The Marquis D'Argenson: A Study in Criticism
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Title: The Marquis D'Argenson: A Study in Criticism
Author: Arthur Ogle
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_THE MARQUIS D'ARGENSON_
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE MARQUIS D'ARGENSON: A STUDY IN CRITICISM; BEING THE STANHOPE
ESSAY: OXFORD, 1893
BY
ARTHUR OGLE
EXHIBITIONER OF MAGDALEN COLLEGE
[Illustration]
London
T. FISHER UNWIN
PATERNOSTER SQUARE
MDCCCXCIII
CONTENTS.
I.
1630-1721.
A friend of Richelieu and Mazarin, 10;
A hapless ambassador, 11;
A great chief of the Parisian police, 14.
II.
1694-1724.
A man of the world who can count his conquests, 23;
Schooldays: emancipation, 24;
Death of Louis XIV.: a retrospect, 26;
Entry into public life: relations with his father, 28;
Director of the Press, 30;
In battle with the Parlement against the schemes of Law, 31;
In the Rue Quincampoix, 33;
Law arrested by d'Argenson, Intendant of Valenciennes, 34;
A dutiful correspondent: Madame de Balleroy, 35;
Appearance of "Mon Frère": relations of the brothers, 37;
The Abbé de St. Pierre, 40;
The work of an Intendant, 42;
Difficulties: a "Partie Carrée," 43;
D'Argenson's resignation: its consequences, 45;
A judgment of his character, 48.
III.
1724-1744.
Bolingbroke in exile: the "Club de l'Entresol," 55;
An active member, 57;
"Un café d'honnêtes gens," 58;
Cardinal Fleury and the Entresol, 59;
The society suppressed, 60;
A political aspirant, 61;
Keen interest in the ecclesiastical quarrels, 62;
D'Argenson, and Chauvelin's opinion of him, 65;
Disadvantages: an embarrassed patron, 66;
Political disappointments, 70;
Relations with his wife, 71;
D'Argenson and the fall of Chauvelin: a keen regret, 74;
Appointed Ambassador to Portugal, 77;
Six years of expectancy and intrigue, 78;
Fleury and the Portuguese Embassy, 79;
D'Argenson joins the Court opposition, 80;
At feud with the Cardinal, 82;
The weight of his indictment, 85;
D'Argenson and Voltaire, 87;
Their correspondence: literary quarrels, 88;
"The best and most instructive work that I have read for twenty
years," 89;
The Prince Royal of Prussia, 91.
IV.
November, 1744-January, 1747.
D'Argenson becomes Minister of Foreign Affairs, 93;
Accounts of his ministry, 94;
His views upon foreign politics, 97;
The first two months, 102;
Deprecates an offensive campaign in Flanders, 104;
His policy both of peace and war overruled by the King, 106;
Death of the Emperor, Charles VII. (January 20, 1745), 107;
The situation at Paris, and at Vienna, 107;
French overtures to the King of Poland, 110;
Prussia and the maritime powers, 113;
Frederick's view of the position in Germany, 114;
Supported by d'Argenson: the Flassan memoir, 115;
His vain attempts to second Frederick, 119;
Convention of Augsburg, and loss of Bavaria, 121;
Fontenoy and the retreat of Conti, 125;
Convention of Hanover, between Prussia and England, 126;
Election of the Emperor Francis I., 127;
D'Argenson's share in these events, 128;
Austrian overtures to France: frustrated by d'Argenson, 130;
Winter campaign of 1745: Treaty of Dresden, 134;
Review, 136;
1746: the Negotiation of Turin, 138;
Resistance of Spain, and treachery of Sardinia, 141;
Collapse of the scheme, 142;
The neutrality of the Empire, 143;
The Saxon marriage, 144;
Maurice de Saxe and Count Brühl, 145;
Dismissal of d'Argenson: his position, 147;
His conduct of the Italian scheme, 148;
His attitude towards Austria and Prussia, 150;
D'Argenson and the tradition of French foreign policy, 152.
V.
1747-1757.
D'Argenson in retirement: review of his Journal, 154;
A revolution in politics, 156;
Influence of England, 160;
Diderot: Buffon: Voltaire: Rousseau, 162;
An election to the Academy: a French Inquisition, 163;
The revolution in thought, 165;
D'Argenson's Journal: his power as a writer, 166;
"Le style, c'est l'homme," 169;
Private life: Paris and Segrez, 170;
Conclusion, 171.
VI.
1737 and 1755.
"Considérations sur le gouvernement de la France," 173;
Critical difficulties, 174;
The "Plan" of 1737, 176;
M. Martin's judgment of it, 177;
The judgment of Voltaire, 179;
Its prime distinction, 180;
D'Argenson's views as to the value of the Monarchy: important
change, 182;
The "Plan" of 1755, 184;
Abstract of the "Plan," 185;
The scope and significance of d'Argenson's proposals, 199;
D'Argenson and Turgot, 202;
The scheme in the aspect of revolution, 204;
A master-work of sagacity, 206.
APPENDICES 213
NOTES 227
INDEX 255
THE MARQUIS D'ARGENSON.
I.
1630-1721.
D'Argenson's Ancestry.
There are occasions when the craft of the critic becomes especially
delightful, and at the same time especially dangerous. Delightful, when
the material in which he works is new and unessayed; dangerous, from
the besetting temptation to be content with accredited methods, and to
neglect that watchful regard to the texture of the clay, which alone
can suggest the conditions of successful treatment. Of such delicate
fabric is a man made, here and there. It is as if for a moment the
common matter had been thrown aside wearily, as if Nature, when she
wrought him, had been toying with an inspiration, sometimes happy,
often unhappy. In dealing with such a man, the critic will proceed very
patiently and tenderly. He will beware of presenting him, morally or
otherwise, in the light of the prevailing prejudice; nor will he erect
his own provincialities of opinion as a final measure of wisdom or
worth. Rather will he let the man go his own way and tell his own tale,
content if he may but follow and hear and understand, without sitting
in the gate to judge him.
That criticism, in the case of the Marquis d'Argenson,[1] has not
always been chastened to this wholesome deference, there will be
occasion to notice at a later date. We may remark at once how necessary
it was. D'Argenson was indeed no ordinary man. The character with which
destiny had endowed him was but poorly adapted to the social medium in
which it was to move; and to the great world where moral commonplace is
law, he was a stranger. He dwelt, as such men do, in a little world of
his own creating, peopled with his own pleasures and his own pains. His
only critic was his conscience: himself was his sternest judge: and he
knew no tribunal but the midnight silence, when the glow was dying on
the hearth. He was an original, in short, and as an original he must be
treated.
When we are puzzled by the character of any among the illustrious dead,
and when other resources fail us, a saunter in the portrait gallery of
the old house is often pregnant with suggestion. Of such a privilege it
will be well to avail ourselves in the present instance. The time will
be very well spent.
In the days when Mazarin was king, France had no more able or trusted
servant than René de Voyer, Count d'Argenson. He was a nobleman of old
Touraine--one of his ancestors had sailed with St. Louis[2]--and now in
these latter days, he worthily fulfilled the promise of his name by a
rich devotion to his country and her master. Mazarin knew his worth. He
commends him to Cardinal Grimaldi as "_huomo versato e prudente_,"[3]
a phrase which is translated in an earlier letter to d'Argenson
himself, where he compliments him on "_la prudence et l'adresse_" with
which he had governed the Catalans.[4] His life was passed amid the
stress and movement of affairs, the scene changing as circumstances
of delicacy and danger called for the intervention of an accomplished
hand. Only once, in 1640, is the sequence of activity broken, to reveal
to us a sidelight of character which is brightly suggestive. Released
for a time from the cares of administration--he had fallen into the
hands of the Spaniards[5]--he employed the leisure so rudely thrust
upon him in translating Thomas à Kempis, and in composing a treatise on
"The Wisdom of a Christian." Years after, now grown old in the King's
service, he laid aside the sword and robe, to don the cassock and die a
servant of the Church.[6]
The portrait is broadly drawn, but already the features are clearly
marked.
We pass on to his son, René II.[7] We are at once arrested. Were it
not for the doublet and hose of the seventeenth century, we should
mistake him for his own grandson. Young René de Voyer was destined,
like his father, for the diplomatic service. His political pilgrimage
had scarce begun when a cloud fell across his path. A rumour got abroad
to the effect that the youthful diplomatist would be also a poet, and
moreover, that he gave more time to religious exercises than was good
for a young man who had the world before him. And so it was that when
d'Argenson left for Venice with the King's commission, there was some
misgiving in exalted circles; prayer and praise might be all very
well, but they were not among the recognised resources of earthly
diplomacy. Be that as it may, d'Argenson succeeded in commending
himself to the citizens of the Republic.[8] At home he was not so
fortunate. As his grandson observes, the embassy was a mistake.[9] In
the first place, the thousand little complaisances, respectable and
other, which were among the first conditions of comfort at court, were
quite beyond him. Practically they filled him with despair, morally
with disgust. Moreover he was cursed with that species of reserve
which often comes of extreme humility, and is almost always attributed
to extreme pride. When things went wrong at headquarters, he took to
railing against the vices of the great; he fell out with Mazarin as
he afterwards did with Colbert; and finally, after a few years of
thankless labour, he was dismissed, and the door of advancement was
closed against him. D'Argenson accepted his fate. He shut himself up
on his country estates, consoling himself with the thought that he
was an injured man.[10] But he was not of the men who can sit down
and nurse their disappointments. Though cruelly broken, he set to
work to repair his fortune and to repair his life. In the provinces
of France, on the slopes of Touraine, there was plenty of work for a
willing hand, as events too clearly proved. In that work d'Argenson
found refuge from his manifold chagrins. The rest of his life--he was
still but thirty-two[11]--was devoted to the development of his estates
and to the welfare of his dependents. "Interested in the improvement
of education and manners in the country, he gathered the peasantry
together for lectures, instructing them himself, and exhorting them to
the practice of their duties."[12] So he died, a failure, of a kind;
one of those rich-souled men who are never successful until they fail.
He bequeathed to posterity a number of devotional works, a "Paraphrase
of the Prophet Jeremiah," an "Exposition of the Book of Job," and
others of a like character. Yet, though entrenched behind numerous
theological quartos, his orthodoxy was sadly open to attack. Having
built a church, he dedicates it to the "Eternal Father," in scandalous
disregard of the company of the saints.
Already it is apparent that we have to deal with men of singular force
of character and fulness of soul. Evidently it was no mere freak
of fortune which made the grandson of this luckless ambassador the
greatest political moralist of his time.[13] Practical vigour, moral
depth, they are in the blood of the d'Argensons. They look down upon
us from the last canvas before which it is necessary to linger, the
portrait of "Mon Père."
At the climax of the Grand Age, ere the slope of Avernus had yet begun,
the King's justice was administered in the district of Angoulême by as
strange a magistrate as ever shocked the susceptibilities of a court.
He was in the prime of life, tall, dark, with striking features, and
a glance that was charming and might be terrible. A strange figure
did he make in that district court of Angoulême, as he sat dispensing
justice quick and plentiful, patching up suits, cutting down fees,
driving a vigorous pen through venerable formalities, and fondling
the muzzle of his great hound, who sat blinking placidly upon the
fuming functionaries, without the faintest sense of his unwarrantable
intrusion.[14] So things went on until, in 1694, a special commission
for the reform of abuses in the administration of justice appeared
in Angoulême. My lords discovered, probably with equal surprise, the
absence of abuses, and the presence of an extraordinary man. Of his
capacity as a magistrate they had ample evidence before them; and the
lighter experiences of a commission on circuit were sufficient to
convince them that M. d'Argenson was excellent company, a man brimful
of life and energy, whose wit sparkled with his wine.[15] To leave
him to rust in a provincial court was of course out of the question.
He was plied with hearty invitations to Paris and generous promises
of service. "As a matter of fact, my father was not an ambitious
man";[16] and it was only after much solicitation that he was decoyed
to the capital, and introduced by M. de Caumartin, his friend of the
commission, to the reigning Controller-General. Three years afterwards,
at the age of thirty-nine, he was appointed chief of the Parisian
police; and for twenty years and more, from the time of Ryswick to
well on in the Regency, he became "the soul, always in action, scarcely
ever in evidence,"[17] the soul of the great metropolis.
Henceforth his life was an eventful one. Criticism, caricature,
opinion of all sorts, fastened upon it as a delectable morsel; its
incidents were recorded, politely in the pages of contemporary memoirs,
impolitely upon the walls of Paris. With the events themselves we are
not concerned; we pursue them only for the character of the man. This
is no place to relate how, when the woodyards of the Porte St. Bernard
were on fire, he saved a quarter by the sacrifice of his clothes;[18]
how in the year of Malplaquet, when bread was nine sous a pound and the
Quartier du Temple took the pavement, he risked his life in confronting
the mobs;[19] or to recall the memorable day when he presents a 'lettre
de cachet' to the Abbess of Port Royal with a request for compliance
within fifteen minutes;[20] or later, when, in the King's name, he
was called upon to entertain one "François Marie Arouet, twenty-two,
of no profession," in the Bastille,[21] and to be immortalised as a
worthy successor of Cato in six tearfully cheerful verses.[22] He
received the highest eulogy known to the classicism of the time. "He
was made to be a Roman," writes Fontenelle,[23] his fingers trembling
with unwonted enthusiasm, "and to pass from the Senate to the head
of an army." And the daily routine was no less imposing. In toil
unceasing, he forgets the distinction between night and day,[24] eats
when he must, sleeps when he can. We see him dictating letters to four
secretaries at a time,[25] dining in his carriage as it rattles over
the stones,[26] vouchsafing an audience to a La Rochefoucauld at two
in the morning.[27] His pleasures when he could snatch them were rich
and strong. He had a lusty interest in life and living, and a hearty
contempt for the Talon Rouge. D'Argenson's heels were of good cow-hide,
and not wholly free from the mould of Touraine. His boon companions
were not ministers and great lords, but "unknown men of the lower
ranks," with whom, it is important to notice, "he was more at home
than with people of more exalted station."[28] "In a gentlemanly way,
he was fond of wine and women."[29] In the latter regard, his tastes
were too catholic to be altogether creditable; but "he preferred nuns,"
as his son remarks, with a smile of remembrance at the old days. In
fact, he had rigged up a lodging in the precincts of the Convent de la
Madeleine de Traisnel; and all the magnificence of Versailles was less
to him than an evening in the company of the Lady Superior.[30] But not
even the charms of Madame du Veni could wean him from his devotion to
duty. Paris never had such a chief of police.[31] Evil-doers trembled
at the name of him; mobs, whether in the galleries of Versailles or in
the faubourgs of Paris, quailed beneath his glance. They might well.
When he liked, "he had a face that was frightful, and recalled those
of the three judges of hell!"[32] But there is another side to all
this. St. Simon, who liked him less than he admired him, says that "in
the midst of his painful functions, he was always to be touched by
the voice of humanity;"[33] and there is a little picture, from the
hand of Fontenelle, which tells so much that it must be placed upon
the line. It is the picture of an audience at the bureau of police.
"Surrounded and deafened by a crowd of people of the lower orders,
most of them hardly knowing what had brought them there, violently
agitated about matters of the most trifling nature and often only
half understood, accustomed not to rational speaking but to senseless
noise, he had neither the carelessness nor the contempt which the
applicants and their affairs might well have induced; he gave himself
up whole-heartedly to the meanest details, ennobled in his eyes by
their necessary relation to the public good; he suited himself to ways
of thinking the lowest and the most gross; he talked to every one in
his own tongue."[34] And so for the space of one-and-twenty years Marc
René d'Argenson went his way, more loved and feared than any man in
Paris. But that was not all.
In September, 1715, the Grand Monarque died; and Liberalism gathered
up the reins and went cantering gaily into a morass. After three
years, d'Argenson was called upon to help it out. These were the days
of the great "System," and of the encampment in the Rue Quincampoix.
The Regent, abandoning his chemical researches, had been studying
alchemy under John Law. For some time the great Experiment had been
going well, altogether too well, it appeared, as difficulties gathered
round it one by one. One obstacle had to be removed, cost what it
might. On acceding to power, Orleans, in the innocence of his heart,
had restored to the Parlement the right of remonstrance. Messieurs of
the Long Robe had so far presumed upon his confidence as to attempt to
use it. Strong measures became necessary, and a strong man. The old
chancellor, d'Aguesseau, retired, and in January, 1718, d'Argenson
received the seals.[35] On the 26th of August the crisis had come, and
King and Parlement were face to face in the hall of audience at the
Tuileries. "At last all was arranged and the assembly had resumed their
seats. For a few moments"[36] there was a dead silence, while the gaze
of many besides St. Simon was fixed upon a solitary seat below the
King. "Motionless on his bench sat the Warden of the Seals, his look
bent upon the ground, while the inward fire that played from his eyes
seemed to penetrate every heart." He rose and delivered his memorable
speech. The Parlement began their remonstrance, when suddenly the voice
of d'Argenson rang clear and crushing: "What the King requires is
obedience, and upon the spot!"[37] and the protest was silenced as by a
"clap of thunder." It was a day of bitter humiliation for the Parlement
and of triumph for their old enemy.
Other events of his ministry were less impressive, but not less
important. As President of the Council of Finance (January, 1718),
he succeeded during his first year in extinguishing arrears to the
amount of sixteen million livres;[38] and he was the first to apply
the system of direct collection (Régie) in regard to certain of the
taxes.[39] As a financial minister he had only one failing. His homely
prejudice in favour of honest dealing sometimes got him into trouble
with the Regent;[40] but their occasional quarrels were only on the
surface; and when d'Argenson was dismissed, as he was in June, 1720,
for speeding the Bank upon its downward way,[41] he was allowed to
keep his emoluments and his violet robe:[42] and a few years after he
had quitted office, the Regent sent him a purse of gold, which was an
annual perquisite of the Warden of the Seals.[43]
St. Simon shall finish the picture.[44]
"His retirement was of the strangest. He withdrew into a convent in
the Faubourg St. Antoine, called La Madeleine de Tresnel. A long time
before, he had fitted up an apartment in the convent buildings which he
had furnished handsomely and well. It was as convenient as a house, and
for many years he was in the habit of going there as often as he could.
He had procured, even given, large sums to this convent for the sake
of a Madame du Veni, who was the Superior--a relation, he said--and
of whom he was very fond. She was a very charming person, extremely
witty, and one of whom none have ever thought of speaking ill. All the
Argensons paid court to her; but the strange thing about it was that
when he was chief of police and fell ill, she left her convent to come
to his house and to remain near him."[45] A strong man and a strange
one, and withal, a lovable, as we learn from many besides Madame du
Veni.
In June, 1720, his "brief and troublous ministry"[46] came to an end,
and the Palais Royal knew him no longer. He had but a short time to
enjoy the rest which had come to him as a happy release. On May 8,
1721, he died. Many was the shrewd encounter he had had with the rabble
of the slums; and as the old chief was borne to his last home, he was
pursued by the curses of the basket-women of Paris. And hearing of it,
proud and beautiful old Mathieu Marais turned in disgust from "this mad
populace, which, while he lived, dared never look him in the face;" and
alone with his journal, with his mind upon the man who had passed away,
he writes:--
"Who will have his soul, I know not. In the other world, as in this,
there must be a fine debate over it."[47]
He left behind him one who was to uphold the honour of a worthy name,
and to bequeath to criticism an exercise no less perplexing. Upon the
features of his son, the Marquis d'Argenson of history, the family
lineaments are clearly marked. The moral fibre, the exuberant vitality,
the rough irreverence for the world and its ways, which distinguished
the men whose portraits have been sketched, descended to the heir of
their name. We have but to see how the given material was affected
by the influence of an inauspicious training, to be in possession of
the radical substance of d'Argenson's character. In default of such
knowledge of the man and his mind, it is impossible to criticise his
life with justice; for without the secret of his singularities of
temper, one is tempted to yield to that haste and impatience which they
are too often apt to provoke. The secret once discovered, there is no
longer any room for irritation; but we are content to pity him for the
weaknesses of his character, while we admire him for its real nobility.
II.
1694-1724.
Youth and early manhood--Intendant of Maubeuge.
"I returned after supper at one o'clock. The man told me that his
honour, the Chief of Police, desired to see me. It was to copy out
fifteen circular letters to as many Intendants, and not to retire
till it was done; my brother had already finished his task--an equal
number--and my father had told him to go to bed. I took some coffee,
and retired at four o'clock."[48]
He is a young man, very dark, with clear-cut features, his eye glancing
with a rough vivacity as he plies his pen with nervous hand. There is
a future before him; and, though he cannot be more than eighteen or
nineteen,[49] he has already a past.
René Louis de Voyer d'Argenson was born at Paris in 1694, in the same
year as two puissant men whose fortunes were to intersect his own, the
Englishman, Henry St. John, and his friend and countryman Voltaire. Two
years later he was joined by his brother, Marc Pierre, known to history
as the astute and charming Count d'Argenson. His father, who had but
lately come to Paris, was as yet known only as a rising Master of
Requests; his mother was a sister of the distinguished de Caumartin, M.
d'Argenson's patron and sponsor in the official world. Among his other
natural endowments, the young René Louis possessed, and was possessed
by, an expansive imagination; he early conceived and resolved upon a
career. Before he was well in his teens, he was leading his brother
along those devious courses by which a wholesome boy was to be turned
into a fine gentleman and a man of the world.
"We were not born libertines, but are become so. I saw all the sights,
I was at all the gatherings, I knew all the women. I thought to myself,
what a fine figure I was making in the world."[50]
The boys were not overburdened with parental solicitude. "My mother
was good-natured and indulgent, and a clever woman; our escapades did
not induce her to interfere with our habits."[51] The annoyance came
from another quarter. The boys had a tutor, who is described with
the true d'Argenson stroke as "fou, imbécile, ignorant, libertin, et
hypocrite;"[52] one of those persons who, when you have executed some
very bad drawings and love them very dearly, will vent his spleen by
tearing them up.[53] It became too much for mortal endurance; and when
one day the tutor "advanced upon his desk," the boy received him with
doubled fists.[54] From that time forward d'Argenson went his way in
peace; and the little rake's progress was proceeding apace, when it
was overtaken by one of those strokes of destiny which it is equally
impossible to foresee and to resist.[55]
He was sent to school.
In 1709, at the age of fifteen, he went with his brother to the Jesuit
College of Louis-le-Grand, which had become, under the patronage of the
Great King, the most fashionable of French public schools.[56] Thither,
thirty years later, he was followed by another d'Argenson--one who,
in the fulness of time and the sunshine of circumstance, was to leave
a record, not of maimed and weary aspiration, but of rapid, resolute
achievement--Anne Robert Jacques Turgot. But the lad was busied
with other thoughts. From "a man of the world who could count his
conquests,"[57] he had dwindled to the compass of a mere schoolboy; and
his heart was heavy over his fallen state. Occasionally the boys acted
tragedies at the College; and as d'Argenson sat in the amphitheatre,
pilloried in his hateful gown, a glimpse of some fair spectator whom he
had known in happier days would cover him with unutterable shame.[58]
But he had the tenacity of purpose which distinguished his race; his
time would come; and the modest treasure he was able to amass from the
savings of his pocket-money, was dissipated upon those rare occasions
when he could shake off the class-room dust from his feet, and plume
himself in the great world again. "Why," he asks, with that strange
recurrent smile of his, "why should one laugh at such an ambition?
Surely it is upon the same canvas that that of conquerors is built
(bâtie)!"[59] He possessed that keen, yet kindly humour of the man who
knows himself, and can laugh at himself, without ceasing to be himself.
One incident in his school career he never forgot. It began with
pea-shooters, and ended with a tragedy. One morning, as the venerable
professor of rhetoric, Père Lejay,[60] entered the class-room, he was
received with a raking fire of peas. The culprit platoon consisted of
the Duc de Boufflers, Count d'Argenson, and his faithful apparitor,
Marc Pierre. Boufflers received a flogging, and died from the effect
of it. His father was only a duke. But when it came to the sons of M.
d'Argenson, the retributive rod was stayed by the timely remembrance
of that dark and dangerous person: Jesuitical discretion came into
play,[61] and the youthful malefactors escaped. It is curious that the
brothers should have lived, the one to be the powerful patron of the
Jesuits, the other to attack them, for the eyes of posterity, with a
weapon which carries further than a "Sarbacane."
But the young Count d'Argenson was not long to trouble the repose of
his spiritual task-masters. He was to complete his education in another
school, deemed no less necessary to the training of the whole and
perfect man. From the sallow austerity of the reverend fathers, with
their hard beds and their unspeakable soup, he passed to the gracious
converse of ladies' society, where knowledge was savoured with a joyous
sweetness, and where the rewards of success were great indeed. Dreaming
long afterwards of the year 1712 and of the gallantries of that golden
age, he sighs regretfully over the hearts that fell, and over those
that might have fallen had the siege been pressed.
"What a fool I was not to have profited by them! I have repented at
leisure."[62]
A votary of pleasure, he was never its slave; and an event was
approaching which was soon to engage him in the more sober interests of
life. On the morning of September 1st, 1715, the eyelids of the Grand
Monarque closed upon a long and fateful chapter in French history;
and the hearts of men beat high again with the generous hopes of a
newer time. France, and the humblest of her children, d'Argenson, had
reached the parting of the ways. The "epic of royalty"[63] was over;
the epic of revolution was about to begin. In the development of the
drama d'Argenson was to bear a modest, but no mean part. He was now
twenty-one. The time for dreaming had passed away; the time for action
was at hand. On the threshold of his career, we may pause to gather up
those early half-conscious political impressions, which, in the case of
quick-minded men, have a real, if only half-recognised, influence upon
the direction of future thought.
He had been but a boy of eight when great events occurred.[64] We
can well imagine with what childish pleasure he must have watched the
stirring of the troops in Paris on the renewal of the great War; and
the wide-eyed wonderment with which he may have heard how an army of
France was cutting down French citizens for the pleasure of those
great black men, whom every one laughed with and called abbé; and how
everybody said that one Cavalier was as brave as he was beautiful, and
that he and the like of him should have been at Blenheim! And then,
as he grew in wit, the excitement of boyhood may have been clouded,
if ever so little, by the growing desolation, as defeat followed upon
disaster. He could remember how haggard men began to cry for bread;
until at last, in 1709, the stones of Paris rose in mutiny, and his own
father, the Chief of Police, went in fear of his life.[65] And through
it all there was no comfort, but only men said that this Great King had
been too great, that he had aroused the alarm of Europe, and that at
last Europe had turned to bay. And then when the peace had come, and
the people were beginning to breathe, Jesuit and Jansenist reopened
their feud and reviled each other in the name of God; while d'Argenson
suspected, what his friend Arouet and the wits who supped with the
Grand Prior disdainfully averred,[66] that there was no truth to be
found upon either side, but only arrogant unspirituality. And now the
King, great though he had been, had gone the way of little men; and
the hearts of his own people rejoiced, even as the nations whom he had
humbled in the dust.
D'Argenson never forgot those fatal years. They haunted his memory and
moulded his thought; and he could realise the gravity of the course
before him, when, in 1716, he began his career as a councillor of the
Parlement of Paris. Shortly afterwards, he received his first official
appointment as Director of the Press.
As yet he had excited no great hopes. His father saw but little of him,
and was inclined to regard him as rather a fool; the paternal hopes
were centred upon his brother, the pleasing, popular and imposing Marc
Pierre, then a young man of twenty. This unhappy partiality left a
fatal mark upon the character of the elder son; and though d'Argenson
never speaks of his father but with affection and respect,[67] he
cannot disguise how deeply he felt it. And yet, it is curious to
remember, he was before all things else his father's son. He inherited
from him his passion for work;[68] to him he owed that instinctive
regard for "le bien public,"[69] which afterwards ripened into absolute
devotion; from him he drew that soundness of heart and incisiveness
of mind which are d'Argenson's prime distinction as a thinker and
a man. But there was another strand in the stout complexity of the
father's nature, something which had led him, when he came to Paris,
to shun the companionship of the great, and to seek his pleasure in a
self-chosen society of the baser sort,[70] which had surrounded his
life with the infernal obscurity of a magician's cell,[71] something of
self-sufficience, of self-contentment, self-concentration. That too,
for his own confusion, d'Argenson had inherited. It might have remained
harmless; but nourished by his father's indifference and neglect, it
grew with the rankness of a noxious weed. He came to find comfort in
his own society. As his own company became dearer to him, so did the
distance widen between himself and his fellows. Alone, he could be
natural, forceful, even great at times; in society, he was pursued by
a haunting self-distrust, which attracted disparagement and very often
ridicule. As yet, it is true, beyond a touch of depreciation here and
there,[72] we see very little of it; the energy of youth and his own
strength of will enabled him to fight with his misfortune. But it had
afflicted him with one disability which no effort, however determined,
could overcome. It had rendered him for ever incapable of coping with
the blatancy, the loud insistence, the insensate, trumpet-tongued
vulgarity, with which every man of affairs is called upon to deal; and
he relates an incident in his present experience as Director of the
Press which shows that he was as helpless in the face of it now as he
afterwards proved in the more august circle of the Council of State. He
was arranging some matter with Machault,[73] who was then in charge of
the police; his colleague was for carrying things off with a high hand;
d'Argenson laid down his pen, looked at the man, rose, and retired
from the business.[74] It was an act of weakness, but the weakness was
invincible.
In spite of it, and of those defects of manner which led others
to hold him in such scant esteem, there was one person who
believed in d'Argenson, his aunt, Charlotte Emilie de Caumartin,
Marquise de Balleroy. In one of the earlier letters of that famous
correspondence[75] in which most of the materials for his life at
this period are preserved, he tries to excuse his slackness in the
friendly office of literary purveyor. "If I am not sending you any
books," he writes (March 23, 1717), "it is not for want of will. I have
brought misfortune on the Press. My censorial severity is silencing
all our authors." There were more solid reasons for the unwonted lull
in the activity of the Press Bureau.[76] There were no authors to
silence. The literary efflorescence of the Grand Age was long since
dead; while the new spirit, which was to be so fruitful in trouble
to d'Argenson's successors, was only fermenting beneath the surface.
It made its appearance with the "Lettres Persanes," which came--from
Holland--in 1721. The Censor was not even made the tool of a political
party. It is true that the battle of the "Constitution"[77] was raging
as fiercely as ever; but Madame de Maintenon had disappeared, and it
was no concern of Philippe d'Orléans. When the Government at last
interfered (by declaration of October 7, 1717),[78] it was to proscribe
the publications of both parties. It is very clear, and it is worth
remarking, that d'Argenson was in entire accord with the policy of the
Regent. His father, still in command of the police, was constantly
behind the scenes, and was under no illusion as to the character of the
actors.[79] He used to tell Marais that "if the Jansenists were rogues,
the Jesuits were as bad, and that he held the proofs with regard to
both of them."[80] The attitude of the son may readily be guessed. His
one desire was for peace. In a letter to the Marquise (April 2, 1717)
he describes a political brochure by one of her friends as "too bad
to read, and not silly enough to laugh at. The Abbé de Guitaut had no
reason to write that he detested the Constitution, and he had every
reason to refrain from publishing his letter."[81] In short, he viewed
the controversy with much concern, and the "Constitution" with none
whatever.
Another question was coming to the front, which touched him more
nearly as parliamentary councillor (Conseiller au Parlement). The Bank
was flourishing, and in August, 1717, the Mississippi Company was
successfully floated.[82] On the 2nd of September d'Argenson writes a
letter:--
"Our Court of Parlement has received a scurvy compliment." It was a
question of money, and they "desired explanations." The Regent replied
"that it would be a strange thing if the factious opposition of the
Parlement were to arrest the course of those advantageous measures
which he wished to secure for the public; that we had no right to
meddle with matters of finance; and that he would not suffer the royal
authority to be made light of so long as it were entrusted to his
care."[83]
He appears to be recording the first brush between the forces of the
Parlement and of the Crown, and the opening of the hot battle which
ended, exactly three years later (August 28, 1720), at Pontoise.[84]
The young councillor was soon to be even more deeply interested in
the progress of events. Five months afterwards (January 28, 1718) his
father became Warden of the Seals, and President of the Council of
Finance; and it was soon plain, from the threatening attitude of the
Parlement, that their redoubtable enemy had not entered the ministry
one moment too soon. For the present, indeed, the Government was
content to hold its hand; for Dubois, the demon of the play, had not
yet returned from London, where he was sedulously wooing the Hanoverian
interest.[85] As for d'Argenson, his heart wavered 'twixt love for his
father and loyalty to his brethren of the long robe. He had recourse
to argument--for the Marquis was by this time impressed with his son's
substantial worth.[86] "A tout ce que je lui exposai" the black-bearded
minister had but one reply: "My good fellow! that Parlement of yours,
has it any troops? For our part, we have 150,000 men! That's what it
all comes to." "Et voilà parler en grand homme!" exclaims his son,[87]
with an admiration which is the more natural for its inconsistency. But
the "grand homme" was preparing to act. On August 16th Dubois arrived
in Paris bearing a treaty of alliance with England; and the great _coup
d'état_ which crushed the pretensions of the Parlement and silenced the
opposition to Law, followed upon the 26th.[88]
In December d'Argenson married,[89] and cast about for the means to
feather his nest. Retiring discomfited from the Palais de Justice,
he took refuge, like many an irate but thrifty parliamentarian, in
the Rue Quincampoix. In November, 1719, when the tide of elation was
in full flood and trembling on the ebb, we hear that d'Argenson "is
in for (y est pour) 500,000 livres."[90] Three weeks afterwards, by
decree of the 1st of December, the Bank and the Treasury refuse to
receive cash. Before the end of the year the shares are falling.[91]
On the 3rd of January M. d'Argenson withdraws from the control of the
finances; on the 5th, Law takes the helm as Controller-General, and
proceeds with the series of desperate decrees designed to save the
credit of the Bank.[92] Upon one of the commissions which followed in
quick succession d'Argenson was appointed[93] to serve as Master of
Requests.[94] He could do so with a light heart. Warned in time, he had
managed to extricate himself; and in a letter of the 22nd of February,
1720, we read: "Talking of shares, no one is coming off more prettily
than M. d'Argenson _l'aîné_; he has just completed the purchase of an
estate on the Réveillon road; it is his principal acquisition."[95]
Meanwhile he had obtained a provision of another kind. The Warden of
the Seals, on withdrawing in January from the control of the finances,
had managed, with his usual dexterity, to cover his retreat. Directly
afterwards, to the no small scandal of St. Simon,[96] the young
Chevalier was entrusted with the Lieutenancy of Police, while the elder
brother, Count d'Argenson, received a seat at the Council of State,
with an immediate promise of the Intendancy of Maubeuge. Thus it was
that about the middle of March,[97] 1720, d'Argenson set out for his
seat of government at Valenciennes, leaving Paris to face the appalling
ruin created by the crash of the great "System." Though removed from
the centre of the drama, a place was reserved for him in the final act.
On the 21st of May appeared the suicidal decree which shattered what
vestige of credit remained. It was inspired by d'Argenson's father,[98]
and cost him the seals. He fell in the beginning of June. In July Law's
carriage was wrecked under the very windows of the Regent in the
court of the Palais Royal. In December the great adventurer took to
flight; and Count d'Argenson had the supreme satisfaction of arresting
him at Valenciennes, and, by an order from Paris, detaining his jewel
case, the last resource of the broken man.[99] Personally the young
Intendant has not much reason to complain. The "System" had left him
with the valuable property of Réveillon; he was already a Councillor of
State; and at the age of twenty-six he was comfortably established at
Valenciennes as the chief magistrate of the important frontier province
of Hainaut.
"I am sure I shall entreat you so much that you will come here; my
house is not at all bad; it is scarcely in order, but you will find it
even better than they usually are. An opera is coming to Valenciennes;
we have very pretty lansquenet, ombre, picquet--you get plenty of that
in the country[100]--quadrille and even brélan; a carriage; this summer
your choice of drives, if you wish to see a country quite new to you,
the towns in the environs. In a word, what shall I tell you? You will
see people who love you very much, though I am speaking of one who
does not know you yet, but for whom I bespeak your friendship." In
this letter, a few weeks after his arrival, when the house-warming is
complete, d'Argenson commends himself, his establishment and his young
wife, to his trusted and right loyal friend, Madame de Balleroy. We may
glance for an instant at this remarkable lady. At the age of nineteen,
by a marriage with a country nobleman, she was widowed of the bright
buoyancy of life at Paris; and amid the flat fields and uneventful
hedgerows of Normandy[101], her heart yearned for the patter of the
distant pavement. Her forlorn beauty, her wasted wit, drew round her a
little army of friends, held faithful by the affectionate discipline of
pity; and in the goodly company of correspondents who reflect for her
the gaieties of the Regency,[102] not the least honourable place is
held by her nephew d'Argenson.
Certain features which his letters disclose must be brought for a
moment into relief. In the first place, he shows himself a devoted
friend and a dutiful correspondent; in the latter regard he is a
shining example to his brilliant young brother.[103]
Moreover, we occasionally come across a story, which, if we forget the
manners of the time, it seems as strange that a gentleman should have
been able to write as that a lady should been willing to read. Yet it
is comforting to find, in reading such passages, that if there is an
utter absence of delicacy or reserve, there is an equal freedom from
mere smirking prurience; the man's breath is tainted by the fashion of
the time, but at least his heart is whole.
Sometimes again d'Argenson's feeling for the ideal, which explains so
many of amiable vagaries, is seen taking wing and soaring away to the
sound of his own laughter. "I mean my bust (February 18, 1718[104]) to
be in the library of Balleroy, with that of Pico de la Mirandola, and
some great personage or other who, after all, could do no more than
read. The proposal, perhaps, is not very reasonable as yet;[105] of the
two, I am more like the latter."
In one letter we get a glimpse of d'Argenson's most cherished interior,
and so of the man who loved it.
"I assure you, Rouillon (Réveillon) is becoming a fine house. In a
gallery on the wing will be my library, with a little reading-room at
one end, plenty of desks, sofas, cushions, upholstery in morocco--all
the novelties of Holland; and from the windows a vista of avenues,
kitchen gardens, woods, meadows, sheep. Won't you be charmed with it
when you are at Paris this summer?" (August 8, 1722).[106]
His occasional reference to "le cadet" is interesting, in the light
of their subsequent relations. With a touch of good-natured envy he
remarks, "My brother is surpassing himself as Chief of Police. He is
a perfect courtier; in that regard he has nothing to learn" (August
8, 1722).[107] Perhaps indeed the most precious thing about these
letters is the light they throw upon the real character of the younger
brother, and on d'Argenson's subsequent portrait of him. A comparison
of the young "Chevalier" who writes over his own signature, with the
eternal "Mon Frère" of d'Argenson's Journal, enables us to estimate
the personal equation in d'Argenson's political criticism. It tends
to suggest that the impression of high colouring, exaggeration,
unfairness, which is left by the perusal of many of his more trenchant
pages, is due, not to the intrinsic falsity of his judgments, but to
the violence and heat with which they are pronounced. We see that to
many of his indictments the question, "Well! what of it? how could
he help it?" would have been at least a valid reply; and we suspect
that had d'Argenson judged his own contemporaries with that same
deep-sounding charity which, after a century and a half, one can claim
no credit for applying to himself, we should have been spared much of
that bitterness which he expends so lavishly upon the men of his time,
and above all upon his brother, Count d'Argenson. So far as one can
see, the truth was this. Marc Pierre was his mother's son, the blood
of the Caumartins in every vein.[108] In him the rough-hewn strength
of the d'Argenson character was fashioned to a form of lightness and
grace; and losing in massiveness, it gained in charm. He had his
father's strength without his seriousness; his power of work without
his love of it. He impressed his contemporaries[109] by his singular
union of facile effectiveness with absolute unconcern. Such a passage
as this, which appears in a letter of 1715,[110] needed no signature
for identification.
"At last, my dear aunt, the taxes are achieving what all the preachers
in the world have never dared to undertake. Luxury is no more. The
balls of the Opera and Comedy are as deserted as the ante-chamber of
M. Desmarets or M. de Pontchartrain.[111] The churches are rather more
patronised than they were; there, for example, you see men of business
who have not yet been taxed, praying, at the foot of the altar, for a
lot more pleasant than has fallen to their companions; you see poor
Molinists beside themselves at the triumph of their adversaries, and
sighing for the re-establishment of Jesuit influence. There you see
many a young girl in tears, sorrowing for the purse of the financier
who used to keep her in such gay profusion, and crying out upon the
harshness of the powers that be at present, who work to construct their
own fortunes before taking thought for that of their mistresses. Even
me you see there now and again, vastly puzzled as to where I shall dine
or sup, and turned pious for want of something better to do."
After reading such a passage as this, a new light breaks upon one of
the first notices of Count d'Argenson that appear in the Journal, and
upon a thousand more that follow at intervals for nearly thirty years.
"It is certainly true that my brother has not the secret of attaching
to himself the men whom he serves. His lack of interest is the
principal cause; it lays him open to the charge of insincerity in
friendship."[112]
It is here, in this "distraction," implicit in every line of that
youthful letter, that we touch the real foundation for those continual
charges of cold cleverness, absence of principle, paltriness of aim,
pettiness of means, with which Count d'Argenson is pursued. It was this
that divided the brothers with a severance of interest that nothing
could bridge. At the outset of life their roads diverged. The one led
to greatness through labyrinths of littleness; the other was the way
of honest, impotent, disdainful obscurity. The simple truth was that
the younger brother, keen, accomplished, utterly careless, was free to
choose the pleasanter of the two; for the elder, it was barred from
the beginning. His estrangement from the world had wholly unfitted him
for the arts of complaisance and intrigue; and there was something
within him which protested that they were as far beneath him as they
were beyond his reach. D'Argenson went his own way; he found that it
led nowhither. He was to learn that without those arts which he coveted
and despised, devotion, disinterestedness, were no passport to power;
yet, it is good to reflect, he would never consent to lose his devotion
in the ignobler interests of a private life. When the last word is
said, it may be found that of the two brothers it was he who had chosen
the better part; and that if, in spite of him, knowledge and justice
require us to count small blame to the one, we may ascribe with equal
heartiness all honour to the other.
This in anticipation; for d'Argenson is still at Valenciennes, without
a thought that the unlikeness of character revealed in these letters to
Madame de Balleroy will ever lead to open estrangement.
It was about the middle of March, 1720, that d'Argenson took over
his province. He left behind him at Paris at least one person who
would watch his career with lively interest. In 1718, in the salon
of Madame de Lambert, he had been introduced to a man, whose recent
expulsion from the French Academy for some shrewd criticisms of the
late reign had given him credit among the younger spirits--the Abbé de
St. Pierre.[113] We can easily imagine how d'Argenson must have been
attracted to a man, who had his own breadth and generosity of mind, and
who was crippled like himself by the lack of those social arts which
would have secured for his opinions a perilous respect. The regard
appears to have been mutual; and when d'Argenson made his first venture
in public life, it was under the auspices of the utopian abbé. A letter
which survives, addressed by him to the Intendant of Valenciennes,[114]
is alone sufficient to suggest the influence which inspired d'Argenson
with his political philosophy.
St. Pierre encourages him to attempt a reform in the distribution of
the taille; and incidentally he remarks:
"Those states are the best governed where justice between individuals
is most exactly observed; there the people are more prosperous than
elsewhere. It were to be desired that there were never favours to hope
for from a minister, but only justice for which to apply to him; for it
is seldom that favour to one is not injustice to another."
He concludes his letter with the words:
"I have a great desire to be able to watch your new government, and I
expect your success will soon persuade plenty of people besides myself
that you are worthy of high office."
That d'Argenson, from the point of view of the Government at least,
was successful, there is little reason to doubt. The chief features of
his administration may be lightly reviewed. In addition to his work
of routine as superintendent "de justice, police, et finance," he
kept an intelligent watch for the appearance of abuses, and also for
possibilities of reform. His province, on the frontier of Flanders,
involved him in duties of a "military even more than of a judicial
or financial character."[115] The condition of the troops engaged
his attention; he early discovered that "the army contractors are
great rascals," and that the men were being defrauded of a part of
their rations; he introduced a reform which was afterwards adopted
throughout the French army, and for which he is careful to claim the
credit.[116] In another direction he showed the liberal tendencies
which afterwards distinguished him. In time of abundance, he permitted
the exportation of corn, and derived a useful revenue from the sale
of the license.[117] In the same connection too, he succeeded with
much address in averting one of the periodical bread panics which
were caused by the restrictions on the interchange of corn.[118]
With a pitiful regard for the soldiers and the common people, he had
a formidable hatred of knaves in authority. Having disposed of the
"fraudulent contractors," he turned his attention to "quelques coquins
de bourgeois," who availed themselves of the custom of extending the
term of municipal tenure upon great occasions, to enjoy their offices
at the expense of their fellow citizens. He took the opportunity
of the consecration of Louis XV. at Rheims--at which, by the way,
d'Argenson himself was present[119]--to post a proclamation "at all
the cross-roads of my towns," requiring the elections to proceed as
usual.[120] In short, he went to work in such a way as to open the
eyes of his oldest friends to the real ability concealed behind his
unpromising exterior.[121] But with all his success, he had good reason
to be dissatisfied with his position. He had escaped with great luck
at the beginning of the Mississippi crash,[122] but before it was over
he was badly hit. His father-in-law, M. Méliand, Intendant of Lille,
"had been kind enough" to remit his wife's dowry in Bank notes at a
time when the notes were only useful as waste paper.[123] There were
other disappointments in store for him. In May, 1721, his father died.
The old man, regarding the Chevalier, now to be the Count, as the real
hope of his family, had bequeathed to him the whole of his personal
property, leaving the Marquis d'Argenson burdened with the family
estates.[124] Moreover, M. Méliand showed no disposition to retire in
his favour from the rich Intendancy at Lille, for which d'Argenson
had naturally hoped;[125] and meanwhile, his own establishment at
Valenciennes was involving him in expenses which he was ill prepared
to meet. In the midst of these embarrassments an event occurred which
seemed to open a prospect of escape. To explain it, a slight retrospect
will be necessary.
Shortly after his marriage, and about a year before leaving Paris, he
had formed an intimacy with a Madame de G----,[126] whom we recognise
from his description of her as "sincere, affectionate, faithful,
reasonable, and generous," as a type of those virtues which d'Argenson
especially loved, and of which he was inclined to suspect the absence
in women generally, and in his own wife in particular. Madame de
G---- had a cousin, the wife of the Ambassador to Sardinia. In the
winter of 1719, this lady returned from Turin, without visible means
of subsistence. But there was always a royal road to affluence open
to bankrupt ladies-of-fortune, and with no unnecessary delay Madame
de Prie was "administered"[127] to that libidinous dyspeptic, the Duc
de Bourbon. Shortly afterwards, "we"--that is, M. le Duc, Mesdames
de Prie et de G----, and young d'Argenson were "en partie carrée";
at last the dream of his youthful years was realised, and d'Argenson
was able to make a fine figure as an intimate of "the first prince of
the blood."[128] The "Partie" was broken up by d'Argenson's departure
for Valenciennes, and it lingered in his mind merely as a pleasant
memory. He was soon to recall it with more lively concern. At the end
of November, 1723, business called him to Paris. On the day of his
return, he had an interview with the Regent, and remarked how ill he
looked.[129] On the following evening, at Valenciennes, he was standing
by the chimney corner talking to a friend when a courier was announced.
It was the 3rd of December: d'Orléans was dead. We can well imagine
with what feelings d'Argenson must have heard that his illustrious
patron of the "Partie carrée" had become the ruler of France, and that
a lady who had already offered him "les dernières faveurs,"[130] had
succeeded to the footstool of Madame de Parabère. Evidently it was not
at Valenciennes that the golden eggs were going to be laid. Moreover,
his brother was for the second time chief of the Parisian police;[131]
he had lately been appointed Chancellor of the Orléans household; in
a word, he could be of infinite service. If any doubts remained as to
the wisdom of his course, they were dispelled by a letter[132] from his
uncle, the Marquis de Balleroy, advising him to use no delay in taking
his place at the Council of State. His mind was made up; and on the
28th of December, 1723, he wrote to M. le Duc, resigning the Intendancy
of Hainaut.
Eight days afterwards (January 4, 1724), he writes to Madame de
Balleroy:
"I have said goodbye to the provincial dignity. Thank heaven! Thank
heaven!"
But d'Argenson had not more reason to thank heaven than usual. He
soon discovered that, with all his masterly calculation, it was the
worst thing he could have done. His brother had not found favour in
the eyes of Madame de Prie;[133] and as chancellor of the House of
Orléans, he was not acceptable to M. le Duc.[134] The latter, so far
from welcoming d'Argenson to the Council of State, was simply incensed
at his untimely resignation;[135] it may even have been this that
decided him to dismiss Count d'Argenson from the Lieutenancy of Police
immediately afterwards. In fact, we have here a first glimpse of one
side of d'Argenson's nature, which we shall meet continually in more
august, if not to him more important, affairs. He was endowed with a
conceptive faculty of the first order; it is the breadth, the intimate
grasp of his conceptions, with the complex character behind them, that
constitute his enduring claim to remembrance. But he had the attendant
weakness of the man of many devices, an eager, unquestioning faith in
the efficacy of his own plans; and upon that rock his fortunes were
continually splitting. His power of combination and his belief in his
own strategy were constantly leading him into precipitate action, and
involving him in difficulties against which a man of more sluggish
imagination and narrower mind would never have had even to guard. It
was not that his strategy was weak; it was generally powerful, and
often profound; but the moment it left his study, it became stiff,
useless, and often ridiculous, for want of those small political and
social arts which his brother possessed to perfection. We can easily
imagine the course which that brother would have taken had he been in
d'Argenson's place. He would have addressed to M. le Duc a delightful
letter of congratulation, reminding him playfully of the old days of
the "Part Carrée," and closing with protestations of renewed zeal for
his service. He would then have spent the next six months in finding
or contriving, honestly or otherwise, a pretext for at once returning
to Paris and gratifying his powerful patron. Unhappily such a course
was too slow and small and politic for d'Argenson's temperament; his
resignation was disastrous; and as chance would have it, it was nearly
twenty years before the brothers recovered the ground they now lost.
Certainly, in d'Argenson's case at least, it was not for want of
effort. After a few months at the Council, he discovered that there
were "too few opportunities of serving the public in this business
of judge, where one has scarcely a vote for the thirtieth part of a
decree."[136] The Intendancy of Paris became vacant; he tried to obtain
it; but Madame de Prie was inexorable, and the appointment was refused.
"As for me, I was good for nothing. I was merely an old friend,
who had been good enough to be unwilling to take advantage of her
kindness."[137]
We shall meet again with this amiable weakness for explaining his
failures by reasons which are less correct than they are complimentary
to himself. Even yet he did not give up hope. His marriage with
Mademoiselle Méliand had given him a right to expect the reversion
of the Intendancy of Lille.[138] He now tried to arrange for its
transference to him; but M. Méliand drove a hard bargain and the
negotiation fell through.
We now reach one of the turning-points in d'Argenson's life. Never
was a man more commendably eager to distinguish himself, to play his
part in the world, and to preserve an honourable name in honour by
contributing his share towards the "Bien Public." He now saw himself,
chiefly through his own lack of patient adroitness, banished to the
obscurity of private life. He found misfortune a stern mistress, but
her lessons were as worth learning as they were hard to learn. It was
indeed at this time of disappointment that his mind became imbued
with what is rarest and greatest in his political thought. While his
brother, in the Orléans household, strove, by all the arts of which
he was a master, to win his way back to power, d'Argenson withdrew
entirely from the scene. He called to mind the words of his father,
that "a lofty and ambitious man will have all or nothing;" and, in M.
Aubertin's phrase, he became content with nothing that he might have
all. For some years we hear nothing of him; it is only in 1731 that
he again appears upon the scene under the protection of the minister
Chauvelin.
His life in the interval must be reserved for another chapter. In
the present, but one word remains to be said; it is perhaps the most
important of all.
We are already in a position to appreciate d'Argenson as of a
peculiarly complex nature; and its complexity is the more puzzling
from the fact that the sterling ore of character is combined with
traits, not of wickedness, but of weakness. He possesses in abundance
those qualities which men love and admire; and yet we scarcely become
intimately acquainted with him upon any single occasion without being
tempted to laughter. The reason is only too clear. His real loftiness
of spirit is yoked with a kind of halting timidity, with which the
unhappy experience of his earlier years had afflicted him; and for such
a man, to be sublime was too often to appear ridiculous. Occasionally
amusement deepens to an even less pleasant feeling; for he held, and
he had a right to hold, strong opinions upon men and things; and he
sometimes records them in terms so unmeasured as to awaken sympathy
with his unheard opponents and to arouse suspicion as regards himself.
Moreover, he is himself so simply ingenuous as not to understand
the necessity of discreet suppression; and he pursues, with painful
circumstance, those moods of irritation, disappointment, disillusion,
those momentary vices of temper, which all men perhaps are small enough
to feel, but few are great enough to be able to record. Such failings
might be taken for what they are worth--which is very little--were it
not that, magnified out of all proportion by some of d'Argenson's most
influential critics, they have been made the basis for conceptions of
his character which are too ungenerous to be critically just. Faults
they are, undoubtedly; but in reading, day after day, the revelations
of his Journal, one feels that in this man, with all his failings,
there is something verily great; and that morally, he towers above the
ready cox-combs who laughed at him while he lived, or who have sneered
at his memory when it alone remained.
It is, then, with keen curiosity that one seeks for something which
will explain this persistent faith in d'Argenson, nor is the quest in
vain. Here and there among the pages of his Journal, buried amid much
that is ephemeral and often worthless, one comes across passages which
are perfect gems of feeling and expression. They show us d'Argenson
at his best, and enable us to divine what is best in him. Among the
first hundred pages there are at least three such episodes standing
out in fine relief. One is the tale of the parrot that troubled the
repose of the Intendant of Hainaut.[139] Another, even more charming
and suggestive, is the story of Kakouin, the pet boar which was given
him by St. Contest, his friend of the Entresol, and which came to such
an untimely end.[140] Read in the light of many that follow, these
pages reveal such a perfect beauty of heart, such a faultlessness of
emotional touch, as is as rare as it is lovely; they spring, pure and
clear, from the depths of the man's soul, wholly undarkened by that
turgidity of feeling to which the enthusiasm of humanity afterwards
gave birth.
It was not alone to the pets of his own household that d'Argenson's
heart was given. There was room in it left for the "brutes" of La
Bruyère, "whose faces, when they rose upon their feet, were as the
faces of men." One day, in the year 1725, he travelled four leagues to
the village of Sezanne, through which the young Queen, Maria Leczinska,
was to pass on her entry into France. His account of what he saw there
forms the third of those pictures of this date which enable us to
penetrate to the heart of the man, and to follow him afterwards with
an unfailing respect. In the course of the narrative he says:
"The harvest and the crops of all sorts were in danger of perishing;
they could not be gathered for the continual rains; the poor labourer
was looking out for a moment of dry weather in order to get them in.
Yet for all that this whole district was beaten with several scourges.
The peasants had been carried off to put the roads by which the Queen
was to pass into fit condition; and they were only the worse, so much
so that Her Majesty often thought she would drown; they had to drag
her from her carriage by main force as they could. In several places
she and her suite were swimming in the water, which lay over the
whole country, and that in spite of the infinite pains expended by a
tyrannical ministry."[141]
And further on he says:
"In the evening, after supper, I went for a stroll round the
market-place of Sezanne. For a moment the rain had ceased. I spoke to
some poor peasants, who had their horses with them, attached to the
tail of a cart, and standing in the night without provender. Some of
them told me that their horses had had nothing to eat for three days.
They were harnessing ten in the place of four; judge how much of them
remained!"[142]
One can scarcely pretend, by fragments of translation, to convey even a
shade of the impression produced by these whole passages, and by many
that deserve to stand beside them. After reading them, and allowing
them to leaven and lighten one's whole conception of d'Argenson's
character, it is with keen pleasure we meet with a luminous remark in
the pages of one of his most accomplished critics:
"C'est par le coeur, en effet, que son esprit est grand," says M.
Aubertin;[143] and it is the happiest word that has been devoted to
d'Argenson.
We have but to accept it, and we are enabled to remit to their due
place those small distempers, those accidents of the inauspicious
moment, which have often hardened the regard of criticism; we see how
very little they appear by the side of what was greatest and best in
d'Argenson. Qualities are virtuous in proportion as they are necessary;
and events have thrown a suggestive light upon the relative value
of the various virtues in the France of the Eighteenth Century. We
see that there was something more real and rare than those elegant
adornments, those small dexterities, which were then so dearly prized:
that they afford but thin subsistence for a society bereft of honesty,
devotion, depth of vision, and soundness of heart. Those qualities
d'Argenson possessed, and the children of this world laughed at him.
Their generation does not last for ever; and we, who are on the hither
side of 1793, may be excused for thinking that, with all the failings
that whetted their wit, there were very few among them who could be
mentioned in a breath with the man they honoured by their laughter.
D'Argenson could feel, but he was no sentimentalist. The years which he
now passed in obscurity were among the happiest and most fruitful of
his life.
III.
1724-1744.
The Entresol--Political struggles--Relations with Cardinal
Fleury--D'Argenson and Voltaire.
Among the influences which connected d'Argenson with the tradition
of the late reign were his relations with that curious and not very
admirable person,[144] the Abbé de Choisy. It would appear that
during the closing years of his life the harlequin abbé was on terms
of some intimacy with his young relative;[145] and shortly before
his death in 1724, he placed in d'Argenson's hands a collection of
manuscripts,[146] from which the published remains of de Choisy are
principally derived.[147] Among them was a record which d'Argenson
might recall with a certain melancholy interest.[148] It seems that
in 1692, de Choisy's rooms at the Luxembourg became the headquarters
of a little company of thirteen men, among whom were Fontenelle and
Perrault, and others distinguished in literature and society.[149]
They met for discussions upon politics, theology, and moral science,
and in fact all those questions of more pressing and immediate concern
which the constitution of the three existing Academies ignored. It
may well be imagined that such an organisation could scarcely commend
itself to the favour of the Monarch who, a few years afterwards,
was to break the heart of Vauban; and before a year had passed, the
Academy of the Luxembourg came to an untimely end. The collapse was
natural enough, for these were the palmy days of the older _régime_;
its vices were still to be revealed, and as yet the discussion of
political subjects by unauthorised persons might well have seemed an
impertinence. Thirty years after, the matter had assumed a different
aspect. Disasters abroad and miseries at home, which had stirred
the patriotism of Vauban, the ferment created by the advent of the
Regency, the widespread concern for questions of administration aroused
by the rise and fall of the great "System," and, lastly, the object
lesson in political fatuity afforded by the ministry of the Duc de
Bourbon, all contributed to raise matters of government to a place of
primary interest; and it is not surprising that about a year after
the publication of the "Lettres Persanes," a serious and successful
attempt should have been made to organise and define political thought.
In 1722 the Abbé Alary invited a number of gentlemen connected with
the administrative and diplomatic services to meet in his rooms in an
entresol in the Place Vendôme, which became for about eight years the
home of the memorable "Club de l'Entresol." The idea of this, the first
of French political societies, was probably suggested by Bolingbroke,
an intimate friend of Alary, who may have hoped to find, in a little
cabinet of embryo statesmen, some mild consolation for his banishment
from Whitehall. Certain it is that the English politician did much to
give it a successful start; and a year afterwards (July, 1723) we find
him writing to the perpetual president, Alary:[150]
"You will give my kind regards to our little Academy. If I were not
sure of seeing them again next month, I should be quite miserable. They
have confirmed my taste for philosophy; they have revived my old love
for literature; how grateful I am to them!"
In 1725, upwards of a year after his return from Valenciennes,
d'Argenson became a member of the Entresol;[151] and some time
afterwards he had the honour of introducing a man whose whole life
was devoted to insisting upon the paramount importance of political
concerns--his friend and master, the Abbé de St. Pierre.[152]
It is a curious fact that the man who received the record of the
ill-starred society of the Luxembourg should have become the historian
of its successor; for it is from d'Argenson that our knowledge of the
Entresol is mainly derived. Several years after its suppression, he
sat down to record his reminiscences of "a little organisation, whose
history, at present unknown to many people, will soon be forgotten
by all the world."[153] Events are grouped very differently by the
redressing hand of time, and, apart from the interest attaching to it
in connection with the life of d'Argenson, the Entresol is in no danger
of being forgotten.
Its meetings[154] were held on Saturday evenings, and lasted from five
o'clock till eight. The time was spent in the recital of political
news, conversation on passing events, the reading of papers, and open
discussion. The procedure, though carefully ordered, was sufficiently
elastic, and on extraordinary occasions--as when His Excellency Horace
Walpole appeared to advocate the maintenance of the understanding
with England[155]--might be entirely suspended. Not the least useful
member of the Entresol was d'Argenson himself; he joined in its
labours with his usual industry and zeal. He made it his business to
extract the political intelligence from the leading newspapers--those
of Holland[156]--at the same time maintaining a correspondence with
Florence[157] and Brussels. In addition to this, he undertook the
department of canon law, with which his position on the ecclesiastical
committee of the Council of State peculiarly fitted him to deal.[158]
In connection with this subject, he read to the society a series
of papers in which he argued strongly for the independence and the
pre-eminence of the civil power. His conclusions might have been less
absolute had he known that they were one day to rise up in judgment
against him in the shape of two formidable quarto volumes.[159] In the
general debates he took an active part, and his discussions with St.
Pierre upon the innumerable projects which the latter presented to the
society were recalled by him with lively pleasure.
Though devoted to political research, "the good Entresolists" were
careful to exclude even the suggestion of pedantry. They formed a sort
of "club" on the English model. "We had all sorts of pleasant things,
comfortable seats, a good fire in winter, and in summer windows opened
upon a pretty garden. There was no dinner or supper, but tea was to be
had in winter, and in summer lemonade and cooling drinks. The gazettes
of France, Holland, and even the English papers, were always to be
found there." In a word, it was "un café d'honnêtes gens."[160] On
the summer evenings, when the meeting was over, they used to go for a
stroll round the terrace of the Tuileries, discussing the questions
that had arisen in the debate. In the winter they "went straight home,
and always with a fresh regard for the Entresol."[161]
It may well be imagined that a society of this kind must have inspired
a very warm feeling among those who were privileged to take part in
it; and d'Argenson is affectionately anxious to make it clear that
its ultimate dissolution was in no way due to failure of interest. We
might well believe it from the letters of one of its most distinguished
members, the hero of Dantzig, Count de Plélo, whose appointment to
Copenhagen in 1728 was largely due to the prestige he acquired as a
member of the Entresol.[162] From the cold solitudes of the Baltic he
writes to the President: "O! this accursed climate! Am I never again to
breathe the air of the Entresol?"[163] and again, "A person accustomed
to read the Gazette at the Entresol finds it very dry reading all alone
at Copenhagen."[164] And then, when the crisis came and the society was
no more, he writes:
"I can imagine how keenly you feel the unhappy fate which has befallen
the Entresol. Would you ever have believed that anything so innocent
could fall under suspicion? Surely something out of the common must
have happened since my departure, or else the great ones of the earth
have very little to do."[165]
The attitude of the "great ones" is not without interest. Even Cardinal
Fleury had been compelled to breathe the air of the Regency; and upon
succeeding to the authority of the Duc de Bourbon, he was inclined to
look graciously upon the nascent society.[166] Nor was his protection
hastily withdrawn, for in the winter of 1730 he appointed its president
Curator of the King's Library, and thither the meetings of the Entresol
were transferred.[167] In the following summer it received a further
earnest of ministerial approval in the preferment of Alary to the
tutorship of the Children of France.[168] In the elation produced by
these marks of favour the members threw off their accustomed reserve,
and the proceedings of the Entresol acquired a notoriety which was
little to the mind of its more cautious spirits.
"I tired myself to death in recommending moderation and discretion,
even in regard to the name of the Entresol; for I kept saying to them:
'You will see that one fine morning the Government will ask us what we
are about.'"[169]
But d'Argenson's efforts were powerless to withstand the vain temerity
of some of the members; the fatal day arrived at last; and at one
of the meetings in the autumn of 1731, Alary appeared with the
announcement that he had a poniard in his heart, and that the days
of the Entresol were numbered.[170] There was no gainsaying the will
of the Cardinal, and the dissolution was effected in decent silence.
But it was not accepted without an effort. A little conspiracy was
formed among the more earnest members, with d'Argenson for one of the
ringleaders; the day of meeting was changed to Wednesday; the black
sheep were excluded; and it was hoped that by absolute silence and a
careful avoidance of ministers, they would be able to hold on until the
storm had blown over. Yet scarcely three meetings had been held when
d'Argenson fell into the hands of Chauvelin, who extracted from him
a promise that no further effort would be made to revive the beloved
society.[171] There was no more to be said.
D'Argenson's personal disappointment was keen enough, nor was he
slow to appreciate the public loss. He writes reproachfully: "It is
surprising that so many sciences are cultivated in Europe, whilst
there is not a single school of public law. Why should not theoretic
knowledge be as useful to society in general as to societies in
particular? You aspire to employment in the public service, and you
cannot qualify yourself by preliminary practice; for this is the
fashion which has been introduced into France in our day: people say,
'When I am appointed ambassador, when I am raised to the Ministry, I
will learn the duties of my post.'"[172]
It was not upon d'Argenson that the loss fell; his political
apprenticeship was already complete. On those Saturday evenings in the
Place Vendôme, he had learnt to think clearly and boldly upon public
questions; and the doors of the Entresol were scarcely closed when he
resolved to turn his acquirements to account.
He was now in his thirty-seventh year. His affairs, which had often
given rise to embarrassment, had been arranged by the recent sale
of Réveillon (December, 1730);[173] there appeared to be no further
obstacle in the way of a successful career. He was not slow in adopting
the only means by which a political aspirant could bring himself under
the notice of the governing powers--the presentation of gratuitous
advice; and it was at this time that he began that series of memoirs
which was continued until after his accession to the ministry, and
which would have been such an invaluable treasury of contemporary
history and thought.[174] Unhappily they all perished in the burning of
the library of the Louvre in 1871,[175] and our only knowledge of them
is derived from fragmentary notices published before that date. The
series appears to have begun in December, 1731; and it is pleasant to
find that here again that amiable influence which had appeared so early
in d'Argenson's career was present to lend him a guiding hand. A memoir
which d'Argenson proposed to present against the arbitrary distribution
of the taille (December, 1731), was scored with annotations by St.
Pierre, who advised that it should be cut down, that certain vague
views about things in general should be excised, and that the author
should confine himself to a single point. "He must not give occasion
to say, 'He is a fine talker, he is an eloquent speaker, _qui bat la
campagne_.'"[176] St. Pierre was himself too melancholy a proof of the
wisdom of his own advice for d'Argenson to reject it lightly; and in
May, 1732, we find him writing:
"I was several months without meddling with affairs of state; I did not
wish to give myself out for a maker of memoirs."[177]
This wholesome caution was not long sustained, nor indeed was it
really necessary. The time was one of keen political excitement. It
was in this very summer of 1732 that the great conflict of old French
privilege and tradition against the arrogant zeal of the Ultramontane
party reached its acutest stage; and it happened that that was the
question of all others with which d'Argenson was competent to deal.
He had been for some years a member of the ecclesiastical committee
of the Council, and at the Entresol, as we have seen, he had been
charged with the department of canon law.[178] Upon the questions at
issue he entertained ideas at once liberal and politic. He admitted in
principle the plea of ecclesiastical authority; but as a politician
he deprecated any encouragement of its supporters in their factious
proceedings against the Jansenists; the attitude of the Government in
regard to heterodoxy should be simply one of passive disapproval. But
it was no longer time to think of principles and policies; the matter
had now resolved itself into a fierce conflict of privilege between the
Crown and the Parlement of Paris. On the 13th of June the Parlement
accepted an appeal in the teeth of direct orders from the King. The
reception was quashed by a decree of Council, and four magistrates
were sent to join Pucelle in exile. The Chambers of Inquests and
Requests immediately resigned.[179] D'Argenson's views upon the crisis
were strong and clear. They were laid before the Ministry; and the
author received a letter from Chauvelin, the Warden of the Seals, to
the effect that two hours' conversation with him would be of material
service to the Government. He set out at once for Compiègne, halted a
moment for breath, scribbled out a "policy complete," and presented
it to Chauvelin in a secret interview which lasted from five o'clock
in the morning until nine.[180] In the whole of the discussions he
appears to have taken a prominent part; he was kept informed, by secret
channels, of the deliberations of the Cabinet;[181] and he seems to
have been treated throughout as an active and esteemed adviser.
The nature of his advice we are at no loss to determine. Among the
documents destroyed at the Louvre was one written by d'Argenson when
the struggle was at its height. It is in the form of a letter from an
Englishman to a Frenchman.[182] In the course of it he says:
"Wherever the sovereignty may reside, it is necessary that authority
should be entire, without partition, and should bow to the judgments
of God alone." He proceeds to urge the necessity of doing away with
the superior courts, or of placing them absolutely at the disposal of
the Crown. In replying to the objection that that would establish "a
veritable Turkish government," he reveals the secret of his peculiar
attitude with regard to royalty in France. "What of it?" he rejoins.
"You live in France under a despotic authority. The die is cast, so
to speak. You must either obey it or destroy it entirely." Its only
restraint must be that imposed by "opinion, reason, delicacy, public
spirit. Is it not the case that for two centuries the progress of
authority in France has been that of peace, art, and morality, and is
it not increasingly active in suppressing violence, whether public or
private?"
How far d'Argenson is to be credited with the policy adopted is a
secret which is buried with Chauvelin and Fleury. Had he been the
moving spirit in the government, its measures could not have been in
stricter conformity with his advice. By a declaration of the 18th of
August, appeals were withdrawn from the jurisdiction of the Parlement,
and the chambers of Inquests and Bequests were suspended. A "Lit
de Justice" followed on the 2nd of September, and upon the 7th the
chambers of Inquests and Requests were scattered to the four winds.[183]
This policy, which d'Argenson had perhaps inspired, was not
consistently pursued. It was not for the last time that Chauvelin had
betrayed the Cardinal into bold and decisive action, nor the last time
that Fleury regretted it. His will was absolute, and before three
months had elapsed the declaration and the _lettres de cachet_ were
withdrawn, and the Parlement returned in triumph.
In dealing with d'Argenson's action as Minister, it has been usual to
attribute its strange inconsequence to his own weakness and oscillation
of mind. The indictment is a hazardous one to prefer against the son
of Marc René d'Argenson; and here it is only necessary to say that in
nothing that he ever wrote or did has there appeared to be sufficient
ground for it. There seem to have been few men who have formed their
ideas with a more quick decision, or have clung to them with a more
sane tenacity. His mind cut into the interests which engaged it sharp
and clear as a diamond; the very fault of it was that it was incapable
of those politic shifts, those timely irresolutions, which have often
been the making of smaller men. Indeed, there is even ground for
suggesting that if, in judging the events of d'Argenson's ministry, his
own real share in them be scrupulously weighed, there may remain no
reason to reject the opinion formed of him, in the beginning of their
relations, by one of the ablest men of his own day, the Warden of the
Seals himself. It is worth remarking that at this very time Chauvelin
was so impressed with his intrepidity of mind that he thought of him
as a possible premier president of the Vacation Chamber, designed
to supersede the Parlement;[184] in other words, as the foremost
instrument of the stringent measures contemplated by the Crown and the
most conspicuous target of a virulent Opposition.
Nor is this the only reply to an imputation which the mere turning of
d'Argenson's pages might almost suffice to dissipate.
Why, it may be asked, was this offer not accepted? D'Argenson himself
shall furnish the answer, surely as pathetic as it is fatally true.
He shrank at Chauvelin's suggestion, protesting that "at bottom he
must be aware of my defects, and that, besides several others, I had
that of being what is called shy and timid; I had been badly brought
up; my father, when I was young, had given all the preference to my
brother;[185] he had only known me during the last two years of his
life when I was in the public service." Upon a word of deprecation, he
repeated "it had not been the case in the latter time, and when he once
knew me, the matter changed completely."[186]
Indeed his new patron could not help regarding him with interest, and
at the same time with embarrassment. He never tired of urging him to
conquer the weakness which dogged his life. He invited him to his
house, "where all France crowded," and asked him to regard it as his
own;[187] he exhorted him to lose no opportunity of making himself at
home with the world and the Court. He said "that before all things it
was necessary to rescue me from the position in which I was, from a
sort of obscurity."[188] His counsels were as assiduous as they were
disinterested;[189] and they were at last heard with impatience by the
man who felt that the power to follow them had passed for ever beyond
his reach.
"But," he represented at last, "provided that I am known to you, and to
the King and the Cardinal, as I see I am known to his Eminence, and as
you have told me I am to his Majesty, what does it matter whether I am
known to the rest?"[190]
Indeed he felt such dependence to be his one resource. Some years
afterwards he was called to what was, in the circumstances of the
moment, the most important post in the French Government, the Ministry
of Foreign Affairs. He brought to the proof a devotion to the King
which had been the growth of generations; he placed at his service a
ripe wisdom, a capacity for firm, constructive statesmanship, such as
few of the ministers of the reign possessed. All he asked was a free
hand, and firm and kingly support; for he knew that he could not have
maintained himself for an hour amid the clang of policies and the
machinations of intrigue. He threw himself proudly and confidently upon
the loyalty of the King. He only learnt that the staff on which he
leaned was a bruised reed when it went into his hand and pierced it.
It was to no mistiness of mind or constitutional indecision that the
vagaries of his ministry were due; but simply to the fact that his
voice was drowned by the clamour of the Council, and his position
sacrificed by the desertion of the King.
D'Argenson could not fail to attract remark, but he was not strong
enough to make himself necessary. Chauvelin had received him with
curiosity and unfeigned regard; but after a time he lost the freshness
of originality, and his shrinking eccentricity alone remained. The
Minister treated him not unkindly. He put him off with promises, and
was lavish of countenance and encouragement; and d'Argenson passed a
couple of years in continual expectation of preferment, and in constant
labour in the directions suggested by his patron. It was at this
time that he began those researches upon foreign politics which were
afterwards to prove so fruitful; and his Journal is henceforth enriched
with discussions of the interests of France abroad, interesting in
themselves, and often admirable for breadth and originality of view.
They suggest that though d'Argenson may have been a student and a
recluse, a pedant he certainly was not. One of them, presented to
Chauvelin in 1734 in the form of a memoir, enables us to bring into
just focus the relations between d'Argenson and his political mentor.
It was criticised with his usual directness and vigour by St. Pierre,
who, after pointing out its faults and admonishing the author,
exhorts him not to be discouraged. "At your age," he says,[191] "I
was very far from thinking so profoundly upon public affairs," and
he predicts a brilliant future as the reward of his perseverance. It
is in mentioning this same memoir that d'Argenson sums his opinion,
repeatedly expressed, of the man who had been so long his friend. "No
one knows this admirable citizen, and he does not even know himself.
He has given to the public a number of his political works; he has his
eyes fixed upon a goal too far removed from us; and so it happens that
he repeats himself, is always harping upon the same themes, and is
not appreciated. For all that, he is deeply versed in modern history,
present and past; he is an able man; and he has given himself up to
a branch of philosophy, profound and abandoned by all the world,
namely, the true method of political action most conducive to human
happiness."[192]
It was no such fate that d'Argenson designed for himself; and with
keen anxiety did he watch for an opening which would enable him to
reap the fruit of his researches. For a long time he had been secure
in the friendship of the minister; but that resource appeared to be
failing him; nor was he reassured by his keen-witted brother, who
warned him that Chauvelin spent his days in a continual course of
duplicity. D'Argenson's apprehensions were soon confirmed. In July,
1734, upon rumours of a congress to arrange the preliminaries of peace,
he offered to act as one of the plenipotentiaries.[193] His services
were declined. The same fate awaited a request preferred by him shortly
afterwards in favour of a relative. "I was mortified, and I see that
I was only agreeable and accredited at the Court, in so far as I was
useful; c'est un commerce!" he exclaims, flinging down his pen in
disgust.[194] He took it up again to write to Chauvelin, informing
him that there were some estates for sale in Touraine, of which the
minister might be glad to have the refusal. He received in reply a
letter[195] which, considering their former friendship, seems cruelly
cold. It is barbed with that icy politeness with which one declines
an intimacy no longer desired. In November the refusal of some vacant
places which he had a right to expect, and which had been directly
promised,[196] sufficed to complete his discomfiture; he could see but
the wreck of those ambitions which had charged his Journal with energy
and fire; and throughout the year 1735, the silence of disillusion is
scarcely broken.
Not the least of d'Argenson's embarrassments[197] had come from
a quarter where a happier man would have found but help and
encouragement. It was in the course of the year 1733 that the relations
between d'Argenson and his wife ended, by mutual consent, in a
judicial separation.[198] As the conduct of the husband has given
rise to animadversions which are often more true than charitable, it
may be worth while to dwell upon it for a moment. D'Argenson had been
married in the winter of 1718[199] to Mademoiselle Méliand, daughter
of the Intendant of Lille. The passive form is used advisedly,
for the transaction was arranged between the two families like the
transfer of land;[200] and d'Argenson was only introduced to his
betrothed a few days before the ceremony took place. The lady who
became his wife "would be fifteen next January";[201] and d'Argenson,
as we learn from some amusing letters to Madame de Balleroy, was not
a little embarrassed by his new _rôle_ of "elderly husband."[202]
Notwithstanding, he accepted it with dutiful complaisance; and for
some years his attitude towards his young wife was one of affectionate
loyalty, not ungraced by a certain kindly amusement. About the time
of their return from Valenciennes, the relations between them changed
for the worse. Madame d'Argenson was a woman in fact as in name; her
character had developed, and she proved to be a person of average brain
and strong nerve, the very antithesis of her husband. Circumstances
were not wanting to sharpen these radical differences of character,
and to provide occasions of offence. Her husband's affairs were in
disorder,[203] and his political success was long in coming; while
the philosophy which was to him excuse and consolation kindled in
his wife but impatient scorn. She took upon herself the cares of the
household, regarding herself, and possibly not without reason, as its
sole support; while her husband chafed against a solicitude which he
looked upon as mere vexatious interference.[204] A conservative in
these matters as in so many more, he probably told her that a wife
who was worth anything would know her place, and she may have replied
that she had indeed good reason to know it only too well. She held
ideas upon it which raise one's opinion of her, and which were very
unusual in her day. "It is this too," says her husband, "which has
led her to affect an air of absolute independence. She has formed a
narrow-minded conception of all that concerns the proper submission of
a wife, and she is up in arms against everything which detracts from
the position of women in the world. She has far too exalted an idea of
the dignity of the mistress of a house, and thinks very little of that
of the master,"[205] etc. The position at last became unbearable; and
Madame d'Argenson resolved to defy that sacred tradition which guarded
legal relationship in old French families, and to look forward to
"a position of scandal as one would long for Paradise." Her will was
inflexible; the separation took place, and one at least of the parties
profited by it to return to a better mind. D'Argenson, looking back
upon his married life, writes of it as reasonably and contritely as
a man can do when he regrets the past and is sorry for his own share
in it. In speaking of the separation, he says that "the world has
done me the justice to believe that I had not deserved it, that I did
everything I could to avoid it, and that I acted in the matter with a
good feeling and generosity seldom met with."[206] For the truth of
that statement we have the written testimony of Madame d'Argenson's own
counsel;[207] and it is surely her husband's only reparation, as it is
his best excuse, that for three and twenty years he loyally fulfilled
the burdensome obligations which his own past misdoing may have
contributed to entail.
By the beginning of 1736, d'Argenson appears to have taken fresh
heart; for his Journal is resumed, and with it the interest of the
ministry in him. He is spoken of now as a possible Minister of War,
again as a Premier President of the Parlement of Paris, and then as
the representative of France in Portugal. One report is of curious
interest. It mentioned him as the first minister of Stanislas in
Lorraine. The "république de Platon," for which d'Argenson was destined
by Voltaire, would have been unwontedly near the earth had his friend
become "Secretary of State" to the first of the bourgeois kings.[208]
Upon this occasion at least, rumour was not without foundation; the
intention to appoint him to Lisbon was tacitly acknowledged;[209] and
in November, he was roundly taken to task by Chauvelin for having been
indiscreet enough to mention it to his brother.[210]
The appointment had not yet been ratified when an event occurred
which had a lasting influence upon d'Argenson's life. On the 20th
of February, 1737, after a month of ominous rumours, Chauvelin was
disgraced.[211] The cause of his fall, ostensibly some obscure intrigue
with the King of Sardinia, was really the discovery of an attempt
to secure himself at Court independently of the Cardinal.[212] Some
remarks which d'Argenson devoted to the incident, reflect in brief the
tone of his Journal, and exhibit the writer in his most characteristic
mood. After speaking of Chauvelin as "the scape-goat" of the ministry,
and attributing his fall to an exaggeration of finesse, he goes on
to observe, "With regard to that, there is no denying that his ideas
are too great and lofty for the State." ... "I am not very sorry
that he is no longer our Minister; for I only care for a bourgeois
policy, by which one lives on good terms with one's neighbours and is
content to arbitrate between them; and so may have a long time to work
consistently for the prosperity of the interior and the happiness of
every Frenchman."[213] His satisfaction was not wholly unalloyed. "I
cannot help regretting the loss of such a fine opportunity of expelling
for ever from Italy the Emperors of Germany. There can be no doubt
that it was possible; and we should have had all Europe behind us if,
acting with frank good faith, we had strengthened the lesser powers
with the spoils of the House of Austria in Italy, without attempting in
any way to secure them for the House of Bourbon. We had only to make
this resolution understood at Madrid by some one who knew his own
mind, and who would say to them once for all, 'Will you have all or
nothing?' in order to give to Spain the Two Sicilies, which has been
done by arrangement; or, if the worst came to the worst, to form a
general league to act against Spain and the Emperor combined. For what
better view could there be than that of giving prosperity to Italy, and
banishing war for ever from the peninsula."[214] D'Argenson's regret
is almost passionate. "I will say more. His Eminence will be ever
answerable before God for having lost this opportunity, only obtained
at the cost of so much blood. The effort, fruitless though it has been,
has perhaps quenched our star."[215]
Together with the seals, Chauvelin had held the portfolio of Foreign
Affairs; and with regard to it d'Argenson writes:--
"The Foreign Ministry is still a-begging. I did not ask for it, but it
has been done on my behalf. At first my principal care was to avoid the
self-reproach of doing anything which should savour of satisfaction
at my friend's disgrace. For this I have not only the testimony of my
conscience, but also of M. Chauvelin. The poor man writes to tell me he
has one consolation in that I am now known for what I am worth.
"I am worth little, but I burn with love for the happiness of my
fellow-citizens; and if that were known, I should certainly be desired
in office."[216]
About the same time he speaks of Count d'Argenson, who, with very
little regard for the happiness of his fellow-citizens, was very much
more successful. "Le cadet" had just been appointed Director of the
Press,[217] and d'Argenson writes:--
"Here is my brother, who has thrown himself for all he is worth into
the party of the Molinists. What a pity it is that a brother of mine
should think only of himself, should desire nothing but for himself,
should be in everything the centre of his circle! Such a passion
excludes public spirit. It leaves no room for that love of the common
good, which one should long for after one's simple happiness, and far
before one's own aggrandisement; for what folly is grandeur, and the
thirst for power!... For the remarkable thing is that my brother cares
more for a place which comes to him through an underground channel,
through a party and through an intrigue, than by the way, simple and
noble though it be, of capacity recognised and employed."[218] Which
was all very true, and at all of which that amiable sceptic would have
laughed good-naturedly.
If the strait and narrow way was a little arduous, it was none the less
resolutely pursued; and in April, 1737, d'Argenson was able to write:
"To-day has been a great day for me. The King has appointed me his
ambassador in Portugal."[219] The charge, in the circumstances of the
moment, might well have been an important one; and it was gratefully
undertaken as a step to higher things.
"My whole design, in accepting the post which the King has just
conferred upon me, has been to fit myself and to render myself eligible
for office in the Ministry."[220] In the elation of the moment, he
reviews his chances of succeeding to the Chancellorship, which
promised to become vacant by the withdrawal of D'Aguesseau. "Now, at
the King's age and in the circumstances of the reign, the man who
becomes Chancellor with the cognisance of affairs of state, might
well become first minister, by reason of the priority of rank which
his office bestows. Et voilà comme on se laisse aller à des pensées
ambitieuses!" the philosopher concludes,[221] with that characteristic
laugh at his own weaknesses.
D'Argenson's intimacy with the fallen minister had awakened some
misgivings in the mind of the Cardinal; and the new ambassador takes
occasion to remark: "With regard to all that, my course is very easy;
simplicity and straightforwardness will always be my warrant against
the suspicion of such connections, with which my name has never been
mixed up."[222]
It is curious that the man who wrote these words should have been on
the threshold of a period when his prime interest and most active
concern was centred in a labyrinth of Court intrigue. For about six
years he was absorbed and immersed in the designs directed by a party
at Court against the influence of Cardinal Fleury. Of all the pages of
his Journal, the volume and a half in which this period is embraced is
the least admirable and the least attractive; for the man is keenly
interested in the issue of the struggle; not an incident or a detour
escapes him; and we have an almost daily record of hopes and plans
and futile ambitions, sometimes outbreaks of revolting spleen, set
down in pages which are as difficult to read in cold blood as they
were easy to write in heat. There is no question that the tone of
hard hostility which criticism of d'Argenson has so often assumed,
is explained, if it is not warranted, by the revelations of this
period. Even the appreciation of St. Beuve was almost quenched by
their perusal when the volumes of Rathery came into his hands; and
in the last of his "Causeries" devoted to d'Argenson, the luminous
enthusiasm of his earlier essays is exchanged for a tone of coldness
and disillusion.[223] Had the prince of critics held the strife of
politics in less abhorrence, he might have seen less reason to abandon
the attitude which invested his earlier essays, not only with justice,
but with charm.
Appreciation of d'Argenson may be sufficiently great to justify an
attempt to present these years in a light more attractive and perhaps
more true than that in which they have frequently appeared.
The inquiry is no unimportant one. D'Argenson has been charged, not
with mere personal ambition, but with rancour awakened by personal
pique. The issue will decide whether he was indeed the man that he
himself imagined, or whether, with all his fine philosophy, he was
really no larger than any of the men against whose littleness he
inveighed.
No sooner was Chauvelin dismissed (February, 1737) than d'Argenson
takes occasion to review the consequences. The Ministry is reduced
to a satrapy of six, all absolutely equal, and none distinguished
by remarkable ability. In a few words he sums the situation: "If a
monarch prefers work to amusement, the system is good; but if he does
not, one may judge of the consequences."[224] At this time he was
on the best of terms with Fleury; and in April, after receiving an
immediate promise of the Portuguese embassy, he quits him with the
significant remark: "We should be happy if his knowledge of men were as
great as his knowledge of affairs."[225] In April, his appointment was
ratified; he had already acquired an extended knowledge of Portuguese
affairs; and he was not without hope of counteracting the commanding
influence in Portugal secured to England by the Methuen Treaty.[226]
Before long, however, difficulties arose about his emoluments; and on
mentioning the matter to Maurepas in July, he was not reassured by
"the lively and malicious pleasure" with which his complaints were
received.[227] We know that d'Argenson was in no position to maintain
an Embassy at his own expense,[228] as Amelot, a year afterwards, had
the indecency to suggest; and we know also, from the character of
Fleury, that he was little inclined to deal handsomely by the men who
had nothing but their ability to devote to his service. It has been
far too readily assumed that the rupture of the project was due to
d'Argenson's intriguing ambition, and that his protestations in regard
to the Cardinal were only a blind. As we learn from a comparison of
the dates, they were nothing of the sort; and true as it may be that
sometime afterwards, his eagerness to set out was qualified by hopes in
another direction, it is certain that in the summer of 1737, when he
was solely dependent on the Cardinal and not yet in alliance with the
opposition at Court, the only circumstance that retarded his departure
was his difficulty in obtaining a sufficient emolument to support the
dignity of an ambassador.
At this time and for long afterwards, there was no quarrel between
d'Argenson and Fleury; they were, outwardly at least, upon the best of
terms. But in August, 1737, a new feature begins to display itself.
D'Argenson records the existence of a party at Court, whose principal
instrument was the king's valet Bachelier, and whose principal object
was to rouse the King to an active interest in affairs, and to
strengthen the ministry by the inclusion of Belleisle, and possibly
by the appointment of d'Argenson as Controller-General.[229] With his
usual confidence and zeal, d'Argenson threw himself into line with this
party. In January, 1738, he writes for the first time: "It is believed
that Cardinal Fleury is nearing his end, and that he is falling into a
state of lethargy; he abstains from work almost entirely;"[230] and in
March, in the first of his oft-repeated speculations upon the character
of the King, he writes: "In all this, there is promise of a happy
reign; God send it may be! It will be this soul that we must endeavour
to please, and not worthless subjects who have become kings, and who
have passions of envy, pride, and mischievousness;"[231] a reference to
the unhappy administration. In April, a new light breaks upon him, and
he conjectures, very truly it appeared, that the moving spirit of the
Court opposition was M. Chauvelin himself; his triumph is necessitated
by "the horrible weakness of our present ministers."[232] All this
time, d'Argenson was assured of a prominent place in the ministerial
reconstruction which appeared to be imminent; and he is never tired of
enlarging upon the incompetence of the men who were left to bear the
weight of the Cardinal's government.
With the Cardinal himself, it is important to remember, he had at this
time but one quarrel; and so late as November, 1738, he continues
to write as follows:[233] "Never has any of our kings or ministers
had so little knowledge of men as Cardinal Fleury. It has been the
greatest misfortune which the nation has suffered under his ministry;
for had it not been for this capital defect in any man who governs, we
should have gone very far under an administrator so virtuous and so
disinterested."[234] So far from an open rupture having taken place,
he received from the Cardinal in January, 1739, a promise of the
embassy at Naples;[235] and two months afterwards he was nominated by
him to report upon a quarrel which had arisen in connection with the
University.[236] At this time his alliance with the forward party at
Court had lasted nearly two years; and the ground of his adhesion was
not personal disappointment or private pique, but a feeling of the
public necessity of strengthening the ministry by pressure brought to
bear upon the Cardinal.
Six months afterwards his attitude had changed. The manifest
determination of Fleury to repress every influence but his own,
combined with a sudden crisis in public affairs to destroy the tone of
tolerance or esteem with which d'Argenson had continued to regard him.
In July, 1739, he writes: "The rumours are growing that the tyranny
of the Cardinal is nearing its close. I say tyranny; for when all is
said, nothing is more hateful than the government of an old tutor,
without birth and without ability, eighty-six years of age, choked with
self-love and with a mania for ruling, leaning on subordinates worse
than himself, whom he maintains without question, and ousting his king
from the government at his own will and pleasure."[237] In a letter to
Chauvelin (April 24th) he had expressed the tone which is henceforth
assumed. "Our affairs abroad continue to move only by the impetus which
you have given them. As to the rest, it is left to chance, and to a
star which may pale. The unity of policy is lost; general plans are
treated as chimerical systems, or as 'great questions,' which certainly
do create genuine terror among the smallest heads which our nation has
ever seen at its own."[238]
So runs the tale for many years. General declamation against the
incompetence of the ministers is exchanged for a scathing relentless
impeachment of every branch of the administration. The Journal of 1739
contains some of the most terrible pictures ever drawn of the internal
condition of France; and the government of the interior is arraigned
with all the triumphant detail of an unanswerable indictment. When
the extreme of misery had passed, there remained the vicissitudes
of foreign policy to sharpen the bitterness of d'Argenson's pen.
The war of the Indies, the crisis in the Empire, gave occasion for
many a philippic against the senile absurdity of the Cardinal's
statecraft.[239] Nor was this all; for his hand is continually upon
the Cardinal's pulse; his eyes are perpetually bent upon the King; his
own prospects are weighed in an ever-changing balance; and d'Argenson,
King and Cardinal are canvassed until the reader is sick and weary of
them all. Occasionally the narrative is divested alike of dignity and
of reason; and we sometimes meet with a rude savagery of feeling and
expression which suggest that beneath d'Argenson's usual beauty of
heart there lurked unsightly possibilities.
Such are the facts, unpleasing enough; it remains to determine their
critical value.
A first impression that the brain of the writer is haunted by some
grotesque chimera, and that his political prospects are the pure
creation of his own vanity and ambition, proves upon investigation
to be false. There existed at Court during this period an active and
formidable party, bent upon overthrowing the Cardinal; and for six
years there was not a single month when Fleury's position might not
have been imperilled by a moment of manliness on the part of the King.
That moment--it was an amiable fondness--was constantly expected;[240]
and had it followed upon any of the passages of d'Argenson's Journal,
what appears as mere fatuous aspiration might be read as the words
of truth and soberness. It is, moreover, reasonable to suggest that
had the writer been more intimately conversant with the world and its
ways, he would never have written one-tenth of what he felt; and that,
had he not been the author of some of the loftiest and profoundest
truths which political morality has ever uttered, his violences
and excitements would have remained in the obscurity in which such
accidents should be privileged to rest.
But there is another question involved, the question whether his
criticism is the mere outcome of factious opposition, or is the wise
and just conviction of a patriot and an honest man. A brief examination
will suffice.
He pronounced against the men in power, and history has endorsed his
verdict. Among the six ministers who carried the train of Cardinal
Fleury, there was not one whose name has not to be sought for in his
despatches, or who was qualified to be his own head clerk. The only man
who, by the duration and the vicissitudes of his career, has secured
a precarious place in history, is M. de Maurepas. So much for the
men; we have yet to see whether d'Argenson's estimate of the general
administration could equally boast the warrant of fact.
There are two sides to the questions suggested by the government of
Fleury. There is no denying that his negative policy conferred great
benefits on France; there is equally little question that it sowed the
seed of many a disaster. If he did nothing to dissipate the resources
of the country, he did equally little to increase them. He neglected
commerce, and through the accident of the time it flourished. He
neglected finance and the interior, and the ruin of the provinces
proceeded unchecked. During these six years he did nothing for the
policy of France abroad, and it drifted into the state in which we
are soon to see it. In a word, he raised political nihilism to the
dignity of a faith, and the deluge of circumstance had to be faced
by his successors. His policy brought its peculiar consequences. The
most striking was the decadence of the French marine. But it produced
an effect which was far less obvious, and far more insidiously fatal.
With M. Chauvelin, he had banished from his ministry its only element
of constructive strength. D'Argenson had been glad that the man whose
"ideas were too great and lofty," was in power no longer, and only
too ready to take shelter beneath the bourgeois policy of Fleury.[241]
He was not long in discovering his error. The world is not a bourgeois
creation, nor can it be governed upon bourgeois principles; and if
genius in power is often destructive, it is none the less often
necessary. It was by the consistent ostracism of genius that Fleury,
in a profoundly critical period, maintained himself in power; and when
his will at last succumbed to circumstance, he left his country to
drift before the winds bereft of policy or guiding hand. We have soon
to examine one department of the government, and that in connection
with d'Argenson himself. There may be reason to suggest that if his
criticism of Fleury has been violent and harsh, the conduct of French
foreign policy during the years 1745 and 1746 is one long commentary
upon its substantial justice. D'Argenson was a man of strange political
sympathy and insight. Barbier and the element he represented, might
look on with applause, and commend the Cardinal's moderation and
prudence. To a patriot who had the sagacity to foresee what his
so-called moderation might mean, the spectacle must have been full of
provocation; and it is sufficient to conclude that if d'Argenson's
narrative is deformed by the violence of exasperation, its motives were
as pure as the feeling was keen.
It is with the pleasure of relief that we turn to another interest of
d'Argenson's life, as sweet and engaging as the former is sometimes
repellent. It presents him, not as the violent, eager partisan, but in
the light of a loyal and warm-hearted friendship. It is in the spring
of 1739 that we mark the beginning of his intimacy with Voltaire.
D'Argenson and he had been at school together; but since they had
parted in the Rue St. Jacques[242] their ways in life had lain far
apart. Arouet had been absorbed by that brilliant coterie whose host
was Vendôme and whose laureate was Chaulieu;[243] while d'Argenson
pursued the path of the robe, which led far away from the dazzling
dissoluteness of the Temple. Nor were they thrown together more closely
in maturer life; for while d'Argenson, with some chosen spirits, was
developing the purely French tradition of political thought, his
friend, a guest at Twickenham and Battersea, was accustoming his eyes
to that foreign light which he was afterwards to diffuse so fatefully
around him. About the time at which d'Argenson joined the Entresol,
Voltaire set out for England.[244] Separated as they were, they
retained that easy good-feeling which only school companionship can
inspire. Upon Voltaire's return they met more frequently, and in their
letters their old discussions upon art and politics at the house of a
popular society lady,[245] are often the theme of pleasant recollection.
It was not, however, until the opening of the correspondence whose
occasion and character we have now to record, that their casual
acquaintance ripened into intimacy. Many of Voltaire's letters have
never been recovered; and d'Argenson's, with scarcely an exception,
have perished entirely. Still, there remain enough to form an
intelligible series, and to throw a very attractive light upon the
character of the men concerned.
It was in the beginning of 1739 that Voltaire, incensed by a more
than usually scurrilous libel, appealed to his friend for protection
in an attempt to force the author[246] to a disavowal of his work.
With the ready loyalty characteristic of him, d'Argenson accepted the
trust;[247] and until the close of the quarrel he became the poet's
"chargé d'affaires accredited to the literary police." Such of his
letters as are preserved are truly charming, and they read strangely
beside many a page of his Journal written at the same date. They are
graced throughout by that open-hearted confidence which d'Argenson
was always so ready to accord; and nothing can be sweeter than the
self-congratulation with which he tells Voltaire of his success.[248]
He was in constant communication with Madame du Châtelet; and
d'Argenson joined Madame in a conspiracy of kindness to restrain the
vivacities of their outraged friend.
Voltaire was not the man to undervalue such services. His letters are
full of expressions of gratitude, as delicate as they are sincere;
he cast about for a means of displaying it more amply; and with many
another earnest of confidence and regard, d'Argenson received the
opening chapters of the "Histoire du Siècle de Louis XIV.," and with
it the assurance, "I wish to please you so much; and you will see that
if I do not succeed, it is not for want of working upon subjects which
are dear to you."[249] D'Argenson must have been emboldened by the
confidence of his friend, for soon after, Voltaire received a letter,
and with it an extract of a certain manuscript from d'Argenson's own
pen.
The keen surprise and pleasure which attended its perusal are written
in every line of Voltaire's reply:--
"My dear Sir, Providence has kept me here a day longer than we intended
in order that I might receive the most pleasing letter that I have had
since Madame du Châtelet has ceased to write. I have just been reading
to her the extract you have been good enough to make for us from a work
of which it may be said, more justly than of 'Télémaque,' that if any
book could confer happiness upon mankind, it would be this.... We have
not here the mere dreams of a good-hearted man, like the good Abbé
de St. Pierre and M. de Fénélon; there is here something more real,
and something which experience proves in the most striking manner....
Madame du Châtelet is enchanted with your plan. By this post I have
received a letter from a prince, whose first minister you would be, if
you had been born in his country."[250]
"There is a place that one does not procure for cash down, and that I
merit by the most respectful attachment and the most high esteem." The
last word is significant; Voltaire was attached to his friends; his
esteem was reserved for his equals.
The book was kept for six weeks, when Voltaire returned by Moussinot
"the best and most instructive work that I have read for twenty
years.[252]... I am assured that the author of this unique work is not
going to Lisbon[253] to bury his talents for guiding men and making
them happy. May he remain at Paris, and may I find him again in one of
those posts where, up to the present, so much harm has been done and
so little good. If I had myself to choose, I swear that I would not
set foot again in Paris until I saw M. d'Argenson in the place of his
father, and at the head of letters.... Madame du Châtelet is as charmed
as I, and will praise you to much better purpose."
Never did Voltaire speak with more enthusiasm, and never was the
feeling more generous and sincere. He had suddenly discovered among a
crowd of other noble protectors a man of rare and unexpected power; and
for some time the letters to d'Argenson are sufficient to show that
he had sensibly risen in Voltaire's esteem. The praises he received
were accompanied by a full and careful criticism, the hasty reading of
which may have given rise to a gratuitous impeachment of the writer's
sincerity. The suggestion will be presently considered;[254] here it is
enough to say that it was no ordinary political work which, in 1739,
could arouse the enthusiasm of Voltaire.
A third episode in the correspondence is of some importance. It was
through Voltaire that d'Argenson acquired his first knowledge of a man
to whom he was afterwards introduced more intimately by events, the
young Prince Royal of Prussia. Among other marks of regard, Voltaire
sent him some of the prince's letters, and asked him to share his
admiration. It may be imagined that d'Argenson, in whom devotion to
royalty was hereditary, and whose regard for merit was always so keen,
was not slow to echo the enthusiasm of his friend.[255] From this
time forward he watched with lively and appreciative interest the
development of Frederick's career, and upon the frequent letters which
found their way into his hands he formed a conception of the Prince's
character which was not without its influence upon future events. Its
essence is contained in some words he wrote on hearing of Frederick's
accession (June, 1740):--
"Il fera ce qu'il faudra faire."[256]
His pleasure at the event is only qualified by the pitiful contrast
presented by the King upon whom his hopes had so long been built.
Such are the principal features of this delightful correspondence. It
was continued with more or less intermission until the end of 1744,
when d'Argenson found occasion to exercise his friend's pen in matters
of more than epistolary weight. Throughout the difficulties of an
arduous ministry, his task was lightened and his efforts cheered by the
encouragement and co-operation of Voltaire.
IV.
NOVEMBER, 1744--JANUARY, 1747.
Foreign Politics--D'Argenson's Ministry--1745: The Convention of
Augsburg--The Convention of Hanover--The Imperial Election--The Treaty
of Dresden--1746: The Negotiation of Turin--The Saxon Marriage--Review.
At the end of 1740, d'Argenson had succeeded his brother as chancellor
of the Orleans household;[257] in November 1744, he was invited to
accept a place in the Government as Minister of Foreign Affairs.[258]
His brother, Count d'Argenson, was already Minister of War, and since
the dismissal of Amelot in April, had been signing the despatches of
the Foreign Office.
The appointment of a man without any diplomatic experience or high
official knowledge to what was, in the circumstances of the moment,
the most important position in the Ministry, might well, at any other
period, have given occasion for remark. At this time, however, the
Government was peculiarly constituted; its policy was dictated by
Marshal de Noailles, who had no official position; and all that was
required of the new Minister was not plans or policies of action, but
the dutiful deference and docility of his predecessor. The eyes of
Noailles would have opened widely could he have read some of the pages
which the new Secretary had already devoted to the principles and
conduct of French foreign policy.
D'Argenson's ministry lasted rather more than two years, and came
to a close in January 1747. The period was an eventful one; and our
knowledge of it is derived from diplomatic correspondence in every
capital in Europe. The evidence has been digested in several important
works, notably the elaborate study in four volumes by the Duc de
Broglie,[259] and the comprehensive monograph by M. Edgar Zevort.
These works are valuable and authoritative, but their conclusiveness
may be disputed. There are many suggestions with which any one who has
made a close personal study of d'Argenson may find it difficult to
agree; while the divergencies of detail, and sometimes of conclusion,
between the two writers, the admirably chosen series of documents given
by M. Zevort, and, above all, a careful acquaintance with d'Argenson's
own Journal for ten years before, suggest the necessity and afford
ample scope for some independent criticism. It would seem, indeed,
that these works have been undertaken primarily with a view to the
general history of France; and that no adequate effort has been made
to determine d'Argenson's real share in the events for which he bears
the official responsibility. There is only too good reason to know that
in many critical conjunctures, the foreign policy of France was only
pursued because the Foreign Minister was powerless to avert it. Indeed
there is reasonable ground for suspecting that no pains have been
spared in comprehending everything but the Marquis d'Argenson himself;
and that, if the perusal of his official despatches had been illumined
by the study of his unofficial memoirs, the character of his action
might have been explained more naturally than by the suggestion of
stupidity or confusion of mind.
It is true that M. Zevort endeavours to illustrate d'Argenson's
political principles from his own "Essai de l'exercice du tribunal
européen par la France seule;" but it may very well be doubted whether
this piece possesses the importance which has been attached to it. It
was written shortly after, or possibly before, the fall of Chauvelin,
and at least seven years before d'Argenson's accession to the Ministry.
In November 1737, when it appeared in manuscript, France was at
peace, Fleury was still Minister, the war between Spain and England
had not broken out, the old House of Austria was not yet extinct,
and Frederick was still Prince Royal of Prussia. In the interval the
face of Europe had wholly changed. Moreover the "Essai" consists of
no more than half-a-dozen widely printed pages, placed at the end of
the 1764 edition of the "Considérations,"[260] and omitted altogether
from that of 1784. It contains a few loose remarks about Russia and
the northern powers, with some views upon Spain and Austria which are
the commonplaces of d'Argenson's Journal. Almost the only remarkable
feature are some significant words upon the position of England, which
show that the shadow of 1763 was already falling across the path of
France.[261] Indeed the piece appears to be really nothing more than
a brief academic essay, written, as we learn from the title-page of
the manuscripts in the Library of the Arsenal, as a note upon St.
Pierre's "Projet de la Paix Perpétuelle."[262] That the author regarded
it as of small importance is clear from his failure to exhibit in his
Journal any further affection for its leading idea, the exercise of
international arbitration by France alone; his subsequent criticism of
Fleury is little more than a consistent denial of it; and we can point
to at least one passage where its central principle is categorically
rejected.[263] It is true that the conception of a benevolent
arbitration exercised by France remained as a shadowy and distant ideal
before d'Argenson's mind; but that it had ever any serious influence
upon his practical ideas of policy there is no evidence to suggest.
Even if it be admitted, with M. Zevort, that these were "the ideas,
some ingenious, others chimerical, almost all beyond realisation,
which d'Argenson nourished in 1737," it may be denied, with some
distinctness, that "he brought them to the ministry in 1744."[264]
It is not here, but in the pages of his Journal for ten years before,
that we must search for the secret of d'Argenson's thought. It is
true that the running commentary upon foreign politics which is here
continued from time to time[265] is, upon a first or a casual reading,
as bewildering as many have found it; but it will appear upon study and
reflection, that the writer's views, many-sided as they are, revolve
about half-a-dozen leading principles, which perpetually recur, are
immediately recognised, and from which the author never materially
swerves. These principles are based upon profound thought and mature
research; and the divergence of view which is superficially apparent
is due to their constant adaptation to the circumstances of the moment
as affected by fortune or failure, success or reverse. There is no man
to whom inconsequence of mind has been more speciously imputed than to
d'Argenson, and surely none who has deserved it less.
The ideas which d'Argenson did bring to the Ministry must be set forth
as briefly as clearness will allow.
He held that in the dealings of a great nation, the profoundest
principle of policy was simple straightforwardness, and that France was
in a condition which enabled her to apply that principle with effect.
Her legitimate expansion was already complete; she had nothing further
to gain by aggression; and her statesmen should be henceforth as
careful for the extension of her prosperity as they had hitherto been
for the extension of her borders.
It was necessary to allay the inveterate distrust awakened in Europe
by the designs of Louis XIV., and by the junction of the Bourbon
houses. The alliance with Spain was of doubtful advantage; and it was
the interest of France, while remaining on the most friendly terms
with that power, to discountenance, and if necessary to repress, the
Spanish ambitions in Italy. At the same time, every support should be
given to Spain in her resistance to the commercial aggrandisement of
England.
While abstaining from aggression, France, in accordance with her
traditional policy, should lose no opportunity of destroying the power
of the House of Austria in Germany; the death of the Emperor Charles
VI. should be made the occasion for a partition of the Austrian
dominions;[266] and the influence, and if need be, the arms of France,
should be used in favour of the various pretenders.
Every effort should be made to strengthen the position of the smaller
powers, le tiers parti, as a counterpoise to the influence of Hapsburgs
and Bourbons alike; the movements of Sardinia, Bavaria, Saxony, Poland
and Prussia in the direction of independence, should receive the
encouragement of France.
The designs of Russia should be held in check by an defensive alliance
with Sweden and Denmark.
As regards England, France should make no attempt to force the
Pretender upon an unwilling people; but she should resolutely resist
the efforts of England to establish a commercial monopoly, and declare
war rather than allow the seizure of the Spanish colonies in America.
The means were to be found in the withdrawal of Holland from English
influence, support of the colonial policy of Spain, and above all, the
restoration of the French marine in view of a great maritime war.
Not the least admirable object which a statesman could embrace would
be the expulsion of the Austrians from Italy, and the surrender of
the whole peninsula to an Italian confederation. The project in truth
was an ideal one; but it was commended by its apparent ease of
execution--already proved by M. Chauvelin[267]--and by the severity of
the blow it would inflict upon Austria.
Behind all was the fact that the French provinces were in a critical
condition; and every livre spent in war, and every man lost in battle,
were spent and lost at the expense of the provinces. The paramount need
of France was ten years of peace, retrenchment, and reform.
Such are the main principles of d'Argenson's political theory. In his
Journal for ten years past it is possible to watch them, not in a very
meagre reduction to their lowest terms, but as in process of growth,
and of adaptation to an ever-changing variety of mood and circumstance.
This variety of view, at first the source of continual embarrassment,
becomes at last our surest guide; for it reveals the most intimate
turn of d'Argenson's thought; and it enables us to divine the aspect
from which a particular question is likely to be regarded, his
probable choice between alternative courses, and the principles upon
which the difficulties of the moment are likely to be resolved. One
further reflection the Journal suggests. The tenacity with which these
leading principles are maintained is only equalled by their rapidity
of adaptation and clearness of grasp; nor can we avoid the suspicion
that if the action of the French Foreign Minister should appear to be
characterised by a strange inconsequence, the cause is to be sought
elsewhere than simply in his own bewilderment and confusion.
Before proceeding to consider that question, a word remains to be said
about a few of the men with whom d'Argenson was soon to be engaged.
He was already well known in the diplomatic circle at Paris, and with
two, at least, of its leading members he was upon intimate terms. One
of them was the Marquis de Valori, the French envoy at Berlin, whom
d'Argenson had introduced to Voltaire as early as 1739;[268] the other
was the ambassador of Holland, M. van Hoey. Van Hoey was a man after
d'Argenson's own heart. He sought, in sympathy with his friend, to
raise the tone of politics, its huckstering pettiness of means and
motives, by a certain philosophy of his own, a philosophy which is
not more visionary than most things good, nor more ridiculous than
most things noble, but with which the man of the world will refuse
to meddle, and at which "le peuple petit-maître," in d'Argenson's
words,[269] will go on laughing to the end of time. Before the minister
had attained his present position, Van Hoey had esteemed his person
and valued his advice; and in the previous year (1743) he had even
transmitted to the Hague a long account of a conversation with "un
seigneur," whom no one who has read a hundred pages of d'Argenson's
writing will have any difficulty in identifying.[270]
There was another personage in the forefront of politics, whose career
d'Argenson had not watched in vain. The Prince Royal of Prussia had
gone far since the spring of 1739, when the friend of Voltaire was
privileged to receive his letters. Time had made little impression upon
d'Argenson's first estimate of him. He admired his devotion and his
strength of character; and he had even some kindness for that 'splendid
mendacity' to which Anti-Machiavel had been converted by events. It was
to no childish sentiment of hero-worship that his regard was due; but
to a firm and surely reasonable conviction that Frederick was strong
enough to afford to be honest, that such a man did not make engagements
which he would be glad to repudiate, or break his word when he could
possibly help it. He felt that now, as at Frederick's accession,[271]
his interests were coincident with those of France; and that the King
of Prussia had only to be treated with honesty and supported well, to
prove the soundest ally in Europe.
On the 15th of November, 1744, a proclamation was issued[272] directing
a general thanksgiving for the capture of Fribourg, the recovery of the
King, and the successes of the late campaign. Three days afterwards
d'Argenson became Minister of Foreign Affairs.
The fall of Fribourg closed the events of the year in Alsace. Thither
in August the King had hurried from Flanders upon hearing that as
Frederick had predicted, the Austrians, under Prince Charles of
Lorraine, had crossed the Rhine and were ravaging French territory.
Louis had no sooner arrived than he was stricken down with fever at
Metz; while, through the culpable negligence of his generals Noailles
and Coigny, the Prince of Lorraine had been allowed to escape and
to join the resistance to Frederick, who had again drawn the sword
against Maria Theresa, and had fulfilled his promise of the Treaty
of Frankfort (1st June, 1744) by a dashing descent upon Bohemia. His
communications were threatened by the return of Prince Charles; Prague
was evacuated by the Prussians, and Frederick withdrew with all his
forces into Silesia. He was weary of the war, which had long been
utterly objectless; he saw clearly enough that its further prolongation
could only postpone what it could not prevent, the eventual triumph of
Maria Theresa; he would have been glad to escape upon any terms which
would leave him in possession of his hard won conquest. On the 26th of
November he wrote to Louis XV., suggesting that negotiations for peace
should be set on foot, demanding nothing for himself, and proposing
as a basis the cession of Upper Austria, and the recognition of the
Emperor by Maria Theresa.[273]
To this overture d'Argenson drafted a reply (December 17th). France,
rivalling Frederick in disinterestedness, would be content to provide
equitably for her allies, would renounce her own conquests in Flanders,
and accept the mediation of Saxony. Over this draft was written, "N'
a point servi." D'Argenson, taken aback, and feeling it necessary to
make sure of his ground, requested the King to inform him definitely of
his attitude on the question of peace. In reply he received (December
23rd), a memorandum,[274] in which the King expressed his desire for
peace, deprecated any positive negotiation, and declared that the most
direct way of realising his desire would be by "the most vigorous war."
On the same day Louis wrote to Frederick,[275] discussing the proposals
of the latter, and marking not the least eagerness to second his
pacific designs.
D'Argenson was by no means blind to the meaning of the King's
memorandum. "If the King was animated by the desire for peace, he was
still more so by the love of glory;"[276] he had just made his first
campaign under the auspices of Madame de Châteauroux; and he looked
forward to recovering in Flanders the easy laurels which had been
snatched from him in the previous year.[277] D'Argenson feared for the
result. His view of the interest of France was wise and clear. The
attempt to humble the House of Austria had failed;[278] "peace, no
matter how it came, was now the principal object;"[279] the best means
of securing it was "to stand upon the defensive in every quarter with
foresight and success."[280] In this way the Queen of Hungary would
be convinced of the hopelessness of her plans of vengeance, and the
opinion of the peace party in the several courts would have time to
make itself felt.[281]
Accordingly, "_a few days after_" receiving the King's memorandum,
d'Argenson presented to him a memoir, his reference to which is of the
first importance. He proposed that France should confine herself to "_a
simple defensive in Flanders, not only for fear of raising a dangerous
storm in that quarter, but in order to throw more weight upon the two
other theatres of war, Germany and Italy. It was in these directions
that the chief objects lay; and so far from being able to carry all
before us, we were not even sure of holding our ground. It was in
Germany that the Queen of Hungary was concentrating her principal
forces, while she left to the maritime powers the task of defending the
Low Countries. In Italy we required to be superior to the Spaniards, in
order to direct them well_."[282] So far as d'Argenson personally is
concerned, the above appears to be the most valuable record to be found
in his ministerial memoirs.
On the 26th of December and the 4th and 8th of January, three letters
were written by Frederick,[283] which show that events are moving
rapidly. He declares that if negotiations are to be undertaken, it
must be done at once;[284] that he has himself to deal with twenty
thousand Hungarians in Upper Silesia;[285] that a strong detachment
of Prince Charles's army is on the confines of Bavaria;[286] and that
events of gravity are only to be averted by the reinforcement of the
army of the Lower Rhine, and the despatch of immediate and effective
succour to the Emperor and the Bavarian army. "At the present moment,
these two positions appear to me of capital importance. They are no
slight reverses of which we are running the risk, but the frustration
of all our present measures, and even of those for the coming
campaign." (January 8, 1745).[287]
The reception which awaited these representations is significant. In
the first days of January, an Austrian force, after repulsing a weak
French detachment, established itself upon Bavarian territory.[288] At
that very moment the Emperor, in reply to his prayers and entreaties,
received a letter[289] (January 2nd), in which the French King, with
manifest impatience, declared himself unable to satisfy his demands.
Upon the 9th Louis, in a reply to Frederick, asserted that there was
no reason to believe that an Austrian advance was imminent,[290]
and declined to pursue further the steps taken in the direction of
peace. The letter is described as "très froide et très maladroite"
(Zevort).[291]
The inference implied throughout the preceding appears explicitly in a
letter to Frederick of the 19th of January. Drafted by d'Argenson, it
was revised and signed by Louis XV. The two hands and the two policies
are apparent in every line. "Our union, our strength and our efforts,"
d'Argenson wrote, "give us promise of victory and peace." Under the
hand of the King it became "must give us victory." As to Bavaria and
the Lower Rhine, "I am thinking of these two objects;" Louis appended,
"without forgetting Flanders." To the last line this odd dualism is
continued.[292]
This letter was written on the 19th of January. On the following day
a new chapter was opened with the death of the Emperor Charles VII.,
after an illness of twenty-four hours.[293] So far, two months of
d'Argenson's ministry have elapsed. Their history has revealed one fact
with impressive clearness. Upon the question of peace and the question
of war, there is a radical divergence of principle and policy between
the French Government and the French Minister. The King will listen
to no overtures which may thwart his desire of overrunning Flanders.
D'Argenson is earnestly desirous of peace, to be secured by a strong
defensive campaign in Germany. Which was the wiser will soon appear.
The death of the Emperor (January 20, 1745) was perhaps one of the most
terrible blows which French policy has ever sustained. It came at a
moment when fortune had turned to the side of the Austrians, and when
every step lost by France was a tenfold gain to Maria Theresa.
Louis XV. had been disposed for war; he found that he had no longer
the power to choose. It is true that for the French ministry there
were two conceivable courses; but only one was practically open. It
was conceivably possible to make terms with Maria Theresa, and to use
the death of the Emperor as an excuse for withdrawing from the war.
Such doubtless was the view of the trampled German populations and of
the tax-burdened householder of the faubourgs; but it could only be
maintained by sacrificing every principle of honour and policy, and by
ignoring the only considerations which would weigh for a moment either
with Louis XV. or Maria Theresa.
For the French King the course was marked out with terrible clearness.
He had combined with other powers to rend the inheritance of a
defenceless woman; and now, when that woman had faced him, uncrowned
but veritably imperial, to beg forgiveness on his knees--the very
thought was impossible. Nor could the King of France yet bow before
his former vassal of Lorraine. Even if his enemy deigned to listen to
him, he would have to take or leave humiliating terms; and it would
be a cold return for that generous jubilation with which his people
had greeted him a year before. But not only were his own honour and
popularity concerned; there was another motive, to which he perhaps
may have been less sensible. To accept a peace upon any such terms as
Maria Theresa would be willing to grant would have been to inflict a
blow upon the future of French foreign policy, from which it might not
recover for half a century or more. The last would have been seen of
French influence in Central Europe: the upstart of Brandenburg would be
swept into the sea: two centuries of effort might be totally erased:
and Maria Theresa would resume the throne from which Charles V. had
descended. If not to the King, to d'Argenson at least, such a prospect
was at once conclusive.[294]
And when looked at from Vienna, peace was equally distant. As well seek
to recall a falcon striking its prey as to breathe of peace to Maria
Theresa. A statesman to her finger-tips, she saw at once that the two
objectives of the next campaign were Frankfort and Breslau. Her armies
were already on the plains of Breslau: her armies were within striking
distance of Frankfort: if but for a few months the breeze would hold,
the Flemish towns might fall to whom they pleased. And the path of
victory was the path of vengeance. She regarded the man who had failed
to wrong her, not, as is said, with the spleen of a woman, but with
the proud wrath of a queen; she had not forgotten that he had driven
her from her capital, and forced her to throw herself on the generosity
of the men her own fathers had oppressed; nor would she have been slow
to tender him the bitter cup from which she had drunk.
She might indeed have listened to him upon one condition--the
abandonment of Frederick to her vengeance. In June last she had sworn
that she would never lower her sword against the man who had torn up
the Treaty of Breslau, until her generals could dictate terms to him
from Breslau. Proposals on behalf of Frederick--she would have trampled
upon them, as she trampled upon the Treaty of Hanover in August, when
presented to her by her ally of England. In a word, the French King had
to choose between indelible dishonour and the disdainful rejection of
his terms.
If these reasons were decisive to the King, they were not less so to
d'Argenson himself.[295] No man longed so much as he for peace; but he
was not prepared to purchase it with the humiliation of his country,
and with the undreamed aggrandisement of that hated House against
which, all his life, he had consistently inveighed. The provinces were
henceforth to be beaten with scorpions; for the efforts of France had
been as nothing to that which the new enterprise would involve. Yet
cost what it might, the effort must be made; and d'Argenson was at
one with the Council[296] in the hope that by a single brilliant and
advantageous campaign, France and Frederick might establish a position
from which an honourable peace could be obtained.
The first necessity was to restore to their cause the moral basis which
had been struck from beneath it by the death of the Emperor. Henceforth
the pretext--for it proved to be little more--was to vindicate the
liberty of election, and to support a candidate acceptable to the
Electors. For the candidature of the Empire, the choice fell upon
Augustus III., Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, who at this very
time (January, 1745) was negotiating a secret treaty with Maria Theresa.
At this juncture, whatever may be said of it afterwards, the Government
acted with promptitude and determination. Before ten days had elapsed,
the position which seemed to Frederick "une crise terrible" had been
faced, the débris of a great policy had been swept to one side, and
before a courier could go and come between Paris and Berlin, the new
measures contemplated by the French Government were announced to
Frederick.
In a letter of the 31st of January--if not before it--d'Argenson
declared that "at the present moment the very idea of peace must be
forgotten," and the most strenuous steps must be taken to secure the
alliance of the King of Poland.[297] This policy was reiterated in
letters of the 1st and 4th of February;[298] and from now until the
eve of the election at Frankfort, a desperate effort was maintained to
induce Augustus to abandon Austria, and to declare himself a candidate
for the Empire.
The conduct of the negotiations fell into the hands of d'Argenson.
His own share in the policy is difficult to determine. He knew there
was really no choice; but he could not help seeing that on every side
it was beset with difficulties. It was true that the King of Poland
could scarcely resist the magnificent prize held out to him; and it
was not to be supposed that mere personal animosities could obliterate
every consideration of interest and honour. In that view the Minister
concurred with the Council; and he was supported by Valori,[299] the
French envoy at Berlin, who was deputed to approach the Court of
Dresden. To French statesmen the opinion was just and natural enough.
Yet d'Argenson at least, though he viewed them undaunted, was by no
means blind to the difficulties in the way. The jealousy of Russia in
regard to Poland, the formidable rage of the Queen of Hungary, and
above all, his hatred and jealousy of the King of Prussia, would all
combine to deter Augustus from committing himself in the interest of
France. Indeed so small was d'Argenson's confidence of success, that he
was unwilling to follow the Council in their resolution to subsidise
the King of Poland, and to guarantee to him by treaty an accession of
territory to be obtained at the cost of Maria Theresa.[300] However
unpromising, the negotiation had to be begun; there was no alternative;
and if it came to nothing more, it would at least give time for the
development of a campaign, and for the armies of France and Prussia
to achieve a position which would serve as the basis of an honourable
peace.[301]
If at Paris the plan seemed practicable enough, at Berlin it was
regarded from a very different standpoint. French statesmen could
consider nothing but the strength of their four armies, the excellence
of their intentions, and the splendour of the position to which
Augustus would be raised by the arms of France and Prussia. To
Frederick the matter presented itself in a less encouraging light. He
knew his neighbour of Saxony; he knew that Augustus had no resources
of his own; that his ministers were in sympathy with Austria and in
the pay of England; and that what might leave Paris as the offer of
an empire would reach Dresden as nothing more than an invitation to
Augustus to throw over a sound alliance, to place himself at the mercy
and become the tool of a covert enemy and a doubtful friend, and in a
word, to resume the position from which Charles VII. had been happily
liberated by death. Frederick saw at once that the French policy
was foredoomed, and he did his best to impress upon the cabinet the
fruitlessness of its task.[302] Finding his representations received as
merely the suggestions of prejudice and jealousy, he had no alternative
but to give way; and on the 13th of February[303] he announces that he
has "buried his resentment," and sanctioned the departure of Valori
for Dresden. Frederick was perfectly confident that Valori could only
fail;[304] and he felt that any apparent success which he might gain,
would be by no means useless in another direction in which his own
efforts were actively engaged.[305]
If the hopes of France were illusory and her policy unsound, they were
certainly not more so than the course which Frederick had himself
adopted. On the 26th of January, before any definite communication
had reached him from the French Government, he had instructed his
representatives to sound the ministers at London and the Hague;[306]
for a consideration received he offered to withdraw from the war,
and to co-operate in the election of the Grand Duke. His agents were
instructed to press these proposals.
That Frederick could have had any real confidence in these measures,
it is difficult to believe. It is true that in England the Hanoverian
party was no longer in power; but George II. was bent upon the war,
and Carteret's influence was still supreme; moreover, popular feeling,
while demanding a change in the direction of the war, was by no means
in favour of its abandonment. Whatever the dispositions of the English
ministry, from Maria Theresa there was nothing to hope. Indeed the
whole plan was a counsel of despair. Frederick had everything to gain
and absolutely nothing to offer; he had incensed the whole of the
Austrian party; and if there were no motives of interest to aid him, he
could scarcely trust to motives of charity. Indeed the whole situation
is summed up in some words of Chesterfield to the Prussian minister at
the Hague: "I understand," he said, "the truth is you ask everything
and you offer nothing, for Silesia is no longer yours, since you have
yourselves torn up the treaty which gave it you."[307]
It is easy to see the very natural motives which actuated Frederick
in the adoption of his policy.[308] On the 31st of January, before
the measures contemplated by the French Government had yet been
communicated to him, he wrote to Louis XV. describing the position of
their cause in Germany in terms of very real concern. He spoke of the
utter dejection into which their allies had been plunged by the death
of the Emperor, and of the favourable positions secured by the Austrian
party; and he declared that only by the immediate reinforcement of
the French army in Bavaria could the young Elector be prevented from
"throwing himself into the arms of the Queen of Hungary."
It was probably with some surprise and not a little relief that he
received the news of the French determination to continue the war.[309]
He was already, as we have seen, in communication with London and
the Hague; but he could not help feeling how slender was his hope in
the intervention of the maritime powers; and he was wise enough to
know that peace, when it came, would be the less precarious for being
secured by a successful campaign.
That this was his feeling in the matter is clear from the attitude
he maintained towards France during the next two months. While
hoping desperately for the intervention of England, he neglected no
opportunity of concerting measures for the future of the war. Until
the re-opening of the campaign in Flanders, Louis XV. was besieged
with letters, memoirs, requisitions of all sorts, demonstrating
with unfaltering precision the critical positions which had to be
maintained, and insisting upon the only measures by which the French
policy could be carried to success, and the French allies preserved
from ruin. He made it clear[310] that a majority in the Electoral
Diet could only be secured, and the influence of the Austrian party
destroyed, by the most vigorous action on the part of the two French
armies in Bavaria and on the Main.
It had not remained for the King of Prussia to indicate the only
means by which the French policy could be executed or excused. Even
before the death of the Emperor, as we have seen, d'Argenson had
been convinced that the readiest way of obtaining peace was not by a
brilliant invasion of Flanders, but by a strong defensive campaign in
Germany.[311] He now saw that every consideration in favour of his
policy had gained tenfold in weight; and about the middle of February,
probably upon hearing of Valori's difficulties at Dresden, he presented
to the king a certain memoir setting forth a plan for the future
campaign.
This memoir is of the last importance.[312] It strikes the key-note of
d'Argenson's conduct during the year 1745; it illustrates, as nothing
else can do, his real position in the Ministry; and it alone can
explain his subsequent attitude with regard to Frederick and Prussia.
As this document is very rare, and as it only exists by a fortunate
accident, it will be advisable to reproduce it entirely as it stands;
its meaning is too precious to be even prejudiced by an attempt at
translation. No apology will be found necessary for its inclusion here.
It runs:
"SIRE,--_Depuis deux mois_[313] je suis assez au fait de la combinaison
de nos forces sur les quatre théâtres de guerre où V.M. a des armées
présentement prêtes à entrer en campagne, pour critiquer les positions
relativement à la politique et pour vous donner mon avis.
"Les Pays-Bas, où V.M. va commander son armée, ne sont pas l'objet
principal de cette guerre; je crains que les flatteurs et les gens
intéressés à faire paraître des opérations militaires plus brillantes
que solides, n'ayent conseillé à préférer ce côté-là à d'autres. Vous
y occuperez, il est vrai, les forces des puissances maritimes, et
quelques-unes de l'Autriche; mais ce n'est qu'une diversion; et _l'on
ne recourt aux diversions que quand on ne peut aller directement à
l'objet principal_.
"Si V.M. y a des grands succès, je veux qu'elle puisse pénétrer sous
peu en Hollande, et qu'elle châtie par là les Hollandais de leur
ingrate témérité; _mais cela ne nous donnera pas la paix_; et pour
comparer le présent au passé, c'est convertir la belle position que
nous donna la paix de Nimègue en la vaine entreprise du feu roi en 1672
quand il pénétra en Hollande.
"L'année dernière, Votre Majesté ayant débuté par des conquêtes en
Flandre, il fallut retourner en Allemagne. Alors c'était le passage
du Rhin par le prince Charles qui y obligeait; cette année-ci ce sera
l'élévation du grand-duc comme empereur qui y forcera.
"L'objet principal est l'Allemagne; tout en dépend, même
l'établissement de l'infant don Philippe en Italie. _Pour parvenir à la
paix_, Votre Majesté a trois objets à soutenir: (1) _de maintenir le
roi de Prusse en Silésie_; (2) d'empêcher l'élection du grand-duc, et
de procurer l'élection de la couronne impériale au roi de Pologne avec
une grande facilité; sans quoi, _il n'en acceptera même l'idée_; (3)
un établissement pour don Philippe, quel qu'il puisse être. Pour cet
effet, _il faut que nous nous soutenions puissants en Allemagne, et que
nous tâchions d'y donner la main au roi de Prusse_.
"Les quatre théâtres de guerre, où opèrent nos quatre armées, sont
celle de Flandre, celle de Mein, celle de Souabe, et celle d'Italie.
"Je serais d'avis que V.M. ne fît qu'une _défensive en Flandre_, sous
les ordres du comte de Saxe, qui s'y entend si bien, ainsi qu'il a paru
à la fin de la dernière campagne.
"_En Italie encore une défensive_, malgré ce qu'en pourront dire les
Espagnols, pour bien assurer les Gênois, les mettre à l'abri de toute
attaque, défendre par là le roi de Naples, et tenir en échec le roi de
Sardaigne, qui même ne pourra se soutenir à la longue, s'il n'est point
soutenu des Autrichiens; et si l'on trouve jour à entamer le Piémont,
qu'on y avance autant qu'on pourra; qu'on avance dans le Milanais et le
Plaisantin, si l'on peut; _mais qu'en Allemagne nous faisions nos plus
grands efforts_.
"Que Votre Majesté se porte incessamment à Strasbourg avec son équipage
de guerre, pour aller ensuite commander celle des deux armées, qui
promettra d'avoir le plus de succès et de sécurité pour la personne
sacrée de Votre Majesté.
"_Celle du Mein_, sous les ordres du Maréchal de Maillebois, a
commencé à pousser l'ennemi. Je serais d'avis qu'on lui continuerât ce
généralât. Elle pourra aller _jusqu'en Westphalie et à Hanovre_. _Celle
de Bavière_ doit être rassemblée incessamment, avec des magasins à vos
dépens, puisque l'électorât de Bavière n'en peut fournir. Il faut la
mettre en état de faire le siège d'Ingolstadt, resserrer nos quartiers,
et _allant du Leck à Passau elle pénétrera en Autriche et donnera la
main au roi de Prusse_.
"Comptez, Sire,[314] que ce puissant allié sortira de sa défensive;
qu'il ira en Bohême, en Moravie, et même en Autriche, s'il se peut,
quand nous lui montrerons si bonne exemple. Avec cela _Votre Majesté
soutiendra ses alliances et même les augmentera_. Le Palatin, la
Hesse, la Bavière nous seconderont; et _la Saxe_ même, assurée de nos
succès, _n'hésitera plus d'accepter la couronne impériale_. Au moins
retarderons-nous cette élection, et elle sera le scéau de la paix. _Si
au contraire, nous n'envisageons que la Flandre_ comme objet principal,
et que nous négligeons l'Allemagne, _nous perdrons tous nos alliés,
les unes après les autres, et notre ennemi sera élu empereur sous nos
yeux_."[315]
There are many striking suggestions to be found in this memoir; but it
may be scrutinised in vain for any evidence of that doubt, hesitation,
looseness of grasp, by which d'Argenson's conduct is too readily
explained; while, on the contrary, we have only to read it in the light
of the measures actually taken by the French Government to detect the
real foundation for those charges: and to know how much weight it is
necessary to attach to them in so far as they concern the Marquis
d'Argenson.
We have only to read the above memoir with any of those prepared by
Frederick, and to sketch the chain of circumstances which took Louis
to Fontenoy, to be in possession of all the threads of the long
complication of 1745.
In a memoir of the 6th of March,[316] Frederick represents that if
the election of the Grand Duke is to be prevented, a majority in
the Electoral College must be regained; if that is to be done, the
communications between Hanover and the three ecclesiastical Electorates
must be severed by the vigour of the army of Maillebois; and the
decisive movement must come from the army of Bavaria, which, under
vigorous command, must capture Passau, march upon Vienna, and by
drawing off the Austrian troops, throw open Moravia to the Prussian
army. He does not mince the meaning of his proposals.
"If another course is taken in this war, the King of France will reduce
his allies to the necessity of withdrawing from it as best they can;
for there must be a prompt end to this, and the matter must be decided
one way or the other before the imperial election."[317]
Frederick's communications with the French Court are one long
reiteration of this demand. Never did a man plead more eloquently the
cause of reason and manliness; and never was eloquence more desperately
sincere.
The action, not of the French Minister, but of the French Government,
is almost incredible. They had deliberately embarked upon a great
policy, and they deliberately refused to take a single step by which
it could be realised. All that depended on d'Argenson indeed, was done
as strenuously as man could do it. He exhausted himself in efforts to
win over the King of Poland, trampling down or shutting his eyes to the
obstacles which faced him; and he never relaxed in his entreaties to
Frederick to second his efforts at Dresden.
"Will your Majesty consider that by this alliance, if it should ever
take place, we should become absolute masters of the situation."[318]
... "If your Majesty cannot lay aside the feelings which alienate him
from the King of Poland, I see only the prospect[319] of a long war,
the Grand Duke Emperor, and the Empire turned against us, whatever
efforts we may make."[320]
D'Argenson might beg and entreat, and write despatches: but he
was powerless to enforce his words with the weight of his little
finger.[321] On the 10th of March he drafted a reply to Frederick, in
which he undertook that the army of Bavaria should be reinforced and
should push the war with vigour. The reply never went to Berlin; it
remains marked with the words "n'a pas servi."[322] Indeed the French
policy was already decided. For no political reason whatever, the King
had set his heart upon a campaign in Flanders; and to that desire his
own interest, the interest of his allies, and every statesmanlike
consideration must of necessity yield. He was not likely to meet with
resistance from Noailles, still less from Count d'Argenson or Maurepas;
and the Foreign Minister stood alone in fruitless opposition to this
brilliant piece of political fatuity.
The effects of it were apparent already. The arms of France were
paralysed in Germany in order that troops might be concentrated in
Flanders; the army of Bavaria could not be reinforced; little could
be done for the army of the Main; and d'Argenson, while persistently
demanding ready co-operation in his overtures at Dresden, was obliged
to evade and trifle with the equally persistent demands of Frederick.
His position was a very thankless one; and it would have been as
ridiculous as it at first would seem, had it been of his own choosing.
That it was not, there is ample evidence to prove.
From this anomalous disposition of the French Government the four
decisive events of the year 1745 descend in lineal succession. Each
was a political disaster of the first magnitude; every one of them was
richly deserved, and not one was really attributable to the Minister
who has ordinarily borne the burden and the blame. Those events
are--first, the loss of Bavaria; second, the Convention of Hanover;
third, the election of Francis I.; and fourth, the Treaty of Dresden.
It was on the 21st of January that the young prince Maximilian
succeeded to the Electorate of Bavaria; on the 19th of April he signed
a convention with Maria Theresa.[323]
The Emperor on his death-bed had adjured his son to rely on the support
of France;[324] and Chavigny, the French minister at Munich, was ready
to assure him that he would never do so in vain.[325] The Austrian
troops were already in Bavaria; repeated warnings were given both by
Frederick and Chavigny of the critical position of the young Elector;
and every means of persuasion was exhausted by Chavigny in order to
secure the reinforcement of the Bavarian army. The French Government
were deaf to his representations; the Council rejected d'Argenson's
despatches;[326] d'Argenson himself was at last irritated at the
reiteration of demands with which he had no power to comply.[327]
Chavigny had to pacify the Elector with promises and assurances, in
default of troops.
In the meanwhile no effort was spared by Maria Theresa to detach the
Elector from the League of Frankfort.[328] Her diplomatic agents were
Colloredo and Count Batthiany. Colloredo negotiated at Munich with
humiliating terms of peace; Batthiany advanced upon Munich with an army
eleven thousand strong, before which Ségur, with a small French force,
had withdrawn to the Bavarian frontier. Accordingly, Chavigny and the
Elector fled to Augsburg, where, on the 19th of April, a treaty of
peace, dictated by the Austrian envoy, was signed by Maximilian.
The event of the 19th of April was the signal for what M. de Broglie
himself calls "the breakup and rout of all that in a greater or less
degree was still holding to France."[329] The Prince of Hesse, the
Elector Palatine, the Duke of Wurtemburg, and the Electors of Trèves
and Mayence were at no pains to conceal their view that the French
cause in Germany was lost; while the Elector of Saxony, Augustus
himself, the very man upon whom for three months the efforts of French
diplomacy had been centred, made haste to summon the troops of France
to withdraw from the soil of the Empire, where there remained no excuse
for their continued presence.[330]
Such was the disaster d'Argenson had foreseen and endeavoured vainly
to avert. He is said[331] to have cherished with blind fatuity an
unfounded faith in the fidelity of Bavaria. That faith was more than
justified, if we are to believe Chavigny, who said that up to the very
day when the unhappy Elector was forced to abandon his capital to the
Austrians, he remained firmly attached to the French alliance.[332] The
truth is this: that not only at Munich, but at Dresden and Frankfort,
d'Argenson's action must appear ridiculous; because, while prosecuting
his negotiations with energy and enthusiasm, he was unable, through no
fault of his own, to give them the weight of a single cannon-shot. In a
word, the bold policy of the 31st of January, while actively prosecuted
by the French Minister, was tacitly abandoned by the French Government.
Of that fact Frederick needed no further evidence than the Convention
of Augsburg. His mind was made up. He saw at once that the real object
of that Government was, not the protection of German liberties, not the
election of the King of Poland, not a decisive war and an honourable
peace, but simply a holiday campaign in Flanders. He was utterly
exasperated by the vain selfishness of the French policy, while his
impatience at its continued tenderness for Saxony mounted to the brim.
"We are on the eve of a new war," he wrote to Louis XV., a fortnight
after the loss of Bavaria, "and what I want to know is this: Is Your
Majesty going to declare himself for a prince who is giving auxiliaries
to the enemies of France, or for the man whose diversion disentangled
Alsace; does Your Majesty prefer the artifices of a crafty and secret
enemy to the frankness of an honest friend, who has drawn upon himself
the whole burden of the war, and whose provinces are now only being
ravaged in order to secure the sweets of tranquillity to the subjects
who live under French dominion. In a word, I must know if the justice,
the honour, the generosity of Your Majesty can consent to leave me
without the real assistance which He is bound by treaties to render,
and to sacrifice me to a prince who has dethroned Your Majesty's
father-in-law, a prince who is sold to the enemies of France, and who
is only awaiting the favourable moment to give vent to his hatred and
animosity against her."[333]
He gives the French king to understand that for the purposes of the
common cause, the siege of Babylon will be as useful as the siege of
Tournay;[334] and in despair of producing any effect, he concludes:
"It is simply in the force of his own arms and in the fortune of
battles that the King of Prussia puts his greatest trust, in the hope
that the goodness of his cause and the valour of his troops will never
fail him."[335]
He sees but one remedy for the crisis produced by the loss of
Bavaria--the immediate invasion of Hanover by Conti, with the army of
the Main.[336]
This advice was a marvel of astuteness. He saw that with the
abandonment of France he had nothing further to hope from the war;
and that his only resource lay in bringing pressure to bear upon the
maritime powers, and extricating himself as best he could. He proceeded
to do so, needless to say, without the least compunction. To Frederick,
the difference between the open rupture of an alliance and the tacit
abandonment of an ally, was one for a casuist and not for a statesman.
Events deepened his determination. Decided by the fall of Bavaria,
Augustus on the 18th of May had ratified the Treaty of Warsaw arranged
in January with Maria Theresa;[337] and on the 4th of June, a combined
army of Austrians and Saxons strayed into the "trap" which Frederick
had spread for them at Friedbourg.[338] On the 11th of May, Louis XV.
had reaped the utterly vain glory of Fontenoy; and shortly afterwards
Conti, upon the Main, received orders to detach twenty thousand men
for the army of Flanders.[339] The Statesman at Vienna seized the
opportunity to unite her armies in Bavaria and Franconia, and Conti,
menaced by superior forces, withdrew with his troops beyond the
Rhine.[340] There was not a Frenchman left in Germany; and the army of
the Empress closed round Frankfort.
At the end of an ironical letter of compliment to the French king,
Frederick writes (August 25th):
"It is a pity that in such a fine picture there should be one blot to
spoil it a little. I speak of the retreat of the Prince of Conti. It
is he who crowns the Grand Duke, and places Your Majesty's allies in a
desperate and fatal position."[341]
From that position Frederick was determined to escape; but his success
would have been more than doubtful, were it not that at this very
moment, a critical conjunction of untoward events softened the obduracy
of George II. The French advance in the Low Countries, the clamour of
the peace party, and above all, the sweeping success of the gallant
Prince Charles Edward, forced King George to listen to terms.[342] If
the English troops were to be withdrawn from the Continent, Hanover
could not be left at the mercy of Frederick; and only by the suspension
of arms in Silesia, could a force be drafted from the Austrian army to
relieve the English in the defence of Flanders. A determined effort
was made to induce Maria Theresa to consent to a pacification. She
would have nothing whatever to do with the traitor of Brandenburg; nor
would she listen to any proposal which would involve the withdrawal
of a single man from the Silesian frontier.[343] In the meanwhile
time pressed; Charles Edward was marching on Edinburgh; and on the
26th of August, the King of England signed the Convention of Hanover,
guaranteeing, for himself and his allies, the suspension of the war and
the maintenance of Frederick in Silesia.[344]
If Maria Theresa had rejected, three weeks before, the proposals
presented to her by her ally of England, she was not more likely to
recognise the Convention signed by England upon her behalf. On the very
day when Robinson, the English envoy at Vienna, endeavoured to obtain
her acceptance of a treaty which snatched her enemy from her grasp, she
received the news[345] that the long conflict she had maintained so
manfully had ended at last in triumph, and that her husband, the Grand
Duke of Tuscany, had been elected Emperor at Frankfort.
This election took place on the 3rd of September. It shattered once
for all the diplomatic combinations which the labour and enthusiasm of
d'Argenson had endeavoured singly to sustain. To crown the catastrophe,
he was abandoned by the man to whom everything had been sacrificed;
for the King of Poland, a few days before, declared in favour of the
Austrian candidate.[346] At the very moment of this palpable collapse
of French influence in Germany, the air became heavy with rumours of
the withdrawal of Frederick from the French alliance.
It is no easy matter to determine d'Argenson's real share in these
events; but it seems clear that whatever tone be assumed in regard to
it, it cannot be that of harsh contempt.
At a terrible crisis in the beginning of the year, he had acquiesced
in the adoption of a daring policy; he had discerned the measures by
which alone that policy could be realised; and he had endeavoured,
in conjunction with the greatest of the French allies, to enforce
them upon his colleagues. He had seen those measures, one by one,
deliberately and wantonly rejected; and the policy which could only
be maintained by a couple of armies was left him to support without a
single man. Inevitably his time was spent in apprehending disaster, in
futile attempts to hamper its approach, and in transparent efforts,
when it came at last, to give it the appearance of success.[347] In a
constitutional government he might have resigned his place, declining
the responsibility for measures which he had no power to control. As
the minister of Louis XV., such a course was impossible. He might again
have refused to pursue his negotiations at Dresden and in the several
Electorates; but to have done so would have been to deprive the French
intervention of its only possible pretext. A third course would have
been to shrug his shoulders, tear up the policy of January last, and
accept his share in the unprincipled by-play which was the only form
that French diplomacy in Germany could reasonably take. He had simply
to choose between acting like a knave, and looking like a fool. The
qualities requisite for the former part he had never been able to
acquire; and he had a profound faith that knavishness was the very last
attribute of a statesman. In short, his only resource was to believe,
in spite of himself, that there still remained some serious possibility
of success, to shut his eyes to ominous circumstances, and to clutch
at every shred of hope. By dint of trying to persuade others, he
succeeded at last in persuading himself. He lost sight of the fact
which had once been clear to him, that to Frederick mere protestations
of confidence, with nothing to support them, were not worth the paper
they were written on; and he clung to the belief that the suave
indecisions of the Court of Dresden were more than a diplomatic veil
for an absolute refusal. So it was that when the disasters he had
foreseen occurred in due course, he found that it was less easy to
accept than to apprehend the inevitable; and the Treaty of Hanover and
the election at Frankfort came to him as a cruel blow. In a sorrowful
letter to Marshal de Belleisle he says:
"I have received your letter. As to what you say of me, I must say
nothing, and with good reason; I fear your praises more than any man's,
for I know your sincerity. Nevertheless, I cannot believe that I have
the least capacity for affairs, where, up to the present, I have had so
little success."[348]
Knowing as we do in how slight a degree d'Argenson was himself
responsible for these disasters, we can only be impressed by the
touching readiness with which he was content to accept the blame.
For eight months he had been in as thankless a position as was ever
occupied by mortal man. His representations had been neglected; his
despatches had been revised or rejected by the Council; deprived of
means, his enterprises had been doomed to failure; and it was only by
his own enthusiasm and devotion that they had been maintained so long
as they were. If on occasion he had been blindly credulous, there were
occasions when only by blind credulity could his position be maintained
at all.
It was by a courier from the headquarters of Prince Charles's army
that the news of the treaty which guaranteed to Frederick a suspension
of arms was conveyed to Maria Theresa.[349] She at once communicated
with Count Brühl, the all-powerful favourite at Dresden. Immediately
afterwards (September 10th), the Saxon minister placed in the hands of
the French agent a draft of the Convention of Hanover, and gave him
to understand that if France desired to be avenged upon her faithless
ally, she would not be repulsed at Vienna.[350]
The French Ministry was at once placed in possession of this startling
news; and it was resolved, by a majority of the Council, that
negotiations should be opened at Dresden with Maria Theresa.[351] The
feeling against Frederick was at fever-heat.
D'Argenson's time had come at last. He had opposed without success
the resolution of the Council; but his own credit had fallen with the
defection of the man whose fidelity he had guaranteed. Nevertheless, he
knew that persuasion was the least of his resources; and he resolved
that it should be no fault of his if anything came of the overtures of
the Empress.
His position is clear. It was not for nothing that for twenty years
he had studied and thought upon public affairs; he was as deeply
versed in the interests of the kingdom as the rest were skilled in the
intrigue of the Court. The meaning of the Austrian proposals was not
mistaken for an instant. Maria Theresa, roused by the thought that her
enemy was escaping, had resolved to sacrifice her lesser hate; and
by making terms with France, even at the cost of some of her Belgian
provinces, to set free an army, forty thousand strong, for service in
Silesia. D'Argenson knew the meaning of that; it would be all over with
Frederick II.
The prospect suggested two questions. In the first place: Was it just?
Had Frederick deserved the fate to which the French Council were ready
to abandon him? D'Argenson had only to recall his correspondence with
Prussia during the spring, the loss of Bavaria, and the retreat of
Conti, to satisfy himself that if France had at last been abandoned
by Prussia, she had only herself to blame. But there was a further
consideration. Was it wise? and to that question d'Argenson alone
in the French Ministry was capable of desiring or conceiving the
answer. To the rest, to Noailles or Maurepas or Count d'Argenson, the
paltry personality of the month or of the moment, the time-killing,
time-winning shuffle or shift, was the decisive factor in politics.
D'Argenson's statesmanship had a broader base. It had regard, not to
the interest of his place or to the opinion of de Pompadour, but to
the interest of his country and the tradition of Richelieu. He alone
could weigh the gravity of the course the Council undertook so lightly.
He alone could see that so long as the Prussians remained in Breslau,
France would be sure of a powerful ally, and the right hand of Austria
would be paralysed in Europe; while, upon the other hand, if Frederick
were compelled to bow before fate and Maria Theresa, the heiress of
Austria would draw the sword of Charles V. against her own enemy and
the enemy of her House. Months before, d'Argenson had revealed his
feeling in one of those master-sayings of depth and directness, which
only tend to strengthen the belief that his history deserves to be
re-written. At a not dissimilar crisis he declared:
"We must not listen, we must not even permit a word of such a thing. If
the Low Countries were offered to me, I should believe them too dearly
bought at such a price as this. You have to make it clearly understood
that His Majesty is resolved never to stand by and see this prince
despoiled of what has been ceded to him by his treaty with the Queen
of Hungary at Breslau in 1742; and that His Majesty would prefer to
surrender the dearest interests of his realm than ever consent to allow
this prince to be deprived of Silesia and the county of Glatz."[352]
It is the saying of a man who is not easy to understand, but who is
worth the trouble which the attempt involves. To put his attitude in
a word, he regarded Silesia as strategically the most valuable of the
French provinces. He would have preferred almost to sacrifice Lorraine.
The Council, in arriving at the above resolution, had reckoned without
the minister who was to carry it into effect. At this juncture
d'Argenson found that the very circumstances which had paralysed his
efforts in the beginning of the year were telling powerfully in his
favour; for the anarchy prevailing in the French Government was such
that the only means of positive action open to any of the ministers
was in the frustration of his colleagues' designs. To that task
d'Argenson addressed himself with right good will. In transmitting his
instructions to Vaulgrenant, the French envoy at Dresden, he allowed
him to understand that if he could only succeed in failing, his failure
would not go unforgiven.[353] The Austrian majority in the Council
were by no means unanimous; and their different resolutions were
communicated to Vaulgrenant without the faintest attempt to reconcile
them.[354]
"I agree that the matter is one of some difficulty," wrote d'Argenson;
"M. de Vaulgrenant will get out of it as best he can."[355]
Above all, he made the ambassador clearly understand that he was to
listen to no proposal which would tend to deprive Frederick of Silesia,
well knowing that with that object only had the Empress been induced to
treat at all.[356] In fact, Vaulgrenant could not possibly mistake the
tone which the minister desired him to assume.
In this enterprise d'Argenson found a powerful ally in the man whom,
in the beginning of the year, he had endeavoured vainly to assist.
Frederick had achieved one of his master-strokes. Upon hearing of the
Convention of Hanover, Maria Theresa had formed a daring design. She
resolved to ignore the approach of winter, and to concentrate her
troops in Saxon territory for a direct descent upon Brandenburg. The
plan was concerted secretly with Augustus, and the Saxon army would act
with the Austrians.[357] At the close of the regular campaign Frederick
had returned to Berlin. His sword had clicked again in the scabbard,
his hand had fallen nerveless from the hilt, when suddenly a stray word
let fall at a dinner-table by Count Brühl was conveyed carefully to
Berlin; tensely the fingers closed upon the hilt, the sword leapt forth
again bare and terrible, and at the end of a three-weeks' campaign,
which we cannot even read of now without dancing eyes and tingling
blood, the lion of Brandenburg entered Dresden.
It was through streets strewn with the red work that the Austrian
envoy, on the verge of desperation, made his way to the house of
Vaulgrenant,[358] whom he found but moderately willing to listen to
proposals in doubtful favour with the ministry at home, and to the
prejudice of the man who might sleep that night in the capital of
his fallen enemy. The conference was without result; it was never
resumed.[359] Through the combined efforts of d'Argenson and Frederick
the whole negotiation had come to nothing; and Maria Theresa had no
alternative but to sign with Frederick the Treaty of Dresden. By this
treaty the Convention of Hanover was confirmed. Frederick was free to
withdraw from the war, and he was again recognised as sovereign of
Silesia.
This was the last great blow which French policy sustained during the
year 1745. Frederick had broken finally with France. Months before,
when the position had first been suggested by the news of the Treaty
of Hanover, d'Argenson had conceived his policy in regard to it. He
knew better than any man the real causes of Frederick's defection; and
deplore it as he might, he saw no reason for enlisting Prussia among
the enemies of France. He had expressed his thought in a letter to
Belleisle:--[360]
"We must leave him alone; he will remain neutral; he will deceive the
Queen of Hungary as he deceives everybody else; he will continue to
cause her uneasiness until the general peace, and it is his interest to
do so; he will oblige her always to keep an army in the neighbourhood
of Silesia.... We can retain his alliance by interest, or at least
by a certain understanding which prevents him hurting us, and which
will be useful to us in many ways." "In fact, as he told the Prussian
ambassador as soon as the Treaty of Dresden was known, he regarded
Prussia as henceforth the political centre of French interests in the
Empire and in the north."[361]
So concludes this study of the position really occupied by d'Argenson
with regard to the political events of 1745. It is not without reason
that it has been dwelt upon at length; for the period embraced seems
immeasurably the more important of d'Argenson's ministry. The principal
events of the following year are really no more than episodes, loose,
and comparatively of little weight. In 1745 however, we have a long and
connected series of incidents, affording an extended view of the rival
policies; and furthermore, we are brought directly into contact with
the great political question of the day, the question suggested by the
growing change in the relations of the German powers.
Moreover, it is upon his action during this period that the severity
of criticism in regard to d'Argenson's ministry is mainly based. To
accept that criticism as conclusive, it would have been necessary to
obliterate every impression suggested by his life before and after.
There was no alternative but to examine it; and if we have sometimes
been compelled to challenge the positions of MM. de Broglie and Zevort,
it is with a diffidence due to authorities so distinguished. Yet no
diffidence need disguise the result. So far as d'Argenson personally
is concerned, each historian supplies the material for questioning the
conclusions of the other: and at the same time for conceiving a third,
in harmony with d'Argenson's known character and opinions. So far as
we can see, neither writer has examined these events with reference
to any general scheme of policy in d'Argenson's own mind; the forms
that happened to be impressed upon that policy by the accidents or
circumstances of the moment appear to have been mistaken for the policy
itself--a process which, for a man in d'Argenson's position, would
efface the distinction between statesmanship and imbecility. Moreover,
he has frequently been held responsible for events over which he had no
control whatever; and in M. de Broglie's case, failure to appreciate
or sympathise with him is aggravated by personal opposition to his
measures; and about the whole account of his ministry, equable as it
is, there are unwelcome suggestions of Marshal de Noailles.
It is unpleasant to seem to speak so lightly of those to whom one
owes so much; and it is no further necessary. The conclusion remains
that during this period d'Argenson had a clear and statesmanlike
policy; that thwarted and crossed at every turn, he did what little he
could to realise it; that he was forced by the defection of his own
government into a false and even ridiculous position; and that, in the
circumstances, he acquitted himself as worthily as any man could be
expected to do.
In the following year, 1746,[362] the course of French foreign politics
is fortunately plain and simple. D'Argenson's position is clearly
marked, and it has been treated with what appears to be substantial
justice.[363]
The year presents three striking episodes. It opens with a strange
attempt and a still stranger failure, it is distinguished by at least
one marked success, and it closes with a curious comedy of intrigue of
which the _dénouement_ was d'Argenson's disgrace.
It was not the chance or the exigency of the moment that led to the
famous Negotiation of Turin. We can scarcely say how long d'Argenson
had dreamed of the liberation of Italy;[364] but for years past he had
clung to the idea with something of the fervour of a religious faith.
It was the one indulgence in the luxuries of idealism of which he
refused to deprive himself. The hope was an inspiring one, and not a
year had elapsed since his accession to the ministry, when he began his
famous attempt to realise it.
The key to the position was held by the King of Sardinia. Sardinia, in
alliance with Austria and in the pay of England, was the great barrier
against the Bourbon advance in Italy. To seduce Charles Emmanuel from
the cause of Maria Theresa would have been to cripple the Austrian
power in Italy; to induce him to turn his arms against his late ally
would have ensured her expulsion from the peninsula. There was only
one danger to be feared. In Spain, with the Italian branches of the
Spanish Bourbons, the House of Savoy had a deadly enemy; and d'Argenson
had predicted years before[365] that the whole project might be ruined
by the resistance of the Court of Madrid. He was only reassured by
the reflection that in her foreign relations, Spain was ultimately
dependent upon France, and that a French minister of firmness and
courage would be able to bend her to his will.
In September, 1745, d'Argenson approached the Sardinian Government with
certain remarkable proposals. He suggested a territorial re-arrangement
of Northern Italy, the expulsion of the Austrians from the peninsula
by the combined forces of France, Spain, and Sardinia, and the
constitution of the various states as an Italian confederation. These
overtures were coldly received, the Piedmontese minister representing
that their practical effect would be to draw down upon Sardinia the
vengeance of Austria and of the whole Empire. The defeat of Bassignano,
the progress of the Bourbon arms, and the danger which menaced the city
of Alessandria, modified the dispositions of Turin. The negotiations
were resumed; and proceeded so far that on the 26th of December the
partition of territory designed by d'Argenson was accepted by the
Sardinian Government, though the idea of an Italian Confederation was
still repulsed. On the return of Champeaux,[366] the French agent,
from Turin, arrangements were rapidly made for the conclusion of the
treaty; and on the 20th of January, Champeaux again set out from Paris
as minister plenipotentiary, charged to obtain a final settlement
within two days. Coincidently the Spanish Government was apprised
of the negotiation, and its adhesion was required within the same
time. Meanwhile, at the instance of Montgardin, the Sardinian envoy,
d'Argenson wrote to Marshal de Maillebois, in command of the French
army in Italy, acquainting him with the situation, and warning him to
remain upon the defensive until the conclusion of the treaty.
While the preliminaries were being signed at Turin, the reverses of
Prince Charles Edward freed the English Government from a pressing
embarrassment; and on the very day (December 26th), the conclusion of
the Treaty of Dresden enabled Maria Theresa to detach thirty thousand
men for the army of Italy. The Sardinian ministers began to repent of
the haste with which they had listened to the French overtures; they
saw that they had embarked upon a desperate venture, in which it would
be folly to persist; and henceforth their only care was to obtain an
armistice which might enable them to relieve Alessandria and to improve
their military position. Finding that in the proposals upon which
Champeaux was demanding a final answer, the preliminaries of the 26th
of December had been extended, they refused to accept the extension,
and they demanded that in case the Spanish Government failed to accede
to the treaty, the menace with which Louis XV. had tried to influence
it should be made a definite stipulation, and the French troops
withdrawn from Italy at the end of two months.
The news of the proposed treaty was received at Madrid with passionate
outcries. So far from consenting within forty-eight hours, Philip V.
addressed to his nephew an indignant letter of remonstrance; and a
special ambassador was despatched to Paris with orders to check the
progress of the negotiation. At first the treaty had been kept an
absolute secret between d'Argenson and the King; but it was now a
subject of popular rumour, and it became necessary to communicate it to
the Council.
A storm of opposition was at once let loose, and feeling the King's
resolution wavering, d'Argenson resolved upon a decisive step. On the
17th of February, relying upon the good faith of the Court of Turin, he
signed the armistice between France and Sardinia.
Meanwhile the Sardinian plans were complete. The great Austrian
reinforcement was approaching Mantua; the Piedmontese army was ready
to march, while Maillebois, trusting to his instructions, remained
inactive, and without a suspicion of the event which was preparing.
He was soon undeceived. His son, who was in charge of the armistice,
received a letter warning him not to approach Turin unless he was
prepared to make the concessions demanded by the King of Sardinia,
to raise the siege of Alessandria, and to declare the armistice
immediately. This Maillebois was unable to do; he was supplied with
passports, and informed that on the following morning (March 5th) the
Piedmontese army would be put in motion. A few days afterwards eleven
French battalions were surprised at Asti, and their surrender opened to
the Sardinian troops the road to Alessandria.
Exactly two days before, the prolonged resistance of the Spanish Court
yielded to the determination of d'Argenson; and Philip V. and Elisabeth
Farnese accepted the Treaty of Turin. They were soon to hear that the
plan they had striven so obstinately to frustrate had been destroyed by
the perfidy of Sardinia itself.
The news of the fall of Asti created consternation at Paris; and a
host of d'Argenson's enemies, headed by Noailles and Maurepas, were
only too eager to fasten the blame upon the Foreign Minister. The King
was carried away by the tide of reaction; and after the fashion of
weak men, he rushed to the opposite extreme. Everything was done to
propitiate Spain. Noailles was charged with a special mission to the
Spanish Court, where he used his opportunities to decry the Minister;
and most fatal step of all, the commander in Italy, Maillebois, was
instructed, for the rest of the campaign, to yield the initiative to
the Spanish generals. The two armies were divided by jealousies and
suspicions; the Austro-Sardinians pushed their advantage; and by the
end of the year the French were driven to the borders of Provence and
the Austrians entered Genoa.
Such was the famous fiasco of Turin. The project was doomed from
the beginning. The whole history of diplomacy could afford no more
intricate play of cross-purposes. Not one of the parties to the
negotiation understood the position of the rest; and it was only by
a masterly
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