Connecticut western news., 1873-06-06
Prince Talleyrand.
A Chequered Career---A Great Diploma.
 tist---SpecimeMs of his Wit:

A Chequered Career---A Great Dfploma-
 tist---Specimens of his Wit:
 It has been truly said that next to Napoleon Bonaparte, by far the most extraordinary man of the French Revo- lution was Talleyrand. He was born in January, 1754, and died in May, 1888, in his eighty-fifth year. He was the oldest son of noble family, but meeting with an accident, when he was a boy, which lamed him for life, he was thereby rendered unfit for military ser vice, and was obliged to renounce his birthright in favor of his next brother, and, at once to get rid of him and get him out of the. way, was condemned to become clergyman.
 When only twenty-nine years old, Talleyrand was appointed Bishop of Autun, but, being fond of Parisian so- ciety, did not often visit his diocese, over one hundred and sixty miles dis tant. When the Revolution broke out, in 1789, he took part with the move ment party, because he saw it was the strongest, became an active member of the National Assembly, resigned his bishopric, and at last, some months be- fore Louis XVI was guillotined, retired to England for year or two, and finally reached the United States; what little money in his possession being obtained from the sale of his library. This was a poor lookout for an ambitious man, fond of luxurious living and gay so- ciety, and only forty two years old. He chiefly resided in Philadelphia. In some eighteen months. after the fall of Robespierre and the close of the Reign of Terror, he returned to Paris-in May 1796.
 From that, time Talleyrand filled the highest stations, at home or abroad, in the service of his country, except dur the reign of the restored Bourbons, who seem to have dreaded the ability of this astute diplomatist. His holding office under so many changes and chiefs has been charged against his political character. It was said that, on taking the oath of allegiance to Louis Philippe, in 1880, he was heard to mutt ter: 'fThis is the thirteenth of these oaths that I have sworn." The fact was true, but Talleyrand, of all men, was the least likely to speak of it.
 It was Talleyrand, and none other, who, in 1880, on the accession of the
  negotiated that treaty of amity (the entente cordiale) between France and England which has subsisted, amid various changes, to the present day.
 To Talleyrand has been attributed the well-known saying that Language was given to man te enable him to con ceal his thoughts. But before Talley- rand was born, Doctor Edward Young had written this couplet:
 "Where Natures end of language is declined,
 And men talk only to conceal the mind"
 And the germ of this thought is to be found in the writings of Bishop Jeremy Taylor; and Lloyd, Smith, Butler and Goldsmith also used it. .i
 Among other sayings of Talleyrand's is: 's It is the beginning of the end ;'' but this occurs in Shakespeare's "Mid- summer Nights Dream," where we find:
 ''To show our simple skill
 That is the true beginning of the end"
 Like Byron, who was an avowed picker-up of unconsidered trifles, when ever Talleyrand found good thought or happy expression, he didnot scruple to adopt and use it, mostly improving it.
 Talleyrand's brother wrote memo randum for MT. Fournier, to the effect that the only book he used, in the forty years after his return from America, was "L'Improvisateur Francais," a compilation of anecdotes and bora-n1otS, in twenty-one pocket volumes.
 Nevertheless, Talleyrand was genu- roo1u ond invontiuo Here are few specimens of his rapid utterances in this line: Ruthieres, the celebrated author of work on the Polish Revolution once said:
 "I never did but one mischievous thing in my life.
 "And when will it end ?" was Talley- rand's reply. F s
 "Ah, feel the torments of hell P said person, in great agony, whose life had been somewhat of the loosest.
 Already?" was the suggestive in- quiry of the wit.
 To him, Eo doubt, it came originally, but the Cardinal de Retz's physician is recorded as having made 8 similar ex- clamation on like occasion.
 "Isn't Geneva dull ?" asked friend.
 Especially when they amuse them selves," said Talleyrand, which was initiated not long since by the late Sir George Cornwall Lewis, when he wrote that i" life would be very tolerable, if it were not for it's amusements.
 When Madame de Stael published a novel entitled t' Delphine,' she was re- ported to have painted herself in the person of the heroine, and M. Talley- rand as that of an elderly lady, who is one of the principal characters. "They tell me-" he said, the next time he met her, that both of us are in your novel, in the disguise pt women."
 That remark, however, might have been elaborated beforehand. Another time:
 "She is insupportable! p he said, with marked emphasis; but as if he had gone too far, and to take off something of what he had laid on, he added; "Ii is her only defect"
 Asked whether certain authoress whom he had known long since, but | who belonged to the last age, was not { "little tiresome ?" he answered.:
 "Not at all she was perfectly tire some." .-.. -..... ..
 A gentleman in company was one day making somewhat jealous eulogy O. his mothers beauty, dwelling upon thu topic at uncalled-for length-he himsel having certainly inherited no portion of that kind under the marriage of hi parents.
 It was your father, then, apparent ly, who may not have been very we'll looking" was the remark, which a once released the circle from the sub ject. ...s --,.. -... ..
 When the Duchess de Berri (mothe of the present Count de Chambord, nov the last of the Bourbon family, wa performing some very foolish freak some fifty years ago, Talleyrant advised Louis Philippe that she shoult be visited with this rescript to hersel