He conspired to undermine the emperor's plans through secret dealings with Tsar Alexander I of Russia and the Austrian minister Klemens von Metternich.

Some regard him as one of the most versatile, skilled and influential diplomats in European history, while some believe that he was a traitor, betraying in turn the ancien régime, the French Revolution and Napoleon.

[7] The latter held out the hope for Charles-Maurice of succeeding his uncle, Alexandre Angélique de Talleyrand-Périgord, then Archbishop of Reims, one of the most prestigious and richest dioceses in France.

In his free time, he read the works of Montesquieu, Voltaire, and other writers who were beginning to question the authority of the ancien régime in matters of church and state.

[16] During his 5-month tenure in the Estates-General, Talleyrand was also involved in drawing up the police regulations of Paris, proposed the suffrage of Jews, supported a ban on the tithes, and invented a method to ensure loans.

Though he was often on strained terms with Mirabeau, his views generally coincided with those of that statesman, who before he died is said to have advised Talleyrand to develop a close understanding with England.

After his first visit, he persuaded the then foreign minister, Charles François Dumouriez, of the importance of having a fully accredited ambassador in London, and the marquis de Chauvelin was duly appointed, with Talleyrand as his deputy.

The ship he took to the US was forced by rough weather in the Channel to stop at Falmouth where Talleyrand recounts an awkward chance meeting with Benedict Arnold at an inn.

After 9 Thermidor, he mobilized his friends (most notably the abbé Martial Borye Desrenaudes and Germaine de Staël) to lobby in the National Convention and the newly established Directoire for his return.

Later in 1797, Talleyrand was instrumental in assisting with the Coup of 18 Fructidor, which ousted two moderate members of the Directory in favor of the Jacobins headed by Paul Barras.

[25] Talleyrand, along with Napoleon's younger brother, Lucien Bonaparte, was instrumental in the 1799 coup d'état of 18 Brumaire, establishing the French Consulate government, although he also made preparations for flight if necessary.

Having wearied of serving a master in whom he no longer had much confidence, Talleyrand resigned as minister of foreign affairs in 1807, although the Emperor retained him in the Council of State as Vice-Grand Elector of the Empire.

[30] Talleyrand and Joseph Fouché, who were typically enemies in both politics and the salons, had a rapprochement in late 1808 and entered into discussions over the imperial line of succession.

Talleyrand then hosted the tsar at the end of March after the fall of Paris, persuaded him that the best chance of stability lay with the House of Bourbon, and gained his support.

Austria was afraid of future conflicts with Russia or Prussia and the United Kingdom was opposed to their expansion as well—and Talleyrand managed to take advantage of these contradictions within the former anti-French coalition.

By this tract, officially a secret treaty of defensive alliance,[33] the three powers agreed to use force if necessary to "repulse aggression" (of Russia and Prussia) and to protect the "state of security and independence".

Some historians have argued that Talleyrand's diplomacy wound up establishing the fault lines of World War I, especially as it allowed Prussia to engulf small German states west of the Rhine.

Talleyrand also managed to strengthen his own position in France (ultraroyalists had disapproved of the presence of a former "revolutionary" and "murderer of the Duke d'Enghien" in the royal cabinet).

Napoleon's return to France in 1815 and his subsequent defeat, the Hundred Days, was a reverse for the diplomatic victories of Talleyrand (who remained in Vienna the whole time).

[35] Following the ascent of Louis-Philippe I to the throne in the aftermath of the July Revolution of 1830, Talleyrand reluctantly agreed to become ambassador to the United Kingdom,[36] a post he held from 1830 to 1834.

He played a vital role in the London Conference of 1830, rebuking a partition plan developed by his son Charles de Flahaut and helping bring Leopold of Saxe-Coburg to the throne of the newly independent Kingdom of Belgium.

They fell into some question: first that Talleyrand is known to have destroyed many of his most important papers, and secondly that de Bacourt almost certainly drew up the connected narrative which we now possess from notes which were in more or less of confusion.

Four possible children of his have been identified: Charles Joseph, comte de Flahaut, generally accepted to be an illegitimate son of Talleyrand;[42] the painter Eugène Delacroix, once rumoured to be Talleyrand's son, though this is doubted by historians who have examined the issue (for example, Léon Noël, French ambassador); the "Mysterious Charlotte", possibly his daughter by his future wife, Catherine Worlée Grand; and Pauline, ostensibly the daughter of the Duke and Duchess Dino.

However, the French historian Emmanuel de Waresquiel has lately given much credibility to father-daughter link between Talleyrand and Pauline whom he referred to as "my dear Minette".

Though their personal philosophies were most different (she a romantic, he very much unsentimental), she assisted him greatly, most notably by lobbying Barras to permit Talleyrand to return to France from his American exile, and then to have him made foreign minister.

While serving as a high level negotiator at the Congress of Vienna (1814–1815), Talleyrand entered into an arrangement with Dorothea von Biron, the wife of his nephew, the Duke of Dino.

[44] Talleyrand's venality was notorious; in the tradition of the ancien régime, he expected to be paid for the state duties he performed—whether these can properly be called "bribes" is open to debate.

[45] Described by biographer Philip Ziegler as a "pattern of subtlety and finesse" and a "creature of grandeur and guile",[46] Talleyrand was a great conversationalist, gourmet, and wine connoisseur.

He also signed, in the abbé's presence, a solemn declaration in which he openly disavowed "the great errors which … had troubled and afflicted the Catholic, Apostolic and Roman Church, and in which he himself had had the misfortune to fall.

Today, when speaking of the art of diplomacy, the phrase "they are a Talleyrand" is variously used to describe a statesman of great resourcefulness and craft, or a cynical and conscienceless self-serving politician.