His career spanned the regimes of Louis XVI, the years of the French Revolution, Napoleon, Louis XVIII, and Louis-Philippe. Those he served often distrusted Talleyrand but, like Napoleon, found him extremely useful. The name “Talleyrand” has become a byword for crafty, cynical diplomacy.
Every era has them, the operators, the scoundrels, the opportunists. Turbulence breeds these people. One of history`s most interesting operators was Talleyrand, who through a combination of political savvy, advantageous connections, unscrupulousness, intelligence, and being in the right place at the right time, held positions of authority in the ancien regime, Revolutionary government, the Napoleonic government, and the Bourbon Restoration. Eventually, he became so good that he made people believe that France could not be governed without him.
Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord was born to an aristocratic family in Paris in 1754. He was born with a congenital leg ailment, which prohibited him from entering the army, so he entered the priesthood. Not the priesthood priesthood with all that celibacy and poverty and everything, but the aristocratic priesthood with good food and congenial ladies. He would eventually, through family connections become the agent-general of the Clergy, the political representative of…
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Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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