T A r. 



Ifi 



T A L 



his dislike of lotteries. He supported nil or most of the 

 vinous loans proper kcr; and seconded Mna- 



- exhortations to keep faith with the national 

 tor. He suggested practical mea.stircs \\ith a view to this 

 ml. and among others the sale of church lands (he had 

 previ. ,'itcd the abolition of tithes', reserving 



however .1 ciinii cti n! provi-ioii fur the priesthood, nud 



improving the condition of UK He 



alto proposed to establish a ' caissc i\';c t,' as 



an additional guarantee to the state'- Tin t. -k 



of making arrangement- lor levying the pint of the revenue 

 .>m taxes upon persons exercising professions, 

 and upon '. I property, devolved upon M. de Tal- 



leyrand. Connected with his labours in preparing a new 

 territorial division of France, and 11 new method of collect- 

 ing the national revenue, was the motion which he made 

 and carried in the Assembly, in August, 17'.H, to the effect 

 that the king should be int'rcatcd to write to his Britannic 

 majesty, to engage the parliament of England to concur 

 with the National Assembly in fixing a natural unit of 

 weights and measures; that,' under the auspices of the two 

 nations, an equal number of commissioners from the 

 Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society of London 

 might unite to determine the length of the pendulum in 

 the latitude of 4;V. or in any other latitude that might be 

 thought preferable, and to deduce from thence an invariable 

 standard of w eights and measures. At the same time t hat he 

 was taking part with his colleagues of the Constituent ( Vm- 

 inittee in these labours he was charged by them with the 

 important task of preparing the report upon national edu- 

 cation, which was read to the Assembly on the 10th, llth, 

 and li)th of September, l~'.)\. The basis of the system 

 advocated in this report was the secularization of instruction : 

 education was to be the gift of the state, not of the church ; 

 the state was to provide instruction for those who proposed 

 to enter the church, exactly as it was to provide instruction 

 for those who proposed to enter any of the other learned 

 profesM.ins. Equal sires- was laid upon the establishment 

 of elementary schools in every canton ; and of a higher 

 fhiss of schools, for the benefit of those who were not 

 destined to embrace a learned profession, in the chief town 

 of every district. Two acts of M. de Talleyrand, which 

 have been much commented upon, appear to be as it were 

 necessary corollaries of the principles avowed in the legis- 

 lative career we have been passing in review : his ap- 

 pearance as principal actor in the theatrical celebration of 

 the ar.niver.-ary of the capture of the Bastille; and his 

 taking upon him the office of consecrating the national 

 clergy. 



It is absolutely necessary that some estimate he formed 

 of the conduct and character of M. de Talleyrand while a 

 member of the first National Assembly, as a guide to an 

 appreciation of his far more enigmatical subsequent 

 . M. de Talleyrand entered the Assembly with the 

 reputation of a dexterous negociator, which he had 

 acquired in his discharge of the office of agent to the 

 flergy. He had then, and he retained in after-life, the 



cter of a self-indulgent man, of a man with a large 

 instinct of self-preservation, but also of a humane man. 

 The disciple of Voltaire and Fontenelle could scarcely be 

 a very zealous Christian, but M. de Talleyrand had always 

 been a n -pcctei of conventional morality: his ; - 

 cisely that kind of disposition and intellect that supports 

 a church not from belief, but as a useful engine for prc- 



ig order in society. M. de Talleyrand, like all the 

 literati of his day, had .1 tin n -lii -al belief in the equality of 

 men ; at the same time that with regard to the privih 

 the nobility, he was inclined to support them in the same 

 way that he did the authority of the church as a useful po- 

 litic al engine, lint involuntarily and perhaps unconsciously 

 M. de Talleyrand was .1 wanner partisan of tin 

 than the clergy : he was noble by birth and attached by 

 taste to the habits of a select society, whereas the ecelesias- 

 1'cal character forced upon him against his will had some- 

 thing rcpulhivc to him. In short, M. de Talleyrand saw 

 clej-riy the roltc-nncss and the absurdity of many 'of the old 

 institutions of his country : he was willing, desirous, that 

 government should be organi/cd and act in a manner to 

 promote the general happiness ; lint he had no faith in the 

 capacity of men for -elf-gov eminent ; and he had been 



1 liurch, many of who-e members v. 



that time obliL- .ences to remain- 



ing in it by adopting the maxim that they were deceiving 



men for their own good. M. de T.dVv rand's idea, and ho 



enteitaineil it in common with .-. 



that the 1 Revolution might be gi:i< :c-red 



!>v approximating the con-tilu- h to 



that of the English government. He cared little lor the 

 creed ol 'the church, but he wish, irch, 



and to render it in France what the established church 

 was in England. Hence hi* \mg 



hands on the property of the church for tl 

 the state, to retain an adequate provision for the clergy. 

 hence his anxiety to identify the clcigy with the n. 

 Hi. ;\! lablish a constitution modelled upon that 



of Knglun'i ivas always avowed. His \ie\-. 

 adopted, it is not meant to attribute originality to thenii 

 regarding territorial divisions and the organization of local 

 government, finance, and education, though oven 

 fora time in the storm of the Revolution, have n 

 been adopted by the Empire, tin 11. and the pre- 



sent dynasty. The n ' :i- to the means by which 



he attained his ends which he displayed even at this 

 period of his career is no evidence of insincerity, but 

 merely of the want of faith in men, whirl, nient 



he had experienced in early life, and his observation of 

 the society he habitually mixed in. had instilled into him. 

 It was his weakness through life to pride himself in the 

 display of his power of retincd mockery, regardless of the 

 enemies it created : he gave vent to his spirit of raillery 

 in actions as well as in words; and thus lent a grot* 

 colouring to his i-'iii/iv it',-lut, which rendered them more 

 startling than if they had been as prosaic as those of Other 

 men. The world is perhaps less (.tart led with the atrocity 

 of passion in a statesman, than with a laughing air 

 shows his contempt for it. The most startling of his 

 devices is his solemn inauguration of the constitutional 

 monarchy by the religious celebration of the 14th of July. 

 But the love of theatrical presentation and the del 

 belief that good may be effected by it is strong in 

 man at some period of his life. Talleyrand in all likelihood 

 looked forward at that moment to being the founder and 

 future primate of a church which should be to F: 

 what the Anglo-Episcopal has been to England. The 

 means to which he was driven to h;i- I in order 



to carry through the installation of the national bishops, 

 undeceived him. and brought back his i ai ! r the 



-ion with redoubled force. He not long alter resigned 

 his bishopric of Antun, and at the same time reno' 

 his ecclesiastical character. 



The history of M. de Talleyrand from the 'dissolution of 

 the Constituent Assembly, in September, I7!H, till the 

 overthrow of the monarchy, on the loth of August, 17!'-. 

 would be instructive were it merely as a demonstration of 

 the folly of the self-denying ordinance with which that 

 body terminated its career. Its members were declared 

 ineligible to the m\t assembly, and also incapable of 



mg any appointment from the crown until two 

 had elapsed from the date of its dissolution, 't 

 qcnce was, that .M. de Talleyrand among others was icn- 



ineapable of any legislative or ministerial office. It 

 was at that time an object with all who desired that the 

 Revolution should have fair play, to preserve pe:u<> with 

 England, which, although still ostensibly neutral. 



ting additional symptom- .lion. 



The "court party bated M. de Talleyrand for having li 



naiikly with the' Revolution ; the republic 

 him lor his advocacy of a limited monarchy; all [ 

 distrusted him on account of his eternal sneer; but nil 

 i c-d that he was the only man whose talents 

 fitted him for the delicate mission to England. And it 

 was impossible to appoint him to it. He 



, c T. in January. 17112, without any ostensible diplo- 

 matic character, to sound the English ministry, .-incl attempt 



::i;, nee negotiations. His \\ant of an official charac- 

 ter allowed the quern to indulge her -onal 

 dislike to the ex-bishop of An tin i bv turning her hack upon 

 him when he was pn-sciilcd .mil this > 

 lion at once ensured his exclusion from general society, 

 and rendered him powerless. Aflcr the accession of the 

 Girondr t.. office, the attempt to ensure :\t least neutrality 

 on the part of England was renewed : Chauvelin w:>- 

 to England as nomin <g with him Talleyrand as 

 real ambassador. By thi-tii : the French govern- 

 ment had 1 neral public of 

 England as to the court circles: the torrent was probably 



