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]
Upon earnest representations that they are "the most honest people in the world," and that they would return the book "without copying a word," the entire manuscript was forwarded to Brussels. It is acknowledged in a letter of the 21st of June:
"My dear Sir, I have just finished reading a work which consoles me for the flood of bad books wherewith we are inundated.... How have you had the courage, you, whose house is as old as M. de Boulainvilliers', to declare so generously against him and his fiefs? That is the thing I cannot get over; you have divested yourself in favour of the public of the dearest prejudice to which men can cling.... Good-bye. Go and make the French loved in Portugal, and leave me the hope that I shall see again a man who does so much honour to France. An Englishman had put upon his tomb: 'Here lies the friend of Philip Sidney;' allow me to write my own epitaph: 'Here lies the friend of the Marquis d'Argenson.'"[251]
"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.
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.