Whether as a hero or a villain, you could say that Talleyrand is a fairytale character… Of princely extraction, born in an “enchanted land”, which was the old France of the Ancien Régime, the kingdom of good taste, etiquette and douceur de vivre,1 Charles-Maurice finds in his story a surprising parallel with Cinderella.
Yes, I say this in all seriousness, because just like Cinderella, his entire life plot revolves around a little foot and its corresponding slipper.
“They force me to become an ecclesiastic…”
It is an undisputed fact that Talleyrand sustained a significant deformity in his right foot in childhood – which is why he limped – but no one has yet been able to pinpoint the details of what happened, especially since the only eyewitness of the incident was himself and the versions differ substantially.
The handicap forced him to wear orthopaedic shoes all his life – not crystal ones like Princess Charming’s, of course – and rendered him incapable of the career in arms that would have fallen to him as the first of his brothers.2 As a result, his parents decided to consign him to the clerical state… It is seems clear that the idea of “vocation” did not bear much weight in their deliberations.
“They force me to become an ecclesiastic, and they will regret it!’ said Talleyrand. And he was right. The first scandals of his debauched existence date back to the seminary.
“My son, a bishop?”
We will spare the reader the sordid details of our character’s intimate life. As a mere illustration, we will limit our narration to the episode that took place when he was appointed bishop.
As the See of Autun was vacant, Charles-Maurice’s father begged Louis XVI to grant it to his beloved son. On hearing of the request, the young man’s own mother intervened, claiming that her son was leading too reprehensible a life to be a successor of the Apostles!
But her cry of alarm was in vain. The king turned a blind eye and, declaring himself “well informed” about the priest’s supposed moral qualities, appointed him to the episcopate, and the decision was ratified by Rome soon afterwards.
From Autun to Paris
On March 12, 1789 – the year of the French Revolution – the newly consecrated thirty-five-year-old bishop took up his diocese, but only for a short time. Exactly one month later, he jumped into a carriage and set off for Paris… never to set foot in Autun again – not, at least, to carry out episcopal duties.
New and stormy winds were blowing from the capital: Louis XVI had convoked the Estates-General – an assembly with delegations from all over the country, which was to undergo progressive mutations until developing into the genesis of the French Revolution – and Talleyrand plunged himself into the eye of this cyclone, having himself elected among the clergy’s deputies.
A warning from a friend?
When the revolts broke out within the Estates-General, Charles-Maurice immediately asked for an audience with the king. He wanted to warn Louis XVI about the dangers that threatened the throne and France. He had an appreciation for the monarchy, or at least for the status quo it maintained.
The Bishop of Autun was not even received by His Majesty, and had to content himself with speaking to the king’s brother, the Count of Artois, to whom he stated categorically that the matter would only be resolved “by a powerful development of royal authority, wisely and skilfully conducted.” He added: “We know the ways and means” to achieve this, “if the king’s confidence calls us to do so.” It was both a warning and an offer, coming from someone with the acumen to diagnose the situation and the ability to reverse it. But there was no response. Fifteen days later, the Bastille fell.
On the evening of July 16, Talleyrand sought out the count again, in a final attempt, which was also unsuccessful. There was no turning back: Louis XVI would follow his script to the end. Immediately sizing up the situation, Charles-Maurice declared: “Well then, Monseigneur, there is nothing left for each of us to do but look after his own interests, since the king and the princes have deserted their own and those of the monarchy.” From then on, Talleyrand threw himself into the arms of the Revolution.
The Citizen-Bishop
The Bishop of Autun became famous, exempli gratia, for the proposal he made to the National Assembly on October 10, 1789 to confiscate the clergy’s property in order to raise money for the nation – not, of course, without first having managed, through some bureaucratic-diplomatic pirouetting, to make a profit for himself by implementing the idea… His friend Mirabeau would say a while later: “Talleyrand would sell his soul for money and he would be right, because he would exchange his dung for gold.”
Finally, on December 28 of the following year, Charles-Maurice swore the oath to the civil constitution of the clergy, thus consummating his apostasy. It is clear to see how apt was the nickname by which he became known: the Lame Devil…
Decree of the National Assembly confiscating the property of the clergy; on the previous page, Talleyrand’s appointment as Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic and a letter signed by him in that capacity
By order of Danton…
However, the Revolution was becoming increasingly uncontrollable. Alarmed at the vortex of events, Talleyrand decided to emigrate to England. However, it did not seem appropriate for him to simply flee, since that would represent a defection from the republican cause – something absolutely unseemly. Who, in those circumstances, could predict the future of France? It was better to keep one foot in each boat, and the Lame Devil’s little foot was tailor-made for that.
Through double-dealing, he managed to re-establish some ties with the monarchy and get close to Danton, to the point of obtaining a signed passport from the latter, with the words: “Maurice Talleyrand is travelling to London on our orders.” On September 9, 1792, he left France, to which he would only return four years later, after a pleasant sabbatical in England and the United States.
On his return, during the period of the Directory, everyone in Paris was talking about a general who was gaining fame in the campaigns in Italy: a certain Napoleon Bonaparte…
Sowing grains of incense for a late harvest
Although the time had not yet come for the Corsican, Charles-Maurice, with his usual infallible foresight, decided to cast his net wide.
Newly appointed as foreign minister in the Directory, he announced his appointment to the future emperor in these terms: “Rightly intimidated by functions whose dangerous importance I feel, I need to be reassured by the feeling of what your glory should bring in terms of means and facilities in negotiations. The mere name of Bonaparte is an auxiliary that should smooth everything out.”
These and other seeds, planted in the very fertile soil of Napoleon’s pride, would not fail to bear fruit in due course – fruit that Talleyrand would know how to artfully harvest…
Two Popes: favourable situation for the Revolution
Until then, however, the citizen-minister still had to demonstrate his devotion to the republic – and he did so in a surprising way! Eloquent in this sense is the proposal he made to the Directory on April 30, 1798, described by the eminent historian André Castelot as “a truly diabolical text.”3 At the time, the Roman Republic had just been proclaimed and the Pope was imprisoned in Briançon.
Talleyrand claimed that although Pius VI had been deprived of his temporal power, he still remained the object of attention of all the powers of Europe – something harmful to the revolutionary cause. It would therefore perhaps be sound policy to hide him, spread the rumour of his death, elect another – or even several! – and then, when the time was right, have Pius VI reappear: “This diversity of pontiffs,” said the “ex-Bishop” of Autun, “would not fail to produce a schism beneficial to republican principles.”
Fortunately, the plan was interrupted a few months later with the death of the Vicar of Christ.
A step backwards
However, the Directory did not last forever. When, the following year, Napoleon carried out a coup d’état, making him First Consul, Talleyrand was there for him and managed to keep his portfolio in the new regime.
In fact, Bonaparte needed him. In this phase and the next – in the Consulate and in the Empire – it was important to give the government a certain air of elegance, stripping it of the revolutionary habits of which public opinion was saturated. However, the Corsican knew that he would never be able to do this alone: “I needed an aristocrat, and an aristocrat who knew how to handle such princely insolence.” Talleyrand was the right person.
In fact, this partly explains the number of titles Napoleon bestowed on him: Chamberlain, Prince of Benevento, Deputy Grand Elector of the Empire.
Austerlitz: Napoleon’s defeat
From victory to victory, Bonaparte was building his throne of bayonets. However, no one, not even he, could balance for long on such an unstable and uncomfortable monument… As always, Talleyrand realized this beforehand.
It is often said that the Battle of Austerlitz, fought on December 2, 1805, was Napoleon’s great victory. But that was not how his dear minister saw it. About two months earlier, he had already expressed his opinion, which he reiterated in a letter three days after the battle: “Your Majesty can now either break the Austrian monarchy or rebuild it. Once it has been broken, it would not be in Your Majesty’s power to gather together the scattered wreckage and recompose it into a single mass. Now, the existence of such a mass is necessary.”
“Napoleon receives Baron Vincent, Austrian ambassador”, by Nicolas Gosse; Talleyrand is in the centre – Palace of Versailles, Paris
However, Bonaparte proudly neglected the advice and, acting in the opposite direction, overstepped his bounds. His downfall was therefore only a matter of time. And Talleyrand started preparing for the next phase, seven years in advance…
Surviving three more regimes
It is laughable to follow Charles Maurice’s strategy: while he fawned over the emperor with total aplomb, he proposed, under Napoleon’s nose, an alliance between Austria and Russia against him.
Finally, in 1812, when the empire was really cracking on all sides, he added the royal card to the deck by offering his services to Louis XVIII, then in exile in England. With Austria on one side and the Bourbons on the other, the future was guaranteed. Soon, the Corsican would set sail for exile, and the Prince of Benevento – because he kept his title – would retain his ministerial post in the monarchy.
Napoleon himself said it well: “I have two errors to reproach myself for in relation to Talleyrand: the first, that I did not follow the wise advice he gave me; the second, that I did not have him hanged, because I did not follow the system he indicated to me.”
Keeping his footing in the restoration of the Bourbons, Charles-Maurice, however, was not persona grata to Louis XVIII, who ended up dismissing him from his post. It might seem a political failure, but no. Joining the opposition, Talleyrand achieved such influence that during the July 1830 revolt, in which the legitimate monarchy in France collapsed once and for all, Louis-Philippe sent him an enquiry to find out whether or not he should accept the post of lieutenant-general of the kingdom, and only when the former minister replied in the affirmative would he consent to the appointment.
The mere news of Talleyrand’s link to the new regime led monarchs like Tsar Nicholas to recognize its legitimacy. Thanks to Charles-Maurice, Castelot rightly concludes, “the three colours [of the revolutionary flag] no longer frightened Europe.”4
1789-1830: an overview
The statement is more profound than it seems. Let us try to understand it through the explanations of Dr. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira.
He says that the Revolution usually metamorphoses, sometimes simulating retreats, in order to be more readily accompanied by Public Opinion. To exemplify his thesis, he proposes an admirable synthesis of the various regimes that France experienced from 1789 until the rise of Louis-Philippe. Reading his words, one almost has the impression of being faced with a biographical summary of Talleyrand:
“The spirit of the French Revolution, in its first phase, used a mask and a language that was aristocratic and even ecclesiastical. It frequented the court and sat at the table of the King’s Council.
“Then it became bourgeois and worked for the unbloody extermination of the monarchy and the nobility, as well as for a veiled and peaceful suppression of the Catholic Church.
“As soon as it could, it made itself Jacobin, and became drunk on blood during the Terror.
“But the excesses of the Jacobin faction provoked reactions. The Revolution turned back, retracing its steps. From Jacobin it became bourgeois in the Directory; with Napoleon it extended a hand to the Church and opened the door to the exiled nobility, and finally it applauded the return of the Bourbons. The revolutionary process did not come to an end with the end of the French Revolution. It was detonated again with the fall of Charles X and the rise of Louis-Philippe, and so on through successive metamorphoses, capitalizing on its successes and even its failures, until reaching the paroxysm of our day.”5
Talleyrand contributed to making the definitive establishment of the French Revolution possible and, we would even say, embodied its spirit. To what extent did he fulfil this role intentionally? It is impossible to determine. After all, as he himself said, “you never go so far as when you do not know where you are going”…
“The six-headed man”, caricature of Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Perigord – Carnavalet Museum, Paris
“Don’t forget that I am a bishop!”
In any case, Charles-Maurice’s journey has not yet come to an end. What is missing is the end of the story, which is perhaps the greatest plot twist in history.
In his old age, a few hours before his death, the Lame Devil finally agrees to receive the Sacraments! After signing a retraction of his entire life, having been forgiven of his sins after a long Confession, he is administered Extreme Unction. When the holy oils were to anoint his hands, he presented them closed, declaring with impressive presence of mind: “Do not forget that I am a bishop!” His palms had already been anointed almost half a century earlier and therefore, according to the norm, he should receive the holy oils on the back of his hands! And so he gave up his soul, after perpetrating the ultimate betrayal: to the world, to be reconciled with God.
Was it sincere remorse? Or a mere gamble, like the others? Another difficult question to answer… In this vale of tears, there are perhaps only two things more inscrutable than the secrets of politics: the mysterious paths of the human heart, and the infinite depths of divine mercy.
Let us conclude with a brief reflection. Becoming aware of the facts recounted here, the question almost inevitably arises as to whether these natural gifts were not given to Charles-Maurice because of a call to fight for the good cause in such troubled times. If for hidden personal interests he offered his services, so useful for evil, to the fleeting sovereigns of the time, how much would a Talleyrand not have done to serve the Holy Church and the fight for legitimacy at that time in history? It does not seem unreasonable to say that the history of the West would have been different, at least for a long time. How great, therefore, is our responsibility before God to make the talents He has given us yield fruit, with a view to our sanctification and the fulfilment of our mission! ◊
Notes
1 The famous expression was coined by Talleyrand himself: “Anyone who did not live in France in the years preceding 1789 does not know the sweetness of living” (CASTELOT, André. Talleyrand ou le cynisme. Paris: Perrin, 1980, p.39). The other historical phrases in this article have been transcribed from the same work.
2 In reality, Charles-Maurice had an older brother who died at a very young age.
3 Idem, p.153.
4 Idem, p.644.
5 CORRÊA DE OLIVEIRA, Plinio. Revolução e Contra-Revolução. 9.ed. São Paulo: Arautos do Evangelho, 2024, p.53-54.
