Napoleon Bonaparte

by Alan Schom

  Chapter Fifteen – The Foreign Minister

  ‘He was always in the process of betraying me.’

  On Talleyrand

  Of all Napoleon’s ministers over the years, he considered only one to be of his own stature and value, worthy of the respect of a distinguished peer, and that was Talleyrand. In fact Napoleon spent more time with his foreign minister than with various ministers on internal developments, except when dealing periodically with something important of the moment, such as judicial or educational reform, financial and commercial matters, or religious affairs. War was quite another matter, of course, involving numerous conferences, but of a lower level, regarding technicalities of a particular campaign, not long-term national policy.

  There was nothing periodic or temporary about Napoleon’s interest in foreign affairs. They were the very core of his existence, attended usually by the subsequent military ramifications. Napoleon was always contemplating moves abroad — diplomatic, commercial, or military actions, whether concerning England, Spain, Russia, the Prussian emperor and his states, or the Austrian emperor. He was constantly considering possible moves into central or eastern Europe, the Middle East, the Far East, the West Indies, or even North Africa. But whatever the country or the campaign, the one man Napoleon constantly consulted was his Foreign Minister. Born in Paris in 1754, Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord had a personal history as unusual as one might hope to find and certainly worthy of revolutionary France.

  As scions of one of the nation’s oldest and most distinguished families, Talleyrand and his two brothers were entitled to expect a high place in French society. But because of a deformed foot, supported by a heavy metal brace and an array of leather straps, Talleyrand’s expectations had been severely narrowed, precluding any active physical career, including the military. Thus his father, Charles-Daniel, comte de Talleyrand-Périgord, and his mother, the comtesse, Victoire-Eléonore, had settled on a clerical career for the boy, in an age when preferment in the church hierarchy was determined largely by birth and an archbishop’s or cardinal’s miter could be expected even in one’s twenties or thirties. With little money or land left, his parents had not much choice, given the boy’s physical limitations and temperament.[394]

  In his youth and early adulthood Talleyrand had extremely effeminate physical features, an aspect reflected in some of his actions over the ensuing years. This man who spent a full hour every morning before the mirror with his valet, dressing and preparing his coiffure, was always more at ease in the perfumed elegance of the boudoir than in a smoke-filled billiards room. Declining years combined with overindulgence and vice would accelerate an alteration of his once-slender figure and delicate face, finally reflecting in that very mirror stout, sagging features.

  Meanwhile, as a product of the elite Seminary of Saint-Sulpice in Paris, he could expect to encounter few difficulties in his clerical career. Having completed his theological thesis at the Sorbonne and taken his minor orders by the age of twenty, in the following year, 1775, as a deputy deacon, he assisted at the coronation ceremony of the new Bourbon king, Louis XVI, at Reims; four years later he was ordained a priest and then named vicar-general of that same prestigious diocese. His numerous sexual exploits, which had begun when he was a teenage seminarian, continued apace. His bastard son, Charles de Flahaut, was born in 1785, when Talleyrand was appointed secretary to the General Assembly of the Clergy.

  At the rather late age of thirty-four he was nominated bishop of Autun. Following his installation in 1789, Talleyrand was elected to represent the clergy at the newly convened National Assembly, becoming that body’s president a year later. In 1791 he “resigned” his position as bishop (though officiating at the installation of the first “constitutional bishops,” who swore their first allegiance not to the pope but to the French Republic).

  In 1792, at the age of thirty-eight, he was sent on his first diplomatic mission, to London (where, as an aristocratic revolutionary, he was shunned as a turncoat by the British). During his absence the Convention turned against all aristocrats, issuing a decree for the arrest of the head of its own diplomatic mission in the English capital. The next year his name also appeared on the much feared “list of émigrés,” followed in January 1794 by an order of His Majesty’s Government expelling him from the British Isles. Persona non grata in London and outlawed in France, the nearly penniless refugee embarked for the United States at the age of forty.

  His prospects were bleak, his life at its nadir, but Talleyrand was never one to despair, not even remotely. And with his name finally removed from the list of émigrés by the National Convention in December 1795, returned to Paris the following September. In December 1797 the Directory appointed him foreign minister, and it was in this capacity that he met the young General Bonaparte for the first time.

  Talleyrand was much impressed by this unlikely diminutive Corsican, and as foreign minister theoretically supported both the Egyptian campaign and the subsequent coup d’état of 18 Brumaire. Having resigned as foreign minister in July, he was duly reappointed by Bonaparte in November 1799. At the age of forty-five, Talleyrand had found his true calling.

  In later years, under the Restoration, Talleyrand was criticized for his earlier support of Bonaparte’s coup and government, but although devious he was never a coward, and he parried the accusation with his praise of Bonaparte’s “noble task.” “I liked Napoleon,” he insisted. “I was even quite attached to his person, despite his faults. At the beginning I felt myself attracted to him by that irresistible aura that only a genius can emit. He had produced definite benefits for the country, for which I was deeply grateful. Why should I be afraid to acknowledge this?” It was the only time the arrogant, egotistical, aloof, grand cynic Talleyrand ever praised anyone to such an extent. He may have been a member of the hated Convention, dishonest, destructive, an accomplice to murder (he designed the seizure of Enghien), but he was honest in this rare moment of praise for a kindred spirit who was as pessimistically forthright as he himself in stating his objectives and in taking whatever ruthless measures were required to effect them. Both Talleyrand and Bonaparte were geniuses, both adopted more or less similar moral values and political principles. Both men respected scholarship and were fascinated by classical history. (Talleyrand ultimately built the finest private library in France, second only to that of the Bibliothèque Nationale.) To be sure, Talleyrand had let Napoleon down during the Egyptian campaign (he had probably had no intention of going to Constantinople in the first place), although Napoleon obligingly cast that painful memory aside.

  Napoleon also recognized genius and the extraordinary man that Talleyrand was, as well as his equally astonishing practical abilities. During his entire career there were few men who deeply impressed Bonaparte, and only one who truly dazzled him — Talleyrand. He needed this brilliant statesman to help construct his new government. Nevertheless Napoleon made one great error: thinking that he was the cleverer of the two and could thus always manage this Talleyrand as he did everyone else, as he appointed him to head the Foreign Ministry in the splendid new Hôtel de Gallifet in the Rue du Bac. The two men now had very long talks and appeared to understand each other perfectly, both having studied, and adhering to, the precepts of Niccolo Machiavelli.

  Talleyrand was a gentleman. In Bonaparte’s eyes he represented the old aristocracy at its best and most talented. At the same time, he saw in Talleyrand a man very much like himself, capable and willing to commit any act, however ruthless, brutal, or morally outrageous, in order to achieve the objective of the moment, and not only without a qualm but with unmatched expertise and even elegance and finesse. On the other hand there certainly were vast differences between the two men. Napoleon’s personal frame of reference included something important lacking in Talleyrand’s case. The Bonapartes were after all of Florentine origin, and Napoleon was strongly influenced by the historical precedents of the great Italian Renaissance warlord-politicians — the Sforzas, the Borgias,
and, above all, the Medicis — all successful in carving out personal empires for themselves. Here Napoleon and Talleyrand differed, as did their value systems, including their attitudes toward military despoiling and conquest.

  More important, their ultimate objectives differed. In the final analysis, regardless of his own personal aims — restoring his family’s wealth and position — Talleyrand also always sought to reestablish the fortunes and place of France as a nation superior to all others (not necessarily through geographical empire, but through national genius and degree of civilization attained). Not so Napoleon, who was seeking to establish for the first time the wealth, power, and greatness of his personal empire, and that of his family. France, his adopted country, the conqueror he had so detested as a schoolboy, was of secondary importance to him in accomplishing this and always would be. The Napoleonic ego came first, although his personal accomplishments were to be reflected, on the surface, in French national conquests, themes, institutions, and glory.

  Regardless of their quite separate aims and goals, each man needed the other to attain them. First Consul Bonaparte had to have Talleyrand on his ministerial team now, supporting him. There was no choice in the matter — he never settled for second best — and certainly no statesman in France, or indeed the world, came close to matching the wily foreign minister’s extraordinary abilities. As for Talleyrand, he would manipulate Napoleon with all the considerable subtlety at his command to reach his own ends. They were two individual thoroughbreds harnessed in tandem to one coach. At this initial stage there was just one road to follow, but an unseen fork lay ahead, when one of them would be turning left, and the other right. That a harnessed team could not turn and separate in two directions at once meant either disaster or a parting of the ways — or both.

  Whether in office or out, in France or abroad, Talleyrand was a formidable and unique force to deal with. But who was this man on whom so much depended and who could enthrall even a Napoleon? What was he really like?

  One aspect of Talleyrand remained unaltered throughout his long life, and that was his outward ancien-régime elegance, charm, and wit. But for all that he could be intimidating with his low voice and, as Comte Molé put it, his “dead eyes” set off by his continuous “supercilious expression” that so often upset those about him, including the ladies, especially the rare ladies of chaste reputation in his social circle. Because of his limp and having to drag his lame right leg in a “slithering manner, one could almost see in him one of those fabled monsters, or ogres, half man, half serpent,” as one contemporary put it.[395]

  Victorine de Chastenay, who was also greatly fascinated by Talleyrand’s enemy Fouché, found the foreign minister to be “most witty...and remarkably able to an unusual degree.”[396] Henriette-Lucy, marquise de La Tour du Pin de Gouvernet, who along with her father had known Talleyrand for decades and who was put off by his notorious reputation, his debauched parties, and the impressive number of affairs attributed to him, nevertheless acknowledged: “Kind as he has always been to me, with that delightful conversation so unique to him...One personally regretted having so many reasons for not being able to respect him,” she sighed, “but after an hour with him all was forgotten.”[397] A less charitable Hortense de Beauharnais, who later had an affair with Talleyrand’s illegitimate son, Charles de Flahaut, by whom she in turn had an illegitimate son, commented on his “indulgence pour les vices.”[398] And Molé shrewdly remarked, “One found in him the grand seigneur, a feminine streak, a catlike nature and a bit of the priest, the priest and grand seigneur predominating.” And thus, “when he wished it, perhaps no one could quite fascinate you as M. de Talleyrand.”[399] The Marquise de La Tour du Pin added, “I must confess, I found in him a charm that I never discovered in any other man,”[400] and even the hostile Hortense once admitted, “The day he condescends to speak to you, he is already too kind, you feel, and you are only too ready to adore him if he so much as asks after your health.” So gracious and charming could he be, that regardless of everything one knew about him, “he always won you over to him, like the bird hypnotized by the serpent,” she noted.[401]

  Talleyrand’s work habits as foreign minister were also a throwback to the days of the ancien regime. His hours of public appearance ranged from 11:00 A.M. until 11:00 P.M. (when the doors of the salons of his private receptions were opened). As foreign minister he had no sympathy for wars, which he felt to be as puerile as they were destructive, as a means of settling human differences. Although he generally understood Napoleon’s character and aims as the great man invaded one country after another, he did not appreciate them. He found it unprofitable for France and Europe to wage foreign policy by the sword — leaving strife, hatred, jealousy, anger, as well as social, political, and economic instability, in their wake. If he despised the English as much as Napoleon did — and he could never forget how he had been ejected from British soil — at the same time he felt there were less energetic and more effective and civilized means by which to cope with them.

  He approached his professional work in a seemingly inefficient, even slothful manner, causing considerable delays in any diplomatic proceeding. For his permanent undersecretaries, he described his own diplomatic philosophy: “Circumspection,” “discretion,” and “a disinterested dedication open to no outside influence,” he maintained, were essential. “A certain elevation of feelings that makes the individual feel it is grand and noble to be able to represent one’s country,” was a necessary element. Nevertheless his own actions appeared to put some of the above ideas in the tongue-in-cheek category, for despite his official policy of “festina lente” — making haste slowly — and claims of disinterestedness, his primary interest often appeared to be the quest for money and power, at a time when senior diplomats usually received a tenth of the salary of an equivalent general officer.

  Unlike Napoleon, he did not believe that he should have to concern himself with the minor aspects and details of his daily work, when those could easily be delegated to underlings. “I have always made others work to avoid doing it myself,” he acknowledged.[402] And yet the results were invariably good and satisfactory, achieving what he had set out to do. What is more, he was generally respected and even admired by his ministerial subordinates, including Jaucourt and Caulaincourt, who later succeeded him.

  When actually at the negotiating table he epitomized the centuries-old technique of avoiding giving an official response by his government on a particular issue. “A negotiator or minister...can, by giving an immediate, definitive answer without adequate consideration, do, in a thoughtless moment, such harm to his cause and country that often cannot be undone afterward even by several years’ good service.” Therefore not only was it possible to avoid a premature commitment, but it behooved one to do so. The means were simple enough. When pressed by a diplomatic opponent,

  the lack of instructions and the necessity of consulting one’s government are always legitimate excuses, in order to obtain delays in political affairs...never give an immediate reply to any proposition whatsoever made to you, nor to any complaint or unexpected offer...One must always have time to reflect, and it is better to put off to tomorrow what one cannot do readily and well today, than to act precipitously.[403]

  If over the years Napoleon was to find hints and even proof of Talleyrand’s disloyalty to him, he kept him on time and again. “His own self-interest,” Napoleon insisted, “guarantees me his loyalty, much more than does his character.”[404] The ineffable Talleyrand, however, put his own negative philosophy on the matter on record: “Political regimes may come and go, but France always remains. Occasionally one may betray all his country’s interests by serving one particular regime too fervently, and yet in so doing, at least one is sure of betraying her only intermittently.” In other words, one can justify anything.

  In later years, after having dismissed Talleyrand (only to beg him to return), Napoleon turned on him, attacking both his character and ability, sometimes lying, and
generally distorting the truth and his own real estimation of him when emotionally wrought up at a particular moment. “I do not even think...that he is very intelligent, certainly not extraordinarily intelligent,” he once complained most unconvincingly, as he pointed to the mismanagement of Talleyrand’s personal life and to his disastrous marriage to a woman whom Napoleon himself was largely responsible for forcing him to marry. “Part of his reputation is due to luck more than to his own merit” — something Napoleon’s lifelong detractors suggested about Bonaparte’s own military career. “He was by birth and class one of the first personages of the nobility and clergy, and yet he did all in his power to bring them down,” he pointed out disparagingly, and this was perfectly true. “As we all know, he has stolen more than anyone else in the world, and yet he does not have a sou to his name.” It was indeed true that Talleyrand, a high-stakes gambler who played cards nearly every night, sometimes lost staggering sums, necessitating that Napoleon come to his rescue. Napoleon reminded everyone, “I am obliged to support him out of my private funds, as well as pay off his latest debts.”[405] Despite the enormous sums Talleyrand earned or “received” by dubious means, he was constantly coming back to Bonaparte to bail him out. It was also Napoleon who was responsible for purchasing for the dissolute foreign minister one of the largest estates in the whole of France, the 1.6-million-franc, fifty-thousand-acre Renaissance estate of Valençay, in Berry.[406]

  Admittedly, at various times he was a very wealthy man, mainly as a result of the fabulous purses acquired through the bribes he so openly demanded of various diplomatists and foreign princes when they were negotiating with France or otherwise simply needed a favor. But even Talleyrand could not be compared with Europe’s greatest thief, the looter par excellence of his age, Napoleon. Bonaparte sent entire mule trains and ships laden with his war booty from Spain, Italy, Holland, Austria, and the German states back to France, in part for the state, in part for his own coffers and for those of his family. They bought dozens of estates and then filled them with millions of francs’ worth of jewels, art, gold, and silver. Yet he had the audacity to claim that Talleyrand had surpassed him. But this of course simply followed Napoleon’s pattern of denigrating anyone who ultimately abandoned or rejected him.