Considering TALLEYRAND'S flexible mind, and the ease with which he resigned himself to blunders when they did not seem to him dangerous, this judgment, expressed with surprising emphasis, is the most striking condemnation which can be passed on the tone adopted by the British negotiator. With rare skill TALLEYRAND avoids the dryness usual to memoirs of a personal character. As an instance of this, I give a description of the desertion by the wily diplomatist of NAPOLEON in 1814, when the Emperor had consented to retire to Elba. That this passage may have additional force, I give it in the original, possibly very original, French:--
"Je n'aime pas lui. Je pensais de cet homme qu'il était un espèce de polichinelle (_a quaint sort of puppet_), qu'il n'était pas la valeur de son sel (_not the value of his salt_), et voilà la raison pourquoi je lui vende (_why I offered him for sale_). Il n'a pu supporter la bienfaisance avec satisfaction, ni les choses bien désagréables avec complaisance."
"He could not bear the things that were disagreeable with complacency." Volumes might be written on that phrase, which at this moment, if we look around us, suggests numerous parallel instances. I have heard a man growl when a plate of soup has been poured by a careless waiter on his dress waistcoat, I have noticed a lady frown when I have myself accidentally torn her train from its body, by treading upon it at an evening party. TALLEYRAND knew NAPOLEON--"He could not bear the things that were disagreeable with complacency!" And yet BONAPARTE is sometimes called "_Le Grand_!" (The Great!)
Here I pause, as I feel that I may have already gone too far. It is not for me to say how the document from which I have quoted, came into my possession. But before I satisfy the legitimate curiosity of the public further, I consider it my professional duty to consult the Bar Committee, the Council of the Incorporated Law Society, the President of the Probate, Divorce, and Admiralty Division of the High Court of Justice, and the LORD CHANCELLOR, many of whom are unfortunately still absent, enjoying the Whitsuntide Vacation. I have the honour to be, dear Sir,
How a few hundred pounds may be easily and honestly earned is a problem which daily exercises the imaginations of thousands. I was fortunate enough to hit upon a plan which I now feel it to be my duty to make as widely known as possible for the benefit of those whose need is greater than mine; for, curiously enough, not only did my work bring me in that direct emolument, upon which I not unwarrantably reckoned, but an elderly lady of unstable views was so taken with the chaotic benevolence of my book, that she bequeathed to me a very handsome legacy indeed, and almost immediately enabled me to realise it. Thus does the absolutely unexpected serve as the handmaid of the perfectly unintended, and enterprise retires from the lodgings of struggle to the villa of repose. My plan briefly was to write a quasi-religious Novel with a Purpose. I knew nothing about religion, and had no literary experience, but the purpose I had, and that purpose was, to make enough money to spend six weeks at Herne Bay, a locality to which I am passionately addicted.