It is interesting and instructive to be made familiar with their proverbial philosophy, but it does not follow the infallibility of their proverbs must be recognized. Many of Sir Henry's opinions, therefore, may meet with dissent on this side of the water; much of his free and easy continental code he himself would abhor if made applicable to British interests, British politics, or British domestic ethics. In the cultivated opinion of the United States, the continental standard of justifiable policy is even more detestable, and ought to be in all climes and countries, in every latitude and longitude on the face of the earth.
Charles Maurice Talleyrand de Périgord was born in 1754, of one of the most noble and ancient families in France. He was sent to the Collége d'Harcout, where he gained the first prizes; transferred to the Seminary of St. Sulpice, his talents for disputation and composition were long remembered; and when, at last, sent to the Sorbonne, he was equally remarkable, although destined for the church, as a very clever and a very profligate young gentleman. He made no secret of his dislike to the profession chosen for him, but it was not doubted among those who knew him that he would reach its highest honors. In 1773, he entered the Gallican priesthood. When twenty years of age, his countenance was peculiarly attractive. It was indicative of softness, yet of boldness; of imperturbability, yet of humor and wit. When somewhat older, his features wore a long, oval appearance; his eyes were blue, deep, and variable; his lips usually compressed with an ironical smile, but not of ill nature; his nose, with clear-chiselled nostril, was delicate and slightly turned up; his voice deep toned, almost sepulchral. In five years he was chosen to the distinguished post of agent-general of the French clergy, where he administered with great success the ecclesiastical revenues of immense amount, and where he first exhibited his financial abilities in the clearness and neatness of his statements and reports. He became Bishop of Autun in 1789.
"'He dressed,' says one of his many biographers, 'like a coxcomb, he thought like a deist, he preached like a saint. At once active and irregular, he found time for everything: the church, the court, the opera. In bed one day from indolence or debauch, up the whole of the following night to prepare a memoir or a speech. Gentle with the humble, haughty with the high; not very exact in paying his debts, but very scrupulous with respect to giving and breaking promises to pay them.'" (P. 31.)
Early in life introduced into the salons of Paris, he readily caught their spirit, and soon obtained the friendship of the leading encyclopaedists and philosophers of scientific and historical fame; he was on intimate terms with many well known in letters and in the arts. The celebrated wits of both sexes, the beauties, the belles, courted his society; the charm of their brilliant conversation, their versatile accomplishments, and their winning manners were fascinating and irresistible. These divinities imagined they moved and had their being in a sublimated atmosphere far above and beyond the aspiration of common mortals; their sentiments breathed of perfect philanthropy, expressed in terms and in tenderness befitting persons divinely inspired. Every allurement that could inspire the imagination, every blandishment entrancing the senses, every grace, talent, every ornament which could enhance the form or ennoble the intellect, was cultivated and appreciated. Luxury in dress, in gems, in furniture, in equipage, in banquets, in music, in flowers, in painting, in frescoes, in sculpture, was displayed with excess of prodigality which vied with the purest taste. An ambrosial flavor of expression abounded in a common salutation; a delicate oriental perfume seemed to permeate every compliment, nor was any remark deemed appropriate unless it contained a compliment; eloquence was discarded because it was tinctured with too much external exhibition of feeling; it, moreover, took up too much precious time. But a higher art was attained in its stead—the art of epigrammatical brevity, to communicate in a half-line what an oration could not teach in a half-hour; nor was an epigram deemed perfect when its wit was rare and its sense profound, unless it tended to a sneer at religion or goodness in mankind, or told a scandalous lie.
The pervading object, the avowed purpose in this society, was to seek pleasure, to declaim against abuses in institutions, moral, political, and Christian, in the public at large, in domestic habits and manners, in the state, and in the church. But these refined creatures were not good, nor moral, nor pure, nor Christians themselves; they made no pretensions to any of these virtues; they were not proselyting reformers; they were in no sense radicals; they made no active exertions to pull down, neither did they aim to build up, nor to improve the world, but were content to deplore human evils and to rail at everybody. If a choice had been given to them to abolish institutions, or only to remove their abuses incident to all things of human creation, they would have preferred to abolish the institutions, provided the abuses were permitted to remain intact. But as they could not be rid of the beneficial advantages of the substance without the banishment of the evil shadow, they were content to tolerate the nuisance of what was a blessing to the nation, in order to possess for themselves the parts pernicious which were of sinful, comfortable consideration in their sight. They supposed their mission fulfilled when they talked and did nothing. If one of the coterie had turned patriot and aspired to usefulness, he would have been deemed a harmless traitor, and commiserated for the folly of his desertion. His efforts would have subjected him to their lamenting sympathy, their smiling mockery, their laconic brevities, which, although seemingly soothing, would be as scorching as they were short. Because he had accomplished something commendable or attempted its accomplishment, they would decide he had fallen from grace, had rendered himself liable to their biting condolence, and laid himself open to the piercing shafts of their pity. Voltaire, still lingering in his senility as head and chief priest of this highly refined and deeply depraved community, had sent forth a parting rescript to the faithful in their infidelity, that "one who has done nothing is possessed of a terrible advantage; but he must not abuse it."
Talleyrand, at the age of thirty-six, was fast rising to great prominence, if not pre-eminence in this unholy set. When Voltaire should be called to his last account in another world, and his mortal remains repose in the Père-la-Chaise or Parthenon, it was generally supposed the young Bishop of Autun would by common consent be raised to the place of the old philosopher of Ferney. But had it been thus, had the reign of the Bourbons been prolonged, Talleyrand would have betrayed and mocked the irreligious of the Palais Royal and St. Germain, as he bartered away the pious interests of his diocese. In some respects he resembled Voltaire, but in many more they widely differed. In general he was in mind unlike to him, as he was in morals dissimilar to the late bishop. Voltaire was always in search of flattery; Talleyrand despised it. Voltaire was pleased with petty scheming and petty intrigues; Talleyrand pushed them aside. Voltaire betrayed and lampooned his friends; Talleyrand did not deceive his, nor slander. Voltaire was much feared for his malicious sarcasm; Talleyrand was well liked for his bounteous humor. The one was a judge of books, as the other was a judge of men; the one was always grumbling from his failures, the other always content with his success; the one injecting a telling point into a falsehood, the other imparting force to a truth. Both were great in epigrammatic hits in their own way; with this difference, however, that Voltaire, being soured with the world, exposed his asperity in his jests; while Talleyrand, pleased with it, concealed all vexation and rounded his remarks with an easy smile. Voltaire was a spoiled child of society; society was a plaything for Talleyrand. In a word, the graceless bishop, intellectually, morally, socially, was the superior, and far outshone the snarling philosopher. Voltaire could never, in playing long whist and counting his points, if informed that an old lady had married her footman, have drawled out, "At nine honors don't count;" nor could he in pleasantry have said to Frederick of Prussia what Talleyrand remarked to Louis XVIII.: "There is something inexplicable about me which brings ill luck on the government that neglects me."
Before the death of Voltaire, the young Bishop of Autun had discovered, with his preternatural clearness of mental vision, that the scoffers who were the embodiment of science, philanthropy, and refinement, joined to profligate professors and shameless women, formed an institution, with its abominations also, like all others; just as the holy church had its sacred virtues scandalized by some glaring abuses among a portion of the clergy. The bishop must have felt that he constituted in himself a type of what was good and of what was bad in each: he ardently loved science, art, and whatever was refining and progressive, as he conscientiously revered the revealed truths of the Catholic faith. But he could not resist the enticements and adulations of society; nor refuse the temptation to raise himself to political power by laying sacrilegious hands on the property of the church. Not for one moment, however, was he deceived by the sophistries or jargon of the infidel school that reigned supreme in polite circles, and only once was his sound judgment found wanting in fidelity to his religious order, of which he was a most unworthy representative. He confounded the abuses in the state, the depravity of the aristocracy, the irregularities among the clergy, as one common class of grievances to the nation which ought to be ended; but he did not desire to witness the sovereign beheaded, the mob supreme, nor the idol of Reason enthroned in the house of God.
His aim in life seems to have been the possession of unrivalled prestige in Parisian society. To reach that pinnacle for his ease, comfort, and earthly happiness, he did or was willing to do whatever would promote his purpose: he left undone whatever would militate against it. He understood the requisites for its attainment, but would not sacrifice present tranquillity, the absolute satisfaction now, for the shadowy anticipation in the future. Intellectual exertion was a pleasure to him at all times. He desired wealth, rank, power, fame, as passports into the magic circle of his ambition; but he held himself on a level with the great, while he treated the unfortunate, the weak, the unsuccessful, with undiminished attention. He was keenly sensitive to censure, for censure impaired his prestige. Pozzo de Borgo, a celebrated and rival diplomatist, once said of him: "This man has made himself great by placing himself always by the side of the little and among those who most need him." In truth, he was willing to aid any one, powerful or weak, who could now or hereafter aid him. But he never deceived those whom he was serving, nor cringed, nor intrigued, nor betrayed them; he was always true to his country, and always sound in his judgment in deciding by what line of conduct the interests of his country could be best promoted.
In one instance only did he make a mistake, but that mistake was terrible; it was, moreover, unfortunate for France as for himself; it produced the only bad luck that befell him in his very long life and invariably prosperous career. It was in not discriminating between the clergy, as trustees of the church property, and the property itself entrusted to their keeping. He viewed the temporalities as absolutely their own, their inheritance, instead of perceiving that these possessions were only a charge delivered to them for safe keeping and transmission, which could not descend to their heirs but must go to their successors. He confounded their duties as administrators of the estate with the rights of the persons for whom the estate was formed. If the clergy were willing, therefore, to take a bribe to betray their trust, Talleyrand supposed the nefarious bargain amounted to a fair and honest purchase of the trust property. The estate was not created for them, but they were created for the estate.