Jean de Talleyrand-Périgord

Jeanne Charlotte, Mademoiselle d'Excideuil

**Jean de Talleyrand-Périgord** (Jean; April 9th, 1636 - present) was a Grandelumièrian nobleman, academic and republican. He was the youngest of four children of the late Charles de Talleyrand-Périgord, Prince of Chalais.

## Biography

### Early Life

Jean de Talleyrand-Périgord was the third son and youngest child of the then-Prince of Chalais, Charles de Talleyrand-Périgord, and his wife Charlotte de Pompadour. Preceded by his brothers, Adrien Blaise and Pierre, and his sister Jeanne Charlotte, he was likewise the smallest of the bunch, and was born several weeks premature. His survival was a surprise to be sure, but a welcome one, for Jean enjoyed the distinction of being his father's favourite son and his eldest brother's favourite sibling.

Jean spent much of his childhood in reserve at his family's residence in the Loire Valley, frequently coaxed (and forced) into more social activities by his elder siblings against his will. He was an avid reader from childhood, and preferred the company of books to that of people. Ironically though, as the third son and not expected to amount to much, and so his father initially planned to cast him into the clergy. His plan, however, was rebuffed by his son's open antipathy for clerical life.

### Education

After his fourteenth birthday in 1650, at his own insistence with the consent of his father, Jean entered the University of Paris, known colloquially as the Sorbonne. He resided at his family's residence in Paris for the duration of his studies. While at the Sorbonne, he studied jurisprudence, rhetoric, classics, poetry and philosophy. Jean was devoted to his studies, and ironically was noticeably more reserved at the Sorbonne than he'd been at home. Nevertheless, he excelled academically.

### Ideology

While attending the Sorbonne, and generally over the course of his adolesence, Chalais developed a particular ideology for the ideal state. His ideology was heavily influenced by the organisation of the Dutch Republic, the government of Oliver Cromwell, the ancient Roman Republic, and especially the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes.

Fundamentally, Jean held that the primary goal of the state was stability, which he regarded as an end in and of itself. Stability, he argued, was the most important aspect of innovation and human excellence. Humanity in a state of disorder would be forced into a self-perpetuating cycle of regression for which Chalais regarded a strong state as necessary to prevent. Thus, any activities which threaten the stability of the state are fundamentally a threat to human endeavour itself. Further, such a state would require strong foundations and institutions to sustain it.

Thus, Chalais held that the state should be composed of a uniform identity which could or could not be artificial. In Chalais' case, he argued that the regional identities, languages and religions of Grandelumière should be assimilated into a wider Grandelumièrian culture, uniform in language and religion so as to truly unify the state and remove the possibility of sectarianism. Specifically, he regarded French as the primary language of Grandelumière, and argued that Catholicism was the true religion of the Grandelumièrian people. Despite this, he did not believe that religion should be a state matter, but rather that in an ideal society the people would be religious, but that religion should serve only as the basis and not the fullest expression of human morality. Furthermore, he argued that immorality itself was a threat to stability, and therefore a threat to the survival and progression of humanity.

Lastly, Chalais was relatively unique among his peers and class in his (albeit private) staunch republicanism. He believed that the Roman Republic prior to its destruction under Caesar served as the ideal vehicle to govern society, inasmuch as it would permit the aristocratic class to retain positions of rulership over the state while removing what he regarded as the too-easily corruptible monarchy. Chalais argued that it is easier to remove a corrupt official than a corrupt emperor, and given the inherent corruption of the imperial government, a republic was not only desirable but necessary to preserve the state. He regarded the political input of the aristocracy as necessary to keep that class moral and engaged by bestowing on them a responsibility which was denied to them under the imperial government. He also believed that the bourgeoisie required input in the government, and Chalais believed that the ideal republic would be a conglomeration of aristocratic and bourgeois interests, for a satiated bourgeoisie would prevent their toppling of the aristocracy. A toppling which, Chalais believed, would create a chain-reaction of never ending revolutions which would fundamentally eliminate the stability of the state.

## Titles, Styles and Heraldry

**April 9th, 1636 - present:** *Monsieur* le Prince de Chalais