Synopses & Reviews
MEMOIRS PRINCE DE TALLEYRAND EDITED, WITH A PREFACE AND NOTES, BY THE DUG DE BROGLIE OF THE FRENCH ACADEMY TRANSLATED BY RAPHAEL LEDOS DE BEAUFORT, F. R. HIST. S. WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY THE HONORABLE WHITELAW REID AMERICAN MINISTER IN PARIS VOLUME I WITH FAC-SIMILE LETTERS A D PORTRAITS G.. P. PUTNAMS SONS NEW YORK LONDON 27 WBST TWKNTY-THIRD ST. 24 BEDFORD ST., STRAND 1891 COPYRIGHT, 1891 BY G. P. PUTNAMS SONS INTRODUCTION. BY THE HON. WHITELAW REID. THE appearance of these memoirs has been long awaited with much curiosity and some alarm. Their author was believed to possess more dangerous secrets of high importance than any other man of his time and whether or not he had friends to reward it was known that he had many enemies to punish. When it was found that he had forbidden the publication of his manuscripts until thirty years after his death, the belief in their compromising and dangerous character was confirmed and when, after the lapse of the required time, they were still withheld, they began to be looked upon as a species of historical dynamite, only to be exploded after everybody in danger had been removed from the field of human activity. But if this anticipation were disappointed if it were found that the old diplomatist had been thinking, as was his wont, of himself rather even than of his enemies, and if his memoirs should not teem with scandalous revelations concerning great personages it was still thought certain that they would undertake to vindi cate what had been pourtrayed by French writers and statesmen as well nigh the most scandalous career of the two centuries to which it belonged and such a vindication, whether successful or not, would necessarily shed a floodof light on some of the greatest transactions and some of the most extraordinary men of modern times. Whatever effect the memoirs may now have, the place of their author in history has not hitherto been materially changed in the fifty-two years that have elapsed since his death. No reve lations affecting French annals, from the days preceding the viii INTRODUCTION. Revolution of 89 down to the reign of the Citizen King, have diminished Talleyrands share in events or modified the accepted estimates of his work and character. His career was and it remains unparalleled in modern Europe, for length and variety of distinguished service. Beginning with Louis XVL, from whom he received his first appointment, and from whom he went, later, with a letter to the King of England, he served in all eight known masters, not to reckon a great number of others who were, at one time or another, said to have him secretly in their pay. He was President of the Constituent Assembly which organized the French Revolution, He was sent to London on a secret mission with a passport from Dan ton. He was Minister of Foreign Affairs under the Directory, under the Consulate, under the Empire, under Louis XVI II., and under Louis Philippe. In diplomatic skill and success contemporary public opinion held him the first man of his period that is to say, for half a century the first man in Europe. As to real influence on affairs, it is doubtful if any minister since can be said to have exerted more, with the exceptions only of Bismarck and Cavour. Even they did not cover so wide a range or deal with such a bewildering variety of negotiations, extending over so great a time and furthering the views of so many masters. SirHenry Bulwer has a phrase that, in a way, measures him. He was the most important man in the Constituent Assembly after Mirabeau and the most important man in the Empire after Napoleon. But to gauge fairly his extraordinary public life, it must be remembered that he held place and gained in power for forty years after Mirabeaus death and that having been one of the leading men of France before Napoleon was heard of, he remained a minister and an ambassador of France long after Napoleon had eaten out his heart at St Helena...