There were assembled at Madame Dubarry’s a number of young gentlemen, rather free in their conversation and prodigal in their boasts: no beauty had been veiled to their desires, no virtue had been able to resist their attacks. The subject of this memoir alone said nothing. “And what makes you so sad and silent?” asked the hostess. “Hélas! madame, je faisais une réflexion bien triste.” “Et laquelle?” “Ah, madame, que Paris est une ville dans laquelle il est bien plus aisé d’avoir des femmes que des abbayes.”
The saying, so goes the story, was considered charming, and being reported to Louis XV., was rewarded by that monarch with the benefice desired. The Abbé de Périgord’s career, thus commenced, did not long linger. Within a few years after entering the church, aided by his birth and abilities, he obtained (in 1780) the distinguished position of “Agent-General” of the French clergy—this title designating an important personage who administered the ecclesiastical revenues, which were then immense, under the control of regular assemblies.
It is a curious trait in the manners of these times that, whilst holding this high post as a priest, the Abbé de Périgord fitted out a vessel as a privateer; and, it being his intention to plunder the English, received from the French government the cannon he required for so pious a purpose.[6]
I am unable to say what success attended M. de Talleyrand’s naval enterprise; but when, in 1785, he had to give an account of his clerical administration, the very clear and statesmanlike manner in which he did so, raised him, in the opinion of the public, from the position of a clever man, into that of an able one. Nor was this all. The peculiar nature of the first public duties which he thus exercised, directed his mind towards those questions which the increasing deficit in the French treasury, and the acknowledged necessity of supplying it, made the fashion: for every one at that time in Paris—ladies, philosophers, wits, and men of fashion—talked finance. Few, however, troubled themselves with acquiring any real insight into so dry a subject. But M. de Talleyrand, although constitutionally averse to hard or continued study, supplied this defect by always seeking and living with men who were the best informed on those subjects with which he wished to become acquainted. In this manner his own information became essentially practical, and the knowledge he obtained of details (furnishing him with a variety of facts, which he always knew how to quote opportunely), attracted the attention and patronage of M. de Calonne, then at the head of the French government, and who, being himself as much addicted to pleasure as to affairs, was not sorry to sanction the doctrine that a man of the world might also be a man of business.
Still, though thus early marked out as a person who, after the example of his great ecclesiastical predecessors, might rise to the highest dignities in the Church and State, the Abbé de Périgord showed an almost ostentatious disregard for the duties and decorum of the profession which he had been forced to embrace. Indeed, he seemed to make in this sort of conduct a kind of protest against the decree by which his birthright had been set aside, and almost to glory in the publication of profane epigrams and amorous adventures which amused the world but scandalised the Church. Thus, each year, which increased his reputation for ability, added to the stories by which public rumour exaggerated his immorality; and in 1788, when the bishopric of Autun, to which he had for some time been looking forward, became vacant, Louis XVI. was unwilling to confer the dignity of prelate on so irregular an ecclesiastic. For four months the appointment was not filled up. But the Abbé de Périgord’s father lay at that time on his death-bed: he was visited by the kind-hearted Louis in this condition, and he begged the monarch, as the last request of a dying and faithful servant, to grant the bishopric in question to his son. The King could not withstand such a prayer at such a moment, and the Abbé de Périgord was consecrated Bishop of Autun on the 17th of January, 1789—four months before the assembling of the States-General.
V.
The period which had elapsed between the time at which M. de Talleyrand had entered the Church, and that at which he attained the episcopal dignity, is, perhaps, the most interesting in modern civilization. At no epoch did society ever present so bright and polished a surface as it did in the French capital during these fourteen or fifteen years. The still great fortunes of the grand seigneur, the profuse expenditure of the financier, the splendour of a court embellished by that love for the arts and for letters which the Medici had imported from Italy, and which Louis XIV. had made a part of his royal magnificence, all contributed to surround life with a taste in luxury which has never been surpassed. Rich manufactures of silk, exquisite chiseling in bronze, china equally beautiful in form and decoration, and paintings somewhat effeminate, but graceful, and which still give celebrity to the names of Watteau, Boucher, and Greuze, mark the elegant refinement that presided over those days.
Nothing, however, in those courtly times had been carried to such perfection as the art of living, and the habits of social intercourse. People did not then shut up their houses from their friends if they were poor, nor merely open them in order to give gorgeous and pompous entertainments if they were rich. Persons who suited and sympathised, assembled in small circles, which permitted the access of new members cautiously, but received all who had once been admitted without preference or distinction.