Memoirs of the Duchesse de Dino (Afterwards Duchesse de Talleyrand et de Sagan), 1836-1840
Fieschi to assure him that she had remained faithful to him, which is
untrue. Everybody seems to have been far more interested by these
amorous details than by the actual crime. What a strange time it is!
Fieschi's correspondence, in passing through the hands of M. Decazes,
became the amusement of the House of Peers; but the truly astonishing
fact is the notoriety which the whole story has given to Mlle. Nina,
who was formerly resident in the Salpêtrière. It is asserted that
monetary proposals have been made to her by men of high position;
there is no doubt that one hears the strangest descriptions of her
beauties and her imperfections, and it is a positive fact that she has
only one eye.
If Fieschi is a lover, he is no less attracted by religion. When the
almoner of the Chamber of Peers asked those under trial if they wished
to hear Mass, Fieschi alone replied yes, and said that he was anxious
to hear it as he was neither a heathen nor an atheist; that if he was
not a theological expert he had nevertheless read Plutarch and Cicero
and firmly believed in the immortality of the soul; as the soul was
not divisible it could not be material, and that, in short, he
believed in the spiritual nature of man. He asked the almoner to come
and see him again and not to leave him after his sentence had been
pronounced. In view of such inconsistencies, how is it possible to
pass any absolute judgment on men?
I believe the following to be an accurate bulletin of the Ministerial
crisis: Yesterday morning the King sent for Dupin, Sauzet, and Passy,
and commissioned them to form a Ministry upon two conditions only:
firstly, they were not to give a post to any one who had voted against
the repressive laws; secondly, the Minister for Foreign Affairs must
be a man who would reassure European opinion and be agreeable to
himself. The three men replied that they understood the King's wishes,
but that they could not bind themselves until they had consulted their
friends; they then withdrew. At the Chamber they sent round a list,
which was drawn up nearly as follows: Dupin to be Minister of Justice
and President, Passy to be Minister of Finance, Flahaut of Foreign
Affairs, Molitor of War, Montalivet of the Interior. I have since
learned that Montalivet refused the post in spite of the King's
wishes, and that the King refused to accept the nomination of Flahaut.
The King wished to appoint Rumigny or Baudrand to the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs, and would have declared for the latter, if there had
not been a wish to retain him as a companion to the Prince Royal on
his travels. The Prince is very pleased at the fall of the last
Ministry: I believe he is wrong; the Flahaut party are delighted. The
Ministerial party hope to secure the election of M. Guizot as
President of the Chamber of Deputies; the Opposition will support M.
Martin du Nord.
In the evening I accompanied M. de Talleyrand to a dinner given by M.
de Montalivet. Counts Pahlen and Apponyi were pale with fear inspired
by the sight of M. de Flahaut's name on a list of Ministers. Marshal
Maison was regretting the loss of his ambassadorship at St. Petersburg
with cries of rage which were not in the best of taste.
We then went to the last Ministerial reception given by the Duc de
Broglie. M. de Broglie believes himself to be fully in touch with the
requirements of the time; he has no suspicion of the actual truth,
that he is the sole cause and object of the squabbling which is going
on, that he is the man rejected by the Chamber, and that if he were to
say to his colleagues, "I see that I am myself the real
stumbling-block; I will withdraw, but I beg you to remain," M. Molé
would take his place and everything would be settled to the general
satisfaction.
_Paris, February 11, 1836._--Madame de Rumford died yesterday morning
after breakfast; she had had some friends to dinner the evening
before. She had been much changed for some time, but has always
refused to acknowledge herself an invalid, and remained as
discourteous to death as she was to those about her. The loss of her
_salon_ will be felt; it was a meeting-place, and there are very few
that are habitually regarded as such. Every one found something there
to remind him of this or that period of his life. This loss has
saddened me; it is not well to have reached the age of eighty-four.
But M. de Rigny was fifty, Clémentine de Flahaut sixteen, Yolande de
Valençay two! Life is threatened at every step of the ladder, and one
must always be ready.
That old cat Sémonville, whose claws are always ready, reached the
Luxembourg yesterday with the announcement that the Ministry was at
length settled. He was surrounded with questioners, and gave the list
as follows: "President of the Council, Madame Adélaide; Justice and
Public Worship, the Duchesse de Broglie; Foreign Affairs, the Duchesse
de Dino;[10] Interior, the Comtesse de Boigne; War, the Comtesse de
Flahaut; Marine, the Duchesse de Massa; Finance, the Duchesse de
Montmorency; Commerce, the Marquise de Caraman!" I sent this piece of
wit to Madame de Lieven, in reply to a note asking for certain
information; she replied that the King's condition at least was
fulfilled, and that the Minister of Foreign Affairs was not likely to
disturb Europe.
[10] The author of these memoirs.
This is poor stuff, but poorer still is the fact that it is impossible
to form a Ministry, in seriousness or otherwise. Yesterday I was at
the Tuileries. The Ministers who had resigned were all grouped about
the King, but, I think, with no particular object. It is deplorable!
_Paris, February 12, 1836._--Of Ministerial news there is none; all
that I have learned yesterday is as follows: Dupin, Passy, and Sauzet
spent three hours with the King, and told him that they could not
undertake the formation of a Ministry, as various intrigues had made
the attempt impossible; they were, however, ready themselves to enter
the Ministry, if their services were agreeable to the King. They then
withdrew, and the King sent for M. Molé in the course of the evening,
but I cannot say what passed at this interview.
_Paris, February 13, 1836._--I have the following information as
regards the events of yesterday concerning the Ministerial crisis. M.
Molé declares that he will not take office without M. Thiers, who will
not come in without M. Guizot; he, again, will not act without M. de
Broglie, unless the latter recognises that he is himself the only real
obstacle, insists that his colleagues should take office without him,
and writes them a letter to that effect, dated from Broglie. M. de
Salvandy attempted to enlighten him upon this point, but met with a
very poor reception. A lively scene is said to have taken place
between MM. de Broglie and Guizot; certainly M. de Broglie is
obviously agitated, and so ill-tempered as to rouse the pity of his
friends and the contempt of other men. Some people think that the King
will summon de Broglie and request him with greater authority than
Salvandy used to put an end to this deplorable state of affairs, which
is only continued on his account.
Dupin's chance has entirely disappeared. During the two days when it
was thought that he would be Minister, Thiers and Guizot both entered
the competition for the Presidency, and so gained an opportunity of
counting the votes in their favour. M. Guizot received eight, M.
Martin du Nord fifteen; the remainder of the Ministerial party would
have voted for M. Thiers and secured for him the refusal of the
position.
_Paris, February 16, 1836._--Fieschi and his accomplices have been
condemned to death; M. de Mareuil came yesterday to tell us of the
sentence, at eleven o'clock in the evening.[11]
[11] The sentence which condemned Fieschi, Pépin, and Morey to
death. They were executed at the Barrière Saint-Jacques on
February 19.
It seems that many of the peers gave long explanations to justify
their manner of voting. A small fraction of the Chamber considered
that the circumstantial evidence against Pépin and Morey was
inadequate to justify the extreme penalty, and preferred to inflict
penal servitude for life. Fieschi was condemned to death unanimously,
and M. Barthe asked that the punishments reserved for parricides
should be added to the death penalty.
The newspapers announce the death of Madame Bonaparte; her
great-granddaughter--that is, the daughter of Joseph, who married the
son of Lucien--was the only member of her numerous family at her side.
Cardinal Fesch has been very attentive to her, and she leaves him her
pictures; it is also thought that the division of her inheritance will
cause fresh dissensions among her children, who are by no means at
harmony with one another, for it seems that during her lifetime she
gave considerable sums to Lucien, Jérôme, and to Madame Murat, which
sums they are not willing to repay.
_Paris, February 17, 1836._--Yesterday the King assembled his former
Ministers and announced that in the first place he would not accept
their resignations until another Cabinet was formed. Furthermore, he
said that it was only by an accident that a majority in the Chamber
had been against them; their system was that of the Chamber, although
certain individuals in the Cabinet might not be agreeable to the
Chamber, and he would therefore be delighted to see them all remain in
office; if, however, they thought that any of their members were
likely to keep the Chamber in a state of exasperation, he asked them
to consider the matter among themselves and then to let him know upon
what he could rely. M. de Broglie said that the King should make trial
of the Third Party, to which the King replied: "It may please you,
sir, to restate the weakness of that Third Party, but it does not
please me to make so disastrous an attempt; I have had enough of three
days' ministries; the majority is not to be found either in the Third
Party or in the Left, but with you, gentlemen, or, if not with all of
you, at any rate with some. Your arrangements and mutual engagements
ought to give way before the gravity of the situation: so much I
expect from your honesty and your desire for the general welfare; for
my own part, gentlemen, I shall fold my arms and bide my time at
Saint-Cloud." MM. de Broglie and Guizot replied that no member of the
Cabinet was exactly bound, but that there were certain conventions
which they must respect in each member's case. This was a very
inopportune reply at such a moment, especially from the first speaker,
who could have cut the Gordian knot at one word and have simplified
the position. No one knows what the result will be, unless matters
should turn out as M. Royer-Collard predicted to M. Thiers last
Friday: "You are impossible to-day, but in a week you will be
necessary, indispensable, and absolute."
M. de Talleyrand and myself visited the Queen yesterday. The fact that
the Court was in mourning for the Queen of Naples, together with the
trial of Fieschi and the Ministerial crisis, made it impossible for
the Château to take part in the pleasures of the carnival, and a very
serious spirit prevailed. The King's attention was occupied by
thoughts of the punishment which awaited the prisoners condemned the
previous evening, and he had not ventured to go out, because he knew
that Madame Pépin and her children were lying in wait for him. The
Château was mournful indeed, and formed a painful contrast with the
joyful tumult in the streets. M. Pasquier came to tell the King that
Pépin had asked to see him that morning, so that the execution must be
postponed until the next day.
Before going home I spent half an hour with Madame de Lieven. No one
was there except Lady Charlotte Grenville and M. Berryer, who said