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It was M. de Talleyrand’s fortune not merely at all times to quit a falling party at the commencement of its decline, but to stand firm by a rising party at the moment of its struggle for success. This was seen during the contest we have just been describing. Throughout that contest the Bishop of Autun was amongst the most determined for maintaining the rights of the nation against the designs of the court. His decision and courage added not a little to the reputation which had been already gained by his ability. We find his name, therefore, first in the list of a small number of eminent men,⁹ whom the Assembly, when surrounded by hostile preparations for restoring the despotism which had been abolished, charged, in a bold but not imprudent spirit of defiance, with the task of at once completing and establishing the constitution which had been promised, and which it had become evident there was no intention to accord. The labour of these statesmen, however, was not easy, even after their cause was triumphant, for political victories often leave the conquerors – in the excess of their own passions, and the exaggeration of their own principles – worse enemies than those whom they have vanquished. Such was the case now.

XVI

In the exultation of the moment all moderate notions were laid aside, and succeeded by a blind excitement in favour of the most sweeping changes. Nor was this excitement the mere desire of vulgar and selfish interest stirring the minds of those who hoped to better their own condition: nobler and loftier emotions lit up the breasts of men who had only sacrifices to make with a generous enthusiasm. “Nos âmes,” says the elder Ségur, “étaient alors enivrées d’une douce philanthropie, qui nous portait à chercher avec passion les moyens d’être utiles à l’humanité, et de rendre le sort des hommes plus heureux.”¹⁰ On the 4th of August, “a day memorable with one party,” observes M. Mignet, “as the St. Bartholomew of property, and with the other as the St. Bartholomew of abuses,” – personal service, feudal obligations, pecuniary immunities, trade corporations, seignorial privileges, and courts of law, – all municipal and provincial rights, – the whole system of judicature, – based on the purchase and sale of judicial charges, and which, singular to state, had, however absurd in theory, hitherto produced in practice learned, able, and independent magistrates, – in short, almost all the institutions and peculiarities which constituted the framework of government and society throughout France, were unhesitatingly swept away, at the instigation and demand of the first magistrates and nobles of the land, who did not sufficiently consider that they who destroy at once all existing laws (whatever those laws may be), destroy at the same time all established habits of thought; – that is, all customs of obedience, all spontaneous feelings of respect and affection, without which a form of government is merely an idea on paper.

In after times, M. de Talleyrand, when speaking of this period, said, in one of his characteristic phrases, “La Révolution a désossé la France.” But it is easier to be a witty critic of by-gone history, than a cool and impartial actor in passing events; and at the time to which I am alluding the Bishop of Autun was, undoubtedly, amongst the foremost in destroying the traditions which constitute a community, and proclaiming the theories which captivate a mob. The wholesale abolition of institutions, which must have had something worth preserving or they would never have produced a great and polished society honourably anxious to reform its own defects, was sanctioned by his vote; and the “rights of man,” the acknowledgment of which did so little to secure the property or life of the citizen, were proclaimed in the words that he suggested.

It is difficult to conceive how so cool and sagacious a statesman could have imagined that an old society was to be well governed by entirely new laws, or that practical liberty could be founded on a declaration of abstract principles. A sane mind, however, does not always escape an epidemic folly; any more than a sound body escapes an epidemic disease. Moreover, in times when to censure unnecessary changes is to pass for being the patron, and often in reality to be the supporter, of inveterate abuses, no one carries out, or can hope to carry out, precisely his own ideas. Men act in masses: the onward pressure of one party is regulated by the opposing resistance of another: to pursue a policy, it may be expedient for those who do not feel, to feign, a passion; and a wise man may excuse his participation in an absurd enthusiasm by observing it was the only means to vanquish still more absurd prejudices.

Still, if M. de Talleyrand was at this moment an exaggerated reformer, he at least did not exhibit one frequent characteristic of exaggerated reformers, by being so wholly occupied in establishing some delusive scheme of future perfection, as to despise the present absolute necessities. He saw from the first that, if the new organization of the State was really to be effected, it could only be so by re-establishing confidence in its resources, and that a national bankruptcy would be a social dissolution. When, therefore, M. Necker (on the 25th of August) presented to the Assembly a memoir on the situation of the finances, asking for a loan of eighty millions of francs, the Bishop of Autun supported this loan without hesitation; demonstrating the importance of sustaining the public credit; and shortly afterwards (in September), when the loan thus granted was found insufficient to satisfy the obligations of the State, he again aided the minister in obtaining from the Assembly a tax of twenty-five per cent. on the income of every individual throughout France. A greater national sacrifice has rarely been made in a moment of national distress, and has never been made for a more honourable object. It is impossible, indeed, not to feel an interest in the exertions of men animated, amidst all their errors, by so noble a spirit, and not to regret that with aspirations so elevated, and abilities so distinguished, they should have failed so deplorably in their efforts to unite liberty with order – vigour with moderation.

But Providence seems to have prescribed as an almost universal rule that everything which is to have a long duration must be of slow growth. Nor is this all: we must expect that, in times of revolution, contending parties will constantly be hurried into collisions contrary to their reason, and fatal to their interests, but inevitably suggested by their anger or suspicions. Hence the wisest intentions are at the mercy of the most foolish incidents. Such an incident now occurred.

A military festival at Versailles, which the royal family imprudently attended, and in which it perhaps idly delighted to excite a profitless enthusiasm amongst its guards and adherents, alarmed the multitude at Paris, already irritated by an increasing scarcity of food, and dreading an appeal to the army on the part of the sovereign, as the sovereign dreaded an appeal to the people on the part of the popular leaders. The men of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, and the women of the market-place, either impelled by their own pressing wants and indefinite fears, or guided (as it was then – I believe falsely – reported) by the secret influence of the Duc d’Orléans, were soon seen pouring from the dark corners of the capital, and covering the broad and stately road which leads to the long-venerated palace, where, since the time of the “Great Monarch,” his descendants had held their court. In the midst of an accidental tumult, this lawless rabble entered the royal residence, massacreing its defenders.

The King was rescued from actual violence, though not from insult, and escorted with a sort of decorum to the Tuileries, which he henceforth inhabited, nominally as the supreme magistrate of the State, but in reality as a prisoner. The National Assembly followed him to Paris.

XVII

The events of which I have been speaking took place on the 5th and 6th of October; and were, to the advocates of constitutional monarchy, what the previous insurrection, in July, had been to the advocates of absolute power. Moderate men began to fear that it was no longer possible to ally the dignity and independence of the crown with the rights and liberties of the people: and MM. Mounier and Lally-Tollendal, considered the leaders of that party which from the first had declared the desire to establish in France a mixed constitutional government, similar to that which prevailed in England – disheartened and disgusted – quitted the Assembly. Hitherto, M. de Talleyrand had appeared disposed to act with these statesmen, but he did not now imitate their conduct: on the contrary, it was precisely at the moment when they separated themselves from the Revolution, that he brought forward a motion which connected him irrevocably with it.

Had affairs worn a different aspect, it is probable that he would not have compromised himself so decidedly in favour of a scheme which was certain to encounter a determined and violent opposition: still it is but just to observe that his conduct in this instance was in perfect conformity with the course he had previously pursued, and the sentiments he had previously expressed, both with respect to the exigencies of the State and the property of the Church. I have shown, indeed, the interest he had manifested in maintaining the public credit, first by supporting a loan of eighty millions of francs, and secondly by voting a property tax of twenty-five per cent. But the one had proved merely a temporary relief, and the other had not given an adequate return; for, as the whole administration of the country had been disorganized, so the collection of taxes was precarious and difficult. Some new resource had to be sought for. There was but one left. The clergy had already resigned their tithes, which at first had only been declared purchasable, and had also given up their plate. When M. de Juisné, Archbishop of Paris, made the two first donations in the name of his brethren, he had been seconded by the Bishop of Autun; and it was the Bishop of Autun who now proposed (on the 10th of October) that all that remained to the clergy – their land – should, on certain conditions, be placed at the disposal of the nation.

XVIII

M. Pozzo di Borgo, a man in no wise inferior to M. de Talleyrand, though somewhat jealous of him, once said to me, “Cet homme s’est fait grand en se rangeant toujours parmi les petits, et en aidant ceux qui avaient le plus besoin de lui.”¹¹

The propensity which M. Pozzo di Borgo somewhat bitterly but not inaccurately described, and which perhaps was in a certain degree the consequence of that nice perception of his own interests which guided the person whom I designate as “politic” through life almost like an instinct, was especially visible in the present instance. No one can doubt that, at the moment when every other institution was overturned in France, a great change in the condition of the French church, against which the spirit of the eighteenth century had been particularly directed, was an event not to be avoided. Alone amidst the general prodigality, this corporation by its peculiar condition had been able to preserve all its wealth, whilst it had lost almost all its power.

The feeble and the rich in times of commotion are the natural prey of the strong and the needy; and, therefore, directly the nation commenced a revolution to avoid a bankruptcy, the ecclesiastical property was pretty sure, a little sooner or a little later, to be appropriated to the public exigencies. Such an appropriation, nevertheless, was not without difficulties; and what the laity most wanted was a churchman of position and consideration who would sanction a plan for surrendering the property of the church. The opinions expressed by a man of so high a rank amongst the nobility and the clergy as the Bishop of Autun, were therefore of considerable importance, and likely to give him – those opinions being popular – an important position, which was almost certain (M. Necker’s influence being already undermined) to lead – should a new ministry be formed on the liberal side – to office. Mirabeau, in fact, in a note written in October, which proposes a new ministerial combination, leaves M. Necker as the nominal head of the government “in order to discredit him,” proposes himself as a member of the royal council without a department, and gives the post of minister of finance to the Bishop of Autun, saying, “His motion on the clergy has won him that place.”¹²

The argument with which the Bishop introduced the motion here alluded to has been so often repeated since the period to which I am referring, and has so influenced the condition of the clergy throughout a great portion of Europe, that it cannot be read without interest. “The State,” said M. de Talleyrand, “has been for a long time struggling with the most urgent wants. This is known to all of us. Some adequate means must be found to supply those wants. All ordinary sources are exhausted. The people are ground down. The slightest additional impost would be justly insupportable to them. Such a thing is not to be thought of. Extraordinary means for supplying the necessities of the State have been resorted to: but these were destined to the extraordinary wants of this year. Extraordinary resources of some kind are now wanted for the future; without them, order cannot be established. There is one such resource, immense and decisive: and which, in my opinion (or otherwise I should reject it), can be made compatible with the strictest respect for property. I mean the landed estate of the church.

…

“Already a great operation with regard to this estate is inevitable, in order to provide suitably for those whom the relinquishment of tithes has left destitute.

…

“I think it unnecessary to discuss at length the question of church property. What appears to me certain is, that the clergy is not a proprietor like other proprietors, inasmuch as that the property which it enjoys (and of which it cannot dispose) was given to it – not for its own benefit, but for the performance of duties which are to benefit the community. What appears to me also certain is, that the nation, exercising an almost unlimited power over all the bodies within its bosom, possesses – not the right to destroy the whole body of the clergy, because that body is required for the service of religion – but the right to destroy any particular aggregations of such body whenever they are either prejudicial or simply useless; and if the State possesses this right over the existence of prejudicial or useless aggregations of the clergy, it evidently possesses a similar right over the property of such aggregations.

“It appears to me also clear that as the nation is bound to see that the purpose for which foundations or endowments were made is fulfilled, and that those who endowed the church meant that the clergy should perform certain functions: so, if there be any benefices where such functions are not performed, the nation has a right to suppress those benefices, and to grant the funds, therefrom derived, to any members of the clergy who can employ them according to the object with which they were given.

…

“But although it is just to destroy aggregations of the clergy which are either prejudicial or useless, and to confiscate their property – although it is just to suppress benefices which are no longer useful for the object for which such benefices were endowed – is it just to confiscate or reduce the revenue of those dignitaries and members of the church, who are now actually living and performing the services which belong to their sacred calling?

…

“For my own part, I confess the arguments employed to support the contrary opinion appear to me to admit of several answers. I shall submit one very simple answer to the Assembly.

“However the possession of a property may be guaranteed and made inviolable by law, it is evident that the law cannot change the nature of such property in guaranteeing it.

“Thus, in a question of ecclesiastical property, it can only assure to each titulary the enjoyment of the actual donation of the founder. But every one is aware that, according to the titles of church property, as well as according to the various laws of the church, which explain the spirit and meaning of these titles, the only part of church property to which the ecclesiastic has any individual right is that necessary for his honest subsistence: the remainder has to be applied to the relief of the poor, or to the maintenance of places of worship. If then the nation assures to the holder of a benefice, whatever that benefice may be, his necessary subsistence, it does not violate his individual property; and if at the same time that it takes possession of that portion of his revenue which is not required for his subsistence, it assumes the other obligations attached to the benefice in question, such as the maintenance of hospitals, the performance of works of charity, the repairing of churches, the expenses of public education, &c.; and, above all, if it does this in a moment of general distress, I cannot but believe that the intentions of the donors will be fully carried out, and that justice will still be maintained.

“I think, then, that the nation in a period of general distress may appropriate the property of those religious establishments which it deems it necessary to suppress, by securing to their dependants their necessary subsistence; that it may also profit by all benefices to which no duties are attached, and assure to itself the reversion of all such benefices as may hereafter fall into that condition; and lastly, that it may reduce all extravagant salaries now enjoyed by the clergy if it take to itself all the obligations – apart from the decent maintenance of the clergy – which originally attached to church property according to the founder’s bequest. Such are the principles according to which the State may, in my opinion, legitimately appropriate the whole of the ecclesiastical property, on assuring to the clergy therefrom what would be sufficient for their decent support.”

XIX

Thus M. de Talleyrand contended: —

1st. That the members of the clergy were not like other proprietors, inasmuch as they held their property not for their own enjoyment but for the performance of certain duties, and that it was only intended that they should have out of the proceeds of that property a decent subsistence, the residue being destined for the support of the poor and the maintenance of religious edifices.

2nd. That the State could alter the distribution of church property, or rather the payment of the clergy, and also totally suppress such ecclesiastical institutions as it deemed injurious or not requisite; as well as such useless benefices as were then vacant, or might become vacant; and, as a matter of course, employ the revenue which was thereto attached, in the manner which might seem best adapted to the general advantage.

3rd. That in a moment of great and national distress it might altogether take possession of the whole property held by the clergy, and appropriate the same to public purposes; if at the same time it took upon itself those charges with which the clergy were intrusted, and also provided for the clergy themselves a fixed and adequate support. He did not, however, propose, as some may have idly imagined, and have unjustly stated, to reduce his order to a state of indigence; on the contrary, presuming the revenue of the church property, including the tithes (which he would still have had collected as national revenue), to be about a hundred and fifty millions of francs, he advised the government to make a yearly grant of no less than a hundred millions – never to be reduced below eighty-five millions – for the support of the clergy, no member of it receiving less than twelve hundred francs, to which was added a dwelling; and when we consider that the tithes having been surrendered, the ecclesiastical revenue was at that time reduced to seventy-five millions, the rent of the land; and when we consider also that the ecclesiastical budget, including the payment of all religions, has never, since that period, amounted to the sum which M. de Talleyrand was disposed to allow, I think it must be acknowledged that the proposals I have been describing, looking at all the difficulties of the times, were not to be despised, and that the French clergy would have acted more prudently if they had at once accepted them, although it must be confessed that any bargain made in changeful times between a power which is sinking in the State and a power which is rising, is rarely kept faithfully by the latter.

But the clergy, at all events, and the high clergy especially, would not accept this bargain. They complained not so much of the insufficiency of the provision which was to be made for them, as of the grievance of having an income as proprietors changed into a salary as functionaries. They contended, in short, that they were proprietors like other proprietors, and that the Bishop of Autun had misstated their case and justified their robbery.

In this state of things – whatever the real nature of the title under which the church held its possessions – whatever the imprudence of the clergy themselves in resisting the compromise that was proposed to them as an equivalent for the surrender of those possessions – it was impossible forcibly to confiscate a property which a great corporation had held indisputedly for ages and which it declared itself unwilling to resign, without weakening the respect for property in general, and weakening also, by the questions and discussions to which such a measure was certain to give rise, the respect for religion: thus enfeebling and undermining – at a moment when (amidst the falling ruins of an old government and society) it was most essential to strengthen and preserve – those foundations on which every society that pretends to be civilized, and every government that intends to be honest, has to establish its existence.

“The wise,” says a great reformer, “should be cautious about making great changes when the foolish are clamorous for dangerous innovations.” But although the maxim may be a good one, I suspect that it is more likely to be professed by the speculative philosopher than followed by the ambitious statesman.

There are, in fact, moments in the history of nations when certain events are, by the multiplied force of converging circumstances, inevitably foredoomed; and in such moments, whilst the ignorant man is obstinate, the proud man firm, the religious man resigned, the “politic man” accommodates himself to fate, and only attempts to mix up as much good as he can with the evil which has to be accepted.

It is easy to conceive, therefore, that when M. de Talleyrand proposed the appropriation of the church property by the State, he did so because he saw that at all events it would be appropriated; because he thought that he might as well obtain the popularity which was to be got by the proposition; and likewise because he could thus bargain for such conditions as, if they had been frankly accepted by one party and fairly carried out by the other, would have secured an honourable existence to the clergy and an immense relief to the State. I say an immense relief to the State, since, according to the calculations which the Bishop of Autun submitted to the Assembly – and these seem to have been made with consideration – had the immense property, valued at two milliards of francs, been properly sold, and the proceeds properly applied, these, by paying off money borrowed at enormous interest and life annuities which were granted at an extravagant loss, might with tolerable economy have converted a deficit of some millions of francs into a surplus of about the same amount.

But it happened at this time, as it not unfrequently happens when passion and prudence unite in some great enterprise, the part which passion counselled was consummated completely and at once; the part which prudence suggested was transformed and spoilt in the execution. To this subject I shall by-and-by have to return.

XX

The motion of M. de Talleyrand with respect to the property of the church was carried on the 2nd of November, 1789, after some stormy debates; and the party he had defeated now classed him amongst its bitterest opponents. But, on the 4th of December, he gained more than a party triumph by the singular lucidity with which, on the question of establishing a bank at Paris and restoring order generally to the French finances, he explained the principles of banking and public credit, which the public at that time enveloped in the mystery with which ignorance surrounds those subjects which are detailed in figures, and involve such vast interests as the resources and necessities of a nation.

The admirable talent which M. de Talleyrand displayed on this occasion consisted in rendering clear what appeared obscure, and simple what seemed abstract. After showing that a bank could only exist with benefit to itself and to others by its credit – and that this credit could not be the effect of a paper money with a forced currency, on which some persons were disposed to form one, inasmuch as that a currency which was forced was nothing more or less than an exhibition of the insolvency of the institution which it was intended to protect – he turned to the general condition and credit of the State, and said: “The time, gentlemen, is gone by for complicated fiscal plans, learnedly and artfully combined, which are merely invented to delay by temporary resources the crisis which is inevitably arriving. All the contrivances of wit and cunning are exhausted. For the future, honesty must replace genius. Side by side with the evidence of our calamities must be placed the evidence of their remedy. All must be reduced to the simplicity of an account-book – drawn up by good sense, kept by good faith.”

This speech obtained for its author general encomiums: it was praised in the boudoir of the fine lady, for the elegance of its style; in the country house of the banker, for the soundness of its views; even the Faubourg St. Germain acknowledged that M. de Talleyrand, though a scélérat (a rascal), was a statesman, and that in those iniquitous times a scélérat, a man of quality, and a statesman, might be useful to his country. Such universal popularity did not last long. In the following month (January 31, 1790), the liberal bishop declared himself in favour of conferring upon a Jew the rights of a French citizen. This opinion – considered by many as a double outrage against the distinctions hitherto maintained between castes and between creeds – admitted of no pardon from a large portion of that society which M. de Talleyrand had formerly frequented; and I have read, in some tale of the time, that the Marquis de Travanet, a famous player of “tric-trac,” used subsequently to say, in making what is called “la case du diable,” “je fais la case de l’évêque d’Autun.”

A man’s reputation, however, when parties run high, is not unfrequently made by his opponents; and the name of M. de Talleyrand now rose in the country and the Assembly just in proportion as it sank in the circles of the court and amongst the extreme partisans of priestly intolerance and royal prerogative.

Few persons had, in fact, rendered such important services to the cause which he had espoused. To his endeavours, as we have seen, it was mainly owing that the clergy joined the commons in the church of St. Louis, and thus constituted the States-General. Shortly afterwards, by contending against the imperative nature of those orders which the members of the States-General had received from their constituents, he had aided in no small degree in releasing the National Assembly from the instructions which would otherwise have fettered its progress. Elected a member of the committee, appointed to prepare the new constitution which was to be given to France, his labours had been amongst the most valuable of that body, and the future rights of Frenchmen had been proclaimed in the words which he had suggested as most appropriate. Evincing on all questions of finance that knowledge of principles which produces clearness of statement, he had ably assisted M. Necker in the measures by which that statesman had sought to reassure public credit and raise the revenue; and, finally, he had delivered up the wealth and power of his own order, as a sacrifice (such, at least, was his pretension) to the public weal.

The part which he had taken in the proceedings of the Assembly was, indeed, so considerable, that it was thought that no one could be better qualified to explain and defend its conduct. With such an explanation or defence he was charged; and he executed his task in a sort of memoir or manifesto to the French nation. This manifesto was read in the National Assembly on the 10th of February, 1790, and subsequently published and circulated throughout France. It has long since been forgotten amongst the many papers of a similar kind which have marked and justified the successive changes that France has for the last eighty years undergone.

But the skill and address of its composition was the subject of universal praise at the time of its appearance, and it still remains a remarkable exhibition of the ideas, and a skilful and able attempt to vindicate the actions, of an epoch which is yet awaiting the final judgment of posterity.

XXI

The memoir or manifesto, to which I have been alluding, announced the abolition of privileges, the reform of the church, the institution of a representative chamber and a citizen guard; and promised a new system of taxation, and a general plan of education. It was read, as I have said, on the 10th of February, in the National Assembly, and on the 16th of the same month its author was named president of that assembly¹³ by a majority of three hundred and seventy-five votes to one hundred and twenty-five, although the Abbé Sieyès – no mean rival – was his competitor.