Talleyrand

Philip G. Dwyer

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9781317881834
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Political Biographies
• Index: Politics & International Relations

From church establishment figure to revolutionary, supporter of Napoleon Bonaparte to promoter of the Bourbon Restoration, the twists and turns of Charles Maurice Prince de Talleyrand's remarkable career through one of the most turbulent periods of French and European history continue to fascinate. Witty and wiley, cynical and charming, Talleyrand has been portrayed as a cynical opportunist, hypocrite, and traitor who betrayed governments whenever he had a chance to do so. Yet as the representative of France and advocate of peace at the Congress of Vienna, he has also been cast as the saviour of Europe.   Philip Dwyer offers a detached, more nuanced analysis of the role of Talleyrand in the corridors of power over five different French regimes. He presents Talleyrand as a pragmatist, a member of the French political elite, mediating between various political interests and ideological tendencies to produce a working compromise, rather than actively seeking the overthrow of governments. His ability to weather the tectonic shifts in French and European politics of the time, and to successfully attach himself to the prevalent political trend, ensured that his role as French statesman was long and productive.

Chapter One
Cultivating an Ambition, 1754–89

I can say, once and for all, without hopefully allowing myself to think of it again, that I am perhaps the only man of distinguished birth belonging to a large and respected family who never had the good fortune of spending a single week under the parental roof.¹

The standard biographical interpretation of Talleyrand's early years and his entry into the priesthood has always been explained in terms of his physical infirmity (he was born with a clubfoot). Since his disability made a career in the army impossible, a career in the Church was considered the only option available to him. This, however, is only part of the story. Much more important a consideration in Talleyrand's career choice were family ties and connections at court. It is by this means that Talleyrand was able to obtain a bishop's mitre at the relatively young age of thirty-five. An obligatory step along the path to obtaining a bishopric was Agent-General of the Clergy, one of the most important positions in the French Catholic Church, which Talleyrand held between 1780 and 1785. During this period he was to prove himself not only an able administrator but also a staunch defender of the temporal of the Church. In the light of what happened during the early years of the Revolution - that is, when Talleyrand proposed doing away with much of the Church's property - historians have been quick to argue that Talleyrand's behaviour was hypocritical, but not unexpected on the part of someone who had been forced into the clerical state against his will. As we shall see, Talleyrand's motives were not as straightforward as historians have made out. First, however, we have to explain Talleyrand's career choice in the context of his youth and his family ties.

Growing up noble in Ancien Regime France

Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord was born (2 February 1754) in the same year as Louis XVI into a family whose ancestry, it was said, stretched back over a thousand years, as far if not further than the reigning House of Bourbon. Whether this was true or not is unimportant: the family was perceived to bear one of the noblest names of the realm. Charles-Maurice's parents, Charles-Daniel (1734-88) and Alexandrine-Marie-Victoire-Eléonore de Damas d'Antigny (1728-1809), lived comfortably, but their income was scarcely enough to maintain a residence in one of Paris's fashionable prerevolutionary neighbourhoods (near the church of Saint Sulpice) and especially to meet the high cost of attending court at Versailles. Shortly before Charles-Maurice was born, Alexandrine appealed to her own mother to send the linen necessary for her confinement.² Lack of money was obviously an inconvenience, but in the second half of the eighteenth century birth still opened the doors to government, the administration, and the Church.³

More importantly, at least for Talleyrand's future, his family and relatives were close to the centre of power – that is, the king and the court of Versailles. Talleyrand's father was lieutenant-general in Louis XV's armies, tutor to the future Louis XVI, and later one of the four 'hostages of the Holy Ampulla' (otages de la sainte ampoule) during his coronation ceremony at Rheims. His mother was dame d'honneur to Louis XV's wife, and later dame da palais to Marie-Antoinette,

There are two aspects of Talleyrand's childhood worth dwelling on briefly in an attempt to clear up any misconceptions as a result of previous biographical accounts. First, Talleyrand was born with an infirmity (his right foot was deformed) that was to have a significant impact on the course of his life, or at the very least on the choice of a career.⁴ The anecdote related by Talleyrand in his own memoirs to account for the infirmity – namely, that he fell off a chest of drawers while in the care of a wet nurse and that the foot was left to heal badly – can be dismissed.⁵ It is possible that even Talleyrand believed the story which should be interpreted for what it is an attempt to hide a congenital deformity, widely believed at the time to reflect some sort of spiritual deficiency, and the shame associated with it in the family. During the Restoration, Charles de Remusat, who knew Talleyrand reasonably well, wrote: 'Everyone knows that he [Talleyrand] was a cripple. Like all cripples he wanted it to be the result of an accident, and not of his structure.'⁶

The second related aspect of Talleyrand's childhood emphasised in his memoirs is the suggestion that his parents abandoned and neglected him because of his infirmity. Hence Talleyrand's lament cited at the beginning of this chapter that he never spent any time in his parents' house. It is an exaggeration. Talleyrand probably spent a good deal more time with his parents than historians have allowed for, and in any event, it was quite common for children to be absent from the parental home for years at a time.⁷ If Talleyrand's remark is noteworthy, then it is for the sense of personal loss and abandonment that he obviously felt as an adult.

Talleyrand's mother gave him to a wet nurse when he was born, a 'woman of the people' who lived in one of the suburbs of Paris, the Faubourg St Jacques. The practice of nursing out was prevalent throughout France in all social classes, except the very poorest, throughout the eighteenth century.⁸ In 1780, the lieutenant general of police of Paris, Charles Pierre Lenoir, estimated that of the 20-21,000 children born each year in his city, 17,000 were sent to the country to be wet-nursed, 2-3,000 were placed in nursery homes, 700 were wet-nursed at home and only 700 were nursed by their mothers.⁹ The chances of the child surviving were not particularly good: there was a high mortality rate (two-thirds of the children put out to wet nurses in Lyon died in the first year, while the figure for Paris was more than a half).¹⁰

This type of 'institutionalised abandonment' was particularly frequent among eighteenth-century noble families, although Talleyrand belonged to perhaps the last generation where wet-nursing was the norm for elite children. Rousseau had some influence in that. If noble children were not immediately shipped off to a wet nurse the moment they left their mother's womb, as was the case with Chateaubriand until the age of three, then they were often raised by servants. The due de Richelieu, heir to one of the largest fortunes in France, complains in his memoirs of having suffered bitterly in the care of one of his father's footmen who often forgot to feed and clothe him.¹¹ Even if noble children did spend the first years of their childhood in the family home, they were often sent away for long periods to receive an education. Napoleon Bonaparte, for example, was sent away at the age of nine and did not return again to his homeland, Corsica, until he was seventeen. In that time he saw his father on only two brief occasions and his mother on only one. This behaviour, however, should not be interpreted as indifference on the part of the parents towards the child. The letters of Talleyrand's mother, Alexandrine, to her own mother suggest, on the contrary, that she was concerned about the fate of Charles-Maurice.¹² One of the reasons why the privileged preferred wet nurses to live in or near Paris was their proximity; they could visit their children and observe their progress.¹³ Talleyrand's parents obviously did not have enough money to have the wet nurse live in, but there is nothing to indicate that, even if they were self-absorbed by their own lives, they did not love him. There are, nevertheless, contradictory indications about his parents' attitude towards their deformed child.

For example, Talleyrand was not brought back into the family home after weaning, at least not on a permanent basis. Instead, he was sent to live with his seventy-two-year-old great-grandmother (on his father's side), the Princesse de Chalais, at her chateau in the region of Perigord. One can speculate that Talleyrand's parents were worried about his health – it was generally believed that the country was a healthier place for children than the city – or perhaps they simply wanted to keep him out of the way. In any event, the period he spent at Chalais (about four years in all) made a profound impression on him.¹⁴ He later wrote that his great-grandmother was the first person in his family to show him any affection and that he loved her for it. The relationship between the boy and the old woman was soon cut short, however. At the age of eight it was time to get a formal education, so his parents decided to send him to the College d'Harcourt in Paris.

The feeling of parental rejection was reinforced back in Paris. When he arrived, after seventeen days on the road in a coach, he was met, not by his mother and father, but by a servant of the family who took him directly to the college. His parents, it seems, were too busy to greet him. In the same vein, when Talleyrand came down with small pox a few years later at the age of twelve, he was isolated in a house on the rue Saint Jacques where his parents, perhaps out of fear of contagion, never came to visit him.¹⁵ Even though he was to see his parents on a regular basis once he was in Paris (once a week, he was led to his parents' house for dinner), Talleyrand was excluded from the scene of'significant action', he was constrained to exist on the periphery. Consequently, as an adult Talleyrand would go so far as to deny his mother, whom he seemed to hold more responsible than his father, her existence, as he believed she had denied his: Talleyrand's act of marriage, dated 1802, states that his mother was dead. In fact, she died in 1809.

These childhood experiences, characterised by rejection and loss, helped shape the first of the many masks Talleyrand was lo assume throughout his life – feigned or real indifference. It was perhaps the only mask, however, which was to remain a constant.¹⁶ Eventually, the indifference he assumed as one among many protective devices became a dominant part of his personality: 'M. de Talleyrand', wrote Mine de Remusat, 'more false than anyone I knew, became accustomed to a host of habits deliberately adopted; he maintained them in every situation, as if they had the strength of true character.'¹⁷ Even Talleyrand speculated that the overwhelming sentiment of not being loved was the reason why he withdrew into himself and why he learned to hide his real feelings.¹⁸

The only consolation on arriving at the College d'Harcourt was to discover a relative and cousin, the son of the Comte de La Suze, whose lodgings Talleyrand was to share. This undoubtedly served as a social introduction into the group where he was soon to make a friend in the person of a boy two years his senior, August de Choiseul-Beaupre, nephew of the due de Choiseul, minister to Louis XV. The friendship was to last until Choiseul's death in 1817. Talleyrand proved himself to be an intelligent and perceptive student. His education, however, in no way prepared him for the public office he was to assume in later years. His tutors were mediocre and even inept, his education lacking, but Talleyrand eagerly immersed himself in work.

The choice of the College d'Harcourt was no coincidence. It was a preparatory school favoured by the nobility for the education of their sons, particularly those destined for the priesthood.¹⁹ In principle, as the oldest surviving son (the first-born son died in 1757, probably of small pox), Talleyrand would normally have been destined for a career in...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Foreign Ministers, 1787-1834
• Introduction: Revealing the 'Imaginary' Talleyrand
• 1 Cultivating an Ambition, 1754-89
• 2 The Revolutionary, 1789-95
• 3 In the Corridors of Power, 1796-99
• 4 The Devoted Servant, 1800-7
• 5 The Courtier in Opposition, 1807-14
• 6 The Reconstruction of Europe, 1814-15
• 7 The Political Outsider, 1815-30
• 8 The London Embassy, 1830-34
• Conclusion: Talleyrand: Cynical Opportunist or Agent of Change?
• Bibliographical essay
• Chronology
• Maps
• Index