince of HohenzoUern for the Spanish 
 throne was a mere pretext. The King of Prussia 
 said from the first that it was no concern of his, 
 and on the Prince's withdrawal the difference, 
 such as it was, was virtually at an end. This was 
 
 1 The " Quarterly Review " for April, 1870. Art. Lanfrey's " Napo- 
 leon."
 
 PRINCE BISMARCK. 121 
 
 Bismarck's view, who, having come to Berlin from 
 Varzin, his country seat, about the 11th of July, 
 in consequence of the incident, was on the point 
 of returning, when news arrived that he must 
 prepare immediately for war. Benedetti, under 
 distinct instructions from the Tuileries, had asked 
 the King in a personal interview for an engage- 
 ment that the candidature should not be revived. 
 The King refused, and, on the ambassador's 
 pressing for another interview to repeat the 
 demand, sent him a polite message by an aide- 
 de-camp declining to renew the subject. They 
 subsequently parted at the railway station with 
 the ordinary forms of courtesy. 
 
 This transaction was represented to the French 
 as an insult to their ambassador, and to the 
 Prussians as an insult to their King. How far 
 the German Chancellor was a party to the mis- 
 representation may be questioned. We have 
 heard that he was not entirely guiltless of the 
 telegram that so excited the French ; and it would 
 have been too much to expect from him that he 
 should disabuse the Prussians, considering that a 
 war with France, a war of unprovoked aggression 
 on her part, was the thing of all others w^hich 
 he needed to complete the unification of the 
 Fatherland and put the cope-stone to his schemes. 
 This time all Germany, North and South, re- 
 sponded cordially to his call : and, thanks to the 
 admirable combinations of the War Department, 
 the German armies were everywhere beforehand, 
 in superior numbers and with superior equipments, 
 to the French, who had several days the start of 
 them.^ 
 
 ^ " Mobilising an army means placing it in a condition, as regards 
 equipment, means of transport, commissariat, etc., to begin a campaign. 
 The German army was mobilised in less than ten days, the order not
 
 122 PRINCE BISMARCK. 
 
 M. Abeken was unjust to Thiers, who was too 
 good an administrator not to know that the 
 French army was unprepared, and he vehemently 
 protested, amidst clamorous interruptions, against 
 the war. The Emperor, too, had misgivings. " I 
 have at least one advantage over my conqueror," 
 was the remark of the Emperor Francis to Talley- 
 rand during the negotiations of Preshui'g after 
 Austerlitz : "I can re-enter my capital after so 
 great a disaster, whilst it would he difficult for 
 your master, with all his genius, to do the same 
 in a similar situation." When, shortly after 
 Sadowa, Benedetti grew too importunate, Bis- 
 marck told him : " Very well, then, we shall have 
 w^ar. But let your imperial master observe that 
 such a war might, in certain eventualities, become 
 a war a coups de revolution, and that, in the 
 presence of revolutionary dangers, the German 
 dynasties would give proof of being more solidly 
 estabhshed than that of Napoleon." Some re- 
 flections of this kind may have occurred to the 
 future occupant of Wilhelmshohe and Chislehurst, 
 when he checked the boyish exultation of his son 
 by reminding him with a melancholy smile of the 
 proverbial uncertainty of the game in which he 
 was about to stake his throne. But in an evil 
 hour he suffered his better judgment to be over- 
 powered by those about him, whose fatuity would 
 be unaccountable, did we not make allowance for 
 the hourly growing necessity of doing something 
 to conciliate the army and gratify the craving 
 susceptibility of the people. 
 
 "I do not see a Europe (je ne vols pas 
 
 having been issued till the 16th of July. From a peace establishment of 
 about 12,000 officers, 285,000 men, and 73,000 horses, it was raised to 
 22,000 officers, 732,000 men, and 193,000 horses.—" The Franco-German 
 War : to the Catastrophe of Sedan," by Colonel A. Borbstaedt and Major 
 F. Dwyer, London, 1873.
 
 PRINCE BISMARCK. 123 
 
 cVEurope)'^ was the exclamation of Count Beust 
 in 1870, when lie saw Germany left free to crush 
 her foe. Here, again, we discern the hand of the 
 master, the prevision of the statesman. Austria 
 was kept quiet by Kussia, as agreed between the 
 two Chancellors : any lurking inchnation of the 
 Southern States towards France was suppressed 
 by rapidity of movement : ^ a pending compact with 
 France was abandoned by Italy after Worth : and 
 the contemplated annexation of Belgium, which 
 had been adroitly held out as a bait to Benedetti, 
 had chilled the sympathy of England till it was 
 partially re-kindled by the extremities to which 
 her old rival and recent ally was reduced. 
 
 Prince Bismarck was in close attendance on the 
 King from the commencement to the conclusion 
 of the Franco-German war, and during this period 
 we have an ample record of his sayings and doings 
 by Dr. Busch, who, in the capacity of journalist 
 attache, was in constant and confidential com- 
 munication with him. Our quotations from this 
 gentleman's diary are limited by want of space, 
 but we must refer to it for some personal pecu- 
 liarities and opinions which are required to com- 
 plete the character of his chief. Some of these do 
 not tend to elevate it, but, on the other hand, the 
 frank avowal of them argues a rare degree of con- 
 scious rectitude, and in making up the final 
 account of his merits and demerits too much 
 stress cannot be laid on the searching nature of 
 the ordeal he has voluntarily undergone. How 
 few could afford to be thus pursued into the little 
 corners of theii- lives, " aU theii* faults observed, 
 set in a note-book ! " ^ 
 
 ^ On the 14th of July, the evening before the declaration of war, the 
 Bavarian Minister in London was talking in a tone that implied no doubt 
 of his country taking part with France. 
 
 * The delicate and highly responsible duty assumed by Dr. Busch has
 
 124 PRINCE BISMARCK. 
 
 The most remarkable thing about him is his 
 Christianity, and his mode of reconcihng it with 
 his ambition and his pohcy : 
 
 ** How men without belief in a revealed religion, in God 
 who wills what is good, in a higher judge and a future life, 
 can live together in a well-ordered way, do theh duty, and 
 leave every one his own, I do not understand. If I did not 
 rely on my God, I most assuredly should place no rehance 
 on the lords of the earth. I should have wherewithal to 
 live and be distinguished enough. . . . Why should I 
 exert myseK and work indefatigably in this world, exposing 
 myself to embarrassment and vexation, if I had not the 
 feeling that I was bound to do my duty for the sake of 
 God ? " 
 
 Does he really deceive himself into thinking 
 that power has no charms for him, that he has no 
 enjoyment in his proud position, except as the 
 conscious instrument of God ? Does he, in point 
 of fact, rely on the lords of the earth, or put his 
 trust in princes, which a scriptural text warns him 
 
 induced us to collect a few particulars of his career, A candidate of 
 theology at Leipzig in 1848, he took jDart in the revolution of that year, 
 and then left Germany fur the United States, where he learnt English and 
 wrote for American papers. He returned about 1855 to Leipzig, where 
 he was assistant editor of the " Grenzboten," with Gustave Freitag. 
 About 18(JG or 1867 he was appointed " Pressreferent " in the Berlin 
 Foreign Office. A " Pressreferent " is a clerk in the " Pressbureaux " of 
 the German Government, whose duty it is to write anonymous but 
 inspired articles in the newspapers for the Foreign Secretary, which the 
 papers are obliged to publish, whether they like them or not. As 
 " Pressreferent," he was on Prince Bismarck's Staff during the war, and, 
 as appears from an entry in his Diar}', his chief knew that he was keeping 
 one. After the war was over, the Prince pensioned him oif, and he 
 returned to Leipzig, where he became editor of a Hanoverian paper, 
 which he soon gave up. Just before the publication of the book he spent 
 some weeks in Berlin, and the on (lit is, that the proof sheets were sub- 
 mitted to the Prince, who struck out some of the most compromising 
 personalities ; and that these have been carefully preserved by Dr. Busch. 
 The on (lit also runs that the Prince regards the publication as an 
 enhancement of his celebrity and is by no means displeased by it, although 
 his family are. The second edition, it should be observed, is described as 
 " unaltered " in the title-page.
 
 PRINCE BISMARCK. 125 
 
 lie should not ? Indications are not wanting that 
 he has an engrained contempt for them : 
 
 "If," he continued, " I did not beheve in a divine order 
 which had predestined this German nation to something 
 good and great, I should give up the diplomatic calling at 
 once, or never have undertaken the trade. Orders and 
 titles have no charms for me. The firmness which I 
 have shown during ten years in combating all possible 
 absurdities, I derive from my fixed belief. Take away this 
 belief, and you take away my Fatherland. If I were not 
 a strict believing Christian, if I had not the miraculous 
 basis of religion, you would never have lived to see such 
 a Bund-Chancellor. Find me a successor with the same 
 basis, and I resign upon the spot. But I live amongst 
 heathens." 
 
 We do not accuse Prince Bismarck of hypocrisy: 
 we do not question the earnestness of his faith ; 
 neither do we question that of Cromwell and his 
 saints, who similarly, after seeking the Lord, de- 
 clared themselves specially chosen to work out 
 the designs of Providence and justify the ways 
 of God to man. But it is a startling phenomenon, 
 if anything could be startling where modes of faith 
 are concerned, to find a man who has systemati- 
 cally made truth and justice subservient to ex- 
 pediency, who has led his sovereign through blood 
 and slaughter to an imperial throne, contending 
 that it is exclusively and emphatically because he 
 is a strict Christian that he has done this. The 
 overthrow of the Second Empire, corrupt and 
 cankered to the core, may possibly be cited in 
 proof of the alleged mission, but is it from purely 
 Christian motives, for the advancement of jieace 
 amongst nations and good-will amongst men, that 
 he has annexed Alsace and Lorraine ? 
 
 Our wonder at what strikes us as a contradiction 
 or incompatibility in such a mind is materially
 
 126 PRINCE BISMARCK. 
 
 abated by learning to wbat an extent it is sub- 
 jected to superstitious fancies and prejudices : 
 
 " Fears of the brave and follies of the wise." 
 
 He has a dread of unlucky days. He thinks 
 nothing will prosper that is undertaken on a 
 Friday, or on the anniversary of Hochkirch or 
 Jena. Alluding to the year of his own death, he 
 said, ''I know it : it is a mystic number." Hair 
 (he pronounced) should be cut and trees clipt 
 when the moon is on the increase. He will not 
 sit down to a dinner of thirteen. Absolutism is 
 his beau-ideal of a government. " When there 
 is not some of it, all gets into confusion ; one is 
 for one thing and another for another, and it is 
 an eternal fluctuation, an eternal stop." In 
 matters of policy he thinks it equally unad- 
 visable to anticipate the future or be fretted by 
 the past. He told Lord Odo Eussell that he 
 was no friend to political conjecture, and preferred 
 to make action dependent upon circumstances. 
 He told M. Jules Favre that consistency frequently 
 launches its devotees into obstinacy. " I have 
 been taught by experience, and never hesitate 
 to sacrifice personal feeling to the requirements 
 of the hour. La 2:)atrie vent etre servie et pas 
 domi7iee.'" M. Jules Favre replied, with a bow: 
 " C'est Men juste, M. le Comte : c'est pro fond."" 
 
 M. Jules Favre did not assent quite so readily 
 when, on his complaining that within three days 
 he should, in all j^robability, be declared a traitor, 
 the Prince told him : " Then provoke an insurrec- 
 tion whilst you have still an army to stifle it." 
 In narrating this incident, Bismarck said : " He 
 gazed on me with a shocked and terrified look, 
 as if he were about to exclaim, ' How bloodthirsty 
 you are ! ' " In reference to the arbitrary powers
 
 PRINCE BISMARCK. 127 
 
 witli whicli tlie Ctiaiicellor has got himself invested 
 to put down Sociahsm, a well-informed writer 
 remarks : '' If he has made a larger use of them 
 than was expected, it is supposed he either really 
 believes in a grave international conspiracy to 
 threaten Sovereigns and society, or that he is 
 desirous of provoking an emeute while the army 
 can yet be relied upon to do its duty and put it 
 down." ' 
 
 Speaking of the cruel manner in which the 
 French carried on the war, he said : " Take off 
 the white skin from such a Gaul, and you have 
 a Turco before you." He was probably thinking 
 of the maxim of Napoleon : " Scratch a Eussian, 
 and you will find a Tartar underneath." 
 
 The Germans complained that many French 
 officers had broken their parole. General Ducrot 
 being one. Bismarck said they ought all to be 
 hanged in their red trousers, with one leg labelled 
 ^^parjicre " and the other " infdme.'^ 
 
 He was for giving no quarter to the francs- 
 tireurs, remarking that the corresponding class 
 in Germany were never spared by the French. 
 He thought that the passengers in a captured 
 balloon should be hanged off-hand as spies, with- 
 out court-martial or trial of any kind. He thought 
 the delay of the bombardment of Paris bad policy 
 and false humanity ; and when M. Jules Favre 
 complained that the Germans fired upon the sick 
 and blind in the hospitals, he retorted with a kind 
 of grim humour that the French did worse ; they 
 fired upon Germans who were sound and well. 
 One reason for his wish to accelerate matters was 
 the fear of neutral intervention. The Parisians, 
 he said, fancied that the bombardment was pro- 
 hibited from London, St. Petersburg, and Vienna ; 
 
 1 The " Times," Dec. 26, 1878.
 
 128 PRINCE BISMARCK. 
 
 ■whilst the neutrals on their part believed that it 
 could not be done. Speaking of his own probable 
 rise, had he regularly followed the profession of 
 arms, he says : " If I had been officer — and I wdsh 
 I had been — I should now have an army, and we 
 should not be at a standstill before Paris." On 
 another occasion, he intimates, how much better 
 he could have managed matters had he been 
 sovereign. He complained that he was not con- 
 sulted by the commanders, nor even kept duly 
 mformed of the movement of the troops. He 
 thought lightly of their generalship, especially at 
 Gravelotte, where they took the bull by the horns 
 and attacked a strong position in front instead of 
 turning it. This criticism is admitted to be sound. 
 
 He undervalued eloquence, and boasted of having 
 suppressed speechifying in the Bund. He could 
 not suppress it at the Conference of Berlin ; but 
 he restricted it : he had resolved that, the Treaty 
 — valeat quantum — should be made within a given 
 period, and it was made. 
 
 Talking of drinking, he said that the time had 
 been when wine had no effect upon him. " When 
 I reflect how much I have done in that way. The 
 strongest wines, particularly Burgundy." At one 
 time his favourite beverage was a compound of 
 porter and champagne. He was also fond of good 
 eating, and lays dowm that, if any good work was 
 to be got out of him, he must be well fed. " I 
 can conclude no regular peace if I am not regu- 
 larly supplied with meat and drink." 
 
 Then, the conversation turning on cards, he 
 said he had formerly been much given to them : 
 for example, he had once played twenty consecu- 
 tive rubbers at whist, occupying full seven hours. 
 It did not interest him unless the play was high. 
 He was so good a shot (he says) with the pistol, 

 
 PRINCE BISMARCK. ]29 
 
 that he has hit sheets of paper at a hundred paces 
 distant, and shot off the heads of the ducks on the 
 pond. This recalls Sliakspeare's Douglas : — 
 
 " Prince Henry. He that rides at high speed, and with 
 
 his j)istol kills a sparrow flying. 
 *' Falstaff. You have hit it. 
 " Prince Henri/. So did he never the sparrow." 
 
 He criticises " William Tell " and prefers Eussian 
 to Greek. But the conversations turn on ordinary 
 topics and occurrences, to the almost complete 
 exclusion of literature, science, and philosophy. 
 He mentioned a mode in which money might be 
 made by a minister on the exchange, but said that 
 his son should never say of his father that he had 
 been enriched in this or any similar way. " I was 
 better off before I was Bund-Chancellor — better 
 than now. They have ruined me by the dota- 
 tion. I have been ever since an embarrassed man. 
 Formerly I lived like a simple country gentleman ; 
 now, when in a measure I belong to the peerage, 
 the claims increase, and the lands bring no equiva- 
 lent." Discussing the contingency of his resigna- 
 tion, his suite were agreed that, if he once resigned, 
 he would not be persuaded to resume power : that 
 he was never so happy as when engaged in agri- 
 cultural pursuits; and the Princess is quoted as 
 having told one of them that a root of mangel- 
 wurzel interested her husband more than all their 
 politics put together. 
 
 Bearing in mind who has supplied the traits and 
 helped to lay on the colours, we might almost say 
 that we have Prince Bismarck painted by himself 
 — painted, as Cromwell insisted on being painted, 
 without flattery, with the warts. Looking at that 
 commanding presence, at those strongly-marked, 
 stern, masculine features, Napoleon I. might well 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 130 PRINCE BISMARCK. 
 
 liave said of him what he said of Goethe : " This 
 is a man ! " There he stands, the idol of hero- 
 worship, the beau-ideal of volition, the genuine 
 representative of muscular Christianity, of force. 
 Since it is conventionally settled that greatness 
 is independent of commonplace morality, of the 
 ordinary rules of right and wrong, there is no 
 denying him to be great ; for he has done great 
 things in a grand manner ; and the world, at all 
 events the European world, would have been 
 widely different had he never appeared upon the 
 stage. But has he made it better or wiser? Must 
 his fame, his claim to the gratitude of his country, 
 rest on the insulated fact that he has evolved a 
 united Germany out of a heterogeneous mass of 
 conflicting elements ? Has it been, will it be, his 
 lot— 
 
 " To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land 
 And read bis history in a nation's eyes ? " 
 
 The land he rules over is anything but smiling. 
 The eyes of a large part of the nation are averted 
 from him. The milliards of the indemnity have 
 not fructified in Germany nor impoverished 
 France. 
 
 " You have vanquished your enemy in the field ; 
 strive now to rival him in the sacred arts of 
 peace." This is precisely where Prince Bismarck 
 would signally fail if he tried. He makes light of 
 Thiers ; but if their positions had been reversed, 
 would or could he, in the same space of time, have 
 restored a country wasted by invasion, agitated by 
 intestine troubles, to an equal state of confidence 
 and prosperity ? He is pre-eminent in diplomacy. 
 No one has a chance against him at the game 
 where kingdoms are at stake. He seems to read the 
 thoughts, to divine the motives, to anticipate the 
 
 1
 
 PRINCE BISMARCK. 131 
 
 moves of his adversaries — to play their cards as 
 well as his own. His strength lies in his foreign 
 poHcy, which is expansive, aggressive, progressive. 
 His domestic poUcy is all in the contracted, repres- 
 sive, reactionary line. He has the air of being 
 cramped in it. Yet he is always high-handed and 
 peremptory. He has no notion of a compromise. 
 He must have his own way, and his own way of 
 having it. He cuts his Gordian knots instead of 
 untying them. He is always throwing his sword, 
 hke Brennus, into the scale. He declared that he 
 would risk another Thirty Years' War, rather than 
 submit to the pretensions of the Vatican ; and he 
 has dealt with Ultramontanism, which might have 
 been kept within due limits by a milder mode of 
 treatment, as if he thought that it could be trodden 
 out like the cattle-plague. 
 
 When Lord Palmerston was asked whether he 
 would revert to Protection, he significantly replied 
 that the Exe could not be made to flow back to its 
 source. Prince Bismarck's reply to a similar 
 question would be that the Rhine could and should 
 flow back. If his recent letter on taxation is to be 
 accepted as the measure of his financial knowledge 
 and capacity for civil affahs, Heaven help the land 
 whose best interests are in his keeping — whose 
 trade, commerce, industry, and internal legislation 
 are guided by him. His distinctive quahties are 
 rather those of a conqueror, a great captain, than 
 of a great lawgiver or great administrator. He 
 has the coup d'oeil, the eagle eye, the rapid 
 decision, of a Marlborough, a Conde, a Napoleon, 
 or a Welhngton. He would be an impossible 
 minister in a constitutional government. Under 
 the restraints of a popular assembly he would be 
 like Gulliver, kept down by a multiplicity of 
 threads. Looking round for parallels, we do not
 
 132 PRINCE BISMAECK. 
 
 turn to statesmen (like Stein or Peel) steadily- 
 laying the foundations of national greatness and 
 wealth, but to Richelieu consolidating the French 
 monarchy by the scaffold and the axe, or to Chat- 
 ham in whom (to borrow the words of Grattan) 
 ^' there was something that could establish or 
 overwhelm empire and strike a blow in the world 
 that should resound through the universe." 
 
 Prince Bismarck has much in common with 
 Cavour, but Cavour was an enlightened lover of 
 liberty, and the regeneration of Italy was a nobler, 
 if not more difficult, work than the aggrandize- 
 ment of Prussia, or the unity of Germany : which 
 yet remains to be harmoniously fused, and has 
 hitherto gained little by being (as Bishop Dupan- 
 loup said of it) turned into a huge barrack, besides 
 glory and the proud consciousness of strength. If 
 Prince Bismarck is right, all the moralists and 
 philanthropists, all who have put their trust in 
 truth and justice, in progress and rational freedom, 
 in peaceful industry and productive labour, are 
 wrong. It would be a satire on our common 
 nature, a humihating confession of our being 
 unimprovable, to suppose that his system, a system 
 based on force, on never-ceasing war and absolu- 
 tism, could last ; but it may endure his time : he 
 may go on throwing sixes with the iron dice of 
 destiny ; and the dazzling brilliancy of his career 
 may continue to cast its blots into the shade until, 
 haply and happily, mankind shall be agreed upon 
 some sounder and less demoralising criterion of 
 greatness than success.
 
 COUNT CAVOUE.' 
 
 {From the Quarterly Beview, July, 1879.) 
 
 The Lives, Memoirs, and biographical notices of 
 Cavour, emnlously hurried out soon after his 
 death, were inevitably and confessedly incomplete. 
 The author of one of the best, Mr. E. Dicey, 
 expressed the common sentiment when he said 
 that " many long years had yet to pass before 
 either hiends or foes could judge fairly of the 
 statesman's memory:" that "the fame of the 
 architect rests ultimately not so much on the 
 gorgeousness of his edifice as on the stabihty of 
 his structure." The so-called edifice was in a 
 
 ^ 1. Cavour. A Memoir. By Edward Dicey, author of " Rome in 
 1860." London, 1861. 
 
 2. Le Comte de Cavour. Eecits et Souvenirs. Par W. de la Eive. 
 Paris, 1862. 
 
 3. (Euvre Parlementaire du Comte de Cavour. Traduite et annotee 
 par J, Artom et Albert Blanc. Paris, 1862. 
 
 4. Henry d'Ideville. Journal d'un Diplomate en Italie. Notes intimes 
 pour servir a VHistoire du Second Empire. Turin, 1859-1862. Paris, 
 1872. 
 
 5. A Discourse on the Life, Character, and Policy of Count Cavour. 
 By Vincenzo Botta, Ph.D., Professor, etc. New York, 1862. 
 
 6. Bismarck et Cavour. L' Unite de VAllemagne et l' Unite de V Italie. 
 Par M. N. Reyntiens, Membre du Senat Beige. Bruxelles, 1875. 
 
 7. The Life of Cavour. From the French of M. Charles de Mazade. 
 London, 1877. 
 
 8. Life of Victor Emanuel IL, First King of Italy. By G. S. Godkin. 
 In Two Volumes. London, 1879. 
 
 9. Pie IX. et Victor Emmanuel. Ilistoire Contemporaine de Vltalie 
 (1846-1878). Par Jules Zeller, Membre dc I'lnstitut. Paris, 1879.
 
 134 CAVOUR. 
 
 most unsatisfactory state : the added parts had 
 to be brought into harmony with the main build- 
 ing : the scaffolding was still standing : the foun- 
 dation lines of the complete structure he meditated 
 were hardly traced when he died. His position 
 might be compared to that of the prophet on 
 Mount Pisgah : 
 
 " The barren wilderness he passed, 
 Did on the very border stand 
 Of the bless'd promis'd land — 
 And from the mountain-top of his exalted wit 
 Saw it himself and shew'd us it." ^ 
 
 The promised land was reached, and fully real- 
 ised the expectations he had raised of it : his 
 mantle fell upon successors who comprehended 
 him : his spirit survived and spread ; and the 
 grandest of his conceptions, which even the 
 southern imagination was slow to grasp, was 
 caught up and realised in the colder and less 
 congenial atmosphere of the north. United Italy, 
 with Eome for its capital, was the prototype of 
 united Grermany, with Prussia for its head. The 
 fire of nationality, which fused and moulded the 
 jarring States of the German Confederation into 
 an empire, was kindled at Italian altars ; and 
 there was a connecting link, an associating chord, 
 between the two greatest men of our generation 
 which may be illustrated by the striking metaphor 
 of Burke: "Even then, before this splendid orb 
 (Chatham) was entirely set, and while the western 
 horizon was in a blaze with his descending glory, 
 on the opposite quarter of the heaven arose 
 another luminary (Charles Townshend), and for 
 his hour became lord of the ascendant." The 
 living career of the regenerator of Italy was closed 
 
 ^ Cowley — referring to Lord Bacon.
 
 CAVOUR. 135 
 
 in June, 1861 : the regenerator of Germany be- 
 came lord of the ascendant in September, 1862 : 
 and the prolonged influence of the descending orb 
 upon the course of the rising luminary may be 
 compared to that which the moon exercises over 
 the tides ; although, perhaps, each of them would 
 be best typified by the comet " with fear of change 
 perplexing nations." To facilitate the just appre- 
 ciation of both, to bring the distinctive qualities 
 of these two master minds into broad relief by 
 contrast, we propose to place, a careful study of 
 Cavour alongside the sketch which we recently 
 hazarded of Prince Bismarck. 
 
 The Italian, Hke the German statesman, came 
 of a noble and ancient race. The original name 
 was Benso, and the real name (abbreviated in 
 common parlance) became Benso de Cavour on 
 the elevation of the head of the house to the 
 Marquisate of Cavour, some three or four gene- 
 rations back. The founder of the family is tra- 
 ditionally said to have settled at Santena, their 
 present seat, in the eleventh century, and M. 
 Artom relates that he asked Cavour how it came 
 to pass that a German device, " Gott ivill Becht,'' 
 made part of his armorial bearings. "It is sup- 
 posed," was the reply, '' that my family is of 
 Saxon origin, and that a pilgrim named Benz 
 came to Piedmont in 1086. Hence the shells 
 which you see in my arms and the motto which 
 decorates them. Do you believe this?" "No." 
 "No more do I; " and he burst into a loud peal 
 of laughter. 
 
 But on the same authority we learn that during 
 a railway journey, towards the close of his life, he 
 suddenly exclaimed to a fellow-traveller, " Do you 
 see that spire yonder, half hidden among the 
 trees? It is the church steei)le of Santena, the
 
 136 CAVOUR. 
 
 hereditary seat of my family. It is there I wish 
 to repose after my death." 
 
 He was the second son of the Marquis de 
 Cavour, who held the office of Grand Chamberlain 
 under Prince Camillo Borghese, when Piedmont 
 formed part of a French department ; and that he 
 came into the world under Napoleonic auspices is 
 commemorated by the fact that he received his 
 Christian name from the Prince, and that the 
 Princess Pauline was his godmother. His mother 
 was the daughter of the Comte de Sellon, a noble 
 Genevese, one of three sisters, all highly culti- 
 vated and accomplished women. He was born on 
 the 1st of August, 1810, and bred up in a domestic 
 circle regulated by a kind of patriarchal feeling. 
 So striking indeed were old customs, especially 
 the prerogatives of primogeniture, observed in it, 
 that when Cavour, in the height of his fame, was 
 occupying the town-house at Turin with his elder 
 brother, he still retained the position of a cadet, 
 and was obliged to take his place every day at 
 table with the family factor {intendant), whom he 
 detested. "People fancy me very powerful," he 
 remarked one day in the hearing of M. d'Ideville. 
 " Well, I have never been able to get rid of 
 Barnabo. I must endure him, whether I like it 
 or not." 
 
 When he was in his fifth year, his mother 
 writes : " Gustave (the elder brother) is fond of 
 study ; Camillo holds it in horror. Tell me if you 
 have much trouble in teaching your Eugene to 
 read ; as for my poor Camillo, he can make 
 nothing of it, his sighs are heartrending." His 
 half-boastful avowal in after life, that he knew 
 neither Greek nor Latin, recalls Berryer exclaim- 
 ing, " Moi, qui ne sais ni lire ni ecrire ! " In 1816 
 he was taken by his parents to Geneva, on a visit
 
 CAVOUR. 137 
 
 to the de la Eives, whose impression of him at 
 this period has fortunately been handed down. 
 
 " He was an arch, roguish little fellow, with a lively 
 physiognomy, indicating decision, a very amusing play- 
 fulness, and inexhaustible spirits. He wore a red coat, 
 which gave him a resolute and at the same time 
 agreeable air. On his arrival he was very excited, and 
 told my grandfather that the postmaster of Geneva, 
 having supplied execrable horses, ought to be dismissed. 
 'I demand his dismissal,' he repeated. 'But,' replied 
 my grandfather, ' I cannot dismiss the postmaster, it is 
 only the first syndic who has this power.' ' Well, I 
 desire an audience of the first syndic' ' You shaU have 
 one to-morrow,' replied my grandfather, and he imme- 
 diately wrote to his friend M. Schmidtmeyer, the first 
 syndic, to announce that he was about to send him a 
 very droll little fellow. The next day he ^Dresents him- 
 self at the first syndic's, is ceremoniously received, and 
 after three formal bows makes a clear, calm statement of 
 his complaint and demand. On his return, as soon as he 
 caught sight of my grandfather, he called out, ' All right, 
 he will be dismissed.' " 
 
 He was then hardly six. In his tenth or 
 eleventh year, he left the paternal mansion for the 
 Military Academy of Turin, and at the same time 
 was appointed page to the Prince of Carignau, the 
 heir presumptive to the throne ; an honour, due 
 to his birth, which was highly esteemed for the 
 rank and privileges it conferred. He was far from 
 viewing it in that hght. When M. de la Eive 
 asked him what was the costume of the pages, 
 "Parbleu!" he replied in an excited tone, "how 
 would you have us dressed, except as lackeys, 
 which we were ? It made me blush with shame." 
 His open contempt for the place, with probably 
 his lax discharge of its duties, led to his speedy 
 dismissal, and left a disagreeable impression on 
 his royal master, who subsequently visited on the
 
 138 CAVOUR. 
 
 officer the offence given by the page. His youth- 
 ful inaptitude or distaste for the learned languages 
 did not extend to other branches of knowledge. 
 He so distinguished himself in the studies of the 
 Academy, especially mathematics, that he left it 
 at sixteen with the grade of sub-lieutenant in the 
 engineers, despite of the regulations fixing at 
 twenty the age at which this grade could be con- 
 ferred. The best part of his military career was 
 passed in garrison at Genoa, at that time the 
 abode or resort of the choicest Itahan intellects. 
 "It was here," remarks M. de la Kive, "that he 
 made his real debut in the world, and I have heard 
 him say that, in this great school of statesmen, no 
 instruction was spared him." The instruction 
 would seem to have run in the liberal or ultra- 
 liberal direction ; for the language in which he 
 spoke of the Eevolution of July attracted the 
 attention of the authorities, who, by way of 
 penance, caused him to be transferred fi'om Grenoa 
 to the little fortress of Bard, where his sole re- 
 source was playing taroJc with the contractors 
 employed in the repairs. Six months of this life 
 was as much as he could endure, and in the 
 summer of 1831 he resigned his commission. 
 
 He was now without a career, without regular 
 occupation of any kind, with opinions which, 
 whilst excluding him from all hope of civil or 
 military preferment, were still not pronounced 
 enough to involve him in political agitation. Mr. 
 Dicey says that he had as little sympathy for 
 Mazzini, who was then coming into note, as for 
 Metternich, and so, " feehng himself out of place 
 in his own country, he obtained leave to travel, 
 and for ten years or so resided chiefly abroad." 
 Another writer of authority states that, " finding 
 it necessary to throw up his commission, and
 
 CAVOUR. 139 
 
 advisable to retire abroad, be spent tbus several 
 years abroad, mostly in England and France." ^ 
 Professor Botta says that he returned to Italy in 
 1842, "after an absence of several years." The 
 fact is, he not only made his own country his 
 fixed place of residence soon after leaving the 
 army, but contributed largely to its internal im- 
 provement during the many years which were to 
 elapse before he began to take part in the direction 
 of its poUcy. The most authentic account of his 
 proceedings and movements till he came pro- 
 minently before the public is supplied by M. de 
 la Eive, who (or whose family) was all along in 
 intimate uninterrupted communication with Ca- 
 vour, and who relates in detail how he devoted 
 himself heart and soul to agriculture : 
 
 " It was at Grinzano, in the province of Alba, on a 
 family domain, that Camillo de Cavour, as soon as his 
 resignation was accepted, began his agricultural apprentice- 
 ship, and it was as much as he could do at this epoch to 
 distinguish a cabbage from a tm-nip ; but his progress was 
 rapid, and, dating from 1833, he took the management of 
 Leri, a large estate much neglected, of which the Marquis 
 de Cavour and Madame de Tonnerre (an aunt) had made 
 the acquisition some years before. There, in the middle 
 of his rice-fields, he displayed a perseverance, an energy, 
 a boldness, a sagacity, a combined spirit of administration 
 and invention, which would have sufficed to transforjn the 
 face of a kingdom, as they succeeded in transforming the 
 domain committed to his hands." 
 
 His own account of his adoption of this new 
 mode of life is given in a letter to a friend. 
 
 " You must know in the first place that I have become 
 an agriculturist for good and all ; it is now my vocation. 
 On my return from England I found my father definitely 
 engaged in public afiairs, and, not being able to find time 
 
 1 The " Edinburgh Review " for July, 1861, p. 272.
 
 140 CAVOUR. 
 
 for his own, he proposed to me to take charge of them, and 
 I accepted with eagerness ; for when one has midertaken 
 to make the hest of all one's estates, one risks one's fortune 
 by not attending to the administration of them." 
 
 In a subsequent publication, writing with ample 
 experience, he says : 
 
 " At the first blush, agriculture has little attraction. 
 The habitue of the Salon feels a certain repugnance for 
 works which begin by the analysis of dunghills and end in 
 the middle of cattle-sheds : he will find rural operations 
 tedious, monotonous, even puerile. However, if he suc- 
 ceeds in surmounting this first disgust, if he can make up 
 his mind to direct the simplest agricultural operations, to 
 superintend the planting a field of potatoes or to breed a 
 young heifer, there will come to pass, almost unconsciously, 
 a transformation in his tastes and his ideas ; he will dis- 
 cover a growing interest in the practice of agriculture, and 
 that which most repelled him will not be long in having 
 for him a charm which he never so much as exj)ected." 
 
 From Cavour at Leri we naturally revert to 
 Bismarck at Schonhausen. The primary motive, 
 the care for the due administration of the family 
 estates, was the same. But so soon as Bismarck 
 bad brought things round, be lost all interest in 
 the vocation which, from Cavour's point of view, 
 grew^and expanded till it assumed the dignity of a 
 science and the importance of an institution : 
 
 " He should have been seen at his work, rising with the 
 dawn, visiting his cattle-sheds, present at the departure of 
 his labourers, superintending them under a burning sun in 
 the dog-days, not satisfied with giving general dhections 
 but looking to the minutest details, the eye open to all the 
 discoveries of chemistry, to all the inventions of mechanics, 
 multipljdng experiments, discerning the results with an 
 almost infallible good sense, abandoning some, repeating 
 others on an immense scale and with a temerity at which
 
 CAYOUR. 141 
 
 the simple neighbours who came trembling to ask his 
 advice stood aghast ; he, always smiling, gay, affable, 
 having for each a clear, concise comisel, an encouragement 
 enveloped in a pleasantry. I believe that nowhere did he 
 feel himself so thoroughly at home as at Leri : it was there 
 that, disgusted with affairs, he returned to forget the cares 
 of politics : whenever he had some days of leave, it was 
 always to Leri that he hurried ofl"." 
 
 His exertions were far from being limited to the 
 improvement of his estates. Amongst the under- 
 takings which he originated or promoted were, a 
 railway company, a bank, a manufactory for 
 chemical products adapted for manure, steam- 
 mills for grinding corn, and a line of packets on 
 the Lago Maggiore. As an example of his specu- 
 lations may be cited a contract to supply eight 
 hundred merino sheep to the Pasha of Egypt when 
 he had not a merino sheep upon his farm. The 
 Statutes of the "Agrarian Association" of Pied- 
 mont, founded in 1842, were mostly his work, and 
 it required all the influence of the noble founders, 
 headed by the Marquis Alfieri, the president, to 
 extort the sanction of tbe Government. It was 
 suspected, not without reason, that the projected 
 conferences of the members had a political object, 
 and it was surmised that periodical meetings for 
 free communication of any sort might do harm. 
 Even more marked, therefore, were the disquietude 
 and disapproval of the supporters of the existing 
 regime^ then all-powerful, when Cavour and the 
 most distinguished of the Piedmontese aristocracy 
 founded a whist club, under the name of the 
 '' Societe du Whist." 
 
 Late in 1834 he started for a tour in Switzer- 
 land, France, and England, which occupied some 
 months. Writing fi'om Paris (March 31, 1835) to 
 M. de la Kive jjere, after stating that he had found
 
 142 CAYOUR. 
 
 nothing in the French capital to compensate him 
 for the causer ies of Geneva, he says : 
 
 " We cannot shut our eyes to the fact : society is making 
 long strides towards democracy : it is perhaps impossihle 
 to foresee what forms it will assume, but as to the fact, it 
 is no longer matter of doubt, at least in my eyes. And 
 you, my fiiend, are you not of my opinion ? Do you 
 believe in the possibility of the reconstruction of any kind 
 of aristocracy ? The nobility is crumbhug on every side : 
 the princes, like the people, are equally tending to its 
 destruction : the patriciat, a municipal and restricted 
 power, has no place in the actual organisation of society. 
 What then remains to struggle against the i^opular waves ? 
 Nothing solid, nothing potent, nothing durable. Is this a 
 good ? Is it an evil ? I know not, but it is in my opinion 
 the inevitable future of humanity. Let us prepare for it : 
 or at least let us prepare our descendants, whom it con- 
 cerns more than ourselves." 
 
 This was the leading idea, the key-note, of 
 Tocqueville's work on Democracy, which did not 
 appear till 1840. It would seem that during this 
 visit to Paris Cavour saw less of the principal 
 performers on the political stage than he surely 
 might have seen had he been so inclined. There 
 is an air of mock modesty in his tone : 
 
 " I have not gone a second time to M. Guizot's, where 
 I have jpenetrated, thanks to M. de Barante ; since to fix 
 the attention of these great men for a moment one must 
 have some title to celebrity. And I, alas ! obscure citizen 
 of Piedmont, I have done nothing to be known beyond the 
 limits of the commune of which I am syndic, and I cannot 
 reasonably aspire to the society of the luminous stars which 
 light the political world." ^ 
 
 His visit to England in the early part of 1836 
 was short : his principal cicerone was Mr. Brock- 
 edon, the artist, a man of cultivation and accom- 
 plishment, whose acquaintance he had made in 
 
 vJ
 
 CAVOUR. 143 
 
 the Alps. He had not yet learnt English, and 
 his objects of interest were institutions, agricul- 
 ture, commerce, or industry, rather than what is 
 commonly understood by society. In particular 
 he made a careful study of pauperism. "At 
 London," he writes on his return, " I found 
 myself in communication with all the persons who 
 have been specially occupied with this question, 
 and I still keep up some relations with them." 
 It was eight years later, in 1843, during a visit 
 in company with the elder de la Eive, that he 
 completed his study of the English Constitution, 
 and conceived that admiration for it which became 
 so marked a feature in his speeches and writings 
 as to provoke the nickname of " My Lord." But, 
 strange to say, in 1843, as in 1835, " he remained 
 outside the political society, which in England 
 (adds M. de la Eive by way of explanation), con- 
 founded with a restricted aristocracy, is not, as at 
 Paris, disseminated and accessible throusfhout." 
 Political and intellectual society was and is quite 
 as accessible in England as in France, and if 
 Cavour was not made free of it, this must have 
 been because he did not care to cultivate it, and 
 was more interested in the railway system then 
 (1843) in full expansion, the free-trade contro- 
 versy, the poor-laws, and improved modes of 
 agriculture, than in parliamentary debates or party 
 contests. We gather from incidental notices that 
 he was a guest at Sir John Boileau's, in Norfolk, 
 and Mr. Davenport's, in Cheshire. It is also clear 
 that he saw enough of English society to appre- 
 ciate its advantages, for, soon after his return, he 
 writes from Turin to his travelling companion : 
 
 " You may well talk to me of bell, for since I left j^ou 
 I live in a kind of intellectual hell, that is to sa}', in a 
 country where intelligence and science are reputed infernal
 
 144 CAVOUR. 
 
 by him who has the goodness to govern us. Yes, my 
 friend, during well-nigh two months I have been breathing 
 an atmosphere charged with ignorance and prejudice, 
 inhabiting a city where you must hide yourself to ex- 
 change any ideas which go beyond the political and moral 
 sphere in which the government would fain keep minds 
 imprisoned. You have here a specimen of what is called 
 enjoying the happiness of a paternal government. After 
 eight months of Paris and London, to fall back abruptly 
 on Turin : to pass without transition from the salons of 
 the Due de Broglie and the Marquis of Lansdowne into 
 those where the retrograde spirit reigns unopposed, the 
 fall is violent. One remains completely crushed by it, 
 morally and i^hysically. You may haply recall that uncle 
 of Madame Lafarge who, from having been long exposed 
 to an atmosphere of ignorance, ended by catching a cold 
 in the brain (iin rhmne de cerveau). As for me, I am a 
 little like this uncle ; only instead of a cold in the brain, 
 it is a kind of paralysis by which I am affected." 
 
 It is mentioned as a proof of the credit wliicli 
 his aunt the Duchesse de Clermont Tonnerre 
 enjoyed, that after repeated solicitations she ob- 
 tained permission to receive, through the French 
 Embassy, the " Journal des Dehats." Madame 
 Marcet, impressed by the variety of his knowledge 
 and the comprehensiveness of his views, suddenly 
 asked the Marquis Alfieri, "Why then don't you 
 give M. de Cavour a place in your Government? " 
 The question provoked a general laugh. The 
 King, Charles Albert, was known to have declared 
 him the most dangerous man in the kingdom ; 
 and so he was in one sense — as the man who was 
 doing most to undermine the bigotry and in- 
 tolerance which then ruled paramount. But he 
 was doing it in the safest way : by preparing the 
 popular mind for liberty, so as to prevent a rush 
 from one extreme to the other ; and it was mainly 
 owing to him, and men like him, that a reign of 
 terror did not replace the reign of corruption and
 
 CAVOUR. '• 145 
 
 prejudice in Piedmont as in France. What added 
 to the fears and jealousies entertained of him in 
 the court and clerical party was his avowed ad- 
 miration for M. Guizot and the Due de Broglie, 
 and his reception in the Parisian salons which 
 were more or less tinged with Liberalism. Yet 
 it is difficult to conceive a more unexceptionable 
 circle than that which clustered round the Com- 
 tesse de Circourt, the most valued of his female 
 friends and correspondents ; and the manner in 
 which he spent his time in Paris during his visit 
 in 1840 was reassuring enough against the dark 
 designs imputed to him. 
 
 " Then, and then only for the first time," says M. de la 
 Eive, " he could indulge in its plenitude that faculty of 
 living which was stirring in him, develoj^ed in all directions 
 by five years of rude and incessant toil. I have not to 
 relate his excited career during the six months of his stay 
 at Paris. The elasticity of his nature w^as never put to a 
 rougher test than when, passing from politics to afi'airs, 
 from affairs to social science, from social science to in- 
 dustry, the man at the same time of the club and the 
 drawing-room, he led with a high hand the life of the 
 world, and this grand style which Balzac calls Venvers. 
 However, to be exact, I have a reserve to make : I am not 
 aware that he took to racing. At all events he spoke of 
 the turf like one who had never followed it. * We shall 
 now see,' he wrote to me in 1847, ' whether England deems 
 the Turf the best school for forming statesmen.' " 
 
 This was written when the late Lord Derby and 
 Lord George Bentinck were conspicuous amongst 
 the candidates for power. Lord Palmerston also 
 was a patron of the Turf. The only kind of 
 gambling of which Cavour can be accused was 
 high whist. Yet, we learn fi'om M. de la Eive, he 
 was fond of the game for its own sake : 
 
 " He was not one of those who are drawn to it by 
 the love of gain. This family whist, at twenty sous 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 146 ' CAVOUR. 
 
 the point, lie played, with me for his partner, with 
 as much attention as when he was seated opposite M. 
 de Morny. Need I say what satisfaction I felt when, on 
 a rainy morning, I saw the green table laid out, and 
 when, quietly counting the party, I saw that, in spite of 
 my inexperience, I was necessary." 
 
 Mr. Dicey was told that Cavour Lad incurred 
 gaming debts to the amount of 8000?., whicli the 
 Marquis, his father, advanced, with a warning that 
 no further aid would be forthcoming on the re- 
 currence of such an emergency. But we find no 
 confirmation of the story ; and prior to 1840 
 Cavour had realised a considerable fortune inde- 
 pendent of his father. Mr. Dicey adds that on 
 one of his (Cavour's) later visits to Paris, after 
 he became Minister, he was asked to play with 
 M. de Eothschild at 1000 franc points, and rose 
 from the table a winner of 150,000 francs. He 
 often played at the Jockey Club, where 25 louis 
 points were not unusual and the late Baron James 
 de Eothschild was a frequent attendant ; but, if 
 he won 150,000 francs at a sitting, it was probably 
 by bets in addition to the points. M. de la Eive 
 relates that one day when he was playing at whist 
 with Cavour, on his complaining of a persistent 
 run of ill-luck, Cavour replied, "The fact is you 
 have not sufiicient respect for the small cards." 
 His own success through life was greatly owing to 
 his having for the details of management and 
 administration the respect which he recommended 
 for the small cards at whist. 
 
 At the same time he was a grand seigneur in 
 money matters. He had a contempt for small 
 economies, and would have acted like that Prince 
 de Conde who, when his son exultingly produced 
 a purse containing the savings from his allowance, 
 took it and flung the contents amongst the lackeys
 
 CAVOUR. 147 
 
 in the yard. He would give the postilion a louis 
 as a pourboire — as Sheridan gave the waiter at 
 Limmer's a guinea by way, he said, of astonishing 
 the rascal — and (adds his travelling companion) 
 " more than one beggar seated on the roadside 
 as we passed has picked up in the dust a piece 
 of money the metal of which was probably un- 
 known to him." Cavour hardly ever contested 
 the account of a tradesman. At Paris, the keeper 
 of an hotel where he had passed forty-eight hours, 
 without dining once in it, presented a bill of 
 1200 francs. " Only think," he said to a friend 
 with a laugh, "my secretary absolutely refused to 
 pay it. I had a great deal of trouble in bringing 
 him to reason : he did not comprehend that to be 
 robbed without saying a word formed part of my 
 pohcy." With all this, he never neglected the 
 main chance ; and the proof is, that when he 
 became Minister his private fortune amounted to 
 nearly two millions of francs. 
 
 Amidst preoccupations of all sorts, there was a 
 ruling sentiment, a deep, heartfelt conviction that 
 never left him. In his most desponding moments 
 he looked forward to a time when Italy would 
 once again raise her head amongst nations, and he 
 felt assured that he should be the instrument of 
 her elevation. 
 
 ** I am very grateful, madame, for the interest you are 
 kind enough to take in my misfortunes ; but I assure 3'ou 
 I shall make my way notwithstanding. I own I am am- 
 bitious — enormously ambitious — and when I am minister, 
 I hope I shall justify my ambition. In my dreams I see 
 mgself already minister of the kingdom of Italy." 
 
 This was written to the Marchesa Barollo in 
 1833. In the course of the same year, in a letter 
 to M. de la Eive ^^ere, after describing his oscil-
 
 148 CAVOUR. 
 
 lations between conflicting opinions, lie says that 
 lie has ended by becoming an honest jiiste-milieu, 
 ardently desirous of social progress, and working 
 at it with all his strength, but resolved not to 
 purchase it at the price of a general upset, poh- 
 tical and social. 
 
 "My position as juste-milieu, however, "will not prevent 
 me from desu-ing the soonest possible emancipation of 
 Italy from the barbarians that oppress her, nor from fore- 
 seeing that a crisis, more or less violent, is inevitable ; but 
 I desire this crisis with all the precautions conformable to 
 the state of things, and I am, moreover, thoroughly per- 
 suaded that the premature attempts of the men of the 
 movement do but retard this crisis, and make it more 
 hazardous." 
 
 By men of the movement he meant Mazzini 
 and others, who aimed at the immediate estab- 
 lishment of a republic by violent means ; his more 
 hmited hope and aim being to create a united 
 and independent Italy by enlightened public 
 opinion, by appeals to reason, by the diffusion of 
 knowledge, by the fusing, combining, electric 
 power of thought. " The press is the mistress 
 of inteUigence, and intelligence is the mistress 
 of the world." This, the maxim of Benjamin 
 Constant, became the maxim of Cavour ; but it 
 was not till after his return fi'om England, in 
 1843, that he came before the public as an author 
 or journalist. Eight years before, in 1835, he had 
 been solicited to write for the " Bibliotheque 
 Universelle " of Geneva, of which M. de la Eive 
 2)ere was editor, and he had made some progress 
 in two projected articles when he found himself 
 anticipated in the subjects, and gave up the notion 
 of becoming a contributor. In the course of the 
 ' correspondence he wrote : 
 
 " You must expect no article from me demanding any 
 
 il
 
 CAVOUR. 149 
 
 expenditure of imagination. I was never able to compose 
 the simplest tale to amuse my nephew, although I have 
 often tried. I must confine myself therefore to matters of 
 pure reason, and, as to these, I must tell you that there 
 are an infinity which I could not treat, considering that 
 my literary education has been singularly neglected in 
 certain respects. Of all the moral sciences there is but 
 one that I have thoroughly studied — political economy." 
 
 His perfect mastery of this science, as he ven- 
 tured to call it, was shown in his first article, a 
 review of a work by M. de Chateauvieu, in which 
 he develops the doctrine of free trade with pecu- 
 liar application to the English corn laws, the' 
 speedy abolition of which he foretells. 
 
 " The time is now at hand when England will offer for 
 the first time the example of a powerful nation in which 
 the laws which regulate foreign commerce will be in perfect 
 accord with the principles of science." 
 
 When this was published, and for some time 
 after, the Protectionists were the confiding de- 
 voted followers of Sir Robert Peel ; they showed 
 no alarm at his tentative advances in 1842 ; they 
 had not the remotest suspicion in what direction 
 he was leading them, nor perhaps did he himself 
 contemplate the end from the beginning ; and the 
 great measure of 1846 came npon them with the 
 suddenness of a thunderclap. Writing in 1847, 
 Cavour admits that, morally speaking, it would 
 have been better that this *' economic revolution " 
 had been effected by the party which had been 
 preaching it for twenty years. 
 
 ** But if, as I believe, no one under the actual circum- 
 stances could have effected it but Sir Robert Peel and the 
 Duke of Wellington, was it not their duty to sacrifice their 
 consistency, their power as party chiefs, to the safety of 
 the coimtry ? Yes, my fiiend, the poHcy of Peel has been
 
 150 CAVOUR. 
 
 the salvation of England. What would have happened if 
 the too famous sliding-scale had heen left standing ? It 
 is j)robable that England would have been caught entirely 
 unprovided after the actual harvest. And then what would 
 have happened ? England owes statues to Peel : some day 
 or another he will have them." 
 
 The same soundness of judgment and perspi- 
 cacity, the same insight into the future as a 
 logical sequence of the past, are apparent in a 
 nearly contemporaneous article on Ireland, of 
 which he writes : 
 
 " My opinions on Ireland are the opposite of what are 
 current on the Continent. I believe they wdll displease 
 everybody, except a few reasonable jDeople. I wish for the 
 maintenance of the Union at any price. First in the 
 interest of Ireland, next in the interest of England, finally 
 in the interest of civilisation, material and intellectual." 
 
 There is a passage in the article on Ireland 
 which should he read in connection with his de- 
 fence of Sir Eobert Peel's inconsistency. After 
 condemning the members of the Irish parliament 
 who were bribed to vote for the Union, he con- 
 tinues : 
 
 "But must we equally condemn the Government who 
 purchased these corrupt men ? I should not hesitate to 
 do so, if, by a fatal error, public opinion in past ages, and 
 even in ours, had not in some sort sanctioned for govern- 
 ments the use of a morality other than that which is 
 recognised by private persons ; if it had not, in all times, 
 trea;ted with excessive indulgence the immoral acts which 
 have brought about great political results. If we insist 
 on stigmatising the character of Pitt for having practised 
 parliamentary corruption on a grand scale, we must treat 
 with equal severity the greatest monarchs of former times, 
 Louis XIV., Joseph II., the Great Frederick, who, to 
 arrive at their ends, have outraged the inflexible principles
 
 CAVOUR. 151 
 
 of morality and humanity far otherwise than the illustrious 
 statesman who has operated the consolidation of the 
 United Kingdom and Ireland." 
 
 If he meant (which is not quite clear) to uphold 
 the doctrine that, in statecraft, the end justifies 
 the means, the examples are not haj)pily chosen. 
 The Grand Monarque and the Great Frederick 
 were wont to make light of all the ordinary ties 
 of truth, justice, and humanity from the worst of 
 motives, — from views of personal aggrandizement, 
 — fi'om pride, vanity, or caprice, — regardless of 
 the immediate sufferings of millions or the ulterior 
 welfare of mankind. The same may be said of 
 all, or almost all, whom the world are content to 
 call great. The Caesars and Napoleons could not 
 coexist with the strict enforcement of morality ; 
 but is the world the better for the C^sars and 
 Napoleons ? The manner in which the Union 
 was carried has done much to impair its efficacy, 
 and the undoubted patriotism of Sir Kobert Peel 
 in the sacrifice of his consistency on two remark- 
 able occasions has simply added to the baneful 
 effects of bis example. Succeeding ministers have 
 improved upon it ; the upshot being that principle 
 is now habitually abandoned for expediency, and 
 that political consistency has become a byword. 
 No one, looking merely to what our public men 
 have said or done, can now venture to predicate 
 what they will say or do next. 
 
 In the course of the four years after Cavour took 
 to journalism, he wrote articles on a variety of sub- 
 jects : model farms, Italian railways, communism, 
 and fi'ee trade in all its bearings. They are all 
 written with a distinct practical object, and the 
 conclusions at which he arrives on questions which 
 were little more than speculative when he took 
 them up, have been almost invariably confirmed
 
 152 CAVOUR. 
 
 by experience. The combined boldness, breadth, 
 and accuracy of his views are seen when, con- 
 templating a dubious future, he exclaims : " The 
 railroads will stretch without interruption from 
 the Alps to Sicily, and will cause to disappear 
 all the obstacles and distances which separate the 
 inhabitants of Italy and hinder them from forming 
 a great and single nation." This passage alone is 
 a sufficient reply to the notion (adopted by M. 
 Guizot) that the unity of Italy was an after- thought 
 borrowed from Mazzini in 1859. From the time 
 when Cavour became a convert to free trade, he 
 steadily maintained that the full, free, uncompro- 
 mising adoption of its principles was the surest 
 road to national wealth and prosperity, and that the 
 resources needed to place Piedmont at the head of 
 the political movement he meditated, could only 
 be acquired by the expansion of its industry. 
 
 Once when he had spoken to this effect in the 
 Political Economy Society at Paris, Leon Faucher 
 went up to him and said: ''These are very fine 
 sentiments, which we proclaim when we knock 
 at the door of power, and which, when the door 
 is thrown open and the threshold passed, we fling 
 out of the window." '' Speak for yourself," sharply 
 retorted Cavour ; " as for me, I give you my word 
 of honour, that, if ever I come to be Minister, I 
 w^ill resign or effect the triumph of my principles." 
 He kept his word, and (what is more) he realised 
 his highest aspirations by keeping it. What en- 
 abled him to bear up against the accumulated 
 difficulties of his position at the turning-point was 
 his finance. 
 
 The articles in which he developed his free-trade 
 views appeared in successive numbers of the " An- 
 thologie," and the first provoked such violent 
 hostility against the writer, that, as Prcdari (the
 
 CAYOUR. 153 
 
 editor) relates, Cavour was on the point of with- 
 drawing the second lest his personal unpopularity 
 should be reflected on the doctrines he wished to 
 propagate. Making all due allowance for the 
 inconsistency of party virulence, it is difficult to 
 reconcile his known character, from the time he 
 began to fix public attention, with an incident 
 (related by Mr. Dicey) of Mr. Cobden's visit to 
 Turin in 1847. On this occasion one of the demo- 
 cratic papers of Turin remarked that the liberal 
 party had been much shocked by the intimacy of 
 the great apostle of free trade with so well-known 
 a reactionary and monopolist as the young Count 
 Cavour. The writer then j)roceeds to state that, 
 when Cobden was seen walking arm in arm with 
 Cavour, an enlightened patriot called out, '' Voila 
 la liberte du commerce garde'e par le monopole ! " 
 and adds, by way of comment, that there was a 
 story afloat (whether true or false the writer will 
 not venture to state), that, during the late dearth, 
 Cavoar had bought up a large quantity of corn, 
 and kept it in store in order to raise the market 
 price of grain. It will be remembered that a 
 distinct charge was brought by Lord Henry Ben- 
 tinck against Sir Eobert Peel of repeahng the 
 Corn Laws with the view of augmenting his own 
 fortune, alleged to be in money or trading capital, 
 to which the ready reply was that the greater part 
 was invested in land. 
 
 " I have taken great pains (writes Cavour to his 
 Swiss friend, Nov. 12, 1847) to organise a moderate 
 liberal party, capable at need of restraining the 
 ultras, by the way not numerous in Piedmont. 
 We are going to bring out a journal directed by 
 Balbo, Santa Eosas, and some others of our 
 friends." This was the " Risorgimento," the 
 first number of which appeared on the 17th of
 
 154 CAYOUR. 
 
 December, 1847. Cavour speedily assumed the 
 editorship or principal direction, and wrote most 
 of the leading articles. Mr. Dicey remarks that 
 he had no particular talent for newspaper writing : 
 that his articles have no brilliancy of style, and 
 that the qualities in which they excel, their close- 
 ness of reasoning and moderation, are not qualities 
 which tell much in the columns of a newspaper. 
 But he was writing for a particular public, with 
 a particular purpose. He was not striving for 
 brilhancy or effect. His aim was to diffuse poHtical 
 knowledge amongst a people who had been syste- 
 matically excluded from it ; to familiarise them 
 with notions of government and principles of 
 liberty, before calling upon them to rise and 
 vindicate their inalienable rights. Tocqueville 
 has laid down : " pour qu'un peuple soit Hbre, il 
 faut le vouloir " (a people, to be free, must will 
 it). Cavour believed, and acted on the belief, 
 that the will is not enough : that a people must 
 qualify themselves for freedom, or thej^ will simply 
 change one form of tyranny for another — a com- 
 Tiiune, a red republic, or a mihtary dictatorship, 
 for a despotism by right divine. 
 
 " Beyond a doubt," remarks M. de la Eive, " the tone of 
 his articles may not be to our taste, and we may prefer the 
 swashing blow of the * Times ' or the glancing arrow-hke 
 stroke of the * Dehats.' But Cavour had to engage very 
 different readers from those who seek an intellectual enjoy- 
 ment in the ' Debats,' or a gratification of their passions 
 in the ' Times ' : or (more correctly speaking), he had not 
 to amuse but to instruct, to enlighten a public hitherto 
 kept in ignorance, desirous of knowing, anxious to compre- 
 hend, sincere, serious. This ungrateful task he fiUed with 
 the capacity and the conscience of a man who seemed 
 specially prepared for it by the soHdity and the diversity 
 of his knowledge. That, re-read in our day, his articles, 
 with a few exceptions, are not attractive, I agree ; but they
 
 CAVOUR. 155 
 
 have contributed not a little to the development of the 
 political spu-it in Piedmont, and they struck the correct 
 note at the time. In truth, the development of the 'political 
 spirit, first in Piedmont, then in Italy, constitutes half of 
 Cavour's work and explains the rest.^' 
 
 This spirit, which had received a strong impulse 
 from the accession of a liberal Pope, Pio Nono, in 
 1846, required rather to be controlled and guided 
 than to be kindled or inflamed. " Before forming 
 Italy," exclaimed Massimo d'Azeglio, " we must 
 form the Italians." The party of movement was 
 divided between the followers of Mazzini, who 
 fondly reverted to the time when Eienzi proclaimed 
 the Eoman republic from the Capitol, and the more 
 moderate patriots who hoped to secure the inde- 
 pendence of Italy through a confederation of 
 princes, with the Pope for its head. Whether the 
 temporal head of such a confederation could remain 
 the spiritual head of Christendom was a secondary 
 consideration, if it occurred to them. The essen- 
 tial point was to shake off the degrading yoke of 
 the foreigner. Then, and long after, the check to 
 impatience constantly in Cavour's mouth was, 
 " Let us do one thing at a time ; let us first get 
 rid of the Austrians, and we shall see — nous 
 verrons.'' 
 
 Princes who had no taste for liberal institutions 
 were ready enough to co-operate in schemes which 
 might end in their own aggrandizement, and 
 Charles Albert had caused medals to be struck 
 with his image and a motto taken from the shield 
 of a remote ancestor, "J'attends mon astre." 
 Emboldened by this and similar indications, Mas- 
 simo d'Azeglio, who had been actively engaged in 
 organising a party of progress, requested an audi- 
 ence, and related all he had been doing : " And 
 now" (he concluded) ''your Majesty will tell me
 
 156 CAVOUR. 
 
 whether you approve or disapprove of what I have 
 done." He paused for a reply, and, according to 
 his preconceived idea of Charles Albert's duplicity, 
 expected an evasive one, instead of which, the 
 King, without a moment's hesitation, fixed his 
 eyes frankly on those of Azegho, and said in a 
 calm resolute tone, " Let those gentlemen know 
 that for the present they must remain quiet ; but 
 when the time comes, let them be certain that my 
 life, the lives of my sons, my arms, my treasures, 
 all shall be freely spent in the Italian cause." 
 
 The royal antecedents were not reassuring, and 
 some steps in the liberal direction, such as the 
 practical relaxation of the laws against the press, 
 failed to restore confidence. Towards the end of 
 1847, there was a popular outburst bordering on 
 insurrection in Genoa, which led to a petition to 
 the King for the expulsion of the Jesuits and the 
 formation of a national guard. The deputies 
 charged with it were instructed to confer with the 
 Kberals of Turin, and a meeting was held for this 
 purpose, at which all shades of liberal opinion were 
 represented. A resolution to support simply and 
 unequivocally the petition of the Genoese was on 
 the point of passing unopposed, when Cavour, 
 hitherto known only and imperfectly as a journalist, 
 rose and vehemently urged the necessity of going 
 further : 
 
 " What is the good of reforms which lead to no con- 
 clusion and terminate in nothing? Let us demand a consti- 
 tution. Since the government can be no longer maintained 
 on the bases that have hitherto supported it, let it replace 
 them by others conformable to the spirit of the time, to the 
 progress of civilisation ; let it replace them before it is too 
 late, before social authority falls into dissolution amid the 
 clamours of the people." 
 
 He was supported by the aristocratic and mon-
 
 CAYOUR. 157 
 
 archical section : the more advanced liberals, taken 
 by surprise, remained quiescent ; and the address 
 as suggested by him was drawn up and presented 
 for adoption at an adjourned meeting, when 
 Valerio, the self-dubbed Caius Gracchus of Pied- 
 mont, moved its rejection on the ground that the 
 demand of a constitution went beyond the purposes 
 for which the assembly was convoked, would throw 
 the specific grievances of the Genoese into the 
 shade, and indispose the King to concession. The 
 real grounds were thus stated by Yalerio in private : 
 
 " What sort of a constitution will be this which we are to 
 demand? Some constitution a Vanglaise with an electoral 
 census, perhaps with a chamber of peers and a complete 
 apparatus of aristocracy. But we know Milord Camillo, 
 the greatest reactionary in the kingdom, the greatest enemy 
 of the revolution, an Anglomane pur sang. Besides, how- 
 ever liberal it might be, a constitution at this time of day 
 would be not onl}^ useless but injurious to us : it would limit 
 our rights, it would check our progress, it would displace 
 the centre of action, it would stifle the aspirations of the 
 people and hamper the march of the revolution." 
 
 These reasons were held sufficient by the demo- 
 crats, with the exception of one of the most 
 eminent, Brofferio, who said it was his rule always 
 to vote for the proposition which went furthest ; 
 and feehng that the addi'ess would lose its force 
 unless carried unanimously, Cavour, after a sj^irited 
 reply, withdrew it, and the meeting separated in 
 confusion without coming to a decision. 
 
 The proceedings were much discussed and 
 variously reported, and Cavour in particular was 
 accused of having held language of a seditious 
 tendency. He accordingly drew up an account of 
 them in concert with the persons principally 
 engaged ; and, the publication in Turin being 
 opposed by the censorship, he caused it to be pub-
 
 158 CAVOUR. 
 
 lished in the Eoman and Tuscan papers. At the 
 same time a copy was sent to the King, with an 
 appropriate and very respectful letter signed by 
 Cavour and his friends. This letter and the 
 accompanying document arrived at their august 
 destination by post, the only medium to which the 
 signataries, not having themselves access to the 
 palace, could have recourse, without compromising 
 some one. The King received the papers, read 
 them, and (it was said) expressed himself fully 
 satisfied . 
 
 In httle more than a month the line taken by 
 Cavour on this occasion was fully justified by 
 events. After a hard struggle with his conscience, 
 fettered (it was said) by a solemn oath not to alter 
 the fundamental laws of his kingdom, Charles 
 Albert summoned his ministers with other persons 
 of distinction to a conference, promising to abide 
 by their decision ; and the next day (Feb. 8, 1848) 
 his intention to grant a constitution was notified 
 in the Gazette. The Statuto, which became the 
 charter of Italy, was promulgated within a fort- 
 night, and a commission was nominated to prepare 
 an electoral law. Cavour was a member of this 
 commission, and it is inferred from the substantial 
 agreement of the main provisions of the law with 
 the contemporaneous articles in the '* Eisorgi- 
 mento " that he was the framer of most of them. 
 
 Moderate men are seldom popular in excited 
 times, and Cavour failed in his first candidature at 
 Turin ; but he was chosen to fill a vacancy created 
 by a double election. Foreign relations were now 
 all important : domestic matters were by common 
 consent laid aside : Italy, already flung into com- 
 motion by the Austrian occupation of Ferrara, was 
 convulsed throughout its whole length and breadth 
 by the French revolution of February. War to
 
 CAVOUR. 159 
 
 the knife against tlie Austrians was the cry which 
 burst forth simultaneously in north and south, and 
 was echoed by the popular voice, from Milan and 
 Venice to Florence and Naples. Sardinia had no 
 option but to hurry into the field; and Cavour, 
 although with an uneasy consciousness that the 
 crisis had been unduly precipitated, felt and said 
 that the time for hesitation and procrastination 
 had gone by. On the 23rd of March he made an 
 impassioned appeal to arms in the " Eisorgi- 
 mento " : 
 
 "We, men of cool minds, accustomed to listen rather to 
 the dictates of reason than to the impulses of the heart, 
 after we have weighed carefully every word we have to 
 utter, are bound in duty to declare the truth. There is 
 but one path open for the nation, the country, and the 
 King — war ! War at once and without delay ! . . . 
 
 " Lombardy is in flames, Milan, Milan is besieged — at 
 all costs we must go to succour her. If we had only five 
 thousand men upon the frontiers, they should march at 
 once to Milan. 
 
 " Woe to us, if, for the sake of increasing our prepara- 
 tions, we came too late. — If, when we were ready to cross 
 the Ticino, we heard that the Queen of Lombardy had 
 fallen ! 
 
 " Wc say again, in our position there is but one policy — 
 not the policy of the Louis Philippes and Guizots, but the 
 pohcy of the Fredericks the Great, the Napoleons, and the 
 Charles Emmanuels — the great policy — the policy of bold 
 counsels." 
 
 On the morning of the day when this Stirling 
 appeal appeared, the Austrians retired fi'om Milan, 
 and a rapid series of successes bade fair for the 
 speedy triumph of the Italian tricolor which 
 Charles Albert had adopted instead of the royal 
 flag of Piedmont. On the evening after the 
 victory of Goito, when the news of the capitula- 
 tion of Peschiera reached the camp, the officers
 
 160 CAVOUR. 
 
 crowded round Charles Albert and hailed him 
 King of Italy. But at the first reverse, or rather 
 at the first pause, the half-hearted champions of 
 liberty and independence feU off. Abandoned or 
 betrayed by the Pope, the King of Naples, and 
 the Grand Dukes, the Sardinian army was left 
 unsupported to encounter Kadetzky, who had 
 fallen back upon the Quadrilateral to concentrate 
 his forces, Uke a Hon gathering himself together 
 for a spring. " Austria is in your camp," ^ was 
 the call or cry that reached him from Vienna, and 
 he was not slow in triumphantly responding to it 
 by the victory of Custozza, which might have 
 been followed up by the occupation of Turin, had 
 it not been deemed politic to close the campaign 
 by an armistice. In the alarming interval between 
 the defeat and the armistice, Cavour volunteered 
 to serve in the ranks ; and so soon as the imme- 
 diate danger was averted he set himself by voice 
 and pen to prevent the aggravation or recurrence 
 of the catastrophe. 
 
 To superficial observers and heated minds the 
 cessation of hostilities was a cowardly abandon- 
 ment of the cause. Austria was still limited to 
 the camp. The yoke was not yet reimposed on 
 the Venetians or Milanese, and the revolutionary 
 spirit was still rife and uppermost in Florence, 
 Eome, and Palermo. The Sardinian armj^, al- 
 though beaten, was not disheartened, and Charles 
 Albert, with his gallant sons, was eager for a 
 renewal of the conflict, in the hope of retrieving 
 the disaster of Custozza. Hopes were also enter- 
 tained of aid from England or France. These 
 
 ^ Gliickauf, mein Feldherr, fiihre den Streich, 
 Nicht bloss um des Tvuhmes Schimmer ; 
 In deinem Lager ist Oesterreich, 
 
 Wir andern sind einzelne Triimmer. — Orillparzer.
 
 CAVOUE. 161 
 
 Cavour felt to be delusive ; and he saw nothing 
 but ruin in the renewal of hostilities, until Sar- 
 dinia had recruited her army, augmented her 
 resources, and made sure of an ally stronger and 
 more trustworthy than could be discovered mthin 
 the confines of the Italian peninsula. His main 
 object, therefore, during the remainder of the un- 
 fortunate year of 1848 and the first months of 
 1849, was to stem the war current, and to keep 
 a vigilant guard on the Constitution or Statuto, 
 which each of the extreme parties, the reactionary 
 and the revolutionary, was equally anxious to 
 sweep away. He had a hard task ; and a man 
 of less moral courage would have broken down 
 under the weight of clamour and calumny which 
 he provoked and confronted. 
 
 In framing the electoral law he had provided for 
 the admission of the public to the tribunes, " be- 
 cause there is no popular education so valuable to 
 a h'ee people as that of listening to the debates of 
 its assembly." We should say " as that of reading 
 them " ; for only an insignificant number could 
 ever form part of the audience ; and unless the 
 strictest order is enforced, as in the strangers' 
 galleries in the British parliament, the most un- 
 seemly interruptions, fatal to legislatorial dignity 
 and authority, may occur. The most striking 
 examples have been supplied by France, but it 
 will be sufficient to refer to the treatment expe- 
 rienced by Cavour from the public whom he pro- 
 posed to educate in this fashion. He rose to 
 oppose a tax unduly pressing upon property : 
 
 " This law," he said, " is contrary to the principles of 
 the Statuto {cries in the galleries). . . . These noises will 
 have no effect upon me, and what I beHeve to he the truth 
 I will say in spite of hisses and tumult {redoubled ci-ies in 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 162 CAVOUR. 
 
 the galleries). . . . Those who mterriipt me do not insult 
 me personally, but the Chamber, and the insult they level 
 at me is shared ^Yith all my colleagues." 
 
 On another occasion, when the Government was 
 resisting an immediate declaration of war against 
 Austria, the opposition speakers were vociferously 
 applauded, whilst the ministerialists were all hut 
 hooted down from the galleries. He rose and 
 reproached the president with not daring to cause 
 the dignity of the Chamher to be respected, and, 
 on a renewal of the tumult at this aj^peal, he 
 added that there was no liberty of speech when 
 only one-sided applauses were allowed. Then the 
 hisses and cries became more violent than ever. 
 In a debate provoked by Brofferio, who had 
 violently attacked the national guard of Turin, 
 Cavour, interrupted as usual, declared that he 
 would not proceed until the president, faithful 
 to his duty, caused the galleries to be cleared. 
 The day after, November 16, 1848, he published 
 an article in his newspaper entitled '' Revolu- 
 tionary Means," especially levelled at those who 
 were calling for extreme measures, as if violent 
 spasmodic action could supply the want of 
 strength. 
 
 " What is it," said he, " which has always wrecked the 
 finest and justest of revolutions ? — The mania for revolu- 
 tionary means ; the men who have attempted to emancipate 
 themselves from ordinary laws ; . . . the French Con- 
 stituent Assembly creating the assignats in contempt of 
 nature and economic laws ; — revolutionary means, productive 
 of discredit and of ruin ! The Convention attemj^ting to 
 smother in blood the resistance to its ambitious projects ; 
 — revolutionary means, producing the Directory, the Con- 
 snlate, and the Empire ; Napoleon bending all to his 
 caprice, imagining that one can with a like facility conquer 
 at the Bridge of Lodi and wipe out a law of nature ; — 
 
 I
 
 CAVOUR. 163 
 
 revolutionary means, leading to Waterloo and St. Helena ! 
 The sectarians of June striving to impose the Democratic 
 and social republic by fire and sword ; revolutionary means, 
 producing the siege of Paris and reaction everywhere. 
 ' Wait but a little longer,' he added, ' and you will see the 
 last consequence of your revolutionary means — Louis 
 Napoleon on the Throne ! ' " 
 
 He loyally supported one short-lived ministry 
 after another, making it only a condition that 
 they should maintain p)eace and the Constitution. 
 *' Cavour," said Gioberti, '' laboured with incredible 
 ardour to confer a reputation of ability on men of 
 notorious incapacity." When his own (the Gio- 
 berti) ministry gave way before the war cry, he 
 hurried the evening after his resignation to the 
 office of the " Risorgimento " and told Cavour 
 whom he found there, " I knew full well that I 
 could reckon upon you." Rattazzi, the next 
 premier, who had been active in stimulating the 
 popular ardour, was unable to draw back when 
 the responsibility of yielding to it was thrown 
 upon him. The war recommenced on the 13th 
 of March, and ended with the battle of Novara 
 on the 23rd, when Providence declared in favour 
 of the gros hataillons. When all was lost, the 
 King, who had exposed his life with the courage 
 of despair, called his generals round him and 
 said : 
 
 " I have sacrificed myself for the cause of Italy. I have 
 risked my own life, the lives of my children, and my throne, 
 and I have failed. Since I have not succeeded in finding 
 death, I must accomplish one last sacrifice for my country. 
 I resign the crown, and abdicate in favour of my son." 
 
 That son was Victor Emmanuel, the Be Galan- 
 tuomo, who by almost the first words he uttered as 
 a sovereign proved himself worthy of the name.
 
 164 CAVOUR. 
 
 Pointing his sword towards the Austrian camp, he 
 exclaimed : ^^Fer Dio, r Italia sarci.''^ The vow, so 
 nobly kept, sounded like a vainglorious boast when 
 he spoke it. His little kingdom was brought to 
 the verge of ruin and bankruptcy by the conditions 
 of peace, including an indemnity of eighty millions 
 of francs and the occupation of a part of Alessandria 
 and other Piedmontese territory till it was paid. 
 Yet so far was the spirit of the people from being 
 broken, that it required two dissolutions to procure 
 a parliamentary sanction of the terms. There are 
 two sayings attributed to Cavour about this time 
 which we shall find it difficult to reconcile, unless 
 we allow for the manner in which moods of mind 
 alternate. The one was, that the terrible sacrifices 
 entailed by the war were not too dear a price for 
 the Italian tricolor in exchange for the flag of 
 Savoy. The other referred to the days following 
 close on Novara : "We existed, and every day's 
 existence was a gain." Was he thinking of the 
 mot attributed to Sieyes, who, on being asked what 
 he did during the Eeign of Terror, made answer, 
 " (Tai vecu (I lived) " ? 
 
 Cavour was not in parliament during the greater 
 part of 1849. He was defeated at the general 
 election of January by a candidate who was recom- 
 mended by the democratic organ (cited by Mr. 
 Dicey) in these words : 
 
 *' The name of Pan soya will be much more welcome to 
 the electors than that of the political economist who de- 
 fended the diplomatic mediation and the Eevel loan. The 
 bugbear of communism, which Count Cavom- flutters con- 
 stantly before our eyes, causes him to be thought a wonder- 
 ful economist ; but, in truth, his politico-economical science 
 cannot be very profound, as he identifies communism and 
 democracy." 
 
 The name of Pansoya has been redeemed fi-om
 
 CAVOUR. 165 
 
 obscurity and oblivion by tliis candidature. The 
 meciim certasse lias procured him an unenviable 
 immortality. Poj^ular prejudice had begun to 
 sober down before the conclusion of the year ; a 
 strong reaction in favour of moderate counsels had 
 set in ; and at the third election Cavour regained 
 the seat which he held till his death. 
 
 His reputation was now established, and he 
 assumed what seemed his natural place as the leader 
 of a party. Bat it was more as a statesman than as 
 an orator or debater, more by matter than manner, 
 that he influenced and impressed. His speaking, 
 like his writing, was plain, argumentative, and to 
 the purpose : he had no formed style, no graces 
 or tricks of elocution, if we except his mode of 
 utilising a cough to conceal a temporary hesitation 
 or embarrassment. The French translator of his 
 speeches goes the length of saying that "his elocu- 
 tion in Italian was difficult, broken, painful to listen 
 to." We learn fi'om the same aathority that in 
 the way of preparation he did no more than think 
 over the subject and arrange his ideas, trusting 
 to the inspu'ation of the moment for the words. 
 "I should not," he told this gentleman, "be so 
 sure of myself if I wrote out my sj)eeches. He 
 was never taken unawares or put out. Indeed his 
 most effective bursts and flashes (like Prince Bis- 
 marck's) were struck out by collision. Indignation 
 makes telling retorts and happy hits as well as 
 verses ; and when roused and struggling for words, 
 he may be fancied vowing like Sheridan : " I have 
 it in me, and, by G — d, it shall come out." It 
 was said of his speeches, by a happy play of words, 
 that they were a " rotte sempre, interrotte mai.^' 
 
 He was referring to English institutions in terms 
 of high commendation when a laugh arose on the 
 opposite benches. " That laugh," he remarked
 
 166 CAVOUR. 
 
 parenthetically, '' can only proceed from some one 
 whose name has never reached England." 
 
 He was armed at all points by his multifarious 
 pursuits. Thus, in reply to an agricultural member 
 complaining of taxation : 
 
 " The honourable member who has just spoken on 
 behalf of the Monferrat agriculturists must be himself a 
 skilful cultivator, and doubtless he makes thirty-one 
 hectolitres of wine per hectare. The means of commu- 
 nication between Nice (in Monferrat) and Alessandria give 
 him a profit of at least If. 50c. per hectolitre, which 
 r€23resents 45f. per hectare. I beg him to inform us 
 whether he pays 45f. per hectare in taxes." ' 
 
 Once when Brofferio called him an " Ultra- 
 Moderate " he rephed: 
 
 " In truth I have found the words used by the honourable 
 gentleman rather too indulgent than severe, and I feel due 
 gratitude for the exquisite courtesy which distinguishes 
 him in calling me only an * Ultra-Moderate,' and not 
 having employed the word ' Retrograde,' or the more 
 vulgar but more expressive ' Codino.' " 
 
 The party of which Cavour was virtually the 
 chief when he re-entered the chamber, was the 
 right centre or liberal-conservative. The peace 
 was not definitively concluded till January, 1850, 
 and he rightly felt that internal changes must 
 be postponed whilst the very existence of the 
 country as an independent nation was at stake. 
 But in the debate on the law for the abolition of 
 ecclesiastical jurisdictions and the right of asylum, 
 he announced that his support of even a patriot 
 ministry, like Azeglio's, must depend upon its 
 progressive tendencies. The question asked by 
 Madame Marcet was now repeated at Turin, " Why 
 is he not a member of the Government ? " The 
 King, on the suggestion being hazarded, remarked :
 
 CAVOUR. 167 
 
 "Wait a bit ; we are not yet ripe for Cavour." 
 Azeglio, the soul of honour, generosity and en- 
 lightened patriotism, would rather have retained 
 him a little longer as a supporter, being somewhat 
 in awe of him as a colleague. But his place was 
 marked out, and the course of events was irregular 
 and uncertain till he was called to it. Prince 
 Bismarck, the year before his own accession to 
 power, talked about setting the carpenter to work 
 on his coffin ; and Cavour, a few months before he 
 joined the Government, seized with a similar fit of 
 despondency, wrote thus to M. do la Eive pere : 
 "It is probable that my part will soon be played 
 out. In such a time as ours, a politician is rapidly 
 used up : I am half used up already : I shall be 
 so wholly before long." 
 
 There's a divinity that shapes our ends. In 
 the following August, M. Santa Eosas, a member 
 of the Cabinet, was taken dangerously ill and 
 wished to receive the sacrament, which was refused 
 by the express command of the Archbishop of 
 Tmin, unless the dying man would solemnly retract 
 and disavow the part he had taken in the law for 
 the abolition of the ecclesiastical tribunals. He 
 held out : a parley ensued : priests were seen 
 hurrying backwards and forwards between the 
 death-bed and the archiepiscopal palace : the 
 struggle was still pending, watched with breathless 
 interest by the crowd collected round the house, 
 when a murmur suddenly arose, " He is dead ; he 
 has not retracted ; he has died unabsolved." Then 
 the popular indignation found vent in curses loud 
 and deep against the clergy. So strong and wide- 
 spread was the feeling, that both Chamber and 
 ministers were obliged to yield to it ; and, as the 
 most effective protest against the Archbishop, the 
 popular call was that Santa Eosas should be sue-
 
 168 CAT OUR. 
 
 ceeded by Cavour, the principal aiitlior of the anti- 
 clerical law and the avowed enemy of priestly 
 domination. When his nomination to the vacated 
 office — Minister of Agriculture and Commerce — 
 was proposed in council to the King: " I have no 
 objection," remarked his Majesty, *'but rest as- 
 sured he will end by taking all your j)ortefeuiUes to 
 himself." Eventually he did take most of them, 
 and (what is more) he took them with the general 
 approval and conviction that they were best in his 
 hands. 
 
 Very shortly after his first acceptance of office, 
 the Ministry of Finance fell vacant by the retire- 
 ment of a colleague, and was handed over to him 
 as supplementary to the one he already held. The 
 two combined gave him the entire control of the 
 commercial and industrial policy, and he forthwith 
 proceeded to act up to his pledgie of carrying 
 out his long avowed principles. By the removal 
 of restrictions, by public works, by increased means 
 of communication, and by commercial treaties, he 
 added largely to the resources of the country ; 
 but he added also to its liabilities, and to ap- 
 preciate his system we must consider it in con- 
 nection with his political aims, and not merely as 
 a system of finance. The key to it will be found 
 in his defence of a subvention to a Transatlantic 
 Hne of steamers : 
 
 " It must not be forgotten that we have adopted a policy 
 of action — a policy of jn-ogress. In order to re-establish 
 the equilibrium of our finances, we have deliberately re- 
 solved not to restrict our expenditure and by so doing 
 renounce every idea of improvement and every great 
 enterprise ; not to endeavour by every species of economy 
 to bring our expenditure within our income; but rather 
 to effect our end by promoting all works of public utility, 
 by developing the elements of progress which our State
 
 CAVOL'R. 169 
 
 possesses, and by stimulating, in every portion of our 
 country, all the industrial and economical activity of which 
 it is found capable." 
 
 So long as he kept strictly within Ms own pro- 
 vince, or provinces, no difficulty occurred with his 
 colleagues or his chief, but questions inevitably 
 arose on which his spirit of enterprise and hberality 
 of opinion disturbed and startled them. He was 
 for constantly advancing, whilst a section of them, 
 including Azeglio, were for remaining stationary 
 or drawing back. In a debate on the press, 
 Colonel Menabrea,^ a distinguished member of 
 the Eight, called attention to the threatened 
 divergence : 
 
 " The Minister of Finance wants to set sail in the 
 direction of a new parliamentary coast, and land on 
 another shore. He has a right to act as he pleases, but 
 I shall not go with him." 
 
 Cavour replied : 
 
 "It is not true that the ministry has directed its helm 
 towards other shores. It has made no movement of the 
 sort, but wishes to go in the direction of the prow instead 
 of in the direction of the stern." 
 
 This was going farther than he was warranted 
 in going as the organ of the ministry ; and when, 
 without consulting the rest, he supported the 
 candidature of Eattazzi, the democratic leader, for 
 the Presidency of the Chamber, AzegUo broke up 
 his Cabinet and formed a new one, leaving out 
 Cavour : 
 
 " It was, in my opinion (Cavour wrote to a friend), not 
 only useful but indispensable that a Lil)eral party should 
 be firmly constituted. . . . After having, at first, been 
 convinced of such a necessity, d' Azeglio has not accepted 
 
 ' General Count Menabrea, now Italian ambassador at St. James's.
 
 J 70 CAVOUR. 
 
 all the consequences, and lie provoked a crisis which could 
 only result in my retirement, or his removal from power. 
 External policy required that I should be the sacrifice. 
 I think d'Azeglio would willingly have abdicated, but I did 
 my utmost to dissuade him ; he stayed, and we have not 
 ceased to be friends, privately and politically. It will next 
 be his turn to retire, and then we can constitute an openly 
 Liberal Cabinet. In the meantime I take advantage of 
 my new liberty for a journey to France and England. ..." 
 
 On his return to Turin, in September 1852, he 
 stood in much the same relation to Azeglio's 
 Government in which Pitt stood to Addington's in 
 1803, or in which Mr. Gladstone would stand 
 towards any Liberal Government that should be 
 formed without him. Azeglio, whose finest quali- 
 ties were marred by infirmity of purpose, to whom 
 power was becoming more a fatigue than a grati- 
 fication, resigned, and thus justified his re- 
 sie^nation : 
 
 'G' 
 
 " I had accepted the helm at a time when it was pointed 
 out to me that, better than any other man, I could direct 
 it for the country's best advantage. . . . Now that the 
 ship has been refitted, let the winds fill her sails. I sur- 
 render my quarterdeck to another ! He (Cavour), w^hom 
 you know, is possessed of a diabolical activity, fitted for 
 the work both in mind and body; and it gives him so mucli 
 pleasure ! " 
 
 It gave him pleasure, as it gives every living 
 thing pleasure to do what it has the consciousness 
 of doing well ; from the orator with a rapt senate 
 hanging on his accents, to the high-bred racer 
 putting forth its speed. It was the proud boast of 
 Chatham: " I know that I can save the country, 
 and I know that no one else can." Cavour might 
 have said : " I know that I can make the country 
 what I wish her to be, and I know that no one
 
 CAVOUR. 171 
 
 else can." His programme was stated in few 
 words : 
 
 " Piedmont must begin by raising herself, by re-estab- 
 lishing in Europe as well as in Italy a position and a 
 credit equal to her ambition. Hence there must be 
 a policy unswerving in its aim, but flexible and various as 
 to the means employed, embracing the exchequer, military 
 reorganisation, diplomacy, and religious affairs." 
 
 There was no lack of able, incorrupt, high- 
 minded men in Piedmont, yet no complaint was 
 heard when, to carry out this programme, he 
 eventually assumed the personal administration 
 of six departments, besides the presidency of the 
 council : agriculture and commerce, finance, home 
 affairs, foreign affairs, marine, and war. At one 
 time or another he occupied every department 
 except justice. There came a period when the 
 Turinese were wont and content to say, ^' We have 
 a Government, a Chamber, a Constitution : the 
 name for all of it is Cavour." A tradesman in the 
 Via del Po was serving a lady customer (the Coun- 
 tess Stackelberg), when he suddenly hurried out 
 into the Colonnade, and apologised on his return 
 by saying : "Pray excuse me, but I caught sight 
 of Count Cavour, and I wanted to see how matters 
 are progressing. He looked cheerful and smiling, 
 so things must be going on all right ; I feel com- 
 fortable now." 
 
 The habit of looking up to him was not confined 
 to Turin. M. Mazade states that the brilliant and 
 accomplished Florentine, Salvagnoli, used to say : 
 " After a conversation with that man, T breathe 
 more fi'eely : my mind dilates." 
 
 In the height of his supremacy, when he was 
 sure of carrying the King aloug with him, he never 
 aimed, like Prince Bismarck, at a dictatorship.
 
 172 civouR. 
 
 Instead of overriding parliaments, lie ruled by and 
 tlirongh them. When it was suggested that the 
 mitating opposition he encountered might be got 
 rid of by his becoming the minister of an absolute 
 government, he replied : 
 
 "You forget that under an absolute government I neither 
 would nor could have been minister at all. . . . An ab- 
 solute minister commands ; a constitutional minister must 
 persuade : and I mean to persuade the majority that I am 
 in the right. Believe me, the most inferior chamber of 
 representatives is preferable to the most brilliant imperial 
 anteroom." 
 
 Manzoni said of him that he was every inch a 
 statesman, "with all a statesman's prudence and 
 even imprudence." A striking example of what was 
 set down as imprudence, and looked very like it at 
 starting, was his engaging in the Crimean War at 
 a time when Sardinia, already overburthened, was 
 only just beginning to raise her head. It was to 
 enable her to raise her head proudly and confront 
 Austria in European congresses, that he resolved 
 upon the enterprise. It broke upon him by 
 degrees. In the spring of 1854 he was at his 
 niece's (the Countess Alfieri) with Count Lisio, 
 when she asked, " Why should we not send ten 
 thousand men to the Crimea ? " *' It would be 
 excellent poHcy," added Count Lisio. Cavour 
 started ; a passing smile lighted up his counte- 
 nance ; then he said with a sigh : " Ah, if every- 
 body had your courage, what you propose would 
 be already done." Some months later, in Novem- 
 ber, when he was again with the same persons in 
 the same salon, standing pensive and silent before 
 the chimney, " Well, uncle," asked the Countess, 
 "are we to start for the Crimea?" "Who 
 knows ! " was the reply. " England is pressing 
 me to conclude a treaty which would give our
 
 CAVOUR. 173 
 
 troops an opportunity of wiping out the defeat of 
 Novara. Only, what would you have ? All my 
 Cabinet are hostile to this project. Eattazzi him- 
 self, and even my excellent friend La Marmora, 
 talk of resigning. But the King is with me, and 
 between us two we shall carry it." ^ 
 
 His situation was strikingly analogous to that 
 of Prince Bismarck in 1866, on the eve of the 
 war with Austria, but he had the Chamber as well 
 as the Cabinet to bring over to his views, and mere 
 strength of volition was not enough, as in the 
 case of the German Chancellor. The opposition 
 was formidable, for the objections were patent and 
 palpable, whilst the promised advantages were con- 
 tingent and remote. " I am told," argued Farina, 
 " that our reward will not be a material one, but 
 that we shall gain glory, pohtical consideration, the 
 esteem of other powers, and moral preponderance. 
 My answer is, that by no possibility can we gain 
 any of these things from the war." Cavour rephed 
 that they would gain all of these things, and that, 
 if they were left out of the European combination, 
 Piedmont would fall back into insignificance, and 
 Italy remain (what Metternich called her) a geo- 
 graphical expression. The treaty was ratified by a 
 majority of ninety-five to sixty-four. How it was 
 received by politicians far-sighted enough to see its 
 tendencies may be collected from the mot assigned 
 by M. Mazade to Count von Usedom : " C'est un 
 coiq:) de jnstolet tire a bout j^ortant aux oreilles de 
 VAutricliey 
 
 The Sardinian army, 15,000 strong, under La 
 Marmora, was despatched in April, but soon after 
 their arrival they suffered severely fi'om cholera, 
 and month after month passed away without a 
 gleam of glory. The spirit that animated them 
 
 ^ De la Kivc, p. 334.
 
 174 CAVOUR. 
 
 throughout is iUustrated by the story of the young 
 officer who told the soldiers, struggling with mud 
 in the trenches, '' Never mind, it is with this mud 
 that Italy is to be made." Cavour was anxious, 
 and had his moments of despondency. In a con- 
 versation one Sunday under the trees at Santena 
 with Sir James Hudson, Eattazzi, and others, he 
 gave vent to his pent-up thoughts : "I knew, when 
 I advised the King and the country to venture 
 upon this great enterprise, I was sure that we should 
 meet with many heavy obstacles, and be sorely 
 tried ; but this battle with disease fills me with 
 alarm ; it is an evil complication." 
 
 It was aggravated by troubles nearer home. "Ah, 
 General," was the King's farewell speech to La 
 Marmora, " happy you ! You go to fight soldiers ; 
 I remain to fight monks and nuns." Whilst the 
 result of the Crimean enterprise was in suspense, 
 a fierce conflict was raging in the Chamber and 
 the jDress between the Government and the Church. 
 What was called the Eattazzi law had been brought 
 forward for equalising the incomes of the clergy 
 and the suppression of a certain number of con- 
 vents. The measure, moderate in itself, was 
 vehemently oj)posed as an inroad on consecrated 
 ground. In the height of the discussion, the 
 Queen-mother died, adjuring Victor Emmanuel 
 not to pass the wicked, godless law. Her death 
 was followed in rapid succession by that of the 
 King's wife, Queen Adelaide, and that of his 
 brother, the Duke of Genoa. The clerical party 
 saw their advantage, and used it without mercy or 
 compunction : 
 
 "'They tell me,' said the King, in a voice broken by 
 sobs, "that God has struck me with a judgment, and has 
 torn from me my mother, my wife, and my brother, be- 
 cause I consented to those laws, and they threaten me with
 
 CAVOUR. 175 
 
 greater punishments. Bat do they not know,' he added, 
 ' that a sovereign who wishes to secure his own hap^uness 
 in the other world ought to labour for the happiness of his 
 people on this earth ? ' " 
 
 An epidemic was then raging in Turin, and, 
 mindful of wliat had befallen Santa Kosas, Cavour 
 sent for Fra Giacomo, the parish priest who acted 
 as the confidential distributor of his charities. To- 
 wards the conclusion of the interview, Eattazzi 
 came in, to whom, after having courteously ac- 
 companied the priest to the door, Cavour quietly 
 said: ''We have arranged everything in case any 
 misfortune should befall me." His fi'ame of mind 
 was not unlike that of Prince Bismarck mur- 
 muring (June 15, 1866) " The Almighty God is 
 capricious." The battle of the Tchernaya (August 
 16, 1855) was the Sardinian Sadowa. The national 
 vanity was gratified by the share of glory awarded 
 to Marmora and his gallant troops by their French 
 feUow-combatants, who are not prone to be over- 
 generous in such matters ; and no doubt was any 
 longer raised in any quarter as to the sound poHcy 
 and brilhant conception of an expedition, which 
 would have been condemned as wild, des23erate, and 
 harebrained had it failed. 
 
 Towards the end of 1855 and the beginning of 
 1856, the King paid visits to London and Paris, 
 accompanied by Cavour, at whose request Mas- 
 simo d'Azeglio made one of the suite. " His 
 presence," said Cavour, "is necessary to prove to 
 Europe tl:mt we are not infected with the revo- 
 hitionary mania." The name of the author of 
 " Ettore Fieramosca " was widely known through 
 his works as well as by his social and political 
 distinction, and he attracted more attention than 
 Cavour, in whom the man of the future was not 
 yet discernible to British eyes. The French were
 
 176 CAVOUR. 
 
 more qnick-siglited, and it was to him personally 
 that Louis Napoleon addressed the pointed and 
 pregnant query: "What can be done for Italy?" 
 The reply was given at the congress, which 
 Cavour reluctantly attended, expecting little or 
 nothing from it, and objecting: "What is the 
 good of my going, to be treated like a child ? " 
 
 Although he had used his time well and won 
 golden opinions from the plenipotentiaries, the 
 peace was signed (March 30, 1856) and the formal 
 business was well-nigh concluded without anything 
 being done for Italy, when Count Walewsld, on 
 a hint from the Emperor, proposed an interchange 
 of ideas on several subjects " requiring to be settled 
 in the interests of European peace and order " ; 
 particularising as most urgent the evils resulting 
 from foreign intrusion and internal misgovernment 
 in Italy. Count Buol, the Austrian plenipotentiary, 
 denied the competency of congress to discuss these 
 subjects, but Lord Clarendon warmly supported 
 his French colleague by dwelling upon th-e mis- 
 government of Naples and the Papal States ; and 
 then Cavour rose to declare that Austria was 
 the main cause of the state of things they all 
 agreed in deprecating, the arch-enemy of Italian 
 independence, the permanent danger to the only 
 free nation m Italy, the nation he had the honour 
 to represent. This fearless denunciation (April 6, 
 1856) was followed up by a protocol addi-essed to 
 France and England, in which he plainly declared 
 that the condition of Piedmont was becoming 
 insupportable, and that, if nothing were done, 
 she would be driven to the alternative of sub- 
 mitting, like Lombardy and Venice, to the Austrian 
 yoke or of resorting to arms. 
 
 Nothing came of this protocol at the time. 
 There was no material change of situation, except
 
 CAVOUR. 177 
 
 that Sardinia and Austria were now openly opposed, 
 as the good and evil genius of Italy. Another 
 visit to England, undertaken at the suggestion 
 of the French emperor to sound Lord Palmerston, 
 only served to convince Cavour that no effective 
 co-operation — hardly what is called moral support 
 — was to be expected from that quarter; and 
 when he had to report progress to the Piedmontese 
 parhament and people, the sense of their rising 
 importance, the assurance that they were called 
 upon to play a noble part in history, were all he 
 had to offer them in return for the sacrifices they 
 had already made, and the still greater sacrifices 
 his policy threatened to impose upon them. The 
 alternative he had laid before the congress was 
 no imaginary one : the choice lay between humili- 
 ating submission and war ; and an indefinite post- 
 ponement of the crisis, resembling an armed truce, 
 might prove to an overburthened State little less 
 ruinous than defeat. But to fling down the gaunt- 
 let to such an antagonist without an ally was 
 to provoke a renewal of disaster, and he left no 
 stone unturned to bring about an embroilment 
 which should engage one of the greater States 
 actively on his side. The adroitness he displayed 
 in concihating opinion and attracting sympathy 
 drew a sigh of admiring regret from Metternich : 
 "Diplomacy is dying out ; there is only one diplo- 
 matist left in Europe, and he, unfortunately, is 
 against us : I mean Count Cavour." 
 
 He attracted more admiration than sympathy in 
 France. 
 
 " Guizot asked me for political news. 
 
 " Senior. — I know none, and I have given up con- 
 jecturing. 
 
 " Beaumont. — No one has any policy ; every one Hves au 
 jour le jour. 
 
 VOL. I. H 
 
 k
 
 178 CAVOUR. 
 
 ** Guizot. — Except Cavour. I honour him as the only 
 man living who has an object, and pursues it straight- 
 forwardly through every danger and every difficulty. 
 I believe his object to be an unattainable one, and, indeed, 
 a bad one if it could be attained. Italy ought not to 
 consist of less, at the very least, than four kingdoms — 
 Piedmont with Lombardy, Parma and Modena, the Pope- 
 dom, Tuscany and Naples. Even if France be weak 
 enough to allow this new composite kingdom to be formed, 
 it will tumble to pieces from the mutual repulsion of its 
 elements. But when I think only of the skill and boldness 
 of his means, I am carried away by my admiration. 
 
 " Beaumont. — So am I. He will ruin his country with 
 consummate ability." ^ 
 
 His diplomacy in one respect resembled Prince 
 Bismarck's. Once when the Prussian envoy at 
 Turin, Count Brassier de St. Simon, astonished 
 at Cavour's freedom of speech, was searching for 
 some hidden meaning in his words, Cavour replied 
 quickly : " Do not deceive yourself. I say only 
 what I think. As for the habit attributed to diplo- 
 matists of disguising their thoughts, it is one of 
 which I never avail myself." He used often to 
 say laughingly to his friends : " Now I have found 
 out the art of deceiving diplomatists ; I speak the 
 truth, and I am certain they will not believe me." 
 He was the exact reverse of Metternich, of whom 
 it was said: "II ment toujours et ne trompe 
 jamais." This is confirmed by M. de la Eive : 
 
 " It was always one of the traits of Cavour to speak 
 with a freedom which had nothing diplomatic about it. 
 Far from being one of those who weigh words and measm*e 
 syllables, Cavour never, I believe, gave a thought to the 
 consequences of a phrase uttered ha a moment of gaiety, 
 discouragement, or confidence." 
 
 Yet those about him were wont to infer from his 
 
 * "Conversations with Distinguished Persons during the Second Empire, 
 from 1860 to 1863." By the late William Nassau Senior, etc., etc. 
 Edited by his daughter, M. C. M. Simpson, vol. i. p. 199.
 
 I 
 
 CAVOUR. 179 
 
 manner whether matters were going well or ill, in 
 accordance with or contrary to his wish. M. de la 
 Eive relates that, calhng on him one day at Turin 
 when a congress was spoken of, he found his valet- 
 de-chamhre in the anteroom reading the news- 
 papers. '' WeU," I said, " we are to have peace." 
 "Peace!" he replied. "Ah, as for that, no: 
 the gazettes don't know what they are writing 
 about. M. le Comte is too well satisfied." He 
 had Lord Melbourne's habit of rubbing his hands 
 together when he was pleased. 
 
 Although he foretold the war soon after the 
 Congress of 1856, he had no direct assurance of 
 its feasibility till after the arrangement with the 
 French emperor at Plombieres in July, 1858. But 
 even this, followed by the famous New Year's 
 allocution to Baron Hiibner, and the marriage of 
 Prince Napoleon with the Princess Clotilde, left 
 open a trying period of suspense.^ Sardinia was 
 thoroughly committed when (on the 18th of April, 
 1859) a telegram arrived from Paris : " Accept the 
 
 ^ We have been favoured with the following interesting Memorandum 
 by Lord Odo Russell, now British ambassador at Berlin : 
 
 " When I was passing through Turin on my way to Rome, in 
 December 1858, Cavour said to me that I might look forward to an 
 interesting winter, as he was about to reopen the Italian question and 
 free Italy from the Austrian yoke. On my observing that Austria had 
 but to play a waiting game to exhaust the already heavily taxed military 
 resources of Piedmont, and that a declaration of war by Piedmont would 
 enlist the sympathies of Europe in favour of Austria rather than of 
 Italy, he replied that he fully agreed with me ; but tliat if on the con- 
 trary Austria declared war against Piedmont, then public opinion would 
 side with Italy and support the cause of the weak and oppressed against 
 the strong. On my saying that Austria was scarcely capable of com- 
 mitting so egregious a mistake, Cavour replied, 'But I shall /orce her ^io 
 declare war against us.' 
 
 " I confess I felt incredulous, but asked when he expected to accom- 
 plish so great a wonder of diplomacy? 'About the first week in May/ 
 was his reply. 
 
 "On leaving Cavour I took a note of our conversation. Great was the 
 surprise of Europe when Austria declared war against Piedmont a few 
 days before the time he had specified,"
 
 180 CAVOUR. 
 
 preliminary conditions of the congress, and reply- 
 by telegraph." These conditions included dis- 
 armament, the abandonment of all schemes of 
 ambition and aggrandizement, the falhng back on 
 all points, immediate humiliation, prospective ruin. 
 After mastering the first impulse, which partook 
 of defiance and despair, he despatched the required 
 acceptance, and gave up everything for lost. He 
 was saved by the imprudence of his adversary, who 
 suddenly became the aggressor, after the fullest 
 warning that whoever struck the first blow would 
 be declared by the common voice of Europe in 
 the wrong. "Four days" (M. de la Eive says 
 forty-eight hours) " after the despatch of his reply 
 two officers in white uniform passed through the 
 streets of Turin. It was the ultimatum of Austria 
 which arrived. The war, for Cavour, was triumph 
 and repose. It consecrated his policy and quieted 
 his mind." The ultimatum was a peremptory 
 summons to disarm, giving three days for the 
 reply. At the expiration of the three days, to 
 a minute, he delivered the reply to Baron Killers- 
 perg, and courteously took leave of him, with a 
 hope that they should meet under more favourable 
 auspices. Then, turning to some friends who were 
 waiting for him, he exclaimed, rubbing his hands : 
 "It is done: alea jacta est: we have made some 
 historv, and now to dinner." 
 
 The vacillation of the French emperor was 
 natural and intelligible. The war was unpopular 
 in France : his confidential advisers were opposed 
 to it, and his motives in undertaking it were purely 
 personal, if we except a certain amount of sympathy 
 for a cause to which he had sworn allegiance in 
 his youth. The Prince Regent of Prussia, now 
 the German Emperor, wrote thus to the Prince 
 Consort in February 1859 : 
 
 I
 
 CAVOUR. 181 
 
 " The necessity for this decisive blow (war) I always 
 expected would arise when he (Louis Napoleon) should see 
 no other means of keeping himself on the throne. I cannot 
 see that this is the case at the present moment. Something 
 else must therefore be the motive power, and I believe it 
 may shortly be expressed by the words La guerre ou U 
 poignard. Unfortunately the Itahan dagger seems to have 
 become an idee fixe with Napoleon." 
 
 Louis Napoleon was moreover possessed by the 
 notion that he had in him the quaUty of a great 
 general as well as a great statesman. He was 
 with difficulty dissuaded from assuming the com- 
 mand of the French army in the Crimea ; and his 
 self-estimate, as well as his estimate of Cavour, are 
 shown by an anecdote related by Mr. Dicey. One 
 day, when they were together at Plomhieres, the 
 emperor turned to the statesman and said: ''Do 
 you know, there are but three men in aU Europe : 
 one is myself, the second is you, and the third is 
 one whose name I will not mention." This name- 
 less third has hitherto baffled speculation. Prince 
 Bismarck's star was then below the horizon ; and 
 we cannot accept Mr. Theodore Martin's loyal 
 suggestion that the Prince Consort was the man. 
 
 We must hurry over the best-kno\vTi events. 
 Cavour did not, like Prince Bismarck, accompany 
 his king. " He had a bed placed in the ministry 
 of war (which he had just added to his other 
 duties), and during the nights he walked in his 
 dressing-gown fi'om one department to another, 
 giving directions as to police regulations, diplo- 
 matic correspondence, and preparations for war, 
 inflaming every one by his example of laborious- 
 ness and patriotism." ^ 
 
 His exultation at the news of victory after 
 victory was suddenly converted into the bitterest 
 
 ' Bianchi.
 
 182 CAVOUR. 
 
 disappointment when the rumour of the armistice 
 of Villafranca reached Turin. He instantly started 
 for the camp and had an interview with the French 
 emperor, but it was too late. His passions then, 
 for the first and only time when deahng with 
 pubUc affairs, got the better of him. " Victor 
 Emmanuel, calm and resigned, was listening to 
 a French officer reading the preliminaries of the 
 treaty in the presence of La Marmora and three 
 other witnesses, when the count entered. White 
 with anger, which he made no effort to suppress, 
 he stormed against the emperor, and upbraided 
 the King with his complaisance. He said he 
 ought to refuse to accept Lombardy, and withdraw 
 the Piedmontese army into his own proper ter- 
 ritory." ^ 
 
 La Marmora interposed in vain. Cavour was 
 uncontrollable ; they parted in anger ; the King 
 deeply and justly offended, and the minister 
 broken-hearted and crushed down. One who saw 
 him on his return to Turin reported that in the 
 space of three days he had grown older by many 
 years. He denied, however, that his resignation 
 was hasty or ill-considered. 
 
 *' This resolution," he wrote, " has not been dictated 
 either by anger or by discouragement. I have full faith in 
 the triumph of the cause for which I have striven ; and 
 I am still ready to devote to it what little of life and power 
 may yet be granted to me. But I am profoundly convinced 
 that, at this moment, my participation in public affairs 
 would be hurtful to my country." 
 
 Longing for rest, and thinking it best to be out 
 of the way of the new ministry (that of Eattazzi 
 and La Marmora), he started for Switzerland on 
 a visit to the de la Eives. He arrived feverish 
 
 * Godkin, vol. i. p. 235.
 
 CAVOUR. 183 
 
 and agitated, boiling over with anger at the frus- 
 tration of his hopes ; but he gradually calmed 
 down, made fair allowances for the past, and 
 ceased to regard the future with despair. The 
 emperor, he said, had found out that he was not 
 a heaven-born general like his uncle, was sickened 
 at the sight of carnage, was alarmed by the atti- 
 tude of Prussia and by threatened combinations 
 across the Ehine. The King had yielded to im- 
 perative destiny, and was sound at heart as ever — 
 
 " It is not backwards we must look, but forwards. We 
 have followed one track : it is cut off : well, we will follow 
 another. We shall be twenty years in doing what might 
 have been accomplished in a few months. How can we 
 help it ? Besides, England has hitherto done nothing for 
 Italy. It is her turn now. I will look to Naples. I shall 
 be accused of being a revolutionary; but, above aU, we 
 must keep moving, and we will keep moving." 
 
 He saw on reflection that, if Louis Napoleon 
 had fulfilled his promise of making Italy free from 
 the Alps to the Adriatic, she might have settled 
 down quietly into a confederation. This was out 
 of the question with the overshadowing power of 
 Austria encamped in the Quadiilateral. '' Now 
 we shall see what the Italians can do for them- 
 selves," were the parting words of the French 
 emperor as he left the Mincio. To do anything, 
 they must obviously act in concert, and they had 
 done too much to recede. This, or something 
 like it, must have been in Cavour's miud when he 
 said : '^ The political unity of Italy, since Novara is 
 a possibility, has become since ViUafi-anca a neces- 
 sity." Passing in rapid review the means by 
 which this the ever-present object of his aspira- 
 tions must now be reached, he exclaimed : " Well, 
 they will compel me to pass the rest of my life in 
 conspiring."
 
 184 CAVOUR. 
 
 The King and the ex-minister were too indis- 
 pensable to one another to continue long apart, 
 and there speedily arose a simultaneous call from 
 France, England, and free Italy, for Cavour. He 
 returned to power in January 1860, when Mas- 
 simo d'Azeglio wrote : '* Now we shall go ahead ; 
 I have the fullest assurance that we shall : a firm 
 hand directs the government." They did go 
 ahead ; within two months they had annexed the 
 central provinces, to the exclusion of the Grand 
 Dukes ; and on the 17th of March, 1861, Victor 
 Emmanuel was declared King of Italy by a free 
 Italian parliament, representing the entire country 
 except Venice and Rome. On Cavour' s return to 
 power, M. Guizot is reported to have said : " Two 
 men divide the attention of Europe at the present 
 moment, the emperor and M. de Cavour. The 
 game has commenced, and I should bet on M. de 
 Cavour." The bet was already as good as won : 
 the emperor had not calculated on the moral effect 
 of his victories when he halted at ViUafranca : the 
 emancipated Italians, whom he wished to replace 
 under their former masters, were like the Jin or 
 Genie in the fairy tale who refused to go back into 
 the jar : and he was rather glad than sorry when 
 the strong persuasion of England gave him a fair 
 excuse for assenting to the annexation, thereby 
 completing his claim to the stipulated reward. 
 The cession of Nice and Savoy has been discussed 
 to tiresomeness. Cavour's justification of it was 
 contained in a sentence or two : 
 
 " The true ground for it is that the treaty is an integral 
 part of our policy, the logical and inevitable consequences 
 of a past policy, and an absolute necessity for the carrying 
 on of this policy in the future. 
 
 « * » « » 
 
 "When signing, we were aware what unpopularity
 
 CAVOUR. 185 
 
 awaited us ; but we knew likewise that we laboured for 
 Italy, for that Italy which is not the sound body a certain 
 member has spoken of : Italy still has big wounds in her 
 body. Look towards the Mincio, look on the other side of 
 Tuscany, and say whether Italy is out of danger." 
 
 It was the price that could not be beaten down, 
 the condition that could not be evaded, of French 
 aid ; and, without French aid, Italian independence 
 was a dream. At the conclusion of an animated 
 debate, the approval of the treaty was carried by 
 a majority of 229 (more than four-fifths of the 
 Chamber). The cession was contingent on the 
 result of a " plebiscite." " Once," wrote Massimo 
 d'Azegho, " let the Savoyards have said : ' We 
 will be annexed to France ' ; we shall be like a 
 father who lets his daughter marry according to 
 her desire, embraces her with a painful heart, 
 wishes her full happiness, and says adieu to her." 
 
 It would seem that no undue pressure had to be 
 put upon the Savoyards : 
 
 " The conversation passed to Savoy. M. Petinet main- 
 tained that the annexation was popular among all except- 
 ing the priests. 
 
 '* Prince Napoleon. — The people never, from 1815 to 1859, 
 gave up the hope of returning to France. Thousands of 
 families kept little tricolors as sacred deposits. They loved, 
 indeed, the house of Savoy, but they hated Piedmont, and 
 felt degraded by the prospect of being swallowed up in the 
 great kingdom of Italy. 
 
 " Senior. — They are swallowed up now, in a stiU greater 
 empire. 
 
 " Prince Napoleon. — Yes ; but in an empire with glorious 
 recollections, with a glorious present, and with a glorious 
 future. The kingdom of Italy is glorious only in its hopes." ^ 
 
 The evasive language of Cavour touching this 
 transaction was caused by the uncertainty in which 
 
 ' Senior, " Conversations," vol. ii. p. 28,
 
 186 CAVOUR. 
 
 he remained, up to the moment of its completion, 
 whether the engagement would be held binding. 
 *' So he (the emperor) holds firmly to Savoy and 
 this unhappy city of Nice ? " were his words to the 
 French minister when reminded of it at Milan. 
 Two days before the signature of the definitive act, 
 he said to the Marquis Emmanuel d'Azeglio, the 
 accomplished minister to the British Court, who 
 was taking leave of him at Turin : ^' Se potessimo 
 alnieno salvai' Nizza (If we could at least save 
 Nice) ! " Statesmen must not be hastily accused 
 of duplicity or dissimulation for veihng their poHcy 
 whilst in a wavering or transition state. Shortly 
 after the announcement in the " Times " of the 
 meditated repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846, an 
 official denial appeared in the " Standard," a 
 Government organ. It came direct from the 
 Prime Minister, Sir Eobert Peel, and was indeed 
 copied from a draft in his handwriting. He justi- 
 fied it on the ground that the Cabinet had not yet 
 come to a definitive decision.^ 
 
 It is difficult to decide how far Cavour was 
 responsible for Garibaldi's adventurous expedition, 
 which ended in the annexation of Naples to the 
 new kingdom. They were at daggers drawn on 
 account of the cession of Nice, Garibaldi's birth- 
 place, when he started.^ A formal disapproval 
 
 ^ The Cabinet minister from whom the " Times " received the first hint 
 of the change of policy was Lord Aberdeen. 
 
 * In a letter addressed to the King at starting, Garibaldi wrote : 
 " I know that I embark on a perilous enterprise. If we achieve it, 
 I shall be prond to add to your Majesty's crown a new and perhaps more 
 brilliant jewel, always on the condition that your Majesty will stand 
 opposed to councillors who would cede this province to the foreigner, as has 
 been done with the city of my birth." 
 
 M. Fazy, ex-president of Geneva, told the writer, as told him by 
 Cavour, that more than two millions of francs were expended by the 
 Italian Government in forwarding Garibaldi's expeditions, a large part in 
 bribing Neapolitan oflficials. When this was repeated to Sir James
 
 CAVOUR. 187 
 
 appeared in the official gazette, but Cavour could 
 not forcibly intervene to stop volunteers on their 
 way to the rehef of a suffering people, without a 
 complete change of system and of tone. Several 
 of the European Cabinets (including Prussia) pro- 
 tested against what they termed this fresh breach 
 of international law ; but it is difficult to enforce 
 international law when kingdoms are breaking up 
 from internal causes ; and it was not foreign inter- 
 vention that enabled Garibaldi to enter Naples in 
 a railway-carriage and assume the dictatorship. 
 One of his first acts after his triumphant entry 
 was to require the dismissal of Cavour. This he 
 followed up by declaring that he would not annex 
 Naples to Sardinia till he could do it from the 
 Quirinal. The revolution, under his auspices, was 
 to sweep the French out of Rome, and the 
 Austrians out of Venice, and then cross the Alps 
 to set Hungary and Poland upon their legs. If 
 let alone, he would have thrown everything into 
 confusion. The situation was critical, but Cavour 
 was equal to it. He had to take the guidance of 
 the movement out of Garibaldi's hands, and con- 
 firm it in his own. This was effected by a measure 
 which at first sight seemed Hkely to complicate the 
 difficulties. The Sardinian army crossed the papal 
 fi'ontier, defeated Lamoriciere, captured Ancona, 
 and then advanced into the Abruzzi, where Gari- 
 baldi, no longer the sole liberator of the South, 
 met the King, and, in a voice trembling with 
 emotion, hailed him " King of Italy." 
 
 The kingdom, now comprising twenty-two mil- 
 lions of subjects, was still incomplete without 
 Venice and Rome. Venice was regarded by 
 
 Hudson, he expressed his complete incredulity ; and, considering: the 
 esteem in which he was held by Cavour and their confidential intimacy, 
 his authority is all but decisive on such a point.
 
 188 CAVOUR. 
 
 Cavour as unattainable without a general war ; 
 and he declared that he would forego Rome rather 
 than he guilty of the semblance of ingratitude to 
 France, then encamped in the Eternal City as the 
 protector of His Holiness. At the same time he 
 proclaimed that the unity of Italy could not be 
 constituted without Rome : 
 
 " The choice of a capital is determined by high moral 
 considerations. It is the sentiment of the people that 
 decides. Eome unites all the conditions, historical, in- 
 tellectual, moral, which form the capital of a great State. . . . 
 What we have to do is to persuade the Holy Father that 
 the Church can be independent without the temporal power. 
 But it seems to me that when we present ourselves to the 
 sovereign pontiff and say to him : ' Holy Father, the 
 temporal power is not for you a guarantee of independence : 
 renounce it, and we will give you that liberty which you 
 have demanded in vain during three centuries from all the 
 great Catholic powers. . . . Well, that liberty which you 
 have never been able to obtain from these powers, who 
 boasted to be your allies, your devoted sons, — we come to 
 offer it to you in all its plenitude : We are ready to pro- 
 claim in Italy this great principle : The Free Church in the 
 Free State: " 
 
 He wished the Church to he independent, inde- 
 pendent both of its followers and the State, as well 
 as free. After deploring (at Leri in 1846) the 
 condition in which the Revolution had left the 
 French clergy, he added : "In Piedmont we have 
 a Church with possessions, a proprietary Church, 
 independent of the Government ; and this is a 
 great good for the State, no less than for rehgion." 
 The difficulty in dealing with the Papal Church is 
 that it is never satisfied with freedom and equality. 
 It insists, and by the very law of its being is 
 obliged to insist, on supremacy and on enforcing 
 its will in secular matters (like marriage and 
 education^ as well as spiritual.
 
 CAVOUR. 189 
 
 The most painful episode in Cavour's life was his 
 quarrel with Garibaldi, who presented himself in 
 the Chamber on the 18th of April, 1861, to justify 
 the charges he had brought against Cavour of 
 having dragged Italian honour in the dust. M. 
 d'Ideville, who was present, says that he had 
 scarcely pronounced a few words when his memory 
 failed ; his phrases became incoherent ; and it was 
 not till he flung aside his notes that the scene, 
 from bordering on the ridiculous, became tragical. 
 " It was then that, addressing himself with threat- 
 ening voice and gesture to the ministerial bench, 
 he declared that it would be for ever impossible for 
 him to clasp the hand of the man who had sold his 
 country to the foreigner ; or to ally himself with a 
 Government whose cold and mischievous hand was 
 trying to foment a fratricidal war." At the words 
 *' fratricidal war" a burst of indignation arose: 
 Cavour restrained himself with difficulty, and it 
 was left to Eicasoh to inflict the fitting rebuke. 
 He affected to think that it was impossible Gari- 
 baldi could have acted and spoken as he notoriously 
 had. " For who, great as he may be, would dare, 
 in his pride, to assign himself in our country a 
 place apart? Who would dare to claim for himself 
 the monopoly of devotedness and patriotism, and 
 elevate himself above the rest ? Amongst us a 
 single head should tower above all others ; that of 
 the King. Before him all bow down, and ought to 
 bow down ; any other attitude would be that of a 
 rebel." 
 
 M. Mazade, whose account differs materially 
 from M. d'Ideville's, says that on the utterance 
 of the words "fratricidal war" Cavour made a 
 vehement appeal to the President of the Chamber, 
 exclaiming : " Such insults are not to be permitted. 
 We demand a call to order " : that the sitting was
 
 190 CAVOUR. 
 
 suspended: and that when it was resumed he 
 calmly said : 
 
 " I know there is one deed which has put a gulf between 
 General Garibaldi and me. I thought to accomplish a 
 painful duty — the most painful I have ever known — in 
 urging upon the King and parliament the approval of the 
 cession of Nice and Savoy to France. Through the pain 
 it caused me, I can realise that which General Garibaldi 
 must now feel on the subject, and if he is unable to forgive 
 me for that deed, I cannot hold it to be a reproach to 
 him." 
 
 Garibaldi replied in a milder tone that, although 
 his sentiments were those of an adversary, he never 
 doubted that Cavour was the friend of Italy, and 
 they afterwards met by the King's desire in a private 
 apartment of the palace. " My interview with 
 Garibaldi," wrote Cavour, ''was courteous, though 
 not warm : we both kept within the limits of 
 reserve. . . . We parted, if not good friends, at 
 least without any irritation." 
 
 On leaving the Chamber on the 18th of April, 
 Cavour, grasping Eicasoli's hand with emotion, 
 exclaimed : " If I should die to-morrow, my suc- 
 cessor has been found." He told Count Oldofredi 
 the day after: "If emotion could have killed a 
 man, I should have died on my return from that 
 sitting." 
 
 He died in less than two months, June 6, 1861, 
 after an illness of seven days, brought on by anxiety 
 and the exhaustion of overwork. " My task," he 
 wrote, "is more laborious and more trying at 
 present than in the past. To constitute Italy, to 
 fuse together the divers elements of which it is 
 composed, to bring the south into harmony with 
 the north, present as many difficulties as a war 
 with Austria and the struggle with Eome." His
 
 CAVOFR. 191 
 
 death was accelerated by frequent bleedings and 
 his refusal or inability to take rest. He would see 
 his colleagues, and his mind was unceasingly at 
 work. A record of his last moments was carefully 
 kept by his affectionate and beloved niece. His 
 dying thought (like Pitt's) was how he left his 
 country : 
 
 "The Italy of the North," he murmured, "is made: 
 there are no longer Lombards, nor Piedmontese, nor 
 Tuscans, nor Komagnols : we are all Italians : but there are 
 still Neapolitans. Oh, there is much corruption in their 
 country ! It is not their fault, poor people : they have 
 been so ill governed. It is that scoundrel Ferdinand. 
 No, no, so corrupt a government cannot be restored : 
 Providence will not allow it. We must moralise them, 
 educate the infancy and the youth, create orphan asylums, 
 military colleges : but it is not by abusing the Neapolitans 
 that you will improve them. . . . 
 
 " No state of siege ; none of those methods of absolute 
 government ! Any one can govern with the state of siege. 
 I will govern them with liberty, and I will show what ten 
 years of liberty can make of these fine countries. . . . 
 
 " Garibaldi is a noble fellow. For my part, I wish him 
 no harm. He wants to go to Kome and Venice, and so do 
 I : none can be more eager than both of us. As to Istria 
 and the Tyrol, it is another matter. It will be for another 
 generation. We have done pretty well, we of the present, 
 we have made Italy if all goes well (se I'ltalia e la cosa 
 va). Then this Germanic Confederation is an anomaly : 
 it will break to pieces, and German unity will be founded, 
 but the House of Hapsburg will not know how to modify 
 itseljf. What will the Prussians do, they so slow to 
 decide ? They will take fifty years to do what we have 
 done in three." 
 
 He received the sacrament from Fra Giacomo, 
 the priest whom he had engaged to perform the 
 last offices in the case of clerical interference, and 
 his last words were: ^^ Frate, frate, libera Chiesa
 
 192 CAVOUR. 
 
 in libero Stato (Brotlier, brother, free Church in 
 free State)." 
 
 He was never married. When the King joked 
 him on the subject, he rephed that Italy was his 
 sposa, and that he would never have another. He 
 was much attached to his family, and his affec- 
 tionate nature was sorely tried by the death of his 
 eldest nephew at Goito.. " Augustus," he writes, 
 " died with a smile upon his lips, like a soldier 
 and a Christian. It is certainly the noblest of 
 deaths, the most enviable ; it is terrible for those 
 who remain." M. d'Ideville reports General La 
 Marmora as stating that Cavour was capricious 
 and vindictive, prone to exalt men to the skies 
 one day and heap irony and contempt on them 
 the next. But this is contrary to the concurrent 
 testimony of all who knew him best and saw most 
 of him. " In politics," he said to M. de la Eive, 
 " there is nothing so absurd as rancune.'" He 
 always felt and acted towards the bitterest of his 
 opponents as if they might some day become his 
 fiiends. This enabled him to mediate between 
 parties and use them by turns for the advancement 
 of the great cause, which he could not have done 
 if he had nourished resentment against their 
 leaders. But before summing up his character 
 we will bring together a few scattered personal 
 traits. 
 
 Curran said to Grattan : "You would be the 
 greatest man of your day, Grattan, if you would 
 buy a few yards of red tape and tie up your bills 
 and papers." Cavour managed to be the greatest 
 man of his age without resorting to red tape. 
 ''Those," remarks M. de la Rive, "who are dis- 
 posed to confound material and external order 
 with order in ideas would have been surprised at 
 the confusion of Cavour's cabinet ; so encumbered
 
 CAVOUR. 193 
 
 with papers that one day, having placed my hat 
 on a chair or table, I could not find it, and where 
 I have seen Cavour himself looking vainly for a 
 bmied letter." Yet the amount of work he con- 
 trived to get through was wonderful, and there 
 was no complaint of delay in any one of the de- 
 partments in his charge. He allowed himself 
 only three or four hours' sleep, and latterly took 
 nothing in the way of refreshment or nourishment 
 (besides coifee) before dinner, his only meal, at 
 which he ate largely, like Talleyrand, Sir Kobert 
 Peel, Lord Palmerston, Prince Bismarck and 
 others who, from their amount of brain-work, 
 required solid food in proportion, — as the steam- 
 engine of an express train requires fuel. Although 
 he had not given as much attention to the Art of 
 Dining as Prince Bismarck, he was by no means 
 wanting in discrimination. On his return from 
 England and France in 1852, he was enumerating 
 the dinners to which he had been invited during 
 his tour ; and on being asked which was the best, 
 he specified, without hesitation, one given at Paris 
 by Lord Howden, then accredited minister to 
 Spain. ^ 
 
 He never wore any of his many decorations if 
 he could help it, and when the institution of a 
 new order was proposed to him, to replace those 
 of the annexed States, he refused, saying : " Don't 
 you see that the spirit of society is running 
 counter to this sort of thing ? Why create new 
 causes of inequality when an irresistible force is 
 
 ' M. de la Rive says that he "deems it a duty not to keep back this 
 appreciation so flattering for British diplomacy." We deem it equally a 
 duty to say that Lord Howden's Paris dinners were given at the 
 apartments of his Russian wife, the Princess Bagration ; so that the com- 
 pliment of right reverts to Russia. The princess's apartments wore a 
 ground-floor in the Rue Faubourg St. Honore, and when in Paris Lord 
 Howden occupied an entresol on the opposite side of the street. 
 
 VOL. I. O
 
 194 CAVOUR. 
 
 pusHng all classes towards equality? I will 
 wager that, fifty years hence, there will be no 
 orders of knighthood in Europe." How comes 
 it, then, that the vanity of decorations is strongest 
 in France, and is gaining ground, concurrently 
 with the equalising spirit, in England ? Why, 
 unless it is based in human nature ? We would 
 rather wager that Macaulay's New Zealander, 
 when he arrives to sketch the ruins of St. Paul's, 
 will appear with a ribbon in his button-hole. 
 
 Comparing, a propos of an old tower, different 
 epochs of civilisation, Cavour said: " There is no 
 denying that humanity, as a whole, has advanced, 
 but as for this rogue {coquin) man, I do not believe 
 that he has made any progress." It was in a 
 desponding humour, just after Villafranca, that 
 he said this. He was unconsciously quoting 
 Mephistopheles : 
 
 " Der kleine Gott der Welt bleibt stets von gleichem Schlag, 
 Und ist so wunderlich wie am ersten Tag." ^ 
 
 Dislike of dilettantism drove him into the oppo- 
 site extreme of pretending that he had no taste 
 for the fine arts, that he had neither ears for music 
 nor eyes for painting and sculpture. Yet he was 
 surprised in the Bologna Gallery in an ecstasy 
 before the Saint Cecilia of Eaphael, and he pressed 
 Verdi to accept the profi"ered seat in the Chamber, 
 saying that the composer of the " Trovatore " 
 might well sit in the national parliament. He 
 was at home in the entire range of social and 
 economic science, and was never found wanting 
 in the practical knowledge required for any one 
 of the departments he undertook. Like Prince 
 Bismarck, he found relief in novel-reading. His 
 
 ^ "The Little God of the world continues ever of the same stamp, and 
 is as odd as on the first day." — Goethe's " Faust."
 
 CAVOUK. 195 
 
 private secretary relates that, having been com- 
 missioned to get him a novel to read during a 
 railway journey, he chose the newest amongst the 
 French and English publications of this class. 
 "I was obliged to repair twice to the bookseller's, 
 for he had read all, knew all, and I was finally 
 driven to beg him to go and choose for himself." 
 After the visit to Switzerland in the anxious 
 winter of 18/58, M. de la Eive missed Buckle's 
 "History of Civilisation," and learnt on inquiry 
 that it had been carried away by Cavour to read 
 on his home journey. He apologised for keeping 
 it so long by the wish to read it from beginning 
 to end, " not so easy a task when one has so 
 many departments to look after. In spite of its 
 want of order and clearness, and its length, this 
 book deserves to be read, for it marks, in my 
 opinion, an evolution in the English mind which 
 w^ill inevitably entail very remarkable consequences. 
 If I w^as not minister, I would try to write an 
 article on this book." 
 
 The modern wTiter he admired most was 
 Chateaubriand ; a strange preference, which may 
 pair off with that of Napoleon for Ossian. During 
 a visit to Pressinge (M. de la Eive's) in 1840, 
 he got up every morning at five and set to work 
 on Lord Stanhope's Histor5^ " He had resolved 
 to learn the English language, and, that he might 
 learn English history at the same time, he con- 
 secrated without flagging all his mornings to 
 spelling out a tiresome book written in an un- 
 known tongue." ^ 
 
 He had high animal spirits until depressed by 
 anxiety and work, and there is a playfulness of 
 expression in his letters which indicates a turn 
 
 ' " History of England, IVom the Peace of Utreclit " — by no means a 
 tiresome book.
 
 196 CAVOCR. 
 
 for humour; as when he writes, in December 
 1859: "If you come to Paris this winter, you 
 will find me at the Hotel Bristol. I have taken 
 the apartments occupied by Count Buol in 1856, 
 always with the intention of invading the Austrian 
 territory." He is reported to have told an assailant 
 in the Chamber that he was too ugly to answer ; 
 a style of argument (occasionally employed by 
 O'Connell) rather dangerous for one who had no 
 personal advantages that could embolden him to 
 provoke comparison. He had the sort of figure 
 that gained Dryden the name of " Poet-Squab," 
 being short and thick, with a head disproportion- 
 ately large, and a plain face, rendered plainer by 
 goggle spectacles. 
 
 When a friend pitied him for having to listen 
 to so many tiresome applicants, he exclaimed, 
 " Moi, je ne ori'ennuie jamais.'' When asked 
 how he managed to escape the common lot, he 
 replied : " My recipe is very simple : I persuade 
 myself that no one is ennuyeux." We commend 
 his example to the many vacant-minded common- 
 place people, young and old, who are eternally 
 complaining of being " bored." 
 
 His model statesmen were Pitt and Peel, but 
 where he surpassed them both — where, indeed, he 
 equalled or surpassed every statesman recorded 
 in history — was in the grandeur of his aim, his 
 singleness of purpose, and his strict adherence to 
 the cardinal principle with which he started : that 
 national greatness and independence can only be 
 safely reached or permanently secured through 
 reason, diffused knowledge, and enlightened public 
 opinion. " Italy," he was never tired of repeating, 
 "must be made by liberty, or I despair of making 
 her at all." "Any one," were his dying words, 
 " can govern by a state of siege." Any one, he
 
 CAYOUR. 197 
 
 might have added, with an iron will, can carry 
 out a blood and ii'on policy. But apres ? Where 
 does it leave the people who have been its in- 
 struments ? Are they better oiGf than those who 
 have been its victims ? Are they freer, richer, 
 more prosperous, than before ? By the course he 
 took, by the means he used to induce the Pied- 
 montese to go along with him, he made them 
 worthy of their vocation and equal to their pre- 
 appointed work. He would never have said of 
 his countrymen what Prince Bismarck compla- 
 cently said of his : '' We are, perhaps, too cultured 
 to endorse a constitution : " as if constitutions 
 were the invention of barbarism, absolutism the 
 highest attainment of civilisation, and indifference 
 to chartered rights a proof of intellectual supe- 
 riority. 
 
 We have seen how steadily he refused to take 
 any measure without the assent of the Chamber, 
 which he had no means of coercing or corrupting, 
 which he could only control by argument. When 
 restrictions on the press and the open expression 
 of mischievous doctrines were urged upon him, 
 he replied that this would encourage secret plots 
 and produce explosions. His argument was that 
 of Curran : "In one case sedition speaks aloud 
 and walks abroad : the demagogue goes forth : 
 the public eye is upon him. In the other case 
 how does the work of sedition go forward ? Night 
 after night the muffled rebel steals forth in the 
 dark, and casts another and another brand upon 
 the pile to which, when the fatal hour of maturity 
 shall arrive, he will apply the flame. . . . The 
 crisis is precipitated without warning, by folly on 
 the one side or phrensy on the other, and there 
 is no notice of the treason until the traitor acts." 
 
 He' objected to official organs, that they raise
 
 198 CAVOUR. 
 
 a prejudice against the views they advocate which, 
 if sound, do not need forcing. His hberaUty is 
 invaribly modified by good sense. " We must 
 deal gently," he wrote, '' with the susceptibility, 
 even with the prejudices, of a population. Where 
 there are four Protestants gathered together, we 
 permit public worship. But we would not allow 
 fanatic missionaries to throw trouble and discord 
 into the midst of a population entirely and ex- 
 clusively Catholic." His golden rule was to pre- 
 cipitate nothing : to let questions ripen : to trust 
 to what may be called poUtical evolution. And 
 he could afford to wait ; for coming events, casting 
 their shadows before, were revealed to him by a 
 second-sight as unerring as that of Campbell's 
 seer. " Wait, and a European complication, 
 which I see upon the cards, will give you Venice." 
 " Wait till the temporal power is displayed in its 
 true colours and Rome will drop into your mouth." 
 "Don't be too hasty in condemning the example 
 we have set," was his reply to the Prussian dis- 
 approval of the annexation of Naples, "for the 
 time may come when you may feel grateful for 
 it." That time did come, and came sooner than 
 he anticipated ; but had he hved to see how his 
 example has been applied, he might object that 
 he took Naples in compliance with a national 
 call, whilst it is with an utter disregard of the 
 wishes of entire States (Hanover and Frankfort, 
 for example) that the new German empire has 
 been formed. 
 
 The only wrongs of which Cavour can be held 
 guilty, in the eyes of the strictest upholder of 
 public law, were committed against foreign in- 
 truders and domestic oppressors of whom united 
 Italy was eager to get rid : wrongs far milder 
 than those of which the leaders in the English 
 
 I 
 
 M
 
 CAVOUR. 199 
 
 revolution of 1688 were guilty against their own 
 hereditary king. In all such cases of conflicting 
 obligation, the higher must be held to overrule the 
 less. 
 
 What Grattan said of Chatham is truer of 
 Cavour : " The sight of his mind was infinite, 
 and his schemes were to affect, not his own 
 country nor the present age only, but Europe 
 and posterity. Wonderful were the means by 
 which those schemes were accompHshed, always 
 seasonable, always adequate, the suggestions of 
 an understanding animated by ardour and en- 
 lightened by prophecy." He had no need of 
 the apology he made for Peel. What he did, was 
 done at the right moment, in the right manner, 
 by the right man. He uniformly appealed to 
 the finer instincts, the nobler aspirations, of those 
 he summoned to act with him, and he never 
 appealed in vain. He did not call upon a people 
 to purchase territorial aggrandizement and mili- 
 tary glory with their hberties. He had none of 
 the quahties which we have been led by melan- 
 choly experience to regard as the inevitable alloy 
 of greatness : neither the theatrical arts of Chat- 
 ham, nor the cold cruel impassibihty to groans and 
 tears of Bichelieu, nor the cynic contempt for 
 principle of Frederick, nor the revolting hypocrisy 
 of Cromwell, nor the desolating selfishness of 
 Napoleon. His ambition, made of purer, holier 
 stuff, was merged and forgotten in his patriotism. 
 His statesmanship was reason and truth put in 
 action. And therefore is it that his example may 
 prove of inestimable value to posterity. It goes 
 far towards solving the momentous problem : ''Is 
 greatness hopelessly incompatible with goodness ? 
 Must the wisest, brightest of mankind be invariably 
 the meanest or the worst?" Henceforth, and
 
 200 CAVOUR. 
 
 for all time to come, when these questions are 
 repeated, the decisive answer is at hand. The 
 philosophic student of history, the moralist, the 
 philanthropist, all who think well and wish to 
 think better of their species, have only to name 
 Cavour.
 
 PRINCE METTERNICH.' 
 
 (From the Quarterly Review, January, 1880.) 
 
 Prince Metternich, whose Memoirs have recently 
 been pubhshed simultaneously in three languages, 
 was conspicuous amongst the illustrious band of 
 statesmen by whom, between sixty-five and seventy 
 years ago, the politics of Europe were guided or 
 controlled. Their times were exceptional — preg- 
 nant with momentous events, destined to become 
 landmarks in history ; and the men were on a 
 par with the times. It was they who planned 
 
 ^ 1. Aus Metternich's nachgelasseyien Papieren. Herausgegeben von 
 dem Sohne des Staatkanzlers Fiirsten Richard Metternich-Winneburg. 
 Geordnet und zusammengestellt voa Alfons v. Klinkowstrom Autorisirte 
 Deutsche Original- Ausgabe. Erster Theil : von der Geburt Metternich's 
 bis zum Wiener Congress (1773-1815). Wien : Wilhelm BraumuUer. 
 1880. 
 
 2. Memoires, Documents et Ecrifs divers, hisses par le Prince de 
 Metternich, Chancetier de Cour et d'Etat. Publics par son Fils, le Prince 
 Richard de Metternich. Classes et reunis par M. A. de Klinkowstruni. 
 Premiere Partie : depuis la Naissance de Metternich jusqu'au Congres de 
 Vienne (1773-1815). Paris : E, Plon et Cie. 1880. 
 
 3. Memoirs of Prince Metternich, 1773-1S15. Edited by Prince 
 Richard Metternich. The Papers classified and arranged by M. A. de 
 Klinkowstrom. Translated by Mrs. Alexander Napier. London. 
 Richard Bentley and Son. 1880. 
 
 As the French ami English versions profess to be literal, we are at a 
 loss to account for the three varieties of title-page. In the preface to 
 what is termed " Authorized German Original Edition," Prince Richard 
 Metternich, the editor, states that the writings or fragments of writing
 
 202 PRINCE METTERNICH. 
 
 the grand concentrated movement which crushed 
 Napoleon : their work commenced where the vic- 
 torious generals left off; and on them devolved 
 the task of restoration and reconstruction, when 
 the revolutionary spirit was tamed down, when the 
 tide of conquest was rolled back, when (to borrow 
 the beautiful imagery of Canning) " the spires and 
 turrets of ancient establishments began to reappear 
 above the subsiding wave : " 
 
 " The world is out of joint : oh, cursed spite ! 
 That ever I was born to set it right." 
 
 This, it may be taken for granted, was not their 
 mode of looking at things. A disjointed world was 
 their appropriate field of action. It was their 
 chosen vocation to remodel States, to strengthen 
 or replace dynasties, to parcel out territories, to 
 round the dominions of their royal or imperial 
 masters with supreme indifference to popular feel- 
 ings or nationalities ; and Prince Metternich was 
 in his glory, at his proudest and highest, when (at 
 the Congress of Vienna) he stood the centre figure 
 of the brilliant group comprising (besides emperors 
 and kings) such men as Talleyrand, Nesselrode, 
 Pozzo di Borgo, Hardenberg, W. Humboldt, 
 Wellington, Castlereagh, and Gentz. 
 
 He was admirably suited by birth, social position, 
 character, tone of mind, and training for his post. 
 Born in the purple, a noble of the highest class, 
 he was grand seigneur to his finger ends. He 
 naturally wished to perpetuate the state of things 
 in which his lot was so happily cast. He dreaded 
 
 (Schriftstucke) left by his father, were part in German, part in French, 
 and that the whole are published in this edition in the language in which 
 they were written, with the exception of the autobiography ; the French 
 portions of which are given in German for the sake of uniformity ; an 
 insufficient reason for what strikes us to be an unsatisfactory arrange- 
 ment.
 
 PRINCE METTERNICH. 203 
 
 change : he was always on the reactionary side, 
 and his voice was uniformly raised in favour of 
 peace, order, and stability. He could understand 
 the claim of a monarch to a detached province or 
 a slice of a neighbouring kingdom ; but, from his 
 point of view, the claim of a people to inde- 
 pendence or self-government was irrational and 
 inadmissible on the face of it. 
 
 Autocracy flavoured by aristocracy, an irre- 
 sponsible sovereign, if possible an emperor, with 
 hereditary nobles for ministers, formed his beau- 
 ideal of a constitution and a government. He had 
 the singular good fortune, during the greater part 
 of his career, of serving and representing an em- 
 peror whose views and principles were, or could 
 easily be brought, in complete accordance with his 
 own. Between them, they managed to restore a 
 shattered empire, to take an efi'ective part in the 
 war of liberation, and to patch up a continental 
 system bearing some external resemblance to that 
 which bound Europe loosely together prior to 1792. 
 But the revolutionary spirit, which he fancied he 
 had quelled, burst out again with irrepressible force 
 before he died : he was one of its most distinguished 
 victims ; and we are lost in wonder at the unbroken 
 self-complacency with which he frequently reverts 
 to the distinctive features of his policy, and de- 
 clares that he never did anything which he would 
 not do again under the circumstances. 
 
 In conversation with Varnhagen von Ense, at 
 Baden in 1834, he spoke thus : 
 
 " The principles I adopted from the beginning of my 
 career have been tested by all my experience of life and 
 aflau's, and I can confidently assert that during twenty- 
 five years that I have been at the head of the Cahinet, 
 I have had nothing to regret. . . . Where all is tottermg 
 and changing, it is before all things necessary that there
 
 204 PRINCE METTERNICH. 
 
 should be something fixed somewhere, to which the waverer 
 may cling — where the erratic may find a resting point. 
 I have been that something, that principle of permanence 
 and stability. 
 
 * » * » It 
 
 " I am the man of truth, and I have no cause to fear the 
 light of day. I can stand by everything I have said, and 
 render an account of everything I have done. There is no 
 debate or discussion in which I could not cheerfully engage. 
 It is my greatest disadvantage, that my labours remain 
 secret in the narrow circle of Cabinets : I should only gain 
 by publicity. So far as I am personally concerned, I do 
 not shun the parliamentary tribune — I should even wish 
 for it — if I nevertheless hate it, that is for reasons inherent 
 in the thing." ^ 
 
 He used mucli the same language to Mr. Ticknor 
 in 1835, declaring that lying {mensonge) was his 
 detestation, that he had never deceived anybody, 
 and that this was the reason why he had not a 
 personal enemy in the world. In the Preface 
 (ErMdrun'j) to the Memoirs, dated December, 
 1844, he says : 
 
 " My life belongs to the time in which it has passed. 
 
 *' That time is an epoch in the history of the world ; it 
 was a period of transition ! In such periods the older 
 edifice is already destroyed, though the new is not yet in 
 existence ; it has to be reared, and the men of the time 
 play the part of builders. 
 
 " Architects present themselves on all sides : not one, 
 however, is permitted to see the work concluded ; for that 
 the life of man is too short. Happy the man who can say 
 of himself, that he has not run counter to the Eternal Right. 
 This testimony my conscience does not deny me." 
 
 * * * # 
 
 "My life was one of the most active in a time morbid 
 with ill-regulated activity. This narrative shows that 
 from my earliest youth to the thirty-sixth year of a burden- 
 
 1 « 
 
 Denkwiirdigkeiten und vermischte Schriften," vol. viii. p. 114.
 
 PRIXCE METTERNICH. 205 
 
 some ministry, when I write these lines, I have not lived 
 one hour to myself. 
 
 " A spectator of the order of things before the Eevolution 
 in French society, and an observer of or a participator in 
 all the circumstances which accomj^anied and followed the 
 overthi'ow of that order, of all my contemporaries I now 
 stand alone on the lofty stage, on which neither my will 
 nor my inclination placed me. 
 
 " I claim therefore the right and the duty to point out to 
 my descendants the course by which alone the conscientious 
 man can withstand the storm of time. This course I have 
 indicated by the motto I have chosen as the symbol of my 
 conviction, for myself and my descendants : ' True Strength 
 LIES IN Eight ' ; save this, all is transitory." 
 
 Similar appeals to conscience are plentifully 
 interspersed in all parts of the work, accompanied 
 by solemn avowals of entire fi'eedom fi'om ambition. 
 The effect is the reverse of favom-able. "I am 
 strongly disposed to believe that you have spoken 
 the truth," remarked Oldbuck to Edie Ochiltree, 
 " the rather that you have not made any of those 
 obtestations of the superior powers, which I observe 
 you and your comrades always make use of when 
 you mean to deceive folks." On the same prin- 
 ciple, we should have been more disposed to beheve 
 in the candour and conscientiousness of the veteran 
 diplomatist if he had been more sparing of the 
 professions habitual to his craft ; and he could 
 hardly have been ignorant that the flattering 
 testimonials he gave himself were very far indeed 
 fi'om being countersigned by his contemporaries. 
 At the same time, Talleyi'and's well-known sarcasm 
 must be taken with many grains of allowance ; ^ 
 and, looking either to external or internal evidence, 
 
 ^ Comparing Metternich with ^lazarin, Talleyrand said : " J'y trouve 
 beaucoup k redire. Le cardinal troinpait, niais il ne nientait pas. Or, 
 M. de ^lettermch ment toujours et ne trompe jamais." The saying, 
 " L'Autriche trich'" dates frum his ministry.
 
 206 PRINCE METTERNICH. ^ 
 
 we should say that the most important of the 
 Prince's revelations may be accepted as sound 
 materials for history. Indeed many of them have 
 been so accepted by anticipation : for example, the 
 famous interview with Napoleon at Dresden in 
 1813, the most interesting particulars of which 
 were freely communicated at the time. 
 
 " The epoch which I have especially considered is that 
 between 1810 and 1815 ; for that period was the most 
 important in my hfe, and it bears the same stamp in the 
 history of the world. The direction was then given to the 
 forms which things afterwards assumed. Proofs of this 
 exist in the State archives; but they contain only the 
 results, and contribute little towards throwing light on 
 the process by which those results were brought about : 
 for in the years 1813, 1814, and 1815, the monarchs and 
 the leaders of the Cabinets were mostly in the same 
 locality." 
 
 The oral communications which passed between 
 him and the monarchs or leaders of Cabinets at 
 this epoch, as well as the degree of influence 
 which he exercised, must be considered in con- 
 nexion with what may be termed the training 
 passages of his life, which he briefly recapitulates, 
 beginning with his birth and education and saying 
 absolutely nothing about his genealogy. 
 
 Clemens Wenzel Neponne Lothar von Metter- 
 nich-Winnebourg was born at Coblenz, in 1773, 
 the eldest son of Count (afterwards Prince) Francis 
 George. He and a younger brother went through 
 the ordinary studies of the Gymnasium under the 
 guidance of a priest till 1788, when (in his fifteenth 
 year) he was sent to the University of Strasburg, 
 then in high repute. Bonaparte, who had been 
 quartered there with the artillery regiment in 
 which he held his first commission, had just left. 
 They had the same professors for mathematics and
 
 PRIXCE METTERNTCH. 207 
 
 fencing, and as Metternicli was passing through 
 Strasburg in 1808, his old fencing-master came to 
 him to recall the circumstance, adding, " I hope 
 that my two pupils, the Emperor of the French 
 and the Austrian Ambassador at Paris, will not 
 take it into their heads to cross swords with each 
 other." Metaphorically speaking, they frequently 
 crossed swords. Metternich takes credit to himself 
 for not being infected by the revolutionary spirit, 
 catching as it was, during the two years he passed 
 at Strasburg, where one of his tutors ended by 
 becoming a terrorist, and the other (a priest and 
 Professor of Canon Law) by forswearing religion 
 altogether. His father was Austrian Ambassador 
 at Frankfort in 1790, when the coronation of 
 Leopold II. took place, and he himself, having 
 only just attained his seventeenth year, was chosen 
 by the Catholic Imperial Courts of the Westphahan 
 Bench to be their master of the ceremonies : 
 
 *' The coronation of a Eoman emperor at Frankfort was 
 certainly one of the most impressive and splendid spectacles 
 in the world. Everything, down to the most trifling details, 
 spoke to the mind and heart through the force of tradition 
 and the bringing together of so much splendour. Yet a 
 painful feeling overshadowed the marvellous picture then 
 presented by the city of Frankfort. A conflagration, which 
 grew with each day, laid waste the neighbouring kingdom. 
 Thoughtful men already saw the influence which this must, 
 sooner or later, exercise beyond the boundaries of France." 
 
 His formal education was not yet over, although 
 he had made his first step in public life. He went 
 from Frankfort to the University of Mayence to 
 study law : 
 
 " My residence in Mayence was of the greatest use to 
 me, and had a decided influence on my life. My time was 
 divided between my studies and intercourse with a society 
 as distinguished for intellectual superiority as for the social
 
 208 PRINCE METTERNICH. 
 
 position of its members. At that time Mayence and 
 Brussels were the rendezvous for French emigrants of the 
 higher classes, whose exile was voluntary, not forced as 
 it soon afterwards became, and who had not as yet to 
 struggle with poverty. In my intercourse with the elite 
 of this society, I learned to know the defects of the old 
 regime ; the occurrences, too, of each day taught me into 
 what crimes and absurdities a nation necessarily falls, when 
 it undermines the foundations of the social edifice. I 
 learned to estimate the difficulty of erecting a society on 
 new foundations, when the old are destroyed. In this way 
 also I came to know the French, — to understand them and 
 to be understood by them." 
 
 This was no idle boast. His knowledge of the 
 French, his keen insight into their national peculi- 
 arities, was subsequently shown in so marked a 
 manner as to compel the reluctant admission of 
 Napoleon. Feeling, he continues, that the Revo- 
 lution would be the adversary he should have to 
 fight, he set himself to study the enemy and know 
 the way about his camp. He attended lectures 
 and mixed with professors and students of all 
 shades, " carefully watching the effect of the 
 seductive principles to which many youthful minds 
 fell victims." The historian, Nicholas Voght, 
 whose friendship he zealously cultivated, thus ad- 
 dressed him at this period : 
 
 " ' Your intellect and your heart are on the right road ; 
 keep to it also in practical life, the lessons of History will 
 guide you. Your career, however long it may be, will not 
 enable you to see the end of the conflagration which is de- 
 stroying the great neighbouring kingdom. If you do not 
 wish to expose yourself to reproaches, never leave the 
 straight path. You will see many so-called great men 
 pass by you with swift strides ; let them pass, but do not 
 deviate from your path. You will overtake them, if only 
 because you must cross them on their way back ! ' The 
 good man was right."
 
 PRINCE METTERNICH. 209 
 
 In July, 1792, lie was present at the coronation 
 of the Emperor Francis (the Second of Germany 
 and subsequently the First of Austria) in the same 
 capacity as at the corresponding ceremony in 1790 ; 
 and at a grand banquet in celebration of the event 
 he opened the ball with the young Princess Louise 
 of Mecklenburg, afterwards Queen of Prussia. 
 When the coronation was over, the Emperor and 
 most of the German Princes repaired to Mayence, 
 where the Elector held his Court, then reputed the 
 most luxurious in Germany. It was crowded with 
 French emigrants, who, Metternich thought, were 
 in a great measure answerable for the fatuity which 
 led to the invasion of France. They were confi- 
 dent that the alhed army had only to appear on 
 the frontiers, and the sans-culottes would lay down 
 their arms. "Frenchmen of that day did not at 
 all comprehend the Eevolution, and I do not 
 believe that, with few exceptions, they ever suc- 
 ceeded in doing so." 
 
 Despite of bad organisation, and the incapacity 
 of a commander whose military reputation was 
 founded simply on a flattering speech of Frederick 
 the Great, Metternich entertained no doubt that if 
 the Duke of Brunswick, instead- of losing time in 
 Champagne, had marched straight to Paris, he 
 would have effected an entrance. " What would 
 have been the consequence of such a success it is 
 difficult to determine, but for my part I feel con- 
 vinced that the Revolution would not have been 
 suppressed." 
 
 He passed his vacations at Brussels witli his 
 father, who filled there a position equivalent to the 
 Premiership of the Austrian Netherlands ; and, in 
 liis eagerness to see everything that was stirriug, 
 he was present at almost all the operations of the 
 siege of Valenciennes in 1793 : 
 
 VOL. I. p
 
 210 PRINCE METTERNICn. 
 
 ' ' I had therefore the opportunity of observing war very 
 closely ; and it is to be wished that all those who are called 
 upon to take a leading i^art in the business of the State 
 could learn in the same school. In the course of my long 
 public life I have often had reason to congratulate myself 
 upon the experience thus gained." 
 
 In the winter of 1793 he accompanied the 
 Yicomte Desandroins, charged with a mission to 
 the Enghsh Government, to London, where he 
 speedily came to know Pitt, Fox, Burke, Sheri- 
 dan, Grey, and many other leading personages. 
 He followed with attention the Hastings' Trial, 
 and frequented the sittings of Parliament as much 
 as possible, with the view of gaining an acquaint- 
 ance with its mechanism, which, he says, was not 
 without use in his subsequent career. Whilst thus 
 occupied he was appointed Ambassador Extra- 
 ordinary to the Hague : 
 
 " This circumstance becoming known in London, pro- 
 cured me admission to a sphere of society generally un- 
 approachable for a young man of one-and-twenty. I 
 came to know the Prince of Wales, afterwards Eegent, then 
 at last King with the title of George IV. Our relations, 
 begun at this time, lasted during the prince's whole life. 
 Great dissensions at this period divided the Royal family of 
 England. The Prince of Wales had taken up the'side of the 
 Opposition. My youth restrained me from expressing the 
 profound disapproval which his conduct produced in me ; 
 but I took one day the opportunity of saying a word to him 
 on the subject, of which he reminded me thirty years after- 
 wards, and added, ' You were very right, then ! ' " 
 
 He unluckily missed being present at a naval 
 action as well as a siege. Amply supplied with 
 letters of recommendation to the authorities at 
 Portsmouth, he repaired there to witness the 
 departure of the fleet under Admiral (afterwards 
 Lord) Howe, which was about to convoy several 
 hundreds of merchantmen bound for the East and
 
 PRINCE METTERNICH. 211 
 
 West Indies. On hearing that the French fleet 
 had left Brest, and that an encounter was probable, 
 he earnestly pressed the Admiral, whose guest he 
 was, to let him remain on board on the chance of 
 witnessing the engagement. " The King," said 
 the Admiral, " told me to let you see everything ; 
 but I have to send you back alive, and I cannot 
 take upon myself to expose you to the dangers of a 
 sea-fight." In the ensuing action, the famous First 
 of June, the Admiral's ship bore the brunt of the 
 battle and the greater part of the crew were killed 
 or disabled. 
 
 Metternich's embassy to the Netherlands was 
 cut short by the French conquest of Holland ; and 
 the left bank of the Khine, on which most of the 
 Metternich estates lay, was occupied by the 
 French, who paid no respect to property, public or 
 private. It was necessary, therefore, to turn to the 
 family estates in Bohemia, which had brought in 
 little during the last century. They had now 
 to be made the most of. He was despatched to 
 carry out the required measures* on the spot, and 
 found on his return to Vienna, after two months' 
 absence, that a marriage had been projected for 
 him with the granddaughter and heiress of Prince 
 Kaunitz, the Minister. More, it would seem, to 
 oblige his parents, than from personal inclination 
 to a tie for which he thought himself too young, he 
 fell in with their arrangements, and the marriage 
 was celebrated on September 27, 1795, at Auster- 
 litz. Then comes a characteristic passage : 
 
 " I have aheady said that the puhlic service presented no 
 attractions for me. I had determined to remain in private 
 life, and to devote my time to the cultivation of the sciences. 
 At the time of which I speak fortune seemed to favour my 
 inclinations, and I made a plan for myself, ^Wlicll I was not 
 permitted to carry out.
 
 212 PRINCE METTERNICH. 
 
 " I must also acquaint my readers with other causes 
 which kept me aloof from public affairs. Although still 
 young, placed in a position which allowed me to observe 
 from the highest point of view the course of the greatest 
 events, I found that they were not conducted as they ought 
 to have been. ' Les affaires, ce sont les homines ; ' affairs 
 are only the expression of the faculties or the weaknesses 
 of men, of their inclinations and their errors, their virtues 
 and their vices. Inaccessible to prejudice, and seeking 
 only the truth in everything, my modesty did not allow me 
 to find fault with persons in power if I was not satisfied 
 with what I saw ; on the contrary, I ascribed to the weak- 
 ness of my own understanding and to my inexperience the 
 feeling which forced me to disapprove of the course they 
 had taken. But neither inclination nor duty led me to 
 acquire the necessary experience. My particular vocation 
 seemed to me to be the cultivation of the sciences, especially 
 of the exact and physical, which suited my taste jDar- 
 ticularly. I love the fine arts too, so that nothing aroused 
 in me the desire to put my freedom into fetters. The 
 diplomatic career might certainly flatter my ambition, hut 
 during all my life I have never been accessible to this feeling " 
 
 He diligently attended lectures on Geology, 
 Chemistry, and Physics ; and the progress of 
 medical science particularly attracted liim. "Man 
 and his life seemed to me to be objects worthy of 
 study. I was happy in this scientific circle, and 
 allowed the Eevolution to rage and rave without 
 feeling any call to contend wdth it. It pleased 
 Providence afterwards to rule quite otherwise." 
 The first intervention of Providence in this direc- 
 tion was his appointment as agent or representative 
 of the Courts of the Westphalian Collegium to the 
 abortive Congress of Pastadt, which his father 
 attended as First Plenipotentiary of the Empire. 
 He was detained there a year and a half (from 
 December 1797 to June 1799), occupied with 
 matters which had hardly the semblance of serious 
 affairs, and amusing himself as he best could with
 
 PRINCE METTERNICH. 213 
 
 the mixed society amongst wMch he was officially 
 thrown. His impressions are given in his letters 
 to his wife. After saying that Bonaparte (who 
 was absent most of the time) never went out with- 
 out seven or eight aides-de-camp, " all very well 
 dressed, and he with all the seams of his uniform 
 embroidered," the caustic observer contrasts the 
 French Deputies with their future master : 
 
 " December 9. — This is the second time that I have been 
 going to dine with the French deputies, and at the last 
 moment they have sent excuses to M. de Cobenzl. I de- 
 clare that in all my hfe I never saw such ill-conditioned 
 animals. They see no one, are sealed up in their apart- 
 ments, and are more savage than white bears. Good God! 
 how this nation is changed ! . . . All these fellows have 
 coarse muddy shoes, great blue pantaloons, a vest of blue 
 or of all colours, peasants' handkerchiefs, either silk or 
 cotton, round the neck, the hair long, black, and dirty, and 
 the hideous head crowned by an enormous hat with a great 
 red feather. One would die of fright, I believe, if one met 
 the best clothed of them in a wood. They have a sullen 
 air, and seem more discontented with themselves than with 
 any one else." 
 
 On December 22, 1797, he writes : 
 
 "All they dream of in France at this moment is a descent 
 on England. The wildest projects are formed, and it 
 appears to me that those that are the least so are quite 
 impossible. A certain man Tillorier thinks of going over 
 in a balloon ; another, named Garnier, proposes elastic 
 skates ; a third pretends to have invented a species of boat 
 to pass under the water without being seen ; and the fourth, 
 the maddest of all, would have guns made to carry fifty 
 leagues which shall destroj^ England from French batteries. 
 You may think these are the plans of some madmen — not 
 at all ; these are the project-makers of the day. They say 
 that Bonaparte received in one day more than two thousand 
 projects, plans and letters, directly he arrived in Paris." 
 
 Human folly is infinite. When the expedition
 
 214 PRINCE METTERNICn. 
 
 to the Crimea in 1854 was announced, the wildest 
 projects and suggestions poured in upon Lord 
 Eaglan and the Duke of Newcastle : amongst 
 others, one for taking Sehastopol with bows and 
 arrows.^ A passage in a conjugal epistle places 
 Metternich in an entirely new light. It was with 
 a start of surprise that we suddenly found ourselves 
 confronted by the image of the embryo statesman 
 with a fiddle under his chin or conducting an 
 orchestra with a roll of music in his hand — in fact, 
 cumulating gifts which Themistocles treated as 
 incompatible : 
 
 "We bad a concert yesterday, at wliicli I played a good 
 deal. One of the Envoys of the Empire has a young man 
 here with him who has a very considerable talent for the 
 violin, and who w^ill be a perfect master of it, if he applies 
 himself ; we arranged a concert for him with some amatem-s, 
 and the public paid a small sum for admission. The music 
 was well chosen, and the concert perfect, so that every one 
 was astonished. I conducted the orchestra in the sym- 
 phonies and the concerted i)ieces, and I played a quartett 
 with the hero of the evening and two amateurs, which was 
 so good that every one talks of it to-day. It was about the 
 pleasantest evening 1 have passed in Eastadt, for I like 
 extremely (a lafolie) to play music." 
 
 On his return to Vienna he resumed his former 
 manner of life, cultivating intellectual society and 
 frequenting by preference houses hke the Prince 
 de Ligne's and the Princess de Liechtenstein's, 
 where he was sure of good conversation : 
 
 " Sometimes I waited on the Emperor, who let no oppor- 
 
 ^ Speaking of the arrangement of Lord Raglan's papers, Mr. Kingslake 
 says : " Not less carefully ranged and easy to find, is the rival scheme of 
 the enthusiastic uosologist who advised that the Russians should be 
 destroyed by the action of malaria, and the elaborate proposal of the 
 English general who submitted a plan for taking Sebastojiol with bows 
 and arrows." — (" The Invasion of the Crimea — The Sources of the Narra- 
 tive.")
 
 PRINCE METTERNICH. 215 
 
 tunity slip of reproaching me with what he called my 
 indolence. One day when I had been speaking of my views 
 on this subject, he said to me, ' You live as I should be 
 happy to live in your place ! Hold yourself ready for my 
 orders, that is all I require of you for the present.' " 
 
 He speaks in the strongest terms of the weak- 
 ness and vacillation of the Austrian Cabinet during 
 the first ten years of the conflict with France. 
 These reached their height with the Peace of 
 Luneville (1801), on the conclusion of which Baron 
 Thugut, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, retired, 
 and was temporarily succeeded by Count (after- 
 wards Prince) Trautmannsdorff ; one of whose first 
 acts was to send for Metternich to tell him tha,t 
 the Emperor now required his services, and gave 
 him the choice of being Minister at Dresden or 
 Copenhagen, or of remaining at home as Minister 
 for Bohemia to the German Reichstadt. 
 
 "I begged him to allow me to think over the matter, and 
 betook myself to the Emperor. I laid before his Majesty 
 openly my ideas as to my future life, and the talents I 
 believed myself to possess, and those which I could not lay 
 claim to. The Emperor received my professions with his 
 accustomed kindness ; but when he appealed to my patriot- 
 ism, I yielded to his will. ' Your Majesty,' said I, ' desires 
 that I should enter a sphere for which I believe I have no 
 vocation ; I submit to your commands. I pray your 
 Majesty never to doubt my will, but to distrust my capa- 
 bilities. I will make the attempt, and your Majesty will 
 permit me to retire from the service when, as I fear, the 
 day comes that I shall not answer your expectations.' 
 The Emperor answered with a sinile : ' He who cherishes 
 such fears is not in danger of injuring the public service. 
 I promise you to be the first to tell you if you are found on 
 the wrong road.' " 
 
 He decides for the embassy to Dresden as a post 
 of observation which might be turned to good
 
 216 PRINCE METTERXICH. 
 
 account, and here, unable (he says) to do anything 
 by halves, and once a diplomatist determined to 
 be one thoroughly, he pauses to state the principles 
 on which his political life has been based. '' This 
 statement will serve to clear up many points in 
 the history of my time and explain my own ac- 
 tions." This statement (occupying four pages) 
 strikes us to be little better than a collection of 
 commonplaces. We learn absolutely nothing 
 from it. In her clever and amusing book, '' Vienna 
 and the Austrians," Mrs. Trollope reports a con- 
 versation with Prince Metternich in 1838 : " While 
 talking of some of the strange blunders that had 
 occasionally been made by politicians, he said, as 
 nearly as I can recollect and translate the words 
 (for he conversed with me in French) : ' I believe 
 that the science of government might be reduced 
 to principles as certain as those of chemistry, if 
 men, instead of theorising, would only take the 
 trouble patiently to observe the uniform results 
 of similar combinations of circumstances.' " 
 
 In noticing this passage in our review of her 
 book, we suggested that the combinations of cir- 
 cumstances never are similar any more than human 
 faces are alike, and that what he recommends, 
 ''instead of theorising," is neither more nor less 
 than theorising. Thinking it improbable that he 
 could have talked in this style, we came to the 
 conclusion that Mrs. Trollope had misunderstood 
 him. But that we did her an injustice is clear 
 from the paragraph with which he prefaces the 
 alleged exposition of his system in the Memoirs : 
 
 " Here I may be allowed to propound the few principles 
 to which I have reduced the science commonly known by 
 the name of Politics and Diplomacy. Politics is the science 
 of the vital interests of States in the highest sphere. Since, 
 however, an isolated State no longer exists, and is only to
 
 PRINCE METTERNICH. 217 
 
 be found in the annals of the heathen world or in the 
 abstractions of so-called philosophers — thus the society of 
 States, this existing condition of the present world, has 
 always been kept in view. Thus, then, has every State, 
 besides its particular interests, also interests which are 
 common to it with other States, whether in their totality 
 or in separate groups. The great axioms of political science 
 are deduced from the knowledge of the true political interests 
 of all States : in these general interests rests the securit}^ 
 for their existence, whilst the individual interests, — to which 
 the daily or transitory political movements occasionally 
 lend a great importance, and the promotion of which con- 
 stitutes political wisdom in the eyes of a restless and short- 
 sighted policy, — possess only a relative and secondary 
 worth." 
 
 It is new to us that there is or ever was a 
 science commonly known by the name of Politics 
 and Diplomacy, nor does it simplify a branch of 
 knowledge which from its very natm*e is incapable 
 of scientific treatment, to be told that '' the great 
 axioms of political science are deduced from the 
 knowledge of the true political interests of all 
 States." Then what are these great axioms ? 
 According to the Prince, they are that each State 
 has two interests — its individual or separate in- 
 terest, and the general interest which it has in 
 common with the great family of States : 
 
 " History teaches us that whenever tlie separate come 
 into conflict with the general interests of a State, and the 
 latter are neglected or mistaken in the zealous and exclusive 
 prosecution of the former, this is to be regarded as an 
 exceptional or unhealthy state of things, whose develop- 
 ment or speedy amendment ultimately decides the destiny 
 of the State, that is, its impending decline or its recupera- 
 tive prosperity." 
 
 In the ancient world, he continues, the separate 
 interest was paramount, the selfish policy pre-
 
 218 PRINCE METTERNICH. 
 
 vailed. In the modern, the comity of nations and 
 regard for the general interest are the rule : 
 
 ■' The establishment of international relations upon the 
 basis of reciprocity, under the guarantee of respect for 
 acquired rights, and the conscientious observance of 
 flighted faith, constitute, at the present day, the essence 
 of politics, of which diplomacy is only the daily application. 
 Between the two there exists, in my opinion, the same 
 difference as between science and art. Just as men daily 
 transgress the laws of civil society, nations only too often 
 act in opposition to the eternal precepts which govern their 
 connection. The faults of men and the faults of States are 
 subject to the same punishments ; their whole difference 
 lies in the gravity of the offence, which is proportionate to 
 the individual imi)ortance of the offenders. 
 
 "When we master these truths, what becomes of the 
 self-seeking policy, of the policy of fantasy or of miserable 
 greed, and especially of that which seeks profit apart from 
 the simplest rules of right ; which mocks at the plighted 
 word, and, in short, rests solely on the usurpations of force 
 or craft '? " 
 
 This doctrine has been familiar enough to 
 speculative politicians at all times, whatever may 
 become of it when it has to be put in practice. 
 Mr. Gladstone reverted to it as of long standing 
 more than once in his recent speeches.^ Why, 
 then, should Prince Metternich claim a monopoly 
 of it, or set up as the Pharisee statesman on the 
 strength of it : 
 
 "After this confession of faith, it may be conceived what 
 I have always thought of politicians of the stamp or, if 
 
 1 « 
 
 ■ Public policy should be conducted on those principles which 
 constitute virtue in private life. Do not listen to those who set up 
 doctrines which are dangerous to the peace of the world ; be sure that no 
 man can rely upon any permanent security for his own rights unless he 
 respects the rights of his neighbours; and no nation can ever be safe in 
 the position it holds among nations, however great and however imposing, 
 unless it recognises those principles of justice and equality which bind 
 together the nations of the world." — " 'limes," December 10, 1879.
 
 PRINCE METTERNICH. 219 
 
 you will, of the value of a Richelieu, a Mazarin, a Talley- 
 rand, a Canning, a Capo d'Istria, or a Haugwitz, and so 
 many more or less famous names. Resolved not to walk 
 in their steps, and despairing of opening a path in 
 harmony with my own conscience, I naturally preferred 
 not to throw myself into those great political affairs, in 
 which I had far more prospect of succumbing materially 
 than of succeeding : I say materially, for 1 have never 
 been afi'aid of failing morally. The man of public life 
 has always at command a sure resource against this 
 danger, that is — retu-ement." 
 
 As he held office for nearly half a century, and 
 did not retire till Vienna was too hot to hold him 
 (in 1848), the inevitable inference is that during 
 the whole time he was conscientiously carrying 
 out his principles, abiding by the broad rules of 
 right and wrong — of justice between man and 
 man, and rigidly subordinating the separate in- 
 terests of Austria to the general interests of 
 Em^ope, of mankind. How far he was under a 
 most extraordinary self-delusion, or carried away 
 by a confirmed habit of self-laudation, mil appear 
 as we proceed. Let him tell his own story, and 
 it will then be for an impartial posterity to judge 
 whether he uniformly abided by the moral laws 
 which were systematically set aside by the 
 Eichelieus, Mazarins, Talleyrands, and Cannings. 
 
 He remained at Dresden as ambassador till 1803, 
 when he was transferred to Berlin, where the 
 important duty devolved upon him of persuading 
 Prussia to co-operate with Austria and Eussia, 
 instead of waiting to fight Napoleon single- 
 handed. The fatuity which then ruled the 
 Prussian counsels is well known. It was not till 
 after the victory of Austerlitz that she came into 
 the field to be well-nigh annihilated at Jena, when, 
 Metternich thinks. Napoleon reached the summit
 
 220 PRIXCE METTERNICH. 
 
 of liis power. Two months before tliis battle 
 (October 1806) Metteriiich, about to exchange 
 Berlin for Petersburg, had been installed at Paris 
 as ambassador, his aj)pointment to this post having 
 been suggested by Napoleon. As usual he pro- 
 tested his insufliciency, and reluctantly gave 
 way when his im^^erial master set before him 
 the necessity of accommodating himself to his 
 destiny : 
 
 " This was, in fact, the beginning of my public life. All 
 that had gone before might have shown the independence 
 of my character. As a man of principles, I could not and 
 I would not bend when it came to the point of defending 
 them. Within a short space of time destiny had placed 
 me face to face with the man who at this epoch ruled the 
 affairs of the world ; I felt it my duty and I had the 
 courage never to offer to mere circumstances a sacrifice for 
 which I could not answer to my conscience both as a 
 statesman and as a private individual. This voice of con- 
 science I followed; and I do not think it was a good 
 inspiration of Napoleon's, when his wish called me to 
 functions which enabled me to appreciate his good qualities 
 but also to become acquainted with his defects, which at 
 last led him to ruin and freed Europe from the oppression 
 under which it languished." 
 
 Here he does himself no more than justice. He 
 was undoubtedly a fine observer, gifted with keen 
 insight into character, and he made the best of 
 his opportunities for studying Napoleon, so as to 
 divine with tolerable certainty what his conduct 
 under given circumstances would be. He had 
 need of the utmost circumspection ; for Austria, 
 weakened and humiliated by the campaign ending 
 with the Treaty of Presburg (December 1805), 
 w^as in no condition to risk a renewal of the war, 
 which, on the slightest betrayal of hostile feeling, 
 might be forced upon her. Metternich felt and
 
 PRINCE METTERNICH. 221 
 
 knew that it must come sooner or later, and his 
 object was to gain time for the empire he re- 
 presented to gather strength. There were circum- 
 stances in his favour of which he adroitly availed 
 himself. There was the war in Spain, which 
 turned out a much more serious drain on Napo- 
 leon's military resources than he calculated when 
 he CD gaged in it. There was also the growing 
 feeling in France against wars of conquest, the 
 exhaustion of the country by the successive calls 
 made upon it, and the longing for repose mani- 
 fested even by the great dignitaries, military and 
 civil, who wished to enjoy their recently acquired 
 wealth and honours. Napoleon, on the other 
 hand, was convinced that " glory which advances 
 not, recedes : " that he could only retain the 
 support of the French people by dazzling them, 
 of the army by leading it to fresh victories ; and, 
 amidst all his preoccupations, he was fully alive 
 to the Austrian preparations which were silently 
 going on, whilst the Austrian ambassador pre- 
 served his usual attitude of calmness and uncon- 
 cern. 
 
 Napoleon's fete day, August 15th, was commonly 
 chosen for the explosions or surprises which his 
 nephew and successor reserved for the first day of 
 the year. On the 15th of August, 1808, after the 
 usual formalities of reception, he advanced towards 
 Metternich, who headed the diplomatic body, and, 
 stopping two feet in front of him, exclaimed in a 
 loud voice and pompous tone : " Well, Monsieur 
 Ambassador, what does the Emperor, your master, 
 want ? Does he intend to call me back to Vienna ? " 
 The ambassador, not the least disconcerted, an- 
 swered calmly with the same elevation of voice. 
 
 " I did not alter my tone, and turned aside his worthless 
 arguments with the weapon of irony ; from time to time
 
 222 PRINCE METTERNICH. 
 
 Napoleon appealed to Count Tolstoy as a witness ; but 
 when he observed that the Count 2:)reserved an unbroken 
 silence, he turned round, breaking off in the midst of a 
 sentence, and strode to the chapel without completing the 
 round of the circle. This scene lasted more than half an 
 hour." * 
 
 As soon as Napoleon left the audience chamber, 
 Metternich was warmly congi'atulated by his col- 
 leagues on having given the Emperor a lesson, 
 and in the course of the evening he was assured by 
 the Foreign Secretary, on the part of his imperial 
 master, that nothing personal was meant, the only 
 object being to come to an understanding on the 
 position. This is the account given in the Memoirs. 
 In a despatch to Count Stadion, August 17, two 
 days after the occurrence, the scene is described 
 as having lasted an hour and a quarter, and as 
 having been begun by Napoleon " with an air 
 which did not usually announce the approach of a 
 storm." It is also stated that '' the Emperor did 
 not raise his voice a single moment : he never 
 quitted the tone and expression of the most 
 astonishing moderation." Then it must be ad- 
 mitted that the manner ill corresponded with the 
 matter, for (according to this despatch) he angrily 
 threw all the blame of the threatened resumption 
 of hostilities on Austria's eagerness to arm : 
 
 " Do you want to attack any one, or are you afraid of 
 some one ? Has any one ever seen such haste ? If you 
 had put it at a year, or eighteen months, it would have 
 been nothing ; but to order everything to be ready on 
 July 16, as if on that day you were to be attacked ! You 
 
 1 According to a current version, Napoleon walked up to Metternich, 
 took hold of the collar of his coat, and said : " Mais enfin que veut votre 
 empereur?" "II veut," was the reply, " que vous respectiez w)n am- 
 bassadeur." — (" Nouvelle Biographic Uuiverselle." — Art. " Metternich.")
 
 PRINCE METTERNICH. 223 
 
 have by that act given an impulse to the public mind which 
 you will find it very difficult to set at rest ? 
 
 ***** 
 
 " I am frank. You are ruining yourselves, you are ruin- 
 ing me. England can give you money, but not enough ; 
 and she gives me none. The States of the Confederation, 
 ah-eady very unfortunate, are being ruined ; and when all 
 the masculine population of Europe are under arms, it 
 will be necessary to raise the women ! Can this state of 
 things last? It must bring us to war against our will. What 
 do you hope for ? Are you in concert with Eussia ? " 
 
 The division of Europe into Powers of which 
 the strongest should not have more than three or 
 four millions of pop)ulation, to create a vast empire, 
 to become chief and protector of twenty or thirty 
 small states, — such, Metternich thought, was what 
 Napoleon had been aiming at since the Treaty of 
 Presburg. The reduction of Austria to the con- 
 dition of a dependent State formed an essential 
 part of this project, and if Spain had not lain 
 heavy on his hands, he would hardly have allowed 
 the Austrian preparations to proceed till the 
 chances of the contest had been pretty nearly 
 equalised. On April 3rd, 1809, a few days before 
 war was declared, Metternich writes to Stadion : 
 
 " Napoleon, by his passionate disposition and by his 
 excessive ambition, has provoked these present complica- 
 tions. He believes in his chances of success ; on the other 
 hand, he is not deceived about the nature of the contest in 
 which he engages with us and our real means of resistance. 
 He founds his hope of success on his military genius, on 
 the spirit which animates his generals and soldiers. For 
 the first time he begins an immense contest with inferior 
 resources ; he hopes to double these by the excess of 
 mobihty. He founds his hope on the slowness of our 
 movements, on the repose that we might take after the 
 first success, on our discouragement and on the annihila- 
 tion of our moral forces, as well as on the paralysis of our
 
 224 PRINCE METTEKNICH. 
 
 physical forces after the first defeat. The Emperor said 
 lately to some one : ' The Austrians are making a devil of 
 a levy ; I may have the disadvantage at first : I shall over- 
 take them.' " 
 
 He turned out right, but he incurred a terrible 
 risk. He sustained a defeat at Essling ; and at 
 Wagram the Archduke John might well have 
 played the part of Desaix at Marengo instead of 
 (as things fell out) that of G-rouchy at Waterloo. 
 Metternich was with his Emperor at Wagram, and 
 in the grey of the early morning of the second day 
 (July 6th) witnessed with the imperial staff the 
 apparently decisive success of the Austrian right 
 wing. The news that reached them, at one o'clock 
 in the afternoon, of the retreat of the army, came 
 upon them by surprise : 
 
 ** Without losing his self-possession, the Emperor asked 
 the messenger whether the Archduke was only meditating 
 the retreat, or whether it had actually commenced. When 
 the Emperor heard that the army was already in full 
 retreat, he said to the adjutant, * Very well ; ' and added, 
 turning to me, ' We shall have much to retrieve.' " 
 
 We learn from Gentz, who was in daily com- 
 munication with the generals, ministers, and other 
 leading personages at Vienna, that all were agreed 
 in throwing the chief blame of the campaign on 
 the Archduke Charles, whose hesitation and in- 
 capacity lost Wagram and nearly lost Essling. 
 ^' Jealousy prevented cordial co-operation between 
 him and his brother the Archduke John, who was 
 paralysed by the refusal (from jealousy) of the 
 Archduke Palatine to send him the cavalry he 
 required, and the battle was lost by the united 
 faults of the three archdukes." 
 
 On the 8th of July, 1809, two days after the 
 crowning defeat, Metternich states that he was
 
 PKINCE METTERNICH. 225 
 
 sent for by the Emperor, wlio received him with 
 these words : " Count Stadion has just given in 
 his resignation : I commit to you in his place the 
 Department of Foreign Affahs." He begged his 
 Majesty to reconsider this appointment, on the 
 double ground that he did not feel equal to it and 
 that the time was ill chosen for a change of 
 ministry. He is requested to confer with Count 
 Stadion, who, on his strong remonstrance, con- 
 sents to delay the formal retirement till the end 
 of the war ; it being arranged that Metternich 
 should accompany the Emperor, performing ad 
 interim the functions of a Minister of Foreign 
 Affau's attendant on his person. Again, he requests 
 as a favour to be dismissed immediately on its 
 being seen that he is going wrong, and again he 
 disclaims all ambitious views and motives : 
 
 "I here avow in all sincerity of my heart that I found 
 nothing to counterbalance the load of responsibility -which 
 was laid upon me but the feeling of duty. Free from the 
 stimulus of ambition, as I have been all my life, I felt only 
 the weight of the fetters which were to rob me of every 
 personal freedom, and I was, with more sensitiveness than 
 was natural to me, weighed down under the influence of 
 my new i^osition." 
 
 In Gentz's diary we find : 
 
 " On the 26th of September, 1809, Count Stadion, during 
 a long and curious conversation at breakfast, said that he 
 had resigned this time irrevocably. Count Metternich, 
 who had returned the same day from Altenburg, accepted 
 the portfolio." 
 
 Gentz was in full favour with Stadion when he 
 resigned, and had been employed to draw up his 
 State papers, including the war manifesto. His 
 confidential connexion with Metternich had not 
 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 226 PRINCE METTERNICH. 
 
 commenced. His leaning therefore was naturally 
 against the incoming minister, of whom he says : 
 
 " There are certainly (as proved by extracts which I have 
 made from despatches) some doubtful and ticklish passages 
 in Count Metternich's conduct at Paris ; but, in the actual 
 moment, could he refuse the direction of affairs ? I find 
 nothing blamable in his conduct, although I sincerely 
 deplore the loss of Stadion, which is, however, but one 
 of the inevitable results of all that has happened through 
 our blindness and our follies." 
 
 On the morning of the 4th of October, Gentz 
 had a long conversation with Metternich, who 
 frankly explained the condition of affairs. He 
 believed that the war might be continued with 
 advantage if full reliance could be placed on the 
 generals who were to conduct it and the spirit 
 with which it should be followed up. In speaking 
 of the future, he said that he was far from believ- 
 ing that he should be charged with the portfolio 
 of Foreign Affairs ; that he rather expected Napo- 
 leon to protest formally against him, denouncing 
 him to Europe as a headstrong and perfidious 
 minister. He added that he would not accept the 
 portfolio from the moment that Napoleon should 
 declare openly against him, even if offered by the 
 Emperor. They met again the same day at break- 
 fast at Count Stadion's ; when Metternich put 
 point-blank to Count Stadion what Gentz calls the 
 thorny question from which he himself had shrunk 
 — how Stadion could have been brought to place 
 confidence in the miserable instruments with 
 which he had entered into the war. Stadion, 
 avowing frankly the fatal consequences of the mis- 
 take, could only urge in defence or mitigation that, 
 bad as he knew them to be, he had hoped better 
 things of them.
 
 PRIXCE METTERNICH. 227 
 
 Judging solely from ttie Memoirs, we should 
 suppose that the clearest understanding prevailed 
 from the first between the Emperor Francis and 
 Metternich : that they quite agreed on the course 
 to be pursued; and that Metternich never had 
 reason to complain of divided counsels, or half- 
 confidences, or indecision or vacillation on the 
 part of his imperial master. Such was not the 
 impression of a close, interested and sagacious 
 observer, who was confirmed by events. On the 
 day of the breakfast, Gentz sets down in his 
 Diary : 
 
 " The actual situation of things is a failure. I wrote 
 to-day to some one : ' If you ask who is Minister for Foreign 
 Affairs here, I should find it no easy matter to tell you, 
 although I j)ass my life with the two men between whom 
 he must be sought. There are moments when one would 
 be so regarded, and others where the other would appear 
 to be the man : others again where neither of the two ; 
 finally, many where nobody is.' This is the exact truth. 
 Neither Metternich nor Stadion knows who has drawn up 
 the full powers for Liechtenstein. The Emperor — sur- 
 rounded by his brothers (there are a half-dozen of them 
 here for his fete) ; or the dying Empress, often dehrious, 
 believing herself no longer of this world ; or by two 
 animals who accompany him everywhere, Wrbna (brutal- 
 ised to stupidity) and General Kutschera (!), believing all 
 the time that he is governing — is already but the shade of 
 a sovereign; complete anarchy has rejDlaced the Govern^ 
 ment." 
 
 An unanswerable proof of the state of confusion 
 which prevailed at the Austrian Court and head- 
 quarters is given by the manner in which the 
 Treaty of Vienna was (according to Metternich) 
 snatched, stolen, or smuggled, rather than fairly 
 made, by Napoleon. The story is told in the 
 Memoir. Immediately after the Truce of Znaim 
 (July 10th, 1809), a proposal for negotiations came
 
 228 PRINCE METTERNICH. 
 
 from Count Champagny to Metternich, who, with 
 
 the assent of hoth Emperors, settled with the 
 
 French minister that they should meet at Alten- 
 
 hm'g. They met accordingly, and some weeks 
 
 were wasted in pretences and formalities, which 
 
 strengthened Mettcrnich's impression that the sole 
 
 ohject of the negotiations was to gain time, during 
 
 which the French army should be reinforced. On 
 
 Champagny' s proposing to him to sign some 
 
 notoriously false protocols, he said, " Napoleon 
 
 has the j)ower of putting words into your mouth 
 
 which your position prevents you perhaps from 
 
 denying ; hut what he can do with you, he cannot 
 
 do to me — he may conquer kingdoms, but never 
 
 my conscience ! " 
 
 Affecting impatience at the delay, Napoleon 
 conveyed through the Austrian military commis- 
 sioner at his headquarters. Count Bubna, a request 
 that the Emperor Francis would send Field-Marshal 
 Prince John of Liechtenstein to Vienna. " The 
 diplomatists," he urged, '' do not know how to get 
 through an affair like the present ; we soldiers 
 understand one another better in such a matter. 
 Let the Emperor send Prince Liechtenstein to 
 me, and we will end the business in four-and- 
 twenty hours. I will tell him what I wish and 
 what I desire from the Emperor ; and what I want 
 he will grant me, because he is upright and wise. 
 What I desire is not the destruction of Austria 
 — but its consolidation." One obvious objection 
 to compliance with this request was that the 
 Field-Marshal was the Commander-in-chief of the 
 Austrian army, and that his absence from his post 
 might be highly inconvenient, if not disastrous, 
 in case of the resumption of hostilities. The 
 Emperor, however, complied with the request 
 without consulting Metternich, who was expressly
 
 PRINCE METTERNICH. 229 
 
 assured by a letter, brouglit by the Field- Marshal 
 on his way to Vienna, that the mission had no 
 other object but to get at Napoleon's intentions, 
 and that the Field-Marshal had orders to listen 
 to everything but not to enter into discussion on 
 any subject. He was expressly cautioned by Met- 
 ternich to abide carefully by his instructions. But 
 he had been in the habit of seeing only the mere 
 soldier in Napoleon, and thought himself his equal 
 in that capacity. He was therefore easily led into 
 playing the crow to the fox. The negotiations 
 at Altenbm-g were suspended : nothing was heard 
 from the Field-Marshal, whose recall was resolved 
 upon ; and Metternich states that he was dh'ecting 
 all his intention to the warlike preparations for 
 which the means at his command were immense. 
 
 " On October 14, towards evening, I was taking a walk 
 along the road from Totis towards Vienna, when I saw 
 carriages approaching, which I recognized as those of 
 Prince John Liechtenstein. As soon as the Prince saw 
 me, he stopped his carriage, jumped out, and said, ' I 
 bring peace, but my head along with it : the Emperor will 
 dispose at his pleasure of both one and the other.' " 
 
 What had happened was this. Napoleon, de- 
 clining to confer personally with the Field-Marshal, 
 referred him to the Due de Bassano, who told him 
 he must wait the arrival of the Count Champagny, 
 and on the Field-Marshal intimating an intention 
 to consider his mission at an end and leave Vienna, 
 Bassano told him that this would be regarded as a 
 breach of the truce, and entail all sorts of evil 
 consequences for which he would be held respon- 
 sible. Placed in this dilemma, the embarrassed 
 soldier-diplomatist consented to wait. 
 
 " After the arrival of Count Champagny, the conferences 
 befran, under the name of Preliminaries, which were con-
 
 230 PRINCE METTERNICH. 
 
 eluded on the night of October 13 and 14 with the signing 
 of a document which the French Minister called the ' Pro- 
 ject for a Treaty of Peace ' to be laid before the Emperor 
 of Austria. After signing this document, to lohich Prince 
 Liechtenstein assigned this and no other meanmg, he returned 
 home at 5 o'clock in the morning ; he had ordered his 
 post-horses for 10 o'clock, when he suddenly at day-break 
 heard the firing of cannon, and on asking what this firing 
 meant, was told it announced the signing of peace to the 
 capital of Austria; He wished to call Napoleon to account 
 for this on the spot, but Napoleon had just left Schonbrunn 
 with his retinue ! 
 
 " This, known to only a limited circle, is the history of 
 the Peace of Vienna of October 14, 1809 ; a Treaty of Peace 
 full of unworthy artifices, having no foundation in inter- 
 national law. 
 
 " The Emperor's decision under the circumstances could 
 not be doubted. Without compromising himself and his 
 Empire in the most dangerous manner, he could not recall 
 the end of the war and undo the conclusion of a peace which 
 had been already announced, amid the rejoicings of the 
 people, in the capital and in more than a third part of the 
 country still remaining to him. The Emperor ratified 
 the treaty." 
 
 Metternicli goes on to say that with this event 
 the provisional character of the functions assigned 
 to him at once terminated : that he thenceforth 
 appeared in the character of Minister of Foreign 
 Affairs, and took possession of the portfolio with 
 more self-confidence than he had expected in the 
 previous July. The mighty antagonist, with whom 
 it was his destiny to contend, had fallen in his 
 eyes; and ''before my conscience" the cause he 
 was to uphold had proportionally risen. Gentz, 
 however, states that in the course of a long walk 
 on Friday, the 5th of October, Metternich told him 
 that Stadion would leave the next day, and at 
 3 P.M. of that day Gentz left Vienna with the fallen
 
 PRINCE METTERNICH. 231 
 
 Minister, and accompanied him as far as Kromorn 
 on his way to Prague. 
 
 " I shall never," he adds, " forgive Metternich the 
 indifference and the levity with which he sees Count 
 Stadion depart, and the really shocking confidence with 
 which he undertakes so terrible a task as that of the dh-ec- 
 tion of affairs at this moment. I do not wish ever to 
 nourish the suspicion that he has contributed in any way to 
 this scandalous reverse of Stadion. His ostensible conduct 
 is enough for me." 
 
 In the entry for the same Friday he states that, 
 at a council held that day under the presidency of 
 the Emperor, Metternich was appointed Minister 
 for Foreign Affairs. 
 
 Metternich obviously leaves the precise date of 
 the appointment in doubt to avoid the responsi- 
 bility for the peace. But there is nothing in his 
 ostensible conduct to warrant the severe reflections 
 of Gentz, who evidently was not aware of the 
 manner in which Stadion had resigned directly 
 after the catastrophe of Wagram and only retained 
 office to save appearances. The farewell words 
 addressed to him by the Empress of Austria were : 
 " Dear Stadion, I am sorry you have had so little 
 energy." The treaty, or project of treaty, was 
 signed by the Field-Marshal and Count Bubna, the 
 military commissioner. Gentz, who had his infor- 
 mation direct from both, does not confirm Met- 
 ternich's statement that the negotiators were 
 tricked and did not know what they were signing. 
 On the contrary, they took credit for having 
 exceeded their instructions in order to secure 
 peace. On the 22nd of October (eight days after 
 the peace), Gentz breakfasted at Metternich's with 
 the Field-Marshal, who told him that the amount 
 of the money contribution was the article that
 
 232 PKmCE METTERNICn. 
 
 weighed heaviest upon his mind as exceeding his 
 instructions when hesitating whether he should 
 affix his signature ; and that he had proposed to 
 the Emperor Francis to refuse the ratification and 
 send him and Buhna to some fortress, if the peace 
 appeared unacceptable. The Emperor did not go 
 further than utter some expressions of discontent 
 to the principal negotiator, hut disgraced the 
 second, Buhna, who, if guilty at all, was guilty in 
 the minor degree. The grand offence, in his 
 Majesty's eyes, was agreeing to pay a war in- 
 demnity of eighty-five millions of livres instead of 
 thirty, to which they were limited by their instruc- 
 tions. 
 
 In his first and abortive meeting with Prince 
 Bismarck, M. Jules Favre is reported to have said, 
 " Take all our money; we submit, but not an inch 
 of our territory, not a stone of our fortresses." 
 The Emperor Francis thought more of his money 
 than of his territory, his fortresses, or his people ; 
 for by the treaty he ceded 42,000 square miles of 
 territory with a population of three millions and a 
 half. The fortifications of Vienna were blo"^Ti up, 
 and by a secret article the army of Austria was 
 limited to 150,000. Under the Treaty of Presburg 
 (December 25th, 1805), Austria had been despoiled 
 of 28,000 square miles (including Venice and the 
 Tyrol), with a population of more than two millions 
 and a half, and subjected to a war contribution of 
 1,600,000 florins. 
 
 It must be owned, then, that Metternich's 
 administration began under the most trying cir- 
 cumstances ; and that seldom has a more difficult 
 task been undertaken by a Minister than that of 
 restoring so shattered an empire to more than its 
 pristine state of power, influence, and authority. 
 Considering the instruments with which he had to
 
 PRINCE METTERXICH. 233 
 
 work, and the redoubtable adversary wbo was 
 watching him — like the beast of prey ready to 
 pounce on the victim which shows signs of life — 
 we should say that it was a more difficult task than 
 Prince Bismarck's when he undertook to recon- 
 struct the German empire with Prussia for its head. 
 Compare Austria after the peace of 1809 with 
 Austria after the Congress of Vienna in 1815. The 
 difference is as much owing to Metternich as the 
 regeneration of a country can ever be to one man, 
 and forms a title to a proud position amongst 
 statesmen which few below the highest order will 
 contest with him, although it was attained rather 
 by temper, moral courage, sagacity, and consum- 
 mate prudence, than by energy, daring, vastness of 
 resource, or by any of the quaUties that are com- 
 monly called great. 
 
 This may be in part collected from the de- 
 spatches and other documents comprised in this 
 publication; but will hardly be learnt from the 
 autobiographical portion. When Goldsmith was 
 asked the meaning of the v/ord sloiv in the first 
 line of " The TraveUer "— 
 
 " Eemote, unfriended, melancholy, slow " — 
 
 he was giving an explanation which weakened its 
 force, when Johnson interrupted him saying : 
 " No, Sir, you do not mean tardiness of loco- 
 motion : you mean that sluggishness of mind 
 which comes upon a man in solitude." We are 
 tempted to interrupt Prince Metternich in the 
 same manner when he explains on what he reUed 
 to raise the fallen State. 
 
 " The return of the Emperor to his capital was like a 
 triumphal procession. The populace there, as in the pro- 
 vinces, did not look beyond the present moment, satisfied 
 with being relieved from the presence of an enemy who
 
 234 PRINCE METTERNICH. 
 
 carried refinement, in making use of all the resources of 
 the country occupied hy him, to the very highest degree. 
 Napoleon, in the eyes of Europe, passed for an irresistible 
 power, under the yoke of which all must bow. The feeling 
 of the masses was no longer to escape this fate, but to 
 lighten the burden as much as possible. My thoughts 
 necessarily soared higher. Under the load of enormous 
 responsibility weighing upon me, I found only two points 
 on which it seemed to me possible to rest, the immovable 
 strength of character of the Emperor Francis,^ and my con- 
 science.'' 
 
 The appeal to conscience may pass. It is like 
 Corporal Nym's, "and there's the humour of it," 
 which had become a catchword or inveterate trick 
 of speech. But "the immovable (or unshakable, 
 if we may be allowed the word), strength of 
 character of the Emperor Francis! " who had no 
 strength of character, nothing that looked like it, 
 or could pass muster for it, besides a passiveness, 
 a submissiveness to events, which looked like 
 philosophy till decision and action were required ! 
 Fortunately his tone of mind, so far as calmness 
 and moderation were concerned, agreed with 
 Metternich's, who, playing a waiting game, rarely 
 required more of him than to let things pass and 
 put his dignity in his pocket when the welfare of 
 his people was at stake. His daughter's marriage 
 with the imperial upstart is an example. The 
 first intimation of Napoleon's wishes in this respect 
 came from Napoleon to Madame de Metternich, 
 who had remained in Paris : 
 
 "At a masked ball, at Cambaceres, to which my wife 
 had received a very pressing invitation, a mask, in whom 
 she immediately recognized Napoleon, took hold of her 
 arm, and led her into a private room at the end of the 
 suite of apartments. After some jokes of no importance, 
 
 ^ Die vnerschiitterUche Character- Starke. In the French version, the 
 expression is inebranlalle energie. 
 
 I
 
 PRIXCE METTERXICH. 235 
 
 Napoleon asked her, whether she thought that the Arch- 
 duchess Marie Louise would accept his hand, and whether 
 the Emperor, her father, would agree to this alliance. My 
 wife, very much surprised by this question, assured him 
 that it was impossible for her to answer it. On that, 
 Napoleon asked further whether she, in the place of the 
 Ai'chduchess, would bestow her hand upon him. My wife 
 assured him she would refuse him. ' You are cruel ! ' said 
 the Emperor to her ; ' write to your husband and ask him 
 what he thinks of the matter.' My wife refused to do this, 
 and pointed out that Prince Schwarzenberg was the organ 
 through which he should approach the Imperial Court. 
 Neither did she delay to inform the Ambassador, who was 
 present at the ball, of what had passed between her and 
 the Emperor." 
 
 Prince Schwarzenberg liad been appointed 
 Ambassador at Paris, on the nomination of Met- 
 ternich, who prides himself, with justice, on the 
 selection. The morning after the ball Prince 
 Eugene presented himself at the Ambassador's, 
 and made the proposal in form "in the name of 
 the Emperor, and with the knowledge of his 
 mother, the Empress Josephine." As soon as the 
 news reached Metternich he repaired to the 
 Emperor Francis, who, after a pause of reflection, 
 asked the Minister what he would do in his (the 
 Emperor's) place. The Minister rej^lied that this 
 was one of the cases in which the Emperor must 
 decide for himself: " Your Majesty is Euler and 
 Father ; to you alone it belongs to consider what 
 is your duty." " I leave the decision in my 
 daughter's hands," cried the Emperor warmly; 
 '' for as I will never constrain her, I desire, before 
 I consult my duty as a monarch, to know what 
 she decides for herself. See the Archduchess, and 
 let me know what she says to you. I will not my- 
 self speak to her on the subject, lest it should seem 
 as if I wished to influence her decision."
 
 236 PRINCE metternich; 
 
 Metternicli went at once to the Arcliduchess, 
 and laid tlie matter plainly before her. She 
 listened with calmness, and then asked : " What 
 does my father wish?" She was told that her 
 father wished to have her decision on a matter so 
 important for the destiny of her whole life : "I 
 wish only what it is my duty to wish," answered 
 the Archduchess ; " where the interest of the 
 Empire is concerned, that interest must be con- 
 sulted, and not my will. Ask my father to consult 
 his duty as a ruler, and subordinate to that any 
 interests connected with my person." 
 
 When this was reported to the Emperor he had 
 no alternative but to come to a resolution : 
 
 " Whilst you have been with her I have been thinking 
 how to decide. My consent to the marriage woukl secure 
 to the Empire some years of pohtical peace, which I can 
 devote to the healing of its wounds. All my faculties are 
 devoted to the welfare of my people ; I cannot, therefore, 
 hesitate in my decision. Send a courier to Paris, and say, 
 that I will accept the demand for the hand of my daughter, 
 but with the express reservation, that on neither side shall 
 any condition be attached to it : there are sacrifices which 
 must not be contaminated with anything approaching to a 
 bargain." 
 
 "This," are the concluding words of the narra- 
 tive in the Memoirs, "is the truth with regard to 
 the marriage of Napoleon with the Archduchess 
 Marie Louise." 
 
 That this narrative at best only presents us 
 with a summary in the shape of dialogue of what 
 actually took place, may be no grave impeachment 
 of its accuracy, but unluckily it is irreconcilable, 
 as regards material facts, with the correspondence 
 between Metternich, Madame de Metternich, and 
 Prince Schwarzenberg. In the letter from Paris, 
 January 3rd, 1810, containing the first intimation fM
 
 PRINCE METTERXICH. 237 
 
 of the proposal, Madame de Metternich states 
 expressly that it did not come from Napoleon at 
 a ball, but from the Empress Josephine at Mal- 
 maison in these words : "I have a plan which 
 occupies me entirely, the success of which alone 
 would make me hope that the sacrifice I am about 
 to make (the divorce) will not be a pure loss : it 
 is that the Emperor should marry your Arch- 
 duchess. I spoke to him of it yesterday, and he 
 said his choice was not yet fixed, but he believes 
 that this would be his choice, if he were certain 
 of being accepted." From Metternich's despatches 
 to Prince Schwarzenberg, it is clear that the whole 
 matter had been fully discussed and arranged 
 before the Archduchess was consulted. On Feb. 
 14th, 1810, he writes : 
 
 "Our last despatches will have shown that our august 
 master, having only the well-being of his people in view, 
 would not refuse to give the Ai'chduchess to the Emperor 
 of the French. But as her Imperial Highness was not, 
 at the time of the departure of the last courier, informed 
 of a question which for some time has occupied the whole 
 of Europe, I was not able to speak positively of her con- 
 sent." 
 
 When the marriage was arranged, Metternich 
 wrote to his wife : 
 
 " The new Empress will please at Paris, and ought to 
 please by her great sweetness and simplicity. Kather 
 plain than pretty in the face, she has a very fine figure, 
 and when she has been a little hahilUe, arrangee, &c., she 
 will do admirably. / Jiave earnestly entreated her to engage 
 a dancing master as soon as she arrives, and not to dance 
 before she has learnt to dance ivell." ^ 
 
 Not to insist on specific concessions was deemed 
 the best mode of dealing with Napoleon : the 
 grand purpose of the marriage, from the Austrian 
 
 ^ Capefigue assigns a floating inot to Lady Castlereagh : " II fallait livrer 
 une vierge d'Autriche au Miuutaur pour I'assouvir ! "
 
 238 PRINCE METTERNICH. 
 
 point of view, being to obtain a respite from his 
 aggressive policy. Metternich Avas all along per- 
 suaded that Napoleon was overdrawing upon his 
 destiny : that he was overtasking the resources 
 of France : that all Europe had begun to regard 
 him as an incubus to be shaken off: that a 
 Nemesis was impending over him by which 
 Austria would regain her independence, if she 
 could remain quiet till he was powerless to keep 
 her down. 
 
 What were Napoleon's motives for the marriage 
 besides the gratification of his vanity and his need 
 of an heir ? How far would his future policy be 
 moulded by it ? Would he now be content to 
 settle down like an old established and recognized 
 Sovereign ? Or did he ho2:)e to use Austria as a 
 help or stepping-stone to the universal dominion 
 which was or had been his dream ? These are the 
 questions which puzzled Metternich, and which 
 for the guidance of his own course he deemed it 
 of paramount importance to solve. He therefore 
 determined, with the consent of his Imperial 
 Master, to go to Paris at the same time as the 
 new Empress, and remain there till he had dis- 
 covered the true state of the case : 
 
 " If," remarks Gentz, *' some wholly unforeseen mis- 
 chance does not occur, this journey of Count Metternich 
 cannot but do good. It is hardly possible that the defects 
 of his character should spoil altogether the just and wise 
 views with which he starts. His father, Prince Metternich, 
 is charged with the portfolio during the absence of the 
 son. I had some long and tiresome conversation with him 
 this evening ! " 
 
 Napoleon welcomed the Ambassador-Extraordi- 
 nary with visible signs of satisfaction, and indulged 
 him with long conversations, in which he frankly 
 unfolded his views. Indeed his frankness went so
 
 PRINCE METTERNICH. 239 
 
 far as to admit that if, in September 1809, the 
 Austrians had recommenced " hostilities and beaten 
 him," he should have been lost: a word which he 
 withdrew, thinking he had said too much, re- 
 placing it by " very much embarrassed." 
 
 " As a special sign of favour, Nai)oleon proposed to Prince 
 Schwarzenberg (then Austrian Ambassador in Paris) and 
 me to abolish the mediatisation of our families, and to 
 enrol us as sovereign members of the Pihenish Confedera- 
 tion, a proposal which we both, in consideration of our 
 official position, declined in the most polite manner." ^ 
 
 Nothing struck Metternich more than the 
 erroneous views which Napoleon had formed of 
 England, of our natural resources, and our moral 
 character. That he should bring England to 
 reason by means of the Continental blockade, 
 " this he regarded as a mathematical certainty." 
 He declared that he never seriously contemplated 
 an invasion of England, except in aid of an in- 
 surrectionary movement which he was given to 
 believe was on the cards. But no reliance what- 
 ever can be placed upon these apparently frank 
 effusions of his, by which he was wont to palliate 
 his failures. Equally fallacious was his conviction 
 that Alexander of Eussia, whom he had found so 
 pliable at Tilsit, would either not fight with France 
 or give way at the first victory, which he had no 
 doubt of gaining. 
 
 Early in October, 1810, Metternich, conceiving 
 the object of his journey achieved, had an audience 
 to take leave, and returned to make his report 
 to his Emperor and resume the portfolio of the 
 Foreign Office. The purport of his report was 
 
 * The imperial abbey of Ochsenhanscn was erected into a principality 
 and granted to Prince Metternich, tlie fathir, as a compensation lor the 
 lordships of Winnebonrii and Bilstein, ceded to France by the Treaty of 
 Luneburg. This (in 1803) brought the title of prince into the family.
 
 240 PRINCE METTERNICH. 
 
 that Napoleon was meditating a great blow against 
 Eussia : that the following year, 1811, would pro- 
 bably be consumed in preparations ; and that the 
 campaign would begin in the spring of 1812. 
 How was Austria to act ? To take a side or 
 observe a strict neutrality ? Principle apart, 
 France offered great temptations, for France alone 
 could reinstate Austria in the territory that had 
 been wrested from her. The whole of the Illyrian 
 provinces had abeady been held out by Napoleon 
 as a bait. But in dismissing this alternative, 
 Metternich gave signal proof that his appeals to 
 conscience were sometimes something better than 
 a form. In the report to his Imperial Master he 
 says : 
 
 " The peculiar characteristic of Austria's position is the 
 moral height horn which the most adverse circumstances 
 could not displace her. Your Majesty is the central point, 
 the real, the only remaining representative of an old order 
 of things founded on eternal unchangeable right. All eyes 
 are fixed on your Majesty, and in this character lies that 
 for which nothing can compensate. 
 
 " On the day when Austrian troops shall fight in the 
 same ranks with French and confederate troops in a war 
 of destruction, your Majesty will have laid aside this 
 character. In a moral sense we should in this case lower 
 ourselves to the baseness of the confederates, and in a 
 political, down to all the late faults of the Eussian Cabinet, 
 To such a part we could only be compelled by the actual 
 impossibility of doing otherwise." 
 
 The actual impossibility came to pass : Austria 
 announced an armed neutrality : Napoleon de- 
 manded an auxiliary army of thirty thousand men, 
 which the Emperor Francis granted, without for- 
 mally giving up his character as a neutral : 
 
 "All history has not recorded so strange a political 
 situation, and it probably never will record a second ex.-
 
 PRINCE METTERNICH. 241 
 
 ample of the same kind. It was the result of circum- 
 stances, and a remarkable illustration of a period fantastic 
 in every resjiect, and afflicted with every kind of abnormal 
 condition. In the imposition of an auxiliary army from 
 Austria Napoleon sought, not a material strengthening of 
 his forces, for this did not seem to him to be necessary, 
 but a moral guarantee for the restraint of the other part 
 of the Austrian army within the boundaries of their own 
 kingdom. 
 
 By tacit understanding, therefore, the Austrian 
 contingent took no active part in the invasion, 
 and suffered little in the retreat. It quietly fell 
 back upon Gallicia. The new ground to be taken 
 by Austria was at once marked out by Metternich. 
 
 " * The political position of the Imj)erial court is that 
 of an armed neutrality. This position, if persevered in, 
 would degrade the Austrian Power into a mere negation. 
 This could be changed only by a rapid transition, or by 
 a course of moderation which secures to the Emperor free 
 action in the future. Eapid transition would make Austria 
 a member of the Northern alliance, or lead to a union 
 with France : while the latter would be impossible, the 
 former is open to us. The transition from neutrality to 
 war lies in the armed mediation." 
 
 It was as the representative of an armed media- 
 tion, therefore, that he repaired to the memorable 
 interview with Napoleon at Dresden on June 27th, 
 1813, and it is admitted on all hands that he 
 played the very difficult part he had undertaken 
 with consummate judgment and skill. It was an 
 encounter wdiich would have gladdened the heart 
 of their old fencing-master. His aim throughout 
 was to piit Napoleon in the wrong without coming 
 to a downright breach which might necessitate 
 immediate action ; for Metternich never expected 
 to bring him to reason, and was mainly anxious to 
 justify Austria in openly joining the Coaliti'iu so 
 
 VOL. I. R
 
 242 PRINCE METTERNICH. 
 
 soon as her preparations were complete. The 
 account of what passed is given with substantial 
 accuracy by M. Thiers, but it is well to have the 
 most important passages direct from the best 
 authority, although there is a slight discrepancy 
 between the brief abstract of the conversation sent 
 to the Emperor Francis the day after (June 28th), 
 and the detailed report in the Memoirs.^ In the 
 abstract, the serious part of the colloquy was 
 begun by Metternich saying, " It depends on your 
 Majesty," said I to him, " to give peace to the 
 world, to estabhsh your government on the surest 
 foundation — that of universal gratitude. If your 
 Majesty loses this opportunity, what limit can 
 there be to revolutions?" The Emperor replied 
 that he was ready to make peace, but perish sooner 
 than make a dishonourable one ; adding that he 
 would not give up an inch of ground : that he 
 would only make peace on the basis of the statu 
 quo antebellum. In the Memoirs it is Napoleon 
 who begins : 
 
 " Napoleon waited for me, standing in the middle of the 
 room with his sword at his side, and his hat mider his arm. 
 He came up to me in a studied manner, and inquired after 
 the health of the Emperor. His countenance then soon 
 clouded over, and he spoke, standing in front of me, as 
 follows : 
 
 "'So you, too, want war; well, you shall have it. I 
 have annihilated the Prussian army at Liitzen ; I have 
 beaten the Kussians at Bautzen ; now you wish your turn 
 to come. Be it so ; the rendezvous shall be in Vienna. 
 
 ^ We leara from one of the editor's notes that this conversation was 
 first reduced to writing by Metternich in 1820 and freely communicated. 
 It was, we believe, so reduced in French, and should certainly have been 
 given as written instead of being translated into German. Capefigue 
 states that Metternich gave him a resume of the scene at Joliannisberg 
 in 1)S39, and reported Napoleon as having said, " Ah, Metteruich, how 
 much has England given you to take part against me in this manner?" 
 According to Capefigue's version, the doors were locked.
 
 PRINCE METTERNICH. 243 
 
 Men are incorrigible : experience is lost upon you. Three 
 times have I replaced the Emperor Francis on his throne. 
 I have promised always to live in peace with him ; I have 
 married his daughter. At the time I said to myself you 
 are perpetrating a folly ; but it is done, and to-day I repent 
 of it ! ' 
 
 " This introduction doubled my feeling of the strength of 
 my position. I felt myself, at this crisis, the representative 
 of the collective European society. If I may say so — 
 Napoleon seemed to me small ! " 
 
 War and peace, was the calm reply, lay in his 
 Majesty's hand. The world required peace. In 
 order to secure this peace he must reduce his 
 power within hounds compatible with the general 
 tranquillity. 
 
 " ' Well now, what do they want me to do ? ' said 
 Napoleon, sharply ; ' do they want me to dishonour my- 
 self? never! I shall know how to die; but I shall not 
 yield one handbreadth of soil. Your sovereigns, born to 
 the throne, may be beaten twenty times, and still go back 
 to their palaces ; that cannot I — the child of fortune ; my 
 reign will not outlast the day when- 1 have ceased to be 
 strong, and therefore to be feared. I have committed one 
 great fault in forgetting what this army has cost me — the 
 most splendid army that ever existed. I can fight with 
 man, but not with the elements ; the cold has ruined me. 
 In one night I lost thirty thousand horses.' " 
 
 He reverted so frequently to this topic that 
 hours were wasted on it and others wholly irre- 
 levant to the matter m hand. On his saying that 
 he had repaired his losses, and had a fresh army on 
 foot, Metternich suggested that fortune might play 
 him false a second time, as in 1812. 
 
 " * In ordinary times armies are formed of only a small 
 part of the population, to-day it is the whole people that 
 you have called to arms. Is not your present army an 
 anticipated generation ? I have seen your soldiers : they 
 are children. Your Majesty has the feeling that you are
 
 244 PRINCE METTERNICH. 
 
 absolutely necessary to the nation : but is not the nation 
 also necessary to you ? And if this juvenile army that you 
 levied but yesterday should be swept away, what then ? ' 
 
 " When Napoleon heard these words he was overcome 
 with rage, he turned pale, and his features were distorted. 
 * You are no soldier,' said he, ' and you do not know what 
 ' goes on in the soul of a soldier. I was brought up in the 
 field, and a man such as I am does not concern himself 
 much about the lives of a million of men.' ^ With this 
 exclamation he threw his hat, which he had held in his 
 hand, into a corner of the room. I remained quite quiet, 
 leaning against the edge of a console between the two 
 windows, and said, deeply moved by what I had just heard, 
 ' Why have you chosen me to say this to within four walls ; 
 let us open the doors, and let your words sound from one 
 end of France to the other. The cause which I represent 
 will not lose thereby.' " 
 
 In M. Thiers' account of this scene, it is two 
 hundred not a million of lives for which Napoleon 
 professes indifference : there is no mention of a 
 coarser expression, and instead of flinging his hat 
 into a corner of the room, it is left in doubt whether 
 he did not let it drop as if he expected Metternich 
 to pick it up.'^ "When," he continued, "I 
 married an Archduchess I tried to weld the new 
 with the old, the Gothic prejudices with the in- 
 stitutions of my century : I deceived myself, and 
 I, this day, feel the whole extent of my error. It 
 may cost me my throne, but I will bury the world 
 beneath its ruins." The conversation lasted from 
 a quarter to twelve to half-past eight in the even- 
 ing. 
 
 "When Napoleon dismissed me, his tone had become 
 calm and quiet. I could no longer distinguish his features. 
 He accompanied me to the door of the ante-room. Holding 
 
 ^ (^Note hy Metternich.') — " I do not dare to make use here of the much 
 coarser expression employed by Napoleon." 
 
 '^ " II jeta ou laissa tomber son cbapeau que M, de Metternicli ne 
 ramassa point." — 'Jliiers.
 
 PRINCE METTERNICH. 245 
 
 the handle of the folding-door, he said to me, ' We shall see 
 one another again ! ' " 
 
 " ' At your Majesty's pleasure,' was my answer, ' but I 
 have no hope of attaining the object of my mission.' 
 
 " 'Well, now,' said Napoleon, touching me on the shoulder, 
 * do you know what will happen ? You will not make war 
 on me ? ' 
 
 '* 'You are lost. Sire,' I said, quickly; "I had the pre- 
 sentiment of it when I came ; now, in going, I have the 
 certainty.' " 
 
 They had anotlier meeting at Dresden, when it 
 was arranged that the truce should be prolonged 
 till the tenth of August, which was fixed as the 
 last day for the negotiations. At a prehminary 
 meeting of the negotiators towards the end of 
 July at Prague, Caulaincourt, the chief French 
 Plenipotentiary, came without his credentials, but 
 was nevertheless anxious to take part in the con- 
 ference. Metternich, familiar with the imperial 
 tactics, treated the non-arrival of the credentials 
 as a breach of the truce. 
 
 " I had the passports prepared for Count Narbonne in 
 his capacity of Ambassador for the Imperial court, and I 
 put the finishing touch to the Emperor's war manifesto. 
 These documents I despatched as the clock struck twelve on 
 the night of August 10. Then I had the beacons lighted, 
 which had been prepared from Prague to the Silesian 
 frontier, as a sign of the breach of the negotiations, and the 
 right of the Allied armies to cross the Silesian frontier." 
 
 "The joy of the allies," says Capefigue, "was 
 inexpressible ; one should hear Count Pozzo de 
 Borgo record the magical effect produced by the 
 despatch of Count de Metternich arriving in the 
 middle of the night in a country-house in which 
 were reposing the Emperor Alexander, the King of 
 Prussia, the Comte de Nesselrode, M. de Harden- 
 berg, and the etats-majors of the coalesced armies I
 
 246 PRINCE METTERNICH. 
 
 They embraced as if Europe was saved and 
 Napoleon overthrown." 
 
 Twenty thousand copies of this war manifesto 
 were printed and chculated. When a copy, posted 
 up in Paris, was brought by Savary to Napoleon, 
 he exclaimed : " No one but Metternich can have 
 concocted this document : talking of the Khine, 
 the Alps, and the Pyrenees is a thorough piece of 
 cunning. It could only enter into the head of a 
 man who knows France as well as he does." 
 
 When all hope of effective negotiation was at 
 an end, the difficulty arose of bringing the coalesced 
 monarchs to act in concert, and Metternich had a 
 harder task, requiring even more command of 
 temper and finesse, in conflict with the headlong 
 impetuosity of the Czar than in his diplomatic 
 duels with Napoleon. In a carefully- drawn por- 
 trait, he says : 
 
 " The Emperor Alexander certainly possessed mind, but 
 his mind, refined and keen as it was, had no depth ; he 
 was as easily led astray by an excess of distrust as by an 
 inclination to erroneous theories. His judgment was 
 always influenced by fanciful ideas ; he seized upon them 
 as if by sudden inspiration, and with the greatest eager- 
 ness ; and they soon gained weight enough to rule him, 
 and make the subjection of his will an easy matter to the 
 originators." 
 
 At Toplitz it was agreed that the command-in- 
 chief of the allied armies should be given to Prince 
 Schwarzenberg. But shortly after the crossing 
 of the frontier, Alexander sent for Metternich to 
 say that a new arrangement was indisiDcnsable, as 
 he had made up his mind that the conduct of the 
 war must be entrusted to Moreau under him (the 
 Czar) as generalissimo. Metternich told him at 
 once that such an arrangement was wholly in- 
 admissible and that, if insisted on, it would compel
 
 PRINCE METTERNICH. 247 
 
 the withdrawal of Austria. After a long pause, 
 during which he seemed lost in profound thought, 
 the Emperor at last broke silence, saying, " Well 
 and good, we will postpone the question, hut I 
 make you responsible for all the mischief which 
 may result." Two days after this, Moreau was 
 mortally wounded by the side of the Emperor 
 Alexander. When he met Metternich the next 
 day, he said to him, " God has uttered his judg- 
 ment : He was of your opinion ! " 
 
 Alexander had been brought up by La Harpe, 
 who had imbued him with many of his own 
 speculative opinions and retained an extraordinary 
 influence over his pupil. La Harpe was now with 
 him, and the main source of his political in- 
 spkation. A Swiss by birth, La Harpe was 
 anxious that the allied armies should keep clear of 
 Switzerland, where their appearance might pro- 
 duce popular manifestations fatal to the new order 
 of things. He therefore persuaded Alexander that 
 the contemplated plan of crossing the Ehine at 
 Schaffhausen and Basle should be given up as a 
 breach of neutrahty, although it had been as- 
 certained that the allies would be well received 
 and indeed hailed as deliverers by the confederate 
 cantons. The Czar only gave way upon an under- 
 standing that permission to cross the bridge at 
 Basle should be obtained. The troops crossed 
 according to the original ]3lan, and it fell to Metter- 
 nich to inform Alexander of the fact : 
 
 " The Emperor was very much agitated by this news ; 
 when he bad collected himself he asked how the army had 
 been received. ' Amid cheers for the Alliance, your 
 Majesty. The Confederate troops in a body have joined 
 our flag, and the people came in crowds fi-om all sides to 
 bring provisions to the army, for which we i)aid in ready 
 money.' "
 
 248 PRINCE METTERNICH. 
 
 " I could easily read in the Emperor's features the con- 
 flicting feelings which this news excited. After a longer 
 pause, he took my hand and said : ' Success crowns the 
 undertaking : it remains for success to justify what you 
 have done. As one of the Allied monarchs I have nothing 
 more to say to you : but as a man I declare to you that you 
 have grieved me in a way that you can never repair.' " 
 
 Besides expectations held out to La Harpe, 
 Jomini, and others, he had given an express pro- 
 mise to his sister, the Grand Duchess Marie of 
 "Weimar, that he would never allow the allied 
 armies to enter Switzerland. 
 
 Still more startHng was the personal position he 
 took up when the Coahtion were brought face to 
 face at Langres with the question what was to be 
 the future dynasty or form of government in France 
 after the expulsion of Napoleon. His plan was to 
 summon an assembly of deputies, and leave the 
 formal government and the selection of a ruler to 
 them. 
 
 "The Eepublic is at an end. It has fallen by its own 
 excesses. The Prince whom the nation will give to itself 
 will have less dif&culty in establishing his authority. The 
 authority of Napoleon is broken, and no one will have 
 anything more to do with it. A more essential point will 
 be to direct the assembly aright. I have in readiness the 
 man most suitable for this, most fitted for an affair which 
 would perhaps be impossible to a novice. We must 
 entrust the direction of this matter to La Harpe." 
 
 Here again Metternich was obliged to press 
 mildly, but firmly, the danger of a general break 
 up ; upon which Alexander calmed down, and 
 said, " I do not insist on my ideas against the 
 wish of my allies : I have spoken according to 
 my conscience ; time will do the rest ; it will also 
 teach us who was right." 
 
 Metternich held to the restoration of the Bour-
 
 PRINCE METTERNICH. 249 
 
 bons, not only as an article of his Conservative 
 creed, but from a conviction that the revolutionary 
 spirit had been thoroughly crushed by Napoleon, 
 and that the French preferred the monarchical form 
 of government, although eager to get rid of their 
 existing ruler with his ruinous ambition and his 
 never ceasing wars. The inexhaustible vitaHty of 
 imperiahsm is certainly a strong symptom that 
 although monarchy — that is, legitimate or con- 
 stitutional monarchy — has lost ground amongst 
 them, they have a marked predilection for auto- 
 cracy. 
 
 At Basle a welcome colleague and coadjutor 
 arrived in the person of the English Plenipo- 
 tentiary : 
 
 "I found Lord Castlereagh little initiated in the real 
 state of affairs on the Continent. His straightforward 
 mind, foreign to all prejudice and prepossession, and his 
 justice and benevolence, gave him a quick insight into the 
 truth of things. I soon saw that his ideas about the 
 reconstruction of France in a manner compatible with the 
 general interests of Europe in no respect differed from 
 mine." 
 
 Even more dangerous and embarrassing than 
 the erratic com*se of Alexander was the eagerness 
 of i:]ie Prussians to be first in Paris, which they 
 had destined for plunder — an eagerness of which 
 Napoleon took advantage in the memorable cam- 
 paign of 1814. In the Council of War at Bar- 
 sur-l'Aube, where the King of Prussia loudly 
 contended for a simultaneous advance on Paris, 
 it was decided that each army should decline a 
 battle, except in concert with the other, and that 
 a certain latitude of movement should be left to 
 Blucher. After the affair at Arcis, it will be re- 
 membered, Napoleon, instead of interposing be- 
 tween the invaders of his capital, fell back, leaving
 
 250 PRINCE METTERNICH. 
 
 the road open ; his calculation being that Schwar- 
 zenberg would not advance at the risk of having 
 his rear threatened and his communications cut 
 off. On this occasion he was faiiiy out-generalled, 
 and on hearing that Schwarzenberg, taking ad- 
 vantage of his retrograde movement, was marching 
 on Paris, he exclaimed : "A fine move ! I should 
 not have expected it from a general of the Coali- 
 tion." According to Metternich, the chief credit 
 of this move is due to the Austrian Commander- 
 in-Chief. Nothing is said touching the celebrated 
 mission of Baron de Vitrolles, or of any message 
 from Talleyrand ; nor is it likely that Schwarzen- 
 berg could have been moved by political considera- 
 tions in his strategy. 
 
 On being apprised of this move, the Emperor 
 Francis and Metternich left Bar for Dijon, where 
 they remained till they heard of the caj^itulation 
 of Paris, when Metternich made the best of his 
 way to the grand scene of action, in company with 
 Castlereagh and Hardenberg. Immediately on his 
 arrival (April 10th), he went to the Emperor 
 Alexander, who had taken up his abode at Talley- 
 rand's, and learned to his dismay that the autocrat 
 had already more than half completed the arrange- 
 ment by which Napoleon, after abdicating, was to 
 be located at Elba. To the obvious objection that 
 he would not long remain quiet there, Alexander 
 replied that he (Napoleon) had given his word, the 
 word of a sovereign and a soldier, which it would 
 be insulting to doubt. When Metternich proposed 
 waiting till he had consulted his Imperial Master, 
 Alexander replied warmly : 
 
 " This cannot now be done. In the expectation of your 
 arrival, and of Lord Castlereagh's, I have put off the 
 signature of the treaty for several days ; this must be 
 brought to a conclusion in the course of the evening ; the
 
 PRINCE METTERNICH. 251 
 
 marshals must deliver the act to Napoleon this very night. 
 If the signing of this act is not completed, hostilities will 
 begin again to-morrow, and God knows what the result 
 may be. Napoleon is at the head of his army at Fontaine- 
 bleau, and it is not unknown to him that the act is ap- 
 proved by myself and the King of Prussia ; I cannot take 
 back my word." 
 
 Metternich still declined affixing his signature 
 till lie had consulted Scliwarzenberg and Castle- 
 re agh : 
 
 "After this consultation, I returned to the Emperor 
 Alexander. I said to him, ' The negotiation between your 
 Majesty, the King of Prussia, and Napoleon has gone too 
 far for my ojjposition to stop it. Prince Schwarzenberg 
 has taken part in the preliminary discussions ; the con- 
 ference in which this treaty is to be signed has actually 
 met. I will go to it, and there place my name to a treaty 
 which in less than two years will bring us back again to 
 the battle-field.' 
 
 " Events jDroved that I had made a mistake of only a 
 year. The treaty was signed in the course of that evening." 
 
 The Congress of Vienna, at which Metternich 
 presided, was opened on the 3rd of November, 
 1814. In a Memoire drawn up at his (Metternich 's) 
 request, and printed amongst his documents, dated 
 February 12, 1815, Gentz says : 
 
 " The grand phrases of 'reconstruction of social order,' 
 'regeneration of the political system of Europe,' ' a lasting 
 peace founded on a just division of strength,' etc., etc., 
 were uttered to tranquillise the people, and to give an air 
 of dignity and grandeur to this solemn assembly' ; but the 
 real purpose of the congress was to divide amongst the con- 
 querora the spoils taken from the vanquished." 
 
 He goes on to show that each of the Powers 
 had some separate interest at heart, except perhaps 
 England ; and England is accused by M. Thiers of 
 pressing the forced union of Belgium and Holland
 
 252 PRINCE METTERNICH. 
 
 to provide a secure inlet for her manufactures and 
 prevent the renewal of the continental blockade. 
 Russia and Prussia having combined to appropriate 
 Poland and Saxony, the three other great Powers, 
 England, Austria, and France, were banded together 
 to oppose force to force, and a breach was imminent, 
 when the escape from Elba threw everything again 
 into disorder. One of the problems of history is 
 through or by whom, and when, the news of this 
 event first reached Vienna. Sir Walter Scott 
 states that it was first made known to the Congress 
 by Talleyrand on March 11th. Metternich states 
 positively that it reached him early on the morning 
 of the 7th through the Austrian Consul-General at 
 Genoa : that he first communicated it to the 
 Emperors of Eussia and Austria and the King of 
 Prussia, who all three sent immediate orders to 
 prepare for the renewal of the war. 
 
 " Thus war was decided on in less than an hour. When 
 the Ministers assembled at my house, the event was 
 unknown to them. Talleyrand was the first to enter. I 
 gave him the despatch from Genoa to read. He remained 
 calm, and the following laconic conversation took place 
 between us : 
 
 " Talleyrand. — ' Do you know where Napoleon is going?' 
 
 " Metternich. — ' The report says nothing.' 
 
 " Talleyrand. — ' He will embark somewhere on the coast 
 of Italy, and throw himself into Switzerland.' 
 
 " Metternich. — ' He will go straight to Paris.' 
 
 *' This is the history in its entire simplicity."^ 
 
 The work of the Congress was resumed and 
 completed in 1815, and Metternich had ample 
 reason to be satisfied with it, as it gave to Austria 
 not only all she had lost since the commencement 
 of the revolutionary war, but much, Venice for 
 
 1 The same account of the arrival of the news was given by Metternich 
 in a letter to Varnhagen von Ense, dated March 27th, 1840. " Aus dem 
 Nachlass Varnhagen's von Ense." Leipzig, 1865 ; p. 118.
 
 PKINCE METTERNICH. 253 
 
 example, to whicli she had not the shadow of a right. 
 It also gave a large slice of Saxony to Prussia ; it vir- 
 tually confirmed the partition of Poland ; it handed 
 over Genoa to Piedmont ; it wedded Belgium to 
 Holland ; it formed Germany into a Confederation, 
 in which Austrian influence was to preponderate 
 as if for the express purpose of preventing German 
 unity. In short, it was a settlement which aimed 
 at nothing but satisfying the territorial greed of 
 the principal parties ; there was no thought of 
 natural congruity or cohesion, of nationality or 
 self-government ; no more regard for the feelings 
 and wishes of the population of the transferred 
 districts than of the live-stock on an estate. The 
 only Power that made any show of disinterested- 
 ness was England, who, after surrendering the 
 greater part of her conquests, made the abolition 
 of the slave-trade her standing-point. 
 
 What Burke said of Lord Chatham's Cabinet 
 might be said of the Vienna Congress : "It put 
 together such a tesselated pavement without 
 cement, here a bit of black stone and there a bit 
 of white, that it was indeed a very curious show, 
 but utterly unsafe to touch, and unsure to stand 
 on." The so-called settlement had no one element 
 of stability : it crumbled away piecemeal, and long 
 before Metternich's death there was little of it left 
 but the framework of a treaty without vitality or 
 force. Yet he points to it as a masterpiece of 
 diplomacy, a monument of political foresight, 
 whose consummate excellence is proved by its 
 durabihty : 
 
 " There was no doubt that if the Congress confined itself 
 to the limits of calm calculation, it would be exposed to 
 great opposition. The longest time of political peace which 
 Europe has ever enjoyed would, however, sufiice to tran- 
 quillise the conscience of the enlightened monarch (Francis)
 
 254 PRINCE METTERNICH. 
 
 and that of his assistant, even if the work of the Congress 
 had not remained triumphantly fireproof in the years 1848 
 and 1849 ! " 
 
 Was the work of the Congress fireproof in 1848, 
 when the Emperor of Austria was driven from his 
 capital, when Metternich had to take refuge in 
 England, when the sole hope of restoring the 
 Empire in its integrity rested on Radetsky ? Or, 
 in 1849, when, without Russian aid, the House of 
 Hapsburg would have lost the brightest jewel in its 
 crown ? As well might it be said that the work 
 remained triumphantly fireproof in 1830, when its 
 pet creation, the Kingdom of the Low Countries, 
 was broken into two. In Italy again, as in Naples 
 and Piedmont in 1822, Parma and Modena in 1827, 
 the fire was rapidly spreading when Austrian troops 
 acted as extinguishers. 
 
 In reference to the mot of the Prince de Ligne, 
 *' Le Congres danse mais ne marche pas," Metter- 
 nich apologetically points to the number of crowned 
 heads with their retinues, and other illustrious 
 visitors, for whom the Imperial Court was bound 
 to provide recreation, adding that the festivities 
 had no connexion with the labours of the Congress, 
 as is proved by these having been completed in five 
 months. Some entries in Gentz's Diary tell a 
 difi'erent story : 
 
 "September 12th, 1814.— Went to Prince Metternich: 
 long conversation with him, not (unhappily) on public 
 affairs, but on his and my relations with Madame (the 
 celebrated Duchess) de Sagan.^ 
 
 ** 14th — Eeturned to Metternich ; conversation with him 
 — alas ! — on the unhappy liaison with la Windischgratz, 
 which still appears to interest him more than the affairs of 
 the world. 
 
 ^ This lady divorced so many husbands, each of whom she pensioned 
 off, that it was said of her, " £Ue se mine en maris."
 
 PRINCE METTERN^ICH. 255 
 
 " 22n(i. — Dined with Metternicli at Nesselrode's, who in- 
 forms me of his definitive rupture with the Duchess, ivhich 
 is at present an event of the first order. 
 
 " Sunday, November 6th. — Dined at Metternich's with 
 Wenzel, Liechtenstein, Binder, Neumann, &c. Long con- 
 versation with M. on his afi'airs of the heart. 
 
 " Friday, 11th. — Visit to the King of Denmark ; talked 
 an hour with him. Then Metternich : long conversation, 
 constantly turning more on the confounded woman than on 
 business. 
 
 " ISth. — Went out at eleven. At Metternich's. Ee- 
 turned. At half-past one at Talleyrand's. From three to 
 four, curious conversation with the Duchess de Sagan on 
 her fatal history with Metternich. Dined at Count Bern- 
 storff's ; Count Clam with me. At eight, general con- 
 ference at Metternich's ! Fate of Genoa decided. Returned 
 at eleven and worked at the proces-verbal till two in the 
 morning. 
 
 " Monday 24f/i.— With Wissenberg to Metternich's. 
 Long conversation with him, principally on his affair with 
 Wilhelmine. 
 
 " Saturday, September 29#/i. — The conference has lasted 
 till 12 J. Then private conference of an hour with Castle- 
 reagh and Metternich on Poland. Then an hour more 
 with Metternich on his affair with the Duchess. 
 
 ''Dec. 29^/i.— Went to M. de Metternich's at eleven: 
 found him au lit with la Nesselsucht. Long conversation 
 with him." 
 
 Hardly a day passes without dinners, balls and 
 festivities, at which all these great personages, 
 supposed to be absorbed in the destinies of nations, 
 make a point of being present. Gentz had been 
 named Secretary to the Congress by acclamation : 
 he knew everything that was passing, both before 
 and behind the scenes, and this is his concluding 
 reflection on the year 1814 : 
 
 " The aspect of public affairs is melancholy : not as at 
 other times by the imposing and crushing weight sus- 
 pended over our heads, but by the mediocrity and inaptitude
 
 256 PRINCE METTERNICH. 
 
 of almost all the actors ; and as I have nothing to re- 
 proach myself with, the intimate knowledge of this 
 pitiable course of events, and of all these paltry creatures 
 who govern the world, far from afflicting me, is a source 
 of amusement, and I enjoy the spectacle as if it was given 
 expressly for my entertainment." 
 
 In the Slimmer of 1815 tlie Emperor Alexander 
 requested Metternich to come to him, and after 
 explaining that h.e had a great matter in hand on 
 which monarchs only could decide, intimated a 
 wish to speak to the Emperor Francis. After the 
 lapse of some days Metternich learnt from the 
 Emperor Francis that he had seen Alexander, and 
 received from him a paper, which had given rise 
 to grave reflection. A cursory perusal sufficed to 
 show Metternich that it was nothing more than 
 a philanthropic aspiration clothed in a religious 
 garb, supplying no materials for a treaty. The 
 Emperor of Austria and the King of Prussia took 
 nearly the same view of it, but eventually agreed 
 to sign it, with the alteration of some passages 
 and the omission of others, out of deference to 
 their imperial colleague. 
 
 " This is the history of the ' Holy Alliance,' which even 
 in the partial feeling of its originator had no other object 
 than that of a moral demonstration, whilst in the eyes of 
 the other persons concerned the document had no such 
 meaning, and therefore does not deserve the interpretation 
 which was afterwards put on it by party spirit. 
 
 " The most unanswerable proof of the correctness of 
 this statement exists in the circumstance that never 
 afterwards did it happen tbat the ' Holy Alliance ' was 
 made mention of between the cabinets, nor indeed could it 
 have been mentioned. Only the parties hostile to the 
 monarchs used it as a weapon for the calumniation of the 
 purest intentions of their opponents. 
 
 "The 'Holy Alliance' was not an institution to keep 
 down the rights of the people, to promote absolutism or
 
 PRINCE METTERNICH. 257 
 
 any other tyrauuy. It was only the overflow of the pietistic 
 feehng of the Emperor Alexander, and the application of 
 Christian principles to politics. 
 
 " From a union of religious and political-liberal elements 
 the idea of the ' Holy Alliance ' was developed under the 
 influence of Frau von liriidener and Monsieur de Bergasse. 
 No one has a more intimate knowledge than myself of 
 everything relating to this ' loud- sounding nothing.' " 
 
 Assuming this to be true, it goes far towards 
 justifying Gentz's reflection — an echo of Oxen- 
 stiern's — on the amount of folly which predomi- 
 nates in the government of the world. 
 
 Alexander is the hero of another strange episode. 
 He came one day, towards the commencement of 
 the Congress, to the Emperor Francis, to announce 
 that, conceiving himself personally offended by 
 Metternich, he had resolved to challenge him to a 
 duel. The alleged offence was something said to 
 Hardenberg. The Emperor Francis, after vainly 
 trying to soothe his imperial brother, told him 
 that the challenge, if given, would certainly be 
 accepted. Alexander actually went the length of 
 sending Count Ozarowsky, one of his Adjutants- 
 General, to Metternich, to demand an explanation, 
 which was refused in the required shape : 
 
 " Count Ozarowsky retired. A few moments afterwards 
 his Imperial Majesty sent word to me that he would not 
 appear at the ball in my house, to which all the Princes and 
 all the members of the Congress were invited for that very 
 day. 
 
 " The same day I saw the Eussian ministers, and in- 
 formed Count Nesselrode of what had happened. He said 
 he had not received any instructions from the Emperor 
 with regard to this affair. The conferences went on as if 
 no difficulties at all had been raised, and the result was that 
 half of Saxony remained to its King." 
 
 They met as usual for the despatch of business, 
 but their intercourse continued cold and formal till 
 
 VOL. I. S
 
 258 PRINCE METTERNICU. 
 
 tlie interview in whicli Metternicli communicated 
 the news of the escape from Elba. At its con- 
 chision the Emperor said to him : " We have still 
 to adjust a personal difference. We are both 
 Christians, and our sacred law commands us to 
 forgive offences. Let us embrace, and let every- 
 thing be forgotten." Metternich answered that 
 he did not accept the forgiveness, but agreed to 
 forget ; upon which the Emperor embraced him, 
 and requested that they should be friends once 
 more. This incident is valuable, if only as show- 
 ing the social footing on which Metternich stood 
 with sovereigns. 
 
 The Memoirs or Autobiography forming Book I. 
 and occuj)ying 265 pages, concludes with the Con- 
 gress of Vienna. Book II. (65 pages), entitled 
 " Gallery of Celebrated Contemporaries," contains 
 " Napoleon Bonaparte, A Portrait," with incidental 
 sketches of his Court and family, and "Alexan- 
 der I., Emperor of Kussia, A Portrait." Book III. 
 (occupying the concluding 44 pages of the first 
 volume, and the whole of the second), is entitled 
 " Collection of Writings fi'om the Eirst Period of 
 Metternich," and the contents are of the most 
 miscellaneous description; mostly correspondence 
 and despatches, of which we have made occasional 
 use. We regret that want of space prevents us 
 from paying due attention to the Portraits, which 
 are marked by a degree of literary skill rare 
 amongst statesmen, clearness of judgment, and 
 fine discrimination of character. They bear ample 
 testimony to the qualities by which the writer was 
 enabled to check the outbursts of imperial volition, 
 or mould it in trying emergencies to his pm-poses.^ 
 
 * The portrait of Napoleon contrasts curiously in several points with 
 that drawn by Madame de Remusat in her Memoirs, so far as they have 
 gone. Thus Metternich says : " Napoleon was not irreligious in the
 
 FRINGE METTERNICH. 250 
 
 The two volumes now before us comprise only 
 the first part of the Memoirs. Three parts are yet 
 to come and, we are given to understand, speedily : 
 Part II., comprising the epoch from 1816 to 1848; 
 Part III., from 1848 to June 11th, 1859 (day of 
 Metternich's death). Part IV., Miscellaneous 
 Writings. But he himself has indicated the epoch 
 from 1810 to 1815 as the most important of his 
 hfe, and it may be doubted whether the promised 
 continuation, whatever its historical value, will 
 add to his reputation for political foresight or 
 sagacity. He could never read the signs of the 
 times until they were inscribed in letters of fire 
 upon the wall. It was his boast to Mr. Ticknor 
 that he only laboured for the morrow, and did not 
 even venture to think much of the day following. 
 
 The only plausible defence of his reactionary 
 and repressive home policy, to say nothing of his 
 resistance to popular rights all the world over, — 
 literally from Poland to Peru, is suggested by his 
 haK apology to M. Guizot : "I have often governed 
 
 ordinary sense of the word. He would not admit that there had ever 
 been a genuine atheist ; he condemned Deism as the result of rash specu- 
 lation. A Christian and a Catholic, he recognised in religion alone the 
 right to govern human society." Madame de Remusat says : " I know 
 not whether he was deist or atheist. He was ready enough, amongst his 
 intimates, to laugh at everything relating to religion, and 1 will venture 
 to say that he thought the immortality of his name more important than 
 that of his soul. When the priests raised the people against him in 
 Spain : when he met with an honourable resistance on the part of the 
 French bishops : when he saw the cause of the Pope embraced by many, 
 he was quite confounded, and was heard to say more than once: "I 
 believed mankind more advanced than they are in reality" (vol. ii. p. 3G9). 
 They agree as to his want of manners. "It is difficult" (says Metter- 
 nich) "to imagine anything more awkward than Napoleon's manner in a 
 drawing-room. . . . Out of his mouth there never came a graceful or even 
 a well-turned speech to a woman." This is confirmed by Madame de 
 Remusat, who says that, even at balls and concerts, no one felt at ease in 
 his society. On the whole, the portrait by the lady, although a professed 
 admirer, is much the most unfavourable of the two. \Ve learn from her, 
 amongst other personal peculiarities, that " II salissait vite, et beaucoup, 
 tout ce qu'il portiiit."
 
 260 PRINCE METTERNICU. 
 
 Europe : I have never governed Austria." But he 
 was appointed House-, Court-, and State- Chan- 
 cellor in 1821 : President of the Ministerial Con- 
 ferences for Home Affairs in 1827 : and the death 
 of the Emperor Francis and the accession of Fer- 
 dinand (1885) made no apparent change in his 
 position, which lasted thirty-nine years, and might 
 have lasted many more had he not been overthrown 
 by a revolution from without. 
 
 That his gracious master could be obstinate 
 occasionally is shown by an incident for which we 
 are indebted to the Editor. On June 25th, 1812, 
 Metternich addressed a formal petition to the 
 Emperor Francis, stating that the President of 
 the Exchequer had refused him a permit for a 
 small cask of foreign ydne on two grounds — 1. 
 That the quantity, only the weight, was specified ; 
 2. That under an imperial rescript no one was to 
 import more than an eimer and a half. The peti- 
 tioner then set forth that one of the duties of his 
 post (as Foreign Secretary) was to entertain guests 
 for whom foreign wine was indispensable ; that an 
 eimer and a half was as good as none at all ; and 
 it concludes by praying that his Imperial Majesty 
 would be pleased to order that the Foreign Secre- 
 tary should give no foreign wine at all, or to exempt 
 him from the restriction. The only notice the Em- 
 peror took of this petition was an autograph mis- 
 sive to the President of the Exchequer, ordering 
 that no exception whatever should be made. 
 
 If the historical estimate of Prince Metternich 
 should eventually prove unfavoui-able, it will not be 
 from any indifference or neglect on his part. In- 
 dependently of these Memoirs with their illustrative 
 documents, he has seldom missed an opportunity 
 of self-laudation or self-defence. In the course 
 of three or four conversations in 1835, he told
 
 PRINCE METTERNICH. 261 
 
 Mr. Ticknor three or four times over that he 
 was always calm and moderate, that he loved 
 truth and detested falsehood. " I am passionate 
 about nothing : therefore I have no follies to 
 reproach myself with. But I am very often mis- 
 understood. I am thought to be a great abso- 
 lutist in my pohcy. But I am not." What was 
 he at the Congress of Carlsbad or the Congress 
 of Laybach? "It is true," he continues, "I do 
 not like democracies : democracy is everywhere 
 and always a dissolving, decomposing principle : it 
 tends to separate men : it loosens society. This 
 does not suit my character ; I am by character 
 and habit constructive." He should have said 
 "reconstructive," for his only notion of construc- 
 tion was to rebuild upon old lines and foundations 
 with the least possible approach to novelty. 
 
 It will hardly be denied in any quarter that 
 he was remarkable amongst statesmen for cultiva- 
 tion and accomplishment. He was conversant 
 with several branches of science ; he was no 
 mean proficient in music ; he drew and designed 
 well ; he wrote with the ease and correctness 
 of an author by profession; and when (1812) he 
 was appointed Curator of the Academy of Fine 
 Arts in Vienna he showed by his mode of dis- 
 charging the duties of the post that (to use his 
 own words) it had opened up to him "a most 
 congenial sphere of acti^dty." In his conversa- 
 tions with Yarnhagen von Ense and other men 
 of letters he frequently figures as a weU-read and 
 discriminating critic. 
 
 Varnhagen von Ense, who had several long and 
 intimate conversations with him at Baden in 1835, 
 did not know what to make of his overflowing 
 egotism and, assuming his self-satisfaction to be 
 genuine, remarks :
 
 262 PRINCE METTERNICH. 
 
 " In point of fact, it may be replied that nothing in his 
 long career has really prospered "with him : his whole 
 administration shows a chain of things coming to pass, 
 which he did not wish, which he has as long as possible 
 resisted ; in all directions he has always sacrificed and 
 abandoned as much as he defended and saved. . . . All 
 this is undeniably true and striking. But I believe it is 
 only a one-sided view. Allowance must be made for the 
 cii'cumstances in which he has been placed, and we must 
 bear in mind how incoherent and heterogeneous is the 
 composition of the State which he represents, what efforts 
 and address were required of him to maintain in a tolerable 
 situation, and in its ancient importance, this wreck of 
 another time in the midst of a new creation. Whoever 
 gives full weight to these considerations, may find reason 
 to believe that Metternich in his jDosition has done wonders, 
 and that, especially as regards what he has not been able 
 wholly to prevent, he has worked powerfully and averted 
 infinite evil — tJiat is, what appeared such to him and his.'" 
 
 The qualifying clause, which we print in italics, 
 is a material deduction from the laudatory portion 
 of the paragraph ; for no class of public men have 
 done more evil than those who thought they were 
 doing good. Nor was Metternich one of those who 
 were open to conviction, who could see the error 
 of their ways, and concede reform to avoid revo- 
 lution. He told Yarnhagen von Ense that he 
 never was and never could be one of the "juste 
 milieu." 
 
 " Whoever has a principle, must go with it to the ex- 
 treme, not hold by a middle, of which there is none in 
 truth, only a semblance, only a miserable holding-together 
 of contradictory conclusions." 
 
 His claim to an elevated niche in the Temple 
 of Fame, therefore, can scarcely be made to rest 
 on the soundness of his principles or the com- 
 prehensiveness of his views. To appreciate the 
 real nature of the services which he rendered not
 
 PRINCE METTERNICH. 263 
 
 merely to Austria but to civilisation, and fix his 
 relative importance amongst his contemporaries, 
 we should ask ourselves what would or might 
 have come to pass between 1810 and 1815, had 
 there been no one like him to watch Napoleon, 
 to control Alexander, and keep the Emperor 
 Francis firm. Nor should the influence he ex- 
 ercised for high, well-chosen and well-understood 
 ends be depreciated, because it was less owing to 
 intellectual superiority than to personal advantages, 
 inborn or acquired — to look, air, tone, and con- 
 summate grace of manner, the best inheritance 
 of aristocracy. It was one of the pensees of Pascal 
 that, if Cleopatra's nose had been shorter, the 
 whole face of Europe would have been changed. 
 Is it more paradoxical to say that the whole face 
 of Europe might have been changed if Metternich 
 had been a short thickset man, with plain features 
 and goggle spectacles, like Cavour; or abrupt, 
 downright, uncompromising, and peremptory, like 
 Prince Bismarck ? There are times when the 
 efficiency of an instrument depends more on its 
 smoothness and polish than on its strength. We 
 recently reviewed the life of a remarkable and 
 richly gifted person, the Comte de Broglie, whose 
 entire career was marred by the want of self- 
 command and tact. We have here, in Prince 
 Metternich, the contrasted example of one who, 
 by the complete possession and opportune exercise 
 of those qualities, was more than once enabled 
 to play a great part, and efi'ect great things with- 
 out ever arriving at what can fairly be called 
 greatness.
 
 CHARLES, COMTE DE MONTALEMBERT.' 
 
 {From the Quarterly Beview, April, 1873.) 
 
 When the Count and Countess of Montalembert 
 were in England in 1839 — when she was in the 
 bloom of her beauty and he in the fulness of his 
 fame — they breakfasted one morning with Eogers, 
 who, on their leaving the room, turned to one ol 
 the remaining guests and said, "I envy that young 
 man, not for his youth, nor for his fame, nor even 
 for his handsome wife, but for his faith. He seems 
 to believe in something, and that makes a man 
 really happy." This remark was addressed to Rio, 
 the author of "Christian Art," and the conversa- 
 tion having just before turned on a fine specimen 
 of the pre-RaphaeHte school deeply imbued with 
 the religious feeling, there can be no doubt as to the 
 description of faith wliich struck Rogers. It was 
 a faint reflection of that deep impulsive passionate 
 feeling that animated Montalembert through Hfe : 
 faith, uncompromising, unhesitating faith in Chris- 
 tianity as embodied in the Church, the Holy 
 Catholic Church, which sat enthroned on the 
 seven hills and (as he thought) was asserting no 
 
 ' Memoir of Count de Montahmhert, Peer of France, Deputy for the 
 Department of Douhs. A Chapter of Recent French History. By Mrs. 
 Oliphant, Author of " The Life of Edward Irving," " S. Francis of Assisi," 
 &c. In 2 Volumes. Edinburgh and London, 1872.
 
 MONTALEMBERT. 265 
 
 more than a rightful claim in eternally parodying 
 the language of Rienzi, when, unsheathing his 
 maiden sword, he thrice brandished it to the three 
 parts of the world, and thrice repeated the extra- 
 vagant declaration, " And this, too, is mine." ^ 
 
 Montalembert believed equally and implicitly in 
 her divine origin and her beneficial influences, in 
 her purity, vitahty, durability, and impeccability. 
 She was the same to him in her triumphs and her 
 trials, in her victories and her defeats, in the 
 noonday splendour and the lurid eclipses of her 
 sun. Like the cavalier who was ready to do 
 homage to the crown hanging upon a bush, his 
 reverence for the tiara was in no respect diminished 
 by its falling on an unworthy head — by finding 
 amongst the successors of St. Peter a Farnese or a 
 Borgia, a Gregory, a Sixtus, or a Leo, whose 
 crimes and vices, grasping ambition, scepticism, 
 and immoraHty, were the scandal of their con- 
 temporaries. It was still the true, the blessed and 
 blessing, the allein seliginachencle (alone bUss- 
 bestowing) Church, whether labouring for evil or 
 for good ; whether paving the way for the Refor- 
 mation or laying the ground for a reactionary 
 movement against the heretics. In his eyes to 
 elevate the Church was to diffuse Christianity, and 
 to aggrandise the Papacy was to elevate the 
 Church. He could not, or would not, see that the 
 Pope who placed his sandalled foot upon the neck 
 of an Emperor was actuated by the self-same 
 ambition and arrogant lust of power as the 
 Emperor (Napoleon) who inflicted a series of de- 
 grading indignities on a Pope. His whole heart 
 and soul are with St. Columba and the other 
 monks of the West, who first carried the glad 
 tidings of the Gospel to the rugged isles of which 
 
 ' Gibbon, vol. viii. p. 239, Dr. W. Smith's edition.
 
 266 MONTALEMBEKT. 
 
 this empire is made up. Nor was his glowing 
 imagination less excited by the great deeds and 
 heroic sacrifices of Loyola and his disciples, to 
 whom human happiness and genuine religion were 
 as nought compared with the prosperity of that 
 famous and irrepressible Society of Jesus, so aptly 
 compared to a sword with the handle at Kome and 
 the point everywhere/ 
 
 It is a moral problem which we shall not attempt 
 to solve, how he kept the dark side of the picture 
 out of sight : how he palliated or disguised to him- 
 self the cr3dng and manifold abuses of the spiritual 
 power with which ecclesiastical history is blotted 
 over : how he escaped the strictly logical con- 
 sequences of his convictions : why, in a word, he 
 did . not become a bigot like so many others with 
 heads as clear, hearts as warm, and motives as dis- 
 interested as his own. There is Sir Thomas More, 
 for one, who presided at the torture of a heretic, if 
 he did not lend a hand to tighten the rack ; and 
 the Comte Joseph de Maistre, for another, a man 
 of the kindliest and most loving nature, who, 
 besides proclaiming the hangman the keystone of 
 the social edifice, declared the "Novum Organum" 
 to be simply worthy of Bedlam, and the " Essay on 
 the Human Understanding" to be "all that the 
 absolute want of genius and style can produce most 
 wearisome." Montalembert was the very per- 
 sonification of candour. He hated intolerance ; he 
 shuddered at persecution ; he had none of the 
 arrogance or unbending hardness of the dogmatist; 
 
 ' The precise words of M. Dupin in 1825 were, "Une ep^e dont la 
 poignee est a Eome et la pointe partout." But the originality of the 
 phrase, like that of Lord Macaulay's Kew Zealaiuler, has been impugned, 
 and there is a printed letter of J. B, Rousseau, dated March 25, 1716, in 
 which he says, " I have seen in a little book, ' L'Anti-Coton,' that the 
 Society of Jesus is a sword, tlie blade of which is in France and the 
 liandle at Rome."
 
 MONTALEMBERT. 267 
 
 lie was singularly indulgent to what he deemed 
 error; the utmost he would accept from the 
 temporal power, from the State, was a fair field 
 and no favour ; the Church, he uniformly main- 
 tained, far from having any natural affinity with 
 despotism, could only blossom and bear fruit in an 
 atmosphere of freedom ; whilst liberty, rational 
 liberty, was never safer than under the protecting 
 shadow of her branches — 
 
 " Nusquam Libertas gratior exstat 
 Quam sub rege pio." 
 
 If he waved the consecrated banner of St. Peter 
 with the one hand, he carried La Charte, the 
 emblem and guarantee of constitutional govern- 
 ment, in the other; and his life and character 
 would be well worth studying, if no higher or 
 more useful moral could be drawn from them than 
 that it is possible to reconcile a dogmatic, dam- 
 natory, exclusive system of behef with generosity, 
 liberality. Christian charity, patriotism, and phi- 
 lanthropy. 
 
 The materials for his life are, fortunately, ample. 
 Indeed, a memoir might be compiled from his 
 journals, letters, speeches, introductions to his 
 principal works and other self-revealings, which 
 would present most of the essential quahties of an 
 autobiography. There are numerous incidental 
 allusions in contemporary publications ; and grace- 
 ful sketches of his career and character have been 
 contributed by his friends.^ Mrs. Oliphant, the 
 author of the work named in the footnote at the 
 beginning of this article, was personally acquainted 
 
 ' The best is by M. Fossier ia the " Correspondant," iu four parts. 
 See the Numbers for May, June, September, and Xovember 1872. 
 
 The catuhnjue raisonne of Montalombert's published writings, including 
 his pamphlets and contributions to Reviews, in the "Revue Bibliogra- 
 I'hique Universelle," fills five closely printed pages of small type.
 
 268 MONTALEMBERT. 
 
 with him ; she translated two volumes of his '* Monks 
 of the West " ; she wrote with the aid and imder the 
 sanction of the surviving members of his family ; 
 she had access to the best sources of information, 
 and she has made an excellent use of her oppor- 
 tunities. She treads firmly upon difficult ground ; 
 she exercises her own right of judgment with 
 praiseworthy independence ; and her language is 
 free, clear, and spirited. She has consequently 
 produced a very valuable and most interesting 
 Memoir, to which there is only one marked ob- 
 jection : the almost inevitable result of her own 
 formed habits, her modes of thinking, and her sex. 
 She is the author of some excellent novels, besides 
 the two '' Lives " mentioned in her title-page ; 
 and the woman, the novelist, the religious bio- 
 grapher, may simultaneously be traced in her 
 treatment of Montalembert : giving an undue 
 preponderance to the romantic, sentimental and 
 sensational elements or aspects of character, and 
 placing the clerical enthusiast in broad relief. In 
 the following sketch — our limits forbid it to be 
 more — we shall endeavour to redress the balance 
 by giving the orator, statesman, author, and 
 accomplished man of the world, his due. 
 
 A noble French and a noble Scotch race met in 
 the person of Charles Forbes Eene de Montalem- 
 bert, who was born in London on the 15th of May, 
 1810. The Montalemberts can be traced back to 
 the Crusades, the proudest boast of an ancient 
 family in France. It was one of the same stock 
 to whom Francis I. alluded in his memorable 
 challenge : '' Here are four of us, gentlemen of 
 La Guyenne : J. Sauzac, Montalembert, and La 
 Chasteigneraye, ready to encounter all comers." 
 The paternal grandfather of our hero was an 
 emigrant ; his maternal grandfather a retired
 
 . MONTALEMBERT. 269 
 
 Indian mercliant or civil servant ; and Mrs. Oli- 
 phant, after expatiating on " the beautiful melan- 
 choly face, replete with tragic associations," of the 
 expatriated noble, exclaims : 
 
 " Tims stands Jean de Montalembert at one side of the 
 poi-tal ; and on the other James Forbes, with trim peruke 
 and calm countenance, strong in English order, prosperity, 
 and progress, expecting nothing but good, hearing of nothing 
 but victory, raises with cheerful confidence the curtain of 
 life for the new actor about to step upon that tragic stage. 
 No young beginner could have had predecessors more 
 perfect in their typical character ; no new soul could have 
 more perfectly embodied in one those two great currents 
 of the past." ^ 
 
 The father, Marc Eene, the son of Jean, had 
 served with the British army in India, and thus^ 
 it would seem, became acquainted with Mr. Forbes. 
 Instead of settling down in England, he and his 
 wife were constantly on the move. By some lucky 
 accident he carried the first news of the abdication 
 of Napoleon to Louis XVIII. ; and in due season 
 he was rewarded for his zeal and fidehty by being 
 named a peer of France and minister plenipoten- 
 tiary to Stuttgart. 
 
 We must suppose that the Scotch wife was as 
 much absorbed by pohtical movements and in- 
 trigues as the French husband, and was equally 
 ready to throw off the parental cares and duties 
 which might have interfered with the exciting stir 
 and bustle of her life ; for, from the time he was 
 fifteen months old, the boy was given over entirely 
 to the keeping of James Forbes, who had already 
 
 ^ la a letter, dated 26tli June, 1869, Montalembert wrote to the 
 present Earl of Granard, who had sent him a copy of the Memoirs of the 
 family : — " Vous voulez bien, my Lord, me rappelcr que je suis issu par 
 ma m^re de la meme souche que vous, J'ai en effet toujours entcndu ma 
 m^re, n6e Forbes!, et mon grand-jjere matcrnel, s'enorgueillir de leur 
 descendance des comtes de Granard."
 
 270 MOXTALEMBERT. 
 
 afforded the strongest and strangest manifestation 
 of interest by dedicating to liim, when scarcely a 
 year old, the great work ("Oriental Memoirs" in 
 forty-two volumes quarto) by which the name of 
 Forbes was to live for ages to come. He watched 
 over his young charge with the fondest affection ; 
 but Charles was eight when it was finally deter- 
 mined, after a painful struggle for both, that he 
 should go to school at Fulham, and the event is 
 thus announced in a letter, dated Albemarle Street, 
 28th April, 1818', from the grandfather to the 
 mother : 
 
 "The day of our separation arrived last week, to me a 
 trial of no common kind, for except at short intervals, I 
 have never lived alone for fifty-one years until now, and 
 I feel it deej)ly. I told him I would take him after break- 
 fast, or, if he liked it better, he might dine with me and 
 we would go to the school in the evening. He hesitated 
 a little and then said : ' As I am to go, I had rather go at 
 once.' " 
 
 They set off accordingly, and, when about half 
 way, the boy suddenly flung his arms round the 
 grandfather's neck and adjured him by the love of 
 truth which he had so sedulously inculcated, to 
 answer one question truly : 
 
 " ' You know, my dear grandpapa, that I have left my 
 papa and mamma, my brother and sister at Stuttgart, to 
 be your child ; and now you and I are everything to each 
 other until we see them again. Tell me therefore — but 
 you must tell me truly — if since we left Paris I have be'en 
 the boy you expected and wished me to be, and if you love 
 me as much as when we were there all together ? ' It was 
 almost too much for me ; but I could with truth assure him 
 that he had been all, and even more than all, I anticipated. 
 Then said he, ' I am the happiest boy in the world, nor 
 shall I drop one tear when you leave me ; ' nor did he." 
 
 He lost his affectionate grandfather in the course
 
 MONTALEMBERT. 271 
 
 of the following year, and forthwith took up his 
 abode in Paris with his father and mother, who 
 were too much occupied with diplomacy and 
 society to pay much attention to the bringing up 
 of their children : Charles, Arthur (two years 
 younger), and Elise. The first glimpses we get 
 of his mental progress are from the diaries which 
 he began keeping when he was thirteen, and con- 
 tinued with occasional breaks through life. At 
 this early age he anticipated the conclusion to 
 which a grave scholar and statesman was brought 
 by experience — that life would be tolerable but for 
 its amusements ; and he appreciated time like a 
 grey-headed philosopher. More than one record 
 of a so-called pleasure party concludes : " Day lost, 
 like so many others." He was already a pohtician 
 and a proselytizing one ; for we find him exacting 
 an oath of eternal fidelity to the Charter from his 
 little brother, who, puzzled and half frightened by 
 his earnestness, recoils with a protest : " Mais 
 qu'est-ce que c'est que la Charte ? " Charles knew 
 very well what it was, for in September, 1824, 
 there is an entry that Louis XVIII. died after a 
 long illness, which he endured with an heroic 
 patience worthy of the august author of the 
 " Charte Constitutionnelle." 
 
 He was fourteen when the Abbe NicoUe, head of 
 the College Sainte-Barbe, induced his parents to 
 place him under a regular course of study, and was 
 at the pains of examining him from time to time 
 to judge of his proficiency. To the entry of one of 
 these examinations, when M. Nicolle expressed 
 himseK satisfied, he appends, " which is more than 
 I am myself." He is wearied to death by what is 
 called society, regards the theatre as a penance, 
 and is absolutely indignant at the notion that he 
 should be supposed to need distraction or could
 
 272 MOXTALEMBERT. 
 
 find enjoyment in nn-idea'd idleness. It was the 
 remark of Falstaif, " There's never any of these 
 demure boys come to any proof; " but Montalem- 
 bert was rather a serious and thoughtful than a 
 demure boy. There was a strong dash of romance 
 in his day-dreams and seK- communings ; and his 
 reading was calculated to foster the imagination as 
 well as to mature the judgment and supj^ly the 
 memory with facts. It appears from the Journal 
 that he had read Shakespeare's best plays carefully 
 and critically. The '' Tempest " he finds ''sublime 
 in some parts, but in others ridiculous : " the 
 " Midsummer Night's Dream," " un peu en- 
 nuyeux:'' "Twelfth Night" ''mediocre;" but 
 " King Lear," " sublime ; " " Hamlet," " divine ; " 
 and " Othello," " too touching." 
 
 It is a curious fact that his " De I'Avenu' poli- 
 tique de I'Angleterre " was dimly foreshadowed in 
 a diary of his fifteenth year, in which a propos of a 
 work on English institutions (De Lolme) he sets 
 down, " Few works have produced so much impres- 
 sion upon me as this. It has convinced me of what I 
 had long suspected, that England is the first nation 
 in the world." 
 
 A French college has something in common with 
 both an English college and an English pubhc 
 school, without exactly resembling either. Monta- 
 lembert entered the College Sainte-Barbe (now 
 RoUin) at sixteen and left it at nineteen. Amongst 
 the warm and lasting ties he formed there was his 
 friendship for M. Leon Cornudet, who, along with 
 many other interesting memorials of their boyish 
 days, has published (in the " Contemporain ") a 
 solemn league and covenant by which they pledged 
 themselves to God and each other, to serve their 
 country to the best of their ability, and consecrate 
 their lives to the cause of God and Freedom. This
 
 MONTALEMBERT. 273 
 
 document was suggested and drawn up by Monta- 
 lembert, who proposed that they should sign it in 
 their blood ; to which his calmer associate objected, 
 that blood drawn for such a purpose was not exactly 
 the same as blood shed for a great cause on a 
 battle-field ; and the two signatures were affixed 
 in ordinary ink. He was seventeen at the date 
 of the signature, and about the same time (April 
 23, 1827) he wrote down amongst the meditations 
 in his commonplace book, — 
 
 " God and Liberty — these are the two principal motive- 
 powers of my existence. To reconcile these two perfections 
 shaU be the aim of my life ! " 
 
 Going over these memorials of the past in long 
 after years, he has written opposite this entry, in 
 red ink, the word Deja 1 1 1 It is certainly a most 
 remarkable anticipation of what was to come ; and 
 we should be puzzled to specify another career or 
 character of anything like the same eminence 
 which was so clearly shadowed out at every step 
 of its formation or its growth. We call especial 
 attention to this phenomenon, for it is the best 
 answer to the imputations so frequently levelled 
 at his consistency. His probable liability to them 
 even then dawned upon him : '' What shall I do ? 
 What will become of me ? How shall I reconcile 
 my ardent patriotism with religion? " He would 
 neither have found nor feared any difficulty of the 
 kind if he had meant religion in the broad sense 
 of the term. He was clearly speculating on the 
 difficulty of reconciling love of country with ardent 
 uncompromising devotion to the Catholic Church. 
 In August, 1828, he records a fixed determination 
 to write a great work on the politics and philosophy 
 of Christianity, and, with a view to its completion, 
 to waste no more time on the poHtics or history 
 
 VOL. I. T
 
 274 MONTALEMBERT. 
 
 of his own time. Three notes of admiration in red 
 ink are set against this entry in the original journal. 
 He attends the debates in the Chamber of Peers, 
 and finds them cVune mediocriU effrayante. In 
 fact his thoughts, his plans, his subjects of interest, 
 were those of a matured intellect, of a formed man, 
 who felt " cabin'd, cribb'd, confin'd " within the 
 walls of a lecture room ; and we can well believe 
 that it was a glowing recollection of what he 
 had suffered from want of free expansion for body 
 and mind at Sainte-Barbe, in the universitarian 
 barrack as he called it, that made him long after 
 exclaim at Eton: "What a difference between 
 this place and the houses where we were educated 
 — true prisons walled up between two streets in 
 Paris, everywhere surrounded by roofs and chim- 
 neys, with two rows of miserable trees in the 
 midst of a paved or gravelled court, and a wretched 
 walk every week or fortnight among the suburban 
 lanes ! " 
 
 Yet he quitted Sainte-Barbe with regret. His 
 pained and softened fancy ranged over and repro- 
 duced hours upon hours of consciously improving 
 study or delightful interchange of heart and mind ; 
 and he must now look his last of the familiar 
 places and faces, must break away from his books 
 and his loved companions, to be thrown upon the 
 wide world, and become more deeply impressed 
 than ever with " the profound uselessness of life." 
 " Je me fais vieux,'' he sets down ; giving vent to 
 a sentiment of frequent recurrence in the mouths 
 of young people in their teens. Far from looking 
 forward with fervent expectations of enjoyment to 
 his approaching introduction to society, he foresaw 
 no gratification in mingling undistinguished in a 
 crowd : 
 
 "I can imagine Pitt or Fox comino[ out of the House of
 
 MONTALEMBERT. 275 
 
 Commons where they had struck their adversaries dumb 
 by their eloquence, and enjoying a dinner-party. I can 
 imagine Grattan amusing himself, after fifty years of glory, 
 playing hide-and-seek with children. But for an obscure 
 and unknown individual, lost in the crowd of other men, or 
 at the best numbered only among the elegants who feel 
 themselves obliged to wander every evening into three or 
 four houses where they are half stifled under pretence of 
 enjoying themselves, I see neither pleasure nor honour in 
 it. I see only a culpable loss of time, and mortal weari- 
 ness." 
 
 In this mood he starts to join his father, then 
 French ambassador at Stockholm, via Belgium and 
 Holland, lingering on the way to see everything 
 worth seeing, and duly recording his impressions as 
 they arise. Received at once into the gay circles 
 of the Swedish capital, he was with difficulty induced 
 to lay aside his stiffness and reserve ; his manner 
 naturally enough gave offence to the light-hearted 
 and haply frivolous companions who were forced 
 upon him : he was voted a prig ; and it was not 
 till some time after his arrival, when his really 
 gentle and unassuming nature began to be recog- 
 nised, that one of the leading belles, the Comtesse 
 d'Qgglas, ventured to confide to him that she had 
 thought him pedant et altier. This was a stun- 
 ning blow to his self-love, and a valuable lesson 
 which (he intimates) he was not likely to forget. 
 Happen what might, in whatever society, congenial 
 or uncongenial, he might be thrown, he would 
 never merit the description of pedant et altier 
 again. He actually consents to take part in a 
 special quadrille, got up for a ball at the French 
 embassy, " where," he says, " we were to have the 
 absurdity of dancing before the king and queen ; " 
 the ladies initiated him into its mysteries, and 
 (as he confesses with a mixture of shame and
 
 276 MOXTALEMBERT. 
 
 complacency) it went off very well. All this time 
 he was studying the institutions of the countr}^ 
 drawing grave political conclusions, and keeping 
 his enthusiasm for great things alive by corre- 
 sponding with his friends. " Do not, I beseech 
 you," he writes to Eio, " abandon yourself to that 
 pohtical discouragement which Burke justly calls 
 the most fatal of all maladies. Do not despair of 
 the cause which you have adopted, or give up 
 sound principles, because a generation without 
 faith and without soul seems to dishonour them 
 by pretended attachment." 
 
 In another letter to Rio he says, " I am reading 
 Kant, which I find horribly difficult. M. Cousin 
 recommended me to give myself up to this study ; 
 but I shall not follow his advice." He distrusted 
 Kant's philosophy, as tending to undermine faith, 
 and he lent a ready ear to the Abbe Studach, of 
 whom he says, '' I have made a precious discovery 
 here, that of a Catholic priest, who is at the same 
 time a philosopher, and who believes that faith 
 may be reached by knowledge. His toleration is 
 as great as his knowledge." The abbe brought 
 him acquainted with a school, boasting numerous 
 disciples in the Bavarian and Austrian universities, 
 which undertook to combine religion with philo- 
 sophy ; but metaphysics were never much to his 
 taste, and he was wont to arrive at conviction by 
 a shorter road than argument. Truths divine did 
 not come to him mended by the tongue of a theo- 
 logian ; they came by insight, by intuition, by 
 inspiration ; and they went forth from him with 
 the lightning flash of genius, in spontaneous and 
 irresistible bursts. Burke and Grattan attracted 
 him far more than Kant and Schelling. " Grattan 
 above all," says Rio, '' as the unwearied champion 
 of the greatest of causes, acquired rapidly the
 
 MONTALEMBERT. 277 
 
 grandeur of the hero of a crusade to the eyes of 
 his young admirer, whose enthusiasm, heightened 
 day by day by the fame of O'Connell's patriotic 
 oration, led him a Httle later to make an excursion, 
 full of attractions for him, into the country of that 
 great man." 
 
 Steeped to the lips in Irish oratory, he resolves 
 to write a history of Ireland, which was to be 
 partly founded upon the speeches of Grattan, and 
 to include translations of the most remarkable 
 passages. This plan, including a journey to the 
 Green Isle — this jjrojet adorable — was suddenly 
 suspended by a domestic bereavement. The fail- 
 ing health of his only sister, Elise, four or five 
 years younger than himself, to whom, since he 
 was domesticated with her at Stockholm, he had 
 become passionately attached, required a warmer 
 climate, and the duty devolved on him of accom- 
 panying her and her mother across Germany to 
 the South. They arrived at Besan9on on the 
 evening of the 29th October, 1829. She asked 
 him to sit uj) with her that night, to which the 
 mother objected, and she was left to the care of 
 her maid ; but in the middle of the night he was 
 summoned to what in a few hours was to be her 
 death-bed. The Cardinal de Rohan, Archbishop 
 of Besangon, administered the last sacraments, 
 and offered whatever consolation could be afforded 
 to the brother and mother ; but Montalembert 
 left Besan9on in the deepest compunction and 
 despondency, heartbroken at the thought that, 
 unconscious of her danger, he had reluctantly 
 abandoned his Irish expedition to accompany her. 
 
 Many months ensued before he could shake off 
 his melancholy, brace his mind for a fresh effort, 
 or even fix it on a definite object. He w^as left 
 free to choose a career, but was utterly unable to
 
 278 MONTALEMBERT. 
 
 make a choice. At one time he was disposed to 
 take holy orders ; at another he commenced the 
 study of the law ; and under a passing impulse 
 he thought of joining the army of Algiers as simple 
 soldat. There is a well-known saying of his, 
 quoted by M. Fossier, " Je suis le premier de mon 
 sang qui n'ai guerroye qu'avec la plume ; mais 
 qu'elle devienne un glaive a son tour." He had 
 no real military ardour, and the pen in his hands 
 was a more trenchant weapon than the sword. 
 
 During this interval of suspense he wrote an 
 article on Sweden, which was submitted to M. 
 Guizot, as editor of the '' Eevue Fran9aise," for 
 insertion in that periodical. It was accepted upon 
 condition that it should be cut down to half its 
 length ; and he submitted to this Procrustean pro- 
 cess, the most painful act of self-sacrifice that can 
 be imposed on a young writer, with an expression 
 of despair, '^Encore une illusion perdue.'' Find- 
 ing it still too long, M. Guizot ruthlessly struck 
 out those very passages which Montalembert con- 
 sidered the gems of the composition, especially a 
 spirited sketch of the soldier king of Sweden, 
 Bernadotte, whom he describes as a true Gascon : 
 " He told my father that he considered himself 
 the natural subject of Charles X., and that, should 
 that monarch ever require his services, he would 
 leave his throne to his son, and hasten, a simple 
 soldier, to offer his sword to his native Sovereign." 
 
 About the same time Montalembert formed his 
 first connection with the " Correspondant " by 
 contributing to it an article on Ireland which was 
 by no means an unqualified success ; for he sub- 
 sequently records of this and the Swedish article 
 that one of his friends found the first wearisome 
 and the second commonplace. His father, how- 
 ever, who happened to be in Paris at this time,
 
 MONTALEMBERT. 279 
 
 was delighted by the article on Ireland, as indi- 
 cating a talent which he had never suspected in 
 his son ; and the literary aspirant was cordially 
 received as a confrere by the leading men of letters 
 — Victor Hugo, Sainte-Beuve, and Lamartine. 
 
 Had he foreseen the dangers impending over his 
 cherished Charter, it may be doubted whether he 
 would have left Paris on his Irish expedition till 
 the cloud had burst or blown over. Bat it was 
 at London, where he had just arrived, that he 
 heard the startling news of the Revolution of July, 
 which, at the first blush, he was disposed to hail 
 as " a sublime victory." Mortified at not having 
 been present to aid in it, and eager to retrieve the 
 lost opportunity, he immediately returned to 
 Paris, where his ardour rapidly cooled down, after 
 a calm view of the situation in reference to the 
 personal as well as public consequences which it 
 involved. His father was on the eve of resigning 
 his post as ambassador: his brother, one of the 
 royal pages, had escaped through a window at the 
 peril of his hfe, and was equally without a career. 
 The abolition of the hereditary peerage was threat- 
 ened, and, with it, the road to distinction on which 
 he had confidently reckoned. The cause of the 
 Church was not likely to be advanced by the 
 change of dynasty, and, as to freedom, he was not 
 many days in arriving at the conclusion that "it 
 never gains by such violent movements ; it hves 
 by slow and successive conquests, perseverance, 
 and patience." In a word, the glorious Three 
 Days grew less and less glorious as he dwelt upon 
 them ; his sympathies, by some law of his nature, 
 were invariably with the losers in the political 
 conflict ; Je n'aiine pas les causes victorieuses, was 
 his frequent avowal : 
 
 " Victrix causa Diis placuit, sed victa Catoni."
 
 280 MONTALEMBERT. 
 
 In this state of uncertainty as to the line he 
 should take in French politics, his views reverted 
 to Ireland, and in the August of that momentous 
 year, 1830, he is crossing the mountains of Kerry, 
 on his way to "interview" the Liberator. He 
 travelled on horseback with a lively and intelligent 
 Irish boy for his guide. The weather and the 
 splendid scenery were at their best. His spirits 
 rose, his bosom swelled, his expectations were on 
 tiptoe, when he dismounted from his hired steed 
 at Derrynane. But here, alas ! the picturesque 
 part of the pilgrimage ended, and the prosaic 
 reahty began. The motley frieze-coated throng 
 that besieged the entrance, squabbling and vocifer- 
 ating about their own petty grievances, was not a 
 favourable example of a nation rising in its majesty 
 for the vindication of its rights ; and the figure of 
 the great man himself, which had loomed so 
 grandly at a distance through the mist, was re- 
 duced to very moderate dimensions by proximity 
 and familiarity. Nor was his enthusiasm revived 
 by seeing O'Connell, soon afterwards, the centre 
 of a numerous and disorderly meeting, at which, 
 adapting his tone to his audience, he exhibited 
 the rude coarseness of the demagogue and indulged 
 in language rather vernacular than high-toned. 
 But his inexperienced critic lived to learn that 
 popular influence is not obtained or retained by 
 pure patriotism or heroic flights, any more than 
 revolutions are made with rose-water ; and due 
 reflection brought him back to his original convic- 
 tion that O'Connell was the heaven-born advocate 
 of the most sacred of causes — a man to whom no 
 impartial historian would refuse the epithet of 
 " great." 
 
 Mrs. Oliphant thinks that it was this visit to 
 Ireland that decided the future of Montalembert.
 
 MONTALEMBERT. 281 
 
 He had come to see the Liberator and was dis- 
 appointed, but he had seen the Island of the 
 Saints, the island in which Liberty was making 
 common cause with Faith, in which the standard 
 of patriotism was waved from the altar by the 
 priest ; and he came back burning with eagerness 
 to bring about a conjunction of the same kind in 
 France. But if the train was laid in this fashion, 
 it was fired by his being brought into simultaneous 
 contact with two men who more or less influenced 
 all the remainder of his life. These were the iVbbe 
 de la Mennais and the Pere Lacordaire. 
 
 Felicite de la Mennais, born 19th June, 1782, at 
 Saint-Malo, was the son of a shipowner who had 
 received letters of nobihty from Louis XVI., so 
 that he was legally entitled to the noble prefix 
 which, in a fit of democratic equality, he laid aside 
 after 1834. Neglected by his father, whom he had 
 offended by refusing to engage in commerce, he 
 was adopted by an uncle, who left him to himself 
 with the use of a good library. His unguided 
 reading was of the most desultory kind, until he 
 was fifteen, when, resolving to pursue a regular 
 course of study, he took up his abode with his 
 brother in a retired house near Dinan, where, 
 besides amassing an immense amount of classical 
 and general erudition, he mastered the Fathers 
 and historians of the Church. He took the tonsure 
 in 1811, and entered the little seminary of Saint- 
 Malo, founded by his brother, but made no further 
 step in the ecclesiastical profession till 1815, when 
 he was ordained priest by the Bishop of Rennes, 
 having first written to his sister that it most 
 assuredly was not his taste that he indulged in 
 deciding for it. 
 
 A tract, in which he had assailed Napoleon at 
 the beginning of 1814, compelled him to take
 
 282 MONTALEMBERT. 
 
 refuge in England during the Hundred Days, and 
 for some time after his return and settlement in 
 Paris he was glad to earn his livelihood as an 
 assistant tutor to the Abhe Carron in a school. 
 One fine morning he awoke and found himself 
 famous, or (to use his own words) he found himself 
 invested with the power of Bossuet. The first 
 volume of his " Essai sur I'lndifference en Matiere 
 de Eeligion " burst upon the religious world like 
 a thunderclap, and gave him European celebrity as 
 much by the opposition it excited as by the admira- 
 tion it called forth. The second (1820) and the 
 two concluding volumes (1824) were equally suc- 
 cessful, and on his first visit to Eome, although 
 half of the conclave were against him, the Pope, 
 Leo XII., declared him the " last Father of the 
 Church," offered him a cardinal's hat, and hung 
 up his picture amongst the chosen saints in his 
 cabinet. 
 
 "Le Pere Lacordaire," by Montalembert, is 
 rather a biographical essay, composed as a vehicle 
 for personal reminiscences, than a biography. Left 
 to discover as we best may when and where 
 Lacordaire was born — he was born at Eecey-sur- 
 Ource, Cote-d'Or, the 12th March, 1802— we are 
 told that no adventure, no stroke of fortune, no 
 passion, occurred to trouble the course of his boy- 
 hood: 
 
 " Son of a village doctor, brought up by a pious mother, 
 he had, like all the young people of his day, lost the faith 
 at school, and had not recovered it either at the law school 
 or the bar, in which he was enrolled for two years. To all 
 outward seeming, nothing distinguished him from his con- 
 temporaries. He was a deist, as all the youth were then ; 
 he was, above all, liberal, like the whole of France, but 
 without excess. He has said it again and again : no man 
 or book was the instrument of his conversion. A sudden
 
 MONTALEMBERT. 283 
 
 and secret flash of grace opened his eyes to the nothingness 
 of irreligion. In a single day he became Christian and, 
 the very next day, from Christian he wished to be priest. 
 Seminarist at Sulpice in 1824, ordained priest in 1827, 
 convent almoner in 1828, college almoner in 1825, he 
 seemed not to depart on any side from the ordinary course 
 of things and men. There was nothing singular about him 
 but his liberalism. By a then unheard-of phenomenon, 
 this convert, this seminarist, this almoner of nuns, insisted 
 on remaining liberal as in the days when he was only 
 student and advocate. . . , 
 
 "He comprehended, then, in his youth and in his soli- 
 tude, that of which no one around him seemed to have a 
 glimpse : first, that the Church, after having given liberty 
 to the modern world, had the right and the imperious 
 obligation to invoke it in her turn ; secondly, that she 
 could no more invoke it as a privilege, but only as her part 
 in the common j)atrimony of the new world. 
 
 " M. de la Meimais, then the most celebrated and the 
 most venerated of the French priests, starting from the 
 opposite pole, had arrived at the same conclusion. It is 
 that which had all of a sudden brought him into proximity 
 with the obscure almoner of the College Henri IV. It was 
 upon this ground that they both planted the banner of the 
 ' Avenir.' " 
 
 The first number of the "Avenir" appeared on 
 October 15, 1830. The Church was then at a low 
 ebb in France : it was not popular with the people, 
 and it was kept in strict subordination to the State. 
 All ecclesiastical dignitaries were appointed by the 
 Government. The priests could hardly venture 
 into the streets in the dress of their order for fear 
 of insult, and when the cholera was raging in Paris 
 they had to be smuggled into the hospitals, dressed 
 as laymen, to administer the last Sacraments when 
 required. Then, again, they were practically ex- 
 cluded from any interference in the national educa- 
 tion, which was under the control of the University 
 and the Minister of Public Instruction. No school
 
 284 MONTALEMBERT. 
 
 could be opened without a licence, and no licence 
 was given for denominational schools, or for any 
 distinct religious teaching, except in the seminaries, 
 in which none but youths intended for the eccle- 
 siastical calling were received. In fact, the only 
 accessible education for the laity at large was the 
 mixed or "godless" system which the Eoman 
 Catholic hierarchy of Ireland have so indignantly 
 repudiated ; with the aggravation, constituting a 
 real grievance, in France, that those who were 
 dissatisfied with it were not permitted to provide 
 a substitute at their own expense. 
 
 The triumvirate, therefore, had plenty of useful 
 work cut out for them which they might have 
 performed without hurrying into extremes ; with- 
 out flying in the face of lawful authority on the 
 one hand, or venturing to the utmost verge of 
 intolerance on the other. In most of their grand 
 efforts they contrived to do both. We take, by 
 way of specimen, the first article by Lacordaire 
 which is quoted with commendation by his young 
 admirer. The subject was the refusal of a priest 
 to bury a man who had died without calling in the 
 aid of religion, and the forcible introduction of his 
 remains into a church by the sous-prefet. The 
 form adopted was an apostrophe to the priest- 
 hood : 
 
 " One of your brethren has refused to a man who died 
 out of your communion the Christian service for the dead. 
 Your brother has done ivell ; he has acted as a free man, as 
 a priest of the Lord, determined to keep his lips pure from 
 servile benedictions. Woe to him who blesses against con- 
 science, who speaks of God with a venal heart ! Woe to 
 the priest who murmurs Hes at the edge of a coffin ! who 
 conclucts souls to the judgment of God through fear of the 
 living or for a vile fee ! Your brother has done well. Are 
 we the sextons of the human race ? Have we made a pact
 
 MOXTALEMBERT. 285 
 
 with them to flatter their remains — more wretched than the 
 courtiers to whom the death of the prince gives the right of 
 treating him as he deserved by his hfe. Your brother has 
 done well ; but this shadow of a proconsul believed that so 
 much independence was not becoming in a citizen so vile 
 as a Catholic priest. . . . The domicile of the citizen can- 
 not be violated without the intervention of justice. Justice 
 has not been so much as summoned to say to religion, 
 ' Veil thy face a moment before my sword.' " 
 
 Precisely the same appeal might be "made and 
 the same rauge of sympathies invoked, should 
 sepulture in a church or churchyard be denied 
 (as it frequently has been) to those who, like 
 players, died in an unhallowed vocation, or like 
 many of the greatest men in all domains of genius, 
 departed tliis life without due preparation by a 
 priest. The Archbishop of Paris did well who 
 sought to deny sepulture in holy ground to Moliere ; 
 the Cure of Saint- Sulpice did well who denied it 
 to Adrienne Lecouvreur ; the Dean of Westminster 
 did well who excluded the bust of Byron from 
 Westminster Abbey; and, despite of the church 
 which he erected to God, Voltaire should have 
 been buried hke a dog.^ 
 
 Sir George Beaumont used to tell a story of his 
 asking the Pope to authorise a Protestant burial- 
 place at Eome ; and the reply of the Holy Father, 
 that he could not bless a locality for such a 
 purpose, but had no objection to curse one, if, 
 in default of consecrated ground, the heretics were 
 content to repose in desecrated. The editors of 
 the ''Avenir" appear to have been moved by the 
 
 ' The dying words of Voltaire, when spiritual aid was pressed upon 
 him, were, " Laissez-moi mourir en paix." He was buried in haste and 
 surrei)titiously in the Abbey of Scellieres, of which his nephew, the Abb6 
 Mignot, was Commendator, only a few hours before the arrival of a pro- 
 hibitory mandate from the bishop of the diocese to the prior. No 
 attempt, according to Mr. Morley, was made to obtain Christian burial 
 for Rousseau.
 
 286 MONTALEMBERT. 
 
 same spirit as this Pope : only they were serious 
 and his Hohness was laughing in his sleeve. 
 
 It was the favourite theory of Lacordaire that 
 great causes were to be fought out, as in ancient 
 Rome and England, in legal proceedings before the 
 tribunals in the full light of publicity ; he was fond 
 of reverting to his old profession of advocacy in 
 which he shone, and he was never better pleased 
 than when brought into open conflict with the 
 procureur du rot. The Government was ready 
 enough to give him the opportunities he sought, 
 and on the 31st of January, 1831, he appeared 
 with de la Mennais before the Criminal Court to 
 answer for two articles bitterly assailing the King 
 for exercising the constitutional right of nominat- 
 ing bishops. He made a spirited defence, and 
 they were both acquitted. 
 
 " ' The decision was not given till midnight,' says Mon- 
 talembert. ' A numerous crowd surrounded and applauded 
 the victors of the day. When it had dispersed, we returned 
 together alone, in the darkness, along the quays. When 
 we reached his threshold I hailed in him the orator of the 
 future. He was neither intoxicated nor overwhelmed by 
 his triumph. I saw that for him the little vanities of 
 success were less than nothing, mere dust of the darkness. 
 But I saw him at the same time eager to spread the con- 
 tagion of courage and self-devotion, and charmed by those 
 evidences of mutual faith and disinterested tenderness which 
 shine in young and Christian hearts with a glory purer 
 and more delightful than all victories.' " 
 
 This victory encouraged the party to a fresh 
 and original enterprise. Besides founding the 
 " Avenir," they had formed a society called Agence 
 de la liberie religieuse, which publicly announced 
 that, attendu que la liberie se jprend et ne se donne 
 pas, three of their members would open a school, 
 free and gratuitous, at Paris, by way of testing the
 
 MONTALEMBERT. 287 
 
 right. The school was opened on the 7th May, 
 1831, after due notice to the prefect of police, by 
 three members of the society, Lacordaire, M. de 
 Coux, and Montalembert, who succinctly relates 
 what followed : 
 
 " The Abbe Lacordaire delivered a short and energetic 
 inaugurative discourse. We formed each a class for twenty 
 children. The next day a commissary came to sumnion 
 us to decamp. He first addressed the children : ' In the 
 name of the law I summon you to depart.' Lacordaire 
 immediately rejoined : ' In the name of your parents, whose 
 authority I have, I order you to remain.' The children 
 cried out unanimously : ' We will remain.' Whereupon 
 the police turned out pupils and masters, with the excep- 
 tion of Lacordaire, who protested that the school-room 
 hired by him was his domicile, and that he would pass 
 the night in it, unless he was dragged out by force. 
 ' Leave me,' he said to us, seating himself on a mattress 
 he had brought there, ' I remain here with the law and my 
 right.' He did not give way till the police laid hands 
 upon him ; after which the seals were afiixed and a prose- 
 cution was forthwith commenced against the school- 
 masters." 
 
 Soon after the commencement of the proceed- 
 ings, Montalembert's father died ; he succeeded 
 to the peerage with its privileges, and the trial 
 consequently took place before the Chamber of 
 Peers on the 19th September, 1831, when, after 
 a touching allusion to his great bereavement and 
 an exposition of the reasons which induced him to 
 claim the judgment of his peers, he said : 
 
 " * It is sufficiently well known that the career on which 
 I have entered is not of a nature to satisfy an ambition 
 which seeks political honours and places, llie powers of 
 the present age, both in government and in opposition, are, by 
 the grace of Heaven, equally hostile to Catholics. There is 
 another ambition not less devouring, perhaps not less 
 culpable, which aspires to reputation, and which is content
 
 288 MONTALEMBERT. 
 
 to buy that at any price : that, too, I disavow hke the 
 other. No one can be more conscious than I am of the 
 disadvantages with which a precocious publicity surrounds 
 youth, and none can fear them more. But there is still in 
 the world something which is called faith — it is not dead 
 in all minds ; it is to this that I have early given my heart 
 and my life. My hfe — a man's life — is always, and especi- 
 ally to-day, a poor thing enough; but this poor thing 
 consecrated to a great and holy cause may grow with it ; 
 and when a man has made to such a cause the sacrifice of 
 his future, I beUeve that he ought to shrink from none of 
 its consequences, none of its dangers. 
 
 " ' It is in the strength of this conviction that I appear 
 to-day for the first time in an assembly of men. I know 
 too well that at my age one has neither antecedents nor 
 experience; but at my age, as at every other, one has 
 duties and hopes. I have determined, for my part, to be 
 faithful to both.' " 
 
 The sentence was a fine of a hundred francs. 
 
 He thus, on the most solemn occasion of Ms 
 life, deliberately took his stand upon the principles 
 to which he persistently adhered to his dying day ; 
 and the nobility of thought, the moral courage, the 
 spirit of self-sacrifice which actuated him, are 
 beyond cavil or dispute, whatever may be thought 
 of the prudence or wisdom of his course. He here 
 states that the powers of the present age, both in 
 government and in opposition, were, by the grace 
 of Heaven, equally hostile to Catholicism. Twelve 
 years later, he stated that the press, the public, 
 the learned bodies, the councils of state, were 
 against him on the same subject in the proportion 
 of ninety-nine to a hundred. How did this come 
 to pass in a Catholic country ? Or in what sense 
 are such expressions to be understood ? What he 
 meant was, that the vast majority of French 
 Catholics were opposed to his description of 
 Catholicism ; that they agreed with Bossuet rather 
 
 I
 
 MONTALEMBERT. 289 
 
 than with de Maistre or de la Mennais ; that they 
 were Galhcan, not Ultramontane, and were in- 
 stinctively swayed hy the apprehension so sensi- 
 tively alive in England at this hour ; namely, that 
 what his beau ideal of a Church meant by liberty 
 was, that she herself should be left free as air, 
 whilst all other freedom of thought or action should 
 be held dependent on her will. " When I mention 
 religion," said Thwackum, " I mean the Christian 
 religion ; and not only the Christian religion, but 
 the Protestant religion; and not only the Protestant 
 religion, but the Church of England." Montalem- 
 bert went still further, for he identified religion 
 and Christianity with the small section of the 
 Catholic Church which then agreed with him. 
 No wonder, therefore, that more lukewarm or (as 
 we should say) more reasonable Catholics stood 
 aloof. 
 
 He became a little more practical when he had 
 to legislate upon the same subject, but in these 
 Avenir days he and his clique exulted in their 
 unpopularity. They longed to be persecuted, to 
 be (metaphorically) stoned like St. Stephen or 
 imprisoned like St. Paul. Then the agitation and 
 excitement of the expeditions undertaken for the 
 propagation of their principles, far more than com- 
 pensated for the discomfort and fatigue. Monta- 
 lembert took charge of twenty-two departments, 
 which he visited from time to time, when the 
 means of communication were very different from 
 now. " There were neither railways nor tele- 
 graphs, and in our propagandist journeys we took 
 three days and three nights to go in execrable 
 diligences from Paris to Lyons." His English 
 habits of neatness and cleanliness added to the 
 irksomeness, and we find Lacordaire rallying him 
 on tes toilettes de deux Jieures. "But what life," 
 
 VOL. I. u
 
 290 MONTALEMBERT. 
 
 he contimies, after detailing these petty miseries, 
 ''what life in the soul, what ardour in the intelh- 
 gence ! what disinterested worship of our flag, of 
 our cause ! what deep and fruitful furrows sunk in 
 the young hearts of that time by an idea, by a deed 
 of self-devotion, by a great example, by an act of 
 courage or of faith ! " It is the tone of the French- 
 woman regretting the tumultuous sensations of her 
 stormy youth : " Oh, Vheureux temps quand fetois si 
 malheureuse,'' or of the poet recalhng the first 
 awakening of his senses or his heart : 
 
 " Oh, who would not welcome that moment returning, 
 When passion first wak'd a new life through his fame, 
 
 And his soul, like the wood that grows precious in burning. 
 Gave out all its sweets to love's exquisite flame? " 
 
 " I shall be pardoned," writes Montalembert, 
 " for dwelling upon the events of this year, which 
 were so memorable for us. There is no man, how- 
 ever obscure and little worth his life may have 
 been, who does not at the end of his days feel him- 
 self drawn by an irresistible current towards the 
 moment when the first fire of enthusiasm awoke 
 his soul and trembled on his lips ; there are none 
 who do not breathe with a sort of intoxication the 
 perfume of their recollections, and who do not feel 
 themselves tempted to boast beyond measure of 
 their charm and brilliancy. Happy and sad days, 
 we say to ourselves — days devoured by work and 
 passion, days such as one sees but once in one's 
 Ufe ! " 
 
 A month after his appearance before the Chamber 
 of Peers, Lacordaire wrote, " Cruel as Time may 
 be, he will take nothing from the delights {delices) 
 of the year which is just over ; it will be eternally 
 in my heart, like a virgin who is just dead." 
 
 These halcyon days were now rapidly coming to
 
 MONTALEMBERT. 291 
 
 an end. The circulation of "L'Avenir" never 
 reached 3000 ; instead of being self-supi^orting, it 
 was a drain on the scanty resources of the society; 
 which, having also to sustain the expense of prose- 
 cutions and propagandism, broke down. As the 
 little band had contrived to place themselves very 
 much in the position of Ishmael, and the clergy, 
 headed by the episcopacy, were among the fellest 
 of their foes, further appeals to an enlightened 
 public were voted nugatory ; and they formed the 
 extraordinary step of submitting the crucial ques- 
 tions in dispute to the Pope. His Holiness was to 
 decide whether "L'Avenir" was or was not entitled 
 to the support of the Catholic world, and the journal 
 was to be suspended till his sovereign will and 
 pleasure should be made known. 
 
 The suggestion came from Lacordaire : " We 
 will carry our protest, if necessary, to the City of 
 the Apostles, to the steps of the Confessional of 
 Saint Peter, and we shall see who will stop the 
 pilgrims of the God of Liberty." No one thought 
 of stopping them ; the more's the pity, for this 
 expedition was a blunder of the first maguitude, 
 conceived in utter ignorance or forgetfulness of 
 that traditional policy of Eome which Lord 
 Macaulay deems a main cause of her durability 
 and strength. '* She thoroughly understood what 
 no other Church has ever understood, how to deal 
 with enthusiasts. In some sects, particularly in 
 infant sects, enthusiasm is suffered to be rampant. 
 In other sects, particularly in sects long estab- 
 lished and richly endowed, it is regarded with 
 aversion. The Cathohc Church neither submits 
 to enthusiasm nor proscribes it, but uses it." She 
 used Iguatius Loyola and St. Teresa ; she would 
 have used John Bunyan, John Wesley, Joanna 
 Southcott, Selina Countess of Huntingdon, and
 
 292 MONTALEMBERT. 
 
 Mrs. Fry. The founders of '' L'Avenir " were just 
 the sort of enthusiasts she wanted, so long as they 
 could be kept within bounds : so long as they did 
 no more than assert her paramount title to a veto 
 on ecclesiastical appointments, and protest against 
 her exclusion from the schools. But it was a very 
 different matter to insist on her resenting the 
 denial of her privileges by shaking off all con- 
 nexion with the State or by refusing any revenue 
 or mundane advantages at its hands. 
 
 Alluding to the prefect who figured in the burial 
 case, Lacordaire told the priests, " You would 
 have made him turn pale if, with your dishonoured 
 God, staff in hand and hat on head, you had 
 carried Him to some hut built with planks of fir, 
 vowing never to expose Him a second time to the 
 insults of the temples of the State." This, Mon- 
 talembert remarks, was tantamount to telhng the 
 clergy bluntly that they must renounce the budget 
 of worship, " sole remaining wreck of their ancient 
 and legitimate patrimony, sole guarantee of their 
 material existence, renounce even the churches of 
 which the State assumed to be the proprietor, to 
 enter in full possession of the invincible forces and 
 inexhaustible resources of modern liberty." Lan- 
 guage of the same tendency has recently been used 
 by a section of the Anglican Church, because they 
 could not force their own peculiar views upon the 
 rest. 
 
 Nor did " L'Avenir " stop here. It contended 
 that no good or sound institution, sacred or pro- 
 fane, had anything to fear from the utmost freedom 
 of inquiry, much less an institution like the Holy 
 See, founded on the eternal rock of truth : 
 
 " Moreover, it is not true in any sense that the evil is 
 stronger than the good, and that the truth fights on earth 
 with arms the inequality of which requires to be repaired
 
 MONTALEMBERT. 293 
 
 by the aid of absolute power. If it were so, the truth 
 would be very badly off, for absolute power has never 
 worked but for itself. Is it by the aid of absolute power 
 that Christianity was founded ? Is it by the aid of absolute 
 power that the heresies of the Lower Empire have been 
 surmounted ? Is it by the aid of absolute power that the 
 Arians of the West were converted ? Is it by the aid of 
 absolute power that the philosophy of the eighteenth 
 century has crumbled into dust ? Persecuted truth has 
 triumphed everywhere over protected and poiverfid error. 
 Such is history. And now we are told that, if truth is 
 reduced to combat error with its own weapons in the open 
 light of day, all is lost." 
 
 If the Pope and his advisers had been equally 
 confident that the Church of Eome owed no more 
 to absolute power or authority than the primitive 
 Church of Christ, or would rise the higher if cut 
 free from its temporalities, they would have wished 
 nothing better than the support of an organ like 
 " L'Avenir." But they would have been unac- 
 countably wanting in the sagacity for which Lord 
 Macaulay gives them credit, had they not pene- 
 trated to the fallacy of such arguments at a glance 
 and drawn a widely different moral from history. 
 They could not shut theh eyes to the fact that 
 spiritual supremacy attained its loftiest pitch in 
 the Dark Ages, and has everywhere declined in 
 proportion to the spread of knowledge. If it owes 
 nothing to absolutism, does it owe anything to 
 democracy ? As well say at once that it has 
 gained by the Eeformation. The Pope, Leo X., 
 who patronised literature and the arts, simply 
 prepared the way for Luther. 
 
 Intelligent travellers have declared that in 
 travelling through Central Germany or Switzer- 
 land, looking merely to the external aspect of the 
 country and the people, they could tell whether 
 any given principality, canton, or district, was
 
 294 MONTALEMBERT. 
 
 Catholic or Protestant. There was no mistaking 
 the signs of industry, enterprise, and intellectual 
 life in the one nor the dearth of them in the 
 other. Ai-e Spain, Portugal, Naples, held in sub- 
 jection to Eome by or through liberty ? Or is it 
 possible to contend that the Catholics have been 
 worsted in Great Britain and Northern Europe 
 because the fair field of free discussion has been 
 denied to them? What are the chances that a 
 free (free and not dominant) Church in a free 
 people (the devise of " L'Avenir ") would remain 
 the Catholic Church? Is the habit of passive 
 obedience, or the habit of inquiry, best adapted 
 to prepare the human mind for the doctrine of 
 Infallibility? "Persecuted truth has triumphed 
 everywhere over protected and powerful errors." 
 But in which character does the Papacy figure in 
 history? — as protected and powerful error, or 
 persecuted truth ? 
 
 Lacordaire and de la Mennais arrived at Eome 
 on the last day of 1831. They were speedily re- 
 joined by Montalembert, who had made a short 
 stay at Florence. " From our arrival," he says, 
 " the reserve with which we were everywhere 
 received made it clear that we should not obtain 
 the desired response. After having required of us 
 an explanatory memoir, which was drawn up by 
 Lacordaire, they left us three months without a 
 word. The Cardinal Pacca wrote M. de la Mennais 
 that the Pope, whilst doing justice to his services 
 and his good intentions, had been displeased at 
 seeing us stir up controversies and opinions to say 
 the least dangerous : that, however, he would have 
 our doctrines examined, and that, as this exami- 
 nation might be long, we might return to our own 
 country. The Pope afterwards consented to re- 
 ceive us ; he treated us with the famiHar kindness
 
 MONTALEMBERT. 295 
 
 which was natural to him ; he made us not the 
 semblance of a reproach, but neither did he make 
 the slightest allusion to the business which had 
 brought us to Eome." 
 
 This, although far from a brilliant or flattering 
 solution, was the most favourable they had any 
 ground to hope. Lacordaire was quite prepared 
 for it ; and, on the whole, hardly regretted that he 
 had come. It was his first visit to Eome, and he 
 was not only vividly impressed by the genius of the 
 place, but juster and broader views of ecclesiastical 
 policy broke upon him. ." The journalist, the 
 bourgeois of 1830, the Democrat-Liberal, had com- 
 prehended at the first glance not merely the 
 majesty of the supreme Pontificate, but its diffi- 
 culties, its long and patient designs, its indis- 
 pensable menagements for men and things of here 
 below. In this noble heart the faith of the Catholic 
 priest and the sense of duty had instantly got the 
 better of all the fumes of pride, all the seductions 
 of talent, all the intoxication of the struggle : with 
 the penetration bestowed by faith and humility, 
 he anticipated the judgment on our pretensions 
 which has been ratified by time, that grand aux- 
 iliary of the Church and of Truth." 
 
 Not so de la Mennais, whose pride was mortified 
 to the quick. His position was widely different 
 from that of his young and comparatively obscure 
 associates. He, " the last of the Fathers," to be 
 neglected and snubbed on the scene of his former 
 glories, in the very Vatican where his portrait had 
 been hung by pontifical grace among the Saints ! 
 In vain did Lacordaire repeat, " One of two things : 
 either we should not have come, or we should 
 submit and hold our tongues." No, de la Mennais 
 would not hear of silence or submission. He 
 rephed, " I wiU hasten and provoke an immediate
 
 296 MONTALEMBERT. 
 
 decision, and I will await it at Kome ; after which 
 I will consider what is to be done." Lacordaire 
 left Rome for France, saying, '' Silence, next to 
 speech, is the second power of the world," The 
 Abbe waited four months, and then, losing patience, 
 left Rome, openly announcing his intention to 
 return to France and recommence the publication 
 of *' L'Avenir." Montalembert had remained, and 
 now left with him. They took Munich on their 
 way, where accidentally (he says, providentially) 
 they fell in again with Lacordaire ; and the three 
 were together when they were overtaken by the 
 Encyclical epistle of 15th August, 1832, directly 
 provoked by the parting threats of de la Mennais 
 and manifestly condemning, without naming, most 
 of his new doctrines. " Our submission (writes 
 Montalembert) was immediate and unreserved. 
 It was immediately published, and we returned to 
 Paris, ' vanquished victors over ourselves,' ac- 
 cording to the expression of him amongst us who 
 had so well foreseen and accepted the defeat." 
 He added, with Montaigne \ II y a des defaites 
 tj'iompliantes a Venvi des victoires. 
 
 The enforced submission of de la Mennais was 
 hollow and formal. In his inmost soul he had 
 already broken with the Church, and sworn war to 
 the knife against his clerical brethren. Within 
 three years he pubHshed his '' Paroles d'un 
 Croyant," — a complete manual of sociahsm, a wild 
 diatribe which would have satisfied even the 
 philosopher who longed for the day when the last 
 king would be strangled with the entrails of the 
 last priest. Seven crowned heads are in con- 
 sultation over a bowl of blood, with a human skull 
 for a drinking-cup, round a throne of human bones, 
 with their feet resting on a reversed crucifix. The 
 question is how most effectively to enslave the
 
 MONTALEMBERT. 297 
 
 minds and bodies of men ; and it is carried nem. 
 con. that they must begin by abolishing the re- 
 ligion of Christ : 
 
 " Then the seventh, having like the others drunk in the 
 skull, spoke thus with his feet upon the crucifix. ' No 
 more Christ : there is war to the death, eternal war between 
 him and us. But how to detach the people from him. It 
 is a vain attempt. Then what is to be done. Listen to 
 me : we must gain the priests of Christ with property, 
 honour, and powers. And they will command the people 
 in the name of Christ to be submissive to us in all things, 
 do what we like, ordain what we like. And the people will 
 believe them, and obey by conscience, and our power will 
 be firmer than ever.' And all replied : ' It is true : let us 
 gain the priests of Christ.' " 
 
 This publication left Montalembert, who had 
 faithfully stood by de la Mennais through good and 
 evil report, no alternative but to concur with 
 Lacordaire in separating from him. 
 
 It would be taking a most erroneous view of 
 Montalembert's character to suppose that the 
 affair of the " Avenir " or the expedition to Rome 
 exclusively occupied his attention or his time. 
 Like our present Premier (Mr. Gladstone), he had 
 the invaluable gift of being able to prevent or 
 relieve any undue strain upon the mind by in- 
 cidental objects of interest. He could say with 
 Fenelon : "^e cha7igeinent des etudes est toujours un 
 delassement jJoiir moi.'' During the interval before 
 leaving Paris, in the very heat of the struggle, he 
 kept up his communication with the literary world, 
 mixed in the society of the noble Fauxbourg, 
 attended the debates in the Chamber of Peers (in 
 which he was disqualified from taking part till 
 twenty-five), and was occasionally seen at those 
 places of amusement which formed the chief 
 attractions of his equals in rank and age. He
 
 298 MONTALEMBERT. 
 
 has a discriminating eye for genius and pretension, 
 ugliness and beauty. He has a marked hking for 
 Victor Hugo, but then Victor Hugo at that time 
 was expecting the regeneration of the world to 
 emanate from the Church of Rome, and dreamt of 
 a confederation of nations under the presidency 
 of the Pope. He sets a black mark against one 
 salon by saying that he met in it only "obscure 
 doctrinaires and ugly women." "It is pleasant," 
 says Mrs. Oliphant, referring to the Journal, "to 
 find our young champion of the Church betrayed 
 into warm though momentary commendation of 
 Taglioni, whose modest and poetic grace of move- 
 ment was so different from the bacchanalian feats 
 of the more recent ballet. He declares with fervour 
 that nobody has danced like her since the epoch of 
 Christianity, and that she is divine." ^ 
 
 We have said that he lingered at Florence on 
 his way to Rome. He lingered there as well to 
 enjoy the society and co-operate in the pursuits 
 of his learned and accomplished friend, Rio, as to 
 indulge in a newly-formed friendship of that intense, 
 devoted kind of which we read in ancient story 
 but find few examples in our tamer, colder, more 
 matter-of-fact society. " You know," he had 
 written to one of his first friends, M. Cornudet, 
 " you know that friendship is the only movement 
 of the soul in which excess is permissible." He 
 had not yet tried love, although he yearned for it. 
 This new friendship is recorded, portrayed, and 
 illustrated with grace, refinement, and delicacy of 
 touch, in the " Recits d'une Sceur," a romance of 
 real life ; in which scenes of pure affection and 
 simple pathos, softened by melancholy and elevated 
 
 ' This goddess of the dance, reduced in circumstances by an unmerited 
 reverse of fortune, is now (1873) earning her livelihood as a dancing- 
 mistress in this Metropolis !
 
 MONTALEMBERT. 299 
 
 by faith, supply the almost total absence of passion, 
 incident and plot. It is the story of Albert de la 
 Ferronays and his young bride — their courtship, 
 their marriage, and his death in the bloom of 
 youth — 
 
 " Manibus date lilia plenis, 
 Purpureos spargam flores, animamque nepotis 
 His saltern accumulem donis, et fungar inani 
 Munere." 
 
 It is told by his sister, Mrs. Augustus Craven, and 
 told inimitably well; but we must warn off the 
 novel readers whose taste has been formed in the 
 sensational school — procul, oh! procul este, profani. 
 They must chasten their thoughts, repent their 
 sins, and get absolution before they venture upon 
 it, or they will be found soHloquising like Guine- 
 vere : 
 
 " I thought I could not breathe in that pure air, 
 That pure serenity of perfect light, 
 I wanted life and colour — " 
 
 The main bond of union between Montalembert 
 and Rio was their common view of Art : they were 
 unwearied in their investigations and inquiries ; 
 and we suspect that Montalembert was quite as 
 much interested in the estabhshment of their 
 favourite aesthetic theory, as in the vindication of 
 "L'Avenir." This was, that Art, in all its forms 
 or manifestations, came nearest to perfection in 
 proportion to the amount of Christianity mth 
 which it was imbued or permeated ; and M. Fossier 
 claims for them the credit of being the first to 
 perceive and prove that there is a Christian art, 
 as there is a Christian literature or a Christian 
 civilisation. But was it ever denied that there is 
 an art which sprang from Christianity, Roman 
 Catholic Christianity, and is marked by the ascetic
 
 300 MONTALEMBERT. 
 
 character of that faith ? Henry Heine, accepting 
 it as a recognised fact, says (in 1835) that it was 
 necessary as a wholesome reaction against the 
 gloomy colossal materialism which had unfolded 
 itself in the Roman empire and (he might have 
 added) against the sensual materialism of Greece. 
 *' The flesh had become so wanton in the Roman 
 world, that the monastic discipline might well be 
 necessary to mortify it. After the feast of a Tri- 
 malchion, there was need of a fasting regimen." 
 After pointing out the signs of it in poetry, he 
 says, "Less favourable was this religion upon the 
 plastic arts. For these two were obhged to re- 
 present the victory of spirit over matter. Hence 
 in sculpture and painting those frightful subjects : 
 martyrdoms, crucifixions, dying saints, and mortifi- 
 cation of the flesh. Verily, when one goes through 
 many a picture-gallery, and sees nothing repre- 
 sented but scenes of blood and torture, one might 
 believe that the old masters had painted their 
 pictures for the gallery of an executioner." But 
 it was in architecture that the influence was most 
 marked : 
 
 " When we now enter an old cathedral, we hardly feel 
 any longer the exterior sense of its stone-work symbolicism. 
 Only the general impression strikes immediately into the 
 soul. We here feel the elevation of the sj^irit and the 
 prostration of the flesh. The interior of the cathedral is 
 itself a hollow cross, and we there walk in the very instru- 
 ment of martyrdom. The variegated windows cast their 
 red lights upon us, like di'ops of blood : funeral hymns are 
 trembling round us ; under our feet, tombstones and cor- 
 ruption ; and the spirit struggles with the colossal pillars, 
 towards heaven, painfully tearing itself asunder from the 
 body, which drops, like a worn-out garment, to the 
 ground."^ 
 
 ^ Zur Oeschichte der Neueren Schonen Literatur in Deutschland. Paris 
 and Leipzig, 1833.
 
 MONTALEMBERT. 301 
 
 The distinction between sacred music and pro- 
 fane is self-evident. Every one sees the incon- 
 gruity of playing "The Last Rose of Summer" 
 or " Cherry Ripe " on an organ in a church. And 
 every one will see on reflection the equal incon- 
 gruity of replacing " The Descent from the Cross " 
 in the Cathedral at Antwerp, by one of Titian's 
 volujDtuous beauties or a bacchanalian piece by 
 Rubens. Yet M. Fossier asks as if he was con- 
 tending against a paradox : " Is it true, yes or no, 
 that a church is not a theatre ? Given this, is it 
 true, yes or no, that in the house of prayer, every 
 thing ought to incline us to pray, — the painting, 
 the statues, the music, — all like the architecture ? 
 Is it true, yes or no, that consequently the Chris- 
 tian subjects ought to be treated with absolutely 
 the same absence of faith as the mythological 
 subjects ? Is it true that the image of Jesus 
 Christ ought not to be that of Jupiter, nor the 
 image of the Virgin that of Venus ? " But no one 
 says they ought. Neither ought pictures painted 
 for altar-pieces to be hung up over mantel-pieces 
 in dining-rooms ; nor is the enjoyment of a com- 
 pany met for social pleasure in a saloon or ball- 
 room promoted by the representation of bodily 
 suffering — of a saint on a gridiron or a martyr 
 without his skin. 
 
 Montalembert distinguishes the schools thus : 
 " Fra Angelico and the Dispute of the Holy Sa- 
 crament, there is Christian art. The form studied 
 for itself, studied anatomically, as in the ' Last 
 Judgment ' of Michel Angelo, there is the natu- 
 ralist school. The Fornarina sitting for the por- 
 trait of the Virgin — then the infamous imagina- 
 tions painted by Julio Romano, — there is the 
 Pagan art." Is this quite fail'? Are not the 
 masterpieces of Rubens and Titian as much Pagan
 
 302 MONTALEMBERT. 
 
 art as the " infamous imaginations " of Julio 
 Eomano ? And are these, and such as these to 
 be proscribed, along with the Yenuses and ApoUos, 
 because the contemplation of them does not dis- 
 pose to prayer ? The truth is, he would fain apply- 
 to art the same exclusive principle which he 
 applied to education ; it must be entirely pervaded 
 by what he calls Christianity, or it is nought. At 
 one of Eogers's breakfasts, Rio was asked what 
 he thought of the pictures. He had his choice 
 amongst masterpieces of all sorts. He led the 
 inquirer up to two specimens of the pre-Raphaelite 
 school, and said they were the only pictures in the 
 collection that interested him. Montalembert in 
 Overbeck's studio was animated by the same feel- 
 ing : Overbeck, so famed a painter of Christianity, 
 that people in the streets pointed him out with : 
 Tiens, voilci Jesus- Christ. Besides Fra Angelico, 
 Perugino, Cimabue, Giotto, and Fra Bartolomeo, 
 Montalembert must have held in especial reve- 
 rence the painter Lorenzo Lotto, who went to 
 Loretto to die painting the Virgin so as to be 
 occupied with her to the last. 
 
 "I remember," says the Due d'Aumale, "the 
 misadventure of an amateur of my acquaintance 
 who tried hard to make him admire a Venus of 
 Annibal Carrachi. To some extent the subject, 
 to a great extent the name of the painter, had 
 caused M. de Montalembert to turn from it, and 
 nothing could bring him back ; neither the testi- 
 mony of Bellari who had described this picture 
 as a capital work, nor the observation that the 
 master had for once emancipated himself from his 
 banality, from his ordinary coldness — that his 
 picture was living, animated, coloured like a 
 Veronese. Trouble thrown away ! it was vain to 
 talk of the Venetians to our illustrious colleague
 
 MONTALEMBERT. 303 
 
 unless tliey made part of the group of the Bellini, 
 so that the epithet Quattro centisto could be 
 applied to them. Even Titian was condemned. 
 At last the amateur produced a final argument, 
 which seemed irresistible : the picture had been 
 painted for a Cardinal ! I dare not tell you, 
 gentlemen, how this statement was received : the 
 word ' Pagan ' was pronounced." ^ 
 
 Some thirty years since the lower limbs of 
 several allegorical female figures in St. Peter's 
 were suddenly invested by papal order with robes 
 or petticoats of tin, plastered over so as to re- 
 semble marble ; and about the same time the King 
 of Naples caused green muslin drawers to be 
 distributed among the danseuses at San Carlos, 
 with an especial injunction that they should never 
 appear on the stage without this habiliment. 
 These innovations were popularly attributed to 
 Montalembert, who, on a second visit to Rome, 
 had been received with marked favour by his 
 Holiness. He was certainly guiltless of the green 
 muslin drawers ; his recollection of Taglioni would 
 have saved him from such a solecism. But he 
 may have recommended the tin petticoats in St. 
 Peter's, and he might have been right ; for with- 
 out being a devotee of Christian art, a man of 
 taste and feeling might have been scandalised at 
 seeing (what he could hardly help seeing) the 
 Madonna in the guise of a Venus, with Faith, 
 Hope, and Charity in the undress and attitude of 
 the three Graces or the three heathen goddesses 
 contending for the apple. 
 
 ' Discours prononces dans la Seance Puhlique Tevue par VAcadcmie 
 Fran^aise jmur la Beceplion de A!, le Due d'Aumale. Le 8 Avril, 1873. 
 Montalembert w;is elected member of the Academy in 1852, when the 
 reply to his Discours de Reception was made by Guizot. He was suc- 
 ceeded on his death by the Due d'Aumale, who admirably discharged the 
 pleasing duty of giving a biographical and critical sketch of his pre- 
 decessor.
 
 304 MONTALEMBERT. 
 
 Coleridge used to say that an old Gothic 
 cathedral always looked to him like a petrified 
 religion. The Gothic is certainly the style of 
 architecture which harmonises best with serious- 
 ness and solemnity : St. Peter's, St. Paul's, and 
 the Cathedral of Florence, are rather palatial than 
 ecclesiastical, and there is an Oriental look about 
 the domes. Montalembert's enthusiasm, there- 
 fore, took a right direction in the eloquent appeal, 
 entitled, " Du Vandalisme en Frauce," Mn which 
 he called on the French to respect their archi- 
 tectural treasures, especially their grand old cathe- 
 drals, as preservatives of their faith as well as 
 monuments of their history. 
 
 It was during one of the frequent tours he made 
 to inspect mediaeval buildings and monuments that 
 he was inspii'ed with the conception of his first 
 sustained and eminently successful effort in litera- 
 ture, the " History of Saint Elizabeth." The 
 opening sentences of the Introduction are these : 
 
 " ' On the 19th of November, 1833, a traveller arrived 
 at Marbourg, a town in the electorate of Hesse, situated 
 upon the beautiful banks of the Lahn. He paused to 
 examine the church, which was celebrated at once for its 
 pure and perfect beauty, and because it was the first in 
 Germany where the pointed arch prevailed over the round 
 in the great renovation of art in the thirteenth century. 
 This church bears the name of St. Elizabeth, and it was 
 on St. Ehzabeth's Day that he found himself within its 
 walls. In the church itself, which, hke the country, is now 
 devoted to the Lutheran worship, there was no trace of 
 any special solemnity, except that in honour of the day, 
 and contrary to Protestant custom, it was open, and children 
 were at play in it among the tombs. The stranger roamed 
 through its vast, desolate, and devastated aisles, which are 
 still young in their elegance and airy lightness. He saw 
 placed against a pillar the statue of a young woman in the 
 
 ^ " Revue des Deux Mondes," March, 1833.
 
 MONTALEMBERT. 305 
 
 dress of a widow, with a gentle and resigned countenance, 
 holding in one hand the model of a church, and with the 
 other giving alms to a lame man. . . . The lady is then 
 depicted, fairer than in all the other representations, 
 stretched on her bed of death midst weeping priests and 
 nuns ; and lastly, bishops exhume a coffin on which an 
 emperor lays his crown. The traveller was told that these 
 were events in the life of St. Elizabeth, queen of that 
 country, who died on that day six hundred years ago in that 
 very town of Marbourg, and lay buried in that very church.' " 
 
 After his first visit to the church, he went to a 
 bookseller and inquired if there was a "Life of 
 St. Elizabeth." The bookseller mounted to his 
 garret and brought down a pamphlet covered with 
 dust. "Here is a Life of her," he said, "if you 
 care about it : it is never asked for here." Mon- 
 talembert possessed himself of it as a prize, and 
 found it the cold lifeless composition of a Protes- 
 tant. But the sympathetic chord was strack, and 
 he set about the study of her career with hourly 
 increasing eagerness, consulting traditions, visiting 
 every place that she had hallowed by her presence, 
 and ransacking all the books, chronicles, and 
 manuscripts in which mention was made of her, 
 or which threw light on her contemporaries and 
 her age. What is really most valuable and most 
 characteristic in his book is that which elucidates 
 her age, especially the Introduction (135 pages 
 royal octavo), in which he seeks to prove that the 
 thirteenth century, in which she flourished, has 
 been shamefully calumniated ; that it was not 
 merely the age in which the Papacy attained its 
 culminating point of pride and power, but the age 
 in which Christian literature and art, that is to 
 say, what he deems the best and purest hterature 
 and art, approached nearer to perfection than they 
 have ever approached since or are likely to ap- 
 proach again. 
 
 VOL. I. X
 
 306 MONTALEMBERT. 
 
 He is strong, indeed unassailable, in Gothic 
 architecture ; for almost all the finest cathedrals 
 in Germany, France, Belgium, Spain, and England, 
 were built or founded in the thirteenth century ; 
 strong in painting, for he can point to the early 
 schools of Siena and Florence ; strong in poetry, 
 if we allow him Dante, born in 12G5, and bear in 
 mind the legendary poets and the " Niebelungen ; " 
 but singularly weak, we think, when he tries to 
 make out that this was also the age of social 
 progress or legislation, and that the successors of 
 St. Peter, who, like Innocent HI., aspired to 
 universal empire, were simply doing their duty 
 in that state of life to which God had called them ; 
 that, in claiming to hold all the kings of the earth 
 in humiliating vassalage, they had not a spark of 
 mundane ambition and were merely vindicating 
 the sacred liberties of the Church.^ 
 
 Whilst he was occupied with St. Elizabeth, he 
 joined his friends Albert and Alexandrine, the hero 
 and heroine of " Le Ee'cit d'une Soeur," at Pisa, 
 and she writes : " How he loves this St. Elizabeth ! 
 He collects the smallest, the most minute details 
 about her. He told me the other day a story of a 
 knight who wore the colours of a saint who ap- 
 peared to him in a dream." There is another 
 letter of hers which pleasantly illustrates the play- 
 fulness and versatihty of his mind and character : 
 
 " ' We all went to the Cascine : then (which amused us 
 
 ^ " Pour lui (Innocent) la chretiente entiere n'est qu'une majestueuse 
 unite, qu'un reul loyaume, sans frontieres interieures et sans distinction 
 dcs races, dont il est le defenseur intrepide au dehors, et le jnge inebran- 
 lable et incorruptible au dedans " (p. xiii). He did this, " quoique sans 
 cesse menace et attaque par ses propres sujets, les turbulents habitants de 
 Rome." He was not particular as to means, for " il correspondait meme 
 avec les princes musulmans, dans I'interet de paix et c?^ lew salut." Of 
 Honorins III. it is said, " Malure sa douceur, il se vit force de mettre 
 I'empereur, une premiere fois, au 1 an de I'Etrlise, en laissant i Gr^goire 
 IX. le soin de continuer le combat." Le pauvre homme!
 
 MONTALEMBERT. 307 
 
 much) we all went to order a bonnet for me. At dinner 
 Albert suddenly took the resolution of going to a ball which 
 was to be given that evening, but which we had all three 
 declined. I resisted, fearing that it might do him harm ; 
 but he insisted, and ending by saying, " Je le veux." He 
 told my maid to prepare everything, and by degrees I 
 allowed myself to be persuaded into the pleasant annoy- 
 ance of making myself as pretty as possible {"je me laissai 
 /aire la douce violence "). This occupied me entirely for two 
 hours. To make the joke complete, we forced Montal to 
 go with us. We had hard work to succeed in this, for he 
 had nothing to put on. Albert lent him almost everything. 
 Then it was necessary to get a shoemaker for him, and a 
 hairdresser to cut his hair. All this amused us im- 
 mensely; and the end of all, which made us laugh more 
 than all the rest, was that, recollecting all at once that we 
 had no servant, we took the shoemaker's boy with us in 
 that capacity to go with us to the ball ! ' " 
 
 In May 1835 he attained the age (twenty-five) 
 at which a French peer was permitted to join in 
 the debates : the right of voting being suspended 
 till thirty. He broke ground as a debater on the 
 8th September, 1835, in opposition to a measure 
 for the restriction of the press proposed by the 
 Broglie and Thiers ministry. This was followed 
 by other speeches, . all of a liberal tendency, the 
 general effect of which is described by Sainte- 
 Beuve : 
 
 " ' When he reappeared in the Chamber,' says Sainte- 
 Beuve, * he had the right to say anything, to dare 
 anything, so long as he retained that elegance of aspect 
 and diction which never forsook him. He could utter with 
 all freedom the most passionate pleadings for that liberty 
 which was the only excess of his youth. He could develop 
 without interruption those absolute theories which from 
 another mouth would have made the Chamber shiver, but 
 which pleased them from his. He could even give free 
 course to his mordant and incisive wit, and make personal 
 attacks with impunity upon potentates and ministers. In
 
 308 MOXTALEMBERT. 
 
 one or two cases the Chancellor called him to order for 
 form's sake ; but the favour which attends talent carried 
 ever3^thing before it. His bitterness — and he was some- 
 times bitter — from him seemed almost amenity, the harsh- 
 ness of the meaning being disguised by the elegance of 
 his manner and his perfect good grace.' " 
 
 There is one remarkable quality in which 
 Montalembert's writings, including the earhest, 
 resemble Bolingbroke's. They are rhetorical and 
 declamatory ; they might be deUvered as speeches, 
 or parts of speeches, with full effect. To become 
 an orator, the writer obviously wants nothing 
 but voice, manner, and readiness, which Mon- 
 talembert never wanted. We are, therefore, sur- 
 prised to learn from competent authorities (M. 
 Fossier, confirmed by Mrs. Oliphant) that he 
 began by speaking from copious notes, and did 
 not trust to improvisation till it was forced upon 
 him by the exigencies of debate. When what 
 may be called his oratorical education was com- 
 plete, he could not only introduce a prepared 
 passage so as not to betray the preparation — 
 which a master of the art, Lord Brougham, pro- 
 nounces its highest achievement — but turn every 
 passing incident or interruption to account, and 
 reply with telling force upon the instant to all 
 or any who roused his indignation or his scorn. 
 
 About the end of the debate on the Droit 
 d'Enseignement in 1844, which had called out all 
 his powers, he was fairly entitled to take rank 
 amongst the best French orators of his day : none 
 of whom, however, except perhaps Berryer in the 
 Chamber of Deputies and Dupin at the Bar, could 
 be placed in the highest class : the habit of read- 
 ing speeches (hardly extinct yet), and of speaking 
 from the tribune, having checked the progress of 
 parliamentary oratory in France. Montalembert
 
 MOXTALEMBERT. 309 
 
 did not shine by lofty sustained imagery, like Bnrke 
 and Grattan, the objects of his early admiration ; 
 nor by polished rhetoric, flights of fancy, or strokes 
 of humom', like Canning. His strength lay in 
 earnestness, ready command of energetic language, 
 elevation of thought and tone, rapidity, boldness, 
 conviction, passion, heart. His vehemence, his 
 vis vivida, was power ; when he warmed to his 
 subject, he carried all before him with a rush. He 
 had all, or almost all, that is comprised in the 
 action of Demosthenes. Sainte-Beuve says : 
 
 "He has few gestures, but he possesses the most essential 
 qualities which produce successful action. His voice, pure 
 and sustained ((rune longue haleine), is distinct and clear in 
 tone, with a vibration and accent very suitable to mark the 
 generous or ironical meaning of his speeches. The son of 
 an English mother, he has in his voice, through its sweet- 
 ness, a certain rise and fall of accentuation which answers 
 his purpose well, which lets certain words drop from a 
 greater height and resound further than others. I ask 
 pardon for insisting upon these particulars ; but the ancients, 
 om* masters in everything, and particularly in eloquence, 
 gave a minute attention to them." 
 
 It was Berryer who said : "A man has always 
 the voice of his mind. A mind clear, distinct, 
 firm, generous, a little disdainful, displays all these 
 sentiments in its voice." An example of each of 
 Montalembert's merits might be supplied from his 
 speech on the Liberty of the Church (16th April, 
 1844), in which he proudly vindicated the position 
 of the small minority whom he represented in the 
 Chamber : 
 
 "'Allow me to tell you, gentlemen, there has arisen 
 amongst you a generation of men whom you know not. 
 Call them neo-Catholiques, Sacristans, Ultramontanes, as 
 you like : the name is nothing to the purpose : the thing 
 exists. This generation would willingly take for devise the
 
 o 
 
 10 MONTALEMBERT. 
 
 words with which the manifesto of the generous Poles who 
 resisted Catherine II. in the last centm-y began: "We who 
 love liberty more than everything in the world, and the 
 Catholic religion still more than liberty." 
 
 " ' We are neither conspirators nor flatterers ; we are 
 found neither in street tumults nor in ante-chambers ; we 
 are strangers to aU your coalitions, to all your recrimina- 
 tions, to all your struggles of cabinet, of parties ; we have 
 been neither to Ghent nor to Belgrave Square.^ We have 
 made no pilgrimages except to the tombs of apostles, of 
 pontiffs, and of martyrs ; we have there learned, with 
 Christian and legitimate respect for established powers, 
 how tliey are resisted when they fail in their duties, and 
 how they are survived ! 
 
 ***** 
 
 *".... In this France, which has been wont to pro- 
 duce only men of heart and spirit, we alone, we Catholics — 
 should we consent to be but fools and cowards ? Are we to 
 acknowledge ourselves such bastards, so degenerated from 
 the condition of our fathers, that we must give up our 
 reason to rationalism, deliver our conscience to the uni- 
 versity, our dignity and our freedom into the hands of law- 
 makers whose hatred for the freedom of the Church is 
 equalled only by their profound ignorance of her rights 
 and her doctrines ? What ! because we are of those ivlio 
 confess, do they suppose that we rise from the feet of our 
 priests ready to hold out our own wrists to the handcuffs 
 of anti- constitutional legalism ? What ! because the senti- 
 ment of faith reigns in our hearts, do they suppose that 
 honour and courage have perished there ? Ah, let them 
 undeceive themselves. You are told : Be implacable.^ 
 Well, be so ; do all you will and all you can. The Church 
 answers you by the mouth of Tertullian and the gentle 
 Fenelon, "You have nothing to fear from us; but we do 
 not fear you." And for me, I add in the name of Catholic 
 laymen like myself. Catholics of the nineteenth century — 
 We will not be helots in the midst of a free people. We 
 
 ^ M. Guizot joined Louis XVIII. at Ghent during the Hundred Days ; 
 and the Legitimists had recently been crossing the Channel in great 
 numbers to do homage to Henri V. whilst occupying a house in Belgrave 
 Square. 
 
 " An expression of Dupin's.
 
 MOXTALEMBERT. 311 
 
 are the successors of the martyrs, and we do not tremble 
 before the successors of Julian the Apostate. We are the 
 sons of the Crusaders, and we will not fall back before the 
 sons of Voltaire !' " 
 
 Estimated by its electrical effects on the au- 
 dience — the best test of eloquence — his speech 
 on the affairs of Switzerland must be regarded as 
 his masterpiece. A league of cantons, the Sonder- 
 bund, formed to resist the Federal Diet, had heen 
 put down by an armed force, much as the Southern 
 Confederacy was put down in the Uuited States. 
 It was practically the triumph of the radicals over 
 the conservatives and Catholics, so that all Mon- 
 talembert's warmest sympathies were enlisted for 
 the Sonderbund. The conquerors, moreover, had 
 been guilty of great excesses, and the rehgious 
 orders had been the chief sufferers. The question 
 arose as one of foreign policy in the debate on the 
 Address, January 11th, 1848, and its real im- 
 portance lay in its connection with the doctrines 
 which revolutionised the greater part of Europe 
 within the year. This was the aspect in which 
 Montalembert presented it : 
 
 " 'Believe me, gentlemen, I do not come here to expose 
 a religious or Catholic grievance. Yes, Catholicism has 
 been wounded in Switzerland, as all the world knows ; but 
 all the world knows also that the wounds and the defeats 
 of religion are not incurable or irreparable wounds ; that 
 at bottom it is her vocation to be wounded, persecuted, 
 oppressed. She suffers from it, but only for a time. She 
 is cured of it, she recovers, she comes out of these trials 
 more radiant and more strong. But do you know what 
 does not recover so easily, what cannot with impunity be 
 exposed to such attacks ? It is order, it is peace ; it is 
 above all, liberty, and this is the cause which I come to 
 plead before you, it is this which I come to deplore and 
 
 vindicate with you.' " 
 
 * * * » ♦ 
 
 " ' Let no one say, as certain generous but blind spirits
 
 312 MONTALEMBERT. 
 
 have said, that radicahsm is the exaggeration of Hberahsm ; 
 no, it is its antipodes, its extreme opposite. Radicalism 
 is nothing more than an exaggeration of despotism : and 
 never has despotism taken a more odious form.' " 
 
 ^p jf* "^ ^^ ^t 
 
 " ' No one can have more right than I have to proclaim 
 this distinction, for I defy any man to love liberty more 
 than I have done. And here it must be said, I do not 
 accept, either as a reproach or as praise, the opinion 
 expressed of me by the Minister for Foreign Affairs, that 
 I was exclusively devoted to religious liberty. No, no, 
 gentlemen : that to which I am devoted is liberty in itself, 
 the liberty of all and in everything. This I have always 
 defended, always proclaimed : I who have written so much, 
 spoken so much — too much, I acknowledge — I defy any 
 man to find a single word from my pen or from my lips 
 which has not been devoted to the cause of freedom. 
 Freedom: ah ! I can say it without phrases {sans j^hrase). 
 She has been the idol of my soul ; if I have anything to 
 reproach myself with, it is to have loved her too much, 
 to have loved her as one loves when one is young, that is, 
 without measure, without limit. But I neither reproach 
 myself for this, nor do I regret it ; I will continue to serve 
 Freedom, to love her always, to believe in her always ; and 
 it is my belief that I have never loved her more, never 
 served her better than on this day when I am doing my 
 best to unmask her enemies, who deck themselves out in 
 her colours, who usm-p her flag to soil it, to dishonour it! '" 
 
 According to the contemporary reports, the de- 
 livery of this speech was repeatedly interrupted 
 by the enthusiasm of the audience. Half the 
 peers rose to their feet ; exclamations "were heard 
 from every corner of the Chamber. Pasquier left 
 his place to compKment the orator : the ministers 
 hurried up to him for the same purpose. M. 
 Guizot, speaking for his colleagues, said : 
 
 " ' I do not share all the ideas of the honourable 
 speaker ; I do not accept the reproaches he has addressed 
 to the Government. But he has given expression to too
 
 MONTALEMBERT. 313 
 
 many great, good, and useful truths, and he has spoken 
 with a sentiment too sincere and i^rofound to make it pos- 
 sible to raise any debate with him at this moment. I 
 cannot introduce a purely political and still less a personal 
 question, after what he has just said. I have no reply to 
 make to M. de Montalembert.' " 
 
 This completes the parallel with the greatest 
 success ever attained in the English Parliament, 
 Sheridan's Begum speech, when Pitt moved the 
 adjournment of the debate, on the ground taken 
 by M. Guizot. In recording this great event in 
 his journal, Montalembert expresses his ineffable 
 satisfaction at having executed justice on ces scele- 
 rats, the Swiss radicals, with whom he classed 
 their patron and prompter (as he designated him), 
 Lord Palmerston. 
 
 We have anticipated a Httle to classify his 
 oratory. A man hke Montalembert cannot be 
 happy or content unless his heart is occupied, 
 as well as his imagination and his intellect : he 
 must have an object of affection as well as of 
 ambition; and even friendship, the truest and 
 warmest, will not suffice. "I have never been 
 able to touch a woman's heart," is his sorrowful 
 entry in 1834; forgetting to add that he had 
 never tried or never set the right way about it. 
 How could he touch a living woman's heart when 
 his own was with a dead saint ? " Saint Eliza- 
 beth," he rapturously exclaims, '' she is my only 
 friend." If saints in heaven are permitted to be- 
 friend their worslii];)pers on earth, it may have been 
 she who, by some miraculous influence, brought 
 about his sudden and most auspicious attachment 
 to her descendant, the beautiful and accomplished 
 daughter of Count Eelix de Merode, whom he met 
 for the first time in the spring of 1836, and married 
 in the following August.^ 
 
 ^ The Belgian family of de Merode is one of the noblest in Europe,
 
 314 MONTALEMBERT. 
 
 Immediately after their marriage the young 
 couple started for Italy, hy way of Switzerland. 
 They passed the Christmas at Eome, where he had 
 three interviews with the Pope, who quiptly talked 
 over the old affair of " L'Avenir," and expressed 
 his warm approval of the course which Monta- 
 lembert had subsequently pursued in religious 
 matters. They are back in Paris in May, 1837, 
 and, according to his biographer, " there followed 
 a few years of tranquil domestic existence, not 
 without movement and that bruit which, from 
 his earliest days, Montalembert had acknowledged 
 to love — but still calm, disturbed by no clamour 
 of perpetual publicity, with time in it for much 
 literary work and much family enjoyment." 
 
 In 1849 he came to England to attend the 
 deathbed of his mother, accompanied by his wife 
 and brother-in-law. Count Werner de Merode. 
 The melancholy occasion prevented them from 
 going into society, and we learn from Eio that 
 they accepted only two invitations from London 
 acquaintance — the one being Rogers, with whom 
 they breakfasted ; ^ and the other " a young mem- 
 ber of Parliament destined to the greatest political 
 position of our time," Mr. Gladstone. In February, 
 1840, he writes to an English friend, Mr. de Lisle 
 Philipps, that his chief occupation and interest 
 since he left England had been the direction and 
 maintenance of the " Univers," the journal which, 
 under M. Yeuillot, was eventually to become the 
 bitterest of his assailants and calumniators. 
 
 and connected with many princely houses. Monsignor de Merode, the 
 honoured counsellor of the Pope, is the brother of Madame de Monta- 
 lembert. 
 
 ^ This is the breakfast mentioned at the beginning of this article. Rio, 
 in his printed narrative, has given rather a melodramatic turn to the 
 incident and made Rogers talk of "that immovable and cloudless faith." 
 Our version, copied from one of Montalembert's letters, gives it as it was 
 related to him at the time.
 
 MONTALEMBERT. 315 
 
 The breach hetweeD him and the extreme section 
 of the clerical party arose out of the settlement 
 of the education question by the arrangement 
 which he called the " Concordat d'Enseignement " 
 and they designated as a base compromise of the 
 best interests of the Church. The main object, 
 the liberty of teaching, was undoubtedly attained 
 by it : attained by his unceasing devotion to the 
 cause till it was practically won by effort upon 
 effort, speech upon speech, during the most bril- 
 liant phase of his parliamentary career. It was 
 the varied powers he displayed in its advocacy, 
 coupled with the personal sacriiices exacted by 
 it and made without murmuring, that elicited 
 the glowing encomium of Count Mole in 1844 : 
 " What a pity that he has so little ambition ! 
 And yet it is fine ! If I was but forty, I would 
 desire no other part (role) than that of M. de 
 Montalembert." He was mortified, no doubt, at 
 the manner in which he was assailed after the 
 passing of the Loi Falloux, which he might be 
 excused for thinking ought to have been the Loi 
 Montalevihert ; but his sympathising biographer 
 is surely hurried into an unconscious exaggeration 
 when she says : 
 
 " He was thus left victorious, yet defeated, upon the 
 ground he had so long and so gallantly held. The victory 
 was won, but the leader was left alone upon the field of 
 battle. Curiously significant, like the dramatic winding up 
 of a tragedy, was this strange success. He won it — but in 
 winning it, came not only to the end of his campaign, but 
 to an end of his power ; he had succeeded in the object 
 which he had pursued for twenty years ; but his political 
 position was gone, and his power over. Never was there 
 a more singular situation. In conquering he fell." 
 
 His power over the ultras of the clerical party 
 was at an end, but his political position, which
 
 316 MONTALEMBERT. 
 
 did not depend upon them at any time, was rather 
 strengthened by their defection. "Now," writes 
 Sainte-Beuve in November 1849, "he is followed 
 wilhngly by men of all parties. Not only the 
 eloquence and brilhancy, but the meaning, of his 
 noble speeches is accepted and acknowledged. 
 He has ceased to see everything from one point 
 of view." The Chamber of Peers had been abol- 
 ished, and these noble speeches were addressed 
 to popular assembhes, which (adds the same fine 
 observer), so differently composed and so stormy, 
 suited him marvellously. " He did not fear in- 
 terruptions but liked them : he found in them (he 
 said) great honour and great pleasure." In a 
 debate on the Irremovability of the Magistrature, 
 April, 1849, after alluding to the assimilation of 
 religion to justice in the expressions " temple of 
 the law," "sanctuary of justice," "priesthood of 
 the magistracy," he continued: 
 
 "'Yes, gentlemen, revolutions have passed over the 
 head of the priest without bending it. I ask you so to 
 act as that they may pass over the head of the judge 
 without striking it. Let the stream of progress — if there 
 is progress — let the destinies of the nation, that which 
 is invariable, if you like it better, in the destinies of the 
 nation — roll its course between two immovable banks, be- 
 tween the temple of the law and the temple of God — be- 
 tween the sanctuary of justice and the sanctuary of truth 
 — between the priesthood of the priest and the priesthood 
 of the judge.' " ^ 
 
 In the debate on the Prince President's letter 
 to Edgar Ney, imposing what were deemed insult- 
 ing conditions on the Pope, he said : 
 
 " ' You deny it ; you deny moral force, you deny faith, 
 you deny the emphe of the pontifical authority over souls 
 
 1 « 
 
 Entre le sacerdoce du pretre et le sacerdoce du juge." No speakers or 
 
 writers of the higher class suffer so niuch in translation as the French.
 
 MOXTALEMBERT. 317 
 
 — that empire which has subdued the proudest emperors. 
 Well ; be it so ; but there is one thing which you cannot 
 deny, it is the weakness of the Holy See. It is this 
 weakness, understand, that constitutes its insurmountable 
 strength against you. Yes, truly, for there is not in the 
 history of the world a greater or more consolatory spectacle 
 than the embarrassment of strength in conflict with weak- 
 ness. 
 
 " ' Permit me a familiar comparison. When a man is 
 condemned to struggle against a woman, if that woman is 
 not the most degraded of beings, she may defy him with 
 impunity. She tells him, " Strike ! but you will disgrace 
 yourself, and you will not conquer me." Well, the Chmxh 
 is not a woman ; she is more than a woman, she is a 
 mother. She is a mother — the mother of Europe, of 
 modern society, of modern humanity. It matters not that 
 one is an unnatural son, a rebellious son, an ungrateful 
 son, one always remains son ; and there comes a moment 
 in every struggle against the Church when this parricidal 
 struggle becomes insupportable to the human race, and 
 when he who has maintained it falls overpowered, anni- 
 hilated, be it by defeat, be it by the unanimous reprobation 
 of humanity ! ' " 
 
 This impersonation of the Churcli, which exactly 
 fell in with the feelings of the majority, was fol- 
 lowed by a triple salvo of cheers. When he sat 
 down, Berryer hmTied up to him and said, ''Your 
 strength lies in this, that you are not absolute but 
 resolute." Thiers said, " He is the most eloquent 
 of men, and his speech the finest I have ever heard. 
 I envy him for it ; but I hope the envy is no sin, 
 for I love the beautiful, and I love Montalembert." 
 
 What really lowered his political position, and 
 lessened public confidence in his sagacity, was his 
 conduct in reference to the couj) cVetat. Two daj^s 
 after its occurrence, December 4, he wrote to 
 M. Fossier, " Je n'ai su, ni conseille, ni approuve 
 ce qui s'est fait." But he allowed his name to 
 remain on the Consultative Commission for some
 
 318 MONTALEMBERT. 
 
 days, and was cajoled into the semblance of ac- 
 quiescence till the confiscation of the Orleans 
 property. His reasons were fully stated in his 
 published letter, dated December 12, recommend- 
 ing the re-election of the President. These may 
 be summed up in his dread of Socialism and his 
 .gratitude for services rendered to Catholicism: | 
 " The liberty of instruction guaranteed ; the Pope 
 re-established by French arms ; the Church restored 
 to its councils, its synods, the plenitude of its 
 dignity ; the gradual augmentation of its colleges, 
 its communities, its work of salvation and mercy." 
 He concluded in these words : "In the mighty 
 struggle between the two powers which divide the 
 world, I believe that, in acting thus, I am as I 
 ever have been, for Catholicism against Revolu- 
 tion." 
 
 The bitter truth soon broke upon him, that he 
 had been acting for Catholicism against liberty ; 
 and during the whole remainder of his life he 
 struggled manfully to repair or atone for his mis- 
 take. The anti-imperial feehng of the Academy 
 made his election to it in 1852 doubly welcome as 
 a tribute to his personal integrity, as well as to his 
 literary and oratorical distinction : and his in- 
 augural address (Feb. 5th) was fully equal to his 
 fame. One of the most telling passages was that 
 in which, after showing to what France had been 
 brought by revolutionary excesses, he said : 
 
 "Whether in the end we are to be conquered or con- 
 querors, is the secret of God. The grand point is not to 
 have ourselves prepared the catastrophe to which we suc- 
 cumb, and, after our defeat, not to become the accomplice 
 or the instrument of the victorious foe. I remember, as 
 bearing on this, a fine reply attributed to the most chival- 
 rous of our revolutionists, to M. de la Fayette. He was 
 asked ironically what he had been able to do for the
 
 MONTALEMBERT. 319 
 
 triumph of his liberal doctrines under the First Empire, 
 and he replied, ' Je me suis tenu dehout.' It strikes me, 
 gentlemen, that this proud and haughty expression might 
 serve for the devise and summary of your history. The 
 Academie Fran9aise has also the right to say, ' Je suis 
 restee debout.' " 
 
 In July, 1857, lie writes from Vichy that, after 
 twenty-six years of public service, he has been 
 set aside in the recent elections ; " and this, 
 thanks to the Clergy of Franche-Comte, half of 
 whom voted against me, and the other half stayed 
 at home ; such has been the result of the influence 
 of the ' Univers,' and of its calumnies and de- 
 nunciations for the last seven years against me and 
 my friends." He was defeated by a Government 
 candidate, and lie used to relate an incident show- 
 ing that other causes than clerical animosity were 
 at work. On the day of election a party of gen- 
 darmes were marched into the principal town of 
 the department, and drawn up in the square before 
 the poUing-place. " Why did you not keep your 
 promise ? " asked Montalembert of a peasant pro- 
 prietor, who had promised to vote for him and then 
 voted the other w^ay. " Oh, Monsieur le Comte, 
 the gendarmes I " — " Did they say anything ? " — 
 *' No, Monsieur le Comte." — " Did they do any- 
 thing ? "— " No, Monsieur le Comte."—'' Then 
 why did you not vote as you promised ?" — " Oh, 
 Monsieur le Comte, Us etaient toujour s la.'' 
 
 He called a visit to England " taking a bath of 
 life," in allusion to the bracing effect of its social 
 and political atmosphere on one who had been 
 breathing the impure and depressing air of des- 
 potism. He took one of these baths in 1855, and 
 made the acquaintance of the scelerat Foreign 
 Secretary, of whom he writes, " I had yesterday 
 a long conversation with Lord Palmerston, and I
 
 320 MONTALEMBERT. 
 
 must acknowledge that, in spite of the repugnance 
 which I have for his political principles, it would 
 be difficult to find a man more agreeable, more 
 sjyirituel or younger, notwithstanding that he is 
 seventy- three." 
 
 He wished to see Woolwich Arsenal, and went 
 down with a friend. They got there during the 
 dinner hour, and whilst waiting for the reopening 
 of the workshops sat down upon one of a range of 
 cannon, with a conical pile of shells in fi'ont. He 
 began to talk of England, her grandeur, her re- 
 sources, her free institutions ; and discoursed so 
 eloquently that his companion earnestly pressed 
 him to give body and durability to his observations 
 by making them the basis of a book. '' Gibbon 
 states that the idea of writing his ' Decline and 
 Fall ' first started to his mind as he sat musing 
 amidst the ruins of the Capitol. Why should not 
 the idea of an Essay on the Future of England 
 first start to the mind of an illustrious foreigner 
 sitting on one of the emblems and materials of her 
 naval and mihtary power ? " ^ He laughed at this 
 grandiloquent parallel, but took the hint, and 
 wrote " L'Avenir politique de I'Angleterre," a 
 book in which he indicates with instinctive sagacity 
 the felicitous concurrence of circumstances, habits, 
 and modes of thoughts that have made the British 
 empire what it is. He was bitterly assailed on 
 both sides of the Channel, especially for what he 
 said about the Churches ; and we have a letter 
 now before us, dated La Koche-en-Breny, January 
 3rd, 1856, in which he writes, " This act has been, 
 and deserves to be, looked upon as an act of fool- 
 hardiness. I have to contend both in Europe and 
 
 ^ " It was as I sat mnsino; amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while 
 the barefooted friars were singing vespers in the temple of Jupiter, that 
 the idea of writing the 'Decline and Fall' first started to my mind." — 
 Gibhon's Memoirs.
 
 MONTALEMBERT. 321 
 
 America with the whole weight of religious pre- 
 judice against Protestant England, and oi political 
 prejudice against Enghsh freedom or English 
 ambition." 
 
 What turned out an act of still greater fool- 
 hardiness was an article in the " Correspondant " 
 of October, 1858 (published separately in England), 
 entitled '' Un Debat sur I'lnde au Parlement 
 anglais," which he made the vehicle of such ex- 
 asperating allusions to the Imperial regime that it 
 provoked a prosecution. He was defended by 
 Berryer, and gave his own evidence as to the exact 
 meaning of the inculpated passages, which no 
 English judge or jury could have held libellous, 
 but he was found guilty, and the sentence on him 
 was six months' imprisonment with a fine of 3000 
 francs : one month's imprisonment and a fine of 
 1000 francs on the pubhsher. The sentence, after 
 being confirmed on appeal, was remitted by the 
 Emperor. This article contained an admirable 
 account of the debate in question — the debate on 
 Mr. Cardwell's motion of censure on Lord Ellen- 
 borough's proclamation — with sketches of the 
 several speakers, in his best manner. 
 
 The two first volumes of his " Monks of the 
 West " (from St. Benedict to St. Bernard) ap- 
 peared in 18G0 ; the third, in 1865 ; the fourth 
 and fifth, in 1867. The subject of the three last is 
 the conversion of England by the monks ; which 
 is brought down to the death of the Venerable 
 Bede in 735. " This great monument of history, 
 this great work interrupted by death," says M. 
 Coclin, " is gigantic as an uncompleted cathedral."" 
 It is certainly a vast conception, a durable, if un- 
 finished, monument of energy, zeal, literary skill, 
 research, learning, eloquence, and (we must add) 
 credulity. His principal authorities are necessarily 
 
 VOL. I. Y
 
 I 
 
 322 MONTALEMBERT. 
 
 monkish chronicles, eked out by legends and 
 traditions as fabulous as those of the Bound Table. 
 But he puts impHcit faith in all of them : rarely, 
 if at all, applies the test of conflicting evidence or 
 internal improbabiUty : is never staggered by any 
 amount of miracles ; and is so ready to give his 
 saints, male and female, credit for supernatural 
 powers that it is fortunate the story of St. Dun- 
 stan's conflict with the Devil did not come witlun 
 his range, for he would most assuredly have adopted 
 it as a fact. His chapter on '' Les Eeligieuses 
 anglo-saxonnes " is principally composed of the 
 adventures of Saxon princesses who leave their 
 fathers or husbands and their homes, to lead a 
 kind of hfe which, without Divine interposition, 
 would be dangerous in the extreme. Thus Frides- 
 wilda, founder and patroness of Oxford — " that is 
 to say of one of the most celebrated seats of learn- 
 ing in the universe " — being out on the ramble, is 
 pursued and on the point of being overtaken by a 
 rude suitor, when she prays to St. Csecilia, who 
 saves her by striking the brute blind, but restores 
 his sight at the subsequent intercession of the in- 
 tended victim when she is safe. Feeling thirsty, 
 she prays for water, and there instantly bubbles 
 up a spring which continued during six centmies 
 to attract crowds by the fame of its healing 
 qualities : 
 
 " But of all the miracles collected after her death none 
 touches us like that which, related during her hfe, especially 
 contributed to aggrandise her reputation for sanctity. It 
 chanced one day that an unhappy young man suffering 
 from leprosy met her. As soon as he caught sight of her, 
 he cried out : ' I conjure you. Virgin Frideswilda, by the 
 Almighty God, to give me a kiss in the name of Jesus 
 Christ His only Son.' The maiden, subduing the horror 
 inspired by this hideous malady, drew near to him, and
 
 MONTALEMBERT. 323 
 
 after marking him with the sign of the cross, impressed a 
 sisterly kiss on his hps. Very soon afterwards the scales 
 of the leper's skin fell off, and his body became healthy 
 and fresh as that of a child." 
 
 This is one specimen amongst a hundred. The 
 admixtm'e of legendary lore lends additional attrac- 
 tion to the' biographical portions, which read like 
 so many prose idylls, except where they are inter- 
 spersed with sketches of customs or manners, 
 descriptions of scenery, and elaborate dissertations 
 to prove that the monks, through a long succession 
 of ages, have done more for European civilisation 
 than all the economists and calculators, reformers 
 and scientific discoverers, put together. This, 
 indeed, is the moral of the book, which can only 
 be even plausibly deduced by confounding the 
 monks congregated in richly endowed monasteries 
 with the monks errant or missionary monks : these 
 two classes having about as much to do with each 
 other as the Templars settled on the banks of the 
 Thames with the Knights Templar who fought for 
 the Temple, or the modern knights of Malta or 
 St. John with those who formed the bulwark of 
 Christendom against the Turks. 
 
 In illustration of the services rendered to agri- 
 culture, he says, '' Wherever there is a luxuriant 
 forest, a pure stream, a majestic hiU, we may be 
 sure that Eeligion has left her stamp by the hand 
 of the monk." Is not this very like saying that 
 they managed to possess themselves of the finest 
 parts of the country ? They reclaimed a great 
 deal of waste ground, but their agriculture does 
 not appear to have been of an advanced descrip- 
 tion, and he commends one religious community for 
 doing the work of oxen by harnessing themselves 
 to the plough. In regard to learning, they kept 
 the lamp burning with a feeble and flickering light ;
 
 324 MOXTALEMBERT. 
 
 but it was beside the purpose of their institution 
 to cultivate profane hterature or to educate the 
 laity ; and the little they did in either direction 
 may be inferred from the condition of literature 
 prior to its revival, and the want of education in 
 the people. Till the end of the fifteenth century 
 every one who could read — " a mark (says Black- 
 stone) of great learning in those days of ignorance 
 and her sister superstition " was allowed the benefit 
 of clergy, it being taken for granted that every 
 one who could read must be a clerk in holy orders/ 
 This is quite decisive on the point. To establish 
 the value of monastic establishments as inexhaus- 
 tible reservoirs of prayer, Montalembert appeals 
 again to legends and traditions : 
 
 "During a thousand years, and in all Catholic nations, 
 princes were seen emulously recurring to the prayers of the 
 monks, and taking pride in their confidence in them. At 
 the apogee of the feudal epoch, when the fleet of Philip 
 Augustus, sailing towards the Holy Land, is assailed in the 
 sea of Sicily by a terrible tempest, the king reanimates the 
 courage and confidence of the sailors by reminding them 
 what intercessors they had left on their native soil. * It is 
 midnight,' he said ; ' it is the hour when the communists 
 of Clairvaux rise to chant unctions. These holy monks 
 never forget us. They are going to appease {sic) Christ : 
 they are going to pray for us ; and their prayers are going 
 to rescue us from danger. ' " ^ 
 
 ^ The distinction between laymen and clergymen as regards benefit of 
 clergy was first drawn by 4 Hen. VII. c. 13. 
 
 " Thanks to Saint Bothan, son of mine, 
 Save Gawain, ne'er could pen a line." 
 Douglas in Marmion. Gawain was a bishop. 
 
 2 The authority is a Latin poem, " Guillelm. Bretonis Philippidos." It 
 proceeds : 
 
 " Vix bene finierat, et jam fragor omnis et testus, 
 Ventorumque cadit rabies, pulsisque tenebris, 
 Splendiflua radiant et luna et sidera luce." 
 Why did Montalembert break off at the miracle, which was quite in his 
 way?
 
 MONTALEMBERT. 325 
 
 After stating that an analogous trait is related 
 of Charles V. — who, it will be remembered, ordered 
 prayers to be offered up for the release of his own 
 prisoner, the Pope — the author proceeds, ^' Like 
 these chiefs, the whole Society of Christendom, 
 during the whole of the middle age, showed itself 
 penetrated with this confidence in the superior and 
 invincible power of monastic prayer; a?id tJiis is 
 why they endowed to the best of tlieir ability those 
 ivho interceded the best for them. ^' The mercenary 
 character of the intercession, therefore, in no 
 respect deducted from its efficacy ; and no king or 
 emperor need fear shipwreck if he or some well- 
 advised predecessor had retained a sufficient num- 
 ber of monks to get up in the middle of the night 
 to pray for him. 
 
 The fifth volume concludes with a touching and 
 really beautiful allusion to a family incident, which 
 is thus related by his friend, M. Cochin : 
 
 " * One day,' says M. Cochin, * his charming and be- 
 loved child entered that library which all his friends know 
 so well, and said to him, " I am fond of everything around 
 me. I love pleasure, wit, society and its amusements ; I 
 love my family, my studies, my companions, my youth, my 
 life, my country : but I love God better than all, and I 
 desire to give myself to Him." And when he said to her, 
 "My child, is there something that grieves you?" she 
 went to the book-shelves and sought out one of the volumes 
 in which he had narrated the history of the Monks of the 
 West. "It is you," she answered, "who have taught me 
 that withered hearts and weary souls are not the things 
 which we ought to offer to God." ' " 
 
 After describing the agony inflicted on both 
 mother and father by this event, Montalembert 
 exclaims, " How many others have undergone this 
 agony, and gazed with a look of distraction on 
 the last worldly appearance of a dearly beloved
 
 326 MONTALEMBERT. 
 
 daughter or sister." Yet it never once occurs to 
 this warm-hearted, noble-minded man that a system 
 which inflicts such agony on so many innocent 
 sufferers, which condemns to the chill gloom of a 
 cloister what is meant for love and hght — which 
 runs counter to the whole com'se of nature — may 
 be wrong. 
 
 During the last eight or ten years of his life he 
 was suffering from the malady of which he died ; 
 and on February 10, 1869, he w^rites to one of his 
 most valued English fi'iends, Lord Emly : "My 
 unfortunate state is just the same as it has been 
 for the last three years. I have no chance, no 
 hope, and I think I may sincerely say, no wish to 
 recover." His capacity for intellectual exertion 
 was necessarily impaired, but his conversation was 
 never more brilliant than during the afternoons 
 when his health permitted him to hold a sort of 
 reception round his sofa. The only difference was 
 that it had a shade of sadness, and turned by pre- 
 ference on questions in which grave and high 
 interests were involved. In earlier days and 
 happier times, it was sparkling with fancy and 
 humour, as well as replete with thought : he could 
 talk equally well Hke an Englishman with elHptical 
 breaks, or like a Frenchman with continuity and 
 flow ; he told an anecdote with inimitable apropos, 
 and although not a word or gesture belied the 
 inborn courtesy of his race, he would occasionally 
 throw in a dash of irony, which scarce suspected, 
 like the onion atoms in Sydney Smith's salad, ^ 
 imparted a delicate flavour to his style. There are 
 two contrasted occasions, respectively illustrative 
 of both manners, which vividly recall his image ; 
 
 * " Let onion atoms lurk within the bowl. 
 And, scarce suspected, animate the whole." 
 
 Beci;pefor a Winter Salad.
 
 MONTALEMBERT. 327 
 
 a dinner at 16, Upper Brook Street, in 1854, when 
 lie was gay, glancing, animated, varied, and satiri- 
 cal : an afternoon in his own Hbrary in the Eue du 
 Bac in 1867, when, discussing with General Chan- 
 garnier and an Enghsh friend the political situa- 
 tion and the errors which led to it, he said, " I 
 formed a wrong estimate of our imperial master's 
 honesty; you, Thiers, Berryer, and other leaders 
 of the party of order, of his capacity." 
 
 It is painful to reflect that his spirit was not 
 suffered to pass away in peace : that his dying 
 hours were troubled by an imperative call to choose 
 his side in a wantonly provoked schism. He died 
 on the 15th March, 1870, and his memorable letter 
 on Papal infallibility is dated February 28th, just 
 sixteen days before his death. That letter was 
 declared unsatisfactory at Eome ; but, in reply to 
 a visitor, who ventured to catechise him on his 
 death-bed, he is reported to have given in his 
 unconditional adhesion to what confessedly he did 
 not understand. " You will submit so far as form 
 goes," said the visitor; "but how will you recon- 
 cile that submission with your ideas and convic- 
 tions ? " "I will make no attempt to reconcile 
 them. I will simply submit my will, as has to be 
 done in respect to all other questions of the 
 faith. I am not a theologian ; it is not my part to 
 decide on such matters. And God does not ask 
 me to understand. He asks me to submit my will 
 and intelligence, and I will do so." But how 
 could he submit his intelligence ? For what was 
 it given him if God did not ask or expect him to 
 understand ? 
 
 Even this was not enough. He was still suspected 
 of contumacy, of having in some way asserted some 
 liberty of thought, and the intended funeral celebra- 
 tion in his honour as a Eoman citizen was suddenly
 
 i 
 
 328 MONTALEMBERT. 
 
 countermanded. The highest tribute of ecclesias- 
 tical respect which the Catholic Church accords to 
 a faithful son was denied to his memory : to the 
 memory of one who had devoted his whole life to 
 her cause, who had dared impossibilities for her 
 sake, who had given up to her what was meant for 
 mankind, and thereby abdicated that place amongst 
 practical statesmen and legislators which, apart 
 from her blighting influence, his birth, his per- 
 sonal gifts, his high and rare quality of intellect, 
 his eloquence, his elevation of purpose, his nobility 
 of mind and character, must assuredly have won 
 for him.
 
 LORD MELBOURNE/ 
 
 (From the Quarterly Beview, January, 1878.) 
 
 William, Lord Melbourne, occupied a peculiar as 
 well as eminent position amongst the most dis- 
 tinguished of his contemporaries. The social 
 aspect of his career is quite as striking as the 
 pohtical. Indeed, he interests less as a statesman 
 than as a man ; and in the narrative of his life, 
 his personal qualities should stand out in broad 
 rehef. It has been truly said of him that he rose 
 to be Prime Minister of England without com- 
 manding eloquence or lofty ambition — lazily and 
 loungingly, as it were — by the spontaneous display 
 of fine natural abilities, by frankness, manliness, 
 and good sense. To realise, to appreciate him, 
 we must have his look and manner before us ; we 
 must know not only what he said but how he said 
 it. It is difficult to recall a speech of his, or a 
 scene in which he figured, without recalling his 
 fine form and features, without involuntarily re- 
 verting to Pope's well-known hues : 
 
 " Seen him I have, but in his happier hour 
 Of social pleasure, ill-exchanged for power : 
 
 ' Memoirs of the Right Honourable WiUium, Second Viscoinit Mel- 
 boiirne. By W. M. Torreus, M.P. In 2 vols. Loudon, 1878.
 
 330 LORD MELBOURNE. 
 
 Seen him imcumbered with a venal tribe, 
 Smile without art, and win without a bribe." 
 
 Personal intimacy, therefore, was an almost in- 
 dispensable qualification in a biographer, to which 
 we do not understand Mr. Torrens to lay claim ; 
 nor has he had access to the correspondence in 
 the possession of the family. But he has some 
 marked qualifications for such a task, especially 
 the invaluable one of a long practical acquaintance 
 with the administration of affairs and the working 
 of our system of government. He was appointed 
 a Commissioner of the Poor Law Inquiry in Ire- 
 land in 1835. We find him private secretary to 
 Mr. Labouchere (Lord Taunton) in 1846, and 
 member for Dundalk from 1848 to 1852. He has 
 represented Finsbury since 1865, and has carried 
 or suggested more than one important measure 
 of legislation. He is also the author of several 
 works, historical and economical, giving ample 
 evidence of acquirement and capacity. As might 
 be expected, he has produced a book which will 
 command and reward attention. It contains a 
 great deal of valuable matter and a great deal of 
 animated, eloquent writing. The chief objection 
 to it is its length. One volume would have con- 
 tained all that is individually appHcable to Lord 
 Melbourne, and it was worse than superfluous to 
 take us over ground (CathoHc Emancipation and 
 the Eeform Bill, for example) which we have 
 trodden so often of late years that we could find 
 our way across it blindfold. Although he is a 
 declared, decided Whig, his views are broad and 
 tolerant, and we seldom see reason to find fault 
 with his tone ; but it is the soundness of his in- 
 formation, the authenticity of his statements, that 
 we shall not unfrequently be compelled to question 
 as we proceed.
 
 LORD MELBOURNE. 331 
 
 In the summary we are about to attempt of the 
 leading events of Lord Melbourne's life, we assume 
 that our readers know as much as they care to 
 know of the general course of legislation, the 
 ministerial changes and the party conflicts, of his 
 time ; and we shall keep constantly before us what 
 ought to be the distinctive aim and purpose of 
 biography. 
 
 A preliminary chapter of the " Memoirs " is 
 devoted to the manor of Melbourne, the family 
 through which it passed to the Lambs, the gradual 
 rise of the Lambs till they reached the peerage, 
 and the acquisition by an ancestor of Brocket 
 Hall. Melbourne came to them from the Cokes : 
 Sir John Coke, the "Sir Plume" of the " Eape 
 of the Lock," devised it to his son, with re- 
 mainder to an only daughter Charlotte, who, in 
 1740, married Matthew Lamb, the son of a Mr. 
 Lamb who is described as a practitioner {i.e. an 
 attorney) of long standing in Southwell. He had 
 a brother named Peniston, who, we are told, was 
 admitted to practise at the Bar about 1714, when, 
 having long been qualified to earn a considerable 
 income by what is called pleading under the Bar, 
 " he went on pleading and demurring, weaving 
 settlements and ravelling threads of adverse wills, 
 till, looking upon parchment, he had ceased to 
 view and half forgotten that there was any shire 
 in the realm but that in which he laid the venue 
 of his life." Still, " as his balance rose at Child's, 
 he dreamed pleasant dreams of estates thereafter 
 to be settled strictly in tail male on his own or 
 his brother's progeny ; " and, dying unmarried, he 
 left his accumulated wealth to be laid out in land 
 to be settled on his nephew Kobert, and, failing 
 issue by Robert, on Matthew in tail male. " This 
 condition proved to be the golden hinge on which
 
 332 LORD MELBOURNE. 
 
 eventually the gate of splendour opened to the 
 family." This Peniston died in 1734. Matthew 
 followed his uncle's calling, and became known as 
 a careful energetic man, who had a taste for the 
 improvement of land and an instinctive faculty for 
 developing its resources : 
 
 "For many 5^ears he is understood to have acted as 
 confidential adviser to Lords Salisbury and Egmont in 
 matters relating to their extensive estates ; and being ever 
 careful to turn opportunities to account, he profited largely 
 by the knowledge thus gained of men and circumstances." 
 
 Unless he is much belied, he feathered his nest 
 pretty handsomely at their expense. A visitor at 
 Brocket was surprised at being told by the game- 
 keeper that a right of fishing through a portion of 
 the property, quite up to the park, belonged to 
 Lord Salisbury. When this was mentioned to 
 Lord Melbourne, he replied with characteristic 
 fi-ankness : " Well, I believe my grandfather did 
 the Salisburys out of some land in that direction, 
 and was generous enough to leave them the fish- 
 mg. 
 
 Brocket was purchased by Matthew of the re- 
 presentatives of Sir Thomas Winnington in 1746, 
 and all the farms originally belonging to the estate 
 were gradually got back and reannexed. Not long 
 afterwards, the Melbourne estate devolved u]3on 
 him. by the death of his brother-in-law. He had 
 sat for Stockbridge, a hired seat, since 1741. He 
 was created a baronet in 1755, and subsequently 
 represented Peterborough in three Parhaments. 
 He died in 1768, leaving to his only son, Peniston, 
 property estimated at nearly half a milHon. 
 
 " Without any of the talents which those who went 
 before him had turned to account, the young baronet found 
 himself at three-and-tweuty a person of no small con-
 
 LORD MELBOURNE. 333 
 
 sideration. Women persuaded him that he was hand- 
 some ; politicians only wanted to know what were his 
 views ; in the county it was hoped he would reside con- 
 stantly, and complete the improvements at Brocket his 
 father had begun. Society opened its arms to so eligible 
 a recruit, and before six months he was the suitor, slave, 
 and betrothed of one of the fairest women of her time." 
 
 This was Elizabeth, only daughter of Sir Ealph 
 Milbanke, one of the most gifted and fascinating 
 women of her time. Her charm, her social in- 
 fluence, were life-long. As her personal attractions 
 faded, they were replaced by heart and mind. 
 She was three times painted by Eeynolds with 
 more than artistic feeling ; and Lord Byron spoke 
 of her, on her death in 1818, as "the best, and 
 kindest, and ablest female I ever knew, old or 
 young." The hst is long of celebrated men who 
 inherited their finest qualities from mothers, but 
 Lord Melbourne is indebted for something more 
 tangible to his. The rise of the family, the ad- 
 vantageous position in which he found himself 
 when he entered the pohtical and social arena, 
 were almost entirely owing to her. The father is 
 accurately described as a " good-for-little, apa- 
 thetic, kindly man, who never had a quarrel in his 
 life, and who probably never lay awake an hour 
 fretting about anything." There is a notice of 
 him in Messrs. Leshe and Tom Taylor's " Life of 
 Eeynolds," which does not convey a favourable 
 impression. After naming him among the friends 
 of Eeynolds, they say : 
 
 *' Lord Melbourne was indeed at this moment (January, 
 1772) the protector of pretty Mrs. Baddeley. Those who 
 are so inclined may read his illspelt, ungrammatical, and 
 fulsome love-letters to her in the ' Life ' of her, published 
 by her worthy companion, Mrs. Steele. In one of these he 
 tells her that he has been to see her picture at Reynolds',
 
 I 
 
 334 LORD MELBOURNE. 
 
 and thinks it will be well done ; in another he rejoices that 
 as there is no ' Eannela ' (where she was then singing) 
 that night, he can enjoy the felicity of a visit to her whom 
 he loves every ' miunitt ' of his life, * Setterday, Sunday, 
 and every day.' " 
 
 The year after his marriage he was created an 
 Irish Baron, hy the title of Lord Melbourne of 
 Kilmore : an Irish Viscount in 1781 ; and an 
 English Peer in 1815. On the formation of the 
 Heir-Apparent's household he was named Gentle- 
 man of the Bedchamber : the Prince, be it observed, 
 being one of the warmest admirers of his wife. At 
 the Westminster election, when a vote for Fox 
 was purchased by a kiss, she played a part only 
 second to that of Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire 
 or Mrs. Crewe. 
 
 " To people these rooms (the Pantheon) we have to call up 
 many of the most beautiful and best known of Sir Joshua's 
 sitters. On this particular occasion (of the opening, Jan. 
 22, 1772) a great many of the ladies, we are told, chose to 
 adopt male dominoes, and appeared as masculine as many 
 of the delicate macaroni things we see everywhere. Among 
 the most distinguished of these ' pretty fellows ' were the 
 Duchess of Ancaster, Lady Melbourne, and Mrs. Damer." ^ 
 
 We catch occasional glimpses of Lady Melbourne 
 and her gay doings in Walpole's Letters : 
 
 "March 27, 1778. — The quadrilles were very pretty. 
 Mrs. Damer, Lady Sefton, Lady Melbourne, and the 
 Princess Czartoriski in blue satin, with blond and collets 
 mantes, a la reine Elizabeth : Lord Piobert Spencer, Mr. 
 Fitzpatrick, and Lord Carlisle, and I forget whom, in 
 like dresses, with red sashes, black hats with diamond 
 loops, and a few feathers before, began." 
 
 Eeferring to a petition of Lord Foley and his 
 
 ^ " Life of Reynolds," vol. i. p. 433.
 
 LORD MELBOURNE. 335 
 
 brother to set aside their father's will, Walpole 
 writes : 
 
 "All the ladies, Melbournes, and all the bishops' wives 
 that kill their servants by vigils, are going about the town 
 lamenting these poor orphans, and soliciting the Peers to 
 redress their grievances." 
 
 ^ tIf '5|& 71? Vp ^ 
 
 " Tuesday, May 12, 1778. — I supped after the Opera at 
 Mrs. Meynel's with a set of the most fashionable company, 
 which, take notice, I very seldom do now, as I certainly am 
 not of an age to mix often with young people. Lady Mel- 
 bourne was standing before the fire, and adjusting her 
 feathers in the glass, says she, ' Lord ! they say the Stock 
 will blow up : that will be very comical.' " 
 
 Much depends upon the tone in which this kind 
 of thing is said. We can believe almost anything 
 of her dissipated habits, but she certainly was 
 not a fool. To gratify her and give full scope 
 to her aspirations, her husband bought a splendid 
 mansion in Piccadilly — the Albany now stands 
 upon its site — and hurried on the improvements 
 at Brocket, which, ugly enough without, became, 
 as it remains, all that comfort and luxury could 
 combine within. At both houses she collected 
 round her the most brilliant society of the most 
 brilliant episode of the social life of England. 
 One of her dearest friends was Mrs. Damer, and 
 we find them constantly coupled in the fashionable 
 correspondence of the time. 
 
 *' August 27, 1783. — (To Seymour Conway.) As I was 
 visiting this morning I received an express from your 
 daughter (Mrs. Damer), that she will bring Madame de 
 Cambis and Lady Melbourne to dinner here to-morrow. I 
 shall be vastly pleased with the party, but it puts Philij) 
 and Margaret to their wits' end to get them a dinner : no- 
 thing is to be had here : we must send to Eichmond and 
 Kingston and Brentford." ^ 
 
 ^ " Wal pole's Letters," vol. vii.
 
 336 LORD MELBOURNE. 
 
 They shone in private theatricals, and after 
 mentioning the co-operation, ''by pen, voice, or 
 sympathetic presence," of Fox, Sheridan, and Fitz- 
 patrick, Mr. Torrens adds : 
 
 ** Another intimate of both ladies, who equally delighted 
 in all that was best in art, and whose great possessions 
 enabled him to become one of its most generous and 
 judicious promoters, was young Lord Egremont. ... In 
 early life Lord Egremont professed to be no more than a 
 man of pleasure, given to hospitality, fond of the turf, 
 content to be a cause of war among strategic mothers. 
 Rather shy and taciturn, many outshone him in the ball- 
 room, none in the morning ride or garden-walk. There 
 was in his voice and manner, say his contemporaries, 
 that fascination for women, and even for men, which 
 neither knew how to resist. At Melbourne House he 
 was a constant guest, and through a long com'se of years 
 his friendship and sympathy were never wanting." 
 
 There is a portrait of him at Brocket so wonder- 
 fully like Lord Melbourne that it is impossible to 
 help being struck by it. Late in life he was 
 taking Sir Edwin Landseer and another visitor 
 round the grand saloon, when Landseer, coming 
 opposite the portrait, gave a start, and involun- 
 tarily turned round to look at him. " Aye," said 
 Lord Melbourne, "You have heard that story, 
 have you ? It's all a d — d lie, for all that." Then 
 half aloud, " But who the devil can tell w^ho's 
 anybody's father ? " 
 
 We may here say, once for all, that hardly any 
 story or anecdote of Lord Melbourne is complete 
 without some now universally condemned expletive. 
 It would be the portrait of Cromwell without the 
 warts. Lord Houghton alludes to Sydney Smith 
 as having '' checked the strong old-fashioned 
 freedom of speech in Lord Melbourne, by suggest- 
 ing that they should assume everything and every-
 
 LOKD MELBOUENE. 337 
 
 body to be damned, and come to the subject." 
 It may be doubted whether Sydney Smith ever 
 ventured on such a Hberty with Lord Melbourne ; 
 who, however, certainly carried the old-fashioned 
 freedom to an extent that might have justified a 
 serious remonstrance on the part of a grave divine. 
 Peniston Lamb, the eldest son, was born May 3, 
 1773, and died, unmarried, January 24, 1805. 
 Wilham, born March 15, 1779, was therefore 
 brought up with the prospects of a younger son 
 till he was twenty-six. He went to Eton in 1790, 
 where amongst the most remarkable of his school- 
 fellows were Sumner (afterwards Ai'chbishop of 
 Canterbury), Stewart (afterwards Lord Stuart de 
 Eothesay), Hallam, Brummel (the i)rince of dan- 
 dies), and Assheton Smith (the prince of fox- 
 hunters). Nothing is recorded of him as an 
 Etonian, except that he left the school not a bad 
 classic. In July, 1796, he was entered a fellow 
 commoner of Trinity College, Cambridge, and 
 went into residence in the October following. He 
 had a strong dislike to mathematics, and followed 
 his own taste in reading, instead of aiming at dis- 
 tinction by pursuing the prescribed studies of the 
 University, except so far as the classic poets and 
 historians were concerned. Being destined for the 
 Bar, he was entered at Lincoln's Inn on the 21st 
 of July, 1797, and proceeded to keep his law terms 
 simultaneously with his College terms. It would 
 appear that he had carefully cultivated the art of 
 composition, for in Michaelmas Term, 1798, he 
 won the declamation prize by an oration, delivered 
 in the Chapel of Trinity, on " The Progressive 
 Improvement of Mankind." This oration received 
 the highest compliment ever paid to a juvenile 
 composition of the sort ; a compliment which 
 might help to mitigate Macaulay's sarcasm at 
 
 VOL. I. z
 
 338 LORD MELBOURNE. 
 
 prize essays, as having this in common with prize 
 cattle — that the one might furnish materials for 
 making candles and the other for lighting them. 
 
 One of the very few speeches which Charles 
 James Fox is said to have reduced to writing 
 before delivery, was the speech in moving a new 
 writ for Tavistock on the death of the Duke of 
 Bedford. It concluded thus : 
 
 " I will conclude with applying to the present occasion a 
 beautiful passage from the speech of a very young orator. 
 It may be thought to savour too much of the sanguine 
 views of youth to stand the test of a rigid philosophical 
 inquiry, but it is at least cheering and consolatory ; and 
 that, in this instance, it may be exempUfied is, I am con- 
 fident, the sincere wish of every man who hears me. 
 ' Crime,' says he, ' is a curse only to the period in which it 
 is successful ; but virtue, whether fortunate or otherwise, 
 blesses not only its own age, but remotest posterity, and is 
 as beneficial by its example as by its immediate effect.' " 
 
 In the course of conversation at Brocket, a 
 visitor told the story of Moore asking Eogers what 
 he did when people who wanted his autograph 
 requested him to sign a sentence. "Oh, I give 
 them : ' Ill-gotten wealth never prospers ; ' or 
 ' Virtue is its own reward.' " " Then the more 
 shame for you," Luttrell broke in, "to circulate 
 such delusions." Lord Melbourne laughed, and 
 said : "I am afraid I was as bad as Eogers, when, 
 contrasting virtue with crime, I said that crime 
 was a curse only to the period in which it was 
 successful ; and that virtue, whether fortunate or 
 not, is beneficial by its example. Is the conqueror 
 who arrests the march of civilisation, or the 
 usurper who destroys the liberties of his country, 
 or the traitor who betrays them, a curse only to 
 his contemporaries ? Nor, I fear, is the example 
 of unfortunate virtue so influential as that of pros- 
 perous vice."
 
 LORD MELBOURNE. 339 
 
 This was not the first composition of his that 
 attracted attention. It seems to have escaped the 
 biographer that Lord Melbourne was the author of 
 the Epistle to the Editor of the " Anti- Jacobin," 
 published in the " Morning Chronicle " of January 
 17, 1798. The beginning shows that the veil of 
 secrecy had been hfted : 
 
 " Whoe'er ye are, all hail ! whether the skill 
 Of youthful Canning guides the rancorous quill 
 With powers mechanic far above his age, 
 Adapts the paragraph and fills the j)age — 
 Or Hammond, leaving his official toil, 
 O'er this great work consume the midnight oil." 
 
 The lines which attracted most attention were 
 these : 
 
 " I swear by all the youths that Malmesbury chose,^ 
 By Elhs' sapient j)rominence of nose. 
 By Morpeth's gait, important, proud and big, 
 By Leveson-Gower's crop -imitating wig." 
 
 The answer by Canning is prefaced by the ad- 
 mission that the " Epistle " is by far the best of 
 all the attacks that the combined wits of the cause 
 have been able to muster against the " Anti- 
 Jacobin." It begins : 
 
 ** Bard of the borrow'd lyre ! to whom belong 
 The shreds and remnants of each hackney'd song : 
 Whose verse thy friends in vain for wit explore, 
 And count but one good hne in eighty-four ! " 
 
 The one good line is the one itahcised, but the 
 Epistle contains many quite as good. 
 
 The modern Athens was then in the height of 
 its celebrity, and it was a prevalent belief that a 
 year or two spent at a Scotch University was a 
 
 ^ For his abortive mission to Lille.
 
 340 LORD MELBOURNE. 
 
 necessary supplement to the education of an 
 Englisliman destined for public life. Lord Lans- 
 downe, Lord Palmerston, and Lord Kussell were 
 placed under professorial tuition at Edinburgh ; 
 and William Lamb, after leaving Cambridge, be- 
 came a resident pupil of Professor Millar at Glas- 
 gow, where he spent the winter of 1799 and part 
 of the following winter in sedulous attendance on 
 Millar's lectures on constitutional lore and Mylne's 
 on metaphysics. " In the Collegiate Debating 
 Club he took a constant and brilliant part, being 
 distinguished for aptitude of historic illustration 
 and for caustic humour in reply." 
 
 It should be mentioned that, some time prior 
 to his being fixed in London, the house in Picca- 
 dilly had been exchanged, to oblige the Duke of 
 York, for his Eoyal Highness's mansion at White- 
 hall, since known as Melbourne (now Dover) 
 House. It was here. May 11, 1800, that the 
 Prince of Wales was dining when the news arrived 
 of Hatfield's attempt to assassinate the King in 
 the royal box at Drury Lane with a pistol fired 
 from the pit. The Prince, then on bad terms with 
 his father, said it was mere rumour and showed no 
 inclination to move, till Lady Melbourne succeeded 
 in convincing him that the commonest sense of 
 propriety required him to repair immediately to 
 the theatre, where his Majesty had resolved on 
 remaining with the Queen as if nothing had 
 occurred. The Prince went ; and, after tendering 
 his congratulations in due form, attended the 
 preliminary inquiry which was conducted in the 
 presence of the culprit. 
 
 " Before midnight the prince returned to Whitehall to 
 thank his hostess for persuading hinl to earn for once the 
 praise of fihal dut3^ His young equerry on the occasion 
 was wont to tell the story with humour all his own, making
 
 LORD MELBOURNE. 341 
 
 the best of it for his Royal Highness, and dwelling with 
 affectionate emphasis on the promptitude and tact shown 
 by his mother. He was thenceforth more frequently in- 
 cluded in the invitations to Carlton House, and became 
 unluckily an early partaker in its revelries." 
 
 Another early incident has been left unnoticed 
 by the biographer. "When Miss Berry's play, 
 " Fashionable Friends," was represented for the 
 first time in May, 1802, the Prologue was written 
 by Eobert Spencer, now best remembered through 
 " The Eejected Addresses," and the Epilogue by 
 William Lamb ; the burden of which was the 
 advantages of peace. • It was not a successful 
 effusion ; and the play itself was withdrawn after 
 three nights, although the full strength of fashion 
 was put forth in its support. 
 
 Lamb was called to the Bar in Michaelmas 
 Term, 1804, but his practice was limited to a single 
 attendance at the Lancashire Sessions, where, 
 through the recommendation of Scarlett (Lord 
 Abinger), he received a guinea brief. He used to 
 say that the first sight of his name on the back 
 gave him the highest feeHng of satisfaction he 
 ever experienced, very far transcending his enjoy- 
 ment on being appointed Prime Minister. He had 
 made up his mind to follow the profession in right 
 earnest, and was taking to it with a zest, when his 
 elder brother died, and visions of briefs were dis- 
 sipated by the higher aspirations of ambition and 
 the brighter dreams of love. In the course of the 
 following year he had become member for Leo- 
 minster and the accepted lover of Lady Caroline 
 Ponsonby (only daughter of the third Earl of Bess- 
 borough), to whom he was married June 3, 1805. 
 To say that it was not a happj^ marriage is saying 
 little. It blighted the best part of his life, warped 
 his tone of mind, and haunted him with mortifying
 
 342 LORD MELBOURNE. 
 
 recollections to his dying day. Yet she possessed 
 many qualities which justified his choice, and she 
 never entirely lost her power of fascinating him. 
 She was personally attractive without being pretty 
 or handsome ; rather below the middle-height, 
 well-made though thin, with light hair which she 
 was fond of wearing hke a boy — 
 
 " Her voice was ever soft, 
 Gentle, and low : an excellent thing in woman." 
 
 She had abundant fancy and feeling, which are 
 amongst the choicest gifts of nature, although they 
 are apt to lead astray and to degenerate into way- 
 wardness or wilfulness. Her very caprice gave 
 piquancy and variety. She might tease, provoke, 
 and irritate, but she never failed to interest. She 
 was the counterpart of Pope's Calypso : 
 
 *' Strange graces still, and stranger flights, she had : 
 Was just not ugly, and was just not mad : 
 Yet ne'er so sure our passion to create 
 As when she touched the brink of all we hate." 
 
 We believe it to be perfectly true that when, 
 after one of their serious quarrels, everything was 
 arranged for a separation, and he had gone down 
 to Brocket till the formal documents could be 
 prepared, she followed him, and lay down like a 
 faithful dog at the door of his room, so that he 
 could not come out without treading on her. The 
 next morning when the men of business arrived, 
 they found her sitting on his knee, feeding him 
 with bread and butter. 
 
 They got on tolerably well for six or seven 
 years. At all events there was no outward or 
 visible sign to the contrary. Her craving for ex- 
 citement was lulled by the pleasures and cares of 
 maternity. She gave birth to a son, August 11,
 
 LORD MELBOURNE. 343 
 
 1807, to whom the Prince stood sponsor. Miss 
 Berry sets down : 
 
 May 3, 1608.—" Dined at Lady Melbourne's. Went up 
 to the top of the house with Lady Carohne Lamb to see 
 her httle boy asleep, who a very few years after was seized 
 with fits and his life despaired of. He is too big of his age 
 — only eight months." 
 
 " Life," adds the hiographer, '' was preserved, 
 hut only to himself to prove a burden and to his 
 father a grief incurable." 
 
 Lady Caroline gave birth to a daughter, still- 
 born, January 30, 1809, and mention is made of a 
 third child, who died young. 
 
 Mr. Torrens is not particular about dates. He 
 does not give that of Lamb's election for Leo- 
 minster, but leaves us to infer that it was towards 
 the end of 1805, or the beginning of 1806, when 
 the ministry of All the Talents had just come into 
 office. They were most of them his personal 
 friends, and he agreed with them in all leading 
 points, especially as regarded Catholic Emancipa- 
 tion and a more liberal policy for Ireland. He was 
 an enthusiastic admirer of Fox, and on his death 
 inscribed some tolerable lines upon his pedestal. 
 
 On the 19th of December, 1806, Lamb moved 
 the address in reply to the speech from the Throne. 
 This appears to have been his maiden effort. His 
 next was when, on the formation of Perceval's 
 Cabinet, which was pledged to resist all concession 
 to the CathoHcs, Mr. Brand moved that it w^as con- 
 trary to the first duty of the confidential servants 
 of the Crown to restrain themselves by any pledge, 
 expressed or implied, from offering to the Sove- 
 reign any advice which the course of circumstances 
 might require. Lamb seconded the motion in a 
 carefully prepared speech, which gives his bio-
 
 344 LORD MELBOURNE. 
 
 grapher an occasion for some pointed remarks on 
 what he thinks the inevitable fate of orations 
 written down and got by heart. But all the 
 greatest orators have been in the habit of com- 
 posing their speeches ; and we suspect that nothing 
 first-rate was ever strictly and literally improvised. 
 Perhaps the best course for a debater is to think 
 out the subject, carefully arrange his matter in his 
 mind, or even write down his principal arguments 
 so as to be complete master of them, and trust to 
 the inspiration of the moment for the words. Lord 
 Melbourne was- at no period of his life an orator. 
 He was at his best in short, pithy, impulsive sen- 
 tences, or rephes on the spur of the occasion. 
 Among the numerous, too numerous, selections 
 from his speeches given by the biographer, there is 
 not one that will pass muster as a specimen of 
 eloquence. But this is no reflection on their 
 effectiveness in debate, for what people are wont 
 to call eloquence is that which gives pleasure or 
 excites emotion independently of the subject or 
 the purpose. 
 
 The seizure of the Danish fleet (September, 
 1807) afforded the Wbigs an opportunity for what 
 they intended to be a damaging onslaught on the 
 Ministry ; but the attack was so tamely led by 
 theii' new leader, Ponsonby, and so dashingly re- 
 pelled by Canning, that although Lamb voted 
 with his party, his confidence in their power to 
 achieve anything was daunted, and (adds the bio- 
 grapher) his belief in his own capacity for debate 
 waxed so cold that he did not make any attempt 
 to speak during the Session of 1808. 
 
 " His attendance, like that of Althorp, at this period was 
 desultory, and broken by many intervals devoted to 
 pleasure ; but he was generally ready to be in his place 
 
 I
 
 LORD MELBOURNE. 345 
 
 ■when the elders whom he trusted thought it needful or im- 
 portant. 
 
 ***** 
 
 *' In the daily round of refined and luxurious existence, 
 time glided by. The lot had fallen to him in pleasant 
 places. As yet there was no shadow on his path ; and if, 
 contrary to the belief of Holland House, the Tories should 
 last for ever, he was ready to say with Mr. Fox, ' that in 
 the company of witty men and pretty women, with plenty 
 of fresh air, old books, and nothing to do, life was very 
 endurable.' " 
 
 The way of life at Melbourne House may be in- 
 ferred from an entry in Miss Berry's Journal : 
 
 Thursday, Aj)ril 7, 1808. — " I went to Lady Caroline 
 Lamb's. An immense assembly. We came away at half- 
 past twelve and walked beyond the Admiralty to the 
 carriage. Many of the company were not away till near 
 three, and the Prince of Wales and a very few persons 
 supped below in Lady Melbourne's apartment and were not 
 gone till past six ; Sheridan of the number, who was com- 
 pletely drunk." 
 
 Lamb's name does not once occur as a speaker in 
 the ''Hansard" of 1809. In 1810 he supported 
 Mr. Fuller's motion to abolish Sinecm*es, Komilly's 
 Anti-hanging Bills, as they were called, and 
 Brand's motion for an inquiry into the state of 
 the representation. 
 
 " In October, Mr. Lamb, accompanied by Lady Caroline, 
 met Lord Palmerston at the house of Mr. Conyers, where 
 there was a shooting party, but the woods were so full of 
 traps and spring guns ttiat the owner ' dared not set his 
 foot in any of his plantations lest he should leave it behind 
 him.' He shot better than his friend (Lord P.), who tells, 
 in his own characteristic way, how he brought down but one 
 brace of pheasants, owing to the high wind which blew ; 
 but Lamb was luckier, and always found the wind lower 
 when he fired, which was a knack he had through life, 
 which stood him in good stead in politics as in sporting."
 
 346 LORD MELBOURNE. 
 
 Lord Palmerston's laying the blame on the wind 
 may recall the foreigner who complained that the 
 English rabbits were too short. It was told of a 
 noble lord (Lord Ashbrook), who never touched a 
 feather during an entire day's shooting at Holk- 
 ham, that the keeper, by way of consolation, 
 remarked that he had seen people shoot worse than 
 his Lordship. " How can that be, when I have 
 missed bird after bird?" "Aye, but your Lord- 
 ship misses them so clean ! " This story would 
 nearly fit Lord Palmerston. During his later 
 years, when he was fond as ever of the sport, he 
 has been known to fire off both barrels at birds a 
 hundred yards off. 
 
 Lamb took an active part in the discussion of 
 the Eegency Bill in 1810, and was intrusted by his 
 party with the duty of moving an amendment on 
 the resolution for limiting the functions of the 
 Prince. He was followed by Canning, who com- 
 plimented his ''young friend, as he was glad in 
 public and in private to call him," on the modera- 
 tion of tone and the fitness of topics he had rehed 
 on. The amendment was defeated, and the conse- 
 quent position of the Crown was pointedly described 
 by Moore's couplet, in which the Kegent, alluding 
 to his royal father's condition, is made to say : 
 
 " A strait-waistcoat on him, and restrictions on me, 
 A more hmited monarchy scarcely could be." 
 
 It may be taken for granted that Lamb shared 
 the disappointment of his friends, when, at the 
 expiration of the restrictions, they were thrown 
 over by the Eegent, whose disclaimer of " predilec- 
 tions," in a letter to the Duke of York, was so 
 happily paraphrased by Moore : 
 
 " You know, my dear Fred, I have no predilections, 
 My heart is a sieve, in which hopes and affections
 
 LORD MELBOURNE. 347 
 
 Are danced up and down for a moment or two, 
 
 And the finer they are the more sure to slip through." 
 
 The Eegent was still anxious to retain some of 
 the old ties, or disinclined to break with Lady 
 Melbourne, for Lord Melbourne was requested to 
 continue Lord-in-waiting, and tbe request was con- 
 sidered a command. The natural opponents of 
 Perceval, the advocates of Catholic Emancipation, 
 were weakened by tbe insurmountable dislike of 
 Lord Grey and Whitbread to Canning ; but on 
 March 19th, 1812, Lord Boringdon (afterwards 
 Lord Morley) moved an address to the Eegent for 
 the formation of an administration independently 
 of parties and creeds. The result is told by Miss 
 Berry : 
 
 " Thursday, March 19. — Went to Lady Castlereagh's, 
 where there was an assembly entirely of ladies. There 
 were only three men in the room when we arrived. All the 
 male world was in the House of Lords to hear the motion 
 of Lord Boringdon. Near midnight we went to Melbourne 
 House to Lacly Caroline Lamb. They were at supper ; 
 fifteen ladies waiting the arrival of the gentlemen from the 
 House. An hour passed before they came. All Opposition 
 en masse, and all the Canning party, himself excepted, with 
 a fallen look, after their cheval de bataille, Lord Wellesley, 
 had entu-ely failed them at the hour of need, not having 
 chosen to open his mouth." 
 
 At the ensuing dissolution Lamb lost his seat, a 
 victim to the " No Popery " cry, along with many 
 of his friends, and on September 10th, 1812, 
 Brougham wi'ites to Lord Grey : 
 
 "Eomilly, Tierney, and Lamb being out of Parliament is 
 a great imputation on some of their friends, who must not 
 thereafter talk of the fickleness and wrong-headedness of 
 the people. These professors of party attachments had no 
 sort of scruple to dissolve the regular Whig interest, or 
 leave it with one single leader in the House of Commons,
 
 348 LORD MELBOURNE. 
 
 rather than forego the gratification of giving some cousin 
 or toad-eater a power of fi-ankiug letters ! " 
 
 Lamb remained out of Parliament fom' years, 
 and, if we may trust his biographer, spent part of 
 the time in melancholy reflections on the bad use 
 he had made of his opportunities : 
 
 " He had learned by experience that he was no orator, 
 and that plausibility, good taste, coincidence of opinion 
 with many who listen, sound logic, and an occasional dash 
 of sarcasm — not too saucy from a young man on one of the 
 back benches — will not command a hearing, secure a 
 report in the morning papers, or evoke a careless ' devilish 
 good,' from the chattering critics at the clubs next day. 
 In spite of many advantages of person, voice, address, 
 leisure, acquaintance, connections, and not a few sincere 
 well-wishers, he had as j^et accomplished nothing which 
 scores of young men of his class had not accomplished on 
 their way to epicurean obscm-ity." 
 
 We do not agree in this. We do not believe 
 that he despaired of himself, or that his friends 
 despaired of him. The qualities recapitulated — ■ 
 good taste, sound logic, and an occasional dash 
 of sarcasm — if they would not invariably command 
 a hearing, would rescue any man from epicurean 
 obscurity at any time. And Lamb was an epicu- 
 rean of the high intellectual order — not an Epicitri 
 de grege procus. The only Delilahs that could 
 seduce him from practical politics, or the graver 
 business of life, were books and the refined culti- 
 vated companionship of the fair sex. Unluckily 
 these four years were not permitted to glide away 
 smoothly, leaving no reminiscences but those of 
 well or pleasantly spent hours. They were dashed 
 with agitation and troubled by domestic trials, in 
 which his sense of honour and his feelings of self- 
 respect, as well as his best affections, were in- 
 volved. Lady Caroline's volatihty was arrested
 
 LORD MELBOURNE. 349 
 
 and her fancy fixed for a period by tlie sudden 
 appearance of a dazzling and lurid meteor amongst 
 the stars of fashion. She met Byron when he had 
 just flashed into fame, under circumstances which 
 she thus described to Lady Morgan : 
 
 " Lady Westmoreland knew him in Italy. She took on 
 her to present him. The women suffocated him. I heard 
 nothing of him, till one day Kogers (for he, Moore, and 
 Spencer, were all my lovers, and wrote me up to the skies 
 — I was in the clouds) — Eogers said, ' You should know 
 the new poet,' and he offered me the MS. of " Childe 
 Harold " to read. I read it, and that was enough. Eogers 
 said, ' he has a club foot, and bites his nails.' I said, ' If 
 he was ugly as ^sop I must know him.' I was one night 
 at Lady Westmoreland's ; the women were all throwing 
 their heads at him. Lady Westmoreland led me up to 
 him. I looked earnestly at him, and turned on my heel. 
 My oj)inion, in my journal was, ' mad — bad — and dangerous 
 to know.' A day or two passed ; I was sitting with Lord 
 and Lady Holland, when he was announced. Lady Holland 
 said, ' I must present Lord Byron to you.' Lord Byron 
 said, ' That offer was made to you before ; may I ask why you 
 rejected it ? ' He begged permission to come and see me. 
 He did so the next day. Piogers and Moore were standing 
 by me : I was on the sofa. I had just come in from riding. 
 I was filthy and heated. When Lord Byron was announced, 
 I flew out of the room to wash myself. When I returned, 
 Kogers said, ' Lord Byron, you are a happy man. Lady 
 Caroline has been sitting here in aU her dirt with us, but 
 when you were announced, she flew to beautify herself.' 
 Lord Byron wished to come and see me at eight o'clock, 
 when I was alone ; that was my dinner-hour. I said he 
 might. From that moment, for more than nine months, 
 he almost lived at Melbourne House. It was then the centre 
 of all gaiety, at least, in appearance.' ^ 
 
 Lady Carohne was a wild talker, and Lady 
 Morgan was not the most reliable of diarists. 
 Lord Byron's first manner was not of a nature 
 
 ^ Lady Morgan's Memoirs, vol, ii. p. 202.
 
 350 LORD MELBOURNE. 
 
 to make a new acquaintance set him down as 
 ''mad, bad, and dangerous to know," or to justify 
 Madame de Stael's warning when she told Lady- 
 Caroline that he was a demon ; although to think 
 a man dangerous, or be told that he was a demon, 
 was the hkeliest of all ways to make a woman of 
 ill-regulated fancy and sensibility, craving for ex- 
 citement, fall in love with him. Their passion, 
 or rather fever-fit of gratified vanity, has become 
 historical. It was short-lived, and was converted, 
 at least on one side, into the exact opposite — into 
 something bordering on hate, with exceptional 
 rapidity. There is a maxim of Rochefoucauld, 
 " Ce qui fait que les amants et les mai tresses ne 
 s'ennuient point d'etre ensemble, c'est qu'ils parlent 
 toujours d'eux-memes." Some one else has defined 
 love as " egoisme a deux." But the gentleman 
 must talk of the lady and the lady of the gentle- 
 man. They will soon feel tired if each only talks 
 of himseK or herself, as Byron and Lady Caroline 
 did. They were too much alike to get on well 
 together long : both morbidly self-conscious : both 
 gifted or cursed with imagination and sensibility ; 
 both aiming at intellectual distinction. They 
 were rivals as well as lovers : it was diamond cut 
 diamond, instead of diamond outshining pearl and 
 pearl content to be outshone. As Lord Holland 
 was carrying an antique censer, taken from a 
 cabinet, to show some one, he paused before Byron 
 and Lady Caroline, and said to her, "You see I 
 bear you incense." " Ofi'er it to Lord Byron," 
 was the reply, "he is used to it." 
 
 A very eminent man of letters, who died not 
 long since, frankly avowed that his beau ideal of a 
 mistress or a wife was a pretty woman who would 
 sit on a footstool at his feet, look up fondly in his 
 face, listen to him with rapt attention, and only
 
 LORD MELBOURNE. 351 
 
 interrupt him to whisper that he was the hand- 
 somest and cleverest creature upon earth. Byron's 
 theory of female perfection was substantially the 
 same. But the part she was required to play did 
 not suit Lady Caroline. Her favourite worship 
 was self- worship ; and instead of treating his 
 poetry as the only poetry worthy of the name, she 
 was constantly bringing him verses of her own, 
 which threw him into a state resembling that of 
 Hogarth's enraged musician. The conduct of 
 both was so extravagant as to verge on the comic 
 and recall the parody of the " Stranger " — 
 
 She, seeing him, scream'd and was carried off kicking, 
 And he banged bis head 'gainst the opposite door." 
 
 Fashion is lenient to its votaries and its idols — ■ 
 
 " — the few 
 Or many, for tbe number's sometimes such, 
 Wbom a good mien, especially if new, 
 Or name or fame for wit, war, sense or nonsense, 
 Permits whate'er they please, or did not long suit." 
 
 The world, at least in its ordinary mood, in- 
 stinctively distinguishes between offences against 
 the conventionalities and what is positively or 
 morally wrong. Lady Caroline's imiirudence and 
 contempt of form caused ample allowances to be 
 made for her : nobody suspected her of worse than 
 was openly displayed or lay upon the surface. She 
 was like the air, a chartered libertine ; her reputa- 
 tion was little if at all affected : and she retained 
 her social position to the last. Besides, she had 
 redeeming bursts of well-directed enthusiasm. At 
 a dinner at Paris, after the occupation in 1815, 
 she suddenly asked one of the party, in the hearing 
 of the rest, who he supposed she thought the most 
 distinguished man she ever knew in mind and
 
 352 LORD MELBOURNE. 
 
 person, refinement, cultivation, sensibility, and 
 thought. The person addressed suggested Lord 
 Byron. " No," was the reply, '' my own husband, 
 Wilham Lamb." 
 
 In public she persevered in monopolising Byron 
 whenever they met. She has been described to us 
 by an eye- witness^ as hurrying up to him at Osterly 
 Park the moment she entered the room, seating 
 herself by his side, and showing by look and 
 manners that she would '' endure no rival near 
 the" — sofa. The story of her stabbing herself — 
 with scissors or a metal dagger-shaped paper-knife 
 — is confirmed by a document preserved amongst 
 the Byron relics. It is an invitation card, with a 
 memorandum in Byron's handwiiting : 
 
 "Lord Byron, 
 
 4, Bennet Street, 
 
 St. James." 
 
 "Lady Heathcote, 
 
 At home, 
 
 Monday, July 5th, 1813. 
 
 A small Waltzing Party, 
 
 10 o'clock." 
 
 "This card I keep as a curiosity, since it was at this ball 
 (to ■which it is an invitation) that L\ Caroline L. performed 
 y^ Dagger Scene — of indifferent memory." 
 
 He first got bored, then irritated, then savage. 
 She one day entered his lodgings when he was out, 
 and finding Beckford's " Yathek " on the table, 
 wrote under his name, on the blank leaf at the 
 beginning, " Kemember me." Under this inscrip- 
 tion he wrote : 
 
 " Eemember thee ! remember thee ! 
 
 Till Lethe quench life's burning stream, 
 Eemorse and shame shall cling to thee 
 And haunt thee like a feverish dream. 
 
 ^ The late Earl Bathurst. 
 
 ,1 
 
 I 
 
 I
 
 LORD MELBOURNE. 353 
 
 " Eemember thee ! Ay, doubt it not, 
 Thy husband too shall think of thee, 
 
 By neither shalt thou be forgot, 
 
 Thou, false to him, thou Jiend to me." ^ 
 
 The husband is commonly the last to hear of 
 that in which he is most deeply interested, and 
 Lamb was so used to his wife's eccentricities, to 
 call them by no harsher name, that an escapade 
 more or less did not count. According to Lady 
 Morgan, she said : 
 
 " He cared nothing for my morals. I might flirt and go 
 about with what men I pleased. He was privy to my 
 affair with Lord Byron, and laughed at it. His indolence 
 rendered him insensible to everything. When I ride, play, 
 and amuse him, he loves me. In sickness and suffering he 
 deserts me. His violence is as bad as my own." 
 
 This is in fiat contradiction to her letters, in 
 which she uniformly speaks of him as the kindest 
 and noblest of men. If we may believe her, the 
 last feather that broke the camel's back, the drop 
 that made the cup overflow, was not the affair 
 
 1 " Works " (Murray's complete edition). The identical copy of 
 " Yatliek," with the lines in Lord Byron's handwriting, was seen by Lord 
 Stratford de Redcliffe, who carefully committed them to memory, and 
 says that the verse printed second stood first, and that the second ran 
 thus: 
 
 " Remember thee ! yes, yes, till Fate 
 
 In Lethe quench the guilty dream, 
 
 Yet then, e'en then, remorse and hate 
 
 Shall vainly quaff the vanquish'd stream." 
 
 What (he says) helped him to retain a vivid recollection of the lines was 
 a discussion with Lord Gleuelg to whom he repeated them, whether 
 " baffled " would not be better than " vanquished." The book which he 
 saw had been borrowed for him by Mr. Murray from Lord Byron before 
 he left England. 
 
 After repeating the verses and stating incidentally (December 28, 1877) 
 that he was in his ninety-second year, I.ord Stratford gave a lucid exposi- 
 tion of the manner in which he thought the Eastern Question might be 
 settled. 
 
 VOL. I. 2 A
 
 354 LORD MELBOURNE. 
 
 with Lord Byron but an alleged act of wanton 
 cruelty to her page. 
 
 "The boy was a nttle espiegle, and would throw detonating 
 balls into the fire. Lord Melbourne always scolded me for 
 this, and I the boy. One day I was playing ball with him, 
 he threw a squib into the fire. I threw the ball at his head, 
 it hit him on the temple, and he bled. He cried out, ' Oh ! 
 my lady, you have killed me.' Out of my senses, I flew 
 into the hall and screamed, ' Oh God, I have murdered the 
 page ! ' The servants and people in the street caught the 
 sound, and it was soon spread about. William Lamb 
 would live with me no longer. 
 
 " All his family united in insisting on our separation. 
 Whilst this was going on, and instruments drawing out — ■ 
 that is, in one month — I wrote and sent ' Glenarvon ' to the 
 press. I wrote it, unknown to a.11 (save a governess, Miss 
 Welsh), in the middle of the night. It was necessary to 
 have it copied out. I had heard of a famous copier, an old 
 Mr. Woodhead. I sent to beg he would come to see Lady 
 Caroline Lamb at Melbom-ne House. I placed Miss Welsh, 
 elegantly dressed, at my harp, and myself at a writing- 
 table, dressed in the page's clothes, looking a boy of 
 fourteen. He addressed Miss Welsh as Lady Caroline. 
 She showed him the author. He would not believe that 
 this schoolboy could write such a thing. He came to 
 me again in a few days, and he found me in my own 
 clothes. I told him William Ormond, the young author, 
 was dead. When the work was printed, I sent it to William 
 Lamb. He was delighted with it ; and we became united 
 just as the world thought we were parted for ever." 
 
 This is simply incredible. " Grienarvon " had no 
 literary merit, and its sole claim to interest or 
 popularity, instead of conciliating her husband, 
 would have revived and embittered the recollection 
 of his wrongs : the hero being meant for the noble 
 poet, and the heroine, Calantha, for herself. Byron 
 vn-ites to Moore, November 17, 1816 : 
 
 " By the way, I suppose you have seen * Glenarvon.' 
 Madame de Stael lent it me to read from Coj)et last
 
 LORD MELBOURNE. 355 
 
 autumn. It seems to me that, if the authoress had written 
 the truth and nothing but the truth — the whole truth — the 
 romance would not only have been more romantic but more 
 entertaining. As for the likeness, the picture can't be good. 
 I did not sit long enough.'^ 
 
 It is perfectly clear that the liaison did not long 
 survive the dagger scene, July 1813. Lady Caro- 
 line told Lady Morgan that her mother took her to 
 Ireland with the view of breaking off the connection, 
 and that it was at Dublin she received the "cruel " 
 letter published in ''Glenarvon," which Lord Byron 
 declared to be the only true thing in the book. 
 The copy given by her to Lady Morgan is without 
 a date. Yet Mr. Torrens states that in "this 
 year" (1816) Lord Byron married Miss Milbanke 
 with the advice and approval of Lady Melbourne, 
 and " in spite of many petulant warnings of evil to 
 come " from Lady Carohne. 
 
 " Ere long he (Lord Byron) heard of her complainings 
 at his absence and alienation : and he had the effrontery to 
 address to his peevish and hypochondriacal friend the lines 
 beginning — 
 
 " ' And sayest thou, Cara,' etc., 
 
 in which, to excuse the discontinuance of his visits, he tells 
 her that in fact he is thinking of nobody else, and ajjologises 
 for conjugal perfidy by the assurance that ' falsehood to all 
 else is truth to thee.' " 
 
 Lord Byron was married January 2nd, 1815, and 
 quitted England for ever in April, 1816. The 
 verses to Cara (if written by Lord Byron, which 
 we doubt) were certainly not addressed to Lady 
 Caroline. Neither were the lines beginning : 
 "Farewell, if ever fondest prayer," which Mr. 
 Torrens states were addressed to her by Lord 
 Byron " on quitting England." In Murray's 
 edition of the Poems they are dated 1808.
 
 356 LORD MELBOUENE. 
 
 A strong proof that the Byron affair was not the 
 immediate cause of the projected separation was 
 that Lord Byron's friendship with Lady Melbourne 
 remained unbroken till her death, in 1818. There 
 is a French maxim : " la mere a toujours une ten- 
 dresse pour I'amant de sa fille ; " but we never 
 heard that this tenderness extended to the lover 
 of the daughter-in-law. 
 
 November 24th, 1813, Lord Byron sets down in 
 his Diary : 
 
 " I have had a letter from Lady Melbourne, the best 
 friend I ever had in my life, and the cleverest of women. 
 I write with most pleasure to her, and her answers are so 
 sensible, so tactique. I never met with half her talent. If 
 she had been a few years younger, what a fool she would 
 have made of me, had she thought it worth her while, and 
 I should have lost a valuable and most agreeable /riewf/." 
 
 *' Mem. A mistress never is or can be a friend. While 
 you agree, you are lovers ; and when it is over, anything 
 but friends." 
 
 He has versified this Mem. in "Don Juan," 
 although it is far from universally true : 
 
 " No friend like to a woman man discovers. 
 So that they have not been nor may be lovers." 
 
 Long after his mother's death. Lord Melbourne 
 is reported to have said, " Ah, my mother was a 
 most remarkable woman ; not merely clever and 
 engaging, but the most sagacious woman I ever 
 knew. She kept me right as long as she lived." 
 
 Lamb (as we must still call him) resumed his 
 parliamentary career in 1816. The biographer is 
 rather obscure upon the point, but we collect that 
 he re-entered the House as member for Portarliug- 
 ton, which he very soon exchanged for Peter- 
 borough. He broke ground by a speech in support 
 of an amendment moved by the leader of Oppo-
 
 LORD MELBOURNE. 357 
 
 sition, Ponsonby; his chief topic being that the 
 mihtary estabhshments had not been reduced to 
 a peace footing. Canning, in reply, referred to 
 him as one "who never spoke without making 
 a deep impression by his eloquence and ability." 
 These were no words of course. Long before he 
 came decidedly to the front, there prevailed a 
 wide-spread belief in his latent capacity and sup- 
 pressed power. About this time (or shortly after- 
 wards) he had just left a dinner at Carlton House, 
 when the Eegent, turning to one of the remaining 
 guests, said with emphasis : '' Sligo, mark my 
 words, that man will some time or other be Prime 
 Minister."' 
 
 In the course of a debate on Lord John Russell's 
 annual motion for Reform in 1827, Mr. Hobhouse 
 (Lord Broughton) had made a powerful speech, 
 followed by a pause, when a member rose at a 
 considerable distance from the Speaker and made 
 a telling reply of about twenty minutes' duration, 
 almost every sentence of which was received with 
 acclamation. A listener in the gallery (the present 
 writer) turned round and asked a reporter (after- 
 wards a distinguished member of the Irish Bar) 
 who it was. " That," was the reply, " is William 
 Lamb ; and Lord Castlereagh used to say that 
 he might become Prime Minister, if he would only 
 shake off his carelessness and set about it." 
 
 It was at his instance that his brother George 
 stood for Westminster in 1818, and throwing off 
 his habitual nonchalance he took the lead in organ- 
 ising a systematic canvass of the constituency. 
 Lady Georgiana Morpeth and Lady Caroline played 
 the parts so efficiently filled by the Duchess of 
 
 ' The authority is the present Marquis of Sligo ; who, without being 
 able to fix the precise date of the incident, is certain that it occurred during 
 the Regency.
 
 358 LORD MELBOURNE. 
 
 Devonstiire in 1784. Desirous of gaining over 
 Godwin, whose name was deemed important to 
 the cause, Lady Carohne opened a correspondence 
 with him, and although she failed in her imme- 
 diate object, she made the acquaintance of a re- 
 markable man, and the letters to which it led 
 are highly valuable as throwing hght on her 
 character and the affectionate terms on which 
 she lived with her husband. In 1821, Godwin 
 wrote to ask her aid in promoting a subscription 
 for his benefit, a request with which she readily 
 complies. In the ensuing letter she gives free 
 expression to her feelings and thoughts, betraying 
 in every other sentence her incurable self-con- 
 sciousness : 
 
 " There is nothing marked, sentimental, or interesting 
 in my career. All I know is that I was happy, well, 
 rich, joyful, and surrounded by friends. I have now one 
 faithful, kind friend in William Lamb, two others in my 
 father and brother — but health, spirits and all else, is 
 gone, gone how? Oh, assuredly not by the visitation 
 of God, but slowly and gradually by my own fault." ^ 
 
 ^ ^ Tw TK if^ 
 
 " Pray say a few wise words to me. There is no one 
 more deeply sensible than myself of kindness from persons 
 of high intellect, and at this period of my life I need it. 
 I have nothing to do, I mean necessarily. There is no 
 particular reason why I should exist : it conduces to no 
 one's happiness, and, on the contrary, I stand in the 
 way of many. Besides, I seem to have lived 500 years, 
 and feel I am neither wiser, better, nor worse than I 
 began. My experience gives me no satisfaction, all my 
 opinions and beliefs and feelings are shaken, as if suffering 
 from frequent little shocks of earthquake." 
 
 The author of the book in which these letters 
 appear goes on to say " that one new acquaintance 
 
 ^ " William Godwin : His Friends and Contemporaries." By C. Kegan 
 Paul. 1876.
 
 LORD MELBOURNE. 359 
 
 was made by Godwin in 1830, the last of the 
 long series of younger friends. This was Edward 
 Bulwer, known better to this generation as Lord 
 Lytton, who came to sit at the feet of the writer 
 of " Caleb Wilhams." He was introduced to God- 
 win by Lady Caroline Lamb in the following letter, 
 which is without date and was certainly written 
 many years before 1830, probably in 1823 : 
 
 "Mr. Bulwer Lytton, a very young man and an en- 
 thusiast, wishes to be introduced to you. He is taking 
 his degree at Cambridge; on his retm-n pray let me 
 make you acquainted with him. . . . Hobhouse came 
 to me last night : how strange it is I love Lord Byron 
 so much now in my old age, in despite of all he is 
 said to have said. But I also love Hobhouse because 
 he so warmly takes his part." 
 
 In July, 1824, she was driving in an open 
 carriage, when a funeral came by. She asked 
 whose it was, and the reply was "Lord Byron's." 
 The biographer states that she never recovered 
 from the shock. At first she lay as one stunned, 
 incapable of exertion and without interest of any 
 kind. She then resumed her pen and pencils 
 and was occupied with her favourite books and 
 music in a manner to give hopes that the dark 
 cloud had been uplifted. But she speedily re- 
 lapsed, and indulged in all sorts of caprices and 
 vagaries. It is told of her that one day, comhig 
 into the dining-room whilst the butler was arrang- 
 ing the decorations for the table, she told him that 
 they wanted feature, expression and elevation : 
 that the centre-piece in particular was too low : 
 then ordering it to be removed, she stepped into 
 the vacant place and assumed a picturesque atti- 
 tude to illustrate her idea : 
 
 " The butler rushed from the room, and finding Lamb 
 in the library, begged him for God's sake to come to the
 
 360 LORD MELBOURNE. 
 
 rescue. The moment he saw her, he said only in the 
 gentlest tone of expostulation ' Caroline, Caroline ! ' then 
 took her in his arms and carried her out of doors into the 
 sunshine, talking of some ordinary subject to divert her 
 attention from what had happened. That evening she 
 received her friends with as calm a look and tone as in 
 happier days ; but what an ordeal for him to pass 
 through ! " 
 
 What an ordeal indeed ! At times it was too 
 much for him. He resolved on separation, and, 
 as regards absence and estrangement, was sepa- 
 rated at intervals. But how impute to guilt, or 
 punish as criminal, irregularities which were 
 clearly owing to a disordered intellect and were 
 always bordering on, if they did not actually reach, 
 insanity ! If he kept away from Brocket, he left 
 her its undisturbed occupant, and whenever she 
 expressed a wish to see him or his presence was 
 needed to keep her quiet, he was there to soothe 
 and watch over her. 
 
 At the same time, he was watching over a son 
 whom he tenderly loved, and trying to read in his 
 fine features the signs of the complete intelhgence 
 and mental soundness they were never destined to 
 reflect. If Lord Melbourne occasionally sought 
 distraction in things that were not domestic, let it 
 be remembered what sort of domesticity awaited 
 him in his own home. If he was sometimes 
 cynical or distrustful of mankind and womankind, 
 let it never be forgotten how his best affections 
 had been converted into instruments of torture, 
 how his finest feelings had been turned against 
 him. No wonder that he was fond of repeating 
 one of the "detached thoughts" of Horace Wal- 
 pole : " To those who think, life is a comedy — to 
 those who feel, a tragedy." 
 
 "Later in this year (1818) Sheridan died, and
 
 LORD MELBOURNE. 361 
 
 William Lamb was among the well-born crowd 
 who followed him to the grave. His admiration 
 was unbounded for his genius." This, combined 
 with his friendship for Tom Sheridan, led (it is 
 added) to his undertaking the biography of the 
 deceased orator and wit. 
 
 " He went in for a preliminary course of reading in Old 
 Enghsh comedy from Beaumont to Congreve, and long 
 afterwards be used to excite the wonder of the superficial 
 and the admiration of the learned frequenters of Holland 
 House by reciting whole colloquies from Wycherley and 
 long speeches from Massinger. This was preparatory to 
 writing the earlier portions of his work, and delightful 
 preparation it was. Then there was a course of more 
 laborious study in the orations, English, Irish, French, 
 Koman, Greek. Their differences of style and compara- 
 tive anatomy had for him a charm that they never had 
 before." 
 
 ***** 
 
 " Of the earher Irish school he had little or no means of 
 judging. Fox and Windham were the penates of his house, 
 and the latter was with him a sort of idol. Canning he 
 could listen to for ever ; but the man who he always said 
 was the most irresistible in argument he had ever beard 
 was Plunket. By the time he bad come to settle conclu- 
 sions about all these, something of his youthful prefer- 
 ence for Sheridan was shaken ; for he could not reconcile 
 them with his unbridled freaks of fancy and tendency to 
 over-decoration. This did not cool his biographic zeal, or 
 abate his ambition to be the author of a book that every 
 one would read. After many postponements and changes 
 of design be at length began, and actually wrote the intro- 
 ductory -portions of the Life of the orator as we have it now" 
 
 Having got thus far, he began to flag and shrank 
 away from the drudgery of collecting facts and 
 collatinfr authorities for a consecutive narrative : 
 
 'o 
 
 " He had got together all the best marbles and bronzes, 
 sacrificial tools and incense-burners for his temple, but to
 
 362 LORD MELBOURNE. 
 
 go quarrying for the stones and digging out the rubbish for 
 the foundation, or making the cement and trowelHng it 
 
 into the numberless interstices that must be filled up 
 
 Heigh-ho ! perhaps somebody else would do it better : why 
 not Thomas Moore, an enthusiast by nature, a skilled work- 
 man by trade ? " 
 
 There was some hesitation and some demur : 
 the poet, we are told, instinctively knew that, pro- 
 fessionally considered, it was not a job that would 
 pay. We should say that he instinctively knew 
 the exact contrary, and it is matter of fact that he 
 got a thousand pounds down at starting. But the 
 hesitation did not last : 
 
 " Moore was told by everybody he dined with that he 
 was just the man to embalm Sheridan's memory in frank- 
 incense and myrrh. The Minstrel Boy liked the compli- 
 ments better than the work, and took to it reluctantly. 
 Lamb proffered him all the aid in his power, and sent him 
 his notes and sketches, with the introductory chapters which 
 only were written. Eventually they made their appearance, 
 with little adaptation, at the beginning of Sheridan's Life, 
 accompanied with due acknowledgments." 
 
 The sole basis for these graphic details appears 
 to he that Lamb began a Life of Sheridan and, on 
 hearing that Moore was contemplating one, handed 
 over the incomplete manuscript to him. Sheridan 
 died in 1816, not 1818. Moore did not pubhsh the 
 Life till 1825, nine years afterwards, and it was 
 originally meant to accompany his collected edition 
 of the Works. There are no introductory chapters. 
 Lamb's name is not mentioned in the Preface, nor 
 in the body of the work. The only acknowledg- 
 ment is in a note : 
 
 " The following sensible remarks (two paragraphs) are 
 from an unfinished Life of Mr. Sheridan now in my posses- 
 sion — written by one whose boyhood was passed in the
 
 LORD MELBOURNE. 363 
 
 society of the great men he undertook to commemorate; 
 and whose station and talents would have given to such a 
 work an authenticity that would have rendered the humble 
 memorial I have attempted unnecessary." ^ 
 
 Two paragraphs relating to the Kollied and the 
 Probationary Odes are quoted in a subsequent note, 
 and the obvious inference is that Moore made no 
 other use of the manuscript. The precise circum- 
 stances under which (in 1824) he contracted for the 
 Memoirs are stated in the Journals edited by the 
 late Earl Eussell. 
 
 In November 1818, Lamb, then member for 
 Hertfordshire (it is not stated when he was chosen), 
 supported Lord Althorp's motion for a committee 
 to inquire into the state of the country. In 1819 
 the next stirring affair in which he was engaged 
 was the renewed contest for Westminster, when 
 he accompanied his brother to the hustings and 
 witnessed his mortifying defeat : Burdett and Hob- 
 house being returned. Queen Caroline next came 
 upon the scene. Nearly all Lamb's private friends 
 and political connections were against the prosecu- 
 tion, and his votes were mostly given in accordance 
 with their view. 
 
 On all Irish questions which, soon after the 
 accession of George IV., began to assume formid- 
 able dimensions, he took the Liberal side, but his 
 love of order and his confidence in Lord Wellesley 
 induced him to support the suspension of the 
 Habeas Corpus Act and the passing of the Insur- 
 rection Bill in 1822. On September 2, 1825, he 
 intimated his intention not to present himself 
 again as a candidate for the county, stating that 
 he was induced to come to this determination 
 solely by personal and private jjonsiderations, 
 having accepted an offer to stand for Hertford, 
 
 » "Memoirs of R. B. Sheridan," vol. i. p. 403.
 
 364 LORD MELBOURNE. 
 
 where he was opposed by Mr. T. Duncombe, who 
 fairly frightened him off the course by intimations 
 and insinuations of the most unjustifiable sort. 
 One of the most malignant attacks of this kind 
 (we learn from the biographer) alluded openly to 
 his wife, and was subscribed " Glenarvon." He 
 might have retorted with telling effect if his adver- 
 sary had not been case-hardened. His place was 
 taken, at his suggestion, by Henry Bulwer, "who," 
 Mr. Torrens states, " had already shown that he 
 possessed capability and ambition to win distinc- 
 tion in a different sphere from his elder brother." 
 His eldest brother was a quiet country gentleman : 
 Edward, Lord Lytton, who is evidently intended, 
 was the youngest of the three. 
 
 Canning's accession to the Premiership was 
 Lamb's real starting-point as a working practical 
 statesman. On the 27th of April, 1827, he was 
 returned for Newport by a small majority. A 
 petition was threatened, but before it could be 
 presented he was appointed Chief Secretary for 
 Ireland. On Canning's proposing him, the King 
 is reported to have said, " William Lamb, William 
 Lamb — put him anywhere you hke." Instead of 
 standing again for Newport, he got elected for 
 Bletchingley, obligingly vacated for him by Mr. 
 William Eussell. He started for Ireland early in 
 July, leaving Lady Caroline at Brocket on the plea 
 of ill-health, but taking with him his son, from 
 whom he could not bear to be separated.^ 
 
 The peculiar duty to which Canning's parting 
 instructions pointed was one for which Lamb was 
 admirably fitted by knowledge of mankind, charm 
 of manner, temper, and tact. He was to pave the 
 way for Catholic emancipation and an entire 
 
 ' His son died Nov. 27th, 183G. The only signs of complete intel- 
 ligence were displayed a few hours before his death. 
 
 J
 
 LORD MELBOURNE. 365 
 
 change of policy by gradual changes of men and 
 measures, bringing the friends of toleration to the 
 front, and transferring some portion of the power 
 which the exclusionists had held so long as almost 
 to regard it as their patrimony. Mr. Torrens, 
 Irish by birth and education, was an Irish official 
 when the traditions of Lamb's secretaryship were 
 fresh ; and although we cannot help suspecting 
 that the Irish atmosphere has exercised its pre- 
 scriptive influence upon his facts, ^ we see no reason 
 to doubt the substantial accuracy of the animated 
 passages in which he describes the effect of the 
 new Secretary's arrival at the Castle : 
 
 " From the outset be resolved to see and hear for him- 
 self everybody and everything. The prescriptive reserve 
 which haunted the Secretary's office he put aside with no 
 other notice than a hearty laugh. Peel had encircled the 
 department with an arctic zone of distrust which, save by 
 a few adventures, was impenetrable ; Goulhurn was the 
 centre of a mere fog, without light or sound or motion. 
 His successor came to bring brighter and more hopeful 
 weather. The staff of the department viewed his proceed- 
 ings with surprise at first and then with sorrow. Some 
 hinted doubts as to whether he was quite aware of the sort 
 of persons he consented to see, and inwardly they deplored 
 the obstinacy of his imprudence in seeming to talk to them 
 just as he would to old acquaintances. Old Mr. Gregory 
 groaned ; melancholy Mr. Mangin sighed ; the sententious 
 Attorney-General, Mr. Joy, kept his mind to himself excejit 
 when asked point-blank for an opinion, and then flavoured 
 it with a sneer. The versatile Solicitor-General, Mr. 
 Doherty, who had fought for his kinsman the Prime 
 Minister at Liverpool elections, and hoped that he would 
 now have his reward, was all things to all men ; and find- 
 ing that Lamb loved a joke, plied him with specimens 
 innumerable of Celtic fun. But the Secretary went his 
 
 own way, and kept to it." 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 * It was ^Ir. Kinglake who said that, when St. Patrick expelled 
 poisouous reptiles from Ireland, he also expelled facts.
 
 366 LORD MELBOURNE. 
 
 " The messengers of the office used to say long after his 
 time, ' When Mr. Lamb was here the only orders were, 
 Show him in : ' and though he could not promise to grant 
 one in fifty of their requests, they invariably went away in 
 better humour than they came, and muttering as they 
 passed the sentry at the gate, ' Not a bad kind of man 
 that.' At the end of an early letter to the Home Office 
 full of details of business, he says : ' I have a dozen fellows 
 talking to me whilst I write this letter, which will account 
 for its incoherence,' — in regard to official formalities ; for 
 there was none as to substance and sense." 
 
 Canning's death made no ostensible change in 
 Lamb's position till the Duke of Wellington's acces- 
 sion to the Premiership, when, in reply to a compli- 
 mentary letter from the Duke requesting him to 
 retain the office he had hitherto filled with so 
 much credit, he wi'ote that he must postpone his 
 decision till he had conversed with his Grace upon 
 the whole of the intended arrangements. He 
 finally left Ireland on the 23rd of January, 1828, 
 and on his arrival at Melbourne House found Lady 
 Caroline dying. The tone of her letters was 
 habitually so desponding that he had distrusted 
 the accounts she had recently written to him of 
 her real state : 
 
 " She lingered only a few days longer, for the most part 
 in a state bordering on unconsciousness. Her brother 
 William, who throughout her illness had been unremitting 
 in his care, warmly expressed his sense of the solace which 
 her husband's frequent letters had afforded her, and the 
 tenderness of his demeanour when he came. ' William 
 Lamb behaved throughout as I always knew he would. ' " 
 ***** 
 
 " In spite of all her waywardness and folly. Lamb was 
 beyond all doubt passionately fond of his wife. She re- 
 tained to the last a strong influence over him, and years 
 after her death he used to speak of her with tears, and ask 
 moodily, ' shall we meet in another world ? '"
 
 LORD MELBOURNE. 367 
 
 He consented to retain his office under the Duke 
 until the forced resignation of Huskisson, when 
 Lord Palmerston, Lord Dudley, and Lamb met to 
 resolve upon the course which it was incumbent 
 on them to pursue. Their conference is described 
 by Lord Palmerston in his Journal : 
 
 " We all left Huskisson (then living in Downing Street) 
 together, and Dudley proposed that we should walk up a 
 little way, our cabriolets following. He was in the middle 
 and said, ' Now we are by ourselves in the street, and 
 nobody but the sentry to hear us, let me know, right and 
 left, what is meant to be done — "in " or "out."' I said 
 'out,' and Lamb echoed 'out.' 'Well,' said Dudley, 'I 
 am under some embarrassment as to what I shall do.' . . . 
 He said that the Colonial Office would be iilled by a 
 moderate Tory, a man of j)romise, a member of a Tory 
 family. Lamb then said that for his part he did not 
 happen to know any young member of a Tory family who 
 was a man of jiromise, but by Dudley's own showing the 
 character and complexion of the Government were to be 
 altered, first by withdrawing Huskisson and then by putting 
 in his place a decided Tory. That this would decide him 
 at all events. . . . 
 
 " Dudley said that there was something in attaching 
 oneself to so great a man as the Duke. 'For my part,' 
 said Lamb, ' I do not happen to think the Duke so very 
 great a man ; but that's a matter of opinion.' I left them, 
 and on my return home wrote to the Duke a letter of 
 resignation, which was to be sent to him early the next 
 morning." ^ 
 
 Bulwer adds in a note, that George lY. was very 
 anxious that Lamb should remain : 
 
 " At least the Duke of Cumberland requested that I 
 would go to him and mention, as the King's particular 
 desire, that he would not quit the Government. I gave 
 the message, and carried back a civil answer, but one that 
 left no doubt of Mr. Lamb's determination." ^ 
 
 1 " Journal," April 24, 1828, quoted by Bulwer in his " Life of Lord 
 Palmerston." 
 
 " " Life of Lord Palmerston," vol. i. p. 272.
 
 368 LORD MELBOURNE. II 
 
 Mr. Torrens states that, after Lamb's resigna- 
 tion, Jerdan called on him and persuaded him 
 to resume his contributions to the " Literary 
 Gazette " : 
 
 " They had previously been casual, but now became 
 more frequent, being chiefly criticisms on theological or 
 ethical works. Some of his reviews were of plagiaristic or 
 platitudinarian volumes of sermons, and are spiced with 
 keen, though not irreverent humour." 
 
 Peniston, the first Lord Melbourne, died on the 
 22nd of July, 1828, and the accession of William 
 to the title and estates gives occasion to the bio- 
 grapher for philosophising in his peculiar way on 
 the position and prospects of the new peer. He 
 writes as usual with spirit and vivacity, but he has 
 the Macaulay fondness for effect, and he thinks 
 nothing of rounding a sentence at the expense of 
 a date or a fact. Twenty-five years sounds better 
 than nineteen, so he begins : 
 
 " For five-and-twenty years Lamb had been a member of 
 the House of Commons, a favourite there, seldom refused a 
 hearing, the intimate of its greatest men, and for a season 
 the occupant of a difficult post ; yet he had not made a 
 speech worth remembering, and the Cabinet — the crown 
 of parliamentary strivings — had never been conceded him." 
 
 He had made many speeches which the bio- 
 grapher has thought worth quoting, and he had 
 established a reputation which was to place him at 
 the head of the Cabinet in due course. 
 
 " Half a century spent and gone, and how little to show 
 for it ! He would have given a great deal to have had a 
 fervid, even a fantastic faith in anj^thing worth working 
 for. He had been born a Whig, bred a courtier, drawn by 
 conviction into Canningism, and persuaded to retain office 
 under the Duke of Wellington. But Whiggery was said to 
 be worn out. There was no longer a Court genial, generous, 
 or gay ; Canning was dead, and the great soldier's admin-
 
 LORD MELBOURNE. 369 
 
 istration seemed tottering to its fall. Utilitarian levelling 
 like that of Bentham he regarded as nonsense. State 
 parsimony like Joseph Hume's he thought a pettifogging 
 blunder. Eadicalism after the manner of Hunt and Coh- 
 bett he called mere ragamuffinism. He envied Stanley, as 
 he said, the equal pleasure he took in fighting a main of 
 cocks and defending the abuses of the Established Church. 
 He coveted Palmerston's light-heartedness and india-rubber 
 temperament, and Lansdowne's delight in the arts and in 
 the duties of hospitality. Althorp's devotion to his wethers 
 and shorthorns, and Holland's happiness in his great 
 dinners and amusement at my lady's whimsicality, were 
 alike to him marvels of contentedness. He was inactive, 
 yet he was not at ease." 
 
 It is difficult to imagine a more erroneous 
 estimate of a character. It would make out an 
 earnest, high-minded man, with a noble career 
 before him and intuitively conscious of it — so 
 much so that his future was divined from his bear- 
 ing — to be like the hero in " L'Homme Blase," 
 better known to the English public as " Used Up." 
 No man had so many objects of interest at all 
 times ; and the notion of his envying the lighter 
 qualities or amusements of his distinguished con- 
 temporaries is preposterous. Would any one who 
 really knew Lord Holland envy his " happiness in 
 his great dinners and amusement at my lady's 
 whimsicahty ? " And how did Mr. Torrens become 
 acquainted with all these peculiar reflections and 
 envies of Lord Melbourne fifty years since ? 
 
 A few pages on, he quotes with approbation an 
 extract from Haydon's diary for November, 1833 : 
 
 "The scene at the Lord Mayor's dinner was exquisite ; 
 the mischievous air of over-politeness with which Lord 
 Brougham handed in the Lady Ma3^oress ; the arcli looks of 
 Lord Mell)ourne ; the supercilious sneer of Lord Stanley at 
 a City affair, as he calls it. In the ball-room I said to 
 Lord Stanley, Lord Melbourne enjoys it. There is nothing 
 
 VOL. I. 2 b
 
 370 LORD MELBOURNE. 
 
 Lord Melbourne does not enjoy, said he. Can there he a 
 finer epitaph on a man? It is true of Lord Melbourne, 
 who is all amiability, good-humour, and simplicity of 
 mind." 
 
 But Lord Melbourne, it seems, had not given up 
 hope : 
 
 "He would try again, try on; but how? While he 
 pondered, an unexpected shadow fell upon his path that 
 looked Hke the realization of hope long deferred. It proved 
 illusory, and vanished into nothing, as out of nothing it 
 almost seemed to come : but it changed the whole condition of 
 the 7nan, and served undoubtedly to hasten his advance- 
 ment to the first rank in his party." 
 
 What was this unexpected shadow which, 
 although it proved illusory, changed the whole 
 condition of the man ? 
 
 " Late in August Mr. Greville mentions a party at Stoke, 
 during which he asked the new Viscount if the rumour was 
 true that he had been offered the Admiralty. ' He said he 
 had never heard of it.' Yet the rumour had its signifi- 
 cance." 
 
 The significance was that the Duke of Clarence 
 (soon to be William IV.) had just relinquished the 
 post of Lord High Admiral, and it was of import- 
 ance that he should be adequately replaced by a 
 Board with a President who would command con- 
 fidence. 
 
 " That the ex- Secretary for Ireland, who had never been 
 in the Cabinet, should hear himself talked of as a probable 
 First Lord of the Admiralty in a circle closely associated 
 with the Court, could not but sound hke an augury of 
 things to come." 
 
 The reasons which induced Lord Melbourne to 
 resign office under the Duke were still in full force. 
 They had been confirmed rather than shaken. To 
 suppose that he could be tempted by a higher
 
 LORD MELBOURNE. 371 
 
 office to abandon his principles and his Canningite 
 friends, would have been more likely to be resented 
 as an affront. He had never even heard of the 
 rumour, but the bare mention of it by Greville 
 changed the whole condition of the man, and was 
 hailed as an augury of things to come ! 
 
 We pass on to the formation of the Eeform 
 Cabinet. " Why did he (Lord Grey) regard Mel- 
 bourne as most fit ? " Mr. Torrens's answer to 
 this query recalls the celebrated passage in 
 Madame de Sevigne : " Je vous le donne en dix : 
 Je vous le donne en cent," etc. After ringing the 
 changes on various items of unfitness, and suggest- 
 ing that Lord Melbourne (who, according to the 
 same authority, had just been exalted to the 
 seventh heaven by being talked of for the Ad- 
 miralty) would probably have been satisfied with 
 the Duchy or the Privy Seal, the explanation is 
 that his fitness for the place seemed from the first 
 to have struck Lord Holland. 
 
 " His clear blue eye rested fixedly on Melbourne, and 
 if any doubt had previously existed in the mind of the 
 Premier it would have been dispelled by his advice, and 
 the recollection that no one would be more acceptable 
 personally to the King. What, then, were those distinc- 
 tive qualities which recommended their possessor so irre- 
 sistibly ? William IV. liked him because, as he used to 
 say, ' he was a great gentleman ; ' by which he meant that 
 under all circumstances he felt that he could appeal not 
 only to his sense of honour, but to his generosity and 
 genuine loyalty to the State." 
 
 Lord Melbourne was a gentleman in the highest 
 sense of the term, but he was not what is com- 
 monly called a great gentleman ; he had not the 
 air or manner of a grand seigneur. William IV. 
 never liked him, and the words placed in the
 
 372 LORD MELBOURNE. V 
 
 Sailor-King's moutli are wholly unlike what he 
 *' used to say." 
 
 What has heen treated as an important (and 
 turned out in one instance an unlucky) appendage 
 to the new Secretary for the Home Department, 
 was his private secretary, '' Tom Young," who was 
 misunderstood by Mr. Charles Greville and is mis- 
 described by Mr. Torrens : 
 
 " Young had been recommended to the Home Secretary 
 by the Duke of Devonshire as a shrewd, handy sort of man, 
 whom he had found as purser of his yacht more serviceable 
 than men of better breeding. To his surprise, and that of 
 others, Melbourne named him private secretary, and, as he 
 said, made use of him as a weather-gauge when nicer 
 instruments were off their balance. Had he checked the 
 habitual bluntness of the man, or winced at his innate 
 vulgarity, he would have been no longer useful. ' Through 
 him,' he would say, ' I am able to look down below ; which 
 for me is more important than all I can learn from all the 
 fine gentleman clerks about me.' By long sufferance Tom 
 Young grew too familiar, not only with his chief, but with 
 persons who could brook it less good-humouredly. But he 
 was devoted, indefatigable, had a keen discernment of the 
 foibles and oddities of his master ; and, save on one occa- 
 sion, served him sagaciously and well." 
 
 Young had been a purser in the Eoyal Navy, 
 from which he retired with an independence, tra- 
 velled, and gained a footing on the outskirts of 
 society. On the occasion of the Duke of Devon- 
 shire's special embassy to Eussia, the functionary 
 (Mr. Jones, of the VictualHng Office) charged with 
 the outfit was looking about for some one to under- 
 take the general management of the commissariat 
 arrangements during the voyage out and home, 
 when Young was suggested to him and engaged. 
 The Duke was pleased with him, invited him to 
 Devonshire House, and recommended him to Lord 
 Melbourne. Although neither refined nor culti-
 
 LORD MELBOURNE. 373 
 
 vated, lie was not vulgar, obtrusive, nor blunt. He 
 had temper, tact, and fair average manners. He 
 was a really good-natured fellow, always anxious to 
 oblige, and eminently what the French call servi- 
 ahle. He had a numerous acquaintance, especially 
 among active stirring people just below the upper 
 stratum of society. Thus, he was "hail fellow well 
 met " with the wire-pullers of the Reform agitation, 
 with Place, Atwood, and Joseph Parkes ; as well as 
 with Barnes of the " Times," Black of the " Morn- 
 ing Chronicle," and Fonblanque of the " Ex- 
 aminer." 
 
 The state of affairs was critical, and a man of 
 this kind was invaluable at the Home Office. No 
 doubt Lord Melbourne learnt from him what he 
 could not have learned from "fine gentleman 
 clerks; " but he had nothing in common with the 
 " GrraBculus esuriens " of Juvenal or the "fasting 
 Monsieur " of Johnson ; and we are quite sure 
 that Lord Melbourne never sneered or winced at 
 him, never talked of looking down below " through 
 him," and never admitted him to anything approxi- 
 mating to intimacy or companionship so as to 
 encourage undue familiarity. The words which 
 Mr. Charles Greville puts into his mouth, and 
 which Mr. Torreus tacitly adopts, are completely 
 out of keeping with the character. 
 
 " Stanley (not the ex-Secretary, but the Under-Secretary) 
 told me last night an anecdote of Melbourne which I can 
 very easily believe. When the King sent for him he told 
 Young ' he thought it a damned bore, and that he was in 
 many minds what he should do — be Minister or no.' 
 Young said, ' Why, damn it, such a position never was 
 occupied by any Greek or Eoman, and if it only last two 
 months, it is well worth while to have been Prime Minister 
 of England.' ' By God, that's true,' said Melbourne ; 
 ' I'll go.' Young is his private secretary — a vulgar, fami-
 
 374 LORD MELBOURNE. 
 
 liar, impudent fellow, but of indefatigable industry, and a 
 man who suits Melbourne." ^ 
 
 Greville writes down two private conversations 
 with Lord Melbourne, for the express purpose of 
 establishing a charge of political treachery, very 
 similar to that of " Who's the Traitor?" against 
 SheH. 
 
 Whilst the Eeform Bill was yet pending (April 
 1st, 1832), he represents Lord Melbourne intimating 
 a wish that it might be thrown out, and asserting 
 that the Government could not be carried on with- 
 out the rotten boroughs. 
 
 " We had a great deal more talk, but tben it is all talk, 
 and a quoi bon with a man who bolds these opinions, and 
 acts as he does ? " 
 
 Greville was obviously prone to confound what 
 he himself said in the course of conversation with 
 what was said by others, and to mistake a partial 
 agreement, or a courteous non-denial, for un- 
 equivocal assent. Lord Melbourne may have re- 
 gretted the loss of the rotten boroughs, whilst 
 convinced of the impossibility of retaining them. 
 Every sane politician must have felt that it had 
 become impossible. Even Canning, their most 
 eloquent advocate, must have given them up in 
 1832. 
 
 On February 7th, 1832, Lord Melbourne " ex- 
 tremely surprised " him (Greville) by stating "that 
 all the members of the Cabinet were bond fide 
 alarmed at, and averse to, the measure (the Eeform 
 Bill)." 
 
 " We then parted. Downstairs was Rothschild the Jew 
 waiting for him, and the valet de chamhre sweeping away a 
 bonnet and shawl ! " 
 
 The only new fact supplied by Mr. Torrens — 
 
 ^ The Greville Memoirs, vol. iii. p. 126.
 
 LORD MELBOURNE. 375 
 
 and we presume on authority — touching Lord 
 Melbourne's participation in the Reform Bill, is 
 his saying, "I am for a low figure. Unless we 
 have a large basis to work upon we shall do 
 nothing." In the debate on the second reading 
 he made no attempt to justify his inconsistency : 
 he frankly and fully admitted that he had been 
 opposed to parliamentary reform : that he had 
 even objected to giving the franchise to Man- 
 chester and Birmingham ; but he contended that 
 the declared will of the country left the Legislature 
 no alternative. 
 
 All topics of a private nature are treated with 
 proper feeling and good taste by the biographer. 
 After tracing the origin of Lord Melbourne's ac- 
 quaintance with Mrs. Norton — a delicate topic 
 which subsequently became too important to be 
 suppressed — he says that to celebrate her younger 
 brother's birthday she asked to dinner, along with 
 two of her husband's colleagues in the magistracy 
 and some members of her family, Lord Melbourne 
 and the author of "Vivian Grey," " in whom she 
 had recently discovered the son of her father's 
 intimate friend." A man more unlikely to be the 
 intimate friend of Tom Sheridan than Disraeli the 
 elder, we can hardly imagine, but let that pass. 
 
 " Young Disraeli was not long returned from his travels 
 in the East, with traits of which he had interested her on 
 the occasion of their first acquaintance. He had just then 
 been defeated in an attempt to get into Parliament for the 
 borough of Wycombe, where he attributed his failure to want 
 of support by the Whigs. Mrs. Norton presented him after 
 dinner to the Home Secretary, who had the power, she 
 said, of retrieving the disappointment if he chose ; and 
 whose frank and open manner led to a long conversation, 
 in which Mr. Disraeli mentioned the circumstances of his 
 late discomfitui'e, dwelling on each particular with the em-
 
 376 LORD MELBOURNE. 
 
 phasis which every young man of ambition since Parliament 
 tvas invented is sure to lay upon the broken promises and 
 scandalous behaviour of his victorious foes. The minister 
 was attracted more and more as he listened to the uncom- 
 monplace (just described as commonphice) language and 
 spirit of the youthful politician, and thought to himself 
 he would be well worth serving. Abruptly, but with a 
 certain tone of kindness which took away any air of 
 assumption, he said, " Well now, tell me — what do you 
 want to be ? " The quiet gravity of the reply fairly took 
 him aback — " I want to be Prime Minister." Melbourne 
 gave a long sigh, and then said very seriously : 
 
 " ' No chance of that in our time. It is all arranged 
 and settled. Nobody but Lord Grey could perhaps have 
 carried the Reform Bill ; but he is an old man, and when 
 he gives up, he will certainly be succeeded by one who has 
 every requisite for the position, in the prime of life and 
 fame, of old blood, high rank, great fortune, and greater 
 ability. Once in power, there is nothing to prevent him 
 holding office as long as Sir Robert Walpole. Nobody can 
 compete with Stanley. I heard him the other night in the 
 Commons, when the party were all divided and breaking 
 away from their ranks, recall them by the mere force of 
 superior will and eloquence : he rose like a young eagle above 
 tliem all, and kept hovering over their heads till they were 
 reduced to abject submission. There is nothing like him. 
 If you are going into politics and mean to stick to it, I 
 dare say you will do very well, for j^ou have ability and 
 enterprise ; and if you are careful how you steer, no doubt 
 you will get into some port at last. But you must put 
 all these foolish notions out of your head ; they won't 
 do at all. Stanley will be the next Prime Minister, you 
 will see.' " 
 
 The internal improbability, not to say absurdity, 
 of all this must be obvious to any one who has 
 the slightest knowledge of the two principal actors 
 in the scene. It places both of them in a ridicu- 
 lous light : the youthful aspirant not yet in parlia- 
 ment gravely replying, " I want to be Prime Min- 
 ister ; " and the Home Secretary as gravely
 
 LORD MELBOURNE. 377 
 
 explaining to him that the place was bespoken 
 and that he had better think of something else. 
 Can any one believe that Lord Melbourne spoke 
 of Stanley in such terms ? Who reported the 
 dialogue to Mr. Torrens ? To cap the impro- 
 bability, Mr. Disraeli had stood as a Tory-Radical 
 against the Whig candidate, Colonel Grey, at 
 Wycombe, and was, as he always has been, the 
 declared enemy of the Whigs. What really took 
 place will be best prefaced by a quotation from 
 an Essay (by the writer) published in 1858, to 
 which Mrs. Norton contributed and which she 
 carefully revised. 
 
 " Many years since, a right honourable gentleman, who 
 now holds a conspicuous position before the world, had 
 recently returned from the East, when he was asked to 
 dinner to meet Lord Melbourne, who good-naturedly turned 
 the conversation on the manners and customs of the 
 countries recently visited by this gentleman. 'Your Lord- 
 ship,' he remarked, ' appears to have derived all your 
 notions of Oriental matters from the "Arabian Nights 
 Entertainments." ' 'And a devilish good place to get them 
 from,' rejoined Lord Melbourne, rubbing his hands and 
 laughing." ^ 
 
 As the conversation proceeded, the gentleman, 
 in a semi-serious tone, or in the proud consciousness 
 of latent power which he afterwards expressed on 
 a memorable occasion in the House of Commons, 
 said that what he looked forward to was the Pre- 
 miership. " And I wish you may get it," quietly 
 observed Lord Melbourne. This is the sole founda- 
 tion of the dialogue which Mr. Torrens reports in 
 such detail. Mr. Brinsley Sheridan, of Frampton 
 Court, Mrs. Norton's surviving brother, was present 
 at the dinner and confirms the writer's recollection 
 of what took place. 
 
 * " Biographical and Critical Essays." First Series, 1858. Vol. i. 
 p. 26L
 
 378 LORD MELBOURNE. 
 
 Mr. Torrens's account of the action *' Norton 
 against Lord Melbourne " is correct in the main, 
 and we may as well dispose of it at once. The 
 trial took place on the 22nd of June, 1836. 
 
 " The witnesses were chiefly discarded servants, nearly 
 all of damaged character,^ who had heen, for a consider- 
 able time before, kept out of the way at the country seat 
 of Lord Grantley, and none of whom professed to be able 
 to swear to any circumstances mthin the three preceding 
 years. At the close of the plaintiff's case, late in the day, 
 the Attorney-General asked for an adjournment ; but on 
 an intimation from the jury, in which the judge also con- 
 curred, he waived the suggestion, and without calling 
 witnesses proceeded to analyse the evidence that had been 
 adduced. He branded the whole story as a tissue of 
 fabrications which it was impossible men of discernment 
 and impartiality could believe ; and though his client was 
 inadmissible as a witness, he was authorised to state upon 
 the honour of a peer that the charge was entirely false. 
 The judge left the issue fairly to the jury, who, with- 
 out leaving the box, returned a verdict of acquittal. A 
 loud cheer broke forth at the announcement, which was 
 echoed by the crowd waiting without the court. At an 
 audience next day William IV. cordially congratulated the 
 minister on having baffled the machinations which, he did 
 not doubt, had had their origin in sinister aims fomented 
 by the meaner animosities of party." 
 
 Still the evidence, such as it was, remained un- 
 contradicted, and left on many minds an unfavour- 
 able impression, which would have been obviated 
 by full knowledge. It was therefore most unlucky 
 that the trial was not adjourned, and that wit- 
 nesses were not called for the defence ; for on 
 
 ^ Fielding says of one of his characters that, " Not knowing what to 
 say, she followed her instinct as chamher-maid and lied." 'J'his instinct 
 ■was strongly manifested by two of the female witnesses, who swore that 
 Mrs. Norton was in the habit of rouging ; that she always put on rouge 
 when Lord Melbourne was expected, and renewed it after he had gone 
 away. One of the jury, who was acquainted with Mrs. Norton, told the 
 writer that he needed nothing more to convince him that they were lying, 
 lying spitefully and in concert.
 
 LORD MELBOURNE. 379 
 
 collating dates, it appeared that, during the entire 
 period (two months) of the year specified by the 
 servants, Mrs. Norton was suffering from a dan- 
 gerous confinement and saw no one but her medical 
 attendants and her family. 
 
 According to the received code of honour, when 
 a lady's reputation is concerned, a gentleman is 
 bound to act like the loyal servant who (in 1716), 
 when twitted with having sworn falsely to save 
 Stirling of Keir's life, said he would rather trust 
 his soul with God than his master's life with the 
 Whigs. Lord Melbourne's solemn denial might 
 not go for much, if he had not twice volunteered 
 to reiterate it. Wilde (afterwards Lord Truro) 
 was known to dislike undertaking a bad case, 
 either from love of justice or haply because he 
 disliked being beaten. When therefore he refused 
 a brief for the defence — really because he had 
 refused a retainer on the other side and intended 
 not to act at all — Lord Melbourne, misunderstand- 
 ing the motive, sent a message pledging his 
 honour that justice and right were on his side. 
 
 Some years afterwards, when the Custody of 
 Infants Act had been passed, Mrs. Norton resolved 
 on applying to the Court of Chancery for her 
 children, and it was understood that the applica- 
 tion would be resisted on the grounds of moral 
 unfitness. At all events, it was necessary to come 
 prepared with affidavits negativing the imputation 
 of infidelity ; and one day a friend of hers engaged 
 in getting up the case, received a message from 
 Lord Melbourne, requesting him to call the next 
 morning early. Calling between ten and eleven, 
 he found Lord Melbourne in his dressing gown 
 and slippers in the act of shaving. '^ So," was 
 the abrupt address, *' you are going to revive that 
 business. It's confoundedly disagreeable." " You
 
 380 LORD MELBOURNE. l| 
 
 know, my Lord, that Mrs. Norton can't live with- 
 out her children." " Well, well, if it must be 
 done, it must be done effectively. You must have 
 an affidavit from me. The story about me was all 
 a d — d lie, as you know. Put that into proper 
 form, and I'll swear it." 
 
 His brother George, Under-Secretary at the 
 Home Office, was as much given to the use of 
 profane expletives as himself. The late Lord 
 Ossington used to relate that, encountering Lord 
 Melbourne when about to mount his horse at the 
 door of the office, he called his attention to some 
 required modifications in the new Poor Law Bill. 
 Lord Melbourne referred him to George. " I have 
 been with him," was the reply, "but he d — d me, 
 and d — d the Bill, and d — d the paupers." " Well, 
 d — n it, what more could he do?" was the re- 
 joinder. Half the point of this story is lost in 
 Mr. Torrens's version, which makes the Under- 
 Secretary d — n the clauses of an Education Bill 
 instead of the paupers. 
 
 The circumstances under which Lord Melbourne 
 became Premier in July 1834, and was summarily 
 ejected in the following November, although 
 already made tiresome by repetition, could not well 
 be omitted or glossed over in this biography ; but 
 we are utterly at a loss to know why twenty pages 
 are filled with the contest for the Speakership in 
 1835 — unless for the purpose of proving that Mr. 
 Spring-Rice (afterwards Lord Monteagle) was ag- 
 grieved by being set aside and was a much more im- 
 portant person than (after he had held high office) 
 he was commonly considered by his contemporaries. 
 
 The chief difficulties which Lord Melbourne 
 had to encounter on his resumption of the 
 Premiership in April, 1835, .were occasioned by 
 Lord Brougham, who laid claim to the Lord
 
 LORD MELBOURNE. 381 
 
 Chancellorship; and O'Connell, who had been 
 led to expect the Irish Attorney-Generalship. 
 O'Connell bore his disappointment like a man of 
 sense, and supported the Government as before. 
 Brougham, after a short interval of suppressed 
 irritation, broke out in a succession of intemperate 
 sarcasms and diatribes against them. It was in 
 reply to a brilliant display of this kind that Lord 
 Melbourne rose and said : 
 
 " My Lords, your Lordships have heard the powerful 
 speech of the noble and learned lord, one of the most 
 powerful ever delivered in this House, and I leave your 
 Lordships to consider what 7nust be the nature and 
 strength of the objections which prevent any government 
 from availing themselves of the services of such a man." 
 
 This is one of the most crushing replies in the 
 annals of debate, turning the adversary's own 
 admitted powers against him, and leaving him in 
 the position of the stricken eagle who — 
 
 " View'd his own feather on the fatal dart. 
 And wing'd the shaft that quivered in his heart." 
 
 A graphic description of Lord Melbourne in the 
 House of Lords is given by Haydon : 
 
 " In the Irish Church debate the Duke (of Welhngton) spoke 
 well, without hesitation, enforcing what he said with a bend 
 of his head, striking his hand forcibly and as if convinced 
 on the papers. He finished, and to my utter astonishment, 
 up starts Melbourne like an artillery rocket. He began 
 in a fury. His language flowed out like fire ; he made 
 such palpable hits that he floored the Duke as if he had 
 shot him. But the moment the stimulus was over, his 
 habitual apathy got ahead ; he stammered, hummed and 
 hawed. It was the most pictorial exhibition of the night. 
 He waved his white hand with the natural grace of Talma, 
 expanded his broad chest, looked right at his adversary 
 like a handsome lion, and grappled him with the grace 
 of Paris."
 
 382 LORD MELBOURNE. 
 
 On one occasion, exasperated by an unexpected 
 move in party tactics by Lord Lyndhurst, he was 
 provoked into saying : " The noble Duke (of 
 Wellington) would not have taken such a course, 
 but he is a gentleman." Lord Lyndhurst sprang 
 to his feet : " Does the noble Viscount mean to 
 say that I am not a gentleman ? " The offensive 
 expression was instantly and handsomely with- 
 drawn. 
 
 The years of Lord Melbourne's life to which 
 he always looked back with unmitigated satisfac- 
 tion, to which the biographer might point as the 
 brightest illustration of his career, are those which 
 intervened between the accession and the mar- 
 riage of the Queen. If, as is universally agreed, 
 no monarch, male or female, ever better under- 
 stood or more conscientiously fulfilled the highest 
 duties of a constitutional Sovereign, all honour 
 to the sagacious high-minded counsellor who 
 watched over her with parental care whilst those 
 duties were new, and devoted his best energies 
 to guide and confirm the inborn rectitude of pur- 
 pose and elevation of character, by which the 
 prosperity of a great Empire and the well-being 
 of millions have been nobly upheld. It would be 
 difiicult to name a more impressive scene than 
 that of the elderly statesman reading to the young 
 and inexperienced Sovereign the verses in which 
 Solomon, asked by God in a dream what he 
 wished to be given him, replies : 
 
 *' 7 And now, Lord, my God, thou hast made thy 
 servant king instead of David my father : and I am but a 
 little child : I know not how to go out or come in. 
 
 " 8 And thy servant is in the midst of thy people which 
 thou hast chosen, a great people, that cannot be numbered 
 nor counted for multitude. 
 
 " 9 Give therefore tliy servant an understanding heart to
 
 LORD MELBOURNE. 383 
 
 judge thy people, that I may discern between good and 
 bad : for who is able to judge this thy so great a 
 people ? " 1 
 
 On its being invidiously remarked to the Duke 
 of Wellington that Lord Melbourne was a great 
 deal at the Palace, the Duke sharply replied : 
 '* I wish he was always there." On August 24, 
 1841, the Duke gave his pubhc testimony to this 
 effect in the House of Lords : 
 
 " ' I am willing to admit that the noble Viscount has 
 rendered the greatest possible service to Her Majesty. I 
 happen to know that it is Her Majesty's opinion that the 
 noble Viscount has rendered Her Majesty the greatest pos- 
 sible service, making her acquainted with the mode and 
 policy of the Government of this country, initiating her 
 into the laws and spirit of the constitution, independently 
 of the performance of his duty as the servant of Her 
 Majesty's crown ; teaching her, in short, to preside over 
 the destinies of this great country.' " 
 
 An excellent understanding was kept up be- 
 tween the Duke and Lord Melbourne. On one 
 occasion Lord Melbourne expressed an earnest 
 wish for a private conference with the Duke on 
 a measure before the House of Lords. The re- 
 quest was conveyed by Lord Portman, the Govern- 
 ment "whip" in the Upper House. "Tell 
 Melbourne," was the reply, "I would willingly 
 go to him in South Street, but then every tom- 
 fool in London would know it. Ask him to come 
 to Apsley House, and my porter shall be properly 
 instructed!" Lord Portman closes an interest- 
 ing communication with a warm tribute, in which 
 all who enjoyed Lord Melbourne's confidence 
 would concur. "Whilst I acted as his whip, I 
 felt intensely the great kindness of his nature, his 
 sensitive regard for truth and honour, and the 
 
 ^ 1 Kings iii.
 
 384 LORD MELBOURNE. i\ 
 
 n 
 
 extraordinarily wide extent of liis knowledge of 
 men and books." 
 
 In his later years Lord Melbourne had doubts 
 whether he had given the proper advice to her 
 Majesty on the occasion of what was called the 
 '' Bedchamber question," in 1839. He admitted 
 that he was unduly biassed by an unwillingness to 
 blight the prospects of his followers : "I counted 
 up more than two hundred of my intimate ac- 
 quaintance, or their families, who would be half 
 ruined and heart-broken by my going out." In 
 reference to this affair, he said : " You should take 
 care to give people who are cross, time to come 
 round. Peel's fault in that business, when he 
 failed to form a Government, was not giving the 
 Queen time to come round." 
 
 An incident handed down by court tradition 
 may serve to illustrate the simplicity of his de- 
 meanour and the playful affability that sometimes 
 relaxes the stiffness of etiquette. He had a trick 
 of carrying papers as well as money in his 
 breeches pockets. On pulling out a document to 
 lay before her Majesty, a quantity of silver coins 
 followed it, and in a moment the Prime Minister 
 was seen chasing his shillings and sixpences round 
 the room. At his next audience, the Queen 
 formally presented him with a small paper parcel, 
 saying that she had great pleasure in restoring a 
 portion of his missing property. The parcel con- 
 tained two shillings and sixpence. 
 
 Amongst the most curious of the scattered 
 notices of Lord Melbourne, which have been 
 culled from various sources, are some passages . 
 from the " Memoirs of Haydon," to whom he sat 
 for his portrait in 1832. The artist speaks of him 
 as having a fine head, and looking refined and 
 handsome. Finding him free and easy, Haydon
 
 LORD MELBOURNE. 385 
 
 turned tlie conversation on one of Ms own favourite 
 projects : 
 
 " With regard to Art, he was afraid history would never 
 have the patronage which portraiture obtained. Haydon 
 said the Government alone could do it. The minister 
 ejaculated, ' How ? ' ' First by a committee of the House, 
 then by vote.' Melbourne was afraid selections might be 
 invidious. The painter rejoined that the selected would 
 be more likely to be envied than otherwise. He asked, 
 had not sculptors had every opportunity, and had they 
 generally done as well as they ought ? Haydon replied, 
 ' that they had not. But it was no argument because 
 one class of artists had acted as manufacturers that others 
 must do so too.' Melbourne: 'Then we shall see what a 
 popular Parliament will do. If Hume is not against it, 
 your scheme may be feasible.' " 
 
 The scheme has been tried, but without the 
 anticipated result of creating a demand for his- 
 torical pieces, which, for obvious reasons, can 
 never be equally in request with portraits. Call- 
 ing one morning, in January 1835, Haydon found 
 Lord Melbourne -reading the "Edinburgh Ee- 
 view " : 
 
 " He began instantly, ' Why, here are a set of fellows 
 who want public money for scientific purposes, as well as 
 you for painting ; they are a set of ragamuffins ! ' ' That's 
 the way,' said I; 'nobody has any right to public money 
 but those who are brought up to politics. Are not paint- 
 ing and science as much matter of public benefit as poli- 
 tical jobbing ? You never look upon us as equals ; but 
 any scamp who trades in politics is looked on as a com- 
 panion for my lord.' ' That is not true,' said he. ' I say 
 it is,' said I ; and then he roared with laughter and rubbed 
 his hands. 
 
 Calling again on the 1st of March, he found 
 Lord Melbourne reading the "Acts," in a quarto 
 
 VOL. I. 2 c
 
 386 LORD MELBOURNE. 
 
 Greek Testament that had belonged to Johnson, 
 given him by Lady Spencer : 
 
 " ' Is not the world, Lord Melbourne, an evidence of 
 perpetual struggle to remedy a defect ? ' ' Certainly,' he 
 mused out. ' If, as Milton says, we were sufficient to have 
 stood, why did we fall ? ' Lord Melbourne rose bolt up, 
 and rephed, ' Ah, that's touching on aU our apprehen- 
 sions.' We then swerved to Art." 
 
 Controversial divinity and Ecclesiastical His- 
 tory were his favourite studies. He astonished 
 M. Van de Weyer by his familiarity with the 
 history of the Galilean Church, and its resistance 
 to Papal usurpation in 1682, when Bossuet played 
 so prominent a part. He had no predilection for 
 science, and there is a current story that, on being 
 pressed to give Faraday a pension, he parried the 
 application by pretending to mistake him for an 
 astronomer. 
 
 Asking how it was that Eaphael was employed 
 to decorate the Vatican, he was reminded that 
 Raphael was a great painter. " But was not his 
 uncle, Bramante, architect to the Pope ? It was 
 ajob."^ 
 
 His dislike of humbug, pretension and the affec- 
 tation of knowledge, occasionally led him into the 
 opposite extreme, and gave plausibility to the 
 good-humoured raillery of Sydney Smith : 
 
 " Our Viscount is somewhat of an impostor. Instead of 
 being the ignorant man he pretends to be, before he meets 
 the deputation of tallow chandlers in the morning, he sits 
 up half the night talking with Thomas Young about melt- 
 ing and skimming, and then, although he has acquired 
 knowledge enough to work off a whole vat of prime Leices- 
 tershire tallow, he pretends next morning not to know the 
 difference between a dip and a mould. I moreover believe 
 him to be conscientiously alive to the good or evil that he 
 ^ " Ijife of Reynolds," p. 308, note.
 
 LORD MELBOURNE. 387 
 
 is doing, and that his caution has more than once arrested 
 the gigantic projects of the Lycurgus of the Lower House 
 (Lord John Paissell). I am sorry to hurt any man's feel- 
 ings and to brush away the magnificent fabric of levity and 
 gaiety he has reared ; but I accuse our Minister of honesty 
 and diligence.'" 
 
 What Johnson said of Thurlow was equally true 
 of Lord Melbourne : " Sir, he is a fine fellow: he 
 fairly puts his mind to yours." But if you had 
 no mind to put or be put to, the sooner you got 
 out of his way the better. He had been induced 
 to ask a literary man of note to one of his small 
 dinner-parties by hearing that he was well versed 
 in Massinger and Marlowe, with whom the gentle- 
 man had only a superficial acquaintance, but was 
 ashamed to own it. " There now," was Lord 
 Melbourne's comment, " that fellow has been 
 trying for half an hour to make me believe he 
 knows a great deal of what he knows nothing. 
 We won't have liivi again." 
 
 On the breaking up of a Cabinet dinner at his 
 house in South Street, at which the first step 
 towards free-trade in corn, the substitution of a 
 fixed duty for the sliding scale, had been settled, 
 he called out from the top of the staircase to the 
 retiring guests : '' Stop a minute ; let's all be of 
 one mind. Is it to lower the price of bread, or 
 isn't it?" a point on which the political econo- 
 mists were then far from unanimous. Hardly a 
 year before, he had declared in the House of Lords 
 that any minister who tampered mth the Corn 
 Laws must be mad. 
 
 His patronage caused him an infinity of trouble 
 and anxiety, because he was unfeignedly anxious 
 to distribute it with an exclusive reference to 
 merit and the public good. W"e find him in 1837 
 complaining of an epidemic amongst deans and
 
 388 LORD MELBOURNE. 
 
 judges ; and " as for the bishops, it was his 
 positive belief that they died to plague him." 
 The judicial appointment most questioned was that 
 of Baron Maule. His caustic wit had been freely 
 exercised at the expense of his predecessors on the 
 Bench, who protested against him as a colleague ; 
 and attention had been called to his habits by the 
 fire at the Temple, which began in his chambers. 
 But he had every qualification for a judge, except 
 morals, which were a minor consideration from the 
 Premier's point of view. On Maule's name being 
 mentioned at a dinner party some time after the 
 appointment, a celebrated beauty (not a Sheridan) 
 looked up and asked with a Hsp : " Pray, Lord 
 Melbourne, is that the man you made a judge /or 
 burning down the Toive?^ ? " A part of the Tower 
 had recently been burned down. 
 
 He was less scrupulous about blue ribbons, 
 regarding them merely as means of rewarding 
 or conciliating support. He declined taking the 
 Garter, sajdng that he did not want to bribe 
 himself. There was a well-known reply of his 
 to an Earl soliciting a Marquisate, beginning : 
 
 " My dear , how can you be such a d — d 
 
 fool ? " Eeferring to it when it got abroad, he 
 said that he could understand people being anxious 
 for peerages, but not their caring so much about the 
 grade ; and he acted up to his principle by refusing 
 an earldom. When a list of would-be baronets 
 was laid before him, he exclaimed : "I did not 
 know anybody cared any longer about these sorts 
 of things. Now I have a hold on the fools." 
 
 It is unnecessary to dwell on the defeat of his 
 Ministry, and his resignation, August 28, 1841. 
 From Her Majesty's Journal it appears that he 
 betrayed no depression or chagrin: "For four 
 years," he said, "I have seen you every day;
 
 LORD MELBOURNE. 389 
 
 but it is so different now to what it would have 
 been in 1839 : the Prince understands everything 
 so well." 
 
 Talking of the efforts of advancing years, he 
 humorously repeated Lord Carhampton's comment 
 on the Archbishop of Armagh's boast that " his 
 legs carried him as well as when he was a young 
 man." "Ay, my Lord, but not to the same 
 places." In the same sense, but with more 
 seriousness, he was fond of quoting the lines 
 paraphrased from or suggested by Horace : 
 
 " Walk sober off, — before a spriglitlier age 
 Come titt'ring on, and shove you from the stage." 
 
 In imitation of the Epistle to Msecenas he wrote 
 some verses (five stanzas) beginning : 
 
 " 'Tis late, and I must haste away, 
 The usual hour of rest is near ; 
 And do you press me, youths, to sta}- — 
 To stay and revel longer here." 
 
 During the closing years of his life, he retained 
 a keen relish for intellectual intercourse ; and at 
 the little dinners in South Street and Bolton 
 Street (Mrs. Norton's), the fulness, richness, and 
 piquancy, of his conversation were as remarkable 
 as ever. He preferred bold ready talkers when 
 they had anything in them ; and defended a lady 
 who was thought too bold and positive, by saying : 
 " That's what I like her for : she speaks out." On 
 being told that George Smythe (Lord Strangford) 
 wished to be introduced to him, he exclaimed, 
 with evident satisfaction : " What ! do these young 
 fellows want to know me ? Bring him to dinner 
 by all means." 
 
 These young fellows did want to know him. It 
 was a valued, envied privilege to be admitted to
 
 o 
 
 90 LORD MELBOURNE. 
 
 his companionship. It was he who, with failing 
 health, gradually withdrew from the world, not 
 the world that withdrew from him. It was there- 
 fore with wondering incredulity that we came 
 upon these passages of the biography : 
 
 " Throughout his long and chequered life Melbourne 
 had had his sorrows and his troubles. But the greatest 
 of his trials was to come, in the sense of being neglected. 
 Too susceptible not to feel, and too proud to masquerade 
 in gay looks when his soul was sad within him, he chafed 
 daily at the indifference with which he was treated, not 
 merely by the common herd of fashion, but by those who 
 for years had compassed him round with blandishments of 
 what he had taken for respect and attachment. For a time 
 he tried to persuade himself that the numerous omissions 
 to call were partly accidental. Some were sick, and some 
 had gone abroad ; some were time-servers and shabby dogs 
 who had learned to trim, and were ashamed to look in 
 the face their old patron : was he not better without them ? 
 But as weeks and months rolled on, and the bed of the 
 once full stream of attention grew more and more dry, the 
 hope of its ever returning again shrank within him." 
 
 "^ ^ ^ 'p 
 
 " One who truly and unalterably loved him found him in 
 the afternoon looking more than usually dejected. ' I am 
 glad,' he exclaimed, ' you are come. I have sat here 
 watching the timepiece, and heard it strike four times 
 without seeing the face of a human being; and had it 
 struck the fifth I feel that I could not have borne it.'" 
 
 He had only to say the word, and troops of 
 admuing friends and affectionate relatives would 
 have gathered round him. Lord and Lady Beau- 
 vale were domesticated at Brocket during the 
 closing period of his life. If Lady Palmerston had 
 Hved to be told that her idolised brother was aban- 
 doned or neglected when she w^as at the height 
 of her social distinction and popularity ! No 
 doubt he had his moments of despondency, when
 
 LORD MELBOURNE. 391 
 
 it was painful to be alone. What highly gifted 
 man or woman has not ? — 
 
 ** Dearly bought the hidden treasure 
 
 Finer feehngs can bestow — 
 Hearts that vibrate sweetest pleasure 
 Thrill the deepest notes of woe." 
 
 But far from complaining of neglect and in- 
 gratitude, he has been heard to declare more than 
 once that his long tenure of office had made him 
 think better of mankind. Pitt, according to 
 Wilberforce, had arrived at the same conclusion. 
 
 Lord Melboui'ne particularly prided himself on 
 the part he had taken during the Eeform Bill 
 agitation in {)reserving order. Great, therefore, 
 were his mortification and surprise when, at the 
 trial of Smith O'Brien in 1848, a letter from 
 Tom Young to Sir William Napier was produced, 
 dated Home Office, June 25th, 1832, sealed with 
 the official seal and containing these words : 
 
 "Are you aware that, in the event of a fight, you were 
 to be invited to take the command at Birmingham ? 
 Parkes got a frank from me for you with that view, but 
 had no occasion to send it." 
 
 The vexation caused by this incident certainly 
 aggravated Lord Melbourne's last illness. He 
 died on the 24th November, 1848. 
 
 Differing on many points from Mr. Torrens, we 
 recognise in him a man of undoubted ability, 
 earnestly intent on raising an appropriate monu- 
 ment to one whom he esteems and admires. But 
 we must say that he has an odd way of setting 
 about it. He is always blowing hot or cold : there 
 is no settled temperature in his praise or dispraise. 
 He leaves the impression that he never fairly 
 thought out the character he has undertaken to
 
 392 LORD MELBOURNE. 
 
 delineate. Lord Melbourne may have been strong- 
 minded or weak-minded, of a cheerful and hopeful 
 or a desponding and querulous disjDosition, but he 
 could not have been all at once. Even as regards 
 his qualities of statesmanship, the biographer 
 seems unable to come to a definite conclusion. 
 
 In his Preface he says that the early impression 
 made on him by Lord Melbourne "has not been 
 effaced by any combination of hi'gh qualities in the 
 statesmen he has subsequently known ; " — and he 
 must have known all Lord Melbourne's successors 
 in the Premiership. Yet in the body of the work 
 (vol. ii. p. 98) we read : 
 
 " It would be idle to claim for Melbourne the strength of 
 will, the originality of resource, the knowledge of detail, or 
 the unfailing eloquence, which in varying degrees charac- 
 terised most of his predecessors and successors in the civil 
 primacy. But he had a quality which they lacked, and 
 which, at the juncture in question, tended in no small 
 degree to bring about the unanimity wherewith it was 
 agreed to have him a second time for chief of the party. 
 He had no enmities and no enemies." 
 
 Dating from the fall of Walpole, he had twenty 
 predecessors in the "civil primacy," and fourteen 
 of them were : Pelham, Devonshire, Newcastle, 
 Bute, George Grenville, Eockingham, Grafton, 
 Shelburne, Addington, Portland, Perceval, Liver- 
 pool, Goderich, Wellington. Will Mr. Torrens, 
 after reading this list, reiterate his assertion that 
 Lord Melbourne was inferior in essential qualities 
 to most of his predecessors in the civil primacy ? 
 Or, if he does reiterate it, how is he to maintain 
 the honoured subject of his biography in the proud 
 position he has elsewhere claimed for him ? But 
 then the man who ended (we are told) by having 
 no friends, had no enmities and no enemies ! Is 
 this a matter of congratulation or laudation ? We
 
 LORD MELBOURNE. 393 
 
 incline to think with Sir OHver Surface that it is 
 not : 
 
 " Sir Oliver. Everybody speaks well of him (Joseph) ! 
 Pshaw ! Then he has bowed as low to knaves and fools as 
 to the honest dignity of genius and virtue. 
 
 " Sir Peter. What, Sir Oliver ! Do you blame him for 
 not making enemies ? 
 
 " Sir Oliver. Yes, if he has merit enough to deserve 
 them ! " 
 
 Lord Melbourne had merit enough to deserve 
 both friends and enemies, merit enough to throw 
 any co-existing demerit into the shade, merit 
 enough to give him permanent rank as a high-bred, 
 high-minded, highly cultivated, thoroughly Eng- 
 lish statesman, of whom the contemporary and 
 every succeeding generation of Englishmen may 
 feel proud.
 
 THE MARQUESS WELLESLEY.' 
 
 (From the Quarterly Beview, April, 1880.) 
 
 The title of Mr. Torrens' book puzzled us. We 
 were unable even to guess wbat affinity or relation 
 of ideas, in the way either of similarity or contrast, 
 existed between the "Architect of Empire" and 
 the great Agitator, or what had led to this sensa- 
 tional juxtaposition of their names. We turned 
 to the author's Preface for the explanation. It 
 runs thus : 
 
 " Of the eminent men whom in earlier years I had many 
 opportunities of closely observing, none seem to me so 
 characteristically representative of the two races so long 
 ahenated by evil laws as those whose likeness I have 
 sought to trace in these volumes. The ideas and usages of 
 a dominant caste, taught from childhood to believe them- 
 selves indispensable to the maintenance of authority, and 
 alone qualified for the duties and privileges of freedom, 
 have passed away : and with them the mute subjection, 
 the murmuring complaint, deferential remonstrance, par- 
 tial enfranchisement, and at length organised agitation, by 
 which the two estranged communities were rendered one 
 in the eye of the law. Wellesley and O'Connell, each in 
 
 ^ Pro- Consul and Tribune. Wellesley and 0^ Conn ell. Historic Por- 
 traits. In two volumes. Vol. 1, The Marquess Wellesley, Architect of 
 Empire. An Historic Portrait. By W. M. Torrens, M.P. London, 
 1«80.
 
 THE MARQUESS WELLESLEY. 395 
 
 his separate way, signally contributed to the gradual 
 revolution which occupied in its accomplishment well-nigh 
 the whole period of their lives, and to which their best 
 efforts were devoted." 
 
 O'Connell's whole career belongs to Ireland. 
 Lord Wellesley's was only partially connected 
 with it ; and the only way in which he incidentally 
 contributed to the revolution in question was by 
 his support of Catholic Emancipation and by the 
 liberal policy of his Viceroyalty, which are un- 
 answerable proofs that he was not the charac- 
 teristic representative of the dominant caste. It 
 would be difficult to name an Irish noble whom 
 the upholders of Protestant ascendency would be 
 less disposed to accept in that capacity, or who 
 was less imbued with their ideas and usages. 
 
 O'Connell's name is not so much as mentioned 
 in the volume before us, which comprises the most 
 important period of Lord Wellesley's life. It is 
 agreeably written, despite some faults of style ; 
 and a good deal of curious information has been 
 collected and interspersed in it, which attracts the 
 reader for amusement and lightens the labour of 
 research to the more serious student of history. 
 We therefore propose to make it the basis of a 
 sketch (we hardly venture to say, portrait) of one 
 from whom, we think, his fair meed of fame has 
 been unjustly and somewhat unaccountably with- 
 held. If we may trust the historian of British 
 India (MiU), Lord Wellesley was httle better than 
 a Brummagem Warren Hastings. If we are to 
 put faith in the Eev. Dr. Gleig, the deservedly 
 popular biographer of his illustrious brother, he 
 was merely the docile agent or instrument of a 
 policy which, according to the shifting judgment 
 of contemporaries, has been made to redound 
 alternately to his glory or his shame. It is right
 
 396 THE MARQUESS WELLESLEY. 
 
 to add that we have derived considerable aid from 
 the '' Memoirs and Correspondence of the Most 
 Noble Eichard Marquess Wellesley," by Mr. 
 Pearce, to whom Mr. Torrens also has been 
 largely indebted.^ 
 
 The pedigree of the Wellesleighs, Wellesleys, or 
 Wesleys, has been traced back to the tweKth 
 century. Their last representative in the male 
 line was Garret Wesley who, dying in 1727, de- 
 vised the family estate of Dangan to his cousin 
 Eichard Colley of Castle Carbery, on condition 
 that he should adopt the name and arms of the 
 devisor. This Eichard was the father of Garret 
 Wesley, raised to the Irish peerage by the title 
 of Baron Mornington, and principally known to 
 fame as the founder or restorer of an Academy 
 of Music, an art which he cultivated successfully 
 both as a composer and instrumentalist. After 
 being refused by Lady Louisa Lennox, he married 
 Anne Hill (a daughter of the first Viscount 
 Dungannon), the futm-e mother of the Wellesleys, 
 a prouder title than the mother of the Gracchi 
 or the mother of the three Lupins.^ Their eldest 
 son, Eichard, the hero of our narrative, was born 
 in Grafton Street, Dubhn, on the 20th June, 1760 ; 
 and in the October following. Garret, the father, 
 was made Earl of Mornington and Viscount 
 Wellesley. 
 
 In after years Lord Wellesley was wont to com- 
 plain of his early education as neglected, being 
 
 1 (( 
 
 ' Memoirs and Correspondence of the Most Noble Marquess Wellesley, 
 K.P., K.G., D.C.L., &c., &c." By Robert Rouiere Pearce, Esq. In 
 3 vols. London, 1846. 
 
 ^ ' A la mere des irois Dupins " is inscribed upon a monument in Pere 
 la Chaise. Lord Brougham relates that once when Lady Mornington's 
 carriage was surrounded and impeded by an applauding crowd, she turned 
 to Lord Cowley, and said, " This comes of being the mother of the 
 Gracchi."
 
 THE MARQUESS WELLESLEY. 397 
 
 little more than what it pleased him to pick up at 
 a provincial school in the neighbouring town of 
 Trim, which he attended laxly as a day-boy. He 
 was sent in his tenth year to Harrow where, young 
 as he was, he took part in the barring-out of the 
 new head-master. Dr. Heath, to whom the boys 
 objected as an Etonian unjustly preferred to an 
 old Harrovian, Parr. To avoid submission, v^dth 
 its penalties, several went home without leave, and 
 amongst these was Lord Wellesley, whom his 
 indulgent parents refused to send back. It would 
 seem that, on leaving Harrow after this escajjade, 
 he first repaired to Lambeth Palace where he 
 frequently passed his holidays, for he remembered 
 entering the drawing-room in triumph, flourishing 
 a fragment of the headmaster's carriage which 
 had been broken to pieces in the fray, to the 
 amusement of the Archbishop and Mrs. Corn- 
 walHs. It was by the advice of the Archbishop 
 that he was sent to Eton, where in the course of 
 his six or seven years' residence he acquired a 
 reputation for Latin verse, which led to his being 
 regarded as the chief pride and ornament of the 
 school. 
 
 " When Dr. Goodall his contemporary, and 
 afterwards headmaster, was examined in 1818 
 before the Education Committee of the House of 
 Commons, respecting the passing over of Person 
 in giving promotion to King's College, he at once 
 declared that the celebrated Grecian was not by 
 any means at the head of the Etonians of his 
 day, and on being asked by me (as chairman) 
 to name his superior, he at once said Lord 
 Wellesley."^ 
 
 His most intimate friends and constant com- 
 
 ^ Lord Brougham, " Historical Sketclies."
 
 398 THE MARQUESS WELLESLEY. 
 
 panions at Eton were William (afterwards Lord) 
 Grenville and Sir John Newport, who, in answer 
 to a request for his reminiscences (March, 1840), 
 sums them up in a sentence : 
 
 " Under Mrs. Young's great tree at Eton the brother- 
 hood, for such it truly was, of Wellesley, Grenville, and 
 Newport commenced, lasting undiminished through every 
 vicissitude of political life, and still subsisted vigorously 
 in the declining years of the survivors — proof against the 
 estrangement usually created by elevation in rank and 
 remoteness of removal." 
 
 He was Newport's fag, and supplies one of the 
 few iustances in which boyish authority was bene- 
 ficially employed instead of degenerating into 
 tyranny : 
 
 "You found me," he writes, Feb. 28, 1840, "an idle 
 boy, and by your instruction and examj^le, I was made 
 diligent and studious, and inspired with that glorious 
 passion for solid fame, that noble ambition to obtain 
 power and honour by deserving them, which has been my 
 ' star of Arcadie,' my * Tyrian cynosure,' through my long 
 and active life, which has raised me to a station impreg- 
 nable by slander, malice, or faction. I acknowledge this — 
 I am proud to acknowledge it, and I have everywhere and 
 on all occasions boasted that to you I owe the foundation 
 of my public character." 
 
 At the Speeches, in 1777, he recited Straiford's 
 speech with such effect that the King, George III., 
 shed tears. That same day he accompanied the 
 Archbishop to Lambeth, calling on Garrick at 
 Hampton Court on their way. "Your lordship," 
 said Garrick, "has done what I never could do : 
 you have drawn tears from the King." " Yes," 
 was the reply, " but you never spoke before him
 
 THE MARQUESS WELLESLEY. 399 
 
 in the character of a fallen, favourite, arbitrary- 
 minister." 
 
 He matriculated at Christchurch, Oxford, in 
 December 1778, and during a residence of three 
 years amply maintained the high reputation for 
 scholarship which he brought with him. In 1780 
 he carried off the prize for Latin hexameters, the 
 subject being the death of Captain Cook. He was 
 still at the University and wanted a month of 
 being of age, when by the death of his father, 
 May 22, 1781, he became Earl of Mornington, and 
 speedily found himself immersed, nothing loth, in 
 the party warfare connected with the memorable 
 volunteer movement under Lord Charlemont and 
 Grattan. 
 
 Mr. Torrens states that the first act of the 
 young peer was to devolve the management of 
 the family estates on his mother, adding that they 
 were heavily encumbered, and that scant provision 
 had been made for the younger children. The 
 first act was to pay his father's debts, which in- 
 volved a heavy personal sacrifice. "His brother 
 Arthur, nine years his junior, seems to have been 
 the object of his chief domestic care : the school 
 at Trim could do little to fit him for the profession 
 to which he was destined ; so at twelve years old 
 he was sent to Angers, then a place of high re- 
 pute for military training." This is irreconcilable 
 with the known facts and the dates. His brother 
 Arthur was sent when very young to a preparatory 
 school at Chelsea, and afterwards to Eton, where 
 he appears to have been when his fatlier died. 
 He did not enter the military school at Angers 
 (where he remained a year and a half or two 
 years) earlier than 1784 or 1785.^ 
 
 1 Gleig, " The Life of Arthur Duke of Wellington." The People's 
 Edition, jip. 3-6.
 
 400 THE MAEQUESS WELLESLET. 
 
 The eagerness of the young peer for active 
 employment and distinction, as well as the fair 
 promise of his youth, may be estimated from the 
 fact that, in the session of 1781-2, at the instance 
 of Grattan, he was named by Lord Charlemont 
 Opposition Whip in the Irish House of Lords, 
 where his function of counting was a sinecure, as 
 the minority seldom exceeded ten ; but they made 
 up for their want of numbers by the multiplicity of 
 their formal protests, which he drew up, delighted 
 no doubt at the opportunity of exhibiting his 
 powers of composition and airing the graces of his 
 style. 
 
 His early liberality of opinion was nhown by his 
 support of a Bill for the relief of Protestant Dis- 
 senters, and by his uniform advocacy of Catholic 
 Emancipation, when Flood, with whom Lord 
 Charlemont reluctantly agreed, shrank h'om it, 
 exclaiming : "I see my way to Catholic con- 
 stituencies ; but who will answer for a Catholic 
 House of Commons ? " But when the Convention 
 attempted to carry a sweeping measure of reform 
 by the display of force. Lord Mornington became 
 alarmed, and denounced the armed meetings as 
 fatal to the liberties of Parliament and threatening 
 the total extinction of the Legislature. His 
 theatrical air and lofty tone provoked a sharp and 
 telling retort from Lord Mountmorres, best known 
 to fame through Moore's rhymes : ^ 
 
 ** To all the big words and inflated expressions which I 
 have heard, of danger to the constitution and insults from 
 conventions of armed men, I answer in two short emphatic 
 words — Prove it. If formidable spectres portending the 
 
 ^ " Mountmorres, Mountmorres, whom nobody for is, 
 And for whom we none of us care. 
 From Ireland you came, 'twould have been much the same 
 If your Lordship had stayed where you were."
 
 THE MAKQUESS WELLESLEY. 401 
 
 downfall of the constitution were to appear in this House, 
 I admit the noble lord is frightened with a becoming 
 dignity; the ancient Koscius or the ancient Garrick could 
 not start with better grace at the appearance of a spectre." 
 
 It was no secret to his friends that he felt born 
 for better things than provincial celebrity. In 
 March, 1788, Grenville writes to Lord Temple, the 
 departing Lord-Lieutenant : " Pray communicate 
 a little with him (Lord M.) about your resignation ; 
 it will flatter him, and he is beyond measure dis- 
 posed to you both in Ireland and here, to which he 
 looks in a short time ; but you must not let him 
 know I have told you that." 
 
 Pitt, with whom he had been brought into com- 
 munication by Grenville, took to him at once ; and, 
 on learning his wish for a seat in the English 
 House of Commons, procured his election for Lord 
 Beverley's nomination borough of Beeralston at 
 the general election of 1784. It was not a rare 
 occurrence to find a member of the Irish House of 
 Lords representing an English constituency, but 
 it was very rare to find one who, like Lord 
 Mornington, when the journey between Dublin 
 and London was inconvenient and dilatory, made 
 a point, at least for a brief interval, of attending 
 the most important debates on each side of the 
 Channel. He was in no hurry to break ground at 
 St. Stephen's, for his dehut on this untried arena 
 was delayed till the 1st of June, 1786 ; when, in 
 one of the Hastings' debates, brought on by Burke, 
 he spoke in reply to Lord North, twitting the ex- 
 Minister with inconsistency and ignorance. It 
 was an ill-judged and by no means successful 
 commencement ; but the tone in which he spoke 
 of Hastings was remembered some twenty j^ears 
 later when he himself was similarly arraigned. At 
 the end of the session he was appointed Junior 
 
 VOL. I. 2d
 
 402 THE MARQUESS WELLESLEY. 
 
 Lord of the Treasury ; but Lord Beverley, out of 
 temper with the Ministry, refused to return him 
 again for Beeralston ; and he had to stand a con- 
 tested election for Saltash. He was returned by a 
 small majority ; but the return was quashed on 
 petition, and he was without a seat in the English 
 Parliament till June 1788, when one was found for 
 him at Windsor. Pending the decision of the 
 Saltash Committee, he was put up to answer 
 Burke, who (Feb. 21, 1787) had spoken with his 
 wonted vehemence and without his wonted breadth 
 of view, against the commercial treaty with France. 
 Lord Mornington had already caught the ore 
 rotunda style and Ciceronian redundancy of phrase, 
 which distinguished his more mature oratory : 
 
 " It had been said with the eloquence of great authority 
 that whatever its commercial merits might be, the treaty in 
 a political point of view laid the country at the feet of 
 France, and deposed Great Britain from her European 
 throne. He answered that the true majesty of Great 
 Britain was her trade ; and that the fittest object of her 
 ambition was the throne of the commerce of the world. 
 The industry and ingenuity of our manufacturers, the 
 ojiulence which these had diffused through various channels, 
 the substantial foundation of capital on which they had 
 placed our trade (capital which had that night been well 
 described as predominant over the trade of the whole 
 world), — all these, as they had been our best consolation 
 in defeat, were the most promising sources of future victory : 
 and to cultivate, to strengthen, and to augment these, could 
 not be inconsistent with the glory of the kingdom." 
 
 The Marquis of Buckingham was named Lord 
 Lieutenant of Ireland for the second time to- 
 wards the end of 1787 ; and at the request (says 
 Mr. Torrens) of Lady Mornington, immediately 
 placed her son Arthur on his- personal staff. But 
 it was clearly at the request of Lord Mornington, 
 who concludes a warm letter of thanks (Nov. 4,
 
 THE MARQUESS WELLESLEY. 403 
 
 1787) by saying : " certainly this object for my 
 brother was very near my heart, and I accept it 
 with a gratitude proportioned to the anxiety with 
 which I desired it, and the friendly manner in 
 which it has been given." This places the facts 
 beyond dispute ; yet Dr. Gleig states in the last 
 edition of the Life, that " the Duke's first and 
 least scrupulous patron was the Earl of Westmore- 
 land. He was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland when 
 Ai'thur Wesley received his first commission : took 
 the youth at once upon his staff, and heaped pro- 
 motion upon him." The date of Arthur's first 
 commission is March 7th, 1787 ; the date of Lord 
 Westmoreland's first and only appointment to the 
 Lord Lieutenancy, January 5th, 1790. 
 
 In concert with Pitt and Wllberforce, Lord 
 Mornington warmly advocated the abolition of the 
 Slave Trade, and, in April, 1792, moved that it do 
 cease from the 1st of January, 1793. '' If (so ran 
 his argument) I were to put the question mathe- 
 matically, I should say, the force of truth being 
 given, and the hardness of a planter's heart being 
 ascertained, in what space of time will the former 
 be able to penetrate the latter? " His conclusion 
 was, that one year would do as well as seven. He 
 took a prominent part in the opposition to Mr. 
 (afterwards Lord) Grey's motion for Parliamentary 
 Reform, in May, 1793, and in the debate on the 
 opening of Parliament on the 1st of January, 1794, 
 he delivered a remarkable speech, which he pub- 
 lished as a pamphlet, on the policy and continu- 
 ance of the war with France. It occupied several 
 hours in the delivery, and comprised a masterly 
 review of all the most revolting and least defen- 
 sible phases of the French Revolution, which, he 
 contended, made the very term " revolutionary " a 
 synonym for outrage, sacrilege, and crime.
 
 404 THE MARQUESS WELLESLET. 
 
 The only speech Sheridan ever corrected for 
 publication was what his biographer terms his 
 admirable answer to Lord Mornington. " In this 
 fine s]Deech," remarks Moore, " of which the 
 greater part must have been unprepared, there is a 
 natural earnestness of feeling and argument that 
 is well contrasted with the able but artificial 
 harangue that preceded it." We do not see how 
 such a speech as Lord Mornington's could have 
 been otherwise than artificial, or (in other words) 
 carefully premeditated and in great measure com- 
 posed beforehand ; and what we now know of 
 Sheridan fully justifies a suspicion that he was 
 similarly prepared. 
 
 Lord Mornington and Sheridan came into con- 
 flict again in a debate on a Bill for restricting 
 public meetings, in the course of which Lord 
 Mornington, having referred to some seditious 
 tracts as calling for suppression, was satirically 
 described by Sheridan as " the noble lord whom 
 they had seen two years before, with the same 
 placid countenance and sonorous voice, in the 
 same attitude, leaning gracefully upon the table, 
 and giving an account, from shreds and patches of 
 Brissot, that the French Eepublic would last but 
 a few months longer." ^ 
 
 Shortly after his speech against Parliamentary 
 Eeform, he had been sworn a member of the Privy 
 Council, and in June 1793 he was appointed a 
 member of the Board of Control for India ; but 
 subordinate ofiice and titular promotion only added 
 to the restlessness and discontent, which he freely 
 communicated to his friends ; and it was about 
 this time that Addington plainly told him : " You 
 
 ^ Wilberforce thus alludes to this debate in his Journal : " William 
 Smith struck by the extracts read by Mornington. Poor MorningtoQ 
 nervous and Sheridan brutal. Up to speak, but prevented."
 
 THE MARQUESS WELLESLET. 405 
 
 want a wider sphere ; you are dying of the cramp." 
 It was in this state of mind that (Nov. 29, 1794) 
 he committed the hazardous step of marrying a 
 French lady, Mademoiselle Hyacinthe Gabrielle 
 Eoland, who had already borne him several 
 children. There was no attempt at privacy ; and 
 the ceremony, which took place at St. George's, 
 Hanover Square, was attended by several of his 
 political friends. The social position of the chil- 
 dren, as they grew up, was httle affected by their 
 illegitimacy. 
 
 He is one amongst the many examples of men - 
 destined to a brilliant career giving way to de- 
 spondency, and meditating, or threateniDg, a re- 
 treat. In July 1794 he wrote to Addington : 
 
 " I am very much afraid, from a variety of circumstances, 
 that Pitt has no idea of altering my situation this year. 
 I cannot tell you how much I am mortified at that and 
 other symptoms, not of unkindness but of (what perhaps I 
 deserve) decided preference for others. I have serious 
 thoughts of relinquishing the whole pursuit and becoming 
 a spectator (not a very indifferent one, as you may believe, 
 either to the success of the war or to Pitt's interest or 
 honour), but I cannot bear to creep on in my present 
 position." 
 
 At the same time, he tm^ned his official oppor- 
 tunities as member of the Board of Control to 
 good account by mastering the subject of Indian 
 administration in all its bearings, and it was 
 probably the knowledge that he had been thus 
 quahfying himself which induced Pitt to fix upon 
 him for the Yiceroyalty. He was not definitely 
 appointed till after several alternative arrange- 
 ments had failed. He had agreed to go out as 
 Governor of Madras, with the reversion of the 
 higher Presidency of Bengal, when (in the autumn 
 of 1797) he was agreeably surprised by the inteUi-
 
 406 THE MARQUESS WELLESLEY. 
 
 gence that he was appointed Governor-General. 
 Mr. Torrens says that he spent a week at Holwood 
 talking over the affahs of India with Pitt and 
 Dundas, and we are presented with a picture of 
 these two statesmen taking widely opposite views 
 of the policy which it might be deemed expedient 
 for the new Viceroy to pursue. Dundas was all 
 for peace and moderation, for letting the native 
 princes squabble amongst themselves without at- 
 tempting to reconcile them or profit by their 
 dissensions or intrigues : 
 
 " But the son of Chatham was a man who through the 
 openings of Keston woods saw visions, and in the autumn 
 sundown dreamed enduring dreams. With axe in hand as 
 he stalked along, putting his companion often out of breath, 
 or rested upon some fallen stem to shelter from the shower, 
 he would paint to the excitable imagination of Mornington 
 how England's influence must be expanded, if her sense of 
 power was to be retrieved, or her place in competition with 
 her rivals was to be made permanently great. For empire 
 thrown away in the West compensation could be sought 
 only in the East." 
 
 No authority is cited, and we cannot help sus- 
 pecting that this picture is a fancy piece : that the 
 author's imagination has here run away with him. 
 If Lord Mornington's schemes or dreams of im- 
 perial aggrandisement were suggested in conversa- 
 tion at Holwood, it is strange that the Minister 
 should have been startled by them, or have been 
 so slow to accept the responsibility, when they 
 became or so nearly approximated to realities. 
 We think it will be placed beyond a doubt, that 
 Lord Mornington had no prompter beyond his own 
 bold grasping and ambitious spirit when he aimed 
 at an extension of empire, and that his schemes 
 expanded with circumstances upon the spot, in-
 
 THE MARQUESS WELLESLET. 407 
 
 stead of forming part of his instructions or being 
 carried away full-blown from Holwood. 
 
 He was created a British peer by the title of 
 Baron Wellesley on the 20th of October, 1797, 
 took the oaths and his seat on the 3rd of November, 
 and sailed for India on the 7th. Public comment 
 was attracted by his outfit. '' To such a degree," 
 remarked a popular newspaper, "is the frigate 
 encumbered with stores, carriages, and baggage, 
 that should the rencontre of an enemy make it 
 necessary to prepare for action, Lord Mornington 
 will inevitably suffer from clearage in the course 
 of five minutes a loss of at least 2000Z." 
 
 He arrived at the Cape of Good Hope in Feb- 
 ruary 1798, and fortunately met there several of 
 the persons best qualified to give him valuable 
 information : Lord Macartney (the Governor of 
 the Cape), who had been Governor of Madras 
 during the second war with Hyder Ali ; Lord 
 Hobart, just recalled from Madras ; General Baird, 
 recently a prisoner at Seringapatam ; and Major 
 Fitzpatrick, late Resident at the Court of Hydera- 
 bad. During Lord Wellesley's stay at the Cape 
 a vessel touched there on her way fi'om Calcutta, 
 having on board a packet addressed to the Secret 
 Committee of the Court of Directors, which he 
 opened without ceremony, "as it appeared to me 
 (to use his own words) on every ground to be an 
 indispensable article of my duty to obtain as 
 speedily as possible the most authentic account 
 of events so deeply affecting the interest com- 
 mitted to my charge." 
 
 Mr. Mill is entirely mistaken when he asserts 
 that " his Lordship had possessed but little time 
 for acquainting himself with the complicated affairs 
 of India, when all his attention was attracted to a 
 particular point." He had been studying those
 
 408 THE MARQUESS WELLESLEY. 
 
 affairs ever since he became a member of the 
 Board of Control, and the despatch which he 
 addressed to Lord Melville from the Cape shows 
 that he had already embraced the entire field of 
 Indian pohtics with all their complications and 
 entanglements. It required a clear head to master 
 them, and a proud feeling of self-rehance, combined 
 with a high degree of moral courage in encounter- 
 ing responsibihty, to deal with them. British 
 India had no pretensions to be called an empire 
 when he took charge of its destinies. Most of the 
 states which now form part of it were loosely 
 attached by treaty or wholly independent. Be- 
 tween Bombay and Madras, or bordering on them, 
 lay the broken empire of the Mahrattas, the 
 dominions of the Nizam, and the diminished, 
 though still formidable, power of Tippoo, the 
 Sultan of Mysore. The rule of Scindiah, a Mah- 
 ratta chief, reached to Delhi, and farther north 
 Zemaun Shah, the sovereign of Cabul, reigned 
 paramount. Each of these was openly or secretly 
 hostile to the British ; and it was quite upon the 
 cards that they would suddenly combine to drive 
 the hated invader into the sea. 
 
 Although since the time of Dupleix and Lally 
 the struggle of the French for ascendency had been 
 practically given up as hopeless, they still formed 
 an important element in the estimate of opposing 
 forces to be encountered in the impending crisis. 
 Mr. Mill says that " Lord Mornington arrived at 
 Calcutta on the 17th of May, 1798, carrying out 
 with him a mind more than usually inflamed with 
 the Ministerial passions then burning in England, 
 and in a state peculiarly apt to be seized with both 
 dread and with hatred of any power that is French." 
 This is so far true, that the designs of France 
 on our possessions in the East were watched by
 
 THE MARQUESS WELLESLEY. 409 
 
 the English people, as well as by the English 
 Government, with the same feeling of jealous 
 irritability which is excited by Eussia at this hour, 
 and that Lord Mornington carried out with him 
 a well-founded apprehension of French intrigue, 
 which was speedily confirmed and augmented by 
 events. Three weeks after his arrival, his attention 
 was attracted to a document purporting to be the 
 copy of a proclamation by General Malartie, the 
 Governor of the Isle of France, which announced 
 the arrival of two ambassadors from Tippoo with* 
 despatches addressed to the Governor and the 
 French Eepublic, proposing an alliance offensive 
 and defensive, and concluding : " In a word, he 
 (Tippoo) is only waiting for the moment when the 
 French shall come to his aid, to declare war against 
 the English, being ardently desirous to be able 
 to drive them out of India." Without waiting for 
 the formal authentication of this document. Lord 
 Mornington sent directions to the authorities of 
 Madras to prepare for the highly probable con- 
 tingency of the renewal of the war against Tippoo ; 
 and when it was clearly proved to be genuine, he 
 ordered General Harris to assemble the army upon 
 the coast with all possible expedition. 
 
 When his intentions were made known at Madras, 
 they were heard with dismay, and were encountered 
 by the most vehement protests and remonstrances. 
 Webbe, the Secretary of the Madras Government, 
 expressed the general feeling when he wrote : '' I 
 can anticipate nothing but shocking disasters from 
 a premature attack upon Tippoo in our disabled 
 condition, and the impeachment of Lord Mor- 
 nington for his temerity." The Commander-in- 
 Chief, admitting that Tippoo had given ample 
 provocation and was an enemy whose inveteracy 
 would only end with his life, counselled delay, to 
 which Lord Mornington reluctantly assented.
 
 410 THE MARQUESS WELLESLEY. 
 
 During this enforced suspension of his purpose, 
 he took steps for counteracting the French in- 
 fluence by inducing the Nizam to disband his 
 French troops, as well as for improving the finances, 
 the disordered state of which had been alleged 
 as a pressing argument for peace. The interval 
 was fruitful of occurrences all tending to establish 
 the justness of his views. The landing of the 
 French army in Egypt excited a feverish alarm, 
 which was not diminished by Bonaparte's letter to 
 Tippoo, beginning : '' You have been already in- 
 formed of my arrival on the borders of the Red 
 Sea, with an innumerable and invincible army, full 
 of the desire of delivering you from the iron yoke 
 of England." We may smile at his scheme of 
 emulating Alexander and reaching India from 
 Persia, but it was quite as feasible as some schemes 
 of invasion which have been gravely contemplated 
 in our time ; and on arriving on the Indus he 
 would have found neither a scientific frontier to 
 impede his progress nor a numerous well-disciplined 
 army to cope with him. 
 
 The news that Bonaparte was fortifying Suez 
 and collecting vessels at the head of the Arabian 
 Gulf, arrived early in May at Calcutta ; and the 
 prudence of anticipating the aggressive designs of 
 Tippoo was then no longer denied in any quarter : 
 war was declared with the full approval of the 
 officials who had deprecated it three months before ; 
 and, thanks to the unceasing energy with which 
 the military preparations had been pushed forward 
 by the Governor-General, he was able to boast that 
 an army *' more completely appointed, more amply 
 and liberally supplied in every department," than 
 that with which General Harris advanced upon 
 Seringapatam, never took the field in India. To 
 be nearer the scene, he had left Calcutta for Madras,
 
 THE MARQUESS WELLESLEY. 411 
 
 where his brother Arthur (now Colonel Welle sley), 
 who had been in India with his regiment since 
 February 1797, had preceded him and, according 
 to Dr. Gleig, "became in a few days the moving 
 spirit of the Government in which he had no legal 
 voice." We are assured on the same authority 
 that he had advised the temporary removal to 
 Madras, but opposed Lord Mornington's wish to 
 repair to the camp or march with the army, saying, 
 " Your presence, instead of giving confidence to 
 the General, would, in fact, deprive him of the 
 command. If I were in General Harris's situation, 
 and you were to join the army, I should quit it. 
 Your presence will diminish his powers ; at the 
 same time that it is impossible you can know any- 
 thing of military matters, your presence will not 
 answer this purpose." 
 
 It is also stated that the plan of the campaign 
 had been drawn up by Colonel Wellesley, and that 
 the success of the British at Malavelly was owing 
 to a happy movement of his column. He was not 
 so fortunate in a night attack on an advanced post, 
 termed a tope, before Seringapatam ; and he was 
 not engaged in the successful assault of the place ; 
 so that, when he was named commandant of the 
 captured capital, the appointment gave rise to 
 much invidious comment and complaint. It was 
 made without prior communication with the 
 Governor-General, who on hearing of it wrote to 
 General Harris: "You know whether you would 
 be doing me a favour if you employed him (Colonel 
 Wellesley) in any way that would be detrimental to 
 the public service. But the opinion, or rather the 
 knowledge and experience, which I have of his 
 obseiwation, his judgment, and his character is 
 such, that if you had not established him in Ser- 
 ingapatam, I should have done it by my own 
 authority."
 
 412 THE MARQUESS WELLESLEY. 
 
 The dissatisfaction expressed at this appointment, 
 and the necessity for vindicating it, are hardly- 
 reconcilable with the intellectual and moral 
 supremacy in both civil and military affairs which 
 the biographer claims for the Duke at this time ; nor 
 can we believe that the elder brother, with all his 
 esteem for the younger, was content to devolve 
 upon him the entire guidance, if not formation, of 
 his plans. The extraordinary delusions into which 
 Dr. G-leig has unwittingly fallen on this subject will 
 be made plain by dates and facts when we come 
 to the Mahratta war. We must first briefly re- 
 capitulate the intervening events of interest. 
 
 The territories which Tippoo or his father had 
 acquired by conquest were divided between the 
 Company and their native allies. The acquisitions 
 of the Company completed the coast-hnes of their 
 possessions from sea to sea, and included the city 
 of Seringapatam, with the surrounding district. 
 The lineal representative of the ancient rajahs 
 was invested with the nominal sovereignty of the 
 original kingdom of Mysore, and was bound by 
 treaty to defray the cost of a force quartered upon 
 him for the express purpose of keeping him in sub- 
 jection. It was principally in reference to the 
 territory thus acquired, or virtually annexed, that 
 the President of the Board of Control was able 
 to state, in June 1801, that the area added to 
 the British dominions in the Indian peninsula 
 by Lord Wellesley was as large as the United 
 Kingdom. 
 
 Apart from these material advantages, the 
 brilliant conclusion of the campaign flattered the 
 national vanity, and called forth a simultaneous 
 burst of congratulation and applause from aU 
 quarters. Addresses of thanks were voted by both 
 Houses of Parhament, and private friends vied
 
 THE MARQUESS WELLESLEY. 413 
 
 with, each other in conveying the popular feeling 
 in what was hardly the language of exaggeration. 
 The Duchess of Gordon wrote : 
 
 *' At this moment, my dear Lord, you are the admiration 
 of all Europe. May you long enjoy the glorious laurels 
 you have gained, in health, happiness, and every domestic 
 blessing. Lady Mornington was so good as to let your 
 lovely boys come and see me when in town. I left your 
 friend and mine, Le Premier, in better health and spirits 
 than I have seen him for some years. I spent some days 
 at Wimbledon with the gang, and left with regret. I 
 hear Lord Cornwallis talks with rapture and surprise of 
 your noble administration in India, and he is a good 
 judge." 
 
 High as was the general estimate of his merits, 
 it could not exceed his own. He expected to he 
 made an Enghsh duke per saltiim, and bitter was 
 his mortification on hearing that he must rest 
 satisfied with an Irish marquisate. He gave full 
 vent to his feelings in a letter (April 28th, 1800) to 
 the Premier : 
 
 " He could not describe his anguish of mind in feeling 
 himself bound by every sense of duty and honour to declare 
 his bitter disappointment at the reception which the King 
 had given to his services, and at the ostensible mark of 
 favour which he had conferred upon him. In England as 
 in India the disproportion between the service and the 
 reward would be imputed to some opinion existing in the 
 King's mind of his being disqualified by some personal in- 
 capacity to receive the reward of his conduct. He would 
 confess openly that as he was confident there had been 
 nothing Irish or pinchbeck in his conduct or in its result, 
 he felt an equal confidence that he should find nothing 
 Irish or pinchbeck in his reward. His health must 
 necessarily suffer with his spirits; and the mortifying 
 situation in which he was placed would soon become in- 
 tolerable to him." 
 
 This epistle concludes, "Ever, dear Pitt, yours
 
 414 THE MARQUESS WELLESLET. 
 
 most affectionately, Mornington (not having yet 
 received my double-gilt potato)." His new title 
 was Marquess Wellesley. In another letter he said : 
 " I shall never be contented until this cursed Irish 
 butter-milk is turned into good English ale." He 
 would much have preferred an English earldom. 
 Mr. Torrens remarks that Pitt was not to be 
 moved by his friend's hysterics, but it is clear from 
 this correspondence Pitt deemed the reward in- 
 adequate and replied that he wished to add the 
 Garter, but found the King unmanageable. His 
 Majesty had got a sickening of Indian affairs from 
 the famous India Bill of the Coalition or from his 
 unsuccessful patronage of Hastings, and was slow 
 to recognise services rendered so far off. When 
 General Harris, the conqueror of Seringapatam, 
 attended the levee on his return to England, he 
 was not honoured by a word or a nod.^ In the 
 course of the following year. Lord Wellesley 
 received a solid proof of the confidence he had 
 inspired by being made Captain-General and Com- 
 mander-in-Chief of all the British forces in India. 
 This — being the first appointment of the kind — 
 w^as truly described by Lord CHve as a matter of 
 congratulation, not merely as an accession of 
 dignity and honour, but as placing a necessary 
 control in the hands of the Governor- General and 
 increasing the energy and efficiency of his govern- 
 ment. 
 
 '' The confidence of the army and their enthu- 
 siasm for him were unbounded. In the division of 
 the Mysore prize-money, 100,000/. was by general 
 acclamation of the camp reserved for his share. 
 With gentleness but with dignity he declined to 
 subtract from the victors in fight any part of their 
 reward." 
 
 ^ Captain (Sir Philip) Broke was allowed to pass unnoticed at the first 
 levee which he attended alter the capture of the Chesapeake iu 1813.
 
 THE MARQUESS WELLESLEY. 415 
 
 This is Mr. Torrens's statement. Mr. Pearce's, 
 confirmed by documentary evidence, is that the 
 proposal came from the President of the Board of 
 Control and the Chairman of the Company. 
 What the army offered him was a star and badge 
 of the order of St. Patrick, composed of Tippoo's 
 jewels, which he also refused to accept till formally 
 requested by the Directors. 
 
 Amongst the distinctive features of his adminis- 
 tration should be recorded his suppression of 
 Sunday newspapers by way of enforcing respect for 
 the Christian Sabbath, and the severe measures he 
 adopted for the restriction of the press. By way 
 of warning to the rest, he caused one of the 
 editors. Dr. Bryce, to be put on board a ship bound 
 for England and deported. In fact, there is no 
 denying that he was arbitrary in aU his notions, a 
 genuine despot at heart, although a kindly and 
 considerate one, and eminently endowed with that 
 essential quality of greatness — the readiness to 
 adopt extraordinary measures for extreme occasions 
 and to assume their full responsibility. If we 
 apply to him the well-known line — 
 
 " Bear like the Tui'k no brother near the throne," 
 
 it is not in the sense of imputing to him envy, 
 jealousy, or littleness of any kind; for he had none, 
 barring a spice of personal vanity, but simply as 
 implying that he was self-re hant, and that it was 
 not in his nature to require or endure leading- 
 strings. 
 
 For more than a year after the taking of 
 Seringapatam his brother Arthur remained in 
 Mysore charged with the local administration, and 
 subsequently, till the breaking out of the Mahratta 
 war, was employed in a succession of arduous duties, 
 commonly at a distance from the seat of govern-
 
 416 THE MARQUESS WELLESLEY. 
 
 ment. After lie had been at tlie pains of organis- 
 ing an expedition to Batavia, the command was 
 claimed for General Baird, and reluctantly trans- 
 ferred to him as the senior officer by the Governor- 
 General. This affair created a coolness between 
 the brothers which lasted several months. But 
 assuming constant communication between them 
 and, in entire ignorance of its purport, judging only 
 from what is known of their characters, we should 
 say that all the most daring of Lord Wellesley's 
 enterprises, all the far-reaching projects of that 
 vaulting ambition which did 7iot overreach itself, — 
 conceived and undertaken without instructions 
 from home and against protests on the spot, — were 
 entirely out of keeping with the well-known caution 
 and circumspection of the great captain. Political 
 genius, hke poetical and indeed all other genius, 
 partakes largely of the imaginative faculty, if it be 
 not of imagination all compact. The Duke had 
 little or none of it. His distinctive qualities were 
 stern sense of duty, decision, and good sense ; and 
 we should as soon believe that he wrote his 
 brother's Latin verses, as that he suggested or 
 originated his policy. Indeed, the germs of that 
 policy may be traced in the despatch already men- 
 tioned from the Cape. Yet the Duke is described 
 by Dr. Gleig as the guiding spirit of the Govern- 
 ment from the commencement of the Mahratta 
 War to its close : 
 
 " Throughout the autumn and winter of 1802, General 
 Wellesley's attention was constantly fixed on the Mahrattas 
 and their doings. So, indeed, was that of Lord Mornington, 
 for Holkar and Scindiah were evidently aspiring each to 
 take the lead of the other, and afterwards consolidate in his 
 owTi person a strong emphe. . . . 
 
 While thus guarding against danger on one side of India, 
 General Wellesley was not regardless of what might befall 
 
 i
 
 THE MARQUESS WELLESLET. 417 
 
 in another. His, indeed, was a plan of campaign which 
 embraced the whole field over which war might be expected 
 to flow. He sent General Lake with 14,000 men from 
 Bengal towards Delhi, while he himself with 23,000 pro- 
 vided for the safety of the Deccan. . . . 
 
 The loss of this battle (of Argaum) with the surrender 
 of Gawilghm-, put an end to the Mahratta war in Central 
 India. Scindiah and Kagogee Bunsla felt that further 
 resistance would be useless, and, after a good deal of 
 chicane and equivocation, they threw themselves on the 
 mercy of the conqueror. . . . 
 
 This treaty of peace, as well as the conduct of the war, 
 was altogether the work of General Wellesley. He had 
 arranged the entii-e plan of operation? before they began, 
 and received plenary power from Lord Mornington to act 
 in every emergency as his own judgment might suggest. 
 In after years he used often, when one or two confidential 
 friends got about him, to speak in glowing terms of the 
 generous confidence with which his brother treated him." 
 
 The obvious inference is that these statements 
 rest upon the oral authority of the Duke. Yet 
 it can be made clear from facts and dates that he, 
 who valued his brother's reputation as his own and 
 felt that they had enough for both, could have 
 made no statement of the sort ; and that, when he 
 spoke of the plenary power which he received, he 
 alluded merely to the plenary power given him in 
 common with the other commanders within their 
 respective spheres of action. The question was 
 raised in the House of Commons, whether the 
 Governor- G-eneral was legally competent to dele- 
 gate the treaty-making power to his brotlier and 
 General Lake. The cases were identical ; and the 
 same power was vested in General Stuart con- 
 tingently on his assuming a similar command. 
 The justification was the distance from the seat 
 of government and from each other (varying from 
 800 to 1000 miles) at which they were to act. In 
 
 VOL. I. 2 E
 
 418 THE MARQUESS WELLESLEY. 
 
 poiut of fact, tlie Mahratta war comprelieuded 
 four concurrent campaigns. One of these, the 
 principal, was under the personal conduct of 
 General Lake, who, at the time when he is repre- 
 sented as sent towards Delhi by General Wel- 
 lesley, was Commander-in-Chief for the first 
 Presidency, General Wellesley being a Major- 
 General under Lieutenant-General Stuart and 
 stationed in command of the auxiliary forces in 
 the Mysore. 
 
 The broad grounds of this much-contested policy 
 may be briefly stated. Our justification for hold- 
 ing British India is that we have introduced a 
 higher civilisation, superseded bad systems of go- 
 vernment by a better, and are in a fair way to 
 carry out the principle of promoting the greatest 
 happiness of the greatest number. This, although 
 it may turn out the result, was certainly not the 
 motive of those who founded the empire. They 
 started as commercial adventurers, and were led 
 on from conquest to conquest by the necessity — 
 real or supposed — of securing what they had 
 already got. With all due deference to Mr. Mill, 
 who disputes this necessity at every step, it was 
 tolerably clear when Lord Wellesley appeared on 
 the scene, still clearer after the fall of Tippoo, that 
 things could not continue as they were. The 
 native princes who retained their independence 
 were as little disposed as ever to be improved off 
 their thrones for the alleged benefit of humanity 
 in general or of their subjects in particular ; and 
 they had become fully alive to the tactics by 
 which the English settlers had contrived to annex 
 province after province, making each fresh en- 
 croachment a stepping-stone to the next. These 
 princes, the majority being usurpers, were con- 
 stantly at feud and in want of military aid. This
 
 THE MARQUESS WELLESLEY. 419 
 
 was supplied by the Company on condition that 
 they should assign a portion of territory to secure 
 the payment of the troops, and accept a resident 
 with powers which, judiciously employed, com- 
 monly ended by reducing the prince to the con- 
 dition of a puppet. This system Lord Wellesley 
 now proposed to apply to the Mahratta chiefs, the 
 only remaining antagonists to British supremacy 
 in Central India; and turniug historian for the 
 nonce, he has left, marked by his peculiar style, a 
 detailed account of the military operations of the 
 war, as well as a lucid exposition of his policy/ 
 
 He finds it convenient to assume, at starting, 
 that the supreme executive authority of the Mah- 
 ratta Empire was still constitutionally vested in 
 the Peishwar ; and one of his first steps was to 
 make a treaty ofi"ensive and defensive with this 
 potentate, who cautiously held aloof till he had 
 been driven from his capital and reduced to the last 
 extremities. When he signed the Treaty of Bas- 
 sein, December 81st, 1802, he was no longer 
 useful as an ally, and the binding force of his 
 authority was about upon a par with that of the 
 Afighan prince who signed the Treaty of Ganda- 
 muck. The real power of tbe Mahratta Empire 
 had passed into the hands of the Eajah of Berar, 
 of a usurper named Scindiah, and of a soldier of 
 fortune named Holkar, each at the head of a 
 numerous army, and all three ready at any moment 
 to sink their differences and combine against a 
 common foe. The most formidable was Scindiah, 
 who, besides the army under his own immediate 
 command, had near Delhi another called the 
 Imperial Army, under a Frenchman named Perron, 
 
 ^ " Notes relative to the late Transactions in the Mahratta Empire. 
 Port William; l5th Dccemlier 1803. Illustrated with five uiilitrtry plans." 
 London : 1804. Quarto and octavo.
 
 420 THE MARQUESS WELLESLET. 
 
 prepared to co-operate with the Sovereign of Cabul, 
 who threatened an invasion from the north. 
 
 " This French State," as Lord Wellesley terms the 
 country under Perron, " actually held possession of the 
 person and nominal authority of the Moghul, maintained 
 the most efficient army of regular infantry and the most 
 powerful artillery then existing in India (with the excep- 
 tion of his Majesty's and the Company's troops), and 
 exercised a considerable influence over the neighbouring 
 states, from the banks of the Indus to the confluence of 
 the Jumna and the Ganges. 
 
 When the rupture became imminent, Lord CHve, 
 the Governor of Madras, acting under orders from 
 the Governor- General, instructed Lieufcenant- 
 General Stuart to adopt the necessary measures 
 for the march of the British troops into the Mah- 
 ratta territories, leaving it to his judgment to 
 determine the amount of the force to be detached 
 for that purpose from the main Madras army under 
 his command. In conformity to these instruc- 
 tions, the General directed a detachment to be 
 formed under the command of Major-General 
 Wellesley, who had been especially named by Lord 
 Clive as the officer best qualified for a service 
 requiring political experience as well as military 
 skill. The detachment amounted altogether to 
 about 12,000 men, including one regiment of 
 European cavalry and two regiments of European 
 infantry. General Wellesley commenced his march 
 on the 9th of March, 1803, and, after saving the 
 Peishwah's capital from destruction by a dashing 
 movement and taking a strong fort by escalade, he 
 arrived on the 23rd of September at Nardnair, 
 where he received intelligence that the combined 
 armies of Scindiah and the Eajah of Berar were 
 encamped at about six miles' distance from the 
 ground on which he had intended to encamp.
 
 THE MARQUESS WELLESLEY. 421 
 
 Before coming to the ensuing action, it may be as 
 well to fix the precise place which General Wel- 
 lesley filled in the whole plan of operations. 
 
 " The arrangements adopted by the Governor-General 
 during this arduous crisis of affairs were directed to pro- 
 vide for a general combined attack, to be made, nearly at 
 the same time, on the united army of Scindiah and the 
 Eajah of Berar under their personal command in the 
 Dekan, and on all their most vulnerable and valuable 
 possessions in every quarter of India. The plan of opera- 
 tions comprehended a tract of country extending from 
 Delhi and the Presidencies of Fort William, Fort St. 
 George, and Bombay, to Poonah, Hyderabad, Guzerat, and 
 Oiissa, and embraced together with the security and de- 
 fence of the British dominions, the important objects of 
 defeating the confederate chieftains in the field ; of estab- 
 lishing our allies, their highnesses the Peishwar and the 
 Nizam in their respective legitimate governments ; of 
 securing the legitimate succession to the government of the 
 Dekan ; of delivering the unfortunate and aged emperor 
 Shah Allum, and the royal house of Timiu', from misery, 
 degradation, and bondage ; and of extirpating the last 
 remnant of French influence in India, by rescuing his 
 Imperial Majesty the Moghul from the hands of a desperate 
 band of French adventurers ; and by destroying the power- 
 ful artillery and military resources of Monsieur Perron, and 
 of the French State founded upon the ruins of the authority 
 of the Moghul, and under the auspices of Scindiah, on the 
 north-west frontier of Hindostan." (Notes.) 
 
 Amongst the operations simultaneously carried 
 on were those under General Wellesley : those 
 directed against Scindiah' s ports in Guzerat : the 
 expedition against Cuttack under Colonel Har- 
 court ; and the campaign in the north under the 
 personal direction of General Lake, having for its 
 immediate object the destruction of the French 
 power under Perron, and the rescue of the Great 
 Moghul. The first important blow was struck by 
 General Lake. On the mere advance of the
 
 422 THE MARQUESS WELLESLEY. 
 
 British, Perron lost courage, and notified his 
 formal retirement from the service of Scindiah. 
 His successor, a Frenchman named Borquien, 
 after crossing the Jumna for the avowed purpose 
 of encountering the English, took up a strong 
 position with his troops near Delhi. Lake lured 
 them from it by feigning a retreat, and then 
 charged with such impetuosity that they gave way 
 and fled in every direction. They were computed 
 at 13,000 infantry and 6000 cavalry ; the British 
 force at 4500 in all, including the 76th Foot and 
 the 27th Dragoons. The victory w^as won by the 
 76th led by Lake in person. Directly after the 
 action the Great Moghul sent to express his 
 anxious desire to place his person and authority 
 under the protection of the British. A day was 
 appointed for the conquering general to pay his 
 respects. 
 
 ''The crowd in the city was extraordinary, and it was 
 with some difficulty that the cavalcade could make its way 
 to the palace. The courts of the palace were full of peoj)le, 
 anxious to witness the deliverance of their Sovereign from 
 a state of degradation and bondage. At length the Com- 
 mander-in-Chief was ushered into the royal presence, and 
 found the unfortunate and venerable Emperor, oppressed 
 by the accumulated calamities of old age, degraded autho- 
 rity, extreme poverty, and loss of sight, seated under a 
 small tattered canopy, the remnant of his royal state, with 
 every external appearance of the misery of his con- 
 dition. . . ." 
 
 The misery of his condition had neither di- 
 minished his own conscious dignity nor the 
 veneration he inspired, and stress is laid upon the 
 fact that " no other power can now avail itself of 
 the weight and influence which the Emperor's 
 name must ever possess amongst the Mussulman 
 inhabitants of Hindostan." After the siege and
 
 THE MARQUESS WELLESLEY. 423 
 
 capture of Agra, General Lake marched in pursuit 
 of the remainder of Perron's forces, a large part of 
 which had not been engaged at Delhi. He came 
 up with them (November 1st) at the village of 
 Laswaree, 15,000 strong, with seventy-two guns. 
 These were served so well that it was found 
 necessary to withdraw the British cavalry, with 
 which the general had commenced the action 
 without waiting for the • infantry ; and when he 
 renewed the attack with the infantry, the heavy 
 cannonade with grape and cannister is described as 
 '' sufficient alone to prevent a regular advance." 
 The regiments charged as they came up, and the 
 battle, like the preceding one at Delhi, was de- 
 cided by a rush of the 76th, gallantly seconded by 
 the Dragoons. This is expressly stated in the 
 " Notes," and somewhat quahfies the eulogy 
 lavished on "the admirable skiU, judgment, heroic 
 valour, and activity" of the Commander-in-Chief, 
 who showed no skill or judgment at all. The 
 directing mind was wanting throughout ; and his 
 troops suffered accordingly. 
 
 We return to General Welle sley, whom we left 
 confronted by the combined armies of Scindiah and 
 Berar, which (Sept. 23) he resolved to attack at 
 once without waiting for Colonel Stevenson, who 
 was expected with a co-operating force on the 
 24th. The ensuing battle — the celebrated Battle 
 of Assye — was fought by about 4500 British 
 troops, including 1300 European infantry and ar- 
 tillery, against a force consisting of 10,500 infantry 
 commanded by European oificers, a well-equipped 
 train of artillery exceeding a hundred guns, and 
 between 30,000 and 40,000 irregular horse. This 
 is the official account. Dr. Gleig says: "About 
 two o'clock in the afternoon of the 26tli, General 
 WeUesley found himself suddenly in the presence
 
 424 THE MARQUESS WELLESLEY. 
 
 of 50,000 men, secured on both sides by villages 
 and rivers, and covered along their whole front 
 by 128 pieces of cannon. His own corps consisted 
 of something less than 8000, of which 1500 only 
 were Europeans : and seventeen guns, drawn by 
 animals worn out with hard work, made up the 
 whole of his train." 
 
 Nothing is more remarkable in our Indian wars 
 than our invariable inferiority in the arm in which 
 we might have been expected to be superior. 
 " Several officers in General Wellesley's army who 
 have served during the late campaigns on the 
 Continent of Europe, have declared that it is no 
 disparagement to the Erench artillery to say, that 
 cannon were never better served than by the 
 enemy at Assye on the 23rd of September." The 
 74th Eegiment was well-nigh decimated by their 
 fire ; and it was again, as at Delhi and Laswaree, 
 by coming at once to close quarters that the 
 British won the day. The Duke's account to Dr. 
 Gleig was that his first line, which had been 
 du'ected to keep clear of Assye, swayed to the 
 right and became exposed to a heavy fire ! " This 
 obliged me to bring the second line sooner into 
 action than I intended, and to employ the cavahy 
 — the 19th Dragoons — early in the day, in order 
 to save the 74th from being cut to pieces. But 
 whatever mistakes my officers committed, they 
 more than made up for by their bravery. I lost 
 an enormous number of men : 170 officers were 
 killed and wounded, and upwards of 2000 non- 
 commissioned officers and privates ; but we carried 
 all before us." 
 
 The Duke, according to his biographer, used to 
 say of this battle that it was the hardest-fought 
 affair that ever took place in India. The subse- 
 quent battle of Argaum was one of the easiest.
 
 THE MARQUESS WELLESLEY. 425 
 
 as the enemy retired in disorder before the British 
 advance, abandoning their cannon and ammuni- 
 tion. " The loss of this battle," says Dr. Gleig 
 (in a passage already quoted), " with the surrender 
 of Gawilgur, put an end to the Mahratta war in 
 Central India." Lord Wellesley speaks in similar 
 terms of the battle of Laswaree : " This splendid 
 victory completes the subversion of Scindiah's 
 hostile power and formidable resources in Hindo- 
 stan, and of the French force which constituted 
 the main strength of his army in that quarter." 
 In his exulting summary of events, however, he 
 justly declares that, '' in the course of an extensive 
 and complicated system of military operations, the 
 glorious success of the British arms has been uni- 
 form in every part of India." He draws no in- 
 vidious distinctions, and alludes in the same glow- 
 ing terms to Delhi, Assye, and Laswaree. 
 
 The general pacification was delayed longer than 
 he anticipated ; but the power of the Mahratta 
 chiefs was effectually broken ; and in November, 
 1804, Mackintosh, no ardent admirer of Lord Wel- 
 lesley, whose policy he calls dashing and showy, 
 writes from Bombay : " The Mahratta war, imder- 
 taken upon grounds of very doubtful policy, has 
 ended in establishing the direct authority, or the 
 uncontrollable influence of England, fi'om Lahore 
 to Cape Comorin. Your map will help your 
 memory to form some idea of the immensity of 
 this empire." 
 
 One of the measures by which Lord Wellesley 
 should be most honourably remembered in India 
 was the foundation of a college at Port William, for 
 the training of young men sent out as writers. It 
 was his pet project, and the objections of the 
 Directors on economical grounds were met by in- 
 dignation and contempt, to which he gave free vent
 
 426 THE MARQUESS WELLESLEY. 
 
 in his letters and despatches. He had other 
 grounds of annoyance in the same quarter ; natu- 
 rally enough, for the Directors were trembling 
 for their dividends, whilst he was forming schemes 
 of aggrandisement and neglecting economy for 
 dominion or for fame. They complained with 
 reason that, if he was adding to their revenue, he 
 was proportionately adding to their expenses and 
 liabilities. On the first news of the rupture with the 
 Mahrattas, Indian Stock had fallen from 215 to 160. 
 The treaty with Scindiah (December 1803) had 
 hardly been signed, when despatches arrived from 
 England prohibiting the war or intervention other 
 than inevitable in Mahratta affairs ; and in a 
 despatch dated March 4, 1804, Lord Castlereagh 
 read the Governor-General a long lecture on the 
 imprudence of provoking fresh hostilities with a 
 view to more extended dominion. Luckily or 
 unluckily, both prohibition and lecture came too 
 late. As if in anticipation and reply, he had 
 written (March 1, 1804) to Lord Castlereagh thank- 
 ing him for his counsels and support, but declaring 
 it "unnecessary to repeat his utter contempt for 
 any opinions which might be entertained by indi- 
 vidual j)roprietors or by the Court of Directors, 
 as he expected every practicable degree of in- 
 justice and baseness from that faction." In a later 
 despatch (Jime 19, 1804), he says that the one 
 thing for which he longed, and for which he should 
 be deeply grateful, would be a full disclosure to 
 Parliament of every act of his administration, and 
 of every proceeding of the Directors, since he had 
 the misfortune to be subjected to the ignominious 
 tyranny of Leadenhall Street : 
 
 " He lioj^ed to rehnquish the service of his honourable 
 employers in January or February 1805 ; but as no 
 symptoms of tardy remorse displayed by the Honourable
 
 THE MARQUESS WELLESLEY. 427 
 
 Court in consequence of his recent success in India would 
 vary his estimation of the faith and honour of his very- 
 worthy and approved good masters, or protract his con- 
 tinuance in India for one hour beyond the limits prescribed 
 by the i^ublic interests, so no additional outrage, injury, 
 or insult which could issue from the most loathsome den 
 of the India House would accelerate his departure while the 
 public safety should appear to require his aid in that arduous 
 station." 
 
 The news of his recent success, as he modestly 
 calls his series of triumphs, called forth tributes 
 which could not fail to he highly flattering to his 
 pride, although qualified in a manner to betray no 
 symptoms of remorse. In moving the thanks of 
 the House of Commons, Lord Castlereagh dis- 
 claimed any wish to commit the House to a pre- 
 mature approval of the policy of the Mahratta 
 war — " but of its splendid success they must all he 
 proud." The Coui't of Proprietors, still more 
 pointedly reserving the question of the policy, 
 voted : 
 
 " That taking into consideration the despatches relative 
 to the late brilliant successes in the war with the Mahratta 
 chiefs, their thanks be given to Marquess Wellesley for the 
 zeal, vigour, activity, and ability displayed in preparing the 
 armies of the several Presidencies to take the field, to which 
 might be attributed, in a great measure, the rapid and bril- 
 liant successes which had crowned the British arms in the 
 East Indies." 
 
 The eulogy was poisoned by the reservation. 
 He refused to publish the votes of thanks to him- 
 self on the ground that " the determination 
 expressed to withhold all judgment upon the 
 original justice, necessity, and policy of the war, 
 could not have been published in India by a 
 formal act of the Government without conveying 
 a universal impression of doubt and ambiguity
 
 428 THE MARQUESS WELLESLEY. 
 
 respecting the stability of every arrangement con- 
 nected with the progress and success of our arms." 
 This boasted success, although brilliant, was 
 incomplete. Holkar, who had taken no part in the 
 w^ar, was at the head of a numerous army, and 
 when summoned by General Lake to withdraw 
 from the menacing position he occupied, and re- 
 fi'ain from exacting tribute from our allies, he made 
 answer by a series of counterclaims and a threat : 
 
 ** Countries of many hundred coss shall be overrun 
 and plundered. Lord Lake shall not have leisure to 
 breathe for a moment; and calamities will fall on lacs 
 of human beings, in continual war, by the attacks of 
 my army, which overwhelms like the waves of the sea." 
 
 The campaign against him was indecisive, and 
 was attended by reverses of which the most was 
 made by the peace party. Colonel Monson, left 
 with a division to watch Holkar, after a simulated 
 retreat, was surprised, and narrowly escaped with 
 the loss of guns and baggage. The Eajah of 
 Bhurtpoore declared against the Company, and 
 Scindiah, complaining of ill-faith, was preparing 
 for a renewal of hostilities if his demands were 
 refused. The treasury was empty, and renewed 
 expenditure for objects supposed to be already 
 attained by great sacrifices would be the signal for 
 fresh censure or detraction. The embarrassments 
 of the Governor- General were hourly becoming 
 more and more complicated, when they were sud- 
 denly, if not quite unexpectedly, terminated in a 
 way, that could hardly have been agreeable, 
 although it brought temporary relief. In May 
 1805 the Governor-General, hearing that Mr. 
 Tucker had received letters from England, sent for 
 him, and inquired if they contained any news of 
 importance. " The appointment of Lord Corn-
 
 THE MARQUESS WELLES LEY. 429 
 
 wallis," was the reply. Lord CornwalKs was 
 appointed for the express purpose of reversing so 
 much of Lord Wellesley's poHcy as could be 
 reversed with any semblance of prudence or ex- 
 pediency, and he hastened to carry out his instruc- 
 tions in the spirit which dictated them. 
 
 In a despatch to the Secret Committee two days 
 after his arrival, August 1, 1805, he writes to say 
 that he is starting for the upper provinces to termi- 
 nate by negotiation a contest from which no solid 
 benefit could be expected. . In his eagerness to 
 avoid the alleged errors of his predecessor, he 
 hurried to the opposite extreme, and gave up 
 almost every point in dispute between the Com- 
 pany and the recalcitrant chiefs. A single instance 
 may suf&ce. Scindiah had insultingly refused to 
 permit the departure of the British Eesident from 
 his court, and Lord Cornwallis, apparently un- 
 conscious that British honour was at stake, coolly 
 writes to General (now Lord) Lake, " as a mere 
 point of honour, he is disposed to compromise, or 
 even to abandon, the demand for the release of the 
 British Eesident if it should ultimately prove to be 
 the only obstacle to a satisfactory adjustment." 
 
 Surely the release of the Eesident, with an 
 ample apology for the detention, should have been 
 the indispensable preliminary, the sine quel non of 
 an adjustment. The time for moderate measures 
 had gone by : the English in India had advanced 
 too far on the road to empire to recede : and Lord 
 Cornwallis' s policy of concession and conciliation 
 was an anachronism at best. It was followed by a 
 strong and durable reaction, but it was mortifying 
 to Lord Wellesley at the time, and supplied an 
 additional weapon for assailing him on his return. 
 
 He had ample time on the homeward voyage 
 for both retrospection and anticipation, for a re-
 
 430 THE MARQUESS WELLESLEY. 
 
 view of his claims and prospects, for a forecast of 
 the future as well as a calm estimate of the past. 
 What would they say in England? Would the 
 public ratify the verdict of the Company ? Would 
 his services be duly recognised by the King and 
 the Minister? There were indications which 
 might well warrant him in giving way to an 
 occasional feeling of despondency. He had de- 
 clared war to the knife against his employers, and 
 an untoward accident had made known to them 
 the language of contempt in which he was wont 
 to speak of both directors and proprietors. Nor 
 could it have escaped him that the tone of his 
 official friends in their private correspondence was 
 that of men who were driven to the language of 
 palUation and apology. We are reminded of 
 Rogers' s reply to the lady who complained of his 
 taking part against her: "Lady Davy, I pass my 
 life in defending you." 
 
 We find him thanking Lord Castlereagh for 
 softening down a meditated despatch from the 
 India House which would probably have been 
 followed by an instant resignation, and in Lord 
 Grenville's intercepted letter,^ referring to the 
 debates on the Mahratta war, occurs this sug- 
 gestive sentence : "I have not done more for 
 you than you would have done for me on a like 
 occasion ; and if the intrigue i3lanned against you 
 is totally without effect, and your measures have 
 been approved before they were arraigned, I can- 
 not flatter myself with having contributed to this 
 result by my efforts ; but you may, in my opinion, 
 consider the affair as terminated." Consider the 
 affair terminated ! — The affair which he regarded 
 
 ^ It was intercepted by a French man-of-war, along with a private 
 letter of Lord Wellesley's acrimoniously reflecting on the Company. The 
 whple of the intercepted correspondence was published in the French 
 newspapers.
 
 THE MARQUESS WELLESLEY. 431 
 
 as the masterpiece of his statesmanship, the glory 
 of his administration, the copestone of his fa.me. 
 
 With his pecuHar tastes and tem2:)erament he was 
 also destined to encounter discomfort and mor- 
 tification from the change of position and habits. 
 Any viceroy, accustomed to oriental pomp and 
 servility for seven years, might be pardoned for a 
 temporary feeling near akin to tliat of Gulliver on 
 his first return from Lilliput, when he warned 
 people to get out of his way for fear he should 
 walk over them, or that of a Lord Mayor when he 
 resigns the ensigns of his dignity. But Lord 
 Wellesley was more than ordinarily fond of pomp, 
 luxury, and magnificence. He clung to the trap- 
 pings as well as to the reality of power. He had 
 set on foot a body-guard to be constantly attendant 
 on his person, and when he went to Madras to 
 direct the war against Tippoo, he was with difii- 
 culty prevented from sending for it from Calcutta. 
 He caused a Government House to be constructed 
 on a scale and at a cost which, we are not surprised 
 to hear, drew from the directors and proprietors a 
 growl deepening into a groan. Lord Valentia, for 
 whom he sent the State barge built expressly for 
 his use on the Hooghly, says (in his " Travels ") : 
 
 " It reminded me of a fairy tale. It was very long in 
 proportion to its width, richly ornamented with green and 
 gold ; its head a spread-eagle gilt ; its stern a tiger's head 
 and body ; the centre would contain twenty people, and 
 was covered with an awning and side curtains ; forward were 
 seated twenty natives dressed in scarlet habits, with rose- 
 coloured turbans, who pulled away most energetically and 
 speedily gained the landing-place. His Excellency much 
 amused me by the account he gave of the manner in which 
 my arrival was announced to him by the messenger whom 
 he placed purposely on the road. * Lord Sahib ka bhiinja, 
 Company ka nawasa teshrif laia ; ' literally translated, ' the 
 Lord's sister's son and the grandson of Mrs. Company is
 
 432 THE MARQUESS WELLESLEY. 
 
 arrived.' These titles originated from a belief of the natives 
 that the India Company was an old woman, and that the 
 Governors-General were her children." 
 
 The Company was always a myth or mystery to 
 the crowd. At shows of wild beasts within living 
 memory, the royal hunting tiger of Bengal used to 
 be introduced with, " Tippoo Saib kept twenty- 
 four of these here hanimals to hunt the Honourable 
 East India Company." 
 
 Mr. Torrens says that one of Lord Wellesley's 
 morbid apprehensions was that relatives and 
 friends would think he was much changed by his 
 residence in a tropical climate. This is a common 
 weakness. Few of us like to be told that we are 
 changed. Lord Byron mentions as a specimen of 
 Lady Holland's proneness to say ill-natured things, 
 that she told him he was growing fat. Lord Wel- 
 lesley was perhaps finically attentive to personal 
 a23pearance and, judged merely by thews and 
 inches, he was what is commonly called a httle 
 man. And so, we learn from Clarendon, were most 
 of the great men who figure in his History. So 
 were Thiers, Guizot, Curran, the late Earl Eussell, 
 and Warren Hastings, of whose appearance at his 
 trial. Lord Macaulay, after describing him as "small 
 and emaciated," says: "He looked like a great 
 man, and not like a bad man." This is equally 
 true of Lord Wellesley. He had the look of inborn 
 nobility. His head and features were eminently 
 intellectual as well as handsome ; and he would 
 have been singled out as the most distinguished 
 person in almost any assembly in which he might 
 appear. Mr. Torrens, who is eternally harping on 
 his size and his attention to dress, would fain con- 
 vey the impression that he was a manikin eaten up 
 with vanity. 
 
 Lord Grenville's advice in the intercepted letter
 
 THE MARQUESS WELLESLEY. 433 
 
 was '' not to engage for anything until he re- 
 turned ; but to retain the liberty of acting 
 according to such motives as he should judge 
 proper to direct his conduct on the spot." Tlie 
 state of things that met him on his reaching 
 London was far from encouraging. Pitt, who 
 received him with affectionate cordiality, died 
 within a few days of their meeting ; so there was 
 an end at once to all hope of assistance or support 
 in that quarter. The ex-Governor-General had 
 been too long estranged from English politics to 
 be deemed an indispensable element or take at 
 once a leading part in the combinations that 
 ensued. Lord Brougham, indeed, states as hardly 
 admitting of a doubt that " the party of Mr. Pitt 
 would gladly have rallied under Lord Wellesley 
 had there been among them a leader ready for the 
 House of Commons. But to place Lord Castle- 
 reagh or Mr. Canning in the command of their 
 forces against the combined power of Mr. Fox and 
 Messrs. Grey, Sheridan and Windham, would have 
 been courting signal defeat." Lord Castlereagh 
 and Mr. Canning, who acted together till their 
 memorable quarrel, need not have shrunk from an 
 encounter with the opposition orators, but there is 
 not a shadow of proof nor a sign that Lord Wel- 
 lesley was regarded as a possible premier at this 
 time : and we find him writing to Wilberforce, 
 January 15, 1806 : " I know nothing of public 
 arrangements, and all the reports in the news- 
 papers respecting myself are utterly groundless." 
 Moreover, there was a grave obstacle to Lord 
 Wellesley's candidature for high office so soon 
 after his return. In the preceding session of 
 Parliament, a man named Paull, a commercial 
 adventurer (once a linendraper) from India, who 
 had purchased a seat, moved for papers with the 
 
 VOL. I. 2 F
 
 434 THE MARQUESS WELLESLET. 
 
 avowed object of founding a charge of oppression, 
 corruption, and arbitrary proceedings against the 
 ex-Governor- General, with special reference to his 
 harsh and unjust treatment of the Nabob of Oude. 
 This accuser was at first regarded as a mere carica- 
 turist of Burke, and no serious notice was taken of 
 him, until it served the purpose of the least 
 scrupulous or most violent members of the Opposi- 
 tion to take him up. Sir Francis Burdett intro- 
 duced him to Home Tooke, who made him free of 
 his Sunday dinners at Putney ; Cobbett warmly 
 backed him in the "Register;" and if his own 
 story was not altogether false, he was received at 
 Carlton House, after his first motion for papers, 
 with these amongst other expressions of satisfac- 
 tion by the Prince : " You have opened a battery 
 against the Marquis ; his conduct in Oude has 
 been truly shocking. I have had much conversa- 
 tion with my young friend Treves on the subject, 
 who gave me the poor Nawab's picture. I trust 
 the battery will not be silenced next session, as 
 some Indian batteries have been." 
 
 Lord Wellesley's friends made light of the affair 
 in their correspondence, but the impending renewal 
 of the charge left them no alternative but to speak 
 out. " Wellesley Pole and Lord Temple under- 
 took the painful task of making him understand 
 that, instead of being saluted as a conqueror, it 
 was seriously proposed that he should be tried as 
 a culprit." Instead of meeting the charge as it 
 deserved to be met, with an indignant denial, and 
 challenging inquiry from his place as a peer, he 
 flew into a passion and vowed that he would take 
 no part in public business till the cloud that hung 
 over his reputation had been completely dissipated ; 
 and he began by refusing to take his seat in the 
 House of Lords. This was a fatal error, as it
 
 THE MARQUESS WELLESLEY. 435 
 
 admitted and created a temporary disqualification, 
 which was exactly what his ill-wishers wanted and 
 all probably that they hoped to establish. His 
 position now was analagous to that of Hastings, 
 whose prospects of public employment and accu- 
 mulating honours were suddenly overclouded by 
 Pitt's support of the Benares charge ; a support 
 which (Macaulay suggests) can be accounted for 
 on no more plausible hypothesis than jealousy. 
 Hastings was personally a favourite of the King. 
 He was the idol of the East India Company and 
 its servants. If he were absolved by the Com- 
 mons, seated among the Lords, admitted to the 
 Board of Control, was it not possible that he might 
 become a formidable rival in the Cabinet ? If he 
 were impeached all danger was at an end. The 
 proceeding, however it might terminate, would 
 probably last some years. In the meantime the 
 accused would lie under a ban and could scarcely 
 venture even to pay his duty at Court. " Such 
 were the motives attributed by a great part of 
 the public to the young minister whose ruling 
 passion was generally believed to be avarice of 
 power." 
 
 There is no culpable lack of charity in attribu- 
 ting similar motives to the ministers, ex and 
 actual, young and old, who were emulously con- 
 tending for place directly after Pitt's death. It 
 was a point gained with all of them if they could 
 exclude so formidable a competitor as Lord Wel- 
 lesley, and the hne taken by his friends was 
 wanting in both spirit and generosity. It was 
 apologetic and extenuating, instead of haughty 
 and defying as it should have been. According 
 to Sir George Lewis, "Lord Grenville stipulated 
 with Mr. Fox that the accusation of Lord Wel- 
 lesley should not be made a Cabinet measure,
 
 436 THE MARQUESS WELLESLEY. 
 
 and that no person should be appointed President 
 of the Board of Control who should promote it 
 in his own ofl&cial capacity. Mr. Fox assented 
 to these terms, but reserved the power of support- 
 ing the accusation if it were brought forward 
 by a private member."^ It was brought forward 
 repeatedly, and received a good deal of irregular 
 support from members of the Whig Opposition 
 without making way. The more it was examined, 
 the clearer was it seen that Lord Wellesley had 
 been uniformly actuated by broad, high-minded, 
 comprehensive views : that his policy was imperial 
 in the true sense of the word ; and that he had 
 never, like Hastings, been guilty of unjustifiable 
 acts, such as the subjection of the Kohillas or 
 the maltreatment of Cheyte Sing, to swell the 
 coffers of the Company. Their hostility con- 
 sequently did him more good than harm with 
 the public. Paull gradually dropped from dis~ 
 credit to insignificance ; and in April, 1808, he 
 committed suicide.'^ His soiled and tattered 
 mantle finally devolved upon Sir Thomas Turton, 
 who, in the following June, moved a vote of cen- 
 sure, which was converted into an approval by a 
 majority of 98 to 19. This terminated the pro- 
 ceedings, but people had ceased to attach the 
 slightest weight to the threatened impeachment 
 long before it was formally withdrawn, and Lord 
 Wellesley had taken the oaths and his seat in 
 the Lords on the last day of 1806. 
 
 Lord Brougham says that "his extreme sense 
 of propriety hindered him, while the impeachment 
 was pending, from taking the Government on Mr. 
 
 ^ " Essays on the Administration of Great Britain from 1783 to 1830." 
 Edited by Sir Edmund Head. Page 289. 
 
 2 On hearing of his death, Lord Wellesley remarked : " I tliought he 
 would have perished by a less ignominious hand " (the hangman's).
 
 THE MARQUESS WELLESLEY. 437 
 
 Fox's death, when he might, as soon as the Whigs 
 resigned, have succeeded as Prime Minister." It 
 nowhere appears that the Premiership was then 
 within his reach, but there is no doubt that he 
 might have had a high place in the Portland 
 Administration, in which his brothers held office. 
 On the 24th of March, 1807, Lord Malmesbury 
 writes in his Diary that he (Lord Wellesley) was 
 wavering all day, and at last made up his mind 
 to decline. Sir George Lewis says that " he 
 hesitated for a time and then dechned, but, 
 notwithstanding his obligations to Lord Grenville, 
 he declared himself a supporter of the new Minis- 
 try, and received the Garter as the price and pledge 
 of his adhesion." 
 
 He addressed the House of Lords, for the first 
 time after his return, at the opening of the Session 
 of 1808 in defence of the expedition to Copenhagen, 
 which he justified on the familiar ground that the 
 Danish fleet would or might have been seized by 
 Napoleon and employed against England. His 
 brother Arthur commanded a division of the land 
 forces employed ; but we suspect that the high- 
 handed character of the proceeding — a flagrant 
 violation of international law — had a peculiar 
 attraction for the orator, when he expatiated in 
 the loftiest language on the patriotic duty of sub- 
 jecting all ordinary rules of right and justice to 
 expediency. 
 
 It may be collected from the pubKshed diaries 
 and correspondence of the period that, subsequently 
 to the dehvery of this speech, his claims to office 
 were frequent subjects of discussion. Canning is 
 reported to have declared, in conversation with the 
 Speaker, that Wellesley would be a good colleague 
 but not as Premier; and to have told his noble 
 friend, with an affectation of fi-ankness : " I must
 
 438 THE MARQUESS WELLESLEY. 
 
 tell yon frankly that I have serious objections, Lord 
 Wellesley, to your being Premier ; because with 
 your reputation, talent, and activity of mind, you 
 would reduce all the rest of us to mere cyphers." 
 
 One of the complaints against his Indian ad- 
 ministration was that he had treated his Council 
 with systematic neglect, and his grand manner 
 was far fi'om recommending him to the King, who, 
 hearing of his domineering ways, had prophesied 
 prior to his arrival that " his head would be turned, 
 and there would be no bearing him." At length 
 the happy thought presented itself that he would 
 make a capital Ambassador to Spain, a country 
 which delights in dignity ; and that the co- 
 operation of the two brothers, the statesman and 
 the warrior, might produce in Europe the same 
 auspicious results of which it had been fruitful in 
 Hindostan. The appointment of Sir Arthur 
 Wellesley to the chief command in the Peninsula 
 was announced on the 1st of April, 1809, and in 
 the " Gazette " of the 30th it was formally notified 
 that Lord Wellesley had been appointed Am- 
 bassador to his Catholic Majesty Ferdinand YIL, 
 with directions to reside at the seat of the Supreme 
 Junta in Spain. 
 
 On hearing that the bulk of the forces that had 
 been collected were intended for Walcheren, and 
 that only a small army was to be sent under his 
 brother to Spain, Lord Wellesley threw up his em- 
 bassy, and was with diflftculty persuaded to resume 
 it. His departure was delayed by iUness and other 
 causes, and he did not arrive at Cadiz till the 31st 
 of July, four days after the battle of Talavera. A 
 French flag was thrown before him as he landed by 
 some Spanish imitator of Sir Walter Ealeigh, and 
 his treading on it was made a topic of strong cen- 
 sure in the leading Whig organ, although one does
 
 THE MARQUESS WELLESLEY. 439 
 
 not see well how he could have done otherwise 
 without checking the anti-Napoleonic enthusiasm 
 he came to sustain. Mr. Torrens adds that before 
 quitting his cabin he took his accustomed care to 
 be befittingly arrayed : 
 
 " When all particulars were adjusted to his conception 
 of the character he was to sustain, as the incarnation of 
 imperial power appearing as a deliverer of an enthralled 
 people, he asked how his staff were dressed, and on being 
 told that both civilians and sailors wore cocked hats with 
 white feathers, he declared that his distinctive plumage 
 must be green, and beneath a waving profusion of that 
 benignant hue the countenance of the Marquess shone forth 
 on Spain." 
 
 If he had been landing in Ireland there might 
 have been some sense and meaning in the adoption 
 of green, which must have puzzled the Spaniards. 
 The story sounds apocryphal, and so does a comic 
 incident of his reception by the Junta at Seville, 
 which has been rescued from oblivion by Mr. 
 Torrens. The representative or (as the biographer 
 terms him) "illuminated copy " of Britannia, had 
 arrived in his carriage at the entrance of the Town 
 Hall, and was preparing to descend with befitting 
 dignity : his foot was on the step, when the Maid 
 of Saragossa, a strapping heroine in national 
 costume, who had been waiting her opportunity, 
 rushed forward with a cry, caught him up in her 
 arms, and carrying him with as much ease as the 
 Brobdignag nurse carried Gulliver, deposited him 
 with a hearty kiss at the foot of the grand staircase. 
 Mr. Ticknor says that, in 1818, when he saw this 
 heroine at a court festival, she was dressed as a 
 captain of dragoons and with " a character as im- 
 pudent as her uniform implied." Bja'on describes 
 her at the Siege " as exceedingly pretty, and in a 
 soft feminine style of beauty."
 
 440 THE MARQUESS WELLESLET. 
 
 i 
 
 Referring to the correspondence between the 
 brothers during Lord Wellesley's embassy, Mr. 
 Wilberforce observed to a friend : "I suppose you 
 have never seen them : but when the Duke of 
 WeUington commanded in Spain, and his brother 
 the Marquis Wellesley was sent to conduct the 
 negotiations, the papers containing the despatches 
 of the two brothers were printed by Parhament, 
 and I remember thinking that I had never seen any- 
 thing at all equal to them in talent." They place 
 in the strongest light the difficulties with which 
 the Ambassador and the commander had to con- 
 tend, owing in a great measure to the incapacity 
 and negligence of the Spanish authorities, civil and 
 mihtary. The Spanish troops were ill-disciplined, 
 badly organised, and badly commanded. Opera- f 
 
 tions undertaken in reliance on them were pretty 
 sure to end in disaster. The promised supplies to 
 the British army so utterly failed, that our troops 
 were frequently in want of the simplest necessaries. 
 " Both hosts (says Dr. Gleig) slept that night (the 
 night before the battle of Talavera) upon their 
 arms. The French, well supplied, eat and drank 
 before they lay down ; the Spaniards likewise fared 
 well; the English were starving. Throughout the 
 two previous days no rations had been issued to 
 them, except a handful of flour per man, so grossly 
 forgetful of the engagements under which they 
 had come were theii* Spanish allies." 
 
 The strongest remonstrances having failed to 
 produce the desired effect, the English commander 
 plainly stated that he had no alternative but to 
 leave the country or see his army perish by inani- 
 tion before his eyes ; and, falling back on Portugal, 
 he eventually took up his position behind the 
 famous hues of Torres Vedras. A retreat following 
 so close on a victory was a tempting subject for
 
 THE MARQUESS WELLESLET. 441 
 
 satire. The "Moniteur" asked why, when Sh* 
 Arthur Wellesley was created Viscount Wellington 
 of Talavera, Lord Chatham was not made Duke of 
 Walcheren. The recall of the army was loudly 
 demanded both in Parliament and by the press, 
 and without timely and energetic support at home, 
 the new Viscount would not have been allowed 
 time to develop the strategy which so signally 
 succeeded in the end. Fortunately and unex- 
 pectedly, a ministerial crisis placed his brother in 
 a position to give him that support. The quarrel 
 between Lord Castlereagh and Mr. Canning 
 originated in Mr. Canning's proposal to substitute 
 Lord Wellesley for Lord Castlereagh as War 
 Minister. The quarrel broke up the Cabinet ; 
 and in the following Ministry Lord Wellesley 
 became Foreign Secretary. 
 
 "By his accession," observed the "Times," 
 "the keystone of the arch is supplied, which the 
 current of public opinion, however violent or 
 adverse its direction, can, it is supposed, neither 
 injure nor undermine." The current of opinion 
 was running strongly against a continuance of the 
 Peninsular War, and there are few finer things 
 in histoT-y than the fortitude and moral courage of 
 Lord Wellington in holding his ground so firmly 
 and so long in the midst of accumulating difii- 
 culties, against every description of remonstrance 
 and reproach. The Spaniards complained loudly 
 of being deserted, the Portuguese of having the 
 war, with its sacrifices and privations, brought 
 home to their doors : our troops were regarded 
 and treated more as intruders or invaders than 
 allies. The tone of public opinion in England 
 may be collected from the Petition of the Common 
 Council of London, setting forth that after " a 
 useless display of British valour, and a frightful
 
 442 THE MARQUESS WELLESLEY. 
 
 carnage, that army, like the preceding one, was 
 compelled to seek its safety in a precipitate flight, 
 before an enemy whom we were told had been 
 conquered — abandoning many thousands of our 
 wounded countrymen into the hands of the 
 French." 
 
 The language of the Opposition leaders in Par- 
 liament was equally acrimonious, and it seems 
 clear that, without the presence of Lord Wellesley 
 in the Cabinet, the Ministry would have yielded to 
 the popular clamour and left the Peninsula to its 
 fate. As it was, a despatch from Lord Liverpool, 
 then Secretary for the Colonies (which included 
 War) contains the ominous words : " the re- 
 embarkation of the army will probaby begin about 
 September ; " and the recall was only delayed by 
 the warning voice of Lord Wellington, who told 
 them that if Napoleon was relieved from the 
 pressure of military operations in the Peninsula, 
 they must prepare to encounter an invading army 
 on their shores. He always maintained that the 
 emancipation of Europe from military despotism 
 depended upon the maintenance of the struggle in 
 which he was personally engaged ; and we have 
 now ample evidence that he was right. Lord 
 Wellesley held the same views. In January, 1810, 
 he warmly vindicated the conduct of the cam- 
 paign, and on the 10th of June he spoke thus : 
 
 "With the fate of Spain, the fate of England is now 
 inseparably blended. Should we not therefore stand by 
 her to the last ? For my j^art, my Lords, as an adviser to 
 the Crown, I shall not cease to recommend to my Sovereign 
 to continue to assist Spain to the latest moment of her 
 existence. It should not dishearten us that Spain appears 
 to be in the very crisis of her fate ; we should, on the con- 
 trary, extend a more anxious care over her at a moment 
 so critical. For in nations, and above all in Spain, how
 
 THE MARQUESS WELLESLEY. 443 
 
 often have the apparent symptoms of dissolution been the 
 presages of new life, and of renovated vigour ? Therefore 
 I would cling to Spain in her last struggle ; therefore I 
 would watch her last agonies, I would wash and heal her 
 wounds, I would receive her parting breath, I would catch 
 and cherish the last vital spark of her expiring patriotism. 
 Nor let this be deemed a mere office of pious charity, nor 
 an exaggerated representation of my feelings, nor an over- 
 charged picture of the circumstances that call them forth. 
 In the cause of Spain, the cause of honour and of interest 
 is equally involved and inseparably allied ; it is a cause in 
 favour of which the finest feelings of the heart unite with 
 the soundest dictates of the understanding." 
 
 It was not till after Massena's disastrous retreat, 
 that public opinion came round to the point at 
 which it has ever since settled, touching both 
 the conception and the conduct of the war. So 
 soon as the reaction commenced, the twha stars 
 of the Wellesleys shone with renewed lustre ; and 
 in Spain, as in India, the fame of the younger 
 amply rewarded the elder for opportune and gene- 
 rous support. 
 
 A recurrence of the King's malady led to the 
 introduction of a new Regency Bill, which was 
 read for the first time in the Lords on the 17th 
 of December, 1810. All the Prince's friends, 
 including his royal brothers, were strongly opposed 
 to the restrictions. The Cabinet were, or wished 
 to be thought, unanimous in insisting on them ; 
 and it was arranged that Lord Liverpool should 
 open their case, and that the reply in chief should 
 be left to Lord Wellesley. He was understood to 
 have made ample preparations ; and a crowded 
 House waited impatiently for the anticipated treat 
 of a fine oratorical display ; but hour after hour 
 passed away without his attempting to take part 
 in the debate ; and, to the confusion of his col- 
 leagues, the most telling attacks were finally left
 
 444 THE MARQUESS WELLESLEY. 
 
 unanswered except by a diill technical argument 
 from the Chancellor. One of the audience notes 
 in his " Journal " that he " never saw a set of men 
 look so crestfallen and beaten to the ground." 
 Canning, whose fortunes were embarked in the 
 same boat, could not restrain his vexation, and 
 exclaimed: "You entered the House the most 
 expected man in England : you leave it self-un- 
 done." These are the words placed in Canning's 
 mouth, and they doubtless express his feeling of 
 disappointment, although not with his usual felicity 
 of phrase. The failure was attributed by many 
 to a disinclination to take part against Carlton 
 House, where socially and personally Lord Welles- 
 ley was in much request. " To those," remarks 
 a well-informed correspondent of the Marquis of 
 Buckingham, '' who were most interested about 
 him, it was a species of dcfaillance more alarming 
 than even the verification of the worst suggestion 
 of his enemies. It augured un Jiomme passe: and 
 the most dangerous symptom of the whole was that t 
 
 he entirely agreed in the opinion." 
 
 The groundlessness of this opinion was speedily 
 made manifest. There was nothing very surprising 
 after all in the fact of a man of his nervous sensi- 
 bility being overcome by a temporary weakness or 
 depression. But the less favourable hypothesis of 
 change of purpose derives plausibility from his 
 subsequent conduct and his close connection with 
 the Prince ; at whose request he reluctantly con- 
 tinued in the ministry till February 1812, when 
 the restrictions expired. He then, on hearing that 
 the chief of the administration was to remain, 
 resigned and sent a message through Lord Eldon 
 to Perceval, " that his recent conduct towards 
 himself had been unmannerly, disrespectful, and 
 contrary to the tenor of his professions ; but that,
 
 THE MARQUESS A7ELLESLEY. 445 
 
 when out of office, he would cease to feel any 
 resentment towards him, from gratitude at being 
 reheved fit'om the degrading situation of serving 
 under him." Sir Greorge Lewis, who gives this 
 version of the message, suggests a cause for its 
 pettishness when he states that, " even after the 
 breach of the negotiation with the Whig leaders, 
 Lord Wellesley entertained hopes that he would 
 be preferred to Perceval." So did Canning, who 
 spoke with corresponding bitterness of their suc- 
 cessful rival; and on Perceval's death (May 11, 
 1812), concurred with his noble friend in refusing 
 to join the administration under Lord Liverpool, 
 on the ground of its hostility to the Catholic cause. 
 On May 21st, Mr. Stuart Wortley moved and 
 carried an address for the formation of a strong 
 and efficient administration; and Lord Liverpool 
 was set aside, or placed in abeyance, while a real 
 or seeming attempt was made by the Eegent to 
 carry out the wishes of the Commons. Lord 
 Wellesley was " sent for " and authorised to submit 
 the plan of a ministry. His first step was to 
 inquire through Canning whether Lord Liverpool 
 and his colleagues, or any of them, would join a 
 government formed upon the principles of an early 
 settlement of the CathoHc Question and a vigorous 
 prosecution of the Spanish war. They immediately 
 refused. On a similar communication being made 
 orally to Lords Grey and Grenville, thej^ replied by 
 a memorandum promising a warm support to the 
 first principle, and a qualified opinion of the 
 second. At this stage the Prince withdrew the 
 unlimited commission, and authorised Lord Wel- 
 lesley to form a government upon terms to be 
 submitted to the same noble Lords, who put an 
 extinguisher on his last hope of becoming Premier 
 by rejecting them.
 
 446 THE MARQUESS WP]LLESLEY. 
 
 Lord Moira then tried his hand and failed : 
 whether through the overbearing haughtiness of 
 the Whig lords, or the treachery of Sheridan, or 
 the duplicity of the Prince, or from all three 
 causes combined, is still a subject of speculation. 
 Lord Liverpool was confirmed as Premier, with 
 Lord Castlereagh as leader of the Commons, and 
 Lord Wellesley and Canning were left out in the 
 cold ; very much surprised, it was said, that any 
 government could go on without them. 
 
 Whilst the negotiations were pending (May 21, 
 1812), Wilberforce sets down : "I believe that both 
 Wellesley and Canning overrate their weight in 
 the country." ..." I hear even worldly people 
 
 take offence at (Wellesley's) character for the 
 
 head of the administration of the country." He 
 was a man of pleasure, and some of his gallantries 
 had got rumoured abroad ; but what most unfitted 
 him for the head of a Cabinet, and proved a 
 serious obstacle to his forming one, was the habit 
 of dictation he had contracted in the East. He 
 chafed at the slightest interference with his de- 
 partment, and exacted an amount of deference 
 from his colleagues to which few were willing 
 to submit. He was constantly taking important 
 steps without consulting the Premier ; and he 
 could not endure the alteration of a word in his 
 despatches, although he had no scruple in forcing 
 his own views, in his own language, on his chief. 
 "Perceval and Liverpool proposed a draft speech 
 for the Kegent at the opening of the session, of 
 which their critical colleague, as usual, disap- 
 proved. He drafted another, to which they in 
 turn demurred. They discussed it point by point 
 at Apsley House, and in the end he had his way." 
 
 " I do not believe (writes Lord Liverpool) that 
 he (Lord W.) has attended more than half the
 
 THE MARQUESS WELLESLEY. 447 
 
 Cabinet meetings which have taken place since 
 he has been in the Government." He expected 
 that, when he did come among them, the strictest 
 rules of etiquette should be observed. His in- 
 dignation may be imagined when, as he was 
 explaining some measure to the Cabinet, Lord 
 Westmoreland leant back in his chair, in true 
 American fashion, with his dirty boots resting on 
 the council table. Lord Wellesley paused and 
 said ; " When the Lord Privy Seal is in a decent 
 attitude, I will proceed with my statement." 
 
 A few weeks after the failure of his abortive 
 negotiations, he brought forward a motion in the 
 Lords for the consideration of the Catholic claims, 
 which was lost by a majority of one. That there 
 was no decay of his faculties was shown by his 
 speech, which was quite conclusive as to argu- 
 ment, and contained some striking passages, as 
 when he told Parliament to look to the conse- 
 quence of telling any great body of men "that 
 they shall have no place among us : that we have 
 laid up all their disabilities in the very temple of 
 the constitution, and made their restraints the 
 palladium of our liberties." 
 
 After bringing down the biography to this point 
 (1812), Mr. Torrens breaks off with a vague 
 promise of a continuation which, to judge from 
 his concluding sentence, will be in a less in- 
 spiriting and animated tone : 
 
 "Having given to his country an empire in the East, he 
 would fain have perfected at home the design of Union left 
 incomplete by Pitt. But his counsel was discarded. Thence- 
 forth his place in politics became of less and less import- 
 ance, and several years rolled by ere he was called upon 
 again to fill any responsible situation." 
 
 But Lord Wellesley's reputation rather grew
 
 448 THE MARQUESS WELLESLEY. 
 
 than fell away during the intervening years, and 
 he rarely took part in the proceedings of the 
 House of Lords without giving undeniable proofs 
 of his superiority. The Lords' Protest against 
 the Corn Bill, drawn up by him and Lord Gren- 
 ville, comprises all the arguments that have since 
 become commonplaces, and clearly evolves the 
 principles on which all free-trade measures have 
 subsequently been based. He was as much in 
 advance of his age in this range of subjects as in 
 toleration of modes of faith : he equally foresaw 
 the impossibility of maintaining religious dis- 
 abilities or restrictions on commerce ; and the 
 highest order of statesmanship is shown by fore- 
 sight, by anticipating the inevitable, instead of 
 resisting till the utmost amount of mischief has 
 been done and then giving way to avoid a civil 
 war or a famine. 
 
 He was Lord-Lieutenant of L'eland from De- 
 cember 1821 to March 1828, and may be fairly 
 pronounced the best since Lord Chesterfield, 
 although the attempt to arbitrate between the 
 contending factions almost inevitably made him 
 unpopular with both. His supposed leaning to 
 the Catholics, although he kept them down with 
 a firm hand, soon made him obnoxious to the 
 Orange party, and the steps he took to prevent 
 the decoration of the statue of King William on 
 the first of July (the anniversary of the battle 
 of the Boyne), and the fourth and fifth of 
 November, provoked riots which nearly cost him 
 his life. In the height of the excitement, De- 
 cember 14, 1822, he attended the Dublin Theatre 
 in state. Prior to his arrival, placards were cir- 
 culated giving clear warning that mischief was 
 meant, such as "No Popery" — "ex-Governor of 
 the Bantams shall change his Mornington-e." 
 
 I
 
 THE MARQUESS WELLESLEY. 449 
 
 He was received with groans and hisses, and on 
 his rising at '' Grod save the King," several mis- 
 siles were hnrled at the royal box from the gallery, 
 amongst others a heavy bottle which grazed his 
 head. The Attorney- General (Plunkett) prose- 
 cuted the rioters for a conspiracy, but the grand 
 jury threw out the bills, and a vote of censure 
 on the prosecution was moved in the House of 
 Commons with such chances of success that, on 
 his way down Parliament Street to meet the 
 attack, Plunkett said to a friend : " I feel hke a 
 man going to execution under an unjust sen- 
 tence." His vindication was one of the greatest 
 triumphs of his oratory. 
 
 Lord Wellesley retained the Lord-Lieutenancy 
 during three successive administrations : Lord 
 Liverpool's, Mr. Canning's, and Lord Goderich's 
 (in each of which Catholic Emancipation was an 
 open question), but resigned on his brother, the 
 Duke, becoming First Lord of the Treasury.^ 
 Their diametrically opposed views on the vital 
 question of the day were declared in the debate on 
 the Catholic claims in the House of Lords on 
 June 10, 1828, when the Duke, rising directly 
 after the Marquis, began : " My Lords, I rise 
 under extreme difficulty to address your Lordships 
 on this most important subject. I feel particular 
 concern at being under the necessity of following 
 my noble relative, and of stating that I differ in 
 opinion from him whom I do so dearly love, and 
 for whose opinions I entertain so much respect and 
 deference." 
 
 Their public disagreement recalls the scene be- 
 tween Burke and Fox, when Fox hoped that there 
 
 ^ It would seem that he had been recalled by Canning, and Lord 
 Anglesea named as his successor, but the arrangements were suspended by 
 Canning's death. 
 
 VOL. I. 2 o
 
 450 THE MARQUESS WELLESLEY. 
 
 would be no cliange in their friendship, and Burke 
 declared that it was at an end. The resulting 
 coolness between the brothers lasted many years, 
 although a cordial reconciliation took place before 
 they were separated by death. The divergence 
 was increased by Lord Wellesley's acceptance of 
 the office of Lord Steward of the Household in the 
 Eeform Ministry of 1830. He was re-appointed to 
 the Lord-Lieutenancy in September 1833, and lost 
 no time in submitting to the Cabinet a well-con- 
 sidered scheme for conciliating the Catholics. He 
 left office with his colleagues on the formation of 
 Sir Eobert Peel's Government in 1834, and it was 
 he, according to Lord Brougham, who drew up the 
 Eesolution (relating to the contingent surplus of 
 the Irish Church) which brought that Ministry to 
 its close. But from some unexplained cause he was 
 not invited to resume the Lord-Lieutenancy, and 
 his resignation within a month of the office of Lord 
 Chamberlain, which he had accepted under Lord 
 Melbourne, was brought before the Lords without 
 eliciting an explanation. 
 
 His official career ended in this (his seventy- 
 fifth) year, and his public life virtually closed at 
 the same time. He thenceforth led a life of re- 
 tirement, extraordinary in one so eminently quali- 
 fied to adorn and enjoy society. His powers of 
 conversation were remarkable, and the charm was 
 enhanced by his exquisite high breeding. There 
 is a tradition at Lansdowne House, rich in tradi- 
 tions of the kind, of a colloquial contest between 
 him and Madame de Stael, in which the same fate 
 befell Corinne as on the somewhat similar occasion 
 when (as Byron relates) she was "ironed" by 
 Sheridan. Lord Wellesley had a fine sense of 
 humour, and, with all his susceptibility to ridicule, 
 did not shrink from comic stories about himself,
 
 THE MARQUESS WELLESLEY. 451 
 
 like the anecdote of Ms French cook, who, when 
 accused of sending him a had egg for breakfast, 
 repHed : " My lord, dat not your lordship's egg — 
 dat the aide-de-camp's egg." An aide-de-camp 
 would seem to hold the same relative position in 
 the household of his chief as a curate or chaplain 
 in that of a church dignitary. Paley is reported 
 to have called out at a clerical dinner : " Shut the 
 window behind me, and open one behind the 
 curates at the lower end of the table." 
 
 A pair of young tigers, a present from some 
 Nabob or Bajah, turning out to be panthers, the 
 fact was sedulously concealed for some time fi'om 
 his Excellency. " My people," he would say, " by 
 passing off my panthers as tigers, must have meant 
 to intimate that all my geese were swans." Some 
 amusing instances of his readiness are recorded by 
 Moore : 
 
 " Crampton tokl me that he had shown my lines about 
 ' the Bishop and the Bold Dragoon ' to Lord WeUesley ; 
 and on the lines ' To whom no harlot comes amiss, save her 
 of Babylon,' Lord Wellesley said, 'Well, I make no excep- 
 tion to the general rule, for she does not come amiss to me 
 either.' 
 
 " Fazakerley tokl me after dinner (at Bowood) two or 
 three puns of Lord Wehesley's, addressed by him to Gaily 
 Knight when they were on shipboard together, and Knight 
 was looking very rueful with sickness and uncomfort : 
 ' Come, come, cheer up ; you, of all people can't expect to 
 be exempt from such annoyances ; you know what Horace 
 says : — 
 
 neque 
 
 Decedit aerata triremi et 
 
 Post equitem sedet atra cura.* 
 
 * * * * 
 
 ** The Knight of Kerry after breakfast (at Bowood) told 
 me of a curious dialogue which Lord Wellesley mentioned 
 to him as having passed between Archbishop Magee and
 
 452 THE MARQUESS WELLESLEY. 
 
 himself. Magee, in protesting against the Tithe Bill, and 
 other innovations on the Church of Ireland, said that the 
 fate of the English Church was involved in that of the Irish. 
 ' Pardon me,' says Lord "VVellcsley, ' the two Churches differ 
 materially; for instance the English Bishops wear wigs, 
 and you don't wear any. I'll 7vig you if you don't take 
 care.' The Knight seemed to think he did right in employ- 
 ing this persiflage as the best method of getting rid of 
 Magee's remark." 
 
 It was by the employment of a similar weapon 
 that Lord Carteret, similarly placed, parried the 
 reproaches of Swift, who, in reference to the re- 
 fusal to make him a trustee of the linen manu- 
 factory or a justice of the peace, broke out : " If I 
 were a worthless member of Parliament, or a 
 bishop, — if I would vote for the Court and betray 
 my country, then you would readily grant my 
 request." Lord Carteret replied : " What you say 
 is literally true, and therefore you must excuse 
 me." 
 
 When Lord Normanby, Lord Wellesley's suc- 
 cessor in the Lord Lieutenancy, in the course of a 
 quasi-royal progress, proclaimed a wholesale re- 
 lease of prisoners. Lord WeUesley remarked that 
 Lord Normanby, in his over-eagerness to rival the 
 King in "Tom Thumb," ^ had made Mercy blind 
 instead of Justice. 
 
 Lord Stratford de Eedcliffe, who, equally full of 
 years and honours and gifted with the same 
 lettered tastes, retains at a still more advanced 
 age the happy faculty of classical composition, has 
 kindly communicated to us his vivid recollection 
 of an interview with Lord Wellesley, who had 
 expressed a wish to see him : 
 
 "I went in consequence to Fulham, where Lord WeUesley 
 
 * " Open the prisons, set the wretched free, 
 And bid our treasurer disburse ten pounds 
 To pay their debts." — Tom TJiumh.
 
 THE MARQUESS WELLESLEY. 453 
 
 was then residing. I found him in his garden, and walked 
 about with him for a good hour teeming with interest, 
 derived from his character and intellectual qualities. Our 
 conversation was chiefly political, and in the whole course 
 of it, at one time figured the commanding statesman, at 
 another the accomplished orator, to say nothing of wit, 
 scholarship, and the recollection of bygone events." 
 
 The impression made on Sir Walter Scott in 
 1825 is thus described by him : 
 
 *' The Marquis's talk gave me the notion of that kind of 
 statesmanship that one might have expected from a Eoman 
 emperor accustomed to keep the whole world in his view, 
 and to divide his hours between Ministers like Maecenas and 
 wits like Horace." 
 
 The highest testimony to his- excellence as a 
 speaker is borne by Lord Brougham, who, after 
 mentioning his constant study of the ancients, 
 goes on to say : " His powers of composition were 
 great ; and he followed the true method of acquir- 
 ing the faculty of debating as well as of excelling 
 in oratory : he studied his speeches carefully, and 
 fi'equently committed his thoughts to writing." 
 
 We reviewed his poems, Latin and English, in 
 terms of high commendation on their first appear- 
 ance,^ and as a specimen of his prose writing, we 
 may point to his character of Pitt published in this 
 '' Eeview " in December 1836." 
 
 His first wife died in November 1816. His 
 second marriage toook place in October 1825, 
 during his Lord Lieutenancy, and was celebrated 
 with semi-royal state. The lady being a Catholic, 
 the ceremony was twofold, the Primate of Ireland 
 
 ^ " Quarterly Review," vol. Ixv. (for March 1840). The poems, printed 
 for private circulation, are entitled " Primitia) et Reliquife," London, 
 1840. 
 
 * " Quarterly Review," vol. Ivii. It was in the shape of a letter to a 
 friend (Mr. Croker) and written with a view to insertion.
 
 454 THE MARQUESS WELLESLEY. 
 
 officiating at one solemnization and the Catholic 
 Archbishop of Dublin at the other. She was a 
 widow, Mrs. Patterson, an American by birth, 
 daughter of Mr. Caton of Baltimore, and grand- 
 daughter of the celebrated American patriot, Carrol 
 of Carrolstown, who signed the Declaration of 
 Independence. She was a beautiful woman of 
 most fascinating address, fully capable of fixing 
 the volatile affections of an adorer and husband of 
 sixty-five, which was Lord Wellesley's age when 
 he married her. On the flyleaf of a copy of his 
 Poems, which he presented to her when qualified 
 to speak from experience, he wrote (from Dryden's 
 Fables) : 
 
 *' All of a tenour was their after life, 
 No day discolor'd with domestic strife, 
 No jealousy, but mutual truth believed, 
 Secure repose and kindness undeceived." 
 
 To return to the relations between the brothers, 
 jpar nohile fratrum. — In India and in Spain, where 
 each had his appropriate sphere, where their 
 departments were distinct, they cordially co- 
 operated. It was in domestic legislation, through- 
 out almost its entire range (Cathohc Emancipation, 
 Reform, Free Trade, etc.), that their views differed 
 widely, that they clashed. We were therefore not 
 surprised to hear that, long prior to their open 
 disagreement. Lord Wellesley told the late Lord 
 Combermere : " Arthur is a great soldier, but he 
 wdll never make a statesman." That a great 
 soldier implies a great administrator, no one knew 
 better than Lord Wellesley, who was himself a 
 great war administrator. Even if there had been 
 no kindher feeling at work, a reconcihation must 
 sooner or later have been brought about by the 
 memory of the great things they had done to-
 
 THE MARQUESS WELLESLEY. ' 455 
 
 gether, and wliicli neither could have done single- 
 handed; for the statesmanship laid the train for 
 the victories, and the victories were the consum- 
 mation of the statesmanship. But they were 
 powerfully attracted by mutual affection and 
 esteem. Lord Wellesley's despatches abound in 
 warm tributes to the eminent quahties of the 
 Duke, and there is extant a letter from the Duke, 
 saying that '' amidst all the distinctions of his life 
 he had never forgotten the honour of being Lord 
 Wellesley's brother." Their intimacy was resumed 
 during the concluding years of Lord Wellesley's 
 life ; and a picture of the Duke, painted for the 
 Marquis in early days, and given by him to the 
 late Duchess of Wellington, was by his deske 
 returned to him.^ 
 
 He wrote the Latin inscription for the statue of 
 the Duke erected by the citizens of London 
 opposite the Eoyal Exchange : 
 
 " Conservata tuis Asia atque Europa triumpliis 
 Invictum bello Te coluere Ducem, 
 Nunc umbrata geris Civili tempora Querca 
 Ut desit famae gloria nuUa Tuse." 
 
 The translation is also by him : 
 
 " Europe and Asia saved by thee proclaim 
 Invincible in war thy deathless name, 
 Now round thy brows the civic oak we twine 
 That every earthly glory may be thine." 
 
 The epitaph on Lord Wellesley's tomb in Eton 
 College Chapel was written by him : 
 
 " Fortunse rerumque vagis exercitus undis, 
 In gremium redeo serus, Etona, tuum. 
 
 ' In a private letter to the most trusted of his friends (still living), 
 Lord Wellesley writes. May 14th, 1838 : " I write one word to inform 
 you of a very extraordinary and happy event : a complete, full, and 
 cordial reconciliation between Arthur and me. He came here on Satur- 
 day, and nothing could be more satisfactory. This has nothing to do 
 with politics. 1 write to Brougham to communicate this to him."
 
 456 THE MARQUESS WELLESLEY. 
 
 Magna seqiii, et summse mirari culmina famae, 
 
 Et purum antiquaB lucis adire jubar, 
 Auspice te didici puer ; atque in limine vitae 
 
 Ingenuas verae laiidis amare vias. 
 Siqna meum vitse decursre gloria nomen 
 
 Auxerit, aut aliquis nobilitarit honor, 
 Muneris, alma, tui est. Altrix da terra sepulcrum, 
 
 Supremam lacrymam da, memoremque mei." 
 
 The translation is by the late Eaii of Derby : 
 
 " Long tost on Fortune's waves, I come to rest, 
 Eton, once more on thy maternal breast. 
 On loftiest deeds to fix the aspiring gaze, 
 To seek the purer lights of ancient days. 
 To love the simple paths of manly truth, — 
 These were thy lessons to my opening youth. 
 If on my later life some glory shine. 
 Some honours grace my name, the meed is thine ! 
 My Boyhood's nurse, my aged dust receive, 
 And one last tear of kind remembrance give ! " 
 
 Count D'Orsay was engaged on his portrait of 
 the Duke when Lord Wellesley died, September 
 26, 1842. The day after, the Duke presented 
 himself at the Count's studio in Gower House as 
 if nothing extraordinary had occurred, and took 
 his accustomed seat with the remark: "You have 
 heard of the Marquess of Wellesley's death : a very 
 agreeable man — when he had his own way." 
 Who can tell how much genuine emotion lay 
 hidden under the cold hard manner which the 
 Iron Duke habitually assumed ? 
 
 On the publication (1837) of the first series of 
 Lord Wellesley's Despatches, the Court of Pro- 
 prietors ordered a number of copies to be distributed 
 in the Presidencies, giving as their reason that 
 they " felt it a duty to diffuse widely the means of 
 consulting a work unfolding the principles upon 
 which the supremacy of Britain in India was
 
 THE MARQUESS WELLESLEY. 457 
 
 successfully manifested and enlarged, under a 
 combination of circumstances in the highest degree 
 critical and difficult." 
 
 About the same time they voted him a donation 
 of 20,000/., and the following resolution was passed 
 by the Court of Directors on the 17th March, 1841, 
 the year before his death : 
 
 " Resolved, nemine contradicente, that, referring to the 
 important services of the Most Noble the Marquis Wellesley, 
 in establishing and consolidating the British dominion in 
 India upon a basis of security which it never before pos- 
 sessed, a statue of his Lordship be placed in the general 
 court-room of this house as a public, conspicuous, and 
 
 PERMANENT MAEK of tllC ADMIRATION and GRATITUDE of tllG 
 
 East India Company." 
 
 Considering how the same Company treated 
 him on his return from India, we are forcibly re- 
 minded of Johnson's fine couplet : 
 
 " See nations slowly wise, and meanly just 
 To bm-ied merit raise the tardy bust." 
 
 Better late than never : the reparation, although 
 tardy, was complete : if, indeed, anything can 
 completely repair an injustice by which a brilliant 
 career is blighted, by which the falcon, towering 
 in its pride of place, is suddenly arrested in its 
 flight. Lord Wellesley has suffered in reputation 
 from another cause, which he would have been the 
 last to deprecate — from being constantly contrasted 
 with the hero of a Hundred Battles. It was said 
 of Comte de Mirabeau, the elder brother of the 
 renowned Yicomte, that he would have been 
 deemed a wit and a roue in any family but his 
 own. It might be said mth equal truth that the 
 elder brother would have been regarded as the 
 chief ornament and pride of any family but the
 
 458 TEE MARQUESS WELLESLEY. 
 
 Wellesleys. It is idle to talk of arms giving waj'' 
 to the gown — ceclant arma togce — the popular 
 voice invariably assigns the second place to civil 
 virtue : glory and gunpowder throw the boasted 
 triumphs of diplomacy and statesmanship into the 
 shade : 
 
 " Whilst History's muse the memorial was keeping 
 
 Of all that the dark hand of Destiny weaves, 
 Beside her the Genius of Erin stood weeping, 
 
 For hers were the annals that blotted the leaves. 
 But, oh ! how the tear in her eyelids grew bright 
 
 When, after whole pages of sorrow and shame. 
 She saw History write, with a pencil of light, 
 
 That illumed all the volume, her Wellington's name." 
 
 When the Muse of History shall have fulfilled 
 her high vocation, the Genius of Erin will be 
 gladdened, and not surprised, to see another name, 
 another yet the same, blended in the brightest 
 pages of the volume with her Wellington's — to 
 find the associate name of Wellesley, receiving 
 and reflecting lustre, indelibly enrolled amongst 
 those of the noblest, greatest, most accomplished, 
 most eloquent, most honoured of her sons. 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON : PRINTED BY WILLIAjr CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, 
 STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.
 
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