Henry Bulwer - Historical Characters

Nor did any paternal advice or maternal care regulate or soften the dispositions which were thus being formed. From the nurse in the country, the lame young Périgord – for Périgord was the name which at this time he bore – was transplanted to the “Collége d’Harcourt,” since called that of St. Louis. He entered it more ignorant, perhaps, than any boy of his years; but he soon gained its first prizes, and became one of its most distinguished scholars.

At the “Séminaire de St. Sulpice,” to which he was removed in 1770, his talent for disputation attracted attention, and even some of his compositions were long remembered and quoted by contemporaries. Whilst at the Sorbonne, where he subsequently completed his studies, this scion of one of the most illustrious French houses was often pointed out as a remarkably clever, silent, and profligate young man: who made no secret of his dislike to the profession that had been chosen for him, but was certain to arrive at its highest honours.

With such prospects and such dispositions, M. de Talleyrand entered, in 1773, the Gallican Church.

At this time we have to fancy the young ecclesiastic – a gentleman about twenty years of age, very smart in his clerical attire, and with a countenance which, without being handsome, was singularly attractive from the triple expression of softness, impudence, and wit. If we are to credit the chronicles of that day, his first advance in his profession was owing to one of those bon mots by which so many of the subsequent steps of his varied career were distinguished.

There were assembled at Madame Dubarry’s a number of young gentlemen, rather free in their conversation and prodigal in their boasts: no beauty had been veiled to their desires, no virtue had been able to resist their attacks. The subject of this memoir alone said nothing. “And what makes you so sad and silent?” asked the hostess. “ Hélas! madame, je faisais une réflexion bien triste. ” “ Et laquelle? ” “ Ah, madame, que Paris est une ville dans laquelle il est bien plus aisé d’avoir des femmes que des abbayes. ”

The saying, so goes the story, was considered charming, and being reported to Louis XV., was rewarded by that monarch with the benefice desired. The Abbé de Périgord’s career, thus commenced, did not long linger. Within a few years after entering the church, aided by his birth and abilities, he obtained (in 1780) the distinguished position of “Agent-General” of the French clergy – this title designating an important personage who administered the ecclesiastical revenues, which were then immense, under the control of regular assemblies.

It is a curious trait in the manners of these times that, whilst holding this high post as a priest, the Abbé de Périgord fitted out a vessel as a privateer; and, it being his intention to plunder the English, received from the French government the cannon he required for so pious a purpose. 6 6 This singular fact is mentioned by M. Mignet in a short and able memoir, which after M. de Talleyrand’s death he read to the French Academy.

I am unable to say what success attended M. de Talleyrand’s naval enterprise; but when, in 1785, he had to give an account of his clerical administration, the very clear and statesmanlike manner in which he did so, raised him, in the opinion of the public, from the position of a clever man, into that of an able one. Nor was this all. The peculiar nature of the first public duties which he thus exercised, directed his mind towards those questions which the increasing deficit in the French treasury, and the acknowledged necessity of supplying it, made the fashion: for every one at that time in Paris – ladies, philosophers, wits, and men of fashion – talked finance. Few, however, troubled themselves with acquiring any real insight into so dry a subject. But M. de Talleyrand, although constitutionally averse to hard or continued study, supplied this defect by always seeking and living with men who were the best informed on those subjects with which he wished to become acquainted. In this manner his own information became essentially practical, and the knowledge he obtained of details (furnishing him with a variety of facts, which he always knew how to quote opportunely), attracted the attention and patronage of M. de Calonne, then at the head of the French government, and who, being himself as much addicted to pleasure as to affairs, was not sorry to sanction the doctrine that a man of the world might also be a man of business.

Still, though thus early marked out as a person who, after the example of his great ecclesiastical predecessors, might rise to the highest dignities in the Church and State, the Abbé de Périgord showed an almost ostentatious disregard for the duties and decorum of the profession which he had been forced to embrace. Indeed, he seemed to make in this sort of conduct a kind of protest against the decree by which his birthright had been set aside, and almost to glory in the publication of profane epigrams and amorous adventures which amused the world but scandalised the Church. Thus, each year, which increased his reputation for ability, added to the stories by which public rumour exaggerated his immorality; and in 1788, when the bishopric of Autun, to which he had for some time been looking forward, became vacant, Louis XVI. was unwilling to confer the dignity of prelate on so irregular an ecclesiastic. For four months the appointment was not filled up. But the Abbé de Périgord’s father lay at that time on his death-bed: he was visited by the kind-hearted Louis in this condition, and he begged the monarch, as the last request of a dying and faithful servant, to grant the bishopric in question to his son. The King could not withstand such a prayer at such a moment, and the Abbé de Périgord was consecrated Bishop of Autun on the 17th of January, 1789 – four months before the assembling of the States-General.

The period which had elapsed between the time at which M. de Talleyrand had entered the Church, and that at which he attained the episcopal dignity, is, perhaps, the most interesting in modern civilization. At no epoch did society ever present so bright and polished a surface as it did in the French capital during these fourteen or fifteen years. The still great fortunes of the grand seigneur , the profuse expenditure of the financier, the splendour of a court embellished by that love for the arts and for letters which the Medici had imported from Italy, and which Louis XIV. had made a part of his royal magnificence, all contributed to surround life with a taste in luxury which has never been surpassed. Rich manufactures of silk, exquisite chiseling in bronze, china equally beautiful in form and decoration, and paintings somewhat effeminate, but graceful, and which still give celebrity to the names of Watteau, Boucher, and Greuze, mark the elegant refinement that presided over those days.

Nothing, however, in those courtly times had been carried to such perfection as the art of living, and the habits of social intercourse. People did not then shut up their houses from their friends if they were poor, nor merely open them in order to give gorgeous and pompous entertainments if they were rich. Persons who suited and sympathised, assembled in small circles, which permitted the access of new members cautiously, but received all who had once been admitted without preference or distinction.

In these circles, the courtier, though confident of the fixed superiority of his birth, paid homage to the accident of genius in the man of letters; and the literary man, however proud of his works, or conscious of his talents, rendered the customary tribute of respect to high rank and station.