Joseph Fouché

It is somewhat paradoxical, but yet true to say, that the Bourbons fell because they failed to rule in defiance of the elective chamber.

At the time of his first restoration, Louis, on the advice of Wellington, and as some kind of guarantee against too violent reaction, had accepted Talleyrand and Fouché as his ministers.

But it was only natural that he should be unable to work in full accord with an ex-bishop and a Napoleonic minister of police, and he took the earliest opportunity of accepting their resignations, despite the services which Talleyrand had rendered to the Bourbon cause at the Congress of Vienna.

They were replaced by a moderate cabinet headed by Richelieu, an émigré who had not borne arms against his country and whose administrative capacity had been proved by his government of Odessa, September 1815.

It is somewhat paradoxical, but yet true to say, that the Bourbons fell because they failed to rule in defiance of the elective chamber.

At the time of his first restoration, Louis, on the advice of Wellington, and as some kind of guarantee against too violent reaction, had accepted Talleyrand and Fouché as his ministers.

But it was only natural that he should be unable to work in full accord with an ex-bishop and a Napoleonic minister of police, and he took the earliest opportunity of accepting their resignations, despite the services which Talleyrand had rendered to the Bourbon cause at the Congress of Vienna.

They were replaced by a moderate cabinet headed by Richelieu, an émigré who had not borne arms against his country, and whose administrative capacity had been proved by his government of Odessa, September 1815.

It is somewhat paradoxical, but yet true to say, that the Bourbons fell because they failed to rule in defiance of the elective chamber.

At the time of his first restoration, Louis, on the advice of Wellington, and as some kind of guarantee against too violent reaction, had accepted Talleyrand and Fouché as his ministers.

But it was only natural that he should be unable to work in full accord with an ex-bishop and a Napoleonic minister of police, and he took the earliest opportunity of accepting their resignations, despite the services which Talleyrand had rendered to the Bourbon cause at the Congress of Vienna.

They were replaced by a moderate cabinet headed by Richelieu, an émigré who had not borne arms against his country and whose administrative capacity had been proved by his government of Odessa, September 1815.

And so he is not hunting after his enemies.

He's not kind of going after Fouché or whatever.

He is at home, the house of the Duplay family, licking his wounds and thinking.

And what he's thinking, we don't know.

Yeah, or mowing people down with grapeshot.

Exactly.

Talking of which, we met one of these last time, so the world's most ruthless physics teacher, Joseph Fouché.

[laughs]

It is somewhat paradoxical, but yet true to say, that the Bourbons fell because they failed to rule in defiance of the elective chamber.

At the time of his first Restoration, Louis, on the advice of Wellington, and as some kind of guarantee against too violent reaction, had accepted Talleyrand and Fouché as his ministers.

But it was only natural that he should be unable to work in full accord with an ex-bishop and a Napoleonic minister of police, and he took the earliest opportunity of accepting their resignations, despite the services which Talleyrand had rendered to the Bourbon cause at the Congress of Vienna.

They were replaced by a moderate cabinet headed by Richelieu, an émigré who had not borne arms against his country, and whose administrative capacity had been proved by his government of Odessa, September 1815.

So to that extent, it's personal for Robespierre.

And this is a guy called Joseph Fouché, who, spoiler alert, will have a long and distinguished career under Napoleon in due course as his chief of police.

But at the moment, relative to, um, to Robespierre, certainly, he's not a significant player.

Fouché had come originally from the west of France, um, from a, a small fishing port on the mouth of the Loire, and he had been educated by a religious group called the Oratorians, and these were guys who ran schools across France.

And after graduating, um, in this school, Fouché had stayed on, and he had worked for the Oratorians as a physics teacher.

That's worse than being a PE teacher, I think.

Physics teacher.

That's what drives quite a lot of these people.

But his occupations at this period would seem to have been of a very desultory character.

The French armies were invading the Low Countries, and Metternich relates that his studies were interrupted by having to pass to and fro between Brussels and the Austrian army, sometimes with commissions from his father, sometimes to see his friends.

In this manner, visiting also the scenes of military operations, he passed the winter of 1793 and 4.

In the beginning of the latter year, he accompanied the chief treasurer of the Netherlands government on a mission to London.

How, in making this declaration, the king's mind was acted upon by dread of Napoleon was proved by the fact that when, a few hours later, he heard that the French army, to outflank the Austrian army concentrated at Ulm, had violated the territory of Anspach, he did not declare war against France, but contented himself with informing the Tsar that the frontiers of his kingdom were open to him.

On receiving this message, Alexander set out for Potsdam.

Then began not only the negotiations for the entrance of Prussia into the alliance existing between the two imperial courts, but what is more germane to this narrative, the intimacy speedily increasing to friendship between the Emperor Alexander and Metternich.

From this period, in fact, dates the influence which after the fall of Napoleon the Austrian statesman exercised with the most important results on the mind of Alexander.

Trade is languishing.

Fouché tells me that there are great complaints.

This will set a little money in circulation.

Besides, I am on my guard about the Jacobin.