Kenosha tribune & telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1856-1859, 1858-11-11
The Bon Mots of Talleyrand.

LA WONDERFUL wit was 'Iallerand. -
his bon-mots, which for thirty years
We're the delight of Frenchmen and the
rest OF mankind, are marked not merely
by the brevity which is always the soul
ofwit, but by subtlety of thoughts and
delicacy of expression which constitute
their highest claim. Besides this his
keenest sarcasms had usually a certain
air Of good breeding that distinguished
them, greatly to his credit, from the
malignant jests of Rogers, and the rough
retorts Of Douglas JerroId. Nothing in
the way OF a witty and civil rebuke,
conlda be finer than his reproof of a
young gentleman who was boasting of
the extreme beauty Of his mother, APP
parently implying that it might account
TOR the same advantage in the person of
the son: C'etait done, said the great
diplomat, blandly-l noa,sie,ta. ootre geye
Q'e5 'a'etatt pas So 6iee !-"It was your
father then, who was not handsome %
Lord Holland, in his foreign Reminis-
cences, gives another bon-mot Of Tall
eyrand which is not to be found in the
old list of his clever sayings. AT the
time when the celebriety of Chateau
brian, the vainest of all Frenchmen,wa
rapidly ON the wane, it happened to be
mentioned in. conversation, that he was
growing quite deaf, and then he. com
planned bitterly Of that infirmity.r Je
conel're'eds, said Talleyrand, depuis. q4'on
q cesae desparler de hi, IL Sc croft sourd!
- llnderstand-since everybody, has
ceased talking about him he believes
himself deafr' .S' 3
But his finest witticism, and as happy.
a sarcasm as ever came from any man
is told in Lord Brougham's Times of
George III. This has all the poiiteness
as, well as the subtle wit that usually
characterized the bon-mots Of Talley
rand. Not long after his breach Of
friendship with Madame de Stael, that
very intellectual and extremely mascu-
line woman wrote her novel ofDelphine
In which she satirized her former friend
IN the character Of an old woman, while
she intended all the delicate charms of
the heroine to be taken as her own. -
CHANGING to meet Madame de S. soon
after the publication of the book, in a
fashionable assembly, he said to her,
bowling politely, 81 understand, mad
anne, that in your last novel you and l.
figure disguised as females ,.o'H The re-
tort was certainly a stunner,g and, for
keen wit, was such as no other man
could have made. But never was a
wind-bag so handsomely punctuated as
when he took the sublime out of an
egotistlcal and vainglorious speech of
Mirabeau. AT some important politi-
cal crisis, the great orator was descan-
ting IN society on the qualities which a
minister required to extricate the nation
from its difficulties, namely--~greata
knowledge, genius, familiarity with the
upper classes, popularity with. tide low.
er classes,t the gift of writing and.speak-
ing eioquently--all of which qualities it
was obvious enough he reckoned as his
own. o. Everybody stared with adnira-
ton but Talleyrand, who simply listen
ed attentiyely to the end, and then OBJ
served" 1t seems to me you have omit
ted one OF the qualities of this remarka-
BILE man-should he not be very much
pitted with the small pox?" This could
be none other than Mirabeau, and the
effect upon the auditors can only be i'm
agined.--Boston Post. ~. -. ~.