Talleyrand: The Art of Survival by Orieux, Jean

ISBN: 0394472993

Author: Orieux, Jean

Condition: new

Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Perigord, for half a century mastermind of the French state, a figure of infinite fascination, embodied - and to an extraordinary degree directed - the most tumultuous era in French history. Born into one of Frances noblest families, rejected as a cripple by his parents and given willy-nilly to the Church, he turned his unwanted fate into dazzling personal triumph. The revolution that guillotined his fellow aristocrats saw him serve as a member of the Committee on the Constitution. He held ministerial office through the Directory and the Consulate and was instrumental in both Napoleons rise and fall (he was prime architect of the Congress of Vienna). After Waterloo he served as president of the provisional government, then engineered the return of the monarchy and again held high office. His biography is the biography of his country during his time, and therefore of Europe. And what a biography Jean Orieux has written! Here is Talleyrand the man of awesome and supple mind. Here is the priest who was notorious as a womanizer, who amassed a huge personal fortune and a principality; the prince who was a shrewd historian; the connoisseur and patron of the arts; the premier statesman of France; the puppet master of Europe, manipulating Metternich and Wellington. Here, finally, is the man supremely in control, who directed his own deathbed scene as brilliantly as he had organized Napoleon