The Congress of Vienna 47
soul even more than the death of the stupid king. How-
ever that might have been, Talleyrand failed in his first im-
portant diplomatic venture not because he was not a great
diplomat, but because the stars in their courses had fought
against him, as they have frequently done against other
lesser diplomats before and since.
Needless to say, our bland bishop with the club-foot did
not return to Paris. Instead he travelled for his health in
America, living in Philadelphia, seeing everything which
might be learned superficially, and failing wholly to under-
stand the spirit of the young Republic, as he showed soon
after his return to France. There times had greatly
changed. Danton and Robespierre were dead. The cannon
of Vendémiaire had awakened France from her dreams.
Talleyrand became the minister of foreign affairs in the
Directory. It was in this connection that he appears in
American history as the central figure of the incident of the
“X Y Z” despatches. His utter contempt for the American
representatives, who came to secure some redress for the
injuries which their neutral commerce was suffering at the
hands of France, his attempts to turn their plea to his own
financial account through blackmail, the ringing words of
President Adams, and the naval war which followed are the
subjects of another story.
Talleyrand’s picture has been drawn in two chapters of
Carlyle’s great epic. He first appears in “The Procession”
as one of the members of the National Assembly, and again
his very soul is placed before us in the passage in which the
Scotch historian describes the strange Festival of the Con-
federation, that assembly in which was celebrated the fall of
the Bastille. Talleyrand ascended the elevated altar in the
midst of the pouring rain, in full canonicals, his mitre on his
head, and around his waist the tricolored sash of the nation.