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Talleyrand ou le sphinx incompris.
FRENCH LANGUAGE TEXT, 858 PAGES. BIOGRAPHY OF TALLEYRAND.
858 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1970
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About the author
Jean Orieux
65 books7 followersJean Orieux était un romancier et biographe français.
Jean Orieux was a French novelist and biographer.
Jean Orieux was a French novelist and biographer.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
June 10, 2022
This book was entrancing! It reads like a novel, while explaining in great detail, and across all its dimensions, the life of one of the most complex political thinkers that Europe has ever known.
This is not the work of a neutral historian: it is clear from the onset that Jean Orieux greatly admires his subject, and barring a few critiques across his long life, the author defends Talleyrand’s choices and rejects the mostly negative spin that history has made of them: especially about his corruption (widely practiced by politicians of that age) and his turncoat behavior with multiple regimes he served (which can be interpreted in a positive way as flexibility, and faithfulness to the one immutable entity: France).
Most of all, Orieux paints the portrait of one of the most sophisticated remnants of the court of Versailles, an urbane and cultivated courtier, whose table was one of the most famous in Europe, and whose wit was priced exceptionally high. It is tempting to want to model one’s behavior after Talleyrand, yet he was a man in a unique position as the head of one of the oldest families in Europe (older than the Bourbon kings’) - most of us are not born in that situation!
Two favorite quotes (but there are so many delectable ones!):
To Louis XVIII who asked him how he handled betraying multiple regimes: « I did not do any of that. There is something inexplicable in me that is of bad omen to any government that neglects me. »
To someone who asked him why he didn’t fall out more with his critics: « I am too lazy, or perhaps too cany: one shouldn’t give people the pleasure of putting them at ease by falling out with them and, does not fall out with me who wants. »
This is not the work of a neutral historian: it is clear from the onset that Jean Orieux greatly admires his subject, and barring a few critiques across his long life, the author defends Talleyrand’s choices and rejects the mostly negative spin that history has made of them: especially about his corruption (widely practiced by politicians of that age) and his turncoat behavior with multiple regimes he served (which can be interpreted in a positive way as flexibility, and faithfulness to the one immutable entity: France).
Most of all, Orieux paints the portrait of one of the most sophisticated remnants of the court of Versailles, an urbane and cultivated courtier, whose table was one of the most famous in Europe, and whose wit was priced exceptionally high. It is tempting to want to model one’s behavior after Talleyrand, yet he was a man in a unique position as the head of one of the oldest families in Europe (older than the Bourbon kings’) - most of us are not born in that situation!
Two favorite quotes (but there are so many delectable ones!):
To Louis XVIII who asked him how he handled betraying multiple regimes: « I did not do any of that. There is something inexplicable in me that is of bad omen to any government that neglects me. »
To someone who asked him why he didn’t fall out more with his critics: « I am too lazy, or perhaps too cany: one shouldn’t give people the pleasure of putting them at ease by falling out with them and, does not fall out with me who wants. »
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February 15, 2024This biography annoyed the heck out of me--the writer keeps telling us what's in Talleyrand's mind without supplying any quotes to prove it. I loathe that. I want the subject to speak for himself as much as possible.
March 22, 2025
Orieux's work is...sometimes lost in minutiae, often has incredibly bold and apparently baseless claims, and full of assertions that graft, bribes, and corruption are morally neutral. Perhaps weirdest of all for me, he absolves Talleyrand of nearly all his crimes except for dispossessing the Catholic Church of its extravagant wealth and tolerating the assassination of a single Bourbon noble. Would I recommend this book? Probably not. Was it really interesting to read such an alien take on such a complicated person? Absolutely.
June 16, 2025
My most beloved book. Read it first in the middle school. Have been going back to it many times since. Just in case I own two copies of it at home.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews