We have the greatest doubts whether, among the ancient chiefs of the Revolution, most of whom had, as hackneyed tools, lost credit in the public eye, both by want of principle and political inconsistency, there remained any who could have maintained a popular interest in opposition to that of the Royalists on the one hand, and the Buonapartists on the other. The few who remained steady to their democratic principles, Napoleon had discredited and thrown into the shade; and he had rendered many of the others still more inefficient, by showing that they were accessible to bribery and to ambition, and that ancient demagogues could, without much trouble, be transmuted into supple and obsequious courtiers. Their day of power and interest was past, and the exaggerated vehemence of their democratic opinions had no longer any effect on the lower classes, who were in a great proportion attached to the empire.
The Royalists, on the other hand, had been long combining and extending their efforts and opinions, which gained, chiefly among the higher orders, a sort of fashion which those of the democrats had lost. Talleyrand was acceptable to them as himself noble by birth; and he knew better than any one how to apply the lever to unfasten the deep foundations of Napoleon's power. Of his address, though not successful in the particular instance, Las Cases gives us a curious specimen. Talleyrand desired to sound the opinion of Decrès, about the time of the crisis of which we are treating. He drew that minister towards the chimney, and opening a volume of Montesquieu, said, as if in the tone of an ordinary conversation, "I found a passage here this morning, which struck me in an extraordinary manner. Here it is, in such a book and chapter, page so and so: _When a prince has raised himself above all laws, when his tyranny becomes insupportable, there remains nothing to the oppressed subject except----_"
"It is quite enough," said Decrès, placing his hand upon Talleyrand's mouth, "I will hear no more. Shut your book." And Talleyrand closed the book, as if nothing remarkable had happened.[24]
An agent of such extraordinary tact was not frequently baffled, in a city, and at a time, when so many were, from hope, fear, love, hatred, and all the other strongest passions, desirous, according to the Roman phrase, of a new state of things. He had been unceasingly active, and eminently successful, in convincing the Royalists, that the King must purchase the recovery of his authority by consenting to place the monarchy on a constitutional footing; and in persuading another class, that the restoration of the Bourbons was the most favourable chance for the settlement of a free system of government. Nor did this accomplished politician limit his efforts to those who had loyalty to be awakened, and a love of liberty to be rekindled, but extended them through a thousand ramifications, through every class of persons. To the bold he offered an enterprise requiring courage; to the timid (a numerous class at the time) he showed the road of safety; to the ambitious, the prospect of gaining power; to the guilty, the assurance of indemnity and safety. He had inspired resolution even into the councils of the allies. A note from him to the Emperor Alexander, in the following words, is said to have determined that prince to persevere in the march upon Paris. "You venture nothing," said this laconic billet, "when you may safely venture every thing--Venture once more."