PART II.. "austria and England Have Interests in Common, They Are

"Austria and England have interests in common, they are naturally allied through their foreign policy, whatever otherwise may be the different forms of their governments and the opposite maxims that regulate their home policy. Both are hostile to and jealous of Russia, both desire to check the progress of that Power; they will perhaps unite in an extreme case, but they feel that, if Russia does not allow herself to be overawed, she can defy that union, which is more formidable in appearance than in reality.

"Austria has nothing to ask from England; the latter, on her side, is of no use to Austria except to supply her with money. Now, England, crushed under the weight of her debt, has no money left to lend to anybody. Austria, if abandoned to her own resources, would not, in the present state of her finances, be able to set large armies in motion, especially as she is obliged to watch over Italy and to stand on her guard on the frontiers of Poland and Prussia. The present position of the Russian troops would permit them to enter Vienna earlier than Constantinople.

"What can the English do against Russia? Close the Baltic, cease buying hemp and timber in the markets of the North, destroy Admiral van Heiden's fleet in the Mediterranean, throw a few engineers and a few soldiers into Constantinople, stock that capital with food-stuffs and munitions of war, penetrate into the Black Sea, blockade the ports of the Crimea, deprive the Russian troops in the field of the assistance of their commercial and naval fleets?

"Suppose all this to be accomplished (which, to begin with, could not be done without considerable expenditure, for which there would be neither compensation nor guarantee), Nicholas would still have his huge land force. An attack on the part of Austria and England against the Cross on behalf of the Crescent would increase the popularity in Russia of what is already a national and religious war. Wars of this nature are waged without money, it is they which, by force of public opinion, hurl nations one upon the other. If the popes begin to evangelize in St. Petersburg, as the ulemas are mohammedanizing in Constantinople, they will find more soldiers than they want; they would stand a greater chance of success than their adversaries in this appeal to the passions and beliefs of men. Invasions which descend from north to south are much more rapid and much more irresistible than those which climb from south to north: the propensity of the populations inclines them to flow towards beautiful climates.

"Would Prussia remain an indifferent spectatress of this great struggle, if Austria and England declared for Turkey? There is no reason to think so.

"There exists, no doubt, in the Cabinet of Berlin a party which hates and fears the Cabinet of St. Petersburg; but this party, which, moreover, is beginning to grow old, finds an obstacle in the anti-Austrian party, and especially in the domestic affections.

"Family ties, generally weak among sovereigns, are very strong in the Prussian Family: King Frederic William III. fondly loves his daughter, the present Empress of Russia, and he likes to think that his grandson will ascend the throne of Peter the Great; Princes Frederic, William, Charles, Henry Albert are also greatly attached to their sister Alexandra; the Hereditary Prince Royal saw no objection recently to declaring in Rome that he was a 'Turk-eater.'

"By thus analyzing the interests, we perceive that France is in an admirable political position: she can become the arbitress of that great contest; she can, at her pleasure, maintain neutrality, or declare for a side, according to the time and circumstances. If she were ever obliged to go to that extremity, if her counsels were not heard, if the nobility and moderation of her conduct did not secure for her the peace which she desires for herself and for others, then, in the necessity in which she would find herself of taking up arms, all her interests would incline her to the side of Russia.

"If an alliance were formed between Austria and England against Russia, what benefit would France derive from her adhesion to that alliance?

"Would England lend ships to France?

"France is still, next to England, the first naval power in Europe; she has more ships than she requires to destroy, if necessary, the naval forces of Russia.

"Would England furnish us with subsidies?

"England has no money; France has more than she, and the French have no need to be in the pay of the British Parliament.

"Would England assist us with soldiers and arms?

"France is in no lack of arms, still less of soldiers.

"Would England assure us an increase of insular or continental territory?

"Where shall we secure that increase, if we make war on Russia on behalf of the Grand Turk? Shall we attempt descents on the coasts of the Baltic, the Black Sea and Behring's Straits? Could we have any other hope? Should we expect to attach England to ourselves so that she should hasten to our assistance if ever our internal affairs came to be embroiled?

"Heaven protect us against any such prevision and against foreign intervention in our domestic affairs! England, besides, has always held kings and the liberty of nations cheap; she is always ready remorselessly to sacrifice monarchy or republic to her own interests. Only lately she proclaimed the independence of the Spanish Colonies at the same time that she refused to recognise that of Greece; she sent her fleets to support the Mexican insurgents and caused a few paltry steamboats destined for the Hellenes to be seized in the Thames; she admitted the legality of the rights of Mahmud and denied that of the rights of Ferdinand; she is devoted by turns to despotism or democracy according to the wind which brings the ships of the City merchants to her ports.

"Lastly, if we associated ourselves with the warlike projects of England and Austria against Russia, where should we go in search of our old adversary of Austerlitz? He is not on our frontiers. Should we then send out at our cost a hundred thousand men, fully equipped, to succour Vienna or Constantinople? Should we have an army at Athens to protect the Greeks against the Turks, and an army at Adrianople to protect the Turks against the Russians? Should we fire grape-shot on the Osmanlis in the Morea and embrace them on the Dardanelles? Nothing that lacks common-sense in human affairs succeeds.

"Let us admit, nevertheless, that, against all likelihood, our efforts were crowned with complete success in this unnatural Triple Alliance, let us suppose that Prussia remained neutral during all this strife, as well as the Netherlands, and that, free to move our forces abroad, we were not obliged to fight within sixty leagues of Paris: well, what advantage should we derive from our crusade for the deliverance of the tomb of Mahomet? Knights of the Turks, we should return from the Levant with a fur-lined coat-of-honour; we should have the glory of having thrown away a thousand million francs and two hundred thousand men to calm the terrors of Austria, to satisfy the jealousies of England, to keep up in the fairest portion of the world the plague and barbarism attached to the Ottoman Empire. Austria would perhaps have enlarged her States on the side of Wallachia and Moldavia, and England would perhaps have obtained some commercial privileges from the Porte, privileges of little interest to us if we shared in them, as we have neither so large a number of merchant ships as the English, nor so many manufactured goods to spread in the Levant. We should be completely duped by this Triple Alliance, which might fail in its object and which, if it achieved it, would achieve it only at our expense.

"But, if England has no direct means of being of use to us, could she not at least act upon the Cabinet of Vienna and engage Austrians a compensation for the sacrifices we should make for her, to allow us to recover our old departments on the left bank of the Rhine?

"No: Austria and England will always oppose any such concession; Russia alone can make it to us, as we shall see hereafter. Austria detests and fears us, even more than she hates and dreads Russia; as a choice of evils, she would prefer to see the latter Power expand on the side of Bulgaria rather than France on the side of Bavaria.

"But would the independence of Europe be threatened if the Tsars made Constantinople the capital of their Empire?

"It is necessary to explain what is understood by the independence of Europe: do we mean to say that, all equilibrium being shattered, Russia, after making the conquest of Turkey in Europe, would seize Austria, subjugate Germany and Prussia, and end by subjecting France?

"First, any empire which expands without measure loses some of its strength; it almost always becomes divided; soon we should see two or three Russias hostile one to the other.

"Next, does the equilibrium of Europe exist for France since the last treaties?

"England has retained almost all the conquests which she has made in the colonies of three quarters of the globe during the War of the Revolution; in Europe she has gained Malta and the Ionian Islands; even her Electorate of Hanover she has inflated into a kingdom and enlarged by a few baronies.

"Austria has increased her possessions by a third of Poland, some parings of Bavaria and a part of Dalmatia and Italy. She no longer, it is true, has the Low Countries; but that province has not devolved upon France, and it has become a formidable auxiliary of England and Prussia as against ourselves.

"Prussia has enlarged herself by the Duchy or Palatinate of Posen, a fragment of Saxony and the chief circles of the Rhine; her advance-post is on our own territory, at ten days' march from our capital.

"Russia has recovered Finland and settled down on the banks of the Vistula.

"And what have we gained in all these partitions? We have been despoiled of our colonies; not even our old soil has been respected: Landau detached from France, Hüningen demolished leave a breach of more than fifty leagues in our frontiers; the little State of Sardinia has not blushed to clothe herself in a few shreds stolen from the Empire of Napoleon and the Kingdom of Louis the Great.

"In this position, what interest have we to safeguard Austria and England against the victories of Russia? If the latter were to extend towards the East and alarm the Cabinet of Vienna, should we be in any danger? Have we received so much consideration that we should be so sensible to the anxieties of our enemies? England and Austria have always been and will always be France's natural adversaries; we should see them cheerfully join forces with Russia to-morrow, if it were a question of fighting us and plundering us.

"Let us not forget that, while we should be taking up arms for the so-called safety of Europe, imperilled by the supposed ambition of Nicholas, it would probably happen that Austria, less chivalrous and more rapacious than we, would listen to the proposals of the Cabinet of St. Petersburg; an abrupt and sudden change of policy costs her little. With the consent of Russia, she would seize Bosnia and Servia, leaving to us the satisfaction of exerting ourselves for Mahmud.

"France is already in a state of semi-hostility with the Turks; she alone has already spent many millions and endangered twenty thousand soldiers in the cause of Greece. England would lose only a few words by betraying the principles of the Treaty of the 6th of July; France would lose honour, men and money. Our expedition would no longer be other than a real political miscarriage.

"But, if we do not unite with Austria and England, will the Emperor Nicholas then go to Constantinople? Will the equilibrium of Europe then be shattered?

"Let us, to repeat once again, leave these feigned or genuine fears to England and Austria. That the former should fear to see Russia seize upon the trade of the Levant and become a naval Power matters little to us. Is it, then, so necessary that Great Britain should remain in possession of the monopoly of the seas, that we should spill French blood to preserve the sceptre of the ocean for the destroyer of our colonies, our fleets and our commerce? Is the Legitimate Dynasty to move armies in order to protect the House which coalesces with the illegitimacy and which is, perhaps, reserving for times of discord the means which it believes itself to possess to disturb France? A fine equilibrium for us is that of Europe, when all the Powers, as I have already shown, have increased their own bulk and, with one accord, diminished the weight of France! Let them return within their old boundaries, as we have done; then we shall fly to the aid of their independence, if that independence be threatened. They made no scruples to join hands with Russia, in order to dismember us and incorporate the fruit of our victories; let them then suffer us to-day to draw closer the bonds formed between us and that same Russia, in order to recover suitable boundaries and restore the real balance of Europe!

"Besides, if the Emperor Nicholas were desirous and able to go to sign a peace in Constantinople, would the destruction of the Ottoman Empire be the strict consequence of that fact? Peace has been signed under arms in Vienna, in Berlin, in Paris; almost all the capitals of Europe have been taken in these latter days: have Austria, Bavaria, Prussia, Spain perished? Twice have the Cossacks and the Pandoors come to camp in the court-yard of the Louvre; the Kingdom of Henry IV. has been under military occupation during three years; and yet we should be quite touched to see the Cossacks in possession of the Seraglio, and we should show for the honour of barbarism the susceptibility which we did not display for the honour of civilization and for our own country! Let the pride of the Porte be humbled, and then perhaps it will be obliged to recognise some of the rights of humanity which it outrages!

"I have now made evident whither I am tending and the consequence which I am preparing to deduce from all the foregoing. Here is this consequence:

"If the belligerent Powers cannot come to an arrangement during the winter, if the rest of Europe think itself bound in the spring to intervene in the quarrel, if different alliances be propounded, if France be absolutely obliged to choose between those alliances, if events force her to emerge from her neutrality, all her interests must needs determine her to unite by preference with Russia: a combination which is all the safer inasmuch as it would be easy, with the offer of certain advantages, to make Prussia enter into it.

"There is a sympathy between Russia and France; the latter has almost civilized the former in the upper classes of society; she has given her her language and her manners. Placed at the two extremities of Europe, France and Russia have no contiguous frontiers; they have no battle-field on which they can meet, they have no commercial rivalry, and the natural enemies of Russia, the English and Austrians, are also the natural enemies of France. In time of peace, let the Cabinet of the Tuileries remain allied with the Cabinet of St. Petersburg, and nothing can stir in Europe. In time of war, the union of the two Cabinets will dictate laws to the world.

"I have shown sufficiently that the alliance of France with England and Austria against Russia is a dupe's alliance, in which we should find only loss of blood and treasure. The Russian Alliance, on the contrary, would enable us to obtain establishments in the Archipelago and to push back our frontier to the banks of the Rhine. We can hold this language to Nicholas:

"'Your enemies are making overtures to us; we prefer peace to war, we prefer to preserve neutrality. But, however, if you cannot adjust your differences with Turkey except by arms, if you are determined to go to Constantinople, enter into an equitable partition of Turkey in Europe with the Christian Powers. Those of the Powers which are not so situated as to be able to enlarge their territory towards the East will receive compensation elsewhere. As for us, we wish to have the line of the Rhine from Strasburg to Cologne. Those are our just claims. It is to Russia's interest (your brother Alexander has said so) that France should be strong. If you consent to this arrangement and the other Powers refuse, we will not suffer them to intervene in your dispute with Turkey. If they attack you in spite of our remonstrances, we will fight them with you, always on the conditions which we have just expressed.'

"That is what we can say to Nicholas. Never will Austria, never will England give us the Rhine boundary as the price of our alliance with them: and yet it is there that France must, sooner or later, place her frontiers, both for her honour and her safety.

"A war with Austria and England has many hopes of success and few chances of a reverse. To begin with, there are means of paralyzing Prussia, of even persuading her to join us and Russia; should that happen, the Netherlands could not declare themselves hostile. In the present condition of men's minds, forty thousand Frenchmen defending the Alps would rouse all Italy to action.

"As for hostilities with England, if they were ever to commence, we should have either to throw twenty-five thousand more men into the Morea, or promptly recall our troops and our fleet. Give up squadron formation, disperse your ships singly over all the seas, give orders that all prizes are to be sunk after the crews have been removed, multiply your letters of marque in the ports of the four quarters of the globe, and soon Great Britain, forced by the bankruptcies and outcries of her trade, will sue for the restoration of peace. Did we not see her, in 1814, capitulate before the Navy of the United States, notwithstanding that this consists to-day of only nine frigates and eleven ships?

"Considered in the two-fold respect of the general interests of society and of our own interests, the war of Russia against the Porte should give us no umbrage. On the principle of the higher civilization, the human race can only gain by the destruction of the Ottoman Empire: it is a thousand times better for the nations that the Cross should hold sway in Constantinople than the Crescent. All the elements of morality and of political society are at the root of Christianity, all the germs of social destruction are in the religion of Mahomet. They say that the present Sultan has taken steps towards civilization: is this because he has tried, with the assistance of a few French renegades, of a few English and Austrian officers, to submit his irregular hordes to regular exercises? And since when has the mechanical apprenticeship of arms constituted civilization? It is an enormous mistake, it is almost a crime, to have initiated the Turks into the science of our tactics; we must baptize the soldiers whom we discipline, unless we wish purposely to educate destroyers of society.

"The want of foresight is great: Austria, which applauds herself for organizing the Ottoman Armies, would be the first to bear the penalty of her joy; if the Turks beat the Russians they would be all the more capable of measuring their strength with the Imperials their neighbours. This time, Vienna would not escape the Grand Vizier. Would the rest of Europe, which thinks it has nothing to fear from the Porte, be in greater safety? Passionate and short-sighted men want Turkey to be a regular military Power, to enter into the common right of peace and war of civilized nations, all in order to maintain some balance or other, of which the mere word, void of sense, dispenses those men from having any idea: what would be the consequences were those wishes realized? Whenever it pleased the Sultan, under any pretext, to attack a Christian government, a well-manœuvred Constantinopolitan fleet, augmented by the fleet of the Pasha of Egypt and the naval contingent of the Barbary Powers, would declare the coasts of Spain or Italy in a state of blockade and land fifty thousand men at Carthagena or Naples. You do not wish to plant the Cross on St. Sophia: continue to discipline the hordes of Turks, Albanians, Negroes and Arabs, and, in less than twenty years, perhaps, the Crescent will gleam on the dome of St. Peter's. Will you then summon Europe to a crusade against infidels armed with the plague, slavery and the Koran? It will be too late.

"The general interests of society would therefore benefit by the success of the arms of the Emperor Nicholas.

"As to France's own interests, I have proved sufficiently that these lie in an alliance with Russia, and that they may be singularly favoured by the very war which that Power is to-day waging in the East."

SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND REFLECTIONS

"To sum up:

"1. If Turkey were to consent to treat on the basis of the treaty of the 6th of July, nothing would yet be decided, since peace has not been made between Turkey and Russia; the chances of the war in the Balkan Passes would at every moment change the data and the position of the plenipotentiaries occupied with the emancipation of Greece.

"2. The probable conditions of peace between the Emperor Nicholas and Sultan Mahmud are open to the greatest objections.

"3. Russia can defy the union of England and Austria, a union more formidable in appearance than in reality.

"4. It is probable that Prussia would join hands with the Emperor Nicholas, the son-in-law of Frederic William III., rather than with the Emperor's enemies.

"5. France would have everything to lose and nothing to gain by allying herself with England and Austria against Russia.

"6. The independence of Europe would not be at all threatened by Russia's conquests in the East. It is tolerably absurd, it is to ignore every obstacle, to imagine the Russians hastening from the Bosphorus to lay their yoke upon Germany and France: every empire weakens itself by extension. As to the balance of power, this has long been shattered for France; she has lost her colonies, she has shrunk back within her old boundaries, while England, Prussia, Russia and Austria have prodigiously enlarged theirs.

"7. If France were obliged to emerge from her neutrality, to take up arms for one side or the other, the general interests of civilization, as well as the particular interests of our country, must make us enter by preference into the Russian Alliance. By this means we could obtain the course of the Rhine as our frontier, and colonies in the Archipelago, advantages which the Cabinets of St. James and Vienna will never grant us.

"That is the summary of this Note. I have been able to reason only hypothetically; I do not know what England, Austria and Russia are proposing, or have proposed, at the moment of writing; there may be a piece of information or a dispatch which reduces the truths here set forth to useless generalities: that is the drawback of distances and of conjectural politics. Nevertheless, it remains certain that France holds a strong position and that the Government is so placed as to be able to make the very utmost of events, if it thoroughly realizes what it requires, if it allows no one to intimidate it, if to firmness of language it adds vigour in action. We have a revered King, an Heir to the Throne who, with three hundred thousand men, would increase, on the banks of the Rhine, the glory which he has reaped in Spain; our Morean Expedition is making us play a part filled with honour; our political institutions are excellent; our finances are in a state of prosperity unequalled in Europe: with that one can walk with one's head raised. What a fine country is that which possesses genius, courage, men and money!

"For the rest, I do not pretend to have said everything, to have foreseen everything; I have not the presumption to put forward my system as the best; I know that there is something mysterious, something indiscernible, in human affairs. If it be true that one can fairly well prophesy the last and general results of a revolution, it is no less true that one deceives one's self as to the details, that particular events are often modified in an unexpected manner and that, while seeing the end, one reaches it by roads whose very existence one did not suspect. It is certain, for instance, that the Turks will be driven from Europe; but when and how? Will the war now waging deliver the civilized world from that scourge? Are the obstacles to peace to which I have pointed insurmountable? Yes, if we confine ourselves to analogous arguments; no, if we bring into our calculations circumstances foreign to those which have occasioned the resort to arms.

"Scarcely anything to-day resembles what it has been; outside religion and morality, the majority of truths have altered, if not in their essence, at least in their relations to men and things. D'Ossat survives as an able negociator; Grotius as a publicist of genius; Pufendorf as a judicious mind; but we could not apply the rules of their diplomacy to our times, nor go back, in political law, to the Treaty of Westphalia. Nowadays, the peoples take a part in their affairs, conducted formerly by the governments alone. Those peoples no longer feel things as they used to feel them; they are no longer affected by the same events; they no longer see objects from the same point of view; reason has made progress with them at the cost of imagination; facts carry the day over exaltation and passionate determinations; a certain reason prevails on every hand. On most of the thrones and in the majority of the Cabinets of Europe are seated men weary of revolutions, surfeited with war and opposed to any spirit of adventure; those are causes of hope for peaceful arrangements. Also it is possible that nations may have internal troubles which would dispose them towards conciliatory measures.

"The death of the Dowager Empress of Russia may develop seeds of disturbance which were not wholly stifled. This Princess took little part in foreign politics, but she was a link between her sons; she is supposed to have exercised a great influence over the transactions which gave the crown to the Emperor Nicholas. Nevertheless, it must be confessed that, if Nicholas began again to be afraid, this would be a reason the more for him to push on his soldiers from their native soil and to seek safety in victory.

"England, independently of her debt, which hampers her movements, is embarrassed with affairs in Ireland. Whether Catholic Emancipation pass through Parliament or not, it will be an immense event. King George's health is breaking down, that of his immediate successor is no better; if the accident foreseen were to happen soon, there would be a new parliament summoned, perhaps a change of ministers, and capable men are rare in England to-day; a long regency might perhaps come. In this precarious and critical position, it is possible that England sincerely desires peace and that she is afraid to throw herself into the chances of a great war, in the midst of which she might find herself surprised by internal catastrophes.

"Lastly, to come to ourselves, in spite of our genuine and incontrovertible prosperity, although we could make a glorious appearance on a field of battle, if called to it: are we quite prepared to figure on one? Are our fortresses in a state of repair? Have we the stores necessary for a large army? Is that army even on a complete peace footing? If we were suddenly aroused by a declaration of war from England, Prussia and the Netherlands, could we make an effective opposition against a third invasion? The Napoleonic wars have divulged a fatal secret: that it is possible to reach Paris in a few days after a successful engagement; that Paris does not defend itself; that this same Paris is much too near the frontier. The capital of France will not be safe until we possess the left bank of the Rhine. We may therefore require some time to prepare ourselves.

"Add to all this that the vices and virtues of the sovereigns, their moral strength and weakness, their character, their passions, their very habits are causes of acts and of facts which defy calculation and which enter into no political formula: the most petty influence sometimes decides the greatest event in a sense opposed to the likelihood of things; a slave can cause a peace to be signed in Constantinople which all Europe, coalesced or on its knees, would not obtain.

"If, then, one of those reasons, placed outside the limits of human foresight, should, in the course of this winter, produce demands for negociations, ought they to be rejected, if they did not agree with the principles of this Note? No, doubtless: to gain time is a great thing, when one is not ready. One can know what would be best and be content with what is least bad; political truths, above all, are relative; the absolute, in matters of State, has grave disadvantages. It would be a good thing for the human race that the Turks should be thrown into the Bosphorus; but we are not charged with the expedition, and the hour of Mohammedanism has perhaps not struck: hatred must be enlightened in order not to commit follies. Nothing, therefore, should prevent France from entering into negociations, while taking care to reconcile them as far as possible with the spirit in which this Note is drawn up. It is for the men at the helm of empires to steer them according to the winds and avoid the foul places.

"Certainly, if the powerful Sovereign of the North consented to reduce the terms of peace to the fulfilment of the Treaty of Akerman and the emancipation of Greece, it would be possible to make the Porte listen to reason; but what likelihood is there that Russia will confine herself to terms which she might have obtained without firing a gun? How could she abandon claims so loudly and so publicly expressed? One means alone, if there be one, would present itself: to propose a general congress at which the Emperor Nicholas would yield, or appear to yield, to the wishes of Christian Europe. A means of success with men is to save their self-esteem, to supply them with a reason to withdraw their word and issue from a bad plight with honour.

"The greatest obstacle to this plan of a congress would come from the unexpected success of the Ottoman arms during the winter. If, owing to the rigour of the season, the want of provisions, the insufficiency of the troops, or any other cause, the Russians were obliged to abandon the Siege of Silistria, if Varna, which, however, is hardly probable, were to fall again into the hands of the Turks, the Emperor Nicholas would find himself in a position which would no longer permit him to listen to any proposal, under the penalty of descending to the lowest rank of monarchs: then the war would continue and we should come back to the eventualities inferred in this Note. If Russia lost her rank as a military power, if Turkey replaced her in this quality, Europe would only have changed one peril for another. Now, the danger which would come upon us through the scimitar of Mahmud would be of a much more formidable nature than that with which we should be threatened by the sword of the Emperor Nicholas. If fortune, by chance, seat a remarkable prince upon the Throne of the Sultans, he cannot live long enough to change the laws and manners, even if he had the intention to do so. Mahmud will die: to whom will he leave the Empire, with its disciplined, fanatical soldiers, with its ulemas holding in their hands, thanks to the initiation of modern tactics, a new means of conquest for the Koran?

"While Austria, at last terrified by those false calculations, would be obliged to guard herself on frontiers where the janissaries gave her nothing to fear, a new military insurrection, a possible result of the humiliation of the Emperor Nicholas, would perhaps break out in St. Petersburg, spread from place to place, and set fire to the north of Germany. That is what the men do not perceive who, in politics, confine themselves to vulgar terrors and commonplaces. Petty dispatches, petty intrigues are the barriers which Austria designs to oppose to an all--threatening movement. If France and England adopted a course worthy of themselves, if they notified the Porte that, in case the Sultan should close his ears to all proposals of peace, he would find them on the battle-field in the spring, that resolution would soon have put an end to the anxiety of Europe."

The existence of this Memorandum, having transpired in the diplomatic world, attracted to me a certain consideration which I did not decline, but which I did not either aspire to. I do not too clearly see what there was to surprise the "practical" men. My Spanish War was a very "practical" thing. The incessant work of the general revolution operating in the old society, while bringing about among ourselves the fall of the Legitimacy, has upset calculations subordinate to the permanence of facts as they existed in 1828.

Do you wish to convince yourselves of the enormous difference of merit and glory between a great writer and a great politician? My works as a diplomatist have been hallowed by what is recognised as the supreme ability, success. And, still, whosoever may at any time read this Memorandum will no doubt skip it close-legged, and I should do as much in the reader's place. Well, suppose that, instead of this little diplomatic master-piece, we were to find in this writing some episode after the manner of Homer or Virgil, if Heaven had granted me their genius: do you think we should be tempted to skip the loves of Dido at Carthage or the tears of Priam in Achilles' tent?

TO MADAME RÉCAMIER

"ROME, Wednesday, 10 December 1828.

"I have been to the Tiberine Academy, of which I have the honour to be a member. I have heard very witty speeches and very fine verses. What an amount of wasted intelligence! To-night I have my great ricevimento; I am terrified of it as I write to you."

"11 December.

"The great ricevimento passed off admirably. Madame de Chateaubriand is delighted, because we had all the cardinals on the face of the earth. All Europe in Rome was there with Rome. Since I am condemned for some days to this business, I prefer to do it as well as another ambassador. The enemies dislike any kind of success, even the most miserable, and it is punishing them to succeed in a field where they believe themselves unequalled. Next Saturday, I transform myself into a canon of St. John Lateran, and on Sunday I give a dinner to my colleagues. An assembly more to my taste is that which takes place this evening: I dine at Guérin's with all the artists and we shall settle your monument to Poussin. A young pupil full of talent, M. Desprez, will make the bas-relief, taken from a picture by the great painter, and M. Lemoyne will make the bust. We must have only French hands here.

"To complete my History of Rome, Madame de Castries has arrived. She again is one of those little girls who have sat on my knee, like Césarine (Madame de Barante). The poor woman is very much changed; her eyes filled with tears when I reminded her of her childhood at Lormois. It seems to me that the new arrival is no longer under the spell of enchantment. What an isolation! And for whom? I tell you, the best thing for me to do is to go to see you again as soon as possible. If my Moses comes down safely from the mountain, I will borrow one of his rays, to reappear before your eyes quite brilliant and youthful."

"Saturday, 13.

"My dinner at the Academy went off admirably. The young men were pleased: it was the first time an ambassador had dined 'with them.' I announced the Poussin Monument to them; it was as though I were already honouring their ashes."

Thursday, 18 December 1828.

"Instead of wasting my time and yours in telling you the doings of my life, I prefer to send them to you all written down in the Roman newspaper. Here are another twelve months that have fallen on my head. When shall I have rest? When shall I cease to waste on the high-roads the days that were given me to make a better use of? I have spent with my eyes shut while I was rich; I thought the treasure inexhaustible. Now, when I see how it has diminished and how little time is left to me to lay at your feet, I feel a pain at my heart. But is there not a long existence after that on earth? A poor, humble Christian, I tremble before Michael Angelo's Last Judgment; I know not where I shall go, but, wherever you are not, I shall be very unhappy. I have a hundred times acquainted you with my plans and my future. Ruins, health, the loss of all illusion, all say to me, 'Go away, retire, have done.' I find nothing at the end of my day's journey but you. You wished me to mark my stay in Rome, it is done: Poussin's tomb will remain. It will bear this inscription:

F. A. DE CH. TO NICOLAS POUSSIN,

FOR THE GLORY OF ART AND THE HONOUR OF FRANCE.

"What more have I to do here now? Nothing, especially after subscribing your name for the sum of one hundred ducats to the monument of the man whom you say you love best 'after myself:' Tasso."

"ROME, Saturday, 3 January 1829.

"I am recommencing my good wishes for the New Year: may Heaven grant you health and a long life! Do not forget me; I have hopes, for, indeed, you remember M. de Montmorency and Madame de Staël: your memory is as good as your heart. I was saying yesterday to Madame Salvage that I knew nothing in the world so beautiful as yourself or better.

"I spent an hour yesterday with the Pope. We spoke of everything, including the loftiest and gravest topics. He is a very distinguished and enlightened man and a Prince full of dignity. The adventures of my political life needed only that I should be in relations with a sovereign pontiff; that completes my career.

"Would you like to know exactly what I do? I rise at half-past five, I breakfast at seven o'clock; at eight o'clock, I go back to my study, I write to you, or do some business, when there is any to do (the detail-work in connection with the French establishments and the French poor is pretty considerable); at mid-day, I go to wander for two or three hours among the ruins, or to St. Peter's, or to the Vatican. Sometimes I pay a necessary visit before or after my walk; at five o'clock, I come home; I dress for the evening; I dine at six o'clock; at half-past seven, I go to a party with Madame de Chateaubriand, or I receive a few people at home. At eleven, I go to bed, or else I go back once more to the campagna, in spite of the robbers and the malaria. What do I do there? Nothing: I listen to the silence and watch my shadow passing from portico to portico along the moonlit aqueducts.

"The Romans are so accustomed to my 'methodical' life that they reckon the hours by me. They must be quick about it; I shall soon have been round the clock."

"ROME, Thursday, 8 January 1828.

"I am very unhappy; the finest weather in the world has changed into rain, so that I am no longer able to take my walks. And yet that is the only pleasant moment of my day. I used to go thinking of you to these deserted campagne; they linked the past and the future in my sentiments, for formerly I used to take the same walks. Once or twice a week, I go to the place where the English girl was drowned: who now remembers that poor young woman, Miss Bathurst? Her fellow-countrymen and women gallop along the river-side without thinking of her. The Tiber, which has seen many other things, does not trouble about her at all. Besides, its waters have been renewed: they are as pale and still as when they passed over that creature full of hope, beauty and life.

"I have fallen into a very lofty strain without knowing it. Forgive a poor hare imprisoned and steeped in his form. I must tell you a little story of my last 'Tuesday.' There was an immense crowd at the Embassy; I was standing with my back against a marble table, bowing to the people arriving and leaving. An Englishwoman, of whom I knew neither the name nor the appearance, came up to me, looked me straight in the face and said, with the famous accent:

"'Monsieur de Chateaubriand, you are very unhappy!'

"Astonished at this apostrophe and at this manner of entering into conversation, I asked her what she meant. She replied:

"'I mean to say that I pity you.'

"So saying, she linked her arm into that of another Englishwoman, was lost in the crowd, and I did not see her again during the rest of the evening. That eccentric stranger was neither young nor pretty: I feel grateful to her, nevertheless, for her mysterious words.

"Your newspapers continue to say the same things about me. I don't know what has possessed them. I ought to believe myself as forgotten as I wish to be.

"I am writing to M. Thierry by this post. He is at Hyères and very ill. Not a word of reply from M. de La Bouillerie."

TO M. THIERRY

"ROME, 8 January 1829.

"I was much touched, monsieur, to receive the new edition of your Letters, with a line which proves that you have thought of me. If that line had been in your own hand, I should have hoped for the sake of my country that your eyes would reopen to the studies which your talent turns to such wonderful account. I am greedily reading, or rather re-reading, this too short work. I am making dog's ears to every page, in order the better to mark the passages upon which I wish to rely. I shall quote you very frequently, monsieur, in the work which I have been so many years preparing, on the two first dynasties. I shall shelter my ideas and my researches behind your authority; I shall often adopt your reforms in nomenclature; lastly, I shall have the good fortune to be almost invariably of your opinion, while departing, much despite of myself, no doubt, from the system put forth by M. Guizot; but I cannot, in common with that illustrious writer, overthrow the most authentic monuments, turn all the Franks into 'nobles' and 'free-men,' and all the Roman-Gauls into 'slaves of the Franks.' The Salic Law and the Ripuarian Law have a multitude of articles based on the difference of condition among the Franks:

"'St quis ingenuus ingenuum ripuarium extra solum vendiderit, etc., etc.'

"You know, monsieur, how eagerly I wished for you in Rome. We should have sat down on some ruins: there you would have taught me history; I, an old disciple, would have listened to my young master with the sole regret that I no longer had enough years before me to profit by his lessons:

Tel est le sort de l'homme: il s'instruit avec l'âge. Mais que sert être sage, Quand le terme est si près?

"Those lines are from an unpublished ode, written by a man who is no more, by my good and old friend, Fontanes. Thus, monsieur, does everything remind me, among the remains of Rome, of all that I have lost, of the short time that still remains to me and of the brevity of those hopes which seemed so long to me in former days: spem longam.

"Believe, monsieur, that no one admires you more, or is more devoted to you than your servant."

DISPATCH TO M. LE COMTE DE LA FERRONAYS

"ROME, 12 January 1829.

"MONSIEUR LE COMTE,

"I saw the Pope on the 2nd of this month; he was good enough to keep me with him in private audience for an hour and a half. I must report to you the conversation which I had with His Holiness.

"We first spoke of France. The Pope began with the most sincere praise of the King.

"'At no time,' he said, 'has the Royal Family of France displayed so complete a harmony of good qualities and virtues. Now calm has been restored among the clergy; the bishops have made their submission.'

"'That submission,' I replied, 'is, in part, due to the sagacity and moderation of Your Holiness.'

"'I advised what seemed reasonable to me to be done,' answered the Pope. 'There were no spiritual matters involved in the ordinances; the bishops would have done better to leave their first letter unwritten; but, after saying, "Non possutnus," it was difficult for them to withdraw. They tried to display as little contradiction as possible between their actions and their language at the moment of their adhesion: we must forgive them for it. They are pious men, firmly attached to the King and the Monarchy; they have their weaknesses in common with all men.'

"All this, monsieur le comte, was said in very clear and excellent French.

"After thanking the Holy Father for the confidence which he showed me, I spoke to him in terms of consideration of the Cardinal Secretary of State:

"'I chose him,' he said, 'because he has travelled, because he knows the general affairs of Europe and because he seemed to me to possess the sort of capacity which his post demands. He has written, with respect to your two ordinances, only what I thought and what I recommended him to write.'

"'Might I venture to give Your Holiness,' I resumed, 'my opinion of the religious situation in France?'

"'You will be doing me a great pleasure,' replied the Pope.

"I suppress a few compliments which His Holiness was good enough to address to me.

"'I think then, Most Holy Father, that the mischief arose in the first place from a mistake of the clergy: instead of supporting the new institutions, or at least keeping silence respecting those institutions, they allowed words of blame, to say no more, to escape in their charges and sermons. Irreligious persons, who were at a loss with what to reproach saintly ministers, seized upon those words and made a weapon of them; they cried that Catholicism was incompatible with the establishment of public liberty, that it was war to the death between the Charter and the priests. By holding the opposite conduct, our ecclesiastics would have obtained all they wanted from the nation. There is a great ground-work of religion in France and a visible inclination to forget our old misfortunes at the foot of the altars; but also there is a real attachment to the institutions introduced by the sons of St. Louis. It would be impossible to calculate the measure of power to which the clergy might have attained, if they had shown themselves at the same time friends to the King and the Charter. I have never ceased to preach this policy in my writings and in my speeches; but the passions of the moment refused me a hearing and took me for an enemy.'

"The Pope had listened to me with the greatest attention.

"'I enter into your ideas,' he said, after a moment's pause. 'Jesus Christ made no pronouncement as to the form of governments. "Render to Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's" means only, "Obey the established authorities." The Catholic religion has prospered in the midst of republics as in the bosom of monarchies; it has made immense progress in the United States; it reigns alone in Spanish America.'

"These words are very remarkable, monsieur le comte, at the very moment when the Court of Rome is strongly inclining to establish the bishops nominated by Bolivar.

"The Pope resumed:

"'You see how great is the influx of Protestant strangers to Rome: their presence does good to the country; but it is also good in another respect: the English come here with strange notions regarding the Pope and the Papacy, the fanaticism of the clergy, the slavery of the people in this country; they have not stayed here two months before they are quite changed. They see that I am only a bishop like any other bishop, that the Roman clergy are neither ignorant nor persecuting, and that my subjects are not beasts of burden!'

"Encouraged by this sort of effusion of the heart, and seeking to widen the scope of the conversation, I said to the Sovereign Pontiff:

"'Does not Your Holiness think that the moment is favourable for the recomposition of Catholic unity, for the reconciliation of the dissenting sects, by some slight concessions of discipline? The prejudices against the Court of Rome are vanishing in every quarter and, in a century which was still ardent, the work of reunion had already been attempted by Leibnitz and Bossuet.'

"'This is a great matter,' said the Pope; 'but I must await the moment fixed by Providence. I agree that the prejudices are vanishing; the division of the sects in Germany has brought about the lassitude of those sects. In Saxony, where I resided for three years, I was the first to establish a foundling hospital and to obtain that this hospital should be served by Catholics. A general outcry arose against me at the time among the Protestants; to-day those same Protestants are the first to praise and endow the institution. The number of Catholics is increasing in Great Britain; it is true that they include many foreigners.'

"The Pope pausing for a moment, I took occasion to introduce the question of the Irish Catholics:

"'If the emancipation takes place,' I said, 'the Catholic religion will increase still more in Great Britain.'

"'That is true on one side,' replied His Holiness, 'but on the other there are disadvantages. The Irish Catholics are very ardent and very incautious. Has not O'Connell, in other respects a man of merit, gone so far as to say that a concordat had been proposed between the Holy See and the British Government? There is not a word of truth in this assertion; I cannot contradict it publicly; and it has given me great pain. And so, for the union of the dissenters, it is necessary that things should be ripe and that God Himself should complete His work. The popes can only wait.'

"This was not my opinion, monsieur le comte; but my business was to inform the King of the Holy Father's opinion on so serious a subject, not to combat it.

"'What will your newspapers say?' asked the Pope, with a sort of gaiety. 'They talk a great deal! Those of the Netherlands still more; but I am told that, in your country, nobody thinks of their articles an hour after they have read them.'

"'That is absolutely true, Most Holy Father: you see how the Gazette de France deals with me,'--for I know that His Holiness reads all our newspapers, not excepting the Courrier--'and still the Sovereign Pontiff treats me with extreme kindness; I have reason to believe, therefore, that the Gazette does not make a great impression on him.'--The Pope laughed and shook his head.--'Well, Most Holy Father, there are others like Your Holiness; when the paper tells the truth, the good it says remains; if it lies, it is as though it had said nothing at all. The Pope must expect some speeches during this session: the Extreme Right will maintain that M. le Cardinal Bernetti is not a priest and that his letters on the ordinances are not articles of faith; the Extreme Left will declare that we need not have taken our orders from Rome. The majority will commend the deference of the Privy Council and will loudly praise the spirit of peace and wisdom of Your Holiness.'

"This little explanation appeared to charm the Holy Father, who was pleased to meet with some one acquainted with the workings of our constitutional machine. Finally, monsieur le comte, thinking that the King and his Council would like to know the views of the Pope on the present state of affairs in the East, I repeated some news out of the papers, not being authorized to communicate to the Holy See the positive facts of which you informed me in your dispatch of the 18th December touching the recall of our expedition to the Morea.

"The Pope did not hesitate to reply; he appeared to me to be alarmed at the imprudence of instructing the Turks in military discipline. I give his own words:

"'If the Turks are already capable of resisting Russia, what will their power be when they have obtained a glorious peace? Who will prevent them, after four or five years spent in rest and in perfecting their new tactics, from hurling themselves upon Italy?'

"I will confess, monsieur le comte, that, when I recognised these ideas and these anxieties in the mind of the Sovereign most exposed to the effects of the consequence of the enormous error that has been committed, I congratulated myself on having displayed to you in fuller detail, in my Note on Eastern Affairs, the same ideas and the same anxieties.

"'Nothing,' added the Pope, 'except a firm resolution on the part of the Allied Powers, can put an end to a misfortune which threatens the future. France and England are still in time to stop everything; but, if a new campaign open, it can set Europe on fire, and then it will be too late to extinguish it.'

"'That reflection is the more just,' I answered, 'seeing that, if Europe were to become divided, which God forbid, the presence of fifty thousand Frenchmen would stir up the whole question again.'

"The Pope made no reply; only it appeared to me that the idea of seeing the French in Italy filled him with no sort of fear. Every one is weary of the inquisition of the Court of Vienna, of its cavilling, of its continual encroachments and of its little plots to unite the peoples which detest the Austrian yoke into a confederation against France.

"This, monsieur le comte, is a summary of my long conversation with His Holiness. I do not know that any one has ever been in a position to know more thoroughly the inner sentiments of the Pope, that any one has ever heard a prince who governs the Christian world express himself so plainly on subjects so vast and so far removed from the narrow circle of diplomatic commonplaces. Here there was no intermediary between the Sovereign Pontiff and myself and it was easy to see that Leo XII., thanks to his candid character and the impulse of a familiar conversation, dissimulated nothing and in no way sought to deceive.

"The leanings and wishes of the Pope are evidently towards France: when he assumed the Keys of St. Peter, he belonged to the faction of the zelanti; to-day he has sought his strength in moderation: that is what the habit of power always teaches. For this reason he is not beloved by the faction of cardinals which he has quitted. Finding no man of talent in the secular clergy, he has chosen his chief advisers among the regular clergy; hence it comes that the monks are on his side, while the prelates and the simple priests make a sort of opposition to him. The latter, when I arrived in Rome, all had their minds more or less infected with the lies of our congregation; they are now infinitely more reasonable; they all, generally speaking, blame the rising in arms of our clergy. It is curious to remark that the Jesuits have as many enemies here as in France: they have as their special adversaries the other religious and the heads of Orders. They had formed a plan by means of which they would have seized upon the public instruction in Rome to the exclusion of the others: the Dominicans have foiled that plan. The Pope is not very popular, because he administers well. His little army consists of old soldiers of Bonaparte, who have a very military bearing and keep excellent order on the high-roads. If material Rome has lost in picturesqueness, it has gained in cleanliness and healthiness. His Holiness plants trees and arrests hermits and beggars: another subject of complaint for the populace. Leo XII. is a great worker; he sleeps little and eats scarcely at all. Only one taste remains to him of his youth, that of sport, an exercise necessary to his health, which, for that matter, seems to be improving. He has a few shots with a fowling-piece in the vast enclosure of the Gardens of the Vatican. The zelanti find it very difficult to forgive him this innocent diversion. The Pope is reproached with the weakness and inconstancy of his affections.

"The radical vice of the political constitution of this country is easily seized upon: it is old men who appoint as sovereign an old man like themselves. This old man, when he becomes the master, in his turn appoints old men as cardinals. Turning in this vicious circle, the enervated supreme power is in this way always at the edge of the tomb. The prince never occupies the throne for a long enough period to execute the plans of improvement which he may have conceived. A pope ought to have sufficient resolution suddenly to promote a number of young cardinals, in such a way as to ensure at the next election the majority of a young pope. But the rules of Sixtus V., which give the hat to palace employments, the empire of custom and habit, the interests of the people, who receive gratifications at each change of the tiara, the individual ambition of the cardinals, who wish for short reigns in order to multiply their chances of the papacy, these and a thousand other obstacles too long to narrate are opposed to the rejuvenation of the Sacred College.

"The conclusion of this dispatch, monsieur le comte, is that, in the present condition of affairs, the King can reckon entirely on the Court of Rome.

"Cautious as I am in my manner of seeing and feeling, if I have anything with which to reproach myself in the report which I have the honour to send you, it is that I have weakened rather than exaggerated the expression of His Holiness' words. My memory is very safe; I wrote down the conversation on leaving the Vatican and my private secretary has simply copied it word for word from my minutes. The latter, rapidly jotted down, were hardly legible to myself. You would never have been able to decipher them.

"I have the honour to be, etc."

TO MADAME RÉCAMIER

"ROME, Tuesday, 13 January 1829.

"Yesterday evening, at eight o'clock, I wrote you the letter which M. Du Viviers is bringing you; this morning, on waking, I am writing to you again by the ordinary post, which leaves at noon. You know the poor ladies of Saint-Denis: they have been much neglected since the arrival of the great ladies of the Trinità-del-Monte; without being the enemy of the latter, I have taken the side of the former with Madame de Ch. For the last month, the ladies of Saint-Denis have been wishing to give a fête in honour of 'M. the Ambassador' and 'Madame the Ambassadress:' it took place yesterday at mid-day. Imagine a theatre arranged in a sort of sacristy with a platform giving on to the church; as actors, a dozen young girls from eight years to fourteen, who played the Machabées. They had themselves made their helmets and cloaks. They spoke their French lines with an enthusiasm and an Italian accent which were the funniest things in the world; they stamped their feet at energetic moments: there was a niece of Pius VII., a daughter of Thorwaldsen, and another daughter of Chauvin the painter. They were incredibly pretty in their paper finery. The one who played the High Priest had a great black beard which delighted her but pricked her, and which she was constantly obliged to put right with a little thirteen-year-old white hand. As spectators, ourselves, a few mothers, the nuns, Madame Salvage, two or three priests and a further score of little school-girls, all in white, with veils. We had had cakes and ices brought from the Embassy. They played the piano between the acts. Imagine the hopes and joys which, must have preceded this fête at the convent, and the memories which will follow it! The whole ended with Vivat in æternum, sung by three nuns in the church."

"ROME, January 1829.

"Yours again! Last night we had wind and rain as in France: I imagined them beating against your little window; I found myself transported to your little room, I saw your harp, your piano, your birds; you played me my favourite air, or Shakspeare's: and I was in Rome, far away from you! Four hundred leagues and the Alps separate us!

"I have received a letter from that witty lady who used sometimes to come to see me at the Foreign Office; you can judge how well she courts me: she is a furious Turcophile; Mahmud is a great man, who is in advance of his nation!

"This Rome, in whose midst I live, ought to teach me to despise politics. Here liberty and tyranny have both perished: I see the huddled ruins of the Roman Republic and the Empire of Tiberius; what is all this to-day blended in the same dust? Does not the Capuchin who sweeps that dust with his gown as he goes by seem to make the vanity of so many vanities even more perceptible? Nevertheless, I come back, in spite of myself, to the destinies of my poor country. I would wish it religion, glory and liberty, without thinking of my powerlessness to deck it with that triple crown."

"ROME, Thursday, 5 February 1829.

"Torre Vergata is a domain of monks situated at about a league from Nero's Tomb, on the left as you come from Rome, in the most beautiful and deserted spot: there is an immense number of ruins level with the ground covered with grass and thistle. I began an excavation there two days ago, on Tuesday, just after I had written to you. I was accompanied by Hyacinthe and by Visconti, who is directing the excavation. The weather was the loveliest in the world. A dozen men armed with spades and pickaxes, digging up tombs and ruins of houses and palaces amid profound solitude, offered a spectacle worthy of you. I uttered but one wish: that you might be there. I would gladly consent to live with you in a tent amid those ruins.

"I myself put my hand to the work; I discovered fragments of marble: the clues are excellent and I hope to find something to compensate me for the money wasted in this lottery of the dead; already I have a block of Greek marble large enough to make Poussin's bust. This excavation will become the object of my walks; I shall go and sit everyday in the midst of these remains. To which century, to which men did they belong? We are perhaps removing the most illustrious dust without knowing it. Perhaps an inscription will come to throw light upon some historic fact, to destroy some error, to establish some truth. And then, when I have gone away with my twelve half-naked peasants, all will fall back into oblivion and silence. Do you picture to yourself all the passions, all the interests which once bestirred themselves in these abandoned spots? There were masters and slaves, happy people and unhappy, beautiful persons who were beloved and ambitious people who wanted to be ministers. There remain a few birds and I, for but a very short time longer; soon we shall fly away. Tell me, do you think it worth while to be one of the members of the council of a little king of the Gauls, for me, an Armorican barbarian, a traveller among savages of a world unknown to the Romans and ambassador to the priests whom they used to throw to the lions? When I called to Leonidas at Lacedæmon, he did not answer: the sound of my footsteps at Torre Vergata will have roused nobody. And when I, in my turn, am in my grave, I shall not hear even the sound of your voice. I must therefore hurry to come closer to you and to put an end to all these idle fancies of the life of men. There is nothing good save retirement, nothing true save an attachment like yours."

"ROME, 7 February 1829.

"I have received a long letter from General Guilleminot; he gives me a lamentable account of what he suffered during his journeys on the coasts of Greece: and yet Guilleminot was an ambassador; he had large ships and an army under his orders. To go, after our soldiers have left, to a country in which not a house nor a corn-field remains, among a few scattered men, driven by poverty to become brigands, is an impossible project for a woman.

"I shall go to my excavation this morning: yesterday we found the skeleton of a Gothic soldier and the arm of a female statue. It was as though one had come upon the destroyer together with the ruin he had made; we have great hopes of finding the statue this morning. If the architectural remains which I am uncovering are worth the trouble, I shall not break them up to sell the bricks, as is usually done: I shall leave them standing, and they will bear my name. They belong to the time of Domitian. We have an inscription which shows this: it is the good time of the Roman arts."

DISPATCHES TO M. LE COMTE PORTALIS

"ROME, Monday, 9 February 1829.

"MONSIEUR LE COMTE,

"His Holiness had a sudden attack this morning of the disorder to which he is subject; his life is in the most imminent danger. The order has been given to close all the theatres. I have just left the Cardinal Secretary of State, who is himself ill and who despairs of the Pope's life. The loss of this enlightened and modern Sovereign Pontiff would, at the present moment, be a real calamity for Christianity and especially for France. I thought it important, monsieur le comte, that His Majesty's Government should be warned of this probable event, so that it may be enabled to take such measures beforehand as it shall consider necessary. Consequently, I have dispatched a mounted courier to Lyons. This courier carries a letter which I am writing to Monsieur the Prefect of the Rhône, with a telegraphic dispatch which he will forward to you, and another letter which I am asking him to send you by express. If we have the misfortune to lose His Holiness, a fresh courier will bring you all the details to Paris.

"I have the honour to be, etc."

"Eight o'clock in the evening.

"The congregation of Cardinals already assembled has forbidden the Cardinal Secretary of State to give permits for post-horses. My courier will not be able to leave until after the departure of the courier of the Sacred College, in case of the Pope's death. I have tried to send a man to carry my dispatches to the Tuscan frontier. The bad roads and the absence of livery-horses have made this plan impracticable. Obliged to wait in Rome, which has become a kind of closed prison, I still hope that the news will reach you by telegraph a few hours before it is known to the other governments beyond the Alps. It might nevertheless happen that the courier sent to the Nuncio, who will necessarily leave before mine, will himself, when passing through Lyons, give you the news by telegraph."

"Tuesday, 10 February, nine o'clock in the morning.

"The Pope is dead; my courier is leaving. In a few hours he will be followed by M. le Comte de Montebello, attaché to the Embassy."

ROME, 10 February 1829.

"MONSIEUR LE COMTE,

I dispatched to Lyons, about two hours ago, the special mounted courier who will forward to you the unexpected and deplorable news of the death of His Holiness. Now I am sending off M. le Comte de Montebello, attaché to the Embassy, to convey to you some necessary details.

"The Pope died of the hemorrhoidal affection to which he was subject. The blood being extravasated into the bladder occasioned a retention, which an attempt was made to relieve by means of a sound. His Holiness is believed to have been wounded in the course of the operation. In any case, after four days' suffering, Leo XII. expired this morning at nine o'clock, as I came to the Vatican, where an agent of the Embassy had passed the night. The letter sent by my first courier informs you, monsieur le comte, of my useless efforts to obtain a permit for post-horses before the Pope's death.

"Yesterday I called on the Cardinal Secretary of State, who was still very ill with a violent attack of gout; I had a rather long conversation with him on the consequences of the misfortune with which we were threatened. I lamented the death of a Prince whose moderate sentiments and whose knowledge of European affairs were so useful to the repose of Christianity.

"'It is not only a great misfortune for France,' answered the Secretary of State, 'but a greater misfortune for the Roman States than you imagine. Discontent and poverty are great in our provinces and, if the cardinals think fit to adopt a different system from that of Leo XII., they will find their work cut out for them. As for myself, my functions cease with the death of the Pope and I have nothing to reproach myself with.'

"This morning I again saw Cardinal Bernetti, who has, in fact, laid down his functions as Secretary of State: he spoke to me to the same effect as on the preceding day. I asked him to let me meet him before he secluded himself in the Conclave. We agreed that we should talk of electing a sovereign pontiff who should continue the system of moderation of Leo XII. I shall have the honour to communicate to you all the information that I may gather.

"It is probable that the death of the Pope and the fall of Cardinal Bernetti will delight the enemies of the ordinances, they will proclaim this unhappy event a punishment from Heaven. It is easy already to read that thought on certain French faces in Rome.

"I regret the Pope for more than one reason; I had had the good fortune to gain his confidence: the prejudices which had been carefully instilled into his mind against me, before my arrival, had become dispelled and he did me the honour, on all occasions, to bear witness, publicly and aloud, to the esteem in which he was good enough to hold me.

"Now, monsieur le comte, permit me to enter into the explanation of a few facts.

"I was Minister for Foreign Affairs at the time of the death of Pius VII. You will find in the boxes at the Office, if you think it advisable to look into the matter, the continuous account of my relations with M. le Duc de Laval. The custom is, on the death of a Pope, to send an extraordinary ambassador, or to accredit the resident ambassador through new letters to the Sacred College. The latter is the course which I proposed to His late Majesty, Louis XVIII., to follow. The King will do what he thinks best for his service. Four French cardinals came to Rome for the election of Leo XII. France to-day numbers five; a number of votes certainly not to be despised in the Conclave. I shall, monsieur le comte, await the King's orders. M. de Montebello, who is instructed to hand you this dispatch, will remain at your disposal.

"I have the honour to be, etc."

TO MADAME RÉCAMIER

"ROME, 10 February 1829, eleven d clock at night.

"I wished to write you a long letter; but the dispatch, which I was obliged to write with my own hand, and the fatigue of these last days have exhausted me.

"I regret the Pope; I had obtained his confidence. I am now charged with an important mission; it is impossible for me to know what the result will be, or what influence it will have over my destiny.

"The conclaves generally last two months, which will at least leave me free for Easter. I will soon talk to you thoroughly of all that.

"Picture to yourself that they found that poor Pope, on Thursday last, before he fell ill, writing his epitaph. They tried to divert him from such sad thoughts:

"'No, no,' he said; 'it will be over in a few days.'"

"ROME, Thursday, 12 February 1829.

"I read your newspapers. They often give me pain. I see in the Globe that Monsieur le Comte Portalis is, according to that journal, my declared enemy. Why? Do I ask his place? He is taking too much pains; I do not so much as think of him. I wish him all possible prosperity; but yet, if it were true that he wanted war, he would find me there. People seem to me to be talking nonsense about everything, both about the immortal Mahmud and the evacuation of the Morea.

"In the most probable event, this evacuation will put back Greece under the yoke of the Turks, with the loss to us of our honour and forty millions. There is a prodigious amount of wit in France, but we lack judgment and common-sense; two phrases make us drunk, we are led with words, and what is worse is that we are always ready to disparage our friends and exalt our enemies. Besides, is it not curious that they should make the King, in his Speech, use my own language on 'the agreement of the public liberties and the Royalty,' and that they should have found such fault with me for using that language? And the men who make the Crown speak thus were once the warmest partizans of the censorship! For the rest, I am going to see the election of the Head of Christianity; this spectacle is the last great spectacle that I shall witness in my life; it will close my career.

"Now that pleasures have ceased in Rome, business is commencing. I shall be obliged, on the one hand, to write of all that happens to the Government and, on the other, to fulfil the duties of my new position. I must compliment the Sacred College and attend the funeral of the Holy Father, to whom I had become attached because he was but little loved, and the more so in that, fearing that I should find an enemy in him, I found a friend who, from the chair of St. Peter, formally gave the lie to my 'Christian' calumniators. Then the French cardinals are going to come down upon me. I have written to make representations at least touching the Archbishop of Toulouse.

"In the midst of all this stir, the Poussin monument is being executed; the excavation is successful; I have found three fine heads, a draped female torso, a funeral inscription by a brother to a young sister, which touched me.

"Talking of inscriptions, I told you that the poor Pope had made his on the day before that on which he was taken ill, predicting that he was soon going to die. He has left a writing in which he recommends his indigent family to the Roman Government: only those who have loved much have such great virtues."

"Great-hearted Clara, noble, faithful friend, Thy memory is no longer in the land; Thy very grave by men's cold eyes is bann'd; The world forgets thee, and thy name doth end."--T.

"We at first," he writes, "refused an invitation from the Archduchess of Parma. She insisted, and we went. We found her very gay; the universe having made it its business to remember Napoleon, she no longer had the trouble of thinking of him. She spoke a few careless words, and as it were casually, about the King of Rome: she was pregnant. Her Court had a certain air of dilapidation and decay, excepting M. de Neipperg, a man of good manners. There was nothing out of the common except ourselves dining at Marie-Louise's table and the bracelets, made out of the stone of Juliet's sarcophagus, worn by Napoleon's widow. As we crossed the Po, at Piacenza, a single bark, newly painted, carrying a sort of imperial ensign, attracted our eyes. Two or three dragoons, in shell-jackets and forage-caps, were watering their horses; we were entering the States of Marie-Louise; that was all that remained of the power of the man who clove the rocks of the Simplon, planted his banners on the capitals of Europe, and raised Italy which had lain prostrate for so many centuries."

When speaking to Marie-Louise, Chateaubriand told her that he had met her soldiers at Piacenza, but that that little troop was nothing beside the great imperial armies of former days. She answered drily:

"I never think of that now." (Congrès de Vérone, Vol. I. p. 69.)--B.]

"Quando nel mondo ad ora adora M'insegnavate come l'uom s'eterna."

Inferno, Canto XV. 84-85.--B.]

La nymphe s'enferme avec joie Dans ce tombeau d'or et de soie Qui la dérobe à tous les yeux.

--Author's Note.

"The nymph herself doth gladly hide That tomb of gold and silk inside Which conceals her from every eye."--T.

"The readers, I hope, will not skip a line of this Memorandum, a master-piece of logic and patriotism and, which is no detriment, a master-piece of style. Chateaubriand has written no pages that do him more honour."

"Such is the lot of man: his learning grows with age. But what use to be sage, When the end is So near?"--T.

An expedition to the Morea from the point of view of science and art had been organized by the French Government. M. Charles Lenormant was to take part in it, and his wife, Madame Récamier's niece and adopted daughter, was proposing to accompany him.--B.]

"My lord, the motto of my family, which it received from Calixtus II., in 1120, is: Etiamsi omnes, ego non. It is also that of my conscience.

"I have the honour to be, with the respectful consideration due to the King's minister,

"† A. J. CARDINAL ARCHBISHOP OF TOULOUSE."

In consequence of this letter, the King ordered the prelate to be prohibited from appearing at Court.]

END OF VOL. IV.