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The Constituent Assembly was then blind and weak, not to create a republic as the natural instrument of the Revolution. Mirabeau, Bailly, La Fayette, Siéyès, Barnave, Talleyrand, and Lameth acted in this respect like philosophers, and not great politicians, as events have amply proved.
"Do you refer to the Perigord truffle, or to the Abbot of Perigord, the great Talleyrand?" "I see you are lost beyond redemption," said Narbonne, sighing, while the other gentlemen burst into laughter. "Even in the face of a truffle you still dare to amuse yourself with political puns, and confound intentionally an abbot with a truffle!
But Napoleon was gone and Louis XVIII was on the throne. "Give him a chance," Talleyrand pleaded. And the Allies, glad to see a legitimate king upon the throne of a revolutionary country, obligingly yielded and the Bourbons were given their chance, of which they made such use that they were driven out after fifteen years.
Well might Talleyrand write to Napoleon: "I am very satisfied with M. Haugwitz." Napoleon's victory over Prussian diplomacy was therefore won, even before the lightning-stroke of Austerlitz blasted the Third Coalition.
Then there was a very fine ball at the Hotel de Ville rather clouded, though, by a prediction coming from all quarters, that it would be the occasion of another attempt on my father. Old Prince Talleyrand, who was almost dying, begged my eldest brother to go and see him, so that he might add his warning to all the others.
Old Peter. She's a nice girl." "A nice girl?" Ted begins rather violently. "She's why she's " then pauses, seeing the trap. "Oh very well that's all I wanted to know." "Oh don't look so much like a little tin Talleyrand, Ollie! I'm not sure and that's rather more than I'd even hint to anybody else." "Thanks, little darling."
When this was reported to Talleyrand, he smiled with contempt; but when it was told to Bonaparte, he stamped with rage at the impudence of the Spaniard in daring to associate his name of acquired and established greatness with his own impertinent schemes of absurdities and impossibilities.
Whatever Bonaparte and Talleyrand write or assert to the contrary, their gifts are only the wages of their contempt, and they despise more that State they thus reward than those nations at whose expense they are liberal, and with whose spoil they delude selfishness or meanness into their snares.
"Bring him to my private cabinet at four o'clock." 'So, youngster, I came straight away to you at once, and mind that you do credit to the 10th Hussars. I was by no means flattered by the reasons which had led to my Colonel's choice, and I must have shown as much in my face, for he roared with laughter and Talleyrand gave a dry chuckle also.
Talleyrand also was kept out of the army, for which he had been destined, by his lameness; but directing his attention to the study of books, and eventually of men, he at length took rank amongst the greatest diplomatists of his time. Byron's clubfoot had probably not a little to do with determining his destiny as a poet.
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