Part 49 (2/2)
I wish better luck to the pheasants' eggs than befell Mr. Pitt's designs. Not one brought forth anything.
_Louis._ No: but he declared in the face of his Parliament, and of Europe, that he would insist on indemnity for the past and security for the future. These were his words. Now, all the money and other wealth the French armies levied in Spain, Portugal, Italy, and everywhere else, would scarcely be sufficient for this indemnity.
_Talleyrand._ England shall never receive from us a t.i.the of that amount.
_Louis._ A t.i.the of it! She may demand a quarter or a third, and leave us wondering at her moderation and forbearance.
_Talleyrand._ The matter must be arranged immediately, before she has time for calculation or reflection. A new peace maddens England to the same paroxysm as a new war maddens France. She hath sent over hither her minister ... or rather her prime minister himself is come to transact all the business ... the most ignorant and most shortsighted man to be found in any station of any public office throughout the whole of Europe. He must be treated as her arbiter: we must talk to him of restoring her, of regenerating her, of preserving her, of guiding her, which (we must protest with our hands within our frills) he alone is capable of doing. We must enlarge on his generosity (and generous he indeed is), and there is nothing he will not concede.
_Louis._ But if they do not come over in a week, we shall lose the season. I ought to be eating a pheasant-poult by the middle of July.
Oh, but you were talking to me about the other matter, and perhaps the weightier of the two; ay, certainly. If this indemnity is paid to England, what becomes of our civil list, the dignity of my family and household?
_Talleyrand._ I do a.s.sure your majesty, England shall never receive ...
did I say a t.i.the?... I say she shall never receive a fiftieth of what she expended in the war against us. It would be out of all reason, and out of all custom in her to expect it. Indeed it would place her in almost as good a condition as ourselves. Even if she were beaten she could hardly hope _that_: she never in the last three centuries has demanded it when she was victorious. Of all the sufferers by the war, we shall be the best off.
_Louis._ The English are calculators and traders.
_Talleyrand._ Wild speculators, gamblers in trade, who hazard more ventures than their books can register. It will take England some years to cast up the amount of her losses.
_Louis._ But she, in common with her allies, will insist on our ceding those provinces which my predecessor Louis XIV annexed to his kingdom.
Be quite certain that nothing short of Alsace, Lorraine, and Franc Comte, will satisfy the German princes. They must restore the German language in those provinces: for languages are the only true boundaries of nations, and there will always be dissension where there is difference of tongue. We must likewise be prepared to surrender the remainder of the Netherlands; not indeed to England, who refused them in the reign of Elizabeth: she wants only Dunkirk, and Dunkirk she will have.
_Talleyrand._ This seems reasonable: for which reason it must never be. Diplomacy, when she yields to such simple arguments as plain reason urges against her, loses her office, her efficacy, and her name.
_Louis._ I would not surrender our conquests in Germany, if I could help it.
_Talleyrand._ Nothing more easy. The Emperor Alexander may be persuaded that Germany united and entire, as she would then become, must be a dangerous rival to Russia.
_Louis._ It appears to me that Poland will be more so, with her free inst.i.tutions.
_Talleyrand._ There is only one statesman in the whole number of those a.s.sembled at Paris, who believes that her inst.i.tutions will continue free; and he would rather they did not; but he stipulates for it, to gratify and mystify the people of England.
_Louis._ I see this clearly. I have a great mind to send Blacas over to Stowe. I can trust to him to look to the crates and coops, and to see that the pheasants have enough of air and water, and that the Governor of Calais finds a commodious place for them to roost in, forbidding the drums to beat and disturb them, evening or morning. The next night, according to my calculation, they repose at Montreuil. I must look at them before they are let loose. I cannot well imagine why the public men employed by England are usually, indeed constantly so inferior in abilities to those of France, Prussia, Austria, and Russia. What say you, M. Talleyrand? I do not mean about the pheasants; I mean about the envoys.
_Talleyrand._ It can only be that I have considered the subject more frequently and attentively than suited the avocations of your majesty, that the reason comes out before me clearly and distinctly. The prime ministers, in all these countries, are independent, and uncontrolled in the choice of agents. A prime minister in France may perhaps be willing to promote the interests of his own family; and hence he may appoint from it one unworthy of the place. In regard to other families, he cares little or nothing about them, knowing that his power lies in the palace, and not in the club-room. Whereas in England he must conciliate the great families, the hereditary dependants of his faction, Whig or Tory. Hence even the highest commands have been conferred on such ignorant and worthless men as the Duke of York and the Earl of Chatham, although the minister was fully aware that the honour of his nation was tarnished, and that its safety was in jeopardy, by such appointments. Meanwhile he kept his seat however, and fed from it his tame creatures in the cub.
_Louis._ Do you apprehend any danger (talking of cubs) that my pheasants will be bruised against the wooden bars, or suffer by sea-sickness? I would not command my bishops to offer up public prayers against such contingencies: for people must never have positive evidence that the prayers of the Church can possibly be ineffectual: and we cannot pray for pheasants as we pray for fine weather, by the barometer. We must drop it. Now go on with the others, if you have done with England.
_Talleyrand._ A succession of intelligent men rules Prussia, Russia, and Austria; because these three are economical, and must get their bread by creeping, day after day, through the hedges next to them, and by filching a sheaf or two, early and late, from cottager or small farmer; that is to say, from free states and petty princes. Prussia, like a mongrel, would fly at the legs of Austria and Russia, catching them with the sack upon their shoulders, unless they untied it and tossed a morsel to her. These great powers take especial care to impose a protective duty on intellect; to let none enter the country, and none leave it, without a pa.s.sport. Their diplomatists are as clever and conciliatory as those of England are ignorant and repulsive, who, while they offer an uncounted sum of secret-service money with the left hand, give a sounding slap on the face with the right.
_Louis._ We, by adopting a contrary policy, gain more information, raise more respect, inspire more awe, and exercise more authority. The weightiest of our disburs.e.m.e.nts are smiles and flatteries, with a ribbon and a cross at the end of them.
But, between the Duke of York and the Earl of Chatham, I must confess, I find very little difference.
_Talleyrand._ Some, however. The one was only drunk all the evening and all the night; the other was only asleep all the day. The acc.u.mulated fogs of Walcheren seemed to concentrate in his brain, puffing out at intervals just sufficient to affect with typhus and blindness four thousand soldiers. A cake of powder rusted their musket-pans, which they were too weak to open and wipe. Turning round upon their scanty and mouldy straw, they beheld their bayonets piled together against the green dripping wall of the chamber, which neither bayonet nor soldier was ever to leave again.
_Louis._ We suffer by the presence of the allied armies in our capital: but we shall soon be avenged: for the English minister in another fortnight will return and remain at home.
_Talleyrand._ England was once so infatuated as to give up Malta to us, although fifty Gibraltars would be of inferior value to her.
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