TALAPOT, TALPAT (Corypha umbraculifera, Linn.)**, one of the noblest and most gigantic of the majestic family of palms. It is found in the Southern Dökkan and in the Malay peninsula, and attains to the utmost perfection in the forests of Ceylon. Here its cylindrical stem, spirally marked by the traces of fallen leafstalks, reaches the height of 100 feet; rising generally without flexure, and bearing a crown of fan-shaped leaves, with numerous bilobed divisions. Of these the petiole is from 6 to 7 feet in length, and the blade, when expanded, forms an oval 8 feet long by 16 broad, calculated to cover an area of 200 superficial feet.
The talipat having a terminal panicle, flowers but once; and dies after ripening and dispersing its seeds. The spathe appears at the extremity of the stem; and its burst- Talleyrand, ing on the expansion of the flowers is said to be accompanied by the phenomenon of an audible explosion. The flowers, of a greenish white, tinged with red, and emitting a sickly odour, are produced on a blanched spadix, which during efflorescence adds from 10 to 15 feet to the height of the palm. These are succeeded by a multitude of roundish one-sided berries, on the dispersion of which decay begins, and proceeds with such rapidity that the tree is extinct within a very few months from the first appearance of the flower. The talipot is said to live to the age of 100, but its leaves are largest and most luxuriant about its thirtieth year.
No part of the talipot contributes materially to the economic uses of man, with the exception of its unblemished leaves. These, when full grown, are used for covering houses and forming ceilings, screens, and partitions in rooms. The natives of Ceylon improvise from them parasols and umbrellas on their journeys, and tents when reposing for the night; and one of the attributes of rank among the mountaineers of Kandy is the privilege of having borne by their attendants gigantic fans made of the talipot leaf, highly decorated with tinsel, and inlaid with plates of transparent taffeta.
But the most interesting purpose to which the young leaf of the talipot is converted is in substitution for parchment and paper, as a material for records, letters, and books. The custom of so applying it has prevailed from the earliest ages; and Albyronni relates, that, prior to the tenth century, the Arabian mariners resorting to India found the people writing on strips of the "tary" or "tala" palm, which, after cutting them into pieces a cubit long and three finger-breadths wide, they formed into books by passing a string through a hole pierced in the centre of each. This passage describes accurately the ola, as they are made at the present day, from the tender leaves both of the talipot and palmyra (Borassus flabelliformis). The practice is to free the leaf from the midrib and tendons, and to macerate it in hot water and water and occasionally in milk, when it slowly dries in the shade, and afterwards more thoroughly in the sun. In this state the strips are called in Ceylon karakola, and are used for all ordinary purposes. But a fine description, called pukkela, is prepared in the temples by the Buddhist priests and novices, who, after damping the karakola, draw it smartly backwards and forwards across the edge of a smoothed plank of Areca-wood, till its surface becomes even and partially polished. As the moisture dries during the operation, the ola is damped afresh till the required effect is produced.
The facility for receiving writing possessed by the talipot leaf depends on the thin layer of spongy matter enclosed between the two coriaceous surfaces of the upper and under side; these latter are readily incised with the point of an iron stile, leaving smooth furrows, that are afterwards rendered deeper by rubbing in a mixture of charcoal dust and water. The effect of the latter is said to protect the ola from destruction by the white ants (termite), and other insects. If intended to form a book, two holes are made in the leaves, one near each end, to receive cords, by which they are secured between two wooden covers, generally decorated with carving or lacquered devices. (Berthold Seemann's History of Palms and their Allies; Sir J. Emerson Tennent's Ceylon; Ferguson's Palmyra Palm; Reinaud's Memoire sur l'Inde, p. 305.)
TALLEYRAND-PÉRIGORD, CHARLES MAURICE DE, Bishop of Autun, and the most celebrated diplomatist of his age, was the eldest of three brothers, and was born at Paris on the 13th of January 1754. He was sprung from a very illustrious race, both by father and mother. His maternal grandmother was the celebrated Princesse des Ursins, who befriended so materially King Philippe V. in his attempts to keep possession of the crown of France. As was usual among families of distinction of that period, the infant Talleyrand was given out to nurse as soon as it had seen the light; and for the next twelve years of the child's life, he only looked on the face of strangers in a remote faubourg of Paris. If this training had had a bad effect on his mind and morals, it at least exerted a beneficial influence on the health and spirits of the future diplomatist. The Comte de Talleyrand, his father, was absent, engaged in the wars of his country, and the brilliant and gay countess, his mother, could not deprive her swarm of admirers of the fascination of her company any longer than was absolutely necessary. The father was in the pursuit of ambition and of fame, and the mother was in hot chase after pleasure and fortune. So their offspring, instead of being cared for by those who had Talleyrand brought them into being, had to shift as best they might amid the ignorance and squalor of a country village. An accident which Talleyrand met with when a child rendered him lame for life, and his uncle, the Bailii, who had just returned to Paris from the French fleet, on riding out long miles through the snow and mud to obtain a glimpse of the heir of the Talleyrands, found the fair ruddy boy with his long wavy ringlets hobbling along with the help of a crutch, to entrap larks among the snow. The rough simple nature of the sailor was much moved by this spectacle. He at once sought out Mère Rigaut, the ancient nurse with whom the boy resided. After some hot words with her, the Bailii, with a sturdy swing, planted the youth in the saddle before him, put spurs to his roaster, and was out of sight, hugging the boy in transports of affection, before the astonished Mère could get her cracked voice raised to a decent shriek of lamentation. The brave Bailii had no sooner seen the lad safely in the hands of a professor at the Collège D'Harcourt, than he immediately set off to embark in his fleet at Toulon, where he was drowned some few months afterwards. Talleyrand's father likewise died some time after from the effects of an old wound; and so Charles Maurice was now by right the Comte de Talleyrand, and the head of that branch of the family to which he belonged. Madame sa Mère now descended from the height of her salon, and in the company of an eminent surgeon visited the Collège D'Harcourt, where her son was. After the surgeon had burned, cauterized, and tortured the poor lad's weak limb for some time, he was at length removed to St Sulpice, where a black-robed priest informed him that his birthright was to be transferred to his younger brother.
"Why so?" faltered the strong-hearted youth. "He is not Disn—a cripple," was the stern and cruel answer. And not only herited, was he to lose his birthright; he was likewise deprived of the liberty of choosing a profession. The church, he was informed, was open to him; and Talleyrand, with a combined feeling of despair and resignation, stifled the rebellious passions which raged in him, and with a fierce look hobbled out of the room. Men should see yet whether the rightful heir to the princely house of Talleyrand should drag out his existence as an humble curer of souls. But, could not he bide his time? The power of patiently waiting until his star arose was perhaps the most signal mark of real greatness which Talleyrand possessed. This disposition at once asserted his superiority to the vulgar standards of pre-eminence, and raised him up, as it always does, to a dignity in the eyes of his contemporaries, such as few men could lay claim to. It was perhaps dexterity rather than original power that he gave evidence of during his school and college days. Adroitness, suppleness both of body and mind, were his ruling characteristics. He astonished the timid Paris youths by the singular fleetness and nimbleness which a lame rustic youth could occasionally display. The sharp, keen, cutting penetration; the dexterous manoeuvring; the wily flattery; the haughty arrogance; the lively wit; the bitter sarcasm; the occasional spurts of gross immorality which he exhibited, evinced a nature strong, energetic, and Early morally unscrupulous, that gravitated rather to what was unlawful than to what was established. Doubtless his parents had much of the sin of the youth's wickedness to bear. He had never slept a night under their roof until he was seventeen years old! No tender motherly education had he ever received: no experienced paternal warnings ever came to check the course of his headlong passions: nothing but the surly and unwelcome command of domineering priests, which made the lad's blood boil within him, and caused him to vow vengeance against the whole world. Talleyrand took to his books with a surly doggedness, with which no one cared to interfere. His studies were pursued fitfully. It was evident that he would neither make a learned savant. Talleyrand, nor a profound theologian, but he gave unquestionable evidence of his skill in cunning intrigue and in diplomatic astuteness.
He had much too strong a nature to consume his time in cursing his fates. During these years at St Sulpice, and at the Sorbonne, he was uniting in his zeal for literary and scientific knowledge. If he did not go very deep into anything he came in contact with, he at least stored much knowledge away in the treasure-house of a most tenacious memory, whence, in after-years, he drew forth, whether for the purposes of illustration or of ornament, the stock which had lain so securely there until it was required. By the time he had reached his twentieth year, his reputation for talent and bodily vigour had become so great, that the Talleyrands half repented of having disinheritied the abbé boiteux; and accordingly resolved to acknowledge him. They introduced him to society on the coronation of Louis XVI. in 1774, under the title of the Abbé de Périgord. This young priest was without doubt one of the most licentious men in all Paris. The secret memoirs and chronicles of the time are filled with his seductions and amours. Some of the tales are obviously mythical, bearing as they do so much of that character of invention and romance peculiar to the time and country, that a patient biographer of the present day had much better pass them by as fabulous, than quietly record them as if they were true. While there was certainly nothing in the character of the Abbé's rohes to shield him from such charges, yet there was much in his high rank, in the functions which he was afterwards chosen to fulfil, and in the ambition for future promotion, which never slept in his breast, which all tend to throw into discredit a great many of the foul tales told respecting the gross irregularities of his youth. After all reasonable allowance has been made for the exaggerations of folly or of calumny, a pretty considerable sediment remains, sufficient to darken into the character of rakes any score of ordinary men. However, there is but little need to overstrain any fibre in the character of Talleyrand, where the whole moral network is so warped by turpitude and entangled by falsehood. There can be no doubt, that for his lechery and other kindred crimes, he was incarcerated for a good many months in the Bastille jail, and in the prison-house of Vincennes. Caution and subtlety in future, in the accomplishment of his designs, were all he would gain from his prison experience.
But the Abbé de Périgord now ascended a few rounds of the ladder, and came forth as a public character in the salons of Paris. Intrigue, which was written all over his nature in his youth, instead of being converted into honesty of purpose, only grew in subtlety and complication with his expanding years. He now set himself to become, despite his hatred priestly robes, a thorough man of the world. The pride and reserve of former years were cloaked over by that condescension and politeness which only a Frenchman knows how to employ. The ruder aspects of his strong nature had now to give way before the elegancies of refined society and the principles of good taste. Conversational talent, always in high demand in a city like Paris, was then in very great request. In this accomplishment the Abbé resolved to shine, and he had little difficulty in doing so. Voltaire, whom Talleyrand had met in 1776, was the deity to whom the Abbé offered up his daily devotions. Fontenelle was his constant companion. He formed his written style on those exquisite models, and his conversational style was drawn from the same source. Having made himself master of the arts of good breeding, and of concealing his thoughts under the guise of polished speech, his ambition urged him forward to new conquests in a higher and giddier sphere. As lust had hitherto been the amusement of his leisure hours, he resolved to make money henceforward his pastime. He had gambled hitherto for pleasure rather than for gain; hereafter he should study Talleyrand, lure in place of enjoyment. The penetration and depth, the consummate prudence and dexterous skill, which he had occasionally displayed, could not be passed by, particularly in one so well connected as Talleyrand. The Abbé was Accordingly appointed, in 1780, to the office of general agent for the clergy of France. He had all along studied more or less fitfully the subject of finance, then not Finance, much understood in France. M. Necker's first administration had given place to M. de Calonne's. The Abbé de Périgord dedicated a paper on the state of the finances of France to this minister. Mirabeau, who was then a prisoner at Vincennes, recommended the Abbé to the favourable notice of Calonne, in a letter which curiously displays the ardent generosity of this strange man's nature. "You have stated to me," writes Mirabeau, "the regret you experienced at my unwillingness to devote my feeble talents to the embodying of your high conceptions. Permit me, sir, to point out to you a man deserving of this proof of your confidence. The Abbé de Périgord unites great and tried abilities to profound circumspection and unshaken discretion. You will never find a man more trustworthy, more religiously devoted to the dictates of friendship and gratitude, more desirous of giving satisfaction, less envious of the glory of others, and more convinced that such glory is essentially due to him who possesses the capacity to conceive great designs and the courage to execute them." This is very interesting and His friend curious, as coming from a man who only knew the half ship with the individual whom he so warmly recommended. Mirabeau did not require to wait long to see the darker side of the picture. Here it is in a letter to the Comte d'Antraigues. "The situation I am placed in," says Mirabeau, "rendered still more gloomy by the infamous conduct of the Abbé de Périgord, has become intolerable. I send you, unscaled, the letter which I have written to him; read it, and send it to him. I repeat it, send it to him; for I trust you do not know that man, and I am quite sure he ought to be known to every honourable person. But my misfortunes have thrown me into his hands, and I must still deal cautiously with this vile, rapacious, mean, intriguing man. He breathes nothing but turpitude and venality. For money he has sold his honour and his friend. For money, he would sell his soul, and he would be right, for he would in such case barter dirt for gold." This is much more savage than the polite churchman could have wished; but he knew how to gain over Mirabeau, and the two politicians afterwards became great friends. M. de Calonne meanwhile resigned, and M. Necker was again reinstated. The nimble Abbé was all bows and smirks before the new financier. True to what we have already seen of his character, however, he turned his back upon M. Necker as soon as the breeze of popular favour took a different direction.
The Abbé de Périgord discharged the function of clerical agent for eight years. There he had ample room for agent cultivating his talents for administration. Forming, as the Gallic church did, an important element in the state, the general agent of the church was their clerical representative before the highest court of the nation. He consequently held a prominent place in the eye of the public, and was regarded on all hands as a powerful subject. Years had had their influence both on the appearance and the mind of Talleyrand. If he still hobbed in his gait, he carried himself with much greater dignity than formerly. His manners were quite fascinating, and he heightened his attraction greatly by the winning expression of his countenance, and by the charm of his conversation. The boyish rake had become the intriguing man; the breaker of young hearts now proved the ruin of old ones. In 1788, the Bishop-Abbé de Périgord donned the ermine of the Bishop of Au-ric-tun. Thirty-four years was a young enough age for a Talleyrand, bishop, but had not Cardinal Medici been devoted to the popedom when he was no older? Had not this good Abbé de Périgord likewise pronounced a great Discours sur les Loteries in the Assembly of the Notables at Versailles in February 1787? What more could be said? The Bishop of Autun was accordingly a member of the States-general assembled in May 1789. The interval from this date to the ultimate dissolution of the assembly is a highly curious and important one for all who wish to obtain any key to the character of this subtle diplomatist. In one or two speeches of much logical force and coherence, and a large commingling of that suavity of manner and sweetness of air, which he knew better than any other Frenchman of his time when and how to assume, he set forth to the assembled clergy the propriety of their giving up their tithes and church lands to the free disposal of the nation, to whom they properly belonged. Speaking on the latter question, the bishop said—"I warn my colleagues, the members of the order to which I have the honour to belong, to bear in mind the actual danger of our situation. The clergy, in fact, are no longer an order of the state, but a class of the community. In this entirely new order of things, which it seems to me, people are but too apt to forget, the clergy have only kept possession of their lands. . . Now, who is the true proprietor of those lands? Is it the clergy? No; most certainly not. . . To whom then ought to devolve the property of those lands? The answer cannot be doubtful—To the nation." Then the speaker sums up: "Let us trust our persons and our fortunes to the nation, and that without reserve. Such entire devotion can but raise its gratitude and ensure its respect. A few more attempts at resistance in so unequal a struggle, and we shall lose forever the fruits and honour of a generous resignation. Boldly to face necessity, is the only way to appear not to fear it; or, to speak in a manner more worthy of you, is not to fear it in reality. . . Let us show that we wish to become citizens, and remain nothing but citizens; that we are anxious to form part of that national unity which makes France a whole. It is then that the clergy will have justified, by the greatness of its sacrifices, the honour it formerly enjoyed of being considered the first order in the state. In fine, it is by ceasing to be an external object of envy and hatred, that the clergy will become an assemblage, it may be said, of much better materials, an assemblage of citizens, and the object of the eternal gratitude of their country." Thus this dexterous negotiator, this disciple of Voltaire and Fontenelle, this worldly-minded Bishop of Autun, tried his hand thus deftly at gilding the pill which his brethren the French clergy were designed to swallow. It took the genius of Mirabeau, however, to force it down the clerical throats. The good bishop evidently loathed the church and the whole of its votaries in his heart. He only clung to it as to a useful political machine, in which, however, he had no faith, and which he could only support from mere motives of expediency. In the same manner it was that he gave unmistakable marks of having a pretty favourable leaning to the side of the aristocracy, of which he himself was a scion. At times one would be inclined to think that he maintained with the philosophes of his day the natural equality of men; but this, if it was at all real, could only have been something like a logical conviction which he had caught up from the ceaseless jargon of the constitution-builders of his time. Talleyrand had all the involuntary and unconscious hauteur of his class, and he had been long accustomed to regard with pride the superiority of his birth. Despite the eminence of his mind, and his philosophical notions, he could not get the better of being vain of that illustrious origin which, so far as he was concerned, was the bestowal of mere chance. Even during the republic, when men required to walk as warily as fawns, he gave no unmistakable signs of his aristocratic insolence. Subsequently, during the time of the consul-ship, his style of remarks respecting upstarts is well known. The causticity and the possible truthfulness of his comment makes it all the more telling. "It is easy to perceive," said he, "that they are not much used to the drawing-room." With the people he had, from his early training and associations, more than a partial sympathy; but he never ceased to look upon the noblesse as the natural rulers, even when he was constrained to shape his speech and his actions into directly the opposite course, either from motives of policy or of self-interest. This anti-radicalism, as an Englishman would call it, showed itself strongly in his desire to assimilate French institutions to English ones; and this was more than mere talk. He even avowed his anxiety to establish a constitution in France similar to that of England. But we are anticipating.
The Bishop of Autun, during the six months of the existence of the Etats Généraux, was very actively engaged. He began by using his influence to induce his order to join the General Assembly. He proposed to annul the imperative mandates of the provinces to their deputies, and maintained the obligation of the bailiwicks to submit to the decrees of the Assembly. He introduced a bill of rights in favour of citizens, and proposed to abolish the tithes and church lands of the clergy. The financial schemes of M. Necker were supported by him; he proposed to supply the public treasury from the sale of church lands; he successfully encouraged secularisation public education; and he made a great speech on the readjustment of weights and measures. These and many other projects engaged the attention of the active bishop during these months. He was besides a most useful member of the National Assembly; and, among many speeches which he spoke in the hall of that great meeting, few were more applauded than his harangue to the people, warning them against libels, and recommending a firm and steady line of conduct. It was regarded as a masterpiece of parliamentary eloquence. The Jacobin and other clubs were now got fairly set going, and Talleyrand was engaged in founding the society of the Feuillantes. In the month of May 1790, the Bishop of Autun received a letter of the most polite mockery from the canons of his diocese. It was to this effect—"My Lord Bishop, we have read with the liveliest interest the declaration of a portion of the members of the National Assembly in favour of the holy catholic religion, and at the same time we have been deeply afflicted at not finding at the bottom of this document the name of our deputy and bishop. Far be the supposition from us that a minister of Jesus Christ, honoured with his sacerdotal functions and raised to the episcopal dignity, has refused to sign his name to the profession of faith which every one of the faithful ought to be ready to do at every moment of his life! God forbid that we should yield to suspicions so injurious to the honour of episcopacy, as well as to the glory of the see which you occupy! . . . We therefore hasten to forward to you the resolutions in which we have attempted to embody the expression of our fidelity and attachment to the catholic, apostolic, and Roman religion. We beseech your lordship, after having affixed your signature, to present it to the Assembly as the most glorious testimony of our patriotism. . . We shall also publish the letter we have the honour of addressing to your lordship. It is honourable both to you and to ourselves, as it is the deposit of the confidence we place in your lordship, and which you will no doubt justify with alacrity. It will serve, besides, to propagate and give solemnity to the religious and patriotic feelings expressed throughout the whole of it, and will make known to all the world the real feelings of the bishop and canons of the diocesan chapter of Autun." This masterpiece of irony would have galled to the quick many a lord bishop, but the humble canons of Autun for- Talleyrand got the nature of the man they had to rule over them. Of the profoundest dissimulation, he feigned to take their letter, which really annoyed him, in the most serious strain, and answered it in the very gravest manner. In the politest way in the world my Lord Bishop of Autun gives his too meddling canons the most direct rap over the knuckles, and advises them, as it were, to mind their flock for the future. "In closing my letter," says the Bishop to the Dean of Autun, "I come to that part of yours where you request me to present to the National Assembly the text of your deliberation. Do not blame me, sir, for declining to do so. I do not know how to bring myself to present to a legislative body a protest against its decrees; and to present it, above all, as you desire me to do, as a glorious testimony of your patriotism. I prefer consigning it altogether to oblivion."
The want of faith of the Bishop of Autun had become notorious both to clergymen and laity, but the astute politician treated all such charges with indifference, and went on his way, urging forward the revolution to the extreme point. He felt the necessity of keeping up an established system of religion, if merely to act as a quasi-political check upon the natural license of men. And hence, after breaking down the strength of the clergy, he wanted to be thought their protector. In this portion of his conduct we see but too clearly the ruling maxim of his policy throughout his entire public career. One of the greatest shams of his entire episcopate was his consecration of the eighty-three departmental banners, and the bestowal of his blessing, "another than that of Jacob," upon the young republicanism of France. Mr Carlyle remarks, in his French Revolution (vol. i. p. 277), with the other sorrowing historians of that day, that "suddenly, while Episcopus Talleyrand, long-stoled, with mitre and tricolor belt, was yet but hitching up the altar-steps to do his miracle, the material heavens grew black; a north wind, moaning cold moisture, began to sing; and there descended a very deluge of rain." This is the way in which certain truth-speaking "irreverent" historians talk of this glorious consecration. But a serious and withal an unexpected accident was soon to happen to his reverence of Autun. His holiness the pope, having got tired of the unbelieving bishop, had him excommunicated. For which good deed, among others, Father Adam (Saint Hurugvez), on the 4th of May, burnt the pope in effigy. There was no church, either living or dead, that had not the most indubitable right to excommunicate Talleyrand. A man destitute of all kinds of faith, both divine and human, whose only belief was that the world was his oyster, which he by dint of policy rather than force must strive somehow to open.
Talleyrand, now that he had lost the power to bless, urged on the republic with the energy of a Tamerlane. He was almost the only aristocrat who countenanced republicanism; and yet he was by no means a republican at heart. He was not an advocate for the total subversion of order, and for the diabolical scenes of bloodshed which the revolution witnessed. His manners were too elegant, his habits were too luxurious: he was too fond of sensual pleasure, and of its pre-requisite lazy indulgence, to regard a real republic in any other light than one of pure speculation. In his heart Talleyrand despised the people and their clumsy attempts at carrying out the principles of Jean Jacques. Indeed, it is rather to be feared that at times he despised all mankind. Meanwhile he served the clubs, he served the king, and he served the constitution; but none, or all of those parties together, could fairly gain him over.
The Constituent Assembly terminated its career by instituting the self-denying ordinance, by which its members were declared incompetent either to hold office from the crown before the lapse of two years, or to occupy a place in the next Assembly. Talleyrand was thus fairly thrown Talleyrand out of office. The court party hated him for his frank espousal of the revolution; the republicans hated him for advocating a limited monarchy; all parties disliked the perpetual sneer with which he greeted them. Yet they all combined in regarding him as the only man in France who could preserve peace with England. This country had hitherto maintained an ostensible neutrality, but was every day becoming more and more alienated from its French neighbours. Yet it was impossible to appoint him without a breach of the sacred paper treaty known as the self-denying ordinance. He was accordingly despatched to London in 1792, in the train of brisk young Chauvelin, who contrived to hold over his person the "ambassador's In Lercloak." Talleyrand was the real ambassador, Chauvelin merely wore the ambassador's clothes. The want of any official position stood materially in the way of the ex-bishop of Autun. The queen turned her royal shoulder to him at St James's, which ensured his exclusion from high society. The French government besides had become obnoxious to a large majority of the English people, and M. de Talleyrand in his unofficiality, could do little where both court and people disliked both himself and the government which he really represented. Yet Talleyrand was not to be beaten down by a few rebuffs. The steadfastness with which he pursued his political mission, despite the annoyance of having his words thrown back in his face, and the irksomeness of acting through a pompous puppet such as Chauvelin, deserves considerable praise. He had a fixed determination not to be insulted, and, when he had once made up his mind, but few could change him. He kept himself aloof, and never committed himself. His manner in public was grave, thoughtful, cold. His hitherto pleasing appearance, with its perpetual smile, "as if he mocked himself," became now remarkable for its severe gravity and staidness. Of course, in private and among his friends who knew him, he was still the old man. He fascinated them by the splendour of his conversation, which no Frenchman of the time could equal, and astounded them by the brilliancy of his caustic wit, which no man of his day could rival, and in which he greatly outshone his professed master Fontenelle. But the reserve of the man, which was perhaps constitutional, was quite noteworthy in public. The circumstances of his early life, and perhaps also the necessities of his position in future years, may have compelled him to adopt silence as a convenient cloak to his own thoughts. Save for his eye and his voice, the one of which was exceedingly bright, and the other of which was remarkable for its rich sonorousness, people might have been apt to have mistaken him for "a nice little Frenchman," so doltish was his face and so impassable his look. He was more like a statue than a man.
Talleyrand had returned to Paris before the momentous 10th of August, which broke down the last prop of the monarchical edifice. It was with great difficulty that he obtained a passport from Danton, who confirmed his appointment in London. A letter from Laporte, intendant of the king's household, presenting to the king a letter from the Bishop of Autun, was discovered in the celebrated iron chest, which involved Talleyrand yet deeper in public hatred. The letter ran thus:—"The new faction that is raising itself among the Jacobins desires the re-establishment of the public force, the maintenance of the monarchy, the destruction of the democracy, and the safety of your Majesty's person." M. de Talleyrand did not treat this letter as he had done the epistle of the canons of Autun. His life was at stake, and he knew it. He argued, with much ingenuity and abundance of plausibility, that Laporte had very greatly exaggerated the case; but, to a reader of the present day who knows anything at all of the previous character of his lordship the ex-bishop, his reasoning is Talleyrand merely specious, and by no means affects the essential truthfulness of the charge. Ex-Bishop Talleyrand had played the part of bottleholder so long to almost every party, that he need not be at all astonished, now that he had withdrawn his hand from those frail vessels, if they should choose, as bottles will, to tumble down amid the howls and yells of those about whose ears they fell. It was as well for Talleyrand that he was out of France, else his head should have paid for his attempting to play fast and loose with the determined Jacobins. Dishonesty, and all kinds of speciosity, are pretty sure in the long-run to get wind; and when they do so, it will be well for the guilty party if some convenient England is near whither he can withdraw, for the moral tempest rages, and woe worth the wight whom it finds within its sweep! Thus is written, in pretty legible marks, the high origin, the noble destiny of man.
Talleyrand, as we have said, fled to England in great perturbation, for he had secured very little of his property, and is said to have been compelled to sell his library to procure means for his support. The English government did not like so much intrigue to be moving about in its immediate neighbourhood. It accordingly ordered Talleyrand to quit the country in twenty-four hours; and with a dilapidated fortune, and with both France and England shut against him, he set sail for America in his fortieth year. While here he used his eyes to good purpose, if he was denied the use of his other powers. The published essays on colonisation and on the commercial relations of England and America, may be considered as masterpieces of shrewdness and of felicity of expression.
Madame de Staël instigated Chenier to recall the exiled Talleyrand after the Reign of Terror had closed. The National Institute had just been founded, and M. de Talleyrand, who had during his absence been chosen a member of the class of moral and political science, having been present at its first sitting, was chosen its secretary. This office he held for six months. Having read some exceedingly clear-sighted papers regarding the state of American society, and having revived the nearly dead influence of the salons, as a reward to this diplomatic financier he was made foreign minister under the new Directory. Here again he owed much to Madame de Staël's influence with Barras, although from some cause or another he seldom spoke very respectfully of the author of *Corinne* in her absence. While necessity may be pled in favour of Talleyrand's embarking in such a crazy and unprincipled government as the Directory is known notoriously to have been, yet no honest man will deny that the life of the diplomatist hitherto has been, in a great part, very corrupt and very unworthy. His American voyage may have purged the black drop out of him: we shall see. Certainly, it was quite true that political diplomacy was the only profession that he cared for; and the fact of his having accepted this equivocal position may be cited in evidence of the fact that his old diplomatic sympathies were still strong in him, and that he had not attained even to normal purity from his baptism in the waters of the Atlantic. The truth is, that Talleyrand was by no means a stoic; an epicurean rather in everything that concerned life and its awards. We must not, then, expect too much Talleyrand from him. What he has—keenness, penetration, sagacity, dexterity, a pre-eminent talent for diplomacy—he can give us; and if we are anxious to make the acquaintance of a man of high morality, of simplicity, and of purity, we must avoid going too near the diplomatist's head-quarters; we must, in short, pass by on the other side. He can charm us if he will with his talk; he can dazzle us with his wit, but if we try to go any deeper into the heart of the man, we find it rather an abode of unclean beasts than otherwise. Carnot's outspoken accusation of him on his return to France, after having been engaged on a mission of duping statesmen and cajoling their wives to the court of Prussia, need not astonish us. Hear how he speaks of the ex-bishop: "That man brings with him all the vices of the old régime, without having been able to acquire a single virtue of the new one. He possesses no fixed principles, but changes them as he does his linen; adopting them according to the fashion of the day. He was a philosopher when philosophy was in vogue; a republican now because it is necessary at present to be so, in order to become anything; to-morrow he would proclaim and uphold tyranny if he could thereby serve his interests. I will not have him at any price; and so long as I am at the helm of the state, he shall be nothing."
The principal burden of Talleyrand's foreign office was the perpetual series of petty intrigues in which he was engaged, having for their sole aim his own maintenance in office. The blundering character of the attempt to extort money from the American envoys in October 1797, alone saves the character of the foreign minister from being implicated in it. We may rest assured he knew well the character of the nation who had afforded him an asylum during his exile. But it betrayed a despicable meanness to allow himself to be made the tool of such shabby jobbers as his employers were, destitute alike of national honour and even of national courtesy. He enjoyed the honour of being cast aside as soon as public indignation had been called to the excesses practised upon the envoys of a friendly power. It was towards the beginning of his office as minister that Madame Grant became the mistress of the ex-bishop. Luxurious and expensive in his habits, Talleyrand could ill get on on the stinted allowance of a republic. The hard fare of America was a thing of necessity. Now that he was returned to smiling France, it should go hard with him if he did not get vent for the epicureanism of his nature. Success, besides, in the diplomatic art could only be found under a settled monarchical government. Believing, and perhaps truly, that this was the only kind of government that could bring tranquillity to France, and attracted no doubt powerfully by the fascination of "the little Corsican," Talleyrand foresaw it to be his interest to put himself in intimate connection with the most powerful man in France. When Bonaparte returned from Egypt, citizen Talleyrand had been six months deprived of his ministerial office. Here is an anecdote, which, although coming on no higher authority than that of Bourrienne, bears nevertheless on the face of it such signal marks of authenticity, that we have
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1 It may not be uninteresting to know what kind of a person it was who charmed the heart of the roué of forty. Here is a description of her by a person who knew her well. "Madame Grant was at that time in the full zenith of her beauty, and of the kind of loveliness most rare and most admired in France. I have heard that she was of English origin. This is not true. Her maiden name was Dayot, and she was born at L'Orient; but her connection with India, where a great part of her family resided, and the peculiar character of her beauty, would seem to have been the groundwork of the supposition. She was tall, and at that time slight in person, with that singular ease and languor in her carriage which have been considered the peculiar attribute of the creole ladies. Her features were of that soft and delicate mould but seldom seen in Europe; her eyes, large and languishing, were of the deepest blue; while her hair played in curls of brightest gold upon a forehead of dazzling whiteness, pure and calm as that of an infant. Throughout her whole person was spread a singularly childlike grace, which at once interested the beholder infinitely more than the sublimer beauty which distinguished her great rivals for the admiration of the worshippers of fashion of that day, Madame Tallien and Madame Beaumarchais." Mademoiselle Grant was not what is called a "clever woman," but she was simple and naive, which gave so strong a tinge of originality to all she said or did, that one was ready at once to pardon all her natural defects. Talleyrand, not scrupled to set it down here. "Citizen Consul," says Talleyrand, "you have confided to me the department of foreign affairs, and I will justify your confidence; but I must work under no one but yourself. This is not mere arrogance on my part: in order that France be well governed, unity of action is required. You must be first consul, and the first consul must hold in his hand all the mainsprings of the political machine; the ministries of the interior, of internal police, of foreign affairs, of war, and the marine. The ministers of these departments must transact business with you alone. The ministries of justice and finance have, without doubt, a powerful influence upon politics; but it is more indirect. The second consul is an able jurist; and the third, a master of finance: leave these departments to them; it will amuse them; and you, general, having the entire management of the essential parts of government, may pursue without interruption your noble object, the regeneration of France." These words accorded too closely with the sentiments of Bonaparte to be heard by him otherwise than with pleasure. He said to me after M. de Talleyrand had taken his leave, "Do you know, Bourrienne, Talleyrand's advice is sound. He is a man of sense." He then added smilingly, "Talleyrand is a dexterous fellow: he has seen through me. You know I wish to do as he advises, and he is in the right. Lebrun is an honest man, but a mere book-maker; Cambacérès is too much identified with the revolution: my government must be something entirely new."
Napoleon was just right in his estimate of Talleyrand's dexterity; and he was right also in his conjecture of that citizen's insight. Whether or not he had "seen through" Napoleon may be questioned; but he saw as far into him as it was possible for any man to do, gifted with merely human eyes. Abbé Sièyes, that arch constitution-builder, had seen into Napoleon in his way, from his high logical pinnacle; but Talleyrand's view of him was much more practical, because his mind was much more nearly akin to Bonaparte's own than that of the witty framer of political systems. Both Citizen First Consul and Citizen Talleyrand had a taste and talent for action, for administration, for the exercise of power. They resembled each other again by the thorough unscrupulousness with which each attained his ends. Though they differed in various important respects, these diversities only cemented their union the more closely. Talleyrand really admired Napoleon. If he flattered him, as he could not but do, he likewise appreciated, as few could do, the enlightened views which he disseminated. He had the courage, besides, to speak unpalatable truths to the imperious general, and to arrest his impetuosity until coolness returned to him. It cannot be doubted that M. de Talleyrand was powerfully instrumental in bringing about the re-establishment of peace in Europe. This he may have accomplished more by the arts peculiar to himself than by those of honest and fair dealing, but it is without doubt that he did accomplish them. Napoleon, as Talleyrand hinted, never interfered in the direction of any of the duties of his government, but left solely to his ministers the business of their respective departments. Talleyrand was the real king of the French diplomacy during the First Consulate; and it has been very generally admitted by his contemporaries, that no minister, not even himself when minister at the Restoration, has since been considered of so much importance. The concordat with the Pope, the basis of the future empire, was Talleyrand; the treaty of Luneville, secularizing the ecclesiastical principalities of Germany, the treaty of Amiens, the convention of Lyons, all bear more or less the marks of the hand of the subtle minister for foreign affairs.
After the battle of Ulm, Talleyrand addressed to the emperor a plan for diminishing the power of Austria, and for increasing that of France. Napoleon gave no heed to it. After the victory of Austerlitz, the minister for foreign affairs again brought forward his plan with renewed urgency. Still it was treated with silence, which was easily construable into contempt. Whether or not this was the cause of the growing coolness which ensued between these two great men, it is at least certain that they were never again so intimate as they had hitherto been. Accordingly, on the 9th of August 1807, Talleyrand resigned the place of minister for foreign affairs, and retired with the dignity of vice-grand-elector of the Empire, in addition to the titles of grand chamberlain and Prince of Benevento, with which he had been honoured some time previously. Success had evidently flushed the emperor more, perhaps, than was meet, and neglect from such a man as Napoleon, Prince Talleyrand had not the courage to endure. If the active diplomatist was lost to France, he could not be said to have lost by his last office. The Pope's excommunication of him had rankled more deeply in his bosom than he was prepared to allow. He had the satisfaction to see it annulled, and the first consul compelled him to marry the woman with whom he lived as a wife. There was another rather important respect in which the prince was a gainer by his late office. This was as a monied individual. He had begun, we saw, a very poor man; and when he threw up his office, it is said he was worth 30,000,000 francs, from the 18th Brumaire. Doubtless this sum is greatly exaggerated; but it is but too well known that he gratified his stock-jobbing propensities a great deal too much for the liking of Napoleon. The emperor, who was not to be trifled with on the score of fortunes, sent for Talleyrand one day, and said to him in a tone of affected blandness:—"By the by, citizen minister, they say you are very rich: how does that happen?" "The simplest thing in the world, general," answered Talleyrand, who had never his answer to seek; "I bought stock the day before the 18th Brumaire, and sold it again the next day." Thus ingenuously flattered, the emperor could not take offence, and the Prince of Benevento fairly gained his point. In 1809 the ex-minister was so loud in his denunciation of the expedition to Spain, that Napoleon, on his return from the Peninsula, deprived him of his office of chamberlain. Thus shorn of his honours, the irritated prince indulged himself in sarcastic criticisms against the policy pursued by the emperor, and even predicted, as early as 1812, the ultimate overthrow of the empire. In 1814, on the capitulation of Paris, the Emperor Alexander took up his residence in the prince's house. Talleyrand had, in 1800, betrayed the Directory in favour of Napoleon; and in 1814 he betrayed Napoleon in favour of the Bourbons. The alliance of the Bourbons and Talleyrand had long been broken up, and it was destined never to be united. There is another extract from Bourrienne, which bears its own authenticity on the face of it. Talleyrand is represented as having said at this time—"There is no other alternative but Napoleon or Louis XVIII. After Napoleon, there is no one whose personal qualities would ensure him the support of ten men. A principle is needed to give consistency to the new government, whatever it may be. Louis XVIII. represents a principle. Anything but Napoleon or Louis XVIII. is an intrigue, and no intrigue can be strong enough to support him upon whom it might confer power." In few cases do we find Talleyrand's sagacity failing him, and in this case he was undoubtedly right. We have here, besides, his views of intrigue as a means to the higher end of compassing power. It is only when it is "strong enough" that it should be ventured upon, he says. This is the key to the whole art of Talleyrand's diplomacy. The first thought that occurred to him when a political difficulty arose, was, by what policy, tortuous or otherwise, can this intricacy be got over?
Talleyrand, accordingly, got Louis XVIII. duly made king; and he, besides, insisted upon the combination of constitutional forms with the recognition of legitimacy with remarkable persistency. So much so, that he was a terror to the courtiers of the Restoration, who could neither bear his political views, much less the cutting sarcasms which he flung out against them. Talleyrand visited the congress of Vienna in 1814, and gained by his dexterity what was denied to the sword of Napoleon in 1792. Again the imbecile Bourbon unsettled everything by inviting the descent of Napoleon at Frejus. The confession of faults and shortcomings, in 1814, of Louis XVIII., is ascribed on good grounds to the Prince of Benevento. He besides obtained an extension of the democratic principle in the constitution of the Chamber of Deputies, recommended a hereditary peerage, and was himself chosen first president of the cabinet council which he had induced Louis to establish.
The constitutional monarchy now being got settled on a tolerably firm basis, Talleyrand found, to his astonishment, that the part he was called upon to perform in it was that of a leader of opposition. He protested in vain, on the 21st September 1815, against the new terms the allies were to impose upon France. Louis bowed to the dictation of his allies, and his prime minister had to resign office. He became an opposition leader, and no man could have played that difficult part better than Prince Talleyrand. His salon was a place of resort for the leaders of the liberal party; and in 1830, when the dynasty changed, he had the gratification of seeing not only the constitution remaining unmoved, but what had been one of the darling projects of his earlier years, an alliance between France and England, he had the happiness to see consummated. Under Louis Philippe, Talleyrand was appointed ambassador extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to the court of Great Britain. This office he held from the 6th September 1830 till the 7th January 1835. Returning from this mission to England with much better success than his first visit had received, he retired from public life. He only emerged from his retirement to pronounce the éloge of Count Reinhard before the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques. He died at Paris on the 20th of May 1838, in his eighty-fourth year.
It is quite useless attempting to gather up the scattered fragments of Talleyrand's character, and endeavouring to combine them into a moral unity. No such thing can be done consistently with truth. The unprincipled intriguing power of the man, which seems to have stuck to him as closely as the Nessus-shirt of Hercules, we have tried to delineate. We have endeavoured, likewise, to portray the liking which he had all along for some sort of monarchical constitution, and have tried to find a basis for that pretty steady conviction in the constitutional luxuriousness of the prince's character. But whether or not he was ever really in earnest or not about anything, it would be very difficult to say. Doubtless, as soon as he had laid down the end which he wished to gain, he was sufficiently in earnest until that object was accomplished, in whatever way. But whether anything more than mere caprice or self-interest ever moved him, we should like to be better informed before we should allege. "A man," as Mr Carlyle remarks, "living in falsehood; yet not what you can call a false man: there is the specialty! It will be an enigma for future ages, one may hope." (French Revolution, vol. i. p. 207.) His Memoirs, which it is said are still in manuscript, he gave express orders not to publish for forty years after his death. Whether or not these contain anything likely to clear up the difficulties of Talleyrand's character remains to be seen. Eighteen years hence men will know.