Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand
Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand served every French regime from Louis XVI to Louis-Philippe and betrayed most of them. Born in Paris in 1754 into an ancient noble family, a childhood injury left him with a permanent limp, and he was pushed into the church because he could not inherit as a soldier. He was ordained without belief and became Bishop of Autun in 1788. Elected to the Estates-General, he proposed nationalising church property to solve the state's debts, celebrated mass at the Festival of the Federation, and was excommunicated. He went to London and then America during the Terror, returned in 1796, and became foreign minister in 1797, taking bribes on a scale remarkable even then — the XYZ affair with the United States was his. He supported Bonaparte's coup in 1799 and served him for eight years, negotiating the settlements that reorganised Germany and Italy. He resigned in 1807, judging that Napoleon's ambition would destroy France, and from 1808 secretly advised Tsar Alexander against him while still nominally in office. Napoleon called him excrement in a silk stocking. He organised the Bourbon restoration in 1814, and at the Congress of Vienna represented a defeated France and secured for it a place among the deciding powers by exploiting the allies' divisions over Poland and Saxony. He was foreign minister for a matter of months in 1815, opposed Charles X, helped install Louis-Philippe in 1830, and served as ambassador to London. He is said to have reconciled with the church hours before dying in 1838.
- Lived: 1754 CE – 1838 CE
- Nationality: French
- Roles: diplomat, foreign_minister, statesman
