maître des requêtes, referendary, a minor officer of the Council of State.
avec humeur, out of temper, irritated.
Page 3.
Talleyrand (1754-1838), a politician whose skill in unprincipled intrigue made him a power under every form of government, from the States-General that inaugurated the First Revolution until his death. Many epigrams like this testify to his cynicism, which anticipated remarkably the modern blague, as we find it, for instance, in "Le Gendre de monsieur Poirier."