The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1891-01-05
r,1IEYRANp,s MENOIKs.

The first installment oil Inc laIiou' ~
moirs of Talleyrand appears in the Jahuaty
number of the Century Magazine
edited bv hon. Whitelaw Reid He heads
II With a preface which, unlike prefaceS
generally, is anything but complimentary to
the author it introduces to the public. 1t is,
indeed. so bitter that it will chill the general
desire to read what the famous diplomatist
has to say.
No man of modern times-if any man oil
any time-was so long before the pubic III
conspicuous stations as Talleyrand: ne re-
ceived his first commission as Glpi1ln" In
agent of France from Louis ~ l. A.
clined the post of Minister OF fole'sn
fairs from Louis Philippe. He was 49,. on
credited envoy extraordinary AT the t'ihe vi
a. po+tIa of Bunker Hill. lie controlled
Tho foreign politics of France when Van
Prren occupied the Presidency. During
all this period, covering full half century,
he was in the closest relations of cOnfden-
tial intimacy with emperors. kings, states
men, soldiers and men of letters, and though
his character was so well known that Napo-
leon express ed the general opinion of him
when he said that he was a silk glove filled
with filth. no one, however exalted in sta
ton, ever refused to receive him with the
single exception of George Washington.
When he died, in 1888, he left behind him
several manuscript volumes of a diary
which he had kept fIom his boyhOod 1t
contained so much scandal touching per-
sons then living, and told so many secrets,
that the author enj0iued upon his executors
not to allow it to be published until thirty
years had elapsed. When that period was
| com plete the family still thought the publ
| cation would be premature, and so 1t came
| about that the diary was withheld for
! twenty-five years more. Even now, when
time may be assumed to have robbed his
| personal illusions Of their offensiveness,
those who had the diary in their charge
| have eXpurgated it in many places and have
probably struck out the very passages which
! the world would have liked to see. Judging
| from the inStallment of the work which has
| just seen the light the memoirs will simply
! constitute another history of a period of
| which We have plenty of histories already.
The French revolution, with its anteCe-
dents and its sequel; the birth of liberty in
France, and its spread to other European
cOuntries the Napoleonic wars, and the
! struggles OF dynasties TO main tain themselves
against the popular will; the court intrigues
to defeat an inevitable step in the march of
civilzation-all of these have been fully
described and are familiar TO every one.
done that it can hardly be better done here
after. The field is occupied A new his
tory, even though it proceed from the pen of
one of the actors in the scenes described,
can add little to the general knowledge of
the times under review, nor can it arouse
much interest in minds which are acquainted
| with pictures of those times by the great
| masters.
What was hoped of the memoirs was that
they would shed new light on the per-
| sOnal hopes and fears and motives of the
actors in the great drama, 1t was known
that after his interviews with those per-
sonages-Louis XVI, Sieyes. Barras. Ma
poleon, the Emperors of Austria and Rus
STA, the Duke of Wellington, Nesselrode,
Metternich. Capo di B0rgo, Chateaubriand,
| Polignac, down to Louis Phllippe-he had
carefully noted their sayings in his diary,
and it was conjectured that its appendix
| would, probably, contain the thousands of
confidential letters which they had written
him. People hoped that these would now
become public property But ii seems they
are destined to be disappointed. When the
allies entered Paris in 1915, Talleyrand de-
stroyed in the presence of the Emperor of
Russia mass Of papers relating to the
period of reconstruction and the empire IN
France. Ana 1t now seems that his family
are exercising a similar authority over the
| documents which remain.
| Their motive can be discerned. The
| French revolution not only aroused the
| popular appetite for freedom, but likewise
awakened the appetite of men in power for
money, and relaxed the rules which were
the safeguard Of personal virtue. Talley-
rand's life was corrupt and profiigate He
was probably no worse than many of his
neighbors. But their sins are covered by
the Cd. whereas if the memoirs had been
| published without abridgment or expur-
cation, both he and they might now have
| found themselves objects of contumely The
executors have charitably exDunged the
records of vice and crime, and have proba-
| bly, saved some regulations. But it will cost
| the book its chance of popularity