Chapter XX: Part II (1)

"Austria and England have interests in common, they are
naturally allied through their foreign policy, whatever
otherwise may be the different forms of their governments and
the opposite maxims that regulate their home policy. Both
are hostile to and jealous of Russia, both desire to check
the progress of that Power; they will perhaps unite in an
extreme case, but they feel that, if Russia does not allow
herself to be overawed, she can defy that union, which is
more formidable in appearance than in reality.

"Austria has nothing to ask from England; the latter, on
her side, is of no use to Austria except to supply her with
money. Now, England, crushed under the weight of her debt,
has no money left to lend to anybody. Austria, if abandoned
to her own resources, would not, in the present state of her
finances, be able to set large armies in motion, especially
as she is obliged to watch over Italy and to stand on her
guard on the frontiers of Poland and Prussia. The present
position of the Russian troops would permit them to enter
Vienna earlier than Constantinople.

"What can the English do against Russia? Close the Baltic,
cease buying hemp and timber in the markets of the North,
destroy Admiral van Heiden's[684] fleet in the Mediterranean,
throw a few engineers and a few soldiers into Constantinople,
stock that capital with food-stuffs and munitions of war,
penetrate into the Black Sea, blockade the ports of the
Crimea, deprive the Russian troops in the field of the
assistance of their commercial and naval fleets?

"Suppose all this to be accomplished (which, to begin with,
could not be done without considerable expenditure, for
which there would be neither compensation nor guarantee),
Nicholas would still have his huge land force. An attack on
the part of Austria and England against the Cross on behalf
of the Crescent would increase the popularity in Russia of
what is already a national and religious war. Wars of this
nature are waged without money, it is they which, by force
of public opinion, hurl nations one upon the other. If the
popes begin to evangelize in St. Petersburg, as the ulemas
are mohammedanizing in Constantinople, they will find more
soldiers than they want; they would stand a greater chance of
success than their adversaries in this appeal to the passions
and beliefs of men. Invasions which descend from north to
south are much more rapid and much more irresistible than
those which climb from south to north: the propensity of the
populations inclines them to flow towards beautiful climates.

[Sidenote: Memorandum.]

"Would Prussia remain an indifferent spectatress of this
great struggle, if Austria and England declared for Turkey?
There is no reason to think so.

"There exists, no doubt, in the Cabinet of Berlin a party
which hates and fears the Cabinet of St. Petersburg; but this
party, which, moreover, is beginning to grow old, finds an
obstacle in the anti-Austrian party, and especially in the
domestic affections.

"Family ties, generally weak among sovereigns, are very
strong in the Prussian Family: King Frederic William III.
fondly loves his daughter, the present Empress of Russia,
and he likes to think that his grandson[685] will ascend
the throne of Peter the Great[686]; Princes Frederic,
William, Charles, Henry Albert are also greatly attached
to their sister Alexandra; the Hereditary Prince Royal saw
no objection recently to declaring in Rome that he was a
'Turk-eater.'

"By thus analyzing the interests, we perceive that France
is in an admirable political position: she can become the
arbitress of that great contest; she can, at her pleasure,
maintain neutrality, or declare for a side, according to
the time and circumstances. If she were ever obliged to go
to that extremity, if her counsels were not heard, if the
nobility and moderation of her conduct did not secure for her
the peace which she desires for herself and for others, then,
in the necessity in which she would find herself of taking
up arms, all her interests would incline her to the side of
Russia.

"If an alliance were formed between Austria and England
against Russia, what benefit would France derive from her
adhesion to that alliance?

"Would England lend ships to France?

"France is still, next to England, the first naval power in
Europe; she has more ships than she requires to destroy, if
necessary, the naval forces of Russia.

"Would England furnish us with subsidies?

"England has no money; France has more than she, and
the French have no need to be in the pay of the British
Parliament.

"Would England assist us with soldiers and arms?

"France is in no lack of arms, still less of soldiers.

"Would England assure us an increase of insular or
continental territory?

"Where shall we secure that increase, if we make war on
Russia on behalf of the Grand Turk? Shall we attempt descents
on the coasts of the Baltic, the Black Sea and Behring's
Straits? Could we have any other hope? Should we expect to
attach England to ourselves so that she should hasten to our
assistance if ever our internal affairs came to be embroiled?

"Heaven protect us against any such prevision and against
foreign intervention in our domestic affairs! England,
besides, has always held kings and the liberty of nations
cheap; she is always ready remorselessly to sacrifice
monarchy or republic to her own interests. Only lately she
proclaimed the independence of the Spanish Colonies at the
same time that she refused to recognise that of Greece; she
sent her fleets to support the Mexican insurgents and caused
a few paltry steamboats destined for the Hellenes to be
seized in the Thames; she admitted the legality of the rights
of Mahmud and denied that of the rights of Ferdinand; she
is devoted by turns to despotism or democracy according to
the wind which brings the ships of the City merchants to her
ports.

"Lastly, if we associated ourselves with the warlike projects
of England and Austria against Russia, where should we go
in search of our old adversary of Austerlitz? He is not
on our frontiers. Should we then send out at our cost a
hundred thousand men, fully equipped, to succour Vienna or
Constantinople? Should we have an army at Athens to protect
the Greeks against the Turks, and an army at Adrianople
to protect the Turks against the Russians? Should we fire
grape-shot on the Osmanlis in the Morea and embrace them on
the Dardanelles? Nothing that lacks common-sense in human
affairs succeeds.

[Sidenote: On Eastern affairs: Part II.]

"Let us admit, nevertheless, that, against all likelihood,
our efforts were crowned with complete success in this
unnatural Triple Alliance, let us suppose that Prussia
remained neutral during all this strife, as well as the
Netherlands, and that, free to move our forces abroad, we
were not obliged to fight within sixty leagues of Paris:
well, what advantage should we derive from our crusade for
the deliverance of the tomb of Mahomet? Knights of the
Turks, we should return from the Levant with a fur-lined
coat-of-honour; we should have the glory of having thrown
away a thousand million francs and two hundred thousand men
to calm the terrors of Austria, to satisfy the jealousies
of England, to keep up in the fairest portion of the world
the plague and barbarism attached to the Ottoman Empire.
Austria would perhaps have enlarged her States on the
side of Wallachia and Moldavia, and England would perhaps
have obtained some commercial privileges from the Porte,
privileges of little interest to us if we shared in them,
as we have neither so large a number of merchant ships as
the English, nor so many manufactured goods to spread in
the Levant. We should be completely duped by this Triple
Alliance, which might fail in its object and which, if it
achieved it, would achieve it only at our expense.

"But, if England has no direct means of being of use to us,
could she not at least act upon the Cabinet of Vienna and
engage Austrians a compensation for the sacrifices we should
make for her, to allow us to recover our old departments on
the left bank of the Rhine?

"No: Austria and England will always oppose any such
concession; Russia alone can make it to us, as we shall see
hereafter. Austria detests and fears us, even more than she
hates and dreads Russia; as a choice of evils, she would
prefer to see the latter Power expand on the side of Bulgaria
rather than France on the side of Bavaria.

"But would the independence of Europe be threatened if the
Tsars made Constantinople the capital of their Empire?

"It is necessary to explain what is understood by the
independence of Europe: do we mean to say that, all
equilibrium being shattered, Russia, after making the
conquest of Turkey in Europe, would seize Austria, subjugate
Germany and Prussia, and end by subjecting France?

"First, any empire which expands without measure loses some
of its strength; it almost always becomes divided; soon we
should see two or three Russias hostile one to the other.

"Next, does the equilibrium of Europe exist for France since
the last treaties?

"England has retained almost all the conquests which she has
made in the colonies of three quarters of the globe during
the War of the Revolution; in Europe she has gained Malta and
the Ionian Islands; even her Electorate of Hanover she has
inflated into a kingdom and enlarged by a few baronies.

"Austria has increased her possessions by a third of Poland,
some parings of Bavaria and a part of Dalmatia and Italy.
She no longer, it is true, has the Low Countries; but that
province has not devolved upon France, and it has become
a formidable auxiliary of England and Prussia as against
ourselves.

"Prussia has enlarged herself by the Duchy or Palatinate of
Posen, a fragment of Saxony and the chief circles of the
Rhine; her advance-post is on our own territory, at ten days'
march from our capital.

"Russia has recovered Finland and settled down on the banks
of the Vistula.

"And what have we gained in all these partitions? We have
been despoiled of our colonies; not even our old soil has
been respected: Landau detached from France, Hüningen
demolished leave a breach of more than fifty leagues in our
frontiers; the little State of Sardinia has not blushed to
clothe herself in a few shreds stolen from the Empire of
Napoleon and the Kingdom of Louis the Great.

"In this position, what interest have we to safeguard Austria
and England against the victories of Russia? If the latter
were to extend towards the East and alarm the Cabinet of
Vienna, should we be in any danger? Have we received so much
consideration that we should be so sensible to the anxieties
of our enemies? England and Austria have always been and will
always be France's natural adversaries; we should see them
cheerfully join forces with Russia to-morrow, if it were a
question of fighting us and plundering us.

"Let us not forget that, while we should be taking up arms
for the so-called safety of Europe, imperilled by the
supposed ambition of Nicholas, it would probably happen that
Austria, less chivalrous and more rapacious than we, would
listen to the proposals of the Cabinet of St. Petersburg; an
abrupt and sudden change of policy costs her little. With the
consent of Russia, she would seize Bosnia and Servia, leaving
to us the satisfaction of exerting ourselves for Mahmud.

"France is already in a state of semi-hostility with the
Turks; she alone has already spent many millions and
endangered twenty thousand soldiers in the cause of Greece.
England would lose only a few words by betraying the
principles of the Treaty of the 6th of July; France would
lose honour, men and money. Our expedition would no longer be
other than a real political miscarriage.

[Sidenote: Memorandum.]

"But, if we do not unite with Austria and England, will
the Emperor Nicholas then go to Constantinople? Will the
equilibrium of Europe then be shattered?

"Let us, to repeat once again, leave these feigned or
genuine fears to England and Austria. That the former should
fear to see Russia seize upon the trade of the Levant and
become a naval Power matters little to us. Is it, then, so
necessary that Great Britain should remain in possession of
the monopoly of the seas, that we should spill French blood
to preserve the sceptre of the ocean for the destroyer of
our colonies, our fleets and our commerce? Is the Legitimate
Dynasty to move armies in order to protect the House which
coalesces with the illegitimacy and which is, perhaps,
reserving for times of discord the means which it believes
itself to possess to disturb France? A fine equilibrium for
us is that of Europe, when all the Powers, as I have already
shown, have increased their own bulk and, with one accord,
diminished the weight of France! Let them return within their
old boundaries, as we have done; then we shall fly to the aid
of their independence, if that independence be threatened.
They made no scruples to join hands with Russia, in order to
dismember us and incorporate the fruit of our victories; let
them then suffer us to-day to draw closer the bonds formed
between us and that same Russia, in order to recover suitable
boundaries and restore the real balance of Europe!

"Besides, if the Emperor Nicholas were desirous and able to
go to sign a peace in Constantinople, would the destruction
of the Ottoman Empire be the strict consequence of that fact?
Peace has been signed under arms in Vienna, in Berlin, in
Paris; almost all the capitals of Europe have been taken in
these latter days: have Austria, Bavaria, Prussia, Spain
perished? Twice have the Cossacks and the Pandoors come to
camp in the court-yard of the Louvre; the Kingdom of Henry
IV. has been under military occupation during three years;
and yet we should be quite touched to see the Cossacks in
possession of the Seraglio, and we should show for the
honour of barbarism the susceptibility which we did not
display for the honour of civilization and for our own
country! Let the pride of the Porte be humbled, and then
perhaps it will be obliged to recognise some of the rights of
humanity which it outrages!

"I have now made evident whither I am tending and the
consequence which I am preparing to deduce from all the
foregoing. Here is this consequence:

"If the belligerent Powers cannot come to an arrangement
during the winter, if the rest of Europe think itself bound
in the spring to intervene in the quarrel, if different
alliances be propounded, if France be absolutely obliged to
choose between those alliances, if events force her to emerge
from her neutrality, all her interests must needs determine
her to unite by preference with Russia: a combination which
is all the safer inasmuch as it would be easy, with the offer
of certain advantages, to make Prussia enter into it.

"There is a sympathy between Russia and France; the latter
has almost civilized the former in the upper classes of
society; she has given her her language and her manners.
Placed at the two extremities of Europe, France and Russia
have no contiguous frontiers; they have no battle-field on
which they can meet, they have no commercial rivalry, and the
natural enemies of Russia, the English and Austrians, are
also the natural enemies of France. In time of peace, let the
Cabinet of the Tuileries remain allied with the Cabinet of
St. Petersburg, and nothing can stir in Europe. In time of
war, the union of the two Cabinets will dictate laws to the
world.

"I have shown sufficiently that the alliance of France with
England and Austria against Russia is a dupe's alliance,
in which we should find only loss of blood and treasure.
The Russian Alliance, on the contrary, would enable us to
obtain establishments in the Archipelago and to push back our
frontier to the banks of the Rhine. We can hold this language
to Nicholas:

"'Your enemies are making overtures to us; we prefer peace to
war, we prefer to preserve neutrality. But, however, if you
cannot adjust your differences with Turkey except by arms,
if you are determined to go to Constantinople, enter into an
equitable partition of Turkey in Europe with the Christian
Powers. Those of the Powers which are not so situated as to
be able to enlarge their territory towards the East will
receive compensation elsewhere. As for us, we wish to have
the line of the Rhine from Strasburg to Cologne. Those are
our just claims. It is to Russia's interest (your brother
Alexander has said so) that France should be strong. If you
consent to this arrangement and the other Powers refuse,
we will not suffer them to intervene in your dispute with
Turkey. If they attack you in spite of our remonstrances, we
will fight them with you, always on the conditions which we
have just expressed.'

[Sidenote: On Eastern affairs.]

"That is what we can say to Nicholas. Never will Austria,
never will England give us the Rhine boundary as the price of
our alliance with them: and yet it is there that France must,
sooner or later, place her frontiers, both for her honour and
her safety.

"A war with Austria and England has many hopes of success
and few chances of a reverse. To begin with, there are means
of paralyzing Prussia, of even persuading her to join us and
Russia; should that happen, the Netherlands could not declare
themselves hostile. In the present condition of men's minds,
forty thousand Frenchmen defending the Alps would rouse all
Italy to action.

"As for hostilities with England, if they were ever to
commence, we should have either to throw twenty-five thousand
more men into the Morea, or promptly recall our troops and
our fleet. Give up squadron formation, disperse your ships
singly over all the seas, give orders that all prizes are
to be sunk after the crews have been removed, multiply your
letters of marque in the ports of the four quarters of the
globe, and soon Great Britain, forced by the bankruptcies and
outcries of her trade, will sue for the restoration of peace.
Did we not see her, in 1814, capitulate before the Navy of
the United States, notwithstanding that this consists to-day
of only nine frigates and eleven ships?

"Considered in the two-fold respect of the general interests
of society and of our own interests, the war of Russia
against the Porte should give us no umbrage. On the principle
of the higher civilization, the human race can only gain
by the destruction of the Ottoman Empire: it is a thousand
times better for the nations that the Cross should hold
sway in Constantinople than the Crescent. All the elements
of morality and of political society are at the root of
Christianity, all the germs of social destruction are in
the religion of Mahomet. They say that the present Sultan
has taken steps towards civilization: is this because he
has tried, with the assistance of a few French renegades,
of a few English and Austrian officers, to submit his
irregular hordes to regular exercises? And since when has the
mechanical apprenticeship of arms constituted civilization?
It is an enormous mistake, it is almost a crime, to have
initiated the Turks into the science of our tactics; we must
baptize the soldiers whom we discipline, unless we wish
purposely to educate destroyers of society.

"The want of foresight is great: Austria, which applauds
herself for organizing the Ottoman Armies, would be the
first to bear the penalty of her joy; if the Turks beat the
Russians they would be all the more capable of measuring
their strength with the Imperials their neighbours. This
time, Vienna would not escape the Grand Vizier. Would the
rest of Europe, which thinks it has nothing to fear from the
Porte, be in greater safety? Passionate and short-sighted
men want Turkey to be a regular military Power, to enter
into the common right of peace and war of civilized nations,
all in order to maintain some balance or other, of which
the mere word, void of sense, dispenses those men from
having any idea: what would be the consequences were those
wishes realized? Whenever it pleased the Sultan, under any
pretext, to attack a Christian government, a well-manœuvred
Constantinopolitan fleet, augmented by the fleet of the Pasha
of Egypt and the naval contingent of the Barbary Powers,
would declare the coasts of Spain or Italy in a state of
blockade and land fifty thousand men at Carthagena or Naples.
You do not wish to plant the Cross on St. Sophia: continue to
discipline the hordes of Turks, Albanians, Negroes and Arabs,
and, in less than twenty years, perhaps, the Crescent will
gleam on the dome of St. Peter's. Will you then summon Europe
to a crusade against infidels armed with the plague, slavery
and the Koran? It will be too late.

"The general interests of society would therefore benefit by
the success of the arms of the Emperor Nicholas.

"As to France's own interests, I have proved sufficiently
that these lie in an alliance with Russia, and that they may
be singularly favoured by the very war which that Power is
to-day waging in the East."

[Sidenote: Summary.]

SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND REFLECTIONS

"To sum up:

"1. If Turkey were to consent to treat on the basis of the
treaty of the 6th of July, nothing would yet be decided,
since peace has not been made between Turkey and Russia; the
chances of the war in the Balkan Passes would at every moment
change the _data_ and the position of the plenipotentiaries
occupied with the emancipation of Greece.

"2. The probable conditions of peace between the Emperor
Nicholas and Sultan Mahmud are open to the greatest
objections.

"3. Russia can defy the union of England and Austria, a union
more formidable in appearance than in reality.

"4. It is probable that Prussia would join hands with the
Emperor Nicholas, the son-in-law of Frederic William III.,
rather than with the Emperor's enemies.

"5. France would have everything to lose and nothing to gain
by allying herself with England and Austria against Russia.

"6. The independence of Europe would not be at all threatened
by Russia's conquests in the East. It is tolerably absurd,
it is to ignore every obstacle, to imagine the Russians
hastening from the Bosphorus to lay their yoke upon Germany
and France: every empire weakens itself by extension. As
to the balance of power, this has long been shattered for
France; she has lost her colonies, she has shrunk back within
her old boundaries, while England, Prussia, Russia and
Austria have prodigiously enlarged theirs.

"7. If France were obliged to emerge from her neutrality, to
take up arms for one side or the other, the general interests
of civilization, as well as the particular interests of our
country, must make us enter by preference into the Russian
Alliance. By this means we could obtain the course of the
Rhine as our frontier, and colonies in the Archipelago,
advantages which the Cabinets of St. James and Vienna will
never grant us.

"That is the summary of this Note. I have been able to
reason only hypothetically; I do not know what England,
Austria and Russia are proposing, or have proposed, at the
moment of writing; there may be a piece of information or a
dispatch which reduces the truths here set forth to useless
generalities: that is the drawback of distances and of
conjectural politics. Nevertheless, it remains certain that
France holds a strong position and that the Government is
so placed as to be able to make the very utmost of events,
if it thoroughly realizes what it requires, if it allows no
one to intimidate it, if to firmness of language it adds
vigour in action. We have a revered King, an Heir to the
Throne who, with three hundred thousand men, would increase,
on the banks of the Rhine, the glory which he has reaped in
Spain; our Morean Expedition is making us play a part filled
with honour; our political institutions are excellent; our
finances are in a state of prosperity unequalled in Europe:
with that one can walk with one's head raised. What a fine
country is that which possesses genius, courage, men and
money!

"For the rest, I do not pretend to have said everything, to
have foreseen everything; I have not the presumption to put
forward my system as the best; I know that there is something
mysterious, something indiscernible, in human affairs. If
it be true that one can fairly well prophesy the last and
general results of a revolution, it is no less true that
one deceives one's self as to the details, that particular
events are often modified in an unexpected manner and that,
while seeing the end, one reaches it by roads whose very
existence one did not suspect. It is certain, for instance,
that the Turks will be driven from Europe; but when and how?
Will the war now waging deliver the civilized world from
that scourge? Are the obstacles to peace to which I have
pointed insurmountable? Yes, if we confine ourselves to
analogous arguments; no, if we bring into our calculations
circumstances foreign to those which have occasioned the
resort to arms.

"Scarcely anything to-day resembles what it has been; outside
religion and morality, the majority of truths have altered,
if not in their essence, at least in their relations to men
and things. D'Ossat[687] survives as an able negociator;
Grotius[688] as a publicist of genius; Pufendorf[689] as a
judicious mind; but we could not apply the rules of their
diplomacy to our times, nor go back, in political law,
to the Treaty of Westphalia[690]. Nowadays, the peoples
take a part in their affairs, conducted formerly by the
governments alone. Those peoples no longer feel things as
they used to feel them; they are no longer affected by
the same events; they no longer see objects from the same
point of view; reason has made progress with them at the
cost of imagination; facts carry the day over exaltation
and passionate determinations; a certain reason prevails on
every hand. On most of the thrones and in the majority of
the Cabinets of Europe are seated men weary of revolutions,
surfeited with war and opposed to any spirit of adventure;
those are causes of hope for peaceful arrangements. Also it
is possible that nations may have internal troubles which
would dispose them towards conciliatory measures.

[Sidenote: Conclusions.]

"The death of the Dowager Empress of Russia[691] may develop
seeds of disturbance which were not wholly stifled. This
Princess took little part in foreign politics, but she was a
link between her sons; she is supposed to have exercised a
great influence over the transactions which gave the crown to
the Emperor Nicholas[692]. Nevertheless, it must be confessed
that, if Nicholas began again to be afraid, this would be a
reason the more for him to push on his soldiers from their
native soil and to seek safety in victory.

"England, independently of her debt, which hampers her
movements, is embarrassed with affairs in Ireland. Whether
Catholic Emancipation pass through Parliament or not, it will
be an immense event. King George's health is breaking down,
that of his immediate successor is no better; if the accident
foreseen were to happen soon, there would be a new parliament
summoned, perhaps a change of ministers, and capable men are
rare in England to-day; a long regency might perhaps come.
In this precarious and critical position, it is possible
that England sincerely desires peace and that she is afraid
to throw herself into the chances of a great war, in the
midst of which she might find herself surprised by internal
catastrophes.

"Lastly, to come to ourselves, in spite of our genuine
and incontrovertible prosperity, although we could make a
glorious appearance on a field of battle, if called to it:
are we quite prepared to figure on one? Are our fortresses in
a state of repair? Have we the stores necessary for a large
army? Is that army even on a complete peace footing? If we
were suddenly aroused by a declaration of war from England,
Prussia and the Netherlands, could we make an effective
opposition against a third invasion? The Napoleonic wars have
divulged a fatal secret: that it is possible to reach Paris
in a few days after a successful engagement; that Paris does
not defend itself; that this same Paris is much too near the
frontier. The capital of France will not be safe until we
possess the left bank of the Rhine. We may therefore require
some time to prepare ourselves.

"Add to all this that the vices and virtues of the
sovereigns, their moral strength and weakness, their
character, their passions, their very habits are causes
of acts and of facts which defy calculation and which
enter into no political formula: the most petty influence
sometimes decides the greatest event in a sense opposed to
the likelihood of things; a slave can cause a peace to be
signed in Constantinople which all Europe, coalesced or on
its knees, would not obtain.

"If, then, one of those reasons, placed outside the limits
of human foresight, should, in the course of this winter,
produce demands for negociations, ought they to be rejected,
if they did not agree with the principles of this Note? No,
doubtless: to gain time is a great thing, when one is not
ready. One can know what would be best and be content with
what is least bad; political truths, above all, are relative;
the absolute, in matters of State, has grave disadvantages.
It would be a good thing for the human race that the Turks
should be thrown into the Bosphorus; but we are not charged
with the expedition, and the hour of Mohammedanism has
perhaps not struck: hatred must be enlightened in order
not to commit follies. Nothing, therefore, should prevent
France from entering into negociations, while taking care to
reconcile them as far as possible with the spirit in which
this Note is drawn up. It is for the men at the helm of
empires to steer them according to the winds and avoid the
foul places.

"Certainly, if the powerful Sovereign of the North consented
to reduce the terms of peace to the fulfilment of the
Treaty of Akerman and the emancipation of Greece, it would
be possible to make the Porte listen to reason; but what
likelihood is there that Russia will confine herself to
terms which she might have obtained without firing a gun?
How could she abandon claims so loudly and so publicly
expressed? One means alone, if there be one, would present
itself: to propose a general congress at which the Emperor
Nicholas would yield, or appear to yield, to the wishes of
Christian Europe. A means of success with men is to save
their self-esteem, to supply them with a reason to withdraw
their word and issue from a bad plight with honour.

[Sidenote: And reflections.]

"The greatest obstacle to this plan of a congress would
come from the unexpected success of the Ottoman arms during
the winter. If, owing to the rigour of the season, the
want of provisions, the insufficiency of the troops, or
any other cause, the Russians were obliged to abandon the
Siege of Silistria, if Varna, which, however, is hardly
probable, were to fall again into the hands of the Turks,
the Emperor Nicholas would find himself in a position which
would no longer permit him to listen to any proposal, under
the penalty of descending to the lowest rank of monarchs:
then the war would continue and we should come back to the
eventualities inferred in this Note. If Russia lost her rank
as a military power, if Turkey replaced her in this quality,
Europe would only have changed one peril for another. Now,
the danger which would come upon us through the scimitar
of Mahmud would be of a much more formidable nature than
that with which we should be threatened by the sword of the
Emperor Nicholas. If fortune, by chance, seat a remarkable
prince upon the Throne of the Sultans, he cannot live long
enough to change the laws and manners, even if he had the
intention to do so. Mahmud will die: to whom will he leave
the Empire, with its disciplined, fanatical soldiers, with
its ulemas holding in their hands, thanks to the initiation
of modern tactics, a new means of conquest for the Koran?

"While Austria, at last terrified by those false
calculations, would be obliged to guard herself on
frontiers where the janissaries gave her nothing to fear,
a new military insurrection, a possible result of the
humiliation of the Emperor Nicholas, would perhaps break
out in St. Petersburg, spread from place to place, and set
fire to the north of Germany. That is what the men do not
perceive who, in politics, confine themselves to vulgar
terrors and commonplaces. Petty dispatches, petty intrigues
are the barriers which Austria designs to oppose to an
all--threatening movement. If France and England adopted a
course worthy of themselves, if they notified the Porte that,
in case the Sultan should close his ears to all proposals of
peace, he would find them on the battle-field in the spring,
that resolution would soon have put an end to the anxiety of
Europe."

The existence of this Memorandum, having transpired in the diplomatic world, attracted to me a certain consideration which I did not decline, but which I did not either aspire to. I do not too clearly see what there was to surprise the "practical" men. My Spanish War was a very "practical" thing. The incessant work of the general revolution operating in the old society, while bringing about among ourselves the fall of the Legitimacy, has upset calculations subordinate to the permanence of facts as they existed in 1828.

Do you wish to convince yourselves of the enormous difference of merit and glory between a great writer and a great politician? My works as a diplomatist have been hallowed by what is recognised as the supreme ability, _success._ And, still, whosoever may at any time read this Memorandum will no doubt skip it close-legged, and I should do as much in the reader's place[693]. Well, suppose that, instead of this little diplomatic master-piece, we were to find in this writing some episode after the manner of Homer or Virgil, if Heaven had granted me their genius: do you think we should be tempted to skip the loves of Dido at Carthage or the tears of Priam in Achilles' tent?

TO MADAME RÉCAMIER

"ROME, _Wednesday_, 10 _December_ 1828.

"I have been to the Tiberine Academy, of which I have the
honour to be a member. I have heard very witty speeches and
very fine verses. What an amount of wasted intelligence!
To-night I have my great _ricevimento_; I am terrified of it
as I write to you."

[Sidenote: A reception at the Embassy.]

"11 _December._

"The great _ricevimento_ passed off admirably. Madame de
Chateaubriand is delighted, because we had all the cardinals
on the face of the earth. All Europe in Rome was there with
Rome. Since I am condemned for some days to this business, I
prefer to do it as well as another ambassador. The enemies
dislike any kind of success, even the most miserable, and it
is punishing them to succeed in a field where they believe
themselves unequalled. Next Saturday, I transform myself into
a canon of St. John Lateran, and on Sunday I give a dinner
to my colleagues. An assembly more to my taste is that which
takes place this evening: I dine at Guérin's with all the
artists and we shall settle _your_ monument to Poussin. A
young pupil full of talent, M. Desprez[694], will make the
bas-relief, taken from a picture by the great painter, and
M. Lemoyne[695] will make the bust. We must have only French
hands here.

"To complete my History of Rome, Madame de Castries has
arrived. She again is one of those little girls who have sat
on my knee, like Césarine (Madame de Barante)[696]. The poor
woman is very much changed; her eyes filled with tears when I
reminded her of her childhood at Lormois. It seems to me that
the new arrival is no longer under the spell of enchantment.
What an isolation! And for whom? I tell you, the best thing
for me to do is to go to see you again as soon as possible.
If my _Moses_[697] comes down safely from the mountain, I
will borrow one of his rays, to reappear before your eyes
quite brilliant and youthful."

"_Saturday_, 13.

"My dinner at the Academy went off admirably. The young men
were pleased: it was the first time an ambassador had dined
'with them.' I announced the Poussin Monument to them; it was
as though I were already honouring their ashes."

_Thursday_, 18 _December_ 1828.

"Instead of wasting my time and yours in telling you the
doings of my life, I prefer to send them to you all written
down in the Roman newspaper. Here are another twelve months
that have fallen on my head. When shall I have rest? When
shall I cease to waste on the high-roads the days that were
given me to make a better use of? I have spent with my eyes
shut while I was rich; I thought the treasure inexhaustible.
Now, when I see how it has diminished and how little time is
left to me to lay at your feet, I feel a pain at my heart.
But is there not a long existence after that on earth? A
poor, humble Christian, I tremble before Michael Angelo's
_Last Judgment_; I know not where I shall go, but, wherever
you are not, I shall be very unhappy. I have a hundred times
acquainted you with my plans and my future. Ruins, health,
the loss of all illusion, all say to me, 'Go away, retire,
have done.' I find nothing at the end of my day's journey
but you. You wished me to mark my stay in Rome, it is done:
Poussin's tomb will remain. It will bear this inscription:

F. A. DE CH. TO NICOLAS POUSSIN,

FOR THE GLORY OF ART AND THE HONOUR OF FRANCE[698].

"What more have I to do here now? Nothing, especially after
subscribing your name for the sum of one hundred ducats to
the monument of the man whom you say you love best 'after
myself:' Tasso."

"ROME, _Saturday_, 3 _January_ 1829.

"I am recommencing my good wishes for the New Year: may
Heaven grant you health and a long life! Do not forget me; I
have hopes, for, indeed, you remember M. de Montmorency and
Madame de Staël: your memory is as good as your heart. I was
saying yesterday to Madame Salvage[699] that I knew nothing
in the world so beautiful as yourself or better.

[Sidenote: An hour with Leo XII.]

"I spent an hour yesterday with the Pope. We spoke of
everything, including the loftiest and gravest topics. He is
a very distinguished and enlightened man and a Prince full
of dignity. The adventures of my political life needed only
that I should be in relations with a sovereign pontiff; that
completes my career.

"Would you like to know exactly what I do? I rise at
half-past five, I breakfast at seven o'clock; at eight
o'clock, I go back to my study, I write to you, or do some
business, when there is any to do (the detail-work in
connection with the French establishments and the French poor
is pretty considerable); at mid-day, I go to wander for two
or three hours among the ruins, or to St. Peter's, or to the
Vatican. Sometimes I pay a necessary visit before or after my
walk; at five o'clock, I come home; I dress for the evening;
I dine at six o'clock; at half-past seven, I go to a party
with Madame de Chateaubriand, or I receive a few people at
home. At eleven, I go to bed, or else I go back once more to
the _campagna_, in spite of the robbers and the _malaria._
What do I do there? Nothing: I listen to the silence and
watch my shadow passing from portico to portico along the
moonlit aqueducts.

"The Romans are so accustomed to my 'methodical' life that
they reckon the hours by me. They must be quick about it; I
shall soon have been round the clock."

"ROME, _Thursday_, 8 _January_ 1828.

"I am very unhappy; the finest weather in the world has
changed into rain, so that I am no longer able to take my
walks. And yet that is the only pleasant moment of my day.
I used to go thinking of you to these deserted _campagne_;
they linked the past and the future in my sentiments, for
formerly I used to take the same walks. Once or twice a week,
I go to the place where the English girl was drowned: who
now remembers that poor young woman, Miss Bathurst[700]? Her
fellow-countrymen and women gallop along the river-side
without thinking of her. The Tiber, which has seen many other
things, does not trouble about her at all. Besides, its
waters have been renewed: they are as pale and still as when
they passed over that creature full of hope, beauty and life.

"I have fallen into a very lofty strain without knowing it.
Forgive a poor hare imprisoned and steeped in his form. I
must tell you a little story of my last 'Tuesday.' There was
an immense crowd at the Embassy; I was standing with my back
against a marble table, bowing to the people arriving and
leaving. An Englishwoman, of whom I knew neither the name nor
the appearance, came up to me, looked me straight in the face
and said, with the famous accent:

"'Monsieur de Chateaubriand, you are very unhappy!'

"Astonished at this apostrophe and at this manner of entering
into conversation, I asked her what she meant. She replied:

"'I mean to say that I pity you.'

"So saying, she linked her arm into that of another
Englishwoman, was lost in the crowd, and I did not see her
again during the rest of the evening. That eccentric stranger
was neither young nor pretty: I feel grateful to her,
nevertheless, for her mysterious words.

"Your newspapers continue to say the same things about me. I
don't know what has possessed them. I ought to believe myself
as forgotten as I wish to be.

"I am writing to M. Thierry by this post. He is at Hyères and
very ill. Not a word of reply from M. de La Bouillerie[701]."

TO M. THIERRY[702]

"ROME, 8 _January_ 1829.

"I was much touched, monsieur, to receive the new edition of
your Letters, with a line which proves that you have thought
of me. If that line had been in your own hand, I should have
hoped for the sake of my country that your eyes would reopen
to the studies which your talent turns to such wonderful
account. I am greedily reading, or rather re-reading, this
too short work. I am making dog's ears to every page, in
order the better to mark the passages upon which I wish to
rely. I shall quote you very frequently, monsieur, in the
work which I have been so many years preparing, on the two
first dynasties. I shall shelter my ideas and my researches
behind your authority; I shall often adopt your reforms in
nomenclature; lastly, I shall have the good fortune to be
almost invariably of your opinion, while departing, much
despite of myself, no doubt, from the system put forth by
M. Guizot; but I cannot, in common with that illustrious
writer, overthrow the most authentic monuments, turn all the
Franks into 'nobles' and 'free-men,' and all the Roman-Gauls
into 'slaves of the Franks.' The Salic Law and the Ripuarian
Law have a multitude of articles based on the difference of
condition among the Franks:

"'_St quis ingenuus ingenuum ripuarium extra solum
vendiderit, etc., etc._'

[Sidenote: Letter to Augustin Thierry.]

"You know, monsieur, how eagerly I wished for you in Rome.
We should have sat down on some ruins: there you would have
taught me history; I, an old disciple, would have listened
to my young master with the sole regret that I no longer had
enough years before me to profit by his lessons:

Tel est le sort de l'homme: il s'instruit avec l'âge.
Mais que sert être sage,
Quand le terme est si près[703]?

"Those lines are from an unpublished ode, written by a man
who is no more, by my good and old friend, Fontanes. Thus,
monsieur, does everything remind me, among the remains of
Rome, of all that I have lost, of the short time that still
remains to me and of the brevity of those hopes which seemed
so long to me in former days: _spem longam._

"Believe, monsieur, that no one admires you more, or is more
devoted to you than your servant."

DISPATCH TO M. LE COMTE DE LA FERRONAYS

"ROME, 12 _January_ 1829.

"MONSIEUR LE COMTE,

"I saw the Pope on the 2nd of this month; he was good enough
to keep me with him in private audience for an hour and a
half. I must report to you the conversation which I had with
His Holiness.

"We first spoke of France. The Pope began with the most
sincere praise of the King.

"'At no time,' he said, 'has the Royal Family of France
displayed so complete a harmony of good qualities and
virtues. Now calm has been restored among the clergy; the
bishops have made their submission.'

"'That submission,' I replied, 'is, in part, due to the
sagacity and moderation of Your Holiness.'

"'I advised what seemed reasonable to me to be done,'
answered the Pope. 'There were no spiritual matters involved
in the ordinances[704]; the bishops would have done better to
leave their first letter unwritten; but, after saying, "_Non
possutnus_," it was difficult for them to withdraw. They
tried to display as little contradiction as possible between
their actions and their language at the moment of their
adhesion: we must forgive them for it. They are pious men,
firmly attached to the King and the Monarchy; they have their
weaknesses in common with all men.'

"All this, monsieur le comte, was said in very clear and
excellent French.

"After thanking the Holy Father for the confidence which he
showed me, I spoke to him in terms of consideration of the
Cardinal Secretary of State:

"'I chose him,' he said, 'because he has travelled, because
he knows the general affairs of Europe and because he seemed
to me to possess the sort of capacity which his post demands.
He has written, with respect to your two ordinances, only
what I thought and what I recommended him to write.'

"'Might I venture to give Your Holiness,' I resumed, 'my
opinion of the religious situation in France?'

"'You will be doing me a great pleasure,' replied the Pope.

"I suppress a few compliments which His Holiness was good
enough to address to me.

"'I think then, Most Holy Father, that the mischief arose
in the first place from a mistake of the clergy: instead of
supporting the new institutions, or at least keeping silence
respecting those institutions, they allowed words of blame,
to say no more, to escape in their charges and sermons.
Irreligious persons, who were at a loss with what to reproach
saintly ministers, seized upon those words and made a weapon
of them; they cried that Catholicism was incompatible with
the establishment of public liberty, that it was war to the
death between the Charter and the priests. By holding the
opposite conduct, our ecclesiastics would have obtained all
they wanted from the nation. There is a great ground-work of
religion in France and a visible inclination to forget our
old misfortunes at the foot of the altars; but also there is
a real attachment to the institutions introduced by the sons
of St. Louis. It would be impossible to calculate the measure
of power to which the clergy might have attained, if they had
shown themselves at the same time friends to the King and
the Charter. I have never ceased to preach this policy in my
writings and in my speeches; but the passions of the moment
refused me a hearing and took me for an enemy.'

"The Pope had listened to me with the greatest attention.

"'I enter into your ideas,' he said, after a moment's
pause. 'Jesus Christ made no pronouncement as to the
form of governments. "Render to Cæsar the things that
are Cæsar's[705]" means only, "Obey the established
authorities." The Catholic religion has prospered in the
midst of republics as in the bosom of monarchies; it has made
immense progress in the United States; it reigns alone in
Spanish America.'

"These words are very remarkable, monsieur le comte, at the
very moment when the Court of Rome is strongly inclining to
establish the bishops nominated by Bolivar[706].

"The Pope resumed:

"'You see how great is the influx of Protestant strangers
to Rome: their presence does good to the country; but it is
also good in another respect: the English come here with
strange notions regarding the Pope and the Papacy, the
fanaticism of the clergy, the slavery of the people in this
country; they have not stayed here two months before they
are quite changed. They see that I am only a bishop like any
other bishop, that the Roman clergy are neither ignorant nor
persecuting, and that my subjects are not beasts of burden!'

"Encouraged by this sort of effusion of the heart, and
seeking to widen the scope of the conversation, I said to the
Sovereign Pontiff:

"'Does not Your Holiness think that the moment is
favourable for the recomposition of Catholic unity, for
the reconciliation of the dissenting sects, by some slight
concessions of discipline? The prejudices against the Court
of Rome are vanishing in every quarter and, in a century
which was still ardent, the work of reunion had already been
attempted by Leibnitz[707] and Bossuet.'

"'This is a great matter,' said the Pope; 'but I must await
the moment fixed by Providence. I agree that the prejudices
are vanishing; the division of the sects in Germany has
brought about the lassitude of those sects. In Saxony, where
I resided for three years, I was the first to establish a
foundling hospital and to obtain that this hospital should
be served by Catholics. A general outcry arose against me at
the time among the Protestants; to-day those same Protestants
are the first to praise and endow the institution. The number
of Catholics is increasing in Great Britain; it is true that
they include many foreigners.'

"The Pope pausing for a moment, I took occasion to introduce
the question of the Irish Catholics:

"'If the emancipation takes place,' I said, 'the Catholic
religion will increase still more in Great Britain.'

[Sidenote: Pope Leo XII. on Ireland.]

"'That is true on one side,' replied His Holiness, 'but
on the other there are disadvantages. The Irish Catholics
are very ardent and very incautious. Has not O'Connell, in
other respects a man of merit, gone so far as to say that
a concordat had been proposed between the Holy See and the
British Government? There is not a word of truth in this
assertion; I cannot contradict it publicly; and it has given
me great pain. And so, for the union of the dissenters, it
is necessary that things should be ripe and that God Himself
should complete His work. The popes can only wait.'

"This was not my opinion, monsieur le comte; but my business
was to inform the King of the Holy Father's opinion on so
serious a subject, not to combat it.

"'What will your newspapers say?' asked the Pope, with a sort
of gaiety. 'They talk a great deal! Those of the Netherlands
still more; but I am told that, in your country, nobody
thinks of their articles an hour after they have read them.'

"'That is absolutely true, Most Holy Father: you see how
the _Gazette de France_ deals with me,'--for I know that
His Holiness reads all our newspapers, not excepting the
_Courrier_--'and still the Sovereign Pontiff treats me with
extreme kindness; I have reason to believe, therefore, that
the _Gazette_ does not make a great impression on him.'--The
Pope laughed and shook his head.--'Well, Most Holy Father,
there are others like Your Holiness; when the paper tells
the truth, the good it says remains; if it lies, it is as
though it had said nothing at all. The Pope must expect some
speeches during this session: the Extreme Right will maintain
that M. le Cardinal Bernetti is not a priest and that his
letters on the ordinances are not articles of faith; the
Extreme Left will declare that we need not have taken our
orders from Rome. The majority will commend the deference of
the Privy Council and will loudly praise the spirit of peace
and wisdom of Your Holiness.'