A Biographical Study By JOSEPH McCABE Author of “Peter Abélard,” “Saint Augustine,” &c. WITH 25 PORTRAITS INCLUDING A PHOTOGRAVURE FRONTISPIECE London Hutchinson & Co. Paternoster Row 1906...

Sainte-Beuve, after an attempt that one cannot describe as successful, declared that “it is hardly possible to write the life of M. de Talleyrand.” Frédéric Masson noticed the figure of the great diplomatist as he passed with a disdainful “ce Sphinx.” Carlyle forgot his dogmatism for a moment, and pronounced Talleyrand “one of the strangest things ever seen or like to be seen, an enigma for future ages.” Even a woman of penetration, Mme. de Staël, who had known him well, assures us that he was “

This Study is chiefly based on the following Works: 1. Talleyrand’s “Mémoires” (edit, de Broglie, 5 volumes); Official Correspondence from London in 1792, during the Directoire, during the Vienna Congress, and from London in 1830-4 (edit. Pallain); Letters to Napoleon, Mme. Adélaide, D’Hauterive, Choiseul-Gouffier, the Duchess of Courland, Bacourt, Royer-Collard, Guizot, and others; and his separately published Speeches and other Documents. 2. “Procès-verbal Historique des Actes du Clergé;” “Pro

THE TRAINING OF A DIPLOMATIST The life-story of Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, as I propose to write it, begins when, in his third or fourth year, he falls off a chest of drawers and permanently injures his foot. That wrench of muscles and tendons, making him limp for life, led to a perverse action on the part of his educators that did equal violence to an excellent natural disposition. They say now that the education of a child begins a hundred years before he is born. In the case of T

THE ABBÉ MALGRÉ LUI It will hardly be thought that up to this point there is any mystery about the person of Talleyrand. Many types of character were produced by this enforcement of the ecclesiastical profession. A few youths were touched by the better influences of their surroundings, and nobly turned to the great models of Bossuet and Fénélon. A large number drifted impatiently through the seminary, enlivened it with frequent dips into the stream of Parisian life, and emerged as the philosophi

Priest and Bishop Talleyrand had already spent two years of this kind of life when he was ordained priest. In a biographical inquiry it is only necessary to point out that the priesthood was required for his purpose. Possibly he thought of his parents, as some biographers suggest. However regrettable his life, he was a noble, and must not remain a minor cleric. In any case, he would see that the only entrance to the higher political world, along the path into which he had been forced, was the ep

AT THE STATES-GENERAL Talleyrand was consecrated in the seminary-chapel at Issy, a house of retreat belonging to Saint-Sulpice, on January 16th, 1788. He had observed, in that age of forms, the form of making a preliminary retreat at Issy. His delighted friends from Paris took care that the “solitude,” as the place was called, should not depress him. The ceremony was performed by the Bishop-Count of Noyon, Mgr. de Grimaldi, a Voltairean prelate. There are two legendary versions of Talleyrand’s b

THE BREACH WITH THE CHURCH When, in later years, Talleyrand looked back on the many oaths of allegiance he had successively sworn, he affirmed that he had never deserted any cause until it had abandoned itself. This is most certainly true of his desertion of the Royalist cause. His political ideal essentially and to the end included the element of limited monarchy; and his whole temper and taste would make him reluctant to turn from Versailles to the Paris of the end of 1789. A chaos, of which t

CITIZEN TALLEYRAND Talleyrand explains in the Memoirs that, after resigning his bishopric, he “put himself at the disposal of events.” “Provided I remained a Frenchman” he says, “I was prepared for anything.” The outlook must have been blank and perplexing. His ecclesiastical income was entirely stopped, and he was prevented by the vote of the Assembly from accepting a place in the Ministry, or any paid office under Government, for two years. He had, however, been appointed member of the newly-f

EXILE Talleyrand arrived at Paris just in time to witness the last weak struggle of order against anarchy. Lafayette had flown back to Paris, had fruitlessly appealed to the Legislative Assembly against the Jacobins, had just as fruitlessly appealed to lawless order against lawless disorder, and had retired in despair to his army. However, the Department of Paris, which still represented the orderly and stable elements of the city, had suspended the Mayor, Pétion, the day after Talleyrand left L

THE REGENERATED PARIS The ship in which Talleyrand had sailed from America was bound for Hamburg, which it reached in January, 1796. The prudent diplomatist wanted to take a nearer look at the regenerated capital of his country before re-entering it. His discretion was timely. In October the mob had risen for a third time against the new authority, and Citizen Buonaparte had swept it back definitively into powerlessness in the space of two hours. But the new rulers had a strong family resemblanc

ENTER NAPOLEON Talleyrand had written at once in 1797 to inform the commander of the army of Italy of his nomination to the Foreign Ministry. “Justly apprehensive,” he said, “of functions of which I feel the fateful importance, I need to reassure myself by the consciousness of how much the negotiations will be facilitated by your glory. The very name of Buonaparte is an auxiliary that will remove all difficulties.” He had already a dim prevision of the day when the princes of Europe would gather

WAR AND DIPLOMACY On the morning of December 11th, 1799, Napoleon installed himself at the Luxembourg, and began at once the stupendous activity with which he was to raise France to the position of first Power in Europe. Within a fortnight Talleyrand was back at the Foreign Office, with a prospect at last of using in his correspondence that “noble language” which the Revolution and Directorate had disdained to use. Of the civilians in France, two men alone were necessary to Napoleon—Fouché and T

THE RESTORATION OF RELIGION Napoleon’s imperial vision included in its first vague outline the restoration of the Church in France and the establishment of good relations with Rome. The sharpness of his earlier antagonism to religion was worn down by his experience and his political requirements. Let the old clergy overrun the provinces of France again, and they would soon exorcise them of their superficial Jacobinism. He had seen in the East how despotism throve where it had the support of reli

THE RENEWAL OF WAR We have now to resume the story of work at the Foreign Office, and examine—in so far as Talleyrand figures in them—the complicated events that led to the resumption of hostilities in 1805. The peace with England had not even an illusory appearance of solidity. Napoleon described it as “a short armistice;” George III said it was “an experimental peace.” Napoleon was irritated when Talleyrand used to say that he would have been willing to leave Malta to the English if he could h

AWAY FROM NAPOLEON The legendary version of Talleyrand’s character that still lingers amongst encyclopædists and historians is refuted by his resignation in 1807. No cause can be assigned for it except an honest refusal to co-operate further with Napoleon’s harsh and dangerous and selfish policy. “Napoleon has abandoned the cause of peoples and is bent only on personal glory. He has entered on the fatal path of nepotism, in which I shall decline to follow him.” Talleyrand said this in 1807, not

THE RESTORATION Napoleon had left Paris for the field towards the close of January, and the strain of expectation became intense. All knew now that the empire trembled in the balance. The English and Spaniards had crossed the Pyrenees since the middle of November, and were welcomed by the peasants of the south as deliverers. The northern allies had crossed the Rhine on December 21st. Already the imagination could see Napoleon and his capital hemmed between the converging forces. The group of whi

A DIPLOMATIC ROMANCE Talleyrand and his party arrived at Vienna on September 23rd. He immediately saw the representatives of the other great Powers, found that his anticipation of their resolve to restrict his action was correct, and opened his campaign. It was not a difficult task to induce the ministers of the secondary Powers to make common cause with the ablest diplomatist at the Congress. The Spanish Minister, Labrador, was urged to press the disputable claim of his country to be considered

THE “FOREIGNERS OF THE INTERIOR” On July 9th, the day after the re-entering of Paris, Talleyrand was appointed Foreign Minister and President of the Council. His difficulties began with the new Ministry. He had in June drawn up a list of ministers, and had carefully excluded Fouché and included two men with a view to conciliating the Tsar. But Fouché was intrigueing most assiduously for a place in the Ministry. The contrast between the two men is instructive. Both have the remarkable history of

THE LAST ACT Talleyrand had acquired through his long experience a sense of political equilibrium. Men of science point out to us in lowly marine organisms a little vesicle filled with fluid and containing a little stone. It is the organ by which they feel that they are ascending or descending. In some such way Talleyrand felt the motion when the governing power had begun to descend a slope. In the later twenties he knew, as many did, that Charles X was moving towards the abyss into which he had