"Talleyrand" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Arnold to Earl Barcarras, one of Burgoyne's officers at Bemis's Heights. "Sire," said the proud old Earl as he turned from Arnold, refusing his hand, "I know General Arnold, and abominate traitors." When Talleyrand was about to come to America, he sought letters of introduction from Arnold, but received the reply, "I was born in America; I lived there to the prime of my life; but, alas! I can call no man in ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... as breathed to the memory of Desaix, never were uttered at all.—They stand in the same category of theatrical inventions as the cry of the foundering Vengeur, as the vaunt of General Cambronne at Waterloo, "La Garde meurt, mais ne se rend pas," as the repartees of Talleyrand.] ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... French ambassadors for the lenity they had not met with at the hands of Austria and Prussia.—The events that took place at Rastadt are of a description little calculated to flatter the patriotic feelings of the German historian. The soul of the congress was Charles Maurice Talleyrand-Perigord, at one time a bishop, at the present period minister of the French republic. His colloquy with the German ambassadors resembled that of the fox with the geese, and he attuned their discords with truly ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... of Talleyrand that he who had not lived before 1789 had never known the full charm of life. Germaine Necker grew up in the last bright flush of a society which had, perhaps, as many fascinations as any that the world has known. Her mother, however, though she occupied a prominent position ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... place, and they entertained there as lavishly as the Adamses before them. Burr had a special affection for the French, and his house was always hospitably open to the expatriated aristocrats during the French Revolution. Volney stopped with him, and Talleyrand, and Louis Philippe himself. Among the Americans his most constant guests were Dr. Hosack, the Clintons, and, oddly enough, Alexander Hamilton! Hamilton, one imagines, found Burr personally interesting, though he had small use for his politics, and warned people against him as being that dangerous ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... myself, that if I had to choose between two physicians—one who did not know whether a whale is a fish or not, and could not tell gentian from ginger, but did understand the applications of the institutes of medicine to his art; while the other, like Talleyrand's doctor, "knew everything, even a little physic"—with all my love for breadth of culture, I ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... traces that another work has been made use of, more or less, as an aid in the compilation, we might almost say, as a framework to fill up. This is the itinerary of the German knight William of Boldensele, written in 1336 at the desire of Cardinal Talleyrand de Perigord. A cursory comparison of this with Mandeville leaves no doubt of the fact that the latter has followed its thread, using its suggestions, and on many subjects its expressions, though digressing and expanding on every side, and too often eliminating ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... Hulot, sighing. "Those clowns of Directors have managed to quarrel with all the men who could sail the ship. Bernadotte, Carnot, all of them, even Talleyrand, have deserted us. There's not a single good patriot left, except friend Fouche, who holds 'em through the police. There's a man for you! It was he who warned me of a coming insurrection; and here we are, sure enough, ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... at Vienna were the Emperor Alexander of Russia, Metternich, who represented the interests of the Austrian house of Habsburg, and Talleyrand, the erstwhile bishop of Autun, who had managed to live through the different changes in the French government by the sheer force of his cunning and his intelligence and who now travelled to the Austrian capital to save for his country whatever could be saved from the Napoleonic ruin. ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... said) recognise the greatness of M. Thiers. For the many gibes to which his lively talents and successful career exposed him, he had his revenge. His keen glance and incisive reasoning generally warned him of the probable fate of Dynasties and Ministries. Like Talleyrand, whom he somewhat resembled in versatility, opportunism, and undying love of France, he might have said that he never deserted a Government before it deserted itself. He foretold the fall of Louis Philippe under the reactionary Guizot Ministry as, later ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... him on the weak side, for like many young men coming to the Bar, and before they had been tried and found wanting, he flattered himself he was a fellow of unusual quickness and penetration. They knew nothing of Sherlock Holmes in those days, but there was a good deal said of Talleyrand. And if you could have caught Frank off his guard, he would have confessed with a smirk that, if he resembled any one, it was the Marquis de Talleyrand-Perigord. It was on the occasion of Archie's first absence that this interest took root. It was vastly deepened when Kirstie resented his ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the place of execution, was the scene of the tragic death of the young Henri de Talleyrand, Comte de Chalais, executed by Louis XIII. for his part in the conspiracy which bears his name. Its object was the death of the Cardinal, and to place the crown on the head of the feeble Gaston, who was celebrating his marriage at Nantes at the time that his victim Chalais was paying the penalty ...
— Brittany & Its Byways • Fanny Bury Palliser
... you must admire Rooney with me as he receives, seats, manipulates, and chaffs his guests. He is twenty-nine. He has Wellington's nose, Dante's chin, the cheek-bones of an Iroquois, the smile of Talleyrand, Corbett's foot work, and the poise of an eleven-year-old East Side Central Park Queen of the May. He is assisted by a lieutenant known as Frank, a pudgy, easy chap, swell-dressed, who goes among the tables ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... descendants of the great Frankfort family of Rothschild. He had been attached to the German Embassy in London before the war. The one assigned to the unit for the East front was Count Helie de Talleyrand. Both of these young men spoke English perfectly and were chosen for that reason, and both have many friends ...
— My Four Years in Germany • James W. Gerard
... the danger of such a government is, to my mind, very striking." The leader of the Federal party was Alexander Hamilton, the ablest constructive intellect among the statesmen of our Revolutionary era, of whom Talleyrand said that he "had never known his equal," whom Guizot classed with "the men who have best known the vital principles and fundamental conditions of a government worthy of its name and mission." Hamilton's speech On the Expediency ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... carries in his presence a power which spares him the necessity of resenting insult; for insult sneaks away from his look. It is not mere "pluck"; for pluck also comes by fits and starts, and can be disconnected from the other elements of character. A tradesman once had the pluck to demand of Talleyrand, at the time that trickster-statesman was at the height of his power, when he intended to pay his bill; but he was instantly extinguished by the impassive insolence of Talleyrand's answer,—"My faith, how curious ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... to believe that under existing conditions no one of sufficient prominence cared to make the race, especially after President Adams had published the correspondence of the American envoys, disclosing Talleyrand's demand for $240,000 as a gift and $6,000,000 as a loan, with the threat that in the event of failure to comply, "steps will be taken immediately to ravage the coast of the United States by French frigates from St. Domingo." The display of such ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... conciliation untried to avert the calamities of war. He received Lord Whitworth, the English embassador in Paris, with great distinction. The most delicate attentions were paid to this lady, the Duchess of Dorset. Splendid entertainments were given at the Tuileries and at St. Cloud in their honor. Talleyrand consecrated to them all the resources of his courtly and elegant manners. The two Associate Consuls, Cambaceres and Lebrum, were also unwearied in attentions. Still all these efforts on the part of Napoleon to secure friendly ...
— Napoleon Bonaparte • John S. C. Abbott
... might be said to realize the ideal of the role, but his morale was founded on the theories of the Bonaparte school. De Grammont tells us how he cheated the greasy cattle-dealer; De Montrond makes us laugh when he relates how in his tour of mediation with Prince Talleyrand he was wont to take bribes from two rival princes, each willing to pay a heavy sum that the other might be baffled; but neither De Grammont nor De Montrond would ever have consented to soil his hands with such vile commercial ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... only have been necessary for Metternich, Rumyantsev, or Talleyrand, between a levee and an evening party, to have taken proper pains and written a more adroit note, or for Napoleon to have written to Alexander: "My respected Brother, I consent to restore the duchy to the Duke of Oldenburg"—and there ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... NIL."—Were the Temporal Power in existence, the LORD MAYOR, in proposing the toast of the POPE before that of the QUEEN, would have been guilty of a blunder, and we all know, on TALLEYRAND'S authority, how far worse is a blunder than a crime. But the POPE, being no longer "two single gentlemen rolled into one," but simply, as it might be set down in a Play-bill of Dramatis Personae, "First Bishop," and also by his own style and title, "Servus Servorum," the health ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 29, 1893 • Various
... about the pit tier (then the fashionable part of the house) were the Duke and Duchess of Wellington, the Marquess and Marchioness of Granby, Lord and Lady Brougham, and the Baroness de Rothschild, with the Belgian Minister, Count Esterhazy, and Baron Talleyrand. Even the occupants of the pit had to accept an official intimation that "only black trousers will be allowed." Her Majesty's had a standard, and Lumley insisted on ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... Doubt.—Remember Talleyrand's advice, "If you are in doubt whether to write a letter or not—don't!" The advice applies to many doubts in life besides that of ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... at Marengo by a brilliant charge; the ranks applauded under fire and in the thick of the carnage. That heroic charge was not even mentioned in the bulletin. Napoleon's coolness toward Kellermann, Fouche's fall, and Talleyrand's disgrace were all attributable to the same cause; it is the ingratitude of a Charles VII., or a ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac
... arranged under chapters; also with Joseph, King of Naples and afterwards King of Spain. It is easy to select other chapters not less instructive: one on foreign affairs (letters to M. de Champagny, M de Talleyrand, and M. de Bassano); another on the finances (letters to M. Gaudin and to M. Mollien); another on the navy (letters to Admiral Decres); another on military administration (letters to General Clarke); another on the affairs of the Church (letters to M. ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... Napoleon I. one day entered a roadside inn, and called for breakfast. There was nothing in the house but eggs and cider (which Napoleon detested). "What shall we do?" said the emperor to Talleyrand. In answer to this, the grand ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... Albert Rocca, and yet why did she still cling to Benjamin's outworn affection, and then, with naive inconsistency, declare that he had not been the supreme object of her devotion, but that Narbonne, Talleyrand and Mathieu de Montmorency were the three men whom she had most ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton
... a minister, and his habitual residence in Paris, had brought him in touch with the leading statesmen of France. He was intimately acquainted with Louis Philippe, with Talleyrand, with Guizot, with Thiers, and most of the French men and French women whose names were bruited in the early part ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... Neither is religion itself. We were not sent into the world to be happy, but to be right; at least, poor creatures that we are, as right as we can be; and we must be content with being right, and not happy. For I fear, or rather I hope, that most of us are not capable of carrying out Talleyrand's recipe for perfect happiness on earth—namely, a hard heart and a good digestion. Therefore, as our hearts are, happily, not always hard, and our digestions, unhappily, not always good, we ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... women whom Balzac met soon after he began to acquire literary fame was the Duchesse de Dino, who was married to Talleyrand's nephew in 1809. ...
— Women in the Life of Balzac • Juanita Helm Floyd
... consisting in the "perfect enjoyment of life according to the laws of our physical and moral organization:" and the forcible views, well adapted to the temper of the times, and the vivid style of writing, attracted much attention. When he was emperor, he was one day conversing with Talleyrand about this essay, and the latter, a few days after, took occasion to present it to him, having procured it from the archives of the academy at Lyons. The emperor took it, and after reading a few pages, threw it into the fire, saying, "One can never observe every thing." Talleyrand had not taken the ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... exiles who at this time were moving in Philadelphia society gave a cosmopolitan character to the city, and lent to it the air of foreign capitals. Talleyrand, Beaumais, Vicomte de Noailles and his brother-in-law Lafayette, Volney, the Duc de Liancourt, and General Moreau, and at a later date Joseph Bonaparte and Murat, were but a few of the distinguished members of the ...
— The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741-1850 • Albert Smyth
... with feigned awe, getting to his feet at sight of the two. Then, to his comrades, "Children, children, off with your hats! Here is Monsieur Talleyrand, if I'm not mistaken. On to your feet, mealman, and dust your stomach. Lajeunesse, wipe your face with your leather. Duck your ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... society in London, and knows everybody for whom one cares to ask. He is a perfect mine of rich memories. He pleased me mightily, and made me think of Dr. Johnson. Rose sat on his knee, and gazed with unwinking, earnest eyes into his face. He said he never saw anything like it except the gaze of Talleyrand (whom he knew very well). He said that Talleyrand undertook to look at a man and not allow a man to look into him,—he always fixed such a glance as that upon one. Imperturbably, baby continued to gaze, without any ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... frenzied stories of hotels closing and prices soaring. None of which happened or had any chance of happening. Food was never better, and today we have fruit that melts in the mouth; fish that swims in the sauce, the lack of which Talleyrand deplored in England; little green string beans that no other country produces or ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... the residence of Count d'Antraigues, stand the premises and grounds long occupied by another distinguished emigrant, the Marquis de Chabanes, a relation of the notorious and versatile Talleyrand. This marquis here pursued two speculations, by which, at the time, he attracted attention and applause. In the first he undertook to give useful body and consistency to the dust of coals, of which thousands of tons, before their application to gas-lights, were annually ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips
... gradually to sequester, the profits which Dick had hitherto monopolized, that no wonder Mr. Avenel thought competition should have its limits. "The tongue touches where the tooth aches," as Dr. Riccabocca would tell us. By little and little our Juvenile Talleyrand (I beg the elder great man's pardon) wormed out from Dick this grievance, and in the grievance discovered the origin of Dick's connection ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... favourites. Their wrath against the allied Powers was unappeasable. How often have I heard them thunder out that Bonny would have wiped Wellington and his myrmidons off the field but for the treachery of Fouche, Talleyrand, and his own generals (Fouche in particular). Wellington's prayer for "night or Bluecher" was always used in mitigation of what might be called an unpatriotic opinion. I have listened to the diatribes ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... begin, my dear Maud, to think that there is no use in trying to control events, and that things often turn out best, and most exactly to our wishes, by being left quite to themselves. I think it was Talleyrand who praised the talent of waiting so much. In high spirits, and with my head brimful of plans, I remain, dearest Maud, ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... Madame du Hausset mistakes, through ignorance, but never does she wilfully mislead, like Madame Campan, nor keep back a secret, like Madame Roland, and MM. Bezenval and Ferreires; nor is she ever betrayed by her vanity to invent, like the Due de Lauzun, MM. Talleyrand, Bertrand de Moleville, Marmontel, Madame d'Epinay, etc. When Madame du Hausset is found in contradiction with other memoirs of the same period, we should never hesitate to give her account the preference. ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 1 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... Talleyrand, who made the above mocking assertion, was one of the closest observers of human nature who have ever lived. And yet what he said in a spirit of uncommon hatred of his fellow-beings is really another way of saying the exact truth—that success comes only after so many trials and disappointments ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern
... you actually wish a boon companion? You, Baron, the modern Talleyrand, the repository of three emperors' secrets? My dear fellow, I nearly ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston
... revolution.... I insisted ... that the manifest absurdity of the view to English feasibility could make no difference to a gentleman; that as to our secure tenure of our mutton-chop and spinach in London or in Boston, the soul might quote Talleyrand, 'Messieurs, je n'en vois pas la necessite.'" In other words, Emerson laid before his great English friends a programme, as nearly as might then be, of philosophical anarchism, and naturally it met with no more acceptance than it would if now presented to the most respectable of his American ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells
... substance and history of which constitutes his Seventh Letter to the People of the United States, Chapter XXXIII. of the present volume. He sent the articles of his proposed international Association to the Minister of Foreign Relations, Talleyrand, who responded with a cordial letter. The articles of "Maritime Compact," translated into French by Nicolas Bouneville, were, in 1800, sent to all the Ministers of Foreign Affairs in Europe, and to the ambassadors ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... active exercise, and of independent habits, has revolutionised the course of many lives. Some amusements which may in themselves be but little valued are wisely cultivated as helping men to move more easily in different spheres of society, or as providing a resource for old age. Talleyrand was not wholly wrong in his reproach to a man who had never learned to play whist: 'What an unhappy old age you are preparing ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... days of the Fronde, Marie Anne de la Tremouille must early have observed how greatly beauty can aid ambition, and how, by tact, endowments the most frivolous may be brought to the service of interests the most serious and complicated. Married in 1650 to the Prince de Chalais, of the house of Talleyrand, she conceived for her young husband the sole passion to be noted throughout a life in which, especially during its later period, love figured only in the dullest of hues. This marriage took place during the wars of the second Fronde, and at an epoch when a rage ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... January 1800 by the political verses 'Talleyrand to Lord Grenville', heralded by a letter as good as, if ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... upon a dish, with the British crown thrown in as an entremet. A very striking print of the same year shows the heroic "Charlotte Corday upon her Trial" (July 17, 1793), and a figure very like Gillray's usual rendering of Talleyrand, with two other judges, upon the bench beneath the cap of Liberty. "The Blessings of Peace and the Curses of War," with its inscription—"Such Britain was, such Flanders, Spain and Holland now is (sic); from such a sad reverse, O ...
— The Eighteenth Century in English Caricature • Selwyn Brinton
... artist, and the soul of the man is revealed in his work—not in his hat, nor yet his bamboo cane, nor his long black coat, much less the language which he uses, Talleyrand-like, to conceal his thought. Art has been his wife, his children and his religion. Art has said to him, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me," and he has ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... timid, well-meaning statesmen who now found themselves pitted against Napoleon, and Napoleon's Minister, Talleyrand; against the greatest warrior and lawgiver, and against one of the greatest diplomats, of modern times; against two men, moreover, whose sodden lack of conscience was but heightened by the contrast with their brilliant ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt
... religion of Theo-philanthropy which seems in fact to have been an organized Rousseauism. He wished to impose it on France but finding that in spite of his passionate endeavours he made but little progress he sought the advice of Talleyrand. "I am not surprised" said Talleyrand "at the difficulty you experience. It is no easy matter to introduce a new religion. But I will tell you what I recommend you to do. I recommend you to be crucified and to rise again on the third day." We cannot say whether Lareveillere ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... base twenty-five feet high, stood the altar of the country. Three hundred priests, in white surplices and tricoloured scarfs, covered the steps, and were to officiate. The Bishop of Anton" [afterwards Prince Talleyrand] began the mass. Divine service over, La Fayette received the orders of the King, who handed to him the form of the oath. La Fayette carried it to the altar. At this moment all the banners waved, every sabre glistened. ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... he might arrive at an informal understanding with Bonaparte at Paris before he proceeded to Amiens. But he was offended by Bonaparte's manner, and, dreading to be pitted against so subtle a diplomatist as Talleyrand, he left Paris before anything was accomplished, and arrived at Amiens on November 30. There France was represented by Joseph Bonaparte, the first consul's elder brother, and the negotiator of Luneville. At Amiens, ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... dispatch concerning the habeas corpus and the arrests of dubious, if not treacherous, Englishmen. Perhaps Seward imagines himself to be a Cardinal Richelieu, with Lincoln for Louis XIII. (provided he knows as much history), or may be he has the ambition to be considered a Talleyrand or Metternich of diplomacy. But if any, he has some very, very faint similarity with Alberoni. He easily outwits here men around him; most are politicians as he; but he never can outwit the statesmen of Europe. ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... and the ball terminated with a CHAINE DIABOLIQUE and a CANCAN D'ENFER at seven in the morning. (Morning service—'Ere the fresh lawns appeared, under the opening eyelids of the Morn.-') Here is the menu:- 'Consomme de volaille e la Bagration: 16 hors-d'oeuvres varies. Bouchees e la Talleyrand. Saumons froids, sauce Ravigote. Filets de boeuf en Bellevue, timbales milanaises, chaudfroid de gibier. Dindes truffees. Pates de foies gras, buissons d'ecrevisses, salades venetiennes, gelees blanches aux ...
— Sesame and Lilies • John Ruskin
... my worthy Slade. Talleyrand said that, but you never heard of him. Excessive suspicion is not a good thing. It was your chief fault as an overseer, although I willingly pay tribute to your energy and attention to detail. This business ...
— The Rock of Chickamauga • Joseph A. Altsheler
... the Golden Age. It is difficult to associate it with one's fancies of the noblest manhood, and Miss Muloch reasonably defies the human imagination to portray Shakspeare or Dante with pipe in mouth. Goethe detested it; so did Napoleon, save in the form of snuff, which he apparently used on Talleyrand's principle, that diplomacy was impossible without it. Bacon said, "Tobacco-smoking is a secret delight serving only to steal away men's brains." Newton abstained from it: the contrary is often claimed, but thus says his biographer, Brewster,—saying ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... reverence. His fine, noble face, his air of angelic kindness, his soft, yet sonorous voice, produced a deep impression. Josephine was especially moved by the presence of the Vicar of Christ. After resting a few moments in his private apartment, to which he had been conducted by M. de Talleyrand, High Chamberlain, by General Duroc, Grand Marshal of the Palace, and by M. de Segur, Grand Master of Ceremonies, the Pope paid a visit to Napoleon, who, after an interview of about half an hour, conducted him back to the hall that was at that ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... twenty-fourth of September, the Emperor left Paris. The Empress and Talleyrand went with him as far as Strasburg. On the second of October, hostilities began at Guntzburg. Four days afterward the French army crossed the Danube. On the eighth of the month, Murat won the battle of Wertingen, capturing Count Auffenberg, with 2000 prisoners. On ...
— Notable Events of the Nineteenth Century - Great Deeds of Men and Nations and the Progress of the World • Various
... and prudent. Indeed, I never saw him appear to so much advantage. We walked from his "den" to the dining- room, where the guests were waiting for breakfast, through his bedroom. A fine Louis XVI. bed from the garde-meuble was in the alcove. I pointed, and asked: "Le lit de Talleyrand?" "Le lit de Dagobert!" At our meeting on the 20th we discussed fully the Danube question, and also that of Newfoundland, in which I always took a deep interest, but with regard to which I was far from agreement with the French. [Footnote: The Danube question was left unsettled ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... “biographical series,” and keeps his own special bevy of recording angels writing against time and against each other. “Thirty years,” said one whose life-wisdom was so perfect as to be in a world like ours almost an adequate substitute for the morality he lacked—Talleyrand. ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... was a well-patronized and fashionable inn during the first quarter of the present century. Among the distinguished men who were its guests were Louis Philippe, Count Volney, Baron Humboldt, Fulton (the inventor), Talleyrand, Jerome Bonaparte, Washington Irving, General St. Clair, Lorenzo Dow (the eccentric preacher), Francis S. Key (author of the "Star Spangled Banner"), with John Randolph and scores of other Congressmen, who used to ride to and from the Capitol in a large stagecoach with seats ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... that, had not Scott been lame, he might have fought all through the Peninsular War, and had his breast covered with medals; but we should probably have had none of those works of his which have made his name immortal, and shed so much glory upon his country. Talleyrand also was kept out of the army, for which he had been destined, by his lameness; but directing his attention to the study of books, and eventually of men, he at length took rank amongst the ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... September is the time When we'll launch her from the strand, And our cannon load and prime With tribute due to Talleyrand." ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... remorseless gibbeting of the follies and scandals of the Court than to political attack or personal persecution; but other circumstances of a more serious, because of an international, character have now and again attended the publication of a caricature. For example, like the Hi-Talleyrand episode, Leech's famous cartoon of "Cock-a-doodle-do!" (February 13th, 1858) promised at one time—less directly, it is true—to bring unpleasant consequences in its train. In the spirit of the Prince de Joinville, ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... exiles came to this new-country home, and among those who found their way to Otsego Hall was the Marquis de Talleyrand, who was pleased to write an acrostic on Miss Cooper, then seventeen. The famous Frenchman's record, in part, of this visit was "Otsego n'est pas gai." Compared to the France of Talleyrand's day this record was true. The Otsego Herald's motto ...
— James Fenimore Cooper • Mary E. Phillips
... National Assembly resumed its sittings. Mirabeau's place, left vacant, reminded each gazer of the impossibility of again filling it; consternation was impressed on every countenance in the tribunes, and a profound silence pervaded the meeting. M. de Talleyrand announced to the Assembly a posthumous address of Mirabeau. They would hear him though dead. The weakened echo of his voice seemed to return to his country from the depths of the vaults of the Pantheon. The reading was ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... Evidently the poses of Talleyrand were not worth one hundred cents on that dollar. But diplomacy is dexterous. The artistic temperament of Mr. Peters lifted him by the straps of his congress gaiters and set him on new ground. He called up a look of desperate melancholy to ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... of tale, indeed, may be pretty fairly paralleled with the ordinary anecdote terminating in a repartee or an Irish bull. Such a retort as the famous "je ne vois pas la necessite" we have all seen attributed to Talleyrand, to Voltaire, to Henri Quatre, to an anonymous judge, and so on. But this variety does not in any way make it more likely that the thing was never said at all. It is highly likely that it was really said by somebody unknown. It is highly likely that it was really ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... believe their ink-stained hands could hold the general's baton as well as the pen. They want to dictate to us a new war from Paris, without knowing whether we are able to bear it or not. They ask us to conclude peace with Austria without ceding Venice to her as compensation for Belgium. Yes, Talleyrand is senseless enough to ask me to revolutionize the whole of Italy once more, so that the Italians may expel their princes, and that liberty may prevail throughout the entire peninsula. In order to give them liberty, they want me to carry first ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... or dismemberment; the second of which I firmly believe to be an absolute fabrication and forgery; and in neither of which, even as they are represented, any reason has been assigned for believing that this country had any share. Even M. Talleyrand himself was sent by the constitutional King of the French, after the period when that concert, which is now charged, must have existed, if it existed at all, with a letter from the King of France, expressly thanking His Majesty for the neutrality which ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... My dear Talleyrand! I am sorry to send For you out of your bed; but you know you're my friend: No secret I hide from your generous breast; This invasion is always invading my rest: My soldiers, poor devils! are ready ...
— Poems • Sir John Carr
... at a dinner-party passing near where Talleyrand was standing, he looked up and significantly exclaimed, "Ah!" In the course of the dinner, the lady having asked him across the table, why on her entrance he said "Oh!" Talleyrand, with a grave, self-vindicatory look, answered,—"Madame, je n'ai pas dit ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... deepest character, and worthy of Talleyrand, Metternich or Nesselrode, if we are to rely on the eloquent speech of Lamoriciere in the ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg
... moreover, did not understand this psychology any better. Talleyrand wrote him that "Spain would receive his soldiers as liberators." It received them as beasts of prey. A psychologist acquainted with the hereditary instincts of the Spanish race would have ...
— The Crowd • Gustave le Bon
... more of concentration, he had a less abounding energy than Sydney Smith. His character was an odd and elegant miniature, while that of Sydney Smith was voluminous. He loved a particular sort of men, and that sort was honest men; while the merry divine could deal with politicians and even with Talleyrand himself. Sydney was playing a part in the Whig party, among the advocates of reforms; the sympathies of Elia went for the reform of the United Kingdom, and of the universe, too, if possible,—but he was more interested in a profound thought, brought forth from the struggling breast of Hazlitt, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... their determination to keep on fighting. The sight of shattered churches, of wrecked dwellings, of mangled women and dead babies, does not terrify or dismay a people: it infuriates them. In the words of Talleyrand: "It is worse than a crime; it ...
— Italy at War and the Allies in the West • E. Alexander Powell
... a subject of a wholly different kind. The result was that, while Dissenters peacefully agitated for permission to act as citizens, they were represented as endeavouring to despoil the Church, after the fashion of Talleyrand and Mirabeau. A work by a Manchester merchant, Thomas Walker, reveals the influence of this question on the political activities of the time. The Nonconformists of that town and county hoped to gain a majority ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... he devoted his entire attention to his guests, he made conversation and he led it into the channels he desired it to follow. Then, when the psychological moment had come, he acted with the skill of a Talleyrand. No one but he knew precisely how Bob's proposal was couched, whence it originated, or by what subtlety the victim had been induced to make it. As a matter of fact, it was no proposal, and not even Bob himself suspected how his ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... to Philadelphia in the morning, You mustn't take my stories for a guide. There's little left indeed of the city you will read of, And all the folk I write about have died. Now few will understand if you mention Talleyrand, Or remember what his cunning and his skill did. And the cabmen at the wharf do not know Count Zinnendorf, Nor the ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling
... of wine and water, as was his custom. He took the greatest pains that every outward arrangement should bear the marks of composure and decency,—a care which may certainly incline one to fancy, that the heroism of his last moments may have had effect, in part, for its aim, and that, as Talleyrand said of Mirabeau, "he dramatized his death." But, it must be remembered, that in those days, it was the custom and the aim of the state prisoners to go to the scaffold gallantly; and thus virtuous men and true penitents walked to their doom attired with ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson
... it. He had arrived in Paris two days before the directory knew anything about it; and in the meantime he had been consulting with chiefs of parties and officers of the army as to what step should be taken. Talleyrand and the Abbe Sieyes gave his councils the benefit of all their abilities; and a plan of attack upon the constitution was soon agreed upon. The Council of Ancients were easily persuaded that a new constitution was wanting; but the Council of Five Hundred vowed that ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... energy," and who talked with characteristic exaggeration of Louis Napoleon and of the President of the French nation. Landor "detested" the one and "loathed" the other; and as he did not accept Talleyrand's ideal of the use of language, he by no means concealed these sentiments. Mazzini immediately sought the Brownings, his "pale, spiritual face" shining, and his "intense eyes full of melancholy illusions." He brought ...
— The Brownings - Their Life and Art • Lilian Whiting
... more dazzled had he guessed that he figured not altogether as a spectator in the sweeping and magnificent conception of the new Talleyrand. Sam had no partner for the cotillon. If Maurice was to be absent from that festivity—as it began to seem he might be—Penrod needed a male friend to take care of Miss Rennsdale and he believed he saw his way to compel Mr. Williams to be that male friend. For this he relied largely upon the ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... enough of these dodgers who in turn prostrate themselves before the scaffold of Robespierre, the boots of the Emperor, and the umbrella of Louis Philippe—a rabble who always yield allegiance to the person that flings bread into their mouths. They are always crying out against the venality of Talleyrand and Mirabeau; but the messenger down below there would sell his country for fifty centimes if they'd only promise to fix a tariff of three francs on his walk. Ah! what a wretched state of affairs! We ought to set the four ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... gaily, "Talleyrand will scarcely trouble to run now. He is so stout and dignified. He is afraid that the country dogs should see him. It is Paris. Paris ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman
... the famous decree, by which Prince de Talleyrand and his illustrious accomplices were sent before the courts of justice, was issued at Lyons in the first burst of a fit of vengeance. It will be seen, that it was the result of a plan simply political: and the noble resistance, ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... become ridiculous, you will be dead. You will become a foregone conclusion, one of those men condemned inevitably to do one and the same thing. You will come to signify folly as inseparably as M. de La Fayette signifies America; M. de Talleyrand, diplomacy; Desaugiers, song; M. de Segur, romance. If they once forsake their own line people no longer attach any value to what they do. So, foppery, my friend Paul, is the sign of an incontestable power over the female folk. A man who is loved by ...
— The Girl with the Golden Eyes • Honore de Balzac
... by an additional spice. It is not given to every man to employ the services of a political Russian lady-spy in his love-affairs! As he thought of it in all its bearings, he felt that he was almost a Talleyrand, or, at any ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... editor. He took charge of the Constitutionel, and plunged into the heat and strife of party politics. His witty, hornet-like nature fitted him well for the position. He attained great influence and power, and the great men of the time, even Talleyrand, came to him, while he exclaimed bombastically and blasphemously, "Suffer little children to ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett
... that far land of Used-to-Be, Strange folk were known to you and me,— Mowgh and Puck, and all their kin, Launcelot, and Huckleberry Finn, Wise Talleyrand, brave Ivanhoe, Juliet, and Lear, and Prospero, Alleyne and his White Company, And ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... they hear of these tragi-comedies of life, refuse to believe them. They take the side of human nature and fine sentiments; they declare that these things do not exist. But Talleyrand said a fine thing, my dear fellow: "All things happen." Truly, things happen under our very noses which are more amazing than this domestic plot of yours; but society has an interest in denying them, and in declaring itself calumniated. Often these ...
— The Marriage Contract • Honore de Balzac
... It is told of Talleyrand that one fatal day, three hours after midnight, he suddenly interrupted a game of cards in the Duchesse de Luynes' house by laying down his watch on the table and asking the players whether the Prince de Conde had any ...
— The Collection of Antiquities • Honore de Balzac
... South. This Miss Olier seems to have realized all one's ideas of the handsome, sweet-tempered, high-minded Southrons of la belle France. To her Sydney Smith traced his native gaiety; her beauty did not, certainly, pass to him as well as to some of her other descendants. When Talleyrand was living in England as an emigrant, on intimate terms with Robert Smith, Sydney's brother, or Bobus, as he was called by his intimates, the conversation turned one day on hereditary beauty. Bobus spoke of his mother's personal perfections: 'Ah, mon ami,' ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... would inculcate the most thorough dissimulation. "Men of the world," says he, in one of the papers of the "Bee," "maintain that the true end of speech is not so much to express our wants as to conceal them." How often is this quoted as one of the subtle remarks of the fine witted Talleyrand! ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... was thrown into prison and loaded with chains. Mrs. M'Donnell—who was but sixteen—escaped to the British fleet disguised as a midshipman, carrying a basket of vegetables in which her baby was hidden. (Mrs. M'Donnell subsequently married the duc de Talleyrand-Perigord and died at Florence in 1880). Among later residents commemorated is Edward Lloyd, who was the first person to show the value of esparto grass for the manufacture of paper, and thus started an industry which is one of the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... April, 1838, M. de Talleyrand, feeling his end draw near, thought it necessary to act a last lie in accordance with human prejudices, and he resolved to be reconciled, in appearance, to a Church whose truth, once acknowledged by him, convicted ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... receiving and openly treating with those commissioners, Talleyrand, lately an exile in America, but now Secretary of Foreign Affairs to the French Government, entered into intrigue with them, through several unaccredited and unofficial agents, of which the object was to induce them to promise a round bribe ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... glorious days' at Paris, want neither civilisation nor religion. They will not be content till they have destroyed both. It is possible that they may be parried for a time; that the adroit wisdom of the house of Orleans, guided by Talleyrand, may give this movement the resemblance, and even the character, of a middle-class revolution. It is no such thing; the barricades were not erected by the middle class. I know these people; it is a fraternity, not a nation. ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... provincial; but if the measure of deeds be the spirit in which they are done, that fidelity to instant duty, which, according to Herbert, makes an action fine, then his length of years should be very precious to us for its lesson. Talleyrand, whose life may be compared with his for the strange vicissitude which it witnessed, carried with him out of the world the respect of no man, least of all his own; and how many of our own public men have we seen whose old age but accumulated a disregard which they would gladly ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... of pantomime transformation scenes." The chief characteristic of his wit was its unexpectedness; sometimes acrid, sometimes humorous, his sayings came forth, like Topham Beauclerk's in Dr. Johnson's day, like Talleyrand's in our own, poignant without effort. His calm, gentle voice, contrasted with his startling caustic utterance, reminded people of Prosper Merimee: terse epigram, felicitous apropos, whimsical presentment of the topic under discussion, emitted in a low tone, and ...
— Biographical Study of A. W. Kinglake • Rev. W. Tuckwell
... in my Lectures are inspired by overmastering fear, then surely Talleyrand was right in saying that language was intended to disguise our thoughts. And may I not add, that if such charges can be made with impunity, we shall soon have to say, with a still more notorious diplomatist, ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... Talleyrand warningly to him, when they were alone, "shall posterity say that you threw away your great conquest for the sake of ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... like the physicians in Moliere, that they best knew what was for their good, and that they (the Germans) mast be again united to France. One of these politicians asked me, if I did not think that Talleyrand would demand the left bank of the Rhine, as essential to France, at the congress of Vienna. I answered, I did not think it was probable he would ask for countries which France had so recently relinquished, nor was it to be expected that the Allies would, to oblige him, ...
— A tour through some parts of France, Switzerland, Savoy, Germany and Belgium • Richard Boyle Bernard
... player, besides, Whist was never so engrossing as to exclude occasional remark; and some of the smartest and wittiest of Talleyrand's sayings were uttered at the card-table. Imagine, then, the inestimable advantage to the young man entering life, to be privileged to sit down in that little chosen coterie, where sages dropped words ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... universe! That evening we seemed free. In after-days I received from old Hammerfeldt (a great statesman, as history will one day allow) some lectures on the little pregnant, powerful, empty word. He had some right to speak of freedom; he had seen it fought for by Napoleon, praised by Talleyrand, bought by Castlereagh, interpreted by Metternich. Should he not then know what it was, its value, its potency, and its sweetness, why men died for it, and delicate women who loved them cheered them on? Once also in later years a beautiful woman cried to me, with white arms outstretched, ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... the same stage. From the account of the dying Louis XV. to the "whiff of grapeshot" which closed the last scene of the great drama, there is not a dull page. Theroigne de Mericourt, Marat, Danton, Camille Desmoulins, Mirabeau, Robespierre, Talleyrand, Mdme. Roland, above all Marie Antoinette—for whom Carlyle has a strong affection—and Buonaparte, so kindle and colour the scene that we cannot pause to feel weary of the phrases with which they are labelled. The author's letters show the same ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... pensive eyes standing near yonder altar, and before whom all the authorities of Paris bowed—who was her husband, her Bonaparte, everywhere conqueror! Before her only was he the conquered! She listened with a happy smile to the long speech with which Talleyrand saluted Bonaparte in the name of his country; she heard how Barras, concealing within himself his jealousy and his envy, welcomed him; how with admiration he praised him; how he said that Nature, in one of her most exalted and greatest moments, ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... more a flux and reflux than a group. The second, surrounding Talma, was composed of Arnault, Parseval-Grandmaison, Monge, Berthollet, and two or three other members of the Institute. The third, which Bonaparte had just joined, counted in its circle Talleyrand, Barras, Lucien, Admiral Bruix, [Footnote: AUTHOR'S NOTE.—Not to be confounded with Rear-Admiral de Brueys, who was killed at Aboukir, August 1, 1798. Admiral Bruix, the negotiator with Talleyrand of the 18th ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... He cannot be said to have deserted his post. Lantrey (tome i. p. 411) remarks that the existence and receipt of the letter from Joseph denied by Bourrienne is proved by Miot (the commissary, the brother of Miot de Melito) and by Joseph himself. Talleyrand thanks the French Consul at Tripoli for sending news from Egypt, and for letting Bonaparte know what passed in Europe. See also Ragusa (Marmont), tome i. p. 441, writing on 24th December 1798: "I have found an Arab of whom I am sure, and who shall start to-morrow for Derne . . . ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, v3 • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... other by resemblance or contrast, then you may challenge it as false to a certainty. One illustration of which is—that pretty nearly every memorable propos, or pointed repartee, or striking mot, circulating at this moment in Paris or London, as the undoubted property of Talleyrand, (that eminent knave,) was ascribed at Vienna, ninety years ago, to the Prince de Ligne, and thirty years previously, to Voltaire, and so on, regressively, to many other wits (knaves or not); until, at length, if you persist in ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... window, and whom she watched so much that she was said to be in a fair way of solving the problem of how many sticks go to a crow's nest; criticisms of the books read by each party, and very often a reference to that celebrated billet, unfortunately delivered over night to Prince Talleyrand, informing him that his devoted friend had scarcely closed her eyes all night, and then ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Mr. Breck called to see him at his lodgings, in Strawberry-alley. Knocking at the door of a mean looking house, a little ragged girl came out, who, on being asked for the Duke, pointed to a door, which Mr. B. entered. At a little deal table he found Cobbett, teaching the Duke and Monsieur Talleyrand English! ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Vol. I. No. 3, July 15, 1850 • Various
... towards the Congress of Vienna. Talleyrand displays the cloven foot, by refusing to recognise the junction of all the Netherlands. However, the Bourbons, France, and all Europe may be thankful ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... the eye. I really think it would have been dishonest, not to have faced the difficulty; and worse (as Talleyrand would have said), it would have been impolitic I think, for it would have been thrown in my teeth, as H. Holland threw the bones of the ear, till Huxley shut him up by showing what a fine gradation occurred ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... French statesmen, Talleyrand, understood and recommended this fact to his master. In his celebrated memorial addressed to Bonaparte in 1801, speaking specially of England ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... forces, where was the Administration and how was one to support it? One must first find it, and even then it was not easily caught. Grant's simplicity was more disconcerting than the complexity of a Talleyrand. Mr. Fish afterwards told Adams, with the rather grim humor he sometimes indulged in, that Grant took a dislike to Motley because he parted his hair in the middle. Adams repeated the story to Godkin, ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... Talleyrand as a writer English ignorance of French affairs Change of feeling respecting Louis Napoleon 'Loi de surete publique' Manner in which it has been carried out Deportation a slow death Influence of 'hommes de lettres' French army Russian army French navy Napoleon indifferent to the navy Mr. ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville
... and with no more of shame than so many English Parliament-men might have felt for proposing to vote a minister out of office. It was their mode of effecting a change of ministry, and they regarded the proposition as showing that they were members of the constitutional opposition. As Talleyrand told Bonaparte, when news of Paul's murder reached Paris, "'Tis a way they have there!" Paul rejected the offer to rid him of his mother with horror. His own son was not so moral, in after days. Alexander was a haunted man, and remorse made ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... facilitate intercourse, begged Vivie to call her "Minna,"—"We may all be dead, my dear, before long of blood-poisoning, bombs from your aeroplanes, a rising against us in the Marolles quarter—" said very plainly what she thought of Edith Cavell's execution. "It makes me think of Talleyrand—was it not?—who said 'It is a blunder; worse than a crime' ... these terrible old generals, they know nothing of the world outside Germany." As to her cousin, Gottlieb von Giesselin—"Really dear, if in ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... installed in a magnificent palace, the father of a charming daughter, and himself an agreeable conversationalist, a courteous gentleman, an ardent sportsman? It is the secret of those natures created for social conquest, like a Napoleon for war and a Talleyrand for diplomacy. Dorsenne asked himself the question frequently, and he could not solve it. Although he boasted of watching the Baron with an intellectual curiosity, he could not restrain a shudder of antipathy each time he met the ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget
... being made between whiskers and moustache. Only in archaic renderings the wedge-like beard is combed in long wavy lines, and the whiskers are strictly parted from the moustache. As an example we quote the nobly formed head of Zeus crowned with the stephane in the Talleyrand collection. The usual color of the hair being dark, fair hair was considered a great beauty. Homer gives yellow locks to Menelaos, Achilles, and Meleagros; and Euripides describes ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... unwisely denied their competence, and demanded, as a peer of the realm, to be tried by his peers, and it was a tribunal which showed him no mercy. It does not appear that the king desired his death; but Talleyrand declared that it would be a grand example, and the royalists generally thirsted for his blood. He was condemned, by a majority of 139 to 17, to ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various
... an appearance of imperturbable good nature, the ambition by which he was devoured: he wanted to become rich, and to rise in the world. In fact, Mechinet was a diplomat, working in secret, but as cunning as Talleyrand. He had succeeded already in making himself the one great personage of Sauveterre. The town was full of him; nothing was done without him; and yet he had not an enemy in ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... provoke hostilities. Yet, from my knowledge of Mr. Buchanan, I do not hesitate to say that he had no such wish or purpose. His abiding hope was to avert a collision, or at least to postpone it to a period beyond the close of his official term. The management of the whole affair was what Talleyrand describes as something worse than a crime—a blunder. Whatever treatment the case demanded, should have been prompt; to ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... Washington offered him the place of attorney-general, which he declined. He also declined the minister to France, but subsequently accepted the position from President Adams, and in France was insulted with his fellow-members by Talleyrand. John Adams, on his return, wished to make him a member of the Supreme Court, but this he declined, preferring the practice of ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... says, Talleyrand's question is ever the main one; not, is he rich? is he committed? is he well-meaning? has he this or that faculty? is he of the movement? is he of the establishment? but is he anybody? does he stand for something? He must be good of his kind. ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... eldest daughter, of whom Fenimore Cooper afterward wrote that she "was perhaps as extensively and favorably known in the middle states as any female of her years." In 1795, when she was seventeen years of age, Talleyrand was a guest at Otsego Hall, and the following acrostic on Hannah Cooper's name is attributed to the pen ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... discretion of Lord Lyons. He had hard work to discipline his imperious temper, and by no means always succeeded in masking his own feelings. Perhaps too high a value has been set on impenetrable reserve by those who have modelled themselves on Talleyrand. By their very candour and openness some British diplomatists have gained an advantage over rivals who confound timidity with reserve, and have won a peculiar position of trust at foreign courts. In dealing with de Giers, ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... she wid a houseful of little childer waitin' for her at home, the crathurs?" Her arguments proved convincing, and the charge was summarily dismissed, not without strictures upon Sergeant Young's excessive zeal, by which he, recking nothing of Talleyrand's maxim, ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... Sunday, September 18, Edward pursued the French as near as he could to Poitiers, halting in battle array within a league of the town. A further check on his impatience now ensued. Innocent VI.'s legate, the Cardinal Talleyrand, brother of the Count of Perigord, who was with the French army, crossed to the rival host with an offer of mediation. Edward received the cardinal courteously and spent most of the day in negotiations. But the French showed no eagerness to bring matters to ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... much the better! we shall not have to pay the costs of his political apprenticeship; he knows the affairs of the country; he knows parliamentary necessities; he is much nearer being a statesman than my friend Simon, who will not pretend to have made himself a Pitt or a Talleyrand in a little town ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... the fact; and the whole discussion may be fairly summed up, perhaps, by saying that success vindicated the course adopted. "Success, after all, is the test of merit," said the brave Albert Sydney Johnston, and Talleyrand compressed much sound reasoning in the pithy ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... outside sense and outside animation in contact with the inside world, he ought often to be changed. No man is a perfect representative of outside sense. "There is some one," says the true French saying, "who is more able than Talleyrand, more able than Napoleon. Cest tout le monde." That many-sided sense finds no microcosm in any single individual. Still less are the critical function and the animating function of a Parliamentary Minister likely to be perfectly exercised by one and the same man. Impelling power and ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot
... his hour of extremest need, the man was vouchsafed a shred of luck. To answer her satisfactorily would have baffled a Talleyrand. But before he could frame a feeble pretext for his too sanguine prediction, a sampan appeared, eight hundred yards from Turtle Beach, and strenuously paddled by three men. The vague hallooing ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... French Revolution probably affords as striking examples of change in worldly condition as any other period, and among those whom it affected for the time, few were more remarkable than two persons whom it sent to our own shores, Talleyrand and Chateaubriand. During the residence of the former in Philadelphia, he appears at one time to have been in the most abject poverty. We read of his pawning a watch and smaller articles, to provide himself and his ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Talleyrand. Napoleon I. one day entered a roadside inn, and called for breakfast. There was nothing in the house but eggs and cider (which Napoleon detested). "What shall we do?" said the emperor to Talleyrand. In answer to this, the grand chambellan ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... will remember how the last debate was discussed in one corner, and the last comedy of Scribe in another; while Wilkie gazed with modest admiration on Sir Joshua's Baretti; while Mackintosh turned over Thomas Aquinas to verify a quotation; while Talleyrand related his conversations with Barras at the Luxembourg, or his ride with Lannes over the field of Austerlitz. They will remember, above all, the grace, and the kindness, far more admirable than grace, with which ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Show. We must fetch the public sumhow.' Then, at the end, came the summing-up of the whole transaction: 'P.S.—You scratch my back and Ile scratch your back.' There is at least one instance on record in which a postscript was made to convey a smart reproof. Talleyrand, having one day entrusted a valet with a letter to deliver, happened to look out of the window, and saw the man reading the message en route. Next day he despatched another letter to the same address by the ...
— By-ways in Book-land - Short Essays on Literary Subjects • William Davenport Adams
... his descent, from the second cook of the Connetable de Bourbon, who ennobled him. And from Lord Bacon, "brightest, greatest, meanest of mankind," who took, it is said, great interest in cooking, to Talleyrand, the Machiavelli of France, who spent an hour every day with his cook, we find great men delighting in ...
— Culture and Cooking - Art in the Kitchen • Catherine Owen
... forgot that he was past forty, short in stature, and short of breath, and "miles around," as Talleyrand ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard
... pen of a Mirabeau cannot become an official one; nevertheless it remains a pen. In defect of Secretaryship, he sets to denouncing Stock-brokerage (Denonciation de l'Agiotage); testifying, as his wont is, by loud bruit, that he is present and busy;—till, warned by friend Talleyrand, and even by Calonne himself underhand, that 'a seventeenth Lettre-de-Cachet may be launched against him,' he timefully ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... will not speak of M. de Talleyrand, whose face and figure were striking enough, though they made but little impression on our uninformed imaginations. Yet I remember the fits of laughter we went into one day, when my father, in a fit of absence, aped the great man's limp as he crossed the drawing-room ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... Revolution and then practised law in Richmond. With Charles Cotesworth Pinckney and Elbridge Gerry, he was sent to Paris in 1797 to treat of public affairs; and it was on this occasion that Pinckney made the famous reply to the propositions of Talleyrand, "Millions for defence, not ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... orders correspond to this. It would be arrant bigotry to doubt that some offer up an unstained heart, in aspirations for usefulness or sighs for holiness; but many times a youth is led blindfold to the altar by ambitious relatives, like Talleyrand, and discovers too late his perfect unfitness for the vow he has assumed. And these last are they whose lives become a scandal to their profession, whose levity shocks so many Protestant observers, whose consciences ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... stranger, no intruder, ever finds his way into one of these houses, and to obtain an introduction for the colonels or officers of title belonging to the first families in France when quartered there, requires efforts of diplomacy which Prince Talleyrand would gladly have mastered ...
— Albert Savarus • Honore de Balzac
... more precious to the sovereign of Spain, who refused the proffers that France was able to make in the next thirty years. The dream of repossession became fonder to the French republic. Talleyrand, who had spent a year in travel in the United States, urged the acquisition not merely for France's own sake but to curb the ambitions of the Americans, "whose conduct ever since the moment of their independence is enough to prove this truth: ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley
... how you understand it?' began Maxime, enraged by this last piece of presumption. There was something of Talleyrand's wit in the insolent retort, if you have quite grasped the contrast between the two men and their costumes. Maxime scowled and looked full at the intruder; Cerizet not merely endured the glare of cold fury, but even returned it, ...
— A Man of Business • Honore de Balzac
... boomed Mrs. Talleyrand as we rode beyond earshot of the dazed and lingering Snell. "Them two men been trying for two weeks to agree on a day to do this trifling job. They wasn't able; so I agreed on a day ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... conversations of distinguished characters. Some of these conversations—and it is noticeable that they are the most innocent ones—took place in his presence. The worst expressions are mere reports by third parties. One story rests upon no better foundation than that Talleyrand told it to Volney, who told it to Jefferson. At one place we are informed, that, at a St. Andrew's Club dinner, the toast to the President (Mr. Adams) was coldly received, but at that to George the Third "Hamilton started to his feet and insisted on a bumper and three ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... of M. Guizot in 1883 was certainly not an outcome of the 'principles of 1789;' for it had been at the foundation of all the free schools of France during the middle ages, and under the absolute monarchy of Louis XIV. Talleyrand recognised it in his plan of 1791, which did not suit Condorcet and his 'ideologists.' It was not in the mere revival of this principle that the true liberalism of M. Guizot manifested itself. In the second article of his law this great statesman provided, in express ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... deny, despite all the arguments and sneers of reactionary statesmen and historians, that few more keen-sighted legislative bodies have ever met than this first French Constitutional Assembly. In it were such men as Sieyes, Bailly, Necker, Mirabeau, Talleyrand, DuPont de Nemours and a multitude of others who, in various sciences and in the political world, had already shown and were destined afterward to show themselves among the strongest and shrewdest men that Europe ...
— Fiat Money Inflation in France - How It Came, What It Brought, and How It Ended • Andrew Dickson White
... weeks, and his example was followed by three fourths of my acquaintance. Those who had been proscribed on the 18th Fructidor, pretended that at that period, I had been guilty of recommending M. de Talleyrand to Barras, for the ministry of foreign affairs: and yet, these people were then continually about that same Talleyrand, whom they accused me of having served. All those who behaved ill to me, were cautious in concealing that they did so for fear of incurring the displeasure ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein
... anticipates and answers every objection, exhausting the theme. And that the author had a whimsical touch of humor in her composition is shown in that she dedicates the book to that Prince of Woman-Haters, "Talleyrand, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... those of us who are in good society, that what this uncouth rustic mistook for indifference is the air of society. TALLEYRAND said, or somebody said he said, that the use of language was to conceal thought. Go to WALLACK'S and you will see that the art of acting is to suppress emotions. Everything is below concert-pitch, except perhaps the ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., Issue 31, October 29, 1870 • Various
... and carry out the necessary experiments.[272] In January 1802 he writes to Dumont[273] proposing to send him a trifling specimen of the Panopticon, a set of hollow fire-irons invented by his brother, which may attract the attention of Buonaparte and Talleyrand. He proceeds to expound the merits of Samuel's invention for making wheels by machinery. Dumont replies, that fire-irons are 'superfluities'—(fire-arms might have been more to Buonaparte's taste)—and that the Panopticon itself was ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... labour. We, with our insular prejudices, have been sticklers for the narrowest uniformity, and yet we have accepted, as a useful addition to the Creed of Christendom, one article which we have only not formulated because, perhaps, it came to us from a Roman Bishop, the great sage Talleyrand—Surtout pas trop de zle! ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... establishment, departed nearly forty years ago to the realms to which great chefs are ultimately taken. Coming from France as a young man he established himself in a small cafe opposite the slave market, where he proceeded to cook and let his cooking speak for him. His dinde a la Talleyrand soon made him famous, and he prospered, moving before long to the present building. His sons, Jules and Fernand, were sent to Paris to learn at headquarters the best traditions of the haute cuisine, doing service ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... was pardonable as a repartee. It was the exasperated utterance of self-defence; and there is a distinction to be drawn between the word which is flung without provocation, and the word which is the speaker's last resource. When "Bobus" Smith told Talleyrand that his mother had been a beautiful woman, and Talleyrand replied, "C'etait donc Monsieur votre pere qui n'etait pas bien," we hold the witticism to have been cruel because unjustifiable. A man should be privileged to say his mother was beautiful, without ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... fetidness, of which no words can give the least idea, or whether some other reason affected them, those in the vicinity of this man immediately moved away and left him alone. He cast upon them and also upon the officer a calm, expressionless look, the celebrated look of Monsieur de Talleyrand, a dull, wan glance, without warmth, a species of impenetrable veil, beneath which a strong soul hides profound emotions and close estimation of men and things and events. Not a fold of his face quivered. His mouth and forehead were impassible; but his eyes moved and lowered themselves ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... Talleyrand that he needed no sleep, as his pulse ceased to beat after a certain number of strokes, for a brief space, and then resumed pulsation. During that pause, his physical and mental powers had time for recuperation. Be that as it may, it is certain that to some persons whose ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... have been very exhilarating. You talked about the Duchess of Bolinbroke, and the opera, and Prince Talleyrand, and the corner in wheat—dear me, I know, so decorous! And you said Miss ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... Illustrated Monthly Magazine, earnestly requests the reviewer, appealing to his heart in the reddest of red ink, on a slip of paper pasted on to the cover of the Magazine, not to extract and quote more than one column of "Talleyrand's Memoirs," which appear in this number for January. The Publisher of the C.I.M.M. does not appeal personally to the Baron—who is now the last, bar one, of the Barons, and that bar one is one at the Bar,—but, for all that, the Baron hereby and hereon ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 17, 1891 • Various
... had never heard conversation before. The most animated eloquence, the keenest observation, the most sparkling wit, the most courtly grace, were united to charm her. For Madame de Stael was there, and M. de Talleyrand. There too was M. de Narbonne, a noble representative of French aristocracy; and with M. de Narbonne was his friend and follower General D'Arblay, an honourable and amiable man, with a handsome person, frank soldier-like manners, and some ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... his bent, did everything possible to further his ambition and assist him in his student years. He gave him many letters of introduction to well-known persons in England and France, one of which, to His Excellency C.M. Talleyrand, I ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... that our political system would encounter that very danger through which it has just passed,—and passed not without receiving severe wounds, which have left it scarcely recognizable even by its warmest admirers. Talleyrand, who had a just appreciation of Hamilton's talents and character, said that he had divined Europe. An American need not be possessed of high powers or position to venture the assertion that Hamilton divined American ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... and tool; Augereau was a bastard, a spy, a robber, and a murderer; Fouche was the incarnation of every vice; Lucien Bonaparte was a roue and a marplot; Cambaceres was a debauchee; Lannes was a thief, brigand, and a poisoner; Talleyrand and Barras were—well, what evil was told of them has yet to be disproved. But you would gather from contemporaneous English publications that Bonaparte and his associates were veritable fiends from hell sent to scourge civilization. These books ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field
... dispute; indeed, he saw clearly, and admitted freely, in his solitude, that he had made many. His minor fault (if it be right to characterise it as such) was in extending clemency to the many rascals that were plotting his ruin and carrying on a system of peculation that was an abhorrence to him. Talleyrand, Fouche, and Bourrienne frequently came under his displeasure and were removed from his service, but were taken back after his wrath ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... from Raphael to Watts. The grand staircase and state drawing-room are of admirable proportions and form part of the work of Wyatville. In the drawing-room is treasured a cabinet of coral and a writing tablet which belonged to Talleyrand. The great hall, which contains a collection of armour and ancient implements of war of much importance and value, has a fine wooden roof and minstrels' gallery. Among the stags' horns that decorate the walls will be seen two mighty headpieces that once belonged to Irish elks and were ...
— Wanderings in Wessex - An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter • Edric Holmes |
