Talleyrand

Cooper, Duff

ISBN 10: 0802137679 / ISBN 13: 9780802137678

Published by Grove Press, 2001

About this Item

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Bibliographic Details

• Title: Talleyrand
• Publisher: Grove Press
• Publication Date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0802137679
• ISBN 13: 9780802137678
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: Very Good

About this title

Synopsis

“If biography is to be defined as 'the history of an individual conceived as a work of art,' then Mr. Duff Cooper’s book would serve as an exhibit.” —Harold Nicolson

Unique in his own age and a phenomenon in any, Charles-Maurice, Prince de Talleyrand, was a diplomat and statesman of outstanding ability and extraordinary contradictions. At once bishop and libertine, iconoclast and traditionalist, he made himself indispensable and held high office in five successive reigns.

From the Revolutionary regime, through exile in America, to new eminence under Napoleon, Talleyrand plotted his way to the restoration of the Bourbons and his own crowning achievement—winning an effective voice for France in the settlement of Europe at the Congress of Vienna—and served a further twenty years before he retired, at eighty, under the constitutional monarchy of Louis Philippe.

Duff Cooper’s classic biography charts his fascinating, checkered career with all the vigor, elegance, and intellect of its remarkable subject.

About the Author

Alfred Duff Cooper, was a statesman, diplomat and author. Born in 1890, he won the DSO as a second lieutenant in the First World War, and entered Parliament in 1923. His life was devoted to politics until 1938 when, as First Lord of the Admiralty, he resigned in protest at the Munich Agreement. Called back to office by Churchill in 1940, his wartime career culminated in his appointment as Ambassador to France. Shortly before his death he was made 1st Viscount Norwich. Among his best-known books are Talleryrand, Operation Heartbreak and his autobiography, Old Men Forget. He died in 1954.