Talleyrand: A Biographical Study

This book is a biography of Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord. He was a French clergyman, politician and leading diplomat. He worked at the highest levels of successive French governments, most commonly as foreign minister or in some other diplomatic capacity. His career spanned the regimes of Louis XVI, the years of the French Revolution, Napoleon, Louis XVIII, and Louis-Philippe. Talleyrand polarizes scholarly opinion. He is universally regarded as one of the most versatile, skilled and influential diplomats in European history, but some believe that he was also a traitor, betraying, in turn, the Ancien Régime, the French Revolution, Napoleon, and the Restoration.