"Talleyrand" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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
... Cornelius's chandeliers for burning lard oil—now the light of other days, thanks to our new riches in kerosene; buggies of a tenuity so marvelous in Old-World eyes that their half-inch tires were likened to the miller of Ferrette's legs, so thin that Talleyrand pronounced his standing an act of the most desperate bravery; soap enough to answer Coleridge's cry for a detergent for the lower Rhine; and one bridge model, forerunner of the superb iron erections that have since leaped over ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... 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
... them himself; and, after having questioned and sounded them for four hours, he dismissed them both, without having heard any thing but accounts of the hostile dispositions of the allies, and the conversations they had had at Vienna with M. de Talleyrand and M. de Metternich, the substance of which was the same as that of my conferences ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. II • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... and it took 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 ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... at Georgetown 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 ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... when 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 ...
— The Marriage Contract • Honore de Balzac
... all the more so from the contrast of the lower part of the face, which ended squarely in a short chin very near the lower lip. Small eyes, of turquoise blue, were as keen and bright as those of the Prince de Talleyrand—which I admired at a later time—and endowed, like the Prince's, with the faculty of becoming expressionless to the verge of gloom; and they added to the singularity of a face that was not pale but yellow. This complexion seemed to bespeak an irritable temper and violent passions. His hair, ...
— Honorine • Honore de Balzac
... you know that that abominable Talleyrand sent one of his emissaries after the Empress and her suite . . . that this emissary—Dudon was his name—reached Orleans just before Marie Louise herself got there. . ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... Dr. Foshay, with my botanic system of medicine, am the biggest humbug in these parts, and if you are going to succeed with me you must be another." But I had already recognized the truth of his last sentence. Probably neither of us had heard of Talleyrand, but from this time I saw that his hearty laugh and lively talk were ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... Christendom and believers in almost every creed, found in it an asylum or a home. Into this secluded haven drifted men whose lives had been wrecked in the political storms that were then shaking Europe. Frenchmen, Dutchmen, Germans, and Poles, came and tarried for a longer or shorter time. Here Talleyrand, then an exile, spent several days with Cooper's father, and, true to national instinct, wrote, according to local tradition, complimentary verses, still preserved, on Cooper's sister. An ex-captain ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... the other hand, were bitterly opposed to this arrangement. They approved neither of dispossessing the king of Saxony nor of extending the Tsar's influence westward by giving him Poland. The great diplomatist, Talleyrand, who represented Louis XVIII at the congress, now saw his chance. The allies had resolved to treat France as a black sheep, and permit the other four great powers to arrange matters to suit themselves. But they were now hopelessly at odds, and ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... responded the Sage, drily. "What a work! And what a sensation! TALLEYRAND's long-talked-of 'Memoirs' not in it! Do you know, my dear TIME, I think you had better postpone the publication—for an aeon or so at least. Your Magnum Opus ...
— Punch Among the Planets • Various
... mean to say you actually wish a boon companion? You, Baron, the modern Talleyrand, the repository of three emperors' secrets? My dear fellow, I ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston
... recipe,—something Spanish,—and they tasted deliciously and smelled as if assailing an Andalusian heaven. The salad was piquante; the trifle vivacious; Kate's bonbons were regarded as unique, and as for the coffee, it provoked Marna to quote the appreciative Talleyrand:— ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... Assembly of notables Mirabeau; his writings and extraordinary eloquence Assembly of States-General Usurpation of the Third Estate Mirabeau's ascendency Paralysis of government General disturbances; fall of the Bastille Extraordinary reforms by the National Assembly Mirabeau's conservatism Talleyrand, and confiscation of Church property Death of Mirabeau; his characteristics Revolutionary violence; the clubs The Jacobin orators The King arrested The King tried, condemned, and executed The Reign of Terror Robespierre, Marat, Danton Reaction ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... 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 Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741-1850 • Albert Smyth
... for ever"—a cultivated intellect—in order to amass a fortune that turns to ashes, when he has time to ask of it any of the pleasures and resources he fondly imagined it would afford him. Like Talleyrand's young man who would not learn whist, he finds that he has prepared for himself a dreadful ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory
... one. Madame de Stael comes out, of his house. She wrote "Lelia." He smiles on her pending the day when he will exile her. Do you insist on an archduchess? wait awhile and he will get one. Tu, felix Austria, nube. His Murat is called Saint-Arnaud; his Talleyrand is called Morny; his Duc d'Enghien is ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... 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 ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... what you will. Look at the men we produce. Three or four hundred years ago Europe gave us great poets, great artists, great soldiers, great churchmen, and great rascals. I admire a great rascal, when he is a Napoleon, a Talleyrand, a Machiavelli; but a petty one! We have no art, no music, no antiquity; but we have a race of gentlemen. The old country is not breeding ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... de Chalais, was a younger son of the illustrious house of Talleyrand, whose personal attractions had secured to him the favour of Louis XIII, by whom he was appointed Grand Master ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... small appetite; but to a man who has seen the world, and drunk deeply of the wine of life, there is nothing half so sweet in the whole of his existence as a good dinner. "A hard heart and a good digestion will make any man happy." So said Talleyrand, a cynic if you like, but a man who knew the temper of his day and generation. Ovid wrote about the art of love—Brillat Savarin, of the art of dining; yet, I warrant you, the gastronomical treatise of the brilliant Frenchman is more widely read than the passionate ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... time had come for him to seize the chief position in the French Government, but he did not dare as yet openly to have himself proclaimed as King. With his brother Lucien, and his advisor Talleyrand—although Napoleon did not accept advice as a rule, but was guided by his own bold, brilliant ideas,—he overthrew the Council of Five Hundred and abolished the Directory. Then he established what was called the Provisional Government which was headed by a group ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards
... 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, ...
— Notable Events of the Nineteenth Century - Great Deeds of Men and Nations and the Progress of the World • Various
... brilliant victories. Distrust and ill-will struggled with his admiration of Bonaparte in the mind of the conqueror of Zurich; he was sent to the army of Italy, always devoted to Bonaparte. Berthier remained at Paris in the capacity of minister of war. Fouche was placed at the police, and Talleyrand undertook foreign affairs. By a bent of theoretical fancy, which was not borne out by experience in government, the illustrious mathematician Laplace was called to the ministry of the interior. Gaudin became minister of finances; he replaced immediately the forced loans with an increase ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... quiet elegance of the old school, and his niece had great learning and the manners of a woman of fashion. She lived in perfect retirement, having suffered much in the time of the Revolution. They had both eventful lives; for Baron Louis, who had been in orders, and Talleyrand officiated at the Champs de Mars when Louis the Sixteenth took the oath to maintain the constitution. Field-Marshal Macdonald, Duc de Tarante, and his son-in-law, the Duc de Massa; Admiral de Rigny, Minister of Marine; ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... some good representative examples of great artists 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 ...
— Wanderings in Wessex - An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter • Edric Holmes
... dissimulation, by means of which the springs that move your conduct ought to be made as invisible as those that move the world, must be added absolute self-control. That diplomatic imperturbability, so boasted of by Talleyrand, must be the least of your qualities; his exquisite politeness and the grace of his manners must distinguish your conversation. The professor here expressly forbids you to use your whip, if you would obtain complete control ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac
... worthy of extract from the Literary Gazette, and smacks of the raciest days of the noble utterer.) M. Talleyrand was enjoying his rubber, when the conversation turned on the recent union of an elderly lady of respectable rank. "However could Madame de S——— make such a match? a person of her birth to marry a valet-de-chambre!" "Ah," replied ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19, No. 543, Saturday, April 21, 1832. • Various
... perfect hurricane of horror and wonder. That he should have suffered himself to be led into the semblance of intimacy with such a man as his abominable lodger, appeared, in the cold light of day, a mystery of human weakness. True, he was caught in a situation that might have tested the aplomb of Talleyrand. That was perhaps a palliation; but it was no excuse. For so wholesale a capitulation of principle, for such a fall into criminal familiarity, no excuse indeed was possible; nor any remedy, but to withdraw at ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... performed their evolutions in the intermediate space; and in the centre, upon a 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 ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... of April, 1791, that the 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 mournful. Parties were burning to measure their strength free from any counterpoise. ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... 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, had resolved to produce a masterpiece, ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... lips. On the other hand, one of the most intelligent mission interpreters in the country is also so phlegmatic in disposition, so lifeless and monotonous in his speech, and particularly so impassive of countenance, that he reminds one of Napoleon's saying about Talleyrand: that if some one kicked him behind while he was speaking to you his face would give no sign of ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... 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 ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... 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 position of the British ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... 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 amongst ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... national engagements were to be impaired, no innovation to be permitted upon those internal regulations for the preservation of peace which had been deliberately and uprightly established, nor were the rights of the government to be surrendered. On their arrival in France the envoys saw M. Talleyrand, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, but were informed that they could not be received by the Directory. They had permission to remain in Paris, however, and the agents of M. de Talleyrand—a female amongst others were employed to negotiate with ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... of the danseuse, we repeat, is among the most lucrative of modern times, and nearly the most influential. The names of Taglioni and Elssler are as European, nay, as universal, as those of Wellington and Talleyrand-Metternich or Thiers; and modern statesmanship and modern diplomacy show pale beside the Machiavelism ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... Assembly, sorely pressed for resources, declared the property held by ecclesiastics, amounting to a revenue of not less than eight million pounds sterling a year, or double that amount in modern values, to be the property of the nation. Talleyrand carried a measure decreeing the sale of the ecclesiastical domain. The clergy were as intensely irritated as laymen would have been by a similar assertion of sovereign right. And their irritation was made still more dangerous by the next set of ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley
... higher than the top of my wineglass, lest I should be asked my opinion of some book or subject of which I had never even heard, and in trying to appear well-educated, make as horrible a blunder as poor Madame Talleyrand committed, when she talked to Denon about his man Friday, believing that he wrote 'Robinson Crusoe.' At that time I had never read either Mill or Ruskin; but my profound reverence for the wisdom of your opinions taught me how shamefully ignorant I was, ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... it must be more for the love than the lucre. Two or three dirty dollars the motive to so many nice wiles? And yet how full of mean needs his seeming. Before his mental vision the person of that threadbare Talleyrand, that impoverished Machiavelli, that seedy Rosicrucian—for something of all these he vaguely deems him—passes now in puzzled review. Fain, in his disfavor, would he make out a logical case. The ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... skill which Talleyrand or Metternich might have envied, affirmed that the English had seized two peaceable Indians, bound them hand and foot, and were carrying them off in their vessel, no one knew where. As the vessel ascended ...
— King Philip - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... 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 of hunting spies is greatly overdone. ...
— The Rock of Chickamauga • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Athenaeum of the 17th inst. a quotation from the Life of Goldsmith by Irving, in which the biographer seems to take credit for appropriating to Goldsmith the merit of originating the remark or maxim vulgarly ascribed to Talleyrand, that "the true end of speech is not so much to express our wants ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 6. Saturday, December 8, 1849 • Various
... 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 ...
— Fiat Money Inflation in France - How It Came, What It Brought, and How It Ended • Andrew Dickson White
... intent on browbeating Alexander by an exhibition of his power, Napoleon lavished Italian titles on his Marshals and statesmen. Talleyrand became Prince of Benevento; and Bernadotte, Prince of Ponte-Corvo (two Papal enclaves in Neapolitan soil). To these and other titles were attached large domains (not divisible at death), which enabled his paladins ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... Degree," Frederick Leveson spent an instructive year in France, admitted, by virtue of his father's position, to the society of such men as Talleyrand and Thiers, Guizot and Mole, Berryer and Eugene Sue; and then he returned to England with the laudable, though uninspiring, intention of reading for the Bar. His profession was chosen for him by his father, and the choice was determined by a civil speech of George ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... Castlereagh, for the resort of gentlemen who had resided or travelled abroad, as well as with a view to the accommodation of foreigners, who, when properly recommended, receive an invitation for the period of their stay.(41) Here Prince Talleyrand was fond of a game at Whist. With all the advantage of his great imperturbability of face, he is said to have been ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... is 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 ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., Issue 31, October 29, 1870 • Various
... smooth surface. The tricolor had disappeared. Napoleon's generals had gone unresistingly over to the Bourbons. Talleyrand adapted himself as quickly to the new regime as he had to the Napoleonic; was witty at the expense of the empire and the emperor, who, as he said, "was not even a Frenchman"; and was as crafty and as useful an instrument for the new ruler as he had ...
— A Short History of France • Mary Platt Parmele
... "See," she said 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 ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman
... is full 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, ...
— Biographical Study of A. W. Kinglake • Rev. W. Tuckwell
... 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
... maternal line from the family of Parker, which gave to Norwich one of its most distinguished sons in the famous Archbishop of Queen Elizabeth's day. He extended his business as carpenter sufficiently to die a prosperous builder. Of his two sons one, also named Thomas, became physician to Prince Talleyrand, and married a sister of John Stuart Mill.[14] All this by the way, but there is little more to record of Borrow's mother apart from the letters addressed to her by her son, which occur in their due place in ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... the diplomatic pool of Washington has disappeared. Simple people might have believed that there was an issue of veracity between Mr. Seward and the French Minister. But since a long, a very long time, Seward and veracity have run in different orbits, and diplomats, Talleyrand-like, ought to be the incarnation of equanimity even if any one—diplomatically—treads on their toes. Besides, the answer given to the Senate before it reached its destination might have been arranged at any such confidential chat as was that one ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski
... is quite a stir outside," agreed the agitator, blandly. He looked the chairman up and down with interest. "You may call me Sylvester—Talleyrand Sylvester. Yankee dickerer! Buy and sell everything from a clap o' thunder to a second-hand gravestone. It brings me round the country up here, and so I've been the Squire's right-hand man in the political game, such as there's been of it." He turned ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... responsive chords in the great American heart, all-important that his very soul yearned for the preservation of the Government established through the toil and sacrifice of the generation that had gone. How hopeless the Republic in that dark hour, had its destiny hung upon the statecraft of Talleyrand, the eloquence of Mirabeau, or the genius of Napoleon! It was fortunate indeed that the ark of our covenant was then borne by the plain, brave man of conciliatory spirit and kind words, whose heart, as Emerson has said, 'was as large ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... he cried, 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. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... such a thin, delicate and spirituelle blonde? The sensuous face of George IV. and the tragic one of Charles I., in the ever recurring Vandyke, with Sheridan's confident, handsome and genial physiognomy, seem grouped to make more elevated, by comparison, the noble abstraction of Flaxman. Talleyrand resembles a keen, selfish, humorous and gentlemanly man of the world, in an unexceptionable white wig. Richelieu is piquant and Madame de Stael impassioned and Amazonian. What decadence even in the warlike notabilities is hinted by glancing from Soult to Oudinot! I thought of the French ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various
... Tremoille, was daughter of M. de Noirmoutiers, who figured sufficiently in the troubles of the minority to be made a 'Duc a brevet'. She first married M. Talleyrand, who called himself Prince de Chalais, and who was obliged to quit the kingdom for engaging in the famous duel against Messieurs de la Frette. She followed her husband to Spain, where he died. Having gone to Rome, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... does seem that some potent and malign influence, resident at the capital, some high functionary, by some species of occultation, controlling the action of the government, a Talleyrand in the pay of both governments, and balancing or equalizing disasters between them to magnify his importance and increase his reward, has been controlling many events since the beginning of this ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... French Directory, invented a new 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 ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... Talleyrand and Dino, the Marquis de Mornay, the Marquis de Dreux-Breze, and Count Charles de Mornay, dined here yesterday. The Marquis de Breze is a clever man, and his conversation is highly interesting. Well-informed and sensible, he has directed much of his attention to ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... 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 said by Talleyrand. ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... name immortal. He was associated with Chief Justice Marshall and Elbridge Gerry, and their great object was to prevent a war between the United States and France. It was during the reign of the corrupt Directory that they performed this mission; and Talleyrand, the Minister of War, gave them to understand that nothing could be accomplished in the way of negotiation unless they were prepared to present to the government a large sum of money. The honest Americans objecting to ...
— Revolutionary Heroes, And Other Historical Papers • James Parton
... 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, whose bombastic language towards England in 1848 had set an example not ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... 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 to start, But to stay where I am is the wish of my heart; And yet I have sworn at ...
— Poems • Sir John Carr
... Fauquier County, Virginia. He served as a soldier in the 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 a ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... she urged, and 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, felt ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... 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
... 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
... 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
... me on the day of that breakfast affair," Rastignac whispered, "and I will teach you to play. You are a discredit to the royal city of Angouleme; and, to repeat M. de Talleyrand's saying, you are laying up an unhappy old age ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... as 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
... examination is the enlightened order of the day, even in professions in which the best men would have qualities that defy examination. In agriculture, happily, the principle of competitive examination is not so hostile to the choice of the best man as it must be, for instance, in diplomacy, where a Talleyrand would be excluded for knowing no language but his own; and still more in the army, where promotion would be denied to an officer who, like Marlborough, could not spell. But in agriculture a landlord has only to inquire who can give ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... soundness, of his conception of human nature, will be the greatness and wholesomeness of his power. He may appeal to the meanest, or to the loftiest motives. He may be a fox or an eagle; a Borgia, or a Hildebrand; a Talleyrand, or a Napoleon; a Mary Stuart, or an Elizabeth: but however base, however noble, the power which he exercises is the same in essence. He makes History, because he understands men. And you, if you would ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley
... most popular of the boulevard cafes, and was generally thronged with fashionables from all parts of Europe. Here Louis Blanc, historian of the Revolution, spent many hours in the early days of his fame. Talleyrand; Rossini, the musician; Alfred Stevens and Edouard Manet, artists, are some of the names still linked with the traditions of the Tortoni. Farther down the boulevard were the Cafe Riche, Maison Doree, Cafe Anglais, and the Cafe de Paris. The Riche ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... "distinguished note," and more peculiarly interesting to our countrymen, because he has laboured much for their conversion, is Talleyrand, Bishop of Autun.—He was in England some time as Plenipotentiary from the Jacobins, charged with establishing treaties between the clubs, publishing seditious manifestoes, contracting friendly alliances with discontented scribblers, and gaining over neutral or hostile newspapers.—But, ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... makes one smile at its naive gentleness. 'Unfortunately, contact with the German race has for ever spoilt my opinion of those people.' They are to him merely a nation that does not know how to behave. He reminds one of Talleyrand, who said of Napoleon after one of his rages: 'What a pity that so great a man should have been so badly brought up.' But there was malice in that understatement of Talleyrand's; and there is none in ...
— Letters of a Soldier - 1914-1915 • Anonymous
... In 1814 he was to be found at the office of Lavallette, the head of the posts, disguising, his enemies said, his delight at the bad news which was pouring in, by exaggerated expressions of devotion. He is accused of a close and suspicious connection with Talleyrand, and it is odd that when Talleyrand became head of the Provisional Government in 1814, Bourrienne of all persons should have been put at the head of the posts. Received in the most flattering manner ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... that which they profess to be able to do, and which they are credited with being able to do by the public. And there is no position so ignoble as that of the so-called "liberally-educated practitioner," who, as Talleyrand said of his physician, "Knows everything, even a little physic;" who may be able to read Galen in the original; who knows all the plants, from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop upon the wall; but who finds himself, with the issues of life and death in his hands, ignorant, blundering, ...
— American Addresses, with a Lecture on the Study of Biology • Tomas Henry Huxley
... went to Chicago, and they did just the same thing. They said the Government bonds must be paid in precisely the currency specified by the Congressional enactment, and Talleyrand himself could not have devised how not to say anything better than the Republicans did at Chicago on that question. Then they nominated a man who had not any financial opinions whatever, and who was not known, except for his military record, and they went ...
— Debate On Woman Suffrage In The Senate Of The United States, - 2d Session, 49th Congress, December 8, 1886, And January 25, 1887 • Henry W. Blair, J.E. Brown, J.N. Dolph, G.G. Vest, Geo. F. Hoar.
... not often that I act as a detective. But one homogeneous to every situation could hardly play a pleasanter part for once. I have thought that our great masters in theory and practice, Machiavel and Talleyrand, were hardly ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... "Had Talleyrand," said Louis Bonaparte, in his wife's drawing-room, "been by my brother's side, he would not have unnecessarily alarmed or awakened those whom it should have been his policy to keep in a soft slumber, until his blows had laid them down to rise no more; ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... as one of the first racers in Verdun. Lord Blayney offered a challenge for Sancho to run against a horse which he promised to produce for the event, and his bet was accepted with alacrity. He thereupon sent to an Englishman who was in young Talleyrand's service, and who was a recognised connoisseur in horseflesh, instructing this man to send him a particular English race- horse which had formerly figured at Verdun, and in the capabilities of which Lord Blayney still apparently had confidence, although it was now pretty ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... too complex to succeed, through sheer excess of ardour. When he came to the prince—the very day before the wedding—to confess (for he always confessed to the persons against whom he intrigued, especially when the plan failed), he informed our hero that he himself was a born Talleyrand, but for some unknown reason had become simple Lebedeff. He then proceeded to explain his whole game to the prince, ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... 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
... look so much like a little tin Talleyrand, Ollie! I'm not sure—and that's rather more than I'd even hint to ...
— Young People's Pride • Stephen Vincent Benet
... Belgium was Brand Whitlock. He is no Talleyrand or Metternich. If he were, the Belgians might not have been fed, because he might have been suspected of being too much of a diplomatist. When an Englishman, or a German, or a Hottentot, or any other kind of a human being gets to know Whitlock, he recognizes ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... 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
... continued; 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 ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... anecdotes, nourished by philosophy, enriched by quotations, never deformed by pedantry, rendered him equal, in conversation to the most renowned literary characters of his age. M. De Chateaubriand had not more elegance, M. De Talleyrand more wit, Madame De Stael more brilliancy. Since the suppers of Potsdam, where the genius of Voltaire met the capacity of Frederick the Great, never had the cabinet of a prince been the sanctuary of more philosophy, literature, ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... Richmond Hill, Theodosia entertained distinguished company. Hamilton was her father's occasional guest. Burr preferred the society of educated Frenchmen and Frenchwomen to any other, and he entertained many distinguished exiles of the French Revolution. Talleyrand, Volney, Jerome Bonaparte, and Louis Philippe were among his guests. Colonel Stone mentions, in his Life of Brant, that Theodosia, in her fourteenth year, in the absence of her father, gave a dinner to that chieftain of the forest, which was attended by the ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... men are dealt with—adherents who have come over from the Royalist camp, as well as those who have won their way upwards as soldiers, as did Napoleon himself. In fact, the work abounds with anecdotes of Napoleon, Talleyrand, Fouche, and a host of others, and astounding particulars are given of the mysterious disappearance of those persons who were unfortunate enough to ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... for his learning and sanctity that he was canonized,—and singularly enough by Alexander VI., the worst pope who ever reigned. Still more singular is it that the last of his successors, as abbot of Bec, was the diplomatist Talleyrand,—one of the most worldly and secular of all the ecclesiastical dignitaries ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume V • John Lord
... all the great characters that had flitted across the European stage at the beginning of the nineteenth century: Talleyrand, Metternich, the great Duke of Wellington, and many others. With her wonderful memory, she was a treasure-house of anecdotes of these and other well-known personages, which she narrated with all the skill of the born ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... The gentlemanlike urbanity with which he waits on the opposite friend—the conciliating tone with which he proffers implacable enmity—the killing kindness with which he refuses all accommodation—the Talleyrand air of his short notes, dated from the "Travellers," or "Brookes," with the words 3 o'clock or 5 o'clock on the cover, all indicative of the friendly precipitancy of the negociation. Then, when ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... the overthrow of the mighty conqueror, and who thought that Napoleon had passed away for ever from the great drama of European politics, had not yet completed their triumphant festivities, and their diplomatic toils, when Talleyrand, on the 11th of March, 1815, rose up among them, and announced that the ex-emperor had escaped from Elba, and was Emperor of France once more. It is recorded by Sir Walter Scott, as a curious physiological fact, that the first effect of the news of an event which threatened to neutralise all their ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... two 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 ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt
... barbarians with an eye to the picturesque, and would fain see the university, if it were not unlawful. He replied, in a hushed and scholastic tone of voice, and with a succession of confidential winks that would have inspired confidence in the heart of a Talleyrand, that if our lordships would give him our cards he had no doubt he could obtain the required permission from the rector. He showed us into a dim, claustral-looking anteroom, in which, as I was told by my friend, who trifles in lost moments with the integral calculus, there ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... Kenyon to the famous house No 22 St. James Place, overlooking the Green Park, to a breakfast with Samuel Rogers. Mixed up with this matutinal rite was much that belongs to the modern literary and political history of England. Fox, Burke, Talleyrand, Grattan, Walter Scott, and many other great ones have sat there and held converse on divers matters with the banker-poet. For more than half a century the wits and the wise men honored that unpretending mansion with their presence. On my ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... 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. Besides, diplomacy, above all that ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... the written authority of Talleyrand's brother, that the only breviary used by the ex-bishop was "L'Improvisateur Francais," a compilation of anecdotes and bon-mots, in twenty-one duo-decimo volumes. Whenever a good thing was wandering about in search of a parent, he adopted it; amongst others, "C'est le ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... 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 ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... the wit and geniality of Peters were wont to summon for relaxation the staid Washington, the meditative Jefferson, Rittenhouse the man of mathematics, the gay La Fayette with enthusiasm as yet undamped by Olmuetz, and his fellow-emigres of two other stamps, Talleyrand and the citizen-king that was to be. The house of one of the Penns looked down into a secluded dell which he aptly dubbed Solitude, but which is now the populous abode of monkeys, bears and a variety of other animals, more handsomely housed than ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... who had lost her husband, Talleyrand once addressed a letter of condolence, in two words: "Oh, madame!" In less than a year, the lady had married again, and then his letter of ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... Hamilton, perhaps the best was by a poet whose name is now scarcely remembered, Mr. Robert C. Sands. A fine picture of Hamilton will be found in the New York Chamber of Commerce where the writer was recently shown the following concise paragraph from Talleyrand: "The three greatest men of my time, in my opinion, were Napoleon Bonaparte, Charles James Fox and Alexander Hamilton and the greatest of ...
— The Hudson - Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention • Wallace Bruce
... De Foe.—M. de Talleyrand, having one day invited M. Denon, the celebrated traveller, to dine with him, told his wife to read the work of his guest, which she would find in the library, in order that she might be the better able to converse with him. Madame Talleyrand, unluckily, got hold, by mistake, of the "Adventures ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... 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 will ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... After all, our worst enemies are those of our own household, by which of course I mean our immediate surroundings. It is this awful necessity to live, to eat and to have a place to sleep in. Of course you are thinking of what Talleyrand said to the young aristocrat who wanted to ...
— The Missionary • George Griffith
... countryman, Hugo, in whose verse I find an echo of my own soul, and whose compositions I flatter myself I could have surpassed, if I had devoted to the Muses the time and the powers which I have squandered on a vilain metier, that demands the genius of a Talleyrand, and rewards with ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... settled or partly settled country adjoining us on the south, stretching from the Floridas to the city of New Orleans. The possession of the vast unsettled and unknown Louisiana Territory, west of the Mississippi, was neither sought nor thought of. Suddenly, on an eventful morning in April, 1803, Talleyrand astonished Livingston by offering, on behalf of Napoleon, to sell to the United States, not the Floridas at all, but merely Louisiana, "a raw little semi-tropical frontier town and ...
— Problems of Expansion - As Considered In Papers and Addresses • Whitelaw Reid
... “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
... allowing none to arise unresisted, but suppressing their every movement to the utmost that the will can. In that sense it is a very intelligible and practical piece of advice, that the wise man should labour to have no passions. It is the advice embodied in Horace's Nil admirari, Talleyrand's "No zeal," Beaconsfield's "Beware of enthusiasm." It would have man to work like a scientific instrument, calm as a chronometer, regulated by reason alone. This was the Stoic teaching, this the perfection ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... stormy endearments she could turn for solace to young 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 ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton
... spirit of Talleyrand must have animated that sickly young man. If what Mrs. Paliser desired were possible it would be done: if impossible, it was ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... greatest living diplomat is Leo XIII, and no one deems that he succeeds by deceit. Bismark says there is no success in lying, in diplomacy. Reasons of State are not, in the common consent of mankind, good reasons per se. "Talleyrand was false to every one but true to France." He was an avatar of Machiavelli, and he ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... the lane which leads to the hospital Sir Sydney Godolphin Osborne resided. Sir Rowland Hill has been already mentioned. Prince Talleyrand stayed in a house afterwards occupied by Sir Francis Palgrave, and later by Teulon the architect. In the adjoining house was Edward Irving, founder of the sect of that name, and next to him the sculptor Bacon. Collins the artist ...
— Hampstead and Marylebone - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... a brilliant assembly was gathered in the saloons of Josephine. As she entered, with queenly grace, leaning upon the arm of Talleyrand, a murmur of admiration rose from the whole multitude. She wore a robe of white muslin. Her hair fell in ringlets upon her neck and shoulders, through which gleamed a necklace of priceless pearls. The festivities were protracted until a late hour in the morning. It was said that Josephine gained ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... 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 seeing that dull care does not intrude. Now, what is ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... and Windham, with Mrs. Montague and Mrs. Thrale. Yet she was forced to own that she 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 Stal 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 soldierlike manners, ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... interested us less—I 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 ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... only for kings and princes and statesmen and warriors, but for all sorts of adventurers and impostors. Following hard after Kosciuszko, General Charles Lee, Baron Steuben, Baron de Kalb, Lord Stirling, and Lafayette, we had Talleyrand, Louis Philippe, and Jerome Bonaparte, and Joseph, king of Spain; and, but for a sudden change of wind, might have had Napoleon the Great himself—after the affair of Waterloo. We have always been, and must continue to be, overrun with pretenders, mountebanks, blood relations of Charles Fox, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... She was a young lady who wore spectacles and scorned a fringe—a dangerous course of conduct for any young woman to follow. But she made up for natural and physical deficiencies by an excess of that zeal which Talleyrand deplored. ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... not a mistake. If his function is to bring a representative of 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 restraining ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot
... Talleyrand had been guilty of such extortion in the peace with Austria and with Bavaria that he was complained against by those Powers and therefore removed—it was he who advised the war with Spain, and prevented N. from seeing the Duke ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... 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
... 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 ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... Strasbug-pie—in French, a "patty defau graw." He takes a card, and nails it on the outside case (patty defaw graws come generally in a round wooden box, like a drumb); and what do you think he writes on it? why, as follos:—"For the Honorable Algernon Percy Deuceace, &c. &c. &c. With Prince Talleyrand's compliments." ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Fallacies" may be enriched, in another edition, with another fallacy, as remarkable as any he has recorded, to wit, that prohibition in the American Constitution means prohibition! Talleyrand was once asked the meaning of non-intervention. "Non-intervention," he replied, "non-intervention means about the same thing as intervention." So, in our new constitutional vocabulary, prohibition means about ...
— The Vote That Made the President • David Dudley Field
... 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 most important in ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... 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 terms, ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... the Colonel's hotel at the Place Vendome. I here had the opportunity (an opportunity not lost, I flatter myself, on a young fellow with the accomplishments of Philip Fogarty, Esq.) of mixing with the elite of French society, and meeting with many of the great, the beautiful, and the brave. Talleyrand was a frequent guest of the Marquis's. His bon-mots used to keep the table in a roar. Ney frequently took his chop with us; Murat, when in town, constantly dropt in for a cup of tea and friendly round game. Alas! who would have thought ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... "Sire," said 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
... his fiery nature into this idea which Barras and Talleyrand had sought to inveigle him into, and all his time, his thoughts, and his energies were directed to the one purpose, to fit himself out with every thing that should be needful to bring to a victorious end a long and stubborn war in a foreign land. A strong fleet was collected, ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... different races, when they chanced to speak some common language, get an opportunity of enjoying their leisure together. A friend of mine, a highly gifted Frenchman of the fine old type, a descendant of Talleyrand, who was born a hundred and fifty years too late, opened his hospitable house once a week to the elite of the world, and partially ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... 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 only to dream ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
... said Grevin, "and this conspiracy your best chance of keeping it. Fouche, Talleyrand, and those two fellows have nothing to do with that. Therefore play fair with them. What nonsense! those who cut Louis XVI.'s head off are in the government; France is full of men who have bought national property, and yet you ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... Foundation Grammar School. Talleyrand lived in Nos. 36 and 37, formerly one house. He succeeded Bishop Herring in the occupancy, after a lapse of fifty years, and the man who had abandoned the vocation of the Church to follow diplomacy was thus sheltered by the same roof that ...
— The Kensington District - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... beautiful, dear and famous face! I am going to have a large frame made and hang it on my wall, being able to say, as did M. de Talleyrand to Louis Philippe: "It is the greatest honor that my house has received"; a poor phrase, for we two are worth more than those ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... other passages 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, "What is truth?" Such ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... 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 ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... turner," has been a frequent visitor at the palace of late. Palmerston, it is whispered, has been receiving lessons in the art. We are surprised to hear this, for we always considered his lordship a Talleyrand in turning. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 1, July 17, 1841 • Various |
