Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord
Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord | |
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 Portrait by Pierre-Paul Prud'hon (1817) | |
| Ambassador of France to the United Kingdom | |
| In office 6 September 1830 – 13 November 1834 | |
| Monarch | Louis Philippe I |
| Preceded by | Pierre de Montmorency-Laval |
| Succeeded by | Horace Sébastiani de La Porta |
| Prime Minister of France | |
| In office 9 July 1815 – 26 September 1815 | |
| Monarch | Louis XVIII |
| Preceded by | Office established |
| Succeeded by | Armand-Emmanuel de Vignerot du Plessis, Duc de Richelieu |
| First Minister of State of France | |
| In office 1 April 1814 – 2 May 1814 | |
| Monarch | Louis XVIII |
| Preceded by | Napoleon (absolute power) |
| Succeeded by | Pierre Louis |
| President of the French Provisional Government | |
| In office 1 April 1814 – 13 May 1814 | |
| Preceded by | Napoleon (as emperor) |
| Succeeded by | Count of Artois (as steward) |
| Minister of Foreign Affairs of France | |
| In office 13 May 1814 – 19 March 1815 | |
| Monarch | Louis XVIII |
| Preceded by | Antoine de Laforêt |
| Succeeded by | Louis de Caulaincourt |
| In office 22 November 1799 – 9 August 1807 | |
| Preceded by | Charles-Frédéric Reinhard |
| Succeeded by | Jean-Baptiste de Nompère de Champagny |
| In office 15 July 1797 – 20 July 1799 | |
| Preceded by | Charles-François Delacroix |
| Succeeded by | Charles-Frédéric Reinhard |
| Minister of the Navy and the Colonies of France | |
| In office 7 March 1799 – 2 July 1799 | |
| Preceded by | Étienne Eustache Bruix |
| Succeeded by | Marc-Antoine Bourdon de Vatry |
| President of the National Constituent Assembly of France | |
| In office 16 February 1790 – 28 February 1790 | |
| Monarch | Louis XVI |
| Preceded by | Jean-Xavier Bureau de Pusy |
| Succeeded by | François-Xavier-Marc-Antoine de Montesquiou-Fézensac |
| Member of the National Constituent Assembly | |
| In office 9 July 1791 – 30 September 1791 | |
| Constituency | Autun |
| Deputy to the Estates-General for the First Estate | |
| In office 12 April 1789 – 9 July 1789 | |
| Constituency | Autun |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 2 February 1754 |
| Died | 17 May 1838 (aged 84) Paris, Kingdom of France |
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| Education | Seminary of Saint-Sulpice |
| Alma mater | University of Paris |
| Profession | Clergyman, politician, diplomat |
| Signature |  |
| Ecclesiastical career | |
| Church | Roman Catholic Church |
| Ordained | 19 December 1779 (priest) 4 January 1789 (bishop) |
| Laicized | 29 June 1802 |
Offices held | Agent-General of the Clergy (1780–1788) Bishop of Autun (1788–1791) |
alma_mater which should be merged with/replaced by education.Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord (/ˈtælɪrænd ˈpɛrɪɡɔːr/; French: [ʃaʁl mɔʁis də tal(ɛ)ʁɑ̃ peʁiɡɔʁ, moʁ-]; 2 February 1754 – 17 May 1838), 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 representative to 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. The name "Talleyrand" has become a byword for crafty and cynical diplomacy.
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.
Talleyrand polarizes opinion. Some regard him as one of the most versatile, skilled, and influential diplomats in European history, with a clear-eyed and realistic view of the French national interest. Others, on the other hand, see him as a serial turncoat seeking only his own advantage, betraying the ancien régime, the French Revolution, and Napoleon in turn for his own gain.