Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord (;"Talleyrand-Périgord". Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary. ; 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. He served as the French representative to the Congress of Vienna. His career spanned the regimes of Louis XVI, the years of the French Revolution, Napoleon, Louis XVIII, Charles X, and Louis Philippe I. Those Talleyrand served often distrusted him but found him extremely useful. The name "Talleyrand" has become a byword for crafty and cynical diplomacy.
Talleyrand was Napoleon's chief diplomat during the years when French military victories brought one European state after another under French hegemony. Most of the time, he 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, with a clear-eyed and realistic view of the French national interest. Others, on the other hand, see him as a serial turncoat seeking only his own advantage, betraying the ancien régime, the French Revolution, and Napoleon in turn for his own gain.
Early life Talleyrand was born in Paris into an aristocratic family which, though ancient and illustrious, was not particularly prosperous. 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.
From childhood, Talleyrand walked with a limp, which caused him to later be called Royot, Daniel (2007). Divided Loyalties in a Doomed Empire. University of Delaware Press, , p. 138: "Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord was the essence of the metamorphic talent inherent in French aristocracy. The so-called Diable boiteux (lame devil), born in 1754 was not fit for armed service." (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. It might have been a congenital clubfoot. In any case, his handicap made him unable to inherit his father's title, despite being the eldest surviving son. The alternative, chosen for him by his parents, was a career in the Church.
His father held out the hope for Charles-Maurice of succeeding his uncle, Alexandre Angélique de Talleyrand-Périgord, then Archbishop of Reims, one of the richest and most prestigious dioceses in France. At eight years old, Talleyrand attended the Collège d'Harcourt, the seminary of Saint-Sulpice,"il est admis, ... en 1770, au grand séminaire de Saint-Sulpice": http://www.talleyrand.org 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.
He was not ordained a Catholic priest until four years later, on 19 December 1779, at the age of 25. Very soon, in 1780, he attained the influential position of Agent-General of the Clergy, 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. 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, resulting in his excommunication by Pope Pius VI on 13 April 1791; he resigned his bishopric immediately and never returned to the Catholic clergy.
On 29 June 1802, Pope Pius VII returned Talleyrand to the lay communion of the church by laicizing him as part of regularizing the status of secular priests who had married during the Revolution.
French Revolution Shortly after he was consecrated as Bishop of Autun, Talleyrand attended the Estates-General of 1789, representing the clergy, the First Estate. During the French Revolution, Talleyrand strongly supported the anti-clericalism of the revolutionaries. Along with Mirabeau, he promoted the appropriation of Church properties. He participated in the writing of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen and proposed both the Decree on the goods of the clergy placed at the disposal of the Nation in 1789 and the Civil Constitution of the Clergy that nationalized the Church in preference to allegiance to the Pope. He also swore in the first four constitutional bishops, even though he had himself resigned as bishop following his excommunication.
During the Fête de la Fédération on 14 July 1790, Talleyrand celebrated Mass. Notably, he promoted public education in full spirit of the Enlightenment by preparing a 216-page Report on Public Instruction. It proposed pyramidical structure rising through local, district, and departmental schools, and parts were later adopted.Samuel F. Scott and Barry Rothaus, eds., Historical Dictionary of the French Revolution 1789–1799 (vol. 2 1985), pp 928–932, online During his 5-month tenure in the Estates-General, Talleyrand was also involved in drawing up the police regulations of Paris, proposed the suffrage of Jews, supported a ban on the tithes, and invented a method to ensure loans. Few bishops followed him in obedience to the new decree, and much of the French clergy came to view him as schismatic.
Just before his resignation from the bishopric, Talleyrand had been elected, with Mirabeau and the Abbé Sieyès, as a Member of the department of Paris. In that capacity he did useful work for some eighteen months in seeking to support the cause of order in the turbulent capital. Though he was often on strained terms with Mirabeau, his views generally coincided with those of that statesman, who before he died is said to have advised Talleyrand to develop a close understanding with England.
In 1792, Talleyrand was sent twice, unofficially, to London to avert war, and he was cordially received by Pitt and Grenville. After his first visit, he persuaded the then foreign minister, Charles François Dumouriez, of the importance of having a fully accredited ambassador in London, and the marquis de Chauvelin was duly appointed, with Talleyrand as his deputy. Still, after an initial British declaration of neutrality during the first campaigns of 1792, his mission ultimately failed. In September 1792, just at the beginning of the September massacres, he left Paris for England, having acquired a passport from Danton personally.
The National Convention issued a warrant for Talleyrand's arrest in December 1792. In March 1794, with the two countries at the brink of war, he was forced to leave Britain by Pitt's expulsion order. He then went to the neutral country of the United States. The ship he took to the US was forced by rough weather in the Channel to stop at Falmouth where Talleyrand recounts an awkward chance meeting with Benedict Arnold at an inn. During Talleyrand's stay in the US, he supported himself by working as a bank agent, involved in commodity trading and real estate speculation. He was a house guest of Aaron Burr of New York and collaborated with Theophile Cazenove in Philadelphia. On 19 May 1794, Matthew Clarkson, the mayor of Philadelphia, received his oath. Talleyrand swore "that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to...the United States of America... " Burr later sought similar refuge in Talleyrand's home during his self-imposed European exile (1808–12). However, Talleyrand would refuse to return the favor because Burr had killed Talleyrand's friend Alexander Hamilton in an 1804 duel.
Talleyrand returned to France in 1796. After 9 Thermidor, he mobilized his friends (most notably the abbé Martial Borye Desrenaudes and Germaine de Staël) to lobby in the National Convention and the newly established Directoire for his return. His name was suppressed from the émigré list and he returned to France on 25 September 1796. After gaining attention by giving addresses on the value of commercial relations with England, and of colonization as a way of renewing the nation, he became Foreign Minister in July 1797. He was behind the demand for bribes in the XYZ Affair which escalated into the Quasi-War, an undeclared naval war with the United States, 1798–1800. Talleyrand saw a possible political career for Napoleon during the Italian campaigns of 1796 to 1797. He wrote many letters to Napoleon, and the two became close allies. Talleyrand was against the destruction of the Republic of Venice, but he complimented Napoleon when the Treaty of Campo Formio with Austria was concluded (Venice was given to Austria), probably because he wanted to reinforce his alliance with Napoleon. Later in 1797, Talleyrand was instrumental in assisting with the Coup of 18 Fructidor, which ousted two moderate members of the Directory in favor of the Jacobins headed by Paul Barras. He was also an early advocate of the Expedition to Egypt.
Under Napoleon
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. 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.