Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XV.djvu/586

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

558 TALLEYRAND-PEPJGORD tions, and was in consequence deprived of his office of chamberlain in 1809; but this only stimulated his sarcastic criticisms against the imperial policy. As early as 1812 he is said to have foretold the approaching overthrow of Napoleon, and on its occurrence he was looked upon at home and abroad as the most influential statesman of the day and the leader of the new revolution. A last interview be- tween him and the emperor in the beginning of 1814 completed the estrangement between them; and Talleyrand, though still a digni- tary of the empire and one of the council of regency, thought of nothing but ruining his master. He secretly sent word to the allied sovereigns to hasten toward Paris ; and when that city surrendered, March 30, he offered his hotel to the emperor Alexander. His management secured the appointment by the senate, on April 1, of a provisional govern- ment, and its formal declaration on the day following Napoleon's dethronement. While Marshal Marmont was prevailed upon to sign at Essonne (April 3) a convention that baffled Napoleon's last hopes of resisting, Talleyrand welcomed the count of Artois to the French metropolis, April 12, and remained the head of the new government. On the arrival of Louis XVIII. he was appointed (May 12) min- ister of foreign affairs, holding in fact the premiership in the cabinet ; and on June 4 he was made a peer of France. He negotiated the first treaty of Paris, May 30, 1814; and four months later he was sent as minister plenipotentiary to the congress of Vienna, where he failed in protecting the interests of France as well as he desired. He was sur- prised tbere by the sudden return of Napo- leon from Elba, and participated in the decla- ration that " outlawed the enemy of nations." He was excepted from the amnesty granted to those who had previously deserted the em- peror, went to Ghent, where he joined the exiled king Louis XVIII., accompanied him to France when he returned there after the battle of Waterloo, and resumed, July 8, 1815, the premiership in the cabinet and the ministry of foreign affairs ; but being disgusted by the hard terms imposed upon France by the allied powers and by the reactionary tendencies of the new chamber of deputies, he resigned his office at the end of a few weeks. Accord- ing to another account, having become obnox- ious to the emperor Alexander, he was dis- missed; but through the duke of Richelieu's entreaties he received the title of grand cham- berlain of France, with a salary of 40,000 francs. He still visited the Tuileries, but was coldly received; he retained his seat in the chamber of peers, and delivered there several opposition speeches ; but his influence was greatest in social intercourse, his saloon be- ing the gathering place of politicians of every shade of opinion. After the revolution of July, 1830, he was appointed ambassador to England with a princely salary, and negotiated TALLIEN a treaty, April 22, 1834, by which France, England, Spain, and Portugal united for the pacification and settlement of the two penin- sular kingdoms. He resigned his office, Jan. 7, 1835, and retired to private life. The most remarkable of his essays is his Memoire sur les relations commerciales des J&tats- Unis vers 1797. He left personal memoirs, which according to his will were not to be published till 30 years after his death. In 1868 Napoleon III. ob- tained from the heirs a further postponement of 22 years ; and in 1872, it having been an- nounced that the memoirs were about to be published, the duke de Montmorency, custo- dian of the manuscript, refused to violate the pledge given to the late emperor. On the day before his death Talleyrand wrote a let- ter to the pope enclosing a "retraction" writ- ten two months before. The "retraction" deplores his acts which had afflicted the church; and the letter says that his memoirs will explain to posterity the writer's conduct during the revolution. TALLIEN, Jean Lambert, a French revolution- ist, born in Paris in 1769, died there in No- vember, 1820. He was the son of the house steward of the marquis de Bercy, who gave him the means of a classical education. In 1791 he started a transient newspaper, L'Ami du Ci- toyen, and became a member of the Jacobin club, and in 1792 clerk of the commune of Paris and deputy to the* convention from Seine- et-Oise. He took his seat among the monta- gnards, voted for the death of Louis XVI., and was one of the bitterest opponents of the Girondists. He was sent on a mission to Bor- deaux in 1793, and became acquainted with Mme. de Fontenay, whom he married. (See CHIMAY.) At her instigation he denounced Robespierre and procured his execution, which made him the leader of the Thermidorians. Through his influence Fouquier-Tinville, Car- rier, and Lebon were doomed to punishment ; and through his energy the revolutionary at- tempt of the 1st Prairial was baffled. As com- missary of the convention with the army of the west in 1795, he ordered all the royalist prisoners made by Hoche on the Quiberon pe- ninsula to be shot. On the 13th Vend6miaire he was among the defenders of the convention against the rebellious sections of Paris. After the establishment of the directorial govern- ment he was a member of the council of 500, and shared in the republican coup d'etat of the 18th Fructidor. In 1798 he accompanied Bo- naparte to Egypt as one of the committee of scientific men, and held there a high adminis- trative office. While returning to France he was taken prisoner by the English, and wel- comed to London by the whig party. In 1805 he was appointed consul to Alicante ; but sick- ness obliged him to return to Paris, where he received a paltry pension from Napoleon, which he lost in 1811. Mme. Tallien, from whom he was divorced in 1802, had borne him four children.