The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-06-22
NEW PUBLICATIONS.

MEMOIRS OF THE PRINCE DE TALLEYRAND
R. L De Beaufort. New York and i London =:
g. P. Putnam's Sons. For sale OF Lowman &
Hsnford.
The singular career of the great minister, and
the provision in his win by which his memoirs
were not TO be published until thirty years after
his death, have promised to make the story of
his life one of the most interesting of contribu-
tons to modern history. That promise has been
fulfilled in the two volumes just published.
The prince died in 1888 at the age of So, but his
executors failed for various reasons, personal to
themselves, to take advantage of the probation
airy period. Events have followed and persons
have passed away, SO that the keenness of ex-
pectation has been lost. but the marvellous in
fuence of Talleyrand can be traced by the light
of these pages into conditions which still sur
yive. No synopsis can do justice to the
story related. His career was-and, as his
historiographer asserts-and is unparal-
leled in modern Europe. No man
has been more powerful or more condemned
He began service with Louis XVI, and served
eight masters. He was president of the Con-
stituent Assembly which organized the French
revolution. He was sent to London on q secret
mission by Danton. He was minister of foreign
affairs under the directory, under the consulate,
under the empire, under Louis XVIII, and un.
der Louis PHILIPPE He was denounced for his
venality, condemned for his sensuality; he was
in France; expelled from England by Pitt:
Washington refused to receive him; the pope
accommodated him. Yet to the day of his
death he remained so powerful that he was sum-
moned back to France to become minister of for
eign affairs; went to England as ambassador
with the prestige of being considered the most
distinguished living diplomatist: lived to give
notice to the American ministers pleni-
potentiary in Paris that they must buy
peace or leave the country; had the
accommodation withdrawn and died with
his sorrowing kings at his bedside, his last
moments cheered by the blessings of the car
dinal resident In Paris. It il an astounding
example of the triumph of viii and intellect
over circumstance. He explains this, in
measure, himself. "That1 which is, in the
majority OF cases, has but very little import
ance. whenever we lose sight of the fact that
that ghich is produces that which shall be; thus,
indeed, as we frame the present, so will the
future be shaped" He affects, and his career
justifes the assumption, that he was guided by
that rule, which is, nevertheless, an empty
truism without the perception necessary to
foresee q succession OF probable events and the
capacity 10 guide them to q desired end.
Talleyrand's intimate acquaintance with
all the great men of Europe during fifty years
lends q charm to his memoirs which 10 more
potent with the general reader, even, than his
clear narrative OF the motives and the secret
measures which guided Europe through the stir
ring events of his lifetime. He Is q merciless
commentator, but apparently judicious. Many
OF the characters as presented do not agree with
current impressions, but the candor and absence
OF malice and prejudice generally, stamps bis
views with credibility, and the contest of person
and event bears out the pictures he draws. His
connection with the assassination of the Due
d'Enghein Is not alluded to in the volumes pub
Ished, but documents bearing on that tragic
event are promised in thethird. His denuncia-
ton of 1t seems to indicate that the blame at
tached TO him is unjust, or that he sought TO
divest himself of the suspicion that he was
party to it Men and women whose names are
historic dealt with as living beings, and the
memoirs are almost o romance in their evolu-
ton of succession of great political plots in
which ambition is the prime motive.