Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord
Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord (/ˌtælɪrænd ˈpɛrɪɡɔːr/,[1] French: [ʃaʁl mɔʁis də tal(ɛ)ʁɑ̃ peʁiɡɔʁ, – moʁ-]; 2 February 1754 – 17 May 1838), 1st Prince of Benevento, then Prince of Talleyrand, was a French secularized clergyman, statesman, and leading diplomat. After studying theology, he became Agent-General of the Clergy in 1780. In 1789, just before the French Revolution, he became Bishop of Autun. He worked at the highest levels of successive French governments, most commonly as foreign minister or in some other diplomatic capacity. His career spanned the regimes of Louis XVI, the years of the French Revolution, Napoleon, Louis XVIII, and Louis Philippe I. Those Talleyrand served often distrusted him but, like Napoleon, found him extremely useful. The name "Talleyrand" has become a byword for crafty and cynical diplomacy.
Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord
Office established
Louis XVIII
Napoleon I (1804–1807)
Napoleon Bonaparte (1799–1804)
Charles-Frédéric Reinhard
Autun
2 February 1754
Paris, Kingdom of France
17 May 1838 (aged 84)
Paris, Kingdom of France
- Independent (1789–1799)
- Bonapartist (1799–1814)
- Royalist (1814–1815)
- Doctrinaires (1815–1830)
19 December 1779 (priest)
4 January 1789 (bishop)
29 June 1802
Agent-General of the Clergy (1780–1788)
Bishop of Autun (1788–1791)
He was Napoleon's chief diplomat during the years when French military victories brought one European state after another under French hegemony. However, most of the time, Talleyrand worked for peace so as to consolidate France's gains. He succeeded in obtaining peace with Austria through the 1801 Treaty of Lunéville and with Britain in the 1802 Treaty of Amiens. He could not prevent the renewal of war in 1803 but by 1805 he opposed his emperor's renewed wars against Austria, Prussia, and Russia. He resigned as foreign minister in August 1807, but retained the trust of Napoleon. He conspired to undermine the emperor's plans through secret dealings with Tsar Alexander I of Russia and the Austrian minister Klemens von Metternich. Talleyrand sought a negotiated secure peace so as to perpetuate the gains of the French Revolution. Napoleon rejected peace; when he fell in 1814, Talleyrand supported the Bourbon Restoration decided by the Allies. He played a major role at the Congress of Vienna in 1814–1815, where he negotiated a favorable settlement for France and played a role in unwinding the Napoleonic Wars.
Talleyrand polarizes opinion. Some regard him as one of the most versatile, skilled and influential diplomats in European history, while some believe that he was a traitor, betraying in turn the ancien régime, the French Revolution, Napoleon, and the Bourbon Restoration.[2]
Early life[edit]
Talleyrand was born in Paris into an aristocratic family which, though ancient and illustrious, was not particularly prosperous.[3] His father, Count Charles Daniel de Talleyrand-Périgord, was 20 years of age when Charles was born. His mother was Alexandrine de Damas d'Antigny. Both his parents held positions at court, but as the youngest children of their respective families, had no important income. Talleyrand's father had a long career in the French Royal Army, reaching the rank of lieutenant general, as did his uncle, Gabriel Marie de Périgord, despite having the same infirmity from which Talleyrand would suffer throughout his life. His father served all through the Seven Years' War.[4]
From childhood, Talleyrand walked with a limp, which caused him to later be called le diable boiteux[5] (French for "the lame devil") among other nicknames. In his Memoirs, he linked this infirmity to an accident at age four, but recent research has shown that his limp was in fact congenital.[6] In any case, his handicap made him unable to follow his father into a military career, leaving the obvious career of the Church.
The latter held out the hope for Charles-Maurice of succeeding his uncle, Alexandre Angélique de Talleyrand-Périgord, then Archbishop of Reims, one of the most prestigious and richest dioceses in France.[7] At eight years old,[8] Talleyrand attended the Collège d'Harcourt, the seminary of Saint-Sulpice,[9] while studying theology at the Sorbonne until the age of 21. In his free time, he read the works of Montesquieu, Voltaire, and other writers who were beginning to question the authority of the ancien régime in matters of church and state. As subdeacon he witnessed the coronation of Louis XVI at Reims in 1775.[8]
He was not ordained a priest until four years later, on 19 December 1779, at the age of 25.[10] Very soon, in 1780, he attained the influential position of Agent-General of the Clergy,[11] and was instrumental in promoting the drawing up of a general inventory of Church properties in France as of 1785, along with a defense of "inalienable rights of the Church", the latter being a stance he later denied. In 1788, the influence of Talleyrand's father and family overcame the King's dislike and obtained his appointment as Bishop of Autun, with a stipend of 22,000 livres. He was consecrated a bishop on 4 January 1789 by Louis-André de Grimaldi.[10] The undoubtedly able Talleyrand, though hardly devout and even free-thinking in the Enlightenment mold, was outwardly respectful of religious observance. In the course of the Revolution, however, he was to manifest his cynicism and abandon all orthodox Catholic practice. He resigned his bishopric on 13 April 1791.[10] On 29 June 1802, Pope Pius VII laicized Talleyrand, an event most uncommon at the time in the history of the Church.[10][12]
Under Napoleon[edit]
Talleyrand, along with Napoleon's younger brother, Lucien Bonaparte, was instrumental in the 1799 coup d'état of 18 Brumaire, establishing the French Consulate government, although he also made preparations for flight if necessary. He also persuaded Barras to resign as Director.[24] Talleyrand was soon made Foreign Minister by Napoleon, although he rarely agreed with Napoleon's foreign policy. Domestically, Talleyrand used his influence to help in the repeal of the strict laws against émigrés, refractory clergy, and the royalists of the west.[24] The Pope released him from the ban of excommunication in the Concordat of 1801, which also revoked the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. Talleyrand was instrumental in the completion of the Treaty of Amiens in 1802. He wanted Napoleon to keep peace afterwards, as he thought France had reached its maximum expansion.
Talleyrand was an integral player in the German mediatization. While the Treaty of Campo Formio of 1797 had, on paper, stripped German princes of their lands beyond the left bank of the Rhine, it was not enforced until the Treaty of Lunéville in 1801. As the French annexed these lands, leaders believed that rulers of states such as Baden, Bavaria, Württemberg, Prussia, Hesse and Nassau, who lost territories on the Left Bank, should receive new territories on the Right Bank through the secularization of ecclesiastical principalities. Many of these rulers gave out bribes in order to secure new lands, and Talleyrand and some of his associates amassed about 10 million francs in the process. This was the first blow in the destruction of the Holy Roman Empire.[25]
While helping to establish French supremacy in neighboring states and assisting Bonaparte in securing the title of First Consul for life, Talleyrand sought all means of securing the permanent welfare of France. He worked hard to prevent the rupture of the peace of Amiens which occurred in May 1803, and he did what he could to prevent the Louisiana Purchase earlier in the year. These events, as he saw, told against the best interests of France and endangered the gains which she had secured by war and diplomacy. Thereafter he strove to moderate Napoleon's ambition and to preserve the European system as far as possible.[24]
Napoleon forced Talleyrand into marriage in September 1802 to longtime mistress Catherine Grand (née Worlée). Talleyrand purchased the Château de Valençay in May 1803, upon the urging of Napoleon. This later was used as the site of imprisonment of the Spanish royal family in 1808–1813, after Napoleon's invasion of Spain.
In May 1804, Napoleon bestowed upon Talleyrand the title of Grand Chamberlain of the Empire, with almost 500,000 francs a year.[24] In 1806, he was made Sovereign Prince of Benevento (or Bénévent), a former Papal fief in southern Italy. Talleyrand held the title until 1815 and administered the principality concurrently with his other tasks.[26]
Talleyrand was opposed to the harsh treatment of Austria in the 1805 Treaty of Pressburg and of Prussia in the Peace of Tilsit in 1807. In 1806, after Pressburg, he profited greatly from the reorganization of the German lands, this time into the Confederation of the Rhine. He negotiated the Treaty of Posen with Saxony, but was shut out completely from the negotiations at Tilsit. After Queen Louise of Prussia failed in her appeal to Napoleon to spare her nation, she wept and was consoled by Talleyrand. This gave him a good name among the elites of European nations outside France.
Talleyrand's orthopedic shoe, now in the Château de Valençay
Inscription at the Hôtel de Saint-Florentin
