[Société Historique et Archéologique du Périgord]Livre Rare Book
MEMOIRS OF C.M. TALLEYRAND DE PERIGORD One of Bonaparte's Principal Secretaries of State his Grand Chamberlain and Grand Officer of the Legion of Honour Ex-Bishop of Autun Ex-Abbe et Celles and St. Dennis; &c. Containing the Particulars of His Private and Public Lifeof his Intrigues in Boudoirs as Well as in Cabinets. By the Author of the Revolutionary Plutarch.
180534653London: Printed for J. Murray Fleet Street By T. Gillet Salisbury Square 1805. 2 volumes. First Edition. Illustrated with an engraved portrait frontispiece of Talleyrand and folding plates with facsimile signatures and autograph material from the sources. Large 12mo contemporary polished calf over marbled paper covered boards the spines with double gilt fillet rules separating the compartments one compartment numbered in gilt another with red morocco lettering label gilt. xx 410 2 ads.; iv 401 2 ads. pp. A handsome copy clean and well preserved Vol. I with some cracking to the upper outer hinge but not to the inner the pastedown free-flu and cords all in good order. An honest and completely contemporary example. FIRST EDITION. TALLEYRAND THE SUBJECT OF SO MANY WRITTEN RECORDS AND EVEN OF FILMS OVER THE YEARS. Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord 1st Prince of Benevento then Prince of Talleyrand was a French secularized clergyman statesman and leading diplomat. After studying theology he became Agent-General of the Clergy in 1780. In 1789 just before the French Revolution he became Bishop of Autun. He worked at the highest levels of successive French governments most commonly as foreign minister or in some other diplomatic capacity. He served as the French Diplomat in the Congress of Vienna. His career spanned the regimes of Louis XVI the years of the French Revolution Napoleon Louis XVIII Charles X and Louis Philippe I. Those Talleyrand served often distrusted him but found him extremely useful.<br> Talleyrand was Napoleon's chief diplomat during the years when French military victories brought one European state after another under French hegemony. Most of the time he worked for peace so as to consolidate France's gains. He succeeded in obtaining peace with Austria through the 1801 Treaty of Lunéville and with Britain in the 1802 Treaty of Amiens. He could not prevent the renewal of war in 1803 but by 1805 he opposed his emperor's renewed wars against Austria Prussia and Russia. He resigned as foreign minister in August 1807 but retained the trust of Napoleon. He conspired to undermine the emperor's plans through secret dealings with Tsar Alexander I of Russia and the Austrian minister Klemens von Metternich. Talleyrand sought a negotiated secure peace so as to perpetuate the gains of the French Revolution. Napoleon rejected peace; when he fell in 1814 Talleyrand supported the Bourbon Restoration decided by the Allies. He played a major role at the Congress of Vienna in 1814–1815 where he negotiated a favorable settlement for France and played a role in unwinding the Napoleonic Wars. Printed for J. Murray, Fleet Street, By T. Gillet, Salisbury Square hardcover
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