Among Napoleon’s English advisers was Albany Fonblanque, who through D’Orsay sent him some suggestions as to the policy it would be wise for the President of the French Republic to pursue. How far that advice promised to produce fruit, the following letter shows:—
“Gore House, 26th January 1849.
“Mon Cher Fonblanque,—J’espère que vous avez vu que notre conseil à été écouté; les réductions dans l’armée et la marine sont très fortes, et Napoleon à éprouvé, je vous assure, une grande opposition pour en arriver là. L’armée, qui était en 1845 de 502,196 hommes et de 100, 432 horses, sera réduite en 1849 à 380,824 hommes et 92,410 chevaux. Le Budget de la Marine est diminué de vingt deux millions et plus; la flotte en activité est réduite à dix vaisseaux de ligne, huit frégates, etc.—et il y a aussi une grande réduction dans les travaux des arsenaux. Tout cela devrait plaire à John Bull et à Cobden. Je vous promets que ces réductions n’en resteront pas là; mais il faut considérer la difficulté qu’il y a de toucher aux joujoux des enfants français, car chez nous l’armée est l’objet principal; chez vous ce n’est qu’un accessoire. Votre affectionné,
“D’Orsay.”
Madden, in his description of this “man-mystery,” for once in a way is graphic. “I watched his pale, corpse-like, imperturbable features, not many months since, for a period of three hours. I saw eighty thousand men in arms pass before him, and I never observed a change in his countenance or an expression in his look which would enable the bystander to say whether he was pleased or otherwise at the stirring scene.… He did not speak to those around him, except at very long intervals, and then with an air of nonchalance, of ennui and eternal occupation with self; he rarely spoke a syllable to his uncle, Jérôme Bonaparte, who was on horseback somewhat behind him.… He gave me the idea of a man who had a perfect reliance on himself, and a feeling of complete control over those around him. But there was a weary look about him, an aspect of excessive watchfulness, an appearance of want of sleep, of over-work, of over-indulgence, too, that gives an air of exhaustion to face and form, and leaves an impression on the mind of a close observer that the machine of the body will break down soon, and suddenly—or the mind will give way—under the pressure of pent-up thoughts and energies eternally in action, and never suffered to be observed or noticed by friends or followers.”
Napoleon III
(By D’Orsay)
[TO FACE PAGE 206
Louis Napoleon is, as everybody knows, the Colonel Albert who plays so large a part in Lord Beaconsfield’s unjustly neglected Endymion, quite one of the most delightful of his novels, although it contains that strange caricature of Thackeray in the grotesque personage of St Barbe.
Says “Colonel Albert”:—“… I am the child of destiny. That destiny will again place me on the throne of my fathers. That is as certain as I am now speaking to you. But destiny for its fulfilment ordains action. Its decrees are inexorable, but they are obscure, and the being whose career it directs is as a man travelling in a dark night; he reaches his goal even without the aid of stars and moon.”
Louis Napoleon emerged from the dark night of his exile and sat in the limelight that beats upon a throne, and he achieved his destiny without accepting the aid or advice of his friend, D’Orsay. He did not trust the latter with his counsels and could scarcely have been expected to ask him to accompany him to France. D’Orsay would have been the central figure; the Prince of the Dandies would have basked in the popularity which the future Emperor of the French knew he must focus upon himself.
After his escape to London from Ham, Louis Napoleon, however, does seem to have consulted with D’Orsay, and acting upon his advice to have written to the French Ambassador to the Court of St James, stating that it was his intention to settle down quietly as a private individual; which statement was doubtless taken for what it was worth. D’Orsay may have helped, also, toward Napoleon’s election as President by interesting friends in his cause, but of the schemes upon the empty imperial throne D’Orsay appears to have been ignorant. Indeed, he went so far as to express his opinion of the coup d’état, that “it is the greatest political swindle that ever has been practised in the world!”
The following letter to Landor from Lady Blessington is interesting:—
“Gore House, 28th February 1848.
“I will not admit that the eruption of the Parisian volcano has brought out only cinders from your brain, au contraire, the lava is glowing and full of fire—your honest indignation has been ignited and has sent forth a bright flame.
“It gave me great pleasure to see your handwriting again, for I had thought it long since I had heard from you. I saw it stated to-day in the Daily News that Count d’Orsay had set out for Paris with Prince Louis. This report is wholly untrue. Prince Louis has gone to Paris alone. Here no one pities Louis Philippe, nor has the report of his death mitigated the indignation excited against him. His family are to be pitied, for I believe they were not implicated in his crooked policy. Seldom has vengeance so rapidly overtaken guilt.”
Still more interesting this from Landor to Lady Blessington, written about a year later, on 9th January 1849—
“Possibly you may never have seen the two articles I enclose. I inserted in the Examiner another, deprecating the anxieties which a truly patriotic and, in my opinion, a singularly wise man, was about to encounter, in accepting the Presidency of France. Necessity will compel him to assume the Imperial Power, to which the voice of the army and people will call him.
“You know (who know not only my writings, but my heart) how little I care for station. I may therefore tell you safely, that I feel a great interest, a great anxiety, for the welfare of Louis Napoleon. I told him if ever he were again in prison, I would visit him there; but never, if he were upon a throne, would I come near him. He is the only man living who would adorn one, but thrones are my aversion and abhorrence. France, I fear, can exist in no other condition. Her public men are greatly more able than ours, but they have less integrity. Every Frenchman is by nature an intriguer. It was not always so, to the same extent; but nature is modified, and even changed, by circumstances. Even garden statues take their form from clay.
“God protect the virtuous Louis Napoleon, and prolong in happiness the days of my dear, kind friend, Lady Blessington.
“W. S. L.”
“I wrote a short letter to the President, and not of congratulation. May he find many friends as disinterested and sincere.”
Wellington also judged Napoleon’s rise to power in France as propitious, and wrote to D’Orsay on 9th April 1849:—“Je me réjouis de la prospérité de la France et du succès de M. le Président de la République. Tout tend vers la permanence de la paix de l’Europe qui est nécessaire pour le bonheur de chacun. Votre ami très devoué.
“Wellington.”
Though D’Orsay was not Napoleon’s active ally, he watched his progress with interest, and, despite the opinion he held of the means employed, apparently with approbation also up to a point. To Madden on the first day of the Presidential election, a Sunday—but really we must here have Madden’s own words:—“He came to my house before church-time, and diverted me from graver duties, to listen to his confident anticipations of the result of that memorable day. ‘Think,’ said he, ‘what is the ordinary November weather in Paris: and here is a beautiful day. I have watched the mercury in my garden. I have seen where is the wind, and I tell you, that on Paris is what they will call the sun of Austerlitz. To-morrow you shall hear that, while we are now talking, they vote for him with almost one mind, and that he has the absolute majority.’”
And later, he wrote to Richard Lane, the artist: “Rely upon it, he will do more for France than any sovereign has done for the last two centuries, if only they give him time.”
Even previous to this exciting period, at the time of the Boulogne descent, Lady Blessington was shedding ink in the defence of D’Orsay; writing to Henry Bulwer:—
“Gore House, 17th Septemb
er 1840.
“I am never surprised at evil reports, however unfounded, still less so at any acts of friendship and manliness on your part.… Alfred is at Doncaster, but he charges me to authorise you to contradict, in the most positive terms, the reports about his having participated in, or even known, of the intentions of the Prince Louis. Indeed, had he suspected them, he would have used every effort in his power to dissuade him from putting them into execution. Alfred, as well as I, entertain the sincerest regard for the Prince, with whom, for fourteen years, we have been on terms of intimacy; but of his plans we knew no more than you did. Alfred by no means wishes to conceal his attachment to the Prince, and still less that any exculpation of himself should in any way reflect on him; but who so well as you, whose tact and delicacy are equal to your good-nature, can fulfil the service to Alfred that we require?
“Lady C⸺ [15] writes to me that I, too, am mixed up in the reports. But I defy the malice of my greatest enemy to prove that I ever dreamt of the Prince’s intentions or plans.”
Both D’Orsay and Lady Blessington had to do with Napoleon as Emperor.
D’Orsay, to a certain extent, tried to run both with the fox and with the hounds, for, in 1841, an attempt was made to procure for him the appointment of Secretary to the French Embassy in London. The Count St Aulaire was then Ambassador, and much influence was brought to bear upon him in this matter.
Among Lady Blessington’s papers was found the following memorandum by her, which throws considerable light upon this affair:—
“With regard to the intentions relative to our Count, there is not even a shadow of truth in them. Alfred never was presented here at Court, and never would, though I, as well as his other friends, urged it: his motive (for declining) being, never having left his name at any of the French Ambassadors of Louis Philippe (not even at Count Sebastiani’s, a connection of his own) or at Marshal Soult’s, also nearly connected with his family, he could not ask to be presented at Court by the French Ambassador, and did not think it right to be presented by anyone else … and the etiquette of not having been engaged to meet the Queen, unless previously presented at Court, is too well known to admit of any mistake.… I enter into these details merely to show the utter falsehoods which have been listened to against Alfred. Now with regard to his creditors, his embarrassments have been greatly exaggerated; and when the sale of the northern estates in Ireland shall have been effected, which must be within a year, he will be released from all his difficulties.[16] In the meantime he has arranged matters, by getting time from his creditors. So that all the fuss made by the nomination, being only sought as a protection from them, falls to the ground.… I mention all these facts to show how ill Alfred has been treated. If the appointment in London is still deemed impracticable, why should not they offer him the secretaryship at Madrid, which is vacant?
“Alfred entrusted the affair (of the appointment) to M⸺ and W⸺. He received positive assurances from both that he would receive an appointment in the French Embassy here, and that it was only necessary, as a mere matter of etiquette, that St Aulaire was to ask for his nomination to have it granted. The assurances were so positive that he could not doubt them, and he accordingly acted on them. The highest eulogies on Alfred’s abilities and power of rendering service to the French Government were voluntarily pronounced to St Aulaire by Lord B⸺, the Duke of B⸺, and other persons of distinction. M. St Aulaire, not satisfied with these honourable testimonies, consulted a coterie of foolish women, and listening to their malicious gossiping, he concluded that the nomination would not be popular in London, and so was afraid to ask for it.
“It now appears that the Foreign Office at Paris is an inquisition into the private affairs of those who have the misfortune to have any reference to it; a bad plan when clever men are so scarce in France, and particularly those well-born and well-connected: a Government like the present should be glad to catch any such that could be had.
“Margt. Blessington.”
To which may be added a letter from Henry Bulwer to Lady Blessington, written in December 1841:—
“My Dear Lady Blessington,—I think D’Orsay wrong in these things you refer to: to have asked for London especially, and not to have informed me[17] how near the affair was to its maturity when St Aulaire went to the D. of B⸺’s, because I might then have prepared opinion for it here; whereas, I first heard the affair mentioned in a room, where I had to contend against every person present, when I stated what I think—that the appointment would have been a very good one. But it does not now signify talking about the matter, and saying that I should have wished our friend to have given the matter rather an air of doing a favour than of asking one. It is right to say that he has acted most honourably, delicately, and in a way which ought to have served him, though, perhaps, it is not likely to do so. The French Ambassador did not, I think, wish for the nomination. M. Guizot, I imagine, is, at this moment, afraid of anything that might excite discussion and opposition, and it is idle to disguise from you that D’Orsay, both in England and here, has many enemies. The best service I can do him is by continuing to speak of him as I have done amongst influential persons, viz., as a man whom the Government would do well to employ; and my opinion is, that if he continues to wish for and to seek employment, he will obtain it in the end. But I don’t think he will obtain the situation he wished for in London, and I think it may be some little time before he gets such a one as he ought to have, and that would suit him. The Secretaryship in Spain would be an excellent thing, and I would aid the Marshal in anything he might do or say respecting it. I shall be rather surprised, however, if the present man is recalled. Well do not let D’Orsay lose courage. Nobody succeeds in these things just at the moment he desires: ⸺, with his position here” (speaking of a French nobleman), “has been ten years getting made an ambassador, and at last is so by a fortunate chance. Remember also how long it was, though I was in Parliament, and had some little interest, before I was myself fairly launched in the diplomatic career. Alfred has all the qualities for success in anything, but he must give the same trouble and pains to the pursuit he now engages in that he has given to other pursuits previously. At all events, though I speak frankly and merely what I think to him, I am here and always a sincere and affectionate friend, and most desirous to prove myself so.”
To Madden, Henry Bulwer expressed the opinion:—“It was altogether a great pity D’Orsay was not employed, for he was not only fit to be so, but to make a most useful and efficient agent, had he been appointed.”
But Governments, as well as individuals, are fallible, and often blind to their best interests. Yet it really is difficult to understand why D’Orsay was refused his modest request; what more distinguished ornament to an Embassy could be desired than a splendid libertine and a man distinguished for the vastness of his debts? Unfortunately, mediocrity succeeds often enough when transcendent genius fails.
* * *
XX
W. S. L.
Walter Savage Landor, who was born in 1775, lived on hale and hearty till 1864. As he himself wrote:—
“I warm’d both hands before the fire of life;
It sinks, and I am ready to depart.”
He was, as we have seen, the very good friend of both D’Orsay and Lady Blessington, whom he first met when he was living in Italy.
In a letter to Lady Blessington, in 1837, Landor presented her with his autobiography in brief:—
“Walter Landor, of Ipsley Court, in the county of Warwick, married first, Maria, only daughter and heiress of J. Wright, Esq., by whom he had an only daughter, married to her cousin, Humphrey Arden, Esq., of Longcroft, in Staffordshire; secondly, Elizabeth, eldest daughter and co-heiress of Charles Savage, of Tachebrooke, who brought about eighty thousand pounds into the family. The eldest son of this marriage, Walter Savage Landor, was born 30th January 1775. He was educated at Rugby—his private tutor was Dr Heath, of St Paul’s. When he had reached the head of the school, he was too young f
or college, and was placed under the private tuition of Mr Langley of Ashbourne. After a year, he was entered at Trinity College, Oxford, where the learned Beonwell was his private tutor. At the peace of Amiens, he went to France, but returned at the end of the year.
“In 1808, on the first insurrection of Spain, in June he joined the Viceroy of Gallicia, Blake. The Madrid Gazette of August mentions a gift from him of twenty thousand reals. On the extinction of the Constitution, he returned to Don P. Cavallos the tokens of royal approbation, in no very measured terms. In 1811, he married Julia, daughter of J. Thuillier de Malaperte, descendant and representative of J. Thuillier de Malaperte, Baron de Nieuveville, first gentleman of the bedchamber to Charles the Eighth. He was residing at Tours, when, after the battle of Waterloo, many other Englishmen, to the number of four thousand, went away. He wrote to Carnot that he had no confidence in the moderation or honour of the Emperor, but resolved to stay, because he considered the danger to be greater in the midst of a broken army. A week afterwards, when this wretch occupied Tours, his house was the only one without a billet. In the autumn of that year, he retired to Italy. For seven or eight years, he occupied the Palazzo Medici, in Florence, and then bought the celebrated villa of Count Gherardesea, at Fiesole, with its gardens, and two farms, immediately under the ancient villa of Lorenzo de Medici. His visits to England have been few and short.”
This is but the bare bones of a very interesting life; but its very bluntness seems to illustrate the character of its writer, a member of the genus irritabile, whom many hated, many loved and most men admired. For several years he made his home at Bath, living there from 1838 to 1858, when again he retired to Italy, where he died at Florence.
D'Orsay / or, The complete dandy Page 16