French. And it was because the former could not realize at Paris the expectations he had held out at Verona, that, with the honourable feeling of the Montmorencies, he resigned. Chateaubriand was not acceptable to Louis XVIII., and M. Marcellus, the French minister, has represented Mr. Canning as asking," M. de Chateaubriand, est-il aussi parvenu au ministère contre la volonté du roi ?"* We know that George IV. had some prepossessions against his new secretary, (to whom, however, he afterwards became warmly attached,) but we are slow to believe that Mr. Canning announced himself as minister against the king's will. Not a hint of this sort is to be found in his own letters, and it is very unlikely that he would say that to Marcellus which he would not say to Chateaubriand. It now fell to the lot of Chateaubriand to manage on the part of France the question of interference, to put down by force the constitutional or revolutionary government of Spain; nearly at the moment when it became the duty and the chosen purpose of Mr. Canning to prevent, if possible, France from interfering, but at all events to keep England out of the scrape. We have formerly shown that the neutrality of England had been determined upon before Mr. Canning returned to office. Lord Castlereagh was about to proceed to Verona, to announce and enforce that determination, when death interrupted him, and his friend the Duke of Wellington proceeded in his stead. Chateaubriand and Canning had formed, while the former was ambassador in London, something apparently more than a mere official intimacy. They had conversed perhaps of literature, as much as of politics, and had put off some of that stiffness which certain diplomates think it becoming to preserve. We know, moreover, that Mr. Canning at one time forwarded, or attempted to forward, the personal interests of Chateaubriand at his own court. There was thus, no doubt, a kindness between them, but as to any friendship, calculated in any degree to amalgamate political views, or even soften political asperity, there was none. Between a Frenchman and an Englishman, communicating upon politics, there is, to use an expressive word, often employed when its appropriate meaning is forgotten, and always must be, a misunderstanding. Very possibly we do not entirely comprehend the French policy, but of this we are certain, that no Frenchman can be brought to comprehend the simple views of a straightforward English politician. These letters of Mr. Canning, now first published, throw no new light upon the transactions of the time, because the frank P. 422. + Vol. viii. p. 56. ness which they display on Mr. Canning's part was equally apparent in his public declarations. Notwithstanding a remark of his correspondent to the contrary, his point was distinct, and he never lost sight of it. If you ask me my opinion, says Mr. Canning in his first letter,*— "I give it you in the words of our Lord Falkland in the time of Charles I., Peace! Peace! Peace! † Am I for because peace I hate revolutions less than you do? you give me full credit for sharing your invincible hostility to them. But it is because the lovers of revolutions, in all countries, pray for war, that I am the most anxious for the prevention of it. . . . . A war in Europe, at this moment, against the revolutionary principle, would shake the monarchy of France and its yet unconfirmed institutions to their foundations. What shook so fearfully your institutions would no doubt try ours, but ours have root enough to stand the trial. And wrapping ourselves up as we should be wise enough to do, in a strict and IMPERTURBABLE NEUTRALITY, depend upon it, we might, if we were so disposed, turn your distractions to our own account, but, depend upon it, we have no such disposition. Rather, much rather, will we exhaust our efforts to preserve the peace on which we think your prosperity depends." Mr. Canning here takes the same view of the state of the political mind of Europe, which, when presented at a later period to the House of Commons, exposed him to so much misrepresentation.‡ Ultra principles, on both sides ultra, prevailed throughout Europe; and Mr. Canning "much feared" that if the violent on both sides came into hostile conflict, England, if she took any part, would see ranged under her banners the restless and dissatisfied of any nation with which she might come into conflict." This probability was, with Mr. Canning, an additional reason for not taking a part. 66 Let it not be thought that we are unnecessarily reviving bygone controversies. There are those who now vindicate by Mr. Canning's precepts-we know not whether any one is hardy enough to cite his example-our officious inter-meddling with Spain. It is thus not only to exhibit the unvaried tone of Mr. Canning's neutral policy, that we call attention to this announcement of "imperturbable neutrality." We would willingly impress * January 11, 1823, p. 304. There is one previous, in French, merely a compli ment. + "When there was any overture or hope of peace, he (Falkland,) would be more erect and vigorous, and exceedingly solicitous to press any thing which he thought might promote it; and sitting among his friends, often, after a deep silence and many sighs, would with a shrill and sad accent ingeminate the word Peace, Peace."-Clarendon, iv. 255. See F. Q. R. vol. viii. 422-424. § See F. Q. R. vol. viii. 406. it again and again upon those who, professing to admire and to follow Mr. Canning, have set at nought (as we shall presently show) his choicest principles. Chateaubriand in his reply* expressed his belief that the existing government of France would be exposed to more danger by the triumph of the revolution in Spain : "Si l'Espagne révolutionnaire peut se vanter d'avoir fait trembler la France monarchique, si la cocarde blanche, se retire devant les descamisados, on se souviendra de la puissance de l'empire, et des triomphes de la cocarde tricolore: or, calculez pour les Bourbons l'effet de ce souvenir. Un succès rattacherait pour jamais l'armée au Roi, et ferait courir toute la France aux armes. Vous ne sauriez croire tout ce qu'on peut faire parmi nous avec le mot honneur; le jour où nous serions obligés de peser sur ce grand ressort de la France, nous remuerons encore le monde; personne ne profiterait impunément de nos dépouilles et de nos malheurs." Chateaubriand has here gone some way towards le fond of his pensée about the war in Spain. He desired to give employment to the army, and bulletins of victory to the people, and thus to feed the passion of Frenchmen for military glory; but his object was not merely to rally the army and people round the throne of the Bourbons. He tells us in his present book,† that he had a horror of the treaties of Vienna; and he hoped to raise up a victorious French army, which should recover for France the territory wrested from her by the Allies in 1814 and 1815. And it was for this reason that he was desirous that no other of the powers assembled at Verona should march troops into Spain. It was necessary, not only that the revolutionary government should be put down, but that it should be put down by France, and France alone, and by France wearing the white cockade. There is no important novelty in Chateaubriand's statement of the different views of the Allies at Verona.S Russia was the most warlike, and was well enough inclined to take a part, but had some jealousy of France. Austria had no mind to go to war, and was jealous both of Russia and France. Russia too was for confining herself to the appui moral. We know not whether this expression, so much a favourite with our present ministers, took its rise at Verona. Chateaubriand tells us that Austria, and the minister Metternich, were very much inclined to England; we fear that Mr. Canning did not reciprocate the feeling. We shall make no further remark upon these differences, than * January, 14, p. 311. † I. ch. 19. See particularly his letter of 31 October, 1822, ch. 29, p. 98. $ Ch. 13 and 29; see Stapleton, i. 147. that they strikingly illustrate what we have elsewhere said of the tendency of alliances to dissolve themselves. Chateaubriand pretended, for his present avowals authorize us to call it pretence, to wish for a peaceable settlement of the Spanish question :— "La paix," he tells Mr. Canning, "est dans vos mains. Si sans nuire la marche des puissances continentales, vous aviez cru devoir tenir au gouvernement espagnol une langage sévère; si vous lui aviez dit confidentiellement, 'Nous ne serons point contre vous, mais nous ne serons pas pour vous; votre système politique est monstrueux; changez-le, ou ne comptez sur aucun appui, sur aucun secours d'armes ou d'argent de la part d'Angleterre,' je n'en doute pas dans un moment tout était fini, et l'Angleterre avait la gloire de conserver la paix de l'Europe.' No one acquainted with the public correspondence can fail to anticipate Mr. Canning's reply: "The language which you put in our mouths as that which you say you wish we had employed in speaking to Spain, what is it but the language which we have actually employed? .... Do Do you imagine that knowing we shall not be contre she has reason to flatter herself that we shall be pour elle in a war with France ? Be assured she is under no such misapprehension."† Mr. Canning gives unanswerable reasons why England could not use the same language with France: "If your interest in the amendment of the Spanish constitution is such that you feel yourselves justified in saying, amend it, or we make war upon you; if ours, on the other hand, is only such as may authorize us to say, amend it for your own sakes, we conjure you, or you hazard war with France; is not the difference between the two addresses such as makes it impossible that they should be uttered in concert?" Mr. Canning took great pains to impress upon M. Chateaubriand the moral as well as military difficulties which would attend the invasion of Spain. These difficulties, no doubt, our minister much miscalculated. We cannot examine thoroughly the cause of his erroneous estimate; but we may say that the result confirms that which Lord Castlereagh always held in the House of Commons, and for which he was exposed to much unmerited censure,-that it was not by the Liberals of Spain that the great opposition was made to Napoleon's invasion, or that indomitable and indefatigable spirit shown, which so materially assisted the Duke of Wellington in recovering the country. In the midst of the discussions between the two ministers Louis XVIII. thus addressed the chambers: + * January 14, 1823. ‡ Jan. 28, 1823, Ann. Reg. p. 149. January 21, 1823, p. 322. "One hundred thousand Frenchmen, commanded by a prince of my family, by him whom my heart delights to call my son, are ready to march, invoking the God of St. Louis, for the sake of preserving the throne of Spain to a descendant of Henry IV.-of preserving that fine kingdom from its ruin, and of reconciling it with Europe. Let Ferdinand VII. be free to give to his people institutions which they cannot hold but from him, and which by securing them tranquillity would dissipate the just inquietudes of France. Hostilities shall cease from that moment.' .* This language was thought so portentous, that a paragraph strongly indicative of neutrality, was consequently left out of our king's speech. Mr. Canning invoked history in his correspondence with the French minister ;* and addressed to him an exposition, perhaps somewhat exaggerated, of the universal feeling of indignation against France, which, according to Mr. Canning, prevailed among Jacobins, Whigs, and Tories. Perhaps in endeavouring to impress upon M. Chateaubriand's mind the arguments which the language of France might suggest to Spain, our accomplished statesman imagined a regard for general principles, which never occurred to the ministers of Spain, and which the minister of France laughed to scorn. But that which most excited the jealousy of Mr. Canning was the language of the king of France himself. Ferdinand, as it appeared to our sensitive minister, was to be restored to power, because he was a Bourbon, and inherited the claims of Philip V. "You remind us," said Mr. Canning, in substance, "of the time when we vainly resisted France in establishing this succession, but you teach us also to remember our more recent and successful efforts to restore a Bourbon to Spain in spite of France. There is on your part a triumph and a threat, a boast of what you did formerly against England in Spain, and a defiance of England now that it is to be done again. We English cannot hear this without remembering that if you foiled us a century ago we foiled you the other day. Why revive these irritating topics?" But further, you told us that you invaded Spain because you apprehended danger to France from the triumph of the revolution there; you now tell us that you interfere because the king is one of your own royal family; and moreover, that whatever may be the wishes of the people, nothing but what he shall grant shall be suffered to remain to them. This appears to England as an interference, for the sake, not of Spain but of France, *See Canning's Speech in Parl. Deb. viii. 1506. |