[Illustration: _From a sketch by Count D’Orsay._
But one difficulty was removed only to lead to another. Talleyrand had in April (1831) obtained from the Allies of 1815 a secret promise that some of the fortresses raised at that time against France should be demolished. Louis-Philippe wanted to be able to announce this welcome decision in his July address. As Talleyrand was dilatory in obtaining permission, the King made the announcement and declared he would not evacuate Belgium until the forts were destroyed. His ambassador had meantime secured the assent of the Powers, but had also signed a promise to evacuate Belgium in August. The King was much annoyed, but Talleyrand politely requested him and Périer not to make so much noise about the fortresses. To a private correspondent he wrote that he was tired to death of fighting Paris, when his whole attention was needed at London. He could see nothing but _amour propre_ in the agitation at Paris. The struggle continued for some time. Louis-Philippe wanted different forts destroyed from those that Talleyrand had named, and wrote angrily to him. His ambassador sent a polite and sarcastic reply, and the names of the forts remained unchanged when the matter was settled in January. Talleyrand’s weariness expressed itself in the following passage of a letter to Sebastiani, which would probably be submitted to Louis-Philippe: “The King knows that I am a partisan of no dynasty. Since the days of Louis XVI I have served all Governments out of attachment to my country. I have abandoned them the moment they sacrificed the interests of France to personal interests. If the King is going to listen to domestic chatterers, he must not count on me.” It was the voice of the King-maker.
At London he had maintained his diplomatic ascendancy, though Palmerston annoyed him exceedingly. There was a good deal of ill-natured carping at his distinction. One day Lord Londonderry was misguided enough to voice this in the House of Lords. He referred to the influence of a certain “astute diplomatist” over the Conference, and said it was “disgusting” to see English Ministers in such assiduous attendance on this man. Talleyrand, he peevishly reminded them, had been the Minister of Napoleon, of Louis, and of Charles, before he took the service of Louis-Philippe. Lord Goderich protested that Talleyrand’s character should have protected him from such an attack, and then Wellington arose. After speaking of his relations to Talleyrand, he said: “I have no hesitation in saying that at that time, in every one of the great transactions in which I have been engaged with Prince Talleyrand, no man could have conducted himself with more firmness and ability with regard to his own country, or with more uprightness and honour in all his communications with the Ministers of other countries than Prince Talleyrand.... No man’s public and private character had ever been so much belied as both the public and private character of that individual.” His words were greeted with loud cheers. Lord Holland added that “forty years’ acquaintance with the noble individual referred to enabled him to bear his testimony to the fact that although those forty years had been passed during a time peculiarly fraught with calumnies of every description, there had been no man’s private character more shamefully traduced, and no man’s public character more mistaken and misrepresented, than the private and public character of Prince Talleyrand.” A visitor the next morning found the aged diplomatist in tears, with the _Times_ in his hand. He wrote to a friend that “at Paris, for which he was killing himself, no one would do as much for him.” Cynics have not failed to point the moral. But it was merely a grateful exaggeration. Casimir Périer wrote to him soon afterwards: “Posterity will do you that full justice which, in times of social agitation, those who have charge of public interests must not expect from their contemporaries.” Unfortunately, posterity still likes to shudder over romantic wickedness.