Chapter XIV: Book V: I (2)

The Archduke Francis, afterwards the emperor Francis II., the Maréchal de Lascy, the Baron de Spielman, and a numerous train of courtiers, attended the emperor. The two sovereigns, the rivals of Germany, seemed for a time to have laid aside their rivalry to occupy themselves solely with the safety of the thrones of Europe; this fraternity of the great family of monarchs prevailed over every other feeling, and they treated each other more like brothers than sovereigns, whilst the elector of Saxony, their entertainer, enlivened the conference by a succession of splendid fêtes.

In the midst of a banquet the unexpected arrival of the Count d'Artois at Dresden was announced, and the king of Prussia requested permission from the emperor for the French prince to appear. The emperor consented, but previous to admitting him to their official conferences the two monarchs had a secret interview, at which two of their most confidential agents only were present. The emperor inclined to peace, the inertness of the Germanic body weighed down his resolve, for he felt the difficulty of communicating to this vassal federation of the empire the unity and energy necessary to attack France in the full enthusiasm of her Revolution. The generals, and even the Maréchal de Lascy himself, hesitated before frontiers reputed to be impregnable, whilst the emperor was apprehensive for the Low Countries and Italy. The French maxims had passed the Rhine, and might explode in the German states at the moment when the princes and people were called upon to take arms against France, and the diet of the people might prove more powerful than the diet of the kings. Dilatory measures would have the same intimidating effect on the revolutionary genius, without presenting the same dangers to Germany; and would it not be more prudent to form a general league of all the European powers to surround France with a circle of bayonets, and summon the triumphant party to restore liberty to the king, dignity to the throne, and security to the Continent? "Should the French nation refuse," added the emperor, "_then_ we will threaten her in a manifesto, with a general invasion, and should it become necessary, we will crush her beneath the irresistible weight of the united forces of all Europe." Such were the counsels of that temporising genius of empires that awaits necessity without ever forestalling, and would fain be assured of every thing without the least risk.

XVI.

The king of Prussia, more impatient and more threatening, confessed to the emperor that he had no faith in the effect of these threats. "Prudence," said he, "is a feeble defence against audacity, and the defensive is but a timid position to assume in the face of the Revolution. We must attack it in its infancy; for to give time to the French principles, is to give them strength. To treat with the popular insurrection, is to prove to them that we fear, and are disposed to form a compact with them. We must surprise France in the very act of anarchy, and publish a manifesto to Europe when the armies have crossed the frontiers and success has given authority to our declaration."

The emperor appeared moved; he, however, insisted on the dangers to which a sudden invasion would inevitably expose Louis XVI., he showed the letters of this prince, and intimated that the Marquis de Noailles and M. de Montmorin--the one French ambassador at Vienna, the other minister for Foreign Affairs at Paris, who were both devoted to the king--held out hopes to the court of Vienna of the speedy re-establishment of order and monarchical modifications of the constitution in France; and he demanded the right of suspending his decision until the month of September, although in the mean while military preparations should be made by both powers. The scene was changed the next morning by the Count d'Artois. This young prince had received from the hand of nature all the exterior qualifications of a chevalier: he spoke to the sovereigns in the name of the thrones; to the emperor in the name of an outraged and dethroned sister. The whole emigration, with its misfortunes, its nobility, its valour, its illusions, seemed personified in him. The Marquis de Bouillé and M. de Calonne, the genius of war and the genius of intrigue, had followed him to these conferences. He obtained several audiences of the two sovereigns, he inveighed with respect and energy against the temporising system of the emperor, and violently roused the Germanic sluggishness. The emperor and the king of Prussia authorised the Baron de Spielman for Austria, the Baron de Bischofswerden for Prussia, and M. de Calonne for France, to meet the same evening, and draw up a declaration for the signature of the monarchs.

The Baron de Spielman, under the immediate dictation of the emperor, drew up the document. M. de Calonne in vain combated, in the name of the Count d'Artois, the hesitation that disconcerted the impatience of the emigrés. The next day, on their return from a visit to Dresden, the two sovereigns, the Count d'Artois, M. de Calonne, the Maréchal de Lascy, and the two negotiators, met in the emperor's apartment, where the declaration was read and discussed, every sentence weighed, and some expressions modified; and at the proposal of M. de Calonne, and the entreaties of the Count d'Artois, the emperor and the king of Prussia consented to the insertion of the last phrase, that threatened the Revolution with war.

Subjoined is the document that was the date of a war of twenty-two years' duration.

"The emperor and the king of Prussia, having listened to the wishes and representations of _Monsieur_ and _Monsieur le Comte d'Artois_, declare conjointly that they look upon the present position of the king of France as an object of common interest to all the sovereigns of Europe. They trust that this interest cannot fail to be acknowledged by all the powers whose assistance is claimed; and that, in consequence, they will not refuse to employ, conjointly with the emperor and the king of Prussia, the most efficacious means, proportioned to their forces, for enabling the king of France to strengthen with the most perfect liberty the bases of a monarchical government, equally conformable to the rights of sovereigns and the welfare of the French nation. Then, and in that case, their aforesaid majesties are resolved to act promptly and in concert with the forces requisite to attain the end proposed and agreed on. In the mean time they will issue all needful orders to their troops to hold themselves in a state of readiness."

This declaration, at once timid and threatening, was evidently too much for peace, too little for war; for such words encourage the revolution, without crushing it. They at once showed the impatience of the emigrés, the resolution of the king of Prussia, the hesitation of the powers, the temporising policy of the emperor. It was a concession to force and weakness, to peace and war; the whole state of Europe was there unveiled, for it was the declaration of the uncertainty and anarchy of its councils.

XVII.

After this imprudent and useless act, the two sovereigns separated. Leopold to go and be crowned at Prague, and the king of Prussia, returning to Berlin, began to put his army on a war footing. The emigrants, triumphing in the engagement they had entered into, increased in numbers. The courts of Europe, with the exception of England, sent in equivocal adhesions to the courts of Berlin and Vienna. The noise of the declaration of Pilnitz burst forth, and died away in Paris in the midst of the fêtes in honour of the acceptance of the constitution.

However, Leopold, after the conferences at Pilnitz, was more earnest than ever in his attempts to find excuses for peace. The Prince de Kaunitz, his minister, feared all violent shocks, which might derange the old diplomatic mechanism, whose workings he so well knew. Louis XVI. sent the Count de Fersen secretly to him, in order to disclose his real motives in accepting the constitution, and to entreat him not to provoke, by any preparation of arms, the bad feelings of the Revolution, which seemed to be quieted by its triumph.

The emigrant princes, on the contrary, filled all courts with the words uttered in favour of their cause in the declaration of Pilnitz. They wrote a letter to Louis XVI., in which they protested against the oath of the king to the constitution, forced, as they declared, from his weakness and his captivity. The king of Prussia, on receiving the circular of the French cabinet, in which the acceptance of the constitution was notified, exclaimed, "I see the peace of Europe assured!" The courts of Vienna and Berlin feigned to believe that all was concluded in France by the mutual concessions of the king and the Assembly. They made up their minds to see the throne of Louis XVI. abased, provided that the Revolution would consent to allow itself to be controlled by the throne.

Russia, Sweden, Spain, and Sardinia were not so easily appeased. Catherine II. and Gustavus III., the one from a proud feeling of her power, and the other from a generous devotion to the cause of kings, arranged together, to send 40,000 Russians and Swedes to the aid of the monarchy. This army, paid by a subsidy of 15,000,000f. of Spain, and commanded by Gustavus in person, was to land upon the coast of France, and march upon Paris, whilst the forces of the empire crossed the Rhine.

These bold plans of the two northern courts were displeasing to Leopold and the king of Prussia. They reproached Catherine with not keeping her promises, and making peace with the Turks. Could the emperor march his troops on the Rhine whilst the battles of the Russians and Ottomans continued on the Danube and threatened the remoter provinces of his empire? Catherine and Gustavus nevertheless did not abate in their open protection to the emigration party. These two sovereigns accredited ministers plenipotentiary to the French princes at Coblentz. This was declaring the forfeiture of Louis XVI., and even the forfeiture of France. It was recognising that the government of the kingdom was no longer at Paris, but at Coblentz. Moreover, they contracted a treaty of alliance, offensive and defensive, between Sweden and Russia in the common interest of the re-establishment of the monarchy.

Louis XVI. then earnestly desiring the disarming, sent to Coblentz the Baron Vioménil and the Chevalier de Coigny to command his brothers and the Prince de Condé to disarm and disperse the emigrants. They received his orders as coming from a captive, and disobeyed without even sending him a reply. Prussia and the empire showed more deference to the king's intentions. These two courts disbanded the army collected by the princes, and ordered to be punished in their states all insults offered to the tricolour cockade; but at the very moment when the emperor thus gave evidence of his desire to maintain peace, war was about to involve him in spite of himself. What human wisdom sometimes refuses to the greatest causes, it sees itself compelled to accord to the smallest. Such was Leopold's situation. He had refused war to the great interests of the monarchy, and the strong feelings of the family which asked it from him, and yet was about to grant it to the insignificant interests of certain princes of the empire, whose possessions were in Alsace and Lorraine, and whose personal rights were violated by the new French constitution. He had refused succour to his sister, and was about to accord it to his vassals. The influence of the diet, and his duties as head of the empire, led him on to steps to which his personal feelings would never have urged him. By his letter of 3d December, 1791, he announced to the cabinet of the Tuileries the formal resolution on his part "of giving aid to the princes holding lands in France, if he did not obtain their perfect restoration to all the rights which belonged to them by treaty."

XVIII.

This threatening letter, secretly communicated in Paris, (before it was officially sent,) by the French ambassador in Vienna, was received by the king with much alarm, and with joy by certain of his ministers, and the political party of the Assembly. War cuts through every thing. They hailed it as a solution to the difficulties which they felt were crushing them. When there is no longer any hope in the regular order of events, there is in what is unknown. War appeared to these adventurous spirits a necessary diversion to the universal ferment; a career to the Revolution; a means for the king again to seize on power by acquiring the support of the army. They hoped to change the fanaticism of liberty into the fanaticism of glory, and to deceive the spirit of the age by intoxicating it with conquests instead of satisfying it with institutions.

The Girondist deputies were of this party. Brissot was their inspiration. Flattered by the title of statesmen, which they already assumed from vanity, and which was used towards them with irony, they were desirous to justify their pretensions by a bold stroke, which would change the scene, and disconcert, at the same time, the king, the people, and Europe. They had studied Machiavel, and considered the disdain of the just as a proof of genius. They little heeded the blood of the people, provided that it cemented their ambition.

The Jacobin party, with the exception of Robespierre, clamoured loudly for war: his fanaticism deceived him as to his weakness. War was to these men an armed apostleship, which was about to propagate their social philosophy over the universe. The first cannon shot fired in the name of the rights of man would shake thrones to their centre. Then there was finally a third party which hoped for war, that of the constitutional _modérés_, which flattered itself that it would restore sound energy to the executive power, by the necessity of concentrating the military authority in the hands of the king at the moment when the nationality should be menaced. All extremity of war places the dictatorship in the hands of the party which makes it, and they hoped, on behalf of the king, and of themselves, for this dictatorship of necessity.

XIX.

A young, but already influential, female had lent to this latter party the _prestige_ of her youth, her genius, and her enthusiasm--it was Madame de Stäel. Necker's daughter, she had inspired politics from her birth. Her mother's _salon_ had been the _coenaculum_ of the philosophy of the 18th century. Voltaire, Rousseau, Buffon, D'Alembert, Diderot, Raynal, Bernardin de Saint Pierre, Condorcet had played with this child, and fostered her earliest ideas. Her cradle was that of the Revolution. Her father's popularity had played about her lips, and left there an inextinguishable thirst for fame. She sought it in the storms of the populace, in calumny, and death. Her genius was great, her soul pure, her heart deeply impassioned. A man in her energy, a woman in her tenderness, that the ideal of her ambition should be satisfied, it was necessary for her to associate in the same character genius, glory, and love.

Nature, education, and fortune rendered possible this triple dream of a woman, a philosopher, and a hero. Born in a republic, educated in a court, daughter of a minister, wife of an ambassador, belonging by birth to the people, to the literary world by talent, to the aristocracy by rank, the three elements of the Revolution mingled or contended in her. Her genius was like the antique chorus, in which all the great voices of the drama unite in one tumultuous concord. A deep thinker by inspiration, a tribune by eloquence, a woman in attraction, her beauty, unseen by the million, required intellect to be admired, and admiration to be felt. Hers was not the beauty of form and features, but visible inspiration and the manifestation of passionate impulse. Attitude, gesture, tone of voice, look--all obeyed her mind, and created her brilliancy. Her black eyes, flashing with fire, gave out from beneath their long lids as much tenderness as pride. Her look, so often lost in space, was followed by those who knew her, as if it were possible to find with her the inspiration she sought. That gaze, open, yet profound as her understanding, had as much serenity as penetration. We felt that the light of her genius was only the reverberation of a mine of tenderness of heart. Thus there was a secret love in all the admiration she excited; and she, in admiration, cared only for love. Love with her was but enlightened admiration.

Events rapidly ripened; ideas and things were crowded into her life: she had no infancy. At twenty-two years of age she had maturity of thought with the grace and softness of youth. She wrote like Rousseau, and spoke like Mirabeau. Capable of bold conceptions and complicated designs, she could contain in her bosom at the same time a lofty idea and a deep feeling. Like the women of old Rome who agitated the republic by the impulses of their hearts, or who exalted or depressed the empire with their love, she sought to mingle her feelings with her politics, and desired that the elevation of her genius should elevate him she loved. Her sex precluded her from that open action which public position, the tribune, or the army only accord to men in public governments; and thus she compulsorily remained unseen in the events she guided. To be the hidden destiny of some great man, to act through and by him, to grow with his greatness, be eminent in his name, was the sole ambition permitted to her--an ambition tender and devoted, which seduces a woman whilst it suffices to her disinterested genius. She could only be the mind and inspiration of some political man; she sought such a one, and in her delusion believed she had found him.

XX.

There was then in Paris a young general officer of illustrious race, excessively handsome, and with a mind full of attraction, varied in its powers and brilliant in its display. Although he bore the name of one of the most distinguished families at court, there was a cloud over his birth. Royal blood ran in his veins, and his features recalled those of Louis XV. The affection of Mesdames the aunts of Louis XVI. for this youth, educated under their eyes, attached to their persons, and who rose by their influence to the highest employments in the court and army, gave credit to many mysterious rumours.

This young man was the count Louis de Narbonne. Sprung from this origin, brought up in this court, a courtier by birth; spoiled by the hands of these females, only remarkable for his good looks, his levities, and his hasty wit; it was not to be expected that such a person was imbued with that ardent faith which casts a man headlong into the centre of revolutions, or the stoical energy which produces and controls them. He saw in the people only a sovereign, more exacting and more capricious than any others, towards whom it was necessary to display more skill to seduce, more policy to manage them. He believed himself sufficiently plastic for the task, and resolved to attempt it. Without a lofty imagination, he yet had ambition and courage, and he viewed the position of affairs as a drama, similar to the Fronde[8], in which skilful actors could enlarge their hopes in proportion to the facts, and direct the catastrophe. He had not sufficient penetration to see, that in a revolution there is but one serious actor--enthusiasm; and he had none. He stammered out the words of a revolutionary tongue--he assumed the costume, but had not the spirit of the times.

The contrast of this nature and of this part, this court favourite casting himself into the crowd to serve the nation, this aristocratic elegance, masked in patriotism of the tribune, pleased public opinion for the moment. They applauded this transformation as a difficulty overcome. The people was flattered by having great lords with it. It was a testimony of its power. It felt itself king, by seeing courtiers bowing to it, and excused their rank by reason of their complaisance.

Madame de Stäel was seduced as much by the heart as the intellect of M. de Narbonne. Her masculine and sensitive imagination invested the young soldier with all she desired to find in him. He was but a brilliant, active, high-couraged man; she pictured him a politician and a hero. She magnified him with all the endowments of her dreams, in order to bring him up to her ideal standard. She found patrons for him; surrounded him with a _prestige_; created a name for him, marked him out a course. She made him the living type of her politics. To disdain the court, gain over the people, command the army, intimidate Europe, carry away the Assembly by his eloquence, to struggle for liberty, to save the nation, and become, by his popularity alone, the arbiter between the throne and the people, to reconcile them by a constitution, at once liberal and monarchical; such was the perspective that she opened for herself and M. de Narbonne.

She but awakened his ambition, yet he believed himself capable of the destinies which she dreamed of for him. The drama of the constitution was concentrated in these two minds, and their conspiracy was for some time the entire policy of Europe.

Madame de Stäel, M. de Narbonne, and the constitutional party were for war; but theirs was to be a partial and not a desperate war which, shaking nationality to its foundations, would carry away the throne and throw France into a Republic. They contrived by their influence to renew all the personal staff of the diplomacy, exclusively devoted to the emigrants or the king. They filled foreign courts with their adherents, M. de Marbois was sent to the Diet of Ratisbon, M. Barthélemy to Switzerland, M. de Talleyrand to London, M. de Ségur to Berlin. The mission of M. de Talleyrand was to endeavour to fraternise the aristocratic principle of the English constitution with the democratic principle of the French constitution, which they believed they could effect and control by an Upper Chamber. They hoped to interest the statesmen of Great Britain in a Revolution, imitated from their own, which, after having convulsed the people, was now becoming moulded in the hands of an intelligent aristocracy. This mission would be easy, if the Revolution were in regular train for some months in Paris. French ideas were popular in London. The opposition was revolutionary. Fox and Burke, then friends, were most earnest in their desire for the liberty of the Continent[9]. We must render this justice to England, that the moral and popular principle concealed in the foundation of its constitution, has never stultified itself by combating the efforts of other nations to acquire a free government. It has everywhere accorded the liberty similar to its own.

XXI.

The mission of M. de Ségur at Berlin was more delicate. Its object was to detach the king of Prussia from his alliance with the emperor Leopold, whose coronation was not yet known, and to persuade the cabinet of Berlin into an alliance with revolutionary France. This alliance held out to Prussia with its security on the Rhine the ascendency of the new-sprung ideas in Germany: it was a Machiavelian idea, which would smile at the agitating spirit of the great Frederic, who had made of Prussia the corrosive influence (_la puissance corrosive_) of the empire.

These two words--seduce and corrupt--were all M. de Ségur's instructions. The king of Prussia had favourites and mistresses. Mirabeau had written in 1786, "There can be at Berlin no secrets for the ambassador of France, unless money and skill be wanting; the country is poor and avaricious, and there is no state secret which may not be purchased with three thousand louis." M. de Ségur, imbued with these ideas, made it his first object to buy over the two favourites. The one was daughter of Elie Enka, who was a musician in the chapel of the late king. Handsome and witty, she had at twelve years of age attracted the notice of the king, then prince royal, and he had, at that early age, as in anticipation of his amour, bestowed on her all the care and all the cost of a royal education. She had travelled in France and in England, and knew all the European languages; she had polished her natural genius by contact with the lettered men and artists of Germany. A feigned marriage with Rietz, valet de chambre of the king, was the pretext for her residence at court, and gave her the opportunity for surrounding herself with the leading men in politics and literature in the city of Berlin. Spoiled by the precocity of her fortune, yet careless as to its retention, she had allowed two rivals to dispute the king's heart. One, the young Countess d'Ingenheim, had just died in the flower of her youth; the other, the Countess d'Ashkof, had borne the king two children, and flattered herself, in vain, with having extricated him from the empire of Madame Rietz.

The Baron de Roll, in the name of the Count d'Artois, and the Viscount de Caraman, in the name of Louis XVI., had possessed themselves of all the avenues to this cabinet. The Count de Goltz, ambassador from Prussia to Paris, had informed his court of the object of M. de Ségur's mission. The report ran amongst well-informed persons that this envoy carried with him several millions (francs), destined to pay the weakness or the treason of the Berlin cabinet.

A copy of the secret instructions of M. de Ségur reached Berlin two hours before him, which revealed to the king the whole plan of seduction and venality that the agent of France was to practice on his favourites and mistresses, whose character, ambition, rivalries, weaknesses, true or feigned, the means of acting by them on the mind of the king, were all and severally noted down with the security of confidence. There was a tariff for all consciences,--a price for every treachery. The favourite aide-de-camp of the king, Rischofwerder, then very powerful, was to be assailed by irresistible offers, and in case his connivance should be revealed, a splendid establishment in France was to guarantee him against any eventuality.

These instructions fell into the very hands of those whose fidelity was thus priced, and they gave them to the king with all the innocence of individuals shamefully calumniated. The king blushed for himself at the empire over his politics thus ascribed to love and intrigue. He was indignant at the fidelity of his subjects being thus assailed: all negotiation was nipped in the bud before the arrival of the negotiator. M. de Ségur was received with coldness and all the irony of contempt. Frederic Willam affected never to mention him in his circle, and asked aloud before him, of the envoy of the elector of Mayence, news of the Prince de Condé: the envoy replied that this prince was approaching the frontiers of France with his army. "He is right," said the king, "for he is on the point of entering there." M. de Ségur, accustomed, from his long residence and his familiar footing at the court of Catherine, to take love for the intermediary of his affairs, induced, it is said, the countess d'Ashkof and prince Henry of Prussia to join the peace party. This success was but a snare for his negotiation. The king, arranging with the emperor, affected for some time to lean towards France, to complain of the exactions of emigration, and to make much of the ambassador; who, thus cajoled, sent the warmest assurances to the French cabinet as to the intentions of Prussia. But the sudden disgrace of the countess d'Ashkof and the offer of alliance with France insultingly repulsed, threw at once light and confusion into the plots of M. de Ségur: he demanded his recall. The humiliation of seeing his talents played with, the hopes of his party annihilated, the prospect of his country's misfortunes, and Europe in flames, had, it was reported, urged his sadness to despair. The report ran that he had attempted his life. This imputed suicide was but a brain fever occasioned by the anguish of a proud mind deeply wounded.

XXII.

The same party attempted, and at nearly the same time, to acquire for France a sovereign whose renown weighed as heavily as a throne in the opinion of Europe. This was the duke of Brunswick, a pupil of the great Frederic, the presumed heir of his military fame and inspiration, and proclaimed, by anticipation, by the public voice, generalissimo, in the coming war against France. To carry off from the emperor and the king of Prussia the chief of their armies, was to deprive Germany of confidence and of victory.

The name of the duke of Brunswick was a prestige which invested Germany with a feeling of terror and inviolability. Madame de Stäel and her party attempted it. This secret negotiation was concerted amongst Madame de Stäel, M. de Narbonne, M. de La Fayette, and M. de Talleyrand. M. de Custine, son of the general of that name, was chosen to convey to the duke of Brunswick the wishes of the constitutional party. The young negotiator was well prepared for his mission: witty, attractive, clever, an intense admirer of Prussian tactics and the duke of Brunswick, from whom he had had lessons in Berlin, he inspired confidence into this prince beforehand. He offered to him the rank of generalissimo of the French armies, an allowance of three millions of francs, and an establishment in France equivalent to his possessions and rank in the empire. The letter bearing these offers was signed by the minister of war and Louis XVI. himself.

M. de Custine set out from France in the month of January; on his arrival he handed his letter to the duke. Four days elapsed before an interview was accorded to him. On the fifth day, the duke admitted him to a personal and private interview. He expressed to M. de Custine with military frankness his pride and gratitude that the price attached to his merits by France must inspire in him: "But," he added, "my blood is German and my honour Prussia's; my ambition is satisfied with being the second person in this monarchy, which has adopted me. I would not exchange for an adventurous glory on the shifting stage of revolutions, the high and firm position which my birth, my duty, and some reputation already acquired have secured for me in my native land."

After this conversation, M. de Custine, finding the prince immoveable, disclosed his ultimatum, and held before his eyes the dazzling chance of the crown of France, if it fell from the brow of Louis XVI. into the hands of a conquering general. The duke appeared overwhelmed, and dismissed M. de Custine without depriving him of all hope of his accepting such an offer. But shortly afterwards, the duke, from duplicity, repentance, or prudence, replied by a formal refusal to both these propositions. He addressed his reply to Louis XVI., and not to his minister; and this unhappy king thus learnt the last word of the constitutional party, and how frail was the tenure on his brow of a crown which was already offered perspectively to the ambition of a foe!