The Pursuit of Laughter (52 page)

There is probably no such spur to ambition in a brilliantly clever child as being
utterly
neglected by his parents. Lady Randolph Churchill's letter to her son refusing to go down to Harrow for some school festivity, as he had implored her to do, (she was going to the races), must have filled him with a feverish desire to succeed in life.

In the nineteenth century the children of the rich were hidden in their nurseries, but at least the nursery was only at the end of a corridor which led to their parents' part of the house. Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord was sent miles away from home to be brought up by a poor woman in a cottage. He never saw his parents. As a baby, he fell off a chest of drawers and injured his foot; nothing was done about it, and he was lame for life. His uncle, who had the curiosity to seek him out, found him limping and dressed in rags and carried him off to his mother. He was four years old. She sent him away to his great-grandmother, an old lady who taught him the graces and manners of an
eighteenth-century
aristocrat, until at the age of eight he was sent to a boarding school in Paris.

Because of his infirmity, his parents (who never received him in their house) bestowed the family titles on his younger brother and forced Charles-Maurice to go into the Church, a career for which, to say the least of it, he had no vocation. In his memoirs he expresses deep bitterness about his upbringing.

Born in 1754, and destined to live in times of violent change, he grew up with three
passions
: politics, money, and women. He became a deacon at the age of 21, and, staying with his uncle the Archbishop of Rheims, he was present at the coronation of Louis XVI. Here he met for the first time the beautiful and high-born young ladies who were to become his bosom friends for life. He had a genius for friendship, and he was seductive and charming with his blue eyes, turned up nose and witty jokes. Ordained priest in 1779, he never allowed his vows of chastity to interfere with his gallantries, nor yet with his pursuit of riches.

He sensed that he was gifted for politics, and he was bent upon making enough money to be able to live not in comfort, but in luxury. ‘
Il ne faut jamais être pauvre diable
' [never be a poor sod], he said. He loathed his priest's soutane, and the measure of restraint it might put upon his vaulting ambition, for he realised that the days of the great political Cardinals, the Richelieus and Mazarins, were past. When Talleyrand was 34, he
was made Bishop of Autun. Before taking up his duties he went into retreat at Issy, to prepare himself for the sacred order. The Abbé Ducloux, his spiritual director,
complained
that in the midst of his exhortations to the Bishop-elect the door would fly open and frivolous
gens du monde
would rush in for a gossip. The whole point of the bishopric, for Talleyrand, was the large income that went with it.

He visited his See once and once only, and impressed the local clergy with his
brilliance
. When he had to celebrate Mass in the cathedral it was a slight disaster because he was so obviously unfamiliar with the service. Nevertheless he was elected by his clergy as deputy for the Etats Généraux at Versailles, for this was the fateful year 1789, and the King had been prevailed upon to call the Estates together.

The fall of the Bastille was the prelude to riots and troubles, and what was known as
la grande peur
[great terror] swept through the upper classes and even the royal family. Talleyrand asked to see the King; he had a plan for reforms which might have saved the throne. Instead, he was granted an interview with the Comte d'Artois, who put the plan before Louis. When the King refused to budge, the Comte d'Artois and the Comte de Provence decided to flee. This precipitate emigration of his two brothers did great harm to Louis XVI, whose own disastrously bungled attempt to get away two years later was the beginning of the end.

On the first anniversary of the fall of the Bastille it was decided to celebrate with a Fête and a Mass in the Champ-de-Mars. The Bishop of Autun was called upon for this bizarre ceremony. Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, sporting the tricolour, and a huge crowd assembled. Talleyrand, as he climbed the steps to the altar, set up in view of all, was heard to say: ‘
Pourvu qu'on ne me fasse pas rire
!' [hopefully they won't make me laugh] Lafayette, who was rather a prig, was deeply shocked. All his life, Talleyrand was a man of the centre. He now resigned his bishopric and took the oath of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy; for this, the Pope excommunicated him. He worked with Mirabeau and other moderates, and had Mirabeau lived it is possible that the monarchy might have been saved and the worst excesses of the Revolution avoided. Possible, but not probable. Armies of the central powers were massing on the frontiers of France, the King's brothers were with them, and they were in constant communication with Marie-Antoinette. War was
imminent
.

In 1792 Talleyrand was sent to London to attempt to secure English neutrality in the war. He was not well received by the Tory government, which looked upon the ex-bishop as a dangerous revolutionary, nor by his émigré countrymen who called him traitor,
renegade
, unfrocked priest, nor by the King and Queen. On the other hand, he was made much of by the Whigs, and welcomed by Charles James Fox and Lord Lansdowne. From this time onward he and Lord Lansdowne were close friends; they would doubtless have been pleased, could they have known that their descendants were to marry, and that the daughter of Talleyrand's natural son, the Comte de Flahaut, was destined to be a future Lady Lansdowne.

After his return to Paris the horrible massacre of the Swiss Guards at the Tuileries was followed by the imprisonment of the royal family in the Temple, and in September there were mass killings of aristocrats, priests and nuns in an orgy of bloodshed. Moderates like Talleyrand were in grave danger, and he decided to go back to London, though he waited for a passport signed by Danton, for he did not wish to be classed with the
émigrés
.

When Louis XVI was guillotined there was a great revulsion in England against
anyone
connected with the Revolution, and the ex-Bishop of Autun was ordered to leave the country. He sailed for America, where he attempted to improve his depleted fortunes by dealing in real estate. It was not a success, and when he heard the great news of the fall of Robespierre and the end of the Terror he made his way home as soon as he could: ‘If I must spend another year here I shall die,' he wrote to Madame de Staël. Die of boredom…

The false step taken by Robespierre which led him to the guillotine was one of those outdoor fêtes so beloved of revolutionaries. He proclaimed that it was in honour of an ‘
Etre Suprême
', and this was more than his colleagues, or the cynical Parisians, could
stomach
.

Germaine de Staël worked diligently among her political friends to ensure that Talleyrand could return safely, which, via Germany, he did in 1796. Then he waited and watched, for a chance to get into politics. He joined a political group, the Constitutional Club, made up of like-minded moderates, and quickly gained an ascendancy over the other members. He read learned papers to the Academies. He made friends with all the
influential
women in Paris: Mme de Staël, Mme Tallien, Joséphine de Beauharnais. Mme de Staël arranged for him to meet Barras, the most powerful man of the moment. Barras was greatly impressed, and before long named him Minister of Foreign Affairs. He was 43.

According to Benjamin Constant, who rode with him in the carriage when he went to take up his appointment, Talleyrand murmured: ‘
Immense fortune! Une fortune immense!
' [Good fortune, a large one.] Mr Bernard dismisses the story as ‘spurious'. But whether he said it or not, he undoubtedly thought that he could make vast sums of money as Minister, and make them he did. In two years he acquired twelve to fifteen million francs, taking
presents
and bribes, ‘
douceurs
' as he called them, from foreign powers. He made no secret of it, and perhaps the French felt they had suffered enough from a ‘sea-green incorruptible'.

All was flux. Looking at the Directors, Talleyrand knew that their government could not last. He decided to join forces with the brilliant young soldier who had conquered Italy, and regularly corresponded with him. After the coup d'état of the 18th Brumaire, he worked closely with Napoleon. These two extraordinary and dissimilar men, despite an antipathy, needed one another. Each admired the other's qualities, but they never became friends. When Napoleon flew into one of his rages it irritated him beyond endurance that Talleyrand was neither angry nor cowed, but stared into the middle distance maintaining a contemptuous silence. Even when Napoleon shouted that he was ‘shit in a silk stocking', Talleyrand's only comment was ‘
dommage qu'un si grand homme soit si mal élevé'
[so great, so badly raised]. Napoleon thought it essential that a
grand seigneur
should deal with foreign
courts and give
ton
[cachet] to his own court. It was one of his fatal mistakes.

During the Consulate Talleyrand was living openly, in his official residence, with a Mme Grand, a beautiful woman with an empty head and a disreputable past. Napoleon insisted that he either get rid of her or marry her. Although he had been
excommunicated
, Talleyrand had not been granted lay status by the Church. He now asked to be freed from his vows and allowed to marry, but this was more than the Pope was prepared to do. Talleyrand raked up such precedents as he could find, among them the case of Cesare Borgia, who although a Cardinal had been permitted to marry a French princess. It was pointed out that Cesare Borgia had never been ordained a priest, moreover the Pope, Alexander VI, was his father, which made all the difference. However, Napoleon twisted the Papal decree; he announced that Talleyrand had been secularised and granted the right to contract a marriage. Paris was stupefied. That the proud and disdainful aristocrat should marry Mme Grand seemed unbelievable. Mr Bernard thinks he probably did it from
indolence
, and in order ‘not to disturb a pattern of life which he found agreeable'.

Meanwhile Napoleon pursued his conquests all over Europe. There seemed to be no end to the wars. At St Helena, Napoleon admitted he had made two mistakes: the
campaigns
against Spain and Russia. Talleyrand, moderate as always, was the advocate of peace, and of the natural or ethnic frontiers between nations. He knew that the defeat of one country by another was never final, but engendered first resistance and then another war. Napoleon was unconvinced; after crowning himself Emperor of the French he crowned himself King of Italy, and bestowed kingdoms upon his brothers and his
marshals
. Although heavily engaged in Spain he invaded Russia, in the disastrous campaign which led to his downfall. Long before this, Talleyrand had perceived that while Napoleon ruled there could be no peace, and he intrigued with the Russians, the Prussians and the Austrians to encompass his defeat. In his memoirs, Talleyrand seeks to justify this odious and reprehensible treachery by saying that Napoleon was bleeding France and Europe to death.

After the departure of the Emperor and the return of Louis XVIII from his long exile, Talleyrand was sent to Vienna to represent the people of France at the Congress. He took with him his last love, Dorothea de Courland, wife of his nephew Edmond de Périgord. Talleyrand's brilliance, and the persistence which ensured that he sat as an equal with Metternich, Wellington and the other delegates, were admirable; often he imposed his will on his country's victorious enemies. France was indeed fortunate to possess such a man at such a moment.

However, as the Prince de Ligne said, ‘
Le Congrès danse, mais il ne marche pas
' [The Congress dances but doesn't budge], and when Napoleon escaped from Elba a great deal remained to be done. The events of the hundred days, and Waterloo, made Talleyrand's task harder than ever. That he succeeded in keeping France's natural frontiers was a
measure
of his success. Not for the first time, nor for the last, representatives of the European powers were astonished at the ignorance displayed by the English in the elements of
history
and geography, an ignorance which has continued to our own day and which has accounted, in part, for the mistakes made by the Anglo-Saxons when they have taken a hand in re-drawing the map of our continent.

After the second restoration, Talleyrand was out of office for several years, though he had a position at Court. He and Dorothea (now Duchesse de Dino) lived at his hotel on the corner of the rue St Florentin, and spent their summers at his grand castle of Valençay and at Rochecotte, her delightful house near the Loire. In 1820 a daughter, Pauline, was born. Talleyrand loved her tenderly, and was generally thought to have been her father.

Louis XVIII loaded him and his family with titles and honours, but it was only after the abdication of Charles X that Talleyrand was brought once more into public life, when Louis Philippe appointed him ambassador to London. He and Dorothea spent four years in London. They made the embassy a sparkling centre of fashionable society, with the best food and the best talk at their table.

At the age of 80, Prince de Talleyrand retired, and he and the Duchesse de Dino resumed their life between Paris and Valençay. London friends paid them visits at the Château; Lady Granville enjoyed herself and said it was like an English country house. Mme de Lieven, on the other hand, a difficult guest, was bored to tears.

When his old wife, from whom he had been separated for so many years, died at last, Talleyrand began to consider a reconciliation with the Church. Mme de Dino and Pauline, now a pious young lady of eighteen, never stopped urging him to sign a letter to the Pope making his submission to Rome. He finally did so, on his death bed, to their extreme
satisfaction
. Jean Orieux, author of a recent biography of Talleyrand, describes the scene when, after making his confession, he was to receive the last sacraments. The abbé was about to anoint his palms, but the prince clenched his fists and held them out, saying: ‘Do not forget, Monsieur l'abbé, that I am a Bishop.' More than forty people were present at his death, and all Paris knew what had happened between the abbé and the prince. ‘
Après avoir roulé tout le monde, il a fini par rouler le bon Dieu
' [After taking advantage of the world, he ended it by taking advantage of God], people said.