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398 which will contain Talleyrand's account of the execution of Enghien, may possibly give some reply to this more formidable imputation. In one of his earliest despatches he censures the venality of Thugut ; but his papers, so far as we have them, say nothing of his own. It might be urged that what he did was not really done in secret, that the reconstruction of the European ruin after the revolutionary war, during the confederation of the Rhine and at the Congress of Vienna, afforded opportunities so exceptional that they amount to excuses ; that Napoleon, who allowed his brother to bring back bags of diamonds from Madrid, admitted the practice of diplomatic douceurs, and distributed enormous sums in that way. Enemies of the United States used to affirm that the Ashburton treaty was carried by a method which may be traced in the books of Barings.

Talleyrand gives himself all the advantage to be got by depreciating others. He speaks warmly of Hamilton, and respectfully of Lansdowne and Fox in England, of Mollien and Caulaincourt in P" ranee ; and he is above the vulgar and inefficacious error of reviling enemies. Friends enjoy no immunity from his satiric temper ; and he is severe towards his tutor, Langfois, his secretary, Des Renaudes, and his intimate associate, Narbonne. He says that the choice of Necker was the worst the King could have made ; Lafayette is beneath the level of mediocrity ; Breteuil is fit for the second place anywhere ; Sieyès would not be a rogue if he was not a coward ; the hands of Carnot are dripping with blood ; Fesch is a corsair disguised as a cardinal ; Joseph and Jerome~are mglorious libertines ; the most prosperous of the marshals, Suchet, is quelque peu bel esprit ; his own successor, Champagny, begins every day trying to repair his blunders of the day before ; Humboldt is a bore ; Metternich is tortuous and second-rate ; Wellington has no head for principles ; Castlereagh strains the Englishman's prerogative of ignorance.

Most historical characters will probably suffer if we try them fairly by a fixed standard ; but Talleyrand displays