Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand

Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord (2 February 1754 – 17 May 1839) was the great survivor of French diplomacy, serving the Ancien Régime, the Revolution, Napoleon, the Restoration and the July Monarchy in turn. Lamed in childhood and steered into the Church, he became Bishop of Autun, then broke with Rome to serve the Revolution. As Napoleon's foreign minister he negotiated the treaties that built the Empire, including Pressburg and Tilsit, while privately doubting his master's endless wars. He helped orchestrate Napoleon's fall in 1814 and represented France at the Congress of Vienna, where his skill preserved France from dismemberment. Cynical, witty and famously corrupt, he embodied the art of the possible: few statesmen have served so many regimes, and none did so with such style. His memoirs remain a window into the age. He died in 1839 after a final reconciliation with the Church, leaving behind a legend of survival that has fascinated historians ever since.