Louis XVIII (Audouin's engraving from a drawing by Gros, 1815).
But the peculiar frankness of this predatory hero of Balzac was by no means characteristic of everyone. And even those bourgeois politicians who tried their best to imitate Talleyrand, as an unattainable model, never ceased to vilify him for the eyes, watching how this maestro of deceit and the most cynical comedian brilliantly plays on the world stage a completely new role for him. Of course, the most angry at his serene impudence were his direct opponents, diplomats of the feudal-absolutist powers, to fool whom he set himself a primary task. These diplomats saw that in Vienna he deftly snatched their own weapons from them, before they came to their senses, and now he is beating them with this weapon, demanding in the name of the "principle of legitimism" and in the name of respect for the "legitimate" dynasty that had returned to France, that not only the French territory remained inviolable, but so that Central Europe would return completely to its pre-revolutionary state and so that the “legitimate” Saxon king would remain with all his old dominions, which Prussia claimed.
Talleyrand's opponents were most outraged that he, who at one time sold the legitimate monarchy so quickly, served the revolution, served Napoleon, shot the Duke of Enghien only for his "legitimate" origin, destroyed and trampled under Napoleon © with his seven diplomatic forms and speeches every semblance of international rights, any notion of "legitimate" or other rights, - now, with a serene air, with the clearest forehead, he declared (for example, to the Russian delegate at the Vienna Congress, Karl Vasilyevich Nesselrode): "You are talking to me about a deal, I cannot make deals ... I am happy that I cannot be as free in my actions as you are. You are guided by your interests, your will: as far as I am concerned, I am obliged to follow the principles, and the principles are not part of the deal ”(les principes ne transigent pas). His opponents couldn’t believe their ears, hearing that such harsh speeches and impartial morals were being read to them by the very same Prince Talleyrand, who - as the already mentioned newspaper “Le Nain jaune” wrote about him about the same time, had been selling all those people all his life. who bought it. Neither Nesselrode, nor the Prussian delegate Humboldt, nor Alexander knew that even in those very days of the Congress of Vienna, when Talleyrand gave them harsh lessons in moral behavior, adherence to principles and religiously unswerving service to legitimacy and legality, he received a bribe from the Saxon king five million gold francs, one million from the Duke of Baden; they also did not know that later they would all read in Chateaubriand's memoirs, that Talleyrand received from the challenger Ferdinand IV six million (according to other testimony, three million seven hundred thousand) and for the convenience of transferring money was even so kind and helpful that he sent his personal secretary Perret to Ferdinand.
But here, too, he acted in the matter of taking bribes in exactly the same way as under Napoleon. For bribes, he did not do things that would run counter to the interests of France or, more broadly, to the main diplomatic goals to which he was striving. But along the way, he received money from those who were personally interested in ensuring that these goals were as soon as possible and as fully as possible achieved by Talleyrand. So, France, for example, was directly interested in the fact that Prussia did not seize the possessions of the Saxon king, and Talleyrand defended Saxony. But since the Saxon king was still much more interested in this than France, this king, in order to excite the greatest activity in Talleyrand, gave him, on his part, five million. Talleyrand took them. And, of course, he took it with such a restrained and graceful grandeur always characteristic of him, with which once, in 1807, he accepted a bribe from the same Saxon king for persuading Napoleon not to take the Sistine Madonna and others from the Dresden gallery, as unfortunately , which attracted the emperor of the picture.
The return of Napoleon from the island of Elba and the rebuilding of the empire took Talleyrand by surprise. Recently (in May 1933) Ferdinand Bach's fantasy book Le secret de Talleyrand was published in Paris. This "secret" revealed by Buck alone is that Talleyrand ... himself arranged for Napoleon to escape from Elba. I mark this amateurish fantasizing book here only as a curiosity to prove that distant offspring continue to consider Talleyrand capable of the most amazingly cunning plan and dexterous and strong enough to carry out any such project. Needless to say, there is not even a shadow of scientific argumentation in this book.
Wellington (lithograph by Charles Bénier).
Having restored the empire in March 1815, Napoleon informed Talleyrand that he would take him back into service. But Talleyrand remained in Vienna; he did not believe either in the merciful disposition of the emperor (who immediately ordered after his widow's accession to sequester all the property of the prince), or in the strength of the new Napoleonic reign. The Vienna Congress is closed. Waterloo burst out - and the Bourbons, and with them Talleyrand, returned to France again. Circumstances developed in such a way that it was not yet possible for Louis XVIII to get rid of Talleyrand, whom he did not love and feared. Not only that: Fouche, Duke of Otranth, about whom they said that if there were no Talleyrand in the world, he would have been the most deceitful and vicious person of all mankind, this very Fouche, with a whole series of dexterous maneuvers, achieved that he, at least for the first time time, but still had to be invited to a new cabinet, although Fouche was among those members of the Convention who, in 1793, voted for the execution of Louis XVI.
These two people, Talleyrand and Foucher, both former clergymen, both embracing the revolution in order to make their own careers, both ministers of the Directory, both of Napoleon's ministers, both receiving the ducal title from Napoleon, both earning millions of dollars under Napoleon, both betraying Napoleon - and now they also entered the office of the "most Christian" and "legitimate" monarch, the brother of the executed Louis. Fouche and Talleyrand already got to know each other well, and that is why they strove above all to work with each other. With a very large similarity of both in the sense of deep contempt for anything other than personal interests, a complete lack of adherence to principles and any restraining principles in the implementation of their plans, they differed in many respects from one another. Fouche was not very timid, and before 9 Thermidor, he boldly put his head on the line, organizing an attack on Robespierre and overthrowing him at the Convention. For Talleyrand, such behavior would be completely unthinkable. In the era of terror, Fouche acted in Lyon in a way that Talleyrand would never have dared to act, who emigrated precisely because he believed that it was very dangerous to remain in the camp of "neutrals" in the present, and to be an active fighter against counter-revolution would become dangerous in the future. Foucher had a good head, after Talleyrand - the best that Napoleon had. The emperor knew this, showered them both with favors, but then put disgrace on them. That is why he often remembered them together. For example, after the abdication of the throne, he expressed regret that he had not had time to hang Talleyrand and Fouche. "I leave this matter to the Bourbons," - so, according to the legend, added the emperor.
However, the Bourbons, willy-nilly, immediately after Waterloo and after their second return to the throne in the summer of 1815, not only refrain from hanging both dukes, both Benevent and Otrant, but also call them to rule France. Poet and ideologist of the noble-clerical reaction at that moment, Chateaubriand could not hide his rage at the sight of these two leaders of the revolution and the empire, one of whom was the blood of Louis XVI and many others executed in Lyon, and the other was the blood of the Duke of Enghien. Chateaubriand was at court when the lame Talleyrand, arm in arm with Fouche, walked into the king's study: “Suddenly the door opens; Vice, based on Crime, enters in silence - Monsieur Talleyrand, supported by Monsieur Fouche; a hellish vision slowly passes before me, enters the king's office and disappears there. "
This fervently preached idea that an oath-breaker can "spit" in the face of "humanity" if the end result of his betrayals is of real benefit brings political capital; this cynical conviction of the primacy of "intellect over morality" in politics is unusually characteristic of the era of the turning point, which transferred power to the hands of the bourgeoisie. And most of all, it is the solemn, nationwide proclamation of this principle and the undisguised admiration for the person in whom this ideal was embodied in the most complete way, that is, Prince Talleyrand-Perigord, is characteristic.
Louis XVIII (Audouin's engraving from a drawing by Gros, 1815).
But the peculiar frankness of this predatory hero of Balzac was by no means characteristic of everyone. And even those bourgeois politicians who tried their best to imitate Talleyrand, as an unattainable model, never ceased to vilify him for the eyes, watching how this maestro of deceit and the most cynical comedian brilliantly plays on the world stage a completely new role for him. Of course, the most angry at his serene impudence were his direct opponents, diplomats of the feudal-absolutist powers, to fool whom he set himself a primary task. These diplomats saw that in Vienna he deftly snatched their own weapons from them, before they came to their senses, and now he is beating them with this weapon, demanding in the name of the "principle of legitimism" and in the name of respect for the "legitimate" dynasty that had returned to France, that not only the French territory remained inviolable, but so that Central Europe would return completely to its pre-revolutionary state and so that the “legitimate” Saxon king would remain with all his old dominions, which Prussia claimed.
Talleyrand's opponents were most of all outraged that he, who at one time sold so quickly a legitimate monarchy, served the revolution, served Napoleon, shot the Duke of Enghien only for his "legitimate" origin, destroyed and trampled under Napoleon © his seven diplomatic forms and speeches every semblance of international rights, any notion of "legitimate" or other rights, - now, with a serene air, with the clearest forehead, he declared (for example, to the Russian delegate at the Vienna Congress, Karl Vasilyevich Nesselrode): "You are talking to me about a deal, I cannot make deals ... I am happy that I cannot be as free in my actions as you are. You are guided by your interests, your will: as far as I am concerned, I am obliged to follow the principles, and the principles are not part of the deal ”(les principes ne transigent pas). His opponents couldn’t believe their ears, hearing that such harsh speeches and impartial morals were being read to them by the very same Prince Talleyrand, who - as the already mentioned newspaper “Le Nain jaune” wrote about him about the same time, had been selling all those people all his life. who bought it. Neither Nesselrode, nor the Prussian delegate Humboldt, nor Alexander knew that even in those very days of the Congress of Vienna, when Talleyrand gave them harsh lessons in moral behavior, adherence to principles and religiously unswerving service to legitimacy and legality, he received a bribe from the Saxon king five million gold francs, one million from the Duke of Baden; they also did not know that later they would all read in Chateaubriand's memoirs, that Talleyrand received from the challenger Ferdinand IV six million (according to other testimony, three million seven hundred thousand) and for the convenience of transferring money was even so kind and helpful that he sent his personal secretary Perret to Ferdinand.
But here, too, he acted in the matter of taking bribes in exactly the same way as under Napoleon. For bribes, he did not do things that would run counter to the interests of France or, more broadly, to the main diplomatic goals to which he strove. But along the way, he received money from those who were personally interested in ensuring that these goals were as soon as possible and as fully as possible achieved by Talleyrand. So, France, for example, was directly interested in the fact that Prussia did not seize the possessions of the Saxon king, and Talleyrand defended Saxony. But since the Saxon king was still much more interested in this than France, this king, in order to excite the greatest activity in Talleyrand, gave him, on his part, five million. Talleyrand took them. And, of course, he took it with such a restrained and graceful grandeur, always characteristic of him, with which once, in 1807, he accepted a bribe from the same Saxon king to convince Napoleon not to take the Sistine Madonna and others from the Dresden gallery, as unfortunately , which attracted the emperor of the picture.
The return of Napoleon from the island of Elba and the rebuilding of the empire took Talleyrand by surprise. Recently (in May 1933) Ferdinand Bach's fantasy book Le secret de Talleyrand was published in Paris. This "secret" revealed by Buck alone is that Talleyrand ... himself arranged for Napoleon to escape from Elba. I mark this amateurish fantasizing book here only as a curiosity to prove that distant offspring continue to consider Talleyrand capable of the most amazingly cunning plan and dexterous and strong enough to carry out any such project. Needless to say, there is not even a shadow of scientific argumentation in this book.
Wellington (lithograph by Charles Bénier).
Having restored the empire in March 1815, Napoleon informed Talleyrand that he would take him back into service. But Talleyrand remained in Vienna; he did not believe either in the merciful disposition of the emperor (who immediately ordered after his widow's accession to sequester all the property of the prince), or in the strength of the new Napoleonic reign. The Vienna Congress is closed. Waterloo burst out - and the Bourbons, and with them Talleyrand, returned to France again. Circumstances developed in such a way that it was not yet possible for Louis XVIII to get rid of Talleyrand, whom he did not love and feared. Not only that: Fouche, Duke of Otranth, about whom they said that if there were no Talleyrand in the world, he would have been the most deceitful and vicious person of all mankind, this very Fouche, with a whole series of dexterous maneuvers, achieved that he, at least for the first time time, but still had to be invited to a new cabinet, although Fouche was among those members of the Convention who, in 1793, voted for the execution of Louis XVI.
These two men, Talleyrand and Foucher, both former clergymen, both embracing the revolution in order to make their own careers, both ministers of the Directory, both of Napoleon's ministers, both receiving the title of ducal from Napoleon, both earning millions of dollars under Napoleon, both betraying Napoleon - and now they also entered the office of the "most Christian" and "legitimate" monarch, the brother of the executed Louis. Fouche and Talleyrand already got to know each other well, and that is why they strove above all to work with each other. With a very large similarity of both in the sense of deep contempt for anything other than personal interests, a complete lack of adherence to principles and any restraining principles in the implementation of their plans, they differed in many respects from one another. Fouche was not very timid, and before 9 Thermidor, he boldly put his head on the line, organizing an attack on Robespierre and overthrowing him at the Convention. For Talleyrand, such behavior would be completely unthinkable. In the era of terror, Fouche acted in Lyon in a way that Talleyrand would never have dared to act, who emigrated precisely because he believed that it was very dangerous to remain in the camp of "neutrals" in the present, and to be an active fighter against counter-revolution would become dangerous in the future. Foucher had a good head, after Talleyrand - the best that Napoleon had. The emperor knew this, showered them both with favors, but then put disgrace on them. That is why he often remembered them together. For example, after the abdication of the throne, he expressed regret that he had not had time to hang Talleyrand and Fouche. "I leave this matter to the Bourbons," - so, according to the legend, added the emperor.
However, the Bourbons, willy-nilly, immediately after Waterloo and after their second return to the throne in the summer of 1815, not only refrain from hanging both dukes, both Benevent and Otrant, but also call them to rule France. Poet and ideologist of the noble-clerical reaction at that moment, Chateaubriand could not hide his rage at the sight of these two leaders of the revolution and the empire, one of whom was the blood of Louis XVI and many others executed in Lyon, and the other was the blood of the Duke of Enghien. Chateaubriand was at court when the lame Talleyrand, arm in arm with Fouche, walked into the king's study: “Suddenly the door opens; Vice, based on Crime, enters in silence - Monsieur Talleyrand, supported by Monsieur Fouche; a hellish vision slowly passes before me, enters the king's office and disappears there. "
II
In this ministry, in which Talleyrand was the chairman of the council of ministers and Foucher was the minister of police, the Napoleonic general Gouvion Saint-Cyr became minister of war; there were other similar appointments. Talleyrand clearly saw that the Bourbons could hold on only if, with a wave of their hand at all their grievances, they accepted the revolution and the empire as an inescapable and enormous historical fact and abandoned the dreams of the old regime. But he soon saw something else no less clearly: namely, that neither the royal brother and heir Charles, nor the children of this Charles, nor a whole cloud of emigrants returning to France would agree with such a policy that they “forgot nothing and nothing learned ”(Talleyrand's famous phrase about Bourbons, often incorrectly attributed to Alexander I). He saw that a party of angry and irreconcilable noble and clerical reactionaries who were under the rule of an absurd, unrealizable dream of destroying everything made during the revolution and restrained by Napoleon was gaining the upper hand at court, that is, in other words, they want the conversion of the country that entered the path commercial and industrial development, in the country of the feudal-noble monarchy. Talleyrand understood that this dream was completely impracticable, that these ultra-royalists could rage as they pleased, but that they would seriously begin to break new France, break institutions, orders, civil and criminal laws left over from the revolution and from Napoleon, even just raise this question openly - perhaps only by going completely insane. However, he soon began to see that the ultra-royalists did seem to be going completely insane - at least they were losing even that slight caution that they had shown back in 1814.
The fact is that the sudden return of Napoleon in March 1815, his hundred-day reign and his new overthrow - again, not by France, but exclusively by a new invasion of the allied European armies - all these amazing events brought the noble-clerical reaction out of the last equilibrium. ... They felt the most severely offended. How could an unarmed person, amid the complete tranquility of the country, land on the southern coast of France and in three weeks, continuously moving towards Paris, without firing a single shot, without shedding a drop of blood, win France from her "legitimate" king, drive this king abroad, again to sit on the throne and again gather a huge army for the war with all of Europe? Who was this man? The despot, who did not take off his arms during his entire reign, who devastated the country with recruiting recruits, the usurper, who did not reckon with anyone or anything in the world, and most importantly - the monarch, whose new accession was inevitably bound to cause now a new, endless war with Europe. And at the feet of this man, without talking, without trying to resist, even without trying to persuade him, in March 1815, immediately fell all of France, all the peasantry, the entire army, the entire bourgeoisie.
Not a single hand was raised to defend the "legitimate" king, to defend the Bourbon dynasty that returned in 1814. To explain this phenomenon by the fear for the land acquired during the revolution, which was nourished by the peasantry, by those fears of the phantom of the resurrection of the noble system that experienced not only the peasantry, but also the bourgeoisie, in general to explain this amazing incident, these "One Hundred Days" by some general and deep For social reasons, the ultra-royalists were not able to, and they simply did not want to. They attributed everything that happened to the excessive weakness, compliance, inappropriate liberalism on the part of the king, in the first year of his reign, from April 1814 to March 1815: if then, they assured, they had time to ruthlessly exterminate sedition, such a general and sudden "betrayal" would have been impossible in March 1815, and Napoleon would have been captured immediately after his disembarkation at Cape Juan. Now to this shame of the Bourbons' expulsion in March was added the shame of their return in June, July and August, after Waterloo, and this time really "in the wagons" of the army of Wellington and Blucher. The rage of the ultra-royalists knew no bounds. If the king resisted them a little more and if they still allowed him to resist, then it was just at the first moment: after all, it was necessary to look around, more surprises could be expected.
This is the only reason why a government headed by Talleyrand and Fouche became possible. But as more and more armies of the British, Prussians, then the Austrians, and later the Russians poured into France, as the enemy armies, this time for many years, were deployed to occupy entire departments and to provide full support Louis XVIII and his dynasty from new assassination attempts by Napoleon, as well as from any revolutionary attempts, - the extreme reaction resolutely raised its head and screamed about merciless revenge, about the execution of traitors, about the suppression and destruction of everything that was hostile to the old dynasty ...
Talleyrand understood what these follies would lead to. And he even made some attempts to keep the frenzied. For a long time he opposed the compilation of a proscription list of those who contributed to the return and new accession of Napoleon. These persecutions were nonsense, because all of France either actively contributed or did not resist the emperor and this also contributed to him. But then Fute spoke up. Having guillotined or drowned hundreds and hundreds of Lyons in the Rhône in 1793 for loyalty to the House of Bourbons, voted at the same time the death of Louis XVI, shooting for years under Napoleon as police minister people who were again accused of loyalty to the House of Bourbons - Fouche, again minister The police, now in 1815, fervently insisted on further executions, but this time for lack of commitment to the House of Bourbons. Fouche hastened to compile a list of the most, in his opinion, guilty dignitaries, generals and private individuals, who, above all, helped Napoleon's second accession to the throne.
Talleyrand protested strongly. The narrow police mind of Fouche and the furious vindictiveness of the royal court triumphed over the more far-sighted policy of Talleyrand, who understood how much the dynasty was destroying itself, getting soiled in the blood of such people as, for example, the famous Marshal Ney, the legendary brave man, the favorite of the whole army, the hero of the Battle of Borodino. Talleyrand managed to save only forty-three people, the remaining fifty-seven remained on Foucher's list. The shooting of Marshal Ney took place and, of course, became the most grateful topic for anti-Turbon agitation in the army and throughout the country.
This was just the beginning. A wave of "white terror" swept across France, especially in the south, as this movement was called then (for the first time in history). The terrible beatings of revolutionaries and Bonapartists, and at the same time of Protestants (Huguenots), kindled by the Catholic clergy, irritated Talleyrand, and he tried to fight them, but he was not destined to hold out for a long time in power.
The case started with Fouche. As the minister of police, he was not zealous, but the ultra-royalists did not want to forgive him for the execution of Louis XVI and all his past. Fouche resorted to a technique that he often helped under Napoleon: he presented the king and his superior, that is, the first minister Talleyrand, a report in which he tried to intimidate them with some kind of conspiracies that allegedly existed in the country. But Talleyrand clearly did not believe it and did not even hide it from his colleague. Fouche only seemed to see right through Talleyrand, but Talleyrand really saw right through the cunning Minister of Police. Talleyrand considered, firstly, an absurd and dangerous policy of repression and persecution, which Fouche wanted to pursue with the sole purpose of pleasing the ultra-royalists and keeping his ministerial portfolio behind him. Secondly, Talleyrand clearly saw that nothing would come of it anyway, that ultra-royalists hate Fouche too much, drenched in the blood of their relatives and friends, and that the office in which Fouche's “regicide” is located cannot be strong in the event of a complete frenzied revelry noble reaction and militant clerical agitation. For all these reasons, the Duke of Benevent was determined to get rid of the Duke of Otrant. Quite unexpectedly for himself, Fouche received an appointment as French envoy to Saxony. He left for Dresden. But, having thrown out this ballast, Talleyrand still did not escape from the shipwreck. Exactly five days after Foucher's appointment to Dresden, Talleyrand began a principled conversation with the king that had been preparing for a long time. He wanted to ask the king for freedom of action to fight against the insane excesses of an extremely reactionary party, which clearly undermined all confidence in the dynasty. He ended his speech with an impressive ultimatum: if His Majesty denies his full support to the ministry "against all" against whom it is needed, then he, Talleyrand, will resign. And suddenly the king gave an unexpected answer to this: "Okay, I will appoint another ministry." It happened on September 24, 1815, and this ended the official career of Prince Talleyrand for fifteen years.
For the minister who was dismissed so suddenly, this was a complete surprise, despite everything that he writes in his memoirs, giving his resignation the appearance of some kind of patriotic feat and linking it for no reason with France's attitude towards its victors. That was not the point, and Talleyrand, of course, understood the root of the events better than anyone else. Louis XVIII, an old, sick, motionless gout, wanted only one thing: not to go into exile for the third time, to die peacefully as a king and in a royal palace. He was so smart that he understood the correctness of Talleyrand's views and the danger to the dynasty of white terror and the crazy shouts and acts of the ultra-reactionary party. But he had to reckon with this party at least enough so as not to annoy it with such collaborators as Fouche or Talleyrand.
A Talleyrand policy was needed, but not done by Talleyrand's hands. Talleyrand did not want to notice that he himself was hated even more than Fouche, that the majority of ultra-royalists (and the majority in all other parties) willingly repeat the words of Joseph de Maistre: "Of these two people, Talleyrand is more criminal than Fouche." If Fouche was an extra ballast for Talleyrand, then Talleyrand himself was an extra ballast for King Louis XVIII. That is why Fouche had not yet had time to leave for Dresden when Talleyrand, who had removed him, was himself thrown overboard. Upon retirement, he received the court title of great chamberlain, with a salary of one hundred thousand gold francs a year and with the "duty" to do anything and live wherever he pleases. However, under Napoleon he also had this very title (along with all his other titles and titles), and under Napoleon these duties were just as little burdensome and were even more generously paid.
Having freed himself from the ministry, Talleyrand began to work closely with him on an operation that had been thought out for a long time, about which until recent years, more precisely until December 15, 1933, when some secret documents were published in France, no one knew. On January 12, 1817, Prince Talleyrand, it turns out, wrote a secret letter to Metternich, Chancellor of the Austrian Empire. He reported that at one time he "took" (emport?) From the archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs part of Napoleon's genuine correspondence, starting with the return of the conqueror from Egypt and ending in 1813. So, would you like to buy?
There was a correspondence between the seller and the buyer. Talleyrand wrote that Russia, or Prussia, or England would give half a million francs in gold, but he, Talleyrand, loves Austria and, in particular, Metternich. The goods are top-notch: "twelve bulky packages", Napoleon's handwritten signatures! And most importantly, Emperor Franz should not be stingy because there are things that are unpleasant for Austria, and having bought the documents, the Austrian government - so Talleyrand advises - "could either bury them in the depths of their archives or even destroy them." The deal took place, and Talleyrand sold for half a million these archival documents he had personally stolen. He stole them in advance, in 1814 and 1815, when he flew twice as head of the government.
But, realizing quite clearly that he is committing real high treason, already combined with outright criminality, the theft of state property, Prince Talleyrand prudently demands from Metternich that he, Talleyrand, be provided with shelter in Austria, if, for example, he is overtaken in France by any some trouble and he will have to leave the fatherland without wasting time.
Metternich agreed to everything and paid everything in full. And only later, when all this stolen property was taken out of France (under the guise of Austrian embassy papers that were not subject to inspection) and arrived in Vienna, the Austrian Chancellor could be convinced that the seller had also somewhat fooled him: many of the documents turned out to be not originals at all, but copies. without Napoleon's signature. But in such delicate cases, who are you going to complain to? The harbinger and the buyer always runs the risk of being hurt if the thief and the seller is prone to deceit. That was the end of it.
III
Talleyrand retired to private life. Enormous wealth, the magnificent castle in Valence, the magnificent palace in the city, the regal luxury of life - that was what awaited him at the end of his days. Idleness did not really weigh on him. He never liked work at all. He gave guidance to his subordinates in the ministry, his ambassadors, and finally, his ministers, when he was the first minister. He gave advice to the sovereigns whom he served - Napoleon, Louis XVIII; did it in intimate conversations face to face. He conducted his diplomatic negotiations and intrigues sometimes at the dinner table, sometimes at a ball, sometimes during a break in a card game; he achieved the main results precisely under different circumstances of the secular, full of entertainment life that he always led.
But the work was tart, daily, bureaucratic work was unknown to him and unnecessary. For this, there was a staff of experienced dignitaries and officials subordinate to him, secretaries and directors. Now, in retirement, as well as in the years of his disgrace under Napoleon, he carefully watched the political chessboard and the moves of his partners, but for the time being he himself did not take part in the game. And he saw that the Bourbons continued to undermine their position, that the only man between them with a head, Louis XVIII, was exhausted in his unsuccessful struggle against the extreme reactionaries, that when the king died, a frivolous old man, Charles d'Artois, who did not only he will not oppose the plans to restore the old regime, but he himself will willingly take the initiative, because he does not have enough intelligence to understand the terrible danger of this hopeless game, this ridiculous and impossible reversal of history, he lacks even that instinct of self-preservation, which alone prevented his elder brother Louis XVIII would fully adhere to the ultra-royalists.
Moving away from active politics, Talleyrand sat down for his memoirs. He wrote five volumes (available in an abridged Russian translation). From a purely biographical point of view, these five volumes are of almost no interest to us. Let us give here just a few words about this work of Talleyrand.
The memoirs of bourgeois leaders, who played a very paramount role, are rarely at all true. This is quite understandable: the author, who knows his historical responsibility, seeks to build his story so that the motivation of his own actions is as sublime as possible, and where they cannot be interpreted in any way in favor of the author, you can try to completely renounce complicity in them. In a word, about many memoirists of this type, one can repeat what Henri Rochefort once said about the memoirs of the first minister of the end of the Second Empire, Emile Olivier: “Olivier lies as if he were still the first minister”. The best of the newest examples of this kind of literature can serve as nine volumes of the memoirs of the late Poincare (another dozen and a half were being prepared, judging by the accepted scale and by the well-known diligence of the author). All nine volumes of Poincaré are almost an oversight, in essence, a repetition of the patriotic bureaucracy that was published during the era of several of his ministries and his presidency.
Current page: 7 (the book has 11 pages in total) [available passage for reading: 7 pages]
Alliance and friendship with England and, if possible, with Austria for a general resistance to Prussia, the fight against Russia, if she will support Prussia - this is the basis on which Talleyrand wished henceforth to base the foreign policy and security of France. He was not destined to manage affairs for a long time during the period of the Restoration, but barely only in 1830 the July Revolution gave him the most important post of the French ambassador in London at that time, he, as we will see further, did everything in his power to put his program into practice. The next generations of the young French bourgeoisie have always regarded very positively the work done by Talleyrand at the Vienna Congress.
And it is not for nothing that Vautrin's Balsac hero in the novel Le père Goriot speaks with such enthusiasm about Talleyrand (without naming him): demand them from him, - prevented the partition of France at the Vienna Congress. He should have been decorated with wreaths, but they throw mud at him. " 2
Honoré de Valzac, Le père Goriot, p. 98 (Paris, Ed. Bibliothèque Larousse).
Russian edition: Onpe de Balzac, Sobr. cit., vol. III. Goslitizdat, 1938
This fervently preached idea that an oath-breaker can "spit" in the face of "humanity" if the end result of his betrayals is of real benefit brings political capital; this cynical conviction of the primacy of "intellect over morality" in politics is unusually characteristic of the era of the turning point, which transferred power to the hands of the bourgeoisie. And most of all, it is the solemn, nationwide proclamation of this principle and the undisguised admiration for the person in whom this ideal was embodied in the most complete way, that is, Prince Talleyrand-Perigord, is characteristic.
Louis XVIII (Audouin's engraving from a drawing by Gros, 1815).
But the peculiar frankness of this predatory hero of Balzac was by no means characteristic of everyone. And even those bourgeois politicians who tried their best to imitate Talleyrand, as an unattainable model, never ceased to vilify him for the eyes, watching how this maestro of deceit and the most cynical comedian brilliantly plays on the world stage a completely new role for him. Of course, the most angry at his serene impudence were his direct opponents, diplomats of the feudal-absolutist powers, to fool whom he set himself a primary task. These diplomats saw that in Vienna he deftly snatched their own weapons from them, before they came to their senses, and now he is beating them with this weapon, demanding in the name of the "principle of legitimism" and in the name of respect for the "legitimate" dynasty that had returned to France, that not only the French territory remained inviolable, but so that Central Europe would return completely to its pre-revolutionary state and so that the “legitimate” Saxon king would remain with all his old dominions, which Prussia claimed.
Talleyrand's opponents were most of all outraged that he, who at one time sold so quickly a legitimate monarchy, served the revolution, served Napoleon, shot the Duke of Enghien only for his "legitimate" origin, destroyed and trampled under Napoleon © his seven diplomatic forms and speeches every semblance of international rights, any notion of "legitimate" or other rights, - now, with a serene air, with the clearest forehead, he declared (for example, to the Russian delegate at the Vienna Congress, Karl Vasilyevich Nesselrode): "You are talking to me about a deal, I cannot make deals ... I am happy that I cannot be as free in my actions as you are. You are guided by your interests, your will: as far as I am concerned, I am obliged to follow the principles, and the principles are not part of the deal ”(les principes ne transigent pas). His opponents couldn’t believe their ears, hearing that such harsh speeches and impartial morals were being read to them by the very same Prince Talleyrand, who - as the already mentioned newspaper “Le Nain jaune” wrote about him about the same time, had been selling all those people all his life. who bought it. Neither Nesselrode, nor the Prussian delegate Humboldt, nor Alexander knew that even in those very days of the Congress of Vienna, when Talleyrand gave them harsh lessons in moral behavior, adherence to principles and religiously unswerving service to legitimacy and legality, he received a bribe from the Saxon king five million gold francs, one million from the Duke of Baden; they also did not know that later they would all read in Chateaubriand's memoirs, that Talleyrand received from the challenger Ferdinand IV six million (according to other testimony, three million seven hundred thousand) and for the convenience of transferring money was even so kind and helpful that he sent his personal secretary Perret to Ferdinand.
But here, too, he acted in the matter of taking bribes in exactly the same way as under Napoleon. For bribes, he did not do things that would run counter to the interests of France or, more broadly, to the main diplomatic goals to which he was striving. But along the way, he received money from those who were personally interested in ensuring that these goals were as soon as possible and as fully as possible achieved by Talleyrand. So, France, for example, was directly interested in the fact that Prussia did not seize the possessions of the Saxon king, and Talleyrand defended Saxony. But since the Saxon king was still much more interested in this than France, this king, in order to excite the greatest activity in Talleyrand, gave him, on his part, five million. Talleyrand took them. And, of course, he took it with such a restrained and graceful grandeur always characteristic of him, with which once, in 1807, he accepted a bribe from the same Saxon king for persuading Napoleon not to take the Sistine Madonna and others from the Dresden gallery, as unfortunately , which attracted the emperor of the picture.
The return of Napoleon from the island of Elba and the rebuilding of the empire took Talleyrand by surprise. Recently (in May 1933) Ferdinand Bach's fantasy book Le secret de Talleyrand was published in Paris. This "secret" revealed by Buck alone is that Talleyrand ... himself arranged for Napoleon to escape from Elba. I mark this amateurish fantasizing book here only as a curiosity to prove that distant offspring continue to consider Talleyrand capable of the most amazingly cunning plan and dexterous and strong enough to carry out any such project. Needless to say, there is not even a shadow of scientific argumentation in this book.
Wellington (lithograph by Charles Bénier).
Having restored the empire in March 1815, Napoleon informed Talleyrand that he would take him back into service. But Talleyrand remained in Vienna; he did not believe either in the merciful disposition of the emperor (who immediately ordered after his widow's accession to sequester all the property of the prince), or in the strength of the new Napoleonic reign. The Vienna Congress is closed. Waterloo burst out - and the Bourbons, and with them Talleyrand, returned to France again. Circumstances developed in such a way that it was not yet possible for Louis XVIII to get rid of Talleyrand, whom he did not love and feared. Not only that: Fouche, Duke of Otranth, about whom they said that if there were no Talleyrand in the world, he would have been the most deceitful and vicious person of all mankind, this very Fouche, with a whole series of dexterous maneuvers, achieved that he, at least for the first time time, but still had to be invited to a new cabinet, although Fouche was among those members of the Convention who, in 1793, voted for the execution of Louis XVI.
These two people, Talleyrand and Foucher, both former clergymen, both embracing the revolution in order to make their own careers, both ministers of the Directory, both of Napoleon's ministers, both receiving the ducal title from Napoleon, both earning millions of dollars under Napoleon, both betraying Napoleon - and now they also entered the office of the "most Christian" and "legitimate" monarch, the brother of the executed Louis. Fouche and Talleyrand already got to know each other well, and that is why they strove above all to work with each other. With a very great similarity of both in the sense of deep contempt for anything other than personal interests, a complete lack of adherence to principles and any restraining principles in the implementation of their plans, they differed in many respects from one another. Fouche was not very timid, and before 9 Thermidor, he boldly put his head on the line, organizing an attack on Robespierre and overthrowing him at the Convention. For Talleyrand, such behavior would be completely unthinkable. In the era of terror, Fouche acted in Lyon in a way that Talleyrand would never have dared to act, who emigrated precisely because he believed that it was very dangerous to remain in the camp of "neutrals" in the present, and to be an active fighter against counter-revolution would become dangerous in the future. Foucher had a good head, after Talleyrand - the best that Napoleon had. The emperor knew this, showered them both with favors, but then put disgrace on them. That is why he often remembered them together. For example, after the abdication of the throne, he expressed regret that he had not had time to hang Talleyrand and Fouche. "I leave this matter to the Bourbons," - so, according to the legend, added the emperor.
However, the Bourbons, willy-nilly, immediately after Waterloo and after their second return to the throne in the summer of 1815, not only refrain from hanging both dukes, both Benevent and Otrant, but also call them to rule France. Poet and ideologist of the noble-clerical reaction at that moment, Chateaubriand could not hide his rage at the sight of these two leaders of the revolution and the empire, one of whom was the blood of Louis XVI and many others executed in Lyon, and the other was the blood of the Duke of Enghien. Chateaubriand was at court when the lame Talleyrand, arm in arm with Fouche, walked into the king's study: “Suddenly the door opens; Vice, based on Crime, enters in silence - Monsieur Talleyrand, supported by Monsieur Fouche; a hellish vision slowly passes before me, enters the king's office and disappears there. "
II
In this ministry, in which Talleyrand was the chairman of the council of ministers and Foucher was the minister of police, the Napoleonic general Gouvion Saint-Cyr became minister of war; there were other similar appointments. Talleyrand clearly saw that the Bourbons could hold on only if, with a wave of their hand at all their grievances, they accepted the revolution and the empire as an inescapable and enormous historical fact and abandoned the dreams of the old regime. But he soon saw something else no less clearly: namely, that neither the royal brother and heir Charles, nor the children of this Charles, nor a whole cloud of emigrants returning to France would agree with such a policy that they “forgot nothing and nothing learned ”(Talleyrand's famous phrase about Bourbons, often incorrectly attributed to Alexander I). He saw that a party of angry and irreconcilable noble and clerical reactionaries who were under the rule of an absurd, unrealizable dream of destroying everything made during the revolution and restrained by Napoleon was gaining the upper hand at court, that is, in other words, they want the conversion of the country that entered the path commercial and industrial development, in the country of the feudal-noble monarchy. Talleyrand understood that this dream was completely impracticable, that these ultra-royalists could rage as they pleased, but that they would seriously begin to break new France, break institutions, orders, civil and criminal laws left over from the revolution and from Napoleon, even just raise this question openly - perhaps only by going completely insane. However, he soon began to see that the ultra-royalists did seem to be going completely insane - at least, they were losing even that slight caution that they had shown back in 1814.
The fact is that the sudden return of Napoleon in March 1815, his hundred-day reign and his new overthrow - again, not by France, but exclusively by a new invasion of the allied European armies - all these amazing events brought the noble-clerical reaction out of the last equilibrium. ... They felt the most severely offended. How could an unarmed person, amid the complete tranquility of the country, land on the southern coast of France and in three weeks, continuously moving towards Paris, without firing a single shot, without shedding a drop of blood, win France from her "legitimate" king, drive this king abroad, again to sit on the throne and again gather a huge army for the war with all of Europe? Who was this man? The despot, who did not take off his arms during his entire reign, who devastated the country with recruiting recruits, the usurper, who did not reckon with anyone or anything in the world, and most importantly - the monarch, whose new accession was inevitably bound to cause now a new, endless war with Europe. And at the feet of this man, without talking, without trying to resist, even without trying to persuade him, in March 1815, immediately fell all of France, all the peasantry, the entire army, the entire bourgeoisie.
Not a single hand was raised to defend the "legitimate" king, to defend the Bourbon dynasty that returned in 1814. To explain this phenomenon by the fear for the land acquired during the revolution, which was nourished by the peasantry, by those fears of the phantom of the resurrection of the noble system that experienced not only the peasantry, but also the bourgeoisie, in general to explain this amazing incident, these "One Hundred Days" by some general and deep For social reasons, the ultra-royalists were not able to, and they simply did not want to. They attributed everything that happened to the excessive weakness, compliance, inappropriate liberalism on the part of the king, in the first year of his reign, from April 1814 to March 1815: if then, they assured, they had time to ruthlessly exterminate sedition, such a general and sudden "betrayal" would have been impossible in March 1815, and Napoleon would have been captured immediately after his disembarkation at Cape Juan. Now to this shame of the Bourbons' expulsion in March was added the shame of their return in June, July and August, after Waterloo, and this time really "in the wagons" of the army of Wellington and Blucher. The rage of the ultra-royalists knew no bounds. If the king resisted them a little more and if they still allowed him to resist, then it was just at the first moment: after all, it was necessary to look around, more surprises could be expected.
This is the only reason why a government headed by Talleyrand and Fouche became possible. But as more and more armies of the British, Prussians, then the Austrians, and later the Russians poured into France, as the enemy armies, this time for many years, were deployed to occupy entire departments and to provide full support Louis XVIII and his dynasty from new assassination attempts by Napoleon, as well as from any revolutionary attempts - the extreme reaction decisively raised its head and screamed about merciless revenge, about the execution of traitors, about the suppression and destruction of everything that was hostile to the old dynasty ...
Talleyrand understood what these follies would lead to. And he even made some attempts to keep the frenzied. For a long time he opposed the compilation of a proscription list of those who contributed to the return and new accession of Napoleon. These persecutions were nonsense, because all of France either actively contributed or did not resist the emperor and this also contributed to him. But then Fute spoke up. Having guillotined or drowned hundreds and hundreds of Lyons in the Rhône in 1793 for loyalty to the House of Bourbons, voted at the same time the death of Louis XVI, shooting for years under Napoleon as police minister people accused again of loyalty to the House of Bourbons - Fouche, again minister The police, now in 1815, fervently insisted on further executions, but this time for lack of commitment to the House of Bourbons. Fouche hastened to compile a list of the most, in his opinion, guilty dignitaries, generals and private individuals, who, above all, helped Napoleon's second accession to the throne.
Talleyrand protested strongly. The narrow police mind of Fouche and the furious vindictiveness of the royal court triumphed over the more far-sighted policy of Talleyrand, who understood how much the dynasty was destroying itself, getting soiled in the blood of such people as, for example, the famous Marshal Ney, the legendary brave man, the favorite of the whole army, the hero of the Battle of Borodino. Talleyrand managed to save only forty-three people, the remaining fifty-seven remained on Foucher's list. The shooting of Marshal Ney took place and, of course, became the most grateful topic for anti-Turbon agitation in the army and throughout the country.
This was just the beginning. A wave of "white terror" swept across France, especially in the south, as this movement was called then (for the first time in history). The terrible beatings of revolutionaries and Bonapartists, and at the same time of Protestants (Huguenots), kindled by the Catholic clergy, irritated Talleyrand, and he tried to fight them, but he was not destined to hold out for a long time in power.
Talleyrand. (From Fig. Filippoto)
The case started with Fouche. As the minister of police, he was not zealous, but the ultra-royalists did not want to forgive him for the execution of Louis XVI and all his past. Fouche resorted to a technique that he often helped under Napoleon: he presented the king and his superior, that is, the first minister Talleyrand, a report in which he tried to intimidate them with some kind of conspiracies that allegedly existed in the country. But Talleyrand clearly did not believe it and did not even hide it from his colleague. Fouche only seemed to see right through Talleyrand, but Talleyrand really saw right through the cunning Minister of Police. Talleyrand considered, firstly, an absurd and dangerous policy of repression and persecution, which Fouche wanted to pursue with the sole purpose of pleasing the ultra-royalists and keeping his ministerial portfolio behind him. Secondly, Talleyrand clearly saw that nothing would come of it anyway, that ultra-royalists hate Fouche too much, drenched in the blood of their relatives and friends, and that the office in which Fouche's “regicide” is located cannot be strong in the event of a complete frenzied revelry noble reaction and militant clerical agitation. For all these reasons, the Duke of Benevent was determined to get rid of the Duke of Otrant. Quite unexpectedly for himself, Fouche received an appointment as French envoy to Saxony. He left for Dresden. But, having thrown out this ballast, Talleyrand still did not escape from the shipwreck. Exactly five days after Foucher's appointment to Dresden, Talleyrand began a principled conversation with the king that had been preparing for a long time. He wanted to ask the king for freedom of action to fight against the insane excesses of an extremely reactionary party, which clearly undermined all confidence in the dynasty. He ended his speech with an impressive ultimatum: if His Majesty denies his full support to the ministry "against all" against whom it is needed, then he, Talleyrand, will resign. And suddenly the king gave an unexpected answer to this: "Okay, I will appoint another ministry." It happened on September 24, 1815, and this ended the official career of Prince Talleyrand for fifteen years.
For the minister who was dismissed so suddenly, this was a complete surprise, despite everything that he writes in his memoirs, giving his resignation the appearance of some kind of patriotic feat and linking it for no reason with France's attitude towards its victors. That was not the point, and Talleyrand, of course, understood the root of the events better than anyone else. Louis XVIII, an old, sick, motionless gout, wanted only one thing: not to go into exile for the third time, to die peacefully as a king and in a royal palace. He was so smart that he understood the correctness of Talleyrand's views and the danger to the dynasty of white terror and the crazy shouts and acts of the ultra-reactionary party. But he had to reckon with this party at least enough so as not to annoy it with such collaborators as Fouche or Talleyrand.
Street Fighting in Paris during the Revolution of 1830 (Lithograph by Victor Adam)
A Talleyrand policy was needed, but not done by Talleyrand's hands. Talleyrand did not want to notice that he himself was hated even more than Fouche, that the majority of ultra-royalists (and the majority in all other parties) willingly repeat the words of Joseph de Maistre: "Of these two people, Talleyrand is more criminal than Fouche." If Fouche was an extra ballast for Talleyrand, then Talleyrand himself was an extra ballast for King Louis XVIII. That is why Fouche had not yet had time to leave for Dresden when Talleyrand, who had removed him, was himself thrown overboard. Upon retirement, he received the court title of great chamberlain, with a salary of one hundred thousand gold francs a year and with the "duty" to do anything and live wherever he pleases. However, under Napoleon he also had this very title (along with all his other titles and titles), and under Napoleon these duties were just as little burdensome and were even more generously paid.
Having freed himself from the ministry, Talleyrand began to work closely with him on an operation that had been thought out for a long time, about which until recent years, more precisely until December 15, 1933, when some secret documents were published in France, no one knew. On January 12, 1817, Prince Talleyrand, it turns out, wrote a secret letter to Metternich, Chancellor of the Austrian Empire. He reported that at one time he "took" (emporté) from the archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs part of Napoleon's genuine correspondence, starting with the return of the conqueror from Egypt and ending in 1813. So, would you like to buy?
There was a correspondence between the seller and the buyer. Talleyrand wrote that Russia, or Prussia, or England would give half a million francs in gold, but he, Talleyrand, loves Austria and, in particular, Metternich. The goods are top-notch: "twelve bulky packages", Napoleon's handwritten signatures! And most importantly, Emperor Franz should not be stingy because there are things that are unpleasant for Austria, and having bought the documents, the Austrian government - so Talleyrand advises - "could either bury them in the depths of their archives or even destroy them." The deal took place, and Talleyrand sold for half a million these archival documents he had personally stolen. He stole them in advance, in 1814 and 1815, when he flew twice as head of the government.
But, realizing quite clearly that he is committing real high treason, already combined with outright criminality, the theft of state property, Prince Talleyrand prudently demands from Metternich that he, Talleyrand, be provided with shelter in Austria, if, for example, he is overtaken in France by any some trouble and he will have to leave the fatherland without wasting time.
Metternich agreed to everything and paid everything in full. And only later, when all this stolen property was taken out of France (under the guise of Austrian embassy papers that were not subject to inspection) and arrived in Vienna, the Austrian Chancellor could be convinced that the seller had also somewhat fooled him: many of the documents turned out to be not originals at all, but copies. without Napoleon's signature. But in such delicate cases, who are you going to complain to? The harbinger and the buyer always runs the risk of being hurt if the thief and the seller is prone to deceit. That was the end of it.
There are several interesting topics in the book by S. Zweig "Joseph Fouche". But I would especially highlight the line of confrontation between Foucher and Talleyrand.
These two most capable ministers of Napoleon - the psychologically most interesting people of his era - do not like each other, probably because they are too similar to each other in many ways. They are sober, realistic minds, cynical, reckless students of Machiavelli. Both are disciples of the Church, and both have passed through the flames of the revolution - of this high school, both are equally shamelessly cold-blooded in matters of money and in matters of honor, both served - equally unfaithfully and with equal promiscuity in the means of the republic, the Directory, the consulate, the empire and the king. These two actors constantly meet on the same stage of world history in the characteristic roles of deserters, dressed as revolutionaries, then senators, then ministers, then servants of the king, and precisely because they are people of the same spiritual breed, performing the same diplomatic roles , they hate each other with the coldness of connoisseurs and the undercurrent of malice of rivals.
Their confrontation is interesting insofar as behind these two outstanding political figures there are different models of behavior.
More dazzling, more charming, perhaps, and more significant is Talleyrand. Raised in a sophisticated ancient culture, a flexible mind imbued with the spirit of the eighteenth century, he loves the diplomatic game as one of the many exciting games of being, but he hates work. He is too lazy to write letters with his own hand: like a true voluptuous and refined sybarite, he entrusts all the rough work to another, so that later he can carelessly collect all the fruits with his narrow, ringed hand. His intuition is enough for him, which penetrates with lightning speed into the essence of the most confusing situation. A born and well-trained psychologist, he, according to Napoleon, easily penetrates into the thoughts of another and clarifies to each person what he is inwardly striving for. Bold deviations, quick understanding, dexterous turns in moments of danger - this is his calling; he disdainfully turns away from the details, from the painstaking work that smells of sweat. From this addiction to the minimum, to the most concentrated form of mental play, follows his ability to compose dazzling puns and aphorisms. He never writes long reports, with one single, sharply perfected word he characterizes a situation or a person. In Fouche, on the contrary, this ability to quickly comprehend everything is completely absent; like a bee, diligently, zealously he collects hundreds of thousands of observations into countless small cells, then adds them up, combines them and comes to reliable, irrefutable conclusions. His method is analysis, Talleyrand's method is clairvoyance; his strength is diligence, Talleyrand's strength is the quickness of the mind. No artist can think of more striking opposites than history has done, placing these two figures - the lazy and brilliant improviser Talleyrand and the thousand-eyed, vigilant calculator Foucher - next to Napoleon, whose perfect genius combined the talents of both: a broad outlook and painstaking analysis. passion and hard work, knowledge and discernment.
Talyeran knows how to survive defeat beautifully.
The listeners turned to stone. Everyone is uncomfortable. Everyone feels that the emperor is behaving unworthily. Only Talleyrand, indifferent and insensitive to insults (they say that he once fell asleep while reading a pamphlet directed against him), continues to stand with an arrogant look, without changing his face, not counting such abuse as an insult. At the end of the storm, he limps silently across the smooth parquet floor to the hallway and there he throws one of his poisonous words, which are more striking than rough punches. “What a pity that such a great man is so badly brought up,” he says calmly as the footman throws his cloak over him.
Fouche in moments of defeat internally trembles with rage.
December 14 Talleyrand and Fouche meet at one of the evenings. Society is having supper, talking, chatting. Talleyrand is in good spirits. A large circle forms around him: beautiful women, dignitaries and young people, all eagerly crowd in, wanting to listen to this brilliant storyteller. Indeed, this time he is especially charmant. He talks about times long gone, when he had to flee to America in order to avoid fulfilling the order of the Convention for his arrest, and extols this magnificent country. Oh, how wonderful it is - impenetrable forests, home to the primitive tribes of the Redskins, the great unexplored rivers, the powerful Potomac and the huge Lake Erie; and among this heroic and romantic country - a new breed of people, seasoned, strong and efficient, experienced in battles, devoted to freedom, possessing unlimited possibilities and creating exemplary laws. Yes, there is a lot to learn there, there is a thousand times more than in our Europe, a new, better future is felt. This is where one ought to live and act, he exclaims enthusiastically, and no post seems more tempting to him than that of ambassador to the United States.
Suddenly, he interrupts the impulse of inspiration that has accidentally swept over him and turns to Fouche: "Would you like to receive such an appointment, Duke?" Fouche turns pale. He understood. Inwardly, he trembles with rage: how skillfully and deftly, in front of everyone, the old fox pushed his ministerial chair out the door. Fouche doesn't answer. But after a few minutes he bows and, having come home, writes his resignation. Talleyrand is satisfied and, returning home, informs his friends with a wry smile: "This time I finally broke his neck."
In the last days of his existence, Fouche, who has lost the meaning of life, is lonely and miserable.
One of Fouche's contemporaries very figuratively describes in his memoirs attending one of the public balls: “It was strange to see how kindly the Duchess was received and how no one paid attention to Fouche himself. He was of medium height, dense, but not fat, with an ugly face At dance evenings, he constantly appeared in a blue tailcoat with gold buttons, decorated with the great Austrian Order of Leopold, in white pantaloons and white stockings. He usually stood alone by the stove and watched the dance. When I watched this once almighty minister of the French Empire, who stood aside so lonely and forlorn and seemed to be glad if any official entered into a conversation with him or offered him a game of chess - I involuntarily thought about the frailty of all earthly power and might. "
Talleyrand completed his earthly destiny quite brilliantly. Here is how E. Tarle comments on this fact:
And again everything went like clockwork until his peaceful death in 1838, which alone could have stopped this brilliant career and which, as you know, caused, as you know, at the same time a naively ironic exclamation: “Is Prince Talleyrand dead? Curious to know why he needed it now! " To such an extent, all his actions seemed to his contemporaries always deliberate and deliberate, always expedient from a career point of view and always, in the final analysis, successful for him personally.
One gets the impression that the weak link in Foucher's behavior was that he was essentially a slave to power. She was the all-consuming meaning of his life. Fouche was not reflexive enough to see himself from the outside and make decisions outside the immediate process. " And the mad ambitious Fouche commits this stupidity in order to drink a few more hours of history from the source of power "... For Talleyrand, power was a means to other joys of life - “ she presents him with the best and most decent opportunity to use earthly pleasures - luxury, women, art, a thin table". And this allows him to physically or mentally leave the political process, to make the right decisions. Fouche was a gambler who played by the rules, and Talleyrand was an anti-player who changed the rules as the game progressed.
Talleyrand had to perform in Vienna in 1814-1815. against such opponents who, minus Metternich and Alexander, did not rise above the level of diplomatic routine and could at best be considered average service usefulness. Castlerie, for example, and other British diplomats, as well as the Prussian representatives, he did not have to fear in the least. These people were witnesses and even participants in the greatest events and often did not understand their true nature and inner meaning. They were still trailing in the traditional ruts of the good old, cheerful, graceful 18th century. At one time, William Pitt the Younger, who, however, was several heads taller than his successors, was reproached by his critics for being hypnotized by a place, a geographical point with which he fought from his youth, and overlooking the change of people in this place and did not notice that in that place, in that very Paris, where for so long replaced each other and spoke on behalf of France, elegant and cutesy powdered dandies of the Versailles court, it was not the powdered dandy that was standing before him, but Genghis Khan, and that it was no longer about cuts and stretches of land in India and not about the rights to catch cod near Newfoundland, but about the life and death of the Kingdom of England. Now, in 1814, this Genghis Khan had just been overthrown after the desperate efforts of all of Europe, but the statesmen who gathered in Vienna in the fall of 1814 to establish a new political redistribution of lands and peoples, nevertheless, did not really understand the historical meaning of the bloody twenty-five years that had elapsed. The average diplomat, the average politician of the Congress of Vienna, like the majority of the noble class of Europe at that time, was inclined to think that the revolution and Napoleon were a sudden flurry that, fortunately, ended, and now it is necessary to heal as before, removing the debris and repairing the damage. Only comparatively few understood that the complete restoration of the main, that is, the socio-economic old regime, would not succeed either in France, where it was destroyed by the revolution, or in those countries where Napoleon inflicted terrible blows on him, and that therefore a complete restoration could not be achieved either. political or household. Of the reactionaries, only a few thinkers understood this and noted with bitterness. It is in vain that Louis XVIII says that he sat on the ancestral throne: he sat and sits on the throne of Bonaparte, and the ancestral throne is no longer possible, Joseph de Maistre spoke with mournful irony, pointing out that in France the entire social, administrative, everyday system remained in the form as it existed under Napoleon - only at the top, instead of the emperor, the king sits and there is a constitution. In the field of international relations, there were even more illusions, no one wanted to reckon with the "national" aspirations that were awakening in the bourgeoisie, and they added more memories of the just experienced Napoleonic epic. If the peoples of Europe endured and kept silent in the way that Napoleon dealt with them, then is it worth reckoning with their aspirations and hopes in the future?Talleyrand showed here in full splendor his enormous diplomatic abilities. For the rest of his life, he always pointed to the Vienna Congress, as the place where he stubbornly and successfully defended - and defended - the interests of his fatherland from a whole horde of enemies, and at the same time in the most difficult, seemingly hopeless, circumstances in which he could to find yourself a diplomat: not having any real power behind him at that moment. France was defeated, exhausted by long and bloody wars, and had just been invaded. Against her at the Congress, as before on the battlefield, stood a coalition of all first-class powers: Russia, Prussia, Austria, England. If these powers were able to preserve at least some unity of action at the Congress, Talleyrand would have to completely submit. But the fact of the matter is that from the first day of his arrival in Vienna in September 1814, Talleyrand began to weave a complex and subtle network of intrigues aimed at arming some of France's opponents against its other opponents. The first steps were difficult. And the reputation of the prince further complicated his position. It was not a matter of general assessments of the personality of Prince Talleyrand, not of the fact that at the Congress itself they called him (of course, not in the eyes) the greatest canal of the whole century, “la plus grande canaille du siecle”. And it was not so important that the pious, sanctimonious Catholic Vienna, with all these monarchs and rulers who had gathered together, for whom mysticism at that moment seemed the best antidote to the revolution, despised the stripped and at one time excommunicated bishop of Oten, who betrayed and sold Catholicism to the revolutionaries. It was not even the most important thing that, despite all his tricks, he was stubbornly considered the murderer of the Duke of Enghien. What irritated him was something else: after all, all these sovereigns and ministers had dealt with Talleyrand during the entire first half of Napoleon's reign. It was he who, after the Napoleonic victories, always formalized the territorial and monetary robberies of the vanquished, in accordance with the orders and directives of Napoleon. Never, not a single time, did he even try to keep Napoleon at least a little from the initial conflicts, and from wars, and from final conquests. It was he who wrote the most arrogant, defiant notes that provoked war; It was he who wrote the most offensive and poisonous papers in any diplomatic clashes, such as, for example, the aforementioned rebuke in 1804 to Emperor Alexander with a direct reference to the murder of Paul and a hint of Alexander's participation in this matter. Talleyrand was an obedient and skillful pen of Napoleon, and this pen wounded so many of those who now gathered in Vienna. Subsequently, by the way, and in his memoirs, Talleyrand very deeply and with a reproachful shake of his head always remembered that Napoleon did not spare the vanity of the vanquished, trampled on their human dignity, and so on. He is absolutely right, but he forgets to add that it was he himself who was the most serviceable and unswerving executor of the imperial will. Now representatives of so long humiliated and mercilessly exploited powers and diplomats, who remembered the cruel injections they had been silently enduring for so many years, were face to face with this arrogant and crafty nobleman, this “tyrant's clerk”, whose yoke was finally overthrown. But, to the general surprise, this “clerk” behaved at the congress as if he were the minister of not a defeated, but a victorious country, and it was not for nothing that annoyed Alexander I said about him at the same time in Vienna: “Talleyrand is here playing out Minister Louis XIV ”. Talleyrand truly artistically played his most difficult, almost hopeless at first game. His main task was to destroy the coalition of the great powers, which were still united against France. And by the beginning of January 1815 (and he arrived at the congress in the middle of September 1814, which means in three and a half months) he brilliantly succeeded in his work. He even managed to enter into a secret treaty with England and Austria for joint opposition of the three great powers (France, England and Austria) to the other two - Prussia and Russia. The contract was formalized and signed on January 3, 1815. This colossal diplomatic success led to another success, no less. Prussia claimed all the possessions of the Saxon king, whom Europe united against Napoleon was going to punish for his alliance with Napoleon. Talleyrand did not want to allow such a strengthening of Prussia and did not allow it. Prussia received only a small cut. He could not save Poland from being absorbed by Russia, despite all his efforts. France not only retained everything that it held on to the Paris Peace, but Talleyrand did not even allow the posing of the question of points that some powers would very much like to revise in this area. Talleyrand put forward the "principle of legitimism" as such, on the basis of which all international law must henceforth be built. This "principle of legitimism" was supposed to firmly secure France within the borders that it had before the start of the revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, and, of course, in this situation it was very beneficial for the French, since they at that moment did not have. Talleyrand's opponents were most outraged that he, who sold the legitimate monarchy so quickly, served the revolution, served Napoleon, shot the Duke of Enghien only for his “legitimate” origin, destroyed and trampled under Napoleon with all his diplomatic designs and speeches every semblance of international law, every concept about “legitimate” or other rights, - now, with a serene air, with the clearest forehead, he declared (for example, to the Russian delegate at the Vienna Congress, Karl Vasilyevich Nesselrode): “You are talking to me about a deal - I cannot make deals. I am happy that I cannot be as free in my actions as you are. You are guided by your interests, your will; as for me, I am obliged to follow the principles - and the principles are not included in transactions (moi, je suis oblige de suivre les principes, et les principes ne transigenfc pas) ”. His opponents couldn’t believe their ears, hearing that such harsh speeches and impartial morals were being read to them by the very same Prince Talleyrand, who - as the already mentioned newspaper “Le Nain Jaune” wrote about him, all his life “sold all those who bought it ”. Neither Nesselrode, nor the Prussian delegate Humboldt, nor Alexander knew that even in those very days of the Congress of Vienna, when Talleyrand gave them harsh lessons in moral conduct, adherence to principles and religiously unswerving service to legitimacy and legality, he received five from the Saxon king. million francs in gold, one million from the Duke of Baden; they also did not know that later they would all read in Chateaubriand's memoirs, that Talleyrand received from the challenger Ferdinand IV six million (according to other testimony, three million seven hundred thousand) and for the convenience of transferring money was even so kind and helpful that he sent his personal secretary Perret to Ferdinand. But here, too, he acted in the matter of taking bribes in exactly the same way as under Napoleon: he did not do things for bribes that would run counter to the interests of France or, more broadly, to the main diplomatic goals to achieve which he strove. But along the way he received money from those who were personally interested in ensuring that these goals were achieved as soon as possible and as fully as possible by Talleyrand: for example, France, for example, was directly interested in the fact that Prussia did not seize the possessions of the Saxon king, and Talleyrand defended Saxony. But since the Saxon king was still much more interested in this than France, this king, in order to excite the greatest activity in Talleyrand, gave him, for his part, five million. Talleyrand took them. And, of course, he took it with such restrained and graceful grandeur always characteristic of him, with which once, in 1807, he accepted a bribe from the same Saxon king for persuading Napoleon not to take the Sistine Madonna and others from the Dresden gallery, as in trouble the pictures that the emperor liked.
The return of Napoleon from the island of Elba and the rebuilding of the empire took Talleyrand by surprise. Recently (in May 1933) Ferdinand Bach's fantasy book Le secret de Talleyrand was published in Paris. This “secret” “revealed” by Buck alone is that Talleyrand ... himself arranged Napoleon's flight from Elba. I mark this amateurish book here only as a curiosity, to prove that the distant offspring continues to consider Talleyrand capable of the most amazing in terms of cunning plan and dexterous and strong enough to carry out any such project. Needless to say, there is not even a shadow of scientific argumentation in this book.
Having restored the empire in March 1815, Napoleon informed Talleyrand that he would take him back into service. But Talleyrand remained in Vienna; he did not believe in the merciful disposition of the emperor (who immediately ordered in his new enthronement to sequester all the property of the prince), nor in the strength of the new Napoleonic reign. The Vienna Congress is closed. Waterloo burst out - and the Bourbons, and Talleyrand with them, returned to France. Circumstances developed in such a way that it was not yet possible for Louis XVIII to get rid of Talleyrand, whom he did not love and feared. Not only that: Fouche, Duke of Otrant, about whom they said that if there were no Talleyrand in the world, he would have been the most deceitful and vicious person of all mankind, this same Fouche, with a whole series of dexterous maneuvers, achieved that even for the first time, nevertheless, he had to be invited to a new cabinet, although Fouche was among those members of the Convention who, in 1793, voted for the execution of Louis XVI.
These two people, Talleyrand and Foucher, both former clergymen, both embracing the revolution in order to make their own careers, both ministers of the Directory, both of Napoleon's ministers, both receiving the ducal title from Napoleon, both earning millions of dollars under Napoleon, both betraying Napoleon - and now together they entered the office of the “most Christian” and legitimate monarch, the brother of the executed Louis. They got to know each other well before and that is why they tried to work with each other before. With a very great similarity of both in the sense of deep contempt for anything other than personal interests, and the complete absence of any restraining principles in the implementation of their plans, they differed in many respects from one another. Fouche was a very awkward ten, and before 9 Thermidor, he boldly put his head on the line, organizing an attack on Robespierre and overthrowing him at the Convention. For Talleyrand, such behavior would be completely unthinkable. In the era of terror, Fouche acted in Lyon in a way that Talleyrand would never have dared to act, who emigrated precisely because he believed that it was dangerous to remain in the camp of “neutrals” in the present, and to be an active fighter against counter-revolution is dangerous in the future. Foucher had a good head, after Talleyrand - the best that Napoleon had. The emperor knew this, showered them both with favors - but then put disgrace on them. That is why he often remembered them together. For example, after the abdication of the throne, he expressed regret that he had not had time to hang Talleyrand and Fouche. “I leave this matter to the Bourbons,” - so, according to legend, the emperor added.
However, the Bourbons, willy-nilly, had now, after Waterloo and after their second return to the throne in the summer of 1815, not only refrain from hanging both dukes, both Benevent and Otrant, but also call them to rule France. The poet and ideologist of the noble-clerical reaction at that moment, Chateaubriand could not hide his rage at the sight of these two leaders of the revolution and the empire, one of whom was the blood of Louis XVI and many others who were executed in Lyon, and the other was the blood of the Duke of Enghien. Chateaubriand was at court when the lame Talleyrand, arm in arm with Foucher, walked into the king's study: “Suddenly the door opens: a vice based on crime enters in silence - Monsieur Talleyrand, supported by Monsieur Fouche; a hellish vision slowly passes before me, enters the king's office and disappears there. "
In this ministry, in which Talleyrand was the chairman of the council of ministers and Foucher, the minister of police, Napoleonic general Gouvion Saint-Cyr became minister of war; there were other similar appointments. Talleyrand clearly saw that the Bourbons could hold on only if, with a wave of their hand at all their grievances, they accepted the revolution and the empire as an inescapable and enormous historical fact, and abandoned the dreams of the old regime. But he soon saw something else no less clearly: namely, that neither the royal brother and heir Charles, nor the children of this Charles, nor a whole cloud of emigrants who returned to France would agree with such a policy that they “forgot nothing and nothing learned ”(Talleyrand's famous phrase about Bourbons, often incorrectly attributed to Alexander I). He saw that a party of angry and irreconcilable noble and clerical reactionaries who were under the rule of an absurd, unrealizable dream of destroying everything made during the revolution and retained by Napoleon was gaining the upper hand at court, that is, in other words, they want the country's commercial and industrial capital the country of the feudal-noble monarchy. Talleyrand understood that this dream was completely impracticable, that these ultra-royalists could rage as they pleased, but that they would seriously begin to break new France, break institutions, orders, civil and criminal laws left over from the revolution and from Napoleon, even just raise this question openly perhaps only by going completely insane. However, he soon began to see that the ultra-royalists did seem to be going completely insane, at least they were losing even the slight caution they had shown back in 1814. The fact is that the sudden return of Napoleon in March 1815, his hundred-day reign and his new overthrow - again, not by France, but by a new invasion of the allied European armies - all these amazing events brought the noble-clerical reaction out of the last equilibrium. They felt the most severely offended. How could an unarmed man, in the midst of the complete tranquility of the country, land on the southern coast of France and in three weeks, continuously moving towards Paris, without firing a single shot, without shedding a drop of blood, win France from its rightful king, drive this king abroad, sit down again throne - and once again gather a huge army for the war with Europe? Who was this man? The despot, who did not take off his arms during his entire first reign, who devastated the country with recruitment kits, the usurper, who did not reckon with anyone or anything in the world, and most importantly, the monarch, whose new accession would inevitably cause a new, endless war with Europe. And at the feet of this man, without talking, without trying to resist, even without trying, convincing on his part, in March 1815 all France fell immediately, all the peasantry, the entire army, the entire bourgeoisie. Not a single hand was raised to defend the “legitimate” king, to defend the Bourbon dynasty that returned in the spring of 1814. To explain this phenomenon by the fear for the land acquired during the revolution, which was nourished by the peasantry, by those fears of the phantom of the resurrection of the noble system, which experienced not only the peasantry, but also the bourgeoisie, in general to explain this amazing incident, these Hundred days by some general and deep social reasons the ultra-royalists were not able to, and they simply did not want to. They attributed everything that happened to the excessive weakness, compliance, inappropriate liberalism on the part of the king in the first year of his reign, from April 1814 to March 1815: if then, they assured, they had time to mercilessly exterminate sedition, such a general and sudden “betrayal” was would have been impossible in March 1815, and Napoleon would have been captured immediately after his disembarkation at Cape Juan. Now to this shame of exile in March was added the shame of returning in June, July and August, after Waterloo, and this time really in the "wagons" of Wellington and Blucher's army. The rage of the ultra-royalists knew no bounds. If the king resisted them a little more and if they still allowed him to resist, then it was just at the first moment: after all, it was necessary to look around, more surprises could be expected. This is the only reason why a government headed by Talleyrand and Fouche became possible. But as more and more armies of the British, Prussians, then the Austrians, and later the Russians poured into France, as the enemy armies, this time for many years, were deployed to occupy entire departments and the day of the fullest provision of Louis XVIII. and his dynasty from new assassination attempts by Napoleon, as well as from any revolutionary attempts, the extreme reaction resolutely raised its head and screamed about merciless revenge, about the execution of traitors, about the suppression and destruction of everything that was hostile to the old dynasty.
Talleyrand understood what these follies would lead to. And he even made some attempts to keep the frenzied. For a long time he opposed the compilation of a proscription list of those who contributed to the return and new accession of Napoleon. These persecutions were nonsense, because all of France either actively contributed or did not resist the emperor and this also contributed to him. But then Fouche spoke. Having guillotined or drowned hundreds and hundreds of Lyons in the Rhône in 1793 for loyalty to the House of Bourbons, voted at the same time the death of Louis XVI, shooting for years under Napoleon as police minister people accused again of loyalty to the House of Bourbons - Fouche, again minister The police, now in 1815, fervently insisted on further executions, but this time for lack of commitment to the House of Bourbons. Fouche hastened to compile a list of the most, in his opinion, guilty dignitaries, generals and private individuals, who, above all, helped Napoleon's second accession to the throne. Talleyrand protested strongly. The narrow police mind of Fouche and the furious vindictiveness of the royal court triumphed over the more far-sighted policy of Talleyrand, who understood how much the dynasty was destroying itself, getting stained in the blood of such people as, for example, the famous Marshal Ney, the legendary brave man, the favorite of the whole army, the hero of the Battle of Borodino. Talleyrand managed to save only forty-three people - the remaining fifty-seven remained on Foucher's list. The shooting of Marshal Ney took place and, of course, became the most grateful topic for anti-Turbon agitation in the army and throughout the country.
This was just the beginning. A wave of “white terror” swept across France, especially in the south, as this movement was called then (for the first time in history). The terrible beatings of the revolutionaries and Bonapartists, and at the same time the Protestants (Huguenots), kindled by the Catholic clergy, irritated Talleyrand, and he tried to enter into a struggle with them, but he was not destined to hold out for a long time in power. The case started with Fouche. As the minister of police, he was not zealous, but the ultra-royalists did not want to forgive him for the execution of Louis XVI and all his past. Foucher resorted to a technique that he often helped under Napoleon: he presented the king and his superior, that is, the first minister Talleyrand, a report in which he tried to intimidate them with some kind of conspiracies that allegedly existed in the country. But Talleyrand clearly did not believe it and did not even hide it from his colleague. Foucher only thought he saw right through Talleyrand, but Talleyrand really saw right through the cunning Minister of Police. Talleyrand considered, first, the absurd and dangerous policy of repression and persecution, which Fouche wanted to pursue with the sole purpose of pleasing the ultra-royalists and keeping his ministerial portfolio; secondly, he clearly saw that nothing would come of it anyway, that the ultra-royalists too hate Fouche, drenched in the blood of their relatives and friends, and that the office in which Fouche's “regicide” is located could not be strong in the event of a complete frenzied revelry noble reaction and militant clerical agitation. For all these reasons, the Duke of Benevent was determined to get rid of the Duke of Otrant. Quite unexpectedly for himself, Fouche received an appointment as French envoy to Saxony. He left for Dresden. But, having thrown out this ballast, Talleyrand still did not escape from the shipwreck. Exactly five days after Fouche's appointment to Dresden, Talleyrand began a principled conversation with the king that had been preparing for a long time. He wanted to ask the king for freedom of action to fight against the insane excesses of the extreme reactionary party, which clearly undermined all confidence in the dynasty. He ended his speech with an impressive ultimatum: if His Majesty denies his full support to the ministry “against all” against whom it is needed, then he, Talleyrand, will resign. And suddenly the king gave an unexpected answer to this: "Okay, I will appoint another ministry." It happened on September 24, 1815, and this ended the official career of Prince Talleyrand for fifteen years. For the minister who was dismissed so suddenly, this was a complete surprise, in spite of everything that he writes in his memoirs, giving his resignation the appearance of some kind of patriotic feat and linking it for no reason with France's attitude towards its victors. That was not the point, and Talleyrand, of course, understood the root of the event better than anyone else. Louis XVIII, an old, sick, motionless gout, wanted only one thing: not to go into exile for the third time, to die peacefully as a king and in a royal palace. He was so smart that he understood the correctness of Talleyrand's views and the danger to the dynasty from the white terror and from the crazy shouts and acts of the ultra-reactionary party. But he had to reckon with this party at least enough so as not to annoy it with such collaborators as Fouche or Talleyrand. A Talleyrand policy was needed, but not done by Talleyrand's hands. Talleyrand did not want to notice that he himself was hated even more than Fouche, that the majority of ultra-royalists (and the majority in all other parties) willingly repeat the words of Joseph de Maistre: "Of these two people, Talleyrand is more criminal than Fouche." If Fouche was an extra ballast for Talleyrand, then Talleyrand himself was an extra ballast for King Louis XVIII. That is why Fouche had not yet had time to leave for Dresden when Talleyrand, who had removed him, was himself thrown overboard. Upon retirement, he received the court title of great chamberlain, with a salary of one hundred thousand gold francs a year and with the "duty" to do anything and live wherever he pleases. However, under Napoleon he also had this very title (along with all his other titles and titles), and under Napoleon these duties were just as little burdensome and were even more generously paid.
Talleyrand retired to private life. Enormous wealth, a magnificent castle, a magnificent palace in the city, the regal luxury of life - that was what awaited him at the end of his days. Idleness did not really weigh on him. He never liked work at all. He gave guidance to his subordinates in the ministry, his ambassadors, and finally, his ministers, when he was the first minister. He gave advice to the sovereigns whom he served - Napoleon, Louis XVIII; did it in intimate conversations face to face. He conducted his diplomatic negotiations and intrigues sometimes at the dinner table, sometimes at a ball, sometimes during a break in a card game; he achieved the main results precisely under different circumstances of the secular, full of entertainment life that he always led. But the work is tart, daily, bureaucratic was unknown to him and not needed. For this, there was a staff of experienced dignitaries and officials subordinate to him, secretaries and directors. Now, in retirement, as in the years of his disgrace under Napoleon, he carefully watched the political chessboard and the moves of his partners, without taking part in the game for the time being. And he saw that the Bourbons continued to undermine their position, that the only man between them with a head, Louis XVIII, was exhausted in his unsuccessful struggle against the extreme reactionaries, that when the king died, a frivolous old man would come to the throne, who not only would not oppose plans restoration of the old regime, but he himself will willingly take the initiative, because he will not be smart enough to understand the terrible danger of this hopeless game, this ridiculous and impossible reversal of history, not even the instinct of self-preservation, which alone prevented his older brother completely adhere to the ultra-royalists.
Talleyrand during these years, of course, wanted to return to power, grumbled, scolded - and even quite publicly - the ministers, for which somehow even for three months he was "deprived of the court" as a punishment, that is, he was forbidden to appear in Tuileries (despite the rank of great chamberlain); he sneered at the stupidity and mediocrity of the ruling persons, joked, composed epigrams. He made it clear, where needed, that he is irreplaceable. But they didn’t take him. Judging by various indications, he already believed then that the hour of the fall of the Bourbons was not very far off. He never only disliked them (he did not love anyone), but also did not respect them, as he, for example, respected Napoleon, and he saw that the Bourbons and their adherents were striving for a goal, in their own way no less fantastic than “ world monarchy ”of their predecessor on the throne of France; he was clearly aware that the nobility, as a class wounded to death by the great bourgeois revolution, not only would never rise again, but would infect the dynasty itself with cadaveric poison. He saw that “from the outside”, from the outside, no one would warn or save the Bourbons. In those years he spoke ironically and with irritation about the “head of the poor emperor Alexander”, stuffed with counter-revolutionary nonsense and intimidated by Metternich. Back in 1814, Alexander understood that the Bourbons would perish if they did not reconcile with the new France, but in the twenties he had already stopped talking about it. It is curious that during these years of restoration Talleyrand always remembered Napoleon with restrained respect and, on occasion, liked to make comparisons that were not very advantageous for the emperor's successors. Byron's feeling for Napoleon, expressed in the words: "Then did we overthrow the lion in order to bow before the jackals?" , of course, did not find for himself any echo in Talleyrand's dry and nothing in common with romanticism, but he, since he was thinking about his historical name, about his historical reputation (he, however, did not fiddle about very much about this), so much as he was aware of that historical immortality is ensured primarily for those who linked their activities with the activities of this “distributor of glory,” as the Russian partisan of 1812 Denis Davydov put it about Napoleon. And the prince, composing his memoirs just in these years, especially insistently emphasized that if Napoleon had not begun to conduct an unbridled aggressive policy that is destructive for himself and for France, then he, Talleyrand, would never have ceased to serve the emperor with faith and truth.
So far, since the death of Louis XVIII and the accession to the throne of Charles X in 1824, Prince Talleyrand began to draw closer to the leaders of the liberal-bourgeois opposition - Royer-Collar, Thiers, the historian Mignet. Business was clearly heading for disaster, and the new king was heading for the abyss. Talleyrand, receiving and treating in his magnificent palaces the leaders of the bourgeois opposition, with whom he now found it useful to get closer, at the same time visited the king. But he and Karl X were not at all shy, precisely because he waited from day to day for his death. “That king who is being threatened has only two choices: the throne or the scaffold,” Charles X once said to Talleyrand, who liked to repeat that only concessions ruined Louis XVI in their time. - answered the king Talleyrand, who, foreseeing that the Bourbons would soon cease to reign, willingly admitted that this time the matter would do without the guillotine, and would end only with the expulsion of the dynasty.
From 1829, Talleyrand began to draw closer to that prince of the royal house, whom the liberal bourgeoisie predicted to the throne in the event of the overthrow of Charles X: with the Duke Louis-Philippe Orleans, because the establishment of a republic, the bourgeois class as a whole, as well as its especially rural part , the proprietary peasantry, were definitely feared and did not want to. On August 8, 1829, Charles X appointed Jules Polignac as the first minister, who never concealed that he was striving to restore the fullness of royal power as the first step along the path of necessary reforms in the state. In other words, one should have expected an attack on the constitution, a coup d'etat with the aim of further resurrecting the feudal-absolutist system. Talleyrand knew that Charles X would die in this attempt to deprive the bourgeoisie and the peasantry of what the revolution had given them. The fact that the revolution gave the working class much less, and Napoleon and the Bourbons took away what it gave, and that the workers now, for the first time since the Prairial of 1795, are beginning to show a desire for activity and will certainly support any uprising, even if it does not start on their initiative Talleyrand did not foresee this. But even without this, the chances of the dynasty to be saved if an attempted coup d'etat by the king was made were rather dubious. Polignac was even less brilliant with mental qualities than Charles X, even less of the king understood that he was joking with fire, but he was distinguished by emotionality and narrow-minded reactionary fanaticism, which imperatively demanded immediate military action against everyone who disagreed with him. The liberal bourgeoisie, feeling all the strength behind it, firmly decided to resist. The leaders of the liberals gathered in Talleyrand's office: Thiers, Mignet and Armand Carrel. It was December 1829. It was decided to found a new, sharply oppositional body (the famous newspaper "Le National") for a decisive struggle against Polignac and, if necessary, against the Bourbon dynasty. The meetings of these three young leaders of the liberal bourgeoisie were chaired by the owner of the house, a nobleman of the old regime court, a former bishop who was present at the coronation of Louis XVI, and at the coronation of Napoleon, and at the coronation of this very Charles X, a man who served both the old regime and the revolution, and Napoleon, and again the Bourbons, who placed the Bourbons on the throne in 1814 in the name of the principle of legitimacy.
Now he was preparing to contribute to their overthrow in the name of the principle of revolutionary resistance to the legitimate king ... The most radical of the organs of bourgeois opposition that became famous for the struggle against Polignac and the king behind him in these last months of the Bourbons' stay on the French throne was born in his cabinet. ... These young leaders, like Thiers, looked at the stately figure of a seventy-six-year-old sick old man with great respect: too many, like no other people who were still living then, he was covered with memories of the greatest historical events in which he played a role, with which this or otherwise he united his name forever.
Even before the revolution, Talleyrand had a rather complicated relationship with the Duke of Orleans (“Philippe Egalite”), who was later executed in the era of terror. Now, in the years 1829-1830, he was very much in touch with his son, Louis-Philippe, and with Louis-Philippe's sister Adelaide. He knew that the opposition bourgeoisie would read Louis Philippe to the throne in the event of the overthrow of the “senior line” of the Bourbons, that is, Charles X (the Dukes of Orleans were the “junior line” of the Bourbons).
The sick, deep old man did not want to surrender to death; he was still thinking about the future, about a new career, still digging holes for enemies and clearing the way for friends; and his friends were always those whom the historical forces were carrying at the given moment to the heights. His foresight and this time did not deceive him ...
He was in Paris, in the magnificent halls of his city palace, when, finally, Polignac and the king made up their minds and published the famous ordinances of July 25, 1830, which virtually destroyed the constitution. The revolution the next day, already, on the 26th, seemed certain; it broke out on July 27 and in three days tore away the throne of Charles X. Talleyrand's personal secretary Colmash was with the prince during those days. Every minute more and more news came in about the battle between the revolution and the troops. Hearing the roar of shots and the sounds of the alarm, rushing from all the bell towers, Talleyrand told Kolmash: “Listen, they are ringing the alarm. We are winning! ”-“ We? Who, the prince, wins? "-" Hush, not a word more: I'll tell you that tomorrow. " This typical Talleyrand conversation took place on 28 July. The battle was over the next day. The revolution has won. The Bourbon dynasty was once again - and this time forever - overthrown from the French throne.
