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| Note: | Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See https://archive.org/details/reminiscencesofp01colm Project Gutenberg has the other volume of this work. Volume II: see http://www.gutenberg.org/files/55995/55995-h/55995-h.htm |
Transcriber’s Note
Cover created by Transcriber, using an illustration fromthe original book, and placed in the Public Domain.
ch. maurice de talleyrand
REMINISCENCES
OF
PRINCE TALLEYRAND.
EDITED
FROM THE PAPERS OF THE LATE
M. COLMACHE,
PRIVATE SECRETARY TO THE PRINCE,
BY
MADAME COLMACHE.
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. I.
LONDON:
HENRY COLBURN, PUBLISHER,
GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.
1848.
PREFACE.
Prince Talleyrand has left a name in Europeperhaps the greatest ever achieved by any man inFrance who has devoted himself exclusively to thecivil offices of the state. In the present century,he has become as great a diplomatic authority aswas Machiavelli in the sixteenth; and hence theHôtel Talleyrand, in the Rue St. Florentin, hasbeen regarded by every disciple of state-craft whohas visited the French capital, with perhaps asmuch veneration as the literary devotee accordsto the more humble abode at Stratford of thegreat master of English poetry.
The brilliant career of so public a character asivPrince Talleyrand has necessarily become muchcanvassed, but up to the present time, no accounthas been published of his private history, moreparticularly of his early life. This, however, couldonly be written by some one peculiarly in thePrince’s confidence, who possessed favourableopportunities for studying his personal characteristics,and of becoming acquainted with hisfirst struggles, experiences, and adventures.
The writer of this work enjoyed such opportunitiesin an eminent degree, and was in thehabit of noting down Talleyrand’s revelations andrecollections, which were from time to time impartedto him; and the result, as now laid beforethe public, it will readily be allowed, affords amore interesting portrait of this illustrious statesmanthan has hitherto been given to the world.Very curious particula