Talleyrand: A Biographical Study

Talleyrand: A Biographical Study

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. Frdric 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 Stal, who had known him well, assures us that he was the most impenetrable and most inexplicable of men. There were a few who thought that the long-sealed Memoirs of the Prince, which were published only a few years ago, would reveal every secret. They forgot that these were the work of the man who held (improving on Voltaire) that speech was given to man to disguise his thoughtsthe man who conducted his exit from the world with all the art he had used at the Congress of Vienna. Yet, if the Memoirs have thrown no light, or only a deceptive light, on some of the obscurer passages in Talleyrands career, they have at least filled in our picture of his personality, so that the tradition of its inscrutability must be surrendered. There has been a prolonged and microscopic research into the age or ages of Talleyrand,the Old Regime, the Revolution, the Consulate, the Restoration, and the second Revolution. The memoirs of nearly all his contemporaries have seen the light, and official records everywhere have been examined. I have made a careful use of all this research up to date, and find it possible to present a consistent and intelligible personality. Lady Blennerhassett included the material of the Memoirs in the biography of Talleyrand that she wrote ten years ago. But a good deal of light has since been thrown on the earlier part of his career, and in this regard I gratefully avail myself of the investigations of M. de Lacombe. Moreover, Lady Blennerhassett is chiefly occupied with the Princes diplomatic action. His personality does not stand out very clearly from her very crowded canvas. That is an inherent disadvantage in writing the life of a great diplomatist. However, in spite of the alluring character of the stretch of history across which the thread of Talleyrands life passes, I have tried to keep it in its place as a background, and to bring out into the fullest light the elusive figure of the man who made and unmade a dozen oaths of loyalty. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 46660
Author: McCabe, Joseph
Release Date: Aug 23, 2014
Format: eBook
Language: English