"M. de Talleyrand, the most celebrated wit, courtier, and negotiator of his time. The public life of that celebrated man had not been free from the stains which, in times of frequent and violent change, are almost necessarily contracted by politicians. But it is just to say, that, if he was unfaithful to particular parties and particular families, he was in the main faithful to the interests of his country and to the great principles of government; that, though a revolutionist, he was never a jacobin; and that, though a minister of Napoleon, he had no share in the worst parts of the imperial tyranny."
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Heads of governmentPrime Ministers of FrancePeople from ParisPoliticians from FranceAmbassadors of France
Original Language: English
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Sources
Thomas Babington Macaulay, Napoleon and the Restoration of the Bourbons: The Completed Portion of Macaulay's Projected "History of France from the Restoration of the Bourbons to the Accession of Louis Philippe", ed. Joseph Hamburger (1977), p. 63
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Charles_Maurice_de_Talleyrand-P%C3%A9rigord
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Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord
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