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The Lives of Talleyrand
The Lives of Talleyrand is a study of the character and actions of the man who so profoundly influenced the destiny of the French Revolution and helped to shape the contours of all Europe as well. The requisite historical background is of course given, but it is the many-faceted personality of Talleyrand which the author has made it his task to portray--and he has done so with discrimination and wit.
320 pages, Paperback
Published January 17, 1963
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About the author
Crane Brinton
82 books32 followersClarence Crane Brinton (February 25, 1898 – September 7, 1968) was an American historian of France, as well as a historian of ideas. His most famous work, The Anatomy of Revolution (1938) likened the dynamics of revolutionary movements to the progress of fever.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
August 21, 2008
Charles de Talleyrand-Perigord was a man who wore many different coats in his lifetime. He was a bishop, a participant in revolutionary France, an exile during the days of The Terror in the country, Bonapartist, Royalist, but above all: a diplomat. "The Prince of Diplomats," as he came to be known, is a man that remains unknown to most, reviled by some, and intriguing to an even smaller few. How can one man work for so many very different factions during the most turbulant periods of France's, and Europe's, history? This is what The Lives of Talleyrand proceeds to explain.
I'll admit before I started reading this book I had the impression a lot of people had of the man: that he was a sneaking, conniving man that managed to play the different groups that were competing against each other and make a fat wad of cash from it in the process. I learned that while some of my initial belief was true (he was always happy to take a bribe from representatives of other countries, but it was a pretty common practice at the time, so it wasn't that unusual), the actual man was far more complicated than that.
This book proceeds to illustrate that Talleyrand was a man with a skeptical bent and never held one abstract ideal as "The Truth and The Way." At most he was a man that loved his country, loved Europe, loved peace (because then he could relax and have a good time), and he had a deep understanding of human nature and what it took to get people on his side.
If there is one thing I took away from this book it is that Talleyrand understood that people's beliefs can determine their actions, even if they live their lives not wholly in conjuction with these beliefs. If you stroke a person's ego and offer a little bit of compensation, you can go far in getting that person on your side, and Talleyrand was a genius when it came to this.
Crane Brinton gives us the picture of a man who lived a balanced life distrustful of "prophets" shouting from the mountaintops a way of living that was noble and good, a way of living wholly impossible for anybody to actually live up to. He left during the French Revolution because the leaders thought they could make a "new, better, virtuous" France filled with good citizens and good people, where everyone was equal, nobody was jealous of anyone else, and anybody that wasn't like that could face the guillotine.
He later came back and cultivated the rise of Napoleon, becoming the "Little General's" foreign minister. But he would begin to work against Bonaparte at his very peak of power. Napoleon had crushed Austria utterly, Russia was friendly towards France, the only nation left in Europe that was still at war with them was England and that was at a stalemate. Why would Talleyrand turn at this glorious time? Simply put, he didn't think Napoleon was a god.
Talleyrand beseeched Napoleon to make a magnanimous peace treaty with the Austrians. But Bonaparte wouldn't listen; he wanted to humiliate Austria and continue to make all of Europe a French state. This was an impossible state of affairs that could only lead to more war, death, and destruction. His last act as an official of Napoleonic France was to secretly convince Czar Alexander of Russia that an alliance with France would be a huge mistake. Soon after Napoleon stripped Talleyrand of his station, and not long after that Europe united and stripped Napoleon of his country.
Talleyrand's life is filled with many examples of such maneuvering. A large portion of the book is spent trying to examine why exactly a man who spent his years working for the glory and peace of one country should gain a reputation as a sneaking, opportunistic man whom, if he had a moustache, you could imagine him stroking and cackling with glee.
While the book is ostensibly a biography, it is almost just as much a defense of the "philosphy" of Talleyrand. The argument is that so much of his bad reputation is in large part due to our Victorian heritage. Simply because he refused to fall on the sword for some abstract "truth" that didn't work in the real world, and could use other men's own beliefs in these truths to manipulate them in perfect Machiavellian style, he was painted as a bad man. His womanizing and willingness to take bribes and not feel bad about it were just icing on the cake. Yet the world is filled with womanizers and corrupt politicians who take "donations" from interested parties.
The author argues that Talleyrand was a liberal man interested in peace (though by no means a pacifist) because it allowed himself and others to live their lives, to work, make money, and follow the pursuits that interested them. He understood the balances of the world. Governments need to lie a little bit to keep people happy, otherwise they have to use force to keep them pacified. If you can make symbolic acts that were ultimately meaningless but could pacify an enemy, then by all means do it. A government built on truth and virtue is impossible because man is in some part deceitful and unvirtuous. What is utopia for one, is dystopia for another. Egos have to be stroked or else chaos ensues.
This book has given me a lot of things I didn't think I would sit around mulling over after reading a biography on a historical "villain." I've learned a lot more about a man, and even more so about the workings of politics and government. I'm left asking the question: Is it better to have a leader that lies for the purpose of peace, or one that is "good" with high ideals who leads us into foolish, unwinnable wars? I know what my answer is.
I'll admit before I started reading this book I had the impression a lot of people had of the man: that he was a sneaking, conniving man that managed to play the different groups that were competing against each other and make a fat wad of cash from it in the process. I learned that while some of my initial belief was true (he was always happy to take a bribe from representatives of other countries, but it was a pretty common practice at the time, so it wasn't that unusual), the actual man was far more complicated than that.
This book proceeds to illustrate that Talleyrand was a man with a skeptical bent and never held one abstract ideal as "The Truth and The Way." At most he was a man that loved his country, loved Europe, loved peace (because then he could relax and have a good time), and he had a deep understanding of human nature and what it took to get people on his side.
If there is one thing I took away from this book it is that Talleyrand understood that people's beliefs can determine their actions, even if they live their lives not wholly in conjuction with these beliefs. If you stroke a person's ego and offer a little bit of compensation, you can go far in getting that person on your side, and Talleyrand was a genius when it came to this.
Crane Brinton gives us the picture of a man who lived a balanced life distrustful of "prophets" shouting from the mountaintops a way of living that was noble and good, a way of living wholly impossible for anybody to actually live up to. He left during the French Revolution because the leaders thought they could make a "new, better, virtuous" France filled with good citizens and good people, where everyone was equal, nobody was jealous of anyone else, and anybody that wasn't like that could face the guillotine.
He later came back and cultivated the rise of Napoleon, becoming the "Little General's" foreign minister. But he would begin to work against Bonaparte at his very peak of power. Napoleon had crushed Austria utterly, Russia was friendly towards France, the only nation left in Europe that was still at war with them was England and that was at a stalemate. Why would Talleyrand turn at this glorious time? Simply put, he didn't think Napoleon was a god.
Talleyrand beseeched Napoleon to make a magnanimous peace treaty with the Austrians. But Bonaparte wouldn't listen; he wanted to humiliate Austria and continue to make all of Europe a French state. This was an impossible state of affairs that could only lead to more war, death, and destruction. His last act as an official of Napoleonic France was to secretly convince Czar Alexander of Russia that an alliance with France would be a huge mistake. Soon after Napoleon stripped Talleyrand of his station, and not long after that Europe united and stripped Napoleon of his country.
Talleyrand's life is filled with many examples of such maneuvering. A large portion of the book is spent trying to examine why exactly a man who spent his years working for the glory and peace of one country should gain a reputation as a sneaking, opportunistic man whom, if he had a moustache, you could imagine him stroking and cackling with glee.
While the book is ostensibly a biography, it is almost just as much a defense of the "philosphy" of Talleyrand. The argument is that so much of his bad reputation is in large part due to our Victorian heritage. Simply because he refused to fall on the sword for some abstract "truth" that didn't work in the real world, and could use other men's own beliefs in these truths to manipulate them in perfect Machiavellian style, he was painted as a bad man. His womanizing and willingness to take bribes and not feel bad about it were just icing on the cake. Yet the world is filled with womanizers and corrupt politicians who take "donations" from interested parties.
The author argues that Talleyrand was a liberal man interested in peace (though by no means a pacifist) because it allowed himself and others to live their lives, to work, make money, and follow the pursuits that interested them. He understood the balances of the world. Governments need to lie a little bit to keep people happy, otherwise they have to use force to keep them pacified. If you can make symbolic acts that were ultimately meaningless but could pacify an enemy, then by all means do it. A government built on truth and virtue is impossible because man is in some part deceitful and unvirtuous. What is utopia for one, is dystopia for another. Egos have to be stroked or else chaos ensues.
This book has given me a lot of things I didn't think I would sit around mulling over after reading a biography on a historical "villain." I've learned a lot more about a man, and even more so about the workings of politics and government. I'm left asking the question: Is it better to have a leader that lies for the purpose of peace, or one that is "good" with high ideals who leads us into foolish, unwinnable wars? I know what my answer is.
May 17, 2019
I picked this up at a used bookstore in Georgia. It's a unique book, not least because it was written in 1936, and it's interesting to see how the style of biographies seems to have changed since then. All in all much of this book sounds, to me, very subjective, opinionated (he even writes, at one point "no one wants to read objective biographies") and meandering (it goes on many tangents). Some of this (especially when the author tries to show how people throughout the years have been misinterpreting Talleyrand, as well as the final two chapters) gets sort of tedious.
I also noticed a lack of footnotes or sources, which we seem to care about more these days I guess. To be fair, there is a bibliography, but it would be close to impossible to match the sources to the passages in the book itself.
The bulk of the book itself, however, is quite informative. Talleyrand is a very interesting man and the author did an excellent job of portraying him. You could probably skip the first and last two chapters though.
Interesting point: The author kept equating France's defeat in 1814 to Germany's in 1918, wondering why the terms were so lenient for the former, while so harsh for the latter, including suggesting that it was due to democracy (the leaders at Versailles had to answer to parliamentary and congressional pressure). I found that an interesting take.
Interesting quote: "One-way principles may lead to Heaven or to the scaffold - perhaps to Heaven by means of the scaffold - but not to diplomatic victories" (p.216)
I also noticed a lack of footnotes or sources, which we seem to care about more these days I guess. To be fair, there is a bibliography, but it would be close to impossible to match the sources to the passages in the book itself.
The bulk of the book itself, however, is quite informative. Talleyrand is a very interesting man and the author did an excellent job of portraying him. You could probably skip the first and last two chapters though.
Interesting point: The author kept equating France's defeat in 1814 to Germany's in 1918, wondering why the terms were so lenient for the former, while so harsh for the latter, including suggesting that it was due to democracy (the leaders at Versailles had to answer to parliamentary and congressional pressure). I found that an interesting take.
Interesting quote: "One-way principles may lead to Heaven or to the scaffold - perhaps to Heaven by means of the scaffold - but not to diplomatic victories" (p.216)
February 1, 2019
This was an excellent biography of Talleyrand. A man seemingly without morals or principles, Brinton manages to make him sound almost like a good person who lived by his own personal moral compass. Fascinating.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews